Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. As Nova Scotia moves to make non-medical masks mandatory in indoor public spaces, some people may be confused about what the new law means for them. Starting Friday, people will be required to wear masks that cover their nose and mouth in spaces including restaurants, retail businesses, and common areas of buildings. As with mandatory masks on public transit, the new law will not be policed. Were taking a co-operative and positive approach to mandatory masking rather than an enforcement approach, Dr. Robert Strang, the provinces chief medical officer of health, said during last weeks COVID-19 briefing. I have confidence the vast majority of Nova Scotians will do the right thing and wear a mask. Elaine Gibson is a professor at the Dalhousie University Health Law Institute and Schulich School of Law. She said she is in favour of the law because it will shift societys perspective on wearing masks. Im positive it will become the cultural norm, she said. I have worn masks for a long time now I look around and sometimes Im the only one in maybe 20 people in the grocery store wearing a mask. While she welcomed the mandatory mask law, she said she cant think of another example where a new law was announced along with an explicit statement that it wont be enforced. There are many laws that dont get enforced that are considered too petty or not high priority with limited resources, she said. But to announce it from the start is a very unusual occurrence. Compliance with a law that wont be enforced depends on community spirit, which Gibson said Canadians tend to have. Wearing masks will be a test for how much Nova Scotians care for one another. I hope that Nova Scotians rise to the task Time will tell whether this collective spirit is actualized. While theres no enforcement or penalties, Gibson said people who refuse to wear a mask without a reasonable excuse or a medical condition would be in violation. The government could also decide to enforce the law any time, she said. For now, Gibson said she advises businesses to post clear signage regarding their mask policy. She added that businesses also have the right to deny entry to anyone who refuses to comply without justification. But she is concerned for the implications this may have on employees when a customer refuses to comply. The question is whether a business is taking a risk with the safety of their employees if they are denying access to someone who is insisting on entry. To protect the employees, Gibson said businesses should advise them against confronting the customer. Attempt to stop entry, but dont go further, she said. Do not get into physical altercations. Dont prevent someone from entry if they claim they cant wear a mask, just let it happen. Strang emphasized that there were few valid reasons for people not to wear a mask. But the mandatory mask law exempts people who have a medical condition that prevents them from wearing a mask. Those who claim to be exempt due to medical conditions should be accommodated without asking for proof of their condition, said Gibson. Gibson said mandating masks can be an infringement on someones liberty if they wouldnt otherwise choose to wear a mask. But she said the infringement is justified under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Thats because were living in a pandemic and there is growing evidence that masks can protect people from COVID-19. So, someone could claim under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that its an infringement on their liberty, (but) their claim in court is ultimately not likely to be successful. This reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. Read more about: President Donald Trump looks on as the mother of murdered Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen, Gloria Guillen talks about her daughter murder during a meeting with the family in the Oval Office, on July 30, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via Getty Images) Trump Meets With Family of Slain Fort Hood Soldier Vanessa Guillen President Donald Trump on Thursday met with the family of slain Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen and offered to pay for her funeral, as well as promising a rigorous investigation into her death at the U.S. Army post. Guillen, 20, was last seen in April in the parking lot of Fort Hoods Regimental Engineer Squadron Headquarters, in Killeen, Texas, on April 22. Her remains were found on June 30. Aaron Robinson, 20, is suspected to have attacked and killed Guillen, and contacted his girlfriend to help dispose of Guillens body. He died by suicide by shooting himself after officers tried to make contact. Trump invited Guillens family to the White House. Speaking to the family and reporters in the Oval office on Thursday, Trump said that he was impacted by the situation, which he described as very horrific. I saw what happened to your daughter, Vanessa, who was a spectacular person, and respected and loved by everybody, including in the military, Trump told Guillens mother. He added that the FBI and Department of Justice are now involved in the case, as well as people at Fort Hood. We didnt want to have this swept under the rug, which could happen, Trump said. U.S. Army officials asked for the publics assistance in locating Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year-old soldier who was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. (Fort Hood Press Center) Trump was surprised when he heard a funeral has not been held because investigators have not handed over Guillens remains to the family. Youyou havent had a funeral? Because this is quite a while now, Trump asked, and shortly later, adding, its a terrible thing. When would you like to have the funeral? When? The family informed Trump that the funeral is planned to be in Houston and they would like it to take place as soon as possible. As soon as possible with the funeral, the president said. Well make surewell make sure that happens. Okay, please? And if I can help you out with the funeral, Ill help you with that. Trump offered to help financially, to which Attorney Natalie Khawam, a lawyer for Guillens family who is on the case pro bono, responded that the military will be paying for the funeral. If they need something, Illwell take carewell make sure she is very respected, Trump then said. Mayra Guillen, Vanessas sister, said the family had declined a military-style funeral. We actually declined because my mom didnt want a military casket and stuff like that. Vanessa is very unique, so we wanted something unique for her. So far, a lot of people have been helping us, but it has been a rough three months, she said. President Donald Trump speaks with Gloria Guillen (3rd L), the mother of Vanessa Guillen, a Fort Hood soldier found dead after disappearing from Fort Hood, Texas, as well as her family and lawyer in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on July 30, 2020. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images) Khawam told Trump that Robinson allegedly used a hammer and bludgeoned [Guillen] to death. Robinson then carried her body out and he buried it in the river nearby. He used a machete, Khawam said. Trump later said the good thing is that hes gone, adding, now were going to go in to see what happened. Khawam said that she took part in drafting a bill, referred to as the #IAmVanessaGuillen bill to help victims of sexual harassment in the military. The bill would allow service members to report sexual harassment claims to a toll-free number. It is sponsored by Reps. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii). The family told Trump they hope to have his support with the bill. You will be making history within Vanessa, because we need a change, and the change is now. And we need something positive so the soldiers feel safe to be recruited, feel safe while serving their nation, feel honored to serve their nation, but to feel respected and safe, and thats how the bill will help them. Because not only womenits also men. I have heard many stories. And hopefully we have your support, Gloria Guillen, mother of the slain soldier, told Trump in remarks translated by her daughter Guadalupe. US President Donald Trump (R) speaks with Gloria Guillen, the mother of Vanessa Guillen, a Fort Hood soldier found dead after disappearing from Fort Hood, Texas, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on July 30, 2020. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images) Well, you have our support, and were working on it already, as you know, and we wont stop. And hopefully something very positive will come out in honor of your sister, Trump said. Trump concluded the meeting with the following remarks: I want to thank you all for being here. Its a lot of courage actually. It takes a lot of courage. And your daughter is very respected, Trump said, turning to Vanessa Guillens family. And shes respected by me, and youre in the Oval Office. Your daughter would be very proud of you right now. Shes looking down. Shell be very proud of you. Soand your sister. So we will get to the bottom of a lot of this, and maybe all of it. Okay? London, July 31 : Climate change driven by industrial society is having an increasing impact on the UKs weather, the Met Office has said. Its annual State of the UK Climate report, published by the Royal Meteorological Society on Thursday, confirmed that 2019 was the 12th warmest year in a series from 1884, reports the BBC. It showed that UK temperatures in 2019 were 1.1 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 long-term average. Although it does not make the top 10, the report sayd that 2019 was remarkable for high temperature records in the UK. There was also a severe swing in weather from the soaking winter to the sunny spring. "Our report shows climate change is exerting an increasing impact on the U," the BBC quoted Mike Kendon, lead author of the report, as saying. "This year was warmer than any other year in the UK between 1884 and 1990, and to find a year in the coldest 10 we have to go back to 1963." The Central England Temperature series is the longest instrumental record of temperature in the world, stretching back to 1659. Mark McCarthy, from the Met Office, added it was a particularly wet year across parts of central and northern England. He said Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Cheshire received between a quarter to one third more rainfall than normal. For northern England this was the ninth wettest year in a series from 1862. "It's worth noting that since 2009 the UK has now had its wettest February, April, June, November and December on record - five out of 12 months," he was quoted as saying by the BBC. New Delhi, July 31 : Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus said on Friday that novel coronavirus had laid bare the weaknesses in the society and lamented that economics doesn't recognise workers employed in the informal sector. He stressed the need for according recognition to such workers. During his conversation with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the founder of Bangladesh Grameen Bank said: "The financial system is designed in a very wrong way. And the Covid-19 crisis has revealed the weaknesses of the society in a very ugly way; you can see it now. "These are hidden away into the society; we get used to it; the poor people are there; migrant workers are in the city, hiding in the city. But suddenly, we see millions of them on the highway trying to go home. And then on foot, thousand-mile journeys. That is the saddest part that Covid-19 pandemic has revealed. We have to recognise these people." He was responding to Rahul Gandhi's question about the finances of the poor, and the impact of poverty on women, and how this Covid-19 crisis and ensuing economic crisis was going to affect the poor. Yunus said that economics does not recognise these people. "They call it the informal sector. Informal sector means we have nothing to do with them; they are not a part of the economy. Economy begins with the formal sector; we are busy with the formal sector. If we can only finance them, we can take care of them, pay attention to them, they'll be moving up the ladder," the Nobel laureate said. Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006. He set up the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983, fueled by the belief that credit is a fundamental human right. His objective was to help the poor escape poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them and by teaching them a few sound financial principles so they could help themselves. Yunus said: "Women are the remotest of all. Looking at the structure, this is the lowest in the structure. They have no voice, nothing in the society; traditions make them completely separate. They are the basic strength of the society." "All the entrepreneurial ability, when microcredit came and went to the women, they showed how much entrepreneurial capacity they had. That's why microcredit is known to the whole world and not just in Bangladesh because they have shown their worth. They can fight; they have the skills; artisanal skills and all kinds of skills, beautiful skills. They are all forgotten because they all belong to what we call the informal sector," he said. In the last four months, the Congress leader has interacted with Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, epidemiologist Johan Geseicke, Professor Nicholas Burns at Harvard's Kennedy School, former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, and Indian industrialist Rajiv Bajaj. By David Tizzard David Tizzard In a democratic society, one normally assumes that an individual is given certain freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and freedom to assemble. That little space inside our head where thoughts appear and circulate is deemed off limits to the government. Article 19 of the South Korean constitution declares a freedom of conscience and that no citizen be forced to make public their inner thoughts. It is a sacred place: A sanctuary to which we can retreat from the overwhelming barrage of narratives and messages thrown at us by social media. There is no policeman in our head. Yet last week in South Korean domestic politics the public was treated to one of the most peculiar stories in the modern age. A politician being elected to a ministerial post was asked publically about his ideological beliefs stretching back to the 1980s. If that doesn't sound too strange, one needs to consider the identity of those taking part in the Korean inquisition (After all, no-one expects it). The one asking the questions was Thae Young-ho. Thae was the former North Korean deputy Ambassador to the United Kingdom before defecting with his family to the South in 2016. Thae was elected to the National Assembly as a member of the Conservative Party following his comprehensive victory in the Gangnam district. He is the first North Korean defector to win a constituency seat in South Korea. Thae Young-ho changed his name to Thae Gu-min while in South Korea -- a name signaling his desire to "save the citizens." He has been openly critical of the North Korean regime since his defection who, in return, have labeled him "human scum". Despite being an authoritative voice on the North and their diplomatic practices (his book "Cryptography From the Third Floor Secretariat" became a best seller here in South Korea), he was forced to apologize in May of this year having completely misjudged events in Pyongyang. An absent Kim Jong-un brought a great deal of speculation about his health, his role, the rise of his sister Kim Yo-jong and more. Thae claimed, with some authority, that Kim Jong-un was unable to "stand up by himself or walk properly". Many hung on his words, believing him to be a vital source of information about a state clouded in secrecy and -- more importantly -- propaganda. However, Thae was shown to be incorrect in his claims as Kim Jong-un popped up smiling at a fertilizer plant a few days later. As a result, Thae said back in May that he would "promise to do parliamentary activity in a more prudent and modest manner." Last week's events would suggest he might have forgotten that promise. Thae was seen questioning a South Korean politician about his ideological leanings, supposed support of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, and demanding public statements about what the politician believed vis-a-vis Pyongyang. Lee In-young is President Moon's choice to take over the position of Minister of Unification following Kim Yeon-chul's resignation amidst the controversy regarding defector organizations and the sending of information into the North and Kim Yo-jong's outspoken response. That in itself was a strange event as the South Korean government acquiesced to Kim Yo-jong's tirade and began preventing NGO's from sending rice, bibles, and other materials to the North. Lee was a radical student in his youth (who wasn't?) and a leader of a student-led group in the 1980s which was primarily pro-democracy and, for the most part, pro-unification. In 1987, as protests grew demanding direct presidential elections and amendments to the constitution, Lee was a leader of the Korea University student council, and took part in these. For his role, he was arrested and sentenced to imprisonment. Staunch conservatives see Lee's group, Jeon Dae Hyup, and other more radical ones such as Han Chong Nyun as sleeper groups of Koreans who support the North and look to bring about socialist change. The former was a student-led group; the latter, however, openly supported a Pyongyang-led Korea and was influenced heavily by Marxist readings. So, in simple terms, a North Korean was grilling a South Korean about whether or not he had supported Pyongyang in the past. And, moreover, this was all happening in the National Assembly. 2020 continues to be weird. Do we really have a system in which domestic politics are still influenced by a Cold War ideology and Manichean diptychs where the forces of good are set up and opposed to the forces of evil? Furthermore, following Thae Young-ho's questioning, are Orwellian performative pronouncements of one's ideology still of upmost importance? Lee In-young publically stated during the interrogation that he was not a believer of juche (North Korea's ideology) at the time and neither is he now. That of course didn't stop conservative media such as the JoongAng Ilblo labeling Lee as evasive and ambiguous in his arguments. Freedom of conscience is important -- and defended by law. However, if people are to take roles in which they serve the public, tax payers probably will want to know the beliefs and ideas of those who are given such responsibility. Both things can be held true at the same time. It is a matter of how these are approached. If we take a step back, we realize that members of the South Korean National Assembly are arguing with each other about what they believed thirty to forty years ago instead of doing what they are there to do: serve the people, solve the many societal problems we currently face, and make the world a bit better for those who have entrusted them with the responsibility. The 86 Group (those born in the 1960s and who attended university in the 1980s) and the resulting ideological split still seems to be creating rifts in South Korean politics. But it's 2020. Of course one cannot forget the past or pretend it didn't exist. But the country today is very different from back then - it's now a democracy and the challenges it faces are far different. Perhaps this was Thae's mistake. He was still overly concerned with the declaration of one's ideological leanings rather than one's actual actions and behavior. Regardless of one's private beliefs, South Korea needs politicians and leaders that will solve the problems the country faces: youth unemployment, growing housing prices, high levels of suicide and depression, a tanking economy, a problem accepting multiculturalism when it's not white and willing to assimilate, a disturbing amount of digital sex crimes, and gender conflicts. That, more than anything else, makes it worrying that people who receive tax payer's money are instead grilling each other about their ideological beliefs. Would be nice if they focused on solving some problems instead, wouldn't it? Perhaps if they forgot about their ideologies for a few minutes they might even be able to work together and, you know, help create a society in which the citizens can be happy and content. Imagine that! David Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) is an assistant professor at Seoul Women's University, where he teaches Korean Studies, and he is an adjunct professor at Hanyang University lecturing in World History and Political Science. He discusses the week's hottest issues on TBS eFM (101.3FM) on "Life Abroad" live every Thursday from 9:35-10 a.m. When a coronavirus lockdown confined Malaysians to their homes, street traders selling durians moved their pungent produce online -- and have been enjoying an unexpected spike in demand. Grown across tropical Southeast Asia, the durian is hailed by aficionados as the "king of fruits" due to its creamy, golden flesh and bittersweet flavour. But detractors complain of its overpowering smell, comparing it to rotting food or stale vomit, and it is banned in many hotels and on public transport. The traditional roadside stalls where Malaysians have for decades enjoyed the smelly fruits were, along with most other businesses, forced to close during the lockdown. Motorbike and car deliveries were still allowed, however, and companies such as Dulai Fruits Enterprise turned to social media to market their frozen durians. Managing director Eric Chan said he had been sceptical the move would work as Malaysians typically prefer fruit fresh, and a previous bid to sell them online had limited success. But the company has seen roaring trade, with Chan telling AFP: "By the fifth day of our sales, we (had) hundreds of orders every single day." Durians in Malaysia can cost more than 60 ringgit ($14) a kilogram, and there are 137 officially registered varieties ranging from "Musang King" to "Black Thorn" and "Red Prawn". Durian trader Top Fruits has been selling prepared durian in sealed, 300-gram (10-ounce) packs on Facebook, and was making about 80 deliveries a day during the lockdown, which began mid-March. Managing director Tan Sue Sian said customers had come to see the advantages of having the fruit delivered to their door. "You don't have to worry about your car being smelly" after transporting the fruit, said Tan. - 'Here to stay' - Online sales of the fruit in Malaysia have since slowed after restrictions were eased at the start of May, as durian lovers gradually returned to outdoor stalls. Malaysia has seen a relatively small outbreak of COVID-19, recording almost 9,000 cases and 124 deaths. Online orders are still only a fraction of business for durian traders, with the bulk going to exporters -- the fruit is particularly popular in China -- and local shops, but they are hopeful about future prospects. "There is room to grow, and room to grow fast," Tan said. Lindsay Gasik, who has written a number of books about the fruit, said it was about time that buying durians online took off. "I think once the supply chain and logistics got into place, people realised that it wasn't that difficult to sell durians online," she told AFP. She said aside from making it easier for people to get their durian fix via deliveries, online selling was also exposing them to more varieties and farms. "It isn't just a better situation for customers, it is also for the farmers," she said. "Selling durians online is definitely here to stay." pl/sr/axn/leg FACEBOOK Cannabis Extraction Market Research Report by Method (Alcohol Extraction Method, CO2 Extraction Method, Hydrocarbon Extraction Method, Solvent-free Extraction Method, and Traditional Extraction Method), by End-Use (Cosmetics, Food & Beverages, Medicine, Pet Care, and Recreational Use) - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19 New York, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Cannabis Extraction Market Research Report by Method, by End-Use - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940020/?utm_source=GNW The Global Cannabis Extraction Market is expected to grow from USD 2,202.20 Million in 2019 to USD 5,473.56 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 16.38%. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Cannabis Extraction to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: "The Ultrasound-assisted Extraction Method is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Method, the Cannabis Extraction Market studied across Alcohol Extraction Method, CO2 Extraction Method, Hydrocarbon Extraction Method, Solvent-free Extraction Method, Traditional Extraction Method, and Ultrasound-assisted Extraction Method. The Alcohol Extraction Method commanded the largest size in the Cannabis Extraction Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Ultrasound-assisted Extraction Method is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Medicine is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on End-Use, the Cannabis Extraction Market studied across Cosmetics, Food & Beverages, Medicine, Pet Care, and Recreational Use. The Medicine commanded the largest size in the Cannabis Extraction Market in 2019, and it is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Asia-Pacific is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Geography, the Cannabis Extraction Market studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region surveyed across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region surveyed across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region surveyed across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. The Americas commanded the largest size in the Cannabis Extraction Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. 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Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Cannabis Extraction Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Cannabis Extraction Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Cannabis Extraction Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Cannabis Extraction Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Cannabis Extraction Market? 6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Cannabis Extraction Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940020/?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 As schools and universities plan for the new academic year, and administrators grapple with complex questions about how to keep young people safe, a new report about a coronavirus outbreak at a sleepaway camp in Georgia provides fresh reasons for concern. The camp implemented several precautionary measures against the virus, but stopped short of requiring campers to wear masks. The virus blazed through the community of about 600 campers and counselors, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday. The staff and counselors gathered at the overnight camp in late June. Within a week of the camp orientation, a teenage counselor developed chills and went home. The camp, which the C.D.C. did not name, started sending campers home the next day, and shut down a few days later. By then, 76 percent of the 344 campers and staffers whose test results were available to C.D.C. researchers had been infected with the virus nearly half the camp. A group of six children have found a unique way of passing time during the pandemic by learning about how to run a business and helping others in the community. And its not setting up a lemonade stand. Siblings Lydia, Alys and Sonya Hyde, of New Milford, and friends Agnes, Henry and Vincent Schiesel, of New Preston, began selling homemade jewelry last week. The children came up with the idea during a visit to the Hammonasset Beach area in Madison. They wanted to make bracelets using shells and sell them on the beach. Their parents, Carolyn Hyde and Candice Schiesel, respectively, supported the idea of making jewelry but recommended they find another way to get their products out to the public in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Once the children returned to their hometowns, they came up with a plan. We gave them parameters and they figured it all out, Hyde said. I texted Candice when I heard what they wanted to do with the money. I said, They just went nonprofit. The children decided to donate the money they make to nursing homes, hospital workers, beach cleanups and veterinarians. The shop named H&S, short for Hyde and Schiesel opened Sunday at the Hydes home. H&S is a group of kids making jewelry, their About Us poster posted on social media reads. We did not want to keep the money (we make) so we donate the money we get. The Hyde siblings set up shop at the end of the driveway Sunday and had a handful of customers who had seen the post their mother shared on social media. I think its a fabulous idea, neighbor Kristan Pozzuto said. It was very well done, and the message was really nice. Pozzuto said her daughters, Stella, 7, and Ruby, 5, enjoyed picking out jewelry for themselves and some of their neighbors. Customer Bob Reiling said he was impressed that the kids came up with the idea themselves and werent doing it for a service project. It was great to see how much thought they put into this, Reiling said. And how they want to give back to the community. The children also made a poster citing the precautions they are taking to remain safe and keep their customers safe during the pandemic. All jewelry is made with new craft materials and is placed in clear bags so items are easier to see and are not touched. Most importantly, the kids wear masks and gloves. They came up with a nice way to do it Pozzuto said of the safety measures. They had all the details, with the pre-wrapped jewelry and containers in which to place the money. As of Monday, the families had raised $40. The kids are planning to gather Saturday for another pop-up shop from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Customers should look for the blue umbrella on the cul-de-sac of Brookview Lane. Hyde said the children are discussing plans to buy a new game for a local nursing home and food for the animal shelter. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Last Saturday marked ten years since WikiLeaks published the Afghan war logs, a vast trove of leaked US military documents, which provided an unprecedented insight into the criminality of a war that has become the longest in American history. The documents were released, with commentary, analysis and contextual material, in partnership with the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel, some three months after WikiLeaks published Collateral Murder, the infamous video showing a 2007 US army massacre of civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Iraq. Taken together, the exposures had an immense impact on popular consciousness, fortifying and deepening the mass anti-war sentiment first revealed in the huge international protests against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Assange releasing the Afghan war logs in 2010. Significantly, the 2010 releases by WikiLeaks followed the suppression of that movement by upper middle-class pseudo-left groups. They had increasingly dispensed with opposition to imperialist war as they supported the 2008 election of Barack Obama, and aligned with other militarist parties of the ruling elite, such as the Labor Party in Australia. The Afghan logs particularly exposed the claims of innumerable liberal pundits that the occupation of that country was the good war, supposedly waged to defeat terrorism, extend democracy and protect womens rights. This they contrasted with the failed operation in Iraq. This dovetailed with the agenda of the new US administration. Obamas phony anti-war posturing during the 2008 election had been accompanied by plans for a massive surge in Afghanistan. The mythmaking was facilitated by the suppression of any information about the real situation on the ground by the US, its allies and a pliant corporate media. WikiLeaks lifted the veil on the lies, revealing a neo-colonial occupation aimed at looting natural resources and securing control of the geo-strategically critical Central Asian region. Mass civilian killings, widespread popular opposition and demoralisation within US army ranks all came to the surface, more fully than they had in the nine years since the US invasion. The publication was based on 91,000 US army logs covering the period of January 2004 to December 2009, provided to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning, who had access to the material as a military intelligence analyst. Indicating the extent of corporate media integration into the military, Manning only turned the material over to WikiLeaks after her attempts to contact the New York Times and the Washington Post were ignored. In releasing the material, WikiLeaks publisher and then editor-in-chief Julian Assange described it as the most comprehensive history of a war ever to be published, during the course of the war. Unlike the corporate hacks, who seek to hide their alignment with imperialist war behind a mask of impartiality, Assange was unapologetically partisan. The documents suggested thousands of war crimes, he stated, and their release would serve to shift public opinion. The most dangerous men are those who are in charge of war. And they need to be stopped, he said. Some 20,000 deaths are recorded in the logs. They include at least 195 civilian casualties at the hands of NATO troops, which had previously been hidden from the public. Most explosively, the documents cut through the presentation of fatalities as being the inevitable product of the fog of war, supposed mishaps and errors. Mass murder was not an accidental by-product of the conflict, but an essential component of its character as a neo-colonial occupation of a hostile population. The release confirmed, for the first time, the existence of a secretive black unit, within the US military, whose explicit task was to extrajudicially murder prominent insurgents, i.e., those Afghans thought to be playing a leading role in the fight to liberate their country. Incidents detailed in the logs provided a picture of imperialist lawlessness that had perhaps not been seen since the horrors of the Vietnam war several decades earlier. The Guardian noted at least 21 occasions when British troops opened fire on civilians, commenting: Some casualties were accidentally caused by air strikes, but many also are said to involve British troops firing on unarmed drivers or motorcyclists who come too close to convoys or patrols. Citing just some of the previously unknown events contained in the records, the British paper wrote: Bloody errors at civilians expense, as recorded in the logs, include the day French troops strafed a bus full of children in 2008, wounding eight. A US patrol similarly machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its passengers, and in 2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack. Attacks on civilians were frequently presented as targeted strikes on Taliban militants. To again cite the Guardian: A Harrier bombing is listed as killing eight people. In another an F16 jet called in by a Rifles squad radioed afterwards that it could see bodies being picked up in the target area. Seven civilians were wounded and one killed in that attack. A further Apache helicopter strike outside Kandahar was claimed to have killed three Taliban: but it proved later that two women and two children had died. A Hellfire missile blast from an unmanned drone over Helmand was also claimed to have killed six Taliban. It later transpired it had wounded two children. British troops at a checkpoint in Sangin killed four and wounded three civilians in July. In August a 2 Para squad rocketed what it thought were insurgents, killing three civilians and wounding four. And in September an unarmed motorcyclist was shot dead by a British patrol. The documents consistently indicated that Coalition commanders were aware that the majority of the Afghan population favoured their expulsion from the country. They detailed the fraught relations between the US-led forces and their Afghan army allies. The latter were mistreated. The former lived in constant fear that, such was the popular opposition, one of their Afghan allies would go rogue and turn their guns on the occupiers. The innumerable contradictions of US imperialist foreign policy were laid bare. The Allied commanders knew that the Pakistani intelligence services, with whom they were formally allied, were collaborating closely with Islamist militants. Taken together, the revelations gave the worlds population a greater understanding of the first imperialist war crime of the century than any other publication. Their release was an historic event that will be analysed and commented on for decades to come. But the Afghan war logs have not yet passed into history. The brutal occupation, which has resulted in the deaths of as many as half a million Afghans, continues. The war criminals have not only escaped any punishment. They sit at the helm of the US, Australian and British militaries and plot new crimes, including catastrophic conflicts with nuclear-armed powers such as China and Russia. The only individuals who have faced criminal repercussions over the publication are Chelsea Manning, who has endured a decade of persecution, and Julian Assange, who is imprisoned in Britains maximum-security Belmarsh Prison awaiting court hearings for his extradition to the US. There he faces 175 years of imprisonment, in the first attempted prosecution of a publisher and journalist under the Espionage Act. The exposures of the horrors of the Afghan war feature in Assanges charge sheet, where they are perversely presented as evidence of a conspiracy with Manning that threatened US national security. The offence of pure publication, i.e., journalism, is among Assanges supposed crimes. A protest in Kabul, Afghanistan supporting Assange after his arrest on April 11, 2019 (Credit: hambastagi.org) The US indictment incorporates some of the most persistent government-media lies related to the Afghan war logs. It again asserts that their publication placed the lives of US military personnel and their Afghan informants at risk, a claim that was debunked at Mannings 2013 court martial. The alleged presence of the documents in Osama Bin Ladens Abbottabad compound, where he lived for years as a ward of the US-aligned Pakistani military, is cited. Journals published by CIA-connected think tanks were also found at the compound, but there have been no calls for the prosecution of their authors. Moreover, the assertion that Assange displayed recklessness has been thoroughly debunked. Australian journalist Mark Davis explained last year, based on his own personal observations, that it was Assange, not his media partners at the New York Times or the Guardian, who personally redacted thousands of pages before their release. Some 16,000 documents were held back, to prevent anyone from coming to harm. Despite this, the claim that Assange displayed a cavalier attitude towards the safety of Afghan informants became one of the key justifications for betraying him provided by WikiLeaks erstwhile media partners at the Guardian and the New York Times. The Times had consulted extensively with the Obama administration, as it reported on only a handful of the revelations contained in the logs. Very rapidly thereafter, however, as the US escalated its pursuit of Assange, even minimal collaboration with WikiLeaks became too much for these publications. As cynical and false as their assertions were, it is not insignificant that the rallying cry of the corporate hacks in their rush to align with the Obama administration and the CIA, was the defence of US military informants. Nothing about the Afghan conflict, it seemed, had excited the passions of these reporters, so much as the prospect of turncoats suffering retribution. The journalists instinctively identified with the informants, none of whom were killed or injured as a result of WikiLeaks publication. One can surmise that they shared a willingness to sell principles for money, an eagerness to align with the powerful and a contempt for anyone who would get in the way. Afghan informants, it must be said, were in some cases saving their own necks. The same dangers did not confront the reporters in their plush London and Washington homes. A decade on, and the slanders have been discredited. Assange has courageously maintained his opposition to imperialism and war, in the face of an almost unprecedented state vendetta. The struggle for his freedom is at the cutting-edge of the fight against militarism and for democratic rights. California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that county employees are not allowed to pad their future pensions by cashing in years of vacation or sick pay or working longer hours before their retirement. The practice is known as "pension spiking," which can lead to a bigger retirement income than the normal pay of a California public employee. But the court ruling helps governments contain the spiraling pension obligations. That means California local governments can crackdown on 'pension spiking' by public workers. The decision, written by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said the state law was done in what the court said was a process of closing the loopholes in the current law and stopping further abuse of the pension system, Los Angeles Times reported. California Rule The court did not discuss the bigger issue: if governments can take no notice of the "California Rule," a series of court rulings that hold that pensions can't be changed once promised, Associated Press noted. California Rule makes sure public workers are given pensions that were in place the day they were hired. But the court ruled that pensions were contracts. The court said the ruling would stop pension plans from keeping the current loopholes for current employees and giving new pension benefits to new workers that could only further the needless rewards given by these loopholes. Unions and employee groups challenged the spike ban. They said that it was not in line with the California Rule. Pensions can be moved upward for public workers, but never downward. Law firm partner Steven Berliner said the rule is still upheld. "The court's basically sticking with the current landscape," he said. He said there is a difference between cutting benefits because local governments are going bankrupt and closing a loophole. Cutting benefit, for him, means the California Rule was put aside. "I don't think that would hold up under this ruling," he said. Pension payments for public workers are based on the worker's highest year of earnings. Before the 2013 law, some county workers were able to make their pensions grow higher by the end of their careers. Curbs Benefit, Preserves Rule Some business groups have asked the court to use the pension spiking case to change the California Rule to affect public workers across the state. But the court said no. They said they don't have a legal reason to evaluate the rule again. David Mastagni, who represented some workers in the case, said he was disappointed in the decision but glad the rule is still protecting the rule that safeguards public pensions. While the Thursday court decision can be seen as a "chipping away" of the rule, he said, he thinks that the court will limit rollbacks of pension benefits that will address the abuses or loopholes that they saw. The court ruling affects 20 counties that manage the pension plans under the law. Both the city and county of Los Angeles each have a different pension system. Last year, the state's high court also ruled that the government can also lower pension benefits without going against the California Rule, said a report from CBS San Francisco. It also ruled at the high court that buying more retirement service is not one of the "core pension rights" of workers in the state. The court upheld the state's 2012 repeal of an "air time" benefit that let state workers buy credits towards retirement service. Want to read more? Check these out! New Study Claims The Taller You Are, The Higher Risk of Getting COVID-19 Are There Medications to Treat COVID-19? Here's What We Know New Study Links Spring School Closures to Decline in COVID-19 Cases and Deaths Passenger jets from the nation's low cost carriers are at Gimpo International Airport in Seoul, on July 28. Concerns are growing over mass layoffs of LCC employees amid longer-than-expected virus shocks. Yonhap KDB unlikely to salvage sagging low cost carriers By Lee Min-hyung The nation's low cost carriers (LCC) hit worst by the coronavirus spread are teetering on the brink of collapse in the wake of the government's ill-prepared policies. In 2019 alone, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport granted aviation licenses to three new LCCs. At that time, concerns surfaced over the "over-issuance" of the licenses as this increased the number of local LCCs to nine, which surpasses most other countries with bigger population and land area than Korea. But with the COVID-19 panic sweeping across the nation and paralyzing their business operations due to the worldwide travel restrictions, most major LCCs such as Jeju Air and Jin Air have started to report operating losses of tens of billions of won in the first half of the year. They are seeking additional financial support from state-run lenders including the Korea Development Bank (KDB) but the lender remains firm in its determination not to provide any immediate support for the sagging LCCs. The lender even excluded LCCs from a list of companies receiving the 40 trillion won in coronavirus relief funds amid the judgment that other industries such as automotive and shipbuilding were in more dire need of the financial aid than LCCs. But the lender is also expressing discomfort over why it has to support the LCCs after the land ministry granted "reckless" licenses to emerging players without considering their business capability and market restraints carefully. "LCCs are in desperate need of financial support from relevant relief funds by state-run lenders to tackle the ongoing crisis," an official from the industry said. But the KDB is not considering doing so for now, as it deems the main reason for their collapse is due to the ministry's wrong decision to foster the industry with a view to generating outcomes in terms of job creation, according to the official. A KDB spokesman also raised questions over the competitiveness of the existing LCCs here, saying the number needs to be downsized in consideration of the nation's market size. The number of LCCs here exceeds that of Japan which has a larger population and territory. The United States also has the same number of LCCs as Korea. "We are leaving open the possibility of providing financial support to sagging LCCs, but no specific action plans have not been drawn up for now," an official from the lender said. The KDB and Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank), another state-run lender, were supposed to provide 170 billion won to Jeju Air which overturned its decision recently to take over Eastar Jet. But with Jeju Air dropping the plan, the lenders' move to provide financial aid ended up nowhere. Despite the dismal financial situation of Eastar Jet, the KDB is not considering offering any immediate financial aid to the airline, as the company is in a state of "total capital impairment" and has low competitiveness for survival even after the coronavirus shock comes to an end. This is in contrast to KDB's active support of the nation's two largest airlines Korean Air and Asiana Airlines whose businesses have also fallen victim to the pandemic. In July, the bank decided to provide one trillion won out of the 40-trillion won relief fund to Korean Air. Major LCCs such as Jeju Air, Jin Air, T'way Air and Air Busan all reported losses in the second quarter on the fallout from the global pandemic shock. Jeju Air, the nation's largest LCC, reported an 85.4 billion won operating loss during the April-June period, the biggest quarterly loss in its history. Things were no different for the others. Jin Air reported a 59.6 billion won operating loss during the same period, and the other two airlines also saw their deficits widen. "LCCs need to take self-rescue measures to attract more capital (from the state-run lender or the government)," KDB Vice President Choi Dae-hyun told reporters in a recent online press conference. LCCs in deadlock Cornered LCCs have in recent months been in emergency mode and taken all available measures to cut fixed costs. Starting from early this year, most of them started accepting paid or unpaid leave requests from employees to minimize the virus shock. But with the pandemic expanding into a worldwide economic crisis, they are busy trying to persuade the government to offer aid packages. Officials from the LCCs said the situation is far worse than has been reported, as their deficits continue to increase even as COVID-19 is showing signs of subsiding here. "A pilot from one of the major LCCs here recently attempted suicide amid a dismal outlook for the industry's near-term rebound," an official from a local airline said. "Being a pilot is widely perceived as a specialized job that requires a license and guarantees a high salary. But the latest incident shows how desperate the situation is in the LCC industry." Major LCCs are requesting government support as the last resort for their survival, the official said. "They continuously underline the need for their survival, as the market may be engulfed by overseas airlines if the status quo continues and more LCCs go bankrupt." Eastar Jet is on the verge of collapse after Jeju Air decided to stop its takeover of the airline. The union of Jin Air, the nation's second largest LCC, is also joining in to win more financial support from the government. "We are trying to justify why we need support from the government, but the outlook for our short-term rebound appears very cloudy," an official from the airline said. "The issue surrounding the excessive number of LCCs stems from the government's decision, not ours. It is unfair for the financial authorities to stop offering support for sagging airlines by taking issue with the matter." For our free coronavirus pandemic coverage, learn more here. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size For the past eight years, scientists have been driving a nuclear-powered robot the size of a car across the surface of Mars. While its not the first to touch down, NASAs Curiosity rover is the last still manning its post on a planet now littered with the skeletons of failed or expired missions. But its about to get some company. In July, three new rockets blasted off for the red planet the United States has sent its next NASA rover, Perseverance, to hunt for signs of life and pave the way for human explorers; China will land its first rover on Mars along with a host of other gear, also to search for life; and the United Arab Emirates will fly a probe into Martian orbit to measure the planet's atmosphere, in the Middle Easts first interplanetary mission. As a new space race heats up, ambitions have moved beyond the moon to the red planet. This time, its about more than flying a flag, says astrophysicist Brad Tucker at the Australian National University. Finding life on another planet would be one of humanitys greatest discoveries, transforming our understanding of not only the universe but life on Earth. And then there are the riches promised by the burgeoning space industry, in everything from rare minerals to real estate. The Trump administration has already ordered NASA to land the first humans on Mars by 2033 and tech billionaire Elon Musk has even loftier plans to set up a self-sustaining Martian city within 30 years. While Australia has no official plans for space missions as yet, its new space agency is helping NASA develop technology that can be tested by humans on the moon as a launchpad to Mars. But why are so many Mars missions taking off in the same month and during a pandemic? What will they do once they get there? And whats next for humans and the red planet? NASA rover Curiosity takes a selfie via a camera on the end of its robotic arm at Gale Crater on Mars. This panorama is made up of 57 individual images stitched together. Credit:NASA Advertisement Why the rush on Mars now? Planning a trip to Mars comes down to some tricky celestial geometry. As the fourth rock out from the Sun, Mars takes nearly twice as long as Earth to complete its orbit around the star (687 days to our 365). That means the two planets are rarely in the same corner of the solar system for long. But every two years or so, the two planets align at their closest point about 57 million kilometres apart, compared with more than 200 million kilometres at their furthest. Imagine two cars going around a racetrack, Tucker says. You want both cars on the same side of the track or you have to go three or four times as far. Its not like going to the moon, where its always the same distance away. Mars is a whole other ballgame. This window for a faster (and cheaper) run to Mars doesnt last long and can be easily overshot if missions launch too early or too late. For the three rockets now in the skies, the journey will still take roughly seven months. Only a handful of nations have ever reached the red planet (the US, Russia and India as well as the European Space Agency) and more than half of all missions so far have failed. A fourth mission, jointly developed by the European Space Agency and Russia to hunt for Martian life, was due to take off in July, too, but has been grounded until the next window to Mars opens in two years because of the pandemic and further equipment testing. Advertisement Above: NASA's Ingenuity helicopter will land on Mars, with the Perseverance rover, in 2021. Source: NASA What's NASA doing on Mars this time? NASAs Mars 2020 mission is step one of an ambitious plan to bring the first Martian rock samples home to Earth for testing. While past missions have looked for signs the planet is habitable, finding evidence of water underground and even past oceans on the now-barren surface, this is the first time scientists are looking for signs of life itself, says Australian Abigail Allwood, one of the lead astrobiologists on the mission. Mars may not be the closest neighbour in our solar system, but it is the planet most like our own and so the most likely to harbour life too. If the Curiosity rover was designed as a laboratory on legs, Perseverance is more of a geologist, Allwood says, built to analyse and cut rock samples about the size of chalk pieces which will then be collected by a later mission, likely run by the ESA. When youre on Mars, youre limited in what you can do, but when you bring those samples back home, you have all the time and power of Earths laboratories to unleash on these little rocks, Allwood says. We are so close to getting an answer to one of the biggest questions out there, the holy grail: is there life outside our planet? Advertisement But the $2 billion mission is not expected to find anything alive the most likely spot to find living Martians is beneath the irradiated surface where subterranean lakes have been detected and where Allwood says it is difficult to drill. Still, if life, even at its most microscopic level, once existed on the planet, they could find traces of it in the rocks of ancient riverbeds and lakes. The rovers landing site, in an old lake bed known as the Jezero crater, has been carefully selected to give Perseverance the best chance. It was in similar conditions out in the red desert of the Pilbara in Western Australia that Allwood found traces of some of the very first (microbial) life on Earth. Back then, [3 billion years ago], Mars was also habitable, there were lakes and rivers on the surface, she says. If life is found to have existed on Mars, Allwood notes it will be difficult to trace its origin, in the same way we are still to pinpoint exactly how life started on Earth. It could have been that some cross-contamination between our two planets, given their proximity, seeded life from the same source, for example a stray comet or a collision, Tucker suggests. "Or it could be that [Martian] life has a completely different origin to Earth," he says. As for discovering intelligent or complex life, Tucker notes that finding the boring stuff such as microbes is much more likely but it could also be a sign theres more out there. I think theres an 80 per cent chance we find something [simple], he says. We keep seeing evidence of water, theres weird changes in the gases and methane, these could just be geological but they could also be caused by life. Advertisement Perseverance will also trial technology that could one day help human missions to Mars, including converting the carbon dioxide of the thin Martian atmosphere into oxygen. Instruments will also examine the notoriously perilous Mars landing, nicknamed the seven minutes of terror, to help guide future spacecraft. Because Mars has very little protective atmosphere shielding it from space, there's less to slow down an incoming lander as it speeds in to the surface and more chance it will burn up. If all goes to plan, a tiny helicopter about the size of a tissue box will become the first aircraft to fly these strange skies and on another planet after Perseverance touches down. Speaking hours ahead of the launch on July 30, Allwood says the chopper, named Ingenuity, could be a gamechanger, offering not just better views for scientists but is also scouting for a future human landing party. And while Perseverance might not be hunting for living Martians, it does come with an on-board microphone to pick up any strange sounds or other-worldly music. Above: The Tianwen1 blasts off. Artists' impressions show its landing. Source: CCTV What is China's Mars mission about? Named Tianwen1, meaning Questions to Heaven, this is Chinas second go at the red planet and its most ambitious, aiming to deploy not just a rover but an orbiter and a lander too. It's hunting for signs of water and life and will survey the planets atmosphere. Advertisement Ottawa, July 31 : Four major Canadian airports have started checking passengers temperatures as a mandatory measure in an the effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, it was reported. The government said on Thursday that temperature screening stations have been set up at Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, Toronto's Pearson International Airport, Calgary International Airport, and Vancouver International Airport, reports Xinhua news agency. Under the mandate, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority has to conduct temperature checks at all passenger and employee security screening checkpoints at the four airports. Passengers with a temperature lower than 38 degrees Celsius will be able to go through the checkpoint. It added that employees who enter restricted areas of the airports will also be screened. Previously, the government only mandated temperature checks for all passengers travelling to Canada from international points of departure. For the next phase, Transport Canada said that by September, temperature screening stations will be in place in the departure areas of Canada's next 11 busiest airports, including Halifax, Quebec City, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Regina and Edmonton. The new screening measures are meant to supplement previous travel safety precautions, including a requirement for all travellers to wear face masks, a Global News Canada report said. Canada has so far reported 115,758 confirmed coronavirus cases, with 8,929 deaths. J&K BJP leaders meet PM Modi; no consensus with allies on the issue of Hindu CM Five days short of one year after abrogation Article 370, Sajad Lone is released India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, July 31: The Jammu and Kashmir administration has released People's Conference leader Sajad Lone from house detention on Friday. He was detained a year back after the Centre abrogated Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. He was lodged at the MLA hostel and later shifted to his government accommodation at Church Lane. Abrogation of Article 370: Pak government issues guidelines for kinds of words to use Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News "Finally 5 days short of a year I have been officially informed that I am a free man. So much has changed. So have I. Jail was not a new experience. Earlier ones were harsh with usual doses of physical torture. But this was psychologically draining. Much to share hopefully soon," Lone tweeted after being released. Lone, was a minister in the PDP-BJP government in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. It may be recalled that 13 leaders were released from detention in January this year, while five others had been released in December last year. Rouhani: Regional security, stability only possible through regional cooperation Iran Press TV Thursday, 30 July 2020 6:12 PM Iran's President Hassan Rouhani says establishment of security in the region is only possible through cooperation among all regional countries. "[Establishment of] security and stability in the region is only possible within the framework of regional cooperation and it is a sure thing that we can bring better conditions to the region by expanding cooperation," Rouhani said in a phone call with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, on Thursday. The president also congratulated the Qatari emir on the occasion of Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice), which is one of the greatest Islamic festivities. Rouhani's remarks concerning the importance of regional cooperation towards enhancement of collective security came amid ongoing US-led intervention here. The region has weathered almost two decades of military presence and interference by the United States and some of its allies, who have turned the hugely strategic region into a lucrative market for their incessant arms sales. Iran-Qatar ties Turning to Tehran-Doha ties, Rouhani said "as two age-old neighbors," the countries' relations stood on a positive level, insisting that the Islamic Republic faces no limit in expanding its relations with Qatar as a friendly and brotherly country. The president hoped that respective efforts by the two countries' authorities at their joint economic commission will contribute to "development and galvanization" of the bilateral economic relations and cooperation. Iran's president also expressed hope that the two countries' officials will meet in person in near future with expected betterment of the overall situation, apparently referring to the standing limitations that have been imposed by the new coronavirus pandemic. The Qatari head of state likewise felicitated the Iranian nation and government on the occasion of the religious festivity, and wished that the occasion brings along "good and blessing" for the entire Muslim community. He laid emphasis on the need for development of the countries' ties, saying Doha has invariably attached importance to promotion of its relations and cooperation with Tehran. "I hope that, by overcoming the [existing] adversities and problems, great strides will be made in the direction of further and all-out expansion of the countries' relations," he noted. Iran rushed to Qatar's assistance in 2017 by sending generous supplies of foodstuff to the tiny Persian Gulf nation after Saudi Arabia and its allies -- the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt -- severed their diplomatic and trade ties with the country. The quartet has been accusing Doha of meddling in regional affairs and supporting terrorism, something that the latter roundly rejects as unjustified and based on false claims and assumptions. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The family of indigenous inmate who died in custody are calling for manslaughter charges to be laid against the guards over his death. David Dungay Jr died in hospital at Sydney's Long Bay Jail in December 2015 after being restrained face-down by prison officers. The 26-year-old was captured on video being restrained by up to five officers from Long Bay's Immediate Action Team while he screamed 'I can't breathe' before his death. David's mother, Leetona Dungay has called for immediate action from the NSW director of public prosecutions or threatened to organise more protests despite the looming coronavirus threat. 'If we do not get any action on this, we will be calling more protests. 'Black Lives Matter. My son's life matters. We need manslaughter charges right now.' Her comments come after an explosive interview The Project on Tuesday night after the illegal Black Lives Matters protest they attended in Sydney was shut down by police before it was due to begin. Scroll down for video The family of indigenous inmate who died in police custody, Leetona Dungay (second right), and Elizabeth Jarrett (right), embrace with supporters during a press conference in Sydney The rally was organised for the family, who have been campaigning for justice since Mr Dungay died. The family slammed the police's actions earlier in the day before host Carrie Bickmore ended the interview by vowing to follow their campaign closely. 'Well, that's nice to know, Project but on behalf of my family, where have you been for the last four-and-a half-years?,' Mr Dungay's cousin Lizzie Jarrett angrily replied. She was flanked by two relatives, including Mr Dungay's emotional mum Leetona silently raised their fists in solidarity. 'Noted. Thank you,' Ms Bickmore wrapped up the interview. The family's powerful retort stunned presenters and left them in silence for several seconds before guest host Liz Ellis eventually broke the ice. 'Fascinating isn't it,' the netball legend commented. She then shared her take on the Black Lives Matter movement while praising Ms Jarrett. David Dungay Jr died in Long Bay in 2015 after being held face-down by prison officers At least five prison officers were captured on video holding down Mr Dungay as he screamed 'I can't breathe' before his death 'I think she is doing a good job to restrain herself to get the point across because it is such an emotional thing,' Ms Ellis said. 'If you haven't done it, try and have a conversation with someone who knows about it. Because as a white person, you simply really often have no idea.' Mr Dungay was in the prison hospital suffering from mental health issues and was just three weeks from being paroled when he died. NSW deputy state coroner Derek Lee found he died from cardiac arrhythmia, with factors in his death including acute stress, antipsychotic medication and type 1 diabetes. The Immediate Action Team officers were found not to be responsible for his death. David's mother, Leetona Dungay speaks to the media during a press conference in Sydney, Friday Mr Dungay's family launched a GoFundMe in 2017 to fight for justice and raise money for legal costs and an appeal to the Director of Public Prosecutions Mr Dungay's family launched a GoFundMe in 2017 to fight for justice and raise money for legal costs and an appeal to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Leading criminal barrister Phillip Boulten SC told The Guardian a 'reasonable prospect of conviction exists' of the guards involved. 'I have concluded that the evidence at the [coronial] inquest is capable of satisfying a Court beyond reasonable doubt that officers F, A and C assaulted Mr Dungay,' Boulten wrote. 'I have concluded that, in addition to evidence demonstrating that these officers assaulted the deceased, there is sufficient force in the evidence about Mr Dungay's cause of death such as to make a prosecution for manslaughter viable.' WASHINGTON - The U.S. Postal Service is experiencing days-long backlogs of mail across the country after a top Trump donor running the agency put in place new procedures described as cost-cutting efforts, alarming postal workers who warn that the policies could undermine their ability to deliver ballots on time for the November election. As President Donald Trump ramps up his unfounded attacks on mail balloting as susceptible to widespread fraud, postal employees and union officials say the changes implemented by the Trump fundraiser-turned-postmaster general Louis DeJoy are contributing to a growing perception that mail delays are the result of a political effort to undermine absentee voting. The backlog comes as the president, who is trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the polls, has escalated his efforts to cast doubt about the integrity of the November vote, which is expected to see record numbers of mail ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic. On Thursday, Trump floated the idea of delaying the Nov. 3 general election, a notion that was widely condemned by Democrats and Republicans alike. He has repeatedly gone after the Postal Service, recently suggesting that the agency cannot be trusted to deliver ballots. DeJoy, a North Carolina logistics executive who donated more than $2 million to GOP political committees in the past four years, approved a series of changes that took effect July 13 that the agency said were aimed at cutting costs for the debt-laden mail service. They included prohibiting overtime pay, shutting down sorting machines early and requiring letter carriers to leave mail behind when necessary to avoid extra trips or late delivery on routes. The new policies have resulted in at least a two-day delay in scattered parts of the country, even for express mail, according to postal workers and union leaders. Letter carriers are manually sorting more mail, adding to the delivery time. Bins of mail ready for delivery are sitting in post offices because of scheduling and route changes. And without the ability to work overtime, workers say the logjam is worsening without an end in sight. As states look to dramatically expand the use of mail-in ballots this fall, postal workers across the country said the changes could lead to chaos in November. "I'm actually terrified to see election season under the new procedure," said Lori Cash, president of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) Local 183 in Western New York. David Partenheimer, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, said the recent changes aim to stabilize the agency after decades of financial woes. The procedures are not meant to slow the delivery of ballots or any other mail, he said, adding that any problems will be short-lived. "Of course we acknowledge that temporary service impacts can occur . . . but any such impacts will be monitored and temporary," Partenheimer said. Partenheimer said claims that DeJoy takes directions from Trump are "wholly misplaced and off-base," noting that the postmaster general is appointed by a bipartisan board of governors. In a meeting with DeJoy on Thursday, the head of one of the nation's largest postal workers unions said he shared the "deep concerns" of postal workers that the new procedures are causing mounting backlogs that could affect the election. "I vehemently weighed in that this is wrong," said Mark Dimondstein, president of APWU, which represents more than 200,000 postal employees and retirees. "It's wrong for the people of the country, it's wrong for the public Postal Service. It drives away business and revenue. And it's wrong for the workers." Dimondstein said DeJoy told him that he is committed to mail voting and providing full assistance to states as they run their elections. "I plan, and the people of the country plan, to hold him to his word," the union leader added. Voters and postal workers have reported scattered problems across the country in recent days, including in key battleground states such as Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, raising concerns among residents whether their states are being targeted because of their importance in the presidential and Senate elections. In Michigan, which is gearing up for its Aug. 4 primary, election administrators said they have fielded complaints from voters who had not yet received their ballots as of this week. Election clerks are advising voters to drop off their ballots Tuesday rather than sending them back via mail, out of fear that the ballots will not be returned in time to be counted. "I don't think it's a widespread issue, but any time we get mail delayed, especially first class, or not delivered at all, it becomes a concern," said Phil Kerns, the clerk of Frankenmuth, in central Michigan. The upheaval inside the Postal Service has sparked condemnation from top Democrats. Speaking Thursday at a service memorializing the late congressman John Lewis, former president Barack Obama decried "those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting . . . even undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to an election that's going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don't get sick." And four Senate Democrats wrote to DeJoy on Thursday, demanding information about the new procedures, calling them "questionable." "Your failure to provide Congress with relevant information about these recent changes or to clarify to postal employees what changes you have directed as Postmaster General, undermines public trust and only increases concerns that service compromises will grow in advance of the election and peak mail volumes in November," wrote Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. and Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del. The delays are especially alarming given the impending flood of campaign and election mail and a potential resurgence of coronavirus cases in the fall that could lead to staff shortages, Postal Service employees said. Their frustrations have led some to dub the new postmaster "Louie DeLay" in private, several workers said. "I'm a little frightened," said a postal employee in Pennsylvania, who, like many others, spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution. "By the time political season rolls around, I shudder to think what it's going to look like." In a meeting Wednesday with Ronnie Stutts, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, DeJoy said his relationship with the president does not affect his decisions at the agency, Stutts said. "I asked him, 'Do you know that your president who you support . . . is not real high on voting by mail? He don't like that.' And he said, 'Let me tell you something. . . . My relationship with the president is not going to have anything to do with me doing my job,' " said Stutts, who said he believes the changes will make the agency more efficient. - - - Trump has repeatedly gone after the Postal Service, calling it "a joke" and demanding that it raise rates it charges companies such as Amazon. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) In recent months, the administration has sought to leverage the agency's financial woes, made worse by the pandemic and declines in profitable first- and second-class mail. On Wednesday, the Postal Service agreed to give the Treasury Department information about its private-sector contracts in exchange for a $10 billion emergency loan authorized by Congress in an early round of coronavirus relief spending. Weeks after DeJoy took over, agency officials released an internal memo announcing a "pivot" for all employees. Traditionally, postal workers are trained not to leave letters behind and to make multiple delivery trips to ensure that mail is delivered on time - which can incur extra costs in overtime hours, transportation and more. Officials laid out a shift away from this approach, saying such practices cost the organization about $200 million in added expenses, according to the memo, which was obtained by The Post. Among the changes is a new strict cutoff time in the morning for mail carriers to pick up items to deliver that day, according to several postal employees from three different states. The machines that typically sort mail and prepare them for pickup by carriers are being shut down earlier in some areas to cut costs, requiring carriers to sort more mail by hand once they arrive in the morning. That means any mail that is not ready by cutoff time waits at least another day. And if there is any error in hand-sorted mail, it needs to be rerouted to another carrier - which could lead to three to four days of delay. As a result of these changes, guaranteed shipping dates are not being met, the employees said. "This is forced. These are things that don't have to happen," said one worker from Pennsylvania. Cash, who works in Lancaster, N.Y., said her post office is about two days behind its normal processing time. "The cardinal rule is: Don't delay the mail; and we're in a 180-degree switch where we're delaying mail every day," she said, adding that if the system is not fixed before election season, "it's going to be a catastrophe at the post office." Partenheimer said that the agency is not slowing down mail, but that it is "reemphasizing" plans that are meant to make the Postal Service more prompt and reliable. Stutts said he is confident the changes under DeJoy will make the agency more efficient and financially stable, and that concerns about delays are exaggerated and premature. "What he is putting in place, I want to give the man an opportunity to do what he's wanting to do," Stutts said. "You're really not delaying anything. What you're doing is, you're running an efficient operation." Stutts said that agency officials have said they plan to keep the new procedures in place as a trial for about 30 to 60 days. The Postal Service did not respond to a request about its timeline. - - - The mail delay comes as election officials across the country are struggling to process a crush of absentee ballots driven by the pandemic. A delay in delivering ballots to voters and then returning them back to election officials could cause people to be disenfranchised - especially in states that require ballots to be returned by Election Day, voting rights experts warn. Tens of thousands of ballots across the country have been disqualified in this year's primaries, many because they did not arrive in time. In Wisconsin, 2,659 ballots that were returned after the April 13 deadline for the spring primary were not counted due to their late arrival, according to the state election commission. In California, 70,330 ballots were disqualified because they missed the deadline, according to an Associated Press analysis. Ballots are typically sorted by hand and prioritized by postal workers so they can be sure that they are delivered on time, USPS employees said. The current backlogs are becoming so dire that if the new procedures remain in place, workers may not be able to locate all the ballots in time for them to be processed, they said. "If they keep this up until the election, there's no telling how many days' worth of delays there could be. I mean, we'll be delivering political mail days after the election," said a postal worker from California. Some election officials said they have already heard from voters anxious about delayed ballots for the primaries. Kerns, the city clerk in Frankenmuth, Mich., which has a population of 5,400, said several voters earlier this week told him that they were still waiting for their ballots for Tuesday's primary - they had been mailed on July 10 and 13. Election officials across the country are warning voters to send their general-election ballots as early as possible to avoid potential delays. The Postal Service recommends that voters request their ballots at least 15 days before Election Day and mail their completed ballots at least one week before the due date. "Don't wait for covid numbers to start rising and go like, 'Oh my gosh, I'm not going to the polls, I'm going to vote from home,' " Kerns said. "Just anticipate now that we'll probably see an upsurge as people come closer together, the weather gets colder, so you might as well just plan now to vote by mail." Partenheimer, the Postal Service spokesman, said delivery standards for election mail have not changed. He urged election officials and voters to be aware of the time it takes to prepare and deliver ballots. Several voters who said they have recently experienced mail delays said they are growing increasingly anxious about whether their ballots will be delivered in time this fall. "I'm concerned that when it comes time for the election in the fall, that Trump and Republicans . . . would be willing to manipulate the mail even, so that votes don't get in," said Nancy Di Giacinto, a 67-year-old retiree in Brookfield, Wisc., west of Milwaukee. Di Giacinto has asthma, and said she will vote by mail for fear of the virus. "I'm worried," she said. "I don't know if my vote was counted last time, and especially in the fall, I need to make sure my vote is counted." The business model works because doctors examine a large number of patients in a relatively short period and that too remotely Among the technologies that are changing our world today, perhaps none is as transformative as telemedicine. Telemedicine makes it possible to bring world-class medical care to every corner of the world. The technology is especially needed in India, where there is only one doctor for every 1500 (approx) people. In comparison, the doctor to population ratio in the US is one doctor for 300 (approx) people. Telemedicine is also the need of the hour in India because residents of smaller Indian cities and towns dont have access to quality healthcare. Residents of such areas often travel to larger cities when they need medical attention. The vision behind telemedicine A leading telemedicine clinic in India was born when a young man was injured in a road accident. As the accident occurred in a rural region, he could only be treated by doctors in the surrounding areas. During his treatment, he moved to Bareilly. Unfortunately late but his case caught the attention of one of the leading doctors in New Delhi. The doctor agreed to treat the young man in New Delhi, but due to the delay in the treatment, this young man had an irreparable damage to his leg. This incident led to a paradigm shift in the mind of the accident victim. He realised that there were lakhs of people in India who did not have access to sound medical care. Acting on the belief that proper medical attention should be available to all, he worked towards building upon the vision of having a physical brick and mortar model of telemedicine clinics across India. Since the establishment of his first telemedicine clinic, there has been no looking back. Telemedicine clinics managed by him have been opened in numerous towns across India and have served tens of thousands of people. How telemedicine works A telemedicine clinic is like any conventional medical clinic except for one thing; in a telemedicine clinic, patients are examined by a doctor over a computer kiosk. Hundreds or thousands of kilometres may separate the doctor and patient; however, the doctor can see, talk, and listen to the patient. While e-clinics certainly bring quality and advanced healthcare to every part of India, they are also backed up by a robust business model. Such clinics, despite being less expensive to establish than traditional clinics, are equally or more profitable than regular clinics. The business model behind e-clinics A telemedicine provider partners with doctors who practice in the most significant urban areas; such physicians may practice in leading hospitals like Medanta, Fortis, or Artemis. Once a doctor is impanelled , he or she regularly consults with patients who visit e-clinics. The doctor connects with patients over a computer terminal that allows him or her to see, speak, and listen to patients. Because the physician can do everything that could be done in a face to face OPD, they can serve patients as well as or better than they can be treated in traditional clinics. The business model works because doctors examine a large number of patients in a relatively short period and that too remotely. The success of the business model also has to do with how the masses perceive such clinics. In most areas where e-clinics have been created, they have won the public over. Residents of small towns and cities do not view such clinics as novelties but rather as the preferred place to visit when they need medical attention. Another reason that e-clinics are so affordable is that such clinics can be created in record time. Establishing an e-clinic takes just a few days. A reason for this is that such clinics dont need the kind of physical infrastructure a traditional clinic does. Every facility that is provided by the e-clinic is at the physicians; end. Hence, the only input cost of an e-clinic is that of a building, necessary infrastructure, and facilitator. Telemedicine can also help to bridge the healthcare divide that separates those living in small towns, cities and villages in India from those living in urban regions. For instance, many people in rural India do not know how to use their smartphones fully. Hence they are unable to use apps designed to provide remote healthcare. Telemedicine bridges this digital divide. When patients visit a brick and mortar telemedicine clinic, they benefit not only from being examined by the doctor in such clinics but also from the remote healthcare infrastructure found online. Since their birth, e-clinics have proven their efficacy. Patients treated at e-clinics enjoy a higher rate of recovery than those treated by doctors in surrounding areas. Furthermore, e- clinics are far more affordable than traditional clinics. An OPD at an e-clinic cost nearly halfas much as an OPD in a regular clinic. Across India and especially in rural areas, telemedicine is helping bridge the healthcare gap. Those who live in small towns and cities in India are flocking to telemedicine clinics when they fall ill because, for the first time, they have the benefit of being examined by the worlds best caregivers. The technology and concept behind telemedicine are so robust that e-clinics are popping up all over the world. In areas where there is a lack of doctors, e-clinics serve entire communities. In short, the story of telemedicine is just beginning. Ayush Mishra, Founder and CEO, Tattvan, Gurugram FREDERICTONNew Brunswick is opening its bubble by allowing some Quebec residents who live near the border to visit for day trips starting Aug 1. Residents of the Avignon and Temiscouata regions and Listuguj First Nation will be able to enter New Brunswick without having to self-isolate for 14 days as long as they dont stay the night. Premier Blaine Higgs said Thursday those border residents must preregister before travelling and anyone who fails to do that will be turned away. New Brunswick is currently part of whats called the Atlantic bubble, which allows Atlantic Canadians to travel within the region without having to quarantine for two weeks. We have some really solid safeguards in place, Higgs told reporters. Not only are these only day passes but you have to register in advance so we know where you are. And theres a questionnaire to be filled out so we know what activities youve been participating in. For instance, the premier said, Quebecers wishing to enter New Brunswick must attest to not having travelled outside their communities during the previous two weeks. He said the government is relying on the integrity of people to tell the truth. But Peoples Alliance Leader Kris Austin said Thursday hes against the idea. Quebec residents who live by the New Brunswick border or their contacts, could have travelled to hot spots like Montreal and bring COVID-19 into the province, he said. New Brunswick has had 170 cases of COVID-19, two of which are active. The province has also reported two deaths attributed to the coronavirus. Higgs said his province isnt ready to open its borders to the rest of Canada, but said allowing limited travel for certain Quebecers is a small move in that direction. We know this is not unique, Higgs explained. This is something that Labrador and Quebec have been doing for some time now. It is very restricted in the area were speaking of, so its not like were opening to all of Quebec, were opening to this region only. Quebec residents along the border have been calling on the New Brunswick government to ease travel restrictions, which have prevented them from seeing relatives and friends. Businesses have also complained about a significant loss of revenue. Read more about: NEW YORK CITY (dpa-AFX) - Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and BioNTech SE (BNTX) announced Friday an agreement with the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) in Japan to supply 120 million doses of BNT162 mRNA-based vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV2, subject to clinical success and regulatory approval, beginning in 2021. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed, but the terms were based on the timing of delivery and the volume of doses. As requested by the Government of Japan, deliveries of the vaccine candidate are planned for the first half of 2021. The BNT162 program is based on BioNTech's proprietary mRNA technology and supported by Pfizer's global vaccine development and manufacturing capabilities. The vaccine development program is evaluating at least four experimental vaccine candidates, each of which represents a unique combination of messenger RNA (mRNA) format and target antigen. Recently, two of the companies' four investigational vaccine candidates - BNT162b1 and BNT162b2 - received Fast Track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Assuming clinical success, Pfizer and BioNTech are on track to seek regulatory review for BNT162b2 as early as October 2020 and plan to supply up to 100 million doses worldwide by the end of 2020 and approximately 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021. 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. Advertisement Having something to look forward to is what we all need right now. And, despite our summer holidays being all but ruined, long-haul trips later this year and into next year look like a much safer bet and there are some astonishing deals. Book with a package holiday provider, such as the ones we suggest below, and youll be guaranteed a refund or the opportunity to re-book should a coronavirus outbreak happen either here or abroad. Many of these countries have few cases and are welcoming tourists with open arms. Caribbean Travel restrictions can vary between islands in the Caribbean. 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No-go countries Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, USA, Brazil, India, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Indonesia. Press release Regulated information 30 July 2020, 17:00 CEST IRVINE, CA, and HERSTAL, BELGIUM 30 July 2020 MDxHealth SA (Euronext Brussels: MDXH) (the "Company" or "MDxHealth"), a commercial-stage innovative molecular diagnostics company, today held a special general shareholders' meeting ("SGM") and an extraordinary general shareholders' meeting ("EGM"). The items on the agenda of the SGM and EGM included the proposed appointment of Regine Slagmulder BV, represented by Dr. Regine Slagmulder as permanent representative, and Dr. Eric Bednarski as new directors and change in the directors' remuneration, as well as the renewal of the authorisation to the board of directors to increase the share capital within the framework of the authorised capital and the adoption of an amended and restated version of the articles of associations in accordance with the provisions of the Belgian Companies and Associations Code and reflecting some technical changes. Exceptionally, and in accordance with the Belgian Royal Decree no. 4 of 9 April 2020 on miscellaneous provisions relating to co-ownership and corporate and association law in the context of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the SGM and EGM were held behind closed doors without the physical presence of the holders of securities of the Company and their representatives. The minutes of the SGM and EGM as well as the documents that were submitted to the meetings can be accessed via the Companys website. About MDxHealth MDxHealth is a multinational healthcare company that provides actionable molecular diagnostic information to personalize the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The Company's tests are based on proprietary genetic, epigenetic (methylation) and other molecular technologies and assist physicians with the diagnosis of urologic cancers, prognosis of recurrence risk, and prediction of response to a specific therapy. The Company's European headquarters are in Herstal, Belgium, with laboratory operations in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and US headquarters and laboratory operations based in Irvine, California. For more information, visit mdxhealth.com and follow us on social media at: twitter.com/mdxhealth, facebook.com/mdxhealth and linkedin.com/company/mdxhealth. Story continues For more information: MDxHealth info@mdxhealth.com Important information The MDxHealth logo, MDxHealth, ConfirmMDx and SelectMDx are trademarks or registered trademarks of MDxHealth SA (the "Company" or "MDxHealth"). All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. This press release contains forward-looking statements and estimates with respect to the anticipated future performance of MDxHealth and the market in which it operates. Such statements and estimates are based on assumptions and assessments of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which were deemed reasonable but may not prove to be correct. Actual events are difficult to predict, may depend upon factors that are beyond the Company's control, and may turn out to be materially different. MDxHealth expressly disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements in this release to reflect any change in its expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based unless required by law or regulation. Attachment She says that once she wasnt showered for four days. Her bed is often left unmade and the curtains not closed. One day her cornflakes were served on a plate instead of in a bowl. Mcqueen says workers are supposed to change their gloves, gowns and masks every time they leave a residents room but the guy who delivered lunch didnt change. She worries that staff are disposing of personal protective equipment in the bin in her room. I said I dont want that in my bin, I dont know what germs are there. The bins should be out in the hall. Arcare CEO Colin Singh said it had employed a full-time infection control specialist in February when it first became aware of the pandemic, who had been working closely with the Craigieburn facility. All of our members are required to wear full PPE and have completed training in the donning and doffing of PPE and infection control, he said. The requirement as to when to change PPE depends upon the task that is performed. Singh said PPE needed to be disposed of in a clinical waste bin inside the residents suite as it was viewed as potentially infectious or confirmed infectious whereas the halls were viewed as non-infectious. Last week Mcqueen cried and cried. I think I am all cried out now. You just dont know what to do. Its very lonely. Its very scary. She is not alone in this ordeal. Elderly people across the state face a petrifying lockdown as the coronavirus rampages out of control in nursing homes. There are now 928 active cases and at least 61 deaths linked to more than 90 aged care facilities in Victoria. Premier Daniel Andrews has warned more people will die and the consequences could not be more grave. This week he announced Victoria would intervene in the crisis, despite private facilities being funded and regulated by the Commonwealth. Loading Some of the stories weve seen are unacceptable and I wouldnt want my mum in some of these places, Andrews said. He cancelled all non-urgent elective surgery and said residents would be transferred to hospital from facilities where the government had no confidence in infection control". At St Basils Home for the Aged in Fawkner - which has now been linked to 124 COVID-19 cases - the entire workforce was placed in quarantine for the first time in Australias history at the behest of the Victorian government. The Commonwealth was forced to hastily assemble a replacement team. It struggled to cope amid a shortage of staff, with horrific stories emerging of faeces in beds and residents dehydrated and hungry. Desperate families were left in the dark about their loved ones as some residents died and others were evacuated to hospital. St Basil's Home for the Aged in Fawkner. Credit:Joe Armao What went so wrong? Why were Victorian nursing homes caught flat-footed when COVID-19 outbreaks in aged care had been the canary in the coalmine all over the world? The global picture According to an analysis by the Burnet Institute, more than 40 per cent of all COVID-19 deaths in the United States have been staff or residents in nursing homes. This figure jumps to 58 per cent in Israel and Norway and 66 per cent in Spain. Canada has the highest proportion in the world, with 81 per cent of all COVID-19 deaths in aged care centres. (The OECD average is 42 per cent.) University of Toronto researchers blamed overcrowding, staffing shortages and a lack of personal protective equipment and testing at nursing homes. There have also been warnings closer to home with deadly outbreaks at the Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch House aged care facilities in Sydney. The question I ask everyday of myself and everyone else is why were we not better prepared? says Professor Michael Toole, an epidemiologist from the Burnet Institute. Toole points to Hong Kong, which reported no outbreaks in nursing homes until July, when the city experienced its third wave of the virus. He says Hong Kong, which has a population of 7.5 million, learned a tough lesson from the outbreak of SARS in 2003 which killed 300 people there. Nursing home residents were more likely than the general public to get SARS and 78 per cent of infected residents died. Immediately after the 2003 outbreak the Hong Kong government announced every nursing home had to have a dedicated government-trained infection control officer and at least a months supply of face masks and personal protective equipment. Loading After an outbreak in two aged care homes in July, Dr Leung Chi-chiu, chairman of the Hong Kong Medical Association's advisory committee on communicable diseases, said all care homes should immediately avoid sharing staff or even rotating them across different floors within an institution. He was quoted in the South China Morning Post saying he was not opposed to on-site quarantine for care home residents, as moving them around might increase cross-infection risks. However he said it was important that care homes had contained transmission before allowing on-site quarantine. Anglicare CEO Grant Millard has said if he could have his time again he would have sent all Newmarch Houses COVID-positive residents to hospital after the calamity resulted in 19 deaths. Toole says Australia should have learned from Hong Kong, especially after the Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch House catastrophes. We had that window of opportunity between April and July. Its not rocket science - its just keeping the virus from getting from infected people to uninfected people. We dont want to go the way of Canada. The question of transfer The Burnet Institute recommends that if a resident tests positive - and the aged care home cannot effectively isolate them - they should be transferred to a hospital, even if asymptomatic. This has been a constant source of tension during the crisis. Loading Only South Australia has adopted a state-wide policy of sending COVID-positive residents immediately to hospital a measure that is backed by the aged care provider groups. Federal Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck said residents who test positive are moved out of aged care and into hospital, except in circumstances when medical advice is that they remain in place because moving them could cause significant distress, such as residents with acute dementia. "In these particular cases, COVID-positive residents are placed in separated cohorts within the facility from COVID-negative residents." Glendale aged care facility in Werribee - which has now been linked to 58 cases - and St Basils both initially had their pleas for COVID-positive residents to be transferred to hospital refused by the Victorian government. 'Will torment me for years': Jayne Erdevicki with her father Boro Petkovic, who died of COVID-19 at St Basil's Home for the Aged in Fawkner. Jayne Erdevicki, whose father Boro Petkovic tested positive to COVID-19 at St Basils, says the doctor told her on July 21 that transferral to hospital was not an option. He told me if he needed oxygen and fluid it might prove difficult because it wasnt an option to send him to hospital. I didnt understand why not - of course I would have wanted him to get the best care. He didnt say why. Under the circumstances I was a bit shocked. Erdevicki would never find out the reason her father could not be transferred to hospital. The following day St Basils staff were sent home to isolate and the phone rang out when she tried again and again to get through. I rang and rang all of Wednesday [July 22], I wanted to know whats his symptoms, is he getting worse or is he OK? On July 23 at midnight she was called by one of the replacement staff, who informed her father had passed. I started screaming and crying: Why couldnt someone call? She said: Havent you organised everything?' I just felt like she was pushing me to get the body out of there like he was a piece of rubbish to be disposed of. She also had the audacity to ask me if we were close, when I used to visit my father three times a week. What sort of a question is that? That phone call will torment me for years to come. Colbeck said the Commonwealth had to come in overnight and pull together a workforce that didn't know the residents or St Basil's. "The situation there was completely dire and some very unacceptable things occurred," he told Channel 7's Sunrise. "I know people are upset, they are worried, they are angry. Nobody could predict an entire workforce of a facility was going to be entirely knocked out. That was a decision made by the DHHS ... we have since discussed it with them and something like that won't happen again." Lessons learned - and overlooked The first major aged care facility outbreak in Australia was at Dorothy Henderson Lodge in Sydney, with the first case diagnosed on March 3. Altogether 17 residents were infected and five died. Clinical Professor Gwendolyn Gilbert, the former director of infection control for the Western Sydney local health district, says the outbreak provided important lessons. The most important of these was the need for early, ongoing leadership by facility management and guidance from an experienced infection control professional. The COVID-19 outbreak, in Australia, has highlighted a widespread lack of infection prevention and control competence and confidence among healthcare and residential aged care facility workers, she wrote in an article published in The Medical Journal of Australia. Professor Joseph Ibrahim, the head of the Health Law and Ageing Research Unit at Monash University, says the federal government set up an online course on infection control in response to the pandemic. Professor Joseph Ibrahim. Credit:Jason South No one should have ever thought that was enough, Ibrahim says. Donning and doffing personal protective equipment is at least a 10-step procedure. You dont learn to drive a car by watching someone driving. About 70 per cent of aged care workers are only qualified with a Certificate III, which requires as little as six weeks' training. What happens is people come to Australia to study and the easiest way to get a job is to do a six-week course and work in aged care, says one worker at a Melbourne nursing home who asked not to be named. You can teach someone to make a coffee and serve meals but you cant teach someone how to care for an elderly person in six weeks. Ibrahim says the aged care system in Australia was in trouble long before the pandemic. The government knew it, the Royal Commission knew it, the whole bloody world knew it. Why would you expect a failing system to perform really well under stress from an external disaster? You cant expect the kid frying chips at KFC to fill in for Heston Blumenthal at a three-star restaurant. Aged Care Matters director Dr Sarah Russell. Credit: The Aged Care Royal Commission last year found the system failed to meet the needs of the elderly and was unkind and uncaring towards them. Its interim report, Neglect, said the sector suffered from severe difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff. Pay and conditions were poor and education and training patchy. Premier Daniel Andrews has said "a bunch" of aged care workers are among those going to work when sick or while waiting for test results, which has seen community transmission burgeon. "Let's not judge them, he said. Lets try to work out what is driving it. Dr Sarah Russell, the director of Aged Care Matters, says many casuals, who earn as little as $22 an hour, cannot afford not to work. She said they move between aged care homes, increasing the risk of transmission between homes. Im really disgusted we didnt learn from Newmarch House about the importance of teaching staff about infection control and having clinically trained staff in aged care homes, Russell says. She says there are no mandated staff-to-resident ratios in private aged care homes, which means some operate without a registered nurse on site 24 hours a day. By contrast, she says, the state-owned nursing homes - which make up 180 of the 770 aged care facilities in Victoria - have prescribed ratios of registered nurses. We have had years to get this right, Russell says. Its so sad this has happened. Royal Freemasons has had a COVID-19 outbreak at its Gregory Lodge aged care home in Flemington, with five staff and 23 residents testing positive. Chief executive officer Kerri Rivett said staffing shortages had been an industry issue before COVID-19. Now, with infected staff and their close contacts in isolation, it was a real struggle to find aged care workers. We have found we are unable to fill all the shifts that are required, Rivett said. The surge workforce provided by the Commonwealth is fantastic, however they dont have enough either. She said the Federal Governments supply of personal protective equipment had been slow to arrive and Royal Freemasons had had to purchase its own, which was extremely expensive. Everyone is just overwhelmed because of the number of cases we have had in residential facilities. 'You can't claim this is a shock' Colbeck said $234.9 million was being allocated for a COVID-19 bonus to assist providers in retaining staff and further funding would be made available to ensure workers were supported to work at a single site. Victoria has also announced a $300 payment for those isolating while waiting on test results and a $1500 quarantine payment to encourage people - including aged care workers - not to work if sick. Ibrahim, who was named one of Good Weekends 2019 People who Matter for exposing the "astonishing" truth behind some nursing home deaths, said Australias initial response to the pandemic appeared to prioritise intensive care beds. He believes the focus should have been on aged care and a national taskforce of experts should have been set up by March at the latest. You cant claim this is a shock, he says. It was pretty obvious when you looked overseas what the problems would be. Ibrahim believes the COVID-19 preparedness of every aged care facility in Australia should be evaluated. (Colbeck says they are already required to have infection control measures and a COVID-19 outbreak plan.) Ibrahim also wants independent officers - such as ADF personnel - to be appointed to liaise with homes in Victoria every week, allowing nursing home managers to raise any concerns they might have frankly and honestly. The Victorian Aged Care Response Centre has now been established to coordinate the crisis, something critics such as Ibrahim argue is long overdue. Cheryl Mcqueen was tested for the fifth time in a fortnight on Wednesday. She is still waiting for the results. Every time they do it, it gets harder. A mother of an inmate in Midlands Prison in Portlaoise was arrested and charged after drugs were found smuggled in the sole of a running shoe that she was bringing to her son. Lithuanian native Ramute Kizelaviciene, from 9 Knockturna, Castleblaney, Monaghan, appeared before Portlaoise District Court last Thursday, July 23. Sgt JJ Kirby read out evidence of the offence that took place a year ago on July 20 2019. She entered Midlands Prison and had a bag of clothes to give to staff to give to her son. In the sole of the left runner there was a plastic bag of cannabis worth 100, he said. Defence solicitor Philip Meagher said that his client did not realise what was in the package. She is aged 55, in Ireland for 13 years. She has two sons and one is serving a lengthy seven year sentence for a sexual offence. She would say that she did not realise what was happening when the package was sent in, he said. He said that the mother had been asked for money by her son but she and her partner are not working and so they could not accommodate his request. An acquaintance turned up at the house with items of clothing and asked her to send them. The drugs were sealed in the sole quite elaborately. She has never come to attention before and admits her mistake, Mr Meagher said. Judge Catherine Staines convicted Ms Kizelaviciene and fined her 200. You want to be a good grandparent. Therefore, you might have thought about whether or not you should co-sign grandchildrens student loans. Or perhaps theyve already asked you to co-sign, and youre trying to make a decision about it. While its certainly a nice idea, it might not be the best thing for either of you. Here are ten reasons not to co-sign grandchildrens student loans. 1. It Encourages Private Loans Federal student loans dont typically require a co-signer. Notably, these are usually the best available student loans. Therefore, your grandchild should be trying to get those federal loans first. More often than not, those loans will cover college costs. If you quickly agree to co-sign grandchildrens student loans, then youre encouraging them to get private loans, which they might not need at all. 2. It Discourages Hard Work In addition to federal student loans, there are a lot of other ways for your grandchildren to fund college. Options include: Applying for grants and scholarships. Working part-time including on-campus jobs to supplement loans. Working full-time for a year or two to save up for college. Choosing a less expensive college or hacking their education. When you readily agree to sign their loans, you take the hard work out of it for them. You dont give them the opportunity to figure out different options. This can be a disservice to them down the line when they have to think their way creatively out of other financial challenges, but havent had the practice in doing so. 3. It Affects Grandparents Credit When you co-sign a loan, you guarantee that the borrower will repay that loan. That shows up on your own credit report. It impacts your ability to borrow money. Therefore, you want to think very carefully before you co-sign your grandchildrens student loans. After all, your grandchildren are still young adults. They likely arent that responsible with their money yet. It wouldnt be unheard of for them to make late payments or to skip payments altogether. Youve worked your whole life to establish your credit history. Do you want them to ruin it for you now? Remember, also, that even if they make all of the payments on time, the loan may still impact your credit score. It adds to your total overall debt. 4. You Cant Afford It Of course, you want to help your grandchildren go to college. However, can you truly afford to help them? If you can afford to help them outright, then its better to gift or loan the money to them directly. If you cant afford to do that, then you probably also cant afford to co-sign grandchildrens student loans. After all, thats the same thing as taking out that loan for yourself. Can you afford that at this late stage in your life? Are you truly comfortable with that? Would you do it to go back to school yourself? 5. It Can Circumvent the Parent-Child Relationship If your child needs someone to co-sign their student loans for them, then they might first look to their parents (your children or children-in-law). If their parents said no, there could be a good reason. If you turn around and say, well Ill do it then you might be circumventing the parents efforts. Depending on your family situation, dynamics, and configuration, this could be an important reason not to co-sign grandchildrens student loans. 6. Parents Have Better Loan Options than Grandparents If the grandchildrens parents are involved in their lives and willing to help, its better for them to explore loan options before you do. Thats because there are some terrific loans set up for the parents of college students. PLUS loans are the obvious example. These options arent typically available to grandparents. If your family is going to support the younger generation through college, a grandparent as co-signer is really a last resort. 7. Your Grandchild Is Only One Family Member Everyone is facing tough financial times right now. That means any one of your family members might need financial help. If you put all of your eggs in one basket by co-signing on a grandchilds student loans, then you might not be able to assist other family members as needed. Your other grandchildren, your children, your siblings, and your own parents, if theyre still alive, may all need financial help. Where do you want to put your money? 8. It Puts Your Health at Risk Dallas News reports on statistics from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that show that co-signing on a grandchilds student loans often puts the grandparent into a precarious financial position. They are more likely than others in the same age group to skip medicine and doctors visits. And yet, if debt causes stress, they made need those doctor visits more than ever before. If you arent in a financial position to lend money directly to your grandchildren then chances are that you shouldnt co-sign grandchildrens student loans either. 9. It Will Likely Affect Your Retirement Investopedia reports that older people with student loan debt often end up working later instead of retiring when they originally planned. Moreover, about one-third of baby boomers report that theyve either delayed accruing retirement income or taken out retirement income early due to those loans. Its important to think about your own financial future first. Your grandchild has many years left to figure theirs out. But do you? 10. It May Change Your Relationship When you think about co-signing for the loan, you imagine your grandchilds gratitude. You are happy to help them out. But its important to recognize that this might not be the reality. Your grandchild might drop out of college. They might default on the loan. They might not be as grateful to you as you would think. All of this can have a drastic negative impact on the relationship that you have with your grandchild. And what if you have more than one grandchild? Are you going to co-sign for all of them? If not, how does that impact your relationship with each grandchild? These are questions to take lightly. Your familial relationships are important. There are other ways for your grandchildren to fund college. There arent other grandchildren for you to have relationships with. Read More: If you enjoy reading our blog posts and would like to try your hand at blogging, we have good news for you; you can do exactly that on Saving Advice. Just click here to get started. If you want to be able to customize your blog on your own domain and need hosting service, we recommend trying BlueHost. They offer powerful hosting services for $3.95/month! Oregon environmental regulators are requiring the city of Portland to test stormwater around the federal courthouse and parts of downtown, citing the unprecedented amount of tear gas used by local and federal law enforcement agencies since May. The Department of Environmental Quality sent a letter Thursday to Portlands Bureau of Environmental Quality outlining its expectations. The city must send a monitoring plan to state officials within the next three weeks describing how it will monitor for specific heavy metals and chemicals that regulators believe are likely associated with CS gas, a strong form of toxic tear gas used against protesters for months. City officials said they are aware of the letter and are working in conjunction with the state to do more than just monitor for the roughly half dozen metals required by the state. Diane Dulken, a spokesperson for the sewer and stormwater agency, said Portland is working to prevent the pollutants from getting into the Willamette River. She said the agency regularly tests for contaminants at locations along the river but will now test specifically near the courthouse, two public parks and Justice Center due to the extensive tear gas used there. But Portland also raised an alarm bell: It doesnt know much about tear gas or its residue, and it said those materials are likely already in the sewer system. Dulken noted that tear gas residue is in the trees, on the ground and likely throughout the area near the courthouse and justice center, which has been the centerpiece of nightly protests for months. Maybe these materials arent hazardous, maybe they are, Dulken said. Were researching that. There isnt a lot of information. The letter is just one of many tear gas related developments wafting through political circles, from Salem to Portland to Washington DC. It landed the same day that Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler apologized for the city police bureaus indiscriminate use of tear gas in late May or June during months of racial justice protests and demonstrations. Wheeler oversees both the Police and Bureau of Environmental Services, which operates the citys sewer and stormwater system. In Salem, lawmakers discussed a bill that would prevent law enforcement agencies across the state from using chemical incapacitants like tear gas. The legislation would create an exemption for a single less-noxious gas, pepper spray, under certain circumstances and with sufficient announcements. And U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer and state Rep. Karin Power, the Milwaukie legislator who chairs the states House Energy and Environment Committee, on Thursday sent a letter to state and federal environmental leaders asking a series of health and policy questions related to gases police use for crowd control. While we work to stop the use of these gases altogether, they wrote in a letter to the heads of the state DEQ and federal Environmental Protection Agency, we are also seeking greater transparency about what chemicals have been deployed to date against protesters in Portland, and potential impacts on human health, wildlife, aquatic life, and local air and water quality. The Democratic politicians said they want to know the number of tear gas cartridges fired, how many were beyond their expiration date and what agency will pay for associated cleanup. They demanded a response by Aug. 6. Late Wednesday night, on their last night in charge of policing protests at the courthouse, federal law enforcement and border security officials again launched tear gas across a swath of city parks and streets surrounding the downtown Portland federal courthouse. Tear gas clouds stretched across the entirety of Lownsdale Square and enveloped broad sections of Southwest Third and Fourth avenues. Protesters wore gas masks, goggles, helmets and poured milk into the eyes of those in the thickest areas of tear gas clouds. The gas stings, burns and irritates exposed skin. OPB this week documented dozens of instances in which woman exposed to the gas subsequently had irregular menstrual cycles. Harry Esteve, a spokesperson for the state environment agency, said the city will likely have to wait until it rains to get reliable test results. According to the National Weather Service, Portlands last measurable rainfall, three-hundredths of an inch, occurred July 7. The state is asking Portland to collect and analyze stormwater for chromium, hexavalent chromium, lead, zinc, copper, barium and perchlorate. Most of those substances are toxic to humans at even at extremely low levels. Were taking a close look at the situation, Esteve said. Police use tear gas and stun grenades on a group of protesters in downtown Portland on Tuesday night, June 3. The group of several hundred marching through downtown Portland broke from a crowd of thousands that had gathered in Pioneer Square. Protests continued for a sixth night in Portland, demonstrating against the death of George Floyd, a black man killed by police in Minneapolis. Brooke Herbert / StaffBrooke Herbert/The Oregonian Following the monitoring request, Portland must submit a report that includes comparisons to previous tests at the same locations. The state called for the monitoring under the stormwater permit it issued to the city. Portland police have used tear gas on demonstrators for years, although never with the frequency that federal and local officers have deployed it this spring and summer. Since July 24, the state fielded 160 official complaints about the gas, Esteve said, plus additional outreach through social media. Those complaints center on concerns for health and the environment. Esteve said that CS gas, a form of which has been used on Portland streets for months, is not considered a federal hazardous substance. He said DEQ wont analyze the public health effects of recent tear gas apart from looking at its effects on stormwater runoff, which leads to the Willamette River, saying that is not something that we regulate. He said the potential public health impacts are a matter for the Oregon Health Authority to address. The thing about tear gas is it dissipates pretty quickly, so its not something that we would respond to like a spill or something like that, Esteve said. Jonathan Modie, a spokesperson with the Oregon Health Authority, cited the fact that CS gas is considered toxic by the Centers for Disease Control. Modie referred to federal documents, which indicate people exposed to the gas should as quickly as possible wash their skin with large amounts of soap and water if they are exposed. The CDC states that long-lasting exposure to riot control agents like tear gas in closed spaces could lead to blindness or respiratory failure possibly resulting in death. 2/2 Protecting river quality means protecting against pollutants. Storm drains are for rain only. Pressure washing with water is okay. With other substances - nope. Video: apparently illicit cleaning with soapy substance at SW 3rd and Main Street pic.twitter.com/exKZXKeFLl BESPortland (@BESPortland) July 27, 2020 Dulken, the city spokeswoman, said the agency received information that federal officers were hosing down the streets outside the federal courthouse, spraying the residue into storm drains. That is not allowed, she said, but it was done. She said her agency is investigating how it can prevent the tear gas residue thats already in the system from being flushed into the river when rain comes. Dulken said its not unusual for the bureau to sample stormwater and test for five of the metals included in the state letter, but she said the bureau doesnt test for hexavalent chromium or perchlorate. She did not have immediate information regarding how frequently the bureau samples in general, but said testing occurs more frequently during the rainy season. On Friday, crews are expected to examine storm drains near the Justice Center. Dulken said crews will try to take advantage of the dry weather to find residue and clean it out. That residue will likely flush into the sewers and Willamette River when the rain comes. Portland, Dulken said, is in uncharted territory. No other city has had so much tear gas deployed over an extended period of time. -- Andrew Theen; atheen@oregonian.com; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. Nava Vision, offers an excellent learning platform to knowledge seekers in areas of schooling Education Both Academics and Non-Academics, Teacher Training and Skill developmental programs and teacher development program. It is certified by Government of Karnataka and funded under the start-up scheme of the Government of India. The company was started with three major domains Abacus, Vedic Mathematics and Quick Maths. At present, we are dealing with 12 major domains of Non-Academic subjects -Abacus, Vedic Mathematics, Quick Mathematics, Math Club, English club, Science Club, E & E Club, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Unplug Coding and Coding Using Python Language. Cyber Literacy was one of the focus aspects of Nava Vision. It launched Cyber Literacy to teach the kids about online safety habits to make them take smart digital decision and to secure data. This module of learning involved 12 experiments which demonstrate practically various types of hacking using cyber kit. Venkatesh S Bijapur, the founder and CEO of Nava Vision envisioned starting an education venture in Bengaluru. This led to the inception of the company in 2015 along with Srideepa Adapa and Bharti Trivedi. Venkatesh had a strong ideology based on the theory of Twelve Multiple Intelligences that any child can conquer the world. He was also nominated for India 5000 Best MSME Award 2018 for his dedication and hard work in building Nava Vision. There is another unique program namely Unplug Coding which teaches the child the logic of programming without using a computer. Nava Visions School Education Program has been exclusively designed for students between the age group from 4+ to 15 years (LKG to 10th standard). Its programs are conducted in schools, B.Ed. Colleges, Teachers Training and Franchise centres. Nava Vision conducts all these programs with well-designed work books, work sheets, Manuals and booklets with QR Code and Kits with all materials. Science Club and E & E Club includes 16 Experiments and 2 group activities in each level. Many of our text books contain copywrite content. We have 3 publishers namely Notion Press from Chennai, Bluerose Publishers from Delhi and 24/7 Publishers from Kolkata. Our books are widely sold in Amazon, Flipkart ande-books are also available. Having eventually succeeded in these non-academic domains, Nava Vision ventured into the Academic segment. The company launched an in-depth analytical exercise in 3 non-academic subjects of Math, Science and English. At present, Nava Vision provides academic guidance for class I to class VII. The experts are determined in introducing new ideas of learning academic subjects that fit the Academic syllabus of NCERT and CBSE to help students practice after school hours at their own pace. Nava Vision would like to help children further develop through multi-level skill set Program on various online platforms. The company also encourages the child by issuing participating certificate and medals through www.ziksaa.com absolutely free. They are also launching www.iabacusexam.com to test the abacus skill set of the child. Nava Visions Teacher Training Program is a one-year certified diploma program in Abacus (8 Levels), Vedic Mathematics (6 Levels), English (8 Levels) and Teacher development program with emphasis on Learning Disability course. By enrolling into this diploma Programs, teachers not only develop new skills throughout its three semesters but get an opportunity to sharpen their existing skills. The learning and training are conducted through these modules- Offline, Physical Training, Pre-Recorded Video, Online Training and work Books or work sheets with QR code for every concept. When the QR code is scanned by a Nava vision App, a video linked to the QR code opens and explains the content. In order to increase the efficiency of the services, Nava Vision developed a franchisee model across India. At present, they have 18+ franchisees at Bangalore, Mysore and Pune. The franchises are trained to handle and assist all their programs. For more information, visit the website http://www.navavision.com/. Disclaimer: This content is released by Digpu News Network. No HT journalist was involved in the creation of this content. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his chief of staff, Katie Telford, testified before the House of Commons finance committee Thursday about the governments decision to appoint WE Charity to run a massive student grant program amid the COVID-19 crisis. Heres what you need to know about some of the MPs that questioned the PM. Chaired by a long-time Liberal MP, with a Conservative vice-chair and a Bloc Quebecois vice-chair, the committee has nine other members: five Liberal MPs, three Conservative and one representing the NDP. Committee members often cede their time to allow other MPs to ask questions. WAYNE EASTER Liberal MP Wayne Easter is the chair of the finance committee. He has represented the constituency of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island since 1993. He was elected chair of the finance committee in 2015. His official bio states he was raised on a farm in P.E.I. and was awarded the Governor Generals Canada 125 Medal in 1992, for community service. PIERRE POILIEVRE Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre represents Carleton in Ontario and is one of two vice-chairs of the finance committee. In mid July, Poilievre called on finance minister Bill Morneau to resign from cabinet after Morneau revealed previously undisclosed interactions with WE Charity. RHEAL ELOI FORTIN Bloc Quebecois MP Rheal Eloi Fortin was elected to Riviere-du-Nord in October 2015. He served as interim leader of Bloc in 2015 after Gilles Duceppe stepped down as leader, according to the Canadian Press. CHARLIE ANGUS NDP MP Charles Angus has represented TimminsJames Bay in Ontario since 2004. Angus also ran for the leadership of the New Democrats in 2017. Before entering parliament, Angus worked at a shelter, ran a magazine with his wife dedicated to northern politics and culture, and organized opposition of the Adams Mine garbage dump in the 1990s. SEAN FRASER Liberal MP Sean Fraser has represented Central Nova in Nova Scotia. He worked as a lawyer before winning the riding in 2015. Fraser and his wife, Sarah, have a young daughter, Molly. JULIE DZEROWICZ Liberal Julie Dzerowicz representing the Toronto riding of Davenport. She is a member of the finance committee, with an MBA from the University of British Columbia. She spent more than two decades working in private sector banking and biotech before her election to parliament. Thousands of radical Islamists have rallied in Pakistan in support of a man who walked into a courtroom in Peshawar and gunned down a US citizen on trial for blasphemy. The American, Tahir Naseem, died of his wounds before he could be taken to hospital while the gunman, Faisal Khan, was taken into custody. The US State Department said Naseem was standing trial after being lured to Pakistan from his home in Illinois and entrapped by the countrys controversial blasphemy law, which international rights groups have sought to have repealed. The US statement did not elaborate on the circumstances in which Naseem came to be in the South Asian country. Expand Close The rally favoured Khalid Khan, who gunned down Tahir Naseem in a courtroom in Peshawar (AP/Muhammad Sajjad) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The rally favoured Khalid Khan, who gunned down Tahir Naseem in a courtroom in Peshawar (AP/Muhammad Sajjad) The blasphemy law calls for the death penalty for anyone found guilty of insulting Islam. But in Pakistan, the mere allegation of blasphemy can cause mobs to riot and vigilantes to kill those accused. We are shocked, saddened, and outraged that American citizen Tahir Naseem was killed yesterday inside a Pakistani courtroom, read the State Department statement, which was released on Thursday. Pakistani officials said Naseem was charged with blasphemy after he declared himself Islams prophet. Police in Peshawar, who originally identified him as Tahir Shameem Ahmed but later corrected themselves, said he was arrested two years ago. The assailant was also initially identified incorrectly, as Khalid Khan. It was later learned his real name is Faisal Khan. It was not clear how he managed to enter the courtroom and get past security with a weapon. We urge Pakistan to immediately reform its often abused blasphemy laws and its court system, which allow such abuses to occur, and to ensure that the suspect is prosecuted to the full extent of the law, said the statement issued by Cale Brown, the State Departments principal deputy spokesperson. Expand Close Police officers gather at an entry gate of the district court (AP/Muhammad Sajjad) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Police officers gather at an entry gate of the district court (AP/Muhammad Sajjad) However, in deeply conservative Pakistan, any attempt to even amend the blasphemy law to make it more difficult to bring charges or abuse it has brought mobs out on the street. At the rally in Peshawar, the demonstrators carried signs praising Khan for the killing, calling for his immediate release from jail and saying he killed Naseem because the government was too slow in prosecuting blasphemy cases. Although Pakistani authorities have yet to carry out a death sentence for blasphemy, there are scores of accused on death row. Most are Muslims and many belong to the Ahmadyya sect of Islam, reviled by mainstream Muslims as heretics. Religious minorities are increasingly under attack even as Prime Minister Imran Khan preaches a tolerant Pakistan. Observers warn of even tougher times ahead as Mr Khan vacillates between trying to forge a pluralistic nation and his conservative Islamic beliefs. A Punjab governor was killed by his own guard in 2011 after he defended a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who was accused of blasphemy. She was acquitted after spending eight years on death row in a case that drew international media attention. Faced with death threats from Islamic extremists upon her release, she flew to Canada to join her daughters last year. (Newser) Alan Parker, a successful and sometimes surprising filmmaker whose diverse output includes Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express, and Evita, has died at 76, his family said. A Briton who became a Hollywood heavyweight, Parker also directed Fame, The Commitments, and Mississippi Burning. Together his movies won 10 Academy Awards and 19 British Academy Film Awards, per the AP. The director's family said he died Friday in London after a long illness. Parker was born in London in 1944 and, like many other aspiring British directors of his generation, including Ridley Scott and Adrian Lyne, began his career in advertising as a copywriter and director of commercials. He moved into television with the critically acclaimed 1974 drama The Evacuees, which won an international Emmy Award. story continues below The next year he wrote and directed his first feature, Bugsy Malone, an unusual, exuberant musical pastiche of gangster films with a cast of children, including a young Jodie Foster. He followed that with the 1978 feature Midnight Express, the reality-based story of an Americans harrowing incarceration in a Turkish prison for alleged drug offenses. It won two Oscarsincluding one for Oliver Stone's scriptand gained Parker the first of two best-director nominations. Parker ranged widely across subjects and genres. While Shoot the Moon (1982) and Angela's Ashes (1999) were family dramas, Angel Heart (1987) was an occult thriller and Mississippi Burning (1988) was a powerful civil rights drama that was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including best director. (Read more obituary stories.) Photo: (Photo : love-jessica.org) Six years after the stillbirth of her first baby Jessica, Jennifer Jara launched "Love, Jessica." Her goal with the non-profit organization is to help grieving parents who suffered after losing infant pay bills. Jennifer suffered stillbirth In 2014, Jennifer Jara and her husband, Joaquin, learned that their 27-weeks baby was not growing in the womb despite having a heartbeat. Doctors said that due to complications related to her high blood pressure, the baby would most likely die in utero. After monitoring and hoping their baby would live for 13 weeks, her attending doctor told them that their baby had no heartbeat. On July 1, 2014, Jara recalls that she went home from the hospital that evening without her baby. After induction and 24 hours of labor, their daughter Jessica was stillborn. Grief increased when bills arrived The mom of three now said that she was heartbroken in the weeks after the stillbirth. Her grief only grew when she received medical bills after Jessica's birth. She felt it was unfair that she had to pay bills every month without having the baby. See also: 2 Children died in horrible car crash [the family of 8 wore seatbelts] Six years after her firstborn's stillbirth, she wants parents who suffer like her to have one less thing to worry about. She wants to help pay the bills of parents who lost their infant by a miscarriage or stillbirth. She sat down and thought about the days after Jessica was born and thought about how someone could have helped her during her grief. She thought that next to saving her infant, she would have liked the bills settled. Jara launched the organization while she was on maternity leave after giving birth to her youngest child, Gianna. See also: "Phenomenal" 9-year-old girl died of coronavirus complications [youngest in Florida] Helped five families so far The organization has already covered $1250 medical expenses since its launch on July 1, which could have been Jessica's sixth birthday. She has already helped five different families in Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana by giving them $250 to each family. Donations poured from businesses and individual donors. Parents who want to receive help will have to fill out a simple application and submit copies of medical bills. Jara would then pay the facility directly then provide the family with a receipt. See also: Struggling mom anonymously donated money she won from lottery With the growing organization, Jara is hoping to cover higher amounts per family. To date, the organization already has enough money to fund more families in the coming months. Keeps her daughter's memory alive Jara wants to help grieving families from the loss of a baby so that she could honor the daughter that she lost. She said that by helping others, she keeps her daughter's memory alive. She smiles a little bit every time she writes, "Love, Jessica," because it makes her feel that her baby's death did not happen in vain. A varsity cheerleader at Clear Falls High School won the title of 2020 Miss Kemah Teen in three days of judging July 23-25. Meadow Minter, 15, will represent Kemah at the Miss Teen Texas USA pageant Nov. 27-29 in Houston, pageant director Kelly Williams said. In addition, Gabriella Garza, 24, who attended San Jacinto College, was crowned 2020 Miss Kemah. Garza will compete at the Miss Texas USA pageant in early 2021. They are excited to begin representing this city and community, Williams said. They will make appearances everywhere they can during this next year. About 250 fans attended the July 25 finals at the South Shore Harbour Resort & Conference Center. Virus restrictions have made it hard for anyone to do anything fun, but I decided to go forward with the pageant while following necessary guidelines to keep everyone safe, said Williams. Ten teenagers and 11 Miss contestants entered from throughout Houston and the Bay Area. These young women have been through a lot with everything coming to a halt, and I wanted to make this happen, Williams added. I looked up the CDC guidelines, had custom facemasks printed for all of the contestants, judges and staff, and my choreographer worked the entire production around social distancing. My incredible staff worked day and night to make sure the event was fun, exciting, safe and exceeded expectations. The event was absolutely wonderful, and we had a sold-out show. The teen queen is the daughter of Mike and Dawn Minter of League City. In the evening wear category, she wore a strapless gown with a stone-encrusted top and sweetheart neckline and a skirt of billowing white chiffon. Her runners-up were Samantha Coffey, Kinsey Tuley, Avari Creekmore and Allie Shaw-Therrell. Minter is a sophomore at Clear Falls, where she is a volunteer with the Best Buddies organization. She told the judges she is passionate about spreading awareness for children with learning disabilities. Her goal is to attend the University of Houston and become a teacher. Garza is the daughter of Rolando and Rebecca Garza of Houston. She works in the oil and gas industry as an asset integrity associate. Meanwhile, she is studying toward a degree in communications at the University of Houston while also taking classes in real estate. Rounding out the top 5 in the Miss division were RBonney Gabriel, Peyton Skoruppa, Michelle Lacy and Macy Schulze. The pageant included a swimsuit parade at the Kemah Boardwalk FantaSea Yacht. One of the pageants newest sponsors, Kendra Scott Jewelry, gave all 21 contestants with earrings. For more information, contact Williams: MissKemahPageant@gmail.com Don Maines is a freelance writer who can be reached at donmaines@att.net It can only take a wicked heart to imagine that a Judas Iscariot still lives among men in todays world or how can one explain the situation where an apprentice will sell out the live of his master. The report reaching National Daily reveals that the owner of Popular Chucks Supermarket, Nicholas Offodile in Lokoja who was killed by Kidnappers was confessed to have been murdered by an alleged hired assassin, Vincent Omogor. The weirdest thing in the ugly saga is that Omogor who hails from Asaba, Delta State confessed that he and others were contracted to Kill Offodile by an apprentice who works in the Supermarket. The Kogi State Commissioner of Police, Ede Ayuba disclosed this to newsmen in his office today while parading 28 criminal Suspects. Vincent Omogor said the apprentice who contracted them said he was angry with Chief Offodile for refusing to give him money to treat his sick father who later died. He now gave us his travel itinerary which made it easier for us to kill him on Abuja road. The CP said a manhunt is on to arrest other members of the gang. He said the arrest was made possible by the effort of men of SARS alongside vigilantes from Orehi village in Kogi LGA. DGAP-News: Logwin AG / Key word(s): Half Year Results The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Logwin with a respectable development in the first half of 2020 in view of the Covid 19 pandemic Grevenmacher (Luxembourg) - The first half of 2020 was marked for the Logwin Group as well worldwide by the Covid 19 pandemic. Logwin responded to the pandemic with a wide range of measures to protect above all the health of its employees and secure its customers' supply chains. In addition, sales and operating earnings were supported by a number of measures such as the establishment of home offices and short-time work. By means of these measures in the first half of 2020, sales of EUR 537.7m (2019: EUR 560.1m) and an operating result (EBITA) of EUR 18.2m (2019: EUR 23.9m) were achieved. The operating margin of 3.4 % is a respectable development in view of the global restrictions caused by the Covid 19 pandemic. The business segment Air + Ocean even achieved a slight increase overall increase in sales to EUR 379.9m (2019: EUR 370.2m). Declining volumes in air and sea freight were offset by significantly higher freight rates. The operating result of the business segment Air + Ocean fell by EUR 2.1m to EUR 19.9m (2019: EUR 22.0m) due to lower volumes. In the first half of 2020 the business segment Solutions recorded a significant decline in sales to EUR 157.8m (2019: EUR 189.9m), which was mainly due to the sharp decline in volumes in the transportation network. Retail store closures and their only gradual release, as well as the continued reluctance of customers in view of the uncertainties about the further course of the Covid 19 pandemic, weighed heavily on the development. In addition, terminated customer deals and the sale of a contract logistics location contributed to the decline in sales. In view of these developments, the business segment Solutions recorded an operating result of EUR 1.8m (2019: EUR 5.5m). At EUR 12.6m, net income for the period in fact was lower than in the previous year (2019: EUR 17.8m) due to the decline in operating earnings. The equity ratio however increased from 35.5 % to 38.7 % as of 30 June 2020, due to the significant decrease in total assets. Compared to the previous year, the operating cash flow, which is influenced by seasonal factors, improved significantly and reached EUR 7.3m (2019: EUR -2.9m). Net liquidity amounted to EUR 45.1m as of 30 June 2020 (2019: EUR 72.9m). This includes the distribution to shareholders of a total of EUR 10.1m resolved by the Annual General Meeting, which corresponds to EUR 3.50 per share. In comparison with the information provided in the Annual Financial Report 2019, the Logwin Group has adjusted its forecast for the earnings development in 2020. In view of the risks arising from the Covid 19 pandemic, that now have to be taken into account, the Logwin Group now expects its operating result (EBITA) to be significantly lower than in the previous year and as a result from this a significantly decreasing net income. The aforementioned key performance indicators (KPIs) are an integral part of Logwin Group's system of key figures and are described and defined in the section "Financial Performance Management" of the management report of the annual financial report 2019 in line with the European Securities and Markets Authority's (ESMA) Guidelines on Alternative Performance Measures (APM) dated 5 October 2015. The Quarterly Statement as of 30 June 2020 of Logwin Group is available on the internet at: www.logwin-logistics.com About Logwin AG Logwin AG (Grevenmacher, Luxembourg) provides efficient logistics and transport solutions for its customers from industry and trade. In 2019, the group generated sales of EUR 1.1bn and currently employs about 4,300 staff. Logwin operates in all main markets worldwide and has around 190 locations on six continents. With its two business segments Solutions and Air + Ocean, Logwin AG is one of the leaders in the market. Logwin AG is listed in the Prime Standard of the Deutsche Borse. The majority shareholder is DELTON Logistics S.a r.l., Grevenmacher (Luxembourg). Contact: www.logwin-logistics.com Chief Financial Officer Phone: +352 719690-1112 sebastian.esser@logwin-logistics.com Sebastian Esser Additional features: File: Logwin_Press Release_Q2_2020 31.07.2020 Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. The DGAP Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases. Archive at www.dgap.de An anti-masker who pushes the ridiculous conspiracy theory Bill Gates created coronavirus in a Wuhan lab to sell vaccines once stabbed his drug buddy to death. Lance Simon is the husband of gangland lawyer Zarah Garde-Wilson and a good friend of Roberta Williams, widow of notorious crime boss Carl Williams. The 36-year-old was put on trial for murder over the December 2011 killing, but was found not guilty 18 months later on self-defence grounds. He now produces rambling videos under the alter-ego 'Lucky Lance' spreading dangerous coronavirus conspiracies amid Melbourne's lockdown. Lance Simon is an anti-masker who believes Bill Gates created coronavirus in a Wuhan lab to sell vaccines. He also stabbed his drug buddy to death in 2011 Late on Sunday night he visited five Melbourne hospitals in a sad attempt to 'prove' the city's covid-19 crisis was highly exaggerated. 'I can't find this elusive coronavirus... it's a ghost town. Talk to any nurses they can't get work,' he said as he filmed himself wandering around outside one. There are now 349 covid-19 patients in Victorian hospitals, including 37 in intensive care, according to the latest Health Department figures Many nurses are out of work because all elective surgeries are cancelled, though some of them are pitching in to help treat coronavirus. Simon in another video claimed his 'research' revealed masks were ineffective and that wearers breathe in too much carbon dioxide. 'Don't wear the masks, they can't fine us all... and if you get a fine, don't pay it, what do you think they're gonna do? Nothing it's a hoax, a bluff,' he said. Lance Simon is the husband of gangland lawyer Zarah Garde-Wilson (pictured together) and a good friend of Roberta Williams, widow of notorious crime boss Carl Williams Simon now produces rambling videos under the alter-ego 'Lucky Lance' spreading dangerous coronavirus conspiracies amid Melbourne's lockdown He falsely claimed Bill Gates had links to the Wuhan 'bio-weapons lab' and peddled the debunked conspiracy theory that Mr Gates took out a patent on a covid-19 vaccine before the pandemic began. 'Imagine it comes out that Bill Gates actually created, in Wuhan, the whole virus just to sell his vaccine,' he said. 'But why do we even need a vaccine? Millions of people have already recovered from it without one.' Mr Gates, who made billions by founding Microsoft, is now one of the world's biggest philanthropists and donates huge amounts of money to vaccine programs. He does not stand to gain financially from vaccine production and he does not have a patent on any coronavirus drug. Furthermore, the Wuhan Institute of Virology is a research lab and there is no evidence it has ever developed bio-weapons. Simon along with his wife and Roberta Williams (Simon and Williams pictured) regularly discuss criminal issues, and recently coronavirus, on at least two podcasts Some scientists, such as Professor Nikolai Petrovsky at Flinders University, believe coronavirus could have been accidentally created in the lab and leaked out, but not that it was made as a 'weapon'. Simon even admits in his video: 'I may even be incorrect in some of the things I'm preaching now'. But he carries on spreading untruths anyway. Instead of wearing masks and locking down Victoria he advocates quarantining old and vulnerable people. He also claims the number of deaths in inflated because many elderly casualties 'would die of the hiccups'. 'Guys don't listen to the TV, don't listen to the government, just relax and enjoy your life like me,' he said. Simon was on a meth binge on the day he stabbed hospitality worker Paul Thornell, 38, to death on December 5, 2011. He was approached by Mr Thornell outside Peel Nightclub in Collingwood and asked for drugs, giving him $180. Simon later went back to Mr Thornell's house in Cockatoo in the Dandenong Ranges after the victim complained he had been ripped off. Zarah Garde-Wilson in 2008 after being cleared of charges of giving false evidence Simon and Ms Garde-Wilson's (pictured in 2006 and 2005) relationship survived his legal woes and they got married in 2019. They share daughter Samantha, 11, and twin nine-year-olds Max and Sophie Mr Thornell's father Jeffrey told the court he heard Simon yelling at his son to open his bedroom door after it slammed shut and went to investigate. 'I looked into Paul's bedroom and saw Paul lying on his back on the floor between the doorway and his bed. I saw Paul's gut hanging out,' he said. The court heard he saw Simon holding a 20-25cm knife before he demanded money and ransacked the kitchen before stealing a wallet and a phone and running away. In June 2013 he was found not guilty of murder, defensive murder, and manslaughter and walked from the Victorian Supreme Court a free man. Earlier, in 2007, Simon was convicted of trafficking meth and possession of steroids. He was also busted with a cache of illegal weapons at his home, including Samurai swords, a flick knife and knuckle dusters. He escaped jail after a judge heard he was a full-time dad to his new baby, and ordered him to do 175 hours of community service. While on bail for those charges he spray-painted nine Versace handbags worth almost $30,000 at a Crown Casino store. The court heard he was angry about a dispute over the repair of his Versace suit and yelled 'do you want to start me?' to staff who tried to intervene. Who is gangland lawyer Zarah Garde-Wilson? Zarah Garde-Wilson, 42, is a criminal barrister best known for her entanglement in the 1998-2006 Melbourne gangland killings. She met gang enforcer Lewis Caine as a young lawyer when she was defending him on a drink driving charge. Caine had recently got out of jail after serving 10 years for murdering David Templeton. Over the course of their relationship, Ms Garde-Wilson defended numerous gangland figures including Carl Williams and Tony Morkbel. Ms Garde-Wilson's boyfriend Lewis Caine was shot during the Gangland War in 2004 Her role in the gangland saga was featured in TV series Underbelly where she was portrayed by Kestie Morassi Caine was assassinated by hitmen Evangelos Goussis and Keith Faure with a single bullet to the head on May 8, 2004. The following year she was convicted of contempt for refusing to testify against Caine's killers. Her role in the gangland saga was featured in TV series Underbelly where she was portrayed by Kestie Morassi. She has been in a relationship with Lance Simon since at least 2007. Carl Williams was bashed to death in jail in 2010 but she and Simon remain good friends with his widow Roberta. Advertisement The court heard his relationship with Ms Garde-Wilson was on the rocks at the time and he was under great stress. He pleaded guilty to criminal damage, paid for the damaged bags, and wrote a grovelling apology letter. Simon and Ms Garde-Wilson's relationship survived his legal woes and they got married in 2019. They share daughter Samantha, 11, and twin nine-year-olds Max and Sophie. Simon along with his wife and Roberta Williams regularly discuss criminal issues, and recently coronavirus, on at least two podcasts. Williams and Simon filmed a skit early in the pandemic where Simon knocks on her door begging for an advance on what appeared to be drugs, even though he still owed her money. The items he was desperate to get hold of were at the end of the joke sketch revealed to be rolls of toilet paper. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 16:49:04|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close HOHHOT, July 31 (Xinhua) -- North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region will invest 230 million yuan (about 32.9 million U.S. dollars) to support the development of the traditional dairy industry, said the regional department of agriculture and animal husbandry. The investment will be used to support the development of dairy farms that both produce milk and meat in pastoral areas, encourage dairy farms and cooperatives to set up traditional dairy plants and workshops and support such plants and workshops in building their own milk source bases, said Liu Yongzhi, deputy head of the department. The region has 16 traditional dairy companies and 746 registered workshops. More than 390 tonnes of fresh milk is processed daily on average, with an annual output value of 600 million yuan. The region will also allocate 30 million yuan to support the upgrading of 100 workshops, covering the standardization of production equipment, processing and production, cold chain transportation and sanitation management, Liu added. Enditem Victims of a deadly humidifier sanitizer scandal hold a protest in front of the building of the Special Commission on Social Disaster Investigation in Seoul, Friday. Yonhap Victims of a deadly humidifier sanitizer scandal that has led to at least 1,553 officially registered deaths called on Friday for a special counsel to investigate relevant government ministries as well as manufacturers who made the products. "It has been 19 months since the Special Commission on Social Disaster Investigation launched an investigation, and their activity ends in less than five months," members of an organization representing the victims said in a press conference held in front of the commission's office in central Seoul, referring to the panel that was formed under a special act on dealing with social disasters. The commission, which kicked off its probe into the humidifier sanitizer scandal in December 2018, is set to wrap up its activities in December this year. Voicing frustration over the commission's fact-finding process, the victims asked the commission to request the parliament to approve a special counsel to probe the environment ministry and the fair trade watchdog as well as companies mired in the scandal. They also asked that a report that the commission submits to the parliament and the president be shared with the victims. Under the special act, the commission can request the parliament to begin the process to appoint a special counsel. The health disaster came to light after four pregnant women died of unknown lung problems in 2011. Local authorities then launched a probe into the case, concluding that polyhexamethylene guanidine, an antibacterial agent used in the humidifier cleanser that can be fatal when inhaled in the form of droplets, had caused the deaths. A recent report by the commission showed that some 14,000 people are estimated to have died in the fatal case. It also showed that an estimated 670,000 suffered health problems due to the sanitizers, including 520,000 who had not reported relevant symptoms prior to using the sanitizers. The estimate is much larger than the 1,553 deaths that have been officially registered with the government as of Aug. 17. (Yonhap) Dan Balzs July 27 front-page article about President Trumps America First agenda, World of crises shows U.S. influence at a low ebb, offered a great foreign policy analysis of the situation. As Mr. Balz noted: Americas standing in the world is at a low ebb. Once described as the indispensable nation, the United States is now seen as withdrawn and inward-looking, a reluctant and unreliable partner at a dangerous moment for the world. In contrast to the more than 70 years of leadership nurtured by every president since World War II, Mr. Trump pursued an isolationist strategy, laced with xenophobia, that effectively devalued American lives and treasure spent to maintain an order viewed as good for the world and good for the United States. But Mr. Trumps shift to pull the United States out of the Paris accord, the Iran deal and the Trans-Pacific Partnership was just the start of his inexplicable alienation of allies such as Germany, France and Britain and his questionable embrace of enemies such as Russia, China and North Korea. Mr. Trump weaponized tariffs for trade deals, family separations for immigration control and mercenary fees for a defense partnership. OTTAWAThe Supreme Court of Canada has ruled the vast majority of confidential cabinet documents in two provinces should remain secret, in cases dealing with how judges are paid. The decision deals with two separate cases in Nova Scotia and British Columbia where lower courts in had ordered the production of cabinet documents that are traditionally kept highly confidential. In both provinces, independent commissions set up to review salaries for provincial court judges had proposed significant pay hikes, but the cabinets in both provinces rejected those recommendations and decided on smaller pay increases instead. The judges associations in both provinces applied for judicial reviews and wanted to see cabinet submissions that justified altering the recommended salary hikes. In its unanimous decision today, the Supreme Court of Canada quashed the B.C. Court of Appeals decision ordering the B.C. government to produce the cabinet documents. But in the Nova Scotia case, Supreme Court Justice Andromache Karakatsanis writes that most of the cabinet submission should remain confidential, except two components: a paragraph in one document labelled government-wide implications and an appendix to the report called the communications plan. Karakatsanis says the exclusion of this evidence from the record would undermine the lower courts ability to determine whether a test that must be applied in decisions related to judges salaries was appropriately applied by the Nova Scotia cabinet. Read more about: As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) decided to relieve a two-star Marine Corps general of his command over a border security failure in connection with a North Korean defector's recent return to his communist homeland, officials said Friday. The border crossing near the western island of Ganghwa by the 24-year-old man, surnamed Kim, became known after North Korea reported Sunday that a "runaway" returned home in the border city of Kaesong with coronavirus symptoms and that the entire city was blocked off to prevent the spread of the virus. South Korean officials said Kim had been under investigation over allegations he raped a female defector. According to the JCS' probe results, Kim was caught on the military's surveillance equipment seven times -- five on its monitoring cameras, twice on thermal observation devices (TOD) -- including his arrival in the North, but troops failed to identify him as a person trying to cross the border. The defector passed through a drainage tunnel running underneath barbed wire fences to evade South Korean border guards before reaching the shore and swimming a few kilometers to North Korea. The fences set up inside the drainage tunnel were in poor condition, allowing the defector to pass through them easily, they said. The JCS will seek disciplinary measures against those accountable, including the dismissal of Maj. Gen. Baek Gyeong-sun as commander of the Marine Corps' 2nd Division in charge of border security at the area, officials said. Kim entered the water at 2:46 a.m. on July 18 and reached the North's territory in just over an hour using the tide. Troops at a guardhouse saw a taxi carrying Kim arrive near the border at 2:18 a.m. but did not take any action as they thought of the passenger as a nearby resident, officials said. Near the water tunnel, police found a backpack with Kim's bankbook, a Bible and first aid supplies. Amid growing criticism over the military's security breaches indicating lax discipline, the officials said they will inspect all such tunnels near the border and set up additional structures to prevent similar cases from recurring. They also vowed to strengthen cooperation with the police, such as by sharing more information, to improve their readiness posture. "The military takes this situation very gravely," a JCS official said. "We will intensively carry out follow-up measures as soon as possible and make sure we can handle any unexpected situations down the road." (Yonhap) US Attorney General Bill Barr now believed to be dropping death penalty threat Denial came if Washington was to pursue a death sentence for both men El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey are currently in US custody in Iraq America is willing to drop the threat of the death penalty in order to put the British ISIS Beatles on trial, it was reported last night. El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey are accused of belonging to a four-man execution cell in Syria named after the band by their captives. Elsheikh and Kotey have also admitted their involvement in holding American aid worker Kayla Mueller, who was sexually abused and killed after she was held hostage for three years. Both are currently in US custody in Iraq. Moves to take them to the States for trial have been stalled for months. Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh are accused of belonging to a four-man execution cell in Syria named after the band by their captives. A British Supreme Court judgment in March ruled that it was unlawful for the UK to share evidence with Washington without seeking assurances that the pair, accused of beheading Westerners, will not face the death penalty. That was not something the US was prepared to give. But the Washington Post last night reported a possible change in the situation. Sources told the paper that US Attorney General Bill Barr discussed the move at the White House, hoping it would facilitate Britains sharing of crucial evidence. The Pentagon has put pressure on the US Department of Justice to get the pair, both stripped of their British citizenships, out of Iraq and put on trial in America. FBI agents were said to be in London while a federal prosecutor was in Iraq gathering more evidence on Kotey and Elsheikh. Both have admitted being involved in holding American US aid worker Kayla Mueller, who was held hostage from 2015 to 2018, sexually abused and killed. Kotey and Elsheikh had previously denied ever meeting the Mueller, but changed their story in interview tapes obtained by NBC News. 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 Kayla Mueller was held hostage in Syria, where she was sexually abused and tortured before her death in 2015 'She was in a large room, it was dark, and she was alone, and she 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. Kotey said: 'She was in a room by herself that no one would go in.' 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, US officials have said. Baghdadi killed himself with a suicide vest as American commandos closed in on him in a daring raid in October last year. 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 US federal court is the best venue to expose to the world the vile crimes committed by the duo. '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. Elsheikh has also admitted to torturing US hostage James Foley, who was abducted by ISIS while working as a freelance war correspondent during the Syria Civil War. American journalist James Foley (pictured) was abducted by ISIS while working as a freelance war correspondent during the Syria Civil War Elsheikh said that Foley would sometimes subject himself to beatings to ensure the hostages were given enough food. '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"', Elsheikh said. He also said: 'I didn't choke Jim. '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.' Foley was held by ISIS for two years before being executed on video in August 2014. Kotey and Elsheikh, both from London, were captured in January 2018 by Syrian Kurdish forces. They are implicated in the murder of ISIS hostages alongside Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, who was killed in 2015, and Aine Davis, who is in jail in Turkey. Emwazi appeared in a number of videos in which hostages, including British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, were killed. Sources suggest that US Attorney General Bill Barr has discussed the idea of dropping the threat of the death penalty at the White House, hoping it would facilitate Britains sharing of crucial evidence Barrs decision marks a fundamental shift in the discussion, a senior official told the Post. This was the first breakthrough weve had in a long time. The sense was, Were going to get this done. Were going to get the diplomatic piece moving. The British Government wants the pair tried in the US, where officials believe there is a more realistic chance of prosecution than in the UK. But the Supreme Court decision, after a case brought by Elsheikhs mother, meant the men faced the likelihood of being sent to Guantanamo Bay. The court said the then home secretary Sajid Javids decision to share evidence with American authorities without assurances on the sentence breached data protection laws. The US had said it was Britains responsibility to prosecute the men prior to them having their citizenships taken away in 2018. Last year US forces plucked them from a Syrian prison as high-profile targets following a Turkish invasion of northern Syria that threatened to further destabilize the region. A deadline of Friday to move them on had been set by the Department of Defence but Barrs intervention seems to have secured an extension for the time being. An unnamed official said: The Department of Defence does not want to hold them indefinitely in Iraq or elsewhere. The temporary facility that they are currently in was never designed to house detainees for extended periods of time. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin's Regular Press Conference on July 31, 2020 2020/07/31 Macau Monthly: China's BeiDou-3 Satellite Navigation System was officially inaugurated this morning. Some media see this as part of Beijing's effort to increase hi-tech influence overseas. I wonder if you have any comment on this? Wang Wenbin: Today is a day of pride and invigoration for the Chinese people. This morning, President Xi Jinping attended the ceremony marking the completion and launching of the BeiDou-3 Satellite Navigation System (BDS-3), and announced the commissioning of this system that's independently built and operated by China. This opens a new chapter where the system's quality service will benefit people all across the world. As we often say, the BeiDou-3 Satellite Navigation System is not only of China but also for the world; it serves China as well as the whole world. After its completion, it will provide services including basic navigation, global short message communications, worldwide search and rescue, etc. This system now covers over 200 countries and regions, serves more than 100 million users and provides 200 million services daily. Over half of all countries in the world are using this system now. The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs sent a congratulatory video clip the other day to commend BDS-3's positive role in global economic and social development and its great contribution to the peaceful use of outer space and the international cooperation on UN space activities. I said here last week that China's space endeavor makes an important part of mankind's peaceful exploration and use of outer space and is entirely designated for peaceful purposes. The universe is vast enough for all countries to conduct joint exploration and cooperation. On the basis of mutual respect, openness and inclusiveness, equality and mutual benefit, China stands ready to enhance aerospace exchange and cooperation and share the outcomes with other countries, and contribute to the progress of human civilization and society as well as the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. Reuters: According to a Reuters report, sources from the US security services say a company targeted by two Chinese hackers indicted in the US earlier this month is Moderna, a leading coronavirus vaccine developer. How do you comment on this? Wang Wenbin: Recently so-called sources from the US government have been accusing China of hacking to steal technology and data of US vaccine research, but there has been no evidence whatsoever. Such allegations are pure slander. The sources are all cited anonymously. The international community can see through such vilifying ploys. As we've repeatedly said, China is leading the world in COVID-19 vaccine research and development. We don't need to get ahead by theft and we have never done that. On the contrary, we are worried about a certain thieving country stealing our technology by hacking. We urge certain US government departments and individuals to stop smearing China with rumors. We also call on relevant media to deny such anonymous groundless disinformation platforms and channels for dissemination. The New York Times: Tomorrow is the one month anniversary of the new national security law in Hong Kong, which has prompted a lot of criticism from overseas. Is China reassessing the implementation of the national security law? Wang Wenbin: First of all, I need to correct you on one point. You said that many countries have criticized China on the national security law. That is not true. As a matter of fact, at the recent 44th session of the UNHRC, 54 countries spoke in support of China's formulation of the Law on Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong in a joint statement. As for our position on the Law, Hong Kong is China's Special Administrative Region, and Hong Kong affairs are purely China's internal affairs that allow no interference from foreign countries or organizations. A small number of countries have imposed sanctions on China in violation of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs, a basic principle governing international relations, to which China is firmly opposed and has taken countermeasures. I must stress that China will not be daunted by intimidation from any external forces. Our resolve to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, to implement "one country, two systems", and to oppose any foreign interference in Hong Kong affairs is steadfast and unshakable. AFP: Do you have any response to the former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten's comment yesterday that the national security law has been used by Beijing to carry out an outrageous political purge? Wang Wenbin: The comment by Chris Patten has no factual basis. I would like to reiterate that the Law on Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong targets only a very narrow category of criminal offences and protects the overwhelming majority. It will not affect the lawful rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents and will better ensure their exercise in a safe environment. Implementation of the Law means a step forward towards a sound legal framework, greater social stability, and an effective guarantee for lasting peace and security in Hong Kong and the fundamental welfare of Hong Kong residents. RIA Novosti: Yesterday the European Union sanctioned two Chinese nationals and one company over suspected cyber attack. I wonder if you have any comment on that? Wang Wenbin: China is a staunch defender of cyber security and also one of the victims of cyber attacks. In accordance with law, we've been cracking down on such attacks launched inside China or using China's cyber infrastructure. Our position on the relevant issue is consistent and clear. We express deep concern over the EU statement and will follow relevant developments closely. Meanwhile, we also note that the EU said that the relevant measure targets no specific country. Tracing the origin of cyber attacks is a highly complicated and sensitive issue. The international community should address cyber-related disputes through dialogue and cooperation. We hope that the EU and its member states will take facts as the basis to form their independent and rational judgments, instead of resorting to punitive or adversarial measures. Otherwise, tension and confrontation will be heightened to the detriment of security and stability in cyberspace. CRI: Yesterday, the 2020 Shanghai Cooperation Organization Forum on Traditional Medicine was successfully held via video link. This is the first time for the SCO to hold a conference on traditional medicine. What is the significance of this meeting, in terms of SCO members working together to fight COVID-19? Wang Wenbin: As you said, this is the first time for the SCO to hold a meeting on traditional medicine. The theme of the meeting is making full use of the unique advantages of traditional medicine to fight COVID-19 with solidarity and cooperation. Shen Yue-yue, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China and Chairman of the Committee of Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation of the SCO attended the opening ceremony and delivered a keynote speech. Senior officials and health departments of the SCO member states, representatives of the SCO Secretariat and WHO, experts and scholars from relevant countries and diplomatic envoys to China attended the meeting. In the fight against COVID-19, traditional Chinese medicine has made outstanding contributions, and traditional medicine in various countries has also played a unique and positive role. In recent years, China and the SCO countries have conducted exchanges and cooperation in the field of traditional medicine at various levels. Departments in charge of health or traditional medicine in China, Kyrgyzstan, India and others signed cooperation MOUs. Construction of traditional Chinese medicine centers is underway in Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Nepal. China has also held various forms of academic exchanges with these countries and effectively promoted mutual learning in the field of traditional medicine. The COVID-19 pandemic is still spreading globally. China is ready to work with all parties to keep international cooperation on COVID-19 moving in the right direction, continue to hold high the banner of the "Shanghai Spirit", give full play to the advantages of our traditional medicine, deepen SCO cooperation on health and epidemic prevention, and jointly build a community of health for the SCO. Global Times: On July 30, US Secretary of State Pompeo attacked the CPC at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing and criticized China on issues relating to the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, human rights and religion. Does China have any comment? Wang Wenbin: As the American people grapple with a dual crisis in terms of public health and economic difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Pompeo, in his position as Secretary of State, has been busy spreading falsehoods attacking and smearing China, instead of focusing on conducting international cooperation and safeguarding the American people's health and jobs. His intention of deflecting attention in pursuit of selfish political gains is fully revealed. Pompeo's remarks are a patchwork of political lies against China that disregard facts and distort truth. China has repeatedly stated its solemn position and the world has a fair judgment on this. According to a recent survey by a US institute, 95 percent of the Chinese people trust the government led by the CPC, ranking the top of all countries surveyed. Leaders of some countries have openly stated that they will formulate China polices based on national interests instead of blindly following the US and that they have no intention to pick sides between China and the US. Spurred by the Cold War mentality and selfish gains, Pompeo and his likes attempt to bind the international community to the anti-China, anti-CPC chariot. However, they are doomed to fail because the world won't buy what they are selling; peace-loving people won't allow it; and the Chinese people won't be intimidated. I want to stress that ignorance, arrogance, myopia and hatred cannot be the basis for foreign policy. In response to the hostile words and acts of some US politicians, the Chinese people will only rally more closely around the CPC, strive to achieve the great revitalization of the Chinese nation, and work together with other countries for the bright future of a community with a shared future for mankind. NHK: US Secretary of State Pompeo released a statement yesterday offering condolences on the passing of Lee Teng-hui on behalf of the American people. Do you have a response to that? Wang Wenbin: I noticed the news. Taiwan independence is a dead end. No individual or force could hold back the historical trend of reunification and revitalization of the Chinese nation. We urge the relevant country to adhere to the one-China principle, prudently handle Taiwan-related issues, and avoid sending out any wrong signal to Taiwan independence forces. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. US State Department has lodged strong condemnation and shock over the murder of American national, Tahir Naseem, who was being tried in a Pakistani court on blasphemy charges; now seeking to pressurise Pak government to reform the draconian anti-blasphemy law, court system in the country. Expressing shock and outrage over the killing of an American citizen inside Pakistani courtroom, US on Thursday (local time) asked Pakistan to immediately reform its often abused blasphemy laws and its court system, which allow such abuses to occur. We are shocked, saddened, and outraged that American citizen Tahir Naseem was killed yesterday inside a Pakistani courtroom. Naseem had been lured to Pakistan from his home in Illinois by individuals who then used Pakistans blasphemy laws to entrap him, Cale Brown, Deputy Spokesperson, US State Department said in a release. Brown stated that the US government has been providing consular assistance to Naseem and his family since his detention in 2018 and has called the attention of senior Pakistani officials to his case to prevent the type of shameful tragedy that eventually occurred. Also read: US talks tough to Pak, condemns shameful tragedy of American citizens killing in Pak Also read: Massive anti-Pak protests erupt in Sindh against state terrorism We grieve with the family of Naseem. We urge Pakistan to immediately reform its often abused blasphemy laws and its court system, which allow such abuses to occur, and to ensure that the suspect is prosecuted to the full extent of the law, said Brown. Tahir Ahmad Naseem, from the minority Ahmadi community, was shot dead in a courtroom in Peshawar on Wednesday. He was on trial for blasphemy. The young assailant, identified as Khalid Khan who managed to get into the court amid tight security was arrested later. Naseem was arrested two years ago on blasphemy charges. Ahmadis, a four million-strong minority group in Pakistan, have faced death, threats, intimidation and a sustained hate campaign for decades. Pakistans controversial blasphemy law carries an automatic death penalty for anyone convicted of insulting God, Islam, or other religious figures. Many members of the minority communities in Pakistan the Ahmadis, Hindus, Christians and Sikhs were charged with blasphemy law. Also read: Despite FATF sword hanging, Pak refuses to crack down on terror financing CLEVELAND, Ohio Republican President Donald Trump will be in Northeast Ohio on Aug. 6 for a re-election campaign fundraiser. A posting on the website for the Trump re-election campaigns joint fundraising committee with the Republican National Committee invites attendees to Cleveland for the Aug. 6 fundraiser, though sources with knowledge of the planning said the event itself would be at the Shoreby Club in Bratenahl. Minimum price for entry is $5,600, with some packages going for as much as $100,000. Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and RNC Co-Chairman Tommy Hicks will also be in attendance. Chicago Cubs owner Todd Ricketts and television personality Kimberly Guilfoyle -- both finance chairs for the Trump campaign -- are slated to appear as well. Lake County businessman Ed Crawford, Trumps 2016 Ohio finance chair, is hosting the event, according to a report from WKYC. Entry for the fundraiser starts at $5,600 per person. A photo and entry to the reception goes for $35,000 and all that plus entry to a roundtable event costs $100,000, according to the campaign posting. The visit would mark Trumps first to the state since January when he held a rally in Toledo. Since then, the coronavirus pandemic, resulting recession and civil unrest have diminished his re-election chances nationwide. Polls in Ohio, a state Trump won by 450,000 votes in 2016, have consistently showed Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden running competitively despite little investment thus far. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has dedicated significant resources to television ads in the fall, indicating they see a need to spend vigorously to keep Ohio in Trumps column come Nov. 3. Sorry! This content is not available in your region Ottawa will invest $58.6 million toward increased farm inspections and creating mandatory housing requirements for migrant workers, the prime minister announced Friday. Speaking at his daily briefing, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also expressed deep sorrow at the deaths of three migrant workers from COVID-19, and said Canada had let those communities down. There are lots of changes we need to make, Trudeau said. In an interview with the Star, immigration minister Marco Mendicino said the announcement is part of an effort to enhance protections and workers rights, which our government feels very strongly about. But the new measures fall short of the change advocates have long called for: permanent status for migrant workers whose right to be in Canada is tied to a seasonal contract with a single employer. Without permanent resident status, migrant workers dont have the power to assert their rights, make complaints or access programs because doing so means termination, homelessness, deportation and inability to feed their families, said Syed Hussan, executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC). Todays announcement fails to fix this fundamental power imbalance and as a result will not solve the crisis migrants are facing. We expect Prime Minister Trudeau to do the urgent and necessary thing, and create a regularization program for all migrant and undocumented people immediately. This week, the Star reported on a new reprisal claim filed by migrant worker Gabriel Flores Flores to the provincial labour board, which alleges he was terminated and threatened with deportation after speaking to journalists about a massive COVID-19 outbreak that killed his bunkmate. In a letter delivered to Mendicino this week, Flores asked the federal government to give permanent status to migrant workers to prevent future abuse. Mendicino said Friday that he had read the letter and commended Flores for the courage that he has demonstrated in advocating not only for his cause, but for the cause of all migrant workers. Mendicino said he, along with employment minister Carla Qualtrough, had also carefully reviewed the recommendations put forward by MWAC. I know that theyre calling on the government to examine status. And that is a discussion that we are continuing to have with (them), he said. Whether youre Canadian or youre a migrant worker, you have a right to work in this country without being subjected to abuse to threats. More than a thousand migrant workers have tested positive for COVID-19, according to public health unit and media reports. Mendicino said new financial aid of $35 million for infrastructure and housing improvements will be used flexibly by employers and by workers to come up with the best arrangement. Those arrangements will be tailored to the particular circumstances and places of employment. As previously reported by the Star, a government study recommended a federal housing standard for migrant workers but it was nixed after opposition from employer groups. On Friday, the government said it would work to develop mandatory requirements to improve employer-provided accommodations, focusing on ensuring better living conditions for workers. As a first step, the government will consult with provinces and territories, employers, workers and foreign partner countries on a proposal for these mandatory requirements, the announcement said. From the very beginning of the pandemic, the health and safety of temporary foreign workers has been a top priority. Any unsafe working conditions are completely unacceptable, Qualtrough said in a statement Friday. While we are proud of the worker protections we have in this country, we recognize that there are important issues that need to be addressed within the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and we are taking action. Additional funding will also go to migrant worker outreach, including through an existing pilot project called the Migrant Worker Support Network (MWSN). That organization was designed to enhance protections but has attracted criticism from grassroots groups who say migrant workers themselves have been excluded from the network. We decided not to participate, and same with all the grassroot migrant groups, said Byron Cruz of the B.C.-based advocacy group Sanctuary Health. Cruz said to date, the network organized virtual training sessions and community kitchens for migrant workers but werent accessible to migrant workers given their demanding working schedules and lack of computer access. I consider this a waste of resources, he said. Some $16 million of the new funding will go to strengthened inspections. Cruz said hes been disappointed in enforcement efforts to date, which have been mostly virtual and found few employers in non-compliance. Without permanent residency, there is no way to defend rights, he said. Vietnams Ministry of Information and Communications is encouraging residents in the central city of Da Nang to install a contact tracing app on their smartphones in a bid to curb the spread of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The Vietnam Telecommunications Authority under the Ministry of Information and Communications has asked local mobile service providers to send text messages to all subscribers in Da Nang regarding the mobile app, called Bluezone. "The epidemic is becoming complicated after the detection of new cases in the community. The Ministry of Information and Communications and the Ministry of Health suggest that all people with smartphones in Da Nang install Bluezone, the messages read. The app will give warnings about any risk of COVID-19 infection and help protect yourself and your family. Install it now at http://www.bluezone.gov.vn." Bluezone was introduced by the Ministry of Information and Communications and the Ministry of Health on April 18. Utilizing Bluetooth technology, the app can recognize other Bluezone users within a two-meter distance. The close contact will be recorded and will assist authorities in tracking people who are linked to a COVID-19 patient. Bluezone claims to be secure and protect the confidentiality of users as well as their personal information. Vietnam has documented 93 community-based COVID-19 cases since Saturday, of which 80 are recorded in Da Nang. Other cases confirmed in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, and Dak Lak are all traced back to the central city. These new cases followed a 99-day period without a single community transmission in the Southeast Asian country. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! After years of working towards developing more affordable housing for more than 150 people on the Oonuhseh Niagara Native Homes Inc. waiting lists, the not-for-profit organization learned Wednesday it will receive $475,000 in upper-tier government commitments to make new facilities a reality in St. Catharines and Thorold. Despite the good news, Oonuhseh Niagara Native Homes Inc. executive director Jody Nadeau said the happy announcement was diminished for her when she was approached by an angry neighbour, as government representatives gathered at the Ormond Street construction site for the announcement Wednesday afternoon. I went up to her and she expressed that the whole neighbourhood does not agree with you people moving here, Nadeau said. She didnt stop there. She said the unidentified woman just went on and on, she said, Nobody wants you guys here. Nadeau said the woman also complained about parking in the area, concerned the new duplex would make the situation worse. She wouldnt even take what I was saying into consideration, Nadeau said. She just kept on angrily demanding the same thing. She just took an opportunity at a really inappropriate time to be stating that kind of stuff. Nadeau said she didnt want to make a big thing about it at the time and politely listened to the woman, handed her a business card and invited her to call the organizations office. Oonuhseh Niagara Native Homes has been part of that neighbourhood for decades. The non-profit organization has owned property at 60 Ormond St. since 1988, although the land has sat vacant for the past few years after a fire destroyed a building there. Its not new land. Its property that we already had in our stock, she said. Nadeau said the funding from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. and Ontario, provided through the Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative, will help pay for a new duplex to replace that home on Ormond Street as well as a new larger building on Oakdale Avenue in St. Catharines that will include two wheelchair accessible units with wider entrances, lower countertops and washrooms with accessible features. We have a wait-list that has way over 150 people for one-bedroom units, she said. Nadeau said the organization is absolutely elated about the funding. Happy is not even the word, she said. Its amazing what were all trying to do for the community in this region. RELATED STORIES Contributors Opinion Indigenous peoples are more than feathers and drums The current projects are intended to provide more housing for elders of the regions First Nations community, and plans for the new facilities are making their way through the planning process before work can begin in the months ahead. In a media release regarding the funding announcement, Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford said ensuring Indigenous people have access to affordable housing that meets their needs is absolutely critical, especially during this challenging time. We look forward to continuing this vital work in collaboration with municipal, federal and Indigenous partners, he said. Municipal Affairs and Housing MinistervSteve Clark said the province is committed to working with our Indigenous program administrators, like Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services, to help build much needed housing for Indigenous people living off-reserve. These new buildings are one of the ways our government is ensuring Indigenous people can access the affordable housing and supports they need today, and in the years to come, Clark said. We have to start enforcing this law before, God forbid, [US President Donald] Trump leaves office in November. We have to get the social media bill out of the Turkish parliament before the summer vacation, said a senior bureaucrat over the phone June 20. Nine days after Al-Monitor spoke to the source, that same bill without much change or substantial deliberation in the parliament became law in the early hours of the morning despite the protests of the opposition. It is called the Social Media Law. Any platform that allows users to share or view documents, images or videos can be regulated under its jurisdiction. The law refers to these platforms as social network providers. Indeed, Turkey already had several rather strict rules in place to regulate social media. In 2018, the government bragged about its "cyber army" of 2,700 keeping an eye on the online activities of 45 million users. These numbers have since increased. The existing legislation was not sufficient because social media has become a growing vulnerability for President Recep Tayyip Erdogans political future. In the last decade, the government created ingenious methods to turn almost all traditional media outlets into its own mouthpieces. Turkey is not only the country with the most jailed journalists, but one where newspapers and TV channels that act out of line are regularly fined and even shut down either for a period or permanently. Just when Erdogan gained complete control of the traditional media, the public's trust to these networks evaporated. In June, MetroPoll poling agency reported that 78% of the public do not believe in the official inflation rate. More surprising may be that when separated by party loyalty, Justice and Development (AKP) party voters distrust reached 67%. Simultaneously, social media became a haven for independent journalists. This nine-item law approved by the AKP and its coalition party, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), is said to regulate social media communications to protect the users and enhance cybersecurity. It is modeled on the 2017 German Network Enforcement Act to regulate online hate speech. The controversial German law was designed to target fast-growing, far-right propaganda, violence, murder and rape threats. Just as it was feared it would become a model for silencing dissent outside of Germany, the act has done little to curtail the spread of right-wing propaganda in Germany. The Turkish version is a bit more cumbersome. It asks that every platform with more than 1 million domestic daily users will have an office and a representative in Turkey. This, the Turkish authorities argue, is essential for two reasons: These platforms will have to pay taxes on the revenues they collect from inside Turkey, and they are asked to store the data in Turkey and make it accessible for the authorities. The law will go into effect Oct. 1, with five stages to compel these platforms. If they do not open offices, the fines will increase gradually all the way up to 30 million Turkish liras ($4.3 million) and they will not be able to accept any advertisements. The service network will be slowed down a process called throttling first by 50% and then by 90%. If it were to happen in accordance with government deadlines, the last stage would be reached by April 15, 2021. Gokhan Ozbek, an independent journalist and the producer of 23 Derece independent news center, told Al-Monitor, Sending a tweet today takes about four seconds in Turkey. If Twitter does not comply, it will slow down so much that it will take more than eight minutes just to send one tweet. Twitter is seen as the platform that worries the Turkish government the most because of its unwillingness to share data. Ozbek said, I would not be surprised if Twitter is shut down because that is the only way to control it. Not everyone will be affected by a possible throttling. For example, the speed of an intranet setup provided to government officials and certain establishments would not be affected. If you are using satellite internet, you also would not be affected by the throttling. But that subscription for this option is about 10 times more expensive than a regular internet package, Ozbek noted. According to Ozbek, users with foreign phone numbers will not be affected by a slowed-down Twitter or other apps. That's why foreign phone numbers and service providers already have found a black market in Turkey. This censorship can be circumvented smoothly if one is tech savvy or has the financial means to afford alternatives. The new laws greatest power is to erase history that is no longer cherished. It is called "the right to be forgotten, through which the government can go after any website and remove its content from a search engine. The justification is to protect individual privacy rights. Anything that may be harmful to ones reputation falls under this vaguely written law. For example, almost all AKP elites have chummy photos with US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen or top Gulen movement members. Or they might have given speeches defending or flattering Gulen or the movement. All can be erased. The law prohibits government employees to use platforms such as WhatsApp or Telegram to share official documents. Al-Monitor spoke to a senior bureaucrat about this, who said, These apps are used frequently to share documents because they are easier than using the official apparatus. However, we know that different countries can easily hack into these apps. It is quite ironic that a state that has so much punitive power to punish Netflix or Instagram can still not streamline the access and distribution of its own official documents. Lawyers competed with each other to find loopholes to circumvent the law, knowing well that Erdogan has the power to change it anytime. This law is a gentler version than the one that ultranationalist MHP members suggested. In their version, all users in Turkey would require a special identification number to log into social media networks and virtual private networks, or VPNs, would be banned. A poll conducted by MetroPoll showed that 40.8% of those polled approved of the new law, 49.6% disapproved and 9.6% was undecided. #SayNoToCensorship hashtag became a trending topic as the public knows well that social media is the only way they can truly express themselves. These draconian and arbitrary laws are not necessarily put in place for Erdogan to win the next election, but are imposed to help him consolidate his powers, increase his popularity again and test the limits of the new presidential system. Womens wear has become a major growth category for the Faherty Brand, and the casual lifestyle label is beefing up its team in hopes of continuing to expand its reach and product offering. Jennifer Cote, who has worked for Global Brands Group, Diane von Furstenberg, Michael Kors and Theory, has joined the company as womens design director to oversee the growing category. Faherty Brand, which was founded by twin brothers Alex and Mike Faherty in 2013, cut its teeth in mens wear, providing an East Coast-skewed alternative to the brightly colored California surf brands. The Faherty brothers, who grew up surfing in New Jersey, offered up a collection of sustainably sourced sportswear with a beach-inspired, muted color palette. Mike Faherty, who had worked for Ralph Lauren before launching the brand, serves as creative director, while his brother Alex has a finance background, and oversees the business end. While mens sales are still strong, womens has grown to the point where it now accounts for half of the companys overall sales. Weve had womens since we started, Alex Faherty said, but mens was the focus for us for the first five or six years. Last year, we really invested in womens, built out the team and launched a full collection for spring 2020 right before the pandemic. But thanks to its comfortable, relaxed and casual aesthetic, the brand managed to hold its own during the height of the coronavirus spread this spring. Although its 12 stores were closed, and its wholesale business took a hit, Fahertys online sales remained solid. One year ago, online was 40 percent of the business, but now its approaching 50 percent and weve seen a lot of momentum, Alex Faherty said. He attributed that to the fact that Fahertys clothes are quarantine-friendly. In womens wear, the most popular item is dresses, which account for 40 percent of all womens sales, Faherty said. Washed cotton and linen fabrics and comfortable silhouettes are one-piece, easy to put on and super simple, said Henry Spear, vice president of merchandising and planning. They feel easy and elevated, not frumpy or overthought. Story continues Most recently, the brand collaborated with Onia on a collection of womens swimwear that feature a selection of the brands vintage-inspired Hawaiian shirt prints. Fahertys own stores, which are located on the East and West Coasts in resort communities such as Marthas Vineyard; Newport Beach and Malibu, Calif., and Spring Lake, N.J., as well as other popular spots such as Greenwich Village in New York City and Boston, account for around 20 percent of sales. Wholesale, which is 30 percent of the business, includes a strong specialty store client list and its anchor customer, which is Nordstrom, Alex Faherty said. All but the store in Hudson Yards in New York have reopened, he said, and the locations in resort and beach communities are outperforming those in cities. At this point, there are no plans to add other units, but he said the company is always looking, and views this time as ripe to see where opportunities might come up. Although Faherty feels mainly like a summer brand, Our business is actually pretty split between spring and fall, he said. In the colder months, the brand switches from lightweight sport shirts and sleeveless dresses to sweaters, Spear said, in cotton and traceable cashmere, alpaca and other sustainable materials. We like our clothes to be happy and have a sense of optimism, he said. Looking ahead, Spear said the goal is to continue to expand its womens offering into other categories. Were going to continue to capitalize on the popularity of sweaters and dresses, and we see opportunity in fashion tops and knitwear including fleeces, zip-up hoodies with a novelty/retro aesthetic. Thats closely linked to outerwear, which were also hoping to expand. Overall, Alex Faherty is optimistic about the continued growth of womens wear, saying: We are finding a good lane and we feel really good about it. Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. (Bloomberg) -- Nvidia Corp. is in advanced talks to acquire Arm Ltd., the chip designer that SoftBank Group Corp. bought for $32 billion four years ago, according to people familiar with the matter. The two parties aim to reach a deal in the next few weeks, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. Nvidia is the only suitor in concrete discussions with SoftBank, according to the people. A deal for Arm could be the largest ever in the semiconductor industry, which has been consolidating in recent years as companies seek to diversify and add scale. But any deal with Nvidia, which is a customer of Arm, would likely trigger regulatory scrutiny as well as a wave of opposition from other users. Cambridge, England-based Arms technology underpins chips that are crucial to most modern electronics, including those that dominate the smartphone market, an area in which Nvidia has failed to gain a foothold. Customers including Apple Inc., Qualcomm Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Intel Corp., could demand assurances that a new owner would continue providing equal access to Arms instruction set. Such concerns resulted in SoftBank, a neutral company, buying Arm the last time it was for sale. No final decisions have been made, and the negotiations could drag on longer or fall apart, the people said. SoftBank may gauge interest from other suitors if it cant reach an agreement with Nvidia, the people said. Representatives for Nvidia, SoftBank and Arm declined to comment. Divestment Drive With Nvidias low-cost fabless model enabling it to focus on R&D, engineering and programming, the fit with Arm would be perfect, said Neil Campling, an analyst at Mirabaud Securities. Nvidia is the largest maker of graphics processors and its spreading the use of the gaming component into new areas such as artificial intelligence processing in data centers and self-driving cars. Marrying its own capabilities with central processor units designed by Arm may enable it to take on Intel and Advanced Micro Devices in a more comprehensive way, according to Rosenblatt Securities analyst Hans Mosesmann. He estimates Nvidia would have to pay about $55 billion for Arm. Story continues You need control of BOTH CPU and GPU roadmaps and this, of course, includes data centers, he wrote in a note Friday, referring to central processing units and graphic processing units. Strategically, Nvidia needs a scalable CPU that can be integrated into its GPU roadmap, as is the case with AMD and Intel. Billionaire Masayoshi Son has been selling some of SoftBanks trophy assets as the company seeks to pay down debt at the Japanese conglomerate. SoftBank has offloaded part of its stake in Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and a chunk of its holdings in wireless carrier T-Mobile US Inc. SoftBank has been exploring options to exit part or all of its stake in Arm through a sale or public stock listing, Bloomberg News has reported. The chip-design company could go public as soon as next year if SoftBank decides to proceed with that option, people with knowledge of the matter have said. Arm has become more valuable as it pushes its architecture into smart cars, data centers and networking gear. The company could be worth $44 billion if it pursues an initial public offering next year, a valuation that may rise to $68 billion by 2025, according to New Street Research LLP. Nvidia, based in Santa Clara, California, is the worlds largest graphics chipmaker. The stock has surged more than twenty-fold in the past five years, giving the company more firepower to do large deals. Nvidias market value has increased to more than $260 billion in that time, surpassing Intel. The stock was little changed Friday in New York. (Updates with analyst comment in eighth paragraph) For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Parents and teachers alike are worrying over school reopening plans in fall. Many parents have resorted to providing solutions in giving their children the education they need. Teachers are struggling to give lessons while making sure their health is not being compromised. School district officials are pleading to authorities to reconsider schools reopening. But the ultimate question is: Would it be safe for kids to go back to school? A Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine study found that younger children carry far more coronavirus in their respiratory tract than adults. This is especially cited for children under five-years-old. The study published in JAMA Pediatrics, included 145 COVID-19 patients with moderate illness within one week when their symptoms started. The research covers three age groups, including young children under five, children between ages five and 17-years-old; and adults in the age range of 18 to 65-years-old. With this comparison, the study found that children under five have 10 to 100 times more particles in the respiratory tract. Pediatric experts Taylor Heald-Sargent, MD, said that kids have levels of a virus similar to and maybe even higher than adults. "It wouldn't be surprising if they were able to shed [the virus]" and spread it to others," Heald-Sargent, who also led the research, was quoted in a report. Other Studies on Children and COVID-19 A study from South Korea, which was published in the CDC's journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, looked at the possibility of children spreading COVID-19. The research studied 5,700 people who had coronavirus symptoms between January 20 to March 17, when South Korea closed schools. The study found that those between the ages of 10 and 19 are most likely to spread the virus in their homes. "We detected COVID-19 in 11.8 percent of household contacts; rates were higher for contacts of children than adults," the researchers were quoted in a report. Heald-Sargent said that it is difficult to assume that because kids are not getting or getting severe symptoms, they do not have the virus. Should Schools Reopen? U.S. President Donald Trump is still pushing for schools to reopen despite opposition from both teachers and parents. Trump told Democrats and Republicans to work together on passing the latest coronavirus relief bills, which includes $195 billion to help schools reopen for in-person learning. Trump repeated his statement that COVID-19 severe illness is to blame with age. He said that the lower they are in age, the lower the risk. However, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious disease expert, warned that those with pre-existing conditions such as diabetes and obesity had increased their risk of dying from COVID-19. Some children that were infected with COVID-19 were hospitalized and even died. A young Florida girl who died of COVID-19 is proof of this. The nine-year-old girl is believed to be the youngest victim in Florida to die of COVID-19. Also, teachers are at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19, according to a Time report. This is because some of them are over 65 and have pre-existing conditions. An elementary teacher in Arizona, Kimberley Chavez Lopez Byrd, died of COVID-19 after sharing a summer classroom with two other teachers, who contracted the disease, according to an NBC News report. Lopez Byrd was 63 and suffered from asthma, lupus, and diabetes. Meanwhile, Trump said that if some state or local officials decided not to reopen schools, the school funding should be reallocated to parents. Check these out: Texas Education Agency Issues School Reopening Guidelines Arizona Teacher Dies of COVID-19, 2 Co-Teachers Infected Schools Struggle to Reopen at Limited Capacity While Parents Protest Against It I think we will forever be asking why why our Joe and why his brothers that he loves so much? the post said. So much loss in the span of a little more than a week. A man who raped an 11-year-old girl in Germany was released from custody after 12 days and then went on to rape a 13-year-old just five weeks later, it is alleged. The Afghan migrant's alleged sex crimes have caused outrage in Germany where politicians are calling for his deportation if he is found guilty. The 23-year-old, named as Zubyr S., was first arrested in June but released less than two weeks later after authorities claimed there was no evidence he was likely to re-offend. However, last Friday, he allegedly lured a 13-year-old girl into a corridor and raped her, leading to his second arrest when the girl described him to investigators. Police are investigating an Afghan man who allegedly raped two underage girls in the space of five weeks after being released from custody in the first case (stock photo) Prosecutor Boerge Klepping told Bild that the two alleged rapes in Dortmund were 'similar incidents'. He said the suspect had been released from custody on July 3 after authorities ruled there was no danger he would re-offend or try to escape. The man had previous convictions for drugs offences and fare evasion, but was considered low-risk because he had a permanent address and no history of sex crimes. 'You need an urgent suspicion and you need a reason to keep someone in custody,' prosecutor Volker Schmerfeld-Tophof told broadcaster WDR. 'For a risk of re-offending, you need specific circumstances which were absolutely not the case here.' In addition, prosecutors claim that there were 'doubts' about the evidence of the alleged 11-year-old victim when the hearing took place. As a result, S. was released after only 12 days and is now accused of raping another young girl only three weeks later. The man is now back in custody while the two alleged rapes are investigated, after the second alleged victim gave an accurate description of him to police. Joachim Stamp, the minister in charge of refugees and integration in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, called for the suspect to be deported if found guilty. 'This repulsive criminal must not only be convicted, but also deported straight back to Afghanistan after his imprisonment,' he said. Others called for the law to be toughened so that suspected rapists could be kept in custody more easily while they are investigated. The anti-immigrant AfD party has called the case a 'judicial scandal' and pointed the finger at Angela Merkel's open-door refugee policy. The 23-year-old is said to have had a temporary residence permit in Germany. Director Alan Parker, whose work included the Commitments and Angela's Ashes, has died aged 76. A statement from a spokeswoman, sent on behalf of the family, said Parker died yesterday after a long illness. His career included films such as Fame, Evita and Bugsy Malone and Midnight Express - and his works won a total of 19 Baftas, 10 Golden Globes and 10 Oscars. Commitments star Maria Doyle Kennedy tweeted: I am very sad to learn that Alan Parker has left us. Apart from the many things he taught me , he introduced me to some lifelong friends for which I am so grateful . I was mad about him, he was hilarious and very kind .All love to Lisa and his children. Parker was born in Islington, London, on February 14, 1944, and began his career in advertising as a copywriter. He graduated to writing and directing commercials, and in 1974 moved into long form drama when he directed the BBC film, The Evacuees, written by Jack Rosenthal. He wrote and directed his first feature film, Bugsy Malone, in 1975 a musical pastiche of Hollywood gangster films of the 1930s with a cast of children. Parker's second film, 1977s Midnight Express, won two Oscars, six Golden Globes and four Baftas. In 1981, he directed Pink Floyd - The Wall, the feature film adaptation of the bands successful rock album, which became a cult classic among music fans. And in 1991 Parker directed the musical-comedy drama, The Commitments, based on Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy. Video of the Day Expand Close Bronagh Gallagher, Angeline Ball and Maria Doyle Kennedy / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Bronagh Gallagher, Angeline Ball and Maria Doyle Kennedy Expand Close Jimmy Rabbitte. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jimmy Rabbitte. In November 1995, he was made a CBE for services to the British film industry and he received his knighthood in 2002. In 1999 he directed another acclaimed Irish film, Angela's Ashes. He received the Bafta Academy Fellowship Award, the bodys highest honour, in 2013. Sir Sean Connery, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Vanessa Redgrave, Sir Christopher Lee, Martin Scorsese and Mike Leigh have been awarded the fellowship. In 2018, Sir Alan donated his significant private collection of scripts and working papers to the BFI National Archive. He is survived by his wife Lisa Moran-Parker, his children Lucy, Alexander, Jake, Nathan and Henry, and seven grandchildren. Expand Close Sir Alan Parker and his wife Lisa (Dominic Lipinski/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sir Alan Parker and his wife Lisa (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Arts Minister Catherine Martin paid tribute to Parker: Alan Parker delighted audiences with a broad canvas of great movies, from the historical drama of Mississippi Burning to the musical comedy of Bugsy Malone. However, he became part of Irish film history with The Commitments," Ms Martin said. "The movie brought Roddy Doyles novel of life in the Dublin of the late 1980s to life. The movie, released in 1991, captured the soul of the capitals music scene and heralded the dawn of a new decade, one in which Ireland came of age on the world stage through its music and culture." Film director David Puttnam, who produced some of Sir Alans films, was among those paying tribute. He said: Alan was my oldest and closest friend, I was always in awe of his talent. My life and those of many others who loved and respected him will never be the same again. Director Nick Murphy described Sir Alan as a huge talent in a tweet, writing: Alan Parker made so many wonderful movies. Just wonderful. A huge talent. As Im sure you know. RIP Alan Parker. Blood drive Aug. 7 at Calvary Lutheran Calvary Lutheran Church in Grand Island will host an American Red Cross blood drive Aug. 7. Blood donations will be collected from noon to 6 p.m. at the church, 13th and Custer streets. Donors will be asked to wear masks. If a donor does not have a mask, the Red Cross will provide one. Due to the pandemic, the Red Cross needs blood donors. Make an appointment by going online at redcrossblood.org or call Ileane McCoy at 308-384-1720. Ice cream social to raise funds for United Way, Bryan Dulitz HASTINGS First St. Pauls Lutheran Church in Hastings will donate funds raised at its 69th annual Ice Cream Social and car/motorcycle show to Bryan Dulitz of Hastings and the United Way Worldwide COVID-19 relief fund. The event is planned for 6:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 5, at the church parking lot, 501 N. Burlington Ave. Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan (L) and Nguyen Trinh Van Hung are held at a police station in Lao Cai Province, July 30, 2020. Photo courtesy of Lao Cai police. Police in Lao Cai Province bordering China have detained two leaders of a ring that smuggled 40 Chinese nationals into Vietnam since April. Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan, 49, and Nguyen Trinh Van Hung, 48, were arrested on Thursday night and put under criminal investigation for brokering and organizing illegal entry. Nhan told that police that in April she met a Chinese man who asked her to help transport Chinese nationals across the border at Lao Cai to HCMC to seek work. The Chinese man agreed to pay Nhan VND25 million ($1,076) per trip. She then contacted Hung who hired cars from Nha Trang in central Vietnam to pick up the Chinese immigrants 1,500 km away in Lao Cai. Nhan paid Hung VND23 million ($990) per trip and kept the remainder. Both admitted to police they had carried out six trips in total, using seven-seater cars to transport five Chinese nationals per time from Lao Cai to HCMC since early April until the ring was busted Monday, with 10 Chinese detained in Lao Cai. Police are expanding the investigation. Recent crackdowns against illegal Chinese immigrants came after Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc ordered the Ministry of Public Security to investigate the illegal entry of foreigners to Vietnam, following Saturday mornings confirmation of the first Covid-19 community transmission in 100 days. To curb the spread of Covid-19, Vietnam has banned entry by foreign nationals since March 22 with exceptions and conditions, including 14-day quarantine on arrival. Earlier this week, three men in southern Tay Ninh Province and two in Lao Cai were arrested for helping Chinese nationals illegally enter Vietnam. Last Saturday, a Chinese man was arrested for his involvement in a ring smuggling Chinese nationals into Da Nang and neighboring Quang Nam Province. Authorities have found 73 Chinese nationals illegally entering both localities over the past few days. With 45 new cases confirmed on Friday, the country now has 509 patients, 373 of whom have recovered. She revisited one of her classic television roles earlier this month in a highly anticipated online reunion special. And Jane Krakowski looked happy and in her element on Thursday, as she strode along on the beach in the Hamptons at the tip of Long Island, New York. The 30 Rock star, 51, looked lovely in a cherry print navy blue wrap dress for the day outing, with the bright red pattern standing out beautifully on the darker blue background. Cherry red and happy: Jane Krakowski looked happy and in her element on Thursday, as she strode along on the beach in the Hamptons Jane's lovely garment featured cap sleeves, a plunging V neckline, and a hem that skirted her thighs. The Ally McBeal alum also had on a silver necklace and dangly earrings. She wore sturdy-looking white sandals with thick black soles. Jane also donned a lighter-blue patterned face mask at one point, in accordance with current recommendations to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Masked and fabulous: The 30 Rock star looked lovely in her cherry print navy blue wrap dress, with the bright red pattern standing out beautifully on the darker blue background The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt actress had her trademark blond hair up and back, and she sported beige rounded sunglasses. On the 17th of this month, Krakowski returned to her role of conceited Jenna Maroney on NBC's 30 Rock: A One-Time Special, which aired on the network and streamed on affiliated new streaming service Peacock. Jane was joined for the special by star/creator Tina Fey (Liz Lemon), Tracy Morgan (Tracy Jordan), Alec Baldwin (Jack Donaghy) and Jack McBrayer (Kenneth Purcell). Earlier this month: Krakowski returned to her role of conceited Jenna Maroney on NBC's 30 Rock: A One-Time Special, which aired on the network and streamed on the new Peacock The reunion was filmed by the stars themselves, from their own homes, or outside their own homes in some cases, in light of current restrictions around social distancing. Krakowski joined Fey, Scott Adsit, Keith Powell, composer Jeff Richmond (who is also Fey's husband) and Maulik Pancholy on Stars In the House on the Wednesday prior to the special, to discuss how the show came to be. Fey revealed that NBC asked Fey and Robert Carlock, who she co-created the show with, to come up with something for the network's upfront presentation. Way back when: The reunion was filmed by the stars themselves, from their own homes, or outside their own homes in some cases, in light of current restrictions around social distancing She loves her prints: Jane was seen in a similarly patterned cherry garment on the 30 Rock special this month 'NBC thought it might be nice to broadcast their presentation, and they asked us to write a 30 Rock around that, which I guess makes sense because the show was about NBC and about television itself,' she said. In addition to the 30 Rock reunion, Krakowski also recently returned as Jacqueline White in the Netflix interactive movie Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Vs. the Reverend. She again played Jacqueline, Kimmy's (Ellie Kemper) employer, as she did during the show's four-season run on Netflix. Jane also voices Mother in the animated comedy The Willoughbys, alongside Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Terry Crews and Ricky Gervais. While delivering a eulogy for John Lewis on Thursday, former President Barack Obama condemned "attacks on democracy" and voting rights, without naming President Donald Trump or Republicans who have sought to restrict mail-in voting during the pandemic. "Even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting," Obama said during a ceremony in Atlanta, Georgia. "by closing polling locations, by targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to an election that's going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people dont get sick." Highlighting the work that Lewis did during his time as a civil rights activist and lawmaker, Obama called for automatic voter registration, including for former inmates, who he said "earned their second chance." He said polling places and early voting should be expanded, Election Day should be made a national holiday, and that residents of Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico should receive equal representation in government. "I know this is a celebration of Johns life. There are some who say we shouldnt dwell on such things, but thats why Im talking bout it," Obama said. "John Lewis devoted his time on this earth fighting the very attacks on democracy, and whats best in America, that were seeing circulate right now." John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act: Activists working in John Lewis' shadow warn about voter suppression ahead of November vote Obama called on lawmakers to revitalize the Voting Rights Act, and expressed support for putting an end to the filibuster, which he called a "Jim Crow relic." He said lawmakers should go even further than the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a piece of legislation renamed for Lewis after his death that aims to restore provisions in the 1965 act that were weakened in a 2013 Supreme Court ruling. Story continues "If politicians want to honor John and Im so grateful for the legacy and work of all the congressional leaders who are here but there's a better way than a statement calling him a hero. You want to honor John? Lets honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for," Obama said. President Obama: The best way to honor John Lewis is to restore the Voting Rights Act that he was willing to die for and make it better with automatic voter registration, by adding polling places, expanding early voting and making election day a national holiday. pic.twitter.com/8qCz8JB8R7 Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) July 30, 2020 Obama's remarks during Lewis' eulogy come as some Republican leaders have increasingly voiced their opposition to mail-in voting, as the country prepares for a national election amid the coronavirus pandemic. Trump began the morning with a tweet suggesting that the November presidential election be delayed and repeated his claim that expanded mail-in ballots would lead to voter fraud. "With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA," Trump said. "Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" Democrats denounced the idea, arguing that there is little evidence of fraud and that a number of states have utilized mail-in voting for years, and experts said Trump lacks the legal authority to delay an election on his own. Mail-in voting: Trump floats delaying election over mail-in voting, legal experts say that power rests with Congress Obama was one of three former presidents to speak at Lewis' funeral, alongside George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. President Jimmy Carter, who is 95, sent a statement read at the service in lieu of attending. Trump did not attend. The presidents hailed Lewis for his devotion to creating "good trouble," and his commitment to peaceful demonstration. "We can't treat voting as an errand to run, if we have some time. We have to treat it as the most important action we can take on behalf of democracy. Like John, we have to give it all we have," Obama said. Lewis died July 17 after a Stage IV pancreatic cancer diagnosis. He was 80. 'Emmett Till was my George Floyd': John Lewis says in posthumous New York Times op-ed In an op-ed written for The New York Times before his death and published Thursday morning, Lewis stressed the importance of every citizen exercising in their right to vote. "Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble," Lewis said. "Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Barack Obama condemns voter suppression in John Lewis eulogy 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. The investigation into the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput took a new turn with the ED stepping in Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found hanging inside his room at his Bandra residence in Mumbai on June 14. While the initial reaction to his death was that he had committed suicide, the probe into his death has opened up a pandora's box with a new theory emerging each day. Here's a look at what all has happened in the Sushant Singh Rajput case investigation so far. The Dawood connection Initially it was said that Sushant was murdered by Dawood Ibrahim who had cleverly carried out the act. But the theory did not hold ground for long. Nepotism Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide and there was a flood of condolences from the industry stalwarts and colleagues of the actor. One was from Karan Johar who stated that he regretted not being able to reach out to the actor when he needed him the most. This enraged his fans who said Karan, along with his elite Bollywood mafia gang, had actually looked down upon Sushant and even made fun of the actor on national television (his favourite TV chat show Koffee With Karan). Bollywod actress Kangna Ranaut was back with her nepotism charge. She was unsparing in her criticism of the big production houses who she said showed preferential treatment to star kids. Renowned filmmaker Shekar Kapur came out in the open to join the nepotism campaign saying there were times when he let Sushant cry on his shoulder after he lost movies to star kids. During investigation of the case, it was found that Sushant had lost 7 movies even after signing the contract. This prompted the Mumbai police to summon big wigs of all the top production houses for grilling. From Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Mahesh Bhatt to Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar, the police had asked all the top Bollywood filmmakers to share their contracts with Sushant. Apoorva Mehta, the CEO of Karan's Dharma Productions met the cops with the contract so did the YRF too which sent a copy of the Sushant contract. The production houses were asked to explain the reason behind replacing Sushant with other actors after signing him up for their movies. Depression The Mumbai police started recording statements of Sushant's family, friends and colleagues in the industry. While actress Rhea Chakraborty who he was living in with the actor up until a week before his death claimed that the actor was being treated for depression, while Sushant's ex-girlfriend Ankita Lokhanda claimed that she always knew Sushant as a happy-go-lucky person and that there was no way he was depressed. Rhea demands CBI probe Rhea Chakraborty put out a tweet seeking CBI probe into Sushant Singh Rajput's death. She also asked the case to be transferred from Bihar (Sushant's native state) to Mumbai saying the actor's father KK Singh could use his influence to tamper with the case. However, Sushant's family came forward to file a counter. His father filed a caveat in Supreme Court not to allow the actress' petition to be heard. Sushant's family contended that somebody in Mumbai Police was helping the actress. Sushant family files FIR against Rhea Sushant Singh Rajput's father filed an FIR against Rhea Chakraborthy and also accused Rhea of blowing up his son's money to lead a lavish lifestyle. He also said that the actress had taken with her laptop, jewellery, cash and credit cards from Sushant's home after she broke up with him on June 8, 2020. 'Rhea, family lived off Sushant's money' The money angle prompted media to dig up more dirt on Rhea. A leading English news channel accessed Sushant's bank statements which showed that Sushant's bank balance had plummeted from a whopping Rs 4 plus crores to just over a crore in a matter of two months. On the other hand, his statement reportedly showed details of transactions which apparently was for Rhea and her brother. This included their flight tickets, hotel stay, tuition fee and shopping expenses. Sushant friends' testimonies Meanwhile, Sushant's best friend Mahesh Shetty, who was one of the persons who the actor called in the last few hours before his death, claimed that Rhea was a control freak who changed his staff after she took charge. In fact, in a sensational expose, Sushant's bodyguard who was fired just a few days before his death revealed that Rhea would throw parties at Sushant's expense where the invitees would be her family and friends. He also said that Sushant never attended these parties as he was sick and would mostly be resting in his room. He also said that Sushant's family had never visited him in the recent days and held Rhea responsible for this. Another filmmaker friend of Sushant from Bihar, Sandip, ruled out the suicide angle saying Sushant had clear plans for his life and knew exactly what he wanted. He also said that he wanted to leave the film industry to take up for farming in Coorg (Karnataka). However, he stated that Sushant was not in touch with any of his friends over the last few months. Sushant death turns political in Bihar With the impending elections in Bihar, politicians are now using the issue for their vote bank demanding a transparent probe into Sushant's death. ED slaps PMLA In a latest development, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a money laundering case on the basis of an FIR filed by the Bihar Police, according. Sushant's father KK Singh has accused Rhea and her family of abetting his son's suicide. It may be recalled that the central probe agency had sought Bihar police FIR and after studying it, the ED has decided to slap charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). They said an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) has been filed against the accused named in the Bihar Police FIR that includes Chakraborty, her family and six others. Rhea and the others are likely to be summoned for questioning soon. Satyamev Jayate: Rhea While Sushant's father claimed that Rhea had transferred 15 crores from his account to an unrelated account. Rhea Chakraborty finally broke her silence and posted a video message stating truth will prevail and all the allegations against her of abetting Sushant's suicide were false. 'Sushant family pressurising me' In another interesting development, Sushant's friend and flatmate sent an email to the Mumbai police accusing the actor's family of forcing him to release a statement against Rhea Chakraborty. In his email, Siddharth Pithani has stated that he was under immense pressure to say things about Rhea that he was not even aware of. He said that he received conference calls from Sushant's family members and an unknown number on July 22, in which they asked him questions regarding Rhea's expenses during her stay at Mont Blanc apartment (in Bandra) with the late actor. With the ED stepping in, the case has now only gotten bigger. It appears even the nepotism campaign has been diluted. Giuffre alleges she was recruited by Maxwell in 2000 at Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago club, where Giuffre was working as a spa assistant. Giuffre was around 17 at the time and she said she was sexually abused by Epstein and several of Epstein and Maxwells powerful friends over the next several years. She did not allege abuse by Trump or at Mar-a-Lago. Chicago: A Chicago woman who last month became the US's first COVID-19 patient to undergo a double lung transplant said on Thursday that she woke up days later, unaware about the surgery and unable to "recognise my body. Mayra Ramirez said that before she fell ill she was an independent, active person who moved from North Carolina to Chicago in 2014 to work as a paralegal. She said she had an auto-immune condition, but was otherwise healthy. She had gone on a five-kilometre run shortly before becoming ill and heading for the hospital. Mayra Ramirez, a COVID-19 survivor due to a double-lung transplant, responds to a question about her journey through the pandemic during her first news conference at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Credit:AP I was told to hurry up (and) change, she said. I was asked who would be making my medical decisions for me." "Thats when I told them it would be my mother and eldest sister who all live in North Carolina. I only had a couple minutes to contact them to let them know what was going on before I was intubated. Press Release 31 July 2020 With the aim of contributing to the recovery of the sector in the current context, Fira de Barcelona will organize on September 28 and 29 the FHG Forum (Food & Hospitality, Tourism and Gastronomy Forum), a congress with a hybrid, virtual and face-to-face format, where prominent speakers and companies will address crucial aspects of the sectors represented in salons such as Alimentaria, Hostelco and Forum Gastronomic Barcelona. Advertisements FHG Forum, which will take place at the Palau de Congressos in Fira de Barcelona, will be divided into three thematic blocks: Restoration, Foodservice and Agri-food Production; Hospitality, Communities and Tourism; and Retail, Large Food Distribution and Value Chain. In this way, through conferences, debates and round tables, it will become one of the main meeting and reflection spaces for the industry represented in the Alimentaria, Hostelco and Forum Gastronomic fairs. Ferran Adria (president of elBullifoundation), Josep Roca (Celler de Can Roca), Nandu Jubany (Can Jubany) and Artur Martinez (Aurt) are already some of the chefs confirmed in this congress, which under the motto "Rethinking the future" will address the immediate challenges of the food industry in the current situation with the aim of facilitating the recovery of the sector. Along with them, there will also be renowned experts such as the economist Marc Vidal who will discuss the need for the digital transformation of businesses to increase sales, and IESE professor Jose Luis Nueno. For its part, the Association of Manufacturers and Distributors AECOC will present the new consumer trends in the post-COVID era from the point of view of distribution, and will raise debates such as the sustainability of online commerce and the new challenges of the chain value of the food industry at the "new normal". Likewise, the event has planned the participation of representatives of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism and entities such as the Spanish Federation of Associations of Manufacturers of Machinery for Hospitality, Collectivities and Related Industries (FELAC), the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (CEHAT), the Spanish Confederation of Hospitality of Spain (CEHE) or the association for collective catering companies, Food Service Spain, which will address future scenarios for tourism and hospitality. In this sense, BTravel, the tourism fair of Fira de Barcelona, will coordinate a round table on the tourism sector with the presence of prominent sector leaders. For the director of the FHG Forum, Josep Alcaraz, "it will be an important event, because it will present, in these moments of uncertainty, a solid platform where the sector can meet again, learn about success stories to face the current situation and discover tools with which to relaunch its business". To this end, business meetings will be held between invited buyers and participating companies. "Fostering business meetings and the presentation of top-level speakers at a global hybrid event allows us to continue to maintain the identity of Alimentaria, Hostelco and Forum Gastronomic: internationalization, innovation and business, positioning ourselves as the point of reference support for the sector to look forward again", adds the CEO of Alimentaria Exhibitions, J. Antoni Valls. On-site and virtual The new event will have a hybrid format (face-to-face and virtual) so that industry, distribution, retail, agriculture, local commerce, restaurants, hotels, communities, foodservice and sector associations and institutions can participate actively, with maximum facilities and security conditions. Thus, the FHG Forum will combine a face-to-face part in which attendees will be able to attend the various sessions scheduled during the two days, with a virtual platform that will broadcast all the conferences by streaming with simultaneous translation to achieve a greater reach. The event will have the anti-Covid protocol that Fira de Barcelona has developed in collaboration with the specialized risk management consultancy Aon and the advice of the Hospital Clinic de Barcelona in order to offer the maximum safety guarantees for workers, organizers, exhibitors, visitors and providers. Huaweis had it rough in 2020 and 2019, for that matter. But somehow, well thanks to sales in China, its shipped more phones than anyone else. More than Apple, more than Samsung. Thats in the face of US bans, its own conservative sales estimates and the whole lack-of-Android-on-its-flagship-smartphone thing. Engadget Huaweis sales declined by only five percent to 55.8 million units, compared to a huge 30 percent drop for Samusung, down to 53.7 million smartphones shipped. While smartphone sales dropped significantly in the US and elsewhere due to the coronavirus, sales in China suffered far less, and 70 percent of Huaweis sales are now in its home country. It helps that devices like the P40 Pro are incredible phones if you ignore the whole Android / lack of Google element. Huaweis time in the top spot may be short: Samsung, naturally, thinks sales will rebound in the next quarter. Mat Apple confirms its new iPhones will be delayed by a 'few weeks' The company's CFO was very candid about the delay on a conference call. Engadget New iPhones appear in September, typically weeks after a splashy press conference at Apple HQ. Not so, this year. During the companys post-earnings conference call, the companys Chief Financial Officer, Luca Maestri, confirmed that Apples new iPhones would be arriving later than usual, something Qualcomm had hinted at earlier this week. As you know, last year, we started selling new iPhones in late September, Maestri said. This year, we project supply to be available a few weeks later. In these times of COVID-19-related delays, a few weeks really isn't too bad. Unless things change it is 2020. Continue reading. Google posts its own Pixel 4a leak Expect to see it revealed on August 3rd. Google Weve seen hints and renders of Googles next budget phone floating around for months, and now Google is getting into the conversation. Headers on its social media pages and a dedicated website introduce some placeholder text, and if you manipulate the colors to match Googles logo, the page reveals a launch date for its Just What Youve Been Waiting for Phone. Continue reading. NASA's Perseverance rover is on its way to Mars Its scheduled to arrive in February 2021. NASA/JPL-Caltech The launch was successful, with the team announcing it received telemetry from the spacecraft and sent commands back to it. A few issues did arise during launch, but they have been dealt with. According to Deputy Project Manager Matt Wallace, With the understanding of the causes of these issues, we are conducting the operations necessary to move the spacecraft back out of safe mode and into normal cruise mode. Continue reading. After Starship test fire, Elon Musk expects 150-meter hop 'soon' Stay tuned. Elon Musk / SpaceX Elon Musks hopes for SpaceXs Starship reaching orbit before this spring didnt quite pan out, but a recent test firing has the SpaceX CEO expecting to see the companys new vehicle take flight shortly. On Thursday, he tweeted that its new SN5 build completed a full duration static fire and said a 150-meter test hop will happen soon. Continue reading. Motorola Edge review A great value option, but only for now. Engadget Chris Velazco already reviewed Motorolas new flagship, the Edge+, and now its ready to release a stripped down version. The base Edge is still 5G ready unless you want mmWave support and features a similar curved 6.7-inch Endless Edge display. However, instead of being a $1,000 Verizon exclusive, its a cheaper option for unlocked use on pretty much any network. To get the price down, it uses a less-powerful Snapdragon 765G CPU, has a smaller 4,500mAh battery, halves the RAM to 6GB and loses wireless charging. Even with those compromises and a finicky in-screen fingerprint sensor, Chris calls this device a no brainer as long as you can get it for the temporary launch price of $500. At its $700 MSRP, similar midrange 5G phones, including the Galaxy A71 5G, OnePlus Nord and LG Velvet, start to look like better options. Continue reading. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 leak shows improved hinge design A punch-hole replaces the camera notch on the inner display. MySmartPrice Samsungs upcoming Galaxy Z Fold2 has leaked in full, with what appears to be a more robust-looking hinge. The renders, found by MySmartPrice, show that the Z Fold2 has completely lost the original Folds cutout selfie camera notch on the interior screen its now replaced by a hole-punch. The most important changes we could spot are on the hinge, though. The original Galaxy Fold had some janky seals to close off gaps, but dust and other particles still got in. The Fold2s sides appear to enclose the hinge structure more completely. The inside corners are also square instead of rounded, so theres no longer a small gap at the top and bottom when its opened. Continue reading. But wait, theres more... Impossible Burger's fake meat is coming to 2,000 Walmart stores Netflix is reportedly working on an animated Splinter Cell series Amazon gets FCC approval for its Project Kuiper broadband satellites Google tightens Chrome's autofill security with biometric checks HMD's Nokia 8.3 5G 'flagship' is coming to the US this fall HBO app replaces HBO Now on Fire TV devices August 1st Razer updates its BlackShark headset with THX spatial audio 'Hyper Scape' is coming to PS4 and Xbox One on August 11th Amazon knocks $200 off the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro Soon after it was announced that former presidential candidate Herman Cain had died Thursday of COVID-19-related complications, many theorized that he was exposed to the virus during an appearance at President Donald Trumps campaign rally in Tulsa. Cain, 74, who had been hospitalized since July 2 before his death, was one of the Trump campaign surrogates at the June 20 rally in the BOK Center. Dan Calabrese, editor of Cains website, refuted suggestions that Cain became sickened by attending the rally. I realize people will speculate about the Tulsa rally, but Herman did a lot of traveling the past week, wrote Calabrese. I dont think theres any way to trace this to one specific contact that caused the infection. Well never know. In response to a question about whether there was concern that Cain might have contracted the coronavirus in Tulsa, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Friday that she would not politicize Herman Cains passing. Ghislaine Maxwell had orgies with girls as young as 15 on the private Caribbean island owned by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and trained one of her alleged victims as a sex slave, newly unsealed court documents claim. Virgina Giuffre, who has accused both Epstein and Ms Maxwell of abusing her, said the former used his residence, dubbed paedophile island, to host orgies that were attended by young women who had been flown in from across Europe. There were blondes, there were brunettes, there were redheads. They were all beautiful girls. I would say the ages ranged between 15 and 21, Ms Giuffre alleges in court documents, made public by US District Judge Loretta Preska late on Thursday evening. Ms Guiffres testimony dates back to a now-settled 2015 civil litigation against Ms Maxwell, who she claims procured young girls for Epstein to have sex with. Ms Maxwell, the 58-year-old daughter of disgraced media tycoon Robert, has since been charged with aiding Epsteins abuse of underage girls. She denies the charges and currently awaits trial in a New York prison following her arrest earlier this month. Recommended New documents show Ghislaine Maxwell emailed Epstein in 2015 Following an intense legal battle and a last minute attempt by Ms Maxwells legal team to have the documents suppressed, Judge Preska published a raft of documents on Thursday, stating: The court finds that the countervailing interests identified fail to rebut the presumption of public access. Defence lawyers acting for Ms Maxwell had argued that publication of the documents would reveal embarrassing details of their clients sex life. In her 2015 testimony, Ms Giuffre, 36, alleged that Ms Maxwell trained me as a sex slave. She also claimed that she was pressured into having sex with a host of rich and powerful men, including Prince Andrew, who strenuously denies the allegations. The documents also revealed that Ms Maxwell had been in contact with her former associate as late as 2015, appearing to contradict a claim made by her legal team that the pair had not spoken in a decade. Recommended Ghislaine Maxwell loses bid to block release of deposition against her Court files show that Epstein composed an email that appears to have been written for Ms Maxwell to use as a statement in distancing herself from the disgraced financier, who took his own life in August 2019, aged 66, while awaiting trial for a litany of sex offences. The statement goes on to claim that media reports linking the pair and Ms Maxwells alleged crimes are inaccurate. They are false allegations of impropriety and offensive behaviour that I abhor and have never been a party to, Epstein wrote. Ms Maxwell then wrote to Epstein on 24 January 2015 asking him to make public a relationship he allegedly had with a woman named Shelley. I think she was [your girlfriend] from end 99 to 2002, Ms Maxwell wrote. It is unclear who Shelley is or whether Epstein had a relationship with her. Ms Maxwell was denied bail earlier this month and her trail has been scheduled for July 2021. Hong Kong Officials Disqualify 12 Pro-Democracy Election Hopefuls 2020-07-30 -- Election authorities in Hong Kong on Thursday disqualified 12 pro-democracy figures who tried to register as candidates in legislative elections slated for September, including former 2014 student protest leader Joshua Wong. The list of disqualified candidates also included incumbent Civic Party lawmakers Dennis Kwok, Kwok Ka-ki, and Alvin Yeung, and district councilors Lester Shum and Fergus Leung. Localist community activist Ventus Lau and former journalist Gwyneth Ho were also denied permission to run. The Hong Kong government said the nominees hadn't complied with requirements that they "uphold, support, and embrace" the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, and that they pledge allegiance to Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region of China. It said anyone who supports "Hong Kong independence, self-determination, or changing the system" or who solicits intervention by foreign governments or political authorities in relation to Hong Kong affairs should be disqualified from standing in elections. Anyone who expresses an "objection in principle" to a draconian national security law recently imposed on the city by Beijing, or who plans to use their seat to "indiscriminately" vote down government budgets, bills, and policies in LegCo would also be prevented from running, it said in a statement. A democratic primary earlier this month sought to place pro-democracy candidates in LegCo with a view to stalling the government's budget in the event that they won a majority in the chamber. The government said more disqualifications could follow, as electoral officials, known as returning officers, were still considering other nominations. "We do not rule out the possibility that more nominations would be invalidated," it said. No chance of a fair election Kwok Ka-ki told RFA that there is no possibility of a fair election, whether it is held in September as scheduled, or postponed for a year, as many media outlets have reported. "The next election won't be fair, nor will it result in a parliament that truly represents the aspirations of the people of Hong Kong," Kwok said. "The main point of this approach is to suppress the desire of the people of Hong Kong for democracy, rule of law, and freedom." Ma Yue, an associate professor in the department of politics at CUHK, said the decisions didn't come as a surprise to him. "Actually I'm not sure who will be able to qualify at all now," Ma said. "If opposition to the national security law is a requirement, then there aren't any democratic candidates who will qualify." "It's hard to say exactly what options will be available for voters who are pro-democracy." In Joshua Wong's case, the returning officer questioned him in particular about his insistence on winning international support for the protest movement, and about his opposition to the national security law. "The excuse they use is that I describe #nationalsecuritylaw as a draconian law, which shows that I do not support this sweeping law," Wong wrote on Twitter on Thursday, after receiving the letter from his returning officer. "Beijing [has] now staged the biggest-ever crackdown on the city's election, by disqualifying nearly all pro-democracy runners, from young progressive groups to traditional moderate parties," he wrote. Opposition voices targeted Rights groups hit out at the move on Thursday. Amnesty International Hong Kong's Programme Manager Lam Cho Ming said the decisions had clearly targeted opposition voices in Hong Kong. "This would amount to discrimination against a particular opinion on political grounds, which is a violation of the rights to freedom of expression and association," Lam said in a statement. "This move is likely to intensify the climate of fear and tension in Hong Kong, where opposition figures, their supporters, activists on the streets and even ordinary people have been forced to self-censor their political discourse to avoid being targeted under the city's new national security law," he said. "For all the Hong Kong government's insistence that these decisions do not restrict freedom of speech, its actions reek of political repression," Lam said. Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Regional Director Nicholas Bequelin said the recent arrests of four young people under the national security law over online posts supporting independence showed that freedom of expression is now under comprehensive attack under the new regime. "According to police statements, all those detained have been targeted solely for peacefully expressing their views," Bequelin said. "That four young people could potentially face life imprisonment on the basis of some social media posts lays bare the draconian nature of the national security law," he said. In the U.K., Hong Kong's last colonial governor Lord Patten of Barnes, said the move was "an outrageous political purge of Hong Kong's democrats." "The national security law is being used to disenfranchise the majority of Hong Kong's citizens," he said in a statement published by the rights group Hong Kong Watch. "It is obviously now illegal to believe in democracy ... This is the sort of behavior that you would expect in a police state." Reported by Lu Xi and Lau Siu-fung for RFA's Mandarin and Cantonese Services. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Copyright 1998-2020, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content July not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address For the self-proclaimed 'most stylish man in Africa,' James Maina Mwangi, dressing up is a whole different ball game. Mwangi, from Nairobi, Kenya, became an internet sensation for his unique sense of style. Every day Mwangi wears different coloured outfits but the unique thing is that the colour of the day covers him from head to toe. Even his accessories match his outfits. One Twitter user shared his photo alongside American pop star Rihanna. So we guess the question now is 'Who wore it better?' #1 Twitter #2 Twitter #3 Twitter #4 Twitter #5 Twitter #6 Twitter #7 Twitter #8 Twitter #9 Twitter #10 Twitter #11 Twitter #12 Twitter #13 Twitter Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, has declared that the other party was provoking him. He made the veil reference about the All ... Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, has declared that the other party was provoking him. He made the veil reference about the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Thursday in Benin after the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stakeholders meeting. The Edo helmsman condemned the attacks on PDP supporters in front of Oba of Benin palace. Obaseki said his administration would ensure that the perpetrators faced the law. The governor warned that his administration was not weak in responding to political violence. Obaseki noted that being a governor, he would not misuse state powers. I believe my powers should be used responsibly, particularly in the face of provocation, and especially what the other party did in the palace by attacking our supporters in an attempt to provoke me, he said. On the governorship race, Obaseki declared: If we have an election today in the state, PDP will win by 75 per cent. PDP has always won every national election in Edo. The APC had alleged that Obaseki and Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike, were behind the palace incident. Viral: This Animated video released in 2020 looks exactly the sequence of PM security breach MHA showcauses Bathinda SSP, 5 other officers over 'major lapses in security' during PM's visit As polls near, ISI-Khalistan combo looks to worsen situation in Punjab Punjab announces Unlock 3 guidelines: All you need to know India oi-Deepika S Chandigarh, July 31: The Punjab government on Friday issued Unlock 3.0 guidelines and mandates night curfew from 11pm to 5am in the state. Gyms and yoga institutes to open on August 5. As many as 5,50,150 people have been fined for violation of the COVID guidelines. India extends ban on International flights till August 31st | Oneindia News Unlock 3: Hotels to open in Delhi, gyms uncertain The chief minister expressed concern over the rising death toll due to the disease and called for concerted efforts to bring down the fatality rate. The DCs of some of the worst affected districts, including Amritsar, Jalandhar, Patiala and Mohali, briefed the meeting on the situation in their respective regions and the measures being taken to monitor, track, test and treat COVID-19 patients. The state currently has 64 micro-containment zones, of which 16 are in Jalandhar. The government on Thursday also deputed 22 IAS, IFS and PCS officers as COVID Patient Tracking Officers (CPTOs), amid the rising number of coronavirus cases in the state. Mahajan said the state government has designated these officers as CPTOs to ensure coordination and expeditious response at district level by tracking patients from the time they test positive till the completion of their treatment. These officers will perform their role as CTPOs in addition to their current duties and will report to the deputy commissioners concerned, she said in an official release here. The CPTOs should ensure that they receive details of each COVID patient as soon as the result is declared by the lab, the chief secretary said, adding that they should also follow up with the labs to ensure that there is no undue delay in sharing of the results. The CPTOs shall ensure that each positive patient is brought to the nearest health facility so that their medical condition can be assessed, and the future course of treatment finalised. Mahajan said the CPTOs will be authorised to exercise their judgment and incur any expenditure required to save lives in consultation with deputy commissioners. The CPTOs should have a full list of availability of beds and ventilators in COVID Care Centres, and government and private hospitals. They should also have details of ambulance service providers, she said. The chief secretary stressed that the CPTOs will ensure that each patient under home isolation is tele-monitored on a daily basis. The telephone number of the district control room should be shared with the patient in case of any emergency referral. The CPTOs will ensure that in case of death of a COVID patient, the cremation or burial is done as soon as possible as per the state protocol, she said. Smuggled gold weighing 3.11 kg and valued at Rs 1.66 crore was seized at the international airport here from 11 passengers, Customs officials said on Friday. According to Customs officials, the passengers, who arrived here from Dammam (in Saudi Arabia) by a Vande Bharat Mission flight on Thursday had "concealed the gold" (bars) in the inner pocket of their trousers which they were wearing. Based on suspicion and profiling of the passengers, cases were booked against 11 passengers for allegedly "smuggling" of gold and they were being questioned. In another case, Customs in coordination with CISF detected five passengers who were trying to smuggle out sandalwood and a total of 78.5 kg of sandalwood was seized from them at the airport on Thursday. The five passengers were to travel from Hyderabad to Khartoum (in Sudan). Further investigation is being conducted by Customs. Home employee Majella Lynch, relatives of residents Caroline Levin and Mary Lynch pictured at a meeting at Neptune Stadium, Cork following the announcement that the local respite home Mount Cara will close. Pic Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provisions NURSING home residents, their families and staff expressed anger and upset at the decision to confirm the closure of a major care facility at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Mount Cara House in Cork wrote to the families of residents outlining the planned closure of the facility. The board of management of the Blackpool nursing home said it will now shut down entirely. Mount Cara board blamed the decision on the Covid-19 pandemic challenges and occupancy rates. "The new challenges posed by Covid-19, along with the reduction in occupancy have led to this decision. Mount Cara is a residential facility for older people and although it complies with Nursing Home Standards, it is not covered by the Fair Deal Scheme for residents. "The increased provision of sheltered housing, home care packages and home help supports have also impacted on the demand for Mount Cara services." A total of 15 elderly residents are currently cared for at Mount Cara - some of whom have been there for years. Fred Richmond, whose 98-year-old father has been resident at Mount Cara since last February, said families are upset and frightened. "My father is 98-years-old - he grew up in Blackpool. He played hurling with the North Mon and the Glen. So this is his heartland," he said. "I have not seen my father since the lockdown to keep him safe. This is the most dangerous time for old people since the Spanish Flu. "This (closure) comes at a time when Covid-19 is rampant. We are being told that under no circumstances should people be mingling - this flies in the face of that. So this is very frightening news. "We were just told it will close in a number of months. "There are people in that nursing home up to 100 years of age - they have been kept safe, happy and infection-free at Mount Cara. And now they are being told they have to move? Maybe move to a shared room? We are very angry because this came out of nowhere." Mr Richmond said all nursing homes across Ireland have massive waiting lists. "It is very, very frightening. The staff have been tremendous and they will be out of work now and depending on a 350 Covid payment. It is all wrong." Mount Cara has operated as both a long-term care facility and also for respite care. A recent Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) report was highly complimentary of how the facility operated with residents described as being very happy there. Staff member Majella Lynch said they have not been given a precise closure date - or what will happen to the 20 staff employed there. Sinn Fein TD Thomas Gould has now called for Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to personally intervene to determine precisely why the highly regarded facility was closing. This has been an extremely difficult time for the families and staff in Mount Cara House but they rose to the challenge and they managed to keep the facility Covid-19 free and keep the residents safe and happy," he said. "The loss of Cara House would be a devastating blow to the northside of Cork city. People should be cared for in their own communities and these residents have made Cara House their home. The staff and other residents are like family to them and it would be a disgrace if the HSE allow this to close. A man was booked for posing as a reader deputed with the additional director general of police (ADGP) and threatening a resident of Barundi village in a land dispute. The complainant, Manjit Kaur, said Maninderjit Singh of Boparai Khurd village, threatened to demolish her house and also ruin the future of her children. Kaur told the police that her family had a land dispute with her brothers-in-law Balbir Singh and Gurdeep Singh. The matter is in court. Maninderjit, who knows Balbir, called her over the phone and threatened her to withdraw the case, while claiming that the ADGP had provided him police force to take action against culprits and he will use it against her. She also alleged that Maninderjit demanded money from her. ASI Jagroop Singh, in-charge at Lohatbaddi police post, said they had booked the accused under Sections 420 (cheating), 170 (personating a public servant) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. During investigation, they found that Maninderjit was not deputed with any police official. Efforts are on to arrest him. Police arrest stolen vehicle suspect who fled, entered occupied home The homeowner was able to get out of the home safely, but Aberdeen police are now negotiating the surrender of the suspect. Weather Alert ...Spotty black ice possible this morning... Slick spots on area roads may persist this morning as temperatures bottom out in the teens to around 10 degrees, and gusty northerly winds continue. Snow flurries may occur across parts of western Kentucky through mid morning. Untreated roads and bridges are most likely to have black ice on them. Motorists should use caution on the morning commute. There have been no Joint Forces casualties since the beginning of the ceasefire. Ukraine reported two incidents on Thursday, July 30, when Russia's hybrid military forces violated the newly-agreed truce in Donbas, eastern Ukraine. "To provoke the Ukrainian defenders near the village of Orikhove, enemy troops used rifles, while, in addition to small arms, they fired a shot from an under-barrel grenade launcher not far from the village of Novotoshkivske. The provocations were random, so our soldiers did not return fire," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) said in a Facebook update as of 07:00 Kyiv time on July 31, 2020. Read alsoOSCE reports 60 civilian casualties in Donbas since year-start There have been no Joint Forces casualties since the beginning of the ceasefire, which started on July 27. However, there were reports about the death of three soldiers in the past days "over a sudden deterioration in health." In particular, soldier Arthur Bakhnar died on July 28, soldier Serhiy Verhun on July 29, and senior sergeant Volodymyr Perekrestov on July 30. The JFO HQ did not elaborate on the causes behind their death. Since Friday midnight, no attacks by Russian Federation's armed formations have been recorded, the JFO HQ said. The latest ASEAN Summit looked at the new face of human resources, Photo: VNA Working abroad to the majority of Vietnamese has long meant labour export, which often refers to the movement of low-skilled workers, most coming from rural areas and working in certain sectors such as manufacturing, construction, fishing, agriculture, housekeeping, and other services. Last year, Vietnam sent over 150,000 of its people to work in more than 40 countries and territories mainly concentrating in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, China, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia and across more than 30 sectors, according to the Department of Overseas Labour under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs. However, the type of labour mobility has changed significantly compared to the recent free migration of workers around Southeast Asia. Graduating from a university in Vietnam, 28-year-old Hoang Minh Tai had been working in the Czech Republic and Germany before moving to his companys headquarters in Malaysia. Six months later, he was transferred to Singapore. Tai said that the ASEAN is a labour market with potential for young people not only in Vietnam but also other countries in the region, and the wave of young workforce looking for jobs in Southeast Asia in recent years is no longer simply the story of labour exporting. Jobs in Southeast Asia are no longer manual or simple labour-import vacancies, but now require personnel with skills, knowledge, experience, and qualifications, Tai stated. For example, those can be jobs in IT, customer service, research, processing, or data analysis. The advent of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) five years ago not only facilitated a more integrated regional economy, but also promoted free movement of highly-skilled professionals and labour. The Triangle in ASEAN Programme has for a decade delivered technical assistance and support with the overall goal of maximising the contribution of labour migration to equitable, inclusive, and stable growth in the region. The programme, from the International Labour Organization, has recognised that labour migration is an emerging element among the blocs labour markets while intra-ASEAN migration has also been increasing. Provisions for skilled labour movement within the ASEAN principally revolve around Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) which allow for a workers skills, experience, and accreditations to be recognised across the region, permitting them to work outside their home country. The ASEAN currently has MRAs in place for six sectors and framework agreements in place for two more in engineering, nursing, architecture, medicine, dentistry, tourism, surveying, and accountancy. In particular, moves are made easier for high-quality workforce that are experts and skilled workers, or have a university degree or higher level of education, as well as being fluent in other languages. According to a regional report by recruitment networker JobStreet, in the first six months of 2019, the amount of highly-skilled Vietnamese getting a job in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia increased respectively by 11 per cent, 38 per cent, and 8 per cent. While Vietnamese are increasingly wishing to thrive abroad, they are facing no fewer challenges than the job opportunities out there. Vietnam ranks third in the ASEAN in terms of labour force, but the proportion of well-trained workers with diplomas and certificates accounts for only 22.37 per cent. As such, young Vietnamese may face obstacles when heading to Singapore as the government has issued abundant policies to protect their citizens, along with strict working skill requirements. Therefore, with a wider and more diverse labour market, Thailand has become an attractive destination for jobseekers. In addition, the invasion of high technology and most recently the unemployment wave caused by COVID-19 has forced countries to come up with stricter and more comprehensive labour training plans. In the advent of Industry 4.0 and also the coronavirus pandemic, human resources development is becoming more important than ever. To enhance competitiveness of the ASEAN compared with elsewhere, high-quality human resources are a decisive factor, according to Deputy Minister of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs Le Quan. ASEAN countries are very much focusing heavily on the keys of human resources development, especially in IT and other areas in which the bloc boasts decent capacity and human resources. In addition, the ASEAN Declaration on Human Resources Development for the Changing World of Work presented at the 36th ASEAN Summit has also received great attention from members. Countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand have introduced a number of proposals and plans to develop skilled human resources to meet the requirements of investors, attracting new waves of foreign investment and creating a workforce that meets domestic, regional, and also global needs. We encourage free movement of labour and will continue supporting the ASEAN and removing restrictions, thereby promoting free labour migration, said Mark Alan Brown, head of the International Organization for Migration office in Ho Chi Minh City. The ASEAN itself is also improving and encouraging free labour movement which is one of the goals of the AEC, not only stopping at the current eight occupations. By Keith Zhai and Julie Zhu SINGAPORE/HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's top antitrust agency is looking at whether to launch a probe into Alipay and WeChat Pay, prompted by the central bank which argues the digital payment giants have used their dominant positions to quash competition, sources with knowledge of the matter said. The State Council's antitrust committee has been gathering information on Alipay, owned by Ant Group which in turn is an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd , as well as on Tencent Holdings Ltd's <0700.HK> WeChat Pay for more than a month, they said. Any investigation would likely dampen enthusiasm for Ant Group's planned dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai that is seeking a valuation of more than $200 billion. The antitrust committee has not made a decision about whether to proceed with an investigation, the sources said, and it was not clear when a decision might be made. One source said the committee is taking the People's Bank of China's recommendation "very seriously". The sources, who declined to be identified as the policy deliberations were confidential, also said that Ant and Tencent are lobbying government officials in an effort to prevent a probe. The State Council Information Office and the central bank did not respond to requests for comment. Ant and Tencent did not respond to requests for comment on the potential probe. The People's Bank of China formally recommended sometime in the second quarter that the State Council committee should look into antitrust issues posed by the country's non-bank payment companies, one of the sources said. GIANTS IN THEIR FIELD If the State Council antitrust committee decides to go ahead with a probe it would mark a change of tack for regulators. "I do find it surprising as the Chinese regulators have pretty much taken a wait and see approach and only lightly regulated China's digital payments space since they started in 2004," said Zennon Kapron, director of Shanghai-based financial industry research firm Kapronasia. Story continues "This is also the first time that they are looking at Alipay and WeChat Pay from an anti-trust perspective," he added. Alipay and WeChat Pay services, which enable payments at the convenience of a code scan, have become ubiquitous in daily life in China, with many people now rarely using cash. The country's mobile banking market logged some 56.2 trillion yuan ($8 trillion) worth of transactions in the last three months of 2019, according to domestic consultancy Analysys. It estimates Alipay commands 55% of the market and that Tencent's fintech business, most of which is WeChat Pay, has 39%. But authorities have been keen to whittle back their dominance. In an effort to encourage smaller players to enter the market, the central bank said last year it planned to standardise the interoperability of QR code payments. China's legislative body is also debating major revisions to its antitrust laws for the first time in more than 11 years, which are set to include expanded criteria for judging a company's control of a market. One of the world's most valuable unlisted companies, Ant generated about $2.2 billion in profit in the fourth quarter, according to Reuters calculations based on figures from Alibaba regulatory filings. Its main service Alipay has more than 900 million users in China. WeChat Pay had over 800 million monthly active users in the fourth quarter, according to Tencent's 2019 annual report. (Reporting by Keith Zhai in Singapore and Julie Zhu in Hong Kong; Editing by Edwina Gibbs) S weltering heat across Europe has led to several cities in Italy going on 'red alert' and record temperatures in Spain. The mercury hit 37.8C (100F) at Londons Heathrow Airport at 2.41pm, the Met Office said, making Thursday the third hottest day in the UK on record. But Britain wasn't the only country to experience soaring temperatures this week. The Italian Ministry of Health issued the maximum level three, or 'red alert', weather warning in 14 cities including Rome, Bologna, Verona and Pescara People watch a man wearing a T-Rex costume on a paddle board during hot weather at Sferracavallo beach, in Palermo, Italy / REUTERS Authorities in Italy urged people to take extra precautions during the heatwave such as drinking more water than normal and checking on neighbours who may live alone. Daniela Iannelli, a 55-year-old municipal employee in Rome, told the Mail Online: "Even in this stifling heat, it's better to put up with 38 degrees than catch the coronavirus." People sunbathe at Magaluf beach in Mallorca, Spain / REUTERS Warm weather in France's heatwave saw a forest fire break out in Chiberta forest park at Anglet in the south west of the European country on Thursday. Around 100 people were forced to evacuate and dozens of homes were destroyed by the blaze, local media reported. According to RTE News, nearly a hundred fire stations in France were on high alert last night with Paris forecast to reach 40C in the shade. Bournemouth police brace to control heatwave influx Dutch beachgoers were told to avoid the coastal town of Zandvoort near Amsterdam in the Netherlands as authorities said crowds were making it too difficult to maintain coronavirus social distancing. Parts of Spain set new records during a heatwave this week. San Sebastian on Spains northern coast witnessed temperatures of 42C (107F) on Thursday the hottest temperature there since records began in 1955, the national weather agency said. The city of Palma, on Spains Mediterranean island of Mallorca, set a local record of 40.6C (105F) on Tuesday. The Spanish weather agency, Aemet, said tropical nights when temperatures do not fall below 20C (68F) were also frequent in many parts of Spain in July. Climate change is increasing the frequency of heatwaves, it said, adding that the annual number of days in heatwave conditions has doubled since the 1980s. Lucknow, July 31 : The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has issued an order under which using a mobile phone while driving will attract Rs 1,000 as fine for the first offence and Rs 10,000 for the second offence. The order was passed on Friday based on a notification issued by the state transport department on Thursday. The hefty amount for the violation has been imposed to imbibe a sense of responsibility among the citizens, as it could lead to a reduction in the number of traffic rule violations in the state. According to the Motor Vehicles Act, which came into force in September last year, driving under the influence of alcohol, and not giving way to ambulances or fire brigade will attract a penalty of Rs 10,000 or imprisonment. Earlier, the UP Traffic Police had made it mandatory for pillion riders to wear a helmet along with the rider. Several other stringent measures were taken to increase awareness and improve road behaviour. Not wearing seat belt, drunk and dangerous driving, over-speeding, jumping red lights, driving without insurance and overloading vehicles will also attract higher penalties. Guwahati, July 31 : The flood situation in Assam has significantly improved during the past one week, even as one more person died in Kokrajhar district on Friday taking the death toll to 109, officials said. Officials of the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said that the overall flood situation in the state's worst-hit western region is considerably better, while the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said that the respite in the rains since last Friday has been helpful and predicted that conditions would further improve in the coming days. According to ASDMA officials, around 11 lakh people in 1,366 villages across 21 of the state's 33 districts are still in distress, though the number has come down since July 24 when over 28 lakh people in 2,543 villages of 26 districts were affected. Of the 11 lakh affected people, 7.42 lakh are in the state's five western districts -- Goalpara (340,515), Morigaon (221,726), Bongaigaon (96,763), Barpeta (55,636), and Dhubri (27,930), they said. A total of 82,947 hectares of crops are still flooded, but the area has come down from 122,573 hectares as on July 24. The ASDMA officials said that five major rivers including the Brahmaputra, are in spate in many places in six districts, including Sonitpur, where both the Brahmaputra and Jia Bharali are flowing over the danger level. Forest officials said that at least 145 wild animals have died due to the deluge and 169 have been rescued, even as over 55 per cent of the 884 sq km Kaziranga National Park remains inundated. The animals that have died in the annual monsoon floods include 16 rhinos, 105 hog deer, 11 wild boars, five wild buffaloes, three porcupines and two swamp deer. The officials said that besides Kaziranga, located on the edge of the eastern Himalayan bio-diversity hotspots of Golaghat and Nagaon districts, the Manas, R.G. Orang and Tinsukia national parks, and the Pabitora and Tinsukia wildlife sanctuaries were also affected. Experts and fans have pointed to many reasons why Sushants death is likely to be a murder One hypothesis is that Sushant had visitors, or perhaps a small party, the previous day or evening, and that the crime was done by people known to him On 24 July, millions of people across the world watched the release of the much-awaited Dil Bechara, the last film of 34-year old Sushant Singh Rajput who played the male lead. The film, based on the novel A fault in our stars (John Green, 2012), explores the love that blossoms between two young cancer patients, Kizie and Manny, of Bengali and Tamil origin respectively. Despite the looming finality of death, the film is for the most part spirited and hopeful, like Kizie and Mannys special word seriokay in Tamil. They managed to be more than okay until the last part when Manny, the character played by Sushant, dies. Mannys laughter was suddenly cut short and he became And then there was me on the tombstone after cancer claimed his life. Sushant, too, died unexpectedly a few weeks ago. His life was also cut short by a cancerous growth nepotism, gangs, greed and power in the industry that he was part of. Sushants dead body was found close to mid-morning on 14 June at his Bandra residence. From the beginning, the death was called a suicide by hanging by the police and media, and attributed to depression, setting the tone for subsequent discussions of the incident and the police investigation. This explanation, however, has not passed muster with Sushants fans. Thousands of them have joined online investigations, assigning themselves different roles as per their individual expertise - journalist, detective, doctor, forensic expert, even paranormal communicator and tarot reader, amongst others. These are not always sophisticated efforts, nonetheless they have raised important questions and reached a consensus that Sushant Singhs death was not a suicide but a murder. Experts and fans have pointed to many reasons why Sushants death is likely to be a murder. First, the shape of the ligature mark around his neck does not suggest hanging: it is a deep purple mark circling towards the centre, while a typical hanging mark is V-shaped. The police said that there are no injury marks on the body, but the ligature mark itself is an injury mark. Besides, his left eye has a blue patch and there are also bruises on his forearm, stomach, and his right leg and foot appear to be broken, all according to independent forensic experts who have seen the first photographs of the dead body where he is seen lying on the bed. Further, in a typical suicide by hanging, the eyes pop out, the tongue protrudes and there is saliva drooping from the side of the mouth. In Sushants case, none of this applies. Second, Sushant is said to have hung himself from the fan above his bed, but the distance between the bed and the fan is just one inch more than his height. The cloth he is supposed to have used was a kurta and could not possibly have carried the weight of his body (the tensile strength report is awaited). Many days after the event, the police produced a bathrobe with a string and suggested that he had used that. But the ligature mark shows that something like a dogs belt was used. Also, the mark made by a cloth-rope is different. Third, an anonymous video of the crime scene as it looked when the police arrived has been circulated on social media. It is not known who circulated this video (shot with a spy camera), but it is assumed that he or she felt that whatever was being seen and heard was suspicious. In the video, someone (possibly a police officer) is heard saying something in Marathi to the effect that Sushant has been killed, if our investigation leaks out there will be trouble. From this video we can also see that the crime scene was not protected. Later, the house was not even sealed, again pointing to the shoddiness of the police investigation. Fourth, based on the photo of Sushants dead body, some doctors have pointed out that the body seemed to be free of rigor mortis (post-mortem stiffness). This means that rigor mortis had either not set in (suggesting that he had died less than three hours earlier), or already ended (implying that he had died more than 18 hours previously). The latter would mean that Sushant might have been killed on 13 June itself, with the hanging being simulated later. Further, his phone memory showed that he had made late-night calls on the 13th and 14th morning and also played a video game and done google searches on 14th morning. All this could have been done by someone else to deflect attention from his death much earlier. One hypothesis is that Sushant had visitors, or perhaps a small party, the previous day or evening, and that the crime was done by people known to him. These are some reasons, among others, why the suicide story does not hold much water and a murder seems more likely. But the Mumbai police is holding on to its preconceived suicide story and the public and family are losing faith. Six weeks have gone by without an FIR being lodged by the Mumbai police. Therefore, Sushants family recently lodged an FIR in Patna and the Patna police are now in Mumbai to investigate some aspects of the case pertinent to the FIR. However, rather than cooperate with the Patna police, the Mumbai police maintain that the Patna police cannot work on the case in Mumbai and have also categorically ruled out a CBI enquiry. Meanwhile, lakhs of people have become part of the Justice for Sushant campaign and have been demanding that the case be shifted to the CBI. Many are asking who is being shielded by the Mumbai police or Maharashtra government, and why they are resisting the involvement of the CBI. The CBI is not flawless (it has its own history of biased investigations such as the famous Aarushi Talwar case), but there is more hope from it in this case than from the police because the CBI is not under the control of the state government. Sushants case is not an isolated incident. It is part of a string of deaths in Bollywood that have remained unsolved including those of Divya Bharti, Jiah Khan, and Disha Salian (who died a few days before Sushant). In all these cases it is widely suspected that a murder has been passed off as suicide. We should not forget that the world of Bollywood involves vast sums of money and is mixed up with all kinds of nexuses and vested interests involving sections of the police, the government, big business, political parties and the underworld. Another disturbing aspect of this cover up is the convenient equation that has been drawn by the police and media between Sushants alleged suicide and his supposed depression. The entire discussion of depression around this case has shown how little this terrible illness is understood by most. Depression is the common cold of mental illness, affecting more than 250 million people worldwide. While some depressive persons may be suicidal, most of them are not. Those who suffer from it have to struggle with it, sometimes on a daily basis; medication may or may not help. I have also suffered from depression for close to three decades now so I write on the basis of firsthand experience. It would be unfortunate and dangerous if mental illness were to be used to disguise a murder as suicide. Somali ministers have lifted a ban on international flights that was imposed shortly after the country recorded its first coronavirus case in March. Local media reports that a cabinet meeting, held on Thursday for the first time since the removal of Prime Minister Hassan Ali Kheyre, resolved that international flights resume on 3 August. Information Minister Mohamed Maareye, who doubles as the government spokesperson, made the announcement. After a lengthy debate, the cabinet ministers have decided to relax the coronavirus restrictions imposed on Somalia and agreed on the resumption of international flights from 3 August, Mr Maareye said. Thursday's meeting was chaired by acting Prime Minister Mahdi Mohamed Guled. The ministers also resolved that schools and universities would resume on 15 August. Source: BBC Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Local COVID-19 forecasts by AI Despite efforts throughout the United States last spring to suppress the spread of the novel coronavirus, states across the country have experienced spikes in the past several weeks. The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the nation has climbed to more than 3.5 million since the start of the pandemic. Public officials in many states, including California, have now started to roll back the reopening process to help curb the spread of the virus. Eventually, state and local policymakers will be faced with deciding for a second time when and how to reopen their communities. A pair of researchers in UC Santa Barbara's College of Engineering, Xifeng Yan and Yu-Xiang Wang, have developed a novel forecasting model, inspired by artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, to provide timely information at a more localized level that officials and anyone in the public can use in their decision-making processes. "We are all overwhelmed by the data, most of which is provided at national and state levels," said Yan, an associate professor who holds the Venkatesh Narayanamurti Chair in Computer Science. "Parents are more interested in what is happening in their school district and if it's safe for their kids to go to school in the fall. However, there are very few websites providing that information. We aim to provide forecasting and explanations at a localized level with data that is more useful for residents and decision makers." The forecasting project, "Interventional COVID-19 Response Forecasting in Local Communities Using Neural Domain Adaption Models," received a Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant for nearly $200,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF). "The challenges of making sense of messy data are precisely the type of problems that we deal with every day as computer scientists working in AI and machine learning," said Wang, an assistant professor of computer science and holder of the Eugene Aas Chair. "We are compelled to lend our expertise to help communities make informed decisions." Yan and Wang developed an innovative forecasting algorithm based on a deep learning model called Transformer. The model is driven by an attention mechanism that intuitively learns how to forecast by learning what time period in the past to look at and what data is the most important and relevant. "If we are trying to forecast for a specific region, like Santa Barbara County, our algorithm compares the growth curves of COVID-19 cases across different regions over a period of time to determine the most-similar regions. It then weighs these regions to forecast cases in the target region," explained Yan. In addition to COVID-19 data, the algorithm also draws information from the U.S. Census to factor in hyper-local details when calibrating the forecast for a local community. "The census data is very informative because it implicitly captures the culture, lifestyle, demographics and types of businesses in each local community," said Wang. "When you combine that with COVID-19 data available by region, it helps us transfer the knowledge learned from one region to another, which will be useful for communities that want data on the effectiveness of interventions in order to make informed decisions." The researchers' models showed that, during the recent spike, Santa Barbara County experienced spread similar to what Mecklenburg, Wake, and Durham counties in North Carolina saw in late March and early April. Using those counties to forecast future cases in Santa Barbara County, the researchers' attention-based model outperformed the most commonly used epidemiological models: the SIR (susceptible, infected, recovered) model, which describes the flow of individuals through three mutually exclusive stages; and the autoregressive model, which makes predictions based solely on a series of data points displayed over time. The AI-based model had a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 0.030, compared with 0.11 for the SIR model and 0.072 with autoregression. The MAPE is a common measure of prediction accuracy in statistics. Yan and Wang say their model forecasts more accurately because it eliminates key weaknesses associated with current models. Census data provides fine-grained details missing in existing simulation models, while the attention mechanism leverages the substantial amounts of data now available publicly. "Humans, even trained professionals, are not able to process the massive data as effectively as computer algorithms," said Wang. "Our research provides tools for automatically extracting useful information from the data to simplify the picture, rather than making it more complicated." The project, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Richard Beswick and Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons from Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, will be presented later this month during the Computing Research Association (CRA) Virtual Conference. Formed in 1972 as a forum for department chairs of computer sciences departments across the country, the CRA's membership has grown to include more than 200 organizations active in computing research. Yan and Wang's research efforts will not stop there. They plan to make their model and forecasts available to the public via a website and to collect enough data to forecast for communities across the country. "We hope to forecast for every community in the country because we believe that when people are well informed with local data, they will make well-informed decisions," said Yan. They also hope their algorithm can be used to forecast what could happen if a particular intervention is implemented at a specific time. "Because our research focuses on more fundamental aspects, the developed tools can be applied to a variety of factors," added Yan. "Hopefully, the next time we are in such a situation, we will be better equipped to make the right decisions at the right time." ### This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. We often take for granted that space investments are more than moonshot projects to Mars and self-landing rocket capsules. Let's not forget that space investment brought us GPS. And without GPS, we don't get Uber, Google Maps, or Pokemon Go. Not to mention how critical GPS is proving to be in healthcare. Correll Lashbrook, Lashbrook Growth Fund SpaceX's Starlink project is working to create a global satellite Internet with more than 42,000 low-orbit satellites providing rural and underdeveloped areas with high-speed Internet. Similarly, SpaceMobile is creating an ultra-powerful network that will provide mobile connectivity at 4G/5G speeds everywhere on the planet land, sea, and in flight. How does the global market change when we can live-stream the entire summit of Mt. Everest and rural farmers in Chile can participate in Internet commerce? Commercial satellite imaging is another accelerating area of space investment. Companies such as Picterra, Planet Labs, and SkyWatch provide platforms where anyone can access and train their own AI to detect objects and patterns on satellite imagery. Quite literally, a parking lot owner can count the number of cars in their lot from space. Space Capital reports that since 2004, more than 862 space companies have received funding, with about 85% of the investment dollars coming in the past 6 years. We're amidst the New Space Race. And this time the commercial impact will be felt everywhere. On Thursday, August 6th at 1:30 pm EST, Trends Exchange is hosting a Virtual Happy Hour for Space Angels' 2020 State of the Industry Call . Trends Exchange and Correll Lashbrook are providing commentary on the macro trends in the space industry, Q2 market signals, key industry developments & milestones, and key insights from Space Angels. Register for the virtual event here: https://inevitab.ly/space-investing Media Contact: Ryan Cowdrey 505-333-9117 [email protected] SOURCE Trends Exchange Reach key decision makers with sales-ready leads that shorten your sales process. Move the needle by delivering funnel qualified leads to your sales team. Learn more Moving to the cloud was never going to be seamless or sudden. There was simply too much at stake for most companies to make a big switch. With the exception of many cloud native companies like Salesforce and NetSuite, most customers and vendors have had to find ways to transition from on-premise to cloud over the last 20 years, and those years have generated more, not fewer, options. In addition to staying home with on premise systems or moving to the cloud with discrete solutions like CRM, enterprises that have historically developed a significant amount of their software have discovered numerous middle positions. Today, theres enough technology available for vendors on both sides of the divide to meet customers and users where they are while remaining true to the direction of moving to the cloud. New From Oracle Yesterday Oracle announced some new offerings that crowd into the middle space and make some form of moving to the cloud attractive for enterprises that had continued biding their time waiting for solutions that fit their needs. Oracles new offerings, really packaging of existing recent high-performance products for the enterprise market, enable these companies to continue running their data and datacenters on premise while still benefitting from gains made by its autonomous database like eliminating most forms of routine maintenance and operations activities. One important aspect of Oracles high-performance environment has been its reliance on hardware, specifically its Exadata appliance, to make its database operations the fastest in the world. Earlier announcements have made the combination of database and Exadata available over the cloud from Oracles own datacenters, the latest announcements now put all of the technology into the private datacenter. The solution, Oracle Autonomous Database on Exadata Cloud@Customer, is delivered as a cloud service providing Oracle support for all components, thereby offloading those chores from the client company. At the same time, Oracle has also introduced Oracle Dedicated Region Cloud@Customer, which it says is the industrys first fully-managed cloud region that brings all of Oracles second-generation cloud services, including Autonomous Database, Autonomous Linux, and Oracle SaaS applications, to customer datacenters, starting at $500K a month. If that sounds redundant it might be at least in the Autonomous database provision. But the key issue is providing Oracle SaaS applications, of which there are many, to the datacenters. For many years Oracle has strived to get its customers to commit to making it a single, or at least primary supplier. But the reality has always been that other vendors could offer things that Oracle couldnt, so the effort would not often work out with the result that customers have often resorted to deploying several databases. Lately though, those additional databases have not always been Oracles and competition from database and infrastructure upstarts like Amazon or long-term competitor Microsoft has increased. So, Oracle has been motivated to offer these hybrid products at least in part as competitive moves. But its likely that another announcement, Oracle Autonomous Data Guard, which delivers an autonomously managed high availability and disaster recovery solution protecting against database and site failures, will change some minds about moving to the cloud in general. Oracle Autonomous Data Guard provides for near zero data loss in the event of a catastrophic failure and it may be one reason that companies like Crdit Agricole CIB, the Corporate and Investment Banking arm of the Crdit Agricole Group, and Entel, a leading telco with operations in Chile and Peru, are already onboard. Analysis At this time in most markets, vendors have gone about as far as possible to distinguish their products and now look to providing exceptional service as differentiators. For several years already, Oracle has been adding service through automation to its database, thus enabling customers to significantly reduce their costs associated with operation and maintenance. All of this is important for differentiation, but its also critical for taking any market to its next phase. In this case, data and databases have grown to be so important that they cant be allowed to go down. Weve seen other industries go that route; for example, electricity, telephone and cable, to name a few. At the same time, they become commodities. In the last 20 to 30 years weve seen cloud computing commoditize IT. Today were watching cloud technology being commoditized and becoming a utility just like electricity and all the others. In this context Oracles announcements continue the commoditization trend as it races toward producing what will look like an information utility. Ethnic Ta'ang villagers hold a funeral for Lue Kein Kham, a five-year-old girl who died while playing with unexploded ordnance in Kutkai township, Myanmar's northern Shan state, July 31, 2020. A five-year-old girl was killed and four other children were badly injured by a blast of unexploded ordnance in Myanmars northern Shan state as they played with an explosive device left from recent battles in a decades-old armed conflict in the region, family members said. Lue Kein Kham and six of her young relatives, all ethnic Taang (Palaung), were playing together Thursday evening at home in Kutkai township when the incident occurred, Ei Phoo, the childrens grandfather, told RFA on Friday. The children were playing, and I was trying to fertilize the plants, he said. I heard the explosion and ran to the children. I saw them lying on the ground. Four children were badly injured. They were sent to the hospital. One of them died. I am their grandfather. I dont know whom to blame for this incident. Lue Kein Kham died from head injuries at Kutkai Hospital on Thursday, Ei Phoo said. One of the injured children was also taken to Kutkai Hospital, while a girl and two boys were taken to Lashio Hospital. The children live with their grandparents because their parents are working in Mongla, a Chinese border town some 400 miles southeast of Kutkai township. We are so old. We can no longer work, said Aye Ei, the childrens grandmother. We let our children go away from home to make money, she added. We are left at home to take care of their kids. We feel devastated that this incident occurred. Humanitarian groups say that fear of mine-contaminated farmland is a key reason that rural working-age people leave Shan state to look for jobs in neighboring China and Thailand. Scores of children are killed and maimed each year in Myanmars long-running ethnic wars. At least four civilians were killed and 15 injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance in restive northern Shan state during the month of July alone, according to an RFA tally. The blasts occurred in areas where the military had recently engaged in fighting with ethnic armed groups. The Mine Risks Working Group, which operates under the United Nations children's agency UNICEF and the Myanmar government, said in a report in April 2019 that casualties countrywide from landmines and other explosives increased to 276 in 2018 from 176 in 2017. The 2018 figure included 56 children, with 16 deaths and 40 injuries. Kachin and Shan states were hit the hardest between 2015 and 2018. Ordnance left behind Some villagers, who declined to be identified for safety reasons, said the government militarys Light Infantry Division No. 99 and soldiers from the rebel Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) had recently been fighting in the area where Thursdays explosion occurred. Around July 7, a Myanmar military regiment was stationed near the house where the blast occurred, and there was shooting, one resident said. The soldiers from the military then said they were responding to shooting from the enemy, but most of the villagers only heard gunfire from one side, so it might not have been a battle, he said. Villagers believe the soldiers left behind the ordnance that the children found when they cleared out of the area, he added. RFA was unable to reach the Myanmar military or the TNLA for comment. A TNLA spokesman said last year that the rebel army did not use landmines in the conflict. Shan state, Myanmars largest state and home to the countrys second-largest ethnic group, has been under armed conflict between government forces and numerous ethnic-based armies fighting for autonomy since 1958, 10 years after the former Burma gained independence from Britain in 1948. Reported by Kan Thar for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. It was one of the more trying weeks in the relationship but it ended better than it started. Scott Morrison and Daniel Andrews moved to put aside a week of pot shots and thinly veiled swipes to reassure Victorians every effort was being made to halt the march of COVID-19 throughout Melbourne's suburbs and into regional communities. Dan Andrews and Scott Morrison are both desperate to find a way to drive down the number of coronavirus case numbers in Victoria. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The pair spoke at length, frankly and honestly on Thursday night. Having started the week with some terse text messages both agreed they were back at the start. Neither can even contemplate an economic recovery in Victoria without first winning the public health battle. The coming days will be critical as the pair, along with the nation's medical expert panel, plot the next course. A girl placed in a detention center after she failed to complete her homework was ordered released Friday by Michigan's Court of Appeals. The 15-year-old known only by her middle name, Grace, has been at the center in Oakland County since mid-May after her failure to finish homework triggered a review of her probation by a family court judge. Image: Students protest outside Groves High School in support of a fellow student who was jailed in a Detroit suburb (Emily Elconin / Reuters file) The girl, who is Black, was placed on probation after allegations last year of assault against her mother and theft. Her case, first reported by ProPublica, became a cause for those who say Black people are treated unfairly under the justice system. U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., said on MSNBC July 20, "If it was a white young person, I really question whether the judge would have done this." The judge in the case argued that homework was just the tip of the iceberg. "She was not detained because she didn't turn her homework in," Oakland County family court Judge Mary Ellen Brennan said, according to ProPublica. "She was detained because I found her to be a threat of harm to her mother based on everything I knew." On Friday, a three-judge panel granted an emergency request to have Grace released. "The juvenile respondent is ordered immediately released from detention to the custody of her mother pending appeal or further order of this Court," the appeals panel stated. Grace attends Groves High School in Beverly Hills, Michigan, where distance learning was in effect because of the pandemic. Parents and students in the suburban Detroit community have demonstrated in support of Grace's release. Oakland County Executive David Coulter said in a statement recently that the case should be reviewed and that fewer people should be detained during the pandemic. Dingell on Friday called the appeals court ruling "great news." "But we cant forget Grace is just one case in our broken criminal justice system," she tweeted. "Let this case shine a light and raise awareness of the work we still need to do." More snow on the way in Pennsylvania; here's how much to expect NEW DELHI: Rafale, the 4.5 Generation fighter in the armoury of the Indian Air Force (IAF), has changed the aerial warfare dynamics with both Pakistan and China lagging far behind the superior technology and weapons package of the French-made combat jet. China claims Peoples Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Chengdu J-20 is a 5th Generation Stealth fighter and superior to the Rafale but now a Global Times article which tries to find faults with the French-made jets has instead downgraded the J-20 to a 4th Generation combat aircraft. With IAF 17 Squadron Golden Arrows at the Ambala Air Force Station now flying five Rafales which landed on Wednesday (July 29, 2020), Chinese security experts have raised doubts if the French fighters can match their countrys J-20 fighters which they have been claiming have stealth. A Global Times article quoted Chinese military expert Zhang Xuefeng as claiming that while Rafales are superior to Sukhoi Su-30 MKIs in some combat performance areas but are basically a "3rd Generation" aircraft. Zhang Xuefeng went on to claim that Rafales are only about one-fourth of a generation more advanced that Su-30MKIs and hence "does not yield a significant qualitative change". "Thanks to its AESA radar, advanced weapons and limited stealth technologies, the Rafale is comparable to other third-plus generation fighter jets used by other countries, but it will find it very difficult to confront a stealth-capable fourth-generation fighter jet," the article stated. As the Global Times article mentions that the J-20 is a 4th Generation fighter, it cannot possess stealth technology. On the other hand, Rafale is a 4.5 Generation jet with a design ensuring a reduced radar cross-section (RCS) and infrared signature to evade enemy radars. IAF Su-30MKIs are 4th Generation and Global Times article now puts China's so-called most advanced jet in direct competition with India's Sukhois. In military aviation, 4th Generation aircraft do not have stealth capabilities and IAF Sukhoi Su-30 MKIs have been able to track the J-20s. In May 2018, Sukhoi Su-30MKIs on a sortie in Northeast India used their radars to see and track PLAAF J-20 fighters flying over Tibet. Even former IAF Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa (retd), who played a key role in the Rafale deal and whose initials BS are used as part of the tail number on the jets, had categorically pointed out that Rafale "is a game-changer, and the Chinese J-20 does not even come close". USG Insurance Services, Inc., a national wholesaler and MGA, has hired Mark Morgan as producer/broker: Property, in Tampa, Fla. Morgan has 19 years of industry experience, most recently serving as director of New Business Development for CAT Program at Community Association Underwriters in Tampa. At USG, Morgan will focus on the development of retail agents and brokerage property markets as part of the National Brokerage Property division, specifically specializing in complex CAT driven property accounts. This move is the most recent change that USG has implemented in its plan to continue expanding its Brokerage Property team nationally. USG Holdings, Inc. has six divisions; USG Insurance Services, Inc. a national wholesale/MGA operation with 21 offices writing in all states; BFS: Brokers Financial Services, a premium finance company; BFS Inspections, an inspection company operating in 25+ states; AAU: Allied American Underwriters, a program manager and specialty division offering commercial lines, personal lines, and surety; Into Innovations a full service marketing and advertising for the industry; and Aureate Technology Solutions, an information technology company. Topics Agencies Florida Property Health official: Omicron cases 'just skyrocketing here in the community' As of Jan. 18, McLaren Northern Michigan had 23 COVID-19 inpatients at the Petoskey-based hospital, which included 10 in critical care units and 13 in non-critical care units. FORT WASHINGTON, Md., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Maryland Patient Safety Center recently announced that Adventist HealthCare Fort Washington Medical Center was named a Circle of Honor winner for the 2020 Minogue Awards for Patient Safety Innovation. The award-winning program was entitled Adopt-A-Room to Improve Patient Experience and Promote Teamwork. "Our vision is to provide a world-class patient experience to every person, every time," said Eunmee Shim, president of Adventist HealthCare Fort Washington Medical Center. "Patient safety is paramount, and we thank the Maryland Patient Safety Center for recognizing the hard work and vigilance of our dedicated team." The hospital used a team-based problem-solving model to increase its patient experience. They formed an Interdisciplinary Patient Experience Committee (IPEC) that included a mixture of frontline employees, management, and a patient representative. The concept of the Adopt-A-Room initiative is to communicate with patients from admissions to discharge, allowing problems to be resolved in real-time and to receive instant feedback. The idea is to ensure the hospital is meeting the expectations of each patient. As a result, this concept significantly improved the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAPHS) scores. They saw increases in the areas of doctor communication, nurse communication, and overall hospital rating. Adventist HealthCare Fort Washington Medical Center was one of eight hospitals throughout Maryland named a Circle of Honor winner recognizing top safety and quality solutions in healthcare. The honorees were selected by a panel of independent judges who are leaders in the Maryland healthcare community. Winners will be recognized at the 16th Annual Maryland Patient Safety Conference, which will be held virtually on September 9, 2020. "With over 70 submissions to choose from, we know that healthcare organizations here in Maryland are some of the most forward thinking throughout the country," said Blair Eig, MD, president and CEO of the Maryland Patient Safety Center. "We are proud to recognize all participants for their attention, innovation, and commitment to addressing some of the most pertinent and complex issues penetrating patient safety today. Congratulations to the winners on their successful contributions to our mission of making healthcare in Maryland the safest in the nation." Named for the Center's first President and Executive Director, William Minogue, MD, FACP, to honor his enduring contributions to and passion for improving patient care and safety, The Minogue Awards were created by the Center Board of Directors to recognize organizations within the state that have made a demonstrable difference in patient safety through an innovative solution. About Maryland Patient Safety Center The Maryland Patient Safety Center brings together healthcare organizations and providers to improve patient safety and healthcare quality for all Marylanders. The goal of the Center is to make healthcare in Maryland the safest in the nation by focusing on the systems of care, reducing the occurrence of adverse events, and improving the culture of patient safety at Maryland healthcare facilities. For more information, visit www.marylandpatientsafetycenter.org. About Adventist HealthCare Fort Washington Medical Center Adventist HealthCare Fort Washington Medical Center is a 37-bed acute care hospital in Prince George's County, Maryland. The hospital operates one of the busiest emergency rooms in the metropolitan area, seeing nearly 40,000 patients each year in the Fort Washington, Oxon Hill, Temple Hills, and Accokeek areas. The hospital also provides general inpatient services. The medical center joined the Adventist HealthCare system in October 2019. Learn more at FortWashingtonMC.org and AdventistHealthCare.com. Contact: Cymando Henley, [email protected], 301-332-0663 SOURCE Adventist HealthCare Fort Washington Medical Center Related Links https://www.fortwashingtonmc.org Arvin Shao's family had run China King Buffet in Woodbridge, Virginia, for almost two decades before it was forced to shut its doors last month. Shao said loyal customers who had eaten there every week and were friendly with his family abruptly stopped coming. He said he believes that anti-Asian, pandemic-related racism and "fear-mongering" prompted many to abandon his family's establishment. "It seemed like nobody wanted anything to do with us. Some of them were really close with my dad, always asked about my dad, knew my dad by his name, shook his hand every single time," Shao said in an interview. "Those people were the last people I would ever think would stop coming and just believe whatever was going on in the news, and stop coming because they have a fear or whatever it may be." Image: China King Buffet (Courtesy Alvin Shao) Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak The restaurant closed at a time when two new reports show that both anti-Asian bias and unemployment among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, or AAPI people, are surging. A new study from UCLA reports that since the start of the pandemic, 83 percent of the Asian American labor force with high school degrees or lower has filed unemployment insurance claims in California the state with the highest population of Asian Americans compared to 37 percent of the rest of the state's labor force with the same level of education. At the same time, new research shows that discrimination against Asian Americans is surging. More than 2,300 Asian Americans had reported bias incidents as of July 15, according to the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, or A3PCON, which hosts the self-reporting tool Stop AAPI Hate. For some, like Shao's family, the two issues might be related. An intersection of race and economics The UCLA report, published last week, examined the impacts of the coronavirus on the Asian American labor force in California. It revealed that disadvantaged Asians working in service industries have been "severely impacted." Story continues Researcher Paul Ong, who worked on the report, said that beyond pervasive service industry struggles, he believes people are abandoning Asian establishments because of biases. "This is why racializing COVID-19 as 'the China virus' has profound societal repercussions. We have seen this in the increase in verbal and physical attacks on Asians and in material ways in terms of joblessness and business failures," he said in an interview. Donald Mar, another researcher on the UCLA report and a professor at San Francisco State University, said many Asian Americans work in sectors that have been heavily affected by the pandemic. Almost 1 in 4 employed Asian Americans work in hospitality and leisure, retail and other services, including repair shops, hair-cutting and laundries, according to the report. Ong said the disadvantaged groups that are affected are mostly immigrants, many of whom worked in establishments that began to struggle before shelter-in-place orders were enacted, so they have experienced a longer period of losses. "These are predominantly immigrants, who even before the crisis faced economic hardship because of low wages and long hours," he said. "They are the reason why Asian restaurants are cheap, Vietnamese nail salons low-price and Cambodian doughnut shops have to rely on family help." Discrimination continuing to surge Lisa Lee was at a grocery store in Philadelphia near the end of March when, she said, an older white man saw her and started shouting, "Go back to China!" When she told him that she wasn't from China, the man responded, "Then go back to the Philippines or wherever you came from." Lee, a Philadelphia-based artist, said she now leaves the house only if she has a white male friend to accompany her. "After the pandemic, I felt like can I really survive here? Can I really work here?" said Lee, who is originally from South Korea. While hate against Asian Americans first spiked at the outset of the pandemic, it's continuing to rise. That includes more than 500 new reports of microaggressions, bullying, harassment, hate speech and violence from mid-June to mid-July. Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University who has been tracking the data for Stop Hate, said the group hit its peak in reported incidents the week President Donald Trump first used the term "Chinese virus." "When Trump began to insist on the term 'Chinese virus,' we saw a spike in the number of anti-Asian hate incidents," he said. "When he uses those terms, people began to see the virus as Chinese and Chinese as having the virus. So his words have shaped the racial consciousness of Americans. Even non-Trump supporters are buying into that." He said Stop Hate can't state that there was a direct causation based on its data, but "this keeps on going up." "It's not surprising, because the president is still using terms that dehumanize Asians in America," he said. Trump began using the term "Chinese virus" in March, and he has also repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as "kung flu," including at a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 20. In last week's White House coronavirus briefing, he said the "China plague [was] coming in, floating in, coming into our country." In addition to A3PCON's data, other surveys have also captured the surge in anti-Asian racism. Nearly one-third of Asian Americans report having been the target of slurs or jokes because of their race or ethnicity since the pandemic began, according to the Pew Research Center, while one-third of all people including 60 percent of Asians have witnessed someone blaming Asians for the pandemic, according to a Center for Public Integrity/Ipsos poll. Meanwhile, more than half of Republicans and more than a quarter of Democrats have said they're not at all or not very concerned about the discrimination. While experts point to Trump's rhetoric as one of the main drivers of bias against Asian Americans, they also point to other factors. The soaring COVID-19 death toll which topped 145,000 this week and the emergence of U.S.-China relations as a central presidential campaign issue are also factors, and the reopening of states has provided more opportunity for hate incidents. Experts and community leaders fear a spike in anti-Asian bullying as schools reopen. Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of A3PCON, said she expects hate incidents to climb, comparing it to the racism Muslims, Arabs and South Asians faced after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "If 9/11 provides any lesson, this is going to continue for a very long time," she said. Bipartisan calls for federal officials to issue guidelines unmet But as the number anti-Asian bias incidents rises, so, too, do calls for action. Last week, a bipartisan group of about 150 members of Congress, led by Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., called on the Justice Department to condemn the racism and provide regular updates on what it is doing to combat hate incidents. Previously, more than a dozen Senate Democrats, led by Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Cory Booker of New Jersey, sent letters demanding that the Justice Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention come up with a plan to address acts of racism against Asian Americans. And while Eric Dreiband, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, committed to "prosecute hate crimes and violations of anti-discrimination laws against Asian Americans, Asians, and others to the fullest extent of the law" in an opinion piece for The Washington Examiner in April, advocates say that doesn't go far enough, and they have questioned why the Justice Department and the CDC haven't set guidelines on racism and xenophobia they way they did after 9/11 and the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome. Stewart Kwoh, founder of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, said he wants federal, state and local agencies to do more to track racist incidents directed at Asian Americans including developing new techniques to track online incidents because having more data would help combat hate. Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics "It's very important, because we need to figure out where the hate is happening," he said. "Is it concentrated in a certain spot? Is it spread all around? What kinds of incidents are there? Are there actual threats to the verbal altercations? We have to figure it out, because we don't want this to escalate. If there's a hot spot in some area, we need to figure out if the authorities need to look at it more closely or be vigilant about possible hate crimes." But Kwoh said it's going to take a broader approach to quell the hate. He and Advancing Justice are working on several strategies, he said, including bystander training, coalitions with a variety of non-Asian American groups that are standing up to racism, use of public service announcements to elevate the stories of AAPIs fighting the coronavirus and development of a curriculum about Asian Americans that can be used in schools nationwide. "All of them need to be employed, because who knows what can happen next?" he said. Continuing to break down the model minority myth Ong said the findings pull back the curtain on the model minority myth, exposing how Asian Americans are not only disproportionately hurt in crisis but are also weathering the added layer of pandemic-related racism. "Xenophobic and racist behavior is not just limited to harassments and physical attacks but also spills into the economic sphere," Ong said. "Unfounded fears and prejudices have hurt Asian American businesses and workers. What is surprising is the substantial magnitude of this phenomenon." Mar said research from previous pandemics has pointed to a greater degree of struggle during and after the health crisis among minorities, households with lower incomes and other disadvantaged groups. But the report also reflects existing disparities and diversity among Asian Americans. Janelle Wong, a professor of American studies at the University of Maryland who has researched the working lives of AAPI people in California, echoed Mar's thoughts. She said the overall financial stability of the Asian American population has obscured specific economic struggles among subgroups, even before COVID-19. Research released in November, before the pandemic, found that roughly a quarter of AAPI people in California were working and struggling with poverty. The groups with the highest proportions of poverty were the Hmong community, at 44 percent, and the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander community, at 36 percent. "The UCLA report makes clear that the stark inequalities that existed before the pandemic have only deepened and widened," she said. "Policies must recognize the ways in which racial discrimination and economic vulnerabilities are intertwined and address both." Photo: BC gov. Flickr Health Minister Adrian Dix and Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry. B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix has a message for those who are planning to ignore COVID-19 safety measures and gather in large groups this long weekend: give your head a shake. Over the Canada Day long weekend, a single group of tourists in Kelowna spread COVID-19 to dozens of people after attending several private parties around the city. With the B.C. Day long weekend just around the corner, Dix urged people to take the proper precautions this time around. At the risk of channeling the premier, I think people do need to give their head a shake a little bit here," Dix said in regards to talks of another large gathering being planned at Vancouver's Third Beach. But the things that we're most concerned about are the things we've seen in other places, which are indoor parties ... If people are being invited to those parties, where they don't know people who are there and they're joining in those things, I think I would just say to them, this is not the weekend for that. Next weekend isn't either and the weekend after that isn't either. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry noted that much of the large surge in cases B.C. has seen over the past few weeks can be attributed to parties in Kelowna. What we saw is when our groups are too big and we have too many people outside of our household bubble getting together, particularly when people are coming from different parts, then they bring their risk with them, she said. Let's make this long weekend a different one than what we saw in early July. Whether you are 15, 25 or 55, celebrate our incredible province by socializing safely. Since June 26, 130 Interior residents have been diagnosed with COVID-19, in connection to cases in Kelowna. Dr. Henry said for the most part, this surge in cases did not spill over into B.C.'s older population, or into long-term seniors care homes. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Friday greeted the Egyptian people and all Arab and Muslim nations on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha. "I pray to Allah in these blessed days to grant us his care and attention, and to bring us goodness and blessings," the president tweeted. Muslims around the world are celebrating the religious holiday, which runs from Friday until Monday. They usually slaughter cows, sheep or goats during the first three days of the celebration, a tradition which marks the Prophet Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his own son as an act of obedience to God. The meat is then divided into thirds; the first to be eaten, the second to be given to family members, and the third to be donated as an act of charity. Egyptian mosques did not host the Eid Al-Adha prayer this year due to coronavirus restrictions. A closed prayer service from the iconic Al-Sayeda Nafisa mosque in Downtown Cairo was aired on television and radio, however. El-Sisi has also congratulated Saudi Arabia for organising the Islamic hajj "precisely and successfully" amid the coronavirus pandemic, his spokesman Bassam Rady said in a statement on Friday. The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the annual Islamic pilgrimage, which typically attracts around 2.5 million pilgrims every year. This hajj is going ahead this year with around 10,000 domestic pilgrims in attendance, and with strict health protocols in place. El-Sisi's statement added that this move "reflected the kingdom's capability, wide experience, and keenness to bear this sacred responsibility to hold the greatest Islamic rituals so as to enable Muslims to perform the hajj amid precautionary measures that include the highest safety and health standards." Search Keywords: Short link: WA Police have made an urgent plea to a fugitive who has been on the run following a crime spree in Perths north earlier this week. Jarrad Adams has been on the run from police since Tuesday. Jarrad Adams is alleged to have rolled a stolen car in Hocking on Monday afternoon before fleeing the crash and threatening witnesses with a hammer. He is then accused of breaking into a nearby home, starting a fire, and stealing another vehicle, which was found burnt-out in Nowergup, north of Wanneroo, on Tuesday. Mr Adams has evaded authorities since then, with police on Friday urging the 33-year-old father to hand himself in. The stresses of life getting you down? Having trouble sleeping at night? The Department of Veterans Affairs is now offering free remote meditation sessions to help you develop your own coping techniques for the daily stresses of life without relying on medication or therapy. This is especially valuable in times when many people have limited mobility and have cut back on physical interaction with strangers. While it's not for everybody, meditation has been used for thousands of years around the world in different forms. Now, the Western medical community is realizing its effectiveness in many situations. Mindfulness meditation is a mind-body technique that helps you face the challenges and stressors in your everyday life. It teaches acceptance and awareness of what's going on around you, as well as what's going on inside of you. It has been very effective in treating health conditions such as insomnia, anxiety, high blood pressure, chronic pain and PTSD. Research has shown that when your mind is relaxed and focused on healing, your body can relax and focus on healing too. Mindfulness meditation can be safely used in conjunction with other medical treatments, such as prescribed medication or exercise. No appointments or special materials are needed. Mindfulness meditation can be practiced sitting down, lying down, stretching, eating and even while walking the dog! The VA is currently offering telephone mindfulness meditation sessions every Friday at 11 a.m. Eastern time through the end of September. You can join a session by calling 800-767-1750 and using the access code 54220#. The sessions are free to all veterans enrolled in VA health care. More details on VAs mindfulness meditation program. Yoga nidra (yoga sleep) is a spoken-word guided meditation practice that promotes a sense of deep calm while enhancing awareness. It was first used by soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who suffered from PTSD. This meditation method is very helpful for issues such as PTSD and anxiety, sleep problems and chronic pain. Story continues "It relaxes my whole mind and body; all stress melts away," said Air Force veteran Joe Valentino. "A lot of it is sensing your body and quieting your mind. So while I'm meditating, I'll picture my bloodstream running through a coffee filter that's filtering out all the bad stuff that I'll throw away when I'm done." No referral, prior experience or prescription is needed. All you need is a phone, an open mind and a quiet, safe space to meditate. Weekly sessions are being offered by the VA's War Related Illness and Injury Study Center every Thursday evening at 8 p.m. Eastern time, and all veterans are invited to join by calling 800-767-1750 and using access code 24953#. More details on VAs Yoga Nidra program. Physical and Mental Benefits of Meditation A recent study done by researchers and colleagues from the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center found that meditation is linked to lower cardiovascular risk, as well as other physical benefits. The results appeared online June 30 in the American Journal of Cardiology. Researchers examined data on more than 61,000 survey participants. Of those, almost 6,000 (nearly 10%) said they participated in some form of meditation. The researchers found that people who meditated had lower rates of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and coronary artery disease, compared with those who did not meditate. Those who meditated were 51% less likely to have coronary artery disease as those who didn't. The prevalence of other cardiovascular risks in the meditation group compared with the non-meditation group was 65% less for high cholesterol, 70% less for diabetes, 76% less for stroke, and 86% less for high blood pressure. While the study stated that researchers could not definitively show cause and effect between meditation and cardiovascular healing, the amount of evidence suggests that it certainly does more good than harm, and without lifelong medication. Stay on Top of Your Military Benefits Not sure what your veteran health care benefits are? Keep up with all the changes and details. Subscribe to Military.com. and get all the latest updates straight to your inbox. Researcher Pleaded Guilty to Conspiring to Steal Scientific Trade Secrets from Ohio Children's Hospital to Sell in China FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, July 30, 2020 Crime is Another Example of Economic Malfeasance Related to the Peoples Republic of China Accommodating Theft of Commercial Products They Cannot Field Organically Former Ohio woman Li Chen, 46, pleaded guilty today via video conference in U.S. District Court today to conspiring to steal scientific trade secrets and conspiring to commit wire fraud concerning the research, identification and treatment of a range of pediatric medical conditions. "Once again we see the People's Republic of China (PRC) facilitating the theft of our nation's ingenuity and hard work as part of their quest to rob, replicate and replace any product they don't have the ability to develop themselves," said John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. "Far from being an isolated incident, we see the PRC implicated in around 60 percent of all trade secret theft cases. This continued economic belligerence runs contrary to the values and norms that facilitate the success of our industries and countering it remains among our highest priorities." "Nationwide Children's Hospital's Research Institute took reasonable measures to protect its cutting-edge intellectual property and trade secrets regarding exosomes, and I commend the cooperation of Nationwide Children's throughout this investigation," U.S. Attorney David M. DeVillers said. "Chen betrayed her employer of 10 years by stealing trade secrets from this American institution and transferring them to China after receiving payments from the Chinese government." "Li Chen was a trusted researcher at Nationwide Children's Hospital, conducting cutting-edge U.S. government-funded research," stated FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman. "With her guilty plea, she admits that she abused this trust to establish a company in China for her own financial gain. The FBI is committed to working closely with partners such as Nationwide Children's Hospital to protect the innovations that make America a world leader in science and technology." Chen admitted to stealing scientific trade secrets related to exosomes and exosome isolation from Nationwide Children's Hospital's Research Institute for her own personal financial gain. Chen and her husband, alleged co-conspirator Yu Zhou, 49, worked in separate medical research labs at the Research Institute for 10 years each (Zhou from 2007 until 2017 and Chen from 2008 until 2018). They are charged with conspiring to steal at least five trade secrets related to exosome research from Nationwide Children's Hospital. Exosomes play a key role in the research, identification and treatment of a range of medical conditions, including necrotizing enterocolitis (a condition found in premature babies), liver fibrosis and liver cancer. According to her plea agreement, Chen conspired to steal and then monetize one of the trade secrets by creating and selling exosome "isolation kits." Chen admitted to starting a company in China to sell the kits. Chen received benefits from the Chinese government, including the State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Chen also applied to multiple Chinese government talent plans, a method used by China to transfer foreign research and technology to the Chinese government. As part of her plea, Chen has agreed to forfeit approximately $1.4 million, 500,000 shares of common stock of Avalon GloboCare Corp. and 400 shares of common stock of GenExosome Technologies Inc. Chen and Zhou were arrested in California in July 2019 and their case was unsealed in August 2019 when they appeared in federal court in Columbus. John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security;David M. DeVillers, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; and Chris Hoffman, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cincinnati Division, announced the plea entered into today before U.S. District Judge Sarah D. Morrison. Assistant U.S. Attorneys S. Courter Shimeall, Peter K. Glenn-Applegate, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Michael Marous and National Security Division Trial Attorney Matthew J. McKenzie, are representing the United States in this case. Attachment(s): Download _chen_plea_agreement_.pdf Topic(s): Counterintelligence and Export Control National Security Component(s): National Security Division (NSD) USAO - Ohio, Southern Press Release Number: 20-728 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Earlier this week, amid reports that the vote might be delayed, Eddie Chu, a pro-democracy legislator running for re-election, said that Chinas ruling Communist Party was ordering a strategic retreat. They want to avoid a potential devastating defeat in the election, he wrote on Twitter. The explanation that Hong Kong must delay the vote because of the pandemic is likely to fall flat among the wider public, said Ma Ngok, an associate professor of political science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. I think it will be seen as a kind of manipulation, that the government is afraid of losing the majority and that is why they postponed the election, he said. Mrs. Lam denied that the decision had been influenced by political concerns. It is purely on the basis of protecting the health and safety of the Hong Kong people and to ensure that the elections are held in a fair and open manner, she said. While Hong Kong has been a world leader in controlling the coronavirus, in recent days it has seen its worst surge of infections yet, with more than 100 new cases reported daily for more than a week. The government has unfurled several new lockdown and social-distancing measures. We face a dire situation in our fight against the virus, Mrs. Lam said. Under Hong Kong law, an election can be delayed for up to 14 days if there is a danger to public health or safety. But Mrs. Lam postponed the election until Sept. 5, 2021, under emergency powers that allow the chief executive to make any regulations considered to be desirable in the public interest. Those powers, which date to the British colonial era, were invoked last year when the government banned the wearing of masks in an effort to stem protests. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is observing the first anniversary of the passage of the triple talaq bill in Parliament as the Muslim Womens Rights Day on Friday as several Union ministers tweeted to hail the law that criminalises the practice of granting an instant divorce. The law, formally called the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, was passed in last year after intense debates in both the lower and upper houses of Parliament, with opposition parties stating it targeted the Muslim community even as the centre asserted that it would help achieve gender justice for Muslim women. The ruling BJP pitched the ban on instant triple talaq as a huge step for the empowerment of women and several ministers, including law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, tweeted to call it a historic step. From Shah Bano to Shaira Bano, Muslim women have been facing triple talaqs for decades and denied the right to respect and equality in society. On 1 August 2019, the Modi government enacted a law against triple talaq to get Muslim women free from this practice, the BJP tweeted. Today on 31st July 2020 we will celebrate it as #MuslimWomenRightsDay. This day will always be remembered as a golden day in the Indian democracy for giving gender justice, dignity and equality to muslim women by ending the evil practice of #TripleTalaq, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted. Triple Talaq Bill has been proved to be a historic step of PM Shri @narendramodi Jis Govt to ensure socio-economic, fundamental, democratic rights of Muslim women, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi tweeted. V Muraleedharan, junior foreign minister, pointed out that there has been an 82% decline in cases of the triple talaq within a year of the implementation of the law. A sound legal framework put in place by @narendramodi govt ensured safety, security to Muslim women & contributed significantly to their empowerment, Muraleedharan also posted. A special thank you to all the brave Muslim women who challenged this inhuman practice in Supreme Court & got it declared unconstitutional & violative of Article 14 of the #Constitution, Muraleedharan added. Smriti Irani, the women and child development minister, attacked the Congress for not doing enough for Muslim women. In the 1980s, Congress had time and numbers to do justice to Muslim women. But vote bank was more important for them and not justice to Muslim women. They never aimed to better the lives of Muslim women, Smriti Irani was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. Pralhad Joshi, parliamentary affairs minister, also praised the Prime Minister for doing away with the regressive practice. It took the nation leadership of a visionary Prime Minister, Shri @narendramodi ji to come out of the regressive practice of triple talaq. Today we celebrate 1 year of the historic moment which has been a symbol of women empowerment and liberty, Joshi tweeted. The Supreme Court had in August 2017 declared the practice of talaq-e-biddat or a form of divorce based on a husband pronouncing divorce thrice in quick succession or as unconstitutional. The practise is banned in most Muslim countries including Pakistan. The verdict came on a petition of five Muslim women, including lead petitioner Shayara Bano, who were abandoned after their husbands pronounced instant divorce. The Centre initially issued an ordinance after the verdict to criminalise the practice of triple talaq for the want of majority in Parliaments upper house, or Rajya Sabha, before bringing the law. According to the law, the practice of instant triple talaq is a cognizable offence or one in which the police may carry out an arrest without a warrant, and is used for serious crimes such as theft, rape and murder. Section 4 of the act punishes a guilty Muslim man with three years of imprisonment and also make him liable to pay a fine. Rich Landau stands in V Street, his street food bar, in March. Landau and his co-owner, Kate Jacoby, told workers earlier this month that V Street would close for good. Read more In June, as uprisings over racism and police brutality roiled Philadelphia, the owners of the revered vegan restaurants Vedge and V Street sent a note to staff acknowledging the import of the moment but quickly pivoting from human rights to animal rights. Our business was born out of compassion, they wrote. That chafed former staff, who said theyd received little communication since being abruptly laid off in March, in a pandemic, without even the paid sick leave owed under Philadelphia law. As they learned that the restaurant group had won as much as $450,000 in paycheck protection loans, they got organized. They collectively asked the owners to address working conditions, pay disparities, and workplace culture as they prepared to reopen. If you want to run a restaurant thats supposedly socially conscious and pushing the industry forward, then you need to be actively leading conversations about improving conditions and seeking solutions for long-standing problems within the industry, said Sam Mayer, 24, a former cook at V Street. Instead, on July 17, the owners, Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby, told workers that V Street would close for good. They declined interview requests. The situation highlights a new hazard for restaurant owners, long used to navigating conversations about humane and sustainable foods. Now, theyre struggling to address questions about their treatment of staff in an industry fraught with racial, gender, and class inequities. And now that returning to work poses a serious health risk in an industry where only 14% of workers receive health insurance many workers are no longer willing to accept the status quo. Long-standing industry conditions, and the current moment of uprising and protest, have spurred a wave of organization among workers laid off from restaurants across the city. Some owners are pushing back. Some are shutting down. But others are rethinking their business models, moving toward higher wages funded by included service fees. The situation is testing the mettle of restaurateurs, but theres hope it could lead to a more equitable, sustainable future for the industry. Were seeing a lot more organizing. Some people in the industry are calling this moment the great awakening, said Saru Jayaraman, a longtime advocate for workers rights who runs the national One Fair Wage campaign to raise tipped workers base pay to at least minimum wage. Hundreds of thousands of restaurant workers are basically on strike, unwilling to return to work for meager wages, she said. At the same time, weve been overwhelmed by hundreds of restaurants being willing to move to one fair wage. That would be a radical shift for an industry thats been marked by pay disparities, which left kitchen workers, many undocumented, toiling for long hours and low wages. Servers often fared better, but about 60% of them discovered that their low hourly base wage was too little to qualify for unemployment. READ MORE: Black Lives Matter brings a reckoning on race to Philly restaurants That was the situation before the pandemic left 332,000 Pennsylvania restaurant workers unemployed about 80% of the workforce. What happened then, for some, shattered the myth of the restaurant as one big hospitable family. When I first started with the company, it felt like they were going to take care of us. The money was good, everybody was happy, said Michael Becker, 26, a server at Bud & Marilyns who, with colleagues, has been organizing to demand better treatment and more equitable pay. Within the last six months it has changed a lot. And the more I hear from back-of-house workers, and how theyve been treated, its really changed my opinion of the company I work for. Workers like Becker now reject the idea of a tipped minimum wage $2.83 in Pennsylvania. According to Jayaraman, that wage has been an incredible source of inequality and sexual harassment. She said thats been true since it was first introduced as a way for employers to avoid paying newly freed Black people during Reconstruction. Today, 70% of tipped workers are women. And women and people of color are disproportionately confined to lower-paid jobs like dishwasher or cashier, or to lower-end establishments like diners. That, combined with everyday discrimination, means white waitstaff can earn double what Black workers make. Theres a growing recognition of those injustices among the public, according to Jayaraman part of a larger recognition of the heroic sacrifices of essential workers. She cites the overwhelming $22 million that people donated to a fund her organization set up to assist laid-off restaurant workers. The Kensington restaurant-bar Martha recently switched over to higher base salaries with service included and expanded health coverage for workers. One Fair Wage is also helping High Street Hospitality, which runs Fork, a.kitchen, and the recently displaced High Street on Market to look at how it could make the transition. READ MORE: What its like to be a server during the pandemic: The things that I loved about my job they were gone In Philadelphia, part of the drive to organize has percolated through Philly Workers for Dignity, a group that started up late last year and has been flooded with requests for assistance. Tabitha Arnold, 24, a laid-off barista and volunteer organizer, said she got interested after participating in a wage-transparency spreadsheet and recognizing how depressingly low wages were across the board. I think the tension has been mounting for a while, she said. Wages have been stagnating for a long time, and the restaurant industry is the fastest growing in Philadelphia, or it was. So something doesnt add up. Now, for those taking in more money than ever through the $600-a-week pandemic unemployment, returning to work under previous conditions seemed unappealing. People are seeing how much theyre making and how degrading and dangerous the situation is, and saying this isnt fair. So far, the fledgling group has had mixed results. It helped former staff at Milk & Honey, a West Philadelphia cafe and market, demand $15 per hour and safety protections before returning to work after two months of closure. While those conversations were ongoing in late May, workers began picketing which the owners said made it impossible for them to operate the business. Instead of coming to an agreement, the cafe ended up closing for good, according to a representative, who declined to be named. The person said the owners were deluged with threats and harassment. After they closed, the building was vandalized, windows were broken and a fire was set damage they say was done by those picketing, not Black Lives Matter protesters. Photos show the floor littered with broken glass and workers flyers. Things went a different way at Dock Street Brewery, a West Philadelphia and Point Breeze brew pub that told laid-off workers they would have to reapply for their jobs as outdoor dining resumed. Workers responded with demand letters, protests, and flyers asking neighbors to boycott the restaurant. Sasha Certo-Ware, operations manager there, said the company has recognized workers concerns switching to a model in which staff are paid at least $15 an hour, paid for by service fees, and get contributions toward health insurance. It felt like there was a lot of misunderstanding on both sides about the finances and economics of running a restaurant. I think a lot of people believe that we are swimming in buckets of money, but at the end of the day its a very tight margin of business. We need to be disciplined as we try to figure out how to be successful, how to create jobs for our employees, and how to be affordable for the community. These conflicts are arising as the industry faces momentous challenges, including repeated delays in the citys plans to resume indoor dining. Porta the Center City restaurant and bar that was embroiled in controversy for announcing it was hiring rather than calling back former workers is for now not hiring anyone. Dallas Hlatky, a spokesperson for Portas parent company, the Asbury Park, N.J.-based Smith Group, said plans were scuttled after the city pushed reopening back to at least Sept. 1. And while restaurateurs are trying to be nimble, workers feel theyre being left behind, sometimes learning about their jobs only through social media. That was the case at Safran Turney Hospitality, where some workers learned only after the fact that the Center City restaurant Jamonera had closed and been replaced with a seafood takeout pop-up. Organizers said 20 to 30 current and former workers are set to protest, demanding payouts for accrued sick days they did not receive in March but, more broadly, a professionalization of their workforce. Becker said that includes shifting from tipped pay to One Fair Wage, contributions to health insurance, and the creation of a human resources department to address long-standing issues of discrimination and harassment. He said working conditions now are untenable serving tables that he said are too crowded given the pandemic, and running food from a kitchen where workers who called out sick with COVID-19 found their jobs were not held for them. Safran Turney Hospitality declined an interview request but said in a statement: We are committed to ensuring the well-being, health, and safety of our staff and guests. We continue to adamantly follow state and city pandemic guidelines, as demonstrated through a recent inspection. READ MORE: How Phillys new food-delivery law changes the rules for Grubhub, DoorDash, and other services While local workers push to unionize, even those already organized are fighting with their employers over issues like paid sick leave and how workers are called back. Unite Here Local 274, which represents 230 cooks, servers, and bartenders at the airport, was unable to get employer OTG to pay laid-off workers for accrued time off in March. And those who have returned to work are now being told that time was zeroed out, said Jeeva Muhil, a bartender and the shop steward. OTG did not respond to interview requests. Workers are now being called back according to seniority, Muhil said, instead of on a voluntary basis as the union suggested. They called a lot of people and said you have 10 days to show up for work, or youre voluntarily resigning, she said putting people with health conditions or child-care issues in a bind. Theyre using it as an excuse to fire people. Under current conditions, Brishen Rogers, a Temple University professor of labor and employment law and a former organizer, expects the movement will only gain momentum. If workers are seeing a lot of other workers stepping out and demanding better treatment, that can take off like wildfire, he said. Though some have shied away from organizing as theyre called back to work, collective action is protected under federal law and those same protections apply to laid-off employees. As well, he said, workers at upscale restaurants are starting to recognize they hold more clout than they may have realized. These are jobs you cant learn in a week, he said. Restaurant workers have some latent power because of that. Say workers struck at an upscale restaurant in Philly and shut it down. Its not easy to staff back up. JEFFERSON CITY Missouri taxpayers forked over considerably less money to settle lawsuits against state government in the most recent fiscal year. According to Attorney General Eric Schmitts office, the state paid $10 million to plaintiffs who had accused the state of a variety of misdeeds, ranging from sex and race discrimination to negligence. Thats down from $29.3 million in the previous year and $35.9 million in the 2018 fiscal year. It represents the lowest payout total since 2015. Chris Nuelle, a spokesman for Schmitt, said the reduction was the result of an intentional plan. Early on in our administration, we carefully analyzed and reviewed Legal Expense Fund expenditures. Since then, we have been intentionally aggressive in litigating cases wherever possible to protect precious taxpayer dollars, Nuelle said. The cost of lawsuits against the state has been an issue in recent years for state budget writers, who must set aside money for legal expenses rather than steer those dollars into schools, social services and other state programs. Among solutions that have been suggested is making each state department responsible for paying out the penalties in order to make agencies more accountable. Many of the big ticket payouts, for example, stem from employee discrimination and harassment cases brought against the Missouri Department of Corrections. In January, Missouri paid out more than $2 million to a white employee of the minimum security Kansas City Re-Entry Center, after a jury agreed he was subjected to racial discrimination and a hostile work environment. As part of a 2017 effort to boost transparency, former Attorney General Josh Hawley began reporting a monthly tally of how much the state has paid out in legal expenses to people who have sued. Although the total payout was down for the fiscal year ending June 30, it could skyrocket in the coming year. The state still hasnt paid out more than $114 million to 13,000 current and former correctional officers who won a class-action case in Cole County over unpaid overtime. In that case, which dates to 2012, employees alleged the Department of Corrections did not pay guards for work done once they arrived at their prison. Most officers are stationed within a prisons security envelope, meaning they have to go through a search and a metal detector, turn over cellphones, tablets and any personal property, and are in uniform and in close proximity to prisoners, or on duty and expected to respond, the whole time. In addition to the base award, the jury agreed to tack on a 9% interest charge to the payout, meaning the states decision to appeal the case means the total could become much larger at a time when Gov. Mike Parson has already slashed spending because of the pandemic-induced economic downturn. Shake off your afternoon slump with the oft-shared and offbeat news of the day, hand-brewed by our online news editors. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. SAN FRANCISCO, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- 2600Hz , a leading provider of unified business communications and the world-renowned KAZOO platform, has been named Best Wholesale Cloud Communications Provider of the Year by a panel of industry-leading analysts as part of the UC Today UC Awards 2020 . During the awards ceremony, UC Today publisher Rob Scott stated the category was open to providers demonstrating channel growth and success. After Blair Pleasant, President and Principal Analyst of COMMfusion, announced 2600Hz as the winner, Scott stated that 2600Hz won because "KAZOO by 2600Hz offers Service Providers a fully white labeled UCaaS, CPaaS, and CCaaS solution enabling partners to differentiate their offerings." Scott also applauded 2600Hz's accomplishment of launching six new products in the first five months of 2020, including a new call center solution, new mobile apps, and video conferencing and collaboration. "We are very excited to have won the award for Best Wholesale Cloud Communications Providers. It is an honor to be recognized for our innovation and growth and we look forward to continued success throughout the remainder of 2020 and beyond. This award is a true testament to the hard work and dedication our team has put into KAZOO, and I am very proud of them," said 2600Hz COO and Co-Founder Patrick Sullivan. About 2600Hz: 2600Hz's cloud communications platform modernizes how businesses provide services to their customers. KAZOO, the revolutionary, distributed multi-tenant platform, is a thoughtfully engineered mixture of tools built by leaders in the telecom industry and implemented to offer a feature-rich enterprise UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, mobile, and remote collaboration solution. 2600Hz has expanded to offer a full enterprise-PBX as well as a hosted version. For developers building their own telephony apps, 2600Hz offers 300+ APIs that give access to the building blocks of the entire platform. For more information, visit http://www.2600Hz.com . Founded in 2010, 2600Hz is a privately-owned company based in San Francisco, California. 2600Hz Contact: Alisa Bartash Head of Marketing [email protected] SOURCE 2600hz, Inc. Related Links www.2600hz.com A Black Lives Matter supporter has accused the PSNI of blatant institutional racism after he was interviewed by police following his attendance at two Belfast rallies held last month. Cuthbert Tura Arutura (46) voluntarily attended a police interview at a PSNI station yesterday while under caution. He may face charges under the Serious Crime Act and the Magistrates NI Court Order 1981. The community activist denies doing anything wrong. Mr Arutura, a married father-of-three whose wife is a police officer, told the Belfast Telegraph the matter has been deeply stressful for his loved ones, stressing he is proud that they are a police family. The Zimbabwean native, who moved to Northern Ireland nearly three decades ago, was a speaker at the Black Lives Matter protest at Custom House Square on June 6. Three days earlier he also attended a rally at Belfast City Hall at which a number of protesters were given fines by police officers. Between 60 and 70 fines were issued to BLM supporters at the event, as well as those who attended a rally in Londonderry. The protests were sparked by the killing of African-American George Floyd by a police officer in the United States, which sparked worldwide outrage. At the time, coronavirus health regulations stipulated that no more than six people could gather in groups outdoors. The PSNIs handling of the BLM events has been the subject of much criticism and controversy, including accusations it had treated them differently to other large gatherings. It is understood Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK which imposed fines on BLM supporters. The Police Ombudsman is probing the matter. Expand Close Cuthbert Tura Arutura at a protest over the death of George Floyd at Belfast City Hall last month Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Cuthbert Tura Arutura at a protest over the death of George Floyd at Belfast City Hall last month A protect our statues protest, which was held at Belfast City Hall and was attended by hundreds of people did not result in any immediate fines being issued. The PSNI has said it would use CCTV footage in an effort to identify individuals who had attended the rally. It was asked yesterday by this newspaper to disclose how many, if any, had been identified or questioned in relation to the event. In response, the PSNI said last night that no files have been sent to the PPS at this time. The spokesperson added inquiries in the event are continuing. A number of high-profile funerals have also seen large gatherings, including that of veteran republican Bobby Storey. Politicians who attended, in particular Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill, were heavily criticised and accused of breaching regulations they were responsible for and had imposed on the public. The matter is the subject of a police investigation. The offences under which Mr Arutura was questioned under caution accuse the record producer and dance choreographer of aiding and abetting others by encouraging them to break the health regulations, according to his solicitor. Mr Arutura, who read out a pre-prepared statement during his interview, said the whole affair had been unsettling and stressful for him and his family, Its been really stressful. It has really taken its toll on my family. We are a proud police family, he said. He said the PSNI displays double standards in the way it has treated black people, in fact African black people. The way we have been treated is with blatant racism. It is clear now that the PSNI, like many other institutions in this country, is institutionally racist. Stressing there are good PSNI officers, he said the police had displayed unfair treatment. Nobody has been pursued like the way weve been pursued. Its out in the open that its blatantly institutionally racist, he said. Im a father of three daughters. I would not let them down by making racism acceptable. Sinead Marmion from Phoenix Law is representing Mr Arutura. She said she firmly believed it is not in the publics interest for her client to be prosecuted and brought before the courts. She said that she expected the PPS to receive a file in relation to the matter. Mr Arutura is not charged and he attended voluntarily an interview on the basis of Section 44 of the serious crime act 2007 and section 59 of the Magistrates Court Order 1981, both of which are in relation to the aiding, abetting and the procuring or counselling on the commissioning of an offence. The breach in question is the coronavirus regulations. What police are saying is that by speaking at the protest he has kept people there in breach of the coronavirus regulations. We are questioning the lawfulness of that interpretation of the regulations, in terms of the definition of a gathering. My client went to both protests alone. He maintained distancing on both occasions, and in our view did not breach any regulation. Nor by virtue of speaking at the event, did he aide and abet anyone else to breach the coronavirus regulations. In response, a spokesperson for the PSNI said: While we do not comment on named individuals, we can confirm that no files have been forwarded to the Public Prosecution Service at this time and our investigations remain ongoing. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Spear-phishing is a more targeted version of phishing, an impersonation scam that uses email or other electronic communications to deceive recipients into handing over sensitive information. Twitter said it would provide a more detailed report later given the ongoing law enforcement investigation. The company has previously said the incident was a coordinated social engineering attack that targeted some of its employees with access to internal systems and tools. It didnt provide any more information about how the attack was carried out, but the details released so far suggest the hackers started by using the old-fashioned method of talking their way past security. British cybersecurity analyst Graham Cluley said his guess was that a targeted Twitter employee or contractor received a message by phone asking them to call a number. When the worker called the number they might have been taken to a convincing (but fake) helpdesk operator, who was then able to use social engineering techniques to trick the intended victim into handing over their credentials, Clulely wrote Friday on his blog. The Swartzentruber Amish community in Cattaraugus County, New York are in danger of having their horse-drawn carriages run into the ditch by Gov. Andrew Cuomos all-renewable-energy express train. That train is barreling out of Albany station and aims to plant huge numbers of wind turbines and solar panels across upstate New York, including the 340-megawatt Alle-Catt wind project. But the Swartzentruber, who are among the most conservative of the Amish, might derail some of Cuomos efforts to turn New York into the climate-change promised land. And it may be the Amish sects religious devotion and the First Amendment that does the derailing. Let me explain. Last year, New York passed a law requiring the states utilities to be getting 70 percent of the electricity they sell from renewables by 2030 and to be selling 100 percent clean electricity a decade later. Thus, Cuomo wants lots of renewable-energy capacity built in New York and he wants it done as soon as possible. That was made apparent last month when Cuomos appointees at the New York State Siting Board rendered a quick 5-0 vote to approve the Alle-Catt project, which if built, would be the biggest non-hydro renewable project in the northeastern U.S. The owner of the Alle-Catt project -- Chicago-based Invenergy wants to build 117 turbines each standing approximately 600 feet high, across 30,000 acres (about 47 square miles) in Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Wyoming counties. Invenergy says the $550 million project will return some $9.1 million per year to local communities. But the 15 or 16 Swartzentruber families in Cattaraugus County dont want the giant wind machines built near their homes or churches. On that fact rests a big test for the First Amendment rights and land rights -- of the Swartzentruber. In a recent interview, Ginger Schroder, a member of the Cattaraugus County Legislature, who lives in Farmersville and is opposed to the wind project, told me that the Swartzentruber take seriously the line in Matthew that says where two or three are gathered in my name, I will be in your midst. To them, that means whenever there is a community gathering, God is amongst them, and they dont need to build a building to the glory of God. So they worship in their homes, they worship in their barns. Earlier this month, lawyers representing the opponents of the Alle-Catt project filed petitions for rehearing with the Siting Board in which they claim that the project will violate the First Amendment rights of the Swartzentruber to practice their religion. For more than a decade, rural governments and landowners from Scotland to Hawaii have been fighting the encroachment of wind-energy projects due to concerns about noise, human health, reduction of property values, tourism, and despoliation of ridgetops and viewsheds. The Alle-Catt case marks the first time opponents have used the First Amendment. The petitions for rehearing seek to overturn the June 3 vote by the State Siting Board. The board members, who include New York Public Service Commission chair John B. Rhodes, and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority chairman Richard Kauffmann, approved the Alle-Catt project despite the objections of several towns, including Freedom and Farmersville. At issue in the Alle-Catt case are the religious practices of the Amish as well as the home-rule rights of small communities to determine zoning within their jurisdictions. The rural backlash in New York against large-scale renewable projects has been so fierce that earlier this year, Cuomo pushed through a measure that allows the state to override the regulations implemented by local governments when siting energy projects. In a recent phone interview, Farmersville Supervisor Pete Lounsbury -- who was elected last November on an anti-wind platform -- told me that when the town passed its law restricting the size and location of wind turbines, We gave the Amish houses greater setbacks in the town law because they are used as places of worship. Farmersvilles law required a 2,200-foot setback between wind turbines and the Swartzentrubers homes. Lounsbury said that Cuomos appointees are pushing thru anything that they can and are completely ignoring local opposition and the rights of the Swartzentruber. If the petition for rehearing on the Alle-Catt project is rejected, he said, I guess we will have to sue. In one of the petitions for rehearing, Gary Abraham, a Great Valley-based lawyer who represents the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, a local group opposed to Alle-Catt, wrote that the Siting Boards June 3 decision made no effort to consider a reasonable accommodation for the Swartzentruber and rejected the towns interpretation and application of its own local law. He added that the Swartzentruber refused to lease any of their land for the wind project and that they believe the 600-foot-high turbines will adversely affect their ability to continue to live in harmony with the land and with God and will disrupt their religious ritual and practice. The battle over the Alle-Catt project is also about class. Allegany and Cattaraugus are among the poorest counties in New York. Of the 62 counties in New York, the two rank 59th and 58th respectively, in median household income. In Allegany County, the median household income is $47,033. In Cattaraugus County, it is $47,240. For comparison, the New York median household income is $65,323. (Wyoming County ranks 24th in median household income). On July 20, lawyers representing the Alle-Catt wind project filed a brief in opposition to the petition for rehearing in which they claim that opponents of the wind project dont have standing to represent the Swartzentruber and that there is no proof of an injury in fact to the Amish. It continues, saying The record contains no evidence that members of the Farmersville Amish community have sought to have their properties, or any buildings, declared a church or place of worship for purposes of the Towns zoning law. Theres no small bit of irony that a handful of Amish families stand in the way of Cuomos devotion to renewables. The Swartzentruber dont vote. They dont file lawsuits. And they dont use electricity. Indeed, by nearly every metric that modern society cares about, the Swartzentruber are an anachronism. But their faith, which requires them to shun modern conveniences, may be the thing that saves them from the encroachment of Big Wind. As Schroder told me this week, You dont have to vote to be protected by the First Amendment. Robert Bryce is a visiting fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, the host of the Power Hungry Podcast, and producer of a new feature-length documentary: Juice: How Electricity Explains the World. GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes S.A (NYSE:GOL) Q2 2020 Earnings Call , 11:00 a.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator Welcome to the GOL Airlines Second Quarter 2020 Results Conference Call. This call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] This event is also being broadcast live via webcast and may be accessed through the GOL website at www.voegol.com.br/ir and the MZiQ platform at www.mziq.com. [Operator Instructions] Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of GOL's management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors and analysts should understand that events related to macroeconomic conditions, industry and other factors could also cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. At this time, I will hand you over to Mr. Paulo Kakinoff. Please begin. Paulo Sergio Kakinoff -- President and Chief Executive Officer Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Global Lines Earnings Call. Paul Kakinoff, Chief Executive Officer; and I'm joined by Richard Lark, our Chief Financial Officer. Today, we released our second quarter figures. Also we made available on GOL's Investor Relations website three videos with the results presentation, financial review and preliminary Q&A. We hope everyone has watched them as we will now only make a few brief comments and then move to your questions. Our second quarter results are reflection of the severe impact that COVID-19 is having on Brazil's economy, the air transportation industry and our company. Since the beginning of the crisis, we have focused management on the following priorities: number one, protecting the health and safety of our employees and customers; number 2, preserving the GOL's financial liquidity as we overcome this crisis; and three, advancing to the resumption of capacity in a benefit manner to the level of demand and remaining well positioned to increase the company's share of the domestic market. We would like to thank our team of who have provided their unwavering support for GOL and our customers in working on these three priorities even in the face of so much adversity. For the details of the several initiatives we have taken can be found on Pages two and three of our earnings release. To offset steep decline in revenues, we took several measures to decrease costs and preserve We reduced our average daily cash expenditures to BRL three million in second quarter 2020, while taking all the necessary measures to provide our customers a safe and comfortable flight experience. The company maintained a strong liquidity position, enabled in part by the broad support from many of our stakeholders, ending the quarter with BRL3.3 billion in cash and receivables. Those financial resilience in this market affirms that the value of the work we have been doing to strengthen our balance sheet over the last four years. With that, I'm going to hand you over to Richard, who is going to take us to some additional highlights. Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Thanks, Kaki. The number of revenue passenger kilometers, RPK, decreased by 92% compared to the second quarter of 2019, totaling 773 million RPK. And we saw an increase of 103% in RPK from April to June, intra-quarter. Available T kilometers, grew 104% within the quarter, a decrease of 91% compared to 2019 second quarter. Both transported a little over 600,000 customers in the quarter, which is a decrease of 92% compared to the second quarter of 2019. Net revenues were BRL358 million, a decrease of 89% compared to the second quarter of 2019. Monthly revenues began the quarter with BRL104 million in the month of April and reached BRL164 million in the month of June, representing a 57% increase intra-quarter within the second quarter of 2020. Other revenues, which are primarily cargo and loyalty, totaled BRL115 million, which was a reduction of 37% in relation to the second quarter of 2019. The revenue per available kilometer, RASK, was an increase of 31%. The passenger revenue per available C kilometer PRASK is BRL24.58, a decrease of 6% compared to the second quarter of 2019. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBIT were $99 million and BRL20 million, respectively, and represent a positive contribution as a result of the company's rational and responsible management of capacity relative to market demand. Gol carried out a balanced management of its working capital, matching operating inflows and outflows in order to maintain cash at relatively constant levels since the beginning of this crisis. We adjusted fixed cost outflows, such as personnel expenses and aircraft leases to the new level of sales. Since March, the company has negotiated with primary leasing companies to defer payments and chain contracts to par by hour. We're reducing payments to from current values and incorporating a variable component. With support from our banks, working capital debt and short-term capex financing maturities were rescheduled. Such initiatives have allowed GOL to maintain liquidity at a level of BRL3.3 billion with 2-point billion BRL in cash. We are taking every reasonable precaution to preserve our liquidity. Now I'd like to return back to Kakinoff. Paulo Sergio Kakinoff -- President and Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Rich. Since demand bottomed in mid-April at less than 5% of our normal traffic, we have seen a consistent and outcome uptick sorry, uptick in passenger volume. In the quarter, those sales grew at an average rate of at 18% per week. We are committed to cautiously resuming our capacity to meet the demand and serve our customers. In the second quarter, our load flatter was 78%. GOL will continue to be recognized for having the most adaptable and flexible business model, prioritizing the sake of our customers and employees with the best team and the lowest cost in Brazilian aviation. We are also proud of our resilience throughout the crisis and are confident that we have optimally positioned the company for the future growth and profitability. Now I would like to initiate the Q&A session. Questions and Answers: Operator [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Mike Linenberg with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Michael John Linenberg -- Deutsche Bank AG -- Analyst Richard, Kaki. I have a question, I guess, I would like to start on just liquidity and how we think about getting from the end of the June quarter to the September quarter. You did provide total liquidity at September quarter end of BRL2.9 billion. It does indicate in the guidance that it is subject to several important initiatives that will be critical to get you to that number. I guess I would point to the after quarter agreements or announcement to do advanced sale of tickets to smiles, it looked like that, that raised $1.2 billion. So presumably, that's one of the initiatives that you're referencing. Can you walk us through from end of June to end of September? And just also confirm whether or not the ticket agreement with Smiles, that, that is not in your June quarter number? Paulo Sergio Kakinoff -- President and Chief Executive Officer No, that's not incremental cash. That's intra company cash. So that doesn't change total liquidity. Those numbers that we're reporting in total liquidity are the consolidated total liquidity numbers, which includes how we manage group working capital. Our liquidity initiatives, obviously, the main liquidity is sales, which are ramping up and following our network, which is based on digital analytics, which is identifying where the demand is. As of last week, we're firmly at a run rate sales booking rate of around BRL10 million a day. And so you have the network ramp up there, which is obviously the main source of liquidity. And within the airline operating company, we're matching our cash outflows to those cash inflows. As you saw in the quarter, we were a little we were around BRL200 million better than we had previously guided with the cash return for the quarter. And that relates to the combination of the ramp-up on sales as well as what we've been doing on the working capital side. And so the airline operations, we did we had about BRL2.5 million per day average of cash burn for the Q2. We gave you some guidance there on the on the Q3 in terms of our expected cash burn of around $6 million. That is within our matching of inflows and outflows. So the first point is that from an internal perspective, we've we're matching the inflows and outflows in the Q3. In terms of capital structure, which is really where you're going with that, we have a variety of initiatives that are in execution. I mean doesn't depend on us. We have alternatives with our banking partners on liquidity mechanisms, which include also rescheduling of obligations that we have there. We have received the final or I'd say, the final the approved terms and structure from a potential local Brazilian real debenture issue, which would have support of the BDS. And then over the next couple of weeks, the GOL management team is going to be presenting their recommendation to our Board of Directors on how to proceed with that. And we also have, based on our unencumbered assets, which primarily are aeronautical assets, which also includes some non credit card receivables, we have some structured secured finance alternatives that are in execution that we can bring forward for execution if we need to. And then finally, we don't have flexibility, obviously, is on our unsecured capital markets bonds in the market. As bond holders on the call would know, we've those the semiannual interest payments were made both on the on the convert in the 25 bonds this month as planned. And so we don't have any plans to alter anything related to our unsecured bonds in the market. I mean finally, just to round it out because this obviously relates to the larger questions, our lessors have been very supportive during the crisis. We have an ongoing almost daily dialogue with them to arrange for the return of aircraft and continued deferrals. And we are also converting a large chunk to power by the hour. And to pay for the utilization, which is a real win-win for both the leasing companies and us as we navigate through this crisis, in our cost and keeping our cost advantages. And so that is also that is the largest net, if you will, for GOL 2/3 of the GOL that is the operating lease fleet that we have. So that most of our lessors have been very supportive. We're in the final phase of that. And so when I mentioned that the successful maintenance of our liquidity and the expected cash burn, the main variable in there that I'm highlighting is the finalization of our negotiations on our fleet, which is 100% operating lease. We've got around 50% 50% of that, six aircraft is concluded. And it's a combination of deferrals, haircuts, power by the hour, it's a combination of various factors. But we expect, over the next 30 to 60 days that we'll finalize that component, which is a very important component. So that's really what I'm what we're saying there in that is that, as you know, we have our deal with labor gun. We have all the work we needed to do with our commercial banking and working capital relationships done and for the most part, with suppliers. And the final piece that we're going to be concluding over the next 30 to 60 days will be the finalization of the changes as it relates to our aircraft portfolio. So that's really what I'm saying there. And that is it's an important component. The objective is we're going to match our capacity to demand on the other side of this. We made some small adjustments to the fleet plan as you can analyze through some small calibrations around what we're doing there. But probably the most important component was which we still require significant support from our various stakeholders is with the operating lessors that we're working with. And so that's really what I'm highlighting there. In that comment on the critical nature of some work in progress relates specifically to what we need to finalize in the short-term on aircraft. Michael John Linenberg -- Deutsche Bank AG -- Analyst Okay. So that's helpful. When I read that, I thought that maybe that was more in reference to the BNDES loan, which it sounds like that, that seems to be a lower hurdle, and you're going to get that done. Can you just remind us about the magnitude of that potential transaction, both I guess, it was that public-private partnership with the BNDES, what what's the potential proceeds, kind of rough estimate of what you're anticipating? Paulo Sergio Kakinoff -- President and Chief Executive Officer What's in there within that potential financing is BRL two billion, so around BRL400 million five year debenture. There still is work that needs to be done from an execution perspective. We have the all the due diligence and the structuring work is all done. We now and they're approved with that also. And what we need to work on now is the execution of that and how we would fit that into our business plan. The main use of proceeds for that, obviously, would be either cash cushion/working capital. It's a local financing that started in March. It's the Brazilian government. And so to a long period of time. But pretty much from the beginning, we said that we thought that it would take until end of June to finalize the initial phase. And that's pretty much what happened. It went a little bit into July there. But we still have there still is a runway in front of us on that of at least a couple of months. I mean it's not something that's going to be coming into the cash cushion in the next 30 days. I think that's going to be 60 days off before we would be in a position to have a funding on that. There's still a lot of work to be done, but I think the perhaps the news is that the terms are finalized, and we can subject to some final points begin working on an execution. Michael John Linenberg -- Deutsche Bank AG -- Analyst So Rich, though, you said 60 days, that gets me to nine 30. I'm not I'm not sure, is it in your BRL2.9 billion? Or is it Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization No. Michael John Linenberg -- Deutsche Bank AG -- Analyst Not. Okay. That, to me, is very important because that's a Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization It's not in our business plan today. So and in our business so goal management over the next two weeks or so are going to be working on potentially incorporating that into our business plan. This not it's not our business plan. And all of what we communicate with the market is a reflection of what's in our business plan. We've been pretty clear about that since the beginning. We've kind of said it's not in our business plan, analyze the GOL credit, assuming that's not in there. If it does come in there, it would be a nice increase on top of cash cushion and liquidity. Allow us to us to finance the ramp-up. The main how we view that from a core finance perspective, that's basically working capital to help us finance the recovery and the ramp-up. So what we've been doing, we did in the second quarter, which was preserving liquidity, it was to be able to have the working capital to finance the ramp-up. And so far, I would say the ramp-up has been a little bit slower than expected, which is a good thing from a financial perspective, from a working capital perspective. That's the main reason why our cash burn in the Q2 was better than expected. But we need to preserve that liquidity to finance the ramp-up because as an airline and as a Brazilian airline, we have to invest a significant amount of capital into revenues. Generally, for us, it's between one to two months of revenues that have to be invested in working capital just to just to flat, just the transport passenger. So it's a massive working capital investment. And so what we've been doing is preserving that working capital and what we think is in the second in the third quarter here, when the second quarter was about gaining time until the recovery started again. The recovery started in very last week of May when we started ramping up the network. So June was kind of our return to service month. And where we started ramping up in the network. And as I said, as of last week, we're about BRL10 million a day of sales. And and so Q3 is, for us, at GOL, it's where the these paths are going to cross in terms of the ramp-up in our working capital, such that in the Q4 at a rate somewhere between 60% and 80% of last year, so call it, 70% on average in the Q4 will be, if you will, the new normal of our supply demand scenario. And so the Q3 for us is a bridge on rematching of the assets and liabilities, rematching of the inflows and outflows operationally and financially to get to this new normal in the Q4. That's how we're managing here at GOL. Obviously, it's domestic. It's Brazil domestic, and that's the information set that we're managing here. That's the demand set that we're managing here. And so but on your specific question, in addition to that, as I said, in addition to that, what you mentioned in terms of the debenture supported by the BBS. And in addition to what we're doing with our leases. We are also in the final phases of structures that can work with our unencumbered assets, in that mix, we have between BRL500 million and BRL one billion of additional funding that can come in based on unencumbered assets or structures that we have available, which also could potentially be executed over the next a 60 to 90 days if we need to do those. Obviously, one of the problems is that the market right now is not especially for us as a Brazilian airline. It's not really there, the private market, the capital market. It's not even a question of cost. We don't look at that now from a cost perspective, we look at it from an access and from a capital and from a derisking perspective. And it's been a pretty bumpy lumpy road where Brazil, there's a certain version, Brazil, a certain version to airlines. And then we're kind of in a cross set of that bucket. We do think that we enter this crisis with a much better financial position and a more simple balance sheet, which was the byproduct of the business model, the work we've been doing over the last couple of years. All these alternatives, we in terms of our own balance sheet, we had available prior to coming into this, but many require incremental support from GOL stakeholders. And I mean it kind of seems to us that the ideal timing in the short-term is going to be more September than August. But obviously, August is still in front of us. It's still a possibility to potentially do some of these incremental financings and refinancings because some of this relates to some of the liquidity source that we count on is not necessarily new capital, but it's refinancing of existing capital, lengthening out the capital structure, which is important for us. But I would say at this point, as we look at new external funds coming in, we don't see a high viability for the month of August, but September where we sit right now is looking a little bit better. Michael John Linenberg -- Deutsche Bank AG -- Analyst Okay. No that's extremely helpful. Thanks for all your commentary. Operator The question is from Savi Syth with Raymond James. Please go ahead. Savanthi Nipunika Syth -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst I really appreciate the level of transparency and detail you're providing with the investor updates and just kind of your planning scenario. Regarding the adjusted EBIT, I'm wondering, am I correct, basically what that number is telling us is the kind of the level of earnings, the flights that are being operated are generating. And as we think of as you add capacity back, is that something we can assume as each as the capacity kind of comes back, that's the level of earnings that we can probably model in the ramp-up? Paulo Sergio Kakinoff -- President and Chief Executive Officer Sorry, I was going to say, the first answer is yes. The second answer is no. The what we did on that was we just excluded all the grounded costs from that calculation. But I we have a lot of seasonal in Brazil. So the Q2 for us is already a very low profitability. And so that does not reflect the what could be assumed for whatever you're saying kind of like post pandemic profitability. I think what you could assume for post pandemic profitability is where we were seasonally, if you look at the quarters of last year, our objective that we're working on here at GOL is to in the Q4 of this year, get back to our our unit cost competitivity. And back to the financial equilibrium of the airline operating company at some point in the Q4. And we are assuming a yield similar to last year. And so that's kind of a long way of saying is that we probably won't be necessarily for the entire Q4. But on a run rate basis in Q4, our objective would be to get back to the same overall profitability that, for example, you were looking at in GOL last year. Why do I say that? Because from a policy perspective, that level of profitability is what we sought and what we achieved and what we're going to maintain those levels of EBITDA margin and that level of leverage to come to that EBITDA margin in the high 20s, low 30s. We were at around a 30% EBITDA margin on average through the quarters and then a leverage below three times. Those are policy objectives for us. And what we're going to be doing is getting back to that on the cost side because that's the business model. And then the leverage side on a run rate basis is going to be higher than that but eventually, that would come back down as by the middle of next year, we get some more normalized run rate levels. But on the first part of your question, what we did there is we excluded, we as if we were a 30 aircraft airline without the other 90 aircraft on the ground, that would have been our profitability. But it's a management calculation. It wasn't meant to be a predictor of the future. We did run the business as high operational efficiency as we could. Obviously, that wasn't the objective, but we kept our capacity matched with demand. Load factors 80 that was all done to minimize the cash outflow. There was no other objective other than that. And so that's just what kind of popped out. But we just provided that, just to give you an idea of how we're managing the business. And then two things will happen. One is that, obviously, we're going to be losing eliminating from the fleet aircraft this year. It's down to around 102 aircraft in operating aircraft by the end of the year. And then we have the flexibility also to take out additional aircraft next year and 2022, if we need to. And then we also have the MAX return to service. So we have a lot of flexibility to match capacity with demand. On the downside, if you will, we kind of we have a natural hedge. If the recovery is slower than expected, we have a natural hedge to adjust capacity. And in our business, capacity is cost and cash flow. And so reducing the aircraft means that we'll be able to keep our unit cost in line. But Savi, the overall objective, it's all about the unit cost. In the revenue bucket, in the short term, it's much more leisure and VFR, but given the capacity that's coming out of the market, we do expect, at a minimum, yield and PRASM stability, at least through the end of this year and then the beginning of next year. Savanthi Nipunika Syth -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst And tied to that and your response to Mike, there is business demand doesn't come back in a meaningful way, what would that kind of 65% of 29 I think it's 30% in 2019 and 3Q and 65% of 2019 in 4Q, what would that have to look like if you don't get the business that comes back in a meaningful way? Paulo Sergio Kakinoff -- President and Chief Executive Officer Savi, it's Kakinoff here. Actually, it's pretty hard to answer to this, considering that the situation is still pretty fluid. We cannot have a sharp focus when the business travelers really resume their Chico Chaco partner sorry, pattern that I had before. And what we have also demonstrated so far is more like the current level of yields, considering that most of the demand is composed by the VFRs. So I mean, as long as we have only basically only the VFR segment getting on board, combined with those who need to travel at the moment. I mean the health agencies, the infrastructure workers, this kind of stuff. I believe that the yields and the revenues really stay at the good levels, those ones we have demonstrated in the second quarter. Therefore, I believe this calculation is pretty much useful to you guys because you can have a better flavor on what's the market about at the moment. But personally, I believe that the business travelers will come back in a stronger way from September on. This is really, really hard to tell at the moment. We cannot have an accurate Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization If you want to think about it in terms of our business in our business, normally, about 70% would be of our traffic would be travel for business purposes. And within that bucket, 25% to 30 or so percent is corporate or think about it as large corporate, the large Brazilian companies transporting their employees around Brazil. That's not there right now, that component. And so when that component comes back, that's a 25%, 35% bucket of sales and revenues is not there right now. And that is what is not going to come back in and feel there's a more solid reengagement of economic activity. In the VFR, obviously, there's a lot of autonomous independent SMEs, small company business traffic that it's not subject to corporate travel budgets. And Kaki was saying, the expectation of that is the September, October coming in, and that's consistent with some of that guidance we've given on our network. Right now, we only have pretty good visibility through August and September, where we've have in our network. And we're selling well. We're doing very high load factors, which is an indication of how good we're doing in terms of predicting where the demand is. But the August capacity being at 30% of 2019 and the September being at 35%, we've got a pretty good handle on that, and that's it, because that's coming out of the data analytics. As far as the Q4 that is going to depend on corporate travel coming back for us here in domestic Brazil. The intentions of the of the government are aligned with that. Here in Brazil, normally, July is the winter vacation month school vacation for a month. We have schools functioning in August normally. Here in the Southern Hemisphere, it's just that will be kind of like your July is like your December, January winter break and then August will be kind of like February. We're not going to have that this year, but schools are expected to reengage in September with all the related issues related to that, and we do see from our relationships with our corporate clients and expectation of starting to authorize for employee travel starting in September. But it seems more heavily weighted to October. With our big corporate clients. Our big corporate clients are the Petrobrases and the vales and the banks and the construction companies and the energy companies and the real estate companies of Brazil, which right now are not spending on sending their employees around Brazil. So we think our network plan that we've articulated here for GOL to you guys we have a pretty good visibility on that through September, which reflects the more weight on the VFR, but we don't have the visibility on the Q4. And it's very easy for us to ramp up quickly within a very short period of time. Generally, the booking curve in Brazil is sold normally sold on a 60 to 90-day basis. Right now for us, that's it's being sold around on a 20-day basis. So it's a very short term decision as the ramp-up is happening gradually. But I would say that we're going to be more or less where we are right now in terms of the the signs and the leading indicators probably until the end of August when we would have visibility on what the government is going to do on back-to-school, and then the corporates and others. But we do have we are having this gradually reopening, even though some of the guarantees have been extended on a fortnight basis in the short-term to gain additional time. But we are here in Brazil, especially in the economic engines of Brazil, a little bit of a disconnect, probably with what you're reading in the media. From what I see when I look at the the foreign media on where we live and work and are there's a little bit of a disconnect. We do have we have bars, gyms and restaurants function. They're functioning with limited hours, but there's been a continual gradual reopening since the end of Jun On a very controlled basis. You are seeing spikes in terms of cases identified here and there, and I won't comment on the the media's selection of that. But we are much more active today than we were last week and the previous week, etc. And but I do think it's going to be now because we're not going to have any significant catalyst during the month of August, we're more or less going to stay more or less in this area. And that's why if you saw we made some adjustments in our network plan, we're expecting our RASKs from July to August to be up just around 10%. And then in September, would be up around 15% over September, whereas we had this big ramp-up of over 100% from June to July. And so that we don't expect any big movements in August and September. But if what has been articulated by the governments happens over the next 60 days that could reflect into the large corporates coming back, which would be a big ramp-up starting in October and then through the end of the year. And just a final part. Normally for us in Brazil is that economically or seasonally the next year kind of starts around September. And then we have a big rush of economic activity from September all the way until until December. And then that meshes in with in January, which is a huge summer travel vacation time for us here in the airline business in Brazil, and that generally goes all the way into whenever Carnival is, which is usually February. And so seasonality wise, the worst part of our year is behind us. So now we normally would be ramping up for the push to the end of the year, which is our biggest overall piece of time. And that seems like it will kind of mesh in with what's going on with the the gradual the continual gradual easing of restrictions on mobility and things like that, just kind of gradual for the year. And then going back to what I'm saying before, on the financial side, that's a good thing because the more kind of measured and gradual, the ramp-up is, the better for our working capital. If we have a quick ramp up, we'll put a lot of strains on our working capital, and we probably would need some external financing to try to help manage through that. So that's kind of the line that we're watching. Savanthi Nipunika Syth -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst Okay. That makes sense. All right, thank you both. Operator The next question is from Stefan Stick with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Stefan Stick -- Bank of America. -- Analyst I want to follow-up a bit on the last question just on the adjusted EBITDA figure. What exactly is within the nonrecurring expenses for the grounded fleet and as we look toward the rest of the year, third quarter, fourth quarter, would those expenses essentially be proportional to the expenses for the grounded fleet in the second quarter? Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization The second part of your question, yes, Stefan. I think we'll probably we'll break that out for the third quarter also. And then in the fourth quarter, we won't anymore because part of what we're doing is we're we're ridding ourselves of the excess capacity of the aircraft, and that is going to that's ramping that will match at the end of the year. And so in the Q3, also, there'll be some transitions on that. But it's basically all the it's the fixed cost, depreciation and other things. If you look in the release, we kind of broke out the components that are in there. And if you needed to, if you needed that information, we could provide that offline. I don't want to use up the time on the call here today for this, but I don't think it's going to be that useful to predict anything. I think the way that the best way that is constructed is just whatever the operational fleet is going to be and then the unit cost related to that. But we I can provide you that data off-line if you have the intellectual curiosity to look at it, the but it's basically all the what you call it, the also, the expenses that aren't necessarily to run the operations. It basically relates to all the aircraft. We had roughly 87% of aircraft grounded in the Q2. And so there's a chunk of costs just related to that, which aren't focused on the operation. Do you have any other questions? Stefan Stick -- Bank of America. -- Analyst Yes. My next question is just on capex guidance. What are you cutting back on in the third quarter to get down to BRL130 million. Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Well, basically, it's a combination of postponements deferrals. We also as you saw, we slowed down a little bit the aircraft redeliveries to save on cash. But it's our mean capex item is engine overhauls, which we do have the ability to kind of program those and ship those around. Eventually, there's a catch-up on that, but we can match those better with overall operations. There's some technology capex that we have suspended as well, but the main part is on the engine overhauls. And then finally, as you saw, as because of our deal with Boeing, we eliminated all the PDPs. And so part of that also relates to the PDPs based on our negotiation with Boeing. Operator The next question is from Gavin McKen with Amundi. Please go ahead. Gavin McKen -- Amundi -- Analyst I hope you can hear me OK. Can I just ask two quick questions, if I mind. I'm curious, if you could talk a little bit about your expected impact. You kind of referred to this already, but just curious to ask it again, if you went directly the number of cases in Brazil continue to ramp at a pretty strong rate, pretty scary reprogram living there phase there. Just wondering how you think about that impacting demand. And then I did just want to follow-up, obviously you referred to an assumption to pay the delta term loan. Is that 100% going to be the case at this stage? Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Just to understand your question. Your first part of your question was the number of Coronavirus cases tacking demand, yes, demand for air travel. Gavin McKen -- Amundi -- Analyst Yes, that's somehow interesting because it's not a fear of flying that is preventing people to take the planes. Actually, we saw the demand jumping from less than 5,000 customers per day to the current 30,000 level. At the same time that the COVID-19 was negatively evolving. I mean, the number of cases were was growing up at the same time, the demand was resuming that it was recovering. So this is not that people it's not a case that people is preventing or flying because they are fear of getting in contract or get contaminated. It's more the economy being catalyzed it due to the hotels, those who are closed, the companies that are keeping their employees working at home. So I mean, the expectation is much more related or the demand is pretty attached to the government's decisions related to how fast they will relax the social distancing measures. That's Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Yes. And part of it too is, what they're doing is managing that managing the increase the rate of increase in mobility and restrictions to keep the capacity utilization of the healthcare system below 100%. And so a lot of it is being very practically driven by that. And so the demand, the demand on going back to what I was saying previously. Right now, we don't have the corporate demand that we normally have, which is not in the short-term because we're just dealing with the demand that's there today, which is more VFR but those decisions also are related to just what's going on in the economy and a little bit back into the corporate policies on when they can start authorizing their employees to travel again and do business and do maintenance and mix sales and blueprints around and do meetings. The majority of business activities in Brazil cannot be done through the connections to the laptop on the Zoom connection, it's got to be done physically. And then that down at the chain as well. One of the things that we've thought about is kind of leading indicator is the borrowers and restaurants and shopping and schools functioning as providing the basis to allow kind of the overall corporate business, the function. And we don't have that right now. I mean it's in the gradual ramp up, but it's very much been driven by the health side of the equation is related to the health system, not based on any fear of flying. And if you look if you look at how we've been managing, I mean, we've been doing 80% load factors with 80% of our sales in a 20-day booking curve. It's a very short term demand, short term decision, which is as the economy is gradually ramping up, we're adding in the frequencies, we're selling them quickly and having very high load factors. So there's still a huge potential to for us to stimulate the long advanced period of purchase because right now, it's all very short term. And we're not cannibalizing future inventory. We're just keeping our activity very very short. And so and right now, there's a relationship of kind of like 11:1 between leisure, travel and corporate. So like massively inverted so once that comes back, we can lengthen out our booking curve. And when I say that why am I saying that is the transportation component, which is revenues, but the sales component is the booking curve. While we have up to years of inventory in the system, we're selling 20 days inventory. And so it's a very short-term it's a very short-term component. And once that happens, we can in addition to the ramp-up on the actual passenger transportation, which you'll see based on mobility, the longer-term planning nature, especially for the corporates will kick in. And that would be a large increase in sales once that happens. Going back to what I was saying before, more gradual that happens, the better from a working capital perspective, but that is probably like I was saying before, that I think the next step up on that will probably be in to the end of August or September if we have kids back in school again and have kind of firmly settled into this call it, 30% to 40% of 2019 is the platform, and then we can build on top of that. And if corporates come back September, October, that most likely is not just going to be for travel in September, October. It's going to be coupled with a lengthening of the advanced purchases, which normally would be pretty solid out as far as 180 days. And so then going back to what I was saying before, they will be selling kind of out to February. We'll be selling out the Carnival next year into our booking curve, which is receivables and then through factoring cash and things like that. And then that's what I would say, like in the fourth quarter is when those things probably start to match for us. The ramp-up in the booking curve and the rightsizing of the fleet to something on the order of 100 to 105 operating aircraft. And so again, that's how we're managing the business right now, but this third quarter is still a transition quarter between the Q2 and the Q4. So all I'm giving you is just a potential scenario, as Kakinoff was saying, this is our scenario for September and beyond. It's not the budget. I mean right now, we're we went from kind of managing the business on a daily basis into Q2. Now our revenues were managing on a weekly basis, and everything else, we're managing for the third quarter through the end of the third quarter. But I do expect by in September, we'll be able to go back to a somewhat more normal booking curve with somewhat more normal let's say, plan, if you will, as it relates to the reestablishment of corporate travel in Brazil, anyway. Gavin McKen -- Amundi -- Analyst I just I did have one follow-up question. Okay. But just on the delta terminal part? Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Yes. Gavin McKen -- Amundi -- Analyst Something is that at your assumptions take get paid, but there is presuming no or the stage. Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Yes. We're focused on preserving liquidity because everything I was describing. One option we have is the full amortization. One option we have is to make a full amortization of the loan of this loan next month. Another option is to amend and extend for which we would need to support delta. I mean, those are based on our options. Gavin McKen -- Amundi -- Analyst But given that at this stage, rich for correct me if I'm wrong, maybe two weeks to go until that amortization is required, currently, is that really a viable prospects to amend and extend at this point? Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Yes. So that is another option, which is viable, yes. But for that, we would need to support it to Gavin McKen -- Amundi -- Analyst Okay. But given that sorry to push you on up, given as we're two weeks out, do you think that, that support is potentially there? Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Yes, that's a viable option to amend and extend. And for that, we would need to support delta. Gavin McKen -- Amundi -- Analyst Okay. Okay. Sorry port. Hopefully, you understand the where I'm coming from. Can I just follow up then? I think it was on Mike's original question, which was some really helpful color there. But if I could just ask the question slightly differently. So on your measure of liquidity, which probably includes restricted cash, etc. But you go from BRL3.3 billion at the end of the second quarter, it's BRL2.9 billion under the guidance, if I understand correctly, in tune, if I if I multiply out the daily cash burn guidance, which obviously, again, assumes the term loan is paid down. There's about a EUR700 million gap, I go BRL3.3 billion less the cash burn rate of BRL1.1 billion through the quarter using your daily cash burn rate, that gets me to BRL2.2 million, and you're guiding for BRL2.9 million at the end of the third quarter. I'm just wondering if you could help us understand where that BRL700 million inflow comes from. Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Yes. That comes from a combination of there's a little chart we put in the presentation, maybe you saw it, but that comes from a combination of refinancings and new financings, which we can execute easily within that amount to match that is our objective. We have to match it in time. We don't have to match it all today and so matching in time. And through a combination of refinancings and then the other component, and so that's as you think about it from a capital structure perspective. But then in addition to that, it relates to what I was mentioning in the first point and the previous points, which is basically not cash from revenues, cash from sales, which for us are receivables. And so normally, we'd be at a steady state, on average of something around BRL1.2 billion of sales per month, which would come into our receivables. And then as we need to, we have financing mechanisms such as factoring to bring that into cash to do it. So as we shift where we are now to lengthening out the booking curve as it relates to increasing capacity and operations to we'll go off to about it will be another incremental of about BRL700 million of receivables in time. And in the very short term, probably an increase of around BRL200 million. Just related to the short-term during the Q3, from Q2 to Q3 increase in operations. And like what we don't have right now is that visibility on the Q4, but that Q4 that potentially be a substantial ramp-up in the receivables because that booking curve, lengthening out the booking curve, which would normally be we would be doing, especially with corporates out, it would be about 180 days. Right now, it's 20 days. So as that lengthens out as the ramp-up phases in and as we keep the VFR leisure and add in the corporate, that significant ramp-up on the sales side can potentially happen in September. Like so we don't have that right now. That's probably not in August. That also that would potentially that would be another BRL700 million in the way that it sounds like you're looking at it there. We went down. If you look at it is the reestablishment of the normality? For example, if you look at the main variation in our liquidity from Q1 to Q2 was a reduction of around BRL700 million of receivables. We're basically going to be rebuilding that back into our working capital during the quarter during the third quarter on a slower basis. As I said, we're at now around BRL10 million of revenues. We're already looking at a BRL12 million number here in the next couple of weeks. So it's all really on a week-by-week basis that we're managing the revenue component and rebuilding that receivable in a very short-term booking curve, which is 20 days, which is totally abnormal. We've got 80% of sales are in that 20-day booking curve. And so as that linens out for us from a working capital management perspective. So it's really kind of two things. We have and we have around BRL700 million of in terms of obligations and unencumbered assets and other things that we have at our disposal, if we want to use them, BRL700 million of additional financing that we can pull into the system if we need it, and then another BRL700 million, a different BRL700 million on the receivables side, as I said before, all of these will come in over the next 60 to 90 days. We don't those are tools at our disposal. It's just that we depend on other counterparties, clients and leasing companies and banks and markets to be able to to do those. But those are reflected in the to the page of the slides, but I think it's Page 25 of the presentation we put up on the website this morning. It basically shows how that liquidity is going to be reconstructed in the third quarter. Operator I see that next question is from Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Duane Thomas Pfennigwerth -- Evercore ISI Institutional -- Analyst I wanted to ask you about your adjusted numbers in terms of how we should interpret them. Your revenue was down call it, 90% in 2Q, and you're saying you generated positive EBIT and positive EBITDA. It's hard to understand how your cost base could be that variable. So like what are you trying to say with these adjusted numbers? How should investors interpret them? Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Well, as I was saying before, Duane, that's at your disposal, if you want to use that, you could also use the full cost of a 130 aircraft company with a 25 aircraft company on revenues, it's total useless, right? And so what we did is we backed out all of the costs related to the to those aircraft that are on the ground. A big chunk of that is obviously depreciation. It goes in the calculation on the unit cost, which is not a cash outflow. But we also have majority of our costs well, let me go back. Normally, we have about GOL business model always had a very high operating leverage, which say kind of like 35% fixed plus and the remaining variable, very levered to fuel at very level to variable cost. That's been even more intensified going forward. So as I think about it going forward, we transformed a major portion of our fixed cost at the variable cost, which I'd say is fixed cost labor and aircraft. And so there is going to be a pretty good matching with our costs with revenues going forward, at least for the next 18 12 to 18 months, both with labor and aircraft. Now the component that you can't transform into a variable cost, so easy depreciation. But in the Q2 there, the major item is I can do those is I can provide offline as opposed to kind of going through the the as opposed to going through kind of the math here, you're asking me what you guys should do with that. I would say a couple of components. One is that we're what we worked on here is to match our inflows with outflows. And the big challenge on that is what us and our competitors are all doing on the fixed cost side of the equation, which is labor and and aircraft. With the aircraft with the IFRS 16, you have the depreciation, you have to deal with that. So as you guys also need to look at what LatAm and Azul are doing, and how that's going to translate into the actual profitability for each operational aircraft, which will be my final point. I guess, what you could do with that would be just to look at it on an operational aircraft basis and determine with those numbers we provided, you can see what our profitability is for the aircraft they were actually operating. So as a as we faced back, like the I would say probably by mid Q4, we should be back to the new normal on the fleet side, and that's where we're going to get to on the operating profit. But as I say in the Savi, Q2 is a down quarter for us. Normally. And so you can't extrapolate too much for that, for say, like a Q4 based on the Q2. But we have a much I would say, also, we have a much lower fixed cost component of our cost structure than our competitors do. And so through the ramp-up, we're going to be generating more results, yes. Duane Thomas Pfennigwerth -- Evercore ISI Institutional -- Analyst Okay. And then just maybe another follow-up on Savi's one of Savi's questions, but maybe some feet on the street perspective on consumer behavior changes in Brazil as it relates to the virus. The more that people take it seriously, wear masks, social distance, the more we can be optimistic that the spread will be contained and some normalcy will return. So Rich or anybody else, just wondering if you could give us some feet on the Street perspective on if people are taking the virus more seriously in Brazil now versus a month or two ago? Paulo Sergio Kakinoff -- President and Chief Executive Officer Yes. That's my personal assessment, I believe that, mainly the kind of customer, which is used to take a plane. I mean we are transporting every year something around 30 million different natural persons. I mean there are 100 million tickets sold, but we fully consider those that are by 15, 20 times a year, we are talking about the total market around 30 million people. And this is basically the A and B social classes in Brazil. So I believe that they are much more I mean, aware of the benefits of the following the recommended procedures. And we had no problem at all to have the passengers being 100% with our request like such as wearing masks every time, we have suspended the onboard service, and we are delivering the snacks only whether customers are deploying leaving the plane and this kind of thing. And we had no problem at all to implement those measures. And simultaneously, I mean, month-to-month, we see the customers are now getting more comfortable in booking applied and taking the plane. So I believe there are a better collaboration between that behavior and the demand increase. Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization I think also think too is that I think also what I will say, you say like, feet on the ground, Brazil immediately in March, I mean, this economic segment that a was talking about, and took it very seriously from day 1. I mean this was March 9, we had dose down here in Sao Paulo. I think it was a part that maybe it's not that we didn't take it seriously is that they couldn't in the C&D segments of the population, which you really don't have in the U.S. They never quarantine and shut down. I mean, you could go in the month of April, you could talk about like feet on the street. Every day, what was during the quarantine, my regimen was taking taxi to go on the morning at and walk or run home at night. And which you normally couldn't do on the streets of Sao Paulo. And I was in the month of March, you crossed the 23rd of May Street here, which is an eight lane highway, which you would be squashed to a pulp if you tried to cross it normally, you could just walk right across it. And this is in the month of already in the month of March. But on my morning taxi drive, I would go into the back of the taxi with all the plastic protection and masks and everything. And the guy would just tell stories about in the morning. He was out in the ports of Sao Paulo, where bars and restaurants and everybody doing stuff. So there's like two different realities. And I think part of what you're seeing in the reflection in the numbers coming out is those two realities. I would say that the A, B component of Brazil did a really like exemplary job of quarantining March, April, may, and even so today, I mean, a quick I think culturally, in Brazil, there's a much more, let's say, how would I describe it? Following what authority has requested you to do, much different than the U.S., which some people kind of put this flag of in defiance of what somebody else was going able to do. We really didn't have that. And this relates to what Kaki was saying, which is the main consumer that we have has already kind of gone through that. And what we also saw in terms of street boots on the ground in June, we saw in, I would say, in the A and B segments, which is generally the urbanized central pieces, economically viable pieces, we already saw in the month of June, temporary clinics starting testing clinics starting to slow down because they were set up in March and April to do testing, March, April and May to the testing. Already in June, they were going down in volumes in the A&B areas, and also use of hospital beds in the A&D areas, which is not the case in the C&D areas, which the thing has been working through there since, I don't know, June or so, right? I mean so far that's in the spiking of the cases, which is not really maybe what you guys see on the on the metal count that's showing up on the right side of the screen on MSNBC and every day. I don't know. Paulo Sergio Kakinoff -- President and Chief Executive Officer Dan, it's really important to highlight that the I mean the C&D social classes, they always they always got the willingness to follow the authorities, but some of them is simply couldn't. I mean they were requested to by their employees to work or they were living in highly concentrated areas. I mean, a very high population of density and this kind of stuff. So I mean, the general mood would be to obey and follow the rules, but a considerable portion, maybe most of the C and D social classes members, they were simply not allowed to follow it. They couldn't. Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Very high per capita per square feet in their homes. There they can't be sitting in their library on their couch with all their kids. It's a very differ reality. And it's a big chunk of the population, right? There's 20 million to 40 million people in those conditions where and that's in the numbers. It's it's a little bit of the reality of Brazil. But I'm sensitive that tick because I understand you're saying is like we're seeing there's a weird mismatch. I when I look at what's going on in the international media and what we're actually seeing on the you said, boots on the ground here. But just reflecting what Kaki was saying also is that I would add to that, that the traveling public in Brazil overall, this 30 or so million of frequent travelers in Brazil. It's a much more sophisticated I would say, client base than probably your average U.S. traveler, it is smaller. It's also relatively higher income proportionally. And so it has, I think, a different relationship with the air travel. And then I think is less maybe it's more influenced by the necessity and the convenience than than other factors such as fear or things like that. But just going back, I mean that's in the traveling public today, which is more of a VFR, what we don't have yet is the corporate piece. And that corporate piece is definitely influenced by some of these other components that you're talking about, mobility and also perception of it being safe. We don't expect any pushback from that. As the economy opens, we don't expect any pushback on the on the emotional side about air travel, not being safe. But part of that just reflects our very different economic reality. And these things cross as well, just in terms of the the across what I mean, the segments of the society cross where the segments of the population have different necessities. It's very easy for the A and B classes to spend a couple of months in quarantine almost an impossibility for the C and D classes to have to be able to. So I've done that. And it's a very low part of the population. If they don't work, they don't eat. And so it's a very different reality that is reflected in the statistics that you're seeing. Operator Next question is from Alex Falcao with HSBC. Please go ahead. Alexandre Pfrimer Falcao -- HSBC, Research Division -- Analyst How much of market share gains do you guys put into this prediction of the 70% capacity gain back in the fourth quarter. We saw reports on LatAm saying that they would probably not reach an agreement and going to have to fire people and take away capacity. Is that playing each of your expectations, meaning that if it's not do you think that could be even better than you guys expect? And second, how closely you're going to monitor the routes in Brazil? And if they're not performing, not performing, you're going to close them down. Paulo Sergio Kakinoff -- President and Chief Executive Officer Okay. Has. Actually, we have achieved a current market share at the level of 40% for 0. So this is, I mean, between two to three percentage points above what we usually have. This is something I believe that we could keep. So this is entirely based on our own performance, and we are not assuming any specific movement from our competitors. So this is I mean, how much we believe we can keep in our view and then we have closely monitor every single route. I mean, from at the moment or up to now, we have no intention to either cancel or give up on any of the routes we have reignited since the major reduction that we had implemented in April. So the new or the routes we have resumed since then are so far sustainable, and we believe that by the end of the year, we might be operating something around 80%, eight 0 of the mask routes that we were pre-COVID. Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization The current run rates aren't necessarily a good predictor of the future because of the real distortion you have in the mix of traveling clients. But if you take the mix we have today, on a run rate basis, we're at about 50% of the corporate the business market that's traveling, we have about 50% share. We know that from the data that we look at. But that's obviously with a significantly reduced market and someone inverted where the large portion of large corporates are not traveling. And so I don't think that's a I think market share is pretty useless. But that derives from the network. GOL has a network that it's been built over 20 years, but it is the most present in the main business markets with our capacity is put where the main business market business travelers want to travel, and therefore, it's the most linked into GDP. And we also have the highest us in LatAm, it's about a 90% overlap with LATAM's route network. And similar to what we saw in the Avianca Brazil situation at the end of 2018, beginning of 2019. And that company had around a 90% overlap with GOL. And so with what LATAM is doing, there's probably a big chunk of passengers that normally would have been traveling on the tails network that are driving on the GOL network because it goes where they want to go. I don't know if did I answer your question? Alexandre Pfrimer Falcao -- HSBC, Research Division -- Analyst Yes, it does. It does. And if you can, I'm not sure you can disclose that. How much of that is punctual specifically, meaning, how much does the Sao Paulo Rio route has to work for your predictions to work. So I'm not sure if you can disclose that, but it would be interesting to see how relevant it is. Paulo Sergio Kakinoff -- President and Chief Executive Officer I'm not sure that I understood correctly your question, but I believe that it I mean, the fight between Sao Paulo and would be sustainable. I mean, in almost every way. This is because we can reallocate these lots to operate other routes in case that we should reduce the number of frequencies between Rio and Sao Paulo. So I mean, it could be 10, 20, 25 a route per day without any problem. That wouldn't be a minimum level, if I understood correct. Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Normally, I mean, we don't have a high portion of our passenger traffic is connecting traffic all around Brazil. It's even higher now. It would normally if you go pre pandemic, maybe that was like 25%, 30%. Now it's above 30%, 35% connecting traffic, very optimized. And that's a function of demand. But normally, if you just want to isolate real Sao Paulo shuttle, like 10% or so of revenues. And so it's a portion of the overall mix. I mean the gold network is pretty diversified and so it's not in terms of domestic Brazil, it's the economic footprint of Brazil. And we can adjust around in the ramp-up here. So that's not really a point there. We're going to have to Joe, I'll speak in front of the operator, but we have to jump on in five minutes to our Portuguese language conference call. And so we're going to need to cut off now. There are there's another couple of people in the queue on questions. We're not going to be able to go to those now, but if you guys could just shoot us an email or we can talk later. And so with that, we're going to wrap up. We have to wrap up the English language call here. Paulo Sergio Kakinoff -- President and Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Rich. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you'll find our presentation, very helpful. And if not, just give us a call. Okay, we are for the available to you. Thank you very much. Operator [Operator Closing Remarks] Duration: 82 minutes Call participants: Paulo Sergio Kakinoff -- President and Chief Executive Officer Richard F. Lark Jr -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Independent Research Organization Michael John Linenberg -- Deutsche Bank AG -- Analyst Savanthi Nipunika Syth -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst Stefan Stick -- Bank of America. -- Analyst Gavin McKen -- Amundi -- Analyst Duane Thomas Pfennigwerth -- Evercore ISI Institutional -- Analyst Alexandre Pfrimer Falcao -- HSBC, Research Division -- Analyst More GOL analysis All earnings call transcripts The pandemic has brought more homeless people to the downtown area, particularly the park, Walton Island and the parking decks because homeless shelters and other places that would normally provide help arent available due to the pandemic, Lalley said. The police departments lobby has been closed, and shelters are at half capacity, she said. The death of Herman Cain, attributed to the coronavirus, has made Republicans and President Trump face the reality of the pandemic as it hit closer to home than ever before, claiming a prominent conservative ally whose frequently dismissive attitude about taking the threat seriously reflected the hands-off inconsistency of party leaders. Mr. Cain, a former business executive and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, had an irreverent, confrontational style that mirrored the presidents own brand of contrarian politics. In his more recent role as a public face for the presidents re-election campaign, he became an emblem of Trump-supporting, mask-defiant science skeptics, openly if not aggressively disdainful of public health officials who warned Americans to avoid large crowds, cover their faces and do as much as possible to limit contact with others. His view was shared by many conservatives, who have applied a hard-nosed, culture-war mentality to the virus, the most serious public health crisis in a century. Mr. Trump wrote in praise of Mr. Cain on Twitter on Thursday, calling him a Powerful Voice of Freedom and all that is good. Over the past few years, Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), has reshaped the PLA and is leading it to become a world-class military force. World-class forces The chairman of the Central Military Commission's thinking on strengthening the military answers the fundamental questions of what kind of armed forces China is pursuing and how China should go about building them. In December 2012, barely a month after he assumed the top post in the Party, Xi spoke of the need to build a strong military. "To realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, we must adhere to combining the building of a prosperous country with that of a strong military," Xi said. The PLA has reshaped its leadership and management system, optimized its structure and reformed its military policies and institutions since 2015. At the V-Day parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in September 2015, China told the world that it would cut the number of its troops by 300,000 and vowed that it would never seek hegemony. In 2017, a road map was unveiled at the 19th CPC National Congress that China will fully transform the PLA into a world-class military force by mid-21st century. It said that in the new era, the task of building the national defense and the military has also opened a new chapter. By 2020, the PLA will achieve its mechanization, make significant strides in informatization and gain substantial improvement in strategic capabilities. It also set a midterm goal for the Chinese military, to turn itself into a modernized power by 2035, and a long-term one, to become a top-tier military in the world by 2050. In December 2018, Xi described it as a strategic task in socialist modernization to build a fortified national defense and a strong military commensurate with China's international standing and its security and development interests. While China is on the way to military modernization, its military budget remains at a relatively low level. According to the latest official figure, China's 2020 defense budget continues to see a single-digit growth for a fifth consecutive year, at 6.6 percent, the lowest growth rate in recent years. The budget stayed at around 1.3 percent of its gross domestic product, well below the world's average figure of 2.6 percent. The idea of building world-class armed forces means the army can provide a strong backing to the protection of China's sovereignty, security and development interests, the safeguarding of world peace and stability, and the realization of the national rejuvenation. Built to fight "A military is built to fight. Our military must regard combat capability as the criterion to meet in all its work and focus on how to win when it is called on," Xi has pointed out. During his inspection tours of the army, Xi reiterated the need for the armed forces to improve their combat capability and readiness for war. In response to his call, military training in real combat conditions across the armed forces is in full swing. Since 2012, China's armed forces have carried out extensive mission-oriented training tailored to the specific needs of different strategic directions and exercises of all services and arms, including over 80 joint exercises at and above brigade or division level. This year, the PLA has also showed its combat capability in responding to emergencies. In China's battle against COVID-19, the PLA dispatched over 4,000 medical personnel to the epicenter of the outbreak, Hubei Province, to work on epidemic control. Medical teams were formed within two hours of receiving the order, and they arrived at their destinations within 24 hours, carrying a seven-day stock of protective materials. On arrival, they started to treat patients right away. According to the Chinese Defense Ministry, as of July 28, the PLA and the People's Armed Polices (PAP) had dispatched 725,000 personnel to fight on the anti-flooding front lines by reinforcing dikes, plugging levee breaches and evacuating residents. Strict military governance President Xi has repeatedly stressed the need to govern the military with strict discipline and in accordance with the law in every respect. The idea was also written into the country's rule-of-law blueprint during the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in 2014. When inspecting the 13th Group Army in southwest China in January 2016, Xi also called for strengthening the armed forces through reform, besides enhancing political awareness and lawfulness to build a strong army. Since 2012, fighting corruption in the military has also been a focus of the sweeping anti-graft crackdown, with dozens of military officers investigated and jailed, including Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, both former top generals and vice chairmen of the CMC. SOURCE CGTN She recently returned from a trip to New York City, and has been seen out and about around Malibu, California. And Cindy Crawford looked casual chic on Thursday in the area, as she made a pitstop at her husband Rande Gerber's eatery Cafe Habana, in a pink and salmon-colored striped button down top and shredded jeans from Mother. The supermodel, 54, rolled the sleeves of her blouse up to just below her elbows, and at one point clipped her brown wayfarer sunshades to the shirt. Casual chic: Cindy Crawford looked chic and comfortable on Thursday in Malibu, as she made a pitstop at her husband Rande Gerber's eatery Cafe Habana Crawford let her auburn hair hang long and loose, and she covered her face with a white fabric cloth to protect herself as coronavirus cases remain spiked in California. The mother-of-two's jeans were belted and ended above her ankles, and she sported simple tan flip flops. Cindy also carried a gorgeous flesh-toned Gucci purse, which she wore across her torso. Taking a step for style: The supermodel was in a pink and salmon-colored striped button down top and shredded jeans from Mother Responsible fashion: Crawford let her auburn hair hang long and loose, and she covered her face with a white fabric cloth to protect herself Previously, Crawford's son Presley Walker, 21, was known to be working at Cafe Habana, which is father Rande co-owns with a business partner. The modeling legend took to her Instagram earlier this month to celebrate her only son Presley's 21st birthday with some throwback snaps. 'Always and forever my little boy! Happy 21st birthday @presleygerber. Where did the years go?' Crawford began. 'So grateful for the time weve had together the last few months. I see your heart and your growth and Im so proud of you! Excited to see whats next!' she concluded. 'Where did the years go?: The modeling legend took to her Instagram earlier this month to celebrate her only son Presley's 21st birthday with some throwback snaps Her husband Rande added, ''Happy birthday to my boy. They say 21 is the first day of the rest of your life. You got this,' along with two black and white photos of his son. Crawford and Gerber also share daughter Kaia Jordan, who is 18 years old. Kaia, as well as Presley, are both models in the tradition of both their superstar mother as well as their father, who is an ex-model-turned-entrepreneur. More recently, Cindy got in on the much-hyped Instagram photo challenge known as the Black And White challenge, meant to raise awareness around women supporting other women. Fashionable farm girl: Crawford and Gerber also share daughter Kaia Jordan, who is an 18-year-old model; Cindy seen on Instagram last week Crawford chose a lovely beachside photo for the trending challenge, in which she's wrapped in a thick sweater as her bare shoulders peek out. Cindy smiles as she looks down contentedly in the snap, wearing white jeans. 'Love this simple way to lift each other up. #challengeaccepted,' she captioned the photo. She then thanked Vanessa Bryant, Lisa Rinna, Bobbi Brown and Donna Karan among others for nominating her. One of Queen Elizabeth's bodyguards was arrested on suspicion of drugs possession after white powder was found in a bathroom at St James's Palace. The bodyguard was said to have nine bags of cocaine and ketamine among his possessions after police searched his room and car at Wellington Barracks by Buckingham Palace. The Coldstream Guardsman was arrested on Tuesday, July 28, by the Royal Military Police and has been removed from ceremonial duties pending the outcome of the investigation. According to The Sun, officers launched an investigation after white powder was found in the guardroom toilets where the soldier had been on duty. They then uncovered five bags of what was suspected to be cocaine and four of ketamine, a horse sedative that is also a Class A drug. An Army spokesman told MailOnline: "We can confirm that a soldier from the Coldstream Guards has been arrested for a suspected drug offence by the Royal Military Police. "It would be inappropriate to comment further." 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 Soriot wouldnt say what Astras vaccine would cost. Last week, the U.S. government said it agreed to a $1.95 billion deal to buy 100 million doses of a vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE if approved by regulators. That suggests a price of $19.50 a dose, or $39 for a two-dose regimen, though the government will make it free to the public. Like GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Soriot said the company would look to the World Health Organizations guidance to determine when the pandemic has ended. Dubai, July 31 : The Indian Consulate in Dubai has offered support to repatriate an Indian woman in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who complained of domestic abuse and sought help in a video that was posted on Twitter, the media reported. In the video, the woman alleged that she was being "beaten and mentally tortured" ever since she got married in April 2018, Gulf News reported on Thursday. Mother of a 13-month-old girl, the woman claimed she reached the UAE in January and could not contact the police as she did not have a sim card. "I am in danger. I am helpless. I don't have money. I don't have calling card to call my family. I just need justice. I am requesting you to please help me. Somebody please help me," she said in the video. The Indian Consulate, which was also tagged in the video, responded saying that the mission was already extending support. "We got a complaint...on 27th July and we had contacted her same dA y and assured her of all possible assistance. She now desires to go back to India and we will make sure that she can leave for India at the earliest," the Gulf News quoted the Mission as saying. When contacted, Neeraj Agrawal, consul for Press, Information and Culture at the consulate, said: "We are in touch with the woman and her husband. We have asked him to return her passport and we are ready to facilitate her repatriation." This is not the first time that the mission has intervened in such a case. Last year, the Consulate assisted the repatriation of another woman, who had sought help. Her husband was arrested by Sharjah Police after her Twitter video went viral. More than $11,000 worth of personal property was stolen from a 47-year-old Dearborn Heights woman, who left her Buick Verano unlocked and unattended for 15 minutes the afternoon of July 20 in the 24600 block of Annapolis Street in Dearborn Heights. Stolen were a Louis Vuitton suitcase, valued at $600, which contained a pendant necklace valued at $8,400; an empty Michael Kors purse, valued at $359; an Apple iPad 5 and an Apple iPad 11, valued collectively at $800; a gold rose Apple iPhone 11, valued at $1,000; and assorted items of clothing. There were no surveillance cameras which might have captured footage of the theft, and no suspects. Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor (Natural News) After bravely taking a stand for health freedom at the recent White Coat Summit put on by Americas Frontline Doctors in Washington, D.C., Dr. Stella Immanuel, a black woman from West Africa, is enduring an endless barrage of abuse from leftists, which are relentlessly mocking both her ethnic heritage and her Christian faith. Headlines such as, Trumps New COVID Doctor Says Sex With Demons Makes You Sick, compliments of the far-left The Daily Beast, are running rampant. And white liberals everywhere are sharing these headlines on social media, and openly making fun of Dr. Immanuel for her deliverance ministry. In an attempt to make her sound as ridiculous as possible and exploiting her skin color and West African heritage in order to do so, all while claiming to be anti-racists the science-worshiping left is using phrases like alien DNA and demon sperm to caricature Dr. Immanuels medical philosophies and experiences, many of which are based on her experiences working with demon-possessed patients in Africa. I do not know the culture of Nigeria where Dr. Immanuel trained but I know witchcraft and child sacrifice are very real things in Uganda, wrote The All Natural Parents group on Facebook. I also know this woman had to leap over tall buildings and be twice as smart as her counterparts to retrain and be allowed to practice in the states. Though they imply it she isnt stupid, this same page adds, offering the dignity and respect to Dr. Immanuel that the far-left mainstream media would never offer. In her culture she is very in tune with her people. Dr. Immanuel is correct: Big Pharmas FunVax aims to remove humanitys God gene, making people not believe in God Dr. Immanuel is being so heavily attacked for her religious and health beliefs by the left that she recently took to Twitter with a cry for help. We are being attacked, ridiculed and discredited, she wrote, lamenting the fact that leftists, many of whom are white and claim to support black people, and especially black women, are tearing her to shreds while ignoring and rejecting what she has to say. We need our patients to SPEAK UP, she added. If you have been cured by this drug, share your story online using this hashtag. #HCQWorks. It is no secret that the left is doing everything possible to keep the public in the dark about hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), simply because President Donald Trump recommended it early on in the plandemic. Anthony Fauci, the head of Trumps coronavirus task force, has likewise denigrated the drug, instead pointing people towards face masks, remdesivir in which he holds stock and future Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines produced by Bill Gates. This is unfortunate because HCQ really does work, especially when coupled with zinc. And the best part is that it costs next to nothing to manufacture and distribute because it is a generic drug that has been around for many decades. To try to steer people away from HCQ, and specifically away from Dr. Immanuels powerful testimony as to its effectiveness, the left is picking apart everything she has ever said or done, including by mocking her claim that some vaccines are being developed to try to rid people of their religious beliefs. While it might sound crazy to the uninformed and ignorant, there actually is a vaccine known as FunVax that we, too, reported on, which its creators say will deactivate the God gene inside peoples bodies, making them reject their belief in God. In other words, Dr. Immanuel is right, and rather than take an honest, dignifying look at her work, these mostly-white liberals are ripping her to shreds and, quite frankly, exhibiting the type of anti-black racism that they claim to oppose. For more related news about the liberal lefts intolerance towards people with different belief systems than them, be sure to check out LiberalMob.com. Sources for this article include: NaturalNews.com Facebook.com Twitter.com NaturalNews.com The vaccine against coronavirus that is developed by Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology is already at the stage of state registration, Alexey Kuznetsov, Russian health minister's aide, told Sputnik on Wednesday MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 29th July, 2020) The vaccine against coronavirus that is developed by Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology is already at the stage of state registration, Alexey Kuznetsov, Russian health minister's aide, told Sputnik on Wednesday. "The clinical trials of the vaccine for preventing the novel coronavirus infection that the Russian Health Ministry's Gamaleya Institute develops are being completed. The vaccine is at the stage of state registration," Kuznetsov said. A source has previously told Sputnik that the vaccine is expected to be registered on August 10-12. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters A cache of documents in civil litigation against the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was unsealed on Thursday night, including early 2015 correspondence with her longtime confidant Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. The documents stem from a 2015 civil action brought against Maxwell by the Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, who has claimed that Maxwell lured her into Epsteins orbit at 15 years old, under the guise of offering work as a masseuse. They include personal emails between Epstein and Maxwell as well as information from a discussion between Giuffre and her lawyer. Many documents in this case have been subject to an intense legal battle. Maxwells attorneys in the civil suit had argued to keep many records under seal, maintaining previously that this series of pleadings concerns [attempts] to compel Ms Maxwell to answer intrusive questions about her sex life. The documents, they argued, are extremely personal, confidential and subject to considerable abuse by the media. Judge Loretta Preska ruled in Manhattan federal court on 23 July to unseal them, however, saying: The court finds that the countervailing interests identified fail to rebut the presumption of public access. Documents involving Maxwells deposition have not been released yet, as her lawyers are appealing their unsealing. Federal authorities arrested Maxwell on 2 July and charged her for allegedly participating in Epsteins sex trafficking. Maxwell, daughter of the late publishing baron Robert Maxwell, pleaded not guilty on 14 July. Maxwell has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. Her lawyers have said she vigorously denies the charges and is entitled to the presumption of innocence. The documents released on Thursday help shed light on Maxwell and Epsteins personal relations. In one of the personal emails between Epstein and Maxwell, Epstein wrote on 25 January 2015: You have done nothing wrong and i woudl [sic] urge you to start acting like it. Go outside, head high, not as an esacping[sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it. Story continues The exchange followed a request from Maxwell, who was romantically linked to Epstein, to be distanced from his dating life. Related: 'The hotspot of a hotspot of a hotspot': coronavirus takes heavy toll in south Texas Some of them also relate to previous claims of Giuffre, such as former President Bill Clinton riding on Epsteins plane, and allegations about the lawyer Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz, who had worked as Epsteins attorney, has repeatedly denied misconduct. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment. During brief questioning about Bill Clinton, the documents show Giuffre said she saw the former president on Epsteins island. Representatives for Clinton did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Clinton has distanced himself from Epstein, and in a 2019 statement a spokesperson said: President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York. The documents also show that Giuffre was asked in an interview whether Epstein ever bragged about the age of any girls with whom he had sexual relations. Yes, he did. He did all the time, she said. The worst one that I heard from his own mouth was this pretty 12-year-old girls he had flown in for his birthday. It was a surprise birthday gift from one of his friends and they were from France, she alleged. Epstein told her powerful people owed him favors, Giuffre claimed, according to the documents. Lots of people owed him favors from what he told me Thats why I believe he does so many favors in the first place. Giuffre was also asked whether Britains Prince Andrew whom she has claimed she had sex with as a teenager at Epsteins behest would have information about the financier. He would know a lot of the truth, she said. Prince Andrew has vehemently denied allegations of misconduct. Maxwell met Giuffre at Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago club in south Florida, where the then teen was working as a locker-room attendant. In the civil lawsuit, which has since been settled, Giuffre claimed that Maxwell had defamed her, by stating that she was a liar for accusing Epstein and Maxwell of sexual impropriety. An extensive collection of documents in this suit was also unsealed last August. They featured both bombshell claims, and denials that world leaders participated in Epsteins alleged sex ring. These filings were disclosed shortly after Epsteins arrest last July. Epstein killed himself in jail last August. Maxwell is being held in jail pending trial, which is scheduled for next July. This eye-opening book is as much about how our prejudices blind us to the other realities of non-human creatures, as it is about bird behaviour. For instance, ornithologists (mostly male) believed complex birdsong to be an almost exclusively male trait. It took female ornithologists to notice this wasnt the case. For decades, most assumptions about birds were based on observations of birds in the temperate zones of the northern hemisphere until it was discovered that these birds were the exceptions rather than the rule. This shift in focus is reflected in the prevalence of Australian birds throughout this book both as the ancestors of all song birds, and as exemplars of extreme behaviour. Birds are more intelligent, strategic, manipulative, playful, collaborative and creative than they have been given credit for. Like a morning chorus, The Bird Way gives voice to a birds view of the world. The political world, suggests Christopher Pyne, is like a solar system. The PM is the sun. Some politicians are happy to orbit. Others want to be at the centre. Under Howard, Pyne was Pluto. Under Abbott and Turnbull he was closer to Mercury. Knowing ones place in the political solar system can make you satisfied or dissatisfied with your lot, but not knowing can lead to political catastrophe, especially when combined with vaulting ambition. Pyne witnessed five PMs flame-out during his 26 years in politics but it wasnt until the Dutton-led challenge for the leadership, when it become clear Pyne wasnt a contender, that he gave up on his own solar ambitions. For all the trademark glee he brings to this account of the chaos in Canberra from 2007 to 2019, it is a sad reflection on the delusions of the political class and its scrambles for power. We Are Family Susan Golombok Scribe, $32.99 Credit: In 1995, a Florida woman raising her 11-year-old daughter with her female partner lost custody to her ex-husband, a convicted murderer who had killed his first wife. Its a shocking example of what was, until relatively recently, a prevailing tendency among judges to place greater weight on a mothers sexual orientation than on her qualities as a parent. When Susan Golombok began researching child development in the 1970s, no lesbian woman who had fought for custody of her children in the UK had won. In this measured, compelling book she draws on decades of research into lesbian mothers, IVF families, gay father families, single-mother families and trans families to measure the impact on children of these non-traditional family forms. The findings are clear: children flourish in warm, supportive, stable families, whatever their structure. The damage to children lies in community prejudices and intolerance. Plastic Free Rebecca Prince-Ruiz & Joanna Atherfold Finn NewSouth, $32.99 Mr. Knopp had taken off from the airport and the pontoon-equipped plane, operated by High Adventure Air Charter, had left Longmere Lake, Mr. Johnson said. Mr. Bell is listed as one of the companys owners on its website. A person who answered the phone at High Adventure said the company declined to comment. The company runs flights for bear-watching and glacier tours and to bring passengers on fishing trips. The area around Soldotna, on the Kenai Peninsula, is speckled with lakes. The top of the companys website reads: JUST SO YOU KNOW! Remember God is in Control. In these difficult times we want you to know our prayers are going out to each person struggling around the world. Gov. Mike Dunleavy ordered the United States and Alaska state flags to be flown at half-staff in honor of Mr. Knopp for three days. Throughout his 42 years on the Kenai Peninsula, Gary became well known as an avid outdoorsman, a skilled pilot, and a dedicated public servant, the governor said. His presence will no doubt be missed by those he faithfully served. Mr. Knopp was born in Whitefish, Mont., and moved to Alaska in 1979, according to his biography. He worked as a general contractor, and was elected in 2006 to the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly, a position he held until 2012. He was elected to the State House of Representatives in 2016. Two F.A.A. safety inspectors were at the crash site, which was near Sterling Highway. The majority of the wreckage was located approximately 200 yards from the road. A judge has ordered that the 5m estate of paedophile priest Michael Studdert, who died in 2017, should be used to provide support for his potential victims A paedophile priest's almost 5 million estate - most of which he left to a charity he set up to support families of clergy of the Church of England - cannot be spent while potential victims are found, the High Court has ruled. A judge has also ordered the executors of Michael Studdert's estate to set up a website to try and find those who may have been abused by the former Anglican minister in England and Wales, Poland, Denmark and Italy. Studdert, who died aged 78 in August 2017, was convicted on three occasions of various charges relating to the possession, importing, making or distribution of indecent images of children between 1988 and 2006. He was jailed alongside Paedophile Information Exchange founder Thomas O'Carroll in December 2006 after more than 100,000 indecent images were found at his home in Surrey. Studdert was banned from exercising any priestly function within the Church of England for the rest of his life shortly after that conviction. He is not known to have ever been convicted of the sexual assault of a child but a judge has said he is 'satisfied Studdert had committed historic sexual assault in England and Wales', as well as in Poland, Denmark and Italy. The High Court found there is a real prospect Studdert may have sexually abused children during his life time, so his estate should be used to settle any personal injury claims. The court said there may be victims across England and Wales as well as in Poland Evidence compiled by a firm of solicitors appointed to manage his 4.7 million estate found Studdert was 'likely' to have had sexual contact with children in Poland, where he had 'strong connections', and had also travelled with O'Carroll 'extensively' in eastern Europe. The executors also received two letters sent to Studdert after his death by disgraced former Radio 1 DJ Chris Denning, who is currently 'serving a 13-year sentence for sexual offences committed against boys' and 'has a history of sexual offences committed in the Czech Republic and Slovakia'. Studdert left most of his millions to the EAC Educational Trust, a registered charity he set up in 1985 to 'relieve poverty and to advance education for the benefit of the public and particularly amongst the families of clergy of the Church of England, single parent families and other poor families'. But his executors applied to the High Court 'because they were rightly concerned that the estate might be subject to claims from survivors of historic abuse', Chief Master Marsh said in a ruling on Friday. Following a series of hearings between January 2019 and this April, the court found 'there is a real prospect that the deceased may have committed historic sexual assault both within the jurisdiction of England and Wales and outside the said jurisdiction in eastern Europe, and in particular within Poland'. The court also found that these historic assaults 'may have given rise to personal injury claims against the deceased and hence his estate', although 'no claims have been intimated and the (executors) are not aware of the identity of any possible claimants'. Chief Master Marsh previously ordered the executors to pay the 'relatively small' amounts Studdert had left to his 'Polish friends' and also to contact the police and the Church of England to find out if they had any further information about potential abuse by Studdert. By April, the judge said he was 'satisfied Studdert had committed historic sexual assault' in England and Wales and Poland, Denmark and Italy, and ordered Studdert's executors not to distribute any of the rest of his estate. He also ordered them to 'create dedicated websites' in English, Polish, Danish and Italian with details of Studdert's date of death and criminal convictions, as well as advertising the website on Twitter, Facebook, and Wikipedia. The judge concluded: 'It remains to be seen what emerges from the steps that are taken by the (executors). 'It is clear, however, that a complete bar on the distribution of the estate should not remain in place indefinitely.' Chief Master Marsh added: 'Consideration may be given to setting up a compensation scheme if one is warranted.' The website set up by Studdert's executors is available at www.michaelstuddert.org Video by Lee Min-young, Kim Kang-min Renault Samsung Motors has been suffering faltering sales throughout this year due to the coronavirus outbreak. And to revive sales, this time Renault Samsung Motors has rolled out a real head-turner. Four years ago, the automaker released its first SM6 sedan model also known as the Talisman. And this year, Renault has produced a new, more sophisticated SM6 with a high-tech makeover. The Korea Times went to test drive this new model on a racetrack at the Inje Speedium and on a winding course in the mountain roads of Gangwon Province. An empty Terminal 1 Departures Hall at Dublin Airport on the Bank Holiday Weekend. Photo by Steve Humphreys The August bank holiday is normally a busy time for Dublin Airport, but Covid-19 restrictions have seen a near 90pc drop in numbers for this time of year. Even with travel restrictions somewhat lifted, the numbers flying were few and far between. Read More Only a handful of check-in desks were open, and the few people that had baggage to hand-over were able to be processed quickly. But there were a few who were making the break away to sunnier skies and a well-earned break, even if their smiles were hidden behind face masks. For some 'fun in the sun' meant factoring-in a self-isolation quarantining period when they come home again. Expand Close Dublin Students Millie Costello, Christina Walsh and Kenzi Ross in an empty Terminal 1 Departures Hall at Dublin Airport on the Bank Holiday Weekend before heading to Portugal on Holiday. Photo by Steve Humphreys / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dublin Students Millie Costello, Christina Walsh and Kenzi Ross in an empty Terminal 1 Departures Hall at Dublin Airport on the Bank Holiday Weekend before heading to Portugal on Holiday. Photo by Steve Humphreys Three friends heading to Portugal were 19-year-olds Millie Costello, Christina Walsh, and Kenzi Ross, all students of Trinity and UCD from Dublin. Were going for eleven nights. We booked it ages ago, said Millie. Portugal is not on the controversial green list drawn up by the Government where people can return from without self-isolating for two weeks. So, had the three pals factored this into their plans. We have actually. Weve booked an AirBnB apartment for two weeks when we come home so we can follow all the regulations involved, said Christina. Kenzi Ross said they had feared throughout the summer that their holiday plans might have been cancelled. We were worried that we might have to cancel, and had asked ourselves if it was anti-social to go, but we are self-isolating when we come home. We are following all the guidelines, she explained before the trio set off for the departure gate. Another student who was going to Portugal said she was going to self-isolate in her rented apartment when she gets home after her two week holiday. I planned this holiday before lockdown, and Ive been working hard all summer. So many travel opportunities have been cut off, such as interrailing, so I was really looking forward to this holiday, she said. Some of my friends are already out there and they say the system is very like Ireland at the moment. People are wearing masks and social distancing, and some of the restaurants are open, but with restrictions, she added. So it will be like home, but warmer! she said. Throughout the airport, necessary precautions were being provided by DAA, with hand sanitising stations and distance markers at every turn. "Passenger traffic continues to be decimated by the impact of Covid-19. In the week to July 26, Dublin Airport had an average of 13,200 passengers per day, which is down 88pc compared to the same week last year, said a Dublin Airport spokesman. Passenger numbers so far this week are in line with last week, and are continuing to show an 88pc-89pc decline compared to the same week last year, he added. In the week to July 19, Dublin Airport had an average of about 12,200 passengers per day, which is down about 89pc compared to the same week last year. And in the week to July 12, the average was 10,800 passengers per day, which is down 90pc on the previous year. The numbers traveling dropped lower and lower as you moved back through the calendar. In the week to July 5, Dublin Airport had an average of 9,400 passengers per day, a 92pc drop on last year. And in the week to June 28, an average of only 4,155 passengers per day went through the arrivals and departures areas of the airport, which was down 96pc on last year. Research News UB scientists describe how a crystalline sponge sheds water molecules A microscope image showing a porous, crystalline material called a metal-organic framework, or MOF (the material in purple). This MOF is made from cobalt(II) sulfate heptahydrate, 5-aminoisophthalic acid and 4,4'-bipyridine, and it is shown in its hydrated state. Image: Travis Mitchell By CHARLOTTE HSU Our group developed a device that allows us to control the environment relative to the crystal: We are able to continuously flow fluid around the crystal as we are collecting data, which provides us with information about how and why these dynamic crystals transform. How does water leave a sponge? In a new study, scientists answer this question in detail for a porous, crystalline material made from metal and organic building blocks specifically, cobalt(II) sulfate heptahydrate, 5-aminoisophthalic acid and 4,4'-bipyridine. Using advanced techniques, researchers studied how this crystalline sponge changed shape as it went from a hydrated state to a dehydrated state. The observations were elaborate, allowing the team to see when and how three individual water molecules left the material as it dried out. Crystalline sponges of this kind belong to a class of materials called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which hold potential for such applications as trapping pollutants or storing fuel at low pressures. This was a really nice, detailed example of using dynamic in-situ X-ray diffraction to study the transformation of a MOF crystal, says Jason Benedict, associate professor of chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences. We initiate a reaction a dehydration. Then we monitor it with X-rays, solving crystal structures, and we can actually watch how this material transforms from the fully hydrated phase to the fully dehydrated phase. In this case, the hydrated crystal holds three independent water molecules, and the question was basically, how do you go from three to zero? Do these water molecules leave one at time? Do they all leave at once? And we discovered that what happens is that one water molecule leaves really quickly, which causes the crystal lattice to compress and twist, and the other two molecules wind up leaving together. They leak out at the same time, and that causes the lattice to untwist but stay compressed. All of that motion that Im describing you wouldnt have any insight into that kind of motion in the absence of these sort of experiments that we are performing. The research was published online June 23 in the journal Structural Dynamics. Benedict led the study with first authors Ian M. Walton and Jordan M. Cox, UB chemistry PhD graduates. Other scientists from UB and the University of Chicago also contributed to the project. Understanding how the structures of MOFs morph step by step during processes like dehydration is interesting from the standpoint of basic science, Benedict says. But such knowledge could also aid efforts to design new crystalline sponges. As Benedict explains, the more researchers can learn about the properties of such materials, the easier it will be to tailor-make novel MOFs geared toward specific tasks. The technique the team developed and employed to study the crystals transformation provides scientists with a powerful tool to advance research of this kind. Scientists often study dynamic crystals in an environment that is static, says co-author Travis Mitchell, a chemistry PhD student in Benedicts lab. This greatly limits the scope of their observations to before and after a particular process takes place. Our findings show that observing dynamic crystals in an environment that is also dynamic allows scientists to make observations while a particular process is taking place. Our group developed a device that allows us to control the environment relative to the crystal: We are able to continuously flow fluid around the crystal as we are collecting data, which provides us with information about how and why these dynamic crystals transform. The study was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and U.S. Department of Energy, including through the NSFs ChemMatCARS facility, where much of the experimental work took place. These types of experiments often take days to perform on a laboratory diffractometer, Mitchell says. Fortunately, our group was able to perform these experiments using synchrotron radiation at NSFs ChemMatCARS. With synchrotron radiation, we were able to make measurements in a matter of hours. Dale Carnegie didn't do it. Neither did Tony Robbins. The dregs of society are now showing up somewhere on time, speaking audibly, and engaging in physical labor without suing or filing workman's comp. Let's soberly process the acts of random murder, blinding police officers, and destroying historical federal statues and then continue by looking carefully at additional threats of murder, beatings, and arson. Let's look at everything from a softer, more objective lens. With the right lens, a possible explanation for the left's dismissal of the violence emerges. In terms of Nadler, et al., think of the famous line in The Breakfast Club "Can you describe the ruckus?" Violence to one man is vocational motivation to another. There's more good news if we alter our perspective. Think of domestic terrorism as the new motivation workshop, like a hybrid of a Chamber of Commerce meeting and a HITT class. New Truth # 1. De Blasio Is the Definition of Success Mayor de Blasio of New York is doing a fine job, outstanding, even, the Picasso of Progressivism, with a pinch of Pollack street painting thrown in. Success is defined as getting what you want, making the dice or domino move right where you want it to, collecting your winnings and celebrating. New York is now home to human dice and domino. Instead of being moved by Broadway monologues or warm pizza served by waiters with even warmer smiles, these well cultured dice and dominoes are moving physically. Some move out of state; some move to and fro as they pace their apartments, afraid to go outside; and some, like dancers in a matinee musical, gather behind the Pied Piper of Progressivism and contort to accommodate whatever the dance scene needs. Dances all start with "The Fist" hand extended up with pants dropping down. De Blasio single-handedly revamped the criminal justice system. Criminals charged with empirical research are generous with their findings, letting it be known that the turnaround time for getting back out on the street is express, not local. Crime increase check! Police have no leverage check! Non-criminals are afraid check! New Truth #2. Progressives are the New Achievers Congratulations are in order. They did it! The black-white divide has had the best marketing campaign ever. Daily, people on TV and in the world at large attempt to teach white Americans that they are offenders who must repent of having been bestowed riches that are undeserved, unearned. After coming home from work, taking my coat off, and getting online, my email gets graced with enlightening material including a woman's health magazine article about how to talk to your black friends (silly, I always thought we talked by moving our mouths and making words come out no matter what the race of the person we are talking to) and announcements of racial sensitivity training by various professional groups. New Truth #3. Emails are Evidence of Increased Emotional Communication We all get these group emails from professional organizations that seem endless. Typically, they were always absent of even a hint of emotion. Well, not now! No more time, date, and venue ending with the words "best" or "regards", followed by a standard signature. A recent professional listserv morphed into a remake of The Crucible. Just replace witchcraft with racism. Everyone was either confessing intentional racism (of the white-on-black variety, just to be clear that the reverse wasn't the subject matter), unintentional racism, or failing to sufficiently acknowledge racism in general. Such emoting! Feelings were flying like the best poetry reading on the Lower East Side. Then there were the angry emails about Tom Ford refusing to dress our first lady oh no, wait, wrong brand of social injustice. I saw no such thing chalk it up to claiming poetic license. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 22:57:58|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BERLIN, July 31 (Xinhua) -- German policemen were after four bank robbers in the capital city of Berlin, local television RBB reported on Friday. The robbers used irritant gas during their raid in a bank branch near the city's Hermannplatz before they fled with a vehicle. Eleven were injured by the gas. It's unclear whether money was taken by the robbers. Police spokesman said special forces were dispatched to chase after the perpetrators. Emergency vehicles were on site to prepare for further victims. Enditem The total in Kohima was extended by a week till August 7, officials said on Friday. The decision to extend the total lockdown, which was ending at midnight, was taken at an emergency meeting of Kohima District Task Force (DTF), they said. The restrictions were imposed on July 25 to stem the spread of the The extension of the total was necessitated after taking into consideration the recent surge in the COVID-19 cases in the district, stated an order issued by Deputy Commissioner Gregory Thejawelie, who is also the chairman of the task force. A notification issued on July 23 announcing the restriction strictly prohibited movement of people, vehicles and also opening of all business establishments, including the essential commodity shops while only people in rare medical emergencies and those involved in COVID-19 related works and pharmacies are exempted. The inter-state and inter-district movement has also been prohibited. Thejawelie reiterated that the same provisions would continue to be in force. The respective wards, colonies and village panchayats have been asked to identify certain shops so as to make essential commodities available to the general public within the residential areas by adhering to coronavirus-related protocols. The authorities warned of strict penal actions in case of any violation. The first case of COVID-19 in the Nagaland capital was detected on May 25 among people who returned from Chennai and was undergoing quarantine. Since then 299 cases were found in the city till July 24, a day before the was imposed. However, in the last seven days, 175 new cases were detected, taking the tally to 474. Among them, 127 have recovered while 347 are active but asymptomatic. Meanwhile, the Association of Kohima Municipal Ward Panchayats president Neibulie Kiewhuo said that the seven-day total lockdown passed off peacefully with no untoward incidents being reported from any of the areas. He conveyed gratitude to the citizens for the support in realising the need to follow the restrictions. The state's commercial hub Dimapur is on the sixth day of its total lockdown imposed on July 26. Similar restrictions were imposed in the Mon district on July 27. All business establishments are shut in these districts while strict restrictions were also imposed on the movement of the people and vehicles, except for emergency medical services. The other nine districts in the state are following partial lockdown measures imposed by the state government in the fight against COVID-19 on March 22. (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.) Newly unsealed court documents reveal Jeffrey Epstein told Ghislaine Maxwell she had 'done nothing wrong' and to 'start acting like it' after she was sued by Virginia Roberts in 2015. Dozens of documents relating to the civil defamation lawsuit against Maxwell were publicly released on Thursday, hours after a district judge denied her last ditch attempt to keep them sealed. Among the trove of court papers was an email exchange between the pair in January 2015, in which Epstein advised her to carry on normally and insisted she had nothing to worry about. Newly unsealed court documents show Ghislaine Maxwell lied when she said she hadn't had contact with Jeffrey Epstein in over a decade, during her bid for bail Court papers pertaining to a 2015 deposition civil defamation case against Maxwell included a January 2015 email Epstein sent to Maxwell insisting she had 'done nothing wrong' 'You have done nothing wrong and i woudl [sic] urge you to start acting like it,' the billionaire pedophile wrote. 'go outside, head high, not as an esacping [sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it', he added. The email was in response to a message Maxwell had sent the previous day saying she 'would appreciate it if shelley would come out and say she was your g'friend.' 'I think she was from end 99 to 2002,' she wrote. Shelley's identity is unclear, however the time frame mentioned by Maxwell appears to correspond with abuse allegations made by one of Epstein's accusers. 'Ok with me,' Epstein replied. The email exchange also appears to confirm Maxwell lied in her bid for bail, during which she claimed she hadn't spoken to Epstein in over a decade. A separate email exchange from days earlier showed Epstein emailed Maxwell what appeared to be a court statement proclaiming her innocence, but was written from her point of view The trove of documents were publicly released hours after a district judge denied her last ditch attempt to keep them sealed 'MAXWELL STRIPPED ME AND TOOK PART IN CONTINUOUS ORGIES' Ghislaine Maxwell undressed Virginia Roberts and told her to lick Jeffrey Epstein's nipples during their first meeting when she was just 15, newly-unsealed court documents have revealed. Roberts detailed the ordeal in testimony she gave to lawyers in 2011, which formed part of a 2015 libel case against Maxwell that has been kept secret until now. Roberts said Maxwell also stripped naked, instructed her to perform oral sex on Epstein while he fondled her, and then told her to 'straddle him sexually'. In separate testimony, Roberts also recounted 'continuous' orgies that Maxwell was involved in on Epstein's private Caribbean island with underage girls. Roberts said girls were routinely flown in via private jet to participate in sex sessions which happened all over the island. Asked to describe women she personally saw Maxwell have sexual contact with, she responded: 'There's so many, I don't know where you want me to start.' 'There were blondes, there were brunettes, there were redheads. They were all beautiful girls. I would say the ages ranged between 15 and 21,' she added. Advertisement Days earlier, Epstein had emailed Maxwell what appeared to be a court statement proclaiming her innocence, which read as if it was written by her. 'Since JE was charged in 2007 for solicitation of a prostitute I have been the target of outright lies, innuendo, slander, defamation and salacious gossip and harrassment; headlines made up of quotes I have never given, statement I have never made,' it reads. 'I have never been a party in any criminal action pertaining to JE.' The statement also claimed Maxwell had been in a 'very long-term committed relationship to another man' at the time of Epstein's conviction. 'Whilst I remained on friendly terms with him up until his plea, I have had limited contact since,' it continues. Also contained within the documents is a deposition that Roberts gave to investigators in which she accused Maxwell of having orgies with 15-year-old girls. Asked to describe women she personally saw Maxwell have sexual contact with, she responded: 'There's so many, I don't know where you want me to start.' 'There were blondes, there were brunettes, there were redheads. They were all beautiful girls. I would say the ages ranged between 15 and 21,' she added. Maxwell participated in sex sessions with them by a pool, near the beachfront, in small huts and in Epstein's cabana, she alleged. 'One occasion stands out,' she said. 'Models were I think they were models were flown in. There were orgies held outside by the pool.' The women - 'beautiful, tall, some were blonde, some were sandy brown' - did not speak English, and conversed in a European language that Roberts guessed was Russia or Czech. Describing the sex session, she added: 'Ghislaine, myself, Jeffrey, another girl in this blue, outdoor I don't know what you want to call it. Cabana, that just a bed could fit in.' Roberts also alleges that during the deposition that she was trafficked to Europe to have sex with powerful men, including Britain's Prince Andrew and attorney Alan Dershowitz. She said Maxwell and Epstein constantly reminded her of how powerful their friends were, so that she wouldn't betray them. 'Jeffrey did a lot more of that than she did. But she definitely made it aware that we shouldn't cross boundaries with them,' she said. In yet more testimony, Roberts described her first meeting with Epstein when she was asked to massage him, saying: 'For the first hour, it was actually a real massage, maybe not an hour, maybe like 40 minutes or something. 'That's when he turned over on the other side to expose himself fully. 'So then Ghislaine told me that she wanted me to undress and began to take off my shirt and skirt, my white uniform from Mar-A-Lago, she also took off her shirt and got undressed, and so I was there with just my undies on, and she was completely bare... 'During all of this I'm like: "What's going on, how do I act, what do I say." I was so afraid of, not afraid or fearful for my life, but unsure of how all this started and wanting to obtain a profession, I was so afraid thinking about upsetting and disappointing them... 'I was expected to lick [Epstein's] nipples, instructed on how to do so by [Epstein] and give him oral sex while he wanted to fondle me, and then at the end, I was told by Ghislaine to get on top and straddle Jeffrey sexually... 'When we were done, we went and had a shower in the room and Jeffrey told me to wash him up and down...' The papers pertain to depositions from when Maxwell was sued by Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Did Ghislaine lie about ending relationship with Epstein? Photo shows Maxwell receiving package with pedophile's name in 2015 DailyMail.com has uncovered a never-before-seen photo that could prove Ghislaine Maxwell is lying about ending her friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Lawyers for the socialite-turned-alleged-madam insist that Maxwell had nothing to do with Epstein who died in prison in August last year for at least the last 11 years of his life. DailyMail.com has exclusively uncovered a photograph of a mysterious box labeled 'Mr. Jeffrey Epstein' being delivered to her apartment in January 2015 But DailyMail.com has exclusively uncovered a photograph of a mysterious box labeled 'Mr. Jeffrey Epstein' being delivered to her apartment just over five years ago. The picture, unseen until now, was taken on January 6, 2015 as a DHL delivery truck was unloading parcels at Maxwell's Manhattan townhouse, just seven city blocks from the huge home where Epstein lived and abused dozens of young girls. The picture, unseen until now, was taken on January 6, 2015 as a DHL delivery truck was unloading parcels at Maxwell's Manhattan townhouse (pictured), just seven city blocks from the huge home where Epstein lived and abused dozens of young girls In court last week lawyers for Maxwell insisted she had no contact with the convicted child molester 'for more than a decade' after he was released from his initial prison sentence in 2008. They filed papers that unsuccessfully said she should be allowed $5 million bail while she awaits trial on charges relating to the procurement of young girls for Epstein and perjury. They wanted her to stay in a luxury hotel, be subject to GPS monitoring and said she would surrender her three passports, one British, one American and one French. 'On August 10, 2019, Epstein died in federal custody, and the media focus quickly shifted to our client wrongly trying to substitute her for Epstein even though she'd had no contact with Epstein for more than a decade,' her attorneys, Mark Cohen and Jeffrey Pagliuca, wrote to the court. The attorneys did not respond to questions about the picture. Advertisement CLINTON, GORE, CAMPBELL, KLUM: EPSTEIN'S 'GUESTS' REVEALED Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum were among high-profile guests that Jeffrey Epstein entertained, Virginia Roberts claims. Clinton visited Little St James after his presidency ended because he 'owed Epstein a favor', Roberts told investigators in newly-unsealed testimony. 'He never told me what favors they were. I never knew. I didn't know if he was serious,' she said. The former president stayed in Epstein's private villa where 'orgies were a constant thing,' she claims. Vice President Gore was also a guest on Epstein's plane, the Lolita Express, as were models Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, Roberts claimed. Orgies also took place on the jet, she alleges. 'There would be sexual conduct, there would be foreplay, there was a bed in there, so we could basically reenact exactly what was happening in the house,' she said. 'It would start off with massaging or we would start off with foreplay, sometimes it would lead to, you know, orgies.' Advertisement Also included in the tranche of unsealed documents are allegations that Prince Andrew lobbied the US government on behalf of Epstein to try an get him a sweetheart plea-deal after he was initially charged with sex crimes. The controversial plea deal saw Epstein jailed for just 18 months on two counts of prostitution, despite facing a 53-page federal indictment. Lawyers for an anonymous pair of Epstein's accusers wrote: '(They are) seeking documents regarding Epsteins lobbying efforts to persuade the government to give him a favorable plea arrangement, including efforts on his behalf by Prince Andrew and former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. 'They have alleged these materials are needed to prove their allegations that, after Epstein signed the non-prosecution agreement his performance was delayed while he used his significant social and political connections to lobby the justice department to obtain a more favorable plea deal.' Roberts also speaks about the prince's involvement in Epstein's activities. Asked by her lawyers in 2016 whether Andrew would have 'relevant information' in the case, she answered: 'Yes, he would know a lot of the truth. 'I dont know how much hed be able to help you with, but seeing as hes in a lot of trouble himself these days I think he might, so I think he might be valuable.' It comes after U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan had on July 23 ordered the release of large portions of more than 80 documents from a civil lawsuit brought by Roberts, who accused Epstein of having kept her as a 'sex slave' with Maxwell's assistance. On Thursday, Maxwell filed an emergency motion with the federal appeals court in Manhattan to block the release of two additional documents, including an April 2016 deposition related to her sex life and a deposition by an unnamed Epstein accuser. Lawyers for Maxwell said making her deposition public could make it 'difficult if not impossible' to find an impartial jury for her criminal trial. The two depositions, and materials that quote from or disclose information contained in them, were expected to remain sealed at least until Monday, depending on how the appeals court rules. Materials covered by Preska's July 23 order included flight logs from Epstein's private jets; and police reports from Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home, among other documents. Maxwell, 58, has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls from 1994 to 1997, and committing perjury by denying her involvement under oath. She was arrested on July 2, and has been housed in a Brooklyn jail after a judge called her a flight risk. Maxwell's trial is scheduled for next July. Epstein was found hanged at age 66 last August in a Manhattan jail, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges for abusing women and girls in Manhattan and Florida from 2002 to 2005. He had also pleaded not guilty. The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) will be celebrating the 93rd founding anniversary of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) on August 1. Consolidated in 1927 during the Nanchang uprising by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), PLA was formed as an armed wing to counter the Kuomintangs anti-communist purges during the Chinese civil wars. Since then, PLA has become the worlds largest armed force with around 2.03 million active and 510,000 reserve personnel. In its recent history, it had two important turning points. First, the United States (US) use of advanced and sophisticated weaponry in the first Gulf War of the 1990s compelled PLA to pursue technological advancement. Two, the Central Military Commission (CMC) chairman, Xi Jinpings championing of the Chinese dream to make PLA a world-class force by 2049 led to its restructuring and rapid modernisation. However, despite the technological advances and growing military might, PLA has key weaknesses. Here are the four most important challenges for PLA at 93. Also read: Top Indian, Chinese generals hold crucial talks at Chushul to reduce tension at LAC One, PLA is accused of being infected by the peace disease (Heping bing), peacetime habits (Heping jixi) and peace problems (Heping jibi), as it has not participated in any war since 1979. This is a condition where a soldiers casual peacetime approach while training could impact wartime combat readiness. CCP is concerned that PLA doesnt understand the intensity of modern combat. Xi is aware of this and has introduced changes to PLAs regime to make it train under realistic combat conditions. My research also indicates that the number of PLAs bilateral-trilateral military exercises with the foreign armies has increased since 2014 to compensate for the lack of combat experience. But the impact of this change cannot be verified until PRC goes to war. Two, PLA has been on a modernisation spree for the last two decades and has made notable progress since Xi took over as the CMC chairman in 2012. This is reflected in its defence budget, which allocates the most significant share of spending on capital expenditure. However, it has realised that the military modernisation doesnt match with the quality of personnel employed, especially in the technology-centric services such as the navy, air force, rocket force and the strategic support force. Acknowledging these gaps, PLA altered its recruitment strategy by focusing on employing better-qualified students from specialised and technical universities. It felt the need to rework its conscription model to achieve the informatisation goal for the armed forces by 2035, which was announced by Xi in the 2017 party congress. To achieve this, CMC introduced several financial incentives to attract highly educated talent. However, despite positive inducements, recent reports suggest that the gap still exists and PLA is still facing a shortage of skilled expertise to drive its technology-centric services. Also read: Chinas Peoples Liberation Army holds drills in Tibetan plateau Three, graft in the armed forces undermines its ability on the battlefield, impacts the militarys image and hinders the development of the national defence. Corruption in PLA became widespread when it branched out into business, seeking opportunities from the new market reforms in the 1980s. The then chairman, Jiang Zemin, tried to address this problem by dissolving the military-business complex in 1998, but by then, the rot had set in too deep and had become pervasive. Xi, after becoming CCP general secretary in 2012, expanded the fight against corruption, resulting in more than 4,000 anti-graft investigations. This resulted in the sacking of high-level officers. The most notable cases were Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong; both served as CMC vice-chairmen under former CCP general secretary Hu Jintao. But, some changes such as the introduction of the discipline inspection commissioner within CMC, dismantling the four military-bureaucratic departments and removing service chiefs from CMC developed internal resistance. There were many influential losers due to Xis reforms, which probably could have led to resistance within the forces. Many of the senior officers were reassigned to appropriate positions throughout the rank and files of PLA as compensation rather than being removed from duty. Although this has reduced the resistance, the effectiveness of the reforms, which were meant to reduce corruption, can be questioned. Four, consistent military modernisation is one of the most important aspects for realising the Chinese dream of a world-class force by 2049. But increasing revenue expenditure and the cost of maintaining already commissioned weaponry could play spoiler. Of its total defence spending, Chinas capital expenditure, used for military modernisation, has increased every year since 2012 and crossed the 40% mark since 2015. But notably, China also has the largest pool of 57 million PLA veterans, demanding post-retirement benefits and better retirement deals. These post-retirement wages, pensions and living subsidies are incurred from Chinas defence spending. Rising revenue bills, since 2018, will certainly impact capital expenditure in the near future. Besides, PLA also has to maintain existing weaponry, which it has commissioned over the last few years. The maintenance cost for equipment and vessels, in select cases such as the navy and probably air force, is higher than the manufacturing and commissioning cost. Thus, the twin factor of rising revenue bills and increasing maintenance cost will slow Chinas military modernisation drive. Besides these four major problems, there are other operational gaps such as limited strategic airlift and open-sea refuelling capabilities, limited overseas military bases, lack of joint operations capabilities and the lack of a rotational system within the lower-ranked officers of PLA. All these limitations will not only impact the Chinese dream but also alter its capabilities to attain its strategic military guidelines in the future. Suyash Desai Is a research analyst for the China Studies Programme, The Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru The views expressed are personal Berlin, July 31 : HMD Global, the maker of Nokia-branded phones, is planning to launch mid-range and entry-level phones at this year's IFA trade show in Berlin in September. HMD is likely to release Nokia 2.4, codenamed Wolverine, along with other two smartphones Nokia 6.3 and Nokia 7.3, reports GizmoChina. Nokia 2.4 will be the successor of the Nokia 2.3 smartphone. The device will be powered by the MediaTek Helio P22 SoC. To recall, the Nokia 2.3 is powered by the MediaTek Helio A22 processor. Meanwhile, The Nokia 6.3 is expected to feature either a Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 or Snapdragon 730 and a quad-camera setup. The phone may come at a starting price of 249 Euros for the base variant with 3GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. The smartphone is expected to sport a tear-drop notch like Nokia 5.3 but will be a PureDisplay like its predecessor Nokia 6.2. The Nokia 7.3 is likely coming with a Snapdragon 765G SoC. The smartphone could come with a 48MP main sensor with Zeiss optics instead of the 64MP camera. Chevron lost $8.3 billion in the second quarter, suffering its worst performance in at least three decades after the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on the oil and gas industry. The California oil major on Friday reported a loss of $6.1 billion in its upstream business, $1 billion in its downstream business and $1.2 billion in its renewables and other businesses, compared with earnings of $4.3 billion across its businesses during the same period a year ago. Revenue decreased 56 percent to $16 billion from $36 billion during the same period a year ago. The past few months have presented unique challenges, CEO Michael Wirth said in a statement. The economic impact of the response to COVID-19 significantly reduced demand for our products and lowered commodity prices. While demand and commodity prices have shown signs of recovery, they are not back to pre-pandemic levels, and financial results may continue to be depressed into the third quarter. Energy stocks have become the worst performing sector of the U.S. stock market after the global pandemic slashed demand and sent prices for petroleum products plummeting, forcing companies to cut spending, halt drilling projects and lay off thousands of employees. Chevrons rival Exxon on Friday said it lost $1.1 billion loss during the second quarter, the worst performance in the companys recent history. Chevrons second-quarter losses reflected not only steep drops in production and refining, but also a $1.8 billion write-down of the companys assets in West Texas and Venezuela. Chevrons assets in Venezuela were mothballed in April after it was banned from drilling or transporting oil in the South American country by the Trump administration, which has been cracking down on money going to the socialist government. Wirth said Chevron remains committed to its operations in Venezuela, and plans to restart operations there after the sanctions lift. Chevrons Venezuela operations produced just 7,000 barrels of oil per day during the second quarter. The companys losses also were compounded by $780 million in severance payouts to laid off employees. Chevron this year plans to lay off about 7,000 employees globally because of the economic fallout from the pandemic. JOB LOSSES: Oil and gas production jobs in Texas could hit bottom this fall Chevron responded swiftly to the economic downturn. The company slashed its capital budget by 40 percent, halted oil and gas production by 150,000 barrels per day and lowered its refinery output to 55 percent of capacity. We had an unprecedented demand decrease, Pierre Breber, Chevrons chief financial officer, said in a conference call with analysts, calling the pandemic a stress test for the company. Industry conditions were very unusual and extraordinary. With one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry, Chevron said it expects to weather the economic downturn better than its competitors and come out stronger. Before the pandemic depressed the global economy, Chevron had already begun restructuring its operations and selling non-core assets, including the $1.5 billion sale of assets in Azerbaijan and Columbia that closed in the second quarter. Yet Chevron was not timid to take advantage of low asset values to snatch up rival Noble Energy, a Houston-based independent with attractive assets in the Permian Basin of West Texas, the DJ Basin of Colorado and in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. The two companies are meeting Friday to discuss integration plans. The $13 billion deal, pending approval from Noble Energy shareholders and regulatory officials, is expected to close this year. Chevron executives said they plan to maintain its shareholder dividend and prepare for a prolonged recovery in oil prices, pushing the company to become more efficient and make money at $40 a barrel. The company expects oil and gas production to decline 6-7 percent in 2021. Unlike some of its competitors that have restarted production as crude climbed above $40 a barrel, Chevron said it will hold off on ramping up oil and gas production in the Permian Basin of West Texas until economic conditions improve. Were planning for lower for longer, Breber said. Its a very uncertain environment. I hope the second quarter was the bottom. It sure feels like it. WA Premier Mark McGowan has ramped up his war of words with Clive Palmer as the closing submissions in Mr Palmer's legal challenge to the constitutionality of WA's hard border wrapped up. He labelled Mr Palmer "the enemy of the state" and the country as a whole, while calling on the federal government to back away from the battle over his hard border policy. Clive Palmer said his United Australia Party will contest Queensland's state election on October 31. Credit:Nine Mr McGowan said Mr Palmer only cared about himself. "Let Mr Palmer fight his own fights," Mr McGowan said. "I'm happy to have a blue with Mr Palmer ... I think hes the enemy of Australia." In case you believe Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Aptes Raat Akeli Hai is just a murder mystery, then raise your expectations as it has much more to offer. The makers of Raat Akeli Hai described the film in these words: "The most powerful usually hide the darkest secrets. What happens when a small-town cop is summoned to investigate the case of an extremely powerful local politician? How far is he willing to go into the darkness to search for the truth? A mysterious murder where the only suspects are from the same family, with each member having a hidden motive. Will Jatil (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) find his way to the truth or lose track midway?" So, its a murder mystery that will keep you at the edge of your seat as there are twists and turns that will keep you engaged in the puzzle of whos the real culprit. Is it one of the family members or the newlywed wife or the cop himself? This one is masterfully made as it wont bore you till the end. The question is does it limit itself to being just a murder mystery? Well, the answer is no, as the movie delves into much deeper aspects that need to be addressed. The movie shows you a whole new outlook to age-old patriarchy and how old notions can be a curse if not changed with time. Through Jatil, we see a man whos gone through a complete metamorphosis of how men in the ideal world should be. In the beginning, you see him looking for a sanskaari bride for himself, but eventually he falls in love with Radhika Aptes character, Radha, who is stubborn and nothing like what Jatil had in his mind about being his 'ideal' woman. The movie attacks the set notions of patriarchy and asks unsettling questions about how men have been treating women for generations. The whole idea of women being treated as commodities has been targeted by director Honey Trehan. He has also questioned how people at certain positions abuse the power they have for their own whims and fancies. Nawazuddin never leaves an opportunity to prove that he can pull off any character with ease. Jatil is a complex character but he does it so effortlessly so that you might even forget the fact it wasnt an easy one. He kept his character real and convincing. Netflix Radhika or call her the star of Netflix is back to entertain you and show you a character, Radha, that we need to celebrate. She is stubborn and a mysterious character but you will understand its her situation that made her act in that manner. Netflix Aditya Srivastava as Munna Raja puts up a brilliant act. Shweta Tripathi as Karuna shows the vulnerability of a woman who belongs to an aristocratic class and how she learns to see herself in a different light. We have Shivani Raghuvanshi as Vasudha and she shows how women have to keep their stories to themselves and stay quiet. Nishant Dahiya as Vikram also delivers a strong performance. With this movie, TV actor Riya Shukla also makes her debut and is promising. Tigmanshu Dhulia as SSP Shukla is fun to watch. Netflix Every character is written by Smita in such a way that they have their own spaces and stories to tell. Every character has his or her individual voice and that's the beauty of the movie. The cinematography also adds to the dark nature of the movie. If you are someone who enjoys artistic cinema that forces you to think, you would praise this gem. In a nutshell, its a must-watch. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Friday ordered the release of 500 Taliban prisoners as part of a new ceasefire that could lead into long-delayed peace talks. Ghani said the militants would be freed during the Eid al-Adha holiday, which started Friday and has prompted a national ceasefire for three days. The release would complete the government's pledge to free 5,000 Taliban fighters as outlined in a deal the insurgents signed with Washington, he said. "To show goodwill and accelerate the peace talks, we will release 500 Taliban prisoners in response to the group's three-day ceasefire announcement," Ghani said in an Eid speech. However, the 500 inmates are not on the original list of 5,000 demanded by the Taliban. Kabul authorities have already released 4,600 of those prisoners but are hesitating about the release of the final 400, deeming them too dangerous. "I do not have the right to decide on the release of those 400 Taliban prisoners who are accused of serious crimes," Ghani said, adding that a gathering of Afghan elders would decide their fate. The Taliban, who have insisted on the release of those 400 militants, did not immediately comment. The US-Taliban accord signed in February stipulated Kabul would release 5,000 insurgents in return for 1,000 government forces held captive by the militant group. Late Thursday, the Taliban claimed they had completed the release of all 1,000 government prisoners. The contentious prisoner swap is a key precondition for peace talks. Both Ghani and the Taliban signalled this week they were ready for talks after Eid, provided the prisoner swap is complete. This week, the House passed a bill to establish a National Museum of the American Latino on the National Mall. The museum, which would be a part of the Smithsonian Institution, is not a done deal; the Senate still has to give its nod. But staying on this path is important, because there are some unique experiences in our American history weve overlooked. Take, for example, Jovita Idar. She was a Mexican American journalist who wrote opinion pieces during the 1910s, a time when women were not allowed to vote or even wear pants. She wrote about unfair treatment of Mexican Americans and the disparity of education in South Texas, and was active in supporting womens right to vote. In one instance, after she wrote a piece critical of U.S. involvement along the border, Idar is said to have stood at the door of the newspaper to prevent U.S. soldiers and Texas Rangers from shutting down the paper. In those days, putting limits on Spanish-speaking locals and opinionated women was considered a necessity, and Idars story reads like something out of Lonesome Dove except that Idar wasnt a fictional character. There was, however, a 1982 movie made about Gregorio Cortez, probably because somebody with mad accordion skills wrote some lyrics based on ranch lore. In 1901, Cortez was involved in an English-to-Spanish misunderstanding regarding horse theft or, perhaps, a horse trade. That misunderstanding led to gunfire, which led to the death of a sheriff, which led to a getaway, several posses and another bloody shootout. What sets Cortezs story apart from other unfortunate misinterpretations, however, was that his escape was aggrandized by media coverage of the time. Some Texans saw Cortez as a cutthroat bandit who would kill you as soon as he looked at you, while others saw a man who managed to escape the bad guys in uniform and the lynch mobs who didnt understand Spanish; think Billy the Kid meets the O.J. Simpson trial. This pattern wasnt confined to Texas. In 1944, a school bus would drop off a California third grader named Sylvia Mendez at a lovely elementary school with a beautiful playground where she wasnt allowed; that school was for white children only. Her light-skinned cousins could attend, but not Sylvia; she was considered too dark. Instead, Mendez had to walk to the nearby Mexican school, which was little more than a couple of shacks next to a cow pasture, on the basis that Mexican American children had special linguistic needs because they spoke Spanish even if they spoke English. In 1947, Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County was among the cases that began a march for school desegregation in America a few years before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that separate wasnt quite equal in Brown v. Board of Education. Another American who went to a segregated school was Anthony Acevedo, a Californian whose family was sent to Mexico during the Great Depression when the U.S. deported a million of its own citizens in an effort to reserve jobs for other Americans. Acevedo returned and joined the U.S. Army, training as a medic and serving in the Battle of the Bulge. He was captured early in 1945, earmarked as undesirable, probably because of his ethnicity, and held at a POW slave labor camp, where he kept a diary of the Nazi atrocities. His account became physical evidence of war crimes committed against American prisoners, and his voice lent a narrative of one of the darkest chapters in modern history. These arent names most American teenagers learn about in school, and that is the point. Most of us dont know their names, but Idar, Cortez, Mendez and Acevedo were there. A museum dedicated to the contributions of the American Latino will surely include civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Jose M. Lopez and former astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa. It will give a nod to athletes such as Tony Romo and Oscar De La Hoya, and performers such as Freddie Fender and Selena. But if done right, it will finally tell the stories of the many people whose names we dont know as well as those we do. And thats just the Mexican Americans. mariaanglinwrites@gmail.com Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment During these days of COVID-19, when many churches remain closed by government mandates to keep the virus from spreading, a new religion has arisen in the countryand its all based on a myth. Citizens Free Press posted a video where you can see worshipers of the Church of the Woke participating in an outdoor religious service in Portland, Oregon. This consists of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of souls, shining their lights and chanting, Hands up, dont shoot me. And they certainly do not appear to be practicing social distancing. In 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, Michael Brown was killed by a police officer. The myth says that he was walking away from the police officer, and saying, Hands up, dont shoot when the officer shot him in the back. The Obama administrations investigation, however, found instead that Brown had raced toward the police officer and reached into his car in an effort to grab his gun. The officer shot Brown to stop him. On March 17, 2015, after the Department of Justice released its findings on the Michael Brown shooting, Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post posted this video commentary, saying that the hands up, dont shoot line turns out to be a false narrative. Capehart says the hands up, dont shoot line although in actuality, false resonated because of the perceived reality of police brutality against unarmed Black men and boys. Says Capehart: Its imperative we continue marching for, and giving voice to, those of us killed at the hands of police and others. But we must never allow ourselves to march under the banner of a false narrative on behalf of someone who would otherwise offend our sense of right and wrong. I see Hands up, dont shoot on T-shirts or placards, and its all a myth. And now we even have virtual worshipers from the Church of the Woke singing hymns, chanting, Hands up, dont shoot. This reminds me of the line attributed to G.K. Chesterton: When a man stops believing in God, he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything. What a contrast are all myths, modern and ancient, when compared with the Gospel of Jesus Christ that is rooted in history. If Jesus had not bodily, literally, physically walked out of His tomb, then Christianity would indeed be a myth. But He not only arose from the dead, but He appeared repeatedly to His disciples, providing them with many infallible proofs that He was alive. Mason Weaver is an author and motivational speaker and a dedicated Christian. Many years ago, he had been involved in the Black Panthers. He thought hating the white man was the way to go. He personally experienced a racist attack at the hands of a fellow Navy seaman that almost killed him. After Weaver was attacked in the early 1970s, he said, I got out of the Navy, and I went to Berkeley, where I ran across other Black men that hated America and they hated society, and they hated the principles of this country. And we began to hate together, because you are who you associate with. But I had this emptiness in me. As Mason began to be consumed by hate and the desire for revenge, childhood memories of his Christian upbringing began to nudge his conscience. He began to realize the significance of Jesus having risen from the dead, which transformed His disciples. In a television interview for D. James Kennedy Ministries, Mason said, I began to look for God again. And what I discovered was, in searching for God, it came down to those disciples. Those disciples saw something, something they witnessed that changed their very characteristics. It changed who they were. You had cowardly, self-centered menand all of a sudden, some incident happened, and they became bold warriors, not afraid of death any longer. They saw something. It was the resurrection. Weaver adds, And I had to recognize as an angry Black militant, speaking Swahili, who hung out with Black Panthers, I had to recognize that God Almighty was born of woman just for me.He allowed His precious holy body to be nailed to the cross with me in mind, personally, my name.He came out of the grave for me, went to heaven for me, and will come back for me. And when I finally recognized that Jesus Christ did not compromise with me, on the cross, I took a deep long breath and said, I can no longer compromise with Him in the world. Mason Weaver discovered the Church of Jesus is based on historical facts, as opposed to the false narratives that stoked his hatred. Coming face to face with the reality of Jesus who is Truth Incarnate is what we all need including those of the Church of the Woke. Washington: China's territorial claims in Bhutan and the recent incursion into Indian land are indicative of their intentions, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday, adding that Beijing under President Xi Jinping was trying to find out whether other countries are going to push back. Indian and Chinese troops have been locked in a bitter 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. China recently staked claim over the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in Bhutan at the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council and opposed funding to the project. "I think the actions are entirely consistent with what they have been signalling to the world for decades you might even argue since 1989 but certainly since General Secretary Xi (Jinping) came to power," Pompeo told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee during a Congressional hearing on Thursday. The secretary of state said China has the desire to expand its power and reach. "They talk about bringing socialism with Chinese characteristics to the world. Claims that they have now made for real estate in Bhutan, the incursion that took place in India, these are indicative of Chinese intentions, and they are testing, they are probing the world to see if we are going to stand up to their threats and their bullying," Pompeo said. "I am more confident than I was even a year ago that the world is prepared to do that. There's a lot more work to do, and we need to be serious about it," said the top American diplomat. In his testimony, Pompeo told lawmakers that India has banned 106 Chinese applications that threatened its citizens' privacy and security. "Our diplomatic efforts are working and momentum is building to mitigate the threats that the Chinese Communist Party presents. All 10 ASEAN nations have insisted that the South China Sea disputes be settled on the basis of international law, including UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). Japan led the G-7's condemnation of China's national security law targeting Hong Kong," he said. "The European Union condemned the law too and also declared China a systemic rival to us," he said. At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Secretary General Stoltenberg has called to make China a greater part of that alliance's focus. "We led a multilateral effort to ensure that the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organisation elected a director from a country that cared about intellectual property", the secretary of state said. "Our QUAD (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) -- the United States, Australia, India, and Japan -- has been reinvigorated. We've worked hard at this. Our diplomats have done wonderful work. I'm very proud of the progress we are making. In addition to these multilateral efforts, Department of Justice is cracking down on Chinese intellectual property threats," he said. The United States has sanctioned Chinese leaders for their treatment of Uyghur minorities in Xinjiang province, imposed export controls on companies that supported, and warned US businesses against using slave labour in their supply chains, he said. "The US has terminated special treatment agreements with Hong Kong in response to the CCP's actions to deny freedom to the people of Hong Kong. We closed our consulate in Houston because it was a den of spies," he said. (Natural News) Liberal news outfits and organizations must learn how to exercise utmost editorial honesty, says Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, adding that the outfits should start by calling the recent spate of violence on the streets of America for what they really are riots. According to Carlson, mainstream media, along with the Democratic Party, slyly encourages political violence by mischaracterizing the events in their coverages, citing a specific headline by ABC News that labeled a violent protest by individuals affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement as peaceful never mind that it led to the burning of a courthouse, as well as physical assaults on police officers. The medias coverage of the latter event drew similar comments from several prominent Republicans, including Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw and former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, both of whom mocked ABC News headlines for deliberately misrepresenting the events. Ok I cant tell if this is parody or not https://t.co/EVTWytrc7k Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) July 27, 2020 "Peaceful demonstration intensified" .media should be honest and report these as violent riots. https://t.co/1PWwoJnyV1 Gov. Bobby Jindal (@BobbyJindal) July 27, 2020 The message they are sending you is very clear: Americans are not equal anymore, Carlson argued during an episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight at Fox. He also noted that because of how mainstream and liberal news outlets frame stories, two standards have since come to light: one that benefits liberals and their Left-wing ideologies, and one that demonizes conservatives. They tell us the only real crimes are thought crimes. Its okay to set fires or smash strangers in the face with two-by-fours, so long as you are chanting the correct slogans, Carlson said, before adding that when conservatives or even political centrists do the same, they are met with what he called swift punishment. (Related: Scholar says Black Lives Matter movement now more akin to the French Revolution is a Reign of Terror next?) If you are on the right team, everything is allowed, the noted political pundit stated. Carlson also lamented what he said was mainstream medias obsession with making excuses for Liberals and Left-wing dissidents, citing an instance over the weekend wherein armed mobs of Joe Biden voters torched and destroyed private properties and attacked police officers. That event, he said, was promptly buried under a pile of excuses. They hurt people, a lot of people, and the media, watching closely, lied about all of it. They pretended it didnt happen. They made excuses for it. They buried the truth in euphemism, he said. Authorities: Mainstream media now pushing false narratives This is not the first time that mainstream media was reported to have lied, covered up, and published false narratives for other parties. Attorney General William Barr, in an interview with CBS News Face The Nation, noted that many mainstream publications and news outfits pushed false narratives about the events that transpired at Lafayette Park in Washington around early June, which saw authorities dispersing protesters with pepper bombs and projectiles. According to Barr, despite being described by most mainstream news organizations as a peaceful protest, the actual event was actually far from it. They were not peaceful protesters. And thats one of the big lies that the media seems to be perpetuating at this point, Barr stated, adding that the protesters actually managed to injure 150 law enforcers. Most of them had to be sent to the hospital after sustaining concussions. It wasnt a peaceful protest. We had to get control over Lafayette Park, and we had to do it as soon as we were able to do that, he added. Writer Ted Diadium, in an editorial for Cleveland.com, noted that this dishonesty in their reportage, as well as the politicization of news itself, has caused the erosion of the publics trust in mass media, referring to the recent dips in the trust ratings of several media organizations as per a series of surveys by several marketing and research firms. One survey, conducted by Gallup in late 2019, found that 41 percent of Americans trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly, while 59 percent were largely mistrustful of it. This is the second-lowest drop in mainstream medias trust ratings, after notching in a score of 32 percent from readers back in 2016. These results were echoed by a survey from Morning Consult, which found a 16-point drop in trust for nine leading media outlets since 2016. The politicization of our national news, and the loss of our ability to trust our once-great news organizations, is a national tragedy. It is terrible for the democracy and detracts from our ability to make informed decisions based on real facts, Diadium said. For more stories similar to this one, visit ThoughtCrimes.news. Sources include: FoxNews.com ABCNews.Go.com TheHill.com Twitter.com Newsweek.com Cleveland.com News.Gallup.com MorningConsult.com Today a tweet was posted on Kangana's official Twitter account in which the actress stated that if she is found hanging at home, it should be noted that she did not end her life. After Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death by suicide on June 14, Kangana Ranaut had questioned if it was a murder. Today a tweet was posted on Kanganas official Twitter account in which the actress stated that if she is found hanging at home, it should be noted that she did not end her life. The actress also hinted at a political person saying that though everyone knows his name, no one will have the courage to reveal it. But she has been courageous enough to openly take big names. Kangana is not officially on any social media account. Her digital team manages her account on Twitter and Instagram, expressing her sentiments through these accounts. Also read: Google rolls out new features to extend support to black-owned businesses Also read: SC directs Centre to ensure doctors, healthcare workers receive salaries on time Its being speculated that the night before Sushants suicide, a big name was present at the actors party. This conjecture has brought a new turn to the Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death mystery. Kanganas team replying on KRKs tweet said that everyone knows but no one can take his name, Karan Johars best friend and worlds best CMs best son, lovingly called baby penguin, Kangana is saying if she found hanging in her house, please know she did not commit suicide. Everyone knows but no one can take his name, Karan Johars best friend and worlds best CMs best son, lovingly called baby penguin, Kangana is saying if I found hanging in my house, please know I did not commit suicide https://t.co/JdjvuBzqjI Team Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) July 31, 2020 Sushant Singh Rajputs father, K.K Singh filed a seven-page FIR in Patna alleging that Rhea Chakraborty wanted to claim crores of rupees earned by the actor. Speaking on this recent development, Kangana Ranauts team stated that the family is only concentrating on the financial aspect and not the nepotism harassment that the actor may have faced. Kanganas team had posted on Twitter that unfortunately the family is only focusing on the money part and ignoring all the interviews and posts Sushant recently wrote about bullying and nepotism harassment and even in the case of political nepo mafia involvement. After Sushants father went through his sons bank account details, he realized that Sushant had around Rs 17 crore in his account number 10XXXXXX91, out of which Rs 15 crore were transferred into accounts that had nothing to do with him. Sushants family demand a probe into all bank accounts and credit cards Sushant had and how much money has been used, stated the FIR filed by Sushants father. Kangana Ranaut recently gave an explosive interview to a news channel and made serious allegations against some Bollywood A-listers in Sushants case, since then its Kangana Ranaut vs Bollywood. Also read: We cannot go on ignoring our informal sector: Rahul Gandhi in interaction with Mohommad Yunus Former Bachelorette star Bill Goldsmith has joined the ranks of D-list celebrities sharing misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic on Instagram. The 32-year-old mechanical plumber incorrectly claimed this week that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine could be a cure for COVID-19 - even though there is no strong scientific evidence to support this. Bill was also seemingly tricked into thinking that 5G will 'go into a coronavirus vaccine' after one of his followers made the false claim, presumably as a joke. Not another one! Former Bachelorette star Bill Goldsmith (pictured) has joined the ranks of D-list celebrities sharing misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic on Instagram Bill accompanied his dangerous and misleading conspiracy theories with a totally unrelated photo of himself. He claimed that 'Google, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook all dictate what the majority of the population get to watch', which makes them 'powerful'. While he didn't state it explicitly, he implied that technology companies were trying to hide evidence that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19 in order to facilitate the development of a coronavirus vaccine. Jumping the gun: The 32-year-old mechanical plumber incorrectly claimed this week that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine could be a cure for COVID-19 - even though there is no strong scientific evidence to support this He wrote: 'Hydroxychloroquine has been doing the rounds as a cure for covid. @realdonaldtrump has even come out saying it works. 'I'm not anti vaccine, it's worked very well for some diseases, but it's got me thinking, is what we are being allowed to see correct? 'As it would be in the big pharmaceutical companies' best interest to come up with a vaccine for covid and make millions in the process. 'Do you think hydroxychloroquine is the cheaper cure to covid?' In the comments section beneath the post, one follower caught Bill's attention when they claimed they'd heard scientists 'are going to put 5G in the vaccine'. 'Where'd you hear that?' Bill replied, which prompted the follower to write: 'I think someone posted it on Insta.' This was clearly enough solid evidence to convince Bill, who went on to ask the fan: 'What's your opinion on it?' 'Not thrilled,' the follower responded, adding: 'It's exactly what Bill Gates wants.' Bill, who seemingly agreed with these concerns, replied: 'Oh yeah it's f**ked hey.' While it's possible the follower was being serious, it seems more likely they were subtly trolling Bill by encouraging him to reveal his ill-informed views. 'Oh yeah it's f**ked hey': Bill was also seemingly tricked into thinking that 5G will 'go into a coronavirus vaccine' after one of his followers made the false claim, presumably as a joke 'It's exactly what Bill Gates wants': While it's possible the follower was being serious, it seems more likely they were subtly trolling Bill by encouraging him to reveal his ill-informed views In a statement to Daily Mail Australia on Friday, Bill said that he wasn't 'claiming anything', but simply 'asking questions'. 'I'm just asking the question if hydroxychloroquine might be a treatment,' he said. 'I'm also pointing out that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google have a lot of power over what we all see. What we see and hear about is what we think about, which becomes our reality.' Bill clarified that he wasn't anti-vaccine, but did say he was opposed to the 5G cellular network. '5G? I'm not sure we need quicker Internet, do we? We have been sold it because they prey on people being time-poor,' he said. 'I'm not sure there is a direct link between 5G and COVID-19. All I know is that never in the history of humanity have so many people had so many rules and restrictions on how they can live.' His views: In a statement to Daily Mail Australia on Friday, Bill said that he wasn't 'claiming anything', but simply 'asking questions' Vaccinations are a simple, safe and effective way of protecting people against harmful diseases before they come into contact with them. There is no scientific evidence to support the conspiracy theory that 5G technology is harmful to humans, or has any relation to the coronavirus. In May, it was reported that more than 6,000 tablets of hydroxychloroquine had been seized by the Australian Border Force since January. Hydroxychloroquine is used to treat malaria and certain auto-immune diseases, but there is no evidence that it is an effective treatment for COVID-19. Australians have been warned not to use the anti-malaria drug that was once hailed by U.S. President Donald Trump as a coronavirus 'game-changer'. Conspiracy theories: Bill clarified that he wasn't anti-vaccine, but did say he was opposed to the 5G cellular network The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has issued a warning to Australians not to consume the drug. If incorrectly used, the drug can cause sudden heart attacks, irreversible eye damage and severe depletion of blood sugar, leading to comas. TGA issued an alert to medical professionals on March 24, advising them of the increased restrictions when prescribing the drug. Trump has repeatedly hyped the prospects of hydroxychloroquine - although he notably toned down his comments boosting the drug recently. There is no vaccine for COVID-19 yet. A World Health Organization expert, Mike Ryan, head of WHO's emergencies program, 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 the ability to generate an immune response. His comments come after Oxford University - one of the front-runners in the 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. Voelz Hanover certainly made her presence felt on the racetrack, setting world records both as a two-year-old at Hiawatha Horse Park and at Flamboro Downs as an older competitor. Her daughter Voelz Delight made her on-track debut during the Friday (July 31) qualifying session at Woodbine Mohawk Park and the two-year-old pacer looked like a chip off the old block. With driver Sylvain Filion at the controls, Voelz Delight sat patiently in the pocket behind Shes Got It All (Rick Zeron) through rather sensible fractions of :32, 1:03.2 and 1:34. Turning for home, Voelz Delight found a seam between the pacesetter and first-over challenger U R Drivingme Nutz (Colin Kelly) and sprinted away from her rivals through a :27.3 final panel to win in 2:02. Ben Baillargeon trains Voelz Delight (Bettors Delight - Voelz Hanover) for breeder-owner Richard Berthiaume of Pointe-Aux-Trembles, Que. Voelz Delight is the third foal of Voelz Hanover with her first two Mach Three foals unraced. To view the results for the Friday qualifying session at Woodbine Mohawk Park, click the following link: Friday Results - Woodbine Mohawk Park (Qualifiers). Following the alleged suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, the Bihar Police team which reached Mumbai to investigate the case after an FIR filed by his father K.K. Singh, is not getting any support from the Mumbai Police. Due to their limited resources, the Bihar police is searching for all the people related to this case and interrogating them on its own. According to a top source at Police Headquarters in Patna, the Bihar Police is awaiting the decision of the Supreme Court in the case as the accused Rhea Chakraborty, Sushant's girlfriend, has filed a petition in the Supreme Court to shift the case filed in Patna to Mumbai. Sushant allegedly committed suicide on June 14 at his home in Mumbai. Sources say that the Bihar police cannot take any action before the Supreme Court order. Sushant's father had filed an FIR against Rhea and several of her family members in Patna on July 28. After this, a team of Bihar Police travelled to Mumbai to investigate the matter. The four-member team has recorded statements of several people related to the case for the past three days, including Sushant's ex-girlfriend actress Ankita Lokhande and his sister but Rhea Chakraborty's whereabouts are unknown. The Bihar Police team also went to her flat on Thursday but she was not there. A top police officer told IANS on condition of anonymity, "Nothing is happening anywhere. We are awaiting the order of the Supreme Court in this entire matter. Rhea has gone to the Supreme Court and her petition says that the case should be brought in the jurisdiction of Mumbai. Until the order of the Supreme Court comes, nothing can be done in this matter." The officer, however, said that the Bihar Police team will continue to do its work in Mumbai, but it has faced many problems because it is not getting support from the Mumbai Police at all. He said, "Now whatever has to be done, we have to do it on our own. Sadly, we are not getting along with the Mumbai Police at all. It is very difficult to work." Regarding reports of Bihar police sending women police officers for Rhea's arrest, the officer said this is all pointless. He said "When we have not got a warrant to arrest Rhea, then there is no question of sending women officers to Mumbai." The officer did say that a meeting of senior police officers of the state was held at Bihar Police Headquarters on Friday, in which aspects related to Sushant's case were discussed. This was a regular meeting in which the most senior officers of the Bihar Police attended and discussed the developments so far. The Mumbai Police is also investigating the case on its own level. In this connection, it has questioned many veteran film actors but has not been able to reach a firm conclusion yet. Meanwhile, all major political parties in Bihar have supported the demand for a CBI probe in the case. The Bihar government has also waded into the matter. It has decided to approach the Supreme Court against the petition filed by Rhea on moving the entire case from Patna to Mumbai. The Bihar BJP has also questioned the "silence" of Maharashtra Chief Minister's son and Shiv Sena leader Aditya Thackeray in the matter. Everyone will be asked questions as well, like if they have been exposed to the virus and if they have symptoms, to ensure anyone who may have the virus or has been exposed to it dont enter the building, Trgovich said. Los Angeles, July 31 : Emmy-winning actor Bryan Cranston has revealed his recovery from mild symptoms of Covid-19, and said he donated his plasma with a hope that his antibodies would help others fight the disease. The "Breaking Bad" star opened up about his diagnosis via Instagram with a two-minute video, in which he takes his followers through the plasma donation process, reports variety.com. "I wanted to announce that I had COVID-19 a little while ago. Very lucky, very mild symptoms," Cranston said, adding: "So I thought maybe there's something I can do, so I started a program (at UCLA Blood and Platelet Center) so hopefully the plasma donation can help some other people." Along with the video, he wrote: "Hi. About now you're probably feeling a little tied down, restricting your mobility and like me, you're tired of this!! Well, I just want to encourage you to have a little more patience. I was pretty strict in adhering to the protocols and still... I contracted the virus. Yep. it sounds daunting now that over 150,000 Americans are dead because of it. I was one of the lucky ones. Mild symptoms. I count my blessings and urge you to keep wearing the damn mask, keep washing your hands, and stay socially distant. We can prevail - but ONLY if we follow the rules together. Be well - Stay well." Cranston was able to donate 840 millilitres of plasma to coronavirus research, and said that he plans to return soon to make another donation. The actor encouraged his followers to donate plasma if they have had Covid-19, saying that the process takes only an hour. Vuong, who is also permanent member of the Party Central Committees Secretariat, made the remark during a virtual symposium held by the Ministry of Public Security in Hanoi on July 30 to mark the 75th anniversary of the PPSFs traditional day and the 15th anniversary of the All people protect national security movement. He stressed the important role played by the PPSF in maintaining political and security stability, which is one of the factors helping Vietnam receive the affection of international friends and draw attention from investors. The PPSF must be more proactive in identifying risks and challenges, while clearly determining the objective and subjective reasons for shortcomings and limitations, and actively boosting reform to meet all requirements and tasks in the current situation, he stated. The senior Party official highlighted the need to maintain the Partys leadership over the PPSF, which, he said, is a prerequisite for all successes in carrying out the tasks of ensuring security and order. General view of the event. (Photo: VGP) He requested the building of a revolutionary, regular, elite and increasingly modern public security force with a strong political stance and pure revolutionary morality, asking the PPSF to safeguard national security, social order and safety in all circumstances, proactively grasp the situation, and improve the quality and effectiveness of strategic analysis, evaluation and forecasting to promptly identify risks to national security, thereby advising the Party and State on relevant policies and measures. The PPSF should accelerate the All people protect national security movement; further improve coordination quality and efficiency with the peoples army forces, levels and branches in protecting national security and social order and safety; expand external relations; and strengthen international cooperation in combating crime and ensuring security and order, Politburo member Vuong recommended. At the symposium, delegates provided a lot of valuable information and documents on the birth, development and maturity of the PPSF, affirming the PPSFs significant position, role and contributions throughout the history of revolutionary struggle and national construction and defence. T he Prince of Wales thanked NHS staff for their "dedication" fighting the coronavirus pandemic during a hospital visit. Staff at the Caithness General Hospital in the north of Scotland said that Prince Charles gave them a morale boost. Health workers said they were "thrilled" to meet Charles, who is known as the Duke of Rothesay while in Scotland. During his visit on Friday afternoon, Charles thanked staff for their dedication and hard work throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, according to NHS Highland. Health workers said they were "thrilled" to meet Charles, who is known as the Duke of Rothesay while in Scotland / PA Professor Boyd Robertson, chairman of the health board, said: We were delighted to welcome His Royal Highness The Duke of Rothesay to Caithness General Hospital. His Royal Highness spent time chatting with our staff to thank them for their efforts over the last few months and heard their experiences of working across a variety of health and social care roles during the Covid-19 pandemic. All of the staff that met him were delighted and it has given the entire team a morale boost after such a demanding and challenging period. I would like to thank His Royal Highness most sincerely for his visit to Caithness General Hospital. MOSCOW -- Russian authorities have opened a criminal case against Yulia Galyamina, an opposition member of a Moscow district council and an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, over her involvement in anti-Kremlin rallies. Galyamina repeatedly violated rules on public assembly when she organized and staged unsanctioned protests, rallies, and pickets, the Investigative Committee said on July 31. If found guilty, she could face up to five years in prison and a ban from running for office for up to five years. Galyamina told RFE/RL that the case had been launched to pressure her. Amnesty International condemned the case as appalling and reprehensible, saying it was aimed at silencing a major dissenting voice and threatening to ban her political activities. Demonstrations of more than one person require advance consent from the Russian authorities. Galyamina has been involved in a campaign against what she described as Putin's illegal plans to remain in power. The campaign planned a peaceful rally on July 15 in central Moscow against constitutional reforms that gave Putin the option to remain in power for another 16 years. Dozens of people were detained by police during the protest. Law enforcement officials also searched the homes of Galyamina and other opposition activists ahead of the demonstration. Galyamina is accused of participating in several other peaceful rallies, including protests against electoral violations in Moscow in the summer of 2019. PHILADELPHIA, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Although unaware of any actual or attempted misuse, St. Christopher's Healthcare, LLC, the former owner of St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, is providing notice of a data privacy event impacting patient protected health information related to certain former patients. St. Christopher's Healthcare, LLC filed for bankruptcy in June 2019, was sold to STC OpCo, LLC in December 2019, and is now operating under new ownership and new management. What Happened? On June 2, 2020, St. Christopher's Healthcare, LLC, the former owner of St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, was notified that, in May 2019, before the bankruptcy filing, a hospital employee sent an email to a third party that included an attachment inadvertently containing hidden protected health information. It is unclear whether the information on the attachment was actually viewed or accessed by the recipient or whether there was any misuse of the information by the recipient or any other party. What information was involved? The information did not include Social Security numbers, addresses, or other sensitive financial account information. The file included names, ages, locations & dates of service, billing code information, diagnosis codes and descriptions, and limited health insurance information, such as the names of health insurance companies for payment, and names and charge amounts for services provided to certain hospital patients How will individuals know if they are affected by this event? St. Christopher's Healthcare, LLC is mailing letters to the individuals for whom they have current addresses whose protected information was contained in the affected email attachment. If an individual did not receive a letter but would like to know if their information was affected, the individual may call (866) 771-0559, Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time. What can affected individuals do? Even though no social security numbers, addresses, or other sensitive financial account information was in the file, it is recommended that individuals keep a close watch on their bank statements, credit card statements, personal mail and other bills and financial statements for any suspicious or unauthorized activity. Individuals should report any unauthorized activity to their bank or credit card companies. What we are doing. To help prevent such an incident from happening again, St. Christopher's Healthcare, LLC has asked the new owner of the hospital to review its policies and procedures for the electronic transmission of individually identifiable health information. The new owners have committed to taking additional precautions, as may be necessary. Whom should individuals contact for more information? If individuals have questions or would like additional information, they may call (866) 771-0559, Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. SOURCE St. Christopher's Healthcare, LLC New Delhi, July 31 : Union Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani on Friday accused the Congress of preferring vote bank over the rights of the Muslim women in the country. "The Congress got an opportunity to rule in favour of the Muslim sisters in the 1980s. But votes were more important for the party than the lives of these women. The real battle was fought by women who approached the courts against the injustice. This day is not only meant for the Muslim women, but all women who want respect for their gender every day," Irani said on the Muslim Women Rights Day. Irani was among the three Union Ministers who addressed Muslim women across the country through videoconference on the first anniversary of the passage of The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019 by Parliament. The law made the practice of instant Triple Talaq a criminal offence. She pointed out that though it is generally believed that women came forward to fight for their rights, but the country's history and its culture and traditions had many examples where men too have been at the vanguard of such battles. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said it was an occasion to thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi as it was due to him that the Muslim women were rid of the practice of instant divorce. He said that Modi had brought significant changes in the country since 2014. Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that after the passage of the law, there has been 82 per cent decrease in Triple Talaq cases in the country. The three Ministers interacted with Muslim women in Lucknow, Varanasi, Mumbai and other places, during which the latter shared their experiences vis-a-vis Triple Talaq. A wealthy landlord, with political connections aplenty, gets murdered in his own home the night he got married the second time. The usual suspects are his immediate family comprising his own son and daughter, his widowed sister-in-law and her two grown-up kids and his daughters husband, as well as his new-bride Radha (Radhika Apte), who was living-in as his mistress for some time. Inspector Jatil Yadav (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is assigned the case and his superiors want a quick result. As he proceeds with his investigation, numerous family skeletons come tumbling out, the mysteries get murkier and more bodies pile-up. How he sorts out the grain of truth from the lies forms the crux of the film. Police procedurals are a rarity in Hindi cinema. Our cops are being shown as superheroes who execute justice through their fists and guns. Following the recommended procedure is never their forte. Hence, Raat Akeli Hai comes as a pleasant surprise as it follows the required parameters of this sub-genre. We're shown a glimpse of the world of inspector Jatil Yadav (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), an upright individual who still has got his integrity intact, as he painstakingly gathers evidence, hunts up clues, doesnt bow down to the political pressure and makes sure justice gets served the right way. Jatil means complicated and thats what Nawazs character actually is. The only woman hes comfortable around is his mother (Ila Arun). Their banter in the film is the banter you see in most middle-class homes and provided moments of levity in this otherwise dark film. The main point of contention between them is that he isnt ready to get married. Hes a middle-aged bachelor not by choice but due to his shy nature. And he has sort of come to terms with it. He isnt corrupt, and he isnt a political creature either. He just wants to be left alone to do his job, thats all. The film is primarily set in the Kanpur-Gwalior belt and has been shot on location there. The cinematography brings alive the sights and sounds of the place. Its shot in low-light mostly and that adds to the mystery. The costume and art design are also professionally done. The pace of the film is somewhat lax. Perhaps its in keeping with the backwaters setting. You want things to hurry up a bit though, especially in the middle. The plot has too many layers and when they unravel one after the other at the end, the viewer doesnt get a breathing space to comprehend them all. The makers were accused of being inspired from the Hollywood hit Knives Out. Both films bear a thematic similarity but are quite different from each other otherwise. Raat Akeli is darker and gloomier than Knives Out, which was fun and campy in most parts and was a homage really to both Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Nawzuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte are two of our finest actors around and have done enough work together to be comfortable in each others zones. Nawaz is the epitome of the dogged detective who becomes obsessed with the truth and is in danger of being consumed by his obsession. He keeps digging till he hits pay dirt and what he finds shocks him to the core despite him being a hardcore policeman. Jatil Yadav is easily one of his most memorable characters. Radhika Apte comes across as the victim at first and goes through several changes as the film progresses. She deftly brings out the different aspects of her character and makes you root for Radha. They are ably supported by the likes of Ila Arun, Shweta Tripathi -- who plays the pregnant daughter of the murdered landlord, Swanand Kirkire, who plays the loyal brother-in-law, Tigmanshu Dhulia, the head honcho of police and Aditya Srivastava, who plays the stock corrupt politician. Mention must be made of Shreedhar Dubey, who plays Nawazs hassled, more worldly-wise subordinate. Summing up, barring the pace, and the somewhat rushed finale, its difficult to find fault with this well-made, well-acted film... The aggregators will be given three months to work out a deal on fair pay for news, failing which arbitrators will make a binding decision. Canada, France, Germany and Spain too have been trying to get Google and Facebook to pay for news with no success, but Australias law could move things along. (Photo | AP) Sydney/Canberra: Australia unveiled a draft law Friday to force Google and Facebook to pay news media for their content in a world-leading initiative sure to prompt a confrontation with the digital giants. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced the mandatory code of conduct to govern relations between the struggling news industry and the tech firms after 18 months of negotiations failed to bring the two sides together. In releasing a draft of a mandatory code of conduct, the government aims to succeed where other countries have failed in making the global digital giants pay for news siphoned from commercial media companies. Google said Australias draft code was a heavy-handed step that could impede the digital economy. The government plans to give Google and Facebook three months to negotiate with Australian media businesses fair pay for news content. If the US-based platforms cannot agree with the Australian media businesses on pricing after three months, arbitrators would be appointed to make a binding decision, the draft said. The draft will be open to consultation until August 28, with the legislation to be introduced to Parliament soon after, Frydenberg said. As well as payment, the code covers issues including access to user data and transparency of algorithms used to rank and present media content in the platforms news feeds and search results. Breaches of the code could attract penalties of up to 10% of the platforms annual turnover or a 10 million Australian dollar ($7.2 million) fine. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Google and Facebook would be the first digital platforms targeted by the proposed legislation but others could follow. Its about a fair go for Australian news media businesses, its about ensuring that we have increased competition, increased consumer protection and a sustainable media landscape, Frydenberg said. Nothing less than the future of the Australian media landscape is at stake with these changes, he added. Australias move has been closely watched around the globe as news media worldwide have suffered in an increasingly digital economy where advertising revenue is overwhelmingly captured by Facebook, Google and other big tech firms. The news industry crisis has been exacerbated by the economic collapse caused by the coronavirus pandemic, with dozens of Australian newspapers closed and hundreds of journalists sacked in recent months. Canada, France, Germany and Spain too have been trying to get Google and Facebook to pay for news with no success, but Australias law could move things along. On May 2, Bloomberg had reported that Canadian newspaper executives had signed a letter in this regard. Both France and Australia have set deadlines to have mandatory solutions in place by July. That means paying for copyrighted content and sharing the advertising dollars and data that flow from it, the letter signed by newspaper executives including Andrew MacLeod of Postmedia and The Globe and Mails Phillip Crawley. The situation is urgent, with media companies suffering huge advertising declines because of the coronavirus pandemic. In April, Frances competition watchdog also ordered Google to negotiate with publishers for using news content. A few European Union members including Spain and Germany too had earlier passed similar laws. However, those efforts did not come through as Google took the high-handed approach of completely removing the Google News service from Spain. In France, Google News stopped showing snippets, and started displaying only headlines and URLs to go around the law that said publishers should be paid for the snippets, Euractiv reported last year. However, thats when the competition authority intervened and said Googles withdrawal of snippets constitutes abuse of a dominant market position. Google has 90 per cent of the European search market, Tech Crunch reported. The French competition authority too gave Google three months to negotiate in good faith with press agencies and publishers to pay for reusing bits of their content, the Tech Crunch report said. Google Australia and New Zealand managing director Mel Silva said the Australian code discounts the significant value Google provided in free clicks on publishers content. The governments heavy-handed intervention threatens to impede Australias digital economy and impacts the services we can deliver to Australians, Silva added. Facebook Australia and New Zealand managing director Will Easton said in a statement his company was reviewing the code to understand the impact it will have on the industry, our services and our investment in the news ecosystem in Australia. Frydenberg warned that the code would prohibit any discrimination against Australian media by the tech companies. Todays draft legislation will draw the attention of many regulatory agencies and many governments around the world, Frydenberg said during a news conference, calling the proposed law world-leading. Frydenberg said the motive was not to protect Australian businesses from competition or disruption but to ensure they are paid fairly for original content. The conservative government is pushing ahead with the changes after the pandemic created an advertising revenue crisis for many Australian media companies. Business Digest 49 3513948449% 12(SSD)(BSD)(DSD)51621.1119.961 BSD121591111742 VICTORIABritish Columbias massive Site C hydroelectric dam project has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and now faces construction delays and rising costs. BC Hydro president Chris ORiley said in a quarterly update submitted to the B.C. Utilities Commission that the pandemic has had a material impact on safety, cost and schedule for the project in northeast B.C. Site Cs budget in April 2018 was estimated at $10.7 billion, including reserve and contingency funds amounting to about $1.5 billion for unexpected costs. ORileys update to the utilities commission does not estimate the extent of increased costs but says reserve funds are being accessed. Energy Minister Bruce Ralston says in a statement that hes concerned about the news and has appointed former deputy finance minister Peter Milburn as a special adviser to the project. Site C will be the third dam and hydroelectric generating station on the Peace River and will provide enough energy to power the equivalent of about 450,000 homes per year in B.C. Read more about: Skeletal remains found in bushland in Byron Bay belong to missing woman Thea Liddle, police have confirmed. The bones were found at a makeshift camp site on the New South Wales north coast on July 15. Ms Liddle, 42, was last seen in the Mooball area, between Byron Bay and Tweed Heads, in October, but was not reported missing until January. Skeletal remains found in bushland in Byron Bay belong to missing woman Thea Liddle (pictured), police have confirmed Ms Liddle (pictured) was last seen in the Mooball area, between Byron Bay and Tweed Heads, in October, though was not reported missing until January Tweed and Byron Police district commander, superintendent Dave Roptell, said Ms Liddle's death was currently under investigation. 'While the positive identification of these remains is a good result for Strike Force Holby detectives it is also devastating news to Thea's family and friends.' 'While they can now lay Thea to rest, questions around the circumstances of her death remain under investigation.' The identification of the remains comes after a police and rescue search of the area. Police brought in sniffer dogs and rescue specialists to scour Byron Bay bushland while officers searched homeless camps where she was known to reside in the months before her disappearance. Superintendent Dave Roptell previously said Ms Liddle had lived a transient lifestyle. 'Thea lived a very transient lifestyle shifting from place to place, changing campsites often and would opt for places in remote bushland away from the public.' The identification of the remains comes after a police and rescue search of the area on July 14 (pictured) Superintendent Dave Roptell, previously said Ms Liddle (pictured) had lived a transient lifestyle One of the searched sites was a section of bushland around the Youth Activity Centre near Byron Bay's town centre. This was the same site police searched as part of investigations into the disappearance of Belgian Backpacker Theo Hayez. The 18-year-old was in Australia on a working holiday visa and had gone out to Byron Bay's popular nightclub Cheeky Monkey's on May 31. He was seen on CCTV leaving the bar, but his movements after that are unknown. He never returned to the hostel where he was staying and it was not until June 6 - a week after he was last seen - that his family in Europe raised the alarm. His father Laurent flew out to Australia to join other family members, police and local volunteers in the search for his son. 'When I left Belgium I promised Hayez's little brother, Lucas, I would bring his brother home, please help me keep my promise to him', Laurent said on his arrival. Belgian Backpacker Theo Hayez (pictured) was in Australia on a working holiday visa and had gone out to Byron Bay's popular nightclub Cheeky Monkey's on May 31 Mr Hayez (pictured) was seen on CCTV leaving the bar, but his movements after that are unknown The White House on Friday condemned Hong Kongs decision to postpone a Sept. 6 election for its legislature, saying it was the latest example of Beijing undermining democracy in the Chinese-ruled city. ALSO READ: Germany suspends extradition agreement with Hong Kong after election delay This action undermines the democratic processes and freedoms that have underpinned Hong Kongs prosperity, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told reporters. This is only the most recent in a growing list of broken promises by Beijing, which promised autonomy ... NEW HAVEN - After a Superior Court judge ordered Rabbi Daniel Greers home confinement to be terminated because of substantially strengthened improvements in COVID-19 measures within the states prisons, Greer reported to the courthouse Thursday and was taken back to prison. Greer, who was convicted last September on four counts of risk of injury to a minor, was sentenced in December to 20 years in prison, to be suspended after serving 12 years. New Haven Superior Court Judge Jon M. Alander, who presided over the jury trial and imposed the sentence, ordered Greer incarcerated on the day of the sentencing, Dec. 2. Alander rejected a bid by Greers attorneys to let him remain free while they appealed the conviction. But on April 24 Alander agreed to a motion by attorneys David Grudberg and Richard Emanuel to release Greer and put him under house arrest at his home in Westville. The attorneys said COVID-19 was exploding in the states prisons and that Greer, then 79, was at heightened risk of severe, life-threatening illness from the virus. Alander at that point called his order a temporary release from prison until the crisis abates. The order was for 45 days, until June 8. Alander then extended his order, which expired Thursday. But on Tuesday he rejected a motion by Greers attorneys that sought to extend the release order by another 90 days, until the end of October. Greers initial release was strongly opposed by Eliyahu Mirlis, the victim in the crimes. Mirlis has asked that his name be made public despite the sexual nature of the offenses. When he imposed the sentence in December, Alander cited the trial evidence that Greer repeatedly sexually abused the victim over many months. Alander called this a monumental betrayal and a colossal violation of trust. Greer initially had also been charged with four counts of second-degree sexual assault. But on the last day of testimony in the September 2019 trial, co-counsel William Dow III cited a state statute concerning a statute of limitations on those charges. Alander then dismissed those counts. In his Tuesday ruling, Alander wrote: I granted the defendant a temporary release from prison because the high incidence of COVID-19 within Connecticuts prisons combined with the then-existing lack of sufficient PPE for correction staff resulted in an unacceptably high risk of the defendant developing serious complications from COVID-19 illness due to his advanced age and asthma. Those conditions no longer exist to the degree necessary to warrant an extension of the defendants temporary release from incarceration. Alander noted: The incidence of individuals testing positive for COVID-19 within Connecticut and, most importantly, within its prisons has fallen dramatically. He said in April, when he granted Greer the temporary release, Connecticut was experiencing more than1,000 new COVID-19 cases every day. That figure has now decreased to less than 100 each day. Alander added that the number of incarcerated individuals in state prisons known to be ill with the virus has also decreased substantially. In addition, Alander cited steps taken by the state Department of Correction to guard against the virus spreading. D.O.C. has entered into a settlement agreement resolving litigation concerning the presence of COVID-19 in its prisons, Alander said. The agreement establishes a five-person panel to monitor the provision of sanitation, hygiene supplies, personal protective equipment, testing, quarantining, medical monitoring and treatment of COVID-19 for people in D.O.C. custody. While the defendants increased risk regarding COVID-19 due to his advanced age and medical condition has not changed, Alander said, D.O.C.s ability to provide reasonable protections against that risk has been substantially strengthened. In his order, Alander also denied a request by Greers attorneys that the release order be extended while they go through an appellate court review of the case. The attorneys said an extension would permit Greer to receive newly-required medical treatment. In their motion seeking the extension, filed July 17, the attorneys said one of Greers doctors recently recommended he undergo surgery . The attorneys also said Greers primary care doctor has referred Greer to a specialist for others issues. The attorneys said Greers primary care doctor, Dr. Robert Henry, reported Greer, in the attorneys words, continues to have severe health issues that place him at risk, particularly during the current crisis. The prosecutor in the Greer case, Senior Assistant States Attorney Maxine Wilensky, who objected to the home release, could not be reached for comment on the attorneys contentions and on Alanders ruling. But Grudberg spoke about the ruling Thursday morning as he stood outside the courthouse with Emanuel, shortly after they brought Greer in to surrender to judicial marshals. Were very disappointed by the courts ruling, Grudberg said. We continue to believe that COVID-19 remains a grave threat within the prison system, especially for an 80-year-old with underlying health conditions. Hes at greater risk of illness or death if he contracts the disease. Grudberg added that he thinks, The nature of the correctional system makes it difficult, if not impossible, to control the virus. In their motion for an extension of home release, the attorneys said that although Connecticuts infection and hospitalization rates for COVID-19 have declined, the record surge in other parts of the country poses a significant threat of another spike in Connecticut. The attorneys claimed that keeping Greer under house arrest would protect him from a novel, deadly disease that has already claimed seven lives in the Connecticut prison system and hundreds more prisoners nationwide. The attorneys countered Wilenskys assertion Greer would pose a flight risk if he were to remain out of prison. The defendants track record over the last three months speaks for itself. They said he had complied with all the conditions of the release and he poses no threat to anyone. Speaking outside the courthouse, Grudberg remarked about Greer: He said from the beginning, I aint going anywhere and hes been true to his word. Contact Randall Beach at randall.beach@hearstmediact.com Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) Senator Grace Poe said she will not support the bill imposing value-added tax on digital transactions at the height of the pandemic. Speaking to CNN Philippines' The Exchange, the lawmaker said the bill approved by the House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means is ill-timed and could run counter to efforts to get businesses back on their feet. "A lot of my colleagues have expressed their disapproval and I'm one of them particularly at this time when we are encouraging online platforms. Perhaps later on for the bigger companies, but the majority here in the country are MSMEs (micro, small, medium enterprises)," Poe said Friday. "The ones that will be affected are the startups, the smaller companies." The House bill seeks to impose a 12 percent VAT on digital deals such as Netflix and Spotify transactions, online shopping finds via platforms like Shopee and Lazada, or even online advertisements, mobile app purchases, and e-learning courses. The Department of Finance estimated that the measure can add 10 billion in tax collections. "I think taxing them at this time will not be very encouraging. Granted that it might add revenue to the government, but I don't think the productivity that would be decreased... is actually productive at this time," the senator added. The bill defines value-added tax as an indirect tax which may be shifted or passed on to the buyer, transferee, or lessee of the goods, properties, or services. RELATED: Palace clarifies: Online sellers earning below 250,000 a year won't need to pay tax, but must register with BIR Poe said the VAT may run counter to the provisions of the Bayanihan to Recover as One bill, which provides stimulus to hardest-hit industries, specifically small-scale firms. The government has been encouraging e-commerce transactions and even online payments to minimize contact and prevent the spread of COVID-19, while still helping workers and business owners make a living. The Royal Canadian Navy is finally sailing in the right direction. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Royal Canadian Navy is finally sailing in the right direction. The navy is bravely charting new waters as it moves to deep-six an outdated, sexist title for its most junior members and reflect the fact Canadian society is just over 50 per cent female. Navies around the world have long used the archaic term "seaman" to describe their junior ranks, with the Royal Canadian Navy using "ordinary seaman," "able seaman," "leading seaman" and "master seaman." But those biased terms are being sunk in Canada as the navy in desperate need of hundreds of sailors plans to replace "seaman" with the gender-neutral rank of "sailor." The navy has invited its members and the public to weigh in on the plan, with Friday being the last day for online voting on two alternatives, both of which substitute "sailor" in place of "seaman" in different ways. It appears the change will move full steam ahead, regardless of the public input. One proposal simply replaces "seaman" with "sailor" in the existing ranks. The other would do away with adjectives such as "able" and "leading" in favour of labels such as "sailor first class" and "sailor second class." Whichever option is favoured, change is long overdue. It comes as the military strives to become more reflective of Canadian society, which includes recruiting more women, visible minorities and members of the LGBTTQ+ community, while also cracking down on hateful conduct within its own ranks. "We appreciate tradition," Cmdr. Deborah-Lynn Gates, who is responsible for the navys personnel policy, told The Canadian Press. "And were not downplaying tradition absolutely at all. But its truly a matter for us to show that we are progressive and that we are listening and we are really, truly representative of Canadian society." We appreciate tradition. And were not downplaying tradition absolutely at all. But its truly a matter for us to show that we are progressive and that we are listening and we are really, truly representative of Canadian society. Cmdr. DeborahLynn Gates Like cities that are dumping the archaic titles "policeman" and "fireman," the navy has argued the use of "seaman" has become a barrier to recruitment at a time when the service finds itself short about 850 sailors. "When they hear youll start off as an ordinary seaman, its maybe just a little thing, but it did not resonate," Cmdr. Gates said. "So we know its not resonating with recruits and for us its a matter of making sure were being representative and that we are modern and forward-looking." Not surprisingly, the plan is facing some rough seas, including backlash on social media from critics, including active navy personnel, who use the phrase "political correctness" to attack the changing of an unjust status quo. Angered by some posts earlier this week, Rear-Admiral Chris Sutherland warned on Facebook there is no place in the navy for sailors who subscribe to "hateful, misogynistic and racist" beliefs. "If you cannot live by or support the values of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, then you cannot defend them," the navys deputy commander wrote in a blunt post. 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. ANDREW VAUGHAN / CANADIAN PRESS FILES If you cannot live by or support the values of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, then you cannot defend them, the navys deputy commander Chris Sutherland wrote in a blunt post on Facebook. The debate has echoes of the absurd fuss that erupted in 2016 when the House of Commons overwhelmingly voted to make the national anthem gender-neutral by replacing "in all thy sons command" with "in all of us command." The move came despite complaints from Conservatives the new lyrics should have been put to the people in a referendum. Later, when MPs rose to sing the gender-neutral version, Tory Leader Andrew Scheer remained seated. Mr. Scheer later complained "the Liberals were using our national anthem for a political statement." Canadas navy is making a statement, too that its time to realize military jobs are no longer the traditional male bastion they once were. The change still requires cabinet approval, but one hopes all Canadians will stand and salute as our navy charts a course toward a brighter, more inclusive future. CHICAGO, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe: CBOE) today reported financial results for the second quarter of 2020. "I am pleased to report solid financial results for the quarter, clearly highlighting the strength of the diversification of our revenues from multiple asset classes and non-transactional services. We achieved record trading volumes in U.S. cash equities and multi-listed options, fueled by growth in retail trading activity. Amid an ongoing work from home environment, we continued to execute on our strategic initiatives, including our focus on expanding our global access and distribution and engaging customers via information solutions. On July 1, we closed our acquisition of EuroCCP and announced our intention to expand equities derivatives trading in Europe by offering a market model that incorporates benefits seen in the U.S. derivatives market. We plan to launch that market with trading in equity futures and options based on six Cboe European stock indices in the first half of 2021, with plans to add more benchmarks later. We also completed the acquisition of Trade Alert to further bolster Cboe's diverse suite of information solutions and announced plans to acquire MATCHNow, a leading Canadian ATS, broadening Cboe's North American equities business and expanding our geographic reach," said Edward T. Tilly, Cboe Global Markets Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. "In addition, we successfully reopened our Cboe Options Exchange trading floor on June 15, with a modified floor layout and stringent health and safety protocols, after operating in an all-electronic trading mode since March 16. I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished. Moreover, I am bullish on our ability to continue to deliver increased value to our customers and our shareholders given the strength of our results even in an unprecedented market and uniquely challenging trading environment for our proprietary products," Mr. Tilly added. "We achieved net revenue growth of 5 percent, despite muted volumes in our proprietary products, reflecting the diversification of our revenues and asset classes, as well as the incremental revenue from the acquisitions we completed in the first quarter that enhanced our information solutions offering. Additionally, our continued focus on expense discipline resulted in an adjusted EBITDA margin in excess of 71 percent for the quarter," said Brian N. Schell, Cboe Global Markets Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. "During the quarter, we maintained our ongoing commitment to returning capital to shareholders in a disciplined and consistent manner with $100 million of share repurchases and $39 million of dividends as well as increasing our share repurchase authorization by $250 million," Mr. Schell added. *All comparisons are second quarter 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. (1)A full reconciliation of our non-GAAP results to our GAAP results is included in the attached tables. See "Non-GAAP Information" in the accompanying financial tables. Consolidated Second Quarter Results -Table 1 Table 1 below presents summary selected unaudited condensed consolidated financial information for the company as reported and on an adjusted basis for the three months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019. Table 1 Consolidated Second Quarter Results 2Q20 2Q19 ($ in millions except per share) 2Q20 2Q19 Change Adjusted1 Adjusted1 Change Total Revenues Less Cost of Revenues $ 296.9 $ 283.2 5 % $ 296.9 $ 283.2 5 % Total Operating Expenses $ 135.2 $ 158.0 (14) % $ 95.8 $ 103.1 (7) % Operating Income $ 161.7 $ 125.2 29 % $ 201.1 $ 180.1 12 % Operating Margin % 54.5 % 44.2 % 10.3 pp 67.7 % 63.6 % 4.1 pp Net Income Allocated to Common Stockholders $ 113.3 $ 87.6 29 % $ 143.3 $ 125.7 14 % Diluted EPS $ 1.03 $ 0.78 32 % $ 1.31 $ 1.13 16 % EBITDA1 $ 201.6 $ 176.4 14 % $ 211.0 $ 193.6 9 % EBITDA Margin %1 67.9 % 62.3 % 5.6 pp 71.1 % 68.4 % 2.7 pp Total revenues less cost of revenues (referred to as "net revenue") of $296.9 million increased 5 percent compared to $283.2 million in the prior-year period, reflecting higher market data fees, primarily due to revenue contributed from the acquisitions of Hanweck and FT Options in the first quarter of 2020, and record quarterly trading volumes in U.S. equities and multi-listed options. increased 5 percent compared to in the prior-year period, reflecting higher market data fees, primarily due to revenue contributed from the acquisitions of Hanweck and FT Options in the first quarter of 2020, and record quarterly trading volumes in U.S. equities and multi-listed options. Total operating expenses were $135.2 million versus $158.0 million in the second quarter of 2019. Adjusted operating expenses of $95.8 million decreased 7 percent compared with $103.1 million in the second quarter of 2019, primarily reflecting decreases in professional fees and outside services and travel and promotional expenses. versus in the second quarter of 2019. Adjusted operating expenses of decreased 7 percent compared with in the second quarter of 2019, primarily reflecting decreases in professional fees and outside services and travel and promotional expenses. Operating income increased by 29 percent to $161.7 million and adjusted operating income increased by 12 percent to $201.1 million as a result of higher net revenue and lower operating expenses. and adjusted operating income increased by 12 percent to as a result of higher net revenue and lower operating expenses. The operating margin for the second quarter was 54.5 percent compared to 44.2 percent in the second quarter of 2019. The adjusted operating margin for the second quarter was 67.7 percent, up 410 basis points from 2019's second quarter, reflecting increased operating leverage from higher net revenue. The effective tax rate for the second quarter of 2020 was 27.5 percent compared with 29.3 percent in the second quarter of 2019. The effective tax rate on adjusted earnings in the second quarter of 2020 was 26.7 percent compared with 27.7 percent in last year's second quarter. The company recognized a lower effective tax rate for the second quarter of 2019 due to the benefit of foreign-derived intangible income. Diluted EPS for the second quarter of 2020 was $1.03 , up 32 percent. Adjusted diluted EPS1 of $1.31 increased 16 percent compared to 2019's second-quarter results. Business Segment Information: Table 2 Total Revenues Less Cost of Revenues by Business Segment (in millions) 2Q20 2Q19 Change Options $ 150.6 $ 140.8 7 % U.S. Equities 90.6 74.1 22 % Futures 20.9 32.6 (36) % European Equities 21.1 22.4 (6) % Global FX 13.7 13.1 5 % Corporate - 0.2 - % Total $ 296.9 $ 283.2 5 % (1) A full reconciliation of our non-GAAP results to our GAAP results is included in the attached tables. See "Non-GAAP Information" in the accompanying financial tables. Discussion of Results by Business Segment: Options: Options net revenue of $150.6 million was up $9.8 million or 7 percent from the second quarter of 2019, primarily due to higher net transaction fees 1 and market data revenue, offset somewhat by a decrease in royalty fees. was up or 7 percent from the second quarter of 2019, primarily due to higher net transaction fees and market data revenue, offset somewhat by a decrease in royalty fees. Net transaction fees increased $4.7 million , as total options average daily volume (ADV) increased 36 percent, driven by a new quarterly trading record for multi-listed options, offset somewhat by a 24 percent decline in revenue per contract (RPC) compared to the second quarter 2019. The decrease in total options RPC was mainly due to a mix shift, with multi-listed options representing a higher percentage of total options volume. The RPC for multi-listed options decreased 12 percent, primarily due to higher volume rebates versus the second quarter of 2019. The RPC for index options increased 18 percent, primarily reflecting a shift in the product mix as well as fee changes implemented in the first quarter and a temporary realignment of fees during the second quarter in response to the trading floor closure. , as total options average daily volume (ADV) increased 36 percent, driven by a new quarterly trading record for multi-listed options, offset somewhat by a 24 percent decline in revenue per contract (RPC) compared to the second quarter 2019. The decrease in total options RPC was mainly due to a mix shift, with multi-listed options representing a higher percentage of total options volume. The RPC for multi-listed options decreased 12 percent, primarily due to higher volume rebates versus the second quarter of 2019. The RPC for index options increased 18 percent, primarily reflecting a shift in the product mix as well as fee changes implemented in the first quarter and a temporary realignment of fees during the second quarter in response to the trading floor closure. Cboe's Options business had total market share of 36.0 percent for the second quarter of 2020 compared to 37.7 percent in the second quarter of 2019, reflecting a mix shift in trading volume resulting from a higher percentage of ADV from multi-listed options versus index options. Cboe's multi-listed options market share for the quarter increased to 32.1 percent compared to 30.8 percent in the second quarter of 2019. U.S. Equities: U.S. Equities net revenue of $90.6 million was up $16.5 million or 22 percent, primarily due to higher revenue from net transaction fees 1 , as well as higher revenue from non-transaction fees. was up or 22 percent, primarily due to higher revenue from net transaction fees , as well as higher revenue from non-transaction fees. Cboe U.S. Equities had market share of 16.1 percent for the second quarter of 2020 compared to 15.7 percent in the second quarter of 2019. The increase primarily resulted from strong response to our retail priority offering and pricing adjustments implemented in 2019 and 2020. Futures: Futures net revenue of $20.9 million decreased $11.7 million or 36 percent, primarily due to a decline in net transaction fees 1 . decreased or 36 percent, primarily due to a decline in net transaction fees . Net transaction fees decreased $12.5 million or 44 percent, reflecting a 44 percent decrease in ADV, while RPC was relatively unchanged. European Equities: European Equities net revenue of $21.1 million decreased by 6 percent, reflecting a decrease in net transaction fees 1 , offset somewhat by higher access and capacity fees. In local currency, net revenue was down 2 percent. Average daily notional value (ADNV) for the overall market was down 2 percent during the quarter and ADNV traded for Cboe Europe was 6.3 billion, down 24 percent from last year's second quarter, with net capture up 11 percent. decreased by 6 percent, reflecting a decrease in net transaction fees , offset somewhat by higher access and capacity fees. In local currency, net revenue was down 2 percent. Average daily notional value (ADNV) for the overall market was down 2 percent during the quarter and ADNV traded for Cboe Europe was 6.3 billion, down 24 percent from last year's second quarter, with net capture up 11 percent. For the second quarter of 2020, Cboe European Equities had 15.8 percent market share, down from 20.3 percent in the second quarter of 2019, primarily as a result of market profile shifts and short sale bans, which impacted order flow to Cboe. Global FX: Global FX net revenue of $13.7 million increased 5 percent, primarily due to higher access and capacity fees and net transaction fees 1 compared with the second quarter of 2019. ADNV traded on the Cboe FX platform was $31.8 billion for the quarter, down 2 percent from last year's second quarter. The decline in ADNV was offset by a 5 percent increase in net capture, with net capture per one million dollars traded of $2.77 for second quarter 2020 compared to $2.65 in the second quarter 2019. increased 5 percent, primarily due to higher access and capacity fees and net transaction fees compared with the second quarter of 2019. ADNV traded on the Cboe FX platform was for the quarter, down 2 percent from last year's second quarter. The decline in ADNV was offset by a 5 percent increase in net capture, with net capture per traded of for second quarter 2020 compared to in the second quarter 2019. Cboe FX market share reached a record high of 16.4 percent for the quarter compared to 15.2 percent in last year's second quarter. (1)A full reconciliation of our non-GAAP results to our GAAP results is included in the attached tables. See "Non-GAAP Information" in the accompanying financial tables. 2020 Fiscal Year Financial Guidance The company updated or reaffirmed its guidance for the 2020 fiscal year as noted below. This guidance takes into account the company's acquisition of EuroCCP that closed on July 1, 2020 and its investment in launching pan-European derivatives trading and clearing, which is subject to regulatory approval. Adjusted operating expenses are now expected to be in the range of $436 to $444 million , up $17 million from the previous guidance of $419 to $427 million , primarily reflecting the addition of EuroCCP and expenses related to the launch of pan-European derivatives trading and clearing. The guidance excludes the expected amortization of acquired intangible assets of $120 million , which the company plans to include in its non-GAAP reconciliation. to , up from the previous guidance of to , primarily reflecting the addition of EuroCCP and expenses related to the launch of pan-European derivatives trading and clearing. The guidance excludes the expected amortization of acquired intangible assets of , which the company plans to include in its non-GAAP reconciliation. Reaffirmed that depreciation and amortization expense, which is included in adjusted operating expenses above, is expected to be in the range of $34 to $38 million , excluding the expected amortization of acquired intangible assets of $120 million . to , excluding the expected amortization of acquired intangible assets of . Reaffirmed that the effective tax rate on adjusted earnings for the full year is expected to be in the range of 26.5 to 28.5 percent, however, it is now expected to be at the higher end of the range in the third quarter of 2020. Significant changes in trading volume, expenses, federal, state and local tax laws or rates and other items could materially impact this expectation. Reaffirmed that capital expenditures are expected to be in the range of $65 to $70 million , which includes expenditures associated with the company's Chicago headquarters relocation occurring later this year and its trading floor relocation planned for 2021. (1)Specific quantifications of the amounts that would be required to reconcile the company's adjusted operating expenses guidance and the effective tax rate on adjusted earnings guidance are not available. The company believes that there is uncertainty and unpredictability with respect to certain of its GAAP measures, primarily related to acquisition-related expenses that would be required to reconcile to GAAP operating expenses and GAAP effective tax rate, which preclude the company from providing accurate guidance on certain forward-looking GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations. The company believes that providing estimates of the amounts that would be required to reconcile the range of the company's adjusted operating expenses and the effective tax rate on adjusted earnings would imply a degree of precision that would be confusing or misleading to investors for the reasons identified above. Capital Management As previously announced, on June 10, 2020, the Board of Directors authorized the company to repurchase up to an additional $250 million of its outstanding common stock. The company paid cash dividends of $39.5 million, or $0.36 per share, during the second quarter of 2020 and utilized $99.8 million to repurchase 1.0 million shares of its common stock under its share repurchase program at an average price of $100.54 per share. As of June 30, 2020, the company had approximately $329.9 million of availability remaining under its existing share repurchase authorizations. At June 30, 2020, the company had adjusted cash2 of $176.3 million. Total debt as of June 30, 2020 was $868.6 million. (2)A full reconciliation of our non-GAAP results to our GAAP results is included in the attached tables. See "Non-GAAP Information" in the accompanying financial tables. Earnings Conference Call Executives of Cboe Global Markets will host a conference call to review its second-quarter financial results today, July 31, 2020, at 8:30 a.m. ET/7:30 a.m. CT. The conference call and any accompanying slides will be publicly available via live webcast from the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.cboe.com under Events & Presentations. Participants may also listen via telephone by dialing (877) 2554313 from the United States, (866) 4504696 from Canada or (412) 3175466 for international callers. Telephone participants should place calls 10 minutes prior to the start of the call. The webcast will be archived on the company's website for replay. A telephone replay of the earnings call also will be available from approximately 11:00 a.m. CT, July 31, 2020, through 11:00 p.m. CT, August 7, 2020, by calling (877) 3447529 from the U.S., (855) 6699658 from Canada or (412) 3170088 for international callers, using replay code 10144993. About Cboe Global Markets Cboe Global Markets (Cboe: CBOE) is one of the world's largest exchange holding companies, offering cutting-edge trading and investment solutions to investors around the world. The company is committed to defining markets to benefit its participants and drive the global marketplace forward through product innovation, leading edge technology and seamless trading solutions. The company offers trading across a diverse range of products in multiple asset classes and geographies, including options, futures, U.S. and European equities, exchange-traded products (ETPs), global foreign exchange (FX) and volatility products based on the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX Index), recognized as the world's premier gauge of U.S. equity market volatility. Cboe's subsidiaries include the largest options exchange and the third largest stock exchange operator in the U.S. In addition, the company operates one of the largest stock exchanges by value traded in Europe and is a leading market globally for ETP listings and trading. The company is headquartered in Chicago with a network of domestic and global offices across the Americas, Europe and Asia, including main hubs in New York, London, Kansas City and Amsterdam. For more information, visit www.cboe.com. Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Information This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. You can identify these statements by forward-looking words such as "may," "might," "should," "expect," "plan," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "potential" or "continue," and the negative of these terms and other comparable terminology. All statements that reflect our expectations, assumptions or projections about the future other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements, which are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions about us, may include projections of our future financial performance based on our growth strategies and anticipated trends in our business. These statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. There are important factors that could cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. We operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks and uncertainties emerge from time to time, and it is not possible to predict all risks and uncertainties, nor can we assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Some factors that could cause actual results to differ include: the impact of the novel coronavirus ("COVID-19") pandemic, including changes to trading behavior broadly in the market; the loss of our right to exclusively list and trade certain index options and futures products; economic, political and market conditions; compliance with legal and regulatory obligations; price competition and consolidation in our industry; decreases in trading volumes, market data fees or a shift in the mix of products traded on our exchanges; legislative or regulatory changes; our ability to protect our systems and communication networks from security risks, cybersecurity risks, insider threats and unauthorized disclosure of confidential information; increasing competition by foreign and domestic entities; our dependence on and exposure to risk from third parties; fluctuations to currency exchange rates; our index providers' ability to maintain the quality and integrity of their indexes and to perform under our agreements; our ability to operate our business without violating the intellectual property rights of others and the costs associated with protecting our intellectual property rights; our ability to attract and retain skilled management and other personnel; our ability to minimize the risks, including our credit and default risks, associated with operating a European clearinghouse; our ability to accommodate trading volume and transaction traffic, including significant increases, without failure or degradation of performance of our systems; misconduct by those who use our markets or our products; challenges to our use of open source software code; our ability to meet our compliance obligations, including managing potential conflicts between our regulatory responsibilities and our for-profit status; damage to our reputation; the ability of our compliance and risk management methods to effectively monitor and manage our risks; our ability to manage our growth and strategic acquisitions or alliances effectively; restrictions imposed by our debt obligations; our ability to maintain an investment grade credit rating; impairment of our goodwill, long-lived assets, investments or intangible assets; and the accuracy of our estimates and expectations. More detailed information about factors that may affect our actual results to differ may be found in our filings with the SEC, including in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 and other filings made from time to time with the SEC. We do not undertake, and we expressly disclaim, any duty to update any forward-looking statement whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. The condensed consolidated statements of income and balance sheets are unaudited and subject to reclassification. CBOE-F Trademarks: Cboe, Cboe Global Markets, Bats, BZX, BYX, EDGX, EDGA, Cboe Volatility Index and VIX are registered trademarks of Cboe Global Markets, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. Cboe Global Markets, Inc. Key Performance Statistics by Business Segment 2Q 2020 1Q 2020 4Q 2019 3Q 2019 2Q 2019 Options (ADV in thousands) Total industry ADV 27,649 28,014 19,492 19,790 19,274 Total company Options ADV 9,944 10,731 7,297 7,720 7,261 Multi-listed options 8,354 8,069 5,552 5,715 5,329 Index options 1,590 2,663 1,745 2,005 1,932 Total Options Market Share 36.0 % 38.3 % 37.4 % 39.0 % 37.7 % Multi-listed options 32.1 % 31.9 % 31.3 % 32.2 % 30.8 % Index options 99.4 % 99.2 % 99.0 % 99.1 % 99.2 % Total Options RPC: $ 0.182 $ 0.234 $ 0.225 $ 0.236 $ 0.238 Multi-listed options $ 0.051 $ 0.053 $ 0.055 $ 0.056 $ 0.058 Index options $ 0.870 $ 0.781 $ 0.766 $ 0.751 $ 0.736 U.S. Equities Total industry ADV (shares in billions) 12.4 11.0 6.8 6.9 6.9 Market share % 16.1 % 16.7 % 16.4 % 17.2 % 15.7 % Net capture (per 100 touched shares) $ 0.025 $ 0.026 $ 0.023 $ 0.020 $ 0.028 Futures ADV (in thousands) 144 331 228 279 257 RPC $ 1.743 $ 1.750 $ 1.794 $ 1.746 $ 1.748 European Equities Total industry ADNV (Euros - in billions) 40.1 51.5 35.1 34.2 40.8 Market share % 15.8 % 17.7 % 18.4 % 19.8 % 20.3 % Net capture (bps) 0.248 0.244 0.248 0.233 0.224 Global FX Market share % 16.4 % 15.7 % 16.0 % 14.1 % 15.2 % ADNV ($ in billions) $ 31.8 $ 43.3 $ 30.1 $ 30.3 $ 32.5 Net capture (per one million dollars traded) $ 2.77 $ 2.69 $ 2.80 $ 2.80 $ 2.65 ADV = average daily volume; ADNV = average daily notional value. RPC, average revenue per contract, for options and futures represents total net transaction fees recognized for the period divided by total contracts traded during the period. U.S. Equities, "net capture per 100 touched shares" refers to transaction fees less liquidity payments and routing and clearing costs divided by the product of one-hundredth ADV of touched shares on BZX, BYX, EDGX and EDGA and the number of trading days. European Equities, "net capture per matched notional value" refers to transaction fees less liquidity payments in British pounds divided by the product of matched ADNV in British pounds and the number of trading days. Global FX, "net capture per one million dollars traded" refers to net transaction fees divided by the product of one-millionth of ADNV traded on the Cboe FX market, the number of trading days, and two, which represents the buyer and seller that are both charged on the transaction. Market Share represents Cboe FX volume divided by the total volume of publicly reporting spot FX venues (Cboe FX, EBS, Refinitiv, and Euronext FX). Average transaction fees per contract can be affected by various factors, including exchange fee rates, volume-based discounts and transaction mix by contract type and product type. Cboe Global Markets, Inc. and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Statements of Income (Unaudited) Three Months and Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 and 2019 Three Months Ended June 30, Six Months Ended June 30, (in millions, except per share amounts) 2020 2019 2020 2019 Revenue: Transaction fees $ 618.3 $ 426.9 $ 1,279.8 $ 856.2 Access and capacity fees 55.7 54.5 113.4 108.9 Market data fees 58.7 51.8 114.9 103.4 Regulatory fees 128.7 79.7 265.5 138.4 Other revenue 7.3 7.7 16.6 15.2 Total Revenues 868.7 620.6 1,790.2 1,222.1 Cost of Revenues: Liquidity payments 415.6 235.8 808.0 479.5 Routing and clearing 17.7 9.2 33.7 18.4 Section 31 fees 119.0 70.3 246.4 118.5 Royalty fees 19.4 21.9 46.8 42.9 Other 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.2 Total Cost of Revenues 571.8 337.4 1,135.0 659.5 Revenues Less Cost of Revenues 296.9 283.2 655.2 562.6 Operating Expenses: Compensation and benefits 54.9 52.2 108.2 100.3 Depreciation and amortization 38.0 43.7 78.5 90.9 Technology support services 12.5 11.8 24.4 23.7 Professional fees and outside services 12.3 19.2 27.2 35.4 Travel and promotional expenses 0.9 3.0 3.0 5.6 Facilities costs 4.1 3.0 8.2 5.1 Acquisition-related costs 9.4 20.8 10.2 23.1 Other expenses 3.1 4.3 7.4 7.9 Total Operating Expenses 135.2 158.0 267.1 292.0 Operating Income 161.7 125.2 388.1 270.6 Non-operating (Expenses) Income: Interest expense, net (7.3) (10.0) (14.6) (19.9) Other income (expense), net 2.2 4.4 0.6 (4.4) Total Non-operating Expense (5.1) (5.6) (14.0) (24.3) Income Before Income Tax Provision 156.6 119.6 374.1 246.3 Income tax provision 43.0 35.1 103.1 67.7 Net Income 113.6 84.5 271.0 178.6 Net loss attributable to redeemable noncontrolling interest 3.8 4.0 Net Income Excluding Redeemable Noncontrolling Interest 113.6 88.3 271.0 182.6 Change in redemption value of redeemable noncontrolling interest (0.2) (0.4) Net income allocated to participating securities (0.3) (0.5) (0.7) (1.1) Net Income Allocated to Common Stockholders $ 113.3 $ 87.6 $ 270.3 $ 181.1 Net Income Per Share Allocated to Common Stockholders: Basic earnings per share $ 1.04 $ 0.79 $ 2.46 $ 1.62 Diluted earnings per share 1.03 0.78 2.45 1.62 Weighted average shares used in computing income per share: Basic 109.5 111.5 109.9 111.5 Diluted 109.6 111.6 110.1 111.6 Cboe Global Markets, Inc. and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (Unaudited) June 30, 2020 and December 31, 2019 June 30, December 31, (in millions) 2020 2019 Assets Current Assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 210.1 $ 229.3 Financial investments 176.5 71.0 Accounts receivable, net 376.8 234.7 Income taxes receivable 56.8 Other current assets 17.8 15.8 Total Current Assets 781.2 607.6 Investments 61.3 61.2 Property and equipment, net 75.6 47.0 Property held for sale 13.0 21.1 Operating lease right of use assets 117.8 53.4 Goodwill 2,730.4 2,682.1 Intangible assets, net 1,526.2 1,589.9 Other assets, net 60.8 51.6 Total Assets $ 5,366.3 $ 5,113.9 Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity Current Liabilities: Accounts payable and accrued liabilities $ 216.0 $ 171.9 Section 31 fees payable 247.5 99.0 Deferred revenue 17.3 4.5 Income taxes payable 14.9 4.0 Current portion of contingent consideration liabilities 0.8 2.2 Total Current Liabilities 496.5 281.6 Long-term debt 868.6 867.6 Unrecognized tax benefits 148.8 135.9 Deferred income taxes 384.9 399.7 Non-current operating lease liabilities 137.3 46.7 Contingent consideration liabilities 19.7 Other non-current liabilities 24.2 26.8 Total Liabilities 2,080.0 1,758.3 Stockholders' Equity: Preferred stock Common stock 1.2 1.2 Treasury stock at cost (1,120.5) (887.1) Additional paid-in capital 2,704.5 2,691.3 Retained earnings 1,703.7 1,512.6 Accumulated other comprehensive (loss) income, net (2.6) 37.6 Total Stockholders' Equity 3,286.3 3,355.6 Total Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity $ 5,366.3 $ 5,113.9 Non-GAAP Information In addition to disclosing results determined in accordance with GAAP, Cboe Global Markets has disclosed certain non-GAAP measures of operating performance. These measures are not in accordance with, or a substitute for, GAAP, and may be different from or inconsistent with non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. The non-GAAP measures provided in this press release include net transaction fees, adjusted operating expenses, adjusted operating income, adjusted operating margin, adjusted net income allocated to common stockholders and adjusted diluted earnings per share, effective tax rate on adjusted earnings, adjusted cash, EBITDA, EBITDA margin, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. Management believes that the non-GAAP financial measures presented in this press release, including adjusted operating income and adjusted operating expenses, provide additional and comparative information to assess trends in our core operations and a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons. Non-GAAP financial measures disclosed by management are provided as additional information to investors in order to provide them with an alternative method for assessing our financial condition and operating results. Amortization expense of acquired intangible assets: We amortize intangible assets acquired in connection with various acquisitions. Amortization of intangible assets is inconsistent in amount and frequency and is significantly affected by the timing and size of our acquisitions. As such, if intangible asset amortization is included in performance measures, it is more difficult to assess the day-to-day operating performance of the businesses, the relative operating performance of the businesses between periods and the earnings power of the company. Therefore, we believe performance measures excluding intangible asset amortization expense provide investors with an additional basis for comparison across accounting periods. Acquisition-related expenses: From time to time, we have pursued acquisitions, which have resulted in expenses which would not otherwise have been incurred in the normal course of the company's business operations. These expenses include integration costs, as well as legal, due diligence and other third party transaction costs. The frequency and the amount of such expenses vary significantly based on the size, timing and complexity of the transaction. Accordingly, we exclude these costs for purposes of calculating non-GAAP measures which provide an additional analysis of Cboe's ongoing operating performance or comparisons in Cboe's performance between periods. The tables below show the reconciliation of each financial measure from GAAP to non-GAAP. The non-GAAP financial measures exclude the impact of those items detailed below and are referred to as adjusted financial measures. Reconciliation of GAAP and non-GAAP Information Three Months Ended Six Months Ended Table 4 June 30, June 30, (in millions, except per share amounts) 2020 2019 2020 2019 Reconciliation of Net Income Allocated to Common Stockholders to Non-GAAP (As shown on Table 1) Net income allocated to common stockholders $ 113.3 $ 87.6 $ 270.3 $ 181.1 Non-GAAP adjustments Acquisition-related expenses (1) 9.4 20.8 10.2 23.1 Amortization of acquired intangible assets (2) 30.0 34.1 62.5 71.7 Change in redemption value of noncontrolling interest 0.2 0.4 Total Non-GAAP adjustments 39.4 55.1 72.7 95.2 Income tax expense related to the items above (9.3) (13.2) (16.9) (23.2) Impairment charges attributed to noncontrolling interest (3.6) (3.6) Net income allocated to participating securities - effect on reconciling items (0.1) (0.2) (0.5) (0.4) Adjusted net income allocated to common stockholders $ 143.3 $ 125.7 $ 325.6 $ 249.1 Reconciliation of Diluted EPS to Non-GAAP Diluted earnings per common share $ 1.03 $ 0.78 $ 2.45 $ 1.62 Per share impact of non-GAAP adjustments noted above 0.28 0.35 0.51 0.61 Adjusted diluted earnings per common share $ 1.31 $ 1.13 $ 2.96 $ 2.23 Reconciliation of Operating Margin to Non-GAAP Revenue less cost of revenue $ 296.9 $ 283.2 $ 655.2 $ 562.6 Non-GAAP adjustments noted above Adjusted revenue less cost of revenue $ 296.9 $ 283.2 $ 655.2 $ 562.6 Operating expenses (3) $ 135.2 $ 158.0 $ 267.1 $ 292.0 Non-GAAP adjustments noted above 39.4 54.9 72.7 94.8 Adjusted operating expenses $ 95.8 $ 103.1 $ 194.4 $ 197.2 Operating income $ 161.7 $ 125.2 $ 388.1 $ 270.6 Non-GAAP adjustments noted above 39.4 54.9 72.7 94.8 Adjusted operating income $ 201.1 $ 180.1 $ 460.8 $ 365.4 Adjusted operating margin (4) 67.7 % 63.6 % 70.3 % 64.9 % Reconciliation of Income Tax Rate to Non-GAAP Income before income taxes 156.6 119.6 374.1 246.3 Non-GAAP adjustments noted above 39.4 55.1 72.7 95.2 Adjusted income before income taxes $ 196.0 $ 174.7 $ 446.8 $ 341.5 Income tax expense 43.0 35.1 103.1 67.7 Non-GAAP adjustments noted above 9.3 13.2 16.9 23.2 Adjusted income tax expense $ 52.3 $ 48.3 $ 120.0 $ 90.9 Adjusted income tax rate 26.7 % 27.7 % 26.9 % 26.6 % (1) This amount includes professional fees and outside services, severance, facilities expenses, impairment charges and other costs related to the company's acquisitions. (2) This amount represents the amortization of acquired intangible assets related to the company's acquisitions. (3) The company sponsors deferred compensation plans held in a rabbi trust. The expenses or income related to the deferred compensation plans are included in "Compensation and benefits" ($2.2 million and $3.7 million in expense for the three months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019, respectively, and $0.1 million and 3.7 million in the six months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019, respectively), and are directly offset by deferred compensation income, expenses and dividends included within "Other expense, net" ($2.2 million and $3.7 million in income, expense and dividends in the three months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019, respectively, and $0.1 million and $3.7 million in the six months ended June 2020 and 2019, respectively), on the condensed consolidated statements of income. The deferred compensation plans' expenses are not adjusted out of "adjusted operating expenses" and do not have an impact on "Income before income taxes." (4) Adjusted operating margin represents adjusted operating income divided by adjusted revenue less cost of revenue. EBITDA Reconciliations EBITDA (earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation and amortization) and Adjusted EBITDA are widely used non-GAAP financial measures of operating performance. EBITDA margin represents EBITDA divided by revenues less cost of revenues (net revenue). It is presented as supplemental information that the company believes is useful to investors to evaluate its results because it excludes certain items that are not directly related to the company's core operating performance. EBITDA is calculated by adding back to net income interest expense, income tax expense, depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA is calculated by adding back to EBITDA acquisition-related expenses and impairment charges attributed to noncontrolling interest. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA should not be considered as substitutes either for net income, as an indicator of the company's operating performance, or for cash flow, as a measure of the company's liquidity. In addition, because EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA may not be calculated identically by all companies, the presentation here may not be comparable to other similarly titled measures of other companies. Adjusted EBITDA margin represents Adjusted EBITDA divided by net revenue. Table 5 Three Months Ended Six Months Ended (in millions) June 30, June 30, Reconciliation of Net Income Allocated to Common Stockholders to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA (Per Table 1) 2020 2019 2020 2019 Net income allocated to common stockholders $ 113.3 $ 87.6 $ 270.3 $ 181.1 Interest expense, net 7.3 10.0 14.6 19.9 Income tax provision 43.0 35.1 103.1 67.7 Depreciation and amortization 38.0 43.7 78.5 90.9 EBITDA $ 201.6 $ 176.4 $ 466.5 $ 359.6 EBITDA Margin 67.9 % 62.3 % 71.2 % 63.9 % Non-GAAP adjustments not included in above line items Acquisition-related expenses 9.4 20.8 10.2 23.1 Impairment charges attributed to noncontrolling interest (3.6) (3.6) Adjusted EBITDA $ 211.0 $ 193.6 $ 476.7 $ 379.1 Adjusted EBITDA Margin 71.1 % 68.4 % 72.4 % 67.4 % Table 6 (in millions) June 30, December 31, Reconciliation of Cash and cash equivalents to Adjusted Cash 2020 2019 Cash and cash equivalents $ 210.1 $ 229.3 Financial investments 176.5 71.0 Less deferred compensation plan assets (20.9) (23.4) Less cash collected for Section 31 Fees (189.4) (69.0) Adjusted Cash $ 176.3 $ 207.9 Table 7 (in millions) Reconciliation of Net Transaction Fees Three Months Ended June 30, 2020 and 2019 Consolidated Options Segment U.S. Equities Segment Futures Segment European Equities Segment Global FX Segment Three Months Ended Three Months Ended Three Months Ended Three Months Ended Three Months Ended Three Months Ended June 30, June 30, June 30, June 30, June 30, June 30, 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 Transaction fees $ 618.3 $ 426.9 $ 250.8 $ 185.9 $ 325.1 $ 182.0 $ 15.8 $ 28.3 $ 15.2 $ 19.5 $ 11.4 $ 11.2 Liquidity payments (415.6) (235.8) (132.0) (73.3) (279.4) (156.2) (4.2) (6.3) Routing and clearing (17.7) (9.2) (5.0) (3.5) (12.7) (5.7) Net transaction fees $ 185.0 $ 181.9 $ 113.8 $ 109.1 $ 33.0 $ 20.1 $ 15.8 $ 28.3 $ 11.0 $ 13.2 $ 11.4 $ 11.2 SOURCE Cboe Global Markets, Inc. Related Links http://www.cboe.com Vineet Upadhyay By Express News Service DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand government might lift the 'Inner Line Permit' in some areas of the hill state adjoining the border areas with an aim to develop areas for 'border tourism'. State tourism minister Satpal Maharaj has spoken to his counterpart at the Center to speed up the procedure. "I have spoken to the Union tourism minister and officials concerned for this (border tourism) and soon things will materialize. Along with border tourism, there will be tribal tourism and winter tourism. Initially, we have plans to open up Mukhba, Bagholi, and Harsil in the Gangotri by lifting the Inner Line Permit," said Maharaj. The Inner Line Permit (ILP) is required to visit some areas of the state which are ecologically and otherwise deemed sensitive. The idea is to encourage tourism and settlement of inhabitants which will help security forces develop vigil on the ground. The receding population on the Uttarakhand-Nepal-China border has become a source of worry for the state government and security forces amidst increasing border tensions with Nepal. The move comes amidst Chinese aggression along with the border issues with Nepal. Uttarakhand shares 350kms border with China and 275Kms with Nepal. Recently, Indo-Tibetan Border Police chief SS Deswal met Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat to discuss the issue of border villages. The ITBP has its presence on forward posts in Barahoti and Mana Pass. The state government is already making efforts to repopulate empty villages in border areas and has sanctioned Rs 10 crore for developing necessary infrastructure. The government is also setting up mobile towers in the areas where mobile network and internet access is poor. As many as 16 border villages within 5 km range from the China border have been deserted by the residents fearing conflict with China, said a report submitted to the state government on July 21. Death of Michael Brown at the hands of police in 2014 led to protests and helped spawn the Black Lives Matter movement. The top prosecutor in St Louis County, Missouri announced Thursday that he will not charge the former police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri a dramatic decision that could reopen old wounds amid a renewed and intense national conversation about racial injustice and the police treatment of minorities in the United States. It was nearly six years ago that a grand jury declined to indict Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot Brown, a Black 18-year-old. Civil rights leaders and Browns mother had hoped that Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, the countys first Black prosecutor, would reopen the case after he took office in January 2019. My heart breaks for Michaels parents, Bell said during a news conference. I know this is not the result they were looking for and that their pain will continue forever. Describing the announcement as one of the most difficult things Ive had to do, Bell said that his office conducted a five-month review of witness statements, forensic reports and other evidence. The question for this office was a simple one: Could we prove beyond a reasonable doubt that when Darren Wilson shot Micheal Brown, he committed murder or manslaughter under Missouri law? After an independent and in-depth review of the evidence, we cannot prove that he did, Bell said. But, he said, our investigation does not exonerate Darren Wilson. The August 2014 police shooting touched off months of unrest in Ferguson, and made the St Louis suburb synonymous with a national debate over police treatment of minorities. The Ferguson unrest helped solidify the national Black Lives Matter movement that began after Trayvon Martin, a Black 17-year-old, was shot to death in Florida in 2012. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. Atatiana Jefferson. Michael Brown. Freddie Gray. Eric Garner. Elijah McClain. Tony McDade. Sandra Bland. Burrell Ramsey-White. Usaamah Rahim. Terrence Coleman. Every one of them should be alive today. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) July 10, 2020 The issue has taken on new life since George Floyds death in Minneapolis in May. Ferguson is among many cities around the world that have seen protests since Floyds death. This is a time for us to reflect on Michaels life, to support Michaels family and to honour a transformative movement that will forever be linked to his name, Bell said. Bell who took office in January 2019 as a reform-minded prosecutor promising to eliminate cash bail for non-violent offenders and to increase the use of programmes that allow defendants to avoid jail time faced no restrictions in reexamining Browns death for potential murder charges. Wilson was never charged and tried, so double jeopardy was not an issue. There is no statute of limitations on filing murder charges. As the news conference drew to a close, one observer erupted in anger at Bell. Its over! One term! the man, who did not provide a name, screamed as the prosecuting attorney. Police officers gently led the man from the room. The shooting happened after Wilson told Brown and a friend to get out of the street as they walked down the middle of Canfield Drive on a Sunday afternoon. A scuffle between Wilson and Brown ensued, ending with the fatal shot. Wilson said Brown came at him menacingly, forcing him to fire his gun in self-defence. The ex-officer who killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO will not be charged, a top prosecutor says. A grand jury failed to indict Darren Wilson in 2014, but there have been renewed calls for charges after #GeorgeFloyd was killed. Brown's body was left in the street for 4 hrs. pic.twitter.com/MQBIzCjt60 AJ+ (@ajplus) July 30, 2020 Browns body remained in the street for four hours, angering his family and nearby residents. Some people initially said Brown had his hands up in surrender when Wilson fired, although a grand jury and the US Department of Justice did not find those accounts credible. Bells predecessor, longtime prosecutor Bob McCulloch, drew considerable criticism for taking the case to a grand jury rather than charging Wilson himself. Critics also accused McCulloch of swaying the grand jury to its decision not to indict Wilson an accusation he emphatically denied. Wilson resigned days after McCullochs November 24, 2014 announcement that the grand jury would not indict the officer. The Justice Department also declined to charge Wilson, but issued a scathing report citing racial bias in Fergusons police and courts. Bell, a former Ferguson councilman, upset McCulloch, a staunch law-and-order prosecutor, in the 2018 Democratic primary and ran unopposed that November. Within days of taking office, Bell took steps to remove three veteran assistant prosecutors, including Kathi Alizadeh, who played a role in presenting evidence to the grand jury in the Ferguson case. In his campaign to unseat McCulloch, Bell focused on larger criminal justice issues, not on McCullochs handling of the Wilson investigation. Bell, who, like McCulloch, is the son of a police officer, said in an interview after the election that he would appoint independent special prosecutors for allegations of wrongdoing by officers. He said he would support police 200 percent as long as they act appropriately. But he said officers who violate the law must be held accountable. Browns mother, Lesley McSpadden, asked Missouri Republican Governor Mike Parson to reopen the investigation in 2018, saying Bells win was a clear mandate from the people of St Louis to reform the criminal justice system, which first begins with securing justice for my son. But Parsons office said it had no legal authority to appoint a special prosecutor. Calls to reopen the Brown investigation also came from Justin Hansford, executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center. In an August 2019 Washington Post opinion article, he called McCullochs ouster a sign of hope and change. SEYMOUR Two people died after a vehicle landed on its roof in the Housatonic River by Route 34 Friday afternoon. Emergency crews attempted an extensive water rescue for those trapped inside. First responders rushed to the area shortly before 4 p.m. after a crash catapulted a vehicle into the Housatonic River, according to initial dispatch reports. Later Friday night, police said a male victim and a female victim died after the vehicle went into the river, according to WTNH. Fire and police units from surrounding areas responded to the crash Friday afternoon, with crews on the river working to pull the vehicle to shore. Around 4:30 p.m., a diver was in the river, working to get the people out of the vehicle. The first person was out of the water by 4:33 p.m.; medics were called in to take the individual to the hospital. By 4:37 p.m., the second person was out of the water and turned over to medics. Divers remained in the water to confirm there were only two individuals in the car. Around 5 p.m., police and firefighters searched along Roosevelt Drive to find the spot the vehicle entered the water. Officials with the Great Hill Hose Company in Seymour said the crews were still on scene in the area of 150 Roosevelt Drive. Avoid the area completely until further notification, fire officials said around 5:30 p.m. Friday. This story will be updated. When thinking of the great empires of history, the Romans, Egyptians, and British rightly come to mind. Each of these states was remarkable. The Egyptians boasted a 3,000-year history with astounding architectural achievements. The Romans mastered art & science, extending their reach across much of the known world, and from a small island in the North Atlantic, the British, through colonization, spread their rule across the globe. The Persian Empire, however, was almost in a category by itself. It originated in the sixth century BC and lasted for over a thousand years. Some might argue the culture has lasted far longer, from early Mesopotamia, over five thousand years ago, until the fall of the Shah in 1979. From its start in modern-day Iran, the Persian Empire ruled over land stretching west to Egypt, north to Turkey, and as far east as India. It was a bastion of science, medicine, and religious tolerance. Its grand building projects included a road system connecting the far-flung Empire and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Today, we still marvel at their architectural and artistic achievements, from the magnificent structures at Persepolis, to remarkably detailed jewelry and metalwork that survive to this day. Our fascination with the Persian Empire has created avid collectors of objects from these early cultures. Pieces such as the Guennol Lioness, a 5,000-year-old limestone statuette, prove this point. In 2007 this 3 1/4-inch tall figure sold at auction for more than $57 million. While multimillion-dollar objects are rare, we frequently see pieces such as limestone fragments and gold figures from the Achaemenid reign, the earliest era of the Persian empire, selling for tens, and even hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Challenge It is with early Persian metalwork where we enter the story. Our team was asked to assess a collection of 15 objects identified as Persian Antiquities, with a claimed value approaching $600,000. While some items, such as a small box, the insured had stated values of only a few thousand dollars, some gold figures had values approaching $90,000. Even in the rarified world of antiquities collectors, these are conspicuous claims of value. The collection was comprised primarily of metal figures and ornaments in gold, silver, or bronze. The insured stated the pieces were taken out of Iran when the Shah fell in 1979, a not entirely uncommon occurrence. The pieces had been reported stolen, so no physical inspection was possible. To increase the challenge of completing the valuation, despite the claimed values, no prior appraisal or authentication was conducted on the collection. Additionally, we were given only one or two photos of each piece to work with. Cracking The Case Complicating the assessment of the collection is the prevalence of reproductions or copies of Persian metalwork. Because of a longstanding fascination with antiquity and the Ancient Near East, a brisk business has existed for centuries around making honest reproductions of specific museum pieces marketed as souvenirs and outright fakes to be slipped into the market for a quick profit. From our initial examination of the photos provided to our team, several of the pieces appeared to fall into the latter category. Early Persian metalwork, particularly pieces rendered in gold or silver, tends to be finely crafted. The quality of artistry often lends a freshness to pieces which can be over two thousand years old. By contrast, many of the pieces in this collection were crudely rendered, with rough handiwork and poorly thought-out composition. There were other anomalies: gold items that are known to have been made only in stone, pieces depicting scenes from different cultures, and items using modern-day design styles. This last misstep is a classic trap for the forger. No matter how hard we try, the perspective of the world we live in inevitably bleeds into our work. The Solution While there were several pieces we initially identified as inauthentic, others were less clear, and some did appear potentially to be genuine. Therefore, we consulted with a curator from The Metropolitan Museum of Fine Arts Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. Persian antiquities are a relatively small field, and as such, we wanted to be sure we were not missing some crucial aspect or being overly critical in our assessment. While the museums curators do not offer any appraisal or authentication for these situations, we were able to discuss the questions we had regarding the collection. Unfortunately, he was unable to alleviate our concerns regarding several of the items. After a full review, we determined nine of the 15 pieces to be 20th-century reproductions of varying sorts. Rather than the $600,000 insured stated value, we identified a value of $37,500 for the collection. Coca-Cola Co. said it plans to launch a boozy version of its Topo Chico sparkling water in the U.S. next year, plunging the soda giant into the market for alcoholic beverages. With the move, the company joins the fray of beverage giants vying for market share as consumers flock to hard seltzer for its minimal calories and lower alcohol level. Americans spent $3 billion (U.S.) on hard seltzer in U.S. retail stores in the 52 weeks ended July 11, up 241 per cent from a year earlier, according to Bump Williams Consulting Co. The market is dominated by White Claw, owned by Mikes Hard Lemonade Co. Boston Beer Co. makes Truly, the No. 2 brand. Anheuser Busch InBev NV and other big brewers have also introduced hard seltzer brands, including Bud Light Seltzer and Corona Hard Seltzer. It has been decades since Coke sold booze in the U.S. The company previously owned a wine business that it sold in 1983. In 2018, Coke introduced a fizzy, lemon-flavoured alcoholic drink in Japan called Lemon-Do. Coke is committed to exploring new products in dynamic beverage categories, including hard seltzer, the company said in a statement posted on its website. Topo Chico Hard Seltzer is an experimental drink inspired by Topo Chico sparkling mineral water, which has been popular with many mixologists. Coke will pilot the alcoholic Topo Chico drink in Latin America later this year, the company said. News of the new product was reported earlier by Beverage Digest, an industry publication. Alcohol distribution is tightly regulated in the U.S. A Coke spokesperson said the company hasnt finalized how it will distribute hard seltzer, which falls under the same regulatory category as beer. Some Coke distributors already hold licenses to carry beer. Under James Quincey, who became chief executive in 2017, Coke has expanded beyond its core soft-drink franchises. It has launched coffee-infused sodas and an energy-drink version of its namesake cola, despite objections from its partner Monster Beverage Corp. It is also pruning some niche products, such as its Odwalla smoothies and juices. During the pandemic, the companys biggest soda brands including Coke, Coke Zero Sugar and Sprite have sold well in grocery stores but have taken a hit from a steep drop-off in soda fountain sales. Read more about: After a leak from an Irish retailer gave up the goods, Microsoft has confirmed the news Halo Infinite will include a free-to-play multiplayer mode, and its running at 120FPS. This news wasnt revealed during last weeks Xbox Series X gameplay showcase that disappointed many gamers with the state of its graphics, but maybe its enough to reinvigorate some fans of the FPS. The development team addressed issues with the graphics in a blog post last night, explaining about the dynamic lighting and its pursuit of a classic style. Well need to see more to find out how development goes, but support for higher frame rates on the new console may show how theyre using all of that horsepower while still supporting multiple console generations. As far as the free-to-play aspect, whatever the new Halos multiplayer includes will this bring yet another battle royale? having the systems highlight game playable for free online brings us back to Microsoft pulling Xbox Live 12-month subscriptions last week. If theres a plan to make online play free, and promote Game Pass as the replacement paid option, then things make more sense. Halo is for everyone. We can confirm #HaloInfinite multiplayer will be free-to-play and will support 120FPS on Xbox Series X. More details will be shared later! pic.twitter.com/9bIrppFiON Halo (@Halo) July 31, 2020 The people of Libya, exhausted and scared after years of brutal war, now face the danger of destruction of their country unless the last chance of a ceasefire is seized, a senior UN official has warned. Stephanie Williams, the UN envoy to Libya, also cautioned that armed intervention by foreign powers is not only prolonging the violence in the countrys civil war, but may lead to confrontations and conflicts elsewhere. There is a real risk of this turning into a very dangerous regional war, what we are seeing is an overall picture of foreign intervention which is contributing to the continuation of armed conflict in Libya. There is a real risk of miscalculation which can trigger an even wider conflict, she said. The medical truck stationed in a parking lot outside of a school building in Lakewood isnt there for blood donations. Inside the bus, coronavirus tests are underway. In less than two weeks, more than 360 students and staff members have chosen to undergo the nasal swab procedure used to identify COVID-19, the school boards attorney said Friday. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Pauls popularly quoted verse definitively states God is the Author of all Scripture. Though penned by men, it is divinely inspired, or, God-breathed. Since humans are imperfect by nature, we can conclude not all of Scripture is a direct quote from God, though many divine revelations in the pages of the Bible are. The historical accuracy of the Bible sets it apart from other stories and wisdom passed down through generations. We have access to knowledge that is unshakeable true and infinitely valuable, John Piper wrote on the topic. All Scripture is God-breathed, also explains the alive and active Word of God. Meaning, we can study Scripture today and still find it relevant to our daily lives. God moves in and through His Word, guiding, counseling, connecting to and comforting us through its ancient pages. What Does "All Scripture Is God breathed Mean? All Scripture is God breathed" describes the Bibles nature as Gods literal word, given to men by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This divine inspiration is the supernatural work of Gods Holy Spirit. The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible further explains, This doctrine does not downplay human action in Scriptures authorship but affirms Scriptures ultimate origin in God, who gave it. Our God is the same yesterday, today, and eternally. He is supernaturally able to take the truth we find in Scripture and communicate with us relationally through it. The NIV Study Bible explains, Although the Bible doesnt spell out the mechanics of how God inspired the writers, it makes clear that the ultimate source was God himself. Verse 17 further explains why God would continue to choose to communicate through an ancient text to His people today: so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. This important notion explains the root of all goodness, even through the workings of our daily lives. All the good we do is rooted in the Lord, and it is He, in Christ, who equips us for every good work. The Greek word translated as breathed out in 2 Timothy 3:16 is the only thing described as such by the Apostles, explains Ligonier Ministries. It uniquely serves as Gods special revelation, as His inspired and revealed will for His people. What Is Happening in 2 Timothy 3? The Old and New Testaments were being composed during Pauls time, explains the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible. Peter wrote, Bear in mind that our Lords patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. There is consistent acknowledgement throughout the Old and New Testaments that the words the authors penned came divinely and supernaturally from the Author. He writes the same way in all his letters, Peter continued, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:15-16). Timothy was like family to Paul, who authored two letters (1 Timothy and 2 Timothy) to his brother in Christ. During Paul and Timothys time, what it truly meant to be a Christ follower was often twisted and/or misinterpreted by surrounding influencers. Paul wrote to encourage and reinforce the root of their confidence in Christ. He affirmed that the prose of his letters was divinely inspired by God and essential for daily living in alignment with His will. It was important then, and now, for us to remember that Jesus came to fulfill the Old Testament Scriptures, not replace them. Even today, the world is confusing. If we base our lives off news reports, or what other influencers say, we can by swayed from the solid foundation of our faith and distracted by half-truths and opinions. Scripture is our firm foundation. Living within the New Testament covenant, we have the aid of the Holy Spirit, present in every believer through Christ, in interpreting and understanding Gods Word as He convicts, encourages and communicates to us through it. We can trust, rely, and live by the wisdom God provides for us through the Bible. Every explanation we receive of Scripture should be prayerfully and diligently confirmed with the actual Scriptures. Photo credit: Unsplash/Ben White Do Different Translations Change the Wording of This Verse? Different translations, and even paraphrases, of the Bible can help us to understand Gods word by changing the wording, but we should be wary lest the meaning of the text seems to change. We can assure were interpreting Scripture the right way by finding the root of the original language used to pen the pages of Scripture, easily accessible through study Bibles and commentaries. The New International Version, which I quoted at the beginning of this article, is a popular translation of the Bible. The following translations are also popularly quoted versions of the same Scriptural truths: The English Standard Version of 2 Timothy 3:16-17 reads, All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. The Amplified Bible: All Scripture is God-breathed [given by divine inspiration] and is profitable for instruction, for conviction [of sin], for correction [of error and restoration to obedience], for training in righteousness [learning to live in conformity to Gods will, both publicly and privately behaving honorably with personal integrity and moral courage]; so that the man of God may be complete and proficient, outfitted and thoroughly equipped for every good work. The New English Translation: Every Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work. And finally, a paraphrase, from The Message: Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another - showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live Gods way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us. A wise pastor once counseled me to go directly to Scripture, considering multiple voices describe the same Biblical text, not just one interpretation. We are all prone to human error, so following any one persons preaching more than we are seeking Christ for ourselves isnt healthy. There will continue to be many false and deceitful prophets claiming to understand the Bible. It wont always be easy to pick them out of a crowd. When we study Gods Word for ourselves daily and prayerfully, and listen to many educated voices of mentors, pastors and Biblical scholars, it helps us to discern the truth of Gods Truth. What Is Scripture Useful for and Why? For since the creation of the world Gods invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse (Romans 1:20). It was important to Paul that Timothy (and now we, today) understand Scripture wasnt just inspired by God, but breathed by God, useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness (NIV Study Bible). God has purposed our lives to bring glory and honor to His name. When Jesus came to earth and willingly took on our sin at His crucifixion, our spiritual lives forever changed. In Christ, we come directly to the Father in prayer, and through His Word. Through His Holy Spirit, we contain a supernatural power to live out the attributes Paul penned to the Galatians: love, joy, peace, forgiveness, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, Paul wrote to the Galatians, Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:24-25). The very Spirit of the Living God lives in everyone who believes in and accepts Jesus Christ as Savior. Our salvation unlocks the supernatural, God-breathed elements of Scripture: not just to interpret it historically, but to embrace its application in our everyday lives. The Holy Spirit not only translates what we cannot put into words in prayer to God, but also allows us to discern Gods Word as we daily read and study it. Because we are all human, we are wise to be wary of the tendency to apply Gods Word to what we want to hear instead of allowing our hearts to be softened, convicted, and repentant. Everything good that God expects us to do, explains John Piper, the Scriptures equip us to do. Photo credit: Getty Images/Aldo Murillo Can We Trust ALL of Scripture? All of Scripture can be trusted if we approach Gods Word with wisdom and humility. This submission requires us to pursue the study of Gods Word daily in order to properly understand what God is saying and how it relates to our lives. For example, it may be ineffective to grab a quote from the Bible that sounds inspirational without studying the context of the entire paragraph, chapter, or book of Scripture. Seek to understand who penned the Bible, what was happening during that time, and look up what the original Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament) words mean to better understand Scripture. We can trust all of Scripture when we diligently and prayerfully study it, in Christ. The Holy Spirit, present in every Christ follower, aids in this process. Many study guides, study Bibles, Biblical commentaries, and voices of credible pastors and Biblical scholars are placed within reach to help us interpret Gods Word correctly. Still, even the most educated are prone to human error. Prayerfully, we can seek Gods counsel to find our way to His truth. Scripture Is Reliable, Relatable, Relevant Scripture and prayer are costly lifelines weve been given to our Heavenly Father. Christ Jesus, our Savior and Messiah, came to fulfill Gods Word. John reminds us He is the Word (John 1:1). His sacrifice on the cross broke the chain of sin on our lives. We no longer have to be slaves to sin, but can live free lives in truth! This is a freedom that can never be stripped from us, by anyone or anything. Scripture is God-breathed; however, faith serves as an essential component of our understanding of Gods inspired revelation in the Bible (compellingtruth.org). The key to living in freedom lies in prayer and daily study of Gods Word. Life is not a sum of coincidences, but a purposeful existence set in motion by our omnipotent and sovereign God. He is in control, all-knowing, and compassionate, surrounding us with people, creation, and access to Him via prayer and His word. He seeks a relationship with us. Scripture is reliable, relatable, and relevant because it is God breathed. Photo credit: Unsplash/Nathan Dumlao He added: This is not a case about the right to vote, but about how items are placed on the ballot in the first place. Nothing in the Constitution requires Idaho or any other state to provide for ballot initiatives. And the claims at issue here challenge the application of only the most typical sort of neutral regulations on ballot access. Despite the threat of a global pandemic and winter weather chilling the bones of punters, Perths late-night underground bar scene is experiencing a renaissance that one hospitality heavyweight describes as the best winter I have seen for years. And as the shock of not being able to enjoy a drink in a stylish bar still lingers, Perths city slickers have doubled down on the quality of their after-work tipple. 'Definitely not a normal winter': People are filling Varnish to phase 4 capacity in Perth's CBD. Andy Freeman, owner of CBD haunts Varnish, Caballitos and Goody Two's, said he now loved living in the most isolated city in the world. "It used to be a nightmare but today weve got the best seat in the house," he said. Shane Whiteside, President and CEO The additional and meaningful scale provided by the ITL acquisition will further strengthen our ability to serve our customers and broaden our relationships with key suppliers. This is very exciting news for both Summit and ITL and we welcome our new Toronto employees to the Summit team. Summit Interconnect, Inc. is pleased to announce the acquisition of ITL Circuits. Established in 1971 and located in Toronto, Canada,ITL Circuits is one of North Americas leading providers of printed circuit boards. The oldest and largest privately held PCB manufacturer in Canada, ITL Circuits provides a significant expansion of Summits operations in North America. ITL Circuits is AS9100, NADCAP and MIL-PRF 31032 certified and has a long history of servicing military programs for the Canadian Department of National Defense (DND) prime contractors and Australian Defense Force (ADF) primes. ITL Circuits is also a long time supplier to the United States DOD prime contractors under U.S. ITAR 126.5 under the Canadian Controlled Goods (CGP) exemption. Shane Whiteside, President and CEO of Summit Interconnect, Inc. stated, ITLs capabilities complement Summits and will provide additional volume manufacturing capacity across a broad range of technology. The additional and meaningful scale will further strengthen our ability to serve our customers and broaden our relationships with key suppliers. This is very exciting news for both Summit and ITL and we welcome our new Toronto employees to the Summit team. About Summit Interconnect: Summit Interconnect is a leading manufacturer of advanced technology printed circuit boards. Manufacturing services include quick turn, prototype and production through our advanced technology facilities located in California and Toronto, Canada. For more information, please go to summit-pcb.com About ITL Circuits: ITL Circuits is one of North Americas leading providers of printed circuit board fabrication services. Established in 1971, ITL Circuits is highly certified and is the oldest and largest privately held PCB manufacturer in Canada. ITL Circuits serves both original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and electronic manufacturing services (EMS) companies with advanced technology prototype and production PCBs around the globe. For more information, please go to:itlcircuits.com To learn more about the Summit Interconnect story: Manufacturing in Focus Magazine: "Waves Are Being Made in the PCB Industry and Summit Interconnect Plans to Ride Them" PCB007 Magazine: "Shane Whiteside and Summit Interconnect: Aspiring to New Heights" Summit Interconnect is an HCI Equity Partners portfolio company standing eight count: "There's certainly no right to harangue and belittle the Bunnings staff. Good on them for being calm and respectful in the face of a premeditated stunt." Loading Sgt Schultz: "In case you couldn't catch everything, this is what the lady was saying: 'Me Me Me Me Me Me ... '" qwerty: "And the unAustralian of the Year award goes to..." Dame Magstar of the Order of the Hot Pink Garter: "Im in NSW but have been wearing a mask in Woolworths (the only place I go regularly at the moment) since the lockdown started months ago. I get claustrophobic by Aisle 4 but I wear it anyway ... If youre silly enough to want to force the issue of human rights vs staying safe, stay home." Pjma42: "This is the type of behaviour that got Victoria into the mess they are currently in. How can a government legislate against arrogance?" Estcourt says he thinks the story struck a chord because it came at a time when Victorians were grappling with a difficult question as cases continued to skyrocket: "How do we protect ourselves from ourselves? Premier Daniel Andrews dismissed the women's behaviour as 'a selfish choice'. Credit:Joe Armao I think to a certain extent, readers also responded to the article so strongly because the debate about rights in Australia isnt always clear," he said. "We dont have a bill of rights, like the United States, and our rights are routinely abrogated by state and federal parliaments when they pass laws. Some people tend to invoke a broad notion of human rights when they are being compelled to do something they dont want to do. In Australia, at least, that argument is not as effective as it is in some other countries. Masks, which were first made mandatory in lockdown areas in Melbourne, will now be required statewide from Sunday, 11.59pm. Loading While there are no rules for the widespread wearing of masks in NSW, they are becoming more visible on the streets and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian this week encouraged hospitality workers and older, vulnerable people to wear them. Estcourt, who went on to research and write an explainer on the rules of face coverings, said that while Victorians did have certain rights under the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act, they could be and were regularly abrogated by parliaments in order to protect others' rights. Although there is a presumption that the charter should be upheld as much as possible, it is acceptable, in Australia, to subjugate certain rights and freedoms in order to preserve others. "The basic fact is you cannot refuse to wear a mask on the basis that it impinges your rights. Even if there was a right that referred directly to face coverings like masks (and there is some debate as to whether there is), the government is legally allowed to pass legislation that would repudiate that right, as long as that intention is communicated clearly in the wording of the legislation. Eels fans mask up at the NRL match between Parramatta and Wests Tigers in Sydney on July 23. Credit:Getty Images Essentially, unless you qualify for an exemption, prepare to pay a fine." While those not wearing masks face a $200 fine, readers proposed their own penalties. Loading There was strong support for Gadget's idea: "The fines should be escalating. First offence $200. Repeat offence, $1000. 3rd offence 2 weeks' home detention with a tracker and a recorded criminal conviction. That should get their attention." However some went further. spiz: "Wasting police time, triple it automatically." contrarian: "That woman in the Bunnings video should be arrested on the spot, and her civil rights case tested in court." Bonnie: "I think that the 'no maskers' have surrendered their right for medical care paid for by the community that they refuse to protect. How would they react to a hospital bill that the community refuses to pay because they feel no responsibility to protect their own health or that of others?" Bunnings staff dealing with a customer who refused to wear a mask. Credit:Facebook SteveP: "Ban her from every Bunnings store in Australia." Some readers noted parallels with past community debates, with some resisting seat belts and bicycle helmets when they first became mandatory - until it became clear that they helped save lives. Dekeito: "I'm just old enough to remember when wearing seat belts in cars became mandatory. Lots of people grumbled and complained, whined about their 'rights' claimed there was not enough proof it worked or it was just a revenue-raising exercise by government etc etc. All that died down when it became obvious how effective the strategy was, lives saved, less serious injuries. I suspect the same will happen with masks. Over time, less infections, less deaths, less serious illness. Like wearing seat belts, wearing masks won't eliminate all risk, but it will make a difference." Some worried that highlighting the women's actions would only further encourage them. Kevin 07: "Stop giving them attention and they will soon fade away into irrelevance. Focus on the vast majority of people who are doing the right thing and not the less than 0.1% who are not." However, jjau3 replied: "The majority of the people are doing the right thing, it's this 0.1% that spreads the virus! These people need to be singled out and be condemned seriously." Oregon state troopers arrived Thursday at the downtown Portland federal courthouse, the scene of nightly clashes between federal officers and protesters. State police are now taking over to try to defuse the sometimes violent confrontations. Thursday nights demonstrations remained overwhelmingly calm past midnight, with no troopers in sight. Oregon State Police took on the high-profile assignment to provide security at the courthouse after the Trump administration this month sent more than 100 federal officers to guard the building, leading to larger crowds of thousands protesting their presence and widespread condemnation by city and state officials and members of Congress. Hours before the planned handoff to state police, federal officers filled city streets late Wednesday in the largest visible response yet. Officers set off tear gas, shot impact munitions and detained some people. Many people looked to Thursday as a litmus test to see how state police plan to address crowds who have protested police violence for 64 straight days. State police responded to the widespread calm Thursday by staying inside the courthouse, at least until 1:30 a.m. Friday when about 300 people remained in the area. Thousands of people filled downtown early Thursday evening to witness what might unfold. Jasmine Lea-Miller often attends the nightly protests, sometimes staying as late as 5 a.m. She has seen repeated use of tear gas and force, by both local and federal officers. Lea-Miller questioned the change that Oregon State Police can bring about. Whats the difference, really? Lea-Miller asked. Theyre still not giving the people what they want. Theyre still not bringing these officers to justice. The demonstrations began in late May after the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. Federal officers began policing the protests about a month later. Federal officials have said agents wont leave entirely until they are satisfied the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse is protected. On Thursday afternoon, a handful of state troopers, wearing their standard-issue two-tone blue uniforms and broad hats, milled about behind the federal courthouse fence, chatting with each other and courthouse security workers. They looked at Lownsdale Square across Southwest Third Avenue, the city park that had been cleared early Thursday of campers and debris by Portland police in preparation for the changing of the guard. The park was taped off and empty for most of the day. Neighboring Chapman Square and the surrounding sidewalks also were closed. Police removed the tape Thursday evening just as people prepared for a Black Lives Matter rally at the local Justice Center next to the courthouse. Portland officers who had been walking around the area also left. Reese Monson stood among the first protesters gathered outside the courthouse and in the nearby parks. Monson, who is Black, said he hoped the change in guard at the courthouse will move the focus back to ending police violence against Black people. Even though the feds are not gassing us, because theyre not here, he said, doesnt mean the police wont kill us, and we dont want that. We want to let them know that you cant just kill Black people and get away with it. Dozens of demonstrators gathered for the evening on the waterfront. Eventually, they marched to the Justice Center area. Dr. Karen Mularsky dressed in scrubs to help take medical care of protesters. She said she hopes the state police presence will deescalate the situation, but is still concerned protesters werent involved in the conversation between federal and state officials. The marchers arrived at the Justice Center around 9:15 p.m. The crowd surpassed 2,000 people. Police stayed away. Several people rallied to the crowd. As people spoke, a person walked through the crowd and passed out goggles, helmets and ear protection in preparation for a looming late-night conflict with police outside the federal courthouse. Yet, by 10 p.m., only about 100 people gathered in front of that building. Nearly everybody else remained at the rally led by Ford and young Black community leaders. The whitest city in America has made the biggest movement for Black lives, one speaker said, drawing rounds of applause. Congratulations! The rally ended around 10:15 p.m. Hundreds of people shifted to the courthouse over the next 10 minutes. A few Black people stood outside the fence there and encouraged people not to draw out a police response. Some people countered that direct action brings more attention to the movement. Most of the crowd remained distant from the fence. A few people stood on the concrete barriers next to the fence. One person hit the fence with a skateboard. Some people aimed lights and lasers at the building. A firework exploded across the street. By 10:45 p.m., police had not emerged except much earlier in the day. Maya Malika led the crowd in chants of, Revolution, nothing less! Malika, from Los Angeles, attended the protests as part of National Revolution Tour, a group that travels across the country. Roxanne Crump, 41, of Vancouver, stood among the crowd in a group of veterans standing symbolic guard. Crump said she served eight years in Army. Crump said she got hit by impact munitions shot by federal officers multiple times Wednesday night. Crump said she doesnt believe federal officers are withdrawing. Ill believe it when I see it, Crump said. By 11:15 p.m., the overall mood of the crowd remained relatively subdued, with no officers in site. Many people waited in Lownsdale Square for the night to unfold. Tear gas residue had settled into the dirt and made the air harsh inside the park. Calls for calm continued. Several people used a portable sound system to amplify their messages. A few fireworks popped as they spoke. Around 11:30 p.m., more than 1,000 people remained downtown. A person started to throw some glass bottles over the fence. The speeches paused momentarily but resumed within minutes. An overall sense calm continued past 12 a.m. People calling for peace used bottled water to extinguish a small fire near the fence set by protesters. A few fireworks exploded in the area. The crowd chanted, Feds go home! By 12:15 a.m., many people started to leave, although several hundred people remained. The crowd soon started to dwindle as speeches and periodic Black lives matter chants continued. Most people who had been standing on the concrete barriers next to the fence sat down, and turned to the crowd. By 1 a.m., the tension remained low, and officers were nowhere in sight. About 500 people remained in the area, with most gathered near the courthouse amid a dance-party type atmosphere. The lack of confrontation was a contrast to recent nights, when federal officials often have released sporadic tear gas and issued repeated warnings in response to fireworks, lights and thrown objects. 8 Oregon State Police at federal courthouse Aggressive crowd-control tactics by federal officers in recent weeks have prompted a cluster lawsuits objecting to serious injuries they have caused and questioning the authority of the officers to move far off federal property to push people back and make arrests. The Trump administration said it sent the extra federal officers to protect the courthouse from an element of protesters determined to do violence. President Donald Trump on Thursday called them professional agitators and professional anarchists and repeated was his acting Homeland Security secretary said the day before that the out-of-town federal agents will leave only if the new approach is successful. Note: This story has been updated to correct the identity of a rally speaker. Kent Ford did not speak at the event. Mark Graves, Beth Nakamura, Eder Campuzano, Andrew Theen and Sean Meagher of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report. -- Celina Tebor; ctebor@oregonian.com -- Maxine Bernstein; mbernstein@oregonian.com -- Molly Harbarger; mharbarger@oregonian.com -- Noelle Crombie; ncrombie@oregonian.com; 503-276-7184; @noellecrombie Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. FILER TWP. Work has begun at Magoon Creek Park that will make it a more accessible place for people of all ages, needs and abilities. Starting this week, portions of the park will be closed to the public as construction begins on several handicap-accessibility improvements. The upper parking and pavilion areas at Magoon Creek are expected to be unavailable until roughly July 3, according to Filer Township officials. Hiking trails, beach access areas and other parking locations will remain available for public use. Tridonn Construction Company of Muskegon was awarded the low-bid contract for $166,800 to renovate the pavilion area and adjacent parking lot for greater handicap accessibility. Wheelchair friendly surfaces are planned for these areas and construction on a new concrete retaining wall will begin mid-June. The plan also calls for more handicap accessible amenities, including new bench and trash receptacles, a picnic table and interpretative signage. Spicer Group provided survey and project management services and Schultz Excavation of Ludington was subcontracted for the excavation work. The project is one of several that are part of the Explore Our Shores initiative, which seeks to create universally accessible access to Lake Michigans many fishing piers, cleaning stations, childrens play areas, fishing platforms, scenic overlooks and more. Since 2008, over $2 million in grants and charitable contributions have been secured from multiple sources to develop Explore the Shores sites in the county. Funding partners have included private foundations, the Great Lakes Fishery Trust, grants through the Department of Natural Resources and others. All projects must be locally supported and maintained. In 2017, Filer Township officials received $96,100 through a Michigan Natural Resources (DNR) trust fund grant. Filer Township is also required to match the trust fund grant in the amount of 26%, or roughly $25,000. Filer Township supervisor Terry Walker said the project had been delayed due to a number of setbacks, including the coronavirus pandemic. We finally got through all the red tape and got final approval for the project to go ahead, he said. The final hurdle may be one of funding. Project expenses have risen since the grant request was first approved and now exceed the funding by approximately $33,000, Walker said. We have received some gracious donations from local industries, businesses and individuals to put toward that amount, Walker said. Spicer Group is doing all of the coordination with the DNR, the construction companies involved, the design and engineering of the project and also providing assistance with the grant procurement. Though work is expected to wrap up by July 3, the project schedule is subject to change due to potential complications arising from the pandemic. Chinese armed forces rush to flood control after fight against epidemic:Spokesperson PLA Daily Source: China Military Online Editor: Chen Zhuo 2020-07-30 18:46:15 BEIJING, July 30 -- PLA and armed police troops with a total of 725,000 person-time have participated in battling floods in southern China as of July 28 since the flood season this year, said Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense (MND) at a regular press conference in Beijing on July 30. "The whole military puts the safety of the people's lives and property in the first place, moves quickly and goes all out to carry out rescue and disaster relief work," said Ren Guoqiang, while introducing the general situation of the Chinese military's participation in the flood control and disaster relief. According to Ren, as of July 28, the Chinese military has sent 725,000 troops, 228,500 militiamen, 7,749 boats, and 54,116 construction machinery and vehicles in total to participate in 3,749 rescue operations. The military has assisted in the transfer of 137,000 people and over 4,560 tons of materials from the disaster-stricken areas. There are over 11.8 million sandbags filled, 3,800 piping leaks blocked, 900 kilometers of embankments reinforced, and 224 kilometers of roads restored. Ren added that currently, China's flood control situation is still severe. Many troops are still fighting in hard-hit provinces such as Fujian, Jiangxi, Jiangsu and Anhui, racing against time to save the people and the property. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pottsville, PA (17901) Today Snow showers this morning. Peeks of sunshine later. Some sleet may mix in. Morning high of 37F with temps falling to near 20. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 80%.. Tonight Some clouds. Low 11F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Share-worthy stories from Long Island Patch sites to talk about tonight: LI Pizzeria Receives Shoutout From Donald Trump "Great Pizza!!!" Trump tweeted. The pizzeria faced controversy after hanging a flag in support of the president Woman Dies After Being Found Unresponsive In Suffolk Lake Homicide squad detectives are investigating. Affordable Housing Lottery Snafu Leads To Despair, Anger An affordable housing lottery left out some applicants; winners bewildered. One woman chosen prays for second chance to give kids a bedroom. Drunken Woman Rescued From Burning Car By 2 Good Samaritans: PD The woman was charged with DWI after she crashed into a utility pole, causing her car to catch fire, police said. Popular Mystery Edible Tour Returns To LI The event has returned with some changes due to the coronavirus. Also Worth A Look Patch PM shares some of the day's must-read items from our Long Island network. The Patch community platform serves more 50 towns and neighborhoods on the island. Learn how to post your own announcements and events on Patch. This article originally appeared on the Smithtown Patch (Natural News) Some of the richest people in the world believe that societies are overpopulated. These very influential people are interested in strategies to control the population and curb family growth. Their wealth shouldnt make them the ultimate arbitrator over human life, but they have plans for you and your family regardless. While their plans sound so lovely for the environment, a declining population will cause an inverted age structure that could pose tremendous burdens to the working class and cause great suffering to the elderly. Bill Gates admitted in a 2010 Ted Talk that vaccines and other healthcare measures are used to reduce the world population. He believes population growth is a problem that can be stopped if we do a great job on new vaccines. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is heavily invested in vaccine projects around the world through his flagship organization GAVI, which partners with pharmaceutical companies and foreign governments to deliver vaccinations to children in poor countries. Fertility rates falling in 23 nations A new report published in the Lancet finds that fertility rates are falling drastically around the world, specifically in twenty-three nations. In 1950, women gave birth to an average of 4.7 children. In 2017 the fertility rate was half that (2.4). The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington projects the fertility rate will fall to 1.7 by 2100. If the number falls below 2.1, then the population will begin to steadily decline, especially in countries like the U.S., which has an abysmal childhood mortality rate. Researchers say that the population decline will have a jaw-dropping impact on societies. I think its incredibly hard to think this through and recognize how big a thing this is, said researcher Prof Christopher Murray. Its extraordinary, well have to reorganize societies. Over the next century, Bill Gates and other population control fanatics may get their wish. Japan, accounting for 128 million people in 2017, could see its population cut to 53 million by the end of the century. The decline will hit Italy hard, crashing its current population of 61 million to just 28 million by the year 2100. Chinas 1.4 billion people are projected to become a nation of 732 million by the end of the century. Other countries that could see their population halve include Thailand, Portugal, Spain, and South Korea. The only nation that is expected to grow exponentially is Africa. The population in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to triple to three billion people by the end of the century. This is why Bill Gates is so adamant about testing new vaccines in Africa. Instead of supporting human life with clean water and nutrition, the Gates Foundation seeks to test out experimental vaccines there. Infertility is a public health crisis As quality of life standards increase, more families are choosing to delay childbirth. Widespread use of contraceptives and ease of access to abortion have played an enormous role in population decline. The economic and socioeconomic environment play a huge part as well. As more women enter the workforce and pursue a college degree, they choose to forgo being a mother at a young age. Infertility has also played a significant role in population decline. Infertility is brought on through poor nutrition, endocrine disruption, and the de-oxygenation and deprivation of the cellular environment, which is induced by food chemicals, heavy metals, toxic vaccine ingredients, agricultural chemicals, water pollutants and the leeching of nutrients from the body. The issue of depopulation will become a worldwide problem because it will cause an inverted age structure. The number of children under five is projected to fall to 401 million by 2100, as the number of 80-year-olds soars to 866 million. This will make it nearly impossible for people to retire, as more funds will be needed from a dwindling working class to hold up the elderly population. Moreover, there is not a sustainable income redistribution structure to pay for the healthcare of the elderly or the vaccine injured, as the number of youthful workers fall. There wont even be enough young people to look after the elderly if these trends continue. This could have drastic social consequences that cause unique suffering in all age groups. Sources include: TheLancet.com Ted.com BBC.com NaturalNews.com NaturalNews.com NaturalNews.com Sources include: TheLancet.com BBC.com After Leonid Kuchma resigned from the Tripartite Contact Group, Leonid Kravchuk was the only candidate to replace him with an "equal status". At the same time, he was only equal to his predecessor not to the Russian envoy. But haven't we already got used to inequality? We also have the Yermak-Kozak group (whose future is now at limbo) where the two officials have different "official" statuses. Let's look closer at the issue. Ukraine's first president entering the negotiation process has a number of advantages as well as shortcomings. I'll start with the good news. Despite the existing issues with the personnel policy in the Ukrainian government, they had enough wisdom not to appoint a senior incumbent official. This would automatically increase the binding nature of decisions passed in the TCG format. Besides, Ukraine has already raised the level of representation in the TCG to such an extent that there's not much room left we already have ministers, and deputy ministers, and chairmen of Rada committees on board. But Moscow isn't offering any giveaways. They are not interested in bringing the war to a halt the only thing they care about is moving the negotiations to the Ukraine-"LPR/DPR" format A few months ago, the government made a not too wise of a decision, having raised the level of our representation to the level of Cabinet officials. That was presumably done in the hope that Russia would take a mirror step. But Moscow isn't offering any giveaways. They are not interested in bringing the war to a halt the only thing they care about is moving the negotiations to the Ukraine-"LPR/DPR" format. After all, who else attends the TCG talks boasting of ministerial posts (albeit self-styled)? That's right, the so-called "foreign ministers" of the self-proclaimed "republics". So who are we negotiating with here? Russian envoy, ex-head of the State Duma Borys Gryzlov, should be fully satisfied with the appointment of Ukraine's ex-president of Ukraine to the helm of Ukraine's delegation to the TCG. Gryzlov might often skip TCG meetings only to release statements with some dubious suggestions or Russia's traditional narratives. But it's better to have him represent Russia than some, relatively speaking, postgrad student whom the Kremlin could well have sent to replace him. Now, the downside to the "new face" in the TCG is specifically about Kravchuk's political image. First of all, he's always been a conformist, keen to adapt to any political change throughout his long career. Therefore, any independence or resistance to what he'll be told in the President's Office can hardly be expected. I doubt that Kuchma had much space for maneuver either, while he did have an opportunity to make use of the new administration's lack of experience. Secondly, Kravchuk is just a bit too eager to be jump onto this train. Publicity has long become his major addiction. That is, he won't be slamming doors and walking off if he doesn't like something in the policies pursued by government. The third negative point is his ties with Vladimir Putin's crony Viktor Medvedchuk. This is the case where the public would always be looking for some treasonous undertones in any decisions made by our delegation to the TCG and its head Kravchuk. And when people look for anything definite, they often find at least something to fit their assumptions or think they did. And it doesn't matter whether the two politicians are even in contact nowadays. It's the "trail" effect that does. In practice though, Kravchuk will have little to no influence in settlement talks. He's purely a front face. Therefore the conclusion is simple, Kravchuk at the post in Ukraine's delegation to the TCG completely satisfies the Russian party and Ukrainian President's Office. At the same time, the Ukrainian public is far from okay with it. Therefore, no matter the decisions further made in Minsk, their legitimacy will a priori be questioned here in Ukraine. Bohdan Petrenko is a Deputy Chief of Ukrainian Institute for Extremism Research Former President Jerry John Rawlings and his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings have called on all Muslims to offer prayers for the healing of Ghana as they mark their festival of sacrifice. ''Let us use the day to pray for our dear nation as we work to combat the deadly pandemic that has plagued the world. Let us also take advantage of the period to counsel friends and family on the need to adhere to strict Covid-19 protocols of social distancing, wearing of masks, regular washing of hands and use of hand sanitizers. We should also be a blessing on the less-privileged by sharing our celebratory meals with them. We wish all Muslims a solemn celebration'', they urged the Muslims in a statement copied to Peacefmonline.com. The former first family wished them Eid-ul-Adha. Read full statement below: RAWLINGS, NANA KONADUS MESSAGE OF GOODWILL TO MUSLIMS Nana and I join all Muslims as they mark the Eid-ul-Adha the festival of sacrifice, today. Eid-ul-Adha is meant to remind us of the willingness of Ibrahim to submit to God. That test of faith is worthy of emulation by all especially during this difficult period of Covid-19. Let us use the day to pray for our dear nation as we work to combat the deadly pandemic that has plagued the world. Let us also take advantage of the period to counsel friends and family on the need to adhere to strict Covid-19 protocols of social distancing, wearing of masks, regular washing of hands and use of hand sanitizers. We should also be a blessing on the less-privileged by sharing our celebratory meals with them. We wish all Muslims a solemn celebration. Eid Mubarak! Happy Eid! Issued By: Kobina Andoh Amoakwa (Communications Directorate) Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. Amsterdam, 31 July 2020 Key points Q2 2020 Revenue decrease ongoing business limited to 8% (yoy) to EUR 223 million Restructurings in DACH region and Americas to align to lower activity level and prepare for end date government relief in Germany Good performance in the Netherlands with strict bench and cost management Cost savings (14%) exceeding gross profit decline (-12%), annualised savings of EUR 30 million EBIT amounted to EUR 0.8 million (Q2 2019: EUR -0.5 million) Key points H1 2020 Revenue decrease ongoing business 1% (yoy) to EUR 480 million EBIT amounted to EUR 9 million Strong free cash flow of EUR 22 million, cash position at EUR 111.5 million Jilko Andringa, CEO of Brunel International N.V.: "During these tough times, which have significantly impacted our society, Brunel has shown to be very resilient. The impact of COVID-19 on our business in the quarter was less than initially expected. Our main priority was and remains the health and safety of our people, and I am proud to see that our employees and specialists continue to work diligently to serve our clients to the best of their ability, at our clients, from our offices where possible, or remote. In Q2, we continued to see project delays, reductions and cancellations due to the pandemic. The DACH region has seen the biggest impact and reports a loss in the quarter, which is also the result of seasonality and the first impact of a restructuring. The Netherlands is flattening out and shows improved profitability versus last year, through bench and cost management. Being active in a cyclical business, Brunel has great cost agility and can adjust costs levels where needed and we are prepared to organise ourselves as agile as needed in the coming quarters. At the same time, we continue to execute our diversification strategy, and our sales teams continue to find new specialised client solutions that will help grow our business and increase our margins in the foreseeable future. The current circumstances bring even more internal awareness for the need to diversify and to become more specialised. With the duration of the pandemic unknown, Brunel will continue to support its employees, specialists, clients and other stakeholders where possible, while maintaining a healthy financial basis and ensuring continued profitability and future returns to our shareholders. The second half of this year will be tough, but with the many great Brunellers around the world, we are ready to show our unique combined strength, short, medium and long term." Brunel International (unaudited) P&L amounts in EUR million Q2 2020 Q2 2019 ?% H1 2020 H1 2019 ?% Revenue 223.4 258.1 -13% a 481.3 524.2 -8% b Gross Profit 41.6 47.0 -12% 96.0 106.1 -10% Gross margin 18.6% 18.2% 19.9% 20.2% Operating costs 40.8 47.5 -14% c 87.2 94.5 -8% d EBIT 0.8 -0.5 259% 8.8 11.6 -24% EBIT % 0.3% -0.2% 1.8% 2.2% Average directs 10,345 12,607 -18% 10,896 12,797 -15% Average indirects 1,480 1,650 -10% 1,524 1,630 -7% Ratio direct / Indirect 7.0 7.6 7.2 7.9 a -13 % at constant currencies b -8 % at constant currencies c -14 % at constant currencies d -8 % at constant currencies The COVID-19 outbreak and the sharp decline in oil price had an impact on the financial results in all our regions in Q2. Especially in April, when countries' lockdown measures were at the peak, we noted a strong decrease in activities at our clients, leading to a decrease in revenue in most regions. The revenue decline started to ease in May and June. The Group's Q2 revenue excluding BIS decreased by 8%, mainly due to the decrease in the DACH region. The Middle East & India and Rest of the World regions showed growth year-on-year in Q2. For H1, we see revenue growth in the regions Australasia, Middle East & India, Rest of the World and the Americas. We have taken various cost saving measures in most of our regions, to make sure we organise ourselves as flexible as we can, while in the regions in which we continue to experience revenue growth, we retain the capacity to grasp new opportunities. In the DACH region and the Americas, where we expect the revenue decline to continue, we have executed our restructuring plans to adjust our organisations. As a result of the cost saving initiatives that are already executed, the Group's operating costs in Q4 will be 15% lower compared to Q1, annualised a cost saving of EUR 30 million. The Q2 EBIT for the Group was higher than last year. Excluding BIS the EBIT decreased by EUR 4.7 million (-83%), mainly due to the decrease in the DACH region of EUR 4.9 million. In absolute amounts, the other regions achieved small decreases or slight growth in EBIT compared to Q2 2019. H1 2020 results by division P&L amounts in EUR million Summary: Revenue Q2 2020 Q2 2019 ?% H1 2020 H1 2019 ?% DACH region 52.8 69.6 -24% 122.4 143.2 -15% The Netherlands 46.4 51.9 -11% 97.2 106.3 -9% Australasia 28.4 28.6 -1% 58.4 57.3 2% Middle East & India 30.0 28.6 5% 63.7 55.6 15% Americas 23.0 25.8 -11% 51.6 48.1 7% Rest of world 42.8 39.4 9% 87.2 76.2 14% Subtotal 223.3 243.8 -8% 480.4 486.7 -1% BIS 0.1 14.2 -100% 0.9 37.6 -98% Total 223.4 258.1 -13% 481.3 524.2 -8% EBIT Q2 2020 Q2 2019 ?% H1 2020 H1 2019 ?% DACH region -0.6 4.3 -115% 3.4 12.8 -73% The Netherlands 1.7 1.6 7% 4.9 4.4 11% Australasia -0.3 -0.4 34% -0.3 -1.0 69% Middle East & India 1.9 2.3 -18% 5.1 5.2 -1% Americas -0.7 0.0 -1.4 0.3 Rest of world 0.8 -0.3 1.9 -0.6 Unallocated -1.8 -1.8 -2% -4.4 -4.2 -4% Subtotal 1.0 5.7 -83% 9.2 16.9 -46% BIS -0.2 -6.2 97% -0.3 -5.3 93% Total 0.8 -0.5 259% 8.8 11.6 -24% DACH region (unaudited) P&L amounts in EUR million Q2 2020 Q2 2019 ?% H1 2020 H1 2019 ?% Revenue 52.8 69.6 -24% 122.4 143.2 -15% Gross Profit 14.3 20.6 -31% 35.6 45.4 -21% Gross margin 27.1% 29.6% 29.1% 31.7% Operating costs 14.9 16.3 -9% 32.2 32.6 -1% EBIT -0.6 4.3 -115% 3.4 12.8 -73% EBIT % -1.2% 6.2% 2.8% 9.0% Average directs 2,032 2,725 -25% 2,290 2,712 -16% Average indirects 481 516 -7% 496 509 -3% Ratio direct / Indirect 4.2 5.3 4.6 5.3 Revenue As anticipated, revenue and gross margin decreased due to the lower headcount and lower productivity for all components within the DACH region. Short-time working (Kurzarbeit) is still in place for 500 professionals. The short-time working option can be used per office until 31 December 2020, but is conditional on meeting certain requirements. With the expected development in the remainder of the year, we are planning to decrease the usage of this facility, which will likely result in a higher than normal bench for H2 2020. Headcount as of 30 June 2020 was 2,064. Working days Germany: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 FY 2020 64 59 66 65 254 2019 63 59 66 62 250 Gross profit Cost of sales includes savings of EUR 6 million relating to the use of the short-time working relief plan. Adjusted for working days, H1 gross profit decreased by 24%. The gross margin adjusted for working days in H1 is 28.6% (2019: 31.7%). Operating costs Operating costs include savings of EUR 1 million relating to the use of the short-time working relief plan, as well as EUR 0.8 million of restructuring cost. Overall, operating costs in Q2 decreased by 9%. H1 operating costs decreased by 1%. We have executed a restructuring to offset the expected further decline in revenue, and to plan for the expected end date of the relief plan, leading to further cost savings. Brunel Netherlands (unaudited) P&L amounts in EUR million Q2 2020 Q2 2019 ?% H1 2020 H1 2019 ?% Revenue 46.4 51.9 -11% 97.2 106.3 -9% Gross Profit 11.5 13.2 -13% 25.6 28.3 -10% Gross margin 24.7% 25.4% 26.3% 26.6% Operating costs 9.8 11.6 -16% 20.7 23.9 -13% EBIT 1.7 1.6 7% 4.9 4.4 11% EBIT % 3.6% 3.0% 5.0% 4.1% Average directs 1,899 2,284 -17% 1,957 2,330 -16% Average indirects 343 417 -18% 355 423 -16% Ratio direct / Indirect 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 Revenue Q2 revenue per working day in the Netherlands decreased by 8.3%, with the decrease in headcount partly offset by higher rates. Although many projects continued unchanged (with people working from home), there was a decrease in the number of new projects. We applied for the Dutch government relief plan (NOW-regeling), and received advance payments. At the time of the application, the application was submitted as a precaution as we could not make an exact assessment of the impact. With the impact currently less than anticipated, the application has been withdrawn and the advances have been repaid. Headcount as of 30 June 2020 was 1,871. Working days per Q 2020 / 2019: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 FY 2020 64 60 66 65 255 2019 63 62 66 64 255 Gross Profit Q2 2020 had 2 less working days compared to 2019. The gross margin adjusted for working days in Q2 is 26.6% (2019: 25.4%). The gross margin adjusted for working days increased by 1.2 ppt. H1 2020 had 1 less working day compared to 2019. The gross margin adjusted for working days increased by 0.2 ppt. mainly due to higher rates and slightly higher productivity. Operating costs In Q2 the operating costs decreased by EUR 1.8 million, following cost saving initiatives and a reduction of indirect headcount. Australasia (unaudited) P&L amounts in EUR million Q2 2020 Q2 2019 ?% H1 2020 H1 2019 ?% Revenue 28.4 28.6 -1% a 58.4 57.3 2% b Gross Profit 2.2 2.4 -6% 4.8 4.7 1% Gross margin 7.8% 8.3% 8.2% 8.2% Operating costs 2.5 2.8 -11% c 5.1 5.7 -11% d EBIT -0.3 -0.4 34% -0.3 -1.0 69% EBIT % -0.9% -1.4% -0.5% -1.7% Average directs 1,040 908 15% 1,049 908 16% Average indirects 83 85 -2% 82 85 -3% Ratio direct / Indirect 12.5 10.7 12.7 10.7 a 1 % at constant currencies b 6 % at constant currencies c -8 % at constant currencies d -7 % at constant currencies Revenue Australasia, which includes Australia and Papua New Guinea, managed to keep revenue stable compared to a year earlier. The region continues to see opportunities, although it currently experiences some impact of travel restrictions and cost saving initiatives at clients. Gross Profit The decreased gross margin is mainly the result of an adverse development in the exchange rate for the activities in Papua New Guinea (impact -0.4 ppt.). Operating costs In Q2, the operating costs decreased by 11%, mainly as a result of several cost saving initiatives. Middle East & India (unaudited) P&L amounts in EUR million Q2 2020 Q2 2019 ?% H1 2020 H1 2019 ?% Revenue 30.0 28.6 5% a 63.7 55.6 15% b Gross Profit 4.5 5.2 -13% 10.4 10.0 4% Gross margin 15.0% 18.0% 16.3% 17.9% Operating costs 2.6 2.9 -10% c 5.3 4.8 10% d EBIT 1.9 2.3 -18% 5.1 5.2 -1% EBIT % 6.3% 8.0% 8.0% 9.3% Average directs 2,506 3,697 -32% 2,608 3,815 -32% Average indirects 141 137 3% 144 133 8% Ratio direct / Indirect 17.8 27.0 18.2 28.6 a 4 % at constant currencies b 13 % at constant currencies c -9 % at constant currencies d 9 % at constant currencies Revenue In Q2 2020, the region continued to deliver a strong performance and attained 5% higher revenue compared to Q2 2019. Qatar is the main contributor to the increase, partially offset by lower revenue in other countries of the region. The activities in the Middle East are heavily dependent on our ability to mobilise specialists to the Middle East. We do have a healthy pipeline of projects, however the starting moment of these projects is uncertain due to the current travel restrictions. Gross Profit The gross margin has reduced following a reduction in our services due to the challenging environment. We have also seen some margin pressure and a change in the mix of clients. Operating costs Operating costs decreased by 10% as a result of various cost saving measures. Americas (unaudited) P&L amounts in EUR million Q2 2020 Q2 2019 ?% H1 2020 H1 2019 ?% Revenue 23.0 25.8 -11% a 51.6 48.1 7% b Gross Profit 2.5 3.0 -18% 5.7 5.9 -3% Gross margin 10.7% 11.6% 11.0% 12.2% Operating costs 3.2 3.0 7% c 7.1 5.6 27% d EBIT -0.7 0.0 -1.4 0.3 EBIT % -3.0% 0.1% -2.8% 0.7% Average directs 747 856 -13% 812 827 -2% Average indirects 102 130 -21% 112 127 -12% Ratio direct / Indirect 7.3 6.6 7.3 6.5 a -7 % at constant currencies b 9 % at constant currencies c 10 % at constant currencies d 30 % at constant currencies Revenue While we still saw growth in Q1, revenue has decreased over Q2, mainly caused by a high number of projects that have been stopped or paused in the US. Canada, Brazil and Mexico still managed to achieve growth. Gross Profit The gross margin and gross profit are impacted by a lower recruitment revenue. Adjusted for the impact of the lower recruitment revenue, the gross margin is at the same level as in Q2 2019. Operating costs We reduced our cost level and aligned the organisation with the expected lower business volume. This already resulted in a cost decrease of 20% when compared to Q1 2020, and we expect to see the full impact of these measures in Q3 of this year. Rest of world (unaudited) P&L amounts in EUR million Q2 2020 Q2 2019 ?% H1 2020 H1 2019 ?% Revenue 42.8 39.4 9% a 87.2 76.2 14% b Gross Profit 6.7 6.1 10% 14.0 11.7 19% Gross margin 15.6% 15.5% 16.0% 15.4% Operating costs 5.9 6.4 -8% c 12.1 12.3 -2% d EBIT 0.8 -0.3 1.9 -0.6 EBIT % 2.0% -0.6% 2.2% -0.8% Average directs 2,105 1,837 15% 2,150 1,818 18% Average indirects 264 290 -9% 270 283 -5% Ratio direct / Indirect 8.0 6.3 8.0 6.4 a 9 % at constant currencies b 14 % at constant currencies c -7 % at constant currencies d -2 % at constant currencies Revenue Rest of World includes Russia & Caspian, Belgium and Asia. Total revenue in the region increased, mainly driven by growth in China, while Russia and Belgium saw declines in revenue over the quarter. Gross Profit The gross margin in the region in Q2 was in line with Q2 2019. Operating costs The operating costs in the rest of world decreased mainly as a result of government relief plans in Asia and cost saving initiatives. Asia is the main contributor to the higher EBIT. Closure of Brunel Industry Services Early July, we finalised our work on the only remaining project of Brunel Industry Services in the US, which we decided to terminate in October 2019. During the quarter, we have been able to collect most receivables and terminated the remaining leases, and we will continue to employ a small group of people in Q3 to deal with the final financial settlement, mainly the collection of the agreed amounts. Effective tax rate The effective tax rate in the first half year of 2020 was 56.4% (2019 at 52.0%). We expect the effective tax rate for the full year to come down to around 50%. Risk profile Our company's risk profile as presented in our 2019 Annual Report (pages 52 - 73) is impacted by the COVID-19 crisis in different ways. The crisis brings increased uncertainty in areas such as: workplace health & safety, changing regulatory and economical environment, contract liability & delivery, credit risk, information technology and cyber security and tax and labor law compliance. We have implemented processes and procedures to deal with these increased uncertainties to the extent possible under the current circumstances. For example: our health & safety procedures for all our staff, credit management, and information security measures, are re-evaluated based on emerging risks from this pandemic and are continuously being upgraded where needed. These evaluations and adjustments are part of our continuous monitoring processes and operational flexibility, which include international exchange of protocols and good practices between our operating companies in all mentioned areas. The crisis has also brought opportunities for acceleration of our digital transformation, where for example clients have been working with us over the past months to further digitalise exchange of data to improve efficiency in their and our processes. We continue to closely monitor the key risks and opportunities, and will respond appropriately to any emerging risk. We have a wide geographical coverage, which spreads our exposure across mature and emerging markets, which are experiencing different economic conditions. Since it remains difficult to predict future economic developments, we focus on responding to actual performance in each of our local markets. Our business model, processes and weekly indicators help to ensure that we are flexible enough to respond to these economic conditions. Cash position Brunel was able to attain a strong free cash flow of EUR 22 million over Q2. This results in an increased cash position of EUR 111.5 million (EUR 96.8 million non-restricted). Outlook for 2020 We expect the impact of COVID-19 on our society and the global economy to continue. In the DACH region, we do not see signs of a recovery yet and we expect productivity to be under pressure due to the reduction of the use of short-time working towards the end of the year. In the Netherlands, headcount is stabilising. The second half of the year might see some lower productivity because of postponed vacations of our specialists. Activities in Australasia are expected to remain pretty stable, with the results supported by further cost savings. The restructuring positions the Americas well to recover quickly once the COVID-19 situation eases. In the Middle East & India and in the Rest of the World we have secured new projects through our improved sales activities, but the start of these are dependent on an ease in flight and travel restrictions. If we are not able to mobilise our specialists, we might experience a small decrease due to projects that are finalising. Overall, we expect slightly lower revenue in Q3 (compared to Q2), but at a higher profitability, due to the cost measures taken, as well as due to seasonality. Statement of the Board of Directors The Board of Directors of Brunel International N.V. hereby declares that, to the best of its knowledge: the interim financial statements give a true and fair view of the assets, liabilities, financial position and result of Brunel International N.V. and the companies jointly included in the consolidation, and the interim report gives a true and fair view of the information referred to in the eighth and, insofar as applicable, the ninth subsection of Section 5:25d of the Dutch Act on Financial Supervision and with reference to the section on related parties in the interim financial statements. Amsterdam, 31 July 2020 Brunel International N.V. Jilko Andringa (CEO) Peter de Laat (CFO) Graeme Maude (COO) Attachments Two Pennsylvania police officers rushed into a burning barn and rescued a traumatized horse that was in danger of being engulfed by the raging blaze. The incident, which was filmed by police body camera, took place on July 23 in the Hilltown Township section of Bucks County, which is about 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Officers Matthew Reiss and Kristian Hanus were called to a barn in the 1500 block of Hilltown Pike that caught fire. Body cam footage shows the officers approach the burning barn as thick smoke comes out of it. The incident, which was filmed by police body camera, took place on July 23 in the Hilltown Township section of Bucks County, which is about 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia Police body cam footage shows the property in the 1500 block of Hilltown Pike that caught fire Inside the burning barn was a horse that was too traumatized to move. The horse is seen on the right Officers Matthew Reiss and Kristian Hanus retrieved a rope and tied it around the horse The officers were told by a farm worker that a horse was trapped inside. Footage shows the frightened animal shell-shocked in its pen and unwilling to come out. So the officers grabbed a rope and tied it around the horse. With the farm workers help, they managed to pull the animal to safety before it galloped off into a nearby field. According to Hilltown Police, the local fire department arrived a short time later with help from firefighters from nearby Montgomery County. The officers summoned a great deal of force and pulled on the rope, but the horse would not move It took the two officers and a farm employee to eventually nudge the horse out of the barn Finally, the horse galloped away to safety thanks to the heroism of the responding officers Eight people were treated for injuries at the scene before four of them were rushed to local hospitals. Both officers also suffered minor injuries. The Bucks County Fire Marshals Office and the Hilltown Police are investigating the cause of the fire. The Chinese Consulate in Houston was a den of spies, US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo said on Thursday (local time) amid the downward spiral in US-China ties. Pompeo, while addressing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated that we closed Houston consulate because it was a den of spies. The US had recently ordered China to close its Consulate General in Houston. In retaliation, China ordered US to close its diplomatic facility in Chengdu. 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. 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. Terming Chinas ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as central threat of our times, Pompeo said: Our vigorous diplomacy has helped lead an international awakening to the threat of the CCP. Senators, the tide is turning. Also read: Pompeo cites LAC tension, says tide turning on China The US Secretary of State also talked of Chinas move to impose draconian national security law in Hong Kong, which is said to be aimed at crushing dissent in the erstwhile British colony which saw massive protests last year. In our hemisphere, Canada has stood firm against the Chinese Communist Partys hostage-taking. Its three major telecom carriers have also banned untrusted vendors, he said. Belize and Haiti have denounced Beijings national security law targeting Hong Kong. Denmark has rejected the CCPs attempted censorship of Danish newspapers. Sweden has closed its Confucius Institutes. Lithuanian intelligence services have identified China as a political - a potential threat for the first time, he added. Further, the US Secretary of State also noted that in the Indo-Pacific, Australia declared Chinas South China Sea claims unlawful and illegitimate, as have we. Sony confirmed it's hosting an audio-related launch event on August 6 where and it's highly likely well see the debut of its WH-1000XM4 headphones. The keynote is scheduled to kick off at 3 PM UTC and Sony is boasting a #ListenWithSony slogan which confirms the product (or products) will be audio-oriented. Save the date 8.6.2020 Join Sony Electronics Live Stream event to watch the unveiling of our latest innovation. #ListenWithSony https://t.co/gLe9EF1hUC pic.twitter.com/9I6Q3DJiEg Sony Electronics (@SonyElectronics) July 30, 2020 Back in June, we saw a listing for the XM4 headphones, which revealed they will feature minor updates to the already excellent WH-1000XM3s. The new additions will include AI real-time upscaling of compressed music files. The headphones were also spotted in Brazilian listing which revealed their design is visually indistinguishable to their predecessors. Photos and the manual of the Sony WH-1000XM4, the successor to Sony's excellent XM3 Bluetooth wireless headphones, just went up on Brazil's Anatel (equivalent to the FCC). h/t @evefavretto pic.twitter.com/sjXb4XaCN9 Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) March 6, 2020 In addition, we got confirmation the XM4s will retain the 40mm Liquid Crystal Polymer (LCP) drivers, class-leading Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and 30-hour battery life. Pricing is expected to remain at $348. Skoltech scientists have shown that quantum enhanced machine learning can be used on quantum (as opposed to classical) data, overcoming a significant slowdown common to these applications and opening a "fertile ground to develop computational insights into quantum systems". The paper was published in the journal Physical Review A. Quantum computers utilize quantum mechanical effects to store and manipulate information. While quantum effects are often claimed to be counterintuitive, such effects will enable quantum enhanced calculations to dramatically outperform the best supercomputers. In 2019, the world saw a prototype of this demonstrated by Google as quantum computational superiority. Quantum algorithms have been developed to enhance a range of different computational tasks; more recently this has grown to include quantum enhanced machine learning. Quantum machine learning was partly pioneered by Skoltech's resident-based Laboratory for Quantum Information Processing, led by Jacob Biamonte, a coathor of this paper. "Machine learning techniques have become powerful tools for finding patterns in data. Quantum systems produce atypical patterns that classical systems are thought not to produce efficiently, so it is not surprising that quantum computers might outperform classical computers on machine learning tasks," he says. The standard approach to quantum enhanced machine learning has been to apply quantum algorithms to classical data. In other words, classical data (represented by bit strings of 1's and 0's) must be stored or otherwise represented by a quantum processor before quantum effects can be utilized. This is called the data-readin problem. Data-readin serves to limit the speedup that is possible using quantum enhanced machine learning algorithms. A team of Skoltech researchers has merged quantum enhanced machine learning with quantum enhanced simulation, applying their approach to study phase transitions in many-body quantum magnetic problems. In doing so, they train quantum neural networks using only quantum states as data. In other words, the authors circumvent the data-readin problem by feeding in quantum mechanical states of matter. Such states appear to generally require an impossible amount of memory to represent using standard (non-quantum) approaches. The lead author of the study, Skoltech doctoral student Alexey Uvarov describes the study as "a step towards understanding the power of quantum devices for machine learning." Researchers merged an assortment of techniques, which included applying some ideas from tensor networks and entanglement theory in the analysis of their approach. The work uses a subroutine known as the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) -- an algorithm that iteratively finds an approximation to the ground state of a given quantum Hamiltonian. The output of this subroutine is a set of instructions to prepare a quantum state on a quantum computer. Writing the state down explicitly, though, typically requires an exponential amount of memory, hence the properties of such a state are best examined by preparing it in hardware. The learning algorithm in the paper deals with the following problem: given a VQE state solving the ground state problem for a quantum spin model, find out which of the two phases of matter that state belongs to. "While we have focused our approaches on problems from condensed matter physics, such quantum enhanced algorithms equally apply to challenges faced in materials science and drug discovery," Biamonte notes. ### The research was supported by a grant from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. The work is also available freely as an arXiv preprint. Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, on Thursday, visited Pune and reviewed the Covid-19 situation, with public representatives expressing their dis-satisfaction about the handling of the pandemic in the city. During the meeting with the representatives and officials, Thackeray instructed the administration to keep bed information updated and to work to bring down the Covid-19 case rate, along with the case fatality rate in Pune. The city, as of Wednesday recorded 55,035 progressive positive cases and 1,358 Covid-related deaths. This was Thackerays first visit to the city after becoming chief minister and many hoped that he would make an announcement about additional facilities for the citys Covid-19 battle. The chief minister suggested the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) take the lead in increasing the number of beds considering the rising number of cases. He also called for the expediting of the process to build jumbo facilities, on the lines of Mumbai. He asked private laboratories to first give the test reports of patients to the civic body, so as to ensure the concerned authorities treat the patients. In some cases, it was seen that patients died due to non-availability of beds as they were initially reluctant to go to hospital. To avoid this, private labs should first hand over reports of every positive person to the municipal corporation, which can ensure availability of beds for patients, said Thackeray. On the PMCs demand for funds, the chief minister said: It is natural that municipal corporations are asking for funds. Not only Pune, but the demand is coming from all the municipal corporations. The state government is also asking the centre to help Maharashtra. On behalf of the state government, I will definitely give financial help to Pune and other all the cities. During the meeting, MLAs and MPs mainly raised problem of bed management and inadequate infrastructure in fighting the Covid crisis. Questions asked, questions remain There were multiple issues we raised in front of chief minister. While he has asked the administration to improve coordination, there was nothing substantial that emerged out of his visit to the city, said Punes member of Parliament Girish Bapat. BJP state unit president Chandrakant Patil, who represents Kothrud, urged Thackeray to instruct the administration to ensure better coordination among all agencies, while Pune mayor, Murlidhar Mohol, said private hospitals are not co-operating by not updating the proper information about the vacant beds. Even the municipal corporation is short of money and the Maharashtra government must co-operate with the municipal corporation, Mohol said. BJP MLA Siddhartha Shirole, who was vocal about the CM not visiting the city in its hour of crisis, said The chief minister visited Pune for the first time during the pandemic, but not much has come out of the visit. During the meeting, I raised the question of the jumbo facility as the administration has not completed the process of tendering yet. There was no answer, though. NCP MLA Sunil Tingre also raised the issue of overcharging by hospitals, a common complaint by patients in Pune. Private hospitals are charging exorbitant rates from patients as there are more patients and less number of beds in the city. Some housing societies have showed an interest in offering their clubhouses, which we need, as Covid care centres, said Tingre. BOXX What CM wants Pune to do PMC to take lead in bed management Expedite construction of jumbo Covid care facilities Private hospitals must regularly update bed availability Private labs must submit positive tests to PMC first The China-Sri Lanka Cooperation Studies Center of the Pathfinder Foundation together with the Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka launched on Thursday the Sinhalese translation of the Chinese book "Prevention and Control of COVID-19" which outlines health and preventive measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. Charge d'affaires of the Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka Hu Wei (L) and Pathfinder Foundation Executive Director Lakshman Siriwardana attend a launch ceremony of the Sinhalese translation of the Chinese book "Prevention and Control of COVID-19" in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on July 30, 2020. The China-Sri Lanka Cooperation Studies Center of the Pathfinder Foundation together with the Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka launched on Thursday the Sinhalese translation of the Chinese book "Prevention and Control of COVID-19" which outlines health and preventive measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Ajith Perera/Xinhua) The translated book was launched at the Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka with copies handed over to Sri Lanka's Education Ministry and Health Ministry. The original Chinese version of the book is authored by Prof. Zhang Wenhong, a Chinese expert in infectious diseases. Dr. Lakshmi Somatunga, Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Health, speaking at the translated book launch said authorities were pleased to see the book translated in Sinhalese which would benefit a majority of Sri Lankans and it will serve as an effective tool to all those who read it. "During this global pandemic, China has shown the world on how to give others. We have to live with this pandemic for some time and because of this, universal safety precautions have been adapted. It is encouraging to see China's courage to face these challenges," Lakshmi said. Pathfinder Foundation Executive Director Lakshman Siriwardana said the book authored by Prof. Zhang and translated to Sinhala by Lakshmana Saparamadu includes many health practices and guidelines to the student and adult population. He said China and Sri Lanka have shared close ties since the early 1950s and said these relations will be the most critical for Sri Lanka in the future as many sectors in the island country had benefited from development projects funded by China in recent years. Charge d'affaires of the Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka Hu Wei said the book will be very helpful for the general public as it gives a better understanding on what the world should do in fighting against the COVID-19. It provides comprehensive guidance to the public and will be beneficial for students as well, Hu said. "During the outbreak in China, we were deeply touched by our Sri Lankan friends because they showed the Chinese people their support in different ways," Hu said. He said China was trying its best to help Sri Lanka overcome the pandemic and would continue supporting the island country. DOW Pastor David Brown of Dow Southern Baptist Church continues to ride the waves of emotions following a fire Wednesday that heavily damaged the church. While the churchs sanctuary was spared from the flames, its office area and classrooms are a total loss. Hours later, it still seems surreal for Brown. When I got the call in the morning, I thought, Theres no way that this is happening, he said. When they started tearing the walls down, thats when it really hit me. With the help of technology, Brown took to Facebook on Wednesday to update church members on what he had seen. He told them members important personal information was saved before the walls came down. He also said the support the congregation has received from the community has been incredible. Local residents, members of Grafton Chamber of Commerce and even a church in Brussels offered help and support. He also thanked the different fire agencies for being able to save the sanctuary The outpouring of love and concern has been incredible, he said. Brown described the fire as the most horrible thing he has ever seen. But he added that he believes God will prevail. The emotions are good, he said. The tears are good. The anger is real. The church is the people; its the congregation. Its not the building. The congregation plans to return to using the sanctuary once the smoke damage is cleaned out, Brown said. Until then, Brown will be presenting sermons via Facebook Live. This year would have been the churchs 50th anniversary, he said, adding that he remains confidant as the church goes into Year 51. Even in the midst of this, I dont want us to lose focus of the fact that God is still at work, Brown said. Were going to be OK. The cause of Wednesdays fire is under investigation by the Illinois State Fire Marshals Office and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Jersey County Sheriffs Department is asking for anyone with information regarding the fire to share it. Two Rivers Crime Stoppers also is offering a $500 reward for anyone with information about the fire at the church and one about the same time at the nearby AT&T Building. President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday said Nigerians know his administration has done its best in fighting members of the Boko Haram sect in the North East and militants in the South-South. Buhari spoke in an interview he granted State House correspondents after joining his family members and some top government officials to observe the Eid El-Kabir prayers inside the Presidential Villa, Abuja. According to him, despite inheriting Boko Haram in North East and the militants in the South-South when we came in 2015, his administration has done its best to handle the insecurity situation in the country. He however called on security agencies on the current security challenges in the North West and North Central, saying they can do better than what they are currently doing. I want Nigerians to be very conscious of their country and what we inherited when we came in 2015 was Boko Haram North East and the militants, the South-South. Nigerians know that we have done our best. What is coming up in the North West and North Central is very disturbing indeed but I believe the military, the police, and other law enforcement agencies from the report I am getting, I think they could do much better. They could do much better, but we are keeping them on the alert all the time to do their duties, he said. On the issue of corruption, President Buhari said that all past and present cases will be fully investigated, adding, This is why we put the commission (of investigation) in place. Asked how he (Buhari) feels about recent revelations coming out from the EFCC and the Niger Delta Commission, he said: There has been an abuse of trust by people trusted by the previous administration and this administration. A number of assets have been recovered and some money. But we have introduced TSA where all the monies are taken and I said asset should be sold and the money be put through TSA so that it can be identified at any level and I will see who will come after us and take it back again to those who misappropriated public funds. On the specific case of the Niger Delta, the President decried the wastage of the resources earmarked for improvements of the lives of the people of the region. He lamented that corruption had been unhelpful in that regard, especially if you recall there is the 13 per cent derivation. He also warned against the vandalization of oil pipelines in the oil-producing areas which often results in environmental pollution. He said: Those who are blowing pipelines and interfering with the production of petroleum products are hurting their people more than the rest of Nigerians because majority of their people are fishermen, fisherwomen and farmers. Now if they pollute the land and the waters, the fish goes into the deeper sea where the people cannot go and they cannot grow anything. They are hurting their immediate communities more than any other thing. On his message to Nigerians as the Muslim faithful celebrate the Sallah, he told the citizenry to be conscious of what they do. He said: I wish Nigerians the best of luck. In the Eid-el-Kabir sermon, the Imam has said it all, we want security, prosperity and well being of all Nigerians. We want Nigerians to be very conscious of their country. Buharis remark is coming two days after Boko Haram insurgents attacked the convoy of the Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, while he was on routine inspection. On Thursday, multiple explosions from mortars fired by suspected Boko Haram members hit Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, killing two people and leaving many injured. Bachelor in Paradise star Jake Ellis has announced the death of his father, Brian. Brian, who was believed to be in his seventies, died on Thursday night after several years of declining health. He is survived by his sons, Jake and Luke. Rest in peace: Bachelor in Paradise star Jake Ellis (left) has announced the death of his father, Brian (centre). They are pictured here with Jake's brother, Luke (right) Brian's health worsened significantly after his wife, Robyn, died of breast cancer in January 2018. He had undergone a double lung transplant several years ago, couldn't drive due to his poor eyesight, and was living in a care facility. Jake recently said his father was suffering from a 'long list' of health problems, including skin cancer and vascular dementia. Tragedy: The former Bachelorette contestant announced his father's passing on Instagram on Friday afternoon. Jake said he took solace in the fact that Brian 'was no longer in any pain' 'Life has been so cruel': Georgia Love, who dated Jake on The Bachelorette and who lost her own mother to cancer several years ago, offered her condolences 'I'm so sorry for your loss, brother': Several other reality stars, including Jake's Bachelor in Paradise season one co-star Jared Haibon, shared words of support Decline: Jake recently said his father was suffering from a 'long list' of health problems, including skin cancer and vascular dementia The former Bachelorette contestant, 34, announced his father's death in an Instagram post on Friday afternoon. 'At 8:15pm last night we sadly lost our amazing dad, Brian. Our hearts are broken yet again but are trying to take solace in that he is no longer fighting or in any pain,' he wrote. 'My brother Luke, myself and loved ones have been by his side during this devastating time, sharing memories of the beautiful man, father and husband that he was. He lived an amazing life, loved by so many.' Poor health: Brian's health declined significantly after his wife, Robyn (right), died of breast cancer in January 2018. Robyn is pictured with her son Jake in an undated photo He added: 'With all of our broken hearts we were so lucky to have him as our dad and role model. We know that right now he's back with the love of his life, our mum, and they are both watching over their sons with smiles. 'Thank you to everyone for all the love and support. It means so much to us both.' Georgia Love, who dated Jake on The Bachelorette and who lost her own mother to cancer several years ago, offered her condolences. She commented below the post: 'Oh Jake, I'm so so sorry. Life has been so cruel to you boys and your beautiful parents. 'I am only thankful he is with Robbie and the knowledge they will both be so happy and proud of you. Big love, I'm so sorry.' Sad: Jake's family tragedy comes two years after his mother, Robyn, died of breast cancer. She had fought the disease for 25 years, after first being diagnosed when Jake was six years old Lee Elliott, who won Georgia's heart on The Bachelorette but remained good friends with Jake afterwards, also shared kind words. 'Oh mate, my sincerest condolences. He was a brave strong man and would be so proud of the man you've become,' he wrote. 'He's with his love and your mother now. All my love and thoughts to you and Luke, brother.' Jared Haibon, an American 'intruder' from season one of Bachelor in Paradise, added: 'I'm so sorry for your loss brother. Thoughts are with you and your family.' Jake's Bachelor in Paradise season three co-star Cassandra Mamone also wrote: 'This is heartbreaking. I'm so so sorry for your loss. 'My prayers and thoughts are with you. Sending love and light to you. They are both shining down their love on you and Luke.' Struggles: Robyn's cancer battle was made public during Jake's appearance on The Bachelorette in 2016. He later appeared on Bachelor in Paradise season one in 2018, before returning for season three this year Jake's family tragedy comes two years after his mother, Robyn, died of breast cancer. She had fought the disease for 25 years, after first being diagnosed when Jake was just six years old. At the time, Jake told Daily Mail Australia his mother was 'the biggest fighter I've ever met'. Robyn's cancer battle was made public during her son's appearance on The Bachelorette in 2016. Jake later appeared on Bachelor in Paradise season one in 2018, before returning for season three this year. He bowed out early this season, however, because he didn't see a future with any of the women and wanted to reconcile with his ex-girlfriend Megan Marx. Marcel Leist, Professor of In-Vitro Toxicology and Biomedicine at the University of Konstanz, and Thomas Hartung, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Konstanz and Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair of Evidence-Based Toxicology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, have been awarded the Ursula M. Handel Animal Welfare Prize 2020 of the German Research Foundation (DFG). This is the second time within a period of ten years that University of Konstanz researchers have been awarded the prestigious accolade, previous recipients including molecular toxicologists Professor Alexander Burkle and Dr Moreno-Villanueva, also based at the University of Konstanzs Department of Biology, who received the prize in 2011. The Ursula M. Handel Animal Welfare Prize, which is endowed with 80,000 euros, recognises scientists who have made exemplary and sustained efforts to improve the welfare of animals in research, especially through the development of processes contributing to the reduction, refinement and replacement of animal experimentation in accordance with the 3R principle. The 2020 prize will be awarded during an official ceremony scheduled for 1 October 2020 at the 3R-Zentrum in Gieen (ICAR3R), which will be preceded by a 3R symposium and combine online as well as on-site elements. Recognition for promoting animal welfare Unlike previous recipients, Marcel Leist and Thomas Hartung were selected for their lifetime achievement in promoting animal welfare through their research, as the DFG announced for instance by using artificial intelligence to make inferences about the toxicity of unknown substances or to generate automated predictions from toxicological databases. Both approaches help to avoid or significantly reduce animal testing. The jury showed itself particularly impressed with the researchers enduring commitment to developing and implementing alternative methods in toxicology and to raising acceptance levels at the local and international levels both in academia and beyond especially through their work as co-directors of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing in Europe (CAAT-Europe). CAAT-Europe, a joint venture of the University of Konstanz supported by the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation for animal-free research and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, was set up to coordinate transatlantic activities promoting the development of new and improved methods in toxicology, to advise on strategy development, to provide a platform for exchange among various stakeholders in academia, industry and politics and, above all, to support the 3R principle of humane science. Overcoming the validation dilemma I am convinced that working together across sectors is the best and possibly only way forward if we want to deliver the best possible outcomes for both humans and animals, says Leist. Promoting humane science isnt just a handy and politically opportune catchphrase: it is a research objective my colleagues and I are invested in deeply. Throughout their careers, and since CAAT-Europe was founded in 2010, both Leist and Hartung have sought to develop general tools to enhance the implementation and accelerate the broader use of animal-free testing methods, including computational approaches and novel test development strategies. One major issue that we seek to address through CAAT-Europe and that regulators from both sides of the Atlantic regularly confirm is insufficient method documentation and data reporting. Both are major drawbacks when it comes to using data generated through in-vitro methods, explains Thomas Hartung. Contributions that help resolve this dilemma can have a very broad impact on the overall use and development of alternative methods. In the past decades, CAAT-Europe produced 21 extended reviews on specific research problems and gaps in the current knowledge. Potential solutions have come out of its transatlantic toxicology think tank activities, based on the input of more than 250 co-authors from academia, industry, regulatory bodies and non-governmental organisations. About Marcel Leist Marcel Leist has been Professor of In-Vitro Toxicology and Biomedicine at the University of Konstanz since 2006, a position that was originally established and endowed by the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation. He studied biochemistry in Tubingen (Germany) and holds a masters degree in toxicology from the University of Surrey (1989) as well as a doctoral degree in pharmacology from the University of Konstanz (1993). He obtained his Habilitation (postdoctoral qualification) in toxicology/cell biology in 1998. Prior to accepting his current position at Konstanz, Marcel Leist worked for Danish pharmaceutical company H. Lundbeck A/S in Copenhagen. Leist has received several major animal welfare awards, including the Lush Prize in support of initiatives to end or replace animal testing (2016, alongside Dr Giorgia Pallocca, coordinator and deputy director of CAAT-Europe), the Animal Welfare Research Prize of the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (2015) as well as the Society of Toxicology Enhancement of Animal Welfare Award (2015). About Thomas Hartung Thomas Hartung has been Professor of Evidence-Based Toxicology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore since 2009 and also holds the position of Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Konstanz. He studied computer science in Hagen as well as biochemistry and medicine in Tubingen, where he also earned his medical doctoral degree in toxicology in 1992. Hartung also earned a biological doctoral degree in biochemical pharmacology from the University of Konstanz. He was CEO of the Steinbeis Technology Transfer Center for In Vitro Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Konstanz from 1996 to 2002 and led the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods of the European Commission in Ispra (Italy) from 2002 to 2008. Thomas Hartung has won several awards for his research in the area of animal welfare, including the Russell and Burch Award of the Humane Society of the United States (2009) and the Society of Toxicology Enhancement of Animal Welfare Award (2007). ### Facts: Ursula M. Handel Animal Welfare Prize 2020 awarded to University of Konstanz toxicologists Marcel Leist and Thomas Hartung in recognition of their lifetime achievement in promoting animal welfare through novel approaches in toxicology. The recipients, who are co-directors of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing in Europe (CAAT-Europe), were selected from a list of nine applicants for their commitment to furthering 3R research, especially in the area of replacement. Prize money: 80,000 euros. This is the second Ursula M. Handel Animal Welfare Prize to be awarded to University of Konstanz researchers within a period of ten years, previous recipients including Professor Alexander Burkle and Dr Moreno-Villanueva, also based at the University of Konstanzs Department of Biology, who received the prize in 2011. The award will be presented during a ceremony scheduled for 1 October 2020 at the 3R-Zentrum in Gieen (ICAR3R). Note to editors: You can download photos of the award winners here: Image 1: https://cms.uni-konstanz.de/fileadmin/pi/fileserver/2020/Bilder/tierschutzpreis_marcel_leist.jpg Caption: Professor Marcel Leist, Professor of In-Vitro Toxicology and Biomedicine at the University of Konstanz and co-director, alongside Thomas Hartung, of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing in Europe (CAAT-Europe) Image credit: University of Konstanz Image 2: https://cms.uni-konstanz.de/fileadmin/pi/fileserver/2020/Bilder/tierschutzpreis_thomas_hartung.jpg Caption: Professor Thomas Hartung, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Konstanz and Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair of Evidence-Based Toxicology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Image credit: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Contact: University of KonstanzCommunications and MarketingPhone: +49 7531 88-3603Email: kum@uni-konstanz.de Investors are bracing for a dire series of results during Australian Real Estate Investment Trust (A-REITs) reporting season this month, when the full impact of the global pandemic will be unveiled for the 2019-20 financial year. While many of the listed trusts have provided updates on the COVID-19 virus impacts, it will be the management narrative on the coming year that will be eagerly awaited and expected to reveal more carnage on businesses. Focus will be on retail assets, particularly how rent waivers and longer-term agreements will impact future earnings. The sub-lease office sector will also be under the microscope given excess available space is at a 20-year high in Sydney alone. Retail REIT landlords will be under the spotlight in the next month;s reporting season. Credit:Louise Kennerley Logistics and general industrial property has boomed in the past five months since coronavirus sent people home and straight to shopping online. Demand for distribution, cold storage and data centres is tipped to be the flavour of the reporting season. August is National Breastfeeding Awareness Month, and each mom has a unique story. For some lucky women its a breeze and for others, it feels like an insurmountable challenge. To kick off the yearly event, TODAY Parents profiled the journeys of six spectacular mamas. I breastfed and I loved it! Micol Zimmerman-Burkeman was blessed with a healthy milk supply and both of her kids latched easily. I loved the intimacy of breastfeeding, the Massachusetts-based education consultant told TODAY Parents. During the daily grind of parenting, especially with a newborn, it is easy to fall into auto-pilot simply trying to get through the day. But that time with them, especially at night, allowed me to be fully present with them. Micol Zimmerman-Burkeman (Courtesy of Micol Zimmerman-Burk) Aura Skigen (Courtesy of Rick Skigen) Aura Skigen of Arlington, Virginia, had a similar experience. The physical therapist and influencer for EVER Skincare exclusively breastfed her two sons until they were 17 months. I loved the chance to bond with my babies, Skigen, 40, said. It was also a chance for Skigen to forget about grocery lists, chores and exercise. As a new mom, I tried to do it all, she said. Breastfeeding allowed me to really enjoy one-on-one time with my boys. Watch TODAY All Day! Get the best news, information and inspiration from TODAY, all day long. Breastfeeding was hard but I persevered! Jen Saxton, CEO and founder of Tot Squad, overflowed a bottle the first time she pumped. The nurses at the hospital said I had enough milk to feed the whole world! Saxtons oversupply has led to multiple clogged ducts and a painful case of mastitis. I remember at Mommy and Me class how everybody would describe their beautiful baby staring into their eyes while breastfeeding, and Charlotte was literally choking with my fast letdown. Though breastfeeding is all consuming and the LA.-based mom loathes pumping, she is proud of what her body can do. I love that we can go anywhere and forget everything and as long as we have each other, were good to go, Saxton, 36, said. Story continues Jen Saxton (Courtesy of Kern Saxton) Colleen Kurson. (Colleen Kurson) While Saxton has an overabundance of milk, Colleen Kurson had the opposite problem. When Kursons first child was born in 2012, she struggled with production despite pumping between feeds. I hated that my body wasnt doing what I was thought it was supposed to do, the licensed mental health counselor told TODAY Parents. Things got easier when Kurson began supplementing with formula and her baby began gaining weight. I saw it as vital to my newborns health and and was glad to take some of the pressure off, she explained. Related: Here's why some moms bristle when they hear formula feeding described as supplementing. Though breastfeeding was never a great experience for Kurson, and she dreaded nursing in public, all three of her girls received breast milk for at least four months. I stuck with it because I wanted to, she said. But Im so glad its behind me. I didnt breastfeed and I don't feel bad about it (and you shouldn't either)! Breastfeeding may be natural, but it doesnt always come naturally. Just ask Kristen Barry. I simply did not enjoy having another human being stuck on my nipples until they bled. It was uncomfortable and I dreaded every feeding, the freelance editor from Long Island, New York, told TODAY Parents. "I began to resent my son for wanting to eat. All I did was cry. Kristen Barry (Courtesy of Kristen Barry) Joey Bartolomeo (Courtesy of Joey Bartolomeo) Ten days into motherhood, Barry, 37, mixed a bottle of formula and never looked back. When I told my husband, I cant do this anymore, he was beyond relieved, she recalled. He saw what the pressure was doing to me. I dont know who was more relieved him or me." She did not even attempt to breastfeed her second child. Joey Bartolomeo can relate to what Barry went through. Bartolomeo broke down in a pediatricians office after her son, Tully, was born in 2014. She asked how feeding was going and I started crying, the Manhattan-based writer told TODAY Parents. Bartolomeos milk had not yet come in and Tully was having issues latching. I felt a bit like a failure right off the bat, she revealed. Related: Am I doing this right? Is it supposed to feel like this? Is my baby getting enough? We've got answers. At the suggestion of Tullys doctor, Bartolomeo rented a hospital grade pump, loaded up on breast shields and enlisted the help of a lactation consultant. But nothing seemed to work. Feeding times were very stressful for me, the baby and everyone who was around, Bartolomeo, 45, said. Bartolomeo stopped breastfeeding after a week and gave up pumping soon after. There are so many of us who cant do it, and thats OK. We need to tell each other that. Our babies are being fed and thats what matters, she told TODAY Parents. That is the message I like to pass on to all of my friends when they become new moms. 'Godfather of Taiwan secessionism' dies at 97 Global Times By Yang Sheng, Zhao Yusha and Fan Lingzhi Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/30 22:32:51 He had a chance to be a 'great man, but eventually became a national sinner' Former Taiwan leader, also known as the "Godfather of Taiwan secessionism," Lee Teng-hui, has died at the age of 97, a Taiwan hospital announced on Thursday. Lee's death is definitely not a sad news to most people in the Chinese mainland as Taiwan pro-reunification politicians and mainland experts said he is "a traitor and a sinner of the Chinese nation." Prior to the announcement, speculations of Lee's death were already circulating on Tuesday, fueled by media reports that Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen and her deputy Lai Ching-te had called off their original plans and visited Lee in hospital. The Taipei Veterans General Hospital announced on Thursday that Lee had died at 7:24 pm. On Wednesday, Taiwan media reported that Lee's office ordered the hospital not to reveal Lee's condition, and the hospital also said it could not disclose patient's private details. He was admitted to hospital in early February after choking while drinking a glass of milk, reports said. At the time, there were rumors that Lee had died, and that he had contracted the coronavirus, Taiwan media reported. Lee, who took office in 1988 and retired in 2000, has long been decried as the "godfather of Taiwan secessionism" by mainland citizens and because of his flattering attitude toward Japan. Denying his Chinese identity was heavily criticized by Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. Chinese mainland netizens also noticed the report. Some said, "What a shame, because we want him to be punished for his treason when we reunify the island." Others also criticized heavily that Lee "has forgot his own origin, and betrayed his ancestors." Lee was a member of the pro-reunification Kuomintang (KMT), but later betrayed the KMT's principles to support localism and separatism. Even after leaving office, Lee was vocal about separating the island of Taiwan from the Chinese mainland. "Lee had a chance to be a great man to promote reunification with the mainland, but he chose to be a 'strongman' in the island, as he wanted to be the founding father of Taiwan separatism, so he eventually ruined the KMT, the island, as well as the cross-Straits relations. He is a sinner of the Chinese nation," Yok Mu-ming, honorary president of the New Party of Taiwan, told the Global Times. The New Party is a pro-reunification political party in Taiwan formed in 1993 out of a split from the then-ruling KMT, when Lee was the leader of the island and chairman of the KMT. "He promoted me, so he was kind toward me, but I gave up the senior position he offered me at that time and I left him and the KMT. We have different beliefs so we walk on different roads, because I got edified by Chinese culture," said Yok, while Lee became deeply impacted by Japanese culture and ideas when he was young. Lee and other extreme separatists of the island established a political group called the "Formosa Alliance" in 2018 to push for an "independence referendum" in Taiwan to continuously threaten the peace and stability of the Taiwan Straits. Lee's separatist tendencies in the 1990s almost caused a military conflict between the mainland and the island, after he broke with the 1992 Consensus and the one-China principle to promote separatism for the island. His flattering attitude toward Japan also received heavy criticism from Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, as he denied his identity as a Chinese and claimed he is Japanese, and even said China's Diaoyu Islands "belong to Japan," referring to them as the "Senkaku Islands" to please Japan. The separatist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) treats him with great respect to thank him for his support at the early stage. Otherwise, separatist sentiments would not have had an opening to be backed by a major party. Lee was seen as a "sinner of the Chinese nation," Yang Lixian, a research fellow at the Beijing-based Research Center of Cross-Straits Relations, told the Global Times, noting that Lee was brainwashed by Japanese invaders when Japan occupied the island. The Japanese rulers planted "the seed of secessionism" among the people in Taiwan to serve Japan's colonial rule before the end of World War II, as a sense of Chinese identity among the people would make it difficult for Japan to rule the island, Yang said. Lee is a typical traitor of the Chinese nation, who hid among the KMT and cheated his leaders to gain power in the 1980s, the expert said. As reunification of Taiwan becomes an irreversible trend for the island, separatists like Lee have begun to realize his previous goal of building a "state-to-state relationship" with the mainland has already gone up in smoke, Yang said. Observers said the separatist DPP will surely honor Lee and commemorate him as a great leader, but no matter what the DPP does and says, his image as a national sinner will never be changed in the history of China, and the separatists of the island can never change the historic trend that Taiwan will eventually reunified with the mainland. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address By Joshua Franklin (Reuters) - Investment bank Lazard Ltd on Friday reported an 8% fall in second-quarter adjusted earnings per share, a smaller drop than analysts had expected, as the slowdown in corporate dealmaking due to the COVID-19 pandemic weighed. The slump came as global M&A activity, one of Lazard's main revenue drivers, tumbled to its lowest level in more than a decade in the second quarter, as companies gave up on expansion plans to focus on protecting their balance sheets and employees in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. Larger M&A activity has shown signs of picking up in the third quarter with 40 deals worth at least $1 billion announced during this month, down almost one third on July, 2019 but up 29% from June, according to Refinitiv data. "The one thing we've learned form this pandemic is that it's reasonably difficult to predict the future. That said, it feels like Q2 probably turns out to be the low (M&A activity)," Lazard Chairman and Chief Executive Kenneth Jacobs said in an interview. "At least at the moment there seems to be an increasing pace of conversations." Lazard, whose business is split between financial advisory and asset management, said earnings per share was 67 cents, well ahead of a median of analysts' expectations for 38 cents, according to Refinitiv, and compared to 73 cents a year earlier. Operating revenue from Lazard's financial advisory business, its biggest source of earnings, dropped 11% in the second quarter year on year. Fellow investment banking advisory firm Evercore has also reported falling revenues for the quarter. New York-based Lazard said average assets under management at the end of the second quarter was $215 billion, up from $193 billion in the prior quarter. Lazard shares are down 30% so far in 2020, lagging the benchmark S&P 500 index <.SPX>. (Reporting by Joshua Franklin in Boston; editing by John Stonestreet and Marguerita Choy) The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has 24 hours to change course on the rollback of his furlough scheme or face a massive spike in unemployment, Labour has warned. The shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, called for targeted support for sectors of the economy still unable to return to business as usual, warning of a python-like squeeze on jobs if help is withdrawn prematurely. Speaking to The Independent ahead of the launch of Labours jobs, jobs, jobs campaign with the partys leader, Sir Keir Starmer, in Peterborough, Ms Dodds declined to put a figure on the number of jobs at risk, but pointed to a recent estimate by economic think tank Niesr that the end of the furlough scheme could see 10 per cent unemployment by Christmas. Under Mr Sunaks gradual scaling back of the job retention scheme, employers will be required from Saturday to pay national insurance and pension contributions for the hours an employee is on furlough. The move will be followed by a cut in state support for furloughed jobs from the current 80 per cent of wages up to 2,500 a month, to 70 per cent in September, and 60 per cent in October, with employers required to make up the difference before the scheme is wound up altogether in November. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 19 January 2022 Britains Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, participate in a therapy session with individuals who have experienced the care system, during a visit to the Foundling Museum in London REUTERS UK news in pictures 18 January 2022 Surfers enter the sea as the sun rises over Tynemouth on the North East coast PA UK news in pictures 17 January 2022 Bonhams Danny McIlwraith holds a Nigerian polycrome carved wood mask during a photocall for the sale of the Jim Lennon Collection at Bonhams in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 16 January 2022 The moon rises above the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 15 January 2022 Demonstrators outside Downing Street during a Kill The Bill protest against The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in London PA UK news in pictures 14 January 2022 Ecologist Emma Smart (left) and retired GP Dr Diana Warner outside HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, following their release from the prison where Emma undertook a 26-day hunger strike during her incarceration. Ms Smart was sentenced in November, along with other members of Insulate Britain, to serve four months for breaking a High Court injunction by taking part in a blockade at junction 25 of the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour on 8 October last year PA UK news in pictures 13 January 2022 A TV presenter holds a copy of a newspaper outside 10 Downing Streetafter the Prime Minister apologised for attending a gathering of colleagues in the Number Ten garden in May 2020, while the UK was in strict lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic Getty UK news in pictures 12 January 2022 Fitness guru Derrick Evans after receiving an MBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle PA 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. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. 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 Ms Dodds said that the one-size-fits-all withdrawal of subsidies was a historic mistake that would hand P45 notices to workers across the country. Labour wants support targeted at employers who are prevented by social distancing guidelines from operating at normal capacity, many of which are in the hospitality, cultural and transport sectors. Sir Keir signed the party up to a five-point pledge promising: Reform of the furlough scheme to target aid at struggling industries; A 1.7 billion fightback fund to prevent firms going under and support high streets; Additional support for areas in local lockdowns, the self-employed and those left out of existing schemes; Protection for workers rights, increased sick pay, safe workplaces, and providing health and care services with the resources they need to avoid a second wave; Investment in infrastructure to create jobs. The party released analysis suggesting that 43 per cent of businesses in the hardest-hit sectors are still reporting being temporarily closed, while footfall for key high street businesses is still down 40 per cent on pre-pandemic levels. Ms Dodds said: We dont think the furlough scheme should continue precisely as it is in perpetuity. That wouldnt be sensible. But we really do need to learn from other countries which have continued to support wages in particularly strongly impacted areas. We think there needs to be a targeted system of wage support in those sectors that are still struggling. Unless we do that, we are going to see big waves of unemployment coming through. She pointed to countries like France, where support has been guaranteed for up to two years, and Germany, where a Kurzarbeit (short-time working) scheme has been in place since the financial crash of 2008. And she told The Independent that money spent on keeping workers in jobs and maintaining their links with employers now will pay dividends in terms of preventing future expense. We know already from research that somebody whos been unemployed when theyre young, theyre likely to be earning, even 20 years down the line, a fifth less than somebody who hasnt experienced a period of unemployment, said Ms Dodds. And of course thats not cost-free. Theres a cost in social security and a cost in long-term earnings generating tax revenues and a cost for those communities that could be particularly badly affected. With employers currently reporting huge numbers of applicants for the few jobs available, Ms Dodds warned that people made redundant as they come off furlough may have a long wait before they get back into work. Sir Keir Starmer and Anneliese Dodds (PA) We have very low levels of new vacancies coming on to the market compared to other countries, she said. The governments view may be that even if we have spikes in unemployment which may be very large, they will just be soaked up again with new vacancies. That is not what the evidence indicates. Dodds accused the government of having failed to match up to the scale of the crisis and was scathing about Mr Sunaks 9bn job retention bonus offering 1,000 for every furloughed worker remaining in their post until January, which she said would impose a massive deadweight cost for employees who were never at risk of redundancy, while saving few jobs. The chancellors refusal to abandon his one-size-fits-all withdrawal of furlough is a historic mistake that risks a python-like squeeze on jobs in the worst-hit sectors, said the shadow chancellor. The reward for months of hard work and sacrifice by the British people cannot be a P45. Its not too late for the chancellor to see sense, change course and support the businesses and sectors that need it most. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) While the world awaits for a coronavirus vaccine, the Philippine government is already preparing how to fund, procure, and distribute it to Filipinos. In a taped address on Friday, President Rodrigo Duterte said the government will give away free vaccines once they are available, but it will only be limited to specific sectors. "Ang mauna, ang walang-wala. Tsaka sa mga hospitals, ang mga sick or dying. Ang una talaga, ang tumatanggap ng assistance sa gobyerno. Pangalawa, ang middle income. Libre ito, hindi ko ipagbili. 'Yung third... Itong mga military, pobre ito, mauna din kayo. My military and my police, because I need a strong backbone," he said. [Translation: First on the list are the poorest of the poor, those who received cash aid during the crisis. We will also give it to those who are sick or dying. Second, the middle income class. Im giving it away for free. Third is the military and police because they are poor and I need a strong backbone.] While he notably missed including the healthcare workers in his list, Duterte said he is open to giving free vaccines to communist rebels, whom he has repeatedly tagged as terrorists. "If you stop fighting until December because my soldiers will be busy pwede kayo pumila doon even if you announce youre an NPA (New People's Army). Pagamot ka muna para mahusay kayo makipaglaban," he said. [Translation: If you agree to stop fighting until December because my soldiers will be busy --you can line up for vaccinations even if you announce youre an NPA. Get vaccinated so you can be better at fighting.] The government is planning to vaccinate 20 million Filipinos by procuring 40 million doses of vaccine with an estimated worth of P20 billion. Related: PH ready to spend 20 billion to distribute free COVID-19 vaccines to 20 million people Duterte made it clear that drug pushers and addicts will not receive free vaccines, even if they are part of the poorest sectors. "Tingin ko sa mga drug pusher, drug lord? Aso. Tingin ko sa kanya aso. Hindi ako magtulong sa inyo. Sinisira ninyo yung Pilipinas," he said. [TransIation: I consider drug pushers and drug addicts as dogs. I will not help you. You are destroying my country.] The President, who has recently ranted against the "oligarchs," said the rich people can buy their own vaccines. Duterte is tapping the military to lead the distribution of vaccines once they become available. The Armed Forces of the Philippines welcomed the order, saying a gameplan is being prepared before the expected completion of vaccines in December. The government has been criticized by human rights groups for its militarized response to the public health crisis. NEW HAVEN Dr. Keith Churchwell, chief operating officer of Yale New Haven Hospital since Jan. 1, will succeed Richard DAquila as president of the hospital on Oct. 5. Yale New Haven Health System CEO Marna Borgstrom announced during the hospitals online news conference Friday that DAquila would be retiring and that Churchwell would move up. Churchwell, who will be the first Black president of Yale New Haven Hospital, was chosen after a national search, Borgstrom said. Churchwell came to the hospital in 2015 from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he served as the executive director and chief medical officer of Vanderbilts Heart and Vascular Institute. Five years ago coming here, I called my wife actually from the limousine and told her that she should start packing. I thought this was actually a very special place. And its only been confirmed by our time here, Churchwell said. Its exciting. I think its going to be not only difficult but also a unique opportunity as we continue to define what health care should be for the patient population that we have the honor to serve not only here but across the whole region of Connecticut. Churchwell graduated from Harvard University and earned his medical degree at Washington University in St. Louis. Keith has the perfect skills to advance Yale New Haven Hospital as a great teaching hospital and a critical resource to the greater New Haven communities, Borgstrom said in a press release. He has distinguished himself as a strategic thinker, thoughtful colleague and collaborator. We are fortunate to have someone with his level of clinical and administrative excellence serve as the new president of YNHH. Churchwell serves on the board of the American Heart Association and as president of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. He conducts Walk with a Doc sessions on Saturday mornings in the Dixwell and Newhallville neighborhoods. Dr. Churchwell was the perfect choice to succeed Rick DAquila as president of Yale New Haven Hospital, said Mary C. Farrell, chairwoman of the Yale New Haven Hospital board of directors. When we looked around the country for candidates for this position, we saw a number of exceptionally talented leaders. However, it became quickly evident that we already had the best person right here in New Haven. His skills, talents and strategic vision blended with his exceptional clinical background make Keith the smart and obvious choice. Borgstrom praised DAquila for his almost 15 years of leadership at the hospital. Rick has done a terrific job at Yale New Haven. He has been instrumental in the growth of our health system and Yale New Haven Hospital at the core of that, by building out service lines, by really supporting an investment in a care signature for all of our patients. Hes really the heart behind the integrated primary care work in New Haven. Borgstrom said that when Yale New Haven purchased the Hospital of St. Raphael in 2012, One of the things that Rick said early on was no job loss. He put together a very elegant plan and executed it even more elegantly to make sure there was no interruption in employment, in patient care, in any of the things that are critical to an operation, not only continuing successfully but maintaining a culture of commitment to employees as well as patients and to overall excellence. I am so proud and grateful to have had the experience of leading one of the nations most respected healthcare organizations, DAquila said in the release. Over the last 14 years we have accomplished so much and really put Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale New Haven Health in an incredibly strong position nationally. It has been the greatest privilege of my career to work with some of the most extraordinary and caring leaders anywhere in the country. DAquila has strengthened the relationships with the Yale School of Medicine and Yale Medicine, the clinical practice of the medical schools faculty. Rick has been a terrific partner with Yale Medicine, said Dr. Paul Taheri, Yale Medicines CEO. Together we built an exceptional clinical practice that rivals anyone in the country. Rick is tough-minded, strategic and purposeful, all of which make him a great colleague and an exceptional leader. Among DAquilas initiatives has been the partnership between Yale New Haven Hospital and Habitat for Humanity, which resulted in more than a dozen new houses being built in the neighborhoods around the hospital, the release said. He served as chief operating officer for New York Presbyterian Hospital, chief operating officer at St. Vincents Health in Bridgeport and president of Health Initiatives Corp., a health care strategy consulting firm. edward.stannard@hearstmediact.com; 203-680-9382 New Delhi, July 31 : The National Capital's most wanted gangster Jyoti alias Baba, who was carrying a Rs 1,00,000 bounty on his head, was nabbed by the Special Cell of Delhi police from Gujarat. According to police, Jyoti took shelter in Junagadh and kept changing his hideouts in Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Surat. These shelters were provided to him by Dhirenbhai Karia, a Gujarat-based liquor mafia don who had also lent his luxury cars to him and his gang members for their movement. The Haryana liquor mafias were also in constant touch with him and they were discussing ways and means to establish long term safe havens in Gujarat and operating from there to strengthen the synergies brought about by the joining of ranks of major liquor mafias spread across various states. Jyoti, a resident of Najafgarh, was absconding since August 2019 after jumping the parole granted to him by a Haryana court. He was also wanted in a case under the MCOC Act registered against him and his eleven gang members including his younger brother Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu. The gangster was planning to eliminate his arch rival Manjeet alias Mahaal, another gangster who is presently in judicial custody, police said. "Accused Jyoti committed a murder in Gurugram at the age of 16 but was soon released for being a juvenile. Soon, he made a name for himself and by recruiting several local villagers into a proper gang, he started challenging the established ganglord Manjeet Mahaal, who was ruling the Najafgarh and surrounding areas," said Manishi Chandra, DCP (Special Cell). According to police the rivalry soon culminated in a bloodbath, claiming over a dozen lives. At the age of 19, he committed another murder during the ongoing gang war in Bahadurgarh, Haryana and then absconded. He was subsequently arrested and after trial, was sentenced to life. After his conviction, his younger brother Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu took over the command of his gang. Baba, however, continued directing the gang from behind the four walls of the jail. With Baba in jail providing the brains and Nandu on the ground flexing his muscles, the gang soon emerged as the synonym of terror and became deeply involved in extortion, land grab and targeted killings. Kapil alias Nandu was arrested in 2016. In June 2019, Kapil managed to get parole and once out, jumped the facility. After jumping parole, Kapil marked his presence September 24, 2019, when he, along with an associate, murdered a property dealer in the Dwarka area by pumping several bullets into his body in broad daylight. Since then, he has also been absconding with a bounty of Rs 50,000 on his head. The police team received a tip off that Jyoti alias Baba was hiding in Gujarat using fake identities. A trail of one such fake identity being used by him pointed to a hotel in Surat. Acting swiftly the police team nabbed Jyoti while he was trying to move to another city in a SUV. "The Audi Q7 has been found to be registered in the name of one Dhirenbhai Karia, a resident of Junagadh, Gujarat who is an infamous liquor mafia. His clout can be estimated from the fact that he had contested the 2019 Parliamentary elections from Junagadh as an independent candidate. "Dhirenbhai is presently understood to be lodged in Surat jail, Gujarat. His involvement with Delhi-NCR based gangsters is being probed," said Chandra. Now, if you look at it from a perspective that with Hwange 7 and 8 coming on stream and an element that various mining companies are undertaking a number of solar interventions which when fully rolled out will result in over 500MW being added into the grid. TikTok star Charli D'Amelio has reportedly hired full-time security after receiving threats on social media. TMZ reports that the 16-year-old, who is the most-followed star on TikTok , with 75.1 million followers, was threatened on social media by a user who said they were going to turn up at her family's house in Norwalk, Connecticut. Her family contacted law enforcement, and are reportedly paying overtime for police to be stationed outside their property. Scary: TikTok star Charli D'Amelio has reportedly hired full-time security after receiving threats on social media TMZ reports that the 16-year-old, who has 75.1 million followers on TikTok, was threatened on social media by a user who said they'd come to her family's house in Norwalk, Connecticut Staying safe: Charli is pictured with her sister Dixie and her parents Marc and Heidi - all of whom have earned celebrity status online The July 8 threat may have been online posturing, since no one has followed through but it was enough to scare Charli's parents into action. Police are currently investigating. According to sources who spoke to TMZ, Charli has also received several 'swatting' calls, in which people falsely report an emergency at her home to police. The family spent a few weeks in Los Angeles from the end of June until mid-July and it is not known whether they were home in Connecticut when the threats were made - however, Charli has since been uploading videos from her Norwalk bedroom, suggesting that they are back in the property. And it's not just Charli who has earned celebrity status on the app; the rest of her family boast millions of followers of their own. Charli's older sister Dixie, 18, has 31.9 million followers on the social media app, and even the teens' parents have huge followings: Mom Heidi has five million TikTok fans, and dad Marc has 6.2 million. Police: Her family contacted law enforcement, and are reportedly paying overtime for police to be stationed outside their property Family fame: Charli's older sister Dixie, 18, is also a TikTok star with 31.9 million followers on the social media app This has led to some lucrative sponsorships for Charli and Dixie, who have partnered with Hollister and makeup brand Morphe in the last few months alone. Earlier this year, Charli became the first TikTok star to land a Super Bowl commercial when she appeared in an ad for Sabra Hummus. As for getting paid for social media content, the teenager reportedly charges up to $100,000 per post, according to Cosmopolitan. Alessandro Bogliari, TikTok expert and CEO of The Influencer Marketing Factory, told DailyMail.com: 'This is just the early era for TikTok and there is not a real pricing model for influencers yet, but in general someone with five million followers could make up to $1,500 for a single video asset, depending on their location and some other factors. Charli was also able to charge $100 for fans to come to a meet-and-greet last winter. In November of that year, she performed onstage at Barclays Center in Brooklyn with Bebe Rexha, who opened for the Jonas Brothers. According to sources who spoke to TMZ, Charli has also received several 'swatting' calls, in which people falsely report an emergency at her home to police Viral: Even the teens' parents have huge followings: Mom Heidi has five million TikTok fans, and dad Marc has 6.2 million Tough: Charli admitted that her sudden attention was taking some getting used to Charli has only been on TikTok since June 2019, and has managed to amass one of the biggest fanbases on the apps in that time. Speaking to MEL Magazine in her first published interview last year, Charli spoke about her online fame, admitting that the sudden attention was taking some getting used to. 'It's very weird, especially like when it's [from] older people,' she confessed. 'Both girls and guys commenting on a 15-year-old's appearance and her body shape and how she looks.' And, as is to be expected, the sudden glare of the spotlight that has come from being something of an accidental overnight celebrity is quite the double-edged sword. As one of TikTok's most prominent figures, Charli is often the subject of debates among Gen Zs about whether she's 'worth the hype'. Dancer: While her TikTok routines are relatively simple and off-the-cuff, Charli is an accomplished stage dancer, left and right Charli told the men's pop culture magazine that the negativity both online and off has been 'overwhelming,' especially in school. Her classmates record her, catching her off guard, and film her every move to share with each other. 'It's the internet,' she said. 'Everything gets around, you know. Like, no way I wasn't going to see that.' 'I don't know what else to say about that,' Charli said of the criticism that her dancing is overrated on TikTok. 'I know all my years of training aren't helping with TikTok dancing, but I know that TikTok dancing is fun.' As South Africa becomes the fifth worst-hit country for coronavirus cases, Bishop Sithembele Sipuka of Umtata highlights the Churchs response to challenges brought about by the health crisis. By Fr. Benedict Mayaki, SJ As the world continues to struggle with challenges caused by the coronavirus health crisis, the African continent has recorded just over 900,000 cases. Like many other countries, South Africa implemented early precautionary measures following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. However, the countrys rapidly growing infection rate now places it as the fifth worst-hit country in the world. More than half of the reported cases in Africa are recorded in South Africa. On Thursday, the South African government once again closed public schools in the country for four weeks (27 July to 24 August) in a bid to limit the spread of the virus amid surging infections. Schools were first closed on 27 March when the government introduced a nationwide lockdown. Subsequently, they were reopened in early June. As of Friday, South Africa has 482,169 registered coronavirus cases, 7,812 deaths and just over 300,000 recovered patients. On Monday, the International Monetary Fund approved $4.3 billion in emergency assistance to South Africa to support the governments efforts in challenging the health crisis and the severe economic impact that comes in its wake. In the face of the nation's spiking infection curve, Bishop Sithembele Sipuka of Umtata, President of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) spoke to Vatican News on the Churchs response to the health emergency situation in the country. Role of the Church Bishop Sipuka highlighted that the Church is playing a role in supporting the governments efforts, as well as being an agent of hope in these challenging times. The Church is cooperating with all concerned bodies including the government, Bishop Sipuka said, especially since the government is giving clear directives concerning the nations response to the crisis. He explained that the Church is diligently following the advice of scientific information to the people of South Africa regarding Covid-19 safety regulations. For that reason, we have carefully opened churches under very strict regulations, he said. Also, continued the Bishop, the Church is encouraging mutual support and prayers for each other so that we can cope. Ecumenical collaboration Explaining that the Catholic Church is a minority in the country, Bishop Sipuka stressed the importance of collaborating with other Christian denominations in the fight against Covid-19. We cannot hope alone as Catholics to be able to make a significant contribution without working with other people, said Bishop Sipuka. We are working at an ecumenical level so that we can cooperate on an effective solution to the problem. We work with ministers of other churches in order to identify people who are negatively affected by this in our area regardless of which church they belong to, so that we can access means of helping them." The Churchs concrete gestures Due to the economic hardships caused by the pandemic, many people have lost their jobs. They consequently find it difficult to get food. The Church is responding to that need by concentrating its efforts on that front. We are continuing to do what we have been doing in cases of need. We give food to those who are in need, said Bishop Sipuka. That is not all. Bishop Sipuka said that among other things, the Church is also providing counseling services to those in need and participating in awareness campaigns to educate people about the Covid-19 virus. DUP stalwart Nigel Dodds has been given a peerage and will take up a seat in the House of Lords. Mr Dodds served as North Belfast MP for 18 years until losing his seat to Sinn Fein's John Finucane last December. A key player in the DUP over the past 30 years, Mr Dodds led the party in the House of Commons during their confidence and supply agreement with Theresa May's Government. Mr Dodds is also credited in playing a key role in the 'Leave' campaign during the 2016 Brexit referendum. The DUP veteran also survived an IRA assassination attempt in December 1996 while visiting his ill son at the Royal Children's Hospital in west Belfast. He will be joined in the House of Lords by Northern Ireland-born former Labour MP Kate Hoey. Expand Close Kate Hoey / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kate Hoey During a long and distinguished political career Mr Dodds also served as an councilor, Lord Mayor of Belfast, MLA and Minister in various Stormont departments. He also served as deputy leader of the DUP and his wife Diane currently serves as Stormont's Economy Minister. Mr Dodds said he was "very honoured and humbled" to be elevated to the Lords. He will join fellow DUP peers Wallace Browne, Willie Hay, William McCrae and Maurice Morrow. It's not yet known what title Mr Dodds will use as a Lord. Expand Close Nigel Dodds and Arlene Foster with Boris Johnson at the 2018 DUP conference / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Nigel Dodds and Arlene Foster with Boris Johnson at the 2018 DUP conference He thanked friends and colleagues for their support over the years. "Throughout my political career I have always endeavoured to represent all of my constituents to the very best of my ability in whatever forum I have had the honour to serve," Mr Dodds said. "At this new juncture of my career I am pleased to have the opportunity to continue to serve the people of Northern Ireland in Parliament." Expand Close Theresa May in Downing Street with the DUPs Nigel Dodds, Arlene Foster and Jeffrey Donaldson / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Theresa May in Downing Street with the DUPs Nigel Dodds, Arlene Foster and Jeffrey Donaldson The former north Belfast MLA said he was delighted to be continuing to play a role in political life. "Our nation is confronting some of the greatest challenges we have ever faced. There are very important issues which we in Northern Ireland must continue to work through, building on the progress our society has made since I first entered politics," Mr Dodds said. "In all of my work my aim will be to make a positive contribution to keep Northern Ireland moving forward. First Minister Arlene Foster led the tributes to Mr Dodds. On behalf of our party and indeed the many people across Northern Ireland to whom Nigel Dodds has served, I am delighted that he has been recognised in this dissolution list. Nigel Dodds has spent the majority of his working life serving the public in Northern Ireland as an elected representative at every level," the DUP leader said. "He is widely recognised and respected throughout Northern Ireland and beyond for his record of public service and his strong advocacy for the Union and Northern Irelands place within it, serving the public through various elected positions for thirty-four years. "My warmest and best wishes to Nigel, Diane and the family, especially Nigels mum, Doreen who will be justifiably proud of her son. Expand Close Nigel with wife Diane and children Mark, Andrew and Robyn in 1997 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Nigel with wife Diane and children Mark, Andrew and Robyn in 1997 Former Northern Ireland Secretary of State Julian Smith also offered his congratulations. "He will give significant heft and voice for the interests of Northern Ireland over the coming months and years," Mr Smith said. Mr Dodds was first elected to Belfast City Council in 1985 and served on the council for 25 years. He served as Lord Mayor in 1988-89 and 1991-92, becoming the youngest person to hold the post. During twelve years as an MLA he served in the Executive as Minister for Social Development and later as Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and Minister of Finance and Personnel. Lancaster County authorities said Ezequiel B. Almodovar turned himself in to police on Friday. He faces two counts of homicide for allegedly shooting Jonathan Rivera and Euqenio Morales-Torres at his home in Upper Leacock Township on Monday. Police said the two victims were found in the bed of a burned pickup truck parked on a farm lane in Manor Township. Almodovar, 36, is also charged with arson, tampering with evidence and two counts of abusing a corpse. Police said they are still investigating whether others were involved in the killings. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said the uptick in coronavirus cases in Massachusetts should not cause Bostonians concern, noting that the number of new cases in the city remains relatively low. The bottom line, for a city of our size, Boston is doing incredibly well, Walsh said. Compared to the rest of the United States, Boston and the commonwealth are working extremely hard to make sure that we keep these numbers down. Walsh said there were 35 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, for a total of 14,093 across the city. No new deaths were reported. Since the start of the crisis, 730 Bostonians have died. The seven-day average of positive test rates and the number of patients in intensive care remains low, Walsh said. The rate of positive tests in Massachusetts has increased slightly in recent weeks, which officials believe is the result of several small clusters of cases linked to recent gatherings. Gov. Charlie Baker said health officials are looking into the causes of the outbreaks. Most of the clusters that have developed so far have all involved what I would refer to as private recreational activity and behavior, Baker said on Thursday. He added that the state will be reviewing its guidance on gathering sizes moving forward, urging residents to continue to wear a face covering and practice social distancing. Baystate Health on Monday reported an outbreak of new infections at Baystate Medical Center affecting 23 employees and 13 patients. Baystate Healths president and CEO Dr. Mark Keroack said the outbreak may be traced back to a single employee, who returned to work after visiting a state identified as a new virus hotspot. There was also an outbreak in the Cape Cod town of Chatham after at least 10 people who attended a house party on July 12 tested positive for coronavirus. Cape officials announced on Sunday that they will offer pop-testing for anyone who attended the party, or is a close contact of someone who was there. Related Content: The crime branch in its affidavit filed in the Bombay high court (HC) in the alleged custodial death of 27-year-old Vijay Singh at Wadala TT police station last year averred that based on the post-mortem reports of Sir JJ and King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospitals, the victim died of a heart attack and hence there is no substance in the various contentions raised by his family in their petition. The affidavit says that as there was discrepancy in the post-mortem reports of both the hospitals, a clarification was sought and is awaited. The KEM Hospital report stated that Singh suffered acute coronary insufficient precipitated by sudden panic attack, indicating unnatural death, while the report from Sir JJ Hospital report stated that Singh died of myocardial infraction. The affidavit filed by senior inspector Ninad Sawant, from crime investigation department unit 4, Antop Hill, stated on October 27 around 11pm, a woman was on her way to meet her friend at Wadala RTO. Singh, who was on a motorcycle, pulled the womans hand and she fell. On hearing her cry, her friend rushed to the spot, accosted Singh and held him by the collar and questioned why he pulled the womans hand, the affidavit said. In the meantime, Singhs two friends, Ankit Mishra and Nirmal Singh, reached the spot and assaulted the womans friend and he suffered head injuries. A police van, which was passing by, took the five people to the Wadala TT police station. After hearing the incident, station house officer Sandip Kadam filed a non-cognisable complaint against Singh and his friends and the woman and her friend to Sion Hospital for medical treatment, the affidavit stated. Singh was kept in the lock-up, while his two friends were made to sit outside. Around 12.30am, Kadam left for Sion hospital and returned with the complaint filed by the woman and her friend. At the time, Singh started complaining of chest pain and was brought out of the lock-up. But he continued to feel uneasy and so was allowed to go out of the police station for fresh air, the affidavit further stated. After going out, Singh collapsed and was taken to a hospital by his relatives, where he was declared dead. The body was first sent to KEM Hospital for post-mortem and later to Sir JJ Hospital. The affidavit avers that at the time of the post-mortem at KEM Hospital, Singhs family did not raise any objection but later when there were protests, two officers and three constables were suspended and an inquiry by a special investigation team (SIT) was directed. What Is Russia's Vagner Paramilitary Group And What Was It Doing In Belarus Ahead Of Vote? By Irina Romaliiskaya, Robert Coalson July 30, 2020 When authorities in Belarus conducted a high-profile operation to detain some 33 suspected Russian mercenaries near Minsk on July 29, officials were quick to connect the incident with the country's August 9 presidential election. The BelTA state news agency said the men -- and perhaps dozens more still at large -- were in Belarus to "destabilize the situation in the country ahead of the election." But most analysts see an even more complex scenario being played out, one in which Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has found a convenient opportunity to discredit and contain a growing opposition movement and to exert even stricter control over an election in which the authoritarian ruler is seeking a sixth term as president. A hastily organized meeting of some members of Belarus's Security Council on July 30 decided to impose stricter security measures at public events, a move that Belarusian political analyst Valery Karbalevich said was aimed first of all at a planned opposition rally in Minsk set for July 31. Security checkpoints will be set up and everyone will be thoroughly searched by police, Karbalevich said in an interview with Current Time, a Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. "This is all being done in order to sharply restrict the number of people attending the demonstration and to cut way back on the protest wave in general because the authorities are genuinely concerned about its scope," he said. "This is a tactic in the election campaign that the authorities are using in order to cool the protest ardor," he concluded. 'A Clear Signal' Belarusian economist and political commentator Syarhey Chaly added that Lukashenka could try to connect the opposition to the supposed Russian plot in order to justify a crackdown. "In addition," Chaly told Current Time, "it is a clear signal to the West that if something serious happens here along the lines of 'Bloody Sunday' [a violent crackdown by authorities against protests in the wake of the December 2010 presidential election] that they should keep in mind that [Lukashenka] isn't just fighting against internal opposition, but against an attempted coup inspired by Russia." But this begs the question of what the arrested Russians were doing in Belarus in the first place. Belarusian media identified the men, aged between 22 and 55, as employees of the Vagner private security firm. The passports and other documents shown on Belarusian television seemed to confirm this, said Russian analyst Ruslan Leviyev, the founder of the Conflict Intelligence Team project, which has extensively researched the activities of Russian mercenaries abroad. "The majority of them have long been known to us," Leviyev said. "Their names are available on the Internet as people who have fought for the Vagner Group. Some of them fought before joining Vagner in the Donbas region [in eastern Ukraine]. Then they joined Vagner and were in Syria, some of them in Libya. And now they are traveling on some other business." Vagner is one of the best-known of several Russian private paramilitary companies that have come into being over the past decade. The company is widely believed to be controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a longtime associate of Vladimir Putin who once served as the Russian president's chef. Prigozhin has previously denied any links to the group, though various investigations have linked him to its activities. Prigozhin is also believed to have created and funded the Internet Research Agency, an online "troll farm" that U.S. authorities have charged with waging a propaganda-and-influence campaign in a bid to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Close Secrecy Vagner's operations have always been held in close secrecy, in part because mercenary activity is illegal under Russian law and in part because the group is widely believed to operate in close cooperation with Russian military intelligence. Vagner fighters have been documented in Ukraine, Syria, the Central African Republic, Sudan, and Libya. The Russian government denies that it cooperates with private paramilitary organizations. Analysts say it is beyond unlikely that the Vagner mercenaries were on a mission in Belarus. They were staying together in a resort outside of Minsk and were wearing paramilitary clothing, for one thing. For another, these were not special operations forces or undercover agents. "They are fighters, real participants in combat operations," said Chaly. "These are people who are trained and equipped to carry out military operations. They aren't intended to carry out diversions or some sort of terrorist acts. They have a completely different purpose." Leviyev said the most likely explanation for why the Vagner mercenaries were in Belarus was that the firm is using Minsk as a transit point because Russia's commercial air traffic has been dramatically curtailed because of the global coronavirus pandemic. "Here in Russia you can't fly to Turkey, but from Minsk you can," he said. "And from Istanbul you can fly to Syria, Libya, Sudan, or wherever." Belarusian media showed that the fighters had passports for foreign travel, which would not be required for Russians whose final destination was Belarus. In addition, they were carrying Sudanese currency and Sudanese SIM cards. Sudan, however, might not have been the ultimate destination for the group. A Current Time investigation in February 2019 found that M-Invest, a company controlled by Prigozhin, had signed contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry for military transport around Africa and the Middle East. RFE/RL's Russian Service in 2019 reported on mysterious Russian military flights between Khartoum, Sudan, and Libya. Despite Lukashenka's public demands for an explanation from Russia about the presence of the mercenaries in Belarus, analysts say it is unlikely that Minsk was not aware of what Vagner was doing. "If Belarus is really being used as a transit corridor," Karbalevich said, "then I think this is not the first time it has happened." Karbalevich added, however, that it is possible that Minsk was not fully informed about the details of this particular group of mercenaries. "Maybe Moscow decided that since there is an agreement, then maybe it isn't necessary to report about every group, give the names of all the people," he said. "This is possible." Karbalevich resolutely rejects speculation that Lukashenka will use the incident as a pretext for declaring a state of emergency or postponing the August 9 election. "There is no point in dragging out this politicized process any longer by postponing things for six months or a year," he told Current Time. "That would mean that for half a year the country would be in a tense, politicized state, and I think that is absolutely not what Lukashenka wants." "He dreams of getting this all over with as quickly as possible," Karbalevich concluded. "Of seeing August 9 and 10 pass quickly and of quickly getting his 80 percent of the vote. And he'll deal with any protesters with his security structures." Written by RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson based on reporting by Current Time correspondent Irina Romaliiskaya. Current Time correspondent Ksenia Sokolyanskaya and RFE/RL's Russian Service also contributed to this report. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/what-is-russia-s- vagner-paramilitary-group-and-what-was-it-doing-in- belarus-ahead-of-vote-/30757151.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The fifth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will be held in Beijing in October, according to a decision made at a CPC Central Committee Political Bureau meeting on Thursday. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting. The Political Bureau will present its work report to the CPC Central Committee at the plenary session, where attendees will also assess the proposals for formulating the 14th Five-Year (2021-2025) Plan for Social and Economic Development and future targets for 2035, according to a statement issued after the meeting. The CPC Central Committee Political Bureau also studied the current economic situation at Thursday's meeting and made arrangements for the economic work for the second half of the year. The 14th Five-Year Plan period is the first five years after China has completed building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and achieved the first centenary goal, according to the meeting. The period will also mark the time for the country to build on this achievement to embark on a new journey toward the second centenary goal of fully building a modern socialist country, said the statement. Going forward, China will still be in a period of strategic opportunity for development, facing new opportunities and challenges, it said. The meeting stressed the need to hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics to promote China's economic and social development in the period of the 14th Five-Year Plan, and to secure a good start in fully building a modern socialist country. The meeting also underscored upholding and improving systems and mechanisms for the Party to lead economic and social development to offer a fundamental guarantee for high-quality development. Efforts were also stressed to stay committed to deeper reform and wider opening-up, and to continuously increase the impetus and vitality for development. The meeting stressed that, in the face of the serious impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, China has prioritized the lives and health of the public. Highlighting the major progress in coordinating efforts to contain the outbreak and promote economic and social development, the meeting said economic growth in the second quarter was significantly better than expected, which fully demonstrated the correctness of decisions and arrangements made by the CPC Central Committee, the strong leadership of the Party, and the resilience of China's economy. It said that the current economic situation remains complicated and challenging with unstable and uncertain factors. Since many problems we face are long- and medium-term, resolving such problems is like fighting a protracted war, said the meeting. Stressing the need to follow the general principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability over the second half of this year, the meeting underscored promoting high-quality economic development, maintaining social stability, and striving to fulfill the targets and tasks for economic and social development of this year. While requiring full implementation of macro policies, the meeting called for pursuing a more proactive and effective fiscal policy that delivers solid outcomes, and a more flexible and appropriate monetary policy that targets sound results, according to the meeting. The meeting demanded unremitting efforts in improving regular epidemic prevention and control measures, increasing reserves of medical materials, and strengthening anti-epidemic international cooperation to build a global community of health for all. It urged efforts to keep expanding domestic demand, counteract the impact of COVID-19, boost final consumption, and create conditions for consumption upgrading. The meeting also stressed efforts to ensure people's livelihoods, eradicate poverty, prevent and control pollution, and step up flood control and disaster relief measures. The meeting called for the implementation of a number of major projects on the ecological protection along the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, as well as the 10-year fishing ban in key areas of the Yangtze River. Safety should be ensured along rivers across the country, the meeting added, noting that the restoration and reconstruction after the floods should be carefully planned. I asked him, Do you know that your president who you support . . . is not real high on voting by mail? He dont like that. And he said, Let me tell you something. . . . My relationship with the president is not going to have anything to do with me doing my job, said Stutts, who said he believes the changes will make the agency more efficient. Oxford University students will have to wear face masks in all lectures and seminars in the next academic year, it has been announced. The world-renowned university has made it compulsory for students to wear a covering in any shared indoor space, including the students' union and any libraries, unless they have a medical exemption. The latest guidelines, which were released in the institution's coronavirus guidance, come just months after the university revealed it would offer students both on-campus and remote lectures from the start of the academic year. In its guidance the university said: 'Face coverings will be required during in-person teaching and in indoor shared spaces with exceptions being made for those students and staff with health conditions which mean they can't wear them.' Students at the University of Oxford will have to wear a covering in any shared indoor space from September. (Stock image) The university will also install Perspex screens in labs, and have a special 'seat-finder' app to secure distanced spots in libraries. They will also be installing two private testing for students and staff- one in central Oxford and the other in Headington. A university spokesperson said: 'We are looking forward to welcoming incoming and returning students to a new academic year at Oxford University. 'While the pandemic will still be with us, we are working hard to maintain the highest possible standards of education, to give our students the best experience possible. 'We are taking steps to ensure the quality of the Oxford experience and protect the health and wellbeing of our University and wider city residents. 'This includes a dedicated COVID-19 testing service which will be available to all students and staff from September, and measures that will ensure students are supported and empowered to achieve in any circumstances with enhanced digital resources. The university (pictured is Christ Church College), which will resume lectures from September, will also install Perspex screens in labs, and have a special 'seat-finder' app 'Support will also be available for those directly affected by the virus, should they need to self-isolate. 'Information is also available about getting to and residing in Oxford during the pandemic, as well as guidance about visas and immigration considerations for international students. 'A 'charter' will also be developed setting out the responsibilities and expectations of the University and the student community. 'The Oxford University student experience is unlike any other. The supportive, enriching environment, underpinned by exceptional student welfare and support systems, are a huge part of our appeal, and this has not and will not waiver as we navigate the next phase of the pandemic. 'An overview of all arrangements for the 2020/21 academic year is now publicly available, and further updates will be provided in the weeks ahead as we prepare to welcome a new cohort of students for a safe and positive year at Oxford.' Students will also need to wear a mask in the students' union and any libraries. (Stock image) The university, which has been at the forefront of research to find a vaccine for Covid-19, will also adapt its spaces to ensure social distancing and will be enforcing an enhanced cleaning regime. Cambridge University is also bringing in facial covering rules, however students will not have to wear them where social distancing of two metres can be observed. In a statement, the university said: 'It is vital that we all feel comfortable, confident and safe at Cambridge. 'We continually monitor the latest public health advice, and we take account of the science. 'The university and colleges expect members of the Cambridge community to wear face coverings in any work or study setting, at a minimum, unless it is clear that social distancing can be maintained at all times, or someone has a medical exemption. 'Therefore, we should carry face coverings with us and wear them where asked to do so by College or University authorities or when it would be a courtesy to others. 'In University buildings, we expect staff, students and visitors to wear a face covering where it is not possible to maintain social distancing of at least two metres. 'In Colleges, since each one has different spaces and buildings, the specific rules may be stricter in some than others, but we will all follow these basic principles.' National Union of Students vice president for education Hillary Gyebi-Ababio praised the move. She said: 'We would welcome any measures that universities take to prioritise student and staff safety, in line with medical advice. 'Governments in the UK should be working with relevant agencies like the Office for Students as well as universities and colleges themselves to ensure that measures are being put in place across the sector to protect students. 'It is important that universities work in collaboration with students' unions to communicate safety measures to make sure students are able to have a full and clear understanding of what they should expect when returning back to campus.' Students at many universities, including University College London, have also been banned from having parties or inviting people to stay overnight. Opalesque Industry Update - eFront, the leading financial software and solutions provider dedicated to Alternative Investments, has published its latest annual Global Private Equity Performance Series, which shows that the US has preserved its position as the best-performing VC market globally, while performance in its LBO market remains stable. Overall, 2019 was a positive year for global private equity performance, with most regions seeing rising returns as well as falling risk. The US preserved its position as the best-performing VC market globally with an IRR of 14.3%, however, a significant part of this result can be explained by the golden VC era of two decades ago. Leaving these funds aside, the active pool of funds improved their performance since last year, reaching a TVPI of 1.65x and an IRR of 8.2%. The overall TVPI of US LBO funds, meanwhile, remained stable year on year, at 1.58x, representing an extremely attractive market from a risk-return The IRR of active and liquidated funds fell on aggregate by just 14 basis points to 12.1%. Elsewhere, Western Europe consolidated its global lead in private equity, with LBO funds further improving their performance during 2019. Selection risks also decreased, pushing the region further above the trendline from an already favourable position, and making Western Europe the most attractive region globally for private equity on a risk-return basis. Chinese and Hong Kong LBO funds, meanwhile, are positioned well above the trendline, with an IRR of 9.9%, signifying strong performance, and a notable decline in risk over the past year, contributing to an already attractive risk-return profile. 2019 was a positive year for global private equity performance, with most regions seeing rising returns as well as falling risk. In fact, every market operating below the risk-return trendline saw performance improvements during the year, with the exception of Eastern Europe and Russia. It was also the year the Nordics overtook traditional leaders Benelux and the UK, to become the world's top performing private equity market, helping Western Europe consolidate its global lead in private equity (see Figure 1). However, despite the positive performance overall, this was in a year in which a number of the very top performers saw modest declines in returns, including the UK, the US, Benelux and the Nordics, as well as China and Hong Kong. Two weeks after Charleston police said they'd ramp up patrols downtown, community leaders are asking the department to reconsider, saying the move targets historically Black communities. In a two-hour racial justice town hall on Thursday night, area civil rights leaders were joined by Police Chief Luther Reynolds. The group discussed the recent increased presence of law enforcement on the peninsula as well as larger issues related to policing of Black and Brown communities, lack of education, a living wage, adequate employment and the need for racial justice, among other topics. The Rev. Nelson Rivers, vice president of religious affairs and external communications for the National Action Network, spoke about the history of policing and the fact South Carolina is the birthplace of law enforcement in the nation. Today's police departments are the descendants of runaway slave patrols, Rivers said. He, like others, expressed concern that the recent increase in patrols served more to appease the White community than to truly protect all residents, and that more officers wouldn't translate into safer neighborhoods. But he also expressed some optimism, pointing to the recent waves of protests that saw both White and Black residents taking to the streets with calls for equality, fairness and reforms to policing, the justice system and other areas. "In many ways, its the best time Ive seen where we have a chance to change the paradigm," Rivers said. The civil rights leader said positive change will take courageous leadership and require leaders like the chief to take unpopular steps, such as reversing the decision on the patrol ramp up. He also called on the community to step up. "We need White people to use their privilege for justice as opposed to their promotion," Rivers said. "In Charleston, White folks with the privilege of being White must be willing to put it on the line, and not just rhetorically. We dont want you to feel sorry and we dont want you to listen. We want you to do." The plan to increase patrols, in which Charleston police are being augmented by personnel from the Charleston County Sheriff's Office and State Law Enforcement Division, was announced following a shooting downtown that left the husband of a new College of Charleston official dead. Reynolds defended the plan, saying it came in response to calls by residents for more officers. "Every single community I've been in has had one request, more police," he said. "What I hear from our communities is they want to be safe. We have young kids who are afraid to sleep at night because a bullet might come through the window." The chief also pointed to a worrying rise in the level of violent crime in the city and said officers are not going out as an occupying force looking to militarize the community. They're going out to work together with residents and build trust, Reynolds said. "We need to be out in our communities," he said. "I call it relational policing. What we're not doing is arresting everybody ... no stop and frisk. No broken windows." Reynolds also largely agreed with what activists said about the need for widespread changes that result in underserved communities, disadvantaged residents getting good access to quality education, jobs, housing and wages. And he agreed that police are asked to do too much, a phenomenon known as "mission creep" in which officers have found themselves dealing with trying to provide help to people struggling with addiction, poverty and mental health issues. Officers simply are not equipped to fulfill that role, Reynolds said. "We're doing our best to do this the right way," he said. "We have an obligation to try and help and not to be militaristic. That's not going to make it better. It is not a police-centric issue. It is everyone working together." Earlier on Thursday, several organizations and leaders penned an open letter asking Charleston police, the sheriff's office and SLED to cancel the patrol ramp up. The ACLU of South Carolina signed that letter and sent its own, calling for transparency and apology after it said law enforcement flooded the East Side after downtown protests on May 31. The organization's executive director, Frank Knaack, also took part in the town hall and spoke of deep concerns in the community about what they see as an increasing crackdown by authorities. He and others who took part in the event were skeptical of the chief's claim that residents had been calling for more officers. In community surveys and research conducted by the ACLU and organizations like the Charleston Area Justice Ministry, residents have said they want more services and less policing, Knaack said. He also spoke about a racial bias audit of the Charleston Police Department, which was completed last year. The audit found evidence of racial disparities, but fell short and represents a narrow view of public safety, Knaack said. The procedural reforms, such as better training and changes to departmental policy, will not solve the core problems that have sown distrust of law enforcement in minority communities, he said. Charleston police don't have a count on how many residents have asked for more or less policing, but Director of Research and Procedural Justice Wendy Stiver said community forums like Thursday's were outlined in the audit as a key way to hear citizens' concerns. "This is going to take time, and we're going to learn from everything we do," Stiver said. "The whole point is to create opportunities for transparency and engagement in a way that's not controlled by the police department, that's not centered on police." In the open letter, activists described as a lie the Charleston Police Department's claim that residents were demanding more officers. They cited weeks of peaceful protests in the wake of George Floyd's killing, during which Lowcountry residents demanded more community resources and a systemic decrease in policing. It called the plan for increased patrols, which Reynolds said would focus on high-crime areas, "an updated form of broken windows policing." "This decision is not just a lack of judgment from our leadership, but a stance against the demands made by the community and an attack on the very people fighting for change," read the open letter, crafted by The Black Liberation Fund. The liberation fund's founder, Latisha Imara, said the heightened presence of law enforcement in Charleston's historically Black communities is "in direct response to the gentrification happening in the city," adding some believe "when Black people are around, crime is happening." Those north of the peninsula extended their support towards the civil rights groups. Omar Muhammad, president of North Charleston's Lowcountry Alliance for Model Communities, said the decision to increase police presence reinforces the need for a community oversight board that would help law enforcement to avoid making "knee-jerk" decisions. State Rep. Marvin Pendarvis, D-North Charleston, said he understands frustrations in downtown Charleston are immense and the city's mayor is under a lot of pressure, but local authorities shouldnt rush to implement policies that will have a detrimental impact, particularly on marginalized communities. I just dont know if this was the kind of response that was necessary, Pendarvis said. He pointed to policies enforced by law enforcement in other parts of the country, where minorities were disproportionately impacted. We know what happened with stop-and-frisk, he said. During the town hall, Treva Williams, lead organizer with the Justice Ministry, spoke about national calls for defunding police. In 1987, Charleston spent equal amounts per capita on policing and on housing and community development, Williams said. Today, the gulf between those figures has widened to $340 per capita on policing and $6 on housing and community development. Knaack said that in the city's budget, one out of every four dollars goes toward policing. If some of that money went to affordable housing, addiction treatment, job opportunities and education, it would go a long way toward reducing crime, Williams and others said. Although Reynolds said he agreed that more should be done to address societal issues, he didn't agree with defunding his department. Hiring good, well-educated, officers, and properly equipping and training them takes money, he said. Community demands for accountability, transparency and respectfulness from officers are harder to achieve without enough funding. The Rev. Byron Benton, pastor at Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church, spoke about the current climate in Charleston, saying that because of deep wounds to the Black community and other minorities, it takes very little to remind people of why they distrust police. "All that's emanating from a deep reservoir of pain," Benton said. The pastor said a new generation of leadership is needed, one committed to healing wounds that cross generations and that people should not be afraid to confront the truth, even if it makes them uncomfortable. The death has occurred of Catherine Carmody (nee Hanley) Of Kilfinny and Ballingarry Peacefully on July 30, 2020 in the wonderful care of the staff of Caherass Nursing Home. Predeceased by her late husband Jeremiah and daughter Sheila. Deeply regretted by her loving sons Pat, Johnjoe and Jeremiah, daughters Marie and Breda, grandchildren Iain, James, Sarah, Aoife, Siobhan, Amy, Michael and Gerard, brother Jim, sisters Celine and Maudie, aunt Sr Teresa, brother-in-law, sons-in-law, daughter-in-law, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends. May her gentle soul rest in peace Reposing at O'Grady's Funeral home Ballingarry (V94-W4AY) this Sunday evening from 6pm to 7:30pm. Requiem Mass on Monday at the Church Of The Immaculate Conception Ballingarry at 1pm. Burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. The family wish to sincerely thank Dr Cook, Dr Curtin, the nurses and staff of Caherass nursing home for their wonderful care of Catherine. Funeral Mass can be viewed at: www.churchservices.tv/ballingarry In compliance with Covid-19 guidelines regarding public gatherings, Catherines Funeral Mass will be limited to 50 people inside the church. Sympathies may be expressed by post to O'Grady Funeral Directors, Ballingarry, Co. Limerick. The death has occurred of Gerry Deegan Of St. Judes Park, St. Patricks Road Formerly of Irish Cement. Gerry died peacefully, in the care of the staff in Athlunkard House Nursing Home. Beloved husband of the late Mona. Sadly missed by his loving sons Jim and Michael, daughters-in-law Ber and Anita, grandchildren Grainne, Lorcan, Niall, Conor and Ciara, great-grandson Joshua, other relatives, neighbours and friends. Rest in peace Requiem Mass will take place in St. Johns Cathedral on Monday, August 3 at 10am. Funeral after to Mount St. Lawrence Cemetery In compliance with current guidelines, Gerrys funeral will be restricted to family members and close friends only. Family flowers only; donations if desired to Age Action Ireland. Messages of sympathy may be expressed through www.griffinfunerals.com or by post to Griffins Funeral Home The death has occurred of Michael Gleeson Of Kenry Court, Pallaskenry, Limerick, V94 R24D On July 28, 2020. Suddenly at home. Deeply regretted by his wife Anne (Conlon), daughters Michelle (Enright) and Caroline, son Garry, son-in-law Allan, daughter-in-law Ciara, his adored grandchildren Caoimhe, Conor and Clodagh, brothers, relatives and friends. May he rest in peace Michael's Funeral will take place on Monday, August 3, at 12 noon in St Mary's Church, Pallaskenry. In compliance with Covid-19 Guidelines regarding public gatherings the church will be limited to 50 people inside for family and close friends. Burial afterwards in Kildimo Cemetery. House private on on Monday morning. Mass Cards and letters of sympathy can be sent to Downey Undertakers, Pallaskenry 061-393111. The death has occurred of Gerardine Hayes (nee Fitzpatrick) Of Ahaglaslin, Castlefreke, Cork and Ballingarry On July 30, 2020 peacefully at home. Gerardine, nee Fitzpatrick, dear mother of Meadhbh and loving wife of Francis, daughter of the late Tom and Joan Fitzpatrick. Deeply regretted by her daughter, husband, a unique circle of friends, sisters Mary, Margaret, Ann, Josephine and Bernadette, brothers William, Denis and Noel, aunts, uncles, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nephews and nieces. Under HSE and government guidelines a private funeral will take place. The family would like to thank you for your co-operation and understanding at this difficult time. House strictly private please. Donations in lieu of flowers, if desired, to the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association (IMNDA). Please leave your personal message for Gerardines family on www.patosullivans.ie. The death has occurred of Danny Mullins Of Glenacurrane, Anglesboro On July 30, 2020 unexpectedly following an accident, Danny, loving husband of Margaret (nee Moloney) and dear father of Pat, Deirdre, Brian and Niall. Danny will be sadly missed by his heartbroken wife, daughter, sons, sister Mary (Fitzgerald), daughters-in-law Judy and Tricia, son-in-law Clem, grandchildren Katie, Christine and Ned, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces, relatives, neighbours and friends. May he rest in peace Reposing at his residence (V35 YX57). Dannys funeral cortege will leave his residence on Sunday at 1:30pm for funeral mass in Kilbehenny Church at 2pm with burial afterwards in the church grounds. In keeping with Government and HSE Guidelines the mass will be limited to family and close friends up to 50 people and we ask those attending to maintain social distancing. The family thank you for your support and understanding at this difficult time. The death has occurred of Joan Ryan (nee Kane) Of Drumroe Avenue, Woodhaven On July 29, 2020, peacefully at home. Dearly loved mother of Pamela, John and James. Sadly missed by her daughter-in-law Sally, son-in-law John, her loving grandchildren, brother Paul, sisters Margie and Eileen, nephews, nieces, extended family and friends. May she rest in peace. Requiem Mass for family and close friends will take place in St Johns Cathedral on Thursday, August 6 at 11.00am followed by burial in Lemenagh Cemetery, Newmarket-on-Fergus. In line with best practice taken from government advice regarding public gatherings please adhere to social distancing guidelines. Cards and letters of sympathy can be posted to Thompson Funeral Directors. Thomas Street, Limerick. The death has occurred of Nellie (Ellen) Aherne Of Dirreen, Athea, Limerick Nellie in her 95th year, passed away peacefully at her residence on July 30, 2020 in the loving care of her nephew Tom Quaid, his wife Margaret and their children Dawn and Tommy. Predeceased by her parents William & Margaret, brothers Willie & Tom, sisters Nora, Bridie, Margaret, Kathy and Mai. Sadly missed by her nephews, nieces, grandnephews, grandnieces, other relatives, kind neighbours and a large circle of friends. Rest in peace House strictly private A private family funeral will take place, for immediate family, due to government advice and HSE guidelines regarding public gatherings. Requiem Mass will take place on Saturday at 11am, in St. Bartholomews Church, Athea. The Mass will be live-streamed on https://www.churchservices.tv/athea For those who would like to pay their respects by means of standing in a guard of honour, the funeral cortege will pass from the church on route to Murhur Cemetery, via the Glin Road and Kilbaha. Those who would have liked to attend the funeral, but due to current restrictions cannot, please send Mass cards and letters of sympathy by post to Kellys Funeral Home, Colbert Street, Athea, Co. Limerick. The family intends to hold a memorial Mass to celebrate Nellies life at a later stage. 'Ar dheis De go raibh a hAnam dilis' The death has occurred of Margaret (Madge) Carey (nee Mullally) Of Glenwood, Newport and Murroe On July 30, 2020 peacefully at University Hospital Limerick. Beloved wife of the late Martin and loving mother of the late Bridgine and Christine (Coughlan). Sadly missed by her loving sons Willie and Martin, daughters in law Ann and Ann, son in law Ned, grandchildren, great grandchildren, sisters Agnes, Maura, and Phyllis, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends. Rest in peace Arriving at the Holy Rosary Church Murroe on Monday, August 3, for 11.30am Requiem Mass, burial afterwards in Ballinure Cemetery. Please adhere to government guidelines regarding social distance and number of people. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 09:48 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066aa86bd 1 National djoko-tjandra,South-Jakarta-District-Court,bank-bali-case,fugitive,graft-convict,case-review,Court Free The South Jakarta District Court has dropped a case review petition filed by graft fugitive Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra against his guilty conviction after he repeatedly failed to show up for the hearings. The court announced the decision hours before the National Police brought the fugitive, who had been on the run for 11 years, back to Indonesia following an arrest in Malaysia on Thursday. Suharno, the court's spokesperson, said that the panel of judges handling the case had issued the ruling on Tuesday and had notified the prosecutors, Djoko and his legal team about the decision. "The ruling states that the request for a case review from the applicant or convict Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra cannot be accepted and the case dossier will not be forwarded to the Supreme Court," Suharno told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. Suharno said the court could not accept the plea as Djoko -- who had filed the request for the case review in early June -- had failed to show up for the hearing for the case review. Read also: Fugitive Djoko Tjandra skips another hearing, reportedly residing in Malaysia The court had previously summoned Djoko four times, but he reportedly claimed he could not attend due to poor health. With his absence, the court said, Djoko had violated Supreme Court Circular No.1/2012 stipulating that case review requests submitted by lawyers without the convict present shall not be accepted. In 2009, the Supreme Court sentenced Djoko to two years imprisonment and ordered him to pay more than Rp 546 billion (US$54 million) in restitution for his involvement in the high-profile Bank Bali corruption case. However, he fled to Papua New Guinea a day before the court ruling and remained at large for years. Djoko's lawyers had demanded the case review hearings be conducted online due to what they said was the convict's bad health condition. Prosecutors, however, rejected the demand, citing the abovementioned Supreme Court circular. Tama S. Langkun, a researcher from Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), applauded the court's decision to drop the case review plea, adding that the convict did not deserve a review as he had escaped to avoid serving his sentence. "However, the case is not over as the convict has not served his sentence yet," Tama told the Post on Thursday. "We hope that there will be an attempt to catch [Djoko] and force him to fulfill his obligations according to the court's ruling." If you plan to buy or sell a home right now, you need to know protocols have changed. Several experts share their tips how to navigate the new real estate world.Getty Images/iStockphoto Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. 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. RTHK: 'The Commitments' director Alan Parker dies aged 76 British director Alan Parker, whose long list of hits over the decades has included "Midnight Express" and "The Commitments", died on Friday at the age of 76, his family said. The multiple awards winner, whose other films include "Bugsy Malone", "Evita" and "Mississippi Burning", died "following a lengthy illness," his family said in a statement. Parker blossomed in the 1970s, creating a rapid succession of celebrated and succesful films, starting with the striking 1976 gangster musical comedy "Bugsy Malone", which featured a cast of children. His 1978 dark drama "Midnight Express", about a US student who ended up in a Turkish prison, was followed in 1980 by the genre-setting American teen musical drama "Fame". "Alan was my oldest and closest friend, I was always in awe of his talent," said fellow British film director David Puttnam. "My life and those of many others who loved and respected him will never be the same again." He also directed Pink Floyd's cult musical "The Wall" in 1982, the US racial injustices drama "Mississippi Burning" in 1988, and the cheerful 1991 musical comedy drama "The Commitments", based on the eponymous novel by the Irish writer Roddy Doyle. Parker's last major success came with the 1996 musical drama "Evita", in which Madonna played the leading role of Argentina's late first lady Eva Peron. He collaborated with Oliver Stone on many of his works. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta) said it was "deeply saddened" by the news, and the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science called Parker "an extraordinary talent". "His work entertained us, connected us, and gave us such a strong sense of time and place," it said in a tweet, calling him "a chameleon" for his ability to bend genre and change with the times. (AFP) This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Lee Teng-hui dies; pivotal figure in Taiwan's transition to democracy ROC Central News Agency 07/30/2020 08:47 PM Taipei, July 30 (CNA) Lee Teng-hui (), who guided Taiwan through a rapid and peaceful transition to democracy while serving as Taiwan's president from 1988 to 2000, has died at the age of 97. The former president had suffered from deteriorating health, which caused him to reduce the frequency of his public appearances. On Feb. 8, he was hospitalized at Taipei Veterans General Hospital after choking while drinking milk. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and had been intubated for over five months when the hospital confirmed he died, from septic shock and multiple organ failure, at 7:24 p.m. Thursday. Lee was born under Japanese colonial rule, educated in Japan and the United States, and cultivated as the successor to Kuomintang (KMT) President Chiang Ching-kuo (), and the life he led in many ways reflected the competing powers and influences that held sway in Taiwan over the course of the 20th century. Later in life, he became a prominent advocate for Taiwanese identity and statehood, founding the Taiwan Solidarity Union -- an act for which he was expelled from the KMT -- and lending support to his one-time rivals in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Lee was born on Jan. 15, 1923, the son of a police officer, in what is now Sanzhi District of New Taipei City. After graduating from Taipei High School in 1943, Lee received a scholarship to study agricultural economics at Kyoto Imperial University, but, with World War II raging, he volunteered for service in the Japanese Imperial Army the following year, and was assigned to an artillery unit in Kaohsiung. Lee would later remember going with his older brother, Lee Teng-chin (), who was stationed at the nearby Zuoying Naval Base, to have "memorial portraits" made, as they awaited deployment in the war's Pacific theater. While his brother would die in the Battle of Manila in 1945, Lee was sent to officer reserve training in Chiba Prefecture, outside Tokyo, where he survived intensive American aerial bombing in the conflict's final days. After Japan's defeat, Lee returned to Taiwan, where in 1949 he graduated from National Taiwan University and married Tseng Wen-hui () in a union that would last 71 years and bring the couple three children. In between periods of government service and university lecturing, Lee continued his education, earning a master's degree from the University of Iowa in 1953 and a doctorate from Cornell University in 1968, both in agricultural economics. Upon returning to Taiwan, Lee joined the KMT in 1971 and, in 1972, was made a Cabinet member without portfolio responsible for agriculture by Premier Chiang Ching-kuo (). Chiang became president in 1978, and under his patronage, Lee was appointed Taipei mayor in 1978 and chairman of the Taiwan Provincial Government in 1981. In 1984, Lee was nominated by Chiang to serve as vice president and he then became president in 1988 following Chiang's death. Central to Lee's political thinking at the time was the notion of a "Taiwanese KMT," led by him, as the party's first major figure not to come from a mainland Chinese background. That was complemented by a corresponding formulation of national identity, the "Republic of China in Taiwan," which he felt would allow the country to move beyond what he saw as a detrimental focus on the past. In 1990, Lee secured the National Assembly's approval for a full six-year term as president. Just days before his March 21 inauguration, however, a student-led pro-democracy demonstration calling itself the "Wild Lily Movement" occupied Taipei's Memorial Hall Plaza. With the previous year's ill-fated Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing still fresh in the public's memory, Lee invited a delegation of 50 student leaders to the Presidential Office for talks, and committed to initiate a range of democratic reforms beginning that summer. In the months and years that followed, Lee succeeded in passing constitutional changes that are credited with laying the groundwork for Taiwan's current democracy, including the introduction of direct presidential elections, reform of the since-disbanded National Assembly, and the abolition of a set of emergency executive powers known as the "temporary provisions against the communist rebellion." As he pursued domestic reforms, Lee also attempted to address the growing international isolation Taiwan suffered at the expense of a newly powerful China. In 1989, he set a precedent by visiting a non-allied head of state in Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew (), and in 1994, launched the "Go South" policy to strengthen Taiwan's investment and trade ties with Southeast Asia. To secure meetings with regional leaders in the face of Chinese pressure, Lee found a novel solution in "vacation diplomacy," traveling in a personal capacity for talks with figures including the Philippines' Fidel Ramos, Indonesia's Suharto and the Thai King Bhumibol Abulyadej. In June 1995, Lee attended an alumni event at Cornell University, where he delivered a speech on Taiwan's democratic reforms. The visit so angered Chinese leadership that within weeks, Beijing initiated a series of missile tests in the waters around Taiwan, which persisted through Taiwan's elections the following March. While the tests, which are now known as the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, were intended to damage Lee politically, their effect on the electorate may have been the opposite -- Lee won re-election with a commanding 54 percent of the vote, while overall turnout exceeded 76 percent. During his final, four-year term, Lee became more vocal in his support for Taiwan's statehood, characterizing the relationship with China as "state-to-state relations of a special nature." After choosing not to run in the 2000 elections, Lee presided over Taiwan's first transfer of power, as the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Chen Shui-bian () took office, ending half a century of KMT rule. In 2001, Lee helped to found the pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union, for which he was expelled from the KMT. In the years that followed, he often made statements in support of the DPP's presidential candidates, including an October 2019 endorsement of President Tsai Ing-wen's () re-election bid. While Lee's critics accused him of a pro-Japanese bias and the betrayal of his mentor, Chiang Ching-kuo, he was hailed by many in the DPP-aligned "green" camp as the father of Taiwanese democracy. In one of his last major interviews, a talk with the BBC in 2014, Lee asserted that Taiwan is already independent, and that the country's unfinished task could be better characterized as political normalization. Of his own historical legacy, Lee was more circumspect, saying he hoped people would remember that "life was good" during his tenure. (By Elaine Hou, Yeh Su-ping and Matthew Mazzetta) Enditem/ls NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The aid package comprises Made-in-Vietnam antimicrobial and medical masks and test kits for SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. Speaking at the handover ceremony, Dung underlined that the pandemic has spread all over the world with complex and unpredictable developments. As Vietnam and African countries have nurtured traditional friendships, the Vietnamese Government decided to offer part of its resources to support the governments and people of these countries. The beneficiaries supported Vietnam during the countrys struggle for re-unification in the past and development and integration in the present, Dung added. He also spoke highly of the stringent and effective measures adopted by the governments as well as the determination of the people in the African countries in battling COVID-19, affirming that Vietnam is ready to share experience in pandemic prevention and combat with African nations and international friends. Ambassadors from recipient countries thanked the Vietnamese Government and people for the valuable assistance, describing it as proof of the traditional friendship between the countries and Vietnam. They also praised Vietnams achievements in fighting the pandemic over the past time and pledged to closely coordinate and step up cooperation with the Southeast Asian country in mitigating the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 and enhancing recovery in the post-pandemic period. (Natural News) Scientists are gearing up for an expedition deep off Floridas gulf coast in August. The scientists, with help from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), are looking to probe the Green Banana a mysterious blue hole that begins 155 feet below the oceans surface. Blue holes are underwater sinkholes that form when rainwater dissolves a hole through limestone rock. They are thought to hold diverse marine communities and may offer key answers to life on Earth millions of years ago when oceans are anoxic. Located 50 miles off St. Petersburg, the Green Banana stretches about 275 feet and looks like an hourglass-shaped, 20-story building. Because of this, the team expects the expedition to be challenging. The configuration of the hole is somewhat hourglass-shaped, creating new challenges for the lander deployment and water sampling, according to a statement from NOAA. Seafloor off Floridas coast is full of underwater sinkholes Underwater sinkholes are not uncommon in the continental shelf of Floridas gulf coast. In fact, several underwater sinkholes, caverns and springs are scattered around the area. But these have proved difficult to navigate, leading to scant knowledge about them. Little is known about blue holes due to their lack of accessibility and unknown distribution and abundance. 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, said the statement from NOAA. Even the presence of the blue holes was first known through deep-sea divers and fishermen. Longtime fisherman and boat captain Larry Bowden knew about Green Banana for decades. He said that its name came from a sighting of a banana floating atop a spring the name people called blue holes back then before news spread. Curt Bowen, a deep-sea diver, heard about the Green Banana through Bowden and conducted one of the first explorations into the blue hole. He said that the gulfs seafloor has a lot of sinkholes and that it would look like a Swiss cheese when drained. According to the expedition researchers, the holes may have formed about 8,000 to 12,000 years ago, when Floridas coastline was around 100 miles further offshore from where it is now due to lower sea levels. Emily Hall, a scientist at Sarasotas Mote Marine Laboratory that leads the mission, adds that the blue holes are usually difficult to spot from above. Youre in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and you dont see anything all around, Hall said. Diving deep into the waters, however, shows these holes and their robust aquatic environments. Mission may reveal more about what role blue holes play Experts believe that the blue holes hold diverse biological communities full of marine life such as corals, sponges, mollusks, sea turtles and sharks. In 2018, explorers probed a nearby blue hole called Amberjack and discovered two dead but intact smalltooth sawfish an endangered species at the holes bottom. They also found that a lot of nutrients are coming out of Amberjack. For the upcoming mission, the team hopes to unravel the mysteries of the Green Banana, particularly its potential marine microenvironment and what nutrients, if any, it may secrete. They will also look at how the blue holes may affect the global carbon cycle, and whether or not the blue holes are related to Floridas groundwater. If these holes are connected to our groundwater systems or our aquifer systems, it could be a possible way for saltwater seawater seepage into our groundwater ecosystem, explains Hall. She adds that a lot of the people living in nearby areas depend on this groundwater system for their drinking water, so its important to locate any possible epicenters of saltwater seepage. (Related: Water crisis in Corpus Christi, TX: Unknown chemicals contaminate drinking water.) The team plans to lower a 600-pound lander that is shaped like a triangular prism. With the help of the lander, divers will gather water and sediment samples and complete a biological survey. ClimateScienceNews.com has more on marine environment research. Sources include: EcoWatch.com EarthSky.org NYTimes.com ABCActionNews.com Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 Myanmar Parties Select Candidates to Draw Youth And Women Voters in 2020 Contests 2020-07-30 -- Myanmar's political parties have put forward more female and young candidates for this year's general elections than in past polls, ramping up efforts to draw more ballots from the country's large proportion of women voters, analysts and party officials said Thursday. When Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NDL) swept the previous elections in 2015, only 13 percent of NLD candidates were women. The now 75-year-old Nobel laureate won a parliamentary seat and was named state counselor, becoming Myanmar's first female leader. This time around, women and people under 40 comprise 20-30 percent of the candidates that will run in November for the ruling NLD, the opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), and other political parties a 10 percent increase over the number that ran five years ago. "We have seen many political parties favoring the inclusion of women and young people," said Mya Nandar Thin, an election consultant from the election monitoring group New Myanmar Foundation. "The main incentive for this is that they want to get women's votes," she told RFA. "It is the same with young people's votes." Myanmar has 96 registered political parties whose candidates will compete for 1,171 seats available in both houses of the national parliament and in state and regional legislatures on Nov. 8. Women make up as much as 30-40 percent of the candidates nominated by some newly established and ethnic political parties. Women comprise about 52 percent of Myanmar's estimated population of 54.4 million people. Of the more than 37 million citizens are eligible to vote for the next government in the Nov. 8 elections, over 17 million are male, while more than 19 million are female, according to the Union Election Commission (UEC). Of the current total of 1,150 members of parliament, 44 women account for 10 percent of Myanmar's lower house, 23 women comprise 10 percent of the country's upper house, and 84 women make up nine percent of seats in state and regional legislatures. In the Inter-Parliamentary Union's global rankings of female representation in legislatures, Myanmar ranks 157th, tied with Congo, but ahead of influential neighbor Thailand and aid donor Japan. In the contest for the youth vote, there are 29 lawmakers under the age of 35 who comprise six percent of Myanmar's lower house of parliament and 14 who comprise six percent in upper house. Candidate registrations must be submitted to the UEC, which vets parliamentary candidates and political parties and oversees the country's elections, between July 20 and Aug. 7. Myanmar's constitution, drafted by the army junta that ruled the country, reserves 25 percent of parliamentary seats for unelected military figures. The NLD's picks Though the NLD is largely fielding the party's sitting lawmakers and current chief ministers to run in November, it has selected several female contenders based on their qualifications, said Monywa Aung Shin, a senior NLD party member and editor of its magazine D. Wave Journal. "We have picked capable women candidates," he said. "Female lawmakers work hard in parliament and submit the most questions." The NLD has said it will contest 1,132 seats in the November vote 319 in the lower house of parliament, 162 in the upper house, 622 seats in regional and state parliaments, and 29 ethnic affairs minister positions. About 80 percent of those on the NLD's candidate list are sitting lawmakers who won parliamentary seats in the 2015 elections. About 20 percent of NLD candidates are women, said Zaw Myint Maung, the party's vice chairman and Mandalay region chief minister. Forty-three female candidates will run on the NLD ticket in Yangon region, seven in Mandalay region, three in Kachin state, five in Kayin state, five in Kayah state, and three in Chin state. Both Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint will run to keep their seats in November. The NLD also says it will give priority to ethnic candidates in ethnic minority areas of the multiethnic union. For the first time, the pro-democracy party's ticket includes two Muslim candidates Win Mya Mya and Sithu Maung former political prisoners who are running in Mandalay and Yangon regions. The NLD did not choose Win Mya Mya, current vice chairperson of the NLD's Mandalay regional office, to run in the 2015 elections, prompting critics in the majority Buddhist country shaken by interfaith strife since 2012 to say that she was passed over based on her religion. In an interview with the online journal The Irrawaddy last week, Win Mya Mya said religion did not play into the NLD's decision to support her and Sithu Maung as candidates in this year's election. "Our leaders chose us because they believe we will be able to work for the country, as we have dedicated ourselves and are loyal to our party," she was quoted as saying. "Our leaders choose candidates based not on religion or race. They choose the person who will work for the country as a whole," she said. USDP expects fresh ideas The army-affiliated USDP believes that female and young political candidates will bring new ways of thinking about the issues the country is tackling, said Thein Tun Oo, a party spokesman and central committee member. "We are now favoring women and young people as candidates because we think it will benefit the country the most when we combine new and fresh ideas of young people with experiences of the older generation," he told RFA. Female candidates are more skilled at dealing with women's issues, Thein Tun Oo added. "Women can talk more openly with female MPs," he said. "Female candidates are more adept at handling women-related issues, so we can assign them to those. Their enthusiasm and motivations are also factors in considering women candidates." Women now comprise about 15 percent of candidates put forward by the USDP, while young people account for 14 percent, he said. Ko Ko Gyi, chairman of the People's Party, said he is encouraging the relatively new political party set up by the 88 Generation student leaders from 1980s pro-democracy protests to select up to 30 percent of women as candidates, although the party has not yet issued its list of contenders. "In a country with prevalent [armed] conflicts, I hope these women's maternal instincts will be helpful in mitigating these conflicts, in addition to their expertise and skills," he told RFA. Thet Thet Khaing, chairwoman of People's Pioneer Party (PPP), led by former NLD lawmakers, said including women and young people in leadership roles is part of her party's policy, too. "We are a party composed of several young people, women, and ethnic people," she said. "Our party's policy is to give young people, women, and members of ethnic minority groups an opportunity to take part in leadership roles at the township, regional, state, and central committee levels." Women comprise 45 percent of the PPP's candidates, while people under the age of 35 make up 35 percent. Mon, Shan parties Ethnic parties, including Mon and Shan parties, have also increased the number of women and young people they are fielding as candidates in the upcoming elections. The Mon Unity Party (MUP) has put forward 62 candidates for parliamentary seats mainly in southeastern Myanmar, 26 percent of whom are women and 40 percent are young people up to 40 years of age, said MUP joint secretary Nai Layi Tama on Wednesday. The UEC has permitted the MUP to run in any constituency in the country for the 2020 elections. The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), which campaigns for the interests of ethnic Shan people, has set a 30 percent quota for women and another 30 percent for young people who are 35 years of age and under for the selection period for candidates, said Sai Leik, SNLD general secretary and spokesman, on Wednesday. "Our party leaders are following this rule, so our final lists for candidates will include women and young people at 30 percent each," he told RFA. The SNLD became the largest ethnic Shan party in Myanmar's national-level legislature following the 2015 general elections. A welcome move Women and youth activists have welcomed the moves to include more women and young candidates in the next elections. "We welcome such quotas because we have many young people in this country," said Myanmar youth advocate and activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi. "The population of young people and women are significant part of the country, so political parties are now nominating [them] for leadership role in politics." "The political parties that have picked young people and women candidates are ambitious and thoughtful," he added. Khin Lay, founder and director of the Yangon-based Triangle Women's Support Group, an organization that advocates women's empowerment at the grassroots level across Myanmar, said political parties should nominate more female candidates. "They should pick more women for candidacy because women MPs can work more effectively when it comes to women's and children's issues," she said. "Even though our country is poor, and every sector is starting over, women's and children's issues should not be left out, and the leaders should pay more attention to them," she added. Reported by Thant Zin Oo and Kyaw Lwin Oo for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Copyright 1998-2020, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content July not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 1,202 Nigerian Christians killed in first 6 months of 2020: NGO report Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A Nigerian civil society group estimates that 1,202 Christians have been killed in Nigeria in the first six months of 2020 by jihadists, radicalized herdsmen and others as 22 more Christians were reportedly killed in the Kaduna state last weekend. As rights groups continue to voice concern about genocidal crimes being committed in Nigeria, the Anambra-based International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law has released a new report stating that no fewer than 1,202 Christians were killed between January and June 2020. Intersociety, an organization headed by Christian criminologist Emeka Umeagbalasi, relies on what it deems to be credible local and foreign media reports, government accounts, reports from international rights groups and eyewitness accounts to compile statistical data. Due to the lack of adequate government record-keeping, death tolls reported by media outlets should be construed as estimates. According to the report, the majority of Intersocietys estimated 1,202 Christian death toll through the first six months of 2020 comes mostly from the 812 killings committed by members of the predominantly Muslim Fulani herding community who have been radicalized to carry out attacks against predominantly Christian farming communities in the farming-rich Middle Belt States. Additionally, 390 Christian deaths were attributed to killings committed by radical Islamic groups in the northeast, like Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province, in addition to other perpetrators such as armed bandits. Thousands of defenseless Christians who survived being hacked to death have also been injured and left in mutilated conditions with several of them crippled for life, the Intersociety report states. Hundreds of Christian worship and learning centers have been destroyed or burnt; likewise thousands of dwelling houses, farmlands and other properties belonging to Christians. Intersociety reports that between January and the end of June, Boko Haram killed over 600 people of different religions, 260 of which were killed between May 15 and June 30. According to Intersociety, 100 of those people killed by Boko Haram and ISWAP between mid-May and the end of June were strongly believed to be Christians. Additionally, the organization notes that at least 258 killings were committed by radicalized herdsmen between May 15 and June 30. As Fulani radicals have increasingly attacked Christian farming communities in recent years, the killings have been labeled by the Nigerian government and some human rights groups as part of the decades-long conflicts between herders and farmers in Africa. However, advocates for Nigerian Christian communities contend that the herder-farmer conflict label is misleading because it doesnt take into account other factors at play, such as religious elements. All the areas under Jihadist Herdsmen attacks are Christian communities, as to date," the Intersociety report reads. "There are no pieces of evidence anywhere showing killing of Muslims and taking over of their lands, farmlands and houses or destruction or burning of Mosques by the Jihadist Herdsmen." The organization also warned that there has been a rapid increase in the number of young girls and women who are abducted by radicals nationwide. In other words, Nigerias genocidal and atrocious Jihadists including Jihadist Herdsmen and Boko Haram/ISWAP have rapidly increased their rate of abduction of the referenced females, both legally married and unmarried, the report explains. Such abducted women hardly return when abducted. According to the report, abducted women are sometimes used as sex slaves by their captors and are forcefully married and converted to Islam. Intersociety's new report was released the same weekend in which 22 more people were reportedly killed and an unknown number of people were injured and displaced by a series of attacks in remote areas of the southern Kaduna state between July 10 and July 12. Last weekend's attacks in Kaduna were said to have been carried out by suspected Fulani assailants, according to the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union. Christian Solidarity Worldwide, an organization that works with the persecuted church in over 20 countries, reports that nine people were killed and many more injured during an attack carried out in the Chibwob community in the Gora ward of the Sangon Kataf local government area of Kaduna last Friday. Most of the victims were women and children. Assailants are accused of burning down over 20 homes, burning motorcycles and destroying farms. The next day, Fulani assailants reportedly attacked settlements close to Chibwob that include the Kigudu community. In that attack, 10 women, an infant and an elderly man were reported to have burned to death inside a home. On Sunday, suspected Fulani assailants attacked the Ungwan Audu village in the Gora ward. The assailants reportedly killed one person and burned down the entire village. The village consisted of 163 households. According to CSW, over 1,000 people and 11 pregnant women were displaced by last weekends violence and are now taking shelter in an educational facility owned by the Evangelical Church Winning All denomination. On Sunday, the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union released a statement condemning the attacks and pointed out the fact that police officers assigned to the area to enforce a 24-hour curfew were nowhere to be found when the attacks began. With the curfew still in rigid enforcement, Anguwan Audu, a Surubu village, still under Gora ward was invaded this morning of 12th July, 2020, where the village was looted and entirely burnt and one person killed, SOKPU Public Relation Officer Luka Binniyat said. This brought to a total death toll of 22 persons in three days of unbroken attacks under a 24-hour strictly imposed curfew that has been running for 31 days today. Binniyat argues that the recent attacks confirm a veiled but documented threat issued on June 17 by the leaders of five Fulani supremacist groups at a press conference in Kaduna. We are dismayed by the actions of the security forces, who reportedly attacked peaceful protestors and arrested farmers for violating the curfew, yet failed to prevent armed non-state actors from terrorising civilians for three consecutive days, CSW Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said in a statement. The ongoing violence and loss of life in southern Kaduna is emblematic of an enduring failure or unwillingness on the part of both levels of government to fulfill the responsibility to protecting all citizens in an effective and unbiased manner. In the Tse Chembe district of the Logo local government area of Benue state, another seven people were killed by suspected Fulani radicals last Friday. Benue Gov. Samuel Ortom called on President Muhammadu Buhari to declare Fulani radicals as terrorists. Nigeria ranks as the 12th worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution on Open Doors USAs 2020 World Watch List. Last year, the United States-based nongovernmental organization Jubilee Campaign advised the International Criminal Court in Hague that the standard for genocide against Christians in Nigeria has been reached and urged an investigation. There is growing pressure in Washington, D.C., for the U.S. government to appoint a special envoy to Nigeria and the Lake Chad region to investigate the mass atrocities being committed there. The U.S. State Department placed Nigeria on its special watch list of countries that engage in or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom last December. A bill to permanently allow outdoor drinking in Atlantic City is headed to the governors office. The New Jersey Senate unanimously passed S-1591 Thursday (39-0), allowing for the creation of specific outdoor properties as open container areas. The Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) will determine what areas within the citys Tourism District will be designated open container areas, opening the possibilities that areas along the beach and boardwalk could see beer and mixed drinks being downed by residents and tourists over the age of 21. In June, a companion bill (A299) was unanimously approved by the state Assembly (78-0). Outdoor alcohol consumption was temporarily allowed in Atlantic City after Mayor Marty Small Sr., a Democrat, signed an executive order in June. The city issued the order to help establishments bring in some revenue after the coronavirus cut a lot of income into restaurants and bars. The executive order was scheduled to end after the state of emergency created by the coronavirus pandemic was terminated by the state. However, the new bill would make outdoor consumption permanent. With our bars and restaurants relying on outdoor dining and take out to make ends meet and keep our families employed, this bi-partisan bill enhancing our guests vacation experience will help our mom and pop hospitality businesses get through this challenging time and thrive down the road, Senator Chris Brown, a R-Linwood, told NJ Advance Media. Brown, along with Senator James Beach, D-Burlington and Camden, were co-sponsors of the Senate bill. While the city has a temporary open container order in place now, to implement it permanently could completely transform Atlantic Citys Tourism District, Beach said. Especially during the warmer months, and even into the fall, this would make Atlantic City a much more attractive destination, setting it apart from other Shore towns along the east coast. Small Sr. told NJ Advance Media he was pleased the legislature passed the corresponding bills. I thank the legislature for passing the permanent law for Atlantic City, Small Sr. said. My administration was extremely proactive in getting that done for now via executive order. The businesses and visitors are happy, and I know that we can execute this in the city of Atlantic City. It gives an extra amenity when you are on the Atlantic City boardwalk and other areas where it is allowable. The bill now heads to the desk of Governor Phil Murphy and awaiting his signature. A Murphy spokeswoman declined to comment on pending legislation. Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here. Chris Franklin may be reached at cfranklin@njadvancemedia.com. Massive car bomb explosion kills nine in Turkish-held northeastern Syrian village Iran Press TV Thursday, 30 July 2020 5:44 PM At least nine people have been killed when a massive car bomb explosion struck a checkpoint manned by Turkish-backed Takfiri militants in Syria's northeastern province of Hasakah. The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack took place on Thursday evening in Tal Halaf village, which lies west of the strategic border city of Ra's al-Ayn, and targeted members of the Hamza Division terrorist group and the so-called civil police at Tal Arqam checkpoint. The Britain-based war monitor added that 15 people were also wounded in the bomb attack. The Observatory added that one of the bodies had been charred beyond recognition, and that the death toll might further rise as some of the injured are in critical condition. The attack comes two days after an explosive-rigged motorbike in Ra's al-Ayn killed two civilians and a militant. Another explosion on Sunday also claimed the lives of eight people, including women and children, in the same Syrian city. Syria's official news agency SANA reported that the attack took place near a marketplace. The Turkish Defense Ministry blamed militants from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) for the explosion in a post published on its official Twitter page. Ankara views the US-backed YPG as a terrorist organization tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey since 1984. Back in October 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, signed a memorandum of understanding that asserted YPG militants had to withdraw from the Turkish-controlled "safe zone" in northeastern Syria within 150 hours, after which Ankara and Moscow would run joint patrols around the area. The announcement was made hours before a US-brokered five-day truce between Turkish and Kurdish-led forces was due to expire. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address On July 31, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev made a phone call to the first President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. President Ilham Aliyev congratulated Nursultan Nazarbayev and the brotherly people of Kazakhstan on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, and wished him the best of health and the people of Kazakhstan prosperity. President Ilham Aliyev said Kazakhstan made great strides and followed an honorable historic path under Nursultan Nazarbayev, praising his great role in the development of the bilateral relations between the two countries based on the principles of friendship and brotherhood. Nursultan Nazarbayev thanked for attention and congratulations, and extended his best wishes to the head of state and the people of Azerbaijan on the occasion of the holiday. President Ilham Aliyev praised the statement supporting Azerbaijan released by the Cooperation Council of the Turkic Speaking States, of which Nursultan Nazarbayev is an honorary chair, in connection with Armenia`s provocation on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border. The head of state described this as another manifestation of the Turkic speaking states` mutual support for each other. The head of state wished Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Turkic world elder, robust health and new success in his activities. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Saudi authorities remain on maximum alert for possible health emergencies. It is "reassuring" that no cases have emerged, Ministry of Health said. Participants were provided with masks, accommodation and medical coverage. Allah fulfilled my desire to do the Hajj without any financial cost, says Chinese Muslim. Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) No health problems have emerged so far among pilgrims performing the Hajj, the major pilgrimage to Islams main holy sites, one of the five pillars of the religion, Ministry of Health spokesman Mohammed Al-Abd Al-Ali said on Thursday. It is reassuring that no cases of coronavirus or any other diseases that affect public health have been reported, he said during his daily Hajj briefing in Makkah. This years pilgrimage has been cut back and only a few, no more than 10,000 people (70 per cent foreigners, 30 per cent Saudis) were able to participate compared to the 2.5 million, which represents the average of the last few years. Saudi authorities noted that the health services are fully prepared and remain on high alert to respond to any problems with 1,456 hospital beds available, including 272 for intensive care, 331 for isolation, and more than 200 in emergency departments. Whilst the attention of the authorities is focused on the health situation, the few pilgrims enjoy the peace and serenity of the holy places, a privilege almost impossible in the past. "I couldn't stop myself from crying after Allah fulfilled my desire to do the Hajj without any financial cost," said Ni Haoyu, a 43-year-old Chinese Muslim. In the midst of the pandemic, people from China consider it a privilege to be able to attend the event. This year Saudi authorities decided to cover all expenses, providing food, accommodation and full health protection, to make this edition of Hajj safer than past ones, which saw epidemic outbreaks and incidents kill hundreds of people. "I can perform my rituals away from crowds, which creates an atmosphere of spirituality and tranquillity," said Wajdan Ali, a 25-year-old Saudi nurse, who was selected after she recovered from COVID-19. Pilgrims have received electronic bracelets to track movements and must comply with strict protocols, including wearing masks, physical distancing and periodic body temperature checks. "I was chosen [. . .] I don't know why," said Cai Haobi, a 31-year-old Chinese student at Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah. For As-Shammar, a restaurant employee, how he was chosen does not matter, because what count is being present. "I came to Saudi Arabia one year ago, said the young Filipino. I intended to perform the Hajj after two years after I save[d] up enough (money). But the coronavirus and the selection process helped me do Hajj this year instead." HOUSTON - A grand jury has indicted six former Houston police officers whose work with a narcotics unit has been under scrutiny since a 2019 drug raid in which a couple was killed, prosecutors announced Friday. Prosecutors allege that the former officers falsified documentation about drug payments to confidential informants, routinely used false information to get search warrants, and lied in police reports. The grand jury on Thursday brought indictments on a total of 17 felony charges against the officers. The indicted former officers are Gerald Goines; Steven Bryant; Sgt. Clemente Reyna; Sgt. Thomas Wood; Lt. Robert Gonzales; and Hodgie Armstrong. The charges, which include tampering with a government record and aggregate theft by a public servant, were first filed earlier this month by the Harris County District Attorneys Office, which then brought the case before a grand jury. These indictments reinforce our decision to prosecute the graft, greed and corruption in this troubled Houston Police division, said Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg. Goines and Bryant previously were charged in state and federal court in the case, including two counts of felony murder filed in state court against Goines for the January 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle, 59, and his 58-year-old wife, Rhogena Nicholas. Prosecutors accused Goines of lying to obtain the warrant to search the couples home. Goines claimed a confidential informant had bought heroin at the home. But the informant told investigators no such drug buy ever happened, authorities said. Police found small amounts of marijuana and cocaine in the house, but no heroin. When officers entered the home using a no-knock warrant that didnt require them to announce themselves before entering, they were met with gunfire. Friends of Tuttle and Nicholas say they were not criminals and have suggested that the couple might have thought they were being attacked by intruders. Five officers, including Goines, were injured in the raid. An attorney for Goines and the Houston Police Officers Union have called the charges against the former officers a political ploy by Ogg and said the ex-officers look forward to their day in court. Since the raid, prosecutors have been reviewing thousands of cases handled by the narcotics unit. More than 160 drug convictions tied to Goines have been dismissed by prosecutors, with more likely to follow. An audit of the narcotics unit found that officers often werent thorough in their investigations and overpaid informants for the seizure of minuscule amounts of drugs. MasterChef Australia star Ben Ungermann has shared his first post on social media after abruptly leaving the hit Channel 10 show in early March. The 34-year-old's sudden departure came after he was charged with the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl while he was filming in Melbourne. On Friday afternoon, Ben posted a photo of himself to Instagram, showing him leaning against a white post with Sydney's Darling Harbour in the background. Home: On Friday, MasterChef star Ben Ungermann revealed he had returned to Sydney as he shared his first social media post since he was abruptly removed from the hit cooking show 'Home' he captioned the image, followed by a red love heart emoji. In the picture, Ben folded his arms as he gazed off into the distance. The cook wore a tight black T-shirt with a pair of camouflage print cargo pants, white sneakers and a large round pair of sunglasses. Case: Ungermann was charged on March 6 with two counts of sexual assault, following an alleged incident in Melbourne's Docklands on February 23 involving a 16-year-old girl The Back To Win contestant was charged on March 6 with two counts of sexual assault, following an alleged incident in Melbourne's Docklands on February 23 involving a 16-year-old girl. At the time, he was filming the latest series of MasterChef - but was removed from the competition once producers learned of his arrest. On March 20, it was first reported that Ungermann had been arrested. Back To Win: Ben was filming the 2020 series of MasterChef in Melbourne at the time but was quickly dumped from the series after producers learned of his arrest At the time, a spokesperson for Endemol Shine described his arrest as being 'of a personal nature' but didn't provide further details. He was expected to appear before Melbourne Magistrates' Court on June 25 but he was believed to have been holed up in Queensland and was not present at the web hearing. His lawyer Sarah Condon told the Melbourne Magistrates Court via video link that Ungermann intended to fight the charges. Court documents state police allege Ungermann intentionally touched his alleged child victim without her consent - and he knew it - at least three times. With an aim to address the increasing number of queries from customers effectively and promptly, Axis Bank, Indias third largest private sector Bank today has announced the launch of Automated Voice Assistant AXAA, an Artificial Intelligence powered conversational voice BOT. The launch of AXAA is in line with the Banks Dil se Open philosophy, to build a sharper customer focus and embark on a journey of constant innovation and enhancement. AXAA operates like a humanoid and has power to change the paradigm of customer experience from conventional Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to a new era of call steering and precise response with very high degree of accuracy and consistency. It will assist customers to traverse through the IVR and address their queries and requests, without the need for any human intervention in most cases. AXAA is a next-gen multilingual voice BOT that can converse in both English, Hindi and Hinglish. It is a unique service that helps accelerate engagement strategy and uses cutting edge automated speech recognition, natural language understanding technology boosted by Artificial Intelligence powered business algorithms. AXAA provides an augmented customer experience that automates the contact center operations and is capable of handling a lac customer queries and requests per day with ability to scale up faster. This automated voice assistant has been deployed to enhance customer experience by enabling in-depth understanding of their queries, its context and the intent of the call. Speaking on the launch, Mr. Ratan Kesh, EVP and Head - Retail Operations and Service, Axis Bank said, Our objective is to re-define the role we can play in the life of our customers, by elevating digital banking to new domains of customer service. These initiatives are part of the Banks goals and priorities as outlined in its strategy based on the three vectors of (GPS) Growth, Profitability and Sustainability. This new technology will not only enhance customer experience, but will also increase efficiency of our contact centre operations. More importantly it will help our employees to focus on more complicated queries and request from customers and thereby improve productivity while improving quality and customer experience. AXAA will work side by side with expert customer service officers in delivering consistent and superior experience to customers. AXAA also enables us to incorporate more automated self-services on IVR and brings the customer closer to adoption of the digital platform. The Bank has partnered with the service provider Vernacular.Ai to deploy AXAA on phonebanking IVR. Vernacular.Ai extends end-to-end technical support on the solution and renders professional services for the deployment and integration of voice BOT with Axis Bank's applications. On the occasion, Mr. Sourabh Gupta, CEO and Co-founder, Vernacular.Ai said, We are very excited to partner with Axis Bank on their digital journey to provide a first of its kind banking experience to millions of its customers across India. An early adopter of new technologies, Axis Bank is known for its customer-centric approach to innovation. Our voice AI platform - AXAA will help Axis Bank offer its customers a superior engagement experience in a language that they are comfortable with, and resolve more issues with no waiting times. Voice is the future of human interface with machines, and AXAA is the most advanced and accurate voice AI platform for Indian language speech and dialects. AXAA is capable of recognizing the intent and nature of the customers query with success rate more than current industry benchmark and is able to contain the call on IVR without any human intervention. In case AXAA is unable to service or cater to a particular customer query, she will direct the call directly to one of the expert service officers (a human assistant), minimizing the navigation time on conventional IVR. Axis Bank remains committed to embracing digital technologies to be able to serve its customers better. Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh has ordered a magisterial inquiry by divisional commissioner Jalandhar into the suspicious deaths of 21 people, allegedly due to consumption of spurious liquor, in Amritsar, Batala and Tarn Taran. One person is reported to be critical in the suspected hooch tragedy. The inquiry will look into the facts and circumstances leading to incidents, as well as into any other issue(s) connected or relevant to the incident(s). It will be conducted by the divisional Commissioner of Jalandhar along with joint excise & taxation commissioner Punjab, and superintendent of police for investigation of the concerned districts, according to an official spokesperson. The chief minister has given commissioner Jalandhar division the liberty to co-opt any civil/police officer or any expert to facilitate the expeditious conduct of the enquiry. He has promised strict action against anyone found complicit in the case, in which a woman has so far been arrested. Taking immediate and serious note of the case, Captain Amarinder also directed the police to launch a search operation to crack down on any spurious liquor manufacturing units that may be operating in the state. Also Read: India praises Canada for disavowing SFJs Punjab Referendum Police have arrested Balwinder Kaur, a resident of Muchhal, under section 304 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), section 61/1/14 of the Excise Act. Further investigations are in progress by the special investigation team (SIT) constituted by SSP Amritsar-Rural, from where the first cases were reported. The post mortem of four persons Jaswinder Singh, Kashmir Singh, Kirpal Singh and Jaswant Singh - will be conducted today to ascertain the exact cause of the deaths. The director general of police (DGP) Punjab, Dinkar Gupta, said the first five deaths were reported from villages Mucchal and Tangra in Tarsikka police station limits in Amritsar Rural on the night of July 29. On the evening of July 30, two more persons died in suspicious circumstances at Muchhal, while one person was hospitalised in critical condition and later succumbed at Sri Guru Ramdas Hospital. Later, two more deaths were reported from village Mucchal, while another two people reportedly died in Batala city, also due to spurious liquor consumption. Also Read: Punjabi University row: V-Cs adviser puts in papers over delay in joining Today, five more persons died in Batala, taking the toll in the city to seven, while one person has been referred to civil hospital, Batala in critical condition. Four more similarly suspicious deaths have also been reported from Tarn Taran. 10 deceased are from Amritsar Rural-- Mangal Singh, Balwinder Singh, Dalbir Singh, Gurpreet Singh, Kashmir Singh, Kaka Singh, Kirpal Singh, Jaswant Singh and Joga Singh-- all residents of Muchhal village and Baldev Singh, from Tangra. Seven deceased are from Batala-- Buta Ram, Bhinda, Riku Singh, Kala, Kalu, Billa and Jatinder and four are from Tarn Taran-- Sahib Singh, Harban Singh, Sukhdev Singh and Dharam Singh. A young Australian father who moved to the UK to care for his toddler daughter is fighting for his life in hospital after being 'violently assaulted' by thugs. Jake Perry, 24, is on life support with serious head injuries inflicted during a random attack on Sunday morning in the leafy town of Alton, in Hampshire in the south of England. His mother Erika Perry made the desperate dash to be by his side after crowdfunding money for the flight and obtaining a travel exemption to fly out of Australia. In a tearful video on social media the single mother begged the community to help pitch in so she could visit her only son. Jake Perry, 24, (pictured with mother Erika Perry) is on life support with serious head injuries caused during a random attack on Sunday morning in the leafy town of Alton, in England's Hampshire region 'Let me be by his side before it's too late,' she said. 'While I am hoping for the best outcome, his status is critical and time is of the essence. If I am able to see him anytime soon, it will only be with your help. 'I am a single mother without the means to do this and desperately need your help.' Mr Perry had relocated to Alton several years ago to raise his three-year-old daughter, leaving his mother on the 'other side of the world'. After being admitted to the Southampton General Hospital doctors discovered a massive hematoma which caused significant swelling and bleeding on the brain. The young Australian father moved to the United Kingdom to care for his toddler daughter Ms Perry described Jake as a 'fun, energetic, young man' who is a 'loving son' and 'great father' According to police the injuries suggest he wasn't in a fight, but was attacked without warning. Ms Perry described Jake as a 'fun, energetic, young man' who is a 'loving son' and 'great father.' The grieving mother had been told a flight would cost around $14,000 because of international travel bans in place due to COVID-19. But the Gofundme campaign was so successful generous supporters helped her raise more than $20,000 in only 24 hours. By Thursday she had managed to arrange a flight through the Australian consulate to the coronavirus hot spot which is listed as a code red country on the government's travel advice website Smart Traveller. His Mother Erika Perry made the desperate dash to be by his side after crowdfunding money for the flight and gaining a travel exemption to fly out of Australia She hopped on a plane, thanking her supporters for giving her a chance to see her son one last time. 'I cannot explain how grateful I am, or how much this restores my faith in humanity,' she said. 'All of this has happened so quickly that I could never have imagined it would be possible, but thanks to all those very special people who have helped me through the last 48hrs, it does look like I will be able to see my son. ' Three men in their 20s have been arrested and charged over the alleged assault. Quarterly Activities Report Brisbane, July 31, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - State Gas Limited ( ASX:GAS ) is owner and operator of the Reid's Dome Gas Project (PL 231) in central eastern Queensland, approximately 545 km northwest of Brisbane and 50 km southwest of Rolleston, in the Bowen Basin Central Queensland. The permit hosts both conventional and unconventional gas and is approximately 45 km from the high-pressure gas pipeline network in Queensland.HIGHLIGHTS:- Customised pumps manufactured and imported from Canada- Dewatering activities recommenced at Reid's Dome- All three wells (Serocold-1, Aldinga East-1A and Nyanda-4) at Reid's Dome have produced gas, with continuing production at Serocold-1 and Nyanda-4- Streamlining of management structure towards production focus- Costs of $233,000 received from successful outcome in legal appealTo view the quarterly report, please visit:About State Gas Limited State Gas Limited (ASX:GAS) is a Queensland-based developer of the Reid's Dome gas field, originally discovered during drilling in 1955, located in the Bowen Basin in Central Queensland. State Gas is 100%-owner of the Reid's Dome Gas Project (PL-231) a CSG and conventional gas play, which is well-located 30 kilometres southwest of Rolleston, approximately 50 kilometres from the Queensland Gas Pipeline and interconnected east coast gas network. Permian coal measures within the Reid's Dome Beds are extensive across the entire permit but the area had not been explored for coal seam gas prior to State Gas' ownership. In late 2018 State Gas drilled the first coal seam gas well in the region (Nyanda-4) into the Reid's Dome Beds and established the potential for a significant coal seam gas project in PL 231. The extension of the coal measures into the northern and central areas of the permit was confirmed in late 2019 by the Company's drilling of Aldinga East-1A (12 km north) and Serocold-1 (6 km to the north of Nyanda-4). State Gas is also the 100% holder Authority to Prospect 2062 ("Rolleston-West"), a 1,414 km2 permit (eight times larger than PL 231) that is contiguous with the Reid's Dome Gas Project. Rolleston-West contains highly prospective targets for both coal seam gas (CSG) and known conventional gas within the permit area. It is not restricted by domestic gas reservation requirements. The contiguous areas (Reid's Dome and Rolleston-West), under sole ownership by State Gas, enable integration of activities and a unified super-gasfield development, providing economies of scale, efficient operations, and optionality in marketing. State Gas is implementing its strategic plan to bring gas to market from Reid's Dome and Rolleston-West to meet near term forecast shortfalls in the east coast domestic gas market. The strategy involves progressing a phased appraisal program in parallel with permitting for an export pipeline and development facilities to facilitate the fastest possible delivery of gas to market. State Gas' current focus has been to confirm the producibility of the gas through production testing of the wells. Sanjay Jain, whose name had surfaced in an audio recording about horse trading of legislators to topple the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government in Rajasthan, refused to give his voice samples on Friday despite court orders for the same. He alleged that the agency taking samples cant be trusted. After an application was filed by the special operations group (SOG) on July 18, the metro magistrate court number 2 had given permission to conduct the voice spectography test of Jain. Today, when the accused was asked to give his sample, his counsel refused after which the court remarked that an inference may be drawn against Jain during trial, said Liyakat Khan, public prosecutor. Khan added that everybody is bound to obey the orders of the court, adding that in future the accused cannot plead that its not his voice. Jains counsel, advocate Vivek Bajwa, said his client does not trust the agency which is investigating the case. We know the fact that as per the Evidence Act not giving the statement will go against us. We dont trust the agency investigating the case and we also doubt that if my client had given the voice samples then the FSL report could have been tampered on the orders of the government. How can we trust the politicians, said Bajwa. Jains counsel had also filed a bail application which would be heard by the local court on August 4. Legal expert Akhil Choudhary pointed to a 2019 Supreme Court judgment that said the fundamental right to privacy cannot be construed as absolute and must bow down to compelling public interest. The SC bench held that giving a voice sample to an investigating agency was neither a violation of the fundamental right nor it amounts to furnishing of evidence against oneself. It reasoned that a voice sample was given for the reason of comparison with other voices in order to see if they matched and were of the same person. A voice sample by itself is not incriminating evidence, added Choudhary. He further said that in the case at hand, the trial court could have directed the investigation team to obtain voice samples of the accused despite the accused not inclined to give his samples. The trial court has rightly mentioned in its order that not giving a voice sample can go against him during the trial stage, Choudhary said. Meanwhile, the anti-corruption bureau (ACB) on Friday also filed an application in the local court seeking approval for questioning of Jain. Jain was called for questioning on July 17 after the SOG registered a case on the complaint by chief whip Mahesh Joshi. The Congress filed two cases on the basis of audiotapes. In one, it named Sanjay Jain, Gajendra Singh and Congress MLA Bhanwarlal Sharma as people hatching conspiracy against the government; the second case is against unnamed accused. The SOG arrested Jain on July 17. The SOG is investigating three cases of sedition and conspiracy to pull down the Gehlot government. Also, on the complaint by Congress, a case was also registered at the ACB against Jain, Sharma and Singh under section 7 (public servant accepts or attempts to take bribe) and 7A(public servant obtaining undue advantage) of Prevention of Corruption Act. Jain, who belongs to Loonkaransar town in Rajasthans Bikaner district, is a power broker and is perceived to be close to both Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders. A former block president of the Indian Youth Congress, the party has accused Jain of being a BJP leader. The BJP claims Jain is still a Congress member. LONDON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The environment is in crisis, but with governments distracted by the immediacy of COVID-19 and individual efforts being too small to make a difference, businesses are increasingly taking on the responsibility of building a sustainable future. Agile businesses are meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals by changing their products and operations with economies of scale that are making a real difference to the planet. Businesses involved in the 50 Climate Leaders campaign include: Bank of the West Celsius Energy Schlumberger Constantia Flexibles Export Development Canada IEnova Lekela LIXIL Group Corporation Lumina Foundation PensionDanmark Philip Morris International Ritter Sport Rolls-Royce Schroders Wallenius Wilhelmsen UL The campaign is the latest project devised by Paolo Emilio Zanini, CEO and Founder at TBD Media Group. Zanini says that sustainability is the ultimate challenge for businesses in the 21st century: "Many people feel overwhelmed by the threat of climate change," says Zanini. "But the most innovative companies in the world are stepping up to the challenge. We should be optimistic that these organizations have the will to meet and surpass the UN's Sustainable Development Goals." The 50 Climate Leaders series documents the businesses leading industries towards taking greater responsibility for the future of our planet and showcases the approaches they are taking to tackle the most pressing issue facing the world today. For further background, please visit our 50 Climate Leaders website: https://www.50climateleaders.com You can also watch all of these campaigns on our TBD Media YouTube Channel Page. SOURCE TBD Media Related Links https://www.tbdmediagroup.com Kirit Somaiya, a former member of parliament has asked cabinet minister Nitin Raut to resign on Friday, during a press conference in Thane. He asked residents to not pay bogus electricity bills and file a criminal case against the Maharashtra State Electricity Board instead. After receiving complaints from residents about the increased bills, Somaiya held a press conference in Thane asking residents to not pay the bills. If they cancel your electricity connection for not paying the bills, file a criminal offence against the Electricity Board. We have received more than 500 complaints where Thane residents with an average bill of 2,000 or 4,000 have received 25,000 and 45,000 bills, said Somaiya at the BJP office in Khopat. MLC Niranjan Davkhare and Somaiya have put forth some demands for the electricity board, The hike in bills implemented from April 1 need to be taken back. The first 100 units should be waived off and the next 300 units should be at a 50% discount. During this lockdown period a time frame of six months should be given to pay the bill, said Davkhare. Somaiya also took potshots against Sanjay Raut and Nitin Raut, Both Sanjay Raut and Nitin Raut indulge in dramatics, Nitin Raut himself had requested for 20,000 crores to pay salaries of the electricity board staff. He was not allotted that money, so instead, he increased the bills to pay for the salaries. Somaiya demands CBI inquiry into actor death With new information coming to light daily in the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, Somaiya demanded that the CBI should take charge if the police are not able to probe the case. Either the CBI or the Bihar police should be given charge of probing into the death of the late actor if the police cannot handle the case, said Somaiya. THIS PRESS RELEASE, REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE CANADIAN LAWS, IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sonoro Metals Corp. (TSXV: SMO | OTCQB: SMOFF | FRA: 23SP) (Sonoro or the Company) is pleased to announce that, in response to strong investor demand, it is increasing its non-brokered private placement first announced on July 23 (the "Offering") by providing for an overallotment option of up to 60% (13,636,364 Units) over and above the 22,727,273 Units previously announced. The Offering price remains $0.22 per Unit, each comprised of one Sonoro Common share and one Common share purchase warrant. Each warrant will entitle the holder thereof to purchase one additional Sonoro Common share for a period of three years from the closing at an exercise price of $0.30 per share. The Offering, if fully subscribed, will yield gross proceeds of $5,000,000, with the potential to add up to $3,000,000 of additional proceeds under the overallotment option. The Company intends to pay finders fees as permitted under the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange in respect of Units placed with the assistance of registered securities dealers. All securities issued and issuable in connection with the Offering will be subject to a 4-month hold period in Canada from the closing date. The Offering, including the overallotment option, is subject to TSX Venture Exchange acceptance. The net proceeds from the Offering will be used principally to fund Sonoros previously announced exploration and development plans at its Cerro Caliche Project located in Sonora, Mexico and project property maintenance payments, and secondarily for corporate and general administrative expenses. About Sonoro Metals Corp. Sonoro is a publicly listed mineral exploration and development company with two exploration stage precious metal properties in Sonora State, Mexico. The Companys current principal focus, under the leadership of its management team, with proven track records for the discovery and development of natural resource deposits, is the pursuit of a dual-track strategy for its Cerro Caliche Project developing a heap leach pilot operation, while continuing an aggressive exploration program to potentially expand the projects size. Story continues On behalf of the Board of SONORO METALS CORP. Per: Kenneth MacLeod Kenneth MacLeod President & CEO For further information, please contact: Sonoro Metals Corp. - Tel: (604) 632-1764 Email: info@sonorometals.com Forward-Looking Statement Cautions: This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, relating to, among other things: (i) the proposed development and financing of the Companys exploration and development plans for its Cerro Caliche Project, including the development of a heap leach pilot operation; and (ii) the Companys intention to undertake a Unit private placement financing. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable based on current circumstances, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "potential," "goal," "objective," "prospective," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including the risks that the Company will not be able to successfully sell any or all of the Units; the Company will not be able otherwise to secure the financing necessary to fund its proposed exploration and development of its Cerro Caliche Project, or to fund its other project exploration and development business; future exploration results will be unfavourable and will not support the proposed plan to build a heap leach pilot operation or justify further exploration efforts; equipment failures, accidents, or external problems (e.g. civil unrest, public health emergencies) may materially increase the Companys business expenses or delay (or prevent altogether) the execution of the Companys business plans; and unanticipated changes in the legal, regulatory and permitting requirements for the Companys mineral exploration programs and development plans for its projects, at present, all of which are located in Mexico, may prevent the Company from carrying out some or all of its business plans. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law or the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange. Readers are encouraged to review the Companys complete public disclosure record on SEDAR at www.sedar.com for further information regarding the Companys business and the risks associated therewith. This press release does not constitute or form a part of any offer or solicitation to purchase or subscribe for securities in the United States. The securities referred to herein have not been and will not be registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act), or with any securities regulatory authority of any state or other jurisdiction in the United States, and may not be offered or sold, directly or indirectly, within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons, as such term is defined in Regulation S under the Securities Act (Regulation S), except pursuant to an exemption from or in a transaction not subject to the registration requirements of the Securities Act. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. A Co Londonderry town came to a sombre standstill on Friday for the funeral of three members of the same family who died in a two-car crash in Portglenone earlier this week. On a damp July day the three victims, husband and wife Paul and Verena Creelman and Mrs Creelman's brother Philip (Phil) Hegarty, were remembered as "three good people" as they were laid to rest in Kilrea. Their silver Volkswagen Passat and a black Audi were involved in the accident on the Lisnahunshin Road in Portglenone at around 10.40am on Monday. The three relatives, who were all aged in their 50s, were pronounced dead at the scene, while the male driver of the Audi was taken to hospital as a precaution. On Friday morning hundreds of mourners lined the streets in line with social distancing guidelines as the three coffins were driven through the town to St Mary's Church in Drumagarner for requiem mass. Expand Close The joint funeral of husband and wife Paul and Verena Creelman, and her brother Phil Hegarty took place in Kilrea / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The joint funeral of husband and wife Paul and Verena Creelman, and her brother Phil Hegarty took place in Kilrea The order of service cover featured a smiling photo of the couple and Mr Hegarty alongside the words "never selfish, always kind, these are the memories you leave behind". In his homily Fr Ciaran Hegarty, curate of Urney and Castlefin and a relative of the deceased, told mourners that the sudden deaths of the three family members had left "a gap that can never be filled". "Kilrea just won't be the same without catching sight of the three of them walking down the street. Coming home will be a lot less special because Paul, Varena and Phil won't be about," he said. He paid tribute to Mrs Creelman's "goodwill, warmth and kindness" and said she was someone for whom "a laugh was never far away", adding: "I feel cheated, because in this life, I'll never have that joy again." The priest said her husband was "a strong big fella and certainly no lightweight" and "an intellect with a searching mind". "While he had many opinions, he was not an opinionated man and could accept the other side of an argument very rationally," he added. Fr Hegarty also alluded to Mr Creelman's life-long love of greyhound racing and his regular attendance at both the Lifford and Derry tracks down the years. "Paul was an expert at getting his greyhounds across the finishing line. "We are now sending him and Paul, along with Varena, towards the finishing line where we all hope to be when the race that is this life is run," he said. The congregation was told that Phil Hegarty, or 'Scobie' as he was affectionately known was "part of the furniture" in Kilrea. Despite not being married or having children of his own, Fr Hegarty said he was "a family man in every sense" and much loved by his nephews and nieces. Afterwards mourners followed the three coffins from the church to the adjoining graveyard for burial. Mr and Mrs Creelman are survived by their children Sean, Damien, Mikaela and Tomas, grandchildren Scarlett and Saoirse, siblings and family circle. Police are still appealing for witnesses or those who may have dash cam footage of the crash to contact police on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference number 591 27/07/20. Monday's fatal accident occurred in the same area where two English soldiers, who were both aged 24, died in a road crash with a tractor in 2014. Lance Corporal David Gwilt, from Bedford, and Rifleman Dale Harris from Barnsley died when their car failed to stop at a junction on the Ballyconnelly Road in Cullybackey. Google is seeking help from its biggest Pixel phone fans to make the devices more useful. The company is referring to these users as Pixel Super Fans, and is sending out surveys to gather information and insight about future devices. Or simply future services and feature improvements it can make to current devices. The survey, which doesnt necessarily state that it wants insight to help design specific details of future Pixel phones, is legitimately asking for opinions from users. Just not about phone design. Advertisement The email being sent out to super fans requests help from users to make Pixel phones more useful. Google of course wants to go straight to the people it values most in this regard. Pixel users. Likely those that have purchased more than a few Pixel products. Google wants to know how it can make Pixel phones more useful This seems like your run of the mill survey for product research. It doesnt mention anything about a new device. It does however ask a couple of key questions about Pixel products, like which ones you might care about and which ones you own or have owned in the past. Advertisement In addition to that it also asks if users would be interested in attending a virtual event. That event is happening later on in August, specifically on August 17 and August 18. Keeping these dates in mind, this doesnt seem to be for any sort of product event. Rather it appears to be a way to connect Pixel super fans with people from the product design team. During this virtual event users will have the opportunity to meet other Pixel super fans, and ask questions to the people who make the devices. Advertisement Other than that theres not much Google has given up in terms of details. However that doesnt mean there wont be something beneficial for the virtual event attendees. Participating in the survey gets you special perks. Probably. Usually when you complete a survey you get something out of it for your time. Its not generally anything major, but a little something. Like in the case of Googles Rewards app on Android which gives you small amounts of Play Store credit. Advertisement In this case, it seems that super fans who take the survey will have a chance to get special perks like discounts on Google products (including Pixel phones), and first access to new features. Among other things. There is some opt-in stuff included. So keep that in mind when entering any information into the survey form. All that said, if youre a big fan of Pixel products, the survey might end up being worth your time. If youd like to take the survey for yourself, you can do so through this link, which will take you straight to the Google Form page. Flipkart on Friday announced more benefits for over 6 lakh sellers who are artisans, weavers, craftsmen and owners of other small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) from the underserved communities in the country. Earlier, the Samarth sellers enjoyed a commission waiver of zero per cent for the first 6 months of their onboarding the platform and then, the commission varied. Now, after the completion of six months at zero commission, the sellers will be charged a standard 5 per cent commission, at par with the industry standards, giving them more scope to grow their business online, Flipkart said in a statement. "MSMEs are the most vibrant and dynamic contributors to our economy. It is about time for India's rich cultural heritage to make it a global hub for handicrafts and goods and collaborating with e-commerce companies is a win-win situation for both," said Union Minister of State for MSME Pratap Chandra Sarangi. Flipkart Samarth gives the businesses access to its growing pan-India customer base of more than 200 million. The company said the Samarth Sellers will also be granted free cataloguing support for limited no of products, advertising credits for the first month to help them garner prominent visibility on the platform, registration and listing training. Today, Flipkart Samarth is able to support the livelihood of over 6,00,000 artisans, weavers and craftsmen across India and is working towards bringing more such sellers to the platform. Flipkart has partnered with several government bodies to bring local artisans, weavers and craftsmen into the e-commerce fold to leverage the platform's benefits. These include partnerships with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, UP Khadi Village and Industries Board and Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM) to set-up Flipkart Samarth in 22 states. "The year gone by has given us greater confidence and sharper direction for our future endeavours and we will continue to expand our reach and support to these small businesses, rural entrepreneurs and Indian handicrafts, etc," said Rajneesh Kumar, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Flipkart Group. Flipkart also supports MSMEs through Walmart Vriddhi, a supplier development programme that aims to empower 50,000 MSMEs for the local and global markets. Donald Trump has suggested November's presidential election be postponed, saying increased postal voting could lead to fraud and inaccurate results. He floated a delay until people could "properly, securely and safely" vote. There is little evidence to support Mr Trump's claims but he has long railed against mail-in voting which he has said would be susceptible to fraud. BBC reports in its article Donald Trump suggests delay to 2020 US presidential election that US states want to make postal voting easier due to public health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. Under the US constitution, Mr Trump does not have the authority to postpone the election himself. Any delay would have to be approved by Congress. The president does not have direct power over the two houses of Congress. What did Trump say? In a series of tweets, Mr Trump said "universal mail-in voting" would make November's vote the "most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history" and a "great embarrassment to the USA". He suggested - without providing evidence - that mail-in voting, as it is known in the US, would be susceptible to foreign interference. "The [Democrats] talk of foreign influence in voting, but they know that Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter the race," he said. Mr Trump also said postal voting was "already proving to be a catastrophic disaster" in areas where it was being tried out. In June, New York allowed voters to vote by post in the Democratic primary poll for the party's presidential candidate. But there have been long delays in counting the ballots and the results are still unknown. US media report that there are also concerns that many ballots will not be counted because they were not filled in correctly or do not have postmarks on them that show they were sent before voting officially ended. However, several other states have long conducted votes by post. Donald Trump can't delay November's presidential election without Congress, partially controlled by the Democrats, first approving the decision. If he didn't already know this, someone has certainly told him by now. The president also must know that tweeting about a delay - even framed as an "I'm just asking!" question - is sure to ignite a political firestorm, particularly after he has repeatedly refused to say whether he'd accept an adverse result in the upcoming presidential election. Mr Trump appears to be doing everything in his power to undermine the credibility of November's vote, in which a record number of Americans are predicted to rely on mail-in voting to avoid the risk of exposure to the coronavirus. He's repeatedly made false and misleading claims about the reliability of the mail balloting and suggested broad conspiracy theories. Critics warn that he could be laying the groundwork for contesting the results - although the purpose may be simply to give him a scapegoat if he loses. His tweet could also be an attempt to divert attention away from the truly dismal second-quarter economic numbers just released. He's been relying on a financial turnaround to breathe life into his re-election campaign, and instead the outlook appears exceedingly gloomy. Whatever the reason, tweeting about an election delay is not the move of a candidate confident of victory - and could be a sign of more desperate moves to come. What reaction has there been? Quizzed by reporters on whether a president could delay the election, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he would not "enter a legal judgement on the fly". When pressed, he said the justice department would "make that legal determination", adding "we want an election that everyone is confident in". Ellen Weintraub, chairwoman of the US Federal Election Commission, said Mr Trump did not have the power to move the election - and added: "Nor should it be moved." She called for more funding for states to be able to run "the safe and secure elections all Americans want". Numerous Republicans - including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House of Representatives Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy - also dismissed the idea. "Never in the history of the federal elections have we ever not held an election and we should go forward with our election," Mr McCarthy said. Trump ally Senator Lindsay Graham meanwhile said a delay was "not a good idea". Democrats have also been lining up to condemn Mr Trump's suggestion. New Mexico Senator Tom Udall said there was "no way" the president could delay the election. "But the fact that he is even suggesting it is a serious, chilling attack on the democratic process. All members of Congress - and the administration - should speak out," he said. However Chris Stewart, a Republican congressman from Utah, said that while he did not support delaying the election, Mr Trump had a legitimate point about postal voting being hard to monitor. "Can you ensure the accuracy of mail-in voting? Now in some states you can. In my state in Utah, for example, we've been doing it for quite a while, but we're a small state with a relatively small population. It's harder to do on a national scale," he told the BBC. Who can change the election date? President Trump does not have the authority to move the date of the election, which is usually held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Any change of date would need to be approved by the two houses of Congress - the House of Representatives and the Senate. Democrats control the House of Representatives and some have already said they will not support any delay to the vote. Any move by Congress to delay the election into 2021 would also require a constitutional amendment, US media quoted constitutional experts as saying. The amendment would be needed to change the dates for swearing in members of Congress and the new presidential administration, according to NPR. Finally, legal experts quoted by NBC said that even if Congress did agree to delay the election, Mr Trump's own term as president would still expire by 20 January 2021 under the constitution's 20th Amendment. Which states are holding postal votes? Earlier this month, six US states were planning to hold "all-mail" ballot elections in November: California, Utah, Hawaii, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. Other states are considering it, according to a postal voting campaign group. These states will automatically send postal ballots to all registered voters, which then have to be sent back or dropped off on election day - although some in-person voting is still available in certain limited circumstances. About half of US states allow any registered voter to cast their ballot by post on request. Critics of postal voting argue that people could vote more than once via absentee ballots and in person. Mr Trump has in the past said there was a risk of "thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebody's living room, signing ballots all over the place". However, there is no evidence of widespread fraud, according to numerous nationwide and state-level studies over the years. Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. A young demolition worker is fighting for life after she was hit in the head by a JCB while at work. Shannon Brasier, 20, from Dagenham, has a brain injury, severe damage to her facial bones, a broken back and is currently in a coma on life support at the Royal London Hospital. She was airlifted to hospital after being struck at a site in Southend-on-Sea on Tuesday afternoon. Detectives are investigating and have arrested a 55-year-old man on suspicion of grievous bodily harm. Shannon and her mother, Lena Miss Brasiers cousin Scarlett Smith, 28, said: This has been shocking for the entire family and we still dont know exactly what happened. Shannon is much older than her years, really mature and looks after everyone in the family. She is the most wonderful, beautiful person. Every day we are praying that she will be able to wake up. We are all devastated. Miss Brasiers younger siblings Riley, 18, and Bailey, 11, have only been allowed short visits to the hospital because of Covid-19 restrictions. Miss Brasiers mother, Lena, suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and had been shielding. The family has started an online fundraising campaign to help them pay for the cost of hospital visits and bills. The GoFundMe page has raised more than 3,800 so far. Ms Smith said: Shannon has been working since she was 15 She was paying the majority of the bills and looking after her mum. Essex Police said a 55-year old man was arrested and has since been released under investigation. A spokesman for Ace Demolition said the company was working with police and the Health and Safety Executive. In anticipation of that, the Oklahoma Senate gave final legislative approval to Senate Joint Resolution 27, which created SQ 814. The proposal would flip the way the tobacco money is split: 25% to the endowment, 75% to a special fund dedicated to Medicaid costs. So far, so good. But Gov. Kevin Stitt who has an on-again, off-again relationship with Medicaid expansion hasnt scheduled SQ 814 for a vote yet. Bad. A lot of the delay had to do with the bureaucratic process of getting the issue ready for voter consideration. You cant blame the governor for that. At one time, it looked like Stitt would have the option for putting it on the August runoff election, but the deadline has passed for that ballot. Because the August election will have a much smaller turnout than the November presidential vote, thats good news. Baylee Lakey, a spokeswoman for Stitt, told me Friday that all the bureaucratic processes have all been completed and Stitt expects to decide when to put it before voters in the coming weeks. Good news there, but why keep us waiting, Gov. Stitt? It is precisely this sort of admission that might have been seized upon during Gillards time in politics to extrapolate that she somehow lacked nurturing skills or was out of touch. In 2005, a now-infamous photograph of Gillard in her spotless Altona kitchen with an empty "fruit bowl" became a national talking point and a metaphor for her childlessness. A News Limited article would later describe it as the first of 29 moments that led to her downfall: "Her empty fruit bowl translates in the public consciousness as symbolic of a single career woman." The furore felt ridiculous at the time, Gillard says, and "with the benefit of hindsight has become evermore comedic in my mind, just laugh out loud silly". Jewel Topsfield with her leftovers while 'lunching' with Julia Gillard. Credit:Joe Armao "As I have constantly said since ... its not a fruit bowl. Its actually a decorative glass bowl with a sort of sea design at the base of it and it looks better if you can see that. Even so, history will record it for all time as a fruit bowl." It may have been ridiculous but the Great Fruit Bowl Scandal of 2005 is emblematic of the relentless sexism and misogyny that Gillard weathered throughout her political career. There was the Liberal National Party fundraiser in 2013 when she was prime minister of the country. Menu: "Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box". Gillard was "Bob Browns bitch" and a witch who should be ditched, according to placards at an anti-carbon tax rally in 2011. Senator Bill Heffernan said she was "deliberately barren". Shock jock Alan Jones referred to her ad nauseam as Ju-liar, someone who made her father die of shame and should be put in a chaff bag and thrown out to sea. Gillard was aware of just how gendered her treatment was at the time. "It was impossible to not be aware of it when people are holding up signs and shouting insults from the public gallery during question time." But she always had the whisper of Paul Keating in her ear "there is not a day to waste" and her relentless focus was on driving the next policy reform. It is only now, in her life post-politics, that Gillard has had the time to delve into the research of what she calls in a chapter of her memoir My Story "the curious question of gender". This research (or lack thereof) inspired Gillard to successfully pitch the idea of a Global Institute for Womens Leadership at Kings College in London. (There is also now a sister institute at the Australian National University.) It has also informed her latest book, Women in Leadership, which is co-written with former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. (The two leaders met at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2011, which Gillard chaired. In an amusing anecdote in the book, Okonjo-Iweala recounts having to explain to colleagues what it meant when Gillards biographical notes said she had a partner not a husband.) The pair test their own experiences and those of eight female leaders including Hillary Clinton, Theresa May and Jacinda Ardern against academic research on leadership and gender. "Ngozi and I are not gender studies academics but we have thoughtfully looked at the research and we did want to see if it held true in womens lives," Gillard says. Women and Leadership by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. This hypotheses testing is then distilled into standout lessons for all aspiring female leaders. Some of these are sobering. Lesson one, for example, is that while leadership might not be "all about the hair", sadly judgements about women are still based more on their appearance than is true for men. Gillard recalls with frustration visiting a shopping plaza within days of becoming prime minister and all the media coverage focusing on her coat jacket, which one "fashion expert" sniffed resembled a "cheap motel bedspread". She now wonders whether she should have called this sexism out earlier and asked the media pack, "Is it always going to be like this?" "Maybe we could have started the debate we needed to have." Just as Clinton developed a "uniform" of pantsuits, Gillard honed "a pretty standard look so people werent talking about the clothing". Even this didnt always work. In 2012 radical feminist Germaine Greer author of the groundbreaking The Female Eunuch, which challenged a woman's traditional role in society commented on national TV that Gillard had a big arse and should get rid of those bloody jackets. "We talk about the Germaine Greer moment in the book, causing Ngozi to joke that in Nigeria I would be viewed as too skinny to marry her son, which is kind of cute," Gillard says. "I am obviously someone who grew up admiring Germaine Greer, she was the leading Australian feminist, the one whose voice was heard around the world as I was coming up through the ranks, so I was frustrated by that comment. I thought it didnt reflect well on her it didnt help me, it didnt really help the cause of women in politics." The book also explores the hypothesis that having children and being a leader plays out differently for women than it does for men. And it warns that a childless woman can be diminished as out of touch. Theresa May - who was publicly candid about the fact she and her husband wanted children but were unable to have them - says in the book she was largely treated respectfully by the media about being childless. On the other hand Gillard was criticised by Senator Bill Heffernan for choosing to remain deliberately barren and therefore having no idea what life is about. I think my treatment here was differential because it was seen not as a physical constraint but as a choice I had made, Gillard says. Gender politics expert Blair Williams notes that Women in Leadership "is, at times, a depressing reality check that feminism still has a long way to go". Did they worry about scaring women off? "Yes, we did," Gillard says. "We have a whole chapter in which we unpack the role modelling riddle, where the research shows if women leaders are crystal clear about the difficulties, that can put women off. At the same time if women leaders are like: Its all fine, nothing to see here ... it has never deterred me, then women looking at her can think: She is superwoman, she is nothing like me, and that puts them off." Ultimately, Gillard says, their message is "go for it!" "But forewarned is forearmed." No-one was more astonished than Gillard when her 2012 misogyny speech - I will not be lectured to about sexism and misogyny by that man (Tony Abbott) - went viral. Its since been sung by award-winning choir The Australian Voices and led to the Macquarie Dictionary updating its definition of the word misogyny from hatred of women to entrenched prejudice against women. It does continue to get new life including an iteration on (video sharing app) TikTok, Gillard says. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Hyundai Hope on Wheels Donates $100,000 to Open COVID-19 Testing Center in Boyle Heights Hyundai partners with Los Angeles County Medical Association, East Los Angeles Community Union, White Memorial Medical Staff, Total Testing Solutions and Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis in public-private partnership to bring COVID-19 drive-thru testing Hyundai partners with Los Angeles County Medical Association, East Los Angeles Community Union, White Memorial Medical Staff, Total Testing Solutions and Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis in public-private partnership to bring COVID-19 drive-thru testing Boyle Heights site marks the 23rd testing site supported by Hyundai Hope On Wheels nationwide FOUNTAIN VALLEY, CA July 31, 2020 Hyundai Hope On Wheels (HHOW), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization supported by Hyundai Motor America and its U.S. dealers, announced a $100,000 donation to open a COVID-19 testing center in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. With this latest donation, the organization has provided $4.4 million in support of 23 COVID-19 testing centers across the country. To date, HHOW has enabled more than 730,000 COVID-19 tests. When the U.S. first began to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic in March, we knew testing would be our first line of defense, said Jose Munoz, President and CEO, Hyundai Motor North America. We are pleased to continue funding our testing strategy and support our neighbors in Boyle Heights who have been disproportionately affected by the novel coronavirus. Boyle Heights, a predominantly Latino community east of the LA River, is designated as a Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) by the federal government. Two-thirds of the approximately 100,000 population lives 200% below the federal poverty level. The community is considered a coronavirus hotspot and is in critical need of expanded testing, education and contract tracing to support public health efforts to control the spread of the disease. We know that hardworking families in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights are more likely to live in multigenerational housing conditions and are more likely to work in essential service jobs that increase their exposure to the coronavirus, which is why I am committed to expanding access to COVID-19 testing, healthcare, and other services for all people, said Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis. This testing site is the result of a private-public partnership that aims to remove barriers to healthcare for our Eastside communities. I thank Hyundai Motor America and its U.S. dealers for their generous $100,000 donation that will help bring services to residents who get tested at our COVID-19 testing site in Boyle Heights. I am grateful for their commitment to expanding access to services and making sure all residents are safe and healthy. The Patient Care Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Los Angeles County Medical Association is dedicated to improving access to healthcare services for vulnerable communities. We are proud to partner with Hyundai Motor America, Hyundai Hope On Wheels, TELACU, Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis, and Total Testing Solutions to provide needed COVID-19 testing to the community of Boyle Heights, said Troy Elander, MD, Chair, Patient Care Foundation. The Boyle Heights COVID-19 testing center is located at 1724 Pennsylvania Ave. in Los Angeles. Online reservations are available to the general public at covid19.lacounty.gov/testing. For more information about Hyundai Hope On Wheels and its COVID-19 response, please visit hyundaihopeonwheels.org/covid-19-response/. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at facebook.com/HyundaiHopeOnWheels , twitter.com/HopeOnWheels and Instagram.com/HyundaiHopeOnWheels. ABOUT HYUNDAI HOPE ON WHEELS Hyundai Hope On Wheels is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is committed to finding a cure for childhood cancer. Launched in 1998, Hyundai Hope On Wheels provides grants to eligible institutions nationwide that are pursuing life-saving research and innovative treatments for the disease. HHOW is one of the largest non-profit funders of pediatric cancer research in the country, and primary funding for Hyundai Hope On Wheels comes from Hyundai Motor America and its more than 820 U.S. dealers. Since its inception, Hyundai Hope On Wheels has awarded more than $172 million towards childhood cancer research in pursuit of a cure. Los Angeles County Medical Association The Los Angeles County Medical Association (LACMA) is an organization of more than 7,000 dedicated physicians who advocate quality healthcare for all patients and serve the professional needs of its members. The group serves to represent its professional members in public policy, government relations, and community relations. The organization was founded in 1871 and is a constituent of the California Medical Association (CMA). LACMA, together with CMA physicians, strives to preserve and protect the noble pursuit of healthcare delivery. Allentown, PA (18103) Today Cloudy with morning snow ending, then windy and turning colder with falling temps and some afternoon clearing. A coating to 1-2" of snow expected in the morning. . Tonight Partly cloudy, windy, and very cold. Wind chills near or below zero later at night. A worshiper is baptized in the ocean during a weekly Saturate O.C. event in Huntington Beach on July 10. (Los Angeles Times) To the editor: A reader who suggested that hundreds of Evangelical Christians somehow deserve a pass from social distancing and mask wearing was dangerously given prominent space in the letters section. He said he has been watching helplessly as protesters not wearing masks or social distancing have taken over streets and blocked roads. I also stand helplessly watching an equal number of evangelicals gathering "peacefully" at the beach. A gathering during a pandemic without masks or social distancing is a recipe for disaster, no matter its purpose. An evangelical Christian can transmit the virus to me as easily as an unruly protester. Has the writer not watched the news or read the very newspaper to which he sent his letter? Michele Adashek, Los Angeles .. To the editor: The 1st Amendment does not protect me if I should yell "fire" in a crowded theater, and the 2nd Amendment does not entitle me to own a rocket launcher. All of our precious civil liberties are subject to reasonable limitations. It does not unreasonably burden the free exercise of religion to require social distancing and masks during a pandemic. This country has the best record for true freedom of religion in the history of the world. Let's all exercise our freedoms responsibly. William L. Winslow, Santa Monica Allen West, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, has been a friend to Republicans in Midland for a long time. That isnt likely to change as he was selected to lead Republican Party of Texas. West was in Midland for President Trumps visit, and he took time to speak with the Reporter-Telegram about Republican issues, the days leading up to November and conservative rule in Texas. During the interview, West gave his thoughts on what Republicans needed to do to hold on to the state House, Gov. Greg Abbotts leadership during the coronavirus pandemic and a Republican Party strategy to be more inclusive. The following is the full question and answer. MRT: It felt like the Trump visit provided a reset for Republicans in Midland. There have been a lot of distractions with COVID and everything else, but November is big, because of the down-ballot elections across the state and the battle for the state House that should really be fierce. Is a reset needed for Republicans (across the state)? ALLEN WEST: Well, I think right now, the key thing is people, as you get closer within this 100-day period, more people are starting to focus on the election that is coming up. But my job is to make sure that we do have people that understand the criticality of those down-ballot races, especially the Texas state House. Because when you look at what President Trump was talking about, the oil and gas industry and the policies that support our oil and gas industry, we want to make sure that we have state legislators that support our oil and gas industry and economic growth and opportunity overall for the state of Texas. So, there's millions of dollars being brought into the state of Texas -- a lot of it from outside of the state, of course -- in order to try to flip the Texas state House. And I think that when we have that discussion, and we present people with the difference in vision and policies about the direction of Texas, I think that will help us not just hold on to the Texas state House but probably get back some of those seats that we lost in 2018. MRT: Did you have some worries when started seeing a very popular Republican governor, maybe the most conservative governor in my lifetime, start taking hits over his COVID response, including The Ector County GOP deciding to try to censor him, and some other state legislators saying we need a special session now? What was your reaction to some of that? ALLEN WEST: Well, I think that what the grassroots here in the state of Texas are looking for is people to govern them based upon those conservative principles and values. And even in the case of an emergency, you still don't abandon those principles of values. We don't want to see anyone look at Texas as a place where they could rule by executive order, edict, mandate or decree. And we see a lot of these little fiefdoms being set up. So I think that what people are looking at are the statistics and the facts of the truth. And they don't want to see more damage done to Texas and it's the economy and the livelihood of Texas, as far as suicide rates increasing, domestic abuse increasing -- things of that nature -over something that has 99.8 to 99.9 percent recovery rate. MRT: Did the governor overstep or did he err in some of his orders in your opinion? ALLEN WEST: Well, I don't operate on opinions. I operate on facts and based on the Constitution, and the Constitution in the state of Texas, I believe, after 30 days of a quote-unquote emergency, you have to call in the state legislature to go forward. And, so, I think that we're going on past 90 days. And we don't want to create the edicts and orders. We want people to govern and not rule. And, so, I think that's what we have to do. Make sure that we're operating within the rule of law and not allowing ourselves to -- as Benjamin Franklin once said Those who surrender essential liberty for temporary security in the end deserve neither liberty nor security. MRT: In 2018, Republicans saw a decline in the suburbs (of Dallas and Houston) in terms of the percentage of support, and rural Texas had to come through for people like U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. How do Republicans win back to suburbs which they once dominated? ALLEN WEST: I think it's very simple. You just -- and this is the mantra that I am going to operate under you asked folks the simple question, Do you believe in the rule of law or the rule of the mob? When you see what is going on all across the United States of America, we don't want to see that happening in our suburbs or in our major population centers. So, we have got to give people the choice to be able to decide, do they want their continued safety, security and economic prosperity. You look at what happened in St. Louis, where the mob overran a gated community and it came in to threaten people on their own private property. And yet you had the government that was there -- the city, mayor and also the city attorney -- attack the people who were defending themselves. We don't want that in Texas. And yet, you're going to have Michael Bloomberg, who has already said he's dumping $8 million to $10 million in Texas to run anti-gun and Second Amendment candidates. That means that they want to defund the police. They want to get rid of it. They don't want you to be able to have your Second Amendment rights, but they're not standing up to speak out about the mob. As a matter of fact, Jerrold Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, said that the whole thing about violence in the streets and ANTIFA was just a myth. So, I don't think anybody in the suburbs thinks that that type of violence that we're seeing elsewhere is a myth. MRT: What is the Republican Party strategy to be more inclusive? Who are the leaders that can carry the message of inclusion plus how are the minorities that have been identified to support with $$$$$ or high profile appointments? How does the party bring back the Hispanics that left and became independents? ALLEN WEST: Well, it's very simple. First and foremost, the history of the Republican Party of Texas is that it was founded on Independence Day on 1867 by 150, Black men. So, our party here in Texas was founded by a minority group. And they believed in liberty and freedom. So, when you talk about inclusion, it is about going back to those fundamental, conservative principles that many in the minority communities embrace. That is the Judeo-Christian faith and heritage, that is strong families we have seen the decimation of the family, especially the black community. They also believed in individual responsibilities, strong education opportunities, small business entrepreneurship and service to their nation. So, when you talk about inclusion, it is not just about saying, hey, come and be a part of us. It's about saying, hey, come back with your principles of values to the party that really does align with your principles of values. This is not just about saying we've got a big tent, and everyone come running under it. Unfortunately, we see the decimation of the black families down to 24 percent two-parent households. When I was born in 1961, it was 75 to 77 percent. So, when you connect with people on those principles or values, I think that that's where you find the inclusion. That's where you get them to embrace this Republican Party. A judicial panel decided Thursday that federal judges wont be barred from membership in the Federalist Society, leading Senator Ben Sasse (R., N.E.) to mock Democrats for their smear campaign against the conservative organization. Im glad the Judicial Conference decided not to participate in a vicious liberal smear campaign against the Federalist Society, said Sasse, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight and Federal Courts, in a statement Friday. Senator Whitehouse can hyperventilate about the Illuminati all he wants, but the Federalist Society is a group of law students and lawyers with diverse opinions who formed a debate society. Because they take the Constitution and the rule of law seriously, theyve been the target of a ruthless blitz that will ultimately erode confidence in an independent and fair Judiciary, he said, adding that The Judicial Conference made the right call. Sasse led a group of 29 senators who demanded the panel abandon the proposal to restrict membership from the Federalist Society as well as the liberal American Constitution Society, while allowing membership in the American Bar Association, which Republicans have called a liberal advocacy organization. In March, 200 judges signed a letter criticizing a draft of the proposal that was leaked in January, saying It is inconsistent to disallow Federalist Society membership and permit ABA membership because of public perception of the Federalist Society as a conservative organization. To make matters worse, this double standard rests on a critically flawed factual premise, for it is simply not true that the Federalist Society takes legal or policy positions, the judges wrote. The Judicial Conference tabled the proposal after a comment period that yielded 300 responses from judges, Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts James C. Duff said in a July 30 memo. The panel will maintain existing policies on membership in outside organizations. More from National Review New Delhi: In Sushant Singh Rajput's alleged suicide case, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Friday (July 31) condemned people raising questions over the efficiency of Mumbai Police. The Chief Minister lauded the role of police for doing yeoman service amid coronavirus situation. Uddhav Thackeray said, "The opposition can even bring Interpol or followers of Namaste Trump into the inquiry. Devendra Fadnavis should understand that it is the same police whom he has worked with in the last five years. It is the same police that have given so many sacrifices during the fight with Corona. I would like to condemn those who are raising questions over the efficiency of the police. The Mumbai police is not inefficient." "If anyone has any proof about the case they can bring it to us and we will interrogate and punish the guilty," said Thackeray, adding "please don't use this case as an excuse to create frictions between the two states of Maharashtra and Bihar. Anyone who is bringing politics in the case is really the most deplorable thing to do." Maharashtra Transport Minister Anil Parab also stated through social media that unnecessary politics is being played in the Sushant Singh Rajput case, urging people to come out to inform Mumbai Police if they have any information. He added that the police should investigate how a party was organised at Sushant's house amid COVID-19 lockdown in Mumbai. The Bihar Police, however, recorded the statement of film director Mukesh Chhabra today because Sushant Singh did his last film with Chhabra. In the Sushant case, sources in Mumbai Police told Zee News that the actor has a rented farmhouse in Lonavala for which he used to spend Rs 5 lakhs every month, and monthly expenditure was around Rs 20 lakh. They divulged that Sushant's father KK Singh's two-page statement, along with his signature, given to the Mumbai Police did not accuse Rhea Chakraborty. He never gave any new information related to Rhea to the Mumbai Police, sources added. The Mumbai Police tried to record the statement of Sushant Singh's sister, Mitu Singh, thrice but she always avoided giving statements, they said. The Mumbai Police is currently preparing a dossier in the case to be forwarded to the top authorities, they added. Actress Rhea Chakraborty, however, released a video today in the evening to clarify the allegations made against her over the death of her boyfriend, later actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Emotional Rhea said, "I have immense faith in God and the judiciary. I believe that I will get justice," adding "Even though a lot of horrible things have been said about me in the electronic media, I will refrain from commenting on the advice of my lawyer as the matter is sub judice." "Satyamev Jayate. The truth shall prevail," Rhea concluded in the video. Sushant`s alleged suicide case took a dramatic turn earlier this week as his father filed an FIR in Patna accusing six people, including Rhea, for abetment to suicide. Sushant Singh Rajput's body was found hanging in his apartment in Mumbai's Bandra area on June 14. LCR-Reader-MPA Coil Ring Tester The new Ring Coil Tester for LCR-Reader-MPA expands the devices' capabilities with the ability to preform ring coil tests. LCR-Reader-MPA from Siborg Systems Inc. is an All-in-One Digital Multimeter that offers quick, high accuracy testing for SMT with little or no set-up between measurements. The device has recently added another test option: a Ring Coil Test. The LCR-Reader-MPA is a lightweight multimeter with 0.1% basic accuracy and a wide range of features including 100 kHz test signal, AC/DC current/voltage testing, Oscilloscope mode, pulse/signal/duty testing, super cap tests and more. The MPA can automatically determine the type of component and best test parameters when set to Auto mode; this is exceptionally helpful when testing unlabeled components. All measurement values, including the main impedance value, secondary values (ESR), component type, and test frequency are made available almost instantly on the LCD display in the device. Basic inductor or coil tests can be done using any LCR meter, such as LCR-Reader. When testing, if the device shows any reading (or continuity) this shows that the coil winding is not destroyed. Many times, the reading of the coil may show a slight deviation in values that is only detectable by knowing the exact original values of R or L. If there is one or a few turns of the winding that have short, the values would only show a slight variation. A much more accurate method of finding short turns in a coil is by using the Ring Test method. This method is a tried-and-true method of repairing old-style audio-video equipment that employ flybacks, motors, deflection yoke windings, motors, main transformers, chopper transformers, VCR video and other magnetic heads, and other coils, transformers or inductors. This method is based on the theory that if a faulty coil or transformer has shorted turn(s) in one of the coils, the Q-factor of the transformer is drastically redacted. When an impulse is applied, a faulty transformer will resonate with a highly damped oscillation while a good one will decay gradually. When a high quality capacitor is connected across one winding of the investigated device and a pulse is applied to the parallel resonant circuit ,the waveform across the resonant circuit will produce a decaying oscillation, with at least a few cycles if the coil is good. The oscillations will be strongly damped and only complete 1-2 cycles if there is a shorted turn in any of the magnetically coupled coils of the device. A short turn can also be applied, if possible, to compare the behavior with and without the short turn; if there is no change, there must be a shorted turn in at least one coil. Experience and comparison with a known good device will tell you what to expect. The Ring Coil Tester for LCR-Reader-MPA is connected through the micro-USB port on the device and connects to a coil by the hook connectors. The MPA device must be set to winding turns in the menu. When set, the screen will show the excitation response on the display. Figure 1 shows the difference between testing a working coil (left) and one with a short turn around the coil (right). The example shows the dramatic difference of the display; when a shorted turn is connected, the display shows a significantly higher dissipation factor and therefore a fewer number of oscillations following the impulse on the coil. LCR-Reader-MPA was introduced in 2019 as a more accurate and versatile option to the LCR-Reader multimeters. The MPA offers more features than any LCR-Reader or Smart Tweezers device, including the aforementioned oscilloscope mode, which hasnt been included on any of Siborgs devices after Smart Tweezers ST-1. Recently, Siborg has begun offering a Low-Frequency model of LCR-Reader-MPA and a Bluetooth enabled model. The Bluetooth model connects to PC and Android devices to remotely record measurement values in real time. MPA Features: Test Frequency including 100, 120 Hz, 1, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 75 and 100 kHz 0.1% basic accuracy Fully automatic and manual LCR, ESR, Diode/LED testing Easy Open/Short calibration and offset removal Large and Super Large capacitance testing to 640 mF Signal generator with Sine wave up to 100 kHz Test signal levels of 0.1, 0.5 and 1 Vrms 3.2 Volt LED test voltage Test Signal Reduction to 0.1V for in-circuit measurements Signal Generator with Sine wave up to 100 kHz Li-Poly battery with micro-USB charging 1 oz. weight Gold-plated test leads NIST Traceable Calibration certificate available The LCR-Reader Store offers a wide range of test equipment, accessories and task kits. Siborgs task kits are pre-bundled with a device and accessories;for example, the LCR-Reader-MPA task kit includes the Kelvin Probe Connector which can be used to make LCR-Reader, MPA and Smart Tweezers devices into a probe-station. Siborg also offers their devices on Amazon sales places in North America and Europe. Ireland has suffered significant reputational damage due to the 13bn Apple tax case, according to finance minister, Paschal Donohoe. Corporate tax changes globally will have repercussions for the countrys 12.5% rate, he added. Speaking on a PwC Ireland webinar, Mr Donohoe claimed that while Ireland was vindicated in appealing a 2016 European Commission finding that Apple had received State aid and preferential treatment, it has taken its toll politically. The European General Court overturned the fine, finding that there was no State aid for Apple given by Ireland through selective tax preferential treatment. Of course, the political challenges that the decision created for us, the great reputational difficulties it created for Ireland in recent years, mean that while there was a lot of solace in seeing our position vindicated, on the other hand, the effect it has had on us, the effect on our reputation has been very, very significant over the last number of years," Minister Donohoe said. You just have to acknowledge that. You have to be honest in acknowledging it, and try to use the ruling that was secured by our team as a foundation then for pointing to the huge change that we have made here in Ireland, and the huge work we have done in our corporate tax code. Mr Donohoe said he will, after next month, be meeting EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager, the blocs competition enforcer who ruled against Ireland in the first instance, saying it granted illegal tax benefits to Apple". Read More Big Tech CEOs tell Congress they do not stifle competition Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe TD arriving for the Cabinet Meeting in Dublin Castle this afternoon. Picture: Stephen Collins /Collins Photos Dublin He struck a conciliatory tone, saying he has an awful lot of respect for what she is doing but acknowledged that Irelands corporation tax regime will continue to be scrutinised. Global changes in the way firms pay tax are coming, which will have an impact on Ireland, he said: We have to find ways in which we can continue to make progress on an agenda that is not going away while respecting the rights of small countries to find ways in which they can be competitive." This agenda is not going away, big changes are coming in corporate tax globally. They are going to be happening, they are going to have repercussions for Ireland. This Government will need to work with all of our economy to find a pathway through all of that. Change is coming and we will have to make decisions in the coming years in relation to this agenda. Mr Donohoe claimed that Ireland has done a remarkable job in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic, and that we are well prepared if a second wave happens. Ireland has built up a bank of expertise that could be utilised if the second wave happens, he said. While hundreds of grieving families deserve the utmost sympathy, Irelands approach to handling the pandemic has been a remarkable success, he said. Minister Donohoe said he and Public Expenditure Minister, Michael McGrath, have "reasonably good ideas" around the parameters of October's Budget. He said he wants the term 'fiscal space' to be consigned to the political and economic graveyard, adding that it is no longer relevant in a new Budgetary cycle in the context of post-Covid recovery. The following Dauphin County restaurants were found to have violated Pennsylvanias health and safety regulations during inspections between July 5-11. Inspections are overseen by the Department of Agriculture. The department notes that in many cases violations are corrected by the restaurant before inspectors leave. BOW CREEK INN 9554 Jonestown Road, Grantville Date: Jul 8, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: --Observed a dark biofilm-like residue on the deflector plate of the ice machine located behind the bar. ITALIAN DELIGHT 490 Bow Creek Road, Grantville Date: Jul 8, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: --Observed bagged flour and a bag of onions stored directly on the floor in food preparation area, rather than six inches off of the floor as required. Corrected. --Sliced deli turkey (6/30), a refrigerated, ready-to-eat time temperature control for safety food in the bain-marie of the main kitchen area, was date-marked by the facility, but was beyond the seven day use or sell by date and requires discarding. Facility management voluntarily disposed of the product. --Observed raw eggs stored above ready-to-eat foods in the main walk-in cooler. Corrected. --Observed a dark biofilm-like residue on the deflector plate of the ice machine located in the lower level of the facility. Corrected. --The flooring in the following areas is damaged and in need of repair: The tile flooring in the food preparation area. The metal flooring in the walk-in cooler. 1906 GRILLE 100 W. Hersheypark Drive, Hershey Date: Jul 7, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: --Cold hold topping bar has product held at 74 F PIONEER PETES 100 W. Hersheypark Drive, Hershey Date: Jul 7, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: --Drink ice scoop is stored with handle in direct contact with drink ice. CHOCOLATETOWN TREATS - HERSHEYPARK JAYS VENDING 100 W. Hersheypark Drive, Hershey Date: Jul 6, 2020 Type: Opening Compliance: In Violations: --Shelves in dry storage ware washing room are constructed with raw wood and are not smooth and easily clean able. --Ware-washing sink does not have basins large enough to accommodate the largest piece of equipment needing manual ware-washing. Restaurant inspections MIDDLETOWN ANGLERS/HUNTER 1350 Schoolhouse Road, Middletown Date: Jul 6, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: --Observed pink biofilm-like residue on the deflector plate of the ice machine located in the dry storage area. Corrected. --Corn soup (5/1) and chili (6/27), both refrigerated, ready-to-eat time temperature control for safety foods, located in the refrigerator of the main kitchen area, were date-marked by the facility, but were beyond the seven day use or sell by date and require discarding. The facilitys kitchen management voluntarily disposed of both items. --Observed sliced lemons and limes being held at the bar without refrigeration or written documentation to verify disposition of food. Corrected. --Observed brown biofilm-like residue inside one of the soda gun nozzles at the bar. Corrected. THE VINEYARD AT HERSHEY 598 Schoolhouse Road, Middletown Date: Jul 6, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: --In addition to bait stations supplied by the pest control service, facility is utilizing snap traps which carry the potential to contaminate food, equipment, and/or utensils. --Observed a canned insecticide behind the bar in the upper tasting area, not labeled by the manufacturer as approved for use in a food facility. The following establishments had no violations DAIRYLAND ICE CREAM 503 E Emaus St., Middletown Date: Jul 10, 2020 Type: Opening Compliance: In Violations: None found FOUNDERS FOOD COURT 100 W Hersheypark Drive, Hershey Date: Jul 7, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: None found POPCORN WAGON JAY'S VENDING 100 W Hershey Park Drive, Hershey Date: Jul 7, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: None found HISSHO SUSHI @ GIANT 6088 450 E Main St., Middletown Date: Jul 6, 2020 Type: Regular Compliance: In Violations: None found WENDY'S #6401 100 N Progress Ave., Harrisburg Date: Jul 6, 2020 Type: Follow-up Compliance: In Violations: None found Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 22:12:23|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close MANILA, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Six suspected Abu Sayyaf terrorists and three soldiers were killed in a clash at a town in the remote southern Philippine Sulu province on Friday, the military said. Army Major Arvin Encinas, the spokesperson for the military's Western Mindanao Command, said three soldiers were also wounded when an undetermined number of Abu Sayyaf terrorists opened fire on patrolling troops around 11:00 a.m. local time in Patikul town. Encinas said in a statement that the terrorists fled after a 40-minute firefight. The slain and injured soldiers were taken to a local hospital for treatment, he added. Major General Corleto Vinluan, commander of the military's Joint Task Force Sulu, said that troops are now pursuing the Abu Sayyaf terrorists behind the attack. The Abu Sayyaf Group is considered the smallest but the most violent of the extremist groups in the southern Philippines. The group, which has estimated 400 fighters, is active in the impoverished island provinces of Sulu and Basilan. The group is responsible for the series of kidnappings, deadly bombings, ambushes of security personnel, public beheadings, assassinations, and extortion in the Mindanao region. The group, which has been terrorizing the Philippine southern region since the 1990s, preys on foreign tourists, businessmen and fishermen not only from the Philippines but also from Indonesia and Malaysia and hide them in Philippine jungles or remote islands. Enditem TODAY marks the final chance to have your saw on how you want the role of Limericks new directly elected mayor to appear. Over the last few weeks, a public consultation exercise has been under way to ask what Limerick people want from the new directly elected mayor. In May 2019, Limerick was the only city in Ireland to adopt by popular vote plans for a mayor with executive functions. This set in train the setting up of an independent advisory group formed to advice the responsible minister on the establishment of a programme. The group will report to the Minister later this year. As part of this report, a public consultation exercise was commissioned from and developed by Professor Maura Adshead and her team in the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick. The chairman of the group is Tim OConnor, who is a former career diplomat and secretary general to the President . The Implementation Advisory Group has commissioned the University of Limerick to create a forum for people to engage with our work. The Covid-19 emergency has meant that this will be no ordinary public consultation. An exciting new digital way of asking the public, what they want, has been especially created for this exercise. It will be visual, interactive and provides real-time feedback. People can participate as part of a community group, with their family and friends, or as individuals, said Mr OConnor. The online consultation can be accessed by visiting https://ourmayor.limerick.ie/. Shanghai contributes to Chinas business environment reform By:An Ranran, Lu Yukun | From:www.englisheastday.com | 2020-07-29 10:10 According to the latest report by the World Bank, China has achieved sustainable development in business over the last few years, rising from 78th position in the rankings for 2018 to 31st this year. China has been among the top 10 fastest reforming economies for two years and Shanghai has made tremendous contributions to Chinas great performance, said the World Bank. The report showed that there are six main reasons for this success: leaders strong support; local policy experiments; exchanges between China and other countries; Strong implementation capability and accountability system for the reform agenda; private sector participation; and the use of an e-governance system. Shanghai, which has a weight of 55% in the assessment, has greatly contributed to China's rapid development of the business environment. Since 2017, improving the business environment has been a top priority of Shanghai. The city government has released two versions of its reform plans, covering 286 reform measures, over 70 reform policies and more than 20 online administrative processing systems. Besides, for the purpose of optimizing the business environment and streamlining administrative processes, in 2019 Shanghai also launched simplified notification and commitment-based approval procedures to replace the original complex procedures. Remarkable achievements have been made. On the one hand, Shanghai has made contributions to Chinas business reform. On the other hand, Shanghai has witnessed an unprecedented increase in entrepreneurship. By the end of 2019, there were about 2.2 million firms registered in Shanghai, while 367,620 new firms were established last year, up nearly 8% from the previous year. At present, Shanghai has over 2.5 million market entities. The institutional advantages and urban soft power behind the business environment play a decisive role in achieving high-quality development, said Lu Aiguo, director of the business office of the Shanghai Municipal Development & Reform Commission. Shanghai will constantly keep pace with the times, press ahead with reform and stimulate the vitality of market participants. SIX60 Saturdays 2022! 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Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe REUTERS Vancouver-based national carrier Telus (T.TO) reported a $315 million net income, or 23 cents per share, in Q2 2020, a nearly 40 per cent decline year-over-year, a result of COVID-19, higher income tax, and higher financing costs from a long-term debt payment. In Q2 2019, the carrier reported $520 million in net income or 43 cents per share. In the three months that ended on June 30, the carrier reported $3.728 billion in operating revenue, a 3.6 per cent increase, compared to the $3.597 billion that was reported in the same period a year ago. Telus CEO Darren Entwistle said in the July 31 released earnings that the COVID-19 posed challenges but the carrier was able to remain resilient. This accomplishment realized against the backdrop of an unprecedented operating environment is reflective of our longstanding and consistent focus on creating a world-leading culture, enabled by our highly engaged team, he said. Importantly, our strong first-quarter results were attained as 95 per cent of our domestic team members embraced a work-from-home environment, while continuing to provide best-in-class customer service. On Thursday, Bloomberg first reported that the carrier was telling its staff to continue working from home until at least the year. We have made the decision to continue with our current working arrangements with the vast majority of our team members working productively from home until 2021, the memo read, according to the article. We will revisit this policy towards the end of December and early January. Telus added 151,000 new wireless, internet, TV, and security customers, down 55,000 over the same quarter a year ago, the earnings said. This included 61,000 mobile phone subscribers in the quarter, a decrease of 21,000. Mobile phone Average Billing Per User (ABPU) was $69.65, a decrease of 5.1 per cent, reflecting the impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The earnings said this includes waiving roaming fees because of travel restrictions, the closure of 90 per cent of retail stores, a decrease in chargeable data use because more people were working from home, and waiving late payment charges. Story continues Mobile phone Average Revenue Per User was $56.82 in the quarter, a decrease of 5.8 per cent. The decrease was primarily driven by COVID-19 as well. The carriers churn rate, or the measure of subscribers who deactivate their services, was 0.80 per cent, compared to the 1.01 per cent that was reported in the same period a year ago. This reflects the impacts of reduced switching activity between carriers duke to the COVID-19 pandemic as customers reduced their general shopping habits, the earnings said. During the earnings call, Entwistle said the carrier wasnt worried about Shaw Communications recent announcement launching Shaw Mobile, a wireless service for B.C. and Alberta customers who will be able to add up to six mobile lines to their internet service. Were not surprised, weve been expecting the Shaw Mobile launch for four years now, Jim Senko, president of mobility solutions at Telus, said during the call. Weve been actively bundling our base. Simplifying our offers and ensuring we are simple and transparent for our customers... Overall Telus has significantly more points of distribution and more effective digital experience. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android and sign up for the Yahoo Finance Canada Weekly Brief. A volunteer plays game with children at a temporary shelter in a school at Feixi County, east China's Anhui Province, July 29, 2020. Affected by floods, over 200 villagers in Fengle Town of Hefei were transferred to the school. Volunteers at the temporary shelter helped with the conveying of flood relief materials, food distribution, health care services, homework tutorship and free hairdressing services. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi) A volunteer teaches singing to children at a temporary shelter in a school at Feixi County, east China's Anhui Province, July 29, 2020. Affected by floods, over 200 villagers in Fengle Town of Hefei were transferred to the school. Volunteers at the temporary shelter helped with the conveying of flood relief materials, food distribution, health care services, homework tutorship and free hairdressing services. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi) A volunteer tutors a girl at a temporary shelter in a school at Feixi County, east China's Anhui Province, July 29, 2020. Affected by floods, over 200 villagers in Fengle Town of Hefei were transferred to the school. Volunteers at the temporary shelter helped with the conveying of flood relief materials, food distribution, health care services, homework tutorship and free hairdressing services. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi) Volunteers cut hair for villagers at a temporary shelter in a school at Feixi County, east China's Anhui Province, July 29, 2020. Affected by floods, over 200 villagers in Fengle Town of Hefei were transferred to the school. Volunteers at the temporary shelter helped with the conveying of flood relief materials, food distribution, health care services, homework tutorship and free hairdressing services. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi) TORONTO, July 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- European Residential Real Estate Investment Trust (TSX:ERE.UN, ERES or the REIT) announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire a multi-residential property located in the municipality of Renkum in the eastern Netherlands (the Doorwerth Property). The Doorwerth Property is a three-building, 8-floor multi-residential property that is comprised of 120 residential suites and 24 parking units. It is 100% owned and is currently 97.5% occupied, with approximately 67% of the residential suites liberalized. The 20.15 million (C$31.9 million) purchase price (excluding transaction costs and fees) represents an estimated forward capitalization rate of approximately 4.3%. Closing is anticipated on or around September 1, 2020, and ERES intends to finance the acquisition using cash on hand, with ultimate funding to come from long term mortgage financing thereafter. The Doorwerth Property is well-located, being close to a supermarket and other amenities, and in proximity to the centre of Doorwerth. It is also nearby several existing properties owned by ERES, including in the neighbouring municipalities of Arnhem and Nijmegen, which will allow for operational synergies with ERESs established regional asset and property manager. ERES is excited to return to accretive expansion of our high-quality asset portfolio, commented Phillip Burns, CEO of ERES. We believe this transaction signals the continued attractiveness of the multi-residential real estate market in the Netherlands and the underlying resilience of the Dutch economy, reinforcing not only ERESs prime positioning in the market, but also our ability to execute our growth strategy and move forward in these trying times. About ERES ERES is an unincorporated, open-ended real estate investment trust. ERESs Units are listed on the TSX under the symbol ERE.UN. ERES is Canadas only European-focused, multi-residential REIT, with a current initial focus on investing in high-quality, multi-residential real estate properties in the Netherlands. ERES owns a portfolio of 131 multi-residential properties, comprised of 5,632 suites and ancillary retail space located in the Netherlands, and owns one office property in Germany and one office property in Belgium. Story continues ERESs registered and principal business office is located at 11 Church Street, Suite 401, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1W1. For more information, please visit our website at www.eresreit.com . Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Statements All statements in this press release that do not relate to historical facts constitute forward-looking statements. These statements represent ERESs intentions, plans, expectations and beliefs and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could result in actual results differing materially from these forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are more fully described in regulatory filings that can be obtained on SEDAR at www.sedar.com . For further information ERES ERES Mr. Phillip Burns Mr. Scott Cryer Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer 416.354.0167 416.861.5771 p.burns@eresreit.com s.cryer@eresreit.com SARATOGA SPRINGS Law enforcements use of an armored vehicle and pepper-spray bullets on nonviolent Black Lives Matter protesters in the city on Thursday night has widened the schism and mistrust between police and those fighting for racial justice. Its also deepened each sides resolve, with the police saying they will no longer tolerate unlawful behavior while BLM leaders say police actions, caught on video, show they must be demilitarized and defunded. The police incited violence, said Lexis Figuereo, one of the leaders in the Saratoga Springs BLM movement, said about Thursday's unrest. They were the violence. There are no videos of us attacking anyone. A press release from city police issued late Thursday night did not mention that law enforcement officials deployed an armored vehicle to the scene nor that gas-emitting bullets were used. Instead, the city police said the BLM marchers didnt move off Broadway when asked, forcing them to arrest three, one of whom is a juvenile. City police also said they will not tolerate protesters shutting down streets any longer. At this point the city of Saratoga Springs and the Saratoga Springs Police Department can no longer allow these groups to shut down roads and put themselves and others lives in danger, the release said. When the safety of pedestrians and motorists are constantly being put in danger, the protest is no longer peaceful. However, Chief Shane Crooks said on Friday that the protesters have the right to return, as long as they don't block traffic. "My fear is someone is going to hit the gas and not the brakes and there will be an accident," he said. "We want them off the streets. If they want to stand at the four corners in front of City Hall fine. I recognize their right to a peaceful protest." The trouble started after a Back the Blue rally, which initially drew several hundred to city hall at 6 p.m. to show support for police, and a smaller band of about 200 BLM marchers moved to Congress Park, where a standoff between the groups escalated. Figuereo said that the pro-police marchers, who were screaming All Lives Matter, racial slurs and making obscene gestures with their middle fingers, were being shielded by the city police horses. Then, Figuereo said, a pro-police marcher punched a BLM marcher in the head. The police smiled and laughed, Figuereo said. "They don't respect us. They don't protect us. We protect ourselves." Larry Britt, a former state trooper who was on the scene, said the expletives were coming from the BLM protesters, too, who also called the Back the Blue marchers "murderers." One woman, he said, spit at their feet and said she coughed in their faces saying she has the coronavirus. Before nightfall, BLM marchers moved out of Congress Park and stood in a line on Broadway chanting "Hands Up, Don't Shoot." As it was getting dark, BLM protester Tyler Gundrum said the Saratoga County Sheriff's armored vehicle, with blinding lights, approached their line and fired pepper-spray bullets at their feet, which release pellets containing the irritant. The officers were in full military fatigues with shot guns, Gundrum, 21-year-old Skidmore College students said. It was a massive wall of about 50 in full uniform pushing protesters back. It was very chaotic. There was nothing to latch onto. We were just trying to get safe and off the street. Crooks confirmed that it was the Saratoga County deputies that had the armored vehicle and deployed the pepper-spray bullets. He said they were invited in to assist in the protest. Saratoga County Sheriff Michael Zurlo did not return a Times Union requesting comment about his deputies' actions. The State Police were also on the scene. Figuereo, 33, who grew up in Saratoga Springs, said he was afraid to go home on Thursday night because the Back the Blue marchers followed his sister home, driving back and forth, about 20 times in front of their home in loud pick-up trucks, outfitted with the American, police and Donald Trump flags. On Friday morning, Figuereo, who has asthma, said his left arm is still stinging from the pepper-spray bullets. Jamaica Miles, co-founder of All of Us, which supports the BLM movement in Saratoga Springs, said the police showed their true colors on Thursday night. The city of Saratoga has again shown its racist and biased views to the people of Saratoga, Miles said. When the people participating in the Back the Blue rally filled the streets, they werent told to leave, they werent shot with pepper bullets ... and arrested." She said authorities "used military terrorism in response to a peaceful BLM protest." All of the protesters mentioned one of the reasons they marched is to get justice for Darryl Mount Jr., a bi-racial 21-year-old who was a gravely injured after city police pursued him in 2013 and who eventually died in 2014. "I told Patty Jackson, Darryl Mount's mother, that we will continue to protest," Figuereo said. We are still going to be out there. If there is no justice, there is no peace on the streets of Saratoga Springs. They are not going to scare us off. We will continue peaceful protests. Crooks said he wants the BLM protesters to come and sit down with him to come up with a plan to improve the situation. "If they sat down with us, we would help them," Crooks said. Getty/Davidoff Studios The judge presiding over the Ghislaine Maxwell case has banned her lawyers from publicly naming abuse victims involved in the lawsuit. US District Judge Alison J Nathan ruled that Ms Maxwells attorneys cannot reveal the names of the individuals accusing her of sexual crimes in the course of her work for infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Not all accusations or public statements are equal, Ms Nathan wrote in her ruling. The judge ruled that the victims contribution to the lawsuit is not the same as a public statement, and that the victims still maintain a significant privacy interest that must be safeguarded. Deciding to participate in or contribute to a criminal investigation or prosecution is a far different matter than simply making a public statement relating to Ms Maxwell or Jeffrey Epstein, particularly since such a statement might have occurred decades ago and have no relevance to the charges in this case, she wrote. Prosecutors in the case asked Ms Nathan to block Ms Maxwells lawyers from releasing the names of the victims over fear that the women would be harassed or intimidated into not cooperating with the government. The judges ban was enacted hours after the release of a new batch of unsealed documents from a defamation case filed by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a woman who claims she was trafficked by Epstein and Ms Maxwell in the early 2000s. Ms Guiffre claimed Epstein and Ms Maxwell trafficked her out to prominent individuals both at Epsteins private island and abroad. She claims she was forced to engage in sexual acts with Prince Andrew as well as politicians, a famous scientist and powerful business executives. All of the people Ms Guiffre has accused have denied the allegations. The trove of newly released documents includes a curious email that appears to be written from Epstein to Ms Maxwell encouraging her to face her accusers and live her life not as an (escaping) convict. However, the letter appears to be written in Ms Maxwells voice, as opposed to the tone established by Epstein in other examples of his writing. Story continues You have done nothing wrong and I (would) urge you to start acting like it, Epstein allegedly wrote in the email. Epstein died before he could be brought to trial while he was in prison in New York. Medical authorities ruled his death a suicide, though there continues to be widespread speculation and scepticism surrounding his death. Ms Maxwell, his confidante and former girlfriend, was arrested by federal agents earlier this month after evading them for nearly a year. She was taken into custody at her home in New Hampshire on 2 July and charged with six federal crimes, including sex trafficking, perjury and enticement of minors. Ms Maxwell is currently in a jail in New York awaiting trial. She was denied bail and is considered an extreme flight risk, particularly because she holds a French passport and France does not extradite its citizens for trial. Her trial is scheduled for 12 July, 2021. Read more Ghislaine Maxwell slept with girls as young as 15, court documents say The Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, has expressed his displeasure to the Nigerian Army over an attack on his convoy by suspected Boko Haram gunmen in Baga, a town in Kukawa local government of the state on Wednesday. PREMIUM TIMES reported that Mr Zulum survived an ambush by gunmen while on a trip to Monguno and Baga towns to distribute food to IDPs. Addressing the Armys commanding officer in Mile 4, Mr Zulum wondered why the Army has not been able to secure Baga despite the number of troops deployed for over a year. You have been here for over one year now, there are 1,181 soldiers here; if you cannot take over Baga which is less than 5km from your base, then we should forget about Baga. I will inform the Chief of Army Staff to redeploy the men to other places that they can be useful, Mr Zulum was quoted by Channels TV as saying. You people said theres no Boko Haram here, then who attacked us? Also reacting to the incident, the Northern Governors Forum, through its chairman, Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State, described the attack as callous and reprehensible. Mr Lalongs statement was signed by his spokesperson, Makut Macham. The forum said the attack was to frustrate Borno governors efforts toward reducing the sufferings of IDPs who had been traumatised by terrorists. This regrettable attack shows the desperation by enemies of peace and humanity at large to jeopardise all efforts towards making life easier for victims of violence in the state over the years, it read. Army reacts The spokesperson of Army, Sagir Musa, in a statement on Thursday said, Although, details of the unfortunate incident are sketchy and under investigationefforts are ongoing to comb the area where the incident occurred with a view to track down and deal decisively with the attackers. It added that An investigation is also in progress to identify the circumstances that led to the attack, he said. Musa however, said that the attack was an isolated and most unfortunate incident wing to the fact that normalcy had since been restored to Baga with socioeconomic activities picking up. Nigerian Army wishes to inform the general public that it will continue to discharge its responsibilities professionally with respect for the fundamental human rights of all Nigerians and in compliance with the extant rules of engagement. The good people of Baga town and indeed the entire Borno State are enjoined to continue to provide credible information that will assist the security agencies to successfully combat terrorism as well as apprehend and flush out the perpetrators of the attack. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) The government is facing a new problem now as it seeks to ramp up COVID-19 testing: the lack of medical personnel. "Ang mga laboratory po natin ay nauubusan ng mga med techs... Kahit na po ang isang lab ay may automated machines, kailangan pa rin po ng ating mga med techs natin na trabahuhin ang pagte-test ng mga specimen ng mga kababayan natin," testing czar and national COVID-19 task force deputy chief implementer Vince Dizon told CNN Philippines' The Source Friday. [Translation: Our laboratories are lacking med techs... Even if a lab has automated machines, we need med techs to process the specimens for the testing of our fellowmen.] Dizon earlier said he wants 2 million Filipinos tested by the end of August, up from nearly 1.5 million tested this July. There are now 94 laboratories in the country, with daily testing capacity at 35,000. However, the additional infrastructure still needs to be manned by health workers, which have been on short supply as the country enters its fifth month of battling the coronavirus. The country also needs more nurses and swabbers, Dizon said, especially as some medical frontliners either fall sick or become overworked. "Kailangan po ng DOH at ng iba pang mga ahensya na aggressively mag-recruit pa sa ating mga kababayan ng mga medical professionals [DOH and other agencies must aggressively recruit more medical professionals]," the testing czar added, noting that even medicine students and graduates waiting to pass the board exam should be allowed to step up and serve. He said proper compensation can be worked out. Dizon compared the COVID-19 battle to an armed conflict, where he likens doctors-in-training to military reserve personnel. RELATED: Security guards, sales clerk among new targets for COVID-19 testing The Philippines currently has 89,374 confirmed cases, with more than 38,000 recoveries tallied on Thursday as it implemented a new rule that no longer requires a negative swab test to declare a patient as fully recovered. This came alongside 3,594 new confirmed cases in one go, which he said appears alarming. He said the return of late cases reported meant it took a while for the Department of Health to validate cases. He added that test results are released after 48 hours. However, Dizon said the spike in infections is expected and is a "direct consequence" of opening up the economy. Filipinos must observe strict health standards, such as the wearing of face masks, washing of hands, and social distancing at all times to prevent contagion. The official also clarified details on pooled testing, saying that there's a specific group of people who can be tested together. He added that people need to come from a certain profile, such as similar travel history or place of interaction. This type of testing is expected to significantly boost testing capacity, as samples from 10 or even 20 people can be combined in one swab test kit. Baldwinsville, N.Y. The Baldwinsville school district has released its reopening plan, which calls for students in all grades to be in school three days a week, followed by three days of online instruction. The three days in, three days out of class will continue on a rotating basis through the school year. The students in grades K-12 will be grouped by bus route in each neighborhood, and not by last name, said Baldwsinville Superintendent Matthew McDonald. That way kids stay in their own cohort, and also can possibly work together to study online and find child care in their neighborhoods, he said. McDonald said the district chose the three-day alternating model after looking at parent survey results. Many indicated they either wanted all remote, or they wanted as much in-person instruction as possible. This model is the only way to give the students as much time in school as possible - offering three days rather than the two days, he said. Many school districts plan to offer one or two days of in-class instruction. Some are bringing younger kids back full time; a few districts - usually smaller ones - have room to bring all students back into the classrooms. Related article: See Central New York school district coronavirus plans Baldwinsville officials also wanted equality across the district, with all students in grades K-12 getting in-person instruction three days a week, the superintendent said. Some parents have taken to social media to say the three-day rotating schedule is a nightmare because kids will not be in classes on a consistent basis that allows them to plan day care. McDonald said day care is a problem regardless of the schedule. He also said the two-day schedule puts a heavy demand on the need for child care on those days. No matter what model we chose, day care is a problem,' he said. McDonald also said the Monday-Tuesday, Thursday-Friday model some schools are adopting has a built-in issue: a lot of Mondays are school holidays. That means some children would get less time in schools. Baldwinsvilles plan rotates the Monday days off among the students, McDonald said. Three days in school allows for new instruction and contact time with the teachers,' he said. We are confident in the decision, and that this schedule will work out well for us. Elizabeth Doran covers education, suburban government and development, breaking news and more. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact her anytime 315-470-3012 or email edoran@syracuse.com Wipro announced that Metro Bank, a large UK based retail and commercial bank, has awarded a multi-year contract to deliver and transform Testing and Environment Management Services. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 July 2020. Shares of Wipro rose 2.55% to settle at Rs 284.05 yesterday. As part of this partnership, Wipro will leverage its Digital and Quality Engineering capabilities to drive transformation through automation, service virtualisation and DevSecOps enablement. This will help Metro Bank achieve its objectives around cost, pace and quality of operations and further differentiate them from other high street banks. In addition, Wipro has been chosen as one of the preferred partners to deliver Business-IT services across Metro Bank functions. Wipro is a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sure, it might be warm Wednesday, but what about the rest of the week? DETROITFiat Chrysler overcame coronavirus-related factory shutdowns to post losses that were not as bad as feared, and the company predicted improving conditions for the remainder of 2020. The Italian-American automaker lost just over $1.2 billion (U.S.), but still made $46.2 million before taxes in North America, where it was forced to idle plants for about seven weeks. That sapped much of the revenue from its most profitable market. The company said Friday that it would have recovering profitability and positive free cash flows during the second half of the year, driven largely by North America. It said the normal summer factory shutdowns have been eliminated or shortened at most North America plants to meet stronger-than-expected demand for vehicles. The company lost an adjusted 77 cents per share from April through June, yet that was far better than the losses of $1.48 that Wall Street was bracing for, according to a survey by FactSet. The loss was a huge reversal from last years second quarter when Fiat Chrysler made $884 million. The company had warned that the second quarter would be much worse than the first, when it lost $1.84 billion. While the company remains vigilant about the health and safety of employees, our plants are up and running, dealers are selling in showrooms and online, and we have the flexibility and financial strength to push ahead with our plans, CEO Mike Manley said in a prepared statement. The company attributed the surprise performance to the successful and safe restart of its factories, which in the U.S. were closed from mid-March until May 18. Fiat Chrysler still burned through $3.8 billion in cash to fund its operations during the period as vehicle shipments worldwide fell 63% to 424,000. It had nearly $21 billion in available liquidity at the end of June. The company said it still plans full-year capital spending of $9.48 billion to just over $10 billion as it rolls out five new electric vehicles during the year, plus a new three-row big Jeep SUV early next year and a redesigned Grand Cherokee in the third quarter of 2021. Four of the new electric vehicles will be made in Europe, Manley said Friday in a call with industry analysts and reporters. The electric vehicles include the battery powered Fiat 500 small car, a fully electric Ducato van, and plug-in gas-electric hybrid versions of the Jeep Compass, Wrangler and Renegade. The Wrangler will hit showrooms by the end of the year, Manley said. All will help the company meet rising global emissions and fuel efficiency requirements, he said. Fiat Chrysler currently doesnt make its own electric vehicle batteries, but Manley predicted all automakers will progressively begin to manufacture them, including assembly of cells into packs. He told analysts they would hear more on this from FCA and Frances PSA Groupe as the year progresses. A proposed merger of the two companies is expected to be finished by the first quarter of next year. Twelve of 22 nations have given antitrust approval thus far, the company said. The merger will create the worlds fourth largest automaker that will be named Stellantis. On Tuesday, PSA said its first first-half profits fell to 595 million euros ($945 million Canadian) from 1.83 billion euros a year earlier. The company will provide funding through the additional investment of almost $200 million primarily for the feasibility study to develop the lithium-borate Jadar project in Serbia. The study includes the completion of detailed engineering designs, permitting and land acquisition by the end of 2021 in line with Rios initial schedule.... Vancouver, British Columbia and Denver, Colorado--(Newsfile Corp. - July 31, 2020) - Cannabis One Holdings Inc. (CSE: CBIS) ("Cannabis One", "CBIS", or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has commenced the process of changing its name to "INDVR Brands Inc.", as well as changing its ticker symbol to "IDVR". The name change does not affect the Company's share structure or the rights of the Company's shareholders, and no further action is required by existing shareholders at this time. Joshua Mann, President, commented, "The directors and executive management team have collectively decided that its current name does not properly reflect its business or its business model. The Company has over the last year and half successfully moved from a cannabis service provider to one that owns and distributes cannabis brands across the legal channels in the United States. The Company believes that rebranding will better align with this go-forward business model, its customer base and set itself up for the impending US legalization of cannabis." The name change is subject to CSE approval, and the Company will provide an update once it has received such approval and an effective date for the change. The Company also wishes to announce the resignation of Jeffery Mascio from the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer position, effective immediately. Mr. Mascio will remain involved with the Company in an executive advisory role and is committed to the long-term success of the Company. The Company is pleased to announce that Mr. Mann has accepted the role of Interim Chief Executive Officer, while maintaining his role as President. Further, the Company wishes to announce the resignation of Darrick Payne from the Board of Directors. The Company appreciates Dr. Payne's contributions. Subsequent to the Company's March 25, 2020 press release announcing the appointment of C. Regan Hauptman to the Board of Directors, due to personal circumstances, Mr. Hauptman has been unable to accept his appointment. Story continues About Cannabis One IF WE BRAND IT, THEY WILL COME - Cannabis One Holdings Inc. (CSE: CBIS) is focused on aggregating and optimizing popular cannabis brands throughout North America. With its unique, franchise-ready retail brand, The JointTM, and through targeted acquisition and partnership opportunities, Cannabis One intends to become the premier, globally recognized, "House of Brands", holding a client portfolio of award-winning products with an extensive market footprint. Through the Company's The JointTM retail concept, Cannabis One intends to leverage the consumer and brand data harvested from its retail locations to bring data-driven analytics to an emerging, branded industry. For consumers, Cannabis One desires to become the definitive source for unparalleled product selection and renowned service in an otherwise fragmented market. Disclaimer and Forward-Looking Information Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "anticipate", "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "potential", "estimated" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the parties' current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In this news release, forward-looking statements relate, among other things, to: the legalization of cannabis in the US, the completion of the corporate name change, the ability for the Company to find replacement directors and any adverse consequence thereof. These statements are only predictions. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and the parties are not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward- looking information contained herein. Cannabis is legal in certain States in the United States ("U.S."), however cannabis remains illegal under U.S. federal laws. Cannabis One intends to conduct its U.S. cannabis operations in a manner consistent with the applicable State laws and compliance with regulatory and licensing requirements applicable in the applicable State. However, the readers should be aware that any change in federal guidance on enforcement actions could adversely affect Cannabis One's ability to access private and public capital required in order to support continuing operations and its ability to operate in the U.S. Unlike in Canada which has Federal legislation uniformly governing the cultivation, distribution, sale and possession of cannabis under the Cannabis Act (Federal), readers are cautioned that in the U.S., cannabis is largely regulated at the State level. To the knowledge of Cannabis One, there are to date a total of 33 states, plus the District of Columbia, that have legalized cannabis in some form. Notwithstanding the permissive regulatory environment of medical cannabis at the State level, cannabis continues to be categorized as a controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act in the U.S. and as such, cannabis-related practices or activities, including without limitation, the manufacture, importation, possession, use or distribution of cannabis are illegal under U.S. Federal law. Strict compliance with State laws with respect to cannabis will neither absolve Cannabis One of liability under the U.S. Federal law, nor will it provide a defense to any Federal proceeding, which may be brought against Cannabis One. Any such proceedings brought against Cannabis One may materially adversely affect its operations and financial performance in the U.S. market. Further Information: For investment inquiries, please contact Scott Koyich, Investor Relations at Scott@briscocapital.com or (403) 619-2200. Related Links www.cannabisone.life THIS PRESS RELEASE IS NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES. FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THIS RESTRICTION MAY CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF UNITED STATES SECURITIES LAW To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60878 EU's move over national security law in Hong Kong wrong: HKSAR gov't Global Times Source: Xinhua Published: 2020/7/30 14:48:16 China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government said Wednesday night that European Union's (EU) conclusions and measures in response to the enactment of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the HKSAR was a wrong decision. The EU's intention to provide Hong Kong residents with more relaxed asylum, migration and residency policy on the pretext of the enactment of the national security law in Hong Kong "is a blatant interference in the affairs of the HKSAR," and "such moves are deeply regretted," a spokesman for the HKSAR government said. "The export restrictions on sensitive equipment and technologies proposed to be imposed by the EU on Hong Kong are based on groundless allegations," the spokesman said, adding that the HKSAR government urged the EU to stop such political manipulation which is not in the interests of Hong Kong residents and EU partners. "We will continue to identify suitable suppliers for procurement as needed," he said. The spokesman said that currently, the HKSAR has signed agreements on surrender of fugitive offenders (SFO) with seven EU member states, including the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Portugal. The HKSAR has all along upheld the principle of mutual assistance and reciprocity to carry out law enforcement cooperation with other members of the international community in accordance with the law with a view to fighting crime. "We object to any attempt of politicizing juridical cooperation, which damages the good basis of cooperation established between the two sides over the years and deviates from the purpose of juridical cooperation in safeguarding justice and the rule of law," he said. Hong Kong and EU member states maintain close economic and trade relations, and have been nurturing bilateral cultural and technological co-operation in recent years. In 2019, there were more than 2,300 companies in Hong Kong with parent companies in the EU, an increase of 7.5 percent from 2017, the spokesman said. According to EU statistics, the total merchandise trade between the EU and Hong Kong amounted to 48 billion euros, with the EU enjoying a trade surplus of 25.4 billion euros over Hong Kong. In addition, over 29,000 EU nationals live in Hong Kong and a number of European chambers of commerce have been operating here for many years, the spokesman added. "The HKSAR government calls on EU member states to adopt a pragmatic and rational attitude, and refrain from adopting measures that will adversely affect the long-standing mutually beneficial relations between Hong Kong and the EU," the spokesman said. "We reiterate that the HKSAR is an inalienable part of the People's Republic of China, a local administrative region that enjoys a high degree of autonomy under 'one country, two systems' and comes directly under the Central People's Government. "Matters relating to the HKSAR remain our country's internal affair. No other state has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, in such internal affairs," the spokesman said. The spokesman said it was the legitimate right and duty of every state to safeguard its national security. "The national security law is entirely constitutional, lawful, rational and reasonable as national security falls squarely under the purview of the central authorities and since, after some 23 years, the HKSAR has yet to fulfil its constitutional obligations to enact local legislation to safeguard national security." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Lily James said Kristin Scott Thomas was 'so absolutely terrifying' as scary housekeeper Mrs Danvers when they were filming the new version of Daphne du Maurier's gothic thriller Rebecca she felt compelled to obey her every command. 'I almost jumped out of a window when she told me to!' James admitted, as we discussed what it was like working on the film adaptation of the romantic murder mystery that's still selling more than 50,000 copies a year, eight decades after it was first published. Luckily for James, it was a film-set window, hence 'like only two inches off the ground'. Also luckily, there was plenty of light relief between takes when the actors weren't inhabiting their characters, all of them oppressed by the shadow of Rebecca. 'Oh, God, we were really hamming it up when we weren't in front of the cameras!' James told me. Lily James used Sylvia Plath's poetry to help her get under the skin of the naive woman she plays in the new version of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca Co-star Armie Hammer joined in, too. The Hollywood actor plays wealthy widower Maxim de Winter, owner of Manderley, the sprawling, intimidating mansion haunted by memories of his late wife Rebecca, the first Mrs de Winter. When Maxim and James's character, the unnamed narrator meet (and yes, she does utter the immortal line: 'Last night I dreamt I was at Manderley again' as the opening credits of director Ben Wheatley's sumptuous and suspenseful film roll), she is working as a companion to vulgar American Mrs Van Hopper (a deliciously icky turn by Ann Dowd). Wheatley and screenwriter Jane Goldman focused on different parts of James's character (jokingly referred to as Daphne on set, since we never know her first name) 'so that you feel the complexity of who she is'. James used the poetry of Sylvia Plath particularly one called Mad Girl's Love Song to help her get under the skin of the naive young woman she plays in the film, which will be available on Netflix from October 21. 'What girl goes and marries this man, and goes off to his house, without really knowing him?' she asked, of the second Mrs de Winter. James told me she had the feeling, during filming, that her fascination with the book, and her character, combined with Wheatley's sometimes trippy and psychedelic take on the tale, meant viewers were 'going to be inside my head' when they watched the film. Well, I certainly jumped when she did; and felt her terror when she awoke, in a cold sweat, to find herself entangled in the ivy that had somehow come alive from a pattern on her bedspread. James is incredible as she goes from virginal ward to a woman propelled by the power of love. Lily James said Kristin Scott Thomas (both pictured) was 'so absolutely terrifying' as housekeeper Mrs Danvers in Rebecca, which will be available on Netflix from October 21 Scott Thomas is superb, too. There's a marvellously shocking scene where Mrs Danvers is in Rebecca's mirrored dressing room, brushing her new mistress's hair with increasingly brutal strokes. James's pale face is reflected, looking as if the life is being drained from her. Scott Thomas told me she begged Working Title producer Eric Fellner to give her the part of Mrs Danvers. 'I wanted that mixture of jealousy, of envy, of rage!' she said. 'You feel she's a woman of catastrophically reduced circumstances.' The generational conflict 'the older woman despising the younger woman' also appealed to her. As Mrs Danvers, in navy blue suit and rouge silk blouse a reminder of the blood red rhododendrons her darling Rebecca loved Scott Thomas makes a formidable foe for James's 'shy, uneasy colt', as she's referred to in the book. 'Danvers has poured all her energies into bringing Rebecca up and creating this kind of monster because Rebecca was a monster,' Scott Thomas told me. The award-winning star stressed that this new Rebecca is based on Du Maurier's tome and not Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 classic, which starred Laurence Olivier as de Winter, Joan Fontaine as the second Mrs de Winter, and Judith Anderson as Danvers. 'We're doing an adaptation for today, with the idea that women aren't necessarily the weaker sex,' she said. When I spoke to Hammer on the set he said his character, Maxim, had also been 'modernised'; though he still had plenty of secrets. Accents clearly denoted class back then, but the actor, who captures de Winter's urbane exterior, which conceals his inner turmoil, opted for a tone that's less clipped and dated than Olivier's. 'Still posh, though,' he noted. The producers at Working Title and Netflix spent as much time searching for the perfect Manderley as they did their leading actors. Armie Hammer said his character Maxim, (pictured with Lily James as Daphne) has been 'modernised'. Accents denoted class back then, but the actor opted for a tone less clipped 'The house is a massive character,' said Sarah Greenwood, who won a Bafta for her production design on Atonement and has been nominated for six Oscars. A character that no one location could fill, as it turns out. The Manderley in the film is 'a complete jigsaw', she admitted. The exterior is Cranborne Manor in Dorset; though some shots of the rear of the house (plus office scenes) were filmed at Osterley Park in Isleworth, West London. Key interior scenes were captured at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. And the lush grounds of Manderley were actually filmed at Mapperton, also in Dorset. And Rebecca's opulent suite? 'Built at some bloody warehouse in Wembley.' Greenwood offered 'many apologies to Cornwall', but said that for a number of reasons they weren't able to shoot any scenes in the county itself. Even the Cornish sea was actually the waters off Hartland Quay in North Devon. She and Wheatley were beguiled by the rock formation of shale and sandstone there, which made it look like 'shark fins protruding from the water'. 'Ben was happy because the beach looked as haunted as the house,' Greenwood said. One of the first films to continue where they left off before the shutdown is director Edgar Wright's Last Night In Soho, starring Anya Taylor-Joy (below, so good in Emma this spring), Matt Smith and Thomasin McKenzie. One of the first films to continue where they left off before the shutdown is director Edgar Wright's Last Night In Soho, starring Anya Taylor-Joy (above) and Matt Smith McKenzie flew in from New Zealand, where she had just completed shooting Jane Campion's western The Power Of The Dog, based on Thomas Savage's cult novel about two rival siblings played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons. All those who turned up at Pinewood Studios were glad to be working again, though the stringent safety protocols took some getting used to. All the locations Wright had planned to use were scrapped and remaining scenes will be filmed on either a sound-stage or the studio backlot, standing in for Soho streets and coffee shops. The search is on for a leading man (in his mid-30s) to join star Rachel Weisz in A Special Relationship written by Simon Beaufoy in which Oscar-winner Weisz portrays Elizabeth Taylor. Producers of the picture, to be directed by filmmaking duo Bert & Bertie, are looking for a top actor to portray Roger Wall, who was Elizabeth's secretary throughout the 1980s. The search is on for a leading man (in his mid-30s) to join star Rachel Weisz in A Special Relationship, written by Simon Beaufoy, in which Oscar-winner Weisz portrays Elizabeth Taylor Wall and Rock Hudson spurred the movie legend to become an activist in Aids research. Several projects have been abandoned because of the pandemic but Weisz and her colleagues are determined that A Special Relationship will start filming next year. The enthralling documentary Coup 53 tells how the CIA and British Intelligence 'assisted' in the overthrow of Iran's prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, replacing him with the Shah so they could get their hands on the 'prize': oil. Writer and director Taghi Amirani collaborated with Oscar-winning film and sound editor Walter Murch, using eyewitness testimony, re-enactments and found footage. Now Coup 53 will have a special one-off digital and cinema release on August 19. Sign up via coup53.com for details, plus info on a Q&A with the filmmakers. Over the past month, an explosion of opposition to the unsafe reopening of schools in the US and around the world has developed on social media, primarily through Facebook but also on Twitter and other platforms. Dozens of Facebook groups have emerged globally, from Rhode Island to Texas, to South Africa, Great Britain, and many other countries, with a combined membership of well over 300,000. In the US, many of these groups ballooned in size in early July as the Trump administration ramped up its campaign to force schools to resume in-person instruction at the same time the COVID-19 pandemic began to spiral out of control. The number of daily new cases has surpassed 50,000 every day since July 7, the day after Trump tweeted, SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!! Junior high teacher Angela Andrus at a rally Thursday, July 23, 2020, in Salt Lake City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) Trump, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, and their Republican allies at the state level have given the crudest, most anti-scientific justifications for reopening schools. But there is a bipartisan push to resume in-person instruction in order to get children out of the house so their parents can be forced to return to unsafe factories and resume pumping out profits for the corporations. Many of the largest Facebook groups have been formed in states run by the Democratic Party, including Rhode Island, Hawaii and Colorado, where Democrats are pushing for in-person learning. Both parties are highly conscious that the immense bailout that they handed to the financial oligarchy through the CARES Act must be paid for through the production of real value by the working class, no matter how many become infected or die. The recklessness of the moves by the ruling class to reopen schools is underscored by the experience in countries all over the world that have reopened and quickly seen spikes in community transmission. Most notable is Israel, where the number of total cases has quadrupled, and the number of deaths doubled since school reopened unconditionally. The opening of schools has been linked to an estimated 47 percent of new infections. The first school district in the US to begin the fall semester with fully in-person instruction was in Corinth, Mississippi, where school began on Monday. Republican Governor Tate Reeves has issued no statewide mandate, leaving the decision with each local school district, while the virus spreads rapidly throughout the state. According to a survey by the Mississippi Association of Education (MAE), 41 percent of respondents said they had received no communication from their district on reopening plans, with most start dates less than a month away. Neither the MAE nor the two national teacher unions have done anything to prevent the reckless openings. In nearly every Facebook group opposing school openings, educators and parents noted the immense hypocrisy of Trumps call Thursday for postponing the 2020 elections due to safety concerns, while maintaining his demand that schools reopen. As yet, however, many members of these Facebook groups express illusions in the Democratic Party, which fears and opposes any movement of the working class against Trump far more than the presidents increasingly dictatorial moves. In Texas, three large Facebook groups have developed to oppose reopening, with a combined membership of 63,400 members: Texas Teachers for Safe Reopening (47,600 members), Texas Teachers United Against Reopening Schools (11,800 members) and Texans for Safe Schools (4,000 members). Texas saw a state record 313 deaths from COVID-19 Wednesday and an additional 9,217 new cases, and is on track to surpass New York this weekend to become the state with the third highest number of cases in the US. On Tuesday, state authorities issued policies that compel schools to resume in-person instruction no later than the eighth week of school, regardless of the state of the pandemic. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a legal statement saying local public health officials cannot preemptively require schools to remain closed at the start of the year. Other state officials then reversed a previous decision and declared that school districts that stay closed longer than eight weeks will lose state funding. One post about these developments on Texas Teachers for Safe Reopening reads, Thanks to the AG [Attorney General], my district is now going back next week instead of September 8. You have got to be kidding me. The post has drawn over 640 reactions and over 315 comments, the vast majority denouncing Paxton. Many comments call for a fight back and note that similar moves have happened or likely will happen in other districts. One comment reads, We must let him know there will be blood on his hands, while another states, It is all a game about power and money. In Rhode Island, the group R.I. Parents/Educators for Safe Schools formed on July 9 and now has over 13,400 members. The group launched in opposition to Democratic Governor Gina Raimondos dictate that schools resume in-person instruction on August 31, which she continues to demand. A rally held Monday was organized through the Facebook group, with signs saying, I cannot teach if Im dead and this plan will kill. In Iowa, the group Iowa Educators for a Safe Return to School has garnered over 20,100 members in roughly a month. Republican Governor Kim Reynolds has insisted that local districts resume in-person instruction, and on Thursday released guidance mandating that Iowa schools can only switch to online learning if their county has a coronavirus positivity rate of at least 15 percent. This figure is highly elevated, and would entail widespread community transmission, as well as an overall low testing rate. One comment on a post in the above group asks, What if no tests are available? Another states, She will just manipulate the numbers and change her proclamation again. Additional major groups that have been formed include the following: In South Africa , the group Parents Against The Opening Of Schools, formed on May 19, is the largest such group in the world, with over 113,200 members. , the group Parents Against The Opening Of Schools, formed on May 19, is the largest such group in the world, with over 113,200 members. In the UK , the group Boycott Return To Unsafe Schools has over 4,700 members since launching on May 3. Administrator Jennifer Jones spoke with the WSWS about the motivations behind forming the group and its aims. , the group Boycott Return To Unsafe Schools has over 4,700 members since launching on May 3. Administrator Jennifer Jones about the motivations behind forming the group and its aims. US Teachers for Safe Schools has over 1,200 members since forming on July 5. Arkansans For Safe Public Schools has attracted over 12,000 members since launching on June 28. Hawaii for a Safe Return to Schools has over 6,000 members after forming on July 10. Classes have been scheduled to resume statewide on August 4, but given push-back from educators and parents this may be delayed until August 17. on August 4, but given push-back from educators and parents this may be delayed until August 17. Indiana for a Safe Return to Schools has over 12,600 members since launching on July 8. Colorado Schools for Safe Openings - 14 Days No New Cases was created on July 7 and has over 8,700 members Alabama Teachers Against COVID-19 has amassed 6,300 members since June 29. Parents and teachers formed the page Mississippi Teachers Unite, which has over 1,450 members, and organized a demonstration recently against the unsafe reopening of schools. recently against the unsafe reopening of schools. Ohio Teachers for safe reopening was formed on July 5 and has attracted over 1,600 members. Each of the above Facebook groups, and the vast majority that have been established, were initiated by educators rather than the local, state and national teacher unions. They have become democratic forums for educators, parents and students to discuss and critique the drive to reopen schools, which has the backing of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA). At least 30 Facebook groups now exist in over 20 states across the US, demonstrating the broad-based yearning to protect the lives and health of educators, students, parents and the broader population. The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) calls on educators, parents and students to form a network of independent, rank-and-file committees to unite across district and state lines and prepare for a nationwide strike to prevent the resumption of in-person instruction until the virus has been completely contained. While paying lip service to a safe reopening of the schools, the AFT and NEA are operating as full partners in the bipartisan drive to put teachers and children back in the classrooms. The unions are opposed to a nationwide strike by teachers that would immediately put educators on a political collision course with the Trump administration, along with the Democratic Party the unions support. The media has presented AFT President Randi Weingarten as a fighter for the working class because an AFT resolution passed this week states that the AFT would support local and/or state affiliate safety strikes on a case-by-case basis as a last resort. In fact, this resolution was only adopted as an effort to head off the growing sentiments for a nationwide strike and keep educators under the stranglehold of the unions and the Democratic Party. The AFT wants to isolate educators on a local and state basis, and to do everything in its power to prevent a broad-based movement of educators, parents and the entire working class, in particular during the lead-up to the 2020 elections in which the unions are promoting Biden as the supposed alternative to Trump. Since the launching of the powerful statewide wildcat strike of West Virginia teachers in February 2018, this has been the essential role played by the AFT and NEA, which facilitated betrayal after betrayal in districts and states across the country. As vice president, Biden played a key role in the Obama administrations assault on teachers, promotion of charter schools and other privatization schemes, along with the greatest transfer of wealth, until today, from the bottom to the corporate and financial elite at the top. Biden, a longtime shill of Wall Street, is just as committed to the reckless back-to-school and back-to-work policy as Trump, albeit with somewhat more assistance from the unions. The central task facing educators is to organize independently of the unions and both corporate-controlled parties, through the formation of an interconnected web of rank-and-file committees fully committed to ensuring the safety and lives of educators, students and the entire working class. The working class faces a political struggle against the Trump administration, both political parties and the entire capitalist system. The defeat of the pandemic and vast expansion of funding for education requires a radical redistribution of wealth and the reorganization of society to provide for human needs, i.e., the struggle for socialism. We urge all those who wish to fight for such a perspective to contact us today. Bengaluru, July 31 : Kannada actress Rohini Singh, daughter of veteran filmmaker Rajendra Singh Babu met with an accident and suffered injuries. Also known as Rishika in the film industry, the actress was returning home from a birthday party with friend Arpita, daughter of actor Jai Jagdish when the car they were travelling in swerved and hit a tree, leading to injuries to both early on Thursday. Extensive damage occurred to the car at the accident site of Mavallipura near Bengaluru and Singh suffered fractures. However, both are said to be stable. Rishika's actor brother Adityaa said both the girls were fine and should return from the hospital in a week or two. Wilmer Gibson Wilmer Gibson will continue to invest in its technology enterprise-wide, leveraging its scale to develop new capabilities and enhancements that meet the unique needs of each of its customers, including improving customers experiences by digitizing key transactions and functions. Wilmer Gibson will continue to invest in its technology enterprise-wide, leveraging its scale to develop new capabilities and enhancements that meet the unique needs of each of its customers, including improving customers experiences by digitizing key transactions and functions. Singapore, July 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wilmer Gibson, a leading financial services firm providing world-class wealth management services, today announced the launch of GrowthscapeSM, a new advisory technology platform which will transform the way advisors do business through a new fully digital account onboarding experience. This integrated workflow will be used for opening, funding and improving features in accounts helping to make advisors daily work more efficient, and allowing them to concentrate more on adding greater value for customers through activities like investment and financial planning. Beyond creating greater efficiency for advisors, the experience simplifies the account opening process for their customers by reducing significantly the volume of information that they need to review. This rollout will be followed by a series of GrowthscapeSM platform enhancements planned for the coming months. Wilmer Gibson is implementing new technology to its existing digital competence that will save advisors time, this being a top priority for us because it helps them focus more on building deeper relationships with customers, said Rick Toh, Director at Wilmer Gibson. Time is the most important and valuable commodity advisors have, and more than half of advisors we surveyed said they lose out on valuable customer time because of account opening time consuming process, so we have adjusted the entire mechanism to give advisors a more efficient way to handle many of their daily tasks, added Mr. Toh. Wilmer Gibsons new account opening process offers investors a succinct overview of only the relevant data and disclosures needed for a transaction, also majorly reducing the amount of info an investor needs to review before starting capitalizing on the market opportunities immediately. The outcoming result is a faster and straightforward authorization for investors and a simpler confirmation process for advisors. Story continues Wilmer Gibson will continue to invest in its technology enterprise-wide, leveraging its scale to develop new capabilities and enhancements that meet the unique needs of each of its customers, including improving customers experiences by digitizing key transactions and functions. About Wilmer Gibson Wilmer Gibson is a leading financial services firm providing a wide range of investment solutions, securities, investment management and wealth management services. Our team consists of industry-leading investment professionals deep in talent, ideas and experience all dedicated to providing our clients with a world-class experience in the management of their wealth. Wilmer Gibson is committed to preserving customers capital, managing risk, and delivering strong long-term investment returns over differing economic and market cycles. Our success in developing long-term client relationships is founded on common values, a thorough understanding of our clients goals and a keen desire to earn and keep their trust and confidence. Media Details Haiden Luo +65-855-5685-5 http://wilmer-gibson.com News Via: KISS PR Story News https://story.kisspr.com Attachment has reported better than expected second-quarter earnings on the back of improved margins for telecoms equipment and software despite the coronavirus crisis causing a substantial drop in revenue. The Espoo, Finland-based maker of new-generation 5G mobile and other networks said Friday that its net profit for the April-June period was up 22 per cent at 316 million euros (USD 376 million). Sales were down 11 per cent at 5.1 billion euros. CEO Rajeev Suri said in a statement that the majority of the drop in revenue was "the result of as well as a sharp decline in China based on the prudent approach we have taken in that market. estimated that the crisis hurt its net sales by about 300 million euros in the second quarter and about 500 million euros in the first half of the year. We expect that the majority of sales missed in the (second) quarter due to will shift to future periods, Suri said. Suri said that has now concluded 83 commercial deals for 5G, the new network technology that allows ultra-fast downloading speeds among other things. Along with China's Huawei and Sweden's Ericsson, Nokia is one of the three main providers of 5G networks. Huawei is at the center of a US-China dispute over technology, with the Trump administration saying it can help the Chinese government spy on people, a claim the company denies. Friday marked the last day as a CEO for Suri, a Nokia veteran with 25 years in service and the head of the company since 2014, as his appointed successor Pekka Lundmark takes over on Aug 1. Lundmark, 56, is the former CEO of the Finnish energy group Fortum who has earlier worked at Nokia in various executive positions between 1990 and 2000. In May, Nokia's shareholders approved the appointment of Sari Baldauf, who also has an extensive Nokia background, as the company's new chair. Just in time for peak-of-summer refreshment, Coca-Cola North America is introducing to some of its biggest fans, an exclusive first sip of its top innovation of 2021 - Coca-Cola With Coffee. The Coca-Cola Company announced in a press release today that Coca-Cola With Coffee will officially hit ready-to-drink coffee aisles nationwide in January 2021. The announcement said the new drink fuses the familiar, authentic taste of Coca-Cola with the rich, luxurious flavor of 100% Brazilian coffee. It will come in three signature flavors - Dark Blend, Vanilla and Caramel - and will be offered in 12-oz. cans, with 69 mg. of caffeine per 12-oz. serving. This is a truly unique hybrid innovation that will pioneer a new category were calling refreshment coffee, said Jaideep Kibe, vice president, Coca-Cola Trademark, Coca-Cola North America, who said the beverage is one of the companys most successfully tested innovations in recent years. Coca-Cola With Coffee is a product that is meant to be tried, he added. Because when you take that first sip, you realize theres nothing quite like it... It sips like a Coke and finishes like a coffee. How does one get an exclusive first sip before the official launch? Members of the companys beverage subscription service, the Coca-Cola Insiders Club, will be given the exclusive opportunity to get a sneak preview before the drinks official launch. The service, which launched in December 2019, is giving 2,000 Insiders the chance to sign up to receive some of Cokes newest drinks and surprise swag. How has the product been marketed? The companys announcement said the product was first piloted in 2018 in Japan. Currently its available in more than 30 markets around the world, including Australia, Brazil, Vietnam, Turkey and Italy, with each Coca-Cola With Coffee recipe and packaging mix tailored to meet local tastes. Using a lift and shift strategy, the company scales successful beverage innovations from market to market via an experimental, test-and-learn approach. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for us to be more disciplined in how we launch, validate, refine and scale up big bets like this, said Javier Meza, chief marketing officer for The Coca-Cola Companys sparkling beverage portfolio. Were excited to bring Coca-Cola With Coffee to the United States and apply learnings from so many markets that have gotten us to where we are today. In preliminary consumer testing, more than 80% of consumers who tried Coca-Cola With Coffee said they would buy it, Kibe said in the announcement. And in presentations with several of our major retailers and grocery chains, our customers would take a sip and immediately ask, When can we have this? This latest launch by Coca-Cola follows the recent rollouts of Coke Energy/Coke Energy Cherry, Cherry Vanilla Coke, Orange Vanilla Coke (and their zero-sugar counterparts). Peoples taste preferences and lifestyles are changing, so were evolving our portfolio to meet those needs, Meza said in the announcement. As a total beverage company, we are constantly listening to consumers and looking for ways to innovate and bring people more of the beverages they want. READ MORE: 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. LEWISTON - The Idaho Travel Council (ITC) has awarded 'Visit Lewis Clark Valley' $99,000 in annual grant awards, as announced earlier this week. The award granted to VLCV is the same as last year, despite VLCV being asked to reduce the grant request by 15% for FY20. The grant VLCV submitted was $85,000, and the awarded amount was $14,000 more than requested. Fortunately, the lodging tax collections werent as low as anticipated. The Idaho Travel Council grant funding comes from lodging tax revenue from all lodging establishments in Region 2. Due to COVID-19 the taxes have been significantly down since April of this year. The State of Idahos fiscal year is from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020 so most of the collections were received prior to the COVID-19 for the FY20 grant awards. VLCVs application scored the second highest in the entire state. Boise with over a million-dollar grant scored the highest. VLCVs application is only 1 of 3 from the total of 31 state-wide grantees to score above 90%. VLCVs score is 93.4. The Idaho Travel Council granted $5,867,607 in tourism marketing funding to non-profit organizations through the Idaho Regional Travel and Convention Grant Program. Art McIntosh, with Lindsay Creek Vineyards in Lewiston is the Idaho Travel Council Region 2 representative. Following numerous complaints regarding large crowds and executive order violations at the Plymouth Park Fun Zone, the Midland Police Department is urging the public to follow state orders and public heath directives amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Residents are encouraged to avoid the Fun Zone if large crowds are present and instead to visit one of the City of Midlands other 72 parks. A map of all City park locations can be found online at www.cityofmidlandmi.gov/recreation. South Africa: R25m investment to boost pan-African vaccine manufacturing Processes to finalise a R25 million investment to boost pan-African vaccine manufacturing is currently underway, says President Cyril Ramaphosa. This announcement was made during a virtual National COVID-19 Conference on Friday. The conference, which brought together scientists, governments, business and civil society from all over the world, provided a platform for open discussions and contribute to a greater understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on society and the economy. The conference focused on health innovations and technologies, and social and economic sustainability during and after the pandemic. Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, delivered the Presidents address to the conference on his behalf. In the address, the President said the international community is unanimous in that services, supplies, products and technologies for prevention, treatment and care of COVID-19 must be available to all. No country must be left behind, he said. Constraints In addition, resource constraints pose a very real barrier to the ability of vulnerable countries to manage the pandemic. Science, technology and innovation has proven to be an important tool for generating valuable insights and for the delivery of effective solutions. A platform such as this one enables scientists, governments, business and civil society to engage in open discussion, to share experiences and best practice, and to chart the way ahead. While behavioural change is a key element in fighting the pandemic, the President also spoke of the need to develop technological solutions. We know that every strategy to manage COVID-19 must focus on behavioural change, and that social distancing and proper hygiene are our safest and best bets at this time. By equal measure, we must continue to work tirelessly to develop technological solutions that meet our most pressing challenge, and that is resource scarcity, said President Ramaphosa. Finding solutions The President also announced that the country would soon witness the very first ventilators produced by the South African National Ventilator Project coming off the assembly line at a factory in Cape Town. These locally-produced ventilators will complement existing stock in the public and private health system and those purchased from or donated by other countries, President Ramaphosa said. President Ramaphosa also noted that a number of South African innovators have taken up the challenge of addressing the need for COVID-19 solutions. These included the bulk-production of hand sanitisers, developing self-screening assessment tools in local languages and pioneering contact-tracing applications. Investing in Africa President Ramaphosa reiterated that the COVID-19 pandemic must be a clarion call for African nations to invest in what is already a vibrant pan-African science and innovation ecosystem. The President said investment in research and innovation has enabled South Africa to respond effectively to the pandemic. We have been able to support the national COVID-19 response in critical areas, including the development and provision of diagnostic tools, ventilators and personal protective equipment, and in epidemiological modelling and data analytics. Research and innovation Since the outbreak of the pandemic, South Africa has been able to harness innovations like telemedicine to protect patients and healthcare workers from exposure to the virus. The introduction of COVID Connect has enabled over 6 million citizens and healthcare workers to access information on the pandemic through mobile messaging platforms. South African researchers are working in collaboration with international vaccine developers around a potential COVID-19 vaccine. The South African Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Department of Science and Innovation have provided R10 million funding for the first South African COVID-19 vaccine trial. Our researchers and scientists have the expertise to develop human vaccines, having been involved in the development of several other vaccines, said the President. However, the President said, it is not just in the research space that the country has demonstrated its capability. We also have important laboratory infrastructure. The National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) has contracted with a number of universities and government-funded platforms to assist with additional capacity to conduct COVID-19 testing. We have also developed a pathway for the potential production of COVID-19 vaccines locally. South Africa is part of a traditional medicine panel set up in partnership with the World Health Organization to assist in developing protocols for various aspects of traditional medicine usage. The MRC has also brought together a number of government, academic and industry partners to support the development and local production of diagnostic kits and reagents for COVID-19, he said. The President emphasised that harnessing the potential of science, technology and innovation for vaccine production, and other manufacturing is not just about security of supply, but it is also about boosting local capabilities, supporting local industries and creating jobs. Rebuilding economies He said strategic partnerships in science, technology and innovation will play an important role in South Africas economic recovery. He said opportunities in sectors like low-carbon energy and circular and green economies should be explored, as countries strive to rebuild their economies. There is immense potential for kick-starting economic growth in the uptake of innovation and in driving technological solutions for the delivery of services. It is crucial that we maintain the momentum of international cooperation and solidarity to ensure inclusivity not just in the provision of life-saving therapeutics for COVID-19, but also in sustainable economic recovery. The President said science, technology and innovation are key to healthier populations, productivity and progress. It is of the utmost importance that they remain a public good. As we collectively strive to overcome this pandemic, we must share experience and expertise. In addition, countries must pool resources through joint investments, data sharing and reciprocal access to research infrastructure. We must reinforce global solidarity through science diplomacy. This conference provides a valuable platform to advance these efforts and to affirm the absolute necessity of health innovation as a vital resource for the common good, President Ramaphosa said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Nancy Isime Nigerian actress, model and media personality Nancy Isime is celebrating 5 years since she began hosting Trending on HipTv. Taking to her social media page, the 28 year old Edo State native stated that she got the most beautiful surprise at work. LIMITED EDITION Today the 30th of July makes it 5years since I was announced as the new host of Trending on HipTv. 5 years!!! Can you believe it? My HipTv family decided to surprise me in the most beautiful way at the office today. When the official videos are ready, Ill be back with my epistle, for now, you can catch some highlights on my Insta story Today was a GOOD DAY! P.S: if you follow me but dont watch my Insta stories, Issa Pity! Na the main post be that. If you know, you know she wrote: Isime in 2009 won the Miss Valentine International beauty pageant, and began a career as an actress in the TV series Echoes in 2011. Mr. Lingham with his wife, Elizabeth Allen Jackson Church. They threw parties on holidays for their neighbors on Moore Street in South Philadelphia. Read more William Henry Lingham Jr., 83, of South Philadelphia, a government worker for almost four decades, died Monday, July 20, of complications from dementia at his home. Mr. Lingham was the eldest of 15 children 11 girls and four boys born in Philadelphia to Evelyn Church and William H. Lingham Sr. He was baptized in 1947 at St. Peter Claver Roman Catholic Church, the mother church for Black Catholics in Philadelphia dating to the 1880s. It closed in 2019. Mr. Lingham graduated from South Catholic High School in 1953. Several years before he graduated, his mother was killed in a street crime at 20th and Federal Streets. He helped his father deal with the aftermath. Junior, as Mr. Lingham was affectionately known, acted as a surrogate parent to his 14 siblings. He taught them how to be caring, honest, loving, responsible, respectable, hardworking citizens, the family said in a statement. He raised the children. He was a good guy, said his daughter, Veronica Lingham-Johnson. Immediately after high school, he and friend Frank Washington enlisted in the Air Force. He was stationed in Germany and honorably discharged in 1962 with the rank of airman. He was a communication specialist, with mastery of the teletype and encryption, according to his military discharge papers. Starting in 1962, Mr. Lingham worked for the Philadelphia Water Department as a water quality inspector, sometimes operating from a boat. That got old very quickly, his daughter said. He then joined the U.S. Post Office in South Philly as a mail carrier, but he was chased by a vicious dog one day, and that soured him on mail delivery. He could tell you a story about this that was so funny it would have you crying, his daughter said. He transferred to the Federal Protective Service, the precursor to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, working in teletype communication from the federal building at Sixth and Arch Streets. His final job before retiring in 1994 was as a federal dispatcher for the security police guarding the U.S. Courthouse. When he retired, he was presented with a plaque from the federal governments General Services Administration honoring him for 38 years of public service. Mr. Lingham married Elizabeth Allen Jackson in 1988, although they were together for a total of five decades. They were an iconic couple on Moore Street until her death in 2008. He was block captain and she his helper when it came to community events. On July 4 and Labor Day, the two would host block parties for all their neighbors. She also opened her home on Thanksgiving to her extended family. We all came home for that, her daughter said. He often would treat the neighborhood children to treats from the ice cream truck, the one with twinkling music that roamed the streets in summertime, his family said. All the kids on the block loved him. He liked playing pinochle and hearts. He enjoyed hanging out with friends at 20th and Reed Streets. That was his area, he practically grew up there, his daughter said. He would say: I come from 20th and Reed. Dont get it twisted. A patron of the Wander Inn Lounge, he appreciated the taverns jazz offerings on weekends. He made everybody laugh. He was loved by everybody. My girlfriends would meet my dad and not leave, his daughter said. He would say: Sit down, sit down. Where you been? His family said Mr. Lingham was respected and admired by his friends and members of the community. He was a longtime member of St. John the Evangelist Church at 13th and Market Streets. In addition to his daughter, he is survived by sons Willie Allen, Milton Allen, and Sean Lingham; five grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; and nieces and nephews. Seven of his siblings survive; seven others died earlier. Services were Thursday, July 30, with interment at Merion Memorial Park in Bala Cynwyd. Donations may be made to Salvation Army, via https://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/. Its official: Australia is in recession for the first time in 29 years, thanks to The Bat Kiss. Many Aussies have been lucky enough to access stimulus payments for example JobKeeper, JobSeeker or childcare subsidies but most would agree that even these measures arent nearly enough to stave off the crunch were experiencing right now. Compared to America, were lucky. As of midday today (30/7/20), Australia has only recorded 15,582 cases and 176 deaths from COVID-19, where the US has 4,502,306 cases and 152,845 deaths. On top of that, the American unemployment rate is much higher than ours (11.1% vs 7.4%) and most Americans only got literally one stimulus check from the government. However, whats true in both Australia and America is despite the seriousness of this pandemic, you still have people taking the piss. Here, weve been infuriated by security guards who cant keep it in their pants. But thats got nothing on this Florida businessman, however, who decided to f*ck his employees and the taxpayer to the tune of 4 million USD. 29-year-old swine merchant David T. Hines allegedly applied for a 4 million USD loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) but instead of bailing out his business, he was spotted driving around Miami in a 318,000 USD Lamborghini Huracan EVO. 29-year-old Florida man gets $4 million in PPP funds buys a Lamborghini, spends on dating websites, jewelry and trips. https://t.co/3Hv9G0f7uT pic.twitter.com/nHIJuJrjXS Robert Frank (@robtfrank) July 28, 2020 Designed by the US Small Business Administration to provide a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll, its a shame that Hines instead chose to spend the money on wild living for himself rather than that money going to help Americans in need. This is not the only case of people or businesses abusing US federal PPP loans like this reality TV star Maurice Fayne (aka Arkansas Mo) was arrested and charged with federal bank fraud in May for spending his loan on a Rolls-Royce and jewelry. Some applicants for these PPP loans might surprise you. Rapper Kanye West and rock band Pearl Jam; artist Jeff Koons; Mitch McConnells wife and Nancy Pelosis husband; the Catholic Church and the Church of Scientology have all applied for this stimulus program. With any welfare program theres likely to be some instances of fraud, but its a shame that people arent rallying together during these difficult times and parking their worst tendencies for just a second. Although to be honest, wed probably go out and buy a Lambo if we had millions fell into our laps, too Read Next The order to open fire on members of the Hezbollah cell who infiltrated Israel in the morning hours of July 27 was given when they were a few dozen meters away from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) position on Mount Dov. The IDF was prepared to the hilt, armed with machine guns and a Merkava 4 tank on the ground and drones in the air. The IDF fire was sudden and massive, but ineffectual not because the snipers missed their target, but because of the order to deploy nondirectional fire. In other words, do not shoot to kill; shoot to make them flee. The snipers and tank crew operated accordingly, under the vigilant eye of the drones buzzing above. They were very successful, perhaps too much so. Members of the cell, who had been trudging up the slopes of the mountain for hours, camouflaged by the dense undergrowth and skipping patiently from cover to cover, turned back, running amok, as one senior military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, described their flight down the dangerous, steep slope covered with shrubs, boulders and other obstacles. We were worried about them as they ran down, the Israeli security source told Al-Monitor. It was a very dangerous course, in heavy heat and we werent sure they would make it down in one piece and not totally dehydrated. The group continued to flee for long minutes, with the IDF closely tracking it. When they arrived at the bottom safe and sound and were picked up by a waiting vehicle, the IDF breathed a sigh of relief. It had wanted a peaceful end to the saga. The top brass believed that the cells tactical retreat from the IDF position toward the wadi below would provide Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah with the strategic retreat he sought from the organizations pledge to avenge the killing of one of its men (Ali Kamel Mohsen, also known as Jawad) in a strike near Damascus, Syria, the week before. Nasrallah, however, did not take the hint. As of the writing of these lines, tensions persist along the Israel-Lebanon border. Israel does not understand why Nasrallah failed to take advantage of the opportunity to end this round with Israel peacefully, why Hezbollah keeps insisting revenge is still to come and why Nasrallah has distanced himself from the July 27 event but is keeping the pressure cooker on a low flame. The decision to allow members of a Hezbollah terror cell who tried to attack an Israeli army post to get home safely has generated considerable criticism in Israel. Critics targeted the politicians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, but also the IDF, which they accused of losing its lethal instinct and agreeing to overlook a blatant challenge to Israeli sovereignty and an attempted attack on its troops. Senior security officials vehemently reject the claims. Sometimes, they argue, wisdom is the better part of valor, and it is better to avoid rash decisions, to consider the broader picture and strategic goals rather than falling in love with a single tactical event that could result in protracted strategic damage. Israels reasoning is simple. The state is facing the toughest economic crisis of its history and a second wave of COVID-19. Unemployment surged from under 4% to 20% within weeks. Gross domestic product is shrinking. Thousands of businesses are collapsing, with to rent or for sale signs dotting the urban landscape. The timing of the attempted Hezbollah attack was critical. The Israeli government had just decided to relax some of the lockdown restrictions, the Galilee region was humming with domestic tourists, hotels and bed-and-breakfasts were filled to capacity. With the summer season at its peak, presenting the first opportunity for businesses in the north to recoup some of their coronavirus-induced losses and restore smiles to their owners faces, a war was simply a nonstarter. Killing the Hezbollah infiltrators would have set off an instant clash, emptying the hotels and vacation lets, the malls and the stores and handing the fragile economy a knockout. This was the main consideration guiding the IDF chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, and the Northern Command chief, Maj. Gen. Amir Baram. Theres no need to fix something that is not broken, a senior Israeli defense source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. Hezbollah is mired in a deep crisis, Lebanon is collapsing, people there do not have food, there is no power supply, the situation in Iran is affecting Nasrallahs budget and he is withdrawing and growing weaker. A day of fighting or even a war with Israel at this point could have the opposite effect and give him an out from his predicament. Nasrallah continues to nurture his image as the defender of Lebanon and there is no need to play into his hands at this stage. These considerations led to the Israeli decision to let Hezbollah emerge unscathed from the incident, to avoid humiliating the organization and to provide Nasrallah with a way down from his high horse. Nasrallahs decision to reject these gestures is mystifying officials in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Nonetheless, the IDF is ready, whether for a skirmish or a full-scale war. Ready, but not fired up. Israel would rather maintain its low-key operations that it dubs the war between the wars, continue undermining Iranian entrenchment in Syria and Nasrallahs precision-rocket program in Lebanon and avoid total conflagration. Should the need arise, IDF officials say, Israel will know how to fight and win. The IDF is not overly concerned about Nasrallahs threats to conquer the Galilee. Nasrallah cannot capture the Galilee or any Israeli town or village, another defense expert told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. He could cause damage or carry out an attack in our territory, but he would then sustain a serious blow. Shiite villages [in southern Lebanon] would evacuate residents much faster than would Israeli ones and would look completely different after a war, and Nasrallah knows it, the expert added. He cannot afford the risk. To reduce the likelihood of war to the extent possible, Kochavi aspires to accelerate construction of the concrete wall along the border with Lebanon. So far, the wall covers only some 10 kilometers (6 miles) of the steep, mountainous 140-kilometer-long (87-mile) terrain between the two countries. The IDF has drawn up detailed plans to complete the project, but given the costs in the billions of shekels and the current budget hole, the likelihood of that happening is slim. The IDF will be forced to maintain a beefed-up presence along the border to avoid an escalation and deterioration into war. The organizations current troubles reduce the odds of an all-out conflict with Hezbollah. The question is whether Nasrallah might change his mind at some point and start believing that a confrontation with Israel is his only hope vis-a-vis Lebanese citizens angry at Hezbollahs powerful hold on the country. Israel hopes he wont. Iranians students chant slogans as they demonstrate following a tribute for the victims of Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 in front of the Amirkabir University in the capital Tehran, on Jan. 11, 2020. (Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images) Iranian Netizens Reach Out to Hong Kong Protesters to Oppose China Colonization Iranian netizens have accused the Chinese regime of colonization and used the hashtag #China_get_out_of_Iran on various social media platforms to reach out to Hong Kong protesters about a recent 25-year economic and military deal reported to have been reached between Iran and China. Hey, Iranian here. First, I must apologize for some of the misunderstandings, the Iranian officials are going into a contract with CCP [Chinese Communist Party] that gives them military and land access for 25 years, including ports and maritime routes, they have also agreed that China may occupy some islands in the Persian Gulf, said Iranian social media user @dearlostkarma on LIHKG, the Hong Kong version of Reddit. Fellow Iranians who have protested against this deal with CCP were attacked by the [wumao, or pro-CCP trolls] and as they struggled to find CCP-related forums, they resorted to spam this message here. Benedict Rogers, a British human rights activist and the founder of Hong Kong Watch, told The Epoch Times that Hong Kong protesters are a source of inspiration for anyone protesting against Chinas expansionist agenda. Hong Kong protesters have shown extraordinary resilience, courage, and commitment, a determination to never give up, even despite extraordinary odds, and this is truly inspiring, he said. The Plight of Iranians The news about the IranChina $400 billion economic and strategic deal has sparked much speculation in worldwide media after being reported by The New York Times. While the story has been denied by the Iranian foreign ministry, it didnt stop protesters from raising their voices against the Chinese regimes apparent plans. Qeshm, an Island of Iran, is going to be occupied by China. Many brave Iranians are seeking for help from international. Therefore please help them! They are also victims of CCPs tyranny, said Hong Kong-based netizen @camelohk50 on Twitter. Iranian political circles speculate that transferring full control of the Iranian islands to the Chinese regime is part of the deal. Mahmoud Ahmadi Bighash, a hardline member of the Iranian parliament (Majles), told the monopolized state-run TVs Channel One that the transaction included transferring full authority of Iranian islands to China but was aborted because of opposition by the Iranian people and the Majles, reported Radio Farda, a part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media that provides uncensored news out of Iran. Kish and Qeshm are two islands that Iranian media have reported to have been shortlisted for economic free zones. The Iranian regime has denied that claim. We have not given and will not give away even an inch of Iranian soil. We will not grant China or any other country the exclusive right to use a single meter of Iranian territory, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said. The Iranian government also dismissed Bighashs allegation as serving vested interests. Revelations about the possible ChinaIran deal have created a discussion among netizens who are already protesting in their respective countriesthe Iranians against authorities in Tehran and pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong against the Chinese regime. The latest round of protests in Iran started on Nov. 15 last year, after a surprise increase in fuel prices, and intensified after the Iranian military mistakenly shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 on Jan. 8, which killed all 176 onboard, mostly Iranians. The downing of the airliner occurred after a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. LIHKG posted some screenshots of comments by Iranian protesters and captioned them as: People from Iran are seeking help with #china_get_out_of_iran on our IG page. A netizen in Hong Kong, @freehk_noccp, shared a conversation with protesters in Iran. In response to a query about happenings in Iran, protester @h.vahideh replied: @hkers.ms19 An island in Iran has been bought by Chinas government and oil operation for 25 years. This is a kind of colonization. Iranian protests against the apparent deal sparked a message on Twitter by Hong Kong student activist and politician Sunny Cheung, who said that the political situation in Hong Kong proves that the Chinese Communist Party never keeps its promises. Iranians are calling for a halt on Irans economic and security deal with #China. China is cashing in on the economic distress of Iran with its debt-trap diplomacy. The experiences of HK people are proof that the #CCP never tends to honor its promises, said Cheung, who participated in the 2014 Umbrella Revolution and the 201920 Hong Kong protests against the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill, which, according to protesters, is undermining Hong Kongs autonomy and civil liberties. 1. Iranians are calling for a halt on Irans economic and security deal with #China. China is cashing in on the economic distress of Iran with its debt-trap dimpolmacy. The experiences of HK people is proof that the #CCP never tends to honor its promises.#china_get_out_of_iran pic.twitter.com/qw6VsYxaEi Sunny Cheung (@SunnyCheungky) July 24, 2020 Another Hong Kong protester, Flora Chan, told the Iranian protesters that they have the support of protesters in Hong Kong. Thank you. We stand with you. Chinas tyranny wants to take over the world. The free world should stand united and be against China. #china_Get_out_of_Iran. Dont forget to #BoycottChineseProducts, Chan wrote on Twitter on July 24. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend: Russia was the only exporter of olive, palm and vegetable oil to Turkmenistan from Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) countries from January through May 2020, Trend reports, citing statistics from the Eurasian Economic Commission. The total volume of exported olive oil to Turkmenistan from Russia is 2,700 kilograms, palm oil 193,520 kilograms, and sunflower oil -16.7 million kilograms. The total amount of olive oil exported by Russia to Turkmenistan is $6,480, palm oil - $183,695, and sunflower oil - $14.3 million. The soybean oil was also exported to Turkmenistan in the mentioned period. According to statistics, Belarus was the only exporter of soybean oil to Turkmenistan among the EEU countries. Thus, Belarus exported 54,080 kilograms of soybean oil to Turkmenistan, for a total amount of $51,376. Also, Russia was the only exporter of other cereals from the EEU countries to Turkmenistan from January through May in the amount of 102,870 kilograms, for the total amount of $35,869. As it was reported earlier, from January through May 2020, a significant amount of potatoes, onions and garlic was exported to Turkmenistan from the EEU countries, in particular from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva Mumbai: Martyrs who sacrificed their lives on 26 November 2008 during the dastardly terrorist attack on Mumbai were given rich tributes on Saturday by a commemoration, led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The attacks had completely rattled the common populace of Mumbai and nearly 166 people were killed during the ciry's seize.Family members of the martyred personnel and survivors of the daring strike recalled the harrowing moments and pledged support to efforts to root out terrorism. "I pay homage to the brave policemen who fought for Mumbai's safety and laid down their lives for us on 26/11. We are proud of them and we will strive hard for safety and security of our state," Fadnavis said paying homage at the 26/11 police memorial at the Mumbai Police Gymkhana. Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, former Mumbai police commissioners Julio Ribeiro, M N Singh and several senior present and former police officers were present. On November 26, 2008, ten Pakistani terrorists arrived by sea route and opened fire indiscriminately at people killing 166, including 18 security personnel, and injuring several others, besides damaging property worth crores. Also Read: 8 years of 26/11 attacks: How flimsy or strong we are when it comes to combating terrorism? | Exclusive Interview The then ATS chief Hemant Karkare, Army Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, Mumbai's Additional Police Commissioner Ashok Kamte and Senior Police Inspector Vijay Salaskar were among those killed in the attack. The attack had begun on November 26 and lasted until November 29. Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the Oberoi Trident, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, Leopold Cafe, Cama Hospital, the Jewish community centre were some of the places targeted by the terrorists. Ajmal Kasab was the lone militant who was captured alive. Also Read: 26/11 Mumbai attacks anniversary: The supreme sacrifice of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan which nation can never forget He was hanged four years later on November 21, 2012. At a video exhibition titled '26/11: Stories of Strength', showcased by The Indian Express in association with Facebook and Instagram, Fadnavis called for leveraging manpower with technology for security purposes. He said the 2008 Mumbai attacks were an insult to India, wherein ten terrorists held an entire nation to ransom.He said the whole world should be proud of the resilience shown by the city to cope with the terror attacks. Kia Scherr, who lost her family in the ghastly attacks, said she and her family in Florida could only watch the news and wait to hear from her relatives who were in the city then. Also Read: Controversies involving Bollywood celebrities after 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks "I have forgiven those who killed my family because I want to be relieved from the burden of anger. Since the attacks, I have been reborn in Mumbai again. I have received so much of love, generosity from people here," she said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. In this article FB AAPL GOOGL AMZN CNBC's Jim Cramer on Thursday reacted to the quarterly reports that four of the five largest publicly traded companies posted after markets closed. Shares of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet, with a combined market value of more than $4.8 trillion as of Thursday's close, are all up in the aftermarket after each company topped Wall Street estimates in a quarter consumed by the coronavirus pandemic that has disrupted global economies. "These big tech stocks have been roaring because they either benefit directly from the pandemic or they've figured out how to thrive in spite of it," the "Mad Money" host said. One day prior, the chief executives of each tech titan were summoned before Congress to testify on antitrust claims. Cramer called the House antitrust subcommittee the "greatest stock-picking research firm in the world" after lawmakers on both sides of the aisle grilled the company heads on their business practices and outsized dominance in their respective markets. "When I'm searching for long-term investments," Cramer said, "I dream of finding companies that [are] so powerful [and] so strong, that they end up being hauled in front of Congress for destroying their competition fair and square." Amazon Amazon shares surged more than 5% in the aftermarket after the e-commerce giant reported earnings of $10.30 per share on revenue of $88.91 billion, well above the $1.46 per share and $81.56 billion numbers, respectively, analysts were looking for. "They weren't even trying to have an incredibly profitable quarter. They spent aggressively to build capacity for the stay-at-home economy, and to keep their employees safe," Cramer said. "As for the next quarter, Amazon gave you a blowout forecast. The stock's on fire." Apple Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards Apple stock shot up about 6% after posting a blockbuster report and announcing a four-for-one stock split after the bell. The company recorded $59.69 billion on the top line, compared to analyst estimates of $52.25 billion, and $2.58 per share on the bottom line, a 54-cent beat. "While Apple didn't give us a forecast for the next quarter, they did give us a four-for-one stock split, which should make this one a lot more enticing to home-gamers who might be scared away from a $400-plus price tag," the host said. "Many other companies should actually watch what [CEO] Tim Cook does here and stop watching what Warren Buffett does. Do what Tim Cook does. It's another reason why Apple is zooming after hours." Facebook Shares of Facebook rallied above 6% after besting analyst estimates in the second quarter. The social media giant reported earnings of $1.80 per share, when Wall Street was looking for $1.39, on revenues o $18.69 billion, more than $1 billion above expectations. "After all the sturm und drang about major advertisers boycotting the platform, Facebook shot the lights out," Cramer said. "Even better, July's going strong. Millions of small businesses need Facebook. Instagram Shops is a gigantic hit. This is a small- and medium-sized business juggernaut. No wonder the stock's flying in after-hours trading." Alphabet Google-parent Alphabet is the laggard here with its stock up less than 1% in extended trading. The online behemoth beat on the top and bottom lines, but the company saw revenues decline for the first time in its history. Alphabet brought in $38.30 billion in revenue and produced profits of $10.13 per share, while analysts predicted $37.37 billion and $8.21, respectively. "Their numbers were substantially better than expected, even as their core advertising business took a major hit," the former hedge fund manager said. "The stock barely budged in response, but I think that's because Alphabet's management is so non-promotional." An Ohio man asked for a survivors forgiveness before he was executed Tuesday for a rampage at a pet supply company in 1991 where he murdered two co-workers and shot another, then tried to run over him with a truck. Roderick Davie, 38, died by lethal injection at 10:31 a.m., moments after he apologized to the victims families and the former co-worker whom he shot three times and tried to gouge out his eyes with a stick. John, I hope you can let it go, man, and forgive me, Davie said as he looked at William John Everett. You hear me, John? Everett, sitting in the second row of witnesses, silently stared back at his attacker. Advertisement Davie confessed to shooting Everett and John Coleman in the head at a pet supply warehouse near Youngstown, where he had been fired months before. When he ran out of bullets, he beat 21-year-old Tracey Jefferys to death with a metal folding chair. Strapped down to a gurney on Tuesday, Davie apologized to Jefferys mother, who rocked back and forth and held the hand of a victim advocate. To Ms. Jefferys, Im sorry, Davie said, part of a tattoo peeking out from the medical tape and tubes that covered his left arm. I dont know if it means anything, Ms. Jefferys, but from the bottom of my heart, I mean that. Im sorry. Randy Coleman, whose brother was hired after Davie was fired, held a sepia photograph of three men as Davie apologized to his family. Next to him, another of his brothers looked straight ahead at the gurney. Davie said he was done and the warden took the microphone. His lips continued to move like those of a praying man, but the words were lost. He turned toward the window separating him from the witnesses and closed his eyes. A curtain was closed over the window, separating the witnesses from Davie. The room was silent, except for the rustling of cellophane as Everett opened a piece of candy. Then the warden said Davie had died. In 1991, then-19-year-old Davie had been working at the Veterinary Companies of America for just under a year. He got along well with co-workers, including Everett and Jefferys. He was fired in April 1991 after a fight with the buildings owner, according to the states clemency report. Less than three months later, Davie went back to the warehouse. He ordered Everett, Jefferys and Coleman to lie face down on the floor. He shot the men and beat Jefferys, then snatched Everetts wallet from his back pocket and took Jefferys change purse before he left the warehouse. Everett stumbled into the parking lot, where Davie got into a truck and tried to run him over. But he crashed, hopped out and tried to gouge out Everetts eyes with a stick. Davie fled when he saw someone watching and was later arrested. He confessed that he flipped out and went down to VCA and shot em up, according to the clemency report. A federal appeals court upheld Davies death sentence in 2008 and rejected claims that police questioned him illegally. Davies attorney declined to comment. Davie spent the hours before his scheduled execution praying and visiting in person and on the phone with family, prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn said. Davie, who also goes by an Islamic name, fasted until sundown on Monday. He was served a vegetarian meal and drank several cups of coffee during the night. Davie was the seventh person executed in Ohio this year, tying a record the state set in 2004. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - More transparency and accountability are required to maintain public support, safeguard independence, and enhance policy effectiveness in central banks, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (Natural News) Scammers have been using Twitter to gain access to high profile accounts, not only putting the users privacy at risk but also making their most sensitive and influential communications vulnerable. Because hackers can gain access to high profile accounts, Twitter has become a national security risk. Once scammers are able to Tweet under an elected officials name, a ripple effect will occur across the internet, the media, and the world at large. Imagine scammers using the Presidents account to make statements that could impact the financial markets. Imagine interference that could lead to escalating tensions between world leaders. As seen in recent years, a single Tweet can put pressure on foreign adversaries or escalate tensions between Nations. Even if the scam can be caught in time and the Tweet deleted, the ripple effect often persists throughout the media. Nations that distrust one another can be manipulated by a single influential Tweet. Twitter employees can be manipulated to give up private account access More than one thousand Twitter employees and contractors have the ability to reset passwords, log in and send tweets from anyones account. These employees can also gain access to private communications, which are also known as direct messages. Even though national security issues are at play and financial markets vulnerable to live Tweets and private communications, there are no security clearances for these employees and no system in place to safeguard the accounts of public officials and high-profile users. A recent scam at Twitter manipulated Twitters employees to give up temporary controls to the accounts of Joe Biden, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Barack Obama and Bill Gates. When hackers gain access to employee credentials, they can theoretically access any account they like, sending out communication in real time from high profile accounts, which can immediately have a global impact. These hackers can also find out the contents of private communications between high profile users, putting matters of national security at risk. The most recent Twitter scam used the accounts of high-profile users to tweet about fundraising, imploring followers to give money. The scammers were able to steal approximately $120,000 using tweets from influential users. During the scam, about 130 accounts were targeted. The scammers were able to get into forty-five of the accounts and send tweets. Thirty-six of the accounts were completely breached, as hackers gained access to private communications between users. For instance, the scammers intercepted all the direct messages from an elected official in the Netherlands. Twitter desperately needs national security oversight How easily would it be to bribe or threaten any one of these Twitter employees in order to gain access to high profile accounts? Scammers could theoretically influence foreign policy, trade deals, military strategy, and big business deals, all by gaining access to live Twitter feeds and private discourse of prominent users. (Related: Twitter locks down Donald Trump Jr.s page after he posted Americas Frontline Doctors press conference.) Almost all world leaders use Twitter in some capacity. Is it time to address the national security issues that exist at this social media company and takes steps to safeguard accounts? Are additional security precautions needed within the company, providing tiered security clearance to a select number of employees who would be given tools and resources to safeguard high profile accounts? Should this small group of employees be vetted and tasked with monitoring national security risks? Should Twitter be held to a higher standard so their employees cannot be manipulated by third party hackers and scammers? Sources include: WashingtonExaminer.com NaturalNews.com A policy that sought to limit exposure from any disputes about security deposits did not protect the insurer from having to defend a landlord against a class-action lawsuit claiming state laws were not followed, a federal appellate court ruled. In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the 11th District Court of Appeal reversed a decision by the U.S. District Court in Atlanta to grant summary judgment in favor of AEGIS Electric & Gas International Services. The court said the carrier must defend ECI Management LLC against a class-action lawsuit that accuses the company of failing to comply with a law that requires properties to be inspected and any security deposit owed to be returned to the tenant within three days. It was the second federal appellate court ruling this month that reaffirmed the principle that an insurers duty to defend a policyholder is broader than its duty to indemnify. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on July 20 that a property insurer must defend the grandparents of a 10-year-old boy who was killed in an all-terrain vehicle crash from a negligence claim, even though the carrier said its policy did not cover any accidents off the insured premises. In the ECI Management case, the 11th Circuit said even though AEGIS had excluded from coverage any claims regarding the return or disgorgement of funds, the class-action lawsuit may result in a court order to pay the plaintiffs attorney fees a type of loss that was not excluded by its real estate professional liability policy. ECI Management manages at least 3,000 units in 15 apartment complexes in the Atlanta metro area, including the Columns at Lake Ridge in Dunwoody. The suit says Nichon Roberson, a physician, rented an apartment at the Columns complex from May 2014 to August 2016. After Roberson vacated her apartment, ECI withheld $60 from her $437.50 security deposit. Although Roberson hired a professional cleaning service, ECI said she had left a rug in the apartment and a bag of trash under the sink. In June 2019, Atlanta attorneys Michael B. Terry and Naveen Ramachandrappa filed a class-action lawsuit in DeKalb County on behalf of Roberson and all other tenants who were not promptly returned their security deposits. Georgia law requires landlords to inspect vacated rental homes and provide tenants with an itemized list of damages within three days. Robersons lawsuit alleges that ECI did not comply with Georgia statute Section 44-7-333(b) in an unknown number of instances. The statute allows plaintiffs to collect three times the amount that was unlawfully withheld. ECI notified AEGIS. The carrier filed a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that it had no duty to defend ECI against the tenants class-action suit. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May granted summary judgment in favor of AEGIS. The policy clearly excluded coverage for treble damages or any other type of punitive damages, the judge said. The 11th Circuit panel, however, said those exclusions should not have ended the analysis. Themajority said even though coverage for some types of court orders are clearly excluded, the policy does cover compensatory damages, including attorney fees. The court said while it is true that an award of attorneys fees under the statute, as a practical matter, rises and falls with the award of treble damages, it does not directly flow from those damages. Rather, both the treble damages and the attorneys fees flow from a finding that that the landlord acted intentionally and in the absence of procedures designed to prevent the wrongful withholding of security deposits. The court concluded by saying that the award of attorney fees is potentially a covered loss under the policy, so AEGIS must defend ECI against the claim. Circuit Court Judge Charles R. Wilson dissented to a portion of the ruling. He said that the majority did not go far enough. Wilson wrote that Georgia statutes dont require landlords to reimburse tenants their unlawfully withheld security deposits; they require landlords to pay damages that are equal to the amount that was improperly withheld. The judge said thats a critical distinction because the policy exclusion addresses only monies that are disgorged or returned. He said the policy exclusion may be found to be irrelevant for that reason, in addition to the attorney fee issue. The underlying lawsuit that spawned the dispute may soon be settled. Ramachandrappa, one of Robersons attorneys, said his firm has reached a settlement agreement with ECI that he intends to submit for approval on Monday. About the photo: Photo of the Columns at Lake Ridge in Dunwoody, Ga. taken from the apartment complexs website. Since the 1970s, Oslos modest government quarter has been dominated by a huge work of art: The Fishermen, a concrete mural by Pablo Picasso and Norwegian artist Carl Nesjar that overlooks the districts central square. The mural, on the wall of a government building known as Y-Block, has long been one of Norways most high-profile pieces of public art. That is, until now. To the outrage of preservationists, art-world figures and Nesjars daughter, the Norwegian authorities removed the work early Thursday as part of plans to demolish Y-Block, which was damaged in a 2011 terrorist attack. At noon Thursday, a crane placed The Fishermen onto two trucks which drove it away for storage. The buildings other Picasso mural, The Seagull, was removed from inside Tuesday. Both will eventually be incorporated into a building in a new government quarter planned for the site. The murals removal was the culmination of a years-long fight between the authorities, who argue the demolition is necessary for security reasons, and activists, who believe the decision represents a crime against Norwegian cultural heritage. The fate of Picassos artworks has been in limbo since 2011, when right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik detonated a car bomb nearby, killing eight people and damaging the building. Breivik later killed another 69 people, mostly teenagers, on an island near Oslo. The attack remains a source of national trauma. Despite protests against Y-Blocks planned demolition, the Norwegian authorities have insisted that a vehicle tunnel running underneath the building poses a security risk and that it is not safe for government business to take place inside. In an email, Nikolai Astrup, Norways minister of local government and modernization, said that the murals would be prominently displayed in a new, more secure building. Astrup said that the Picasso Administration, which oversees the artists estate, had given its approval to the project. (The Picasso Administration did not respond to emails seeking comment.) Considerations of safety, functionality, urban environment, conservation and costs were taken into account in an overall assessment, Astrup said. But such reasoning hasnt done much to placate activists. Caroline Stovring, an Oslo architect and one of the leaders of the movement to preserve Y-Block, said in an interview that the government didnt sufficiently explore options for retaining the building, including leasing it out so that it no longer housed government offices, or closing the tunnel underneath it. Several attempts to reverse the decision including a motion by an opposition party in Norways Parliament this June and a lawsuit filed last winter failed. This spring, protesters, including a former Oslo city planner, chained themselves to the building in protest. The activists have received international support for their cause. In May, curators at the Museum of Modern Art in New York sent a letter to Prime Minister Erna Solberg arguing that the demolition would constitute a significant loss of Norwegian architectural heritage. The Picasso Museum in Antibes, France, has also written to Norwegian officials protesting the decision. Nesjars daughter, Gro Nesjar Greve, has launched a lawsuit together with the grandson of Erling Viksjo, Y-Blocks architect, to stop the government from repurposing the murals in the new government quarter. She said that her father, who died in 2015, was distraught when he learned of the plans to relocate the mural. This was his main life achievement, and they are just taking it down, she said in a telephone interview. A group of activists have launched a legal effort to pause the rest of the demolition until the heirs lawsuit is heard, probably early next year. The authorities think they can just relocate a work by Picasso and Nesjar, and that it will be the same thing, she said. Under the governments plans, The Fishermen will be installed above a VIP entrance to the new building, and The Seagull will be in the lobby. She said that it was dispiriting that such a decision had been made in Norway, a country with a limited amount of high-profile public art. We dont have that many things to take care of, that makes it even sadder and stranger they are doing it. Senate Adjourns After Failing to Agree on Extension of Expiring Jobless Benefits The Senate has adjourned until Monday, Aug. 3, as Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on an extension of the $600-per-week jobless benefit that expires Friday. As a last-ditch effort on Thursday to break a stalemate over the unemployment benefit, which Republicans want to scale back, arguing it is too generous and disincentivizes employment and hurts small businesses, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) introduced a bill (pdf) seeking to pass a short-term extension of the benefit at a reduced level of $200 per week, which Democrats rejected. States would be given two options for how to help their affected residents. 1) a flat $200/week or 2) an amount (not to exceed $500) to plus up unemployment benefits to 2/3 of a persons lost wages, Johnson said in a statement, explaining his bill, introduced jointly with Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) tried to pass the $3-trillion relief bill that the Democrat-controlled House passed in May but Republicans blocked it. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) derided the House relief package, called the HEROES Act, as a totally unserious proposal. He warned earlier this month that the bill would essentially be dead-on-arrival when it reached the Senate, saying it was too expensive and included too many unnecessary non-COVID-19-related measures. Republicans have criticized the bill as offering too much aid to illegal immigrants and not offering liability protection for businesses that reopen in the midst of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus epidemic. White House negotiators, led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, tried to persuade congressional Democrats late Thursday to accept a weeklong extension of the pandemic-related unemployment benefit, set to expire Friday. We want a temporary extension of enhanced unemployment benefits, President Donald Trump said at the White House Thursday. This will provide a critical bridge for Americans who lost their jobs to the pandemic through no fault of their own. Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) rejected the Republican offer, insisting on the need for a comprehensive relief package. We had a long discussion and we just dont think they understand the gravity of the problem, Schumer told reporters after a meeting attended by Pelosi, Mnuchin, and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. They want to do one small thing that wont solve the problem, Schumer said of the White House proposal. I think they understand that we have to have a bill, but they just dont realize how big it has to be, Pelosi said, calling the short-term extension proposed by the White House negotiating team worthless, CBS reports. Meadows accused Democrats of politically-motivated stalling. Tonight, once again, the White House offered a temporary extension of needed unemployment assistancewhich expires tomorrow. And again, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi said no, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said in a statement. What were seeing is clear. This is a politically motivated party that wont take yes for an answer, he said. In adjourning the Senate, McConnell took a procedural step that could allow voting on a potential compromise next week. The sides agreed to talk again Friday and into the weekend. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) arrives as Senate Republicans hold their weekly policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 16, 2020. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters The $600 boost in weekly unemployment checks ended Friday. With negotiations between Democrats and Republicans at an impasse, millions relying on that aid are in the dark as to what comes next. Meanwhile, the economic recovery appears to have stalled or reversed, coronavirus infections are surging, eviction protections have expired for many and plans to reopen schools remain in flux, potentially requiring many parents to forgo work for child-care duties. "It's not clear we're on a very clear trajectory out of this economic downturn," said Beth Akers, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and a former staff economist on President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisors. "So I'm very concerned for when we take away the $600 from unemployed people." 'Can't make a living' Americans lost the weekly subsidy, at least temporarily, after Friday. Federal relief legislation enacted in March the CARES Act set a July 31 end date. Congress has yet to agree on an extension or replacement policy. Given the scale of the problem, with roughly 30 million Americans collecting unemployment benefits, it's likely lawmakers will pass some sort of additional aid, according to experts. More from Personal Finance Republican senators propose $1,000 stimulus checks America faces an unprecedented eviction crisis Unemployment aid will fall by 93% for some "It's more a question of how much it will be and how long it will take," said Till von Wachter, an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and director of the California Policy Lab. A White House official suggested an agreement isn't forthcoming. "I'm not optimistic that there will be a solution in the very near term," Mark Meadows, President Trump's chief of staff, said during a television interview on Sunday, on CBS's "Face The Nation." Absent a federal supplement, the average American will get about $321 a week from state unemployment programs less than half of prior earnings. It's hard when you're already living your life on bare bones. Artavia Milliam unemployed worker in New York That situation will hit low-wage workers who are already more likely to be living paycheck to paycheck and represent a disproportionate share of the unemployed particularly hard. "You can't make a living as a low-income worker making 50% of your prior earnings," von Wachter said. Between $200 and $600 The $600-a-week supplement to unemployment benefits has been a hot-button issue since a federal coronavirus relief law, the CARES Act, enacted the payments in late March. The tension comes from some recipients being able to collect more from unemployment benefits than they earned from their jobs. Republicans have unified against the $600 weekly enhancement, believing it to be a disincentive to return to work and therefore a drag on the economic recovery. Democrats want to extend the payments, saying they pump money into the economy and help American families pay their bills. The House passed legislation in May to extend them through early 2021. Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards Senate Republicans unveiled a proposal last week to reduce aid to $200 from $600 a week through September. In October, they'd shift to a system where federal and state benefits replace 70% of a person's lost wages, which would be in place through year-end. It's likely lawmakers will meet somewhere in the middle, economists said. "I think that's where people have put their stakes in the ground right now," von Wachter said. Many families would likely still see financial hardship with a payment of $200. That would give Californians up to $650 a week in total benefits, for example. But $650 is less than the threshold for being considered "very low income" in this country, von Wachter said. "It's hard when you're already living your life on bare bones," Artavia Milliam, a recipient of unemployment benefits in New York, said during a House Ways and Means Committee press conference on Friday. "We just want to survive until we get through the crisis." Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards schoen The $600 supplement reduced food insecurity by 30% and led to a 42% reduction in eating less due to financial constraints, according to a paper published Thursday by academics at Boston University and the University of Pennsylvania. And prospects of finding a new job are dim. There are about 14 million more unemployed people than job openings right now, according to the Economic Policy Institute. "I'm not losing sleep over people getting an extra $600 a week right now because I think there are a lot more people looking for jobs in the economy right now than there are jobs available," Akers said. Wage replacement A wage-replacement approach like the one suggested by Republicans is the ideal approach, but is also unlikely to materialize within their timetable, according to labor experts. At the onset of the pandemic, lawmakers broached the idea of capping a subsidy, at 100% of lost wages. But antiquated state technology made that an impossibility in short order. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-CA., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY., speak to reporters following a meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on July 30. Congressional leadership and White House officials are continuing negotiations on a new relief package for Americans affected by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic recession it has caused. Samuel Corum | Getty Images The $600 was a compromise: when combined with typical state-paid benefits, the federal subsidy aimed at fully replacing lost wages for the average jobless person (about $976 a week in the first quarter). It's unlikely all states would be able to administer such a policy within the next few months, economists said. One compromise may be a flat amount ($200 to $600) that transitions to a system replacing perhaps 70%-100% of prior wages over a longer time period like early next year, von Wachter said. Lawmakers can offer states a financial incentive to update their technology. That could take the form of offering extended federal funding to pay benefits for the self-employed, freelancers and others being covered by the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, he said. The top US infectious disease expert told House panel 250,000 people have registered to take part in vaccine trials. Once a coronavirus vaccine is approved as safe and effective, Americans should have widespread access within a reasonable time, Dr Anthony Fauci assured United States legislators on Friday. Appearing before a House panel investigating the nations response to the pandemic, Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH), expressed cautious optimism that a vaccine would be available, particularly by next year. I believe, ultimately, over a period of time in 2021, that Americans will be able to get it, Fauci said, referring to the vaccine. There will be a priority list for who gets early vaccinations. I dont think we will have everybody getting it immediately, Fauci explained. But ultimately, within a reasonable time, the plans allow for any American who needs the vaccine to get it, he added. Under direction from the White House, federal health authorities are carrying out a plan dubbed Operation Warp Speed to manufacture 300 million doses of a vaccine on a compressed timeline. A medical worker holds a small bottle labelled with a Vaccine COVID-19 sticker [File: Dado Ruvic/Reuters] Fauci, the nations top infectious disease official, said a quarter-million people have expressed interest in taking part in studies of experimental vaccines for the coronavirus. He said 250,000 people have registered on a government website to take part in vaccine trials, which are pivotal for establishing safety and effectiveness. Not all patients who volunteer to take part in clinical trials are eligible to participate. Fauci was joined by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) head Dr Robert Redfield and Health and Human Services testing tsar Brett Giroir. Giroir acknowledged that currently, it is not possible for the US to return all coronavirus test results to patients in two to three days. He blamed overwhelming demand across the nation. Many health experts say COVID-19 results are almost worthless when delivered after two or three days because by then the window for contact tracing has closed. The latest government data shows about 75 percent of testing results are coming back within five days, but the remainder is taking longer, Giroir told legislators. Rapid, widespread testing is critical to containing the coronavirus outbreak, but the US effort has been plagued by supply shortages and backlogs since the earliest days of the outbreak. At a time when early progress seems to have been lost and uncertainty clouds the nations path forward, Fauci, Giroir and Redfield are calling on Americans to go back to public health basics such as social distancing and wearing masks. The panel, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, is divided on how to reopen schools and businesses, mirroring divisions among Americans. Committee Chairman Representative James Clyburn said the White House must come up with a comprehensive national plan to contain the virus. Ranking Republican Steve Scalise of Louisiana said the Trump administration already has plans on vaccines, testing, nursing homes and other coronavirus-related issues. Dr Anthony Fauci adjusts his face mask during a Senate hearing on efforts to get back to work in Washington, DC, US [File: Al Drago/Pool via Reuters] A rebound of cases across the South and the West has dashed hopes for a quick return to normal life. Problems with the availability and timeliness of testing continue to be reported. And the race for a vaccine, though progressing rapidly, has yet to deliver a breakthrough. Faucis public message in recent days has been that Americans cannot afford a devil-may-care attitude towards COVID-19 and need to double down on basic measures such as wearing masks in public, keeping their distance from others and avoiding crowds and indoor spaces such as bars. That is echoed by Redfield and Giroir, though they are far less prominent. Faucis dogged persistence has drawn the ire of some of President Donald Trumps supporters and prompted a new round of calls for his firing. But the veteran of battles against AIDS and Ebola has stuck to his message, while carefully avoiding open confrontations with the Trump White House. Earlier this week, Fauci said he was disturbed by the flat-out opposition in parts of the country to wearing masks as a public health protective measure. There are certain fundamentals, he said, the staples of what you need to do one is universal wearing of masks. Public health experts say masks help prevent an infected person who has yet to develop symptoms from passing the virus to others. For mask wearers, there is also some evidence that they can offer a degree of protection from an infected person nearby. Fauci said he is concerned because the US has not followed the track of Asian and European nations also hit hard by the coronavirus. Other countries that shut down their economies knocked back uncontrolled spread and settled into a pattern of relatively few new cases, although they continued to experience local outbreaks. The US also knocked back the initial spread, but it never got the background level of new cases quite as low. And the resurgence of COVID-19 in the Sunbelt in recent weeks has driven the number of new daily cases back up into the 60,000-70,000 range. It coincided with economic reopening and a return to social gatherings, particularly among younger adults. Growing numbers of emergency room visits, hospitalisations and deaths have followed as grim consequences. Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) wheeling a patient to Hialeah Hospital where coronavirus disease patients are treated, in Hialeah, Florida, US [Marco Bello/Reuters] Nearly 4.5 million Americans have been infected since the start of the pandemic, and more than 150,000 have died, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Fauci said there is evidence the surge across the South may be peaking, but upticks in the Midwest are now a concern. Theyve really got to jump all over that because if they dont then you might see the surge we saw in some of the Southern states, he said. Though Fauci gets push-back from White House officials, other medical experts in the administration are on the same page when it comes to the public health message. Giroir, the testing tsar, told reporters on Thursday: I think its very important to make sure that we all spread the public health message that we can control all the outbreaks occurring right now. He said controlling the outbreaks will require people to wear masks, avoid crowded indoor spaces and wash their hands frequently. Lines tend to be longer in cities and other areas with particularly high rates of African-American and Latino voters meaning that it is not always easy for people in these places to successfully cast ballots in person. If Mr. Trump were to successfully beat back access to absentee ballots, proponents of voting rights worry that it could disenfranchise these communities in particular. Republican state legislatures throughout the country have enacted a variety of voting restrictions since 2013, when the Supreme Court rolled back the Voting Rights Act. The Brennan Center for Justice, a pro-democracy watchdog group, has determined that in the past decade, 25 states have passed laws making it harder to cast a ballot. Amid the pandemic, those problems have often become especially acute particularly in states like Wisconsin and Georgia, where voters in many precincts during this years primaries were forced to wait in line for hours after Republican officials in both states resisted expanding access to absentee voting. In many primaries, the polling places were dramatically underequipped there were far too few of them and there were fewer resources than needed, said Wendy Weiser, who runs the democracy program at the Brennan Center. We saw the problems compounded in more populous areas, and even more in urban areas that have higher concentrations of Black and brown voters. But for now, it is primarily Republicans who have internalized Mr. Trumps arguments about the dangers of mail voting meaning that they, not Democrats, may be more likely to risk voting in person in November. The recent ABC/Post poll found that only 28 percent of Joseph R. Biden Jr.s supporters saw mail voting as vulnerable to substantial fraud, whereas 78 percent of Mr. Trumps supporters did. Subscriber content preview By LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer Gemma Arterton plays Alice Lamb, a reclusive writer in the English countryside who's been picked to host Frank (played by Lucas Bond), a young boy evacuated from London. Summerland might look like something you've seen before: A scenic story about a schoolchild who must leave London during the war and take up shelter with a reluctant caregiver. But while it is comfortingly familiar in many ways, and a little cliche and overwrought in others, it also has a modern edge and bite to it that keeps it novel enough to sustain interest. . . . Temperatures soared across Europe heading above 40 Celsius (104 F) in places, adding extreme heat to the health warnings of a continent already taking fresh measures to rein in a potential second wave of coronavirus infections. Several firefighters battled a wildfire sweeping across Chiberta forest in Anglet, southwestern France. The wildfire has been raging in the Chiberta forest in Anglet and has forced a precautionary evacuation of several people.Firefighters battle a large fire at Chiberta forest in Anglet, France. (Image: AP) A pub owner claimed he didn't speak English when questioned why there was no COVID-19 health plan at the premises. Police arrived at the pub in the small town of Temora in central New South Wales, about 12.30pm on Thursday to ensure there was a safety plan in place. Upon arrival, there was no sign-in book for patrons to jot down their details to be contacted in the off-chance there was a positive COVID-19 case at the pub. Officers then asked the licensee for the pub's COVID-19 Safety Plan to which he claimed he did not speak English. A pub owner claimed he didn't speak English when questioned why there was no COVID-19 health plan at the premises Following further investigations, police established there was no safety plan in place and issued the pub with a hefty $5,000 for not complying with health directions. The licensee was also issued with a $1,000 infringement notice for the same offence. In NSW, venues must have a COVID-19 Safety Plan, enforce contact tracing, space out tables apart and have hand sanitiser at all times as part of the current Public Health Order. Venues have been warned they need to fall in line with COVID-19 restrictions including customer limits and caps on group bookings or face closure. The warning comes after Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced earlier this month that pubs must limit patron numbers to 300 and restrict group bookings to 10 people. Only half of the state's pubs have completed a coronavirus safety plan and registered as 'COVID-safe'. Police arrived at the pub on Hoskins Street, Temora (pictured) to ensure there was a safety plan in place Ms Berejiklian said the new rules were about reducing the risk for transmission, but she said it was important to keep the state open. Weddings will also be capped at 150 guests, and funerals will be limited to 100. 'For weddings and corporate events, the maximum number is 150, but again, completely seated, no dancing, no singing, no mingling,' she said. NSW recorded 21 cases of coronavirus on Friday as the state works to contain the positive cases. You have reached a premium content area of TOL. To read this entire article please login if you are already a TOL subscriber. Not a subscriber? Subscribe today for access to: Full access to the website, including premium articles videos, country reports and searchable archives (containing over 25,000 articles). Polish defence minister says the US will deploy 1,000 soldiers in Poland to oversee forces on NATOs eastern flank. The United States will deploy at least 1,000 soldiers in Poland and oversee forces on NATOs eastern flank, according to Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak. Blaszczak made the remarks on Friday, a day after US defence secretary, Mark Esper, said the Pentagon will be sending home about 6,400 military personnel from Germany, and move nearly 5,600 to other NATO countries, including Italy and Belgium. At least 1,000 new soldiers will be deployed in our country, Blaszczak told the Jedynka public radio. We will have an American command in Poland. This command will manage the troops deployed along NATOs eastern flank, he said. It will be the most important centre for ground forces in our region, he said, adding that Warsaw and Washington had sealed a deal for military cooperation. We will soon sign the final pact with the Americans. The US pullout will cut the presence of US military personnel in Germany to about 24,000. Esper has stressed that the action is part of his broader plan to reposition US military forces globally to better address the key threats from Russia and China. A teenager is dead after a shooting Thursday morning on the North Side. Police said they responded to a call about three individuals shooting at each other around 4:30 a.m. at a residence in the 7600 block of McCullough Avenue. When they arrived, they found a 17-year-old suffering from a gunshot wound and died at the scene. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox The teen's friends told police he called them to come over. While he was waiting outside, the shooter approached him while two other individuals stayed a few houses behind, police said witnesses told them. The shooter then produced a handgun and shot at the 17-year-old before he fled with the two individuals waiting for him, according to police. The three individuals have not been located. Taylor Pettaway is a breaking news and general assignment reporter for MySA.com | taylor.pettaway@express-news.net | @TaylorPettaway The House ethics committee said on Thursday that it had ordered Representative David Schweikert, Republican of Arizona, to pay a $50,000 fine and face a reprimand by the House after finding that he violated 11 House ethics rules. The committee said Mr. Schweikert had agreed to the penalty as part of an agreement to end a two-year investigation that found substantial reason to believe that he violated House rules, the Code of Ethics for Government Service, federal laws and other standards. The panel cited Mr. Schweikert for campaign finance violations and errors in reporting by his campaign committees; the misuse of his congressional allowance; pressuring official staff members to perform campaign work; and his lack of candor and due diligence during the investigation. House investigators found that Mr. Schweikerts campaign had violated campaign finance laws by accepting more than $270,000 from his then-chief of staff. The former chief of staff also testified that he was pressured to raise money for the congressmans campaign, a committee report said. With the coronavirus pandemic still raging across Michigan, absentee voting and voting by mail has become more prominent this election cycle. As such, the Michigan Secretary of State has put out guidelines for how to register for absentee and early voting for those who choose not to participate in in-person voting this year, including the upcoming primary election on Tuesday. Michigan residents can register to vote up until Election Day, though since it is within two weeks of that day, they must register in person at a city or township clerks office. In order to obtain an absentee ballot, voters must submit a request to their local clerk by one of the following ways: Apply online for an online absentee voter ballot at www.michigan.gov/vote with a valid Michigan drivers license or other identification. Download and complete an absentee voter ballot or write out a request for an absent voter ballot and sign it. For those who have registered for early voting, the ballots mailed to your home must be returned to the clerks office by 8 p.m. on Election Day. Ballots will not be counted if the signature on the outside of the return envelope does not match the signature on file. As this is a primary election, voters must choose whether to vote for candidates for either the Republican or Democratic primaries. Voters trying to vote in both primaries will not have their votes counted. The state of Michigan has said that voting by mail is secure and that forging someones signature on an application and submitting it to receive a ballot is prosecuted as a felony. If you have not returned an absentee ballot, make sure to drop it off with your local clerk, rather than submitting it in the mail. Michigan clerks are instructed to contact voters without delay if there is an issue with their ballot. In-person voting will be available in every jurisdiction and will be in accordance with social distancing and safety protocols to ensure the safety of voters and election workers. People can find their polling place or clerks office and whether their ballot has been received at www.michigan.gov/vote. More election-related material can be found at www.michigan.gov/sos. A British Airways pilot was forced to make an emergency landing at Heathrow after he was overcome by fumes described as smelling like 'sweaty socks' and 'manure'. The Airbus A320 from Zurich had to make the emergency landing from 4,000ft when the stench made its way into the cockpit on September 23, last year. The pilots put down the oxygen masks after feeling unwell, especially the co-pilot who had sore eyes and throat, nausea and vomited out of the window upon landing. The British Airways pilot made the emergency landing at Heathrow airport after he and his co-pilot began to feel unwell in September last year None of the 145 passengers or cabin crew reported feeling ill but, once they had safely landed, the pilot and co-pilot were taken to hospital and released the same day, reports The Times. In the Air Accidents Investigation Branch's (AAIB) report, released yesterday, it says the operator and the AAIB carried out an investigation but could not identify the source of the fumes. The report detailed five other similar incidents which occurred with the same operator on the same aircraft type. In 2019, British Airways reported 398 smell, smoke and fumes events on the the Airbus A320 series aircraft (pictured) Some common factors between each of the incidents included taking place on short-haul European inter-city flights and often in damp humid environments. A startling 3,166 reports of smell, smoke or fumes were reported to the AAIB in the last five years. Not the first time: Shocking number of 'fume events' reported The AAIB's report into British Airways's emergency landing at Heathrow revealed the shocking number of similar incidents which have been reported. In 2019, British Airways reported 536 smell, smoke or fumes events to the Civil Aviation Authority Of these, 398 involved the Airbus A320 series aircraft 37 fume events from various commercial operators and aircraft types reported to AAIB in the past 12 months As many as 107 fume events reported from various commercial operators and aircraft types in the last five years 3,166 reports of smell, smoke or fumes reported to the CAA in the last five years 674 of these reports were submitted in the last 12 months Advertisement Of those recorded, a variety of causes were noted including an engine oil seal failure and another which chalked the cause of the smell down to a burnt pastry in a galley oven. The AAIB said despite numerous reports of similar incidents occurring 'sporadically' in recent years, to date all investigations have been unable to determine a cause in all but a few events. The government body said all the investigations had not identified a source of 'great concern'. The German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU)14 carried out a safety study which focussed on the potential health impairments of such events and, despite the wealth of data and evidence available, a common physical cause of these events could not be identified. The operator and aircraft manufacturer of the Zurich flight said they have taken action to try to reduce the number of events by introducing developed maintenance procedures to identify the source of fumes, changes to flight crew operating procedures and potential modifications to enhance cabin air recirculation. A BA spokesman told the The Times: 'We would never operate an aircraft if we believed it posed any health or safety risk to our customers or crew. 'Research commissioned by the European Aviation Safety Agency in 2017 concluded that the air quality on board aircraft was similar or better than in other indoor environments.' In January this year, similar to the incident in September last year, a BA captain sent a Mayday alert and wore an oxygen mask as he was forced to make an emergency landing at Heathrow after his co-pilot was overcome by suspected fumes while at the controls. The evening flight from Athens was four nautical miles from London when the first officer, who was flying the A320 jet, fell ill. As he could no longer function properly, the captain was forced to take over the four hour flight on January 2 and raise the alarm in the final stages of the flight. Mayor Garcetti Announces LAX will have a Travel Safety Ambassador Program Wednesday, July 29, the Los Angeles City Mayor Eric Garcetti provided updated news about the COVID-19 outbreak. On Monday, the mayor reported the numbers were seeing a steady trend, Los Angeles remains in Level Orange of COVID-19 caution. Garcetti shared his plans of future navigation of the city. As of July 29, the metrics of COVID-19 are showing a level of stabilization, the city is seeing the curve being brought down. The mayor stressed the effort of bending the curve relies on everyone, Garcetti explained that wearing a face covering, attentive hygienic behavior, and staying in as much as possible is working and reflecting in the recent data. Garcetti continued to emphasize the importance of taking back control and stopping the spread of the virus, he is holding everyone accountable for the next step the city will take. Garcetti described this space as a make-it or break-it moment. Cases are looking to go down in the next couple of weeks, which will avert any further closures of sectors. Garcetti disclosed Americas total death rate reached a threshold of over 150,000 fatal cases, having one of the worst outbreaks in the world. ADVERTISEMENT The mayor emphasized the countries recovering the best, are the ones that are most unified We can only beat this virus if we stay on the same page, stay together, and stay vigilant. Garcetti shared the latest data that the city is facing, the infection rate continues to lower. The ratio is reflecting less people who are infected are spreading the virus. The county estimated 1 out of 450 Angelenos are infectious. As of July 29, the Los Angeles City Mayor Eric Garcetti shared the latest updates regarding the coronavirus outbreak. Current county statistics reflect 4,825 new infections, bringing the total to 183,383. Mayor Garcetti disclosed 2,255 of those reports came directly from the city of Los Angeles. Hospitalization remains stable, there are 600 available beds, 465 acute beds, and 135 ICU beds. There are over 1000 vacant ventilators. Over 500 people are in ICU care, this is a 17.3% increase in ICU patients since last month, but there has been a decrease by 12% since last week. These numbers are record High, the mayor added that they reflect a back log of numbers that were delayed from testing sites. The county also reported 91 deaths, 30 of those fatal reports came from the city, which is the highest number reported in a single day. The total deaths in Los Angeles county has now reached 4,516. On Average there has been over 2,000 cases a day, for the last seven days and an average of 45 deaths. Through these numbers, men are showing to be more vulnerable and are dying at a higher rate than women due to COVID-19. City Drive-thru and Walk-up testing sites have tested almost one-million people, the mayor stressed if there has been possible exposure to COVID-19, the best course of action is to get tested. He stated, We are continually looking for ways to adjust to COVID-19 reality, ways to make our city safer and Angeleno lives easier. The mayor Announced that Los Angeles International Airport will have a Travel Safety Ambassador Program. It encourages passengers to practice physical distancing and follow hygienic guidelines, in the Southwest Terminal 1 and at the Tom Bradley International Terminal there will be ambassadors to hand out free masks. They will provide fact sheets detailing all the safety measures needed to fly with awareness. It will encompass hand sanitizer stations and procedures of the deep cleaning that is non-stop at the airport. The Travel Safety Ambassadors will be stationed by signs to answer any protocol related questions. Garcetti said, We want to make sure our world class airport is also world class when it comes to your safety. China launches the last satellite of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Southwest China's Sichuan province, June 23, 2020. [Photo by Hu Xujie/For chinadaily.com.cn] President Xi Jinping announced on Friday morning that China's Beidou Navigation Satellite System has been completed and started providing full-scale global services on the day. Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, declared the completion of the global navigation and positioning system's third-generation network at a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. This is a new milestone in China's space industry and also a major achievement in the country's efforts to boost science, technology and innovation, experts have said. Beidou is the country's largest space-based system and one of four global navigation networks, along with the United States' GPS, Russia's GLONASS and the European Union's Galileo. More than 300,000 scientists, engineers and technicians from more than 400 domestic institutes, universities and enterprises have been involved in Beidou's development and construction. Dozens of distinguished scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering have taken part in the program, project leaders said. In late June, the final satellite to complete Beidou's third-generation network was lifted by a Long March 3B carrier rocket at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province and was placed into a geostationary orbit about 36,000 kilometers above the Earth. After in-orbit tests over the past month, the satellite, the 59th in the Beidou family and 30th in the third-generation series, has recently started its formal operations, according to the China Satellite Navigation Office. Since 2000, a total of 59 Beidou satellites, including the first four experimental ones, have been launched from Xichang on 44 Long March 3-series rockets, with some of them having retired. Beidou began providing positioning, navigation, timing and messaging services to civilian users in China and other parts of the Asia-Pacific in December 2012. At the end of 2018, it started offering basic global services. Now, there are 30 third-generation Beidou satellites in three types of orbit 24 in medium-Earth orbits, three in inclined geosynchronous satellite orbits and three in geostationary orbits. There also are some second-generation Beidou satellites in operation offering regional services, said the China Satellite Navigation Office. Timeline: 1983 -- Renowned Chinese scientists, headed by Chen Fangyun, propose to build an experimental two-satellite positioning system. 1989 -- The concept of the experimental system is demonstrated and verified by two Chinese communications satellites operating in orbit. February 1994 -- The government approves and starts the research and development of a space-based navigation and positioning system, aiming to mitigate the country's heavy reliance on foreign networks. The system is named "Beidou". October 2000 -- China launches the first Beidou satellite. In December that year, the second Beidou satellite lifts off to join the first one to establish an experimental system. In May 2003 and February 2007, another two experimental satellites lift off to join the trial run. April 2007 -- Beidou's first mass-production satellite, also the first in its second-generation series, launches. December 2012 -- Beidou starts providing positioning, navigation, timing and messaging services to civilian users in China and other parts of the Asia-Pacific. November 2017 -- The first two third-generation Beidou satellites are launched. December 2018 -- Beidou begins providing basic global services. June 2020 -- The final satellite to complete the third-generation Beidou network launches. July 2020 -- Beidou starts providing full-scale services. UPDATE: 3:30 PM EST According to the U.S. Department of Justice, two other individuals 19-year-old U.K. resident Mason Sheppard and 22-year-old Florida resident Nima Fazeli have also been charged for their alleged participation in the hacks. Sheppard has been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and the intentional access of a protected computer. Fazeli has been charged with aiding and abetting the intentional access of a protected computer. Both were charged via a complaint filed in the Northern District of California, according to the DOJ's statement. Among the listed participants in the investigation was blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. The state attorney of Hillsborough County, Florida, announced Friday that it filed 30 felony charges against 17-year-year old Graham Clark for his alleged role in this month's Twitter account hack wave. As The Block reported earlier this month, the accounts of a range of major political and technology figures as well as crypto exchanges and industry businesses were hacked and used to distribute messages directing users to a bitcoin giveaway scam. Twitter eventually regained control of those accounts and has since published information about the incident, including a Thursday release pointing to a "phone spear-phishing attack" directed at a subset of employees. According to State Attorney Andrew Warren's office, "[t]he Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice conducted a complex nationwide investigation, locating and apprehending the suspect in Hillsborough County." The Tampa Bay Times reported that Clark was arrested in Tampa Friday morning. "These crimes were perpetrated using the names of famous people and celebrities, but they're not the primary victims here. This 'Bit-Con' was designed to steal money from regular Americans from all over the country, including here in Florida. This massive fraud was orchestrated right here in our backyard, and we will not stand for that," Warren said in a statement. Story continues Warren's office referred to Clark as the "mastermind" behind the hacks, citing the investigation's findings. Specifically, he was charged with one count of organized fraud over $50,000, 17 counts of communications fraud, one count of fraudulent use of personal information (over $100,000 or 30 or more victims), 10 counts of fraudulent use of information and one count of accessing computer or electronic devices without authority (scheme to defraud). "Working together, we will hold this defendant accountable," Warren said in a statement. 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. The department of dairy technology, College of Dairy Science and Technology, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana organised a two-days national webinar on Pre-Mid-Post Covid-19 Challenges of Dairy Farmers/ Entrepreneurs under RKVY Project entitled Enhancing Profitability of Farmers Through Value Addition and Entrepreneurship Development. Dr JPS Gill, director of research and Dr SK Uppal, dean, CODST emphasised on the opportunities of value addition of milk and milk products for a steady and firm income source to entrepreneurs during this lockdown period. The webinar was concurrent with the national e-brainstorming session. Dr S Sivakumar, head, DT and organising secretary welcomed the participants and experts. The sessions were coordinated by co-organising secretary Dr Sunil Kumar and rapporteurs Dr Rekha Chawla and Venus Bansal. Eighteen participants from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu attended this national webinar. On the first day of National Webinar, Dr Sanjeev Kumar, from SGIDT, BASU, Patna delivered an interactive talk on employment opportunities and enhancing the farmers income through value addition of traditional and fermented dairy products. Dr Atanu Jana from SMC College of Dairy Science, AAU, Anand discussed the opportunities for value addition to ice cream and frozen desserts. The farmers and entrepreneurs were also made aware of the strategies to overcome recent challenges in dairy animal management by Dr Sandeep Kaswan, GADVASU and about Women Empowerment strategies in dairying by Dr K Poonusamy, Principal Scientist, Dairy Extension Division, ICAR-NDRI, Karnal. Two more interactive sessions on FSSAI registration/licensing need for the dairy entrepreneurs by Venus Bansal and key points for establishment and management of mini dairy processing unit by Dr S Sivakumar were also held. The entrepreneurs addressed various problems and were provided instant solutions by the expert panel during the forum. (Natural News) The medical deep state really does not want people watching the Americas Frontline Doctors (AFD) White Coat Summit event, as further evidenced by Twitters recent suspension of PragerU simply for tweeting a clip of some of its doctors talking about hydroxychloroquine. The conservative-leaning educational resource had put up a video clip of the event that Twitter quickly took down for supposedly violating its community standards, which require that only credible medical information be shared online. American doctors are holding a White Coat Summit in Washington, D.C., to address a massive disinformation campaign by the media about coronavirus, the now-removed tweet from PragerU read. Watch as Dr. Stella Immanuel tackles the medias narrative about hydroxychloroquine. We, too, shared Dr. Immanuels testimony, which was powerfully compelling and deeply disturbing, considering the implications of the medical deep states censorship of actual cures for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). Because the AFD video promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine in combination with zinc and Zithromax (azithromycin), which Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, the medical establishment, including the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), and the mainstream media all say do not work, it had to be removed by the Ministry of Truth to maintain the illusion that the medical community is uniformly on the same page about the plandemic. We have determined that this account violated the Twitter Rules, reads the notice that was sent to PragerU. Specifically, for: Violating the policy on spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19. We understand that during times of crisis and instability, it is difficult to know what to do to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. Under this policy, we require the removal of content that may pose a risk to peoples health, including content that goes directly against guidance from authoritative sources of global and local public health information, it added. Twitter also suspended Robby Starbuck for tweeting that Dr. Harvey Risch from Yale also supports hydroxychloroquine Twitter was also caught suspending the account of director and producer Robby Starbuck, who tweeted in a response to someone else arguing with him about the credibility of the AFD group. I guess you think Dr. Harvey Risch, an epidemiology professor at Yale School of Public Health isnt a real doctor? he wrote in the offensive tweet. Hes also touting that Hydroxychloroquine works. As we also reported, Dr. Risch wrote an op-ed that was published in Newsweek, if you can believe it, that addressed the loads of scientific evidence in support of hydroxychloroquine. All Starbuck did was respond to someone about the fact that Dr. Risch wrote this article, and that he supports hydroxychloroquine. Starbuck did not offer up any other outside opinion on the matter, and yet Twitter still decided that this tweet was offensive enough to warrant Starbuck being put in Twitter jail. This tweet is an objective fact, commented Kambree Kawahine Koa, a political commenter and radio personality. Not even opinion or a claim of efficacy, just a fact that the doctor / epidemiologist from Yale is backing it. Dr. David Samadi was also suspended from Twitter for tweeting about how hiding the good news about a life-saving treatment for a global pandemic is often the product of hatred towards President Trump. This, he wrote, is when the line is crossed because people with the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) are in desperate need of a solution. Hydroxychloroquine works and it has worked, he wrote before being suspended just like the others for violating Twitters plandemic rules. More related news about the medical deep state and its ongoing manipulation of the plandemic narrative, be sure to visit Pandemic.news. Sources for this article include: Breitbart.com NaturalNews.com NaturalNews.com President repeatedly tests the Republican Party's limits on issues including race, trade and immigration. On Thursday, he struck a boundary. GOP officials from New Hampshire to Mississippi to Iowa quickly pushed back against Trump's suggestion that it might be necessary to delay the November election which he cannot do without congressional approval because of the unfounded threat of voter fraud. They reassured voters that the election would proceed on the constitutionally mandated day as it has for more than two centuries. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley was especially blunt: All I can say is, it doesn't matter what one individual in this country says. We still are a country based on the rule of law, and we want to follow the law. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu vowed his state would hold its November elections as scheduled: End of story. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who leads the House Republican Conference, said, "The resistance to this idea among Republicans is overwhelming. The top Republicans in the House and Senate, who have spent the past four years championing Trump in Congress, also distanced themselves from the notion of a delayed election. It was a rare rebuke for Trump from his fellow Republicans, but one that might not last. There was little conservative opposition to Trump's broader push to raise questions about the legitimacy of the Nov. 3 election, including his suggestion later Thursday that a delayed result because of mail-in ballots would be a sign of fraud. The simple reality remains that Republicans up and down the ballot this fall need Trump's fervent base on their side to have any chance of winning. The dynamic has forced Trump-backed politicians to walk a delicate balance as they condemn the president's most erratic behavior and ideas while trying not to upset his die-hard loyalists. At the same time, many Republican leaders are struggling under the weight of health, economic and social crises that the Trump administration has failed to contain. The government announced Thursday that the U.S. economy plunged by a record-shattering 32.9 per cent annual rate last quarter as the pandemic forces a wave of layoffs that shows no sign of abating. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, in an interview with The Associated Press, said he feared a new wave of economic downturn as he grapples with pressure to institute a second stay-at-home order as coronavirus infections in his state surge. The first-term Republican governor said he would do everything possible to avoid another shutdown but could not rule out the possibility. Reeves encouraged Trump to embrace a reelection message focused on his ability to revive the nation's economy, a familiar suggestion from frustrated Republican officials, though the president has shown little interest in adopting a consistent message. Reeves said he opposes any plan to change the election date: I don't personally think a delay in the election at this point in time is necessary." But he said he remained "100 per cent committed to doing everything possible" to help Trump beat Democratic rival Joe Biden in November. I don't believe that the president is losing significant support from Republicans, Reeves said. Indeed, Trump confidant Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, said he would support Trump's call to delay the election "until things are normal so people can walk in. If it takes a few more months, then so be it, Falwell said in an interview, raising the prospect of limiting the president's powers if the delay extends beyond his first term. There have been a handful of moments that strained the GOP's allegiance to Trump since he emerged as his party's unlikely presidential nominee four years ago, yet his party has increasingly acquiesced to his turbulent leadership as his presidency progressed. Just weeks before the 2016 election, several elected officials, including then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, publicly turned their back on Trump after he was caught admitting to sexual predatory behavior in an Access Hollywood video. Less than a year later, the Republican National Committee rebuked the president after he claimed there were very fine people on both sides of a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. And Republican leaders briefly raised concerns last year when Trump was caught pressuring Ukrainian leaders to investigate Biden an episode that would ultimately lead to his impeachment. There have been a series of lower-profile flashpoints over the last four years that prompted modest concerns from Republicans that were quickly forgotten, and the latest debate over the election date may soon fall into that category. Trump cannot change the election date without the approval of Congress, and policymakers in both parties made clear they would oppose such a move. Trump's ultimate goal, however, may have less to do with the election date than undermining the results of the election if he loses. (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.) Collaboration between the World Health Organization/Pan-American Health Organization (WHO/PAHO) and the University of Illinois Center for Health Informatics created tools and processes to support timely and accurate decision making at national health level COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EduSourced , a software platform providing career readiness through experiential and project-based learning in Higher Education, today announced it has been selected by the University of Illinois to power a new project-based collaboration between students, alumni, and officials from the World Health Organization/Pan-American Health Organization (WHO/PAHO) to empower more accurate public health decisions through data and IT during the COVID-19 global pandemic. The University of Illinois Center for Health Informatics new international public health initiative, called the CHI Mobilizing Experts in Illinois (CHIME in Illinois) and launched on EduSourced, provides students with hands-on, real-world experience working directly with the WHO/PAHO on technical and informational projects to better inform public health decisions. Over the last six weeks, Illinois students and alumni have worked with WHO/PAHO and countries in the Americas to analyze the current status of countries information systems and their ability to aid in COVID-19 decision making. In one specific initiative currently in progress, Illinois students are helping local health departments by creating a tool to increase access to and visibility of international COVID-19-related health metrics. The web portal pulls insights from real-time data sources, providing decision makers with a holistic view of their local situation as well as the continent as a whole. Students are also using data science to analyze social media to see what people in the Americas are saying about COVID-19, how countries are able to manage data, and how that data is used to make public health decisions related to quarantines, stay-at-home mandates, mask wearing, and hot spot identification. Story continues We are extremely proud to be selected by the University of Illinois and to support this critical project-based collaboration with the WHO/PAHO. As countries around the globe continue to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, many are left a step behind because of the lack of resources in IT and data science. Through EduSourced, weve helped to close that gap by connecting those entities in need with Illinois students that possess those critical skills, said David Comisford, Founder & CEO of EduSourced. There is no better learning opportunity in Higher Education than to experience work in a hands-on environment. EduSourced provides schools with a platform for managing real-world engagements and leveraging their own industry partner ecosystems. These projects are not internships where students are doing menial tasks, they are honing their skills in a meaningful real-world scenario and making an incredibly positive impact on other communities while doing so. The EduSourced platform provides an easy-to-navigate, employer-based experiential learning portal for business and engineering students. Once deployed, Higher Education institutions can connect their faculty, industry partners, mentors and alumni for project work with student teams. For academic institutions with a rich history in experiential learning programs, they can customize EduSourced to meet their specific needs. For schools who are new to experiential learning, they find a turnkey solution making it straightforward to launch one of these high impact initiatives. The end result is an immersive learning experience that provides students with real-world portfolio work, and measurable feedback from professionals in the community all with oversight needed from the academic institution. "These students have the expertise we dont have, and being under the leadership of Dr. Brooks provides an additional value, due to his knowledge of PAHO and our work with the countries of the Americas," said Marcelo D'Agostino, WHO/PAHO senior advisor. The EduSourced platform is a simple-to-use interface where we can easily connect students with projects, and provides an experiential learning experience that goes above and beyond what you can typically do in a classroom, said Ian Brooks, Director of the Center for Health Informatics at the University of Illinois and leader of the CHIME in Illinois initiative. Most of our students using EduSourced for the CHIME in Illinois initiative are masters students retraining from other degrees to be data scientists. What better way to truly learn the analytical side of data than to actually work on projects that directly impact issues real people face? With the COVID-19 pandemic interrupting traditional classroom learning, its been a terrific initiative for us. With the majority of schools currently shut down across the U.S., many questions remain surrounding the future of learning this fall. Experts predict that faculty could incorporate more online tools for added efficiency making online technology alternatives even more important for the near future. The unknown status of classroom learning, and traditional internship programs has made experiential online learning even more crucial to provide students with tangible experiences before entering a real-world professional environment. You dont need a classroom to give students the opportunity to test their skills and learn how to be better professionals. Whats a better way to learn about data science, to read it in a book or to analyze real data? This is what we provide Higher Education - hands-on, real-world learning to advance skills and prepare students for the workplace, said Comisford. With the uncertainty of the upcoming school year due to COVID-19, project-based learning will be more critical than ever before to ensure students continue to evolve as they prepare to enter the workforce. Schools are growing their project-based learning programs to meet the student and employer demand for work-readiness upon graduation. Nearly half of the 91 schools we surveyed this year now have an office or a director of experiential learning. As these new offices form, a tool is needed as a central online repository for all of this activity. That is what EduSourced provides. EduSourceds recent collaboration with the University of Illinois is the latest in its five-year relationship as the Companys first deployed school. Since, EduSourced has worked with an additional 100 academic programs, empowering nearly 29,000 students to complete 6,583 projects for more than 4,300 companies. About EduSourced EduSourced is the first tool designed to support every aspect of experiential project-based learning in Higher Education. Trusted by 100 academic programs and thousands of employers, EduSourced is used to provide a professional, collaborative environment for student teams and their clients, track project progress, identify the impact and outcomes of experiential projects, and build a complete archive of all project records. To learn more, please visit www.edusourced.com Media contact: Carly Ross FischTank PR carly@fischtankpr.com Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 30) The Philippines will buy at least 60 million doses of coronavirus vaccine once it's available, National Task Force for COVID-19 Chief Implementer Carlito Galvez said on Thursday. He said President Rodrigo Duterte has been in touch with several leaders and embassies so the Philippines can be among the first countries to have access to a COVID-19 vaccine once it is developed. "(Ang instruction) ito ay maging available at least sa 60 million people sa ating bansa. We are ready to get it because of the President's diplomatic efforts," he said in a media briefing. The President has personally appealed to China to prioritize the Philippines, a plea that was warmly received by the Chinese government. RELATED: China vows to prioritize PH for coronavirus vaccines While the world awaits a vaccine, Galvez said Health Secretary Francisco Duque III has been in contact with pharmacies to receive discounts on antiviral drug Avigan, which is being used in Japan to treat COVID-19. He added DOH is also working to improve the medical supply chain so the government can buy medicine straight from the suppliers. Athens (AFP) - An unlikely alliance of wealthy landowners, environment activists and residents has emerged on the Greek island of Corfu, where a disputed resort officially launched in July after a near-decade delay. The 120-million-euro ($139-million) Kassiopi Project is situated in pine-forested Erimitis, one of the island's most pristine areas that lies a short distance from the Albanian coast. New York-based investment fund NCH Capital, which secured the property in 2016, plans to build a 90-room five-star hotel, luxury residences and a marina. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has already drawn fire over his conservative government's encouragement of projects in environmentally sensitive areas. These include hydrocarbon exploration near marine wildlife habitats in the Ionian Sea, and the promotion of wind farms on Greek islands over local objections. But the opposition usually consists of citizens' groups and environmental organisations with little financial clout. - 'A total disaster' - As Mitsotakis visited Corfu on July 11 to officially launch the Kassiopi Project, he drew a broadside from one of the area's wealthiest property owners -- British financier Nathaniel Rothschild, a member of the prominent banking family. In a pair of tweets, Rothschild branded the project "a total disaster" that takes Corfu back to "1970s style mass development" and "adds zero to the local economy." Rothschild, whose interests have included coal mining, said that the pristine Erimitis coastline faces "destruction" and added: "Mitsotakis is foolish to champion this project." British financier Ben Goldsmith, brother of Tory peer Zac Goldsmith, is another prominent critic. Home to secluded villas and estates of other wealthy families such as the Agnellis, and visited by moguls and power-brokers, the northeastern part of Corfu has been nicknamed Kensington-on-Sea by British media. Story continues A group of around 200 mainly British property owners on Corfu have also called on Mitsotakis to downsize the resort plan. "Developing a hotel, along the lines proposed, on the sight of this pristine and historic ecosystem, with the consequential damage to wildlife, to the sea, and to the natural forest would be an affront to all who care about the environment," the Corfu owners association wrote in a letter to Mitsotakis last year. They warned him of possible "widespread dismay amongst foreign friends of Greece around the world" over the project which will "destroy value for its neighbours." Other critics say the asking price of 23 million euros for a 99-year lease was too low for a virgin forest with a stunning sea view. The Kassiopi tender was originally floated by Greece's privatisation agency in 2012. It had to be vetted by the country's archaeological and forestry departments and overcame around a dozen court complaints. Greece's top administrative court -- which also rules on environmental cases, the Council of State -- has approved the project. Work began in June to demolish an old navy observation post located in the area. - 'Good for Corfu' - Mitsotakis during his visit insisted the project was "good for Corfu and the country." He said Greece "needs" high-profile tourism that "upgrades" local areas and "respects" the environment. The government says the project will create 1,000 jobs during construction and 500 in operation. It added only seven percent of the 49-hectare site will be built on with bioclimatic architecture, fire protection and desalination systems for irrigation. Green areas and a local beach are to remain public, says NCH Capital, which is active in Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, Russia and Brazil. Mitsotakis has argued that structured development of natural areas under strict rules is preferable to "doing nothing". "In many cases, land that lies unutilised does not create incentives to protect the environment," the PM said. The local municipal authority strongly opposes the project, with the mayor of North Corfu taking part in a protest during the PM's visit. The Corfu regional governor is in favour, arguing that Greece needs to build "investor confidence." An unspecified number of sailors assigned to the USS George H.W. Bush have tested positive for COVID-19 while the ship has been undergoing maintenance work at a port in Virginia. A Navy spokeswoman confirmed on Thursday that a 'small number' of sailors had come down with the coronavirus, but declined to say how many specifically and when they had become infected. 'A small number of sailors have been diagnosed with COVID this summer,' Cmdr. Jennifer Cragg, a spokeswoman for Naval Air Force Atlantic, said in an email. An unspecified number of sailors assigned to the USS George H.W. Bush have tested positive for COVID-19 while the ship has been undergoing maintenance work at a port in Viriginia A Navy spokeswoman confirmed on Thursday that a 'small number' of sailors had come down with the coronavirus, but declined to say how many specifically and when they had become infected. Navy personnel are pictured working on the USS George H.W. Bush in Norfolk earlier this month 'USS George H.W. Bush is not in a deployment status, and similar to other commands in the US Navy with a small number of cases, there has been no impact to readiness' Cragg wrote, Navy Times reported. 'The infected sailors are at their private homes in quarantine and are receiving 'daily medical supportive care until they have recovered,' Cragg said. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew is adhering to strict coronavirus precautions. 'USS George H.W. Bush is actively enforcing physical distancing, minimizing group gatherings, wearing (personal protective equipment), and cleaning extensively,' Cragg said. 'Norfolk Naval Shipyard is conducting temperature checks and screening all personnel with a medical systems questionnaire, and if required, referring sailors with symptoms for medical evaluation.' The USS George H.W. Bush, a 19-year-old Nimitz-class air craft carrier with a ship's company of more than 3,500 and air wing with about 2,500 service members, has been undergoing maintenance work at Norfolk Naval Shipyard since February. A navy service wearing a mask is pictured at work on the USS George H.W. Bush. The crew is adhering to strict coronavirus precautions as an unspecified number has tested positive for COVID-19 The confirmed cases come after two other ships suffered COVID-19 outbreaks that impacted almost 1,300 sailors, including one Charles Robert Thacker Jr of Fort Smith, Arkansas, who died from the infection. Thacker had served on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which returned to its homeport of San Diego July 9 after six months at sea and having been hit with a massive outbreak that left more than 1,200 sailor infected. The outbreak also led to the controversial termination of the ship's commanding officer, Brett Crozier, after he urged his commanders to take faster action to stem the spread of the virus. Masked crew members are pictured aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which returned to its homeport of San Diego July 9 after six months at sea and having been hit with a massive COVID-19 outbreak that left more than 1,200 sailors infected Crozier was removed from his command when his letter was leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle. Then-acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly also resigned over the matter. The Navy later opened an investigation, which found Crozier made serious errors in judgment that worsened the problem. Still, many in the Navy had regarded him a hero for the concerns he showed his crew. In a separate outbreak, more than 70 sailors came down with COVID-19 aboard the destroyer USS Kidd in April. In a separate outbreak, more than 70 sailors came down with COVID-19 aboard the destroyer USS Kidd in April. The ship is pictured sailing passed Coronado, California, earlier this year The first case reported on the warship April 22 was only discovered a month after it left its last port visit in Hawaii, raising questions about how long the virus can spread silently among a population before its presence is known. Within a week, more than 60 sailors had tested positive for the virus, after officials tested two-thirds of people on board. One virologist said the virus may have gone unnoticed for weeks because infected people can spread it without showing any symptoms - and many people never develop the tell-tale signs of the infection. They may have unknowingly transmitted the virus to others on the ship for weeks before someone finally became ill with the characteristic symptoms. Or, it's possible that in the days and weeks prior other sailors had signs of the virus but did not report them, either because they were mild or atypical. The sailor who was first infected was tested positive a day after the ship pulled into San Diego on April 21 to disembark the 300-strong crew. Advertisement Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton gave speeches on Thursday at the funeral for Rep. John Lewis, the revered civil rights leader and Democratic congressman from Georgia who died earlier this month. Obama delivered the eulogy, and used it in part to level criticism at what he sees as the Trump administrations attacks on peaceful protesters and voting rights amid the coronavirus pandemic. We can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators, Obama said during his 40-minute speech. We may no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar to cast a ballot. But even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting, by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the postal service in an election thats going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people dont get sick. Obama did not mention Trump by name. Earlier in the day, Trump launched his latest attack on states vote-by-mail programs, baselessly claiming that they are rife with fraud. Trump even suggested delaying the entire election, which he doesnt have the power to do and even Republicans pushed back against. I know this is a celebration of Johns life. There are some who might say we shouldnt dwell on such things, Obama said. But thats why Im talking about it. He said Lewis devoted his time on this earth fighting the very attacks on democracy that were seeing circulate right now. The private service was held inside the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was once a pastor. Obama said Lewis was perhaps Kings finest disciple, an American whose faith was tested again and again to produce a man of pure joy and unbreakable perseverance. The first Black president recalled an early example of that perseverance while Lewis was fighting for desegregation in Nashville during the early 1960s. He and other young men and women sat at a segregated lunch counter, well-dressed, straight back, refusing to let a milkshake poured on their heads or a cigarette extinguished on their backs or a foot aimed at their ribs refused to let that dent their dignity and their sense of purpose, Obama said. Lewis, the son of Alabama sharecroppers, played an instrumental role in the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act in 1965. That year, Lewis was beaten by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where state troopers beat and used tear gas against peaceful marchers who were advocating against racial discrimination. In his speech, Obama recalled the event, known as Bloody Sunday. President Barack Obama in a march with civil rights movement veterans across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., March 7, 2015. On Obamas right are Rep. John Lewis and first lady Michelle Obama. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) The thing is, I imagine initially, that day, the troopers thought theyd won the battle, Obama said. Except this time there were some cameras there. This time the world saw what happened, bore witness to Black Americans who were asking for nothing more than to be treated like other Americans, who were not asking for special treatment, just equal treatment, promised to them a century before. When Lewis was released from the hospital, Obama said, he would make sure the world saw a movement that was, in the words of Scripture, hard-pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. The movement made its way to the White House, and the Voting Rights Act was signed into law. I, like so many Americans, owe a great debt to John Lewis and his forceful vision of freedom, Obama said. America was built by John Lewises. He as much as anyone in our history brought this country a little bit closer to our highest ideals. And someday, when we do finish that long journey towards freedom, when we do form a more perfect union, whether its years from now or decades or even if it takes another two centuries, John Lewis will be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America. Lewis, 80, died from complications due to pancreatic cancer on July 18. Obama recalled the last time he spoke with Lewis following a virtual town hall with young activists fighting for racial equality in the wake of George Floyds death. Afterwards I spoke to John privately, and he could not have been prouder to see this new generation of activists, Obama said. And I told him, all those young people, John, of every race and every religion, from every background and gender, of every sexual orientation, John, those are your children. They learned from your example. Former President George W. Bush speaking at the funeral of John Lewis. (Alyssa Pointer/pool via Reuters) The two other former presidents at the event also paid tribute to Lewiss legacy. Bush said Lewis, who served more than three decades in Congress representing Georgias Fifth Congressional District, was able to bridge the countrys partisan divide. John and I had our disagreements, of course, Bush said. But in the America John Lewis fought for and the America I believe in, differences of opinion are inevitable elements and evidence of democracy in action. We the people, including congressmen and presidents, can have differing views on how to perfect our union while sharing the conviction that our nation, however flawed, is at heart a good and noble one. We live in a better and nobler country today because of John Lewis. Former President Bill Clinton. (Alyssa Pointer/pool via Reuters) Clinton cited the perseverance Lewis showed in his fight for civil rights. John Lewis was a walking rebuke to people who said, We aint there yet, and Weve been working a long time, isnt it time to bag it? Clinton said. He kept moving. John always kept walking to reach the beloved community, Clinton continued. He got into a lot of good trouble along the way, but lets not forget, he also developed along the way an uncanny ability to heal troubled waters. When he could have been angry and cancel his adversaries, he tried to get converts instead. He thought the open hand was better than the clenched fist. Clinton also made reference to the posthumous op-ed by Lewis published Thursday in the New York Times. It is so fitting on the day of his service he leaves us our marching orders, Clinton said. Keep moving. 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... By Express News Service BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan contributed 30 per cent of his salary on Friday to the CM Relief Fund for waging the battle against COVID-19. Not only did Chouhan deposit 30 per cent of his salary of last three months to the fund, but also appealed his ministerial colleagues, legislators and people across the state to contribute as well. Ive decided to donate 30 per cent of my salary and allowances since the day I was sworn in as Chief Minister in March amounting to Rs 1.40 lakh towards the relief fund for the battle against COVID-19. My ministerial colleagues can also make similar contributions. Weve to defeat the novel Coronavirus with public cooperation as part of which a massive public campaign 'Sankalp ki Chain Jodo, Sankraman ki Chain Todo' will be run across the state from August 1, Chouhan said. A week since his hospitalisation in Bhopal after being diagnosed with coronavirus, Chouhan has also appealed the MLAs to utilize their local area development funds for the battle against COVID-19, particularly by funding purchase of various safety equipments for medical staff, including face mask, thermometer, PPE kits, testing kits, ventilators and sanitizers. He also announced that one third of the Rs 500 crore worth District Mineral Fund in 22 districts will be spent on COVID-19 related works and towards employment for poor population. The sum will be released following the recommendation by the minister-in-charges for which districts will be allotted to various ministers next week. Lauding public efforts to arrest the spread of the infection, Chouhan said that due to collective will of the people is the reason why COVID-19 recovery rate in Madhya Pradesh is at 70 per cent, while the mortality rate has declined to 2.7 per cent. The viral infection is rising at various places, but the lockdown is adversely impacting economic activity, due to which we have to defeat the infection without lockdown by adopting all safety precautions, Chouhan said. According to the state health bulletin released on Friday, with 838 new cases over last 24 hours, Madhya Pradesh has so far reported 31,806 cases and 867 deaths, out of which 6,313 cases and 176 fatalities were reported in state capital Bhopal. As many as 22,271 patients have already recovered, while 8,668 active patients are undergoing treatment in hospitals across the state. Lootcase Director: Rajesh Krishnan Cast: Kunal Kemmu, Rasika Dugal, Ranvir Shorey, Vijay Raaz, Gajraj Rao First time director Rajesh Krishnan said that he wanted actors for his film Lootcase, not just pretty faces. He said he was willing to wait to find the right fits for the characters, even if it took two years. To his good fortune, he scored every actor on his wish list immediately. However, not so fortunately for the actors, it may not have been the best decision they made. Watch Lootcase trailer: Lootcase employs the talents of Rasika Dugal, Ranvir Shorey, Gajraj Rao and Vijay Raaz, all of whom are among the best actors working in the country. After Delhi Crime, Manto, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Titli, Badhaai Ho, Monsoon Wedding and Gully Boy, its obvious why they were on Krishnans wish list. But the film gives them little leeway to showcase their talent, looking instead like an uninspired job done on the side. Even Kunal Kemmus effortswho seemingly had a tonne of fun playing the leadappear wasted thanks to the halfway intelligent script. Kemmu plays Nandan Kumar, a technician at the printing press, with a nagging wifeplayed by Duggaland no money to keep her happy. They live with their son in a tiny flat in Mumbai where sugar, flour and patience runs out quite quickly. They cant always pay the rent or think about recreational family time beyond the monthly visit to the Chinese food stall. But after you witness their happy dates over manchow soup and a healthy, regular sex life, things do not seem desperate enough to need intervention by a suitcase full of cash. But just like an urgent need to pee in the street, the suitcase arrives in Nandans life, bringing him immediate release from his misery. However, neither the street nor the suitcase are his to claim. It belongs to a wicked politician, played by Gajraj Rao. He employs two goons to transport the money across the city when they are attacked by the members of a rival gang, the leader of which is played by Vijay Raaz. After a messy shootout, the gangs make a run for their lives, away from approaching police, leaving the bag lousily hidden on the sidewalk. This is when Nandan chances upon it. Feigning a moral code, he asks an empty road if the bag belongs to anyone and make a run for it a second later. Once securely in his arms, he makes the suitcase his side squeeze. He gives her a name, pays her daily visits, keeps her existence a secret from his wife, has long conversations with her and even loads her with kisses. Nouveau riche Nandan begins spending crunchy Rs 2000 notes with little caution despite his wifes growing suspicion. On the other side, the minister has coaxed cop Ranvir Shorey to find the missing suitcase. Now as many as three different parties are looking for Nandan and the suitcase full of cash. Also read: Ankita Lokhande breaks silence on Sushant Singh Rajputs death, says he could not have taken his own life, was not depressed The cat-and-mouse chase and the sudden wealth in the hands of the unprivileged has often made for great comedy in Hindi cinema. Hera Pheri, Malamaal Weekly and Khosla Ka Ghosla are among the prime examples of the same. But the writing on Lootcase is so mediocre that humour is hard to come by. Not just the dialogues, even the characters themselves are written with lazy, empty motifs that never serve the story. Vijay Raaz goon leader likes to show off his knowledge of the animal world, Gajraj Rao believes in gaslighting every person he meets and it all gets tiring by their second appearance in the film itself. On a macro level, the film never challenges themes of class divide or fighting against ones morals. Even characters are largely cliches. The righteous wife is nagging and the goon cannot be trusted, the politician is wicked and the cop is violent. One interesting aspect of the film is how it shows us the true intentions of Nandan behind bringing the bag home. In a fight with his wife, he puts the blame squarely on her and her aspirations in life. But we saw how he almost humps the suitcase with affection so perhaps that reasoning never really lands. Later in the film, Nandan is faced with the same dilemma again, which is how we learn of his true self. Lootcase is almost unwatchable but for the actors it boasts of. They have a tonne of fun with the little they have been given by the unintelligent, unexciting script. We just wish director Krishnan has made better use of the treasure he landed on. Follow @htshowbiz for more SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Loading Outbreaks in the meat industry have become a feature of the pandemic globally. In the US, nearly 40,000 meatpacking workers have contracted COVID-19, while there have been major outbreaks in plants across Latin America and Europe. The director of workers rights at the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, Katie Hepworth, said a coalition of international investors with $2.3 trillion in assets had been talking to meat producers about issues, including the pandemic and unsafe work practices. "The reason these investors are getting involved is the scale of the pandemic," she said, adding that, by ensuring staff were safe they would ensure the security of meat supply. Early this week, Premier Daniel Andrews said high-risk industries could be shut if coronavirus outbreaks continued to emerge and "we continue to see people attending work [while sick], but on Friday he said the industry was likely to stay open because it provided an essential service. "One of the challenges we face is that many of the settings where we have seen significant outbreaks would on any given list mostly likely remain open," he said. The meat industry is highly susceptible to COVID-19 outbreaks. Credit:Image by Jamie Brown James Ritchie, assistant secretary of the IUF, a peak body for international food unions, said the industry was labour-intensive and based on classic Fordist production methods, involving fixed work stations that were close together, which was contributing to the virus spread. "Its dirty, it's dangerous and it's really hard work," he said. "You stand on the assembly line every day and you stand in very close proximity to other workers on the line and across from you." Loading "You get those lines going as fast as you can and you work the workers as hard as you can. With the line speeds going so fast, workers have to be close to each other to complete the work." Mr Ritchie said there were other issues, too, including often poor ventilation, cold temperatures within plants, a lack of protective equipment and overcrowded lunch areas. Temporary migrant workers typically make up a large sector of the workforce, including in Australia, and some of them may live together in crowded accommodation. "They just want to keep their head down," he said. Australian Meat Industry Employees Union state secretary Paul Conway has warned against any move to shut the industry saying it "is vital to Australia." He said working too far apart would make many businesses "completely non-viable". "In the meat industry it is very difficult to socially distance on the production side of things. Packing areas are difficult, the boning rooms and kill floors are going to be difficult." In Victoria, parts of the industry are unionised while other parts have few or no union members, Mr Conway said, with those employers much more likely to use labour hire and temporary migrant labour. Paul Conway, federal president of the Australian Meat Industry Employees Union. There have been outbreaks across union and non-union sites in the state. The fastest growing outbreak is at Bertocchi, which Mr Conway said was largely a non-union site and did not employ workers directly, but relied on labour hire and a migrant workforce. Bertocchi chief executive Peter Paolino did not respond to a request for comment. With the Morrison government considering a union push for paid pandemic leave, in Germany the government has announced it would go much further. Mr Ritchie said the German government had announced it would ban contracting and indirect employment in the meat industry, although the laws were yet to pass the Bundestag. Meatworks are among the biggest employers in regional Victorian cities and towns. In Colac, a town of 12,000 people in the states south-west, an outbreak at the Australian Lamb Company resulted in many residents adopting a "self-imposed lockdown" before the latest restrictions were introduced. On July 17, the Australian Lamb Company was notified a contracted meat inspector had tested positive for COVID-19. By Friday there were 68 cases linked to the outbreak. More than 700 employees were required to self-isolate after the first case was recorded. The crowded living conditions of many abattoir workers have presented another challenge for authorities in limiting the spread of infections. The Colac Otway Shire last week raised concerns about the living conditions of workers and the difficulties that posed for self-isolating. Some of those workers have been housed in quarantine hotels in Melbourne. The Australian Lamb Company is now planning a "staged return" to operations on August 3, subject to approval from the Health Department. A company spokesman said workers would have to show a negative result text message from the department before they could resume working. "If they do not have confirmation of their negative result, they will not be able to come on site," he said. The Australian Lamb Company in Colac. Credit:Jason South An outbreak at Don KR in Castlemaine has resulted in 1300 workers going into isolation while they are tested. By Thursday about 12 cases had been connected to the meatworks. But Mount Alexander Shire mayor Christine Henderson said she expected that number would increase. By ANI AHMEDABAD: Ahead of the auspicious occasion of Raksha Bandhan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Pakistani sister Qamar Mohsin Shaikh would not be able to meet him amid COVID-19 crisis, so she has sent the sacred thread--Rakhi to him via post. Shaikh is from Pakistan but is now settled in Ahmedabad after marriage and this would be her 25th Raksha Bandhan with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Speaking on that with ANI, PM Modi's sister, Shaikh said, "We have known PM Modi for the past 30-35 years. when I met him in Delhi for the first time he got to know that I am from Karachi and have been married here he called me behen (sister). I do not have any brother. So, after two to three years when we again visited Delhi on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan, I tied rakhi on his wrist." "Once on Raksha Bandhan, I told him that I will pray for you that you come to Gujarat and become the Chief Minister. At that time he laughed and later when he became the Chief Minister of Gujarat. On Rakshabandhan, I told him that my prayers have been accepted by God. Later, he even became the Prime Minister," she added. This year Shaikh won't be able to tie rakhi on PM Modi's wrist therefore, she has sent the sacred thread via post. She said that her rakhi and book have been received by PM Modi. "I wanted to tie the 25th rakhi to Prime Minister personally but due to COVID-19 crisis I won't be able to , everyone is facing problems. I pray that the next five years go well for him that the whole world recognises the positive decisions he took. I pray for his long life," she said while PM Modi good health. Rakshan Bandhan is being celebrated on August 3 this year. Ginger Hendricks, executive director, resigned from Bookmarks on Monday after more than 10 years with the organization. Her last day will be Sept. 30, after the completion of a silent auction and fundraiser, Sept. 10-26, to raise money for the annual festival of books and authors and independent book store. Hendricks plans to be home with her family to help her two young children navigate school online because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. "I love Bookmarks so much," she said. "But I've got a rising kindergartner, Monroe, and a third-grader, Dalton, and I want to be able to help them learn. "Since they can't go to school because of COVID-19, I feel like I need to be here with them. Monroe is so young, and he's so excited about learning to read." Hendricks is married to Heath Combs, who works in marketing at Truliant. The board, our volunteers, and staff thank Ginger for her tireless dedication to Bookmarks over the past 10 years," said Barbara Raffaldini, president of the board. The foundation she has built will benefit our organization for years to come. Even as the number of deaths due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in Delhi has dropped, the government has set up four committees of four members each to inspect hospitals and wards that are reporting the highest number of deaths. The panels have been asked to submit their suggestions on reducing deaths by August 3 to principal health secretary Vikram Dev Dutt, the order states. It has been observed that the percentage of deaths vis-a-vis admissions and the percentage of Covid-19 deaths in wards in 11 hospitals, government and private, is on the higher side during the period July 1 to July 23, 2020. Four committee comprising of specialists, two from internal medicine and another two from anaesthesia, have been constituted for inspecting the allotted hospitals to examine whether the standard treatment protocols for treating Covid patients are being followed, an order from the health secretary Padmini Singla read. Click here for full Covid-19 coverage The hospitals to be inspected include private ones like Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, Max Hospital (Saket), St Stephens hospital, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Jaipur Golden hospital and Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute, and government facilities such as Ram Manohar Lohia, Safdarjung, Lok Nayak, and GTB hospitals. Some of the Capitals major Covid-19 treatment facilities, these hospitals often receive many patients with severe symptoms. The committee consists of doctors from hospitals managing Covid-19 like Lok Nayak and Safdarjung as well as non-Covid hospitals like Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospital, Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital, and Aruna Asaf Ali government hospital. There has been a reduction in the number of deaths due to corona, however, we need to reduce it further. Today, we constituted four committees that will inspect hospitals and provide suggestion --- 1. Where there have been more deaths, 2. Where there have been more deaths in the wards, meaning patients were not moved to the ICU on time, said Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in a tweet. On Thursday, Delhi recorded 29 deaths due to Covid-19 across the city, taking the total toll to 3,936. On average, the city recorded about 27 deaths during the previous week. This is almost one-fifth of the 101 deaths the highest number of deaths recorded in the city on one day, according to data shared by the CM office earlier. This puts the citys case fatality rate percentage of people who have died among the number of infections detected at 2.9%. This comes after the government had asked a 12-member court-appointed committee that had been tasked with providing suggestions about patient care to look into reducing deaths as well. I havent received the orders yet. Once we do, we will decide along with other committee members what aspects we have to observe. Most likely we have to see whether they have adequate facilities and whether the standard of care was followed. However, from what I have seen at our hospital, the mortality has actually gone down significantly now and the patients who do die are the ones who have multiple co-morbid conditions such as uncontrolled diabetes with kidney disease etc. The young or relatively healthy people who do die sometimes are those who reach the hospital late when their oxygen saturation is already very low, said one of the committee members from Lok Nayak hospital, on condition of anonymity. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Bengaluru, July 31 : Three middlemen have been arrested in the city for attempting to sell deer antlers or horns procured from unknown forest sources at Rs 5 lakh, an official said on Friday. "We have arrested Sundaresh, Manjunath and Raghavendra for attempting to sell two deer antlers," said Central Crime Branch (CCB) Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Kuldeep Jain to IANS. "To lure the customers, the accused made a video about the antlers and told stories that grinding a small part of the antler into power and drinking with water will heal some ailment or their mere presence would bring luck and so on," said Jain. A case has been registered against all the three under the Wildlife Act and the accused will be handed over to the forest department. It is clearly not known from whom the accused procured the antlers as they are claiming that they received them from some forest sources. Police got a tip-off that the three was trying to sell the antlers to a prospective buyer in Yeshwantpur area in the city. Both the deer horns, one of which is a complete set with both the horns and other one a smaller one, were being quoted a price of Rs 5 lakh and weighing approximately 2 kg. The bigger horn weighed 1.3 kg and the smaller one 270gm. Though the police would also want to contact the buyers, the DCP said it may not be easy because all of them would have backed off after the three arrests. The police is not sure which part of Karnataka forests these antlers would have come from. Jain said the forest department may know a thing or two about such intricacies. "The antlers have already changed several hands and were in the penultimate hands of the middlemen before being passed on to a buyer," pointed out Jain. Police seized a Toyota Innova and three mobile phones from the wildlife offenders. " " The MQ-9 Reaper drone can be piloted remotely or can fly autonomously. Stocktrek Images/Getty Images Drones are everywhere. That is, they will be just about everywhere if regulators ever loosen their grip on how unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are used. With the advent of smart and cheap flying machines comes the increasingly endless array of ways in which they might be put to work. Whether photographing music festivals or delivering Amazon packages to your front door, or aiding in search and rescue missions and collecting data from the heart of a tropical storm, drones can gett into difficult-to-reach places and cover a lot of ground, making them a useful tool in all kinds of settings. That includes on the battlefield, where flying machines are probably best known for their role in surveillance and attack missions. The U.S. Air Force currently operates about 65 combat air patrols at any given time. Most of those machines are working overseas, strapped with Hellfire missiles and cameras that can provide real-time feeds to pilots back in the States. That's only a tiny fraction of the U.S. military's air fleet, but the portion is growing along with the size and scope of the duties that they perform. That includes the plane-to-plane combat way up in the sky that most of us civilians only know about from watching "Top Gun." Some military experts see a day in the not-so-distant future when unmanned aerial vehicles do the high-flying jousts. Whether those drones will get snazzy nicknames like Maverick and Ice Man, or play shirtless beach volleyball in their downtime remains to be seen [sources: Majumdar, Russia Today]. Advertisement If you remember the iconic 1986 movie well, you may recall that Tom Cruise and those guys played naval aviators: jet pilots training for dogfights against some unknown enemy in which the winner is the guy who shoots down the most planes. These days, the Navy is developing a drone to do that kind of fighting. The unmanned, carrier-launched airborne surveillance and strike drone will be about the size of the F-14 Tomcats that once did much of Uncle Sam's manned-combat flying missions; it just won't have a pilot onboard. It appears that the drones' initial mission will be to carry fuel into or near battle areas so that manned fighter jets can refill without having to land. But military brass is keeping the door open for other types of drone-based activities. In April 2015, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said he expects drones to one day replace the naval fighter jets currently in action [sources: Majumdar, Russia Today]. Not everyone is hopping on board the wave of shifting technology toward completely drone-based aerial warfare. These folks tend to say that drones are more likely to make manned-plane fighter jets more effective and efficient, rather than unnecessary. Critics question the speed and endurance capacities of UAVs, and point out that they've yet to be developed with the stealth capacities that help some traditional fighter jets avoid attention in hostile areas. They also question whether drones can be made smart enough to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances in a live war zone, rather than the relatively sterile and plodding circumstances of the surveillance and bombing missions that the machines currently run [source: Malandrino]. Rather than looking to drones to lead fighting missions, skeptics say military types should alter the target and consider ways to use drones as wingmen, armed with missiles and capable of taking real time directions from a human pilot up there in the sky with them [source: Malandrino]. On July 31, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev made a phone call to President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The head of state congratulated Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the brotherly people of Turkey on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, and wished the Turkish President the best of health and the Turkish people prosperity. Recep Tayyip Erdogan thanked for attention and congratulations, and extended his best wishes to the head of state and the people of Azerbaijan on the occasion of the holiday. During the phone talk, the presidents hailed the continuous development of the brotherly ties between Azerbaijan and Turkey, expressing confidence that the bilateral relationship would continue to strengthen. The heads of state praised the successful conduct of the Azerbaijani-Turkish joint military drills in different regions of Azerbaijan these days, describing this as yet another manifestation of the relations of friendship and brotherhood between the two countries. President Ilham Aliyev praised the Turkish President`s resolute support for Azerbaijan in connection with Armenia`s recent military provocation on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border in the direction of Tovuz district. The heads of state also discussed prospects for cooperation in a variety of areas. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Minor Memorial Library in Roxbury will offer a grotesque safari walking tour through Yale University with Mathew Duman Aug. 15 at 1 p.m. A rain date of Aug. 22 is planned. Duman, an author and photographer, presented a talk about grotesques and gargoyles last year at the library. Space is limited and reservations and face masks are required. Attendees will meet at a designated spot to be revealed upon registration. Yale features a variety of grotesques and gargoyles in their natural habitat, as well as an intriguing case study in Collegiate Gothic architecture. On the tour, Duman will point out many of the grotesques and gargoyles that originally inspired him to explore this and other campuses. Binoculars are recommended. Duman, a graphic designer, grew up in Bethany. He attended the gargoyle-free campus of Central Connecticut State University but while studying abroad became fascinated with the architectural detail of the cathedrals of Britain. He has since taken photographic trips to Italy, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and most recently has been seeking out grotesque sculpture around the United States. For more information and RSVP, call 860-350-2181 or visit www.minormemoriallibrary.org. The Ministry of Home Affairs has announced further easing of lockdown restrictions as part of Unlock 3.0, which includes opening up of gyms and yoga institutes, removal of night curfew and allowing inter-state and intra-state movements. However, cinema halls, schools, colleges, swimming pools, bars will continue to remain shut. The Multiplex Association of India has expressed its disappointment with the decision to keep cinema halls shut. Reacting to MHAs announcement, Alok Tandon, Member, Multiplex Association of India, said, "We are extremely disappointed with the Unlock 3.0 announcement to keep cinemas under continued lockdown. The industry was thoroughly prepared with stringent SOPs and guidelines to offer a safe movie watching experience. The Governments decision is against our expectations and will impact millions of livelihoods dependent on the industry. We have been urging the Government all along and continuing to engage with the relevant authorities with our plea to allow the cinemas to operate. He further said that stringent SOPs were developed, and a representation was submitted to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) as well as the Health Ministry and the Ministry of Home Affairs, which clearly stipulated the proactive measures the Association would be undertaking if allowed to open up. These measures were prepared keeping in mind all the possible customer touchpoints and accordingly prepared in line with globally accepted standards and protocols, which have been implemented in countries where cinemas have opened up, and are witnessing a good customer response, he added. At the same time Tandon remained hopeful that the Association would be able to convince the authorities about its abilities to ensure a safe environment, and that its plea was reconsidered for an early reopening. Dodd-Frank and the fight for a better America As 2020 continues its barrage of what can be called negativity, the year has also brought many positive milestones. One such milestone is the 10th anniversary of the Dodd Frank Act. Recognizing this milestone, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring a fair and inclusive financial marketplace for marginalized and/or underserved populations, held a webinar last week to mark the occasion. The Facebook Live event included remarks from Wade Henderson, immediate past president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; the Honorable Maxine Waters (D-CA, 43rd District); and the Honorable Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts). ADVERTISEMENT The event was moderated by Nikitra Bailey, executive vice president of CRL. According to History.com, The Great Recession, a crisis that left millions of Americans unemployed and sparked worldwide economic decline, began in December 2007 and lasted well into 2009 The Dodd-Frank Act, officially called the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, is legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010 in response to the financial crisis that became known as the Great Recession. This financial crisis saw hundreds if not thousands of African Americans across the country lose their homes due to banks and mortgage lenders use of hidden fees and other unscrupulous methods in their attempt to sell their financial products. Financial institutions unscrupulously sold these products such as home loans to individuals and families, critics say, who may not have been financially capable of meeting their obligations. Normally, this would have been something that should have been determined on the front end; overzealous institutions ignored these red flags, or charged higher interest and fees, which eventually caused turmoil in the financial services industry. That turmoil was what came to be known as cause for the recession. Many activists charge that the turmoils cause was not haphazard, but that Black and Brown families were targeted and steered into costly sub-prime loans and other products by predatory lenders even though they qualified for prime loans. Dodd-Frank came about as an effort to keep this phenomenon from ever happening again. Amongst other measures, the Act established the following: ADVERTISEMENT Banks must have a contingency plan to shut down in case they approach bankruptcy or run out of money; Banks must increase the amount of money they keep in reserves for future slumps or other unforeseen phenomenon; The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), which keeps watch on possible risks to the financial industry and serves as a check on large banks; and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). This bureau protects consumers from banks corrupt business practices and oversees credit and debit agencies, payday and consumer loans. As someone who has spent a lifetime fighting for civil and human rights, I recognize, all too well, this moment in time and the pain were all living through. People of color across the country and poor people, regardless of race, are suffering the worst impacts of an unprecedented economic crisis, and are in need of the protections and resources that will allow them to recover, said Henderson. Once again, we find ourselves having to fight for these resources, to which we are entitled as citizens, with all of our strength and energy, Henderson concluded. Henderson then turned the mic over to Conf. Waters for her remarks on the occasion. After the public voted for a new House Democratic majority in 2018, I became the first woman and the first African-American to lead the financial services committee as chair, said Waters. And so, as chairwoman, I have worked every single day to defend Dodd-Frank and the consumer bureau; to advance legislation to reverse the damage that the Trump administration has done to the consumer bureau, and to provide additional consumer protections, she continued. Waters stated that the Trump administration appointees to the Consumer Bureau have taken steps to destroy the agency from the inside, and in response, she had put forth HR 1500, known as the Consumers First Act, which passed in May of 2019. According to Waters, this was legislation specifically to block the Trump administrations anti-consumer agenda and reverse their efforts to undermine the mission of the Consumer Bureau. Similar to Hendersons remarks, Waters stated that we are now facing another crisis the crisis of Covid-19 and that she is working to ensure that Congress provides protections and relief to the many families that have been impacted by this pandemic across the U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren also shared remarks on Dodd-Franks anniversary. Described by Cong. Waters as being the major force behind its creation, Warren stated, Its very important that we never forget what brought us into this fight. Like so many of our nations problems, The financial crisis was a toxic mix of racism, corruption and shameless greed. Predatory mortgage lenders started by targeting Black and Brown communities where they began climbing away at the hard-earned wealth of Black and Brown families. And too few people in power could be relied on to care: not the investors making money hand over fist, not the regulators who were cozy with the banks; not the pundits who blamed the borrowers; not the lenders who were boosting their products, she continued. They didnt care because it was only happening in certain communities; communities of color. At its core, the financial crisis was a massive theft of power from millions of Americans. A massive theft of the American dream. Warren ended her comments with an exhortation to fight for America this November and beat Donald Trump and those aligned with him. If we stand together, if we fight together, if we persist together, we can build in America that works better for all of our families, said Warren. The authority tasked with bailing out investors in failed bond scheme London Capital and Finance has paid out another 8.4m to worried savers. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme said that it had paid back a further 563 investors whose money had been trapped in the failed investment, which went out of business in January last year. Bail out: The Financial Services Compensation Scheme said that it had paid back a further 563 investors The payments have been made in the last month, and mean that 844 investors have been paid 13.5m by the FSCS. Bondholders were told they were not in line for compensation because LCF was not covered. But officials realised that some customers might be eligible if they were given misleading advice before investing. We are using Power Apps to drive ROI fast & at scale for our manufacturing customers...enabling the velocity of AI-driven insights and visual productivity applications. eLogic announced their achievement of being named a 2020 Worldwide Partner of the Year Finalist for Power Apps and Power Automate. The company was selected as one of the four named partners among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. It is an honor to be recognized by Microsoft for the success we deliver to our customers through our multi-cloud industry solutions built on the Microsoft platform, says Kris Shields, eLogic CEO. We are using Power Apps to drive ROI fast & at scale for our customers. Given our vertical focus on Manufacturers, many of our customers run their business with a two-platform approach on Microsoft and SAP. This presents an incredible opportunity to empower our customers to leverage Power Apps as a gateway to the full power of the Microsoft platform in context of their SAP enterprise environment, enabling the velocity of AI-driven insights and visual productivity applications. 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. eLogic was recognized for providing outstanding solutions and services in Business Applications by providing innovative and unique IP built on top of Microsoft Power Apps and Power Automate to address business challenges. Award finalists demonstrated success on a global scale by providing industry-specific solutions that help customers transform their business in this digital age, through a proven track record of cloud business growth across Microsoft cloud technologies, including Microsoft 365, Power Virtual Agents, Power BI, and Azure. 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. About eLogic: With a 20-year history of delivering transformative digital solutions for manufacturers, eLogic remains at the forefront of applied technologies that are reshaping the manufacturing industry for the future. eLogic is distinguished as a full-service business solutions provider with a 100% focus on Manufacturers. Core vertical markets served include Industrial Manufacturing, Health & Science Technology, Aerospace & Defense Technology, and Process Manufacturing. By combining decades of industry expertise and leadership with the most powerful technologies, the company accelerates their customers advances in Sales & Service enablement, Connected Factory, IoT & Connected Products, and Application Modernization leveraging the Microsoft and SAP platforms. Microsoft Solution coverage includes Business Applications/Dynamics 365, Azure, Mixed Reality, and the Power Platform. At another point, she said of Maxwell: Shes the one who abused me on a regular basis. Shes the one that procured me, told me what to do, trained me as a sex slave, abused me physically, abused me mentally. Shes the one who I believe, in my heart of hearts, deserves to come forward and have justice happen to her more than anybody. Being a woman, its disgusting. A Troy man was charged with two felonies after Colonie Police said he had an illegal handgun. Police stopped a car on Winners Circle around 3 a.m. on Thursday and one of the cars passengers, Julian Soto, allegedly had a .25 caliber handgun, according to a Colonie police news release. Police said Soto, 23, had an order of protection filed against him that banned him from having a gun. A blue bin with an apparent mind of its own took a run down a street in Calgary, Canada, during a heavy storm on July 23. Mary Kirk recorded the moment, writing in a Twitter post that accompanied the video: This blue bin was like Nope. Bye yall, good luck with the rest of this year. Kirk told Storyful that Calgary had been experiencing severe hailstorms during the summer. The bin was blown towards a river nearby, she added. It truly looked like it had had enough with this weather and 2020 and was getting the hell out of here, Kirk told Storyful. Credit: Mary Kirk via Storyful International air travelers are once again welcomed to travel to Brazil - despite still suffering from record coronavirus cases and deaths. The country is second only to the United States in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths - and is still struggling to contain the virus. But the government announced it was reopening to visitors Wednesday after its borders were closed to tourists since March. Tourists from all countries will be allowed to travel to four international airports in Brazil as long as they have health insurance coverage for the duration of their trip. Brazil has reported a total of 2,610,102 confirmed coronavirus cases and 91,263 deaths as of Friday. Wednesday's daily total of 69,000 new cases and 1,595 deaths in the country were a new record, according to Bloomberg. Passengers are seen wearing a protective mask after disembarking from a flight from Germany at Galeao International Airport in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, on Thursday. International tourists must have health insurance for the duration of their trip A staff member disinfects the Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Thursday. Brazil resumed received tourists after closing off its borders in March due to the coronavirus pandemic The reopening of the South American nation's air borders comes faster than other countries in the region with less severe outbreaks, such as Colombia, Argentina, Panama and Peru, which remain closed to international commercial flights. In June, Ecuador reopened its airports in Quito and Guayaquil to international visitors. Tourists must present a negative COVID-19 test and adhere to a 14-day quarantine before being able to freely move around. The Brazilian government is only accepting international arrivals at its airports in Galeao International Airport in Rio de Janeiro; Guarulhos International Airport and Viracopos International Airport in Sao Paulo; and Brasilia International Airport in Brasilia, the nation's capital. A man prepares to check in at the Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo on Thursday Passengers are seen wearing a protective mask after disembarking from a flight from Germany at Galeao International Airport in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday People wearing face masks are seen at the Guarulhos International Airport on Thursday Airports in the states of Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraiba, Rondonia, Rio Grande do Sul and Tocantins will not be allowed to received international visitors until the end of August. While tourists may now visit Brazil, many countries have not taken reciprocal action due to the severity of the outbreak. The United States and European Union, for example, are open for international travel but do not allow tourists from Brazil. American Airlines told DailyMail.com in an email statement Friday that the carrier is set to resume service to Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo with a flight that will depart Miami on August 6 and arrive August 6. The airline said it has been talking to U.S. and international authorities and public health officials regarding health and safety-related measures regarding COVID-19. 'We are unwavering in our commitment to the safety and well-being of our customers and team members. We have multiple layers of protection in place for those who fly with us, including required face coverings, enhanced cleaning procedures, and a pre-flight COVID-19 symptom checklist and were providing additional flexibility for customers to change their travel plans, as well,' American Airlines said. 'We know our customers are placing their trust in us to make every aspect of their journey safe, and we are committed to doing just that.' A one-way fare ticket in the main cabin was listed at $646. According to Delta Airlines' web site, it will begin service to Rio de Janeiro on August 2, with two connecting flights in Atlanta and Sao Paulo. Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo is one of four airports in Brazil open for international arrivals despite the rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths in the South American nation CARTHAGE From working on a farm as a young boy to watching as his father tended to animals in and around Pike County, Clayton Johnson grew up knowing he wanted to work with animals. Though originally wanting to become a farmer and raise his own animals, the Griggsville native followed in his fathers footsteps into veterinarian science. Now, Clayton is being recognized for his work in the swine industry as recipient of the 2020 Allen D. Leman Science in Practice Award. The national award is given to someone who has shown the ability to use science in day-to-day practices. I came by it naturally, Clayton said. My dad is a mixed animal vet in Griggsville, so I grew up going from farm to farm, seeing the cows and pigs. We didnt have a farm of our own. Clayton will receive his award during a virtual ceremony as part of the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference which was moved online because of the COVID-19 pandemic in September through the University of Minnesota. Johnson received his Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine degree in 2008 from the University of Illinois. He then worked for several years with The Maschhoffs LLC, a hog production company based in Carlyle. He took on his position at Carthage Veterinary Services in 2016. Johnson isnt a traditional, go-out-to-the-farm-and-examine-an-animal veterinarian. Instead, Johnson works with local farmers and bigger producers, as well as producers overseas, to develop safe operating procedures, planning and policies for operations. We do whatever we can to help farmers, Johnson said. We are their extension agency, we work with nutrition, safety, human resources. We help develop plans and training. Johnsons work is international; he works with many producers in China, which has the largest population of pigs in the world. Receiving the award is a huge honor, Johnson said. Receiving this award is an amazing honor for me, especially because I know the individuals who won before me have done amazing things, Johnson said. If I wasnt part of a successful team, there is no way I would be recognized. Lucina Galina Pantoja, director of pork technical services at Zoetis, said Johnson is a great representative for the veterinarian community. Dr. Johnson is an outstanding ambassador for integrating science into the practice of veterinary medicine, Pantoja said. We salute his long record of innovation and tireless pursuit of solutions that improve swine health around the world. A sandy hill is all that remains of a Mintails gold mining operation, just outside Johannesburg. Mintails, an Australian-owned company, is being sued, along with the government, for not cleaning up environmental damage at its mines. The Federation for Sustainable Environment is taking the court action. The groups director, Mariette Liefferink, says waste at the mines, including uranium, has released radiation on nearby communities and squatters. "We do not hold the directors ourselves criminally responsible, but we do ask for the court to order the government to take action against the directors," Liefferink said. "So, we hope to achieve a precedent. Mintails was liquidated last year, leaving an unfunded environmental liability. Meanwhile, the Department of Mineral and Energy Resources is seeking to avoid a lengthy legal process and wants to see the case settled out of court. The department's Sunday Mabaso says a solution needs to be found. Illegal mining issue "We really would like to find a solution for the community, and we would love the mine to come back and work so that it can resolve the environmental challenges," Mabaso said. "And also resolve the issue of illegal mining in that area, which is now becoming a nuisance to the community and everyone in the surrounding area." Nearby communities such as Tudor Shaft are exposed to radiation and toxic tailings, leftovers separated from the ore, Liefferink said. This was declared a radioactive hot spot," she said. "The radioactivity in this area is significantly elevated. This community has been exposed for decades, or more than a decade, to the dust fallout from the tailings storage facility, the physical risks from open-pit mining and blasting. Some Tudor Shaft residents have been relocated to safer areas, but many more have been left behind. The absence of basic structures in this impoverished area is making life unbearable for Tudor Shaft residents, said community activist Lucas Mitsipitso. "There is no infrastructure, no water, no electricity, and the community has been here since 1995," he said. "And we try to engage with different, you know, municipal departments, as far as this is a concern. And there was no luck, no answers in our proposals that we made in regard to relocation." With the fate of the legal action filed by environmentalists unclear, the contamination surrounding one of the biggest gold reserves in the world appears unlikely to be cleaned up anytime soon. New law allows Chileans to withdraw up to 10 percent of their retirement savings, as economy takes hit. Millions of Chileans are dipping into their pension funds as a new law took effect allowing citizens to withdraw a portion of their retirement savings to help ease the economic pain brought by the coronavirus pandemic. The emergency measure, approved by the Congress last week, allows people to withdraw up to 10 percent of their contributions for the next year. On Thursday, long lines were seen in the capital, Santiago, outside the offices of Pension Fund Administrators (AFP) as Chileans sought to take advantage of the new law. Chiles Superintendent of Pensions said in a statement 3,024,347 people had asked to withdraw their share by 5pm local time (21:00 GMT). The websites of several of the fund administrators collapsed amid the deluge of requests, prompting an apology from the companies. As we warned from the beginning, this process is unprecedented and we have had to quickly prepare all the platforms, said Fernando Larrain, president of Chiles association of pension fund managers. Reporting from Santiago, Al Jazeeras Lucia Newman said: With so many people trying to request their money simultaneously on just the first day, the process is torturously slow. Officials said it would take 10 business days for the first payouts to arrive. The influx of cash into the pockets of everyday Chileans, hard hit by the financial fallout from the virus, is largely expected to boost the economy. Chiles privatised pension system, introduced in the 1980s under dictator Augusto Pinochet, has often been hailed as a model, but has also been strongly criticised in recent years for low payouts. The coronavirus pandemic, that has infected more than 350,000 people and killed nearly 9,000 in Chile, has plunged what was once Latin Americas strongest economy into a deep recession, leaving almost 2.5 million out of work. Cant survive without money In a landmark vote last week, lawmakers, including 53 percent of centre-right President Sebastian Pineras governing coalition, gave the green light to the pension reform bill that sped through several congressional votes with cross-party support despite staunch government opposition. 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. 200727171357648 The bills supporters said alternative support offered by the government to millions of citizens left unemployed and impoverished by the pandemic was insufficient and bureaucratic. I dont like to dip into my pension, but we cant depend on the government for everything, so I want to access my own money, especially since the private pension funds have filled their pockets at our expense for decades, Alfonso Expinoza, a pension fund contributor, told Al Jazeera. Claudia, another Santiago resident, who queued up outside her private pension fund office, said: Ive been on medical leave since March and I havent received any government benefits. Im not getting my full wages to pay for my medicine and my upcoming surgery. So this is very necessary for me. It is estimated that approximately 10 million people will use some $20bn from the AFP funds to pay debts accumulated during the five months of the pandemic. According to opinion polls, most in the country of some 19 million people said they would use the money to pay for basic goods and services. I have no work any more, but have to keep paying the rent, eating and buying necessities. Without money you cant survive, Venzki, a Haitian migrant, said. Bassist Fumi Tomita's new CD, "Celebrating Bird: A Tribute to Charlie Parker." I've always loved Charlie Parker's music. It's a style rooted in a certain language but very open to other styles. Bassist Fumi Tomita celebrates the 100th anniversary of jazz icon Charlie Parker with thoroughly Parkerian flair and resourcefulness on "Celebrating Bird: A Tribute to Charlie Parker," set for a September 25 release on Next Level Records. Tomita, along with tenor saxophonist and longtime collaborator David Detweiler, presents an inspired set of contrafactsnew melodies, composed upon familiar chord changesof tunes in Parkers repertoire. Bird was a legendary creator of contrafacts. One of the bebop revolutionarys key innovations was the language with which he reimagined songs like Cherokee, Lady Be Good, and even the basic possibilities of the blues. Its this spirit that Tomita and his quartet (Detweiler, pianist Art Hirahara, and drummer Jimmy Macbride) channel on "Celebrating Bird," both in terms of writing original songs on classic changes and the expression of those songs in a bright and upbeat bebop aesthetic. Ive always loved Charlie Parkers music, Tomita says, musing on the idiom Bird did so much to create. Its a style rooted in a certain language but very open to other styles. That openness is very much evident on "Celebrating Bird." Whether in the subtle calypso echoes of Like Sigmund (a contrafact of Parkers Segment), the Latin charms of Intersection (based on Repetition, a tune from the famous "Charlie Parker with Strings" sessions), or the funk suggested by Tomitas doubling of the melody line with Detweiler on Oceanology (a blues in C, a favorite Bird framework), the album offers a unique insight into the vast reach of Parkers musical ideas. Then again, any jazz performance is also about the musicians performing it in the momentand Tomita and company do not disappoint as artists in their own right. The glory of Detweilers sustained solo on Birds Yard is immediately rivaled by Hiraharas piano chaser; Macbride makes punchy but sleek statements on Bird Dreams; and the leader taps into fathomless depths of soul with solos on Alice Changes and Intersection. As ever, the high point of Parkers genius is in how it enables the individuality of visionaries like Tomita. Fumi Tomita was born November 26, 1971 in New York. Fittingly for the era, his first musical loves were progressive rock and jazz fusion, which led him to begin on the piano in high school. He soon took up guitar and bass; the latter instrument gained his commitment, which in turn gained Tomita a spot in the jazz performance program at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He spent some time as a working musician in Montreal; spent a year in Portland, Oregon; then returned to his hometown in 2000 to earn a masters degree at Manhattan School of Music (studying with Jay Anderson and Larry Ridley). Being at MSM put him directly in touch with the New York jazz community, and Tomita began working with the likes of Joey Baron, Vincent Herring, Jeremy Pelt, and Art Hirahara. All the while he continued pursuing musical scholarship, finishing his masters and going on to study ethnomusicology at Hunter College and jazz and contemporary media at Eastman School of Music (where he met tenor saxophonist Dave Detweiler). He ultimately gained a tenure-track position in the jazz program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he currently teaches. Tomitas debut recording, "Untold," appeared in 2011, with Impromptu appearing that same year. (The albums were recorded in 2003 and 2004, respectively). He and Detweiler made their first record together in 2015 on the saxophonists "Dave Detweiler Trio." In 2019 came the ambitious "The Elephant Vanishes: Jazz Interpretations of the Short Stories of Haruki Murakami," through which Tomita explored his Asian-American identity. (His father was Japanese; his mother a Chinese-American.) The new "Celebration of Bird" is, in a sense, another examination of identity: that of a contemporary jazz musician who is building on the foundation Charlie Parker laid. Conceived before the pandemic, this tribute record to Charlie Parker will, I hope, still be relevant in the new normal with the COVID-19 pandemic, says Tomita. The sweeping changes for social justice for African Americans that have dominated the summer of 2020 were a dream that Parker, living during the pre-Civil Rights era, was denied. Yet he still led a musical revolution known as bebop that contributed to the great music known as Jazz. His music can be viewed as a form of protest during an era when African Americans could not voice their opposition to racial discrimination, segregation, or lynchings. During his centennial year, I hope that Charlie Parker will continue to be remembered and that his music will resonate with listeners during an age of protest. Tomorrow is somehow already August, but lets talk about Junes primary instead. Elections officials and voting-rights advocates warned Pennsylvania that its mail ballot deadlines were too tight for the election. They said it could prevent voters from being able to cast a ballot and they were right. Its not just the polls that are closed. Citizens Bank Park shut its doors until further notice after two Phillies staffers tested positive for the coronavirus. But if the team does get the OK to play next week, it could be rained out as a tropical storm approaches the Philly area. Lauren Aguirre (@laurencaguirre, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com) Requests for mail ballots skyrocketed for the Pennsylvania primary in June. Thats because of two big factors: a new law allowed requests without having to provide a reason, and the coronavirus pandemic made voting in person more risky. Elections officials were not ready. County offices struggled to quickly process applications, and print and send ballots. Mail delivery was uneven and often delayed. Voters whose applications were processed within three weeks of the election had a lower chance of actually voting. That means about 92,000 voters were disenfranchised, according to an Inquirer analysis. Thousands of restaurant workers were laid off due to the pandemic, including employees at Phillys V Street. When these workers heard that their ownership was approved for substantial paycheck protection loans, they organized. They asked for changes to working conditions, pay disparities, and workplace culture as a reopening was planned. This highlights a new obstacle for restaurant owners, who are struggling to address questions about their treatment of staff. Because returning to work now poses a serious health risk, many restaurant workers dont want to accept the status quo anymore. Two Phillies employees tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, prompting the team to close its stadium and postpone its series against the Blue Jays. The team conducts daily testing to monitor the fallout from last weeks series against the Miami Marlins. All Phillies players have tested negative so far, but it could take up to two weeks for an infected person to test positive. These positive tests are calling into question whether the team can play a full 60-game season in 2020. What you need to know today Through your eyes | #OurPhilly Dopamine, indeed. This photo brought me some calm, so I hope it does the same for you today. Thanks for sharing, @strangerphilly! Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and well pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout out! Thats interesting Opinions It would help in that mission if our policy leaders began to think deeper and realize that DHS wasnt only one spectacularly bad idea, but symbolic of a militaristic society that can find the directions to send armed forces to Iraq and then to El Paso and finally Portland yet utterly lacks a moral compass. writes Will Bunch about how, from 9/11 to Portland, it was inevitable that Homeland Security would be turned on the American people. What were reading Your Daily Dose of | Stabatha the cat Kyle Cassidy was certain he would find the stray cat, later named Stabatha, that frequented his West Philly porch a home in three days or less. In June, he posted pictures of her on social media to his thousands of followers, but didnt get any interest. So now, he is commissioning portraits of Stabatha from local artists in the hope that the cat will get adopted. Some of this artwork can be seen in the photo above and right here too. The Special Investigations Unit has identified the man who was hit and killed in a crash on July 24, as Ontarios watchdog continues its investigation. Daniel Bertini, 54, of Richmond Hill, was riding a bicycle in King Township when he was struck by a vehicle in the area of Keele Street and Cavell Avenue. Prior to the collision, the vehicle that struck the man was being pursued by a York Regional Police officer. According to the SIU, a York police officer was conducting radar speed enforcement around 7:10 a.m. when he saw a car speeding north on Keele Street. The officer pursued the car, which hit the cyclist. A GoFundMe page has been set up by the science department at St. Joan of Arc Catholic High School where Bertini worked as a teacher. Daniel was a father, husband, teacher, brother, son, and a dearly beloved friend. He was an avid cyclist and a cross-country skier, read the page. The crowdfunding page is aiming to present an award in Bertinis name to a Grade 12 science student that personifies the characteristics that he admired in a student: dedication, initiative, hard-working and integrity. York police said 20-year-old Drake David Tye Paul, of Toronto, was charged with the criminal offences of failure to stop causing death, and dangerous driving causing death surrounding the hit-and-run. The SIU said three investigators, two forensic investigators and one collision reconstructionist have been assigned to investigate the collision and the circumstances leading up to it. One of the two witness officers designated have been interviewed, and the other has provided notes to investigators. One subject officer has been designated but has not been interviewed yet and seven civilian witnesses were interviewed, and video footage obtained. Last month, the SIU began investigating another incident after a woman and her three young daughters died following a crash involving four vehicles in Brampton early June 18. The SIU said leading up to the collision, a Peel Regional Police officer was travelling westbound on Countryside Drive when he observed an Infiniti vehicle travelling eastbound. When asked if the police were chasing the car, Peel police said they could not comment on the investigation. In the past five years, GTA area police vehicle pursuits have resulted in two deaths, according to Star records. Police chase numbers steadily declined into 2000 when helicopter patrols were introduced to reduce them. Bertini leaves behind his wife and teenage son. Editors note July 30, 2020: This story was edited to updates details of the GoFundMe page. Raneem Alozzi is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @r_alozzi With files from Miriam Lafontaine. When a man hiking a Marin County trail this week asked an approaching jogger to put on a face covering, the jogger shoved him to the ground and kept running, officials said. Rangers responded to a reported physical altercation around 10 a.m. Wednesday on the Gertrude Ord Trail near Phoenix Lake in Ross, said Jeanne Mariani-Belding, spokeswoman for the Marin Municipal Water District. A 59-year-old Larkspur resident told officials he was hiking with his wife when a mask-less jogger came toward them from the opposite direction. The hiker held up his hand and asked the jogger to put on a face covering before coming closer, Mariani-Belding said. But the jogger kept coming, pushed the hiker to the ground and continued on his run. Rangers searched for the suspect but were unable to locate him in the surrounding area. He was described as in his 20s with brown hair wearing a light-colored shirt and black vest. The victim declined medical treatment. People walking outside within six feet of each other in Marin County are required to wear face coverings, which public health officials say reduce coronavirus transmission. 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 trail incident is the latest report of conflict triggered by mask rule-breakers. In San Francisco, a Muni bus driver was beaten with a bat after asking passengers to abide by the citys face covering ordinance requiring masks on public transit. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact the districts rangers at 415-945-3075. Anna Bauman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: anna.bauman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @abauman2 Local activists are asking two Birmingham boards to rename two city parks and the Linn-Henley Research Library for civil rights leaders. Frank Matthews of the Outcast Voters League says Linn Park and the mini park in the center of the 4th Avenue business district should be renamed to reflect Birminghams progress instead of its history of symbols of racial hatred and bigotry. Matthews says hes asking the Birmingham Park and Recreation Board to rename Linn Park for Congressman John Lewis and the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. The mini park in the 4th Avenue should be named for the Rev. C.T. Vivian, Matthews said. Just this weekend we celebrated the legacy of John Lewis and C.T. Vivian. Its imperative that we now highlight these individuals and others who brought positive change, Matthews says. Its not enough to just remember them at the time of their passing or during African American history month. Our entire community, the young and the old, would have a better appreciation for all people if they knew more about those who laid the foundation for change. Linn Park is named for Charles Linn, a Confederate naval officer, and former Birmingham businessman. Matthews is also sending a letter to the Birmingham Public Library Board asking for the Linn-Henley Research Librarys name be changed to the Obama-Armstrong Library in honor of Americas first African-American president and James Armstrong, a veteran and barber who led in the integration of Birmingham City Schools. John Henley was Linns son-in-law and also a confederate captain. He was also an early business leader in Birmingham. Birmingham has come a long way, and much of that progress is due to the sacrifice of people such as Rev. Shuttleworth and Mr. Armstrong, says Matthews. They are no longer with us, but it would be more fitting to have their names on city landmarks, instead of the names of individuals who worked to restrict the rights and progress of people of color. In 2015, Matthews asked the city to remove the now-removed Confederate Soldiers & Sailors Monument from Linn Park. The monument was removed on June 1 after protestors began trying to remove it themselves. That old soldier in Linn Park has been removed. Now, for the sake of progress, we need to continue making changes that truly reflect who we are as a city, Matthews said. You can view the letters below: Paul Mescal is setting the record straight. The first-time Emmy nominee and star of Hulus Normal People is clarifying that he is, in fact, Irish. The actor felt compelled to speak out after several UK publications mistakenly identified him as British when reporting on news of his nomination in the Outstanding Lead Actor In A Limited Series category. Paul Mescal lands Emmy nomination for his first major TV role Normal People | Hulu RELATED: Normal People Star Paul Mescal Talks About the Pressure of Playing Connell Newcomer Mescal scored an Emmy nod for playing Connell in Normal People, his first major TV role. The Hulu limited series, which is based on a 2018 novel by Irish writer Sally Rooney, follows the relationship between working-class Connell and Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a social outcast from a well-off family, from high school through their years at Dublins Trinity College. The actor told Vulture he was really, really happy to be nominated alongside Hugh Jackman, Mark Ruffalo, and Jeremy Pope. Many others were equally excited that he was recognized for his work, including several UK newspapers who apparently wanted to claim the actor as one of their own. Paul Mescal wants people to know hes Irish Im Irish. Paul Mescal (@mescal_paul) July 29, 2020 Both The Guardian and the Daily Mail referred to Mescal as British when first reporting on the Emmy news. Andrew Scott, who is also Irish and was nominated for his work in Black Mirror, was mistakenly identified as British as well. (Both publications have since updated their stories to reflect the actors correct nationality.) The mistake was no minor error for many Irish people. Why is this still happening in 2020?? Just stop calling Irish people British theres no excuse, tweeted Derry Girls actor Nicola Coughlan. Several people who replied to her tweet pointed to the apparent confusion over Mescals identity as a legacy of British colonialism. Mescal himself felt the need to make his nationality clear, simply tweeting, Im Irish. The way people think youre British when you play an IRISH character in an IRISH show, and youre from Kildare, in IRELAND whats not clicking? one fan replied. Mescal wishes his co-star had been nominated too Paul Mescal | Erik Voake/Getty Images for Hulu In his chat with Vulture, Mescal expressed excitement over his Emmy nomination but said he was disappointed that his co-star didnt get similar recognition in the best actress category. If it was me I would have given her all the love in that category, he said. I cant speak highly enough of the work she did on the show. I know there are extraordinary actresses nominated in that category, but I think Daisys work is just phenomenal in this. The fact that Im nominated is a testament to the work that shes done, the actor said. Normal People is the kind of show that the relationship between Connell and Marianne [is central]. I was thanking her for being an amazing person but also the best scene partner anyone could ever ask for. Check out Showbiz Cheat Sheet on Facebook! YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. Armenias economy is slowly recovering from the recession caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, this trend is noticed in the monthly dynamics, Chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on economic affairs Babken Tunyan told Armenpress, expressing hope that the decline will reach minimum in coming months. As of January-June 4.7% decline in the economic activity index was registered. The MP said the decline rate compared to January-May and January-April has increased, but he highlighted the monthly dynamics to see the changes that have taken place each month. The decline in fact has started from March. The decline in the economic activity index this March was 4.1% against March 2019. In April the decline reached up to 16.3%, but in May it reached 12.8% and in June 7.5%. In other words, if we look at the monthly dynamics, we had the highest decline in April, during the strictest coronavirus-related restrictions. But now the declining rate has weakened, and if this dynamics continues, the rate will further weaken and its possible we will have a restoration of the economic activity in the last quarter in October, November and December. And if these monthly positive changes take place, they will affect the overall annual figure. But all these depend on what will be the future development of the economy and the coronavirus situation, he added. Touching upon the separate branches of the economy, the lawmaker said the picture is the same almost in all sectors. The industry field differs a little from the other sectors, as a growth has been recorded in the industrial production. It increased by 1.5% in January-June, but on monthly basis it has recorded a decline: for instance compared to June 2019, this year in June it has declined by 2.4%. He said the growth in the industry is mainly at the expense of the growth in the mining industry. At this moment one of the main bases of Armenias economy is the mining industry. No matter how much the environmentalists and others are dissatisfied with this, the fact is that today the mining industry ensures large part of the taxes, foreign currency and economic indicators, he added. The growth in agriculture comprised 1.7% in January-June. The MP connects the weakening of the economic decline with the re-opening of economic activities. If initially the operation of public food objects was totally banned, now they can operate by following some rules. In addition, in March and April, when the anti-crisis packages started to develop, they entered into force in early May, the assistance was provided both to the employers and separate companies, which in its turn creates a demand in the economy, he said. Mr. Tunyan said according to the latest estimations of the government, which is reflected in the 2021 budget draft, 2.6% economic decline is forecast for 2020. However, he noted that its still difficult to make a prediction because the economic situation is closely connected with the healthcare situation and the daily coronavirus cases. We can state that the economy is slowly getting out of the recession, he said. The lawmaker said there may be criticisms that some sectors are facing problems. He confirmed that many sectors face problems and they are going to be long-term problems, as its impossible to immediately return to the previous situation. But on the other hand its important for the business and the society to have positive expectations, because expectations play a great role in the economy, especially in terms of the fiscal policy and other factors, Babken Tunyan said. The lawmaker said it is necessary to normalize the healthcare situation as soon as possible and further accelerate the recovery process. Interview by Anna Grigoryan Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan If the stress of the coronavirus pandemic isn't enough to deal with, people are now losing clumps of hair over it, but famed dermatologist Dr. Pimple Popper insists it's a normal physiological response to a stressful event and nothing to worry about. The California-based physician, whose real name is Dr. Sandra Lee, took to TikTok on Thursday to explain that people who are shedding a seemingly alarming amount of hair are likely experiencing pandemic-induced telogen effluvium, a form of temporary hair loss that occurs after a stressful event. 'Right now, we're seeing a lot of people in our offices complaining about hair loss,' she says. 'People are noticing their hair is falling out. They are freaking out. That's normal to freak out, but let me tell you why it's happening and why your hair is going to grow back.' Scroll down for video Explanation: Dr. Pimple Popper, whose real name is Sandra Lee, has revealed why people are suddenly losing alarming amounts of hair months after the start of the coronavirus pandemic Spreading the word: In a recent TikTok video, she shares that a number of her dermatology patients are coming into her office complaining of hair loss Dr. Pimple Popper explains that the hair growth cycle has three phases: anagen, catagen, and telogen. The anagen phase is the growth phase, which lasts about three to five years. It is followed by the catagen phase, a short transitional phase that signals the end of active growth and lasts a few weeks. In the final phase, the telogen phase, strands are released and fall out. This 'death' phase, as Dr. Pimple Popper calls it, lasts three to six months. 'People can have a condition it's really common called telogen effluvium,' she says. 'If you notice that your hair is falling out now, it could be from a stressful event you experienced three to six months ago like childbirth, like COVID, like stressful events related to COVID. We are seeing a lot of this now.' Cycle: Dr. Pimple Popper explains that the hair growth cycle has three phases: anagen (growth phase), catagen (transitional phase), and telogen (death phase) Reason: People who are shedding a seemingly alarming amount of hair are likely experiencing telogen effluvium, a form of temporary hair loss that occurs after a stressful event The stressful event causes more hair than normal to go through the telogen phase, but it takes three to six months after this occurs for new hair to grow back and push the telogen phase hairs out. This means that people who experienced a great deal of stress at the start of the coronavirus pandemic are starting to lose more hair now, nearly four months later. Childbirth, major surgery, and mental distress are all stressors that can trigger telogen effluvium, which is generally reversible. 'A good sign to see is a lot of really short hairs coming up like this,' Dr. Pimple Popper says, pointing to the top of her head. 'This means your hair is growing back.' So that's why! It takes three to six months for new hair to grow back and push the old hairs out, which is why people are losing their hair months after the pandemic started Don't worry! Dr. Pimple Popper says seeing short hairs coming in is a 'good sign' your hair is growing back. Fans took to the comments to thank her for the helpful explanation The clip has been viewed more than 274,000 times and grateful fans thanked the dermatologist in the comments for putting a name to what they have been experiencing. 'I am shook. Seriously though something was wrong with me. Thank you for this!!' one person wrote, while another added: 'My hair is falling out in clumps. I thought it was only me. Thanks for posting.' Someone else shared that her mother is now losing her hair three months after surviving COVID 19. Others recalled how they lost their hair after childbirth or the death of a loved one. 'Now I get why I was losing a lot of hair a few months after I had my baby,' one TikTok user commented. The study estimated screening would cost $470 per student per semester and did not consider the effects of reopening schools on staff and communities where colleges are located. It also said that monitoring students for symptoms was not sufficient and that logistical challenges such as the availability of tests or isolation dormitories may be beyond the reach of many university administrators and the students in their care. A thug has been jailed for eight years after he sneaked into a young mum's home and strangled her until she passed out - then sexually assaulted her while one of her children in the same room. Daniel Delooze, 30, entered his sleeping victim's house through an unlocked door in the early hours of the morning. The woman woke to find Delooze standing by the side of her bed, before he inflicted a 'disturbing' attack. Daniel Delooze, 30, has been jailed for eight years after he entered his sleeping victim's house through an unlocked door before strangling her until she passed out and molesting her She could hear him 'rambling' while he throttled her, but could only make out a handful of words, including 'kill'. Thankfully her children were asleep but one was even in the same room as the mum during the 'terrifying' assault. After the woman fell unconscious, Delooze molested her - although the exact nature of this attack remains unclear. The victim woke at around 6am in her home in Warrington, Cheshire, to find she had more than 20 separate injuries across her body. These included injuries to her neck, jaw, chest, arms and legs, yet she had no idea who it was that had attacked her. However, Delooze had left DNA evidence on the mum's pyjama bottoms, duvet, and a child's top in an open divan drawer. He pleaded not guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent and sexual assault in a trial at Liverpool Crown Court earlier this month. Simon Parry, prosecuting, said after the attack the bewildered woman contacted police and went to a sexual assault referral centre. She was seen by a doctor, who confirmed that her injuries were consistent with non-fatal strangulation and 'a high level of violence'. Prosecutors said Delooze travelled from his home in Hindley Green, Greater Manchester, to the woman's house, before sneaking inside at around 2am. Detectives examined CCTV footage and were able to show a hooded man walking past the woman's house, smoking and drinking, and carrying a rucksack. He stood outside smoking a cigarette before walking towards the house and out of view, and wasn't seen on camera again until around half an hour later. Using various video clips, police were able to track his escape route and estimate his height - 5ft 9in - but the 'key evidence' was the DNA later recovered. When arrested and interviewed by police, Delooze insisted he had been at home with his partner and their child on the night of the attack. Delooze, of Nixon Phillips Drive, Hindley Green, then offered an explanation for the DNA evidence, which cannot be reported for legal reasons. He was cleared of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent, but found guilty of the lesser offence of inflicting grievous bodily harm, and sexual assault. The woman told the court her experience was 'horrendous' and she no longer felt safe in her own home. In a victim impact statement she said: 'What really took place that night might remain unclear for the rest of my life. Delooze denied the charges but was convicted at Liverpool Crown Court. The judge handed him eight years in prison with an extended sentence because he was deemed 'dangerous' 'I can't help but think that I could easily have died as a result of this incident. It's difficult to comprehend. 'I'm not sure how I will manage on my own in the house with the children. I will be terrified - especially during the evenings. 'I want to wake up from it all, I want it all to be a nightmare. This was an unprovoked, violent attack - it was truly horrendous.' Delooze, who has previous convictions including assault causing actual bodily harm in 2010, still maintains his innocence. Lloyd Morgan, defending, said there was another side to his client, who was described by others as 'trustworthy and honest'. Judge Brian Cummings told Delooze: 'It barely needs stating that strangling another person is a highly dangerous attack. 'It was entirely foreseeable that this could have resulted in death or catastrophic injuries. 'You strangled her unconscious and abandoned her alone in that state in the middle of the night, and it is a matter of pure fortune that her injuries are not more serious than they already are. 'The presence of children in the house is a serious aggravating factor. 'I can offer the victim no closure on precisely what happened to her when she was unconscious.' The judge ruled that Delooze was a dangerous offender, as defined in law, and would receive an extended sentence. Judge Cummings said: 'I'm satisfied that you present a significant risk of committing further offences and that such offences carry a high risk of serious harm to members of the public. 'I've been struck by the very serious and disturbing nature of this case, and how readily you were prepared to act in this way.' Judge Cummings jailed Delooze for eight years, with an extended two years on licence, and told him to sign on the Sex Offenders Register for life. This means Delooze will spend at least two-thirds of the sentence - five years and four months - behind bars before he is eligible for parole. He will only be released before the end of the eight-year term if he is no longer considered to be a risk to the public. Judge Cummings also imposed an indefinite restraining order to protect the victim. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) The Department of Interior and Local Government said Friday that it has streamlined the application process for the construction of shared cellular sites, in compliance with the order of President Rodrigo Duterte. DILG chief Eduardo Ano told Duterte during their meeting which was taped and televised on Friday his office signed a joint memorandum with other agencies to reduce the requirements for the building of shared passive telecom tower infrastructure on July 22. The official said that by virtue of the memorandum, telcos are no longer required to submit some documents such as the Homeowners Association resolution, which may cut the time it takes to secure the necessary permits, clearances, and licences from 200 days to just up to 20 days. Ano assured Duterte that they will monitor the compliance of local governments with the new administrative procedures. In the same meeting, Globe Telecom president and CEO Ernest Cu lamented the long process for permit applications for cell towers, saying it's costly and time-consuming. He added they have been experiencing this for many, many years now. Cu told the President that it takes about 25 to 29 permits and eight months to build a single tower. 'Isumbong mo' Duterte claimed the tedious process is caused by those engaged in corruption, as he urged telecommunications firms to report local officials who may be trying to delay the approval of necessary permits for cell site construction. Alam mo, you can ask Bong and the business can ask Sonny Dominguez, kay the generals, kay Secretary Ano, isumbong na lang ninyo diretso, the President told Cu. [Translation: You can report them directly to Bong Go, Sec. Sonny Dominguez.] In his 5th State of the Nation Address, Duterte threatened to expropriate Globe and Smart if they fail to improve their services by December. Duterte said Cu reached out to him after he made the warning. The President said he told the Globe executive that he will hang him in one of their towers if no improvement was made. He recalled Cu told him he cannot do that because they lack cell towers, to which he said he agreed. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on Friday, shot off a warning to banks over alleged resistance to offering loans to MSMEs under the emergency credit guarantee scheme announced by the government to ease liquidity pressure on micro, small and medium enterprises due to economic stress induced by the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdown. Sitharaman promised to look into any instances of banks refusing credit after listening to concerns raised by prominent industry body FICCI (federation of Indian chambers of commerce and industry) highlighting the problems being faced by MSMEs in accessing loans under the scheme. Banks cannot refuse credit to MSMEs covered under emergency credit facility. If refused, such instances must be reported. I will look into it, she said. Sitharamans statement follows Prime Minister Narendra Modis appeal on Wednesday to bankers to fund bankable projects and MSMEs without fear. He promised that the government will back their decisions. Addressing another major area of concern, the finance minister said that the government is working with the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) for restructuring of loans due to the Covid-19 impact on businesses. This is one of the key demands made by the industry bodies. The focus is on restructuring. Finance ministry is actively engaged with RBI on this. In principle, the idea that there may be a restructuring required, is well taken, she said admitting there was a need to consider restructuring in the present circumstances. On a related issue, Sitharaman said that her ministry is working with RBI on the demand of the hospitality sector for extension of moratorium, or restructuring. Hospitality sector is one of the worst hit during the current crisis and the finance minister said she fully understand the requirements of the hospitality sector on extension of the moratorium, or restructuring. The important interventions were announced by the finance minister during FICCIs national executive committee meeting. She also confirmed that work is going on creating a development finance institution to deal with the emerging credit requirements of the industry. What shape it will take, we will know shortly, Sitharaman said. On the issue of reduction in GST rates on the healthcare and other products, she said this fell in the domain of the GST council. Sudhir Suryawanshi By Express News Service MUMBAI: Amid increasing coronavirus cases in Maharashtra, lawmakers seem keen to hold state legislative assembly's monsoon session in an open setting rather than inside a house, as done traditionally. Speaker Nana Patole wrote to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray asking to hold the session in the open, outside the Vidhan Bhavan, in the parking lot area. The demand, if fulfilled, will make Maharashtra the first state in the country to conduct its sessions in an open ground. Social distancing will be maintained in an open space and the area can be covered with a waterproof tent. There is enough space available that can be used and parking can be shifted to nearby areas and buildings... Patole wrote in the letter. Patole also added that there was no point in risking the situation as social distancing would be hard to maintain in an enclosed premises. The monsoon session is important to approve supplementary demands and other important policy decisions. The 288 lawmakers of the lower house and 78 members of the upper house will attend this session. Besides, staff and administrative officers will also be present, said an officer from Vidhan Bhavan. The Maharashtra state legislative assembly monsoon session is supposed to commence from September 7. Meanwhile, state capital Mumbai has so far recorded 1,13000 coronavirus cases with 6,297 deaths. Punjab recorded a whopping 10,451 fresh Covid-19 cases and 237 deaths in July, with an increase in positivity rate. Whereas the overall mortality rate came down to 2.3% despite increase in the spread of the virus, mortality rate remained at 2.2 %. The national mortality rate for the month was also 2.2%, according the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) figures. Medical experts say there is an overall increase in the number of deaths but since the total cases have also gone up, the mortality rate remains almost the same. In June, the state had witnessed 100 deaths. By June-end, the states Covid-19 positivity rate was 1.8% which has increased to 2.7%. July alone witnessed the positivity rate of 3.8%. The national positivity rate also went up from 10% to 11% in July when the state conducted nearly 2.63 lakh tests. The main reason behind rise in positivity rate is the increased testing and the states strategy to test every high-risk primary contact of a patient. The positivity rate among high-risk primary contacts is 10%. As July witnessed more cases due to unlock and increase in testing, positivity rate has also gone up, said state Covid-19 nodal officer Dr Rajesh Bhaskar. The state health department has denied any community spread even in the three worst-hit districts of Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar. On Friday, we gathered feedback on chances of community spread but the spread of the diseases has remained restricted to certain clusters only, said the nodal officer. The recovery rate of Covid-19 patients in Punjab dipped from 70% in June to 66% in July. But health officials say it not worrying since the states mortality rate has decreased. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As many as 84 police personnel have tested positive for COVID-19 so far in Kerala, state police chief Loknath Behera said here on Friday. In a message to the public six months after the infection was first reported in the state, the DGP said of the 84, 18 are under treatment at various COVID first line treatment centres in the state. "It is a matter of concern that the police force is vulnerable to the disease because of the nature of their duties. However, we are trying to reduce the virus spread among the police force and the fight against the virus will continue. As part of it, we have devised new strategies to implement from Saturday by involving senior police officers in the fight against COVID-19 in the wake of the rise in contact cases," Behera said. He also praised the efforts of policemen in the state in enforcing the lockdown restrictions diligently. "The state police never got any complaint of police excesses in regulating the restrictions. In fact, the enforcement was done in a praiseworthy manner by adhering to the social distancing norms. The police also generated awareness among the public by making small films and sharing them on social media. The police were also hailed for handling the plight of guest workers in the state. We also enforced a triple lockdown in the containment areas," the DGP added. A fast food worker from Baton Rouge, Louisiana died July 15 from coronavirus infection after working nonstop through the pandemic. As reported by the Baton Rouge Advocate, Shonda Brown, a manager of a Taco Bell restaurant in the suburb of Denham Springs, continued to work as an essential worker even as Louisiana reached record high numbers of coronavirus cases and the disease ravaged the country with no end in sight. Like many restaurants providing take-out, Taco Bell has stayed open throughout the pandemic, forcing many of the most at-risk workers to continue working long and difficult shifts for low pay as the virus runs rampant through their communities. Shonda Brown Brown, who worked multiple jobs at once in order to provide for her family, showed no symptoms until she was hospitalized and only stopped working when she was found unresponsive in the restaurant bathroom on July 6. Once Brown arrived at the hospital doctors found she had high blood sugar and low oxygen levels. She was placed on a ventilator but died 9 days later, with the cause of death listed as complications due to COVID-19" along with other medical conditions. Brown was known to friends and family as being in relatively good health, active in her community and a passionate cook. She had literally worked herself to death in order to keep the Taco Bell restaurant running. Deisha Brown, Shonda Browns niece, described to the Advocate her feelings of grief as she gathered her aunt's belongings in the hospital after she dieda necklace, her wedding ring, and her work uniform. It feels so unreal. It takes a while before it hits you and youre like, I cant call you anymore, I cant talk to you anymore." On social media outpourings of grief and condolences were posted for Shonda Brown as well as anger at the conditions she was forced to work in. Calls were made online for essential workers such as those at Taco Bell and Burger King to receive hazard pay and for the billion dollar chains to provide better protections for their employers. Baton Rouge, the capital city of Louisiana, and surrounding East Baton Rouge Parish had recently seen a large upswing in coronavirus cases, with over 10,000 confirmed infections since the outbreak began. As of this writing, Louisiana has more cases per capita than any other state in the country. Browns tragic death came amid a massive back to work campaign pushed by both Democrats and Republicans, which has resulted in a new surge in infections and deaths in Louisiana and across the United States. The economic situation remains dire, particularly for those who have been thrown out of work, seeing the expiration of the $600-dollar-a-week unemployment extension last week. With workers losing this critical lifeline and draining their bank accounts, the state of Louisiana is projected to face a massive eviction crisis by the end of the month with some 50 percent of renters in the state facing eviction according to a Census Bureau data analysis compiled by Stout Risius Ross. On Thursday a large group of protestors stood outside city hall and civil district courts of New Orleans in an attempt to block the courts from processing eviction cases. Millions across the country will be unable pay rent and face evictions once the federal unemployment bonuses dry up. This will force many to look for jobs in potentially high-risk industries such as food and beverage service where many coronavirus cases have been traced in recent weeks since Louisianas reopening in mid-May. East Baton Rouge Parish has recently surpassed Orleans Parish for highest number of cases, with 10,155 compared to New Orleanss 10,071. By any measure both major cities in Louisiana are being ravaged by the virus while local government's push forward with their reopening drive. Louisiana is one of the worst hit states in the country with a total of 114,481 confirmed cases and just over 3,900 deaths due to the virus according to the most recent numbers. The number of cases drastically jumped up once reopening drives began in earnest in June and early July. Bars and restaurants have been hotspots of outbreaks with the mayor of New Orleans, Latoya Cantrell, ordering the re-closure of bars last week after a record-breaking number of cases were reported in the city. Half measures such as the halting of take out alcohol sales were implemented last week, yet mandatory mask rules are sporadically and ineffectively enforced. Thousands of small, independent restaurants across the countryespecially in hospitality-centric economies such those in Louisiana and New Orleansare closing down, putting millions out of work across the country. According to the Independent Restaurant Association some 85 percent of the countrys independent restaurants will be forced to close by the end of the year, forcing millions out of work or clamoring for dangerous fast food service jobs. Millions of food and beverage workers across the country continue to serve drinks and food under conditions where it is impossible to do so safely while adhering to proper COIVD-19 safety protocols. Burger King employees in California walked off the job earlier this month to protest safety violations and the lack of coronavirus protections. The protest followed the July 6 death of a worker in Santa Monica who died with symptoms of coronavirus. Her employer had reportedly brushed off her symptoms and forced her to continue working while sick. The Socialist Equality Party (US) appeals to our supporters in Louisiana to help secure ballot access for our presidential candidate Joseph Kishore and vice-presidential candidate Norissa Santa Cruz in the November general election. The SEP needs eight electors in Louisianaone from each of the states six congressional districts plus two at-largeto sign notarized affidavits stating that they will accept the nomination of the SEPs candidates should the SEP win the state in the general election. We ask all those willing to volunteer to contact the SEP as soon as possible. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 08:58:28|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, July 30 (Xinhua) -- A wildfire breaking out about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the Arizona-Utah state line has scorched almost 3,000 acres (12.1 square km), authorities said Thursday. The blaze, dubbed "Pine Holow Fire," was caused by lightning on Wednesday night and then was fueled by dry grass, brush and woodland. So far there is no report of damage or injuries, but since the scene is not far from the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, the authorities have evacuated a campground nearby and request that tourists suspend their trips to the area. The fire is also threatening prime habitat for the California Condor, the largest North American land bird which nests primarily in caves in cliffs and requires large natural landscapes where they feed and reproduce. The risk of wildfires is rising rapidly across much of the West because of the recent spell of hot and dry weather that has taken hold in many states. On Thursday, from Montana to Southern California, a string of wildfires are burning. Enditem The United States opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has told lawmakers that the United States intends to impose sanctions on firms that continue to help Russia build a natural-gas pipeline to Europe as he sought to dispel concerns about Washington's commitment to halt the controversial project. "We will do everything we can to make sure that that pipeline doesn't threaten Europe," Pompeo told a senate hearing on July 30, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported. Read alsoBipartisan group of U.S. senators introduce legislation to provide support for Ukraine "We want Europe to have real, secure, stable, safe energy resources that cannot be turned off in the event Russia wants to," he added. Pompeo told the panel that the United States has already been in touch with some companies working on Nord Stream 2 about the risks they face if they don't halt their activities. The State Department and Treasury Department "have made very clear in our conversations with those who have equipment there the expressed threat that is posed to them for continuing to work on completion of the pipeline," he said. The United States opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would run under the Baltic Sea and double Russia's direct natural gas exports to Germany while bypassing Ukraine. Washington claims the pipeline would increase Europe's dependence on Russian gas while also hurting Ukraine, which stands to lose billions of dollars in gas-transit fees. Work on the nearly US$11 billion project, which is more than 90 percent complete, was halted in December after the United States passed a law that imposed sanctions on vessels laying the pipeline, forcing Swiss-based AllSeas to pull out. Russian vessels are now seeking to finish the project, but they require help from international companies such as insurers and ports, which Pompeo has now threatened to sanction. Another Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker was found dead in a village in south Bengal on Thursday. Police said they have found a suicide note. This is the second BJP supporter found dead within a span of 24 hours in south Bengal and third in July. All three died in a similar manner, hanging. While in all the three cases the BJP has alleged that the victims were murdered by the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and then their bodies were strung up to pass them off as suicide cases, the latter has refuted the allegations. Bengal is slated to go for polls in May next year, where the BJP, which has emerged as the main opposition in the battleground state following the void created by the dwindling electoral fortunes of the Left Front and the Congress, is vying to unseat the TMCs uninterrupted rule since 2011. On Thursday, Gautam Patra (52), was found hanging from a tree at Ghoramara in South 24 Parganas districts. This is propaganda against us. The TMC is not associated with this (Patras death) in any way, said Bankim Hazra, a TMC lawmaker from the area. On Friday, BJPs state general secretary Sayantan Basu was stopped by the police from proceeding to the East Midnapore district, where local party leader Purnachandra Das was found dead on Wednesday. His body was found hanging from a tree. Again prevented by the police, I am not being allowed to enter the East Midnapore district. My only fault that I am scheduled to meet with the family members of a murdered BJP booth president, tweeted Basu. Police officials said that Basu was stopped because they anticipated that there could be a violation of law and order upon his arrival at the dead party workers residence. Earlier on July 13, Debendra Nath Roy, a BJP lawmaker, was found hanging from the ceiling of a shop at a marketplace in north Bengals Uttar Dinajpur district. While police said he had died by suicide, BJP leaders and family members had alleged that he was murdered by the TMC and had moved the Calcutta high court (HC) demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe. HC turned down the CBI plea. West Bengal Polices Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is investigating legislator Roys death. In early July, BJP leaders had alleged that over 100 party workers have been killed in Bengal over the past three years. In many cases, the workers were found dead and hanging from a tree. Police in most cases found that the victims had died by suicide. A BJP delegation had met President Ram Nath Kovind and Union home minister Amit Shah after Roys body was found in Uttar Dinajpur district. Later, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sent a letter to President Kovind, alleging that the BJP was distorting facts. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) Bangladeshi police said they arrested three suspects in the bombing of a Dhaka police station and denied a claim of responsibility by the Islamic State group, saying the attackers were motivated by criminal intent. Five people, including four police, were injured when a bomb hidden inside a weight machine-like object went off inside the Pallabi police station on Wednesday morning. The Islamic State group claimed credit for the blast in a statement the same day. Three suspected hitmen were arrested Wednesday along with two loaded firearms and another weight machine-like object, said Dhaka Metropolitan Police Additional Commissioner Krishna Pada Roy. Dhaka Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner for Counterterrorism and Transnational Crime Saiful Islam denied any links between the Islamic State group and the blast. IS made this kind of false claim in the past, too. This is also part of that process," he said. As per the information available so far, criminal intentions were behind the blast and were investigating the incident. He also described as baseless claims made by U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Groups founder Rita Katz. Katz, in the tweet Wednesday, said the blast marked the first attack in Dhaka since last August and was part of a campaign in the lead-up to the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. The IS has claimed similar attacks on police in the past. Authorities do not publicly reveal the results of their investigations. Bangladesh has a history of attacks by radical groups. It experienced a rise in Islamic militancy in recent years, with groups targeting atheist bloggers, publishers and writers, members of minority groups and foreigners. On July 1, 2016, five militants took hostages and opened fire in a Dhaka cafe, killing more than 20 people, mostly foreigners. Seven members of a banned militant group were sentenced to death for the attack last year. The government had also rejected the IS claim of responsibility. __ Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report. NEW YORKThere is perhaps nothing more painful than the forced separation of two people who are truly in loveno matter how legitimate the reason for that separation. This topical subject is brilliantly handled by On Site Opera, which taps into these feelings with the world premiere of To My Distant Love. Presenting the work in connection with the 250th anniversary of Beethovens birth, On Site Opera is billing it as the worlds first telephone-based opera experience. Each performance is presented for an audience of one. This immersive undertaking presents its story via the Beethoven song cycle An die ferne Geliebte, with the song text by Alois Isidor Jeitteles. Beethoven based the cycle on a collection of poems by Jeitteles published in 1815. Using the premise of separated lovers as the starting pointin fact, the English translation of An die ferne Geliebte is To the Distant Belovedthe production requires all those who have purchased tickets for a performance to become an integral part of this equation. Soprano Jennifer Zetlan is one of two performers who might serenade you with Beethovenby phone! (On Site Opera) At a prearranged time, the performers, either soprano Jennifer Zetlan or baritone Mario Diaz-Moresco, telephone the audience member in the persona of an absent romantic love. The beloved is currently separated from the audience member by a great distance. Zetlan or Diaz-Moresco will then serenade the listener with the six songs that make up the cycle. Ms. Zetlan and Mr. Diaz-Moresco are accompanied in this endeavor by, respectively, pianists David Shimoni and Spencer Myer. Baritone Mario Diaz-Moresco. (On Site Opera) So as to better prepare those participating, each person receiving a call is first provided a bit of background via email. This message gives the recipient an idea of how to respond to specific questions he or she may be askedquestions such as where he or she is right now (that is, a park bench, a chair by the window), a favorite place the two lovers shared, the happiest time they spent together, and so on. While the actual songs are all sung in German, English lyrics are also provided prior to the call for those who want to follow along. Strongly deliveredI experienced Diaz-Morescos performance accompanied by Myerthe entire work is both stirring and lyrical. A common theme that runs throughout is the yearning to be with the one we love, as well as the need to sometimes seek respite from the world and its travails. Indeed, its not hard to feel swept away in a torrent of emotion as the power and passion of the songs come through. Pianist David Shimoni. (On Site Opera) At the same time, one cant help but feel a mournful quality to the music as it conjures up images of the power of the human heart. Specifically, it has the capacity for experiencing the pain and longing caused by separation, but at the same time its buoyed by the unyielding certainty that the heartache will eventually pass, and those currently apart will someday be together once more. On Site Opera has come up with a winning premise here. The current COVID situation has forced theaters to rethink how to present performances that will attract audiences and draw them into the story. Credit must also go to the performers for managing to keep the songs, music, and the emotions completely fresh, despite the fact theyve presented these songs numerous times before and are scheduled to do so for many times to come before the production winds up. The only downside to the entire experience is that, due to the way the work is structured, and unless one is fluent in German, it is sometimes had to tell where one specific song ends and the next begins. Pianist Spencer Myer. (On Site Opera) Also, the verbal interplay between the performer and the listener does not take place after every song. Director Eric Einhorn, as well as playwright Monet Hurst-Mendoza, who provides additional English dialogue for the piece, might want to look at this issue before future iterations of this presentation. Both grandly sweeping and intensely personal, To My Distant Love taps into the universal pain of separation, and the need we all have to be with the one we love. All in all, it makes for quite an impressive undertaking. To My Distant Love Presented by On Site Opera Tickets: OSOpera.org Running Time: 20 minutes Closes: Aug. 23 Judd Hollander is a reviewer for stagebuzz.com and a member of the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle. Technologys network effects the fact that every user added to one of these platforms makes it more valuable to all the other users have given these firms something close to a natural monopoly over their markets. Now, it is not true, as some conservatives have suggested, that the banning of certain views by a tech giant represents the same magnitude of threat as the banning of certain views by government. Nor is it true that Amazons dominant share of e-commerce, more than a third of the total market, means it can jack up prices on consumers with impunity, as Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) implied regarding Amazons acquisition of Diapers.com. Conservative views are still readily available on the Internet, and Walmart still exists, so if Amazon raises prices too much, its customers can just get in their cars. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared before the parliament finance committee July 30, testifying about his relationship to the WE Charity, the organization once tasked with delivering the government's student grant program. Here are Trudeau's prepared remarks: Were plunged into the deepest crisis of our generation. Still today, people are falling ill and too many of us are still dying from COVID-19. Families are still grieving. Theyre losing their jobs and theyre going through very tough times. Our government had to take action. Our country is facing a contagious and deadly virus and everyones behaviour and choices allows us to protect everyones health. All Canadians had to take measures to limit the spread of this virus. We had to make important sacrifices. People had to be able to count on their government. We couldnt ask people to stay home and to not go to work without giving them confidence that we would help them to pay their rent, their mortgage, or their groceries. We knew that it would be better to take action quickly and decisively, that we would make errors along the way. If we acted slowly, trying to avoid errors, it would have been worse than doing nothing at all. With this pandemic and this economic crisis, our government had to show creativity and flexibility. We couldnt hesitate or be limited by current ways of doing things. Obviously this pandemic is not over, but the actions taken by our government to help protect Canadians are still in place. Throughout this crisis, Canadians have been extraordinary. Canada is resuming its economy and our economy is recovering. Weve seen the beginning of what could be a second wave, however, earlier this week. We said that we have to remain vigilant. This pandemic presents several challenges for students. Minister (Bardish) Chagger discussed these challenges and what our government did to remedy these issues with the committee. We put forward a $9 billion plan to help students get through this difficult time. We published a moratorium on the refunding of student loans, increased the number of student summer jobs, and introduced a service for students, giving students up to $1,500 per month. The Canadian Student Service Grant was also part of this plan. When we created the program, we had three objectives in mind. First, we wanted to encourage students to get involved in their communities during this crisis. Second, we wanted to help, not for profit organizations to fill their missions and to support Canadians in difficulty. And third, we wanted to help students who volunteer to receive financial compensation as a recognition for their service. From the onset, we knew that time was of the essence. After all, even the best program imaginable wouldnt make any difference if it couldnt be delivered this summer. We had to quickly connect the thousands of students who wanted to volunteer with the many community organizations that needed an extra hand because of the pandemic. At first, wed hoped to use the Canada Service Corps. The Canada Service Corps was created in 2018 to encourage young people to serve and connect them to opportunities in communities across the country. By developing networks, creating partnerships with existing organizations, and offering micro-grants, the plan had always been to scale up the program over the coming years to ensure many thousands of young people would serve their communities and their country every year. When the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) was initially conceived, I expected that the Canada Service Corps would help deliver the program. The Service Corps is an important and long standing part of our national youth strategy. I knew that making it responsible for the CSSG would accelerate its development. Ultimately, however, the public service concluded delivering the CSSG required a third-party partner external to government, and that We Charity should act as that service provider. I first learned that We Charity was being proposed to deliver the program on May 8, when the CSSG was to go before full cabinet. Until that date, I have not spoken at all with my staff about We Charity in relation to the CSSG. In fact, as of May 8, my expectation was still that a super recharged version of the Canada Service Corps would likely deliver the program. From my perspective, We Charity hadnt come up. As you know, by May 8, the public service had already concluded that We Charity was the best option to deliver this program. They had formally recommended it. The CSSG, including the recommendation that We Charity be used, had already gone through the COVID committee of cabinet on May 5. I was not involved in either of those steps. On May 8, I received a briefing before the cabinet meeting, where I learned for the first time that We Charity had been recommended as a partner and was on the cabinet agenda. I asked why the plan didnt involve the Canada Service Corps. We were told that the Canada Service Corps wouldnt be able to scale up to deliver the program in time. This was disappointing, but ultimately not surprising to me, given my understanding of the state of the Canada Service Corps development and other demands facing the public service at the time. Of course, policy staff in my office had been working with the Privy Council Office and other departments. They knew that We Charity was under consideration. However, I never spoke with my staff about We Charity or its proposed involvement in administering this program until May 8. I also never spoke to Craig or Marc Kielburger, or anyone at We Charity about the CSSG. Did not speak to either of them at all during this period. As it became apparent to me, my chief of staff, Katie Telford, also didnt know until the briefing on May 8, that We Charity was being proposed. My chief of staff and I were finding out about this important part of the proposal only hours before the cabinet meeting. Even given the rapid pace of work during the crisis, this was not the way things were supposed to go. We learned that there had been tough questions asked about the CSSG proposal and We Charity during the COVID committee a few days early. We both felt that we needed more time before this item was presented to cabinet. Time to consider and understand the reasons behind the proposal that We Charity deliver the program. On that issue, we had several questions that we wanted answered, particularly given my specific expertise in youth issues. During the pandemic government was working very hard and very quickly. We still are. It was not uncommon for me to be briefed on something relatively close in time to the cabinet meeting. Here, however, given the scale of the program, the questions that had been raised, and my own commitment to youth issues, we needed more time. As well, we both knew that We Charity was known to be connected to people in our government, including myself, as I had spoken at their events in the past. So we knew that the selection of We Charity would be closely scrutinized. We wanted to make sure that the process and decision were the best possible in the circumstances. I decided to pull the CSSG proposal from the cabinet agenda for May 8, so that further work could be done. This wasnt an easy decision. We knew the urgency. By the end of April, many university students had finished their exams. We were already a week into May, but we pulled the item from the agenda so that we could be confident we were doing the right thing the right way. My primary concern was to make sure that the public service could fully support its recommendation that without a doubt, We Charity was the right, and indeed the only, partner to deliver the program. I has briefed again on May 21, and the public service told me that they had done the due diligence wed asked for, and that they were confident in the recommendation. In effect, they said that if we wanted this program to happen, it could only be with We Charity. The choice was not between providers. It was between going ahead with We Charity to deliver the program or not going ahead with the program at all. Given the public service advice, I was comfortable that the CSSG could now be presented to cabinet. On May 22, Minister Chagger presented the program to cabinet and cabinet approved it. After cabinet approved the CSSG, the next step was to approve its funding. Here, the briefing note from policy staff in my office recommended imposing an additional oversight measure in the dispersal of the approved funding. I agreed with that recommendation and directed that, before additional tranches of funding were released, Minister Chagger would have to write to the President of the Treasury Board to provide an update on the CSSG. When cabinet approved the CSSG, obviously I knew that I had spoken at various We Charity events. Id never been paid to do so. I was also aware that my wife had an unpaid role as a We Charity ambassador and ally. I knew she appeared at We Charity events and that when she travelled to get to an event, We Charity covered her related expenses. I also know that Sophie had recently launched a podcast on mental wellness in conjunction with We Charity. The ethics commissioner had approved this role, including We Charity covering her expenses. I also knew that my brother and mother had worked with We Charity, as with other organizations. However, I did not know how much work either of them had done with We Charity or how much theyve been paid. These were things that I would only learn after the program launched publicly. That said, sometimes recusing oneself can be the right thing to do, even if its not required. Here, my mothers connection to We Charity and the other connections in my family could lead some people to wonder whether those connections had played some role in the decision to select We Charity. That, of course, was not the case. We Charity received no preferential treatment, not from me, not from anyone else. The public service recommended We Charity and I had absolutely nothing to influence that recommendation. I didnt even know it had been made until May 8. And when I learned that We Charity was recommended, I pushed back. I wanted to be satisfied that the proposal that We Charity deliver the CSSG had been properly scrutinized. We Charity didnt receive favourable treatment from myself, from anyone else. The public service recommended We Charity, and I did absolutely nothing to influence this recommendation. I didnt even know that the recommendation had been made before May 8. When I learned that We Charity was being recommended, I had questions and I wanted to be sure that the proposal to call on We Charity was examined in depth. As I said, I should have recused myself from this decision to avoid any appearance of favouritism. I know that appearances can harm a good program, and of course, thats exactly what happened here. Its truly unfortunate, especially because this program could have been very significant for students in our communities. To conclude, neither myself, nor my staff, tried to influence or dictate the recommendation issued by the public service concerning We Charity. To conclude, there was never any direction by, or attempt to influence, from me or my staff that the public service recommend We Charity. Getting young people to serve has been a goal of mine well before I ever got into politics. So I deeply regret how this has unfolded. Its now July 30, our government is delivering an up-to-$9-billion aid package for students. Unfortunately, the grant for volunteer service is unlikely to be part of the package this summer. That is something that I regret. Im pleased now to take any of your questions. During a time in which COVID-19 is a greater threat in Manitoba than it was when schools initially closed due to the pandemic, the province is ushering youths back to the classroom. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. During a time in which COVID-19 is a greater threat in Manitoba than it was when schools initially closed due to the pandemic, the province is ushering youths back to the classroom. On the day schools closed March 23 there were 18 active cases in Manitoba. There were 76 active cases on Thursday, when the province announced their school-reopening plan. Much has changed between these two dates, and we now know a lot more about COVID-19. We know that approximately half of coronavirus cases are asymptomatic, according to a lab testing in Iceland. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated this number to be approximately 35 per cent, while 80 per cent of those infected on a cruise ship showed no symptoms. We also know that the virus spreads much more readily indoors and that mask use drastically cuts down on its spread. During the pandemics early days, Canadas chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, actually advised against the wearing of masks, but she has since changed her tune as more information came forward. None of this new knowledge points to now as being an ideal time for schools to reopen, nor does it indicate the provinces approach goes far enough to mitigate the viruss spread. Despite what we know about the importance of masks, for example, their use will not be mandatory in Manitoba schools. The Manitoba NDP offered an alternative back-to-school strategy this week, proposing a $26-million investment with the federal government that calls for 400 additional teachers to be hired to accommodate smaller class sizes of 15 students, the purchase of PPE, cleaning supplies and other supports. While the governments current plan includes greater reliance on remote learning for high schoolers, the province has imposed no limits on class sizes. At the same time, its worth noting that elementary schools will be broken up into 75-person cohorts (groups that might come into contact). Various other restrictions and safety measures will be thrown into the mix, but lets face it: few young kids will give a hoot about social distancing when theyre in the company of friends they havent seen in a while. As any perpetually sick parent will tell you, youngsters are hands-on socializers. Manitobas attitude regarding schools reopening is rather lax compared to some other jurisdictions. According to the news website Vox, students in New South Wales, a territory in Australia, are returning to class one day per week and continue learning online for the balance of the time. Vietnamese students are wearing masks and returning to classrooms only after passing daily mandatory temperature checks at their schools entrances. To our west, Saskatchewans plan remains in the air, and to our east, Ontarios plan is stricter than ours, with non-medical masks mandatory for students from grades 4 to 12 and students and school staff given medical-grade masks. Israel offers a cautionary tale, in that schools reopened May 17 after reporting only 10 new cases that day. They now see approximately 1,500 per day. Its difficult to point the blame at any one cause, but this example goes to show how easily things can turn around for the worse. At the same time, officials in Quebec are calling their return-to-school plan a success. Approximately half of public school students returned to class on June 5, with students up to Grade 10 placed in bubbles of up to six children who didnt have to maintain social distancing. They reported 53 students and teachers were diagnosed with COVID-19, but that the majority of these cases occurred outside the classroom. Its difficult to say what the winning solution will be, and sadly, we probably wont know until its too late for those who employ the losing plan. Its all about weighing pros and cons, though wed argue that if the province has millions to throw around to show appreciation for front-line workers and $45 million to shore up votes by handing $200 cheques to seniors, they should have had the funds to cover the Manitoba NDPs $26-million plan, which would better set us up for success. As the number of infected people continues to rise on a daily basis, we cant help but wonder whether reopening our schools will usher in a dreaded spike perhaps even a second wave. A little more caution and investment in the governments reopening plan would help put us at a little more ease. Sky-high livestock prices may breach competition law The Ministry of Industry and Trade wants to see stabilisation of the selling price of live pigs in order to avoid unfair competition. At a recent seminar on the situation, Cao Xuan Quang, head of the Consumer Protection Division at the Vietnam Competition and Consumer Protection Authority (VCCA), stated that the hike in pork prices has created difficulties for consumers. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the competition agency of Vietnam has already drawn attention to the issue, and the VCCA is gathering information to learn about the collective increase of the price offered by husbandry companies across the country. Although the high price of pork was previously attributed in part to African swine fever, there has been increasing scepticism that some companies have been taking advantage of their dominant position to exploit consumers by charging irrationally high prices for live hogs. It suggests a potential breach of Article 27 under Vietnams Law on Competition. The total number of pigs slaughtered by the 15 largest enterprises accounts for 35-40 per cent of the total supply, while the rest comes from local farms and households. Pursuant to the Law on Competition, an enterprise is deemed to hold a dominant market position when it has substantial market power or has 30 per cent or more of the market share in the relevant market. The substantial market, known as the ability of a company to raise price profitably above the competitive level, is determined by a variety of factors, including market shares in the relevant market; financial strength and size; barriers to market entry and expansion to other enterprises; ability to obtain, assess, and control the goods distribution and consumption market or sources of supply; advantages in technology and technical infrastructure; right to own, obtain, and assess infrastructure; right to own or use subject matters of intellectual property; and ability to transfer to other sources of supply or demand associated with other goods and related services. A breach of Article 27 of the Law on Competition by engaging in prohibited acts of abuse of dominant position would see the violator given a fine ranging from 1 to 10 per cent of their total turnover earned from the relevant market in the financial year preceding the year in which the violation is committed. In addition, the profits illegally obtained from the violation of the enterprise engaged in the prohibited conduct also may be confiscated. The company that abuses its dominant position may also be forced to carry out restructuring. Violators of the Law on Competition, depending on the nature and seriousness of the violation, can be prosecuted for criminal liability. Under the Penal Code, criminal penalties in the field of competition include fines of up to VND3 billion ($130,000) and a term of imprisonment of up to five years. Additionally, if loss or damage is caused to other parties, compensation must be paid. Bhutan's King Jigme Khesar has written to Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, thanking him for allowing movement of vehicles carrying essential commodities to the neighbouring country amid the and ensuring the wellbeing of the people. The king termed the gesture as a true reflection of the friendship and brotherhood between the people of and Bhutan, according to a statement issued by the state government on Friday. Though and its people fought hard to contain the pandemic with necessary and curtailment of peoples movement, the benevolence of the authorities of Assam in allowing movement of vehicles carrying essential commodities to helped its people and ensured their wellbeing during the period," he said in the letter. I remain appreciative of your goodwill and look forward to your continued support," he added. The king also said the efforts of the Assam government would very soon stem the spread of the as he empathised with the people of the state in these trying times. Sonowal on behalf of the people of Assam expressed his gratitude to the king. He said the ever-increasing bond of friendship and brotherliness between Assam and will keep strengthening the mutual ties in days to come. (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.) (Alliance News) - Pharmaceutical firms Sanofi SA and GlaxoSmithKline PLC are to receive up to USD2.1 billion from the US government for the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, the companies said Friday, as the world continues to be ravaged by the coronavirus epidemic. The US had identified a vaccine candidate under investigation by Sanofi and GSK for its 'Operation Warp Speed', which aims to speedily secure millions of doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine will combine a Sanofi-developed antigen, which stimulates the production of germ-killing antibodies, with GSK's adjuvant technology, a substance that bolsters the immune response triggered by a vaccine, they said in a statement. The American money, they added, will "help fund the development activities and secure scale-up of Sanofi's and GSK's manufacturing capabilities in the US for the recombinant protein-based, adjuvanted vaccine, resulting in a significant increase in capacity." In April, Sanofi and GSK announced they were joining forces on a COVID-19 vaccine they hoped to have in clinical trials this year, potentially making it available in the second half of 2021. On Friday, they said there were also discussions with the European Commission and other governments "to ensure global access to a novel coronavirus vaccine." Alex Azar of the US Department of Health & Human Services said the portfolio of vaccines being assembled under Operation Warp Speed "increases the odds that we will have at least one safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year." "Today's investment supports the Sanofi and GSK adjuvanted product all the way through clinical trials and manufacturing, with the potential to bring hundreds of millions of safe and effective doses to the American people," the statement quoted him as saying.A "The global need for a vaccine to help prevent COVID-19 is massive, and no single vaccine or company will be able to meet the global demand alone," added Thomas Triomphe, the head of Sanofi Pasteur, the company's vaccine division. The US Pentagon on Thursday had announced a USD342 million contract has been awarded to GSK to deliver "mass quantities of Covid-19 vaccines" to US troops. It said GSK was the only company to make a bid for the contract, which will consist of supporting "military locations and personnel throughout the continental US and outside the continental US." The work will be carried out in North Carolina "with an estimated completion date of February 28, 2021," the Pentagon said. source: AFP Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. Two weeks ago, former Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon set off a political storm, after accusing the majority of members of Colombias Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of having an ideological affinity or ties to armed groups, without offering any evidence. His suggestion that commissioners are in cahoots with illegal groups sparked widespread outrage, which didnt subside even after he met with the TRCs president, Father Francisco de Roux, but then penned an open letter doubling down on his claim. In many ways, Pinzon who heads a policy institute created by prominent business leaders is an improbable critic. He worked for 12 years with former President Juan Manuel Santos, who signed the 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that created the TRC, as his chief of staff, Defence minister and ambassador in Washington. Since running as a presidential candidate in 2018, he distanced himself from his mentor, even assuring hed secretly voted No in the 2016 plebiscite on the accord after campaigning for it. His unsubstantiated accusation, however, obscured a more significant critique: Pinzon also ventured that TRC members have a left-wing political bias aligned with one of the sides which wants its version of events to become a unique truth, in his words and suggested the three institutions in Colombias transitional justice system should add new members to widen their credibility. That perception underscores one of the TRCs most pressing challenges: it must still gain the trust of sectors of Colombian society that have been sceptical of its work, including business leaders, conservative politicians, religious figures and the military. While it has made inroads with most, it has noticeably struggled with the private sector. Business leaders in the blind spot of the TRC Although most business leaders and industry trade groups shy away from Pinzons rhetoric, in private many of them share his perception of a political bias at the TRC. A 2017 tweet by commissioner Lucia Gonzalez, celebrating that FARC created their political party and stating that she shared their principles, was resurrected and inflamed things further. Its a problem they had from the outset. The TRCs public selection process led by a former and a current UN special rapporteur yielded a diverse group of commissioners, including an Afro-Colombian community organiser, an indigenous lawyer, a retired Army major, an investigative journalist, a museum director, a feminist researcher, a public health expert and a psychologist whose work has centred on victims. At its helm is Father de Roux, a Jesuit priest with a Ph.D. in economics who led a successful regional peace-building experiment. Their backgrounds, more oriented towards on-the-ground work than academic research, has been well suited for a victim-centred approach to truth-seeking on how Colombias 52-year-long armed conflict affected the 20 population groups pinpointed in the TRCs mandate. But it hasnt helped with three specific groups also prioritised farmers, cattle ranchers and business leaders. Their distance has been mutual: no commissioner has a private sector background, but also no significant business leaders applied in the public selection process. An opportunity to bridge that gap emerged when the TRC elected a new commissioner this April, after writer Alfredo Molano died in late 2019. However, once again no candidates with private-sector backgrounds came forward and Alejandro Castillejo, an anthropologist who worked in Perus TRC and studied the South African transition, was chosen. Business leaders have stressed that thousands of entrepreneurs were victims of extortion, kidnapping or murder, while hundreds of companies were pillaged, forced to shut down or simply operated in regions where there was no state presence, a reality they consider Colombians have failed to acknowledge. On the other hand, human rights groups denounce that companies and businessmen voluntarily funded or advised groups like the paramilitaries, something the private sector has been reluctant to admit even though at least one US banana-exporting giant Chiquita pleaded guilty to making payoffs. There are also numerous grey areas, such as distinguishing between extortion and financing terrorism. Without frank conversations about such issues, it will be difficult for a more complex narrative about the private sector during conflict to emerge. Timid outreach efforts The TRC has tried to make up for this limitation in a number of ways. It invited Henry Eder, head of a major sugar manufacturer and son of one of FARCs earliest kidnapping and murder victims, as one of the speakers during its inauguration in November 2018. It included David Bojanini, until recently the CEO of Colombias largest insurance company and a widely respected civic voice, in its advisory council. Both he and Gonzalo Restrepo, another former CEO who was part of the peace negotiating team, have facilitated meetings with prominent private sector leaders. In general, the commission has relied on its president Father de Roux to speak to businessmen, given his past experience in mediation. As an example, he helped create a 12-person group including a former mining minister, a CEO, an environmental scientist and Afro-Colombian and indigenous leaders that came up with a proposed roadmap for national public policy on mining. The TRC has held dozens of private meetings with private sector leaders and published a booklet specifically tailored to them, explaining the nature of its work combining an in-depth report and public hearings seeking to enable collective catharsis over mass atrocities. But as the commission just reached the midpoint of its three-year term, breakthroughs have been timid at best and trust between both runs low. Different outreach efforts have hit all sorts of snags. The TRC has in general prioritised reaching out to trade industry guilds as a way to then access individual business owners, but meetings have often been awkward and usually involve corporate responsibility directors or mid-level managers instead of their heads. Speaking about non-recurrence creates the impression that we did something wrong or We need guarantees are common lines of conversation when asked to sit down with the TRC. Mutual distrust and low interest Meetings have been even tenser when lawyers have been present. They have often asked TRC officials if there is any incriminating information against their clients and mentioned non-disclosure agreements as preconditions. When companies send their lawyers first, you immediately lose the opportunity to have a meaningful conversation, says an outside observer who has tried to help bridge that gap and who was granted anonymity for this story to discuss the issue candidly. Most efforts havent been successful. Several persons with direct knowledge of the problem say that the TRCs decision to channel efforts through industry trade groups was a mistake, since they often adopt defensive stances to protect members interests, while others contend that the organs lack of internal coordination has also put them off. One large company even complained that two commissioners knocked on their door separately with differing messages. An executive who attended a public hearing on the alarming rise in violence against human rights defenders, which the TRC convened to raise awareness, was initially concerned that his invitation as a witness could mean he was being summoned. Given this mutual mistrust, several civic and business-minded organisations began discussing how to help the commission and the private sector come together. Their informal working group rapidly was joined by the ANDI, Colombias most powerful business association, and then by the TRC itself. They met with Oxford scholar Leigh Payne, who has worked extensively on the issue. But after a year of discussions their only breakthrough was a methodological protocol, which hasnt translated into a more fluid relation. Talking about the private sector with the TRC has been incredibly difficult and talking with business leaders about the commission has been just as complicated. But even that procedural document could have led to something else if there was more willingness from both sides, says another person who has tried to act, in her own words, as a simultaneous translator between both. In the end, the TRC has been more successful in reaching small business owners and cattle ranchers in rural areas, who dont feel as identified with national guilds and who are more concerned about reconciliation on a local level. Distrust in NGO reports In total, the TRC has received 204 reports and spoken to 17.475 persons. But most business leaders fear that the TRC is close to human rights and victims NGOs, many of which have named and shamed companies in the past. Their perception is compounded by the fact that a majority of the commissions researchers come from academia or social organisations. The TRC has insisted that every report it receives remains confidential, doesnt represent its view and will be thoroughly corroborated and verified. But some NGOs have released their reports anyways. In May, several businessmen expressed their dismay after a newspaper published details from a report by the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective on companies and the conflict, right after submitting it. Meanwhile, organisations with ties to the business world have tried to persuade its leaders that they should focus on providing their view of events, instead of shying away from it. A research effort by Ideas for Peace Foundation, Colombias leading think tank on peace and security issues, concluded that, after analysing 56 reports from national and international NGOs from the previous decade, at least 81 companies, primarily in the agribusiness and extractive industries, had been mentioned in relation to human, labour and environmental rights violations vis-a-vis the conflict. That reality warranted, they argued, that companies and industry groups begin seeing the importance of speaking to the TRC. Business leaders still fear that human rights NGOs might play a more influential role than simply providing information. An agreement between the TRC and Dutch NGO Pax for Peace to provide technical and financial support is seen by some executives as a sign of bias, given that the latter authored a searing report linking two coal mining companies with the paramilitaries. In an exercise like the TRCs of fostering dialogue amongst opposites, which begins building trust in order to then reach consensus, having an activist organisation like Pax as an ally does more to raise alarms than to soothe, says a former executive from the mining sector. Justice is what companies fear most It wasnt truth that originally worried the private sector, but justice. Most of their discussions on transitional justice centred on its judicial arm, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), and the possible implications of being summoned as third party actors who aided or abetted armed groups, two persons who regularly discussed these issues with business leaders coincide. Those fears were allayed in 2018 when the Constitutional Court overruled this in part, barring the tribunal from subpoenaing civilians but allowing them to voluntarily seek admission. Once that concern dissipated, many began to fret about the TRCs extra-judicial truth-seeking efforts. They dont have any incentives to come forward, but two main fears: reputational risk and possible legal consequences in the future, even if information gathered by the TRC cannot be used in court. Theyre like skittish deer. Merely suggesting that someone could question their reputation terrifies them and nothing scares them as much as transitional justice, says a person who has worked with them. Political divisiveness stoked fears of a witch hunt even more. A disinformation campaign in the run-up to the 2016 peace plebiscite contended that the JEP would have jurisdiction to analyse the corporate responsibility of 57 companies mentioned during the proceedings of the Justice and Peace special court for the former paramilitaries over a decade ago. Although disproven, this campaign is still mentioned in business circles, two sources agree. Several informal advisors have also lobbied the TRC to adopt a more comprehensive and nuanced view on the private sector. Ive seen the conversation change from how to get businessmen to acknowledge responsibilities to how to incorporate their perspective about what happened in Colombia. And how that doesnt exclude seeking a number of private actors who do have to address certain events, says one of them. One result of those conversations has been the TRCs decision to promote a research area on good practices to prevent and mitigate human rights violations, as part of its mandate a first in the world for truth commissions to document positive transformations as well. That could give companies and executives the opportunity to share other types of experiences. A report commissioned and then shelved At least one major industry group, the ANDI, decided that business leaders had to submit a report too, after a group of Guatemalan industrialists advised it to play an active role in the transition and make sure their voice wasnt left out of the TRCs final report. In 2017, they commissioned Jorge Giraldo Ramirez, Gloria Isabel Ocampo and Gustavo Duncan, three researchers at Eafit University whose academic work is respected across the political spectrum, to document the private sectors experience over a 30-year-period. The university announced that its findings would be published in book-form and that Usaid had provided funding. Then something odd happened. After the researchers presented their work to the ANDI in 2018, its board of directors blocked its publication and submission to the TRC. There is no clear explanation on the reasoning for their decision. One of the authors declined to discuss the issue and ANDI president Bruce MacMaster likewise did not respond to our questions. Three persons with knowledge of the report attribute its shelving to clashing visions among business leaders regarding the peace deal. These leaders want the TRC car to move forward, but with its handbrake on, says a former oil executive. The business world is still fractured: one part still supports the peace deal, a second one opposes it and a third one turns wherever the tide is stronger, which means they switched from backing the accord to being critical of it now [that Ivan Duque, a critic of the deal, is president]. In the end, the long-held tradition of toeing the governments line prevails, another observer says. Oil palm growers: a year-long prologue to talk The TRC is still in conversations with a number of business groups, although progress has been very slow. Since mid-2019, it has been meeting with Fedepalma to discuss how to listen to oil palm growers experiences. They had reached preliminary agreements on what those listening spaces could be, including a report, a public act to hear their testimonies and private meetings to discuss some issues at length with commissioners. In February conversations suddenly broke down. After several NGO presented a report on land dispossession in Colombias eastern plains and included a photo of a palm plantation in its poster, where the commissions logo appeared as a sponsor, Fedepalma sent the commission a stern letter. It took another letter from TRC president De Roux, which was well received by the industry group, to reassure them, but the impasse set their discussions back a couple of months. Oil palm growers are one of the five economic sectors that the TRC recently decided to prioritise, given their work in the rural areas most heavily hit by violence. It has also advanced in preliminary talks with Augura, the largest banana exporter guild. Talks with Fedegan, which groups cattle ranchers, have not advanced beyond an initial meeting in 2019 in which its president Jose Felix Lafaurie a vocal critic of the TRC handed their two published reports on how affiliates endured kidnapping, extortion and cattle theft by groups like FARC over decades. None of their presidents answered to Justice Infos questions. Finally, the embassies of Switzerland, Sweden and the Netherlands have been trying to facilitate dialogues with several companies, including mining ones, but their good offices have so far not had much success given that, as one observer puts it, diplomats can only do so much. Two significant business voices have come closer to the TRC in recent days. State oil giant Ecopetrol, Colombias largest company, and the Colombian Petroleum Association participated on July 30, 2020 in the presentation of a report made by the Ideas for Peace Foundation detailing how their sector was affected during conflict, including an account of the 1.563 attacks just against the Cano Limon Covenas pipeline between 1985 and this year. According to the report, there were more than 3,600 attacks on oil infrastructure during the armed conflict. These delays mean that the clock is ticking against the TRC, whose mandate ends in November 2021. But also for businessmen, if they heed the advice that if they dont speak, others will in their place. Whether both can find a common ground will help determine what chances the transitional justice system has of fostering reconciliation among Colombians. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 10:37:19|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close TRIPOLI, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The National Center for Disease Control of Libya on Thursday reported a record daily increase of 216 COVID-19 cases as the national tally climbed to more than 3,400. A total of 3,438 cases have so far been reported with 604 recoveries and 73 deaths, the center said. The Health Ministry said Tuesday that the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in the country and it is difficult to prevent local transmission. "All of Libya's municipalities have officially moved from level 3 to level 4 of the pandemic, which means it has become difficult to track suspected cases, as the number of positive cases increases," the ministry said in a statement. In order to fight the pandemic, Libyan authorities have closed the country's borders, shut down schools and mosques, banned public gatherings and imposed a curfew. The UN-backed government on Thursday imposed a 24-hour curfew in the country for five days starting from Friday afternoon. Enditem G hislaine Maxwell has filed an emergency appeal to block the release of a deposition on her sex life, saying it could destroy her ability to get a fair trial. The longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein filed the request one day after a US judge rejected her claim that her need for confidentiality outweighed the public's right to see the April 2016 document. It is scheduled for release on August 3 unless the appeals court orders a stay or requests further arguments. Maxwell, 58, has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls from 1994 to 1997, and committing perjury by denying her involvement under oath. Epstein with Maxwell in 2005 / Getty Images The deposition was taken in a now-settled civil defamation lawsuit against the British socialite by Virginia Giuffre, who accused Epstein of having kept her as a "sex slave" with Maxwell's assistance. It is among more than 80 documents that US District Judge Loretta Preska ordered released from that case. Maxwell's lawyers have accused Ms Giuffre of leaking the deposition, and "in conjunction with the government" setting a "perjury trap" for their client. They said Maxwell had been promised confidentiality before being forced to answer many "personal, sensitive, and allegedly incriminatory questions," only to be sandbagged when prosecutors quoted from the deposition in her indictment. Maxwell was arrested on July 2 at a New Hampshire home where prosecutors said she was hiding out. She was denied bail and is being held in a Brooklyn jail after the judge overseeing her criminal case called her a flight risk. "The government has indicted Ghislaine Maxwell. The media has all but convicted her," Maxwell's lawyers said. "All Ms Maxwell is asking is that this court have a fair opportunity to review the merits of the district court's decision before the deposition material is unsealed for all time." Epstein was found hanged at age 66 last August in a Manhattan jail, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges for abusing women and girls in Manhattan and Florida from 2002 to 2005. He had pleaded not guilty. A protest group called Hot Mess hold up signs of Jeffrey Epstein in front of the dederal courthouse in New York City on July 8, 2019. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images) FBI Chain of Command Blocked Reopening of Epstein Case in 2011, Victim Claimed Special Agent Jason Richards wanted to reopen the case against convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein nearly a decade ago but gave up due to pressure from his management at the FBI, according to the testimony of Virginia Giuffre, one of Epsteins alleged victims. In a deposition conducted on May 3, 2016, Giuffre said that Richards wanted to reopen the investigation into Epstein, but could not because his hands were tied by people up above the chain of command. He wanted to reopen the case. And the last conversation that I had with him, I cant remember when it was, he said that he was having trouble doing it from the people above him, Giuffre said. At the relevant time, Richards served as a special agent with the FBI in Washington, but it is unclear if he worked at the field office or at the headquarters. The FBI and Richards did not respond to requests for comment. Giuffres deposition was released as part of an unsealing of hundreds of pages of documents in her defamation case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epsteins one-time girlfriend. Maxwell was arrested earlier this month and is in jail in New York awaiting trial on child-sex-trafficking charges. Giuffre has claimed that Maxwell recruited her and groomed her for sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein. Giuffre has claimed that Maxwell and Epstein subsequently trafficked her to powerful politicians and business people, including Prince Andrew. Maxwell has denied the allegations against her. Giuffre reconnected with special agent Richards via email in 2014, asking if he could provide evidence the FBI collected in its case against Epstein to aid in another lawsuit. Richards responded by recommending Giuffre file a Freedom of Information Act request. Maxwells arrest drew international attention because she was allegedly directly involved in Epsteins child trafficking enterprise. Epstein and Maxwell were connected to some of the most prominent politicians, celebrities, and businesspeople in the world. One of the newly released records shows Giuffre telling an attorney litigating a separate case against Epstein that former president Bill Clinton owed Epstein a favor. According to Giuffre, Epstein spoke of the favor in a joking manner in response to her question why Clinton was on Epsteins island. Giuffre said the former president stayed in one of the villas on the island at the time that she and two girls from New York were also on the Island. Giuffre had previously said she saw Clinton on the island but did not witness any misconduct by the former president. Clinton, through an attorney, had repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Clintons spokesman, Angel Urena, pointed reporters to a statement on the matter from 2019. Hes not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epsteins ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida, the statement said. The former president, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, had previously denied being on Epsteins island, but admitted that he flew on Epsteins plane, infamously nicknamed the Lolita Express. Giuffre said that sexual acts were a regular occurrence on the island and on the Lolita Express, which had a bed. Giuffre isnt alone in alleging that Clinton was on the island. Epsteins IT contractor said in a Netflix documentary series released this year that he saw Clinton on the island. Epstein purportedly committed suicide in his jail cell last year while facing child-sex-trafficking charges. Imogen Anthony is a huge fans of tattoos. And on Thursday, the 29-year-old showed off her new back ink. While she didn't reveal much about the tattoo in the caption, the model and designer said there was a hidden meaning behind the intricate design when she answered a fan's question in the comments. Tatt's amazing! Imogen Anthony showed off her new back tattoo and revealed its hidden meaning on Thursday 'Love your Tattoos, Can I ask if they have meaning. Hope it is ok to ask and not intruding,' the fan asked. 'It's okay, it's just a representation of the Universe, Golden Plaque from the Voyager (google search, pretty amazing) nature and animals, mother nature being destroyed, religion, aliens, all that kinda weird stuff,' she answered. 'Also about religion shooting down any ideas of other life in the Universe. I'm weird.' 'I'm weird' Imogen revealed the unique meaning behind her large tattoo in a comment on Instagram. The design features two angels with guns aiming at a complex design made up of lines and circles In the photo of her new tattoo, Imogen was wearing a leather skirt without a top and had her brunette locks tied up. The design features two angels with guns aiming at a complex design made up of lines and circles. The tattoo was done by Mallory Hammond at Byron Temple Tattoo. Battles: The new tattoo comes after Imogen revealed earlier this month that she sometimes struggles with her changing looks The new ink comes after Imogen revealed earlier this month she sometimes struggles with her changing looks. Posing in a very revealing outfit in two Instagram photos, she admitted in the caption: 'This is my body at the moment and I'm embracing it. 'One day I have boobs, the next day I don't - it's a constant battle #fml. Whatever. I'm over it. Dis me.' LONDONQueen Elizabeth II threw him an extravagant state banquet at Buckingham Palace. Former Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed him to Blenheim Palace, the family seat of his hero, Winston Churchill. Her successor, Boris Johnson, refused to join a global chorus of criticism after he ordered troops to break up a Black Lives Matter protest outside the White House. Few countries have worked harder than Britain to please President Donald Trump. But now, with Trump trailing in the polls to former Vice President Joe Biden, British officials are waking up to an unsettling prospect: The president they tried so hard to accommodate may be out of power next year. In Paris and Berlin, a Trump defeat would be welcomed as an unalloyed relief, removing a leader who has sundered alliances, threatened a trade war and tried to dismantle the European project. But in London, where Johnsons government just left the European Union, it is more complicated. At a moment of British isolation, Trumps full-throated endorsement of Brexit has made the United States a safe harbour. His promise of a lucrative trade deal gave Johnson a selling point with his voters. His populist politics were in sync with the bare-knuckle tactics of the Brexiteers. If Biden wins in November, Britain would face a president who opposed Brexit, would look out for the interests of Ireland in a post-Brexit Europe and would have little motive to prioritize an Anglo American trade deal. His former boss, President Barack Obama, once warned Britons that if they left the European Union, they would put themselves at the back of the queue in any trade talks with the United States. It will not be lost on Biden that the last two British prime ministers went out of their way to be nice to and about Trump, said Peter Westmacott, a former British ambassador to the United States. He is instinctively comfortable with Brits, but London will have to work on the relationship. As Trumps polling numbers have eroded, pro-government papers have begun to make the case that a President Biden would actually be better for Britain than President Trump. Unlike Trump, he is a believer in alliances. He would not subject Johnson to rude lectures about the need for Britain to take a harder line against China. He would not be toxic with much of the British public. In a recent column in The Sunday Times, a well-connected political journalist, Tim Shipman, quoted an unnamed government minister saying that a Trump defeat would make things much easier. That sounds like a government hedging its bets. Johnson has been careful to say nothing about the U.S. election but he has already tried to keep Trump at arms length even as he avoids offending him. Trump, by contrast, called into a London radio show in the heat of the British election to praise Johnson and run down his opponent. Britains uneasiness is compounded by the strangeness of this election. The Biden campaign has all but banned contact with foreign governments to avoid the questions that dogged the Trump campaign in 2016 about its ties to Russia. The pandemic has deprived Britain of its long practice of embedding a diplomat in the challengers campaign because there is little in-person campaigning. Jonathan Powell, who as a young British diplomat rode on the bus during Bill Clintons 1992 campaign, said the connections he made were valuable in smoothing over bitterness Clintons aides felt toward Britains Conservative government after it had tried to dig up incriminating details about Clintons years at Oxford to help George H.W. Bushs campaign. Powell later introduced Clinton to Tony Blair, who went on to become prime minister and a friendlier counterpart. Riding the bus is less important this time, he said, given that Biden is already so well-known to British officials. But the lack of a personal connection may foretell a relationship that is destined to become more distant. The risk for Britain, several experts said, is not a sudden rupture but a gradual slide into irrelevance. Bidens emphasis, they said, would be on mending fences with Berlin and Paris, not celebrating a special relationship with London that got plenty of attention from his predecessor. On a visit to London in October 2018, Biden, not yet a candidate, cast his opposition to Brexit in geopolitical terms, saying it would make Britain less valuable to the United States as a lever to influence the European Union. Had I been a member of Parliament, had I been a British citizen, I would have voted against leaving, Biden said at Chatham House, the London research institution. U.S. interests, he added, are diminished with Great Britain not an integral part of Europe. Charles Kupchan, a professor at Georgetown University who worked on European affairs in the Obama White House and is advising Bidens campaign, said, The question is not, Will there be a special relationship? There will be. The question is, Will the special relationship matter? British officials recognize the challenge. They cite human rights and Russia as areas where Britain could carve out a robust role alongside the United States. Johnsons recent reversal, barring Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from access to its 5G network, brings Britain in line with a more hawkish American policy toward China, which is likely to extend beyond Trumps presidency. He may need to patch up other lingering issues. In 2016, when Johnson was mayor of London, he recounted in a newspaper column that Obama replaced a bust of Churchill in the Oval Office with one of Martin Luther King Jr. and attributed the switch to the part-Kenyan presidents ancestral dislike of the British Empire. Some say fears of tension between Johnson and Biden are overblown. Its part of the job for American presidents to get along with prime ministers, said Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative member of Parliament who is chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and has spoken with advisers to Biden. Still, there are potential landmines, not least Northern Ireland. A devoted Irish American, Biden will fiercely defend Irelands interests, as will his allies in the Democratic Partys Irish lobby on Capitol Hill. In speeches, Bidens go-to literary reference is from Easter 1916, a poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats about the Irish uprising against British rule. British diplomats gamely point out that Biden has English roots, too. He has talked of a great-great-great grandfather who was a captain in the British East India Trading Co. But they say that as far as Brexit goes, his primary concern is likely to be the preservation of the Good Friday Agreement, the Clinton-era accord that ended decades of sectarian strife in Northern Ireland. Biden is very keen on his Irish Catholic roots, though he has British ones, too, Westmacott said. If the U.K. ends up with a no deal or other Brexit outcome which is bad news for Ireland, he will not be impressed. So far, Johnson has avoided that problem by striking a withdrawal agreement with the European Union that leaves an open border on the island of Ireland. But Ireland could still suffer economic damage if Britain fails to negotiate permanent trading arrangements with Brussels. Trade is another area where Biden could prove frustrating. Trumps promise of a blockbuster deal with Britain had already begun to fade, with his trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, saying last month it was unlikely before the election. Were Biden to win, experts said, he would face a Democratic Party deeply skeptical of a deal at a time when free trade is in retreat worldwide. British officials recently floated the idea of both countries joining the successor agreement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump pulled out of in 2017, as a way to sidestep the thorny issues in a direct negotiation. But even if Biden were to rejoin TPP a big if analysts noted that its provisions on food sanitation were largely written by the United States and would raise the same objections that have stymied trans-Atlantic talks. In other words, said Sam Lowe, a trade expert at the Center for European Reform, the chlorine chicken debate is here to stay. Read more about: Pablo Robledo, 34, who was being held on a first-degree murder charge, is on the run after escaping from the Oklahoma County jail in Oklahoma City early Friday morning A murder suspect is on the run after making a daring escape from an Oklahoma jail by breaking his cell window, tying bed sheets together and climbing down from the 12th floor. Pablo Robledo, 34, and his cellmate Jose Hernandez escaped from the Oklahoma County jail in Oklahoma City early Friday morning. Robledo was being held on a first-degree murder charge. The pair managed to escape by breaking their cell window, tying multiple bed sheets together and then climbing down the outside of the building. Images from the scene show at least seven bed sheets tied together hanging from the broken cell window. Robledo managed to escape and is still on the run. His cellmate, however, fell or jumped from the makeshift rope at about the fourth floor. Hernandez broke his leg during the fall and was later found by Oklahoma City police. The pair managed to escape by breaking their cell window, tying multiple bed sheets together and then climbing down the outside of the building. Images from the scene show at least seven bed sheets tied together hanging from the broken cell window His cellmate Jose Hernandez fell or jumped from the makeshift rope at about the fourth floor. He broke his leg and was later found by Oklahoma City police He was taken to hospital for treatment. Officers at the jail weren't aware the inmates were missing until about 7am when they received a call from police saying they had found and arrested Hernandez outside the facility. When officials went to investigate the cell, they realized that Robledo was also missing. Robledo was captured on jail security video about 5.25am outside the jail. Police are still searching for him. Jail records show Robledo had been jailed since June 2019 on murder, assault and battery, domestic abuse and other charges. Court records show he had pleaded not guilty and was set for trial beginning August 31. Chinas Official Food Reserves Data Called Into Question News Analysis China claims to have the worlds largest grain reserves, equal to about 45 percent of annual consumption, although the nations top agricultural scientist is calling the figure phony. Food security has been a cornerstone of Chinas socio-economic stability, as the country is home to 19 percent of the worlds population, but possesses just 7 percent of the worlds arable land. The size and quality of grain reserves are so sensitive to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that Premier Li Keqiang required the State Food and Reserve Bureau to set up a secrecy review system staffed by personnel whose chief qualification is political quality. The grain bureau reported on March 7 that there are a total of 5,388 state-owned emergency processing enterprises, and 4,264 have been started. No official data about grain reserves have ever been released, but one expert predicted that by the end of 2015, the total reserves of grain would reach 300 million tons, according to Chinese media Caixin. The Ministry of Agriculture said the country consumed about 650 million tons of grain in 2014, meaning the ratio between inventory and consumption is about 45 percent, compared to the 17 to 18 percent safety line set by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). But with the processing centers paying around 75 yuan (about $11) per ton of stored grain, agronomist Yuan Longping, dubbed the father of hybrid rice, has argued that being paid by the volume has caused reporting phony figures of stocks to get subsidies. China needs higher reserves than the FAO standard. A 2019 analysis published in Chinas MDPI journal titled, Impact of Climate on Food Security in the Mainland, estimated that natural disasters over the past 40 years had reduced annual food production by at least 15 percent. But the study also warned that natural disasters, including very large flood periods over the past 200 years, resulted in a more than 70 percent crop loss. Chinas annual monsoon rain and flood season tend to peak during July and August, but the current year saw 31 consecutive days of rain through July 2. More than 433 rivers overflowed, in the worst flooding the country has seen since 1940. The Three Gorges Dam, the worlds largest hydroelectric dam with a 5 trillion gallon reservoir capacity, was forced to open all its flood gates and send 28 acre-feet of water per second careening downstream. About 45.2 million Chinese have been affected by floods that have ravaged 27 provinces along the Yangtze River, Huai River, and Yellow River. The China Meteorological Administration issued a No. 1 Flood warning as southern China was hit with a record 16.8 inches of rainfall in a 30-hour period beginning on July 4. And August is usually the rainiest month. With the price of corn up 27 percent, to a five-year high of 2,306 yuan ($329) per metric ton, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that China bought 1,365 million metric tons of U.S. corn on July 10. The large transaction was followed on July 14 with a single-day record corn purchase of 1.762 million metric tons of corn on July 14. Reuters reported on July 21 that the State Food and Reserve Bureau is selling 10 million metric tons of rice at the hugely discounted price of about 1,000 yuan a metric ton. Discount sales in such massive volumes from the national reserve may be an effort to lower futures market prices, commodity traders say. A group of UH students proposed the idea to develop a t-shirt design Astro's player Alex Bregman, and Houston rappers Paul Wall and Bun B, according to a to benefit the Houston Food Bank.. Related: Alex Bregman on what coronavirus has taught him about Houston The shirt is available for purchase for a limited time, through The Houston Food Bank's website, and also local Houston retailer, Active Athlete. According to the Houston Food Bank, the artwork was created by Mike Frost, a well-known Houston photographer and graphic designer, and local sneaker and streetwear retailer Active Athlete provided funding for the production of the shirts. The cost of the shirt is $25 plus shipping. The shirt officially went on sale on July 13 and will be available until the limited supply runs out. Proceeds of sales will go to the Bregmans FEEDHOU nonprofit initiative and to the Houston Food Bank. According to MLB, Bregman launched FEEDHOU, a $1.0 million fundraising campaign to help feed Houston-area residents during the COVID-19 crisis. Proceeds from the campaign directly benefit the Houston Food Bank. MLB also stated at the inception of the campaign, Bregman kicked off the fundraising effort by making a $100,000 pledge of his own. Gallery Furniture owner Jim McInvale (Mattress Mack) is partnered with Bregman in this initiative and also made a $100,000 pledge. The Astros Foundation has stepped up to match the efforts of Mattress Mack and Bregman. Since the initiation of the non-profit campaign, the goal of $1 million has been met, and a new goal of $2 million has been put into place, according to the press release. In order to achieve this amazing feat, students from Bauer Colleges Program for Excellence in Selling at the University of Houston engaged Houston Food Bank to create a sellable item as part of a summer internship program sponsored by 3M to help local non-profits. Rebecca Enonchong (left) & Chi Valentine Bumah PhotoGrid from Facebook photos On July 27, 2020, President Paul Biya dismissed Chi Valentine Bumah from the Magistracy corps with the suppression of his pension rights. The second scale judicial and legal officer, the presidential decree said, had abandoned his duties since July 15, 2019. Last year, a viral video suggested that Chi was abducted by unidentified armed men. The video was quickly criticized with many saying that the magistrate might have faked his abduction in a bid to seek asylum. At the time the said video was released, Cameroonian US-based activist, Eric Tataw reported that Chi was in the UK. Taking to twitter July 28, Chi, who has now declared his unflinching support to rebels seeking to create a putative state called Ambazonia, said it is a shame that he was dismissed without the right to his pension. Biya is at it again he now openly steals my hard-earned savings. What a shame. Anyway, La Republique needs the money more than I do. Ambazonia must be free, Chis tweet read inter alia. Reacting to the tweet, the 87th most influential African of 2020, Rebecca Enonchong said the dismissed judge is behaving as though he is a victim of the system he made gains from. Hear her: Yes, you have money @bumahchi [Chi Valentine Bumah], because you were one of the most corrupt judges I ever encountered in Cameroon. Justice meant nothing to you when you had that power, giving all S. Cameroonians a bad name. Now you are behaving as if you are a victim of the system you profited from. Dont you dare come on here and give anyone lessons on justice, human rights while you sat in your office, signing court orders to rob and steal from orphans. Yes, you dont need money because you became rich from your criminal enterprise using that Justice title and your pen. Please come and deny on this platform and I swill share evidence with the world of how your court orders went to benefit those from Mvomekaa, Yaounde, and Douala. Southern Cameroonian my foot. Youre nothing but a fraud. Instead of responding to the allegations levelled against him, Chi blocked Enonchong from following him on Twitter and from viewing his tweets. Enonchong retorted: Lol! So this is your answer? If you have the courage, lets do a live on Facebook. We each present our evidence. According to information on Linkedin, Rebecca Enonchong is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of AppsTech, a leading global provider of enterprise application solutions. She is also co-founder of I/O Spaces, an inclusive co-working space in the Washington DC metro area. She is Board Chair of Afrilabs, a Pan-African network of over 174 innovation centers supporting over 500,000 entrepreneurs in Africa. She chairs ActivSpaces (African Center for Technology Innovation and Ventures) supporting entrepreneurs from two tech hubs in Cameroon. She also sits on the board of Venture Capital for Africa (VC4Africa), of Digital Africa, the African Media Initiative, Eneza Education, Suguba and the UNECA Center for Digital Excellence. She is co-founder of Cameroon Angels Network and cofounder and Vice-President of African Business Angels Network. Ms. Enonchong currently serves as a mentor/advisor to several technology startups. A recipient of numerous awards, Ms. Enonchong was named a Global Leader for Tomorrow (GLT) by the World Economic Forum of Davos, Switzerland. Forbes magazine listed Ms. Enonchong as a top female tech founder in Africa. NewAfrican magazine named her one of the most influential Africans in 2014, 2016, and 2017. Jeune Afrique magazine listed her as one of Africa's 50 most influential women of 2017 and as one of the worlds most influential Africans in 2018 and 2019. Forbes Africa listed her as one of Africa's 50 most powerful women in 2020. Volopay founders Rajith Shaji and Rajesh Raikwar (Image Credits: Voloplay) Small to medium-sized companies that do a lot of international business have to deal with two big headaches: high foreign exchange fees and corporate expense tracking. Volopay, a Singapore-based financial tech startup with offices in Bangalore, wants to help by integrating into one free-to-use platform prepaid multi-currency corporate cards, expense tracking and accounting tools. Volopay is currently taking part in Y Combinator and is also part of Antler and Niums Bolt, two other accelerator programs. It now has about 40 clients in Singapore, mostly tech startups like Dathena, Tookitaki and Appknox, and plans to launch in Indonesia and Australia within the next six months. The company was founded last year by chief executive officer Rajith Shaji and chief technology officer Rajesh Raikwar, who met while working at MoneySmart, a financial services comparison platform. Before joining MoneySmart, Shaji held positions at fintech companies like CompareAsiaGroup, MatchMove and BankBazaar.com. Shaji spent most of his time working in India, but often traveled to offices abroad. Dealing with corporate expenses after every trip was a "nightmare," Shaji told TechCrunch. "Each time I went back home, I had to make a list of all my expenses on behalf of the company. First of all, it often ran up to a few thousand dollars and I had to put in all these receipts and everything," he said. Shaji did not have access to most of the accounting software used by the companies' accounting departments and communicating with them across different time zones made the process even more cumbersome and time-consuming. Volopay addresses those issues by combining prepaid multi-currency corporate cards (available as physical or virtual cards), domestic and international bank transfers, automated payments and expense and accounting software on one platform. Volopay's app lets employees ask for more funds for their prepaid cards from managers, who can approve or reject the request instantly. Story continues Image Credits: Voloplay Shaji said this saves companies money on foreign exchange fees, which are typically about 3% of a transaction on a traditional credit card, and gives them real-time visibility into spending. Volopay is free to use and earns money through the interchange fees credit cards charge merchants. Interchange fees also enable Volopay to offer perks like cashback deals. Shaji said the company aspires to be the "Brex of Southeast Asia." Like Brex, it offers an alternative to traditional financial services for startups and other small to mid-sized businesses. But it needs to compete with several companies that also want to solve some of the same problems, like high fees for cross-border banking and corporate expense tracking. For example, TransferWise and Revolut both have operations in Singapore, while Neat and Aspire, based in Hong Kong and Singapore respectively, offer online business accounts. Shaji said Volopay's integration of multiple services on one platform gives it a competitive edge, adding that a better comparison to his startup is YouTrip, a multi-currency wallet for consumers that is popular in Singapore. With accounts linked to a prepaid Mastercard, YouTrip users can make payments in 150 currencies without fees and it also supports in-app foreign currency exchanges. When explaining Volopay to potential clients, Shaji often refers to it as "YouTrip for companies." "YouTrip is a well-known brand [in Singapore], everyone knows they can load their money on it and save money on foreign exchange," he said. Volopay gives the same functionality to companies, with accounting software added. Volopay currently focuses on serving small businesses with 25 or more employees, especially tech startups that are scaling their operations and therefore need to manage increasing numbers of online payments and expenses. Shaji said Volopay has also signed up several marketing agencies, because many work on multiple projects, and therefore have to juggle multiple budgets at once. KYODO NEWS - Jul 31, 2020 - 13:07 | All, World Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday mourned former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui who died the previous day at 97, praising him for fostering relations with Japan. "President Lee Teng-hui made great contributions to enhancing friendly ties between Japan and Taiwan," Abe told reporters at the prime minister's office. "The president's death is truly regrettable and I pray for his soul from the bottom of my heart," Abe said, adding that Lee advanced freedom, democracy and human rights in Taiwan. Lee, who had been in a coma since Feb. 17, was pronounced dead at 7:24 p.m. Thursday at Taipei Veterans General Hospital. The hospital gave the cause of death as multiple organ failure. Lee, who ruled from 1988 to 2000, played a key role in the self-ruled island's democratization. He grew up under Japanese rule in Taiwan, which lasted from 1895 to 1945, and was known for his affinity for Japan. "Japanese people have special feelings of closeness to him as a person who built the foundation of Japan-Taiwan relations," Abe said. China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province awaiting reunification, has continued to loom large behind the Japan-Taiwan relationship. When Japan normalized diplomatic relations with China in 1972, it severed ties with Taiwan. Over the years, Japan has developed nongovernmental, working-level relations and the Asian neighbors now enjoy close economic ties and increased people-to-people exchanges. Asked about the possibility of sending a representative to Lee's funeral, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference that the government has no plans to do so. Abe has been treading carefully in dealing with China and Taiwan, while its longtime security ally the United States ramps up pressure on Beijing. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Lee helped end decades of authoritarianism and usher in a new era of economic prosperity, openness and the rule of law. "During his 12-year tenure, Lee's bold reforms played a crucial role in transforming Taiwan into the beacon of democracy we see today," Pompeo said in a statement, adding that the United States will honor his legacy and strengthen bonds with Taiwan. Related coverage: Ex-Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui dies at 97 Fearing "horse-trading" ahead of the assembly session, the Rajasthan Congress on Friday shifted the party MLAs to Jaisalmer from Jaipur where they had been staying at a hotel for over a fortnight. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and other senior party leaders, including AICC general secretary Avinash Pande and spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, also moved to Jaisalmer along with the MLAs in five chartered flights. Gehlot alleged that the MLAs, their family members and acquaintances were getting threat calls and pressure was being build on them after the announcement of the assembly session from August 14. He said the "rate for horse-trading has increased after the governor announced the assembly session date". Gehlot said his party has undertaken a campaign to save the democracy in the country. Targeting Home Minister Amit Shah, the chief minister said he took the BJP leader's name as he comes (on the forefront) "where the government is toppled". "What has happened to you...you day and night think how to topple elected governments. How the democracy in the country will be saved if elected governments are toppled," he asked. Talking to reporters at the Jaipur airport before leaving for Jaisalmer, the chief minister said there will be no compromise with the governance as he and his ministers will remain in Jaipur most of the time. "The state government has performed well in the coronavirus management. Our efforts have been appreciated all over. We have maintained law and order situation as well but saving the government is also important. When the Government of India and home ministry is (running) after, public is supporting us," he said. AICC general secretary Avinash Pande said it is the "effort to protect the democracy". "The victory will be of the Constitution and democracy," he said. State Transport Minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas said the MLAs were shifted to Jaisalmer so that they can be kept united. He said the chief minister's strategy is that not a single MLA should be poached. Party leaders claimed over 100 people, including party leaders, Congress MLAs and allies, have gone to Jaisalmer in five flights. Three flights took off in the first round and two in the second. The chief minister and other senior leaders went to Jaisalmer in the second round. On reaching Jaisalmer, the MLAs were shifted to hotel Suryagarh amid tight security arrangements. "We are going to Jaisalmer for a change," Congress MLA Prashant Bairwa said at the Jaipur airport. Targeting the Congress and the chief minister, the BJP asked why the party has no trust in its MLAs. "Gehlot took the MLAs to Jaisalmer. What after it? Pakistan lies ahead," state BJP chief Satish Poonia said. "When the party's MLAs are united and all is well, then why there is a need to keep them together? Disclose the name who is saleable," he said in a statement. The decision to move the MLAs came a day after Gehlot indicated he will seek a confidence vote when the assembly convenes on August 14 and claimed the money offered to the MLAs to switch sides had increased sharply ahead of the session. The Congress and other supporting MLAs of the Ashok Gehlot camp had been staying at the Jaipur hotel since July 13 after Sachin Pilot and 18 other Congress legislators rebelled against the government, triggering a political crisis. ATLANTAStuck working at home for months, many metro Atlanta residents are eager to get back to the office. They just dont want to spend as much time there as they did before the coronavirus pandemic. Thats one takeaway from a series of surveys and interviews conducted by the Atlanta Regional Commission during the first peak of the pandemic and released this week. The surveys of workers and their employers show telework has become a way of life for many residents. And it may remain that way long after the pandemic is just a bad memory. Many employees say theyre saving money and time by not commuting, and theyre experiencing less stress because theyre not stuck in traffic. Some employers say telework has made their employees more not less productive. And executives of some of the regions largest companies say more of their employees will work at home in the future. That would be just fine with Teri Noble. The Lithonia resident, who works at the DeKalb County School Districts central office, has worked at home two to three days a week since schools switched to digital learning in March. Though she misses her colleagues, Noble said shes still productive at work and has more time to take care of her own needs because shes not rushing off to the office. I think the new normal is going to be a combination of going in (to the office) and working from home, she said. I think weve all gotten used to it. We can make this work. The regional commissions survey results are the latest evidence that telework is becoming more popular with companies and their employees. In February, a commission survey found that 41 per cent of metro Atlanta commuters telework at least occasionally nearly double the share who said they did in 2007. That was before the pandemic. Roz Tucker, the managing director of the ARCs Georgia Commute Options program, said telework at many companies has been an informal arrangement and often depended on managers attitudes. She said employers werent certain their employees would actually work at home. And even if they were open to the idea, many companies lacked formal policies that would have made expectations for telework clear. Those concerns were pushed aside in March when COVID-19 cases began roiling metro Atlanta workplaces. Many schools and businesses shuttered even before Gov. Brian Kemp formally ordered Georgians to shelter in place in April. Tucker said many companies found telework to be the only way to keep their businesses viable. Georgia Commute Options helps metro Atlanta residents find alternatives to driving solo to work from transit and carpooling to working at home. And it helps companies establish policies and programs to encourage such alternatives. The pandemic proved to be a natural telework experiment. To gauge its success, in April the ARC surveyed nearly 3,000 metro Atlanta residents about their work arrangements. They included employees, managers and executives of more than 100 local employers. The ARC also interviewed executives at a dozen of the regions largest companies, including Coca-Cola, Cox Enterprises (the owner of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), Georgia Power, Primerica and State Farm. And it surveyed an additional 4,000 people who participated in the Georgia Commute Options programs. Among its findings: Commuters reported working from home an average of 4.6 days a week in April, up from 0.8 days a week before the pandemic. The majority of those surveyed wanted to return to the office part time but work from home more than they did before the pandemic. On average, they wanted to work at home 2.5 days a week. Nearly 70 per cent of employers surveyed said more of their employees will work from home in the future, and 23 per cent said more will work from home on a full-time basis. One in five said they may reduce the physical size of their workplaces as a result. Respondents also reported the personal benefits and challenges of working at home. Among the benefits cited: saving money and reduced stress from not commuting, having more time to spend with family and sleeping more. Among the challenges: struggling to unplug from work, anxiety about the health of their company and distractions from kids and pets. Yulanda Rawls of Roswell used to commute to a telecommunications job in Alpharetta. She wanted to work from home at times, but her employer wouldnt allow it. Then the pandemic struck, and many employees had to work from home. Rawls said shes more relaxed because shes not just rushing from one day to another, and her 12-year-old twin daughters get to see what Mom does every day. She said her job in tech support was not affected all you need is power and an internet connection. If being in your house makes you less productive, its because you really dont like your job, she said. I like my job. Not everyone enjoys working at home. Suzanne Minarcine of Macon has been teaching her business courses online at Wesleyan College in recent months. She misses her colleagues, and she said the line between her work and personal life has blurred. I want to walk away from my office at 4 oclock or 5 oclock, Minarcine said. I want to walk away and come home and be a human, instead of, Oh, I can grade one more paper. The survey results suggest more employees may experience the blurring of work and home life in the future. Far more respondents said they were more productive than less productive working at home. And employers have noticed. How do you know when theyre working at the office? Its because of the work they produce, said Tucker, the head of Georgia Commute Options. You can be in the office and not working, too. Its based on the output and the outcomes. The ARC plans to follow up with more surveys in August. Tucker said the results should shed more light on how teleworking has unfolded in recent months and how companies plan to integrate it into their plans for 2021 and beyond. The next round of talks between Ukraine and Iran on compensation for a Ukrainian jet downed near Tehran in January is scheduled for October, the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office said on Friday. Iranian and Ukrainian delegations held the first round of talks on Thursday in Kyiv, with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba calling them as "constructive". Iranian forces say they downed the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 jet after mistaking it for a missile at a time when tensions with the United States had risen. All 176 people on board - including 57 Canadians - were killed. Search Keywords: Short link: Syracuse, N.Y. -- Food Court tenants at Destiny USA say a state rule that bars customers from using its tables and chairs for dining is putting a serious hurt on their business. People are like, Oh, I cant sit, so Im gonna cancel my order, said Christa Kemp, manager of the Arbys in the food court. Operators of the food courts eateries said business has been extremely slow since the mall reopened July 10 after a nearly four-month shutdown because of the coronavirus pandemic. Crowds have not returned to pre-pandemic levels at the mall, but food court tenants said an even bigger problem for them is a state rule that requires mall operators to place food court tables and chairs off limits to diners. At Destiny, dozens of tables and chairs have been pushed together and surrounded with yellow caution tape. Signs on the tables say: In accordance with New York State Order: THE FOOD COURT SEATING AREA IS CLOSED. Food orders should be taken To Go only. Tables and chairs in the food court at Destiny USA in Syracuse are surrounded by yellow caution tape preventing their use. Rick Moriarty | rmoriarty@syracuse.com The rules are different for restaurants -- either inside or outside malls -- that have their own dining areas. At those restaurants, customers can sit down to eat, but the restaurants must limit indoor capacity to no more than 50% of maximum occupancy and keep tables at least 6 feet apart. The rule for food courts is different because state officials are worried about large numbers of people gathering in them, increasing the possibility of spreading the highly contagious novel coronavirus and Covid-19, the sometimes-deadly respiratory illness it causes. Food courts traditionally are popular places for mall visitors not only to dine, but to rest or socialize during shopping trips. Tenants say the rule has been so effective that few people are even bothering to visit Destinys food court because they would be required to consume their food and drinks while standing in the food court or while walking around the mall without a face mask on, which is against the rules. Several said they do not understand why a limited number of tables, stationed 6 feet apart, cannot be made available for customers use, just like it is for dine-in restaurants. Ting Qiu, manager of Charleys Philly Steaks, said she has seen people sitting on the floor of the food court eating the food they just purchased. Theyre shopping all day, she said. Theyre tired. They want to eat. Tyrone White, assistant manager of the Burger King in the food court, said he saw a young man eating french fries while sitting on a sink in the mens room off the food court. Often, though, people are just skipping the food court altogether, he said. During three recent days, the Burger Kings sales totaled just $900, he said. During normal times, the eatery does at least $2,000 in sales even on a slow day, he said. Rick Moriarty covers business news and consumer issues. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact him anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148 Kamala Harris Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP California Sen. Kamala Harris, an outspoken voice of the anti-Trump "Resistance," ran for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and is now on former Vice President Joe Biden's shortlist of potential running mates. After 25 years as a prosecutor and California's "top cop," Harris saw a rapid, dazzling political rise from San Francisco's district attorney to presidential candidate in less than a decade. Kamala Harris burst onto the national stage in 2016 when she was elected as the second-ever Black woman to serve in the US Senate, celebrated by Democrats as a bright spot in a dark period for the party. After 25 years as a prosecutor and California's "top cop," Harris saw a rapid, dazzling political rise from San Francisco's district attorney to presidential candidate in less than a decade. Read more: Kamala Harris is likely going to run for president, but her record as a 'progressive prosecutor' is facing renewed scrutiny After dropping out of the Democratic primary race last December, Harris has allied herself with former Vice President Joe Biden, now the presumptive nominee. Now, Harris is reportedly on Biden's vice presidential shortlist. Becoming California's "top cop" Kamala Harris Mario Anzuoni/REUTERS Kamala Harris was raised in Oakland, California by an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, both immigrants who met as young activists in the civil rights movement. After attending Howard University, the historically black college in Washington, DC, and law school at UC Hastings, Harris worked for eight years in the Alameda County District Attorney's office, where she prosecuted child sexual assault cases. She served as San Francisco's district attorney from 2004 to 2011 and California's attorney general from 2011 until 2017. Pursuing reforms, cautiously. Kamala Harris Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS As California attorney general, Harris caught the attention of national Democrats, including President Barack Obama. Story continues In her home state, Harris developed a reputation as a shrewd, but cautious "top cop." She championed some progressive reforms in her home state, including instituting a program in San Francisco that offered first-time drug offenders education and work opportunities instead of jail time. But she also defended the state's death penalty and fought to more harshly punish the parents of chronically truant school children. Finding a national stage. Kamala Harris REUTERS/Jason Reed In 2012, four years before she ran for the US Senate, Harris drew national attention when she spoke at the Democratic National Convention. She was soon recognized as a rising star in the Democratic party. Harris has already broken a series of glass ceilings. She was the first African-American woman to serve as San Francisco's DA, the first woman of color to serve as her state's attorney general, and the first woman of color to serve California in the US Senate. And she's the second Black woman and first South Asian-American ever elected to the Senate. A viral questioner Sen. Kamala Harris Reuters During her first few years in Washington, Harris has emerged as a strong, media-savvy voice for the anti-Trump "Resistance." Clips of her grilling former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and CIA Director Gina Haspel on the floor of the Senate have gone viral. And she's secured a place alongside some of the most progressive members of her caucus with a voting record that matches other former 2020 contenders, including fellow Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand. Making policy on the Hill Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker Chris Wattie/REUTERS As a senator, she's signed on to a host of progressive policies, including reforming the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, and legalizing marijuana. But she's positioned herself as a more moderate, pragmatic alternative to leaders of the progressive left, including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. One of her signature policy proposals is a tax credit that would provide lower-income families monthly cash payments of up to $500. She's also worked to advance bail reform legislation and policies that would fight maternal death. A field full of women Democratic Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris, both potential 2020 contenders. Michael Kovac/Getty Images Harris was one of several women who ran in the 2020 Democratic primary. She was joined by fellow Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. A past that could hurt her presidential prospects Kamala Harris AP Photo/ Damian Dovarganes As a presidential candidate, Harris' 25-year career in law enforcement including her two terms as San Francisco's district attorney and five years as California's attorney general faced renewed scrutiny. Law professor Lara Bazelon accused Harris of upholding wrongful convictions, covering up prosecutorial misconduct, and pursuing only cautious reforms during her tenure as California's "top cop." In a January 2019 New York Times op-ed, Bazelon argued that if Harris "wants people who care about dismantling mass incarceration and correcting miscarriages of justice to vote for her, she needs to radically break with her past." A 2020 campaign cut short by lack of funds and enthusiasm Kamala Harris Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Harris announced her presidential bid on Martin Luther King Jr. Day a clear recognition of the historic nature of her campaign. She abruptly dropped out of the race in December 2019 as her campaign ran short on both funds and enthusiasm. Harris confronts Biden on racial issues in viral debate exchange Kamala Harris confronted Joe Biden over his past on his racial issues at the first Democratic debate Drew Angerer/Getty Images In one of her most headline-grabbing campaign moments, Harris notably criticized Biden's record on racial integration efforts and his collaboration with racist colleagues in the Senate. "It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country," Harris told Biden in a June 2019 Democratic debate. "And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing." She went on, "There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me." Harris embraces Biden Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. Scott Olson/Getty Images Harris endorsed Biden on March 8, when the race had essentially been whittled down to Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders and several days after Biden dominated on Super Tuesday. "I believe in Joe. I really believe in him, and I have known him for a long time," she said in her announcement. Harris has since campaigned alongside Biden and risen to the top of his list of potential running mates. Read the original article on Business Insider Biscuit major Britannia Industries's rural business growing at an astonishing 3 times the rate of urban business this fiscal leading managing director Varun Berry to conclude that 2020 will be the year of rural markets. While Britannia's rural revenue shot up 38-39 per cent in Q1FY21, urban business is growing at a rather modest 12 per cent. As a result, the company registered a 26.7 per cent growth in the first quarter of this fiscal. "Increased MNREGA spends, reverse migration and with the monsoons headed in the right direction, there has been in a surge in rural consumption," says Berry. The COVID lockdown has resulted in a dramatic rural bounce back not only for Britannia, but for the entire FMCG industry after two-three years of low growth rates. Rural India is also less impacted by the pandemic compared to urban, which has also contributed to higher consumption numbers. Having built distribution in rural areas over the past 7 years, Berry has helped Britannia ride the wave of uptick in rural demand. "Building distribution in rural India was a priority and that's what we have been doing in the last 7-8 years. That has significantly helped us." When most FMCG companies were struggling with low growth rates through Q1FY20 due to the disruptions created by the lockdown, Britannia has emerged an outlier with a revenue, EBITDA and PAT growth of 26.7 per cent, 81.7 per cent and 105.4 per cent, respectively. Its volumes jumped by 21.5 per cent YoY. Berry says that he enjoys managing crisis situations and when crisis hit, he and his team took to it just as fish takes to water. "It was an amazing experience from the word go, how we went about taking permissions from authorities to operate our factories, the way we dealt with distribution...we realised if things are done well even challenging situations such as these can turn out to be big opportunities." ALSO READ: Britannia plans capex of Rs 700 crore, optimistic on rural demand amid coronavirus crisis Meanwhile, Britannia's distributed manufacturing and multiple plants gave it an edge over peers during the lockdown. "Between us and our contract manufacturers, we have got almost 40 plants, so, we were closer to our consumers. Moreover, if one plant shut down, it was just five per cent of our production. Our risks were more spread out and we were able to do much more locally than the rest of the industry," Berry said. The company also prioritised its product portfolio. It opted for the 80:20 formula, and chose to manufacture only 20 per cent of its SKUs which garnered 80 per cent of the company's revenue. So, it only manufactured popular brands such as Britannia Marie, Nutrichoice, Milk Bikis and Good Day. Even within Good Day, it chose to manufacture only Good Day Butter and Good Day Cashew. It de-prioritised variants such as Choco-Chip, Choco-Nut and Chunkies. It ran its factories for longer hours so that it could increase its efficiency. "We sided with efficiency over variety which was a prudent call. It also gave us good result from a manufacturing tonnage standpoint," Berry explains. To improve efficiency, the company chose to prioritise Marie over 50:50, as Marie could be produced on the same manufacturing line and it is a more popular brand. "We would take long runs, we would run with the same SKUs for four-five days and that gave us much better efficiency and cost savings. We were able to supply products, may be not variety but we were able to supply the staples across the country." In fact, biscuit consumption through the lockdown has witnessed a huge spike. With out of home food consumption coming to a halt biscuits as a snacking option has become a huge favourite, and that too healthy biscuits. A recent report by global market intelligence agency, Mintel, says that 63 per cent of Indians during the lockdown have consumed healthy biscuits. While most FMCG companies have complained of consumers down-trading, Berry says that the hasn't seen any form of down-trading in biscuits. "Within food there is definitely down-trading happening. People were eating in fancy restaurants, going to QSRs, all of that has gone away. Biscuits are the most value for money, cheapest snack available. Even if you take our most expensive biscuits, they are much cheaper than any other snack. We are still selling our premium brands, but we are catching our consumers from other categories they were consuming, such as eating out, street food and all of that. I look at down-trading in a slightly broader frame." ALSO READ: Britannia Q1 results: Profit up 117% to Rs 546 crore, revenue rises to Rs 3,384 crore With out of home consumption coming to a complete halt, Britannia has also seen a spike in sale of products such as cheese by 60-70 per cent. Categories such as bread and rusk have seen a 100 per cent jump in sales. "When we are not going to restaurants and having idlis and vadas, its good to a make a cheese sandwich and have it at home. Also the ability of our team to get the products reach faster to stores has made this growth possible," says Berry. Britannia's Q1FY21 growth numbers have surpassed industry expectations. However, does Berry see this growth sustaining in the long term? "Growth might not continue at the same pace, there will be tapering of growth rates as we move towards normal life." He says that till the pandemic eases out, the company will remain cautious and not indulge in any form of innovation or expansion. However, when life returns to normal, Britannia is all set to foray into the African continent. "We are looking at contract packaging in Uganda and Egypt. Both these countries have got alignment with lot of countries around them, so they can export without any duties. We will manufacture in these countries and export to a wider campus." ALSO READ: FMCG industry to see a flat growth in 2020; June shows green shoots Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 14:23:12|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities have honored 13 military officers and soldiers as "the Most Beautiful Military Personnel of the New Era." Jointly announced by the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission, the 13 individuals were commended for their pioneering work in building a strong military in the new era. The laureates were unveiled ahead of China's Army Day, which falls on Aug. 1. This year marks the 93rd founding anniversary of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Enditem The plan to replace his statue with one of Graham has been in the works since 2015, but the bill would speed up the removal process and also affect North Carolinas other statue, which depicts Zebulon B. Vance, a former governor and Confederate military officer, according to The Charlotte Observer. Former State Rep. Dan Soucek, who proposed the switch, said representatives wanted the statue to be of someone who made an impact in the lives of North Carolinians and those around the world. When people from all over the country and all over the world walk through Washington and say, North Carolina has two choices to be in here, what do we want them to be? The newspaper quoted the Republican representative as saying. The statue of Aycock would likely be moved to his birthplace in Wayne County, according to Garrett Dimond, N.C. General Assembly attorney. It was not immediately clear whether the process has begun to replace the statue of Vance. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. The Bronx Zoo has apologised for exhibiting an African man alongside monkeys in 1906, in what zoo officials dubbed a reckoning with our past. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WSC), which operates the Bronx Zoo, said in a public statement on Thursday that it had re-examined its history since protests against systemic racism were sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man, in police custody in May. In the name of equality, transparency, and accountability, we must confront our organisations historic role in promoting racial injustice as we advance our mission to save wildlife and wild places, said WSC. In an admission, the zoos operators said they had historically demonstrated unconscionable racial intolerance in the treatment of a young Central African man named Ota Benga. Benga was from the Mbuti people of present-day Democratic Republic of Congo, and was transported to the United States in 1904, according to reports. Over several days in September 1906, Benga went on display in an exhibit inside the zoos Monkey House. The exhibit, which was spearheaded by then Bronx Zoo director William Hornaday, was eventually forced to close when local black ministers criticised the zoos actions. Robbed of his humanity and unable to return home, Ota Benga tragically took his life a decade later, added WSC. The public apology marks the first time the institution, which was founded in 1895, has formally apologised for the treatment of Benga. WSC also apologised on Thursday for bigoted actions and attitudes in the early 1900s toward non-whites especially African Americans, Native Americans and immigrants Ota Benga (Library of Congress) An apology was also issued over the writings of two WSC founders, Madison Grant and Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr, who helped found the American Eugenics Society in 1926. Specifically, we denounce the eugenics-based, pseudoscientific racism, writings, and philosophies advanced by many people during that era, including two of our founders, said WSC. Grants book The Passing of the Great Race, which included an excerpt from Osborn, had been used by a defendant in the Nuremberg trials into crimes committed by the Nazis, said WSC. The WSC announced plans in a letter to staff on Juneteenth, the annual holiday marking the end of slavery in the US, to research its past and provide more details. The apologies come as the society marks its 125th birthday this year. The company also announced that industry veteran Roger Moody has joined the management team as Chief Financial Officer, Kim Popovits has joined the Board of Directors, and Walter Koch, Ph.D., has joined the Scientific Advisory Board. "This is an exciting milestone," said Bruce Tromberg, Ph.D., Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) and leader of RADx Tech, one of four components of the NIH RADx initiative. "It will help increase U.S. testing capacity exponentially. Game-changing technologies emerging from our RADx pipeline will inform public health measures to stop the spread of the virus and leave us better equipped to address future pathogens and other diseases." "We are extremely proud that the NIH selected Talis, out of a field of 600 applicants, to be among the first teams to move to the final phase of the RADx initiative. This important funding will accelerate the commercialization of our Talis One System for the detection of COVID-19. Additionally, we are pleased to have the continued support of our investors, who share our excitement about the significant impact the Talis One System can deliver as a fast and reliable diagnostic testing platform for life-threatening and life-altering infectious diseases," said Brian Coe, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Talis. "In response to the significant need for rapid, highly accurate testing solutions to help combat the pandemic, we were able to utilize our Talis One System, which we have been developing for clinical use in women's health, to quickly develop an assay for SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. We are particularly focused on serving vulnerable populations, such as those in elder care facilities or patients with impaired immune systems. With the support of the NIH RADx program and proceeds from the new financing, we are confident that we will be able to accelerate our goal of making rapid diagnostic testing widely available," added Coe. The Talis One COVID-19 assay project is supported by the RADx program and has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. 75N92020C00010. New Management Team, Board and SAB Members Roger Moody, Talis' new Chief Financial Officer, is an accomplished finance executive with a wealth of experience in finance operations. Before joining Talis, he was Chief Financial Officer at Clinical Genomics, a colorectal cancer diagnostics company. He also held Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer roles at Glysure Limited, a UK-based company specializing in continuous glucose monitoring, and Chief Financial Officer and other executive positions at Nanosphere, Inc. and Medsn, Inc. He earned a B.S. in finance from Syracuse University and an M.B.A. with a focus in finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Kim Popovits, a new member of Talis' Board of Directors, is the former Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of Genomic Health. Under her leadership, Genomic Health became the world's leading provider of genomic-based diagnostic tests that optimized the treatment of cancer, resulting in an acquisition by Exact Sciences in November 2019. Prior to joining Genomic Health, Ms. Popovits held several management roles at Genentech where she led the commercialization of 14 new therapies. In addition to Talis, she serves on the boards of 10X Genomics, Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. and MyoKardia, Inc. She earned a B.A. in business from Michigan State University. "I was attracted to Talis because of the potential of the Talis One System to make a significant impact on the diagnosis and management of patients with serious infectious diseases, its world-class science and technology, and its experienced management team," said Popovits. "By enabling fast, highly accurate and convenient molecular diagnostic results at the point-of-care, rather than days later from a central lab, Talis is well positioned to help people get the answers they need to make urgent, time-critical decisions during this pandemic and beyond." Dr. Walter Koch, a new member of Talis' scientific advisory board, spent 22 years at Roche Molecular Systems, Inc., where he held a number of leadership positions of increasing responsibility. From 2005 to 2020, he served as Vice President and Head of Global Research, providing overall leadership and strategic direction for all research activities including technology development and evaluation, biomarker discovery and validation, infectious disease diagnostic assay early development, and oncology companion diagnostics. Prior to Roche, he spent 11 years at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where he held several positions, most recently Acting Lab Chief, Laboratory of Immunochemistry, in the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER). He earned a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Memphis and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Environmental Health Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. About the Talis One System The Talis One System is a compact, easy-to-use, highly accurate molecular diagnostic platform developed to enable rapid, point-of-care testing for infectious diseases. The Talis One assays are based on a proprietary, highly optimized nucleic acid isothermal amplification chemistry to achieve exceptional test performance much faster than traditional PCR. The system is designed for use in non-laboratory settings, such as physicians' offices, urgent care clinics, elder care/assisted living facilities, cancer treatment and dialysis centers, and potentially the workplace. COVID-19 is the first infectious disease that the Talis One System will support. Future infectious disease indications may include assays for other respiratory infections, such as influenza, as well as sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and other infections impacting women's health. The Talis One instrument can be managed remotely and sends test results to a cloud database for secure transmission, storage and review. Results are available in 30 minutes or less. About Talis Talis is dedicated to providing broad access to fast, highly accurate, actionable diagnostic testing to ensure better treatment and disease management for patients with infectious diseases. The company is developing the Talis One System, a compact, molecular diagnostic platform that is Cloud enabled, to provide rapid and reliable point-of-care testing for infectious diseases across a wide range of healthcare settings, from the doctor's office to the hospital bedside to remote care settings. Talis is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. For more information, please visit talis.bio. Media Contact Julie Normart [email protected] +1.559.974.3245 SOURCE Talis Biomedical Corporation Related Links http://talis.bio Genres : Action and Drama : Action and Drama Running Time : 131 min. : 131 min. Directed by : Yang Woo-suk : Yang Woo-suk Starring : Jung Woo-sung, Yoo Yeon-seok Synopsis : The leaders of South Korea, North Korea and the U.S. are abducted in a North Korean nuclear-powered submarine after a coup by a North Korean general while a trilateral summit is being held. The tropical storm "Isaias" has been downgraded to a category 1 hurricane and moves with wind speeds of up to 130 kilometres an hour to the Bahamas, and the particularly strong from the Coronavirus affected the American state of Florida. The American hurricane center NHC expected the night to Friday (local time) in order that the hurricane will increase within the next 48 hours go from strength to strength.He was the NHC, about 110 kilometers East-Southeast of Great Inagua island in the southeastern Bahamas and was moving in the direction of the North-West. It was expected that "Isaias" reached on Friday evening, the center of the Bahamas, and on Saturday South Florida. On Thursday, Isaias was triggered "" Flooding and small mudslides in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and for power outages taken care of. In Puerto Rico, were flooded due to heavy rain, streets, trees toppled and telephone and power lines damaged. Puerto Rico is still recovering from the effects of previous hurricanes, and earthquakes. The national guard rescued at least 35 people, including two newborns. In the town of Rincon, was reported missing by authorities, according to a woman who washed away was when she tried to drive over a bridge. In the Dominican Republic, the government warned the population over loudspeakers and called for evacuation. A man came through the storm died. The police arrested in the capital city of Santo Domingo, some of the surfers who have been accused of against the storm warnings, the government failed to. Several Corona-test closed In Florida, the authorities had because of the approaching storm on Thursday already, several temporary Corona test set closed, which consist only of tents. The authorities spoke of a "precautionary measure". However, there was still no evacuation orders. In the southern American state were reported on Thursday 253 Corona-Dead. This is a new 24-hour maximum value, and the third in a row. The Federal government has become, with more than 461.000 reported Corona infections one of the centers of the pandemic in the United States. More cases of infection has only the most populous American state of California. Almost 6600 of the 21 million inhabitants of Florida killed according to the authorities, so far, the consequences of a Corona-infection. Overall, the United States registered more than 150,000, Corona-Dead. Updated Date: 31 July 2020, 04:20 Eamon Ryan is the leader of the Green Party (Brian Lawless/PA) Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has warned his party that they cannot vote against the Government. It comes after Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan lost the whip and another Green Party TD Joe OBrien was sanctioned for voting against the Government. Legislation was tabled in the Dail on Thursday night to replace the rent freeze and eviction ban, brought in at the start of the pandemic. Expand Close Neasa Hourigan has lost the whip (Niall Carson/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Neasa Hourigan has lost the whip (Niall Carson/PA) Ms Hourigan voted against the Government on four proposed amendments to the Bill before voting against the Bill itself in the final vote. Mr OBrien, a junior minister for Rural and Community Development, abstained on the final vote. The Green Party issued a statement late on Thursday night to say the pair have lost speaking rights for the next two months. However, speaking on Friday, Mr Ryan confirmed the suspension would include the Dail recess so their speaking rights would only be lost for two weeks. Mr Ryan said he believed the sanction was sufficient. Expand Close Green Party TD Joe OBrien has been punished (Brian Lawless/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Green Party TD Joe OBrien has been punished (Brian Lawless/PA) Our way of managing this is that we go back to our parliamentary party and we decide as a Dail parliamentary party and that was the approach we decided to take last night. He said failing to vote with the Government weakens the Government. We agreed, and it is absolutely clear, you cannot vote against the Government if youre in Government. You cannot abstain if youre in Government. It weakens our strength, it weakens Government, it doesnt work. Our own party knows that, our own members know that. Mr Ryan said it is up to individual parties to deal with disciplinary matters in their own way. Every party has a different approach. This is not usual circumstances but we had to take into account precedent and also just the circumstances of this moment. It is the last day in the Dail. We want to regroup and come back stronger, working together as a team in September, because I think the country needs stable, strong Government. Taoiseach Micheal Martin said on Friday that it is up to Mr Ryan, how he disciplines party members. As far as I am concerned, there are different ways one can approach this but parties are different and we want to keep the focus on the policy agenda, he said. HYPE can do terrible things to young bands. Even before they released their debut album, Dogrel, last year, one might have worried that Fontaines DC would drown under the waves of expectation. And then the album emerged and it hoovered up the sort of critical plaudits that any band might dream of, let alone an Irish group who had only been together a couple of years. Their frenetic shows demonstrated that they were just as compelling outside the studio. Theyve wasted little time in following it up, but it hasnt been plain sailing. Last October, the quintet decamped to Los Angeles for a month to make an album. Frontman Grian Chatten talked up his love of The Beach Boys. But they were unhappy with what emerged. It didnt, they later claimed, capture the seedy underbelly of what they were looking for. Before Christmas, they took the difficult step of scrapping the whole thing and in January they went to London to record with Dan Carey, who produced Dogrel. The result is hugely compelling an album that will appeal to both those who obsessed over their debut and anyone new to the band. Simply put, its a post-punk album centred on rocks holy trinity: guitars, drums, bass. And, in Chatten, they have a remarkable vocalist. His Dublin accent is loud and proud the polar opposite to other groups, like the Script, whose frontman flavours a mid-Atlantic twang. Hes quite a lyricist too: idiomatic Irishman adding colour to his keen observations. On Oh Such A Spring he channels the spirit of Luke Kelly as he sings about times inexorable march. Expand Close DC Fontaines frontman Grian Chatten / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp DC Fontaines frontman Grian Chatten The arresting title track reads like the sort of advice a parent might give a child. Dont get stuck in the past/ Say your favourite things at mass/ Tell your mother that you love her/ And go out of your way for others. Like many of the bands songs, both here and on their debut, the message is hopeful: life is good, dont settle, the grass really can be greener. Its as though Fontaines DC themselves live by such rules. Theres a restlessness in their music that hints at a band straining at the bit. Not for them a contentment with local acclaim they want their music to reach a wide audience. And, when theyre at the peak of their powers, their songs surely will travel far and wide. Read More Televised Mind is one of their strongest to date. Its a thrilling, pulse-quickening number built around urgent guitars and will remind some of the Fall at their uncompromising best. It is the sort of tune that would sound incendiary in a live setting and it is to producer Careys credit that, as a recording, is boasts such adrenaline. And credit, too, to the bands twin guitarists, Conor Curley and Carlos OConnell, whose playing adds spice, especially on the troubled You Said, a song in which Chattens vocals take a tender turn. The rhythm second of Conor Deegan and Tom Coll enhance the bands muscularity, without showboating. All four hail from outside Dublin and they met Skerries native Chatten at the BIMM rock school and yet Fontaines DC have come to be seen as something of a quintessential Dublin band. In its glowing review of this album, American online taste-maker Pitchfork suggest the five are from the working-class neighbourhood, the Liberties even though Deegan and Coll are from Mayo, Curley is from Monaghan and OConnell was born in Madrid. Video of the Day The capital may not be as pronounced a character on this album as it was on their debut, but there are subtle hints of its influence. The album title is taken from a line in the Brendan Behan play, The Hostage, and the cover artwork features Oliver Shepherds celebrated stature of Cu Cuchlainn in the GPO. There are occasional moments that drag on the albums 47-minute run time Carey could have cracked the whip a little more but, for the most part, this is an album that confirms that Fontaines DC are the real deal. What a pity they cant perform these songs in front of packed crowds this summer. "An image taken in one of our classrooms last week and circulating on social media does not represent the universal values that the North Penn School District strives to instill in both our students and staff," said a portion of the statement the district released Wednesday afternoon. (Newser) The European Union on Thursday imposed its first-ever sanctions over cyberattacks, slapping them on alleged Russian military agents, Chinese cyber spies, and organizations including a North Korean firm. The six people and three groups hit with sanctions include Russia's GRU military intelligence agency, the AP reports. EU headquarters blamed them for the 2017 "WannaCry" ransomware, "NotPetya" malware attacks, and the "Cloud Hopper" cyberespionage campaign. An EU official said the sanctions "are a travel ban and asset freeze to natural persons and an asset freeze to entities or bodies. It is also prohibited to directly or indirectly make funds available to listed individuals and entities or bodies." Four Russians identified as GRU members were accused of trying to hack the Wi-Fi network of the Netherlands-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which has probed the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The 2018 attack was foiled by Dutch authorities. story continues below The GRU was also sanctioned for NotPetya, which targeted companies that do business with Ukraine and caused billions of dollars in damage globally, and cyberattacks on Ukraines power grid in 2015 and 2016. The two sanctioned Chinese nationals were accused of involvement in "Operation Cloud Hopper," which the EU said hit companies on six continents, including Europe, through cloud services providers and "gained unauthorized access to commercially sensitive data, resulting in significant economic loss." One of the two, Zhang Shilong, was indicted in the US for his alleged role in the operation, which authorities said targeted industries including aviation, biotechnology, and satellite and maritime technology. Also sanctioned by the EU was the Chinese company Huaying Haitai, listed as Zhangs employer. The North Korean firm sanctioned is Chosun Expo, which the EU said backed cyberattacks including WannaCry, the hacking of Sony Pictures, and cyber robberies of Vietnamese and Bangladeshi banks. (Read more cyberattack stories.) Another month passes. The coronavirus pandemic marches on. And Americans struggling amid the economic fallout once again have to worry as their next rent checks come due Aug. 1. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Andrea Larson poses at her home Tuesday, July 28, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. For Larson, life during the pandemic has taken an unexpectedly good turn. The former sommelier lost her job when Nashville restaurants closed in mid-March. She was just getting by on unemployment but was worried she would either have to go back to a restaurant job that she felt was unsafe of lose her benefits. Then her dream job fell into her lap when a former boss offered her the assistant general manager position at a new Nashville restaurant. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey) Another month passes. The coronavirus pandemic marches on. And Americans struggling amid the economic fallout once again have to worry as their next rent checks come due Aug. 1. Many left jobless by the crisis are already behind on payments. And the arrival of August brings new anxieties. A supplemental $600 in weekly federal unemployment benefits that helped many pay their bills is set to expire as July ends, with Congress bogged down in disagreement over a new round of aid. Also set to end, unless lawmakers intervene, is a federal moratorium on evictions that has shielded millions of renters though some Americans remain protected by similar state and local actions. The Associated Press reconnected with renters first interviewed ahead of their April payments. Four months later, some have returned to work. One saw her church step in to cover her rent. Some found landlords willing to negotiate, while others are still looking for relief. ___ Sakai Harrison moved to New York to try to make it as a personal trainer and designer - but his gym shuttered early in the pandemic, and after weeks of struggling to both pay the rent and put food in his fridge, he knew what he had to do. He moved back to Georgia for greater stability. In May, he left his Brooklyn apartment and its $1,595 monthly rent for Atlanta. When the first of the month rolls around, his new place costs about $400 less - and its larger. This is the biggest silver lining Ive ever seen, he said. Hes training with a few one-on-one clients, and hes launched a boot camp with a dozen more. This week, he met four of them at a park, where they did lunging squats, pull-ups, and a military-like crawl. Harrison then led them into a gym for dumbbell exercises. They didnt wear masks for virus protection - Harrison says they take precautions, but pointed out that the state doesn't mandate face coverings. Harrison modeled the proper form and pace, corrected the men when needed, and gently teased when they tired or slowed down. Some shot barbs back, and Harrison smiled. Hes charging clients slightly less than he got at Blink Fitness in New York, but that amounts helping him develop an apparel brand. Hes taking orders for a line of shoes, T-shirts and hats. Barring another shutdown, Harrison said, Ill be fine. - Aaron Morrison, New York, and Ron Harris, Atlanta ___ Financial challenges keep piling up for Roushaunda Williams months after she lost her job of nearly 20 years tending bar at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel in downtown Chicago. Potential reopening dates for the hotel have been pushed back, Williams said, and hospitality jobs remain scarce. She anticipates being unable to pay her $1,900 rent by September especially if Congress doesnt reauthorize the weekly $600 in additional unemployment aid as part of a new relief package. Williams, 52, said she asked the management company that owns her apartment for a rent reduction or other help. So far, shes been told her rent will just accrue if she cant pay. The Illinois governor recently extended a moratorium on evictions into August. Still, Williams worries about debt piling up while shes unemployed. Ive exhausted my savings," she said. "So I dont have a safety net at all now. - Kathleen Foody, Chicago ___ Jas Wheeler once hoped to ride out the pandemic and return to work at a Vermont bakery. Not anymore. Wheeler, 30, is immunocompromised and fears going back to the bakery would increase risk of infection. The former social worker started working at a small grocery store that pays less but allows more room for social distancing. Wheeler took the gig in anticipation of losing the $600 weekly unemployment aid. That money ensured Wheeler and their wife, Lucy, could afford their $850 monthly mortgage payment. The couple closed on their house in Vergennes the same day Wheeler was laid off in March. Wheelers wife kept her jobs, but money remains tight. Theyve sold a car and are growing some food. The unemployment without the enhanced benefit is not enough to live on at all, Wheeler said. Were broke. - Michael Casey, Boston ___ FILE - In this March 29, 2020, file photo, Spokane cook Jason W. Still, 30, in seen in this portrait in Spokane, Wash. Still and most other kitchen workers at the fine dining restaurant Clover were laid off from their jobs after the state's restaurants were closed for seated service under social distancing guidelines put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus (Jason W. Still via AP) Though the pandemic took away Itza Sanchezs two incomes, it has strengthened her faith. The mother of two says the generosity of her Richmond, Virginia, church has saved them from hunger and eviction. Sanchez fell behind on rent when she stopped selling homemade tamales and collecting scrap metal over fears of contracting the virus. By mid-July, she owed about $950 in unpaid rent. That's when Sanchez got a notice to vacate the mobile home where her family lives. She was spared when her church sent $800 directly to the landlord. Now she's trying to scrape together $460 for August's rent. She gets food donations from church. The school system delivers lunches for her children, 11 and 7. An immigrant from Honduras, Sanchez isn't eligible for unemployment benefits. "In this crisis we have moments of anguish, and one feels desperate, Sanchez said. "But I have been blessed so far. - Regina Garcia Cano, Washington ___ For Andrea Larson, life took an unexpectedly good turn. She lost her sommelier job in mid-March, when restaurants closed in Nashville, Tennessee. She was just getting by on unemployment, but worried about choosing between losing benefits or going back to an unsafe restaurant job. Then a former boss offered her a spot at a new restaurant - the White Limozeen, named in tribute to a Dolly Parton song and decorated in over-the-top kitsch. While Larson still fears the virus, she appreciates that her employer spent a lot of money to make sure people are extremely safe. At her duplex, a plumbing disaster forced her to live in a construction zone for a couple of months. But she counts that as luck: She didnt have to pay rent. - Travis Loller, Nashville, Tennessee ___ Jade Brooks and her family have counted on an eviction moratorium in Massachusetts to get them through the pandemic. Still, 22-year-old Brooks worries: How long will it last? Brooks mother hasn't found find full-time work since losing her insurance-company job. And Brooks doesnt get paid enough as a hospital switchboard operator to cover rent recently raised to $2,075 monthly for their two-bedroom Boston apartment. Her family had an August eviction hearing scheduled in court after they refused to pay the $265 increase. Then the governor extended the eviction ban until mid-October, giving temporary relief. It kind of gave me extra hope to figure things out, instead of jumping into the fire, said Brooks, who lives with her mother and an 8-year-old cousin. Brooks hopes the extra time gives her mom a chance to find work, and perhaps they'll negotiate a new lease rather than go to court. - Michael Casey, Boston ___ After two months of missing payments as part of a rent strike, Neal Miller and his housemates heard from their landlord. To their surprise, he agreed to reduce the monthly $1,500 rent for their home on Chicago's West Side. Millers share is now $150, down from $400. Miller, 38, said his landlord gave the impression that he'd prefer some income from the house over nothing at all. Millers last stable job was as an adjunct professor at Loyola University. During the pandemic, hes patched together odd jobs dissertation editing, bookkeeping for a psychiatrists office. He said lower rent cuts the pressure: We are definitely in a unique situation by the response we got. - Kathleen Foody, Chicago ___ Tnia Morgans family has grown by one since the pandemic upended their lives. The birth of a grandson, her youngest daughters first child, June 25 was a rare blessing during a spring and summer otherwise filled with stress. I love his smell. I love his smile. I love everything about him, said Morgan, who shares a townhouse in Baltimore County, Maryland, with her newborn grandson, her daughter and a nephew. She needed something to celebrate. Her income plummeted after she lost her hotel banquet-hall job in March. Bills pile up monthly. Four rent checks have come due since then. Morgan's landlord lets her pay what she can. She estimates that's been nearly half what she's owed since April. Food stamps help feed her family. She says she's tried in vain to sign up for unemployment benefits. Her only income comes from working for a food delivery service. Its not much, she said, but its better than not having anything. - Michael Kunzelman, Silver Spring, Maryland ___ Ruqayyah Bailey has lost much of her independence and wants to get her life back on track. Bailey, 31, has autism. Until March, she lived in her own apartment, worked part time as a cashier at a St. Louis cafe, and attended college. The coronavirus tossed all that structure out the window. Bailey could no longer get the one-on-one tutoring that helped her thrive in college. The cafe closed. With no money coming in, she moved back in with her mother. The cafe reopened in June, but Bailey now works just four hours a week. Shes signed up for seven hours of college classes but isn't sure she'll get tutoring. She uses savings to pay bills and worries about losing her weekly $600 in extra aid. I am completely stressed," Bailey said. I dont know how to pay my bills. Im not sure how Im going to able to get back into my apartment. - Jim Salter, St. Louis ___ Jason W. Still spent nearly three months without work before he went back to cooking at a high-end restaurant in Spokane, Washington. Still, 30, returned to the kitchen at Clover when it reopened in early June. Before then, his wife's job in Washington's legal marijuana industry and Still's unemployment checks helped assure they never missed a rent payment. Still is back to working 40 hours a week. But he wonders whether that'll last, as COVID-19 infections surge in the U.S. Its terrifying to me to be in a service industry that can just shut down again at any time, he said. - Anita Snow, Phoenix ___ Tinisha Dixon scraped money together to cover her $1,115 monthly rent for April and May. Since then, she's been unable to pay. Dixon, 26, shares a downtown Atlanta apartment with her partner and their five children. Before that, Dixon was homeless. Now she worries daily about her family ending up on the street. Dixon's partner works as a security guard, but reduced hours have shrunk his earnings to about $800 a month. Dixon said she worked briefly at a coronavirus testing site outside the city, but relying on her partner for rides interfered with his job. Before the pandemic, Dixon says, her landlord had begun taking legal steps to evict them. Im pretty overwhelmed trying to get everything situated, not knowing how long I can hold out here, she said. - Sudhin Thanawala, Atlanta 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. ___ Eli Oderberg of Denver remains out of work. He lost his job at a Colorado energy company in a wave of mid-April layoffs sparked by the pandemics economic fallout. Oderberg, 36, once worked on apps to track spills and leaks. Now he receives unemployment benefits as he sends out resumes and interviews for new jobs. He said hes been a runner-up for several positions but hasn't been hired. Oderberg and his wife, Katie, have been making their mortgage payments. Shes on unemployment after losing her retail job. Shes also pregnant, and the couple fears running out of money after the baby arrives. They also have a 5-year-old daughter. Im trying to get a good balance so I can enjoy my family, he said. And I keep reminding myself there are a lot of people in a much worse situation. - Anita Snow, Phoenix All economic indicators have improved: Consolidated turnover of 615.2 million (573.7 in H1 2019); EBITDA of 90.2 million (85.7 in H1 2019); EBIT of 74.1 million (67.6 in H1 2019); Pre-tax profit of 75.1 million (70.2 in H1 2019). Today, the Board of Directors of Reply S.p.A. [MTA, STAR: REY] approved the results as at 30 June 2020. Since the start of the year, the Group has recorded a consolidated turnover of 615.2 million, which is an increase of 7.2% compared to the same period in 2019. All indicators are positive for the period. In the first half of 2020, consolidated EBITDA of 90.2 million compared to the 85.7 million recorded in 2019 and corresponds to 14.7% of turnover. EBIT, from January to June, was 74.1 million (67.6 million in 2019), corresponding to 12.1% of turnover. Pre-tax profit, from January to June 2020, was 75.1 million (70.2 million in 2019), corresponding to 12.2% of turnover. As regards the second quarter 2020, the Group's performance was also positive, with consolidated turnover for the period of 298.2 million, up by 2.8% compared to 2019. EBITDA, from April to June 2020, amounted to 42.6 million, with EBIT of 36.1 million and pre-tax profit of 41.2 million. As at 30 June 2020, the Group's net financial position was positive for 122.6 million, while at 31 March 2020 was positive for 159.3 million. The financial position at 30 June 2019 was positive for 18.3 million. "The year 2020 said Mario Rizzante, Chairman of Reply will mark history. During February and March, as the Covid19 pandemic spread in the northern hemisphere, the world came to a standstill. Reply had the ability to react in an effective way to this period of unimaginable discontinuity. In less than two days, all of Reply's 8000+ people were able to work remotely. As a result, we were able to continue to honour the commitments we made with our customers, often working on fundamental systems which ensured not only the continuity of their business, but also the survival of entire countries and industries. I am referring, for example, to our involvement in banking and insurance services, to the contribution we have made to telephone operators, to the support we have given to health care services and the logistics chain". "In these months, despite the difficulties linked to the various lock-downs, Mario Rizzante added Reply has continued on its growth path, with positive results in all the geographies where it is operating. This has been possible thanks to our exclusive focus on new technologies and the resilience of our network model which has allowed us to promptly compensate the slowdown in activities linked to sectors particularly affected by the pandemic such as, for example, transport, manufacturing and tourism". "The current scenario concluded Mario Rizzante is constantly changing and it remains very difficult to make predictions about the future in the short and medium term. The recent months have, in any case, definitively changed the perception of technology by all companies. Today even the most traditional and conservative businesses have understood that the digitalization of processes, the cloud and artificial intelligence are essential tools to restart and be competitive in an increasingly connected and digital world". The manager responsible for preparing the company's financial reports, Dr Giuseppe Veneziano, states in accordance with Paragraph 2 of Article 154-bis of the Consolidated Finance Act, that the accounting information contained in this press release corresponds to the company's records, ledgers and accounting entries. Reply Reply [MTA, STAR: REY, ISIN: IT0005282865] specialises in the design and implementation of solutions based on new communication channels and digital media. Reply is a network of highly specialised companies supporting key European industrial groups operating in the telecom and media, industry and services, banking, insurance and public administration sectors in the definition and development of business models enabled for the new paradigms of big data, cloud computing, digital media and the Internet of Things. Reply services include: Consulting, System Integration and Digital Services. www.reply.com This press release is a translation, the Italian version will prevail. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200731005256/en/ Contacts: Media Reply Fabio Zappelli f.zappelli@reply.com Tel. +390117711594 Investor Relation Reply Riccardo Lodigiani r.lodigiani@reply.com Tel. +390117711594 Michael Lueckenkoetter m.lueckenkoetter@reply.com Tel. +49524150091017 The families of four American hostages are unanimous in their opposition to the death penalty, said Diane Foley, the mother of James Foley, a journalist taken hostage by the Islamic State and beheaded by Emwazi in 2014. She said there were two major reasons. One is we do not want them to end up in the U.K., where theyll get a very light sentence, she said. And two, we know that the U.K. evidence together with the U.S. evidence will make a much stronger case against Kotey and Elsheikh. General secretary of the grouping of Luxembourg construction companies, Paul Faber, spoke to our colleagues at RTL Radio earlier this Friday. The annual collective leave period in the construction sector kicked off this Friday. This means that most construction sites will only resume on 23 August. 119 construction sites received a formal authorisation from the competent ministry to proceed during the collective leave period. These construction sites are considered to be "urgent" and for instance include the tram works in the Gare neighbourhood. Paul Faber told RTL that there had been several infection clusters in the construction sector within the last two weeks. It nevertheless looks like the individuals in question contracted the virus in private settings, Faber said. The numbers only went up after restrictions were eased for private gatherings. Many Portuguese workers decided to stay in Luxembourg rather than traveling to Portugal during the collective leave period, Faber explained. Companies will receive free virus testing vouchers to be used when employees start working again after the collective leave. Testing remains voluntary. The construction sector had to shut down for two months during the lockdown. When it reopened, it lost 8% of its productivity, Faber said. The lockdown reportedly cost the sector around 63 million. Faber remains in favour of the collective leave period. Investigators open rally regulations violation case against Moscows municipal lawmaker AGN Moskva 16:29 31/07/2020 MOSCOW, July 31 (RAPSI) A criminal case over repeated violations of rally holding regulations has been opened against Moscows municipal lawmaker Yulia Galyamina, the press service of Russias Investigative Committee reports. In early July, Galyamina published on the Internet posts calling to participate in an unauthorized rally in central Moscow on July 15. However, in the last 180 days the woman was repeatedly brought to administrative liability for similar violations, according to the statement. Investigators believe that her actions have an intentional character and must be examined in accordance with Russias criminal legislation. In July, the citys Tagansky District Court fined Galyamina 200,000 rubles ($2,700) for an illegal action near the Moscow Directorate of the Interior Ministry. Two people have been arrested and 18 fines have been issued by police at a protest held at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance. Carrying red flags, the small group of protesters gathered at dawn on Friday with many of them refusing to wear masks or face coverings. A protester at the Shrine of Remembrance on Friday. Credit:Nine News A total of 124 fines were issued by Victoria Police on Thursday, six of them at vehicle checkpoints. Police said 53 of the 124 infringements were issued for failing to wear a face covering for one of the approved reasons. In many instances, people refused to accept a mask offered to them by police or PSOs. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the co-owner of the only supermarket in a small Western Australia country town decided the only way to deal with his obsession with the virus and pressure by angry customers and out-of-town buyers, was to burn down his business. According to a report by ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), thats what a Perth court has been told. The report said that on the night of March 25, 2020, Edward Guy Mason, 57, went to his store in Bruce Rock, which is 240 kilometres (149.1 miles) east of Perth, packed three shopping trolleys with cardboard and set them on fire, before trying to take his own life. Mason then locked himself out of the building and walked home, where he was later arrested. Authorities were alerted by passers-by who saw the fire, but the supermarket and an adjoining hardware store, owned by Masons brother, were destroyed, the report said. The fire caused more than $1 million damage. Mason pleaded guilty to a charge of willfully and unlawfully damaging a building by fire, with the District Court hearing that before he set fire to the supermarket he had smoked eight cannabis bongs, the report said. How did the coronavirus pandemic affect Mason? The court heard that Masons mental health had been declining for about six months. However, it was made worse because of the coronavirus pandemic, which had seen people from out-of-town panic buying toilet paper and hand sanitizer, affecting Masons stock levels. In turn, customers were becoming angry and abusing him about items not being available, and also about the extra hygiene measures he had to put in place as a result of the pandemic, the report said. According to the report, his lawyer, Richard Lawson, said Mason then became convinced he had the virus, and to protect his customers and the public from getting infected, he had to burn down his business, later repeatedly telling witnesses, I set fire to business to kill the germs. He decided he had to eradicate himself, Lawson said. Since his arrest on the night of the incident, Mason has been in custody. Lawson said in those four months, Masons mental health had improved, the report said. He had resumed taking anti-depressant medication and was receiving counseling. The judge described the case as unusual. The report noted that Judge John Prior had received 17 character references on behalf of Mason. He was described as well liked and respected in the Bruce Rock community where he was born and raised, with most of the authors stating they were shocked by what Mason had done. However, they did say that leading up to the incident they had observed he was under immense pressure to maintain stock levels and keep his customers happy and safe. The court was told that Mason had run the supermarket for 28 years after inheriting the business from his parents, who had owned it for 50 years. Masons offense was described by Judge Prior as being very serious, saying the fire had caused substantial damage and put at risk other buildings and the safety of others in the town. However, he described the case as unusual, saying he was satisfied the COVID pandemic had a direct causal impact on Masons behavior. The judge said, At the time, you had an obsession with COVID-19. It impacted on your grocery business. You believed you were infected. You wanted to keep people safe, the report quoted. What sentence did the judge impose? The report said that Judge Prior imposed a 16-month jail term. However, he suspended it, noting that Mason had never committed any offence before, had spent four months in custody, had pleaded guilty at an early opportunity and was genuinely remorseful. He also said the community of Bruce Rock was supportive of Mason and there was a real risk that any further time in custody might undermine the positive steps he had taken to rehabilitate himself. The report noted, however, that Judge Prior did make an order that Mason pay his brother $479,000 to compensate him for the damage that was caused to the hardware store. Mason describes what was happening leading up to the fire. Outside the court, Mason described what was happening leading up to the fire as very bad. Mason said, I was running a business and just seeing my shelves stripped bare. It was very hard to deal with, the report quoted. People were driving 30 minutes from another town and theyd just come in and strip my shelves bare if their town was empty, he said. Thats where all the conflict began, because my customers couldnt understand why they couldnt get their regular items, he said. Mason said he was convinced he had coronavirus, the report stated. Seeing different news reports and seeing how it could be transmitted and I thought, were getting boxes coming out of the warehouses, boxes coming from China, and thats how I felt, he said. "I felt surely there could be germs on these cartons." Mason said he planned to return to Bruce Rock to regroup and start again, and thanked those in the community who had supported him, the report said. READ MORE: 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. A China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) vessel is seen near oil tanks at the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC)'s Dalian Petrochemical Corp in Dalian, Liaoning province, China October 15, 2019. REUTERS China has been buying record volumes of foreign oil as tensions with the United States and energy security concerns climb. In June, China's oil imports set an all-time high of 12.9 million barrels per day (mbpd), overtaking the previous record of 11.3 mbpd posted only one month before. In the first half of the year, crude imports of 268.7 million metric tons (1.97 billion barrels) rose nearly 10 percent from a year earlier on an average daily basis, Reuters calculated from customs figures. First-half imports of 10.78 mbpd were up 6.1 percent from the previous record-setting daily average in 2019. China's oil imports increased even during the COVID-19 lockdown period in January and February, gaining 5.2 percent year-on-year, and shipments have yet to slow down. Inbound supplies have clogged China's ports as dozens of tankers sit offshore, Argus Media reported on July 17. Thirty-one very large crude carriers (VLCCs), each capable of carrying some 2 million barrels, have been turned into floating storage with wait times for unloading averaging 21 days, Argus said. The traffic jams are partly the result of bargain buying in April when world prices plunged and futures of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude turned negative following the pandemic and a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. Commercial and strategic factors have both contributed to the import surge. Refiners have been stocking up in anticipation of economic recovery, although commercial storage facilities have been reported to be nearly full for months. "It's clear that even with record refinery processing, China has been storing large volumes of crude oil," Reuters reported on July 20. Strategic reserves That assumption has led analysts to conclude that China must also be filling its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), a secretive stockpile that could be called upon to meet the country's needs in case of transit disruption or other emergencies. "The buying binge was a combination of opportunistic buying and storage," said Michal Meidan, director of the China Energy Program at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. "Low oil prices are a good time to buy crude for the SPR and this was also actively encouraged by the government. But when crude is below U.S. $40 per barrel, domestic refiners have a guaranteed margin due to the domestic product pricing mechanism," Meidan said. The government adjusts retail fuel prices to track swings in international oil costs over a 10-day period, but it suspends changes when crude prices fall below $40 per barrel, leaving refiners to pocket the difference. Prices were below $40 per barrel for much of the six-month period, but the government raised retail fuel charges on June 29 and again on July 11 in keeping with the partial rebound of the international oil market. The higher costs of domestic production from China's depleted oilfields have made lower-priced imports more attractive for Chinese buyers. "Much of the buying was done by the independents, which were also given large volumes of crude import quotas, allowing them to hoard crude for both commercial reserves and daily operations," Meidan said. Foreign dependence With domestic oil output largely stagnant for over a decade, China has become increasingly dependent on imports to meet 73.4 percent of its needs, based on first-half figures. In the first six months, China's oil production rose 1.7 percent from a year earlier to an average of 3.9 mbpd. The government has been slow to address the import dependence vulnerability. But in May, the nation's top planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), pledged to "ensure energy security" in its annual report to the National People's Congress. The NDRC promised to "improve our contingency plans," without providing details. The general terms raised the possibility that the recent import surge may be aimed at increasing China's SPR cushion as a strategic defense rather than meeting immediate economic or refining needs. Unlike the oil-consuming nations of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, China rarely divulges information about the volumes or activity in its SPR. In an exception last September, an official of the National Energy Administration (NEA) said China had about 80 days' worth of import coverage in its stockpile, approaching the IEA standard of 90 days. At the time, Reuters estimated the volume in China's SPR to be about 788 million barrels, but the calculation may have changed since then with the rise in daily imports. The record-setting pace of oil imports also coincides with the intensification of conflicts with the United States on numerous fronts, suggesting that China may be importing more as part of its contingency planning or preparation for a disruption of supplies. Tensions with U.S. Since the NDRC delivered its work report on May 22, the list of disagreements with Washington has lengthened dramatically. Disputes now range from the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak to mistreatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the suppression of rights in Hong Kong, claims to the South China Sea, the banning of Huawei from mobile phone networks, allegations of spying, the shutdown of China's consulate in Houston and the closure of the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. Prebuying and purely commercial considerations may account for the record imports at a time of low economic growth, but the rapid increases and the backlog suggest an urgency borne of strategic concerns. "China has probably front-loaded much of its buying for the year as stocks are likely to be full soon, and demand is recovering but not enough to absorb the massive imports or even the strong refinery throughputs just yet," said Meidan. "China has been preparing for a potential supply cut since the early 2000s, and the deteriorating ties with the U.S. have certainly raised concerns about energy security once more, so this is also a good time to stock up and try to reach the IEA's 90-day forward cover," she said. Last week, the government showed signs of a parallel concern over vulnerability related to food production and imports as President Xi Jinping visited agricultural sites during an inspection tour of northeast China's Jilin province. Xi's visit "shows that the country is firmly committed to ensuring grain security amid (the) COVID-19 pandemic and a complex international situation," said an official Xinhua news agency commentary, titled, "Bottom line of grain security must not be crossed." "The rice bowl of the Chinese people, in any situation, must be firmly held in our own hands," Xi said. Under the Phase 1 trade deal signed in January, China committed to buy $80 billion (561 billion yuan) of U.S. agricultural products over a two-year period. On July 10, China booked its second-largest single-day purchase of U.S. corn in over 25 years, Reuters reported citing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). China has been seeking to increase food supplies during the pandemic and has been taking advantage of cheap import prices, Bloomberg News reported.. In the first half of the year, China imported 3.66 million metric tons of corn, raising expectations that it will use up all of its annual quotas for low-tariff purchases of corn and wheat for the first time, Reuters said. Senior Congress leader and former Union minister Saifuddin Soz on Thursday said he would sue the government for his "unlawful house arrest" since August 5 last year, when the Centre revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, and termed the government's response in the Supreme Court that he was not under detention as "falsehood". "I take a strong exception to the government stand before the Supreme Court that I had neither been put under house arrest nor had any restrictions been imposed on me since August 5, 2019," Soz said in a statement here. He said the government has resorted to "falsehood as it had unlawfully incarcerated me since August 5, 2019". "All this while, I was not allowed to move out of my premises. I left my premises twice, when I had to visit my ailing sister and I went to Delhi on 17th September, 2019 to 21st September, 2019 and 15th December, 2019 to 21st December, 2019 for seeking medical advice. Whenever I went out of my premises since August 5, 2019, I had to obtain permission from the government," he said. The former Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) president added that he has decided to sue the government for his "unlawful" house arrest. "I have decided to sue the government for my unlawful house arrest since August 5, 2019. I will further sue the government for compensation for the incarceration and illegal suspension of civil liberties to which I am entitled under the Constitution," he said. Soz, speaking over the phone to Indian Express, said that what the Supreme Court had been told was a "blatant lie". He said he would move against his detention for "whatever it is worth", the report by IE stated. He said the UT government and central government had taken a position before the Supreme Court that he was a "free man", which he said was not true. He said he was not a free man, as he had been under detention since August 5, 2019. He questioned that if he wasn't under detention, why he was being stopped. "I tried to move out twice yesterday and twice today, Indian Express quoted him saying. In an affidavit before the Supreme Court, the Jammu and Kashmir administration had said Soz was "never detained nor under house arrest" and there are "no restrictions on his movement subject to security clearance". The government's affidavit came in response to a petition by Soz's wife, seeking her husband's release from "illegal detention" and to be brought before the court. MADISON Activists with the local group CT Shoreline Indivisible said they will support state Sen. Christine Cohen and her bagel shop Saturday, as they hope to counteract the threatening and ugly comments she reported receiving over her stance on a recently approved police reform bill. Cohen reported receiving the messages in a Facebook post Tuesday, saying she was disheartened and truly sickened by some of the social media posts, which included negative reviews of her business, calls for a boycott and insinuations that police would no longer respond to the establishment over her support for the bill. In a release, representatives of CT Shoreline Indivisible said they began planning an unboycott to take a bite out of the Shorelines best bagels in the wee hours of Wednesday morning after Cohen cast her vote. They will gather from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday to promote business as usual at the shop, according to the release.. No legislator, regardless of party, should have to suffer threats because of a position that they might take. We cannot abide by this tactic, said Carol Rizzolo, the communications coordinator for CT Shoreline Indivisible. Cohen spoke to police about the messages she received, but did not file a formal report as she said she did not feel physically threatened by the messages she received. Cohen thanked community members for their support in a statement Friday, noting that she feels she lives in the greatest state in the nation, which is largely made up of kind and compassionate individuals. At the end of the day, my husband and I are just small business owners trying to make it during a very trying time with the pandemic. The outpouring from the community in response to calls to boycott my business has been tremendous, said Cohen. Im fortunate to be a part of such a community and honored to be on the receiving end of such goodwill. Cohen noted, as she did earlier this week, that she attempted to carefully consider the merits of the bill before casting her vote. As part of that effort, she said earlier this week, she helped negotiate the bills current language on qualified immunity, which only allows for officers to be held liable for wanton or willful conduct. william.lambert@hearstmediact.com BA owner IAG to raise $3.3 billion to ride out COVID crisis Airplanes at Chateauroux airport in France By Sarah Young and Kate Holton LONDON (Reuters) - British Airways owner IAG plans to raise 2.75 billion euros ($3.27 billion/2.48 billion) from shareholders to repair the coronavirus-sized hole in its finances and brace for a more chaotic future. Chief Executive Willie Walsh said the plan, backed by biggest shareholder Qatar Airways, was needed to survive the most severe crisis in aviation history after the group lost more in one quarter than it has ever lost in a year. "These are really extreme times," Walsh told the BBC, adding IAG had hoped to be flying at about 50% capacity by July, but was instead at 20%. "We're seeing a much slower and more gradual build-up," he added. Airlines around the world have been brought to their knees by the halt to flights, forcing tens of thousands of job cuts, in what Walsh said was a crisis much worse for airlines than either 9/11 or the global financial crisis. "This is worse by any measure, by many times," he told investors. Walsh said the proposed fundraising would give IAG, which also owns Iberia and Aer Lingus, a "very comfortable buffer" to withstand its worst-case scenario planning. Travel is not seen recovering to pre-pandemic levels until 2023. Competitor Air France-KLM , which has secured a state-backed rescue to underpin its finances, also said on Friday it was ready to cut capacity plans further due to the anaemic recovery. IAG on Friday slid to a second-quarter operating loss before exceptional items of 1.365 billion euros. Goodbody analysts said the results showed how network carriers like IAG - with connecting short-haul and long-haul routes - would find it more difficult to recover than budget carriers such as Ryanair and easyJet . Shares in IAG fell 7% to their lowest since 2012 at 167 pence, and are down 72% this year. CASH CALL The capital increase, which is fully underwritten, is conditional upon shareholder approval on Sept. 8, which Walsh said would be his last day in the job after the postponement of his retirement to steer IAG through the pandemic. Story continues Qatar Airways, which owns 25% of IAG, has proposed adding two directors to IAG's board after backing the move. Walsh said of the new appointments: "I don't think it signals anything other than Qatar's support for our business." As well as Walsh being succeeded by Iberia boss Luis Gallego, chairman Antonio Vazquez will be replaced at the beginning of 2021 by Javier Ferran. Walsh told Irish radio he believed shareholders would be supportive of the capital increase, which will be launched as soon as possible after approval at the meeting. IAG said the proceeds would not be used to fund the acquisition of Air Europa, the Spanish airline it agreed to buy for 1 billion euros last November, a deal it said it is trying to restructure. Spanish media have reported that IAG is seeking a reduced price of 500-600 million euros. Walsh said he was optimistic British Airways would reach a deal with cabin crew trade union Unite over the 12,000 jobs the airline says it needs to cut, explaining that the scale of the downturn should now be clear to the union. Separately, UK pilots' union BALPA said late in the evening that British Airways pilots have accepted a jobs deal with reduced pay of about 20% and some compulsory job cuts estimated at around 270. After months of grounded planes, the tentative return to flying in Europe, needed to salvage the summer season that provides the bulk of airline profits, has been threatened by signs of rising COVID-19 cases and new travel restrictions. Britain brought in quarantine rules for arrivals from Spain last week and has said it is looking at other countries. The United States and India, two big markets for British Airways, remain subject to quarantine rules. (Reporting by Sarah Young and Kate Holton;additional reporting by Bhargav Acharya; Editing by David Goodman, Mark Potter and Jonathan Oatis) Bachelor in Paradise star Jessica Brody was brutally dumped by Ciarran Stott when he chose to pursue a relationship with new arrival Kiki Morris instead. And the 31-year-old has since revealed that the British bad boy, 26, snubbed her when she reached out as a friend recently. Jessica noticed that Ciarran was being trolled and labelled a 'f**kboy' on social media for his womanising behaviour on Paradise, so sent him a supportive text message. Getting the silent treatment? Bachelor in Paradise star Jessica Brody (pictured) has revealed her ex Ciarran Stott is ignoring her text messages after he brutally dumped her for Kiki Morris 'Honestly, I think he is struggling at the moment,' she told The Babble podcast, which is hosted by former Bachelor Matthew Johnson. 'I actually reached out to him the other day and said, "I'm 100 per cent here for you if you need someone. I don't want you to feel like you're struggling alone, because I am here for you, but I need to step back from our friendship as well because I need to heal."' She added: 'At this point in time, him and I weren't [talking]... and he read the message and he didn't reply!' Left on read: Jessica noticed that Ciarran was being trolled and labelled a 'f**kboy' on social media for his womanising behaviour on Paradise, so sent him a supportive text message Jessica, whose relationship with Ciarran appeared to be going well on Paradise before Kiki arrived, gave her ex the benefit of the doubt. She said he was probably 'processing things' and 'struggling a little bit as well'. Although she has yet to receive an apology from the former Army rifleman, Jessica said she doesn't want to see him 'in pain'. Snubbed again! Ciarran (right) apparently read Jessica's friendly message but 'didn't reply' 'Even if it is because of their own actions, I don't want to see him hurt,' said the tattooed bartender. 'But you did these things unfortunately, and now you have to watch it back and experience the consequences,' she added. Jessica was dumped by Ciarran on Monday's episode after he chose to give his rose to new arrival Kiki, whom he had previously dated outside the show. Moving on fast: Jessica was dumped by Ciarran on Monday's episode after he chose to give his rose to new arrival Kiki Morris (right), whom he had previously dated outside the show Ciarran pulled her aside for a chat, and told her: 'I still want to be a mate to you I'm clearly doing what I want to do, so just crack on. Like, we're not boyfriend and girlfriend.' A heartbroken Jessica later said: 'As soon as Kiki walked in, Ciarran wanted nothing to do with me. And now I feel like I've lost my chance at something real in Paradise.' Bachelor in Paradise continues Sunday at 7:30pm on Channel 10 Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 08:28 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066aa108c 1 National djoko-tjandra,National-Police,Indonesia,Malaysia,Bareskrim,fugitive,bank-bali-case Free The National Police has brought Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra, a fugitive and graft convict who had been on the run for 11 years, back to Indonesia after arresting him in Malaysia on Thursday. Guarded by personnel of the police's Criminal Investigation Unit (Bareskrim), Djoko landed at Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport in East Jakarta on Thursday evening. Bareskrim head Comr. Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo said the arrest had been made possible through cooperation between Indonesian police and their Malaysian counterparts. The National Police chief sent a letter to the Malaysian police to help with searching the fugitive and, Alhamdulillah [thank God], we managed to locate him [on Thursday] afternoon, he said in a televised statement after arriving at the airport. This is also the answer to public doubts as to whether the police could catch [the fugitive], and today we have [delivered on] our commitment to arrest Djoko Tjandra, Listyo said as he thanked the Malaysian police for cooperating with the arrest. Read also: Cop accused of issuing travel letters for fugitive Djoko Tjandra faces multiple charges Following his arrival, Djoko was immediately taken to the Bareskrim headquarters for further questioning. Djoko was first arrested in September 1999 for his involvement in the high-profile Bank Bali corruption case. He was acquitted by the South Jakarta District Court in 2000. After the AGO filed a request for review, the Supreme Court sentenced Djoko to two years of imprisonment in 2009 and ordered him to pay Rp 546 billion (US$54 million) in restitution. However, Djoko fled to Papua New Guinea a day before the court ruling and had remained at large ever since. Djoko recently made headlines as he managed to return to the country undetected and request a case review over his conviction with the South Jakarta District Court in early June. He reportedly filed his plea after obtaining a new electronic ID card and passport, in addition to having his Interpol red notice status lifted. The court, however, dropped his case review plea on Tuesday after Djoko, who was reported to be residing in Malaysia, failed to show up for the hearing four times. Djokos legal team said that the fugitive was not able to attend trial due to his poor health. No charges over attempt to steal state land at Bang Tao Beach PHUKET: No charges will be pressed against the owner of the 300-metre-long fence that was erected along Bang Tao Beach earlier this week despite the fence being built on state land, MaAnn Samran, Chief of the Cherng Talay Tambon Administration Organisation (OrBorTor) has confirmed. tourismlandpropertycrime By The Phuket News Friday 31 July 2020, 06:25PM No charges will be pressed as the owner has already started removing the fence, Cherng Talay OrBorTor Chief MaAnn Samran said today (July 31). Photo: Cherng Talay OrBorTor No charges will be pressed as the owner has already started removing the fence, Cherng Talay OrBorTor Chief MaAnn Samran said today (July 31). Photo: Cherng Talay OrBorTor No charges will be pressed as the owner has already started removing the fence, Cherng Talay OrBorTor Chief MaAnn Samran said today (July 31). Photo: Cherng Talay OrBorTor No charges will be pressed as the owner has already started removing the fence, Cherng Talay OrBorTor Chief MaAnn Samran said today (July 31). Photo: Cherng Talay OrBorTor The decision to not press charges was made in light of the fact that the owner had already had the fence removed, as ordered, Mr MaAnn told reporters today (July 31). However, MaAnn declined to identify exactly which person or company had ordered for the fence to be built. Mr MaAnn said the decision followed a joint investigation by officers from the Damrongdharma Center (Ombudsmans office), the Phuket branch of the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), Phuket Marine Office, Phuket office of the Department of Treasury, and officers from the Phuket office of the Department of Lands. He also explained that the incident was brought to the fore by escalating comments and posts on social media over the four-day long holiday last weekend. This kind of case happened once two years ago. I ordered officers to tell the fence owner to remove the fence, and the owner followed the order, Mr MaAnn said. But later, local people also tried to take advantage of the land by setting up stalls and beach bed services on the land, he added. Mr MaAnn explained that the area where the fence was built was confirmed to be state land registered under land registration document PhorKor No. 263, which covers areas in Moo 2, 3 and 5 of Cherng Talay. The land [in question] is part of that state land and is under the care of the Treasury Department and the Marine Department, he said. However, he noted, The beach [area where the fence was built] is part of a state land parcel and is not public beach like at Surin beach or Layan beach, even though it looks the same. Before this, the area was covered by plants and, as time passed, it became a beach, he added. In terms of law, the area is not a public beach, but local people have assumed that it is, he said. During the investigation, I asked the officers from the Treasury Department whether it was possible to change the status of the land to be the same as public beach areas [as at Surin beach and Layan Beach], and they answered that the lands status cannot be changed, Mr MaAnn noted. I further asked how about reducing the size of the state land parcel to cover only the area where plants grow and to allow the actual beach there to be deemed a public area, under the control of the OrBorTor and Thalang District Office. That would allow us to prosecute those who will encroach on the beach, he added. Asked whether the land where the fence was built was being rented out by the government to a private party, Mr MaAnn said I dont know if that land is being rented out. For people to rent government land long term, that is for the Treasury Department to determine whether they can or not, he added. Mr MaAnn said the workers at the site had two days to clear the remains of the fence that are still standing. For the equipment and sections of the fence that remain in the area, I will give their owner two days to clear it out, he said. He also repeated his stance on the attempt to build the fence and claim state land. I, too, was also shocked that a fence had been built on the beach again, he said. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 21:12:28|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close LUANSHYA, Zambia, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The Zambian government in conjunction with China's Jilin University has set up nine farms for village chicken rearing projects in Luanshya, a mining district in the Copperbelt province of Zambia. Patrick Maipambe, Luanshya District Commissioner, when addressing farmers in the district Thursday, said "this village chicken rearing project is spearheaded by Technology Serve Organization and the University of Zambia in conjunction with the Jilin University of the People's Republic of China." Maipambe said the government of Zambia was committed to diversifying the nation's economy by putting up deliberate policies that would allow other stakeholders especially Chinese nationals to improve the production of livestock such as village chicken rearing as well as fish farming. "The promotion and implementation of the project in Luanshya will be done through the ministry of livestock and fisheries," he said. Maipambe said that chicken processing plants would be put up in some farms under the village chicken rearing project. He advised farmers to take the project seriously saying that this would help create more jobs for the locals. "Government of Zambia will continue working with stakeholders who mean well in improving the lives of Zambians socially and economically," he said. Enditem Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called for an independent investigation into the death of a newspaper reporter who covered local corruption in Balochistan province in southwestern Pakistan. Anwar Jan Kethran was shot dead by two gunmen as he was returning home on July 23 in Barkhan, a city in the northeast of the province, RSF said in a news release on July 30. His family has accused Abdur Rehman Kethran, the provincial food and population minister, of ordering his murder. They say the minister had told the reporter to stay away from journalism because of his coverage of corruption. Everything indicates that Anwar Jan Kethran was killed because he informed the public about allegedly corrupt practices by local officials, said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSFs Asia-Pacific desk. We therefore urge Balochistan First Minister Jam Kamal Khan to conduct an independent investigation into this murder so that both perpetrators and instigators can be quickly brought to justice. The family also was told to stay quiet or face consequences. The family has filed a complaint with the Balochistan paramilitary forces that includes an accusation against the ministers bodyguards. Kethran was killed two days after Matiullah Jan, a journalist known for his criticism of the military, was abducted in Islamabad just days before he was due to appear before the Supreme Court on a contempt charge in connection with a tweet critical of Pakistan's judges and military. Jan was handcuffed, hooded, and tortured before being released 12 hours later, RSF said. He was among several Pakistani journalists who have been briefly detained in recent months, allegedly by the military's spy agency. A few days ago, I responded to the unwarranted press statement issued by the self-acclaimed group called "CONCERNED TEACHER AND TRAINEE NURSES", a faceless entity that only surfaced just to whittle down the importance and gravity of the selection of Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang as the running mate to H.E. John Dramani Mahama. This is an excerpt from that article: "While I don't have the strength to discuss the weak understanding of governance by the architects of this charade, I want to address their third-grade press statement from their second paragraph. Their main reason is the point in relation to the 'cancellation of trainees' allowances. They argue that the cancellation of trainees' allowances suffices to demonize Prof. Naana, and by extension, calling on people to vote against the NDC. You see, people who think like this are not just shallow in reasoning, but are a disgrace to the two enviable professions (Teaching and Nursing). How could we have had people who think that the cancellation of the trainees' allowance in order to arrest the quota regime is akin to cruelty? I surmise, either these people were on Pluto when the discussion of the cancellation of trainees' allowance hit the airwaves or they are simply ignorant. However, for the purpose of this write-up, I crave your indulgence to encapsulate:- in the past, there was what came to be known as the quota regime where few applicants were selected for admission into the Teachers' and Nurses' Training Colleges. Many qualified applicants were left to their fate at home because government could not pay their allowances. This was devastating and frustrating to many Ghanaians. The NDC government thought it was unfortunate to admit only those whose allowances could be paid by government and the rest turned away, which was why the NDC decided to scrap the quota regime and to replace it with increased accessibility to these training institutions. Loan facilities were still available to those who would want to access them. My question, the system where majority of qualified applicants are turned away because of payment of allowances and the system where majority are admitted to arrest the problem of teacher-student and nurse-patient ratios, which one is better? Obviously, the engineers of that press statement are nothing, but selfish and individualistic. They think about themselves and not others who are equally qualified to be admitted. In any event, didn't The NPP government promise to restore the allowances and maintain the Mahama idea of increased accessibility? Haven't they reverted to the quota regime which deprives qualified applicants of being admitted? What good is of this? From the psyche of the self-acclaimed leaders of the faceless group, suffice it to say that the selection of Prof. Naana has sent a wave of shocks down the spines of the NPP, hence this hollow and empty press statement to ostensibly subject the woman to public revilement". In this article, what I seek to do simply, is to enumerate some educational policies of this sloppy government in order that readers can juxtapose those with the Mahama idea of increased accessibility. Now, if a policy that one government implements should go against it, then let's look at the following policies by the NPP government: 1. The NPP government lied about restoring the allowances and maintaining the Mahama idea of increased accessibility to these training institutions. They have effectively cancelled the increased accessibility and have brought back the quota regime which deprives qualified applicants from being admitted to there training institutions. 2. The NPP has cancelled the automatic posting after completion of the Nurses' Training College. Under the NDC, once you complete your training, you are posted to your station automatically, but the NPP government has cancelled that. 3. The NPP has introduced the compulsory National Service after training which used not to be there. Under the NDC, you are posted after training to enjoy your salary. The NPP government has intentionally introduced the compulsory National Service to further burden the already burdened teacher/ trainee. 4. The NPP has introduced the unnecessary Licensing Regime where trainees have to write a separate exams based on which a trainee could either be posted or not. How prudent is it to decide to post or not post a trainee who has gone through all the ranks based on a single and separate exams? The NDC thinks this is a clever way by which the NPP government is suppressing and sabotaging teachers/ trainees. The NDC is not against giving a license to teachers, but we are against the suppressive approach. NDC has promised to scrap it off because it is inimical, injurious and in the final analysis, a clever way to siphone money from innocent trainees. A better approach will be adopted. In conclusion, I have heard people say why is he (HE John Dramani Mahama) promising to restore the allowances? This is very simple, he meant good by scrapping the allowance in order to increase enrollment. He stood by his conviction and lost. That's a principle. Now this government says no, we are interested in the low enrollment regime and brought back the allowance. We will maintain it and reintroduce the increase in accessibility. The two are not the same. I leave it here. Thank you. OSUMANU ABUBAKAR NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police has banned the flying of sub-conventional aerial platforms starting from Friday (July 31, 2020) till August 15 as part of security measures. The order signed by Delhi Police Commissioner SN Shrivastava states that it is prohibited to fly sub-conventional aerial platforms like para-gliders, para-motors, hang-gliders, UAVs, UASs, microlight aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft, hot air balloons, small-sized powered aircraft, quadcopters or para jumping from aircraft. This order shall come into force with effect from 31.07.2020 and remain in force for a period of 16 days i.e. up to 15,08.2020 (both days inclusive) unless withdrawn earlier, the order said. The order added if the ban is violated, it will be punishable under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code. Here's what the order said: "It has been reported that certain criminal or anti-social elements or terrorists inimical to India pose a threat to the safety of the general public, dignitaries and vital installations by the use of sub-conventional aerial platforms like para-gliders, para-motors, hang gliders, UAVs, UASs, microlight aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft, hot air balloons, small size powered aircraft, quadcopters or even by para jumping from aircraft etc. Now, therefore, I, SN Shrivastava, Commissioner of Police, Delhi, in the exercise of the powers conferred upon me by section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 read with Govt. of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi's Notification No. U-11036/3/1978(i) UTL, dated 01.07.1978, do hereby prohibit the flying of sub-conventional aerial platforms like para-gliders, para-motors, hang gliders, UAVs, UASs, microlight aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft, hot air balloons, small size powered aircraft, quadcopters or para jumping from aircraft etc. over the jurisdiction of the NCT of Delhi on the occasion of Independence Day Celebrations 2020 in the National Capital of Delhi and doing so shall be punishable under section 188 of the Indian Penal Code. As the notice cannot be served individually on all concerned, the order is, hereby, passed ex-parte. It shall be published for the information of public through press and affixing copies on the Notice Boards of the offices of all DCsP, Addl. DCsP, ACsP, Tehsil, all Police Stations and offices of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation, North Delhi Municipal Corporation, EDMC, SDMC, PWD, DDA, Delhi Cantonment Board. This order shall come into force with effect from 31.07.2020 and shall remain in force for a period of 16 days i.e. up to 15,08.2020 (both days inclusive) unless withdrawn earlier." The ban comes after it was been reported that certain criminal, anti-social elements or terrorists, inimical to India may pose a threat to the safety of the general public, dignitaries and vital installations by using sub-conventional aerial platforms. Most people only show the best moments of their lives online - but some people don't let the truth stand in their way when it comes to keeping up appearances. People from around the world who've been caught lying on social media and in everyday life have had their incriminating photos rounded up for a hilarious gallery shared by Diply. One woman, believed to be from America, was spotted on Twitter trying to convince others an image from Shutterstock was illustrated by her son. Elsewhere, a man mocked a couple who posted a picture pretending that it was taken without their knowledge as they slept. Below, FEMAIL reveals the funniest times people have been caught out exaggerating the truth... People from around the world who have gone to extreme measures to lie about their lives have had their incriminating photos shared in a gallery on Diply. Pictured: An American woman who pretended an image from Shutterstock had been drawn by her son A woman who edited her photograph to give the illusion of a curvier figure was blissfully unaware that her Photoshop skills had also changed the appearance of the horse in her snap. It is unclear where the image was taken A woman, thought to be from America, who posted a photograph pretending that she was unaware it was being taken, was mocked by some Twitter users (pictured) Residents of an undisclosed town covered in snow were amused by a sign which suggested the area never witnessed that kind of weather A man who received an email from a scam artist was amused by the shocking spelling mistakes throughout the correspondence. It is unclear where the person is from This person was caught trying to convince his Facebook friends that a selfie had been taken by his girlfriend after eagle-eyed users spotted the telltale reflection in his mirror American children who made a poster to advertise their magic skills were mocked online for failing to create the illusion of levitation An anonymous man pretending to be stuck in traffic was unaware that the reflection in his sunglasses revealed an empty road ahead This man, thought to be based in the US, was caught pretending the sun was in his eyes when taking a photograph - but an eagle-eyed Facebook user spotted his shadow was in the wrong place for this to be true A man, from New Zealand, who was attempting to sell sunglasses as new was caught lying when a Facebook user spotted they were being worn in his display picture "Karen" is not an actual woman but rather has come to denote a pejorative stereotype, much to the chagrin (and occasional mirth) of the multitudes of women who, through no fault of their own, were named Karen at birth. Kerry Nash talking to police after she refused to wear a mask in Bunnings. Karen was chosen precisely because it is a "generic white woman name", and the term is used to refer to a privileged, middle-class and middle-aged white woman who uses her social power to bully and intimidate those lower on the socio-economic food chain. Karen is the woman who harangues a poorly-paid shop assistant over a perceived "issue" and asks to "speak to the manager". She lacks any self-awareness that she is not the victim of an injustice but rather is perpetrating one herself. She has strong soccer-mum vibes and probably listens to pop radio on the school run. She may be an anti-vaxxer. She even has a particular haircut associated with her. Hat-trick of wins for Witsies at Science Oscars Three Witsies in human genetics, economic geology, and public health research data respectively have won National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF) awards. Professor Michele Ramsay, Professor Judith Kinnaird, and Associate Professor Mark Collinson were winners in their categories at the NSTF-South32 Awards, a live-streamed gala event that took place on Thursday, 30 July 2020. The prestigious annual Awards, considered the Oscars of Science, recognise outstanding contributions to science, engineering, technology (SET), and innovation, in 13 categories. Finding factors that contribute to African diseases Ramsay is Professor of Human Genetics in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Wits, Director of the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience, and Chair of the Department of Science and Innovation National Research Foundation South African Research Chair Initiative (SARChI): Bioinformatics and Genomics of African Populations. She won the Lifetime Achievement Award for pioneering genomic medicine approaches in Africa and leading the transcontinental study on factors that contribute to African diseases. I feel that this is a great honour, not just for me, but for the wonderful groups of people I have worked with throughout my career. My inspiration comes from my students, postdocs and colleagues and I believe that a healthy and supportive work environment brings out the very best in everyone, says Ramsay. Putting the need for generating good quality data in Africa at the forefront, and especially the much needed population health and genetics data, is very close to my heart. We need more investment in exploring the central role of African genomes in disease risk, but also for their potential to discover novel treatment approaches that will benefit not only Africa, but the world. We are after all the cradle of humankind. Everyday metals for now and the future Kinnaird, who won the Management Award, is Associate Professor and Director of the Economic Geology Research Unit and Co-Director of the Department of Science and Innovation Centre of Excellence (CoE) for the Study of Mineral and Energy Deposits in the School of Geosciences at Wits. I have had great opportunities at Wits especially to be able to co-direct CIMERA, a national Centre of Excellence for the study of Minerals and Energy. The CoE is nationally relevant to government and industry and internationally recognised for the quality of its research. Through the CoE, it has been possible to make a difference to student lives and careers. I count myself privileged to have such an interesting and rewarding opportunity, says Kinnaird. The Award acknowledges Kinnaird for directing economic geology research studies on metals for everyday needs, now and for the future. I would like to acknowledge my sponsors, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi and Dr Robin Drennan, and no award such as this would be possible without the support of colleagues. In particular, I would like thank Professor Roger Gibson and Professor Paul Nex, and my admin assistant, Dan Duarte. I have greatly appreciated the financial support from mining and exploration companies for my postgraduate students, the next generation of geologists and leaders, she says. Public health data from the Wits rural campus in Mpumalanga Collinson is Co-Director with Professor Kobus Herbst of the South African Population Research Infrastructure Network (SAPRIN), a national research infrastructure that has harmonised core data from all three of South Africas Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) and is developing new interconnected HDSS nodes in multiple urban settings. Collinson and Herbst won the Data for Research Award for collectively conceiving, developing and implementing SAPRIN, which produces up-to-date information on health and socio-economic wellbeing, representative of South Africas population, for scientific analysis, embedding research projects and policy evaluation. These NSTF Awards play a good role in making the public aware of the value of science for the country. They showcase the contributions of government, research councils, universities, NGOs, and the private sector to advances in knowledge for human development and well-being, says Collinson. Regarding my own award, for SAPRIN leadership, along with Kobus Herbst, its a pleasure and honour to get it on behalf of our large, multi-skilled teams in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, and the communities in which the work is embedded. Each SAPRIN node is located at a university. In Collinsons case, this is at Agincourt, Wits rural campus in Mpumalanga officially known as the South African Medical Research Council-Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit. Agincourt is located within the Wits School of Public Health. SAPRIN recently initiated an urban health and population node in Gauteng, called GRT-INSPIRED, in Western Tshwane and inner-city Johannesburg, run collaboratively by Wits, the University of Pretoria and the University of Johannesburg as the Gauteng Research Triangle. Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal Designate congratulated the trio: Witsies are fearless in their pursuit of new knowledge and innovation, are critical thinkers, problem-solvers, pioneers of science, and agents of. They are valued for their independence and ingenuity; their fight against injustice; their pioneering work in advancing the humanities and the sciences; and their strength in advancing economic development. Think of the rioting in Portland as our national Graduation Party. The kids got permission to have an open house, and now it's all gotten out of hand. (Except when a traditional open house get out of hand, the police still show up.) None of this should come as a shock. The nightly attacks on statues, on a federal courthouse, and on police are the proof of Solomon's injunction, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old[er], he will not depart from it." Solomon wanted children taught the fear of the Lord; but the principle applies no matter what you teach. This is the moment that America's teacher's colleges, and the public-school systems fed by them, have been working toward since the 1960s. That's when the "education schools began conditioning teachers to peddle impossible social and economic theories to captive human sponges in K-12 classrooms," as described here by Chuck Roger: [T]he "evidence-free" education school theory of "social justice" alleges that minority children learn best when encouraged to embrace grievances against middle class whites. Social justiceindoctrinated teachers instill resentment in "non-dominant" (minority) children and guilt in "dominant" (white) children. Judging by the abundance of guilt-ridden white Americans, the tactic is working its magic well. It's even worse if you've been to college. A 2017 poll suggested that a "majority of millennials would prefer to live in a socialist, communist or fascist nation rather than a capitalistic one." That makes slightly more sense when you see that only 33% of Millennials "were able to identify the correct definition of socialism." Marion Smith, executive director of Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, blames this preference for totalitarian systems on the "widespread historical illiteracy in American society regarding socialism and the systemic failure of our education system to teach students about the genocide, destruction, and misery caused by communism since the Bolshevik Revolution one hundred years ago." Again, none of this should come as news to conservatives. We revere history, and for decades we've been exercised by the left's ceaseless revisionist propaganda. It's proof of leftists' success that we've seen two generations of historical illiterates. Studies have shown that 74% of Americans over 65 could correctly answer most of ten multiple-choice questions on American history taken from the U.S. Citizenship Test, but only 19% of those under 45 could pass. Thirty-seven percent of test-takers believed that Benjamin Franklin invented the light bulb, "[t]welve percent incorrectly thought WWII General Dwight Eisenhower led troops in the Civil War," and two percent thought the cause of the Cold War was climate change. It helps explain why mobs think they're fighting for racial justice when they deface statues of Columbus, Lincoln, and the memorial to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. Progressives have so masterfully imposed their anti-history that tens of millions of Americans never question the received doctrine that Republicans are the party of slavery and Jim Crow, that the problem with American public education is a lack of money, and that Democrat policies benefit blacks and poor people. The media play an obvious role in this, too. "But the genesis of the problem," says Stephen Kruiser at PJMedia, "is to be found in a public education system ... controlled by radical leftist teachers' unions." William Haupt III at The Center Square notes how, already since 2008, "[t]wo thirds of the millennials believe America is a racist and sexist country and 40 percent think America is 'the most unequal society in the world.'" Now a reported 3,500 classrooms across fifty states have adopted the New York Times' own evidence-free1619 Project, so kids can learn that every accomplishment in America's history came out of slavery. This will further ensure that kids "unable to discern fact from fiction, will be subjected to a politicized, false history of their country." Even the less extreme classrooms have long since abandoned patriotism and Western values in favor of "woke" lesson plans that reinforce the rottenness of America and the villainy of white people. "Most children no longer extensively read the literary classics," says Justin Haskins of The Heartland Institute. "And when they are in history classrooms, they are often bombarded with left-wing historical revisionism that turns American heroes like George Washington into racist moral monsters." It's damaging enough that pupils steeped in revisionist history grow up believing lies that make them hate their country and loathe themselves, but being denied access to the notable works of Western literature has unlinked generations from the past, depriving them of the common sensibilities that enabled even fierce opponents in our bloodiest struggle like U.S. Grant and Robert E. Lee to sit down with one another with the humility and respect proper from one broken member of Adam's fallen race to another. Bob Dylan, in his 2017 speech to the Nobel Committee, said of his formation as a young musician that he immersed himself so deeply in the language and themes of traditional folk music that when he started writing his own songs, "the folk lingo was the only vocabulary that I knew, and I used it." But I had something else as well. I had principles and sensibilities and an informed view of the world. And I had had that for a while. Learned it all in grammar school. Don Quixote, Ivanhoe, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Tale of Two Cities, all the rest typical grammar school reading that gave you a way of looking at life, an understanding of human nature, and a standard to measure things by. I took all that with me when I started composing lyrics. And the themes from those books worked their way into many of my songs, either knowingly or unintentionally. I wanted to write songs unlike anything anybody ever heard, and these themes were fundamental. That Dylan would credit the ethical and imaginative foundation of his earliest creative work to his school days, where he "learned it all" from stories and authors esteemed, until recently, as classics of a common literary canon, is the harshest indictment of present-day public education I can imagine. Is there any sign anywhere, in the implacable wrath of the BLM demagogues or the pitiless inquisitions of the woke, of the presence of rational principles, or a standard to measure things by, or an understanding, or even tolerance, of human nature? It's the total incapacity for tolerance, the ease with which they howl for the shunning, shaming, firing, and even deaths of those they perceive as their moral inferiors, all without a shred of compassion or a particle of self-awareness, that are the marks of an intellectual and moral poverty hard for members of my generation to grasp. But bear in mind that no one is simply born with principles and rational standards and a magnanimous view of humanity: these have to be learned. (Not that they can't be unlearned, as proved by the older generation of Democrats who have voluntarily abandoned those things.) But at school, these younger generations were denied access to the literature and history from which they could have gradually absorbed the fundamental ideals of their own civilization. It was denied because their teachers preferred force-feeding them banal social justice nostrums, or encouraging the hottest marginal lifestyles, or repeating appalling fables about "Western villains endlessly tying to the railroad tracks of history an equally crude roster of innocent victims 'of color.'" At the moment, for some racial crime or other, the Orange County Democrats are pushing to remove John Wayne's name and statue from the county airport. John Loftus at NRO has come to the actor's defense on the basis of the traditional virtues portrayed in Wayne's roles as Ethan Edwards, Ringo Kid, and John T. Chance. Included in those virtues is what Loftus calls the "Christian conception of mankind, which holds that we are fallen and flawed but capable of striving toward improvement and ultimately redemption." Is there a better description of what's missing from the souls of those unhinged women shrieking at cops in the front lines of the BLM riots, or the Orc swarms of Antifa kicking a prostrate victim? Not only do they reject the possibility of their enemies' redemption from America's "original sin of racism," but they're insensible to their own need of redemption and mercy. They don't know about the much graver Original Sin of Adam that starts all of us out on the wrong side of history. None of their textbooks mentioned anything about souls. And to think that even those moral monsters Christopher Columbus and Stonewall Jackson could have taught them that. T.R. Clancy looks at the world from Dearborn, Michigan. You can email him at trclancy@yahoo.com. The foreign minister paid special attention to the threats to European security posed by Russia's large-scale militarization of Crimea and the Black Sea region. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has declared the need for the European Union to to expand sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation over the annexation of Crimea. The statement came during Kuleba's meeting with the heads of EU diplomatic missions accredited in Ukraine, the ministry's press service reports. The minister noted that it was about an illegal launch of railway traffic between mainland Russia and the temporarily occupied Crimea, as well as a vote held on the peninsula on amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation. "Kuleba thanked the EU for the Crimea package of sanctions, and stressed the need to expand it, given that the Russian Federation continues the occupation and neglects its obligations as an occupying power under international law," the statement said. The foreign minister also called on European partners to join the international platform for the deoccupation of Crimea as soon as the initiative is finalized. Read alsoBipartisan group of U.S. senators introduces legislation to provide support for Ukraine One of the topics of the minister's meeting with the ambassadors was the human rights situation in the Russian-occupied Crimea and the illegal persecution of Ukrainian citizens. The minister is convinced that the EU sanctions policy for human rights violations should be applied to the criminal actions of the Russian Federation in the temporarily occupied Crimea. "The foreign minister pointed to the threats posed by Russia's large-scale militarization of Crimea and the Black Sea region to the European security," the ministry added. As UNIAN reported earlier, Dmytro Kuleba has called for increased pressure on the Kremlin due to human rights violations in Crimea and the ongoing militarization of the peninsula. Legal and Moral Relativism Commentary Todays leftists believe in the philosophy of by any means possible, or, in other words, the ends justify the means. The U.S. Constitution is effectively discarded to get to a desired result, and justice differs depending on to whom it is being applied rather than what actions that person took. Legality is relative. Morality is relative. This isnt a new phenomenon, but its a more dangerous one than in the past. I remember the days of the Paula Jones lawsuit against President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. You may remember it for its more memorable victim, Monica Lewinsky. The issue was that President Clinton had lied under oath about his affair with Lewinsky when he was accused of sexual harassment by Jones. It wasnt too much earlier that Democrats had painted Clarence Thomas as a sexual predator, but Democrats brushed off President Clintons sexual escapades even after he first lied and later admitted them. Around that time, my wife and I had regular dinners with progressive friends, which always ended with a heated political debate. These so-called liberals and feminists actually told us that the women accusing Clinton were bimbos who wanted to have relationships with Clinton and so we should just move on. Thats where the left-wing organization MoveOn.org got its name, founded at that time. Yet that same organization, and the same party and people behind it later accused Mitt Romney and then later again accused Brett Kavanaugh of being sexual predators based on uncorroborated high school pranks, while dismissing the more serious recent allegations of molestation against Joe Biden. Believe all women, they claimeda highly unconstitutional and anti-American contradiction of the principle of innocent until proven guilty. But what they really meant was believe all women who advance our goal of destroying anyone with whom we disagree, particularly conservatives and Republicans. The ends justify the means, and justice is relative. Perhaps more frightening is the new justification of the ongoing riots in major U.S. cities. Theyre not peaceful protests. As those on the left tell us, and I agree, theres no such thing as an innocent bystander, just as there were no innocent whites who ignored anti-black racism in the American South in the 50s and 60s, and there were no innocent Germans at the concentration camps during World War II. As philosopher Edmund Burke famously said, The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. The protesters are not doing nothing; theyre actually enabling and, in many cases, protecting the rioters. An article in the magazine Wired gave tips to protesters for protecting rioters, ignoring criminal activity, and shielding perpetrators from the police. The ends justify the means, and justice is relative. One justification Ive been hearing from those on the left is that change only comes about by violence. Im told this particularly by progressives from the comfort of their homes in exclusive suburban communities. They tell me that the United States was founded by violent mobs. They specifically mention the Boston Tea Party. Now, these are not uneducated or miseducated Millennials; these are my Baby Boomer peers. Many attended the same public schools as I did and were taught the same American history. They should know first that no innocent people were harmed during the Boston Tea Party and, more importantly, that the American government was formed to give a voice to minority opinions, to allow the people to have control over their lives, and to do so without the need for mob rule. So the progressives justify violence by rewriting history. The ends justify the means, and justice is relative. In the 60s and 70s, there was an effort, particularly by feminists, to stop blaming the victim. If a woman wore a short skirt in a public place, it might be irresponsible. It might even be dangerous. But it wasnt criminal, and it never could excuse or mitigate the criminal behavior of a rapist. This was an important lesson, brought to us by liberals. And yet now, the same people, or at least their ideological heirs, claim that vandalism, destruction, thuggery, and even murder can be explained as an acceptable reaction to systemic racism or white supremacy or white privilege or Donald Trump. One hundred conservatives not wearing masks elicits many progressive editorials and political speeches condemning them. A few dozen religious Jews at a funeral elicits arrests by progressive mayors. A few hundred thousand people marching in close proximity through the largest U.S. cities causing destruction of property and even harming and murdering people is excused. The ends justify the means, and justice is relative. Homeowners protecting their property against illegal trespassers in St. Louis are charged with a crime while the criminal protesters are not charged. The ends justify the means, and justice is relative. The city of Portland allows protesters to take over parts of the city, patrol with weapons, attack police, set fires, and damage buildings, but the city council fines the federal government for setting up fences around federal buildings to protect property and lives. The ends justify the means, and justice is relative. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) accused Attorney General William Barr of preventing the rioters from destroying federal buildings solely to appeal to President Trumps base. He said, The protesters arent mobs, they are mothers, veterans, and mayors, as if certain nice and respectable people should be allowed to rampage. Nadler, and many of his compatriots, have made it clear that the ends justify the means, and justice is relative. If President Trumps base comprises people who believe that law and order is good, that justice should be blind, and that destruction and violence are to be opposed not promoted, then count me in his base. If the Democrats feel differently, as many are making perfectly clear, then they have abandoned American values and the American people. Bob Zeidman has a Bachelor of Art and a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University. He is an inventor and the founder of successful high-tech Silicon Valley firms including Zeidman Consulting and Software Analysis and Forensic Engineering. He also writes novels; his latest is the political satire Good Intentions. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Sanofi and GSK in advanced discussions with European Union to supply up to 300 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine Discussions relate to vaccine candidate using Sanofis recombinant protein-based technology combined with GSKs pandemic adjuvant system Both companies are committed to making their COVID-19 vaccine affordable and available globally PARIS and LONDON July 31, 2020 Sanofi and GSK are in advanced discussions, with the European Commission (EC) for the supply of up to 300 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine candidate developed by Sanofi in partnership with GSK, is based on the recombinant protein-based technology used by Sanofi to produce an influenza vaccine, and GSKs established adjuvant technology. The doses would be manufactured in European countries including France, Belgium, Germany and Italy. This marks a key milestone in protecting and serving the European population against COVID-19. Todays announcement helps to ensure that millions of Europeans will have access to a potential vaccine protecting against COVID-19, once proven safe and effective. It has been our steadfast commitment to provide a vaccine that is affordable and accessible to everyone, and we are grateful to the European Commission for their ongoing engagement and shared support of this effort, said Thomas Triomphe, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Sanofi Pasteur. Together with GSK, we are working relentlessly to develop and produce a vaccine to address this global health crisis. Roger Connor, President of GSK Vaccines added "GSK is proud to be working in partnership with Sanofi to make this vaccine available as soon as possible in Europe. Both companies have significant R&D and manufacturing capability in Europe and are already working hard to scale up production across our networks. This announcement from the EC supports our ongoing efforts Sanofi is leading the clinical development and registration of the COVID-19 vaccine and expects a Phase 1/ 2 study to start in September, followed by a Phase 3 study by the end of 2020. If data are positive, regulatory approval could be achieved by the first half of 2021. In parallel, Sanofi and GSK are scaling up manufacturing of the antigen and adjuvant to produce up to one billion doses per year overall. Story continues Sanofi and GSK are committed to making the vaccine available globally Sanofi and GSK recently signed agreements with the United States where they have longstanding partnerships with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, and also with the UK Government. The partners plan to provide a significant portion of total worldwide available supply capacity in 2021/22 to the global initiative Access to COVID19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, a global collaboration of leaders of governments, global health organizations, businesses and philanthropies to accelerate development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. On the front lines in the fight against COVID-19 In addition to the recombinant protein-based vaccine in collaboration with GSK, Sanofi is also developing a messenger RNA vaccine candidate in partnership with Translate Bio. With several innovative vaccine platforms currently investigated across the industry, mRNA is considered among the most promising. Sanofi expects a Phase 1 study to start by the end of the year, and, if data are positive, an approval at the earliest in the second half of 2021. Translate Bio has established mRNA manufacturing capacity and Sanofi expects to be able to supply annual capacity of 90 to 360 million doses. About GSK GSK is a science-led global healthcare company with a special purpose: to help people do more, feel better, live longer. GSK is the leading manufacturer of vaccines globally. For further information please visit www.gsk.com About Sanofi Sanofi is dedicated to supporting people through their health challenges. We are a global biopharmaceutical company focused on human health. We prevent illness with vaccines, provide innovative treatments to fight pain and ease suffering. We stand by the few who suffer from rare diseases and the millions with long-term chronic conditions. With more than 100,000 people in 100 countries, Sanofi is transforming scientific innovation into healthcare solutions around the globe. Sanofi, Empowering Life Media Relations Contacts Ashleigh Koss Tel.: +1 908-981-8745 Ashleigh.Koss@sanofi.com Jean-Baptiste Froville Tel. : +33 (0)1 53 77 46 46 mr@sanofi.com Investor Relations Contact Eva Schaefer-Jansen Tel.: +33 (0)1 53 77 45 45 ir@sanofi.com Sanofi Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts. These statements include projections and estimates and their underlying assumptions, statements regarding plans, objectives, intentions and expectations with respect to future financial results, events, operations, services, product development and potential, and statements regarding future performance. Forward-looking statements are generally identified by the words expects, anticipates, believes, intends, estimates, plans and similar expressions. Although Sanofis management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, investors are cautioned that forward-looking information and statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Sanofi, that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied or projected by, the forward-looking information and statements. These risks and uncertainties include among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, future clinical data and analysis, including post marketing, decisions by regulatory authorities, such as the FDA or the EMA, regarding whether and when to approve any drug, device or biological application that may be filed for any such product candidates as well as their decisions regarding labelling and other matters that could affect the availability or commercial potential of such product candidates, the fact that product candidates if approved may not be commercially successful, the future approval and commercial success of therapeutic alternatives, Sanofis ability to benefit from external growth opportunities, to complete related transactions and/or obtain regulatory clearances, risks associated with intellectual property and any related pending or future litigation and the ultimate outcome of such litigation, trends in exchange rates and prevailing interest rates, volatile economic and market conditions, cost containment initiatives and subsequent changes thereto, and the impact that COVID-19 will have on us, our customers, suppliers, vendors, and other business partners, and the financial condition of any one of them, as well as on our employees and on the global economy as a whole. Any material effect of COVID-19 on any of the foregoing could also adversely impact us. This situation is changing rapidly and additional impacts may arise of which we are not currently aware and may exacerbate other previously identified risks. The risks and uncertainties also include the uncertainties discussed or identified in the public filings with the SEC and the AMF made by Sanofi, including those listed under Risk Factors and Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements in Sanofis annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2019. Other than as required by applicable law, Sanofi does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information or statements. Attachment Matt Wyatt and Renee Barrett's new romance on Bachelor In Paradise has blossomed despite the tattooed hunk's late arrival to the show. But on Friday, Married At First Sight's Jessika Power claimed that Matt, who is her ex-boyfriend, has dumped Renee and moved on. She spilled the beans on the So Dramatic! podcast, saying: 'He's dating Kim Hartnett from Love Island.' Bachelor in Paradise SPOILER: Matt Wyatt's romance with Renee Barrett is over and he 'is now dating' Love Island babe Kim Hartnett, according to Married At First Sight's Jessika Power 'Sorry to anyone that's watching Bachelor in Paradise,' Jessika quipped. Fans will remember Kim from season one of Love Island Australia, which was filmed in Mallorca, Spain. The single mother entered the villa as an intruder, but was booted off after just nine days on the show. 'He's dating Kim Hartnett from Love Island': Jessika revealed that Matt, who is her ex-boyfriend, has dumped Renee and moved on Elsewhere in the podcast, Jessika revealed she was dating Matt before he travelled to Fiji for Bachelor in Paradise, which was filmed in November 2019. Jessika claimed that they were 'seeing each other' and he had introduced her to his mother and sister. 'I was seeing him up until this Bachelor in Paradise,' she said of their relationship. Dating: Elsewhere in the podcast, Jessika revealed that she was dating Matt before he travelled to Fiji for Bachelor in Paradise, which was filmed in November 2019. Jessika claimed they were 'seeing each other' and that he had introduced her to his mother and sister Jessika explained that she had heard from a Bachelor contestant Matt had been in contact Renee, and that she did not pressure him to dump Jessika to go on the show. The Married At First Sight star even said that she encouraged Matt to join the show if he wanted to, but he said that he did not want to it because he 'hated the drama'. When asked if their split was because he wanted to join Paradise, Jessika said: 'Yeah, he dumped me for Paradise, 100 per cent.' Bella Hadid appears to be studying how to love, as she toted the third title in Parallaxs Mindfulness Essentials Series by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh on Wednesday. After enjoying some quality time with pals earlier in the week, the 23-year-old supermodel returned to her New York apartment with a Louis Vuitton duffel bag in one hand and a chic cheetah-print purse on her shoulder. While cutting a sporty figure in a navy mini skirt and Nike sneakers, she held onto a black composition notebook, presumably to jot down notes on her book's guide to meditative practices. Bookworm: Bella Hadid returned to her New York apartment with a Louis Vuitton duffle bag in one hand and a chic cheetah-print purse on her shoulder The Vogue cover girl, who reportedly started talking to her on-again, off again ex-boyfriend The Weeknd in June, appeared at ease with her face hidden under a pair of retro orange-tinted sunglasses. As she opted to keep her signature dark tresses in a sleek updo, Bella made sure to keep her nose and mouth covered with a white CDC-recommended face mask. In addition to accessorizing her blue Jean Paul Gaultier long sleeve with a gold '1996' necklace, the raven-haired beauty wore a pair of large gold hoop earrings. Chic: While cutting a sporty figure in a navy mini skirt and Nike sneakers, she held onto a black composition notebook, presumably to jot down notes on her book's guide to meditative practices Bella recently declared she's 'back to work baby' following a break amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In recent months, the beauty has been spending time at her mother Yolanda's $4million 32-acre farmhouse in Pennsylvania alongside her older sister Gigi, 25, who is expecting her first child with Zayn Malik, 27. Earlier this month, the pregnant model showed off her growing baby bump for the first time since she announced she was expecting. City girl: Bella recently declared she's 'back to work baby' following a break from amid the coronavirus pandemic Enjoying herself: In the past two weeks, she's also enjoyed a road trip with pals, helicopter ride, celebrated her friend Leah McCarthy's birthday in Pennsylvania (seen on Thursday) 'A lot of people are confused by why I am not sharing more, but I am pregnant through a pandemic. Obviously, my pregnancy is not the most important thing going on in the world, that's in part why I didn't feel a need to share, apart from with my family and friends,' she explained on Instagram. Gigi previously announced she was a 'few months along' into her pregnancy back in April, suggesting she is due this fall. It'll be the first child for both her and her boyfriend Zayn, formerly of One Direction fame. Here is the bump! Earlier this month, she showed off her growing baby bump for the first time since she announced her pregnancy Gigi's youngest sister seems to be taking her new role as a soon-to-be aunt seriously, which has included tending to her sister's cravings in the kitchen. Last Tuesday, Bella also posted a selfie to her Instagram Story, declaring her official return to work on. In the past two weeks, she's also enjoyed a road trip with friends, helicopter ride and her pal Leah McCarthy's birthday in Pennsylvania. WATERLOO REGION The third annual backpack challenge organized by Waterloo Regional Police, which collects school supplies for local children, will include more than just new pencils, pens and lunch bags this year. Police are now encouraging members of the public to also donate cloth face masks for children preparing to head back to school in September. In a release, police Chief Bryan Larkin said 2020 is a year like no other. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot of things, but what hasnt changed is that people are still in need in our community. We want to do our part to ensure every child in Waterloo Region goes back to school feeling confident, excited and proud. Over the past two years the police service has collected close to 2,500 backpacks along with thousands of dollars worth of school supplies and gift cards for local children in need. The Ontario Ministry of Education released its back-to-school plan this week and it includes mandatory face masks for children starting in Grade 4. Younger students will also be encouraged to wear masks. The backpack challenge runs until Aug. 21. Donations can be dropped off at designated spots at police headquarters, 200 Maple Grove Rd. in Cambridge, or at any police division: North Division, 45 Columbia St. E., Waterloo Central Division, 134 Frederick St., Kitchener South Division, 176 Hespeler Rd., Cambridge Rural Division, 13 Industrial Dr., Elmira To arrange a date to drop off a donation, or for more information, please contact Cherri Greeno, manager of corporate communications and public information, at Cherri.Greeno@wrps.on.ca or 519-570-9777 ext. 8773, or 519-498-9954. The Bono Regional Security Council (REGSEC) has asked the NPP Parliamentary Candidate for the Banda constituency, Joe Danquah and his NDC counterpart, Ahmed Ibrahim, to desist from busing people to any polling station in the constituency to register in the on-going voters registration exercise. Rather, anyone who truly is an ordinary resident in the constituency and is eligible to register should feel free to go his or her polling station to do so on their own volition without being transported by any of the two contenders or their agents. This was contained in a statement issued after a crunch Emergency Meeting by the REGSEC held in Sunyani and chaired by the Regional Minister, Mrs Evelyn Ama Kumi-Richardson. In attendance were Mr Joe Danquah and Mr Ahmed Ibrahim as well as the Regional President of the Ghana Journalists Association, Larry Paa Kwesi Moses and Dennis Kwadwo Peprah, the Regional GJA Secretary. The meeting formed part of measures taken by REGSEC to maintain law and order following clashes between the supporters of the NPP and the NDC during the on-going voters registration exercise, which claimed one life. Background Violent clashes between supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Banda Ahenkro in the Banda District of the Bono Region on Monday, July 13, resulted in the death of one person with a number of injuries and destruction of property. According to sources, the clashes, which began with verbal confrontations a day before over the on-going voters registration, ended in physical confrontations and gunshots. The deceased, who was said to have been stabbed, died later at the Wenchi Methodist Hospital. The Regional Minister over a week ago led the REGSEC to the constituency where she assured the chiefs and people of the area that the Police would work around the clock to bring the perpetrators of the crime to book and also ensure that peace prevailed in the area. Peace Agreement At the REGSEC meeting in Sunyani last Thursday, July 30, 2020, Mr Ahmed Ibrahim and Mr Joe Danquah appended their signatures to a Peace Pact to promote absolute peace in the constituency. The Regional Minister and her Deputy, Steven Siaka witnessed the signing. We, the undersigned have agreed today July 30, 2020, that we shall see to maintain peace in the Banda District during the remaining days of the voters registration exercise and after, until the end of the 2020 General Election in December 2020, the Peace Pact said. The Regional Security Council further directed the various political parties to educate their agents on the need to fill the Challenge Form when they doubt the citizenship or residency of anyone. To this end, nobody should resort to the use of physical violence in preventing people from registering. Sadly, what it has shown since the middle of June is that the case numbers have been getting higher and higher. Loading But the seven-day average can also be a bit of a rollercoaster, just one that doesn't cause quite as much whiplash. That line on the graph that seemed to be climbing higher and higher this month has wobbled slightly a couple of times in the past week, but its too early to gauge whether weve reached the peak. One way of making sense of the daily increases is to look at what is called the basic reproduction value, which gives a sense of how much the virus is spreading. This is a graph from Deakin University epidemiology chair Catherine Bennett that compares the number of new infections on a given day with new infection numbers five days ago. Five days was chosen as the reference window, Professor Bennett said, because that is the average incubation period for coronavirus. The resulting value gives us a sense of how much people with coronavirus are spreading the infection to others. When it is at two, it suggests that people with coronavirus are infecting two other people on average, which would cause numbers to start doubling in a matter of days. When it is below one, people are not infecting others, and daily case numbers should start to decline. Here is what the value looks like over the past month: There is some day-to-day variation, but the line on the graph has been dipping. As of Tuesday, the value is sitting at 0.95. "It really started to come down and settle after we went into lockdown - which is what you want to see," Professor Bennett said. But there are a couple of things to keep in mind when looking at the chart. "Just like the raw numbers themselves, it is a bit problematic because you are comparing fluctuating numbers now with fluctuating numbers five days ago, she said. And Professor Bennett added the daily numbers show when the case was reported to the health department, not necessarily the day the person was infected. Loading But she said her calculations corresponded with the state governments own internal modelling on infection rates and were the best estimate possible from publicly available data. The state health department has its own modelling using additional information including social distancing surveys and the details of each case along with movement data from Facebook, Apple and Google. However, this information is not made publicly available. When asked about the current reproduction value (or R number) in Tuesdays daily coronavirus press conference, Professor Sutton said this number would be "very close to one, if not below one". "There should be downward pressure on transmission in the community, but whenever you have settings that allow significant outbreaks to occur, that can drive the R number up," he said. "We have to get on top of the outbreaks, we have to make sure they are not getting seeded by community members." He said the states daily numbers were currently being driven by outbreaks, but it was necessary to stay on top of community transmission. The age breakdown of infections Victorias coronavirus cases in this second peak during June and July have differed from the first in March and April in several ways. For a start, almost all of the transmission has been taking place locally rather the virus being detected largely in overseas travellers in hotel quarantine: The age breakdown of those infected has also shifted. In this second peak, there has been a higher proportion of younger people infected than in the first. People under the age of 40 made up 42 per cent of infections during the first peak, while in the second peak they made up 59 per cent. That may be a sign of transmission through family gatherings or through essential workplaces. But once you take into account the age distribution of the states population, those in their late 80s or older have the highest infection rate among all Victorians in the second wave. People older than 85 made up 0.6 per cent of cases in the first wave, but during the second they have made up 4.4 per cent. As of the 2016 census, about 2.2 per cent of the states population were in this age range. Clusters being confirmed in aged care homes in recent days are making up a sizeable proportion of each days new cases. On Monday there were 532 new coronavirus cases confirmed in Victoria - the states highest single-day tally since the start of the pandemic - and of these 93 were people aged in their 80s or older. Of these 93 people, 57 were women over the age of 85. To put that number in perspective, a total of 226 women in this age group have tested positive for coronavirus since the start of the outbreak, meaning one-quarter of the state's total cases among women in this age group were confirmed in a single day. As of Tuesday, 769 active coronavirus cases statewide had been linked to aged care facilities, with either staff members or residents testing positive for COVID-19. Because a growing proportion of new coronavirus cases in Victoria are being tied to outbreaks at places such as aged care centres and abattoirs, it can have an outsized impact on cases in particular local government areas, particularly if you regularly use this graph to gauge the trends where you live: For example, Colac Otway, in the states east, went from having zero active cases on Friday, July 17, to 54 active cases on Tuesday. Thats more cases than any other regional/rural municipality in Victoria and enough to give the area one of the states highest infection rates. At this stage, most of those cases are due to the cluster at the Australian Lamb Company in Colac, which is associated with 50 cases in total. And in the Yarra Ranges, in Melbournes east, case numbers rose from 37 on Sunday to 80 on Monday. That may be largely due to a cluster at the Kirkbrae Presbyterian Homes aged care facility in Kilsyth, which was linked with 76 cases on Tuesday, up from 19 on Sunday. If you see a sizeable and uncharacteristic rise in your local government area over the next few days, it may be from a cluster that has been discovered and where targeted testing has been carried out to determine the extent of it. If you notice the numbers start to come down, that should mean that more people are recovering from COVID-19 in an area than there are new people testing positive to the virus. The number of cases under investigation Coronavirus cases involving community transmission are among the most worrying to the health department. When there is community transmission that means that a persons infection cannot be traced back to an existing case or outbreak, which suggests they contracted the virus somewhere unknown. We used to show this graph of the running total of cases in which community transmission was suspected quite regularly, but have stopped doing so recently: Thats because the states surge in cases in recent days has led to a backlog of infections still being investigated, for which the health department has not yet been able to determine how the person contracted the virus. As of Tuesday there were 3350 cases under investigation. Thats about 37 per cent of the cases that have been confirmed statewide since the start of the pandemic. Most of them are people who have tested positive in recent days. When daily case numbers were lower, it would typically take the health department several days to clear an investigation into the infection source. But as of Tuesday evening, the infection source of more than half of the cases confirmed 10 days ago is yet to be determined. At the moment there have been 1363 cases tied to community transmission, but the true number is likely much higher because of all the infections still being investigated. This is what the graph looks like once you include other infection sources. As you can see, the number of cases under investigation have grown the most lately. Whenever there is a daily increase in the community transmission tally, what that effectively tells us is that the health department has found that the source of the infection of people who tested positive about a week ago cant be traced to a known case or cluster. It probably is also a measure of their current capacity to carry out these investigations. It doesnt, however, tell us much about the level of community transmission right at the moment. As I mentioned above, once we progress past July 15 the bulk of cases are still being investigated. There are some promising signs in the data up until this point - community transmission peaks at 129 cases among those who tested positive on July 10, the day after the second lockdown commenced in Melbourne, but starts to trail off in the four days that followed. It remains to be seen what the data has in store after that. A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with NASA's Mars rover Perseverance onboard launches from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the United States, on July 30, 2020. NASA launched its Mars rover Perseverance Thursday morning in a bid to search for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. (Joel Kowsky/NASA/Handout via Xinhua) NASA launched its Mars rover Perseverance Thursday morning in a bid to search for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. The rover lifted off at 7:50 a.m. EDT (1150 GMT) on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the U.S. state of Florida. NASA confirmed the separation of the rover from the rocket about one hour following the launch. "The @NASAPersevere rover just sent its first signal back to us on Earth. The spacecraft is in good health and on its way to Mars," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted. "We had a good launch this morning, we're right on course for Mars and signal from @NASAPersevere is strong. We are working to configure the ground stations to match the strength of the spacecraft signal. This scenario is one we've worked through in the past with other missions," Bridenstine tweeted. Following a seven-month journey, the rover is expected to land at Jezero Crater on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021. The 45-kilometer-wide crater was a possible oasis in its distant past, a place with high potential for finding signs of past microbial life, according to NASA. Perseverance is the fifth Mars rover sent by NASA to Mars, after Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity. It is also the largest and heaviest robotic Mars rover NASA has built. The rover will search for signs of ancient microbial life, characterize the planet's geology and climate, collect carefully selected and documented rock and sediment samples for a possible return to Earth, and pave the way for human exploration beyond the Moon, according to NASA. Perseverance is the first rover to bring a sample caching system to Mars that will package promising samples for return to Earth by a future mission. Perseverance's drill will cut intact rock cores that are about the size of a piece of chalk and will place them in sample tubes that it will store until the rover reaches an appropriate drop-off location. The Mars sample return campaign is being planned by NASA and the European Space Agency to investigate the samples with instruments too large and complex to send to Mars. Examining those samples on Earth will provide far more information about them than even the most sophisticated rover could provide, said NASA. "In 2026, we're going to launch a mission from Earth to Mars to go pick up those samples and bring them back to Earth," Bridenstine said. "For the first time in history, we're doing a Mars sample return mission." Perseverance will also be collecting important data about Mars' geology and climate. Studying the Red Planet's geology and climate could also offer a sense of why Earth and Mars -- which formed from the same primordial stuff -- ended up so different, said NASA. Perseverance also ferries a 1.8-kg helicopter to the surface of Mars, and the helicopter would be the first aircraft to fly in a controlled way on another planet. The twin-rotor, solar-powered helicopter, Ingenuity, is intended to demonstrate technologies needed for flying in the Martian atmosphere. If successful, these technologies could enable other advanced robotic flying vehicles that might be included in the future robotic and human missions to Mars, said NASA. In a spirit of bringing the public along, the Perseverance rover carries an anodized plate with the words "Explore as one" in Morse code and three silicon chips with the names of approximately 10.9 million people who signed up to ride along on Perseverance's journey to Mars. The Perseverance mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans. Every 26 months, Mars reaches the closest point to Earth in its orbit, and this summer is the latest launch window to the Red Planet, when launching a spacecraft uses the least amount of fuel. The liftoff of Perseverance is the third Mars exploration of the international community this year following China's first Mars mission, Tianwen-1, and the first Mars orbiter of the United Arab Emirates earlier this month. Harris County is restructuring their Flood Control Task Force into a Harris County Community Resilience Task Force, with some northwest Harris County residents calling for broader representation for their region. County commissioners have been holding public hearings and workshops to gather public input on the changes to the task force. Get ready: Hurricane season is here This task force will verify on the prioritization framework that everything is going as promised and, just as importantly, the group will help us and help the (infrastructure resilience team) figure out what should be the next step, what do we do about these drainage challenges, preservation challenges, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said during Commissioners Court. How are we gonna get to a place where were actually resilient from flooding? Bobby Lieb, president and CEO of the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce, said his chamber weighed at the meeting through their position on the Harris Plus Flood Solutions Board chaired by Auggie Campbell. Our interest is that if its truly an infrastructure resilience task force, that there is representation from the entire county, Lieb said. We suggested at least one representative from each watershed. On HoustonChronicle.com: Memorial Parks new Eastern Glades puts visitors in awe Lieb said other needs hed like to see addressed by the task force include maintained technical expertise, as well as the way the force was appointed. The chamber would want appointees recommended to county commissioners for selection, as opposed to commissioners appointing five people who would appoint the rest of the task force. I want to make sure that northwest Houston has representation on that task force, that it doesnt become a lopsided representation in the county, Lieb said. Cypress Creek, sometimes we feel ignored, and so we just want to make sure that interest is represented. If we can get someone from that watershed, that would be a good thing. Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle, who represents northwest Harris County, said during the commissioners court meeting he liked some of the practices included in the restructured task force, including that task force agenda items be submitted eight days prior to the meeting; and for county commissioners to consider an item by the task force, the task force would need to have their reports complete 30 days prior to the meeting. Those two parts there I think are good practices and would allow community input and engagement in those activities, Cagle said. One resident from the Huntwick Forest neighborhood in Champions, Scott Torres, said during a virtual focus group that a lot of his community was concerned reading the changes of verbiage from flood control task force to infrastructure resilience. Their concern is theres not gonna be any focus, or how does this new terminology incorporate flood control, Torres said. What does that mean, youre just going to cut down trees in our neighborhood and build these big, giant swallow holes for water to go into? What does infrastructure resilience mean? Torres also said his community was concerned about the lack of mention of any kind of environment social group programs or environmental social responsibilities to maintain some areas. Chang Chu, one of the facilitators of the meeting with Harris County, said he understood the need to keep focus on flood mitigation despite the name change. Its like creating a constitution, Chu said about the restructuring. Its very difficult to make sure everything is represented, but were trying to do our best to make sure everything is incorporated into the final document. Commissioners Court anticipates voting on finalized bylaws at the August meeting, and task force work is scheduled to begin in the fall. Campbell, who previously served on the last Harris County Flood Control Task Force, said the board recently has been less effective. One reason the Harris County Flood Control bond was so successful is it got community input from each watershed, Campbell said. We believe the new task force will be more effective if each watershed has representation. Increase task force membership from 17 to 23 for all 22 watersheds. Campbell said he thought the task force would provide greater representation the way it is being proposed but had some fear about having the consensus to move projects forward. My fear is if you dont get a consensus and youre not able to move projects forward, this really slows down flood planning and construction because of the way its set up, Campbell said. paul.wedding@hcnonline.com British Airways' parent company IAG has launched a 2.75billion (2.49billion) emergency fundraising to help it ride out the coronavirus crisis. The rights issue, which is supported by its biggest shareholder Qatar Airways, comes as IAG swung to a loss of 4.2billion (3.8billion) loss in the first six months of the year and warned passenger levels won't return to normal until 2023. The airline group, which in April announced 12,000 job cuts, said the fundraising will help it strengthen its balance sheet and increase liquidity. Rights issue: IAG's biggest shareholder Qatar Airways backs the fundraising The company has already also put more than half staff on furlough, accessed 300million of Government loans and retired its 747 jumbo jets. Adam Vettese, analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro, said: 'With the 6billion of cash on its balance sheet and the 2.75billion of fresh capital raising, it could probably stomach further heavy losses. 'But even still, like its peers it will be praying for a return to some sort of normality as soon as possible.' Shares in IAG fell 7 per cent to 168.55p in morning trading on Friday. Passenger traffic at the group, which also owns Vueling, Iberia and Aer Lingus, fell 98.4 per cent in the second quarter as they were 'only able to operate a skeleton passenger schedule'. Chief executive Willie Walsh said all IAG airlines made 'substantial losses' as most flights remained grounded due to Government restrictions on travel. 'We have seen evidence that demand recovers when Government restrictions are lifted,' he said. But he added: 'We continue to expect that it will take until at least 2023 for passenger demand to recover to 2019 levels.' Walsh said customers with pre-existing bookings are continuing to fly to and from Spain despite the UK Government's decision to advise against non-essential travel to the country and re-impose quarantine requirements for people returning. He told reporters: 'People who have had bookings, they appear to continue to be travelling to and from Spain.' He went on: 'Our bookings are being suppressed by Government restrictions. When the restrictions of removed we see a significant increase in bookings.' It comes as IAG faces strikes at BA. Members of the Unite union have threatened walkouts over plans to cut thousands of jobs and change staff contracts, to protect workers against a 'fire and rehire' strategy that will see them lose their jobs if they don't accept new terms, with lower salaries. Airlines and travel companies have been among the worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic as lockdowns and restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus virtually wiped out international travel for several months. Last week, budget airline Ryanair unveiled a loss of 168million in the quarter to the end of June and said a second wave of infections was its 'biggest fear' at the moment. YPSILANTI, MI - A man was charged Friday with sexually assaulting seven different women in Ypsilanti over the past six years. Ypsilanti police arrested Dustyn Michael Durbin on July 29. Two days later, Durbin was arraigned on nine counts of criminal sexual conduct stemming from sexual assaults of the seven women in Ypsilanti between 2014 and 2019, police said in a press release. Ypsilanti police recently were contacted by a woman who reported she was the victim of a sexual assault while a student at Eastern Michigan University. After meeting with the victim, investigators were able to identify and interview multiple other women over the next several weeks who also had been the victim of sexual assaults dating back to 2014 involving Durbin. Ypsilanti Police Administrative Lieutenant Brent Yuchasz did not provide comment on whether the other alleged victims were EMU students. Yuchasz did not provide further details or comment on the case due to the sensitive nature of the investigation. The Ypsilanti Police Department asks anyone who has been a victim of domestic or sexual violence in the past to contact Det. Jessica Lowry at 734-368 8784 or email at Jwelker@cityofypsilanti.com or Det. Annette Coppock at 734-368 8776 or email at Acoppock@cityofypsilanti.com. READ MORE: Ypsilantis Deja Vu strip club damaged in fire Citing coin shortage, Ypsilanti suspends paid parking Ypsilanti Township trustee concerned about open ballot boxes, reports issue to state Donald Trumps suggestion that the 2020 election be delayed was instantly dismissed by many top Republicans, crushing the idea almost immediately and forcing the president to moderate his position. Their reaction came as the presidents idea faced unanimous condemnation from the Democratic side, with some members of the president's own party also decrying the move. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a former Republican presidential candidate himself, said Mr Trump can suggest whatever he wants but that The law is what it is. Were going to have an election thats legitimate, its going to be credible, its going to be the same as weve always done it. The Republican leader in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, was similarly intransigent. No way should we ever not hold an election on the day that we have it, he insisted. Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, meanwhile, dismissed the idea out of hand. It doesnt matter what one individual in this country says. We still are a country based on the rule of law. And we must follow the law until either the Constitution is changed or until the law is changed. Any delay to the election would require an act of Congress, and Mr Trump has no power to move the date himself. The sight of his congressional allies squashing the idea immediately appears to have cowed him slightly. At his White House press conference on Thursday evening as the furore played out, Mr Trump hedged on his eagerness for a delay even as he doubled down on his verdict that the election will be crooked and one of the most rigged elections in history. I dont want to delay. I want to have the election. But I also do not want to have to wait for three months and then find out the ballots are all missing and the election doesnt mean anything. That is what is going to happen, Steve. Thats common sense. Everyone knows it. Smart people know what. Stupid people may not know it. And some people dont want to talk about it, but they know it. We want to have an election where people actually go in, whats your name? My name is so-and-so and you signed the book. Ive been doing it for years We are asking for a lot of trouble. Do I want to see a date change? No. But I dont want to see a crooked election. This election will be one of the most rigged elections in history if that happens. Mr Trump has in fact himself voted by mail in the last few years, specifically from Florida. While there is no indication that mail-in voting will lead to widespread electoral fraud, recent primaries in several states have seen mail-in votes counted very slowly. In New York, there were even reports of as many as 28 per cent of mail ballots being thrown out in some districts because of problems with envelopes, postmarks and signatures. Some of Mr Trumps opponents have raised the possibility that if defeated, the president might refuse to leave the White House on the basis that the result is fraudulent. However, Joe Biden who suggested months ago that Mr Trump might try to put the election off has said he is convinced that were the president to refuse to leave, the army would escort him from the White House with great dispatch. Firefighters rescued a person and a dog early Friday morning after a home erupted into flames in San Franciscos North Beach neighborhood, authorities said. Around 2:30 a.m., firefighters responded to multiple 911 calls from neighbors near 2233 Powell St. who saw massive billows of smoke and flames flaring from the three-story residential building, according to the San Francisco Fire Department. Over the course of about an hour, 75 firefighters used more than 30 trucks and engines to fight the blaze, rescuing an adult and a dog who were trapped inside the home, officials said. The resident and dog were transported to a hospital and a veterinarian clinic, respectively, for smoke inhalation treatment, and they were both expected to make a full recovery, officials said. The fire was contained around 3:18 a.m. Two-Alarm Residential Fire @CitizenApp 2233 Powell St 2:05:20 AM PDT The Fire Departments investigation into the cause of the blaze remains ongoing. 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. Were continuing to respond to fires as we normally do, even with COVID-19, said Lt. Jonathan Baxter, a department spokesman. We ask the public to adhere to fire safety awareness, enhanced, seeing that people are home more often. Brett Simpson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: brett.simpson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @brettvsimpson With a majority of the lockdown restrictions eased in the last few weeks, several mosques across the capitalincluding Jama Masjid and Fatehpuri Masjid will hold prayers for Eid-ul-Adha, the second most important Islamic festival for Muslims across the world, on Saturday. Eid-ul-Zuha, more commonly known as Bakr-Eid, is the festival of sacrifice observed on the tenth day of the Dhu al-Hijjah which is the twelfth month of the Islamic calendar. Most Muslims sacrifice animalscattle, goats, or sheepand distribute the meat among the needy and their own family members on this day. Sabiullah Khan, the public relations officer of Jama Masjid, said, We will be following all the government guidelines for the congregation. Visitors without masks will not be allowed. They will have to carry their own prayer mats and sanitise themselves before entering the premises. The time for the congregation has also been advanced by an hour and will be held at 6.05 am to ensure there is no rush. Due to the Covid-19 lockdown and the subsequent closure of religious places, Muslim devotees were unable to pray in mosques on Eid-ul-Fitr in May. However, as per Unlock 1 guidelines, the Centre had allowed religious places to reopen from June 8 while maintaining social distancing norms. According to Unlock 3 guidelines, religious functions and other large congregations continue to be prohibited. Mufti Mukarram Ahmed, the Shahi Imam of Fatehpuri Masjid, said they were grateful for the relaxation of norms. People were not able to pray in mosques during Eid-ul-Fitr due to the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown. We have made repeated announcements that people should offer their prayers at home this time as well. However, if they want to visit the mosque, they must sanitise themselves, bring their own prayer mats and maintain social distancing norms. Those with symptoms will not be allowed. If Eidgahs could be reopened across the capital, the load on mosques would reduce substantially. Several mosques in pockets of Okhla, old Delhi, and north-east Delhi will also hold Eid prayers while maintaining social distancing norms. Mosque-goers see this as a ray of hope. Eid feels incomplete without praying at the mosque or meeting our elders. Since there is no restriction over movement like there was in May [when Eid-ul-Fitr was celebrated], we will meet our family and friends. We have not earned much in the past few months and barely have had enough to eat. But we cant let that dampen our spirit, said Mohammad Imran, a street-vendor near Jama Masjid, who will not be sacrificing any animal this year due to financial constraints. On Friday afternoon, the Meena Bazaar, usually bustling with customers, wore a deserted look due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mohammad Saood, who sells womens apparel for a living, said that unlike previous years, there has been no business this year. The shops couldnt open during Eid in May. But now that they have, we barely have any customers. We go days without selling even one salwar suit. Many businesses in the market shut down because shopkeepers could no longer afford the rent. We had two shops and ultimately had to let go of one, said the 25-year-old. He also pointed out that the lack of livestock markets in the nearby Urdu Park has also added to the misery of shopkeepers. Saood, himself, bought one sacrificial animal this year, instead of three or four like previous years. Mohammad Sirajuddin, who sold 34 goats last year, has only been able to sell one this year. Generally the rates are as high as 70,000- 80,000 for one goat. But I had to sell a goat for 42,000 this year, he said while waiting for customers on Friday. Many residents also expressed concerns over butchers visiting different families the same day to sacrifice the animals. We have an arrangement with our butcher who will only come to our house this year. Besides, a substantial number of people will not be sacrificing any animal this year which means butchers may not be as busy as in previous years. It reduces the chance of infection spreading, said Mohammad Yasir, another shopkeeper in Meena Bazaar. Elaborating on the spirit of the festival, author Rana Safvi said that the essence of sacrifice is obedience to God. We wont be having any guests over because of the pandemic. Praying at the cost of everything is the supreme sacrifice this festival aims to celebrate. Prayers and obedience include more than just fasting or namaaz. It also means helping others in need and this is what we are doing this year and following the spirit of the festival. Sohail Hashmi, a heritage enthusiast, said, Every year my siblings and some friends would come over for dinner. Thats not the case this year due to the pandemic. I dont want to expose myself or them to the infection. So it will just be four of my family members and a quiet Eid. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Dismayed, Health Ministry Undersecretary Pierpaolo Sileri on Tuesday said that perhaps Bocelli wanted to express the inconvenience of every Italian who, because of lockdown, stayed home. I wouldn't have said those words, but I imagine he'll be able to explain it somehow, Sileri added. The conference was held on the eve of Premier Giuseppe Conte's appearance in the Senate, set for later Tuesday, where he laid out his center-left government's case for extending for three months a state of emergency for the pandemic, which expires on July 31. Conte said the extension is aimed at preserving measures that allow an efficient response should the virus spike again, not to spread unjustified fears" among the population. He accused the opposition of using polemical and even ideological veins" in the debate. The emergency status allowed Conte to bypass Parliament or even his Cabinet in decreeing a string of measures to slow the spread of the outbreak in the country where it first emerged in Europe, and went on to claim more than 35,000 lives. Local health officials in Texas do not have the authority to close schools to prevent spread of the coronavirus, state Attorney General Ken Paxton said July 28, pushing that decision solely into the hands of school officials. Paxton issued a legal guidance letter on schools amid fierce debate among local governments, health officials, parents and teachers on when schools should open in a state that has become one of the nations hot spots in the pandemic. Texas has seen new confirmed virus cases, hospitalizations and deaths surge during July. On Tuesday, Texas reported 164 new deaths, bringing the state total to nearly 5,900, with nearly 10,000 COVID-19 patients in the hospital. Dozens of cities, counties and school districts including in the most populous areas have already decided to delay school reopenings for the upcoming academic year. In Dallas, health officials have prohibited in-person classes until at least Sept. 8 and similar orders are in place in Houston. Paxtons letter sent them scrambling to check its impact on their decisions and set up the potential for legal challenges. Our actions to save lives from this crisis should be guided by public health, science, and compassion for the health and safety of our residents not politics, said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. Paxton, a Republican, said local health officials authority is limited to addressing specific, actual outbreaks of disease. He previously said local health orders closing schools didnt apply to private religious schools. While playing an important role in protecting the health of school children and employees, local health authorities may not issue sweeping orders closing schools for the sole purpose of preventing future COVID-19 infections, Paxton said. The Texas Education Agency, which oversees public schools, meanwhile piled more pressure on, telling schools they risk losing state funding if they close campuses to comply with any order from local health authorities. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who toured parts of South Texas hit by Hurricane Hanna, didnt address Paxtons guidance directly when speaking with reporters in Corpus Christi. But he said school opening decisions are best left to local education officials with input from health authorities. We have a duty to ensure we do not lose a generation of students because of this pandemic, Abbott said. We have an obligation to step up and make sure they are educated about reading, arithmetic, and things like that, but also they are educated in how to respond to challenges that may come their way in life. Pediatricians all recommend the best learning environment for a child is going to be in the classroom. The Texas State Teachers Association sharply criticized Paxton. We trust health experts, not the attorney general, when childrens lives are at stake, the group said in a statement. Abbott also went to the Rio Grande Valley, which remains one of the nations worst hot spots for the virus and where the weekend storm made getting patients to treatment difficult. Abbott said the state is pushing hard to meet the medical needs of the region, and announced the McAllen Convention Center would be converted into a hospital for up to 250 patients this week. Other nearby communities will get temporary step down facilities for up to 40 patients who are recovering from COVID-19. Starr County had more than 1,800 COVID-19 patients as of Tuesday, with the most recent being as young as 5 years old. The countys only hospital, which has fewer than 50 beds and no intensive care unit, has been at capacity for weeks. Hannas lashing winds and rain grounded medical transport helicopters for days, leaving doctors with no ability to airlift the most critical patients. Were in a dire situation, Rio Grande City Mayor Joel Villarreal said. If we continue on the same trajectory, countless more lives will be lost. Local officials have pleaded with Abbott for weeks to allow them to use tougher enforcement measures to force the use of face masks and business closures. Abbott said local governments already have the authority of civil fines. The governor has resisted calls to impose a new statewide lockdown and said Tuesday that there are signs his previous orders requiring masks and closing bars are working. While deaths remain high, Texas has reported fewer than 10,000 new daily confirmed cases since July 18 and the rolling positivity rate has dropped under 13% for the first time since late June. We are seeing positive results from the executive orders that I put into place that did not force people into poverty, by forcing them to lose their job, losing their income and prevent them from putting food on the table, Abbott said. Associated Press reporter Paul J. Weber contributed to this report from Rio Grande City. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Texas Register with JOC.com and receive 5 free pieces of content for the first thirty days. After thirty days, you will receive 3 pieces of content and after sixty days you will receive 1 piece of content. To receive full access, Subscribe Today . You can also subscribe to our daily newsletter. Register LONDON (dpa-AFX) - GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK.L, GSK) and Sanofi (SNYNF, SNY) announced they were selected by U.S. government's Operation Warp Speed to supply with 100 million doses of COVID-19 recombinant protein-based vaccine. The U.S. government will provide up to $2.1 billion for development including clinical trials, manufacturing, scale-up and delivery of an initial 100 million doses. Sanofi will receive the majority of the U.S. government funding. Sanofi is leading the clinical development and registration of the COVID-19 vaccine and expects a Phase 1/ 2 study to start in September, followed by a Phase 3 study by the end of 2020. The companies are in active discussions with global organizations and with the EU Commission - with France and Italy regarding global access to the coronavirus vaccine. 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. Young workers, aged below 30 years, were the ones to face the most job losses during the lockdown starting from April, with their share in total employed in the country declining to 18.8 percent during April-June 2020 from 20.9 percent, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said in its weekly data. Young women have been particularly hit hard during the lockdown period as men to women ratio deteriorated to 9.1 during April-June 2020 from 8.4 during 2019-20, reported The Economic Times. According to CMIE, this corroborates EPFO payroll data, which showed that the registration of people of 21 years or less fell dramatically to 22.2 percent during April and May compared to 27.1 percent in six months ended in February 2020. Track this LIVE blog for latest updates on the coronavirus pandemic "Share of those between 22 and 28 years, which hovered around 38-39 percent of registrations in the pre-lockdown period, fell to 33.4 percent in April-May 2020," CMIE said, quoting the EPFO data. 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 Evidently, while the lockdown has hit employment in all age groups, it has hit the employment of youngsters who are less than 29 years of age much more than it has hit the relatively grown-up age groups, it said. As on July 29, the overall unemployment rate over a 30-day moving average stood at 7.57 percent improving from 8.02 percent on July 25, with both urban and rural unemployment rate witnessing a marginal dip. While urban unemployment stood at 9.79 percent on July 29, the rural unemployment rate stood at 6.56 percent. Meanwhile, over 8 million Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) subscribers have withdrawn as much as Rs 30,000 crore in less than four months starting from April. The amount withdrawn by EPFO subscribers exceeded the usual outgo recorded during the period. It can be attributed to COVID-related stress, including, layoffs, pay cuts and medical expenses. The Ministry of Finance had in March said EPFO subscribers can withdraw up to 75 percent of the amount or three months of the wages, whichever is lower, from their EPF accounts. Omjasvin MD By Express News Service CHENNAI: Weeks after the daily COVID-19 tally in the city stabilized around the 1200 mark, the number of cases came down further to 1013, close to the three-digit mark, on Friday. The COVID-19 growth rate in the city has been low ever since cases dropped from 2,400 in the first week of July. Since then, the number of people who recovered rose from 60 percent to 85 percent, while active cases have fallen to just 12.7 percent now. Out of the 99,794 people infected in the city, 84,916 have been discharged, while only 12,765 are still undergoing treatment. Officials from the Corporations Public Health Department said that most people who were diagnosed with COVID-19 in the first week of July have now been discharged. The current active cases are those who tested positive in the past week or so, the official said. The official said that most of the cases are mild to moderate and were mostly diagnosed through fever camps or contact tracing. They are kept in the care centres between four to seven days. Once they are stable, they are sent home on condition that they quarantine themselves for 14 days, he said. Corporation officials claimed that so far, the condition of patients has not deteriorated after they were sent home from care centres. "Door-to-door survey staff continue to monitor the discharged patients to ensure that their condition does not suddenly deteriorate," the official added. Four corporation zones in the city -- Teynampet, Manali, Tondiarpet and Royapuram -- now have active cases at 10 percent or below. Six zones have a recovery rate of more than 85 percent. With around 12,000 tests daily, the positivity rate in the city has been hovering around the 9 percent mark. The civic body has vowed to bring it to five percent by August. Experts said that a positivity rate of five percent or below is a good sign that the city has contained the spread. However, the decrease in the number of people attending fever camps is a cause for concern. From about 30,000 people attending the camps daily in the first week of July, now only about 25,000 people attend daily. Average outpatients per camp is low at just 48 people, which could be a good sign, while the positivity rate at the camps is 20 percent, as 15,113 people were found to be positive out of the 77,358 samples taken. RICHMOND The State Office of Inspector General has substantiated several allegations leveled at the Virginia Parole Board after investigating complaints about how the panel reached decisions in releasing inmates on parole, but details of the findings have been stricken entirely from a copy of the government watchdog agencys report released to the press. Virginia law enforcement groups and state Republican leaders are calling for the immediate release of an unredacted copy of the report, and at least one senator, Mark Obenshain, R-Rockingham, said the members of the parole board should be immediately relieved of their duties. The inspector generals office commenced an investigation in May after some state legislators and numerous state and national law enforcement groups raised concerns about how the parole board reached its decision earlier this year to release Vincent Martin, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1980 for killing Richmond police Officer Michael Connors. After that decision became public, several other state prosecutors and family members of other victims decried the panels decisions in releasing several other convicted killers. All but a few sentences of the six-page report, dated Monday and sent to Brian Moran, Virginias secretary of public safety and homeland security, is concealed with blacked-out lines that cover sections titled Allegation, Background and Findings of Fact. The reports conclusion is also largely expunged, leaving only the words, The allegations ... are substantiated. Also left unredacted in the report signed by Inspector General Michael Westfall is a statement that says, Potential recommendations will be outlined in a subsequent report. It sure does give the impression that it relates to violations of law, policy and procedure [by the parole board], Obenshain said Thursday in a phone interview. I think the administration needs to release this. Victims deserve it, the families deserve it, Virginians deserve it, and law enforcement deserves it. And I think the administration needs to take prompt remedial action. Westfall, in an email statement included with a copy of the redacted report provided to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, said all information provided by the parole board to his office to conduct the administrative investigation is exempt under the states open records law. The Virginia Parole Board maintains its FOIA exclusions and has not waived its FOIA protections, he wrote. Obenshain, a lawyer, said the state inspector generals office may be prohibited from releasing the full report but the governor is under no such restriction. Alena Yarmosky, press secretary for Gov. Ralph Northam, referred questions to parole board Chairwoman Tonya Chapman. In a prepared statement, Chapman said the board is not able to comment on information contained in the report due to its confidentiality. However, the Parole Board must highlight that OSIGs conclusions are based on factual inaccuracies, a misunderstanding of the Parole Boards procedures, and incorrect interpretations of the Virginia State Code, she said. Furthermore, as previously indicated, pursuant to [Virginia law that outlines the] powers and duties of the Board, the findings in OSIGs investigation do not impact the final decisions rendered by the Board, as the final decision rests solely with the Parole Board. Howard Hall, president of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, said the OSIG report must be released. It should be very easy to provide information about the nature of the allegations and the findings without including personnel information or compromising witnesses or complainants, Hall, who serves as police chief in Roanoke County, said in an email. The only conclusions that I can draw from the redacted report is that the Parole Board has not followed the required processes as they have released violent criminals into our communities. Obenshain noted that on July 10, during a joint meeting of the House Courts of Justice Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee, he asked Secretary Moran about what actions the Northam administration planned to take as a result of the alleged violations of law and procedures by the parole board in connection with the release of Martin and other inmates. The alleged violations included reports that inmates were released without proper notification to victims families and the commonwealths attorneys who prosecuted the cases. In the Martin case, questions also arose after former parole board Chair Adrianne Bennett, who left in April to become a judge, noted in public comments that the board conducted its own investigation of Martins conviction and concluded there was a dark cloud of injustice in his conviction. (Virginia abolished parole in 1995, but Martin was eligible because he was convicted before then.) Obenshain said that Moran, during the courts and judiciary committees meeting in July, cautioned that no judgments or decisions should or would be reached until the release of the state inspector generals report. Secretary Moran asked us to be patient and reserve judgement, Obenshain said. And now we get a six-page report that has been completed redacted with the notable exception of the finding that the allegations, which ones we dont know were found to be substantiated. This is ridiculous. Emails sent to Moran and his spokesperson seeking comment were not returned. Obenshain said Northam should follow the lead of former Gov. Mark R. Warner, now a U.S. senator, in demanding the resignations of the Virginia Parole Board. A week before he took office in 2002 as governor, Warner demanded that parole board members at that time resign for failing to properly notify the families of two victims, as well as state prosecutors, in granting the release of Joseph N. Martin, who was convicted of hiring a gunman to kill two people in Fairfax County in 1977. All five parole board members connected with that decision lost their jobs. Former Deputy Richmond Commonwealths Attorney Stacy Garrett, who prosecuted Martin in 1980 and won a conviction by jury, called the redacted inspector generals report a whole lot of nothing. Im actually at a loss of words because we dont know what [allegations] they are taking about, Garrett said. We can guess based on reports that were published in the newspaper and on TV about different things that the parole board didnt do that they are supposed to have done. I assume those are among the allegations that have been substantiated. But we need to know what it says. Garrett added: Somebody is trying to hide something, and the question is, what are they trying to hide and why are they trying to hide it? I think those are the two questions that need to be answered. The public has a right to know. Former Virginia State Police Superintendent Wayne Huggins, who now leads the Virginia State Police Association, also called for the full report to be released. Im right in the middle of all the criminal justice issues that are [being discussed by lawmakers] and the various proposals that are being kicked around, and of course one of those proposals is greater transparency [in law enforcement], Huggins said. And I find it a bit ironic that in the wake of all of the discussion about [police] transparency, you see a six-page report and the only thing it tells us, is that the allegations are substantiated. BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- YPF S.A. (the "Company") announced today the results as of the Expiration Date (as defined below) with respect to its previously announced exchange offer (the "Exchange Offer") to exchange any and all of its outstanding US$1,000,000,000 8.500% Senior Notes due 2021 (the "Old Notes") for the applicable amount of 8.500% Senior Amortizing Notes due 2025 (the "New Notes") plus cash. Expiration of the Early Participation Date with respect to the Exchange Offer The Exchange Offer was made pursuant to the terms and conditions set forth in the exchange offer memorandum, dated July 2, 2020 (together with Supplement No. 1 thereto, dated July 13, 2020, Supplement No. 2 thereto, dated July 17, 2020 and Supplement No. 3 thereto, dated July 29, 2020, the "Exchange Offer Memorandum") to exchange any and all of the Old Notes listed in the table above for the applicable amount of New Notes plus cash. The Expiration Date with respect to the Exchange Offer occurred at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on July 30, 2020 (such time and date, the "Expiration Date"). Holders of Old Notes were required to validly tender and not validly withdraw their Old Notes prior to or at the Expiration Date to be eligible to receive the exchange consideration of US$925 of New Notes and US$125 of cash (the "Exchange Consideration") per U.S.$1,000 principal amount of the Old Notes validly tendered and accepted for exchange pursuant to the Exchange Offer. According to information provided by D.F. King & Co., Inc. ("D.F. King"), the exchange agent and information agent for the Exchange Offer, U.S.$587,348,000 total aggregate principal amount of the Old Notes were validly tendered and were not validly withdrawn prior to or at the Expiration Date pursuant to the Exchange Offer, of which U.S.$3,165,000 in aggregate principal amount of Old Notes were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn after the Early Participation Date (as defined in the Exchange Offer Memorandum) and prior to or at the Expiration Date. On July 21, 2020, the Company issued approximately U.S.$540 million aggregate principal amount of New Notes and paid approximately U.S.$90 million in cash (including accrued and unpaid interest on the Old Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn prior to or at the Early Participation Date) on the Early Settlement Date (as defined in the Exchange Offer Memorandum). The settlement date for the Old Notes which were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn after the Early Participation Date and prior to or at the Expiration Date, is expected to be July 31, 2020 (the "Final Settlement Date"). On the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Exchange Offer Memorandum, the Company expects to issue an additional amount of approximately U.S.$2.9 million aggregate principal amount of New Notes and pay an additional sum of approximately U.S.$400,000 in cash on the Final Settlement Date pursuant to the Exchange Offer. Holders will also receive accrued and unpaid interest on the Old Notes validly tendered and accepted for exchange from the applicable last interest payment date up to, but not including, the Final Settlement Date. Information Relating to the Exchange Offer The complete terms and conditions of the Exchange Offer are described in the Exchange Offer Memorandum, copies of which may be obtained from D.F. King at www.dfking.com/ypf, by telephone at +1 (800) 848-3410 (U.S. toll free) and +1 (212) 269-5550 (collect), in writing at 48 Wall Street, 22nd Floor New York, New York 10005, or by email to [email protected]. Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Itau BBA USA Securities, Inc. and Santander Investment Securities Inc. are acting as the dealer managers for the Exchange Offer. Questions regarding the Exchange Offer should be directed to Citigroup Global Markets Inc. by telephone at +1 (800) 558-3745 (U.S. toll free) or +1 (212) 723-6106 (collect), Itau BBA USA Securities, Inc. by telephone at +1 (888) 770-4828 (U.S. toll free) or + 1 (212) 710-6749 (collect) and Santander Investment Securities Inc. by telephone at +1 (855) 404-3636 (U.S. toll free) or +1 (212) 940-1442 (collect). Important Notice This announcement is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States, and none of the New Notes (as defined in the Exchange Offer Memorandum) has been or will be registered under the Securities Act and they may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons except pursuant to an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act. This press release does not constitute an offer of the New Notes for sale, or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, in any state or other jurisdiction in which any offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Any person considering making an investment decision relating to any securities must inform itself independently based solely on an offering memorandum to be provided to eligible investors in the future in connection with any such securities before taking any such investment decision. The Exchange Offer is being made solely by means of the Exchange Offer Memorandum (and the applicable document in Argentina). The Exchange Offer Memorandum is confidential and is only directed at, and can only be accessed by, Eligible Holders (as defined in the Exchange Offer Memorandum). Documents relating to the exchange offer will only be distributed to Eligible Holders of Old Notes. Eligible Holders of Old Notes can only access the Exchange Offer Memorandum and related documents if they electronically complete an eligibility letter by following the procedures described below. The distribution of materials relating to the Exchange Offer may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions. The Exchange Offer is void in all jurisdictions where it is prohibited. The materials relating to the Exchange Offer, including this communication, do not constitute, and may not be used in connection with, an offer or solicitation in any place where offers or solicitations are not permitted by law. If materials relating to the Exchange Offer come into your possession, you are required by the Company to inform yourself of and to observe all of these restrictions. The Company does not intend to register the New Notes in the United States or to conduct a public offering of the Old Notes in any jurisdiction. In those jurisdictions where the securities, blue sky or other laws require any exchange offer to be made by a licensed broker or dealer, the Exchange Offer will be deemed to be made on behalf of YPF by the Dealer Managers or one or more registered brokers or dealers licensed under the laws of such jurisdiction. Disclosure Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Statements contained in this news release that state the Company's or management's intentions, expectations or predictions of the future are forward-looking statements. Specifically, the Company cannot assure you that the proposed transactions described above will be consummated on the terms currently contemplated, if at all. 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 is contained from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including but not limited to the Company's Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2019. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to revise any forward-looking statements, including financial estimates, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. About YPF S.A. YPF S.A. is Argentina's leading energy company, operating a fully integrated oil and gas chain with leading market positions across the domestic upstream, downstream and gas and power segments. For further inquiries, please contact: Investor Relations E-mail: [email protected] Website: inversores.ypf.com Macacha Guemes 515 C1106BKK Buenos Aires (Argentina) Phone: 54 11 5441 1215 Fax: 54 11 5441 2113 SOURCE YPF S.A. Ellen DeGeneres is in the crosshairs as more people are speaking out about an allegedly toxic work culture at her talk show. Claims about the popular comedian and TV hosts not-so-nice behavior have been swirling for a while. Now, in recent reports by Buzzfeed, dozens of former employees are claiming racism, sexual harassment, and intimidation are rampant behind the scenes. The Ellen DeGeneres Show is now under internal investigation and DeGeneres has apologized to her shows staff, Variety has reported. Even some celebs are turning against her, with Everybody Loves Raymond star Brad Garrett tweeting that it was common knowledge she treated people horribly. The shift in public opinion could be costly to DeGeneres, who is one of the highest-paid celebrities in the world. Ellen DeGeneres earned $84 million last year Ellen DeGeneres | Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images RELATED: How Much Do The Ellen Degeneres Show Producers Make? DeGeneres was the 12th-highest-paid celebrity in 2020, according to Forbes. She earned $84 million between June 2019 and May 2020, according to the magazines estimates. Much of that money comes from the hefty salary she earns for hosting The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In 2017, Variety estimated she was paid $50 million a year for her work on the long-running daytime show. DeGeneres has also padded her income by producing Little Big Shots and striking licensing deals for lines at PetSmart and Bed, Bath & Beyond. Ellen Degeneres is worth $330 million RELATED: Ellen DeGeneres Lives in an Incredibly Privileged Bubble Source Claims DeGeneress long and successful career in Hollywood has made her very wealthy. In June 2019, Forbes pegged her net worth at $330 million and put her at no. 63 on its list of richest self-made women. In 2018, Netflix shelled out $20 million for her stand-up special the most the streaming service had paid any female comic. The Louisiana native has spent much of her money on real estate. She and her wife Portia de Rossi have a habit of flipping high-end homes. DeGeneres has bought and sold at least 20 properties since 2003, according to Architectural Digest, including a home she sold for $23 million in 2019. Could the allegations hurt her career? RELATED: Ellen DeGeneres Show Officially Under Investigation After Litany of Complaints Given the allegations surrounding DeGeneress show, some are wondering if the program might be canceled. If that happens, it would be a serious blow to her earnings and net worth. Even if the show stays on the air, she could still lose millions if advertisers start to pull out. Thats because she gets about 60% of profits from advertising, carrying fees and product placement on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, according to Forbes. At least one expert thinks the damage to the Finding Dory stars reputation could be severe. She could be perpetrating one of the biggest frauds in American celebrity history, Eric Schiffer, chairman of Reputation Management Consultants, told Fox News. There are now serious investigators looking into the allegations and if the findings are as damning as what has been reported then you could watch the Ellen Show go boom. Check out Showbiz Cheat Sheet on Facebook! CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Cleveland Area Chapter of the Alzheimers Association recently announced the hiring of Lindsay Silverstein to lead the organization. Silverstein will begin her new job as the Cleveland area executive Aug. 24. Silverstein takes over for Nancy Udelson, who retired at the end of June after leading the chapter for 12 years. Silverstein will work to advance research, promote early detection, encourage risk reduction and ensure top-notch support for both patients and caregivers. Silverstein brings a wealth of experience to the job. She spent the last six years as executive director of the Northern Ohio Chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. During her tenure, total revenue grew by 165 percent. Silverstein also led fundraising efforts in Cleveland for the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, March of Dimes and the American Red Cross. In 2015, she earned a Crains Cleveland Business Forty-under-40 award. Silverstein holds a masters degree in organizational management and a bachelors degree in communications. Eric VanVlymen, Ohio Regional Leader of the Alzheimers Association, remarked: She has a great track record of really engaging the community and helping them. We want somebody who cares deeply about getting the research that we need and serving the people that havent been reached yet. According to VanVlymen, Silversteins experience and mission-oriented focus proved pivotal in the decision to hire her for the leadership role. VanVlymen added that Silversteins strength in fundraising, enthusiasm for making a difference in the lives of Northeast Ohio residents, community connections and capacity for developing the talents of staff and volunteers were also major selling points. Robert L. Bazzarelli, board chair for the Cleveland Area Chapter of the Alzheimers Association, said Silversteins breadth of experience working with similar voluntary health organizations in the Greater Cleveland area, along with her passion for the cause, will greatly aid us in our key strategic initiatives. I am thrilled to be joining such a mission-oriented organization that has so much focus, so much talent and so many passionate volunteers who want to continue the momentum in the Cleveland market, said Silverstein. One of the first items on Silversteins agenda will be the annual Walk to End Alzheimers, which takes place Oct. 4. Unlike previous years, the event will not be a large in-person gathering. Instead, noted VanVlymen, the organization is requesting that individuals, small groups and families walk anywhere and everywhere while adhering to current health guidelines. The annual event not only raises funds, but also helps recruit volunteers and lets those impacted by Alzheimers know help is available. The event website provides comprehensive information regarding registration, fundraising and the virtual walk itself. The Cleveland Area Chapter of the Alzheimers Association serves families in Cuyahoga, Lorain, Geauga, Ashtabula and Lake counties and has offices in Avon, Beachwood and Mentor. In 2016, the organization was recognized as a top national performer in the attainment of strategic goals by the Alzheimers Association. The associations 24/7 help line can be reached at 800-272-3900. The cognitive decline associated with Alzheimers is a slow, frustrating and expensive process that significantly impacts individuals, families and caregivers. To date, a cure has remained elusive. Were really passionate about finding our first survivor, concludes VanVlymen. Supported bimetallic catalysts are an important class of catalysts in heterogeneous catalysis. They can be applied in various fields, such as electrocatalysis, biomass conversion, and hydrogen production. However, traditional impregnation and immobilization methods for synthesizing supported bimetallic nanoparticles (BNPs) are often uncontrollable, thus creating BNPs with non-uniform particle size, low alloy degree and inhomogeneous distribution on the supports. The result is poor catalytic performance and low metal utilization. To improve the performance and efficiency of the supported BNPs, Prof. WANG Guanghui and Prof. JIANG Heqing from the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with Prof. LIU Jian from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of CAS, recently proposed a nanoreactor strategy for scalable synthesis of the supported ultrafine BNPs. This strategy introduces high-quality seeds (Pd nanoclusters) and Au ions into the nitrogen-doped mesoporous polymer (NMP). The NMP is used as a nanoreactor for the seeded growth of PdAu BNPs in solid state during thermal reduction. "The synthesized Pd 1 Au 1/4 BNPs are very uniform in diameter with an error of 0.5 nm, and are homogeneously dispersed in the NMP support," said Prof. WANG. The Pd 1 Au 1/4 /NMP sample showed enhanced catalytic performance in formic acid (FA) dehydrogenation compared with the monometallic analogues Pd/NMP and Au/NMP. "The enhanced activity can be attributed to the electronic interaction between Pd and Au in the Pd 1 Au 1/4 BNPs. In addition, the electronic interaction could be adjusted by changing the composition of PdAu BNPs during synthesis," said Prof. JIANG. Moreover, the PdAu/NMP product can be molded into a monolith by a pellet press under mild pressure (1.0 bar) without any binders, due to its coral-like structure. The monolith contains abundant macropores which can be of benefit for mass transfer in a liquid reaction. Notably, the monolith of Pd 1 Au 1/4 /NMP still exhibits considerable activity in FA dehydrogenation with a TOF value of 3684 h-1 at 333 K, and can be recycled five times without mass loss and changes in activity. Many other supported Pd-based BNPs (diameters ranging from 2-3 nm) have also been synthesized using this method, including PdRu, PdCo, PdNi, PdZn, PdAg and PdCu BNPs. This proposed nanoreactor strategy provides an effective route for synthesizing various supported bimetallic catalysts. These catalysts are promising for applications in green and sustainable catalytic processes. ### This study was published in Materials Today on July 30. It was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, QIBEBT and the DNL Cooperation Fund, CAS. By Express News Service BENGALURU: Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa said on Thursday that his government was committed to the all-round development of Bengaluru and would provide all support to the infrastructure projects. Speaking at a function at Abdul Baris High School grounds to launch the underground tunnelling on one stretch of Phase-II the of Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) from Cantonment Metro station to Shivajinagar Metro station (Reach-6), the CM said, Bengaluru has been identified among the cities that are developing at a fast phase at the global level. Accordingly, providing basic infrastructure support is the duty of the government. Stating that Metro is easing traffic congestion in the City and helping people reach their destinations quickly, Yediyurappa said, Work on all the reaches of the Metro Phase-II has begun and it is expected to be completed by 2024. Earlier, a small puja was held near the Cantonment station and the CM pressed a remote button that pressed the Tunnel Boring Machine Urja into action. TBMs are required to bore through the underground rocks and pave way for creating rail infrastructure for the 13.9 km underground corridor from South Ramp near Jayanagar Fire station to North Ramp near Nagawara underground Metro Station with 12 underground stations. Two tunnels are set to be created with each running to a length of 10.37 km. Explaining the route to be dug by Urja, a senior official said, it would first drill for 865 metres from Cantonment (South side) to Shivajinagar. It will then be dismantled and brought back to Cantonment. It will be assembled and then drill on the north side of Cantonment and head to Pottery Town for 800 metres. From there, it will head to a shaft near Tannery Road. The second TBM Vindhya too will begin drilling after Urja has covered some distance as both cannot work in close proximity to each other, he explained. Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Managing Director Ajay Seth billed the commencement of tunnelling as a big milestone. It marks the resumption of tunnelling in the City which stopped in 2017 after completion of the Underground Corridor of Phase-I, he said. Chief Public Relations Officer B L Yashvanth Chavan said following the formal launch, the first task for the machine involved is breaking down a rock face and it will start soon. The CM was accompanied by DyCM C N Ashwath Narayan and Revenue Minister R Ashoka during the launch. LONDON (dpa-AFX) - International Consolidated Airlines Group S.A. (IAG.L) reported Friday that its second-quarter loss before tax was 2.32 billion euros, compared to last year's profit of 921 million euros. Adjusted loss before tax was 1.51 billion euros in the latest quarter. Second-quarter operating loss was 1.37 billion euros before exceptional items, compared to last year's operating profit of 960 million euros. Total revenue fell 89 percent to 703 million euros from 6.73 billion euros a year ago. Passenger capacity operated in quarter fell 95.3 percent. Traffic declined 98.5 percent. Seat factor was 28.2 percent, down 56.8 percentage points. Passenger numbers were 508 thousand, down 98.4 percent from 31.50 million a year ago. Looking ahead, IAG expects it will take until at least 2023 for passenger demand to recover to 2019 levels and is restructuring its cost-base to reduce each airline's size, with consultations being undertaken locally as required. Further, active discussions remain ongoing with Globalia regarding a potential restructuring of the Air Europa acquisition, taking into account the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Separately, IAG said its Board of Directors has approved the succession plan for its Chairman, Antonio Vazquez. The Board has unanimously approved the appointment of independent director Javier Ferran as his successor. Vazquez will continue to chair the Board of Directors for the remainder of 2020 subject to his proposed re-election as director being approved by the next IAG's Annual General Shareholders Meeting. Further, the company proposed capital increase of up to 2.75 billion euros. Qatar Airways Group, IAG's largest shareholder with 25.1 percent holding, has confirmed its support for the proposed capital increase, subject to approval at General Shareholders' Meeting in September. 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. On July 23, US President Donald Trump floated delaying the Presidential Election in November, leading to numerous lawmakers expressing their concern that he might seek to circumvent voting as his poll numbers continue to drop. Delaying election President Trump does not have the authority to delay the national election, and the Constitution gives Congress the power to set the exact date for voting. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers immediately said that there was no chance that the Presidential Elections this year would be delayed. However, Trump's message is one that is feared by Democrats, he and his supports might refuse to accept defeat if he ends up losing the election. Months before the election, Trump is already priming his camp and supporters to doubt the legitimacy of the outcome if it is not in his favor. In Trump's tweet on July 23, which marks the 96 days before the Presidential election and minutes after the federal government reported the worst economic contraction in US history, Trump suggested delaying the election with the claim that the contest will be flawed, but he did no show any evidence. With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 Also Read: Trump Admin Proposes Bill to Extend Unemployment Benefit, Stimulus Package Talks Still Afloat Stoking fear President Trump has stoked fear in the past and he did lay the groundwork to question the results as he promoted the idea that the proposed mail-in votes could lead to widespread fraud and rigged election results. Democratic lawmakers have already warned the public about Trump's efforts to suppress voting and to use the results as an excuse not to leave the White House if he loses. Meanwhile, Trump's team denied the suggestions of the Democrats and claimed that everything is just conspiracies with no basis. Trump's tweet on July 23 was his first time raising the idea of moving the date of the election. On the same day of the tweet, Trump's campaign said that President Trump was offering a query. Campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley stated that Trump is just raising a question about the chaos that the Democrats have created with their insistence on mail-in voting. Trump's tweet came after a recent poll showed that he is not getting the desired numbers of his camp in states that he won back in 2016, and that he is trailing behind former Vice President Joe Biden, who is the democratic nominee. Trump's approval rating is also the lowest it has ever been because of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, as reported by Business Insider. During the peak of the pandemic back in April, Trump encouraged states to prevent lockdowns, and how he is encouraging states to open businesses and resume school, threatening that schools that won't reopen won't receive any funding from the government. Trump's campaign in 2016 promised Americans a great economy, and how that he is up for reelection, the economy has tanked. On July 23, the numbers showed that the US economy contracted a 32.9% annual rate from April to June, which is the worst decrease on record, as reported by CNN. Despite everything that the country has been through this year, Congress assures the public that the election will not be moved, even if President Trump had suggested that it should. Related Article: Trump's National Security Adviser, Robert O'Brien, Tested Positive for COVID-19 @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. By Express News Service VIJAYAWADA: It is official. Andhra Pradesh will have three capitals, a first for any state in India. Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan on Friday gave his assent to The AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of all Regions Bill-2020 and APCRDA (Repeal) Bill -2020, paving the way for the Legislative Capital in Amaravati, Executive in Visakhapatnam and, Judicial in Kurnool. The Governors consent came seven months after CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddys dramatic announcement in the Assembly. The Decentralisation Act, as the name suggests, is for decentralised and balanced development of all regions. Under it, the Raj Bhawan, Secretariat and offices of the heads of government departments will be in Vizag and the seat of legislature will be Amaravati. All state judicial institutions will be "as far as practicable" in Kurnool. The development evoked expected reactions. Municipal Administration Minister Botcha Satyanarayana welcomed it and announced that the CM will soon lay the foundation for the executive capital in Vizag. "Despite TDPs conspiracies, eventually, dharma has prevailed. The government will stand by Amaravati farmers and ensure justice to them," he said. Former CM and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu called it a black day. "Governors decision is unconstitutional and a historic blunder. 29,000 farmers have given land for Amaravati believing in the government. The YSRC government has betrayed their trust. Nowhere in the world are there three capitals for a state. We will wage a legal battle... everyone should respond to the call of the Amaravati joint action committee and stage virtual protests," he appealed. Interestingly, the BJP has welcomed three capitals move. BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao argued that the Governor took the decision as per the Constitution. "Capital is a state subject. The Centre has no role. Our only concern is justice for Amaravati farmers," he said. The absence of BJP support is a setback for the TDP, which has tried hard to delay the bills in the Legislative Council where it has a majority. The TDP, Amaravati Parirakshana Samithi and others have also moved the HC where the matter is pending. The TDP-dominated council had referred the bills to a select committee in January but with the Legislature Secretary not going forward with the process, the government passed the bills for the second time in the recent Budget Session and sent them again to the Council. The bills were deemed to have been passed after the Council didnt discuss them. ALSO READ| Our dreams have shattered beyond repair: Amaravati farmers on Andhra Pradesh capital move TIMELINE 2019 December 17: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy announces three-capital proposal in State Legislative Assembly along the lines of South Africas capital cities December 20: Six-member panel of urban planning experts submits report to CM. Retired IAS officer and urban planning expert GN Rao says panel recommends decentralisation of capital city functions December 29: Govt forms High Power Committee to discuss GN Rao Committee and Boston Consulting Group recommendations 2020 David Duke's closed Twitter account: Twitter Notorious former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke has had his Twitter account permanently banned after previously being suspended less than a month after he endorsed Donald Trump for re-election. A high-profile white supremacist campaigner and agitator who has unsuccessfully run for public office several times, Mr Duke is also known for his advocacy for outlandish conspiracy theories, including that the world is run by a Jewish cabal that controls politics, the media and even the internet. The fact that Google and Youtube are 100% owned and run by radical Zionists who give millions of dollars to Jewish causes and to pro Israel-biased Wikipedia, he wrote in one now-archived tweet, has no impact on the tech company that controls 85 percent of all Search engines. Got that? Goy? Mr Duke has also lately been trafficking in disinformation around the coronavirus pandemic, accusing the Centres for Disease Control of radically overstating death totals for political reasons and opining that people who refuse the mask are the real heroes. According to Twitter, Mr Duke was deemed to have a history of violating the platforms policies, which sanction tweets that promote or threaten violence against people based on race, religion or other categories. Asked for comment, a spokesperson confirmed Mr Dukes account has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of the Twitter Rules on hateful conduct. This enforcement action is in line with our recently-updated guidance on harmful links. Mr Duke endorsed Donald Trumps re-election at the start of July, also imploring the president to replace his current vice president Mike Pence with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Trump & Tucker is the only way to stop the commie Bolsheviks! tweeted Mr Duke. It is the only path to beat them! #TrumpTucker2020. A writer for Mr Carlsons show recently resigned from Fox News after it emerged he had posted racist and obscene messages on an online forum. The Independent has contacted Mr Duke for comment. YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan received representatives of the restaurant business, ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Prime Ministers Office. The problems faced in this sphere and ways to cope with them were discussed during the meeting. Your initiative came as an opportunity for planning meetings with representatives of all economic sectors in the near future in an effort to try to understand what we can do to not only overcome the economic crisis, but also to increase the competitiveness and efficiency of specific sectors and the economy, as a whole. I believe that even in times of crisis we should not forget this agenda. The more proactive we are in a crisis situation, the better we will pursue strategic policies, Prime Minister Pashinyan said. Then the representatives of the restaurant business voiced their concerns, presented the problems caused by COVID-19 and came up with specific proposals for their solution. In particular, they expressed satisfaction with the governments anti-crisis economic actions and stressed the need for being supported in their drive to preserve jobs in the restaurant sector, which will help the industry get out of the crisis with minimal losses. Minister of Economy Tigran Khachatryan informed that this issue has already been discussed in the government under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, and a project of state assistance to business for the preservation of jobs is being prepared now. The Minister gave details of those support mechanisms envisaged in the project. The Prime Minister instructed to continue discussing the project with the private sector during the coming week, supplement it with new proposals and submit it for government approval. The Head of Government stressed the need for continuous development of the tertiary sector and urged the business community to come up with initiatives to create modern restaurants and cafes in the provinces, which is important in terms of the local atmosphere in communities. Queensland is preparing for thousands to flood to the border before banning travellers from Sydney, as officials reveal a new coronavirus case is linked to three women who allegedly illegally entered the state after visiting Melbourne. Greater Sydney has been declared a coronavirus hotspot by the Queensland government and anyone who has been in the area over the past 14 days will be stopped at the border from 1am on Saturday. The border closure comes amid fears Sydney is bracing for a second wave of coronavirus infections, following a deadly outbreak in Victoria. Community transmission of COVID-19 has now returned to Queensland, with its only case reported on Friday linked to the young women. Queensland is preparing for thousands to flood to the border before banning travellers from Sydney. Pictured: Cars wait in traffic in Coolangatta The 27-year-old Bellbird Park man is believed to have caught the virus from relatives who visited the Madtongsan IV Korean restaurant at Sunnybank on July 23, when one of the women was there. Authorities are tracking down all close contacts of the case and his two relatives, one of whom works in an aged care home. Both of the man's relatives are yet to test positive. Diana Lasu, 21, and Olivia Winnie Muranga, 19, allegedly lied on their border declarations about where they had been when they arrived in Brisbane from Melbourne via Sydney on July 21. Days later they felt sick but carried on working, socialising and visiting restaurants and cocktail bars while waiting for their test results - which came back positive. Defence personnel are seen at a checkpoint on the Queensland-New South Wales border in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast on Thursday July 23 The pair, along with another unidentified 21-year-old woman, have been charged with one count each of providing false or misleading documents and fraud over their alleged lies to authorities when they arrived in Brisbane. The man is the only case recorded in Queensland on Friday, but the second case of community transmission linked to the cluster, after one of the women's sisters tested positive earlier this week. Community transmission had been eradicated in the state for two months before those infections. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she was 'comfortable' with Queensland's response to the positive coronavirus cases. Greater Sydney has been declared a coronavirus hotspot by the Queensland government and anyone who has been in the area over the past 14 days will be stopped at the border from 1am on Saturday 'I'm very, very comfortable with the rapid response that has been taking place in relation to these girls returning from Melbourne via Sydney and the rapid response that has been put in place by health and the police is outstanding,' she said. 'But it is also very important if you are sick to stay at home and get tested. Any symptoms whatsoever we want people to do the right thing.' Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said they are expecting about 8,000 people to enter Brisbane on Friday, ahead of the border closure on Saturday. 'A number of Queenslanders wanting to come back home before the restrictions come into effect tomorrow morning,' he said. 'We are in a position to be able to process them very effectively. Our borders are working.' Olivia Winnie Muranga (left) and Diana Lasu, (right) both 19, arrived together in Brisbane from Melbourne via Sydney on July 21 Pictured: A crowded Jetstar flight from Sydney to the Gold Coast on Thursday night before the border shuts Ms Palaszczuk warned that those attempting to cross into the Sunshine State would face long wait times. But she would not apologise for the delays. 'There will be delays at the border. So think about your travel plans and think about where you need to go and think about the timing of those journeys,' she said. 'I'm not making any apologies for those delays because our police have a very important job to do and I want to thank everybody for the work that they are doing on our borders to keep Queenslanders safe. 'There is nothing more important during this time.' Those who have been in a declared hotspot in the last 14 days will only be able to enter Queensland if they are a returning Queensland resident or required to enter for a limited range of essential reasons. Queensland residents returning to Queensland from a hotspot must quarantine for 14 days on their return. Though the coronavirus pandemic slowed down fundraising, the banks organizers are pushing ahead with plans to launch and hope to open a flagship location in the citys Goose Island neighborhood by early 2021. The organizers declined to say how far along the fundraising effort is, but they plan to raise up to $50 million by Sept. 30. The Long Bridge Project would double the capacity of the Potomac River rail crossing by adding a second two-track bridge adjacent to the existing bridge. This project, which supports projected increases in freight and passenger rail traffic along this corridor, is crucial to continued economic growth and enhanced mobility in Virginia. It will also increase the capacity of the rail network for the Port of Virginia, where 37 percent of goods move in and out by rail. The Port of Virginia will need to increase this share to 45 percent by 2040 to handle a threefold increase in shipments. Building a new Long Bridge will double rail capacity at the major rail bottleneck on CSXs main route from the Port of Virginia to the Midwest and Northeast. Expanding Long Bridge is imperative to Virginias economic growth strategies and bringing more jobs to the 1st District. The proposed design is a new two-track bridge upstream of the current Long Bridge with five additional bridges in Virginia and D.C. Along with other track projects in the area, this project will create a four-track corridor from just south of Union Station to Alexandria. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) London, United Kingdom Fri, July 31, 2020 11:00 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066aaafbf 2 Entertainment Britain,rapper,rap-music,rape,music,crime,Andy-Anokye,Solo-45 Free A British court on Thursday jailed for 24 years a fast-rising rap artist who was found guilty of repeatedly raping and assaulting four women he had held against their will. Andy Anokye was known by his stage name Solo 45 and had collaborated with stars such as Wiley and Stormzy when he was caught in 2017. The 33-year-old was convicted of 21 rapes and five counts of false imprisonment by a court in the southwestern city of Bristol. Judge William Hart told Anokye during sentencing that the rapper had "become addicted" to "perverted pleasure". "You were part of a well-known collective -- Boy Better Know. The fellow artists from that collective have achieved great success," the judge said. "They are in no way tarnished by your misdeeds which you carried out in a private way." The grime collective was founded in London by musicians known as Jme and Skepta. The Guardian newspaper said one of Anokye's victims testified that she was water-boarded. "He put me on the bed and put a flannel over my face and poured a bottle of water over it, which made made feel like I was drowning," she said. Another said she was stabbed in the thigh and held at knife point. Anokye told the court that all the acts were consensual role play in a game called "catch me, rape me". Police discovered videos of some of the incidents on Ankoye's phone after he was arrested on a rape complaint. The Ministry of Health on July 30 night decided to establish a special team in response to COVID-19 in Da Nang where the number of infections has risen rapidly over the past days. The team, headed by Deputy Minister Associate Prof. Dr. Nguyen Truong Son, brings together 65 leaders, experts and doctors from the health ministrys units. It comprises four groups that are in charge of surveillance, treatment, testing and communication work. The ministry has also mobilised nearly 1,000 people to serve the pandemic combat in the city. On July 29-30, it provided training in sample collection and contact tracing for nearly 800 officials, teachers and students of the Da Nang University of Medical Technology and Pharmacy, and the Military School of Military Zone 5. Five lecturers and 150 students of the Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy in neighbouring Thua Thien-Hue province have been mobilised for quarantine surveillance, sample collection and contract tracing, and other response efforts. Vietnam reported 45 new cases of community transmission in Da Nang on July 31 morning, raising the national tally to 509. The 45 new cases, aged between 27-87, include 33 patients related to Da Nang Hospital, four from Da Nang Lung Hospital, two from Da Nang Oncology Hospital, four from a hotel where Da Nang Hospitals hemodialysis patients are quarantined in Son Tra district, and two at Cam Le health clinic./. VNA A five-year-old girl in China has had 190 magnetic beads removed from her stomach after she swallowed them while playing. The toy balls had been stuck inside the child for two months before she was taken by her parents to a hospital for examination. Medics were shocked to discover the tiny beads all bundled up inside the little girl's body while conducting an X-ray scan. A five-year-old girl in China has 190 magnetic beads removed by doctors from her stomach after she swallowed them while playing. The picture shows an X-ray scan of the child's body The young child had the toy balls stuffed inside her for two months before being taken by her parents to a hospital for examination. The picture shows the beads after they were removed The incident was brought to light when the parent recently took her daughter to seek medical attention at the Jinan Children's Hospital in eastern Chinese province Shandong. The mother told the doctors that the little girl had swallowed about 50 magnetic beads, also known as the Buckyballs, while playing with the toys two months ago. Despite being aware of the situation, the parents did not pay too much attention to it and thought these tiny balls would be pooped out eventually, according to a report from the hospital. The young girl was said to have not felt any discomfort or pain while having the Buckyballs stuffed inside her. The child was finally taken to the Jinan hospital for examination after her mother watched a social media video warning parents about the danger of these toy beads, said the hospital An image released by the medical facility shows the toys being 'fished out' in batches after the surgeons use a net to scoop them up. The young girl in China is believed to have recovered The child was finally taken to the Jinan hospital for examination after her mother watched a social media video warning parents about the danger of youngsters swallowing these toy beads, said the hospital. Medics were shocked to discover a huge bundle of the toy balls lodged in the little girl's stomach during an X-ray scan. The youngster was immediately scheduled to undergo an emergency operation to remove the magnetic balls. An image released by the medical facility shows the toys being 'fished out' in batches after the surgeons use a net to scoop them up. A total of 190 magnetic beads, nearly four times more than what the parent claimed, were removed from the little patient's body after the two-hour surgery. The child was extremely lucky as the toy balls did not cause any damage to her organs, doctors said. She is believed to have been discharged from the hospital following the successful operation. Profit-booking hit D-Street on the last trading day of July to push the benchmark indices below crucial support levels as the market also snapped its longest winning streak since April 2019. The bears weighed on markets for the third consecutive day as the S&P BSE Sensex was ended 129 points down at 37,606, while the Nifty50 closed 28 points lower at 11,073. Uncertainty was visible as profit-booking and post-earnings performance of index heavyweights impacted the benchmark indices, Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services told Moneycontrol. On a weekly basis, the indices closed with some losses following a results-heavy week and stock-specific action in the benchmark indices, he said. Markets seem to be in a consolidation mode with momentum slowing down in the last couple of sessions. This trend is expected to stay since uncertainties continue and volatility remains high. Investors are advised to remain cautious and accumulate quality stocks in this uncertain environment, he said. For the week, the S&P BSE Sensex, and Nifty50 fell by about 1 percent each. The Nifty saw the biggest fall, down by about 4 percent. Sectorally, action was seen in healthcare, realty, metals, and IT indices, while profit-taking was visible in energy, oil & gas and finance stocks. The broader markets outperformed the benchmarks. The S&P BSE Midcap index rose 0.3 percent while the S&P BSE Smallcap index gained 0.8 percent. Top Nifty gainers included UPL, Sun Pharma, Cipla and Grasim Industries. Top Nifty losers included Bajaj Auto, HDFC Bank, RIL and Eicher Motors. Stocks & Sectors Sectorally, the S&P BSE Healthcare index rose 3.4 percent, the S&P BSE Realty index 1.2 percent and the S&P BSE Metal index ended 0.7 percent higher. Profit-booking was seen in the S&P BSE Energy index that fell 1.6 percent, S&P BSE Oil & Gas index that was down 0.7 percent and S&P BSE Finance index was down 0.6 percent. Volume spike of more than 100 percent was seen in stocks like Bandhan Bank, Idea, Cipla, SBI, and Torrent Pharma. Long buildup was seen in stocks like Idea, Torrent Pharma, and Cadila Healthcare. Short buildup was seen in stocks like Chola Finance, Indiabulls Housing Finance and SAIL. More than 100 stocks on the BSE hit fresh 52-week high. These included Laurus Labs, Torrent Pharma, Divis Laboratories, Ipca Lab and Ajanta Pharma. Tata Communications, Best Agrolife and Majesco were among the 300 stocks that hit the upper circuit. Nearly 400 stocks on the BSE hit lower circuit that including Soya, Prabhat Technologies and 5Paisa Capital. Stocks in news State Bank of India stock was up over 2 percent after it reported an 81% increase in Q1 net profit at Rs 4,189.3 crore. Sun Pharma stock jumped over 5 percent, hitting a 52-week high after the company posted a net loss at Rs 1,655.6 crore in the quarter ended June 2020 and revenue stood at Rs 7,585.3 crore. Jet Airways shares jumped 5 percent after the troubled domestic carrier acquired six Boeing aircraft. Dabur India stock was up over 4 percent after the FMCG company reported a net profit of Rs 341.8 crore for the quarter ended June 2020, registering a 5.9 percent YoY decline as lockdown dented business. Torrent Pharmaceuticals share price jumped almost 10 percent after the company reported a 48.61 percent rise in its consolidated net profit to Rs 321 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2020, mainly on account of robust sales in the Indian market. Technical View The Nifty formed a small-bodied bearish candle on the daily and weekly scale, indicating some selling pressure at higher levels. The Nifty closed the week on a negative note as it corrected from its weekly high of 11,341 to 11,026 and paused its winning streak of the last six weeks. The failed breakout above 11,300 and sustained selling pressure at bounce back move indicates that short-term profit booking cannot be ruled out, says Chandan Taparia of Motilal Oswal Securities. Disclaimer: Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments which publishes Moneycontrol. However, Index has multiple support at 11,050 zones and a hold below 11,050 could confirm more decline towards 10,900 and 10,800-10,750 zones while on the upside resistance exists at 11150 then 11250 levels, he said.: 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. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed an order, approving funds for the construction of new secondary schools in Zaraghan village of Gabala district, Takla Mirzababa village of Gobustan district and in the city of Shaki. Under the presidential Order, the Ministry of Education is allocated 4.5 million manats for the construction of the 528-seat school in Zaraghan village, 132-seat school in Takla Mirzababa village, as well as 960-seat school in the city of Shaki. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz All eyes are on India now as the largest manufacturer of vaccines gets its machines rolling. Serum Institute of India that is producing the frontrunner Oxford University-AstraZeneca COVID vaccine has committed to producing 1 billion doses of the vaccine. CEO Adar Poonawalla had stated earlier that the company aims to offer these doses to low income countries. Anthony Fauci, director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has also underscored India's role in the development of a coronavirus vaccine. "India's private sector also has a very important role in being the world's leading manufacturer of vaccines. As effective covid-19 vaccines emerge from our research effort, this manufacturing capability is going to be very important," he said at the symposium on vaccines hosted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). He also said that Indo-US Vaccine Action Plan (VAP) convened an expert advisory committee to review coronavirus vaccine research and development in India. "Eleven vaccines were reviewed by a panel that provided recommendations for how these candidates might be further developed and assessed, and we look forward to continuing this involvement and supporting the vaccine R&D efforts," he said. Also read: Coronavirus vaccine update: SII to change trial protocol; Russian candidate may be approved by Aug 12 High Commissioner of UK in India Philip Barton said in an interview to The Indian Express that while trials are on, Oxford University-AstraZeneca's candidate seems to be the most promising so far. "We don't know which vaccine is going to work as trials are still going on but the one that at the moment looks promising is the Oxford University vaccine which will be manufactured with the Serum Institute," he said. He added that the Oxford-AstraZeneca candidate would be made available on a global, equitable basis. "We are very clear, as is the Indian government, that this vaccine is for everybody. This is a global pandemic and vaccines must be for everybody," said Barton. Speaking about distribution, Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw shared her views on who she thinks should be administered the COVID-19 vaccine first. "Who will receive the first supply of vaccines? Young people and health workers ought to get first priority. The elderly, those with comorbidities and children should not be exposed to the vaccine until safety risk is established," she said. She reasoned that since the vaccine development is very accelerated and hence the entire safety data would not be available to assess the risk of exposure of vulnerable population. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said, "We have fought the pandemic in full force. Two Indian companies have reached the clinical trial phase for Covid-19 vaccine. It is a matter of pride." Also read: Coronavirus vaccine news update: India readies 5 sites for trials; Oxford, Pfizer advance to late-stage Here are the latest developments from India and across the world: Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine: The company said that they have received good data on their COVID-19 vaccine. "The vaccine development is progressing well. We have had good data so far. We need to show the efficacy in the clinical programme, but so far, so good," AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said. AstraZeneca has already reached deals with countries to make more than 2 billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, developed in partnership with the University of Oxford, and says it could be approved by the end of this year. Johnson and Johnson: The company has begun trials of coronavirus vaccine after the study on monkeys showed its efficacy. The vaccine offered protection from infectious virus in one dose. According to the company, six out of the six monkeys that were administered the doses did not get any lung disease while five remained protected when exposed to coronavirus. Dr Paul Chief Scientific Officer of J&J said, "This gives us confidence that we can test a single-shot vaccine in this epidemic and learn whether it has a protective effect in humans." It has begun human trials in the US and Belgium. Moderna: JP Morgan analyst Cory Kasimov said that the company's vaccine candidate is making good progress. Kasimov said, "We see the publication of Moderna's data in non-human primates (NHP) as supportive of the potential for mRNA-1273 (COVID-19 vaccine), adding to the other encouraging pieces of early evidence, including Phase 1 results. That said, how results in monkeys ultimately translate to humans and whether the lack of an apparent CD8 T-cell response is relevant (especially when other vaccine candidates have shown CD8 T-cell involvement) are two (of admittedly many) outstanding questions." Also read: Coronavirus vaccine: Why Americans will pay lot more than Indians for COVID-19 vaccine PORTLAND, Maine - Families trying to squeeze in a summer vacation before school starts better do some homework on COVID-19 restrictions before loading up the minivan. The web of state and local quarantines is growing more tangled by the day: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have ordered visitors from a whopping 34 states to quarantine for 14 days. Chicago and Washington, D.C., have each singled out travellers from about two dozen states. Other states have their own lists. Some have an option for visitors to get tested instead. Complicated doesnt begin to describe it. I feel sorry for people. They just want to go to Cape Cod. They want to go to Vermont. I dont know what to tell them. People are pretty much left on their own to figure out, said Kathy Kutrubes, owner of a travel agency in Boston. The restrictions and maybe the confusion, too are contributing to a sharp drop in travel, dealing a blow to a key industry. Before the outbreak, Americans were expected to take 2.3 billion domestic trips this year, according to the U.S. Travel Association. But thats expected expected to drop about 30% to 1.6 billion, the lowest level since 1991. Normally nearly a third of domestic travel happens in the summer. Abroad, a drop-off in tourism from U.S. visitors and restrictions on crossing borders have also led many travel-related businesses to wonder if they will survive. In other pandemic news: Britain put on hold the easing of some more of its virus-related restrictions with just a few hours notice because case numbers are on the rise for the first time since May. U.S. consumer spending increased in June a solid 5.6%, helping to regain some of the ground lost when the virus-related economic slowdown began in March. But the viruss resurgence in much of the country could hamper further gains. The U.S. governments top infectious-disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told Congress that he is confident a coronavirus vaccine will be ready by early 2021 and will be widely available within the year. Hurricane Isaias approach forced the closing of some outdoor testing sites in Florida even as the state reported a record-high number of deaths for the fourth day in the row, with 257. The coronavirus is blamed for more than 150,000 deaths in the U.S. and more than a half-million elsewhere around the world. When it comes to travel restrictions in the U.S., the situation varies widely. Many states have no restrictions whatsoever for domestic travel. But the number of states with quarantines is growing as governors move to protect residents amid flareups in places such as Florida, Texas and Arizona. The results are confusing, to say the least. For example, Maine requires Massachusetts visitors to either quarantine or take a test, but Mainers may travel freely in Massachusetts. Chicagos quarantine order includes neighbouring Wisconsin. But people who cross the state line for work are exempted. In Connecticut, Paula Simchock and her husband are planning to hit the beaches in Delaware with their daughter en route to dropping her off at college in South Carolina. But because both of those states are on Connecticuts quarantine list, they expect to have to isolate upon returning home. Were definitely stir crazy. So were really looking forward to getting down to Delaware and enjoying our favourite restaurants and surf shop. Were really excited about it, Simchock said. To see that its on the Connecticut hot spot list is disappointing. The U.S. Travel Association believes that with proper precautions masks, hand-washing, and proper sanitation people can travel safely. More than a third of jobs lost during the pandemic are in the travel and tourism industry, said Tori Emerson Barnes, spokeswoman for the association. Really and truly, the only way that we can have a sustained economic rebound is to have people moving again, she said. Mike Stumpf and his wife, who live outside Philadelphia, were supposed to take a cruise in Alaska in June. Then a trip to Colorado was cancelled this week. A fall cruise to Europe was delayed this fall, and they bagged their annual trip to Florida. Between different state regulations and health concerns, theres just too much uncertainty, he said. We wont because its not the worth the risk and every state has different regulations, he said. Others dont want to risk it, either. In New York, Lyndie Callan had to cancel her 60th birthday celebration in Spain this summer because of the countrys restrictions on U.S. visitors. But even without the restriction, she wouldnt have felt comfortable travelling. Theres only one way to get this virus under control and thats to behave responsibly. It starts with me, Callan said. I dont see that my vacation plans are all that important. Ill go on vacation next year. ___ Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report. TANAISTE Leo Varadkar made an extraordinary attack on smaller parties in the Dail and there were many furious contributions from TDs during a heated last session before the summer recess. The stormy Dail debate over speaking rights saw outbursts from TDs across the political spectrum. While its rare to see so much anger in one sitting, its far from the only time tempers flared. Here are five incidents in recent years where TDs lost the plot. F*** you Deputy Stagg. F*** you. Very few people will remember what sparked former Green TD Paul Gogartys anger at ex-Labour TD Emmet Stagg. But everyone recalls his infamous 2009 F-bomb attack on the Opposition politician and acting Dail chairman Michael Kennedys shocked reaction. The exchange during a debate on a Social Welfare Bill began with Mr Stagg questioning Mr Gogartys sincerity. Cue the explosive response from Mr Gogarty saying: "With all due respect, in the most unparliamentary language, f*** you Deputy Stagg. F*** you." He immediately withdrew the remarks and apologised but incident tops the list of bad-tempered Dail spats and lives on in infamy. Read More The Healy-Raes go ballistic The Healy-Rae brothers took to their feet and engaged in a full throated shouting match with Fianna Fails Marc McSharry in 2018. As last nights row showed, few issues rile TDs as much as Dail speaking rights and Mr MacSharry took issue with Michael Healy-Rae getting up to speak as the Dail implemented a short-lived number card system for whose turn it is. Mr Healy-Rae insisted he had a card but Mr MacSharry chipped in: We have 44 Deputies here but we have... Ban Ki-Moon Healy-Rae up every day, undermining this country's Mr Healy-Rae roared back this is outrageous and his brother Danny roared Dont call us names and we will take no rubbish from Deputy MacSharry. As the Healy-Raes went ballistic, Mr MacSharry poured fuel on the flames quipping: This is a joke. It is Strictly Come Dancing a reference to the number cards and they are the half-time performers. The Leas Cheann Comhairle told him to control yourself to which Mr MacSharry replied: For Christ's sake, control them. The Dail, unsurprisingly, ended up being suspended. Mary Lou McDonalds sit-in Then Sinn Fein deputy leader, Mary Lou McDonald staged a four-hour sit-in back in 2014 after a Dail vote to suspend her when she wouldnt take her seat. The farcical scenes unfolded following heated exchanges between former Tanaiste Joan Burton and Ms McDonald at Leaders' Questions. Ms McDonald was furious after Ms Burton failed to answer questions over water charges. The Sinn Fein politician then refused to take her seat - prompting the Ceann Comhairle Sean Barrett to tell her to leave the House. She refused, insisting she wanted answers to her questions. A majority of TDs voted to eject Ms McDonald but she refused to leave. Business was held up for four hours because of the sit-in, and then abandoned entirely until the following week. You really dont give a f*** Independents4Change TD Joan Collins outburst came during the debates following last years Budget. There was just one Fine Gael TD and a scattering of Fianna Fail deputies in the Dail during her contribution. She criticised the two parties saying: Youre not here, youre not listening, you dont care and to put it bluntly for the amount of phone calls Ive got from constituents in the last 24 hours you just really dont give a f***. Leas Cheann Comhairle Pat The Cope Gallagher reminded her that its not customary to use a four letter word. Ms Collins withdrew her remarks saying she is angry about crises in health, housing and homelessness and claiming the Budget didnt address those issues. I am leaving The 2014 sit-in wasnt the only time Mary Lou McDonald was told to leave the Dail Chamber. It came after a bitter row between her and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in 2017. Mr Varadkar was criticising Sinn Fein for not compromising with the DUP to restore power sharing in Northern Ireland with Ms McDonald making numerous interruptions. Acting chairperson Fine Gael TD Alan Farrell - warned her hed ask her to leave the House. He attempted to move on to the next item of business as she continued to interrupt and Mr Varadkar claimed she was very cranky. Ms McDonald accused him of being facile and dismissive on important issues. Mr Farrell told her: Youre on your feet you might as well leave. She then left her seat and headed towards the chamber door before stopping in front of Mr Varadkar to continue the row. Mr Farrell said she was disturbing the House adding please leave. She responded: I am leaving Cathaoirleach. - Zinnov hosts its Annual Awards for the 11th consecutive year, recognizing exceptional individuals and organizations at the forefront of technology innovation ~ - The 2020 edition of the Awards celebrates distinguished leaders and teams who have gone beyond to become true agents of change in the wake of the ongoing pandemic ~ BANGALORE, India, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Zinnov, a leading global management consulting firm, hosted the 11th edition of its marquee Awards today and released the names of the winners across all categories. Hosted virtually, this edition had individual winners and representatives from winning organizations acknowledging the Awards digitally. Zinnov Awards 2020 is a testament to the grit, perseverance, and commitment of Global Centers of Excellence to rise above the uncertainties to emerge stronger and more resilient than ever. This year, the spotlight was on those remarkable individuals and organizations who faced adversity and emerged stronger for it, by building future-ready leadership, focusing on diversity, and driving innovation, even during these trying times. It equally emphasized the importance of recognizing not just the Goliaths of the technology ecosystem but the Davids too. It was an opportunity for smaller and emerging GCoEs to showcase their commitment to journey beyond resilience to become antifragile. The virtual gathering included 1000+ leaders, technology practitioners, thought leaders, and the families of the winners who came out to celebrate the ecosystem in full strength. Zinnov Awards continues to be an acknowledged gold standard in recognizing the outstanding achievements and pivotal contributions of GCoEs in India, and this year too, saw an overwhelming response with 350+ nominations from 150+ companies across 8 award categories. Award Categories and Winners Category 1: Unlocking Centre Value: A company-wide award, this recognizes R&D Organizations across both Engineering and Enterprise IT centers that have rapidly evolved from being a pure play cost center to a value center. Winners: ER&D Amadeus Labs Continental Technical Centre India Enterprise IT Verizon India Fiserv Category 2: Great Place to Innovate: This category is a company-wide award to recognize GCoEs that are focused on value creation from the India center and have made concerted efforts across five key areas Organization Charter, Culture, Internal Programs & Processes, External Linkages, and Innovation Metrics. Winners: Established Samsung R&D Institute India-Bangalore Mastercard Emerging Micron Technology Operations India LLP Category 3: Business Continuity Readiness: This is an organization-wide award that assessed the BCP readiness of GCoEs in dealing with various disruptions and the specific role played by them in mitigating the impact of COVID-19. Winners: Fiserv Swiss Re Global Business Solutions India Private Limited Pitney Bowes India Pvt. Ltd. Category 4: Inclusion & Diversity: A company-wide award, this aims to recognize organizations that have established programs and are the gold standards for Inclusion and Diversity in India, across four major drivers of Inclusion, namely, People, People Processes, Operational Enablement, and Ecosystem Engagements. Winners: Gender VMware Software India Pvt. Ltd. WM Global Technology Services India Private Ltd. Gender & Beyond Verizon India Category 5: Building a Culture of Intrapreneurial Leadership: This is an organization-wide award to recognize those GCoEs that are focused on creating a culture to develop and nurture intrapreneurial leaders from the India center and have made concerted efforts to drive a strong leadership philosophy with allied programs to identify and develop leaders to deliver key business outcomes. Continental Technical Centre India VMware Software India Pvt. Ltd. Category 6: Building World Class Site Ops: An organization-wide award, this category recognizes GCoEs that have an impeccable site operations team that forms the backbone of any company. Winners: Established Applied Materials India BMC Software India Pvt. Ltd. Emerging PepsiCo GBS India Category 7: Next Generation Women Leaders: An individual contributor award, this felicitates women leaders in technology GCoEs who have created large scale impact through their business, leadership, and/or technology expertise. This year, two sub-categories were created to recognize women leaders in Business/Technology and Corporate Functions. Winners: Senior Level Sheenam Ohrie from Dell Technologies Charusmitha Rao from Akamai Technologies Mid-Level Priya Mallya from IBM from IBM Madhurima Agarwal from NetApp India Private Ltd. Category 8: Technical Role Model: This is an individual contributor award that recognizes those individuals who have been technology stalwarts and star contributors to the internal and external technology ecosystems. This year, two sub-categories were created to recognize technologists who have created a significant impact in Artificial Intelligence & Big Data Analytics (AI & BDA) and Intelligent Automation (IA). Winners: Established (Senior Level) Shibi Panikkar from Dell Technologies from Dell Technologies Sanil Kumar D from Huawei Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. Established (Mid-Level) Manojkumar Somabhai Parmar from Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd. from Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Emerging (AI & BDA) Dr Sunil Kumar Vuppala from Ericsson R&D from Ericsson R&D Manish Bhide from IBM from IBM Emerging (IA) Antony Suresh from Verizon India About Zinnov Founded in 2002, Zinnov is a leading global management and strategy consulting firm, with presence in Santa Clara, Houston, Bangalore, Gurgaon, and Paris. Over the past 18 years, Zinnov has successfully consulted with over 250+ Fortune 500 enterprises and technology companies to develop actionable insights that help them create value across dimensions of both revenue and optimization. With core expertise in Product Engineering, Digital Transformation, Innovation, and Outsourcing Advisory, Zinnov assists clients by: Enabling global companies to develop and optimize a global engineering footprint through center setups, and technology and functional accelerators to achieve higher R&D efficiencies, innovation, and productivity; Advising global PE firms in asset shortlisting and target evaluation, commercial due diligence, and value creation; Growing revenue for companies' products and services in newer markets through account intelligence, market entry, and market expansion advisory; Structuring and implementing Digital Transformation levers enabled by technologies like AI/ML, Cloud, IOT, and RPA; Helping global companies outline and drive their open innovation programs, design and operate accelerator programs, and enable collaboration with start-ups across specific use cases and predefined outcomes. With their team of experienced consultants, subject matter experts, and research professionals, Zinnov serves clients from across multiple industry verticals including Enterprise Software, BFSI, Healthcare, Automotive, Retail, and Telecom in the US, Europe, Japan, and India. For more information, visit http://zinnov.com. Media Contact: Nitika Goel Chief Marketing Officer, Zinnov [email protected] +91-98450 16255 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/694742/Zinnov_Logo.jpg SOURCE Zinnov Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dominique Charton (Agence France-Presse) Reims, France Fri, July 31, 2020 10:06 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066aa8ee5 2 Food France,champagne Free France's coronavirus crisis has sparked a fierce battle in its hallowed champagne industry over this season's harvest, with producers and growers at loggerheads over how much bubbly should be put into bottles. The main production houses are demanding a sharp reduction in harvest yields as sales plunge amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Growers say this would decimate their revenues. Traditionally, both sides negotiate how many grapes are harvested by the hundreds of champagne growers each year, many of whom sell to merchants including big-name brands like Veuve Clicquot or Pommery. The goal is to limit the risks from poor harvests and drastic price swings that could put many players out of business. But merchants say they are already loaded with stocks and with revenues hit hard by the crisis they cannot afford to produce more bottles than they can sell. "The growers want 8,500 kilograms per hectare [about 7,600 pounds per acre] and the houses want just 6,000 to 7,000 kilos," said Bernard Beaulieu, a grower in Mutigny, a village amid rolling vineyards south of Reims, the capital of France's Champagne region. With the price per kilo expected to remain relatively strong this year at roughly 6.50 euros, the stakes are high. "Not having a deal with harvests just a month away, this hasn't happened since after World War II," Beaulieu said. The Union des Maisons de Champagne (UMC) trade body, however, expects to sell 100 million fewer bottles this year, an unheard-of hit that will slash overall sales to 3.3 billion euros ($3.9 billion) -- down 34 percent from 2019. And they say over one billion bottles are currently waiting in champagne cellars, representing several years of potential sales. The UMC's director general, David Chatillon, told AFP he would not comment on the dispute before an August 18 meeting of the Champagne Committee, which groups both growers and merchants. Read also: France to transform surplus wine into hand sanitizer 'Roll of the dice' Growers are especially furious because this year's harvest, to begin on August 20, is set to be "exceptionally good, with vines able to yield up to 16,000 kilos per hectare", Beaulieu said. Maxime Toubart, head of the SGV grower's association, accused merchants of putting livelihoods at risk by trying to take advantage of a crisis to reduce storage costs. "Growers are demanding a yield level that covers 2020 shipments while ensuring survival for vineyards," Toubart said. The situation for growers is all the more alarming, he said, since the SGV has not obtained additional payroll tax exemptions from the government to weather the coronavirus slump. For Yves Couvreur of the FRVIC federation of independent growers, which groups some 400 vineyards that also produce their own champagne, "9,000 kilos per hectare is the limit, we can't go any lower than that". To cope with a crisis that could last "two or three years," he is pushing for a suspension of uniform harvest yields so that the different players could adapt as they see fit. "The break-even point isn't the same for people who sell their grapes, and those who make a living off of their brands," he said. Couvreur also wants more leverage against merchants by allowing growers to let their wines mature in cellars longer, up to 18 or even 24 months instead of 15 currently. "Any proposal that prevents a flooding of the market is good," he said. For now, if no deal is reached on yields, the decision will be left with France's National Institute of Origin and Quality (INAO), which governs the country's wine appellations. "And if that happens, it's a roll of the dice for both sides," Beaulieu warned. Topics : France champagne Piping from the proposed water mains replacement scheme left by the side of the road after the project twas shelved "There is little point in discussing the projected housing needs for Cork County over the next five-years if Cork County Council can not even rely on Irish Water to provide the necessary infrastructure to facilitate further growth." That was the view of Cllr John Paul O'Shea (FG) who was among a number of county councillors to criticise the company for its failure to progress vital water and sewage schemes due to lack of funding. The issue was raised in County Hall this week during a debate on the Cork County Development Plan, with a number of councillors calling for the control of water and sewage projects to be handed back to local authorities. Councillors unanimously backed a call by the authority's northern division to write to both the Taoiseach and Minister for housing requesting information on how Irish Water will be funded in the future in light of the number of projects across the county that been mothballed. Councillors then proceeded to list numerous schemes across the county that have been delayed or sidelined, several of which are in the North Cork area. These include the replacement of 4km of water-mains at Clonroibin, Kilbrin, which Cllr O'Shea said had gone through the statutory preparation procedures only to be "pulled at the last minute". He pointed out that the basis of the Irish Water model was that the utility would derive a certain level of its annual funding from domestic water charges. He said this would have allowed for the company to borrow the capital needed to fund the projects and programmes outlined in its own plans. "To be frank Irish Water has been crippled since domestic water charges are no longer in place and we now see the impact of this through the number of projects across Cork that have been cancelled or delayed," he said. "The bottom line here is that the funding model for Irish Water is no longer valid and Government needs to decide how to fund the organisation into the future," said Cllr O'Shea. His brother and party colleague, Cllr Tony O'Shea, listed a number of other North Cork projects that have been impacted, including the upgrading of the sewage scheme in Mitchelstown and the construction of a new water storage tower in Kildorrery. Others he listed included the upgrade to the Mallow waste water treatment plant, which was supposed to have commenced this year but has now been delayed until 2021, with Cllr O'Shea saying there was "no certainty" it would even go ahead next year. A further example cited was the planned replacement of water-mains on the Glantane scheme, which has now been mothballed after the contractor appointed to the project was notified it was no longer going ahead. Cllr O'Shea said that an agreement to replace water-mains from the reservoir in Laharn to a nearby pump-house had also been shelved. "This was approx 1km in length and this work is all through agricultural fields, so costs would be minimal. The new pipes were bought, delivered to the side of the road and since then have laid there waiting for installation. This is nothing short of disgraceful," said Cllr O'Shea. "We urgently need the funding model for Irish Water to be addressed by Government as not only will day-to-day water services suffer, but the development of our towns and villages will also suffer if we cannot provide a good water and waste water service to these towns and villages." The Indian Health Ministry said on Thursday that so-called "herd immunity" can't be considered a strategic option for countering Covid-19, calling on people to follow safety protocol measures and guidelines until a proper vaccine is developed. Rajesh Bhushan, an officer on special duty at the Ministry of Health, said at a press briefing when asked whether herd immunity could be considered as India's last resort to in its battle to stem Covid-19 in such a populous country that the idea, initially considered by countries including the UK and Sweden, cannot work as a strategic choice. "It can only be an outcome and at a very high human cost. It cannot be a strategic option because it will come at a very high cost, Bhushan said. Herd immunity is a resistance to the spread of an infectious disease within a population through a vaccine or a previous infection. Indian health authorities believe that this kind of indirect protection will not be effective in a country with a population of 1.38 billion. Follow all the latest coronavirus-related news in India with our dedicated live blog. Safety protocol measures are the current vaccine A health worker checks the body temperature of a woman at a containment zone implemented as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus in Chennai. ARUN SANKAR (AFP) He also urged people to maintain all Covid-19-related measures and safety protocols laid out by health authorities including wearing face masks and gloves, continuous washing and sanitization of hands and maintaining social distance until a vaccine is developed. Bhushan noted that phases 1 and 2 of clinical trials of two indigenously developed vaccines are completed but emphasized that until a vaccine is fully developed, the appropriate behavior remains the social vaccine against Covid-19. New Delhi, July 31 : JSW Steel sees an opportunity as a market share shift takes place in the steel industry with the MSME and secondary producers not being able to ramp up in these challenging times. In an interview with IANS, Seshagiri Rao, Joint Managing Director, JSW Steel and Group CFO, said the company has given a guidance for 16 million tons of steel production and 15 million tons of sales. "Whatever we are down in quarter one, we will be able to make up in the remaining three quarters," he said. Rao added that JSW has a history of delivering 4 million tons every quarter, repeatedly quarter after quarter. "Notwithstanding slow recovery in domestic demand, we are geared to deliver what we committed in the guidance," he said. He said April was a washout for the company due to the Covid-19 lockdown. JSW Steel Ltd is the flagship company of the diversified $12 billion JSW Group which has a leading presence in sectors such as steel, energy, infrastructure, cement, sports, among others. Rao said that demand has been recovering month after month and while in April, it was 9 per cent of normal, it went up to 35 per cent in May and 55 per cent in June. "There is a steady improvement in demand and gradual recovery in demand will happen. If there is a shortfall in domestic demand, then it will be exported." Flagging an important dynamic in steel production, he said that in the first quarter, crude steel production was down by 43 per cent but six major players delivered 74 per cent of production. "MSMEs, secondary players, in these challenging times are not able to ramp up capacity like they used to," he said. In the steel sector, 60 per cent production is with primary, or big, players, and 40 per cent is with secondary players. However, now, 60 per cent of the players are producing 75 per cent of the steel. "So because of this change, there will be a shift in the market share of the industry. While some gradual recovery will happen, big players will take the market share. This is where the opportunity lies for JSW," Rao said. JSW will close the proposed acquisitions of Asian Colour and Bhushan Power and Steel in the current financial year, Rao said. In the case of BPSL, three litigations are in the Supreme Court, which are crucial for the company's plan. On the domestic steel demand trends, he said that forecasts for Indian steel demand vary from a fall of 8 per cent to 18 per cent, which is a very wide range. "My view is a 9 per cent fall in steel demand. Last year, the demand was 100 million tons and this year, it will be 90-95 million tons. I don't think a fall of 18-20 per cent will happen," Rao said. On the Covid-19 incident in the JSW site in Vijaynagar, Rao said the recovery rate is 80 per cent and other staff are also healthy and active. Around 700 cases were detected and the company took all preventive measures to ensure that the employees are safe and the plant also functions normally. The number of employees critical for operating the plant were moved to the township and the factory was sealed and that's how the spread of the infection was controlled, he added. JSW has forecast an improvement in overseas operations in US and Italy from the next quarter. On the trend of Indian companies buying overseas assets, Rao said that whichever companies have ventured outside India, there are very few examples that are successful. He added that given the trend happening globally of supply chain realignment, it will give a huge scope for a quantum jump of the Indian growth story. He said there is opportunity in India itself and a lot of groups will refocus on India. Rao added that the JSW is working hard to deliver the guidance for the fiscal. It expects to become profitable in the next nine months. The target is to complete the balance projects and acquisitions. "This year is a year of consolidation. We see a lot of hope next year. JSW will add capacity to 25 million tons next year from 18 million tons currently. Backward integration of iron ore is planned next year. Next year, we will see growth. There are a lot of positives in next nine months and (we are) getting ready for the growth next year," Rao said. The company reported crude steel production of 2.96 million tonnes, with average capacity utilisation of 66 per cent for the quarter - as compared to an average utilisation of 46 per cent for the Indian steel industry. (Sanjeev Sharma can be contacted at sanjeev.s@ians.in) BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Greece's retail sales declined at a softer pace in May, figures from the Hellenic Statistical Authority showed on Friday. The retail sales volume rose 5.8 percent in May, following a 24.6 percent decrease in April. Sales fell for the third consecutive month. On a monthly basis, retail sales grew 26.0 percent in May, after a 24.2 percent fall in the preceding month. Data also showed that the retail trade turnover rose 26.2 percent monthly in May and fell 5.3 percent from a year ago. 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 latest claim in Sushant Singh Rajput's case is that his domestic help claimed Rhea Chakraborty of being into black magic. Bihar Police sources told Times Now that Sushant's sister Mitu Singh quoted the domestic help's claims in her statement to the police. According to Times Now, the Bihar Police who took Sushant's sister Mitu's statement yesterday, July 30, were told that a domestic help alleged that Rhea was into black magic. This has not been confirmed independently by Mitu Singh yet. The report also added that both Mumbai Police and Bihar Police have been getting conflicting statements with regard to Sushant's case. Sushant's father K.K. Singh lodged an FIR against Rhea Chakraborty and five others, including her brother and parents, for alleged abetment of suicide, theft, cheating, confinement, and a few other charges under the Indian Penal Code. Although Sushant and Rhea were rumoured to be dating, Rhea confirmed that she was Sushant's girlfriend only after his death. Sushant's father alleged that Rhea and her family defrauded Sushant of Rs 15 crore, controlled his bank account and credit cards, cut him off from his family, and took possession of his medical records and threatened to make them public. The FIR against Rhea and others was registered by the Bihar Police and not the Mumbai Police, who have been investigating the case since the actor's death. According to Sushant's father's lawyer, the family did not trust the Mumbai Police with their investigation, and therefore lodged the FIR over a month after the actor's death, in his hometown Patna. Another reason is that Sushant's father is aged and could not have travelled for the case because of ill-health. ALSO READ: Sushant's Father And Sister Mitu Never Mentioned Rhea's Name In Their Statements To Mumbai Police Rhea recently filed a petition in the Supreme Court, requesting the transfer of the investigation to Mumbai. In response, Sushant's family filed a caveat with the court to not allow Rhea's petition to be heard in the court. ALSO READ: Sushant Singh Rajput's Father Files Caveat In Supreme Court After Rhea Chakraborty's Plea After thousands of years, scientists stated that they have finally discovered the origin of the megaliths in the Stonehenge monument that is around 5,000-year-old. Fragments of the stone On July 29, researchers announced that 50 of the 52 sandstone sarsens used in the monument were quarried 15 miles from Wiltshire. Researchers used Geochemical testing to trace the sarsens back to their origins as reported by the New York Post. The sarsens were erected in 2500 B.C at Stonehenge. The tallest sarsens are 30 feet high and the heaviest sarsens weight around 30 tons. The smaller bluestones of Stonehenge have a different origin story. The stones have been traced back to Pembrokeshire in Wales, which is around 150 miles away. However, the source of the sarsens has eluded scientists, until now. David Nash, a geomorphologist from the University of Brighton who led the study said that the sarsen stones make up the iconic outer circle and central trilithon horseshoe at Stonehenge and that they are massive. Also Read: Exploitative Chinese Fishing Vessels Occupy Galapagos Islands, Threatening Darwin's Refuge The researchers will now try to understand how the sarsens were moved from Wiltshire all the way to Stonehenge. It is also believed that they were pulled on a system that was like a sled. Nash added that it is still not clear how the sarsens were moved from Wiltshire to Stonehenge. Given the massive size of the stones and their weight, it is possible that ancient people dragged the stones using rollers. The exact tout that ancient people used is still unknown, all that was discovered was the starting point and the endpoint. The discovery of Nash's team is all based on the analysis of a fragment from the sarsen stone. The fragment was removed from the Stonehenge in the 1950s while a conservation effort was done. The fragment was removed when conservators installed metal rods to help stabilize a megalith that had a crack. The sarsen stone fragment was given to Robert Philips as a souvenir. Robert Philips worked for the company that did the stabilization effort. He moved to the United States after the project and he brought the fragment with him, he then returned the fragment to Britain in 2018 for research. Philips passed away in early 2020. Authorities are now prohibiting any testing on the Stonehenge site that is deemed destructive. The fragment given to Philips was an important sample for researchers as it gives them the opportunity to shape the geochemical fingerprint. Nash stated that he hopes that what his team found will give knowledge to the public and make it an opportunity to know more about the history of the construction of Stonehenge. The Stonehenge The Stonehenge was made by the late Neolithic people 5000 years ago and around 3000 BC. Different books about its history show different dates for the same event. The emergence of agriculture in the British Isles from 4,000 BC changed the way of life for Neolithic people. This means that the two groups were able to have permanent settlements. During the period of building Stonehenge, transitions happened to people. The Stone Age started, and up until the Bronze Age. People during that age were no longer isolated and has gone traveling and trading. The Stonehenge developed a reputation as a place where healing took place. Related Article: Perseverance Rover on Mars Will Deploy a Host of Technologies for Future Robotic Explorers @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 22:55:13|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BANGKOK, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Thai police said in a press briefing on Friday that it had seized 4 million speed pills from a pick up truck and nabbed the driver in Chiang Rai in northern Thailand. Police said investigators found 40 green backpacks, each containing 50 bundles of methamphetamine pills, an equivalent to 4 million pills in total. At the press briefing, the driver admitted that he had been hired to deliver the drugs. Police said they have collected some information but were unable to reveal them as they were extending the investigation to find others involved. The seizure followed a tip-off of a young man preparing to transport drugs from a hill-tribe village from Chiang Mai, another northern province. Enditem CLEVELAND, Ohio A total of 178 employees at Hilton Cleveland Downtown hotel, who were furloughed in March for six months, now will remain off work for an indefinite period, the hotel revealed this week. In a letter to the state Workforce Development Office, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, hotel General Manager Teri Agosta said the company is still hopeful some workers will be called back before the six-month period ends in September, but that that is no longer the companys best estimate. We did not and could not have foreseen how broadly and deeply the COVID-19 epidemic would spread and affect our business; nor did we foresee that lockdown orders, initially issued for short durations in certain specific cities, would spread throughout the country and be constantly and continually extended, Agosta wrote. The letter and form disclosing the furloughs is dated July 25 and was received by the state Friday. Cleveland.com obtained a copy from state files. In May, as Ohio began to reopen, Agosta told cleveland.com that she was seeing signs of life in Clevelands tourism economy and was optimistic business would rebound. But a surge in coronavirus cases across the state and the country has left the travel industry struggling. The return of consumer confidence to travel remains weak, Agosta wrote in her letter. Even though we are seeing early signs of economic relief, they have not been consistent or significant. With 600 rooms, the 32-story hotel is the largest in Cleveland and one of the largest in Ohio. Built at a cost of $272 million, the building was financed by Cuyahoga County taxpayers, via a sales tax increase that also funded the adjacent Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland. At the time, county leaders argued that a large convention-oriented hotel was necessary to attract major events and groups to the city. Early in July, Cuyahoga County Council approved a $7.9-million bailout to offset lost revenues Hilton blamed on the downturn in business. The money was needed to pay for $1.4 million in property taxes and $6.5 million in debt payments that would typically have covered by the hotels revenues and bed taxes collected from hotel guests sources that have dried up amid the pandemic. 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. Dr. Anthony Fauci wants to make it clear he's got nothing to do with the justice system. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appeared before Congress on Friday for a hearing on the federal government's coronavirus response. That's where Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who's been skeptical of restrictions meant to stem the virus' spread, tried to get Fauci to distinguish between protests against racism in the U.S. and bans on businesses reopening amid the pandemic. Because science indicates crowds exacerbate the spread of coronavirus, Jordan asked Fauci on Friday if the government "should limit the protests." "I'm not in a position to determine what the government should do in a forceful way," Fauci responded. So Jordan kept pressing: "The government is stopping people from going to church," claiming that's something "the five liberals" on the Supreme Court had decided. But Fauci continued holding out, saying he does not "judge one crowd versus another crowd" and would not "opine on who should get arrested or not. That's not my position." Jordan then went so far as to claim Fauci had said "protests increase the spread" of coronavirus. "I said crowds, I didn't say specifically, I didn't say protests or anything, " Fauci firmly responded. "You're putting words in my mouth," Fauci continued before saying he had no data showing the nationwide protests had spread the virus. Watch the whole exchange below. Rep. Jordan: So, youre allowed to protest, millions of people in crowds...but you try to run your business and you get arrested? Dr. Fauci: I don't understand what you're asking me, as a public health official, to opine on who should get arrested or not. Thats not my position pic.twitter.com/fAZEqbLz5q CBS News (@CBSNews) July 31, 2020 More stories from theweek.com The housing crisis is here 5 brutally funny cartoons about Bill Barrs brand of justice The Lincoln Project celebrates Portland's Wall of Moms. The Wall of Moms is splintering. The government's decision to put colour televisions into the restricted category is expected to boost the production of TV sets locally, said Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA). The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in a July 30 notification said the import of colour television sets has been moved to the 'restricted' category from the free category. This means any company that wants to import a colour TV set has to seek a special license from DGFT for this purpose. About 30 percent of the televisions sold in India are imported from places like China and Vietnam. The government move is to indigenise the production of televisions and lower the reliance on imports. Kamal Nandi, President-CEAMA and Business Head & Executive Vice President-Godrej Appliances said the decision is expected to have a positive impact as it will provide a major boost to the indigenous manufacturing and self-reliant theme of India. It will attract more investments in the technology and manufacturing which will lead to creation of more jobs. TV is one of the larger segments under the entire domain of Appliance and Consumer Electronics accounting to a volume of almost 17 million with an estimated sale value of almost Rs. 25,000 crore, he added. In India, the TV manufacturing industry is among the biggest employers in the consumer durables space. Nandi said more than 40,000 people are employees across direct and indirect production facilities. The government was working to phase out the process of importing TVs for the past three years. The idea is that in the first stage, complete TV import will be restricted. At a later stage, import of components like LED panels and open-cell for the LED screens will also be restricted to encourage manufacturing these products locally. As part of the DGFT circular, apart from colour TVs, LCD televisions below 63 cm screen size have also been put into the restricted category. Arjun Bajaj, CEO & Founder Daiwa (television brand) said this is a good first step towards boosting local TV manufacturing in India. With local manufacturing by Indian manufacturers customers will get better products as from China the products coming in the form of completely built units were just standardised products, he added. Im sure theres an outlier at 12 to 16 days because that happens, he added, but thats very atypical. Dr. Giroirs comments, during a hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, were met with puzzlement by public health experts, who say testing shortages persist. In some places, tests cannot be processed at all because of a lack of reagents the chemicals needed to detect whether the virus is present or lab capacity. And anxious patients around the country paint a far bleaker picture. Shawn Jain, who was tested along with several family members on July 7 in Nashville, waited 16 days for his results after they were processed by Quest Diagnostics. Some of his family members still have not heard back. I honestly thought they had lost the test, said Mr. Jain, who tested negative for the virus. He added, It made me feel like, well if in the future I do worry I have it, I cant even rely on something as basic as testing. On Friday, the National Institutes of Health announced awards totaling $248.7 million for seven companies to ramp up test production and deliver millions more weekly tests as early as September. The N.I.H. director, Dr. Francis Collins, described the announcement as the first of more awards to come. Three of the tests are simple enough to deliver results in 30 minutes or less. At the hearing, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said again that a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine would most likely be ready by the end of this year or early next, and cast doubt on efforts by Russia and China. I do hope that the Chinese and the Russians are actually testing the vaccine before theyre administering the vaccine to anyone, Dr. Fauci said. An investment partnership connected to high-profile developer Larry Kestelman is putting a permit-approved luxury St Kilda Road residential development on the market with expectations above $30 million. 596 St Kilda Road has a development permit for a Bates Smart designed tower. Credit:Artist's impression Chinese-Australian investors Tim Chang and Michael Xie are selling a freehold site at 596 St Kilda Road through agents Colliers International after buying the property three years ago from Singapore based Lian Beng for $34 million. The now empty site was formerly a low-level strata apartment block over which Lian Beng obtained a development permit for a Bates Smart designed 19 level residential tower with 101 apartments. Colliers Daniel Wolman said the 1804 square metre permit-approved site was a blank canvass that would prove attractive to developers. The Connecticut Bar Association honored four area legal professionals this week at its annual awards event, Celebrate with the Stars, according to a release. Among those honored were: Jennifer G. Brown, interim executive vice president and provost of Quinnipiac University in Hamden. Mark A. Healey of Mark A. Healey Attorney at Law. Joanna M. Kornafel of Green & Sklarz LLC, with offices in New Haven. New Haven County was well represented at our 2020 CBA Celebrate with the Stars, CBA President Amy Lin Meyerson. said in the release. We were glad to have the opportunity to honor these more than deserving attorneys for their dedication to the legal profession and contributions to our communities. Brown received the Tapping Reeve Legal Educator Award for her commitment and contributions to legal education, the release said.According to the release, Brown joined the Quinnipiac University School of Law faculty in 1994, and also has served as director of Quinnipiacs Center on Dispute Resolution.She was appointed dean of Quinnipiac University School of Law in 2013. Healey received The Honorable Anthony V. DeMayo Pro Bono Award for his dedication to the provision of pro bono legal services, the release said. He volunteers at the West Haven Emergency Assistance Taskforce (W.H.E.A.T.), among other organizations, and also serves on the board of directors for the West Haven Community House. Kornafel received the Young Lawyers Section Vanguard Award for her significant contributions to the Young Lawyers Section (YLS) and the CBA. She currently serves as as senior adviser for YLS, the release said. Exxon posted a loss of $1.1bn while Chevron lost $8.27bn during the Q2 as COVID-19-induced economic pain deepens. United States energy giants Exxon lost $1.1bn and Chevron lost $8.27bn in the second quarter as coronavirus lockdowns shuttered businesses and forced consumers to shelter in place, gutting crude demand in the US and around the world. Exxon, the Irving, Texas-based oil giant, brought in $32.6bn in revenue during the second quarter, less than half of what it brought in at the same time last year. The quarter was one of the worst on record for the oil industry. A roughly 30 million barrel-a-day drop in global crude demand resulting from lockdowns and a halt in air travel was exacerbated by a price war initiated by Saudi Arabia. In April, with the world awash in crude and storage space on land and at sea filling up, the price of US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude turned negative for the first time ever as traders paid to have oil they had contracted for delivery taken off their hands rather than scramble for a place to store it. Exxon announced that month that it would cut its capital spending budget by 30 percent to $23bn, and its cash operating expenses by 15 percent, in 2020. On Friday, the companys Senior Vice President Neil Chapman said it expects to spend less than $19bn next year, which would be the lowest for the company since at least 2005. The past few months have presented unique challenges. Michael Wirth, CEO, Chevron Oil prices have recovered somewhat since Aprils historic rout, but have been stuck at about $40 a barrel for weeks. That is roughly 30 percent less than a barrel fetched a year ago and well below what most US producers need to cover their cost of production. As a result, the US oil industry has lost more than 100,000 jobs since February, with 45,000 of those shed by upstream oil and gas companies in Texas alone, according to Rystad Energy, a consulting firm. The global pandemic and oversupply conditions significantly impacted our second quarter financial results with lower prices, margins, and sales volumes, said Darren Woods, chairman and CEO, in a statement on Friday. We responded decisively by reducing near-term spending and continuing work to improve efficiency by leveraging recent reorganizations. Exxon Mobil Corporation produced 3.6 million barrels of oil-equivalent, down 7 percent from last year. That included a 12 percent drop in natural gas production. Chevron Corp lost $8.27bn during the quarter, a sharp contrast to the $4.3bn it brought in during the same quarter last year. The San Ramon-based oil giant brought in $13.49bn in revenue, about a third of what it brought in last year. The past few months have presented unique challenges, said Michael Wirth, Chevrons chairman of the board and CEO, in a statement. The economic impact of the response to COVID-19 significantly reduced demand for our products and lowered commodity prices. Phillips 66, the Houston-based oil refining and logistics company, lost $141m during the quarter. New York: Dozens of documents about dealings between Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein have been publicly released by a US court, where the British socialite faces criminal charges she aided the late financier's sexual abuse of girls. Among the materials released was email correspondence between the pair in early 2015, including an email in which Epstein told Maxwell she had "done nothing wrong". Ghislaine Maxwell in 1991. Credit:PA US District Judge Loretta Preska had ordered the documents' release by Thursday, US time, saying the public's right to see them outweighed Maxwell's interests in keeping them under seal. However, two depositions remain under seal after Maxwell filed an emergency motion with the federal appeals court in Manhattan earlier on Thursday to keep them from becoming public. It includes an April 2016 deposition related to her sex life and a deposition by an unnamed Epstein accuser. Her lawyers said making her deposition public could make it "difficult if not impossible" to find an impartial jury for her criminal trial. YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. Ucom intends to reimburse a total of 105 million drams to its fixed-line customers for the network outage occurred in July, ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of Ucom. The Ucom team believes that it is difficult to put a price on the inconveniences caused to Ucom's customers due to connection outage. Appreciating the patience of all customers, the entire staff of the Company expresses its gratitude to everyone for their very important and invaluable support in tough times. Taking into account that thousands of Ucom customers would have liked to avoid the stress caused by technical issues and might consider the individual limits to be small (every individual customer will receive from 500 to 2000 AMD according to his/her chosen tariff plan), the Company's staff has a suggestion regarding the disposal of 105 million drams. It will be decided on whether or not to proceed with this suggestion via free SMS voting and calls. The customers will receive a question from 1004 short number on whether they want 105 million drams to be fully refunded to customers (500-2000 AMD each according to the tariff plan), or whether they consider it appropriate to donate this amount on behalf of all Ucom's customers to the Insurance Foundation for Servicemen, taking into account the direction and relevance of the Foundation's activities. Ucom will provide further information about the final decision BOSTON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - John Hancock Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund (NYSE: HTD) (the "Fund"), a closed-end fund managed by John Hancock Investment Management LLC and subadvised by both Manulife Investment Management (US) LLC, and Wells Capital Management Incorporated, announced today sources of its monthly distribution of $0.1380 per share paid to all shareholders of record as of July 13, 2020, pursuant to the Fund's managed distribution plan. This press release is issued as required by an exemptive order granted to the Fund by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Notification of Sources of Distribution This notice provides shareholders of the John Hancock Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund (NYSE: HTD) with important information concerning the distribution declared on July 1, 2020, and payable on July 31, 2020. No action is required on your part. Distribution Period: July 2020 Distribution Amount Per Common Share: $0.1380 The following table sets forth the estimated sources of the current distribution, payable July 31, 2020, and the cumulative distributions paid this fiscal year to date from the following sources: net investment income; net realized short term capital gains; net realized long term capital gains; and return of capital or other capital source. All amounts are expressed on a per common share basis and as a percentage of the distribution amount. For the period 7/1/2020-7/31/2020 For the fiscal year-to-date period 11/1/2019-7/31/2020 1 Source Current Distribution ($) % Breakdown of the Current Distribution Total Cumulative Distributions ($) % Breakdown of the Total Cumulative Distributions Net Investment Income 0.0935 68% 1.0639 86% Net Realized Short- Term Capital Gains 0.0000 0% 0.0000 0% Net Realized Long- Term Capital Gains 0.0272 20% 0.0000 0% Return of Capital or Other Capital Source 0.0173 12% 0.1781 14% Total per common share 0.1380 100% 1.2420 100% _________________________ Average annual total return (in relation to NAV) for the 5 years ended on June 30, 2020 6.23% Annualized current distribution rate expressed as a percentage of NAV as of June 30, 2020 8.14% Cumulative total return (in relation to NAV) for the fiscal year through June 30, 2020 -20.29% Cumulative fiscal year-to-date distribution rate expressed as a percentage of NAV as of June 30, 2020 6.11% You should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the amount of this distribution or from the terms of the Fund's managed distribution plan. The Fund estimates that it has distributed more than its income and net realized capital gains; therefore, a portion of your distribution may be a return of capital. A return of capital may occur, for example, when some or all of the money that you invested in the Fund is paid back to you. A return of capital distribution does not necessarily reflect the Fund's investment performance and should not be confused with "yield" or "income." The amounts and sources of distributions reported in this Notice are only estimates and are not being provided for tax reporting purposes. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the remainder of its fiscal year and may be subject to changes based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report these distributions for federal income tax purposes. The Fund has declared the July 2020 distribution pursuant to the Fund's managed distribution plan (the "Plan"). Under the Plan, the Fund makes fixed monthly distributions in the amount of $0.1380 per share, which will continue to be paid monthly until further notice. If you have questions or need additional information, please contact your financial professional or call the John Hancock Investment Management Closed-End Fund Information Line at 1-800-843-0090, Monday through Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time. Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined by the United States securities laws. You should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on forward-looking statements because they are subject to uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond the Fund's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. An investor should consider a Fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. About John Hancock Financial and Manulife Financial John Hancock is a division of Manulife Financial Corporation, a leading international financial services group that helps people achieve their dreams and aspirations by putting customers' needs first and providing the right advice and solutions. We operate primarily as John Hancock in the United States and as Manulife elsewhere. We provide financial advice, insurance, and wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups, and institutions. Assets under management and administration by Manulife and its subsidiaries were over CAD$1.2 trillion (US$800 billion) as of March 31, 2020. Manulife Financial Corporation trades as MFC on the TSX, NYSE, and PSE, and under 945 on the SEHK. Manulife can be found at manulife.com. One of the largest life insurers in the United States, John Hancock supports approximately 10 million Americans with a broad range of financial products, including life insurance, annuities, investments, 401(k) plans, and education savings plans. Additional information about John Hancock may be found at johnhancock.com. _______________________ 1 The Fund's current fiscal year began on November 1, 2019, and will end on October 31, 2020. SOURCE John Hancock Investment Management The Philippine Navy (PN) held a simple send-off ceremony at Alava Wharf, SBMA, Zambales on July 29, 2020, for its contingent that will participate in the worlds premier and largest joint and combined naval exercise dubbed as Rim of the Pacific Exercise 2020 (RIMPAC20) in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Philippine Navy (PN) held a simple send-off ceremony at Alava Wharf, SBMA, Zambales on July 29, 2020, for its contingent that will participate in the worlds premier and largest joint and combined naval exercise dubbed as Rim of the Pacific Exercise 2020 (RIMPAC20) in Honolulu, Hawaii. Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link Send-off ceremony at Alava Wharf, SBMA, Zambales on July 29, 2020 for its contingent that will participate in the worlds premier and largest joint and combined naval exercise dubbed as Rim of the Pacific Exercise 2020 (RIMPAC20) in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Picture source: Philippine Navy) The participating Naval Task Group (NTG) 80.5 is onboard the newly-commissioned BRP Jose Rizal (FF150) with an embarked AW109 naval helicopter. NTG 80.5 is led by FF150's commanding officer, Capt. Jerry Garrido Jr. as the concurrent contingent commander, and complemented by the surface, services and support components. BRP Jose Rizal is the PN's first warship in the inventory that is equipped with multi-dimensional warfare capabilities. Through RIMPAC20, our Navy will be able to simulate and test the capabilities of this newly acquired platform. This will provide FF150 a venue to test the proficiency of personnel as they integrate in a wider range of operations. Rimpac 2019. (Picture source: US Navy) RIMPAC exercise will run from August 17 to 31 2020. It is a United States-led naval exercise hosted by the US Navys Pacific Fleet and held biennially. It is geared towards building trust and partnership with other navies, understanding the capabilities of other navies and enhancing interoperability. RIMPAC 2020 will involve 23 ships, including a submarine, and aircraft. Participating countries are Australia, Brunei, Canada, France, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore and the United States. The suspension of domestic operations to from six major cities has been extended till August 15. Accordingly, services to West Bengal's capital from Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Chennai, and Ahmedabad will be suspended till this date. These flights were earlier suspended till July 31. In a letter to Secretary P.S. Kharola, West Bengal's Additional Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay said: "I am further directed to inform you that the suspension of flights from the aforesaid cities to will continue till August 15, 2020." --IANS rv/sn/vd (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.) Head and neck cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide, and squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) account for the majority of these cases. In a new study, based on preclinical research and published July 29, 2020 in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center report that an investigational drug candidate called tipifarnib showed promise in treating HNSCC tumors with mutations in the HRAS gene. The findings shed new light on the HRAS gene, a member of the RAS family of genes that produce proteins that regulate a variety of cellular processes, including growth, movement and differentiation. In 4 to 8 percent of HNSCC tumors, the HRAS gene is mutated. This preclinical research has the potential to extend to the entire HNSCC patient community, whose overall survival rates are limited in recurrent or metastatic disease, and existing therapeutic options that are far from optimal, with response rates of roughly 10 to 20 percent." J. Silvio Gutkind, PhD, Study Senior Co-Author and Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology, University of California-San Diego Gutkind is also an associate director of basic science at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. "These preclinical findings support the idea that HRAS represents a druggable oncogene in HNSCC through tipifarnib's inhibition of a key enzyme. It is a precision therapeutic option for HNSCCs harboring HRAS mutations." Tipifarnib is a selective inhibitor of farnesyltransferase, an enzyme that plays a critical role in anchoring some RAS family proteins to cellular membranes. Unlike KRAS and NRAS gene mutations, HRAS is dependent on farnesyltransferase activity for function, offering a way to indirectly target an oncogenic RAS isoform using a well-characterized drug with extensive clinical experience. In the study, UC San Diego researchers found that cell line- and patient-derived HNSCC models harboring HRAS mutations were highly sensitive to tipifarnib, which the authors said has demonstrated encouraging preliminary clinical activity in patients with relapsed or refractory HRAS-mutant HNSCC to date. Currently, Kura Oncology, a San Diego-based biopharmaceutical company, is conducting a nationwide clinical trial to assess the safety and efficacy of tipifarnib in head and neck cancer with HRAS mutations. Employees of Kura are co-authors of the new paper. UC San Diego is not part of the trial. Treatment with tipifarnib, wrote study authors, had a multifaceted effect on the biology of HRAS-mutant HNSCC tumors, reducing oncogenic signaling and proliferation, while increasing apoptosis (cell death), blocking angiogenesis (development of new blood vessels in tumors) and driving squamous differentiation of tumors. Head and neck cancer accounts for approximately 650,000 cases and 330,000 deaths annually worldwide. In the United States, approximately 4 percent of all cancers are head and neck, with an estimated 65,630 persons diagnosed each year, two-thirds of them men and 14,500 deaths, according to Cancer.Net. China warns India against review of One China Policy India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, July 31: The forced decoupling of the Indian and Chinese economies is against the trend and will only lead to a lose-lose outcome, China has said. China also cautioned New Delhi against any move to review India's One China Policy and to recalibrate its approach on Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong. "The development of economic and trade cooperation between our two countries is determined by international division of labour. It is also the natural choice of enterprises and consumers of our two countries under the market-oriented principles," Sun Weidong, China's ambassador to India, said." China not strategic threat to India: Chinese Ambassador Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News "According to local statistics in India, in 2018-2019, 92 per cent of Indian computers, 82 per cent of TVs, 80 per cent of optical fibres, and 85 per cent of motorcycle components are imported from China," Weidong also said. He further said that countless examples like this are the reflection of globalisation. Whether you want it or not, the trend is difficult to reverse, he said at a webinar hosted by the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi. Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times. 4 states have not made timely payment to Covid-19 healthcare workers: Govt tells Supreme Court The Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court that four states have not made timely payment of salaries to healthcare workers engaged in the battle against Covid-19. These states are Punjab, Maharashtra, Tripura and Karnataka. The Centre said that this happened despite a direction from the top court. Read more 9 die after consuming hand sanitiser in Andhra Pradesh, police say they couldnt find liquor At least nine people died when they consumed alcohol-based hand sanitiser in Andhra Pradeshs Prakasam district in the last two days, the police said. The tragedy took place in Kurichedu town. While one person died late on Wednesday night, two others succumbed on Thursday night and six others on Friday morning. Read more Three women killed as car rolls down gorge in Kotkhai near Shimla Three women were killed when the car they were travelling in fell into a 300-foot gorge in Kotkhai tehsil of Shimla district, police said on Friday. Sodha Devi, 78, a resident of Sainj village in Kotkhai, Ishvari Devi, 45, of Pujeli village in Kotkhai and Bimla Devi, 39, of Dhar village, also in Kotkhai, died on the spot. Read more China logs 127 Covid-19 cases in last 24 hours, highest since early March China on Friday reported 127 new coronavirus cases on the mainland for July 30, up from 105 the previous day, and the highest daily number since March 5 for locally transmitted cases of Covid-19 on the mainland. Read more He couldve been the youngest ever: When Danny Morrison denied Sachin Tendulkar an elusive century Danny Morrison was the bowler responsible for denying a young Sachin Tendulkar the feat of becoming the youngest ever Test centurion but the former New Zealand quick admits he spotted something special when he first bowled to the then teen-prodigy. Read more This dangerous Android malware can steal your banking info, warns CERT-In A new Android malware called BlackRock was discovered two weeks back. This malware can steal data from at least 337 Android apps. CERT-In has now issued an alert against the BlackRock malware. Read more Happy Birthday JK Rowling: Harry Potter, Ickabog author turns 55, a look at some of her work Joanne Kathleen Rowling, better known as J.K. Rowling was born on July 31, 1965, in Yale, Gloucestershire, England. She shares her birthday with perhaps the most popular fictional character of our time and also her own creation, Harry Potter. Read more Pune Polices recent tweet is a treat for Potterheads. Seen it yet? If you identify yourself as a Potterhead, chances are you know whats special about today. For the uninitiated, read muggles, July 31 is considered a special day since its Harry Potters birthday. Pune Polices Twitter handle has not only acknowledged the day but also referenced it to share an important message in their latest tweet. Read more Watch| Covid-19: Not herd immunity, vaccine only option, says govt Press Release July 30, 2020 Dispatch from Crame No. 862: Sen. Leila M. de Lima's Further Comments on Last Monday's SONA 7/30/20 The whole country was waiting for the government's plan to control the COVID-19 pandemic and for Duterte to give the people hope in the midst of the health and economic crisis the nation is facing. Instead, Duterte diverted the people's attention from the direst challenge to his administration and once again raised the bogeymen of drugs and oligarchs, as if a pandemic is not presently wreaking havoc on the nation. His tirades on Senator Franklin Drilon, on the other hand, is but the latest illustration of why most politicians are silent, submissive and craven. If they dare criticize or cross Duterte, they run the risk of public shaming, and even relentless persecution, with yours truly as Exhibit "A." But the most striking message he delivered to the nation last Monday is his public threat to the two giant telcos Globe and Smart. This is dubious Duterte telegraphing the ABS-CBN example to the Ayalas and Manny Pangilinan. Shakedowns and expropriation are now a matter of government policy. If this does not already qualify us as a dictatorship, then I don't know what else will. By attacking the so-called oligarchs, Duterte seems to be out of touch with reality and in what truly constitutes the most urgent concerns that government must attend to at present. We hoped for solutions and programs, what we got instead was another mafia vision of how to shakedown and kill more of our businesses and industries and hand them over to Chinese companies partnered with his cronies. Make no mistake about it. The last two years of Duterte's reign will engender more tyranny and corruption, as not even the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have tempered his tyrant's appetite for absolute power and more corruption. As it has already been said, Duterte has achieved in four years what took the dictator Marcos to accomplish in fourteen years, i.e., murder thousands, shutdown critical media, eliminate civil liberties, control Congress and the judiciary, hand over big business and industries to cronies, and in so doing ruin the economy and destroy all our democratic institutions. In exchange for admittedly being "inutil" to solve the nation's problems and run a legitimate government, Duterte has made it clear that he is still in control of everything, and that he can still do pretty much whatever he wants. He is "inutil" to do good, to accomplish the things that matter. But he still has the power to destroy, to steal, to kill, and to drag the country further through hell. Hindi man niya malutas ang mga suliraning hinaharap ng bansa, sasagarin pa rin niya ang pagka-impyerno ng buhay nating mga Pilipino sa dalawang taong natitira pa sa kanya. Mula ngayon hindi na pamumuno ng bansa ang aasahan pa natin mula kay Duterte, kung hindi ang pagbura sa natitira pang ala-ala ng mga Pilipino sa isang disenteng gobyerno. Marahil ito ang layunin talaga ni Duterte. The President did not give us a national plan on a "new normal" in dealing with the Coronavirus. What he instead gave us is his plan to normalize dictatorship and tyranny as the new way of life for the Philippines, perhaps even after he is long gone. That will be his legacy to us. ### Access the handwritten copy of Dispatch from Crame No. 862, here: https://issuu.com/senatorleilam.delima/docs/dispatch_no._862 The Edinburgh International Book Festival will bring authors around the world together as it moves this years event online. Organisers have announced more than 140 online events for adults and children over 17 days, from Saturday August 15 to Monday August 31. Live conversations, discussions and readings will be held by 200 authors from more than 30 countries around the world. The 2020 Book Festival online programme is here! 15-31 Aug 140 events for adults and children, live and free via our website Keep the Conversation Going with some of the worlds top writers, thinkers, and performers Full programme: https://t.co/BZNRgxdbi3 pic.twitter.com/TuLV5x5Jte Edinburgh International Book Festival (@edbookfest) July 31, 2020 The festival will host live online book signings, where audience members can chat to authors face-to-face and get a book signed by purchasing a copy through the festivals online shop. All events will be free to access through the festivals website. Festival director Nick Barley said: Its been a leap of faith for everyone involved but in these extraordinary few months weve managed to transform the way we deliver our festival, bringing writers and readers together in a new online space for discussion and imagination. Despite the challenges Ive been inspired by authors enthusiasm to try out this new approach, joining us in Edinburgh from all over the world without having to leave their homes. As society searches for ways to make sense of the new reality, its clearer than ever that books and writers offer a framework for constructive dialogue and for sharing bold new ideas. Expand Close First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during a photocall at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (Jane Barlow/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during a photocall at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (Jane Barlow/PA) Video of the Day Among those taking part are double Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel and Utopia Avenue author David Mitchell. 2019 Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo will join Scotlands First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at one event and Irish author Marian Keyes will discuss her latest bestseller Grown Ups. Scottish talent joining the online festival includes Alexander McCall Smith, who will chat with the former leader of the Scottish Conservatives Ruth Davidson. Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop said: The Edinburgh International Book Festival has long been a highlight of the Edinburgh Festivals calendar, bringing together some of the worlds finest authors and the best of contemporary Scottish talent. The Scottish Government has been continuing its support for the festival and since 2008 has provided over 1.3 million of funding through its Festivals EXPO fund. International voices taking part include Samantha Power, former war correspondent and US Ambassador to the UN, who delivers the Frederick Hood Memorial Lecture. The festival will also host an interview with the winner of the 2020 International Booker Prize, to be announced on August 26. Full details of the 2020 Online Edinburgh International Book Festival can be found at edbookfest.co.uk and all events are free to watch. Elementary school students will be returning to the classroom full-time this fall in Manitoba while high school students may need to take some remote classes to allow for social distancing. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen, front, and chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin speak to the media about the fall back-to-school plan at the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg on Thursday. (Winnipeg Free Press) Elementary school students will be returning to the classroom full-time this fall in Manitoba while high school students may need to take some remote classes to allow for social distancing. The plans were developed with the goal of striking a balance between keeping students and staff safe while returning them to the classroom, Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen said during a Thursday afternoon press conference. Also present was chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin, who said the provinces back-to-school plans "will help reduce risks while ensuring students can reap the many benefits of in-class learning. "The best place for students is in the classroom and we are pleased to bring back in the classroom these students in this way," he added. "However, schools will not look the same as they did last September." Extra emphasis will be placed on cleaning facilities and promoting handwashing, including teachers closely watching young students to make sure theyre washing hands properly and to make sure theyre not playing with alcohol-based hand sanitizer. See Masks will Page A4 Schools will be divided into cohorts of up to 75 students to facilitate social distancing and contact tracing should a case be diagnosed in a teacher or student. High school students will be in class at a minimum of two days per six-day cycle under the plan, but the province expects most students will be there more often. With high schools containing more students than elementary schools and students taking a wider variety of courses because of electives, this makes it harder to maintain physical distancing between those students. Individual school divisions will have to develop their own plans and timetables based on the number of students and their individual circumstances. Divisions will also need to develop transportation plans incorporating distancing. In the meantime, parents are encouraged when possible to bring their children to school as these details are worked out. Because students and staff are expected to stay home when sick, Goertzen anticipates more substitute teachers will be needed this coming school year. Provincial exams are still up in the air for Grade 12 students and the province will decide in September if they will go ahead. Two-metre physical distancing will be required where possible. When not possible, thats where the cohort system will come in to limit exposure. Within cohorts, students will need to maintain a one-metre distance from other students. Entrances and exits to schools will be controlled to avoid too many people coming in or out through the same place, and lunch and recess breaks will be staggered to limit exposure. Play structures are considered by Public Health to not be a high-risk health concern. Its expected children will be screened for health issues before they leave home by parents and schools will also be set up to facilitate some health screening. Masks will not be required by public health, but students and teachers will be allowed to wear them. Contingency plans for wearing medical masks will need to be in place should a student end up being symptomatic at school. If a student or teacher becomes symptomatic at school, they will be required to report to an administrator and then go home to monitor symptoms. When it comes to funding these extra initiatives, Goertzen said the province is reinvesting the approximately $48 million it said was saved due to the initial shutdown of schools due to coronavirus as well as administrative cuts ordered for each division earlier this year. Divisions, he said, can dip into the savings they made earlier in the year. The Sun asked Goertzen if any additional support would be provided to the Brandon School Division, which asked for and received a one-year reprieve from those administrative cuts earlier this month and therefore wouldnt have any savings from that. He said the administrative cuts represent only a small portion likely 15 per cent of that $48 million and so it wouldnt affect the school division greatly. Speaking to the Sun from Winnipeg via phone, Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew said with the extra demands being put on school staff with all the new measures being put in place for the pandemic, those cuts shouldnt just be postponed, but cancelled entirely. Earlier this week, the NDP released an alternative back-to-school plan featuring more new funding for schools than was announced by the government. "The province isnt coming forward with a ton of help," Kinew said. "Theres not the necessary investments in more educators, more classroom space, protective equipment or mental health supports. I can see a lot of parents having concerns. I think a lot of families want to send their kids back to school. I dont think thats in dispute, but they want to be able to do so safely." In Thursdays announcement, Goertzen said there would be no class size limits in the provinces plan other than the 75-student cohort limit, which also concerns Kinew. The NDPs alternative plan proposed a 15-student class size limit. "Its easier to isolate, to contact trace if there was to be a case or even a suspected case in a school. With the higher number cohort approach, I think its going to make the task a bit more challenging." In a statement emailed to the Sun, Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont wrote that he has four main concerns with the announced plan: that the government should be investing money in education rather than relying on savings, that there needs to be a concerted effort to recruit substitute teachers, that there needs to be a specific plan for immunocompromised staff and students and that the new rules put in place should not compromise meal plans for needy students. Roussin said if a student is diagnosed with COVID-19 and they were judged to be at school during the infectious period, then contract tracing will look into what cohorts theyre in and with whom they came in contact. However, a case or transmission within a school does not mean classes at that school or any other school will necessarily be suspended depending on how contact tracing goes. Now that the provincial guidelines have been announced, Brandon School Division Supt. Marc Casavant said the divisions plans will be released by Aug. 14. He said the division started to develop some plans after the province revealed its three possible scenarios for the 2020-21 school year last month. "Weve got some work to do, but we certainly arent starting from the ground floor, either." Asked if he was worried about the cost of adapting to these new guidelines, Casavant said the division will first try to work within its means and will then reach out to the province if they need assistance. As for public consultation, Casavant said they dont have a lot of time to do so with September fast approaching. However, he said theyve been paying attention to the results of surveys circulated by the province. The Sun was unable to reach Brandon Teachers Association president Cale Dunbar for comment before press time. Goertzen acknowledged getting used to this new way of learning will take some time. "There will continue to be challenges as we learn to live with the virus in an education environment. There will be situations that require quick adaptation, and if the situation changes in Manitoba and Public Health advice warrants, there may be changes in requirements at schools as well." cslark@brandonsun.com Twitter: @ColinSlark By Express News Service NEW DELHI: In line with the Centres current policy on limiting imports into sensitive sectors, especially from countries with hostile interests such as China, the government has now extended the safeguard duty on solar cells for another year. The move comes after a recommendation by the commerce ministrys Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) earlier this month to continue the duty which had first been imposed on solar cell imports from China and Malaysia in July 2018. While this provision was set to run out at the end of this month, the DGTR had already initiated a probe into whether the duty was needed or could be done away with. Sources said that the investigative wing believed that there was still a substantial danger of cheap import dumping. Over 80 per cent of solar cells used in India originate from China. In fact, the DGTR probe found that after a fall in solar cell imports in 2018-19 after the safeguard duty had been imposed, there had been an increase in imports during the April-September period of 2019 because the duty rate had been decreased from July 30, 2019. With the DGTRs findings paralleling the Centres current policy to limit Chinese gear imports in the power sector, the Department of Revenues circular dated July 29, 2020 says that it seeks to continue the levy of safeguard duty on imports of solar cells (whether or not assembled in modules or panels) for a period of one year, in pursuance of final findings of review investigations issued by DGTR. According to the circular, a duty of 14.9 per cent will be levied for six months from July 30, 2020, to January 29, 2021, and then it will be 14.5 per cent between January 30, 2021 and July 29, 2021.Industry experts are currently uncertain whether this safeguard duty extension will be accounted as part of the 20-25 per cent customs duty increase proposed earlier in June. Surge in imports Imports of solar cells and modules rose to 9,790 MW in 2017-18 from 6,375 MW in 2016-17. The duties were put in place on July 30, 2018. As a consequence, the import volume came down to 8,010 MW in 2018-19. India imposed the duty for the first time in 2018, for two years. China accounts for nearly 80 per cent of module supplies. Almost billionaire beauty mogul Kylie Jenner has reportedly splashed over $200k on a pony for her two-year-old daughter Stormi Webster. The pony, named Frozen, is said to have been purchased through celebrity horse breeder Stal Wilten and was flown to Los Angeles from the Netherlands, where Wilten is based. A picture of the 17-year-old pony was shared on Wiltens Instagram page, where he referred to Frozen as the most famous pony of them all. Though Wilten did not name Jenner or Stormis father Travis Scott, he added: We got news he has landed in L.A. and living the life with a sweet little girl. Her parents made sure their daughter had the most precious pony out there. Previous screenshots of the post appear to show Wilten did originally name Jenner as the buyer, with a screencap shared by the Daily Mail reading: @KylieJenner, in true fashion, made sure her daughter had the most precious pony out there. We cant wait to see pictures of Stormi and Frozen. According to the Daily Mail, the pony was flown in last week (which is said to have cost $7-10k) and is said to be undergoing a 14-day quarantine - after which Frozen will be moved to a stable closer to Jenners home. Other celebrities said to have turned to Wiltens expertise for their own horse include Kaley Cuoco, Jennifer Gates and Jessica Springsteen. The Kardashian family is known to have a number of impressive horses to their name, with Kim Kardashian West announcing that the family owns 14 Friesian horses at her and Kanye Wests Wyoming ranch. Friesian horses are estimated to cost anywhere between $3,000 and $50,000. Twitter users criticised Kim at the time, calling her tone deaf for bragging about her herd of horses during the coronavirus pandemic. One user wrote in response Ill take Tone Deaf Celebrities During a Worldwide Pandemic for 500, Alex, in reference to the American game show Jeopardy. ACLU attorney Dale Ho at the Supreme Court, where he successfully argued against a citizenship question on the U.S. census. (Magnolia Pictures) As soon as he took office, Donald Trump began trying to dismantle the U.S. Constitution. First came his ill-conceived Muslim ban, followed by his ill-conceived family separation plan, his ill-conceived attempt to prevent pregnant women in immigration detention from receiving abortions, his ill-conceived attempt to kick transgender soldiers out of the military and his ill-conceived attempt to add a citizenship question to the census. As you can imagine, the ACLU has had its hands full for the past 3 years. In all of those cases, it has taken on the Trump administration and secured partial or total victories in the group's never-ending quest to tame the basest impulses of a man who continues to hammer away at the very foundations of our democracy because it pleases his base. And even when Trump loses in court, he doesn't stop trying. Just a couple of weeks ago, as he continued to sink in the polls, he came back to the census issue for another round of immigrant bashing, issuing a memorandum that seeks to bar people who are in the country illegally from being included in the census. The national headcount is, among other things, the basis for redrawing congressional districts. It feels like Groundhog Day, said Dale Ho, head of the ACLU Voting Rights Project and the attorney who in 2019 successfully persuaded the Supreme Court that a citizenship question on the census is unconstitutional. You dont get to say that undocumented people arent people. Ho is one of four attorneys featured in a surprisingly dramatic and engaging new documentary, The Fight, about the American Civil Liberties Union's battles with the Trump administration. The filmmakers, Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman and Eli Despres, are the same team that made one of the best political documentaries in recent memory, Weiner, which chronicles the clueless self-destruction of a once-promising political star, former Rep. Anthony Weiner. I am gratified that our work is going to get a broader audience now, Ho told me Friday morning. When they approached us to do the movie, I was like, how is this going to be interesting? All I do is sit at a computer writing things and having conference calls. Story continues Are you kidding me? I held my breath in suspense during much of the film, as the lawyers raced around the country, interviewing their clients, who included a transgender soldier, a mother whose 7-year-old daughter had been ripped from her arms by immigration officials, a Guatemalan man separated from his son, and a Mexican immigrant, an unaccompanied minor, who was seeking an abortion after being raped. Thats what she claims, said Scott Lloyd, director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, in a videotaped deposition featured in the documentary. Lloyd, the man responsible for blocking the procedure, also told ACLU attorney Brigitte Amiri in the deposition that abortion is a sin. After Amiri prevailed, her client was able to end the pregnancy. I felt very happy, the client said, as though they saved my life. The stress as each attorney waits for the court decision that will determine clients fates is palpable. And so is the confusion; when Ho began reading the Supreme Court decision in his case, Department of Commerce vs. New York, he thought he had lost but soon realized he had won. I confess I was a little embarrassed, he told me about that scene. My job is to read legal opinions, and here I was misreading an opinion. And yet, he was hardly alone. Even ACLU Legal Director David Cole was initially confused by the ruling, which found that while the government may have the right to add a citizenship question, the Trump administration's after-the-fact rationale that it would aid in enforcing the Voting Rights Act was a pretext. Three days after Trump issued his latest anti-immigrant memo, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of several immigrants rights groups, accusing the president, once again, of launching a discriminatory attack on immigrants. The lawsuit notes that while the humanity of enslaved Black Americans was once discounted for the purposes of apportionment the infamous three-fifths compromise the Trump administration is attempting to do something equally vile: entirely negate the humanity and existence of the estimated 11 million U.S. residents who are in the country illegally. The Constitution, as it happens, does not say that only American citizens should be counted. The 14th Amendment requires that the whole number of persons in the country be counted. In 1982, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that anyone living in the U.S. must be counted. Whatever his status under the immigration laws, said the court in Plyler vs. Doe, an alien is a person in any ordinary sense of that term. In practical terms, Ho told me, Trump is trying to punish Democratic states with large immigrant populations places like California and New York, which would end up with fewer representatives in Congress and fewer electoral college votes. Its of course a common refrain that every presidential election is the most important ever, but given the stakes, this one really is. Its not just that Trumps policies are so odious, or that he has undermined U.S. interests around the world and catastrophically mishandled the pandemic; its that he is actively working to undermine the most fundamental element of our democracy: the voting process itself. He has mused about delaying the election, which only Congress has the power to do. He has launched a series of attacks on the security of mail-in ballots, claiming that if most Americans vote by mail, "this will be the most rigged election in history." He has appointed an inexperienced postmaster general whose new "cost-cutting" measures have already caused backlogs, which have alarmed postal workers who worry they won't able to deliver ballots on time. This will be the hardest election to run since 1864, when we had a presidential election during the Civil War, Ho said. We will have more voters than ever, all in the midst of the worst public health emergency in a century. In a November nightmare scenario Ho has discussed with other voting experts, like UC Irvines Rick Hasen, Trump leads the in-person vote on election night, declares victory prematurely, but then the lead flips to former Vice President Joe Biden as mail-in ballots are counted. Wouldn't it be easy to make it clear to everyone in this country that the election is not over until all the votes are counted? Maybe, said Ho, but the ACLU can't do it all. The media must play its part in protecting our democracy. "I would respectfully suggest," said Ho, "that that is your responsibility." Challenge accepted. @AbcarianLAT Hamiltons elementary schools will return to normal, weeklong classes come September, while secondary schools will rely on a staggered model that allows small cohorts of students to enter the school on alternating days. The plan for reopening schools in Ontario announced Thursday includes new provisions like mandatory face masks for students from Grade 4 to 12, and additional funding for staffing and PPE. For Hamilton, the provinces plan means that elementary students in kindergarten through Grade 8 will attend school five days per week, sticking with one class and teacher for the full day including recess and lunch. High schools will put students in groups of roughly 15 and remain in a single classroom every other day, between Monday and Thursday. Half of secondary students schooling will be done in the classroom, while the remainder will be done at home using online learning tools. The governments plan gives parents the option to keep their children home from school and rely solely on remote learning, should they choose to do so. The newly announced plan is garnering different reactions from parents of elementary and secondary students, many of whom have raised concerns surrounding child care and remote learning, said Alex Johnstone, chair of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) and trustee for Wards 11 and 12. There are many questions, especially for secondary students, around how students will be supported with remote instruction in September, said Johnstone. We need to know how we will continue to ensure that gaps in learning are closed and that students receive a high standard of education, whether physically in school or not. Hours prior to the Ontario governments announcement on Thursday, the HWDSB penned an open letter to the ministry of education citing extreme concerns over a hybrid model that would leave students to learn remotely half the time. Parents and guardians have strongly expressed to us that a hybrid model with in-school and distanced learning places undue hardship on families because they will be unable to work, the letter reads. We implore the government to develop a reopening plan that is consistent across the province while supporting the needs of communities, families and children. Johnstone said the provinces decision to restore full-time elementary school partly solves the concerns touted by parents, but that problems still linger for secondary students. We know that remote learning has had a profoundly negative impact on the mental health and well-being of students, and thats especially true of secondary students, she said. The letter from the HWDSB also called on the government to make a financial commitment that makes the health, safety and well-being of staff a top priority, and requested a minimum of roughly $2.1 million to fully fund a return to school. In the governments announcement, Minister of Education Stephen Lecce said the province would allocate an additional $309 million for the fall reopening, including $60 million for personal protective equipment (PPE), $80 million for additional staffing such as teachers and caretakers, and $25 million for cleaning supplies. Nick De Koning, a union representative for elementary teachers in the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board, said hes skeptical the funding will be enough for the provinces 4,800 public schools. Think about some of the recommendations theyre making, like spending $50 million on hiring 500 nurses for the whole province, De Koning said. With 500 nurses and 4,800 schools across the province, youre looking (at) having one nurse for every nine to 10 schools. Hows that going to work? Which school gets the nurse? The Canadian Union of Public Employees, representing 55,000 support staff in Ontario schools, estimates the province needs to spend $272 million alone to hire one additional caretaker per school to ensure proper cleaning. Days prior to the provinces announcement, the Ontario Liberals estimated that the cost of reopening schools safely would amount to $3.2 billion in spending for teachers, caretakers and space for classes of 15 students. Johnstone said the HWDSB will be submitting a final plan for Hamilton schools that complies with the provinces plan to the ministry of education shortly. She said the board is now waiting on the government to indicate how much of the additional funding will be available for Hamilton schools. As a school board, were now going to continue gathering feedback from our parents and staff to be nimble and responsive to the needs of our students, she said. Its going to be tough. Its going to be a work in progress. A Niagara-on-the-Lake man has been arrested after violence erupted during a recent protest, regarding the use of horses to pull carriages in the tourist area. Niagara Regional Police said they responded to a reported assault near the intersection of King and Picton streets in NOTL at about 1 p.m. July 25, after a man who was participating in a protest in the area reported that he had been assaulted. Police determined that the protester spoke to passengers riding in one of the carriages, explaining his concerns regarding the use of the horses. Const. Phil Gavin said a family member of the carriage passengers approached the protester about 45 minutes later. That is when the alleged assault occurred, he said. No one was injured during the incident. Investigating police officers were able to recover items the protester had reported stolen a cellphone and a sign. Police said the suspect, 37-year-old Mark Giordani, turned himself in to police and was subsequently charged with assault and theft. He was released from police custody on a promise to appear in court. Police said they have been working to de-escalate tensions between protesters and carriage operators in the community, remaining neutral while maintaining public peace and safety as the protests and counter-protests continue. A group called At War for Animals Niagara has been organizing protests in the community since 2017. Donald Trump has claimed that he has done more for minorities than Barack Obama during his time in office. The president spoke briefly to reporters before departing the White House for Tampa, Florida, on Friday when he was asked for his reaction to Mr Obamas recent comments regarding the administration and voter suppression. He did a bad job for minorities. I did much more for minorities than he did, Mr Trump responded. Mr Obama seemingly indirectly accused the administration of voter suppression during his Eulogy for John Lewis on Thursday, accusing those in power of targeting minorities. But even as we sit here, there are those in power are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations, and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to an election that is going to be dependent on mailed-in ballots so people dont get sick, Mr Obama said. In response, the president reiterated that he had done more for any group in America than Mr Obama during his time in office. Youll see I did a much better job than Obama did by far for African Americans for Asian Americans for women for any group you look at. Far better than Obama did, he said. Mr Trump evidenced his claims by seemingly referring to unemployment rates before the pandemic hit. And if you look at our number prior to the plague coming in and those numbers will soon be back, Mr Trump said. Recommended Obama gives powerful eulogy at John Lewis funeral Unemployment rates among black Americans have risen to 16.7 percent since the onset of the coronavirus, and communities of colour have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. While the president claims that numbers prior to the pandemic will soon be back, rates have risen to historic levels throughout the pandemic with approximately 32 million people currently receiving unemployment assistance. The presidents comments also come amidst continued national civil unrest in the country following the death of George Floyd, with protests against systemic racism and police brutality breaking out in all 50 states. Ongoing demonstrations have been met with militant federal force in an attempt to quell the unrest. Videos of police beating and gassing protesters, hitting people with cars, and harassing and attacking journalists have been widely shared online since they began. On Friday, Mr Trump threatened Portland protesters with very strong offensive force as the federal government and residents continue to clash in the city. If it doesnt clear up, were going to do something very powerful, the president said a day after he warned protesters there that he dubbed terrorists he is poised to send in National Guard troops. We have no choice, he said, because the left-wing extremists have spread mayhem throughout the streets of different cities. However, Mr Trump has maintained on a number of occasions that he and his administration have gone above and beyond for minority groups in comparison to other presidents. In early June, the president claimed he and his administration have done more for African Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln, insisting that the BEST IS YET TO COME. Mr Obama on the other hand has reportedly criticised Mr Trump for his nativist, racist, sexist rhetoric in fundraising calls for Joe Bidens presidential campaign. What he has unleashed and what he continues to try to tap into is the fears and anger and resentment of people who, in some cases, really are having a tough time and have seen their prospects, or communities where they left, declining, the former president was reportedly quoted to have said on a zoom call by sources close to him according to The New York Times. And Trump tries to tap into that and redirect in nativist, racist, sexist ways, Mr Obama reportedly added. Mr Trump has repeatedly spoken publicly against widespread mail-in voting in Novembers presidential election despite the spread of coronavirus, claiming without evidence that it will lead to an increase in voter fraud. The Trump campaign is yet to respond to The Independents request for comment on these reported remarks. Scientists at Imperial College London say they are immunizing hundreds of people with an experimental coronavirus vaccine in an early trial after seeing no worrying safety problems in a small number vaccinated so far. Dr Robin Shattock, a professor at the college, told The Associated Press that he and colleagues had just finished a very slow and arduous process of testing the vaccine at a low dose in the initial participants and would now expand the trial to about 300 people, including some over age 75. "It's well-tolerated. There aren't any side effects," he said, adding it was still very early in the study. Shattock, who is leading the vaccine research at Imperial, said he hopes to have enough safety data to start inoculating several thousand people in October. Since COVID-19 infections have dropped dramatically in Britain, making it difficult to determine whether or not the vaccine works, Shattock said he and his colleagues are also looking to test their vaccine elsewhere. "We're looking very carefully at the pandemic, at the numbers where the hot spots are and talking to collaborators that have the facilities to do these kinds of studies," he said. The Imperial vaccine uses synthetic strands of genetic code based on the virus. Once injected into a muscle, the body's own cells are instructed to make copies of a spiky protein on the coronavirus. That should in turn trigger an immune response so the body can fight off any future COVID-19 infection. Earlier this week, the world's biggest coronavirus vaccine study started in the United States, with the first of 30,000 planned volunteers getting immunized with shots created by the US National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc. Several other vaccines made by China and by Britain's Oxford University, based on different vaccine technologies, began smaller final-stage tests in Brazil and other hard-hit countries earlier this month. The World Health Organization has said multiple vaccine approaches are necessary for COVID-19, noting that the usual success rate for vaccine development is about 10 per cent. Shattock said there were numerous coronavirus vaccines now in clinical trials, and he predicted that at least some of them would prove to be effective. "We have 20 vaccines in clinical trials, (so) we can be pretty confident that at least two of those will work," he said. "It really depends on how strong the immune response needs to be to provide protection." Shattock said he was optimistic the Imperial vaccine would work, but must await the scientific data from the trial. "I'm just going to hold my breath and wait to see," he said. Senior Labour MP Virendra Sharma and over 25 other MPs have written to UKs chancellor Rishi Sunak to support airports such as Heathrow, where tens of thousands of employees face redundancy due to steep fall in business due to the coronavirus pandemic. Heathrow has historically employed a large number of Indian-origin people, who over the years took up residence in nearby London suburbs such as Southall. Many of them face job losses with the aviation industry suffering a major hit. Sharma, who is MP for Ealing Southall, said: Thousands face being made redundant because of falls in revenue for many businesses and certain industries almost completely drying up. Aviation is one of the hardest hit, almost no long haul routes are open and passenger numbers are down to tiny fractions compared to the start of the year. The MPs wrote to Sunak that airports in England and Wales are expected to pay business rates as though they are functioning normally. Airports in Scotland and Northern Ireland have received support from their local governments, but those in England and Wales have not had such relief. The MPs wrote to the chancellor: Under the current system while a business such as Tesco which has seen growth during Covid-19 has received 585 million in business rate relief, our airports have seen not a penny. We call on you to provide support to all English and Welsh airports in line with that afforded by Scotland and Northern Ireland. This will allow airports to continue to employ people, pay other taxes and support the Covid recovery we all so badly need. Passenger numbers have fallen by 99% in some cases and more than 100,000 in the industry are facing the risk of unemployment. The aviation industry lost nearly 2 billion in the four-month period between March and June, which is equivalent to around 15 million each day, Sharma noted. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON ABOUT THE AUTHOR Prasun Sonwalkar Prasun Sonwalkar was Editor (UK & Europe), Hindustan Times. During more than three decades, he held senior positions on the Desk, besides reporting from Indias north-east and other states, including a decade covering politics from New Delhi. He has been reporting from UK and Europe since 1999. ...view detail British health minister Matt Hancock has announced that tighter restrictions are to be put in place in northern England, due to an alarming rise in the number of Covid-19 infections. As of midnight on Thursday, separate households were not be allowed to meet indoors in Greater Manchester, East Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire. Some four million people will be affected by the restrictions across parts of northern England, as the region faces a rise in the number of Covid-19 infections, according to the British health minister Matt Hancock. "We take this action with a heavy heart, but we can see increasing rates of COVID across Europe and are determined to do whatever is necessary to keep people safe," Hancock said on Twitter. "The spread is largely due to households meeting and not abiding to social distancing," he explained. The new restrictions come just days after Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned of a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic elsewhere in Europe. Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester, backed the measures due to an increase in infections. "The picture in Greater Manchester has changed over the last seven days," he told the BBC. "We have a rise in nine out of the 10 boroughs, the reality on the ground is changing." He said all residents "young and old alike" should "protect each other" by observing the requirements, which will be reviewed weekly. Residents will only be able to visit public places such as pubs and restaurants with people from their own household. However, the new measures have come under criticism from the opposition Labour party. "Announcing measures affecting potentially millions of people late at night on Twitter is a new low for the government's communications during this crisis." Restrictions a blow to Muslim celebration They also come into force just as celebrations of the Muslim festival Eid al-Adha begin. Areas affected by the latest lockdown have significant Muslim populations. It is not the first local lockdown to be put in place -- England has lifted most of its restrictions nationally but imposed store closures around the central city of Leicester at the end of June. Hancock said Leicester would now follow the same ban on meetings between different households being applied to Manchester and parts of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire. New UK statistics comparing how the virus struck various regions showed England recording the most excess deaths in Europe in the first half of 2020. Spain registered the second-highest toll in excess deaths -- defined as the number of fatalities registered in excess of the five-year average -- while Scotland saw the third-worst figures. Britain's official virus death toll stands at 45,999 but is believed to be as high as 65,000 if excess deaths are used as a guide. Britain's devolved health structure means England is following slightly different preventive measures from those in Scotland or Northern Ireland and Wales. Andre Chapman, CEO of Unity Care San Jose CA, opened the COVID19Black virtual town hall meeting SAN JOSE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 31, 2020 / Last night, a regional virtual town hall meeting was held to introduce Bay Area residents to the COVID19Black initiative created by Unity Care San Jose CA. This virtual town hall meeting provided information about the COVID19Black initiative and offered resources to help citizens protect themselves and their loved ones against the virus. Unity Care San Jose CA officials stated that the town hall webinar, titled, "Saving Black Lives -- all around the Bay Area," was the first public event organized by the COVID19Black initiative, created by Unity Care San Jose CA CEO Andre Chapman. The event was presented by COVID19Black in partnership with the Roots Clinic, Black Leadership Kitchen Cabinet, Minority Business Consortium, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and the African ancestry Community Service Agency. The webinar covered information to help the African American community take control over their health and survival during this pandemic and moving forward. Unity Care San Jose CA CEO Andre Chapman led off the event, explaining its focus on discussing culturally-specific survival solutions for people of African ancestry. All of the businesses involved in the organization and promotion of the webinar shared the culturally and racially-specific solutions they've uncovered and created for battling this pandemic. Those attending the Unity Care San Jose CA COVID19Black webinar learned information from health service administrators, health and human service directors, doctors, public health directors, COVID-19 experts and more. These knowledgeable professionals dispelled myths surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic while providing ideas, data, information, resources, contacts, recommendations, and more. This webinar, presented by Unity Care San Jose CA, helped mobilize communities to seek the help they need from professionals as well as from one another. The goal is to encourage those within the community to support each other in finding solutions to the ever-evolving problems associated with the pandemic. Unity Care San Jose CA team members plan to work with a variety of other Bay Area black community groups and organizations to better understand regional issues associated with the virus as well as regional issues impacting the community, like housing, education, the economies of black communities, and criminal justice. Unity Care San Jose CA officials stated that the webinar centered around successfully handling the COVID-19 pandemic in Bay Area black communities, but extended into the issues listed above as well. Presentations and information about this webinar organized by the COVID-19Black initiative and Unity Care San Jose CA can go to https://covid19black.org/get-involved/. Contact: Andre Chapman Unity Care San Jose, CA development@unitycare.org 408.971.9822 SOURCE: Unity Care View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/599885/Andre-Chapman-of-Unity-Care-San-Jose-CA-Opens-the-COVID19Black-Virtual-Town-Hall-Meeting Providing relief to lakhs of first-year junior college (FYJC) aspirants in the state, the education department has allowed provisional admissions under various quotas. In a circular issued on Thursday, the department said that students who do not have the prerequisite documents to seek admissions to FYJC under various quotas can fill out an undertaking form stating they will submit them at a later date to confirm their admission. Until then, the students will be granted provisional admission. The portal for admissions for students to fill Part 1 of the form, which includes their basic details, will open on August 1. However, schools across the state are yet to receive the Class 10 mark-sheets. Due to the current situation, students can upload an e-copy of the SSC results, which they can download from the board website at the time of application. Original mark-sheets, passing certificate, and leaving certificate can be verified at a later date, states the circular. Several students and parents had requested the education department to grant an extension for submission of documents like caste validity certificates. The Maharashtra Navanirman Vidyarthi Sena had also written to the government, requesting that it not deny admission to a student if he/she does not have the document at the moment. The education department has now said that students who have applied for various certificates but have still not received them, can also upload a copy of the application receipt. In 2019, the department had decided to allot provisional admissions to students who fall under the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) as the two reservations came in a few days before admissions. Students were asked to submit their documents within six months from the time of admission and were granted provisional admissions based on an undertaking signed by them. The Tijjjania Senior High School, the only senior high school established by the Tijjania Muslim Movement in West Africa has called on the Chief Imam of Ghana, Dr Sheik Osmanu Nuhu Sharubutu for Infrastructural support. The educational institution located at Asokore in the Sekyere East District of Ashanti lacks key infrastructural facilities such as dining hall, classroom blocks, Science Laboratory, ICT lab, sick bay, General Assembly block, staff accommodation, and furniture, among others. In its own efforts, the school is constructing dinning block and 3-storey classroom at cost of3 billion and 4 billion Ghana Cedis respectively. Mr Mubarak Ishaque, the Head Master of the school briefing the media said the dining hall under construction was at a 60 per cent completion and the three 3-storey classroom structure which was at 15 percent completion was currently serving its basement as the dining hall. He said the institution was in need of key infrastructure such as Science Laboratory, ICT lab, sick bay, General Assembly block, staff accommodation, and furniture as well as classroom blocks. We need the critical support of the Chief Imam in order to meet these unmet needs since he is our Patron, the Headmaster stressed. The school has 60 teaching staff and forty non-teaching staff. He commended Sheik Abdul WaduldHaroon, President of the Tijjannia Movement in Ghana for the donation of 35 plots of land to the school and continuous support to the school. Also, he commended Nana Dr. Susubiri K. B Asante for the donation of additional 95 plots of land to the school for its continuity and sustainability in educational infrastructural development. He called on the Alumni, friends and lovers of the school as well donors and development partners to come to the aid of the school to facilitate its educational developmental course. The Gibraltar government will not go ahead and 'Unlock the Rock', marking the end of the restrictions in force because of the coronavirus crisis, on 1 August after all. At a briefing on Monday, chief minister Fabian Picardo announced that Gibraltar will remain in Phase 6 of the easing of restrictions for the time being. On Friday Picardo confirmed there would be no modifications to the existing restrictions in Phase 6. Where masks are required, he said, this will be more strongly enforced. He also said that they couldn't rule out compulsory masks in future. "The virus is back in our community. We are seeing community transmission again. Please, be careful,", said Picardo. Referring to cases in nearby countries, he said, "We are far from being out of the woods, it is NOT all over." There was some good news, however: confirmation that when there is a vaccine, Gibraltar and other British overseas territories will have access to UK's NHS stocks. The decision was taken after advice from public-health experts because Gibraltar on Monday had five active cases of Covid-19 after several weeks with none (two residents and three visitors, all of whom were self-isolating and none in hospital) and there have been spikes and an increase in infections in the nearest jurisdictions, i.e. Spain, Morocco, Portugal and the UK. Referring to a phrase used on a previous occasion by public health director Dr Bhatti, Picardo said on Monday that Gibraltar is like "a dry bush between two raging fires" and it is essential that it does nothing to cause the fire to head in its direction. By Thursday, the number of active coronavirus cases in Gibraltar had risen to seven; four residents and three visitors who are believed to have been crew members who had flown in to join their ships. They are always automatically tested for coronavirus before being permitted to do so. In this case, they were all asymptomatic. Gibraltar has been implementing a massive scheduled, random and voluntary testing scheme and its track and trace app has now been in operation for several weeks. Our hearts are heavy with this news, and now more than ever, we ask the public for help. This little girls life was stripped from her in an act of senseless violence that will forever impact those who knew her, Kellogg said. HK junks 12 LegCo opposition candidates, reviews to remove secessionists Global Times By GT staff reporters Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/30 19:10:40 Last Updated: 2020/7/30 22:34:40 Twelve candidates, including secessionist Joshua Wong, for Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo) election scheduled for September 6 have been disqualified (DQ) for failing the requirements of the elections. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government said it supports the decision of the Electoral Affairs Commission (EAC), the government said in a statement on its website on Thursday, adding that the 12 candidates do not satisfy the requirements of the Legislative Council Ordinance, and electoral officers' decision has nothing to do with a so-called political review or limiting freedom of speech, or depriving their candidacy as alleged by some members of the community. The Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR also released a statement on Thursday, supporting the disqualification of the 12 candidates that accords to law. Some being disqualified advocated "Hong Kong independence" or "self-determination," some pleaded to foreign sanctions or vetoed government plans and some opposed the national security law for Hong Kong and claimed to "fight till the end." All are infamous for their misdeeds, the Liaison Office spokesperson said. Lawrence Ma, a barrister and chairman of the Hong Kong Legal Exchange Foundation, told the Global Times Thursday that under section 40(1)(b)(i) of the Legislative Council Ordinance, a LegCo nominee has to sign a declaration to the effect that the person will uphold the Basic Law and pledge allegiance to the HKSAR. "Because many of the opposition nominees have appealed to voters of their anti-government and anti-Basic Law stance, it will be hard for the electoral officer to believe that they will faithfully uphold the Basic Law and pledge allegiance to the HKSAR," Ma said. Among the 12 being disqualified, besides Wong, are social activist Lester Shum and four members of the opposition Civil Party, including Dennis Kwok Wing-hang, Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu, Kwok Ka-ki, and Cheng Tat-hung. Shum was a leader of the 2014 illegal "Occupy Central" movement in Hong Kong and served as deputy secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) from April 2014 to March 2015. Dozens of opposition candidates, such as Yeung and Kwok, had reportedly received letters from the EAC officer, which asked for their stance on the newly enacted national security law for Hong Kong, foreign sanctions and "Hong Kong independence." "The Civic Party asked the US for sanctions on Hong Kong and incited to paralyse LegCo, which means it cannot pledge allegiance to the government," said Tian Feilong, an associate professor at Beihang University in Beijing and a member of Beijing-based Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, told the Global Times Thursday. The nomination period for the 2020 elections is from July 18 to 31. The review for candidates is still ongoing, and the possibility that more candidates would be disqualified has not been ruled out, the HKSAR government said in the statement. Kennedy Wong Ying-ho, solicitor of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, predicted that the full DQ list will come out on Friday afternoon, as a number of candidates may submit applications by 5 pm on Friday. The election will be postponed to next year, according to Hong Kong media reports, citing the worsening coronavirus situation in the city. "The result will serve as an important reference for next year's election if it is postponed, as the list was a result of careful reviews and assessments," Wong said. He noted that even if the EAC assigns a different officer next year, the current decision will stand. "Those who were disqualified this time would be disqualified again," Wong said. Ma believes the nomination and the election process will resume next year, but he echoed Wong by saying that it would be difficult for those disqualified to be nominated again next year, unless they fundamentally change their political views, and have to prove that they have changed. He added that the process will help get rid of secessionists in the government. In 2016, candidates for the LegCo elections were required to sign a form for the first time that declared they objected to "Hong Kong independence." Four candidates were invalidated for their pro-independence stance. Following the 2016 elections, Hong Kong held two by-elections in 2018, in which five opposition candidates were disqualified. One of them was Agnes Chow Ting, Wong's close ally, because their now-inoperative group Demosisto advocated "self-determination." In the 2019 district council elections, Wong was barred from running for the same reason, as his advocacy of "self-determination" for Hong Kong conflicted with the requirement for candidates to pledge allegiance to the city and uphold the Basic Law, which stipulates that Hong Kong is an inalienable part of China. Kenneth Leung Kai-cheong, who was also among the 12 candidates being disqualified, posted a document on Facebook Thursday which states the officer's reasons for disqualifying him. The document said, Leung, together with other representatives from Hong Kong (including incumbent LegCo members, Executive Council members and representatives of the HKSAR government), participated in a roundtable called "the US-Hong Kong Dialogue" in the US in March 2020. Subsequently, Leung and two other incumbent LegCo members, Charles Mok and Jeremy Tam, held a press conference on March 10, 2020 to report on the trip, its accomplishments and follow-up actions to be taken, with a focus on sanctions against the HKSAR by the US government under the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. The document said the Professionals Guild, an organization with which Leung is affiliated with, published on its Facebook page on March 8 an article which supports the imposition of sanctions by the US government. The document concludes that a reasonable person, having considered the above acts and words by Leung and his political affiliation, would have doubts as to whether he has the professed intent to uphold the Basic Law and pledge allegiance to the HKSAR at the time when he signed the Declaration in the nomination form. Horace Cheung Kowk-kwan, a member of the Legislative Council, told the Global Times Thursday that allegiance here means not only abiding by the Basic Law, but also supporting, promoting and believing in the Basic Law. "Those supporting 'Hong Kong independence' or 'self-determination' will not show allegiance to the Basic Law or fulfil their obligations as LegCo members," said Cheung, adding that candidates who violate the national security law for Hong Kong are likely to be disqualified in future elections. Cheung also said the disqualifications this time clearly show that the HKSAR will not allow people who support and advocate "Hong Kong independence" within the SAR system, which will deter "Hong Kong independence" forces. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hadiza, the wife of Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna, has indulged in a lexical play that seemed to be a dig at Hushpuppi, a Nigerian ... Hadiza, the wife of Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna, has indulged in a lexical play that seemed to be a dig at Hushpuppi, a Nigerian celebrity, who is currently detained in the United States on cyberfraud allegations. She took to her Twitter page on Friday to join other Muslims across the world to mark this years Eid-el-Kabir celebration with a post which appeared to have interspaced the figure 419 (fraud) with parts of Hushpuppis name. Barka da Sallah. Ive sent your Sallah meat by DHL. Tracking Number: Hush419Pup, the governors wife wrote in the tweet which has now gained the attention of Nigerians. Hushpuppi, whose real name is Raymond Igbalode, has been in a legal tussle with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) after his arrest in Dubai and subsequent extradition to the US. Barka da Sallah. I've sent your Sallah meat by DHL. Tracking Number: Hush419Pup. Hadiza Isma El-Rufai (@hadizel) July 31, 2020 Last month, the self-acclaimed influencer was busted alongside 11 associates after he was alleged to have committed crimes including hacking, impersonation, scamming, banking fraud, and identity theft. Following his expulsion to the US, he was arraigned and detained at Chicagos Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), from where he hired a lawyer in defense of himself. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) also shared footage of Hushpuppis arrest in a special operation dubbed Fox Hunt 2 over cyber-fraud involving 1.9 million victims to the tune of N168 billion. It is understood that he could be sentenced to 20 years in prison if convicted. Supreme Court New Delhi: Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka and Tripura are yet to follow directives on timely payment of salaries to healthcare workers engaged in Covid-19, the Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court. The court directed the Centre to issue necessary directions for releasing salaries of doctors and frontline healthcare workers engaged in Covid-19 duty on time. Advertisement Supreme Court"If the states are not complying with the directions and orders of the Central government, you are not helpless. You have to ensure that your order is implemented. You have got the power under the Disaster Management Act. You can take steps also", the bench told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre. Mehta said that after the top court's directions on June 17, necessary orders were issued on June 18 to all the states, with regard to payment of salaries to healthcare workers. He said that many states have complied with the directions but some of them like Maharashtra, Punjab, Tripura and Karnataka have not paid salaries to the doctors and healthcare workers on time. Advertisement CoronavirusOn June 17, the top court had directed the Centre to issue orders in 24-hours to all states and Union Territories for payment of salaries to doctors and healthcare workers as also for providing suitable quarantine facilities for those who are directly engaged in treatment of Covid-19 patients. Sundar Pichai Chief Executive Officer Alphabet 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 Dear Mr. Pichai: I am writing in response to your testimony on Wednesday, July 29, before the House Committee on the Judiciary, at its hearing on Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 6: Examining the Dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. Replying to a claim by Congressman Greg Steube (Republican of Florida) that Googles online algorithms are exclusively censoring conservative political views, you said the following: We do get complaints across the aisle. For example, the World Socialist Review complained in January of this year that their site wasnt found in Google search results. So, we get complaints, we look into it, but we approach our work in a non-partisan way, and it is in our long-term incentive to serve users across the country. Although you did not go into the details, your statement was clearly a reference to an article published on January 20 of this year by the World Socialist Web Site, titled Google suppressing World Socialist Web Site content in its search results for the New York Times 1619 Project. It is evident that the WSWSs allegation was discussed at the highest level of your company. The January 20 article stated that Google was suppressing in its search results the highly popular articles published by the World Socialist Web Site on the New York Times Magazines much-publicized racialist falsification of American history called The 1619 Project. We pointed out that the authoritative and original series of articles, interviews and analysis published by the WSWS on the 1619 Project were being read by hundreds of thousands of people around the world and that there were a growing number of backlinks to this material from social media and major online publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, National Review and the Daily Signal. However, in searches for the 1619 Project, this content was being pushed by Google deep into its link results. This is not the first report of online censorship by Google from the World Socialist Web Site. On August 25, 2017, I sent an open letter to the executive leadership at Alphabet and Google at the timeyourself, Lawrence Page, Sergei Brin and Eric Schmidtcalling for an end to the blacklisting of the World Socialist Web Site in Google search results. Since that time, the World Socialist Web Site has published numerous articles about the expansion of internet censorship, including suppression of progressive and socialist ideas on social media platforms, and the increasing demands of both the Democrats and Republicans for government control of online information in the name of combatting fake news and unsubstantiated claims of foreign interference. The fact that you referred specifically to the WSWS complaint in your congressional testimony speaks to the seriousness with which the matter was taken. You, the CEO of Googles parent Alphabet, were notified of the complaint. Six months after the article was published, it remained fixed in your memory. Your testimony did not deny the charge that we have made that Google is suppressing the articles and analyses of the World Socialist Web Site in search results. In the context of the hearing, your cryptic reference to Google working in a non-partisan way may be interpreted as an attempt to justify your companys censorship practices by claiming that they are applied against both left-wing and right-wing web-based publications. Moreover, you told the House committee, under oath, that when Google gets a censorship complaint, you look into it. If this, in fact, is company policy, why was the World Socialist Web Site never informed that its claim of suppression was being discussed within Alphabet/Google management, or that an investigation was being conducted into our complaint? Therefore, I request answers to the following questions: - When did the investigation into the WSWS complaint of censorship begin? - Who authorized and participated in the companys investigation? - What department or departments of the company were the subject of the investigation? - Was Ben Gomes, the corporate vice president responsible for Googles search operations, interviewed as part of the investigation? - When was the investigation concluded? - What were the evidentiary findings of this investigation? I await your reply. Sincerely, David North Chairperson, International Editorial Board World Socialist Web Site Chinese officials have celebrated the completion of the country's own satellite navigation system, called BeiDou, a rival to the US-owned GPS. The final satellite was launched into orbit last week, completing the $7billion constellation six months ahead of schedule. President Xi Jinping, the leader of the ruling Communist Party and the Peoples Liberation Army, officially commissioned the system today at a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The latest satellite was the final piece of BeiDou's third iteration, known as BDS-3, which began providing navigation services in 2018. In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, officials attend the completion and commissioning ceremony for the Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS-3) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing The navigation system is extremely accurate and also offers short message communication of up to 1,200 Chinese characters and the ability to transmit images. Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the system is already in use in more than half the world's nations and stressed China's dedication to the peaceful use of space and desire to work with other countries. 'China is willing to continue to strengthen exchanges and cooperation in space and share the achievements of space development with other countries on the basis of mutual respect, openness, inclusiveness, equality and mutual benefit,' Wang said at a daily briefing. However, experts in space policy say China's drive to have its own satellite navigation system stems from the fear that if there was a conflict with the US, China could be cut off from the system. 'The Chinese military now has a system it can use independent of the US GPS system,' Andrew Dempster, space engineering expert, told CNBC. While China says it seeks cooperation with other satellite navigation systems, BeiDou could ultimately compete against GPS, Russias GLONASS and the European Unions Galileo networks. The official Xinhua News Agency said BeiDou is compatible with the three other systems but gave no details on how they would work together. China launched the final satellite in its global navigation system constellation Beidou earlier today - completing the network six months ahead of schedule THERE ARE FOUR GLOBAL SATELLITE NAVIGATION SYSTEMS There are four global satellite navigation systems (GNSS) either in operation or near completion. All the systems work in a similar way and can provide backup for one another when necessary. As well as providing information to the military they have civilian uses. Global Positions System GPS is the oldest of the global systems - it originated as a way for the US military to track movements, launching fully in 1971. It was opened for global non-military use in 1994 and is the system used by SatNav, phones and other commercial systems. It has 33 satellites in its constellation with 31 currently operational. GPS can provide location data as accurate as 11ft from your location. Global Navigation Satellite System Known as GLONASS, this is Russia's version of GPS and was operational from 1993 with 12 satellites. It isn't as accurate as the US GPS system in part due to it using fewer satellites to provide global coverage. There are currently 27 satellites in orbit and operational. GLONASS provides position accuracy between 16ft and 32ft. It has been used by some operators as a GPS backup, providing signal when GPS isn't available or blocked. Galileo This is the EU system put together by the European Space Agency and reaching limited launch in 2016. When operational it will have 30 satellites and another six spares to be switched on if needed. It is compatible with GPS and GLONASS and can be used as a backup service. It's expected to be fully functional later in 2020 after the final satellites launch. Beidou China's Beidou system was first launched in 2000 to cover China but has since expanded globally. It will have 30 satellites in its constellation split between a standard GPS-style orbit and a geosynchronous orbit over the equator. It was designed to give China an independent way to track movements in the event of a war with the US that would see it cut off from GPS. It's also used by Pakistan and Thailand and could be expanded to other nations in the future. It is also used by Chinese car and mobile phone manufacturers to provide positioning data in the country instead of GPS. Advertisement The system's chief designer Yang Changfeng told CCTV last week:'In actual fact, this also signifies that we are moving from being a major nation in the field of space to becoming a true space power.' The first version of Beidou was started in 1994 but became operational by 2000 - it wasn't a global system at the time - only providing satellite navigation services for China. This was expanded to cover the whole of the Asia Pacific region by 2012 and the third and final version - which is almost complete - will give Beijing global coverage. 'The Beidou network is emblematic of China's grand ambitions in respect to foreign policy. They're taking a much more global view,' Christopher Newman, professor of space law and policy at Northumbria University told CNBC. Beidou is the Chinese name for the star constellation the 'Big Dipper'. According to the Beidou website the system will work in a similar way to GPS - providing support for smartphones, driverless cars, planes and ships. It will also guide China's upcoming driverless high-speed trains, which are being developed for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Alex Joske, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said Beidou would give China and its army greater self-reliance. He added it is a 'reflection of the Communist Party's ongoing drive to decouple itself from Western critical technologies.' The constellation is part of a global technological push by Beijing which includes commercial space travel, its own space station and an upcoming Mars lander. It won't be just China using Beidou - Pakistan and Thailand already make use of the system and this could be extended to other nations in a foreign policy push. 'The Beidou network is emblematic of China's grand ambitions in respect to foreign policy. They're taking a much more global view,' Newman said. For China, among the chief advantages of the system, whose construction began 30 years ago, is the ability to replace GPS for guiding its missiles, especially important now amid rising tensions with Washington. It also stands to raise Chinas economic and political leverage over nations adopting the system, ensuring that they line up behind Chinas position on Taiwan, Tibet the South China Sea and other sensitive matters or risk losing their access. Key to Chinas success was the China Academy of Space Technologys development of rubidium atomic clocks that provide time and frequency standards for BDS satellites, Xinhua said. It said the system was proof that attempts by Washington to impose a 'tough hi-tech blockage' and crackdown on Chinese companies such as Huawei had failed. 'In spite of such measures, Chinas innovation capability has only grown stronger. Just as President Xi recently said at a symposium on Chinas economic work: 'No country nor individual can stop the historical pace of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,' Xinhua said. Hawaii Gov. David Ige said he wants to reimpose some limits on gatherings and bars to control the spread of the coronavirus as the state reported a record 109 new cases of the disease. The governor said he agrees with Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwells plan to close bars for three weeks. He said the state is also working with the other counties to restrict unsafe behavior at bars, yet avoid a broad shutdown. The governor said he also wants to limit all gatherings to no more than 10 people. Exceptions would be made for schools and universities because of the safe practice protocols they will be implementing. Officials blamed the surge in COVID-19 cases on people socializing without masks or keeping six feet (1.8 meters) away from each other, particularly since the Memorial Day and Fourth of July holidays. People have been spreading the disease at bars, funerals, church services, after-work outings and beach parties, officials said. We all must redouble our efforts to take personal responsibility and fight against the spread of COVID-19, the governor said at a news conference. Asked how he could justify reopening schools at a time when case numbers were surging, Ige said disease was still within containment and that virus levels in Hawaii were still lower than other states. The state Board of Education on Thursday will consider a plan to delay the beginning of the school year to Aug. 17, two weeks later than the originally planned Aug. 4 date. Ige and Department of Health Director Bruce Anderson said one of the challenges with bars is that you cant wear a mask while drinking. Plus, bars are often noisy, prompting people to speak loudly into someone elses face or ears so they can be heard. This increases the potential for spreading the disease, Anderson said. You often are drinking enough that youre inebriated, your judgment goes down and and youre not paying attention to a lot of things that you would in other venues. So theyre inherently a risky activity Anderson said. Two Honolulu bars are associated with 12 confirmed cases of COVID-19, Anderson said. Anderson said the state is using existing regulatory authority over food establishments to enforce coronavirus guidelines at bars. Bars in violation of the rules are given a warning and those that ignore the warning are issued a red placard shutting them down. Thats a huge deterrent for any restaurant or bar, Anderson said. Of the 109 cases, 98 were on Oahu, nine were on Maui and two were on Kauai. Only a few were associated with people who had recently traveled to Hawaii from out of state. Anderson said the percentage of people receiving a positive result after taking a COVID-19 test is up to nearly 6% from 1-2% earlier in the outbreak. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics COVID-19 On this weeks episode of Segue, Southern Illinois University Edwardsvilles weekly radio program exploring the lives and work of the people on campus and beyond, Chancellor Randy Pembrook interviews Health Service Director Riane Greenwalt. This episode of Segue airs at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 2. Listeners can tune into WSIE 88.7 FM The Sound or siue.edu/wsie. Greenwalt became the director of SIUEs Health Service in 2003. Previously, she spent more than 16 years in academic clinical management in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area, working as a clinical services manager for the Saint Louis University School of Medicine and a clinical administrator for the Washington University School of Medicine. Greenwalt is passionate about college health and promoting the concept of putting students health first. Under her leadership, health service has expanded to include health education programs and has united with counseling services to offer coordinated medical and mental health services for students. Weve been working together a lot this year, Pembrook said. When the coronavirus pandemic hit our area, we started meeting twice daily. These meetings with the universitys core leadership team focus on learning more about the virus and planning for the fall semester. One of the first decisions was to not have students come back to campus the week after SIUEs spring break. Can you share with our listeners what information was used in making that decision? asked Pembrook. I regularly get information from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), and starting in January, we noticed that there was a novel virus occurring, Greenwalt said. We saw that students were traveling to many places during spring break, and we were concerned that the virus may be brought back to Illinois, where it was not yet active. We started to look at CDC guidelines of where people should not have traveled, but we hadnt told students they couldnt travel somewhere. We were concerned that returning everyone to campus could cause an outbreak or hotspot. We put together a pandemic planning team, noted Pembrook. What discussions took place early in that process? We had many different ways to look at the impact of having students back on campus and discussed our concerns, Greenwalt said. What I appreciated most is that we continued to go back to science. We gathered scientific information from many different sources and kept the focus on the health of the campus community. I remember at the beginning how much we focused on the data and presentations coming every day from Washington, D.C., and from the governors office in Springfield, said Pembrook. Talk to us about the data and how it influenced your thinking. Luckily, the state of Illinois put together an excellent program that gave us daily information about how many tests were performed, how many people tested positive and how many deaths occurred in the state, said Greenwalt. The governor also had a press conference every afternoon. This daily information helped us make some decisions on how to manage the campus. Along with participating and taking an active leadership role in these meetings, Greenwalt reached out to other local groups to understand how the virus was impacting the Metro East. By working together with the Madison County Health Department and members of local law enforcement and government, SIUE was able to make informed decisions for its campus community. Although most of our students left when we switched to online education, 300 or so stayed to live on campus, noted Pembrook. You had a monumental job of monitoring all of the students off campus in addition to those who didnt have a place to quickly and easily go. We did have students that remained on campus, and we worked with housing and dining services to make sure they had support, said Greenwalt. There were still some limitations of staying on campus. We wanted them to social distance, and we didnt want them to go out and possibly put themselves at higher risk. During this time, health service remained open to provide telemedicine and support for students who had questions, concerns or health complications. Thank you for all you have done in leading many of the efforts at SIUE and within the SIU System Task Force, said Pembrook. Your leadership has been amazing during these unprecedented times at SIUE. I appreciate that science and health have been at the core of most of our decisions, Greenwalt said. I really enjoy being part of the team. Tune in at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 2, to WSIE 88.7 The Sound to hear the entire conversation. A total of 35 local charities have been approved to share $366,079 in federal government funding for programs to help vulnerable people through the COVID-19 pandemic. The money will help organizations such as Community Care Peterborough to offer transportation to medical appointments for people living in poverty, for example. It will also help the Saint Vincent de Paul Food Pantry in Peterborough to allow people to select their own food from the pantry again (in the pandemic, pre-made food hampers have been handed out). The money is coming from the federal governments Emergency Community Support Fund (ECSF). Minister of Women and Gender Equality Maryam Monsef who is also the minister for rural economic development, and the MP for Peterborough-Kawartha made the announcement via video conference on Thursday. Monsef thanked the many representatives from the charities for being present at the video conference. Youre incredibly busy people and your teams are busy too, she said, adding that she wanted to extend her gratitude to them all. The United Way is administering ECSF funds across Canada; in May, United Way Peterborough and District launched a call for applications. United Way CEO Jim Russell said in the video conference on Thursday that 45 applications were received. He said those that were turned down came from charities from outside the area, for example, or from organizations that were expanding their mandates to offer new aid programs in the pandemic. Most applicants requested around $10,000, he said and thats what most of them received The charities that are about to receive money include: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Peterborough Community Care Peterborough Community Counselling and Resource Centre Down Syndrome Association of Peterborough Easter Seals Elizabeth Fry Society of Peterborough Five Counties Childrens Centre Food for Kids Peterborough Friends Reaching Individuals in Every Nation Doing Service (FRIENDS) Good Neighbours Care Centre Junior Achievement of Peterborough Lakeland Muskoka Kawartha Child Care Services (Compass Early Learning and Care) Kawartha Participation Projects Foundation Kawartha Youth Orchestra Kawartha-Haliburton Childrens Foundation Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre New Canadians Centre Niijkiwendidaa Anishnaabekwewag Services Circle Nogojiwanong Friendship Centre PARN Peterborough GreenUp Association Peterborough Youth Services Saint Vincent de Paul Food Pantry Sensity Special Olympics Ontario Peterborough and Area St. Johns Anglican Church One Roof Community Centre Telecare Distress Centre of Peterborough Canadian Canoe Museum The Council of Persons with Disabilities Selwyn Township Public Library Trent Valley Literacy Association Victim Services of Peterborough and Northumberland VON Peterborough Victoria Haliburton YMCA Youth Emergency Shelter of Peterborough The Bihar government has filed a caveat in the apex court challenging Rhea Chakraborty's petition demanding a transfer of probe from Bihar to Mumbai after Rajput's father filed an FIR against the actor for abetment of suicide. Meanwhile, a new petition demanding CBI intervention in the case has also been filed with the Patna High Court on Thursday. The Bihar government filed a caveat before the Supreme Court on Thursday seeking to challenge actor Rhea Chakrabortys petition that sought transfer of the FIR registered in Patna to Mumbai in the Sushant Rajput suicide case. Earlier in the day, Sushants family also filed a caveat in the same issue. A caveat is a legal process, in which the party which had filed it before the concerned court, shall have to be heard definitely before the concerned court will pass any order in future. This comes a day after Rhea moved a petition in the top court seeking directions to transfer the investigation in the FIR filed by Rajputs family in Bihar to the Mumbai Police. An FIR had been registered against Chakraborty by Rajputs father at the Rajiv Nagar police station in Patna under various sections, including abetment to suicide. Also read: Indias Covid-19 tally crosses 16 lakh mark, testing hits record high Also read: Rajasthan crisis: Gehlot urges rebel MLAs to attend assembly session Earlier, Chakraborty had demanded a CBI probe in the case. In another development, the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to hear a petition filed by one Alka Priya seeking to transfer the case related to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Rajput was found dead in his Mumbai residence on June 14. Meanwhile, letter petition has been filed in the Patna High Court seeking the transfer of investigation of the death case of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput from Bihar Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation. We would like to bring to your kind attention that the sudden and mysterious demise of Late Mr Sushant Singh Rajput on 14th June 2020 has created a wave of shock and grief across the nation and which is being investigated by Bihar and Maharashtra Police and it has prima facie raised a number of serious questions on the investigation being conducted by both the State Police and also it has raised a number of unanswered question in the mind of the public at large as it was a suicide or a murder, read a letter petition filed by Pawan Prakash Pathak and Gauraw Kumar. The letter petition further read that with the Bihar Police and Maharashtra Police both investigating the case of the late actor are not collaborating with each other. Now there are two states investigating the same sad matter of mysterious death of Late Sushant Singh Rajput, and in the interest of justice there should be single investigation agency which is not possible as the Bihar Police and the Maharashtra Police not collaborating with each other, it read further. Therefore, in the interest of justice, equity and good conscience, it is humbly prayed that this Letter Petition be treated as a Public Interest Litigation seeking transfer of investigation from State agency to CBI Or SIT Inquiry, the petition added. Earlier, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said Mumbai Police are investigating the case and it will not be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). A team of Bihar Police that arrived in Mumbai on Tuesday, recorded statements of two persons, including actor Sushant Singh Rajputs sister, on Wednesday in connection with the case. According to the Mumbai Police, statements of 41 people, including filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, film critic Rajeev Masand, director-producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and filmmaker Aditya Chopra have been recorded in the investigation so far. Also read: Sushant Case: SC rejects plea demanding CBI probe, ED demands details of 15-cr transaction VANCOUVERResidents will soon have four new outdoor locations in Vancouver to enjoy a beer or glass of wine. Vancouver council has approved a pilot project allowing alcohol consumption in four city plazas. The project is slated to begin Aug. 10 and continue until mid-October. The plazas include three in the downtown core and one in the citys Cambie Village neighbourhood. A report on the proposal says city staff worked to resolve concerns raised by police and health officials who were opposed to the project. The report says concerns included enabling public intoxication and supporting public gatherings during the COVID pandemic, and staff will monitor the project and make adjustments as required. Mayor Kennedy Stewart released a social media message following the vote approving the outdoor drinking plazas. Heres to helping people safely distance while enjoying a drink outside, Stewart wrote on Twitter, adding enjoy responsibly. Park Board commissioners in Vancouver voted Monday in favour of allowing alcohol consumption in 22 parks around the city but the project likely wont begin until next year. The delay is due to a board request that the provincial government update the Liquor Control and Licensing Act to recognize the board as a governing body under specific sections of the legislation. Its expected that the legislature will not have time to immediately deal with the request, delaying the sale of beer, cider or coolers in certain city parks until 2021. The cities of Port Coquitlam and North Vancouver voted earlier this year to allow liquor consumption in several parks, but their pilot programs started immediately and didnt need provincial approval. With files from CTV Read more about: How are you holding up? Thats how I greet the person at the grocery checkout. So far, no one has been less than okay nor better than pretty good. As for me, Im confined with the love of my life, so Im holding up very well. What seems odd to me is that we still find stuff to talk about. Most of it is ridiculous. Earlier this evening we discovered that neither of us remembers who our eighth-grade history teacher was. The sad thing is, Kay can remember only two of our teachers. Mrs. Vlahakis and Mrs. Wolfe, both English teachers. -- Im sorry. Two terrific English teachers! Lets face it, each of us was born with selective memory. The events that interest us the most, we store in places easy to get to in our brains. Kay remembers what I gave her on the Christmas of 86, and what it was she got when she returned it. Yet, she doesnt remember important stuff like the lyrics to Have Gun will Travel. Last evening I was staring at Kay while she was talking about something. For whatever reason, the movie Trip to Bountiful came to mind. The story is a major heart-tug. It was written by Horton Foote and the movie starred Geraldine Page.* The part of the story I was thinking about was the scene on the bus when an elderly Geraldine Page tells fellow bus passenger Rebecca de Mornay about how, in her youth, she didnt marry the one boy she dearly loved. And, 50+ years later, she was still heartbroken over it. The memory brought to mind the moment in our lives that really touched both Kay and me. - Grab some more coffee, and hold on. - In junior high, Kay and I shared classes together for two years. We were guinea pigs in a program that grouped students with similar grades while in seventh grade, in the same classes for their eighth and ninth grade years. It was like in elementary school when all your classes are with the same kids. You really get to know one another. I doubt Kay and I wouldve become friends otherwise. When we left junior high, a few of us kept in touch during our high school days, even though we went to different high schools. However, over the next couple of years, time pretty much weakened our bond. Itll sure do it. During my early college days, I got an invitation to a wedding of two of my old junior high friends. Kay also got an invite. I ran into her before the wedding, outside the church building. She was wearing a beautiful red dress (that she had made) and she had long straight hair that fell past her shoulders. That was the fashion of the day. Im still a fan. The girl was absolutely beautiful inside and out. But, I still forced myself to see her as just a friend. But only because I mistakenly thought thats the way she felt about me. A few months later, I took a weekend trip home from SFA. Jill and Al were out somewhere, and Dad was at the refinery, so it was just Mom and me. I had no current dating prospects and was pretty much married to the notion that I may not be the right person for anyone. At one point, I talked to Mom about not having anywhere to go or anyone to ask out. Had Dad been home, I would not have broached the subject. On the one occasion Dad talked to me about girls, it was obvious he hated every second of it. Just not as much as I did. Regardless, after hearing my pathetic story, Mom said, Why dont you call Kay Cross? - Kay? Were just friends. She wouldnt want to go out with me. Mom was out of her mind! But, what the hey, I decided to give it a shot. Even though it was a last-minute thing, Kay said shed enjoy going out for the evening. With me! Knocked me for a loop. So, I took her out for some ice cream, and eventually to Pasadena Park. A bayou runs through the park, and at the time, there was an area with a swing set, teeter-totter, huge sliding board, and a nice bridge that crossed the creek. When I was a kid, I was very cautious crossing the bridge because I thought I might fall through the cracks. When I told Kay about that, she said she always felt the same way. This girl was sharp. Well, while we were walking along the edge of the bayou, Kay reached over and took my hand, as if she was afraid she might fall into the bayou. -- This has got to sound so pathetic to every 19-year-old today, but the touch of her hand came close to bursting my left ventricle. Until that moment, I considered the Beatles song, I Wanna Hold Your Hand to be beyond lame. But, like Neil Diamond, after that moment, I was a believer. Not a trace of doubt in my mind. After that, every time I made a trip home from college, I had a date with the prettiest girl in town. We waited until I graduated from SFA and got a job as a forester for Texas Forest Service District Six headquarters in Conroe before we married. Our wedding took place in the preachers office with only our parents present. Just the way we both wanted it. And, the only way we could afford it. What is most marvelous about this story is that, like Geraldine Page, Kay has lived long enough to regret who she married, yet she doesnt! And, me? Ill never get over the moment she took my hand. * Richard Bradford, who played the part of the Sheriff in Trip to Bountiful was born in Conroe, TX in 1934. The summer of 76 is available in paperback or ebook at Amazon.com. Mark is available at hayter.mark@gmail.com Panaji: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday claimed that due to the Centres demonetisation move, the rate of crime in Mumbai, including contract killings, murders, extortion and drug trafficking, has come down drastically. The decision taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a historic one. The blackmoney, corruption money, terror funding and drug money has received a jolt, Parrikar said while addressing BJPs Vijay Sankalp rally in Aldona constituency in North Goa. One of my friends from Mumbai was telling me that the supari (contract) killings have reduced there. There is no lack of people offering supari, but there is no money to pay. In the last 20 days, the murder rate has come to half in Mumbai, he claimed. ALSO READ: (Modi taking peaceful nap, poor having sleepless nights, says Congress leader Kapil Sibal) The instances of extortion have also reduced in Mumbai. If anyone goes to the builder and tries to extort money, he is ready to give the sum, but that money has no value as they are old notes. Due to this, now the one who wanted to extort money has also stopped. Even here in Goa, extortion attempts from the builders have stopped, he said. According to Parrikar, the movement of narcotics in Mumbai has collapsed due to lack of money to fuel it. Thanks to demonetisation, the crime graph has been reduced in Mumbai. Modi has eliminated drug lords, terror funders, fake notes and blackmoney, he said. Stating that Goa will become cashless by December 30, Parrikar appealed to the people to cooperate to fulfil this dream of the Prime Minister. By December 30, we will become a cashless society. Goa has a capability to become a model state for rest of the states, he said. We always feel safe with cash money...A bank manager was telling me that pensioners rush to the bank on every first of the month...He said the pensioners dont feel satisfied till they count notes, Parrikar said. But I feel in the current era, there is no need for notes. In the Information Technology sector, Goas penetration is more than that of Singapore. We can show the way for the country, he added. READ FULL COVERAGE: BLACKMONEY CRACKDOWN For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. They learned lessons about business, culture, people and the intersection of all three that they apply to their professional lives every day. Some even met their future spouses.Over the last decade, the Hassenfeld Immersion Program has taken hundreds of Brandeis International Business School students on an insiders tour of dynamic overseas markets, including in Cuba, Turkey, Israel and China.During a virtual reunion last week, dozens of former Hassenfeld fellows shared how much the immersion trips have meant to their lives and careers.This trip was a huge contributing factor to how I think about the world and how I understand problems, said Jennifer Gibson, MBA 12, who went to Cuba.After being admitted to the program, Hassenfeld fellows learn about the politics, culture and economy of the country they will visit to understand the context in which people do business.During meetings in Havana, Kim Meyers, MA 13 remembered being surprised to learn that so many new business owners were more or less starting from scratch. Without the benefit of an established entrepreneurial ecosystem, they had no choice but to get creative. Often that meant partnering with local church groups to market themselves and their products to their fellow Cubans.I havent started my own business yet, but I just joined a startup as employee number three and that experience in Cuba has really stuck with me, said Meyers.Meyers also met her husband, Thomas Weaver, MA 12, through the Hassenfeld program.Arlenys Reyes 19, MA 20, a Hassenfeld fellow who visited Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China , moderated the event after first pitching the idea of a reunion.I always knew I wanted to go to China, said Reyes. But I did not think it would be in a context where I would be able to learn and experience the intersections of business and culture.Alan Hassenfeld, co-chair of the International Business Schools Board of Advisors and the retired chairman and CEO of the global toy company Hasbro, was introduced at the beginning of the virtual reunion by Brandeis University President Ron Liebowitz.Hassenfeld said he helped found the Hassenfeld Immersion Program because he wanted the International Business School to be able to teach emerging business leaders about the importance of cross-cultural understanding.If you understand another culture, history and language, you can affect change because change comes from inside, said Hassenfeld. You can knock down walls and perceptions.Hassenfeld chose Cuba as the programs inaugural trip in the early 2010s because he was intrigued by a country that was tentatively testing free-market reforms.Today, the program typically holds two trips per academic year. Fast-emerging markets like India and China remain a focus along with Israel, where fellows are introduced to the countrys vibrant tech and venture capital culture.Although the COVID-19 pandemic has put a temporary hold on the immersion trips, program organizers are hopeful for the resumption of normal activities next year. Hikers on Anacapa Island look from Inspiration Point to the island's central and western islets. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) On one of the smallest islands in Californias least-visited national park, my daughter, Grace, and I went in search of splendid isolation. We found carnage, heard shrieks and wandered the topography of an acrophobe's worst nightmare. I recommend it so long as you know what you're getting into. The island is Anacapa, part of Channel Islands National Park. To get there from Los Angeles, we got up early and drove an hour to Oxnards Channel Islands Harbor, where concessionaire Island Packers runs daily boat trips to Anacapa, about 12 miles out. On the way, theres a good chance youll spot dolphins alongside your vessel, as we did. Question: Is this really a good time to board a ship? Answer: The Vanguard, which usually can carry 81 passengers, is now capped at about 30 passengers, whose positions are closely monitored by the small crew. No more than nine people at a time are on the upper deck. Masks are required. Passengers are urged to use and carry hand sanitizer. We went on a Monday, looking for day-trip consolation after the pandemic trashed our plans for a road trip up the coast. (Though many hotels and campgrounds have reopened, state officials continue to warn that Californians should avoid gatherings and "should not travel significant distances for pleasure or recreation.") Our trip took us less than 70 miles from home and was completed before 5 p.m. The ship carried 25 other passengers, and just about everybody stood or sat outside in the stiff breeze. Barely an hour after we embarked at 9:30 a.m., Capt. Jason Wendell had us near the islands 40-foot-high icon, Arch Rock, with Landing Cove a few hundred yards beyond. Anacapa is officially one island. But as we drew near, we could see that its really three dollops of volcanic rock, topped with green and brown ground cover, with cliffs, sea caves and strange formations on all sides. On our dollop were no beaches, no trees and a single trail in the shape of a figure eight, about 1 miles long, about 200 feet above sea level. Story continues To get ashore, you step from your vessel onto a clever little dock wedged into Landing Cove, then climb about 160 steps up a man-made staircase to reach flat land. Not that theres a great deal of it. The island is about 700 acres, and visitors are limited to Anacapas eastern islet, which includes a 1932 light station, a handful of National Park Service buildings and enough western gulls to rule the Pacific. This is said to be the gulls largest nesting ground. Visit in July, as we did, and you see a few thousand fuzzy fledgling gulls venturing forth from nests on the ground, learning to fly in stiff winds, practicing their shrieks and gobbling up regurgitated food from their mothers. Anacapa Island, part of Channel Islands National Park, is home to thousands of western gulls. Here a fledgling awaits a regurgitated meal from its mother. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) The first birds we encountered were a large, graceful white gull and a smaller, ungainly brown one. This is a mama and a chick. Youll see a lot of that, said Island Packers deckhand and naturalist Brittney Csorba. Also, Csorba added, you might see some carnage. So we did, within a few more steps. Most hatchlings never make it to their first birthday, Csorba explained, because of hunger or other variables. As we walked among hundreds of mothers and fledglings, we also passed dozens of corpses and their bones, which blended well into the island dirt. Wait. Look at that bone. Its so big, said Grace at one point. As we later learned, the largest ones are chicken bones that gulls have scavenged and carried from the mainland. Anacapa Island, part of Channel Islands National Park, is home to thousands of western gulls and a 1932 light station. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) So this was no vacation from mortality. But this is how the world has always worked, and it was a gorgeous day. Some people snorkel or kayak in the kelp beds and sea caves around Landing Cove, where you might encounter seals, sea lions, lobsters, bat rays and an underwater arch. But most visitors, including us, just walk and take in the views. We paused to eat at the picnic tables (cleverly protected from gulls by a spinning thingamajig), then made a beeline past the islands seven-site campground to Inspiration Point, which looks out at Anacapas middle and western islets, a spectacular sprawl of rocky slopes surrounded by sea. The sky was filled with swooping gulls and brown pelicans, whose rookery on the western islet is the largest in the western U.S. Inspiration Point is one of the most scenic locations in all of the Channel Islands, said Yvonne Menard, the parks chief of interpretation. Youre surrounded by water and that dramatic interface between the land and the sea. The best view on Anacapa Island, part of Channel Islands National Park, may be from Inspiration Point, which faces the island's middle and western islets. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) The Inspiration Point view alone was worth the round-trip fare of $59 per adult. This is the place to pull out your picnic lunch and imagine the screenplay youll write about Frenchy LeDreau. Q: Frenchy LeDreau? A: Raymond "Frenchy" LeDreau, a fisherman, arrived at Anacapa in 1928, set up a few huts and over the next 28 years was known to sing opera and quote literature. He also kept pet cats and made alliances with bootleggers and the National Park Service, as was necessary. He finally left the island at age 80, after suffering severe injuries in a fall. From Inspiration Cove you can see Frenchys Cove on the western islet, the only real beach on the island. On an Island Packers trip from Oxnard to Anacapa Island, passengers climb the more than 150 steps that lead to the flat top of the island. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) For most of the day, we were far from other people. After Inspiration Point, we headed east to the light station, then tried to play cards at a picnic table. Too windy. We listened to stories of island living from Samuel Guerrero, a longtime NPS maintenance worker and part-time island resident. When the seagulls land on his roof, Guerrero told us, its like someone dropping a lot of rocks. On the other hand, he quickly added, its their home. Were talking 2,000 or 3,000 babies this year. A few fun facts about the island: Western gulls are opportunistic eaters, consuming bits of fish, sea creatures, other birds and, um, their own dead. Of the eight Channel Islands, Anacapa is the only one not named for a Catholic saint. Its name apparently grew out of the Chumash phrase for mirage island. In the first half of 2019, rangers counted about 2,900 visitors to Anacapa, of whom 405 spent the night. In the first half of 2020, they counted 1,115 visitors, of whom 152 spent the night. Camping is $15 per night; reservations required at recreation.gov. If youre a diver, a snorkeler, a kayaker, an ornithologist or a photographer in search of sunrises and sunsets, you might want to spend the night. If not, a day will do just fine. When the Vanguard reappeared to bring us back to the mainland at 3:45 p.m., we were ready. Passengers look to Anacapa Island's iconic arched-rock formation on an Island Packers trip from Oxnard. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) An hour later, we were on the mainland. An hour after that, we were home. No hotel, no restaurants, no visitor center, no gift shop. A day well spent. Thank you, said Grace, shortly before dozing off. Tomorrow's adventure? Maybe a Hitchcock movie... This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. WESTPORT The states top economic official said Thursday shutting down part of the state could be an option to combat spikes in COVID-19, a potential strategy that Gov. Ned Lamont later said he did not support. Some communities have seen recent increases of COVID cases, particularly among teenagers and young adults. For example, Greenwich health officials have reported spikes after instances of young people attending large gatherings while not practicing social distancing. David Lehman, commissioner for the state Department of Economic and Community Development, suggested the partial shutdown scenario in response to a question by Westport First Selectman James Marpe during Thursdays ReOpen Westport Advisory Team meeting. I think if we do see increased virus, or significantly increased virus, I think were prepared to take very quick action and address it, Lehman said. That could mean whether its industries, activities, certain regions could there be small lockdowns? I think thats possible. Lehman said a culture of compliance and self-policing has been key in the states success mitigating the virus so far. But, he said, the states reopening team has also done war-game planning in case there is a second wave of the novel coronavirus and people should not become complacent. Im cautiously optimistic that were not going back to those dark days of late March or early April because thats not anything we should have to repeat, he said. Lehman later told Hearst Connecticut Media the state is in a different position than it was in March when the governor first established stay-home directives. Now, officials have a lot more knowledge of the virus and where it is and how much it is spreading Were doing a lot more testing, he said. So the risk of a full state shutdown is low. ... A states ability to kind of dial up and down activity is a lot better now. As with all executive orders, ones that would restrict some activities in parts of the state and not others would need to be vetted by lawyers in the governors office. Still, if there were a localized outbreak, the governor could conceivably order restaurants in Fairfield County, for example, be pared back to 25 percent capacity from 50 percent. Do I think thats in the toolbox? Yes, Lehman said. Have we had to consider it yet? No. ... I think it depends on what is the incidence in that region. Administration officials said the idea of state-ordered targeted shutdowns as a possible response had been discussed. But late Thursday, the governor had another take on the scenario. Id put it a different way, Gov. Ned Lamont said during his afternoon briefing. Generally, Ive thought about the state as one. So when it came to bars and restaurants, I didnt want people driving back and forth across the state to go around Westport to find a bar somewhere else. That didnt seem to make good sense to me. Lamont did say there was one situation that might warrant unique treatment. I think when it comes to schools though, I can see why youd break that down on a county basis, he said. If there were to be a spike or more community spread in one region than another, that might impact how the state handles schools, because, Lamont said, they are by definition a lot more local. Staff writer Dan Haar contributed to this report. dj.simmons@hearstmediact.com CHENNAI: The Directorate of Government Examinations (DGE) Tamil Nadu Plus One results 2020 is expected to be announced on July 31 at 9.30. The DGE will also release the class 12 re-sit examination results on Friday along with the Plus One results. Both TN Plus One (HSE +1) result and class 12 re-sit or TN Plus Two arrears Result 2020 (HSE+2 Arrears) exmaination results will be announced today at 9:30 am on its official website - tnresults.nic.in. The announcement regarding the Tamil Nadu plus one result has also been made by Tamil Nadu's school education minister KA Sengottaian through social media. The students who appeared for the Tamil Nadu plus one exam 2020 will be able to check their scorecard at the official websites-www.tnresults.nic.in, www.dge1.tn.nic.in or www.dge2.tn.nic.in. They should follow the steps given below to check their TN Plus One Results 2020: STEP 1: Students should first visit the official website -www.tnresults.nic.in STEP 2: A link for plus one result will appear on the homepage STEP 3: Students should now submit their details like roll number to log in STEP 4: Now, they can view their result on the home screen STEP 5: The students should carefully check their scorecard and down their result for future reference The students will also be able to get their TN +1 Result 2020 results through SMS on their registered mobile numbers. According to reports, the Directorate of Government Examinations will also declare the result for plus two students who appeared for the final re-exam on July 27. The directorate will announce the dates for re-totaling and receiving provisional mark sheets later. More than 8 lakh students registered for TN plus one examination conducted from March 4 to March 23, but the exam slated for March 26 was cancelled in view of the coronavirus lockdown. Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu's DGE is expected to release TN SSLC class 10th results 2020 in a couple of days. Although DGE has not yet confirmed the date and time for releasing the results, it is being speculated that the board would release the SSLC class 10th results in the first week of August 2020. BILLINGS, Mont. - The Trump administration is moving to restrict what land and water areas can be declared as habitat for imperiled plants and animals potentially excluding locations that species could use in the future as climate change upends ecosystems. An administration proposal obtained in advance by The Associated Press and publicly released Friday would for the first time define habitat for purposes of enforcing the Endangered Species Act, the landmark law that has dictated species protections efforts in the U.S. since 1973. A final decision is expected by years end, with broad implications for how lands are managed and how far the government must go in protecting plants and animals that could be sliding toward extinction. Democratic lawmakers and wildlife advocates said the proposal ignores shifting threats to wildlife and plants due to climate change and habitat loss. It follows other steps under Trump to scale back or alter endangered species rules, including lifting blanket protections for animals newly listed as threatened and setting cost estimates for saving species. Legal observers said the Republican administrations two-sentence definition of habitat would limit what areas the government can designate as critical to a species survival. Its declaration that habitat includes areas with existing attributes appears to rule out land or water needing restoration work or sites that could become suitable in the future as climate change forces species to relocate, said J.B. Ruhl with Vanderbilt University Law School. To me, they are clearly trying to rule out restoration and climate change, Ruhl said. He added that a court would likely agree that the governments definition was reasonable, even though he does not think it is good policy for dealing with climate change. Jonathan Wood with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents landowners opposed to having species protections forced upon them, said the governments proposal would rightly restrict what areas could be designated as habitat. He said that would force the government to concentrate on sites more suitable for conservation work, instead of infringing on private property rights. Others warned that it would seriously hobble restoration efforts, by confining struggling species to small patches of pristine land and blocking restoration work that could expand their range. The northern spotted owl of the Pacific Northwest, which depends on old growth forests, offers a prime example, said Noah Greenwald with the Center for Biological Diversity. Much of the birds historic habitat was logged. But it will become old growth forest again one day if we protect it. So does that not count as habitat? Greenwald asked. If we want to recover species, we have to restore them to more larger portions of their historic range, he said. Fridays proposal from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service comes in response to a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving a highly endangered Southern frog the dusky gopher frog. Trump administration officials said the proposal would apply to relatively few cases and provide more consistency and more transparency for private landowners, companies and states. They would not specify what types of land or how much could be excluded under the definition, or give immediate details on which species could be impacted. The Supreme Court recently held that an area must be habitat in order to be designated as critical habitat, and we are now seeking public comment on how best to define that overarching term, said wildlife service assistant director Gary Frazer. In the gopher frog case, a unanimous court said the government had to decide what constitutes suitable habitat for the 3 1/2-inch-long (8.9-centimetre-long) frogs before it could designate some of those areas as critical habitat for the species, which survives in just a few ponds in Mississippi. The dispute arose after the Fish and Wildlife Service designated 1,500-acres (607-hectares) of land and ponds in neighbouring Louisiana as critical habitat for the frog even though none lived there. Attorneys for the landowner, timber company Weyerhaeuser Co., called that an unjust land grab. But environmentalists said designating the land as critical was necessary to keeping the frog from disappearing. The proposed definition says habitat includes places that a species depend upon to carry out one or more life processes, such as breeding or eating. If the definition had been in place prior to the dispute over the gopher frog, the government might have been forced to limit its critical habitat designation to the ponds only, and not the surrounding land, said Wood. It gives a standard which weve been lacking for the past 45 years to guide critical habitat designations, he said. You wont have the free-roaming critical habitat designations like you would have in the Weyerhaeuser case. The Trump administration ultimately withdrew the Louisiana critical habitat designation in a settlement. Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat, said if the Fridays proposal had been in place decades ago, iconic species such as the bald eagle would not have recovered widely, and instead would be limited to scattered patches of land. The purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to help endangered species flourish and expand back into their former habitat. said Grijalva, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. ___ Follow Matthew Brown on twitter: @matthewbrownap A disturbing video in circulation on social media captures a Ghanaian woman being flogged for allegedly sleeping with a Sudanese man. Commentaries on the viral video indicate that the incident happened in Saudi Arabia. Three men whose association with the woman remains unknown busted the woman having s.e.xual intercourse with the Sudanese man. Her punishment for making out with the man is the lashing. Already the video has received reactions from some influential Ghanaians including political activist, Kwame who is calling for justice for the woman. Follow Us on Facebook @LadunLiadi; Instagram @LadunLiadi; Twitter @LadunLiadi; Youtube @LadunLiadiTV for updates MSS | Tata Communications Network Attack Detection Platform Organizations defenses may be taking up to 276 days to respond, and in todays high-speed world, 3/4 of a year is not going to cut it. Your network needs to be readier for DDoS attacks than ever before, and network analytics may be what best prepares it. Watch this brief video to learn more about network analytics from Tata Communications, which includes information on innovative AI technologies such as deep detection and automated traffic diversion. The U.S. attorney has provided a written guarantee that Operation Legend will not be what we saw in Portland, Keller said in a statement, invoking the nickname for the federal surge. However, we remain concerned about the presidents own words that contradict these assurances. The moon rises next to the Big A sign during a game between the Angels and Pittsburgh Pirates in June 2013. (Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press) Is Angel Stadium historically significant? No, according to the city of Anaheim. The Big A sign? Light that baby up, and keep the icon lit. The architectural reviews were included in more than 2,000 pages of documents released Thursday by the city of Anaheim, all related to the start of an environmental assessment for development of land around Angel Stadium. The City Council last December agreed to sell the 153-acre stadium site to Angels owner Arte Morenos newly formed development company for $325 million, with the price subject to discount. The city and the company are in negotiations over how much affordable housing and open space will be included in the project, how much local labor will be used, and how to pay for required infrastructure, all of which could impact the final sale price. The Big A sign outside Angel Stadium. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Getty Images) Moreno has not said whether he will renovate or replace Angel Stadium, but the documents released Thursday make clear the city does not consider the stadium itself to have lasting historical significance. The three major league ballparks older than Angel Stadium Fenway Park in Boston, Wrigley Field in Chicago, and Dodger Stadium have been extensively renovated with the intent of preserving the original atmosphere. Angel Stadium has been substantially altered twice since it opened in 1966 expanded when the Rams came from Los Angeles to Anaheim, then downsized after the Rams moved to St. Louis. Although Nolan Ryan set the single season strikeout record at the stadium, the citys environmental review read, the playing field has been significantly changed and is no longer the one on which he accomplished this feat. The review also called the Big A an icon, based on state and local historical standards, describing the structure as a significant example of Modern architecture with Googie elements as applied to an Aframe sign. Although the sign qualifies as a historic resource, as defined by the California Environmental Quality Act, Moreno is not required to include it in his development of the site, which is expected to include homes, offices, hotels, restaurants, shops, parks and such neighborhood edifices as a grocery store and fire station. Nonetheless, spokeswoman Marie Garvey said: The Big A will be part of our project. Said the city report: When it was constructed, the 23story scoreboard/sign topped by a lighted halo was the tallest structure in the region and, because of the scoreboard/signs unique design and high visibility, the new stadium immediately garnered the nickname the Big A. The relocation of the Big A next to the freeway in 1979 only enhanced its communication function and visibility. To the millions of people traveling the freeway, the Big A is easily one of the most recognizable identifying features in Anaheim. The health minister maintained that India has one of the lowest Case Fatality Rates globally, which is steadily decreasing Health workers collect swab samples of people at Indo-Israel Non-Invasive Raid Covid -19 test study camp as part of Operation Open Skies, at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi. PTI photo A Group of Ministers (GOM) led by union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Friday held a meeting to discuss the novel coronavirus situation as over 55,000 fresh cases were registered on Friday, which is highest so far in a single day. There were 779 new fatalities as per the union health ministry and the country's overall cases are now close to 17 lakh. While the union health ministry data as of Friday morning said India so far had 16, 38, 870 total cases and 35, 747 deaths, COVID19India.org put these figures by evening at 16, 69, 264 total cases and 36, 076 deaths. The country has about 5.5 lakh active infected persons under treatment while over 10.5 lakh have been cured. The health minister maintained that India has one of the lowest Case Fatality Rates globally, which is steadily decreasing and the country has ramped up its testing big time and a record 6,42,588 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours. This has taken the cumulative tests to more than 1.88 crore. India has achieved the milestone of more than 1 million recoveries which has taken the Recovery Rate to 64.54%. This shows that the active cases under medical supervision are only 33.27% or approximately 1/3rd of total positive cases. Indias Case Fatality Rate is also progressively reducing and currently stands at 2.18%, one of the lowest globally, the minister said in the meeting. This was the 19th meeting of the GoM since it was formed in February when three cases of COVID-19 were detected in the country. While speaking on the severity of cases in India, Dr. Harsh Vardhan stated that, Out of the total Active Cases, only 0.28% patients are on Ventilators, 1.61% Patients needed ICU support and 2.32% are on Oxygen support. The overall recovery rate for India is now 64.54% with the highest recovery rate being recorded by Delhi at 89.18%, followed by Haryana (79.82%). Karnataka has the lowest recovery rate of 39.36%. Twelve states -- Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Telangana, Bihar, Rajasthan and Assam have the highest growth rate. Maharashtra again has recorded over 10,000 fresh cases in a day while Jammu-Kashmir and Himachal too have started reporting a large number of cases now. The World Health Organisation has said that the spike in coronavirus transmission in several countries were being driven by young people "letting down their guard". Meanwhile, Delhi will conduct the next round of sero-prevalence survey from August 1 to 5 to analyse the COVID-19 situation in the city. Delhi on Friday recorded 1195 fresh cases of novel coronavirus and 27 deaths, taking the tally in the city to over 1.35 lakh, while the death toll from the disease climbed to 3,963. Syracuse, N.Y. Syracuses police union president is blaming the police chief for an increase in gun violence this summer, saying the chiefs choice to disband a proactive unit last year has emboldened criminals. Jeff Piedmonte, president of the local Police Benevolent Association, said disbanding the Crime Reduction Team has meant gang members now move through the city carrying guns without fear of being stopped or arrested. The unit was tasked with aggressively finding drugs and guns in high-crime areas. Members of the team seized a record 62 guns off the streets in 2015. To do that, the team was tasked with stopping drivers in high-crime neighborhoods for minor offenses, and then using the opportunity to scan for drugs and guns. The team members, whose uniform consists of green pants and black T-shirts, often were involved in violent arrests and drew many complaints from those in the neighborhood. Last year, CRT was disbanded because some in the community didnt like the appearance of the officers or the unit itself, Piedmonte said in a statement. Today our criminals are emboldened to carry weapons because they arent being stopped by police officers. Our patrol officers are running from call to call and dont have the time to be pro-active so guns are everywhere. However, Police Chief Kenton Buckner said in an interview Thursday that he disbanded the team early last year to free up officers, not because of community complaints. Im aware that there were a lot of complaints, a lot of ill feelings from some of the public, Buckner said. When I first arrived here, they said the green pants! You gotta do something about the green pants! But I would not say that that unit, when you look at it top to bottom, was a problem unit. The department has been under-staffed since he took over the department in December 2018, Buckner has said. The chief also acknowledged that gun violence has increased in Syracuse but noted it is occurring in many cities across the country. He has not yet decided whether to replace the CRT to respond to that and, if so, whether it will be a full-time team. We certainly have to, obviously respond to the external challenges that were having. I dont know if were going to have a unit doing what (the CRT was) doing full time. The department is still doing temporary Gun Involved Violence Elimination details, which are temporary and focused on crime hot spots, Buckner said. He expects there to be more of those temporary, isolated efforts at stopping violence instead of a full-time designated team, he said. Crime overall in Syracuse is down 10 percent year over year, and violent crime is flat over last year, according to the mayors office. However, shootings and shootings with injuries are way up: A year-over-year increase from 43 in 2018 to 97 this year, according to the union. There have now been 19 homicides in Syracuse this year, up from 15 at this point a year ago. Contact reporter Patrick Lohmann at PLohmann@Syracuse.com or (315)766-6670. A coronavirus vaccine developed by Australian researchers has generated an immune response to the disease and been proven safe for use in the first round of human trials. The vaccine known as 'Covax-19' was developed by professor Nikolai Petrovsky from Flinders University in Adelaide and cleared the phase one trial this month. It is the first Australian-developed vaccine to pass the first round of trials, which sees the treatment tested on 40 volunteers, none of whom recorded any significant side effects. The vaccine known as 'Covax-19' cleared the phase one trial this month after it developed an immune response to coronavirus in human subjects. Pictured are volunteers in the study 'We have confirmed that the Covax-19 vaccine can induce appropriate antibody responses in human subjects,' Prof Petrovsky told The Australian. The study will now move onto phase two trials which will give up to 500 people the vaccine in September. Prof Petrovsky said the study has also been approved to include vulnerable individuals such as cancer patients, children and the elderly. The vaccine developed by professor Nikolai Petrovsky from Flinders University reported no significant side-effects in any of the 40 volunteers who received it. Pictured is Prof Petrovsky withdrawing the vaccine into a syringe The vaccine will also be given to those who have already had coronavirus to see if the new drug can boost their immune system even further. Prof Petrovsky said he is in talks to give the promising vaccine to aged-care residents who are at risk of contracting coronavirus in Victoria. 'Obviously our vaccine is still under testing, it would have to be done within a clinical trial but there's no reason you couldn't enrol people in Victorian nursing homes into the trial and give them the vaccine which would hopefully then protect them,' he said. 'We know it's not going to hurt because we now know that the vaccine is completely safe.' The vaccine will also be given to those who have already had coronavirus to see if the new drug can boost their immune system even further Prof Petrovsky founded biotech firm Vaxine which has previously developed successful vaccines for swine flu and two forms of bird flu. The company is already preparing for a potential phase three trial which would see 50,000 people tested and would likely target countries suffering the most from the virus. The University of Queensland is also working on a coronavirus vaccine but testing is still in phase one. Without mentioning him by name, ex-president lambasts Trumps handling of ongoing civil unrest and voting procedures. Former US President Barack Obama launched his sharpest attack to date on President Donald Trump on Thursday, condemning the use of federal agents against protesters and attempts at voter suppression in the United States. Today we witness with our own eyes, police officers kneeling on the necks of Black Americans, Obama said in a fiery eulogy at the emotional funeral service in Atlanta of civil rights leader John Lewis. We can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators, the former president said. Obama did not mention Trump by name, but he was clearly referencing moves by the Republican president, who used troops to clear protesters from Lafayette Square outside the White House and sent federal agents to put down demonstrations in Portland, Oregon. Obama took a jab at alleged Republican attempts to suppress the minority vote and Trumps repeated attacks on mail-in voting less than 100 days ahead of the November contest against Democrat Joe Biden. Even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the postal service in the run-up to an election thats going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people dont get sick, he said. US President Donald Trump walks past a building defaced with graffiti in Lafayette Park near the White House while US Secret Service agents and a White House photographer follow him to St Johns Church, where Trump posed for photographs after riot police had violently cleared peaceful protesters from the park; Washington, DC, June 1, 2020 [File: Tom Brenner/Reuters] Paying tribute to Lewis, who died on July 17 at the age of 80, Obama said the congressmans lifelong fight for African-Americans civil rights had paved the way for him to become the USs first Black president. Lewis, a 17-term Democratic congressman from Georgia, did everything he could to preserve this democracy and as long as we have breath in our bodies, we have to continue his cause, Obama said. As long as young people are protesting in the streets hoping real change takes hold, Im hopeful, he said. But we cant casually abandon them at the ballot box. Not when few elections have been as urgent on so many levels as this one. Lewiss funeral service was also attended by former presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Former president Jimmy Carter, 95, was unable to attend but sent a letter that was read out to the mourners in the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr served as pastor in the 1960s. Former US President George W Bush speaks during the funeral of late Congressman John Lewis, a pioneer of the civil rights movement at Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 30, 2020 [Alyssa Pointer/Pool via Reuters] His enormous contributions will continue to be an inspiration for generations to come, Carter wrote. Bush, a Republican, said he had his differences with Lewis, a Democratic stalwart, but we live in a better and nobler country today because of John Lewis. He believed in humanity and he believed in America, Bush said. In his tribute, Clinton referenced a column that Lewis wrote to be published in The New York Times on the day of his funeral service. "While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me." Representative John Lewis wrote this essay shortly before his death. @NYTOpinion is publishing it today, the day of his funeral. https://t.co/kAms0ogrCU The New York Times (@nytimes) July 30, 2020 Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe, Lewis wrote. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide. It is so fitting that on the day of his service he leaves us our marching orders, Clinton said. I suggest we salute, suit up and march on. Before Thursdays funeral, Lewiss body lay in state at the US Capitol, a rarely bestowed honour, so Americans could pay their final respects. Obama and former presidents Bush and Clinton addressed the service during the funeral of late US Congressman John Lewis [Alyssa Pointer/Pool via Reuters] On Sunday, a lone caisson carried Lewiss body across the Alabama bridge, where in 1965 a policeman fractured his skull during a protest that helped forge his reputation as a fearless civil rights leader. Lewiss death came in a year during which Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality have brought thousands onto US streets, underscoring the still-raw depths of the countrys racial history. Lewis grew up in the Alabama city of Troy. His parents were sharecroppers, and he once worked in a cotton field. While attending segregated schools, Lewis was inspired by the peaceful protests of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. U.S. President Donald Trump has back-pedalled on his suggestion that the November U.S. election be delayed, hours after raising the po... U.S. President Donald Trump has back-pedalled on his suggestion that the November U.S. election be delayed, hours after raising the possibility on Twitter. Do I want to see a date change? No, Trump said during a press conference at the White House on Thursday night. I dont want a delay. I want to have the election. But I dont want to see a crooked election, he added, doubling down his criticism of mail-in voting. I also dont want to have to wait for three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing and the election doesnt mean anything, the president told reporters. Mail-in ballots will lead to the greatest fraud. In a tweet on Thursday morning, Trump claimed without providing any proof or evidence that 2020, with mail-in voting, will be the most inaccurate & fraudulent election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA, he wrote. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? The tweet immediately ignited a political firestorm and has drawn bipartisan pushback from Capitol Hill, as legal analysts agreed that Trump has no authority to delay the presidential election as the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to set the date. The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day of which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States, reads a section of the countrys Constitution. Since 1845, the U.S. Congress has required the appointment of presidential electors to take place on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which falls on Nov. 3 this year. U.S. Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, also the House Republican Conference chair, tweeted that the resistance to Trumps suggestion among Republicans is overwhelming. We must take all necessary steps to prevent election fraud, Cheney said. But we will not be delaying the election. Most U.S. states are expanding access to mail-in voting in order to allow voters to cast their ballots safely in the November election in light of the coronavirus pandemic that has led to nearly 4.5 million infections and more than 152,000 deaths as of Thursday night. The increased use of mail-in ballots, according to experts, will likely mean results wont be finalized on the night of Nov. 3 since some states cannot begin counting them until Election Day. In another tweet on Thursday afternoon, Trump acknowledged he was trying to bring media attention to what he called risks from universal mail-in voting to the election. The president, however, said that he totally supports absentee voting, despite that voting pundits have said the verification process is the same for absentee and mail-in ballots, and many states even consider them to be the same thing. The attacks on mail-in voting from Trump came as national polls have shown that he is falling behind his Democratic opponent, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in the 2020 race. Biden led Trump 49.9 percent to 41.6 percent as of Thursday night in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. Meanwhile, polls in key battleground states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Arizona, have also showed that Biden is ahead of Trump by at least several points. Trump has repeatedly called polls showing him trailing Biden fake and from time to time touted what has been called silent majority supporting his presidency and re-election. Some critics also viewed Trumps remarks on Thursday as an effort to distract from the negative news that the U.S. economy contracted at an annual rate of 32.9 percent in the second quarter, which could deal a blow to his central argument of his reelection bid. Kyle Kondik, a non-partisan analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, tweeted that Trumps suggestion of delaying the election seems to be one of his more obvious attempts to change the subject given this mornings wretched GDP numbers. In April, Biden warned that Trump would be thinking of delaying the election. Mark my words: I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow; come up with some rationale why it cant be held, Biden said. At that time, the Trump campaign dismissed Bidens accusation as the incoherent, conspiracy theory ramblings of a lost candidate who is out of touch with reality. Xinhua A Delhi court has denied bail to four persons accused of murdering a man near Farooqia Masjid during the north-east Delhi riots on February 25, while stating that it is common knowledge that namaz can be offered even in an open place even as their counsel contended that the deceased man had not gone to the mosque since it was under construction. Additional sessions judge Vinod Yadav rejected the bail pleas of Ashok Kumar, Ajay alias Monu, Jitender and Shubham, accused of the murder of one Zakir, who was killed in Dayalpur during the riots. Appearing for the accused persons, advocate Rakshpal Singh contended that his clients were falsely implicated in this matter as he is the resident of the same locality. He said that one of the witnesses was planted and although one of the accused persons was seen in the CCTV camera footage, he was merely trying to defend himself by an attack from the riotous mob of other community. He also stated that the deceased person had not gone to offer namaz at Farooqia Masjid as contended by his brother, also a witness in the case, as it was under construction and there was no roof on it. He had also said that the statement of his brother is contradictory as there are two different times when the deceased person had gone to the mosque. However, the court said, As regards the argument of learned counsel for the applicant that deceased could not have gone to Farooqia Masjid to offer namaz because it was under construction, it is common knowledge that the namaz can be offered even in an open place. It also noted that there was an apparent time difference of about two hours when the deceased had gone to offer namaz at Farooqia Masjid. However, it said that it was clearly evident that the witness was not present at the scene of the crime when the murder had taken place and his statement was recorded almost after two months of the incident and as such, this minor variation at this stage was insignificant. The judge, while rejecting the bail plea on July 29, said that the offence was very grave. It said that the autopsy report of the deceased showed that he received as many as 22 injuries, out of which seven were so grave in nature that each one was sufficient to cause the death of any person. It said that such finding speaks volumes about the intensity of the dastardly act committed by the riotous mob during the communal riots. It also said that the accused persons were present with the riotous mob at the spot at the time of the incident and thus the riots appeared to have been caused in an organised manner. It is also common knowledge that communal riots create fear in the mind of the public at large and also affect the persons who suffer the loss of life or property, which cannot be compensated in any way, the court said in a six-page order. The police contended that the accused persons were arrested for the murder of one Zakir (mentioned only by his first name). He was brutally attacked and stabbed by the riotous mob on February 25. It also said that during the analysis of the CCTV camera footage of a shop in the area, it found that the riotous mob had caught and severely beaten three Muslim boys; and the accused Ashok Kumar was seen carrying scissors tied to a stick while Ajay alias Monu was carrying a sword. The Special Public Prosecutor said that Shubham was seen carrying a stick (palta) and Jitender was seen pelting stones and as such the riotous mob was armed with deadly weapons. He further contended that the accused persons were part of the unlawful assembly/riotous mob that had inflicted severe injuries upon Zakir, which ultimately resulted in his death. Premier Doug Ford said on a visit to Peterborough on Thursday that local public health officials were already working vigilantly to track and trace two new COVID-19 cases in the city the first to be diagnosed in the city since June 20. Public health is on those two cases, Ford said. Public health is all over it. Ford toured Charlotte Products on Fisher Drive on Thursday afternoon, where he learned about disinfectants being produced there. Later in the day he toured the Kawartha Dairy plant in Bobcaygeon. Bobcaygeon is also the home of Pinecrest Nursing Home, where 28 residents died of COVID-19 in the spring. Ford acknowledged it, saying hes grateful to the health care workers who steered the nursing home out of the outbreak. At Charlotte Products, Ford helped box bottles of disinfectants and praised the workers for making cleaning agents that are needed across Canada in the COVID-19 pandemic. This is another example of the Ontario spirit: Charlotte Products here are doing an incredible job I give all the credit to the great manufacturers out there, Ford said. Ford said he stopped in Peterborough as part of his ongoing effort to go out and meet everyday Ontarians. He said its important to him to avoid getting stuck in the bubble of Queens Park. Also on the tour on Thursday were Peterborough County Warden J. Murray Jones and Peterborough-Kawartha MPP Dave Smith, whom Ford praised. Theres no better representative than Dave hes working around the clock, Ford said. Earlier in the day at a school in Whitby, Ford joined Education Minister Stephen Lecce in announcing that school would resume full-time in September. Ontario will be the only province to require children in Grade 4 and up to wear masks (for younger children, masking will be optional). Class sizes in elementary school are expected to remain as they had been prior to the pandemic, though high school students will attend classes in cohorts of 15. When asked how hed respond to parents who may not feel comfortable sending their grade-school children back to full classroom with no requirements for physical distancing, Ford said that as a father he knows what its like to be concerned about a kid. I fully understand, he said. But he also said the Ontario government consulted with experts at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and Childrens Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa before developing plans for a return to school. We have to take the best advice from our brightest minds, he said. Everyone has pitched in to come up with the plan. Smith pointed out to reporters later that kindergarten classes are already capped at 20 students five more than the cohorts of 15 students who will be in high school classrooms together. Kindergarten classrooms are generally much larger than high school classrooms, he added, so you have that ability to social distance. Smith also said Ontario is spending twice as much money per child on personal protective equipment and disinfectants, and that other provinces are not requiring masks in school. Were doing all of the right things, Smith said. People will be looking at Ontario as the example to follow. New Delhi, July 31 : In a major development, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a case of money laundering over transactions worth Rs 15 crore related to the alleged suicide of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. An ED official said that it has registered a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. The development comes amid the complaint of K.K. Singh, father of Sushant Singh Rajput, to Bihar Police against actress Rhea Chakraborty. The ED has named Rhea and her family members in the case on the basis of the Bihar Police FIR. The official said that in the coming days the agency will summon a number of people for questioning in the case. Earlier, a meeting was held at Bihar DGP Gupteshwat Pandey's office in Patna on the investigation being conducted by the Bihar Police team in Mumbai in the case. A four member team of the Bihar Police is in Mumbai in connection with the case. The ED on Thursday sought details of the FIR registered against Rhea by the Bihar Police and the details of two companies owned by Sushant Singh Rajput and Rhea's family from the banks. The ED has also sought details of the financial transactions of Vividrage Rhealityx, in which Rhea is a director, and Front India For World, in which her brother Showik is a director, the source added. Sushant's father lodged an FIR against Rhea in Patna, accusing her of cheating and threatening his son. Sushant and Rhea were in a relationship before the actor's death. Sushant's father has levelled various allegations against Rhea, including taking money from his son and also threatening to disclose his medical reports to the media. Sushant's family has also accused her of keeping him away from his family. Sushant's first cousin and former BJP MLA from Bihar's Chhatapur, Neeraj Kumar Singh, said the FIR has been filed after the family somehow overcame the shock of the untimely and sudden demise of the young actor, and after various things came to their knowledge. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 23:26:00|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close MOSCOW, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Friday during an online meeting with the country's Security Council the detention of Russian citizens in Belarus, the Kremlin said in a statement. "Hope was expressed that in the near future this situation will be clarified and the unreasonably detained Russian citizens will be released," the statement said. Currently, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the embassy in Minsk are working on it, with the necessary contacts being made, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Moscow is concerned that consular access to the detainees has not yet been granted and hoped it will happen soon. On Wednesday night, 32 militants from the private Russian military contractor Wagner Group were detained near Minsk, with another found and detained in the south of the country, the Belarusian state news agency Belta reported. "Information was received about the arrival of more than 200 militants in Belarusian territory to destabilize the situation during the election campaign," Belta said, citing law enforcement agencies. Peskov denied that the detainees intended to disrupt the presidential election in Belarus that are slated to take place on Aug. 9. Enditem Boris Johnson has warned people in the UK not to delude themselves that the danger from coronavirus has passed, as Downing Street said another national lockdown could not be ruled out. The British prime minister said the virus was "bubbling up" in as many as 30 places in the UK and tough measures were needed to prevent "a really damaging second wave". He feared Britain could be just two weeks away from a second peak of Covid-19 following a resurgence across Europe. With infection rates rising in every region of England, No 10 made clear the threat of lockdown remained. Mr Johnson said: "It's absolutely vital as a country that we continue to keep our focus and our discipline and that we don't delude ourselves that somehow we're out of the woods or that this is all over, because it isn't all over. "The best way to deal with it is with tough local lockdowns. We need to bring it under control locally to protect the whole of the United Kingdom." According to the NHS, towns with the most cases were Blackburn with Darwen, with 85.3 cases per 100,000 people, Leicester (57.7), Oldham (53.1), Bradford (44.9), Trafford (39.9), Calderdale (32.4), Rochdale (30.9) and Sandwell (27.5). The national average is 7.2. However, some leading scientists said talk of a second wave was premature as most new cases were among those who had only mild symptoms but who were being detected through increased testing. They added that hospital admissions were still falling. In an interview with the 'Sunday Telegraph' earlier this month, Mr Johnson compared a second national lockdown to a "nuclear deterrent", saying he did not think "we will be in that position again". However, he struck a more pessimistic note on a visit to North Yorkshire, saying: "We've got the deaths down but it can come up again." To prevent a "damaging second wave" which would have dire consequences medically and economically, he said people should continue observing social distancing guidelines, wear a mask, and "most importantly, get a test if you have symptoms". Jonathan Van-Tam, the UK's deputy chief medical officer, said anyone showing symptoms must self-isolate for 10 days, in line with World Health Organisation recommendations. The more cautious approach was adopted after research suggested the virus could remain infectious longer than previously thought and people were becoming complacent. Mr Johnson warned: "Don't lose focus, don't lose discipline, continue to observe those guidelines and if you have symptoms, get a test." However, Professor Carl Heneghan, of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, said the current figures should be seen in perspective. He said: "Normal life is not resuming because we're still instilling a sense of fear when cases are very low. "If we didn't have testing now, we wouldn't even be considering it a problem, because it's so low. If this was an influenza outbreak, we would have called it finished by now." From today, health and social care workers will no longer be exempt from quarantine rules if they arrive in the UK from "red list" countries. Yesterday, Chris Philp, a junior minister in the Home Office, went into self-isolation after coming into contact with an official in the department who later tested positive. Scranton, PA (18503) Today Light snow this morning giving way to partly cloudy conditions this afternoon. Morning high of 32F with temps falling to near 15. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 70%.. Tonight Considerable cloudiness. Low 7F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. As the real estate industry continues to adapt to COVID-19, a new player is using artificial intelligence to connect apartment hunters with their dream homes. Recently launched in New York, Luke is an A.I.-powered chatbot thats now providing detailed listings to thousands of users a month. Entrepreneurs Hadar Landau and Omri Klinger met while serving in the Israeli defense force and have worked together for more than 15 years. In 2015, we were building different bot experiences, Landau said. I was actually looking for an apartment in Tel Aviv and we realized the conversation engine we were developing would be great for real estate. Courtesy Luke In 2017, they started their current company, RealFriend, and a year later, Dooron, Lukes older, Hebrew-powered Israeli cousin, was launched in Tel Aviv. Today, more than half of all apartment searches in the coastal city use Dooron. New York was the next logical step, says Landau, RealFriends CEO. The apartment markets in Tel Aviv and New York arent that different, he says. Some features people want are differentno one is asking for a doorman in Tel Avivbut theyre both very competitive markets with people looking for very specific things. Currently, Luke is available for renters in New York and is in beta testing for home buyers. Klinger and Landau raised $4.4 million in venture capital earlier this year, and hope to expand into other U.S. cities. The service is free for users, but, eventually, RealFriend hopes to charge real estate agents a referral fee. Luke is just one of many A.I.-based services that look to upend the traditional real estate hunt as companies scramble to translate its data-crunching capabilities into leases and sales. From predicting future property values to helping developers stick to budget, A.I. mitigates risk without a substantial cost increase. Story continues For consumers, one of A.I.s most crucial capabilities is that it never sleeps: Unlike a human broker, services like Luke are available 24 hours a day and have all relevant information at hand. Lukes A.I. pulls all available rental databases into a single repository and weeds out fake listings. Courtesy Luke A conversational bot is more personal than adding filters to a search engine, Landau explains, and more inviting to those uncomfortable with newer technology. It also allows for very specific requests: When one user asked for a chefs kitchen, Luke used its image-recognition program to interpret which apartments met that standard. "You can tell it things that are not in an app, like an open-kitchen layout and south-facing view from my living room, Landau told Business Insider. This is something you wouldnt be able to search on StreetEasy. And like most machine-learning systems, Luke is always iterating and improving. The more people use it, the better it gets, Landau says. After you text it your move date, budget, and desired neighborhood, Luke will start sending you listings. Ask specific questions about amenities, nearby subwayseven neighborhood safetyand youll get a speedy reply. Some users have asked if they can find a better deal than their current place and Luke has recommended they stay put. Luke is your advocate, Landau says. He doesnt work on commission so hes not looking to close the deal. But if you see a place you like, a listing agent is just a click away. Courtesy Luke Landau says the goal of Luke isnt to replace brokers, just make their jobs easier. Real estate agents arent going anywhere, Landau says. You need them to work with the property owners, to open the door for you. Were getting a lot of inquiries from Realtors, asking how they can work with us. When COVID-19 first hit, Landau says RealFriend saw a 50% drop in engagement. But in the past month or so, usage has returned to pre-pandemic levels. People like being able to narrow their search and limit the number of in-person tours they have to take, Landau said. The pandemic has also impacted demand for certain amenities: According to data from Luke, requests for gyms have plummeted, while in-unit laundry and private outdoor space are much higher on peoples wish lists. Landau and Klinger say theyre upfront about Lukes origins, but some users still think of it as a real person. They text him after they get their apartment, Landau says. They send selfies and say they miss him. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest The couch in the living room, the latest Netflix show, a pack of chips and a pizza on the sidethe perfect Friday evening for a millennial? Maybe not quite in the post-COVID world. While most of it remains unchanged, the cheesy pizza has made way for home-cooked chicken. The coronavirus outbreak has upended the food and beverage business, as the pandemic forces people to seek the safety of homes. While the debate rages over how safe outside food is, COVID-19 has led to a demand shock. The HORECA (hotels, restaurants, catering) segment along with food deliveries are in a slump and the road to recovery looks painful. Shuttering of nascent cloud kitchen businesses, giving up real estate and laying off staff food delivery platforms have been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Swiggy has let go of almost 1,500 employees and shut down multiple Access kitchens since the outbreak. Zomato sacked 500 people, who accounted for 13 percent of its workforce. The last four months have been devastating for the industry. In 2019, Swiggy cofounder Sriharsha Majety was talking about generating 30 percent of the Bengaluru-based companys revenues from the non-food business. The company, he said, would continue to invest in experiments even when investors turned cautious. 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 Recently, Majety requested Swiggy customers to order more and dine-in at restaurants, 25 percent of which were a step away from shutting down to never open again. Management consultancy firm Redseers data shows that food delivery volumes, which tanked to 20 percent of January numbers in March and April, barely rose to 40 percent in the first week of June. But, the next part is more worrying. In a recent market survey, more than 49 percent of around 5,000 respondents told Redseer that going forward they would prefer home-cooked meals. In an accelerated growth scenario, the food delivery industry will take at least till December 2020 to reach 100 percent levels of pre-COVID days. Under nominal growth, this will take till April 2021, Redseer director Rohan Agarwal said. While the food-delivery segment may recover faster, dining has a long road ahead. It will only be by April 2021 that restaurants will likely come close to 80 percent of pre-COVID levels, said Agarwal. And, 25 to 30 percent of restaurants may be out of business for good, he added. The souring relationship between restaurant owners and delivery platforms is making an already bad situation worse. The National Restaurant Association of India has partnered with technology players like Dotpe and is encouraging member restaurants to build their own technology partnerships. Restaurants are also looking at social media for direct online orders to keep the delivery firms out. Impresario Handmade Restaurants that owns brands like Social and Smoke House Deli has launched its online delivery platform and fleet. Commissions and exclusive deals are a few of the reasons many restaurants are looking to set up their niche customer base outside the aggregators through their own online channels, said Rishabh Mastaram, founder of the law firm RGM Legal. Mastaram advises multiple restaurants. Also read: Exclusive | Swiggy looks beyond food, sets up tech centre to boost hyperlocal delivery Where do the platforms stand? Food delivery is a huge opportunity in India and will continue to be one. Insiders see 2020 as a blip that may have pushed the industry behind by two years but it is not a lost opportunity. The industry, however, desperately needs technology intervention. Amazons entry into food delivery in the middle of the pandemic is a case in point. The ecommerce-to-payments behemoth launched a pilot in Bengaluru a few months after it shut down its food business in the US. Word on the street is it is ready for more cities. It means stiffer competition for battle-bruised Swiggy and Zomato but it is also a vote of confidence for the market. Estimates suggest that the food-delivery business contributes juts $4.5 billion to a $65-billion food and beverage industry. Growing internet penetration and demand for pre-cooked meals will see the Indian food-delivery market grow to $8 billion in the next three years, a Google-BCG report said in January 2020. Swiggy was hopeful of moving towards pre-COVID levels as more restaurants resume operations and order volumes grow, a company spokesperson told Moneycontrol. "The market will start looking up again once the restrictions start going down. This will certainly help food tech and food delivery platforms to regain business.unfortunately, one still does not know of the end date of the pandemic," said Dipti Lavya Swain, partner at HSA Advocates. Swain advises food tech startups. Unlock 3.0, or the third phase of easing lockdown restrictions, gets underway from August 1 though rising infections continue to be a worry. The COVID-19 impact A Redseer analysis reveals that from $4.4 billion, the food delivery gross merchandise volume fell to a billion dollars during the lockdown that started on March 25. In May, some restrictions were lifted and that helped the business but it has been slow march recovery. The industry has pinned its hope on September and October. More people are expected to get back to cities to return to offices, which will also coincide with the festival season, a time when consumption tends to go up. The $4.4-billion mark will either be achieved in December or March, depending on how the outbreak plays out. For an industry which was growing at 100 to 150 percent per annum over the last three years, COVID will have a significant impact, Agarwal said. The companies are doing their bit to meet the challenges. Gurugram-based Zomato is confident of bringing down the monthly burn rate to less than a million by the end of July, which will help it attain profitability. Swiggy has adopted a multi-prong approach. It has forayed into hyperlocal deliveries and grocery and has even partnered with ICICI Bank to offer a digital payments wallet. The Naspers-backed startup is also understood to be piloting dark stores or cloud-based grocery stores that can deliver products through its delivery agents. It is trying a lot of things but will they pay off? Grocery is a thin margin business. If they cannot make food delivery viable, making grocery delivery work will be a greater challenge, said Agarwal of Redseer. Zomato exited the business within months of starting it. In the core food business, there are two avenues of making money. The first is to charge a commission from restaurants and the second is to charge delivery fees from consumers. Restaurant commissions are already north of 20 percent and have almost hit an upper limit. How much will consumers pay for deliveries is the moot question. In India, the average order volume tends to be smaller, hence how much can an aggregator charge per delivery is restricted. After all, consumers here are spoilt with low to zero delivery fees for years, said the founder of a cloud kitchen startup on condition of anonymity, as he works with both the platforms for deliveries. How can they weather the storm? To reach the promised land of profits, Zomato and Swiggy will need to weather the coronavirus storm. Zomato is confident though. Responding to queries from Moneycontrol, the company spokesperson said that the cost of acquiring customers had fallen and had helped improve business margins. Multiple lockdowns definitely have a short-term impact on the business but are key to our economys long-term growth, the spokesperson said. In a recent blog, founder Deepinder Goyal said Zomato was on way to profitability. Further improvement in average order values will help these platforms improve per delivery revenues. Industry insiders say aggregators are desperate to reduce operational costs, perhaps that is why Swiggy cut its workforce by 1,500. It has turned to hyperlocal deliveries to make up for the revenue shortfall. To send a parcel from Delhi to Noida, the cost is pretty significant but consumers are paying the amount, given the fear of stepping out. They are trying to make up for lost revenue through these initiatives, said a founder of a cloud kitchen startup on condition of anonymity. But is this enough? Making money The biggest question is can they make money? Globally, food delivery as a standalone business has not made a lot of money, be it the United States or China. While Indian startups are often compared with Chinese, the consumption patterns and the market size of China is very different. A Statista report from May 2020 shows that Chinese food delivery through aggregators will grow to $67 billion in 2024, compared to $51 billion in 2020. Tencent-backed Meituan, which is Chinas largest delivery platform, reported revenue of $2.3 billion in the March quarter. This was $2.7 billion a year back. In India, Zomato clocked a revenue of $394 million last year, one of its best showings. In June 2020, it clocked $17 million and in the March quarter, it was $41 million. Even at this rate, Zomato may end the year with less than $300 million in revenue. Swiggy reported revenue of around $150 million in March 2019. It has not reported its FY20 numbers yet. The lockdown saw business being shut and when cities did start to reopen, a large number of its regular customers had left for their home towns. As offices start to reopen, these professionals are now moving back. We expect a sharp recovery in our order volumes as the lockdown continues to ease and the operating environment continues to improve, the Zomato spokesperson said. In a city like Mysuru, it saw a 120 percent rise in order volumes compared to pre-COVID levels, the company said. Maybe COVID will also open up new business opportunities in non-metro cities. Can cloud kitchens help? Both Swiggy and Zomato billed cloud kitchens as the future of food. Swiggy was building Access kitchens and Zomato came up with Kitchens. Vishal Bhatia, chief executive at Swiggy New Supply, had told Moneycontrol that Access kitchens would be a win-win scenario. Consumers would get their favourite food and brands would enter areas they were not present in and Swiggy would make it possible. But then the coronavirus struck. Cloud kitchen initiatives were the first to face the axe. Swiggy shut Access kitchens and even asked brands to move out of the premises once the lockdown was lifted. Analysts say it is a temporary setback and say technology-led initiatives are here to stay. The operational model of delivery may evolve, the way cloud kitchens came up in the recent pastwe could expect large food delivery trucks and mobile kitchens from these (aggregator) companies for safer contact-less delivery, said Sreeedhar Prasad, an independent ecommerce analyst. Even Agarwal of Redseer is bullish on cloud kitchens. They were about $400 million in size in 2019. Growing at an annual rate of 35 percent, the sector is expected to be a $2-billion opportunity by 2024. They will take away business from traditional restaurants, Agarwal said. Swiggy spokesperson also said the trend of delivery-only kitchens was on the rise. Restaurants will need to change. Building a local brand to serve a local clientele may be alright but to expand, restaurants will have to adopt hybrid models. The multi-brand format will see the entry of many players but managing those chains will be the challenge, hence there will be a need for technology to ensure effective and waste-free food delivery, said Mayank Singh Negi, co-founder of Cross Border Kitchen, which runs multi-format internet-driven restaurant brands in Delhi. Negi said restaurants should leverage customer data and then build efficient food-delivery models. That is where aggregators bring value, he said. Will these players be in the green? It will be tough. Early indications are that platforms need more people than ever to order through them. They need more supplies to build a business beyond metropolitan cities. They will also need to be more effective than home-cooked food. Platforms will need to make peace with restaurant owners. A good part of 2019 was marked by a tussle between NRAI and Zomato through multiple "log out" campaigns by restaurants. The year 2020 is lost to a pandemic. The industry cannot stand divided in 2021. Small standalone restaurants face a shutdown . Many specialised kitchens may not reopen. Given this scenario, platforms need the maximum number of restaurants to remain open to ensure supply. The food business needs to transform technologically. Restaurants need to invest a lot in technology themselves. Hire engineers, analyse customer data, capture trends, only then will they be able to improve their business margins, he said. Consumers, too, need to change. They will have to be prepared to pay more for delivery and platforms will have to make it worth itbe it hygiene, safety or health. Platforms will have to make their models more efficient. Can there be time slots for deliveries instead of a flat 30-minute promise? If a rider can make multiple deliveries in one run, the cost will be justified. Finally, food delivery as a standalone business will be tough. The competition will not only be from Amazon. Tech giant Google has to just add an Order Now button on the results page to drive traffic away from Zomato, Swiggy and other players. COVID-19 and 2020 is a trial by fire for Zomato, Swiggy, and the likes. 2021 will either see them reduced to ashes or rise like a Phoenix to rule the Indian market. The Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA) on Friday appealed for extension of the moratorium for term loan repayments by six months up to March next year. In a representation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it requested him to advise the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to extend the moratorium, saying the financial position of the knitwear garment units in Tirupur has not improved and they were not in a position to repay the loan and interest. TEA President Raja M Shanmugham said that in the first quarter of current fiscal, the All India Knitwear Exports clocked Rs. 5,355 crore against Rs.13,570 crore recorded in the corresponding period of last year with a negative growth of 60.54 per cent. This reflected the status of knitwear garment exporting units, he said adding extension of moratorium will not only be beneficial to the industry and banks, but also to the well being of the countrys economy. TEA has sent a copy of the representation to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Corporate Affairs Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das. The RBI initially announced three months moratorium on repayment of term loans from March this year in view of the coronavirus lockdown. Later it was extended by another three months till August 31. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, wearing a face mask following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, attends a news conference in Hong Kong, China on July 31, 2020. (Lam Yik/Reuters) Hong Kong Chief Executive Postpones Election by One Year in Unprecedented Move Hong Kongs Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, postponed the 2020 Hong Kong Legislative Council election for a year in an unprecedented move, executing the decision through Hong Kong Emergency Law. Lam said she invoked the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to hold off the vote, adding the move is backed by Beijing. Chinas rubber-stamp legislate will decide how to fill the legislative vacuum caused by election postponement, she said. The Legislative Council election of 2020 will come to an end as the emergency law takes effect, stated Erick Tsang, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs. The call was announced during a government press conference held Friday night. Lam cites a local surge in CCP virus cases as the reason for the one-year postponement. No specific date was provided aside from the notice of the delay. The announcement I have to make today is the most difficult one I have had to make in the past seven months, she said at the press conference. Lam also said the gathering of millions of staff and voters, including vulnerable elderly people, on polling day threatened the citys public health amid a CCP virus. She also cited concern for alleged Hong Kong permanent residents stranded in mainland China and abroad due to travel restrictions, saying it would be impossible for them to return to Hong Kong for the election. Friday marked the tenth straight day of triple-digit increases in COVID cases in Hong Kong, citing 121 novel cases. AsiaWorld-Expo, the original ballot-counting venue for elections, is being used as a community isolation facility. As is the back-up counting station, the Kowloon Bay International Trade & Exhibition Centre. The announcement is a huge blow to pro-democracy parties, who are aiming for majority control in the citys legislative council. Public opinion of pro-Beijing politicians has nosedived after the implementation of the National Security Law. The postponement trails a mass disqualification of key pro-democracy candidates running for a seat in the upcoming Legislative Council election. Candidates were disqualified after being deemed unfit to uphold Hong Kong basic law or loyalty to Hong Kongs government under China. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday urged the regime not to delay the elections. They must proceed on time, Pompeo said in a radio interview. The people of Hong Kong deserve to have their voice represented by the elected officials that they choose in those elections If they destroy that, if they take that down, it will be another marker that will simply prove that the Chinese Communist Party has now made Hong Kong just another communist-run city. Benedict Rogers, who co-founded the human rights group Hong Kong Watch, said the pandemic was only an excuse for authorities to curb freedoms. First they disqualify democrats. Then they postpone elections. This isnt about COVID19, he wrote on Twitter. This is about the CCPs fear of the ballot box. Annie Boyajian, director of advocacy at Freedom House, said that the elections postponement was troubling. While public safety is important, postponement should be a last resort, supported by law and a broad consensus among political stakeholders and independent experts, Boyajian said in a statement. The international community is rightly concerned that this postponement is in fact a political maneuver designed to dampen voter enthusiasm, provide additional time to disqualify or prosecute pro-democracy candidates, and quash dissent. Cathy He and Eva Fu contributed to this report. PAULS VALLEY The Garvin County Courthouse has been closed to the public after a COVID-19 outbreak put the Garvin County sheriff in the hospital and left a district judge and others infected, The Oklahoman has learned. Sheriff Jim Mullett and nine sheriff's personnel detention workers and courthouse security staff have tested positive for the virus, sources confirmed Thursday afternoon. Mullett is hospitalized, sources said. Also testing positive is Garvin County District Judge Leah Edwards. Garvin County commissioners decided Wednesday afternoon to close the courthouse to the public, while Greg Mashburn, the district attorney for Cleveland, Garvin and McClain counties, closed his Garvin County office on Thursday after a staffer complained of a fever. Featured video: Mayor G.T. Bynum gives an update on the COVID-19 pandemic during a July 30 press conference Lusaka, Zambia (PANA) Zambia has suspended the issuance of tourist visas until further notice, a health alert posted by the US Embassy in Zambia on its website said on Friday New Zealands Labour Party-led government has suspended the countrys extradition treaty with Hong Kong, saying it could no longer trust that the citys justice system is independent of China. New Zealand will no longer deport any citizen to Hong Kong if charged with a crime. Foreign Minister Winston Peters, who leads the right-wing nationalist NZ First Party in the governing coalition, said New Zealand would also change how it controls the trade of sensitive goodssuch as technology that could have military applicationswith Hong Kong. Australia, Canada and the UKall members of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence-gathering network along with NZhad suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong earlier this month. US President Trump ended preferential economic treatment for Hong Kong and in a highly provocative move shut down Chinas consulate in Houston. Peters told Radio NZ on July 29 that he had not spoken to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo specifically about the issue, but he would know exactly what we think, as a country that respects New Zealands independent political stance and our willingness to state what our beliefs are. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told media that Hong Kongs security legislation did not sit well with New Zealands principles, which she described as the basic freedom of association and the right to take a political view. All this is sheer hypocrisy. The Ardern-led government has strengthened New Zealands integration into US war preparations since assuming office. A 2018 defence policy statement labelled China and Russia the main threats to the global order, echoing the Pentagon. It has also ramped up military spending and recruitment. Ardern meanwhile has been leading the call internationally for measures to censor the internet, purportedly to suppress hate speech. Nor has the Labour government raised the slightest protest over the Trump administrations assault on basic democratic rights in Portland and other US cities, which are under virtual martial law enforced by armed federal agents dispatched to suppress protests against police violence. Chinas embassy in Wellington responded to Peters announcement by charging the government with a gross interference in Chinas internal affairs, and describing the move as a serious violation of international law and basic norms governing international relations. The standoff follows rising diplomatic tensions between the two countries, in line with the increasingly aggressive moves by Washington and Canberra to confront China diplomatically and militarily, including in the South China Sea. At the annual NZ-China Business Summit in Auckland on July 20, Ardern told the 500 delegates that the bilateral relationship was in good shape. But she then declared that New Zealand had a direct and resounding interest in Hong Kongs new security law, as well as the situation of Chinas Uyghur people and Taiwans participation in the World Health Organisation. This prompted a sharp response from Ambassador Wu Xi, who told the gathering: Issues related to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet all touch on Chinas sovereignty and security and these are all Chinas internal affairs. New Zealands ruling elite is caught between the demands of Washington and its militaristic confrontation with Beijing on the one hand, and the importance of the Chinese trading relationship, NZs largest export market. Referring to these tensions, Wu warned the future lies in cooperation rather than confrontation. Underpinning the deepening rift, a long-running anti-Chinese propaganda campaign continues to gather momentum. A July 21 car crash on a highway near the town of Tokoroa that killed two Chinese dissidents was seized upon by their supporters to raise accusations of sabotage against Beijing, without the slightest evidence. The collision killed Xi Weiguo, Federation of Chinese Democracy NZ chair and Wang Lecheng, a member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre. A third victim, Yu Hongming, is in Waikato Hospital along with two New Zealanders from another car. The three men were among a group of 10 activists travelling to Wellington to petition parliament over so-called infiltration by the Chinese Communist Party in New Zealand politics. Police said their initial assessment indicated that a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction had crossed the centre line, glanced a second car and collided head-on with the vehicle containing the Chinese occupants. Chen Weijian, publisher of a Chinese-language newspaper Beijing Spring, called the men martyrs of democracy and freedom, while Falun Gong practitioner Daisy Lee said the deaths and injuries would cause vital damage for the Chinese democracy movement organisations in overseas China. Pro-US academic Anne-Marie Brady, from the University of Canterbury (UC), wasted no time upping the ante. She told parliaments Justice Select Committee two days later that people were very, very worried that there could have been sabotage involved in the accident and demanded the Security Intelligence Security (SIS) investigate. Bradys previous allegations, heavily promoted in the media, that Chinese agents sabotaged her own car and broke into her office have not been substantiated by police. Security analyst and former US State Department operative Paul Buchanan also joined in. He told Radio NZ that independent Chinese voices in NZ regularly experienced intimidation by pro-Beijing groups, and it was legitimate for them to suspect more sinister causes than a mere accident. On July 27, Buchanan went on to target UC over its partnership with a Chinese institute that he claims has military links. In 2018, the university signed an agreement with Harbin Institute of Technology to collaborate on teaching and research on renewable energy generation, marine science, engineering and international finance and trade. In May, Washington targeted Harbin for tighter controls over its activities. Brady recently published a paper attacking UC and every other New Zealand university for collaborating with Chinese institutions on research that may have potential military applications. The same paper notes approvingly New Zealands much more extensive military collaboration with NATO and the US, including its membership in the Five Eyes intelligence network. Prior to the 2017 election, Brady branded National Party MP Jian Yang and Labour MP Raymond Huo, without any evidence, as Chinese Communist Party agents. Both MPs recently announced that they will retire from politics after the September 2020 election, following an intense campaign particularly against Yang by Brady, NZ First, much of the corporate media, the trade union-backed Daily Blog and the fascist group Action Zealandia. In fact, the influence wielded by individuals such as Brady and Buchanan points to the fact that the most significant interference in New Zealand politics comes not from China but from the US and its allies. Arderns government was formed in 2017 as a coalition with NZ First following the unprecedented intervention of US Ambassador Scott Brown who publicly indicated that Washington wanted the next government to take a firmer stand against China. 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Shes the one with a well-paying job as a Mixtec interpreter for farmworkers in Oxnard while attending college full time. Shes the one who picks up the tab when they go out for lunch and shoves $20 into his pocket because she figures he could use it more than she can. But shes also the one with perhaps the most uncertain future and greatest disadvantage of all the siblings. Three years ago, Basurto missed her chance to apply for immigration relief under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA. The Obama-era program allows immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children and are currently without legal status the opportunity to live and work legally in the U.S. Basurtos youngest brother and sister are U.S.-born citizens. Her older brother and sister, born in Mexico, like her, managed to obtain DACA before Trump began to unwind the program in 2017. Basurto, then 16, was about to apply and suddenly, DACA was done. At the time, Basurto confided in her father in their native Mixtec, the Indigenous language spoken in the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Puebla and Guerrero. Its too bad I wasnt born here, Papa. Theres nothing we can do about that, he replied. Dont give up. Basurto is among tens of thousands of immigrant youth whom the Trump administration has effectively kept out of DACA, radically changing the trajectory of their lives. Their lack of DACA status has altered relationships, bred resentment and sparked awkward silences between family members who have legal status and those who dont. It has led to heightened pressure to excel and guilt among those who were bolstered by the program. Its even prompted children to question the decisions their parents made long ago to migrate to the U.S. In June, Basurto thought she had been given a second chance when the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner in its attempt to shut down DACA. The decision cleared the path to accepting new applications from a previously excluded group of more than 65,000 children now eligible to apply for DACA for the first time, according to the Migration Policy Institute a non-partisan D.C.-based immigration think tank. But Basurtos hopes were dashed Tuesday when Trump announced he would not accept new DACA applications. The move defies the Supreme Court decision and a federal-district court ruling in Maryland ordering immigration officials to accept new applications, experts and lawmakers say. It likely will face renewed legal challenges in the courts. As Basurto watches DACA open opportunities for her older siblings and peers, she has seen her own prospects dwindle. At the same time, she has noticed complacency set in among some DACA recipients, while her own hardship bred resilience, motivation and social activism. I have a life outside of DACA, Basurto said. DACA does not define who I am. Still, she had plans to apply for DACA as soon as she got word that the government would accept new applicants mostly to give her parents peace of mind. You cant really translate DACA in Mixtec, she said. For them, it just means Im protected and dont have to return to Mexico. California is home to the largest number of DACA recipients in the nation and led the legal challenge to the Trump administrations efforts since 2017 to do away with the program. The University of California, under the guidance of President Janet Napolitano who crafted the DACA policy as U.S. Homeland Security secretary was a lead plaintiff along with the state and other California entities and individuals in the Supreme Court case. Young people who have aged into DACA eligibility over the last two-and-half-years but have been unable to apply represent an acutely vulnerable group, said Roberto Gonzales, a Harvard University sociologist who wrote a book based on a 12-year project following 150 young people and DACA recipients around the L.A. area. They have come of age under DACA, Gonzales said. Theyve seen older siblings receive drivers licenses, take after-school jobs, and plan for their futures. But at a time when their citizen friends are participating in these important rites of passage, their progress has been stalled. Initially, Basurto and her parents were afraid of handing government officials the familys personal information, as required as part of the application process, which confused them. They decided to test the waters with her two older siblings, allowing them to apply before submitting Basurtos application. When they qualified, Basurto started her application. Then Trump made his first move to end the program. The missed opportunity left Basurto feeling like an outcast and resentful about her place within her family, she said. Her ambivalence was especially strong toward her U.S.-born siblings a 10-year-old brother and 12-year-old sister whom she said she loved dearly but couldnt bear to be close to any longer. She stopped talking to them. I just felt a lot of anger during that time, Basurto said. They were too young to understand how the sheer luck of being born in the U.S. gave them more leverage and opportunities than Basurto. Other immigrant youth, like Rotzely, directed their anger toward their parents. Rotzely, who gave only her first name because she is in the country without legal status, was three months shy of turning 15 when she got the last document to complete her DACA application in 2017. I got it, Rotzely called and told her mother. I finally got the letter that weve been waiting for. Her mother hesitated. Then she told her: Its too late. Her fathers side of the family had tried to persuade her mother to leave Mexico for the U.S. before she gave birth to Rotzely. But she was nine months pregnant and feared complications along the journey. The lost opportunity weighed heavily on Rotzely, who is now 17. She decided to wait until after I was born. I resented her. Rotzely was three months old when she and her mother made the trek north. The teen didnt talk with her mother and grew distant from her family. She still did her chores, kept up her grades and ate dinner with them almost every day, but would find any chance to retreat into her room and into herself. Her mother enrolled her in a youth program at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, where Rotzely found others who had also missed qualifying for DACA. Eventually, her anger faded Rotzely, who earns stellar grades, said shes hunted for a part-time, after-school job since last year to help her save for college. But her lack of legal status has made it tough. I see how all my friends easily just go to a restaurant or like a known place like Starbucks or McDonalds and work there and I have to find all these special jobs that will just pay me cash, she said. Its just a constant reminder that I wasnt born here and that this country wont see me the same as other people. Just outside Los Angeles, sisters Lisette and Kathy are a California success story: Lisette, 21, attends UCLA, and Kathy, 18, UC Santa Barbara. Though theyre close in age, Lisette said she grew up taking care of Kathy. Their parents who brought them illegally to the U.S. from Central America when they were six and three years old, respectively had to work odd jobs non-stop to make ends meet. Lisette asked to keep their last name and certain identifying details out to protect her family from potential retaliation. The sisters are close, quick to laugh and echo each other. But theres a big divide: Lisette is a DACA recipient; Kathy was just shy of being able to apply. Their little brother, roughly a decade behind, is a U.S. citizen. I never got upset my parents were always at work, Lisette said. Eventually I started to understand that my responsibility was to take care of my siblings. When an uncle found out about DACA, Lisette let herself think for the first time about college and working to support her family. She applied. It meant the world to have it, she said. But Kathy struggled with feelings of guilt and frustration when she went days at a time without seeing her older sister because Lisette worked such long hours, on top of school. There was just the glaring fact I couldnt ignore, Kathy said: Lisette had DACA; she didnt. It wouldve been easier if I couldve shared the burden with her, but I just couldnt, Kathy said. Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer, associate clinical professor of law at Cornell law school, said she has represented a number of clients with DACA whose younger siblings just barely missed the cut-off when the program was put on hold, and who are again left insecure. Those who do have DACA feel the arbitrariness of a system that blessed them with the ability to work lawfully and not be afraid in their day-to-day lives, and yet their siblings or their parents are in this limbo, she said. It creates a lot of anxiety for the person who has to be the one DACA recipient holding that load for the family. Luckily, Lisette and Kathys little brother, age 10, doesnt seem too aware of the tension he cares only about video games, they joked. I am just extremely glad he wont have to go through what we have to go through, Lisette said. Back in Oxnard, Basurto said that she eventually let go of the resentment toward her U.S.-citizen siblings. She told herself, I have to pick myself up and pick up my own community because nobody else is going to do it. She started to volunteer as a Mixtec interpreter. She provided translation services and helped create food drives for Mixtec farmworkers impacted by the 2017 Thomas Fire in Ventura County. It became a full-time job; she didnt need DACA to make a living. Although federal law prohibits employers from hiring someone residing in the country illegally, there is no law prohibiting such a person from starting a business or becoming an independent contractor like Basurto. Her older siblings who qualified for the program moved on with their lives. Her brother travels the state making artwork for buildings and her sister has an office job and cares for her children. Unlike Basurto, they never got involved in advocating for their community. My older siblings live normal lives. They go to work and back home to their families, she said. I think outside myself. I speak for folks who dont have confidence or the safety to advocate for themselves. Sometimes Basurto ponders what her life would have been like with DACA. She thinks of the DACA recipients pacified by their new entry into something resembling an American life. In a way, she believes, DACA stunted the same youth-led nationwide activism that won DACA protections in the first place. I know folks who ended up getting DACA and forgot that there are folks who fought for it and those who are still undocumented, Basurto said. If I had gotten DACA, I would have most likely become one of those folks. The end of DACA could be seen as a blessing, Basurto argued. It reawakened a movement. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday reaffirmed America's goal of North Korea's compete denuclearization, amid stalled nuclear negotiations with the communist country. The reaffirmation came during a Senate hearing where Republican Sen. Cory Gardner asked Pompeo if Washington still pursues the "complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization (CVID) of the Korean Peninsula." "It does," Pompeo responded. The top U.S. diplomat's answer appears to reiterate Washington's basic stance against Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons, but it came despite the recalcitrant regime's strong aversion to the CVID concept. In consideration of Pyongyang's opposition to the term that it views as a unilateral disarmament process, Washington has used the "final, fully verified denuclearization" or "complete denuclearization." In a statement earlier this month, Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, took issue with the inclusion of the CVID concept in a statement released after a virtual trilateral meeting among the defense ministers of the United States, Australia and Japan. The nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have not been held since they held the working-level talks in Sweden in October. They remain apart over the scope of the North's denuclearization and Washington's compensation for it. (Yonhap) The global coronavirus outbreak is the sort of disaster whose effects will last far into the future, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday. The pandemic is a once-in-a-century health crisis, the effects of which will be felt for decades to come, Tedros told a meeting of the WHOs emergency committee, according to remarks released by the agency. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Web Toolbar by Wibiya Get the book on John Summers HERE. This is a story of evil and profound injustice in the legal community. Explore demonic minds in the legal community that include judges. This is a story of evil and profound injustice in the legal community. Dear Law Society of Upper Canada representative, This email is to make an official complaint against the sleazy tactics of John Summers at Bell Baker in Ottawa that I have been experiencing that have subjected me to harassment. On 15 July 2016, Mr. John Summers' student named Damain had sought to send to me their Defence via an emailed attachment. I told them that I would not consent to them sending me their Defence in such a manner and that they should mail their Defence t the same address that I have been receiving correspondence from the Ottawa Courthouse with no trouble. Damian appropriately recognized that I would need to consent to such an email pursuant to the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure. But then, Mr Summers apparently got Ms. Cleroux who is one of his colleagues to berate me on Friday with about 10 different phone calls that sought to intimidate me into relinquishing my rights under Civil Procedure. This apparent sleazy Law firm has constantly sought to ignore Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure, and I request that Mr Summers be investigated for harassement and unethical conduct. It is a violation of the Law Society of Upper Canada codes of conduct for opposing Counsel to be engaged in such illicit activities designed to subvert or pervert the course of Justice. Mr. Summers appears to also be supporting the criminal activities of his client who has been abusing my Mother. As a result of the apparent criminal activities of his client, my elderly Mom can no longer walk, write or talk. My Mom had presented a note when she could still write that his client was abusing her. His client also preventing my Mom getting access to speech therapy that was urged by an Ottawa doctor. The harassment of Mr. Summers' agent(s) is simply the extension of the apparent criminal actvities of his client against my rights as a litigant and my elderly Mom. Such activities by a lawyer in this province tarnishes the professional image and reputation of more ethical lawyers in this province. In the above video you will see that his client ignored the order of a Judge and the efforts of Ottawa Police Services to facilitate that order on 11 February 2016. Since that time, Mr. Summers has used apparent chickanery to frustrate the course of justice. Please note that this is an Open Letter. Regards. Complainant Readers, we welcome your comment and your support in affirmation of women's rights and against the unethical activities of lawyers in our society. Ombudsman Moskalkova closely monitors situation around 33 Russians arrested in Belarus RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov 12:17 31/07/2020 MOSCOW, July 31 (RAPSI) Russias Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova closely follows the situation in Belarus, where 33 Russian nationals have been arrested on suspicion of instigating mass riots, the press service of the Ombudsman Office informs on Friday. The Rights Commissioner closely monitors the situation in Belarus; her Office staff responsible for international aspects of work is engaged in collecting all available information, making lists of detainees, analyzing the charges brought against them, the statement reads. Moskalkovas representatives noted that by this time no respective complaints have reached her Office; nevertheless, in such high profile cases the law on Ombudsman gives the Rights Commissioner the right to react, so her staff is thoroughly analyzes the situation. On July 29, 33 Russian nationals were arrested in Belarus; the countrys law enforcers insist that the detained persons are members of private military firm Vagner, who arrived to Belarus with the aim to destabilize the situation there in the period of the presidential election campaign. The family of late Seoul mayor Park Won-soon have asked a court to block forensic analysis of his mobile phone after he killed himself over sexual harassment allegations. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said the Seoul Northern District Court partly granted the request, halting analysis of the phone which was already in progress. Park's family applied for the injunction on July 24, two days after police cracked his password, apparently with the help of his accuser. The court ordered the phone to be sealed temporarily. Police had been investigating Park's official-use iPhone, which was discovered next to his body on a mountainside near his residence. But a court refused a search warrant because the suspect is dead, and police were only allowed to use whatever information they could find to determine the cause of death. They were not authorized to search the phone in their investigation of the sexual harassment allegations from a former secretary. Park had two more mobile phones that police have not been able to access. Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea decided Thursday to investigate the allegations and look into whether the Seoul Metropolitan Government ignored her pleas for help. The decision came two days after the accuser and a women's rights group asked the commission to handle the investigation. If the commission finds evidence of illegality, it can ask police to investigate. Some are accusing the commission of dragging its heels. According to law, the commission can start an investigation without a request if there is considerable evidence pointing to a human rights violation. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family on Thursday announced the results its own probe into the city government's handling of the sexual harassment claims, but only cited a failure by City Hall officials to provide support for the alleged victim and called for more active steps, such as coming up with guidelines to punish officials who are guilty of such negligence and to prevent a recurrence. Thats tough to hear because what did they do in all this? Its incumbent upon us to figure this all out, he said, adding there will be changes but the workshop programs will continue somehow. Its just a matter of figuring out how. Its not a service were going to stop providing. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 23:03:38|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close TEHRAN, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said regional security can be attained through regional cooperation, semi-official Fars news agency reported Friday. "Regional security and stability can be achieved only within the framework of regional cooperation," Rouhani said in a phone conversation with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Thursday. The Iranian president also called for development of relations with Qatar without any limits. He expressed the hope that the joint Iran-Qatar economic commission will convene again after the decline of the novel coronavirus pandemic, leading to further promotion of bilateral economic relations. For his part, the Qatari emir said Qatar attaches special importance to development of ties with Iran. Enditem Lawsuit seeks to delay enforcing Noem's new abortion pill ban Planned Parenthood and ACLU of South Dakota are suing Noem and the Department of Health in enforcing a new abortion pill ban. Supreme Court on Friday barred the registration of BS-IV vehicles till further orders. The apex court also expressed displeasure on the sale of large number of vehicles in March during Covid-induced lockdown. "An unusual number of BS-IV vehicles were sold during the lockdown," said the bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra. The top court will hear the matter again on August 13. Earlier this month, SC had expressed displeasure over an oral plea by automobile dealers association that dealers should be allowed to return unsold inventory of BS-IV vehicles to the manufacturers so that they could be exported to other countries. The counsel appearing for the association told a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra that there are some countries where sale of BS-IV compliant vehicles are allowed. On July 8, the top court had recalled its March 27 order by which it had allowed sale of BS-IV vehicles for 10 days across India, except in Delhi-NCR, after lifting of the COVID-19 induced lockdown. The top court had on March 27 said it was permitting sale of 10 per cent of unsold BS-IV vehicles to make up for six days lost due to the nationwide lockdown which was imposed on March 25. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics The Punjab DGP said that a resident of a village in Amritsar district had been arrested for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and under provisions of Excise Act The toll due to consumption of spurious liquor in the districts of Amritsar, Batala, and Tarn Taran in Punjab rose to 38 on Friday. The Punjab Police has formed five teams to conduct raids in the districts, reports said. A total of eight persons have been arrested in the case. Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta said that the police had arrested Balwinder Kaur, a resident of Muchhal village, under Section 304 of the IPC (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and under provisions of the Excise Act. Seven more people have subsequently been arrested, ANI reported. The deaths took place in Punjab's Amritsar, Batala and Tarn Taran districts over a duration of two days after the first casualty was reported on Wednesday night. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. Earlier on Friday, a News18 report said that 13 people died in Tarn Taran, 11 died in Amritsar and eight passed away in Batala. Initially, 21 deaths were reported. PTI quoted the DGP as saying that the first five fatalities were reported from Mucchal and Tangra villages in Amritsar's Tarsikka on the night of 29 July. On Thursday evening, two more people died under suspicious circumstances at Amritsar's Muchhal village. One person died at Sri Guru Ram Das Hospital in Amritsar after being shifted from Tangra. Later, two more deaths were reported from Mucchal village while another two people died in Batala, also due to the consumption of spurious liquor. On Friday, five people died in Batala, taking the death toll in the city to seven, the DGP said, adding that four fatalities were reported from Tarn Taran. The chief minister has ordered the Jalandhar divisional commissioner to conduct the magisterial inquiry into the deaths. The inquiry will look into the facts and circumstances leading to the incidents, a statement by the state government said. It will be conducted by the divisional commissioner along with the Punjab Joint Excise and Taxation Commissioner and the SP (Investigation) in districts concerned. The chief minister has given the divisional commissioner the liberty to co-opt any civil/police officer or any expert to facilitate the expeditious conduct of the probe. Meanwhile, police have arrested Balwinder Kaur, a resident of Muchhal village, under Section 304 of the IPC (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and under provisions of the Excise Act, the DGP said. Singh has promised strict action against anyone found complicit in the case and directed police to launch a search operation to crack down on any spurious liquor manufacturing unit operating in the state. The post-mortem of four people Jaswinder Singh, Kashmir Singh, Kirpal Singh and Jaswant Singh will be conducted on Friday to ascertain the exact cause of their death, the statement said. According to it, the victims have been identified as Mangal Singh, Balwinder Singh, Dalbir Singh, Gurpreet Singh, Kashmir Singh, Kaka Singh, Kirpal Singh, Jaswant Singh and Joga Singh, all residents of Muchhal village; and Baldev Singh of Tangra; Those who died in Batala have been identified as Buta Ram, Bhinda, Riku Singh, Kala, Kalu, Billa and Jatinder. Those who died in Tarn Taran are Sahib Singh, Harban Singh, Sukhdev Singh and Dharam Singh. With inputs from PTI DUBLIN, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Asia-Pacific Organic Tea Market - Growth, Trends and Forecasts (2020-2025)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Asia-Pacific Organic Tea Market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 5.6% during the forecast period. Associated health benefits of organic teas with features such as no chemical interaction while production, no artificial flavors, or harmful additives, are few factors driving the demand for organic teas in the region. Growing prevalence of premiumization in the industry has been further boosting the value sale of the market studied. Manufacturers are opting this strategy to primarily cater the targeted consumers, looking for exceptional taste profiles and luxury experience of a regular beverage. As a result, companies are coming up with exotic flavor blends featuring lavender, hibiscus, ginger, sage rooibos, etc. to gain greater consumer attention. Key Market Trends Green Tea to Foster Market Growth Asia-Pacific has been witnessing a significant surge in demand for green tea, owing to its perceived health benefits. Further, driven by the consumer demand to have authentic and a purer version of tea with minimal chemical exposure during production, is boosting the demand for organic green tea in the region. Moreover, countries like China, Japan and India having strong foothold in the production of green tea, in the global market, remained the most lucrative market for organic green tea. There are many tea brands mushrooming with organic tea offering. For instance, Typhoo, the British packaged tea brand now owned the by Indian company Apeejay Surrendra group, is seeking its fortune in a set of non-tea infusions, including organic herbal tea mixes. Online Retailers Emerged as the Fastest Growing Channel Online retailing of organic tea products is the current profound channel for tea manufacturers, when it comes to distribution and marketing. The companies are inclining toward online stores to get better access to consumers having lack of physical outlets in remote areas. Moreover, many new startups and entrepreneurs are rather choosing this point of sale to launch their products, due to the less capital investment required and high consumer base covered. Nonetheless, with the premiumization penetrating in the industry, companies such as Bagan are majorly opting online retailing as desired channel to market their products. Competitive Landscape Asia-Pacific Organic Tea market is consolidated with the presence of key players such as Unilever and Tata Group. Over the past few years, expanding one's market presence in emerging economies has been a key strategy behind the major companies' growth. With growing income levels and an increasing level of knowledge regarding the consumption of healthy food in developed economies, companies are focusing on offering products with healthier claims such as organic, clean label, etc. 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 DYNAMICS 4.1 Market Drivers 4.2 Market Restraints 4.3 Industry Attractiveness - Porter's Five Forces Analysis 5 MARKET SEGMENTATION 5.1 By Product Type 5.1.1 Black Tea 5.1.2 Green Tea 5.1.3 Herbal Tea 5.1.4 Oolong Tea 5.1.5 Other Product Types 5.2 By Packaging Format 5.2.1 Bags 5.2.2 Loose 5.3 By Distribution Channel 5.3.1 Supermarket/ Hypermarket 5.3.2 Convenience Stores 5.3.3 Online Stores 5.3.4 Others 5.4 Geography 5.4.1 India 5.4.2 China 5.4.3 Japan 5.4.4 Australia 5.4.5 Rest of Asia-Pacific 6 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE 6.1 Most Adopted Strategies 6.2 Most Active Companies 6.3 Market Share Analysis 6.4 Company Profiles 6.4.1 Organic India 6.4.2 Tata Group 6.4.3 Unilever 6.4.4 The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. 6.4.5 Madura Tea Estates 6.4.6 Orgse Tea 6.4.7 Golden Moon Tea 6.4.8 Assamica Agro 7 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND FUTURE TRENDS For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/t0ixee 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 Under watchful eyes, circa 1900s. Courtesy of Diane Nars Collection By Robert Neff For many Koreans, 1901 was a year filled with deficiencies. One of the most pressing was the lack of rain that many superstitious people thought was a sign of displeasure from the gods. In July, sacrifices were made throughout the country in hope of bringing the much-needed rain. Along the Han River, several bags of coins and a number of pigs were thrown into the water in hope of appeasing the gods. In other places, high officials offered sacrifices at the Ancestral Tablet Halls. There first offerings were apparently not accepted it wasn't until the fifth offering did the gods deign to grant moderate showers to the region, but they were not enough to save the rice crops. The court officials tried to assure Emperor Gojong there would be no shortages of rice and other staples but they were lying things were beginning to look bleak. Adding to the misery of the people, rice merchants began price gouging. At the beginning of summer, the price of rice was 400 cash per measure but, due to price gouging, had climbed to just over 700 cash. The government quickly interceded and began arresting merchants. As a consequence, the price of rice dropped to 500 cash. Laboring in the fields, circa 1900s. Courtesy of Diane Nars Collection US president Donald Trump has raised the possibility of delaying the November election raising the prospect of a possible legal challenge if he loses. Critics and even Trumps allies dismissed the notion as an unserious attempt to distract from devastating economic news, but some legal experts warned that his repeated attacks could undermine his supporters faith in the election process. Trump, who opinion polls show trailing Democratic challenger and former US vice-president Joe Biden, said he would not trust the results of an election that included widespread mail voting a measure that many observers see as critical given the coronavirus pandemic. Without evidence, he claimed that ramped up mail voting would be rife with fraud, but praised absentee voting, which is also done by mail. At a White House news conference on Thursday evening, Trump did not repeat his call for an election delay but said he was worried about fraud and a long wait for results from counting mail ballots. Do I want to see a date change? No. But I dont want to see a crooked election, he told reporters. Election Troubles The United States has held elections for over 200 years, including during the Civil War, the Great Depression, and two world wars. Article II of the US constitution gives congress the power to set the timing of elections, and the 20th Amendment ends a president and vice presidents term in office on the January 20 following a general election. Read More US risks spectre of disputed election that could take months to resolve Multiple congressional Republicans including senate majority Leader Mitch McConnell and top house of representatives Republican Kevin McCarthy rejected the idea. Never in the history of the federal elections have we ever not held an election and we should go forward with our election, said McCarthy. Democratic US Representative Zoe Lofgren, who chairs the House committee overseeing election security, also rejected any delay. Under no circumstances will we consider doing so to accommodate the Presidents inept and haphazard response to the coronavirus pandemic, or give credence to the lies and misinformation he spreads, Lofgren said. President Donald Trump looks on as a patient donates plasma at the American Red Cross HQ in Washington. Picture: Doug Mills/'The New York Times' via AP However, despite all of Trump's threats, the US constitution only bestows the power on congress to delay an election, not the president. Below are some facts around what changing the date of the election would entail: Congressional power Article II of the US constitution gives congress the power to set the date of the presidential election. Since 1845, that day has been every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which in 2020 is November 3. Even if Trump declared a state of emergency due to the coronavirus, he would not be permitted to change the day, legal experts said. President Trump has absolutely no legal authority to delay the election, said Joshua Douglas, a professor at the University of Kentucky and an election law expert. Mr Douglas said that every presidential election since 1845 has gone forward as scheduled, even in the midst of wars and pandemics. The US congress could technically extend the ability to postpone an election to the executive, according to a 2004 Congressional Research Service report. However, given that Democrats currently control the house of representatives, it is virtually certain that the US congress would not entertain any sort of postponement. Any delay in the election could also require congress to postpone other deadlines, including December 14, when the electoral college the electors from each state whose votes technically determine the presidential winner must submit its ballots. By law, the US congress must also gather on January 6 at 1pm to count the electoral votes and formally declare a winner. Those dates are set out in the US Code, a compilation of federal law. Delay could only be temporary Even if the US congress decided to delay the election, Trump's presidential term would still end at noon on January 20, 2021, a date that is set in the constitution's 20th Amendment. Only another amendment, which requires a supermajority of two-thirds approval in both chambers of congress as well as ratification by at least 38 US states, can alter that date. says, Africans must unite for meaningful developments The Action Democratic Party (ADP), has hailed the decision of Africa Development Banks investigative panel, for absolving the President, Mr. Akinwumi Adeshina of any wrong doing. It will be recalled that,Akinwunmi Adeshina the president of Africa Development Bank,was recently vindicated by the independent review panel led by Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland. ADP in a statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary, Prince Adelaja Adeoye, celebratedAdeshinas vindication noting that it was commendable,as some of the whistleblowers allegation of favouritism levelled against him were earlier deflated by the ethics committee of the bank, and the new panel also affirmed their decision giving him a clean bill of health. The party added that Adeshina, while serving as a minister of Agriculture in Nigeria, proved his worth, selflessness, hard work and honesty, which gave rise to boom in food sufficiency in the country at that time. His ascension to the top AfDB job, was linked to his track record, which was a clear departure from what obtains in time past, as it pertains to the trajectory of the progress recorded so far by the continents bank. We are calling on all leaders in Nigeria and across Africa to keep rallying around him for successful leadership at the Bank. ADP maintained that in a bid to influence meaningful developments in Africa, there must be unity of purpose, stressing that unity in diversity is strength and that such will help the continent to attain self worth and reliance as it pertains to trade, technology, health care, Agriculture, and also help shore up their economic power. ADP would want PMB and other leaders on the Continent to mobilize all efforts and ensure Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iwealas bid for the top job at the World Trade Organization WTO succeeds. Africa and in particular Nigeria deserves more of these international leadership positions, to guarantee sustainable development of the huge human and material resources on the continent for the benefits of Africans and the world in general. ADP would continue to support good causes and Nigerians who are making their fatherland proud, wherever they are across the world. We urge young people, making great exploits in science and technological advancement, medicine, gaming, Fintech and other, home and abroad to continue to do so, while we charge others, to see those doing well as role model. The debate online is furious: do masks matter? There is this view, on Twitter: Anyone who is protesting against masks and lockdown have never actually protested for something actually important because of their goddamn privileges. And this: Id like to see NSW have compulsory masks for public transport it will take away any stigma on wearing face masks for teenagers and young kids who do not want to stand out. On the other hand, we had the protesters who went to Melbournes Shrine of Remembrance on Friday to protest against mask wearing. Carrying red flags," The Age reported, "the small group of protesters gathered at dawn ... many of them refusing to wear masks or face coverings. And this: An anti-masker has screamed Australia, were going to be free soon and claimed coronavirus is a lie after being chased by police at a Melbourne protest. Sydney, embrace the mask. Say no to the mask wars. You will have seen them in Melbourne and abroad. A few days back we had the now fabled "Karen from Bunnings", who was a walking insult to everyone ever named Karen. Her name was actually Lizzy, so let's rather assume she was named after Queen Elizabeth but inherited none of Her Majesty's good manners. Lizzy a psychic who mysteriously had not foreseen she would need something from Bunnings before the mask rule kicked in went global last week when she turned up at a sausage-free hardware outlet waving the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights like she was Winnie Mandela trying to take a boat to Robben Island. Lizzy would not wear a mask, and was not to be deterred. She later turned up outside a shop called Early Settler this material writes itself and was arrested. The United Nations has been contacted to see if it's still breathing. Elsewhere, masks have caused much consternation. The great and magnificent 45th President of the United States a certain Mr Trump, who you may have heard has occasionally controversial opinions has had some mixed messaging on masks. He said in May: "Joe Biden can wear a mask, but he was standing outside with his wife, perfect conditions, perfect weather And so I thought it was very unusual that he had one on. But I thought that was fine. I wasn't criticising at all. Why would I ever do a thing like that?" And he recently demanded a reporter at a press briefing remove his mask because he claimed he couldn't hear what the reporter was saying. When the reporter said "I'll just speak louder, sir", the truly incredible Mr Trump said, "Ok, because you want to be politically correct? OK, go ahead." President Donald Trump with men in black masks. Credit:AP The reporter replied: "No sir, I just want to wear a mask." Last week, the magnificent Mr Trump wore a mask, to great acclaim, as if he had recently landed on Mars and flown there and back without assistance. If only he'd ever thought of wearing a condom. His son, Donald Junior, copped a Twitter ban the other day for sharing an evidence-free COVID-19 theory. Of course, some decades ago we had similar debates about wearing condoms. But no one was ever going to wear a condom at a Ronald Reagan press briefing, at least that we are aware of. This crisis is not about sperm production, which takes a tad of effort, generally. This crisis is about spit, and therefore masks. The politics of masks is one of the most stupid debates imaginable, and when you try to explain it to a sane person in the future, you will require medication for both parties. To recognise just how stupid the debate has become, we can go to an American congressman from Texas: Louis Gohmert an adamant anti-masker who was just diagnosed with coronavirus. He has declared that he might have got it from a mask. "I can't help but wonder if by keeping a mask on and keeping it in place, that if I might've put some germs, some of the virus, on to the mask and breathed it in. I don't know." Loading Yes, the medical evidence on masks has been contradictory. Hardly surprising, given we are talking about a virus that nobody knew of in December and the pathologies of which are being discovered literally every day. But the mask madness is an easy call. Buy them now, before they become mandatory because when they do become mandatory, there will be lines outside the pharmacies and supermarkets and you don't want to deal with that. Pashinyan: UK has been strong partner of newly independent Armenia Armenia, Ukraine depositories sign memorandum of cooperation Azerbaijan advises Armenia to correctly assess the new geopolitical realities and draw conclusions Protesting residents of Armenias Parakar community march to territorial administration ministry Armenia government approves protocol on implementation of readmission agreement with Lithuania MFA: Armenia has no preconditions for border delimitation 621 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Paris to have place named after Hrant Dink Armenias Parakar enlarged community residents protesting outside government building Turkey opposition party MPs petition for parliamentary inquiry into Hrant Dink assassination France, Germany, Italy and Spain call on Israel to halt construction in East Jerusalem Armenia parliament speaker in US, meets with Nancy Pelosi Iranian MFA: Relations between Iran and Russia have moved into a new diverse, intensified direction Biden says invasion of Ukraine will be disaster for Russia Newspaper: Armenia PM Pashinyan plans to hold Presidents office Newspaper: Opposition Armenia bloc, led by ex-President Kocharyan, starting new processes Taliban PM calls on Muslim countries to be first to formally recognize their government 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 Order Placed For New Steam Packet Ship How the new ship may look (IOM Steam Packet) The Steam Packet has confirmed a replacement vessel for the Ben-my-Chree is expected to enter service in two years time. Its after an agreement was reached by directors of the Isle of Mans state-owned ferry company with one of the largest shipbuilders in the world. South Korean firm Hyundai Mipo Dockyard (HMD) will construct the purpose-built vessel with work due to begin midway through next year, once details of the deal are finalised. Isle of Man Steam Packet Company Chief Executive Mark Woodward said: For some time we have been conducting detailed analysis as we develop plans for major investment in our fleet. I am delighted to confirm that, following lengthy discussions with a leading shipyard in South Korea, we have confirmed specifications for the vessel and today signed a contract with Hyundai Mipo Dockyard. This truly is an exciting time in our history and, in the year we marked our 190th anniversary, the new vessel will take the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company forward to our 200th anniversary and beyond. The new vessel is expected to begin service in spring 2023. Photos China is being accused of using the coronavirus pandemic to silence dissidents by putting critics of the government in "quarantine" that strongly resemble house arrest and keeping them from their families. Quarantine after imprisonment According to the New York Times, one of the most prominent human rights lawyers in China, Wang Quanzhang, thought he was finally free when he was released from prison. Wang was held for nearly five years for subversion charges. Police officers escorted the lawyer to an apartment building in the city of Jinan. He was given a room where the windows were equipped with iron bars. At least 20 officers surrounded the building and confiscated his mobile phone. Authorities later restricted and monitored his use of the communication device. Effectively, the Chinese government placed Wang under house arrest but covered it up in the name of "quarantine" to ensure public health safety. Several human rights activists say Beijing uses the coronavirus pandemic as a cover-up for silencing or detaining dissidents. Summary quarantines are being imposed on detainees who have just cleared a previous one. The strategy is thought to be part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's latest campaign to punish opposition and activists against the government's decisions. Before the coronavirus pandemic started, China had already been conducting intensive crackdown measures on human rights. Activists had called the moves the government's most aggressive actions since 1989 when the Tiananmen Square protests ended. Also Read: Beijing Forces US Diplomats to Flee Chengdu Consulate Amid Political War The Chinese government frequently detains activists in what they consider quarantine without notifying the families of the victims. The Deputy Director of research, Frances Eve of the Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said the detainees are kept from communicating with anyone from the outside and are held inside secret locations without allowing them to isolate themselves inside their own homes. Government efforts In recent weeks, China has been escalating its efforts in fighting and silencing dissidents. Xu Zhangrun, a prominent legal scholar, was among the few academics in the country who openly criticize President Xi and the Chinese government. Previously, police officers had detained Xu in what is considered to be proof of the change of times since Xi's presidency. Becoming famous in 2018, Xu denounced Xi's policies that the critic called hard-lined in an essay he wrote, which was described as a rare criticism of the most powerful man in China since the legendary Mao Zedong, as reported by World Politics Review. The coronavirus pandemic has also caused human rights violations in China to take the spotlight. However, the Chinese government's drastic measures in trying to control the virus are seen by some as coming at a high price. According to Aljazeera, a 34-year-old doctor, Li Wenliang, who was among the first to try and raise awareness of the mysterious new virus before the beginning of the outbreak, had lost his life to the pandemic. Nicholas Bequelin, the regional director of Amnesty International, stated that Li's case was a tragic reminder of the focus of the Chinese government in keeping private the crucial information about public interests. 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. Hanoi authorities have conducted rapid coronavirus tests for all people returning from Da Nang in a bid to halt the transmission of the virus. The mass testing campaign began on Thursday and will end on Saturday for those who visited Da Nang from July 01 to 29. At a meeting of the municipal steering committee on COVID-19 Prevention and Control on Wednesday, Chairman of Hanoi Peoples Committee Nguyen Duc Chung said that about 21,060 people had returned to the capital from Da Nang where local transmission was detected on July 24 after more than three months of no community infection. We must be vigilant but not too panicked despite the fact that two positive cases have been detected in the city over the past 24 hours. Both of them returned from Da Nang, he said. All people arriving from central provinces, especially Da Nang City and Quang Nam Province, would have samples taken for coronavirus tests, Chung said. The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Hanoi has 80,000 test kits available for districts and wards to test people returning from Da Nang. Anyone who tests positive via the quick test will be confirmed using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method, he said. Chung asked district authorities to regularly update information from the National Steering Committee for the COVID-19 Prevention and Control and the Ministry of Health so that people stay informed. People are advised to urgently report to agencies and local authorities on COVID-19 suspected cases. All people with symptoms of cough, shortness of breath or fever should immediately contact health centres in their locality for COVID-19 testing. While waiting for the test result, they must be put under quarantine at home. All offices, agencies and enterprises in the city must have hand sanitiser and conduct temperature checks for everyone who enters. Chairman Chung also ordered a ban on all crowds and festivals and closed bars and nightclubs, taking effect from midnight Wednesday. Schools closed in Tay Ho District In related news, the Peoples Committee of Tay Ho District has decided to close all educational institutions including kindergartens and foreign language centres to ensure the health of students. The move came after a 76-year-old man residing on Hoang Hoa Tham Street was confirmed positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. Le Hong Vu, head of Tay Ho Districts Education and Training Sub-department, told Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper that the action was necessary to prevent transmission of the virus. A teacher in the district who has returned from Da Nang was under self-quarantine at home, he said. In addition to ordering all education institutions to close, all schools in the district must make plans for safe enrollment of pupils in the first grade and sixth grade. Parents must wear masks and ensure a safe distance while completing enrollment procedures at schools, he said. Health declarations strengthened to stop COVID-19 browser not support iframe. Amid the recurrence of community transmissions of COVID-19, Hanois health sector has continued to introduce measures to prevent the spread of the virus and monitor those who have recently returned from pandemic-hit areas, including the central city of Da Nang and neighbouring Quang Nam province, and to encourage them to follow preventive measures. Staff at a healthcare clinic in Dong Tam ward, Hai Ba Trung district, in Hanoi have been receiving information from local people who have travelled to Da Nang and Quang Nam since July 8. They then verify the information and visit people to have them declare their travel history and self-quarantine. Each individual is responsible for monitoring their temperature and informing medical staff if it exceeds 37.5 degree Celsius and is accompanied by coughing, a runny nose, or a raspy throat. People in Hanoi are already acquainted with preventive measures recommended by the Health Ministry, such as wearing a face mask when going out. Wearing face masks when in public places, washing hands regularly with soap, and limiting visits to crowded places have become good habits in preventing not only COVID-19 but also other respiratory diseases. People making health declarations and keeping in close contact with medical staff where they live also contribute to effective disease prevention. Health staff takes samples of people in Mai Dinh commune, Soc Son district (Photo: VNA) 50 people in the commune are required to test (Photo: VNA) Health staff takes samples of people in Mai Dinh commune, Soc Son district who have returned from Da Nang city (Photo: VNA) Health staff takes samples of people in Mai Dinh commune, Soc Son district who have returned from Da Nang city (Photo: VNA) Blood samples of Da Nang returnees are taken and kept carefully (Photo: VNA) Health staff prepares rapid Covid-19 testing kit for people in Mai Dinh commune, Soc Son distric who have returned from Da Nang city (Photo: VNA) The coronavirus pandemic is already stressful for most Californians. Add wildfires, and the situation is even more dire. Smoke from huge wildfires is once again choking the Bay Area, creating unhealthy air quality. With fire season under way this year, how will smoke affect people who have or are recovering from COVID-19, or those with chronic lung diseases? Its concerning because we dont need yet another problem to contend with, said Dr. Vinayak Jha, a pulmonologist in San Francisco affiliated with Sutter Healths California Pacific Medical Center. People are already worried about catching the virus and becoming ill. Having respiratory problems and other problems, and then having a natural disaster to deal with or multiple fires going on during fire season is not pleasant, he said. In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom weighed in on the added challenges that wildfire evacuations bring to California during the pandemic, especially at shelters and fire camps. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those particularly vulnerable to wildfire smoke are: 65 and older, youths 18 and younger, people with chronic health conditions, and those who are pregnant, work outdoors or have low incomes. Some of them overlap with groups also susceptible to COVID-19. Early clues about risk While there arent definitive answers yet about the effects of wildfire smoke on COVID-19 patients, experts can look to research on smoking and air pollution to draw preliminary conclusions. Wildfire smoke is kind of like tobacco smoke without the nicotine, said Dr. John Balmes, a professor of medicine at UCSF and environmental health sciences at UC Berkeley. Its plant-based material that when burned, produces carbon particles with nasty hydrocarbons that are toxic. He used the 2018 Camp Fire as an example. That blaze caused fine particulate matter known as PM2.5 particles to travel from the northern part of the Central Valley all the way down to the Bay Area. A thick haze blanketed the region for weeks, shutting down schools and businesses, with Northern Californias air quality rated the worst in the world for several days. Fine particles are small enough to make it down to the deep lung and can cause inflammation, he said. The acute effect of wildfire smoke on firefighters lungs have been studied and there is evidence of inflammation. ... The closer you are to the fire, the greater the risk of inflammation. Paul Chinn / The Chronicle 2018 Jha said wildfires and air pollution from vehicles and factories share some of the same PM2.5 particles. There are growing reports out of China, Europe and the U.S. that the more air pollution there is, the more COVID deaths and cases there are, Jha said. So theres some reason for concern that wildfire smoke, besides being bad for people in general, may affect peoples susceptibility to getting the virus. Breathing in wildfire smoke can cause shortness of breath, coughing and sore throat. So having the coronavirus also could definitely make their symptoms worse, Jha said. One thing that particularly worries Dr. Monica Minguillon, a pulmonologist at Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center, is the long-term effects of COVID-19, especially those with severe cases and who are hospitalized. One of the things were seeing ... is it can take a very long time to recover, she said. It will be months and years before we know the long-term consequences. Anybody recovering from chronic lung disease has to be on hyper-alert during wildfire season. Tips for dealing with wildfire smoke So what should people recovering from COVID-19 or living with other respiratory illnesses do if wildfire smoke becomes a problem? All the experts agree that unless there are mandatory evacuations, the best course of action is to stay inside with the windows closed a step made easier with most people already sheltering in place in the pandemic. But that also means keeping your home as clean and pollutant-free as possible. Balmes said to install a high-quality air filter in the HVAC system with a minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV) rating of 13 or higher, which he said filters out the particles that can get into the deep lung. For those without a ventilation system, Balmes recommends a portable HEPA filter air purifier certified by the California Air Resources Board, which can range in cost from $200 to $1,000. Russell Yip/The Chronicle Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California One purifier cleans one room, so people may want to consider additional purifiers for rooms where they spend the most time. If purchasing an air purifier is too costly, experts said people can make a DIY version with a box fan and air filter. Jha said COVID-19 patients should keep close contact with their health care provider and avoid exerting themselves, especially at the beginning of the illness. How to track air quality Experts also recommend checking the current air quality conditions regularly at the federal Air Quality Index and the Bay Areas Spare the Air website. The Chronicles Air Quality Tracker also shows current fire-emitted fine-particulate matter in the Bay Area and state. More information about air quality and wildfire smoke is available at AirNow.gov. For more resources, visit the CDC web page about wildfire smoke and coronavirus. If you have to leave the house when wildfire smoke is in the air, and you have a pre-existing condition or have recovered from COVID-19, an N95 respirator is the best way to protect against smoke and coronavirus. Because those are needed by health care workers, they have been in short supply. Experts say cloth coverings and surgical masks do not offer protection against wildfire smoke, but Balmes said most healthy individuals do not need to get a special type of mask. Paul Chinn / The Chronicle 2018 Jha said staying vigilant in the pandemic and being as prepared as possible for a wildfire are important. Continue to socially distance, and continue to wear a mask in public, he said. Have precautions in place: knowing how to check the Air Quality Index, checking their own home system, and having a plan in case they need to leave the area. The Chronicles Fire Map and Tracker provides information on wildfires currently burning in California. Kellie Hwang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KellieHwang Reach key decision makers with sales-ready leads that shorten your sales process. Move the needle by delivering funnel qualified leads to your sales team. Learn more Googles domination of the online advertising market appears to have stalled since Amazon last year became the third-largest digital ad platform in the U.S. behind the Google-Facebook duopoly. Search ads a mainstay of Googles revenues in the United States are trending lower; but Amazons and Facebooks digital ad revenues will grow, according to a recent forecast by eMarketer. This may have driven Google to accelerate its push into e-commerce, focusing on what it calls the messy middle the space in the customer journey between what triggers the purchase and the actual purchase itself. The key is to ensure brand presence, make their proposition compelling, and reduce the time between trigger and purchase, Google found. Anything that will remove the messy middle is key, Ray Wang, a principal analyst at Constellation Research, told the E-Commerce Times. If I can get you to buy faster because you see a recommendation, a rating, a review, a seal of approval thats the first step. The second step is to be able to replicate Amazons one-click purchase capabilities. Make it easy to buy now. Google needs to monetize its advertising business with commerce in the long run, Wang said, because its ad business is being chipped away by Amazons digital ads based on product search and listings. Googles latest e-commerce initiatives could play into the dissatisfaction some retailers harbor for Amazon. Retailers are looking for an alternative to Amazon, Wang said. Also, they want to integrate commerce, advertising, search and even payments. Googles Moves to Boost E-Commerce Earlier this month, Google added support for keyword recommendations and campaign level optimization to the Google Ads application programming interface (API) and added a performance planner feature that lets retailers predict clicks, conversions and conversion values based on different customer spend levels and return on investment targets. Google also announced new ways to showcase and augment the brand of businesses advertising with Google as well as those with an e-store on Google Shopping. A D V E R T I S E M E N T One is a beta program that lets businesses upload or automatically curate relevant images from their website to their Google search ads, using Googles machine learning capabilities. Another feature lets businesses dynamically highlight sales or time-sensitive deals with a countdown. Google will also provide suggestions on shipping, returns, and how to promote online availability. Smart Shopping Ads Google is also offering more visual ways retailers can stand out from competitors with Smart Shopping campaigns. One is an icon to highlight features like free and fast shipping. This has increased conversion rates by nine percent, Google says. Free and fast shipping provides small businesses with the opportunity to compete with larger retailers, Adam Jones, director of business development at Logical Position, told the E-Commerce Times. Seventy-seven percent of shoppers now indicate that reliable two-day shipping is the leading factor when completing a purchase. Logical Position is one of two ad management partners Google selected for a pilot run in October involving use of the Free & Fast icon. The other was Sales & Orders. Other new features, for retailers who have Google display ad campaigns, is access to new creative layouts, automatically generated video ads, and updated dynamic ads. Dynamic ads show previous visitors to a retailers site tailored messages containing products and services the visitors previously had viewed on the site. The dynamic ads feature displays the retailers business name and logo, and lets the retailer showcase the latest promotions and spotlight a single product. Google has introduced portfolio bid strategies and bid strategy reports for Adwords Smart Bidding, in an effort to help retailers maximize returns from ad spending. A D V E R T I S E M E N T A bid is the maximum amount an advertiser will pay for an ad to show in the search engine page results when a consumer conducts a Google Search. The actual position of an ad is calculated by the maximum bid times the quality score. The quality score is based on the ads expected clickthrough rate, its relevance, and the landing page experience. The Smart Bidding offering evaluates relevant contextual signals during an auction such as time of day, device type and operating system, so retailers can target the right shopper. Another new Google e-commerce feature is a conversion value for sales to new customers in their Smart Shopping campaigns. A conversion value helps retailers track, optimize and report on their return on ad spend. AI Recommendations Google has also released in beta its Recommendations AI to all customers. This tool adapts to changing consumer behavior in real time and suggests the next best product to recommend, using deep learning machine learning models. It can scale to catalogs of tens of millions of items, correct for bias with extremely popular or on-sale items, and better handle seasonality or items with sparse data. Two out of three consumers now expect personalization, George Barker, Head of Marketing at personalization software company Qubit, which offers Googles Cloud Recommendations AI and works with brands such as Kate Spade, Estee Lauder, and Shiseido. The algorithms Google Recommendations AI uses were built using similar technology to Google Search and YouTube, two of the most widely used tools on the Internet, Barker said. Much like when you land on YouTube and somehow youre watching a video you never thought youd find interesting, but do, those principles apply to e-commerce, Barker observed. Rather than views, its conversions. More to Follow Google is also launching a pilot program to do away with the commission it charges when consumers buy make purchases directly from search ads. It will open its platform to other digital commerce providers, beginning with Shopify for inventory and order management, and both PayPal and Shopify for payment processing. In addition, Google is enabling commonly used product feed formats so retailers can connect their inventories to sell directly on its platform without the need to reformat their data. The goal of this integration is to make it possible for a retailer who already sells on Amazon to more easily list their inventory on Google. Later this year, Google will offer retailers a dynamically curated carousel of their most relevant products in an immersive, browsable shopping experience. Sellers will also be able to include video content in their display ads. Google also plans to add a small business filter on the Google Shopping tab and other e-commerce features for small businesses. The Struggle With Amazon Googles move into e-commerce is part of a longer-term strategy Google has to compete with Amazon in the e-commerce arena, Mark William Lewis, founder of Netalico Commerce, told the E-Commerce Times. Google has always dabbled in e-commerce but in the past few years theyve gotten more serious about it because so much of online ad revenue is from e-commerce brands. The pandemic has accelerated that strategy because e-commerce is growing significantly more than expected, Lewis observed. However, Google has an uphill battle because Amazon has such dominance on being essentially an e-commerce search engine that many people use it as their default place to search for a product, Lewis noted. Over time, though, if they curate an experience thats as good as, or better than, Amazon, I think merchants will be less likely to rely on Amazon and trust Google more and there could be a shift. Getting to the point where the customer experience offered can match Amazon might be a problem, Rebecca Wettemann, principal at research and advisory firm Valoir, told the E-Commerce Times. The challenge for Google is its attention span, she said. If I had a dollar for every time Google said they were getting serious about something new, Id have at least enough for a few large pizzas. Google doesnt have a good track record of sticking with its plans, Wettemann quipped. Mumbai, July 31 : The Bihar Police has recorded the statement of actress Ankita Lokhande, a former girlfriend of the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, sources said here on Friday. A team of the Bihar Police - currently in Mumbai - went to Lokhande's residence late on Thursday and recorded her statement in the matter. Earlier, among other things, she had claimed that Sushant informed her of alleged harassment by Rhea Chakraborty, his then companion. The developments follow an FIR lodged by the late actor's father Krishna Kumar Singh in the last week of July, in which actress Rhea Chakraborty has also been named. However, the Bihar Police, which arrived here earlier this week, have not been able to record the statement of Chakraborty. Refuting the allegations against Chakraborty -- her lawyer Satish Maneshinde -- has moved the Supreme Court seeking transfer of the case registered against her in Patna to Mumbai. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text AKRON, Ohio -- A 29-year-old man was fatally shot Thursday evening in Akrons Kenmore neighborhood, according to police. The victims name has not been publicly released, according to the Summit County Medical Examiners Office. Officers responded around 10:30 p.m. Thursday to a shooting on the 1200 block of Kenmore Boulevard, and found the victim on the sidewalk with apparent gunshot wounds, according to a police report. Paramedics brought the victim to Cleveland Clinic Akron General, where he died. Detectives investigated and identified Charles Deel II, 24, of Barberton as a suspect. He was seen leaving the scene in a Chevrolet Tahoe, police said. Officers later found the vehicle abandoned at a vacant house in the Summit Lake neighborhood. Deel has been charged with murder, and should be considered armed and dangerous, according to police and Akron Municipal Court records. Anyone with information is asked to call Akron police detectives at 330-375-2490, Summit County Crimestoppers at 330-434-2677 or text TIPSCO with your tips to 274637. Tipsters can remain anonymous. (Natural News) A coalition of Republican congressmen have introduced new legislation to revoke Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) immunity protections from any tech company that removes lawful speech from its platform. Known as the Stop the Censorship Act of 2020, the bill addresses a longstanding problem with companies like Facebook and Twitter that have chosen to act as both providers and publishers of content, picking and choosing what is allowed to be posted and shared. The most recent example of this is Big Techs systematic removal of the Americas Frontline Doctors White Coat Summit event, which has now been banned from every major tech platform and is only now available on alternative platforms like Brighteon be sure to watch it here or below: For years, Silicon Valley has been steadily ramping up its censorship agenda, and the conservative side of politics, anyway, has taken notice. It is a situation that is obviously and unfairly stacked against those who would dare to contradict the leftist agenda, and it needs to stop. Online platforms should not have special immunity to censor competition and lawful political speech, stated Rep. Paul Gosar, a Republican from Arizona, who introduced the bill. The broad and undue immunity for content and user removal granted by Section 230 must be reined in by Congress. We cannot continue to subsidize, deputize, or blackmail Silicon Valley to decide what is or isnt an allowable conversation. Stop the Censorship Act empowers users and limits Big Tech to the same rights and liabilities as everyone else. Dont let Big Tech continue to steamroll your First Amendment rights! Rep. Gosars introduction of the bill comes after Allum Bokhari of Breitbart News reported that Google has now purged this news outlet, along with many others classified as alt-news, from its search engine results. Now, it is next to impossible to pull up any Breitbart content on Google, which makes Google a publisher rather than a provider. This is an important distinction because, for far too long, Google and the other tech giants have played both sides, maintaining legal immunity as if they are simply content providers, while simultaneously curating their content in favor of the political left, which is publishing. Freedom of speech and market competition are two of the strongest pillars of American freedom. But Big Tech has shown little regard for either, added Rep. Jim Banks, one of the bills co-sponsors. Congress must protect the values that make America great. If passed, the Stop the Censorship Act of 2020 would set new legal parameters for tech companies, restricting their censorship capacity solely to content that is explicitly unlawful, or that promotes violence or terrorism. This, in turn, will incentivize tech platforms to be more transparent in how they censor, as well as abide by their own terms of service, neither of which they are currently doing. Further, the Stop the Censorship Act of 2020 would ensure that Section 230 protections can no longer be exploited by tech companies to shield themselves from antitrust claims. In other words, it would help to foster greater competition by breaking up these monopolies, ensuring that they treat their users fairly and abide by the First Amendment rather than their own political slants. Its time we put an end to Big Techs unlawful censorship by rolling back their broad protections and promoting market competition, which is exactly what the Stop the Censorship Act of 2020 will do, added Rep. Doug Collins, a Republican from Georgia who is also co-sponsoring the bill. You can help support this effort to reign in Big Techs censorship crusade by reading and sharing other articles about the topic, which are available at Censorship.news. Sources for this article include: Breitbart.com NaturalNews.com NaturalNews.com The Indian Army early on Friday morning intercepted terrorists along the Line of Control (LoC) infiltrating in Jammu and Kashmir and an encounter followed. The troops detected suspicious movement, within 600m of LoC, of unidentified persons at Machhal Sector of Kupwara district at 3 am. Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, the Chinar Corps of the Indian Army said that in the morning a search was carried out and a blood trail seen. Though the troops couldn't nab the terrorists yet recovered three AKs, a sniper rifle, eight grenades and other warlike stores. Today early morning at about 3 am, suspicious move of unidentified persons detected 600m on own side of LoC at Machhal Sector, #Kupwara. Infiltrating terrorists intercepted by own troops. Firefight ensued. Operation in progress.#Kashmir #IndianArmy@adgpi @NorthernComd_IA pic.twitter.com/kqdxJDsO7o Chinar Corps - Indian Army (@ChinarcorpsIA) July 31, 2020 "Today early morning at about 3 am, a suspicious move of unidentified persons detected 600m on own side of LoC at Machhal Sector, Kupwara. Infiltrating terrorists intercepted by own troops. Firefight ensued. Operation in progress. After the first light, a search was carried out. Blood trail seen. 3 AKs, a sniper rifle, 8 grenades & other warlike stores recovered. Search in progress," the Chinar Corps tweeted. A search for the terrorists is still in progress. This is a developing story. More details are awaited. Britain reported its highest number of new COVID-19 infections in more than a month on Thursday, as ministers fretted about a second wave of cases in Europe and warned more quarantine restrictions were possible, Trend reports citing Reuters. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said COVID-19 was under some measure of control in Britain, but a resurgence in some European countries showed the pandemic was not over. It is absolutely vital as a country that we continue to keep our focus and our discipline, and that we dont delude ourselves that somehow we are out of the woods or that that is all over, because it isnt all over, he said. Hours later, official data showed 846 new positive tests in Britain - the highest number of daily infections since June 28. Reflecting rising cases in some European countries, Britain has already reimposed a 14-day quarantine period on people arriving from Spain, a move that caused havoc with the reopening of the continent for tourism in the summer high season. Luxembourg was added to the quarantine list on Thursday, with all arrivals ordered to self-isolate for 14 days, starting at 1100 GMT. Earlier, British health minister Matt Hancock stopped short of saying which European countries might end up back on the quarantine list, but cited France as an example of one where infections have lately risen. I am worried about a second wave. I think you can see a second wave starting to roll across Europe, and weve got to do everything we can to prevent it from reaching these shores, and to tackle it, Hancock said during an interview on Sky News. When asked whether Britons should be prepared for more measures to be announced within the next few days, he said yes. The number of cases have gone up sharply in some countries in Europe ... France now has more cases than we do, per day, and in Spain we saw the numbers shoot up which is why we had to take the rapid action that we did, Hancock said on Talk Radio. France reported almost 1,400 new cases on Wednesday, the highest daily increase in more than a month. Hancock said the authorities were working on possible ways to shorten the quarantine period for people coming from Spain, such as by testing them during the quarantine period. But we are not imminently making an announcement on it, he said in a BBC television interview. An analysis from Britains statistics office showed on Thursday that the country has suffered the highest rate of excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic in a comparison of 21 European countries. You could argue that the documentary The Fight takes on too much, because it juggles four different court cases on four different, vitally important subjects, jumping back and forth between the quartet of cases and trying to give them all their proper due in its hour-and-a-half running time. Or you could argue that The Fight takes on too little, because those four cases are supposed to give us a sense of all of the work that the near 300 lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union do. Thats an impossible task, since the ACLU has already filed close to 150 lawsuits against the Donald Trump administration alone. Or you could decide, as I did, that The Fight, like a cinematic version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, does it just right: It picks four cases that give a good overview of the ACLUs work and all carry huge stakes; it follows lawyers who are articulate and interesting guides through the issues; and it gives each of the cases enough time to play out and also add up to a rich portrait of a complex organization. Also Read: 'The Fight' Producer Kerry Washington on Why ACLU Lawyers Are 'Our Avengers' | Video An exemplary work of nonfiction storytelling that won a special jury prize after its premiere at Sundance, the film from directors Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman and Eli Despres and producer Kerry Washington wont persuade those who, in this hyper-partisan age, look upon the ACLU as left-wing zealots (even though it has also fought for things like allowing the far-right protestors in Charlottesville to march, a decision that the film makes clear was the subject of much internal dissension). But for those who consider the current administration a dangerous one, The Fight is a stirring chronicle of resistance in a crucial battleground, the courts. And its one who gives us gloriously human heroes the immigrant rights advocate whos eloquent arguing cases in the courtroom but inept when his cellphone battery runs down, the transgender lawyer whos reluctant to argue a trans case because he thinks the case might be stronger argued by a cisgender lawyer. Story continues Lee Gelernt, one of the ACLUs highest-profile lawyers, is the immigrant rights advocate, who is seen in the film challenging the Trump administrations ban on immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries. Chase Strangio is the trans lawyer, who in the film works with fellow attorney Joshua Block to challenge the ban on transgender people in the military. Brigitte Amiri from the ACLUs Reproductive Freedom Project is shown advocating for a pregnant teenage immigrant who has been barred from accessing abortion services, while Dale Ho files suit to stop the administrations proposal to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census. Also Read: ACLU Minnesota Sues Police on Behalf of Journalists Targeted Covering Protests Those four cases overlap throughout The Fight, but theres never a letdown when the film shifts from one to another, and never a feeling that any of the lawyers or their cases are being shortchanged by the filmmakers. Made up of verite footage interspersed with talking-head interviews, the film is in some ways an ad for the ACLU, albeit one that takes the measure of some troubling history but it is also an enlightening and even exciting look at a fierce battle for the future of this country. If youve been following the news for the last few years and if you havent, this isnt really a movie for you then you probably have a good idea which of these lawyers succeed. Suffice it to be said that while the ACLU encounters its share of disappointments in the film, it also scores some resounding victories. But a couple of things hang over the organization. One is the violence in Charlottesville in 2017, which some in the ACLU think was made possible by the legal support it provided for the far-right marchers. And the following year saw the unexpected retirement of left-leaning Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was replaced by the second Trump appointment, the far more conservative Brett Kavanaugh. Also Read: ACLU Says 'White Supremacy Is Everywhere' - Even at the ACLU Those events deepen the sense that the ACLU is not exactly tilting at windmills, but definitely fighting an array of formidable foes. At one point in the film, Ho says that he was looking forward to the 2016 election because he figured hed be able to spend more time with his family once it was over but then Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump and everything changed. If Im not going to be a civil rights lawyer now, then when? he asks. The Fight has an answer, which is that the time is now. Its an answer that may well hit home with many of the films viewers and while Ho also says, its not going to be lawyers in court, its going to be people who turn the ship around, the film also makes it clear that those people will probably need some really good lawyers to do it. Magnolia Pictures and Topic Studios release The Fight in theaters and on-demand on July 31. Read original story The Fight Film Review: ACLU Documentary Is the Stirring Story of a War Against Donald Trump At TheWrap Tiffany Haddish has been giving back to her home city of Los Angeles by donating her time and money to those in need over the years. And on Thursday she helped hand out Chromebook computers to students in foster care during a drive-thru giveaway event in South Los Angeles. 'I was a former foster [care] youth. And I didn't have advantages,' the Girls Trip star, 40, told NBC 4 Los Angeles. 'To learn how to use a computer, I had to go to the library. You can't even go to the library,' she added in a reference to the lockdown and closures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Giving back: Tiffany Haddish, 40, helped hand out Chromebook computers to students in foster care during a drive-thru giveaway event in South Los Angeles on Thursday Haddish was one of a number of volunteers who helped dole out the computers outside the office of Los Angeles City Councilmember Herb Wesson. But it was the comedian and actress who garnered much of the fanfare and attention when people recognized her familiar face and infectious smile and humor. Some of those driving up to the event had to do a double-take, now that she's sporting a completely bald look since cutting off her long locks less than two weeks ago. New look: The Girls Trip star also showcased her newly shaved head at the event Making a difference: Haddish was one of a number of volunteers who helped dole out the computers outside the office of Los Angeles City Councilmember Herb Wesson Working it: The comedian and actress garnered much of the fanfare and attention when people recognized her familiar face and infectious smile and humor Higher learning: Haddish and company helped give away more than 700 Chromebooks The drive-thru giveaway was designed to help bridge the digital divide in low-income households at a time when more children have to learn from home since schools closed amid the COVID-19 crisis. By the end of the day's event, Haddish and company gave away more than 700 Chromebooks as part of Councilmember Wesson's Our Cycle LA, a program that refurbishes city-owned computers and gives them to families in need. 'When our community is educated; when our youth are educated, they are least likely to commit crimes,' Haddish said. 'They're able to get real jobs and it brings the community up times ten.' Relatable: The event hits home to the comedian since she grew up in the foster care system beginning when she was nine-years-old Teaming up: The event was part of Councilmember Herb Wesson's Our Cycle LA, a program that refurbishes city-owned computers and gives them to families in need Star power: Haddish and Wesson posed for photographers during the giveaway event Haddish was placed into the foster care system at the age of nine when her mother was diagnosed with a mental illness after a car accident. She has been open about how she moved from home to home, oftentimes keeping her belongings in trash bags. In the wake of her success in Hollywood, she has been able to use her star power and partner with such non-profits as Living Advantage, which aims to help at-risk youth who did not have the support of their mothers and fathers. After beginning her career as an entertainer in 2005, Haddish first gained prominence in The Carmichael Show. Her breakthrough came in 2017 with the role of Dina in the comedy film, Girls Trip. New look: The actress and comedian proudly talked about her newly shaved head, which was cut less than two weeks ago Remember where she came from: Haddish has been open about how she moved from home to home while in foster care, oftentimes keeping her belongings in trash bags on Friday granted anticipatory bail to the former chairperson of Delhi Commission Zafarul Islam Khan who is accused of posting objectionable content on social media. Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri, who granted the bail to Khan asked him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and a surety of like amount and imposed various other conditions on him. Among the conditions, Khan was asked to join the investigation whenever required and co-operate in the probe. "Message from my lawyers: Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan has been granted anticipatory bail today by the in a petition filed by Advocates Vrinda Grover, Soutik Banerjee and Ratna Appnender," Khan wrote on twitter He added, "J. Manoj Kumar Ohri noted the submissions of Ms. Vrinda Grover that Dr. Khan has participated in the investigation, and has answered all questions. Accordingly, anticipatory bail was granted and the petition was allowed." The court order came after Kahn's counsel Vrinda Grover told the court that he was not called for the investigation after June 18. Delhi Police counsel also informed the court that Khan has joined the investigation on June 16 and June 18 and he was not required for further counsel. Anticipatory bail was filed through advocate Vrinda Grover apprehending his arrest in the case. The plea said that "Khan is a law-abiding senior citizen of India, a public servant serving as the Chairperson of the Delhi Commission, a scholar, author of repute, and a senior citizen aged about 72 years. No offence has been committed by him and that the present FIR has been registered with a mala fide intention to harass and intimidate Khan." "FIR against the petitioner is misconceived, being made on a misrepresentation of facts and an erroneous, untenable reading of the law. As such, it does not warrant the curtailment of liberty and dignity of the petitioner, which is his guaranteed right under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India," the plea added. Delhi Police had filed an FIR against Khan on May 2, under the Sections 124 A (sedition) and 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth) of the Indian Pinal court (IPC), after they received a complaint against one of his social media posts. (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.) En espanol | To keep the coronavirus outbreak from spreading through their boundaries, many states have asked or required out-of-state visitors to self-quarantine upon arrival. Those restrictions are easing; the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) now says that people who are fully vaccinated (two weeks after receiving the second dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine) can safely resume travel within the U.S. They are no longer required to quarantine after being exposed to someone with COVID-19. Meanwhile, the number of Americans vaccinated has been rising quickly in recent weeks: half of all U.S. adults had received at least one dose by April 18, including about 81 percent of people 65 and up, according to the CDC. But states are responding differently to the changing pandemic situation when it comes to their quarantine policies for travelers (see state-specific rules below). Maryland, Ohio, Washington, New York and Connecticut, for example, have lifted their quarantine requirements for domestic travel (many states still have rules for international travelers); they instead ask visitors and residents to follow CDC travel guidance. Alaska no longer threatens fines of up to $25,000 for those who dont follow its COVID-19 rules (including arriving with proof of a negative COVID-19 test), which are now framed as strong recommendations rather than requirements. Massachusetts and Oregon are are among the states that still have quarantine rules, but are now exempting those who have been fully vaccinated. Some states base their rules on where a traveler is arriving from, but their determinations of whether other states are high risk can be wildly different, depending on their criteria. For example, the District of Columbia currently considers 12 states to be high risk, while Rhode Island considers more than 20 states to be in that category. Confusing matters further: A city might have its own quarantine rules, separate from its states. Chicago, for instance, has strict quarantine rules for travelers but Illinois does not. There is no uniform message across the states, and thats extremely difficult for travelers, says Jan L. Jones, professor of hospitality and tourism at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. I cant even navigate it. The Save the Dominican group has written to Archbishop Eamon Martin to express their hope that the Dominican church and priory in the town will become a 'community facility' in the future. A series of options have been raised in relation to it, but they feel it should represent the values of the last Dominican to serve in the church after 800 years, Fr Jim Donleavy, who believed, 'the door is always open and the kettle is always on.' The letter followed on the clearance of the Dominican, to a now almost vacant building. 'In recent days, we have watched on as the Church of St Magdalen in Drogheda, a once pious citadel in our noble town, has been ripped of its soul and character. Many have come to stand and watch, not to pray, prey or worship, but to cry. 'We knew the church would be cleared of its vestiges, all the things we adored about the place, but to watch it crumble has been hard to take. The past few days has only highlighted the void left in the months since Jim's death. 'In our hearts we knew the moment Fr Jim closed his eyes for the last time, so too died his dream. 'The one thing Fr Jim did not want was a legacy. The desire to see the church remain open was not for him, it was for the people, the descendants of those that built the church with hammers and chisels. 'In recent weeks, Jack Charlton's name was mentioned with reverence. Jim was our Jack, a leader, confidant, strong and weak, a man like any other, but who cared deeply for those around him. 'Almost everything has gone from the church now and we await the next chapter, what will become of it? We can but try in our endeavours to see this church remain in the hands of the people, although we know that becoming a place of worship again is now highly unlikely. Archbishop, you are our last chance of raising this Phoenix, a glorious Phoenix, from the flames of destruction that presently engulf St Magdalen's. We don't have money, no grand plans, but like Fr Jim, we have but a dream that the very best use is made of the building. 'What is left for this committee is to try and make sure the right thing is done. The right thing in Jim's name, what he would have wished. We know Fr Jim's spirit still walks the streets of his beloved Drogheda, each time we look in the Boyne, we see his reflection, his smile, his soft ways, his steely attitude that drew people to him,' they stated. Cardiac Mapping Market Research Report by Type (Contact Cardiac Mapping System and Non-Contact Cardiac Mapping System), by Indication (Atrial Fibrillation, Atrial Flutter, and Atrioventricular Nodal Reentry Tachycardia (Avnrt)), by Technology, by End User - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19 New York, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Cardiac Mapping Market Research Report by Type, by Indication, by Technology, by End User - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940048/?utm_source=GNW The Global Cardiac Mapping Market is expected to grow from USD 1,448.75 Million in 2019 to USD 2,486.73 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 9.42%. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Cardiac Mapping to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: "The Contact Cardiac Mapping System is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Type, the Cardiac Mapping Market studied across Contact Cardiac Mapping System and Non-Contact Cardiac Mapping System. The Contact Cardiac Mapping System further studied across Basket Catheter Mapping System, Electroanatomical Mapping System, and Traditional Endocardial Catheter Mapping System. The Contact Cardiac Mapping System commanded the largest size in the Cardiac Mapping Market in 2019, and it is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Atrial Fibrillation is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Indication, the Cardiac Mapping Market studied across Atrial Fibrillation, Atrial Flutter, and Atrioventricular Nodal Reentry Tachycardia (Avnrt). The Atrial Fibrillation commanded the largest size in the Cardiac Mapping Market in 2019, and it is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. Based on Technology, the Cardiac Mapping Market studied across Cardiac Radionuclide Imaging, Magnetic Navigation System, Remote Navigation System, and Robotic Navigation System. "The Ambulatory Surgical Center is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on End User, the Cardiac Mapping Market studied across Ambulatory Surgical Center, Diagnosis Center, and Hospital & Clinic. The Hospital & Clinic commanded the largest size in the Cardiac Mapping Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Ambulatory Surgical Center is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Asia-Pacific is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Geography, the Cardiac Mapping Market studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region surveyed across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region surveyed across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region surveyed across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. The Americas commanded the largest size in the Cardiac Mapping Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. Company Usability Profiles: The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Cardiac Mapping Market including Abbott Laboratories, Acutus Medical, Angiodynamics, APN Health, LLC, Biosense Webster, Inc., Biosig Technologies, Inc., Biotronik, Boston Scientific Corporation, Coremap, EP Solutions Sa, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Lepu Medical, Medtronic PLC, and Microport Scientific Corporation. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Cardiac Mapping Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Cardiac Mapping Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Cardiac Mapping Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Cardiac Mapping Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Cardiac Mapping Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Cardiac Mapping Market? 6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Cardiac Mapping Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940048/?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 A number of people injured in the Troubles have welcomed the decision not to reappoint Victims' Commissioner Judith Thompson. She will not have her contract extended when her term finishes next month. It is understood she wished to remain in the role, but First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill decided against it. In advance of the establishment of the Troubles pension last year, Ms Thompson gave advice to the Northern Ireland Office about how it should be implemented. Under the Victims and Survivors (NI) Order 2006 there is no distinction between those injured as they carried out terrorist attacks and the people who were killed or injured by them. Ms Thompson stated that she had to act in accordance with what the law stated. Gary Murray, whose sister Leanne died in the Shankill 1993 bombing, said it was the correct decision to drop Ms Thompson because of the pensions controversy. Sean Kelly was found guilty of the atrocity in which nine people, including two children, were killed and the IRA man himself was badly hurt. "I don't think she was right for us at all," he said. He claimed that under Ms Thompson convicted paramilitaries could have received the pension, "but I disagree with that because he's a multiple murderer and the Shankill bomber". "That's the reason why I went off her a good bit," he added. "Innocent victims need help. They're not getting any younger and I know a lot of people in [victims' groups] Wave Trauma Centre and South East Fermanagh Foundation that have got injuries from bombs and they are not getting any help. "People are dying off so we need a good Victims' Commissioner who is going to stand for innocent victims of the Troubles." Sammy Heenan from Rathfriland, Co Down, also agreed with the decision not to reappoint Ms Thompson. He felt that she had failed to grasp the depth of "hurt and anger" that exists within the community of innocent victims. Mr Heenan was orphaned when he was aged just 12 after his father was shot by an IRA gunman outside his Legananny home in 1985. "She made some decisions over her tenure that very much caused further hurt," he explained. "One of the most important things to any innocent victim of terrorism in Northern Ireland is the 2006 definition of a victim, and I don't think once she ever called for the removal of that. "She should have been standing up for the innocent victim and making no moral equivalence between the victim and the perpetrator." Kenny Donaldson of Innocent Victims United said the group had called for Ms Thompson's contract not to be renewed last year. He said that the focus needs to be shifted to the future but feels there must be an urgent review of the operations of the Victims' Commissioner's office. Changing the personnel without reviewing the purpose and priorities of the office would be a "futile exercise", said Mr Donaldson. "The new commissioner, when appointed, will have to hit the ground running and will need to demonstrate genuine empathy with those whom they are in a privileged position to advocate for. "On a personal level, we wish Judith Thompson well." Wave Trauma Centre, another group that provides care and support for people affected by the Troubles, also tweeted that it wished Ms Thompson well. "We need a strong champion for victims and survivors now more than ever who is prepared to speak truth to power," it said. Ulster Unionist justice spokesman Doug Beattie said it was "no surprise" that Ms Thompson's term of office wasn't extended due to her "reluctance" to ensure terrorists were not treated the same as victims within the pension scheme. Despite the decision over Ms Thompson's tenure being welcomed by some victims of the Troubles, SDLP legacy spokeswoman Dolores Kelly described it as "hugely disappointing". "It is disappointing that the First Ministers have decided not to reappoint the Victims' Commissioner at a critical juncture for victims and survivors as they seek to secure a pension for those who sustained life changing physical and psychological injuries," said the Upper Bann MLA. "Judith Thompson has been engaged in these discussions, is aware of the live issues and has done a tremendous amount of work on behalf of victims and survivors." The Office of the First and Deputy First Ministers was contacted twice and asked to explain why the decision had been taken not to reappoint Ms Thompson. There was no response. The coronavirus pandemic has given the world a chance to reflect and take "outrageously" bold decisions to create a new order where there is no global warming, no wealth concentration and no unemployment, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus has said. He was speaking to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, as part of the latter's dialogue with leading experts. The Congress party on Friday released the video of the pre-recorded interview with the Bangladeshi economist. "COVID-19 pandemic has given us a chance to reflect on how big, bold decisions can be taken. It has given us a window of thinking and we have a choice, whether we go to that terrible world which is going to destroy itself anyway or we go someplace else and build a new world where there will be no global warming, no wealth concentration, no unemployment," the pioneer of micro credit financing said. Yunus also called for making a new beginning towards a system that will create space for the informal and rural economy and all sections of society. Stressing the need to recognise the poor, the migrants, the women at the lowest strata of society, Yunus said, "We have to recognise these people (migrant workers). Economics doesnt recognise them. They call it informal sector. Informal sector means we have nothing to do with them, they are not part of economy. We're busy with formal sector." Yunus' stress on reorienting the informal and rural economy, especially the former, is significant as the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the informal economy hard. Informal economy is a huge contributor to the economy, supporting over 90 per cent of the 465 million workforce. The economic impact on the informal sector is going to have a direct effect on the rural economy as the 2016-17 Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) pegged 95 per cent of the rural economy to be engaged in the informal sector. But the figure could be misleading as most of those in informal sector are engaged in farming activities. Moreover, rural India has been largely insulated from the COVID-19 pandemic but the situation could turn for the worst as migrants have reached their villages during the lockdown. "Workers have chosen to return to their native place, thus starting paths of migration from urban hotspots to more isolated communities, potentially allowing for greater spread into vulnerable communities," a SEWA report has said. Yunus criticised the western economic model, saying it is based on treating the urban economy as the hub and the rural economy as the supplier of labour. His criticism coincides with India facing one of the biggest internal migration of the labour force from urban centres to rural areas. His criticism is not off the mark. As per the 2016-17 PLFS, 121 million workers in urban areas belong to the informal sector, with a large number of them coming from rural hinterland of India. As per reports, at least 93 million of them are involved in manufacturing; trade, hotel and restaurant; construction; transport, storage and communications; and finance, business and real estate. All these sectors, especially manufacturing, hotel and real estate have been hit by the lockdown-induced migration. He stressed on building an autonomous economy, citing how he built Grameen Bank on trust. Millions of dollars could be loaned to the poor just on trust and they would return the amount with interest, he said. "How did we do that in Grameen Bank? People were shocked. I said we believe in their capacity. They believe in us. There is no collateral. Grameen Bank is the only bank in the world which is lawyer free. A bank built on trust where millions of dollars are given and come back with interest," said Yunus, adding, that when micro credit was given to women they showed how much entrepreneurial capacity they had. Yunus also emphasised the need to value human culture, saying that everything the world has done is to fuel greed which has destroyed everything. "This is the chance I said, corona has given us a chance to reflect...In normal situations you will not pay attention to all these things. We are so busy making money," noted the economist. As part of his dialogues with various experts, Gandhi has in the past spoken to leading global economists Raghuram Rajan and Abhijit Banerjee, internationally renowned epidemiologist Johann Giesceke, global public health expert Ashish Jha, Indian industrialist Rajiv Bajaj, and former US diplomat Nicholas Burns. In a historic session this week, the CEOs of four of the world's biggest technology giants appeared before a House subcommittee to answer wide-ranging questions about their anti-competitive practices and allegations they leveraged their powerful platforms to harm competitors. Each executive had time in the spotlight. Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos faced several inquiries over the e-commerce giant's use of third-party seller data in developing its own competing products, while Apple's Tim Cook came under criticism for the smartphone leader's App Store policies. Google parent Alphabet's Sundar Pichai may have received the most attention, facing repeated questioning about the company's ad platform dominance and search-engine practices. Then there was Facebook. When it came to questioning the social-media giant's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, lawmakers zeroed in on the company's size and prior acquisitions, including Instagram and the messaging platform WhatsApp. In response, the executive defended his company's scale, implying the US needed a strong Facebook to battle against the growing global competitive threat from Chinese internet companies. He also emphasised that the success of Instagram was by no means assured when it was acquired eight years ago. Zuckerberg is right about this point. Facebook's resources definitely were instrumental in Instagram's rise. But that was then, what about now? The reality is, with the company's ownership of the top two social media apps, Facebook has now become too dominant in a critical category that's only growing in importance to the daily lives of consumers. State Bank reviews the cement industrys performance for the period 9MFY20 31 July 2020 The State Bank of Pakistan released its 3QFY20 report on The State of Pakistans Economy on 30 July. According to the report, successful stabilisation measures that had fostered macroeconomic improvement in July 2019-February 2020 provided a valuable cushion against the downturn faced from late March 2020 onward in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. The cement industry was also recovering during July 2019-February 2020. Cement dispatches rose by 10 per cent during this period compared to zero growth during FY19. Robust local sales in the north and export-led growth in the south put the cement industry on the path of recovery. However, dispatches were down by 14.3 per cent during March 2020. On the whole, though, the sector grew during 9MFY20 and is expected to make some recovery following the recently-announced incentive package to the construction industry. Some revival in construction activity was apparent as PSDP spending was higher during 3QFY20 as compared to last year. However, the financial position of most cement firms remained weak (evident from after-tax losses booked in the third quarter), as an overall economic slowdown did not allow them to pass on the impact of higher taxation and freight to end-consumers. As a result, the sector borrowed an additional PKR13.7bn (US$82m) during the quarter, taking the cumulative borrowing to PKR20.6bn in the Jul-Mar period. Cement exports dropped five per cent to US$210m in 9MFY20. Disaggregated data shows that volumetric exports of Portland cement and clinker both increased in the 7MFY20 period, whereas unit prices for both had dropped. Faced with slowing local dispatches and trade disruptions with India (a significant destination in the past), the cement manufacturers have revived traditional markets, such as Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, and diversified towards some African countries, such as Madagascar and Mozambique. These markets accounted for the bulk of increase recorded in quantum Portland cement exports. Meanwhile, Bangladesh accounted for almost the entire rise in Pakistan's clinker exports, with indications that Pakistani firms are eating into Vietnam's share in the Bangladesh market owing to Vietnam's increased focus on the Chinese market. Published under C ovid-19 is "bubbling up" in between 10 and 30 areas around the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned. Mr Johnson warned that "tough local lockdowns" are needed in areas that see a spike in cases to prevent a second wave of the virus while visiting Northallerton in Yorkshire. He added that the virus is "going down" in Leicester, the first city to see a local lockdown, which has now seen shops reopen. It came as the Prime Minister announced that the further easing of lockdown restrictions in England, including allowing small wedding receptions and the reopening of bowling alleys and casinos, had been postponed for at least two weeks. The easing was due to take place in August 1, but will instead take place on August 15. Boris Johnson made the comments in Northallerton / PA The Prime Minister told Sky News: "It's absolutely vital as a country we continue to keep our focus and our discipline and that we don't delude ourselves that somehow we're out of the woods or that this is all over because it isn't all over. "I am afraid there are about between 10 and 30 places where you are seeing a bubbling up a little bit", he said. British Prime Minster Boris Johnson bumps elbows with a police officer during a visit to North Yorkshire Police t / REUTERS He added: "I think the country as a whole understands that the best way to deal with this is if we have tough local lockdowns." Northern England is now the epicentre of the virus in the UK with the areas with the highest number of cases being Blackburn with Darwen (85.3), Leicester (57.7), Oldham (53.1), Bradford (44.9) and Trafford (39.3). President Donald Trump said Thursday that federal officers who were stationed at the courthouse in downtown Portland will remain in the city through at least Friday to see if Gov. Kate Brown and Mayor Ted Wheeler clear out protesters Trump described as beehive of terrorists. If Brown and Wheeler do not succeed, Trump threatened to send in the National Guard. Thursday was the first day of a phased withdrawal of federal officers from the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, where protests against police violence and systemic racism have continued more than 60 days. The focus shifted more recently to federal police tactics, after officers seriously injured multiple people with impact munitions and unidentified agents swept at least two protesters into unmarked vans. Portland police swept people from a park adjacent to the federal courthouse early Thursday morning and Oregon State Police assumed control of the area around the courthouse Thursday afternoon. The Trump administration reached agreement with Browns office earlier in the week for the federal withdrawal. But the president claimed Thursday they wouldnt necessarily leave. Our people are staying there to see whether or not (the Oregon State Police and Portland police) can do it today and tomorrow and if they dont do it, we will send in the National guard and well take care of it, Trump said. The president made the remarks during a televised coronavirus briefing, in response to a question from a reporter for One America News, a conservative network known for friendly coverage of the president. The reporter asked if Trump was confident Brown and Wheeler could quell the protest in Oregon. Many should be arrested because these are professional agitators, these are professional anarchists, these are people who hate our country, Trump said. Brown and Wheeler are working today and probably tomorrow to clean out this beehive of terrorists. And if they do, it Im going to be very happy, and then slowly we can start to leave the city. If they dont do it, well be sending in the National Guard. Neither Trump nor federal officials have offered any evidence that professional agitators are at work. In fact, an AP analysis released Thursday found that most of the 200 people arrested during downtown Portland protests are local white people, often college students, with no previous criminal record in Oregon. Hillary Borrud Lloyds Banking Group dived into the red as it warned of the pandemic's 'profound' impact on the economy and said up to 5.5billion in loans could go bad. The High Street lender said it had put aside a further 2.4billion in preparation for customers defaults, adding to 1.4billion it stockpiled earlier this year. And Lloyds said total provisions for the year could rise to between 4.5billion and 5.5billion, up to 1.7billion more than current levels, after warning that virus lockdown measures dealt a 'larger than expected' hit to the economy. With the cost of the virus mounting, the bank reported a 676m loss for the second quarter, down from a 1.3bn profit a year earlier. Reeling: Lloyds, headed by Antonio Horta-Osorio, said total provisions for the year could rise to between 4.5billion and 5.5billion Rival Standard Chartered also lifted its provisions for bad debts to 1.2billion, up from 733m previously, just a day after Barclays and Santander revealed they had now put aside a combined 10billion. Further grim numbers are expected from state-owned Natwest, formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland, today. Lloyds chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio said: 'The impact of the coronavirus pandemic in the first half of 2020 has been profound on the way we live our lives and on the global economy. We remain fully focused on helping our customers and the UK economy recover, in collaboration with the Government and our regulators.' Under tough accounting rules introduced after the financial crisis, banks are required to set aside cash for loans that could end up going bad. And as coronavirus has wreaked havoc on the global economy, major lenders have stashed increasingly large sums away in preparation for the deep recession that has followed. Of the provision revealed by Lloyds, a big slice was in preparation for mortgage loans it fears could go bad. The bank said it had set aside 603m in the first half of 2020, blaming 'the additional reduction in house price forecasts'. It also stashed 656m in anticipation of people falling into arrears with credit card payments, as well as 241m for car financing deals that could turn sour. In a bleak sign for the economy, the bank said its 'base case' assumes that unemployment in Britain will soar from the current rate of 3.9 per cent to 9 per cent in the final three months of the year, when the Government's furlough scheme is due to end. In its worst-case scenario, Lloyds said GDP could drop by 17.2 per cent this year and unemployment could peak at 12.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2021 even higher than the 12 per cent peak during the 1980s. It said the road ahead remained 'highly uncertain'. Claudia Conway, the 15-year-old daughter of Kellyanne and George Conway, made her return to Twitter Wednesday complete with sharp jabs at Trump, compelling her audience to vote, and jokingly asking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to adopt her. Earlier this month, the 15-year-old influencer tweeted that her parents were forcing her to delete her social media accounts. "Got my phone back! probably wont have it for long though considering i'm about to revolutionize twitter brb," she tweeted to her nearly 132,000 followers Wednesday. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway and her husband George Conway arrive for a candlelight dinner at Union Station on the eve of the 58th presidential inauguration in Washington, U.S., January 19, 2017. Picture taken January 19, 2017. Joshua Roberts/Reuters Claudia Conway, the 15-year-old daughter of Kellyanne and George Conway, made her return to Twitter Wednesday after announcing earlier this month that her parents were forcing her to delete her social media accounts. "Got my phone back! probably wont have it for long though considering i'm about to revolutionize twitter brb," she tweeted to her nearly 132,000 followers Wednesday. In a series of tweets since she said she had her phone, she took sharp jabs at President Donald Trump, for whom her mother works as a senior advisor. After Trump said he canceled throwing the first pitch at the New York Yankees game due to the coronavirus, which he referred to as the "China Virus," Claudia made a list of aspects of his tweet that she disagreed with. Related video: A top economist has radical plan to change American voting system She encouraged her audience to vote on Election Day in her, writing, "don't feed into the fire. we must get him OUT. i am compelling my younger audience, if you can, to VOTE. every vote counts." In one of her tweeted replies, Claudia Conway also jokingly asked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to adopt her. Some people lashed out at Claudia Conway for being so outspoken on her anti-Trump viewpoint, especially given the position of her mother. The 15-year-old countered by tweeting, "this also goes to all the adults in my life who choose to belittle me in 'defense' of my mother. it's none of your business. i am my own person. i possess just as much respect and intellect as you do. what i do and how i use my platform is for the betterment of my generation." While Claudia Conway's mother has been known to support the president his views, the same can't be said for her father George Conway. A conservative lawyer and anti-Trump activist, George Conway founded the anti-Trump conservative PAC The Lincoln Project. Read the original article on Insider Atlanta Herman Cain, former Republican presidential candidate and former CEO of a major pizza chain who went on to become an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, has died of complications from the coronavirus. He was 74. A post on Cain's Twitter account Thursday announced the death. Cain had been ill with the virus for several weeks. It's not clear when or where he was infected, but he was hospitalized after attending Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., in June. Cain had been co-chair of Black Voices for Trump. "We knew when he was first hospitalized with COVID-19 that this was going to be a rough fight," read an article posted on the Twitter account. In a condolence tweet Thursday, Trump described Cain as "a Powerful Voice of Freedom and all that is good." "Herman had an incredible career and was adored by everyone that ever met him, especially me," Trump wrote. "He was a very special man, an American Patriot, and great friend." Cain, who had hoped to become the first Black politician to win the GOP nomination, was initially considered a long-shot candidate. His bid was propelled forward in September 2011 when he won a straw poll vote in Florida, becoming an alternative candidate for Republican voters concerned that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was not conservative enough. But Cain struggled to respond to accusations that he had sexually harassed several women and in a video on the internet rambled uncomfortably when asked whether he supported or opposed President Barack Obama's policies in Libya. There were also gaffes on abortion and torture that led Cain's critics to question whether he was ready for the White House. Just as Cain started surging in the polls, Politico reported that the National Restaurant Association paid settlements to two former employees who claimed Cain sexually harassed them while he was CEO and president of the lobbying group Cain honed his speaking skills in the corporate world, then hosted a radio talk show in Atlanta that introduced his political views and life story to many tea party supporters and other conservatives. He first ventured into national politics in 1994 when he publicly challenged President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, on his proposal to force employers to buy health insurance for their employees. The restaurant industry used Cain as a spokesman as it campaigned against Clinton's plan, which ultimately failed. Cain served as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City from 1992 to 1996. After moving back to his native Georgia, he ran for U.S. Senate as a Republican in 2004. He lost in the primary. Less than two years later, Cain was diagnosed with late-stage cancer in his colon that had spread to his liver. He recovered and later credited God with persuading him to run for president. Cain projected a self-confident image that at times bordered on arrogance. He referred to himself in the third person. Born in the segregated South, his father worked three jobs, while his mother was a servant. He graduated from Morehouse College, received a master's degree from Purdue University and worked as a civilian mathematician in the U.S. Navy. While it was a good job, Cain said his ambitions were in the corporate world. He worked first for Coca-Cola, became a vice president with Pillsbury, then was appointed to run its struggling Burger King unit in the Philadelphia area. His success prompted Pillsbury officials to ask Cain to take over its floundering Godfather's Pizza chain. Cain is survived by his wife, Gloria Etchison, their children and grandchildren. ALBANY - Despite a soaring demand for home health care over fears of staying in congregate facilities due to the pandemic, 5,100 home health aides in the Hudson Valley leave the job each year because of low pay and inadequate benefits, a report unveiled this week found. Home health care workers and advocates say the sector is the fastest growing workforce in the Hudson Valley and could serve to boost an economy devastated by the ramifications of responding to COVID-19, but efforts must be made to improve working conditions and make the industry a quality career path. Now New York needs to rapidly expand and invest in our home care workforce to meet the growing needs of our aging population, keep New Yorkers safe during COVID-19, and reinvigorate our economy," said Ilana Berger, co-director of the New York Caring Majority. "Home care workers are essential as our population ages and in the midst of a public health crisis allowing those who are aging, ill, or immuno-compromised to live safely and out of nursing homes. It's time to fix our strained long-term care system and end the massive home care shortage crisis." Even though workers largely consider their work rewarding, the report found there will be over 64,000 job openings for home health and personal care aides in the Hudson Valley between 2016 and 2026, the annual median income for aides in the region is about $18,400, 24% of those workers live in poverty and 39% of workers are on Medicaid. It also found that two in five workers surveyed are poised to leave the industry soon. Meanwhile, the state Department of Labor predicted in 2018 that the home health aide occupation in New York would see a 66 percent rise in employment over the next 10 years the second-highest projected increase in the state behind solar photovoltaic installers. Tyler Tunison, who has worked as a home care worker in the Hudson Valley for four years, led a virtual news conference on Wednesday to unveil the report commissioned jointly with Hand in Hand and the New York Caring Majority, organizations who advocate for respectful working conditions for domestic and home care workers and employers as well as seniors and people with disabilities. Staff from CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies conducted the report. I have seen how my work helps people with disabilities and seniors to live dignified lives. Now, with the coronavirus, I see how invaluable our work as home care workers truly is, Tunison said. Over 40% of coronavirus deaths in the country are linked to nursing homes. Home is truly the safest place to be. Home care work is more necessary than ever - but there arent enough home care workers to meet the demand. The report recommends hazard, or premium, pay for home care workers providing services amid the public health crisis; adequate access to personal protective equipment; sufficient paid time off; and other benefits required for essential workers. To do that, the report suggests New York raise state revenue rather than cut Medicaid; increase compensation and benefits for the career path to attract and retain workers; fund innovative pilot projects through a Home Care Jobs Innovation Fund; invest economic development funding into home care; and create a universal, long-term care plan that ensures coverage for all who need it. State Sen. Jen Metzger, D-Ulster County, fears there will be a crisis of care for the Hudson Valley if the disparities in the field are not addressed. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. This report shows that, on the whole, home healthcare workers find their work gratifying, but they leave these jobs in droves because they can't afford to put enough food on their own tables or pay for their own healthcare, said said State Senator Jen Metzger. I look forward to continuing to work with Hand in Hand and my fellow legislators to create the conditions for the kind of strong home care workforce we need here in the Hudson Valley. Other legislators echoed Metzgers sentiments, pledging to work with colleagues to push forward bills and initiatives that invest in the important service. Assemblywoman Didi Barrett, D-Hudson, and Sen. Shelley Mayer, D-Westchester, also noted how home care workers are mostly women, people of color and immigrants and the socioeconomic status of those in the field compared to some areas further underscores the stark disparities. I think that its time we change that paradigm and ensure that the value of this work which is essential is paid for and valued in our society in the same way it is valued by families it impacts on a day-to-day basis, Barrett said. Artur Vanetsian, the former National Security Service (NSS) director leading an opposition party, accused the Armenian authorities of trying to silence him after being questioned on Friday in an investigation launched by the NSS. Vanetsian was summoned to the NSS to explain a personnel decision which he made while running Armenias most powerful security agency in 2018. An NSS spokesman, Artur Gevorgian, said he is suspected of hiring a retired 51-year-old officer and giving him a senior NSS position in breach of an Armenian law. He said the law stipulates that only individuals aged 50 or younger can be appointed to such posts. Vanetsians decision may have therefore amounted to an abuse of power, Gevorgian told RFE/RLs Armenian service. Vanetsian flatly denied breaking the law when he spoke to journalists after spending about 30 minutes inside the NSS headquarters in Yerevan. He said he refused to give his former subordinates any explanations. Its yet another fabricated and politically motivated case, claimed Vanetsian. For the past eight months the authorities have doing everything to prosecute me with the aim of stopping my political activities. They probably have trouble reading and understanding the law, he said. I mean not NSS investigators but Armenias political leadership and the current NSS director. Vanetsians lawyer, Lusine Sahakian, insisted, for her part, that even if the alleged violation occurred it did not constitute a criminal offense. Vanetsian was appointed as head of the NSS following the 2018 Velvet Revolution and quickly became an influential member of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinians entourage. He resigned last September after falling out with Pashinian for still unclear reasons. The 40-year-old has since repeatedly accused Pashinian of incompetence and misrule, prompting angry responses from Pashinian and his political allies. Hrachya Hakobian, a pro-government parliamentarian and Pashinians brother-in-law, denied any political persecution of Vanetsian. Our public knows who and how has been subjected to political persecution in the past, he said. Vanetsian called for the prime ministers resignation shortly before setting up an opposition party, called Hayrenik (Fatherland), in February. In late June, Hayrenik and two other opposition parties, Prosperous Armenia (BHK) and Dashnaktsutyun, pledged to work together in challenging the government and restoring the constitutional order. The move followed criminal charges brought against BHK leader Gagik Tsarukian. The latter rejects them as politically motivated. Vanetsian predicted on Friday that very active political processes, possibly including anti-government protests, will unfold in Armenia soon. The authorities have failed in all spheres, he charged. We are facing a health crisis, an economic crisis and other problems. Instead of getting things done and solving the problems, the authorities are busy trying to silence their political opponents. After the coronavirus recedes and the state of emergency is lifted, we will see what kind of protests there will be, who will take part in them and how they will be led, countered Hakobian. A research group headed by Stanford University scientists has developed a scalable, high throughput method to generate high fidelity whole genome and HLA sequencing, viral genomes, and representation of human transcriptome from single nasopharyngeal swabs of coronavirus disease (COVID19) patients. Their results are published on the medRxiv* preprint server. The ongoing and highly disruptive COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has crippled health care systems around the world and resulted in tremendous morbidity and mortality. As with other virus outbreaks in the past, viral sequencing has been crucial, although limited by high costs and low throughput. Moreover, the collection of associated host genomic data (which can aid in familial relationship tracking and genetic risk appraisal) has been hampered by the requirement for multiple sampling. Therefore, there is a pressing need for protocols that can open the door for producing these data in real-time and at scale. This will not only significantly contribute to infection tracking, but also inform further development of therapeutics. In this groundbreaking study, researchers from Stanford University, Chan Zuckerburg Biohub, University of Lausanne, and Illumina Inc. described a method for achieving simultaneous viral and host sequencing from single SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic nasopharyngeal swab residuals. Viral and Host genomes and transcriptomes from a single nasopharyngeal swab. This method allows for independent RNA and DNA isolation from nasopharyngeal swab VTM, enabling viral genome sequencing, detection of host transcriptome, low pass host genome sequencing and HLA sequencing in high throughput. Analyzing hundreds of samples simultaneously The researchers used low-pass whole host genome sequencing as an alternative to array-based genotyping in order to provide rich information for trait mapping at scale, which can regularly yield DNA of adequate quality for host genome and HLA sequencing. Furthermore, they have presented a high-throughput RNA sequencing workflow for sequencing full viral genomes, and human transcriptome reads from hundreds of samples at the same time. Finally, the researchers described how exactly this method could be used to create a robust multi-omic foundation for data integration and sharing across global institutions especially since global data repositories have been pivotal for advancing research before and during the current pandemic. Copious data from a single nasopharyngeal swab "Here we demonstrate that a single nasopharyngeal swab can reveal substantial host and viral genomic information in a high-throughput manner that will facilitate public health pandemic tracking and research into the mechanisms underlying virus-host interactions", study authors summarize their main findings. Albeit nasopharyngeal swabs have been used in the past to perform whole-genome sequencing of respiratory viruses in low throughput, this method significantly accelerates the process both in terms of time and number of subjects sequenced. More specifically, a comparable rate of viral genomic coverage was described, with the capability of studying at least ten times the number of samples in a single sequencing run. "Using the consensus sequences derived from the initial cohort reported here, as well as samples collected later in March 2020, we created a phylogenetic tree, which allows critical public health phylodynamic tracking", researchers add. What is also fascinating is that the same nasopharyngeal swab can be used to gather an abundance of human genomics data, and it often yields sufficient DNA to pursue deep sequencing of HLA type, which is a crucial component of the host immune response. A strong multi-omic foundation for data integration and sharing across global institutions. Using these methods in combination with electronic health record abstraction, and digital medicine, the methods described here builds the foundation for a data repository allowing rapid access to critical data on CoVID19 or any other pandemic via open-source sharing. The rise of multi-omic data repositories "Although our initial swab collection did not reveal any viral co-infections, especially as the current pandemic enters the regular flu and cold season, our method allows for acceleration of metagenomics analysis," study authors emphasize the importance of their findings. Arguably the most significant application of the proposed workflow is that it allows rapid development of large scale, multicentric, and even global host and viral multi-omic data repositories. With this method, the number of viral genomes comparable to the submissions of SARS-CoV-2 data since the start of the pandemic could be produced by less than a hundred sequencing centers within weeks, along with matched host genome, transcriptome and HLA typing. And this is basically an indispensable scaffold for integrating such complex inputs to centralized data repositories, enabling, in turn, unparalleled rapidity of the discovery and implementation needed to overcome a devastating COVID-19 pandemic. *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. Russian Oligarchs Find Way To Bypass U.S. Sanctions Through Secrecy Of Art Sales By RFE/RL July 30, 2020 Two Russian oligarchs have been able to bypass U.S. sanctions barring them from U.S. financial systems by taking advantage of lax laws governing high-priced art purchases in the United States, according to a congressional report released on July 29 following a two-year investigation. The report details how investigators traced more than $18 million in art purchases at U.S. auction houses and private sales back to three shell companies linked to Russian brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg. The secret nature of high-value art sales in which buyers often remain anonymous has given the Rotenbergs access to the U.S. economy despite sanctions imposed against them after Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, the report found. The Rotenbergs, who are close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, made a fortune through contracts related to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Their U.S. assets were frozen in March 2014 under sanctions designed to punish Putin and his close associates over the annexation of Crimea. The sanctions also barred U.S. companies from doing business with them. The report, issued by the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said the Rotenbergs found a way to bypass the sanctions by moving money through shell companies and investing it in the high-value art. The shell companies moved at least $91 million through the U.S. financial system after the sanctions were imposed, the report found. U.S. auction houses acknowledged that they never ask for the identity of the buyer in purchases made by an intermediary, the report found. The report called this a loophole that exempts art sales from financial safeguards aimed at stopping money laundering. "It is alarming and completely unacceptable that common sense regulations designed to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism do not apply if someone is purchasing a multimillion-dollar piece of art," said Senator Tom Carper (Democrat-Delaware), the committee's top Democrat. The investigation found that the Rotenbergs attempted to conceal the activity by hiding behind Moscow-based art adviser and dealer Gregory Baltser, a naturalized U.S. citizen. Baltser's attorneys categorically denied the allegations, writing in a statement quoted by Politico that neither Baltser nor his agency "has ever, at any time, represented or transacted in any way with Boris or Arkady Rotenberg." The Rotenbergs could not be reached for comment, according to the Associated Press and Politico. The New York Times quoted a representative of the Rotenbergs as saying they had never circumvented sanctions. There are now calls for legislative remedies that would end the secretive nature of art purchases, including an amendment to the Bank Secrecy Act to add businesses handling transactions involving high-value art. The Rotenbergs are the only sanctioned individuals the panel says it could confidently determine were benefiting from U.S. art sales, but they are likely "only the tip of the iceberg," the report said. The report also points to new anti-money laundering rules the European Union adopted for expensive art deals requiring the verification of the identity of the buyer and seller in transactions over $10,000. With reporting by AP, Politico, and The New York Times Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian- oligarchs-u-s-sanctions-art- sales-putin/30756282.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address If you're wondering how far you can go along in life as a young millennial, Polish model Alicja Tubilewicz's journey is undoubtedly a tale to know. At an early age, she walked the fashion runways for Dior, Chanel, Valentino and many other top designers at the fashion capitals of Milan, Paris, New York and London. She was featured in editorials for Vogue, Numero, Harper's Bazaar, Madam Figaro, Marie Claire and Elle magazine and has volunteered for UNICEF. Revered for her sharp, striking features, especially her bright green eyes and a fresh, delicate face, Alicja Tubilewicz credits her fashion and editorial success to a unique talent. She believes that she carries the ability to mold her expressions into the look the photographer needs. "In London, people told me they could stylize my face into looks for both girls and women," she shared. Indeed, it's a talent that's taking her places. From her hometown in Pila, Poland, the model has moved to international runways and fashion shows with practiced ease. She has left scores dazed with her confidence in New York, Milan, London and Paris. Here, she has worked for classic brands like Dior, Chanel, Miu Miu, Dolce & Gabbana, Elie Saab and Hermes. However, her ability to transform into the character for the shoot ensures that no two appearances look the same. Editorially, she's been the face for the Polish editions of Vogue, Pop, Marie Claire, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Madame Figaro, Rollacoaster Magazine and L'Officiel. "I've been to all the major fashion cities, and many destinations around the world, such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Europe, China and even Singapore. I feel overwhelmed at the honor and hope to have a chance to achieve even greater success further down the line", she added. "I would like to lend the recognition that I have to spotlight social causes that need the right public attention." She does this with her work as a UNICEF ambassador and raising awareness during the current coronavirus crisis. She's taken to her social media accounts to talk about precautions against the spread of COVID-19. Most recently Alicja Tubilewicz has focused on her blog (www.fashionworldbyalicja.com) which sheds light on the day to day life and behind the scenes view of a fashion model, with focus on healthy lifestyles, skincare, fashion, fitness secrets and travel. Her blog has grown in popularity and has become a real inspiration for all aspiring models and fashionistas. No one can lawfully embark on any type of protest action unless they notify the Commissio A health worker takes blood sample from a person to test for COVID-19 (Photo: VNA) Hanoi Vietnam reported five new COVID-19 infections in the central province of Quang Nam on July 30 afternoon, announced the National Steering Committee on COVID-19 Prevention and Control. All the five patients, including four women, had links to the outbreak at Da Nang Hospital in the central city of Da Nang. Among Vietnams total 464 confirmed patients, 276 are imported cases who were immediately quarantined upon arrival. At present, 18 patients have tested negative for the virus at least once. The number of community transmission cases since July 25 climbed to 48. More than 81,540 people who had close contact with COVID-19 patients or returning from pandemic-hit areas are being quarantined across the country, including 472 at hospital, 14,213 at concentrated facilities and 66,861 at their accommodations. On July 27, after a week of daily airstrikes attributed to Israel targeting several Iranian and Hezbollah interests in Syria, the Israeli military said a few of the Lebanese groups fighters crossed into the disputed Shebaa Farms area between Lebanon and Israel, triggering tensions on the border. Hezbollah denied that it made the maneuver. This may be an indication that while the balance of power is holding in Syria, Hezbollah is attempting to play a deceptive game to safeguard its credibility with its domestic constituency and Israel on the Lebanese border. In a period of a week, two incidents appear to again pit Hezbollah and Iran against Israel, first in Syria, then in Lebanon. The first was when alleged Israeli attacks in Syria destroyed weapons and ammunition warehouses and killed Iranian-backed non-Syrian and Syrian militiamen in southern and southwestern Damascus, according to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory. Hezbollah announced one death, Ali Kamel Mohsen, known by his nom de guerre Jawad. What will this mean? Nicolas Blanford, a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, said last year that Hezbollah Secretary-General "Sayed Hassan Nasrallah pledged retribution from Lebanon should Israel kill any of its members in Syria. A response was expected from Lebanon. The second incident took place July 27 when Israeli troops apparently thwarted a Hezbollah attack near the border with Lebanon. According to Israeli reports, a Hezbollah cell comprised of three to five fighters crossed the Blue Line a few meters into Israeli-controlled territory in the Shebaa Farm region and was repelled by Israeli troops. Israel then shelled hills surrounding the area. Shebaa Farms was captured by Israel from Lebanon in the 1967 Middle East war. Hezbollah denied any responsibility for the infiltration, attributing the incident to "the state of terror experienced by the Zionist occupation army" and promising retribution for the killing of the Hezbollah fighter in Syria. The two incidents, which fall within the continuous Syria-Lebanon front line with Israel, may be part of Iran's and Hezbollahs playing the long game in Syria, by protecting their strategic interests and their positions there at any price, and in Lebanon, by winning the psychological game at a minimal cost given the challenges the country faces. Syria expert Naswar Shaaban of the Omran Dirasat Center told Al-Monitor that Israel's targets for this strike fell into line with those of previous attacks, which have largely taken place around Sayyida Zeinab, Qeswa, Mazzeh, Daraya and Quneitra. Shaaban said that in part due to conditions imposed by Russia, Iran does "not have the capability to move its equipment and fighters around freely," leaving it vulnerable to Israeli attacks. The lack of response of Hezbollah and Iran to Israeli attacks in Syria despite heavy losses is rooted in Hezbollah's and Tehran's strategic interests there, said Brahim Beyram, a Lebanese journalist and analyst close to Hezbollah. Beyram told Al-Monitor he believes the priority for Tehran is to remain entrenched in Syria not to retaliate for the losses Iran and Hezbollah are incurring. He said Hezbollah has several bases that it will not abandon in Aleppo, Homs, Damascus and close to the Lebanese border. The priority will remain for the protection of its positions there, he said. A third pillar of Hezbollahs and Iran's military thought is psychological and propaganda warfare, whether toward the enemy or toward their popular base. Hezbollah has proven to be adept in playing psychological games with Israel, the infiltration into Israel and the promise of retribution for the death of its fighter in Syria are a case in point, Beyram said. The Lebanese group said its response to the death of Jawad is definitely coming, adding, The Zionists have only to wait for their crimes to be punished. A source close to Hezbollah fighters said that if the organization failed to retaliate properly to the alleged Israeli attack that killed Jawad, its credibility will be further damaged given the unpreceded disastrous economic situation Lebanon is facing. They are caught between a rock and a hard place, the source said. But Middle East Strategy Intelligence analyst Avi Melamed, who closely follows Israeli politics, told Al-Monitor There is absolutely nothing Hezbollah can do whether overt or covert operations disinformation, psychological warfare or any other to stop Israel's attacks on Iran's military infrastructure whenever and wherever Israel decides to. Israel is determined to thwart the Iranian threat in Syria at all costs, including a massive war with Hezbollah. Hezbollah cannot dictate new game rules to Israel. Trying to do that while hoping to avoid a war with Israel could be a fatal miscalculation by Nasrallah. The source close to Hezbollah believes that the party will have to make good on its promise to retaliate, in due time and that given all the pressure it is facing both at home and abroad it was bound to show its teeth, which could translate with an escalation of violence. Deputy Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem has nonetheless dismissed the prospect of any military escalation with Israel. The evolution of the situation on the Lebanese border will have to be carefully monitored in the next few days. Whether Hezbollah chooses or not to respond to Israels attack in Syria, and more importantly whether it can inflict a painful strike against Israel, may define Hezbollah's deterrent power at both the local and regional levels in the future. NEW DELHI Born into a royal family that once ruled the kingdom of Rajpipla in India, he was raised in the familys palaces and mansions and was being groomed to take over a dynasty that goes back 600 years. But then he gave an interview that prompted his mother to disown him and set off protests in his hometown, where he was burned in effigy. Since coming out as gay in that 2006 interview, Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil has faced a torrent of bullying and threats, and was disinherited by his family for a period. But he has also earned global accolades for his L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy, becoming one of the few gay-rights activists in the world with such royal ties. Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to intercede with Turkeys leader to try to ease rising tensions over oil and gas exploration in eastern Mediterranean waters that Cyprus claims as its own, the Cypriot government said Thursday. Associated Press reports in its article Cyprus: Putin to help ease gas search tensions with Turkey that government spokesman Kyriakos Koushos said Putin made the pledge during a 45-minute telephone conversation with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, who appealed to the Russian leader to personally step in so Turkey is convinced to cease its unlawful actions. The European Union has already imposed sanctions on top officials from Turkeys petroleum company and curtailed some funding to Turkey over its pursuit of energy resources in Cypriot waters. The United States has also urged Turkey to stop provocative drilling efforts that increase regional tensions. (Putin) promised that he would intercede with (Turkish) President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan in order to deescalate the crisis, Koushos told reporters. (Putin) assured that hes observing the situation ... with great concern, and always supports the resolution of differences through negotiations based on principles of international law, the government spokesman added. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov plans to travel to the Cypriot capital on Sept. 8 for a more detailed assessment of developments and for joint action to ensure peace and stability in the region, Koushos said. Anastasiades also accepted Putins invitation to visit Moscow when conditions permit. European Union member Cyprus has strong traditional ties with Russia. In its readout of the conversation, the Kremlin said that regional issues, including the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean, and prospects for Cyprus settlement were discussed, along with bilateral issues. Turkey has dispatched warship-escorted research vessels and drill ships numerous times in the last year to search and drill for gas in waters between the two countries where Cyprus claims exclusive economic rights. This week, Ankara backed off from a similar gas exploration bid near three eastern Greek islands that lie close to the Turkish coastline, amid concerns of a military clash with Greece. But Turkey insists that it has rights to offshore energy reserves in the eastern Mediterranean and around ethnically divided Cyprus and says its also acting to protect the interests of Cyprus breakaway Turkish Cypriots. We will carry on with our work in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean until the end, which we began to protect our rights, Erdogan said in a pre-recorded message for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. Nicosia says Turkeys actions violate international law and argues that Ankara is using the Turkish Cypriots as an excuse for for its own regional power grab. Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Turkey doesnt recognize Cyprus as a state and claims 44% of the islands exclusive economic zone as its own. Turkish research vessel Barbaros is currently sailing off Cyprus southeastern coast in an area the island republic has already licensed to Italian and French energy companies for exploration. Earlier, Turkey issued a Navtex, or international maritime safety message, that it would be carrying out a gas search in accordance with international law. Anastasiades called the move unhelpful and further stoking tensions. Although hailing Turkeys suspension of a gas search in the south Aegean, Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas on Thursday called Barbaros actions as a tangible continuation of (Turkeys) lawless behavior. Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias told private Antenna TV that Athens would answer the Cyprus Republics call for support, including backing additional EU sanctions against Turkey. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 17:10:28|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close MOSCOW, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Nine people died and nine others were injured after a minibus collided with a truck early Friday on a highway under construction in Crimea. The road accident occurred on the Tavrida highway in the Belogorsk region of Crimea, the local emergency department said in a statement. "It was established that the driver of the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter minibus lost control of the vehicle, which collided with a Kamaz truck standing on the side of the road," the statement said. The Tavrida highway is a 250-km-long highway. Construction between the cities of Kerch and Sevastopol began in 2017. Enditem Mawson funded to drill gold and silver targets in Mt Isa, Queensland, Australia Posted by Publisher Internet Mawson Resources Limited (?Mawson?) or (the ?Company? https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/mawson-resources-ltd/) (TSX:MAW) (Frankfurt:MXR) (PINKSHEETS: MWSNF) is pleased to announce that Mawson is among 24 companies to receive Queensland State Government support for exploration focused on new economy minerals including silver, copper and gold, aimed to increase exploration and to drive future resource jobs in Australia. Highlights: Mawson will receive $200,000 funding under Collaborative Exploration Initiative (CEI) to fund deep drilling for silver, copper and gold near the world-class silver-lead Cannington mine; The Mt Isa area is one of the most metal-endowed areas of the world, and contains 5% of the world?s silver resources, 1.7% of the world?s copper resources, 21.2% of the world?s lead resources and 11% of the world?s zinc resources, within numerous world-class mines. Most of these mines were discovered within outcrop or subcrop areas. The Mt Isa block extends to the south almost as far under 100-500 metres of cover as it extends on the surface for a combined total of 600 kilometres. The gravity target which Mawson will drill test (?F11?) is part of Mawson?s Mt Isa SE project that encompasses a new search space along the eastern margin of the Mt Isa block; While the Company remains focussed in Finland and Victoria for gold, over the last 3 years Mawson?s strategy has been to acquire district-scale areas undercover and along strike from large mines. The Company has built a significant position of 483 square kilometres of granted exploration licences in the Cloncurry district of Mt Isa, over a combined 60 kilometres of strike, and is surrounded by South32 Ltd and Sandfire Resources Ltd (Figure 1); The F11 target is strike-parallel to South32 Ltd?s Cannington silver-lead mine, the ninth largest silver producer in the world with 12.3?Moz produced in 2019. At its prime in the early 2000s Cannington was the world?s largest single silver producer, and represented about 6% of the world?s primary silver production. Deposit styles sought at F11 include both Cannington silver-zinc (Broken-Hill type) and iron-oxide copper-gold (IOCG); The Queensland grant will fund a single wildcat drill hole to test a coherent and large multi-point residual 1.5 mgal gravity undrilled anomaly (?F11?) with an offset magnetic high. The anomaly has a shallow peak of 400 metres depth and average depth of 600-700 metres. Depth of cover is estimated to be less than 300 metres (Figures 2 and 3). Mr. Hudson, Chairman and CEO, states, ?We are thrilled and thankful to the Queensland Government that Mawson has been recognized for its quiet hunt for silver and copper/gold resources in the prolific Mt Isa region of Australia. The Company has now been funded to drill our best target in the Mt Isa area, located 50 kilometres south-southeast of the silver-lead Cannington mine, which provides a tremendous opportunity in true ?elephant? country. Shareholders can now anticipate results from drill programs from three prospective global precious-metal terrains during the remainder of the year.? The Queensland Government considers exploration critical to keep up with the soaring global demand for tech minerals, creating these grants to put the State resource industry on the front foot. Mawson is among 24 companies to receive State Government funding and is thankful for the support and recognition of our work completed to date. Round 4 of the program was provided under the New Economy Minerals Initiative (NEMI). During 2019, Mawson was successful in receiving co-funding from the Queensland Government Round 2 CEI. This funding enabled Mawson to complete a 936 station, 1 kilometre spaced ground gravity survey and a 4,750 line-kilometre, 200 metre line-spaced aeromagnetic survey across an 80 kilometre long target area in the Mt Isa region. A direct result of the co-funded CEI Round 2 work was the delineation of a number of gravity/magnetic targets which included the definition of the first priority F11 target. Subsequent geophysical modelling and 3D inversion has permitted precise drill targeting of F11. A simple profile model of F11 indicates a complex set of four bodies sourcing the anomaly. The principal anomaly source may have a shallow peak at 400 metres, with most of the body being at a depth to top of 600 to 700 metres. The F11 gravity target is structurally well positioned. It is located 2.5 kilometres and lateral to the interpreted trace of the Cloncurry Fault, a significant regional fault with many splays evident in the seismic line interpretations. South32 Ltd?s Cannington silver-lead mine is proximal to the same fault zone. Additionally, F11 is located at the southeastern tip of a regional gravity feature, suggesting a spatial association with a second order structure parallel to the Cloncurry Fault (Figures 2 and 3). The Mt Isa area contains 5% of the world?s silver resources, 1.7% of the world?s copper resources, 21.2% of the world?s lead resources and 11% of the world?s zinc resources within numerous world-class mines. Most of these mines were discovered within outcrop or subcrop areas. The Mt Isa block extends to the south almost as far under 100-500 metres of cover as it extends on the surface. Mawson?s strategy has been to acquire undercover areas within prospective host sequences in data poor environments. The deposit styles targeted are iron-oxide copper gold (IOCG) deposit or Cannington silver-zinc (Broken-Hill type). Copper, gold, zinc and silver are all considered ?New Economy Minerals? and are vital contributors to a clean, electrified and low carbon new economy. The total resource at Cannington in May 2007 (Bailey, 1998) comprised 43.8 Mt @ 538 g/t silver, 11.6% lead, 4.4% zinc for 758Moz of silver. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, widespread use of geophysical techniques and drilling persistence led to the discovery of a number of major deposits under cover in the Mt Isa region, such as Cannington (about 60?metres deep), Century (40?metres) and the iron oxide-copper-gold type Ernest Henry deposit (40 metres). Since that time, grassroots exploration worldwide has decreased, while the search space depth, driven by technology and increasing exploration maturity has increased. Following the discovery of Cannington in 1990 the area immediately west of Mawson?s tenure area was subject to multiple drilling campaigns as well as ground and airborne geophysical surveys. However, drilling is sparse where cover depths exceed 200-300 metres. Technical and Environmental Background Nick Cook, President 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. 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. On behalf of the Board, \Michael Hudson\????????????????? Michael Hudson, Chairman & CEO Further Information www.mawsonresources.com 1305 ? 1090 West Georgia St., Vancouver, BC, V6E 3V7 Mariana Bermudez (Canada), Corporate Secretary, +1 (604) 685 9316, info@mawsonresources.com In Europe: Swiss Resource Capital AG Jochen Staiger info@resource-capital.ch www.resource-capital.ch? 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. By Associated Press HELSINKI: Nokia has reported better than expected second-quarter earnings on the back of improved margins for telecoms equipment and software despite the coronavirus crisis causing a substantial drop in revenue. The Espoo, Finland-based maker of new-generation 5G mobile and other networks said Friday that its net profit for the April-June period was up 22 per cent at 316 million euros (USD 376 million). Sales were down 11 per cent at 5.1 billion euros. CEO Rajeev Suri said in a statement that the majority of the drop in revenue was "the result of COVID-19 as well as a sharp decline in China based on the prudent approach we have taken in that market." Nokia estimated that the COVID-19 crisis hurt its net sales by about 300 million euros in the second quarter and about 500 million euros in the first half of the year. "We expect that the majority of sales missed in the (second) quarter due to COVID-19 will shift to future periods," Suri said. Suri said that Nokia has now concluded 83 commercial deals for 5G, the new network technology that allows ultra-fast downloading speeds among other things. Along with China's Huawei and Sweden's Ericsson, Nokia is one of the three main providers of 5G networks. Huawei is at the center of a US-China dispute over technology, with the Trump administration saying it can help the Chinese government spy on people, a claim the company denies. Friday marked the last day as a CEO for Suri, a Nokia veteran with 25 years in service and the head of the company since 2014, as his appointed successor Pekka Lundmark takes over on Aug 1. Lundmark, 56, is the former CEO of the Finnish energy group Fortum who has earlier worked at Nokia in various executive positions between 1990 and 2000. In May, Nokia's shareholders approved the appointment of Sari Baldauf, who also has an extensive Nokia background, as the company's new chair. The reason to connect Lewis to Dewey is to highlight and emphasize this idea of democracy as a social and ethical commitment, something that cannot be limited to the ballot box, something that must be lived and practiced in all spheres of life. Marching, speaking, deliberating, educating, persuading these are just some of the actions that help make democracy real. Theyre also the tools well need to defend democracy against the looming threat of autocracy. Just a few hours before Lewiss funeral in Atlanta, President Trump denounced mail-in voting, in one of his now regular attempts to delegitimize the upcoming election. He also raised the idea of pushing the election back, to another date. With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history, he wrote on Twitter. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? Theres no legal way the president can delay or postpone the election. Its date is set by state and federal law and moving it would require a herculean political effort. Trump lacks the patience or capacity to coordinate. But that doesnt mean his language isnt dangerous. Trump is sowing chaos. Hes undermining public faith in the election process and building a constituency of supporters who will treat any result short of his re-election as evidence of fraud and misconduct. And hes been backed thus far by an attorney general who repeats his false claims and gives ominously conditional answers to questions about honoring the democratic process. Asked during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday what he would do if Trump loses the election but refuses to concede, Bill Barr answered, If the results are clear I would leave office, a response that leaves open the possibility of unclear results and a contested outcome. Its fair to say that over the last three and a half years our democratic norms have done little to restrain Trumps most corrupt and authoritarian instincts. Our checks and balances have proved inadequate in the face of a president who sees the Constitution as merely a few pieces of paper. As weve seen with child separation on the border or secretive federal police in Portland, Ore., Trump has tried to extend and expand his authority as much as he can, daring the political system to stop him each time. But while many of our institutions have not been up to the task of confronting Trump, our democracy, meaning individuals and communities and civil society, has. Protest put Trump on the defensive in the days after he took office; protest drew attention to his abuses at the border; and protest over the last three months has helped galvanized many millions more against him. If Trump is defeated, and if he does leave office, it will be because Americans understood, and took seriously, the idea that democracy is a way of living as much as it is a form of government that it is, as Lewis told us, an act and not a state. More than 7.8 million workers lost their jobs in the first half of 2020, putting severe pressure on labour authorities to tackle social security issues. Unemployment is one of the side effects caused by the pandemic, Photo: Dung Minh But contrary to the trend of labour cuts in the context of common difficulties, many businesses in Vietnam respond quickly to the problem to prepare for a new normal. While visiting the Hanoi Centre for Employment Services to carry out procedures for unemployment benefits, 28-year-old Nguyen Thi Oanh was acquainted by an employee of a life insurance company who advised her about the retirement insurance package. Life insurance agent Hong Bien asked Oanh about her job and income, then built a template of the pension fund based on the amount she wanted to receive monthly after retirement. Bien said I only need to pay around VND300 million ($14,400) for 15 years, but when I retire at the age of 60, I would have savings of nearly VND1 billion ($44,400), Oanh said. Oanhs insurance package each month is about VND2.2 million ($96), which she can either pay monthly or once a year. As she got convinced, Oanh plans to use the entire unemployment insurance of more than VND20 million ($870) to pay the first year of this insurance fund, even though she is still unemployed and will not know when she can get a new job. Accepting these benefits will continue to be difficult for a few months, but I may not be unemployed forever. Investing in the future is a smart decision, Oanh said. However, Oanh will not only face difficulties during the next few months, but may also lose her unemployment benefits if she cannot pay the VND2.2 million per month for a minimum of two years. Oanhs story is just one of many unemployed workers. Not only are they secondary victims of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are also creating great pressure on the national social security system if such unemployment is increasingly lasting. Therefore, supporting and creating jobs for these workers is necessary and urgent to minimise negative impacts on society. One of the solutions to help reduce unemployment is to quickly assist businesses in difficulties to stabilise production early and to avoid mass layoffs. A recent survey of VietnamWorks with 400 enterprises and 3,400 jobseekers showed that 40 per cent of businesses were affected by the disease, while 30 per cent of them have cut their staff to maintain operation throughout the crisis. Meanwhile, 10 per cent of companies chose to cut back on wages and benefits. In particular, textile and footwear companies were the most affected group. According to statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam currently has nearly 3,000 enterprises operating in the footwear industry with more than one million employees working in the tanning industry and 500,000 in supporting industries. Meanwhile, the textile industry has about 5,000 businesses and about 2.5 million workers. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 caused the textile and footwear industry and many others to face order shortages. Therefore, many businesses have had to lay off workers. In June, Hue Phong Footwear JSC was forced to end the contracts of over 2,200 workers and relocate its production base to Tra Vinh province. At the same time, PouYuen Vietnam Company Ltd., with more than 60,000 employees, reduced its staff by nearly 2,800 workers and is expected to lay off more than 3,000 more in August. It is predicted that in the next few months, the number of laid-off workers will increase while the main export markets of Vietnam such as the United States, Europe, and China are still affected by the pandemic. Facing these hurdles, many businesses have considered how to cope with them. While some choose to reduce costs by cutting staff, the remainder have shown sufficient capacity to maintain and continue operations. Determining the risk of labour shortage when returning, these businesses are still trying to retain workers. Pham Tien Dung, chairman of PCB Cat Tuong Electronic Production Co., Ltd., said that the biggest concern for businesses is production materials, labour resources, and capital. Therefore, the company clearly identified that retaining workers during and after the pandemic is a top priority. Although it is very difficult, we have never thought of cutting down any employees. In order to retain workers, the company is forced to use the reserve capital to pay their salaries, Dung said. Currently the group employs nearly 100 workers. Meanwhile, 666 enterprises and nearly 17,000 labourers that are part of Hanoi Industrial and Export Processing Zones Management Authority (HIZA) said that, although enterprises are facing difficulties during this stressful pandemic, no business had to close. Le Quang Long, deputy director at the HIZA, said they have instructed their members to support their labourers in accordance with the regulations of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, ensuring that employees are entitled to proper and adequate benefits. In addition, the HIZA has conducted several reforms to support businesses to solve problems and soon re-stabilise their production. Moreover, the HIZAs trade union has also been carrying out social activities such as organising a zero-VND supermarket, and offering rice and other provisions. VIR Thai An New Delhi, Aug 1 : The Committee on Public Undertakings has selected subjects for examination during the year 2020-21, informed the Lok Sabha Secretariat. It was decided at their sitting held on July 29. 11 issues have been chosen for Comprehensive Examination, eight for horizontal study and five subjects for audit based purposes. Among the comprehensive examination, Airports Authority of India (AAI), Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), Food Corporation of India (FCI), NBCC (India) Limited and others feature. As for horizontal study, subjects ranging from Review of Performance of Public Sector Insurance Companies, Performance under CSR by Power Sector CPSUs to Performance under CSR by Coal Sector CPSUs are being decided to be taken up. Among the five audit based examinations by the committee, a report of 2019 relating to Operational Performance of NMDC Limited sits at top along with four others. Committee on Public Undertakings examines the reports and accounts of the PSUs and the CAG audit reports related to PSUs. This committee was established in 1964. KR1 Plc ("KR1" or the "Company") Audited Final Results Managing Director's Report For the year ended 31 December 2019 We are pleased to present the audited final results of the Company for the twelve months ended 31 December 2019. Financial markets tend to explore the boundaries of an asset's value, spiking upwards to test highs, and capitulating downwards at moments of deep uncertainty. These last few years in the crypto markets have seen both ends of the spectrum in full force. The one constant has been the ever expanding number of credible and exciting startup projects launching new disruptive systems using blockchain and decentralised technologies. KR1 has been continuously investing in these new projects through this market volatility cycle. We continued to add new investments to the portfolio, knowing full well that, with the increased number of decentralised platforms finding real product market fit, the markets would soon return to a more favourable outlook. Currently we are seeing many of our earliest investments in the decentralised finance (DeFi) space gaining huge traction and recognition as the market catches up with the leap forward that the technology has made. The last year saw a major step change for KR1 as we became income generating and we are pleased to report 241,633 in income from the Company's staking activities, mainly resulting from our participation in the Cosmos Network during the 2019 financial year. Going into 2020 and beyond, staking activities are becoming an evermore important area, as further promising portfolio projects such as Polkadot, Dfinity and Ethereum turn on their Proof-of-Stake blockchains. On top of our staking success, we undertook active advisory work with one of our portfolio companies, Vega Protocol, resulting in revenues of 180,748 in their native token. All of these activities combined with our successful track record of investing, have made 2019 another successful year for KR1, resulting in an unrealised profit of 2,053,608 reflecting the gain in fair value on our digital assets investments with a realised profit on disposal of digital assets of 693,665 for the Company. Since December 2019, we have entered some very turbulent and uncertain times in the global economy, the catalyst being the recent Covid19 pandemic outbreak. Yet even before the virus swept across the globe, there was an ever growing unease at the weaknesses within the global financial system, the unfairness and inequality the system creates, and the staggering size of the debt that burdens the world's largest economies. Bitcoin's growth is in direct correlation to these now critical and unsustainable weaknesses, and is seen as a hedge against the untrammeled fiat currency printing by the world's central banks. Respected investor and fund manager Paul Tudor Jones of the Tudor Investment Company recently allocated a portion of his fund into Bitcoin, joining a long list of influential traders and investors in this momentum shift to Bitcoin and the crypto markets. In March 2020, Bitcoin and all crypto assets saw massive volatility, mirroring the wider market panic on the expected economic damage from Covid19, but subsequently weathered the storm. KR1 experienced no operational or structural portfolio issues in these challenging times, as the Company is not exposed to unnecessary risks and has a modest cost-basis. The fear and uncertainty in the global economy has set a new backdrop on which Bitcoin is poised to take its place next to gold as a safe haven asset, with Bitcoin acting as the 'bellwether' or 'blue chip' asset in the crypto markets. This is potentially very positive for KR1 which holds a solid position in both leading cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin ("BTC") and Ethereum ("ETH"), in its portfolio. KR1 specialises in seed and early stage investments into projects that use decentralised technologies to create innovative products and services to disrupt current systems. More recently, it is DeFi that has come into the spotlight with billions of funds flowing into that ecosystem. KR1 was one of the earliest investors in the DeFi movement, investing into Melon Protocol in 2017, which was when we first realised the potential for programmable money to upend the financial system. Since then we have continued to add more DeFi projects to the portfolio including Acala, Argent, Nexus Mutual, Vega Protocol and Union to name a few. Each project aims to solve a different aspect of the DeFi puzzle, from uncollateralized lending through to stablecoins, decentralised exchanges and insurance. We have further balanced the portfolio with meaningful stakes in important infrastructure blockchains, including Polkadot, Cosmos and Dfinity as well as a wide range of disruptive projects in other areas such as privacy, scalability and staking. The big bang of decentralised money and applications continues to expand at an ever increasing speed and at every corner of the blockchain ecosystem we are seeing increased adoption; from the amount of transactions on-chain through to hash rates, active wallet addresses, billions of value locked up in DeFi and more. At KR1 we are fully involved in experimenting and using these new DeFi platforms in our day to day operations, all of which are being built on the Ethereum protocol. The fly in the ointment for Ethereum is that it is creaking under the weight of its own success, resulting in high transaction fees and network congestion. These issues will be addressed by the long awaited release of Ethereum 2.0, but the road to launch of a fully featured version remains unclear. In the meantime, newer, more advanced layer one protocols will seek to take advantage of these pain points in the coming years, opening the door to Ethereum competitors. While we are huge proponents of everything Ethereum has delivered to drive this space forward and believe it will dominate the decentralised space for years to come, we have major positions in relevant Ethereum competitors, who will drive forward experimentation and innovation and promise a universe of many blockchains. One of these innovative blockchain projects is the Cosmos Network, which has become a major position in KR1's portfolio since Cosmos' launch in March 2019. Cosmos is positioned as a critical hub that will route transactions between different blockchains, analogous to the TCP/IP messaging protocol on the World Wide Web. KR1 participated in the first Cosmos funding round in 2017 and, as mentioned above, staking revenue from our Cosmos staking activities started to flow into KR1's balance sheet ever since the network's launch in March 2019. To blow our own trumpets for a moment, KR1 was one of the first institutions to recognise the compelling potential of 'Proof-of-Stake' blockchain networks, where the early investments are not only seeing great appreciation in the crypto markets, but are also proving to be profitable yield bearing crypto assets. Similar to the above, two other highly anticipated yet-to-launch 'Proof-of-Stake' blockchain networks in the Company's portfolio are Polkadot and Dfinity, which are the largest investments that KR1 has made to date. Polkadot is in the middle of its launch process as we write and Dfinity recently unveiled the first parts of its project, which they executed in stealth, gearing up for a launch process starting as early as later this year. Since the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) fervour diminished in early 2018, KR1 has been at the forefront of participating in newer token distribution methods and models. The need for crypto networks and protocols to distribute tokens to active participants who add value in order to be fully decentralised in nature has not disappeared, rather it became more important than ever. One of the most compelling new token distribution mechanisms, called a 'Lockdrop', was pioneered by the Commonwealth Labs and Edgeware team, which saw a huge influx of funds. Buoyed by this success, KR1 is participating in more lockdrops and distribution mechanisms, prime examples being the Plasm Network and aforementioned Edgeware lockdrop, but there are many more projects in the pipeline. For much of 2020, Bitcoin has been sitting 'still' under the $10k resistance level with low volatility. However, this has changed recently with a major break to the upside. Ethereum has also seen a strong price surge, which, given the massive success of DeFi projects in generating economic activity on Ethereum, was an expected move. These are all very encouraging developments and we are in an excellent position to take full advantage of this. While maximising staking yields and the utilization of our portfolio assets has become an important area for us, our focus has always been and continues to be researching the bleeding edge of this transformative ecosystem, backing the brightest and best teams to help build out the new decentralised world of Web 3.0 and beyond. George McDonaugh and Keld Van Schreven, KR1 Managing Directors Date: 31 July 2020 Statement of Comprehensive Income For the year ended 31 December 2019 2019 Restated 2018 (Note 13) Note Income Realised gain on disposal of digital investments 693,665 2,354,118 Staking yields 241,633 - Advisory fees 180,748 - Unrealised (loss)/gain on investments (1,080,599) 636,693 Unrealised gain/(loss) on digital investments 2,053,608 (12,714,187) Unrealised (loss)/gain on loan issued (8,088) 1,665 2,080,967 (9,721,711) Expenses Administration expenses (117,364) (102,794) Advisory fees (37,397) (136,947) Audit fees (14,706) (19,800) Bank charges and trading commissions (11,122) (57,188) Branding and promotional expenses (81,300) (107,675) Commission - (15,850) Escrow fees (2,500) - Foreign exchange loss (2,233) (6,842) Insurance (6,798) (1,129) Legal and professional (36,313) (89,703) Loss on share buy back (6,000) - Office rental (13,671) (39,317) Provision against receivable (32,466) - Staff costs 3 (268,584) (455,997) Other expenses (8,711) - Travel expenses (84,136) (102,959) (723,301) (1,136,201) Taxation 5 (23,778) 2,519,393 Profit/(loss) for the year 1,333,888 (8,338,519) Other comprehensive income - - Total comprehensive income/(loss) for the year 1,333,888 (8,338,519) Earnings per share expressed in pence per share: Basic and diluted 6 1.02 (6.95) The notes contained in the Company's Annual Report form part of these financial statements. Statement of Financial Position For the year ended 31 December 2019 2019 Restated 2018 (Note 13) Note Assets Fixed asset investments 8 7,403,708 5,100,393 Cash at bank 179,243 87,387 Cash held on trading platforms 100,130 618,150 Debtors 7 28,607 819,247 7,711,688 6,625,177 Creditors Amounts falling due within one year 11 (237,865) (508,172) Net current assets 7,473,823 6,117,005 Capital and reserves Called up share capital 12 720,076 718,843 Share premium 3,056,443 3,034,746 Profit and loss account 3,697,304 2,363,416 Shareholders' funds 7,473,823 6,117,005 The notes contained in the Company's Annual Report form part of these financial statements. The financial statements were approved by the Board of Directors on 31 July 2020 and were signed on its behalf by: George McDonaughSimon Nicol Director Director The financial information set out in this announcement does not constitute statutory accounts. This financial information has been extracted from the audited full accounts of the Company for the year ended 31 December 2019. The Company does not declare a dividend for the period. The full Annual Report of the Company will be available on the Company's website: https://www.kryptonite1.co/. The Directors of the Company accept responsibility for the contents of this announcement, For further information please contact: KR1 PLC George McDonaugh Simon Nicol +44 (0)16 2467 6716 simon@KR1.io Peterhouse Capital Limited (AQSE Corporate Adviser) Mark Anwyl +44 (0)20 7469 0930 Allie Feuerlein Nominis Advisory Ltd (PR Adviser) Angus Campbell pr@KR1.io ENDS Notes to Media About KR1 plc KR1 is a leading digital asset investment company supporting early-stage decentralised and open source blockchain projects. Founded in 2016 and publicly listed in London (NEX:KR1), KR1 has built a notable reputation for generating significant returns by investing in key projects that will power the decentralised platforms and protocols that form the emerging Web3 infrastructure. www.KR1.io Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014. Upon the publication of this announcement via a Regulatory Information Service, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain. By Suzanne Nossel Dey Street. 304 pp. $28.99 - - - In late May, as protests raged throughout the country and the coronavirus pandemic spread, President Donald Trump signed a directive titled "Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship." It contains magnanimous pronouncements about the importance of free speech and First Amendment protections. The opening reads like the kind of declaration that should end up on a parchment scroll or the base of a statute: "Free speech is the bedrock of American democracy. Our Founding Fathers protected this sacred right with the First Amendment to the Constitution. The freedom to express and debate ideas is the foundation for all of our rights as a free people." There is something ironic, if not Kafkaesque or Orwellian, about an executive order, imbued with language extolling free speech, that proposes an opposite effect by also calling on the federal government to monitor and regulate Internet and social media platforms. It isn't clear how the government would regulate digital platforms, but the suggestion runs counter to the wide-open nature of free speech that facilitates all forms of discussion online - the hallmark of the Internet since it became commercial and accessible by ordinary people in the 1990s. The president's contradictory executive order highlights the dizzying world of free speech in America today. Trump has trampled on First Amendment and free-speech rights more vigorously than any president before him. Beyond the White House, free-speech battles are being waged across the country, on college campuses, social media and the airwaves, among voices from both the right and the left. Our increasingly fractious debates are pulling at the fabric of our free-speech protections, which ensure that all - even those with views offensive to others - have the right to be heard. Now, into the fray comes Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive of PEN America, with a warning and a steady voice of experience and erudition on how to preserve and expand free expression. "The state of discourse in America today raises a troubling question of whether the principle of free speech can survive intact in our diverse, digitized, and divided culture," Nossel writes in her new book, "Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All." While she acknowledges that there are no easy answers, she hopes to spur "dialogue about why free speech matters and how it can be protected without running roughshod over values of equality." Nossel stresses the role and responsibility of the individual in maintaining our free-speech principles, rather than the imposition of rules on social media, universities and other institutions where public discourse occurs. "This book is intended for all who seek to voice controversial viewpoints, hear them out from others, and keep their boardrooms, classrooms, dormitories, and dining tables open to fruitful conversations between people whose beliefs differ," she writes. While most people believe that the Constitution holds all the answers to conflicts over free speech, Nossel explains that the First Amendment's influence is limited because its purview is confined to infringements by the government. She notes that "the First Amendment is silent on many of the free speech conflicts of our time," adding that it does not have an "answer to the censorious power of online mobs," or guidance on curbing "the detrimental effects of hateful speech," or advice on how to know when "content is too vitriolic, bigoted, deceitful, or misleading to be shared online." Though bigoted and hateful rhetoric often stirs the sharpest arguments over who should be allowed to speak, Nossel contends that the principle of free speech is strengthened by the airing of unpleasant views. She quotes a line attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire that amply supports free expression, however offensive: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Social taboos will keep most people from uttering offensive language, but sometimes it is impossible to keep ugly speech out of the public realm. It is also impossible, in many people's view, to clearly identify it. "Much of the time, no such definitive judgment is possible," Nossel notes. "Offensiveness is not always objectively determinable." So society must rely on a judgment elaborated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in his notion of a "marketplace of ideas." In a 1919 dissent, Holmes defended the free-speech rights of a group of socialist-anarchists, arguing, "The ultimate good desired is better reached by the free trade in ideas - that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." Holmes's perception was revolutionary at the time, but as Nossel tells us, his vigorous protection of speech regardless of the viewpoint "became an anchor of American jurisprudence and is among the elements that distinguish the United States' approach to free speech protections as the world's most robust." Such history illuminates her pages, but Nossel never loses sight of her chief aim: to provide a road map for navigating and safeguarding free-speech rights in our multifaceted, multicultural democracy. "This book," she writes, "suggests guidelines that can protect ideas and opinions from suppression and also widen the circle of those who stand ready to defend free expression." "Dare to Speak" offers principles for speaking, for listening, for debating free speech and for considering speech-related policies. Better debate, Nossel suggests, rests on individuals' sensitivity and consideration when speaking in the public arena. She highlights her points in brief tips and how-to boxes. In a breakout box titled "How to be a Conscientious Speaker," for instance, she advises, among her five points: "Don't assume that your own understanding of the meaning of words and phrases is universally shared." For the speaker who has offended someone, she has a box titled "Good Apologies." Point No. 5: "Focus on regret for actions committed: Rather than saying you're sorry for how someone felt or another result of your actions, say you're sorry for what you did." Will Nossel's guideposts resonate with polarized speakers? It's impossible to know whether the tip boxes throughout the book will facilitate more refined debate or acceptance of other viewpoints. Readers may find some of the advice banal, though well-intentioned. Can a sincere, thoughtful book with some coaxing breakouts resolve our infinite wars over free speech that sometimes devolve from juvenile name-calling to actual violence? "Dare to Speak" adds another voice to the cacophony. Nossel reiterates our long-standing commitment to free speech and offers some wholesome advice, which may be just what we need. Instead of less debate, we need wide conversation to lead us toward the truth in the marketplace of ideas. As Justice Louis Brandeis explained in response to power of negative speech: "If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence." - - - Gutterman is an associate professor and director of the Tully Center for Free Speech at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. BGR Our Sun isnt quite as old as other stars out there. However, scientists are already trying to pinpoint exactly when the Sun will die. Of course, it isnt as simple as throwing out a date. After all, were working with a massive ball of energy that weve still barely managed to scratch the surface of The post Scientists think they figured out when the Sun will explode and kill us all appeared first on BGR. Advertisement The Mayflower II is getting its sea legs before its journey home. The replica of the original Mayflower ship that brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620 briefly set sail off the shores of southern Rhode Island on Thursday. The vessel, which is in the midst of two-week-long sea trials, sailed alongside the United States Coast Guard Cutter Barque Eagle, which is used to train cadets. The Mayflower II performs seaworthy and sailing tests in Rhode Island Sound off the coast of Block Island on Thursday The Mayflower II (right) sails in Rhode Island Sound and rendezvous with the US Coast Guard Cutter Eagle (left) off the coast of Block Island on Thursday A C-130 Hercules flies past the US Coast Guard Cutter Eagle before a rendezvous with the Mayflower II off the coast of Block Island on Thursday The above photo is a 1905 steel engraving of the original Mayflower which brought the pilgrims to Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, in 1620 The two ships set out to sea in Block Island Sound, the body of water that lies just off the coast of the area that straddles the Connecticut-Rhode Island boundary, on Thursday. The Coast Guard suggested that Capt. Michael Turdo of the Eagle invite the Mayflower to sail together during Mayflower sea trials, according to The Day. The waters of Fishers Island Sound, where Mayflower has been training for the last two weeks, are too shallow for Eagle to navigate under sail. At a result, Mayflower was towed out to deeper, more open waters several miles south of the Rhode Island shore for the joint operation. The United States Coast Guard Cutter Barque Eagle is used to train cadets at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut The Mayflower II is a replica of the Mayflower that carried the pilgrims from England to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620 Crew members line the deck of the US Coast Guard Cutter Barque Eagle while sailing in Rhode Island Sound on Thursday The Mayflower II is set to return to Plymouth Harbor on August 10, 2020, in preparation for the 400th anniversary of the pilgrims landing The Mayflower II recently underwent an $11million renovation before its scheduled journey home to Plymouth, Massachusetts The ship's trip home has been delayed by several months due to the COVID-19 pandemic After the operation, Mayflower returned to City Pier in New London, Connecticut. It will continue training into next week. Eagle remained at sea training Coast Guard Academy cadets. Mayflower is preparing to embark from Connecticut after three years' and $11.2 million worth of renovations - and several months of delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this month, the beloved vessel was towed from the preservation shipyard at the Mystic Seaport Museum to New London for two weeks of sea trials before heading up the coast. Earlier this month, the beloved vessel was towed from the preservation shipyard at the Mystic Seaport Museum to New London for two weeks of sea trials before heading up the coast A Rhode Island Air National Guard C-130J aircraft makes a low flyby of the Mayflower II sailing with the Coast Guard Barque Eagle The Mayflower II has been a major tourist attraction and educational tool since it arrived in Plymouth as a gift from England in 1957 Stabilization efforts began in 2014, with the ship spending part of the year in Mystic. Continuous restoration work began at the seaport museum in 2016, with shipwrights from the seaport museum and artisans from Plimoth Plantation engaged in the work A HISTORY OF THE MAYFLOWER The Mayflower was a three-masted ship, most likely between 90 and 110 feet long, that carried the people who came to be known a Pilgrims from England to Plymouth in 1620. The ship was hired in London, and sailed from London to Southampton in July 1620 to begin loading food and supplies for the voyage--much of which was purchased at Southampton. The Mayflower left Holland on 31 July 1620, joining the Speedwell in Southampton, England, for the voyage to America. The two ships sailed on 15 August but returned because of the leaky condition of the Speedwell. The Speedwell was eventually abandoned, and on 16 September, 102 passengers and crew aboard the Mayflower finally sailed from England. The voyage itself across the Atlantic Ocean took 66 days, from their departure on September 6, until Cape Cod was sighted on 9 November 1620. The Mayflower followed the land-exploring party and sailed into Plymouth, Massachusetts, harbor on 26 December, where it remained until houses could be built for the new settlement. Source: Encyclopedia.com Advertisement The 64-year-old historic reproduction is scheduled to arrive back at the harbor just down the road from the Plimoth Plantation living history museum on or around August 10. The original plan had called for a celebratory departure in late April with several stops at southern New England ports before a May arrival. That was to include being led into Boston Harbor under sail with the USS Constitution for a maritime festival to mark the 400th anniversary of the original Mayflower voyage. But those plans were scrapped because of the pandemic. The ship is now planning to make two overnight stops, without fanfare or crowds. The public can follow the trip online. 'Our goal is to keep the crew as isolated as possible,' said Kate Sheehan, a spokesperson for Plimoth Plantation. 'So the public will not be able to board the ship at any point during the journey. We're just being very, very careful about the crew's exposure.' The Mayflower II has been a major tourist attraction and educational tool since it arrived in Plymouth as a gift from England in 1957. Stabilization efforts began in 2014, with the ship spending part of the year in Mystic. Continuous restoration work began at the seaport museum in 2016, with shipwrights from the seaport museum and artisans from Plimoth Plantation engaged in the work. The ship's keel was saved, but nearly 75 per cent of the vessel is new, Sheehan said. 'The hull planking was completely replaced with 20,000 board feet of Danish white oak that is absolutely some of the most beautiful wood that I have ever seen and the shipwrights have ever seen,' she said. Since being rechristened in 2019, craftsmen have been doing painting, rigging, finishing work and installing new features such as a state-of-the-art fire suppression system on board. Plans for the Mayflower II to take part in tall ship celebrations and other sails - including a 400th anniversary commemoration in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in September - have been put on hold. For at least the remainder of this year, the ship will be docked at Pilgrim Memorial State Park, Sheehan said. 'To the extent that it's possible to mark her arrival with any sort of event, then we will do so,' she said. 'Even under the most mundane of circumstances, Mayflower tends to attract a crowd, so even if a crowd gathers organically, we'll communicate that they need to follow the state's safety guidelines regarding physical distancing and mask wearing.' In this June 6, 2016 file photo, people on a wharf watch as the Mayflower II arrives in Plymouth Harbor in Plymouth, Massachusetts In this November 3, 2017 file photo, shipwrights Jamie Kirschner (left) and Tucker Yaro (right) clean out the hold of the Mayflower II at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut In this February 21, 2019 file photo, shipwright Mike Brittan checks his work as he planes a deck plank for the main deck of the Mayflower II at the Mystic Seaport in Mystic Rhea Chakraborty has finally spoken up on the FIR lodged against her by the late Sushant Singh Rajput's father. Rhea, who faces charges of abetment of suicide, threat, theft, confinement among others, has said that she has immense faith in the judiciary and that she believes she will get justice. Rhea Chakraborty Video , ; Watch Video |FilmiBeat She refrained from commenting on the many things being said about her in the media, and concluded her message with 'Satyameva Jayate', the motto that Sushant's sister, Shweta Singh Kirti used in her post on 'Justice for Sushant'. In a video recorded and shared by her counsel, Rhea says, "I have immense faith in God and the Judiciary. I believe that I will get justice. Even though a lot of horrible things are being said about me in the electronic media, I refrain from commenting on the advice of my lawyer, as the matter is sub judice." "Satyameva Jayate. The truth shall prevail," she signs off. Rhea, her brother and parents, and two others have been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, in connection with the Sushant Singh Rajput death case. Sushant's father K.K. Singh has alleged that Rhea kept the actor away from his family, defrauded him, took possession of his medical records and threatened to leak it to the public. ALSO READ: Sushant Singh Rajput's Friend Says Rhea Chakraborty Never Let The Actor Connect With His Family In her Supreme Court petition requesting the transfer of case from Patna to Mumbai, Rhea has claimed that she has been falsely implicated by Sushant's father. She identified herself as someone who was in a live-in relationship with Sushant for a year. Sushant was found dead in his apartment on June 14, 2020. Many details surrounding the actor's death have surfaced since his father filed an FIR against Rhea and others. Worried about your mental well-being or of someone you know? Help is just a call away. Reach out to the nearest mental health specialist at COOJ Mental Health Foundation (COOJ)- 0832-2252525, Parivarthan- +91 7676 602 602, Connecting Trust- +91 992 200 1122/+91-992 200 4305 or Sahai- 080-25497777/ SAHAIHELPLINE@GMAIL.COM ALSO READ: Rhea Chakraborty Gets Trolled; Sushant's Sister Requests Fans 'Don't Use Bad Language For Anyone' A starving Asian black bear has been caught on camera stealing honey in the middle of the night after sneaking into a bee yard in China. CCTV footage shows the giant animal eagerly reaching for the beehives secured in a barred cage before licking the sweet fluid off its paws. The hungry beast is said to have devoured 17 pounds of honey during its 20-minute midnight food-hunt. A starving Asian black bear has been caught on camera stealing honey in the middle of the night after sneaking into a bee yard in China's south-west Sichuan province on Tuesday CCTV footage released by the local conservation centre shows the giant animal eagerly reaching for the beehives secured in a barred cage before licking the sweet fluid off its paws The incident occurred on the wee hours of Tuesday at the Guanba Community Nature Reserve in Sichuan province, south-western China. It was brought to light when local beekeepers reported to the authorities after finding some of their beehives had been eaten, reported Chinese media. Footage released by the local conservation centre shows the Asian black bear, believed to be about three-year-old, first entering apiary while carefully checking the surroundings. After much inspection, the starving beast moved towards one of the iron-barred cages, where the beehives were stored. The animal first tried to rip off the metal rods with its teeth, but to no avail. It then popped its paws through a gap between the bars and reached for the honey. After successfully retrieving the sweet fluid, the black bear is seen eagerly licking it off its feet. Footage released by the local conservation centre shows the Asian black bear, believed to be about three-year-old, first entering apiary while carefully checking the surroundings The picture shows the animal trying to rip off the metal rods of one of the cages with its teeth The Asian black bear in China first tried to rip off the metal rods with its teeth, but to no avail. It is seen in the image popping its paws through a gap between the bars to reach for the honey The hungry beast devoured about 7.5 kilograms (17 pounds) of honey, a staff member from the nature reserve told the local press. The animal is believed to be around three years old, the worker added. Asian black bear, also known as Asiatic black bear, is classed as vulnerable to extinction with a decreasing population and listed under the second class of wildlife protection in China. The local authorities are said to have compensated the beekeepers for the honey stolen by the animal. Asian black bear, also known as Asiatic black bear, is classed as vulnerable to extinction with a decreasing population and listed under the second class of wildlife protection in China The news comes as a Tibetan brown bear has been caught stealing a pressure cooker with freshly made rice after breaking into an animal researchers' tent in China. The wildlife workers initially spotted footprints of the brown bear around the tent upon their return from conducting outdoor work. Footage filmed by the researchers is believed to have shown the animal sneaking into the camping site before quickly snatching the pot away. Pastor J.B. Whitfield of Agape Faith Church said that the idea for the prayer gathering came amid the protests that broke out over the death of George Floyd in May. Floyd, a black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer placed his knee on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes while Floyd lay on his stomach, handcuffed, on the street beside a police car. I called the sheriff (Bobby Kimbrough Jr.) and asked him to come to our church and ask what we could do to help, Whitfield said. Kimbrough challenged attendees to that meeting to organize a large pray for the city gathering, he said. And thats what Whitfield said he did, calling some other faith leaders. Those meetings led to what happened on Thursday. A large cross-section of faith leaders came in support of the gathering, including Pastor Tembila Covington, the president of the Ministers Conference of Winston-Salem and Vicinity. WASHINGTON -- The rate of positive coronavirus cases in the military is slightly lower than the American average in all age groups except for troops between the ages of 18 and 24, according to Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Friedrichs. "We believe that the slightly increased confirmed case rate in that age group is a result of the success of [Air Force Maj. Gen. Lee] Payne and his testing task force. And the services in allowing us to test at the entry to basic training, at the exit to basic training, and at many other points in an active-duty service member's career," Friedrichs said Thursday during a Pentagon briefing about coronavirus response efforts. He did not provide the actual rates of cases in each age group during the briefing. Another reason why they might be testing positive at a greater rate is because 18- to 24-year-olds make up the largest age group of service members, Friedrichs said, and they are more likely to be tested across the Defense Department's tiered testing system. Friedrichs said he believes that in general the growth in cases is not higher in part because service members are adhering to the health protection measures such as wearing a mask and social distancing. The military has had 26,408 cases of the coronavirus as of Wednesday, according to the Defense Department. The Army has the most cases of the service branches with 8,878 soldiers contracting the illness. The military population has had a 5.3% positive rate of the coronavirus during the past several weeks even with the increase in testing, according to Payne, who is the assistant director for combat support at the Defense Health Agency. The rate is lower than the 8.6% positive coronavirus rate of the general population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The military is now able to conduct nearly 60,000 tests per week, according to Payne, and there are also now 125 Defense Department labs around the world to test for the coronavirus, with the capability to conduct more than 200,000 tests per week. Payne did not have the percentage of symptomatic versus asymptomatic cases in testing, though he said most screenings are at clinics for people who want to be tested for symptoms, those who are being screened for the virus prior to elective surgeries, or for contract tracing purposes. About 20,000 or more service members are tested per week for mission readiness reasons. "The good thing about the asymptomatic screening that we are doing though is, in essence, it's screening the population," he said. "We're doing that screening for mission readiness, but it also has the added benefit and effect of reducing disease in the population." Payne and Friedrichs said they do not see any clusters or hot spots of the virus in the military now that were unusual. Increases in military cases are in states and communities where there are surging cases in the civilian population, such as Texas and Florida. It gave me insight and explanation for why my neighborhood is the way it is, why I became the way I behave and why so many people around me behave the way they behave, he began. They dont understand why they want to carry a gun. They dont understand why, when theyre in the room with 20 men or 10 men or five men they dont know theyre paranoid. They dont want to go to certain areas, certain neighborhoods, certain grocery stores. Thats all a product of having this. If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here The massive reduction of poverty in China over the past 30 years is one of the great success stories of modern times in the area of economic and social development. Using the World Bank poverty measure of $1.90 a day, which is comparable across countries, the share of the population in China living in extreme poverty dropped from 66% in 1990 to 0.5% in 2016, the latest year for which comparable figures are available. Chinas remarkable achievement has driven, in large part, global success in reducing poverty over the last 30 years. A villager harvests Sichuan pepper in Tongzi County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, July 22, 2020. The Sichuan pepper industry in Tongzi County has become an important industry that helps the local people to shake off poverty. (Xinhua/Tao Liang) A number of aspects of Chinas success in poverty reduction are worth bringing to the worlds attention. The most noteworthy include: implementing actions that increased the returns to the assets held by the poorest; modernizing agriculture to quickly develop the rural economy; establishing an impressive social security system; and adopting targeted poverty alleviation methods to increase investments in rural areas. The implementation of actions that increased the returns to the assets owned by the poorest land and labor, particularly in rural areas was central. This was achieved by building human capital and investing in people, especially through education, health and sanitation for the poorest, and fostering small holder producer participation in rural markets. The focus on rapidly developing the rural economy by modernizing agriculture was an important ingredient in achieving success. Additionally, China has an impressive social security system for those who are not able to work and offers vocational training and job opportunities for youth. Finally, Chinas adoption of targeted poverty alleviation methods focusing on poverty-stricken areas, private sector engagement and partnership in rural areas continuously increase investments through a social responsibility approach, e-commerce and e-market. One example of the potential of e-commerce can be seen in the development of SDG Villages Project being implemented by FAO, with support from MARA, since July 2019. Funded by Guangfa Securities, and in partnership with E-Commerce Platforms (Alibaba, Pinduoduo, Bytedance) and ongoing Farmer-Field Schools, the project is developing a model of Internet + Agriculture + Rural Finance to alleviate poverty among farmers in the poorest regions. The slowdown in economic growth in China due to the pandemic, combined with the economic slowdown spreading throughout the global economy, will make it more challenging for China to achieve total poverty elimination this year. Greater efforts will certainly be required. The global crisis poses great challenges and danger, but it also presents an opportunity to improve the way things are done and to strengthen our efforts in the fight to end poverty. I lead the Strategic Programme on Rural Poverty Reduction at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It is our task to support member countries to better use rural development, agriculture and food systems in their efforts to reach SDG 1 (No Poverty) and SDG 2 (Zero Hunger). In this capacity I have visited China on a number of occasions in the past few years, to both rural and urban areas, to explore and promote South-South Cooperation for Poverty Reduction with government institutions as well as to learn firsthand about Chinas experience. Over the past few years we have made great progress. Since 2017 our partnership with the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the International Poverty Reduction in China (IPRCC), the China Internet Information Centre (CIIC) and the two other Rome-based agencies, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the World Food Programme (WFP), promoted experience sharing, international cooperation and the role of partnerships on poverty reduction. A platform of collaboration was created with IPRCC, CIIC, FAO, IFAD and WFP since 2017, with two events organized annually the International Seminar on Global Poverty Reduction Partnerships in Rome, and the China Poverty Reduction International Forum in Beijing. Moreover, last November, a China Poverty Reduction International Forum was held in Kampala, Uganda, dedicated to the theme on Global Partnership for Poverty Reduction in Africa. These dialogues will continue in 2020, on a virtual basis, to share knowledge about continued eradication of extreme poverty in China and learn from the experiences and challenges faced in other countries. Through this partnership and platform, a list of 110 best poverty reduction case studies was mapped and selected in 2019 from the first Global Solicitation and Challenge Prize on Best Poverty Reduction Practices co-launched by all these organizations in May 2018. The second Global Solicitation and Challenge Prize is ongoing and will announce the best cases in 2020. The last time I was in China, in 2019, I had the opportunity to strengthen our partnership with MARA and the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) and the Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (NIAHS) initiatives, which promote landscapes of aesthetic beauty that combine agricultural biodiversity, resilient ecosystems and a valuable cultural heritage. Located in specific sites around the world and in China, they sustainably provide multiple goods and services, and food and livelihood security for millions of small-scale farmers. China has 15 of the worlds current 59 GIAHS sites, which are powerful examples of sustainable development with great potential for poverty reduction in rural areas. China has provided financial and technical assistance, as well as knowledge and experience sharing, on poverty reduction in partnership with FAO to other developing countries for over twelve years. China has provided over $80 million to the South-South Cooperation Programme with FAO in support of agriculture. China was the first country to establish a South-South Cooperation Programme strategic alliance with FAO through a Letter of Intent in 2006. A good recent example around South-South Cooperation in poverty reduction is a 10-day training co-organized by FAO and the IPRCC in November 2018. Government officials from 14 African countries visited and learned about poverty-reduction experiences in three Chinese cities. The training included a forum where African countries interacted with the IPRCC and discussed potential ways to overcome African challenges when trying to adapt similar measures, as well as to present some successful experiences from their countries. The slowdown in economic growth in China due to the pandemic, combined with the economic slowdown spreading throughout the global economy, will make it more challenging for China to achieve total poverty elimination this year. Greater efforts will certainly be required. The global crisis poses great challenges and danger, but it also presents an opportunity to improve the way things are done and to strengthen our efforts in the fight to end poverty. In the future, knowledge sharing on poverty reduction in rural regions, and innovative approaches and practices in partnership with research institutes, private sector, and farmer organizations will be further enhanced through courses and workshops. FAO and our office in China will continue to work with our offices in different regions of the world to organize annual regional dialogues, to promote knowledge sharing on innovative approaches towards poverty reduction and facilitate cooperation on sustainable agriculture. Benjamin Davis is the Director of the Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equity Division at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) The COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis that has followed has been a bloodbath in the job market. Unsurprisingly, the IT sector, which is heavily dependant on international clients, including the US, which is the biggest market has been among the worst hit. BCCL/FILE Since March, several IT companies including some of the biggest names in the industry had let go thousands of its employees due to a fall in business and revenue. According to the latest industry data, top five software firms in India have reported a sequential decline in the total strength of employees in the quarter. Between April-June the headcount at Indias largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services, TCS reduced by 4,786, Infosys decreased by 3,138, Wipros decreased by 1082 and Tech Mahindras headcount declined by 1820 and HCL saw a drop of 136. BCCL/FILE In total, all these companies have observed a decline in their headcount by 10,962 employees. Another software major, Cognizant let go of more than 9,000 people during the same period. Wipro which saw its headcount drop by 1082 has also benched 5-7% of total employees. Bench in IT companies is a reference to people who do not have projects to work on, but continues to be on the payroll. WIPRO Earlier this week Wipro served a three-month notice to many of its bench employees stating that if they fail to find a project within the period, their services could be terminated. During the extended bench period of three months, the employees will not be paid their salaries but they will receive insurance coverage and other medical benefits. No compensation or replacement scheme or other employee benefits shall be due or payable to you during the extended bench period, Wipro said in a mail to the benched employees. Earlier this month it was reported that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to about 30,000 jobs being lost in the IT and BPO sectors in India, with 60,000 being sent on leave without pay. But between a retirement and other issues, none of the people legislators wanted to hear from were available. Perhaps its just one of those things, but the Sheriffs Office has been plagued by mismanagement under Sheriff Timothy B. Howard. Its hard not to wonder if this is another example. She is a heroine for the age of robocalls. If they built a statue in her honor, no one would ever want to tear it down. In the Wyoming County Town of Arcade, Kimberly Salerno was bombarded with 465 robocalls from Credit One, a Nevada bank to which Salerno and her boyfriend were in debt. But U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra turned the tables, ordering the bank to pay her $232,500 for violations of federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Thats $500 for each robocall that was made to Kim Salerno without her consent, Salernos attorney, Kenneth R. Hiller, said. Its also poetry. Whats your opinion? Send it to us at lettertoeditor@buffnews.com. Letters should be a maximum of 300 words and must convey an opinion. The column does not print poetry, announcements of community events or thank-you letters. A writer or household may appear only once every 30 days. All letters are subject to fact-checking and editing. Feixi, Changfeng and Feidong in East Chinas Anhui province were included among Chinas top 100 counties, according to an annual list released by CCID Consulting Group on Tuesday. Feixi took the 63rd place on the list, while Changfeng and Feidong ranked 90th and 92nd respectively. All the three cities are under the jurisdiction of Hefei, capital of the province. Hefei has always ranked 1st economically in the province. The provinces GDP reached 3.7 trillion yuan ($527.9 billion) in 2019. The provincial capital took the top spot with 940.9 billion yuan, followed by Wuhu with 361.8 billion yuan. Feixi was the only Anhui city on last years list. Initiated in 2016, the list ranks top 100 Chinese counties in terms of economic strength, growth potential and eco-friendly development on a yearly basis. CCID Consulting Group is a scientific research institute directly attached to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Despite generating billions of dollars, world's most prolific film industry has no established scheme to protect its most vulnerable members A mural in Mumbai depicting Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan in the 1983 movie Coolie. The coronavirus pandemic has brought India's prolific Hindi film industry to a standstill. (AFP Photo) MUMBAI: India's coronavirus lockdown made little difference to Bollywood superstars but for the industry's vast army of low-paid, unskilled workers it meant unemployment, hunger and homelessness -- with no end in sight even as shoots gradually resume. Fahim Shaikh used to earn 800 rupees ($11) a day as a "spot boy" on sets, doing odd jobs such as making tea. When Bollywood hit pause on productions in March, the 23-year-old could no longer pay rent. "I just wandered up and down, asking strangers for help and sleeping outside cafes," he told AFP. Like many starry-eyed newcomers, he came to Mumbai in pursuit of an acting career before his dreams gave way to the pressures of the daily grind in India's most expensive city. The hugely successful Hindi film industry is tentatively coming back to life but with strict rules including curbs on the number of people allowed on set. This means that jobs for people like Shaikh are now few and far between. "I am ready to do anything, I desperately need work," he said. 'The littlest players' The lockdown cast a spotlight on India's extreme inequality with well-heeled citizens able to hibernate safely at home while watching shocking scenes of a huge migrant worker exodus play out on their television and smartphone screens. That chasm between the haves and have-nots is perhaps even more pronounced in Bollywood, where jet-setting megastars rub shoulders with tens of thousands of extras, spot boys and other junior crew members who exist on the margins of the glamorous industry. "The spot boys are considered the littlest players, till food arrives late on a set," actress Richa Chadha wrote on her blog highlighting the "disastrous" effects of the lockdown. During her half-century-long stint as an extra, Sayeda Mumani has worked alongside virtually every major actor, from 1970s matinee idol Rajesh Khanna to superstar Shah Rukh Khan. In a good month, the 68-year-old scraped together around 14,000 rupees. But her income dried up after shoots came to a standstill, and she has not worked for months. Unlike the younger Shaikh -- who has few industry contacts -- Mumani's long association with leading studios meant that she could count on at least a little help, with top actors such as Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan sending her grocery vouchers and cash. But relying on the piecemeal generosity of individuals has severe limitations, as Mumani found out, when mounting medical and household expenses left her with a debt of 100,000 rupees. "I feel so useless and helpless," she told AFP. No safety net Despite generating billions of dollars in revenue, the world's most prolific film industry has no established scheme to protect its most vulnerable members. The vast majority of the tens of thousands of industry workers lack access to medical insurance or pension plans. Director Anubhav Sinha, who paid salaries to his production staff and offered financial aid to other crew members during the lockdown, said the absence of a safety net reflected the fact that the industry's workforce is largely freelance. "My employees... comprise about 10 percent of the entire size of my film unit. Ninety percent are freelancers who work on the production and then move on," he told AFP. And although the industry is home to multiple unions, they lack the deep pockets to look after their members, said Amit Behl, senior joint secretary of the Cine & TV Artists Association. The organisation, which has more than 9,000 members including top stars, had to request donations to support actors who "are virtually living hand to mouth", Behl told AFP. "We produce twice the content of other filmmaking countries but we are not structured," he said. Furthermore, he warned that fresh restrictions, which include a ban on filming crowd scenes, hiring large crews or actors over 65, meant that the crisis was set to worsen, leaving workers like Mumani fearing for their future. "We can't carry on like this," she said, bursting into tears. "I feel like I am dying already." Cheon Young-hwan's experiment on making black porcelain moon jar in collaboration with artificial intelligence is on view at "Random Diversity" exhibition at Wooran Art Scape 1 in Seongsu-dong, Seoul. Courtesy of Wooran Foundation Cheon experiments on capturing color of emotions By Kwon Mee-yoo Moon jars, or Korean white porcelain spherical jars with a resemblance to the glistening full moon, are known to represent traditional virtues such as modesty and meditative beauty through their pure white color and simplicity. If an artificial intelligence (AI) decides the shape of the moon jar based on what it has learned and a robot-arm 3D printer physically produces it, can the moon jar still have that spiritual quality? Cheon Young-hwan, a researcher and artist who explores the possibility of the cooperation between human and AI, reveals the process and results of his project of making a moon jar with colors "extracted from human emotions" using AI and robotic 3D printing at the "Random Diversity" exhibition at Wooran Art Scape 1 in Seongsu-dong, Seoul. "Since we are not an art museum that permanently displays our collection, we offer a new way of exploring artwork in the collection in the Wooran Yisang program," the program's producer Kim Min-jeong said. This time, the foundation explores the possibility of collaboration between art and science by supporting Cheon to branch out on ideas from ceramist Kim Sy-young's black moon jar. Cheon comes from an unusual background as an artist. In fact, he does not label himself as such. "I haven't decided my stance yet. Previously, an occupation defined a person, but times have changed and it is difficult to determine what a person is based on one's job," Cheon said. Cheon studied at the College of Liberal Arts and Convergence Science at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and worked at a foundation under the National Assembly Research Service. "I studied civic engagement in the Fourth Industrial Revolution era at the National Assembly Research Service and looked at many social and political issues. As I researched scientifically and worked in a public office, I felt the gap among the different perspectives of technology. I thought it would be better to send a message via an artistic vehicle," Cheon said. Currently, Cheon is a member of the new media art group, Discrete, which consists of an AI computer, two humans and three robots. "When AI is applied to the art scene, AI is often objectified or used as a tool AI writing music or painting a portrait like a person would. I wanted to work in symbiosis with AI, communicating with AI to find colors and make moon jars," Cheon said. Cheon Young-hwan uses a VR headset with brainwave sensors to find the color associated to an emotion at "Random Diversity" exhibition at Wooran Art Scape 1 in Seongsu-dong, Seoul. Courtesy of Wooran Foundation Cheon held his first solo exhibition "This is a Moon Jar, in a 99.17005896568298% Probability" at Factory2 in Seoul last year. "I took the inspiration from Kim Whan-ki's moon jar paintings I saw when I was young. Back then, white porcelain was an everyday object. I remember they were buried in my grandmother's yard. I was fascinated that such a mundane object could be an artwork," Cheon said. In this exhibition, Cheon materialized white porcelain moon jars through Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) and 3D printing technology. The AI analyzes big data on a moon jar and decides the ultimate shape a 3D printer produces the jar based on the data. GAN is also known for creating "Edmond de Belamy," the first AI-generated artwork to be auctioned at Christie's and fetched $432,500 in 2018, exceeding expectations. "The previous project was to produce infinitely different moon jars. In the past, potters tried to make moon jars in the same shape, but the result always differed as the firing process in a kiln is out of the potter's hands," Cheon explained. "The products were standardized after the Industrial Revolution, but in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, I think AI could play the role of unintended environment in the kiln." Though Cheon has held an exhibition of AI-generated white porcelain moon jars, black porcelain was something completely new for him. "The glaze used for black porcelain changes colors in high temperature. I could see so many colors in different lights, angles and direction. Kim Whan-ki once wrote that the white colors are all different and likewise, I could find a full array of colors in black," Cheon said. "The world is often divided into white and black, but in fact there are so many colors between them." The researcher-artist thought of the ways to fill the gap between white and black. "How could I fill up the diverse colors? Then I came up with the idea of people's emotions, which are full of diversity," he said. Cheon Young-hwan blends colors associated to an emotion at "Random Diversity" exhibition at Wooran Art Scape 1 in Seongsu-dong, Seoul. Courtesy of Wooran Foundation Cheon attempted to reset the concept of color and visitors can experience how their emotion is represented in color at the exhibition. "When we think of colors, we associate with images such as passionate and hot for red and cool and calm for blue. However, this is a notion devised by the human since color in scientific definition is just a different wavelength of visible light. I tried to appreciate the definition of color and categorization of human language in a different way," Cheon explained. Cheon used "arousal balancing" to analyze emotions through brainwaves and the movement of the eyeballs, and emotion AI to colorize the emotions. To find the color of an emotion, Cheon employs a VR headset to provide a transparently immersive experience. "Our eyes can accept way more information than we think. We had to block out peripheral vision to accurately measure which brainwave responds to which color. So we installed nine sensors to measure brain wave in the VR headset," he said. "Scientifically, a person never emits the same brainwave frequency throughout their life. This is a way of capturing a moment of the memory in color," Cheon said. "The color does not come out as you intend. When you think of a warm hug of your mom and expects it to relate to red color, but it might be a totally different color. It is interesting that people try to read something into the color." Cheon named this color extracted from emotion as "Emotion Vaccine" as a way of consoling people amid the COVID-10 pandemic. "It provides an opportunity to keep your memory in the form of color and recognizing the diversity in yourself," he said. The "Emotion Vaccine" experience is available through reservation. For more information, visit www.wooranfdn.org . A video in which he is heard making the allegation had gone viral on social media Bhopal: A doctor who questioned the veracity of medical reports of Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who has been admitted to a dedicated COVID-19 hospital after he tested positive for coronavirus last week, was on Thursday arrested on charges of attempting to taint the BJP leaders image. Crime branch of MP Police arrested Rajan Singh from a hospital in Bhopal. The accused was admitted to a private hospital after he complained of chest pain. But the team arrested him soon after he was discharged from the hospital. According to the police, he had questioned the medical bulletin released by the hospital where Chouhan has been admitted, demanding a probe into it. A video in which he is heard making the allegation had gone viral on social media, which prompted the police to act against him. He has been booked under sections 500 (make defamatory remarks), 501 (circulating defamatory literature), 505 (incite to commit offence) and 188 (disobey official regulations) of the Indian Penal Code. Theres an open secret among those who care for people with serious mental illnesses. Judy Bracken first heard it a few years ago from a hospital social worker: If Bracken wanted her adult son, who has schizoaffective disorder, to receive long-term mental health treatment, she should get him off her private insurance, UnitedHealthcare, and onto the public system for low-income people in Contra Costa County. Lucinda Chiszar figured it out when she tried to take her then 10-year-old son, who was insured by Aetna, to the only nonprofit agency in Merced County that offered the intensive wrap-around services the countys behavioral health services said he needed. Oh, youre not on Medi-Cal? someone at the agency asked. We cant help you. Other families say they hear it whispered by well-meaning caseworkers, or even directly from the health plans themselves. In dozens of interviews, families, attorneys, judges, therapists and public officials agree: People with serious mental illnesses often do better dropping private insurance and qualifying for taxpayer-funded treatment. It seems counterintuitive. If someone was to develop lung cancer, its hard to imagine that one of the other insurers would say, Youre going to need to get on Medi-Cal to get that paid for, said Dr. Tom Insel, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, who has advised Gov. Gavin Newsom. Such stories provide further fodder for the debate about how to best enforce the state and federal parity laws that guarantee patients equivalent coverage for physical and mental health treatment. They also reveal the limits of those laws. In many cases, commercial insurers arent legally required to offer the intensive mental health services available through Medi-Cal. This open secret exposes troubling questions: What should private insurance cover? What should the state and thereby taxpayers pay for? Whos responsible for ensuring people with serious mental illnesses get the treatment they need? Counties that administer Medi-Cal are tired of it. Weve let the private commercial plans off the hook pretty significantly, said Michelle Cabrera, executive director of the County Behavioral Health Directors Association of California. Its time for a come-to-Jesus conversation. As the coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn puts increasing pressure on peoples mental health, she said counties have seen more privately insured individuals seeking crisis services. The insurance industry denies theres a problem. Mary Ellen Grant, spokesperson for the California Association of Health Plans, said she surveyed the commercial plans represented by her organization and none were familiar with the phenomenon. Were not aware of any existing evidence that long-term mental health care needs are better served by county mental health agencies, nor in which counties this alleged trend is happening, she said. Commercial mental health plans have been providing comprehensive coverage for severe mental illness for decades, Grant said, and some plans have begun to provide wrap-around services, in-home crisis intervention and intensive therapeutic behavioral programs. Theres a lot of great work that theyre doing, she said. And I dont think its helpful to say county mental health plans are providing better services than commercial health plans, because commercial health plans are doing their best. And, yet, many insist thats exactly whats happening. Los Angeles attorney and psychotherapist Meiram Bendat says hes seen, through cases hes taken on, that insurers not only know about the issue which he likens to patient dumping but sometimes actively encourage it. He calls the practice prevalent, simply inexcusable and, in his view, against the law. It is not something that regulators in California are actively looking into, he said. As a result, they are not protecting the interests of the taxpayers and are allowing the insurance companies to enrich themselves by pawning off their most severely compromised and sickest members to the public welfare system. Some mental health services that counties provide, including wrap-around programs and case management, arent legally required to be offered by commercial health plans. But Mary Watanabe, deputy director of health policy for the state Department of Managed Health Care, said state law usually requires commercial plans to cover medically necessary early psychosis intervention and residential treatment. She emphasized that patients who think they are being denied necessary treatment should file a grievance with their health plans and contact the departments help center to request an independent medical review. No one keeps data on how often people feel forced to abandon private plans because the public system for poorer patients provides better options. But Dr. Joe Parks, medical director of the National Council for Behavioral Health, calls it a national issue. Private insurance historically hasnt been set up to offer case management, help with transportation and other services to help people navigate to needed treatment, Parks said. If you get old and sick or disabled and sick, then you leave commercial insurance, he said. Its really Medicaid and Medicare that back up the commercial sector and allow them to have the profit margin that they have. Many people with serious mental illness dont intentionally decide to drop off of commercial insurance. Rather, the illness itself especially if its inadequately treated can lead them to lose their jobs, which then lands them on Medi-Cal. But for some families and individuals, deciding to leave commercial insurance can be agonizing. To meet Medi-Cals strict income eligibility requirements, families with children younger than 18 sometimes consider leaving their jobs or even relinquishing custody, advocates say. Parents with children 18 or older often can just drop them from their private plan to make them Medi-Cal eligible. But that may entail giving up relationships with providers theyve known for years, and forgoing easier access to specialists who treat other complex medical conditions. And then theres the question of shame. 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. Teresa Pasquini, a Contra Costa County mother whose adult son has schizoaffective disorder, moved him off of Kaiser Permanente in 2010 after years of fighting to keep him on it. By then, Pasquini said, her son had attempted suicide multiple times. On many occasions, shed hidden in the back bedroom, calling 911 in a whisper, waiting for authorities to handcuff her son to keep him, and his family, safe. Doctors said her son needed to be in a locked residential facility but his private insurance didnt cover a long-term stay, so the county had to pick up the cost, she said. Its traumatic to reread the desperate emails I was sending to Kaiser, the county, the conservator, literally begging, What can we do? We dont want to drop his private insurance, we dont want to dump his care on the state and county, she said. I gave up my career. We were paying outrageous amounts of money. We were trying everything. So we felt we had no choice. Suzanne Tavano, Contra Costas behavioral health director, said families have been making such decisions for decades. Were used to it, she said. We expect it. People regularly call her agency and ask if they should drop private insurance to get into county programs. Even with very good insurance, that continuum of care isnt there for the most part, she said. Privately insured people have been treated in the countys first-episode psychosis program, though Tavano is reluctant to broadcast that, given limited space. Others with private insurance come into the countys costly crisis stabilization unit, she said, or get help via the countys mobile crisis response team. Were not going to turn people away, she said. But spending more on insured people leaves less to spend on people who are on Medi-Cal or uninsured and very low-income, she said. Other counties facing similar demand restrict their offerings. Solano County initially accepted people with private insurance into their early psychosis program until the program was inundated, and didnt have adequate room to serve people with Medi-Cal. The program was then restricted, said Sandra Sinz, the countys behavioral health director, even though we know if you dont offer it, people arent going to get help. So what can be done? State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, introduced SB855, which would require insurers to cover all medically necessary treatments for mental health and substance use disorders. Several California agencies that serve children have begun piloting partnerships with commercial plans. Marika Collins of Casa Pacifica, which serves children and families on the Central Coast and in Southern California, said her organization is working with Anthem and Kaiser to provide the same intensive mental health services to children with private insurance theyve long provided to children on Medi-Cal. Im just thrilled to say that weve done it, Collins said. Im less quick to bash the health plans than I was three years ago. Some of them really get it. Jocelyn Wiener writes for CalMatters a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics. This story was made possible by a grant from the California Health Care Foundation. VILLANOVA, Pa. A Villanova University research team has been awarded a two-year, $397,196 National Science Foundation Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) grant. Titled CC* Compute: High-Performance Computing (HPC) Backbone for Accelerating Campus-Wide and Regional Research, the award will fund a university-wide HPC cluster that will help advance Villanovas computational research. The team is comprised of Principal Investigator Dr. Aaron Wemhoff, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Center for Energy-Smart Electronic Systems Villanova site; Co-PI Dr. David Cereceda, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering; Co-PI Dr. Ryan Jorn, assistant professor of Chemistry; and Co-PI Jonathan Graziola, manager of IT operations for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, with support by Michele Dickinson and Dan McGee of University Information Technologies. As Villanova continues to grow its research enterprise, this university-wide computing effort will increase the capabilities of at least 27 research-intensive faculty in engineering, the physical sciences and social sciences, Wemhoff says. The grant also establishes the Southeastern Pennsylvania High-Performance Computing Consortium, which provides computational access to researchers from small local colleges and universities, thereby fostering collaborative partnerships with Villanova researchers and each other. The effort also connects the University to the broader Open Science Grid network for distributing available resources to researchers nationally. In addition, the grant will allow Villanova to integrate high performance computing into 10 newly created or modified undergraduate and graduate courses. Specifically, this project will: Establish the computational hardwareincluding 1,184 central processing units, 10,240 graphical processing units and 448 terabytes of data storagealong with complementary software and networking resources Grow resource usage on campus and regionally in project areas that improve the fundamental understanding of (1) structural materials behavior in fusion energy applications, (2) causes for various nasal sinus diseases, (3) ion transport in energy storage devices, (4) speech perception and language processing, (5) river behavior, and (6) nonlinear mechanical behavior, including advancements in machine learning algorithms Institute practices to mitigate the costs associated with cluster growth and maintenance Several Engineering projects will benefit from the use of the cluster, including the implementation of powerful, yet computationally intensive, algorithms such as molecular dynamics, finite element analysis, and computational fluid dynamics. Molecular dynamics allows users to uncover materials behavior at the molecular level, enabling research into new materials with properties (e.g., strength) beyond those available in the marketplace today. Finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics are used to analyze sophisticated engineering systems and structures, including probing into medical applications (e.g., how our bones react to heavy weight and how our blood flows in our veins) , which benefit society in a more rapid way than in using complex experiments. Dr. Wemhoff notes that the grant offers an added benefit in the form of opportunities for student engagement, education and training, resulting in an improved preparation of students for the STEM workforce in which nearly every field is being transformed by computational advancements. The new computer cluster will also support a diverse portfolio of projects within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Many of these projects rely on access to a large number of processors in order to push the boundaries of science in ways that are simply not feasible without access to HPC equipment, says CO-PI Jorn, whose research focuses on developing new tools for connecting the energy costs to charge lithium batteries to the materials used in their construction. His teams methods require running more than 40 molecular simulations in parallel that each use 16 compute cores. Without access to the hundreds of cores available on modern HPC equipment, we would not be able to test our methods on realistic energy storage devices, he adds. Beyond supporting existing research projects within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Jorn notes that this resource will also be an educational opportunity in the spirit of the teacher-scholar model Villanova emphasizes to provide a centralized location for faculty and students to learn more about high performance computing in application to their research interests. Over the past two decades it has become increasingly clear that computational modeling can provide key insights to experiments done in the lab, and this resource will provide new opportunities for collaboration both within the University and with external researchers, says Jorn. Melissa OConnor, PhD, RN, FAAN, associate professor at Villanovas Fitzpatrick College of Nursing, who frequently uses large data sets in her research, says High performance computing will be invaluable to health care and nursing research as we continue to use big data to improve the lives of patients we have dedicated our careers to serving. Held by the ASEAN Secretariat, the dialogue aimed to collect opinions on the building of the blocs master plan on pandemic response and post-pandemic recovery, as requested by ASEAN leaders at the 36th ASEAN Summit in June. It brought together hundreds of delegates from ASEAN member countries and regional and international organisations. Dung, who is also Chairman of the ASEAN Coordinating Council Working Group on Public Health Emergencies (ACCWG-PHE), suggested economic recovery work should be done in steps with clear focuses, concentrating on production, tourism, and transport, with more attention to be paid to disadvantaged groups. He stressed the need to ensure the dual goals of containing the pandemic while rapidly recovering economic activities. As ACCWG-PHE Chairman, Dung called for the involvement from the private sector, international organisations, and ASEAN partners in the building of the plan, first of all the draft plan framework. The master plan, which will be constantly updated, is scheduled to be submitted to the 37th ASEAN Summit in November. ALPHARETTA, Ga., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Premier mortgage broker, Atlantic Home Mortgage (AHM) (https://www.atlantichm.com) announced Tyler Pate has joined the company's Alpharetta, Georgia branch as a Senior Loan Officer. Pate has 18 years of experience in the mortgage industry. He has served 750+ clients in the past and has experience working with both the retail side and the broker side of mortgage banking. Tyler Pate "No two loans are ever alike, so with my experience, I'm able to work with a client to find a solution. My goal is to make the process as easy as possible and hope to make their homebuying experience a breeze. From placing a family in their first home to helping someone out of a tough financial situation, I get satisfaction out of all of them," said Pate. A graduate of the University of Georgia, Pate took courses as part of the BB&T Leadership Development Program through the BB&T Leadership Institute. "We couldn't be more excited to welcome Tyler to the Atlantic Home Mortgage family. He is a veteran of the mortgage industry and a true professional," said Tony Davis, Founder of Atlantic Home Mortgage. About Atlantic Home Mortgage Atlantic Home Mortgage (AHM) was founded to provide a better way for people to obtain home loans. The client-centered company combines cutting-edge technology with experienced professionals to create a simple, transparent mortgage process. They keep overhead low by using technology to streamline many of the tedious parts of the mortgage process, passing the savings onto their clients. The approach seems to be working. In the past two years, AHM has funded over $180 million in new mortgage loans and experienced 650% revenue growth from 2018 to 2019. For more information, visit https://www.atlantichm.com Media contact: Larissa Negreiros [email protected] (678) 329-7353 SOURCE Atlantic Home Mortgage Watertown, NY (13601) Today Light snow this morning giving way to partly cloudy conditions this afternoon. Much colder. Morning high of 12F with temps falling to near 0. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 70%.. Tonight Bitterly cold. Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low -14F. Winds light and variable. Karnataka may bring an ordinance to ban the sale of tobacco, gutkha and paan masala in the state over fears of drugs being sold in paan masala pouches, Chief Minister told Governor Vajubhai Vala on Friday. Yediyurappa along with Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai had called on the Governor to discuss a host of issues with him including drugs, crime and coronavirus cases in the state. During the discussion, the Governor suggested to the Chief Minister to ban the sale and distribution of tobacco, Gutkha, Paan Masala and all types of pouches in which in the name of gutkha, drugs were sold in the state, a statement from the Governor's office said. "The Chief Minister said that the issue will be discussed and action will be taken. If necessary an ordinance will be brought about this," the statement read. Recently, the Bengaluru police busted a racket with the arrest of four persons from Kerala with a major drug haul of Rs 1.25 crore from their hideout. These drugs were brought to India in a clandestine manner and sold to college students and youth in Bengaluru and other parts of the state. "The Governor also sought to know about the measures taken to contain the coronavirus cases in the state and emphasised upon the usage of Ayurveda medicines to boost immunity," Bommai told reporters after meeting the Governor. Sources in the Home Department said the Governor also discussed with Yediyurappa and Bommai about the steps taken by the government to check terrorist activities in the state following the United Nations' recent report pointing towards substantial presence of IS supporters in Karnataka. To a question, Bommai said there was no discussion with the Governor about the cabinet expansion, which is on the cards in August. The proposed cabinet expansion has created a buzz in state politics and the Chief Minister's unscheduled visit to the Governor sparked speculation. A few days ago, Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadi had called on the Governor before meeting the party president J P Nadda and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari in New Delhi. Savadi's move had given rise to the speculations about the possible change of guard in the state and some social media posts went on to project him as the next Chief Minister of the state. The Deputy Chief Minister later dismissed the reports saying that Yediyurappa was his leader and he would remain the Chief Minister for the rest of the term of the current Vidhana Sabha. (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.) He was described as a white man between the ages of 30 and 40, with close-cut brown hair and a slim build. At the time of the incident, he was wearing a long, black coat and dark shoes, and had a medium-sized white dog with a curled tail, the FBI said. An appeals court has cleared the way for a $60-million takeover of the Stars publisher by entrepreneurs Jordan Bitove and Paul Rivett. Lawyers for a competing bid from Canadian Modern Media Holdings had asked the Ontario Divisional Court to issue a stay of Monday nights ruling approving the takeover by Bitove and Rivetts company NordStar. But Divisional Court Justice Michael Penny rejected the request Friday afternoon, issuing his decision via email after a morning hearing. Having carefully read the material filed and considered the submissions of the parties, I have concluded that the motion for a stay of the order ... must be dismissed. Torstar chairman John Honderich said he was gratified by Pennys decision. This is a victory, and a vindication of the fact we proceeded in a responsible and fair manner, Honderich said in a brief interview after the decision. Despite the costly, obstructionist efforts of the Proud and Selfe group, we have thankfully been cleared to close the purchase of Torstar and begin the task at hand, said Bitove. CMMH bid team member and finance industry veteran Neil Selfe declined to comment on Fridays decision. After the court released its decision, the Torstar board of directors gave their approval for the deal to be closed as soon as is practicable. The deal had been expected to close this past Tuesday, then was twice delayed when CMMH and bid team member Matthew Proud appealed Mondays decision by Superior Court Justice Cory Gilmore. The deal is now likely to close early next week. Bitove and Rivett have said they plan to take Torstar private after the deal closes. It wasnt immediately clear whether an appeal hearing scheduled for next Friday will still go ahead, but CMMH had previously suggested an appeal after the deal closed would be moot. On Friday morning Torstars legal team argued that the request for a stay should be rejected because CMMH had missed a filing deadline for the fairness hearing with Gilmore, and doesnt hold any Torstar shares, so Gilmore shouldnt have even heard their arguments. These are the efforts of a failed bidder to get another kick at the can, said Torstar lawyer Ryan Morris. They are trying to use the court process to preserve Torstar and NordStar in limbo. NordStar lawyer Orestes Pasparakis said a stay wouldnt be fair to shareholders, NordStar or Torstar. There is no reason to wait, and any delay creates uncertainty in extraordinary times, Pasparakis said. CMMH lawyer Alistair Crawley argued that the stay should be granted to keep the deal from closing before an appeal is scheduled to be heard next Friday. Once the deal is closed, it would become virtually impossible to unwind it, because the money would have already been disbursed to shareholders, Crawley said. Its not clear to us it would be possible to unscramble the egg, Crawley said. In written submissions, Crawley said Gilmore made several mistakes in her ruling. The artificially rushed nature of the hearing resulted in the application judge making a number of palpable and overriding errors of fact, CMMHs lawyers argued in documents submitted to the divisional court. Among their arguments was that a vote last Tuesday, where 98.7 per cent of shareholders approved of the deal, shouldnt count. Gilmore had rejected arguments from CMMH that Torstars board had stopped negotiating with CMMH after receiving its first 72-cents-per-share bid, which was subsequently topped by NordStars final offer of 74 cents per share. A day before shareholders approved the takeover, CMMH raised its offer to 80 cents per share, but hard lock-ups signed by Torstars biggest shareholders had already guaranteed their support for NordStar. Haruto Iwata, Managing Director, Fujifilm India talks about how the company is contributing in this fight against COVID-19 We all are witnessing an unprecedented and difficult time of our lives due to COVID-19 global pandemic. As Mumbai battles the highest number of coronavirus cases in India, we wanted to show our support to the healthcare professionals and salute these health warriors for stepping up for the country selflessly. Committed to work together with the people of India in this hour of difficulty, we have introduced measures to ensure adequate protective equipment and masks are available for healthcare specialists and associated workforce present on the front lines. At Fujifilm, we believe its time for all of us to come together and protect the humanity by acting responsibly and by doing what we can do to prevent further spread of COVID-19. In addition, the company is installing Computed Radiology, Digital Radiology systems and imagers across isolation wards at hospitals to ensure effective monitoring and controlling the disease outbreaks. These technologies will empower clinicians to improve efficiency and expedite the early diagnosis of the disease." Haruto Iwata, Managing Director, Fujifilm India Ram temple in Ayodhya to be ready by 2025, open for 'darshan' to devotees by 2023 end Ram Mandir Trust to distribute Bikaneri Laddoos to foreign embassies in Delhi on Aug 5 India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, July 31: The Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust will be sending Bikaneri Laddoos to all foreign embassies in Delhi on August 5, the day when the Bhumi Pujan for the Ram Temple at Ayodhya will be conducted. Officials of the Trust have placed orders for 4 lakh packets of laddoos. Each packet will contain four laddoos and these would come from Lucknow and Delhi. At 12.30 pm on August 5, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will perform the ground breaking ceremony for the construction of the grand Ram Temple at Ayodhya. Priest at Ayodhya, 15 policemen test positive for coronavirus ahead of Ram Mandir event The schedule was finalised as per the suggestions made by several astrologers. Prime Minister Modi will arrive at the Saket University and reach the Ram Mandir complex at 11.30 am. There would be an hour long programme followed by an address by the PM. Former deputy prime minister, L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, Vinayar Katiyar will also attend the ceremony. All the developments will be personally monitored by the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath. The entire city will be decorated while the 12 dwars of the city will be decorated with lights. {quiz_266} Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News The Ram Temple in Ayodhya will be 161 feet tall, the architect of the Temple said. He also said that original design prepared in 1988 mentioned the height as 141 feet. The earlier design was prepared in 1988 and over 30 years have passed since. People are also very enthusiastic about visiting the Temple. Hence we through 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, architect and son of C Sompura, the chief architect told news agency ANI. He also said that two mandaps have been added and all the pillars and stones that were carved based on the earlier design will still be used, he also said. He also said that the construction of the Temple will take 3.5 years. The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirtha Kshetra has decided that there will not be more than 200 people, including 150 invitees to ensure maximum social distancing. The 200 guests will be divided into blocks of 50 people each. There would be one block for saints, one for political dignitaries, one for leaders that led the Ram Mandir movement and one for representatives. Ram Temple Bhumi Pujan schedule: All you should know Swami Govind Dev Giri, Treasurer of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirtha Kshetra said that it has been decided that there will not be more than 200 people including 150 invitees at the event. Before laying the foundation stone, PM Modi will offer prayers to Lord Ram at the Temple and Lord Hanuman at the Garhi Temple in Ayodhya. All chief ministers from different states will be invited to the programme. Veteran BJP leader, L K Advani will also be invited for the ceremony. There are elaborate arrangements on for the programme. The rituals will begin on August 3 and end with a brume pujan on August 5, following which the construction of the Temple would commence. New Delhi: Bollywood actress Rhea Chakraborty has alleged before the Supreme Court that actor Sushant Singh Rajput's father has used his influence in roping her in the FIR lodged at Patna in Bihar accusing her of abetment of suicide of his son. Rajput, aged 34, was found hanging from the ceiling of his apartment in suburban Bandra in Mumbai on June 14 and since then the Mumbai police has been probing the case keeping in mind various angles. The allegations in the FIR lodged at Patna against Rhea reflect the influence of Rajput's father in illegally roping her in the case, said the petition filed by her on Wednesday seeking transfer of the FIR from Patna to Mumbai. The petitioner is an actress and is into acting since 2012. In the peculiar facts and circumstances of the present case, the Petitioner has been falsely implicated in the present case filed at the instance of Krishna Kishore Singh-father of the deceased, the plea said. Rhea in her plea admitted that she was in a live-in relationship with Rajput and has been in deep trauma due the death of the actor and moreover getting rape and death threats. Petitioner has also received various death and rape threats and she is in deep trauma due to the loss of deceased, which is multiplied further due to the media sensitivity of the case, it said, adding that she has also filed a complaint at Santa Cruz police station against the rape and death threats. She said, "It is pertinent to mention that the deceased and petitioner were in live-in relationship since a year up till June 8, 2020 when the petitioner had temporarily shifted to her own residence in Mumbai." Her plea said, deceased was suffering from depression for some time and was also on anti-depressants and he committed suicide on the morning of June 14, 2020 at his Bandra residence by hanging himself. 'Unnatural death report' was filed by Bandra police station at Mumbai and causes leading to taing of such drastic steps are being examined. Rhea said that she was summoned by the Bandra police on various occasions and her statement was also recorded under section 175 of CrpC and she understands that the probe of Mumbai police is still going on as some of the forensic reports are still awaited. She said that Section 177 of CrPC mandates that every offence shall be inquired into and shall be tried by the magistrate within whose local jurisdiction it was committed. Rhea said that even there is an iota of truth in the case registered by Rajput's father, the jurisdiction to probe the offence would still lie with the Bandra Police Station. However, in the present case, after recording the FIR, the investigation has been mechanically commenced wholly without jurisdiction by sending report to the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate 3, Patna Sadar, instead of sending the FIR to the jurisdictional ACMM, Bandra, Mumbai and Bandra Police station, the plea said. She said that it becomes abundantly clear that the commencement of investigation in Patna is erroneous in absence of any cause of action having arisen thereto in Patna. The entire cause of action as alleged in the FIR had arisen at Bandra in Mumbai, her plea said. It would be just and expedient if the transfer of the case is directed from Patna to Mumbai. No prejudice would be caused to the respondents (father of the Sushant and Bihar police), if the direction sought herein is issued by this court,? the transfer plea said. The plea sought transfer of the FIR registered on July 25 under various sections of IPC including 306 (abetment of suicide), 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 380 (theft in dwelling house), 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust) and 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, registered at Rajeev Nagar Police station Patna. Mr. Gohmert, who was scheduled to fly to Texas on Wednesday morning on Air Force One with President Trump, tested positive for the coronavirus in a pre-screen at the White House. The conservative congressman has relished his disdain for the advice of public health experts; he has been seen walking the halls of the Capitol without a mask and not practicing social distancing. Even after learning he was infected, he insisted on returning to the Capitol; after Politico broke the news of the test results, he told his aides in person that he had tested positive. He appeared in a video smiling, smugly referring to covid-19 as the Wuhan virus and absurdly blaming his diagnosis on his recent use of a mask. He has not experienced any symptoms which we hope continues to be the case but thats of little comfort to those who came into contact with him. Theres mounting evidence that people without symptoms or with mild symptoms help spread the virus. New Delhi: The Muslim community across the globe is immersed in the celebrations of 'festival of sacrifice', Bakr Eid or Eid-al-Adha. Saudi Arabia announced it on July 31 while the Shahi Imam of Delhis Jama Masjid declared August 1 as Eid-al-Adha for India. The special day is considered to be the second of the two most important Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide each year. The first one being Eid-al-Fitr, and the second one Eid-al-Adhait is considered the holier of the two. The festival of Eid-al-Adha falls on the 10th day of Dhu al-Hijjah as per the Islamic lunar calendar. As per the Gregorian calendar, Eid-al-Adha dates may vary from year-to-year drifting approximately 11 days earlier each year. SIGNIFICANCE OF EID-AL-ADHA: Eid-al-Adha festival marks and revers the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to Gods command. According to the Quran, it is said that before Prophet Ibrahim or Abraham could sacrifice his son, God provided a ram to sacrifice instead. In commemoration of this, Muslims across the world sacrifice a male goat and divide it into three parts: one-third of the share is given to the poor and needy; another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbours; and the remaining third is retained by the family. The poor and needy are fed the food, thereby providing them with an adequate potion. Sumptuous food items and delicacies are prepared at home and guests are welcomed. In the times of the deadly novel coronavirus pandemic, social distancing, wearing masks and keeping hands sanitised have been added as the precautionary measures in every festivity to fight the outbreak. Here's wishing our readers a happy Eid-al-Adha! A group of 30 people gathered at dawn to observe a minute's silence for soldiers in Melbourne in breach of the state's coronavirus restraictions Video footage showed a gathering of people - some of whom were not in masks - outside Melbournes Shrine of Remembrance just before 7am on Friday. Some of the protesters held up Australian Red Ensign flags as one member of the group requested gathering go ahead 'under the kingdom of Australia', according to Seven News. The group responded to the man: 'Lest we forget.' Video footage showed a gathering of people - some of whom were not in masks - outside Melbournes Shrine of Remembrance just before 7am on Friday The Australian Red Ensign was created during the 1901 Federation flag competition and has been the flag of Merchant Naval Shipping ever since The Australian Red Ensign was created during the 1901 Federation flag competition and has been the flag of Merchant Naval Shipping ever since. Victoria Police were quick to break up the gathering and asked people to move on before they were penalised. One officer said: 'We are from Victoria Police. What I see here is an illegal gathering under the health code directions. 'Those people with the flags, I am asking you to move on as soon as possible. That will be in the next two to three minutes. 'I don't see any lawful reason for you to be here.' A Victoria Police spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia: 'The group dispersed immediately following directions from attending police, as the event was non-compliant with the Chief Health Officers directives. 'Police will investigate the events of this mornings demonstration and plan to issue fines to individuals who were identified. 'We will also continue to investigate to identify other individuals who were in attendance, and we will consider enforcement options.' However Victoria Police were quick to break up the illegal gathering and asked people to move on before they were penalised The spokeswoman said police will be in the area throughout the day to ensure the Chief Health Officers directions are complied with. A photoshopped picture of the shrine with the date July 31, 2020, superimposed on the top circulated on social media earlier this week, urging people to pay tribute to the soldiers in spite of Victoria's strict lockdown orders. One of the group's supporters shared the event and poster on her social media channels, urging her friends to gather on Friday. #BREAKING: Police have told the dozen of anti-maskers who gathered at the Shrine they have THREE minutes to leave. Otherwise arrests WILL be made @7NewsAustralia @7NewsMelbourne pic.twitter.com/k9trco8jiu Cassie Zervos (@cassiezervos) July 30, 2020 #BREAKING About 30 people gathering at the Shrine of Remembrance. Some not wearing masks. They have now disbanded at the request of police. They held a minutes silence but refused to explain why they were here. pic.twitter.com/awEolyP8xD Paul Dowsley (@paul_dowsley) July 30, 2020 'If you attend ANZAC 25th April usually, then there should be no difference on this date as they removed our rights to attend our shrines for ANZAC this year due their fake COVID lockdown,' the woman said in the caption of the post. In the same caption, the woman referenced a series of historic treaties and policies while strangely insisting people are not 'citizens'. 'Standing out from under their Ship, off their Sea and onto our own lands again gives you Loyal Subject rights once again,' she wrote. The woman told people not to call themselves citizens, arguing that anyone who declared citizenship after World War Two was immediately placed under 'their control'. A photoshopped picture of a shrine with the date 31st July, 2020 superimposed on top is circulating on social media and among anti-mask communities, urging people to pay tribute to the soldiers in spite of Victoria's strict lockdown orders An event is scheduled at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance on Friday, organised by the Church of United Kingdom of Australia group Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews slammed people who break the restrictions by protesting, gathering in public or not wearing a mask. 'Well, I've got a very clear message for anybody who wants to go to that protest or any other protest: Don't do it,' he said during a press conference on Thursday. 'The only thing we should be protesting against, or fighting against, is this virus. Stay at home means stay at home. It's not one of the lawful reasons to leave your home.' Australia has recorded its deadliest day of the pandemic with the loss of 13 more lives and a high of 723 new case in Victoria on Thursday, pushing the national death toll to 189. Of the latest casualties 10 were linked to nursing homes. The system of Gujrat Technological University was hacked on Thursday, personal details of 8th semester BE students were leaked on a website. The link with student's leaked data went viral over the internet. However, the details of the students were later removed from the link. Gujarat Technological University (GTU) recently got its system hacked. The hackers leaked the personal data of nearly 1200 students of a bachelors course. The university has reported the issue to the Ahemdabad Cyber Crime Cell. Currently, the officials are investigating this case. On Thursday, the system of Gujrat Technological University was hacked. Data including PAN cards, Aadhar cards and photographs of over 1200 students of Bachelors of Engineering (BE) was leaked on a website. JM Yadav, ACP, Cyber police informed that they have started an investigation into the case but as of now, no FIR has been lodged. He told that the police department has received a formal complaint from the authorities and as per the probe, the decision to file a case will be taken. Naveen Sheth, the vice Chancellor of GTU stated that a total of 28,000 students had registered for the online test but 1200 applied after the registration process was over. Naveen added that they considered students requests and conducted a trial run for them on July 28, late evening. On checking the university authorities found that the leaked data belonged to these students. Also read: UGC Guidelines 2020: SC adjourns case till August 10 Also read: Tamil Nadu 11th Result Released: Check HSE +1 result @tnresults.nic.in The leaked data went viral over the internet. It has now been removed from the link where it was leaked. According to the university authorities, the hackers took the link down when they announced that they will file a complaint with police. No exam related data like question papers were leaked by the hacker. Sheth said that it has been confirmed that the system was surely hacked. He is certain that the hackers will soon be identified as well. Also read: New Education Policy 2020: All you need to know about NEP 2020 On the other hand, if you removed the hard border closure then there might be a question about then do you have to reimpose a more stringent form of common measures. Common measures include quarantining, self-isolation, testing, movement restrictions, gathering limits, contact tracing and personal hygiene. Judge Darryl Rangiah, who is presiding over the Federal Court proceedings, questioned whether WA really had a 'hard border' due to an average of nearly 3300 people entering the state from the east each week since April 5. Mr Thomson agreed a better term was to refer to it as WAs "border strategy". WA remains the only state with its border closed to every state, with five other jurisdictions which have eliminated community spread of the virus moving to allow travel with other COVID-19-free states while restricting entry from hotspots, or requiring those arriving from hotspots to complete 14 days quarantine. Loading Mr Palmers lawyer, Peter Dunning QC, said WA had shown it was willing to accept a very low level of risk of coronavirus re-emerging in the community. He said evidence given from each of the five public health experts during the hearing, including WAs Chief Health Officer Andrew Robertson, estimated the risk of the virus returning to WA from interstate was less than 1 per cent and would remain that way if the border was lifted to all but coronavirus hotspots. The proper inquiry will ultimately become, amongst the available alternatives, is there an equally acceptable [strategy] that does not involve such a restriction on interstate intercourse?" he said. Mr Donaghue pointed to modelling carried out by Commonwealth expert witness Tony Blakely which estimated if there were 175 planes arriving in Perth from NSW over a month, there was a 4 per cent chance of one person being infected by COVID-19. "The court has to consider whether that kind of risk justifies the complete exclusion of people from New South Wales," he said. Premier Mark McGowan has remained adamant WA's hard border would only come down when the public health advice said it was safe to do so and warned he did not want to rely on other state's border restrictions. Queensland Solicitor-General Sandy Thompson said it was "highly unlikely" a uniformed border agreement could be achieved between COVID-19 free states, and a travel bubble would only be effective if all the states in it had the same controls. "It is certainly not likely to be achieved in the type of timeframes that are needed to respond to this pandemic," he said. Under Australias constitution, trade and movement between the states shall be absolutely free, however movement can be restricted if reasonable in the event of a public health emergency. Loading Prime Minister Scott Morrison said WAs all-or-nothing approach to its border closure was likely unconstitutional given there was little public health justification. But the hard border is strongly supported by the majority of West Australians, with a Facebook news poll by Nine News Perth finding 96 per cent of the 132,000-plus respondents supported the strategy. If unsuccessful in its legal fight, the WA government would still have the power to enforce mandatory quarantine and testing of interstate travellers on arrival. Mr Thomson said other measures, such as people being required to have a COVID-19 test in their state of origin before flying to WA, or wearing a mask while on the plane, could also be considered. Judge Rangiah said the evidence presented at the hearing had only explored the present risk. "What this whole analysis leaves out is that there's uncertainty about what's going to happen in the future, none of the experts know," he said. Mr Donaghue said any changes to the situation in Australia could be addressed through future state directions, which can be enacted quickly. Judge Rangiah on Friday afternoon reserved his decision on the findings of fact in relation to the four-day Federal Court hearing. The Japanese government said Friday it will lift a ban on reselling face masks and disinfectant as suppliers have ramped up production enough to resolve a nationwide shortage spurred by the coronavirus pandemic. Punishable with a prison sentence of up to one year or a 1 million yen ($9,500) fine, or both, the ban was imposed in a bid to deter scalpers. It is expected to be lifted in August, although the exact timing was not immediately clear. The government is also scrapping its plan to deliver an additional 80 million cloth masks to nursing homes and other high-risk facilities, health minister Katsunobu Kato said, amid criticism it was a waste of taxpayers' money. "Supply has increased significantly and consumers are no longer having difficulty buying (face masks and disinfectant)," Kato said at a press conference, adding the ban may be reinstated if deemed necessary. The ban was imposed on face masks in mid-March and disinfectant in late May through a revision to the law on "emergency measures for stabilizing the living conditions of the public," which was enacted in 1973 in response to panic-buying of daily necessities such as toilet paper during the oil crisis. The government has already provided 130 million cloth masks, dubbed "Abenomask," meaning Abe's mask and a play on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's signature "Abenomics" policy mix, to households nationwide. CAIT president: golden era of China-UK ties should be passed on from generation to generation As this year marks the fifth anniversary of the golden era of China-UK ties, the bilateral relationship should be passed on from generation to generation, Jin Xu, president of the China Association of International Trade (CAIT), said on Wednesday. Jin Xu (Photo/Yu Kai) Jin, who is also former minister-counselor of the Chinese embassy in the UK, made the remarks at the Jintai Roundtable seminar on China-UK economic cooperation and innovation development held by People's Daily Online. Now, projects invested by Chinese companies are scattered around the UK, from London to Scotland and Northern Ireland, and Chinese investment continues to grow in the landmark buildings of the City of London, Jin said. Britain is home to more and more Chinese restaurants. More and more British can speak Chinese and more British children are learning Chinese, Jin noted, adding that this is an encouraging phenomenon. Over 1 million Chinese people have traveled to the UK in recent years. Chinese people can be seen everywhere in Britain now, and almost every shop has a salesperson who can speak Chinese, Jin said. The UK was the first major Western country to recognize the Peoples Republic of China and join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, according to Jin, adding that the country has also repeatedly mentioned that it is a natural partner for the Belt and Road Initiative and that the bilateral friendship and cooperation should be further advanced. It encourages the U.S. Department of State to establish a working group on Ukraine with relevant European allies. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on July 30 introduced legislation to provide support for Ukraine, authorizing up to US$300 million per year of foreign military financing. "U.S. Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) today introduced the Ukraine Security Partnership Act to provide security assistance and strategic support to Ukraine," the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations said in a statement posted on its website on July 30. Read alsoU.S. Javelin anti-tank systems: Ukraine gets military aid worth over US$60 mln The legislation authorizes up to US$300 million per year of foreign military financing to Ukraine, subject to certifications, including the authority to provide Ukraine with lethal military assistance. It also requires the administration to appoint a special envoy for Ukraine to serve as the U.S. liaison for the Normandy Format peace negotiations and to facilitate dialogue between Black Sea countries. In addition, it encourages the Department of State to establish a working group on Ukraine with relevant European allies. It also requires a Department of Defense and State Department report on the capability and capacity requirements of Ukraine's armed forces, a plan to supply U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, and any recommendations. Besides, it authorizes US$4 million per year to train Ukrainian military officers through the International Military Education and Training. "The U.S. is Ukraine's strongest supporter, but its security needs continue to grow under relentless pressure from Moscow. The bipartisan Ukraine Security Partnership Act will address these challenges by substantially increasing long-term security assistance for our partners in Ukraine while ensuring accountability from their democratic institutions. U.S. security assistance for the people of Ukraine is the right thing to do. It helps to advance our values and is in the national security interests of the United States. This bill shows that our commitment to Ukraine's security should be unwavering and shielded from politics. And I look forward to working to build support for this critical legislation in the Senate," the statement quotes Menendez as saying. The Donald Trump Administration, in turn, welcomed an increase in the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine in the defense budget for the financial year 2021. This decision was made by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the FY 2021 State Department budget request on July 30. "The administration does support of the increase in lethal aid," Pompeo told U.S. Senator Rob Portman at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "This administration has acted to protect our interests and our friends: We've issued the Crimea Declaration. We've supplied Ukraine with lethal military hardware. We've sanctioned more than 360 Russian targets for everything from human rights abuses, to supporting the murderous Assad regime, to operating mercenaries and proxy forces around the world," he said. According to him, "Russia is a destabilizing authoritarian force in Ukraine, in Libya, in Syria, and inside of Western democracies." The Senate-passed FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes US$250 million in security assistance for Ukraine to fund additional training, lethal and non-lethal equipment, and advisory efforts for Ukraine's forces. Specifically, US$125 million of that US$250 million is designated specifically for lethal assistance, an increase of US$75 million from FY20. A little more than a year into construction of a multi-billion export facility, Golden Pass LNG has made headway securing local contractors with more than 150 agreements worth about $245 million, according to a new report from the company. Golden Pass LNG, a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Exxon Mobil, released a second quarter update on Thursday reporting local impacts recorded so far from the project. Along with the contracts already secured, it also reported more than 400 businesses across Southeast Texas that have been added to a priority list for procurement and services. Helping our community benefit from our project and grow alongside our company is more important now than ever, Sean Ryan, president of Golden Pass LNG, said in a statement. As we make progress, we will continue to explore and develop solutions to make sure our neighbors are successful, too. The targeting of local workers and businesses has been a goal for the companys engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor, a joint venture between Zachry Group, CB&I and Chiyoda, since construction began more than a year ago. Chiyoda is the contractor responsible for about 40% of the production volume from LNG plants across the world, including the Cameron LNG project in Hackberry, Louisiana. So far, more than 650 local construction workers have assisted on the project with a payroll amount of $31 million. It has also hired 25 employees who will work in the facility, but it still has more than 200 positions left to fill. Golden Pass has tried to secure processing engineers from the surrounding community in Jefferson County but has had to be creative since working with liquid natural gas is a relatively new career for Southeast Texas. It has funded eight processing scholarships and one instrumentation scholarship for students at Port Arthurs Memorial High School and Sabine Pass High School. In June of last year, Golden Pass LNG and its partners held an event in Port Arthur to gather information from local business owners and help get the word out about what services it would need. Related: Golden Pass seeks help ahead of hiring boom The company has not only been trying to court businesses from the Houston area to western Louisiana, but project managers have said it expects a number of local businesses will have to be created or expanded to help accommodate demand. It has hosted forums and hired consultants to help entrepreneurs build small businesses that could service the project. Since at least 2014, well before the project received federal approval, Golden Pass partners Exxon Mobil and Qatar Petroleum have predicted huge job numbers as many as 9,000 workers needed through 2024 and 3,000 at one time during its peak. Since then, estimations for workers and the resources needed to house, feed and transport them have gradually ticked up as the project has inched closer to reality. Golden Pass LNG asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in December to extend the completion deadline to Nov. 30, 2026, to finish the $10 billion project. In June, it also sent a request to FERC to adjust its maximum allowed capacity from 15.6 million to 18.1 million tons per year (mtpa). The company said the change wouldnt require any adjustments to its permits because the extra capacity would come through production efficiencies. Because the capacity increase does not involve additions or adjustments to the permitted facilities, it would not result in any construction or environmental impacts beyond those previously identified, representatives for Golden Pass LNG wrote in the companys filing. jacob.dick@beaumontenterprise.com twitter.com/jd_journalism The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Congress on Friday of "significant public health consequences" if schools don't reopen in the fall. Millions of children get nutritional and mental health services at schools, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told a House Select Subcommittee hearing on containing the coronavirus outbreak. He said school reopenings to be done "smartly." "It's important to realize that it's in the public health's best interest for K-12 students to get back into face-to-face learning," Redfield testified. "There's really very significant public health consequences of the school closure." About "7.1 million kids get their mental health service at schools," he added. "They get their nutritional support from their schools. We're seeing an increase in drug use disorder as well as suicide in adolescent individuals. I do think that it's really important to realize it's not public health versus the economy about school reopening." The matter of whether and how to reopen schools in the U.S. this fall has become a hotbed issue in recent weeks. The U.S. has the worst outbreak in the world with more than 4 million cases and at least 152,075 deaths as of Friday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Researchers say the role kids play in spreading the disease is still unclear. On Thursday, President Donald Trump continued his push for schools to reopen as fall approaches regardless of the state of the outbreak, adding that keeping schools closed "is causing death also." Trump called on Democrats to work with Republicans to pass the latest coronavirus relief bill, which includes $105 billion to help schools reopen for in-person learning in the fall. Democratic leaders have criticized the bill for leaving out key aid measures that was included in the $3 trillion relief package they passed in May. "The lower they are in age, the lower the risk," Trump said Thursday at a news briefing in the White House. "We have to remember that there's another side to this. Keeping them out of school and keeping work closed is causing death also. Economic harm, but it's causing death for different reasons, but death. Probably more death." Redfield, who said he has a grandchild with cystic fibrosis, said school reopenings can be done with care. "We think that if you do five things, we can accomplish as much as we did as shutting down this nation," he said. "The face mask, the social distancing, the hand hygiene, staying smart about gatherings and staying out of crowded bars and crowded restaurants. If we did those five things, we've done modeling data, we get the same bang for the buck as if we just shut the entire economy down." -CNBC's Will Feuer contributed to this report. Hebron, Occupied West Bank The number of COVID-19 cases in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza reached 13,457 on Friday, according to the ministry of health, after a surge in infections in the second half of July. According to the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, the rate at which the disease is transmitted in the occupied West Bank has reached 1.58, meaning that every two infected individuals are likely to spread the virus to three more. The Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited control over some areas of the occupied West Bank, has struggled to contain the spread of the virus. When the PA eased a lockdown following street protests in late May, there were less than 130 confirmed coronavirus infections. It has since reimposed a partial lockdown in response to the increase in reported cases. However, spotty adherence to social distancing guidelines remained widespread across the West Bank, while a lack of control over borders and the movement of people have elevated the problems faced by the Ramallah-based administration. Hebron is the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in the occupied West Bank [Ibrahim Husseini/Al Jazeera] New epicentre Of the 8,796 active cases, more than half of have been reported in Hebron governorate in the southern West Bank. On a recent weekend in Hebron city, with a population of more than 750,000, the local authorities appeared ineffective or unwilling to enforce a routine lockdown. Vehicle traffic in and out of the city flowed unhindered, and many businesses were open. I decided to open my shop when I saw that by noon everybody was open, Ahmad al-Qaisi, an upholstery retailer from Hebron told Al Jazeera. In late June, as it became clear that Hebron was the epicentre of the outbreak, the health ministry directed more staff and supplies to the area. A new hospital in Dura, near Hebron city, was repurposed upon opening to exclusively treat COVID-19 patients. From the start, they brought the hardest cases here that need intensive care, Dr Muhammad Ribie, the administrator of the hospital, told Al Jazeera. Of course, it was a big challenge for us, he said. The hospital at Dura was first supplied with six ventilators, 10 intensive care unit beds, and 100 beds for minor cases, Ribie said. After a visit by the Palestinian health minister, Dr Mai Keleh, six more ventilators were sent along with 10 more ICU beds as cases in the region surged. The Dura hospital was also equipped with an oxygen generator, but Ribie said an additional generator is still needed to meet the demand. The treatment of the majority of the corona patients is by oxygen, Ribie said. If the generator cannot produce enough, we switch to oxygen tubes and those run out fast and then we have to send them to Hebron to be refilled. This is not practical, he added. In early July, as the number of cases in the Hebron region was surging, the demand for test kits resulted in a shortage that led authorities to temporarily use serological testing instead. The health ministry replenished test kit supplies the next day, but public anger mounted. A group of nurses prepare to leave the Dura Hospital after the end of their shift [Ibrahim Husseini/Al Jazeera] Community transmission A local health official who is privy to the COVID-19 situation in the West Bank told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity that the number of daily detected cases is worrying. During the last two weeks of July, newly detected cases averaged around 500 a day. This is a high figure when we think about the low number of tests performed, he said. Weve been performing around 35,000 tests for every one million people, and this is not enough. Israel ran far more tests The UAE ran 490,000 for every one million people, he said. We are short of money. At the beginning of the health crisis, the PA struggled to limit the spread of the disease in the West Bank via workers who travel to and from Israel. There are 10 official crossings between the West Bank and Israel, and 300 more unofficial crossings, Mai Keleh said in a recent TV interview. The PA does not have the resources to control labour traffic for all those points of entries. Also, many of the unofficial crossings are located in Area C of the West Bank where the PA has no control. However, the situation has far worsened now. The majority of the recent transmissions in the West Bank are community transmissions, the Palestinian health minister said recently. The health official told Al Jazeera that these account for more than 61 percent of the cases. Economic impact The economic fallout from coronavirus has been severe, with the ministry of economy estimating losses from the standstill at more than three billion dollars. Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayeh this week announced agreements with the Palestinian Monetary Authority on several measures to ease the economic strain. Banks were ordered not to slap fees on returned checks. In addition, they were also instructed to not deduct loan payments owed by their clients when the PA transfers salaries to its employees. According to data from the Palestinian Monetary Authority, the value of returned checks in the West Bank has soared in recent months to $389m. Ahmad Quaisi, the young upholstery merchant from Hebron, believed the policy has a downside because it has encouraged some to abuse it. But for now, he said, Weve transitioned from accepting checks to cash; we sell on a cash basis, only. Before the pandemic, he imported as many as 10 containers a month of merchandise from China, Turkey and Europe. That has changed, he said, as fewer customers are buying from his shop. Importing has been scaled back. The purchasing power is gone. Now, I import two containers a month. North Korea watchers believe Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, is keeping the possibility of continued dialogue with the United States alive. / Korea Times file By Kang Seung-woo Despite deadlocked nuclear negotiations between North Korea and the United States, Pyongyang has not fully ruled out the possibility of resuming talks with Washington in particular, ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November, according to experts, Friday. While Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, downplayed the possibility of her brother meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump again in a statement July 10, she unexpectedly requested a DVD of U.S. Independence Day celebrations, which hinted that the reclusive state was keeping their bilateral talks alive. "She's saying that somebody comes to bring that tape to Pyongyang, and that's me. She's saying, invite me to United States right, that's sort of the way I looked at it," Andrew Kim, a former head of the CIA's Korea Mission Center, told Voice of America. While in office, he accompanied U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo on all four of his trips to Pyongyang in 2018. "She opened the door right now they say this, they think the ball is in the American side. They're waiting. That's why since that message, she's not saying anything." After the Hanoi summit between Kim and Trump in February 2019 failed to produce an agreement, nuclear diplomacy between the two countries has seen little progress, negatively affecting inter-Korean ties. Cho Han-beom, a senior researcher of the Korea Institute for National Unification, similarly said that Kim is keeping the dialogue alive. "Her requests insinuated that she could be a representative for talks with the U.S. or a special envoy to Washington," Cho said. Following the DVD request, Pompeo said on July 15 that there is more discussion taking place between the U.S. and the North than publicly noticed and expressed hope they will have senior-level discussions before too long. Cho said this year is the "golden time" to reach a nuclear agreement between the two sides ahead of the U.S. presidential election. "The best scenario would be that Kim and Trump hold another summit and strike a nuclear deal," he said. "If Trump wins reelection, he will not revoke the deal and a Joe Biden president is not likely to scrap it, either, given that his Democratic Party respects international agreements signed by previous administrations." The current atmosphere is in favor of them holding talks. In June, the North Korean leader suspended envisaged military actions against South Korea amid growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, sparked by the North's demolition of an inter-Korean liaison office in the border city of Gaeseong due to the South's "failure" to stop anti-North leaflets sent across the border by North Korean defectors and activists. In addition, the South and the U.S. will scale down their combined military exercises later this month. Despite possible talks between the U.S. and the North, it would be a daunting task for them to reach an accord, with the two countries unwilling to give what the other side wants. "They're mixed. The mixed messaging is basically saying 'hey I'm here. I'm not ready to give you whatever you want, but still, you know, remind you that we are and at some point you have to deal with us," Andrew Kim said. If you've ever flipped through the Argos catalogue in search of home furnishings, gadgets or toys, you might have spotted some familiar faces. After printing its last physical edition of the much-loved catalogue this month, throwback images reveal how some of today's best-known stars have featured in its pages over the last 47 years. Holly Willoughby, Emma Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Tess Daly are among those who modelled clothing, underwear and exercise equipment for the Argos catalogue, which will no longer be produced in print. Argos pulled the plug on the biannual publication after telling employees that Covid-19 had been the final nail in the coffin. Woah!: In epic throwback photos from the early 2000s, it sees the This Morning presenter, who is now 37 and a mother-of-three, model several skimpy bras priced at 19.90 This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby started her career as a model. Age-defying: The snaps also see a young Holly (right) who has barely aged, with her natural brunette hair colour, instead of her signature shorter blonde locks The epic throwback photos from the early 2000s show the This Morning presenter, who is now 39 and a mother-of-three, model several skimpy bras priced at 19.90. And it's not just the Celebrity Juice presenter who modelled underwear for Argos, with Emma Willis also posing in lingerie for the catalogue retailer. In the epic throwback pictures it sees the Big Brother host, 42, wear a collection of 'superboost' push-up bras in a collection of colours, which have the tagline 'boob job from 18.90'. Saucy: And it's not just the Celebrity Juice presenter who modelled underwear for Argos and Emma Willis also showed off her ample assets for the catalogue retailer Tess Daly decided to cover up instead of modelling a collection of bras, seen here showcasing a cashmere cardigan Tess Daly, 51, also appeared in the glossy pages sporting a cashmere cardigan while former glamour model Alicia Douvall, 41, showed off her abs while advertising a body toner machine. Former Spice Girl Emma Bunton, 44, also made an appearance as a young girl, advertising duvets in the catalogue long before her days of stardom. And professional body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger, 73, also got in on the act advertising a bicep crunching device. Arnold Schwarzenegger advertises a bicep cruncher in the Argos Catalogue Here baby Emma Bunton (left) is seen advertising duvets before her break with the Spice Girls Alicia Douvall, former glamour model, advertises a body toning machine for 49.50 in the Argos Catalogue CLEVELAND, Ohio A woman who pleaded guilty to having her dogs attack a grocery store worker who was attempting to stop her from stealing has been sentenced to prison by a Summit County judge. Linda Snow, 65, of Norton, will spend four to six years in prison on a second-degree felony charge of felonious assault. Snows daughter, Jennifer Clark, 38, of Akron, was given a suspended three-year prison sentence after she pleaded guilty to charges of robbery and endangering children. Clark still must serve 90 days in jail and is on probation for three years. According to prosecutors, Snow and Clark took a cart full of food from Acme Fresh Market in Akrons Kenmore neighborhood on Aug. 16, 2019. When a 55-year-old Acme worker confronted Snow and Clark in the parking lot of the store, Snow opened a door to her vehicle, where she had three pit bulls, prosecutors say. Two of the dogs attacked and seriously injured the worker, who had to be hospitalized, prosecutors say. Snow and Clark then drove off with the dogs. Clarks 11-year-old son also was in the vehicle. This was a horrible incident, Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh said in a statement. The victim suffered significant physical injuries because of the attack. ... As a dog owner myself, I am appalled at how the dogs were used in this assault. CHICAGO (AP) A Chicago woman who last month became the nation's first COVID-19 patient to undergo a double lung transplant said Thursday that she woke up days later, unaware about the surgery and unable to "recognize my body. Mayra Ramirez said that before she fell ill she was an independent, active person who moved from North Carolina to Chicago in 2014 to work as a paralegal. She said she had an autoimmune condition, but was otherwise healthy. She had gone on a three-mile run shortly before becoming ill and heading for the hospital. I was told to hurry up (and) change, she said. I was asked who would be making my medical decisions for me. Thats when I told them it would be my mother and eldest sister who all live in North Carolina. I only had a couple minutes to contact them to let them know what was going on before I was intubated. Ramirez, 28, spoke to the media on Thursday alongside Brian Kuhns, 62, of Lake Zurich, Illinois, who followed her as the second U.S. coronavirus patient to undergo a double transplant. BACK TO SCHOOL: Houston-area women say they feel 'mom-shamed' over fight to send kids back to class Ramirez underwent the lung transplant on June 5 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. She didn't wake up until mid-June. I looked at myself and couldnt recognize my body, she said. I didnt have the cognitive ability to process what was going on. All I knew was that I wanted water. Dr. Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of the Northwestern Medicine Lung Transplant Program, said Ramirez, who was on a ventilator, fought for her life for six weeks, with the virus completely destroying her lungs. Doctors would call Nohemi Romero, her mother in North Carolina, with updates. Ramirez, sitting next to her mother during a news conference at the hospital, said her family made the trip to Chicago with the intention of saying goodbye. Luckily, once they arrived, my mother and my two sisters, the medical team was able to stabilize me, Ramirez said. They were explained the option of lung transplantation and my mother agreed to it. And then within 48 hours, I received the 10-hour lung transplant. ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: 'Its not a joke': Houston doctor Stella Immanuel defends use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 Bharat is calling Ramirezs surgery a "milestone in care for patients with severe COVID-19. Lung transplant isnt for every patient with COVID-19, but it does offer some of the critically ill patients another option for survival, Bharat said. "Mayra and Brian are living proof of that. Thoracic surgeon Dr. Rafael Garza Castillon said Northwestern is now considering performing the procedure on other patients whove eliminated the virus and have no other significant organ failure. We are all learning together and sharing best practices, and now lung transplant is part of COVID-19 care, Bharat said. Ramirez who is now at home, said shes feeling much better, though shes still working to rebuild her strength and endurance. She said she knows theres a family grieving their loved one. It wasnt until weeks later that I had the ability to, you know, think to myself theres a family out there thats grieving their loved one, Ramirez said. "I have that persons lungs and how lucky I was to have received it. Kuhns said he thought the virus was a hoax until he contracted it. This disease is not a joke, he said. It hit me like a lead slammer on my head. I was perfectly healthy. This thing took me down hard. Valero Energy Corp. turned a profit in the second quarter even though stay-at-home orders and travel restrictions continued to hurt the oil refiners bottom line. The San Antonio-based independent refiner posted earnings of $1.25 billion on revenue of $10.4 billion in the quarter ending June 30. That was up from $612 million in net income on revenue of nearly $29 billion in the same period in 2019. Valero benefited in the quarter from a change in the value of its inventory, a gain of $1.8 billion. Excluding that boost, the refiner reported an adjusted loss of $504 million, or $1.25 per share, for the quarter. Either way, it was a clear turnaround from the first quarter, when Valero recorded a loss of $1.9 billion. In a conference call Thursday, Valero Chairman and CEO Joe Gorder described the last six months as a roller coaster. We started off the year in pretty decent shape, and then we had the incredible trough, Gorder said. Youve got to look back a lot of quarters before you see a quarter like the second quarter of this year. It was just brutal. First-quarter revenue was down more than 64 percent compared to the same quarter last year, when Valero reported $29 billion in revenue. Valeros revenue fell short of Wall Street projections. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research expected Valero to hit $15.8 billion in revenue for the quarter. However, the companys per-share earnings beat Zacks analysts expectations. Theyd projected a loss of $1.41 per share. Valero executives said demand for gasoline and diesel fuel largely rebounded in the second quarter, though jet fuel demand remained weak. Were coming out of this, Gorder said. If you look at our country and the way people want to live, it is not the way that theyve lived over the last quarter. With many motorists under stay-at-home orders, demand for gasoline fell in March to half of normal levels, said Gary Simmons, Valeros chief commercial officer. And Valero exports plunged to just one-third of where they would typically be. By May, Simmons said, Valero saw demand for gasoline rise to 77 percent of normal levels. By June, it had climbed to 88 percent. Gasoline demand has recovered much faster than certainly most wouldve expected, and appears to be pretty strong, Simmons said. Weve continued to see recovery as weve transitioned into July. Even so, gasoline prices are down compared with last year. On Thursday, the average price in Texas of a gallon of gasoline was $1.89, down 59 cents per gallon compared to the same day in 2019, according to AAA Texas Weekend Gas Watch. Valeros export volumes in June rose to 70 percent of levels the company would typically expect. Simmons estimated that so far in July, export volumes have risen further to 76 percent of the normal level. The company said demand for diesel fuel never fell below 70 percent of normal levels and has mostly recovered. Jet fuel consumption, however, was down 69 percent over the first two weeks of July compared with the same time in 2019, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. On the jet side, that would be the only sign that were seeing thats a little bit troubling, certainly with some of the renewed efforts to slow the spread of the pandemic, and many of the states shutting down, Simmons said. Projections, he added, show demand for jet fuel may decline slightly in August from July levels. Valeros refineries produced 2.3 million barrels of oil per day in the second quarter, down 22 percent from the same period last year. Valero carries $12.7 billion in debt, and has $2.3 billion in cash on hand. The company paid out a 98-cent stock dividend in the quarter. Valero executives said they plan to continue paying the dividend, and expressed confidence in the firms available liquidity. The refiners stock price has declined 41 percent since the beginning of the year. Valero shares ended trading Thursday at $56.33, down $3.36, or 5.6 percent, from Wednesdays closing price. Last week, the Express-News reported that Valero had required its 1,800-person headquarters staff to return to the office by June 1, though employees with preexisting medical conditions could seek exemptions. As of Friday, 43 employees at Valeros North Side campus had tested positive for COVID-19 since March, with 32 of the cases cropping up over the previous month. diego.mendoza-moyers@express-news.net Opinion leaders including ex-assemblymen at Adum Kwanwoma in the Atwima Kwanwoma District of the Ashanti Region have petitioned the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II over brewing chieftaincy dispute in the area. They have, therefore, asked the Asantehene to expedite action on settling the dispute to enable a new chief to be installed in the town. The group noted that, since Nana Kofi Adjei IV, the late chief who doubled as Adum Gyaasehene died five years ago, there had been a breakdown of law and order in the town, with citizens living in fear of incessant attacks. The petition, which had the signatures of some persons, including Opanin Marfo Albert and Peter Osei Yaw, among others, indicated that since the death of Nana Kofi Adjei IV, the five royal families contesting the stool were becoming frustrated with unnecessary postponement of the case being handled by the Akwamu Division of the Kumasi Traditional Council headed by the Asafohene who has been mandated by the Asantehene to settle the dispute. They appealed to the Asantehene to use his good office to find a deserving chief for the area to forestall any disturbances. We are appealing to His Majesty, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, as a matter of urgency, to use his good office to find a legitimate chief for Adum Kwanwoma to restore sanity and also avert further future calamity in the community, it stated. The petition was copied to the Minister for Chieftaincy Affairs, Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council, Ashanti Regional Police Command, the BNI and Akwamu Division of Kumasi Traditional Council. It noted that the contribution of chieftaincy to the development of the community could not be overemphasised, hence the petition to the Manhyia Palace, and hoped the Asantehene would not hesitate to deliver. 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. Featured Video Magu The Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) is preparing charges against Ibrahim Magu, former acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), for allegedly failing to declare his assets, sources have informed TheCable. This is completely different from the ongoing probe of his tenure at the EFCC by a presidential panel. A source told TheCable that Magu would be arraigned at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), which handles the cases of public officials who fail to declare their assets. His lawyer has denied the allegation that he did not declare his assets. In 2019, the CCB filed a six-count charge of false assets declaration against Walter Onnoghen, former chief justice of Nigeria. The CCT subsequently convicted him and he was barred from holding any public office for the next 10 years. In a statement Wahab Shittu, his lawyer, issued on his behalf, Magu described the allegation of not declaring his assets as gross misrepresentation and blatant falsehood. Magus travails followed a memo by Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF), who accused him of grave malfeasance. He was arrested and whisked before the panel sitting at the presidential villa in Abuja. Magu, who was alleged to have mishandled recovered loot and sold seized assets to his associates, was detained at the Area 10 force criminal investigation department in Abuja for 10 days before he was released on bail. He has maintained innocence, saying forces opposed to his efforts in the fight against corruption are after him. In 2009, the federal government charged Nuhu Ribadu, pioneer chairman of the EFCC, with non-declaration of assets. Michael Aondoakaa, former attorney-general of the federation, had filed charges against Ribadu, who failed to appear before the CCT on the grounds that the assets declaration form he submitted to the CCB was not made available to him. The tribunal eventually struck out the case against Ribadu. Iraq's anti-terror fighters will never surrender to US: PMU chief Iran Press TV Thursday, 30 July 2020 9:05 AM The chairman of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) or Hashd al-Sha'abi has highlighted the role of the counter-terrorism force in defending the Arab country against the Daesh Takfiri terror outfit, stressing that it will never give in to the US. Speaking on Wednesday, Falih al-Fayyadh described the PMU as an Iraqi military institution that is one of the main arms of the country's national defense system. The group, he added, abides by the strategy of the national army in its counter-terrorism response. Fayyadh further said that the PMU is the manifestation of the Iraqi nation's will, and that those rejecting the anti-terror group are actually seeking to weaken Iraq. Hash al-Sha'abi made many sacrifices to defend Iraq and would in no way capitulate to the US or any other party, he added. The PMU is an Iraqi government-sponsored umbrella organization composed of around 40 factions of volunteer counter-terrorism forces, including mostly Shia Muslims besides Sunni Muslims, Christians and Kurds. In the early days of the Daesh's reign of terror, PMU fighters played a major role in reinforcing the Iraqi army, which had suffered heavy setbacks against the Takfiri elements. In November 2016, the Iraqi parliament voted to integrate the PMU into the military in amid US efforts to sideline the group. Elsewhere in his remarks, Fayyadh referred to the US assassination of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the PMU's second-in-command, and called for the continuation of the path pursued by the commander. Muhandis was killed, alongside top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, in a fatal US drone strike ordered by President Donald Trump near Baghdad airport on January 3. Two days later, the Iraqi parliament unanimously approved a bill, demanding the withdrawal of all foreign military forces led by the United States from the country. The PMU leader emphasized that the Iraqi parliament's decision is fundamentally linked to the assassination operation, and that the government's position is in line with that of the legislature on the expulsion of American troops. Daesh's back is broken and its self-proclaimed caliphate is destroyed, he said, noting that the Takfiri group's resurgence in Iraq as an effective force is no longer possible. Iraq cooperates with all its neighbors, especially Syria, in the fight against terrorism, and attaches great importance to its historical relations with Damascus, Fayyadh pointed out. He also said that Iraq's ties with Iran are at their best, adding that Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi's recent visit to Tehran and his meeting with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shows the depth of bilateral bonds. Iranian military advisers led by General Soleimani aided Iraqi Armed Forces on Baghdad's request to reverse Daesh's gains and ultimately liberate their entire homeland in December 2017. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address (Bloomberg) -- Chinese importers of computing chips are ramping up their purchases of equipment through Hong Kong, in the expectation that U.S. sanctions on the territory will soon make the trade much harder. Re-exports of semiconductors through Hong Kong to the mainland jumped by 11% in the first half of the year from the same period in 2019, almost double the increase in total chip purchases, according to Bloomberg calculations using official data. Re-exports rose by 21% in June alone. The Hong Kong trade represents more than 38% of Chinas total chip imports on average. In the wake of Beijings imposition of a national security law on the Asian financial hub, the U.S. government has revoked the special trading status that eased commerce in sensitive goods including some computer chips. For buyers like Huawei Technologies Co., Xiaomi Corp. or Lenovo Group, a worst-case scenario would entail severe supply bottlenecks. Chinese customers are willing to buy more before the actual effective day of the sanction, according to Victor Choi, chairman of Hong Kong Electronics & Technologies Association, who estimates there are 300 or so firms which specialize in the trade. They are placing more orders for those items than before. Huawei has sought to reassure customers that its chip supply remains intact despite growing U.S. restrictions. Chinas largest tech company has stockpiled enough inventory to tide them over short-term disruptions, even as it rapidly accelerates in-house development of alternatives to American silicon. But Washingtons sanctions mean that cache may eventually run out. Chinese firms have in general been hoarding chips for fear of further supply chain shocks, and the Hong Kong pipeline is a key source, based on the data. Hong Kong has long served as a tech conduit to China partly due to its low-tax status and open financial system. The special trading status also meant firms there were more likely to get export licenses than buyers across the border. Story continues Drastic Change The removal of Hong Kongs special status would drastically change how the global semiconductor industry operates, industrial research firm TrendForce warned in a report earlier this month. Broader U.S. sanctions on Hong Kong and China will shift the semiconductor warehousing business out of Hong Kong to a different Asian trans-shipment hub in a worst-case scenario, said Rory Green, an economist at TS Lombard. Yet, the result for China tech industry is higher fees reflecting greater transaction costs but not a death blow. Choi also noted that some trading companies in Hong Kong are thinking about setting up new sales offices in India, Vietnam or Cambodia to continue selling to Chinese customers. The costs will go up with such relocations, he said. The new rules could be a key bottleneck for China, according to Natixis economists Alicia Garcia Herrero and Gary Ng. An important risk to watch is whether Hong Kongs new status with the U.S. will encourage American allies to follow suit. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. An investigation by special agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has resulted in the indictment and arrest of a Chattanooga man on multiple counts, including rape of a child and sexual exploitation of a minor. In April, TBI special agents began an investigation, joined by detectives with the Bledsoe County Sheriffs Department, of the distribution of child pornography through electronic means. During the course of the investigation, agents identified Adam Ferguson, 35, as the individual responsible for the pornography distribution, as well as other offenses, from February through April of this year. On Monday, the Bledsoe County Grand Jury returned indictments charging Ferguson with one count of rape of a child, one count of criminal attempt child rape, one count of especially aggravated exploitation of a minor, and 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. On Wednesday, Ferguson was arrested and booked into the Bledsoe County Jail, where he is being held on a $250,000 bond. C Shivakumar By Express News Service CHENNAI: Mystery shrouds the death of a 21-year-old Tamil sailor in Nigeria as family members have appealed to the Union and State governments to help bring back the body. According to sources, Vilfen Lobo Vilgious, who joined MV Helvetia, a cargo vessel under the flagship of Antigua eight and a half months ago, had gone missing on July 26. His body was recovered the next day, but there is mystery over his disappearance and the cause of death. His father, W Vilgious Lobo, a middle school headmaster in Punnaikayal, said, I received a call around 10.30pm on July 26 from sub agent Vivek that my son had gone missing. Since then, there has been no response from the agent. The family members also say Vilfen was about to return in the next 10 days. Despite working for eight and a half months, Vilfen was paid only two months salary, Vilgious claimed. Havent slept or eaten properly, efforts on to bring back sailors body Despite working for eight and a half months, Vilfen was paid only two months salary. This was handed to him and not transferred to his bank account. Vivek has been sketchy on the details. We have not slept or eaten properly. Already, a week has passed. We urge government to speed up the process in bringing back the body, Vilgious said. Meanwhile, Director General of Shipping (DGS) Amitabh Kumar said on receiving information on drowning from National Union of Seafarers of Indias Vimalson, the message was conveyed to Director Communication Center, who consoled the family. An email was sent to the Indian Embassy in Nigeria and Nigerian federal authorities to search for the seafarer. On July 27, the Embassy reported that the body was traced, and postmortem was being done. The Directorate is in constant touch and has assured them of full support to get the body back, he added. Vivek said Vilfen was a trainee and was paid a stipend of $300. On allegations that he was denied six months salary, Vivek said he was unaware of it and would raise it with Recruitment and Placement Services Licence agent Sailfast Maritime India. VM Joy of Sailors Helpline said a sub-agent doesnt have powers to send a sailor on international flagship. Where is the contract and who authorised him to take Vilfen? In the past 15 years, Indian sailors have gone missing in Africa, West Asia, Iran and Malaysia and there is no accountability. The DGS should tighten screws and ensure recruitment is done by genuine agents, he said. K Sreekumar, an inspector with International Transport Workers Federation said, India is a signatory to Maritime Labour Convention and the vessel where Indian sailors work should be Seafarers Employees Agreement (SEA) compliant. It is learnt the vessel, MV Helvetia, is not SEA compliant. This week alone, there have been at least five seafarers deaths which is a cause of concern. Vivek said, There are clamps on flights. We are trying to bring back the body at the earliest. HELP to get body back Director General of Shipping Amitabh Kumar said that on July 27, the Indian Embassy reported that the body had been traced, the seafarer had died due to drowning and postmortem was being done.The Directorate is in touch with the family and has assured them of help to get the body back home Pan Pacific Cares promises to ensure the well-being of our guests and associates, as well as care for the community and the environment. (TRAVPR.COM) SINGAPORE - July 30th, 2020 - Singapore, June 11, 2020 As we all emerge from this unprecedented crisis, we believe that travellers will face a new normal. There will be a heightened awareness of safety, hygiene and cleanliness, which gravitates us towards companies who consciously care for their customers. Pan Pacific Cares promises to ensure the well-being of our guests and associates, as well as care for the community and the environment. Redefining Clean Stays standards to meet the new normal Collaborating with Diversey, a leader in hygiene and infection prevention solutions, Pan Pacific Hotels Group (PPHG) will implement hotel health and safety protocols in accordance with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. The properties will use best-in-class cleaning and infection prevention solutions from Diversey, such as Oxivir and Virex II 256, which are healthcare grade disinfectants that are certified and approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be effective against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). Housekeeping Attendant disinfecting guest room at PARKROYAL on Beach Road with the Professional Cordless Electrostatic Handheld Sprayer The Group will introduce electrostatic sprayers to apply the Oxivir disinfectant. Oxivir, an Accelerated Hydrogen Peroxide (AHP) based, fast acting cleaner and disinfectant, uses active ingredients that break down into water and oxygen after use, thereby ensuring care for the environment as well. This is core to PPHGs sustainable belief. The prescribed solution is not hazardous for users and does not contain any respiratory irritants. These higher standards of deep cleaning and use of healthcare grade chemicals ensure that we are best placed to take care of our guests, associates and the environment. Additional hotel precautionary measures including increased cleaning frequency by five folds, enhanced two-step cleaning and disinfecting process, and ensuring that the hotel housekeeping standards are elevated by laundering linens at 70 degrees Celsius, have been rolled out at all properties in accordance with new guidelines by WHO. All properties will undergo stringent training by Diverseys experts to ensure that they comply with the elevated hotel clean and safety measures identified by the Group. Housekeeping Supervisor using the Ultronic UV torch to inspect guest room at PARKROYAL on Beach Road Re-engineering processes to give greater confidence in travel PPHG has already implemented the standard WHO protocols of safe distancing, thermal scanning, using safe entry codes for tracking, wearing of masks and using of hand sanitisers since the beginning of the outbreak. PPHG will also be implementing contactless check-in and check-out, contactless payment and new measures for dining operations. In addition, PPHG will soon introduce ULTRONIC UV lights to inspect all disinfected and sanitised guestrooms for further assurance of hotel cleanliness standards. All PPHG guests will be given Pan Pacific Care Packs comprising hand sanitisers, surgical masks and disinfectant wipes when they check into the hotel. Guests can soon be able to enjoy a wellness channel in the guestrooms featuring exercise routines such as pilates, barre and yoga, as well as self-care massage for relaxation and elief from the stresses of travel soon. At Pan Pacific, the safety, comfort, and peace of mind of our guests and associates is our top priority, said Mr Choe Peng Sum, Chief Executive Officer, Pan Pacific Hotels Group. They have put their trust in us to provide them with sincere and heartfelt service. We are committed to spare no expense in caring for our guests with the Pan Pacific Cares promise. For more information, visit www.panpacific.com/panpacificcares ### Governor Udom Emmanuel, the Akwa Ibom State leader of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has said that his party is a model to be emulated by all others across Nigeria. The governor made the remark at the state-owned international stadium, Nest of Champions, while commending the peaceful organization and transparency in the conduct of the state party congress and the seamless transition of leadership on Thursday July 30, 2020. He described Akwa Ibom PDP as a model of the party in Nigeria and indeed an ideal of democracy and party politics. According to him, PDP in Akwa Ibom State is a model of the PDP and party politics in Nigeria. Officials of INEC are here with other observers, let them tell me which state they gone to whose party congress will be as organized, orderly, peaceful, transparent and cohesive as what youve seen today in Akwa Ibom. This is a model of democracy in Nigeria. This is a model of party politics in Nigeria. While congratulating the incoming executives of the party, the governor harped on dedication and loyalty, charging them to prove themselves faithful as those entrusted to anchor the affairs of the party for the next four years. He thanked the outgoing Chairman of the party in the State, Obong Paul Ekpo and members of his Executive Committee, for leading the party to victory in two consecutive elections describing him as gift a to the PDP in Akwa Ibom State. He challenged the incoming executives to learn from the Paul Ekpo-led Committee and ensure that the party handed over to them remains intact and only gets better in four years. I really want to thank the outgoing Chairman of this Party, Obong Paul Ekpo. Wherever you see good followership and good leadership, it is not by accident, it means they must have done something right consistently over time. Whenever things come the way they came in our state over the past eight years, God will always send a man. God sent us people, not just Paul Ekpo, but the entire state executive of our party who had piloted the affairs of this party for these past years. So I really want to thank the Paul Ekpo-led Committee of this party and I believe we have a lot to learn. He said. The Akwa Ibom State Chief Executive urged citizens to keep to measures that would prevent them from the COVID-19 pandemic and not wait to experience the infection or see people that have gone through the scourge before taking caution. Meanwhile, State Congress of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), witnessed the emergence of a 39-man Executive Committee, with Obong Udo Ekpenyong, former Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, as Chairman. Declaring the outcome of the congress on behalf of the National Working Committee of the PDP, the Chairman of the five-man Congress Committee, Mr. Eric Nwakana, praised the party leadership and faithful in the state for the peaceful conduct of the congress. Nwakama said 39 candidates were screened and cleared to stand the election, with 3845 delegates duly accredited to do the voting. He declared Hon. Udo Ekpenyong, having scores 3840, with 5 votes voided Chairman-elect, with 38 other unopposed candidates returned elected into various offices of the party in Akwa Ibom State. The Akwa Ibom State PDP Chairman-elect, Hon. Udo Ekpenyong, in his acceptance speech, thanked the leader of the party in the state, his predecessor, party faithful in the state and the delegation from the partys National Working Committee for the confidence reposed in him and ensuring a hitch-free process for his emergence. Ekpenyong stated the objectives of his administration is to include promoting the ideals of the party in the state through inclusion, wide consultations, sustained dialogue and enduring partnership, while reaffirming his loyalty to the Peoples Democratic Party. The outgoing Chairman and Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee for the Congress, Obong Paul Ekpo, expressed heartfelt gratitude to God and the entire PDP family in Akwa Ibom State for the support that saw to his successful tenure and peaceful transition and prayed for the continuous and increasing strength of the PDP in Akwa ibom State and beyond. Chinese authorities have honored 13 military officers and soldiers as "the Most Beautiful Military Personnel of the New Era." Jointly announced by the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission, the 13 individuals were commended for their pioneering work in building a strong military in the new era. The laureates were unveiled ahead of China's Army Day, which falls on Aug. 1. This year marks the 93rd founding anniversary of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 13:03:30|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close WASHINGTON, July 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he doesn't want to delay the November election hours after raising the possibility on Twitter. "Do I want to see a date change? No," Trump said during a press conference at the White House. "I don't want a delay. I want to have the election." "But I don't want to see a crooked election," he added, doubling down his criticism of mail-in voting. "I also don't want to have to wait for three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing and the election doesn't mean anything," the president told reporters. "Mail-in ballots will lead to the greatest fraud." In a tweet on Thursday morning, Trump claimed -- without providing any proof or evidence -- that 2020, with mail-in voting, will be "the most inaccurate & fraudulent election in history." "It will be a great embarrassment to the USA," he wrote. "Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" The tweet immediately ignited a political firestorm and has drawn bipartisan pushback from Capitol Hill, as legal analysts agreed that Trump has no authority to delay the presidential election as the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to set the date. "The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day of which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States," reads a section of the country's Constitution. Since 1845, the U.S. Congress has required the appointment of presidential electors to take place on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which falls on Nov. 3 this year. U.S. Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, also the House Republican Conference chair, tweeted that the resistance to Trump's suggestion among Republicans is "overwhelming." "We must take all necessary steps to prevent election fraud," Cheney said. "But we will not be delaying the election." Most U.S. states are expanding access to mail-in voting in order to allow voters to cast their ballots safely in the November election in light of the coronavirus pandemic that has led to nearly 4.5 million infections and more than 152,000 deaths as of Thursday night. The increased use of mail-in ballots, according to experts, will likely mean results won't be finalized on the night of Nov. 3 since some states cannot begin counting them until Election Day. In another tweet on Thursday afternoon, Trump acknowledged he was trying to bring media attention to what he called "risks" from universal mail-in voting to the election. The president, however, said that he totally supports absentee voting, despite that voting pundits have said the verification process is the same for absentee and mail-in ballots, and many states even consider them to be the same thing. The attacks on mail-in voting from Trump came as national polls have shown that he is falling behind his Democratic opponent, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in the 2020 race. Biden led Trump 49.9 percent to 41.6 percent as of Thursday night in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. Meanwhile, polls in key battleground states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Arizona, have also showed that Biden is ahead of Trump by at least several points. Trump has repeatedly called polls showing him trailing Biden "fake" and from time to time touted what has been called "silent majority" supporting his presidency and re-election. Some critics also viewed Trump's remarks on Thursday as an effort to distract from the negative news that the U.S. economy contracted at an annual rate of 32.9 percent in the second quarter, which could deal a blow to his central argument of his reelection bid. Kyle Kondik, a non-partisan analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, tweeted that Trump's suggestion of delaying the election "seems to be one of his more obvious attempts to change the subject given this morning's wretched GDP numbers." In April, Biden warned that Trump would be thinking of delaying the election. "Mark my words: I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow; come up with some rationale why it can't be held," Biden said. At that time, the Trump campaign dismissed Biden's accusation as "the incoherent, conspiracy theory ramblings of a lost candidate who is out of touch with reality." Enditem Local government officials in Harris and other Texas counties do not have the power to shut down campuses as a method of preemptively stopping the spread of COVID-19, Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday, answering a question that left the start of the 2020-21 school year in limbo for much of July. In a letter signed jointly with fellow Republican state leaders, the governor said local school boards and state education officials will have control over when campuses start in-person instruction this fall. School boards largely can limit the reopening of buildings in the first eight weeks of the school year, and Abbott added new guidance Friday declaring that districts will be allowed to apply to the state for an extension. Abbotts announcement came in response to health authorities in several of the states largest counties many of them led by Democrats ordering all public and many private schools to delay the restart of face-to-face instruction until after Labor Day, at the earliest, due to the pandemic. School boards established by the Texas legislature play a unique and pivotal role in school decisions that must not be superseded by other local authorities unless expressly allowed, Abbott and several leading Republicans said in the statement. It is clear that school boards can and should work collaboratively with, but not be subject to the advance directives of, local public health authorities, to ensure a safe and effective learning environment for Texas students. While Abbotts announcement clearly outlines his position, he has not issued an executive order that would negate local school closure orders still on the books. An Abbott spokesman did not respond to questions about whether the governor plans to follow-up with an executive order. Officials in Harris County and the City of Houston, the only local governments to issue school closure mandates, had not rescinded their orders as of Friday evening. In Montgomery County, local health authorities have recommended that campuses remain closed through Labor Day, but they have not issued an order. Many Houston-area districts already planned to delay their school start dates until after Labor Day or begin the year in online-only classes. However, Abbotts announcement could open the door for Humble ISD, one of the few Harris County districts that remains on track to hold in-person classes in August, planning face-to-face instruction starting Aug. 11. On HoustonChronicle.com: What Attorney General Ken Paxton said this week about school closures Humbles school board is set to finalize plans during its Monday public meeting. Nearly two-thirds of Humble families have signaled they prefer to start the year with in-person classes, among the regions highest rates. There are several districts in parts of the county that are having less issues with COVID, so I really appreciate any sort of opportunity to collaborate here (with health officials) on our plans, the unique aspects of our community and the needs of our students, Humble Superintendent Elizabeth Fagen said. Clarity but no legal weight Elected officials, educators and families across the state had been waiting for Abbott to weigh in on the debate over whether local health authorities could keep campuses closed due to COVID-19. The issue came to a head this week when Attorney General Ken Paxton issued guidance on Wednesday opining that local health authorities legally could not order the closure of campuses for the sole purpose of preventing an outbreak of disease. Paxtons opinion served as the basis of Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath declaration that public school districts closed solely due to a local health order risked losing state funding. However, Paxtons guidance is not legally enforceable, and neither Abbott nor a judge has declared local school closure orders illegal. Morath also continued to say the state would fund districts shuttered under a legally issued closure order guidance that potentially conflicted with his statement on Paxtons opinion. As a result, uncertainty reigned over when children could return to campuses in many areas. LATEST POLL: Gov. Abbotts public approval for COVID response hits new low While Abbotts statement carries no legal weight until he issues an executive order, education leaders said Friday that the governors declaration delivers much-needed clarity. Theres still some confusion since we still dont have an executive order, but we do appreciate the notion in his statement that theyre going to respect local school boards in giving them at least some authority, said Kevin Brown, executive director of the Texas Association of School Administrators. Abbott took a step toward expanding local powers Friday by promising to extend an eight-week grace period during which districts can keep students with home computer and Internet access in online-only classes. After that eight weeks, they could still have that opportunity if COVID remains a challenge in that particular district to obtain a waiver from the Texas Education Agency, Abbott said in an interview Friday with Houstons KRIV-TV. And then in addition to that, if schools do open, if a student or teacher or anybody else in a school tests positive for COVID-19, the school can close for up to five days. The governor did not say how TEA officials will evaluate waiver extension applications. National debate The opinions issued this week by Republican leaders drew condemnation from many Democrats and organizations representing school employees. Some Republicans are expecting the campus closure issue to end up in court. The Texas State Teachers Association said Friday that no district should be penalized for choosing to provide only online instruction. If they really want to put the health and safety of students and educators first, this is what the governor and TEA will do, not impose artificial limits on online learning and financial penalties on districts, the union said in a statement. TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox Health officials in Harris, Bexar and other counties have said the areas case and death count, as well as the rate at which people are testing positive for the coronavirus, are too high to reopen schools. Harris County leaders have not published benchmarks that would signal their belief that it is safe to host in-person classes, though health officials have said they are crafting metrics. Nationally, health experts have cautioned against reopening campuses before local outbreaks are contained, and have called on the Trump administration to put in place a countrywide testing strategy that helps detect more cases among people who are not showing symptoms, especially as students return to classrooms. Even with the best of intentions, it's hard to keep kids apart from one another, hard to keep them wearing their masks, and there's a lot of mixing of people who might be asymptomatic carriers, said Dr. Sarah Fortune, chair of the department of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvards public health school. To date, none of the states largest districts have announced definitive plans to remain online-only beyond the eight-week grace period outlined by TEA officials. Houston ISD plans to host virtual classes for all students for the first six weeks of classes, which stretch from early September to mid-October. Alief, Fort Bend and Galena Park ISDs have announced they will stay online-only indefinitely, with no target date yet for returning to campuses. Jeremy Blackman reported from Austin; Jacob Carpenter reported from Houston. jeremy.blackman@chron.com jacob.carpenter@chron.com Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre has described his 'madam' Ghislaine Maxwell's breasts and private parts in newly unsealed court documents. The court documents also revealed Giuffre was reportedly forced to perform inappropriate sex act on Maxwell in front of Epstein poolside on his private island. When asked if she recalled 'any distinguishing physical features' about Maxwell, Giuffre told investigators, 'I can tell you that she had very large natural breasts.' 'I can tell you that her pubic hair was dark brown, nearly black. I dont remember any specific birthmarks or moles that I could point out that would be relevant.' She added that she neither remembered any significant scars, nor was aware of any tattoos on the now-jailed socialite. According to newly unsealed court documents, Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre described Ghislaine Maxwell's private parts to investigators in 2016 Giuffre detailed the sexual encounters in graphic detail in a deposition she gave investigators in 2016 as part of a defamation lawsuit she had filed against Maxwell, which has been under a court order deal until now. In other statements featured in Exhibit 11, Giuffre told investigators that Maxwell allegedly told her to give a massage to former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. 'When Ghislaine Maxwell used the words, "Go give a massage to Bill Richardson", where were you?' the investigator questioned. Although Giuffre could not name the specific place where she allegedly met Richardson, she did verify that she was sent to New Mexico. Richardson has previously denied any involvement with Giuffre and claimed to never have met her. The unsealed court documents come from a deposition given by Virginia Giuffre (left), pictured with Lawyer David Boies, in 2016 as part of a lawsuit again Maxwell The unsealed court documents also mentioned former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who previously denied Giuffre's allegations In another excerpt, Giuffre described an incident when Maxwell allegedly sent her to have sex with the owner of a large hotel chain. 'I believe that was one time in France...I believe it was around the same time that Naomi Campbell had a birthday party,' said Giuffre. Where asked where the inappropriate interaction happened, Giuffre said it happened in 'his own cabana townhouse thing.' 'Jeffrey was staying there. Ghislaine was staying there.' said Giuffre. 'I was 17 staying there. This other guy was staying there. I don't know his name. I was instructed by Ghislaine to go and give him an erotic massage.' Giuffre then explained that 'massage' was a code word allegedly used by Epstein and Maxwell. She also said Maxwell instructed her to have sex with the late Marvin Minsky, a famed MIT scientist in artificial intelligence, Also mentioned in the court documents was Marvin Minsky, the late MIT scientist that specialized in artificial intelligence Pictured: Jeffrey Epstein (left) and Ghislaine Maxwell (right) attend de Grisogono Sponsors The 2005 Wall Street Concert Series Benefitting Wall Street Rising Giuffre: ''I believe it was the U.S. Virgin Islands, 16 Jeff's -- sorry, Jeffrey Epstein's island in the U.S. Virgin Islands' 'I believe it was the U.S. Virgin Islands, Jeff's -- sorry, Jeffrey Epstein's island in the U.S. Virgin Islands,' Giuffre said, Giuffre claims she performed a sex act on Ghislaine Maxwell in front of the billionaire pedophile on his private island and that his alleged madam had 'continuous' orgies with young girls, newly unsealed court documents reveal. Giuffre told investigators that girls were routinely flown in via private jet to participate in sex sessions that happened all over the island. Asked to describe women she personally saw Maxwell have sexual contact with, she responded: 'There's so many, I don't know where you want me to start.' 'There were blondes, there were brunettes, there were redheads. They were all beautiful girls. I would say the ages ranged between 15 and 21.' She alleged she saw Maxwell participating in sex sessions with them by a pool, near the beachfront, in small huts and in Epstein's cabana. Ghislaine Maxwell had 'continuous' orgies on Jeffrey Epstein's private Caribbean island with girls as young as 15, accuser Virginia Giuffre claims in newly-unsealed court documents Roberts - now Giuffre - claims girls were flown by private jet to the island so they could be abused, adding that it is 'impossible to know' how many were taken there At one point, Giuffre was asked to describe a specific time she saw Maxwell engage in sex acts, or orgies, with girls by the pool. 'There was quite a few girls and it was, excuse me if I'm saying this in an in explicit way, but I don't know how else to say it... girl on girl action. So there was a lot of - what's the word for it? Licking, licking vaginas, breasts. Fingers being used. She was involved with that. 'I remember specifically... I had to go down on Ghislaine. Jeffrey was there as well. We're still by the pool with lots of girls.' She said the girls, who she described as 'beautiful, tall, some were blonde, some were sandy brown', did not speak English and spoke in a European language that Giuffre guessed was Russian or Czech. Giuffrealso described one occasion that she said 'stands out' in which 'models were - I think they were models - were flown in. There were orgies held outside by the pool.' It is not clear if this is a separate time to when she claimed to have performed a sex act on Maxwell. Describing who was involved in one sex session, Giuffre said: 'Ghislaine, myself, Jeffrey, another girl in this blue, outdoor - I don't know what you want to call it. Cabana, that just a bed could fit in.' Giuffre named two women in the deposition that she allegedly saw Maxwell have sex with in front of her. When asked if she knew the names of any other girl that she personally saw Maxwell having sex with, Giuffre said: 'There's just a blur of so many girls... A lot of these girls would come and go and you'd never see them again.' Giuffre detailed the sexual encounters in graphic detail in a deposition she gave investigators in 2016 as part of a defamation lawsuit she had filed against Maxwell, which has been under a court order deal until now Little St James Island, in the Caribbean (pictured), was owned by Epstein and was where Giuffre alleges the orgies took place CLINTON, GORE, CAMPBELL, KLUM: EPSTEIN'S 'GUESTS' REVEALED Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum were among high-profile guests that Jeffrey Epstein entertained, Virginia Roberts claims. Clinton visited Little St James after his presidency ended because he 'owed Epstein a favor', Roberts told investigators in newly-unsealed testimony. 'He never told me what favors they were. I never knew. I didn't know if he was serious,' she said. The former president stayed in Epstein's private villa where 'orgies were a constant thing,' she claims. Vice President Gore was also a guest on Epstein's plane, the Lolita Express, as were models Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, Roberts claimed. Orgies also took place on the jet, she alleges. 'There would be sexual conduct, there would be foreplay, there was a bed in there, so we could basically reenact exactly what was happening in the house,' she said. 'It would start off with massaging or we would start off with foreplay, sometimes it would lead to, you know, orgies.' Advertisement In separate testimony she gave to investigators in 2011 about their first meeting, Giuffre said Maxwell undressed her and told her to lick Epstein's nipples when she was just 15. Giuffre said Maxwell also stripped naked, instructed her to perform oral sex on Epstein while he fondled her and then told her to 'straddle him sexually'. Giuffre also alleges that during the deposition that she was trafficked to Europe to have sex with powerful men, including Britain's Prince Andrew and attorney Alan Dershowitz. Both men have previously strongly denied the claims. She said Maxwell and Epstein constantly reminded her of how powerful their friends were, so that she wouldn't betray them. 'Jeffrey did a lot more of that than she did. But she definitely made it aware that we shouldn't cross boundaries with them,' she said. Describing her first meeting with Epstein, she said: 'For the first hour, it was actually a real massage, maybe not an hour, maybe like 40 minutes or something. 'That's when he turned over on the other side to expose himself fully. 'So then Ghislaine told me that she wanted me to undress and began to take off my shirt and skirt, my white uniform from Mar-A-Lago, she also took off her shirt and got undressed, and so I was there with just my undies on, and she was completely bare... 'During all of this I'm like: "What's going on, how do I act, what do I say." I was so afraid of, not afraid or fearful for my life, but unsure of how all this started and wanting to obtain a profession, I was so afraid thinking about upsetting and disappointing them... 'I was expected to lick [Epstein's] nipples, instructed on how to do so by [Epstein] and give him oral sex while he wanted to fondle me, and then at the end, I was told by Ghislaine to get on top and straddle Jeffrey sexually... 'When we were done, we went and had a shower in the room and Jeffrey told me to wash him up and down...' Also included in the tranche of unsealed documents are allegations that Prince Andrew lobbied the US government on behalf of Epstein to try an get him a sweetheart plea-deal after he was initially charged with sex crimes. The controversial plea deal saw Epstein jailed for just 18 months on two counts of prostitution, despite facing a 53-page federal indictment. Lawyers for an anonymous pair of Epstein's accusers wrote: '(They are) seeking documents regarding Epsteins lobbying efforts to persuade the government to give him a favorable plea arrangement, including efforts on his behalf by Prince Andrew and former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. 'They have alleged these materials are needed to prove their allegations that, after Epstein signed the non-prosecution agreement his performance was delayed while he used his significant social and political connections to lobby the justice department to obtain a more favorable plea deal.' Court papers pertaining to a 2015 deposition civil defamation case against Maxwell included a January 2015 email Epstein sent to Maxwell insisting she had 'done nothing wrong' A separate email exchange from days earlier showed Epstein emailed Maxwell what appeared to be a court statement proclaiming her innocence, but was written from her point of view 'YOU'RE INNOCENT, ACT LIKE IT', EPSTEIN TOLD MAXWELL Newly unsealed court documents reveal Jeffrey Epstein told Ghislaine Maxwell she had 'done nothing wrong' and to 'start acting like it' after she was sued by Virginia Roberts in 2015. Dozens of documents relating to the civil defamation lawsuit against Maxwell were publicly released on Thursday, hours after a district judge denied her last ditch attempt to keep them sealed. Among the trove of court papers was an email exchange between the pair in January 2015, in which Epstein advised her to carry on normally and insisted she had nothing to worry about. 'You have done nothing wrong and i woudl [sic] urge you to start acting like it,' the billionaire pedophile wrote. 'go outside, head high, not as an esacping [sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it', he added. Advertisement Giuffre also speaks about the prince's involvement in Epstein's activities. Asked by lawyers in 2011 and 2016 whether Andrew would have 'relevant information' in the case, she answered: 'Yes, he would know a lot of the truth. 'I dont know how much hed be able to help you with, but seeing as hes in a lot of trouble himself these days I think he might, so I think he might be valuable.' Flight logs from Epstein's private jets, police logs Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home, and email exchanges between Maxwell and Epstein himself have also been unearthed amid the pile of papers. In one such exchange, in January 2015, Maxwell asks Epstein if 'Shelley' - believed to be one of Epstein's accusers - could publicly state she was his girlfriend. In response, Epstein writes: 'You have done nothing wrong and i woudl [sic] urge you to start acting like it. 'Go outside, head high, not as an esacping [sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it', he added. The email exchange appears to confirm that Maxwell lied during a bail hearing, in which she claimed she hadn't spoken to Epstein in over a decade. Days earlier, Epstein had emailed Maxwell what appeared to be a court statement proclaiming her innocence, which read as if it was written by her. 'Since JE was charged in 2007 for solicitation of a prostitute I have been the target of outright lies, innuendo, slander, defamation and salacious gossip and harrassment; headlines made up of quotes I have never given, statement I have never made,' it reads. 'I have never been a party in any criminal action pertaining to JE.' The statement also claimed Maxwell had been in a 'very long-term committed relationship to another man' at the time of Epstein's conviction. The trove of documents were publicly released hours after a district judge denied her last ditch attempt to keep them sealed PRINCE ANDREW 'PRESSURED U.S. OVER EPSTEIN PLEA DEAL' Prince Andrew lobbied the US government to help get a sweetheart plea-deal for pedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein that saw him jailed for just 18 months in 2008, newly unsealed court documents claim. The allegation is contained within a motion by lawyers for two anonymous Epstein accusers who were trying to get hold of documents which they claim showed Andrew's lobbying efforts. The motion forms part of a 2015 libel case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's alleged madam, which have been kept under lock and key until today - when they were released following her arrest on sex trafficking charges. Lawyers for the pair, Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, wrote: '(They are) seeking documents regarding Epsteins lobbying efforts to persuade the government to give him a favorable plea arrangement, including efforts on his behalf by Prince Andrew and former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. 'They have alleged these materials are needed to prove their allegations that, after Epstein signed the non-prosecution agreement his performance was delayed while he used his significant social and political connections to lobby the justice department to obtain a more favorable plea deal.' Advertisement 'Whilst I remained on friendly terms with him up until his plea, I have had limited contact since,' it continues. Giuffre gave the testimony to investigators after filing a lawsuit against Maxwell in 2015, accusing the British socialite of libel after she branded her a 'liar'. Maxwell eventually settled the suit out of court for an undisclosed sum, though to be millions, and the documents were put under seal so they could not be made public. But Judge Loretta Preska ordered swathes of the papers to be unsealed following Maxwell's arrest earlier this month on sex crimes charges. She is also charged with perjury for allegedly lying under oath during a seven-hour deposition she made during the lawsuit. On Thursday, Maxwell filed an emergency motion with the federal appeals court in Manhattan to block the release of that deposition, along with one other document. Lawyers for Maxwell said making her deposition public could make it 'difficult if not impossible' to find an impartial jury for her criminal trial. The two depositions, and materials that quote from or disclose information contained in them, were expected to remain sealed at least until Monday, depending on how the appeals court rules. Materials covered by Preska's July 23 order included flight logs from Epstein's private jets; and police reports from Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home, among other documents. Maxwell, 58, has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls from 1994 to 1997, and committing perjury by denying her involvement under oath. She was arrested on July 2, and has been housed in a Brooklyn jail after a judge called her a flight risk. Maxwell's trial is scheduled for next July. Epstein was found hanged at age 66 last August in a Manhattan jail, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges for abusing women and girls in Manhattan and Florida from 2002 to 2005. He had also pleaded not guilty. The council is deferring capital works as a result of the pandemic. The Age understands that includes one project for "safety around schools", as well as the design of protected bike lanes. The four-bin system, to collect food waste, will also be pushed out of this year's plans. The rollout of the new glass bins will continue. Yarra mayor Misha Coleman said the council was prioritising delivery of essential services and support packages. "We have deferred consideration of some discretionary capital projects until the full community and financial impacts of COVID-19 are known," she said. "Yarra has committed to a detailed mid-year budget review where we will revisit projects and priorities." Michael Glynatsis, who runs the Aegean Greek Restaurant on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, said it was not the time for Yarra Council to raise rates and urged struggling ratepayers to complain before Tuesday's budget vote. "They will close everyone up," said Mr Glynatsis, who is living off JobKeeper. "It will be a sorry state for everyone in Brunswick Street, Bridge Road, Victoria Street. Everything's going to be up for lease." Mr Glynatsis is concerned that his restaurant, which has been there for decades but has been completely closed during the pandemic, might not survive. Homeowners and businesses experiencing hardship in some municipalities can apply for an interest-free deferral because of COVID-19, while pensioners can apply for rebates. There have also been food relief and council grants for those in hardship. Darebin Council is among those raising rates by 2 per cent, clawing $2.6 million back for a $5.7 million surplus, despite losing $15 million in revenue because of COVID-19. Councillor Gaetano Greco, who stressed he was not speaking on behalf of Darebin, said it felt out of step to postpone capital works while other governments pumped money into the economy. "That's a lot of jobs, and now that's not going to happen," said Cr Greco, who disagreed with the rate rise. Stonnington Council has recorded a $22.19 million surplus, despite a $9.6 million decline in revenue from the 2019-20 forecast. Chapel Street traders are outraged at the proposed increase, which will be voted on at the end of August. A Chapel Street Precinct Association survey found all of its 2200 members were against the hike, with most reporting they were struggling to stay afloat. Fourteen businesses had already folded. This increase during a pandemic is completely unethical, general manager Chrissie Maus said. Im hearing from people who can't actually afford to feed their family." In Victoria, about 975,000 people are relying on the federal government's JobKeeper scheme for employment. Ms Maus said an offer to waive the increase if ratepayers paid upfront would only benefit those who did not have cash flow issues and were not already in financial distress. Council spokesman Jim Carden said the revenue loss combined with delivering critical services, including increased demand on waste collection and park infrastructure as more residents stayed home, meant it couldnt afford to freeze rates. We are constrained by the state governments cap on rate rises, meaning we are expected to do more with less year on year, he said. We are also not immune to the impact of the pandemic. Port Phillip councillor Dick Gross has defended the rates system. Credit:Penny Stephens Mr Carden said the council had stood down hundreds of staff and set aggressive internal savings and efficiency targets. Port Phillip has taken an estimated $19.3 million hit in 2020-21 because of the pandemic, recording a $15.95 million deficit. The COVID-19 Financial Impact Index shows its suburbs Elwood, St Kilda and St Kilda East are among the hardest hit financially by the pandemic in greater Melbourne. Campbell Spence, of Ratepayers of Port Phillip, said the council had spent more than $100 million a year more than neighbouring councils Stonnington and Hobson Bay. We believe the council has no respect for the ratepayers, he said. They are a massive bureaucracy. It doesn't serve the community and it wants to grow year on year. There's money wasted everywhere.'' Port Phillip councillor Dick Gross defended the rates system, arguing it took significantly less from residents than state and federal taxes. It attracts disproportionate scrutiny, he said. Its a very, very fair tax. Wealthier people pay more than poor people. Cr Gross said the state government had imposed the cap while passing on costs, and that it was important not to be reckless with council finances by getting into too much asset-poor debt. We have a reduced capacity to be generous, but an increased demand,'' he said. ''We're doing extraordinary efforts in trying to house the homeless and feed the hungry. Constituents in Kingston and Melton have pressured councillors to follow the City of Melbourne's lead and freeze or cut rates in their 2020-21 budgets. Maribyrnong Council has also implemented a freeze. Melbourne City Council voted to freeze its rates after suffering a $101 million loss in revenue sending it into the red for the first time in 30 years. Monash Council's rates will go up by 2 per cent, but its ratepayers will be provided with a 10 per cent waiver, meaning rates will decrease by about 8 per cent. Ratepayers Victoria president Dean Hurlston said councils should prioritise freezing or cutting rates over non-essential capital works projects. Loading We live in times of severe financial distress for many businesses and residents who simply don't know how they will make their rates payments, he said. No councils have applied to the Essential Services Commission to breach the 2 per cent cap, set by the Andrews government in December last year. Wyndham Council mayor Josh Gilligan said the municipalitys $157 million operating surplus included footpaths, roads and parks. "The assertion put by [Ratepayers Victoria] that suburban councils are somehow cash cows and can afford to freeze rates could not be further from the truth," he said. "The idea that somehow we could flog off parks or even footpaths in return for cash to offset a rate increase is utter lunacy." Coucillor Gilligan said the focus should be councils increasingly taking on the gaps left by state and federal governments, rather than rates. Opposition local government spokesman Tim Smith called on all councils to freeze or cut rates. And if they won't do it, the Andrews Labor government must intervene to ensure that pressure is taken off ratepayers immediately, he said. Greater Geelong is lifting rates by 1.9 per cent, with mayor Stephanie Asher saying ratepayers could apply for hardship support if they were struggling to pay their rates. "We will remain flexible on how we do that; we are taking a compassionate view," she said. In Ballarat, the city council voted for a zero rate rise in its 2020-21 budget. It has also frozen increases on fees and charges, including car parking fees. Victorian councils were granted an extension this year to August 31 to adopt the 2020-21 budget. With Benjamin Preiss Representative John Lewis has been known for his commitment to bring a new generation of leaders and activists. But that might not be the only thing he is remarkable for. He can be most remembered for his fight against discrimination and racism in the Jim Crow South. Lewis also served as a congressman, who represented Atlanta for more than three decades. He is also known for fighting for equal voting rights in America his whole life. Until his death, Lewis believed in the power of ordinary people to redeem the soul of America, which was quoted in his essay posthumous op-ed published on Thursday. Aside from being a civil right icon, here are some other stories to commemorate John Lewis' life: Bloody Sunday John Lewis marched to the apex of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 7, 1965. The reason behind the march was to bring focus to the lack of voting rights in Alabama and other areas across the country for blacks. When they reached the apex of the bridge, the marchers were beaten back by police officers using clubs, whips, and tear gas. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was also present during the 1965 march. Lewis was 25-years-old at the time. Big Six The 'Big Six' is used to describe the six most prominent African-American civil leaders during the 1960s. John Lewis was the youngest member of the said group, with Asa Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer Jr., Whitney Young Jr., and Roy Wilkins as other members. The "Big Six" organized the movement for the March on Washington. It happened in 1963. Presidential Medal of Freedom In 2011, John Lewis received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the country's civilian honor. Former U.S. president Barack Obama personally called Lewis to let him know the news. Obama called Lewis as the "conscience of the United States Congress." Many Arrests During his years fighting for justice and voting rights, Lewis was handcuffed around 45 times and was arrested 40 times. During his term as a congressman, he was arrested five times. As A Writer Lewis published his acclaimed biography "Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement" in 1998. In 2016, he received the National Book Award for his autobiography. He also created a graphic novel with writer Andrew Aydin and illustrator Nate Powell. The graphic novel "March: Book Three" won for young people's literature. The New York Times Essay Lewis managed to write his essay "Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation" published in The New York Times. In his essay, he called Americans to answer the highest calling of their hearts and to stand up for what they truly believe. His essay began by saying that he is filled with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when everyone uses their power to bring change in the society. "When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war," Lewis concluded in his essay. Check these out: US Navy to Name Ship for Civil Rights Icon Rep. John Lewis Florida Senator Rubio Faces Criticism for Confusing John Lewis, Elijah Cummings in Tribute Tweet Donald Trump Presidential Campaign One Year Later: Civil Rights Icon Dolores Huerta, Actress Alicia Machado Describes the 'Year of Hate' With tomorrow as the last day for early voting in Tennessees primary election, which will be held next Thursday, much of the nation has become entranced by the down-to-the-wire coin toss between a true outsider and an established swamp dweller. And for the life of me, I struggle with those voters who have yet to discover that Dr. Manny Sethi is overwhelmingly the best choice for our state. The trauma surgeons opponent Bill Hagerty is the Republican Partys pick, if that in itself isnt enough to scare you to death. A newcomer to politics, Sethi is as genuine and as inviting as his rural Tennessee background, and his long-established concerns for the citizens of Tennessee are well founded. The website Politico is calling the Sethi-Hagerty primary the nastiest in the country, which earned that dubious distinction when, much to the machines dismay, Sethi began to play havoc with such a shoo-in and Hagertys 17-point lead began to hemorrhage like a cherry Popsicle in the summer sun. Mind you, it wasnt Hagertys haughty approach to the states hay-seeds but Mannys clear appeal that was borne years before when he could make the badly injured believe he could help. As Hagertys high hopes were soon whittled away, the swamp in him produced a packet of dirty political ads, full of lies and deceptions. They alleged he was a closet liberal, that Massachusetts Manny sat on a medical board that made a donation to liberal causes, and the biggie; that 12 years ago he and his wife made a $50 donation to a family friend that was channeled through some funding base Sethi had never heard of. What if the funding base gave to "Che" Guevara or the Castro brothers? Who cares? Sethi certainly didnt do any of the kind but Hagerty wanted the smear too desperately. And a 12-year-old campaign donation was all the dirty the swamp could find. Whats more, Hagerty has made a number of campaign donations to the other side, including Albert Gore, and Sethi could care less. His deal is Hagerty has all but testified in court that he is completely devoted to each and every whim of President Trump, making him golden to the Party. Sethi is also a Trump man to a point but the difference in the two is overly simple: Sethi needs Trump to help Tennessee Hagerty needs Tennessees Senate seat to help Trump. Theres the difference. Any Tennessean who fails to see the difference in the states crucial needs, versus Americas crucial needs, needs to realize that in this day and time, odd man out is not a game we want to play for the next six years. * * * SUCH A SILLY WORD GAME Tom Decosimo has in my opinion done more to bolster public education in Chattanooga than anybody short of being an elected official or an employee of the school district. He, Mike McGauley, Doug Daugherty and certain others have created the non-profit Hamilton Flourishing. They are proudly conservative and, as a think tank, are rebuilding what the misguided and somewhat dark UnifiEd group tore asunder in the court of public opinion. What you dont know (yet) is that Hamilton Flourishing is coming up with ways to save and nurture our lost inner-city kids but, first, Decosimo must become part of the ever-fragile School Board. The dream is to get Rhonda Thurman for years the Voice of Reason on the board, re-elected. Then add Tom with newcomer Debbi Meyers and it is strongly believed there will be a better balance on the ever-shaky School Board for the good. The best illustration of what the good means just arrived in flames when the liberal elites found fault with a Decosimo ad where Tom identified himself as a Republican. He could have identified himself as a member of one of our communitys finest families, or as a Christian, or as a conservative, or as a community leader who believes in values, or integrity, or scruples, or character, or the Biblical truth, and no one would have flinched. But no. He declared he was a Republican and it was more than the little minds could endure. The Times Free Press devoted more column-inches to the faux news than the senseless riots in Portland, and County Commissioner David Sharpe, speaking from the dais, stooped to an all-time partisan low when he said, I think if you asked anyone in District 2, or any other district for that matter, I think that most would agree that partisanship has no place on the school board. We all see how broken Washington has become with hyper-partisanship. We see it all over the country. And, frankly, I think it is dangerous to bring this kind of thinking to Hamilton County, Sharpe added, seemingly oblivious to the fact his unnecessary but anger-guided comments did exactly that. The point being, all involved would have been better served if David had held his tongue. To ask why he felt called upon to speak for the liberal elites defies imagination, but he did. And that is where we are. * * * THE MAYORS RACE JUST HAD EARTH-QUAKE TREMORS While it is six months away, of special significance is the 2021 election of the next mayor of Chattanooga. Under Democrat Andy Berke, many feel that the findings that Chattanooga is one of the worst-run cities in the United States must be addressed and Tim Kelly, a successful business man, is among the front runners. Make no doubt, Tim is an extremely likable and appealing candidate, but Chattanoogas conservative core got quite a wake-up call several days ago. It was revealed Kelly had given a public donation to Marco Perez, the liberate elite candidate who is running against the establishment favorite Decosimo and Tim, who claims he is a moderate, has suddenly cast himself among the liberal elites. Kellys contribution becomes his endorsement against Decosimo, and while it is believed several additional candidates will apply after next weeks Aug. 6 primary election, Kellys actions may embolden more conservative candidates. It has been reported that Russell Gilbert, currently a member of the City Council, will be a candidate and, more recently, Monty Burell, a small business advisor, has announced his candidacy. According to the Hamilton County Election Commission, those wishing to run for Chattanooga mayor will be able to pick up a petition beginning Oct. 19. The deadline to qualify is Dec. 17 and Chattanoogans will select their next mayor on March 2, 2021. * * * THIS ONE AINT QUITE OVER It dont know the particulars Im neither a detective nor a share holder but when Wayne Wilkerson, acknowledged as the leader in the Cream Scheme that defrauded millions of dollars from insurance companies, was sentenced to 165 months in prison on Tuesday, there was still some pesky smoldering smoke left around the campfire. Federal Judge Sandy Mattice pronounced Wayne Wilkersons sentence in Winchesters Federal Court building after a lengthy hearing. To hear some tell it, a chunk of the money that drifted up in the smoke came from the Hamilton Countys Department of Educations Insurance Fund. The story is the fund took a pretty big lick, and remember the HCDE is self-insured. Now some are asking that the authorities look at the withdrawals, publicly reveal the districts total losses, and learn not only which HCDE personnel was involved but if true -- who authorized such a thing and why? Im sure somebody can make sure the HCDE didnt do anything untoward or foolish. royexum@aol.com The reason a country has three wings of governance the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary is so that poll promises will not interfere with the long-term running of the nation. When politicians decide to get involved in the education system, emphasising their ideology at the cost of general knowledge, the results are inimical to an entire generations ability to think, which usually serves the politicians in power well. Between the deletion of crucial chapters from textbooks for high school students and the new National Education Policy, it would be a surprise if the generation which is being educated now even knows that the legislature is not the only wing of government. Perhaps it will be a surprise if that does not eventually become the actual case. The ruling partys obsession with Hindi, which has now moderated itself into an obsession with the mother tongue, over English could have disastrous effects, and the first National Education Policy in 34 years has proposed sweeping changes with little thought for the career arcs and international competence of a generation of students. The excuse, as always, is that the burden on students must be reduced. The notion that education is a burden, and not a joy, can only be held by three kinds of people those with no interest in education, those with no foresight, and those with no clue of teaching methodology. Sadly, it appears only those three kinds of people hold key positions in the countrys education system. Since the inception of India as an independent nation, politicians have had a key role to play in the designing of the syllabus, particularly in the social sciences. This is why, for decades, students have had to learn outdated statistics by rote instead of relevant information and techniques that could help them come up with interesting statistics themselves. We live in a time when beautiful history books are being written, literature is at its most vibrant, and people of Indian origin head various global economical institutions. And yet, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved an education policy that sets us back by about a century. On paper, as with most policies on paper, it does its best to sound progressive by using phrases like universalisation of early childhood education and coding and vocational studies. But there is no way to spin the usage of a childs mother tongue as the only medium of instruction until Class 5, and preferably until Class 8 and beyond as anything but regressive. This is to be implemented in both government and private educational institutions. The focus of education should be on equipping students to transcend geographical boundaries, to shine in whichever field they may choose and wherever they may decide to live. In childhood, when there is little else for a student to do, schools have a fantastic opportunity to teach them as many languages and skills as possible. Instead, people from different parts of India will find themselves incompetent in globally important languages, while struggling even to speak to each other without a common tongue, if the education policy is implemented as it stands. It will take decades to undo the damage, and perhaps a generation without the education it could have had will not even realise that there is damage to be undone. This is not simply about the lack of educational qualifications among the top brass in the ruling party. The policy has been proposed by a team that hasnt had a poor education. Yet, the rants of politicians who have been professors before donning party colours stand testimony to the fact that ideology can trump common sense as well as erudition. And thanks to them, we are creating a generation of fools. Every year, we speak of the need to make the board examinations easier. Various governments have called for redesigning the system, even introducing continuous assessment. And yet, students who ace their board exams fare abysmally in common entrance examinations such as NEET. Despite education being a concurrent subject, with states having their own school boards, the decisions taken have been unilateral, and consultation with the states has been reserved for later. As has been the tendency with the ruling party, several new bodies such as the National Education Technology Forum, an independent authority to regulate private and public schools, and a common higher education regulator have all been proposed, with no clarity on what exactly their roles are, why they are needed, whom they will comprise, and whom they will report to. Just as thoughtless is the proposal to fix fees for colleges rather than subsidise quality education. Of course, the latter would take away funds from pet projects such as the construction of gigantic statues. The reason the Ivy League universities in the United States have such a hold on the world is that they create the best minds by hiring the best minds to teach, and they are able to do this because they are able to charge a tuition fee that allows them to hire the worlds most interesting innovators and researchers, which in turn attracts capital. Education is an investment in ones future. We cannot afford to skimp on it, and we cannot afford to bend it to suit vested interests. While the Central Board of Secondary Education has maintained that the reduction of the syllabus cutting out key chapters on nationalism, democracy, diversity, demonetisation, popular struggles, religion and caste, foreign policy, economic development, forest and wildlife is because the lockdown has cut into teaching time, there is no clarity on whether these chapters will be included from the next academic year. And if this is indeed the reason and not an excuse, it begs the question: Why not exclude these chapters from testing alone rather than from the textbook? Does the government not consider it important for students to learn about food security? Is it a burden for students to learn about farmer suicides or loss of animal habitat? It is hard to dismiss the idea that there might be a more sinister motive when one reflects that, among the works excluded from literary studies are The Argumentative Indian by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen and Broken Images by playwright and activist Girish Karnad, neither of whom has been a favourite with the current regime. More Columns by Nandini Krishnan: Nobel for economist, tailspin for economy Why the Diaspora has so much love to give Hindi debate: We are all obsessed with homogeneity We are choking the earth The delusionary Indian intellectual India's culture of worship has to end Nandini is the author of Invisible Men: Inside India's Transmasculine Networks (2018) and Hitched: The Modern Woman and Arranged Marriage (2013). She tweets @k_nandini. Her website is: www.nandinikrishnan.com A study by scientists from the University of Southampton has examined the chances of catching COVID-19 in a train carriage carrying an infectious person. Based on high-speed routes in China, researchers from WorldPop found that for train passengers sitting within three rows (widthwise) and five columns (lengthwise) of an infected person (index patient) between zero and ten percent (10.3) caught the disease. The average rate of transmission for these 'close contact' travellers was 0.32 percent. The study, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Academy of Electronics and Information Technology, and Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, also showed that passengers travelling in seats directly adjacent to an index patient suffered the highest level of transmission, with an average of 3.5 percent contracting the disease. For those sitting on the same row, the figure was 1.5 percent. The 'attack rate' for each seat - the number of passengers in a given seat diagnosed with COVID-19, divided by the total number of passengers travelling in the same seat - increased by 0.15 percent for every hour that a person travelled with an index patient. For those in adjacent seats, this rate of increase was higher at 1.3 percent per hour. Interestingly, the researchers found that only 0.075 percent of people who used a seat previously occupied by an index patient went on to contract the disease. Details are published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. The WorldPop team, experts in population mapping, used sophisticated modelling to analyse anonymised itinerary and infection data relating to train passengers on China's high-speed G train network. This included those who had COVID-19 at the time of travel and their close contacts (who showed symptoms within 14 days of travel). The data, covering a period between 19 December 2019 and 6 March 2020, included 2,334 index patients and 72,093 close contacts. Their travel times ranged from between less than an hour to eight hours. Lead investigator, Dr Shengjie Lai, comments: "Our study shows that although there is an increased risk of COVID-19 transmission on trains, a person's seat location and travel time in relation to an infectious person can make a big difference as to whether it is passed on. The findings suggest that during the COVID-19 epidemic it is important to reduce the density of passengers and promote personal hygiene measures, the use of face coverings and possibly carry-out temperature checks before boarding." The researchers conclude that given the attack rates estimated for passengers in the same row as an index patient, a safe social distance of more than one metre is required for one hour spent travelling together. After two hours of contact, they consider a distance of less than 2.5 metres may be insufficient to prevent transmission. Director of WorldPop, Professor Andy Tatem adds: "Our research is the first to quantify the individual risk of COVID-19 transmission on public transport based on data from epidemiological investigations of disease cases and their close contacts on high-speed trains. "It shows that the transmission risk not only relates to the distance from an infected person, but also the time in their presence. We hope it can help to inform authorities globally about measures needed to guard against the virus and in-turn help to reduce its spread." ### Notes to Editors 1) For interviews please contact, Peter Franklin, Media Relations, University of Southampton. p.franklin@southampton.ac.uk 07748 321087. 2) The paper The risk of COVID-19 transmission in train passengers: an epidemiological and modelling study is published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases and can be viewed here: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1057/5877944 3) Epidemiological investigations of COVID-19 patients and close contacts were conducted by the Chinese and local Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in China. Itinerary information was from the China State Railway Group. 4) More about WorldPop can be found here: https://www.worldpop.org/ 5) Further information about Geography and Environmental Science at Southampton can be found at: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/geography/index.page 6) The University of Southampton drives original thinking, turns knowledge into action and impact, and creates solutions to the world's challenges. We are among the top 100 institutions globally (QS World University Rankings 2019). Our academics are leaders in their fields, forging links with high-profile international businesses and organisations, and inspiring a 22,000-strong community of exceptional students, from over 135 countries worldwide. Through our high-quality education, the University helps students on a journey of discovery to realise their potential and join our global network of over 200,000 alumni. http://www.southampton.ac.uk Good Morning America On the eve of the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, President Joe Biden held a formal news conference at the White House Wednesday, answering reporter questions on his handling of the pandemic, the economy and legislative agenda, characterizing the country as unified -- but not as much as it could be -- and raised eyebrows by saying Russia was likely to invade Ukraine. "It's been a year of challenges, but it's also many years of enormous progress," Biden said to begin, ticking through his administration's successes before fielding questions from reporters. With Biden facing the limits of what he can accomplish with an evenly-divided Senate, unable to get either his signature social spending package or major voting rights reform through Congress in recent weeks, and with the pandemic still raging well into its second, his approval rating in polls has hit an all-time low. KEY FACTS 12 p.m.: Canadas contact tracing app now live 11:50 a.m.: New EI program coming for Canadians 10:30 a.m.: Ontario is reporting 134 new cases The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Thursday. This file is no longer updating. Click here to read the latest coverage. Web links to longer stories if available. 5 p.m. Ontarios regional health units are reporting a total of 41,303 confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19, including 2,811 deaths, an increase of 114 new infections in 24 hours. The province-wide case growth was dominated by increases in three health units Friday: There were 26 new reported infections in Ottawa, 21 in Windsor-Essex, and 20 in Toronto. Still, July is ending with the province at its lowest rate of new infections since well before the pandemic first peaked in Ontario in the spring at 116 cases per day over the last seven days. Meanwhile, just two more fatal cases were reported, both in Toronto. 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. The province cautions its separate data, published daily at 10:30 a.m., 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. 3:30 p.m. There are 116,122 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Canada, including 8,933 deaths, according to The Canadian Press. This breaks down as follows (NOTE: The Star does its own count for Ontario; see elsewhere in this file.): Quebec: 59,312 confirmed (including 5,674 deaths, 50,886 resolved) Ontario: 39,209 confirmed (including 2,775 deaths, 35,074 resolved) Alberta: 10,716 confirmed (including 195 deaths, 9,113 resolved) British Columbia: 3,591 confirmed (including 194 deaths, 3,155 resolved) Saskatchewan: 1,306 confirmed (including 18 deaths, 948 resolved) Nova Scotia: 1,069 confirmed (including 64 deaths, 1,003 resolved) Manitoba: 401 confirmed (including eight deaths, 337 resolved), 14 presumptive Newfoundland and Labrador: 266 confirmed (including three deaths, 259 resolved) New Brunswick: 170 confirmed (including two deaths, 165 resolved) Prince Edward Island: 36 confirmed, of which all have been resolved Yukon: 14 confirmed (including 11 resolved) Repatriated Canadians account for 13 confirmed cases, of which all have been resolved Northwest Territories: five confirmed, of which all have been resolved Nunavut reports no confirmed cases. 2:15 p.m.: Fridays game between St. Louis and Milwaukee has been postponed after multiple Cardinals employees tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. Two other games scheduled for Friday involving the Marlins, Nationals, Blue Jays and Phillies had already been postponed because of an outbreak among Miami players and two positive tests on Philadelphias coaching staff. 1:45 p.m.: British Columbias finance minister says the province welcomes a federal government decision to extend help to businesses struggling with rent payments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Carole James says B.C. has been seeking additional support for business owners and tenants affected by closures or other measures aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced that the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance program is extended until the end of August. James says businesses need that help to recover and reopen. She also says B.C.s emergency order protecting eligible businesses from eviction remains in place for the duration of the federal rent assistance program. James says the eviction ban will protect small businesses that should be eligible for relief but whose landlords have not applied for the support. I encourage both commercial landlords and tenants to work collaboratively and apply for this program, so we can ensure our B.C. businesses are in a better position financially as we transition into recovery, James says in a statement. 1 p.m.: Once a coronavirus vaccine is approved as safe and effective, Americans should have widespread access within a reasonable time, Dr. Anthony Fauci assured lawmakers Friday. Appearing before a House panel investigating the nations response to the pandemic, Fauci expressed cautious optimism that a vaccine would be available, particularly by next year. I believe, ultimately, over a period of time in 2021, that Americans will be able to get it, Fauci said, referring to the vaccine. There will be a priority list for who gets early vaccinations. I dont think we will have everybody getting it immediately, Fauci explained. But ultimately, within a reasonable time, the plans allow for any American who needs the vaccine to get it, he added. 1 p.m.: Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announced Friday that the government will postpone highly anticipated legislative elections by one year, citing a worsening coronavirus outbreak in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. The Hong Kong government is invoking an emergency ordinance in delaying the elections. Lam said the government has the support of the Chinese government in making the decision to hold the elections on Sept. 5, 2021. The announcement I have to make today is the most difficult decision Ive had to make in the past seven months, Lam said at a news conference. We want to ensure fairness and public safety and health, and need to make sure the election is held in an open, fair and impartial manner. This decision is therefore essential, she said. The postponement is a setback for the pro-democracy opposition, which was hoping to capitalize on disenchantment with the current pro-Beijing majority to make gains. A group of 22 lawmakers issued a statement ahead of the announcement accusing the government of using the outbreak as an excuse to delay the vote. Incumbent pro-democracy legislators, who represent 60 per cent of the publics opinion, collectively oppose the postponement and emphasize the responsibility of the SAR government to make every effort to arrange adequate anti-epidemic measures to hold elections in September as scheduled, the group said, referring to the territorys official name, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. 12:55 p.m.: Ontarios firefighters are urging the public to practise fire safety as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, saying theres been a sharp increase in the number of fires in the province this summer. The Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association says that with more people at home over the past several months, more Ontarians are cooking at home significantly increasing the risk of a house fire. Carmen Santoro, the president of the OPFFA, says the province is on track for nearly 116 fire deaths in 2020 which would be the highest number in more than a decade. The average number of annual fire fatalities in the 10-year period of 2009 to 2018 was just under 85, according to the Office of the Ontario Fire Marshal. 12:13 p.m.: Since the pandemic was declared, no community in B.C. has been as steadfast and public about its desire to keep visitors at bay as Haida Gwaii. The province has granted the regions wish for a travel ban, after COVID-19 made landfall. An outbreak identified last Friday has resulted in 20 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Haida Gwaii, with 13 active as of Thursday, and all of them isolating at home. Public health officials said all the cases identified on Haida Gwaii could be connected to local residents who travelled off the island. Due to the closeness of the communities on Haida Gwaii, and the fact that its separated from mainland B.C. by a ferry ride, the fear since the pandemic began has been that, if the virus arrived on Haida Gwaii, it would be impossible to contain. The Stars Alex McKeen has more details. 12 p.m.: After a months delay, the COVID-19 smartphone app is available for download and the province will now require bars, restaurants and tour boat operators to keep a log of customers as the number of new infections popped back above 100 for the first time in three days. The COVID Alert app will use Bluetooth technology and anonymously notify users who have come in close contact with another user who has tested positive for a long enough period in the previous two weeks to be potentially infected. It was developed by Ontario and the federal government with help from Shopify and BlackBerry, with officials saying it will be more helpful in curbing the spread of COVID-19 if large numbers of people download it. The app is available on Google Play and the Apple app store. The Stars Rob Ferguson has more details. 11:50 a.m. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the government will create a transitional benefit to help workers who exhaust emergency pandemic aid and dont qualify for employment insurance. The $80-billion Canada Emergency Response Benefit is set to wind down over the coming weeks, with those who are EI-eligible to move onto that separate program. Speaking this morning, Trudeau says many people who dont qualify for the program, such as gig or contract workers, will gain access to a transitional, parallel benefit that is similar to EI. It will also include access to training, and the ability to work more hours without having as steep a clawback in benefit payments, Trudeau says. He says more details will be unveiled at a later date. The most recent figures on the CERB show that as of July 26, the government had paid out $62.75 billion in benefits to 8.46 million unique applicants since its launch. 11:30 a.m.: Quebec is reporting 164 new cases of COVID-19 and one new death attributed to the novel coronavirus. Todays figures push the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Quebec to 59,312, and total deaths from the disease to 5,674. Public health authorities say hospitalizations dropped by 19 for a total of 189. Of those, 15 people are in intensive care, three fewer than the prior day. The province is also correcting the number of COVID-19 cases it announced Thursday. It now says 139 new cases should have been reported instead of 122. 11 a.m.: Nova Scotia is reporting its first new cases of COVID-19 since July 15. Health officials said today the two new cases were identified Thursday and involve people in the central zone of the province, which includes the Halifax area. Officials say both infected individuals travelled outside Canada and are now in self-isolation. Nova Scotia has reported a total of 1,069 positive COVID-19 cases and 64 deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus. There are currently no people in hospital being treated for the disease. Effective today, mask-wearing is mandatory in most indoor public spaces in the province, including retail businesses, shopping centres, hair salons, and places of worship. 10:30 a.m.: Ontario is reporting 134 new cases, Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted. Elliott acknowledged that it was a slight uptick over the past two days when less than 100 were reported, but noted that 28 of 34 public health units are reporting five or fewer cases, with 16 of them reporting no new cases. Of the latest new cases, 26 are in Ottawa with 24 in Windsor-Essex. She also said 30,033 tests were completed Thursday. The Stars Rob Ferguson has more details. 10:01 a.m. Canadas contact tracing app, COVID Alert is now available to download on the App Store and Google Play. 10:01 a.m. Mayor John Tory announced this morning the city is working with community partners to develop the Family Wellbeing Plan to ensure those experience family violence can get the help they need. Here To Help TO provides resources to families counselling, safety advice, referrals. 10 a.m.: After four long months, Toronto and Peel Region enter Stage 3 of reopening today. Follow live with the Stars Jenna Moon, Francine Kopun and Jacques Gallant hit the streets to see how it plays out. 9:55 a.m.: Ontario government has adopted some but not all of Torontos requested additional precautions for bars and restaurants in Stage 3, the Stars David Rider reports. One omission is there is no requirement for bars to close at midnight. 8:54 a.m. Statstics Canada says the economy grew by 4.5 per cent in May as businesses began to reopen after severe lockdowns of March and April. In a flash estimate for June, the agency says the economy continued to grow at an annualized rate of 5 per cent. Despite the two months of growth after two months of negative readings, economic output contracted by 12 per cent in the second quarter. 8:01 a.m. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is postponing some planned measures to ease the lockdown because coronavirus cases are on the rise for the first time since May. The government is scrapping plans to allow venues such as casinos, bowling alleys and skating rinks to open on Monday. A plan to allow a limited number of fans back into sports stadiums is on hold. Johnson says the measures will be reviewed after two weeks. He says a rule requiring face coverings worn in shops and on public transit will be extended to museums, galleries, cinemas and places of worship. On Thursday, the government re-imposed restrictions on social life in a swath of northern England because of a surge in cases, barring households from visiting one another. Scientists say they are no longer confident the R number, which measures how many people each infected person passes on the disease, is below 1 in England. A number above 1 means the virus will exponentially spread. 8:01 a.m. Cyprus is making mask-wearing compulsory in all indoor areas where people gather in large numbers and ramping up random coronavirus testing at two main airports. Health Minister Constantinos Ioannou says a rollback of restrictions combined with a low infection rate led to excessive complacency by some people he blamed for choosing to recklessly violate health protocols and put public health at risk. The internationally recognized part of Cyprus confirmed 1,084 COVID-19 infections and 26 deaths. 7:30 a.m. Britain has reversed course and now says spectators will not be able to attend sporting events in England because the coronavirus infection rate is rising. Fans were due to attend horse racing, cricket and snooker in the coming days as part of pilot events but Prime Minister Boris Johnson says fans will no longer gather at sporting events until at least Aug. 15. They were initially approved to test procedures ahead of a planned wider re-opening of stadiums in October. The Oval cricket stadium in London has been used as a test for fans returning in the last week. 7:30 a.m. Formula One driver Sergio Perez says he might have contracted the coronavirus during a trip to Mexico between races in Hungary and Britain. The Racing Point driver tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday and will miss Sundays race at Silverstone and another the following week at the same track while in isolation. Perez says he was visiting his mother in Mexico after she was hospitalized following a big accident. Perez says it is one of the saddest days in my career missing races but it just shows how vulnerable we (are) to this virus. The Mexican used a private jet to fly home and says he has no symptoms. The pandemic delayed the start of the season by more than three months. 6:54 a.m.: Britains health secretary defended the governments abrupt re-imposition of restrictions on social life across a swath of northern England on Friday, saying it was important to clamp down quickly on new outbreaks of COVID-19. Matt Hancock said that while its not the sort of decision that anybody would want to take, the government had no choice. It is important to move quickly because the virus spreads and youve got to make sure you do everything you can do keep ahead of it, he told Sky News. 6:10 a.m. Japanese leaders are grappling with how to contain flareups in coronavirus cases while trying to avoid shutdowns that might push the economy deeper into recession. Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike said the confirmed number of new cases hit a daily record of 463 on Friday, up nearly 100 from Thursdays 367. Nationwide, cases have recently topped 1,000 a day, and some areas that had avoided any cases at all, such as Iwate prefecture in the northeast and Sado island off the Japan Sea coast, have confirmed cases. Koike says, You might have plans or events for summer, but unfortunately this summer will be different from last summer. We cannot loosen our grips on (anti-infection) measures and I want to share this mindset with you all. Earlier this week, Koike asked bars and restaurants to close by 10 p.m. Legal limits on what the government can demand of the private sector and individuals mean authorities largely must rely on social pressure and persuasion to compel people to comply with anti-disease precautions. 6:10 a.m. German authorities have added Catalonia and two other northern Spanish regions to a long list of risk areas, days after the foreign ministry advised against nonessential travel to the area. The designation on Friday by the Robert Koch Institute, Germanys national disease control centre, comes as authorities prepare to make coronavirus tests for people arriving from risk areas compulsory as of next week. It affects the inland Aragon and Navarra regions as well as Catalonia. Most countries in the world are currently on the high-risk list, though most of Germanys partners in the European Union and the rest of the Schengen travel zone are not except neighbouring Luxembourg, where new infections have exceeded a level that is considered risky. 6:10 a.m. South Africas number of confirmed coronavirus cases is edging close to a half-million, with the Health Ministry reporting 11,046 new cases overnight. That brings the countrys caseload to 482,169, including 7,812 deaths. Corruption in the countrys pandemic response is also a growing problem. On Thursday, the health minister in the countrys epicenter of Gauteng province was forced to step down over corruption allegations related to government contracts for COVID-19 personal protective equipment. President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned that now, more than ever, South Africas persistent problem with widespread graft is endangering peoples lives. South Africa makes up well over half the cases on the African continent and has the worlds fifth highest virus caseload. 6:10 a.m. Hawaiis Board of Education has approved an agreement to delay the start of public schools. Students across Hawaii were originally scheduled to return to school on Aug. 4. But the statewide teachers union led an effort to delay, saying the state Department of Education didnt sufficiently plan for safely reopening schools during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Parent Burke Burnett says delaying in-person instruction is necessary because Hawaii is seeing a spike in cases. Parent Genna Javier opposes a delay. She says students who dont want to return to school have a distance learning option. 6:10 a.m. Nepal is opening its Himalayan peaks, hoping to bring back Western climbers who were unable to visit during a spring lockdown. The government, expedition workers and businesses are hoping foreign climbers who bring some $300 million annually to Nepal will return during the autumn climbing season that begins in September. Commercial flights to Nepal will resume in August. Rudra Singh Tamang, director general of Nepals tourism department, said mandatory test results and quarantines when needed are among the measures being used to ensure tourism returns safely. 6:10 a.m. Vietnam reported a daily high of 45 more cases Friday, all of them connected to a Da Nang hospital where the first case surfaced last week after more than three months. All of the infected are hospital staff, current or former patients and their family members. Vietnam reacted quickly to try to contain the spread from Da Nang, a popular destination where thousands of tourists were vacationing on its golden beaches. Other cases this week were confirmed in Hanoi and other cities and provinces. Da Nang was put under lockdown on Tuesday and testing and business restrictions increased in other areas. The city on Friday began setting up a makeshift hospital in a sport auditorium and doctors have been mobilized from other cities to help. 6:10 a.m. A record surge of 55,079 new cases in the past 24 hours took Indias coronavirus caseload past 1.6 million, as the government decided to lift a nighttime curfew that has been in force since late March. The Health Ministry on Friday also reported 779 additional deaths, taking total fatalities to 35,747. The ministry said more than 1 million people have recovered from the virus at a rate of 64 per cent. The night curfew will be lifted this weekend and yoga institutes and gyms will reopen on Aug. 5, according to the Home Ministry. The government also removed interstate restrictions on movement of people and goods. Hotels in the Indian capital will reopen as they no longer serve as quarantine facilities. After a peak of nearly 3,500 new cases a day earlier this month, the surge has come down to around 1,000 cases. Lockdown remains in place across all containment zones. Subways, cinemas, swimming pools, entertainment parks, bars, theatres, auditoriums and other social gathering places will remain closed till Aug. 31. 6:10 a.m. Indonesias resort island of Bali has reopened to domestic tourists after an almost four-month lockdown for the coronavirus pandemic. Balis governor has been impatient to revive the economy and began easing restrictions on public activities three weeks ago. Under the easing that took effect Friday, Indonesians visiting Bali will face stringent rules at hotels, restaurants and beaches. Foreign tourists will be allowed on the island beginning Sept. 11. Tourism is the main source of income for Bali, which had 6 million tourists from abroad and 10 million from Indonesia last year. The pandemic has caused the numbers to dive. 6:10 a.m. China is tightening travel restrictions in the capital of the Xinjiang region amid a COVID-19 outbreak in the northwestern city. People arriving in Urumqi from regions considered to have high infection risk must undergo a two-week quarantine. Others arriving from less risky areas most show proof of good health. Locals in principle must stay in the city or show proof of health to be allowed to leave. Hong Kong, meanwhile, continues to see a third wave of infections, with almost 150 new cases reported Friday to bring its total to 3,151 cases and 25 deaths. Despite that, authorities issued an order Thursday allowing restaurants to operate under limited hours and with limited capacity. But businesses such as bars, karaoke bars and amusement parks still must remain closed. 6:10 a.m.The leader of Australias Victoria state warns that tougher pandemic restrictions may be coming after the coronavirus hot spot reported its second-highest daily COVID-19 count on record. Officials reported 627 new confirmed virus infections and eight deaths Friday, a day after a record 723 new cases were reported. The state capital of Melbourne and a neighbouring semi-rural district are over half way through a six-week lockdown designed to curb the coronavirus spread. Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said Friday that state and federal officials are conducting an analysis over the next few days to consider what the next steps might be. Nothing has been decided, he says, but warns that all of us acknowledge that these numbers are still far too high. 6:10 a.m. South Korea has reported 36 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19, most of them tied to international arrivals. The figures announced by South Koreas Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday brought the national caseload to 14,305, including 301 deaths. The agency says 22 of the new cases are linked to people arriving from abroad. The country in recent weeks reported dozens of infections among South Korean construction workers flown home from virus-ravaged Iraq and crew members of Russia-flagged cargo ships docked in the ports of Busan and Incheon. 6:10 a.m. Mississippi is continuing to see a sharp increase in reported cases of the new coronavirus, and Gov. Tate Reeves says he will put eight more counties under restrictions that include mandatory masks in public. The restrictions are already in place in 29 of the states 82 counties, covering more than half of the states population. Those are being extended until Aug. 17. The eight counties that will be added Monday have seen a rapid rise in cases. The state epidemiologist says Mississippi has astoundingly high numbers of people hospitalized with COVID-19. 6:10 a.m. Tribal leaders on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation in northeastern North Dakota are requiring residents to wear masks to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. It is a rare move in a state where face coverings have not been mandated despite a steady increase in overall cases. The reservation is primarily in Benson County, which according to the COVID Tracking Project has seen the states most new cases per capita in the last two weeks. The administrator for the Lake Region District Health Unit says the increases in Benson are basically coming from Spirit Lake, although its not yet clear why. Officials hope a mass testing scheduled for Friday will provide more clues. 6:10 a.m. Minnesota state officials have unveiled a plan to reopen schools this fall that gives districts some flexibility to toggle between in-person and online learning, but reserves the right for the state to step in if the coronavirus gets out of control. Gov. Tim Walz acknowledged the value of in-person learning, but said Thursday that the states top priority is safety. State education officials will use data on virus cases in a county to help districts determine which model they should use. Districts with fewer than 10 cases per 10,000 people in a 14-day average will be able to teach in person. Those with 50 or more cases will have to use distance learning. Levels in between will rely on hybrid models. 5:10 a.m.: Vietnamese state media reported on Friday the countrys first ever death of a person with the coronavirus as it struggles with a renewed outbreak after 99 days without any cases. The Thanh Nien newspaper said a 70-year-old man died after contracting the disease while being treated for a kidney illness at a hospital in Da Nang where more than 90 cases have been reported over the past week. The Health Ministry has not confirmed the death. Dr. Luong Ngoc Khue, head of the countrys Administration of Medical Examination and Treatment, said there are at least six other elderly patients with COVID-19 currently in critical condition. All have other underlying illnesses, he said. 4:01 a.m.: Some parents and teachers are balking at Ontarios newly released back-to-school plan, saying it doesnt do enough to protect kids from the risk of COVID-19. The Ontario Parent Action Network says that instead of getting kids back to school safely, the province has abandoned them. And the four major teachers unions argue the plan jeopardizes the safety of staff and students alike, saying the return to school is underfunded. 4:01 a.m.: Statistics Canada will say this morning how the economy fared in May and provide its preliminary estimate for June to give a picture of the first half of a year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has already given the worst back-to-back monthly readings over March and April, with drops of 7.2 per cent and 11.6 per cent, respectively. 4:01 a.m.: People in Toronto and Peel Region can eat inside a restaurant and catch a movie in a theatre starting today, though they still have to follow physical distancing rules and other health measures. The two areas are joining most of Ontario in Stage 3 of its economic recovery, which allows most businesses and public spaces to reopen. Toronto city council has enacted a series of additional health measures beyond those set by the province in preparation for todays change, including capacity and table size limits for indoor dining in restaurants. 4:01 a.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 4 a.m. on July 31, 2020: There are 115,799 confirmed cases in Canada. Quebec: 59,131 confirmed (including 5,673 deaths, 50,886 resolved) Ontario: 39,075 confirmed (including 2,772 deaths, 34,906 resolved) Alberta: 10,716 confirmed (including 195 deaths, 9,113 resolved) British Columbia: 3,591 confirmed (including 194 deaths, 3,155 resolved) Saskatchewan: 1,306 confirmed (including 18 deaths, 948 resolved) Nova Scotia: 1,067 confirmed (including 64 deaths, 1,003 resolved) Manitoba: 395 confirmed (including 8 deaths, 325 resolved), 14 presumptive Newfoundland and Labrador: 266 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 259 resolved) New Brunswick: 170 confirmed (including 2 deaths, 165 resolved) Prince Edward Island: 36 confirmed (including 36 resolved) Yukon: 14 confirmed (including 11 resolved) Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed (including 13 resolved) Northwest Territories: 5 confirmed (including 5 resolved) Nunavut: No confirmed cases Total: 115,799 (14 presumptive, 115,785 confirmed including 8,929 deaths, 100,825 resolved) Read more of Thursdays rolling file We often see insiders buying up shares in companies that perform well over the long term. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of examples of share prices declining precipitously after insiders have sold shares. So we'll take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in Tyranna Resources Limited (ASX:TYX). Do Insider Transactions Matter? Most investors know that it is quite permissible for company leaders, such as directors of the board, to buy and sell stock in the company. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market. We would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing. But equally, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether. As Peter Lynch said, 'insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they buy them for only one: they think the price will rise'. Check out our latest analysis for Tyranna Resources The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Tyranna Resources There wasn't any very large single transaction over the last year, but we can still observe some trading. Jason Peterson bought 20.73m shares over the last 12 months at an average price of AU$0.0032. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last 12 months, below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below! Tyranna Resources is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of growing companies with insider buying. Insider Ownership Looking at the total insider shareholdings in a company can help to inform your view of whether they are well aligned with common shareholders. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. Insiders own 21% of Tyranna Resources shares, worth about AU$1.2m. This level of insider ownership is good but just short of being particularly stand-out. It certainly does suggest a reasonable degree of alignment. Story continues So What Do The Tyranna Resources Insider Transactions Indicate? We note a that there has been a bit of insider buying recently (but no selling). The net investment is not enough to encourage us much. On a brighter note, the transactions over the last year are encouraging. Insiders own shares in Tyranna Resources and we see no evidence to suggest they are worried about the future. While we like knowing what's going on with the insider's ownership and transactions, we make sure to also consider what risks are facing a stock before making any investment decision. To that end, you should learn about the 5 warning signs we've spotted with Tyranna Resources (including 3 which are concerning). But note: Tyranna Resources may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with high ROE 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. ZIMBABWE will not be lectured by misinformed and misguided regional parties such as the South African Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on anything as the country is not a province of South Africa. Responding to a misleading statement issued by the Generation 40 (G40) linked EFF, which sought to cast aspersions at the recently signed US$3.5 billion Global Compensation Deed (GCD) deal between Government and representatives of former white farmers, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Mr Nick Mangwana said the agreement was a fulfilment of constitutional provisions. The compensation of the said farmers is in line with the Zimbabwe Constitution, overwhelmingly voted for by the majority of Zimbabweans, political leaders across the divide included. Specifically, Chapter 16, Section 295 Sub Section 3, as read with Section 72 Sub Section 3 (a), obligates the State to pay compensation for improvements that were on land when such land was acquired, he said. Julius Malemas EFF, which has offered a political home to members of the decapitated G40 faction, who are running away from the long arm of the law, in its statement wrongly claimed that the Government would pay for the land with money that has since been secured but this is far from the truth. Under the historic agreement, that was sealed at State House on Wednesday, and which puts to rest the land question, both Government and the white former farmers will mobilise financing of the Global Compensation Deed and payment is only for improvements that were made at the farms, not the land. Government has not secured the US$3.5 billion compensation as again claimed by Malema. Following the signing, both sides will now jointly mount initiatives to raise the funds. Any claims contrary to the above-stated facts which are publicly available, point to deliberate misinformation or lack of understanding of the intricate nature of Zimbabwes land history, said Mr Mangwana. The Permanent Secretary reminded the EFF that President Mnangagwa is well aware of the causes of the economic challenges bedevilling Zimbabwe and does not need to rely on hastily made conclusions by excitable entities that are yet to garner requisite experience in management of such issues. He said had Malema and his partners used appropriate diplomatic channels, he could have been told the real facts around the historic land deal that has been hailed globally as a milestone. Government also takes offence at the uncouth but unsurprising attacks on the person of President Mnangagwa by Malema who appears to be under the illusion that vulgarity is an ideology. We therefore wish to remind Mr Malema that Zimbabwe is not a province of South Africa or one of his shacks and he should leave Zimbabweans to deal with Zimbabwean issues. While Zimbabwe welcomes any counsel from its neighbours, Government is of the view that Malema, as one of the opposition leaders in South Africa, is better occupied tackling challenges in his own country rather than pronouncing himself on matters he is not well versed with in Zimbabwe, he said Commenting on the same issue, Zanu PF director for Information and Publicity Cde Tafadzwa Mugwadi said Malema has no moral ground to talk about Zimbabwe. Mr Julius Malema or marema, whatever is the proper pronunciation, has no moral ground to poke his nose and uncircumcised mouth on matters of Zimbabwe, which he is historically, foundationally and contemporarily unschooled on. It is not only surprising but absolute hogwash that while our Zimbabwean indigenous farmers who benefited from the land reform itself are yet to comment, Mr Malema and his moribund group of provocateurs, desperate of waning domestic traction in SA politics, think that Zimbabwe is a readily available vantage from which to revive fading fortunes. As a candid reminder, Mr Malema has never dealt with nor can he claim any experience in empirical management of decolonisation processes to which land is the nuclei. Until he can give us a single exemplary EFF beneficiary of land reform in his own society, then we have neither parlance nor parity with him or his outfit, said Cde Mugwadi. He said by accommodating political misfits in the form of former G40 functionaries, and becoming their puppet, Malema will soon meet his Waterloo just as did the former. The economy of isolated North Korea grew for the first time in three years in 2019 as better weather conditions boosted crop yields, but sanctions imposed to stop its nuclear ambitions kept factory output weak, South Korea's central bank said. Gross domestic product in North Korea last year rose 0.4% in real terms from the previous year when the economy suffered the biggest contraction in 21 years, shrinking 4.1% due to a drought and sanctions, the Bank of Korea said on Friday. North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the U.N. Security Council has been toughening measures in recent years. "The sanctions have not become any tougher since 2017-end and weather conditions have been more favorable which helped output from the agriculture sector to improve," a BOK official said. "Even so, its too early to say (North Korea's) economy is in a recovery" as its trade volume in recent years is half the levels seen before the international sanctions kicked in. North Korea's economy grew 3.9% in 2016, the fastest pace in 17 years, but sharply contracted in the following two years. Current leader Kim Jong Un vowed to switch the focus from the development of nuclear arsenal to economic development in 2018 before he held an unprecedented summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. The two leaders have met three times, but failed to find a compromise over the North's nuclear weapons program. Estimates for North Korean economic data by the BOK are considered the most authoritative as the isolated nation does not disclose any statistics on its economy. Since 1991, the BOK has used figures from intelligence agencies and the unification ministry data on everything from size of rice paddy crops, water flows at dams to traffic near the border to make estimates. The BOK said output from agriculture, forestry and fisheries which accounts for about a fifth of North Korea's economy increased 1.4% last year, while industrial production fell 0.9%, following a 12.3% drop in 2018. However, North Korea's trade volume jumped 14.1% in 2019, as exports of non-sanctioned items such as shoes, hats and wigs increased 43%, the bank said. The BOK official said North Korea's trade was expected to worsen significantly this year as the coronavirus outbreak would have curbed shipments to China, its biggest trading partner that accounts for more than 90% of North Korea's total trade. North Korea's gross national income per capita stood at 1.408 million won ($1,184.79) in 2019, about 3.8% of that of South Korea. In the 1950s, North Korea's command-driven economy posted a healthy annual growth rate of 13.7%. But a focus on post Korean War military spending, the fall of the Soviet Union, and a famine in the mid-1990s that killed an estimated two million people, crippled the economy. These shocking photos show the terrible injuries suffered by a four-year-old girl after she was hit by a car that 'did not see' a red traffic light. Little Lucie Lyons was left with bruises and swelling that made her 'look like the elephant man' after the horror crash just metres away from her school. She was crossing the road with her mum Emily and siblings when the motor ploughed into her after the driver allegedly failed to stop at the traffic lights. Distraught mum Emily saw Lucie 'fly onto the car's bonnet' before landing face down in the road in the crash in Prince of Wales Road in Sheffield, South Yorkshire Emily, 36, said she 'thought she was dead' when she saw the horrific impact of the collision just minutes after she had picked the youngster up from pre-school. The shocked mother-of-four said she saw Lucie 'fly onto the car's bonnet' before landing face down in the road in the crash in Prince of Wales Road in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, on July 6. She claims the driver insisted to police that it was green, despite the traffic in the nearside lane stopping a the traffic lights. It was Lucie's first day back at pre-school since lockdown when she was knocked over by the car in front of her mum and siblings Now she is urging motorists and pedestrians to take extra care on busy roads - and hopes witnesses will come forward to bring the driver to justice. Emily, a registered childminder, said: 'It was Lucie's first day back at pre-school since lockdown so I picked her up at around 2pm. 'We cross that road four times a day, it's a road we know well and we are always careful on that road. 'I always make sure my children press the button and stand well back. 'The traffic on the nearside lane had stopped, their lights were on red and the green man came on, so we crossed. 'My son Patrick was first across the road and Lucie was a couple of steps behind him, I was behind them with my two other children. 'I saw this car coming towards Lucie, he had slowed down, but I just didn't think he was going to stop. 'It was like watching it in slow motion, it got closer and closer and the car hit her in the leg. Schoolgirl Lucie suffered two black eyes, swelling to her face and had severe whiplash resulting in a stiff and painful neck 'She flew on to the bonnet and landed in the road face down, I thought 'oh my god he's killed her'.' Lucie was rushed to hospital for treatment to her wounds and kept in for a head injury assessment before being given the all-clear. But she was left with cuts, bruises and swelling to her face caused by the impact of the crash. And her distraught mum believes the crash could have been much worse and fears the driver will not face any police action as it's her 'word against his'. Emily said: 'She had gravel in her hands and cuts and bruises, but they cleaned her up and sent her home. 'The next morning, the swelling was phenomenal, she looked like the elephant man. 'She had two black eyes, swelling to her face and she had whiplash so her neck was very stiff. Mum Emily believes the crash could have been much worse and fears the driver will not face any police action as it's her 'word against his'. 'My eldest daughter saw the whole thing and she is traumatised, she is now petrified of that road and we have to cross it every day to get to school.' Emily launched a desperate appeal for witnesses as she believes that around eight other cars were sat at the red light at the scene of the crash. She added: 'One pedestrian witness has come forward and told police that the green man was on, but I need drivers to confirm it was definitely a red light. 'The driver jumped out of the car and was apologetic. 'I'm sure he's a lovely person, but he could have killer her, it could have been a lot worse. 'He told me that he had only just got the car, so I suspect he was fiddling with a control or didn't quite have the hang of it. 'He wasn't paying attention to the road, that's for sure, otherwise he would have seen the lights were on red. 'He told me that he saw Patrick as he was crossing the road, but he didn't see Lucie who was walking behind him and he didn't see the red light.' A spokeswoman for South Yorkshire Police said: 'We received a report at around 2:30pm on July 6, 2020, of a collision between a car and a four-year-old girl in Prince of Wales Road, Sheffield. 'The girl suffered minor injuries in the collision.' New Delhi: The Chinese and Australian envoys to India had a terse exchange on Twitter on Friday on Chinas actions in the South China Sea and elsewhere, with the latter saying Beijing should refrain from actions that unilaterally alter the status quo. Sun Weidong, the Chinese envoy, objected to remarks made by the Australian high commissioner, Barry OFarrell, regarding the situation in the South China Sea by saying in a tweet that they were made disregarding facts. Noted remarks by Australian HC to India on #SouthChinaSea disregarding facts. #Chinas territorial sovereignty & maritime rights & interests are in conformity [with] intl law incl UNCLOS [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea]. Its clear who safeguard peace & stability & who destabilize & provoke escalation in the region, Sun tweeted. A short while later, OFarrell responded in a tweet: Thank you @China_Amb_India. I would hope then you follow the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award which is final and binding under international law, and also generally refrain from actions that unilaterally alter the status quo. OFarrell was referring to the verdict by the arbitral tribunal in the Philippines case against Chinas activities in the South China Sea. The tribunal ruled overwhelmingly in favour of the Philippines and concluded that Chinas territorial claims were unlawful. China didnt accept the verdict. Chinas claims in the South China Sea have been challenged by several countries, including the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan. Suns tweet was a response to remarks by OFarrell in a statement issued by the Australian mission after his meeting with external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Thursday. OFarrell backed Indias position on the border standoff with China, saying Australia opposed attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as this could increase the risk of instability. The statement said Australia continues to be concerned by Chinas actions in the South China Sea, which are destabilising and could provoke escalation. On July 23, Australia had lodged a note with the UN Secretary General refuting Chinas unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea. While Sun didnt respond to OFarrells comments on the border standoff, he took exception to the references to the South China Sea. The Chinese envoy also faced criticism from former Indian diplomats and military officials for his comments during a webinar on India-China relations held on Thursday. During the webinar, Sun sought to blame India for both the border standoff and the June 15 clash at Galwan Valley that resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and unspecified Chinese casualties. He also sought to imply that Indias position on interpreting the LAC could lead to new disputes, and that this was one of the reasons why the process for clarifying the disputed had stalled since 2002. Responding to these remarks, former army chief Gen VP Malik tweeted: By his statement yesterday, #Ambassador Sun Weidong of China has virtually ended any possible progress in LAC talks between military commanders. Former ambassador Rajiv Bhatia, distinguished fellow for foreign policy studies at Gateway House, described the Chinese envoys address at the webinar as a classic dialogue of the deaf. Bhatia added: He talks at, not to, us. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Initiative has been embraced by the local community and the nation as charitable groups and businesses such as Owens Corning roof deployment project, LG, and Goodman Air Conditioning have donated a majority of materials to assist deserving veterans. Highly decorated Vietnam War Veteran Stephen Fanter is the 2020 Semper Solaris Semper Cares Initiative recipient, a company spokesperson announced today. Mr. Fanter, a Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart honoree, spent a year in the hospital recovering from wounds after his honorable service in Vietnam. Following his recovery, he served his community as a police officer for the City of Los Angeles and then as a Sky Marshall. Later, he dedicated his efforts to battling the war on drugs in San Diego, CA. Mr. Fanter is now retired. "In the 30+ years I have known him, I've not heard him ask for anything," his nominator said. The founders of Semper Solaris--Kelly Shawhan and John Almond-- started the Semper Cares Initiative project. The Initiative helps veterans and their families handle high energy costs with major home improvements like solar panel installation. The Initiative has been embraced by the local community and the nation as charitable groups and businesses such as Owens Corning roof deployment project, LG, and Goodman Air Conditioning have donated a majority of materials to assist deserving veterans. They've also made commitments to future veteran recipients of the Semper Cares Initiative. There are a number of past recipients of the Semper Cares Initiative. They are Mark Creighton, an Army veteran who was honorably discharged in 1979; Michael Gallardo, an Army veteran and amputee who served in Iraq; Tony Ybarra, a Navy Corpsman during the Korean War; Antonio Rangel, an Army veteran who served in the Korean War and was honorably discharged in 1954; Paul Dugas, a Marine Corp veteran whom the Initiative honored on Veteran's Day in 2018; Povas Miknaitis, a former Marine Corp sniper who was wounded in Iraq by an IED; and Carl Schaffrina, who served in the Navy for 12 years as an Avionics Technician. Semper Solaris is a El Cajon, CA. based company that performs a number of renewable energy and conservation services. Semper Solaris includes solar panel installation, upkeep and repair, solar panel home battery storage installation, upkeep and repair, roofing and heating and air conditioning services. Semper Solaris has received a number of prestigious awards including the 2019 Solar Installer of the Year. The company is proudly veteran owned and operated. Former Marine Corps Captain and co-owner Kelly Shawhan is passionate about renewable energy and its benefits to his customers. Their impeccable work ethic is inspired by the U.S. Marine Corp motto, Semper Fidelis, which means "always faithful." Employees do their work daily operating from the military values they learned while in their branch of service, As the cost of grid electricity continues to rise, solar collectors have gained great popularity among homeowners in recent years--especially homeowners in states with a good bit of sunshine. With the use of solar panels to collect the sun's rays and solar batteries to store excess energy, it is possible to operate a home solely on renewable energy. Additionally, as this technology continues to make great strides in development, the cost of the solar equipment has continued to come down and that makes solar panels a more affordable option. His statement has come at a time when the opposition especially the RJD has been targeting Nitish Kumar on various issues Bihar CM Nitish Kumar on Thursday said that his government tried to establish rule of law in the state and never compromised on three Cs crime, corruption and communalism. He gave the statement while inaugurating 124 police buildings in Bihar through video conference. My government never compromised on crime, corruption and communalism. The scenario earlier was completely different. There used to be massacres in the state before 2005 but the scenario has changed now, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar said. His statement has come at a time when the opposition especially the RJD has been targeting Nitish Kumar on various issues including the COVID-19 crisis, flood and deteriorating law and order scenario in the state. RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and the congress has also been hinting at using these issues as their main agenda during the assembly elections scheduled to be held in October November this year. Our police have played a crucial role in establishing the rule of law in Bihar. There has been a zero-tolerance on crime and communalism and our police have worked hard in maintaining peace in the state, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said. During the event, Nitish Kumar said that his government worked hard for the development of the state in the last fourteen years. He also used the occasion to appreciate the medical fraternity and the police for their efforts to control the coronavirus crisis in the state. Many of our administrative and police officials have been found infected with the deadly coronavirus. Its important to do antigen test of all officials who have been working to control the crisis in the state. Arrangements have also been made in other districts also to test people, Nitish Kumar said during the event. As per an assessment, the total number of COVID cases has gone up to 48 thousand in the state. Patna with 8229 positive cases and 41 deaths have been the worst hit followed by Bhagalpur where 2488 cases have been reported and 26 persons have died due to the deadly virus. The Haryana government may consult attorney general KK Venugopal to decide further course of action with regards to the implementation of Supreme Courts January 15, 2002, and June 4, 2004, orders to complete the remaining portion of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal by Punjab. While the apex court during a July 28 hearing observed that let the chief ministers of both the states meet to find out the solution if any, else there is a decree which has to be executed, the written SC orders, made public on Thursday, stating that a meeting of various stakeholders be convened at the high level and the outcome of the same, if any, be informed to this court has created a predicament for the state government. Since there seems to be some variance in the oral and written orders of the apex court, we are contemplating taking the advice of the attorney general who represented the Centre in the virtual court to clarify the SC order, said an official. Advocate general BR Mahajan, however, said that Haryanas law officer Anish Gupta who was present in the virtual court during the July 28 hearing has clearly conveyed the oral observations of the apex court regarding convening of a meeting of chief ministers of both the states. Mahajan said in his opinion, a meeting of chief ministers of Haryana and Punjab has to be convened to find out a solution. The outcome of the meeting has to be indicated to the apex court on the next date of hearing in the third week of August so that matter can proceed further for execution of the decree. Additional advocate general (AAG) Anish Gupta in a communication to the advocate general said that during the virtual hearing, the attorney general informed the court that three meetings have taken place between Central, Haryana and Punjab government officials since the order of July 9, 2019. He also sought three more months for negotiations. Senior advocate Shyam Divan, who appeared for Haryana, however, opposed the adjournment and said the attorney general is repeatedly seeking time since 2017 and no further progress with regard to construction of SYL has been made. The court made a query as to who had participated in the last three meetings. The attorney general informed that the chief secretaries of both the states and the secretary, Union ministry of water resources, had participated in the meeting along with other officials. Then the court observed that let the chief ministers of both the states meet to find out the solution, if any, else there is a decree that has to be executed. List the matter in the third week of August. In the meanwhile, CMs of both the states meet and try to find out a solution, if possible, the law officer has communicated to the advocate general. When the court asked the counsels appearing for the parties whether they should record the aforesaid observation in the order, senior advocate Shyam Divan, attorney general and Punjabs counsel, said there was no need to record the same as they will convey the observation to the states concerned, the AAG has conveyed to the AG. Meanwhile, the Union water resources ministry has recorded Punjab governments unwillingness to complete the canal after several rounds of meetings between central, Haryana and Punjab governments in 2019 remained inconclusive. Parleys were held on the orders of the Supreme Court to work out a solution to implement apex courts judgments to complete the remaining portion of the SYL canal in Punjab. Top Haryana officials who attended the meetings said the Central ministry has recorded Punjabs refusal to complete the canal in the minutes of the meetings held between the officials of the two states and the Centre. Punjab has clearly refused to complete the canal on the pretext of non-availability of spare water, said a Haryana official. Punjabs water resources minister Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, meanwhile, said, The matter is in the knowledge our chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh and he will take it up with his Haryana counterpart. Our government is fixing up a schedule for a meeting with the neighbouring state. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON NASA examines water vapor and structure in Hurricane Isaias When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the North Atlantic Ocean, it gathered water vapor data on Isaias, while NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided forecasters with a visible image that showed a more organized tropical cyclone. A Visible View of Isaias NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the Atlantic Ocean during the afternoon on July 30, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument provided forecasters with a visible image of Isaias as it was intensifying. VIIRS revealed strong thunderstorms had circled the center of circulation. The image showed the center near the northeastern coast of the Dominican Republic and bands of thunderstorms from the eastern quadrant stretching over Puerto Rico. At the time of the image, Isaias had not yet reached Turks and Caicos. A thick band of thunderstorms from the center of circulation also stretched out in a southwesterly direction and over the Caribbean Sea. Water Vapor Imagery Reveals Heavy Rainfall Potential Water vapor analysis of tropical cyclones tells forecasters how much potential a storm has to develop. Water vapor releases latent heat as it condenses into liquid. That liquid becomes clouds and thunderstorms that make up a tropical cyclone. Temperature is important when trying to understand how strong storms can be. The higher the cloud tops, the colder and stronger the storms. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Hurricane Isaias on July 31 at 3:20 a.m. EDT (0720 UTC), and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument gathered water vapor content and temperature information. The MODIS image showed highest concentrations of water vapor and coldest cloud top temperatures were around the center of circulation and in a thick band of thunderstorms that extends southwest over western Hispaniola and into the Caribbean Sea. Those cloud top temperatures were as cold as or colder than minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6 degrees Celsius) in those storms. Storms with cloud top temperatures that cold have the capability to produce heavy rainfall. That rainfall potential is apparent in today's forecast from the National Hurricane Center. NHC said the Dominican Republic and northern Haiti: 4 to 8 inches, with isolated maximum totals of 12 inches through Saturday. For the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos: 4 to 8 inches, and for Cuba: 1 to 2 inches, with isolated maximum totals of 4 inches. Warnings and Watches on July 31, 2020 On July 31, NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued a Hurricane Warning for the northwestern Bahamas including Andros Island, New Providence, Eleuthera, Abacos Islands, Berry Islands, Grand Bahamas Island, and Bimini. It is also in effect for the southeastern Bahamas including the Acklins, Crooked Island, Long Cay, the Inaguas, Mayaguana, and the Ragged Islands; and for the central Bahamas, including Cat Island, the Exumas, Long Island, Rum Cay, and San Salvador. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the Dominican Republic entire southern and northern coastlines, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. In addition, a Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the east coast of Florida from Ocean Reef to Sebastian Inlet and for Lake Okeechobee. Isaias' Status on July 31, 2020 At 8 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC) on July 31, NHC reported the center of Hurricane Isaias was located by NOAA and Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft near latitude 21.3 north, longitude 73.9 west. That puts the center about 30 miles (50 km) northwest of Great Inagua Island, and 340 miles (545 km) southeast of Nassau. Reports from the reconnaissance aircraft indicate that the minimum central pressure is 990 millibars. Isaias was moving toward the northwest near 17 mph (28 kph), and a generally northwestward motion with some decrease in forward speed is expected for the next couple of days followed by a turn toward the north-northwest. Maximum sustained winds are near 80 mph (130 kph) with higher gusts. Some strengthening is possible today, and Isaias is expected to remain a hurricane for the next few days. NOAA's NHC Forecast for Isaias On the forecast track, the center of Isaias will move near or over the southeastern Bahamas today. Isaias is forecast to be near the central Bahamas tonight, and move near or over the northwestern Bahamas and be near or east of the Florida peninsula on Saturday and Sunday. Interests elsewhere along the southeast coast of the United States should monitor the progress of this system. Additional watches or warnings may be required for a portion of the Florida peninsula later today. NASA Researches Tropical Cyclones Hurricanes/tropical cyclones are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting. NASA's Aqua satellite is one in a fleet of NASA satellites that provide data for hurricane research. For more than five decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA brings together technology, science, and unique global Earth observations to provide societal benefits and strengthen our nation. Advancing knowledge of our home planet contributes directly to America's leadership in space and scientific exploration. For updated forecasts, visit: http://www. nhc. noaa. gov By Rob Gutro NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ### This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Volunteers spray disinfectant inside an ambulance during the launch of free ambulance service for COVID-9 patients by private donor at Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru. PTI photo Volunteers spray disinfectant inside an ambulance during the launch of free ambulance service for COVID-9 patients by private donor at Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru. PTI photo A day after the central government announced guidelines under Unlock 3.0, the Karnataka government has come up with its own. The government has removed the complete lockdown concept on Sundays and done away with the night curfews too. So from August 2, there will be no lockdown on Sundays. It was also announced that gyms, yoga centres can start functioning from August 5. The same day, the state also denied permission for the reopening of schools, colleges and other educational institutions till August 31. Also, theatre owners who were eagerly expecting some good news, were disappointed as the government denied permission to reopen theatres, swimming pools, amusement parks and other such activities which involves lot of people. Meanwhile, the daily average of fresh corona cases which crossed 2,000 by July 2nd week, hovered between 3,000-4,000 in the third week, and went beyond 5,000 in the fourth week and has now crossed the 6,000 mark.Bengaluru too is continuing to report more than 2,000 fresh cases on a daily basis. More than half of the active cases are from Bengaluru. As the city is continuously adding up more and more cases, experts are insisting on increasing testing in the city. As of now, the city is testing nearly 8,000 samples every day. The Supreme Court is likely to hear a transfer petition filed by actress Rhea Chakraborty on August 5. Rhea had moved the Supreme Court on Wednesday demanding that the case registered against her by the Bihar Police should be transferred to the Mumbai Police. The probe is in connection with the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput being carried out by Bihar Police against Rhea on charges of abetment to suicide, theft, wrongful confinement and cheating, based on a complaint filed in Patna by the late actor's father, K.K. Singh. Chakraborty had told the Supreme Court that she has been falsely implicated in the FIR registered against her in Patna at the instance of K.K Singh. A single judge bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy will hear the matter. The Maharashtra government has also filed a caveat to in the top court to ensure that no order is passed without prior notice to it. The Bihar government and Sushant's father have already filed caveats. Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide case took a dramatic turn recently after his father K.K. Singh filed an FIR in Patna accusing six people, including actress Rhea, for abetment to suicide. The actress told the apex court on Thursday that she also received many death and rape threats and that she was in deep trauma due to the loss of Sushant, which has multiplied further due to the constant media glare the case has been receiving. This article was originally published by the George W. Bush Presidential Center and is reprinted here with permission. Condoleezza Rice served as U.S. secretary of state from 2005-2009 and as national security advisor for President George W. Bush from 2001-2005. On September 1, she will become director of the Hoover Institution, where she serves as the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. In this interview with Lindsay Lloyd, the Bradford M. Freeman Director of the Bush Institutes Human Freedom Initiative, Chris Walsh, senior program manager of the Bush Institutes Human Freedom Initiative, and William McKenzie, senior editorial advisor at the Bush Institute, Dr. Rice explains the rise of nativism, populism, isolationism, and protectionism across the world and their impact on democracies. A professor at Stanford Universitys Graduate School Business, she discusses the tension between globalization and nationalism; the danger of weaponizing ones identity; the importance of breaking out of social media echo chambers; and the need for a common narrative in our democracy. After this interview was conducted, she published this Washington Post essay about America needing to overcome the racism that is still an anchor around our countrys neck. Below is an excerpt from her video exchange. In your 2017 book, Democracy, you describe populism, nativism, isolationism, and protectionism as the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Three years later, how do you feel democracies are faring with these four horsemen? Its not a good story. The COVID-19 crisis, if anything, has tended to reinforce, maybe even exacerbate, some of the trends toward isolationism. Youve gotten a response where the sovereign state is king in response to the pandemic. It's my citizens, my borders, my PPE [Personal Protective Equipment]. The international organizations seem to have almost been sidelined during this period of time. The underlying trend toward nativism, take care of my own, seems to be stronger than at any other time in my memory. By the way, it is quite in contrast to the response to September 11th, or even to the financial crisis of 2008, where there was very much a sense that these were contagions that couldn't be really contained within borders. We're going to have a lot of hard work to do to rebuild some sense of international cooperation as one of the important elements to responding to crisis once we are through this terrible situation. I understand that impulse, but it's still one that I'm sorry to see. In a more homogenous country like Hungary, populism is more of a sense of Hungary versus the world. Here in the United States, populism seems to rely more on our internal divisions, on red versus blue, on race, on religion, on native-born versus immigrant. How do we best deal with those tensions that populism has brought out in our own country? You are very right that the response of a country that's homogenous is around an old-fashioned nationalism: My nation against others. The United States, of course, is this odd creation. To be American is not tied to nationality, religion, or ethnicity. We come from, and our ancestors came from, every corner of the world. You couldn't have a response like you see in Hungary. But we are having an uncomfortable conversation about how do we define American? We divide ourselves into ever smaller groups, each with its own narrative, each with its own grievance, each with its own history. It becomes about whether my grievance or my narrative is superior to yours. What has been sacrificed is the sense of a common narrative that was not based on our tribe, our ethnicity, our nationality. That common narrative was based on a belief that you could come from humble circumstances and you could do great things. That narrative was without regard to your race, ethnicity, or nationality. In reality, there were barriers to that dream if you were of a certain color. I grew up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama. To say that the American Dream was fully accessible to the people with whom I grew up was not true. Even so, we kept working toward that common narrative, toward that common idea. As Martin Luther King put it, the content of your character, not the color of your skin. Somehow, we've lost that sense of a common narrative. Some of our adversaries, Russia in particular, are seeking to exploit our divisions. We know that they've invested a lot of time, effort, and money in things like social media disinformation. How can a free society best respond to a country like Russia that is attempting to manipulate factions and divisions within our own society? First, it goes without saying that we have to actually help to heal the divisions within our society. The Russians, the Chinese, and others have tried to take disaffected populations and make them even more disaffected. This is, by the way, an old playbook. It goes back to Joseph Stalin's time, when he talked about building fifth columns within societies, which were disaffected populations that would rally to the side of the Communist International. They would never have dreamed what a gift social media would be. Social media is so much more efficient at identifying groups that are disaffected and playing to their disaffection. Social media allows you to be within your own echo chamber, where you might only engage people who are like you, people who think like you. The ability to rile disaffected populations becomes much more efficient. My view of this with the Russians is, first time, shame on them, second time, shame on us. We know what they did. We know how they did it. There ought to be complete cooperation between social media platforms and the government to make sure that they don't do it again. Some of this also is pretty ham-handed and silly. I've looked at some of these. People ought to be smart enough to see that these are really concocted from foreign powers. Some of them you look at and you think, that's not an American. So calling that out is really important. Finally, we need to get out of our social media echo chambers. If you're constantly in the company of people who say amen to everything, find other company. You know what happens when you don't encounter people who think differently? You think they're either stupid or they're venal. And that's happening to us. When elites in politics, media, business, education or other fields are distant from common people, and do not understand the anxieties that the average citizen feels, how does that threaten our politics or our culture, assuming you agree with the premise? I do agree with the premise. Populism is not actually anti-democratic. It can lead to anti-democratic tendencies, but it is anti-institutional. And so it says those institutions, those elites, they don't believe in you. They don't have your interest at heart. They only have their interest at heart. You see social and economic inequality growing between elites and common people. That adds to that notion of elites who are distant. Unfortunately, a lot of the common experiences that we used to have, whether it was military service or churchgoing, or the like, we don't have those to the same degree anymore. And elites have separated themselves further. The other big contributor, which I believe in, is globalization. It was beneficial to us to have an integrationist narrative about the world. But those of us who moved easily around the world, who spoke different languages, who benefited from globalization, seemed to have forgotten that most people never moved more than 25 miles from where they were born. Telling the unemployed coal miner in West Virginia that globalization was good for you because you can buy cheap goods at Walmart wasn't selling. We forgot that while globalization had tremendous macro benefits, it left a lot of people behind. They are desperate and feel disrespected. It's not surprising, then, that a populist can come along and say, "Those people never had your interest at heart," and they believe it. How should democracies respond to those who feel left behind or that they have lost their national or cultural identity? The answer is different for the United States than for some other democracies. Europe has a real problem because they actually did try, because of their history, to push nationalism aside, to push national identity aside, and to subsume it in a European identity. This was represented by the idea that the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels were making decisions about everything from what Italy's budget deficit could be to what constitutes cheese. The attempt actually backfired. People said, "No, I want to be Polish. I want to be English." Brexit was a result of that. I think Europe is going to have a very hard time repairing any sense of a European identity, particularly because COVID-19 has exposed those fissures even more. In the United States, this lack of a common narrative has been problematic. But so has our inability to talk across cultural and ethnic lines in a way that recognizes a lot of people are suffering and that they dont have access to high-quality education for their kids. The [COVID-19] crisis has exposed inequalities in ways that I'm not sure we even understood how much they existed. There's some 40, 50 percent of us for whom this hasn't been at all disruptive to what we do. But if you have to go to the shop floor or you have to go work at a restaurant, you're unemployed. If you're a small business owner, you're unemployed. And what about the kid whos trying to learn at home with parents who dont even speak English? This has exacerbated and exposed economic inequality in very important ways, and we have to address that first and foremost. Then we have to address this cultural divide, where we don't know each other very well anymore, where we live in very separate societies if you're well off and if you're not. I've been a big proponent of national service as a way to give us more common experiences. Is there a way to combine a belief in these two forces globalization and nationalism so they mutually benefit everybody? America has always believed that we are better off when the world is better off. We've never defined our self-interest, or at least not in the last 70 years, as just being about us. And I believe that gene is still very much alive. You see it when there is a natural disaster someplace and there's a great outpouring from Americans, often through faith-based institutions. You see it when they say ISIS will not behead people on television. We are going to have to respond to that. Americans, I understand, are tired. They're really tired of the big responsibilities of leadership, but they also don't like what happens when America doesn't lead. They don't like when Vladimir Putin annexes Crimea. They don't like when the Chinese beat up people in the streets of Hong Kong. So, this is about leadership. An American president can appeal to that other impulse, which says we're better off when others are better off. If you look at something like AIDS relief, when under President Bush and continuing under President Obama, and now under President Trump, we took on this pandemic of AIDS that was ravaging an entire continent. Through our leadership, a lot of people are alive today who wouldn't have been. Americans are proud of that. We've just got to give them more examples of why we matter in that way. To circle back to what you were saying about tribalism, what role does identity play in some of the democratic unrest we're seeing, not just here in the U.S., but around the world? Identity is a fine thing, to know who you are, know where you came from, know your history, know the struggles of your people. I am very, very proud of my African American background. I have to say, American slavery is such that I have 40 percent European DNA, which says something about the way slavery was carried out. So identity is a complex thing, particularly in a country like ours. The problem is when you weaponize your identity against someone else. My identity entitles me to things that you don't have. My identity means that you have to step back because I have suffered more. The weaponization of identity is really the issue. If it just becomes about ethnic or racial or religious identity, that can be somewhat dangerous. If we could just start to find commonality in our diversity, and recognize that people have multiple identities, we will realize the genius of America, which is that we aren't of one ethnicity, one nationality, one religion. We are this incredible hodgepodge. I won't call it melting pot. That's a word that people don't like anymore, because it suggests that you have to just conform. The energy comes from all of us. The real appeal of America's great creed is that it doesn't matter where you came from, it matters where you're going. That has allowed us to attract people from the most advanced countries in the world to lead the knowledge-based revolution, like Sergey Brin, whose parents brought him here from Russia. He would never have founded Google in Russia. The person who comes here to make five dollars, not 50 cents, is equally energetic and equally vital in keeping us young, hungry, and working for that dream. So, identity is a terrific thing, but not if it becomes a prison. To a degree, identity is becoming something of a prison rather than something of an asset. How might democracies best remain stable during this pandemic so they dont give into the four horsemen of nativism, isolationism, protectionism, and populism? One of the things that's worked very well for us is federalism. People inherently trust government that is closer to them more than government that is further away. Democracies are going to have to go back to first principles about things like, how do they give opportunity to as many people as possible, knowing now what we know about the divisions and the inequalities that we've faced. But I also hope we realize you can't spend forever. The amount that we've rolled up in national debt is ultimately going to come back to haunt us. There's going to have to be a reckoning for some of the decisions that we've taken, rightly, under crisis to get back to something that is more stable and sustainable. Democracies like the United States and Great Britain will be fine. I worry about the unconsolidated democracies, the younger democracies, where the temptation for continued authoritarianism might be even pushed further in places like Hungary. I worry about Poland. I worry about the effect on countries in Africa, for instance, or in Latin America, that have only recently begun to have democratic governments. I was told a very interesting and heartening story by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the former president of Liberia, who rescued her country from civil war. She talked about the work we did with AIDS relief and malaria relief and how helping them build better healthcare systems helped them manage these crises. They know how to talk to their tribal chiefs. They know how to get out to the villages. We helped to build those systems. I hope they will continue to be robust under the strains and stresses, but it's going to take leadership to say, "We're going to provide security and help in a democratic way." That means people have to have a voice. * As Chief Executive Officer of Heathrow, Ive learned that calls over the weekend never bring good news and this was one that no aviation boss wanted. Spain is moving back onto the red list. Several calls later and we have arranged for extra colleagues to help passengers who will only find out that they will have to quarantine when they step off the plane. * Its the day of our half-year results, and I have to announce that we have lost an eye-watering 1.1 billion. A strong balance sheet and rapid cost-cutting mean we should weather the storm. I am all set for a grilling on the Today programme, but forget to take my microphone off mute, leaving me talking into a void while the presenters move to the next item. Fortunately presenter Dominic OConnell recovers the situation elegantly, and I dont make the same mistake in the next 18 interviews. * Most of the questions were about our proposals to test passengers from red countries for Covid-19 when they arrive and again on day five or eight. If both tests are negative, they can come out of quarantine early. I get emails accusing me of putting lives at risk just to protect my business. I dont want to risk any lives, but I do want to protect the livelihoods of those who work at Heathrow and the millions whose jobs depend on aviation. Our proposal is more cautious than the French, who just require a single test. Their economy is already recovering. * On Wednesday, I zoomed into the first meeting of the Jet Zero Council, which the Prime Minister set up. The fastest route to cleaner, greener flight was discussed; scaling up the production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel is an opportunity for the UK to show leadership and it was an impressive sign of the PMs commitment that he stayed for most of the call. John Holland-Kaye / Daniel Lynch * There is nothing more satisfying than seeing someone blossom as a leader. And nothing worse than telling them they dont have a job. Covid-19 has devastated the aviation industry and we are in a fight for survival, having to lay off many good people and cut pay. On Thursday, I had a call from a local MP hoping to save jobs in his constituency. Heathrow provides jobs for one in four local households, and any redundancies hit local communities very hard. We agree on the call to set up an alumni scheme to make it easier for anyone laid off to come back when demand recovers. There is nothing worse than telling someone they dont have a job anymore * Since the start of the crisis I have held a company-wide call every Monday. Following the killing of George Floyd, colleagues have been sharing their experiences of racism. It was the first time many people had talked about things they had bottled up, and it was incredibly emotional. One described how, growing up in the US, hed been arrested 30 times for being black. Another said her mixed-race children were treated differently at school. We dont talk honestly about race and until we do, things wont change. I have a lot to learn, and am glad we are talking. * In lockdown my artistic wife and daughters encouraged me to paint. They were good teachers and I found it relaxing. It meant I had something original to give my lovely wife for her birthday. I notice she hasnt hung it up yet. The COVID-19 pandemic is anticipated to impact the global medical tourism market in a negative way. Neurological treatment type will rise with healthier rate of revenue in the global market share. In light to region, Europe region has dominated the global market share New York, USA, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The world is facing a surprising change and many of the industries are experiencing thought provoking situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 outbreak has negatively impacted the medical tourism market. People around the world are seeking better quality healthcare facilities at optimized rate. In addition, people tend to take medical tourism due to the accessibility of medication in other countries. For instance, in U.S. or U.K. people have to wait for long time to undergo medical treatment due to deny of approval by healthcare regulating authorities. But in medical tourism, people tend to get priority and gets treatment in less time. These are the factors responsible for the growth of the market in the forecast period. During this coronavirus crisis situation, we are helping our clients in understanding the impact of COVID-19 on the global medical tourism market. Our report includes: Technological Impact Social Impact Investment Opportunity Analysis Pre- & Post-COVID Market Scenario Infrastructure Analysis Supply Side & Demand Side Impact INQUIRE FOR COVID-19 IMPACT ANALYSIS REPORT: https://www.researchdive.com/covid-19-insights/248/global-medical-tourism-market#myQueryForm According to a new report published by Research Dive, the global medical tourism market is predicted to harvest a revenue of $142.2 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 11.7% in the forecast time from 2019 to 2026. The global medical tourism market is segmented on the basis of treatment type and region. The report provides detailed information about drivers, opportunities, restraints, segmental analysis and competitive players of the market. As per our analysts, growing interest among people for better quality healthcare treatment and rising technology advancements for treatment without facing complications are fueling the market growth in the forecast period. However, language barrier, quality of staff members, and risk associated to travel after surgery are the factors restraining the market growth in the forecast period. Story continues Cancer Treatment Type has Dominant Market Share Based on treatment type, the global medical tourism market is fragmented into dental, cosmetic, cardiovascular, orthopedic, neurological, cancer, fertility, and others. Among these, cancer treatment type dominated the market shares in the year 2018 and is expected to register a revenue of $7.3 billion in 2026 with a CAGR of 13.4%. Cancer is the most life-threatening disease when contrasted with other diseases. Many countries such as Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Americas have top-class oncologist and latest technology for the cancer treatment. For instance, Quironsalud clinic located in Spain has best cancer treatment in the European region. This factor has dominated the market share of cancer treatment in the forecast period. Request to Download Sample Report: https://www.researchdive.com/download-sample/248 Regional Outlook and Major Market Players Global medical tourism market is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA. Europe region has dominated the global market share and is estimated to reach up to $32.3 billion till 2026 with a CAGR of 12.1%. This dominance is attributed due to the presence of top-class healthcare facilities in the European countries such as France, Spain, and Italy. For instance, in 2014 European government initiated to allow people for treatment in the parts of Europe. Thus other European countries such as Romania, Poland, and The Czech Republic have gained popularity for medical tourism. Who are dominating market players in Medical Tourism? Shouldice Hospital Bangkok Hospital Prince Court Medical Centre Gleneagles Global Hospitals Group Anadolu medical Centre Clemenceau Medical Centre and other. CONTACT: Mr. Abhishek Paliwal Research Dive 30 Wall St. 8th Floor, New York NY 10005 (P) +91-(788)-802-9103 (India) +1-(917)-444-1262 (US) Toll Free: 1-888-961-4454 E-mail: support@researchdive.com Website: https://www.researchdive.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/research-dive/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ResearchDive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Research-Dive-1385542314927521 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. Vote View Results She came runner-up in the Big Brother house last week during the finale. But Sophie Budack's time in the house was not so smooth sailing. On Thursday during a Q & A session with fans, she revealed that a dentist was called in to the Manly compound after her 'problematic' tooth fell out. Calling in the experts! Big Brother runner-up Sophie Budack has revealed her 'tooth' fell out on the show and a dentist was called in to fix it She also recalled how a previous eating disorder has caused problems with her teeth over the years. 'Basically, long story short with my tooth - I had eating disorders for 13 years and that kind of messed with my teeth and my enamel,' she explained. 'So it was a problematic tooth and it came out, and Big Brother actually got a dentist in while I was on the show to put it back in, because it was already fake.' Health issues: She also recalled how a previous eating disorder has caused problems with her teeth over the years during a Q&A with fans on YouTube 'Basically, long story short with my tooth - I had eating disorders for 13 years and that kind of messed with my teeth and my enamel,' she explained 'But then it fell out again within like 24 hours, so we just kept it out because it wasn't something that was painful for me,' she added. Sophie's Q & A comes she revealed her plans leave Australia and return to The Netherlands. In a series of emotional Instagram Stories shared on Tuesday, she made the announcement to her fans and explained that the resurgence of COVID-19 has made it impossible for her to find work in Sydney. Making the move: Sophie's Q & A comes she revealed her plans leave Australia and return to The Netherlands. Pictured with Chad Hurst on the show The brunette beauty, who struck a romance with winner Chad Hurst while on Big Brother, said: 'My plan was to stay there and live there. We were there for the week, coronavirus came back strong, the second wave was hitting.' 'And I thought, oh my god, I can't get a job now. I can't live here, it's not sustainable for me. So I thought I'd take the time now to go back to The Netherlands, which is my second home anyway. 'See my family, see my dogs and when everything is settled, I will come back to Australia, Sydney hopefully'. She added: 'For now I am just taking it one step at a time and looking at the positives. At least now I can show you the other side of the world and a bit more of me'. The bitcoin celebration has been proclaimed as a worldwide web bonanza. It has positively shaped history. Everything because of WWW or the web as we know. In recent years, a gauge of 25 million clients has started utilizing the web. Today, blockchain is one of the quickest developing markets of Latin America. As indicated by Ignacio Perrone, ICT research chief at Frost and Sullivan, certain blockchain will profit the web around the world. Today, the blockchain showcase is getting support from many open source associations. The blockchain showcase is by and large decidedly saw consequently, picking up mindfulness also. For what reason is cryptographic money of significant worth in Latin America? Since the time digital currency and the blockchain innovation have contacted the Latin American digital world, Latin Americans have happily received them. Alongside nations lime Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, and Mexico, Latin America has meant having the biggest digital money client information base in the locale. While, in districts like the US, Japan, and Western Europe were moderate. Even though today blockchain has a steady market with a quickly developing client base, some are yet stressed whether bitcoin can/or will ever be genuine cash, or only a spot to store the client's cash. Truth, even though the bitcoin market and digital currency have made their bases solid, by and by, it is 2020, does not seem as though we will be buying staple goods paying with bitcoin, anyplace later on. What is more, if at any time bitcoin is to take its place as genuine cash, and be utilized as genuine money, Latin America will be the primary spot to acknowledge. Particularly, when you perceive how severely the monetary administration was going on. This is the motivation behind why bitcoins are of so much worth. For sure, the locale's long history of financial botch makes Bitcoin appropriation as much a need as an extravagance. For what reason is the economy of Latin America going behind crypto? Today numerous Latin Americans feel bitcoin might be a definitive arrangement. Numerous Latin Americans are going to bitcoin as an answer, and the ongoing emergencies appear to be just to have quickened selection. Argentina is the first and most well-known bitcoin nation. There is no uncertainty, in truth Argentina has had a lot of bitcoin sweethearts, however, things are going to change now. Venezuela and Brazil likewise are on max speed to acknowledge bitcoin as an installment technique. In 2015, bitcoin holders cooperated utilizing bitcoins. That too 400 percent more than the Venezuelan Bolivar. What is more, 92 percent more than the Brazilian's, 65 percent more than the Mexican Peso, and 41 percent more than the Argentinian Peso. Today with so much swelling, and significant capital controls, bitcoin is by all accounts a surprisingly positive development. Matter of truth, most of the vendors have just started utilizing bitcoin as an installment arrangement. Furthermore, desires are in, for greater installment mode to utilize bitcoin as an installment source. The Mobile Revolution: Adopting Bitcoin In the first place, it didn't generally look like bitcoin would have the option to make a spot for itself, however, with the web time, bitcoin got the entryway it severely expected to make its base in Latin America. Even though the client network may not be as extensive as other significant nations, in any case, the online business volume of Latin America has developed to $50 billion. In like manner, are the android telephone clients bringing bitcoin to the majority? Today practically all bitcoin trading companies, and blockchain adventures have their android applications, making it simple for everybody to get to bitcoins. Exchange from the versatile will make it simple for most to execute with bitcoin. Conclusion Is bitcoin the following bonanza for Latin America, is extremely difficult to state? There is no uncertainty, Latin America is an ideal spot for seeing, and checking the handiness of bitcoin innovation. What is more, with Argentina and Venezuela handling the instability of their national monetary forms, it is a short time the individuals started settling on bitcoin. By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senators Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, and Josh Hawley, a Republican, wrote to the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday to urge a probe of video technology company Zoom and Chinese-owned social media company TikTok. The lawmakers said Americans, many of whom are largely staying home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, were substituting Zoom calls for personal interaction and binging on TikTok videos. "We believe that it is imperative that the Department of Justice investigate and determine whether Zoom and TikTok's business relationships, data handling practices, and operational connections to China pose a risk to Americans," they wrote. The two senators said the companies sought to downplay their ties with China. "Based on numerous reports, we are extremely concerned that Zoom and TikTok have disclosed private information about Americans to the [People's Republic of China] and engaged in censorship on behalf of the Chinese government," they said in the letter to Assistant Attorney General John Demers. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Zoom said in a statement it takes "user privacy, security, and trust extremely seriously, and as always, we welcome conversations with officials about our global business practices and policies." Zoom shares, which traded up 1% earlier Thursday, fell by more than 5% after Reuters reported the letter but later recovered some losses. Its share price was down 1% in late trading Thursday at $249.93. TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, has said that it stores all data in the United States with backup in Singapore. "Our content and moderation policies are led by our U.S.-based team in California and aren't influenced by any foreign government," the company said in an email statement. "We've never shared TikTok user data with the Chinese government, and would not do so if asked." Although a California company, Zoom has big research and development centers in China that have more than 700 employees, according to a filing it made to the U.S. government. (Reporting by Diane Bartz; additional reporting by David Shepardson and Chris Bing; Editing by Chris Reese and Aurora Ellis) Jordan said late on Thursday it sent Israel a memo via diplomatic channels, urging Israel to respect the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and stop all violations there. Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Deifallah Al-Fayez denounced the continued Israeli "violations" against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the most recent of which was Israel's allowing hundreds of Jewish extremists to storm the mosque on Thursday. "What occurred today is an irresponsible and rejected act that provokes the feelings of all the Muslims," Al-Fayez said in a statement. The official emphasized that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is a place of worship for Muslims, adding that the Jerusalem Awqaf Department, which is affiliated to Jordan, is the only institution for administering the affairs of the mosque. He also called on the international community to shoulder its responsibility by ending the Israeli "violations" of the status quo at the mosque. Search Keywords: Short link: KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MI The Kalamazoo County Sheriffs Office is investigating after multiple businesses were reported to be the victims of vandalism Thursday morning. Dollar General, Texas Corners Brewing Company, New Life Church and Zebs Trading Co. were all tagged with graffiti of the acronym ALM, short for All Lives Matter a phrase that originated in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Surveillance video depicts the incident took place Wednesday night, shortly before midnight, in the Corners Business District, according to a post on Texas Townships Facebook page. Texas Township is saddened and disheartened by the vandalism that took place in the Corners last night. We are working with our local business owners to clean up the graffiti and have contacted the Kalamazoo County Sheriff to investigate, the township said in the post. Multiple other items were vandalized in red and yellow spray paint, including sidewalks, street surfaces and road signs, according to Kalamazoo County Undersheriff James VanDyken. VanDyken said they are seeking a suspect described as a white man or woman with long, dark hair, in their late teens to early 20s. While marking the Corners Business District with political phrases that referenced Michigans governor and the U.S. president, the suspect wore a white T-shirt, blue and white bandana and a drawstring backpack, according to VanDyken. Following the incident, Texas Corners Brewing Company provided an update on their cleanup efforts on Thursday in a Facebook post. The owners of the restaurant said, shortly after returning to work, several people brought cleaning supplies and volunteered to help remove the spray paint. Over about three hours, all of the graffiti was removed by these wonderful volunteers. We are so grateful to be part of this loving community and we were honestly moved to tears by the support, the brewerys post said. Most of the graffiti had been cleaned up or completely removed as of Thursday afternoon. VanDyken said investigators believe just one person is responsible for the vandalism at Texas Corners, and encourages anyone with information on the incident to contact the Kalamazoo County Sheriffs Office. Also on MLive: Dr. Fauci calls Michigan hospitals hydroxychloroquine study flawed 4 reasons why Michigans low coronavirus death rate isnt cause for complacency Ice cream shop owner wants customers to stop yelling at staff over mask requirement BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 Trend: President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has congratulated King of Morocco His Majesty Mohammed VI. "Your Majesty, Dear brother, It is on the occasion of the national holiday of your country that on my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan I wish to offer my most cordial congratulations and best wishes to you and the brotherly people of Morocco," Azerbaijani president said. "The present level of friendly and cooperative relations between Azerbaijan and Morocco is gratifying. I am confident that these ties will continue to develop successfully, through our joint efforts, both bilaterally and within the international bodies, particularly, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Non-Aligned Movement," the head of state said. "On this pleasant day, I wish strong health and success to you, and everlasting peace and prosperity to your people," Azerbaijani president said. New Delhi: Growing discontentment and religious journals seething with anger is what authorities in Pakistan have found when they tried to gauze public mood on the atrocities against Uyghurs by Chinese govt in the restive western province of Xinjiang. An assessment was done to get a first-hand view on the issue which is now getting increased global spotlight as evidence comes to light overuse of brutal force by China in the province. The main objective of the Pakistani assessment was to manage the reaction and control any overt activity that may cause embarrassment for both Pakistan and China on the Uyghur issue. The study noted the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang has especially impacted religious opinion in Pakistan with a number of journals covering the development. In one issue of monthly Ishraq from Lahore dated January 2020, a comment by its patron Javed Ahmed Ghamidi while mentioning about the right to seek refuge gave an example of "persecution of Muslims in China". In an article in weekly Ahl-E-Hadith from Lahore in February of 2020 mentions about state policies of China against its Muslim population and compares it with the severity of Israeli actions against the Palestinians. Discussing Xinjiang in the context of atrocities against Muslims globally has been as a common pattern among religious journals, the assessment finds. The editorial of monthly Mohaddis from Lahore in the month of February 2020 commented that Muslims in Xinjiang are living a hard life with Muslim majority decreasing from 94% in 1948 to 48% with they being "forced to abandon Islam". An article in the same monthly on page 24 equated "national interest considerations" forcing Pakistan to be silent on "concerns about Muslims in China" something that also led Islamabad "to facilitate the US against Afghanistan in 2001". In November 2019, Mohaddis had shared its concerns over restrictions in Xinjiang on Muslims growing beard and this undermining of Islamic symbols becoming the new normal. The same issue was raised by monthly Peyam published from Islamabad in the same month, last year. Al Burhan article of October 2019 while writing about the issue highlighted that there are sanctions over fasting in the month of Ramzan. 2 exclusive articles in 2 religious journals during the time period of the study done by authorities map the detailed life in the Chinese province. Al Burhan published a detailed account of Uyghur Muslims in 3 consecutive issues. The account was a personal observation of Pakistani academic about Xinjiang who described the ground situation as "technology-based slavery" and called the province a "police state" with "every home, street and neighbourhood being a detention centre, every Uyghur a suspect and presumed terrorist". The writer pointed out, "systematic effort to sideline Uyghur Muslims and their cultural symbols and gradually bring them to extinction". He narrated how "young Uyghurs have Chinese spouses and adopted the Chinese way of life". The author, in fact, refers to police presence is very visible in Capital Urumqi and other parts of Xinjiang and apart from keeping an eye physically, surveillance is done thought network of security cameras, biometrics and unwanted activity means swift action including electric shock. He also senses frustration among Uyghur Muslims from Pakistan as they expected word of sympathy from the country. Mohaddis in November 2019 had published an exclusive write up with the title "condition of Muslims in Chinese province Xinjiang in the light of international media reports" and states problems for Muslim population started in 1949. It also notes killing of 75000 Muslims by Chinese forces in the province in 1966. The incident started with Chinese authorities trying to stop local Muslims for Eid ul Azha in Kashgar, one of the westernmost cities of the country. The article states that copies of the Holy Quran have been forcibly confiscated and around a million minority Muslims are kept in detention camps. It also cites the Human right watch report which says every Muslims have to download an official Chinese application in cellphone which allows Chinese authorities to know all the details of the person and complete record of every Muslim between the age of 12 to 65 has been prepared including their DNA, Fingerprints. Some journals have been raising questions over the silence by Muslim governments according to the study. Monthly Tarjuman Ul Quran from Lahore in December 2019 published an article titled, "attention-seeking issue of Uyghur Muslims" says will Pakistani Muslims respect Chinese territorial integrity, they also feel Uyghur Muslims should be respected and that will help increase China's internal security and send a message of goodwill across the Muslim world. Tarjuman Ul Quran highlighting how Muslim ummah has a geographical unity and includes "Chinese Turkestan", the other name of Xinjiang. Weekly Al Aitisam from Lahore in February 2020 expressed concerns over reports regarding Muslims in Xinjiang and cited BBC reports and viral social media videos. It noted complete silence and indifference of Muslim governments over the situation of Uyghur Muslims. September 2019 issue of monthly Uswah Hasana from Karachi made supplication on the occasion of the new Islamic year and seeks blessing of God for Muslims living in difficult conditions in areas including in China. Mainstream Pakistani media has been by and large silent on the issue on expected lines, Dawn in its editorial in November 2020 said, "like many other countries, Pakistan too has a spotty human rights record, but when it can speak out against the human rights violations of the Kashmiris and the Rohingya, can it stay silent about the Uyghurs?" The Pakistani authorities in the assessment found prominent religious leaders have commented on the subject. While they are cautious on the issue they expect Pakistani govt raise the concern with the Chinese leadership through diplomatic channels. One cleric Rashdi in his column titled "Rohingya Muslims and the verdict of the international court of justice" pointed out that Muslim genocide is not confined to Arkan in Myanmar but other parts of the world including Xinjiang. In another column titled "current situation of Muslim ummah and responsibility of religious people" In fact, renowned scholar Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani in a tweet on December 28th, 2019 had said, "News regarding China's Uyghur Community is very disturbing. Government of Pakistan must confirm this news and reach out to Chinese authorities using its influence to win justice for the Uyghurs". At a time of collective silence, the tweet does raise the eyebrows for the authorities. # Muhammad Taqi Usmani (@muftitaqiusmani) December 28, 2019 The study comes even as Pakistan government had to face embarrassment over the leaked reports of the Independent power commission that highlighted Chinese companies were charging rates higher than even local Pakistani companies. The commission was constituted by Pakistani govt to evaluate CPEC power projects and while the report was suppressed locally, it got coverage in international media. A curfew and other restrictions have been imposed on demonstrations planned in south London this weekend, Scotland Yard has said. The force are aiming to stop people blocking main roads or planning illegal music events as numerous groups plan to gather in Brixton on Saturday. Crowds will congregate for Afrikan Emancipation Day including those from Extinction Rebellion primarily to enjoy a family-friendly, socially distanced day of activities and learning, police said. But Extinction Rebellion has said that groups will block the A23 Brixton Road from Max Roach Park to Windrush Square and occupy the area for the day. It said that it was joining a coalition of groups, including the Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign, Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee, and Rhodes Must Fall Oxford. The event aims to promote the necessity of stopping the genocide and ecocide of African people and their environments, it added. But the Metropolitan Police on Friday said that blocking the road will cause serious disruption to Brixton and the surrounding area because it is used by hundreds of bus routes and thousands of motorists. Extinction Rebellion Parliament Square protests - in pictures 1 /26 Extinction Rebellion Parliament Square protests - in pictures AP AP REUTERS PA AP Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images AP PA PA PA AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images AFP via Getty Images PA PA PA PA It said that it is imposing a number of conditions on the demonstrations within areas such as Windrush Square, Max Roach Park and outside Brixton Police Station. They must not spill into nearby roads and they must finish by 8pm. The force said that the time limit was set so that officers could separate those attending the demonstrations from people attending other gatherings or unlicensed music events. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, in charge of the policing operation on Saturday, said: The decision to impose conditions on an assembly is never taken lightly and is made following a vigorous assessment of the information available to us. Black Lives Matter protests across the world - In pictures 1 /28 Black Lives Matter protests across the world - In pictures A banner and a US. flag are placed on the Monument a la Republique in Paris REUTERS Protesters in Perth Australia Getty Images Speakers at the Black Lives Matter Rally at Langley Park in Perth Getty Images Police officers are seen during a protest against police brutality and the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Paris REUTERS Perth protests Getty Images Speakers take to the stage during the Black Lives Matter Rally in Perty Getty Images Protesters show their support during the Black Lives Matter Rally at Langley Park in Perty Getty Images Demonstrators march through the streets in Perth AFP via Getty Images Demonstrators march through the streets in Perth AFP via Getty Images Demonstrators march through the streets in Perth AFP via Getty Images Demonstrators march through the streets in Perth Getty Images Demonstrators march through the streets in Perth Getty Images Thousands of people take part in a demonstration against police brutality and racism in Paris AP French riot police forces detain a protester during a rally as part of the 'Black Lives Matter' AFP via Getty Images French riot police forces detain protesters AFP via Getty Images The crowds in Paris AFP via Getty Images A man wearing a protective face mask and googles walks past a broken store window in Paris REUTERS Assa Traore (C), the sister of Adama Traore, who died in police custody in 2016 in Paris AFP via Getty Images Protesters hold flares as they stand next to a banner reading 'Confronted to police brutality - Self defence' in Paris AFP via Getty Images A house facade with a graffiti against police in Paris. AFP via Getty Images An injured demonstrator is helped away in Paris AFP via Getty Images We have no intention of infringing upon a responsibly-organised community event. We only require that this is done in a way that makes use of Brixtons open spaces and leaves the main road through Brixton open to other Londoners. In recent weeks we have policed a number of UMEs (unlicensed music events) in which loud music is played at night, disrupting local residents and posing a real threat both to property and the officers who attend to disperse them. We have received information that there are those intending to come to Brixton on Saturday to purposely cause disruption, and to confront police officers. This is in stark contrast to the feel of the events that will take place earlier in the day and is in opposition to the wishes of the local community. The Yard said that gatherings of more than 30 people will be in breach of the Health Protection (Coronavirus) Restrictions and its decision to impose conditions did not mean the assembly in breach of these regulations was authorised by police. A South Australian paramedic who went to Victoria to help test people for coronavirus has herself tested positive for the infection. The woman in her 20s volunteered to help with testing operations in Melbourne associated with the current surge in cases there. She returned to Adelaide on Wednesday and is now in isolation along with one close contact. Other health officials who went to Melbourne as part of the same team have all tested negative so far. Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said the woman had followed all the proper procedures with protective equipment but an infection in such circumstances was "part of the risk of this sort of work". "She absolutely followed the correct infection control processes," Professor Spurrier said on Friday. "But this is risky business." Professor Nicola Spurrier speaks to the media during a press conference at a COVID-19 mobile testing site. Source: AAP It was also revealed that 170 people were expected to arrive in Adelaide on Saturday on a repatriation flight from India. All will go into hotel quarantine with officials expecting at least some to have COVID-19. At the same time, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens rejected calls from the state opposition to check every car and truck coming into SA from Victoria and conduct mandatory border testing. Mr Stevens said regardless of the resources available, stopping every truck would cause significant delays with road freight and create significant road safety issues. The commissioner also expressed disappointment over the good behaviour bond imposed on a 65-year-old Mt Gambier woman who snuck back into SA from Victoria by hiding in a truck on Tuesday night. She appeared in court on Friday and pleaded guilty to failing to comply with a direction. The 46-year-old driver of the truck was also arrested in Adelaide and charged with failing to comply with a direction and was expected to appear in court on Monday. Mr Stevens said the general sentiment in the community towards those who breached the state's border rules was "one of disgust". "People recognise we have a significant concern right on our doorstep with Victoria in the current state it's in and we're doing as much as we can to protect the South Australian community," he said. Story continues "People who breach these directions are putting other people at risk and they're making a mockery of the efforts of everybody in the community to work through this COVID-19 situation." Premier Steven Marshall said in light of the dangerous situation in Victoria and the clusters of cases in NSW, SA would not change its current border rules. Under the current provisions, only essential travellers are allowed to enter SA from Victoria. But people can come from NSW and the ACT provided they quarantine for 14 days. The new coronavirus infection in SA on Friday takes the total number of cases diagnosed in SA since the start of the pandemic to 450 but only three of those are considered active infections. Women power will be steering forward two of the three beleaguered government owned non-life insurers, said industry officials. The central government has decided to appoint S.N. Rajeswari, General Manager, New India Assurance Company Limited as Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) of Oriental Company Ltd. The formal orders are expected to be issued soon. Once Rajeswari, a qualified Chartered Accountant, takes charge at the Delhi-based Oriental then she will be the second woman to head a public sector general company. The first woman to head a government owned general insurer was Tajinder Mukherjee, CMD, National Insurance Company Ltd. "The National Insurance and Oriental Insurance will be headed by two women during a crucial time. The companies have to beef up their solvency norms, increase their business and also the profitability," a senior industry official not wanting to be quoted told IANS. The central government had recently scrapped its decision to merge United India Insurance Company Ltd, National Insurance and Oriental Insurance into one company much to the disappointment of the employees. The government has announced the infusion of Rs 12,450 crore capital, which included Rs 2,500 crore given in FY20, in the three insurers. Of this, Rs 3,475 crore is to be infused immediately and the rest Rs 6,475 crore later. "Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, new business for the industry has gone down. To that extent there will not be pressure on the three government companies for capital to meet the solvency norms. The capital that will be infused will enable the companies to meet the solvency norms," an industry official said. To ensure optimum use of the new capital, it issued guidelines in the form of KPIs (key performance indicators) for raising business efficiency and profitable growth. "In National Insurance, the CMD is focusing on cutting down the loss making business. The company is getting back on track. It will also be good if she clears fast the appointments under compassionate grounds like the other three companies," K. Govindan, General Secretary, General Insurance Employees All India Association, told IANS. Be that as it may, women power is coming to the fore in the government owned insurance sector as there were three women contenders apart from men for the top post in Oriental Insurance. --IANS vj/rs//bg (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.) New Delhi: Sushant Singh Rajput's curious case of death took a new turn after his father lodged an FIR in Patna against girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty. Ever since there have been major developments in the case with Bihar police coming into action and several political leaders making statements on the matter as well. Recently, Bihar minister and JDU leader Maheshwar Hazari said, "Looks like this is a part of a big game. Sushant was killed and a huge gang is involved in it, therefore a proper detailed investigation must be done." He added, "Rhea Chakraborty has acted like a contract killer, who duped Sushant in her love game, took his money, and left. This is not a suicide but a murder. She is venomous. Rhea was sent to Sushant as per a plan and this must be investigated." "The Mumbai police is not doing its job properly and the case must go to CBI. Bihar government is with Sushant's family and will extend all help they need to serve justice. In fact, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar also wants Sushant Singh Rajput should get justice", Hazari said. Meanwhile, the Bihar government on Thursday filed a caveat in the top court seeking that it be heard before any order is passed on Rhea's plea. Former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi will represent the Bihar government defending its probe into Sushant's death. Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at his Bandra residence on June 14, 2020. Fans and several celebrities have been demanding a CBI inquiry into the death case suspecting a foul play. (Natural News) When experts point out that hydroxychloroquine has been used safely for many years, theyre not exaggerating. Since it was first developed in 1950, it has been safely used by countless people to treat malaria, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. But its precursor, quinine, goes back even further. In fact, it was first used by Inca herbalists who shared what they knew about it with Jesuit priests during the early 17th century. Although the precise origins of the practice are murky, the Inca herbalists used quinine-rich cinchona bark for treating malaria. The treatment was introduced to Spanish explorers in the early 17th century, who brought it back to Europe to help address the illness around the 1630s. The herbalists ground the tree bark up into a powder, which they then used to make a drink that was administered to malaria patients. The drink was sometimes made with wine to help counter its better flavor. The respected Spanish theologian Cardinal John de Lugo was known for promoting the use of the ground tree bark in the 1600s. Technological advancements eventually led to quinine being broken down into it safest and most useful compounds, and this brought us hydroxychloroquine during World War II. It was used during the war to help soldiers who were afflicted with malaria while fighting in Africa. In the three centuries following quinines introduction to Western medicine, it was considered the only effective remedy for fighting malaria and benefited a significant number of people. On top of that, treating malaria with quinine was the first known successful use of a chemical compound in fighting an infectious disease. Advanced synthetic form of quinine could help save lives in COVID-19 battle Now, the advanced synthetic form of quinine, hydroxychloroquine, is making headlines for its use in treating COVID-19. However, there has been a lot of conflicting information about it something that is not helped by the fact that President Trump has supported it as a treatment and his detractors are always eager to paint anything he supports in a negative light, whether its true or not. Recently, Dr. Stella Immanuel explained how hydroxychloroquine can not only cure the disease but also prevent it in the first place, saying: Nobody needs to get sick. This virus has a cure. It is called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax. Dr. Immanuel recounted her many successes in treating patients with hydroxychloroquine, including a 92-year-old who was suffering from coronavirus. All told, she says that she has treated more than 350 patients personally with the drug, including those with asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure. Shes using the regimen that many hydroxychloroquine studies back, pairing the drug with zinc and azithromycin. She said that all of the patients have recovered fully, and she has not lost a single patient. Moreover, the doctor herself, her staff and many other doctors she knows are also taking hydroxychloroquine for prevention. She says it works early as a preventive prophylaxis, and no one on her team has gotten sick even though they are constantly in close contact with infected patients. She said: So if some fake science, some person sponsored by all these fake pharma companies, comes out and says, oh, weve done studies and they found out that it doesnt work, I can tell you categorically that its fake science. Of course, most people wont hear about that because videos from the event at which these remarks were made, the Americas Frontline Doctors press conference, have been banned from all of the major tech platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Big Pharma would much rather have you believe that this cheap drug with a proven safety record and long tradition of use is risky so youll shell out top dollar for the inferior but far more profitable coronavirus drug Remdesivir. Sources for this article include: NationalFile.com Britannica.com NaturalNews.com San Franciscos archbishop on Thursday urged priests to hold more Masses within public health guidelines to accommodate more Catholic church-goers without overcrowding services. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who oversees Catholic churches in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties, instructed priests to hold daily Mass and up to three Masses on Sundays as necessary to respond to the demand. Priests who are elderly or suffer from underlying health conditions were exempt from this instruction. People who want to attend Mass will seek it out; making more Masses available will minimize the risk that some Masses may become overcrowded with people having to be sent away, Cordileone wrote. Indoor worship services are banned in San Francisco and Marin counties, but outdoor religious gatherings with up to 12 people are permitted. Churches in San Mateo County, which was added to the states watch list on Wednesday, may have to close their doors starting Saturday; outdoor services will be permitted. Jan Potts, an archdiocese spokeswoman, clarified that the archbishops message was referring to masses conducted via live-stream or outdoors with size restrictions in accordance with public health orders. The archbishop also warned priests that some parishes, especially in San Francisco, may be under added scrutiny at this time. In early July, city officials sent a cease-and-desist letter to the San Francisco archdiocese instructing them to stop holding large indoor worship services. Officials also shut down a covert Catholic wedding at Saint Peter and Paul Church in North Beach that led to coronavirus infections. One priest chastised his Star of the Sea parishioners for putting safety above sacraments by skipping Mass. Cordileone told priests to remind people to wear face masks, practice social distancing and wash their hands to prevent coronavirus spread. 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. This is real, it is dangerous, and it has to be taken seriously, he wrote. He said he had been unsuccessful in convincing local health leaders to allow in-person services to resume, despite hours spent communicating with officials. As a sacramental Church, it is in our nature, indeed it is our very identity, to physically gather together to worship and share in the Eucharist, Cordileone wrote. Im sure that you, just as I, are very concerned about the long-term effects this will have on our peoples spiritual health. Anna Bauman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: anna.bauman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @abauman2 Lisa Smith, 38, from Co Louth has been charged with the membership of an unlawful organisation under 2005 terror legislation and terrorist financing. At Dublin District Court last Friday she was further charged with providing financial assistance to another in the sum of 800 under Section 13 of the Terrorist Offences Act. This offence is alleged to have happened within the Irish state in 2015. She is denying the allegations. The state solicitor said the charges were non-scheduled offences and it was the opinion of the Director of Public Prosecution that the ordinary courts were inadequate to secure the effective administration of justice in this trial. The 38-year-old, who is a former member of the Irish Defence Forces, appeared at Dublin District Court on Friday. Co Louth woman Lisa Smith (38), who has been charged with the membership of an unlawful organisation (Isis) under 2005 terror legislation and terrorist financing, has been sent forward for trial to the non-jury Special Criminal Court. pic.twitter.com/m64Jh7xEXr Advertisement Aine McMahon (@AineMcMahon) July 31, 2020 Smith was in court on Friday to be served the book of evidence which was in a stack of thick volumes of documents. Smith, who wore an Islamic dress and hijab with her face uncovered in court, sat silently throughout her brief appearance. Smith was arrested at Dublin Airport in 2019 on suspicion of terrorist offences after returning from Turkey in November with her young daughter. She had travelled to Syria a number of years ago after she converted to Islam. Smith is charged that under Section Six of the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005 which makes it an offence to join a foreign unlawful organisation. It is alleged that between October 28, 2015 and December 1 2019 at a location outside the State, she was a member of a terrorist group styling itself the Islamic State. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, the court heard. Smiths defence solicitor Peter Corrigan said Smith told the court his client was never a member of an illegal organisation. The current available evidence points to the defendant not being part of any illegal groups, he told the court Judge Marie Quirke told Smith she has 14 days to come up with names and addresses of people who would be able to prove she was not in the areas where the alleged offences occurred. The Special Criminal Court, where Smiths trial will take place, is a three-judge criminal court that deals with terrorist and organised crime cases. The court has no jury in order to avoid any potential intimidation of jury members, which has led to criticism from human rights groups. Mr Corrigan said there would be a challenge in relation to his client being sent for trial at the Special Criminal Court Mr Corrigan previously said the decision to try the case in the Special Criminal Court denies Smith of her fundamental right to a jury trial. A further application of legal aid was granted to Smith. After spending a May day preparing her classroom to reopen for preschoolers, Ana Aguilar was informed that the tots would not have to wear face masks when they came back. Whats more, she had to sign a form agreeing not to sue the school if she caught the coronavirus or suffered any injury from it while working there. Other teachers signed the form distributed by the Montessori Schools of Irvine, but Aguilar said she felt uncomfortable, although it stipulated that staff members would be masked. At 23, she has a compromised immune system and was also worried that she could pass the coronavirus on to her fiance and other family members. Aguilar refused to sign, and a week later she was fired. They said it was my choice to sign the paper, but it wasnt really my choice, said Aguilar, whos currently jobless and receiving $276 a week in unemployment benefits. I felt so bullied. As employers in California and across the country ask employees to return to the workplace, many have considered and some are requiring employees to sign similar waivers, employment lawyers say. And many employees, mostly lower-wage and minority workers in essential jobs, are calling lawyers to complain about the waivers. These are illegal agreements that are totally unfair to workers, said Christian Schreiber, a San Francisco lawyer who represents Aguilar and other employees. The California Legislature last year passed a law, AB51, prohibiting employers from requiring employees or job applicants to sign away their right to pursue legal claims or benefits under state law. The law, which also prohibits firing any employee for refusing to sign, is being challenged in court by business groups. Only a few employers have forced employees to sign liability waivers, at least partly because these waivers likely would be held unenforceable by courts, lawyers who represent employers say. Courts dont recognize them because of the unequal bargaining power between employers and employees, said Isaac Mamaysky, a partner at the Potomac Law Group in New York City. With so many unemployed, people would sign just about anything to get a job. Another reason they are considered unenforceable: Workers who get sick or injured on the job generally are compensated through state workers compensation systems rather than through the courts, and state laws dont allow employers to force employees to sign away their right to pursue workers comp claims, Mamaysky said. Companies may have the right to require nonemployees working on their premises to sign COVID-19 waivers. When the New York Stock Exchange reopened in late May, it made floor traders sign a form clearing the exchange of liability if they contracted COVID-19. That was legally permissible because the traders were not exchange employees, an NYSE spokesman said. He declined to say whether any traders have become infected with the virus. The Las Vegas-based restaurant chain Nacho Daddy, which did require employees to surrender their right to sue over COVID-19, reportedly fired some who refused. Following negative media coverage, Nacho Daddy removed the language that waived legal rights and instead had employees agree to follow safety rules such as masking and social distancing. The company did not respond to a request for comment. Having employees agree to comply with safety rules is a more common and legally acceptable approach than waivers. I suggest my clients go to this reasonable middle ground: Heres what we promise to you, heres what we want you to promise to us, said David Barron, an employment lawyer with Cozen OConnor in Houston. Business groups hope Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will make liability waivers unnecessary. He has proposed a Senate bill with broad liability protection for employers for five years against a range of coronavirus-related claims, and says he wont back any relief bill that doesnt include such protections. President Donald Trump has said he supports the liability protection. At least 10 states already have enacted laws providing some form of immunity for businesses from lawsuits brought by employees and others who contract the coronavirus. Similar bills are pending in about 10 more states, according to the National Employment Law Project. The California Assembly is considering a liability protection bill for public K-12 schools. Federal legislation to provide COVID-19 liability relief for employers should protect only those that follow applicable health and safety guidelines, said John Abegg, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, which supports McConnells proposal. But even if McConnell is able to overcome Democratic opposition and pass liability protection as part of a new pandemic economic relief bill, that still wouldnt shield employers from lawsuits claiming gross negligence or reckless or intentional conduct in failing to implement COVID-19 safety precautions. Across the country, hospitals and nursing homes, as well as companies like McDonalds, Walmart and Safeway, have been hit with wrongful death lawsuits filed by families of employees who died from the virus. They typically cite egregious conduct that goes beyond ordinary negligence, potentially erasing any statutory liability relief. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes Nearly 50 lawsuits have been filed relating to COVID-19 and conditions of employment, including exposure to the coronavirus or the lack of protective equipment, according to data collected by the law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth. In many states, alleging intentional misconduct also may allow workers harmed by COVID-19, and their families, to file lawsuits rather than go through the workers compensation system, and thus seek bigger damage awards. For instance, a suit filed in Alameda County Superior Court in June by the widow of a longtime employee of Safeways distribution center in Tracy alleged that the company had concealed a coronavirus outbreak from workers and informed them that personal protective equipment was not recommended, contrary to guidelines from federal and state authorities. I dont know of any jurisdiction that would allow a waiver against intentional misconduct, said Louis DiLorenzo, head of the labor and employment practice for Bond Schoeneck & King in New York, who represents employers. That would encourage misconduct. Worker advocates argue that lawsuits like the one against Safeway should be encouraged rather than blocked by waivers or immunity laws to bring to light serious public safety problems. Cases against McDonalds in Oakland and Chicago in which workers claimed the restaurants had created a public nuisance by not taking steps to adequately protect workers and customers from the coronavirus resulted in court orders in late June for those McDonalds restaurants to implement safety measures such as masks, social distancing and temperature checks. A very tiny number of cases are being filed by workers, and those cases are valuable, said Hugh Baran, a staff lawyer at the National Employment Law Project. These are the kinds of claims we should want workers to bring. Schreiber said he contacted the Montessori school about Aguilars firing, and it offered to reinstate her without having her sign the waiver. But Aguilar declined, saying the school was putting teachers at risk by not requiring pupils to wear masks. The school then offered her six weeks of severance pay, which she is considering. By refusing to sign the waiver or accept her job back, Aguilar said she was standing up for all the teachers at the school, many of whom have children and cant afford to lose their job. I liked my job and I needed the paycheck, she said. But making you sign these papers is telling you that whatever happens, they really dont care. Harris Meyer is a freelance writer for Kaiser Health News, a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente. FLINT, MI Police have arrested a suspect in the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old woman at a Genesee County mobile home park. CrimeStoppers of Flint and Genesee County confirmed that Michigan State Police troopers on the evening of Thursday, July 30, arrested a 20-year-old suspect in connection with the July 13 homicide of Martina M. Martinez. The arrest occurred in Flint. The Genesee County Prosecutors Office had issued seven charges against the suspect on July 23. The suspect is lodged on charges of first-degree premeditated murder, assault with intent to murder, felon in possession of a firearm, carrying a concealed weapon, and three counts of felony firearm. His name is being withheld pending arraignment in Genesee County District Court, which could happen as early as Friday. The incident took place shortly before 2:30 a.m. Monday, July 13, in the Torrey Hills Mobile Home Park located near Torrey and Hill roads in Mundy Township. Martinez was pronounced deceased at the scene. Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton previously said information from police indicates Martinez called the suspect for a ride home from a bonfire. She and the suspect had known each other for a week, with the pair conversing on Facebook, Leyton has said. When they arrived at the mobile home park, the suspect asked Martinez for $10 in gas money. She told him she didnt have it and he shot her, Leyton has said. A second person with Martinez was grazed by a bullet, leading to the assault with intent to murder charge. A few days after the shooting, a candlelight vigil was held in Martinezs honor at The Rock, a Flint landmark. About 50 people attended. Martinez is survived by her parents and numerous siblings. Some hobbies of Martina were singing, painting, and making jokes wherever she went, her obituary states. She has touched the lives of so many with her unconditional love, and humor. She will be forever missed. Related: 19-year-old shot and killed over $10 in gas money, prosecutor says 19-year-old woman shot to death at Mundy Township mobile home park Mother asks for justice after shooting death of teen daughter Family remembers Mundy Township shooting victim as fun-loving, caring The curbs imposed on the import of colour televisions (TVs) into India are unlikely to significantly impact prices in the short run. "Depends on the extent of local manufacturing. Some if it is being manufactured locally and some are being imported. So in the short run, there could be a slight price impact," said Rajat Kathuria, Director and Chief Executive, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). On July 30, the government restricted import of colour TVs in a move that is being viewed as a move to boost domestic manufacturing and reduce inbound shipments of non-essential items from countries like China. In FY20, TVs imported into India stood at $781 million. Of this, $428 million was from Vietnam and $293 million was from China. This includes a number of relatively unknown brands as well as known brands like Xiaomis Mi TV range, Samsungs LED TVs and more. "Import policy of colour TVs.....is amended from free to restricted," a notification from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) read. The curbs are imposed on TV sets of all screen sizes, ranging from up to 36 cm to over 105 cm. Liquid crystal display (LCD) television sets of screen size below 63 cm are also covered under the restrictions. 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 China is the largest exporter of TV sets in India, followed by countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, and Germany. In FY19, imports from Vietnam and China stood at $428 million and $293 million, respectively. India's television manufacturing market is divided majorly into two broad categories -- premium TV brands, which include companies such as Sony, Samsung, Sony and LG. There are also brands like Xiaomi, Vu, TCL, Realme and Nokia, which focus on the more affordable price points. Then there are brands such as OnePlus, which try to play their part in both price segments. Sony, Samsung, LG and Xiaomi have been big players in the TV segment in India for a while now, with a sizeable portion of inventory. This is the latest in a series of moves to cut down India's import dependence, especially on China. On June 23, the government made it mandatory for sellers on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal to clarify the country of origin of their goods when registering new products The government had also announced an interim ban on 59 apps with Chinese links, including TikTok, ShareIt, UC Browser, CamScanner and WeChat, citing 'emergent threats' to the countrys sovereignty and national security. India also restricted countries, which it shares land borders with, from bidding for public procurements projects without prior approval from competent authorities blocking Chinese companies from the fray. "If China decides to restrict exports to India, then there could be a problem for us," Biswajit Dhar, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru Universitys Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, said. In FY19, bilateral trade between China and India was worth $88 billion, with a trade deficit of $53.5 billion in Chinas favour, the widest India has with any country. China is one of Indias leading trade partners and constitutes 9 percent of Indias total exports and 18 percent of total merchandise imports. Import dependency on China for a range of raw materials (active pharmaceutical ingredients, basic chemicals, agro-intermediates) and critical components (auto, durables, capital goods) is skewed. Of the respective imports, 20 percent of auto components, 70 percent of electronic components, 45 percent of consumer durables, 70 percent of APIs and 40 percent of leather goods imported are from China. "Our dependence on China is much higher than their dependence on us. We export mainly raw materials to then, which is the chief input of their value addition. We matter very little in their scheme of things. For China, any retaliation has to go beyond trade to make sense. Maybe they would retaliate politically," Kathuria said. South Africa: Rhino poaching declines significantly The Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries says rhino poaching decreased by almost 53% in the first six months of 2020, with 166 animals being killed for their horns across the country since the beginning of the year. During the first six months of 2019, a total of 316 rhino had been poached in South Africa. After a decade of implementing various strategies and campaigning against ever increasing rhino poaching by local poachers recruited and managed by crime syndicates, efforts are paying off. We have been able to arrest the escalation of rhino losses, the Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Barbara Creecy. The Minister said with the COVID-19 lockdown to restrict movement, the decline in rhino poaching compared to the same period last year is striking. This reprieve was specifically welcomed in the Kruger National Park, where during April, no rhino were killed in the Intensive Protection Zone for the first time in almost 10 years. Between the start of the lockdown on 27 March 2020 until the end of June 2020, a total of 46 rhino were poached across the country. Of these, 14 were poached during April, 13 in May and 19 in June. In the Kruger National Park, 88 rhino were poached in the first six months of 2020. As the lockdown restrictions have gradually been lifted, rhino poaching incidents have slowly increased. Between January and June, 38 suspected rhino poachers were arrested in the KNP and 23 firearms confiscated, while 57 suspects were arrested and 18 firearms recovered during the joint SANParks ECI/SAPS operations outside the KNP. Despite attempts to smuggle rhino horns valued at around R115 million through O R Tambo International Airport in the first two weeks of July 2020, the decrease in rhino poaching can also be attributed to the disruption of the supply chain resulting from the national travel restrictions, including limitations placed on movement across the country. The diligence of SARS customs officials and members of the Green Scorpions, which resulted in the consignments being uncovered, and the resulting arrest by the Hawks of a shipping agent, is a prime example of the excellent relationship and teamwork between departments and entities to stamp out the illicit trade in rhino horns and other wildlife products, Creecy said. Notwithstanding the severe interruptions of operations during the lockdown period, the performance data relating to rhino-related prosecutions indicated that a total of 23 accused were convicted. During the reporting period, January to June 2020, the National Prosecuting Authority managed to not only obtain convictions in 15 cases, but maintained a remarkable conviction rate of 100%. In addition to these high conviction rates, lengthy sentences were also imposed by the courts. Celebrating rangers In celebration of World Ranger Day today, the Minister paid tribute to the men and women whose commitment to protecting the countrys natural heritage, sometimes at the expense of their own safety. Our rangers have remained at the forefront of the battle against poaching, despite the National Lockdown, contributing to the decrease in poaching. In this time, rangers have had to face not only the threats posed by poachers, but they, and their families, have also had to deal with the danger of contracting COVID-19, Creecy said. World Ranger Day, which is supported by the International Rangers Federation, is held annually to commemorate those rangers who have lost their lives in the line of duty and to celebrate the commitment of rangers who battle poaching in protected areas on a daily basis. To support the efforts of rangers, the department, in collaboration with the provincial conservation and parks authorities, the private sector and NGOs, continues to implement the decisions of the Rhino Lab with the latest initiative focusing on demarcating specific wildlife zones to ensure that additional resources are directed to high risk areas. The department is also in the process of establishing the Environmental Enforcement Fusion Centre, which is aimed at coordinating and improving the reactive and proactive response to rhino poaching and other wildlife crime. It has begun to consolidate rhino protection efforts across the country, standardising and boosting tactical level anti-poaching and introducing integrated information-led enforcement. This work further strengthens the essential collaboration with the South African Police Service, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (HAWKS), the Department of Justice and other sectors of the security forces to gather, analyse and share intelligence on wildlife trafficking so that the international syndicate-related crimes can be effectively dealt with. The dedication of essential staff, particularly our rangers, during this time is to be commended. Your hard work, and the support of your families, has not gone unnoticed, the Minister said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. When the newly retired firefighter opened South L.A. Cafe in November, he was the latest in a string of Black entrepreneurs hoping to contain the spread of gentrification in South Los Angeles. Facing the development of luxury condos, hotels and upscale restaurants that many residents cannot afford, Joe Ward-Wallace opened a coffee shop and market where neighbors can linger and buy fresh food. Sales increased by 10% each month, he said, part of a renaissance of Black-owned cafes and other businesses in the historically African American community. "It was a tactic for cultural preservation," Ward-Wallace said. "We were on an upward swing right before covid to reclaim our community." Then the coronavirus pandemic ground the nation's economy to a halt. Overnight, business at South L.A. Cafe dropped 70%. Ward-Wallace furloughed nine of his 10 employees. The recession threatens to devastate Black commercial districts and other ethnic enclaves that fuel the vibrancy, economies and identities of American cities. In many cases, these neighborhoods were the products of earlier generations of discrimination, including racial segregation and redlining. Now, entrepreneurs of color are being pushed out. In Los Angeles, business owners, community leaders and economists predict that months of shutdowns will hasten the gentrification that has encroached on Black, Asian and Latino communities in South L.A. (formerly known as South Central), Chinatown and Boyle Heights since the Great Recession. With a renewed surge of the novel coronavirus in California, many small businesses are not expected to survive a recession that has hammered the restaurant, retail and personal services industries in which many entrepreneurs of color are concentrated. Black, Latino and Asian workers, overrepresented in the leisure and hospitality sectors, are more likely to be unemployed as a result of the pandemic, which has also disproportionately infected and killed Black and Hispanic Americans. "Sorry, we're closed" signs adorn the doors of hair salons and nail shops in South L.A., where some shuttered businesses have launched crowdfunding campaigns to pay rent. Restaurants in Chinatown are surviving on takeout orders and contracts to deliver food to homebound seniors. Sidewalks in some parts of Boyle Heights have largely emptied of street vendors selling tamales and tacos. Minority-owned small businesses tend to be undercapitalized mom-and-pop operations, with lower sales and a small financial cushion, economists say - potentially making it easier for outside investors to snap up their properties at low rates after the crisis. Black and Hispanic families lost a larger percentage of their wealth than White families during the last recession. "The covid-19 recession is disproportionately hurting these minority businesses, making their communities more vulnerable to gentrification pressures than they already were before," said Paul Ong, a UCLA economist and urban planner whose research focuses on minority and immigrant enclaves. "The expectation is that minorities will lag behind in the recovery, putting them in a weaker position to hang onto their businesses. That will make these areas much more attractive to outside investors in terms of profits because the prices will be lower." Businesses located in minority communities were less likely to receive government assistance under the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), according to a Washington Post analysis of data recently released by the Small Business Administration. Nationally, about three-quarters of PPP loans of more than $150,000 went to businesses in census tracts where a majority of residents are White. The loans, which are forgivable if largely used to maintain payrolls at pre-crisis levels, are designed to keep small businesses afloat during the coronavirus shutdown. But an SBA inspector general's report found that the agency failed to follow congressional guidelines to prioritize minority-owned businesses and other underserved borrowers. Ong's analysis of the PPP loans showed that businesses in the ethnic neighborhoods of Leimert Park in South L.A., Chinatown and Boyle Heights received disproportionately less federal support than businesses in three neighborhoods with more whites. Many are not even applying because of linguistic or other barriers, said Ong, the director of UCLA's Center for Neighborhood Knowledge. Minority-owned businesses are less likely to have relationships with the big banks that more easily allow them to tap into the government assistance or other safe credit options. "They are not in a great position to start with," he said, "and they seem to be falling further behind by not getting support to weather the storm." - - - The first sign of trouble arrived in downtown L.A.'s Chinatown in February, seven weeks before California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide stay-at-home order to combat the coronavirus. Instead of the usual hordes of tourists who descend upon the one-square-mile neighborhood for the annual Lunar New Year parade, Nicole Young noticed lots of space on the streets and sidewalks surrounding the Dynasty Center, where she owns a small store called Q Stuff that specializes in custom-made beaded jewelry. The nearby plaza, with red lanterns strung between pagoda-style buildings, remained half-empty. Fear as well as racist associations with a virus that had its first epicenter in Wuhan, China, were keeping people away from Chinese restaurants and other Asian-owned businesses - just as in other Chinatowns across the country amid a flare in anti-Asian sentiment. "I could sense that people really didn't want to come to shop and eat in Chinatown," said Young, who began wearing a mask in January but removed it when she sensed customers were uncomfortable. "I didn't want people to think I was sick." By mid-March, the indoor flea market housing her store and dozens of other stalls selling traditional Chinese dresses, suitcases and tchotchkes closed, in line with government orders. Four months later, stores remain shuttered. Young, who had plans to expand before the pandemic, now fears she may never reopen. "Why would I stay here and pay rent when there is no business?" Instead, she's brushing up on her photography and written English skills and learning how to build a website so she can move her business online. She worries something will be lost with e-commerce - her ability to explain Chinese culture to tourists. And with it, something greater. "I see Starbucks and American franchise stores close to Chinatown's entrance," Young said. "The coronavirus may force Chinatown to disappear faster. All the businesses will look no different from the shopping malls in the rest of America." Young said she started to apply for a PPP loan in May. But after neighboring business owners told her it was a waste of time because they did not receive any money, she never bothered completing the application. For other businesses, it's already too late. At least five Chinatown restaurants have closed for good despite Congress having passed the $2.2 trillion Cares Act at the end of March, said Peter Ng, chief executive of L.A.'s Chinatown Service Center. To help some survive, Ng's nonprofit contracted with restaurants to prepare and deliver meals to 1,300 senior housing residents who no longer had safe access to grocery stores and communal kitchens. The senior meals program helped Yening "Lupe" Liang, owner of Hop Woo BBQ & Seafood Restaurant, stay afloat. Liang, who worked in Tijuana before opening his Mexican-influenced Cantonese-style restaurant in Chinatown in 1993, lost more than half his daily business as a result of the pandemic and had to cut his staff of two dozen down to just a handful of family members. His wife runs the front of the house. Their two daughters take orders over the phone, pack food and collect money. He is the chef, preparing 300 boxed lunches a week of rice, eggplant and tofu for seniors at $6 apiece. His landlord has granted a rent deferral, but Liang said delayed payments are due in full by 2021. For now, he said, Hop Woo is able to survive on takeout orders, as well as a PPP loan of $52,000. "Otherwise, we would have had to close permanently," said Liang, whose cooking has been featured on local Chinese- and Spanish-language TV. He is not optimistic about Chinatown's future, even if customers are eventually allowed to dine inside again. "People have already lost so much. In Chinatown, a lot of restaurants and stores will be closed forever. They don't have a choice." - - - Less than three miles away, across the Los Angeles River in the Latino community of Boyle Heights, Nico Avina remains haunted by what happened to his business and neighborhood after the 2008 recession. Avina, an artist, owns Espacio 1839, a bookstore, gallery and community space. It is the second incarnation of a concept his wife, Myra Vasquez, had launched in 2004, before the economy crashed and their store closed in 2009. Theirs was hardly the only casualty. All across town, local businesses disappeared. Large galleries spilled across the river from the neighboring Arts District, and developers tried rebranding Boyle Heights as "BoHe" and "East Bank L.A." A real estate agent promoted a bike tour of Avina's working-class community in 2014, distributing fliers in the Arts District that said, "Why rent downtown when you could own in Boyle Heights?" "Articles quoted gallery owners saying this was nothing before they got here, completely dismissive of the existing community and the fact that this was the Chicano mural capital of the world," Avina said. The community staged intense protests against gentrification, and at least six galleries have closed or moved out of Boyle Heights in recent years. But more luxury high-rise apartments are slated for construction. Warner Music Group relocated its headquarters from Burbank to a former Ford factory just across the river in 2019. Spotify also moved its regional headquarters to the Arts District. Avina and other activists predict that a slew of upscale businesses will move into Boyle Heights to cater to the newest neighbors. "I can just imagine what's going to happen this time around, especially since the Arts District is fully developed now," Avina said. "It's going to completely change the character of a community. It will be artificial - like replacing the natural flavors of cane sugar with corn syrup. It might be sweet, but in the end, it will kill you." In 2012, Avina and Vasquez revived their concept for a community creative space with the opening of Espacio 1839, leasing a storefront steps from Mariachi Plaza, where musicians rehearse and Avina had been selling T-shirts. The landlord, it turned out, had owned the apartment building where Avina grew up, and recognized him from his Mexican immigrant parents' food stand as "the taco man's son." He offered to rent the space to Avina instead of putting it on the market. Avina, Vasquez and their two sons live just blocks from their store. Until they shut Espacio 1839 in mid-March, it hosted an internet radio station and community podcasts, sold T-shirts that Avina designed, held poetry and book readings, showcased the work of local artists, and offered free writing, photography and printmaking workshops. One wall of the store depicts a seven-foot-tall Virgen de Guadalupe staring down at an eviction notice, a painting Avina titled "Lupita Was Displaced." Now his family is surviving on savings, and making rent with a newly created store website that sells T-shirts and homemade face masks. Vasquez runs a side business selling gelatinas from their home. The couple had initially planned on reopening the store during weekends in July - or by appointment only. But they scrapped that idea after coronavirus infections in L.A. skyrocketed again. "We're just trying to survive. Out of the four months we've been closed, two of those months have been assisted by others," Avina said. L.A. poet Yesika Salgado, who held readings at the store, donated one month's rent. A national fundraiser for small businesses, featuring musicians including local band Chicano Batman, covered another month's rent. Avina doesn't think Espacio 1839 can survive much beyond six months of closure. "One of our biggest fears is this is going to speed up the gentrification process," he said. "It's not just a threat. It's real. If we look at history and what happened in 2008, there were sharks waiting to take their vacant spots." He doesn't want to let his community down by closing again for good and giving outsiders an opportunity to take over. Proceeds from local businesses are reinvested back into the neighborhood - into small grocers and food vendors so they could feed their families too, he said. Avina laments what will be lost with thousands in his community out of work, and local entrepreneurs getting priced out: daily rhythms like the cinnamon-chocolatey smell of champurrado in the morning, replaced by vendors selling jicama and pineapples in the afternoon and tacos al pastor in the evening as nortenas and cumbias blare from open windows. How long, he wonders, will the sound of guitars and trumpets continue wafting from Mariachi Plaza? "With something unforeseen like coronavirus, it's a left hook to a community out of nowhere," he said. "In the fight against gentrification, we have to occupy space. That's what we're trying to do with Espacio." - - - That's what Black entrepreneurs were trying to do around Leimert Park, the cultural center of the African American community in South L.A., hoping to halt a 25% drop in the Black population since the Great Recession. At least five Black-owned coffee shops have opened in recent years. They welcomed lower-income residents to plug in their computers and stay all day. They featured vegan menus and hosted political panels, after-school cooking classes and talks on gentrification. But some community leaders fear that the only businesses that will survive the coronavirus recession will be the fast-food chains ubiquitous in this food desert. Joe and Celia Ward-Wallace, owners of the new South L.A. Cafe, had spent decades fighting for food justice and racial economic equality in South Central before opening their own coffee shop. They decided halfway through construction last year to lease a second neighboring space where they would sell affordable, fresh food. As the coronavirus outbreak worsened in China in January and February, just months after opening, the couple discussed whether they should close their business. Instead they stayed open, selling $35 grocery boxes with essential provisions: beans, rice, pasta, vegetable broth, almond milk, fruits and vegetables, toilet paper and medical masks. Nonprofits, corporations and individuals sponsored hundreds of boxes each week for them to hand out to financially struggling customers. They launched an online ordering app for curbside pickup, expanding to grocery and meal delivery. They've asked the community for recurring $10 monthly donations; more than 500 people have signed up. Pop stars Ariana Grande and Beyonce promoted South L.A. Cafe along with other Black-owned businesses during the national protests over police brutality and systemic racism. "People are elevating us because of the civil unrest happening right now around racial justice," Ward-Wallace said. "But given what's happening with covid, it's such a frightening projection so we don't know what that will mean for business moving forward. I think the majority of Black and Brown businesses are going to really struggle to reopen because they are falling deeper and deeper into a hole." The Ward-Wallaces say they have dipped into their personal savings to keep the business afloat and still owe thousands of dollars in back rent. The Black Lives Matter movement has made people recognize that Black-owned businesses are especially vulnerable because of the pandemic, said Greg Dulan, owner of the famed Dulan's on Crenshaw Soul Food Kitchen. Anonymous donors have paid him to feed coronavirus first responders for six weeks. Corporations he never heard from in the past are reaching out to discuss future catering and promotional opportunities. But he wonders how long that surge in support will last. "If we're going to have a strong African American business community which helps to uplift African American neighborhoods, then some of these things that are happening have to continue long-term," Dulan said. Dulan, whose cafeteria-style restaurant opened weeks after the 1992 Rodney King uprising, is planning for the future. He is in the process of buying an adjoining property that he plans to turn into a parking lot and to use as his catering headquarters. A Howard University graduate, Dulan said he took a cue from Ben's Chili Bowl, a Washington, D.C., institution that survived U Street's gentrification in part by buying the adjoining property and opening the more upscale Ben's Next Door in 2008. Dulan, too, wants to control his real estate - and his fate - in the face of gentrification. Despite his decreased profits due to the recession, he made the calculation to buy the property now, before he's priced out. "The only way African American businesses are going to survive is we have to own our own stuff," Dulan said. "I'm determined for there to be soul food in the Crenshaw district for as long as I'm able to do it. This is Black Los Angeles. That's who I serve every day." - - - The Washington Post's Andrew Ba Tran contributed to this report. Ukraine is adhering to the terms of the ceasefire in Donbas. If Russia does the same, it will be possible to proceed to the implementation of other agreements reached by the Normandy format leaders at the Paris summit in December. "Now everything is in the hands of the Russian side. Ukraine has taken, and is taking, all measures to comply with the agreements reached. If Russia also adheres to what was agreed, the ceasefire will be permanent and this will allow us to move on to other points, on which the leaders agreed at the summit in Paris," Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said at a briefing, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. According to him, the progress in the implementation of the "Paris agreements" will allow us to organize a meeting of the Normandy format leaders in Berlin in order to "take a new step towards peaceful settlement." As reported, the full and comprehensive ceasefire regime was established in Donbas on July 27. However, the occupiers violated the regime by firing a grenade launcher near the village of Shumy on July 28 and near Novoluhanske village on July 29. The shots were unaimed and provocative. On July 30, the armed formations of the Russian Federation violated the ceasefire twice. Another 21 coronavirus cases were announced in New South Wales on Friday, with 102 active cases are being treated in the state. The new cases were identified across Sydney's south in the 24 hours between 8pm on July 29 and 8pm on July 30, with just two being linked to travelers in hotel quarantine. Of the 21 new cases, two have been linked to a series of funeral gatherings in the Bankstown area which were attended by a woman in her 40s with a confirmed case. Three of the cases are associated with the Our Lady of Lebanon cluster at Harris Park and a further two with the Thai Rock restaurant at Wetherill Park. Six of the newly discovered cases are associated with The Apollo restaurant in Potts Point and two positive tests with the Mounties Club. Six new cases were identified at The Apollo restaurant in Potts Point, Sydney (pictured) in the 24 hours to 8pm Thursday A coronavirus infected couple dined at the Thai Rock restaurant in Potts Point before attending The Apollo and the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in Rushcutter's Bay The couple had also spent time at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in Rushcutter's Bay which was alerted to the new cases on Tuesday Travellers in hotel quarantine are responsible for two of the new cases, while one case was acquired in Victoria. Two are under investigation with the source of the contagion a mystery and one case is linked to a known case that is also under investigation. Meanwhile, two Sydney pubs have been shut for cleaning on Friday as an inner-city coronavirus cluster spreads over the Harbour Bridge, hitting a gym and Woolworths store. Harpoon and Hotel Harry in Surry Hills closed their doors immediately on Thursday after NSW Health advised a positive coronavirus case visited the venue on Sunday July 26. The infected pubgoer, who attended the Apollo Restaurant in Potts Point a day earlier, was at Hotel Harry for nine hours from 2.15pm to 11pm. Darlo Bar, in nearby Darlinghurst, on Thursday said a guest who visited the venue between 12pm and 2pm on Sunday July 26 has also tested positive for COVID-19. NSW Health said the Darlo Bar case is 'relatively low-risk' but the venue decided to shut for a deep clean. A gym and supermarket in Sydney's lower north shore have also been placed on alert after a positive COVID-19 case visited the businesses. The resident, who attended the Apollo Restaurant in Potts Point, visited the Woolworths at Crows Nest and Fitness First at St Leonards, which has threatened to spread the virus to the city's north. NSW Health advised the person was at the gym on Monday July 27 between 9am and 10.30am and visited the supermarket between 10.30am and 11.00am. Harpoon and Hotel Harry in Surry Hills closed their doors immediately on Thursday after NSW Health advised a positive coronavirus case visited the venue on Sunday July 26 Darlo Bar, in nearby Darlinghurst, on Thursday said a guest who visited the venue between 12pm and 2pm on Sunday July 26 has also tested positive for COVID-19 People are seen lining up at a pop-up COVID-19 testing clinic in Rushcutters Bay on Wednesday. Two new testing clinics have opened in the city suburbs of Surry Hills and Rushcutters Bay A cleaner is pictured hard at work at the Cruising Yacht Club Rushcutter's Bay after two members test positive for COVID-19 Based on new information, NSW Health has revised the times that cases while infectious attended the Mounties Club at 101 Meadows Road Mt Pritchard. The warning is for the hours of Wednesday 22 July from 7pm to midnight, Thursday 23 July from 12.01am to 3am and 8.30pm to midnight, Friday 24 July from Midnight to 3am, 11am to 3:30pm and 7pm to midnight, and Saturday 25 July from Midnight to 3am. People who attended the venue must isolate and get tested regardless of symptoms and stay isolated for a full 14 days even if they test negative. If symptoms develop they should get tested again. Anyone who was at The Mounties on any of these days should also watch for symptoms and immediately isolate and get tested should even mild symptoms occur. Other venues where cases have visited include Matinee Coffee at Marrackville where a confirmed case visited on Sunday July 26 between 8am and 9am and then the following Monday between 7am and 7.45am. And the Tan Viet restuarant in Canbramatta where a case visited between midday and 2pm on July 23. Ruschcutters Bay (pictured) is one of the locations for popup testing clinics which have been rolled out in Sydney The Thai Rock restaurant in Potts Point which has had several cases linked to the venue There are now 94 cases associated with Thai Rock Wetherill Park and 57 cases associated with the Crossroads Hotel cluster. There are eight cases associated with Batemans Bay Soldiers Club, and 23 associated with the funeral events and three associated with Mounties in Mount Pritchard. There are also 19 cases associated with the Potts Point cluster. There are 102 COVID-19 cases being treated by NSW Health. Eight people are in intensive care, with four being ventilated. Eighty nine per cent of cases are in non-acute, out-of-hospital care. NSW Health has also revealed on Friday that the Everlearn Childcare Centre in Prestons will be reopening, after a suspected case subsequently tested as negative. The Centre will resume normal operations on Monday. Health care workers (pictured) are seen sanitizing a station at a pop-up COVID-19 testing clinic in Rushcutters Bay on July 29, 2020 in Sydney At the time, she and her partner Ryan Hurst, 28, had been together for a little longer than three years and were on the brink of engagement. But as the cancer treatment started, thoughts of a wedding were pushed aside in a bid to save Ms Gallos life. It was very left of field, the now 26-year-old Kinglake local says. Ive always been in very good health and had no reason to suspect the worst. And, as is the case particularly with ovarian cancer, the side effects can be explained away by other things. Around Anzac Day last year, she finally got her answer: she was suffering from a rare subtype of ovarian cancer and it was stage four. For six months, Rebecca Gallo practically lived in her doctors office. She was trying to find out why she was always bloated, losing weight and why there was unexplained pain around her abdomen. We were ready to get engaged for a long time, but with everything that happened last year it just didnt end up happening, Ms Gallo says. And then COVID hit. Fast forward to today, and the couple is busy planning to wed on their two-hectacre Kinglake property on August 7. The problem is, the date falls in the middle of Melbournes second lockdown, with current restrictions meaning they can't have a wedding with any loved ones from Melbourne let alone their dream wedding with hundreds. There have been a few changes to my health lately and my body isnt as strong as it was last year, so weve decided we would get married soon so I could be as healthy as possible and enjoy the wedding as much as possible, says Ms Gallo. Unlike other couples, they dont have all the time in the world. So along with Mr Hursts father Jeff Hurst, Ms Gallo and Mr Hurst are petitioning the Victorian government for special consideration on compassionate grounds to allow healthy guests from Melbourne to attend. In regional Victoria, up to 20 people can attend a wedding at a venue. However, since their property is a private residence, a maximum of five visitors are allowed in addition to the members of the household. Jeff has really taken the lead in this, talking with MPs, getting together everyones details and figuring out what the government needs from us, Ms Gallo says. Its more than likely that we will still get married on that day regardless, and hopefully towards the end of the year we can have a bigger celebration. A Korean boat on the East Sea. Circa 1900s. Robert Neff Collection By Robert Neff Life aboard the Two Brother became too unbearable for some of the crew and they decided to take their chances with the sea. It is not clear how, but soon Melville Kelsey (23), Thomas McGuire (21), David Barnes (20), and Edward Brailey (18) soon found themselves in one of the small wooden boats the whaler used to hunt down whales. Perhaps they did it in the middle of the night while on watch or maybe, while giving chase to a whale and out of view of the ship, they decided to desert and set out for Japan. At this time of year, storms often terrorized the region, but they were fortunate and met only with powerful winds that forced them west, toward the hostile Korean peninsula. They eventually crashed on the east coast of Korea, about 30 miles south of Wonsan City near Toncheon in Kangwon province, their boat, stoved in, was rendered useless and they found themselves marooned on the "hostile shores" of Korea. They were the first known Americans to set foot in Korea. Almost immediately they were discovered by the Korean villagers. According to the Korean reports, the small boat was seen in the evening being blown to shore by the wind. The boat was badly damaged and the four strangers were in a dire situation. Their appearance had caused alarm throughout the region. A minor official tried to talk with the Westerners but, because he did not speak English and they did not speak Chinese or Korean, they had to resort to gestures and signs. According to the Korean official, the Americans kept bowing and gesturing they wished to be saved. The rugged coast of Gangwon Province circa 1930s. Robert Neff Collection A sketch of one of the sailors. Song Byoung-gi, "Korea's First Meeting with Americans," Gojuwon Publishing, 2005 Through gestures, the Americans were told to leave but after an examination of the small boat, it was determined to be unseaworthy. Much to the Americans' surprise, they were fed and well-treated by the Koreans. Like other shipwrecked survivors, they were quickly confined to an area and guarded to prevent them from leaving or being molested by the native population, while waiting for instructions from the Korean central government. Finally, after a month of captive care, orders were received and the four Americans were taken by horseback to the Manchurian border, and handed over to the Chinese magistrate there. The men were escorted by a Manchurian magistrate and his men to the Chinese capital, Peking. On the journey to Peking they were forced to stop and rest for the night, and each time they stopped, they were treated well, but placed in jail cells and guarded. China in the 1850s was still a dangerous place for Westerners, especially away from the Western enclaves on the coast, and the men probably wondered what would become of them. Once they reached Peking they were again placed in cells but they were greatly relieved to discover there were Russian missionaries in the city. The Russian missionaries were not able to speak much English, but they occasionally visited the Americans and provided them with food and clothing. For nearly three weeks they were confined before the missionaries relayed to them through writing that they were to be taken to Shanghai and released. Gangwon province in the 1930s. Robert Neff Collection The subsequent trip from Peking to Shanghai and the treatment they received at the hands of the Chinese was far different from the earlier treatment they had received from the Koreans and Manchurians. They were poorly supplied at the beginning of the journey to Shanghai and given only a small allowance on which to live. This allowance was reduced daily as their Chinese escort increased their own profits at the expense of the Americans. The Americans would not be the last to complain of the difference of treatment given to them by the allegedly hostile Koreans and the friendly Chinese. They arrived in Shanghai in late December 1855 and reported their circumstances to the American consul there. They were questioned about their adventures in Korea, but because they were "very unsophisticated young men" they were unable to provide much information other than they had seen no women while in Korea. Deemed as "not [having] profit[ed] much by their opportunities of travel," they were eventually sent back to their ship, where they made amends with Captain Childs and were allowed to finish the voyage. When the ship returned to New Bedford a couple of years later there was no mention in the local press (that I could find) of the desertion incident. Most of the crew appear to have given up whaling, at least in New Bedford, and, like the desertion incident and the subsequent landing in Korea, disappear from the pages of history. China in the 1930s. Robert Neff Collection Haiti - News : Zapping... Covid-19 : traditional remedies preliminary results On Thursday, the Commission for the Inventory and Assessment of Traditional Medicines Used against the Coronavirus Covid-19, presented the preliminary results of its work. This structure analyzed more than 70 recipes which, according to it, have given convincing results in the fight against the disease. However, the commissioners concede that their work is very limited, calling for further research. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31414-haiti-news-zapping.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-30988-icihaiti-covid-19-conditional-support-from-the-ministry-to-traditional-remedies.html Death of former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-Hui Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe learned with sadness the news of the death of former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-Hui on Thursday, July 30, 2020 at the age of 97. A great friend of Haiti and the first native of Taiwan to become president elected by universal suffrage, Mr. Lee Teng-Hui largely contributed to the democratization of his country during his mandate from 1988 to 2000. His commitment, his efforts and his role in his country's political transition after the dictatorship earned him the nickname "Mr. Democracy". On behalf of the Government of the Republic of Haiti, Prime Minister Jouthe expresses his sympathies to the government and the Taiwanese people terribly affected by this disappearance. "I extend to the Taiwanese people the condolences of the Haitian people on the death of Lee Tang-hui who was the first President elected by direct universal suffrage. I salute his memory and his contribution to the good relations that exist today between Haiti and Taiwan," President of the Republic of Haiti Jovenel Moise "I offer my sincere condolences to the Taiwanese people on the passing of former President Lee Teng-hui," Chancellor Claude Joseph. Did you know ? The Water and Sanitation project of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID-Haiti) awarded a grant of $167,000 as part of its Business Acceleration Fund at the State University of Haiti (UEH) to expand its existing soil laboratory at the Henry Christophe Campus to perform drinking water tests. This is the first project of its kind in the North of Haiti. These efforts will help Haiti provide quality drinking water to all Haitians. 200,000 barrels of diesel arrive A cargo of 200,000 barrels of diesel and 59,000 barrels of kerosene will arrive, this Saturday, August 1, 2020, aboard the boat "Unique Guardian", informs the Office of Monetization of Development Assistance Programs (BMPAD) which invites the population to keep his calm. HL/ HaitiLIbre A mosque in Sydney has been given permission to let up to 400 worshippers celebrate Eid al-Adha - even though coronavirus clusters have emerged from churches and funerals. Worshippers will gather at the Auburn Gallipoli Mosque in western Sydney over the weekend to celebrate one of the holiest days on the Islamic calendar. Attendees will be subject to temperature checks, have to sign-in, wear a mask, and bring their own prayer mats. They will also need to observe social distancing rules while praying. They will be split into four zones, which include two levels of the mosque, a function hall and the carpark, and each area would be limited to 100 people under coronavirus restrictions. The mosque will only allow a maximum of 400 people attending - far fewer than the several thousand who normally gather for the Eid celebration. The mosque's one-off exemption comes after two cases of coronavirus were linked to a church and four more were tied to a funeral service in Sydney. Worshippers will gather at the Auburn Gallipoli Mosque in western Sydney (pictured) over the weekend to celebrate one of the holiest days on the Islamic calendar Attendees will be subject to temperature checks, sign-in sheets, will need to wear a mask, bring their own prayer mats and be required to follow social distancing rules while praying (pictured, Worshippers celebrating Eid al-Adha in Melbourne in 2017) The mosque's president Abdurrahman Asaroglu said they have implemented the appropriate measures to reduce the risk of a coronavirus outbreak occurring during the annual event. 'Our community is really understanding and they are OK to follow these measures no shaking hands, no hugging making sure that they just pray,' Dr Asaroglu told ABC. 'If everyone does the right thing I don't think there will be any issues.' In 2019, nearly 3,000 worshippers attended Eid al-Adha prayers at the mosque and thousands more spilled onto the streets nearby. Dr Asargolu said the large attendance that occurred last year would not be replicated this year. He said if more than 400 people arrive at the mosque, they would be turned away. 'If anybody is not abiding by the regulations, we have security to make sure that they are excluded,' he said. They would be split into four zones which include two levels of the mosque, a function hall and the carpark and each area would be limited to 100 people under coronavirus restrictions (pictured: Worshippers at a Sydney mosque in 2017) The mosque's exemption comes after two cases of coronavirus were linked to a church and four more were tied to a funeral service located at another church in NSW (pictured: Our Lady of Mt Carmel Catholic Church at Mt Pritchard where a coronavirus outbreak occurred) Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was concerned with larges gatherings at places of worship. Mr Morrison, who is a devout Christian, said he and wife Jenny had not been to church in months. 'I know faith is very important to people, but even at times like this, it's even more important that we don't gather in those large groups,' he told 2GB radio on Friday. 'As important as faith is, that we really do think of the health issues here. 'I just want to encourage everyone to make positive decisions when it comes to how they choose to celebrate their faith over this important time for that (Islamic) community.' NSW Health said the mosque was granted an exemption as it had proven to the department they had developed a comprehensive COVID-19 Safety Plan. A woman, in her 40s, from Fairfield was diagnosed with coronavirus on July 23 and had attended five funerals over four days (pictured: A medical professional conducts a COVID-19 test in Sydney on Thursday) The infected woman went to St Brendan's Catholic Church in Bankstown (pictured) for one hour on July 16 from 6.30pm This comes after two churches and a funeral home in Sydney's west became the source of coronavirus clusters. A woman in her 40s from Fairfield was diagnosed with coronavirus on July 23 and had attended five funerals over four days. She attended St Brendan's Catholic Church in Bankstown for one hour on July 16 from 6.30pm. The woman was also at Ausia Funeral Services at Fairfield East on July 17 between 1.00pm and 8.00pm. Finally, she went to the Our Lady of Mt Carmel Catholic Church at Mt Pritchard for one hour on July 19 from 7.30am. Four cases were identified on July 24 and were linked to the woman including a couple in their 60s from the NSW north coast and another couple in their 50s and 60s. Those who attended any of the same services as the woman have been told by NSW Health they need to self-isolate, even if they show no symptoms, and be tested for COVID-19. USA coronavirus latest: 15:25 PT / 18:25 ET (00:25 CEST on Saturday 1 August) According to the latest figures published by Johns Hopkins University, 17,422,252 cases have been detected worldwide, with 675,584 deaths and 10,207,744 people recovered. In the US, there have been 4,542,620 confirmed cases and 152,940 deaths, with 1,414,155 people recovered from the virus. Scroll through some of the recent coronavirus-related articles: U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is positive about the decision of both houses of the U.S. Congress to increase the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine in the defense budget for fiscal year 2021. U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said this in his remarks at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to an Ukrinform correspondent. "The administration does support the increase in lethal aid," he said in response to a question from Senator Rob Portman about the government's position on increasing spending to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons. At the same time, Pompeo said the current administration was being unfairly criticized for not putting enough pressure on Russia. "We've issued the Crimea Declaration. We've supplied Ukraine with lethal military hardware. We've sanctioned more than 360 Russian targets for everything from human rights abuses, to supporting the murderous Assad regime, to operating mercenaries and proxy forces around the world," Pompeo said. He also stressed that Russia plays a destabilizing role, not only in Ukraine, but also in Syria, where it supports the Assad regime. In addition, Russia is building gas pipelines in Europe to increase its energy dependence, he said. "Russia, too, is a destabilizing authoritarian force in Ukraine, in Libya, in Syria, and inside of Western democracies. This administration has acted to protect our interests and our friends," Pompeo said. op CBSI/CNET A few days after Montrose resident Liza Fisher left a Houston emergency room diagnosed with COVID-19 and pneumonia in early July, her symptoms exacerbated. Her breathing became extremely labored and she felt like she was going to have a heart attack. She spent an entire day traveling to three different facilities in search of medical care for her worsening symptoms, where she was turned away from every location and staff looked at me like I was the plague, Fisher said. She wound up in a tented, makeshift COVID-19 wing outside of a hospital in Cypress and was told to wait. Plastic sheets and tape covered every surface. It was kind of like a horror movie, she said. She was eventually told to go home and try to hydrate herself as much as possible and to call 911 if things got worse. I leave there basically in defeat because I am exhausted and got kicked out of three medical facilities that told me they cant do anything more, she said. For Fisher, a 36-year-old yoga instructor and vegetarian, catching COVID-19 was not a huge concern. But more than 30 days after getting her test results, she said she is still struggling with persistent, life-altering symptoms that have prevented her from working, seeing friends and family and most importantly, beating the virus. I am one of those people who thought I am young and healthy, if I ever got it, it would be a fluke, Fisher said. I was wrong. Fisher is not alone. Self-proclaimed COVID-19 long-haulers or people with persistent symptoms that have weeks-long battles with the virus some experiencing nearly 100 symptoms for upwards of 100 days, according to one recent survey are finding solace in online groups and social media platforms where they connect with each other and share similar experiences of their long-fought battle with the virus. Having a place where I could go and feel accepted and talking about things is a massive relief, Fisher said of the long-hauler Facebook group she joined. Especially living and quarantining alone - you are trapped inside dealing with this. Cypress native Katie Haynes, 28, was one of the first patients to test positive for COVID-19 in the U.S. Months later, Haynes is still recovering and could end up having to take blood thinners the rest of her life due. Its a great community, Haynes said of the long-haulers group she joined in a recent Q&A with the Houston Chronicle. I remember going on there and feeling like, Im not crazy! This isnt all in my head. The symptoms for COVID vary so much that its difficult to know. Fisher said prior to discovering the long-hauler groups, she had trouble finding information on what she was experiencing. Amamravati: The Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) has directed the government of Andhra Pradesh to stop work on the Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Scheme as it violates provisions of the AP Reorganisation Act (APRA) 2014. KRMB member Harikesh Meena sent a letter to Andhra Pradesh special chief secretary for water resources development stating that even calling for tenders for work on the Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Scheme would violate the APRA. Citing letters written by the AP government, Harikesh Meena said granting admi-nistrative approval to new projects vide GoAP G0 RT No 203 dated May 5, 2020, is a violation of Section 84 and para-7 of the Eleventh Schedule of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014. As the AP government has not submitted the projects Detailed Project Report (DPR) to KRMB or the Central Water Commission for appraisal, KRMB has directed that the government of Andhra Pradesh shall not go ahead with the project till the same was appraised by KRMB/CWC and the sanction of Apex Council is obtained. He said the Telangana government has complained to it that AP has begun the tender process for the irrigation project in violation of the instructions of the KRMB. (Natural News) Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell issued the following statement ahead of Wednesdays congressional antitrust hearing. Regarding Googles monopolistic control over the worlds information, Bozell stated: (Article republished from NewsBusters.org) Google is far too big, and far too powerful. That power goes beyond their market dominance, but also their monopolistic control over the information the world has access to. Last week, the entire universe of conservative media vanished from Googles search results in the blink of an eye. Googles glitch excuse still does not explain why it was only conservative websites that were targeted. We demand real answers today. For Bozells explanation of the threat of big tech on freedom, see his July 28 op-ed in the Daily Caller. Its entitled: BOZELL: When It Comes To Big Tech Money, Its Time For Conservatives To Just Say No! Read more at: NewsBusters.org The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Friday announced an extension of the ban on international commercial passenger flights in India till August 31, amid the coronavirus COVID-19 crisis. In a circular, the DGCA added that the restrictions will not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specially approved by it. "The Government has decided to extend the suspension on the Scheduled International Commercial Passenger Services to/from India up to 2359 hours 1ST of 31st August, however, this restriction shall not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by DGCA," read the circular. "It may be noted that during the suspension period due to COVID-19 situation in India, more than 2500 repatriation flights by foreign carriers to uplift stranded passengers to/from India has been approved," it added. The circular further read, "Under the Vande Bharat Mission, in total Air India and Air India Express have uplifted 2,67,436 stranded passengers and other charters have uplifted 4,86,811 stranded passengers during the period from 6th May to 30th July 2020." "To allow gradual movement of passenger traffic during the Covid-19 situation, 'Transport Bubble' agreements have been signed with the USA, France, and Germany. Recently, 'Transport Bubble' agreement has also been signed with Kuwait to uplift stranded passenger both to/from India. More similar arrangements are likely to fructify and ease passenger movements from different countries," it added. On June 20, Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said that the international flight operations will start only after other countries open their air space or borders. Puri had said, "Any suggestion that international traffic has opened up and we are the only one not to open up, needs a reality check. The exact time when we will resume international flight depends on the other countries to be open to receive flights. In absence of a decision on resumption of international civil aviation we are left with no option but to continue what I call evacuation and repatriation flights under managed and controlled conditions." Scheduled international passenger flights were suspended in India on March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Air India and other private domestic airlines have been operating unscheduled international repatriation flights under the Vande Bharat Mission, which was started on May 6 by the Central government. India resumed scheduled domestic passenger flights on May 25, after a gap of two months. The Costa del Sol tourism authority has called for the Spanish government to introduce Covid-19 testing at airports to restore confidence in the travel industry that is still trembling from the blow dealt by London on Saturday night when it announced that all travellers arriving from Spain would have to self-isolated for two weeks. The authoritys president, Francisco Salado, also called for top-level diplomacy to prevent the British quarantine rule having a domino effect among other countries. The call for testing comes after the Spanish tourist accommodation confedertion, CEHAT, offered to start giving foreign guests tests as they leave their hotels. Heathrow backs testing Meanwhile Covid-19 tests at airports are among the alternatives to quarantine suggested by the CEO of Heathrow, John Holland-Kaye, on Wednesday. He said airports should be allowed to test for coronavirus and suggested a double test, one at the airport on arrival and another five or eight days later. Holland-Kaye was among the nearly 50 UK business leaders who signed a letter to British PM Boris Johnson criticising the blanket quarantine rule affecting Spain. The letter, whose signatories include British Airways and Airlines UK chiefs Alex Cruz and Tim Alderslade, said that this latest blow could leave the sector permanently scarred. We are in a situation where the government is advising against travel to areas of Spain that have lower rates of Covid than the UK, the letter said, asking for an emergency meeting with Johnson. "Not an alternative" The UKs Secretary of State for Digital, Culture and Sport, Oliver Dowden, said that there was currently no viable alternative to the 14 days of quarantine and that the testing system suggested by the Heathrow boss was not a silver bullet to avoid a need for self-isolation. CLEVELAND, Ohio Continued unemployment claims held steady last week in Ohio as the state continues to grapple with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the latest jobless data. Ohio reported 423,452 continued unemployment claims during the week ending July 25, a decline of only 220 from the previous week, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Continued unemployment claims represent anyone whos filed for benefits more than once, so ODJFS has said they indicate whether people are going back to work after coronavirus shutdowns. The state did report a drop in new unemployment claims, which indicate anyone filing for benefits for the first time. Ohio reported 27,415 new claims, a drop from last weeks revised total of 30,325, according to data from the ODJFS and U.S. Department of Labor. The latest unemployment figures come as a federal stimulus that provides an extra $600 per week to out-of-work individuals is set to expire. Congress has been negotiating another relief package, but those talks hit an impasse Wednesday, according to The Washington Post. The additional benefits expire July 31, but Ohio sent out its last round of extra $600 payments for the week ending July 25, ODJFS said. Across the U.S., another 1.4 million Americans filed new unemployment claims during the week ending July 12, an increase of 12,000 over the previous week, according to the Department of Labor. The coronavirus caused the U.S. economy to shrink 32.9 percent in the quarter from April through June, a record for a single quarter, according to a report released Thursday. The previous worst quarterly contraction, 10 percent, occurred in 1958. Continued unemployment claims have been steadily declining in Ohio since hitting a peak of 776,302 for the week ending April 25, but the decreases have slowed in recent weeks. The state averaged roughly 70,000 continued jobless claims per week in February and early March, before Gov. Mike DeWine ordered businesses to close and issued a stay-at-home order to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Ohio has received more than 1.5 million new unemployment claims since the pandemic struck, which is more than the combined total for the past three years. New unemployment claims peaked at a state-record 272,188 during the week ending March 28. The ODJFS has distributed more than $5.7 billion in unemployment benefits to 764,000 people since the pandemic struck. The agency said it has processed 94 percent of the more than 1 million jobless applications its received over that time. The ODJFS has also distributed more than $4.7 billion in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits to more than 492,000 people. The federal government set up the PUA program for self-employed workers and independent contractors who do not qualify for traditional unemployment benefits. Read more from cleveland.com: Ohioans can now get 20 more weeks of unemployment benefits: What you need to know State of Ohio asks feds for more than $3 billion loan to fund unemployment claims Ohios unemployment rate improved in May but still remains near historic high FAQ: Everything you need to know about getting Ohio unemployment amid coronavirus outbreak The White House on Friday condemned China's decision to delay an election in Hong Kong by one year due to the coronavirus pandemic even as Donald Trump continues floating the idea about the US election slated for November. Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump administration officials "condemn the Hong Kong government's decision to postpone for one year its legislative ... elections, and to disqualify opposition candidates. This action undermines democratic processes and freedoms that have underpinned Hong Kong's prosperity." "This is only the most recent [of] a growing list of broken promises by Beijing," she added. That came less than 24 hours after the US president again signalled he would support even prefer the 3 November election in the United States be delayed, arguing a massive increase in mail-in ballots due to fears about voting in person inevitably will lead to widespread fraud. "I want an election and a result, much, much more than you," Mr Trump said at the White House on Thursday evening. "I don't want to delay. I want to have the election. But I also don't want to have to wait three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing, and the election doesn't mean anything." The president help up print outs of recent media reports detailing problems with mail-in ballots. The list included reporting from major US media outlets like The Washington Post and others. Mr Trump, citing those reports, warned that big number of ballots suggesting enough to change the election's outcome could arrive late, causing uncertainty for weeks or even years. "Do I want to see a date change?" Mr Trump asked rhetorically before answering himself: "No, but I don't want to see a crooked election." That comment came in response to a reporter's question, during an evening coronavirus briefing, about his morning tweet all but endorsing an election day something he does not have the power to do because the US Constitution hands the power of setting the election date to Congress. That set off a day-long scramble by some of his closest congressional GOP allies to knock down the idea. Among them was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who told said the November election date is etched in stone. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy also chimed in, saying the 3 November election should go forward. Mr Trump and top aides tried to walk back the tweet, saying the president was referring to an election conducted exclusively or mostly by mail. Democrats are accusing Mr Trump of realising he is trailing former Vice President Joe Biden badly in polls, and creating a potential way to stay in office longer. For his part, Mr Biden on Thursday evening said he saw another reason for Mr Trump's morning trial balloon. "He doesn't want to focus on what's going on today with our buddy and your close friend, Jim, who you just buried,' Mr Biden said during virtual fundraiser that also featured South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn, the House's third-ranking Democrat. The former vice president was referring to Thrusday's funeral service for the late Congressman John Lewis. Mumbai, July 31 : Maharashtra's new Covid-19 cases breached the 10,000-level for the third time in July on Friday while Pune's total cases shot past the 1 lakh mark. Besides, the number of active cases in the state zoomed above 1.50 lakh of which the lion's share belongs to Pune and Thane, with Mumbai trailing a distant third, health officials said. The state recorded its third highest spike in new cases - at 10,320, down from the July 30 peak of 11,147, besides 265 deaths. The death toll has now gone up to 14,994, while the total cases rose to 422,118 - both highest in the country. According to Friday's figures, there was one death roughly every 5 minutes and a stupendous 430 new cases every hour. The state recovery rate increased for the sixth consecutive day, from 60.37 per cent to 60.68 per cent on Friday, while the current mortality rate stood at 3.55 per cent. The Health Department said that of the total cases till date, 150,662 are active. A total of 7,543 recovered patients returned home on Friday - the highest till date - taking the total number of discharged patients to 256,158. Of the active cases, Pune tops the chart with 49,821, followed by Thane's 31,920 and Mumbai's 20,563. Of the total 265 fatalities, Pune notched 71 deaths to push back both Thane (60) and Mumbai for the second day running. Mumbai remained stable with 53 deaths for the second day, to take up its toll to 6,353 and the number of cases increased by 1,085 to 114,284 now. There were 10 deaths each in Raigad and Kolhapur, eight in Solapur, seven in Nanded, six each in Nashik and Buldhana, five each in Palghar and Sangli, four in Aurangabad, three each in Jalgaon, Latur, and Nagpur, two each in Parbhani and Osmanabad, and one each in Ahmednagar, Dhule, Ratnagiri, Jalna, Beed, Akola, and Amravati. The MMR (Thane division) saw its toll shooting up by 128 to 9,638, while a staggering 3,361 new cases took its tally to 239,783. Thane's cases have reached 93,342 with 2,585 fatalities to make it the state's second worst-hit district after Mumbai. Pune district has 89,231 cases, with the death toll increasing to 2,099 on Friday. With 79 more fatalities, the Pune division's toll has reached 2,741 and the case tally zoomed past the one lakh mark to 102,232. Nashik division has recorded 1,173 fatalities and 34,006 cases, followed by Aurangabad Division with 592 deaths and 17,029 cases, Akola division with 253 fatalities and 7,444 cases, Kolhapur division with 237 deaths and 9,473 cases, Latur division with 229 fatalities and 5,490 cases, and Nagpur division with 83 deaths and 6,263 cases - the only division now in the sub-100 death figure range. All the eight divisions recorded fatalities, while Chandrapur was still a zero Covid death district. Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine stands at 899,557 now, while those in institutional quarantine total 39,535. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) As of today, Ireland has achieved a world first all-island approach to contact tracing apps. Regardless of whether people use the Irish COVID-19 Tracker App, or the Northern Ireland contact tracing app, they can be assured that their phones will be able to talk to each other using rolling, anonymised keys/ Bluetooth handshakes. Both apps now allow people to be alerted where they have been in close contact with someone with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis regardless of whether that person was diagnosed North or South of the border or is carrying the NI app or the Irish app. Speaking today (Friday), Minister Donnelly said: I am so proud of what Ireland has achieved here. We had one of the worlds most successful app launches, with a huge uptake in the first 24 hours. As of today, over 1.46 million people have downloaded it. Now we have another world first, with cross-border interoperability. Public health has always been an all-island effort, and contact tracing has always been undertaken across the border from both sides. The apps that Ireland and Northern Ireland have developed are another important tool in that effort, which will make sure that no matter where you are on the island, you can be sure that your app will work and you can be notified of any close contacts if you need to be. As we head into a Bank Holiday weekend and enjoy some time off, I want to ask people once again to keep your gatherings small, know who you are in contact with, and download the app from the Apple or Play stores, to stay safe and to protect each other. Notes to the Editor Further information including detailed privacy and data use information is available on covidtracker.ie WINNIPEG - Students in Manitoba are to be back in the classroom in September, although many in high school will continue to do some of their learning remotely. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Manitoba Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen speaks during a COVID-19 live-streamed press conference at the legislature in Winnipeg, Tuesday, March 31, 2020. The provincial government says most Manitoba students will be back in class on Sept. 8., but there will be new guidelines to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods WINNIPEG - Students in Manitoba are to be back in the classroom in September, although many in high school will continue to do some of their learning remotely. The province released its plan Thursday on how it will reopen schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kids from kindergarten to Grade 8 are to be in classes full time. High schools, where physical distancing requirements may be harder to enforce, will have to offer at least two days of classroom instruction per six-day school cycle. "As a department of education, our desire is that all students are back five days a week ... but it has to work within the public health guidelines," Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen said. The Manitoba School Boards Association said most high schools will be hard-pressed to accommodate full-time classroom learning. "Five days a week is likely not feasible under the current circumstances for the vast majority of high schools," association president Alan Campbell said. Unlike Ontario's plan, also released Thursday, Manitoba is not making face masks for students or staff mandatory. "It's not part of our plan right now ... but we're continuing to review all these things and we'll continue to update as needed," said Dr. Brent Roussin, the province's chief public health officer. Schools will be asked to ensure that students are separated by two metres as much as possible. Where that can't be done, students are to be grouped into cohorts of up to 75 and remain apart from other groups. Lunch and recess breaks are to be staggered to minimize congestion and in many cases teachers will change classrooms instead of students. Buses will run at reduced capacity and parents will be asked to take their children to school if they can. In some schools, resource rooms and other areas may have to be converted to classrooms to ensure students can maintain physical distancing. There will also be increased screening of visitors and more cleaning of surfaces. To pay for the new requirements, the government wants school boards to use $48 million they saved when schools were closed in March. The Manitoba Teachers' Society said that may not be enough. 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. "We are certainly hoping that when it's necessary, and where it's necessary, that the province is willing to step in with financial assistance to ensure everybody's safety in schools," society president James Bedford said. Bedford also said some school divisions will need help attracting more substitute teachers to fill in for educators who feel sick and have to stay home. The Opposition New Democrats said the government is not offering schools enough money to adapt. "It's only maybe $220, $240 dollars per student," NDP Leader Wab Kinew said. "That may not be enough even to cover the cleaning and protective equipment costs for a given school year." This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2020 Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Some sun this morning with increasing clouds this afternoon. Much colder. High 22F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low near 10F. Winds light and variable. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called for efforts to address the scourge of human trafficking by reducing gender inequality. In a message on the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, which falls on July 30, Guterres said women and girls already account for more than 70 percent of detected human-trafficking victims, and today are among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has exposed and exacerbated many global inequalities, created new obstacles on the path to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and left millions of people at greater risk of being trafficked for sexual exploitation, forced labor, forced marriage and other crimes, he said. With previous downturns showing that women face a harder time getting paid jobs back in the aftermath of crisis, vigilance is especially important at this time, he said. "If the world is to put human dignity and human rights at the center of the COVID-19 response and recovery, we need to do more to protect trafficking victims and prevent vulnerable people from being exploited by criminals. On this World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, let us pledge to work for inclusive societies and economies that leave no one behind." Women make up 49 percent and girls 23 percent of all victims of human trafficking. Sexual exploitation is the most common form of exploitation (59 percent share), followed by forced labor (34 percent share), according to UN data. Bengaluru, July 31 : Karnataka has registered 5,483 new Covid cases, raising the state's tally to 1.24 lakh, even as 84 more patients succumbed to the virus, a health official said on Friday. "On Friday, 5,483 new positive cases wre reported and 3,130 people discharged," said Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey. As the epicentre of the pandemic in the southern state, Bengaluru reported another 2,000 plus infections with 2,220 cases, raising the city tally to 55,544, out of which 37,618 are active. Though Bengaluru has been accounting for the highest number of cases everyday for the past several days, newer places have also started witnessing infection spikes of late. Ballari accounted for 340 cases, followed by Belagavi (217), Udupi (213), Dakshina Kannada and Mysuru (204 each), Dharwad (180), Shivamogga (158) and Kalaburagi (144) among others. Meanwhile, 84 more patients succumbed to the virus in the past 24 hours, increasing the state's toll to 2,314. On a positive note for the second day, more than 3,000 patients have been discharged, raising the total number of discharges to 49,788. Of the total 1.24 lakh cases, active cases currently stand at 72,005. Katzs Delicatessen has launched local delivery, directly from its website the owners of the iconic Lower East Side restaurant concluding they can offer a better deal than third party delivery companies like Seamless and Grubhub. Citing both the COVID-19 crisis and frustration from ever-increasing fees levied by third party delivery services, owner Jake Dell told us that Katzs has decided to handle delivery itself, avoiding increased pricing on their end, and on the customer side as well. Were in a pandemic. Its obviously a tough situation and we all need to watch our dollars, Dell said. Once the fee cap was set at 15% by the New York City Council back in May to alleviate COVID-19 financial pressures, food delivery apps ended up passing more fees on to consumers, Dell explained. Now Dell wants to encourage customers to go to directly to local restaurants when possible. Not all restaurants offer direct delivery, but he said, its wise to give them a call first, before going online to third-party delivery apps. These companies offered a lot of support, publicly, when the pandemic first hit, but, Dell noted, when push came to shove, some of them didnt actually step up and work with the restaurants to help them out financially. Also, Dell said, The tip doesnt go to the guy making the sandwiches, it goes to the currier. If you go directly to the restaurant for delivery, Katzs (and other local spots) can make sure employees preparing your food get a little extra cash in their pocket, which is desperately needed these days. Katz is currently offering no-fee delivery to the first 132 local customers who use the site, using code: SINCE1888, for any order south of 42nd Street in Manhattan. Someone had the ingenuity and foresight to say, Hey listen, these properties arent making it over here, Agpawa said of Weitzman. He had the vision A good businessman can see, I got the highways right here and I need to get my cargo right here. Its a no brainer. Panaji, July 31 : Stressing adequate precautions related to Covid-19, Goa RSS chief Lakshman Behare said on Friday that people should not attend large gatherings in temples or open areas to mark the start of Ram temple construction at Ayodhya on August 5 and instead stay at home and celebrate. "We have to follow precautions related to Covid-19. Organise small meetings at homes, instead of assembling in large numbers in temples near our homes. We have to protect ourselves from Covid-19," Behare told reporters while talking on the foundation stone-laying ceremony in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. The state Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Sanghachalak also said that the beginning of the construction work was a "matter of pride for the Hindus" and urged people to light lamps in their homes after the conclusion of the 'bhumi pujan' ceremony on August 5. "This is an opportunity to create awareness about the Hindu identity. It should be utilised to the fullest. We should watch the religious ceremony from the comforts of our homes," Behare said. "We should also pray for the quick construction of the temple," the RSS leader said. Latest updates on Ayodhya Ram Temple Bhumi Pujan (Natural News) In case you missed it, Americas Frontline Doctors held a major summit on Capitol Hill the other day to discuss what they described as a massive disinformation campaign concerning the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). And in response, the mainstream media and Big Tech went on a massive smearing and censorship spree to dissuade the public from hearing and believing the claims that were made. Early on, alt-media outlets like Breitbart News had streamed the event on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Periscope, only to have each of these tech giants systematically remove the video later for allegedly violating their community standards. As a result, the video is now having to be bootlegged on free speech platforms like Brighteon, where it is now available for viewing. You can also watch the video stream as it originally aired below: As you will quickly notice, these doctors know what they are talking about, and are not afraid to say it. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people tuned in for the live event, and the information quickly spread like wildfire, which is why the tech cabal swept into action to censor it, followed by smear stories in the media about how these credentialed medical doctors are all quacks. I personally covered the segment with Dr. Stella Immanuel, who offered a powerful account of how hydroxychloroquine combined with zinc and Zithromax (azithromycin) has resulted in a 100 percent cure rate among the 350-plus patients she has cared for, and counting, since the plandemic began. Dr. Immanuels testimony was fiery, direct and unequivocal as she called out the real medical frauds like Anthony Fauci and his followers, who clearly do not want to see people heal, and would rather keep everybody locked down and wearing their masks forever. Sadly, Dr. Immanuel is now having her name and reputation trashed by the very same people who are marching around screaming that black lives and black voices matter. Far-left media outlets are comparing her to a witch doctor, for instance, and leftists everywhere are decrying her as a fake doctor, even though she truly is a frontline doctor who treats Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) patients daily with 100 percent success. The plandemic would be over by now if Democrats and Fauci would just get out of the way already Because the Americas Frontline Doctors summit received so much attention so quickly, it is now nowhere to be found online, at least at any of the major tech platforms. Facebook, YouTube, Google, Twitter, Periscope, and Vimeo have all banned it for containing dangerous information about the plandemic, and on Facebook and Twitter specifically it is no longer possible to even share Natural News or Brighteon links, including the Brighteon video embedded above. The medical deep state is hellbent on withholding the hydroxychloroquine-plus-zinc treatment option from the general public for as long as possible, all to ensure that remdesivir, in which Fauci has a direct financial stake, as well as the slew of vaccines currently in development by Bill Gates and others, are what get presented as the cures once they are ready for release. It is all a scam, in other words, which was the whole point of the Americas Frontline Doctors summit. These brave practitioners who are tired of the public being hoodwinked and lied to about this plandemic want the world to know that there are solutions available right now that would allow for the economy and life in general to reopen as normal but the medical deep state, including its Democrat lackeys, want nothing to do with it. For more related news about medical corruption and deep state lies about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) plandemic, be sure to check out Pandemic.news. Sources for this article include: Breitbart.com Brighteon.com NaturalNews.com Are Siddhant Chaturvedi and Navya Naveli Nanda dating? This viral fan theory is attracting a lot of attention The ministry also said producers should be advised to ensure that any incident that distorts the defence forces image be prevented. New Delhi: To prevent any distorted depiction of the Indian Army in films and Web series, the Defence Ministry has asked filmmakers to obtain a no-objection certificate from it before the telecast of any film, documentary or Web series on Army themes. The ministry also said producers should be advised to ensure that any incident that distorts the defence forces image or hurts their sentiments be prevented. Some production houses are making Army theme films using content that are distorting the Armys image, the letter said. Sources said the defence ministry got some complaints raising objections about the portrayal of Indian Army personnel and military uniforms in an insulting manner in Web series. In some Web series, the Army scenes were far from reality and gave a distorted image of the armed forces, said sources. Some concerned citizens and ex-servicemens associations had even lodged FIRs against a production house seeking legal action on the producer and the OTT platform, the sources said. FILE - In this March, 1, 2020, file photo, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during a news conference at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani dashed hopes Friday, July 31, 2020 of an early start to negotiations with Taliban insurgents, announcing the final 400 Taliban prisoners whose release is a prerequisite to start talks, will remain jailed. The announcement frustrates U.S. efforts to find an end to Afghanistans years of relentless war. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File) KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) Afghan President Ashraf Ghani dashed hopes Friday for a start to negotiations with Taliban insurgents, announcing the final 400 Taliban prisoners whose release is a prerequisite to start talks, will remain jailed. The announcement frustrates U.S. efforts to find an end to Afghanistans years of relentless war. Addressing the nation on the Muslim holy day of Eid ul Adha, Ghani said the 400 Taliban are convicted of crimes he has no authority to forgive. Instead, he will call a loya jirga or traditional grand council of elders to decide whether they should go free. He said the council would meet shortly. Ghani's announcement was certain to delay the start of negotiations between the warring sides and frustrate Washington's efforts to bring an early end to hostilities, even as they scale down their presence in Afghanistan. It also comes at the start of a three-day cease-fire announced by the Taliban for the Eid holidays. The prisoner releases were part of a deal the United States signed in February with the Taliban aimed at ending Afghanistan's endless wars and sending U.S. troops home after nearly 20 years in Afghanistan, ending America's longest war. That deal, touted at the time as Afghanistan's best chance at peace in four decades, called for the Afghan government to free 5,000 Taliban held in jails across the country and the Taliban to free 1,000 government and military personnel. The releases were to be a sign of good will and a prerequisite to the start of negotiations between the warring sides. On Thursday, the Taliban concluded the release of the 1,000 they were holding, according to Taliban's political spokesman Suhail Shaheen. He also said the insurgent group was ready to hold talks with Kabul's political leadership within a week if the remaining Taliban still in jails in Afghanistan were freed. But Shaheen told The Associated Press the Taliban would not accept substitutes to the 5,000 Taliban on the list agreed upon during the one-and-a-half years of negotiations with Washington. Story continues Ghani in his speech said his government would free 500 Taliban who are not on the list saying it was a gesture of good will. In response to Ghani's announcement, Shaheen called his administration an obstacle to peace. Shaheen told The Associated Press the Taliban freed 1,005 government personnel, militia members, military personnel and police. The last of the prisoners was freed Thursday. We freed all of them as a good will gesture so that they may pass their Eid days with their families and also we announced the cease-fire in order to create a conducive atmosphere for the start of intra-Afghan negotiations, Shaheen said. "But on the other hand the head of the Kabul administration, instead of removing hurdles in the way of peace and intra-Afghan negotiations, is creating ... hurdles and obstacles. The U.N. had expressed hopes for a start to negotiations within weeks, suggesting they may have begun in July, and called on both sides not to squander an opportunity at peace. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Thursday issued a statement at the end of Khalilzad's round of meetings with Afghan leaders in the capital repeating a call for an end to fighting and bloodshed and urged both sides to "seize this historic opportunity for peace. A meeting of the loya jirga would require weeks to collect elders from throughout the country and it wasn't clear how they would be chosen or whether Ghani's political opponent and the current head of the High Council for National Reconciliation Abdulllah Abdullah supported the move. Abdullah was tasked with overseeing the peace talks with the Taliban as part of a power sharing deal with Ghani earlier this year following disputed presidential election results. There was no immediate comment from Abdullah to Ghani's refusal to release the remaining Taliban prisoners. _____ Gannon reported from Islamabad. President Donald Trump failed to draw a large crowd as he arrived in Tampa Friday afternoon. Cameras caught rows of empty space among the barricades organizers set up to enforce social distancing at an event in front of Air Force One dedicated to Florida law enforcement. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we do ask that you maintain social distance during this event. There's plenty of space for everyone,' a voice over the loudspeaker said, according to CNN. President Donald Trump arrived in Tampa, Florida Friday to some supporters, but by the looks of the space in the barricades set up, organizers expected many more Rows and rows of empty space greeted President Trump as he arrived in Tampa, Florida for an event with Florida sheriffs, a roundtable on the coronavirus and the hurricane and then fundraisers Empty rows of barricades are seen at President Donald Trump's appearance at the Tampa International Airport Friday The crowd that did gather stayed clustered together near the front, despite organizers asking that they stay socially distant because there was 'plenty of space' President Donald Trump's crowd also refused to wear masks despite Florida being one of the nation's hotspots for spread of the coronavirus. Nearly 10,000 new cases were diagnosed Thursday But the crowd that did gather clustered near the two podiums where the president and several Florida sheriffs spoke during the 30-minute mini-rally. Most who were in attendance did not wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Nearly 10,000 positive coronavirus cases were detected in the state on Thursday, as Florida remains one of the nation's hotspots for the virus. Trump arrived sans mask and appeared alongside sheriffs, who also weren't wearing masks, to talk about Democratic calls to 'defund the police.' He took shots at presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, former 2020 contenders Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He also talked about what a buzz kill COVID has been. 'I wanted to hug them and kiss them,' Trump said of the law enforcment officers who flanked his podium. 'Maybe in 90 days.' Since the Memorial Day death of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests Trump has staked his re-election chances that voters will appreciate his 'law and order' message. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, who attended a 'cops for Trump' event Thursday in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, are trying to show their support for law enforcement across the nation. 'People like the ones standing behind me, they will not be considered primetime,' Trump said warning officers of a looming Democratic administration. 'With me, they are considered primetime.' Trump has also engaged in culture war issues such as pushing to maintain Confederate names on military bases, as Black Lives Matter protesters have targeted Confederate statues. The president hasn't attracted the same kinds of crowds that previously showed up for his rallies since the coronavirus came to U.S. shores earlier this year. On June 20, he tried to host a large rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which brought in 6,200 according to the fire department, though Trump has disputed the figure. Prior to the rally, then Campaign Manager Brad Parscale boasted about receiving 1 million ticket requests, though a number came from teens trying to punk the Trump campaign. That rally was in the news this week after former GOP presidential candidate Hermain Cain died Thursday. He appeared at the rally without a mask and was diagnosed with COVID-19 nine days later. His staff said it's unclear where he contracted the virus because he traveled to multiple states in June. Enabling printing RGB pixel in one transfer without compromising any device performance WATERLOO, ON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - VueReal is pleased to announce that its multi device cartridge structure enables faster population of a display with higher yield and higher alignment accuracy. Most applications such as displays require more than one sub pixels with different devices per sub pixels. In case of microLED display, red, green, and blue microLEDs are required for each pixel. Moreover, most of these devices are fabricated in different environments using different material sets for higher performance. The common approach is to transfer each device independently to a large substrate. For a 4K microLED display, that means three repetition of transfering of 8 million LEDs into a large substrate which can result in low throughput, low yield and high misalignment. "VueReal's microSolidTM printing approach allows us to make a single cartridge consisting of different types of devices that are fabricated in their best conditions. For display cases for example, the cartridge includes red, green and blue microLEDs and only one time transfer is required to populate all three colors in the pixels" explained Dr. Fathi, VP of Technology at VueReal. He added that "as the cartridges are developed using semiconductor process steps, the cartridge can have no misalignment between red, green, and blue microLEDs (or sensors) leading to higher resolution displays compared to separate transferred red, green blue LEDs into a display." Dr. Reza Chaji, CEO of VueReal, highlighted that "VueReal is working with its partners to bring its cartridge solution to the market for early products such as tiles, automotive and wearable displays. This will reduce the cost of the repair process by over 10 times while improving the throughput yield by over 3 times." He added that "high quality images of our multiDEVICETM Cartridge (RGB) are available under NDA." SOURCE VueReal By Jia Lynn Yang Norton. 324 pp. $26.95 By Jacob Soboroff Custom House. 388 pp. $29.99 - - - The Supreme Court this summer issued two major immigration rulings: one temporarily blocking the Trump administration's quest to end Obama-era protections for young undocumented immigrants, the other allowing the administration to speed up deportations of people whose asylum claims have been denied. Together these rulings highlight the immense power and limitations of the presidency when it comes to setting immigration policy. Presidents can both order and dispense with rules that alter the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, even as it is Congress in the end that writes the blueprint for who can call the United States home. Through distinct lenses, two new books underscore this long-standing tension between Congress and the executive branch and, on a deeper level, the United States' conflicted relationship with its identity as a nation of immigrants. In "One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965," Jia Lynn Yang pans wide across the often overlooked 40-year battle to overhaul racist and restrictive immigration laws passed in the early 20th century. The book culminates in the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, or the Hart-Celler Act, which Yang credits for her own family's immigration to the United States from Taiwan and China - and which has become the bedrock of our current immigration system. In "Separated," Jacob Soboroff zooms in on President Donald Trump and his administration's decision to separate children from their parents as a deterrent to border crossers. In doing so, he illuminates how, in the face of congressional inaction, a cadre of presidential advisers can introduce policies with shocking, unintended consequences. Much has been written in recent years about the 1965 immigration law, which prioritized family-linked visas and ended the national-origins quotas favoring White Northern Europeans. But Yang, deputy national editor at the New York Times, digs into the tectonic geopolitical shifts that led to the law's passage. Along the way, she reminds her audience that the current president's divisive and at times racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric is hardly an outlier in American history. While a Broadway-bound play,"The Melting Pot," opened in D.C. in 1908 to applause from none other than President Theodore Roosevelt, a little more than a decade later, Yang reminds us, prominent lawmakers in Washington were calling the phrase obsolete. "We no longer are to be a haven, a refuge, for oppressed the whole world over. We found we could not be . . . and America will cease to become a melting pot," declared Sen. David A. Reed of Pennsylvania shortly before the passage of the 1924 immigration law that bears his name. The law shut the door on immigration from Japan, the last Asian country whose citizens could still receive U.S. visas, and it slashed immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe for several decades. Congress's actions carried weight across the Atlantic, where Yang describes a young Adolf Hitler heaping praise on the United States for barring "the immigration of physically unhealthy elements" and "certain races." Even the 1965 reform and its focus on family connections over skill sets were due in part to a core group of lawmakers who believed that the law would favor the country's historic Northern European stream over newer influxes from Africa, Asia and other parts of the world. Yang sketches lively portraits of the famous and obscure players behind the legislative fights, like Rep. Emanuel Celler, a freshman congressman who came to Washington from Brooklyn in 1923 and found himself a "lost soul," aching for his wife and baby daughter, but who, like a number of Jewish lawmakers and advocates, became a stalwart defender of postwar refugees and other immigrants. Then there was Takao Ozawa, who arrived in the United States at 19 and petitioned unsuccessfully for the right of Japanese immigrants like himself to become U.S. citizens, arguing in 1915: "In name, General Benedict Arnold was an American, but at heart he was a traitor. In name, I am not an American, but at heart I am a true American." The book underscores how many of the nearly century-old debates over our immigration system remain in play: whether the country should prioritize immigrants with high-demand skills over those with family; whether championing immigrants comes at the expense of working-class Americans; the way immigrants are often pushed to "climb the social ladder"by acquiring "whiteness" and distancing from African Americans; and more broadly, whether our nation will cling to its Anglo-European roots or more fully embrace its growing diversity. At times, the details of the backroom negotiations become mind-numbing. And one is reminded why even historians often shed all but a few protagonists in service of a tight and linear narrative. Yet Yang's voyage across early-20th-century U.S. immigration debates makes palpable how much diplomacy and perseverance are required to win legislative change. That it took the United States 40 years to throw out the majority of its most-racist immigration policies and modernize its system might offer some hope to those who have been fighting nearly as long to overhaul the latest incarnation of this law. The 1965 law had another legacy: the first limits on immigration from Latin America. In "Separated," Soboroff, an NBC and MSNBC correspondent, zeros in on the resulting influx of undocumented immigrants across the southern border and, in the absence of congressional action, the Trump administration's response: a hastily developed policy of separating parents and children without a plan for tracking and reuniting them. Although such separations had been carried out occasionally under previous administrations, Soboroff describes how, only weeks after Trump's inauguration, officials began discussing whether to implement the tactic on a widespread level. The idea was that immigrants crossing illegally, and even some who presented themselves at official points of entry, could immediately be detained and potentially prosecuted for criminal entry, while their children would be whisked away hundreds or thousands of miles to shelters normally reserved for unaccompanied minors. Soboroff quotes one Health and Human Services staffer's email from late September 2017, criticizing the Department of Homeland Security's operations. "They don't understand . . . these types of cases often end with parent repatriated and kid in our care for months pending home studies, international legal issues, etc." But they did understand, Soboroff insists. Many parents, who often couldn't read the English forms they were given, would sign over their rights to seek asylum and to reunite with their children in the United States, while the children wondered why their parents had abandoned them. With the immediacy of cable news, Soboroff attempts to reconstruct the quiet run-up to the public acknowledgment of the policy, including one official's efforts to destroy the internal list of separated parents and children. He interweaves this reporting with his own on-the-ground work as one of the first journalists to enter detention facilities holding the separated children. And he follows Juan and Jose, a Guatemalan father and son seeking asylum who are swept into the maw of the separation machine. "This place is called a shelter, but effectively these kids are incarcerated," a stunned Soboroff tells his MSNBC colleague, anchor Chris Hayes, in June 2018, moments after witnessing some 1,500 boys being held in a converted former Walmart. Soboroff, who acknowledges that he came to the story late, offers generous recognition to fellow journalists and the advocates who saw the looming crisis well before he did - though an index and detailed endnotes would have made it easier to keep track of their findings and given the book a heftier feel. Ultimately, the reporter is the protagonist, providing the book's strength and emotional core, but also at times an overly self-referential feel. Trump signed an order to officially end the mass family separations in late June 2018, following a public outcry, though it's unclear how many children remain separated - in large part because of poor record-keeping. Meanwhile, the administration has sought to replace the program with longer family detentions and to cut down on those even permitted to apply for asylum. Congress is unlikely to act on immigration in the remaining months of this election cycle. And the Supreme Court's decision to fast-track the deportation of asylum seekers means people like Juan and Jose could easily be sent back to their countries before lawmakers ever step in. A lasting solution to the crisis at the border must come from Congress and will probably be as hard-won this time as it was in the 20th century. As both Soboroff and Yang demonstrate, it will inevitably require a reckoning with both the history and the present story we tell ourselves about America being a nation of immigrants. "Like any myth," Yang writes, "the idea easily goes unexamined - exalted and treated as if it were a divine, immutable basis for this country's existence, when it is the work of human beings, easily erased by other human beings." - - - Wides-Munoz is a journalist and the author of "The Making of a Dream: How a Group of Young Undocumented Immigrants Helped Change What It Means to Be American." Tierra del Fuego: marine ecosystems from 6,000 to 5000 years ago Global warming will modify the distribution and abundance of fish worldwide, with effects on the structure and dynamics of food networks. However, making precise predictions on the consequences of this global phenomenon is hard without having a wide historical perspective. A study carried out at the University of Barcelona and the Southern Centre for Scientific Research (CADIC-CONICET, Argentina), analysed the potential implications in the distribution of the Argentinian hake (Merluccius hubbsi), caused by the warming of marine waters. The study is based on the analysis of the structure of the marine ecosystems from 6,000 to 500 years ago, when temperatures were warmer than now. The results show this species could expand towards south and reach the coast of the South America extreme southern area, like it happened in the past. According to the researchers, this approach allows researchers to make predictions on the transformations to be caused by the climate change in the marine environment with important ecogical and economic implications. The study, published in the journal Oecologia, is part of the doctoral thesis by the researcher Maria Bas, member of CADIC-CONICET and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona, co-supervised by the tenure-track 2 lecturer Lluis Cardona, from the Research Groups on Large Marine Vertebrates at the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences of the Faculty of Biology and IRBio, and by the expert Ivan Briz i Godino, from CADIC-CONICET. York University (United Kingdom) and British Columbia University (Canada) have also taken part in the study. The Middle Holocene, a plausible view of the future Researchers focused on the Atlantic coast of Isla Grande in Tierra del Fuego, in the extreme south of Argentina, where the hake is a key species for industrial fisheries. They collected samples from two archaeological sites dating from the Middle Holocene, that is, between 6,000 and 500 years ago, a period when temperatures would be analogous to those we are heading to in the future -according to climate models. "Remains from fish that lived in the warmest periods of the Holocene are specially interesting since they offer a plausible view of the future in the context of global warming. At the moment, the average annual temperature of the sea surface in Tierra del Fuego is about 7C, but during the Middle Holocene it reached 11 and 12C. Therefore, data on the biology of the hake during this period can provide information on the distribution of this species in a near future", note the authors. The presence of remains from other models of hake in the archaeological site Rio Chico 1, in the north of Tierra del Fuego (Argentina), show the existence of a large population of hake in the northern east of Tierra del Fuego during the Middle Holocene. Since then, this population disappeared due to the cooling temperatures and their habitat was unknown. Changes in the distribution of the Argentinian hake In order to discover the habitat of these fish, the first step in the study was to identify the remains through the mitochondrial DNA analysis and make a reconstruction of the size of old models. Then, researchers used the technique of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis to study changes in the trophic position and the use of the habitat over time. This technique enables researchers to get information on the food intake, and the environment of the species that lived in a recent past, since the information is registered in the bone isotopic signal. Results show that Argentinian hake that lived in the Atlantic coast of Tierra del Fuego during the Middle Holocene had a broader isotopic niche and fed in more coastal habitats compared to those in current times. "This information, combined with strong winds and currents of the region, together with the lack of sailing technology during the Middle Holocene suggest that groups of aboriginal hunter-fisher-gatherers were likely to fish in the shore", note the authors. If the environmental conditions of a warmer world coincide with what prevails in the Middle Holocene, the Argentinian hake could be more abundant in the continental Argentinian platform of Tierra del Fuego. "From a fishing perspective, this situation suggests a potential increase of resources in shallow waters regarding Tierra del Fuego with important changes in the fishing industry in this region", highlights Lluis Cardona. According to the researchers, this methodology can be used with other species and in other areas of the planet. "In the future, we would like to know the changes that have taken place in the distribution and ecological niche of the hake and the cod in European waters", concludes the researcher. ### This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. This story is part of The Confederate Reckoning, a collaborative project of USA TODAY Network newsrooms across the South to examine the legacy of the Confederacy and its influence on systemic racism today. The white men stand, immortalized in metal and stone, in parks, public squares and the halls of government. Statues of prominent figures in the Confederacy are a common sight in the South. But the visibility of their monuments often belie the way their lives and legacies are obscured by myth. Like other symbols of the Confederacy, such memorials have been defended for generations as pieces of Southern heritage, or simply uncontroversial artifacts of history. But for many people, they are ever-present reminders of racial discrimination and violent oppression that has never gone away. The removal of statues of Confederate leaders as well as those of others who promoted or profited from slavery and racism has become a focal point of calls for a true confrontation with racial inequality in the United States. As part of that conversation, USA TODAY Network newsrooms across the South are taking a critical look at several such figures to understand who they were and what they believed. *** For more than four decades, a bronze sculpture of the bust of Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest has been featured prominently in the Tennessee state Capitol. A statue portraying Forrest was one of three removed in Memphis in late 2017 after the city found a loophole to legally take down the monument that residents widely agreed should not stand in a public park. But as the fate of the Capitol bust hangs in the balance pending a state commission meeting later this year and after years of debate among Black and white lawmakers, and Democrats and Republicans who was Forrest and why is he so controversial more than 150 years after the Civil War? Among the most notorious parts of Forrest's legacy is his reported involvement leading Confederate soldiers in the West Tennessee Battle of Fort Pillow in April 1864, which has commonly become known as a massacre of surrendered Union troops, many of whom were Black. Story continues Primary documents from a variety of sources refute arguments made by some Forrest apologists including some who have raised the possibility during conversations at the legislature about the bronze bust and Forrest's legacy that he was not responsible for the mass killings at Fort Pillow. "We've been going through these excuses for Bedford Forrest for the longest while, and none of them are holding up under scrutiny," said Richard Blackett, a history professor at Vanderbilt University. In 1868, Forrest gave an interview with a Cincinnati Commercial reporter that was widely published in newspapers around the country. In the interview, he said the Ku Klux Klan had "no doubt" been a benefit in Tennessee. While he denied being an official member, he said he was part of the organization "in sympathy," and later when Forrest testified before Congress about the KKK he eventually disclosed that he was familiar with rituals and practices. Repeatedly in the 1868 interview, Forrest tried to suggest that he had more disdain for white Radical Republicans and Northerners trying to infiltrate Southern politics than he did African Americans, but he still remained fiercely opposed at that point to Blacks gaining the right to vote or having equal standing in society. "I am opposed to it under any and all circumstances," Forrest said. "And here I want you to understand distinctly I am not an enemy to the negro. We want him here among us; he is the only laboring class we have." *** The only known photo of Jefferson Davis in uniform, taken when he was a major general of Mississippi troops, just before the start of the war. The uniform is a Federal Army uniform. Jefferson Davis was a man of many words. He literally wrote volumes during his lifetime and spent the last decade of his life writing about the history of the Confederacy and an in-depth analysis of the Civil War. But Davis (1808-1889) most notably is known for his role with the Confederate States of America, of which he was named its first and only president. Susannah Ural, professor of history and co-director of the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Southern Mississippi, said Davis seemed to be a natural choice for president of the Confederacy. Although he did not support secession, he felt duty-bound to represent his state, which voted to secede, and the new government to which he was appointed president. However, he also believed secession was a right afforded to the states. Davis wrote in his book, "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," that slavery "was not the cause of the war, but an incident." In his preface to the book he said, "the States had never surrendered their sovereignty," and that states should be allowed to make their own decisions regarding slavery. Davis said the federal government was usurping its authority by forcing unwanted laws on the states, first and foremost the abolition of slavery, which was an integral part of the Southern states' agricultural economy. "(Slavery is) the primary cause, but it's not the only cause," Ural said. "When you talk about states' rights, when you talk about what powers the federal government should have versus state authority, one of the central issues to states' rights was the right to slavery." However, she said, determining the Civil War happened because of slavery isn't entirely accurate. "There's never one cause of a war, and things that motivate people to fight in a war change over the course of time," she said. "To boil the Civil War down to slavery is problematic, but the bigger problem was that for decades, we just kind of pushed slavery aside and didn't really talk about it." *** Even in his last days, Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general, had already become a myth a myth that gave a defeated South something to cling to; a means of understanding its defeat. In 1865, Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. His exploits during the war and his canonization by defeated Southerners have rendered him among the most famous losers in military history. To Emory Thomas, who wrote "Robert E. Lee: A Biography," published in 1995, historical evidence shows Lee was a man who lived by a strict moral code, a sense of honor and duty; a great soldier and engineer who rose to the challenges he faced. He was also a slave-owner and a white supremacist. While Lee believed slavery was morally wrong, he did not believe the abolition of it should come through the works of man, but, instead, the will of God. A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee is removed from Lee Circle Friday, May 19, 2017, in New Orleans. Lee's was the last of four monuments to Confederate-era figures to be removed under a 2015 City Council vote on a proposal by Mayor Mitch Landrieu. In an interview, Thomas referenced a famous letter Lee wrote about slavery in 1857. In it, Lee distilled his views as a slave owner on race. "In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it, however, a greater evil to the white man than to the black race," Lee wrote. "The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild & melting influence of Christianity, than the storms & tempests of fiery Controversy." In that letter, and other moments throughout his life, including testimony before Congress after the Civil War, Lee displayed views on race that Thomas described as compatible with social Darwinism a worldview that arose later in the 19th century and early 20th that Western governments, particularly that of the U.S., used to justify colonization, war and imperialism. In 1862, he would free his father-in-law's slaves, as required by the man's will, a matter of weeks before the Emancipation Proclamation took effect. "He anticipated social Darwinism In the evolutionary pyramid of human beings, I think he saw white folks like himself at the top. And African Americans somewhere down the ranks, above American Indians whom he really thought were dreadful," Thomas said. *** Sam Davis Known as the Boy Hero of the Confederacy, Sam Davis' story was resurrected from obscurity in the late 1800s by journalist Archibald Cunningham, founder of the Confederate Veteran magazine. There are monuments erected in Sam Davis' honor. His boyhood home is on the National Register of Historic Places and operates as a museum. Barely 21 in 1863, Davis was hanged for his refusal to give Union Army Gen. Grenville Dodge the names of Confederate spies. I would rather die a thousand deaths than betray a friend, Davis said moments before he was hanged on the Public Square in Pulaski, Tennessee. Davis wasnt a boy, but a young man whose bravery is immortalized as a symbol of the Confederacy and the Lost Cause, said Brenden Martin, a Middle Tennessee State University history professor. The underpinning of the Lost Cause was that the Confederacy was "right all along" and had a right to secede from the United States. All youve got to do is look at the (Confederate) Articles of Secession. The people who brought about the secession (from the United States) made it clear it was about preserving the institution of slavery," Martin said. Slavery was the backbone of the Southern economy, Martin said. And the Davis family plantation was steeped in that economy. Data from the American Battlefield Trust notes that Charles and Jane Davis, Sam Davis' parents, originally owned a 830-acre plantation located in Smyrna. By 1860, there were 51 enslaved people owned by the Davis family. Sam Davis also had his own slave, named Coleman Davis, who was gifted to him when he was a boy. *** The statue of Dr. J. Marion Sims on the grounds of the Alabama State Capitol Building in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday June 1, 2020. Anarcha was at least 17 when the doctor started experimenting on her. The year before, she suffered terrible complications during a 72-hour labor that opened a hole between her bladder and vagina and left her incontinent. The man who held Anarcha in bondage outside Montgomery sent her to Dr. J. Marion Sims sometime in 1845. She was one of at least seven enslaved women sent to Sims by white slaveholders. They had the same condition as Anarcha, known as a vesicovaginal fistula. Sims wanted to find a way to address it. From 1845 to 1849, the enslaved women became experiments. By Sims own account, Anarcha underwent 30 operations as Sims tried different approaches to repairing the fistula. These women could not say no. Neither Sims nor the white men who held them against their will showed interest in their opinions. Deirdre Cooper Owens, a professor of medical history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and author of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology, said if the women protested, they could get beaten, or they could get ignored. Anesthesia, Cooper Owens said, was not in wide use at this time. Despite that, a statue of Sims unveiled in 1939 remains on the grounds of the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery. A bust of Sims also stands in Columbia, South Carolina. New York City officials removed a statue of Sims in Manhattan in 2018. *** Andrew Johnson considered himself a champion of the common man but only when those common men were white. William Andrew Johnson, a former slave of President Andrew Johnson, in front of the White House in Washington, DC in February 1937. In his right hand he holds the cane presented to him by President Frankiln Roosevelt during a visit to the White House. Johnson was freed along with 10 other slaves in 1863. The 17th president of the United States was a common man himself. Born into poverty in 1808, he escaped indentured servitude in North Carolina before moving to Greeneville, Tennessee, where he worked as a tailor, owned slaves and launched his political career as a Democrat. When President Abraham Lincoln died from an assassin's bullet just six weeks after Johnson took office, a fractured country found its stubborn new president lacked Lincoln's ability to navigate the end of the Civil War with nuance and sensitivity. Although Johnson had helped Lincoln end slavery across the land, he now clashed with the Republican-controlled Congress by planting himself firmly in the way of rights for newly freed slaves. He soon grew widely unpopular and became the first president ever to be impeached. Johnson believed in what's called "herrenvolk democracy" the idea that the lowest white man in the social hierarchy should be above the highest Black man, said Aaron Astor, a history professor at Maryville College who researches the Civil War-era South. In 1860, the year before the Civil War broke out, Johnson said white Southerners felt so threatened by the prospect of Black freedom that poor men would unite with slave owners to exterminate slaves rather than see them freed. *** Albert Pike's statue in Washington, D.C., was torn down and vandalized on June 19. Albert Pike is a name well-known in Arkansas history as both a Civil War general of Native American troops and a newspaper editor. Although Pike was known nationally after the Civil War for his involvement with the Freemasons, he gained national attention again on June 19, 2020, when a statue dedicated to him in Washington, D.C., was toppled by a group of Black Lives Matter demonstrators. The monument to Pike was the only one of a Confederate Civil War general in the District of Columbia. Pike was a Boston transplant to Arkansas who initially resisted secession, but followed the lead of his fellow Arkansans in fully supporting the Confederacy and even served as an appointed brigadier general in at least one battle in Arkansas. By the end of his life, Pike had risen among the highest ranks of the Freemasons. Before the Civil War, he had moved from the Fort Smith area to Little Rock to pursue a career as a journalist. He eventually became editor and owner of The Advocate where he reported on the Supreme Court of Arkansas. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Pike was called up to be a brigadier general over a troop made up of several Native American Tribes. He was cited as being an advocate for Native Americans and the wrongs they suffered at the hands of the white man. When it came to African Americans, however, Pikes view of slavery was one that claimed it was a "necessary evil." He claimed that slaves would not be able to hold any other job and that they were treated well by their masters. He even admitted to having his own slave for necessary work. *** Juneteenth Rally hosted by Move the Mindset to protest the Alfred Mouton Statue on Jefferson St. Friday, June 19, 2020. Gen. Alfred Mouton has become one of Acadianas most polarizing historical figures. His statue, standing on city property in the heart of downtown Lafayette, has been the focus of public outcry, protest and legal battles for decades. As support is increasing to remove the statue, most of the controversy over Mouton has focused on the fact that he owned Black people as slaves and fought for white supremacy during the Deep South's most oppressive era. While Mouton is hailed by some as a hero from Lafayette's oldest family who fought to defend his hometown from Union forces during the Civil War, the famous son of former Gov. Alexandre Mouton helped wage another civil war here. Mouton, along with his father, trained the Vigilante Committee in Lafayette Parish, a group that would carry out their own form of violent justice against Black residents through whippings, expulsions and lynchings. From the late 1850s to the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Mouton-backed vigilantes fought against other groups in Lafayette Parish's own civil war. Read more This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Confederate monuments: What Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis believed Theres a new Brady Street spot to get your burger and custard fix. Bettys Burgers & Custard is officially open for business at 1233 E. Brady St. in the former Cousins Subs. The new restaurant is owned by brothers Anthony and James Roufus who initially proposed a venue called Hot Box Burgers for the former Hybrid Cafe just off of Brady Street. Fortunately, even as plans for Hot Box fell through, the brothers were able to bring their dream to fruition in the form of Bettys Burgers & Custard. Fittingly, the restaurant is named for the brothers grandmother Patrina "Betty" Damato, who lived on Warren and Arlington and raised her family there, including the Roufus mother, Marilyn. Inside, the burger and custard restaurant currently features brightly colored walls and a few high-top tables. But co-owner James Roufus says that final touches are still on the way, including an outdoor awning and interior artwork, which will feature photographs of famous Milwaukeeans including Downtown Freddy Brown, Gene Wilder, Liberace and Charlotte Rae Lubotsky, who played the Drummonds original housekeeper on the show "Diff'rent Strokes" before starring in "The Facts of Life" where she was housemother at the fictional Eastland School. Burgers, sausages, custard & more The menu, says Roufus, is representative of both classic Wisconsin culture and global fare inspired by a childhood growing up in a diverse neighborhood filled with Polish, Latino and Middle Eastern families. "Buttered" burgers are the restaurants mainstay, available in single, double or triple form ($5.55, $7.65 or $9.75), topped to order with "the works" (ketchup, mustard, fried onions) or a slew of additional toppings. Sides include fries ($2.75), "hot" fries ($3.25), garlic fries ($4), cheese fries ($5) and poutine ($7) Sausages, including polish, hot hungarian and brats sourced from the Foltz Family Market, are also a feature, priced at $6 each. Theres also a selection of sandwiches including a grilled summer sausage sandwich ($7); a pepito, the Venezuelan steak sandwich with lettuce, tomato, onions, peppers, guasacaca, garlic mayo and potato sticks ($8) and grilled cheese ($5), which can be fully loaded with additional toppings (grilled tomato, avocado, fried egg, fried bologna, tuna, bacon or sloppy joes) for an additional charge. Taquitos are also a mainstay with a choice of jack cheese, jalapennos, carnitas, chorizo or bistec ala Mexicana (three for $6 or six for $10) served with sour cream, spicy guasacaca (avocado) salsa and cotija cheese. Custard comes in the form of cones, dishes, Sundaes and dipped cones (priced $2.75 to $5.25). In the coming months, the venue will also offer shakes and malts, as soon as the restaurant is able to install the necessary equipment. "Secret" menu Customers can also order from a "secret" menu featuring a variety of globally inspired eats. Among them are: The Zapiekanka, a Polish street food specialty featuring a baguette served open-face with mushrooms, onions, gouda and ketchup; The Toledo hotdog featuring a hot Hungarian sausage topped with sloppy joes, onions and mushrooms; The Completo Italiano, a Chilean style hotdog (Klements all-beef) with mayo, smashed avocado and tomato; TheDurham Dog, a Carolinas-inspired hot dog topped with pimento cheese, onion and mustard. Opening hours for Bettys are Wednesday and Thursday from 2 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 2 p.m. to midnight and Sunday from 2 to 8 p.m. Opinion Article 31 July 2020 Excerpts from our recent research paper: Das, P., Fuss, R.; Hanle, B. & Russ, I. "The Cross-Over Effect of Irrational Sentiments in Housing, Commercial Property, and Stock Markets", in Journal of Banking and Finance. Advertisements Residential Vs Commercial People stare in amazement when a PhD in "Real Estate" is mentioned (one must be nuts to over-invest in a doctoral program just to sell more or bigger homes!). Admittedly, a lot of real estate research is geared towards the housing sector which is undoubtedly an interesting area of study, especially due to its relationship with the national economy. But it's interesting to note that a growing amount of real estate research is linked to Commercial Real Estate (CRE), although with a relatively smaller audience. The reason why residential markets get all the attention can be easily explained. Compared to a roughly $30 trillion housing market in the US alone, commercial real estate just about represents half. Besides, unlike CRE which only "wealthier" and institutional investors are interested in, almost every household from poor or ultra-rich has some form of association with the housing market. Yet, for too long, the CRE topics have not been the favorite in public discourse on financial markets and policymaking. Before we investigate why, let's digress a bit - with a good reason - towards an ultra-concise primer on behavioral finance. The rational market with the invisible hand is dead Neoclassical economics believes that investors termed as "Homo Economics" are inherently rational. This rationality is like an "invisible hand" And the famed "Efficient Market Hypothesis" (EMH) assumes that the Homo Economicus is able to spot the right information, interpret it perfectly and then make the right investment decision. What if some investment decisions still, somehow, end up being biased and wrong (e.g. buying assets when it is best to sell or selling them when it is best to buy)? EMH believes that individual biases in opposite directions eventually cancel each other out. A different group of researchers (the "behavioralists") do not necessarily subscribe to EMH. Starting from the fringes of the economic paradigm they have increasingly become mainstream in recent decades. Behavioralists successfully showed that the biases may be ubiquitous and systematic, and cannot cancel each other out to be zero in aggregate. Thus, some assets may be overpriced and some may be underpriced. EMH provides a counter-argument: if the biases cannot cancel each other out, then a group of smart investors ("arbitrageurs") will notice it and take advantage of the situation. For example, they will sell the overpriced assets and increase their supply. If the supply increases, the asset price will fall and eventually reach their fair levels. In some markets with liquidity (i.e., the ability to quickly buy/sell assets), such as stock exchanges, the "arbitrage" argument does hold ground. The machine-driven, high-frequency trades (often) bring the stock prices to their "rational" levels. Due to the "climate change" in finance research, our understanding of investment has been increasingly overtaken by behavioral finance. Behavioralists showed that not only the markets may be biased at the aggregate level, but that many of these biases are predictable. Beyond being prone to biases, investors are limited in their ability to make sense of the available information. Now, we courageously acknowledge that investors herd like sheep and overreact to panic like wild animals. Arbitrage opportunities require (1) availability of an adequate amount of cash and (2) an ability to execute a transaction quickly. Both of these are a luxury in big-ticket real estate markets. One cannot instantly raise capital to buy assets or find an investor to sell assets at the current prices. Of course, one cannot easily take a 'short'-position on real estate in most markets (i.e., betting against increase in prices). Hence, if real estate prices are irrationally high (or low), they are likely to remain so for some time. The Homo Economicus cannot survive CRE markets for too long. If the prices are irrational, the role of sentiments may creep into markets. In this context, sentiments are those beliefs about the market conditions that we cannot explain by facts. No wonder, a large number of studies show the role of sentiments in pricing homes, CRE and stocks. Smart Vs less smart investors Being the same "animals", all investors are prone to behavioral biases, but some are more biased than others. Increasingly aware of their potential biases over time, sophisticated investors tend to (or, at least, pre-tend) to behave more "rationally." The finance literature often shows that big-ticket institutional investors (corporations, funds, etc.) are more sophisticated than private, individual investors. The three markets in question: housing, CRE and stocks, differ in their fundamental structure. Unlike stocks, housing and CRE markets witness much fewer trades and lack transparency. Besides, while housing markets are dominated by individuals (or households), CRE are characterized by institutions (funds, corporations, partnerships) and stock markets by both types of investors. As a result, one should expect sentiments to play the least role in CRE, the most in housing and modestly in the stock markets. CRE is a bit special Our main interests were in examining the cross-over effect between sentiments in one market versus sentiments (and returns) in another. Our findings are revealing: housing and stock market sentiments significantly impact each other. However, while the stock market sentiments respond carefully to the housing sentiments, the housing sentiments get carried away by the stock market sentiments. This finding is not particularly surprising as households are expected to be more irrational. House prices, too, get excessively influenced by stock markets, while the opposite is not true. CRE, however, is special. CRE sentiments have a more significant impact on returns in both housing and stock markets than the sentiments developed within these two markets internally. In other words, stock returns are not associated with the stock market sentiments, but they are impacted by CRE sentiments. It is the same for housing markets too, as they get carried away by CRE sentiments. Interestingly, neither the sentiments, nor the returns in CRE markets are affected by the other two markets. In fact, CRE sentiments and returns are sensitive to their own past and are immune to housing or stock market movements. So what? Although housing and stock markets play a significant role in the economy, they are inter-connected with each other. Therefore, from a policy standpoint, it is challenging to allocate resources independently to either market. Beyond the performance (i.e. returns) of these markets, the policy and investment strategies must also be watchful of sentiments. Sentiments in different markets determine future returns in their respective markets, but also exhibit a cross-over effect on returns in other markets. In particular, commercial real estate sentiments and returns have significant effects on sentiments and returns in other markets, but the opposite is not true. In other words, commercial real estate markets, although of a smaller size, are dominated by more sophisticated investors. These markets provide unique information about the future movement of the overall economy, a fact that has been broadly ignored in public discourse on the economy. Our findings suggest that both housing and stock markets look up to the opinion of commercial real estate investors, whether it is qualified or not. The verdict: CRE is more important to the economy than we had previously thought. We'd be wise to track the development in CRE markets more closely for policy and strategy purposes in the future. An MP of the ruling Conservative Party on Friday blamed Muslims and non-white communities for allegedly not obeying lockdown rules that led to a surge in cases and curbs being reimposed in north England, sparking fury among many who demanded an apology. Craig Whittaker, MP for the Calder Valley in west Yorkshire, one of the areas affected by the recent surge, told LBC radio that Muslim and non-white communities referred to as BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) have not been obeying lockdown rules. He said: What I have seen in my constituency is that there are sections of the community that are not taking the pandemic seriously. Asked if he was referring to the Muslim community, he responded: Of course. If you look at the areas where weve seen rises and cases, the vast majority - but not by any stretch of the imagination all areas - it is the BAME communities that are not taking this seriously enough. We have areas of high multiple occupancy - when you have multiple families living in one household. It doesnt specifically have to be in the Asian community, but that is the largest proportion. Look at the areas. Youve got Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees. Bradford and Kirklees have two of the largest populations in West Yorkshire. Asked to clarify if he was referring to immigrants, he said: Immigrant and Asian population. The remarks prompted a flood of criticism as well as some praise on social media for Whittaker for saying what needs to be said. Many pointed out that several non-white doctors and nurses had passed away after being infected while treating patients. Some posted images of large crowds on beaches in Bournemouth and elsewhere, violating lockdown rules, and of events with gatherings without social distancing. Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy remarked after Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a briefing on delaying lockdown easing due to a rise in cases: Absolutely grim to hear the PM failing to correct these stupid, divisive remarks. Weve just had a huge rise in cases in Greater Manchester in a borough with one of the lowest BAME populations. Time to stop the blame game and give us all proper advice to follow, she tweeted. Nadia Whittome, another Labour MP of Indian heritage, added: Cant you people take a day off from scapegoating us for your own mistakes? This made up nonsense is designed to make us angry with each other instead of a government that did too little, too late. Areas under local lockdowns and new curbs include cities with large non-white populations, such as Leicester and towns in north England. The Johnson government has set up inquiries to explore the disproportionate ways in which non-whites have been affected by the virus. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Africa Police intimidate striking meat processing workers in Thaba Nchu, South Africa Strikers at Sky Country Butchery in Thaba Nchu, Free State, were harassed and intimidated by South African Police Services while demonstrating for safety measures against the pandemic outside their workplace on July 22. Many were arrested. The South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union members are demanding a danger allowance from the meat processing company, which saw increased sales and profits during the countrys lockdown. The workers also want safe transport between workplace and home and onsite facilities for quarantining and treatment. To contain the virus, the African National Congress (ANC) government of President Cyril Ramaphosa reintroduced some lockdown measures, including a night-time curfew, a ban on gatherings and social visits, and school closures for four weeks from July 28. There have been 471,123 confirmed coronavirus cases in South Africa and 7,497 deaths. South African steelworkers strike in defence of wages Steelworkers at the South African Scaw Metals Group went on strike indefinitely from Monday after the firm unilaterally took away workers allowances and benefits. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa members walked out at plants across the country. South African police use rubber bullets against protesting municipal workers in Johannesburg South African municipal workers in Tshwane, Johannesburg, went on a three-day protest from July 21 after the city reneged on a previous agreement to pay salaries benchmarked against other similar-sized municipalities. The South African Municipal Workers Union members faced police firing rubber bullets after damaging property in the municipal offices and surrounding streets in frustration. On July 24, the municipality agreed to a 6.25 percent salary increase but, in the meantime, sought and were granted a court order forbidding workers from blocking streets, causing damage or interfering in municipal business as part of their protest. Nigeria: Protest by retired state workers over unpaid pensions A demonstration by retired state workers in Imo, Nigeria demanding payment of pension arrears led to four of the demonstrators keeling over and being taken to hospital. The protestors held placards saying, We are not ghost retirees. They blocked a roundabout near the state capital, Owerri, causing traffic jams. It was the third such protest by the unpaid retirees, who say they are owed 45 months worth of pension payments. Kenyan doctors in Siaya County protest lack of promotions and personal protective equipment Doctors in Siaya County, Kenya have protested against the Health Executive going back on an agreement on promotions. They are threatening strike action if the agreement is not honoured. County Secretary Joseph Ogutu said the executive was hopeful of coming to an agreement with the leaders of the trade unions. Doctors are also angry about the lack of adequate personal protective equipment (PPE). A Kenyan doctor, Doreen Lugaliki, who died of COVID-19, is believed to have caught the disease from a colleague at a hospital in Nairobi, who in turn caught it from a patient. Lugaliki did not show signs of any underlying health condition. There are 19,125 confirmed COVID cases in Kenya, with 311 fatalities. Liberian ambulance drivers protest non-payment of wages Liberian drivers of ambulances and other health vehicles are demanding their wages for working at a time of increased risk from COVID-19. They said they were not paid for April, while managers blamed the lack of pay on workers not giving them correct details of their bank accounts. There are 1,179 total coronavirus cases in Liberia and 72 deaths. Nigeria: Trade Union Congress warns government its attacks may create instability Nigerias Trade Union Congress is embarked on a face-saving operation, after opposing the recent health workers strike. It warned the government that the recently imposed six percent stamp duty on tenants is in danger of causing instability. Posing as a critic of government corruption, the body stated, Sometimes we wonder if there is any milk of kindness left in our leadership, and called for a delay in the implementation of the duty. The Nigerian Labour Congress has made similar statements claiming to oppose increases in fees without specifying any action to be taken. Middle East Ongoing protests by Iranian workers Protests by workers in Iran against wage arrears, working conditions and the impact of the COVID-19 are ongoing. On Monday, municipal workers in the southwestern city of Yasuj protested nine months of wage arrears. On Sunday, workers contracted to the Ministry of Health demonstrated outside the Iranian parliament against low pay and employment insecurity. Also at the weekend, contracted workers at Beheshti hospital in Shiraz held a protest at the hospital demanding a 50 percent pay rise in line with that given to directly employed workers. US sanctions re-imposed 18 months ago have slashed exports of Irans crude oil by 80 percent, leading to price increases in basic necessities and medicines. Jordanian teachers union under government attack On Saturday, the Jordanian Judicial authority ordered the closing down of the Jordanian Teachers Syndicate union, representing 100,000 teachers, for the next two years. It raided the union headquarters office and detained several union leaders. The government repression came days after the union organised a rally demanding the government implement a wage increase agreed October last year. Wages were due to rise by 35-75 percent depending on experience and seniority. In April, the government announced it was reneging on the agreement citing the COVID-19 pandemic. The teachers syndicate planned a rally Wednesday to protest the government attack on the union. Europe Protest by art gallery staff against redundancies at Tate Modern, UK Workers at the Tate Modern art gallery in London staged a protest outside the gallery on Monday, the day it reopened after a prolonged closure due to the COVID-19 lockdown. The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) members were protesting plans by gallery management to eliminate around 200 jobs from its commercial arm, Tate Enterprise. The PCS has called on the gallery to use some of the governments promised 7 million COVID-19 bailout to protect jobs. The union is currently balloting its members at the gallery for strike action. Unite union negotiates sellout deal to end strike by UK refuse workers in south London borough A five-day strike by around 150 refuse workers in the south-east London borough of Bexley, due to begin Thursday, was called off by the Unite union. The workers, employed by the outsourcing company Serco, were demanding a minimum wage of 13 an hour. The current rate is 10.15. The workers walked out in March over pay, but further action ended following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers also accused Serco of reneging on a promise to pay sick pay to around 30 workers, who had taken leave of absence because of COVID-19 symptoms. Strike threat by Maltese medics over COVID-19 measures Maltese doctors are calling on the government to refuse permits for events of 10 or more people from August 3 and have threatened industrial action if the government refuses. Their call is in response to a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases. They will refuse to perform normal duties and instead only carry out emergencies. The Maltese Medical Association criticised the prime minister for allegedly encouraging people not to comply with public health recommendations made by the Superintendent of Public Health. They also accuse the tourism authority and tourism minister of promoting mass events. German car manufacturer unions agree pay cuts Cuts in hours and hence pay at the German car manufacturer Daimler have been agreed by the unions and will take effect October 1 for an initial period of a year. Thousands of Daimler workers in logistics, administration and non-factory jobs will see a two-hour cut in the working week. The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated the financial crisis facing manufacture. Daimler, which employs 300,000 worldwide, announced 10,000 job cuts last December. It has now upped this to 20,000 in the wake of COVID-19. Cabin crew union agrees inferior contract with Icelandair The Icelandic Cabin Crew Association (FFI) has agreed an inferior contract with Icelandair, after cabin crew previously twice rejected it. The airline negotiated with FFI for several months without achieving resolution. On July 17, Icelandair announced it would fire all cabin crew and begin negotiations with another labour organisation. In the meantime, it expected pilots to cover cabin crew duties. Following discussions on July 19, the new contract was agreed and will be in place until 2025. The airline will only employ 200 of its cabin crew staff when it recommences flights this autumn. In April, prior to the pandemic, it employed 900. Asylum seekers hunger strike in Ireland Around 30 asylum seekers at asylum accommodation at the Skellig Star hotel in Cahersiveen in County Kerry, Ireland announced they will go on hunger strike. They allege that food and water are being rationed at the accommodation and have tried to raise the issue for the last five months. The allegation is now being investigated by the Department of Justice (DoJ). The protestors are demanding the DoJ move them to self-catering accommodation, where they can cater for themselves. By Express News Service CHENNAI: In a grim reminder of the multiple episodes of cow vigilantism witnessed in northern parts of the country, two such cases were reported in the city and its outskirts on Thursday. While members of the Hindu Makkal Katchi are alleged to have been involved in both these cases, that have come ahead of Bakrid, no FIRs were filed by the police officials concerned. In the first case, a 50-year-old man was transporting seven cows to a shed in Kancheepuram, when a few persons allegedly blocked the vehicle and attacked him. The Kancheepuram taluk police reached the spot and rescued the man. They thought the man was taking the cows to a slaughterhouse, said an policeman. In the second case, in the city limits, a 55-year-old man who was taking his cow for grazing was stopped by a few members of the same group in Villivakkam. After enquiring about where he was from, a few members of the group allegedly tried to attack him. Soon, the onlookers informed the police, who arrived at the spot. The miscreants were sent away with a warning. Senior police officers said they had asked their subordinates to be on vigil to avoid such incidents as Bakrid is around the corner. Police reaction In both the cases, the miscreants were sent away with a warning. No FIRs were filed. Senior police officers said they had asked their subordinates to keep vigil to avoid such incidents (JNS) Peter Beinarts two pieces, one in The New York Times and the other in Jewish Currents, are calling for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. Beinart no longer supports a two-state solution, but rather a binational state where Jews and Arabs share sovereignty in the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. This idea is ahistorical, unrealistic and holds Israel to an impossible standard and, if implemented, will likely lead to disaster. Many Jews feel guilty for the plight of the Palestinians. Beinarts way of dealing with these feelings is by elimina... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Alya Nurbaiti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 20:18 537 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066abb57f 1 National COVID-19,Idul-Adha,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,Indonesia Free Millions of Muslims in Indonesia observed this year's Idul Adha (Day of Sacrifice) under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic and health protocols that limited the scale of festivities, but those taking part in the celebration say they can still find solace in the holiday, both with and without their family. Private sector employee Nadia Khairani, who works in the capital city, decided to travel to Bandung, West Java, to gather with her family to celebrate the Muslim holiday, which fell on a Friday this year. It was the first time she had returned to her hometown since the coronavirus was first detected in the country in March, as the government and the Jakarta administration had lifted the travel ban that was previously in place during the Idul Fitri holiday in May. She left with her husband on Thursday night in a private car and got stuck in a three-hour gridlock on the Jakarta-Cikampek elevated toll road, as many vehicles flocked to the toll road during what authorities said was the peak of the holiday's exodus. Despite the heavy traffic, the 27-year-old said she enjoyed the small gathering she had with her family. "I did not attend Idul Adha prayer in the morning. I ate lontong [rice cake] at my mom's house and went to my in-law's house to eat lamb satay; it's just as usual." Similar to Nadia, 25-year-old Dyah Rahmatika also decided to travel home to Yogyakarta from South Tangerang since she did not want to celebrate the Idul Adha holiday alone. I couldnt make it home during Idul Fitri because of the mudik [exodus] ban. Now that flights have resumed and I cant stand the lonely feeling anymore, I decided to go home, the private sector employee said on Friday. Read also: Economic potential of Idul Adha dampened this year due to COVID-19: Minister Dyah, too, did not attend the Idul Adha mass prayer as her neighborhood was among the COVID-19 "red zones", or areas with high risk of transmission, and she was still in self-isolation after traveling as a precautionary measure. The Religious Affairs Ministry, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and major Muslim groups have advised people living in areas at high risk of COVID-19 transmission to perform Idul Adha prayers at home, while those in safer areas were asked to comply with strict health protocols if they wanted to join mass prayers in mosques. In Jakarta, the city administration banned mosques located in 33 community units (RWs) categorized as red zones from performing Idul Adha mass prayers. At least 108,376 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Indonesia, with 5,131 dead, as of Friday. Some mosques outside the red zones, such as the Al Azhar Mosque in South Jakarta and Sunda Kelapa Great Mosque in Central Jakarta, hosted mass prayers while implementing strict health protocols -- requiring worshipers to wear masks, have their body temperature checked and maintain physical distance -- as they cut the number of attendants to half of their capacity. In Yogyakarta too, the Kauman Great Mosque, for instance, held an Idul Adha mass prayer for local residents at 60 percent of its capacity, reducing it from 1,500 to 950 people, so that worshipers could keep a distance of 1.5 meters between each other, kompas.com reported. The MUI also recommended that residents who wished to perform qurban (animal sacrifice) for Idul Adha go to an abattoir in order to prevent crowds during the ritual, and that they have a professional carry out the qurban. Some mosques, including Sunda Kelapa Mosque, decided not to hold the sacrifice ritual in order to avoid a gathering of people in the area. Read also: No mudik ban for Idul Adha, Transportation Minister says However, some mosques reportedly did not strictly adhere to the physical distancing protocol. Civil servant Herning Meiana, who lives in Kebayoran Baru district in South Jakarta, said she canceled her plan to attend the nearby Idul Adha mass prayer since the mosque in her neighborhood did not enforce the policy. This years Idul Adha is different because I am not celebrating it with my family due to the pandemic. Normally I return to my hometown in Surakarta, Central Java, but amid this COVID-19 situation, I prefer not to, the 24-year-old woman said. However, Herning said she was not as sad as when celebrating the Idul Fitri holiday. I think this time, I have accepted the situation. Besides, Im happy because the Idul Adha holiday gives me time to relax. Since I have been working from home, oftentimes I still have jobs to do on the weekend, she told the Post. President Joko Jokowi Widodo also attended an Idul Adha prayer with only his family and a few aides while abiding by the health protocols in front of his official residence in the Bayurini Pavilion of Bogor Palace in West Java. Idul Adha 2020 comes as we are enduring a global pandemic," Jokowi tweeted on Friday, "We make sacrifices by reducing travel and physical encounters while at the same time, we are required to take care of each other and get closer to our families." "Hopefully, this pandemic shall pass soon." Sometimes, heroes outlive themselves. John McCain's reputation would have stood up better to scrutiny had he died a younger man. The same is true for John Lewis. In his heyday, he was a brave and honorable civil rights icon. In his final years, he was an angry, dishonest partisan. The younger Lewis would have been embarrassed by his funeral; the older Lewis would have reveled in it. The funeral took place at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Washington was left empty of Democrat politicians, for they were in Atlanta paying homage, which led some to wonder about their return home: John Lewiss funeral was in Georgia. Dozens of Members of Congress were there. Georgia is on Washington D.C. Mayor Bowsers list of states that require 2 week mandatory quarantine for 14 days Are these politicians going into quarantine, or are rules just for the little people? Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) July 30, 2020 The funeral was fairly well attended. Democrats, who have strongly supported barring people from attending loved funerals for their loved ones or attending regular church services, seemed comfortable with a different set of rules for themselves: Image: YouTube screen grab. Those are just minor issues. The big takeaway was Barack Obama standing before the television cameras and demanding that we do away with the filibuster to destroy the integrity of the American voting system. Oh, and of course, he implied that Donald Trump is George Wallace. The eulogy began well enough, with Obama reciting Lewis's childhood in the Jim Crow South, his history-making commitment to the civil rights movement, and his long career at the heart of the American government. Some might say that Lewis's political career alone, augmented by a eulogy from a black president, proves that the civil rights movement in America was a smashing success, but that's not how Democrats roll. Instead, Obama insisted that America is a racist hellhole, and he stopped just short of explicitly stating that Donald Trump is George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama. He also essentially said that those federal police officers pushing back against violent Antifa terrorists are an army of Bull Connors, the Birmingham commissioner of public safety who used attack dogs and fire hoses against peaceful civil rights marchers: Bull Connor may be gone. But today we witness with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks of Black Americans. George Wallace may be gone. But we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators. Further, said Obama, the Republican party is trying to reinstate Jim Crowera disenfranchisement: We may no longer have to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar in order to cast a ballot. But even as we sit here, there are those in power are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations, and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the postal service in the runup to an election that is going to be dependent on mailed-in ballots so people don't get sick. Each of those statements is a lie: this is not 1790, and voters don't have to walk three days through the snow, uphill in both directions to vote something their forebears would have done for that precious vote. If getting to the polls is a real problem, voters can apply for absentee ballots. Restrictive ID laws affect only illegal aliens and fraudulent voters. After all, Americans need ID for everything else they do. Lastly, the reference to the postal service is a demand that ballots get mailed to everyone in America with a driver's license (which puts the lie to the claim that voters can't get IDs), which is an invitation to vote fraud on an epic scale. (Absentee ballots differ because voters must request them.) Even without fraud, this video of an experiment in Philadelphia shows how risky it is to rely on the postal service to protect American votes: Local news experiment in mail-in voting ends in disaster: "I just dont trust the mail" pic.twitter.com/BUPP5a9TK9 Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) July 29, 2020 Having set the stage, Obama insisted the only way to honor Lewis's legacy was to enact automatic voter registration; re-enfranchise ex-felons; make Election Day a national holiday; give senators to D.C. and Puerto Rico; and, to make all that happen, eliminate the filibuster. In the end, Lewis had slipped from a place on the pedestal that he'd earned through bravery and integrity. I suspect that the elder Lewis would have applauded Obama's demagoguery. Still, I'd like to think the young Lewis, who valued the vote above anything, would have resented these efforts to disenfranchise half of America the half that votes for the party that fought to end slavery during the Civil War and that ensured the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Image: YouTube screen grab. Senate report examines impact welfare programs have on 'demise of the 2-parent home' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Republicans on the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee recently released a report on The Demise of the Happy Two-Parent Home, which points to federal welfare programs as a possible contributing factor to the decline in marriage. The problem isnt just that federal welfare spending enables women to choose govt programs over a husband, it is that the eligibility requirements force women to choose. In many cases if a woman gets married, they lose these benefits!!! Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who is chairman of the committee, commented on Twitter last week. The report examines the state of family stability in the United States and describes policy approaches to ensure that more children are raised by two happily married parents. Researchers have well established that children raised by married parents do better on a wide array of outcomes, the report reads. They have stronger relationships with their parents, particularly with their fathers. They are also much less likely to experience physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. They have better health, exhibit less aggression, are less likely to engage in delinquent behavior, have greater educational attainment, and earn more as adults. They are also far less likely to live in poverty. The report compares the state of family stability in the 1960s, at the dawn of the sexual revolution, to family stability in 2019. In 1962, 71% of women between the ages of 15 and 44 were married. That figure dropped to 42% in 2019. The declining marriage rate has not led to a corresponding decline in childbirths. Instead, the percentage of children born to unmarried mothers has increased dramatically. In 1960, only 5% of American children were born to unmarried mothers. In 2019, the share of American children born to unwed mothers stood at 40%. An explosion in the number of unmarried mothers was accompanied by a sharp increase in cohabitation, where unmarried couples live together as partners. Before 1970, less than 1% of couples living together were unmarried. In 2019, cohabiting couples comprise one out of every eight couples that live together. Studies have shown that cohabitation is no substitute for a committed marriage. While unmarried mothers are often cohabiting with the father of their child at the time of the childs birth, cohabiting relationships are far less stable than marriages, the report explains. In a 2007 study researchers found that 50 percent of children born to cohabiting parents experienced a maternal partnership transition by their third birthday, compared to just 13 percent of children in married-parent households. The rise in illegitimate births, combined with the increase in the divorce rate, has caused the proportion of children living without one or both parents to double from 15% in 1970 to 30% in 2019. When examining possible reasons for the decline in marriage and the rise of illegitimacy, the report points to the expansion of the public safety net as a contributing factor that has been unduly neglected in the discussion. While noting that much work remains in sorting out and apportioning blame for the decline in family stability, the report argues that most welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services to poor and lower-income Americans penalize marriage. Public anti-poverty programs often exacerbated the problem of family instability by making single parenthood a more viable option and by discouraging marriage among those receiving benefits, the report states. A safety net marginally reduces the costs of single parenthood, nonmarital childbearing, and divorce. It also can create a significant tax on marriage because the addition of a spouse with income typically reduces safety net benefits, and if he has only modest earnings or unsteady employment, the trade-off may not be worthwhile. It further reads: Through the safety net alone, a single mother can achieve about two-thirds of the standard of living she could get from marrying a sole breadwinner at that compensation level. The safety net would put her about one-third higher, with no additional income, than the 10th percentile of male compensation. At the margin, more women are able to substitute federal benefits for the income a husband would have provided them in the past, the report adds. The report also examines the marriageable man hypothesis which rests on the premise that men must meet some economic threshold that makes them marriageable to women as a possible cause in increasing family instability. According to that hypothesis, fewer men have surpassed that bar over time. But the report rejects that hypothesis as it notes that hourly pay is as high as ever and mens after-tax annual compensation is higher today compared to 50 years ago. The evidence, then, suggests that men are no less marriageable by the most straightforward metrics than they ever were, the document contends. Offering suggestions on strengthening family stability, the committee breaks it down into four broad categories: messaging, social programs, financial incentives, and other policies. It suggests the implementation of public or private media campaigns designed to advance the goal of family stability. As examples, the report cites a 2013 New York City public education campaign highlighting the consequences of teenage pregnancy and then-Senator Barack Obamas speech on Fathers Day 2008 stressing the importance of present fathers. Theres also a need to create and promote social programs to help people develop the skills and knowledge necessary to prepare for, build, and maintain healthy marriages and families, the report notes. It cites the Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education Initiative, which teaches couples about improving conflict resolution skills, co-parenting strategies, relationship satisfaction, marital commitment, and other outcomes. As for financial incentives, the committee suggests safety net reforms to reduce marriage penalties and providing additional tax benefits for married couples, such as expanding the Child Tax Credit, which reduces tax liability for parents, for married couples. While the report ultimately rejects the marriageable man hypothesis, it says that efforts to improve economic opportunities could help people meet their expectations regarding work and marriage, could make men more attractive as potential partners and fathers, and thus may lead to greater family stability. Changing the course of family stability will likely require substantial effort, given the magnitude of the challenge in many American communities today and the pervasiveness of the decline, the report acknowledges. With the recovery rate of Covid-19 patients improving and the case doubling time soaring, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation is gradually shutting down its small or medium isolation centres, an official said here on Friday. The trend started in early July when the BMC started shutting down its centres in Dharavi - Asia's biggest slum - where the coronavirus spread came under grips. As the city's doubling period has almost doubled to 75 days and recovery rate zoomed to 76 per cent in July, the BMC has initiated closing down or handing back of various isolation centres acquired for quarantining Covid patients. "We have recorded a drastic reduction in the number of active cases and we are confident it will reduce further in the coming weeks. There is a surplus of the facilities with the jumbo hospitals also in operation since April in Mumbai," said the official, requesting anonymity. Accordingly, the civic body has started withdrawing from most of the smaller or medium-sized facilities but with a condition that these would be re-acquired, if needed again, he said. The decision was implemented as many of these facilities are going empty since days and some have barely a handful of patients, making it unviable to continue as sufficient beds are available in the jumbo facilities. The jumbo centres include the Mahalaxmi Race Course, Bandra Kurla Complex, one in Dahisar and another in Mulund, besides similar huge ones in various towns of Thane, the second worst-hit district after Mumbai. Currently, the city has 23,520 beds for asymptomatic or mild patients, 16,413 for serious or complicated cases and 10,916 beds with oxygen facility, 1,753 ICU beds and 1,066 beds with ventilators. Another aspect that prompted the move was many people preferring or being advised to get into home quarantine and hospitals also encouraging patients with serious symptoms. Mumbai has reported a total of 113,199 cases of which only 20,158 are active, while the city has notched 6,300 deaths and 86,447 patients have recovered. Much to Indias discomfiture, its all-weather ally Bangladesh has allowed China to conduct the last-stage human trial of a potential Covid-19 vaccine. The development could be seen as a setback for New Delhi which had earlier assured all help to Dhaka to contain the pandemic. It also indicates Dhakas growing proximity to Beijing, something India would like to avoid, especially in view of its current stand-off with China. In May, India had donated 30,000 Covid test kits to the neighbouring country as part of its emergency medical assistance. Bangladesh was the first country to receive these test kits from India on priority, which reflects the importance of Dhaka to New Delhi, the Indian High Commission in Dhaka said in a statement. However, Bangladeshs latest move seems to have caused much heartburn in India, which has been consistently maintaining close ties with this neighbour. New Delhi is particularly worried over the possibility of infected persons coming across the border once the human trial begins, The Assam Tribune reported quoting unnamed Indian officials. India shares a 4,096-km border with Bangladesh, most of which is porous. It had on several occasions flagged concerns about entry of illegal immigrants to the Northeast, including Assam, something Bangladesh has been denying all along. Dhaka-Beijing equations New Delhis indignation also stems from the fact that Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina apparently did not meet Indias High Commissioner despite repeated requests for a meeting in the past four months, The Hindu said, quoting a prominent daily of the country. It said that all Indian projects have slowed down since the re-election of Prime Minister Hasina in 2019 with Chinese infrastructure projects receiving more support from Dhaka. Prior to Bangladeshs green signal to Chinas Sinovac Biotech Ltd to conduct the vaccine trial on its population, Beijing had announced tariff exemption for 97 per cent of Bangladeshi products effective from July 1. Story continues This came a month after Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a discussion to upgrade their bilateral relations during the pandemic. In June, Dhaka sought financial assistance from China to start work on nine projects worth $6.4 billion, including a seaport, a bridge, Teesta river management, among others. In addition, China had in May expressed its desire to make the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), as well as some other major city corporations, sister cities to tackle Covid-related challenges, according to the Dhaka Tribune. The sister city concept involves a long-term partnership between civic administrations in two countries. Under this, China is expected to provide technical and financial support to Bangladesh to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, dengue outbreak, and other concerns. China encircling India India would do well to realise the fact that China is now resorting to pandemic diplomacy to expand its footprint in South Asia. Over the years, it has made generous offers to Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Bangladesh. Chinese investment, mostly in the form of loans and grants, is concentrated in hard infrastructure power, roads, railways, bridges, ports and airports, according to the American Enterprise Institutes China Global Investment Tracker. Unlike India, China sets its eyes on long-term strategic goals, and it is pursuing them vigorously in Indias neighbourhood through trade diplomacy. Its latest targets are Nepal and Bangladesh that have traditionally remained loyal to India. For instance, China has made efforts to boost its trade with Bangladesh which is now twice that of India about $10 billion. In Nepal, China is planning a railway track connecting Kathmandu and Shigatse in Tibet as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The move is aimed at boosting trade and tourism prospects for Nepal, and easing its reliance on India. In what could be another headache for India, Beijing has now urged Nepal, Afghanistan and Pakistan to join hands in a four-party cooperation to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, and work on existing BRI projects. The development assumes significance as it comes against the backdrop of the months-long border stand-off between India and China. Besides, Beijing seems to have taken advantage of Indias loosening grip over Kathmandu. Last month, Nepal Prime Minister KP Oli made critical remarks aimed at India, claiming there have been various kinds of activities in the embassies and hotels to remove him from power. Wake-up call for New Delhi India must act fast and act decisively in order to gain trust from its allies, especially Bangladesh, in whose creation India had played a crucial role. The Sheikh Hasina regime (of the Awami League) may have its reasons to seek Chinas assistance to spur development in the country, but it would not like to upset India that has always been the first to offer a helping hand during a moment of crisis. Needless to say, India and Bangladesh are close strategic partners in counter-terrorism, and both countries share crucial intelligence on jihadi elements operating in the region. India has been closely monitoring a network of Islamic State in Bangladesh, especially since the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka. The present Awami League government is known for its zero tolerance against terror, and New Delhi must continue providing assistance to Dhaka to protect its interest of keeping the neighbourhood safe and secure. For India, the coronavirus crisis could be an opportunity in disguise if it decides to walk the extra mile to help Bangladesh. To counter Chinas aggressive posture, India should do more for its next-door neighbour, which could be in the form of a joint strategy to tackle the pandemic and vaccine trials. In addition, India must convince Bangladesh to ensure that infected people dont sneak into India. Earlier this month, Indias Border Security Force sounded an alert to check cross-border infiltration from Bangladesh and possible human trafficking in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. (The author is a senior journalist and author based in Delhi. Views expressed are personal.) HANOI, Vietnam A second person died of coronavirus complications in Vietnam, officials said Saturday, a day after the country recorded its first death from the virus, while more than two dozen new cases were confirmed. Both men died in a hospital in Da Nang, a hot spot with more than 100 cases in the past week. The Health Ministry said a 61 year-old man died on Friday evening of septic shock and chronic kidney failure. The countrys first fatality was a 70-year-old who was being treated for a kidney illness. Vietnam reported 28 new virus cases on Saturday 20 from Da Nang hospitals, six from local community transmissions in Da Nang and two Vietnamese nationals returning from Indonesia. Da Nang is Vietnams most popular beach destination, and thousands of visitors were in the city for summer vacation. Across the country, authorities are rushing to test people who have returned home from the coastal city. Fifteen other patients with COVID-19 are in critical condition, officials said. All have other underlying illnesses. Vietnam had been seen as a global success story in combating the coronavirus with no deaths and no confirmed cases of local transmission for 99 days. But a week ago an outbreak began at a Da Nang hospital. It has spread to six parts of the country, including three of the largest cities, forcing authorities to reimpose virus restrictions. Experts worry the actual number of cases could be far higher. Before the latest outbreak Vietnam had a total of only 416 cases. In Hanoi, the capital, where two people have tested positive after returning from Da Nang, over 100 clinics have been set up with test kits to detect the virus. Hanoi has tested a third of the 54,000 people returning from Da Nang. I want to be tested so I can stop worrying if I have the virus or not. It is for me and for the community, said Pham Thuy Hoa, a banking official who recently went to Da Nang for a family vacation. Since coming back, my family and I have quarantined ourselves at home. I did not go to work or see others. We must be responsible for the entire community. In Ho Chi Minh City, the countrys southern hub, five people who returned from Da Nang have tested positive for the virus. The city is testing some 20,000 other returnees. The COVID-19 outbreak is no longer an issue in Da Nang only when we have recorded cases in Quang Nam, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City among other locations, acting health minister Nguyen Thanh Long said. As the number of case continues to increase, Da Nang has tightened security and set up more checkpoints to prevent people from leaving or entering the city, which has been in lockdown since Tuesday. The city on Friday began setting up a makeshift hospital in a sports auditorium and doctors have been mobilized from other cities to help. Hoi An, an ancient town and top tourist destination known for its charming old houses 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Da Nang, stopped allowing visitors on Thursday because of the outbreak. Its pedestrian streets, adorned with lanterns, were empty and nonessential services and gatherings were banned. Local domestic abuse services are continuing to report a surge in requests for help as a result of the Covid-19 crisis. The increase in public awareness through campaigns such as #StillHere, RTE Comic Relief and the Irish Women in Harmony video has had the positive impact of encouraging women to leave domestic abuse situations. Of course, this puts considerable pressure on already strained services. CRiTiCALL Louth launched by Louth Volunteer Centre at the beginning of July is a partnership between the Volunteer Centre, Safe Ireland (Womens Aid Dundalk) and Scouting Ireland Louth. It is the local branch of an initiative originally started in Dublin by St. Patricks Cathedral. The aim of CRiTiCALL in Louth is to support women and children in the area by facilitating the donation of critical goods to those that need it most. Their first donation drive took place on Saturday July 11 and was enormously successful with the generosity of people in Dundalk really shining through. Grainne Berrill, Manager of Louth Volunteer Centre said: We were unsure how things would go on our first collection day but we were blown away by peoples generosity and willingness to give their time to this cause. We were also delighted that we were able to take the burden off the Womens Refuge team as they tell our team what their clients need, such as bedding or other household items; we communicate this to volunteers who collect those items. Our partners St. Patricks Scouts check over the donations and pack them in accordance with the needs of Refuge clients; so women who have taken the brave step of leaving an abusive situation get what they exactly what they need. Grainne added: Financial coercion is a big issue in abuse; the person who leaves the home often does so with nothing and no access to money so unfortunately there is a continuous need to provide practical, basic items for these women and their families. The CRiTiCALL team are holding their next collection day on Saturday 8th August. This donation drive will be very focused on back to school but they have also received a number of specific requests from Womens Aid Dundalk for other items that they need, including electrical goods such as kettle, TV and more. N. Korean Christians facing starvation as regime bans cash aid to defectors families amid COVID-19 Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Persecuted Christians in North Korea are facing heightened challenges amid the coronavirus outbreak, fearing they might not survive because defectors are now barred from sending money back home. Songyon Lee, a Christian living in South Korea, told Radio Free Asia that she'd received several letters from her mother in North Korea detailing the hardships believers are facing during COVID-19. I understand your difficult circumstances as you try to settle down in your new life in South Korea, Songyons mother wrote. But it is a very difficult moment here. Please help me one more time. Songyon said she sent money to her mother back in March, but with the rising cost of food and the supply of imported food rapidly disappearing, the North Korean people are struggling to survive. North Korea has increased border security due to COVID-19, causing many North Korean brokers and smugglers activities to decrease. Earlier this year, the country shut down cross-border travel with China and Russia, restricted domestic travel, and placed diplomats and foreigners under effective house arrest, The Washington Post reports. One broker told Songyon, Im afraid and scared of even making a call these days; there is a real crackdown on North Korean defectors and brokers. Not now, but lets wait until the current level of security calms down, he said of getting money to her mother in North Korea. Persecution watchdog group Open Doors USA notes that the inability to send money affects the North Korean underground church of an estimated 300,000 believers. One believer told the organization: The church cannot survive without food. A March 2019 survey by the North Korea Human Rights Information Center in South showed that six out of 10 defectors had sent money to their family members in North Korea, with the average amount of $2,460 sent each time, according to Open Doors. "Without the defectors' economy, the economic crisis in North Korea will only get worse many will not survive the actual illness and the food shortages created by the lockdowns and a crop-destroying drought," Open Doors warns. The Korean Herald reports that the most recent anti-Pyongyang leaflet campaign sent into North Korea by defectors, might also be contributing to North Korea's crackdown on brokers [from China or South Korea] who, "for certain fees, arrange phone calls and money transfers for defectors ... often bribing the Norths provincial security officials." "Defectors here have been sending cash to and corresponding with their family left behind in the North via Chinese brokers, but that has stopped after Pyongyang delegated the job of monitoring defector families to a central party organ in charge of state security," the Korean Herald said. The news outlet also reports a different average amount of money defectors are sending back home. It says that, according to a human rights group based in Seoul, six out of 10 defectors sent at least one payment back home to their families in North Korea, with the one-time average payment being $1,340 (1.62 million won). Despite the regime's claim that North Korean has suffered zero infections or deaths from the novel coronavirus, its people are facing harsh penalties for not wearing masks during the pandemic. Those who fail to wear masks face at least three months of disciplinary labor with harsher penalties for people caught sneaking into China, a country official told Radio Free Asia. Residents of the border area were threatened that they would face more than a year of hard labor if they are caught secretly visiting China or having contact with Chinese without permission, the source said. Although the regime claims it has no cases of the virus, the World Health Organization reports that North Korea has quarantined 25,551 people over the past few months, and more than 1,100 people in the country have been tested for the coronavirus. On Sunday, North Korea locked down the city of Kaesong near the border with South Korea after finding what could be the country's first official coronavirus case there, according to ABC News. North Koreas state-controlled Central News Agency said a critical situation in which the vicious virus could be said to have entered the country after a suspected patient returned from South Korea by illegally crossing the border last week. North Korea, led by dictator Kim Jong-un, is ranked as the worst persecutor of Christians worldwide on Open Doors USA's World Watch List of countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has also designated North Korea as a country of particular concern for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act. by Melani Manel Perera Fr Reid Shelton Fernando released a statement and an election prayer to underscore the great responsibility Christians have, as voters, to pick people who possess the qualities that will keep the people united and the country free. Colombo (Asia News) - Father Reid Shelton Fernando (picture 2), a a human rights activist, a former university lecture and the former chaplain of the Young Christian Workers Movement (YCWM), released a statement and an election prayer" to underscore the great responsibility Christians have, as voters, to pick the people who possess the necessary qualities to keep people united and the country free. Please, he said, put aside this prayer in the introduction. What we need is to pray in faith as found in Ex 3:7. God listens to the cry of the poor desperate people and the unexpected thing may happen. God can change the minds of people. Let us hope ' [. . .] that the best outcome will be shared by many Christians, including priests and nuns. Let us pray, said Fr Fernando, for God's guidance for ourselves and for our fellow citizens in electing representatives to contribute to the realisation of a future that is peaceful and prosperous, in which freedom, human and democratic rights and human dignity of all the communities are respected. Grant us the discernment to correctly assess their views, plans, experience, character and proposed programs, and guide us to cast our vote for the candidate who will best represent your Divine Will on Earth." The prayer reads: Heavenly Father, you are the Creator of Heaven and Earth, you have created us according to your image and likeness (Gen 1 &2). In the work of looking after Your creation, You have bestowed upon us freedom and the power to use this freedom for the good of all humans as well as all of creation. We have failed in many aspects. Forgive us for our failure. As we are to give our rulers the task of governing, grant all the citizens of this country, the guidance of Your Holy Spirit, no matter whether they are Christians or not; grant all of them the wisdom to choose the best candidate from their respective parties who will not follow the path of selfishness and of corruption. We pray that the election process will be fair, honest and free from fraud and technical difficulties and lead to the formation of a government that will govern our country with righteousness. Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will be at work in all of us at this time to enable us to make serious and informed choices for the country's future welfare. Amen. Sri Lankas parliamentary election was initially scheduled for 25 April, but was postponed because of COVID 19 after a nation-wide lockdown was imposed in March. It was reset for 20 June, then on 5 August. About 16 million voters are eligible to choose 225 lawmakers among 7,400 candidates running for 20 political parties and 34 independent groups. NEW DELHI: Days after imposing a ban on popular Chinese mobile applications, the government has now imposed restrictions on the import of colour television sets from China. The move is aimed at boosting local production and is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modis recent Vocal For Local call. The restrictions were announced by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) on Thursday. The notification issued by the DGFT said that the import policy of colour television sets has been amended from "free" to "restricted". This means that the import of TVs in certain categories will now require a licence from the government. Import policy of colour television sets... is amended from free to restricted, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in a notification, adding that it would separately issue the procedure for the grant of the license. The import of Colour TV sets that will be impacted by the new import policy are: Colour television sets of screen size up to 36 cm; Television sets of screen size of 36 cm but not exceeding 54 cm; Television sets of screen size of 54 cm but not exceeding 68 cm; Television sets of the screen size of 68 cm but not exceeding 74 cm ; Television sets of screen size of 74 cm but not exceeding 87 cm; Television sets of screen size of 87 cm but not exceeding 105 cm; Television sets of screen size exceeding 105 cm; Liquid crystal display television set of screen size below 63 cm. "Actual user conditions would not be applicable for importers applying for an authorization to import the goods 'restricted' in this notification. The procedure for grant of license will be separately issued by DGFT, " the notification said. Reacting to the DGFT move, Kamal Nandi, Business Head & Executive VP, Godrej Appliances, said, '' This is a welcome move by the government. The industry was always looking for such bold decision from the Centre. Consumers won't be impacted much in terms of prices of TV.'' He added, "I dont see any price escalation. As majorly, big brands in this segment has manufacturing set up in India. The decision will impact those who do trading, like getting imports and further selling B2B or B2C. The decision will boost investments and increase job opportunities in India." Colour television sets worth USD 781 million were imported in the year ended 31 March, most of which came from Vietnam (USD 428 million) and China (USD 292 million). With this, the government has brought back curbs that were lifted almost two decades ago, in a measure to encourage domestic production. This notification comes as Chinese imports and investments continue to face immense scrutiny in India after the recent India-China border clash at Galwan Valley that led to the death of 20 jawans. The government has earlier cancelled railway and road tenders secured by Chinese companies. It also imposed a ban on banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok, on national security grounds. PM Narendra Modi has said that India needs to end its dependence on the import of gadgets, equipment, solar panels and technology from foreign countries, apparently pointing to imports from China. Earlier this month, Union Power RK Singh also announced India will not allow the import of power equipment from China and Pakistan because of cybersecurity threats. Last week, India restricted Chinese companies from participating in public procurement bids by India without approval from competent authorities citing security concerns. Related Egyptian prosecutors investigate burkini row at Sinai resort Hotels and tourist resorts in Egypt have no right to ban women from wearing burkinis at pools and on beaches, so long as these suits are made of materials compliant with health specifications, the tourism and local development ministries said in separate statements on Friday. This week, a video showing an altercation over women wearing the body-covering swimsuits, which are popular with some conservative Muslims, went viral on local social media. The video showed a group of guests at a resort on the country's north coast engaged in a dispute with a family at the resort over the fact that two of the family group had entered the pool while wearing burkinis. The group are shown saying that the fabric of the burkinis is unhygienic, while one said the suits had a bad appearance. The family members describe the comments as discrimination and racism and deny that there is a difference between the swimsuit material and other swimsuits. Many Egyptian women have complained that they are banned from going to pools in some tourist areas because they prefer to wear burkinis. The incident took place at a private pool in a tourist compound, which is not overseen by the tourism ministry but by the local development ministry, Abdel-Fattah El-Assi, deputy tourism minister, was quoted as saying in Fridays statement. Hotels and resorts have no authority to ban veiled women from entering into pools in burkinis since they have no negative impact on public health, El-Assi added, according to Al-Ahram Arabic news website. He noted that the tourism ministry had previously issued a circular in this respect to all hotels and resorts. He also called on all women to file a complaint with the ministry if they experience such actions. The local development ministry in its Friday statement reiterated that hotels and tourist resorts should not prevent veiled women who would rather wear burkinis from swimming in pools and going to the beach, as long as their suits don't affect the water. Local Development Minister Mohamed Shaarawy instructed the coastal governorates to be in touch with owners of hotels and tourist resorts to guarantee these regulations are implemented, according to the statement. Shaarawy also stressed the importance of adhering to all restrictions related to the coronavirus during the four-day Eid Al-Adha holiday, which began on Friday and continues until Monday. These include keeping all beaches and public parks nationwide closed, and operating hotels, tourist villages and resorts at reduced capacity in accordance with new regulations. Hotels in Egypt are allowed to operate at 50 percent of their occupancy rate provided that they have received the necessary hygiene safety certificates from the authorities. Egypt has recorded a total of 93,757 coronavirus cases, including 4,774 fatalities and 38,236 recoveries, as of Thursday. Search Keywords: Short link: TEMPE, Ariz. The leak of a flammable liquid from a derailed freight car in Tempe has been stopped and authorities said crews were getting ready to begin a long cleanup process Thursday. The Federal Railroad Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will be investigating the derailment. Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir said at a news conference that there is nothing to suggest that the derailment was a criminal act. A 102-car Union Pacific Railroad freight train traveling from Tucson to Phoenix derailed early Wednesday as it traveled on a century-old bridge that spans the man-made Tempe Town Lake, setting the bridge ablaze and partially collapsing the structure. Union Pacific spokesman Tim McMahan said as many as 10 train cars derailed and the south side of the bridge then collapsed and caught fire. Two of the tank cars were carrying cyclohexanone, a pale and oily liquid that is toxic and flammable. One car was leaking the liquid into a dry bed, not the lake. Authorities said the leak was stopped overnight when the tank car was hauled to an upright position. There was another derailment in the same area on June 26 that slightly damaged the bridge. Union Pacific officials said 12 cars derailed on June 26 and the repairs were done within 48 hours and the bridge had its annual inspection on July 9. Tempe officials said the bridge was found to be in good standing. A Chinese shipbuilder will be constructing an advanced amphibious assault ship that will be similar to the U.S. Marine Corps Wasp-class carriers. The PLA intends to match the U.S. Navy capacities but is not expected to be better than the original. The PLA wants to have light a carrier that will load rotorcraft and drones to assist their marine corps in fighting in the seas. As of now, the specs are unknown and it's still uncertain if the ship can come close to the USS America in capabilities. According to planners, the ship will be close to the Type 075 landing helicopter deck. But it is touted to have an electromagnetic catapult launch system that is equipped on the latest US aircraft carrier, cited Naval Technology. Every shipbuilder and military enthusiast is abuzz about the next Chinese warship called the Type 076, which is searched on most websites on military topics. The proposed design for the advanced amphibious assault ship came from the China Shipbuilding Group that is an official government contractor. No official go-signal is given to start work on building the ships, which will take approximately five years to finish. Li Jie, a naval commentator, mentions the ship is not designed for Taiwanese invasion only. It will be facing the capable light carriers of the U.S. Navy that has STOL stealth F-35s on deck. The J-20 is yet to fly in numbers and Type 076s have yet to realize the claims. Also read: US Air Force Sends Spy Drones as Eyes Over South China Sea Rumor Type O76 specifications The light carrier will have a total displacement of 40,000 tons, which will be third in size to similar American naval that is considered the most advanced warships. Chinese adherents claim that specs are yet to be revealed, according to Reuters. The advanced amphibious assault ship can carry up a total of 30 helicopters, as well as all the landing vehicles and equipment needed by the marines to land and carry-on operations. The rotorcraft will be used to assist in landing operations. The PLA Navy has just launched its second Type 075 LHD about three months back, but they are not in active duty yet. According to the Ordinance Industry Science Technology, light carriers are mobile bases that can launch quick attacks on ships and land targets. Even if China can build an advanced amphibious assault ship or two, they are behind the U.S. in technology. America is adapting to its new adversary. The PLA is intent on bolstering the Chinese military with the addition of five light helicopter carriers, based on Type 071 from 2016. Having these ship are meant to give the Chinese extra boost in their warfighting capacity that is exceeded by the U.S. with drones and capable support systems that the PLA is yet to develop. Li added that having an electromagnetic catapult on Type 075 will need modifications to the ship itself. One problem is that even their American counterparts are experiencing problems with their versions. Related article: South Korea Beefing Up With Aircraft Carrier to Counter Threats in the @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Ontarios students will return to classrooms in September, under a back-to-school plan unveiled by the province. Students in all elementary grades will return full time, as will secondary students in some smaller boards. Teens in large urban boards will be in school half-time and learning online from home the rest of the time, Premier Doug Ford and Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced Thursday. And starting in Grade 4, students will wear face masks all day, with the younger children also encouraged to do so. Five days a week, five hours of instruction a day with lunch and breaks in between on Sept. 8, you can drop your child off at school knowing that every possible measure is being taken to keep our children safe, knowing that there is a detailed plan to keep our kids safe, said Ford. The government is not implementing any physical distancing requirements, and said classes in elementary schools will remain the same size as previously, with 20 students from grades 1 to 3, and an average of 24 or 25 students in grades 4 to 8 though averages mean some classes are much larger than that. High school students, however, will be in cohorts of 15 when they are in school on alternate-day or otherwise modified schedules. District School Board of Niagara chair Sue Barnett is generally supportive of the governments direction. The government has based their decision on the best medical help they could find, she said. A decision to hire 500 nurses for schools across Ontario is a good step, she said. I am not sure what the format will look like, but it is needed. I think they have done the best they can do, Barnett said. There is not enough funding to ensure safety, she said. But we are going to fight for some more. All we can do is give our input. During our teleconference on Tuesday, I will articulate what else we will need. The province will spend $309 million for the fall reopening, including $60 million for personal protective equipment; $80 million for additional staffing (teachers, caretakers) and $25 million for cleaning supplies. Niagaras three NDP MPPs were united in their criticism, which mostly focused on concern the government has not provided enough money for a safe return to schools. This plan puts our youngest and most vulnerable students at risk, said Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates. Its not enough to keep our schools safe ... Our schools are overcrowded. There are infrastructure issues and Im concerned on how they are going to implement the physical distancing. Gates also raised concerns about a lack of consultation that occurred between the government and stakeholders. They didnt speak with any of the unions, said Gates. There was no dialogue. The way you develop a plan safely is by including all the stakeholders. They should have consulted parents, public health and all education unions. St. Catharines MPP Jennie Stevens expressed similar concerns. Successful social distancing needs more than guidelines, we need real investments to keep classes smaller and keep kids from losing another academic year, Stevens said, describing the funding portion as a drop in the bucket. Said Niagara Centre MPP Jeff Burch, Before the pandemic, schools were already short-staffed and underfunded. This will not ensure that children are safe. The funding is completely inadequate. They should hire more teachers, custodians and (ensure) that the students are in a safe learning What also concerns Burch is how secondary school students will have to do 50 per cent of their courses online. This in no way prepares them for university or college and it is detrimental to their education. Niagara West MPP and parliamentary assistant to Lecce, Sam Oosterhoff did not respond to an interview request. His office issued a statement that said the announcement is good news for students. We are equipping school boards with unprecedented resources and flexibility, the release said. We are providing over $300 million in targeted, immediate and evidence-informed investments. Our plan for reopening safely is a deliverable plan, and one that ensures that students maximize their time in the classroom, being taught face to face by a teacher. With files from the Toronto Star EXPLOSIVE details show that the state-owned National Oil and Infrastructure Company (Noic) was advanced by Sakunda Holdings US$17,5 million of a US$22,75 million loan agreement to buy out Lonmins 50% stake in the ownership of the strategic Feruka fuel pipeline, leaving the parastatal saddled with a debt, which is now causing all manner of headaches. The transaction lifts the lid on the murky control, use and management of the money-spinning pipeline, as accusations of state capture mount. Sakunda Holdings is owned by the politically connected tycoon Kuda Tagwirei. In 2018, Noic assumed total control of the Beira-Harare pipeline after it snapped up Lonmins 50% stake in the asset. The transaction, consummated at a time Zimbabwe was facing a crippling fuel crisis, has now become a major headache for Noic. There are many unanswered questions as to why Noic decided to take the US$22,75 million loan specifically from Sakunda Holdings instead of other players and whether the Tagwirei-run outfit got preferential treatment to use the pipeline. It also remains to be established whether Sakunda Holdings was paying tariffs for usage of the pipeline from 2018 to date and the nature of gain it accrued from the deal. As reported by this newspaper on February 20, Sakunda Holdings dominant usage of the pipeline, which runs from Beira in Mozambique to Harare, has resulted in 40% under-utilisation of the infrastructure, prejudicing Zimbabwe a staggering US$400 million annually. The pipeline, which until 2018 was partly owned by Noic and mineral resources group Lonmin, is now wholly controlled by the government through PetroZim Line Limited after it paid US$17,5 million to the conglomerate of the US$22,5 million Sakunda Holdings loan. PetroZim Line Limited, a subsidiary of Noic, now exclusively owns the pipeline, although its usage has largely been dominated by Tagwireis Sakunda Holdings. Tagwirei, who is President Emmerson Mnangagwas adviser and Zanu PF benefactor, has vast business interests that straddle the whole economic spectrum ranging from petroleum procurement, banking and mining. In recent times, he has faced accusations of failing to account for US$3 billion his company was allegedly paid by the government to finance the Command Agriculture programme. Documents seen by the Independent this week show that Noic, which generates billions of dollars annually through levying fuel-procurement companies that use the pipeline, is now indebted to the tune of US$17,5 million, from the loan it received from Sakunda Holdings in a transaction meant to give the parastatal total control of the infrastructure. Noic levies about US$0,06 for every litre of fuel pumped through the pipeline. The documents also reveal that Noic has since paid ZW$30 million to Sakunda Holdings as cash cover, an amount which the state enterprise will be reimbursed once it settles its debt to Tagwireis firm. At the time it paid the cash cover amount, the Zimbabwean dollar was trading at par with the US dollar. The Independent can report that the US$17,5 million paid by Noic to Lonmin to snap up its 50% shareholding in the ownership of the pipeline was paid directly by Sakunda Holdings via an undisclosed offshore account. According to correspondence from Noic corporate services director Vivian Mandizvidza dated April 23 addressed to the entitys board members, the state enterprise sought authority to settle US$17,261 million to Sakunda Holdings under the loan arrangement deal that was entered to buy out Lonmin for PetroZim Line Limited. The letter reads: On 26 June 2018, Noic and Sakunda Holdings entered into a loan agreement for an amount of US$22,75 million on the back of a sale purchase transaction between Noic and Lonmin Plc in terms of which Noic purchased the 50% shareholding held by Lonmin Plc in PetroZim Line Limited. The conditions of the loans were as follows: Sakunda would pay US$22 750 000 to Lonmin on behalf of Noic. The loan agreement provided that Sakunda would disburse the entire amount to an identified offshore account on the loan date subject to fulfilment of conditions precedent. Noic fulfilled the conditions precedent. Sakunda disbursed a total of US$17 261 577, 00 in batches. Contacted for comment, Tagwirei did not respond. The Independent sought his clarification on the amount of fuel his company moved through the pipeline from 2018 to date and the amount of money it paid for using the same facility. We also sought his comment on the benefits Sakunda Holdings reaped from Noic after providing it with the loan. In a transaction preceding Mandizvidzas letter to Noic board members, Trafigura one of the worlds largest oil and metal brokers bought out Sakunda Holdings 51% stake in Trafigura Zimbabwe in February, as it moved to stave off mounting Western and local criticism against Tagwirei. As criticism swirled against Tagwireis controversial handling of the US$3 billion Command Agriculture funds, the US State Department and Treasury faced pressure from the US Senate to slap sanctions on individuals involved in alleged public corruption. Trafigura held a 49% stake in Trafigura Zimbabwe, with Sakunda Holdings, which operated Puma Energy, holding the controlling stake. Subsequent events, as shown by documents seen by this newspaper, reveal that Tagwireis Sakunda Holdings decided to terminate its agreement with Noic, and demanded to be repaid the principal amount it had loaned to the state enterprise, plus interest of US$1,384,864.The total amount due amounted to US$25,246,592 as at April 30. Subsequent engagements with Sakunda resulted in Sakunda invoking the provision of the Loan Agreement relating to termination. Sakunda raised incapacity to proceed with the Agreement due to the changes in the law prohibiting the payment to a local company offshore. Sakunda further gave notice to terminate the Agreement and requested Noic to pay back the loan amount and interest due, Mandizvidzas letter to board members reads. The effect of this communication was to terminate the loan and make repayment due. At the board meeting held on 26 March 2020, the board authorised management to engage Sakunda with a view to reaching an agreement on the settlement of the amount owed by the company in local currency, at the official exchange rate. Noic chief executive Wilfred Matukeni did not respond to questions from the Independent on why the state enterprise received the loan from Sakunda Holdings and the nature of benefit it obtained from the deal. At the time of going to print, he had not responded also on the amount of money Sakunda Holdings paid from 2018 to date for using the pipeline, by way of tariffs. Energy minister Fortune Chasi also did not respond to questions sent to him, saying he was not in charge of the portfolio at the time. Jorum Gumbo, now minister in charge of Implementation of Government Programmes, presided over the energy portfolio in 2018. During the subsistence of the agreement, Sakunda Holdings was awarded a US$6,6 million discount on pumpings through the pipeline. As part of plans to settle the multi-million-dollar debt to Sakunda Holdings, Noic proposed to channel US$14,858 million of its funds held by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) from a loan the apex bank borrowed from one of the state enterprises clients. The Company (Noic) currently has US$14,858 million invested with the RBZ. This amount is a loan accessed by the RBZto one of the companys clients in December 2018, the documents read. According to Mandizvidzas letter to the Noic board members, the entitys management proposed to pay Sakunda Holdings US$14 million in local currency from funds held by RBZ and settle the balance of US$11,246,592 over a period of eight months. The balance attracts 5% interest per annum if it is paid after December 31. In the event that the request is approved, we request for authorisation,Mandizvidza wrote to Noic board members. A petroleum industry source close to the Noic-Sakunda Holdings loan deal, has described the transaction as an incestuous relationship, arguing that the arrangement prejudiced other players while it gave Tagwireis outfit vast acres of space to monopolise usage of the pipeline. The US$22,75 million loan that Noic got from Sakunda Holdings stinks to high heavens. It just gets to show you how Tagwireis company has managed to maintain a tight grip on the usage of the asset. Sadly, the loan has come back to haunt Noic, a source told the Independent this week Amid disclosures of the Sakunda Holdings loan to Noic, the governments plans to construct a second pipeline that runs from Mozambique into Zimbabwe and feeding the whole region with Mogs at a cost of US$400 million has suffered a stillbirth as a result of fierce resistance from powerful cartels with strong political connections. The second pipeline, which was touted to transform Zimbabwe into a regional petroleum hub, was to be built at a cost of US$400 million. However, government is trying to revive plans to build a second pipeline with an as yet unnamed Mozambican outfit at the same cost. Trafigura, which until March was Tagwireis partner in Trafigura Zimbabwe, moved 717 million litres of fuel through the pipeline in 2016, with volumes soaring to 639 million litres in 2017 and 768 million litres in 2018. In 2019, it pumped 889 million litres into Zimbabwe. Documents seen by this newspaper in November 2018 showed that Puma, which is partly owned by Trafigura, Sakundas partner then, required 4,4 million litres of diesel and 3,6 million litres of petrol to adequately supply the countrys weekly fuel needs. At the height of fuel shortages in 2018, government negotiated for 100 million litres of fuel from Sakunda Holdings, with payment set to be settled over the next 12 months. At that time, Tagwireis outfit also committed to supply 1,6 billion litres of fuel over 18 months. Noic would not disclose to the Independent the amounts of money Sakunda Holdings paid through tariffs levied from using the pipeline. Zimbabwe, in the throes of a debilitating economic crisis, is reeling under a chronic fuel shortage compounded by underutilisation of the Beira-Harare pipeline. The last thing that Mayra Ramirez remembers from the emergency room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago is calling her family to say she had COVID, was about to be put on a ventilator and needed her mother to make medical decisions for her. Ramirez, 28, did not wake up for more than six weeks. And then she learned that on June 5, she had become the first COVID patient in the United States to receive a double-lung transplant. On Wednesday, she went home from the hospital. Ramirez is one of a small but growing number of patients whose lungs have been destroyed by the coronavirus and whose only hope of survival is a lung transplant. Im pretty sure that if I had been at another center, they would have just ended care and let me die, she said in an interview Wednesday. Her surgeon, Dr. Ankit Bharat, performed a similar operation on a second COVID patient, a 62-year-old man, on July 5. The surgery is considered a desperate measure reserved for people with fatal, irreversible lung damage. Doctors do not want to remove a persons lungs if there is any chance they will heal. Overall, only about 2,700 lung transplants were performed in the United States last year. Patients must be sick enough to need a transplant and yet also strong enough to survive the operation, recover and get back on their feet. With a new disease like COVID-19, doctors are still learning how to strike that balance. Its such a paradigm change, Bharat said. Lung transplant has not been considered a treatment option for an infectious disease, so people need to get a little bit more of a comfort level with it. Two more patients at Northwestern are awaiting transplants one from Chicago and one from Washington, D.C. said Bharat, who is chief of thoracic surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and surgical director of the lung transplant program at Northwestern Medicine, which includes Northwestern Memorial Hospital. A patient is to be flown in from Seattle next week, and the Northwestern team is consulting on still another case with a medical group in Washington. Other transplant centers are considering similar surgeries, Bharat said. Friday, a COVID-19 patient underwent a double-lung transplant at the University of Florida Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Dr. Tiago Machuca said. While other centers have sought to refer cases, most of the patients had other serious medical problems that ruled them out, he said. In some cases, Bharat said, hospitals appeared to have waited too long to recommend a transplant. One patient being referred to his center seemed like a good candidate but then had major bleeding into the lungs as well as kidney failure, and the surgery was no longer feasible. I think people need to recognize this option earlier and just start at least talking about it before it gets to that point, Bharat said. In some cases, he said, insurers reluctance to cover the surgery or to pay for travel to transfer patients has led to delays. This is so new to our field, Machuca said. It will be a challenge for physicians to determine which patients truly are candidates and whats the timing. We dont want to do it too early when the patient still can recover from COVID lung disease and resume with good quality of life, but also you dont want to miss the boat and have a patient where its futile the patient is too sick. He said that, in some cases, extensive rehabilitation has brought about recovery in COVID patients who were being considered as possible transplant candidates. Because the extensive lung damage in COVID patients makes transplant surgery especially difficult, most patients would be referred to major transplant centers that are best equipped to perform the risky operations and provide the intensive aftercare that patients need, the surgeons said. Before she became ill, Ramirez, a paralegal for a law firm specializing in immigration, was working from home and having her groceries delivered. She was in good health but had an autoimmune condition, neuromyelitis optica, and took medication that suppressed her immune system and might have made her more vulnerable to the coronavirus infection. She was ill for about two weeks and consulted with a COVID hotline about her symptoms. At one point, she headed to the hospital but then turned back without going in. She dreaded the idea of being admitted and told herself she would recover. But April 26, her temperature reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit, and she was so weak that she fell when she tried to walk. A friend drove her to the hospital. When doctors told her that she needed a ventilator, she had no idea what they meant. She thought it meant some kind of fan, like the word in Spanish. I thought Id just be there for a couple of days, max, and get back to my normal life, she said. But she spent six weeks on the ventilator and also needed a machine to provide oxygen directly into her bloodstream. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. The entire time, I had nightmares, she said. Many of the nightmares involved drowning, her family saying goodbye, and doctors telling her she was going to die. The disease was relentless. Bacterial infections set in, scarring her lungs and eating holes in them. The lung damage caused circulatory problems that began to take a toll on her liver and heart. The doctors told her family in North Carolina that it might be time to come to Chicago to say goodbye, and her mother and two sisters made the trip. But Ramirez held on, cleared the coronavirus from her body and was placed on the transplant list. Two days later, on June 5, she underwent a 10-hour operation. She woke scarred, bruised, desperately thirsty and unable to speak, with all these tubes coming out of me, and I just couldnt recognize my own body. The nurses asked if she knew the date. She guessed early May. It was the middle of June. She was not told shed had a lung transplant until several days after she woke up. I couldnt process it, she said. I was just struggling to breathe, and I was thirsty. It wasnt until weeks later that I could be grateful, and think there was a family out there who had lost someone. Before her illness, she worked full-time and enjoyed running and playing with her two small, scrappy dogs. Now she still feels short of breath, can walk only a short distance and needs help to shower and stand up from a chair. The dogs were overjoyed at her homecoming, but their energy was a bit much. Her mother, who lives in North Carolina, took time away from her job at a meatpacking plant and traveled to Chicago to help her recover. Ramirez said she was learning to use her new lungs and getting stronger every day. She is looking forward to getting back to work, but she still has a way to go. Her family is assisting her, and a friend started a GoFundMe page to help pay the bills. I definitely feel like I have a purpose, Ramirez said. It may be to help other people going through the same situation that I am, maybe even just sharing my story and helping young people realize that if this happened to me, it could happen to them, and to protect themselves and protect others around them who are more vulnerable. And to motivate and help other centers around the world to realize that lung transplantation is an option for terminally ill COVID patients. The outlook for Ramirez is good, Bharat said, because she is young and healthy. She will be on anti-rejection medicines for the rest of her life. Transplanted lungs can still be rejected, he said, but he has seen some last 20 years. And patients may be able to receive a second transplant. I think from now on shell continue to get stronger and stronger, he said. She asked if she could go sky diving. Well probably get her there in a few months. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Florida is one of several states in the Southeast where wind energy is virtually nonexistent, which is one reason wind farms have not been an economically viable energy source in the region. But a new study from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering shows how upcoming technological advances could make wind energy a hot commodity in the Sunshine State. Sean Martin, a researcher in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from Florida State University, is working with an interdisciplinary team of scientists to examine wind resource characteristics at nine different locations in Florida. Their analysis will help the wind industry and policymakers know how viable wind energy production using developing technologies could be. Sean Martin, a researcher in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Their work was published in the journal Applied Energy. "With advances in turbine technology, taller towers, larger rotor diameter and new control systems, we will be able to provide low-cost wind power to low-wind regions, such as Florida and the Southeast," Martin said. "The increased hub heights and taller turbines can take advantage of greater wind speeds that occur higher up to harvest more wind power." Compared to states like Texas or Iowa, the wind in Florida is not something wind farms can profitably capture at the moment. Wind speeds are slower because of increased surface friction and turbulence caused by buildings, trees and other obstructions. Most utility-scale turbines installed in the United States are west of the Mississippi River, where more favorable wind speeds, greater than 13 miles per hour, are prevalent. advertisement But using new tools that can capture wind energy at higher elevations, where wind speeds are faster, might make wind energy feasible. Arda Vanli, associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering So how tall are these turbines? The average height of most existing on-shore turbines from the ground to the top of the blades is more than 380 feet, similar to a 32-story building. The new, taller turbines are almost twice the height at 660 feet, close to the height of a 55-story building, and are the kind of wind turbines that will be most useful in Florida. Martin is collaborating with Arda Vanli, an associate professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering, and Sungmoon Jung, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. "I don't think anybody can predict the timing for wind energy," Jung said. "We almost had it a few years ago. There was a private company that proposed a wind farm in Florida, but the company withdrew the plan because the technology at the time was not economical enough. I hope we will see wind energy in the future as technology improves." Sungmoon Jung, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering advertisement One of the things the researchers are looking at is the capacity of wind turbines to operate at different sites. Wind speed varies, so turbines must be able to spin at different velocities. Researchers want to know what percentage of time in a year that the turbine can operate at full capacity. In general, turbines that generate at least 30 percent of their total capacity are more economical for utility-scale wind power. The data will be able to predict the best areas in Florida to place the new turbines based on their ability to produce wind energy at specific sites. "The key is finding and identifying characteristic patterns in the wind data," Martin said. "Once we establish the patterns, the data can assist in site selection and can improve energy estimation measures to help industry and policymakers make decisions on where wind farms are most profitable." There are other factors the researchers must consider when choosing a site for a wind farm. Safety for birds, noise from rotors and the fact that some people may find wind turbines unsightly are all considerations. When including some of these elements with wind speed data, the scientists found that the best locations for wind farms appear to be in rural areas of northwest, central and southern Florida. "Site selection is an important decision, especially in low-wind power areas," Vanli said. "Transporting huge wind turbines to these locations is a significant investment and having good data can eventually determine whether the investment will be successful or not." Wind energy is gaining significant attention both from academia and in industry. New, affordable methods for generating renewable energy are on the horizon. Wind farms could be viable in Florida within this decade, and turbines even taller than the ones used for this research could be more prevalent in the future. "The real question is whether factors such as public perception, acceptance and environmental factors will prevent this resource from being developed," Martin said. "We hope the research will add additional renewables to the U.S. energy portfolio and can offset our reliance on a single fuel source, adding energy security to meet a growing need." From the moment it was clear the pandemic was going to infiltrate Australia, and lockdowns were proposed, schools have been a vexed issue. Victoria moved quickly, shutting schools early despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy strongly advising they were safe and should remain open. Premier Daniel Andrews made the right call. Once the curve was initially flattened, pressure from Canberra to allow students to return to face-to-face teaching soon grew. But Mr Andrews continued his cautious approach, with Victoria being the last state to fully reopen school doors to all students. Again, it was the right call. Manor Lakes P-12 College was shut down after a senior student tested positive to COVID-19. Credit:Joe Armao Victoria's second surge of infections put an end to that. On the first day of the winter school holidays, on June 27, there were 41 positive infections recorded in Victoria. By the end of the two-week break that number had rocketed to 273, it was rising. When the stage three lockdown was reinstated in metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire, the decision on schools was put on hold. The final call was a compromise. Year 11 and 12 students would return to face-to-face learning, along with children with special needs and year 10 students doing a VCE class, while all others would return to remote learning. An unorthodox Houston doctor-minister whose promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 earned a retweet from President Donald Trump and a rebuke from medical experts is passionately defending her dispensing of the medication. Its not a joke, Dr. Stella Immanuel said during a brief interview outside her office with The Houston Chronicle. The people that are saying that it doesnt work, they are lying. Among those she has targeted is Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the nations top infectious disease experts. She tweeted this week, Fauci you are lying. You know it. Americans are dying and you are playing Russian roulette with their lives. Fauci and other medical experts have noted that multiple clinical trials have found hydroxychloroquine doesnt benefit those who have become infected, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned that it can trigger heart rhythm problems. The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in [treating the] coronavirus disease, Fauci said. Immanuel, 55, who holds medical licenses in Louisiana and Texas, gained national attention when she and others on Monday touted the drugs benefits on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. A video of the event went viral, and Trump retweeted it to his 84 million followers. Social media platorms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter classified the video as misinformation related to the coronavirus and removed it. The ensuing media focus on Immanuel revealed that she is also a preacher with a long history of making bizarre claims. Immanuel leads a church in Katy called Fire Power Ministries and she focuses on deliverance, or using rituals to cleanse people of evil spirits or demons. She has said she believes in alien DNA, and in 2013 she shared a video saying that certain womens diseases are caused by sex with demons in dreams. They are responsible for serious gynecological problems, she said in the 2013 video.We call them all kinds of names endometriosis, we call them molar pregnancies, we call them fibroids, we call them cysts. But most of them are evil deposits from the spirit husband. They are responsible for miscarriages, impotence, men that cant get it up. Outside her office Thursday, Immanuel confirmed her eccentric beliefs. Yes, Im a demon buster. Yes, demons sleep with people, said Immanuel. Yes, if you pray for them they get better. Immanuel said she was invited to speak Monday at the gathering of Americas Frontline Doctors in Washington, D.C. after a tweet of hers started to go viral this month. Immanuel tweeted I refuse to be chained by fake science, and tagged Trump. It has since been retweeted 30,000 times. I have successfully treated over 250 COVID patients with HCQ, zpack and zinc. No deaths. All these double blinded studies sponsored by big Phama is fake science, Immanuel posted on July 17, referring to Big Pharma. Speakers at the Monday event that masks and government shutdowns were not needed to combat the spread of the new coronavirus. The Washington Post reports that pop star Madonna shared the video of Immanuel, calling the Houston doctor my hero and asserting some people dont want to hear the truth. Madonna deleted the post after Instagram blurred the video and classified it as false information, the newspaper reported. Still, on Thursday, U.S. Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Tyler, said that he would take hydroxychloroquine after testing positive for coronavirus. Outside her office in Houston, Immanuel repeated the same message that she did in the nations capital: hydroxychloroquine works. Immanuel, who has called the medication a cure for COVID-19, noted that her medical practice has been inundated with patients and has so far treated more than 400 people with the drug, including elderly people, asthmatics and diabetics. She encouraged her patients to come forth and speak publicly. We have not lost a patient yet, said Immanuel. Immanuel is not the only local doctor promoting the drug. After a COVID-19 outbreak at a Texas City nursing home, Dr. Robin Armstrong, the medical director and a state GOP officer, began providing the tablets to 35 residents who had tested positive but not yet shown symptoms. He said in mid-May that three died but most were no longer showing symptoms. Born in Cameroon, Immanuel graduated in 1990 from the University of Calabar in Nigeria and completed a residency at a Bronx, N.Y., hospital. The Texas Medical Board licensed Immanuel in November 2019 for pediatrics and emergency medicine with an address associated with the Rehoboth Medical Center. She has no documented disciplinary actions or known complaints in Texas or Louisiana, where she was first licensed in 1998. Court filings reveal she was sued in January in Louisiana for medical malpractice in a case involving a woman who died in 2019 after being treated by Immanuel at a medical center. The woman complained of a broken needle in her arm after doing methamphetamine. Immanuel and another doctor prescribed Norvell medication but did not order a closer look at her arm through an X-ray or other medical tests, the womans family alleged. She later developed a flesh-eating disease from the wound and died, according to documents provided by the familys lawyer. The familys lawyer was surprised to learn that Immanuel had left Louisiana to work in Texas. Some of the videos on Immanuels YouTube, Twitter and Facebook pages hint at her medical background. In a March 26 video, she appeared to be at her medical practice while singing, Hes Got the Whole World in His Hands, altering the lyrics to pray for doctors and nurses. Other videos on her personal pages show her praying outside of her clinic with a megaphone, especially after the death of longtime Houston resident George Floyd and the protests that followed. On June 20, she shared a video that equated Black Lives Matter founders with Marxists. Immanuel has said that people dont need masks to protect against the coronavirus, despite wearing them in her videos. In a Facebook post this week, she clarified that she does wear a mask because its the law of the land and it makes me a good example. She said she is on hydroxychloroquine prophylaxis, making her unconcerned about catching the virus. Asked about specific studies that show hydroxychloroquine is not a cure for COVID-19, Immanuel said there are many studies that prove it works. Whenever we have two or three studies that show it works, said Immanuel. Theres always studies that come out and knock it down. Its fake science. Theyre going to allow people to die so that they can sell vaccines and sell $5000 drugs. Its diabolic. Immanuel cut off the interview after about nine minutes and headed to the parking lot, saying she needed to go. Nicole Hensley contributed to this report, which contains material from the Associated Press. brooke.lewis@chron.com samantha.ketterer@chron.com Researchers Charged with Visa Fraud After Lying About Their Work for Chinas Peoples Liberation Army Four individuals have recently been charged with visa fraud in connection with a scheme to lie about their status as members of the Peoples Republic of Chinas military forces, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), while in the United States conducting research. Three of these individuals have been arrested and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is seeking the fourth who is a fugitive from justice currently being harbored at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco. In addition to these arrests, the FBI has recently conducted additional interviews of visa holders suspected of having undeclared affiliation with the Chinese military in more than 25 American cities. These members of Chinas People Liberation Army applied for research visas while hiding their true affiliation with the PLA, said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers. This is another part of the Chinese Communist Partys plan to take advantage of our open society and exploit academic institutions. We will continue to conduct this investigation together with the FBI. The United States welcomes students, academics, and researchers from across the globe. Todays announcement shows the extreme lengths to which the Chinese government has gone to infiltrate and exploit Americas benevolence," said John Brown, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI's National Security Branch. 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. Each defendant has been charged with visa fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1546(a). If convicted, each faces a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. The allegations against each are as follows: Xin WANG According to a complaint that was unsealed in the Northern District of California, on June 8, 2020 and court documents filed June 11, Wang entered the United States on March 26, 2019, after receiving a J1 non-immigrant visa in December of 2018. Wangs visa application stated that the purpose of his visit was to conduct scientific research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Wang is alleged to have made fraudulent statements on this visa application. Specifically, Wang stated that he had served as an Associate Professor in Medicine in the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), from September 1, 2002 through September 1, 2016. In reality, when interviewed by officers of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at LAX on June 7, Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a Level 9 technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab. CBP officers also obtained information that this roughly corresponded with the rank of Major. According to court documents, Wang was still employed by the PLA while he was studying in the United States, and he made false statements about his military service in his visa application in order to increase the likelihood that he would receive his J1 visa. Also according to court documents, Wang provided information to CBP that he had been instructed by his supervisor, the director of his military university lab in the PRC, to observe the layout of the UCSF lab and bring back information on how to replicate it in China. Wang similarly told his supervising UCSF professor that he had duplicated some of the work of that professor at the lab in China. Some of the work of the UCSF lab was funded by grants from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health (NIH). Wang was arrested on June 7, and had his initial appearance on June 8. A grand jury in the Northern District of California returned an indictment on June 22. Juan TANG According to court documents unsealed in the Eastern District of California on July 20, Tang, a researcher at the University of California at Davis, applied for a non-immigrant J1 visa on or about Oct. 28, 2019. The visa was issued in November 2019, and Tang entered the United States on or about Dec. 27, 2019. Tang is alleged to have made fraudulent statements on her visa application. Specifically, to the question, Have you ever served in the military, Tang responded No. In fact, Tang is a uniformed officer of the PLA Air Force (PLAAF). As set forth in the Complaint, the FBI found a photograph of Tang in a military uniform and references to Tangs employment at the Air Force Military Medical University, which has also been known as the Fourth Military Medical University. The FBI interviewed Tang on June 20. Although Tang denied having been a member of the military, an additional photograph of Tang in a different PLA military uniform was found on electronic media seized pursuant to a search warrant. The FBI is seeking to arrest Tang pursuant to an Arrest Warrant and Complaint that were filed on June 26, and unsealed on July 20. Tang has sought refuge at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, where she remains. Chen SONG The allegations describing the crime appear in an affidavit supporting the complaint filed on July 17 and unsealed in the Northern District of California on July 20. According to the affidavit, Song, 38, a Chinese national, applied for a J1 nonimmigrant visa in November 2018. She entered the United States on Dec. 23, 2018. In her visa application, in response to the question, Have you ever served in the military, Song stated that she had served in the Chinese military only from Sept. 1, through June 30, 2011. She further stated that her employer was Xi Diaoyutai Hospital. Song described herself in her visa application as a neurologist who was coming to the U.S. to conduct research at Stanford University related to brain disease. The affidavit alleges that these were lies, that Song was a member of the PLA when she entered and while she was in the United States, and that the hospital she listed on her visa as her employer was a cover for her true employer, the PLA. The affidavit identifies four research articles that she co-authored, which described her as affiliated with institutions subordinate to the PLA Air Force. Specifically, the articles list Song as affiliated with the Air Force General Hospital in Beijing and the Fourth Military Medical University. In addition, as of July 13, a Chinese health care website listed Song as an attending physician of the Department of Neurology of the PLA Air Force General Hospital, and included a photograph of Song wearing what appears to be a military uniform. Further, an article published in 2015 identifies Song as the doctor at the PLA Air Force hospital who performed the autopsy on the former chief physician of the MRI Department at the hospital. Finally, according to the affidavit, a search of Songs external hard drive, recovered pursuant to a court-authorized search warrant, found that, on June 21, Song had deleted a folder titled, in Chinese, 2018 Visiting School Important Information. The search recovered deleted documents from this folder. The affidavit alleges that one of the recovered documents was a letter from Song to the Chinese Consulate in New York, explaining that she was extending her time in the United States for another year, and wrote that her stated employer, Beijing Xi Diaoyutai Hospital, is a false front, which is why she had obtained approval for her extension from the PLA Air Force and FMMU. The letter further allegedly explained that, as these Chinese military approval documents were classified, she could not transmit them online. Song was arrested on July 18. Kaikai ZHAO According to a complaint filed in the Southern District of Indiana on July 17 and unsealed today, Zhao, a graduate student studying machine learning and artificial intelligence at Indiana University, applied for an F1 nonimmigrant visa in June 2018. In response to the question on the visa application, Have you ever served in the military, Zhao answered, No. As set forth in the Complaint, Zhao served in the National University of Defense Technology, the PLAs premier institution for scientific research and education, which is directly subordinate to the PRCs Central Military Commission. Zhao also attended the Aviation University of Air Force (AUAF), which is a Chinese military academy analogous to the U.S. Air Force Academy. AUAF students are active military service members who receive military training. In addition, the FBI located an online photograph of Zhao wearing a PLAAF uniform. Zhao was arrested on July 18. This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Ghana program graduates 22 future leaders This pandemic has highlighted the importance of leadershipand completing this program amid such challenges is something that will to contribute to the growth and development of these graduates for the rest of their lives. BUFFALO, N.Y. Twenty-two new graduates are equipped with the leadership skills to take their careers to the next level after completing the Leadership Empowerment Academy Program (LEAP), a global collaboration between the University of Cape Coast and the University at Buffalo School of Managements Center for Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness (CLOE). The socially-distanced graduation ceremony took place at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, Africa, on July 10. Representatives from UB attended virtually via video conference, including Paul Tesluk, dean of the UB School of Management, who shared graduation remarks. This pandemic has brought about many challenges, but it has also brought about optimism, ingenuity, empathy, love and support, says Tesluk. It has also highlighted the importance of leadershipand completing this program amid such challenges is something that will to contribute to the growth and development of these graduates for the rest of their lives. LEAP is a yearlong program that teaches graduate students in the University of Cape Coast about analytical thinking, self-reflection, creative problem-solving and interpersonal relationships, giving them a competitive advantage in the job market. This was the programs third cohort of students, with 70 graduates in total. The next program begins Aug. 7. Throughout the year, students participate in four in-person sessions, typically with three in Ghana and one in Buffalo, but that session was made virtual this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants also have the opportunity to attend CLOEs annual leadership conference. LEAP is part of a growing portfolio of global programs available from the UB School of Management, including a slate of virtual global learning experiences scheduled for this fall. For more information, visit mgt.buffalo.edu/globalprograms. Launched in fall 2013, CLOE strives to create more effective leaders and organizations. One of the centers key objectives is to advance research and teaching in the area of leadership and its impact on organizational effectiveness. It also supports UB 2020s goals of accelerating academic excellence, translating scholarship and developing leadership capabilities in UB students and business leaders. Susan Rice, the vice presidential contender with a high-profile history of questionable public statements, has another dubious claim in her past that until now has escaped scrutiny. Rice swore under oath that as President Obamas national security adviser she was never told about the FBIs Trump-Russia investigation. But former FBI Director James Comey testified that Rice was present when he informed Obama all about Crossfire Hurricane just weeks after the investigation was launched. James Comey: His account of telling the White House about Crossfire Hurricane differs markedly from Susan Rice's recollection. She testified: "We were not informed by Director Comey or the attorney general that there was an active investigation of anybody in the Trump orbit. The contradiction could lead to charges that Rice lied to Congress about a topic still of intense interest to investigators: How actively involved in the effort to spy on the Trump campaign was the inner circle of the Obama White House, including the president himself? More immediately, the question of whether Rice told the truth on Capitol Hill might damage her bid to join Joe Biden on the Democratic presidential ticket. Rice earned a reputation for shading the truth after the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. She was famously dispatched to five different Sunday morning news shows to repeat false talking points: that the mob that killed four Americans including Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens was merely reacting to an obscure YouTube video mocking Islam. Questions about her forthrightness were redoubled when Senate investigators found that, in the waning minutes of the Obama administration, Rice wrote a curious memo to the file. She sent an email to herself on the day of Donald Trumps inauguration, and in it claimed that Obama had insisted that everything to do with Russia, whether law enforcement or counterintelligence, be done by the book. President Obama and Rice: Both were present at a meeting where, the FBI's Comey said, the Trump-Russia probe was discussed at its outset. She denied knowing about it. Asked about that memo later, Rice insisted she knew nothing about the FBIs counterintelligence probe regarding Trump and Russia, let alone anything that could be characterized as spying on the incoming administration. She had her lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, write a letter to Sens. Charles Grassley, Dianne Feinstein, Lindsey Graham, and Sheldon Whitehouse. While serving as National Security Advisor, Ambassador Rice was not briefed on the existence of any FBI investigation into allegations of collusion between Mr. Trumps associates and Russia, Ruemmler wrote, and she later learned of the fact of this investigation from Director Comeys subsequent public testimony testimony that didnt occur until March 20, 2017 On Wednesday, September 8, 2017, Rice repeated that she knew nothing of the FBIs investigation while in the White House. This time she made the claim under oath. Rice was at the Capitol, sitting in a secure room used by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The official reason for the interview was to ask what the Obama administration had done to thwart Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Behind those questions was a different query: Had Barack Obamas team used the power of the presidency to spy on and smear the Trump campaign? With the expectation of facing unfriendly questions, Rice arrived with two attorneys from the law firm Latham & Watkins. Adam Schiff: ... [W]ould Director Comey brief you on the progress of his investigation? he asked Rice. No, replied Rice under oath. The Republican staffer running the interview emphasized to Rice the importance of telling the truth: You are reminded that it is unlawful to deliberately provide false information to members of Congress or staff. She was asked to raise her right hand and take an oath: Madam Ambassador, do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do, Rice said. The Democrats at the interview werent looking to trip Rice up. But it was questions from two California Democrats in the room that Rice may regret. Rep. Adam Schiff cited the former head of the FBI: Director Comey testified that, in July of last year [2016], he began a counterintelligence investigation into people associated with the Trump campaign and what contacts they may have had with Russia. That investigative responsibility, Schiff asked Rice, wasn't part of your portfolio, I take it? No, not at all. And would Director Comey brief you on the progress of his investigation? No, said Rice. And then she elaborated. I think it's important for everybody to understand: We were not informed by Director Comey or the attorney general that there was an active investigation of anybody in the Trump orbit, she said. [I]n the Obama White House, we maintained scrupulously the firewall between people in the While House and contacts with Justice about potential or actual criminal matters. The only communication that was sanctioned in that vein was between the White House counsel and the Justice Department or the FBl. Eric Swalwell: ls it fair to say that, as the national security adviser, you were not read in on active, ongoing investigations that the Department of Justice or the FBI were conducting? Rice's reply under penalty of perjury: Absolutely, that's the case. If that werent definitive enough, Rice added, And Director Comey did not volunteer to us, not only then but through the duration of the administration, that there was an active investigation of anybody in the Trump orbit. I knew he was looking at this issue, that he was concerned about it. But he never specifically shared with me or others, to my knowledge, that such an investigation was ongoing. And I learned about it formally in the public domain after I left office. A little later in the closed-door Capitol Hill interview, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell came back to the question that Rice had already answered so definitively: Speaking of investigations, you talked about Director Comey and the FBl, Swalwell said to Rice. ls it fair to say that, as the national security adviser, you were not read in on active, ongoing investigations that the Department of Justice or the FBI were conducting? If Rice were concerned that she might have misspoken earlier, she was presented with the opportunity to correct her testimony. She didnt take it. Absolutely, that's the case, Rice replied. Those were law enforcement matters. They were not things that I was privy to unless the Justice Department chose to share them with me. The Justice Department's normal contact in the White House, at least in the Obama administration, for anything to do with law enforcement, criminal stuff, was the White House counsel. Rices testimony took place two years before the inspector general for the Justice Department, Michael Horowitz, released his report on the origins of the FBIs Trump-Russia investigation. In that report is an admission from James Comey that contradicts Rices sworn statements. According to testimony obtained from Comey by Horowitz, the Obama team knew about the FBIs investigation from nearly the start, and in detail. Above, a footnote from the IG report undercuts Rice's claim of no knowledge of Crossfire Hurricane. DoJ Office of the Inspector General Crossfire Hurricane, as the counterintelligence investigation was called, was officially launched at the end of July 2016. Sometime in August just weeks into the secret, close-hold probe Comey was at the White House for a meeting, he told Horowitz. When we asked Comey about meetings with the White House concerning Crossfire Hurricane Horowitz writes, the former FBI director said he did not brief the White House about the investigation. Michael Horowitz: In his report on the origins of Trump-Russia, the Justice Department inspector general listed the attendees at a White House meeting where the probe was discussed, including Rice and President Obama. Comey may not have considered it an official briefing but that doesnt mean he didnt share the information. Comey told Horowitz that in August 2016 he did mention to President Obama and others at a meeting in the Situation Room that the FBI was trying to determine whether any U.S. person had worked with the Russians in their efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election. Comey claimed that he wasnt eager at that White House meeting to share specifics of the inquiry, but he had done so nonetheless. [A]lthough [Comey] did not recall exactly what he said, Horowitz writes, he may have said there were four individuals with some association or connection to the Trump campaign. This revelation failed to strike anyone at the meeting as remarkable: Comey stated that after he provided this information, no one in the Situation Room responded or followed up with any questions. Who were the strangely incurious officials who remained mum when they were told four individuals associated with the Trump campaign were being investigated on suspicion of conspiring with Russians to interfere in the election? Comey provided Horowitz with a list of those at the meeting. The inspector general shares that list in footnote 194 to his report: President Obama was there, as well as his chief of staff, Dennis McDonough; also present were James Clapper, John Brennan, Michael Rogers and Susan Rice. So Rice was among those told by James Comey about Crossfire Hurricane within weeks of the investigations launch. Yet she told the House Intelligence Committee under oath that I think it's important for everybody to understand: We were not informed by Director Comey or the Attorney General that there was an active investigation of anybody in the Trump orbit. Reached by RealClearInvestigations, Rice spokesperson Erin Pelton said that Rices testimony was true: As Ambassador Rice wrote in her book and stated to Congress, she was not briefed by the FBI or the Department of Justice on the existence of an FBI investigation into allegations of collusion between Mr. Trumps associates and Russia, nor was she informed of any FISA applications sought by the FBI in its investigation. Pelton said Rice only learned of the fact of this investigation after leaving office, when FBI Director Comey testified before Congress to that effect. The spokesperson offered no comment, however, about Comeys assertion to the inspector general that he had told Obama, Rice, and the others about Crossfire Hurricane shortly after the investigations launch in the summer of 2016. Fire restrictions within some state land are being lifted because of recent monsoon rain across the northern and southern sections of Arizona. Officials with the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management said restrictions will be lifted by Friday on state lands in Apache, Coconino (south of the Grand Canyon only), Cochise, Graham, Greenlee, Navajo, Pima, Pinal and Santa Cruz counties. On Saturday, forestry officials will also lift restrictions on state land in Yavapai County. Restrictions remain in place on state lands within Gila, La Paz, Maricopa, Mohave and Yuma counties along with Coconino north of the Grand Canyon. The arrival of the summer monsoon storms typically provide increased humidity, ample moisture and cooler temperatures to help decrease fire activity. State fire managers said lackluster monsoon conditions in the central region warrant restrictions to stay in place for the time being. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Catastrophe Arizona She scored her breakout role in season three of Netflix's smash hit Stranger Things in 2019. But with production for season four of the science fiction horror series suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Maya Hawke has been trying to fill the void from the lockdown by spending quality time with her family. And on Thursday the daughter of actors Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman appeared to be headed for a relaxing evening when she was spotted leaving a store in her hometown of New York City. On the go: Maya Hawke, 22, showed off her casual style in a blue denim dress in her hometown of New York City on Thursday The 22-year-old actress oozed casual style in a sleeveless denim dress that came down to her knees and was cinched-in at the waist. And in keeping with a safety-first approach amid these uncertain times, Hawke wore a black protective mask during her walk through the streets of Manhattan. She also donned brown leather sandals and had her brown tresses styled in a sleek blunt-bob, which came compliments of her mother as they sequestered together in upstate New York in recent months. COVID-19 crisis: The Stranger Things star also kept a safety-first mentality by wearing a mas Hawke quarantined at the homes of her famous parents once filming for Stranger Things in Atlanta was shut down in mid-March, around the time the coronavirus was deemed a pandemic. Like her mother and grandmother, Hawke began her career in modeling, which included being one of the faces in a video campaign for Calvin Klein underwear that was directed by Sofia Coppola. She would go on to make her acting debut in the BBC miniseries adaption of Little Women in 2017. The following year she landed her role in Stranger Things, playing Robin Buckley, a gay ice cream parlor worker who becomes intrinsically involved in the groups investigations of paranormal activity. Breakout role: Hawke admitted she felt pure relief when many of the rabid fans of Stranger Things praised her role and performance in season three; the actress is pictured with her mother Uma Thurman in January 2019 Hawke admitted she felt pure relief when many of rabid fans of Stranger Things praised her role and performance. 'I mean, gratifying is a funny word. It was definitely a relief. I was so nervous,' she confessed in an interview with Netflix Queue. 'Whenever you enter a big show like that, where the characters are so beloved and any new presence can sometimes seem like a threat, its always a risk.' Hawke is also set to star in the drama film Mainstream that was directed and co-written by Gia Coppola, the niece of Sofia Coppola. It's slated to premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September 2020. If you are driving down Richmond Avenue between Chimney Rock and Barrington roads, do not be alarmed when you see a large sculpture of a bunnys head in the median. That sculpture is the work of Tara Conley and was among the art showcased as community members gathered on Thursday morning to celebrate the completion of Phase 1 of the Richmond Avenue Public Art Project. It was sponsored by the St. George Place Redevelopment Authority, which is a subsidiary of Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone 1. TIRZ 1 is an entity that receives tax dollars to attract development within its boundaries. Improvements: Millions of dollars are flowing into projects to transform Houston's Westchase District I live in this area. I work in this area, and I always tell people that this area of town has the most potential when you think about the proximity to the Galleria, to Hwy. 59, to (Loop) 610, said Houston City Council Member Edward Pollard during the celebration. When you think about an attractive place to be, you think about location. This place has that location, but what we need are things to make it attractive. The idea for Conleys Bunny started in 2004 when a Houston collector who like her work asked her to make a bunny for her. In 2008, she was approached to make a bronze version of the sculpture for New Orleans, which still stands there today. She had worked with Gus Kopriva, the projects curator, before, and he asked her to do sculpture for the project. Its a treat. Its an honor, Conley said of having her work publicly displayed. The significant part is what it means to other people. As an artist, I loved making it. My relationship with it started when I was outlining it. My relationship started many many years ago, but to see that relationship developing for other people and to let it continue, thats really nice. Mark Bradford, whose sculpture Love 2 All is also part of Phase 1 of the project and is located on Richmond Avenue between Barrigton Road and Yorktown Street, said the piece came from the idea of representing an angel and is made of 100 percent recycled metal. He had also worked with Kopriva before and was asked to be part of the project by him. Its real important to me because, when I was a kid, I got inspired by seeing outdoor sculptures, Bradford said of having his work displayed publicly. Now, hopefully, Ill inspire people to do the same thing. Tim Glover, whose sculpture Whirlwind is also part of Phase 1 of the project and is located on Richmond Avenue between Yorktown Street and South Rice Avenue, was not present at the celebration. Black art: Museum of Fine Arts and Cinema Arts Societys Soul of a Nation resonates with Houstonians Due to City of Houston rules, the art pieces are only allowed to be up for nine months at a time, after which they must come down for three months. Bill Hutz, the Chairman of the St. George Place Redevelopment Authority, said the plan is to have a continuing rotation of pieces of art to go up in those places. This art instillation is the start of a program along Richmond Avenue that will continue all the way to Hillcroft Street. By acknowledging the role of art and culture as economic development drivers the 25,000-plus people driving Richmond Avenue every day will be able to enjoy a rotating museum in the medians showcasing local, contemporary art, Hutz wrote in a pamphlet for the event. elliott.lapin@hearst.com By Nick Marnell BCN Foundation A Contra Costa County Superior Court judge on Thursday dismissed a PG&E lawsuit against the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District that sought to overturn district restrictions on its work and safety procedures. PG&E's lawsuit aimed to invalidate fire district Ordinance No. 35, which prohibits an electric utility from performing non-emergency electrical work within district boundaries without 48 hours' notice. The ordinance also prohibits a utility from deploying safety and infrastructure teams inside the district without notice. PG&E claimed the ordinance exceeded the fire district's authority and infringed on the jurisdiction of the California Public Utilities Commission. The company insists that giving 48 hours' notice is not feasible because it needs flexibility to act during times of high fire risk, especially during a Public Safety Power Shutoff. PG&E also maintains that its safety and infrastructure teams are on site to support fire prevention efforts, not as first responders. The court ruled against PG&E on a procedural issue. The judge said the utility did not meet the time limit for publishing a legal notice of its lawsuit in a local newspaper. PG&E declined to discuss the case or elaborate on any further actions against the fire district. "This is an ongoing legal proceeding as the judge has not issued the actual order so we can't comment at this time," company spokesman Matt Nauman said. While pleased with the court victory, San Ramon Valley Fire said it had no problem allying with PG&E on fire safety procedures. However, the district said its cooperation has its limits. "We are willing to work with PG&E to help mitigate fire danger, but we are unwilling to let go of our ability to oversee their work," Chief Paige Meyer said. He alluded to the catastrophic 2018 wildfire in Butte County that CalFire determined was caused by faulty PG&E transmission lines. "This could be a way for PG&E to enhance working with fire districts to avoid another Paradise," Meyer said. 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. BRISTOL, Tenn., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Contura Energy, Inc. (NYSE: CTRA), a leading U.S. coal supplier, plans to announce its second quarter 2020 financial results before the market opens on Friday, August 7, 2020. The company also expects to hold a conference call to discuss its second quarter 2020 results at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time the morning of August 7. Participating on the call will be Contura's chairman and chief executive officer, David Stetson, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Andy Eidson, and executive vice president and chief operating officer, Jason Whitehead. The conference call will be available live on the investor section of the company's website at http://investors.conturaenergy.com/investors. Analysts who would like to participate in the conference call should dial 866-270-1533 (domestic toll-free) or 412-317-0797 (international) approximately 15 minutes prior to the start of the call. ABOUT CONTURA ENERGY Contura Energy (NYSE: CTRA) is a Tennessee-based coal supplier with affiliate mining operations across major coal basins in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. With customers across the globe, high-quality reserves and significant port capacity, Contura Energy reliably supplies both metallurgical coal to produce steel and thermal coal to generate power. For more information, visit www.conturaenergy.com . FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Contura's expectations and beliefs concerning future events and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. These factors are difficult to predict accurately and may be beyond Contura's control. Forward-looking statements in this news release or elsewhere speak only as of the date made. New uncertainties and risks arise from time to time, and it is impossible for Contura to predict these events or how they may affect Contura. Except as required by law, Contura has no duty to, and does not intend to, update or revise the forward-looking statements in this news release or elsewhere after the date this release is issued. In light of these risks and uncertainties, investors should keep in mind that results, events or developments discussed in any forward-looking statement made in this news release may not occur. INVESTOR CONTACT [email protected] Alex Rotonen, CFA 423.956.6882 MEDIA CONTACT [email protected] Emily O'Quinn 423.573.0369 SOURCE Contura Energy, Inc. Related Links http://www.conturaenergy.com The recent opening of China's domestic market to Argentine lemon has brought a new opportunity for the local citrus sector, and the Asian giant has the potential to become a main export market in the near future, said to an industry insider. San Miguel Global is one of several companies which, after more than 20 years of negotiations between China and Argentina, have started to export fresh lemons to the Asian nation, with an eye to expanding in a "market with high potential due to its volume and sophisticated consumption," the company's regional manager for America and Asia Juan Martin Hilbert told Xinhua. "Exports to China was very important news for us, since we consider the market to be essential. Before that, we depended on exports to Europe and the United States, and we lacked that key player which is China," said Hilbert. The end of June saw the first 24-ton shipment of lemons exported by Argentine company Citromax to Hong Kong, a "milestone" in trade and widely celebrated by the nation's citrus sector. Shipments hew to "strict" rules to guarantee quality, so the lemons first undergo a 24-day cold treatment against possible pests or other contaminants, Hilbert said. San Miguel's shipment is due to arrive in China in early August and will be sold at the wholesale market, online, and to tea shops across southern China, he said. "These tea shops are very popular throughout China, and lemon is one of the main ingredients used there to flavor tea." The rules paving the way for Argentine's lemon exports to China were finalized in late 2019 after a historic bilateral agreement, and updated existing rules dating from 2004 that regulated the sale of sweet citrus fruits, such as oranges, tangerines and grapefruits. "It is important for us to continue expanding in a country that is increasing its citrus consumption through tea and through vitamin C for the immune system. There are multiple uses for lemons in China and we want to capture that niche, that opportunity," said Hilbert. The upcoming third China International Import Expo (CIIE) to be held in November in Shanghai "shows China is opening up much more, including fruit imports," he noted. The initial lemon shipments to China may be relatively small by export standards, but they are part of a vital learning curve for Argentina's exporters, he said. "For us it is important to do things well, for the fruit to arrive in very good quality both inside and outside, and gradually win over Chinese consumers to definitively consolidate this important market for our country," said Hilbert. Clinical Alarm Management Market Research Report by Product (Bed Alarms, EMR Integration System, Nurse Call System, Physiological Monitors, and Ventilator Alarm Management), by Component (Services and Solutions), by End User - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19 New York, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Clinical Alarm Management Market Research Report by Product, by Component, by End User - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940145/?utm_source=GNW The Global Clinical Alarm Management Market is expected to grow from USD 580.90 Million in 2019 to USD 1,547.74 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 17.74%. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Clinical Alarm Management to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: "The Nurse Call System is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Product, the Clinical Alarm Management Market studied across Bed Alarms, EMR Integration System, Nurse Call System, Physiological Monitors, and Ventilator Alarm Management. The Physiological Monitors commanded the largest size in the Clinical Alarm Management Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Nurse Call System is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Services is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Component, the Clinical Alarm Management Market studied across Services and Solutions. The Services commanded the largest size in the Clinical Alarm Management Market in 2019, and it is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Ambulatory Care Centers is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on End User, the Clinical Alarm Management Market studied across Ambulatory Care Centers, Hospitals, and Long-Term Care Centers. The Hospitals commanded the largest size in the Clinical Alarm Management Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Ambulatory Care Centers is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Asia-Pacific is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Geography, the Clinical Alarm Management Market studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region surveyed across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region surveyed across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region surveyed across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. The Americas commanded the largest size in the Clinical Alarm Management Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. Company Usability Profiles: The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Clinical Alarm Management Market including Amplion Clinical Communications, Inc., Ascom Holding AG, Capsule Technologies, Inc., Connexall, GlobeStar Systems Inc., Critical Alert Systems, GE Healthcare, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Masimo Corporation, Medtronic PLC, Mobile Heartbeat, LLC, Nihon Kohden Corporation, Software Team Srl, Spok, Inc., and Vocera Communications. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Clinical Alarm Management Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Clinical Alarm Management Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Clinical Alarm Management Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Clinical Alarm Management Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Clinical Alarm Management Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Clinical Alarm Management Market? 6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Clinical Alarm Management Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940145/?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 Rating Action: Moody's assigns Baa2 to Guam Waterworks' Series 2020B revenue bonds; outlook negative Global Credit Research - 31 Jul 2020 New York, July 31, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service has assigned a Baa2 rating to the Guam Waterworks Authority's (GWA's) planned issuance of $167 million Water and Wastewater System Revenue Refunding Bonds, Series 2020B (Federally Taxable). Following the issuance of the Series 2020B bonds, GWA will have approximately $645 million revenue bonds outstanding, all rated Baa2. The outlook is negative. RATINGS RATIONALE The Baa2 rating on GWA's revenue bonds incorporates the inherent linkages between the authority and the general credit quality of the Government of Guam (Ba1 negative), the water and wastewater enterprise's trend of sustained strong financial performance and coverage due to steady rate increases, and a track record of addressing outstanding regulatory issues. At the same time, the rating also incorporates the vulnerability of system finances to volatile energy costs, above-average debt levels, uncertainty regarding the timing and cost of future regulatory requirements, and the territory's small and concentrated economy. The rating incorporates the economic and financial challenges facing the government and GWA as a result of a significant decline in tourism driven by the coronavirus pandemic. We expect that these challenges will be manageable in the near term due to the substantial assistance the territory is expected to receive from the federal government and the continuation of significant military construction activity in the territory. The rapid and widening spread of the coronavirus outbreak, deteriorating global economic outlook, falling oil prices, and financial market declines are creating a severe and extensive credit shock across many sectors, regions and markets. The combined credit effects of these developments are unprecedented. We regard the coronavirus outbreak as a social risk under our ESG framework, given the substantial implications for public health and safety. Story continues RATING OUTLOOK The negative outlook reflects the risks that the recovery of Guam's important tourism sector will be later and slower than currently expected and that federal assistance may be less than anticipated, placing pressure on the government's and the authority's finances and liquidity. FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OF THE RATING - A continued trend of strong financial performance coupled with an improvement in the general credit quality of the Government of Guam. - Significant growth and diversification of the Guam economy. FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO A DOWNGRADE OF THE RATING - Financial results that fall short of current projections. - New regulatory requirements that increase system capital needs and debt levels. - Deterioration of the general credit quality of the Government of Guam. LEGAL SECURITY GWA's revenue bonds are secured by net revenues of its water and wastewater enterprise. USE OF PROCEEDS Proceeds of the Series 2020B bonds will be used to refund outstanding revenue bonds for debt service savings. PROFILE The Territory of Guam is located in the western Pacific Ocean approximately 3,800 miles west-southwest of Honolulu, 1,550 miles south-southeast of Tokyo, and 1,600 miles east of Manila. The land area is 212 square miles, approximately the same size as the District of Columbia, and the population is approximately 162,900. The gross domestic product was $5.9 billion in 2018 and GDP per capita was $36,341, approximately 58% of the US level. The Guam Waterworks Authority provides water and wastewater services to the territory. It is a public corporation of the territory organized under territorial statutes. METHODOLOGY The principal methodology used in this rating was US Municipal Utility Revenue Debt published in October 2017 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBM_1095545. 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. The rating has been disclosed to the rated entity or its designated agent (s) and issued with no amendment resulting from that disclosure. This rating is 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. Kenneth Kurtz Lead Analyst State Ratings Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 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Therefore, credit ratings assigned by MSFJ are Non-NRSRO Credit Ratings. Non-NRSRO Credit Ratings are assigned by an entity that is not a NRSRO and, consequently, the rated obligation will not qualify for certain types of treatment under U.S. laws. MJKK and MSFJ are credit rating agencies registered with the Japan Financial Services Agency and their registration numbers are FSA Commissioner (Ratings) No. 2 and 3 respectively. MJKK or MSFJ (as applicable) hereby disclose that most issuers of debt securities (including corporate and municipal bonds, debentures, notes and commercial paper) and preferred stock rated by MJKK or MSFJ (as applicable) have, prior to assignment of any credit rating, agreed to pay to MJKK or MSFJ (as applicable) for credit ratings opinions and services rendered by it fees ranging from JPY125,000 to approximately JPY250,000,000. MJKK and MSFJ also maintain policies and procedures to address Japanese regulatory requirements. By C.K. Nayak (Reuters) - China warned on Thursday that a "forced decoupling" of its economy with India, following a Himalayan border clash last month that killed 20 Indian soldiers, would hurt both countries. The Chinese ambassador said China was not a strategic threat to India and that the "general structure that we can't live without each other remains unchanged". The statement came after New Delhi's recent moves to ban or sideline Chinese business interests in one of the world's biggest markets, even as the border remains tense with many more troops on the ground than usual. "China advocates win-win cooperation and opposes a zero-sum game," Ambassador Sun Weidong wrote on Twitter. "Our economies are highly complementary, interwoven and interdependent. Forced decoupling is against the trend and will only lead to a 'lose-lose' outcome." Officials of the nuclear-armed neighbours have been talking regularly to de-escalate the border standoff after the June 15 clash in the Galwan Valley of India's Ladakh region when the Indian officials said soldiers were beaten to death with rocks and clubs. Indian officials say Chinese troops have intruded on to its side in the remote western region, while China says it has not breached the disputed border and has asked India to restrain its frontline troops. India's Ministry of External Affairs said in an online briefing that a troops disengagement process as agreed by the two sides had yet to be completed, and that another round of commander-level talks would be held soon. "We expect 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," spokesman Anurag Srivastava said. Analysts say the worst fighting between the giant countries in decades is likely to push India closer to the United States, both strategically and in trade. China and India fought a brief border war in 1962 and China is a close ally of India's long-time foe, Pakistan. (Reporting by Krishna N. Das and C.K. Nayak; Editing by Nick Macfie) Lund University in Sweden, founded in 1666, is one of Europe's oldest and most respected universities. According to its own website, the university has been consistently ranked among the world's top 100 universities for a few years now. Yet, for some crass Indians, the university, also known as Lunds Universitet, is nothing but a source of memes and jokes reeking of sexual innuendos. All because of its name. So much so that the university had to issue a statement, directed specifically at Indians, to refrain from passing lewd comments. The university is located in, as the name suggests, the city of Lund which is situated in the province of Scania. Lund. The history of the university mentions that its namesake is an ancient town of great cultural and historical significance. The word "Lund" in Swiss means "green area" or "green pastures." It is a well-known fact that a word in one language may mean something else entirely in another language. In India, 'Lund' is a Hindi slang and commonly used expletive. Naturally, some thought it was okay to make fun of the university, on the university's official Facebook page, circulate it among their friends and make unfunny, juvenile memes about it. However, this is not just specific to India, but other Hindi speaking countries like Pakistan as well. In a statement on Facebook, representatives of the university wrote, "We have had this Facebook page for ten years now and every now and then it is "rediscovered" by students in certain countries who spread it to their friends. We are well aware that our name is entertaining to you and with thousands of languages in the world, there will of course always be words that sound funny in another language." They continued, "Every year, we receive applications from 170 countries around the world from students who would like to receive a degree from a top-ranked university. If you are not a prospective student, we would appreciate if you could write your comments directly to your friends and not on our page." The statement has gone viral on social media. The Indian public showcasing their chutzpah everyday everywhere.#LundUniversity pic.twitter.com/Z3w7nm1DPd Fleabag (@imverma) July 25, 2020 Lund University in Sweden, one of the top 100 in the world, has had enough of Indians on Facebook."The word means green area and is pronounced in a very different way in Swedish than the word that you are thinking of in your language (sic)."~~Lund University R Bhaduri (@r_bhaduri) July 26, 2020 When a top university calls out Indians largerly for their inability to shutup about its name, you know something is wrong with the public here. I would say an outcome of low quality sex ed and hush talks of sexual topics that makes us so intrigued #lunduniversity #sexeducation pic.twitter.com/Vcveav76bZ Atishyopma (@atishyopma) July 29, 2020 The admins of the page said in the statement that they have to spend hours filtering through the comments and deleting crass jokes. "As admins of the page, we need to spend hours deleting hundreds of comments to keep the page manageable, relevant and available for serious student questions. Thank you," the statement reads. The visiting Bihar police team on Thursday started the process of scrutinising financial transactions and bank account details of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput as part of their probe into his alleged suicide here last month, a Mumbai police official said. The Bihar police team, which arrived in Mumbai on Wednesday, visited several places, including the residence of Rajput's friend, actress Rhea Chakraborty, who is facing'abetment to suicide' charge in a Patna FIR, but did not find her at home, said the Mumbai Crime Branch official. According to the official, the Bihar police started looking into financial transactions of Rajput, who was found hanging in his suburban Bandra apartment on June 14. As part of the process, the four-member team visited a Bandra-based bank where the 34-year-old actor had an account, he said. The Bihar cops are also looking into evidence collected so far by the Mumbai police and statements recorded by them, he said. They are expected to question some people linked to Rajput, including his ex-girlfriend, actress Ankita Lokhande, the official said. The Bihar Police team landed in Mumbai to probe an abetment to suicide' case registered against Chakraborty and others in connection with the death of Rajput. Krishna Kumar Singh (74), Rajput's father, lodged a complaint against Chakraborty, the deceased actor's friend, and six others, including her family members, for alleged abetment to suicide, in Patna on Tuesday. The Mumbai police who are already investigating the alleged suicide have questioned several people from the film industry in connection with the case. The Patna case was registered under various IPC sections including 341 (wrongful restraint), 342 (wrongfulconfinement), 380 (theft in dwelling house), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating) and 306 (abetment of suicide). Singh accused Chakraborty, a budding TV and film actor, of having befriended his son in May 2019 with the intention of furthering her own career. Meanwhile, Maharashtra Minister of State for Home Shambhuraj Desai on Thursday said the Bihar police did notfollow established protocols. The Mumbai police have registered a case from day one we are investigating it," he said. Whenever a police team from a state visits another state for investigation, there are some protocols which are to be followed.. these were not followed," Desai told a news channel in Mumbai. Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh had on Wednesday ruled out a CBI probe into the death of Rajput. "The Mumbai police are investigating the case and there is no question of the case being handed over to the CBI," Deshmukh had said. Bosses in Victoria could be jailed for 20 years and forced to pay $16.5million in fines if their workers contract coronavirus and die. The penalties can be handed out to any employer in Victoria under the state's industrial manslaughter laws. For the penalties to apply, a boss must be proven to have failed in their duty of care and contributed to the worker's death, the Herald Sun reported. 'Our workplace manslaughter laws mean that employers who negligently breach their duties, causing the death of their workers, can be prosecuted and potentially go to jail,' Workplace Safety Minister Jill Hennessy said. Bosses could be jailed for 20 years and forced to pay $16.5 million in fines if their workers contract coronavirus and die (stock image) 'Our workplace manslaughter laws mean that employers who negligently breach their duties, causing the death of their workers, can be prosecuted and potentially go to jail,' Workplace Safety Minister Jill Hennessy said 'Those duties include providing a safe and healthy workplace.' The law is part of new legislation that was brought in at the start of the month that aims to better protect workers who are living with diseases to mental health issues. Former state premier Jeff Kennett said the penalties should be pushed further and apply to government officials. 'I am just making the point that we should not discriminate and apply them to anyone that has made decision where because of their actions, there is a less than desirable result.' Bosses also risk $9,913 fines if they fail to enforce social distancing and other protective measures in the workplace. The threat of penalties comes after a major inspection and enforcement blitz was carried out at at-risk Victorian businesses earlier this month. The state government announced the crackdown on July 19 to target at-risk workplaces including those with known COVID-19 cases, or where there was a high risk of the virus given precedent in the industry. A boss must be proven to have failed in their duty of care and contributed to the worker's death (stock image, a nurse holds a COVID-19 nasal swab test kit) The threat of penalties comes after a major inspection and enforcement blitz was carried out at at-risk Victorian businesses earlier this month (pictured, cleaning staff at a Melbourne aged care home) WorkSafe, Emergency Management Victoria and Victoria Police will coordinate the enforcement blitz in workplaces across the state. Almost 8,000 site visits and 3,066 virtual inquiries have been made by WorkSafe between March 15 and July 15. Of these, 3,460 visits and 1,700 virtual inquiries were directly related to or addressed COVID-19. 'This inspection blitz will identify any workplaces who are not meeting the high standards necessary to keep their employees safe,' Workplace Safety Minister Jill Hennessy said in a statement. 'There is no room to cut corners or be complacent. Workplaces need to take every step possible to maintain safe workplaces and prevent or limit the spread of coronavirus.' As part of efforts to fight COVID-19 pandemic, a plasma bank was inaugurated on Friday at state-owned SAIL's plant in Rourkela (Odisha), a company statement said. The plasma bank at SAIL's Ispat General Hospital (IGH) was e-inaugurated by Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) said. The plasma bank has been set up in association with the Odisha government, and would go a long way in treatment of the critically ill COVID-19 patients, it added. The state-owned company said Minister of Steel Dharmendra Pradhan has been stressing on strengthening infrastructure and expanding services in SAIL's hospitals. "Since the outbreak of the pandemic, he had instructed to create facilities for COVID-19 testing and treatment at Ispat General Hospital for the people of the region. Earlier in the month of April, a COVID sample testing lab was established in IGH which has proved to be immensely beneficial in containing the spread of the disease," It added. The plasma bank - the first in this region - is equipped with Apheresis machine for plasma collection, sealer, crash cart, oxygen line and a Plasma cabinet for storage of 350-500 units of plasma. Persons who have been completely cured from COVID-19 can donate plasma in this centre. A number of stringent tests will be carried out in the plasma bank to check the quality of the plasma before providing the same for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The centre will be managed by the doctors and paramedics of IGH. This centre has brought a new ray of hope and optimism amongst the people of this region, the company said. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Chinese smartphone manufacturer Realme launched the new Realme C11 budget centric device in India earlier this month. The smartphone already has been made available for a couple of sales since its launch. Yet again, the phone will go on sale today via Flipkart. The interested buyers can simply head to e-commerce website to get their hands on the device. The handset is offered in a single configuration with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The smartphone is priced in India at Rs 7,499 for the sole variant. Realme C11 Smartphone With MediaTek Helio G35 SoC Launched in India at Rs 7,499. Specification-wise, the Realme C11 smartphone gets a 6.5-inch mini-drop fullscreen display. The panel offers a resolution of 720x1560 pixels along with screen to body ratio of 88.7 percent. Under the hood, there is an octa-core Mediatek Helio G35 chipset that powers the phone which is clocked up to 2.3GHz. Not a part of the 150K people who got their hands on #realmeC11 in its first sale? Worry not, here's another chance to experience the #BiggerBatteryLargerDisplay! Get yours in the sale today at 12 PM on https://t.co/HrgDJTHBFX & @Flipkart. Know more: https://t.co/ngUm6PdyDO pic.twitter.com/pwExqBaQJN realme (@realmemobiles) July 29, 2020 The Chipset comes mated with a 2GB of RAM & 32GB of onboard storage. The phone also supports memory expansion via a microSD card. The Realme C11 comes in two exciting colours - Mint Green & Pepper Grey. Realme C11 Online India Sale (Photo Credits: Flipkart) For optics, there is a dual-camera setup at the back carrying a squarish camera bump. The setup comprises a13MP primary snapper assisted by a 2MP secondary shooter along with an LED flash. The camera module also supports portrait mode, chrome boost, slo-mo video recording and 1080p video recording and much more. The front camera is a 5MP snapper for video calls and selfies. Realme C11 Launching Today in India (Photo Credits: Flipkart) The Realme C11 smartphone is fuelled by a massive 5000 mAh battery. It also supports reverse charging technology. The phone maker claims that it is capable of offering a standby of 40 days. It is loaded with several features such as face unlock, 3-card slot option, Realme UI based on Android 10, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Hotspot, micro-USB 2.0, Bluetooth and more. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 31, 2020 11:09 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Torontos new photo-radar cameras are helping ticket an average of 546 speeders every day, many in one particular part of Etobicoke and a stunning number for one vehicle racing down the same stretch of road. The city revealed Friday that in the first two weeks of automated speed enforcement starting in early July, the 50 radar-equipped cameras across the city took photos resulting in 7,645 tickets. The highest detected speed was 89 km/h on Renforth Dr. near Lafferty St., just east of Centennial Park, in 40 km/h school zone. The same camera triggered the highest fine, $718 including surcharges, and issued the most tickets over two weeks 890, or 12 per cent of the citywide total. Earlier this year, when the Renforth camera was issuing only warnings, a driver blasted past it, and a middle school, 112 km/h over the speed limit. Of the citywide two-week total, 590 were repeat offenders. The tickets are issued to the registered vehicle owner because the cameras cant identify drivers. The worst chronic speeder was in a vehicle caught over the limit eight times in two weeks passing past the same camera on Trehorne Dr. near Duffield Rd., in front of Scarlett Heights Entrepreneurial Academy. All of that, despite signs that warn motorists about photo radar before they drive past any of the cameras. Coun. Stephen Holyday sounded embarrassed but not surprised that his Ward 2 Etobicoke Centre is being revealed as Torontos Ground Zero for residential neighbourhood speeding, with multiple photo-radar records. Im proud to live in this community but Im not proud to be at the top of the speeding stats, Holyday said in an interview. Me and my neighbours have noticed this to be true and weve asked the police for help ... Renforth is notorious for speeding and street racing. Some parts have backs of houses facing the street so there are no eyes on it and some people do the unthinkable and drive irresponsibly or flat-out street race. As for driving 89 km/h in a 40 zone on Trehorne, no rational person would do that. That area has schools, a library, a parks, a strip mall, a fire station, lots of places for pedestrians and cyclists this is very, very dangerous. I supported photo radar and I hope people slow down and this proves that those devices are working. Mayor John Tory starting lobbying the then-Liberal provincial government for permission to use photo radar on Toronto streets in 2016. Premier Doug Fords government granted permission last December but pandemic staffing issues delayed full implementation. Two cameras in each of the 25 wards are meant to increase road safety, reduce speeding and raise public awareness about the need to slow down and obey posted speed limits, the city says. There have been some bumps in the photo radar road, however. The city revealed Friday that it had to cancel 299 tickets from two cameras, on Derrydown Rd., in the Finch Ave.-Keele St. area, and Elkhorn Dr., in the Bayview Ave.-Sheppard Ave. E. area, due to a programming error. The company contracted to supply and maintain the devices set the wrong speed limit for one camera and wrong direction of travel for the other, the city said, adding steps were taken to ensure it doesnt happen again. The cameras, encased in large heavy metal boxes, have also been stolen, vandalized and even set on fire since they started appearing alongside Toronto streets earlier this year. Five cameras have so far been stolen and 14 vandalized, most often with graffiti, the city said, adding the supplier restores operation with 24 hours. David Rider is the Star's City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering city hall and municipal politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider An Immigration and Customs Enforcement guard at an immigration jail in Virginia knelt dangerously on the upper back of a man already bleeding from his head, two detained men who said they saw the disturbing incident told The Daily Beast. It was like seeing George Floyd all over again, said one detainee, whom The Daily Beast will call Glenn. Since the incident on Monday, July 13, the detained men said that they have not seen the beaten man, identified as 31-year old Carlos Rivas Monsano. Right now, we dont know where he is, a second detainee, whom The Daily Beast will call Jerry, said on Monday. A third detainee gave a similar account. They Put Us in Here to Let Us Die: ICE Prison Sees Outbreak of Coronavirusand Guard Violence In a statement to The Daily Beast, ICE said it was investigating what is said to have happened to Rivas. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reviewing the incident. ICE takes very seriously, allegations of misconduct in our detention facilities. We hold our personnel and contractors to the highest standards of professional and ethical behavior, an ICE spokesperson said. When we receive a complaint, we investigate the matter thoroughly to determine its veracity and to ensure that the comprehensive standards, which ICE is required to follow under various national detention standards, are being strictly maintained. The violent episode occurred at ICEs Caroline detention facility, a 336-bed correctional center located on but independent of the Armys Fort AP Hill base near Bowling Green, Virginia. Not far from Caroline is another ICE prison that has suffered both a COVID-19 outbreak and several recent incidents of guard violence. That prison, ICA Farmville, has occasionally transited detained people through Caroline, prompting detainee concerns about the coronavirus that are said to have sparked what happened to Rivas. Beginning around 8pm on July 13, ICE officials informed around 25 individuals held in Carolines Blockcalled TE, short for Timber Ridge Eastthat a quarantine was forthcoming. All three detainees told The Daily Beast there had been widespread dissatisfaction in Block TE about what they considered insufficient information provided about ICE measures to prevent the spread of the virus inside. Concerns on the evening of July 13 included whether Block TE would quarantine together; whether detainees would receive personal protective equipment like masks; and the distribution of bleach and other cleansing products to disinfect bathrooms. Story continues But detainees appeared to ignore or dismiss the quarantine announcement by a female officer, who summoned her superior, whom the detainees described as possessing an intimidating demeanor. The superior officer, said to be a lieutenant called a meeting in a first-floor common area and instructed Block TE detainees to listen to the female officer. Rivas, seated on a chair, loudly yelled No before adding, in Glenns paraphrase, We're tired of all the politics that happen here, its bullshit. The lieutenant approached Rivas and informed him he would be handcuffed for that outburst. Rivas refused an order to stand but did not otherwise physically resist. The lieutenant, described as much larger than the slight Rivas, picked Rivas up and threw him to the floor. On the way down, Rivas head slammed against the wall and began bleeding. Jerry, who said he was seated five feet away from Rivas, said, it was like they hugged him and then threw him to the ground. With Rivas bleeding from his head on the ground, Glenn and Jerry said, the lieutenant knelt on Rivas upper back. A third account differed slightly. One detainee, whom The Daily Beast will call Doyle, said another guard knelt on Rivas head while the lieutenant sat on Rivas back in a straddle position. Neither Glenn nor Jerrys account included that. All three detainees accounts said the lieutenant lifted Rivas right arm skyward in what appeared to be a painful contortion. With his free hand, he punched Rivas in the face multiple times, accelerating Rivas bleeding from his head. Another guard, all three said, grabbed Rivas legs at the ankles while Rivas yelled Hes hitting me! Unlike George Floyds May 25 slaying by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, Rivas did not lose consciousness. The longest any detainee said the lieutenant knelt on Rivas back was four minutes, less than half of the eight minutes and 48 seconds Chauvin knelt on Floyds head. But the lieutenant was on top of him like the police officer was on top of George Floyd. His knee is on Carlos spinal cord, Glenn said. Horrified Block TE residents screamed for the guards to let Rivas go and get him help. Instead, a rush of guards entered the room and formed a line separating them from their colleagues restraining Rivas. All three detainees said they were armed with pepper spray but did not use it on the detainees. Guards picked the bleeding Rivas off the floor and carried him out of the first-floor room. Bloodstains were said to be visible on the ground outside Rivas room # 14. Detainees were told to return to their rooms, where other guards interviewed them about what they saw. Glenn opted for silence. They manipulate everything you say, he explained. According to all three, approximately seven of the 25 witnesses were sent to The Hole, or solitary confinement. The detainees understood that to be witness intimidation. Rumors abound about what happened to Rivas. Some said they believed he was taken to the infirmary or a nearby hospital. It is unclear if he has legal representation. All three said they had not seen or heard from him since the July 13 incident. They didnt need that level of force, said Jerry, who put what happened to Rivas in the context of dorm-wide fright about coronavirus. A captain returned to the scene with a doctor, Jerry said, and the doctor gave us the response we were looking for. The doctor said were putting you in quarantine, were not saying you have to leave your unit. Put your mask on and maintain a distance of six feet from one person to the other. From the first time, if they had given us that answer, we wouldnt have had a problem. We just want answers. Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. Mumbai, July 31 : The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra on Friday demanded a probe by the Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation into the alleged suicide of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis said that since the misappropriation (of funds) and money-laundering angle has emerged, the ED can register an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) to take the probe ahead. "There is a huge public sentiment about handing over the case to the CBI, but looking at the reluctance of the state government, at least the ED can register an ECIR since misappropriation and money-laundering angle has come out," said Fadnavis. Making a plea for a 'holistic' probe by the CBI, senior BJP leader Ashish Shelar said that the separate investigations conducted by the Mumbai Police and the Bihar Police are heading in altogether different directions. "The Mumbai Police is also not taking cognisance of people who are being named on social media. The police are calling some film directors and summoning the secretaries of other directors for investigation, so even the probe in the Bollywood angle does not appear to be done properly," alleged Shelar. He said that in order to cover all aspects and give justice to the late actor, the probe must be taken over by the CBI which can conduct a holistic investigation into all aspects. However, State Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Wednesday categorically ruled out handing over the investigation to the CBI saying the Mumbai Police probe is heading in the right direction. Interestingly, Sushant's ex-girlfriend and actress Ankita Lokhande has also sought a CBI probe, but the late actor's former companion Rhea Chakraborty moved the Supreme Court demanding that the case registered against her by Bihar Police should be transferred to Mumbai Police. Several other Bollywood personalities have also expressed views that the CBI should be entrusted with the probe in the past few days after the actor was found dead at his Mumbai residence on June 14. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery President Donald Trump participates in a roundtable discussion on donating plasma at the American Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, on July 30, 2020. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images) Trump Calls On Recovered Americans to Donate Blood Plasma to Combat COVID-19 'We need plasma' President Donald Trump and public health officials on Thursday encouraged Americans who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate their convalescent blood plasma to help combat the disease. More than 2 million Americans have recovered from the virus, and today were asking them to visit Coronavirus.gov and volunteer to donate plasma. We need plasma, Trump said at a press conference on the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus. Its something thats been very effective, and we need plasma from those that were infected and successfully recovered, as most people do. Most people do, he added. Plasma-based treatment has the potential to give antibodies to patients affected by the virus and is potentially game changing, according to a statement from the White House. The statement noted that donors can give plasma multiple times. Convalescent plasma has become the first widely available antibody-based therapy for the CCP virus, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services continues to evaluate the efficacy of the treatment. A large study of the first 20,000 adults who were hospitalized with severe life-threatening COVID-19 and have received transfusions of convalescent plasma found the investigative therapy to be safe. The study which was part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) national Expanded Access Program, was reported in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Were encouraged by the data; weve seen that this is a safe treatment. And were encouraged by the early promising data that weve seen. And as the President mentioned, were studying these data to determine, ultimately, the safety and efficacy of this product, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn said during a roundtable on donating plasma. U.S. Commissioner of Food and Drugs Stephen Hahn participates in a roundtable discussion on donating plasma at the American Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, on July 30, 2020. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images) In the meantime, we know that doctors are writing these orders, that patients who are hospitalized need this, and so the call to action to donate is so important, he added. And even if, at the end of the day, convalescent plasma doesnt turn out to be the treatment we think it might be, remember that your donations still count with the American Blood Centers and the American Red Cross. They can truly save lives. Trump visited the American Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington and briefly witnessed a recovered COVID-19 patient donating plasma. President Donald Trump looks on as patients donate plasma at the American Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, on July 30, 2020. (Doug Mills/Pool/AFP via Getty Images) The FDA in April called on recovered Americans to donate convalescent plasma, which it called an antibody-rich product made from blood donated by those who have recovered from COVID-19. It added that studies suggested that convalescent plasma has the potential to lessen the severity or shorten the length of illness from the virus. HHS Secretary Alex Azar at the roundtable expressed gratitude toward those that have stepped up to donate, noting that more than 48,000 COVID-19 patients have received convalescent plasma. You are literally saving lives. And we need hundreds of thousands more to please come forward, Azar said. If youve been infected and recovered, please go to Coronavirus.gov andor reach out to your American Red Cross outlet or your local blood bank, and please be a donor. Surgeon General Jerome Adams at the roundtable said that the average age of donation of blood and plasma is over 60. Surgeon General Jerome Adams participates in a roundtable discussion on donating plasma at the American Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, on July 30, 2020. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images) To the young people out there: Weve got some work to do. The seniors are showing us up. We need everyone to do their part, because were all in this together, Adams said. Trump acknowledged that more than 150,000 Americans have died from the CCP virus. America grieves for all of the 150,000 Americans who had their lives taken by this horrible, invisible enemy. We mourn their loss, as a nation; we mourn their loss, as people that love one another, he said. were working very hard to not only contain this horrible event, this horrible plague, but also to come up with therapeutics and vaccines. The efforts toward blood plasma therapy come as part of Operation Warp Speed, the administrations efforts to quickly develop safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics to combat the CCP virus. Most recently, the administration secured more than 90 percent of the worlds supply of the antiviral drug remdesivir, Trump said. This equates to 650,000 courses of the drug, which has been shown to decrease mortality and speed up recovery time, according to a White House statement. The administration has also approved the use of dexamethasone, a steroid that Trump said has shown success even in patients at more advanced stages of the disease. Reliance Industries (RIL) share price slipped in the opening trade on July 31 after the company came out with its June quarter earnings. The company reported a consolidated profit of Rs 13,248 crore for the first quarter of FY21, with Jio's ARPU growth of 7.4 percent QoQ at Rs 140.3 per subscriber per month beating Street expectations. Consolidated profit during the June quarter 2020 (which included exceptional gain of Rs 4,966 crore from stake sale to BP in Reliance BP Mobility) increased 102.4 percent sequentially and the year-on-year increase was 30.6 percent. Consolidated profit in the March quarter 2020 stood at Rs 6,348 crore and Rs 10,141 crore in the corresponding period of last year. Also Read - Reliance Jio Q1 profit rises over 180% to Rs 2,520 crore, ARPU up 7.4% at Rs 140.3 Here is what brokerages have to say about the stock and the company: Prabhudas Lilladher | Rating: Buy | Target: Raised to Rs 2,170 from Rs 1,828 The brokerage house raised the price target on the stock factoring in higher valuation in Jio and retail business on rollover to FY23E versus earlier September 22 to factor in a higher multiple. It valued the hydrocarbon business in the September 22 valuation at EV/E of 8.5x vs 8x earlier. Despite a sharp run-up in stock prices (+140% in the past four months), Prabhudas Lilladher believes positive news flow on global partnerships or stake sale is likely to keep valuations elevated. Sharekhan | Rating: Buy | Target: Rs 2,400 Recent fund-raising strengthens RILs balance sheet; potential monetisation of the stake in retail business and Jios likely listing could create long-term value for investors. It expects PAT to clock CAGR of 20 percent during FY20-FY22E driven by digital and retail businesses. It revised FY2021E-FY2022E EPS to factor in lower refining margin offset by higher other income (given a sharp rise in cash levels) and introduced FY2023E EPS and factored in an increased equity base of Rs 676 crore (for rights issues) over FY2022E-FY2023E. The potential listing of Jio and stake sale in retail business could further unlock value from consumer-centric business and create long-term wealth for investors Goldman Sachs | Rating: Buy The Q1 was in-line, strong relative outperformance versus peers in a subdued quarter. The weaker energy was offset by stronger-than-expected retail performance. Both retail and energy saw EBITDA decline due to local/global lockdowns, while telecom EBITDA grew 50 percent YoY on tariff hikes and higher data consumption. The research house sees more upside in the stock in the near future and expects EBITDA to double by FY25 driven by hyper-growth from consumer businesses, CNBC-TV18 reported. "Reliance Retail's topline performance was resilient considering the adverse operating environment. Reliance Jios performance was broadly in line but the ARPU at Rs 140 surprised positively," said Deepak Jasani, Head Retail Research, HDFC Securities. "Reliances reported bottomline growth was helped by low tax rates due to new rates and deferred tax credit due to planned O2C restructuring and exceptional income of Rs 4,966 crore (net of taxes of Rs 1,508 crore) due to profit on the divestment of stake in domestic fuel retailing business." Disclosure: Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments which publishes Moneycontrol. At 0918 hours, Reliance Industries was quoting at Rs 2,088.50, down Rs 20.15, or 0.96 percent, on the BSE. Abrogation of Article 370: Pak government issues guidelines for kinds of words to use India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, July 31: Ahead of August 5, a year since Article 370 was abrogated in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan has come out with directives to be followed. On completion of one year of military sieve of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir and to show solidarity with the people of Kashmiri people, the following terminologies will be used on August 5, a press release from the government of Pakistan has said. 5th August has now been termed as Youm-e-Istehsal and Ghasbana Qabza, the press release read. The note also says that the terms of use will be IIOJK and not IOJK or IOK. It also says that the term to be used is Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and not Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir or Indian Occupied Kashmir. To observe August 5 as Black Day in J&K, Pak Army, ISI put out detailed flow chart It also says that the term to be used is illegal action and not illegal annexation. Demographic apartheid can be used by not demographic re-engineering. Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News Military siege can bee used but not lockdown, the press note also says. All TV and Radio channels should play Pakistan and AJK national anthems immediately after one minute silence on August 5. The TV channels must ensure that the presenters should wear black solidarity bands and channel logos must be turned black to condemn Indian atrocities in Kashmir, the note further mentions. The theme shall be One year of Indian Military Siege in IIOJK, the press note approved by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan also says. Oregon experienced the sharpest economic downturn in state history at the start of the coronavirus pandemic as unemployment shot to a record high in a matter of weeks. The states jobless rate soared as high as 14.9% in April, worse than at any point during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, and over 600,000 Oregonians filed unemployment claims as they lost their jobs or faced temporary furloughs or cutbacks in hours. Thousands remain out of work. For many, the worst of the crisis has been the fiasco at the Oregon Employment Department, which relies on ancient computer systems that were wholly incapable of handling the flood of claims. That left close to 200,000 claims unpaid for many weeks through the heart of the pandemic. Even now, more than four months into the crisis, tens of thousands are still going without benefits and struggling to get by. The employment department has made significant headway on clearing a backlog of 70,000 claim from self-employed workers, who became eligible for benefits in March when Congress established the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. But nearly 20,000 of those workers are still waiting for their claims to be processed, and tens of thousands of other claims are stuck in adjudication -- a process that can last for months. The Oregonian/OregonLive has spoken with many of those anxiously waiting for their unemployment insurance benefits to come through. Here are the stories of seven of them: Sarah Carlberg, 35 Over the last four months, Sarah Carlberg has tracked every single one of her familys expenses on a detailed spreadsheet. She is making sure no dollar is wasted on anything unnecessary. Carlbergs partner is still working as an emergency room nurse in Hillsboro, but Carlberg, an event producer and community organizer, hasnt worked since March. Like many who rely on large events for their livelihood, she doesnt know when her work will return. The only reason why were continuing to float, like, doggie paddle, is because we were able to put the mortgage on forbearance, Carlberg said. Thats the only thing keeping us from falling apart financially. I dont know what were going to do (when that ends). Its terrifying. Carlberg filed for PUA benefits when Oregon opened applications for self-employed workers in April and received her first check within two weeks. But she hasnt received another check since, as the employment department has struggled to keep up with weekly claims from self-employed workers. The couple have five young children to support, which has made the lack of relief especially stressful. Carlberg has heard from others who have had their weekly claims processed after waiting half a day or more on the phone to speak to a representative. She has tried to avoid calling the employment department herself because she wants to leave the phone lines open for those in greater need, and because she doesnt have the time to wait hours on the phone with five children at home. Its not just unemployment, its not just school being out, its not just about (the safety of) frontline workers, Carlberg said. Its just this insane amalgamation of things that creates an environment of complete instability, a lack of being able to do any future planning at all, which is critically important for families who are trying to stay stable. Sarah Spriggs, 45 Sarah Spriggs purchased a trailer and left her West Linn apartment to move to Southern Oregon in late June. There, she struggled to find an RV park with available space and was briefly forced to station her trailer across from a neighborhood park in Grants Pass. It wasnt until last week when she finally secured a permanent spot for her trailer in Shady Cove. Its a situation she never imagined she would be in during her 20 years as a massage therapist, but the coronavirus pandemic changed everything. After state coronavirus restrictions forced her to close her practice in March, Spriggs briefly continued offering medical massage through her job at Gentle Care Chiropractic in West Linn. But business there plummeted as well. She found herself bringing in just over $200 most weeks, and was forced to accept loans from friends and family to continue to pay her bills. Spriggs, who has Behcets syndrome, a rare disorder that causes blood vessel inflammation throughout the body, was finally advised by her doctors to leave that job as well. When Oregon began accepting benefits claims from self-employed workers in late April, Spriggs applied immediately. She has received payments for six of the 17 weeks she has claimed. The employment department denied her benefits for some weeks, based on the income she made before she stopped working altogether, then mysteriously stopped processing her claims. She finally received payments for three weeks of claims last week after spending more than three hours on the phone with the department and resubmitting all her weekly claims. Im devastated and Im angry, said Spriggs, before the three weeks of payments were processed. If I was able to and be safe, I would be picketing outside of their department. This is wrong. Its criminal that they are doing this to people, and I know Im not the only one. Spriggs went several weeks without seeing her two children, Ashton, 17, and Zenaya, 9, as she worked to secure a permanent spot for her trailer and waited on the state to process her unemployment claims. Her children, who have been staying with their father in Wilsonville, will finally be able to visit her this weekend. But Spriggs path forward remains uncertain. She doesnt know when, or if, it will be safe for her to practice massage again. She is currently searching for remote work, but doesnt know if a job will materialize. This has really destroyed my life, Spriggs said. Matthew Workman, 51 Matthew Workman was forced to take his son to a hospital in late March after the 14-year-old suffered an injury. The medical bill recently arrived. It sits on a desk in Workmans Beaverton home, a constant reminder of the thousands of dollars the family still owes the hospital. Workman hopes to use the unemployment insurance money he is owed to pay the bill, but he has been waiting since April and has no idea if those payments will ever arrive. Im waiting for that pandemic money to come, Workman said. Thats how were going to pay for that. Its not an insubstantial bill, and Im just waiting. Workman, a former journalist who now drives for Uber and Lyft, started seeing interest in rides drop in March when the pandemic hit. After Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced her stay-home order on March 23, Workman stopped driving entirely. He applied for PUA, the new benefits program for self-employed and gig workers, shortly after the application came out in late April. When he hadnt heard anything by June, Workman called the employment department. He was met with a busy signal the first 50 times he called, before finally being placed on hold. After waiting three-and-a-half hours to speak to a representative, he learned his application had been received. Long hold times have been common throughout the pandemic. The department relies on phones to resolve nearly all questions and has resisted implementing a broad system for calling back claimants. As a result, the departments phone lines have been completely jammed since March. Hold times, which averaged several hours long at some points early in the pandemic, have dropped considerably. But the vast majority of calls never get through at all. Workman said the employment department did finally reach out to him this month to ask him to submit documentation to verify his income and employment status. But three months after applying for unemployment insurance, he still hasnt received any money. And just this week, the employment department announced that Lyft drivers may need to apply through regular unemployment, not PUA, to receive benefits. The feeling you get is youre on your own, Workman said. Im used to having some level of predictability or certainty in just how interactions with your government will work and its jarring to not have that, to just have it in the back of your head that, I cant count on these people. Workmans wife, Julie, works in brand strategy for a software company, which has enabled the family to pay their bills and support their three children amid the pandemic. Workman recently returned to work as well after Lyft and Uber started requiring customers to wear masks. But he will have to stop working if his children arent able to return to school this fall. Leaders of many of the states largest school districts have already announced plans to offer only distance learning until at least November. That second income is what helped fill in the gaps, Workman said. Weve got some savings, but its nervous times because we dont know how long this is going to go. I have no clue when Oregon is ever going to have their act together in terms of sorting out this (unemployment) problem and then my ability to work once school starts, I might have to go back on unemployment. Ngoc Hanh Huynh, 52 Ngoc Hanh Huynh didnt expect to retire this year, but she said the coronavirus pandemic and a lack of financial relief has given her no choice. Huynh had been working at a nail and hair salon in Portland for four months when Oregon Gov. Kate Brown forced salons to shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. She immediately applied for unemployment insurance, hoping to get financial relief to continue paying rent and utilities. She was denied regular unemployment insurance because she hadnt worked enough hours in 2019 to qualify, but felt sure she could access relief through PUA. Under federal regulations, workers who did not earn enough wages or work enough hours for regular unemployment benefits can still get relief through PUA. Three months later, her claim still has not been processed. A lot of people have the same situation as me and theyve qualified, but not me, said Huynh through a Vietnamese interpreter. I claimed every week, but didnt receive anything. Without relief, Huynh was forced to apply for food stamps and ask her 31-year-old son, Daniel, to lend her money to pay her rent. When her workplace reopened in June, she returned to work out of necessity, even though she feared exposing herself to the coronavirus on the job. But even now, Huynh is struggling to earn the same income that she did before the pandemic as customers continue to stay home. And she still hasnt received any unemployment payments for her drop in income or for her time out of work. She also remains fearful of catching the virus. Recently, she decided that her reduced income wasnt worth the risk. She said she will take an early retirement next month. Sushmita Poddar, 40 Sushmita Poddar spent over a decade building a string of Hillsboro businesses, including Amrapali Boutique, which specializes in designer Indian clothing and jewelry. But she was forced to close her businesses in March by Oregon Gov. Kate Browns stay-home order. Despite managing to access some business relief through a local grant and loans, Poddar said she has racked up over $25,000 in business debt as she has been unable to pay the rent and utilities on her business locations. A rental assistance program helped her cover the cost of her own apartment, but her lease recently expired, and she doesnt know if she will be allowed to stay there much longer without income. She said she needs to prove that her monthly income is three times her rent to secure a new lease. I literally dont know what my future is right now, Poddar said. Im not religious, but thats basically where it is right now, its in the hands of God. Poddar applied for PUA benefits for self-employed workers when the state rolled out the application in April, hoping to receive support while her businesses remained shut. Her claim has not been processed. Poddar, who sits on multiple committees in Hillsboro and Washington County, said she has been disappointed with the delays at the employment department, but also said that cities and counties should have coordinated with the state to better support businesses and individuals through the pandemic, and to help individuals through the unemployment application process. The community, and more specifically, people that we have elected, did not have any program in place for truly supporting micro-businesses, small businesses, freelancers, artists, contractors, Poddar said. Clark James, 48 Clark James worked on the television show Grimm as the co-owner of a Portland video production company. Three years ago, after Grimm ended, he sold the business to his partner and continued as a freelancer. When the pandemic hit, his work dried up completely. More than four months later, it remains unclear when the film and television industry will rebound. It really caught me off guard, James said. Im having to figure out if Im going to change my career, which isnt easy to do after 25 years. For the first time in his life, James applied for unemployment insurance in April. Denied regular unemployment insurance in June, because he was a freelancer not usually eligible for jobless benefits, he reapplied under the new PUA program for self-employed workers. Oregon paid him $870 immediately for five weeks of claims from late February through early March, but then mysteriously stopped. He estimates he is owed about $13,000 for 17 weeks of unpaid claims. James leased out his apartment in Portland and is currently living in a home he owns in Washington, where he has asked for a forbearance on his mortgage. The savings Ive had is pretty much gone, James said. Ive gone from having resources to having debt. So, now Im going to have to dig myself out because Ive had to take out loans just to get through this period. Charlynn Chambers, 29 Charlynn Chambers and her husband, Michael, spent 10 years pinching pennies to save up to buy a house. The Tigard couple finally had enough for a down payment before they both lost their jobs at the beginning of the pandemic. Michael Chambers filed for unemployment insurance on March 17, the day he was laid off from his job as a facilities manager at a car dealership. Shortly after, Charlynn Chambers was forced to shut down the childcare business she runs out of her home. She applied for PUA benefits for self-employed workers and was told she qualified, but has yet to see any money through the program. Her husband has been receiving his regular unemployment insurance since March, but his weekly income will be cut in half next week due to the expiration of the extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits that the federal government approved as part of the CARES Act. Democrats in Congress are pushing to extend the benefit, while Republicans are proposing to cut it to $200. Fortunately, were not in the same position as some people who are losing their homes, Chambers said. But weve been saving up really hard for a down payment for a house. Now, if we dont have more income, were looking at needing to spend that money that weve been working so hard for our down payment to even be able to live on. Chambers has worked from home to care for her three young children since her oldest was born six years ago, and she isnt in a position to look for a job outside her home. Her husband has actively been applying for work, but nothing has come through amid the pandemic. If her husband cant find a job in the next few months, Chambers isnt sure what her family of five will do. Even if her PUA payments start to come through, she said that her family will be bringing in well under $1,000 a week before taxes without the extra $600 federal benefit. Its definitely scary to consider that maybe he wont have a job at the end of the year, maybe it will be a long time before either one of us is able to have more income coming in, Chambers said. Thats definitely scary because we would like to pay our bills and provide for our family. -- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com | @jamiebgoldberg Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 15:41:03|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close ULAN BATOR, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia is planning to give the first batch of its donation of 30,000 sheep to China in September, a senior official from the Mongolian Foreign Ministry said Friday. "Following our president Battulga's visit to China, we have agreed with the Chinese side to organize the handover ceremony of 30,000 sheep after the COVID-19 pandemic calms down and the animals fully gain weight," Tuvshintugs Battsetseg, director of the department of neighboring countries under the ministry, told a news conference. "It is not possible to hand over 30,000 live sheep at the same time. So, the first batch of sheep is planned to be handed over within September," said Battsetseg. Since the COVID-19 outbreak in China, representatives of various sectors in Mongolia have expressed solidarity with China in its battle against the virus. Mongolian President Khaltmaa Battulga, the first foreign head of state to visit China since the COVID-19 outbreak, offered the donation of sheep to China during his one-day visit there on Feb. 27. China has managed to contain the domestic spread of COVID-19 and mitigate the impacts of the epidemic, while its neighbor Mongolia has taken various anti-COVID-19 measures, with no local transmissions or deaths reported so far. Enditem 160 Shares Share This past year, I served as an internal medicine resident at St. Johns Riverside Hospital in Yonkers, New York. And this month, I officially started my anesthesiology residency at Brown. Working as a doctor amid the coronavirus pandemic has been surreal and challenging particularly in what was once the epicenter of the outbreak. This public health crisis has proven that our country needs as many doctors as possible. Even before the pandemic, the United States faced an extreme shortage of physicians, and thats only set to grow. The coronavirus has also illustrated just how reliant the United States is on physicians educated at international medical schools. I should know Im one of them. International medical graduates like me account for a disproportionate share of those working in areas hit hardest by COVID-19. For example, we represent nearly 40 percent of New Yorks doctor workforce. But even though were working on the front lines of the pandemic, theres still some stigma associated with being a graduate of an international medical school. Ive experienced some of that stigma firsthand. For example, theres a misconception that U.S. medical graduates receive a better education than IMGs and are therefore more qualified. Some also believe that international schools dont support their students, or that IMGs struggle to obtain top-notch residencies. But based on my experience, Id argue that a top-tier, accredited international medical school can offer an education thats every bit as good as if not better than the one the average U.S. medical school provides. I decided to pursue my degree abroad after sitting on a waitlist at U.S. medical school for longer than I cared to. Im not alone; many U.S. citizens choose to go overseas for their degrees. The reason for that is straightforward there are more Americans who want to be doctors than there are openings at U.S. medical schools. Consequently, it shouldnt be surprising that the number of U.S. citizens who graduate from international medical schools has grown significantly over the past decade. Ive worked alongside many of them over the past year. Once international medical graduates finish their education, they have to pass the same exams and obtain the same certification requirements as graduates of U.S. medical schools. Students from my alma mater have had no trouble doing this they pass the first step of the U.S. Licensing Exam at the same rate as students from U.S. and Canadian medical schools. Furthermore, my classmates and I can attest that weve had no problem securing residencies. But were not outliers. Across the board, 2020 was a historic year for IMGs in the match. Over the last decade, my alma mater has sent more doctors into first-year U.S. residencies than any other school. After they graduate, international medical graduates enter the workforce in a variety of specialties ranging from pediatrics and emergency medicine to surgery and psychiatry. At the end of the day, IMGs are successful doctors who make up a significant chunk of the U.S. doctor workforce. There are hundreds of us working in New York alone and the rest practice in urban and rural areas all over the country, from Georgia and Texas to California and Michigan. Hundreds of IMGs started their residencies this month a time when cases are continuing to hit record-highs in a number of states. Without them, our physician workforce would be even more severely strained. Im proud to be an international medical graduate. Doctors like me have proved crucial to this countrys battle against COVID-19. They deserve the respect of the medical community. Gaelle Antoine is an anesthesiology resident. Image credit: Shutterstock.com Pompeo, who is fourth in the line of succession to the presidency, said that he did not want to make a legal judgment on the fly about whether it is possible to delay the election, but "in the end, the Department of Justice and others will make that legal determination." The president does not have the power to delay the election, (the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in every fourth year), which is to be held Nov. 3, 2020. The date is set by Congress under the Constitution. During a hearing on Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked by Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia about Trump's tweet. For the first time, U.S. President Donald Trump is suggesting delaying this year's election. Trump, on Twitter on Thursday morning, alleged, without evidence, that mail-in balloting would be make the 2020 presidential balloting the "most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history." The president added: "It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" Top Republicans Quickly Rebuff Suggestion "There will be no delay" for this year's presidential election, tweeted Congressman Rodney Davis of Illinois. "Congress sets the election date, and it should not be changed. It will be held on November 3rd, as planned and required by law," added Davis, who is the ranking Republican on the House Administration Committee, which has jurisdiction over the presidential election. The Republican House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy said the election should go forward despite any concerns by Trump. "I understand the president's concern about mail-in voting which is different from absentee voting. But never in the history of the Federal elections have we not held an election and we should go forward," McCarthy told reporters Thursday. Bipartisan Condemnation Trump's tweet quickly prompted bipartisan condemnation. This is not an idea anyone, especially the president, should float, said Ari Fleischer, who was a White House press secretary in the administration of President George W. Bush, a Republican. "I would quickly delete this tweet," if he were president, Fleischer said. Democratic Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico said the fact that the president "is even suggesting it is a serious, chilling attack on the democratic process. All members of Congress -- and the administration -- should speak out." Election officials, civil rights groups and historians also are criticizing the president's suggestion. "No, Mr. President. No. You don't have the power to move the election. Nor should it be moved," tweeted Federal Election Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic appointee. "States and localities are asking you and Congress for funds so they can properly run the safe and secure elections all Americans want. Why don't you work on that?" "This is America. We are a democracy, not a dictatorship," said Dale Ho, director of the voting rights project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The Constitution sets the date for the election in November. Nothing President Trump says, does, or tweets can change that fact." Delaying the election would violate American law, wrote presidential historian Michael Beschloss on Twitter. "Never in American history -- not even during the Civil War and World War II--has there been a successful move to 'Delay the Election' for President," said Beschloss, the author of ten books about American history. "It's a desperate attempt to distract attention from the worsening COVID-19 crisis and an imploding economy," said presidential historian David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron. "Trump has attempted to destroy confidence in American institutions and norms from the very beginning, even right after the 2016 election -- an election he won -- by claiming falsely that millions of people voted illegally He knows he may well lose in 2020 but is trying to get his supporters not to believe the results. It's right out of George Orwell's "1984": 'The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,'" Cohen told VOA. Polls indicate Trump is significantly trailing the presumptive Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden in key battleground states. Biden previously suggested Trump will try to delay the election. "Mark my words -- I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can't be held," Biden said at a virtual fundraiser on April 24. A spokesman for the Trump reelection campaign, Hogan Gidley, explained that the president "is just raising a question about the chaos Democrats have created with their insistence on all mail-in voting. They are using coronavirus as their means to try to institute universal mail-in voting, which means sending every registered voter a ballot whether they asked for one or not." In a statement to VOA, Gidley added that "voter rolls are notoriously full of bad addresses for people who have moved, are non-citizens, or are even deceased. Universal mail-in voting invites chaos and severe delays in results, as proven by the New York congressional primary, where we still don't know who won after more than a month." Both the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State told VOA on Thursday that they are unaware of any developments that could have an impact on the security of this year's election. The director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, told the Brookings Institution on July 17th, "I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The 2020 election will be the most secure election in modern history." Krebs said that said at least 92 percent of U.S. states now have systems in place to ensure there is a paper record of every vote cast, making it easier to audit election results to make sure no one is able to tamper with the tally. And that number could rise as a growing number of states are expected to turn to mail-in ballots instead of in-person voting because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. GOP officials from New Hampshire to Mississippi to Iowa quickly pushed back against Trumps suggestion on Thursday that it might be necessary to delay the November election which he cannot do without congressional approval because of the unfounded threat of voter fraud. They reassured voters that the election would proceed on the constitutionally mandated day as it has for more than two centuries. Stassi Schroeder looked ready for motherhood in a loving photo shared to Instagram on Friday by her fiance Beau Clark. The 32-year-old fired Vanderpump Rules star looked at peace while showcasing her growing baby bump. Beau, 40, posted the snap to celebrate their one-year engagement anniversary. Bump: Stassi Schroeder, 32, cradled her growing tummy in a photo posted by her fiance Beau Clark, 40, to celebrate their one-year engagement anniversary Stassi wasn't dressed in anything but a lacy white bra and a matching set of white panties. She gazed down at her tummy and rested her hands above and below it as her dirty blonde locks cascaded down her shoulders. 'Happy Anniversary to my Sweets! One year of Engagement! Cant wait to be a parent with you,' Beau gushed in the caption. Stassi jumped into the comments to share her own sweet message to her fiance. 'I love youuuu. We may not get to have our fancy a** wedding this year but I get to carry your little alien baby, so we goooood ,' she wrote. Friendly words: Beau gushed in the caption, and Stassi replied that carrying 'your little alien baby' made up for their delayed wedding. Her ex Jax Taylor also ribbed her by asking if she had a food baby Stassi and Beau got plenty of comments from friends and celebrity admirers in the comments. Jax Taylor, Stassi's ex and a current Vanderpump Rules castmate, initially poked fun at her. 'Are you sure that's not just all @hidden.valley ranch @stassischroeder?' he joked, before writing, 'Love you guys!! Happy anniversary to you both, see you next week when we finally come home!!' Lala Kent wrote that Stassi would give birth to 'A little baby khaleesi,' while A Walk To Remember star Shane West wrote, 'Whoa congrats!!' Baby bump: Stassi showed off her baby bump last week on her Instagram story, as she revealed some of her cravings and joked the baby was 'sucking every last bit of energy I have' The former reality star looked totally pleased with her pregnancy progress, but last week she joked about the baby 'sucking every last bit' of her energy. She posted a closeup of her tummy and wrote, 'My baby enjoys Cinnamon Toast Crunch, watching "Outlander", and sucking every last bit of energy I have.' She affectionately included emojis in the caption of a hatching chick and a smiling face with hearts. Distribution: She recently took to her story last week with a mirror selfie of her pregnant tummy, joking, 'Now if I could only gain this in my bum' Special announcement: The podcast host has been glowing ever since she announced her pregnancy on June 23 with a cute photo of herself and Beau, who works as a casting agent She recently took to her story last week with a mirror selfie of her pregnant tummy, joking, 'Now if I could only gain this in my bum.' The podcast host has been glowing ever since she officially announced her pregnancy on June 23 with a cute photo of herself and Beau, who works as a casting agent. 'We're having a baby girl,' she captioned the snap, which showed her in a ribbed off-the-shoulder dress as Beau planted a kiss on her cheek A representative for the couple confirmed to DailyMail.com in June that they were expecting their first child together in early 2021. 'Stassi and Beau will be welcoming their first child the first week in January and are grateful and eager to begin the next chapter of their lives as parents,' her rep revealed. Coming soon: 'Stassi and Beau will be welcoming their first child the first week in January and are grateful and eager to begin the next chapter of their lives as parents,' her rep revealed The New Orleans native has been dating Beau since the end of 2017, and the couple announced their engagement one year ago in July 2019. The lovers had been looking forward to a destination wedding in Rome that was scheduled for October, but the coronavirus pandemic forced them to delay it until 2021. The wedding would likely have been a major part of Stassi's series Vanderpump Rules, but she was fired on June 9 for her racist actions toward her Black former costar Faith Stowers. Faith accused Stassi and her friend Kristen Doute, who was also fired, of reporting her to police in 2018. The two women falsely claimed she was a woman suspected of a string of robberies, despite knowing that she was not the person in question. Stassi and her costar Kristen Doute were fired on June 9 for reporting their castmate Faith Stowers, who is Black, to the police for a crime they knew she didn't commit Stassi also made racist statements in a 2017 episode of her Straight Up With Stassi podcast in which she complained about Black people asking for special treatment in Hollywood. She apologized for making 'racially insensitive comments' in the past in an Instagram post from June 7, and made the vague statement that she would 'continue to take accountability for what I have said and done, while pushing myself to do better.' She also claimed to have changed significantly since those racist actions and remarks, and said she was 'filled with remorse and regret for the hurt' she caused, especially to Faith. Zimbabwean authorities have thwarted a peaceful anti-corruption protest which was planned for today and launched a witch-hunt against political and human rights activists suspected of being behind the planned demonstration, Amnesty International said today. A number of activists have gone into hiding after police published a list of names of human rights defenders who are wanted for questioning in connection with the planned protests. A number of opposition leaders are also understood to be wanted by the police, while six others have already been arrested. The brutal assault on political activists and human rights defenders who have had the courage to call out alleged corruption and demand accountability from their government is intensifying. The persecution of these activists is a blatant abuse of the criminal justice system and mockery of justice, said Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnesty Internationals Deputy Director for Southern Africa. This latest witch-hunt and repression of peaceful dissent is a continuation of what we have seen in the country in recent years, including the abductions and arbitrary arrests of those who are critical of the government, in an attempt to muzzle differing views. The thwarting of the protest illustrates the Zimbabwean authorities total intolerance of criticism. Six activists have been arrested or abducted in the past few days, to prevent the protests from taking place today. Opposition MDC-Alliance spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere and Henry Chivanga, an activist fighting for rights of people with disabilities are among those who were arrested today. Police also arrested the sister of investigative journalist Mduduzi Mathuthu on 30 July, and refused to release her until the journalist appeared at Bulawayo Central police station. Mduduzi Mathuthu is the editor of online publication Zimlive and has been charged with planning the protests. His sister was released on 30 July. In the lead up to todays planned protests, authorities have been beefing up security in main cities, including sealing off the Harare Central Business District, under the pretext of enforcing COVID-19 regulations. Zimbabwean authorities must stop using COVID-19 as a pretext for restricting human rights. Peaceful protest is not a crime, and the motivations for crushing this demonstration are plain to see, said Muleya Mwananyanda. Zimbabweans must be allowed to freely exercise their human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. The authorities must stop harassing, intimidating and arresting people who have done nothing more than peacefully express their opinions. In advance of Brexit coming into force at the end of this year, the U.K. is planning its departure from the EUs Common Fisheries Policy, which means foreign boats will need to obtain fishing licenses and abide by British rules. The European Commission has cautioned that a post-Brexit U.K.-EU trade agreement must include a fisheries accord, and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged that Britain will maintain control of its waters. The bloc has signaled that it is prepared to back down from its demands to keep the same access to British fishing waters it enjoys today -- but its unlikely to make that concession until much closer to the October deadline for a deal. Barrie Deas, chief executive of the U.K.s National Federation of Fishermens Organisations, said after a meeting with the U.K.s Brexit Chief Negotiator David Frost that there will be no sell-out. Fishing is an absolute priority for the U.K. Colorado Springs should never strive to be a smaller-scale, second-rate Denver. Although Denver is a great American city, the Springs should d The Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), a 'Maharatna' central public sector enterprise (CPSE), has called for applications in a prescribed format from qualified and experienced Indian nationals for filling Twenty (20) vacancies to the post of Specialists and GDMO through direct recruitment on a fulltime basis to be posted at SAIL's Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) in Rourkela, in the state of Odisha, India. The application process towards the same starts from August 3, 2020 onwards and closes on August 18, 2020. Applications can be download from the SAIL Careers section. CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Specialists and GDMO Organisation Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) Educational Qualification MBBS Degree with MD/MS/DNB/PG Diploma in Burn & Plastic Surgery/O&G/Medicine/Radiology/Pulmonary Medicine/Microbiology; MBBS/BDS Degree Experience Two to five years in a relevant domain Job Responsibilities null Skills Required Desirable Job Location Rourkela Salary Scale In the range of Rs. 70,000 to Rs. 1,20,000 per month as per the post Industry Steel Application Start Date August 3, 2020 Application End Date August 18, 2020 SAIL Recruitment: Age Criteria And Fees Candidates interested in applying for Specialists and GDMO post through SAIL Recruitment must not have exceeded 69 years of age as on July 30, 2020 with relaxation (upper age limit) to SC/ST and OBC categories as applicable. For details regarding application fee for filling Specialists and GDMO post through SAIL Recruitment, refer to the official advertisement given at the end of the article or visit the SAIL Careers section for details. BEL Recruitment For Diploma Apprentices, Apply Online For 100 Posts Before August 10 SAIL Recruitment: Educational Criteria And Experience Desirous candidates applying for Specialists and GDMO post through SAIL Recruitment must possess an MBBS Degree with MD/MS/DNB/PG Diploma in Burn & Plastic Surgery/O&G/Medicine/Radiology/Pulmonary Medicine/Microbiology; MBBS/BDS Degree from a MCI recognised University/Institute with two to five years of post-qualification experience in concerned field as specified in the advertisement. SAIL Recruitment: Selection And Pay Scale The selection of candidates for Specialists and GDMO post through SAIL Recruitment will be done through Interview by online mode only. Candidates selected for Specialists and GDMO post SAIL Recruitment will be paid emolument in the range of Rs. 70,000 to Rs. 1,20,000 per month as per the post. National Education Policy 2020:Focus on 'Reforms' In School, Higher Education. Check Highlights Here SAIL Recruitment: How To Apply Candidates applying for Specialists and GDMO post through SAIL Recruitment must fill the application form in a prescribed format attached with the advertisement, and e-mail a scanned copy of the filled-in application form along with the listed certificates/documents at recruitment.rsp@sail.in. from August 3, 2020 onwards, and before August 18, 2020. Download the application form and read the detailed notification about SAIL Recruitment for Specialists and GDMO post here or visit the SAIL Careers section for details. Americas Racial Reckoning: What you need to know Full coverage: Race & Reckoning Demographic changes: How the racial makeup of where you live has changed since 1990 Newsletter: Subscribe to About US to read the latest on race and identity George Floyds America: Examining systemic racism through the lens of his life Resources: Understanding racism and inequality in America The Constitution is supreme for me, Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra said on Thursday, and refuted allegations that he had acted under the Central governments pressure in the political tussle. The Governor also asked the Gehlot government to make all efforts to check the spread of coronavirus and focus on development work in the state. In an interview to PTI, Mishra, who on Wednesday agreed with the state Cabinets proposal to call an assembly session from August 14, said he has always directed the state government to follow constitutional provisions in sending its request for convening a session. Also read | Rajasthan political crisis: Why Congress avoided mention of floor test in its proposals He had asked the state Cabinet to follow the 21-day notice requirement to call a session while turning down its earlier three proposals before finally agreeing to call the session. The Constitution is supreme for a governor. There is no pressure on me, he said when asked about the Congress charge against him. Mishra, who was one of the senior most BJP leaders and a former union minister before being made governor, also expressed his anguish at the protests by Congress legislators inside Raj Bhawan, saying this was not an appropriate behavior against somebody holding a constitutional post. He also rejected any comparison between the protests by Congress MLAs and the one by BJP lawmakers, including him, in Uttar Pradesh in 1995 against then state governor, saying UP agitation was held outside Raj Bhawan and it did not violate any decorum. The BJP MLAs had then protested against the infamous guest house incident in which BSP supremo Mayawati was allegedly attacked by some people at the behest of Samajwadi Party leadership. Asked about his expectations from the Rajasthan government, Mishra said it should speed up development work and work out a strategy to curb the spread of Covid-19. The state government should take care of the common man. Attempts should be continuously made to spread awareness among the masses to curb the global pandemic. An atmosphere should be created that people should not fear (the disease). All out efforts should be made to check the pandemic, he said. With most of the ruling Congress MLAs being put up in a five-star hotel in Jaipur to deal with the political crisis following a revolt by former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot and 18-odd MLAs loyal to him, the BJP has accused the state government of not taking adequate measures to deal with the pandemic, and other issues facing the state. The Congress has accused the BJP of trying to poach its MLAs in league with party dissidents to allegedly topple the Gehlot-led government. The BJP has denied the charge and termed the political crisis an outcome of internal feud in the Congress. A man charged with attempted murder is accused of trying to push a young woman off an apartment high-rise balcony in the heart of Brisbane on Thursday. Oaks Brisbane Festival Suites in the Brisbane CBD. Credit:Google Maps Police were called to Oaks Brisbane Festival Suites on Albert Street in the CBD about 10pm after calls from concerned nearby residents. Police will allege the 39-year-old man tried to push the 18-year-old woman from a balcony within the unit complex. Officers said the man and woman were known to each other. He was arrested near the tower block and the woman was taken to hospital with a non-life-threatening injury. If youre an American eyeing a cheap flight to a European holiday, well, sorry. The European Union revisited its travel ban this week, and thanks to our inability to wear masks and cancel our party plans, U.S. citizens still arent welcome. On Thursday, the EU extended its travel ban on the U.S. for the second time this month. The European Council issued the announcement following a biweekly review of coronavirus trends, containment efforts, and travel restrictions around the world. Whats the most important qualifier for getting approval to travel to the EU? Simple. A country must contain its coronavirus outbreak equally, if not better than, the EU did. (Kudos to Canada, Japan, Thailand, and others who can have nice things again.) Advertisement The U.S. is nowhere near that benchmark. According to Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. has had nearly 4.5 million cases and over 152,000 deaths as of Thursday. Across the pond, things are a bit better. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has reported just over 1.7 million cases across the European Economic Area (which includes the EU, U.K., Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway). No country within the E.U. has over 300,000 cases of COVID-19. Meanwhile, California, Florida, Texas, and New York have each reported more than 400,000. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The travel ban extension comes as a resurgence of the coronavirus looms over Europe. While Europes cases per million are far below its peak, some countries are starting to see upticks. Spain has reported over 6,000 new cases since Friday. Now, new cases are almost 10 times higher than the low Spain had achieved in June. Maria Jose Sierra of the Spanish Health Ministrys Coordination Center for Health Alerts warned, This may already be a second wave. Advertisement Advertisement Fearing a resurgence up north, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson decided to delay an ease on restrictions for at least two weeks. He announced the delay on Friday and warned, The prevalence of the virus in the community, in England, is likely to be rising for the first time since May. U.S. citizens are still able to visit the U.K., which left the E.U. in January, though they will have to self-isolate for 14 days upon their arrival. European countries are by no means the only ones extending travel bans. Canada and Mexico recently extended border closures with the U.S. until at least Aug. 21, government officials say. And according to the Pew Research Center, at about 9 in 10 people live in countries with coronavirus-related travel restrictions. Captain Amarinder Singh Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has ordered a magisterial inquiry by Divisional Commissioner Jalandhar into the suspicious deaths of 21 people, allegedly due to consumption of spurious liquor, in Amritsar, Batala and Tarn Taran. One person reported to be critical in the suspected hooch tragedy. The inquiry looks into the facts and circumstances leading to incidents, as well as into any other issue (s) connected or relevant to the incident (s) and the circumstances leading to it. Advertisement Capt Amarinder SinghIt will be conducted by Divisional Commissioner Jalandhar, along with Joint Excise & Taxation Commissioner Punjab, and SPs Investigation of the concerned districts, according to an official spokesperson. The Chief Minister has given Commissioner Jalandhar Division the liberty to co-opt any civil/police officer or any expert to facilitate the expeditious conduct of the enquiry. He has promised strict action against anyone found complicit in the case, in which a woman has so far been arrested. Advertisement Taking immediate and serious note of the case, Captain Amarinder also directed the police to launch a search operation to crack down on any spurious liquor manufacturing units that may be operating in the state. Punjab governmentPolice have arrested Balwinder Kaur, r/o Muchhal, u/ s 304 IPC, 61/1/14 Excise Act at PS Tarsikka. Further investigations are in progress under the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by SSP Amritsar-Rural, from where the first cases were reported. The post mortem of four persons Jaswinder Singh, Kashmir Singh, Kirpal Singh and Jaswant Singh will be conducted today to ascertain the exact cause of the deaths. Advertisement Giving details of the case, DGP Punjab Dinkar Gupta said the first five deaths were reported from villages Mucchal and Tangra in PS Tarsikka in Amritsar Rural on the night of June 29. On the evening of July 30, two more persons died in suspicious circumstances in Muchhal, while one person was hospitalised in critical condition and later succumbed at Sri Guru Ramdas Hospital, from where he was referred by Dr. Sarabjit Kaur Hospital, Tangra. DGP Dinkar Gupta Later, two more deaths were reported from village Mucchal, while another two people reportedly died in Batala city, also due to spurious liquor consumption. Advertisement Today, five more persons died in Batala, taking the toll in the city to seven, while one person has been referred to Civil Hospital, Batala in critical condition. Four more similarly suspicious deaths have also been reported from Tarn Taran. The deceased have been identified as Mangal Singh, Balwinder Singh, Dalbir Singh, Gurpreet Singh, Kashmir Singh, Kaka Singh, Kirpal Singh, Jaswant Singh and Joga Singh all r/o village Muchhal, PS. Tarsikka, Amritsar Rural, Baldev Singh, r/o Tangra, PS. Tarsikka, Amritsar-R. Other deceased are Buta Ram, Bhinda, Riku Singh, Kala, Kalu, Billa and Jatinder, all residents of City Batala. Those who have died in Tarn Taran have been identified as Sahib Singh, Harban Singh, Sukhdev Singh and Dharam Singh. Opinion Article 31 July 2020 The Covid-19 pandemic has taken a severe toll on the global hotel industry. In Canada alone, the accommodation and food services industry (the hospitality industry in a broad sense) accounts for 1.3 million jobs in the national economy, and contributed $44.6 billion to Canadian GDP in 2019. In Canada, as in all countries around the world, travel restrictions have led to staggeringly low occupancy levels, sometimes in the single digit percentage. Advertisements However, the pandemic is also accelerating our journey in an Industry 4.0 era that weaves artificial intelligence and digital technologies into the everyday lives of individuals, businesses and society. Can this advancement of technology provide a silver lining opportunity for one of the oldest industries - an industry positioned as a high-touch, customer-centric one, providing home and food away from home? Can technology also assist in connecting hotels, local businesses and global markets? Uncertain times have been catalysts for the reimagination of traditional hotel operations. This pandemic will be no different. With volatile occupancy levels and average daily rates, hotel owners are adopting new technologies to mitigate risk and bring more certainty to hospitality. Key technological improvements help mitigate some operational challenges that arise due to the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic: a possible second wave, a possible vaccine with an uncertain timeline. Utilising technology within a hotel has for long been viewed by customer and hotelier alike contrary to traditional hotel operations. Pre-pandemic, customer care through constant contact was the essence of the hotel business. Using technology within operations was perceived to be an expensive proposition. This transformation is not unique to the hotel business. Several key industries including retail, banking, and logistics have deployed technology within their daily operations to cope with restrictions on travel and trade. Industry 4.0 digitization is enabling finer-grained links between human behavior (be it the customer, staff or management) and the ever more dynamic and interconnected real-world contexts created in real time by delivery systems, supply chains and markets. The hospitality industry is not lagging behind. During Covid-19, technology can help make guests feel safer and more comfortable, playing a key role in hoteliers' management of risk and recovery. This special market report highlights how technology can be used within daily hotel operations, while also understanding its impact on productivity and consumer beliefs. Thinking Beyond a Period of Uncertain Times The hotel industry is one the largest affected industries by the first wave of this pandemic; yet the hotel industry is adopting new best practices to become more resilient to possibilities of a second wave. This is visible when observing trends within the Chinese hotel industry. At first, as early as in January and February of 2020, Chinese hotels experienced steep occupancy rate declines, down to 14% (as compared to 58% in February 2019). Since then, the Chinese hotel industry has regained strength, ending the month of June at a 47% occupancy rate; even as concerns of a possible second wave persist. The United States and Canada implemented travel restrictions only by mid-March; yet occupancy rate declines preceded policy interventions. In the United States, occupancy levels decreased from a high of 62% in February 2020, to a low of 25% in April, gaining strength in May and June to end at 42%. Similarly, in Canada, where travel restrictions are more stringent than in the US, occupancy levels decreased from a high of 58% in February, to a low of 14% in April, gaining to 25% in June 2020. This compared to occupancy levels being approximately 74% in June 2019. The following Exhibit highlights the evolution of hotel occupancy levels in China, United States and Canada for the months of January to June, for 2019 and 2020. Estimated Occupancy Trends China, United States, Canada January to June 2019 & 2020 Photo: Horwath It is evident the hotel industry is facing the need to manage both declines in demand and increases in uncertainty. In each of the previous crises - September-11, SARS, the 2008-09 Financial Crisis -- hotels adopted an approach combining i) targeted marketing and communication, ii) reimagination of customer experience, and iii) rethinking of efficient hotel operations. Customers' tastes change, with a greater demand for security, convenience, and comfort - and hoteliers respond. The question remains, can technology assist hotels as travel opens up when the Covid-19 pandemic is contained? Today's hospitality industry is being transformed into a technology-based one, supported by artificial intelligence (AI), Cloud Computing, and various mobile applications. Aspects of traditional hotel operations have continued to use technology-enabled hardware and software. Technology enables hotel operations to become adequately contactless, thereby ensuring social-distancing between guests and staff. The following section highlights how technology can be effectively deployed, to assist hotel operators during such times. Designing a Hotel Suited for Pandemics Consider retail, another industry where operations are consumer centric. Businesses are exploring the "frictionless store", a notion that will potentially disrupt the industry (Selena Zhu et al, 2019-2020). The frictionless store caters to the high-tech lifestyles of consumers, looking for flexibility, convenience and security. Amazon with Amazon-Go, Walmart with Innovative Retail Lab and Alibaba with Hema, have turned their operations "frictionless". Similarly, can the hospitality industry, one that was traditionally high-touch in nature, turn into a hi-tech one, where contactless or "frictionless" service is encouraged. So, what does a contactless-hotel look like? Designing "Socially-Distanced" Spaces - From High-Touch to High-Tech In new age "lifestyle" hotels such as citizenM, where guests sleep, work, play and meet like-minded people in a highly social and high-touch environment. The citizenM hotel brand designed spaces that were communal, allowing for greater connectivity between people. Smaller room sizes, with larger and more integrated lobbies where guests can work, get a drink, and connect with like-minded travellers were some key highlights of citizenM hotels. In the times of a pandemic, where mass gatherings are restricted and a minimum distance of 6 feet is required between guests, the integrated and highly connected environments might need to be reimagined. When designed for the first time, citizenM hotels developed the technique of "reverse-thinking", where targeted guest needs and motivations were placed at the centre of the design process, and where spaces were designed to meet their needs. A similar technique maybe utilized within the pandemic-proof hotel, where designing spaces takes into account enhanced safety, security and sanitization measures - catering to today's guest needs. Spaces larger in nature, with more distance and less people are the future. Seamless and integrated barriers within the design could enhance the distance between various guests. Contactless service, enabled through technology can be utilized throughout the hotel. Lobby and Reception Areas in a High-Tech World Structurally, the lobby area will continue to look welcoming. The traditional reception desk is replaced by a much smaller counter. Going "frictionless", several self-check-in free standing kiosks, placed 6-feet apart, are placed within the lobby area. Similar to the airport self-check-in kiosks, the hotel kiosks function with a unique verification ID, followed by a government issued ID card as validation. Several companies, such as Hilton, Linq Hotels, Yotel and Premier Inn have implemented this technology, and it is bound to expand. These kiosks are linked to loyalty programs, using facial recognition technology. For independent hotel owners, cost-effective technology providers such as Fuel, Hello Guest and others allow application driven self-check inns and outs for guests, with or without the need of a physical kiosk. These kiosks would be able to assign a clean room to guests, process payments using credit or debit card reader, and pay for any additional amenities or services required during the guests' stay. Lobby areas will also become more multifunctional, allowing for greater flexibility through furniture and fittings. Discrete barriers blending with the overall design can also be installed. Checking into your Room The technology of utilizing your phone to open a hotel room has been available since the last decade, but it took a Covid-19 pandemic to make this trend go mainstream. The technology has steadily grown over the years, with more than a million hotel rooms worldwide utilizing this technology as of 2019. Several hotel brands such as Hilton, Marriott, Disney Resorts and MGM Resorts have also deployed this technology within various properties in their portfolio, while also linking it to their loyalty programs. It is estimated Hilton has deployed this technology in over 4,000 properties worldwide, as of 2019. In-Room In-room facilities and amenities are unlikely to change dramatically. Prevailing in-room technology such as personalised welcome screens, smart lighting, smart TVs to access various streaming services, will continue. The aspect that could change is using technology to enhance guest experience. Examples include using app-based technology to provide guided mediation, lighting that assists in syncing Circadian rhythms, and using virtual assistants to close curtains. Restaurant and Bars Emerging from a lockdown, restaurants and bars are gradually opening with limited capacity and enough space between tables enabling safe distancing. In a post-pandemic world, terraces and outdoor seating is expected to gain in popularity, even in colder temperatures by using outdoor heating facilities. Technology can ensure "frictionless" processes, thereby increasing safety. Examples include: Low touch technologies: App based technologies have become mainstream in F&B operations - easing pre-ordering for pick-ups, claiming a place in line for seating and limiting times within dining rooms. These are widely used in airport restaurants, and gaining popularity within restaurants and bars worldwide. On-line menus available to download using a QR code, on guests' personal smart phones. Several restaurant establishments including the Kyo Restaurant at Hotel Place d'Armes in Montreal have used this technology to limit contact on surfaces. The QR code options are also available in Asia to process payments using the smart phone. Rise of virtual restaurants: With the advancement of app-based delivery portals such as Uber Eats and DoorDash, restaurants are starting to let go of the traditional dining rooms with no physical store front, with only a kitchen to deliver food orders - thereby enabling a complete "frictionless-restaurant". This could reduce operating costs by a third, mainly driven by reduced rental space. Sales and Marketing Communication: Technology maintains the connection with the brand and hotel establishments when face-to-face interactions are discouraged. What used to be a technique to speak to a segment - millennials -- became the primary way of engaging with a customer base. Using Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Google My Business, hoteliers send the message hotel policies are appropriate, hotel establishments care about their loyal guests; and online reviews help reluctant customers regain confidence in travel. Maintaining the dialogue encourages customers to travel back to the hotel once restrictions are lifted. Developing an online customer relationship that preserves value is a core part of the hotelier's pandemic toolkit. Technology maintains the connection with the brand and hotel establishments when face-to-face interactions are discouraged. What used to be a technique to speak to a segment - millennials -- became the primary way of engaging with a customer base. Using Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Google My Business, hoteliers send the message hotel policies are appropriate, hotel establishments care about their loyal guests; and online reviews help reluctant customers regain confidence in travel. Maintaining the dialogue encourages customers to travel back to the hotel once restrictions are lifted. Developing an online customer relationship that preserves value is a core part of the hotelier's pandemic toolkit. Reservations and Booking Channels: Individual leisure travel is likely to be the first segment to pick up in hotel reservations. These leisure individual travellers are currently using online booking engines, online hotel reservation platforms, hotel mobile apps, and are driven in part by loyalty programs. Bookings within several markets in Asia Pacific are already witnessing this trend, with very few reservations being made through older reservation platforms that include GDS systems, travel agents, wholesale or MICE and Central Reservations Systems (CRS). Though this trend has been emerging significantly in the last 5 years, the lack of traditional booking systems during the pandemic has accelerated customers embracing online hotel bookings faster. Reimagining Traditional Operations: Housekeeping: In times such as these, cleanliness has become of utmost importance for any guest and hotel establishment alike, and the new-age germ zapping robots are becoming a celebrity within the business. Developed by a company called Xenex and typically used in hospitals, the robot is already being utilized in Texas, at the Westin Houston Medical Centre Hotel. The machine emits intense germicidal light that kills pathogens, after being wheeled in by housekeeping staff. These robots do not replace housekeeping staff entirely, as the core cleaning would yet need to be carried out, thereby saving hospitality jobs. Though an expensive proposition, it allows guests to feel more secure in the hotel environment. In times such as these, cleanliness has become of utmost importance for any guest and hotel establishment alike, and the new-age germ zapping robots are becoming a celebrity within the business. Developed by a company called Xenex and typically used in hospitals, the robot is already being utilized in Texas, at the Westin Houston Medical Centre Hotel. The machine emits intense germicidal light that kills pathogens, after being wheeled in by housekeeping staff. These robots do not replace housekeeping staff entirely, as the core cleaning would yet need to be carried out, thereby saving hospitality jobs. Though an expensive proposition, it allows guests to feel more secure in the hotel environment. Customer Service: Whether it be for delivery of room service or getting coffee and towels, robots can be utilized to perform simple service tasks previously reserved for staff interactions. Reducing staff interactions in hotels may become beneficial rather than detrimental, and innovative hotel companies have realized robots can help in client-facing roles, performing simple tasks. The millennial brand, Yotel, has successfully deployed robots. The robots do not necessarily reduce staff count, but allow hotel staff to focus on the delivery of essential tasks. Such robots also work well in the economy and midscale hotels - where they lead to additional cost savings. Property Management and Administration : Property Management Software or PMS has been available for several decades. But imagine the PMS on the cloud, where with one click in a remote location, a GM can still have access to all the real-time property level data. Several companies, such as Cloudbeds, exist in providing cloud computing for the hotel industry. Cloud computing, usually app based, also assists in enhancing guest experience (enables staff to work more efficiently by being more mobile), lower operational costs (reduced on-site hardware and software requirements), and remote working for hotel staff (staff have access to the app via an internet connection). : Property Management Software or PMS has been available for several decades. But imagine the PMS on the cloud, where with one click in a remote location, a GM can still have access to all the real-time property level data. Several companies, such as Cloudbeds, exist in providing cloud computing for the hotel industry. Cloud computing, usually app based, also assists in enhancing guest experience (enables staff to work more efficiently by being more mobile), lower operational costs (reduced on-site hardware and software requirements), and remote working for hotel staff (staff have access to the app via an internet connection). Inventory Management : Utilizing a mobile device to monitor inventory, thereby forgoing the traditional pen and paper. Employees can directly submit their inventory purchase orders, including the frequency at which they occur. These devices can also analyse the inventory required by an establishment, by utilizing recipes and the frequency of sales for each menu item on a weekly or monthly basis. Utilizing a mobile device to monitor inventory, thereby forgoing the traditional pen and paper. Employees can directly submit their inventory purchase orders, including the frequency at which they occur. These devices can also analyse the inventory required by an establishment, by utilizing recipes and the frequency of sales for each menu item on a weekly or monthly basis. Staff Scheduling: Utilizing scheduling software for managing weekly schedules using historical staffing patterns, losing the traditional paper in the back-of-house. The software or app allows restaurants to monitor sales, staffing budgets, and controlling staff pay for overtime. Long Term Benefits of High-Tech Hotel owners and developers may be hesitant to deploy technology if Covid-19 is only a temporary phenomenon. After all, the upfront set-up costs are not trivial. Owners and developers are also skeptical, given how much and how frequent technology can change. Given the advancement of technology in recent years, these set-up costs have significantly reduced. Embracing technology has long term benefits beyond Covid-19, such as: Higher Communal Outreach: A hotel has always been a place where people would connect, but its no longer a place for only guests and staff to connect. Mobile app technology also allows locals to interact with the hotel and their staff. AccorLocal, the app developed by Accor Hotels, does exactly that. The app allows local residents to be connected to merchants rendering their services at the hotel, allows concierges to assist with any enquiries and provide services, make restaurant reservations (usually within the hotel), book yoga and other fitness classes, pick up breakfast on their way to work, pick up and drop off dry cleaning (without a time limit as hotels operate 24/7), amongst others. Spending money on such services allows locals to gain loyalty points on the respective loyalty programs, thereby enjoying perks while on holiday. Environmentally Sustainable: Convenient technology is saving the environment. The use of technology allows for a largely paper and plastic-free work environment. When technology is utilized in inventory management, staff scheduling, check-ins and check-outs, menus etc. several tonnes of paper and plastic are saved. According to the New York Times, Hilton estimates approximately 40 tons of plastic were saved by over 7 million Digital Key downloads. Enhanced Guest Retention: Guests now have access to hotel properties and hotel brands, at any given point and at their convenience. This allows for the hotel properties to directly communicate with the guests, prior to, during and after their stay. Increased information sharing allows guests to expect a certain level of service and engagement with staff, while also allowing hotels to plan a guests' stay in advance. Increase Employee Engagement: Easier staffing schedules, allocating duties to staff, tracking performance goals and achievements, and using AI and technology to allow employees to have access to several online training modules, allow staff to be engaged at work. The easy access to schedules also means staff have more control on their work-life, knowing how hard this can be with traditional operations. Additionally, when technology is used to replace more mundane tasks such as check-ins and check-outs, staff can focus more on guest needs, while also personalizing their stay and overall experience. Reduced Overall Cost: Replacing some functions with technology leads to additional cost savings as well. For instance, the digital key technology is far less expensive than the older RFID plastic key-card technology for door locks. The newer technology is also highly energy efficient, thereby reducing utility costs - one of the largest line items in a profit and loss statement within a hotel. Hotel developers and owners are typically charged with an upfront cost at the beginning of switching to newer technology, where benefits and cost savings are higher in the long run. Looking Ahead Resilience is the capacity for complex systems to survive by adapting, evolving and growing their operations in the face of turbulent change. In the hospitality industry, as with any other modern or traditional sector, the resilience lies in being human-centered, risk intelligent, flexible and agile for real-time and long-term market outcomes -- ensuring financial viability. The COVID-19 pandemic is just another manifestation of our now-normal turbulent times. This special market report illustrates the acceleration and deepening of the convergence of human-touch and technology through Industry 4.0 digitalization. This enables the hotel business to provide a home away from home, while allowing for sustained growth. Technology assists in providing safer accommodations and dining options. For the hospitality industry, it's generating systemic change as guest preferences and priorities evolve. Technology facilitates financial sustainability even as operating conditions remain drastically altered; and as we witness reductions in capacity for revenue generating spaces (i.e. Lobbies, F&B outlets and event spaces). Technology is not about technicality - it's about being more creative when we use our spaces, our precious human capital; it's about maintaining the high-touch nature that defines our hospitality business. Jevin Selwyn Henry By Express News Service DHARMAPURI: While the government is encouraging school students to watch video lessons in Kalvi TV, Dharmapuri tribal residents alleged that they have become victims of digital inequality, with no access to internet or cable connection. They also urged the district administration to make an effort to set up cell phone towers in tribal hamlets, which would facilitate online education for their children. Speaking to TNIE, Venkateshan, a native of Kalasapadi tribal hamlet near Sitheri said, There are over 100 students studying in classes X, XI and XII in the locality. Besides, over 300 kids are in primary and middle schools. We welcome the governments move to telecast special programmes for two-and-a-half hours on weekdays. However, the initiative is of little to no use for tribal kids who do not have access to the internet, smartphones, or even cable connection. They are mere victims of digital inequality. President of Malaival Makkal Sangam Dilli Babu asserted that the plight of students across Dharmapuri is no different. Tribal hamlets like Sitheri, Eriyur and Vathalmalai have power supply but lack infrastructure for communication. Several times, I have seen people walk 20 km to make a phone call. Besides, most residents do not have access to TV or the internet. So, the district administration should make special arrangements, he requested. Survey underway Addressing this issue, Collector S Malarvizhi said, Currently, the district administration is conducting a survey across Dharmapuri to identify people without TV, internet connection or access to digital avenues. This initiative has been taken up especially after the State introduced online classes. In the case of tribal hamlets, we will make use of the report to identify students and assemble them in a common place where physical classes would be conducted. Moreover, students will also be given access to computers with internet connection and a TV with cable connection by equipping schools closer to the tribal hamlets or residential schools. Besides, measures are taken to provide noon meals for them. The collector also assured that tribal students would be given masks and hand sanitisers. Raipur: On account of demonetisation of high value currency notes, the Chhattisgarh government has decided to pay Rs 10,000 in cash as part of salaries to the class 3 and 4 employees and teachers. Chief Minister Raman Singh has issued the directive to the Finance department in this regard, officials said, adding that the decision will benefit around 3.5 lakh government employees. The chief minister on Saturday held a meeting in which facilities provided to the people in the wake of demonetisation were reviewed, officials said. Out of the 2,800 ATMs in the state, 1,500 have been re-calibrated, they added. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 16:46:30|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday announced its second-quarter financial results ending June 30, with a 40-percent net sales increase to 88.9 billion U.S. dollars compared with 63.4 billion dollars in the same period last year. Excluding the 582-million-dollar unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 41 percent. Third-party sales again grew faster this quarter than first-party sales, the U.S. e-commerce giant said. According to its financial report, Amazon's net income increased to 5.2 billion dollars in the second quarter, or 10.30 dollars per diluted share, compared with a net income of 2.6 billion dollars, or 5.22 dollars per diluted share, in the second quarter 2019. Amazon's operating cash flow increased 42 percent to 51.2 billion dollars for the trailing 12 months, compared with 36.0 billion dollars for the trailing 12 months ending June 30, 2019. Its free cash flow increased to 31.9 billion dollars in the same period, compared with a previous 25.0 billion dollars. Common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards totaled 517 million on June 30, 2020, compared with 510 million one year ago, the company said. "This was another highly unusual quarter, and I couldn't be more proud of and grateful to our employees around the globe," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. According to Bezos, the company spent over 4 billion dollars on incremental COVID-19-related costs in the last quarter to help keep employees safe and deliver products to customers during a period of high demand. "We've created over 175,000 new jobs since March and are in the process of bringing 125,000 of these employees into regular, full-time positions," he said. Enditem CHICOPEE For the past six decades, Bernard Bunny Murray has been cheering people up by smiling and waving at passing cars around the city. Now Johnny Miranda, a local artist and owner of oOps! An art experience and the Institute of Abilities, is honoring Murray, 75, with a mural on the back wall of the Gulf gas station at 646 Grattan St. Its visible from McKinstry Avenue. Everybody in Chicopee knows Bunny and everybody loves him, and it brings smiles to our faces, so its a great way not just to honor Bunny but to bring Bunnys spirit to the community, said community member and activist Paul Parks, who is also participating in the project. We want to celebrate (Bunnys) life while hes alive, Parks said. Miranda said that in the past few months there have been social tensions between people in the city and around the U.S. This is a great way to unify with an icon that has already been a unifying figure and pay him the tribute he so deserves, Miranda said. With all this situation this was something that needed to happen in the city because we all got together, everyone joined to the joy that Bunny brings, and that was the purpose and I think we did it. Jhon Wick, who owns the Gulf station, said he was excited when Parks approached him about painting the mural at his business. Bunny frequents the store to get dollar bills changed into coins. He always brings some bills and I give him some coins, and every time he comes he said that I make his day because he loves the coins, Wick said. People are excited to see the final product, and me too. Miranda said Murray is also excited about the mural. When he sees it, he says, Now I am a star and laughs. But everyone tells him you are a star from before the mural. The painting project started July 17 with an investment of 30 hours and about $500 spent on materials, according to Miranda. Many community members and artists helped paint it, and businesses donated paint and equipment. Miranda is selling postcards of his original design for the mural to raise money for the project. The original design had colorful horizontal lines with a portrait of Murray in the middle. The mural instead has colorful triangles. We went with the triangular design because we wanted to do it a little bit about Chicopee and its colloquial motto, Love, Peace and Kielbasa Grease, and I wanted to embody that motto, said Miranda. Murray will be honored at the unveiling of the mural Aug. 14 at 6 p.m. I am very passionate about the arts and unification through that medium, Miranda said. Im honored and humbled to be the artist by which this character is embodied. ... As a Puerto Rican artist Im hoping to create for the Latino community and children a light, a hope that we can achieve great things if we work together and work for the benefit of the community. The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, clarified on Wednesday that government did not spend an amount of GH54 million on hot meals as being peddled around. He said out of an estimated amount of GH40 million, the government spent only GH12 million to provide meals to vulnerable Ghanaians during the lockdown period, including the cost of distribution. It is truly unfortunate that an attempt has been made to politicize the issue of providing food for our brothers and sisters during the lockdown period. It is also unfortunate that an impression has been created that a total amount of GH54 million was used for the meals, he said. Mr. Speaker, permit me to provide some clarification to the issue. We estimated that we would need an amount of GH40 million (not GH54 million) to provide meals to the vulnerable people during the lockdown period, he added. However, out of the estimated amount, we spent GH12 million in providing the meals, including the cost of distribution, he indicated. The Finance Minister explained that government budgeted for GH40.3 million for basic consumptions and food items, and said the GH42 million was spent on uncooked food items, which brought the total figure to GH54 million as captured in the mid-year review. According to him, a total of 150,000 people benefited from the GH12 million for hot meals during the lockdown, and added that this cost included operational and distribution cost. Mr. Ofori-Atta disclosed that government, in collaboration with Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs), also distributed dry food packages to about 470,000 families. The Minority in Parliament has questioned the amount asking for details after the minister's presentation on Thursday, July 23. ---Daily Guide Washington: US President Donald Trump has criticised Australia for its resurgence of coronavirus cases, using it as an example of a country that is now having "tremendous problems" dealing with the global pandemic. As the number of confirmed cases in the US neared 4.5 million on Friday (AEST), Trump pointed to Australia as one of several nations where "they thought they'd really done great" only to have a serious spike in outbreaks. "This resurgence in cases is occurring throughout large portions of our planet in Japan, China, Australia, Belgium, Spain, France, Germany, Hong Kong places where they thought they'd really done great," he said. "It came back, and in a couple of cases came back very strongly. The virus was said to be under control but new cases have risen very significantly once again. So when you think somebody is doing well, sometimes you have to hold your decision on that. You have to hold your statements." Nordine owned the 7,308-square-foot mansion for more than 60 years, living there from the early 1950s until his death in 2019 at age 98. Notable architectural firm Pond and Pond designed the home, and it was built in 1903 for Herbert Perkins, who later became the president of International Harvester. Thousands of Alabama children could lose access to school meals unless federal waivers set to expire next month are extended. In an effort to make that happen, Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, along with 35 other Senators, sent a joint letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue today asking for the extension of those waivers. The USDA administers the school lunch program and waived many federal regulations when schools were closed in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. Under the waivers, schools that closed because of the pandemic could serve free meals to students learning remotely, provide multiple meals at a time using bulk packaging, and deliver food to neighborhoods where students could not be transported to school to pick up those meals. The waivers expire the first day of school or on Aug. 31, whichever comes first. State Superintendent Eric Mackey told viewers during a Facebook live event with Jones on July 24 he did not anticipate the USDA to extend the waiver. Without the extension, according to Mackey, students who are not in actual school buildings when lunch is served, such as the more than 210,000 students learning in virtual-only school districts, will have to go to school to pick up their meals. They will have to pay for the meal unless they qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Mackey said students should still be able to pick up a weeks worth of meals at a time, but those meals would be provided in individual serving sizes. On Thursday, U.S. House Democrats introduced the Pandemic Child Hunger Prevention Act which would expand access to free school meals for all children nationwide during the pandemic. Senators are also asking the USDA to reimburse schools for the transportation costs for delivering meals to low-income students. While many school meal programs are managing these costs for the time-being, they cannot continue absorbing them for the foreseeable future. We ask that the USDA make additional funds available to schools to assist with the cost of delivering meals to low-income students until regular school operations are restored. AL.com is keeping a list of start dates and what options are for students in school districts across the state at this link. For all of AL.coms back to school coverage, click here. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: New Delhi, July 31 : The Central government on Friday extended the suspension on scheduled commercial international flight operations to and from India till August 31. "The government has decided to extend the suspension on the Scheduled International Commercial Passenger Services to or from India up to 23:59 hours IST of 31st August. Specific Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) has been issued accordingly," an official statement said. The restriction, however, will not be applicable on all-cargo flights and other flights specially approved by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Passenger air services were suspended on March 25 due to the nationwide lockdown to check the spread of Covid-19. Domestic flight services, however, resumed from May 25. "It may be noted that during the suspension period due to the Covid-19 situation in India, more than 2,500 repatriation flights by foreign carriers to uplift stranded passengers to or from India have been approved," the statement said. "Under the 'Vande Bharat Mission', Air India and Air India Express have uplifted 2,67,436 stranded passengers while other charters have uplifted 4,86,811 stranded passengers during the period from May 6 to July 30, 2020," it added. According to the statement, to allow gradual movement of passenger traffic during the Covid-19 situation, 'Transport Bubble' agreements have been signed with the US, France, and Germany. "Recently, a Transport Bubble agreement was also signed with Kuwait to uplift stranded passenger both to and from India. More similar arrangements are likely to fructify and ease passenger movements from different countries," the statement said. On its part, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) in Mumbai facilitated the movement of 21 flights between July 22 and July 31 under the bilateral Air Bubble agreements with the US, Germany and France. "CSMIA catered to a total of 3,059 passengers which include 1,185 from US, 660 from France and 1,214 from Germany," the airport said in a statement. "Under this arrangement, the airport saw airlines such as Air India, Air France and Lufthansa operating on these routes. The first flight departed from Mumbai to Paris by Air France on July 22, while the first flight arrived from Frankfurt by Air India on the July 23," it added. -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed Pakistan passes Bill to give right of appeal to Kulbhushan Jadhav Pakistan gives Kulbhushan Jadhav right to appeal against death sentence Committed to protecting Kulbhushan Jadhavs life says India India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, July 31: India on Thursday said it was committed to protecting the life of Indian death row convict Kulbhushan Jadhav amid reports that the Islamabad High Court has constituted a two-member bench to hear a review petition in his case. "We stand committed to protect the life of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav," external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said at an online media briefing. He was replying to a batch of questions relating to the case including reports that Islamabad High Court has constituted a bench to hear a review petition filed by the Pakistan government in the case. Kulbhushan Jadhav case: Pakistan blocked all legal remedies, India exploring options, says MEA "We reserve our position in the matter which includes the right to avail of further remedies," Srivastava added. India has been attacking Pakistan for failing to provide it unhindered and unimpeded consular access to Jadhav as mandated in a judgment by the International Court of Justice. Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News Srivastava said Pakistan has blocked all the avenues for an effective remedy available for India in the case. In a unilateral move, Pakistan filed the petition in the Islamabad High Court on July 22, seeking appointment of a "legal representative" for Jadhav. However, the main parties, including the Government of India, were not consulted ahead of the filing of the application by the Ministry of Law and Justice under an ordinance which was enacted on May 20. Jadhav, a 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. Third consular access for Kulbhushan Jadhav: Will Pak ensure it is un-restricted 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. According to Pakistani media reports, Islamabad High Court on Thursday constituted a two-member bench to hear the review petition filed by the Pakistan government in Jadhav's case. The Pittsfield Police & Advisory Review Board discusses the use of chokeholds. Pittsfield Police Advisory Review Board to Discuss Eliminating Chokeholds PITTSFIELD, Mass. The Police Advisory Review Board will discuss possibly eliminating chokeholds at its next scheduled meeting. The board agreed at its meeting Tuesday that before considering a resolution that it should ask the chief to draft a policy prohibiting holds designed to reduce blood or airflow before placing the item on the agenda for discussion. "I don't want to put the cart before the horse and I think this should be on the agenda and something that we broadly discuss," Police Chief Michael Wynn said. "Before we put a resolution on the agenda, I think we need to get a consensus among the members." Board member Drew Herzig brought forth the possible prohibition last month, noting that although chokeholds are not taught in Massachusetts they are not outlawed. He suggested Tuesday that the board consider a resolution that would follow through and eliminate chokeholds locally. Wynn said he was confident that this could be done at a local level but was not convinced it would really matter at a higher level. "The short answer is yes, I think I can probably insert language into a policy that would outright prohibit it or greatly limit it and many departments have done it," Wynn said. "... But if an officer did it anyway, even if it was illegal and was terminated or disciplined or if we ended up in a civil rights suit for whatever reason, I am not sure if local prohibition would matter at all." Wynn said the precedence has been set under the two current federal cases. In similar cases, they will look at "objectable reasonableness" and the "totality of circumstances." "The judges will ask based on everything that was happening, did an officer under extreme duress believe they had no other option to protect themselves or someone else," Wynn said. "It is two separate systems and we are still trying to sort them out." Board member Alfred Barbalunga added that he was hesitant to flat-out ban a maneuver when an officer may really need to restrain somebody and there are no other options. "I think what we saw in Minneapolis was so brutal and so horrible ... kind of all believe that kind of behavior has to be prohibited with severe consequences," he said of the killing of George Floyd by police in May by keeping a knee on his neck. "The problem is when you have an officer who is trying to restrain someone who is physically superior, angry, and resisting. The difference between a chokehold and a headlock, it's not that big of a difference. It is how it is applied." He added that is is hard to define unless you see the "composite perception of what the officer actually did." Wynn said there is no consensus nationally. Some departments have outright eliminated chokeholds while others have brought them back in, he said, in the case of some western departments. "They say that ... they went through this in the '90s and they learned their lessons and ended up with a lot more impact strikes so put it back in, Wynn said. "With the right amount of training, it is much safer than batons." He said other departments are taking a middle of the road approach and have put the maneuver at a higher level of force for the "worst of the worst scenarios. Wynn said he would help Herzig craft a resolution for discussion. Before the discussion on chokeholds, the board talked more broadly about the department's "use of force" policy. Wynn said he hopes to meet with member Sloan Letman in the near future to discuss different policies. "We started with the current policy that we reviewed last month and it is a fairly progressive policy," Wynn said. "My intention is to kind of start with those documents as a foundation and bring something to you based on that." He said this will all be informed by police reform and he noted the department's policy vendor is also undergoing a national review. Trump, who ran for office in 2016 promising that Mexico would pay for the border wall, has obtained more than $15 billion in federal funds for his signature project, including $5 billion provided by Congress through conventional appropriations. The president has tapped into Pentagon accounts for the remaining $10 billion, including the $2.5 billion transfer last year that the 9th Circuit said was unlawful. With the Covid-19 cases in the state rising rapidly, the Odisha government on Friday doubled the penalty to Rs 1,000 for not wearing masks in public places as the states tally crossed the 31,000-mark. Chief secretary Asit Tripathy said those found not wearing face masks or spitting in public places will be fined Rs 1,000 for the first violation while for the second and further violations, the penalty will be Rs 5,000. The penalty amount was Rs 500 for the first-time offence and Rs 1,000 for the subsequent ones. Tripathy, however, did not clarify how the government would keep track of the second and subsequent violations. The government also announced lifting of lockdown in four Covid hotspot districts of Ganjam, Khurda, Cuttack, Japur and Rourkela Municipal Corporation. However, the chief secretary said that congregation at public places will be strictly prohibited. In case of closed spaces, if offices, establishments, market complexes and shops are found violating physical distancing norms, a fine of Rs 10,000 will be imposed and the establishment will be sealed for a week. For further offences, a fine of Rs 10,000 and sealing for one month will be imposed, he said. In marriage functions where social distancing is violated and more than 50 persons are found attending the function, a fine of Rs 10,000 will be imposed. The states Covid-19 tally crossed the 31,000-mark on Friday with 1,499 new cases reported in 24 hours. Eight more deaths from the disease took the toll to 177, news agency PTI reported quoting a health department official. The total number of novel coronavirus patients in the state now stands at 31,877. The government said sample collection, isolation and testing would be the norm as the cases continued to increase. The state would add 6 more testing labs at Angul, Puri, Kalahandi, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar and Sundergarh districts from August 1 and at least 20,000 Covid tests will be conducted everyday, Institute of Life Sciences director Ajay Parida said. Of the 20,000 tests, 8,000 will be RT-PCR tests and the remaining 12,000 will be antigen tests, he added. Currently, all the districts have more than 3,000 antigen kits each. However, Odisha Congress chief Niranjan Patnaik on Friday demanded that the state should test at least 25, 000 samples every day to bring the situation under control. If the government fails to take quick steps to tackle the situation, there is a likelihood of the state witnessing community transmission of novel coronavirus. The Covid-19 situation is really grim in the state, the PCC chief said. Discussions should be held with political parties, social organisations and experts to strengthen the battle against the pandemic, he said. Meanwhile, chief minister Naveen Patnaik inaugurated the third plasma bank at Rourkela on Friday and said the state has collected 70 units of plasma in a fortnight for the treatment of critically ill Covid-19 patients. Patnaik, who inaugurated the plasma bank at Ispat General Hospital in Rourkela through video conferencing, said eight patients have so far been discharged from hospitals in the state after being cured of coronavirus through plasma therapy, PTI reported. (With inputs from PTI) SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Islamic Republic wants an endless war in Yemen, on Saudi Arabias southern flank, U.S. Special Representative Brian Hook told reporters in during his visit to London on Wednesday, where he is lobbying for the extension of UNs arms embargo against Iran. The internationally enforced embargo ends in October, which would allow Tehran to buy and sell weapons systems including warplanes, missiles, tanks and heavy artillery. The United States says this will destabilize the Middle East, where Iran is involved in several conflicts. Nobody believes that Iran should be able to buy or sell conventional weapons like fighter jets, battle tanks, large caliber artillery systems, warships and various kinds of missiles, Hook said. President Donald Trump pulled out of the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran, arguing that its sunset clauses would allow Iran to build nuclear weapons and demanded an end to Tehrans aggressive foreign and military policies in the region, as well as limits on its missile program. Iran denies any intention to build nuclear weapons and says its ballistic missile program is for self-defense. But many regional countries including Persian Gulf Arab states, Israel, the United States and to an extent European powers question Irans intentions. The question in front of the international community is not whether the international arms embargo should be extended, but how and when, Hook reiterated in London. Russia and China have made clear they will not support an extension of the arms embargo but Washington continues to strongly lobby UM Security Council members. Europe has its own arms embargo against Iran, which will continue until 2023. Its great that Europe has these sanctions in place, but what we need is a global embargo, and if you do not have a global embargo it allows Iran to purchase these weapons, Hook said. Vice President Mike Pence at a "Cops for Trump" campaign event in Greensburg, Pa., on July 30, 2020. Read more With less than 100 days until Election Day, Vice President Mike Pence returned to Pennsylvania on Thursday for the second time this month and delivered a campaign speech to an enthusiastic crowd of law enforcement officers and their supporters. Recent polls show President Donald Trump losing ground to Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. So Pence used his speech in a steamy strip mall parking lot in Greensburg to attack Bidens record on key issues in the battleground state. He repeated several of the Trump campaigns criticisms of Biden: that he doesnt support the police, that he wants to ban fracking, and that major American cities like Philadelphia wouldnt be safe on his watch. Weve scrutinized these claims before, and were summarizing what we know below. Even Joe Biden said not long ago that well-armed police become the enemy when confronting lawlessness in our streets. Vice President Mike Pence, in a speech on July 30, 2020 Pence claimed Biden had called police the enemy during a similar event with police officers and their supporters earlier this month at Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 in Northeast Philadelphia. That statement followed a video interview Biden did with liberal activist Ady Barkan that posted July 8. Barkan spent most of the 27-minute interview asking about health care. But about 20 minutes in, the discussion turned to George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, both unarmed Black people killed in encounters with police. Biden spoke about his interest in redirecting some law enforcement funding to social services, mental health counseling, and affordable housing. Then he spoke about police using military equipment in their communities, which is where the enemy comment came up. Surplus military equipment for law enforcement they dont need that, he said. The last thing you need is an up-armored Humvee coming into a neighborhood; its like the military invading. They dont know anybody; they become the enemy. Theyre supposed to be protecting these people. Biden said police become the enemy when they use military equipment in a way thats like invading a neighborhood. That context is missing from Pences portrayal. READ MORE: Read more: Pence takes Bidens comments on police funding, enemy out of context Joe Biden has a $2 trillion plan to abolish fossil fuels, which means the end of fracking in Pennsylvania. Vice President Mike Pence, in a speech on July 30, 2020 Pence knows his audience. The controversial drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has lifted the economy in southwestern Pennsylvania, and voters there might not be willing to support a presidential candidate who opposes the practice outright. U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, a Republican congressman from Butler County, north of Pittsburgh, also accused Biden of wanting to end fracking on a Trump campaign call earlier this month. Biden wants to block the federal government from issuing new permits for drilling on public land, but he has not called for banning fracking. He also would allow existing fracking operations to continue. His official position hasnt changed, but it became muddled when Biden misspoke during a March debate with Bernie Sanders, his last opponent standing in the Democratic primary. Heres an excerpt of their exchange: Im talking about stopping fracking as soon as we possibly can, Sanders said. Im talking about telling the fossil fuel industry that they are going to stop destroying this planet no ifs, buts, and maybes about it. So am I, Biden replied. Well, Im not sure your proposal does that, Sanders said. No more no new fracking, Biden said. Biden seemed to be saying he wanted to ban fracking a sharp departure from his official position. And the former vice presidents critics pounced. The Biden campaign retracted his remarks the night of the debate, but that hasnt stopped conservative media outlets from inaccurately reporting that Biden supports a total ban on fracking when he does not. READ MORE: Read more: No, Joe Biden doesnt want to ban fracking or kill the Pennsylvania jobs it supports Philadelphias seen a 54% rise in shootings and a 20% rise in murders. Vice President Mike Pence, in a speech on July 30, 2020 Philadelphia is one of several major American cities where President Donald Trump has threatened to send federal law enforcement agents. During a recent speech from the East Room of the White House, Trump said that murders this year have spiked 27% in Philadelphia. Trump was correct when he made those remarks, and the problem has only gotten worse in the days since. Fifteen more people have been murdered in the last week, meaning homicides in Philadelphia are now up 32% compared to last year, city crime statistics show. Pence seems to have misspoken when he said murders in Philadelphia had risen 20%. READ MORE: Read more: Fact-checking Trump on rising murders in Philly PolitiFact is a nonpartisan, fact-checking website operated by the nonprofit Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Punjab health and family welfare minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Friday laid the foundation stone of a 10-bed Primary Health Centre (PHC) at Jhordan village near Raikot town of the district. This PHC is being constructed in memory of Shaheed Hawaldar Ishar Singh of Saragarhi War who belonged to the village. Sidhu said that this PHC would be constructed at a cost of around 55 lakh at the site where a government dispensary existed. He added that this hospital would be completed in the next six months. While speaking to media persons, Sidhu said that it would be a 10-bedded PHC, with facilities such as cold chain room, immunisation room, ward, sterilisation room, labour room, laboratory, besides others. Sidhu said that soon, more such hospitals, as well as trauma centres, would be set up in different rural and urban areas of the state. He said that to check the shortage of doctors in the department, the Punjab government would be recruiting a total of 7,055 staff in the health and family welfare department. This staff would include 500 medical officers, 500 specialist doctors, paramedical staff, ANMs, multipurpose health workers, nurses, technical staff, besides others. On a question related to the opening of gyms in Punjab, Balbir Singh Sidhu said that the Punjab government has not allowed it for the time being as if the gyms are opened now, they might lead to infecting a large number of people. Earlier, the health and family welfare minister also paid obeisance at the memorial of Shaheed Hawaldar Ishar Singh of Saragarhi War in the village. She's set to be replaced as Princess Margaret by Lesley Manville in seasons five and six of The Crown. And Helena Bonham Carter admitted she's 'so chuffed' to be handing over the role to the actress, 64, as she spoke with Radio Times about leaving the part on Thursday. Detailing how she feels to be departing the role, the Sweeney Todd star, 54, who has been nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for the show, said: 'I feel like I should be handing over a baton, like this race we are all running. Delighted: Helena Bonham Carter admitted on Thursday that she's 'so chuffed' Lesley Manville will be replacing her as Princess Margaret in The Crown 'With Lesley, I feel like I should hand the cigarette holder that I used as a baton. Here you are, over to you! 'Shes going to have a great time with her and Im so chuffed its her and shes a great actress and shell have great fun.' Helena added that her predecessor Vanessa Kirby had been 'incredibly enthusiastic' when she got the part and was 'generous' in her advice, so she hoped she could do the same for Lesley. She went on to claim it was a shame the cast and crew of The Crown were unable to properly bid farewell each other after finishing their two season stint on the show because the COVID-19 crisis meant they had to go into lockdown. Passing the baton: Helena said she thinks Lesley will have 'a great time with her' as 'shes a great actress' Helena has been nominated in the Supporting Actress category at the BAFTA TV Awards for her role, while her co-star Josh O'Connor -who played Prince Charles- has also been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. The Crown has picked up seven nominations for the newest series which saw Olivia Colman take over the role of Queen Elizabeth II, though she has not been nominated. Earlier this month it was claimed the fifth series of The Crown reportedly would not be released until 2022. Doing her part: Helena added that her predecessor Vanessa Kirby had been 'incredibly enthusiastic' when she got the part, so she hoped she could do the same for Lesley Congrats! Lesley will portray Princess Margaret (right in 1966) for the fifth and sixth seasons of The Crown The premiere has been delayed because producers are said to want a filming break, meaning filming won't start until June 2021. Series five will see Imelda Staunton, 64, take over the role as Queen Elizabeth II from Olivia, while Lesley will portray Princess Margaret. Deadline reports the postponement of filming is not due to the coronavirus pandemic but because of the complexity of studio and set-piece location shoots for the era of the series. Success: Helena has been nominated in for Best Supporting Actress at the BAFTA TV Awards A similar break was taken between series two and three of The Crown, which saw Claire Foy, 36, hand over the reins to Olivia. The fifth instalment is thought to begin in the early nineties and end in the early noughties, with writer Peter Morgan saying Staunton would be 'taking The Crown into the 21st century'. There are several poignant moments during the decade, which include the Queen making a speech on her 40th anniversary of her accession in 1992, in which she called the year an 'annus horriblis'. In the running: The Crown has picked up seven nominations for the newest series which saw Olivia Colman take over the role of Queen Elizabeth II, though she has not been nominated Royally good: Imelda is to play the Queen in The Crown's final two series She was referring to the breakdown of three of her children's marriages; Prince Andrew, Princess Anne's and Prince Charles' divorce from Princess Diana. Other noteable events during the time period included a fire at Windsor Castle, her golden wedding anniversary in 1997, and the deaths of Princess Margaret, the Queen Mother and the Princess of Wales. MailOnline contacted Sony Pictures Television for Netflix for comment at the time. Human clinical trial of indigenously developed Covaxin, a possible vaccine against coronavirus, began at a hospital in Uttar Pradesh, officials said. The trial began at Rana Hospital and Trauma Centre, which is among the 12 institutes selected for clinical trials of the vaccine. "The trials began under the supervision of physician Dr Ajit Pratap Singh and gynaecologist and obstetrician Dr Sona Ghosh. The vaccine has been administered to 9 volunteers so far," Venketesh Chaturvedi, Chief Administrative Officer of the hospital, told news agency PTI. The hospital is already experienced in vaccine trials of typhoid and Japanese Encephalitis. "We have started human clinical trials of Bharat Biotech's vaccine and soon the trial of Zydus Cadila vaccine will be started," Chaturvedi added. COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show Meanwhile, the first phase of Covaxin's human trial was completed at PGIMS Rohtak. The hospital had started trial on July 17 with over 50 volunteers. "About 50 people across India were administered the vaccine and the results were encouraging," Dr Savita Verma, principal investigator of the vaccine trial team, told news agency ANI. On the global front, Dr Anthony Fauci said that 250,000 people have registered on the National Institute of Heath's website to take part in experimental vaccine trials. The study of the first vaccine involving 30,000 people began this week. The US government plans to launch studies of additional vaccines every month through the fall. Meanwhile, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline said the US government will pay $2.1 billion to them for COVID-19 vaccines to cover 50 million people and to underwrite the drug makers' testing and manufacturing. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said the Southeast Asian country would be given priority by China if supplies of a vaccine become available. The Philippines plans to buy 40 million doses worth $400 million for 20 million people, around a fifth of the country's 107 million population, the country's Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said. Ghislaine Maxwell sexually abused underage girls and joined Jeffrey Epstein in directing Virginia Roberts Giuffre to be sexually abused by others, Giuffre claimed in a cache of documents that has been unsealed in the US. She trained me as a sex slave, Giuffre is quoted as saying. The documents were part of now-settled civil litigation against the British socialite and include claims about her alleged involvement in the sex-trafficking scheme of Epstein, her longtime confidant and a convicted sex offender. The documents stem from a 2015 civil action brought against Maxwell by Giuffre, who has claimed Maxwell lured her into Epsteins orbit as a teenager under the guise of offering work as a masseuse. She said the couple subsequently pressured her into having sex with numerous rich or notable men, including Prince Andrew, US politicians, wealthy entrepreneurs, a famous scientist, and a fashion designer. What may look like harmless seeds are part of a potentially ecologically harmful mystery covering several state. Experts warn that mystery seeds that have been delivered to homes might grow invasive species that could harm an areas ecosystem. The Illinois Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agricultures Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service warned residents on Wednesday of unsolicited seed deliveries coming from foreign countries. The seeds have been reported by people in at least 31 states. The Illinois Department of Agriculture does not have a regional breakdown of where seeds have been reported, but they have been reported throughout the state, according to the departments public information officer, Krista Lisser. She estimated that more than 500 reports of unsolicited seeds have been made in the state as of Thursday. The types of seeds that have been delivered are not fully known, but the Illinois department is urging residents not to plant them out of concern that they may be invasive species that could harm an areas ecosystem or crop yields. Instead of planting the seeds or throwing them in the garbage, residents are encouraged to reach out to the Illinois Department of Agriculture at agr.seeds@Illinois.gov to report the seeds. The USDA reported that the packages appear to be coming from China. The department does not have any evidence indicating the deliveries are anything more than a scam to send people unsolicited items from a seller who then posts false customer reviews to boost sales. Still, the department is collecting seeds from recipients to determine if they contain anything threatening to agriculture or the environment. They are working with the Department of Homeland Securitys Customs and Border Protection, other federal agencies and state departments of agriculture. The threat of invasive species to the habitat is real, according to University of Illinois Extension horticulture educator Ken Johnson. The seeds carry a risk if they are released into the environment and spread, Johnson said, noting the plant also could harbor a pest or disease not native to the U.S. that could impact crops or ornamental plants. Invasive species tend to displace our native species, our more desirable species, Johnson said. Thats the big risk with the invasive species. If an invasive species out-competes native species, large spreads of the invasive species take over and hurt diversity. Weed plants could out-compete crops looking for nutrients and reduce yields, Johnson said. More diverse plants will support different animals and insects in the ecosystem, and the loss of diversity could cause a loss of animals in the habitat, Johnson said. If you lose those things at the bottom of the food chain, you start to lose some of those higher animals, as well, Johnson said. Disposing of the mystery seeds by throwing them in the garbage is not recommended, Johnson said, adding that doing so risks the seeds finding their way into the ground and sprouting. The mystery seeds also should not be confused with seeds sent by the University of Illinois Extension to encourage people to fill out census forms, Johnson said. Those seeds are clearly labeled as coming from the university, he said. The mystery seeds could be labeled as coming from overseas, could feature Chinese writing and could be mislabeled as craft supplies. The incident was reported at India exchange place branch of the Union Bank and six fire tenders were rushed to the spot, the official said Fire broke out at a bank in the busy central Kolkata's BBD Bagh area on Friday morning. (Representative Image) Kolkata: A fire broke out at a bank in the busy central Kolkata's BBD Bagh area on Friday morning but there was no report of any injury, a fire brigade official said. The incident was reported at the India Exchange Place branch of the Union Bank at 8.15 am and six fire tenders were rushed to the spot, the official said. "It is a G+4 building and the fire broke out in the ground floor where the bank is located," the fire brigade official said. "The fire was brought under control by 10 am. There was no injury in the incident. The cause of the fire is unknown," he added. A NSW upper house inquiry has called for the NSW Rural Fire Service to create a fund for injured and killed firefighters using donations raised by comedian Celeste Barber during the summer's horror bushfires. The NSW RFS has allocated at least $90 million in donations made to the NSW RFS and Brigades Donations Fund, with the money to be spent on equipment and support for fire brigades. Barber helped direct more than $51 million in donations to the same trust after setting up a social media campaign in January. In a report tabled in the Legislative Council on Friday, an upper house committee recommended some of the unallocated donations from that campaign be used to create a "benevolent fund" to directly support volunteer firefighters and their families. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani dashed hopes Friday for a start to negotiations with Taliban insurgents, announcing the final 400 Taliban prisoners whose release is a prerequisite to start talks, will remain jailed. The announcement frustrates U.S. efforts to find an end to Afghanistans years of relentless war. Addressing the nation on the Muslim holy day of Eid ul Adha, Ghani said the 400 Taliban are convicted of crimes he has no authority to forgive. Instead, he will call a loya jirga or traditional grand council of elders to decide whether they should go free. He said the council would meet shortly. Ghanis announcement was certain to delay the start of negotiations between the warring sides and frustrate Washingtons efforts to bring an early end to hostilities, even as they scale down their presence in Afghanistan. It also comes at the start of a three-day cease-fire announced by the Taliban for the Eid holidays. The prisoner releases were part of a deal the United States signed in February with the Taliban aimed at ending Afghanistans endless wars and sending U.S. troops home after nearly 20 years in Afghanistan, ending Americas longest war. That deal, touted at the time as Afghanistans best chance at peace in four decades, called for the Afghan government to free 5,000 Taliban held in jails across the country and the Taliban to free 1,000 government and military personnel. The releases were to be a sign of good will and a prerequisite to the start of negotiations between the warring sides. On Thursday, the Taliban concluded the release of the 1,000 they were holding, according to Talibans political spokesman Suhail Shaheen. He also said the insurgent group was ready to hold talks with Kabuls political leadership within a week if the remaining Taliban still in jails in Afghanistan were freed. But Shaheen told The Associated Press the Taliban would not accept substitutes to the 5,000 Taliban on the list agreed upon during the one-and-a-half years of negotiations with Washington. Ghani in his speech said his government would free 500 Taliban who are not on the list saying it was a gesture of good will. In response to Ghanis announcement, Shaheen called his administration an obstacle to peace. Shaheen told The Associated Press the Taliban freed 1,005 government personnel, militia members, military personnel and police. The last of the prisoners was freed Thursday. We freed all of them as a good will gesture so that they may pass their Eid days with their families and also we announced the cease-fire in order to create a conducive atmosphere for the start of intra-Afghan negotiations, Shaheen said. But on the other hand the head of the Kabul administration, instead of removing hurdles in the way of peace and intra-Afghan negotiations, is creating ... hurdles and obstacles. The U.N. had expressed hopes for a start to negotiations within weeks, suggesting they may have begun in July, and called on both sides not to squander an opportunity at peace. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Thursday issued a statement at the end of Khalilzads round of meetings with Afghan leaders in the capital repeating a call for an end to fighting and bloodshed and urged both sides to seize this historic opportunity for peace. A meeting of the loya jirga would require weeks to collect elders from throughout the country and it wasnt clear how they would be chosen or whether Ghanis political opponent and the current head of the High Council for National Reconciliation Abdulllah Abdullah supported the move. Abdullah was tasked with overseeing the peace talks with the Taliban as part of a power sharing deal with Ghani earlier this year following disputed presidential election results. There was no immediate comment from Abdullah to Ghanis refusal to release the remaining Taliban prisoners. _____ Gannon reported from Islamabad. A villager selects Chinese prickly ashes at Daming Town of Huazhou District in Weinan City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, July 30, 2020. Local authorities encourage Chinese prickly ash planting in Huazhou District and help farmers raise their income. At present, the total area of Chinese prickly ash fields stands at 101,000 mu (about 6,733 hectares), and the annual output reaches 7,300 tonnes. (Xinhua/Tao Ming) Veramaris' natural marine algal oil is made from microalgae, which is particularly rich in essential EPA & DHA Omega-3. Just a little drop of Omega-3 is what pets need every day. Veramaris provides pet food companies with a stable and sustainable way to enrich their products with nature's richest Omega-3 and give pets the essential nutrition they need. This latest development for Veramaris follows an extremely successful first 12 months establishing itself in the aquaculture market. Now, the company is expanding its portfolio and its pioneering algal oil has been expertly refined to optimise the taste for pets. Veramaris Pets beats Fish Oil on taste in tests where both oils were used as coating for dry dog and cat food. 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Just a little drop of this high-quality product will make a big difference to the health of companion animals, which is good news for 'pet parents' every day and everywhere. They can also be reassured in the knowledge that while improving their pet's health they are also contributing to healthy oceans." To find out more about Veramaris Pets natural marine algal oil, visit: pets.veramaris.com. More information Follow us on Social Media https://www.linkedin.com/company/veramaris-pets/ About Veramaris Headquartered in Delft, The Netherlands, Veramaris is a joint venture between DSM and Evonik, both world leaders in science and specialty chemicals. Established in 2018, Veramaris was formed to help realise a vision to conserve natural marine life by using the ocean's own resource, natural marine algae, to sustainably expand the world's access to Omega-3. Veramaris oil from natural marine algae, rich in both the essential Omega-3 fatty acids EPA & DHA, and ARA, a long chain Omega-6. These are vital nutrients that support optimal brain, joints, skin, heart and eye health in both animals and humans. The zero-waste industrial scale production process runs at a state-of-the-art site in Blair, Nebraska, USA. Veramaris enables key stakeholders in aquaculture and pet nutrition to be less dependent on wild-caught fish as a source of both EPA & DHA and helps to meet the growing demand for sustainable seafood. Legal Disclaimer This information and any recommendations, technical or otherwise, are presented in good faith and believed to be correct as of the date prepared. Recipients of this information and recommendations must make their own determination as to its suitability for their purposes. 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Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1222373/Veramaris.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1016122/Veramaris_Logo.jpg Media enquiries For any questions, please contact: Mr Ben McCarthy [email protected] +44 (0)1780 678 178 SOURCE Veramaris V.O.F. A special CBI court on Friday rejected the bail plea filed by the promoters of the Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL), Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, arrested for their alleged involvement in the Yes Bank fraud case. They contended that the agency failed to file a charge sheet within the stipulated time of 60 days of their arrest. The CBI had filed a charge sheet on June 25 against Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL), its promoters Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, Belief Realtors Pvt. Ltd, RKW Developers Pvt. Ltd, DoIT Urban Ventures (India) Pvt. Ltd, Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor and his daughter Roshni Kapoor. While the Wadhawans were arrested on April 26. The defence pleaded that the CBI missed the deadline in filing the charge sheet before the special court. They also had pointed out that the CBI special court refused to take cognizance of the charge sheet filed by CBI, as the agency had not yet obtained sanction for prosecution for Kapoor under Prevention of Corruption Act. The agency claimed that the charge sheet was submitted with the registrar of the court well within time. Hearing both the side the court rejected the contention of defence. As per CBI case, Yes Bank invested 3,700 crore in short-term debentures of DHFL between April and June 2018. In return, Kapoor was allegedly paid kickbacks amounting to 600 crore by DHFL promoter Kapil Wadhawan. DHFL sanctioned a loan to DoIT Urban Ventures (India) Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RAB Enterprises, in which Kapoors wife Bindu is a director and 100% shareholder, alleged the CBI. Kapoors daughters, Rakhee Kapoor Tandon, Roshni Kapoor and Radha Kapoor, are also 100% shareholders in DoIT Urban Ventures. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Government General Hospital Anantapuramu (GGH Anantapuramu), under the Govt. of Andhra Pradesh, has called for applications in a prescribed format from qualified and experienced candidates for filling 1,474 vacancies to the post of Staff Nurse, GDMO, Specialists, Technicians, etc. posts through direct recruitment on contract on a fulltime basis to be posted at Anantapuramu region in Andhra Pradesh, India. The offline application process towards the same started on July 28, 2020 and closes on August 7, 2020. CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Staff Nurse, GDMO, Specialists, Technicians, etc. posts Organisation Government General Hospital Anantapuramu Educational Qualification Passed Class 7; Class 10/Matriculation or equivalent; possess an MBBS Degree/BDS/MD in concerned discipline; B.Sc in Nursing/GNM; Diploma in Pharmacy/B. pharmacy; DMLT course; Bachelors Degree Experience Refer to the advertisement Job Responsibilities null Skills Required Desirable Job Location Anantapuramu Salary Scale In the range of Rs. 12,000 up to Rs. 1,50,000 per month as per the post Industry Govt. General Hospital Application Start Date July 28, 2020 Application End Date August 7, 2020 GGH Anantapuramu Recruitment: Age Criteria And Fees Desirous candidates applying for various posts through GGH Anantapuramu Recruitment 2020 must meet the age criteria as per the GGH Anantapuramu norms, with relaxation (upper age limit) for reserved categories as specified in the advertisement. For details regarding fee towards application processing, refer to the advertisement given at the end of the article. GGH Srikakulam Recruitment 2020 For 199 Staff Nurse Jobs, Apply Offline Before August 10 GGH Anantapuramu Recruitment: Educational Criteria And Eligibility Candidates interested in applying for various posts through GGH Anantapuramu Recruitment 2020 must have passed Class 7; Class 10/Matriculation or equivalent; possess an MBBS Degree/BDS/MD in concerned discipline; B.Sc in Nursing/GNM; Diploma in Pharmacy/B. pharmacy; DMLT course; Bachelor's Degree from a recognised University/Institution with relevant years of experience as detailed in the advertisement. GGH Anantapuramu Recruitment: Selection And Pay Scale The selection of candidates to various posts through GGH Anantapuramu Recruitment will be done through Shortlisting, Written Test/Interview and Certificate Verification. Candidates selected to various posts through GGH Anantapuramu Recruitment will be paid emolument in the range of Rs. 12,000 up to Rs. 1,50,000 per month as per the post. CBI Recruitment For Consultant Jobs, Apply Offline Before August 14 GGH Anantapuramu Recruitment: How To Apply Candidates interested in apply for various posts through GGH Anantapuramu Recruitment must fill the application in a prescribed format attached with the advertisement, and submit the same along with relevant documents to the address specified in the notification on or before August 7, 2020 through a proper channel. Download application form and read the detailed advertisement about GGH Anantapuramu Recruitment for Staff Nurse, GDMO, Specialists, Technicians, etc. posts here Two pilots were killed Thursday when their air tankers collided in midair as they were helping to fight a large wildfire in southern Nevada, federal officials said. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management suggested in a statement that the deceased were "contract pilots." "Recovery operations are currently underway and initial notifications are still being made," it said. The sheriff in Lincoln County, where the collision occurred, didnt respond to a request for comment Thursday night. A National Transportation Safety Board spokesman said that neither aircraft was able to land. Image: Bishop Fire, Rainbow Canyon (Eastern Nevada Interagency Fire) The cause of the 12:55 p.m. incident wasnt immediately clear, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. There was one pilot aboard each single-engine Air Tractor AT8T, the department said. The Bureau of Land Management said the cause was still under investigation. The planes can drop as many as 800 gallons of fire retardant and are able to maneuver into areas that are harder to reach for larger tankers, the bureau said. "We offer our sincere condolences to the families of the two pilots and to all those working with the BLM Nevada Ely District," the Bureau of Land Management's Nevada state director, Jon Raby, said in a statement. The planes had been dispatched to help fight the Bishop Fire, a 14,000-acre blaze burning on federal land roughly 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas, according to Nevada Fire Information, a site with state and federal fire data. The fire started Wednesday, the site said. Its cause was listed as human, though no additional details were available. The site said extreme, record-breaking heat could fuel the blaze. Two hundred and thirty-three coal miners in southwestern Pennsylvania will be permanently laid off at the end of next month, joining the growing number of layoffs throughout the industry as demand for electricity and steel continue to decline. The miners, who work at the Consol Energy Inc.s Enlow Fork mine, had been on temporary layoff since April 15, when the company closed their mine due to the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Enlow Fork is one of three mines that make up Consols Pennsylvania Mining Complex. The company can operate as many as 11 long wall machines throughout the three mines and production is the companys number one concern. Long wall mining is a technique in which a massive machine mines coal along the entire face of the section, often 1,500 feet long, with the coal pulled off on conveyor systems while the mountain collapses behind as the machine moves forward. Earlier this month, Consol sent WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retaining Notification) notices to the miners, who comprise about 40 percent of the workforce, informing them that they will be permanently laid off August 31. Both federal and state law requires companies with greater than 100 employees to give 60-days notice of closings or layoffs of more than 50 people. In announcing the layoffs at the Enlow Fork mine, Consol said in a prepared statement: In these unprecedented times, it is extremely difficult to predict when our production at Enlow Fork Mine will return to normal capacity, as it is always our intent to run our operations based on market conditions. We all knew it was coming, coal is on the way out, but it doesnt make it any easier, said the wife of a miner who has worked there for nearly 20 years. Things are going to be real hard. He gets unemployment and of course that $600 [in weekly federal unemployment benefits] so we can get by. However, this temporary boost to unemployment is being allowed to expire by both Democrats and Republicans in order to force people back to work. We own our house, but with mortgage, taxes and bills it is going to be very hard. One of our kids is grown, but the other is still in High School. We dont know if that is going to open or not. We dont know what is going to happen with unemployment and health care. There are no jobs. I work in the checkout line at the Giant Eagle [grocery store], but that is not very much. All the politicians promise a lot, but they dont keep their promises. Consol had been operating at near capacity for the last four years producing record amounts of coal in 2017, 2018 and 2019. This is in spite of falling demand caused by power companies switching to cheaper natural gas and renewable energy sources, which had already driven less profitable coal mining operations into bankruptcy. Last year, US coal production fell to the same levels as in 1978, when coal miners battled the coal operators and government in a 110-day national strike. Many Consol miners believed that the company was only trying to get as much money out of the mine as it could before shutting it down. One coal miner at another mine at the Pennsylvania Mining Complex told the World Socialist Web Site last year that this speedup was creating the conditions for a major accident: It is all production, production, production but they are creating the conditions where something can happen. Later that year, 25-year-old Tanner Lee McFarland was killed when the wall of the mine gave out and crushed him. The company only received token fines. This year, coal production is set for a further drastic decline. April coal production plunged 30 percent from last year to its lowest levels in nearly a half-century, 19 percent less than in April of 1973. Murray Energy, the largest underground miner in the country, with 7,000 miners, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year. Last month the company laid off over 1,500 coal miners in the Ohio Valley region of West Virginia for one day as the workers were transferred from one company to another. With the company still in bankruptcy, more layoffs are possible. Tennessee-based Contura Energy, which has already laid off many of its coal miners throughout West Virginia, announced plans to sell its Cumberland mine. The southwestern Pennsylvania mine employs 700 miners, whose jobs are now threatened. The company also announced that it will no longer build a $60 million coal-refuse impoundment for the mine. The Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana, the largest coal producing region in the United States, has also seen job cuts. Arch Coal has cut more than 560 jobs after posting a net loss of $49.3 million for the second quarter. Production at its Black Thunder and Coal Creek mines fell to just 10.6 million tons this quarter, down from 17.1 million last year. Coal miners responded to the downturn last year with a growing wave of resistance. Miners at several sites blockaded shipments out of the mines to demand thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. These protests began over the summer at Blackjewels Cloverfield Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky, and quickly spread to other facilities throughout the region. Last fall, 2,000 copper miners in the American Southwest launched a strike against mining company Asarco. The strike lasted for nine months before being betrayed by the United Steelworkers, who sent strikers back under an unconditional offer to the company to return to work. The United Mine Workers (UMWA) has no policy to fight these layoffs and protect miners jobs and wellbeing. After decades in which it has deliberately isolated and betrayed one struggle after another, the union is only a shell with fewer than 8,000 active miners, functioning only as a political prop for the Democratic Party. The bankrupt Murray Energy is the last remaining large unionized coal company. Salaries for top union officials, however, remain at historic highs. Union president Cecil Roberts made more than $200,000 in 2015. Surveillance really challenges your sense of dignity. From Global Voices. This story is based on reporting by Global Voices content partner Meta.mk News Agency, a project of Metamorphosis Foundation. A civic initiative called #hiljadekamera (thousands of cameras in English), has been raising concerns about the deterioration of privacy in Serbia resulting from the introduction of a video surveillance system with advanced facial recognition in the capital Belgrade. As part of the campaign, a documentary with the same title was released. The Serbian government in cooperation with the Chinese technology company Huawei have been actively working since 2019 on the implementation of the surveillance project, called Safe City. This project involves the installation of thousands of smart surveillance cameras with object and facial recognition features. The cameras were procured as part of a bundle that included an artificial intelligence system used to analyze the feed captured by them. Hiljade Kamera is led by SHARE Foundation, the leading Serbian digital rights group established in 2012 and a member of European Digital Rights network (EDRI). On its website (hiljade.kamera.rs), launched in May 2020, the initiative describes itself as a community of individuals and organizations that advocate the responsible use of surveillance technology. It pushes for the respect of the right to privacy and accountability in relation to the government surveillance program through a number of tactics, including crowd-mapping, community building, research, advocacy and content production. SHARE Foundation produced a concise documentary summarizing the situation. The documentary is available in Serbian, with English subtitles. In the video, experts and representatives of the initiative and the Serbian National Data Protection Authority raised concerns about the surveillance project. Bojan Perkov, a policy researcher at SHARE Foundation noted that the governments of Serbia and China have been working on technical and economic cooperation since 2009, when they signed their first bilateral agreement. Several years later, a strategic partnership forged between Serbias Ministry of Interior and Huawei, paving the way to the implementation of the project Safe Society in Serbia. Over the past several months, new cameras have been widely installed throughout Belgrade. Perkov further questioned the legality of the programs implementation. Even though the Ministry was obliged by law to conduct a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) of the new smart surveillance system, it failed to fulfil the legal requirements, as warned by civil society organizations and the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection. The Threats of Biometric Surveillance The documentary includes a contribution by Ella Jakubowska from European Digital Rights (EDRi), the leading network fighting for digital rights in Europe, who stressed the risks of massive surveillance: Theres a real sense of empowerment from being able to express yourself differently and suddenly, if youre forced to conform, this poses a real threat to your identity. It really challenges your sense of dignity and who you are as a person, and who youre allowed to be in your society, in a way thats very dangerous. This segment is part of an extensive interview conducted by SHARE Foundation, which provides wider context of the threats of biometric mass surveillance to human rights and freedoms. In surveillance cameras equipped with facial recognition software, facial features are captured and analyzed to identify an individual by matching the data on existing databases. Jakubowska noted: Any society that looks to stratify people based on how they look, based on their health, based on their data and things about them, is an incredibly authoritarian and sinister society. The societies throughout history that have tried to separate and stratify people based on data about them are the sort of authoritarian societies that we want to stay as far away as possible from. The EDRI representative stressed that the people need to hold those in power to account, to be calling out surveillance when they see it and contributing to civil society organizations and the activists that are trying to reveal these secretive rollouts. Collaboration of all stakeholders and demand for public debate are key to preventing situations in which the power to decide is taken from citizens and lies only in the hands of private companies or police forces, she added. For the next three hours, co-workers and friends would describe what a great guy he was to work with and have as a friend. One co-worker even said Beach was the kind of friend you wouldnt hesitate to call at 3 in the morning for advice. You couldnt help but get the sense from the finale that a portion of Beachs provocative and edgy manner was as phony as his stage name. Beach had some fun with the invention of his name, with a good friend taking credit for keeping it a secret over the hosts 60 years in radio, first as a disc jockey and later as a talk show host. Actually, it isnt that much of a secret. If you Google what is Sandy Beachs real name, Donald Pesola comes up. As usual, Beachs big laugh was on display throughout as callers reminisced. Retired State Supreme Court Justice Penny Wolfgang, a longtime friend of Beach, said he always ignored her advice. Wolfgang said she told him not to retire and he did. And she told him not to get married and he is going to. Ireland panic: Thousands of fishing jobs at risk over no deal Brexit, industry warns by LAURA O'CALLAGHAN July 31,2020 | Source: Express Ireland's fishing chiefs have warned of an "unmitigated disaster" if the UK and the EU cannot agree a trade deal before the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31. The country's fishing industry could see up to 5,000 jobs slashed if European trawlers are kicked out of Britain's rich waters, bosses have said. The warning comes after Brussels' chief negotiator Michel Barnier last week admitted that a deal looked "at this point unlikely" as he wrapped up a round of talks with David Frost in London. The Killybegs Fishermen's Association which represents fishermen in County Donegal said a no-deal Brexit would have devastating consequences for the local economy. The boundary where the UK's waters begin is just 25 miles from Malin Head, the most northerly point of mainland Ireland. Local fisherman Ciaran Doherty and his family have fished in UK waters for four decades. He said if the Brexit transition period ended without a free trade agreement in place, Ireland's fishing industry risked "closing". Mr Doherty told RTE News: "Our business has been based for 40 years on accessing the UK waters. "If on December 31 we have no access to UK waters, basically 60-70 percent of our fish is caught in UK waters, so basically it closes our industry." Access to British fishing waters is one of two remaining areas of contention in trade negotiations. The second is the EU's demand that Britain tie itself closely to the bloc's state aid, labour and environmental standards to ensure it does not undercut the bloc's single market with poor-quality goods. Sean O'Donoghue of the Killybegs Fishermen's Association said the value of Ireland's fishing sector could be cut in half by a hard exit. The industry is currently worth around 1.2 billion (1bn). He added that "a loss of 4,000 - 5,000 jobs" was also on the cards. The EU says a deal needs to be done by October to allow time for ratification by the end of the year. Both sides have indicated that the talks may be stalling. However, Mr Barnier on Monday struck a more optimistic note than he did last week in the UK. At a closed-door meeting with national envoys to the bloc, he expressed confidence that a new deal with Britain was possible, according to diplomatic sources. Ireland and the Netherlands are the member states expected to take the biggest hit from any change in trade rules following December 31. Envoys from both countries said they remained confident that a new deal with Britain would eventually materialise, the sources said. In discussions among representatives of the 27 EU member states about fisheries and the latest on Brexit, the Dutch envoy joked about the prospect of a trade deal. He said that an agreement would eventually "come swimming across the Channel". 2020 Express Newspapers Theme(s): Post Harvest Technology and Trade. Prince Andrew 'lobbied the US government to help get a sweetheart plea-deal for pedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein' that saw him jailed for just 18 months in 2008, newly unsealed court documents claim. The allegation is contained within a motion by lawyers for two anonymous Epstein accusers who were trying to get hold of documents which they claim showed Andrew's lobbying efforts. The motion forms part of a 2015 libel case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's alleged madam, which have been kept under lock and key until today - when they were released following her arrest on sex trafficking charges. Prince Andrew 'lobbied the US government to get a favorable plea deal for pedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein which saw him jailed for just 13 months in 2009', new documents allege (pictured, Andrew alongside Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2001) Prince Andrew drives himself out of Windsor Castle in his Bentley on Thursday, just hours before the first trove of documents were released Lawyers for the pair, Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, wrote: '(They are) seeking documents regarding Epsteins lobbying efforts to persuade the government to give him a favorable plea arrangement, including efforts on his behalf by Prince Andrew and former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. 'They have alleged these materials are needed to prove their allegations that, after Epstein signed the non-prosecution agreement his performance was delayed while he used his significant social and political connections to lobby the justice department to obtain a more favorable plea deal.' The newly-released documents also contain a transcript of a deposition given by Epstein's main accuser, Virginia Roberts, where she also speaks about the prince's involvement in Epstein's activities. Asked by her own lawyers in 2011 whether Andrew would have 'relevant information' in the case, she answered: 'Yes, he would know a lot of the truth. 'I dont know how much hed be able to help you with, but seeing as hes in a lot of trouble himself these days I think he might, so I think he might be valuable.' Prince Andrew claims he distanced himself from Epstein after the conviction, meeting with him once in New York in 2010 to formally cut ties. Roberts separately claims she had sex with Prince Andrew on three occasions, including once in a Caribbean jurisdiction where she was underage, after being trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell. The documents form part of a 2015 libel lawsuit that Epstein's primary accuser, Virginia Roberts (pictured, brought against Maxwell - but were sealed after it was settled out of court She was pictured alongside Andrew in Maxwell's London townhouse in 2001, hours after she claims she first met Andrew in Tramp nightclub in Mayfair. 'MAXWELL STRIPPED ME AND TOOK PART IN CONTINUOUS ORGIES' Ghislaine Maxwell undressed Virginia Roberts and told her to lick Jeffrey Epstein's nipples during their first meeting when she was just 15, newly-unsealed court documents have revealed. Roberts detailed the ordeal in testimony she gave to lawyers in 2011, which formed part of a 2015 libel case against Maxwell that has been kept secret until now. Roberts said Maxwell also stripped naked, instructed her to perform oral sex on Epstein while he fondled her, and then told her to 'straddle him sexually'. In separate testimony, Roberts also recounted 'continuous' orgies that Maxwell was involved in on Epstein's private Caribbean island with underage girls. Roberts said girls were routinely flown in via private jet to participate in sex sessions which happened all over the island. Asked to describe women she personally saw Maxwell have sexual contact with, she responded: 'There's so many, I don't know where you want me to start.' 'There were blondes, there were brunettes, there were redheads. They were all beautiful girls. I would say the ages ranged between 15 and 21,' she added. Advertisement Roberts claims the pair also had sex that evening - an act that made her feel so dirty and ashamed that she showered straight afterwards. Andrew, once a close friend of both Epstein and Maxwell, has strenuously denied any wrongdoing. Prince Andrew is also facing pressure to speak to the FBI to aid their investigation into Epstein and his inner circle, including Maxwell. US Attorney General Bill Barr said earlier this year that Andrew must speak to the FBI and his team 'definitely' want to interview him. He said: 'The department wants to talk to Prince Andrew. That's why the Southern District has been making efforts to communicate with him. We've made it clear that we'd like to communicate with him'. A source close to Prince Andrew previously told DailyMail.com that he was 'bewildered' by the ongoing claims that he wasn't cooperating, and says his team tried to reach prosecutors several times. Andrew's legal team claim they have been 'ghosted' by US prosecutors, despite repeated offers of help in the case. Elsewhere in Robert's testimony, she claims that Maxwell undressed her and told her to lick Jeffrey Epstein's nipples during their first meeting when she was just 15. Roberts detailed the ordeal in testimony she gave to lawyers in 2011, which formed part of a 2015 libel case against Maxwell that has been kept secret until now. Roberts said Maxwell also stripped naked, instructed her to perform oral sex on Epstein while he fondled her, and then told her to 'straddle him sexually'. In separate testimony, Roberts also recounted 'continuous' orgies that Maxwell was involved in on Epstein's private Caribbean island with underage girls. Roberts said girls were routinely flown in via private jet to participate in sex sessions which happened all over the island. Asked to describe women she personally saw Maxwell have sexual contact with, she responded: 'There's so many, I don't know where you want me to start.' 'There were blondes, there were brunettes, there were redheads. They were all beautiful girls. I would say the ages ranged between 15 and 21,' she added. Ghislaine Maxwell had 'continuous' orgies on Jeffrey Epstein's private Caribbean island with girls as young as 15, accuser Virginia Roberts claims in newly-unsealed court documents Little St James Island, in the Caribbean (pictured), was owned by Epstein and was where Roberts alleges the orgies took place Maxwell participated in sex sessions with them by a pool, near the beachfront, in small huts and in Epstein's cabana, she alleged. 'One occasion stands out,' she said. 'Models were I think they were models were flown in. There were orgies held outside by the pool.' CLINTON, GORE, CAMPBELL, KLUM: EPSTEIN'S 'GUESTS' REVEALED Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum were among high-profile guests that Jeffrey Epstein entertained, Virginia Roberts claims. Clinton visited Little St James after his presidency ended because he 'owed Epstein a favor', Roberts told investigators in newly-unsealed testimony. 'He never told me what favors they were. I never knew. I didn't know if he was serious,' she said. The former president stayed in Epstein's private villa where 'orgies were a constant thing,' she claims. Vice President Gore was also a guest on Epstein's plane, the Lolita Express, as were models Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, Roberts claimed. Orgies also took place on the jet, she alleges. 'There would be sexual conduct, there would be foreplay, there was a bed in there, so we could basically reenact exactly what was happening in the house,' she said. 'It would start off with massaging or we would start off with foreplay, sometimes it would lead to, you know, orgies.' Advertisement The women - 'beautiful, tall, some were blonde, some were sandy brown' - did not speak English, and conversed in a European language that Roberts guessed was Russia or Czech. Describing the sex session, she added: 'Ghislaine, myself, Jeffrey, another girl in this blue, outdoor I don't know what you want to call it. Cabana, that just a bed could fit in.' Roberts also alleges that during the deposition that she was trafficked to Europe to have sex with powerful men, including Britain's Prince Andrew and attorney Alan Dershowitz. She said Maxwell and Epstein constantly reminded her of how powerful their friends were, so that she wouldn't betray them. 'Jeffrey did a lot more of that than she did. But she definitely made it aware that we shouldn't cross boundaries with them,' she said. Describing her first meeting with Epstein, she said: 'For the first hour, it was actually a real massage, maybe not an hour, maybe like 40 minutes or something. 'That's when he turned over on the other side to expose himself fully. 'So then Ghislaine told me that she wanted me to undress and began to take off my shirt and skirt, my white uniform from Mar-A-Lago, she also took off her shirt and got undressed, and so I was there with just my undies on, and she was completely bare... 'During all of this I'm like: "What's going on, how do I act, what do I say." I was so afraid of, not afraid or fearful for my life, but unsure of how all this started and wanting to obtain a profession, I was so afraid thinking about upsetting and disappointing them... 'I was expected to lick [Epstein's] nipples, instructed on how to do so by [Epstein] and give him oral sex while he wanted to fondle me, and then at the end, I was told by Ghislaine to get on top and straddle Jeffrey sexually... 'When we were done, we went and had a shower in the room and Jeffrey told me to wash him up and down...' Also included in the tranche of unsealed documents are flight logs from Epstein's private jets, police logs Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home, and email exchanges between Maxwell and Epstein himself. In one such exchange, in January 2015, Maxwell asks Epstein if 'Shelley' - believed to be one of Epstein's accusers - could publicly state she was his girlfriend. Court papers pertaining to a 2015 deposition civil defamation case against Maxwell included a January 2015 email Epstein sent to Maxwell insisting she had 'done nothing wrong' A separate email exchange from days earlier showed Epstein emailed Maxwell what appeared to be a court statement proclaiming her innocence, but was written from her point of view In response, Epstein writes: 'You have done nothing wrong and i woudl [sic] urge you to start acting like it. 'Go outside, head high, not as an esacping [sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it', he added. 'YOU'RE INNOCENT, ACT LIKE IT', EPSTEIN TOLD MAXWELL Newly unsealed court documents reveal Jeffrey Epstein told Ghislaine Maxwell she had 'done nothing wrong' and to 'start acting like it' after she was sued by Virginia Roberts in 2015. Dozens of documents relating to the civil defamation lawsuit against Maxwell were publicly released on Thursday, hours after a district judge denied her last ditch attempt to keep them sealed. Among the trove of court papers was an email exchange between the pair in January 2015, in which Epstein advised her to carry on normally and insisted she had nothing to worry about. 'You have done nothing wrong and i woudl [sic] urge you to start acting like it,' the billionaire pedophile wrote. 'go outside, head high, not as an esacping [sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it', he added. Advertisement The email exchange appears to confirm that Maxwell lied during a bail hearing, in which she claimed she hadn't spoken to Epstein in over a decade. Days earlier, Epstein had emailed Maxwell what appeared to be a court statement proclaiming her innocence, which read as if it was written by her. 'Since JE was charged in 2007 for solicitation of a prostitute I have been the target of outright lies, innuendo, slander, defamation and salacious gossip and harrassment; headlines made up of quotes I have never given, statement I have never made,' it reads. 'I have never been a party in any criminal action pertaining to JE.' The statement also claimed Maxwell had been in a 'very long-term committed relationship to another man' at the time of Epstein's conviction. 'Whilst I remained on friendly terms with him up until his plea, I have had limited contact since,' it continues. Roberts gave the testimony to investigators after filing a lawsuit against Maxwell in 2015, accusing the British socialite of libel after she branded her a 'liar'. Maxwell eventually settled the suit out of court for an undisclosed sum, though to be millions, and the documents were put under seal so they could not be made public. But Judge Loretta Preska ordered swathes of the papers to be unsealed following Maxwell's arrest earlier this month on sex crimes charges. She is also charged with perjury for allegedly lying under oath during a seven-hour deposition she made during the lawsuit. On Thursday, Maxwell filed an emergency motion with the federal appeals court in Manhattan to block the release of that deposition, along with one other document. Lawyers for Maxwell said making her deposition public could make it 'difficult if not impossible' to find an impartial jury for her criminal trial. The trove of documents were publicly released hours after a district judge denied her last ditch attempt to keep them sealed The two depositions, and materials that quote from or disclose information contained in them, were expected to remain sealed at least until Monday, depending on how the appeals court rules. Materials covered by Preska's July 23 order included flight logs from Epstein's private jets; and police reports from Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home, among other documents. Maxwell, 58, has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls from 1994 to 1997, and committing perjury by denying her involvement under oath. She was arrested on July 2, and has been housed in a Brooklyn jail after a judge called her a flight risk. Maxwell's trial is scheduled for next July. Epstein was found hanged at age 66 last August in a Manhattan jail, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges for abusing women and girls in Manhattan and Florida from 2002 to 2005. He had also pleaded not guilty. US health officials and state politicians are growing increasingly concerned that the Donald Trump White House is not prepared to oversee and execute a coronavirus vaccine rollout. Danielle Koeing told Reuters that her requests for information to the federal government have been unanswered since April. We have not heard anything from the federal government since 23 April, she said. On 23 June, immunisation experts sent a joint letter alongside state and local public health officials to Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administrations vaccine research initiative, pleading for guidance. Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunisation Managers, represents one of the four organisations that signed the letter. We urgently await federal, state and local collaborative discussions to identify challenges and plan solutions. A vaccination campaign of this magnitude is unprecedented and its going to take more than an army, Ms Hannan said. More than an army is a reference to Mr Trumps claim that the US military would be used to distribute the vaccines. The Trump administration insists that the necessary logistics for a vaccine rollout are already in place. Were all set to march when it comes to the vaccine ... And the delivery system is all set. Logistically we have a general thats all he does is deliver things whether it is soldiers or other items, Mr Trump said. We are way ahead on vaccines, way ahead on therapeutics and when we have it we are all set with our platforms to deliver them very, very quickly. Mr Trumps assurances provide little relief for state leaders left in the dark. Not only are state leaders and health officials concerned about logistics, they also want to understand who will receive the vaccine first. Its unlikely there will be enough vaccine doses available to inoculate the totality of the US population all at once. Decisions must be made on what populations will receive the vaccine first. Even with an efficient distribution plan in place, health officials fear sceptical segments of the public will be unwilling to take the vaccine once it is ready for use. During a Senate hearing on 2 July, Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said a public outreach programme to establish trust in the vaccine would be necessary ahead of any successful rollout. Roy Blunt, a Republican Senator who chairs a panel overseeing health programme funding, is pushing for the CDC to direct any future vaccine distribution efforts. They are the only federal agency with a proven track record of vaccine distribution and long-standing agreements with health departments across the country, Mr Blunt said. China has called on all countries to safeguard fair, just, open and non-discriminatory business environment, and firmly resist discrimination in global science and technology cooperation just as they push back against racial discrimination. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin made the remarks Thursday in response to a media report that the U.S. ambassador to Brazil warned of "consequences" if Brazil chooses Chinese tech giant Huawei to develop its 5G network. Wang told a news briefing that recently some U.S. politicians such as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have repeatedly pressured other countries to exclude Huawei. "The accusations made by some U.S. politicians like Pompeo about Chinese enterprises are totally groundless." Washington accused Huawei of threatening U.S. national security. But as it turns out, over the past 30 years, Huawei has built more than 1,500 networks in more than 170 countries and regions around the world. There has not been a single cyber security incident similar to the Snowden and WikiLeaks incidents, nor has there been a single network monitoring and surveillance activity similar to the "Prism gate" incident. No country has any evidence that Huawei inserts "backdoors," Wang said. Wang said the United States also claims it will safeguard democracy and freedom, but the likes of Pompeo have repeatedly put pressure on other countries, pointed fingers at other nations' 5G network construction, and openly coerced countries to obey the will of the United States. "This is a naked hegemonic act." The United States keeps calling for fairness and reciprocity. Yet when other countries' enterprises gain advantages, some U.S. politicians would fabricate excuses and use national means to suppress them, even at the risk of violating market economy and fairness principles the U.S. has always advocated, harming international trade rules and even the interests of American enterprises and consumers, Wang said. "The reason why the United States has suppressed some Chinese enterprises in every possible way is not because of national security, nor for the sake of democracy, freedom, fairness and reciprocity. The real reason is that these enterprises are Chinese enterprises and are industry leaders," Wang said. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 21:51:16|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close HONG KONG, July 31 (Xinhua) -- In the face of a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, postponing the Legislative Council (LegCo) election scheduled for early September is a timely and necessary move that protects the health of Hong Kong residents and the interests of the Hong Kong society. Considering the hard battle against the virus that concerns the health and safety of over 7 million people in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Friday announced that the 2020 Legislative Council General Election of the HKSAR will be postponed. Hong Kong has reported over 100 new confirmed COVID-19 cases daily for ten consecutive days. The numbers of confirmed cases and deaths rose rapidly. Worryingly, the local cases were so widespread that multiple community infections broke out concurrently, and the sources of many infections are still unknown. The confirmed cases come from different communities and walks of life, making it extremely difficult to trace contacts and break the chain of transmission. The safety of Hong Kong residents is facing severe challenges. Medical practice has proved that avoiding gatherings is one of the most effective ways to prevent the large-scale spread of the epidemic. Among the increasing anti-epidemic measures taken by the HKSAR government, restricting gatherings is a priority. However, as some residents and media have worried, an election inevitably involves crowd gatherings during candidate publicity, canvassing, voting and counting of votes. With confirmed cases spreading all over Hong Kong and a large number of asymptomatic cases "lurking" in the community, the already severe epidemic situation is bound to worsen if the election was to be held as scheduled. Moreover, the HKSAR government has the power endowed by law to postpone the election for one year. The LegCo election is an internal affair of the HKSAR, and the chief executive is tasked with designating its voting date. An election can be put off. But a life lost is lost forever. At a critical moment like now, all public activities must put life and safety first. Polls conducted by a number of research institutions in Hong Kong showed that a majority of respondents agreed the election should be postponed. It should be pointed out that the postponement will neither affect the normal operation of the body of power of the HKSAR, nor damage the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Hong Kong residents in accordance with the law. In fact, postponing elections is a common practice in global epidemic prevention. At least 68 countries and regions decided to postpone national or local elections due to COVID-19. At such an unprecedentedly difficult time, the Hong Kong society should really put aside differences and concentrate on winning the war against the epidemic, supporting the government's anti-virus measures, including the election postponement. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the central government has paid close attention to the health and safety of Hong Kong compatriots. It has provided a large number of masks and anti-epidemic equipment to Hong Kong and fully guaranteed the supply of livelihood materials. Moreover, the central government has vigorously assisted Hong Kong residents stranded in the mainland and abroad to return to Hong Kong. As Hong Kong is having difficulties in expanding nucleic acid testing capacity and quarantining and treating COVID-19 patients, the central government has made it clear that it will provide all necessary support and assistance for the needs of the HKSAR in battling the epidemic to effectively protect the lives and health of Hong Kong residents. With the most solid backing of the central government, Hong Kong's pressing needs to fight the epidemic will be effectively addressed. All sectors of the Hong Kong society should unite as one and fight the epidemic with a scientific and professional attitude. With the great care of the central government, the strong support of the mainland and the firm leadership of the HKSAR government, the epidemic will be brought under control. The tranquility of Hong Kong and the health of its residents will be effectively protected. Enditem Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 1) Lipa City in Batangas province, south of Metro Manila, will be placed under lockdown on August 1-15 as people call for efforts to contain COVID-19. "Based on the clamor of our residents and our netizens, we are placing the city of Lipa again under lockdown," said Mayor Eric Africa in his video message aired on Friday. Africa said people are required to present a quarantine pass to go out of their homes for work or buying essential goods. Checkpoints will be set up on major roads and some secondary boundary roads. Africa said he ordered barangay chairmen to allot a separate isolation facility for those working outside Lipa but live in the city. For those working in the city coming from neighboring towns, they are required to present a rapid anti-body test result. The mayor imposed a liquor ban and curfew from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., while bars and related establishments were closed. Lipa has 107 coronavirus cases so far with 7 recoveries. Batangas is under general community quarantine until August 15. BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - Swiss Re (SSREY.PK) reported a first half net loss of $1.135 billion compared to profit of $953 million, previous year. The company noted that the loss was due to the claims and reserves related to COVID-19 of $2.5 billion across the Group. Excluding COVID-19 claims and reserves, net income was $865 million, for the first half period. First half net premiums earned and fee income increased to $19.33 billion from $18.16 billion, previous year. Looking forward, the company said it is confident in the outlook for the Group. 'While the impact on our earnings is significant, it remains manageable as our operations continue uninterrupted, all our businesses are performing well and our capital position allows us to take advantage of attractive opportunities in an improving market,' said Swiss Re's CEO Christian Mumenthaler. 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. Jaipur, Jul 31 (UNI) At least 53 Rajasthan Congress MLAs supporting Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot in the ongoing political tussle, were shifted from the Pink City to Jaisalmer on Friday. The MLAs, who were staying in Fairmount Hotel in the outskirts of Jaipur since weeks, left for the airport in the morning in private buses, amid tight security. As per a report, the Cabinet Ministers have been asked to remain in the state capital. Also, several others MLA will soon join others in Jaisalmer. Three Chartered fights took the Legislators to Jaisalmer, over 570 km away from Jaipur. Upon reaching Jaisalmer, with a brief stay at airport lobby, they were taken to Hotel Suryagarh, over nine km away from the airport, in luxury buses. Hotel Suryagarh has been thoroughly inspected by Collector Ashish Modi and Superintendent of Police Ajay Singh earlier in the day. Also, the hotel is fortified with tight security arrangements. As per sources, the MLAs have been asked to stay in Jaisalmer till August 14, when the Assembly will begin. Neither the Chief Minister, nor any other senior party functionary have answered the sudden development. The MLAs in Gehlot camp also remained away from the media. On Thursday, Mr Gehlot held a Congress Legislative Party meeting inside the Fairmount Hotel in Jaipur and appealed to the Legislators to stay united. The Chief Minister also told the press that he has full faith and no 'offer' from BJP can take his supporters away. He alleged that the saffron party was continuously calling his MLAs over phone and offering "unlimited" money to resign from the Congress. So, shifting of the MLAs to Jaisalmer rose eyebrows. If the Chief Minister was so confident that his supporting MLAs will not leave him, then why was he shifting them to Jaisalmer, Rajasthan BJP president Satish Poonia questioned in a tweet written in Hindi. "It proves that he (Gehlot) does not trust the MLAs and his house is not in order," Mr Poonia stated. In a jibe against Mr Gehlot, the BJP president said, "Why don't taken them to Pakistan. It is very near to Jaisalmer. Also, why not carryout locust operation while staying in Jaisalmer?." Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra has accepted the Gehlot-government request of bringing the Assembly in session from August 14 onwards. Mr Gehlot has categorically stated that he would go for a Floor Test. Retaining majority in the House is not only crucial for Mr Gehlot, who has been challenged by former chief minister Sachin Pilot, but also for the Congress, as it recently lost Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh in the same manner. UNI PS RJ 2020 A map has shown where Americans are wearing face masks to help get the coronavirus pandemic under control. Public health officials say wearing face coverings can slow the spread of the virus, but they are not being adopted widely in every state. Redditor bgregory98 collected data from The New York Times and research firm Dynata to plot out all 3,141 counties in the US. The map shows that residents of hotspot states like California, Texas and Florida - and former hotspot New York - are the most compliant about mask use with between 70 and 100 percent of people wearing them in public. Meanwhile, residents in counties located in the Plains and Midwest, which is starting to see an uptick in cases, had much lower rates of mask-wearing with as little as 30 percent compliance. A map shows the face mask-wearing rates across all 3,141 counties in the US amid the coronavirus pandemic (above) Counties in the Northeast, now seeing record-lows, and the West, experiencing record-highs, were high with rates between 70% and 100%. Pictured: People wear protective face masks while shopping in New York City, July 26 Rates were much lower in counties in the Plains, such as South Dakota and Iowa, which saw rates as low as 30%. Pictured: Spectators watch swine judging at the Jasper County Fair in Colfax, about 30 miles east of Des Moines, Iowa, July 21 There are two main methods by which the coronavirus spreads with the first being via droplets that are expelled into the air when a person coughs or sneezes. These droplets are about one-third the size of a human hair, but visible to the naked eye, according to researchers from UC Davis. The second way is from aerosol particles that humans spray into air when we speak, which are one-onehundreth the size of a human hair and nearly impossible to see. This method is more dangerous in terms of transmission, but can be lessened by avoiding crowded indoor spaces. Researchers have found that covering the nose and mouth can decrease the risk of these particles entering your body and infecting you with COVID-19 by 65 percent. For the map, the firm Dynata interviewed 250,000 participants about their mask use between July 2 and July 14. Specifically, each person was asked: 'How often do you wear a mask in public when you expect to be within six feet of another person?' The map then shows the odds of, if someone came across five people, that all of them would be wearing a mask. There are stark regional differences with mask use very high in the Northeast and the West. New York, which had counties that recorded 100% of residents wearing masks, has seen cases tracking downward over the last month California also recorded high rates of mask compliance, but it has been recorded an average of 8,500 cases per day over the last week Florida, another hotspot, which has been reporting nearly 10,000 cases every day, had high rates of residents wearing masks Cities like Atlanta had high rates of mask-wearing but the surrounding suburbs had lower rates. Georgia, which has been seeing a spike in cases (above), does not have a mandate Rates were very low in Plain states such as South Dakota which has seen it's five-day moving average stay relatively steady and not trending downward (above) The Northeast was one of the hardest hit regions when the pandemic first struck the US and are home to states with some of the highest number of deaths including New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. However, infection rates in the region have hit record lows over the past few weeks and deaths in stats like New York have stayed in the single digits. The West has also had high mask compliance but these states, once shining examples of virus control, are now seeing record highs. Washington state has recorded a 42 percent jump in deaths over the last week and California now has the highest number of confirmed cases and reported the highest single-day number of deaths at 197 on Tuesday. Meanwhile, counties in South Dakota and Iowa have low mask compliance. Photos came out of a rally President Trump held at Mount Rushmore on July 3 showing crowds without masks. Additionally, at the Iowa State Fair, families were seen without any type of face covering. California has been hit hard by the virus, with the most cumulative cases in the US and record-high deaths. Pictured: People wearing face masks walk in Beverly Hills, July 30 Meanwhile, mask compliance in states like South Dakota is low, but the Midwest and Plains are seeing an upswing in cases. Pictured: Residents cap off Independence Day activities with a carnival and a street dance in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, July 4 Dr Anthony Fauci told ABC's Good Morning America that he is concerned about states in Midwest such as Indiana, Kentucky Ohio and Tennessee which could see a surge in coronavirus cases. Those states 'are starting to have that very early indication' of a spike, Fauci said, in reference to the number of positive test results. 'That's a surefire sign that you've got to be really careful.' In Florida and Texas, both of which are experiencing bad outbreaks, most counties are in the 70 percent to 90 percent range. In a recent survey conducted by YouGov, researchers asked people from different countries how often they wear a mask when they leave the house. In the US, 59 percent of participants said 'always' - much lower than other countries - while 14 percent said never. Sixty-three percent of participants in Germany replied 'always' as did 77 percent of people in Japan and 85 percent in Mexico. However, responses in the US were high than other countries too. Only 35 percent of participants in Canada said they 'always' wear masks when they leave the house as did 19 percent of UK respondents and four percent in Norway. India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman attends a joint news conference with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in New Delhi By Swati Bhat MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Indian government is working with the central bank on a possible one-time restructuring of loans due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday. "The focus is on restructuring. The finance ministry is actively engaged with the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) on this. In principle, the idea that there may be a restructuring required, is well accepted," Sitharaman said. The RBI allowed banks and financial institutions to offer six-month moratoriums on principal and interest payments, until August 31, to all individuals and corporates holding term loans. However, several bankers have highlighted the stress this is creating on bank balance sheets. Earlier this week, HDFC Bank chairman Deepak Parekh in an exchange with the RBI governor said the moratorium was being partly misused and should not be continued as it would hurt banks, and particularly smaller non-bank finance companies or shadow banks. Parekh instead asked Governor Shaktikanta Das to consider a one-time restructuring scheme instead. The RBI's financial stability report released last week showed that at the headline level, 50% of total outstanding loans were under moratorium of as April. The report also said bad loans could soar to almost 15% of total loans by March 2021 in a worst case scenario, compared with 8.5% in March this year. The RBI governor, in response to Parekh's comments, said the central bank had not taken a decision on whether to extend the loan moratorium beyond August 31. Sitharaman, who was addressing the National Executive Committee Meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, also assured small companies covered by an emergency credit facility that they cannot be refused credit by banks. She added that the government would look into any such refusals. She said that the finance ministry was also working with the RBI on an extension of the moratorium or restructuring of loans for the hospitality sector "I fully understand the requirements of the hospitality sector. We are working with RBI on this," she said. (Reporting by Swati Bhat; Editing by Kirsten Donovan) Things have been heating up between Ana de Armas and her beau Ben Affleck. The 32-year-old actress was spotted leaving the Batman star's Brentwood home on Friday with her small furry white dog Elvis in tow on Friday. Ana's sighting comes as insiders close to the 47-year-old Oscar winner say that he is a doting boyfriend who does 'everything he can' to please her, according to Us Weekly. Stepping out: Ana de Armas looked summer chic as she was was spotted leaving the Batman star's Brentwood home on Friday with her small furry white dog Elvis in tow on Friday The Knives Out star was dressed for summer in a pair of white skinny jeans cuffed at the ankle and printed red and sheer blouse. Ana appeared to be in a hurry as she rushed out of Affleck's home and into the waiting car of her personal driver. The Cuban-Spanish actress left her raven locks down and wavy and carried one of her two dogs under one arm. Recently, the beauty adopted a new pup, Salsa, but the four legged friend didn't appear to be going along for the ride. Busy actress: The Knives Out star was dressed for summer in a pair of white skinny jeans cuffed at the ankle and printed red and sheer blouse and appeared to be in a hurry as she rushed out of Affleck's home and into the waiting car of her personal driver She carried a black cross body purse and a larger black carry-all back on one shoulder and had a protective facemask on. Ana has spent her time during the coronavirus crisis at home with Affleck, whom she met in the fall on the set of their new movie Deep Water, which filmed in New Orleans. The couple was first romantically linked in March, when they vacationed in her hometown of Havana, Cuba before jetting off to Costa Rica. Things have been getting more serious recently though and a source told Us Weekly that Ben is smitten with his young love. Happy together: The couple was first romantically linked in March and a source recently told Us Weekly that Ben is a doting boyfriend (Pictured in November) 'Ben is so sweet to Ana and does everything he can to make her happy,' the insider said. 'She can say anything lunch, trips, etc. and he will make it happen.' For her part, Ana has been spending time with not only the Good Will Hunting star but also his three children. Ben and his ex-wife Jennifer Garner co-parent their brood, sharing Violet, 14, Seraphina, 11 and Samuel, eight. Ben, Ana and three kids have been frequently spotted out and about together walking the dogs and going grocery shopping during the pandemic. Sian Clifford has said she is celebrating her Bafta win with Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and her friend even presented her with the famous godmother sculpture from the show. The pair have been friends for almost two decades and were both nominated in the female comedy performance category. Clifford said they had to separate while they both dialled into the ceremony over Zoom to see their award announced, but have since reunited. Expand Close Fleabag stars Fiona Shaw, Hugh Skinner, Sian Clifford, Andrew Scott, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, director Harry Bradbeer and Bill Paterson (Ian West/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Fleabag stars Fiona Shaw, Hugh Skinner, Sian Clifford, Andrew Scott, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, director Harry Bradbeer and Bill Paterson (Ian West/PA) Speaking after her win, she told the press: There was sound feedback so we broke into our friends house down the road. We reunited after I won and she gave me the godmother statue, we both have one. The sculpture, of the naked torso of Fleabag and her sisters late mother crafted by their godmother, is a fixture in the show. Clifford said the pair have been stuffing their faces with vegan burgers and watching the ceremony together as they see off the show, which came to a conclusion with its lauded second series. She added: There is so much history with this show, with my friendship with Phoebe. She continued: We have just championed each other since that day and I just feel so lucky to have found her and have somebody who believes in me more than I believe in myself. Belarus, Ukraine Agree to Boost Border Control to Prevent Destabilization Sputnik News 09:32 GMT 30.07.2020(updated 09:36 GMT 30.07.2020) MINSK (Sputnik) - Minsk and Kiev have reached an agreement to boost border control and strengthen cooperation between relevant agencies to prevent destabilization ahead of the Belarusian presidential election, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. "Taking into consideration the alarming fact [the detention] and the ongoing election campaign in Belarus, we have reached agreement with the Ukrainian side to intensify cooperation between border agencies and to strengthen the border regime to prevent destabilization in the two countries," the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said. The ministry added that it had asked the Ukrainian Embassy to provide information about the detained Russians with Ukrainian citizenship in order to assess the reasons of their staying in the republic. "In view of the confirmed information about some of the detained persons' participation in combat activities on the territory of Ukraine's Donetsk and Lugansk regions, their Ukrainian origin and citizenship, we have asked Petro Vryblevskyi to provide relevant information that could be used for comprehensive analysis and assessment of the reasons of their staying in Belarus," the Foreign Ministry said. The Foreign Ministry released its statement soon after completing talks with Russian Ambassador Dmitry Mezentsev and Ukraine's Acting Ambassador Petro Vryblevskyi. The conversations focused on the over 30 Russians detained near Minsk on Wednesday and suspected of preparing terrorist attacks. Minsk believes the detained individuals are members of the Wagner Group paramilitary organization. Some of them hold Ukrainian citizenship and are believed to have taken part in the armed conflict in Donbass. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address REGINAThe death of her brother weighs on Prairie Crowes mind. Nicholas Dinardo is alive, but behind bars. The 28-year-old Indigenous man has attempted suicide multiple times and spent long stints in isolation, she says, including more than 200 days while he was in remand before his current five-year sentence for aggravated assault, assault with a weapon and mischief to property. When her brothers feeling good, he jokes around, Crowe says. He also writes poetry and reads it to her during their phone calls. But being alone has taken its toll on her younger brother and hes struggling, says the 35-year-old Regina woman. He has these episodes where he comes very, very close to committing suicide and we always worry that hell be successful, Crowe told The Canadian Press. I dont want my brother to die. On Friday, Dinardo filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC). The complaint alleges his distress has been met with force by corrections staff and exacerbated by an absence of mental-health care. Dinardo outlines how hes Cree from Saskatchewans Piapot First Nation, but was born in North Vancouver to a mother who lived through residential schools. Hes serving his third federal sentence, the complaint says. It says Dinardo has been transferred back and forth between maximum-security facilities and prison treatment centres for his suicide attempts and self-harm. I have swallowed glass and razor blades, climbed the razor wire, tried to hang myself, refused blood transfusions and gone on hunger strikes to try to kill myself. The complaint says Dinardo has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and, despite hearing voices, hasnt been to a psychiatrist in about six months. He says he struggles being on regular units at Kent Institution in British Columbia and acts out. He says he spent three months this year on a structured intervention unit for inmates who cant be in the regular population. He hardly left his cell, he says. The federal government has said inmates in such units get a chance to spend at least four hours a day outside their cell and receive better support for their mental needs. Over the years, Dinardo has lived in other isolated conditions, his complaint says. He alleges being met with force by corrections staff after self-harming. Instead of providing him with culturally appropriate healing services to help him address his own trauma ... CSC responds to him with uses of force, said Jennifer Metcalfe, executive director of the B.C-based Prisoners Legal Services, which is helping Dinardo with his complaint. They recently shot him in the face with a rubber bullet, she said. A spokeswoman with the Correctional Service of Canada said she couldnt comment on a specific offenders case, citing privacy legislation. Marie Pier Lecuyer said inmates have access to mental-health care based on their assessments, with screening for suicide upon arrival at a facility. Corrections staff are also trained to respond immediately to preserve life and prevent bodily harm. Where enhanced observation is required to ensure the safety of an inmate who is vulnerable to suicide, this is done for the shortest time required with ongoing involvement of health-care professionals, she said. Metcalfe says Dinardos case is like many others. She notes that she and other advocates continue to point out the over-representation of Indigenous peoples in Canadas prisons. The Office of the Correctional Investigator has raised concerns about the use of force reported at treatment centres and the psychological effects of being isolated. In the 2018-19 annual report, the federal watchdog stated that human rights are violated when incarnated people are punished for behaviours tied to underlying mental-health issues. Dinardo details one time this year when, upon returning to his maximum-security prison after self-harming, he was put in restraints. After about three hours, they finally let me use the washroom and afterwards I refused to be strapped down again. They hosed me down with pepper spray, his complaint reads. Once restrained again, he wasnt allowed to go to the bathroom alone and soiled himself, Dinardo writes. It was several hours before I was allowed to go clean myself. I was so distressed that I flipped the ... board over twice, hitting my head on the ground. At some point I began spitting up blood. Dinardos complaint says hes at a regional treatment centre, where he wants to stay. He was taken there this month after he cut himself in an observation cell. His statutory release is set for March 2022. I worry all the time that he wont make it, his sister says. If you are thinking of suicide or know someone who is, there is help. Resources are available online at www.crisisservicescanada.ca or you can connect to the national suicide prevention helpline at 1-833-456-4566, or the Kids Help Phone at 1-800-668-6868. The European Commission rejected funding for six Polish towns that declared themselves to be "LGBT-free, a growing local trend where municipalities issue resolutions declaring themselves unwelcoming toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. EU values and fundamental rights must be respected by Member States and state authorities, European Union Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli wrote in a tweet announcing the rejection. A European Commission spokesperson told NBC News in an email that the commission would not name the six towns, but said there is a fundamental principle of equality of treatment that is at the heart of our selection processes. Related: Andrzej Duda, a conservative who ran on an anti-LGBTQ platform, narrowly defeated Warsaws liberal mayor Sunday to win a second, five-year term. The decision means these six undisclosed towns applications to twin with other European Union cities similar to sister cities in the United States were rejected. Applications can unlock up to 25,000 euros in funding for conferences and other group-building activities. Our treaties ensure that every person in Europe is free to be who they are, live where they like, love who they want and aim as high as they want, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted. I will continue to push for a #UnionOfEquality. The issue of LGBTQ rights has recently divided Poland. Earlier this month, conservative president Andrzej Duda was re-elected by a razor-thin margin with 51 percent of the vote. Duda campaigned against LGBTQ equality, promising that gays would be prohibited from marrying and that LGBTQ issues would be banned from school curricula. Related: Edafe Okporo fled his homeland in 2016 after he was subjected to homophobic violence. He's now helping others who are looking to build lives in the U.S. Other cities in Western Europe have already canceled their twinning agreements with Polish LGBT-free towns prior to the European Commissions recent rejection. Story continues Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro called the rejection "unlawful," urging for a reversal from the E.U. Commission and arguing that the views of all citizens should be respected by the E.U. The trend began in March 2019 when small towns passed resolutions declaring themselves free of LGBT ideology. Since then, dozens of towns have followed, and now roughly a third of Polands population lives in these municipalities. Polands LGBT-free zone movement has already caused international waves. Last year, under pressure, Carnegie Hall canceled an event linked to a Polish magazine that first circulated LGBT-free zone stickers in its July 2019 issue. Follow NBC Out on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe Listen to the radio version of this essay: Most people of color in America recall their first encounter with a racist. I'm not sure my daughters will, seeing as one of them was still too young in late February of 2020 to consume solids. But I will remember it for them -- playing in our local pocket park, the usual chaos of preparing the kids to leave, and then the parting shot by a young man hanging out with a couple friends by the park entrance that made me turn my head, wondering if I'd heard him correctly. How To Participate Since June 2020, we've asked for your stories about how race and ethnicity shape your life and and published as many of these stories as we can. We call this year-long effort Race in LA. Click here for more information and details on how to participate. Had he really just ordered me to get my "coronavirus babies" out of the park? While my daughters blissfully ignored the exchange, I stood just outside the park gate seething and doing a sloppy risk analysis in my head about whether or not to confront the man. When you're with your children, fear for their safety nearly always wins over the need for righteous retribution. We left, but I couldn't let it go. MORE FROM OUR RACE IN LA SERIES I hadn't had any snappy comebacks ready on the spot, so as only a true "reenact-and-rant-at-the-mirror-an-hour-later" person would, I wrote every mean and clever remark I wished I could have said to that man in a letter. I continued adding to it with each new anti-Asian incident I heard about in the news or from other Asian American friends. Then, my Korean immigrant mother was harassed on her usual Northridge neighborhood walk by a man setting out his trash bins. He told her she had better watch her back, and continued to call after her as she power-walked on. By that time, I was seeing red. I was furious that my family, my friends and my fellow Asian American community members were frightened to leave home even just for necessities. I despised feeling like the racists and xenophobes held a power over us, that their hatred and acts of intolerance would factor into our decision-making about going outside at all. And more than anything, I hated feeling afraid. Then I remembered that xenophobia involves a deep and primal fear of difference. Racism is borne of the most primitive insecurity a person can feel. It is a fear so profound that the person experiencing it can no longer correctly identify it as fear. And as angry as I was, I could not help but regret the richness and connection all these terrified people will never know (by their own choice). The letter I was rage-writing began to change as I tried to understand that fear, and how it must feel when you realize the world is evolving away from you. While I rage-wrote, my toddler would rage-draw alongside me with the darkest colored crayons she could find. If the paper size was insufficient, her scribbles would spill over onto the table, the walls and MY sketchpad. Watching her, I decided to add illustrations to the letter. I ditched my normally premeditated approach and attempted to draw as freely and unapologetically as she does, even using her favorite black jumbo crayon (which I now have to replace). Although this letter is addressed to the racists out there, I share it now to bring strength and solace to anyone feeling powerless in the face of this resurgence of fear masked as hate. Trust me, you don't want to trade places with those who hate. Our fear is fleeting. Theirs is forever. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tracy Park is a freelance animation producer, artist and zinester who has been fortunate to call Los Angeles her home for the last 15 years. She is the proud daughter of Korean immigrants and the proud but exhausted mother of two Korean-ish hellions. Rating Action: Moody's affirms Baa3 issuer rating of ICON Plc, stable outlook Global Credit Research - 30 Jul 2020 Paris, July 30, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service, ("Moody's") has today affirmed the Baa3 long term issuer rating of ICON Plc ("ICON" or "the company"). The outlook remains stable. RATINGS RATIONALE Today's rating action recognizes the company's track record of generating strong profitability and free cash flow (FCF) generation as well as the company's financial flexibility, which is supported by the company's prudent financial policies to date. ICON is strongly positioned in the Baa3 rating. The agency expects that Moody's-adjusted gross leverage will be around 1.0x in 2020 and that leverage will improve modestly from these levels on the back of EBITDA growth gradually to around 0.8x in the next 12 to 18 months. Besides ICON's strong footprint in the contract research organisation (CRO) industry, Moody's expects the company will continue to benefit from good underlying fundamentals, including an ageing population, new drug developments and continued outsourcing by pharmaceutical companies. Additionally, Moody's expects that ICON will continue to have strong Moody's-adjusted EBITDA margins of around 18% to 19%. Moody's-adjusted FCF will be about USD250 million in 2020 and the agency expects this to increase to above USD300 million over the next 12 to 18 months. Moody's forecasts that the coronavirus epidemic will reduce ICON's Moody's-adjusted EBITDA to around USD470 million in 2020, down by 12% versus the previous year, but that earnings will recover to 2019 levels in 2021. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the company's core Phase 2 and 3 businesses have been impacted because new trials were put on hold. At the peak of the outbreak in April and May approximately 70% of ICON's sites had either restricted, or stopped access to ICON's clinical research associates. This resulted in lower monitoring activities and lower patient enrolments during the second quarter. Story continues Moody's expects that ICON's credit metrics should strengthen as confinement and social distancing measures continue to ease globally. This is because trials and tests were mainly delayed and not cancelled. ICON also has a well-diversified geographical global presence, which will limit the effects of any further lockdowns or social distancing. Additionally, ICON is currently working on different coronavirus treatments and vaccine trials, including prophylactic vaccine studies, trials of antiviral treatment across multiple geographies, and regulatory framework developments. Moody's views the coronavirus outbreak as a social risk under its ESG framework, given the substantial implications for public health and safety. ICON's rating affirmation continues to take into consideration the company's limited business diversification, and the relatively high business risk associated with the CRO industry. There is some uncertainty regarding future research pipelines and the risk of large project cancellations, as well as potential pricing pressure from pharmaceutical companies. ICON remains concentrated on clinical testing, and in particular on Phase 2 and 3 of the drug development process, namely the final stages prior to the new drug application with the relevant regulatory bodies. At end-2019, clinical trial testing (Phases 1 to 3) represented 70% of the company's revenue, highlighting ICON's still material concentration on one service segment that has relatively high business risk. ICON is a key partner to a number of large pharmaceutical companies, but its customer concentration remains important. ICON's largest customer represented 12% of total revenue and the company's top five customers contributed to 41% of its revenue, at 30 June 2020. ICON's rating continues to factor in the risk of M&A. While the company has been disciplined so far in pursuing acquisitions, Moody's believes that M&A remains a risk because the CRO industry has seen rapid consolidation over the past few years, with several large M&A transactions. This industry environment poses a high degree of event risk because companies are pursuing scale-related benefits. LIQUIDITY ICON has excellent liquidity, with cash and marketable securities of USD594 million as of 30 June 2020. In addition, it has access to an undrawn USD150 million revolving credit facility (RCF), due in October 2023, with significant capacity under its financial covenants (consolidated leverage ratio and minimum EBIT/consolidated net interest charge). The company has USD350 million of notes maturing in December 2020. Moody's understands that ICON will repay its current outstanding debt and new senior notes will be raised in December for the same amount. While ICON does not pay dividends, it pursues opportunistic share buybacks, and Moody's anticipates that it will continue to do so. The agency's base case scenario assumes USD160 million in share buybacks in 2021. The agency anticipates working capital swings will return to normal levels by year-end, now that the effects of the coronavirus are easing. OUTLOOK RATIONALE The stable outlook reflects Moody's expectation that ICON will maintain a strong financial profile, with leverage (Moody's-adjusted gross debt/EBITDA) below 1.5x in the next 12 to 18 months. The stable outlook also reflects the credit agency's expectation that ICON will maintain at least stable margins and that the company will maintain a prudent financial policy, with discretionary spending calibrated to the company's FCF generation. Moody's forecasts do not incorporate large debt-financed acquisitions. FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE OF THE RATING Upward pressure could arise if, (1) the company commits to maintain a leverage (Moody's-adjusted gross debt/EBITDA) below 1.5x on a sustained basis; (2) the company's Moody's-adjusted EBITDA margin trends in excess of 20% on a sustained basis; and (3) ICON improves its business diversification and scale. Conversely, downward pressure could develop if (1) there is a visible shift towards a more aggressive financial policy, as illustrated by Moody's-adjusted debt/EBITDA above 2.5x on a sustained basis; (2) Moody's-adjusted EBITDA margin trends below 15% sustainably; or (3) there is a material deterioration in the business prospects for or market conditions of the CRO industry. PRINCIPAL METHODOLOGY The principal methodology used in this rating 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. COMPANY PROFILE ICON Plc is a globally operating CRO. The company provides outsourced development services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. The company specialises in the strategic development, management and analysis of programmes that support clinical development, from compound selection to Phase 1-4 clinical studies. Founded in 1990 in Ireland, the company operates from 94 locations in 40 countries and has around 15,150 employees. For the 12 months ended June 2020, the company generated USD2.8 billion in revenue with a reported operating profit of USD407 million. 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 rating has been disclosed to the rated entity or its designated agent (s) and issued with no amendment resulting from that disclosure. This rating is 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. 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. Gilberto Ramos, CFA Analyst Corporate Finance Group Moody's France SAS 96 Boulevard Haussmann Paris 75008 France JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Jeanine Arnold Associate Managing Director Corporate Finance Group JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Releasing Office: Moody's France SAS 96 Boulevard Haussmann Paris 75008 France JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 2020 Moody's Corporation, Moody's Investors Service, Inc., Moody's Analytics, Inc. and/or their licensors and affiliates (collectively, "MOODY'S"). All rights reserved. CREDIT RATINGS ISSUED BY MOODY'S INVESTORS SERVICE, INC. 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Small rocket builder Rocket Lab is going back to the launchpad in August, as the company said it diagnosed the cause of its recent launch failure and received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to resumes launches. "We were able to quickly reconstruct what happened, and the [investigation] board was able to confidently narrow down the issue to a single eligible connection," Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck told reporters during a briefing on Friday. The company's Electron rocket launched its 13th mission on July 4, carrying seven small satellites bound for orbit. But the rocket never reached its destination, despite the early stages of the launch going according to plan, as a disconnection in its electrical system caused the rocket's engine to shut down. Rocket Lab says the root of the issue was an electrical system that wasn't secured, which led to the part overheating and then melting during flight. Alongside FAA investigators, the company reviewed over 25,000 channels of data from the launch to identify the cause of the accident. "This disconnection was incredibly unusual because it was able to evade all of the pre-flight acceptance testing," Beck said. "It's a very sneaky and tricky issue to try and screen for." Rocket Lab has built more than 720 of these electrical components, Beck noted. The company made a "slight change" to its production process and will be screening for the issue in the rockets its built. "Anybody who flies on Electron now is going to be flying on a more reliable vehicle than they did before," Beck said. Health Minister Robin Swann has agreed a multi-million pound deal to make Kaftrio available in Northern Ireland for the treatment of cystic fibrosis. The deal was secured with Vertex Pharmaceuticals which will see treatment being provided to all eligible patients in Northern Ireland. Mr Swann said: "Following intensive negotiations to get the right deal, I can now announce that Kaftrio will be available in the coming weeks for cystic fibrosis patients in Northern Ireland. This has been a long road for those who are suffering and I am delighted to bring this positive news to them today." In November 2019, the Department of Health agreed a deal with Vertex Pharmaceuticals to make Orkambi and Symkevi available. This was on top of the previously commissioned Kalydeco. The Minister thanked all those involved in bringing the deal to fruition. He said: "Families have fought long and hard to deliver the best possible outcome for their loved ones and I am sincerely thankful today that I can make this announcement. " New moderate income housing program could be on the way to Long Beach For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME. Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire. Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever. Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation. View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union. Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history. Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words. Quarterly Report Perth, July 30, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Musgrave Minerals Ltd ( ASX:MGV ) is an Australian resources company focused on gold exploration and development at the Cue Project in the Murchison Province of Western Australia.At Cue, the total project gold resources (Indicated and Inferred) are 6.45Mt @ 3.0g/t Au for 613koz Au following a significant resource update at Lena in February 2020 (see MGV ASX announcement dated 17 February 2020, "Lena Resource Update").CorporateAt the end of the June 2020 quarter, the Company held $9.1 million in cash.On 2 April 2020 Cyprium Metals Ltd ("Cyprium") informed the Company that Cyprium had earned their 80% interest in the base metal rights to the northern Cue tenure. Musgrave retains 100% of the gold rights and a 20% interest in the non-gold rights that is free carried to completion of a definitive feasibility study.The Company undertook a capital raising in April 2020, raising $6 million (before costs) through the placement of 57.1 million shares to corporate, institutional and professional and sophisticated investors. The funds were raised for drilling of the new Starlight discovery and other gold targets on the Cue Project and for working capital purposes (see MGV ASX announcement dated 27 April 2020).There have been a number of changes to the Company's unlisted options with some expiring and some being exercised. 1.9 million unlisted options were exercised during the quarter raising $209,732. At 30 June 2020 the Company's capital structure comprised:- 464,742,285 fully paid ordinary shares ( ASX:MGV ); and- 21,650,000 unlisted options at various exercise prices and expiry datesThe Quarterly Cashflow Report (Appendix 5B) for the period ending 30 June 2020 provides an overview of the Company's financial activities. Cash exploration expenditure for the reporting period was $307,000 with the majority of drilling costs from the current exploration programs due to be paid next quarter. Corporate and other expenditure amounted to $173,000. The total amount paid to the Managing Director and Non-executive Directors of the entity and their associates in the period (item 6.1 of the Appendix 5B) was $116,000 and includes salary, Directors' fees and superannuation.InvestmentsDuring the quarter Musgrave sold 7.5 million shares in Legend Mining Ltd ("Legend") and used part of the proceeds to exercise 10 million Legend options at 4c/option and added a net $634,000 to its cash position. The Company now holds 12.5 million shares in Legend currently valued at approximately $1.6 million.Musgrave holds 1,308,750 ordinary shares in Cyprium Metals Ltd currently valued at approximately $230,000 (See MGV ASX announcement dated 19 February 2019, "Earn-in Joint Venture to Advance Base Metal Exploration at Cue").Response to COVID-19Musgrave is continuing to review the ongoing situation relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and the implications for the health and wellbeing of our employees, contractors and stakeholders.The Company has been pro-active with respect to its response to COVID-19 and has developed operational procedures and plans in line with official health advice and government directives. Musgrave will continue to operate within these guidelines and will adapt its procedures as required.The Company remains an active explorer and will continue to advance the Cue Gold Project.To view the Quarterly Report, please visit:About Musgrave Minerals Ltd Musgrave Minerals Ltd (ASX:MGV) is an active Australian gold and base metals explorer. The Cue Project in the Murchison region of Western Australia is an advanced gold and copper project. Musgrave has had significant exploration success at Cue with the ongoing focus on increasing the gold and copper resources through discovery and extensional drilling to underpin studies that will demonstrate a viable path to development in the near term. Musgrave also holds a large exploration tenement package in the Ni-Cu-Co prospective Musgrave Province in South Australia. Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin heaped lavish praise on former President and revolutionary leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro. The socialist Cuban icon, who died aged 90, was described as the "symbol of an era," in a Kremlin statement on Saturday. "The name of this distinguished statesman is rightly considered the symbol of an era in modern world history," Putin said in a telegram to Cuban President Raul Castro cited by the Kremlin. "Fidel Castro was a sincere and reliable friend of Russia." Putin added that Castro has managed to build a "free and independent Cuba" that "became an influential member of the international community and served as an inspiration for many countries and peoples. Also Read: Former President Fidel Castro's funeral to be held on December 4, says Cuban government "The Kremlin strongman hailed Castro as a "strong and wise person who always looked to the future with confidence." "He embodied the high ideals of a politician, a citizen and a patriot sincerely convinced of the rightness of the cause to which he dedicated his whole life," Putin said. Also Read: India condoles Fidel Castros death: Who said what "His memory will forever remain in the hearts of the citizens of Russia." Putin also said that Castro had made a "huge personal contribution" in the establishment and development of the countries' bilateral relations. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev hailed Castro for strengthening his island nation. Also Read: Fidel Castro: The Cuban guerrilla revolutionary who defied US for 50 years For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. DUBROVNIK, Croatia (Reuters) - At the southern end of Croatia's Adriatic Coast, far fewer tourists are wandering the marbled streets of Dubrovnik than usual, while the number of visitors to northern beaches is much closer to the normal level for the time of year. The striking divide in the fortunes of the country's key tourism industry stems from the distortions in international travel caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Dubrovnik, the country's top tourism destination, has become one of the weakest spots on the Croatian coast this year since it is heavily dependent on visitors arriving by air or on cruise ships and those attending conferences and staying in hotels. "We hoped to reach some 20-25% in turnover compared to last season," said Tiffany Cvjetkovic Rudenjak, a member of the family which owns the downtown Lanii restaurant. "We're still not there, but we hope August can change things." According to Ana Hrnic, director of the city tourist board, at the end of July Dubrovnik saw just 30% of last year's tourist numbers. For the first seven months of this year the figure is even lower, 13% compared to the same period last year. Hrnic said guest numbers had risen since mid-June when air traffic within Europe began to resume and had picked up more since mid-July when Britain eased its travel restrictions since the city is particularly popular among Britons. "So far domestic guests and Germans have been among the most numerous, but we expect an increase in arrivals from the United Kingdom in the next few weeks," Hrnic said. Some 60% of hotels were now open and she said she hoped more would open in August. Ivan Maslac, commercial director of Dubrovnik airport, said that in the last two weeks, flights from the UK had been quite packed in the circumstances. The airport offered discounts to airlines on take-off and landing fees and an incentive payment of two euros per passenger, he said. Story continues Almost 20% percent of Croatia's economic output depends on tourism and the country hopes that this year it can earn around a third of last year's tourism receipts which amounted to some 12 billion euros ($14.11 billion). At the moment there are some 600,000 foreign guests on the Croatian coast, many of whom are visiting northern Istrian peninsula where the number of guests from Germany and Slovenia exceeded 80% of last year's figure. Easy accessibility by car and accommodation in camp sites and private houses are major factors behind their numbers, said Denis Ivosevic from the Istrian Tourist Board. Despite an increase in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks in Croatia, which mostly hit the capital Zagreb and the east of the country, visitors do not seem overly worried. Bence Smid, an IT consultant visiting Dubrovnik, had driven from Hungary, crossing a moveable bridge to the island of Murter in the central Adriatic. "I wouldn't say it is dangerous to be here," he said. ($1 = 0.8506 euros) (Reporting by Antonio Bronic and Igor Ilic, editing by Philippa Fletcher) NEW DELHI - India added another record surge in virus cases Friday as the government decided to lift a nighttime curfew that was in force since March. The 55,079 new cases in the past 24 hours took Indias total to 1,638,871. The Health Ministry on Friday also reported 779 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking fatalities to 35,747. The actual numbers, like elsewhere in the world, are thought to be far higher due to a number of reasons including limited testing. The nighttime curfew will be lifted from Saturday and yoga institutes and gyms can reopen Wednesday, according to the Home Ministry. The government also removed interstate restrictions on movement of people or goods. The government also decided to reopen hotels in the Indian capital which had been used as quarantine facilities. After peaking at nearly 3,500 new cases per day earlier this month, New Delhis numbers have dropped to around 1,000 cases a day. After the nationwide lockdown was largely lifted, lockdowns now remain only in areas that are hot spots of infection and are decided by state and territory governments. Metro service, cinemas, swimming pools, entertainment parks, bars, theatres, auditoriums and other social gathering places will remain closed until Aug. 31, the ministry said. In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region: Indonesias resort island of Bali reopened to domestic tourists Friday after an almost four-month lockdown. Visitors will face stringent rules in hotels, restaurants and on beaches. New foreign arrivals will be allowed on the island beginning Sept. 11. Tourism is the main source of income for the island, and the pandemic has caused a dive in the number of visitors. Vietnams health ministry says it has confirmed more than 100 cases linked to a Da Nang hospital after an initial case surfaced last week. The outbreak centred in the popular beach destination is Vietnams first in more than three months. The city was put under lockdown on Tuesday and testing and business restrictions increased in other areas. Da Nang was setting up a makeshift hospital in a sports auditorium, and doctors have been mobilized from other cities to help. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte further relaxed quarantine restrictions and will shift the virus response to localized lockdowns where infections surge. Central Cebu city had been the last major area under a lockdown. The Department of Health reported a record daily tally of new and old COVID-19 cases on Friday at 4,063, bringing total infections to more than 93,300, including more than 2,000 deaths. Despite such spikes, the government has been under pressure to open the economy more widely. Nepal is opening its Himalayan peaks, hoping to bring back Western climbers unable to come during the spring mountaineering season. Both the government and expedition workers and businesses are hoping foreign climbers who bring some $300 million annually to Nepal will return during the autumn climbing season that begins in September. Nepal is opening to commercial flights from August. Rudra Singh Tamang, director general of Nepals tourism department, said mandatory test reports and quarantines when needed are among the measures being used to ensure tourism returns safely. Victoria states leader warned that tougher pandemic restrictions could be looming after Australias coronavirus hot spot reported its second-highest daily COVID-19 count. State capital Melbourne and a neighbouring semi-rural district are over halfway through a six-week lockdown. Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said the lockdown was being analyzed to determine the next steps but it is important that all of us acknowledge that these numbers are still far too high. Victoria on Friday reported 627 new infections and eight deaths. China is tightening travel restrictions in the capital of Xinjiang, where 112 new cases were reported Friday. People arriving in Urumqi from high-risk places must undergo a two-week quarantine. Others most show proof of good health. Locals should stay in the city or show proof of health to be allowed to leave. Almost all regions in China are designated low and medium risk except for the northeastern port city of Dalian, which is high risk due to an ongoing but smaller outbreak. Beijing will send personnel to Hong Kong to help with coronavirus testing and the building of treatment centres, as the semi-autonomous city faces its worst outbreak of the virus, Chinas Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office said Friday. Hong Kong reported a total of 3,273 cases as of Friday, including 27 deaths. The city had gone weeks without any known locally transmitted cases until the beginning of July, when an outbreak began. The total number of infections has more than doubled since July 1. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said Tuesday that the city is on the verge of large-scale community outbreak which could lead to a collapse of its hospital system. The city has tightened social distancing measures, banning dine-in eating at restaurants after 6 p.m. and restricting public gatherings to two people. Lam on Friday also announced the postponing of legislative elections for one year because of the outbreak. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed alarm Friday about a jump in coronavirus cases as the nation struggles to balance economic growth and disease prevention. We are very carefully watching the surge in infections. First, we need to step up testing, he said. New infections in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya have risen to new highs. Abes government has faced criticism for going ahead with a tourism promotion program aimed at supporting the badly hit tourism industry. Meanwhile, the governor of the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, Denny Tamaki, issued its own emergency declaration, citing an explosive growth in cases after a record 71 new infections were confirmed Friday. The national government has stopped short of declaring a new emergency after an earlier one was lifted in May. Read more about: On 21 July 2020, a virtual meeting was organized by Mr. Ricardo Trevino Chapa, Deputy Secretary General of the World Customs Organization (WCO), with Mr. Werner Ovalle, Director General of Guatemala Customs and new Vice-Chair for the WCO Americas/Caribbean region. Both agreed on the importance of the Work Plan contributing to the integration of the region and the fulfillment of its objectives and interests, thus strengthening the interactions of the Vice-Chair with the WCO, its Members, the Regional Office for Capacity Building (ROCB), international organizations, and private sector stakeholders in the Americas/Caribbean region. The regional Vice-Chair reiterated the commitment of his own Customs Administration to work in coordination with the WCO and with all Customs Administrations of the Americas/Caribbean region, in order to make the region digital, competitive and integrated. The actions agreed at the meeting included: (i) monthly coordination and monitoring meetings; (ii) presentations of regional initiatives based on WCO instruments such as the Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) Programme, Time Release Study (TRS), Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC), Single Window, Risk Management and Coordinated Border Management; (iii) support by the ROCB; (iv) promotion of participation by the Private Sector Consultative Group (PSCG) in the activities carried out under the regional Vice-Chairmanship; (v) promotion of the WCO Mercator Programme, enabling countries in the region to benefit from technical support and follow-up on implementation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement; and (vi) promotion of WCO expert accreditation workshops in the region. During the meeting, the importance of promoting the use of the Spanish language at the WCO was also highlighted as a regional priority. The role played by Customs in facilitating the international movement of goods and minimizing the general impact of the crisis on economies and societies as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic was underlined, while the value of utilizing technology to continue working for the welfare and interests of the Americas/Caribbean region was reiterated. Foreign ministers of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania - the countries that founded the Lublin Triangle format - agreed to meet in Ukraine in the fall, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. "We are already working on the content of our new partnership, making plans and believe that the Triangle should become an important element in the configuration of forces in Central Europe and in Europe as a whole. I can inform you that we have reached an agreement with my Polish and Lithuanian colleagues on that the next meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Lublin Triangle will be held in Ukraine this fall. We are committed to maintaining a dynamic dialogue and the dynamic development of our new format," he said at an online briefing on Friday. Kuleba recalled that the Lublin Triangle is the first international format that Ukraine has been creating in its Western vector since independence, since 1991. "Usually, when it comes to different European formats and structures, we join or seek to join the existing structures. Here we are already taking a leadership position and, together with partners, create new mechanisms that meet our regional and European interests," the minister explained. As reported, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine have established the Lublin Triangle format. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that that format would become an important element in strengthening Central Europe and Ukraine, as a full member of the European and Euro-Atlantic family of nations. The LuxTran LTSI-A1, one of a series of updated tunnel lighting fixtures from Kenall. The newly improved LTSI series tunnel luminaires deliver greater efficacies than competitor fixtures, and the power line LPCM reduces installation expense while also saving time. To balance the demands of traffic safety, budget and environmental concerns, tunnel and underpass lighting must deliver ever-increasing energy efficiency and flexibility. Kenalls LuxTran LTSI-A1 and LTSI-A2 luminaires have newly improved efficacies, along with an option for a power line local programmable control module (LPCM) that saves both materials and man hours during installation by eliminating the need for dedicated control wiring. The LTSI-A1, a compact 22" 22" stainless steel fixture with five IES distribution options, can be mounted on either walls or ceilings to provide supplemental lighting in various tunnel zones. It has an IP-66 rating and powerful lumen packages ranging from 13,406 39,938 lm; achieving up to 155 lumens per watt. The LTSI-A2 is slightly larger (22" 33.5"), with the same features, more powerful lumen packages and even greater efficacy -- up to an impressive 165 lm/w. Michael Maltezos, Kenalls Transportation Sales Manager, works closely with transportation engineers on tunnel lighting projects, in part, to stay in tune with the changing needs of the industry. Last year we introduced the LTSI series for projects that require smaller, but still very powerful and efficient, fixtures, he said. As designers and engineers face new challenges, we need to continually advance our offerings to help them succeed. The newly improved LTSI series delivers greater efficacies than competitor fixtures, and the power line LPCM reduces installation expense while also saving time. For additional information on the LuxTran LTSI series and other tunnel and underpass lighting products, contact Michael Maltezos directly at 847-507-4531. About Kenall Kenall Manufacturing, and independent business of Legrand, was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1963 and has built a reputation for durable lighting solutions of superior quality and exceptional value. Today, the company creates unique solutions for the transportation, healthcare, cleanroom/containment, food processing, high abuse, and correctional lighting markets. Kenall luminaires are designed and manufactured in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and meet the guidelines established under the Buy American Act and the North American Free Trade Agreement. For additional information, visit http://www.kenall.com. About Legrand and Legrand, North and Central America Legrand is the global specialist in electrical and digital building infrastructures. Its comprehensive offering of solutions for use in commercial, industrial, and residential markets makes it a benchmark for customers worldwide. Legrand reported sales of approximately $7.1 billion (USD) in 2018. Legrand has a strong presence in North and Central America, with a portfolio of well-known market brands and product lines that includes AFCO Systems, C2G, Cablofil, Chief, Da-Lite, Electrorack, Finelite, Kenall, Luxul, Middle Atlantic Products, Milestone AV, Nuvo, OCL, On-Q, Ortronics, Pass & Seymour, Pinnacle, Projecta, QMotion, Quiktron, Raritan, Sanus, Server Technology, Solarfective, Vaddio, Vantage, Wattstopper, and Wiremold. Legrand is listed on Euronext Paris and is a component stock of indexes including the CAC40, http://www.legrand.us. Europes largest economy Germany reported a GDP decline of 10.1% in the April-to-June quarter. Photo: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images Gross domestic product (GDP) across the euro area plunged by a record 12.1% in the second quarter, compared to the previous quarter, as coronavirus lockdowns brought commercial and social life to a standstill and plunged the bloc into a deep recession. Output in the 19-country currency block had declined by 3.6% in the first quarter. Todays second-quarter data however is the biggest drop in GDP since record-keeping started in 1995. The EUs major economies also released their own quarterly data this week. Germany, the blocs largest economy reported a GDP decline of 10.1% in the April-to-June quarter. The federal statistics bureau described it as the steepest decline since quarterly GDP calculations for Germany began in 1970 even more pronounced than during the financial market and economic crisis. READ MORE: Coronavirus: Germany to introduce compulsory testing for arrivals from risk areas France, the second largest economy, fared worse, with output shrinking by 13.8%, also a historic low. Italys economy contracted by 12.4% in the second quarter from the previous one, a smaller slump than the 15% quarter-on-quarter drop predicted by analysts. Spain, one of the worst-hit EU countries in terms of coronavirus cases and deaths, reported an 18.5% fall in GDP in the second quarter, a steeper drop than the 16.6% economists had predicted. The Spanish economy, which had already shrunk by 5.2% in the first quarter, is now in its steepest recession ever. EU countries like Spain are in urgent need of financial support from the EU as they tries to dig themselves out of recession. Earlier this month, EU leaders approved a 750bn (677bn, $890bn) coronavirus recovery package in Brussels, of which around half will be issued as grants to struggling member states. READ MORE: Coronavirus: EU agrees on 'historic' 750bn recovery package Spain, which relies heavily on tourism, expressed its frustration at the UK this week, after the British government introduced a 14-day quarantine on people returning from the popular summer vacation destination. Germany, which fared much better than the UK, France, Italy, and Spain in managing to slow the spread of the coronavirus, is concerned about a second wave of the virus taking hold. On Thursday (30 July) the countrys public health institute reported 902 new cases in one day, the highest number since 15 May. Spanish fund azValor Iberia FI (Trades, Portfolio) has released its portfolio for the second quarter of 2020. New additions to the portfolio include Compania de Distribucion Integral Logista Holdings (XMAD:LOG), Semapa SA (XLIS:SEM), Prosegur Cash SA (XMAD:CASH), Acerinox SA (XMAD:ACX) and The Navigator Co. SA (XLIS:NVG). The azValor Iberia FI (Trades, Portfolio) portfolio consists of Spanish and Portuguese companies listed on secondary markets, with Spanish shares not exceeding 90% of the fund. Companies are selected regardless of their size or sector. The fund is managed according to the principles of value investing with managers that search for undervalued companies with sustainable competitive advantages over time, high returns on capital employed (ROCE), are led by quality management teams and whose intrinsic value is not reflected in their share price. Portfolio overview The portfolio contains 32 stocks, including the five new holdings. It is valued at $46 million and has seen a 14% turnover rate. Top holdings of the fund include Elecnor SA (XMAD:ENO) (10.34%), Tubacex SA (XMAD:TUB) (10.25%), Galp Energia SGPS SA (XLIS:GALP) (8.24%), Tecnicas Reunidas SA (XMAD:TRE) (5.07%) and Miquel y Costas & Miquel SA (XMAD:MCM) (4.97%). cb2e476634f614309932f3f8a9c1d273.png By weight, the top three sectors represented are industrials (35.55%), basic materials (32.11%) and energy (12.50%). 9e52f33974ae2432dec660a1c74cc917.png Compania de Distribucion Integral Logista The portfolio saw the addition of the company for the first time with the purchase of 99,036 shares. The shares were purchased at an average price of 16.15 euros ($19.02) per share and GuruFocus estimates the total gain of the holding at -2.41%. da6f614464ea35fc14bfe251d2270e89.png Compania de Distribucion Integral Logista is a distributor and logistics operator. The company provides distribution channels for products and services, including tobacco and related tobacco products, convenience goods and lottery tickets. The company organizes itself into three segments: tobacco and related products, transport and other businesses. The Tobacco and related products segment contributes the vast majority of revenue. The company primarily operates in France, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), and derives the majority of its revenue in France. Story continues On July 31, the company was trading at 15.76 euros per share with a market cap of 2.08 billion euros. According to the Peter Lynch chart, the stock has been trading slightly below intrinsic value since March. 0d1b1e8b8ae1a12864b4473ffd64a009.png GuruFocus gives the company a financial strength rating of 7 out of 10 and a profitability rank of 6 out of 10. The cash-to-debt ratio of 34.46 places it higher than 94.17% of the industry. However, an Altman Z-Score of 1.53 places it in the distress column. fce2be2c6e04a51e13e647a1b92b4fcb.png Semapa The portfolio saw the addition of Semapa for the first time since 2017, when the remaining shares of the company were sold. The team added 84,633 shares at an average price of 8.61 euros. The purchase had an overall impact of 2.35% on the equity portfolio. 86239788384c88b925dfc4fc9c4d2910.png Semapa makes and sells a variety of paper products as well as cement. The company organizes itself into three segments based on product type. The paper and pulp segment, which generates the majority of revenue, primarily sells tissue and printing paper. The segment also sells pulp and produces electricity from natural gas. The cement segment sells cement, ready-mix concrete and aggregates to the construction and building industries. The environment segment collects animal waste and sells animal fats, food oil and meat. July 31 saw shares trading at 7.69 euros per share with a market cap of 614.20 million euros. The Peter Lynch chart shows the company has been trading below intrinsic value since 2018. 5c6d4b1af1aa1c434fa5600c13e5f7d0.png GuruFocus gives the company a financial strength rating of 4 out of 10, a profitability rank of 7 out of 10 and a valuation rank of 10 out of 10. The current operating margin and net margin percentages place the company higher than the majority of the industry. The company has also decreased debt over the last several years. c60153d4fa9eb4e252179e82b96163b8.png Prosegur Cash The quarter saw Prosegur Cash added to the portfolio for the first time in history with the purchase of 1.22 million shares. The shares were purchased at an average price of 0.81 euros. Overall, the purchase had a 1.98% impact on the portfolio. 3d04f35762f0aa2031f29e7f4331a2d7.png Prosegur Cash is engaged in the transit business and the outsourcing of services to financial institutions, retail establishments, government agencies and central banks, national mints, jewelers and other business activities around the world. The company's business lines can be categorized into transport, cash management and new products such as automation of payments in shops using self-service cash machines, among others. The company was trading at 0.68 euros per share on Friday with a market cap of 1.02 billion euros. The Peter Lynch chart suggests that the company is currently trading well below intrinsic value. 4a32f73479fa712b2d7cc26920bf7e9d.png GuruFocus gives the company a financial strength rating of 3 out of 10 and a profitability rank of 6 out of 10. Increased levels of debt have been issued over the last several years and a severe warning has been issued for declining revenue per share. An Altman Z-Score of 2 places the company in the grey zone from bankruptcy. 0ae6f7a03ab48065ea1056bdf82cde80.png Acerinox Acerinox was added to the portfolio after the holding was sold out in the first quarter of 2020. Around 107,382 shares were purchased at an average price of 6.87 euros. The purchase represented a 1.66% impact on the portfolio. c5164af69af1f54f5ac67f70892fa5a6.png Acerinox is a Spain-based stainless steel maker. It has six stainless steel factories, three manufacturing flat and long products in Spain, one producing flat products in South Africa, one producing flat and long products in the United States and one producing flat steel products in Malaysia. The company's products are used in automotive, electrics, home appliances and other items. On July 31, the company was trading at 7.36 euros per share with a market cap of 1.99 billion euros. The company currently does not have enough financial data to display a Peter Lynch chart. GuruFocus gives the company a financial strength rating of 4 out of 10 and a profitability rank of 5 out of 10. The Altman Z-Score of 1.43 places the company in the distress zone, yet the cash-to-debt ratio of 0.56 places it above 63.35% of the industry. e1d402537baa80cc702f8b58ca8016e3.png The Navigator Co. The Navigator Co. was added to the portfolio for the first time in the second quarter. 356,019 shares were purchased at an average price of 2.26 euros per share. Overall, the purchase had an impact of 1.66%. ee771e72ca44a8477715cd029c251752.png Navigator produces and sells pulp, paper and energy products. The company organizes itself into four segments based on product type. The majority of revenue comes from Europe. July 31 saw shares trading at 2.16 euros with a market cap of 1.53 billion euros. According to the Peter Lynch chart, the sstock is trading below intrinsic value and is undervalued. 55871d9997603a4baabe1f60d1fef51a.png GuruFocus gives the company a financial strength rating of 5 out of 10, a profitability rank of 7 out of 10 and a valuation rank of 7 out of 10. The company's operating and net margin percentages place it well above the industry average. Cash flows have remained relatively stable throughout the last several years. 4a602d05d975e5e71d1ab55020d0da3f.png Disclaimer: Author owns no stocks mentioned. Read more here: Stagnant Restaurant Transactions Accelerate Closures Warren Buffett Dives Deeper Into Bank of America Warren Buffett Continues to Bet Big on Bank of America Not a Premium Member of GuruFocus? Sign up for a free 7-day trial here. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Reactions have continued to trail U.S. President Donald Trumps call for the postponement of the November 3 presidential elections in th... Reactions have continued to trail U.S. President Donald Trumps call for the postponement of the November 3 presidential elections in the country. Trump had on Thursday called for the postponement of the 2020 election. The American leader, who made the call via Twitter, expressed concern that the election would be fraudulent. In reaction to Trumps call, House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi replied to the president with a tweet by reminding him that he lacked the Constitutional powers to determine the dates of elections. Pelosi wrote: The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States. Similarly, Ms Ellen Weintraub, the Chairperson of the U.S. Federal Election Commission, also said the president lacked the power to move the election. According to the BBC, Weintraub said, There was no need to delay the exercise, and called for more funding for states to run safe and secure elections. Also, the House of Representatives Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, who is also a Republican, reportedly dismissed the idea. Never in the history of the federal elections have we ever not held an election and we should go forward with our election, McCarthy said. Lindsay Graham, another Republican senator, who is an ally of Trump, also said postponing the election was not a good idea. However, Chris Stewart, a Republican lawmaker from Utah, said the president had a legitimate point about mail-in voting being hard to monitor. Can you ensure the accuracy of mail-in voting? Now in some states, you can. In my state in Utah, for example, weve been doing it for quite a while, but were a small state with a relatively small population. AFP via Getty Images Donald Trump has threatened Portland protesters with "very strong offensive force" as the federal government and residents continue to clash in the liberal city. The president warned he might send the National Guard to stop the "terrorists" in the city. In Albuquerque, meanwhile, activists vowed to meet federal agents with peaceful protests and civil disobedience as Trump said the government's response would expand to more cities, including Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee. This comes as White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has slammed China for delaying Hong Kong elections, even though that is what Mr Trump suggested on Twitter for the United States' own presidential election. Mr Trump refused to back down from his controversial suggestion that November's election be postponed despite an outcry among his fellow Republicans, insisting "I don't want to see a crooked election", as he continues to claim mail-in voting - a likely necessity given the coronavirus outbreak - is vulnerable to fraud. Dr Anthony Fauci testified before lawmakers about the Trump administration's coronavirus response, with the president praising a line of questioning from Republican Jim Jordan. The infectious disease expert was asked he wouldn't make a recommendation on the virus spreading at protests after while he was quick to make recommendations about baseball. The CDC is forecasting 173,000 deaths by mid-August. Democrats and Republicans are expected to meet on Saturday to discuss the next coronavirus relief package after Trump tweeted criticism at Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer for failing to reach an agreement by Friday. SNN Network MicroCap Virtual Investor Conference Lake in USA MicroCap Virtual Conference August 3 Brisbane, July 31, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Lake Resources ( ASX:LKE ) ( FRA:LK1 ) ( OTCMKTS:LLKKF ) invites North American and UK/European based individual and institutional investors, as well as advisors and analysts, to attend real-time, interactive presentations in OTC's Conference on VirtualInvestorConferences.com- Monday, August 3, 2020 - 10am ET (NYC), 7am PT, 3pm GMT (London), 12 midnight (Sydney).- LINK: https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/2059/35931 Clean lithium developer Lake Resources NL ( ASX:LKE ) ( OTCMKTS:LLKKF ) announced today that Steve Promnitz, Managing Director, will present live at SNN Network's MicroCap Virtual Investor Conference on Monday, August 3, 2020 - 10am ET (NYC), 7am PT, 3pm GMT (London).This will be a live presentation. To access the presentation, please use the link provided:If attendees can't make the live presentation, all company presentations "webcasts" will be available directly on the conference event platform.If investors would like to book 1on1 investor meetings with Lake Resources NL, please register for the virtual event here:1on1 meetings will be scheduled and conducted via private, secure video conference through the conference event platform.About Lake Resources NL Lake Resources NL (ASX:LKE) (OTCMKTS:LLKKF) is a clean lithium developer utilising clean, direct extraction technology for the development of sustainable, high purity lithium from its flagship Kachi Project, as well as three other lithium brine projects in Argentina. The projects are in a prime location within the Lithium Triangle, where 40% of the world's lithium is produced at the lowest cost. This method will enable Lake Resources to be an efficient, responsibly-sourced, environmentally friendly and cost competitive supplier of high-purity lithium, which is readily scalable, and in demand from Tier 1 electric vehicle makers and battery makers. On July 19, 2019, Savion Hall passed away at a Lubbock Hospital while in the custody of the Midland County Central Detention Center. Subsequently, employees of the Midland County Sheriffs Department began investigating the circumstances of his death. The matter was then turned over to the Texas Rangers for further investigation. After a lengthy investigation, the case was presented to the Midland County District Attorneys Office. As a result of restrictions due to COVID-19, the State could not present the case to a Grand Jury until this summer. On July 15, 2020, a Midland County Grand Jury returned indictments alleging Count I: Manslaughter, Count II: Criminally Negligent Homicide and Count III: Tampering with a Government Record based on the investigation. None of the individuals indicted were employees of Midland County. On July 31, 2020, the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force, which consists of members of the Midland County Sheriffs Department and the United State Marshalls Service, executed the arrest of: Mexico's former top security official trafficked cocaine and took millions of dollars in bribes to protect notorious drug kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, New York prosecutors claim. Genaro Garcia Luna, 51, is alleged to have been involved with the notorious Sinaloa Cartel - which El Chapo headed before he was extradited in 2017 to face trial in the US. Garcia Luna is currently pending trial in New York after pleading not guilty on charges he conspired to traffic cocaine and made false statements. But, on Thursday, a superseding indictment issued a new charge of 'engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise', the US Department of Justice said. Mexico's former top security official Genaro Garcia Luna (pictured) is currently pending trial in New York on charges he conspired to traffic cocaine and made false statements and, on Thursday, a superseding indictment charged him with continuing criminal enterprise Two other high-ranking Mexican law enforcement officials, Luis Cardenas Palomino, 51, and Ramon Pequeno Garcia, 53, were also each charged with three counts of cocaine trafficking. Cardenas Palomino and Pequeno Garcia, who are alleged to have been working for Garcia Luna, have not yet been arrested, according to federal prosecutors. 'In exchange for multimillion-dollar bribes, the defendants allegedly permitted the Sinaloa Cartel to operate with impunity in Mexico,' the DOJ said in a statement. 'Through today's superseding indictment, Garcia Luna and his co-conspirators will face justice for offenses involving the importation and the distribution of massive quantities of dangerous drugs into the United States,' said Seth D. DuCharme, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. From 2001 to 2005, Garcia Luna led Mexico's federal investigation agency, and from 2006 to 2012, he served as Mexico's Secretary of Public Security. Prosecutors said the Sinaloa Cartel bribed Garcia Luna throughout his time in government to ensure safe passage for its drugs, and to obtain intelligence information about rival cartels and Mexican probes into its activities. The former official has denied the charges and said he intends to fight them at his New York City trial, but faces up to life in prison if convicted. His defense attorney, Cesar de Castro, has said the case is built upon the discredited and self-serving accounts of drug traffickers. Courtroom sketch of defense attorney Cesar de Castro (left), Genaro Garcia Luna (center) and a court interpreter during an arraignment hearing in Brooklyn federal court in New York earlier this year Garcia Luna had been held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan since December, following his arrest in Florida, but has since offered to post a $2million bail bond to a US court as he feared catching coronavirus in jail. He begged New York federal court to move him to house arrest after claiming he was 'at risk of dying' due to a respiratory illness. In March, the 51-year-old's attorney told the court his client's current medical condition could worsen if he is exposed to Covid-19. 'Garcia Luna is at risk of dying if he contracts the COVID-19 virus. He is 51 years old and has a history of respiratory problems,' lawyer Cesar de Castro wrote in a letter that was given to the trial judge, Brian Cogan. The request also includes a letter from Garcia Luna's doctor in Mexico who first confirmed the former security official's respiratory illness in June 2015. A $1million bail bond proposal was originally rejected in February by US Magistrate Judge Robert Levy who said amount was not sufficient enough to ensure his future court appearances. Prosecutors have been against his release because they believe he could go back to Mexico or flee to a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the US. Garcia Luna had been the subject of testimony of former cartel memberJesus Zambada during the trial of kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman (pictured being extradited to the US in 2017) last year Garcia Luna had been the subject of testimony of former cartel member Jesus Zambada during kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's trial last year. Jurors heard how Zambada, who once married El Chapo's daughter and has two children with her, testified that he personally made at least $6million in hidden payments to Garcia Luna between 2005 and 2007. El Chapo was sentenced to life in prison, plus 30 years, after a jury found him guilty of 10 counts of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, drug trafficking, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder. He is currently serving his sentence in Colorado's Supermax prison. The drug lord famously escaped prison twice while in Mexico. In 2001, he fled Puente Grande prison in Jalisco, Mexico, by hiding in a laundry cart before being recaptured in 2014. Then, in July 2015, he used a mile-long tunnel, complete with electricity and ventilation, to escape imprisonment in Altiplano, Mexico, with a former associate Damaso Lopez testifying that he had asked for it to be built directly into his cell. He was finally extradited to the United States in January 2017 to face the US judicial system and is currently serving his sentence in Colorado's Supermax prison. But it is thought his legal team plans to file an appeal which would seek to overturn his conviction. PRAG (dpa-AFX) - The Czech Republic's economy shrank at a record pace in the second quarter, mainly due to the disruption caused by the coronavirus, or Covid-19, pandemic, preliminary figures from the Czech Statistical Office showed on Friday. Gross domestic product decreased 8.4 percent from the first quarter, when it fell 3.4 percent. Economists were looking for a more severe decline of 12.9 percent. Two consecutive quarters of GDP decline qualifies as a technical recession. The economy was last in recession during the whole of 2012 and early 2013. On a year-on-year basis, GDP dropped 10.7 percent in the second quarter after a 2 percent slump in the first three months of the year. Economists had forecast a 14.7 percent decline. The negative year-on-year GDP development was caused mainly by a marked decrease in external demand and by lower household consumption as well as investment activity, the statistical office said. In the second quarter, the gross value added (GVA) decreased in almost all economic activities of the national economy, with a markedly negative influence on the GVA coming from industry and a group of economic activities of trade, transportation, and accommodation and food service activities. 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. Ukraine's Energy Ministry is continuing talks with state banks and international financial institutions (IFIs) on attracting EUR 300 million of loans on concessional terms, in particular, to cover part of the debt of the state enterprise Guaranteed Buyer at green rates. The condition of banks for such loans is the financial stabilization of the electricity market, depending on the adoption of appropriate decisions by the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission of Ukraine (NEURC), the ministry's press service said on Friday, July 31. The Cabinet said on Friday that at a meeting of the Anti-Crisis Energy Staff government appealed to the commission for the regulator to urgently take steps to balance the electricity market and its further effective work, calling the role of the commission decisive in this process. According to the Guaranteed Buyer, as of July 20, the debt of National Energy Company Ukrenergo to compensate for payments on green tariffs to it amounted to UAH 16.6 billion. The level of payments of the Guaranteed Buyer to renewable energy producers is 26%, and debt exceeded UAH 19 billion. As reported, on July 29, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) published on the website the recommendations of the commission of July 2, mandatory for consideration, accusing it of inactivity. As noted in this document, the commission did not submit to the Cabinet proposals on improving the conditions of the regime of special duties (PSO), improperly conducted and made public the results of monitoring the functioning of the electricity market, and also improperly ensured the balancing operation with the transmission system operator market. In order to pay off its debt to the Guaranteed Buyer, Ukrenergo planned to attract loans from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in the amount of EUR 128 million (UAH 3.8 billion) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) EUR 92 million (UAH 2.8 billion). In particular, EIB funds were saved as a result of the implementation of projects for the construction of the overhead 750 kV Rivne NPPKyivska and 750 kV Zaporizhia NPPKakhovska lines. With the second quarter well behind our backs, reports from analysts start pouring in. Yesterday Canalys reported that Huawei surpassed Samsung and took the top step, and today two other agencies confirmed the lead switch - Counterpoint Research and Omdia. According to both, Samsung was affected the most by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, its sales going down over 25% on a yearly basis. In the same time, Apple was the only major player to increase shipments both on a quarterly and yearly basis. Omdia's numbers also show Tecno growing, while the rest of the top 10 all saw decreasing shipments compared to Q2 of 2019. On the other hand every company bar Samsung and Realme managed to improve on its Q1 numbers. Company Q2 2020 shipments Q1 2020 shipments Q2 2019 shipments QoQ change YoY change Huawei 55.8 49 58.7 14% -4.9% Samsung 54.3 58.9 75.0 -8% -27.7% Apple 39.9 38.5 35.3 4% 13.1% Xiaomi 28.9 27.8 32.4 4% -10.7% Oppo 22.5 20.4 30.8 10% -26.9% vivo 23.7 19.5 28.4 22% -16.7% Motorola 7.4 5.5 8.3 34% -10.8% LG 6.7 5.4 8.9 25% -24.4% Tecno 5.3 3.5 3.9 50% 36.9% Realme 4.2 6.1 4.5 -32% -7.3% Varun Mishra of Counterpoint said the market in China performed better and accounted for 31% of all global sales - a number that was last seen three years ago. Looking into details, companies took the biggest hit in April, with shipments gradually improving in May and June - India even managed to get to pre-COVID levels in June. Counterpoint Research offered a detailed look into the 5G market as well. Demand for LTE phones has declined, but interest in the next-gen devices has increased. Overall penetration is now 11% (from 7% during Q1 2020), with China being the main driving force behind the change. Abhilash Kumar, an analyst at Counterpoint, confirmed the growth is being pushed by attractive 5G plans from operators and availability of mid-tier 5G smartphones from several brands. Omdia expects user purchasing behavior to be highly influenced by the strides made in fighting the outbreak and containment of the subsequent threat of new outbreaks. Some countries that looked like they contained COVID-19 are now recording uptick in positive cases, and that might negatively affect sales in the remaining two quarters of 2020. Source Hong Kong will delay upcoming elections for the citys Legislative Council for a year, the citys leader Carrie Lam announced Friday. The move follows the decision Thursday to block 12 pro-democracy candidates including the prominent protest leader Joshua Wong from standing in the September elections for reasons including expressing opposition to the controversial new national security law that was imposed on the city by Beijing on June 30. Speaking in a press conference, Lam cited the worsening COVID-19 situation as the reason for the elections delay, but the opposition say the move is a further indication of Beijings tightening hold on the former British colony. "We face a dire situation in our fight against the virus," Lam said through a translator. "The announcement I have to make today is the most difficult decision I have had to make in the past seven months "It is a really tough decision to delay it but we want to insure fairness and make sure the elections are held in an open fair and impartial manner." Lam added that 4.4 million people, including 600,000 elderly, are registered to vote and polling stations could present a significant health risk. She said that 68 countries have deferred or delayed elections due to the coronavirus. Hong Kong reported over 100 new cases a day for the last 10 days with 121 new cases recorded Friday. At the peak of the initial outbreak on March 29, the territory reported just 82 new cases. The 70-seat Legislative Council sets and amends Hong Kongs laws, but only 35 seats are directly elected by the public. Opposition pro-democracy groups hold 22 of the seats and had hoped to improve on that count and even win a majority by capitalizing on opposition to the new legislation. The grouping of 22 pro-democracy members released a statement accusing the government of using the pandemic to obstruct the election and deprive Hong Kongers of their voting rights. Beyond any doubt, it is the most scandalous election fraud ever in HK history, Wong said in a statement that followed his disqualification. Story continues The HK-style election has never been free and fair since 2016 when candidates like Edward Leung, Nathan Law and Agnes Chow were disqualified one by one from the election, he added. Image: HONG KONG-CHINA-POLITICS (ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP - Getty Images) The delay follows the arrest late Wednesday of four former members of the pro-democracy group Studentlocalism for allegedly calling for Hong Kongs independence, an illegal act under the new national security law. However Studentlocalism had joined other groups in rebranding social media accounts that could breach the new legislation before it came into force. Pro-democracy activists called on the international community to respond. Nathan Law urged foreign powers to react strongly and place sanctions on individuals including Chief Executive Carrie Lam. The situation in Hong Kong is just one of a number of major flashpoints in the worsening diplomatic spat between China and western powers. The U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand all suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong in light of the new national security law which they say breaches the handover agreement with Britain that returned the former colony to Chinese sovereignty. Under that agreement, the freedoms Hong Kong enjoyed relative to the rest of China were guaranteed to continue until 2047. The U.S. has also angered China by closing the countrys consulate in Houston citing Chinas alleged involvement in intellectual property theft and blaming the country for the coronavirus pandemic. China responded by closing the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. While Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido both claim to be president, Maduro maintains control of key assets including the military, media, police and state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA. Guaido, the president of the opposition-led National Assembly, announced early last year that he had assumed Maduros powers atop a caretaker government until new elections could be held. His move was quickly recognized by the U.S., Brazil, and dozens of other countries, but his popularity has since taken a dive because hes failed to deliver the quick transition he promised. His ties to a botched raid led by a retired member of the U.S. army special forces in late April deepened his credibility problem. Russia has continued to recognize Maduro as Venezuelas rightful leader, as have China and Turkey, among others. New product powers more accurate insights by normalizing healthcare data Chicago, IL, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO) launched IMO Precision Normalize, a product that powers more accurate insights with a precise normalization engine that improves clinical, quality, and financial decision-making. The product standardizes inconsistent diagnosis, procedure, medication, and lab data from diverse systems into common, clinically validated terminology for healthcare providers and companies that support them. This product is really exciting for IMO, said Ann Barnes, CEO. We are demonstrating to the market the next generation of our products that use terminology as a foundation and apply it to managing the massive amount of disparate data in healthcare to drive better insights. The total addressable market for the data integration segment in 2019 is $56.1 million globally. It is expected to grow to $120.7 million by 2024.1 With the shift to value-based care, providers and companies that support them are more focused than ever on improving patient outcomes through quality improvement and population health initiatives. As a result, the need for comprehensive, actionable analytics is increasingly important. Customers will use IMO Precision Normalize for clinical insights, improved quality reporting, and to operate more efficiently. The amount of disparate data in healthcare is currently difficult to manage and creates challenges in both the care delivery setting and in how we work to reduce our costs, said Darren Dworkin, Chief Information Officer at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. The industry needs technology that can dramatically help to clean and normalize our data to common, clinically validated, terminology and thats what this product is delivering. Currently, healthcare data can be inconsistent, incomplete, and inaccurate due to variation in clinical documentation, limited interoperability standards, and changes to standards codes. As providers consolidate, IT leaders and data stewards must manage, and leverage data derived from multiple EHRs. The data normalization process requires significant front and back-end time, resources, and coding expertise. Clinical and financial decision-making may be compromised, which may put patient safety, outcomes, and reimbursement at risk. Story continues As a health information exchange (HIE), we support the healthcare community in Colorados diverse data needs and are excited for our opportunity to utilize IMOs clinically validated terminology services to help us fill in information gaps for our HIE participants, said Deanna Towne, Chief Information Officer, Colorado State Regional Health Information Exchange. IMO Precision Normalize delivers value to anywhere healthcare data is being relied on for decision making. Organizations like Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs), Enterprise Data Warehouses (EDWs), HIEs, and health analytics vendors can look to IMO terminology and IMO Precision Normalize to unlock the power of their healthcare data. Learn more about IMO Precision Normalize here. About IMO At IMO, we are dedicated to powering care as you intended, through a platform that is intelligent, intuitive, and intentional. Used by more than 4,500 hospitals and 500,000 physicians daily, IMOs clinical interface terminology (CIT) forms the foundation for healthcare enterprise needs including effective management of Electronic Health Record (EHR) problem lists, accurate documentation, and the mapping of over 2.4 million clinician-friendly terms across 24 different code systems. We offer a portfolio of products that includes terminologies and value sets that are clinically vetted, always current, and maintenance-free. This aligns to provider organizations missions, EHR platforms inherent power, and the evolving vision of the healthcare industry while ensuring accurate care documentation and administrative codes. Clinicians can get back to being clinicians, health systems can get reimbursed, and patients can more easily engage in their own care. As intended. 1 Markets and Markets Terminology report. Data Integration Market from 2017-2024 CONTACT: Jessica Emond Intelligent Medical Objects 2022571808 jemond@imo-online.com PHOENIX If you get your advice from Gov. Doug Ducey youre going to want to vote against at least three of the four measures expected to be on the November ballot. The governor has submitted statements in opposition to proposals to legalize recreational uses of marijuana, increase taxes on the wealthy to help fund education, and a third with various provisions relating to hospitals and health care. But he took no position on a fourth ballot measure to give judges more discretion in sentencing. On marijuana, the governor called what is expected to be on the ballot as Proposition 207 it a bad idea based on false promises, saying the experience from other states shows it will lead to more highway deaths, dramatic increases in teen drug use and more newborns exposed to marijuana. Ducey said the current system of medical marijuana, approved by voters in 2010 is serving the people who need it for health-related reasons. Ducey is not alone, particularly on the issue of whether Arizonans should be able to legally buy and possess marijuana for personal use. The secretary of states office got dozens of arguments from foes. A Baytown man was recently sentenced to two years in prison in a case where he stood accused of groping two girls at separate south Montgomery County Walmart stores one evening last summer. Ryan Daniel Reding, 29, pleaded guilty to indecency with a child, a second-degree felony, in the 221st District Court. On June 30, visiting Judge Paul Damico sentenced Reding to two years with 121 days served. Reding is now required to register as a sex offender, court documents show. Redings sentencing concludes a case that featured more than one unusual development, including the dismissal of charges alleging he threatened to rape another girl at a third Walmart in south county while out on bond. On Aug. 14, Reding groped two girls at the Walmart stores located at 1025 Sawdust in Spring and at 10001 Woodlands in The Woodlands, the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office stated at the time. The girl Reding was prosecuted and convicted for groping was 11 years old, according to court records. BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: Get your Houston breaking news alerts delivered to your Inbox Camera surveillance footage of Reding at one of the stores led to him being identified about five days later and taken into custody in Port Aransas where he was working offshore. While out on a $50,000 bond posted in September, Reding was arrested again after a girl 10 or 11 years old identified him in a photo line-up as the man who on Oct. 3 tried groping her at the Walmart at 2901 Riley Fuzzel in Spring, according to a probable cause affidavit. A grand jury in the 221st District Court reviewed that case and on Jan. 23 dismissed the second-degree criminal attempt charges against Reding after finding no grounds for prosecution, court records show. As a result, Reding was once more released from jail custody. He was booked again in March after his mother requested to revoke bond, according to jail and court records. Redings mother stated he is acting in an incomprehensible way, not listening to reason, being belligerent towards her. She feels he is incompetent to make reasonable decisions; he cannot control his temper, a court affidavit read in part. MORE FROM JOSE R. GONZALEZ: Montgomery Countys Wayne Mack named Texas justice of the peace Earlier that same month, court records show presiding Judge Lisa Michalk approved defense attorney William Patillos request to withdraw from the case. Reding, the motion read, did not comply with the terms of employment agreed upon with his lawyer. Court records, however, still list Patillo as Redings attorney. On Wednesday, Patillo was unable to be reached for comment. Reding is to serve out his sentence with the Texas Department of Criminal Justices prison system. As of July 29, he was still being held at the Montgomery County Jail, according to jail records. jose.gonzalez@chron.com twitter.com/jrgzztx While the coronavirus surges across San Francisco again, city officials are bracing for the worst possible outcome: mass infections by the fall, potentially overloading the city's health care system, and a sharp uptick in the city's death toll. In a virtual press conference Thursday, San Francisco Department of Public Health Dr. Grant Colfax confirmed the number of hospitalized COVID patients is higher than it's ever been, underscoring the urgent need for city residents to self-correct in mitigating the spread of the virus. During the last peak in April, 94 people were hospitalized. Six weeks ago, that figure dropped down to 26. But by late July, the number of those hospitalized jumped up to 107. Of those, Colfax noted, one-quarter are in intensive care. "In just 10 days, this month we went from 5,000 to 6,000 cases of COVID-19," he said. "Let me be clear: We are in a major surge of COVID-19. The virus is moving fast and more people are getting very ill. If this continues at current rates we estimate on average we will have more than 750 San Franciscans in the hospital by mid-October and more than 600 deaths from COVID-19 in 2020. [The] worst case scenario puts us at 2,400 hospitalizations and 1,800 deaths. These scenarios become more likely as each day goes by with the current trends." Such figures seem frightening, but at this point, they are still preventable. The city has recorded 6,423 cases and 58 deaths as of Thursday. Colfax noted San Francisco's hospitals aren't overwhelmed like they were in New York, but that "it is extremely sobering that we have reached this point." Dr. George Rutherford, professor of epidemiology at University of California, San Francisco, mostly agrees with the city's assessment and current projections. While the current R0 score is just north of 1 substantially lower than it was a week or so ago the figures the city predicts for the near future likely still hold weight. "They have been accurate in the past," Rutherford says of projections for up to 4-6 weeks ahead. "As you go out further it's anybodys guess. We use a variety of inputs to get estimates for where things could be, [but] it's not like we have a pool about this or are betting on it. Theyre meant for planning purposes. If [Colfax] is putting those numbers out there, that's what they're planning on." City officials are currently working to find the best ways to weather a surge in hospitalizations. On Thursday, Colfax and District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani announced a 93 person-capacity low acuity care center for non-COVID patients to free up hospital beds for coronavirus cases. And an additional floor was previously opened up for COVID patients at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. As for what might happen later on this year, Rutherford is less certain about the city's estimates. While the notion that an average of more than 750 people daily could be hospitalized is plausible, he's not so sure about the predicted death toll of 600, noting it "seems a bit far off." "But if this starts getting back into nursing homes or if we get so many young people infected we see them spread into the ICU and mortuaries that's going to be very problematic," he adds. As for those worst-case-scenario numbers? It's still hard to say. There is a possibility that that could happen, Rutherford says, but that outcome is far from certain at this point. "That's the problem with modeling out too far," he says, "you get wide-ranging numbers, but you've got to plan on something." All this aside, the future scenario that Rutherford is really concerned about isn't strictly about the coronavirus it's about the flu, too. "Is everybody going to be slow to get flu shots, and are we going to start flooding emergency departments with people with influenza and people with COVID at the same time?" It's a scary thought, but he adds the best way for San Franciscans to prevent overwhelming hospitals is to follow recommendations from the health department to do the things that are within their power. "They can stay home when theyre sick, they can avoid going indoors, they can get a flu shot," he says. "Thats what they can control." And they should follow the advice Colfax delivered again on Thursday: "Please wear a mask. It's not that hard." Alyssa Pereira is a culture editor at SFGate. Email: alyssa.pereira@sfgate.com | Twitter: @alyspereira Beyonce offered rare glimpses of her three-year-old twins Sir and Rumi in her family-filled new visual album Black Is King. The 38-year-old pop diva set the internet ablaze this Friday when her new film dropped on the streaming platform Disney+. She cradles Rumi in her arms during a three-generational family photo and includes a picture of Sir at the end of the movie, which is dedicated to him. Three generations: Beyonce is joined by her daughters Blue Ivy, eight, and Rumi, three, as well as by her mother Tina Lawson in her new visual album Black Is King Beyonce shares the twins as well as her eight-year-old daughter Blue Ivy Carter with her husband Jay-Z, who also makes an appearance. During the visuals for her song Brown Skin Girl, Beyonce poses up with both of her daughters as well as her mother Tina Lawson. All four of them are wearing matching floral outfits as they gather together in a meadow as if standing for a portrait. Family time: All four of them are wearing matching floral outfits as they gather together in a meadow as if standing for a portrait Star turn: Blue Ivy makes several appearances in the visual and also gives vocal performances in the music, including on Brown Skin Girl and My Power Blue Ivy makes several appearances in the visual and also gives vocal performances in the music, including on Brown Skin Girl and My Power. Black Is King ends with a picture of Rumi's twin brother which appears along with text saying the project is 'dedicated to my son, Sir Carter.' Beyonce adds underneath the dedication: 'And to all our sons and daughters, the sun and the moon bow for you. You are the keys to the kingdom.' Grandeur: When Beyonce rose to fame in the girl group Destiny's Child, they were managed by her father Mathew Knowles and Tina made their costumes The celebrity guest stars in the video include legendary 1990s Supermodel Naomi Campbell and Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o. Kelly Rowland, who shot to fame with Beyonce and Michelle Williams in the girl group Destiny's Child, is also featured. The women have remained personal friends as well and Tina even referred to Kelly as one of her 'daughters' in a Time magazine piece. Chinese video-making app TikTok will now reveal its algorithm, moderation policies, and data flows to regulators. The move comes shortly after TikTok created a $200 million fund for creators and influencers in the US. TikTok says by revealing its algorithm, it aims to become more transparent and accountable. The company has also invited other big tech companies to follow suit. TikTok has been facing scrutiny in the US as the government earlier said it is looking at banning the app for spying on users' data. TikTok currently faces global backlash over privacy concerns. TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer in a blog post said, "The entire industry has received scrutiny, and rightly so. Yet, we have received even more scrutiny due to the company's Chinese origins. We accept this and embrace the challenge of giving peace of mind through greater transparency and accountability. We believe it is essential to show users, advertisers, creators, and regulators that we are responsible and committed members of the American community that follows US laws." Asking the other companies to disclose their algorithms Mayer said, "Even more, we believe our entire industry should be held to an exceptionally high standard. That's why we believe all companies should disclose their algorithms, moderation policies, and data flows to regulators. We will not wait for regulation to come, but instead, TikTok has taken the first step by launching a Transparency and Accountability Center for moderation and data practices. Experts can observe our moderation policies in real-time, as well as examine the actual code that drives our algorithms. This puts us a step ahead of the industry, and we encourage others to follow suit." The TikTok CEO further said the company welcomes a healthy competition calling Instagram Reels a copycat product. He also challenged the short-form app to "bring it on." Reels is slated to release in the US in August. Mayer said Facebook's previous video-making tool Lasso was also a copycat product and that it had failed quickly. "At TikTok we welcome competition. We think fair competition makes all of us better. To those who wish to launch competitive products, we say bring it on. Facebook is even launching another copycat product, Reels (tied to Instagram) after their other copycat Lasso failed quickly. But let's focus our energies on fair and open competition in service of our consumers, rather than maligning attacks by our competitor namely Facebook disguised as patriotism and designed to put an end to our very presence in the US." TikTok has also said that it would offer 10,000 job positions in the US over the next three years. "TikTok has become the latest target, but we are not the enemy," Mayer said. TikTok was banned in India with 58 other Chinese apps over security concerns. PHILADELPHIA, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Aberdeen Global Income Fund, Inc. (NYSE American: FCO) (the "Fund"), a closed-end fund, today announced that it paid on July 31, 2020, a distribution of US $0.07 per share to all shareholders of record as of July 20, 2020 (ex-dividend date July 17, 2020). Your Fund's distribution policy is to provide investors with a stable monthly distribution out of current income, supplemented by realized capital gains and, to the extent necessary, paid-in capital. Under U.S. tax rules applicable to the Fund, the amount and character of distributable income for each fiscal year can be finally determined only as of the end of the Fund's fiscal year. However, under Section 19 of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the "1940 Act") and related Rules, the Fund may be required to indicate to shareholders the estimated source of certain distributions to shareholders. The following table sets forth the estimated amounts of the sources of the distribution for purposes of Section 19 of the 1940 Act and the Rules adopted thereunder. The table has been computed based on generally accepted accounting principles. The table includes estimated amounts and percentages for this distribution and for the cumulative distributions paid relating to fiscal year to date (11/01/2019 - 06/30/2020), from the following sources: net investment income; net realized short-term capital gains; net realized long-term capital gains; and return of capital. The estimated composition of the distributions may vary from month to month because the estimated composition may be impacted by future income, expenses and realized gains and losses on securities and currencies. Estimated Amounts of Current Monthly Distribution per share ($) Estimated Amounts of Current Monthly Distribution per share (%) Estimated Amounts of Fiscal Year to Date Cumulative Distributions per share ($) Estimated Amounts of Fiscal Year to Date Cumulative Distributions per share (%) Net Investment Income $0.0294 42% $0.2646 42% Net Realized Short-Term Capital Gains* - - - - Net Realized Long-Term Capital Gains - - - - Return of Capital $0.0406 58% $0.3654 58% Total (per common share) $0.0700 100% $0.6300 100% *includes currency gains The Fund estimates that it has distributed more than its income and capital gains; therefore, a portion of your distribution may be a return of capital. A return of capital may occur for example, when some or all of the money that you invested in the Fund is paid back to you. A return of capital distribution does not necessarily reflect the Fund's investment performance and should not be confused with "yield" or "income." Shareholders should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the amount of the Fund's current distributions or from the terms of the distribution policy (the "Distribution Policy"). The amounts and sources of distributions reported in this notice are only estimates and are not being provided for tax reporting purposes. The final determination of the source of all distributions in 2020 will be made after year-end. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the remainder of the fiscal year and may be subject to change based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report these distributions for federal income tax purposes. The following table provides information regarding the Fund's total return performance based on net asset value (NAV) over various time periods compared to the Fund's annualized and cumulative distribution rates. Average Annual Total Return on NAV for the 5 Year Period Ending 06/30/20201 1.73% Current Fiscal Period's Annualized Distribution Rate on NAV2 12.88% Fiscal Year to Date (11/01/2019 to 06/30/2020) Cumulative Total Return on NAV1 (9.49%) Cumulative Distribution Rate on NAV2 8.59% 1Return data is net of all fund expenses and fees and assumes the reinvestment of all distributions reinvested at prices obtained under the Fund's dividend reinvestment plan. 2 Based on the Fund's NAV as of June 30, 2020. While NAV performance may be indicative of the Fund's investment performance, it does not measure the value of a shareholder's investment in the Fund. The value of a shareholder's investment in the Fund is determined by the Fund's market price, which is based on the supply and demand for the Fund's shares in the open market. Pursuant to an exemptive order granted by the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 30, 2010, the Fund may distribute any long-term capital gains more frequently than the limits provided in Section 19(b) under the 1940 Act and Rule 19b-1 thereunder. Therefore, distributions paid by the Fund during the year may include net income, short-term capital gains, long-term capital gains and/or a return of capital. Net income dividends and short-term capital gain dividends, while generally taxable at ordinary income rates, may be eligible, to the extent of qualified dividend income earned by the Fund, to be taxed at a lower rate not to exceed the maximum rate applicable to your long-term capital gains. Distributions made in any calendar year in excess of investment company taxable income and net capital gain are treated as taxable ordinary dividends to the extent of undistributed earnings and profits, and then as a return of capital that reduces the adjusted basis in the shares held. To the extent return of capital distributions exceed the adjusted basis in the shares held, capital gain is recognized with a holding period based on the period the shares have been held at the date such amount is received. Shareholders should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the terms of the distribution policy. The final determination of the source of all distributions will be made after year-end. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the fiscal year and may be subject to change based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report distributions for federal income tax purposes. The payment of distributions in accordance with the Distribution Policy may result in a decrease in the Fund's net assets. A decrease in the Fund's net assets may cause an increase in the Fund's annual operating expense ratio and a decrease in the Fund's market price per share to the extent the market price correlates closely to the Fund's net asset value per share. The Distribution Policy may also negatively affect the Fund's investment activities to the extent that the Fund is required to hold larger cash positions than it typically would hold or to the extent that the Fund must liquidate securities that it would not have sold, for the purpose of paying the distribution. The Fund's Board of Directors has the right to amend, suspend or terminate the Distribution Policy at any time. The amendment, suspension or termination of the Distribution Policy may affect the Fund's market price per share. Investors should consult their tax advisor regarding federal, state and local tax considerations that may be applicable in their particular circumstances. Circular 230 disclosure : To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the U.S. Treasury, we inform you that any U.S. tax advice contained in this communication (including any attachments) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed herein. In the United States, Aberdeen Standard Investments is the marketing name for the following affiliated, registered investment advisers: Aberdeen Standard Investments Inc., Aberdeen Asset Managers Ltd., Aberdeen Standard Investments Australia Ltd., Aberdeen Standard Investments (Asia) Ltd., Aberdeen Capital Management, LLC, Aberdeen Standard Investments ETFs Advisors LLC and Standard Life Investments (Corporate Funds) Ltd. Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Fund's investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investor's shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the NAV of the fund's portfolio. There is no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective. Past performance does not guarantee future results. If you If you wish to receive this information electronically, please contact [email protected] aberdeenfco.com SOURCE Aberdeen Global Income Fund, Inc. Related Links http://www.aberdeenfco.com In reaction to the deployment of federal agents in cities across the U.S., protesters gathered outside the 1550 Main St. building that houses federal agencies in Springfield Thursday. The protest was to condemn a decision that they feel infringes on their First Amendment rights. Were here because as you know, one of the things that is happening now is the president of the United States is sending troops to various cities and I happen to be in Washington D.C. when he sent the troops there last month, said Paki Wieland, an organizer with Western Mass, CODEPINK. It was startling to see what happened the day they were there they were in their camouflage and had military police across the chest and this atmosphere was so full of tension. CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. warfare and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives and redirect tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs. Protesters gather outside the federal building at 1550 Main St., Springfield , Springfield to condem the deployment of federal agents in cities across the U.S. (Douglas Hook / MassLive) The old federal building on Main Street is significant because it houses a number of U.S. agencies including the Internal Revenue Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Labor Department. Wielands personal account of her experience in the capital was mirrored in Portland, Ore. when President Donald J. Trump sent federal authorities as protests against racial injustice have increasingly targeted U.S. government property, including the courthouse in downtown Portland. The deployment appeared to have the opposite effect, reinvigorating demonstrations with a new focus: getting rid of the federal presence. Protesters in Springfield see this as a potential constitutional crisis. Federal officers at protests in Oregons largest city that have been hailed by Trump but were held without local consent. The standoff could escalate there and elsewhere as Trump says he plans to send federal agents to other cities. [D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser] said to the president to get [the federal agents] out of here and believe it or not, he did, said Wieland. The next day we went back to the same place right after the H Street and 16th, right after the park and the atmosphere is totally different, people were really celebrating our First Amendment right. Jossie Valentin, state policy advisor for Sen. Ed Markey was invited to the event to read statements of support from Markey and Sen. Elizabeth Warren condeming the deployment of federal agents in cities across the U.S. (Douglas Hook / MassLive) Invited to the protest to speak at the protest, Jossie Valentin spoke on behalf of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose presidential campaign she worked on, as well as Sen. Ed Markey. Valentin currently serves Markeys state policy advisor. She read out both statements to the gathered crowd. President Trump has used these forces, who are improperly trained, unsuited for their operations and have engaged in legally questionable tactics, in American cities despite clear opposition from governors, mayors and people in the communities in which they have been deployed, Warren said in the statement. Police in Oregon are now preparing to take over the protection of the federal courthouse in Portland thats been a target of violent protests, in a deal between the governor and the Trump administration that aimed to draw down the federal presence. These agents should be immediately withdrawn. We need to ban the use of unidentified officers. We must require federal officers to wear identifying insignia, said Markey in the statement read by Valentin. We must limit federal forces to the immediate vicinity of federal property unless there has been a written request by local leadership for a broader law enforcement operation. This did not happen in Portland. These federal agents were not requested. As Valentin read the statements from the senators to the crowd listened intently, making sure they heard every word above the sound of cars passing on Main Street. Protesters gather outside the federal building at 1550 Main St., Springfield , Springfield to condem the deployment of federal agents in cities across the U.S. (Douglas Hook / MassLive) This can happen anywhere. If its happening there, it can happen here. Thats what we always want to talk about, said Holly Richardson, coordinator at LGBTQ rights organization Out Now. City leaders themselves in Portland have said that the protests were all going okay, and they escalated the minute that the feds were sent in. Thats when things got worse. So, lets let the locals handle the locals. Portland city officials had demanded the Trump administration remove what they called a heavy-handed army of federal agents who have been grabbing protesters off the streets, tactics that federal officials defended as legal and necessary to quell ongoing unrest. In the statements from both Markey and Warren, Trump and his administration were criticized for the heavy-handed approach and likened to a totalitarian regime rather than the president of a democracy. Markey commented that the president sending federal agents is like turning, our country into a fascist state monitored by secret police. Protesters gather outside the federal building at 1550 Main St., Springfield , Springfield to condem the deployment of federal agents in cities across the U.S. (Douglas Hook / MassLive) Warren asked that Attorney General William Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf, and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to commit that they will not let Trump use these forces in the event he loses the election and doesnt want to leave office peacefully. Many of the protesters at the rally echoed the worries the senators have and feel their inalienable rights, guaranteed under the constitution, under threat. Got a news tip or want to contact MassLive about this story? Email newstips@masslive.com or message us on Facebook or Twitter. You can also call our news tips line at 413-776-1364. This weeks neighbourhood resto round-up heads to Transcona, home to the vast Regent Avenue strip, a wonderful, walkable old downtown hub, some terrific thrift stores (shout-out to the well-organized book section at Mission Thrift!), and a whole lot of eateries. Here are just a few: Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. This weeks neighbourhood resto round-up heads to Transcona, home to the vast Regent Avenue strip, a wonderful, walkable old downtown hub, some terrific thrift stores (shout-out to the well-organized book section at Mission Thrift!), and a whole lot of eateries. Here are just a few: (Keep in mind that restaurant information can change rapidly right now, so check websites or social media for updated info.) RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS LArche Tova Cafe is a popular spot, so expect lineups to get in at peak times. RISE AND SHINE: LArche Tova Cafe (119 Regent Ave. W., 204-421-9388, larchetovacafe.com) is all about good grub, good value and a good feeling. Serving up big breakfasts, lunch platters and light snacks, this neighbourly joint is a social enterprise run by LArche Winnipeg, part of a Canadian-founded organization that supports the community life of people with developmental disabilities. The Blue Collar Special, including two eggs, meat, potatoes and toast, is a steal of a deal at $5.90. Service is warm and chatty, with lots of coffee top-ups. This modestly sized venue is popular, though, so there might be lineups at peak hours. JESSE BOILY / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A falafel wrap is one of Maggis Syrian specialties. STAND-OUT FOOD STAND: Located in a small corner lot in downtown Transcona, Maggis (102 Victoria Ave. E., facebook.com/SyrianMaggis/) is a family-owned takeout stand that serves up the usual burgers and dogs, along with such Syrian specials as kebabs, shawarma, falafel and chopped salad. The home-baked baklava, with a layer of green pistachios, is heavenly, as are the rolled date pastries with just a kiss of cinnamon and anise. A great option for those who prefer doing takeout right now, Maggis has several picnic tables currently covered in easy-to-clean plastic for outdoor dining. If you know where the Whistle Pig used to be, you know where to find Maggis. JESSE BOILY / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Roberto Galli is the owner and pastry chef at Dolce Bake shop where indoor seating has fallen prey to the pandemic, but which still offers a full assortment of baking. LA DOLCE VITA: The indoor seating for patrons wanting to linger over coffee and pastries may be temporarily suspended at Dolce Bake Shop (1565 Regent Ave. W., 204-505-1444, dolcebakeshop.ca), but the baking is going strong. This small shop is packed with candies, confections, cookies, cakes basically, all kinds of sweet treats. Along with customized specialties, the bakery offers darling cupcakes with dangerous amounts of airy buttercream and a whole range of cookies, from Argentinian alfajores to imperials, those jam-filled hometown favourites. JESSE BOILY / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Giorgo Kodalonis, left, and Alicia Farr at Dals Restaurant and Lounge. LOCAL LANDMARK: The renovated decor is sleek and contemporary at Dals Restaurant and Lounge (701 Regent Ave. W., 204-222-4255, dalsrestaurant.ca), but this beloved Transcona establishment has been cooking up burgers, chicken, ribs and pizza for over five decades. The meaty Fat Boy burger has lots of chili-sauce messiness (anticipated with extra napkins from the get-go), and the robust Greek salad gets a tasty and secret! dressing. (Only two people know the recipe, my server tells me.) Dals also does takeout and delivery. One note: the restaurant will be shut for the August long weekend. Try our Dish The latest on food and drink in Winnipeg and beyond from arts writers Ben Sigurdson and Eva Wasney. Dish arrives in your inbox every other Friday. See sample. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. JESSE BOILY / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS We don't want to come between you and your grandmother, but the perogies at Sevala's might well be 'just like baba makes.' DELI DELICIOUS: Tucked away on a quiet street, Sevalas Ukrainian Deli (126 Victoria Ave. W., 204-224-4900, sevalas.com) promises favourite dishes "Just Like Baba Makes." We took home the perogies filled with potato and extra (!) cheese and some tender cabbage rolls with a smoky bacon finish, and while we dont want to get between anyone and their baba when it comes to cooking, everything tasted grandmother-style good. Theres a variety of fresh packages of perogies, cabbage rolls and pyryshky to take out, but you can also stock up with frozen bulk quantities, as well as prepared foods such as soups, meatballs, chilies and cutlets. And because Baba is up-to-date, there are gluten-free perogies and several vegan options available. The deli is currently limiting the number of customers inside at one time, but you can arrange for delivery or curbside pickup (and enjoy that crazy mural energy on the parking-lot-side wall while you wait). alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca Mukesh Ranjan By Express News Service RANCHI: Lifting of soil from over 50 Sarna Sthal (common religious place in tribal villages) all over Jharkhand to use it in bhumi pujan for construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhaya on August 5, has sparked controversy among tribal community in Jharkhand. Some of the tribal organisations, alleging Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) of conspiring to brand tribal people as Hindu in connivance with BJP leaders, have decided to launch a nationwide campaign against VHP and RSS to create an awareness against the conspiracy hatched by them. According to VHP, a drive was carried out for collecting soil and sacred water from 2,100 religious places in Jharkhand, under which, soil were collected from 18 Gurudwara, 2 Buddha Vihar, 16 Mahavir Akhara, 11 Jain Mandir and 1100 Sarna Stahal. ALSO READ | Four lakh laddoos to be sent to Delhi to mark Ayodhya's Ram temple's 'Bhumi Pujan' This is a direct attack on identity of tribal and people and their culture which could not be tolerated at any cost. We have called a nationwide tribal conference in February next year during which a campaign will be launched against VHP, RSS and other outfits which have been trying to brand tribals people as Hindu, said academician and tribal leader Dr Karma Oraon. It will be ensured that not a single seat in Assembly or Parliament goes to BJP leaders, who are the key conspirators, he added. According to Oraon, tribal race is entirely different from Aryans; hence there is no connection between the two. This exercise is being done only to take political gains by misguiding the poor and innocent tribals, he said. A majority tribal population believes that tribals are not Hindu then why they want them forcefully to embrace Hinduism. We have our own religious beliefs and practices and this is an attempt to interfere with the sentiments of the tribals, said the academician. Adivasi Jan Parishad President Prem Shahi Munda also asserted that they strongly object lifting of soil from Sarna Sthal because tribal community is distinct ethnic groups with its own cultural identity. We have nothing to do with the temple they are going to construct in Ayodhya. We dont consider ourselves as Hindu, said Munda. Meanwhile, an FIR has also been lodged against former MLA and BJPs Women Wing President Aarti Kujoor and another tribal leader Megha Oraon at Chanho and Dhurwa Police Stations respectively for stealing soils from Sarna Sthal without taking consent from the tribal society. Kujoor, however, claimed that objection is being raised by a handful of tribal organizations which does not represent the entire tribal community in Jharkhand. Moreover, soils were not taken by ourselves but were handed over to us by respective pahan (priest) in the village after we put our proposals before them. Since, Sarna Sthal is a property of the entire village, they will decide whether they want to give it to us or not, rather than a handful of people sitting in their homes, said Kujoor. Referring to the allegations made on her of branding tribals as Hindu, she said that every tribal village has a Devi Mandap itself, is a proof that they are a part of the larger Hindu community. Former BJP MLA also said that in democracy everybody has a right to raise his or her voice and protest in a democratic way without hurting sentiments of anybody. There are hundreds of examples to show there was no major difference in the religious beliefs and practices of the tribal people with those of the Hindus, she said. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, in a rare interview, on Friday acknowledged the scale of security problems in two troubled regions, saying developments were "very, very disturbing". Buhari came to power in 2015 vowing to crush a bloody jihadist revolt in the northeast, which has escalated while violence by criminal gangs has spread in the centre and northwest of the country. Referring to the latter regions, Buhari said, "What is coming up in the northwest and north central is very, very disturbing indeed. "I believe the military, the police and other law enforcement agencies, from the reports I am getting, I think they could do much better," he said on national TV. "They could do much better, but we are keeping them on the alert all the time to do their duties." Buhari, a 77-year-old former general, has typically had close ties with the military, often insisting that the country's security problems were under control. His criticism of the security forces came only days after armed forces chief Tukur Buratai said he was "proud" that Nigerians "are living in peace, and Nigeria is safer now than... five years ago". Boko Haram's insurgency in northeastern Nigeria has claimed more than 36,000 lives in 10 years and forced around two million people from their homes. The jihadists have also stepped up their attacks in the Lake Chad region abutting Nigeria, affecting Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Four people were killed late Thursday when rockets slammed into Maiduguri, the main town of Borno state, where Boko Haram first emerged. Conflict of a different kind has gripped the northwest and north-central of the country, hitting the states of Zamfara, Kaduna, Sokoto and Katsina. Here criminal gangs have spread terror in rural areas, stealing cattle, carrying out ransom kidnappings and carrying out ruthless raids on villages. They are not deemed to have an ideological motive, although some commentators have warned that they could link up with jihadists, noting an ambush in Katsina that killed at least 23 troops. Last week, the Senate passed a resolution calling for military chiefs to resign or be fired over the country's "deteriorating security situation". The house also asked for an official investigation after a newspaper reported that 356 soldiers had asked "for voluntary retirement" early this month because of poor conditions and high risks. Search Keywords: Short link: The restriction on Import of colour TVs in India was announced by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT). The import policy for colour televisions has been changed from free to restricted. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has announced a restriction on the import of colour TVs in India. The import restriction changes the import policy on TVs in India from free to restricted. According to the DGFT, Other colour, Television sets of screen size up to 36 cm, television sets of screen size exceeding 36 cm but not exceeding 54 cm, television sets of screen size exceeding 54 cm but not exceeding 68 cm, television sets of screen size exceeding 68 cm but not exceeding 74 cm, television sets of screen size exceeding 74 cm but not exceeding 87 cm, television sets of screen size exceeding 87 cm but not exceeding 105 cm, television sets of screen size exceeding 105 cm, liquid crystal display television set of screen size below 63 cm and other will be impacted by the change in the policy. DGFT has vide Notification No. 22/2015-2020 dated 30.07.2020 notified the change in Import Policy of colour television sets under HS codes 8528 7211 to 8528 7219. For more details, please refer to the link below -https://t.co/ugxp9CPxiW DGFT (@dgftindia) July 30, 2020 The statement goes on to say, "Actual user conditions would not be applicable for importers applying for an authorization to import the goods 'Restricted' in this Notification. The procedure for grant of license will be separately issued by DGFT". Indian Government imposes a restriction on import of colour TVs When it comes to the TV market, India imported TVs worth $781 million in the year ending 31 March 2020. Over $400 million worth of TVs were imported from Vietnam and nearly $300 million worth of Tvs were imported from China. According to the Economic Times, around 35% of TV sets sold in the country are imported. How this change in policy affects the import of TVs is something only time will tell. It is obvious that the move is done to boost the local manufacturing of TVs in India. Digit reached out to a number of TV brands selling their products in India and the following is what they had to say. Satish Padmanabhan, Head of Sales at Sony India said, Sony has been investing heavily to shift local manufacturing of televisions to India since 2015. Currently, we are successfully manufacturing 99% of BRAVIA televisions in India and we are quite satisfied with the production quality, which is at par with global standards and well accepted by our Indian consumers. We have faith in the Government and this step has built the right momentum for Indias journey to becoming self-reliant. Avneet Singh Marwah, CEO Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd, a Kodak Brand Licensee and Exclusive Brand Licensee of Thomson TVs in India said, "This is a great move for assembling in India, but for a self-reliant India, we need to complete ecosystem of value addition. We need to have component and panel display manufacturing plant in India." He goes on to say, The new announcement by DGFT will be a step towards encouraging homegrown brands to invest in manufacturing capabilities within India and lead to more employment, technology advancement and local partnerships. Mike Chen, General Manager, TCL India said, "TCL since its factory unveiling in 2018 is heavily trying to create localization. We're planning our inventories in every possible way to support the demand. The business won't be much impacted. We are flexible enough to accommodate government mandates". Arjun Bajaaj - CEO & Founder Daiwa said, "This is a good first step towards boosting local TV manufacturing in India. This will also open many new job opportunities. With local manufacturing by Indian manufacturers customers will get better products as from China the products coming in the form of CBU were just standardised products". Anand Dubey, CEO Compaq Televisions said, "While its a move in the right direction and something which we have also been working on by investing in manufacturing in India, it would help businesses if such moves are taken steadily. What we would really encourage is the emphasis on high-quality component manufacturing, especially panels for which currently the industry is almost entirely dependent on foreign markets". The government of India banned 59 Chinese apps in India including TikTok and you can read about the 59 banned apps here. The Indian Government has banned 47 new apps that were allowing access to banned Chinese apps. And you can read more about it here. Paris Hilton hasn't had the best luck with relationships, calling off her engagement to Chris Zylka in 2018. But the celebrity socialite has been getting serious with boyfriend Carter Reum over the past year. She laid a big smooch on her beau Thursday, as she took to Instagram with a sweet video and a poetic tribute, wishing him a happy anniversary. Kiss kiss: Paris Hilton laid a big smooch on her boyfriend Carter Reum Thursday, as she took to Instagram with a sweet video and a poetic tribute, wishing him a happy anniversary The 39-year-old wrote: 'Happy Anniversary my love! From the moment you walked into my life you changed it in every way. Every day with you has been a blessing. You have shown me what true love really is. 'Thank you for all the incredible memories, the late night laughs and the early morning kisses. Thank you for making me feel safe, holding my hand through this life and proving that good men still exist. 'In you Ive found the love of my life, my other half, my partner, and my best friend. Thank you for making me the happiest girl in the world! Im so excited for our future together! I love you forever and ever!' She also cozied up to Reum in a hammock, celebrating the occasion with a sweet selfie and a poetic tribute to their blossoming relationship. Happy anniversary! The 39-year-old also cozied up to Reum in a hammock, celebrating the occasion with a sweet selfie and a poetic tribute to their blossoming relationship Insta official: It's not quite clear which milestone they're celebrating, as she also wished him a happy anniversary back on April 29, while also making their relationship Instagram official Hilton wrote: 'She opened her eyes and didnt wonder, she knew deep in her heart & soul. Every day he tells her how much he loves her, how beautiful she is to him. That she is his favorite, his only, his love. 'That when the sun comes up every morning he chooses her and that he always will. And she knows in he means every word he tells her. She is rested in his assurances. 'She finally released all the broken promises in her past and believed she could trust her heart just this once more... Happy Anniversary my love, I love you to the moon and back!' It's not quite clear which milestone they're celebrating, as she also wished him a happy anniversary back on April 29, while also making their relationship Instagram official. She shared another kissing photo at the time, writing: 'Happy Anniversary my love. My favorite thing to do is make memories with you. Your kisses are magical. I love being yours and knowing you're mine.' Red carpet debut: Hilton was first romantically linked to Reum when he accompanied her to a Golden Globe afterparty in January (pictured in January, 2020) Happy couple: A source told E! News at the time: 'They are very happy together. They met through friends, and everyone is saying what a great couple they make' Romantic getaway: The House of Wax actress recently relived a trip to the mountains with Reum, 39, taking to Instagram last week from a ski resort in Big Sky, Montana The House of Wax actress recently relived a trip to the mountains with Reum, 39, taking to Instagram last week from a ski resort in Big Sky, Montana. She captioned the throwback photo: 'For the two of us, home isnt a place. Its a person. And were finally home.' Hilton was first romantically linked to Reum when he accompanied her to a Golden Globe afterparty in January, A source told E! News at the time: 'They are very happy together. They met through friends, and everyone is saying what a great couple they make.' It marked her first public date since breaking off her brief engagement with Chris Zylka, 35, in November of 2018. Government officials say they released the fighters because the young prisoners are victims themselves. In Libya, dozens of captured teenage fighters have been released as part of an amnesty for the Eid al-Adha holiday. They were among hundreds taken prisoner during renegade military commander Khalifa Haftars failed battle to seize the capital, Tripoli. Al Jazeeras Mahmoud Abdelwahed reports from al-Zawiya. (JNS) - Since taking office in 2019, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has become one of the most outspoken critics of Israel in the U.S. Congress. She has become part of a growing cadre of young progressives within the Democratic Party whom critics fear will erode the long-heralded bipartisan support for Israel. Last month, this concern further grew when pro-Israel Democratic stalwart Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), who headed the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee, lost in a primary to Jamaal Bowman, another up-and-coming progressive. Yet for Antone Melton-Meaux, who is one of four candidates... Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., NY) has some thoughts about St. Damien of Molokai, the 19th-century Belgian missionary priest who ministered to a leper colony in the Aloha State. In an Instagram story uploaded Thursday, the congresswoman, who once complained about not being able to afford an apartment after being elected to a position that pays her $174,000 a year and will provide her with free health-care and other benefits for the rest of her life, singled out a statue of Damien, who lived in vowed poverty and eventually died of leprosy himself, as a representative example of "what patriarchy and white supremacist culture looks [sic] like." She was not referring to the saint's life or manner of conduct, but to the fact that he is memorialized inside the Capitol while Queen Lili'uokalani, the last monarch of the kingdom of Hawaii, is not. Ocasio-Cortez is probably not aware of the fact that the statue of the saint is a replica of one that stands outside the Hawaii State Capitol in Honolulu, that he spoke and preached in the Hawaiian language, that his feast day is a holiday in Hawaii, or that he is routinely named in lists of the most admired figures in modern Hawaiian history. After Damien was canonized in 2009, President Obama wrote the following words to Pope Benedict XVI: Fr. Damien has also earned a special place in the hearts of Hawaiians. I recall many stories from my youth about his tireless work there to care for those suffering from leprosy who had been cast out. Following in the steps of Jesus ministry to the lepers, Fr. Damien challenged the stigmatizing effects of disease, giving voice to the voiceless and ultimately sacrificing his own life to bring dignity to so many. [Obama] Nor is Damien's fame limited to these shores or to the Catholic faithful. When a Scottish clergyman referred to Damien as "a coarse, dirty man" in a letter, his fellow Presbyterian Robert Louis Stevenson responded with a 6,000-word essay in praise of the saint. In his native country Damien has been named De Grootste Belg, "the greatest Belgian." Gandhi once quipped that neither politics nor journalism had produced many "heroes who compare with Father Damien of Molokai." To be fair, Ocasio-Cortez is not actually calling St. Damien a white supremacist. Im sure she would agree that lots of people can exemplify "patriarchy and white supremacist culture" by having statues of themselves erected for their heroic service to non-white communities. She just picked a bad example. Nobodys perfect. More stories from theweek.com The most damning inside portrait of the Trump administration yet The housing crisis is here 5 brutally funny cartoons about Bill Barrs brand of justice There are no exceptions on the road for the President's Office vehicles, and there can't be any, the statement says. The President's Office has commented on a recent journalistic investigation by RFE/RL's Skhemy [Schemes] project, where reporters showed Volodymyr Zelensky's motorcade allegedly violating traffic rules. "Undoubtedly, there are no systematic violations of traffic rules. This is an exclusively speculative interpretation of events," the President's Office told Ukrainian Pravda. All traffic violators, if any, are recorded and prosecuted in the manner prescribed by law by specially authorized representatives of the patrol police. Read alsoUkraine to toughen punishment for DUI "There are no exceptions for the cars of employees of the President's Office, and there can't be any," the Office said. As UNIAN reported earlier, investigative journalists with the Schemes project in their latest story told and showed how President Zelensky's motorcade violated traffic rules. Besides speeding, the vehicles involved were shown crossing the double solid lines and made prohibited turns, endangering other motorists. Moreover, journalists said, violations were recorded as the president was being driven in private matters or heading home. A Ugandan court has sentenced a poacher to 11 years in jail for killing a rare, endangered mountain gorilla, a conservation official said Thursday. The 25-year-old silverback gorilla named Rafiki, who was the head of a gorilla family in the south-western Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, was killed with a spear in early June. Bwindi is home to about half the world's remaining population of roughly 1,000 mountain gorillas. The poacher pleaded guilty to killing the gorilla as well as a bush pig and being in possession of bush pig and antelope meat during a hearing at a magistrate's court in the town of Kabale, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) said in a statement. "We are happy that justice has been done and Rafiki will rest in peace," UWA spokesman Bashir Hangi told dpa, adding he hoped the verdict "will serve as an eye opener to anybody engaged in wildlife poaching." Earlier this month, UWA said poaching attempts have doubled in the East African nation as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. With the country in lockdown to limit the spread of the coronavirus, game parks have been closed to the public for several weeks, allowing poachers easier access and making animals more vulnerable, according to UWA. Rangers discovered 367 snares laid by poachers between February and June this year, up from 163 during the same period in 2019. UWA believes one reason for the increase in poaching is the rise in unemployment and food shortages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Besides the killing of Rafiki, poachers in recent weeks have mostly hunted smaller animals, such as antelope, probably to eat them rather than for trading. 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 SAN RAMON (dpa-AFX) - Chevron Corp. (CVX) said Friday that the Supreme Court of Argentina rejected the plaintiffs' final bid to enforce a $9.5 billion Ecuadorian judgment against the company. It is the latest in a string of legal victories in Chevron's global defense against the Ecuadorian judgment-found by U.S. courts to be the product of fraud, bribery, and corruption, and held unenforceable as a matter of international law by an international arbitral tribunal in The Hague, Chevron said. On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Argentina dismissed the plaintiffs' appeal from the decision by the Court of Appeals in Buenos Aires of July 3, 2018, which affirmed the trial court's opinion and dismissed the Ecuadorian plaintiffs' action for lack of jurisdiction. Decisions by courts and tribunals in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Gibraltar, The Hague, and now Argentina, confirmed that the Ecuadorian judgment should be unenforceable in any court that respects the rule of law, the company said. Chevron stated that the Republic of Ecuador, a longstanding supporter of the litigation against Chevron, finally admitted in a public filing earlier this month that the $9.5 billion judgment issued by its courts against Chevron is 'fraudulent.' Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de Kabul, July 31 : Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Friday ordered the release of 500 Taliban prisoners in response to the militant groups three-day ceasefire announcement on the occasion of Eid, adding that he hoped the truce will extend. Ghani said the 500 prisoners were not part of the list given to the Afghan government by the Taliban and that these inmates will be released within the next four days, reports TOLO News. According to Ghani, the Afghan government has so far released 4,600 Taliban prisoners. Ghani said he does not have the right to decide on the release of those 400 Taliban prisoners on the list who are accused of serious crimes. Therefore he will call a Loya Jirga, a grand assembly of Afghan elders, to decide on the release. Ghani's annoucement comes as the Taliban also completed the release of 1,000 prisoners as per the peace agreement it signed with the US in Doha in February. A spokesman of the group, Suhail Shaheen, said on Twitter that they freed 82 prisoners on Thursday, bringing the total released by the Taliban to 1,005. The "Beyonce" tower, a skyscraper construction site in Melbourne's CBD, is in lockdown after a dozen cases of COVID-19 were confirmed among building workers. The outbreak at the 780-apartment Premier Tower site on Spencer Street has prompted construction giant Multiplex to immediately halt work for a full "hospital grade" clean. The Premier Tower construction site is shut down. Credit:Joe Armao Up to 20 close or casual contacts with other workers have been identified, a statement issued by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union said. "All workers identified as being in close and casual contact with the confirmed cases were immediately sent home and ordered to get tested and to self-isolate until they received their test results," the CFMEU said. Students will return to classrooms in some areas of Alabama next week, while the list grows daily of school districts declaring theyll keep the doors closed. AL.com has been tracking district announcements and as of today, 27 school districts will open with virtual-only classes. That includes some of the states largest systems. That means more than 210,000 students, or 29% of all K-12 students in Alabama, are enrolled in a system that will not offer in-person learning to start the fall semester. The number attending school online will be higher. Districts that plan to open are also offering a choice between virtual and traditional in-person school, but they are still finalizing the numbers. It's not clear how many will choose the virtual option. Last week, before another dozen districts announced they'll only offer virtual school, state Superintendent Eric Mackey said that between 30% and 40% of students in districts offering options are choosing virtual school. But the situation is changing quickly, coronavirus cases continue to rise in Alabama, and schools boards across the state are pushing back start dates, some until after Labor Day, as they wait to see if the number of new cases will decline. Officials choosing the virtual-only start say its just not safe right now to open schools for students and teachers. Many teachers are worried about safety, as many as two thirds said they were concerned about returning in one Alabama Education Association survey, but many others are ready to go back into the classroom. Looking at only the districts that have announced a virtual start, AL.com found that students in those districts are more likely to be Black and also to be poor. Of the 210,000 students enrolled in those 27 virtual-only school districts, 56% are Black, 31% are white, and 7% are Hispanic. Statewide, Black students made up 32% of the student population, white students made up 54% of the population, and Hispanic students accounted for 9% of the total. In 22 of the 27 districts going virtual, more than half of students families received some form of federal assistance last year, an indicator of poverty. The map below shows virtual-only districts in yellow, those offering a choice in blue, and those whose plans are not yet available online in orange. Hover over the district to see more information about the students enrolled during the 2019-20 school year. The map was updated on Aug. 3 to include districts that have announced they will open with a hybrid model, shaded in red on the map, meaning they will bring different groups of students into school on different days. Districts opening with a hybrid model also are offering virtual school. If you are unable to see the map, click here. Reopening next week Saraland City Schools, just north of Mobile, is opening for in-person instruction on Aug. 6, one of the first two districtsEnterprise City schools is the other--to open their doors for the new school year. "Overwhelmingly, we've heard from parents that they want their children back in school," Superintendent Aaron Milner said. And their numbers prove it. Milner expects 88% of their 3,200 students to show up for school. Everyone in the district has worked hard to make schools safe for students and teachers. "We've bought every type of PPE (personal protective equipment) you can imagine." Admitting that school will look different, he said his teachers have been "rock stars" throughout the process, asking how to help get schools ready for students. But it hasn't been easy. "There have been a lot of sleepless nights," he said. "There have been some text messages at 1 o'clock in the morning asking what about this, what about this." Every time you think youve got it figured out, another layer to the onion comes up. Choosing virtual Districts offering parents a choice of in-person or virtual learning are still tallying numbers of students returning to the classroom, but AL.com gathered some of the numbers to get a feel for whats happening across the state. And it seems that even when districts open somewhere around 1 in 5 or 1 in 4 students will choose to stay home this fall and learn online. It varies by district and numbers keep changing. Related: Wary of large schools, some Alabama parents create home school bubbles In Baldwin County on the coast, school officials expect about 20%, or 6,000 of their 30,000 students to choose virtual school. In north Alabama, 25% of Decatur city students have chosen virtual school, while another 3% to 5% have chosen a blended option that allows a shift between virtual and traditional school. Limestone County expects 2,000 of their 8,300 students, or 24% to attend school virtually, according to a presentation to their school board. In Florence, just 14% of city students have chosen virtual, according to district officials, but that number is expected to grow. In the suburbs of Birmingham, Vestavia Hills Superintendent Todd Freeman told board members that 82% of their 7,000 students would return to in-person school on Aug. 13. In both Hoover City Schools and Shelby County Schools, the number of students choosing virtual schools stands at around 23% for now. In Trussville City Schools, 20% of students have chosen virtual school so far. In Jackson County, in rural northeast Alabama, officials expect around 20% of their students to choose virtual school, too. Elmore County, north of Montgomery, has so far had about 25% of their 11,200 students choose virtual school. If that 20% range holds true throughout the state, that means that on top of the 210,000 in virtual-only districts, another 102,000 students could choose virtual, bringing the total to 313,000, or 43% of students statewide. Start dates, which are changing on a regular basis, range from Aug. 6 through Sept. 8, and everywhere in between. AL.com is keeping a list of start dates and what options are for students in school districts across the state at this link. For all of AL.coms back to school coverage, click here. Updated: 4:55 p.m. to include three more virtual-only school districts and adjusted numbers and percentages to reflect those changes. Google and Facebook could be forced to pay Australian news publishers to distribute their content, in a landmark regulatory move from the country's competition regulator. The Australia Competition and Consumer Commission was tasked by the government earlier this year with developing a mandatory code for the tech giants to pay for their use of news content. If approved, a draft code announced by the ACCC Friday would allow Australian outlets to secure payments in a matter of months. It is aimed at addressing "acute bargaining power imbalances" between news groups and Google and Facebook, the ACCC said. Under the rules, if the publishers and digital platforms are unable to agree a deal after three months of formal talks, a "final offer" arbitration process will be? initiated that results in the selection of the "most reasonable" offer in 45 business days. "Our regulatory changes are designed to create a level playing field and a fair-go," Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Friday. "We want the rules in the digital world to reflect the rules in the physical world. We want to ensure consumer protection is enhanced, competition is increased and of course we deliver a sustainable media environment for all Australians for the future." Tweet The move could see Australia become the first country to force Google and Facebook to pay for news content. It comes after talks between the online platforms, ACCC and media companies failed to result in agreement. The draft code will undergo a month-long consultation before being debated in parliament. If it is passed, it is expected to be reviewed in a year's time. Throughout the annals of time, harness racing has faced a myriad of hypothetical scenarios that force a mind to ponder what if something did or didn't happen. David McDuffee knows that all too well. The longtime owner has experienced the highs and lows of racing on a roller coaster the likes of which many participants might not be able to handle, and a good number of those peaks and valleys stemmed from rendered 'what-if' decisions. Entering the 1994 Little Brown Jug against a juggernaut by the name of Cams Card Shark might not have sounded like a winning proposal at the time. But there needed to be a Jug winner that year after favourite Cams Card Shark was scratched the day of the race, never to start again. McDuffee's entrant, Magical Mike was a straight-heat winner. In 2011, McDuffee partnered with Mel Hartman and Herb Liverman on a $90,000 Kadabra - Beehive yearling at Harrisburg -- a what-if decision he said yes to on the purchase side. After 72 starts, Bee A Magician retired with 45 wins, nearly $4.2 million in earnings and an undefeated 2013 Horse of the Year season. That same season, the what-if scenario of racing Bee A Magician in the Hambletonian or the Oaks was on the minds of many in the industry and her performance in the Oaks on Hambletonian Day only stoked those what-if flames. Nearly seven years later, McDuffee has another giant question mark on his hands. The performance of pacing colt Papi Rob Hanover in the 2020 Delvin Miller Adios eliminations left the sport in awe as the Brett Pelling trainee scorched the five-eighths mile surface at The Meadows in 1:47.1 -- a time that's just two-fifths of a second off the world record for three-year-old pacers over any size of racetrack. Not long after, the news broke that sent shockwaves through the Standardbred industry: Papi Rob Hanover suffered a stress fracture to his left front coffin bone and would be sidelined for at least the 2020 season. Earlier in the month, McDuffee also received word that his talented trotter Chin Chin Hall had to stop racing after breaking a coffin bone as well. Such events are rare, any certainly uncommon to befall one owner in such a short timeframe. "We take it day to day and we don't take anything for granted, we never have. I think in all the years I've been in the business I don't know that I've ever had coffin bone [break] on any of the good horses I ever had," McDuffee told Trot Insider. "These are two outstanding horses and to have them both, within a month's time, suffer that type of injury is a little bit perplexing. But we have to deal with the cards that are dealt so we'll deal with it." Very quietly, Chin Chin Hall put together respectable freshman and sophomore seasons for trainers Melanie Wrenn (at two) and Richard 'Nifty' Norman (at three). With a 5-6-4 summary from 21 starts, the son of Cash Hall - Canland Hall knocked heads with the Grand Circuit's best and appeared poised for a solid four-year-old season with a trio of second-place finishes to start 2020. His most recent start resulted in a third-place finish in the Graduate Final. "I think he'll be OK, we've operated on him and we put a screw in and you know, he'll need a few months for stall rest and then back in. I have a partner on the horse, great guy, Steve Oldford...we've talked it over and I think we both want to keep the horse and keep him going so I think he'll be back. "Generally, coffin bones heal pretty well and assuming no complications I would look for him maybe next year." The situation with Papi Rob Hanover, however, is slightly different. The complexity of his future, unlike that of Chin Chin Hall, has a stallion aspect attached to it that regardless of the injury may not allow the horse to return to the track. "He didn't have a broken bone, he has a stress fracture which will probably heal by itself without surgery. Still, he's done for the year. Obviously, I think he could be one of the greatest racehorses ever -- I think everybody recognizes that he's incredibly talented. The question that I'm wrestling with at this point is whether I want to go that route or, we're getting a tremendous amount of inquiries and interest from the breeding side...I've got to consider all opportunities for him. And we will. "My guess is that, at this point, because of how much he offers from a conformation and pedigree standpoint, he'll probably end up going to stallion...but we'll wait and work our way way through all that." Herein lies the what-if struggle. What if Papi Rob Hanover recovers fully, returns and races at four? What records would he break, what purses would he earn? It's a great unknown, and McDuffee still does have some time to make that decision given that the 2021 stallion season is still months away. One thing that he doesn't need time to consider is that Papi Rob Hanover is a great horse. "There's no doubt in my mind that if he were to race as a four- and five-year-old for instance, or at least as a four-year-old, there's a pretty good chance that he'd set the all-time speed record for the sport. "At the same time, he does bring a unique package for consideration on the breeding side. There's not a son of Somebeachsomewhere that's any more attractive on the breeding side than this particular horse is...The horse himself is the most impressive animal you'd ever want to see. So maybe he can make a much bigger contribution, as far as the overall business is concerned, on the breeding side. We'll wait and see how that all plays out." Interestingly, and this could even add more lore to that world record mile at The Meadows, McDuffee thinks that the coffin bone fracture sustained by Papi Rob Hanover actually took place in the race prior to the jaw-dropping Adios elim. "I'm of the belief that he suffered it about 100 years from the finish line of the Meadowlands Pace. Watch the replay, and watch the last 100 years of that race. He was coming on and I think he was probably going to get Tall Dark Stranger...and then he made a little bobble. And that's when I think this happened. David took hold of him, and he only had about 20 yards to go when he got him straightened out. And then he was coming, that son of a gun's got a heart in him and he wasn't going to let anybody beat him. And if we had another 20 yards we would have beat him, I'm pretty sure. "And then he goes out to The Meadows seven days later and sets a world's record in spite of all that." According to McDuffee, Papi Rob Hanover showed no signs of issues after the Meadowlands Pace and thus the connections entered him for the Adios. Driver David Miller had a firm hold of the horse crossing the wire, but after the wire McDuffee could tell that something was off. "As a matter of fact, I talked with David and he said 'honest to God, he was still ready to go into another gear 100 feet from the wire'. He said 'I had to hold him back'. He thought he could go a lot faster than he did, and that's pretty amazing in itself." McDuffee doesn't have to wait too much longer to see other horses compete as he's a part owner of 2020 Hambletonian entrant Chestnut Hill. A regally-bred son of Muscle Hill from McDuffee's O'Brien Award winner Poof Shes Gone, Chestnut Hill has Post 6 in the second $50,000 Hambo elimination on Saturday at The Meadowlands. Co-owned by Hartman and Liverman, Chestnut Hill is coming off a solid fifth-place finish to Ready For Moni in his Stanley Dancer division on July 18. After racing uncovered and towing Ready For Moni into the stretch, Chestnut Hill trotted his own mile in a personal best 1:52.1 for trainer Nifty Norman and driver David Miller. "He is a nice colt that can go with the group but he needs a trip with cover and close enough so he can trot in the lane," offered McDuffee. And while he's realistic of his colt's chances, it's clearly a good time for him to ask what if like he did with Magical Mike heading to Delaware 26 years ago. At least 779 deaths due to COVID-19 have been reported in the country in the past 24 hours, taking the toll to 35,747 New Delhi: With the highest single-day spike of 55,079 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, India's overall count breached the 16 lakh mark on Friday, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. With this latest spike, the total cases in the country stand at 16,38,871. Of the total, there are 5,45,318 active cases. So far 10,57,806 patients have been cured/discharged/migrated. At least 779 deaths due to COVID-19 have been reported in the country in the past 24 hours, taking the toll to 35,747. As per the Union Health Ministry, Maharashtra has a total of 1,48,454 active cases and recorded 14,729 deaths due to COVID-19. Tamil Nadu has a total of 57,962 active cases and 3,838 deaths in the state. While, Delhi has a total of 10,743 active cases and 3,936 deaths. The Indian Council of Medical Research informed that a total number of COVID-19 samples tested up to 30 July is 1,88,32,970 including 6,42,588 samples tested on Friday. CLAYTON, Mo. - After a third review failed to uncover enough evidence to charge the officer who fatally shot Black 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, some prosecutors and civil rights leaders agree its time to focus on changing the laws that shield police. In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell said legislators need to take a hard look at laws that offer protection against prosecution for police officers that regular citizens arent afforded, pushing a message that has gained strong momentum in the two months since George Floyds death by Minneapolis police launched a national reckoning over racial injustice and police brutality. We see those types of laws throughout the country, and it is something that handcuffs prosecutors in numerous ways when you are going about prosecuting officers who have committed unlawful use of force or police shootings, Bell said. Bell, St. Louis Countys first Black prosecuting attorney, was elected in 2018 as a reformist, and he has implemented sweeping changes that have reduced the jail population, ended prosecution of low-level marijuana crimes and sought to help offenders rehabilitate themselves. He also established an independent unit to investigate officer-involved shootings, a division that spent five months looking at the 2014 death of Brown, who was shot by white Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson. The shooting spurred months of unrest and helped solidify the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement. In the end, the progressive prosecutor came to the same result as his old-school, tough-on-crime predecessor, Bob McCulloch, as well as the U.S. Justice Department: Wilson didnt commit murder or manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt under Missouri law. Bell stressed that the investigation didnt exonerate Wilson, who who resigned in November 2014. Wilson and Brown became involved in a heated confrontation on Aug. 9, 2014. Wilson said that Brown came at him menacingly and that he killed him in self-defence. The question of whether we can prove a case at trial is different than clearing him of any and all wrongdoing, Bell said. There are so many points at which Darren Wilson could have handled the situation differently, and if he had, Michael Brown might still be alive. Civil rights leaders said the case shows that state laws need to be changed. I cant be disappointed any longer in a system that has always performed with callousness against Black people and Black bodies, no matter whos in charge, said Brittany Packnett Cunningham, a Ferguson protester and educator who is now a national voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. Scott Roberts, senior director of Criminal Justice Campaigns at Color of Change, said Bells decision not to charge Wilson reinforces the importance of making the systemic changes necessary to end overpolicing and the structural racism built to protect police officers from accountability. Brown was among several young Black men whose deaths at the hands of police in 2014 spurred 24 states to pass law enforcement reform. An Associated Press analysis in June found that only about one-third of those states addressed use of force. But many states and dozens of cities and counties are taking a closer look at use-of-force laws since Floyd, a Black man, died May 25 after a white Minneapolis officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes as he pleaded for air. In Missouri, no new laws are on the horizon. Republican Gov. Mike Parson convened a special session this week to address violent crime both St. Louis and Kansas City are seeing surges in killings and gun violence but he rejected calls to include police reform measures. Bell knows that many people were disappointed that he didnt bring charges in Browns death but says prosecuting police shouldnt be the litmus test for progress. He noted that reforms hes implemented mean families of those involved in police violence are now getting support. Also, the countys jail population has fallen by 30%, with thousands of people instead directed to programs such as drug or alcohol treatment. Thats a win, Bell said. Those are individuals who instead of being locked up for low-level, nonviolent crimes are able to stay at home with their families, keep their jobs. Single parents are able to keep their children. He plans additional reforms, including a policy of recording all grand jury sessions in homicide cases. His predecessor typically didnt record those sessions but made an exception in the investigation of Browns death, Bell said. There are some protections that Darren Wilson received that no other defendant received, and the grand jury process would be an example of that, Bell said. He was invited to come into the grand jury, there was no vigorous cross-examination, he was able to tell his story without that hard questioning that we would expect from a prosecutor in any case like this, and thats what the grand jury was able to see. Bells decision angered some. Not prosecuting Wilson was like a stab in the back to those who supported his candidacy, said Tiffany Caban, a national political organizer for the Working Families Party, who joined the political party last November to help recruit and elect progressive-minded prosecutors and sheriffs nationwide. We arent electing heroes or saviours. We work to elect candidates that run on solid platforms, do the least amount of harm and are willing to be held accountable when they fall short, said Caban, who ran for district attorney in last years Democratic primary in Queens County, New York. She narrowly lost to Queens Borough President Melinda Katz. Caban also noted that in the years since prosecutor candidates began running and winning elections on promises to hold police officers accountable for misconduct and excessive force, criminal justice systems have noticeably shifted toward diversion programs rather than jail for nonviolent offenders. However, she said, those who rightfully remain deeply distrustful of a system that rarely has their interests at heart have another example to point to in Wesley Bell. In November, voters in at least two dozen states will decide local prosecutors and sheriff races. Bell said voters should consider candidates who have proposed reforms that will have the largest effect on people of colour and those who have been systemically disenfranchised. I think we have to redefine what winning looks like, Bell said. The litmus test cant be one or two individual cases. It has to be a big picture. ___ Morrison reported from New York City. ALEXANDRIA, La., July 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Red River Bank announced that it intends to expand its operations to the Lafayette market, initially with plans to open a loan production office and later provide full-service banking center options. Ben Smith has joined the Red River Bank team as Market President to lead the effort in developing a presence in the Acadiana region. Smith is a native of Houma, Louisiana, and a graduate of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Smith has spent the last 15 years in commercial banking and has been in Lafayette for the last 10 years after previously working in New Orleans and Houma. Blake Chatelain, President and CEO of Red River Bank said, Red River Bank has $2.4 billion in assets, and the bank has been built primarily through organic expansion, not acquisition. We are a bank made in Louisiana and made for Louisiana, and we are eager to serve Acadiana. We look forward to providing the high level of expertise in banking and personal customer service that Red River Bank is known for, and we are pleased to welcome Ben to the team. Smith can be reached at 337-541-8765 or at ben.smith@redriverbank.net . Red River Bank is the seventh largest Louisiana-based community bank and serves customers from its 25 banking centers in and surrounding Alexandria, Shreveport/Bossier, Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and Covington, Louisiana. Headquartered in Alexandria, LA and founded in 1999, the bank specializes in financial services and solutions for Louisiana consumers and small to mid-size businesses. Red River Bank is a subsidiary of Red River Bancshares, Inc., which trades under the trading symbol RRBI on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Additional information can be found at redriverbank.net . CONTACT: Media Contact: Evelyn Jones, Marketing Dir. ejones@redriverbank.net C: 318-664-1513 O: 318-561-5903 Vicat's 1H20 results see consolidated sales of EUR1.3bn 31 July 2020 Vicat has announced 1H20 results with consolidated sales of EUR1.304bn, down 2.7 per cent from EUR1.340bn in 1H19. EBITDA reached EUR213m, representing a decline of 6.7 per cent on EUR228m earned in 1H19. The EBITDA margin stood at 16.3 per cent in the 1H20 compared with 17 per cent in 1H19. First-half operational sales of the cement business rose 0.9 per cent on a reported basis, and 1.9 per cent at constant scope and exchange rates. The concrete and aggregates business recorded a fall in operational sales of 4.9 per cent on a reported basis, and of 7.1 per cent at constant scope and exchange rates. Operational sales recorded by the other products and services business fell by 7.7 per cent on a reported basis, and by 8.9 per cent at constant scope and exchange rates. Consolidated net income totalled EUR29m, down 30.7 per cent at constant scope and exchange rates and down 38.8 per cent on a reported basis. Cash flow stood at EUR175m, up 1.3 per cent on a reported basis and up 3.5 per cent at constant scope and exchange rates. Regional performances France During the first half, the pandemic had a significant impact on the group's performance in France. Following a very sharp slowdown in late March and throughout April, the situation gradually improved, with the group recording solid business growth again in June. Operational cement sales dropped 6.1 per cent over the first half as a whole. The business contraction was caused by a volume decline of more than nine per cent, partly offset by an uptick in selling prices, particularly in the domestic market, and by lower energy costs. Against this backdrop, the group's EBITDA recorded a contraction of 27.8 per cent. Switzerland The Swiss market was not significantly affected by the pandemic in the first half, with consolidated sales moving higher.The Swiss Cement business saw operational sales rise by 2.6 per cent at constant scope and exchange rates. Italy In Italy the group recorded a very steep decline in its business over the first half as a whole as a result of the very challenging pandemic and macroeconomic situation there. As activity totally stopped for several of weeks, consolidated sales declined 23.2 per cent. However, selling prices rose sharply against a backdrop of falling volumes. USA US operational cement sales grew 11.2 per cent at constant scope and exchange rates. This performance derived from solid growth in volumes, particularly in California given the favourable base of comparison, as the southeast was hit by poor weather conditions in the first quarter. Average selling prices rose across both areas as a result of the full impact of the hikes introduced in 2019. However, it is important to note that the price increases initially planned for the second quarter were postponed given the pandemic situation. They may be introduced over the summer, depending on how market conditions evolve, says Vicat. Brazil In Brazil the pandemic struck just as the macroeconomic environment was starting to stabilise. Sales in Brazil rose to EUR63m, up +8.2 per cent on a reported basis and +22.4 per cent at constant scope and exchange rates. The Brazilian cement business' operational sales came to EUR52m, up from EUR45m in 2019. Volumes and pricing moved above their prior-year levels in the business. Asia The Asia region was affected by the pandemic crisis, which had a fairly significant impact on the macroeconomic and industry environment from the end of the first quarter onwards. 1H20 sales reached EUR149m, down 22.8 per cent from EUR193m in 1H19. India has been worst hit by the pandemic of all the countries in the groups geographical portfolio. The group posted consolidated sales of EUR119m in the first half of 2020, down 24 per cent at constant scope and exchange rates. This trend reflects a volume decline of close to 22 per cent and a contraction in average selling prices, especially during the first quarter. It is worth noting that the groups volumes edged higher again in June compared with June 2019, while selling prices moved up slightly in the second quarter. In Kazakhstan after a sharp increase in activity in the first quarter, the operating environment deteriorated in the second quarter as the pandemic crisis affected both the domestic market and export markets. Consolidated sales were thus stable over the first half as a whole (down -0.2 per cent) at constant scope and exchange rates. The volume increase offset the pressure on prices that was first seen in late 2019 and that continued into early 2020. Mediterranean The Mediterranean region was again hit by the persistently-tough macroeconomic and industry conditions in Turkey and Egypt. However, sales reached US$75m in 1H20, up 0.3 per cent on 1H19. In Turkey sales totalled EUR54m, up six per cent at constant scope and exchange rates and down 5.8 per cent on a reported basis. The Turkish cement business, first-half operational sales rose 6.5 per cent at constant scope and exchange rates. Meanwhile, in Egypt, consolidated sales totalled EUR21m, up seven per cent at constant scope and exchange rates. Africa In Africa the environment remained positive, despite the pandemics substantial impact, which brought large government-funded projects in Senegal to a standstill. Sales for the region totalled EUR140m, up 21.8 per cent from EUR115m in 1H19. The cement business, consolidated sales advanced by 39.1 per cent at constant scope and exchange rates. Published under Harish Murali By Express News Service CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Friday ordered the immediate release of former DMK MLA M Rajkumar and his aide K Jaishankar accused in the murder and rape of a 15-year-old in 2012. The court set aside a 2018 order of the Special Court for MPs/ MLAs that had convicted the former legislator and given him 10 years rigorous imprisonment. Justice N Sathish Kumar of the Madras High Court hearing the bail plea in his order acquitted both the accused of all the charges levelled against them and ordered them to be set at liberty forthwith unless their custody is required in any other cases. It may be recalled that, on December 28, 2018, the special court trying MPs and MLAs here sentenced the former DMK MLA and his accomplice in the case that occurred in 2012 in Perambalur. The case was transferred in 2012 to the CBCID, which carried out the investigation based on which the MLA was charged under four sections of the Indian Penal Code. The duo was charged with kidnapping, sexually assaulting and kidnapping the minor girl who died on July 6, 2012. The case hit the headlines in June 2012 when the 15-year-old girl from Kerala, working as a domestic maid in Rajkumar's house at Perambalur district, was hospitalised in suspicious circumstances and her parents were told that she was down with a fever. After a few days, she died in a private hospital in Theni district, where her family shifted her. The parents during her funeral rites in their native Peermedu village in Idukki district noticed injuries on her body based on which a postmortem was ordered, which found that she was sexually abused. The sergeant-at-arms of an outlaw bikie gang has been booted from the organisation after it was discovered he was a prostitute - and to add to his woes, police now allege he was caught with a banned firearm. Alexander Victor Miller, 30, pleaded guilty to driving disqualified and possessing a knife in the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday. He also indicated he would make guilty pleas to two drug charges and plead not guilty to possessing an undisclosed sum of tainted cash, according to the Canberra Star. Alexander Victor Miller (pictured), 30, pleaded guilty to driving disqualified and possessing a knife in the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday The court was told in February that Miller was allegedly found with a double-barrel, .32-calibre 'key ring firearm' during a drug raid on his apartment in 2017 Miller is expected to argue the money found in his home was legitimate proceeds from his employment as an escort. Miller's defence lawyer Kate Gunther told the court in January her client had earned the money as a sex worker. She said Miller was embarrassed by his 'debasing' line of work. Miller was a truck driver before losing his licence for drug driving, which had forced him to turn to the sex trade, Ms Gunther told the court. 'Sex work is not his passion, as you would probably expect he does not enjoy it, in fact he considers it to be debasing himself,' she said. He was allegedly found with the drugs and cash when driving on June 16 and charged with six offences. A seventh charge of possessing a 'key ring firearm' was adjourned without plea, according to the Canberra Times. The court was told in February that Miller was allegedly found with a double-barrel, .32-calibre 'key ring firearm' during a drug raid on his apartment in 2017. A .32 calibre is around 8.1mm in width and is considered to be less lethal than other bullet sizes. He allegedly did not have permit to have a gun. Police also allegedly found a Talon mini taser in Miller's top drawer beside his bed, where the firearm was also allegedly stashed. Police say Miller told them he had seen the 'key ring firearm' before but he didn't know who it belonged to. He also said he didn't know how it came to be in his bedside table's top drawer. Miller allegedly told the police he had seen the 'key ring firearm' before but he didn't know who it belonged to (stock image) The court was told that forensic testing found Miller's DNA on the 'key ring firearm'. The weapon is prohibited as it hides the fact that it is a firearm. Two other men were at Miller's home at the time of the raid. Miller, who is currently being held on remand, will have his case heard once again in September. Only 15% of grecent graduates can afford to move for work. Photo: Yu Ao Feng/Unsplash Struggling UK graduates can no longer afford to relocate for a new job, research has found. Between a deposit and the first months rent on a new flat, transport, and a new work-appropriate wardrobe all before the first pay cheque it costs an average of 2,631 ($3,450) to relocate for a new job, Milkrounds survey of 2,000 recent graduates found. For those moving to London, its even higher 2,874, compared with 2,511 for those outside the capital. For 85% of graduates, this is money they just dont have, with 67% relying on their overdraft to survive, and the average graduate borrowing 1,375 on top of about 35,950 of long-term student loans and living expenses debt. One in 10 graduates cant even afford to travel to job interviews, having to turn them down instead. READ MORE: Calls for four-day week 'ignore reality' many workers want more hours This isnt due to a lack of responsibility, research suggests. According to two thirds (66%) of students, their maintenance loan simply dont cover the cost of living, leaving them short by about 267 every single month, Save the Student found in 2019. This means that while over three quarters (77%) of recent graduates believe they would have better career opportunities further afield, just 15% can actually afford to move to pursue their dream job. All of those who said they would have more job opportunities if they moved to a big city agreed it is harder to relocate than it was just 10 years ago, and graduates are more likely to stay in their hometowns due to the rising cost of living. I moved back home with parents and am reluctant to move elsewhere, even though there are better opportunities, because of cost, a biological sciences graduate from the West Midlands told Milkround. Women are even less likely to relocate just a quarter (27%) move for work, compared to two in five (41%) men, the research found. READ MORE: Post-COVID-19: 50% of employees are looking to move jobs Story continues Young workers are a third less likely to move for work than in the 1990s, with just 18,000 Brits between the ages of 25 and 34 relocating for work in 2018, compared to 30,000 in 1997, according to research from the Resolution Foundation in 2019. This is because housing costs in job hotspots are so high relative to earnings that even with a higher salary, most Brits wouldnt actually see a boost to their savings, it found. Those who move to London, in particular, end up compromising on their quality of life, the survey discovered. When I first moved to London from Edinburgh in 2011, I prioritised pursuing a desirable career over living life to the full. While I knew living in the heart of media-land would ultimately boost my earnings, I had to make do with a small and (initially) very humdrum flat, with low outgoings and no luxuries, while friends who lived elsewhere in the UK enjoyed a much more civilised lifestyle, Iona Bain, founder of Young Money Blog, told Milkround. Salaries are lower outside London, but disposable income goes about 17% further every 1 spent in London is equivalent to 1.17 in the north, Totaljobs Northern Pound research found. READ MORE: Most UK employers expect to hire more staff as lockdown eases Because of this, nearly half (45%) of graduates said they are considering taking a job outside London, or moving to a less central area. Commuting is cheaper than relocating closer to work, 61% of graduates said. While its true that there are more better paying jobs in the cities, the living costs are considerably higher, so any surplus earnings are essentially cancelled out, one geography graduate in south-east England told Milkround. I decided not to move to a large city and wait for an appropriate role near to home. Eventually I lucked out. Of those who do move, 38% have to borrow the money from their family, 36% have to dip into their savings, 18% have to use their their credit card, and 16% have to take out a loan or use their overdraft, the survey found. Whats more, less than a third (29%) move into permanent accommodation straight away, with the rest staying with friends, in hotels, or even camping in tents for up to several months. READ MORE: Small businesses bounce back from COVID-19 but job losses continue Over four in five (85%) struggle financially in the first month, with 14% resorting to skipping meals and 11% needing to use food banks. When asked what employers can do to help, nearly a quarter (24%) of graduates said an upfront payment for joining a firm would go a long way, while others would want help with their first months rent (22%) and deposit (21%). Two thirds (66%) of graduates who cant afford to relocate said they would be able to with this help. Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of Belinvestbank Global Credit Research - 30 Jul 2020 London, 30 July 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Belinvestbank 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. Belinvestbank's B3 long-term local currency deposit rating incorporates its caa1 Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA) and Moody's assessment of a high probability of government support, which results in a one-notch rating uplift. Belinvestbank's long-term foreign currency deposit rating of Caa1 is capped by Belarus' foreign currency deposit ceiling of Caa1. Belinvestbank's BCA reflects its weak solvency metrics, characterized by a substantial stock of problem loans, modest capital buffer compared to domestic peers and high credit costs that constrain profitability. Factors underpinning Belinvestbank's BCA are the bank's solid buffer of loan loss reserves, ample liquidity and access to financial aid from the government. Story continues 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 Banks Methodology published in November 2019. 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. Svetlana Pavlova, CFA Asst Vice President - Analyst Financial Institutions Group Moody's Investors Service Limited, Russian Branch 7th floor, Four Winds Plaza 21 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya St. Moscow 125047 Russia JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Yaroslav Sovgyra, CFA Associate Managing Director Financial Institutions Group JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service Ltd. 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NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday (July 31, 2020) granted anticipatory bail to Zafarul Islam Khan, the former Chairperson of the Delhi Minorities Commission, in connection with his 'instigating statement on social media'. Delhi High Court Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri, who conducted the hearing through video conferencing, granted the relief to the 72-year-old Khan after the police said he was no longer required for further investigation. Khan's tenure in the commission expired recently. The court was hearing a plea by Khan, through advocate Vrinda Grover, seeking anticipatory bail in the sedition case lodged against him, citing his age, health issues and risk of contracting COVID-19. On April 28, Khan published through his official page on social media a post that allegedly had seditious and hateful comments. On May 2, based on a complaint, the Delhi Police Special Cell lodged an FIR against Khan under sections 124A and 153A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for the alleged offences of sedition and promoting feelings of hatred between different groups on the grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence and language. A 26-year-old man who was "callously" shot dead in north London has been named by police as Christopher George. Emergency services were called to Sebastopol Road in Edmonton at around 9pm on Wednesday after gunshots were reported. Mr George was found with gunshot injuries. Paramedics battled to save him but he was pronounced dead at the scene. While formal identification is yet to take place, Scotland Yard has named the victim as Mr George, from Enfield. His family have been informed. Police at the scene in north London / Matt Writtle Investigating officers currently believe the victim was sitting in a car when he was approached by two men on foot. He was then shot at a close range. Police believe the two suspects may have then fled from the scene in a car. A crime scene is in place and no arrests have been made. Police have issued an appeal for information about the incident. Detective Inspector Dave Hillier, who is in charge of the investigation, said: Firstly let me be clear, we have a completely open mind about the motive for this crime. Any speculation at this stage is very unhelpful and may hinder our inquiry. We are appealing for information after a young man who has callously been shot dead in the street. He has a family and friends who are today in mourning and looking for answers. I am asking for the community to support them in their grief by telling us what they know if you dont want to give your name call Crimestoppers. I want to assure anyone giving information they will be fully supported and doing the right thing. Detective Superintendent Ella Marriott, acting North Area Commander, added: A young man is now dead, this can never be accepted and whether as individuals or as a community, we have to show we care. Through working together with specialist homicide detectives, Enfield Council and with our communitys support, we will ensure that we bring to justice those guilty in order to maintain the safe Enfield that all those affected deserve. Enfield Councils Leader, Councillor Nesil Caliskan, said he was "deeply concerned" about the incident. "My thoughts and condolences are with the family and friends of the deceased, as well as the local community as a whole," said councillor Caliskan. We work closely with the Metropolitan Police on community safety and will continue to provide any support necessary to them and to residents." Anyone with information is asked to call police on 101, quoting reference CAD 7664/29JUL. Information can be provided anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555111. By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 31, 2020 | 07:06 AM | MCCRACKEN COUNTY A vehicle pursuit in McCracken County Thursday night led to a woman's arrest on drug and other charges. The McCracken County Sheriff's Office said a deputy tried to stop a vehicle on John Puryear Drive, near Exit 11. The vehicle began to elude the deputy by traveling onto I-24 at a high rate of speed. Once inside Marshall County, the vehicle left the road and came to a sudden stop. The two occupants exited the vehicle and began fleeing from the deputy on foot. The driver, 24-year-old Kaylin Herzog of Ledbetter, was taken into custody after a foot pursuit through a wooded area. After being placed into custody, deputies said Herzog was able to slip out of the handcuffs, pull away from the deputy and flee on foot a second time. She was again taken into custody after another brief foot pursuit. Deputies searched for but could not locate the vehicle's passenger, a white male. During a search of the vehicle, deputies found methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. Herzog was arrested and lodged in the McCracken County Regional Jail. She's charged with fleeing and evading (motor vehicle), speeding, reckless driving, two counts of fleeing and evading on foot, escape, resisting arrest, possession of meth, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of an open container of alcohol in a motor vehicle, driving on a DUI suspended license, no registration plates, no registration receipt, failure to produce an insurance card and driving with one headlight. Hi, my name is Scott C. Waring and I wrote a few books and am currently a ESL School Owner in Taiwan. I have had my own UFO sighting up close and personal, but that's how it works right? A non believer becomes a believer when they experience their first sighting. You witnessed it, your perceptual field changes, so now you need to share it. I created this site to help the UFO community get a little bit organized. I noticed that there was a lot of chaos when searching for UFO sighting reports, so I hope this site helps. I wanted to support those eyewitnesses who have tried to tell others about what they have seen, yet were laughed at by even closest of friends. More and more each day the governments of the world leak bits and pieces of UFO information to the public. They have a trickle down theory in hopes of slowly getting citizens use to the idea that we are not alone in universe and never have been. The truth is being leaked drop by drop until one day we look around and find ourselves neck high in it. The discovery of alien species in existence is the most monumental scientific event in human history, suppression of that information is a crime against humanity. About me: I live in Taiwan. I OWN MY OWN ENGLISH SCHOOL, AND ONCE HAD 5 SCHOOLS. Am Former USAF at SAC base (flight line). Age: 42 Educ: BA in Elem ed. Masters in Counseling ed. I had two UFO sightings, (30+bus size orbs) in military and in 2012 personally saw the UFO over Taipei 101 building on New Years Day (and recored it). Teachers need time to optimize their online abilities and few have gotten it, she said. Her organization has offered to provide digital curriculum to districts so they dont have to build it from scratch, but she said the Illinois State Board of Education wont return our phone calls (ISBE said in a statement it has not discussed the proposal with virtual school officials). Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 14:18:25|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close KABUL, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The Afghans marked Eid al-Adha, a three-day annual Festival of Sacrifice, by attending prayers and visiting relatives throughout the country on Friday. They offered prayers in big mosques amid tight security while practicing social distancing amid the COVID-19 pandemic on Friday morning. Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani also took part in Eid prayers together with senior officials and cabinet members in a mosque in Presidential Palace the earlier on Friday. Following the prayers, the believers joined the sacrificing of animals and distributing the meat to the poor families. Muslims wear new clothes on Eid days and greet relatives and friends to boost cordial relations. Pocket money and gifts are given to children on this occasion. The Taliban militant group and the government security forces have agreed on a three-day ceasefire during Eid al-Adha days from Friday to Sunday. Enditem SAN FRANCISCO July 30, 2020 California Florida Georgia Maryland Ohio Pennsylvania New York Illinois Michigan Texas Virginia Oregon Washington Colorado Indiana Connecticut /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- With the heightened anxiety and public mental health impacts of the pandemic, Cerebral aims to increase accessibility to treatment for anxiety, depression and insomnia. 18.1% of the population, or 40 million adults, are affected by anxiety disorders every year. Yet only 36.9% of those affected receive treatment. In recognition of the importance of digital health and accessibility in today's environment, the companies in this sector will outpace records for startup funding by 31% this year.Cerebral's care model centers around an ongoing relationship between the client, their medical provider, and their care counselor. The provider meets with the client to create a custom treatment plan while the care counselor meets with the client once a month to monitor treatment progress and discuss research-based strategies to manage symptoms. All three parties collaborate to improve the client's overall wellbeing.Even as anxiety levels climb and COVID-19 continues to spread rampant, Cerebral clients maintain that their treatment and meetings with their care counselor keep negative feelings at bay. One client states, "I've spent the last 8 years thinking and worrying about the end of the world. And now that COVID-19 is here, things aren't as bad as I thought."Cerebral's holistic care model also includes time and cost-saving benefits of meeting you where you are, the ability to schedule an appointment within a few days, and the discretion of getting medication delivered right to your door. "I have three little boys, and you really worked with me. It's a torture to have to bring them to an office. You worked quickly to help me get back to taking care of them. Thank you."Cerebral continues to provide holistic care in, and. Cerebral has now expanded to, andand has plans to expand to all 50 states. If you would like more information, please visit Cerebral's website at getcerebral.com or email support@getcerebral.com.SOURCE Cerebral By any measure, Nissan Motor Co Ltd has had a dreadful run in India. A push to revive its lower-end Datsun brand flopped, sales have slumped 60% over the past five years and its sole plant in the country is operating way below capacity. But the amount of money and energy that Nissan - battered by scandal and expecting a record $4.5 billion annual operating loss - will spend to turn its fortunes around in India will hinge on the sales of one vehicle, its new Magnite compact SUV, three sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The SUV may also determine how much heft Nissan ... BRANDON The wisdom of equipping Brandon police with a $400,000 armoured vehicle has been questioned after documents show it was used at five firearms searches and in 28 birthday party parades during the first six months of operation. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. BRANDON The wisdom of equipping Brandon police with a $400,000 armoured vehicle has been questioned after documents show it was used at five firearms searches and in 28 birthday party parades during the first six months of operation. "When you take $400,000 and divide it by three, are we really getting our bang for our buck here?" asked Chris Schneider, a sociology professor at Brandon University who researches policing. He said the money spent on the vehicle could have been used elsewhere. "I think the money probably would have been better suited to maybe hiring two mental health crisis workers to go on calls," he said. The Brandon Sun filed freedom of information requests for each instance the vehicle has been deployed since police acquired it in December 2019. Documents show that as of June 24, it was deployed on three days for five separate search warrants around the city. Brandon police Chief Wayne Balcaen defended the acquisition of the vehicle. "I would rather have it available and not use it and make sure that its there to protect our police officers. Very similar to a fire apparatus, like a ladder truck or something like that, it might only be used a few times a year, but when we need it, its there to protect the citizens," he said. The provinces decision to buy the vehicle followed a period in which the Brandon police emergency response team was sent out 14 times in 2018 and six times in 2019. The vehicle, built by Terradyne Armored Vehicles Inc., was paid for by the criminal property forfeiture fund. Balcaen said the incidents in which it has been used were considered high risk because they involved firearms. The deployments took place Jan. 16, March 18 and March 20. Police seized five rifles, one loaded shotgun, two airsoft rifles, one CO2 handgun, 100 rounds of ammunition, bear spray and 600 grams of cocaine. Police filed "numerous charges for firearm and drug-related offences" from those search warrants, said Ian Richards, the citys accessibility and privacy officer. Balcaen said the responses were a success. "Our goal on any of these is to resolve any incident peacefully. When we get called out to this its because the situation has got to a point where we need to deploy special resources." The armoured vehicle was also sent to 28 birthday parades by first responders in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Whether or not the vehicle was sent on parades was dependent on whether or not the ARV was at the BPS station, being used by members of the tactical team for training, vehicle familiarization, or other purposes," Richards said. Schneider said using it in birthday parades is a way for police to normalize a military-style vehicle. "When you can get kids to think that they are cool or neat and play around them, it starts early. Why do the police need a vehicle that is specifically meant to be used in circumstances where there is an armed conflict or an armed conflict with police?" 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. The RCMP used a tactical vehicle during an incident near Onanole this month. Officers used it to breach the door of a house where a man was allegedly inside with guns. The man had a self-inflicted injury, but officers were able to provide first aid. "Its cases like that that show the value of what it can be used for to assist people," Balcaen said. Despite this, Schneider said armoured vehicles are still a "hard sell" to the public, especially given recent protests over police brutality. In a statement, Manitoba Justice Minister Cliff Cullen called the vehicle a "valuable asset" adding "its also worth noting this equipment was purchased through criminal property forfeiture and federal proceeds of crime funds, not by Manitoba taxpayers." The Winnipeg Police Service has an armoured vehicle, which was purchased for $342,800 in 2015. It was deployed 78 times in 2018. Draw May and Colin Slark, Brandon Sun A natural disaster is defined by the World Health Organization as "an act of nature of such magnitude as to create a catastrophic situation." Some of the most common natural disasters are hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis. The 20th century (1901-2000) saw many catastrophic events take place, some of which are considered to be deadliest natural disasters of all time. Floods, earthquakes and tropical storms ravaged various parts of the world. Read on below to find out which natural events caused the most destruction. 10. Erzincan earthquake The 1939 Erzincan earthquake struck the eastern region of Turkey on December 27 with a magnitude of 7.8. The earthquake occurred on the North Anatolian Fault Zone and created a 223-mile-long surface rupture, which devastated the village of Erzincan and villages along the Iran border. It is believed that 20,000 people died as a direct result of the earthquake, but by January 5, the death toll rose to 30,000 due to blizzard conditions and floods. Erzincan was so badly destroyed due to the earthquake, the site was completely abandoned and a new settlement was found further to the north. 9. Manjil-Rudbar earthquake The destruction caused by Manjil-Rudbar earthquake. Image credit: M. Mehrain, Dames and Moore./Public domain In 1990, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake occurred in the Gilan Province between Irans northern towns of Manjil and Rudbar. The earthquake was the largest to ever be recorded in that part of the Caspian Sea region. Rescue missions were hindered by adverse weather conditions and roads were blocked by extensive landslides as a result of the earthquake. Around 100,000 buildings collapsed and between 35,000 to 50,000 people were killed. The total cost of the damages was USD 8 billion. 8. Eastern Guatemalan floods In 1949, a violent storm triggered a series of devastating floods across Guatemala. The floods lasted for two weeks and caused huge social, economical and financial impacts. It was reported that the floods had destroyed most of Guatemalas infrastructure; the cost of the damages was estimated between USD 15 million and USD 40 million. 40,000 people lost their lives as a result of the floods. Landslides caused further devastation to the country; the towns of Escuintla, San Marcos and Quezaltenango were some of the worst affected by the natural disaster. 7. Quetta earthquake More details Opera Talkies, a cinema set up for the recreation of the soldiers, was destroyed in the quake. On May 31, 1935, the city of Quetta in Pakistan was hit by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake. The entire city was destroyed, as well as nearby towns, and an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 people died from the impact. Thousands of people were injured and many were left homeless. The largest aftershock from the earthquake measured at 5.8 on the Richter scale and seriously affected the towns of Mastung, Kalat and Maguchar. The disaster is considered to be the 23rd deadliest earthquake worldwide to date. 6. Tokyo-Yokohama earthquake A view of the destruction in Yokohama At approximately midday on September 1, 1923, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area. The earthquake ravaged the city, more than half of brick buildings and one-tenth of reinforced concrete structures collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed, many were burned down by the fires triggered by the earthquake. The earthquake also generated a tsunami on the Sagami Gulf, which demolished 150 homes and killed 60 people. The overall death toll from the earthquake and its aftermath exceeded 140,000. 5. Tangshan earthquake 1976 Tangshan earthquake site. Image credit: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Public domain The Tangshan earthquake of 1976 or the Great Tangshan earthquake took place on July 28, 1976, in China. With a magnitude of 7.9, the natural disaster ravaged the coal-mining city and killed 242,000 people. The death toll is one of the highest in recorded history. 700,000 people were injured as a result of the earthquake and infrastructure damage was extensive; more than 75% of unreinforced homes and buildings were destroyed. Later on in the day, an aftershock occurred in the city of Luanxian, 43 miles from Tangshan. This caused additional damaged and more casualties. 4. Bhola cyclone Image of the Bhola cyclone taken on November 11, 1970. On November 11, 1970, a cyclone hit Bangladesh and produced mass storm-surge flooding, which devastated the countrys low-lying lands. The event is the worlds deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded. The cyclone began over the Bay of Bengal before traveling northward, gaining intensity as it moved. When it made contact with the land in Bangladesh, it devastated villages and farmlands; the most severely affected areas were Upazila and Tazumuddin, where over 45% of the population were killed by the tropical storm. In total, at least 500,000 people lost their lives as a result of the Bhola cyclone. 3. The Indian Famine Government famine relief, c. 1901, Ahmedabad At the turn of the 20th century, India was devastated by a famine that affected an area of 476,000 square miles and impacted 60 million people. The famine began as the monsoon rains failed in 1899, this caused a drought and resulted in crop failures and famine. The Central Provinces and Berar, the Bombay Presidency and the Ajmer-Merwara province were just some of the badly affected areas. Over two years, from 1899-1901, it was estimated that over 9 million people died as a result of the famine. 2. Yellow River flood Yellow River(Huang He), Lanzhou Gansu , China. Image credit: Faye kao/Shutterstock.com The Huang He or Yellow River is a river in China that was prone to flooding. It caused three deadly floods in 1887, 1931 and 1938. However, the river flooded again in 1958 due to torrential rains exceeding 100mm of rain per day. The flood affected 741,000 people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes in more than 1,700 villages. More than half a million acres of crops were completely submerged. It was reported to be more destructive than the 1931 flood, which left 80,000 people homeless and killed between 850,000 to 4,000,000. 1. Yangtze River Floods An overflowing Yangtze River in the present day. Image credit: Humphery/Shutterstock.com Torrential rains hit southern China in August 1931 and caused the Yangtze River to flood. The river was already at maximum capacity due to heavy rains that fell in April. The Yangtze floods covered more than 30,000 square miles, causing more than 40,000,000 people to lose their homes and croplands. 15% of the wheat and rice crops of the Yangtze Valley were completely destroyed. The flood killed 3.7 million people both directly and indirectly, with many people dying from poor sanitation and diseases. Oregon lawmakers will reconvene at the state Capitol Aug. 10 for a special session focused on cuts to close a more than $1 billion budget shortfall, Gov. Kate Brown announced on Friday. Legislators have known since earlier this year that they had to return to Salem for a second special session to patch the budget, after Brown decided their first special session would focus on police accountability laws. The governors decision to call lawmakers into session could be a concession that the state is unlikely to receive any budget assistance from Congress, a possibility Brown and public employee union leaders cited earlier in the summer as a reason to delay the second special session. But the U.S. House and Senate remain far apart on a new COVID-19 relief package and the Republican-controlled Senates plan contains no money to address shortfalls in state and local government budgets. For months, we have waited for Congress to take action, and it is still my hope that they will include aid for states and local governments in the coronavirus relief package currently being negotiated, Brown said. Two of the three top budget writers in the Legislature wanted to act more quickly to scale back state spending, saying it was unlikely Congress would approve budget bailout money for states, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported in early July. Although one of the Ways and Means Committee co-chairs described the roughly $400 million in proposed trims to the current budget as easy cuts largely focused on unfilled jobs and programs that have yet to launch, there are some layoffs and a small prison closure on the table. Oregon is halfway through a two-year, roughly $25 billion general fund and lottery budget. Unlike in Washington and California, Oregon has not frozen or cut pay for public employees. The current budget calls for roughly $200 million in cost-of-living raises and step increases for everyone from frontline workers to state executives, spread across the two-year budget. On average, that is expected to add up to raises of up to 15%. Those raises roll up in future budgets, meaning the cost of current state programs and services will increase even as state economist predict Oregon will bring in $8 billion less in income taxes the states largest revenue source over the next five years due to the pandemic. Brown has avoided saying whether she is seeking concessions from public employee unions, as Gov. Ted Kulongoski did during the 2008 recession. Her calendar shows she has met repeatedly with leaders from AFSCME and SEIU Local 503, including SEIU lobbyist Andrea Cooper, who was Browns 2018 campaign manager. The governor on Friday also encouraged lawmakers to consider passing further urgent legislation that builds on or remains from the first special session, according to her proclamation calling lawmakers into session, which was reported by nonprofit health news site The Lund Report. A task force formed in the first 2020 special session is working on additional police accountability and reform proposals, which were originally expected to be introduced in the next regular legislative session in early 2021. However, there is increasing momentum to bring up some of the proposals to demilitarize police, eliminate legalized slavery from the states constitution and to strengthen the states fair housing laws in the special session, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported earlier this week. In a statement Friday afternoon, Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, said lawmakers have been itching to fix the budget for months and he insisted that work must remain front and center. Key budget legislators have been working on this for months, now is the time to get it done, Courtney said. We have another long session coming in January. Now is the time for the budget. That must be our mission this special session. Senate Republican Leader Fred Girod of Lyons, who in the last week has repeatedly described protesters as violent and destructive anarchists, agreed the focus should be on the budget. Senate Republicans have been willing to work on the budget since before the governor called the first special session earlier this summer, Girod said. If we diverge from the stated purpose of addressing the budget, this second special session will make a mockery of the legislative process yet again. Policy bills should be off the table. -- Hillary Borrud: hborrud@oregonian.com; @hborrud Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. In what is believed to be a first among New Jersey law enforcement agencies, the Secaucus Police Department has established a therapy dog program. Chief Dennis Miller announce Friday morning that Oakley, a golden retriever that belongs to Police Officer Taylor Ensmann, will enhance community relations and assist the general public, first responders and the staff of the Secaucus Police Department cope with the exposure to traumatic events. When I was sworn in as chief of police I vowed to enhance community relations and I hold true to that vow, Miller said. The therapy dog program is additional tool that will be utilized for community outreach and engagement, thereby bringing the Secaucus Police Department closer to the community it serves. Miller said. Similar programs exist in other states, like California, Ohio and Massachusetts, but Miller believes Secaucus is the first in New Jersey to employ the use of a therapy dog. Oakley is a certified therapy dog that is trained to provide affection, comfort and support to people, often in settings such as hospitals, nursing homes, schools, libraries, or disaster areas. Adding a canine to our force is something I have dreamed about for a long time, Mayor Michael J. Gonnelli said. Oakley is wonderful addition to the departments community policing efforts. Oakley Ensmann during his normal patrol duties and will be used at public events, such as street fairs, concerts, parks and on the newly implemented park and walk detail. Additionally, Oakley will be used to provide emotional support when following up with victims of traumatic events such as domestic violence, house fires or even a witness to a violent crime, especially a child witness. Ensmann and Oakley will be visiting local senior citizen housing facilities and the VA Clinic on Meadowlands Parkway. Additionally, Oakley will be used to assist in providing comfort and affection when family members are grieving over the death of a close family member. - The Brazilian first lady tested positive for the virus on Thursday, July 30 days after her husband claimed to have recovered from the disease - The first lady tested positive after attending a public gathering with her husband the previous day - She is, however, in good health and is being taken care of by the president's medical team - Brazil's president has in the past been vocal claiming the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic was being exaggerated Brazil's First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro has tested positive for COVID-19 days after the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said he had recovered from the disease. According to a statement by the president's team, Michelle is in good health and is being taken care of by the president's medical team. READ ALSO: Woman separated from husband by COVID-19 pandemic gets dishwashing job at nursing home to see him Brazil's First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro has tested positive for COVID-19. Photo: CNN. Source: UGC READ ALSO: Nairobi man recounts how mother succumbed to COVID-19 as they waited for test results Local media reported the first e lady tested positive for the disease on Thursday, July 30 after attending a public gathering with her husband the previous day. "She is in a state of good health and will follow all established protocols," the Planalto Palace, the president's official residence, said. She was last spotted on Wednesday where she accompanied the president to a public event to talk about an initiative for women in rural areas and indigenous communities. READ ALSO: Nairobi woman affected by Kariobangi demolitions names newborn after activist who helped her Although, she was wearing a face mask at this public gathering. Brazil is now reporting more than 2.5 million coronavirus cases second only to the U.S as per data compiled by Johns Hopkins University with more than 90,000 people dead. Despite the sobering numbers, the government announced it was lifting its international air travel ban on foreign tourists, which had stood for four months. READ ALSO: Stranded Rwandese woman narrates how Kenyan husband eloped with househelp, 2 children Visitors are now allowed to stay for up to 90 days and they must have medical insurance coverage for the duration of their stay according to the International Air Transport Association. On the other hand, Brazil's president has been one of the world's loudest skeptics about the virus saying the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic was being exaggerated. Bolsonaro tested positive for the coronavirus in early July 2020 after weeks of consistently downplaying the threat. READ ALSO: Generous Dubai prince pays over KSh 11M hospital bill for Nigerian mother stranded with quadruplets As he spoke to reporters about his diagnosis, he backed away from them and removed his face mask an act that prompted a journalists group to file a lawsuit against him. Days before he tested positive, Bolsonaro signed a national face mask mandate into law, requiring protective masks in both public and private spaces due to the pandemic. Coronavirus continues to spread across the world, with more than 17 million confirmed cases in 188 countries and over 660,000 people have lost their lives. Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly Source: TUKO.co.ke Every name on the BrandBucket marketplace is exclusively listed with BrandBucket. That means that all of our sellers are very responsive, making for quick domain transfers. A dedicated BrandBucket agent will manage your domain transfer from beginning to end, ensuring a secure and easy transaction. They will manage the receipt of the domain into one of BrandBuckets secure registrar accounts and then complete the transfer to you. 1. Verification and registrar choice After we receive the payment and verify it, we will reach out via email to confirm which registrar you want the domain transferred to. We also provide a link to our tracking system, where you can communicate with us, check on the status of your transfer, view your invoice, and download your logo files. In most cases, if a domain is moved between accounts at a single registrar, the transfer is quick and usually completes within 48 hours. If a domain changes registrars (in other words, you would like to move it away from where it is currently registered), the transfer is slower. The total transfer time can then be anywhere from 48 hours to 7 days. 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Amaravati, July 31 : Clearing the decks for trifurcation of Andhra Pradesh capital, Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan on Friday gave his assent to the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill, 2020, and the AP Capital Region Development Authority (Repeal) Bill, 2020, passed by the State Legislature. Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government on July 17 had sent to Raj Bhavan two bills passed by the State Assembly last month. While one bill is for abolition of Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) that was created during the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) regime for building the capital in Amaravati, the other is aimed at decentralizing the administration by creating three state capitals. The YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government plans to shift the executive capital to Visakhapatnam, judicial capital to Kurnool and retain Amaravati as the legislative capital. However, its move sparked massive protest from farmers of Amaravti who had given their lands for the development of the capital. The two bills were originally passed by the Assembly in January and were sent to the Legislative Council for its approval. However, the opposition TDP which has a majority in the upper house stalled the bills and amid the pandemonium Chairman M. A. Shariff had announced referring the Bills to the select committee. However, the State Assembly officials had refused to constitute the select committee on the ground that the chairman's decision was not in line with the rules. Even as the matter landed in the high court, the bills were passed again by the Assembly on June 16. The bills were sent the Council but the same could not be taken up and the House was adjourned sine die the pandemonium. Claiming that the two bills deemed to have been passed after one month period, the government sent them to the Governor for his approval. The Governor had reportedly sought legal opinion on the procedure involved in the passage of the bills - Andhra Pradesh Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill, 2020 and the Bill to repeal AP Capital Region Development Authority Act, 2014 The opposition parties had appealed to the govenor not to give his nod to the bills. TDP president and leader of opposition N. Chandrababu Naidu had urged the Governor to take 'pro-people' decision on 'unlawful' bills. In a letter the Governor, the former Chief Minister had appealed to him to consider the interests and future aspirations of all sections of Andhra Pradesh before taking a final decision. Naidu reminded the governor that the Council referred the bills to a select committee. Naidu also wrote that the approval of the two bills at this juncture would amount to contempt of the court as the High Court was in the process of hearing many petitions against the government's ulterior move to shift capital in the name of decentralised development. BJP's state unit president Kanna Lakshmi Narayana had also written to the Governor, requesting him not to grant assent to the two bills. The BJP leader mentioned in his letter that the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act provides for only one capital. He had also appealed to the Governor to consider the constitutional aspects of the matter, stand of several stakeholders and people's wish and not to grant assent to the Bills. Ankita Lokhande recently opened up about Sushant Singh Rajput's death case and claimed while on national television, that the late actor was not depressed. Since the revelation, Ankita has been trending on social media, while many have praised her for her guts to come forward and share the alleged truth, others have gone a step further and said that she needs security. Sushant Ex girlfriend Ankita Lokhande , Suicide Reaction | FilmiBeat Celebrities like Kangana Ranaut and Vivek Agnihotri have also shown support for Ankita on her latest statement. Vivek Agnihotri tagged her in a tweet and said, "They will now come after you". It read, "Sushant Singh Rajput was definitely not a depressed guy. People failed to understand him because ordinary people can't understand creative people." He also praised Ankita and said, "Well done @anky1912 Pl be careful, they will now come after you. More power to you. #AnkitaLokhande." Meanwhile, Team Kangana Ranaut also addressed Ankita's interview with Republic TV and tweeted, "Movie Mafia repeat after me ... Sushant wasn't mentally ill, depressed or bipolar, #dhandabandkar #SushantConspiracy." Fans Praise Ankita Lokhande Fans soon joined the crusade, with many pointing out facts from Ankita's interview, and some also claimed that there is a conspiracy behind Sushant's demise, by using the hashtag #SushantConspiracy. One user wrote, "1st of all She needs security immediately, Bihar Police changed the whole game in one day, Ankita is the important link in Sushant case.Why has the Mumbai Police not questioned Ankita till now.Really henchmen are involved in this murder #SushantConspiracy #AnkitaLokhande." Fans Share Points From Ankita's Interview Another Twitter user said, "Look her @anky1912 eyes she didn't need any effort to say the truth.. And from the sureity she is saying "Sush was Not Depressed" is promising to ppl who is demanding are about to tackle the justice. #SushantSinghRajput #RheaChakraborthy #CBICantBeDeniedForSSR #AnkitaLokhande." Sushant Passed Away On June 14, 2020 Sushant Singh Rajput passed away on June 14, 2020. Mumbai police are still investigating the case while fans, as well as some celebrities and politicians, are calling for a probe by the Central Bureau Of Investigation (CBI). Worried about your mental well-being or of someone you know? Help is just a call away. Reach out to the nearest mental health specialist at COOJ Mental Health Foundation (COOJ)- 0832-2252525, Parivarthan- +91 7676 602 602, Connecting Trust- +91 992 200 1122/+91-992 200 4305 or Sahai- 080-25497777/ SAHAIHELPLINE@GMAIL.COM Ankita Lokhande Breaks Her Silence On Sushant Singh Rajput's Death, Refutes The Depression Narrative Ankita Lokhande Told Bihar Police About Sushant's Harassment By Rhea; Shared Texts From Sushant He had started working at a mine back when he was 16, Kravchuk said about Fokin, 87. First Prime Minister of Ukraine (1990-1992) Vitold Fokin could become a new member of the country's delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group on Donbas settlement, says Volodymyr Zelensky's new envoy to the Group, Leonid Kravchuk, who was a first president of Ukraine. Asked on Channel 24 about possible new faces that could appear on the Ukrainian team, Kravchuk said: "I'm aware that negotiations are underway with someone who is famous in Ukraine. This is Vitold Fokin, he is a man known in Donbas, he had been in the mine since the age of 16. And we would like to have in the group someone whom Donbas people know, so that he can say what the people who live there want strategically, nationally and otherwise." Read alsoRussia hints at scrapping talks on Donbas: Ukrainian President's Office reacts According to Kravchuk, members of the delegation are planning to have a meeting soon. "At 15:00 on Monday, we will convene the whole delegation, we will chat and get to know each other. Everyone will express their opinion, what they see, and how they see things. Because Zelensky has one goal a pro-active offensive on all issues: political, ideological... This means that we cannot lag behind, that we are interested, that peace should be a reality, not just a word," the politician noted. As UNIAN reported earlier, a letter was leaked, inked by Deputy Head of Russia's Presidential Administration Dmitry Kozak, where he announced his withdrawal from technical negotiations on Donbas settlement between the advisors to the Normandy Four leaders. Welcome to Morningstar.co.uk! You have been redirected here from Hemscott.com as we are merging our websites to provide you with a one-stop shop for all your investment research needs.To search for a security, type the name or ticker in the search box at the top of the page and select from the dropdown results.Registered Hemscott users can log in to Morningstar using the same login details. Similarly, if you are a Hemscott Premium user, you now have a Morningstar Premium account which you can access using the same login details. B oris Johnson cancelled major moves out of lockdown due tomorrow including the reopening of wedding parties and casinos in response to a rise in coronavirus cases. The Prime Minister called a press conference to announce that he was squeezing the brake on the reopening of the economy and society in order to protect those we love. Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer standing beside him, was more hardline, saying: We have probably reached the limits, or near the limits, of what we can open up. He added in a decisive intervention by the scientist to stop ministers to open things up further: The idea we can open up everything and keep the virus under control is wrong. The dramatic halt to the easing up of lockdown nationally is a bitter disappointment to businesses desperate to continue trading and to millions of families hoping for more freedom. The key announcements were: Small wedding receptions and the reopening of bowling alleys and casinos that were due to begin tomorrow are postponed for at least two weeks. Face coverings to be mandatory in indoor settings where people are likely to come into contact with people they do not know, including museums and places of worship from August 8. People can still go back to work where their employers have made the workplace safe. Shielding of two million people will be paused tomorrow as planned but vulnerable people, like those who have cancer, should be extra careful. Further details for them are to follow. Boris Johnson: UK cases are on a rise according to ONS "I know that the steps we are taking will be a real blow to many people, to everyone whose wedding plans have been disrupted or who cannot now celebrate Eid in the way that they would wish, said Mr Johnson. "And I'm really, really sorry about that but we cannot simply take the risk." Prof Whitty, who is said to have intervened earlier this week to insist on quarantine measures for holidaymakers returning from Spain , made clear he believed that if lockdown was further relaxed there would be tragedy. If we do not pull back and we start having further interactions, then we can expect to see an increases in cases with all the consequences that go with it. 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 The press conference came an hour after new official figures showed cases creeping up significantly for the first time since May, with an estimated 4,200 new infections per day. Last night a partial return to lockdown for 4.5 million people in Greater Manchester and parts of Yorkshire and East Lancashire was rushed out, barring them from socialising in homes and private gardens. An apologetic Mr Johnson said he hoped the relaxation would continue in mid August. We will of course study the data carefully and move forward with our intention to open up as soon as we possibly can. UK lockdown eases as more people return to work - In pictures 1 /54 UK lockdown eases as more people return to work - In pictures A woman wearing a face mask and gloves walks on a platform at Waterloo Station in London Reuters Cannon Street Station Jeremy Selwyn General view of roadworks on London Bridge, London PA Busy tube train between East Ham and Upton Park. PA People are seen at Waterloo Station in London Reuters People wear a face masks at Leeds station PA A worker from LNER stands beside ticket barriers that have been blocked for social distancing measures at Newcastle train station, PA Cannon Street Station Jeremy Selwyn Police at Victoria Station as Lockdown is slowly lifted at Victoria Station Nigel Howard Nigel Howard Burnt Oak tube station. PA A Victoria line train is deep cleaned at Northumberland Park depot PA Commuters at Clapham Junction Station PA Nigel Howard Euston Station Jeremy Selwyn Nigel Howard Passengers board and leave a train at a station in Bracknell, Berkshire PA Commuters and staff in and around at Clapham Junction Railway Station Daniel Hambury Police officers pictured at Colliers Wood Daniel Hambury/@stellapicsltd Cannon Street Station Jeremy Selwyn Euston Station Jeremy Selwyn Euston Station Jeremy Selwyn Euston Station Jeremy Selwyn Euston Station Jeremy Selwyn Euston Station Jeremy Selwyn Increased police and security personnel at New Street station in Birmingham PA Cannon Street Station Jeremy Selwyn Commuters at Clapham Junction sStation PA Nigel Howard Cannon Street Station Jeremy Selwyn Commuters at Clapham Junction Station PA Busy tube train between East Ham and Upton Park PA Nigel Howard Commuters and staff in and around at Clapham Junction Railway Station, Daniel Hambury Nigel Howard Increased police and security personnel at New Street station in Birmingham PA Increased security at New Street station in Birmingham, PA Busy tube train between East Ham and Upton Park PA Commuters at Clapham Junction Station PA A sign advising passengers to wear a face mask at Clapham Junction station, PA Stickers being installed on a bus at Abellio Camberwell bus garage, as more people are set to return to offices, factories and building sites this week PA "Two weeks ago I also said that from tomorrow the Government would give employers more discretion over how employees can work safely, whether by continuing to work from home, or attending a Covid-secure workplace. "And we know that employers have gone to huge lengths to make workplaces safe so that guidance remains unchanged. "I also said that we would pause shielding nationally from August 1, based on clinical advice and that national pause will proceed as planned, and our medical experts will be explaining more about that decision and about the shielded group later. The Prime Minister said Britain was better prepared than in March, with new treatments, mass testing and tracing. But he said: "I've also consistently warned that this virus could come back and that we would not hesitate to take swift and decisive action as required. Europe starts to ease itself out of Coronavirus lockdown 1 /28 Europe starts to ease itself out of Coronavirus lockdown Commuters sit in a coach at the Cardona underground metro station, with red circles on the ground indicating where to stand to maintain distance in mILAN AFP via Getty Images People walk on a street of the Balearic island of Formentera which will begin from Monday (May 4) de-escalation stage where outdoor areas of bars and restaurants can open at half occupancy, while groups of up to 10 people will be allowed in public places and in homes, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak on the island of Formentera, Spain Reuters A thermal camera (Top L) scans the body temperature of commuters arriving from regional trains at the Cardona railway station in Milan AFP via Getty Images Students arrive to the Akademisches Gymnasium high school in Vienna on the day of the reopening of high schools in the country after more than a month of closure due to the new coronavirus pandemic AFP via Getty Images Olga Prades helps bride Isabel Jimenez try on a wedding dress, as they both wear protection masks and gloves, at her bridal shop Innovias, on the first day that some small businesses are allowed to open during lockdown amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Madrid, Spain Reuters Mirel Chetan and Elena Banaseanu clean and disinfect the books of the Antonio Machado bookstore on the first day of attention to the public after 51 days of closure due to the COVID 19 coronavirus on May 04, 2020 in Madrid, Spain Getty Images A mouth mask obligation publicity at Simonis subway station in Brussel AFP via Getty Images A shop assistant attends a client at a camera shop in Barcelona AFP via Getty Images Workers at a hair salon work on customers, all wearing face masks to prevent the spread of new coronavirus in Athens AP A commuter wearing a protective mask waits for a train inside the Nuevos Ministerios metro station, on the first day mask usage is mandatory in public transport, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Madrid, Spain Reuters Students Lea Karner and Dorian Di Giorgio arrive to the Akademisches Gymnasium high school on their bicycles in Vienna on the day of the reopening of high schools in the country after more than a month of closure due to the new coronavirus pandemic. AFP via Getty Images Commuters enter the Cardona underground metro station, with the way out clearly marked in Milan AFP via Getty Images Commuters wearing protective face masks exit the metro station on Syntagma square, on the first day of easing of a nationwide lockdown against the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Athens, Greece Reuters Workers at a hair salon work on customers, all wearing face masks to prevent the spread of new coronavirus in Athens AP Commuters arrive from regional trains at the Cardona railway station in miLAN AFP via Getty Images Commuters wearing protective face masks leave the platforms of the metro station on Syntagma square, on the first day of easing of a nationwide lockdown against the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Athens, Greece, Reuters Commuters wearing protective face masks stand on a platform of the metro station on Syntagma square, on the first day of easing of a nationwide lockdown against the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Athens, Greece Reuters Travellers wait for a train at the Cardona railway station in Milan AFP via Getty Images Commuters exit a coach at the Cardona underground metro station, with red circles on the ground indicating where to stand to maintain distance in Milan AFP via Getty Images Commuters arrive from regional trains at the Cardona railway station in Milan AFP via Getty Images Commuters arrive from regional trains at the Cardona railway station in Milan AFP via Getty Images "I'm afraid that in parts of Asia and in Latin America, the virus is gathering pace and some of our European friends are also struggling to keep it under control. "As we see these rises around the world, we can't fool ourselves that we are exempt. We must be willing to react to the first signs of trouble." Labour pointed out that was exactly a fortnight since Mr Johnson claimed things would get back to normal before Christmas. Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth told Times Radio: "Two weeks ago, Boris Johnson was suggesting it could all be over by Christmas and I think many people thought there would be a kind of lull in this virus across the summer. "Actually what we're seeing is an increase in infection rates. We're obviously seeing worrying outbreaks across Europe and it is a reminder that this virus hasn't gone away. "In fact it is beginning to uptake and we understand therefore why he has had to make these decisions, why he's had to roll back some of the easings that would have been in place for tomorrow. "Of course it comes off the back of the devastating news yesterday that we've now had the highest death rate in Europe confirmed and I think a lot of people accept the Government were too slow early in responding to this virus back in February and March. So I think it's understandable why they've had to make these decisions so quickly and dramatically in the last 24 hours." Nicola Sturgeons government in Scotland advised Scots against non-essential travel across the border to the zone covering Greater Manchester, East Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire. Labours Sir Keir Starmer backed the Manchester partial lockdown but criticised the muddled announcements last night. There should have been a press conference announcing this with real clarity, he said. Papers released from Sage, the scientific advisory group, showed he growth rate and R value of coronavirus transmission in the UK has changed slightly in the last week, new figures published by the Government show. Boris Johnson outlines changes to lockdown amid growing cases in the UK Data released on Friday revealed the growth rate is now between minus 4 per cent to minus 1 per cent, compared with a rate of minus 5 per cent to minus 1 per cent per day, last week. The R value for the UK is between 0.8 to 0.9, a slight change from 0.7 to 0.9. The figures are published by the Government Office for Science and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage). A growth rate between minus 1 per cent to minus 4 per cent means the number of new infections is shrinking by between 1 per cent to 4 per cent every day, the report said. It added: "However, we are starting to see early indications that these values may be increasing. "This is not yet reflected in these estimates because the data used to calculate R and growth rate reflect the situation from a few weeks ago." New official data this morning found some 35,700 people in England had Covid-19 in the week to July 26 - around one in 1,500 individuals. The Office for National Statistics warned: There is now evidence to suggest a slight increase in the number of people in England testing positive in recent weeks. Loading.... It estimated around 4,200 new cases per day. Some 6.2 per cent tested positive for antibodies, suggesting they had the infection in the past. Jobs had to be the number one priority for Laois, Minister of State Sean Fleming said at the opening of the Portlaoise Plaza on Monday morning last. Announcing the 120 jobs at the Plaza on Monday morning, Minister Fleming cited the many positives of Laois as a place to locate and do business in, including its geographic location and its low cost operating environment. He acknowledged the work of Laois County Council and Supermac's in acquiring the site at Togher and paid tribute to Council CEO, John Mulholland for his focus on jobs and enterprise for the county. The investment in the locality is a positive development for the region and showcases the benefits of locating in the regions outside Dublin where there is access to an educated, skilled workforce, lower operating costs, and higher staff retention rates he stressed. I would like to commend Pat and Una on the Plaza and their continued support and positivity in bringing jobs to local communities, during these difficult times. The vote of confidence is encouraging and strengthens the agri sector, food producers and hospitality services in the area. The project is an example of the positivity that is emanating from the great work that is being done to promote the region as a place to work, live and visit. Minister Fleming noted that Supermac's had been in Portlaoise for 25 years, and he now noted the presence of the Supermac's Group in the county at three key locations, including the Killeshin Hotel and Manor Stone. He also paid tribute to Killeen Civil Engineering and their pivotal role as the contractors for the Plaza, and noted the presence of his old school friend, Michael Killeen. Minister Fleming also noted that Mr McDonagh had pulled one over the county when it was mooted that the Plaza might be called the Queen's County Plaza. When I heard that did I go mad. I couldn't believe it. That, Pat would be like us going to Galway and calling it Lord Trevelyan's plaza, joked Minister Fleming. The Chairperson of Laois County Council, Catherine Fitzgerald welcomed the opening of the Plaza and thanked Pat and Una McDonagh for the support. The Hagia Sophia should be used as an intercultural space, two UN human rights experts said Friday, suggesting Turkeys conversion of the contested landmark could reflect a supremacist view of history and culture. It would be an historic mistake at this difficult global moment to take actions which divide religious and cultural groups in Turkey and beyond, rather than uniting them, Karima Bennoune, special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, said in a statement. In whats been seen as an attempt to energize his conservative power base, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan controversially ordered Hagia Sophia reverted to a mosque. Last Friday, the longtime tourist attraction hosted its first Friday prayers in more than 80 years with Erdogan, a trained imam, leading the service. Erdogan has responded to critics, arguing that the reconversion of the Hagia Sophia to a mosque and the restoration of the Sumela monastery in eastern Turkey show how Turkey protects and beautifies all kinds of civilization heritages on its land. Addressing a videoconference July 28, he added, "If we were the kind of nation targeting the symbols of other faiths, as it is claimed or implied to be the case, this monastery, which has been ours for five centuries, would have already ceased to exist. The UNESCO World Heritage site has a long and storied history in Turkey. Originally built as a cathedral, the Byzantine structure served as the seat of the Greek Orthodox Church. Hagia Sophia was then converted into a mosque following the 1453 capture of Constantinople (what is now Istanbul). Under a 1934 decree issued by the government of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, Hagia Sophia was turned into a museum. The UN experts pointed out that the 1,500-year-old monument has since been used by people of all religions and celebrated as an example of interfaith and intercultural dialogue. As someone said, The dome of the Hagia Sophia should be big enough to include everyone, Ahmed Shaheed, special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, said in the statement. The Turkish government maintains the mosque will be open to non-Muslims outside of prayer times. The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party was excluded from invite-only prayers last Friday. The UN experts also said they were troubled by the use of a sword by Turkeys head of religious authority during the first prayer service, which could be construed as a symbol of conquest. CLAYTON From the moment the St. Louis County Council selected Sam Page as county executive on the day of Steve Stengers resignation in April 2019, the county government has operated in a way it had not for several years: without gridlock. An alliance between Page and four fellow Democrats on the seven-member council and sometimes Ernie Trakas, R-6th District set the past year in county government apart from any other in recent memory. While Page had led a bipartisan coalition on the council that battled Stenger, constantly overriding vetoes, hes had no such opposition as county executive. Thats not to say it has always been smooth sailing. The dynamic also has resulted in some criticism that Page and the council majority are too cozy, particularly after the councils decision to give Page unilateral control of spending $173.5 million in federal coronavirus relief dollars earlier this year, a measure bitterly fought by the Republicans. While Page tries to survive the challenge to his own effort to retain his seat, his dynamic with the council also is set for a big test in the primary election on Tuesday. Two key Page allies, Rochelle Walton Gray, D-4th District, and Kelli Dunaway, D-2nd District, face opponents who likely would be more independent of the Page administration. And in the 6th District, three Democrats are squaring off to get on the ballot in November to face Trakas, a longtime Page ally who has, at times, battled the council Democrats but recently has moved back closer to Page. 4th District The 4th District race has heated up in recent days. Walton Gray, one of two Black council members, faces a challenge from Shalonda Webb, 44, a software manager for Boeing from north St. Louis County who is Black, and Mark Behlmann, 62, of Florissant, owner of a construction and consulting business, who is white. Walton Gray, 55, of Black Jack, served in the Missouri House of Representatives from 2009 to 2016. She beat 16-year incumbent Mike OMara in the 2016 Democratic primary, with 61% of the vote, on her way to an easy general election victory. In social media posts, Walton Grays father, Elbert Walton, a former state representative and longtime political powerbroker in north St. Louis County, alleged that Webb is a stalking horse attempting to split the Black vote to unseat Walton Gray and hand the election to Behlmann, a 21-year member of the Hazelwood school board. Walton posted the final tally from his daughters victory over OMara and noted that, this time, a white candidate who got 39% against two Black candidates could win. In brief interviews, Webb and Behlmann denied any suggestion they were in collusion or campaigning unfairly. Walton Gray said she didnt have any comment about her fathers post. In an online candidate forum last week facilitated by the League of Women Voters and sponsored by several north St. Louis County groups, Walton Gray said she was the only candidate with legislative experience who understood the procedures of making policies and laws. She has a long list of endorsements, including Council Chairwoman Lisa Clancy, Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, several unions, the Sierra Club, the abortion-rights group NARAL and the St. Louis American newspaper. Among her accomplishments on the council, she said, was supporting a bill requiring minority participation on county contracts and bringing more resources to an area of the county that has lagged in economic development. For example, she said, she supported legislation that would dedicate some of the countys hotel-motel tax to develop a recreation complex for north St. Louis County. Webb said in the forum that she has a strong professional skill set from her 22 years at Boeing and said she entered the race because she is a concerned member of this community that has seen the district decline. She said that while Walton Gray has strong connections in Spanish Lake, there are other areas of the district that didnt have as much representation on the council and she wanted to ensure there isnt just one community that benefits more than the others. She has received endorsements from U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, state Sen. Gina Walsh, Ferguson Mayor Ella Jones and other politicians. Behlmann, a widower with a daughter and two granddaughters, is a lifelong north St. Louis County resident who has said he felt Walton Gray has not provided enough leadership. He pointed to his long record of community involvement and volunteerism and said he was tired of the mismanagement and uncooperative mannerism currently displayed on the County Council and said he would work closely with the county police department to make sure the North County Precinct has enough resources to fight crime. In an interview, he described himself as an anti-abortion, conservative Democrat. He said he didnt know who he would support for president, saying that Joe Biden was not conservative enough for him and he didnt think the Democrats would put him on the ballot because he is too old. I dont particularly care for Trump, Behlmann said, but he has done some good for the country as far as reducing African American unemployment rates just before the current virus hit us. In November, the Democratic winner will face Republican Curtis Faulkner of north St. Louis County and Libertarian Eric S. Harris of Florissant, both running unopposed. Walton Gray beat Faulkner by 52 percentage points in November 2016. 2nd District In the 2nd District, Democratic incumbent Kelli Dunaway of Chesterfield is facing a challenge from Creve Coeur Mayor Barry Glantz. For Dunaway, 45, its the second election in two years. She won a special election last year to fill Pages council seat after the council selected him to serve as county executive. Glantz, 60, an architect, tried to run last year as an independent but failed to get enough signatures to get on the ballot. As the Post-Dispatch previously reported, environmental groups and the home building industry have lined up behind different candidates to determine the balance of power in St. Louis County. On one side, the Home Builders Association of St. Louis and Eastern Missouri is endorsing retired marketing executive Mark Mantovani for St. Louis County executive and Glantz over Dunaway. On the other side, the Missouri chapter of the Sierra Club has endorsed Page and Dunaway, in part for their support of updated energy efficiency requirements in the new building codes that took effect recently. 6th District Venki Palamand, 53, of the Oakville area, is an engineer who owns a machinery company, Martak Machine, and served on the Mehlville school board for nine years, three as president. In an interview in March, Palamand said he was running because he was concerned about the countys future and that his background as a business owner and experience with a $100 million school budget were important assets. Bob Burns, 72, of Affton, is a state representative facing a term limit in his fourth term representing the 93rd District. He said he was running because I love Affton and south St. Louis County with all my heart and soul. He has been married for 53 years and has two adult sons. Burns said he wanted to make sure money from the Proposition P public safety tax was being spent on protecting police officers. In 2018, Burns was at the center of controversy for calling in several times to a St. Louis-area radio show whose host was known for using racial slurs. Democratic leaders in the Missouri House asked him to resign. He refused, but the Democrats ousted him from their caucus. He said the tapes had been edited to be misleading and that he had only called in to voice support for veterans and other noncontroversial issues. He ran unopposed for re-election to his final term. Alex Lange, 33, is a union representative for Local 655 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union who is backed by labor unions. The married father of two young children said he was running to bring a new voice to the St. Louis County Council. He said in response to a questionnaire that his priorities include funding public education, improving infrastructure, supporting public safety and protecting seniors. Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Commemorating the 25th anniversary of the first mobile call made in India, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and COAI, through IMC Studio, organized a special online event Desh Ki Digital Udaan today. On the occasion, Honble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, congratulated and appreciated the contribution by Department of Telecommunications, telecom companies and COAI in the telecom sector via a written letter. The letter mentions, Digital Mobility as an enabler of multiple other kinds of mobility social, economic and informational. The companies active in the ecosystem of digital connectivity have done yeoman service to the poor and underprivileged by ensuring connectivity reaches them. The online event witnessed the key messages from Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Honble Minister for Communications, Electronics & Information Technology and Law & Justice; Dr. RS Sharma, IAS, Chairman, TRAI; Shri Anshu Prakash, Secretary (T) & Chairman, DCC; Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Airtel; Mr. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries Ltd; Mr. BK Modi, Chairman, Spice Group and Lt Gen Dr. SP Kochhar, Director General, COAI. Indian Mobile telephony is 25 years young and is raring to provide users, the latest technology, that will not only revolutionize the way people communicate, but also contribute to the economic growth and development of the nation. On July 31, 1995, the first mobile call was made between Writers Building in Kolkata and Sanchar Bhavan in Delhi, at the one end was the Chief Minister of West Bengal and on the other side was Communications Minister in Delhi. Today, with approx. 958 million active wireless subscribers, India is the worlds second-largest telecom market, contributing immensely to the countrys socio-economic development and playing a critical role in running the economy digitally during the pandemic. While delivering the opening remarks at the event, Lt Gen Dr. SP Kochhar, Director General, COAI, said, During the last 25 years, technological progress, innovation and market dynamics have had a profound impact on the industry and contributed to the accelerated liberalization of the sector. There are many sectors doing good work in their fields but without telecom linkages they would be isolated specks. Telecom interconnects and helps societies to be connected. It is like the nervous system of the human body. Taking an inspiration from this memorable journey, the industry is committed to working towards creating a truly world-class digital ecosystem of the future with the help of our all stakeholders, especially the government. The event witnessed a special program with Indias top telecom leaders Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Enterprises, Mr. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries Ltd. In a panel discussion titled Connectivity Beyond telecom during the online event Industry leaders like Dr. Anand Agarwal, Group CEO, STL; Mr. Sanjay Malik, Senior Vice President and Head of India Market, Nokia, Mr. Anku Jain, MD, MediaTek India, Mr. Rajesh Nambiar, Chairman & President, Ciena India, presented their views during the session. New Delhi: The country's cyber security agency has issued an alert against an Android malware 'BlackRock', that has the potential to "steal" banking and other confidential data of a user. The malware can extract credentials and credit card information from over 300 apps such as email, e-commerce apps, social media apps, besides banking and financial apps, the CERT-In said in an advisory. The "attack campaign" of this 'Trojan' category virus is active globally, said the Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-In), the national technology arm to combat cyberattacks and guard Indian cyber space. First spotted in May, the BlackRock Android malware was initially reported by ThreatFabric earlier this month. 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. Investing in the stock market "is more art than science", well-known American investor Howard Marks once said. Many of us would agree with his analogy. So why is mastering this art so difficult? According to market veteran Madhusudan Kela, it is selling the stock which is a very difficult art. "Sometimes you can be too early, sometimes you can be too late," he says. With more than 30 years of experience in the stock market, Madhu Kela has been one of the most influential names of Dalal Street in the last decade. Kela is the former chief investment strategist of Reliance Capital. Earlier, he headed the equities fund management at Reliance Mutual Fund after which, in late 2010, Kela moved to the fund's parent. Before his stint as a fund manager, Kela had worked at broking firms like UBS, Peregrine Securities and Motilal Oswal Securities. "One of the things of the market is that when you identify that it is a really outsized and large opportunity, do not commit a mistake of timing it," said Kela, in an interview with CNBC-TV18. He also revealed some of the 'big' mistakes he had made while trading which he says cost him "a lot". Recollecting an episode from 2008, he said, "Let me tell you, this was one of the big mistakes which we made in our Reliance Mutual Fund days. Having realised that the euphoria between 2003 and 2008 is over, we were still hoping against the hope that some of these companies will still bounce back while the market had already given its verdict that it wants to now go for quality, for high ROE, for governance because we were coming from that big investment phase." Another mistake or what he terms as a "big miss" was Symphony, Kela said. "We analysed this company and we thought that we will be able to time it properly at some point in time because the next two-three quarters are going to be weak and after that their story is going to start. We met the management, visited Ahmedabad multiple times and we were quite convinced about it. Somehow it always looked expensive," he elaborated. According to Kela, trading, at the end of the day, is all about valuation, however, the question is what phase of the market one is in. "Value is something which will tell you that you should be attracted to analyse more of this stock but you should never get trapped in value," he adds. Source: CNBC-TV18 The United States is "considering" measures to allow Hongkongers to settle in the US following Beijing's imposition of its sweeping national security law over the city, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told lawmakers on Thursday. "We're reviewing that, we're considering it," Pompeo said when asked whether the US should extend asylum or visa opportunities to people in Hong Kong, adding that he thought Britain had made a "good decision" by offering a path to UK citizenship. US President Donald Trump was "actively considering how we ought to treat those who seek asylum coming to us from Hong Kong, or to grant a visa programme that surrounds that," said Pompeo, appearing before senators at a State Department budget hearing. But in a sign that the issue is not cut-and-dry for an administration that has sought to curtail immigration and has slashed refugee quotas, Pompeo said that the government also wanted to "encourage people to try to work from within to the extent that they can". But the ability of those still in Hong Kong to effect political reform was cast into further doubt just hours before Pompeo's appearance, when the Hong Kong government disqualified 12 pro-democracy hopefuls from running in the legislative council elections, citing the candidates' past appeals to foreign governments for sanctions against China. Officials previously stressed that the national security law, which criminalises a broad range of acts under the categories of subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with a foreign power, would not be applied retroactively following its enactment in June. The Trump administration's weighing of measures to welcome Hongkongers to settle in the US comes on the heels of similar moves by other countries, including the UK, which will provide a path to citizenship for holders of the British National (Overseas) passport and their immediate family members. Story continues A broad executive order signed by Trump this month did not commit to providing unconditional support to Hongkongers fleeing the city, but did order that "admissions within the refugee ceiling set by the annual Presidential Determination [be reallocated] to residents of Hong Kong based on humanitarian concerns". Yet the Trump administration has repeatedly lowered the annual refugee ceiling, which stands at 18,000 for the 2020 financial year. Trump, meanwhile, has made an iron-fisted approach to immigration a cornerstone of his past and present presidential campaigns. "The disturbing reality is that the Trump administration has crippled and decimated this country's ability to provide life-saving asylum or refugee resettlement to people fleeing persecution, whether they are fleeing Hong Kong or other places," said Eleanor Acer, senior director of refugee protection at advocacy organisation Human Rights First. Given its slashing of the refugee quota, the administration's move to reallocate refugee allotment slots to Hongkongers was "disingenuous lip service", Acer added. Pompeo's appearance on Capitol Hill came after Democrat staffers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a scathing report on Tuesday criticising the State Department's failure to fill key vacancies, alleging mistreatment and retaliation against career officials, and describing a "crisis of morale" in the department. "I'm disappointed that instead of making America first among the nations of the world, we have relinquished our leadership to the applause and approval of China and Russia," said Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, at the start of Thursday's proceedings. "That makes America last." During the hearing - a tense affair though notably less combative than Attorney General William Barr's Capitol Hill appearance earlier this week - Pompeo contended that the US had in fact been successful in forging alliances with other countries, particularly on matters relating to China. He had been "surprised and dismayed", however, that 53 countries had voiced their support at the United Nations Human Rights Council for Beijing's national security law over Hong Kong, almost double the number of states that formally opposed the law. Pressed on remarks he made last week calling for a global, anti-China "alliance of democracies", Pompeo charged that some nations understood the "threat" that China posed but did not yet feel "empowered" to take a stand against Beijing. Mike Pompeo is seen in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in Washington on Thursday. Photo: The Hill via Bloomberg alt=Mike Pompeo is seen in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in Washington on Thursday. Photo: The Hill via Bloomberg "So we are working our diplomats, trying to build out a set of relationships," he continued. "Whether that's part of a formal organisation or not, I'm not sure I know the answer to [that] yet." Pompeo also faced a critical line of questioning about accusations made by former national security adviser John Bolton that Trump had expressed his support of mass internment camps in Xinjiang in a private conversation with Xi. Pompeo did not address those reported remarks when asked by Senator Jeff Merkley whether the US government should be "more robust at every level in condemning the Chinese enslavement of the Uygurs," but said he was "proud" of the way the US had responded to the alleged human rights abuses. Without elaboration, he also said that his department was working with the Treasury to roll out new punitive measures against Chinese entities over the treatment of ethnic minority groups. 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. HANGZHOU and SHAOXING, China, July 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ascletis Pharma Inc. (HKEX code: 1672) announces today that its all-oral HCV treatment has been approved for marketing in China by National Medical Products Administration (NMPA). The Company's all-oral HCV treatment (RDV/DNV Regimen) is Ravidasvir (Asclevir) in combination with Danoprevir (Ganovo). Phase II/III clinical trial has shown that RDV/DNV Regimen demonstrated a cure rate of 99% ( SVR12) with a short treatment duration of 12 weeks in genotype 1 patients. In patients with baseline NS5A resistance mutations, RDV/DNV Regimen demonstrated a cure rate of 100% (SVR12). Both Ravidasvir and Danoprevir have been selected as National Science and Technology Major Project for "Innovative Drug Development" programs. Ravidasvir was licensed from Presidio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical stage pharmaceutical company. "We are excited about the approval of all-oral HCV treatment and fully committed to curing hepatitis C," said Dr. Jinzi J. Wu, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Ascletis. "As an innovative R&D driven biotech, we are also developing curative medicines for chronic hepatis B, such as first-in-class immunotherapy -- subcutaneously injected PDL-1 antibody. The Company aims to be a leader for both hepatitis C and B treatments." About Ascletis Ascletis is an innovative R&D driven biotech with three commercial products and listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange (Ascletis, 1672.HK). Ascletis is committed to developing and commercializing antiviral, steatohepatitis, and tumor-related innovative drugs for unmet medical needs in China and Globally. Led by a management team with deep expertise and a proven track record, Ascletis has developed into a fully integrated platform covering the entire value chain from discovery and development to manufacturing and commercialization. Ascletis' pipeline is focused primarily on three therapeutic areas: 1. HCV: two commercial stage products and two R&D stage drug candidates. Ganovo (Danoprevir) is the first direct-acting anti-viral agent for hepatitis C, developed by a domestic firm in China. Asclevir (Ravidasvir) in combination with Ganovo (Danoprevir) (RDV/DNV Regimen) is the first all-oral HCV regimen developed by a domestic company in China. 2. HBV: one commercial stage product and three R&D stage drug candidates. Pegasys (Peginterferon alfa-2a) is a leading marketed pegylated interferon for hepatitis B&C partnered with Roche. 3. NASH (Non-Alcoholic SteatoHepatitis): three R&D stage drug candidates against three different targets for combination treatments. For more information, please visit www.ascletis.com. SOURCE Ascletis Pharma Inc. Related Links http://www.ascletis.com New Delhi : Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday said that the judiciary must give directions to executive but without interfering in the governance. Prasad was speaking at a function in the Supreme Court lawns to celebrate Constitution Day where he stressed that problems will resolve if all organs remember their domain. Court must give direction if executive fails, but governance must remain with those who are elected to govern. If those nuances are kept in mind then large number of problems that we encounter would be resolved. ALSO READ: (Differences between judiciary, govt over shortage of judges continue) I must remind that the Constitution has always given legislation with the legislature and that must be remain preserved with it, he added. Earlier in the day, Law Minister disagreed with Chief Justice of India TS Thakur on his claim that 500 judges posts are vacant in the high courts. Justice Thakur on Saturday lashed out at the Narendra Modi-led government over increasing vacancies at various courts and for not providing adequate infrastructure. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 Trend: Azerbaijans Ministry of Defense commented on the information on raising the level of combat readiness of the Armenian armed forces of central subordination, including the military units of the first echelon, and their unexpected inspection, Trend reports with reference to the Defense Ministry. This is done because of fear from the Armenian authorities, caused by the joint Azerbaijani-Turkish exercises held in Azerbaijan, the Defense Ministry noted, adding that the personnel of the Azerbaijani army constantly improves its professionalism and combat effectiveness in daily training and exercises. "The combat capability and military potential of the Azerbaijani army is the most important indicator that will provide an advantage over the enemy on the battlefield," said the ministry. "If the Armenian side again resorts to provocations, a worthy response will follow," the defense ministry said. 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. President Donald Trump has walked back his controversial suggestion to delay the November 3 elections in the face of fierce opposition from even Republicans. Do I want to see a date change? No, Trump said to reporters at the daily White House briefing on the Covid-19 epidemic. But I dont want to see a crooked election. The US president mooted election delay in a tweet Thursday as an alternative to the use of mail-in voting in the November 3 elections, arguing it will lead to fraud and abuse. It is being considered by many states in view of the ongoing Covid-19 epidemic and some of them tried it in the primaries. Trump brought copies of news articles to the briefing about specific cases of problems facing mail-in voting in Democratic primaries in New York and New Jersey. Mail-in ballots will lead to the greatest fraud, he said. Subsequently, the election-delay tweet that was pinned at the top post on his Twitter feed for more than 84 million followers to see, had been taken down by the end of the day. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, made the point with a tweet quoting the constitution: Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution states:The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States. And others, including many senior Republicans, pointed to the fact that elections had been held in the midst of even the most dire of times such as the Civil War, and World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918. Never in the history of the country, through wars and depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time, and well find a way to do that again this November 3, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, told a local TV stations in his home state Kentucky. Kevin McCarthy, the top top Republican in the House, told reporters at a news briefing that never in the history of the federal elections have we ever not held an election and we should go forward with our election. Former President Barack Obama weighed in as well making a broader point of voting rights at the funeral of John Lewis, the civil rights leader who passed away last week. Even as we sit here, there are those in power are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations, and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the postal service in the run-up to an election that is going to be dependent on mailed-in ballots so people dont get sick. The Mumbai police is already probing the alleged suicide case Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. The actor was found hanging at his Bandra apartment in Mumbai on June 14. (PTI) New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday filed a money laundering case on the basis of a Bihar Police FIR in which Sushant Singh Rajput's father has accused actress Rhea Chakraborty and her family of abetting the Bollywood actor''s suicide. The central probe agency had recently called for the Bihar police first investigation report (FIR) and after studying it, the ED decided to slap charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), officials said. They said an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) has been filed against the accused named in the Bihar Police FIR that includes Chakraborty, her family and six others. Chakraborty and some others are expected to be called for questioning in the case soon, official sources said. Rajput, 34, was found hanging in his apartment in Mumbai''s Bandra area on June 14. The ED is understood to have taken up the case after it analysed the contents of the FIR and gathered some independent information about Rajput''s income, bank accounts and companies. More such details and another FIR filed by the Mumbai Police to probe Rajput''s death will be part of the ED''s probe, according to the officials. Rajput''s father Krishna Kumar Singh (74), who resides in Patna, had on Tuesday lodged a complaint with the Bihar Police against Chakraborty, her family members and six others for abetment to suicide of his son and fraud. Singh has accused Chakraborty, a budding TV and film actress and purported girlfriend of Rajput, of having befriended his son in May, 2019 with the intention of furthering her own career. In his complaint, Rajput's father also sought to invoke the provisions of the Mental Health Care Act, alleging that the "machinations" of Chakraborty and her family members had caused his son to crack up, despite a successful career in films, and ultimately drove him to commit suicide. He also alleged that the actress was aided by her family members, including parents, since they all were looking to purloin the assets of his son worth crores of rupees and started interfering in all aspects of his life. The father also wanted a police investigation to ascertain where the Rs 15 crore deposited in a bank account held by Rajput was transferred. He also alleged that on June 6, less than a week before Rajput was found hanging from a ceiling of his house, Chakraborty came to his place and decamped with many of his belongings, including cash, his laptop, ATM card and other important documents. The ED will probe these allegations of mishandling and purported diversion of Rajput''s money and operation of his bank accounts. The agency will probe if anyone used Rajput''s income and his companies for money laundering and creating illegal assets, the officials said. The ED has powers to attach The Bihar Police had pressed various sections of Indian Penal Code in its FIR, including 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 380 (theft in dwelling house), 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 306 (abetment of suicide). Sometime back, Chakraborty had tweeted and requested Union Home Minister Amit Shah to order a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in this case. "I request you with folded hands to initiate a CBI enquiry. I only want to understand what pressures prompted Sushant to take this step," she posted on Twitter. The Mumbai police is already probing the alleged suicide case, and has questioned several Bollywood bigwigs including filmmakers Mahesh Bhatt and Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Chakraborty has also recorded her statement. Rajput's death by suicide has also triggered a debate on alleged nepotism and favouritism in the Hindi film industry. Block 114 is located in Song Hong Basin, offshore Vietnams northern continental shelf, about 65km from Quang Tri province, and 86km from Da Nang city in the central region. Exploration well 114-Ken Bau-2X (Photo: PetroVietnam) Eni Vietnam B.V is the operator of Block 114 with a 50 percent share, while Essar E&P Limited holds the remaining 50 percent. The exploration well 114-Ken Bau-1X was drilled in May 2019, reaching a total depth of 3,603m, encountering several intervals of gas and condensate sandstone. Meanwhile, 114-Ken Bau-2X was holed on February 29, 2020, 2km from exploration well Ken Bau 1X, with a total depth of 3,690m, encountering a pay in excess of 110m in several intervals of Miocence sandstones interbedded with shale. Eni conducted two mini drill stem tests (DST), collecting a lot of fluid sampling, which shows significant hydrocarbon accumulation at the well. The Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) has announced that its exploration of the Ken Bau-2X well helped the firm fulfil its plan of increasing oil and gas reserves in 2020 ahead of schedule. Photo: PetroVietnam Exploration findings at Ken Bau-2X in 2020 and Ken Bau-1X in 2019 affirmed the existence of oil and gas reserves in the areas and adjacent blocks. Eni and ESSAR E&P are building an overall appraisal plan for exploiting oil and gas in the areas and drilling for exploration at similar structures in the contracted block. It will prepare a reserve report and a mine development report. It is expected that Ken Bau-1X and 2X will be put into exploitation from 2028. PetroVietnam said this is a crucial premise for exploration activities as well as further exploitation in the surrounding areas, contributing to strongly promoting the gas power industry and gas products in the central region. It is also expected to contribute to ensuring national energy security and promoting the sustainable development of Vietnams oil and gas sector in the future. Eni is an integrated energy company engaged in oil and natural gas exploration, field development and production, and the supply, trading, and shipping of natural gas, LNG, electricity, and fuel. It has been present in Vietnam since 2013 and currently operates four blocks, all located in the underexplored Song Hong (Red River) and Phu Khanh basins, offshore of central Vietnam./.VNA Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 20:43:47|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close HONG KONG, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam registered its first COVID-19 death on Friday amid a resurgence of infections in the country, while the Philippines, India and Japan's Tokyo confirmed record numbers of daily cases. Vietnam's Ministry of Health confirmed that a 70-year-old Vietnamese man died of COVID-19, which is the country's first death from the disease, Vietnam News Agency reported. The patient, with a history of heart failure and pneumonia, tested positive for COVID-19 on July 26 and died in the early morning on Friday, according to the news agency. After going through over three months without any local transmission, Vietnam has seen a number of infections in the community since July 25. Fiji also reported its first death from COVID-19 infection on the same day. Health Minister Ifereimi Waqainabete said a 66-year-old Fijian man, who had a history of cardiac problems and returned from India early July, died on Thursday in the hospital in Lautoka, Fiji's second-largest city. The number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines surged to 93,354 after the Department of Health (DOH) reported 4,063 new cases, the largest single-day increase since the highly-infectious disease emerged in the country in January. India also recorded the highest ever single-day spike with 55,078 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the total tally to 1,638,870, according to the federal health ministry. This is the second consecutive day when fresh COVID-19 cases have increased by more than 50,000. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike confirmed 463 new COVID-19 infections in the capital, with the figure marking a new record daily increase, eclipsing the previous single-day record of 367 on Thursday. Australia recorded the second-highest daily cases while the death toll is on the brink of surpassing 200, with a total number of 196 deaths and 651 new cases during the last 24 hours. This is the second-largest daily number in the country after Thursday's record of 747, according to the update from Michael Kidd, the Australian government deputy chief medical officer. According to the federal government, hundreds of workers from the Pacific are set to be allowed to enter Australia to help farmers harvest crops despite border closures. A COVID-19 candidate vaccine developed in South Australia (SA) has cleared the first phase of testing, according to local media's report. Bangladesh reported 2,772 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to over 237,000. Nasima Sultana, a senior Health Ministry official, said in a briefing that 28 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. Malaysia reported another 12 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the national total to 8,976. Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a statement that five of the cases are imported and seven more are local transmissions. The COVID-19 cases in Indonesia rose by 2,040 within one day to 108,376, with the death toll adding by 73 to 5,131, the Health Ministry said. New Zealand reported no new cases of COVID-19, with the number of active cases in the country standing at 20, all in managed isolation facilities, according to the Ministry of Health. South Korea reported 36 more cases compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 14,305. Enditem MIAMI, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Royal Caribbean Group (NYSE: RCL) has scheduled a conference call for 10:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, Monday, August 10, 2020, to provide a business update and discuss second quarter 2020 financial results. The call will be available on-line at the company's investor relations website, www.rclinvestor.com. To listen to the call by phone, please dial (877) 663-9606 in the US and Canada. International phone calls should be made to (706) 758-4628. There is no passcode or meeting number. A replay of the webcast will be available at the same site for a month following the call. You are encouraged to dial-in/register at least 15 minutes prior to start time to ensure your participation. About Royal Caribb ean Group Royal Caribbean Group (NYSE: RCL) is the operating business name for Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Royal Caribbean Group is the owner of four global cruise vacation brands: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Silversea.and Azamara. Royal Caribbean Group is also a 50% owner of a joint venture that operates TUI Cruises and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises. Together, our brands operate 63 ships with an additional 16 on order as of July 31, 2020. Learn more at www.rclcorporate.com or www.rclinvestor.com. SOURCE Royal Caribbean Group Related Links http://www.rclinvestor.com Marc-Andre Blanchard joins CDPQ as Executive Vice-President and Head of CDPQ Global MONTREAL, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (CDPQ) today presented an integrated structure for its international activities in order to manage its presence in various regions around the world with a global view. In this context, CDPQ announced the appointment of Marc-Andre Blanchard as Executive Vice-President and Head of CDPQ Global. In his new role, Mr. Blanchard will have direct responsibility for CDPQ's three main regional hubs outside of Canada: United States/Latin America, Europe and Asia/Pacific. He will lead activities in CDPQ's international offices and will be supported by the Executive Vice-President and Deputy Head of CDPQ Global, Anita George, whose expanded mandate will now cover all geographies. Previously, Ms. George served as Executive Vice-President, Strategic Partnerships Growth Markets. CDPQ adopts a more integrated approach "After building multidisciplinary teams in Asia, Latin America, the United States and Europe, and increasing our international exposure by over $140 billion in five years, moving toward a more integrated structure is the natural next step in our evolution. Under Marc-Andre's leadership, and with Anita's support, this new structure will allow us to continue diversifying our portfolio and go to market with a cross-functional and global view, backed by strong leadership in Montreal and strengthened responsibilities in our key regional hubs and satellite offices," said Charles Emond, President and Chief Executive Officer of CDPQ. "With his experience in leading roles on the international stage, Marc-Andre is the ideal person for the position. He possesses a remarkable ability to develop and maintain business networks, understand regional specificities while mobilizing diverse teams located around the world under a shared vision. Marc-Andre has a strong sense of public service and commitment that is perfectly aligned with CDPQ's mandate. I firmly believe that he will be a major asset in expanding the reach of our institutionand Quebecin international markets," he added. Mr. Blanchard is a lawyer and since 2016 has served as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations in New York, where he demonstrated exceptional leadership in fostering a closer alignment of capital and sustainable development objectives. From 2010 to 2016, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of McCarthy Tetrault, one of Canada's largest law firms. Prior to that, he was the firm's Managing Partner for Quebec and was a legal advisor and strategist in several major lawsuits and business transactions. In his new role, Mr. Blanchard will support CDPQ's Quebec partner companies as they globalize, represent the organization with key stakeholders in international bodies and contribute to its visibility as a partner of choice in priority international markets. He will also ensure close coordination of the international teams with CDPQ's senior executives. "It's an honour for me to join the CDPQ team and continue the work of recent years and further enhance the organization's international leadership. At the U.N., I witnessed first hand the impact that investors can have on major issues around the world, both through their choice of partners and investments and in advancing key themes, such as climate change and sustainable investment. I'm looking forward to working with CDPQ's local teams and to continue positioning this great Quebec institution as a partner of choice in the markets, always to benefit its depositors, and to help create new international opportunities for our companies," said Marc-Andre Blanchard. Mr. Blanchard will begin in his new role on September 8 and report to the President and Chief Executive Officer. He will sit on CDPQ's Executive Committee and on its Investment-Risk Committee. ABOUT CAISSE DE DEPOT ET PLACEMENT DU QUEBEC Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (CDPQ) is a long-term institutional investor that manages funds primarily for public and parapublic pension and insurance plans. As at December 31, 2019, it held CA$340.1 billion in net assets. As one of Canada's leading institutional fund managers, CDPQ invests globally in major financial markets, private equity, infrastructure, real estate and private debt. For more information, visit cdpq.com, follow us on Twitter @LaCDPQ or consult our Facebook or LinkedIn pages. SOURCE Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec Related Links https://www.cdpq.com/ Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images R.L. Stine, the author of terrifying-if-youre-12 book series Goosebumps, says the reason monsters are so frightening is because theyre completely out of control and you cant do anything about them. He could also be describing a bad roommate. Everyone in San Francisco has at least one roommate horror story, and if you live with other people right now, odds are youve experienced heightened tension. Whats tricky is that the bonds of sharing a space are closer to a marriage than a friendship (without the potential for make-up sex). In order to better understand how to weather the pandemic as a platonic couple (or threesome, or in my case, fivesome), I consulted licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Gal Szekely of the Couples Center for practical interpersonal advice on surviving a shared apartment. RELATED: An FBI hostage negotiator explains how to persuade people to wear masks Living with roommates always includes a level of risk, but rarely does that risk entail potential transmission of a life-threatening disease. Agreeing on a set of shared health practices is complicated, and even the best intentions crack under the weight of five months of confinement with the one Craigslister who responded to your listing. According to Szekely, the key is to understand the root cause behind peoples level of coronavirus risk level. One of the things we see in relationships in general, and of course specifically with couples, is that usually people talk about the surface things, says Szekely. In the case of the pandemic, that could mean whether to hug a friend, eat at a restaurant, or allow outsiders in your home. They dont recognize that beneath the surface, theres something emotionally deep, which comes back to who we are as a person. Someone who ignores social distancing may just be so used to rebelling that they cant help leaving their bandana around their neck in public like theyre auditioning for Billy Crystals role in City Slickers 3. Understanding the underlying motivation for actions is more effective than casting blame and will lead to greater empathy from roommates. We tend to blame other people and say, youre reckless or youre too uptight, instead of taking it back and saying, well, Im worried and if Im really honest with myself, I tend to be more risk averse in general. When you talk about yourself, usually people listen. When you talk about them, or the right thing to do, they dont listen and become defensive. So in the immortal words of George Costanza, its not you, its me (who happens to be hiding in his bedroom hunched over a lukewarm burrito). Your interpretation of a dirty dish left in the sink is likely different from your roommate Wes or Giada or Sai or Meghnas intentions (hi guys!). Szekely suggests a couples therapy technique called heartfelt communication, which helps dodge assumptions and disarm accusations. We use this structure: when you do this my interpretation or the story I have about it is which makes me feel and what I would like to feel is this. Unless you live with a really vindictive person (Elena, good riddance), its likely that forgetting to pay the internet bill on your way out of the house isnt a personal affront. Your interpretation of a garage door left open may be that Mette doesnt care if everyones bikes get stolen, but its more likely that she got home from a raging techno party at 4 a.m. and *shruggy emoji*. Its just a situational consequence rather than a reflection on her character, unless that party happened during the pandemic, in which case from now on she can just go live at her illegal rave. Its also important to recognize that some behaviors are hard to change, but also explore why theyre so hard to change. That will lead you to appreciate your roommates strengths (Wes, fixing appliances, Giada, surfing/science), and help make up for their weaknesses. Vietnam achieved a trade surplus of $6.5 billion in the first seven months of this year, including $1 billion in July, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO). Customs clearance of import goods at the Kim Thanh border gate in Lao Cai province. In the first seven months, the national import value was estimated at 139.33 billion USD. (Photo: haiquanonline.vn) The foreign-invested sector, including crude oil, recorded a trade surplus of 17.6 billion USD, the office said. However, the domestic economic sector had a trade deficit of 11.1 billion USD. The office also noted that in the first seven months, the export value was estimated at 145.79 billion USD, up 0.2 percent over the same period last year. Of which, the domestic economic sector continued to be the highlight with export value at 50.76 billion USD, up 13.5 percent while the foreign-invested sector reached 95.03 billion USD, accounting for 65.2 percent of total export value, down 5.7 percent year on year. In July, the total export value was estimated at 23 billion USD, up 1.9 percent compared to last month. Of which, 8.5 billion USD was from the domestic economic sector, up 2.6 percent month-on-month and 14.5 billion USD from the foreign-invested sector, up 1.5 percent. During the first seven months, 23 goods saw an export value of over 1 billion USD. Of which, the group of phones and components had the highest export value with 25.7 billion USD, but it fell by 6.6 percent over the same period last year. The group of electronics, computers, and components followed with 23.1 billion USD, up 24.3 percent, tagged along by textiles and garments with 16.2 billion USD, down 12.1 percent. The group of machinery, equipment, and spare parts had an export value of 12.4 billion USD, up 27.1 percent, and footwear with 9.5 billion USD, down 7.9 percent. Exports of most agricultural products decreased compared to the same period last year, including fruit, vegetables, coffee, cashew, rubber and pepper. Only rice products gained a growth of 10.9 percent in export value to 1.9 billion USD. The US was Vietnams largest export market in the first seven months of this year with a value of 37.9 billion USD, up 15 percent year on year. Other large export markets included China, EU, ASEAN, Japan and the Republic of Korea. Meanwhile, China was Vietnams largest import market with an estimated value of 41.6 billion USD, down 1.8 percent year on year. In the first seven months, the national import value was estimated at 139.33 billion USD, down by 2.9 percent compared to the same period last year. The import value was 61.86 billion USD from the domestic economic sector, up by 1.5 percent and 77.47 billion USD from the foreign-invested sector, down by 6.2 percent. The Import-Export Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade said Vietnams import and export of goods is expected to be better in the second half of this year because many countries have started easing disease control measures and opening markets to accelerate economic recovery. In the second half of this year, the department expects the implementation of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) to create more export opportunities for Vietnam to the world's second largest market with a population of over 508 million people and a 18-trillion-USD GDP. However, the department also said that Vietnams trade activities would continue to face unpredictable factors because the disease is not controlled completely. Therefore, the country would face difficulties in achieving growth in export value as in previous years. Next year, the national export value is forecasted to depend on the control of the pandemic and re-opening of the world economy, according to the Import and Export Department. The Ministry of Industry and Trade would continue to implement measures to remove difficulties and boost production and export, it said. The ministry has proposed to the Government many solutions not only to remove difficulties for trade and export but also to maintain efficient production, reported chinhphu.vn. Of which, the ministry has put into operation a website on the EVFTA at http://evfta.moit.gov.vn/ to help individuals and businesses study issues relating to the EVFTA including an overview of the deal, this FTA's commitments in key areas such as goods, services investment and useful information for exporters. In addition, the ministry has applied information technology to reform administrative procedures boosting exports. At present, there are six online administrative procedures in the import and export fields to connect to the National Single Window system while 11 other administrative procedures are carried out entirely online at level 4./. VNA ASEAN membership fuels Vietnams trade with regional markets Vietnams participation in ASEAN 25 years ago has helped the country enjoy strong growth in trade with other member nations. The European Union's decision to apply sanctions against cyber-attacks will help deter Russian aggressive actions in cyberspace. "I welcome the EU decision to apply restrictive measures against those who commit cyber-attacks. It allows the EU to impose sanctions on persons or entities that are responsible for or involved in cyber-attacks. This will help deter Russian malign activity in cyberspace," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba posted on Twitter. According to him, this step will make cyberspace more resilient to sophisticated cyber threats, which undermine the pillars of democratic society. At the same time, the minister said that the new EU sanctions regime also provides for sanctions for cyber-attacks against third countries. "Consequently, this opens the door for cooperation between the EU and Ukraine in issues of tracking, identifying and responding to those who commit cyber-attacks on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine," Kuleba stressed. As reported, the European Union imposed sanctions for cyber-attacks against individuals and entities of Russia, China and North Korea. ish Kelly Brook got up close and personal with her Instagram fans on Friday as she shot her 2021 calendar. The model, 40, took to her stories to show off her phenomenal physique in an eye-popping mini-jacket, bursting at the seams and perilously-zipped, thanks to her ample bust. Kelly flaunted her frame in the leopard print top and matching shorts, teasing her waist and parading around set in the glorious sunshine, as the UK experiences one of the hottest days of the year so far. Up close and personal: Kelly Brook shared a sneak peek at her 2021 calendar on Friday in a very intimate behind-the-scenes display The weather was perfect for the shoot which was meant to take place in Ibiza. But, due to COVID-19. the crew brought Ibiza to Kelly, as they constructed a make-shift beach and pool backdrop to resemble the white isle. Luckily, the weather was on their side, with temperatures reaching a high of 31 degrees in England. Filming herself, Kelly showed off her cleavage in the busty number, her featured perfectly bronzed and her nails freshly manicured in a peachy pink. Calendar girl: The model, 40, took to her stories to show off her phenomenal physique in an eye-popping mini-jacket, bursting at the seams and perilously-zipped, thanks to her ample bust Wowzas! Filming herself, Kelly showed off her cleavage in the busty number, her featured perfectly bronzed and her nails freshly manicured in a peachy pink She whipped her chocolate mane atop her head and accesorised with a chunky chain bangle and blingy shades. In another upload she was filmed exclaiming 'I've got the shot' while whipping her ponytail away from her face. Kelly has had a calendar out annually for years - always a best-seller. She captioned her posts: 'Recreated Ibiza in Dorking for my Calendar shoot!!!' Never changes her spots: Kelly is a fan of leopard print, as seen in her ensemble choice last week as she was snapped heading to work at Heart radio As you were: Kelly has had a calendar out annually for years, pictured here in 1998 Flashback Friday: Another snap from her 1998 shoot, rocking a Lara Croft vibe Kelly lives close to the south coast with her boyfriend Jeremy Parisi, in a quaint countryside pile. It's believed she was set to fly to Ibiza for the shoot now that the UK has allowed travel again during the COVID-19 pandemic, but a new law has recently been enforced ruling anyone flying home from Spain to quarantine for 14 days. Kelly took the afternoon to shoot the calendar, stepping away from her drivetime presenting duties on Heart Radio. The former glamour girl fronts the show with co-host JK. Pharma giants Sanofi and GSK will receive up to $2.1 billion from the US government for the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, the companies said Friday, as the world scrambles for an answer to the pandemic. At the same time, the European Union said it had reached a deal with Sanofi for the supply of 300 million doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine. The European Commission, the bloc's executive arm which negotiated the agreement, said it would allow all 27 EU member countries to purchase the vaccine once it was proven to be safe and effective. The United States has identified a vaccine candidate under development by Sanofi and GSK for its "Operation Warp Speed," which aims to rapidly secure millions of doses. The firms aim to combine a Sanofi-developed antigen, which stimulates the production of germ-killing antibodies, with GSK's adjuvant technology, a substance that bolsters the immune response triggered by a vaccine. The American money will "help fund the development activities and secure scale-up of Sanofi's and GSK's manufacturing capabilities in the United States... resulting in a significant increase in capacity." "The US government will provide up to $2.1 billion, more than half of which is to support further development of the vaccine, including clinical trials, with the remainder used for manufacturing scale-up and delivery of an initial 100 million doses," the companies said. "The US government has a further option for the supply of an additional 500 million doses longer term," they added. The United States is the country the worst hit by the coronavirus outbreak, with over 150,000 deaths out of the global toll of more than 667,000. Europe meanwhile has recorded nearly 210,000 deaths from 3.2 million cases, and with infections rising again in several countries there are fears a "second wave" of the pandemic could be on the way. Sanofi, based in France, and GSK of Britain said clinical trials of their vaccine should start in September, with a Phase 3 study under way by the end of the year. - Billion doses per year - "If the data are positive, the companies can request US regulatory approval in the first half of 2021. In parallel, Sanofi and GSK are scaling up manufacturing of the antigen and adjuvant to produce up to one billion doses per year globally," they said. US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the portfolio of vaccines being assembled under Operation Warp Speed "increases the odds that we will have at least one safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year." The United States has already committed some $6 billion since March to vaccine projects with pharma giants such as Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and AstraZeneca. The latest investment holds the "potential to bring hundreds of millions of safe and effective doses to the American people," Azar said in the statement. The companies said discussions were also under way with the European Commission and other governments "to ensure global access to a novel coronavirus vaccine." The partners intended to supply "a significant portion of total worldwide available supply capacity" in 2021 and 2022 to an initiative seeking to ensure equitable global access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines. 'Global public good' - Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson drew the ire of French officials in May when he suggested any COVID-19 vaccine would be offered first to the US government because it had been investing in its development. Under pressure, he later indicated it would be available to everyone at the same time. Other countries too, have been investing in a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, with Sanofi and GSK announcing a deal with Britain on Wednesday for 60 million doses. Laboratories need the money to accelerate the early stages of vaccine development and prepare production units without fearing they will be left out of pocket if the candidate drugs fail. In turn, governments seek to ensure they will get the first doses if the vaccines do work. Such deals have drawn criticism for leaving behind poor countries who do not have the cash to conclude such contracts. Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Council stressed the importance of "equitable and unhindered access" to diagnostics, treatments and vaccines, and said any vaccine developed against COVID-19 should be considered a "global public good". A lab technician in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) looks at a reagent bottle before performing vaccine tests at French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi's lab in Val de Reuil Page Content Within the hospitality sector, six core measures have been developed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on the island including physical distancing with proper floor markings, mandatory face mask usage, social distancing of 2 meters, proper self-sanitization procedure, the appropriate procedure for cleaning surfaces, a stay-at-home when sick policy, and the digital menus and messages. Strict regulations are in place for travel to the island as set forth by the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labor. Visitors are required to complete a health declaration online 72 hours before arrival via www.stmaartenentry.com. Visitors are required to travel with a copy of their health declaration. All passengers are required to complete a COVID-19 (PCR) test. The traveler must receive the test and the result within 72 hours before the travel date. No other test will be accepted by the authorities of St. Maarten. Visitors who fail to provide a COVID-19 test will be tested and quarantined for 14 days at their own expense. All visitors are required to travel with their masks, hand sanitizers and wear their mask during their flight and at the airport. Visitors are strongly advised to purchase all-risk travel insurance, ensuring that they are covered in the event they fall ill while on vacation. As of August 1st, Princess Juliana International Airport will be expecting the following flights: American Airlines will resume flights daily from Miami and five times a week from Charlotte except for Tuesdays and Wednesdays. After August 20th, they will fly once a week from Charlotte. Delta Airlines will operate three times a week from Atlanta on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. Jet Blue will fly once a week from JFK Airport, and Spirit Airlines will fly once a week from Fort Lauderdale. Since June 15th, International flights resumed to St. Maarten after three months of closure to commercial travel. Private jets, Caribbean and European carriers such as Air France and KLM have been landing at the airport once more. This phased re-opening approach has been successful thus far. For further information and updates, please visit www.stmaartenupdates.com regularly. St. Maarten will open on August 1st, 2020, to travelers from the US. The safety of visitors and residents remains the top priority for the country. In preparation of opening, site inspections took place at all lodging facilities to ensure that the protocol and guidelines in place are followed. With these strict measures in place, St. Maarten continues its phased re-opening. Mid Michigan College has expanded the availability of open educational resources (OER) to students even further for the fall semester. These resources replace traditional textbooks and can be used by students at no costleading to significant savings for Mid students. The Yale Center for Teaching and Learning defines OER as textbooks, classroom modules, lesson plans, video content and other media that are freely accessible, openly licensed and adaptable for instructional use. Mids goal was to reduce the cost of textbooks for students, and OER provided a framework for us to achieve that, noted Marisa Wier, associate dean of online and distance learning at Mid. The OER effort began at Mid in 2016, and was championed by several faculty members. Fall 2019 saw 120 course sections utilizing OER which resulted in 2,246 students saving a total of $224,600. Over 100 course sections are planned for the fall 2020 semester to help students save even more. OER efforts at Mid have saved students over $1.3 million in textbook costs since they began. OER is now active in math, speech, English, Spanish, psychology, physics, astronomy, sociology and many other courses. The college also recently announced a new academic pathway, a liberal studies transfer z-degree or zero textbook cost degree. A z-degree pathway utilizes OER in most coursesallowing students to complete their entire associate degree with zero textbook costs. Additional z-degree pathways are being planned for the future to expand access to lower cost options for students. Liberal studies transfer degrees prepare students to pursue advanced degrees outside of science, technology, engineering and math fields. Liberal studies offers numerous elective credits, transfers easily to four-year colleges and universities in Michigan, and Mids pathways are customizable to align with students future goals. OER is free to students, allowing them to focus on what is most important their education. Students really appreciate that we understand the importance of keeping costs down. They can spend the money they would use for textbooks on more important things, said Wier. For more information about Mids OER efforts, visit midmich.edu/academics/online-learning/oer, contact Marisa Wier at menos@midmich.edu or 989-317-4601. Processed by Victoria Ritter, vritter@mdn.net EL PASO When El Pasoans mark the one-year anniversary of the Walmart shooting Monday, attorney Yvonne Rosales will be one of hundreds of thousands of border residents reflecting on the tragedy afflicted on this city that claimed the lives of 23 people. But after the candlelight vigils dim, Rosales will be right back at the task shes been preparing for since she was confirmed as the countys incoming district attorney how to take over an office that could prosecute the man authorities say is responsible for one of the worst mass shootings in Texas history. Rosales, an El Paso native who graduated from Austin High School and the University of Texas El Paso, will replace Jaime Esparza who decided not to seek reelection after nearly three decades in office in January to become the county's first female district attorney. Rosales is inheriting one of the biggest criminal cases in the states history amid a pandemic thats shut down in-person court proceedings. She's also inheriting a huge decision: whether to pursue a death penalty prosecution in the city's biggest murder case. Federal prosecutors have also brought a litany of charges against Patrick Crusius, a 22-year-old from the Dallas suburb of Allen who authorities claim drove nearly 600 miles to target Hispanics; he allegedly posted a document online just before the shooting railing against immigrants and a "Hispanic invasion of Texas." Hes facing dozens of state and federal charges, including nearly two dozen counts of capital murder at the state level and 23 counts of hate crimes resulting in death and 23 involving an attempt to kill at the federal level. Esparza, the outgoing district attorney, said he would pursue the death penalty, while federal prosecutors have stated they would consider it upon conviction, but its unclear which case will proceed first and whether Crusius will be tried by both jurisdictions. Rosales said justice isnt likely to come soon because of the complexity of the case and the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic. I really dont anticipate this case going to the trial [phase] until, I am guessing, between two to three years, she said. Before the coronavirus pandemic put a stranglehold on local economies, including El Pasos, Esparza said he was offended at the suggestion that the county should sit back and let federal officials take the lead in Crusius' prosecution in order to save the county millions in prosecution costs. Funding should never have a barrier in this prosecution, so I can tell you Im not going to hand it off to the feds just because its cheaper, Esparza said in February. That was before the pandemic ravaged El Paso County and the rest of Texas. After sealing her victory in last month's runoff election, Rosales said letting the U.S. attorneys office prosecute Crusius first would make financial sense for El Paso. "From a legal perspective, it would make more sense for the federal government to try the case first," she said, adding that the appeals process for federal cases is faster than state cases. "If youre going to talk economics, then it would save the county of El Paso millions of dollars to try that case," Rosales added. She said it's too soon to make that determination, and she plans to discuss the situation with both the state and federal judges after she takes office. Rosales said she must also consider whether the community and especially the victims families should be forced to relive the tragedy twice during two separate trials. As we approach the one year anniversary, its going to be a very emotional time for these people, she said. Is it something that we really want to put the families through a second time? Crusius's attorneys have already raised the issue of his mental health and said he has "lifelong neurological and mental disabilities, the Associated Press reported earlier this month. His lawyers said that should be taken into consideration when prosecutors consider what punishment they seek. Despite confessing to authorities that he was the gunman after his arrest the day of the shooting, Crusius has pleaded not guilty in both the state and federal cases. Federal prosecutors were scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss what punishment they would seek when the case moves forward. Defense attorney David Lane did not respond to a request for comment. In a emailed statement, John Bash, the U.S attorney for the Western District of Texas, said: I join all El Pasoans, all Texans, and all Americans in mourning those we lost that terrible day one year ago. And I pray for the continued healing of those who survived. My office will not relent in our pursuit of justice for the victims and our community. Bash declined to comment on any aspect of the prosecution. Robert Dunham, executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit think tank that analyzes the death penalty, said the case could be over quickly if prosecutors took the death penalty off the table. How important is it to make a statement to take his life?" he said. "How important is it to do that to protect the public, which can be done just as effectively with a sentence of life [in prison] without parole? Earlier this month in the parking lot of the Walmart, where the shooting began before the gunman entered the store, El Pasoans had a range of thoughts on what the accused gunman's fate should be. I dont think anyone should get the death penalty, said Stephanie Cordova. He needs to live so he can learn his lesson. What if he just wants to die? Her friend Joey Reynolds said that while hed usually agree with Cordova, the scale of the shooting and the number of lives lost justifies capital punishment. My personal belief, I think he should [face the death penalty], he said. A lot of [images] were shown online and I think that got to a lot of the younger generation. It would be nice to have some finalization." Domingo Soledad Nunez, who was raised in Chihuahua City in northern Mexico but has lived in El Paso for 20 years, said whether Crusius is executed or not won't make a difference in God's eyes. I cant say whether to kill him or lock him up for the rest of the life, he added. But he was already dead inside when he did what he did. The anniversary has already rekindled demands for action from lawmakers, especially Democrats who last year pleaded with Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session of the Texas Legislature to address gun violence. Those calls grew louder after another mass shooting just weeks later in Midland that took eight lives, including the shooter's. The El Paso shooting happened a day after Abbott's campaign sent out a mailer saying Texans would need to take matters into their own hands to defend the border. Abbott later said he spoke to members of El Paso's legislative delegation and told them that mistakes were made and course correction has been made, he said at the time. We will make sure that we work collaboratively in unification. The governor didn't call lawmakers back into session, instead opting for roundtable discussions in El Paso on gun violence. During a press call Monday with Moms Demand Action, a national gun-reform group with chapters across the country, U.S. Rep Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, said Texas Republicans who pushed for a special session on a transgender bathroom bill showed little interest in addressing what she called the more pressing issue of gun violence. Unfortunately we have yet to see any legislation taken up and really not much has changed, she said. And as you can imagine, it is very frustrating not just for me, but I hear all the time from constituents What are you going to do about this? State Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, said the states Democratic caucus has had a long-standing request for a special session on gun violence since before the Walmart shooting. But he said he did come away with the feeling that the task forces formed after the shooting were able to create some momentum on how to move forward next session and address issues like strengthening background checks and ensuring that information provided to gun sellers by potential owners is accurate. "The message I heard from the governor and from others was to build consensus around reform measures and then bring those forward, he said. I fully expect and anticipate that when we return, in whatever way it looks in January, that gun violence and community safety is going to be one of the major issues that is going to get tackled." Abbott spokesperson John Wittman said the El Paso shooting led to the creation of a domestic terrorism task force that recommended creating "domestic terrorism teams" comprised of Department of Public Safety special agents, as well as a "state intelligence assessment on domestic terrorism threats in Texas." Wittman said Thursday that the governor shares the citys grief and said lawmakers will act on other recommendations by the task force when lawmakers return to the Capitol next year. Our hearts forever remain with the victims, their families, and all those impacted by this senseless and hateful attack," he said in an email. "As Texas prepares for the upcoming session, we seek justice for all those harmed in this tragedy by passing laws to combat domestic terrorism in Texas. The city and county have planned events to commemorate the anniversary, including a drive-through candlelight vigil and a memorial at the city's history museum. Activist groups said they are also planning their own events. Fernando Garcia, the executive director of the El Paso-based Border Network for Human Rights, said his group will march to the Walmart from a nearby memorial service carrying 23 white crosses. "What is different from what were doing and from the county and the city is doing is were going to call it what it was, white supremacy," he said. "It was a racist attack against our community. It wasnt about mental health or about a disturbed individual. It was created by the hateful rhetoric by the president and others." Disclosure: Walmart has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday slammed China for massive illegal spying using the now-closed Chinese Consulate in Houston as a 'den of spies', lauded American diplomacy for awakening the world to the threats posed by the rise of the Chinese Communist Party internal and external to China. The Chinese Consulate in Houston was a den of spies, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo said on Thursday (local time) amid the downward spiral in US-China ties. Pompeo, while addressing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated that we closed Houston consulate because it was a den of spies. The US had recently ordered China to close its Consulate General in Houston. In retaliation, China ordered US to close its diplomatic facility in Chengdu. 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. Also read: Donald Trump suggests delay in 2020 Presidential elections over coronavirus fears Also read: US talks tough to Pak, condemns shameful tragedy of American citizens killing in Pak 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. Terming Chinas ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as central threat of our times, Pompeo said: Our vigorous diplomacy has helped lead an international awakening to the threat of the CCP. Senators, the tide is turning. The US Secretary of State also talked of Chinas move to impose draconian national security law in Hong Kong, which is said to be aimed at crushing dissent in the erstwhile British colony which saw massive protests last year. In our hemisphere, Canada has stood firm against the Chinese Communist Partys hostage-taking. Its three major telecom carriers have also banned untrusted vendors, he said. Belize and Haiti have denounced Beijings national security law targeting Hong Kong. Denmark has rejected the CCPs attempted censorship of Danish newspapers. Sweden has closed its Confucius Institutes. Lithuanian intelligence services have identified China as a political a potential threat for the first time, he added. Further, the US Secretary of State also noted that in the Indo-Pacific, Australia declared Chinas South China Sea claims unlawful and illegitimate, as have we. Also read: Tibetan-govt-in-exile lashes out at China, joins US in accusing China of intellectual property theft Metropolitan Vasilios Reflects on Peace Process in Cyprus NEWS PROVIDED BY World Council of Churches July 30, 2020 GENEVE, July 30, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- It has been 46 years since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus led to the partitioning of the island, the northern third inhabited by Turkish Cypriots and the southern two-thirds by Greek Cypriots, whose government is internationally recognized. The August 1974 ceasefire line became a United Nations buffer zone, along which Cyprus remains divided. All photos: Marianne Ejdersten/WCC, 2019 The Church of Cyprus, a founding member of the World Council of Churches (WCC), strives for the unity of the island, together with other churches in the country. Metropolitan Dr Vasilios, head of the diocese of Constantia Ammochostos in Cyprus, shared his reflections on the ongoing quest for reconciliation. His Eminence was interviewed by email by the World Council of Churches (WCC) director of communication Marianne Ejdersten. Your Eminence, can you describe the current peace process and the role of the churches and the interreligious dialogue? Metropolitan Dr Vasilios: After the collapse of the negotiations in 2017 there was time for reflection, from a political point of view, for both sides. Some attempts were made at a later stage to come together again by the meeting of the leaders of the two communities, the most important being the decision of developing measures of mutual confidence. Unfortunately, there are some important factors which have influenced the development of a real engagement for negotiations. The first and most serious factor is Turkey's aggression against Cyprus which unfortunately gets more and more aggravated, as it is clearly evident in the recent actions of Turkey to send out ships and search for natural gas in the Exclusive Economic Zone of Cyprus. The government of Cyprus has constantly declared that is willing to go to the negotiations but not under any condition of threatening by Turkey. In addition to this, the Turkish-Cypriot community is found in a pre-election period since last year, and given the fact that Turkey finances the political structure of the so-called government of the occupied area of Cyprus one understands the interventions of the Turkish government in the whole procedure. This was particularly clear in the statements of the opposition parties, favoured by the Turkish government, which poison the whole situation and, consequently, destroy any hopes for restarting the negotiations for the time being. Also, during this period, again in the context of the campaign in the election period, provocative actions clearly promoted by the Turkish government took place regarding the reopening of the city of Famagusta aiming to put it under the control of the so-called government of the Turkish-Cypriot community, contrary to the decisions of the Security Council of the United Nations concerning the city of Famagusta, that the closed city since 1974 has to be given back to the legal owners. Going even further into absurdity, it has been claimed that the whole of Famagusta belongs to the organization of "Vakoufia," which, of course, provokes great pain to the refugees, especially those originated from Famagusta, but also to the whole Greek population of Cyprus. Additionally, the current situation of the pandemic of COVID-19 has also caused further isolation between the two sides, given that the crossing checkpoints were closed and there was no communication. It is only recently that checkpoints start to reopen. How important is the prophetic role of the church? Metropolitan Dr Vasilios: From the point of view of the church, during this period we were not able until now to conduct any services in the churches in the occupied area, as it was the practice before. Therefore, 1. The collapse of the negotiations, 2. The situation created due to Turkey's aggression and 3. The charged atmosphere in the pre-election period and the COVID-19 pandemic, all these together played a major role for not having any religious dialogue or contact during this period. Your Eminence, how do you look at the U.N.-led peace talks between the two sides had more or less collapsed in Geneva, Switzerland in July 2017. Do you see any signs of hope? Metropolitan Dr Vasilios: The presidential elections in the occupied area are now postponed until October and recently they have decided for parliamentary election probably on January 2021. It should be noted that the actual Turkish-Cypriot leader, who is a quite moderate politician and ready for negotiations, is not favoured by the Turkish government and we have read some news that his life is even threatened. Our government has repeatedly said that after the elections in the occupied area, and in agreement with the UN, there could be a convocation in the same form as the one in Grans-Montana in 2017. A five-party conference with the two Cypriot communities and the three guarantor countries Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom, under the auspices of the United Nations and an observer from the European Union, in order to seek for a peaceful solution to the Cyprus problem. Our government has declared its readiness to do that but until now we do not have any signs towards that direction from the side of Turkey. We would like to draw your attention to the wider region of Eastern Mediterranean and the actions of Turkey, which are very provocative not only for Cyprus but also for other countries in the area, such as Israel, Egypt, Greece, France, Italy and many others. Also, we should note the recent actions of Turkey in Syria and Libya and lastly but very important to us, the conversion of Hagia Sophia to a mosque. As the Holy Synod of the Church of Cyprus has recently declared: "The Holy Synod of the Church of Cyprus, echoing the feelings of anger and frustration of the Cypriot people, and of all the Orthodox alike, expresses its deep sorrow and grave concern, for the recent decision of the Turkish Authorities to convert Hagia Sophia into a mosque. "The Greek people of Cyprus has an additional reason to express their concern and sorrow for this ungodly and unacceptable action of the Turkish leaders, given that since 1974 the majority of ecclesiastical monuments in the Turkish-occupied area of the Republic of Cyprus have been plundered and destroyed, as the remaining walls witness to this day. Some churches have become mosques, others are used as stables or for military purposes, while some of them are totally destroyed in the effort to obliterate any sign of the traditional Christian identity of the land. After all this has been the tactic of Turkey throughout its whole history with regard to the lands they conquered. But, 'if people remain silent, the stones will cry out.' It is with sadness that we have seen statements of Turkish-Cypriots who, in an attempt to support the Turkish government, have falsely accused the Greek-Cypriots for destroying Turkish-Cypriot monuments, while they can see in the occupied areas where they live the destroyed Christian churches that they have themselves ruined, but yet without being ashamed of that they come out with such unsubstantial accusations." [] "We are afraid that this incomprehensible and unjustified action, as it has been rightly said, 'might lead to a deep breach between Christianity and Islam.' Although it might be an incomprehensible and unjustified action for us, it is a conscious choice for the Turkish government since they have decided to move away from Europe and fulfil their Islamic vision of an Ottoman Empire. Consequently, the problem is clearly deeper, we could say it is a systemic problem, as it is against the Christian principles and the Christian faith, and also it creates a Muslim identity which must be different from the Christian one." How can the global fellowship pray for you and accompany you in the peace process? Metropolitan Dr Vasilios: Thank you very much for your prayers and your interest about the situation in our country, which is from the very beginning supporting the church and the people of Cyprus. I do not see any possibility for a mediating role of the WCC, at least for the time being, taking also into account the difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that our church is willing to have peaceful conditions for all Cypriot citizens, Christians, Muslims and people from all religious communities, we are closely following the whole situation. Read the full statement of the Holy Synod of the Church of Cyprus "WCC executive committee addresses global concerns, sets vision for unity, justice and peace" - WCC news release 24 July 2020 "Cyprus Metropolitan Vasilios says steps to reconciliation are not easy, yet must be done" - WCC interview 19 January 2019 WCC member churches in Cyprus The Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process SOURCE World Council of Churches CONTACT: Media Office +41 79 507 6363, media@wcc-coe.org Related Links www.oikoumene.org/press President Donald Trumps reelection campaign is leaving the airwaves in Michigan for six weeks, but has spent four times as much money to reserve television ads through the election than presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Presidential campaigns and political groups supporting them spent $52.5 million to reserve television ads in Michigan since February, according to data shared with MLive by ad-tracking firm Advertising Analytics. Trump and Biden were nearly even in the amount of money spent on TV ads from February to July -- $3.6 million and $3.7 million respectively -- and both campaigns said they are making big investments to spread their message to voters in Michigan. Trump and Biden already spent more on TV ads in Michigan by the start of August than the presidential nominees spent in 2016, according to an analysis by Ad Age. Trump committed nearly 10 times as much on ads in Michigan compared to his first campaign. Political groups supporting the two campaigns are also pouring money into television ads, primarily from a handful of Democrat-aligned groups. Trump won Michigan by less than one percent in 2016, becoming the first Republican to do so in nearly 30 years. Keep scrolling for a searchable database of TV ad spending in Michigan. (Source: Advertising Analytics) Trumps absence in the summer comes as a series of polls show Biden leading in Michigan. The Trump campaign reportedly canceled its national ad program in order to review its messaging strategy. A spokesperson for the Trump campaign told MLive it remains confident about its standing in Michigan and pointed to an additional $11.4 million in TV ad reservations made from September through Nov. 3. Michael Joyce, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said Bidens campaign cant match the ground operation working for Trump in Michigan. The Trump campaign returned to in-person door knocking and training volunteers in June. The campaign says it has contacted 4 million voters in Michigan. With the staffers weve had on the ground for the past year, the investment weve made in Michigan, it should be very evident that were taking Michigan very seriously, Joyce said. Of course, we all saw in 2016 President Trump won Michigan by 10,700 votes. Its obviously a battleground state and its critical to the presidents reelection, so its laughable to say that we would ever just pull out of Michigan at any point throughout this election cycle. However, Bidens campaign noted Trumps retreat in Michigan advertising while announcing a $14.5 million ad blitz in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- states Trump narrowly won in 2016. Biden had no Michigan television ads reserved in the future, as of July 28, but a spokesperson said voters will hear more about Bidens plans to rebuild the economy, expand access to health care and invest in public schools. The campaign said it will continue making significant investments in its paid media program between now and November in Michigan. Winning Michigan in November is critically important for the future of our country, said Eric Hyers, the Biden campaigns Michigan state director. Weve built a top-notch organizing team that is having conversations with voters every single day in every single part of this state. Were prepared for a close race and working to earn every single vote -- and were not going to take our foot off the gas for a second between now and Election Day. Browser does not support frames. Cant see the database? Click here Bidens team ramped up its presence in Michigan after hiring Hyers and several other influential Democratic advisors at the end of June. The campaign has held weekly virtual events with surrogates including Jill Biden, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, voting rights activist Stacey Abrams, and several Democrats representing Michigan in Congress. Bidens campaign also started placing Michigan television ads in June. While lagging a few months behind Trumps team, the former vice president spent $2.5 million on ads in July. Trumps campaign pulled back its spending this month to $243,780 and didnt reserve any ads from July 28 through Sept. 1. David Dulio, director of of the Center for Civic Engagement at Oakland University, said its difficult for political campaigns to reach distracted voters during summer months, so the lull in TV spending isnt surprising. Dulio said the Trump campaign is unlikely to view Michigan as a lost cause with more than 90 days left to sway voters. Trump has been raising money hand over fist, Dulio said. Theyve got all kinds of money. My impression is that they have money to spend and theyre not worried yet about conserving resources. In a call last week with reporters, Trump Campaign Manager Bill Stepien outlined his teams battle plan for those key swing states that helped him upset Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and take the White House. Stepien offered reporters a closer look at several battlegrounds they expect to hold in 2020. Michigan wasnt one of them. Stepien said winning either Michigan, Pennslyvania or Wisconsin is essential for Trumps reelection hopes. Those three states voted for Trump by a margin of 0.3%, 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively, and would have cost Trump the election if he lost their combined electoral votes. We intend to protect this 2016 map, Stepien said. We only need to win either Wisconsin, or Michigan, or Pennsylvania to win this thing again. If we win any of these three states and the states the president won in 2016, Joe Biden stays in his basement and the president is in the White House for four more years. Its that simple. Dulio said if Republican-aligned PACs step in, Trumps temporary absence from the airwaves may not matter much. If somebody is messaging, then thats all that matters, he said. Excluding the presidential campaigns, Democrat-aligned groups already spent four times as much on presidential TV ads in Michigan as Republican groups. As of June 28, Democratic PACs spent $12.7 million, while Republicans spent $2.9 million. The largest Democratic spender is Priorities USA Action, a group originally formed to support President Barack Obama in 2012. The group has also challenged Michigan voting laws in a series of lawsuits. Priorities USA spent $7.4 million on television ads in Michigan as of June 28. It reserved a total of $17 million in TV airtime through the election, the most of any group in Michigan, including Trump. Other big Democratic spenders include American Bridge 21st Century, an opposition research group that has featured former Trump voters in their ads, United the Country, formed by a former Biden aide, and Protect Our Care, a health care advocacy group connected to Michigan doctors. READ MORE ON MLIVE: Trumps call to delay election more about politics than safety, Whitmer says Why a former Michigan GOP leader joined disillusioned Republicans against Trump Michigans largest police group sticks with Trump, citing opposition to law enforcement reform Republican primary candidates talk Trump, coronavirus in debate disrupted by pornographic Zoom bomb Dont trust the polls, Democrats warn Biden campaign about lead in Michigan FSU engineering researchers harness wind data to help meet energy needs in Florida Florida is one of several states in the Southeast where wind energy is virtually nonexistent, which is one reason wind farms have not been an economically viable energy source in the region. But a new study from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering shows how upcoming technological advances could make wind energy a hot commodity in the Sunshine State. Sean Martin, a researcher in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from Florida State University, is working with an interdisciplinary team of scientists to examine wind resource characteristics at nine different locations in Florida. Their analysis will help the wind industry and policymakers know how viable wind energy production using developing technologies could be. Sean Martin, a researcher in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Their work was published in the journal Applied Energy. "With advances in turbine technology, taller towers, larger rotor diameter and new control systems, we will be able to provide low-cost wind power to low-wind regions, such as Florida and the Southeast," Martin said. "The increased hub heights and taller turbines can take advantage of greater wind speeds that occur higher up to harvest more wind power." Compared to states like Texas or Iowa, the wind in Florida is not something wind farms can profitably capture at the moment. Wind speeds are slower because of increased surface friction and turbulence caused by buildings, trees and other obstructions. Most utility-scale turbines installed in the United States are west of the Mississippi River, where more favorable wind speeds, greater than 13 miles per hour, are prevalent. But using new tools that can capture wind energy at higher elevations, where wind speeds are faster, might make wind energy feasible. Arda Vanli, associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering So how tall are these turbines? The average height of most existing on-shore turbines from the ground to the top of the blades is more than 380 feet, similar to a 32-story building. The new, taller turbines are almost twice the height at 660 feet, close to the height of a 55-story building, and are the kind of wind turbines that will be most useful in Florida. Martin is collaborating with Arda Vanli, an associate professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering, and Sungmoon Jung, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. "I don't think anybody can predict the timing for wind energy," Jung said. "We almost had it a few years ago. There was a private company that proposed a wind farm in Florida, but the company withdrew the plan because the technology at the time was not economical enough. I hope we will see wind energy in the future as technology improves." Sungmoon Jung, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering One of the things the researchers are looking at is the capacity of wind turbines to operate at different sites. Wind speed varies, so turbines must be able to spin at different velocities. Researchers want to know what percentage of time in a year that the turbine can operate at full capacity. In general, turbines that generate at least 30 percent of their total capacity are more economical for utility-scale wind power. The data will be able to predict the best areas in Florida to place the new turbines based on their ability to produce wind energy at specific sites. "The key is finding and identifying characteristic patterns in the wind data," Martin said. "Once we establish the patterns, the data can assist in site selection and can improve energy estimation measures to help industry and policymakers make decisions on where wind farms are most profitable." There are other factors the researchers must consider when choosing a site for a wind farm. Safety for birds, noise from rotors and the fact that some people may find wind turbines unsightly are all considerations. When including some of these elements with wind speed data, the scientists found that the best locations for wind farms appear to be in rural areas of northwest, central and southern Florida. "Site selection is an important decision, especially in low-wind power areas," Vanli said. "Transporting huge wind turbines to these locations is a significant investment and having good data can eventually determine whether the investment will be successful or not." Wind energy is gaining significant attention both from academia and in industry. New, affordable methods for generating renewable energy are on the horizon. Wind farms could be viable in Florida within this decade, and turbines even taller than the ones used for this research could be more prevalent in the future. "The real question is whether factors such as public perception, acceptance and environmental factors will prevent this resource from being developed," Martin said. "We hope the research will add additional renewables to the U.S. energy portfolio and can offset our reliance on a single fuel source, adding energy security to meet a growing need." ### This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. HALIFAXNova Scotias justice minister says he privately pushed Ottawa for a full federal-provincial public inquiry into the April mass shooting but federal officials initially rejected the idea. Mark Furey says thats why the province chose to go along with the less rigorous independent review announced last week. That move was widely criticized, and it was reversed Tuesday with the creation by Ottawa and the province of a joint public inquiry. The whole objective was to have the federal government participate in a federal-provincial joint inquiry, Furey said Thursday after a cabinet meeting in Halifax. In the absence of our ability to get the federal government to participate in a federal-provincial joint inquiry, we ... were successful in those discussions ... to land on a review. He said the discussions involved federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair and his officials. A spokesperson for the Public Safety Department issued a statement Thursday, but it did not address Fureys claim. We have been in close contact with minister Furey and the government of Nova Scotia since those days in April, and have worked collaboratively to ensure Nova Scotians had access to timely and thorough information, press secretary Mary-Liz Power said. Following the calls from families, victims, Nova Scotia members of Parliament and advocates, we concluded that a public inquiry was required. The announcement of a joint review last Thursday was met with criticism from the relatives of victims who said the process would not offer as much transparency and legal clout as a full inquiry, which has the power to hold public hearings and compel witnesses to give evidence. On Tuesday, several Liberal MPs from Nova Scotia came forward to publicly challenge their own governments decision and Furey later issued a statement saying the province also wanted a joint public inquiry. Blair agreed to the change a few hours later. However, Fureys call for a joint public inquiry Tuesday was the first time he publicly declared his preference. For the past three months, Furey and Premier Stephen McNeil have repeatedly said they wanted to make sure the federal government was at the table for some sort of inquiry or review, but neither politician stated what they preferred. After the cabinet meeting Thursday, McNeil did not answer directly when asked why he did not tell the public what type of investigation he wanted an issue that proved to be a sore point for the victims families. It was critical for us ... to have all of the players at the table, he said. Those families deserve the answers to the questions that they have, many of which are related to federal agencies. We believed a review would achieve that. The families have expressed a very different view. Earlier in the week, the premier apologized to the victims families for the back-and-forth over how the rampage that left 22 dead would be investigated. Like the premier, Furey said the key was to keep federal government at the table, mainly because any review or inquiry would be asked to investigate the role of the RCMP, the federal firearms registry, the Canada Border Services Agency, Criminal Intelligence Canada and the federal public alert system. On another front, Furey said Ottawa had refused when the province asked for a federal-provincial inquiry to investigate the case of former soldier Lionel Desmond, who killed his mother, wife and daughter in their rural Nova Scotia home before turning the gun on himself in January 2017. The provinces chief medical examiner eventually decided on a provincial fatality inquiry, which started earlier this year. McNeil has said that inquiry is lacking because the federal government is not a full partner in the probe. Read more about: Since 1970s it has been repeatedly said that the private sector is inherently efficient and hence the global emphasis on its growth, more often than not, at the cost of public sector. What evidence exists in academic studies and economic history to substantiate this? Here we look at some of this evidence. No ownership model is intrinsically more efficient In 2015, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published a paper "Is the Private Sector more efficient? A cautionary tale" analysing all existing global studies on comparative efficiencies of public and private sectors with a view to assist in "achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)" rolled out 2015 for the next 15 years. It captured the substance and nature of the debate in its entirety, better than any known study. Its two important conclusions were: (i) "no model of ownership" - public, private or mixed - "is intrinsically more efficient" than the other and (ii) efficiency under all ownership models "depends on competition, regulation, autonomy and wider issues of institutional development". The third conclusion (the middle one in the box) was that the literature on comparisons lacks academic rigour, sector-specific, and often inconclusive. It explained this conclusion: "Most literature comparing ownership models looks at specific service sector: health, education, water, sanitation, and so on. The literature that compares public and private provision, in general, tends to be made up of opinion pieces and lacks rigour in comparison to academic and policy studies. The rigorous literature that does exist suggests that efficiency depends on factors such as country context, the sector, the market the firm operates in and the firm's organisation, rather than ownership." This is primarily because private sector efficiency is a neoliberal economic construct pushed in 1970s (first) by the Chicago school of economics to promote private sector and limit the role of states (government) in running economies. In 1980s this was pushed and imposed on non-Anglo-Saxon countries by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) when these countries sought loans to tide over their economic crisis. (For more read ' Deconstructing Neoliberalism II: How neoliberal ideas can wreak havoc on economies ') Two major elements of this push were (a) handing over ownership of public-owned enterprises to private entrepreneurs and (b) public-private partnerships (PPP). Hence, all comparative efficiency studies focus on these two developments. Efficiency Test 1: Ownership change designed to undermine public enterprises Stiglitz et al published a cross-study in 2011 comparing how change in ownership from public to private changed their performance, "Ownership change, institutional development, and performance". It found no conclusive proof of private sector superiority. It pointed out that "a basic insight is that institutional quality matters more than ownership". It held that profitability (measure of efficiency) post-ownership change was "most directly tied" to protection of private investors against expropriation and better enforcement of contractual rights". It also highlighted that more likely, such ownership change happened in case of public enterprises "that perform well, biasing traditional tests of performance effects of privatisation". Stiglitz wrote elsewhere that the theoretical case for such change "at best, is weak or non-existent". In the foreword to a book on neoliberalism, he wrote how a few individuals grabbed "previously state-owned resources for a pittance and become millionaires - or billionaires". He added, "Russia became a country (after the fall of communism towards the end of 1980s) marked by great inequality, with a Gini co-efficient as bad as many in Latin America" and that "by some estimates, $1.5 trillion in assets were stolen" in Russia. The Guardian carried an interesting report in 2013 that marked 20 years of ownership change in the UK rail, "'The private sector is superior'. Time to move on from this old dogma". It cited the rail regulator's report to say that "the single remaining state-run mainline rail service (East Coat rail services), required less public subsidy than any of the 15 privately run rail franchises in Britain". The ownership change happened in 1993 with the promise of eliminating subsidies, increasing efficiency and reducing fares (through competition). The UK's parliamentary reports show the subsidies stood at 2.74 billion pounds at the time of change (1993-94), went up to 7.48 billion pounds in 2006-07, and touched 7.1 billion pounds in 2018-19. The UK has some of the most expensive rail tickets in Europe. The 2013 Guardian report had further pointed out that "some of the UK's largest private care home providers effectively bankrupted themselves and had to be saved by public intervention". (This is a subject of wider study by economists drawing attention to the pitfalls of takeover and financialisation of care homes by private equity (PE) firms). Similarly, it said the banking system "is only standing today due to monumental public backing" and that "private finance is much more expensive than direct public investment: the cost of capital under the heavily used private finance initiative was estimated by the Financial Times in 2011 to have added 20 billion pounds to the taxpayers' bill". There are other high public costs to private businesses. In the case of India, ownership changes have happened with free handover of huge public assets of public sector undertakings (PSUs) to private enterprises; defunding of PSUs for many years (state-owned telecom companies, publicly-run schools and hospitals etc.) to vacate space for private enterprises (telecom, hospitals, and schools) and debt waivers (Rs 29,474 crore of Air India's debt was shifted out in 2019 and more is on the anvil to "sweeten the deal" for private take over). Such incidences make comparisons between public and private sector efficiencies futile. In 2006 audit report the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) had pointed out several such incidences: (i) core assets of Modern Bread, like leasehold land and plant and machinery, were not valued before the change of ownership (ii) leasehold land housing the plant and fully developed township of BALCO were not valued (iii) non-core assets were not identified and properly valued for BALCO and India Petrochemicals (IPCL) (iv) real estate, land and building of VSNL and Paradeep Phosphates were "either discounted or not considered" in absence of clear title for which the administrative ministries made no effort (v) only one of three operational mines of Hindustan Zinc (HZL) was valued (vi) "far too conservative assumptions" were made in valuation of 7 out of 9 PSUs under the discounted cash flow methodology without recording reasons for such assumptions etc. The Russia, UK and India examples lead to questions that beg for answers: Is private enterprise really private or inherently carry substantial public money and natural resources? How does one compare efficiencies when the ownership change is structurally designed to benefit private enterprises? Efficiency Test 2: PPPs designed to benefit private enterprises A 2004 IMF paper examined the impact of public-private partnerships (PPP) in providing infrastructure assets and services. Talking about PPPs taking off in many countries across the world, it concluded: "However, it cannot be taken for granted that PPPs are more efficient than public investment and government supply of services. One particular concern is that PPPs can be used mainly to bypass spending controls, and to move public investment off budget and debt off the government balance sheet, while the government still bears most of the risk involved and faces potentially large fiscal costs." In India, the PPP model has already failed and abandoned during the later years of the UPA era. In the case of National Highway Authority's projects, which used PPPs extensively, it was revealed through "internal paper" of the erstwhile Planning Commission and RTI reply that financial institutions, mostly the public sector ones, had given loans nearly twice the total project costs (TPCs) in the case of just 20 projects. While the TPCs were Rs 13,646 crore, banks lent Rs 25,940 crore without collaterals or guarantees to private partners. This meant half the money was not even meant for these projects and must have been diverted by private partners. Besides, the NHAI gave 40% viability gap funding (VGF) upfront. Taken together, this would mean for a project cost of Rs 100 crore, the private partner is walking away with Rs 230 crore (Rs 90 crore of additional loan without collateral and Rs 40 crore of VGF). Later, the private partners did not even pay that. The NHAI's road projects contributed significantly to the rise in NPAs subsequently. The NHAI PPPs even allowed private partners to walk away at any time, which some did, and allowed toll collections far in excess of the agreed amount through gross understatement of vehicular traffic projections, until in the case of some, like the Gurgaon Expressway flyover, they were caught and toll booths dismantled. What would be the score of efficiency of these private partners? Now, in the midst of the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has revived the very same PPP model in healthcare even while the private healthcare has spectacularly failed to respond to the crisis in India and the US. In May 2020, the government think tank Niti Aayog wrote to the chief secretaries of states asking them to set up medical colleges in PPP mode, provide 40% VGF plus handover government-run district hospitals to private partners. (For more read ' Rebooting Economy X: COVID-19 puts question mark on private sector's efficiency in healthcare ' and ' Coronavirus Lockdown XI: Why India's health policy needs a course correction ') There is more to the inefficiencies of private healthcare. In India, there is a flood of complaints about private healthcare facilities: black marketing beds, giving false COVID-19 test results for money, refusal to treat and overcharging costs, apparent failure of some state governments to rein them in. More than four months after the Disaster Management Act of 2005 was invoked to give sweeping powers to requisition such services and COVID-19 cases have gone up sharply (total cases crossed 1.5 million in India on July 29) the Karnataka government is still negotiating with private healthcare for beds and charges. What would be the efficiency score of private healthcare in India? Efficiency Test 3: Damage to human rights, further marginalisation of workers A UN report tabled in the General Assembly in September 2018 looked at the impact of change in ownership from public to private. Its finding said such ownership change "often involves the systematic elimination of human rights protections and further marginalisation of the interests of low-income earners and those living in poverty" and as some "aspects of criminal justice system are privatised, many different charges and penalties are levied with far greater impact on the poor, who then must borrow to pay them or face default". It further said the neoliberal shift to private ownership had changed the very definition of personal freedom: "Freedom is thereby redefined as an emaciated public sector alongside a private sector dedicated to profiting from running key parts of the criminal justice system and prisons, determining educational priorities and approaches, deciding who will receive health interventions and social protection, and choosing what infrastructure will be built, where and for whom." Yes, private contractors run prisons in the US. Powerful private corporates "force their customers to forego the use of our public legal system for the adjudication of disputes... and instead use secretive arbitration panels that are stacked in favor of the companies" as Stiglitz wrote in his 2019 book "People, Power and Profits". In the same book, Stiglitz also wrote how under the legendary Steve Jobs Apple got together with Google, Intel, and Adobe secretly to agree not to "poach" each others' employees ("anti-competition conspiracy"), which was exposed, and led to a lawsuit which was settled for $415 million. He also mentioned that Disney and a host of film studios similarly paid a huge settlement for illegal anti-poaching conspiracy and that fast-food franchise agreements have such provisions. Such practices undermine both competition and wages. Efficiency Test 4: Push for private enterprises at the cost of public ones Why country after country undermines the public sector and follows the neoliberal construct of private sector efficiency when no evidence and no economic theory validate it and let the impression gain that the public sector is inherently corrupt, incompetent, and inefficient? The UNDP report of 2015 mentioned earlier listed 7 reasons: (i) political support to undermining public sector benefits (ii) neoliberal push (Public Choice theory) that the public service is inherently self-serving and need to be checked (iii) commercial gains (profits) for consultants and businesses (iv) politicians' need for deflecting criticism of their own failures (v) relatively lower pay for professional posts in public sector (vi) obstructive public sector labour unions and unhelpful bureaucrats and (vii) "both elected leaders and senior administrators benefit from creating a 'permanent revolution' of ceaseless reforms and reorganisation of the public service... the temptation to appear to be shaking up supposedly lazy and incompetent bureaucrats is all too great". Public Choice theory of neoliberal economist James McGill Buchanan successfully attacked state and public institutions theorising that government failure is the rule and it happens because private interests "capturing" policymakers through nepotism, cronyism, corruption or rent-seeking, misallocation of resources and crowding out private investment, etc. He or anyone else never explained how by handing over everything to the very same private sector that caused all of these ills would remedy and not worsen these problems. (For more read ' Deconstructing Neoliberalism I: What is Crab-walk strategy; is it relevant for India in present times? ) Efficiency Test 5: Multiple market failures Market failure, rather private sector failure (market is defined as all private sector structures that facilitate exchange of goods and services), is the biggest problem but receives the least attention from economists and policymakers. In fact, history is replete with such evidence. The 1929 Great Depression and 2007-08 Great Recession were caused by the private financial sector companies through their misadventures. There are a series of regional or country-specific economic crises caused by the financial misconducts of private financial companies and/or the neoliberal push for capital and financial market liberalisation without putting effective regulatory mechanisms in place by the World Bank-IMF: dot.com burst (2000-01), Asian financial crisis (late 1990s), Latin American crisis (1990s-2000s), Japan crisis (1990s-2000s) and many others. Economic crises would persist because in spite of the severe consequences of 1929 and 2007-08, that led to millions of people losing jobs and incomes and the collapse of many big private companies, the neoliberal economists continue to insist that "recession" is cyclical, inevitable and most importantly, "a good thing, part of the economy's adjustment to change" and that fiscal austerity is required to fight recession, as economist Paul Krugman wrote about their bizarre economic constructs. Neoliberal economists also insist unemployment is good because it is voluntary (not for lack of jobs) and workers like to take breaks from backbreaking labour to relax; workers' wages should be low because higher wages lead to high cost of production and loss of employment; cutting tax for the rich benefits the non-rich (trickle-down effect) etc. (For more read ' Deconstructing Neoliberalism IV: How neoliberals won the world but India can ill afford their economics ') There is yet another element to the debate of efficiency in the public and private sector. It is no secret that the private sector thrives on public hand-outs in normal times (tax holidays, concessions and outright corporate tax cuts; cheap land, mines, forests and other natural resources' infrastructure and human capital built with public money etc.) and public bail-outs during crises (stimulus packages, grants, and loans). (For more read ' Rebooting Economy IX: Why is private sector dependent on public money in times of crisis? ') That is why the maxims "privatisation of rewards and socialisation of risks" and "privatisation of profit and socialisation of loss" ring true. At the end of it all, where does private sector efficiency stand? In a historic meeting on Monday, Egyptian MPs voted in favour of granting President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi a mandate to send elements of the Armed Forces on combat missions outside Egypts borders in order to defend Egypts national security. At the beginning of a two-hour closed-door meeting, Parliamentary Speaker Ali Abdel-Aal said only MPs were allowed to attend the meeting. Even parliaments staff, with the exception of Secretary-general Mahmoud Fawzi, are not Allowed to attend this meeting, he commented. Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Alaa Fouad and Deputy Minister of Defence Mamdouh Shahin participated in the meeting. Abdel-Aal ordered photographers, guards, and staff to leave the meeting hall. He also asked MPs to close their mobile phones and not to divulge the contents of the discussion. In an official statement following the meeting, parliament said that MPs had unanimously approved sending elements of the Egyptian Armed Forces on combat missions outside the borders of the Egyptian state to defend Egyptian national security on the western strategic front against the acts of criminal militias and foreign terrorist elements until the mission ends. The statement said the meeting was in line with Article 152 of the constitution, which states that the president of the republic is the supreme leader of the Armed Forces. He shall not declare war or send the Armed Forces outside the states borders to undertake fighting missions unless he first seeks the opinion of the National Defence Council and gains the approval of a two-thirds majority of MPs. As a result, Abdel-Aal invited MPs to hold the meeting on the afternoon of 20 July. The statement indicated that the meeting had discussed the outcome of the National Defence Council (NDC) meting held and headed by the president on 19 July to review the threats posed by the western front (the border with Libya) to Egyptian national security. The NDC said in a statement following the meeting that Egypt sought to stabilise the current situation and ensure that the declared red lines of the Libyan cities of Sirte and Jufra were not crossed in order to achieve peace between all the Libyan parties. Parliaments statement said that MPs and the speaker voiced their high appreciation of the efforts being exerted by the Armed Forces, the nations shield and sword, to protect the national, Arab, and regional order. The people have never let the army down, and the army have never let the people down, the statement said. The statement concluded that the Egyptian nation, throughout history, had always advocated peace, but at the same time it had never accepted aggression or the violation of its rights. The Egyptian nation is strongly capable of defending itself, its interests, its brothers and its neighbours against any dangers or threats, the statement said, adding that the Armed Forces and the leadership now have the constitutional and legal licence to decide when and where to respond to these dangers and threats. Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Mahmoud Al-Sherif told Al-Ahram Weekly that the decision to hold a secret or closed-door meeting was in line with articles 152 of the constitution and 130 of parliaments by-laws. Both articles stipulate that the meeting should be secret or closed-door because the issues discussed are mainly related to national security and shouldnt be open to the public or the media, Al-Sherif said. Article 281 of parliaments by-laws states that the House shall hold a closed-door meeting upon the request of the president of the republic, the prime minister, the House speaker, or at least 20 MPs, and that the Houses majority shall decide whether the matter subject for discussion is conducted in an open or closed-door meeting. According to Al-Sherif, the closed-door meeting on Monday was not a precedent. In February 1965, parliament held a secret meeting to listen to a statement on the progress of the war in Yemen and the participation of the Egyptian Armed Forces in the war, he said, also indicating that in March 1970, a secret parliamentary meeting was held to listen to a statement by Egypts ambassador in Moscow on the policy of the then Soviet Union in the Middle East, and in May 1948 a plenary parliamentary meeting was held in secret to discuss the war in Palestine and whether Egypt should join the Arab states in this war. Al-Sherif said the closed-door meeting was a necessity. Not only did it come one day after the meeting of the National Defence Council, but it also followed a 16 July meeting between President Al-Sisi and the leaders of the Libyan tribes, who asked him to authorise the Egyptian Armed Forces to intervene to protect the national security of Libya and Egypt if they saw an imminent danger to both countries. President Al-Sisi said he would do so only after obtaining the approval of the Egyptian parliament, Al-Sherif said. He recalled that on 13 July, the Libyan parliament had passed a resolution also asking the Egyptian and Libyan armed forces to work together to preserve their shared national security in the face of the dangers posed by the Turkish occupation. He said that the fact that Al-Sisi had obtained a green light from parliament to protect Egyptian national security from dangers coming from the western border did not mean that war is imminent. President Al-Sisi said there is a red line in the key Mediterranean coastal city of Sirte, which the Turkey-supported government in Tripoli should not cross as this would pose a direct threat to Egypts national security, Al-Sherif said, adding that MPs approved that elements of the Egyptian Armed Forces could go on combat missions outside the borders of the country. In his meeting with the Libyan tribes on 16 July, Al-Sisi also said that Egypt had the strongest army in the region and in Africa. But the Egyptian army is a very wise one, and it is not interested in mounting occupation operations. If we need to undertake any operations outside our borders, we will be required to first obtain the approval of the Egyptian parliament, Al-Sisi said. MPs told the Weekly that they were keen during the closed-door meeting to ensure the mandate was in line with Article 152 of the constitution. Mohamed Hani Al-Hennawi, an independent MP representing the Nile Delta governorate of Beheira, said that the MPs had closely followed all the issues discussed during the meeting between Al-Sisi and leaders of the Libyan tribes on 16 July. I think that the outcome of the 16 July meeting was the main reason that led the majority of my colleagues in the House to vote in favour of granting President Al-Sisi a mandate to take all the measures necessary to preserve the national security of both Egypt and Libya, Al-Hennawi said. MP Hussein Abu Gad, a member of the parliamentary majority Mostaqbal Watan Party, also said that the issues raised during President Al-Sisis meeting with the leaders of the Libyan tribes on 16 July were directly related to the national security of both Egypt and Libya. All Egyptian MPs were keen to closely follow this meeting, particularly Al-Sisis indication that he should seek approval from the Egyptian parliament before he undertook any military operations outside our borders, Abu Gad said, agreeing that what President Al-Sisi said is in line with the constitution. However, he indicated that Egypts military intervention did not necessarily mean that Egypt would send large numbers of troops to Libya or that Egyptian military forces would participate in any combat missions in Libya. I think that President Al-Sisi was quite clear during the 16 July meeting when he said that Egypts Armed Forces would work side by side with the Libyan National Army in terms of military support, training Libyan army officers in Egypts military academy, and helping the Libyan tribes to fight the Turkish aggression and mercenaries, Abu Gad said. Said Hassassin, an MP from the Democratic Peace Party and a media commentator, said that by giving support and assistance to the Libyan army, Egypt will be able to help the Libyan people free the country from the Turkish occupation. Hassassin said the Turkish occupation of Western Libya would be a direct threat to Egypts national security if Turkey occupied Sirte and Jufra. This is why President Al-Sisi said these were a red line for Egypt, he added. Tarek Metwali, an independent MP representing Suez City, said MPs had approved Al-Sisis Libya mandate after they had agreed that Egypt should take preventive measures. If we had showed reluctance or hesitation, this would have sent a negative message, but if we were decisive and said we would not let the aggressors cross a certain line, this would be a deterrent message. I think this is the message that has so far dissuaded the Tripoli government from mounting any military adventures, Metwali said. Most of the terrorist operations that have killed army and police officers and Christian Copts in Egypt in 2016 and 2017 came through the borders with Libya, and it is the Egyptian Armed Forces confrontation of these and cooperation with the Libyan National Army that put an end to these operations. *A version of this article appears in print in the 23 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly Search Keywords: Short link: Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 19:28:17|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close JUBA, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Friday said that nearly 1.3 million children aged below five years were at risk of acute malnutrition in South Sudan. According to UNICEF, the high number of malnourished children can be reduced through exclusive breastfeeding for six months, alongside introduction of energy and nutrient-dense complementary feeding programs. "As the data show, more needs to be done, especially to ensure that exclusive breastfeeding is practiced," Mohamed Ag Ayoya, UNICEF representative in South Sudan said in a statement issued in Juba. "UNICEF is urging everyone in South Sudan to assist mothers in ensuring that the practice of exclusive breastfeeding is continued until the globally recommended age of six months," he added. Ayoya said that UNICEF and partners have already reached over one million pregnant and lactating mothers in South Sudan with nutrition interventions. "It is the responsibility of us all to support new mothers with simplest, smartest and most cost-effective ways to exclusively breastfeed their new-borns so that they survive and thrive," said Ayoya. While over 90 percent of babies in South Sudan benefit from breastfeeding, nearly one-third of them under six months old are not exclusively breastfed, the globally recommended period for exclusive breastfeeding, according to a UNICEF statement issued ahead of the World Breastfeeding Week which runs from August 1 to 7. Enditem 3 1 of 3 Midland County Records Show More Show Less 2 of 3 File photo Show More Show Less 3 of 3 Flor Estrada, a nurse who worked at the Midland County Jail, was indicted Thursday on charges of criminally negligent homicide, manslaughter and tampering with a government record in connection with an inmates death, according to a copy of the indictment. The inmate, 30-year-old Savion Hall, was arrested on June 21, 2019 for an alcohol or drug offense, according to a custodial death report filed with the Texas Attorney Generals Office. He died on July 19, 2019, a week after he was transferred to the hospital because of low oxygen levels. There is no such thing as a free lunch, or so the saying goes. But from Monday, families will be able to eat at many of their favourite restaurants at a considerably reduced cost as Chancellor Rishi Sunak dubbed Dishy Rishi dishes up a helping for the beleaguered hospitality industry. His scheme, Eat Out To Help Out, is designed to give restaurants, pubs and cafes a much-needed shot in the arm after months of enforced lockdown by letting families dine out with up to 10 off per person. Whether youre missing your favourite pizza, cant wait for a steak or want a cream tea to break up a sunny day at the beach, here is the essential guide to everything you need to know... As a diner, its very simple: just turn up at a participating establishment, on the correct day, and order. The Treasury has set up a postcode finder that will list outlets offering a scheme within a two-mile radius What is Eat Out To Help Out? The scheme was unveiled by the Chancellor as part of his Covid-19 mini budget in July designed to rescue the economy from a coronavirus-induced recession. As its name suggests, this 500 million taxpayer-funded scheme aims to get families who have been hankering after restaurant meals during lockdown back at the table. Diners can get a 50 per cent discount on food or non-alcoholic drinks up to a maximum discount of 10 per person. The result? An army of mums and dads who are thoroughly fed up of spending time in the kitchen get to relax and let someone else do the cooking and struggling restaurant bosses get increased footfall and the opportunity to prove that eating out post-lockdown doesnt have to be a terrifying concept. The scheme will run every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday until August 31, giving you 13 opportunities for a cut price meal out. Mr Sunak told the Mail: Our Eat Out To Help Out scheme is designed to help breathe life back into our badly hit hospitality sector helping to protect the jobs of the 1.8 million hard-working people employed by our much-loved local restaurants, cafes and pubs. We want people to support the Covid-secure establishments that have reopened their doors up and down the country, and enjoy the summer in a safe environment. So how does it work? As a diner, its very simple: just turn up at a participating establishment, on the correct day, and order. The Treasury has set up a postcode finder that will list outlets offering a scheme within a two-mile radius. Its probably best to book given that eateries are juggling new limitations on space, but otherwise once you are at your table you are good to go. There is no need for a voucher, because the discount is automatically available at participating establishments, which then claim a reimbursement from the Government for the discount given. The Government will cover half of the cost of the meal out, up to 10 a head, including children, meaning that a meal for one costing 20 would be reduced to 10, but a 25 meal would be reduced to 15, because of the 10 limit. The offer includes childrens meals, so it will save a family of four up to 40 when dining out. You can dip into the scheme as many times as you like, meaning you could in theory have half-price meals Monday to Wednesday all month. But remember: alcohol and service are not included. Why has it been introduced? Among the many industries to have been hit by the Coronavirus lockdown, hospitality has taken a massive hit. Restaurants were told to close on March 20, with some tentatively reopening for the first time on July 4. But hospitality post-corona is very different, with social distancing limiting space, requirements to gather data from diners, not to mention all the cleaning. Combined with staffing and cash flow problems, its no wonder some still havent reopened. According to trade industry body UK Hospitality, sales at pubs, restaurants and hotels across the UK plunged by 30 billion during lockdown, with revenues down by 87 per cent between April and June compared to last year. Chief executive Kate Nicholls said the dramatic fall proved Government assistance for the industrys 65,000 businesses was vital to avoid more failures and job losses. Sadly, a host of familiar High Street names as well as much-loved local eateries have had to close permanently, triggering redundancies. Italian restaurant chain Carluccios escaped administration after it was bought by the owner of Giraffe restaurants. Yet it still had to close 40 restaurants, costing more than 1,000 jobs more than half the workforce. The owners of Zizzi and Ask Italian said it would close 75 locations, risking the loss of up to 1,200 jobs, while Casual Dining Group entered administration earlier this month, putting 1,900 jobs at Bella Italia, Cafe Rouge and Las Iguanas in peril if buyers can not be found. Sandwich chain Pret a Manger has also announced the closure of several stores, and Pizza Hut is considering restructuring moves that could involve job losses. But campaigners claim the scheme could lead to people eating too many calories at a time when the Government is trying to encourage many to lose weight. A study by weight loss experts Noom found that dining out could see Britons consume 1,500 calories in one sitting by ordering extra food because of the discounts. We'll eat out twice a week The last time Laura Mason-Byers and her family ate at a restaurant near their Worcestershire home was four months ago, just days before lockdown. The communications manager, 36, her husband Colin, 37, and children Marley, four, Noah, seven, and Grace, eight, had been regular eat-out diners, and cant wait to sit down in a restaurant again on Monday. We already have a table booked, says Laura. Miller & Carter, a steakhouse in Millbrook, Bromsgrove, which we drive past every day when we take Marley to nursery. The last time Laura Mason-Byers and her family ate at a restaurant near their Worcestershire home was four months ago, just days before lockdown The last time we went out was for Noahs birthday back in March thankfully we decided to go out before his birthday, because lockdown ended up being before the date itself. We normally eat out two to three times a month; a cheeky midweek meal at a gastro pub, or a family curry on a Sunday, so weve really missed it. Both Colin, who is head of operations for a franchise company, and Laura have been working from home full-time while juggling childcare, so they are relieved to be able to go out and let someone else do hard work in the kitchen. So much so, they have already booked restaurants and sometimes two for every week in August. Ive had enough of cooking, so this is great, says Laura. Weve booked some meals as a family, but I have also booked a couple of places just so my husband and I can have a date night. The Ministry of External Affairs in a statement on Thursday informed that the Chinese side is yet to complete the mutually agreed-upon disengagement process at the Line of actual Control after high-voltage tensions in June, said it expects China to work sincerely in furtherance of the bilateral agreement and the ongoing talks to restore peace and stability between the two nations. India said on Thursday that some progress has been made in the disengagement of troops along the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh but it has not yet been completed and noted that it expected that the Chinese side will sincerely work for complete disengagement and de-escalation and full restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas at the earliest. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said at the regular media briefing that the two sides held the 17th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination last week and reviewed the situation in the India-China border areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Western sector. He said they agreed that early and complete disengagement of the troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and de-escalation from India-China border areas in accordance with bilateral agreement and protocols and full restoration of peace and tranquillity was essential for the smooth overall development of bilateral relations. Also read: Rajasthan crisis: Gehlot urges rebel MLAs to attend assembly session Also read: After Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu extends lockdown till August 31 This was also the agreement reached between the two Special Representatives, NSA and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in their conversation on July 5, Srivastava said. There has been some progress made towards this objective but the disengagement process has as yet not been completed. The Senior Commanders of the two sides will be meeting in the near future to work out steps in this regard, he said. Srivastava said India has stated earlier that the maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas is the basis of our bilateral relationship. Therefore, we expect 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., he said. Also read: India-Mauritius partnership to soar, says PM amid souring China relations HUDSON VALLEY, NY Tropical Storm Isaias strengthened into a hurricane as it churned across the Caribbean early Friday, with its path taking it toward Florida and then up the East Coast. The Hudson Valley is now potentially in its sights, forecasters said. Isaias became a category 1 storm Friday as it threatened torrential rains and potentially life-threatening flooding in the Dominican Islands, Haiti and the Bahamas. It's expected to reach Florida early Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said. Hurricane Hunter aircraft from the U.S. Air Force and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration located the center of Isaias, which was packing maximum sustained winds of 80 mph. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 45 miles from the center of Isaias while tropical-storm-force winds extend up to 205 miles. "Isaias is moving toward the northwest near 17 mph .... and a generally northwestward motion with some decrease in forward speed is expected for the next couple of days followed by a turn toward the north-northwest," the National Hurricane Center said at 8 a.m. Friday. Weather forecasters said Isaias will be near or over the Bahamas Friday night and near or over Florida on Saturday and Sunday. The hope is that the storm will stay to the east of the U.S. coast, but the cone of its possible path includes the Hudson Valley. The fast-moving storm now threatens portions of the Sunshine State, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. The effects would be felt in the region Monday night into Tuesday morning. National Hurricane Center A tropical storm watch remained in effect for the east coast of Florida. The affected area includes Ocean Reef to Sebastian Inlet and Lake Okeechobee, which includes South Florida. "While we can't be certain of the exact track of the storm, and we certainly can't be sure about the intensity it will ultimately reach, we do expect to see impacts to the state of Florida even if the storm remains off our shore which is the current forecast," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told Floridians Thursday. Story continues The National Hurricane Center said additional watches or warnings may be issued Friday. In Miami-Dade County, which is considered to be the epicenter of Florida's coronavirus outbreak, Emergency Management Director Frank Rollason said officials will take special precautions if evacuations are ordered. "They'll be screened, asked if they have any particular signs or symptoms," he said. "Their temperature will be taken. If they present to us with a particular problem, or if they have been co-habitating with somebody that is positive and has that exposure, we will isolate them away from general population in the evacuation center by utilizing school classrooms." Florida state officials shut down all state-supported drive-thru and walk-up COVID-19 testing sites at 5 p.m. Thursday ahead of the possible arrival of Isaias. Here is the weather forecast through the weekend for northern Westchester County from the National Weather Service: Today: A 30 percent chance of showers, mainly before 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 81. Light east wind. Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 64. Calm wind. Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 88. Light and variable wind. Saturday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after midnight. Increasing clouds, with a low around 68. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening. Sunday: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 85. South wind 5 to 8 mph. Sunday Night: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 72. With Paul Scicchitano/Patch. This article originally appeared on the Yorktown-Somers Patch The accused person convinced the victim that vaginal swab was necessary for the COVID-19 test Mumbai: In an incident that sent shockwaves across the state, the police arrested a lab technician in Maharashtras Amravati district after he took swab samples from a woman's private parts. State Woman and Child Development Minister Yashomati Thakur, who is also the local MLA, has promised strict action against the accused. The police have slapped a rape case against him. The incident took place on Tuesday when the 20 to 25 staff members of a local mall, including the 24-year-old victim visited a local testing centre for COVID-19 test after one of their colleagues was tested positive. However, after taking the nasal swabs of all staffers, technician Alpesh Deshmukh convinced the victim to also give swab sample from her private parts. The accused person convinced the victim that vaginal swab was necessary for the COVID test. Later the victim realised that she has been cheated and she filed the police complaint. We have arrested the accused under Indian Penal Code Sections 354 (assault or criminal force on woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 376 (rape), said a police officer from Badnera police station where the FIR has been filed. Joe Biden says he wants equality. Who could be against that? But if just declaring yourself in favor of equality were enough, we would not still be arguing about equality in 2020. As always, when politicians talk about inequality, watch your wallet. And in this case, watch the Constitution, too. In the past week, the Biden campaign has announced plans of Castro-esque length aimed at racial equality and womens equality. We suppose we should at least welcome Bidens continued willingness to use that old-fashioned word women. But Biden is so stuck in the past that he would pronounce the Equal Rights Amendment already ratified based on state legislative approvals in the 1970s. The deadline for the expiration of those long-ago votes was so clear, even Ruth Bader Ginsburg considers them dead letters. Biden would go further, demanding Senate ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a radical-feminist 1970s treaty under which even Scandinavian countries get hectored for allowing women to assume the primary role in child-rearing. Biden would also restore the Obama-era unilateral executive fiat under which domestic violence and sexual violence are made the basis for political asylum, a position with no basis in the immigration laws enacted by Congress, and no limiting principle. Human rights get rough treatment under the plans. Biden proposes to roll back due-process protections for the accused in campus sexual-assault cases. The secret ballot for union elections is to be replaced by reviving card check elections. Biden once posed as a pro-lifer reluctantly supporting legal abortion, while opposing for four decades taxpayer-funded abortion. So much for that. He pledges that his Justice Department will do everything in its power to stop the rash of state laws that so blatantly violate Roe v. Wade, and that he will restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood, restore U.S. funding to the pro-abortion United Nations Population Fund, and restore the Affordable Care Acts contraception mandate to ignore the Supreme Courts Hobby Lobby decision and restart the governments assault on the Little Sisters of the Poor. Story continues Many of the proposals boil down to the same old thing: more federal spending of taxpayer money, more power and goodies for unions, more workplace regulations, more dividing people up by race. The price tag of all these initiatives adds up to some $7 trillion in new spending, most of it permanent. Right off the bat, a $2 trillion accelerated investment is pledged in a clean energy future, with the restriction that disadvantaged communities receive 40 percent of overall benefits of spending in the areas of clean energy and energy efficiency deployment a telltale sign that this is more about spreading money around to favored constituencies than about science. No cause is too local to throw dollars at: Biden pledges he will update and add air conditioners for elementary, middle and high schools. Biden proposes a $15 national minimum wage, never mind the difference between labor-market conditions in San Francisco and Mississippi, and would abolish the exemption for tipped workers such as waiters, on the theory that two in three tipped wage workers are women and tipped workers of color are tipped even less than white tipped-wage workers. He pledges to expand pay and benefits for jobs disproportionately filled by women, dropping the pretense that equal pay is at all related to equal work. The further one gets into these proposals, the clearer it becomes that the left-wing radicals who were supposedly defeated by Biden in the primary are actually writing them. The euphemisms and acronyms in Bidens plans, in Orwells words, fall upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up the details. For example, Biden pledges to require insurers to cover gender confirmation surgery. He pledges to ban conversion therapy did we miss the federal government becoming the primary regulator of therapists? The intense focus on categorizing people by race, channeling government benefits along explicit racial lines, and constructing new federal bureaucracies to obsess about race is numbing. Biden would ensure all small business relief efforts are specifically designed to aid businesses owned by Black and Brown people, require publicly traded companies to disclose data on the racial and gender composition of their corporate boards, and establish an Equity Commission to focus on the unique jurisdictional and regulatory barriers that Black, Brown, and Native farmers, ranchers, and fishers must negotiate and make sure that processes are streamlined and simplified to promote new and beginning farming and ranching operations by Black and Brown farmers. You might think the Federal Reserve exists mainly to ensure sound money and a stable banking system; Biden proposes that the Fed should aggressively enhance its surveillance and targeting of persistent racial gaps in jobs, wages, and wealth. A government that puts racial and surveillance in the same job description for an unelected body should be viewed with alarm. Biden proposes to lavish $70 billion on HBCUs, Tribal Colleges And Universities (TCUs), Hispanic-serving Institutions (HSIs), Asian American And Native American Pacific Islander-serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), Alaska Native-serving Institutions and Native Hawaiian-serving Institutions (ANNHs), Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs), and Native American-serving Nontribal Institutions (NASNTIs). Pity the poor Biden speechwriter preparing the candidate to talk about how AANAPISIs differ from NASNTIs. The mask of the Biden campaign is the candidates supposed centrism. The reality is more than America can afford. More from National Review A CV is often your initial introduction to a prospective employer, so it's understandable that we're all terrified of mistakes. You want to sell the best possible version of yourself - to maximise your chances of employment. However, if you're finding yourself exaggerating your skills and experience, you may want to pause for thought. A survey of 460 hiring managers in Australia has found that 68 per cent had eliminated a job candidate from consideration after discovering "dishonest or exaggerated information" on their application. In addition, 60 per cent of managers said they had caught candidates exaggerating or lying about their previous jobs. Around 48 per cent of managers also said applicants had been dishonest about technical skills and the same amount had lied about their education or qualifications. Andrew Morris, director of Robert Half Australia, said: Transparency and honesty during the application and interview process are critical for candidates who want to be considered for a job. Many businesses take background checks very seriously, which is made even easier thanks to increased online transparency and social media. Once untruthfulness has been discovered, candidates professional credibility has been damaged, and their chances of landing the job will be very slim to none, even though they might be ideal for the role. Mr Morris advocated a CV that was short, straightforward, and matched the job criteria and the candidate's skills with honest appraisal. HT News.com.au The death toll in the Punjab spurious liquor tragedy on Friday rose to 38 and the state police has arrested eight bootleggers so far. The police arrested seven bootleggers on Friday from Amritsar Rural, Batala and Tarn Taran districts in over 40 raids conducted by five teams led by senior officers. With these arrests, the total number of persons apprehended so far in the spurious liquor deaths case has gone up to eight, including Balwinder Kaur, who was arrested on July 30 night from Muchhal village. DGP Dinkar Gupta said a huge quantity of spurious liquor, drums, storage cans etc. have been recovered from the accused and the same have been sent for chemical analysis to check for constituents of spurious liquor. More arrests are likely, he said, adding that raids were continuing and the police teams would continue to crack down on all those involved in the case to unravel the extent of the spurious liquor mafia operating in the region. While Balwinder Kaur and Mithu were arrested from Amritsar Rural district, two persons identified as Darshan Rani and Rajan were nabbed from Batala district. Four others, namely Kashmir Singh, Angrez Singh, Amarjit and Baljit, have been arrested from Tarn Taran. An FIR has been registered under sections 304, 307, 120 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Police Station Sadar Tarn Taran against the four accused arrested from the district, said the DGP. He added that the bootleggers had admitted to supplying spurious liquor in village Norangabad. Mithu, who was arrested from village Jasso Nangal, PS Khilchian, has also admitted to his role in the supply of spurious liquor, said the DGP. As of Friday evening, 10 persons had died of spurious liquor consumption in Amritsar Rural, nine in Batala and 19 in Tarn Taran. The death toll could rise further as the spurious liquor network was evidently spread across many areas, said the DGP, adding that questioning of the arrested accused was expected to lead to further arrests in the case. Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has already ordered a magisterial inquiry by Divisional Commissioner Jalandhar into the hooch tragedy. The inquiry will look into the facts and circumstances leading to incidents, as well as into any other issue(s) connected or relevant to the incident (s) and the circumstances leading to it. It will be conducted by Divisional Commissioner Jalandhar, along with Joint Excise & Taxation Commissioner Punjab, and SPs Investigation of the concerned districts, according to an official spokesperson. The Chief Minister has given Commissioner Jalandhar Division the liberty to co-opt any civil/police officer or an expert to facilitate the expeditious conduct of the enquiry. He has promised strict action against anyone found complicit in the case. Donald Trump cast doubt on the November elections legitimacy yesterday morning, tweeting that it will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history due to states decisions to expand mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, he suggested the vote be postponed: Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? Within hours of Trumps tweet, even Republican allies like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) quickly stated their opposition to Trumps suggestion. A federal law passed by Congress in 1845 requires general elections be held the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. President Donald Trump holds articles as he speaks during a news conference at the White House, Thursday, July 30, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Later yesterday afternoon, Trump doubled down on his earlier statement, tweeting: Must know Election results on the night of the election, not days, months or even years later! Trump, who has long threatened to challenge the outcome of any election he loses and to remain in office for several terms, faces an increasingly difficult re-election campaign as his approval ratings tank. This week, the US passed the 150,000 mark in coronavirus deaths, with California, Florida and several smaller states reporting their highest daily death tolls to date. Tens of millions of jobs have been eliminated, while Congress has let additional federal unemployment benefits expire. Though three months remain before the vote, some recent national election polls show Trumps support below 40 percent. The run-up to the November 3 election and the 11-week period between the election and the January 20 inauguration threaten to be periods of unprecedented political crisis. The military, in preparation for the prospect of mass demonstrations, published training material that refers to protestors and journalists as adversaries. The training documents, which by order must be reviewed by every member of the armed forces, are an indication that the military is preparing itself for further deployments to violently suppress political opposition. On Wednesday, the Justice Department deployed dozens of federal agents to Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Detroit, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio. This follows the deployment of paramilitary forces in Portland, Oregon, who have taken control of the citys downtown and have arrested demonstrators without probable cause, throwing them in the back of unmarked cars for interrogation at undisclosed locations. At a press conference yesterday, Trump threatened to deploy the national guard to Portland if the states Democratic governor failed to crack down on what Trump called terrorist activity. The deployment to Milwaukee, Detroit and Cleveland is significant because four years ago the depressed turnout among impoverished African-Americans was a major factor in Trumps razor-thin margin of victory in Wisconsin and Michigan, while polls in Ohio have shown the state to be closely contested this year. Adding to the prospect of uncertainty, Wisconsin and Michigan have Republican-controlled state legislatures and Democratic governors, meaning efforts to certify election results in those states will likely face long court delays and partisan stonewalling. Pennsylvania and North Carolina, two swing states with 20 and 15 electoral votes, respectively, also have split party control. More details are emerging about efforts by bipartisan groups of retired military-intelligence officers, elected officials and media figures to game possible outcomes of a contested election. According to Rosa Brooks, head of the Transition Integrity Project, three out of four election gaming scenarios have resulted in an unprecedented constitutional crisis placing the country on the verge of civil war. In these scenarios, both Biden and Trump claim to be the legitimate president at 12:00 PM on January 20, the minute at which the 12th Amendment of the constitution requires power be transitioned from the outgoing to the incoming administration. On July 28, the Washington Post published an article titled, As Trump demurs, an unimaginable question forms: Could the president reach for the military in a disputed election? The article asks the question: How would the armed forces respond if pulled into a disputed election? With legal challenges expected over vote certification in several states, the article notes the possibility that pending lawsuits mean Congress would not be able to certify a winner by January 20. The Post writes: Crucially, a contested outcome lasting beyond Jan. 20 would force the military to make an implicit decision about who is commander in chief. According to the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, Trump would cease to be president on noon of Jan. 20 if Congress does not certify him as the winner, passing his authority as commander in chief of the military to the acting president, the speaker of the House of Representatives. In one scenario gamed by group participants, the White House might call on the military to protect the president or, more likely, respond to potential protests on law and order grounds, possibly leading the president to follow through with earlier threats to send active-duty troops to American cities or take control of state-commanded National Guard members. Facing contradictory orders, officials who follow orders issued by the wrong commander-in-chief would be subject to arrest and prosecution for failing to impede mutiny or sedition, which carries the death penalty, the Post notes. It is not only Trump who may appeal to the military to intervene and physically determine the outcome of the election. Earlier this year, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden warned that if Trump refused to vacate the White House, the military will escort him from the White House with great dispatch. Indeed, one participant in gaming exercises, Marquette law professor Risa Brooks, told the Post: In so many ways it looks like the military is going to have to be thinking about its role in domestic politics in ways it normally doesnt. Adding to the air of uncertainty, the Constitution also mandates that the incoming Congress elected in November be seated on January 3, more than two weeks before the inauguration of the president. Most polls show Democrats maintaining control over the lower house, thereby placing the Democratic speaker, currently Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in line to serve as acting president. But if the election is delayed or if legal challenges produce enough congressional vacancies to prevent a Democratic-controlled House from electing a speaker by January 20, the Senate president pro tem would become acting president. That position is currently held by Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), but control of the Senate in the upcoming election is uncertain. If the election produces a 50-50 tie in the Senate, the constitution has no answer for who would become president pro tem (and therefore acting president), since there would be no elected vice president to preside over a Senate tie. To add even more confusion, if the election is delayed, only 65 senators would remain in the Senate (those not subject to election this year), and a majority of those remaining would be Democrats. On top of the possibility Republicans may flee Washington to prevent Democrats from establishing a quorum, state governors may also decide to appoint senators to fill the 35 vacancies. Since Republicans control a majority of governorships, the position of Senate president pro temand therefore of acting presidentcould remain up for grabs. With everything subject to legal challenge, it is possible that on January 20, nobody will know who the president is. Under these conditions of immense political crisis, both major parties are appealing to the military to become the arbiters of state power. Those bourgeois insiders who are gaming the situation are aware of the possibility that different commanders may obey orders from different commanders-in-chief and that it is possible different units may be deployed to confront one another, especially in the District of Colombia, where physical control is most important and where the president commands the National Guard. In this context, a quickly forgotten New York Times op-ed article by former senator Gary Hart (D-CO) acquires greater significance. In his July 23 article, Hart said that he and former senator Walter Mondale (D-MN) 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. Hart wrote: We believe they may include suspension of habeas corpus, surveillance, home intrusion, arrest without a judicial warrant, collective if not mass arrests and more. Without the intervention of the working class, whichever faction of the ruling class seizes the initiative will drive the political establishment further to the right, relying on the military and risking the imposition of a military dictatorship. In the race between Biden and Trump, there is no progressive faction. The Cyberspace Solarium Commission has successfully lobbied the House to include nearly two dozen of its recommendations in the latest defense authorization bill. They're now working to convince the Senate to adopt ideas like a new White House Cyber Director while also pushing the federal government and its allies to produce quicker attribution and joint sanctions for malicious cyberattacks. During a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats hearing, ranking member Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said at least 22 of the more than 50 legislative proposals from the report were included in the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act passed by the House. Those provisions must still survive a conference with the Senate and a potential veto from the White House, which has already stated its opposition to numerous provisions in the House and Senate versions. In his opening statement, Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) outlined goals beyond this year's legislative accomplishments, saying he hopes the report acts as "a blueprint for legislative and executive actions that force the country to break apart the institutional stovepipes" around cybersecurity policy in Congress and the executive branch. That includes a provision to establish a new White House Cyber Director who would be responsible for breaking down those barriers and coordinating cyber policy across government. The position was included in the House NDAA but the Senate version would only mandate an independent assessment of the position. Proponents made it clear they intend to continue their advocacy during the conference process. "The reality is right now we have enormously capable people throughout the federal government, but there's no central point of oversight, there's no central point of coordination, there's no central point of defining strategy," said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) co-chair of the commission during testimony. While many in the cyber policy community have embraced the idea, likening it to a restoration of the now-defunct White House Cybersecurity Coordinator position eliminated in 2018, there are some detractors. Phillip Retinger, president and CEO of the Global Cyber Alliance and former Deputy Under Secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate at DHS, has argued that far from clarifying roles and responsibilities around cyber policy, the position as written in the House NDAA would not have any explicit authority around offensive cyber operations carried out by the military and its focus on defensive issues would step on another one of the commission's priorities: further empowering NPPD's successor, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. In a piece for Lawfare this month, Retinger wrote that "creating a new Office of the National Cyber Director within the Executive Office of the President would do little to elevate CISA. In fact, it would likely have the opposite effect: reducing the influence of CISA as the new national cyber director works to clear some bureaucratic space by asserting authority and throwing some elbows." On the other end of the spectrum, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) expressed concern during the hearing that if the director position did have authority over offensive and intelligence aspects of U.S. cyber policy, it might muddy up current the chain of command to authorize offensive operations between U.S. Cyber Command, the Secretary of Defense and the President. King said such concerns are why the legislation makes clear that the position was designed for planning and coordination. "We want this person to be accountable for the coordination, but [they] would not have an operational role," King said. One area where commissioners and lawmakers said they want to see the U.S. and allies get more aggressive is attributing major cyberattacks back to specific groups and their patron countries. One recommendation from the report is strengthening the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to provide "analysis and coordination necessary for rapid and accurate attribution." The Department of Justice and Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation have issued indictments containing detailed accusations and evidence linking a series of intrusions and influence campaigns during the 2016 election to the Russian government, while the White House and other U.S. agencies have worked to publicize evidence linking China, Iran and North Korea to other high profile attacks. Earlier this month, the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre attributed a widespread espionage campaign targeting Western research organizations that are working on a COVID-19 vaccine to a hacking group with ties to Russian intelligence. Those findings, endorsed by agencies in the U.S. and Canada, also wound up linking a number of malware tools used by the group. The same day of the hearing, the European Union imposed economic and travel sanctions on six individuals and three organizations from China, Russia and North Korea for carrying out the WannaCry, NotPetya and CloudHopper cyber campaigns. Many of the individuals and entities had previously been identified by U.S. and Western governments, causing Langevin to question whether more could be done to "shorten the timeline between incident and response" when it comes to attribution. "The WannaCry and NotPetya malware, for instance, were both released in the first half of 2017, and we have known the culprits were the North Koreans and the Russians, respectively, for almost as long," said Langevin in a separate statement sent to FCW before the hearing. "Like-minded nations that believe that cyberspace is not the 'Wild West' must work together to take swift and decisive action in the face of continued belligerence from countries seeking to benefit from 'gray zone' conflict in cyberspace. I urge the Council to publicly commit to working to reduce the time between incident and response." Boris Johnson appears to be balding after his fight with coronavirus, amid growing speculation that the disease may cause hair loss. Eagle-eyed social media users have spotted the Prime Minister's trademark shaggy, blond mop has looked thinner than usual over the past few weeks. And his hair loss was more apparent than ever today, when he stood in front of the nation in a Downing Street press conference to announce he was was 'squeezing the brake pedal' on easing lockdown because of a rise in cases. But the PM has reportedly showed signs of going bald since 2016, meaning it's not clear if it has worsened since his battle with coronavirus in April, which he described as a 'tough old moment' which left him in intensive care for several nights. It comes amid dozens of anecdotal reports of Covid-19 survivors losing their hair after recovering from the life-threatening illness. Many survivors are convinced their extensive hair loss was triggered by the disease - even though there is currently no scientific evidence to prove it is a side effect. But the NHS says hair loss can be triggered by 'illness' and dermatologists say shock - such as that caused by Covid-19 - may trigger shedding. One expert has said a high temperature - a tell-tale symptom of the disease - can also be to blame. Boris Johnson's trademark messy mop may be a way for him to hide bald patches, Twitter users have speculated. Pictured today in Downing Street Eagle-eyed social media users have spotted the Prime Minister's trademark shaggy, blond mop has looked thinner than usual over the past few weeks. Pictured in January, when his hair was not as thin On the other hand, some scientists say balding might even be a predictor Covid-19 and not the other way around. A recent study found that bald men are 40 per cent more likely to end up in hospital with the coronavirus, showing there may be a link between Mr Johnson's thinning hair and his battle with the deadly disease. However independent experts rubbished the study findings and said the evidence was 'not terribly strong'. Mr Johnson used his press conference this afternoon to warn that coronavirus cases have started to 'creep up' and as a result the Government has no choice but to delay the further reopening of the economy. He said that the scheduled August 1 return of casinos, bowling alleys and so-called close contact services like beauticians has now been pushed back to August 15 'at the earliest'. The mandatory wearing of face coverings will be extended to include galleries, cinemas and places of worship while there will also now be a 'greater police presence' to ensure people wear masks and comply with social distancing. The announcements came after the Government last night announced it was reimposing partial lockdown measures on 4.5 million people living in Greater Manchester and parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Many social media users have commented on Mr Johnson's hair over the past month. One Twitter user wrote: 'Boris Johnson is very bald now and has been taking hair styling lessons from the baldest man in the White House for many decades, Donald Trump.' Social media users have been quick to point out that Mr Johnson's trademark ruffled 'do bears a striking resemblance to Donald Trump's combover Twitter users continued on in their theory that Mr Johnson's signature ruffled hair is just a 'disguise' COVID-19 IS 'CAUSING HAIR LOSS' Coronavirus survivors have revealed how they are suffering extensive hair loss triggered by the illness. Eva Proudman, of the Institute of Trichologists, which specialises in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and disorders of the hair and scalp, told FEMAIL they could be experiencing telogen effluvium, a 'shedding' condition triggered by a number of potential factors. Among them is a continuous high temperature like those experienced by some Covid-19 patients, as well as childbirth, trauma or illness, stress, extreme weight loss, medications, or a skin condition affecting the scalp. Eva said: 'Generally with a normal growing and shedding cycle for your hair, around 85 per cent of your hair is the growing phase with 15 per cent either resting, shedding or moving back to regrow. 'However with telogen effluvium this can effectively switch, leaving a very thin covering of hair on the head. Fortunately, with correct diagnosis and treatment, a good recovery can be obtained.' Grace Dudley, 30, a mother of one from Romford, Essex, spent almost a fortnight in hospital after contracting Covid-19 from her father, who later died of multiple organ failure caused by the virus. More than a month after she was discharged, Grace, a make-up artist, began to notice her hair falling out in large clumps, seemingly without reason. 'I woke up and noticed it was on my pillow and thought, "that's not good",' she said in an interview with FEMAIL. 'Every time I brushed my hair it was falling out and it's still happening. I've lost about 55 per cent of my hair every day and I'm losing more.' Grace was told by an expert that her hair loss was linked to Covid-19. According to Grace, the trichologist said the severe hair loss had been triggered because the body had been so close to death that it had began to 'shut down' follicles on her head in a bid to conserve energy for essential functions. Meanwhile, others have taken to Twitter to share their experiences of hair loss weeks and even months after the initial symptoms of Covid-19 have passed. Advertisement Another said: 'Is Boris Johnson going bald? Nothing wrong in being bald, just the increasingly Trumpian hairstyle is not good.' And another wrote: 'It is becoming increasingly challenging to detect and discernible difference between Donald Trump and Boris Johnson (apart from the size of Boris's bald patch).' While another simply said: 'The ''untidy'' hair is carefully positioned to hide the bald cranium.' The Prime Minister has reportedly showed signs of going bald since 2016, and so it's not clear if it has worsened since. The Mail on Sunday's Black Dog column revealed: 'Boris Johnsons diplomatic ditching of his dishevelled hairdo to mark his debut Commons speech as Foreign Secretary in the Aleppo debate has one downside: Dogs lofty vantage point in the Press Gallery revealed a looming bald patch on Bozzas bonce. 'No wonder he is always ruffling his tresses: its his version of the Donald Trump Comb-Over' Social media users continued on in their theory that Mr Johnson's signature ruffled hair is just a 'disguise'. One wrote: 'Hiding his bald patches. And mostly the truth.' Another said: 'His ruffled hair is just a comb over to disguise the fact that he is going bald!' While another wrote: 'That hair has been carefully placed across his bald patch.' There is some speculation that baldness could actually be caused by the deadly coronavirus. One survivor, Grace Dudley, 30, spent almost a fortnight in hospital after contracting Covid-19 from her father, lost masses of hair after her recovery. More than a month after she was discharged, Grace, a make-up artist, began to notice her hair falling out in large clumps, seemingly without reason. 'I woke up and noticed it was on my pillow and thought, "that's not good",' she said in an interview with FEMAIL. 'Every time I brushed my hair it was falling out and it's still happening. I've lost about 55 per cent of my hair every day and I'm losing more.' Grace was told by an expert that her hair loss was linked to Covid-19. According to Grace, the trichologist said the severe hair loss had been triggered because the body had been so close to death that it had began to 'shut down' follicles on her head in a bid to conserve energy for essential functions. Meanwhile, others have taken to Twitter to share their experiences of hair loss weeks and even months after the initial symptoms of Covid-19 have passed. Eva Proudman, of the Institute of Trichologists, which specialises in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and disorders of the hair and scalp, told The Daily Mail on July 20 they could be experiencing telogen effluvium, a 'shedding' condition triggered by a number of potential factors. Speaking to FEMAIL, one coronavirus survivor, Grace (pictured), told how she experienced hair loss after recovering from the disease Hair loss is one of the long term health problems reported by Covid-19 patients. Pictured, clumps of Grace's hair that have fallen out. She estimates she has lost 55% of her hair Among them is a continuous high temperature like those experienced by some Covid-19 patients including Grace, who had a temperature of 40C (104F) when she was taken into hospital. Eva said: 'Generally with a normal growing and shedding cycle for your hair, around 85 per cent of your hair is the growing phase with 15 per cent either resting, shedding or moving back to regrow. 'However with telogen effluvium this can effectively switch, leaving a very thin covering of hair on the head. Fortunately, with correct diagnosis and treatment, a good recovery can be obtained.' Hair loss is one of the long term health problems reported by Covid-19 patients. Eva said she personally has seen seven people who have experienced shedding after a coronavirus diagnosis. Dermatologists recently uncovered a possible link between hair loss and ending up with severe coronavirus by analysing data from 2,000 British men in hospital. West Virginia University researchers, who published their findings in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, reported all the men were part of the UK Biobank, a huge data-set of 500,000 people that has collected information on volunteers over the past 14 years. For the most recent data collection, carried out last year, men described how much hair they had. The four options were pattern 1: 'no hair loss', pattern 2: 'slight hair loss', pattern 3: 'moderate hair loss', and pattern 4: 'severe hair loss'. Results showed a fifth of men with no hair tested positive for the virus in hospital compared to 15 per cent of those who had a full head of hair. Dr Michael Kolodney and his colleagues calculated bald men were 40 per cent more likely to test positive than those with a full head of hair. Because the men tested positive in hospital, it indicates they had a severe form of Covid-19. But patient outcomes were not revealed to confirm the claim. The study not the first to stumble across the bizarre link said other risk factors for Covid-19, such as diabetes and age, did not explain the gap. However, experts warned the findings are 'not terribly strong' and said there is a whole list of other factors that may explain why bald men are dying more. For example, ethnicity is linked to a higher risk of severe Covid-19, but this study didn't appear to take that into account. The academics noted their findings supported those made by Dr Carlos Wambier, a dermatologist at Brown University, Rhode Island. He has led two studies in Spain, the findings of which are published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. Both have found a disproportionate number of men with male-patterned baldness being admitted to hospital with the deadly disease. It has been theorised the male hormones that fuel hair loss in both men and women also help the virus to enter cells. But there is no evidence to support this. The Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) of Ukraine has informed the competent authorities of Belarus about its intentions to demand the extradition of participants in Russian armed aggression in Donbas detained on its territory, the Prosecutor General's Office told Interfax-Ukraine. Thus, the PGO appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Belarus with requests for the temporary arrest of people who were detained by law enforcement agencies of this state on July 29. "Some 28 persons, of whom nine are citizens of Ukraine, have been declared suspicious of participation in a terrorist organization (Article 258-3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)," the law enforcement officials said. As explained to the agency in the Prosecutor General's Office, Ukraine will ask for the extradition of 28 detainees who are suspected. "Thus, the Ukrainian side expressed its intention to demand the extradition of these people to Ukraine in order to bring them to justice for crimes related to illegal participation in the armed conflict in Donbas," the Prosecutor General's Office said. According to law enforcement officers, the preparation of documents necessary for sending requests for the extradition of these persons is currently underway. The issue of their extradition will be decided by the competent authorities of Belarus. As reported, the state Belarusian news agency BelTA said that law enforcement officials of Belarus detained 32 "militants of foreign private military company Wagner" near Minsk, and another person was detained in the south of the country. On Wednesday evening this information was confirmed by KGB Chairman Valery Vakulchik at an urgent meeting of the Security Council of Belarus. On Thursday morning, State Secretary of the Belarusian Security Council Andrei Ravkov said that the Russians from the Wagner PMC detained near Minsk were testifying. On July 30, the Security Service of Ukraine announced that it would initiate the issue of extradition of the fighters detained in Belarus. On July 31, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus has handed over to Ukraine a list of Russian fighters detained in Belarus and asked to hand over the specified document to the competent authorities of Ukraine. As hunters and conservationists, we are nothing short of grateful that our states citizens demand their leaders to lead on public lands issues. Montanans know that the tie that binds us all in Montana is, well, Montana. Thats why it was so alarming to read William Perry Pendleys recent opinion piece that sang the virtues of two management plans he just approved for the Lewistown and Missoula areas. Mr. Pendley is the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management and was recently formally nominated by the president to lead the agency. He now needs a vote of the Senate to keep the job. Perhaps this is why he is trying to position himself as a champion of public lands with these plans. The problem is, the regional management plans he just announced, which will dictate the management of these lands for the next 20 years, completely miss the mark for ensuring future generations have the same opportunities we have on our public lands. How can anyone say, as Mr. Pendley did, that a plan that opens up 95% of its acreage to oil and gas development would make Theodore Roosevelt proud? We think itd make him hopping mad. Sure, the plans include designations of a new tool called backcountry conservation areas that are meant to ensure hunting and recreation opportunities, a good idea. But under these particular plans, that designation doesnt preserve the lands as Pendley describes. Rather, you can literally and figuratively drive a truck through the loopholes in the designations, which would still allow for those areas to be drilled, logged and mined. It did not have to be this way. Take the Lewistown plan, which covers acreage extending from the Rocky Mountain Front to Charles M. Russell Wildlife Refuge. For years, Montanans worked together to find agreement on how the lands should be managed, which was represented in a draft plan in 2016. The plan acknowledged the importance of wilderness characteristics and recommended protection for some of them. It recommended other areas for some measure of protection. It called for responsible development. It understood the growing value of the recreation economy in our communities. Our country demands many uses of our public lands, and the draft plan mostly did that. But that work, informed by Montanans, was tossed aside. Why? The Trump administration has made clear its priority for the West is an energy dominance agenda their phrase, not ours so our hunch is that is what drove the rewriting of the document. Ninety-five percent of the lands open for oil and gas development is indeed dominance. Mr. Pendley oversaw the whole thing. Its no surprise. Hes simply been on the wrong side of history, repeatedly, on public lands issues. He claims public lands are unconstitutional, that public lands shouldnt belong to you and me. He was the lawyer who tried to overturn the cyanide heap leach mining ban that Montana voters overwhelmingly passed twice and that protected the Blackfoot River for generations to come. He was also the attorney who represented the wealthy out-of-staters who tried to strip away our stream access law. No amount of wrapping his newly released plans in press statements with Orwellian language about public lands can undo what is in the plans themselves. Nor can it erase his long track record advocating against our public lands. Montanans deserve better. These plans are wrong for our communities and our public lands. And Mr. Pendley is wrong for the job of running our biggest public land agency. The Senate should reject him. Tracy Stone-Manning is the associate vice president for public lands at the National Wildlife Federation. Alec Underwood is the federal conservation campaigns director at the Montana Wildlife Federation. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 3 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 6 Despite massive evidence of Russian regular troops taking part in hostilities in eastern Ukraine, Russia has been stubbornly involvement. Journalists with the Russian BBC service have discovered the graves of the Russian military who had fought against Ukraine government troops in Donbas. That's amid the Kremlin's official denials claiming that its regular army is not involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, BBC reports. A grave where an officer of the Russian Special Operations Forces was buried, Captain S. B. Suslov, was discovered in 2016 by a group of independent investigators with the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) in Sonltsegorsk, Moscow Region, where a spec-ops base "Senezh" is located. During his service, he had been awarded a medal "For Crimea Annexation and an Order of Courage (posthumously). The exact location where the officer was killed remains unclear, while the date of death is June 14, 2014. It was at that time when active battles were raging for the strategic port city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. Read alsoOSCE reports 60 civilian casualties in Donbas since year-start Other Russian nationals, Sergei Fedchikov and Vadim Vasilevsky, were killed in July and August of the same year, probably in battles of the Luhansk Airport. In eastern Ukraine, former military were part of the then-freshly-formed Wagner Private Military Company, which is associated with the infamous St. Petersburg businessman and Putin's friend Yevgeny Prigozhin. In the town of Zaraisk in Moscow region, there is an alley of heroes, where soldiers were buried who had been killed in local wars and armed conflicts. One of the names honored at the alley is that of Hero of Russia, Senior Lieutenant Evgeny Trundaev, who was killed on October 15, 2014. It was for Trundayev that the Russian FSB sought to take revenge on the Ukrainian intelligence officer Grigory Sivachenko, having recruited an ex-national guard to blow him up. The man was immediately detained and that is how the Kremlin trace was exposed in the foiled assassination plot. Read alsoSBU releases new evidence of Russian Wagner fighters' involvement in war crimes against Ukraine As UNIAN reported earlier, Russia mulls making official their arms supplies to Kremlin's proxy forces in Donbas if the United States pursues with allocating $300 million worth of military assistance to Ukraine. MORELAND HILLS, Ohio Animal (miscellaneous): Strawberry Lane After a caller reported seeing what appeared to be a bear climbing in a nearby pine tree around 9:45 p.m. July 20, her husband qualified the sighting as a possible bear cub. Police arrived and determined the masked suspect to be a raccoon. Family trouble: Basswood Lane Police responded to a residence around 9:30 a.m. July 25 where a mother and daughter were having an argument over yogurt. The mother said she called police so the situation would not escalate. Both parties were advised about domestic violence laws and agreed not to talk with each other for the rest of the day. Fraud: Bernwood Lane A resident reported receiving a credit card in the mail July 28 for which no application had been made. A suspect had also used the callers information to apply for unemployment benefits in Pennsylvania. Due to reports not being taken at homes during the COVID-19 health emergency, police asked the resident to email the information to the police department. Damage to property: Chagrin Boulevard Police investigated a report of a car that slid off the roadway, taking out a sign near the Chagrin Falls border shortly after midnight July 29. The caller said the suspects car was currently parked at a restaurant in town. Animal bites: Deep Creek Lane A dog bite report was called into the police station around 4:45 p.m. July 29. The caller said the dog was not on a leash at the time of the incident. Police left a card at the possible dog owners residence after getting no answer at the door. Traffic altercation: Ohio 91 and Chagrin Boulevard A patrol officer was flagged down around 10:30 p.m. July 20 by a driver reporting that a woman in a silver Honda had been tailgating him from around Chagrin River Road, then passed him while yelling a homophobic slur before speeding away. Rather than fill out a complete report, he said he just wanted to have the incident logged. Traffic altercation: Chagrin River Road, Chagrin Boulevard Dispatchers received a call about a woman driving a Hyundai Santa Fe around 11 p.m. July 20 who kept brake-checking the caller. Theft from yards: Various locations Late on July 22, a caller reported that a political sign had been taken from a yard on Jackson Road at around 5 p.m. The resident did not want a report taken, just some documentation of the incident. Then, around 8:30 a.m. July 27, a SOM Center Road resident reported that a political sign had been taken from their yard, as well. Traffic complaint: Chagrin Boulevard A resident living near Wiltshire Road reported hearing motorcycles racing up and down Chagrin Boulevard shortly after 3 a.m. July 26. Police said they did a border-to-border check, with no subjects located at that time. Noise complaint: South Lane A resident reported loud music coming from a nearby home shortly after midnight July 25. About 20 minutes later, the home in question was located and the resident advised of the complaint. They agreed to turn down the volume. Traffic stop: Chagrin Boulevard Police stopped a driver near Lander Circle shortly after midnight July 28. Within about 30 minutes, the driver was taken to the Bedford Heights Jail for a Breathalyzer and a Ford was towed from the scene, with no further details immediately available. Damage to property: Miles and Chagrin River roads A caller reported damage to a mailbox by a semi-truck around 12:30 p.m. July 28. Complaints (solicitors): Ridgecreek Trail A sales representative from Aptive Environmental pest control was advised shortly before 7 p.m. July 20 that a door-to-door soliciting permit was needed from the village. Several callers reported other solicitors on the street shortly after 7:30 p.m., but police were unable to locate them in the area. Read more from the Chagrin Solon Sun. To reduce dependence on Chinese imports, the government has extended the safeguard duty on imported solar cells and panels by one year and has imposed duties on printing plates and raw material used in making industrial chemicals. The government had earlier announced levy of 15 per cent safeguard duty on solar cells and panels until July 29, but it'll now continue for another year. Besides, the definitive and provision anti-dumping duties will also be imposed on the import of digital offset printing plates and aniline oil, respectively. As per the revenue department notification issued on Wednesday, the safeguard duty will be paid at the rate of 14.9 per cent for the initial six months, while at 14.5 per cent for the rest. The safeguard duty or SFG will also be imposed on solar items coming from Vietnam and Thailand. The government has notified that anti-dumping duty on digital offset printing plates is also applicable to imports from Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. In a series of actions against Chinese aggression along the Line of Actual Control, India has recently banned over 100 mobile apps, barred companies from bidding for public projects in India without the required approval, and even ordered e-comm firms to display country of origin on their products. After the June 20 skirmish between Chinese and Indian soldiers that left 20 Indian jawans dead, Prime Minister called for Atma Nirbhar Bharat to reduce over-dependence on China and other nations. At present, India is dependent mainly on China for 80-90 per cent of the solar equipment required for meeting the ambitious target of 100 GW of solar energy by 2022. Of the $1.5 billion worth of solar equipment imported by India in the first nine months of FY20, $1.2 billion was from China. India had imposed a 25 per cent SGD on solar imports from China and Malaysia to boost domestic manufacturing for a year from August 2018, but was reduced to 20 per cent from July 2019 to January 2020 and then to 15 per cent from January, this year. India's domestic solar equipment manufacturers led by companies like Adani Solar, Vikram Solar, Waare Energy, Tata Power Solar, etc have a currently installed module manufacturing (the main component of solar equipment) capacity close to 8 gigawatts (GW), but most have spare manufacturing capacity. Most of the projects on the ground so far in India are based on imports from China. Also read: India to impose 20% customs duty on solar equipment, more riders on imports from neighbouring nations A still from Host, the new horror film shot during lockdown, by Rob Savage. (Shudder) The film industry ground to a halt in March when coronavirus forced much of the world into lockdown. But while the rest of us were making banana bread, doing PE with Joe Wicks and watching Tiger King, writer-director Rob Savage best known for horror short Dawn of the Deaf was hard at work. And what started out as a prank to scare his friends turned into Host, a genuinely terrifying flick that hits streaming service Shudder this week. Host revolves around six friends who ask a medium to oversee a seance over Zoom. But what starts out as innocent fun quickly takes a sinister turn, with an evil spirit invading their homes and putting all their lives in danger. As well as acting in the film, the cast did their own make-up, lit their own scenes, operated their own cameras, and created their own practical effects, while Rob directed them all from his own front room. Here he explains how this unique production came together. Host started with a joke 12 weeks ago we had an idea to make a movie during lockdown. Now #HOST is on the front page of @Shudder. Making a film with my friends has been such a gift during this mad time. So turn off your lights, crank the volume and crack a beer. See you on the other side. #HappySpookies pic.twitter.com/neybTAB5Uf Rob Savage (@DirRobSavage) July 30, 2020 Rob Savage: It began as a prank video that I pulled on my friends where we were doing these daily Happy Hours on Zoom. I told them Id been hearing weird noises up in my attic, so I got them all on Zoom and I got them all to record while I went and investigated. Then I did a sneaky hidden transition within the Zoom call and played a clip from REC the Spanish movie where somebody goes up to the attic and a zombie jumps out at them. Story continues Read more: Russell Crowe on returning to cinemas So for a moment they thought Id been eaten by a zombie child. I cut that together and put that online and it ended up going a bit viral it got millions of people watching it and enjoying it and from there we thought that maybe this thing had legs. Host finds a home (Shudder) We pitched it to a bunch of places, and everyone jumped at it. There was a real bidding war because nothing else could really be made under lockdown conditions. So the pitch we went out with was basically us saying Its going to be really cool, we havent got any ideas yet, but just trust us. A lot of people jumped at that, strangely, and Shudder really got behind us even though we were figuring it out as we went along. When we pitched it to Shudder we didnt even really have a concept beyond a bunch of friends doing a seance on Zoom and something scary happens. Assembling cast and crew When we got to the writing stage me and the producers Douglas Cox and Jed Shepherd, who wrote it with me, and Gemma Hurley, who is the other writer, basically came up with a big list of what cool people we know who are currently sitting at home twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do. How can we work what they can do into our film? We knew some people who were isolating with riggers, and stunt co-ordinators, so we had these houses where everyone you need legally to perform these crazy stunts were isolating together. We had somebody who could do pyrotechnics and blow s*** up for us so we wrote that in. So it went from there. We did a Robert Rodriguez and looked at what we had access to and built the story from there. Principal photography (Shudder) We didnt have a script we worked off a 10-page treatment so we started every day working with the actors and if something didnt ring true we were able to change it and play around until we discovered what the film was going to be. It took about two weeks to shoot, and then we did the odd day here and there just to fine-tune and get bits of continuity fixed. But it was actually a relatively quick shoot for what it was. Because on a normal film set you spend most of your time sitting around while they set up the lights or you block the scene or fiddle with the camera. But when we were shooting, wed have a 10-hour shooting day, and most of that time was spent actually shooting. So we got through a large amount of it every day, and were able to workshop it and improvise and refine as we went along. Keeping it real New tee and mask arrived pic.twitter.com/pXxScMo2da Rob Savage (@DirRobSavage) July 12, 2020 One of the things I was keen to do off the back of the prank video is withhold a lot of stuff from the cast. We knew how everyone was going to die, and we knew what the scares were going to be, and we didnt tell the actors any of it. So the first thing we shot was all the stunts and all the scares. We cut those together and we added in sound effects and made them properly scary. Then like we did on the prank video, when we were shooting on the day, I was able to cede that into Zoom and get the guys to react in real time, not knowing what was going to happen. So a lot of the reactions you are getting in the film are them genuinely reacting to their friends dying in front of them or something jumping out or exploding. Which I think is why a lot of it feels so authentic. Crafting the visual effects Ive worked with [Special Effects Make-Up Designer] Dan Martin a bunch of times and hes one of the people we had on our initial list of cool people. So without ruining too much, theres a scene where somebodys face takes on a bit of damage, and we knew that Zoom was a pretty unforgiving medium in terms of it just being the actors face in close-up, so we needed Dan to help us with some designs and effects that were going to stand up to that scrutiny. Read more: The best horror films of 2019 So we got Dan to create little latex pieces and then he did a video tutorial for our actress and then he was there on Zoom while she was applying it. So she was being the make-up team doing it on herself with Dan co-ordinating. I think she did a pretty great job with it, and Dan was great, being very specific with what he needed her to do. Challenges and problems Because we were basically asking every single actor to be a one-person film production, it was the technical stuff that happens behind the scenes that nobody really thinks about because it happens invisibly on a film set that caused problems. For instance with Teddy [Linard], his house is out in the middle of nowhere in the countryside, and when we cast him by Zoom, wed get a freeze-frame, and then five seconds later another freeze-frame. His internet was so bad that we wouldnt have been able to see what he was doing. So we had to send out some special equipment to boost the signal. And once hed shot his footage we had to figure out how hed get it to us. Do we have to courier everything over? Are the courier services even running as this was mid-lockdown? So all the logistics once wed actually shot the stuff how do we get a bunch of actors who dont know anything about standardising and logging all the footage to do that? Then how do we get that to an editor who can actually make sense of it? Especially as we were shooting hours and hours of the stuff. Going with the flow It was really nice figuring it out as we went along. Im a bit of a control freak, so that was the thing I was most stressed about, but the thing I ended up enjoying the most was the fact that I wasnt able to be hands-on. I had to use my words rather than running in and doing things myself. And also not having a script. Normally when youre doing a TV production youve got seven pages that you need to shoot and youve got to be out by a certain time and theres all this money riding on it. Here it was a low-budget thing, I was doing it with my friends, we were figuring it out as we went along. We all just felt very present and in the moment, and some of my favourite stuff was the stuff we came up with on the day rather than the planned stuff. Sequel plans Im dying to [shoot another]. I think theres so much you can do. Im a big found footage fan, and as long as its done well, I think it can be really effective. Who knows when the world is going to be fully back to normal? But what Im most excited about if we do another is on one hand youre limited because of how you have to make the film, but on the other, because youre making it all remotely, you can access anyone. If there was a very specific stunt you needed doing, we could get somebody on the other side of the world to do it and film if for us, as long as they had an internet connection. Now weve ironed out all the kinks, I think we could do something as a follow-up thats even bigger and more surprising than this one. I think a laptop is probably [the best way to watch Host]. We decided very early on to keep all the Zoom graphics onscreen the whole time so if you are watching on a laptop part of you would forget and think that you are a silent member of this Zoom call. So its very much designed for watching on a laptop. But any way you want to watch it. I think it would be fun to watch with friends, or on your own in a dark room. Just make sure you crank the sound up and turn the lights down! Host is streaming on Shudder now. FENELON FALLS Loopers have been thrown a loop in their annual cruise along the Trent-Severn Waterway. And whats a looper? Theyre boat owners, usually wealthy, who like to sail a loop around the eastern half of North America. Their near-10,000-kilometre route that connects the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of St. Lawrence all done via quiet, safe inland waterways usually takes a year or more. But not this year: Canadian boats cant enter America waters and vice-versa, all because of the coronavirus. Closing the Canadian-American border applies to pleasure boats too. More than 250 vessels completed the loop last year; many loopers say the most enjoyable portion of the entire trip was along the Trent-Severn Waterway that connects Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay. The boaters, who come from around the world, are impressed by the technical features of the Peterborough Hydraulic Lift Lock, once the highest hydraulic lift lock in the world. It was the largest concrete structure in the world without reinforcing rods when it opened in 1904. It lifts boats 20 metres from the Lower Trent to the Upper Trent and was named a National Historic Site in 1979. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers declared it a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1987. Another favourite along the waterway is the Big Chute Marine Railway, where boats up to 30.4 metres long are carried on a railway flat car that submerges under boats in one lake and carries them over an embankment and county road into another lake. Its the only marine railway in North America. The 386-kilometre-long Trent Severn opened in 1920 with 44 locks. It usually takes a week to go from Trenton on Lake Ontario to Honey Harbour on Georgian Bay, a climb of 51 metres. After entering Georgian Bay, the loopers head into Lake Huron and then Lake Michigan to enter the Chicago River in downtown Chicago. They follow that river to the Illinois River, which joins the Mississippi River just north of St. Louis. From there, one route to the Gulf of Mexico runs 1,100 kilometres south to New Orleans. After reaching the Gulf, loopers can cross through Florida via Lake Okeechobee to reach the Atlantic Ocean, where they follow the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway all the way up the East Coast to New York. From New York, the loopers go up the Hudson River to Albany, where they have the choice of following the Erie Canal west to Lake Ontario or heading north to Lake Champlain in Vermont, where they connect with Quebecs Richelieu River that leads to Montreal and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Some loopers go up the Ottawa River to join the Rideau Canal and follow it to Kingston and then on to Lake Ontario. At each Trent-Severn lock there are harbour hosts who are available to the loopers as local experts on anything and everything they need. The Americas Great Loop Cruisers Association says among their most popular harbour hosts are Pam Vaters and her husband Gary, who welcome loopers to Bobcaygeon and Fenelon Falls. Theyve been harbour hosts for only three years, but have become close friends with loopers from around the world who tied up for a while in the area. The Vaters moved to Fenelon Falls from downtown Toronto four years ago and opened a gift and clothing store The Water Street Clothesline near Lock 34 in the heart of Fenelon Falls. Their store was an obvious place for a looper to pop in and ask where a laundromat is located or how can they reach a diesel mechanic. So the Vaters soon became official harbour hosts. Theyve met hundreds of loopers and have stayed in touch with them after their boats pull out of Fenelon Falls. Their daughter Kimberly operates the Kicking Cowgirl in Bobcaygeon, a retail store specializing in western attire. Its close to Bobcaygeons Lock 32, so she sees lots of loopers needing information. She calls her parents and they bring over the answers, plus a hug. Every looper we meet gets a hug, Pam said. It costs $50,000, on average, for a looper to complete the circuit and they are big spenders along the Trent-Severn. The Trent-Severn communities are really feeling the effect of COVID-19 blocking the loopers from visiting, she said. A Florida looper had diesel trouble in Fenelon Falls last autumn and eventually his $250,000 yacht was towed to Orillia for repairs. Its fixed now and ready to cruise, but the owner cant get into Canada to take the helm. More information is available at Americas Great Loop Cruisers Association at the groups website, www.greatloop.org. Correction Aug. 5, 2020: This story has been edited to note that loopers boat owners who navigate through the eastern portion of North America cross Florida via the Okeechobee Waterway. An earlier version misstated that they cross the state via the Cross Florida Barge Canal, a waterway that was never completed. As well, the article has edited to clarify one possible routing to the Gulf of Mexico. Federal officers guard the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse as a fire lit by rioters burns on the other side of a perimeter fence, in Portland, Ore., on July 25, 2020. (Noah Berger/AP Photo) Theyve Already Come for the Jews Commentary If youve spent the past two months incredulous as putative journalists stand before scenes of carnage and describe mostly peaceful protests, welcome to a world that Jews have been inhabiting for decades. The progressive medias unremitting fake news didnt come out of nowhere. It relies on techniques developed and refined over time. And like so many of historys defamatory campaigns, its perpetrators tested and refined their methods against the Jews. Consider some of the great milestones in fake news of the past 20 years alone: In September 2000, Yasser Arafat unequivocally rejected a peace offer granting him everything to which the leftist international community claimed he was entitled. The progressive media blamed Israel. Arafat then rolled out a long-planned terror war. Fake news blamed an out-of-power Israeli politician, Ariel Sharon, for a provocative visit to Judaisms holiest site. Public outcry was muted. The technique had proven itself. Three years later, fake news covering the Bush administrations campaign to free Iraq from Saddams totalitarianism followed an eerily similar path. The brutally totalitarian Saddam emerged as an innocent victim of Bushs mad vendetta, every bit as sympathetic as the arch-terrorist Arafat. Worse, shortly after American troops deposed Saddam, CNN confessed that it had been lying to make Saddam look good for over a decade; telling the truth would have endangered its reporters. That stunning confession had no perceptible effect on CNNs perceived credibility. Fake news was a proven winner with zero downside. When President Barack Obama first contemplated deploying fake news as a strategy, he too rolled it out against the Jews. In mid-2009, he explained to a group of Jewish leaders that it was necessary to put some daylight between the United States and Israel, because Israels confidence in U.S. support made it intransigentand harmed American interests in the Arab world. Though a complete fabrication, Obamas spin convinced left-of-center Jewish leaders to sell his hostility toward Israel as a pro-Israel contribution to regional peace and stability. Thus emboldened, the Obama team helped the progressive media branch its lies beyond foreign policywhere the broad publics lack of personal exposure to the facts made it easy to sell fictioninto the domestic arena, where many in the media had long assumed that people would believe their own experiences rather than the preferred progressive narratives. Fake news was instrumental in selling Obamacare to a skeptical nation; MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of its key architects, later laughed at the gullibility of an American public willing to believe the presidents intentional lies. Fake news enabled U.N. Ambassador Susan Rices fable that Libyan Arabs in Benghazi were mindless savages, easily pushed into deadly rage upon learning of an obscure YouTube videorather than strategic, methodical, violent anti-American terrorists. Fake news promulgated the mythical epidemic of racist cops oppressing black communities throughout the country, promoting riots over Trayvon Martin, in Ferguson, in Baltimore, in Charlotte, and elsewhereand generally reversing decades of advances in the fight against racism. Demonstrators cut through a steel fence during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 24, 2020. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo) Obamas signature foreign policy item, his abysmal Iran deal, would have been dead on arrival were it not for fake news. Ben Rhodes, Obamas Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications, later boasted of his adroit exploitation of a gullible, unethical media to create a useful echo chamber. Fake news sold the public a deal whose clear objective was strengthening Iran as a means of restraining Iran. By the time Donald Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015, Americas progressive media had refined their methods. Rolling them out fully was easy, less expensive than actual reporting, and good for ratings. Since then, the fake news juggernaut has been relentless. Still, its important to remember where each new tactic begins: as a campaign against the Jews and Israel. Fake news consistently blames Israel for getting attacked and equates Israeli defense with anti-Jewish terror. It refuses to use the historic names for Judea and Samaria, and characterizes the Jewish villagers of the historic Jewish heartland as international criminals. Violent knife-wielding Arab killers become moderates while the Jewish families they target are extremist. When violent rioters employing regime-change tactics took to Americas streets, the fake news playbook was ready. Like the terrorists attacking Israeli schoolchildren, these anarchists and racists are aggrieved victims of a grave injustice. Like the anti-Israel parents strapping suicide vests to their own children, the anti-American rioters are mostly peaceful. Like the Israeli Defense Forces sacrificing its own people to minimize civilian injuries, the American police and federal troops are fascist brownshirts inattentive to due process and human rights. Fake news has already come for the Jews. Now its coming for urban America. Left unchecked, it will come for youwhoever you may be. Bruce Abramson, Ph.D. J.D., is a principal at B2 Strategic, senior fellow and director at ACEK Fund and the author of American Restoration: Winning Americas Second Civil War. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Some elements couldnt be replaced, Nahabedian said. The cool hanging light fixture outside the restaurant wasnt repairable. We had a new sign made, but its not here yet. We had workmen in, but with the pandemic, they had to work separately. Dealing with that, and the financials, and what are we going to do now. We worked for two months on something we never planned to work on. Everything wed planned for the restaurant we felt so organized and we had to trash it all. Plan B, Plan C I feel like were on Plan Z right now. Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of Halyk Savings Bank of Kazakhstan Global Credit Research - 30 Jul 2020 London, 30 July 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Halyk Savings Bank of Kazakhstan 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. Halyk Savings Bank of Kazakhstan's (Halyk's) Ba1 long-term local and foreign currency deposit ratings are based on its ba3 Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA) and incorporate Moody's assessment of a very high probability of government support. This support assumption results in a two-notch rating uplift of Halyk's Ba1 deposit ratings from its BCA of ba3. Halyk's ba3 BCA reflects the bank's (1) modest leverage and solid capital adequacy; (2) robust market position, which underpins the bank's strong profitability; and (3) strong liquidity. Factors constraining Halyk's BCA are single-name concentrations in the loan portfolio as well as exposures to foreign currency loans. Story continues 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 Banks Methodology published in November 2019. 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. Semyon Isakov Vice President - Senior Analyst Financial Institutions Group Moody's Investors Service Limited, Russian Branch 7th floor, Four Winds Plaza 21 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya St. Moscow 125047 Russia JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Yaroslav Sovgyra, CFA Associate Managing Director Financial Institutions Group JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service Ltd. 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The announcement is a major step forward for schools and businesses looking for a Google Cloud Print replacement, which Google has previously stated will stop working after December 31, 2020. PaperCut Mobility Print's Cloud Print functionality will help Google Cloud Print customers' transition in an easy and timely way to a powerful and robust alternative. Dave Farrell, Americas Regional Director, PaperCut, stated: "Not only is PaperCut's Cloud Print free, but it provides businesses with a better way to print with flexibility and efficiency in an environment where hybrid home/office has become the new reality. Users can press print at home and pick the document up later at work or school, bringing a renewed simplicity to network printing. For any business anticipating the need to replace Google Cloud Print with a like-for-like printing solution, this is perfect timing." The addition of Cloud Print to Mobility Print has been achieved with security and convenience at the fore. With the new Cloud Print feature, printing is: Secure : Print jobs and metadata are sent via an encrypted peer-to-peer connection, without requiring inbound internet access to your server. : Print jobs and metadata are sent via an encrypted peer-to-peer connection, without requiring inbound internet access to your server. Lightning-fast : Print jobs stay local when possible, and only sent via the internet when users are not connected to the local network. : Print jobs stay local when possible, and only sent via the internet when users are not connected to the local network. Native: Just like local printing, hit CTRL+P or 'Print' right in the device's interface to enable simple, functional printing from any application. There are plenty of use cases where Mobility Print's Cloud Print feature will help busy IT teams - not just when replacing Google Cloud Print. One of the major problems this release solves is enabling printing in untrusted guest networks. Available as a free standalone solution or as part of PaperCut MF's complete print management solution, Mobility Print is already helping millions of people to print. "Mobility Print is used by over 10 million people from SMEs, to large enterprises, and schools big and small," Farrell added. "PaperCut will continue to introduce solutions that help customers reduce costs, enable a safer touch-free workspace, and realize a hassle-free print experience. Those adopting the new Cloud Print feature in Mobility Print can do so with the knowledge and comfort it has been tested by a brand you can trust." Mobility Print is a fast, secure, scalable product and free alternative to Google Cloud Print that enables printing from any device, and now - with the addition of Cloud Print - anywhere. https://www.papercut.com/products/free-software/mobility-print/ About PaperCut Software Around the world, people continue to wrestle with printing costs and complexity and PaperCut is solving both one workplace at a time. Since 1998, PaperCut has helped over 100 million users in 192 countries save over a billion pages of paper. Today, businesses of all shapes and sizes enjoy unbeatable control, security, and savings in their printing. Learn more at www.papercut.com . SOURCE PaperCut Software Armenias Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan gave an interview to MEGA TV of Greece. Below is the unofficial text of this interview. How does Armenia react to the fact that Turkey practically provides Azerbaijan with weapons, personnel, and money? The only country that has spoken in a threatening language during these two weeks is Turkey. We [Armenia] will defend ourselves, we will strengthen our defense, and we will work with our international partners. Some analysts argue that the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict is in fact a veil of growing Russian-Turkish competition. We [Armenia] are a sovereign state, a member of the international community. We need peace and security in this region. We do not need to make this region the subject of international competition. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks of an attack outside the borders of Armenia. This is that language we reject, this is the language of threat that stems from the policy of a state in denial and impunity. We have recently witnessed also the justification of the crime of genocide; this is not the way a nation wants to promote peace in the region. In fact, Turkey is trying to recreate a state based on neo-Ottomanismwith a wider territory. Greece, for its part, is taking active steps towards peace and stability in this region. Armenia pursues similar goals. An Islamic prayer was heard again in Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Istanbul. The transformation of Hagia Sophia into a mosque is a real threat to that symbol of harmony, dialogue, and mutual respect. How do you assess Turkey's provocations against Greece? I want to reaffirm our [Armenias] strong support to and solidarity with Greece and Cyprus. It is an act aimed at destabilization in the Eastern Mediterranean, which once again proves the very aggressive policy that Turkey has been consistently pursuing lately. If Turkey and Greece get involved in the armed conflict, will Armenia show solidarity with Greece? I do not see any circumstance that can break or call into question the existing very strong solidarity, very strong relations, and equally strong friendship between Armenia and Greece. We [Armenia] will resolutely respond to such actions that endanger our interests and our sovereign rights. Tamale Central MP Inusah Fuseini has questioned governments decision to suspend the Fiscal Responsibility Act which requires the deficit to be kept at a maximum of 5 percent of GDP citing the pandemic as a reason to do so. According to him, government is riding on the pandemic to spend recklessly beyond it budget. Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta in his mid-year budget presentation last Thursday stated: From developments thus far, it is clear that the fiscal rules of a deficit not exceeding 5 percent of GDP and a positive primary balance enshrined in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2018 (Act 982) are neither feasible nor attainable targets in this emergency period of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The scale of damage and macroeconomic distortions caused by the pandemic is unprecedented in our countrys history. It may take a while to return to the pre- COVID-19 fiscal path. According to our revised fiscal framework, the economy is not likely to return to the 5 percent fiscal deficit threshold set in the Fiscal Responsibility Law sooner than 2024. Consequently, as required by section 3(3) of the Fiscal Responsibility Law, the government will within 30 days present before this august House the necessary documentation that supports the suspension of the fiscal rules and targets for this year 2020, the minister added. But, Mr.Fuseini in an interview with NEAT FMs morning show Ghana Montie accused the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta of breaching the Fiscal Responsibility Act after calling on parliament to sanction him for his deliberate act. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The story of the most mentioned landmark on Oregon Trail is ready to be told once again. History Nebraska announced that Chimney Rock Museum will reopen Saturday. The museum near Bayard has been closed for remodeling and renovation work since late 2019. Visitors will see many new amenities and features, including new exhibits, an expanded education room for school programs, new theater space, improved gift shop and the addition of new space to act as a storm shelter. Trevor Jones, History Nebraska director and CEO, says he is excited for visitors to see the new museum. Pioneer history cannot be told without including the westward trails, Chimney Rock and the Nebraska landscape, he said. We are excited for our visitors to experience the new exhibits and learn more about Nebraskas iconic landmark. Last updated in 1994, the Chimney Rock Museum will include unique opportunities for visitors to learn about the sites history. A court will hold a hearing Friday to determine whether to issue an arrest warrant for the founder of a minor religious sect over alleged obstruction of the government's efforts to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. The decision for Lee Man-hee, the leader of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, is expected to be made later in the day or early Saturday. Earlier this month, the Suwon District Court issued the warrants for the sect's three senior officials who face similar allegations to those of their leader. Lee, 89, is suspected of submitting false documents to health authorities on the number of participants at the sect's gatherings and where the gatherings took place in February when the sect was at the center of the virus spread in the early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in the country. He is also accused of destroying evidence to prepare for a possible probe and misusing the sect's money, totaling 5.6 billion won (US$4.68 million). Prosecutors called him in twice this month for an investigation and filed for the warrant at the court Tuesday. Some 4,000 followers, most of whom were from its branch in the southeastern city of Daegu, were infected with the coronavirus. South Korea's COVID-19 caseload was at 14,269 as of Thursday, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). More than 5,000 of them are infections associated with Shincheonji. (Yonhap) Echoing the views of HDFC Ltd Chairman Deepak Parekh, SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar has said the loan moratorium should not extended beyond August. "Most bankers, including myself believe that there is no need for a moratorium beyond August 31. We are confident that six months is long enough for allowing non-repayment," he said. Deepak Parekh, during a meeting with the Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das via video-conferencing this week, had said that some were exploiting the moratorium and that it should not be extended as it'll hurt smaller shadow banks in the country. "Please do not extend the moratorium. We see that even people who have ability to pay whether corporate or individuals are taking advantage under this and deferring payment. We hear that there is some talk of extending the moratorium. It's going to hurt and hurt smaller NBFCs," he said. Notably, many NBFCs have offered moratorium to their customers, but they don't receive the same support from banks from whom they have borrowed. The RBI Governor, however, refused to make any commitment on Parekh's request. "I have noted the suggestion. I won't be able to make a comment now," he had said. The RBI in May extended the moratorium on payment of all term loans by another three months till August 31 to help borrowers. The decision followed after the central bank allowed a three-month moratorium on payment of all term loans due between March 1 and May 31. Currently, the banking industry's Rs 40 lakh crore book is under moratorium, which includes both retail and term loans to corporate sector. There is a likelihood of NPAs coming from the moratorium book. The finance ministry has started consulting with various industry leaders and the banks about the necessity of extending the loan moratorium beyond August, when the second three-month long respite ends. The government reportedly wants to continue the moratorium for companies in most affected sectors such as automobile, steel, hospitality and real estate for another three months until November. Meanwhile, State Bank of India today reported an 81 per cent rise in standalone net profit at Rs 4,189.3 crore in April-June quarter of fiscal 2020-21 as against Rs 2,312.20 crore in the corresponding period last year. The public sector lender reported a one-time gain of Rs 1,539.7 crore in the quarter under review, the PSB said in an exchange filing. Also read: SBI Q1 results: Profit rises 81% to Rs 4,189 crore, NII stands at Rs 26,641.6 crore Also read: COVID-19 pandemic may hit tourism, MSME, aviation sectors hard, says RBI survey Also read: SBI comes to rescue! Coronavirus-hit MSMEs to get loans in 5 days Also read: 'Please don't extend loan moratorium': HDFC's Deepak Parekh pleads to RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das CLIMATE activists have won their case against the State for failure to produce an adequate plan to tackle climate change. In a unanimous decision this morning, seven judges of the Supreme Court ruled that the 2017 National Mitigation Plan lacked the detail and specifics needed to guide the country towards the kind of dramatic reduction in carbon emissions needed to avoid the worst impacts of global warming and climate breakdown. Chairman of the court, Chief Justice Frank Clarke, said the plan lacked the specificity required to comply with the law. He ruled the plan be quashed. The plan was devised to comply with the 2015 Climate Act and while it has been largely overtaken by the 2019 Climate Action Plan, it remains the only statutory and therefore legally binding plan in the previous and current government armoury against climate change. It was roundly criticised by climate activists and the States own Climate Change Advisory Council as vague and lacking in ambition. Climate Case Ireland, headed by Friends of the Irish Environment and backed by thousands of signed supporters, took a case to the High Court seeking its quashing and replacement but lost last year. The State had argued that for the courts to quash the plan would amount to undue interference by the judiciary in the policy and workings of government. However, Chief Justice Clarke ruled that policy had become law when the 2015 Climate Act was enacted. Climate Case Ireland, which drew its inspiration from similar legal challenges by environmentalists around the world, reacted with jubilation to the ruling. Ukraine stands for the preservation of the "Normandy format" (Ukraine, Germany, France, Russia) and the continuation of the functioning of the Minsk process to resolve the situation in Donbas, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. "We are closely following what will happen in practice after appearance of this letter from Mr. Kozak [Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation Dmitry Kozak] on the part of the Russian Federation. Ukraine is absolutely fundamentally disposed to preserve the Normandy format, to continue the functioning of the Minsk process, in which, let me remind you, that in the Trilateral Contact Group, Ukraine and Russia, as parties to the conflict mediated by the OSCE, are looking for solutions that can contribute to a peaceful settlement and lead to it. Therefore, our position is very simple: we will deeply regret if any Russian steps are directed to destroy any element of the Normandy format or the Minsk process," Kuleba said at an online briefing on Friday. The head of the Ukrainian foreign ministry stressed that in 2014 a whole infrastructure of the peace process was formed, which consists of Normandy summits, the Normandy Four composed of foreign ministers, the Normandy Four of advisors of the leaders of the four countries and the Trilateral Contact Group, consisting of many subgroups. "Ukraine is interested in preserving this infrastructure, which has shown that it is capable of playing an effective constructive role if the Russian Federation is determined to search for solutions and not create new problems," he explained. Kuleba added that, apart from this letter from Kozak, which appeared in the media on Thursday, the Foreign Ministry did not see any concrete steps from the Russian Federation. "That is why we are not in a hurry to draw conclusions, but are waiting for further steps by Russia in this direction," the minister said, stressing that Ukraine is interested in preserving the Normandy-Minsk infrastructure. "It is very hard for me to imagine how the Minsk process will function without the Normandy format, because it is in the Normandy format that political agreements are reached at the highest level, which are then implemented in the Minsk process. Therefore, this vertical should be preserved. If the vertical is destroyed, it will significantly slow down efforts for a peaceful settlement. Ukraine will not be the country that will slow down the process of achieving peace in Ukraine and de-occupation on our territory," the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. As reported, Kozak wrote a letter to an advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in which he proposed to abandon the negotiations on Donbas at the level of advisors. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike. We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve. This summer, restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19 could stop cooling centres opening in dangerous heatwaves. After a survey of more than 1,600 outdoor workers and slum dwellers in Vietnams steamy cities revealed two-thirds experienced symptoms of heat exhaustion during heatwaves, the Red Cross decided to set up drop-in cooling centres to help. Funded by aid money released a few days before a forecast heat spike, the centres in tents and buses offer a cool place to rest and rehydrate, with staff trained to spot medical problems. Following successful tests in 2019, with 70 to 95 percent of visitors including street vendors and builders, reporting they felt better, the humanitarian agency now hopes to expand the effort to reach up to 25,000 people in Hanoi, Hai Phong and Danang. But this summer, there is a potential complication the coronavirus pandemic, said Jerome Faucet who heads up the German Red Cross project office in Vietnam. The country has reported nearly 550 cases and no deaths until its first two on Friday, but Danang is now seeing a jump in infections. Faucet said restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19 could stop the cooling centres opening in a heatwave. Beer brand promoters wearing protective masks are seen as they wait for customers in front of a bar amid the coronavirus outbreak Hanoi, Vietnam [File: Kham/Reuters] If they are deployed, there will be hand-washing stations at the entrance, better ventilation inside and compulsory mask-wearing, Faucet told an online event this week on heat stress and work. Organised by the Global Heat Health Information Network (GHHIN), expert speakers said occupational health threats to workers from heat in sectors from mining to construction and agriculture are growing as the planet warms. A new report out this week from the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council warned of a dangerous confluence of climate stresses and COVID-19 hitting both outdoor and indoor workers in the United States. They include firefighters already battling an active wildfire season in the west, public health nurses conducting outdoor COVID-19 tests, and teachers who may return to classrooms lacking air conditioning, it said. Orlando Green, a school bus owner and operator who lives in Slidell, Louisiana, said in the report he had seen heat get way out of normal range in his lifetime, making his job a lot harder as his passengers become agitated. During the humid summers, with all 40 kids crowded inside, the heat index can reach around 105 degrees (Fahrenheit; 40.5 Celsius) in the bus, he said, noting those conditions were not conducive to the childrens health, good behaviour or learning. I hope that elected officials at every level start supporting solutions to this emergency, he said. Productivity loss Workplace and heat researchers told the GHHIN event some governments are now waking up to the rising health and economic threat to their workforce from scorching temperatures, exacerbated in many cases by high humidity. Ta Hien street amid the coronavirus outbreak, in Hanoi, Vietnam [File: Kham/Reuters] In Cyprus, where summers are very hot, for example, the labour ministry has issued a decree allowing workers to down tools when the thermometer hits 30C (86F), a provision that helps protect their rights, said Tahmina Karimova, a legal officer with the International Labour Organization (ILO). In a report last year, the ILO calculated the cost of global warming to the worlds workforce, projecting that an increase in heat stress would lead to productivity losses equivalent to 80 million full-time jobs in 2030. That was based on a conservative 1.5C rise in global average temperatures, the lowest goal adopted in the Paris Agreement, and under conditions of working in the shade. The two hardest-hit sectors will be agriculture and construction, the report said, with South Asia and West Africa the regions set to lose the most working hours to sweltering heat. Andreas Flouris, an associate professor at Greeces University of Thessaly who has researched workers experiences of heat on the job and devised ways to help them, said companies had begun responding to the problem in recent years. One reason is that technology has allowed scientists to monitor more closely what is happening to exposed workers and to calculate the financial consequences for employers, on top of growing concerns about health harm. Now that they are also seeing the impact on their bottom line, the economic costs, they are twice as likely to engage in this, Flouris said. An ice-cream vendor wearing a protective face shield talks with a customer in Nicosia, Cyprus [File: Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters] Heat safety measures have improved, particularly in the construction industry, he said. On a recent project trip to Qatar, which employs many migrant labourers, workers he saw were permitted to take a lot more rest breaks than he had expected. Workplace plans Yet, while governments have obligations to safeguard workers from heat under international occupational health protocols, few have specific legislation to deal with the threat, experts said. Flouris is working with the Greek government on introducing such a law into parliament in the next year, and hopes it will have a domino effect in other European countries. The responsibility is obviously in the first place on the government, and then it trickles down to the employers, mainly via regulation, said the ILOs Karimova. The ILO believes efforts to deal with the fast-worsening problem of heat should bring workers, businesses and states together in the kind of social dialogues used to tackle other labour challenges such as working hours or pay, she added. As policymakers and bosses become aware of the need to tackle heat in the workplace, they should assess risks, put plans in place to lower risk and provide training, Flouris said. Practical measures include letting workers take more breaks to cool down, and providing fresh drinking water and loose, light-coloured, breathable clothing. In some jobs, such as picking grapes or olives, mechanisation of certain tasks can also relieve the strain. Since 2016, Flouris has worked to develop an online platform called HEAT-SHIELD that offers employers and staff weather warnings of heat stress and personalised daily guidance on work schedules, including recommended breaks and water intake. The project has also produced infographics translated into different languages to raise awareness of heat risks to health and how to reduce them. Flouris said the huge amount of data and evidence collected on the issue in the past decade should start to drive new policies and improve workplace practices in the next two years. Quantifying the effect on workers accurately helps convey the message that its not only health, its not only long-term its right now [and] this months paycheck would be bigger by this much if it wasnt for this problem, he said. Korea allowed to use solid fuel for rockets It is welcome news that the U.S. has lifted the decades-old restrictions on South Korea's use of solid fuels for its missiles and space launch vehicles. The restrictions were lifted Tuesday after the two countries revised missile guidelines to allow Seoul to develop and use solid fuel-propellants. The move carries significant meaning as South Korea is gradually recovering its "missile sovereignty." The guidelines, which Seoul and Washington signed in 1979, have been widely seen as unequal for Korea due to the series of restrictions on rocket developments. Under the guidelines signed under President Park Chung-hee, South Korea could only develop missiles with a maximum range of 180 kilometers and a payload of 500 kilograms. The guidelines have since been revised four times. The first revision was made in 2001 under the liberal Kim Dae-jung administration to expand the range to 300 kilometers. The second amendment came in 2011 under the conservative Lee Myung-bak government to increase the range to 800 kilometers. The third one took place in 2017 under the Moon Jae-in administration to get rid of the payload limit. The fourth and latest one was made to eliminate the restrictions on solid fuel. This means it has taken over four decades to lift almost all the limits imposed on the country's launch vehicle and missile development. The only existing limit is the maximum range of missiles. We hope the range limit will soon be lifted so that the country can develop rockets and missiles with a longer range. The full lifting is crucial to improving South Korea's missile capability to counter military threats from North Korea's long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Government officials and experts welcome the lifting of the restrictions on solid fuel, saying the revised guidelines will help improve our military's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. They also expect the move will boost the space program in the private sector. As deputy national security adviser Kim Hyun-chong pointed out, the revision will greatly advance South Korea's ISR capabilities by enabling the country to launch low-Earth orbit spy satellites which stay at altitudes of 500 kilometers to 2,000 kilometers. These satellites are badly needed to collect accurate information about North Korean military weapons and troops. Kim said that our military will be able to put the entire Korean Peninsula under an around-the-clock watch, which he described as an "unblinking eye." There are many merits of solid-fuel rockets which are faster to launch and harder to detect before takeoff. Besides, solid fuel is much cheaper and more efficient than liquid fuel. The country's space industry is also likely to take a new leap forward. Most of all, the new guidelines will open up the way for the research and development of different types of rockets as well as commercial satellites. The country is also expected to gain momentum for the launch of its first lunar landing probe planned for 2030. Ukraine is interested in preserving the current infrastructure for the peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbas - the Normandy format and the Minsk process - and closely follows Russia's further actions. "A lot of emotions, a lot of steps, attempts to strengthen their position in the negotiation process, we closely follow what the Russian Federation will actually do after this letter from Kozak. Ukraine is fundamentally committed to preserving the Normandy format and continuing the Minsk process, in which Ukraine and Russia are parties to the conflict and with the OSCE as a mediator, seek solutions that can promote and lead to a peaceful settlement," Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said at a briefing, commenting on the letter of Deputy Head of the Administration of the President of Russia Dmitry Kozak on the possibility of terminating Normandy format negotiations at the level of advisers. The minister reminded that the infrastructure of the peace process had been formed in 2014. It consists of Normandy format summits, the talks of the Normandy Four foreign ministers, the talks of advisers to the leaders of the four countries, and the Trilateral Contact Group, which includes many subgroups. "Ukraine is interested in preserving this infrastructure, which has proved its efficiency and constructiveness- if the Russian Federation is determined to find solutions, rather than create new problems," Kuleba said. As the Ukrainian minister reminded, political agreements at the highest level are reached in the Normandy format and then are implemented in the Minsk process. Apart from Kozak's letter, which appeared in the media yesterday, the Ukrainian side has not received any other signals and has not seen any concrete steps on the part of the Russian Federation. Kuleba stressed that Ukraine is not rushing to make any conclusions but is waiting for further steps by Russia in this direction. Earlier, some media reported that Deputy Head of the Administration of the President of Russia Dmitry Kozak sent letters to advisers of the Normandy format leaders, allegedly calling the talks on Donbas at the level of advisers meaningless and offered to abandon them. Kozak believes that the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany should agree on the issues that their advisers were earlier engaged in. ol Its been six months since the United States reported its first coronavirus case, and getting a test can still take days. National labs are overwhelmed, leaving people to wait as much as two weeks for results. Every day that testing falls short is another day the virus can spread undetected, costing lives and delaying the reopening of our economy, schools and society. As states try to control the virus and as Congress considers the fourth Covid-19 relief bill, New York offers important lessons on how to fix the testing mess. Over the last 10 weeks, New York has used testing to not only flatten the curve, but actually reduce the rate of infection since our phased reopening started. We have kept our testing rates high through partnerships with federal and local governments. In February and early March, New York worked with the Food and Drug Administration to gain the necessary approvals to begin using our own coronavirus test and mobilize a network of hundreds of labs. In April, when our labs were struggling because of shortages of a necessary chemical ingredient, reagents, President Trump and I reached an agreement that helped double New Yorks capacity. Heres what states should do to build a sustainable testing operation, and how Congress can help. Mobilize smaller local labs. Almost all states are now using a handful of national testing companies, and they are overwhelmed. New York has managed to avoid the delays because more than 80 percent of our testing does not depend on the national laboratories experiencing long turnaround times for results. File photo A 47-year-old San Antonio woman admitted in federal court Thursday to stealing more than $470,000 while working for a Schertz company. Deanna Bates Wehde, who appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry Bemporad, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Texas. This article, Apple confirms new iPhone will be delayed 'a few weeks' from typical September launch, originally appeared on CNET.com. Get ready to wait a little longer for Apple's next iPhone. The tech giant warned investors Thursday that supplies of a potential new iPhone will be delayed, likely because of the coronavirus pandemic. "As you know, last year we started selling iPhones in late September. This year, we project supply to be available a few weeks later," said Luca Maestri, Apple's CFO, in a statement during the company's conference call with analysts to discuss its quarterly earnings. He added that all of Apple's other product categories other than the iPhone will likely see strong sales, particularly because of the back-to-school shopping season and the upheaval in work and school as a result of COVID-19. "We've got a fantastic lineup of products and we know that these products are incredibly relevant, especially given the current circumstances," Maestri said. Apple's admission comes after a chorus of analysts, reports and partners have been suggesting the company's all-important typical fall iPhone launch would be slowed by the coronavirus. The pandemic, which has upended lives and economies around the world, has been accelerating its spread, raising questions about when countries and businesses will return to some sense of what's normal. Apple was one of the first companies to raise alarms about how the coronavirus might affect its business, telling investors in February that iPhone sales and product supplies across its lineup would likely be hit by the then nascent virus. In April, the company said manufacturing had largely returned to normal. But on Wednesday, chipmaker Qualcomm warned of "the delay of a global 5G flagship phone launch." The company's cellular technology is expected to help power the next iPhone. Apple said it still expects to have "a strong back to school season," which is a popular time for students to buy products such as Macs and iPads. The company said its inventory of the products is "constrained," which could indicate Apple won't meet customer demand. WASHINGTON President Donald Trumps pattern is now familiar: He makes a stunning assertion, on Twitter or impromptu. The head scratching begins. Was he serious? Was he trying to distract from other negative news? Allies are left to shrug their shoulders and brush off his remarks. Some regularly claim to have not read or heard them. A public numbness sets in, to the point that even Trumps most ardent political opponents have difficulty summoning outrage. But this week the president offered a statement that stood out, even among many that have put Trumps branding iron on the office. His standing with the public flagging amid myriad crises, Trump floated on Twitter the prospect of delaying the Nov. 3 election a suggestion more in line with autocrats who try to quash the publics ability to vote than with the head of the worlds leading democracy. It was a tweet that mattered, and couldnt be ignored, even by many Republicans who have long given Trump a pass. It mattered because it amounted to a stunning attack on the underpinnings of American democracy on the notion that a nation that has held free and fair elections in the midst of wars, pandemics and the Great Depression might not be capable of doing so when its Trumps political career that is on the line. Most presidents have leaned very hard in the other direction, even when times were tougher than now, said William Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln pressed for an election in 1864 when the Civil War was raging and his prospects for victory looked bleak, though he ultimately benefited in part by making it easier for soldiers in the field to vote. An election was also held on time in 1944, with incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt claiming victory in the midst of World War II. But Trump does not appear to have the same attachment to the tenets of American democracy as his predecessors. He has repeatedly put stress on the nations institutions, prompting an obstruction of justice investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and impeachment by the House of Representatives for seeking a foreign governments help in digging up dirt on Joe Biden, now his Democratic opponent in the November election. In 2020, Trump has aggressively turned his attention to the electoral process that will determine his political fate. Hes repeatedly raised unfounded accusations of fraud, particularly related to the uptick in mail-in voting that is expected due to safety fears during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hes also refused to say whether he would accept the outcome of the election, saying its too soon to give an ironclad guarantee. Trump made similar statements as a candidate in 2016, and has also flirted with election fraud conspiracy theories as a private citizen. The fear among Democrats and many elections experts in 2020, however, has been that Trump would wield the power of his office to affect the outcome of the election or Americans ability to vote particularly if he thought he might be headed for defeat. The president appeared to validate those fears this week. He tweeted that Universal Mail-In Voting something that has not been proposed would lead to the most INACCURATE & FRADULENT Election in history. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? he wrote. Trump expanded his election attacks later in the day, saying he didnt want to move forward with the vote unless the results are known the same day. Because of the expected increase of mail-in votes, which take longer to count, its likely that the results may not be known for days, particularly if the contest between Trump and Biden is close. With the election less than 100 days away, both national and battleground state polls show Trump trailing Biden and losing support from Americans on his handling of the pandemic and other major issues. In reality, Trump doesnt have the ability to delay the election on his own. Changing the date would require approval from Congress something Republican lawmakers made clear they would not support. Never in the history of the country, through wars and depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time, and well find a way to do that again this November 3, said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a stalwart Trump ally. The best-case scenario, according to some observers, is that Trumps broadsides against the electoral process are simply a way for him to explain away a possible loss. The hopeful scenario, is that Trump is just laying the groundwork for a sore loser campaign afterward where he wont use legal mechanisms to challenge the election but he will tell himself and his supporters that he was robbed and become a kind of a permanent irritant in the political system, Galston said. Still, many Democrats cast Trumps tweet as a warning shot and a signal of what the president may be willing to do if it appears likely he will lose in November. This has got to be a wake-up call, said Biden, whose campaign has assembled a team of 600 lawyers and observers who are assigned to safeguard the integrity of the election in every state. Events on the other side of the world offered a cautionary tale. The day after Trump floated a delay in the U.S. election, Hong Kongs government announced that it would postpone September legislative elections for a year. The government blamed the coronavirus pandemic, but the move was seen as a way to sideline pro-democracy politicians seeking to push back on heavy-handedness by Beijing. The White House condemned the move. ___ Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report. ___ Editors Note: Julie Pace has covered the White House and politics for AP since 2007. Follow her at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC 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 Republicans descended into chaos on Friday and blamed each other, Democrats and China for the stalled talks on reauthorizing the $600-a-week enhanced unemployment insurance. The benefit runs out at midnight and will leave 30 million people who lost their jobs in the coronavirus pandemic without the much-needed extra income. President Donald Trump has been pushing for a deal and White House negotiators are pulling out all stops to make it happen, including pushing aside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's top priority. But the administration reversed itself on the matter later in the day as the risks of crossing the powerful Senate leader became apparent. Republicans descended into chaos on Friday and blamed each other for the stalled talks on reauthorizing the $600-a-week enhanced unemployment insurance as President Donald Trump slammed Democrats As White House officials reiterated their support for McConnell, President Trump took to Twitter to point the finger at Democrats and at China, where the virus was first detected. Trump targeted Democratic leaders Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who have been leading talks with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. 'Pelosi & Schumer have no interest in making a deal that is good for our Country and our People,' he tweeted, adding: 'Pelosi & Schumer blocked desperately needed unemployment payments, which is so terrible, especially since they fully understand that it was not the workers fault that they are unemployed, its the fault of China!.' And he didn't let up, letting out a flurry of tweets as he flew on Air Force One from Washington D.C. to Tampa, Florida, on Friday afternoon. 'The Do Nothing Democrats are more interested in playing politics than in helping our deserving people. DRAIN THE SWAMP ON NOVEMBER 3RD!,' he wrote. Meanwhile, Meadows told Bloomberg News the White House doesnt have a strong position on the liability protections - which would protect businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits - that McConnell has insisted it must be part of any legislation. 'We support him in that decision,' Meadows said of McConnell, who has called the protections a 'red line' in the negotiations. Democrats oppose the matter. A senior administration official tells DailyMail.com that the White House does support McConnell's provision and it's a 'high priority for the president.' It was a change of position from earlier in the day when White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that was McConnell's priority and not the president's. 'That's a question for Mitch McConnell,' she said at her White House briefing when asked about the liability protections. 'He said that that's going to be a part of any bill, but that's Mitch McConnell's. That's his priority. This President is very keenly focused on unemployment insurance.' Her answer was seen as an indication the White House was willing to go around McConnell on the issue but such a move could back fire on them. If a deal with Democrats is cut, there is only one person who can bring it up on the Senate floor: Mitch McConnell. And he's said he won't bring any legislation to the floor that doesn't include the protection. 'We're not negotiating over liability protection,' McConnell said to CNBC on Tuesday. 'We're not negotiating with Democrats over that.' Additionally, Meadows and Mnuchin offered a deal to Democrats Thursday night for a standalone measure to protect the unemployment benefits - legislation that would not have included the liability protection McConnell wanted. Meanwhile the clock is ticking. Pelosi, Schumer, Mnunchin and Meadows are scheduled to meet in the speaker's office on Capitol Hill at 9 am on Saturday morning to resume talks in person. The group was expected to speak on the phone Friday. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany indicated the White House was willing to cute a deal with Democrats that would leave out Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's top priority Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would not bring any coronavirus relief legislation to the Senate floor that did not include a liability shield for businesses worried about lawsuits tied to the virus Meanwhile, Meadows made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room Friday morning to slam the Democrats after talks that went late in Thursday night failed to produce a deal. 'At the president's direction, we have made no less than four different offers to Democrats on Capitol Hill,' he said of the negotiations. 'Four different offers have been actually rejected, but more importantly than that, they've not even been countered with a proposal.' Meadows charged Democrats with having made 'zero offers' but House Democrats passed a plan in May that Senate Republicans rejected. 'The Democrats believe that they have all the cards on our side. And they're willing to play those cards at the expense of those that are hurting,' Meadows said. 'We call on Capitol Hill to get serious about their negotiations,' he added. Negotiations have stalled on a number of details that were in the GOP legislation that McConnell released on Monday - including how much the additional unemployment benefit should consist of (Republicans proposed $200 a week but Democrats want the same $600), how long it should continue, and additional funding for cities and states that have seen their budgets decimated by the pandemic.n Republicans have dealt with their own in-fighting on coronavirus rescue package: Conservatives balked at the $1 trillion price tag and McConnell decried President Trump's push to include funding for a new FBI headquarters that would sit across the street of his Washington D.C. hotel. McEnany pushed back on reports of the party bickering, saying that was 'not it at all.' White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room Friday morning to slam the Democrats on coronavirus relief negotiations Speaker Nancy Pelosi decried Republicans for stalling in passing another round of coronavirus relief legislation While Meadows and McEnany spoke at the White House, down the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue- at the Capitol building, Speaker Nancy Pelosi decried Republicans for stalling on a deal. 'Their delay, their denial, their distortions have caused deaths,' she said. She also slammed Republicans for not including other provisions to help people, such as food assistance and additional funding for SNAP. 'Food. I mean really, the one that gets me is food. I guess it's because I'm a mom and, I guess, as an Italian American, food means a lot to me. People are hungry and we're not doing anything about it. That's not in the bill,' she said. But Pelosi did say she was hopeful there will be a bill to vote on. 'We anticipate that we will have a bill. But we're not there yet,' she cautioned. A two-hour late night meeting on Capitol Hill Thursday resulted in no deal between Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin - negotiating for President Trump - and Democratic leaders Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (left) and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (right) speak to reporters in the Capitol Thursday night after failing to come to a deal with Democrats on a coronavirus relief package that would extend unemployment benefits House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are pushing for more than the $1 trillion Republicans offered, arguing Americans need help Meadows, after leaving Pelosi's office Thursday night, said their proposals 'were not received warmly' and discussions would pick back up on Friday. Pelosi charged Republicans with offering a 'piecemeal' solution. 'I think they understand that we have to have a bill, but they just don't realize how big it has to be,' she said. 'They never have understood the gravity of it,' she noted. Meadows offered to extend enhanced unemployment at $600 per week for four months as a stand-alone bill, Politico reported, but Democrats want it extended through the first quarter of 2021 - a nine month extension. Meadows and Mnuchin rejected that but the treasury secretary voiced optimism about negotiations as he left the Capitol building. 'I would say on certain issues we made progress. On certain issues we're still very far apart. We're going to either speak tomorrow or meet again tomorrow and meet on Saturday,' he said Thursday night. Schumer said both sides wanted to come to a deal. 'Did we have a good discussion? Yes. Will we continue to discuss? Yes. Do we want to continue to come to an agreement? Absolutely. But it's got to meet the gravity of the problem,' he said. The group of four have met for four days in a row but have failed to make a deal. All the players say they want an agreement but none have - yet - been willing to compromise on key points, such as the amount to extend the unemployment benefits, for how long, and additional funding for cities and states whose budgets took a hit during the pandemic. Congress and White House officials have spent the week in negotiations after Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell presented a proposal on Monday. His plan quickly stalled after conservative Republican senators complained about its $1 trillion price tag and Democrats - plus some Republicans - criticized the package for containing non-COVID matters, such as funding for a new FBI headquarters. Democrats have taken advantage of the in-fighting among Republicans to push for expanded relief options, such as food assistance programs. Meanwhile, the loss of the unemployment benefits will strike a financial blow to the tens of millions of Americans who lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic. The talks stalled amid news the U.S. economy suffered its worst drop in history in the second quarter of 2020 - shrinking by 33 per cent in the April-June quarter. Unemployment sits at 14.7 per cent. President Trump, who is banking his re-election hopes on a strong U.S. economy, appears eager for a deal. He urged Democrats to come to the table after Senate Republicans failed to come together on consensus. 'We want a temporary extension of expanded unemployment benefits,' he said during a Thursday briefing at the White House. He also said he'd push for the package to include another round of checks for Americans similar to the $1,200 checks that were circulated, and signed by the president, earlier this year. 'We need Democrats to join us to pass additional economic relief payments for American citizens,' Trump said, putting the pressure on the opposition. 'Like the payments sent directly to 160 million Americans earlier this year, which was a tremendously successful program.' He added: 'This money will help millions of hardworking families get by.' President Donald Trump appears eager for a deal on the coronavirus legislation and is pushing Democrats to come to the table Senate Republicans on Thursday tried to force through a standalone measure that would renew federal unemployment payments at 66 percent of lost wages, or $200 per week. But Democrats blocked the legislation, saying it was not enough. The Senate adjourned and left town for the weekend but McConnell put a legislative procedure in place that would allow a vote on a compromise package next week. Democrats are playing hardball, demanding much more than the $1 trillion that McConnell originally offered, arguing Americans need additional assistance. House Democrats passed a $3 trillion plan in May that the Senate rejected. McConnell has tried to push the blame to the opposition. 'They won't engage. Period,' McConnell said Thursday as he opened the Senate. 'The Democrats are saying, my way or the highway.' International organisations have released Ten Digital Economy Guidelines in alignment with the G20 leaders policy directives that aim at securing sustainable economic growth. The guidelines were adopted by the Union of Arab Banks (UAB), Union of Arab Chambers (UAC), International Network for SMEs (INSME), and the Global Coalition for Efficient Logistics (GCEL) to set the foundation for successfully implementing the Digital Economy. The Digital Economy has been a key G20 policy directive since 2015. However, until today, no one has defined the Digital Economy, nor how it can be deployed to rebalance and grow the high, mid and low-income economies. Following 15 years of R&D on digitising the global economy, an international coalition is leading a global economic development programme that digitally "Jump Starts" national economies and their trade partners through a Digital Economy Platform (DEP). This coalition involves the public sector, representing 75 percent of the world's citizens. The coalition will also involve the private sector comprising the world's leading technology, e-commerce, finance, and insurance firms with $1.5 trillion revenues and a 4.7 million workforce. These organisations will be united to deliver the DEP that maximises the power of what technology makes possible today to reduce excess trade costs by $4.8 trillion, increase goods trade by $6.3 trillion, and create more than 400 million jobs by 2030. Wissam Fattouh, UAB Secretary-General, said: "The DEP tools will better integrate banks to the B2B marketplace through the use of dynamic, high quality, and validated data. Our members will have greater transparency to reduce risks, ease regulatory compliance burdens and realize a new $7.5 trillion financial services market opportunity by 2030." This global programme transforms the manufacturing, agriculture and services sectors by digitising the value chains in six steps: Create an online digital catalog of goods and services globally, optimise matching of buyers with sellers, increase the conversion ratio from seeing a product or service to acquisition, provide digital financing, secure digital Insurance, and deliver digital logistics and operations tools for business transactions. Dr Sergio Arzeni, INSME President and former OECD Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship, exclaimed: "To ensure global adoption, the DE must be free of cost to end users, especially benefiting SMEs, yet sustained by a unique business model." The programme offsets monopolistic and geopolitical concerns by empowering national e-commerce, finance and insurance firms to expand services and realise a new $20.5 trillion digital services market opportunity by 2030. Dr Khaled Hanafy, UAC Secretary-General, remarked: "The Digital Economy must encompass a global scoring mechanism that enables all users to perform an objective evaluation of performance risk when making business decisions." Captain Samuel Salloum, GCEL Chairman, commented that the Digital Economy must be based on a comprehensive solution, "The real Digital Economy provides seamlessly integrated commerce, finance, insurance, and logistics/operations verticals, which represent the main pillars of the B2B market place, the mother of all industries." - TradeArabia News Service An array of congressional Republicans, including more than a dozen members in both the House and Senate and in the party's leadership, openly rejected President Donald Trump's suggestion Thursday that November's presidential election should be delayed, a move that the President would have no authority to make because the Constitution gives Congress the power to set the date for voting. It was the latest example of the President making incendiary comments on Twitter -- and putting Republicans in an awkward spot to deal with the fallout. Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and Trump ally, told CNN when asked about the President's call to delay the election: "I don't think that's a particularly good idea." Majority Whip Sen. John Thune, a member of Republican leadership, told CNN that there will be an election in November despite the President's tweet. "I think that's probably a statement that gets some press attention, but I doubt it gets any serious traction," Thune said. "I think we've had elections every November since about 1788, and I expect that will be the case again this year," he said. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell similarly insisted that the election will go on as planned. "Never in the history of the country, through wars, depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally-scheduled election on time. We'll find a way to do that again this November 3rd," the majority leader said in an interview with WNKY. Earlier on Thursday, Trump tweeted, "With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" CNN has previously fact checked claims by Trump that there is a distinction between mail-in voting and absentee voting -- and experts say those voting systems are essentially the same thing. There is also no widespread fraud in US elections. The President also does not have the power to change the date of the election. Election Day is set by congressional statute, and most experts agree that it cannot be changed without congressional approval. Despite the President's lack of authority, his message provides an opening -- long feared by Democrats -- that both he and his supporters might refuse to accept the results of the presidential election. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, responded to the President with a tweet of her own quoting Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, that gives Congress the authority to "determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Vote." GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois echoed that idea, tweeting, "Reminder: Election dates are set by Congress. And I will oppose any attempts to delay the #2020Election." House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California dismissed Trump's call to delay election, but defended the President's concerns over voting fraud. "Never in the history of federal elections have we ever not held an election and we should go forward with our election," McCarthy said, "No way should we ever not hold our election on the day that we have it." Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who is facing a tough reelection battle in North Carolina, said Thursday: "The election is going to happen in November period." "The election is going to be held in November. Absentee ballots in North Carolina are strongly encouraged, as has the President encouraged them. The safe side to a mail-in vote, I hope we get it mostly... Because otherwise they're gonna undermine the integrity of the election," he said. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said, "Election fraud is a serious problem we need to stop it and fight it, but no the election should not be delayed." GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said of Trump's tweet, "I wish he hadn't said that, but it's not going to change: We are going to have an election in November and people should have confidence in it." Senate Finance Committee chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa downplayed the President's comments, saying, "All I can say is that, it doesn't matter what one individual in this country says. We still are a country based on the rule of law. And we must follow the law until either the Constitution is changed or until the law is changed." Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming said in an interview on Fox Business, "No, we're not going to delay the election," adding, "We're going to have the election completed and voting completed by Election Day." GOP Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota raised concerns in a tweet that any delay would hurt the legitimacy of the election. "Moving Election Day would seriously jeopardize the legitimacy of the election. Federal, state and local officials need to continue to work hard to ensure that Americans can vote safely, whether by voting early or on November 3," he tweeted. Not every Hill Republican, including some members of leadership, has weighed in on the President's call or pushed back on the message. "Not answering any questions," said Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican also facing voters in a tough race, when asked about Trump's tweet. Its not yet clear, but it may depend on if theyre sick. Children younger than 5 with mild-to-moderate Covid-19 have higher concentrations of the virus in their upper airway than older children and adults, doctors in Chicago reported in July. This could make them more infectious. However, another study published in Nature found the vast majority of infected kids in this age group dont have symptoms, which reduces their likelihood of transmitting the virus. In another, much-cited study of 5,706 coronavirus patients and their contacts in South Korea, researchers concluded that children younger than 10 spread the virus within a household at the lowest rate, but those age 10 to 19 were more likely to spread it than even adults. The study had limitations. As with similar studies, the researchers first identified an infected person and then tested that persons contacts, which means they cant be certain who started the chain. Plus, the study was conducted while schools were mostly closed. In the U.S., school closure was associated with a 62% drop in Covid-19 cases and 58% decline in deaths, researchers in Cincinnati reported in July. They acknowledged that the trends were largest in states with a low cumulative incidence of Covid-19 at the time schools were shut, and that its possible some of the reduction was due to other measures. A sudden spike in Covid-19 infections which has seen a single-day rise in 85 people found to have the virus has led to major fears about the start of a second wave of the killer disease. It has deeply unsettled and shaken public health officials while plunging the nation into a state of uncertainty about the potential grip the virus could take on the country. Read More The next few days will be crucial in determining if this is a blip, whether the virus is confined to clusters or if has seeped into the wider community. Acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn warned: "Today may be a blip associated with a number of specific clusters or it may be a sign of something more significant." The number of new cases reported yesterday - more than double the worst case scenario seen earlier this week - is the biggest shock and setback this summer and comes in advance of the August bank holiday weekend, as well as ambitious plans to reopen schools. Central to the upsurge in cases is a dog food factory in Kildare which has seen a large cluster in cases and has shut down to control the spread. Irish Dog Foods took the decision to close its plant in Naas last Friday after an outbreak was discovered. Dr Glynn said yesterday a number of the workers at the factory were resident in direct provision centres nearby and all had been tested for the virus. People who have the virus have been referred to hotel accommodation to self-isolate. The other clusters are in the construction industry, private households and extended families. Dr Glynn said 26 cases were located in Kildare, 18 in Dublin, 11 in Clare, nine in Laois, seven in Limerick, four in Meath and the remainder are spread across seven other counties. More than one-third of new cases were close contacts of somebody who had already tested positive. One more death from the virus was reported yesterday but the number of people being treated remains very low. Asked how he would categorise his fears now, Dr Glynn said: "We are very concerned." Key to understanding the clusters is whether they are contained or whether they have spread into the community. He said he hoped the daily number of new cases would be back below 40 today. Until yesterday there were around 20 cases a day. He added that we needed to "take a moment and see what comes through on Friday and Saturday and make recommendations if needed". Some 264 cases have arisen in the past 14 days, higher than the number in the previous 14 days. "We need to understand the details between the cases," Dr Glynn said. "We need to understand the links between the clusters." He pleaded with people to adhere to the basic messages of physical distancing, hand washing and face mask wearing and said his fear was that "people think this is all over". He warned people should see everyone they come in contact with as "potentially infectious". Asked about the reopening of over 3,000 pubs which only sell alcohol, Dr Glynn said he acknowledged the impact of the pandemic on workers and businesses. But he warned that the reopening of schools and the risk to residential centres of a resurgence of the virus had to be part of the wider considerations. His comments will be seen as a grim signal to the remaining publicans which are hoping to reopen on August 10. Professor Philip Nolan of Maynooth University, who leads a team tracking the virus, said: "Over a two-day period Ireland moved from a relatively stable epidemiology to a significant pattern connected to outbreaks. "We now need to be really careful and adhere to public health advice so we do not further spread the virus. "We must remain vigilant to the disease if we are to control it at this point." The professor added that there were very low levels of travel-related cases and that the number of deaths from the virus remained very low. Up until Tuesday the best estimated of the R number was just below one, he said. Keeping the rate below one is considered key because it means the outbreak is shrinking as not everyone who catches it passes it on. It reinforced the possibility of stopping the spread by adhering to public health guidance, he added. CARBONDALE Nancy Maxwell said event organizers were so encouraged by the BlackOut Tuesday event held in Carbondale earlier this month that they have decided to make it a more regular thing. The next one is scheduled for Tuesday. The first event held July 7 was in coordination with a national boycott against all businesses to demonstrate the economic power of Black people, and bring attention to institutional racism woven into government and business policies that are in need of reform. Black people were encouraged to forgo spending altogether, or to shop at Black-owned businesses if they needed to buy something. Maxwell compared the movement to the historic 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott in which Black residents of Montgomery, Alabama refused to ride the buses for more than a year until they were allowed to sit wherever they wanted. With BlackOut Tuesday, the objective was to get the attention of politicians and businesses to address issues such as equity in policing and the wage gap between white workers and employees of color. The purpose was to show how much we spend in the economy, said Maxwell, a community organizer. Its kind of like when we boycotted on the buses, to show that were a part of that system and we spend money there and we deserve equal treatment. Going forward, Maxwell said she wants to leverage regular BlackOut Tuesday events to bring Black-owned business owners together to network and advertise their businesses to the greater community. Also, she wants to offer a place where Black people can learn more about starting or expanding a business so that they can pursue a meaningful career and make a decent living wage. At an event planned for Tuesday, Maxwell said there will be representatives on hand from the U.S. Small Business Administration and Man-Tra-Con Inc., a Marion-based entity focused on regional workforce and economic development. The goal is to hold the events monthly, but Maxwell said shes still working out the schedule going forward. Nationally, the BlackOut Day campaign has been underway since May, following the February killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, while he was out on a jog, and the March police shooting of Breonna Taylor in Louisville. The movement gained steam following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. These high-profile and tragic deaths once again brought to the forefront the harm that systemic racism causes Black people, and exposed the need for reform in numerous aspects of society, including with economic access, Maxwell said. I want to keep promoting Black businesses, Maxwell said. We march and well continue to march, but this is another part of marching. Tuesdays event is scheduled to take place from 5 to 9 p.m. at the First Christian Church of Carbondale, 306 W. Monroe St. Black-owned businesses are able to request booths to display their products. There will also be music and speakers and a chance to get help with registering to vote and filling out U.S. Census forms. The event is jointly sponsored by Carbondale United, Sunrise Movement Southern Illinois, African American Museum of Southern Illinois, Carbondale Branch NAACP and The Womens Center. For more information, call Maxwell at 618-306-5885. Love 4 Funny 3 Wow 1 Sad 1 Angry 20 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Anyone who has worked in municipal government has likely heard from constituents about their problems getting answers. One typical example is the person who spoke with four different municipal employees in three departments, attempting to identify at least one official to answer their question. Another is of a resident who waited on hold for several hours only for the request to be solved in five minutes. The anecdotes are countless and vary from department to department, but the themes are common. Why is it so hard for government to get this right? Supporting citizens should not be this difficult, especially when municipal leaders have smooth, frictionless solutions for customer service problems. Taking action shows agencies in their best, not worst, light. Citizen support is solvable The concept of citizen support is not new; in fact, it is the basis of municipal government. The goal is to help residents with their requests, complaints, comments and questions, making it as easy as possible for them to sign their child up for summer camp, pay their tax bill, find out when a road is going to be repaired -- any number of conversations that can be started, shared and concluded. It can be difficult to determine how to make that experience effortless for members of the public. I am always surprised how many municipalities and their IT departments have it backward trying to make processes easier for their employees, rather than the residents. The process often starts with good intentions. A municipal employee recognizes a problem and works up the organizational ladder to find a solution. This often leads to a discussion with the head of the IT department where a new software program, tool or service is proposed and obtained. Often, the installation and management of the new program are left to an already stretched IT department, whose staff is not trained in citizen support, so many dont understand how to best utilize new solutions in the way theyre intended. To better serve citizens, then, better collaboration is needed across an entire municipal organization. This is known as enterprise service management and citizen support. Here are three tips for making it work: 1. IT should facilitate but not own the process. All too often municipal employees leave the implementation and success of a new software or mobile app to the IT department. For better results, front-line municipal employees should take ownership of choosing and implementing a tool. Why? Because they are the ones who will be using it or answering questions about it from citizens. This in no way minimizes the importance of IT in the process. Choosing a new program or tool that isnt compatible with current systems or busts the budget is not a helpful solution. 2. All stakeholders should be involved in the new system's decision and implementation. The process should take advantage of each department's strengths. IT has experience in selecting and implementing tools and designing work processes. The citizen support team knows exactly what services members of the public need. By working together, a common solution can be found. Before any project gets to this stage, having management and budget support is crucial. The best intentions wont matter if the resources arent available. Management support can also help smooth over the inevitable bumps and disagreements that occur. 3. Every department with a stake in the process should work together to launch the project. Pick a service, like reporting the need for road repairs, and set up a pilot project to test how the new system will work. While it is better to start small, agencies can learn much about what to do, and what not to do, that will guide them going forward. Digital communication for citizen support A Deloitte report suggests that as many as 80% of public sector leads said that a digital communication strategy is essential for their organizations success. However, more than 40% of survey respondents said their organization lacked a clear and coherent digital communication strategy. Sixty percent of these experts said their municipalities are slow adopters or even non-participants in the use of technology to allow members of the public to speak directly with an appropriate contact within the organization. Excellent communication, says Deloitte, requires that the websites of municipalities must be accessible anytime and from any device and that data exchanged upon them should be shared across multiple departments. Without these capabilities, there's no way to easily interact with those being served. However, there is much more that can be done to serve and communicate with the public. Citizen support communication technology provides individuals with better user experience. It establishes robust channels for residents to engage directly with municipal service departments, eliminating the need to provide manual and cumbersome customer service. Individuals become their own customer service Seamless (and quality) citizen support starts by finding out what the public thinks of the municipal website. Is it being used to its fullest potential, or is it just a place where visitors can read what the organization or department does? Do residents want to access government support online? If they're going to engage, how do they do so? What are the friction points an individual must endure to contact the appropriate department to report an issue a streetlight out or a pothole in need of repair? Each of these conversations can be much more efficient. The first step is engaging the internal IT service desk to help employees address common, such as unlocking a user account, logging a computer repair, reserving a meeting room, or a vehicle from fleet services or processing a newly hired employee. In such environments, the service desk team processes employee's requests and addresses all concerns, requests, questions and challenges and builds a searchable knowledge base. Organizations that install such internal communication channels for their teams can easily extend that capability to their external audiences. Doing so reduces the friction points discussed earlier and eliminates countless manual processes -- like four separate team members taking a call from the same person thats hoping to solve a problem that could have been automated through citizen support communication technology or addressed in as little as five minutes through a routed and connected call. With citizen support communication platforms, when the public communicates with their local government, the request is automated, tracked throughout the organization and routed to the most appropriate department without manual intervention. This cuts down unnecessary calls and random emails requesting help and assistance. Instead, an individual keys in a question, comment or concern, and the process is seamless from there. Citizen support helpdesk solutions reduce inbound phone calls and free up resources from staff who otherwise must respond to every query. Instead, internal teams can complete the most critical projects and answer queries in allotted slots during the day, offering a more efficient workday for staff and saving the municipality time, money and effort -- all leading to better service for citizens. Teachers' unions, which invariably hew hard left, have seen the Wuhan virus as an opportunity. They've insisted that, before their members return to school, communities need to make some promises, such as shutting down the competition (i.e., charter schools); giving illegal aliens full medical benefits; testing everyone in the entire community around the school for free; and so on. Now, though, they're going one better: the unions are insisting that teachers shouldn't be required to teach either in the classroom or, if at all possible, online although they should still get paid. I am exaggerating only slightly. First, let me state my bias: my dad, a Democrat, was a public school teacher from the 1960s through the 1980s. He routinely came home from union meetings apoplectically angry because the union wanted to dumb down the curriculum. (Teaching in Ebonics was already bruited about then.) I was an urban public school student in the 1960s and 1970s, which meant I saw incompetent teachers get lifetime sinecures thanks to the unions. I was also the parent of public school students for most of the last two decades...and nothing had changed. I am not a fan of the teachers' unions, nor am I a fan of the fact that the unions encourage teachers to view themselves as perpetual victims. I know with certainty that there are wonderful, dedicated, inspired, hard-working, creative, intelligent teachers out there. My dad was one, and I've met so many others. If you are one of those teachers, I salute you. However, the great teachers are too often offset by teachers (women I've known going back to kindergarten) who flood my Facebook feed with their union-created posts. These posts make teaching elementary school sound worse than slaving in a Siberian gulag, being on a road crew in Texas in the summer, or working a 40-hour week stocking shelves at Lowes. So you're all clear now: I am biased. My bias means that I've had little patience with those teachers who insist that they cannot possibly go back to classrooms this fall. It's one thing for store clerks, truckers, food-preparers, police officers, childcare-providers for 100,000 students in the empty New York City public schools, and the millions of other people who showed up over the last four months to go to work, but teachers? Never! A perfect example of this attitude comes from Rebecca Martinson, who wrote an opinion piece at the New York Times with the title "I Won't Return to the Classroom, and You Shouldn't Ask Me To." She assured parents that remote learning is just as good. She promised them that she has always been the good martyr who will buy supplies or stop a bullet (something incredibly rare despite the media hype when such tragedies happen). But be as brave as a Walmart clerk? No way! The comments show that lots of other teachers agree with her. It doesn't matter that everywhere in the world, schoolrooms are reopening. Nor do America's unionized teachers care that there are no cases of teachers catching the Wuhan virus from their students. It's far easier and more satisfying to engage in leftist political extortion, as both the Los Angeles and Durham, North Carolina, teachers' unions did. And now, according to the Times, teachers don't even want to do online teaching (emphasis mine): On Tuesday, the nation's second-largest teachers' union raised the stakes dramatically by authorizing its local and state chapters to strike if their districts do not take sufficient precautions such as requiring masks and updating ventilation systems before reopening classrooms. Already, teachers' unions have sued Florida's governor over that state's efforts to require schools to offer in-person instruction. [snip] With the academic year set to begin next month in much of the country, parents are desperate for teachers to provide more interactive, face-to-face instruction this fall, both online and, where safe, in person. But many unions, while concerned about the safety of classrooms, are also fighting to limit the amount of time that teachers are required to be on video over the course of a day. Parents desperately want life to return to normal, and they're worried about their kids losing time. Teachers' unions, therefore, think they're in the catbird seat and can set the terms. They may be wrong. Parents unimpressed by "distance learning" are creating homeschooling pods. (Leftists are already attacking the pods as examples of white privilege.) Others are discovering private tutors or homeschooling. In the Montessori community, there's a popular saying: "Montessori teaches to the student; public school teaches to the curriculum." Pods, tutors, and online resources also teach to the student. Public school teachers may, therefore, discover the truth behind the expression "Be careful what you wish for because you might get it." They'll be relieved of the classroom and online work, but they'll also be relieved of their incomes. Image: Pixabay. GETTY Women need to be at the forefront of plans for economic recovery from COVID-19, specifically through regulatory policies that accommodate childcare and a safe school environment, says a new report. Co-written by the Institute for Gender and the Economy at the University of Torontos Rotman School of Management and YWCA Canada, the report titled A Feminist Recovery Plan for Canada: Making the economy work for everyone highlights various policy recommendations to the government that help those most affected by the pandemic including women, people of colour, and the LGBTQ+ community. It noted that supporting a social infrastructure for the care economy is vital for an equitable economic recovery, which has revealed severe vulnerabilities because of coronavirus. The care economy refers to the both paid and unpaid work related to the process of caring for another person. Care work - both unpaid and paid - is extraordinarily gendered. Prior to the pandemic, women in Canada were already doing 1.5 more hours of unpaid domestic work per day on average, more than men, the report said. Some recommendations include adopting the OECD benchmark of allocating at least one per cent of GDP to early learning and childcare; creating a National Child Care Secretariat to track government spending and programs; ensuring childcare is part of the policy discussion in reopening of schools and childcare centres; and directing public funds to existing care services. During a panel discussion on the report, panellist and economist Armine Yalnizyan said the rest of Canada should look to Quebec and take on policies that have helped women re-enter the workforce with the help of good policies. Quebec went from having fewer women working as a share of the population for decades to now outstripping the rest of the country, why? Because it has subsidized childcare. It literally pays for itself in Quebec, she said. For every $100 of subsidized childcare the Quebec government received $104 in new income tax revenue. Story continues Jennifer Reynolds, president and CEO of Toronto Finance International, said in an interview that while the economy reopens, many women might have been cut from work, or might not be able to do their work remotely and are not able to go back to work without finding adequate childcare support. The women that need childcare the most, they should have good childcare when they do go back to their jobs. And there are a lot of women who cant do jobs at home, we have to be able to provide [childcare] to them and give them a chance to be in the workforce, she said. A July 2020 RBC report added that the benefits of women participating in the labour market equally with men would provide a lift to economic output of about $100 billion per year. It added that COVID-19 has created a hole which will take a long time to fill - ensuring that women return to the labour market is critical to Canadas recovery and ongoing success. We need to be looking at other countries around the world where there is better childcare, Reynolds said. In Scandinavia we see higher participation rates of women in the workforce [because they have good childcare policies]. There is a correlation. Parents concerned with returning children back to childcare On July 29, Statistics Canada released new data that indicated 49 per cent of parents were not going to send children back to childcare services because they were concerned about the health of their child or other members of their household. Reynolds said this was a bigger issue because even if the government put in place rules that would support childcare and if people werent using it because they were worried about health and safety then it would be a waste of time. We have to figure out, in this interim period of getting people comfortable, what that will look like, and that means involving medical professionals, the government, experts in a room coming up with what we think is safe in this period, she said. Ontario announces plan to re-open schools On July 30, the Ontario government announced its plans for students returning to school. Elementary school children will return to school five days per week, which includes recess and lunch, and class sizes wont change. Students in grades 4 to 12 are required to wear non-medical masks, while students in lower grades will be encouraged to do so but arent required. Twenty-four designated secondary school boards will have classes with 15 students and students will attend classes on alternate days or alternate schedules. Other schools will return to having classes five days per week with full attendance. Schools will also see timing changes for recess, lunches and bathroom breaks Ontarios plan adds that parents will continue to have an option to enroll their children in remote online learning, which respects their fundamental role in making the final determination of whether they feel safe with their children returning to school. The government says it will spend over $300 million in new money in targeted immediate, and evidence-informed investments. This includes medical and cloth masks for students and staff, teacher staffing to support supervision and keeping classes small, hiring up to 500 school-focused nurses, more testing capacity, hiring 900 additional custodians, and to purchase cleaning supplies, funding to clean busses, health and safety training for occasional teachers, supporting special needs students, and supporting student mental health. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android and sign up for the Yahoo Finance Canada Weekly Brief. BOSTON A Dorchester man accused of firing a gun at law enforcement officers during a protest that turned violent has been charged in U.S. District Court with multiple crimes including assaulting a federal officer. John Boampong, 37, is accused of firing 11 times at officers and civilians during a chaotic protest over the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, according to a statement released by U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling. Boampong was charged by criminal complaint with assaulting a federal officer, interfering with a law enforcement officer during the commission of a civil disorder, and being a prohibited person under felony indictment in possession of a firearm and ammunition, he said. He is currently being held without bail on multiple state charges accusing him of 21 counts of assault with intent to murder. His first appearance in federal court has not been scheduled. The charges in this case which involve someone legally barred from having a gun indiscriminately firing 11 rounds at a crowd of officers and civilians are a good reminder of a simple rule: Protests, even disruptive ones, are legal. Destroying property and endangering lives is not. We will enforce that rule. This is also todays reminder that what police officers really do every day is put themselves at risk to protect our communities, he said. My thanks to the Boston Police for their professionalism, restraint and sacrifices during the recent period of unrest. Boampong is accused of shooting at police during the protest, which began as a peaceful march on May 31 but escalated into chaos where police were pelted with rocks, bottles and lit fireworks; businesses were vandalized and vehicles were set on fire. More than 50 people were arrested, at least 21 police vehicles were damaged, seven officers were brought to the hospital with injuries and hundreds of protesters were sprayed with tear gas when the protest turned violent at night and in the early hours of June 1. Boampong was driving his car at about 3 a.m. near Arlington and Boylston Street close to a store that had been broken into earlier. Police told Boampong and his passengers to leave and accused him of being combative and ignoring their instructions, Lelling said. He then allegedly reversed his car while officers told him to stop because law enforcement and another vehicle were in the way. Boampong drove away but returned, parked on a nearby street and then allegedly shot at least 11 times toward officers, including a federal agent, he said. Officers took cover by ducking behind cars and other objects. No one was struck by gunfire, but bullets were fired through the windows of two apartments behind some of the officers, Lelling said. Police later stopped Boampongs car and found a Sig Sauer P230 9 mm gun on the floor of the vehicle with his fingerprints on it. Boampong had been banned from possessing a firearm because he was facing unrelated state criminal charges, Lelling said. Shooting toward police officers who are there for no other reason than to protect the public is appalling, and its against the law. So is illegally carrying a loaded handgun. But we believe thats exactly what John Boampong is alleged to have done. He incited panic, putting everyoneincluding civiliansin danger, said Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division. Todays charges should send a clear message: there will be serious consequences for violent instigators who are exploiting legitimate, peaceful protests and engaging in violations of federal law. Related content More than 1,000 march at Holyoke protest against racism No arrests, no violence after thousands march through Springfield streets for Black Lives Matter protest Northampton protestors turn out by thousands to rally against police brutality PIGGS PEAK A teacher who tested positive for COVID-19 at Ekudvwaleni High School is reporting for work despite that she has not been declared negative and is taking medication. Under normal circumstances, a patient is supposed to be certified negative before they can return and mingle with others. This, however, is not the case for the teacher based at Ekudvwaleni High School. The teacher confirmed that she was back at school and that she had been away for the recommended 10 days. She said she had been taking medication and that she was feeling much better though she had not received negative results as yet. I have not yet been tested again but I have to be back at school, she said. The teacher also said though she believed she had recovered, she ran out of medication and was advised to go to the hospital and collect more. She reiterated that she was feeling better, but was not sure whether she was positive or negative as she had not been re-tested. She also said she was not sure whether she was still infectious. Tested Noteworthy is that another teacher also tested positive at the same school. The male teacher had been at the school until Tuesday, but was informed in the evening that he had tested positive for the virus. He returned to school on Monday after being in quarantine while waiting for his results. The teacher, whose name will not be mentioned for ethical reasons, confirmed that he received results on Tuesday and that he would have to spend 10 more days at home. Isolation He said he was already in isolation after he had taken the test. I am much better than I was before, he said. The teacher also clarified that he did not interact with pupils because he did not teach Form Vs. He, however, said he had been interacting with another teacher, who also tested positive. We even used to share oranges and exchange money so when she tested positive, I also went to check, said the teacher. He also revealed that the results took so long that the 10-day isolation period lapsed. This news instilled fear in other teachers who said they did not believe the teacher could have recovered so soon. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a male teacher questioned if the return of the teacher was based on the recently released recommendations. On July 20, a webinar on a new religious movement in South Korea, its political, religious, and social dimensions, and its discrimination during the COVID-19 crisis was organized by CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions, and Human Rights Without Frontiers. International scholars in the fields of religion, international law, and human rights discussed the theme, COVID-19 and Religious Freedom: Scapegoating Shincheonji in South Korea. The webinar addressed the history of what participants defined as an attack by politically powerful conservative and fundamentalist Protestant churches in South Korea, supported by some politicians, against a fast-growing Christian new religious movement known as Shincheonji (New Heaven and New Earth) Church of Jesus, founded in 1984 by Chairman Lee Man Hee. Rosita Soryt?, a former Lithuanian diplomat and author of a study of the international peace organization HWPO, also chaired by Chairman Lee, and J. Gordon Melton, distinguished professor of American Religious History at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, introduced the webinar by observing that, in times of crisis, minorities that have powerful enemies are easily scapegoated. Cult, Melton observed, is a dubious label often used by majorities to discriminate against minorities they do not like. Massimo Introvigne is an Italian sociologist of religion who studied Shincheonji before and after the COVID-19 pandemic and published the first accounts of the religious group in English. He summarized the history of Shincheonji, and said that it has become a target of persecution by fundamentalist Protestants because of its spectacular growth. Conservative and fundamentalist protestants see Shincheonji as an unwelcome competitor and want to destroy it. Alessandro Amicarelli, a London-based attorney and chairman of the European Federation for Freedom of Belief, pointed out that some South Korean politicians scapegoated Shincheonji as the cause of the COVID-19 crisis in South Korea, yet their real aim is to shut down the church to please conservative Christian voters. He examined in detail the case of Patient 31, the female member of Shincheonji in Daegu who, before being diagnosed with COVID-19, set in motion a chain of events leading to thousands of Shincheonji members being infected, and the accusations that Shincheonji did not cooperate with the health authorities. He observed that, before Patient 31, Chinese tourists had already spread the virus in Daegu, and that accusations of criminal misbehavior against Shincheonji leaders, some of them were arrested, are not sustained by the facts. In a difficult situation, they cooperated with the authorities as promptly and completely as reasonably possible. Willy Fautre, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF), said that the recent attack on Shincheonji can be viewed as an attempt by fundamentalist Protestant groups in South Korea to weaken and destroy a competitor in the religious market. He added that human rights violations against Shincheonji through coercive conversion programs (deprogramming) i.e. by kidnapping and confining its members to de-convert them, have been going on for more than a decade, and show that Shincheonjis fundamentalist opponents have always been ready to resort to violence. Ciaran Burke, professor of International Law at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, said that how Shincheonji was treated, in comparison with other churches that also had cases of COVID-19, is evidence of religious discrimination forbidden by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, that South Korea ratified in 1990. Because of its experience with MERS, Burke observed, South Korea has a law authorizing the government to take extraordinary measures during a pandemic. However, the case of Shincheonji shows that how its provisions are applied may create a contrast with human rights guaranteed by international law, as evidenced by the fact that the government asked the church to disclose the names of members who had no direct or indirect contacts with Patient 31 and even of members abroad. Korean prosecutors initiated an investigation of Shincheonji leaders, including founder Lee Man Hee, for their alleged role in the spread of the COVID-19. Three national Shincheonji officials were arrested on July 8, after local leaders had been arrested in Daegu, for supplying inaccurate lists of members and properties. The authorities ignored requests to change the word cult in their official reports when referring to Shincheonji church. The fact that local governments encouraged residents to report Shincheonji congregation and facilities instilled in the population the idea that church members were to be treated as criminals, said a Shincheonji official who offered a response to the scholars at the end of the webinar. Related (L): Ghislaine Maxwell attends a symposium in New York City in a 2013 file photograph. (Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images); (R): Jeffrey Epstein in a 2013 mugshot in Florida. (Florida Department of Law Enforcement via Getty Images) Jeffrey Epstein Told Ex-Girlfriend Shed Done Nothing Wrong, Unsealed Documents Show Allegations against Alan Dershowitz, Bill Clinton are also included A slew of newly released files from an old lawsuit against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell became public on July 30, including 2015 email correspondence with disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. The documents, ordered to be released on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska, were from a now-settled defamation lawsuit filed by one of Epsteins alleged victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who claimed in the suit and other litigation that Maxwell recruited her in 2000 to be a sexual servant to Epstein. Among them were emails Maxwell and Epstein exchanged in January 2015, one of which is sent from Epsteins email address but written in Maxwells voice, and appeared to be a draft a statement for Maxwell to use in defending herself. Since [Jeffrey Epstein] was charged in [2007] for solicitation of a prostitute I have been the target of outright lies, innuendo, slander, defamation and salacious gossip and harassment, the email reads. It then goes on to criticize the press for, headlines made up of quotes I have never given, statements l have never made, trips with people to places I have never been, holidays with people I have never met, false allegations of impropriety and offensive behavior that l abhor and have never ever been party to, witness to events that l have never seen, living off trust funds that l have never ever had, party to stories that have changed materially both in time place and event depending on what paper you read, and the list goes on. Another of the emails sent from Epstein and Maxwell, written on Jan 25 2015 states, You have done nothing wrong and I woudl [sic] urge you to start acting like it. Go outside, head high, not as an esacping[sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it. The email was in response to a message Maxwell had sent the previous day saying she would appreciate it if shelley would come out and say she was your gfriend. I think she was from end 99 to 2002. It is not clear as to who or what shelley is a reference to. Ok with me, Epstein replied. The email exchange also appears to go against Maxwells claims that she hadnt spoken to Epstein in over a decade. Other documents released Thursday include flight logs from Epsteins private jets, police reports from Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home, among other documents. Virginia Roberts Giuffre has claimed both Maxwell and Epstein pressured her into having sex with numerous rich or notable men, including Britains Prince Andrew, and former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. She also claimed to have witnessed Former U.S. President Bill Clinton on Epsteins private island. (L): Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in a file booking photo. (Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office); (R): Former U.S. President Bill Clinton speaks at a news conference in New York City on April 11, 2005. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Documents released on Thursday added further detail to those claims. One such powerful individual that Epstein forced then-minor Jane Doe #3 to have sexual relations with was former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, a close friend of Epsteins and well-known criminal defense attorney, one document states. Epstein required Jane Doe #3 to have sexual relations with Dershowitz on numerous occasions while she was a minor, not only in Florida but also on private planes, in New York, New Mexico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Further documents claimed that Dershowitz helped negotiate an agreement with a provision that protected him against criminal prosecution for sexually abusing Jane Doe #3. Dershowitz has long denied any claims of his involvement. Another document, containing questioning of Giuffre by lawyer Jack Scarola, states that Giuffre says she once saw Clinton on Epsteins island with two young girls from New York. Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse at least three girls, one as young as 14, from 1994 to 1997, and committing perjury by denying her involvement under oath. She was arrested on July 2, and has been housed in a Brooklyn jail after a judge called her a flight risk. Her trial is scheduled for next July. Epstein was found hanged at age 66 last August in a Manhattan jail, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges for abusing women and girls in Manhattan and Florida from 2002 to 2005. He had also pleaded not guilty. The Associated Press contributed to this report. A Dallas-based attorney has identified the man who fatally shot an Austin demonstrator last weekend as Daniel Perry, an active-duty Army sergeant who was driving for a ride-sharing company at the time of the shooting. Perry's attorney, Clint Broden from Broden & Mickelsen law firm, said in a statement this week that his client shot Garrett Foster after the 28-year-old demonstrator raised his AK-47 assault rifle at him on Saturday. According to the statement, Perry had dropped off a rider near Congress Avenue and drove toward a protest to wait for another client or pick up a food order. The statement said Perry did not know a demonstration was taking place. RELATED: San Antonio vigil set for man shot and killed during a Black Lives Matter protest Perry's attorney said people began to beat his client's vehicle when he turned on Congress Avenue. Foster then approached Perry's vehicle and motioned with his assault rifle for him to lower his window. The statement said Perry complied with the command because he thought Foster was associated with law enforcement. Perry realized Foster wasn't with law enforcement after he rolled down his window and then fired at Foster to protect his life, the statement said. Foster was rushed to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Perry says Foster raised his rifle at him. Witnesses told the Austin Statesman that Foster had his weapon pointed downward. After the shooting, another person in the crowd pulled out a handgun and shot at Perry's vehicle as it sped away, Austin police said. The statement said Perry left the scene as a safety precaution. Perry turned himself in by calling 911 shortly after the shooting, police said. READ ALSO: Austin mayor 'heartbroken' after shooting at downtown protest leaves one dead Both Perry and the person who fired at the vehicle as it sped away were questioned and released. Both had state-issued handgun licenses, police said. In Texas, its legal to openly carry a rifle in public so long as its not brandished in a threatening way. It is unclear why Foster had a weapon at the rally. In an interview with ABC on Sunday, Foster's mom, Shelia, said she was told Perry got out of his car and started firing shots at her son. She added her son had been participating in peaceful protests almost every night during the past 50 days with his fiancee Whitney Mitchell, an African American woman who is a quadruple amputee. Austin police said they are still investigating and asking witnesses to provide any photos or videos they may have from the incident by calling 512-974-TIPS or 512-472-8477. Priscilla Aguirre is a general assignment reporter for MySA.com | priscilla.aguirre@express-news.net | @CillaAguirre Registration for eSTARS International eLearning Conference now open On December 1 - 2, 2020, HSE University and Coursera will bring together researchers, practitioners, experts, opinion leaders, visionaries, executives, education leaders and representatives of the business community to discuss the transformation of education and the main challenges that education faces in a rapidly digitalizing world. The 2020 eSTARS (eLearning Stakeholders and Researchers Summit) International Conference will be held online, and this year's theme is the 'Transformation of Education to Meet Global Trends of the Digital Economy'. eSTARS 2020 will provide a platform for the scientific and expert community to discuss topical issues that universities face today due to the increased interplay of digital technology, economics, and education. We invite you to register for eSTARS 2020 now. Date of the conference: December 1 and 2, 2020. Venue: online Official website: https:/ / estars. hse. ru/ en Reference The eSTARS International Conference focuses on pressing issues in education and elearning. In 2017 and 2018, over 1,000 participants, including representatives from 16 countries and 56 universities, attended eSTARS. HSE University is consistently ranked as one of Russia's top universities. HSE is a leader in Russian education and one of the top economics and social sciences universities in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The co-founder of the Russian National Platform for Open Education, HSE has been incorporating MOOCs into its curricula since 2013. Coursera is the world's largest online learning platform for higher education. More than 200 of the world's top universities and industry educators partner with Coursera to offer courses, programmes, certificates, and degrees that empower over 60 million learners around the world to achieve their career goals. 2,000 companies trust Coursera for Business to provide their employees additional training and certification. Coursera for Government equips government employees and citizens with in-demand skills to build a competitive workforce. Coursera is backed by investors that include Kleiner Perkins, New Enterprise Associates, GSV Capital, Learn Capital, and SEEK Group. For more information, please, contact: estars@hse.ru ### This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Arthur Uhl III has been ranching for 30 years and routinely has the same lament: It doesnt rain enough. Uhl, who works on his familys San Angelo-area ranches, needs the rain to grow the grass that feeds his livestock. But in a region thats prone to megadroughts, hes had to make changes for sustainabilitys sake. We meter all of our groundwater posts, for one thing, he said. Weve enclosed most of our tanks. We use precision irrigation systems. And we reuse water when we can. The situation has been tough, but its about to get a lot worse for Uhl and ranchers all across the state. This century, Texas could face the driest conditions it has seen in the last 1,000 years, according to a new study from a team of Texas A&M University and University of Texas at Austin researchers. The study highlighted a slew of looming problems for the states water supply. First, climate change will lead to even more megadroughts. In the latter half of the century, those droughts are likely to be worse than any of those previously on record. Second, the higher temperatures brought about by climate change will lead to more evaporation from the surface lakes that many parts of the state rely on. This problem will be particularly pronounced for Dallas, which relies entirely on surface water for its water supply, the study says. Third, the states population is continuing to grow from just under 30 million now to a projected more than 50 million in 2070 meaning the demand for water will go up as the state gets drier. Were warming up the atmosphere; thats been happening and is projected to make the droughts more severe, but in cities like Austin, Dallas, Houston, the Rio Grande Valley and San Antonio, we know that populations are continuing to grow at a rapid pace, said Jay Banner, a professor at UT-Austin who co-authored the study. Merry Klonower, a spokesperson for the Texas Water Development Board, which offers water planning assistance to municipalities, said that each of 16 regional water planning areas throughout the state is required to take into account population projections for the next 50 years when making water supply decisions. And if there is a shortage, then the very next step is they have to determine how they are going to meet their water supply needs for that growing population, she said. So we have been doing this since the 90s and it is a very robust process. So the state is well-prepared and is looking at future populations and water supply needs for municipalities. But the warnings are alarming to water conservation advocates and ranchers alike. Uhl, the second vice president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, said that severe droughts limit forage growth, and without forage, cattle cant produce calves meaning ranchers have to sell them off. And so that leads to a shortage of the first step in the supply chain which is the production of the calves, which eventually turn into beef, he said. Bill Hyman, who has ranched in Gonzales for the past 40 years, agreed, noting that the impacts of drought on the supply chain can extend far beyond Texas. Were in a world market, said Hyman, who is also executive director of the Independent Cattlemens Association of Texas. It would create a shortage in the worlds supply. And the price of beef will go up for the consumer. Ranching and agriculture contribute to a significant portion of the Texas economy. The Lone Star State boasts the greatest number of farms in the nation, and in 2017, Texas farms sold almost $25 billion worth of products the third highest among all states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Of the market products sold in Texas that year, nearly half belonged to the cattle industry and cattle were worth $12.3 billion in commodities in 2017. Uhl and Hyman emphasized the importance of water conservation among ranchers. Were passing on as much education to our members on how to rotate pastures, how to improve their grasses with different varieties of weed spray, brush control, Hyman said. All of the options that are out there of course, some are more expensive than others but we try to give them the most efficient method of getting more forage for their money. Meanwhile, environmental activists say the Legislature could do more to promote water conservation among the states various stakeholders. Ken Kramer, the water resources chair of the Sierra Clubs Lone Star Chapter, said lawmakers should impose conservation requirements upon municipal water districts that wish to receive funding for projects and encourage them to pursue new avenues to conserve water during drought season that minimize the impact of evaporation. Legislators can basically impress upon various river authorities and municipal water suppliers that certain types of water projects like surface water reservoirs are not going to be the answer to our future of water during megadroughts because those surface water reservoirs lose a lot of water to evaporation, he said. And so we need to be more innovative in terms of doing things like promoting rainwater collection and storage. Jennifer Walker, the deputy director of Texas water programs at the National Wildlife Federation, said that ultimately, it is up to consumers to reduce their own water usage by taking steps such as not watering lawns excessively and not attempting to cultivate landscapes that are inappropriate for Texass climate. We need to have a shift and how we think about our water and about how we use it as a community because its a resource that belongs to all of us in Texas, and not just the people, but the environment, and the wonderful thing about Texas is all the people and all the landscapes and all the critters, she said. Texas ranchers, activists and local officials are bracing for megadroughts brought by climate change was first published at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/27/texas-climate-change-megadroughts/ by The Texas Tribune. Disclosure: Texas A&M University, the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and the University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Topics Texas Climate Change Agribusiness The Central Regional House of Chiefs has commended the Akufo-Addo government for absorbing electricity and water bills as part of measures to ease the hardship of Ghanaians in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had since the outbreak of Covid-19 absorbed full electricity bills for all lifeline consumers and 50 per cent for both residential and commercial consumers. "The great interventions helped the people of Ghana who are very grateful to the government for it, they said. Obrempong Nyanful Krampah XI, the President of the Central Regional House of Chiefs and Obrempong Nyanful Krampah XI, the Paramount Chief of Gomoa Ajumako Traditional Area, made the commendation at the House's first general meeting to update members on their activities in Cape Coast on Thursday. The House also commended all frontline workers and those directly involved in the fight against the spread of the disease and urged all stakeholders to keep safe, trusting that the nation would soon emerge out of the pandemic. It implored all to adhere to the precautionary measures by Government and the health authorities to stay safe and to help reduce the rising infection rate across the Region. Touching on the ongoing voters' registration exercise, the House described the exercise as relatively smooth and peaceful despite the pockets of political incidents recorded at some registration centres in the Region. "We condemn the chaos with the ongoing voters' registration exercise in some part of the country and urge the government to beef up security at those hot spots to prevent further mayhem," the House noted. It, however, described as worrying the phenomenon of bussing of people to registration centres, resulting in clashes, apprehension and rising political tension. That, it indicated, was detrimental to the growth of the nation and called on all to work together to guard the country's democratic credentials. The House also encouraged the security agencies, especially the police, to work with the traditional authorities to maintain law and order at all times. The Police should also exhibit a high level of professionalism, dedication and commitment to duty without fear or favour to maintain national peace and cohesion. The House, however, appealed to the government to support the bid to build a specialised hospital for traditional rulers, among others. GNA Source: bangladeshpost.net August 1, 2020 marks the 93rd anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). The past 93 years have witnessed glorious achievements made by the PLA under the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). In the face of profound changes unseen in a century in the world today, the PLA thoroughly implements Xi Jinping's thinking on strengthening the military, and strictly adheres to the military strategic guideline for a new era. The PLA would focus on military preparedness, advances reform and innovation, deliver on orders and instructions earnestly, with a view to making further progress in strengthening and revitalizing the military. The CPC's Absolute Leadership over the Military On August 1, 1927, the forerunner of the PLA, led by the CPC, held an uprising in Nanchang city, which marked the CPC had established its own military, six years after its own founding. The PLA, under the leadership of the CPC, fought numerous battles and wars, and through an arduous struggle of 22 years defeated enemies from both within and outside the country and founded the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. Since then, the PLA led by our Party has been the staunch pillar of the people's republic, a great wall of steel in defense of the motherland and an important force in socialist construction. And loyalty to the CPC is the soul and lifeblood of the PLA and the reason why the PLA can overcome difficulties and achieve victories. The history of China's revolution and construction has proved that, the Party's absolute leadership over the military is the fundamental guarantee of its sovereignty, security and development interests, and its long-term stability and the people's happiness. Therefore, it is determined by the country's specific conditions and the CPC's progressiveness, as well as an essential trait of the socialism with Chinese characteristics, and a major political advantage of the Party and the state. "China will continue to uphold and improve the Party's absolute leadership over the armed forces and ensure that they will faithfully fulfill their missions in the new era", as reiterated by the CPC Central Committee in October 2019. The "Defensive" National Defense Policy The socialist system of China, the strategic decision to follow the path of peaceful development, the independent foreign policy of peace, and the best of cultural traditions - considering peace and harmony as fundamentals - determine that China will pursue a national defense policy which is defensive in nature. In July 2019, the Chinese government issued the white paper entitled China's National Defense in the New Era. The white paper offered the most authoritative explanation on China's defensive national defense policy in the new era, provided a panoramic view on the historic achievements made in the defense and military development of the country, and expounded on Chinese military's propositions, practice and contributions to world peace. "China will stay as determined as ever to build world peace, contribute to global prosperity and uphold the international order", said President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC). The PLA will remain a staunch force for world peace. Shared Destiny, Boundless Love Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, the PLA sent out more than 4,000 medical workers to support Wuhan and recorded zero infection during their mission in the frontline. Putting people's life and health as the greatest priority, the PLA has implemented the overall principle of shoring up confidence, strengthening unity, ensuring science-based control and treatment and imposing targeted measures. At the same time, the PLA actively joined hands with international community in fighting the pandemic. Medical supplies have been sent to the armed forces of nearly 50 countries including Bangladesh. With profound sincerity and efforts, the PLA has been working together with partners around the world to overcome the difficulties and has made substantial contribution to the global fight against Covid-19. To follow President Xi Jinping's call for the building of a community of common health for mankind, the PLA is willing to continue making concerted efforts with the armed forces of Bangladesh and other countries around the world to enhance international cooperation in epidemic prevention and control. CPLA - a Force of World Peace This year marks the 30th anniversary of the PLA's participation in the UN peacekeeping operations. Over the past 30 years, more than 40,000 Chinese "blue helmets" have been dispatched to conflict-affected countries and areas in 25 UN peacekeeping operations. 15 Chinese peacekeepers have laid down their lives for the cause of world peace. At present, there are more than 2,500 PLA troops serving in seven UN mission areas around the world. China is not only a principal fund contributor to the UNPKOs, but also the largest troops contributor among the permanent members of the UN Security Council. The Chinese peacekeepers have been hailed by the international community as "a critical factor and key force of peacekeeping operations". The 35th PLA naval escort fleet, composed of the guided-missile destroyer Taiyuan, the missile frigate Jingzhou and the supply ship Chaohu, left the port city of Zhoushan for the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia to escort civilian ships, on April 28th, 2020. Since 2008, the PLA Navy has regularly deployed more than 100 vessels and 26,000 personnel to the escort missions, and provided protection for nearly 7000 ships in over 1300 operations, half of which were non-Chinese commercial ships. The Chinese armed forces have been actively expanding their military cooperation with other countries. The PLA is participating in many missions such as humanitarian aid, disaster relief and other international activity. Since it entered service in 2008, the PLA hospital ship Peace Ark has visited 43 countries to provide medical services, benefiting more than 230,000 people. It is worth noting that the Peace Ark has visited Chattogram, Bangladesh twice, respectively in 2010 and 2013. Over the past year, the PLA successfully held the Multinational Naval Events marking the 70th founding anniversary of the Chinese PLA Navy in Qingdao, the International Army Games-2019 in Korla, the 7th Military World Games in Wuhan, and the 9th Beijing Xiangshan Forum, in which China was committed to promoting peace through cooperation, and safeguarding development through peace. The PLA also participated in various joint military exercises, such as "Cobra Gold-2020", "Golden Dragon 2020", etc, to strengthen the strategic mutual trust, cooperation and exchanges between China and different countries, and to enhance their capability in jointly tackling international security threats. Stronger China-Bangladesh Military Ties China and Bangladesh have a long history of friendship. Military ties have always been a pillar of the Sino-Bangladesh relationship. In recent years, cooperation between the two armed forces has grown steadily and rapidly, with frequent high-level visits, deepening exchanges and increasing number of personnel training. In October 2016, President Xi Jinping made a historical visit to Bangladesh and upgraded the bilateral relationship to the Strategic Partnership of Cooperation. In July 2019, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina paid a successful visit to China, which maintained new momentum of cooperation between the two countries. China is ready to work with Bangladesh to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of both sides, strengthen strategic communication, expand cooperation in personnel training, equipment and technology, disaster relief, peacekeeping and other fields, pushing for new development of relations between the two countries and their armed forces. Peace is an aspiration for all peoples, and development is an eternal theme of humanity. Faced with global security challenges that are becoming ever more intricate and choices that have to be made at a crossroads of human development, China firmly believes that hegemony and expansion are doomed to failure, and security and prosperity shall be shared. China will remain committed to peaceful development and work with people of all countries to safeguard world peace and promote common development. - Li Jiming is the Chinese Ambassador in Dhaka Disclaimer: This article was originally produced and published by bangladeshpost.net. View the original article at bangladeshpost.net. Despite rising coronavirus cases across the nation, many people have been packing into some of their favorite hotspots over the summer, flouting social distancing guidance and rules as well as mask-wearing. There have been several incidents across the country that have sparked criticism and warnings from leaders such as packed beaches in Florida and California in May and June and large outdoor parties in New York City and the Hamptons in July. Crowding, specifically large gatherings where social distancing is difficult and attendees travel from outside the area are of particular concern, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Risk increases with the number of people, length of the event and higher levels of community transmission. Sociological and political experts say that those behaviors may be a reaction to the rhetoric from their elected officials, even from those who stress caution during the reopening process. While some people deliberately ignored the warnings from Day One, others who stuck to the social distancing rules may have relaxed their caution after seeing reports that the coronavirus curve was flattened in the spring, Allison Earl, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who specializes in health messaging, told ABC News MORE: Bringing America Back: Crowds gather despite social distancing calls "People rely on their experts when it comes to an assessment of risk," she told ABC News. "People may recalibrate their judgment but they may not be accurate when they do." PHOTO: A large groups of young people stand close to one another, many without wearing any face covering, at the 'Safe & Sound' concert in Southhampton, N.Y., July 25, 2020. (Rich Schineller/AP) Although it is impossible to change everyone's risk assessment, Earl and other experts say consistent messaging, which relies on education rather than fear, could help change these behaviors. Mixed messages muddy the waters One of the biggest factors behind people disregarding social distancing is the mixed messaging they have been receiving from their leaders since the pandemic began, according to Will Howell, the head of the University of Chicago's political science department. Story continues President Trump's frequent downplaying of coronavirus dangers and mixed messages on the pandemic, in sharp contrast to many health experts and local leaders, confused some Americans and influenced their decisions to keep going on with their lifestyles, according to Howell. There was also tremendous pressure, even at the height of the initial surge of the pandemic in the Northeast, to reopen the economy -- pressure that influenced states that are now coping with outbreaks of the virus. "Ours is a political culture where significant numbers of the American public don't want to be told what to do," he told ABC News. The messaging from leaders who rolled back shelter-in-place orders starting in late April, such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, only amplified that notion, Howell said. While both leaders urged their residents to wear masks and avoid large crowds when they could, they also encouraged people to enjoy the outdoors. "I think that to be able to get people out in the sunshine and be able to get some fresh air. I've always promoted essential activities with recreation," DeSantis told reporters on April 17. At the time, Florida had 24,753 total COVID-19 cases, according to the Florida Health Department. By contrast, leaders in New York, which had 236,742 cases on April 17, urged socially distanced outdoor recreation but did not open beaches or other venues until a month later. PHOTO: Texas Governor Gregg Abbott speaks to the press after attending the public viewing for George Floyd at the Fountain of Praise church in Houston, Texas, June 8, 2020. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images) When Abbott announced Texas's phase 2 reopening on May 18, when the state's Health Department recorded 48,693 total confirmed cases, he offered the public assurances that they were successful in their efforts to contain the disease. The reopening included several indoor businesses including bars. "We've seen no evidence, no signs that raise any concerns about the possibility of retrenchment in Texas," he said during his news conference that day. When Abbott began phase 3 of Texas's reopening plan on June 3, where all businesses, including indoor dining, could reopen at 50% capacity, he touted the state's COVID-19 data at the time. At that point, the state had 68,271 confirmed cases, according to Texas's Health Department. PHOTO: People are seen on Miami Beach, as Miami Dade County is mandating a daily 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, July 28, 2020. (Larry Marano/Rex via Shutterstock) "The people of Texas continue to prove that we can safely and responsibly open our state for business while containing COVID-19 and keeping our state safe," Abbott said in a statement on June 3. MORE: Why people are flouting coronavirus social distancing precautions that we know save lives Images of crowds, including some not wearing masks, began to be common in Florida and Texas following the reopenings, especially in restaurants and beaches. In the subsequent weeks, the COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalization rates began to rise in those states. A Memorial Day pool party in the Ozarks where people were seen crowded and without masks drew heavy criticism from health officials. And in New York, which has not allowed indoor dining since the pandemic began, there have been reports of secret parties and pictures of large crowds outside bars. DeSantis attributed the increase in Florida cases to young people gathering and although he pushed for more residents to wear masks and socially distant, he did not implement more restrictions on preventing such crowds from gathering. "You have to have society function, you have to be able to have a cohesive society," he said on June 17. As of July 29, Florida recorded nearly 442,000 total cases and Texas has recorded 394,265 total cases, according to states' respective health departments. Florida's seven-day average of daily reported cases jumped from 1,038 at the beginning of May to 10,306 on July 29, according to Florida's health department. The seven-day average of newly daily reported cases in Texas has risen from 1,142 cases at the beginning of May to 7,504 on July 29, according to the state's health department. PHOTO: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks holding his facemask during a press conference to address the rise of coronavirus cases in the state, at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, July 13, 2020. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images) Representatives for Abbott didn't return messages for comment. On July 3, after calls from local leaders and health officials across Texas, Abbott instituted a mandate for masks. Fredrick Piccolo, a spokesman for DeSantis, told ABC News in a statement that the governor's administration has taken several measures to keep crowd sizes down. On July 21, the state's surgeon general, Scott Rivkees, issued a public health advisory that forbids crowds of more than 10 people. "Additionally, the governor has held dozens of press conferences and roundtables with medical professionals over the past few months where he emphasizes this guidance and implores the elderly and medically vulnerable to avoid large crowds whenever possible," Piccolo said in a statement. Even states that flattened the curve are having crowd problems Earl said that people generally take their cues on risk from their leaders and the one constant messaging from all officials was, "flatten the curve." This message on its own, however, can be problematic for long-term solutions against the pandemic, since it provides people who may have adhered to the restrictions an early out from their social distancing behaviors, according to Earl. "Once people reach their goals, they stop putting effort into those goals," Earl said. "The idea that some people have is 'I have this goal that is important to meI no longer need to put the effort because it's done.'" Earl noted that this issue is happening among people who live in states that still have restrictions and decreased COVID-19 cases, like New York and New Jersey. Even though New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy have repeatedly warned their constituents that their states aren't out of the woods, there have been recent examples of large gatherings. New York had roughly 417,000 total coronavirus cases as of July 29; however, the state's seven-day average for newly reported cases has gone from a peak of 4,300 cases a day in April to 671 on July 29, according to the New York health department. New Jersey had roughly 182,000 total cases as of July 29; however, its seven-day average for newly reported cases has gone from a peak of 2,697 cases a day in April to 434 on July 29, according to the state's health department. MORE: Timeline: How coronavirus got started On July 25, an estimated 2,000 people showed up to an outdoor charity concert in the Hamptons, on Long Island, and the next day, police in New Jersey said they broke up a party at an Airbnb location where 700 people attended. Both incidents are being investigated by state officials. Earl said those incidents demonstrate the notion that people have a mental breaking point when it comes to health advisories. As a result, some will eschew the health dangers for their pleasure, she said. "That [health] vigilance is energy expensive and we as humans we can't do it forever," she noted. Elected officials have been changing their messaging to encourage more people to avoid crowds, and experts say this a good first step. "In a political climate like ours where distrust runs rampant and there is a sense that a lot of our elected officials don't have our best interest in mind, it's hard to do that," Howell said. "We need people to say this is a common threat." Gov. Murphy tweeted harsh warnings to residents following the Airbnb incident. New Jersey, one of the states that managed to get a handle on the virus after thousands of cases and deaths, is now seeing a resurgence in cases, with eight emerging hotspots on the latest map from FEMA. "This is no time for anyone to be vying for induction into the Knucklehead Hall of Fame. Coronavirus is more easily transmitted indoors. Crowded indoor house parties are not smart or safe," he tweeted. When there are hundreds of people crammed into a house, where the air-conditioning system is simply blowing the air around and people are not wearing masks, you have also invited coronavirus to your party. Be smart. Be safe. Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) July 29, 2020 A spokesman for Murphy's office added in a statement to ABC News the governor "has made a commitment to ensure that timely, fact-driven information related to the State's ongoing response efforts is readily accessible to New Jerseyans." Gov. Cuomo, who in the past called some of the gatherings in the state "stupid," has also repeatedly urged New Yorkers to remain vigilant while at the same time shutting down establishments that violate state reopening guidelines. Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Cuomo, told ABC News his office is working to get the message across. PHOTO: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks during the daily media briefing at the Office of the Governor of the State of New York, July 23, 2020. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images) "We're moving heaven and earth to continue this momentum with ad campaigns, constant messaging through social and earned media and tackling the places where we've seen clusters in other states -- large indoor areas, crowded bars, gyms, etc," he said in a statement. MORE: How New York has been able to keep coronavirus at bay while other states see surges The best way forward Earl warned that leaders have to watch their words carefully as the public continues to gauge their risk. She noted that numerous psychological studies have proven that tactics that involve invoking fear or shaming are worse for people in the long term. "If you engage in a behavior because you're afraid, the minute you're not afraid is when you re-engage in the behavior," she said. Earl suggested that leaders should focus on explaining to the public the benefits of increased social distancing and mask wear. "Help people understand the actions you want to take," she recommended. "It will change their attitudes about engaging in the risky behavior or not." What to know about Coronavirus: How it started and how to protect yourself: Coronavirus explained What to do if you have symptoms: Coronavirus symptoms Tracking the spread in the US and Worldwide: Coronavirus map Crowds are gathering in many states despite coronavirus, and mixed messaging may be to blame: Experts originally appeared on abcnews.go.com E-Cigarettes Market Research Report by Type (Disposable, Modular, and Rechargeable), by Flavor (Beverage, Botanical, Fruit, Sweet, and Tobacco), by Distribution Channel - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19 New York, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "E-Cigarettes Market Research Report by Type, by Flavor, by Distribution Channel - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940466/?utm_source=GNW The Global E-Cigarettes Market is expected to grow from USD 11,837.23 Million in 2019 to USD 19,622.41 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.78%. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the E-Cigarettes to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: "The Disposable is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Type, the E-Cigarettes Market studied across Disposable, Modular, and Rechargeable. The Rechargeable commanded the largest size in the E-Cigarettes Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Disposable is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Botanical is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Flavor, the E-Cigarettes Market studied across Beverage, Botanical, Fruit, Sweet, and Tobacco. The Tobacco commanded the largest size in the E-Cigarettes Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Botanical is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Online Mode is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Distribution Channel, the E-Cigarettes Market studied across Offline Mode and Online Mode. The Offline Mode commanded the largest size in the E-Cigarettes Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Online Mode is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Asia-Pacific is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Geography, the E-Cigarettes Market studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region surveyed across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region surveyed across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region surveyed across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. The Europe, Middle East & Africa commanded the largest size in the E-Cigarettes Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. Company Usability Profiles: The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global E-Cigarettes Market including Altria Group, Inc., British American Tobacco PLC, FIN Branding Group, LLC, Imperial Tobacco Group PLC, ITC Limited, Japan Tobacco Inc., JUUL Labs, Inc., Jwell France, MOJOUS, NicQuid, LLC, NJOY, Inc., Philip Morris International Inc., Ruthless Vapor Corp, Shenzhen Kanger Technology Co., Ltd., and Turning Point Brands, Inc.. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the E-Cigarettes Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global E-Cigarettes Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global E-Cigarettes Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global E-Cigarettes Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global E-Cigarettes Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global E-Cigarettes Market? 6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global E-Cigarettes Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940466/?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 Craig Whittaker, who represents Calder Valley in West Yorkshire, has been accused of racism yesterday after claiming the vast majority breaking lockdown restrictions were from black and minority ethnic communities A Tory MP was accused of racism yesterday after claiming the vast majority breaking lockdown restrictions were from black and minority ethnic communities. Craig Whittaker, who represents Calder Valley in West Yorkshire, said there were sections of our community that are just not taking the pandemic seriously. He made the comments during an interview with LBC Radio after local lockdown measures were imposed on large parts of the North including his constituency. When asked to clarify whether his statement related to the Muslim community, he said: Of course. 'If you look at the areas where we have seen rises and cases, the vast majority not by any stretch of the imagination all areas it is the BME communities that are not taking this seriously enough. Mr Whittaker accepted his view would be controversial, adding: Ive been challenging our local leaders asking what are we doing to target these areas, to let people know this is still a very serious problem. 'Until people take it seriously, were not going to get rid of this pandemic. Its not just the Asian community in our area. We also have areas of high multiple occupancy that are in the same boat. 'When you have multiple families living in one household, that doesnt specifically have to be the Asian community, but that is the largest proportion. Labour equalities spokesman Marsha de Cordova said the comments were disgraceful and overt racism. Adding that Mr Whittaker was blaming the very people whose lives and livelihoods have been the worst-hit by Covid-19, she urged Boris Johnson to condemn this comment and take action. A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain said: This is shameless scapegoating of minorities. It is utterly unacceptable and Mr Whittaker should apologise. The Prime Minister was asked during a Downing Street press conference if he agreed with Mr Whittakers sentiments, but chose not to criticise his colleague. He said: Its up to all of us in government to make sure the message is being heard loud and clear by everybody across the country, and to make sure that everybody is complying with the guidance. Mohammed Ashrif Tahir Nushai, a community leader in Bradford, defended the new lockdown measures, saying: Sadly, there are people within our community who are not taking coronavirus seriously enough. He added many were attending events in each others homes with very little thought of keeping themselves safe. The row comes as official data showed Asian and Asian British people made up a third of those who tested positive for Covid-19 in the week to July 26. The statistics from Public Health England showed 1,369 of the positive cases in England (37 per cent) were among the Asian and Asian British population. White people made up 53 per cent (1,976 cases) and black, African, Caribbean and black British people five per cent. As President Donald Trump wrestles with the decision to ban the Chinese-owned video app TikTok in the US, an American company is considering taking steps to purchase the platform. The New York Times reports that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok, according to sources who note the deal could 'alter the app's ownership.' The news comes as Trump is set to announce a verdict as soon as Friday that would mandate China's ByteDance strip its ownership of the platform. As President Donald Trump wrestles with the decision to ban the Chinese-owned video app TikTok in the US, an American company is considering taking steps to purchase the platform TikTok, which has some 800 million users around the globe, has raised concern among worldwide and US officials for its potential threat to security, along with claims that the Chinese government is using the technology to spy on citizens. 'We are looking at TikTok. We may be banning TikTok,' Trump told reporters at the White House Friday. 'We are looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to TikTok.' However, it seems Trumps plans may have hit a snag, as Microsoft is currently in talks with ByteDance for ownership. Microsoft is currently in talks with ByteDance for ownership of TikTok, sources told The New York Times Anonymous sources told The New York Times that the deal is in the works, but were unclear where the two firms stood. However, Bloomberg reports that Trump plans to make a decision to order ByteDance to sell its ownership of TikTok in the US. TikTok took the world by storm in 2017, which allows users to create original videos that are shared in the app for millions to see. Currently 80 million Americans use the app, which has raised concerns among the government citing TikTok's data collection of users that may be in the hands of Chinese officials. Talks of banning the popular video app followed shortly after many users attempted to sabotage Trump's June rally in Tulsa, Arizona. 'We are looking at TikTok. We may be banning TikTok,' Trump told reporters at the White House Friday. 'We are looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to TikTok' TikTok users and K-pop fans said they had signed up for the Trump rally in Tulsa - which marked the US President's return to the trail since campaigning was side-lined by the coronavirus crisis. Trump's campaign declared it had more than a million ticket requests, but in the hours before the event, crowds looked significantly lighter than expected at the 19,000-seat BOK Center. In the end, just 6,200 people attended. Prominent Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the President's campaign 'just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign with fake ticket reservations'. February 2015 was the first time many in the West had heard of the Copts, Egypt's indigenous, Christian inhabitants. Then the Islamic State published what subsequently went viral a gory video of its jihadi members savagely carving off the heads of 20 Copts and one Ghanaian by the shores of Libya because they refused to renounce Christ for Islam. Little known, however, is that, well before the Islamic State targeted and unwittingly "popularized" the Copts, countless other Muslims in modern Egypt individuals, mobs, sheikhs, organizations (the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafi Front), and even governmental authorities had persecuted or at the very least discriminated against the nation's Christian minority. Such oppression is often seen and presented in the West as an aberration. After all, have not Muslims and Christians lived in peace for centuries in Egypt? Does not the fact that Copts constitute at least 10 percent of Egypt's population bespeak tolerance a Muslim willingness to live and let live for 14 centuries? Indeed, was it not the Copts themselves who initially called on the Arabs to enter and "liberate" Egypt from the Byzantine yoke in the seventh century? All these observations that invariably arise in response to the so-called "Coptic question" suggest that current discord is rooted to temporal matters poverty, ignorance, tribalism, anything and everything other than religion. The problem is that these observations are built atop a faulty first premise and, as always, false first premises always lead to false conclusions. Put differently, they are built atop a pseudo-history that has long dominated the West's understanding of Islam vis-a-vis non-Muslims in general, the Copts, for our purposes, in particular. A corrective is needed. The newly published book A Sword over the Nile is that corrective. I first read an earlier version of it in Arabic and found its contents so useful as to urge its author, Adel Guindy, to translate it into English. Not only did he comply to the benefit and subsequent edification of English-language readers but he greatly enlarged the original work, tying it to the current era and supplying several useful appendices. (I subsequently wrote the book's foreword.) A Sword traces the history of the Coptic people under Islam, from the seventh century on to the present era. Most of it is a chronological translation of lengthy selections of the compendious History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church and other Coptic primary sources, some translated for the first time. Although the History of the Patriarchs was first rendered into English in the early twentieth century, most editions are out of print; existing copies tend to be exorbitantly priced. Guindy has not only provided an accessible and fresh translation, but spared the reader the agony of parsing the History of the Patriarchs' many volumes as might be imagined, hundreds of its pages make for dry and irrelevant reading to find the most applicable selections for inclusion. As such, A Sword's merits are many. Unlike the well known and dominant Muslim historiographical tradition, which is largely hagiographical that is, meant to put a "saintly" veneer on Muslim conduct vis-a-vis non-Muslim subjects the Coptic sources used for this book tend to more accuracy. For example, whereas the oldest Muslim history of the Arab invasion and subsequent conquest of Egypt was written two centuries after the facts (by Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, d. 870), the Coptic sources relied on in this book are contemporaneous with the events they record. That alone suggests that their narrative is more authoritative. Moreover, by relying heavily on Coptic sources, this book offers the benefit of presenting the story of Egyptian Christianity under Islam through the eyes of the vanquished, not the victors, the latter hitherto being the traditional guardians of the "narrative." Less academically, the great achievement of A Sword is that it gives the lie to the aforementioned and popular Western view that whatever the Copts are currently suffering has nothing to do with Islam. Its hundreds of pages of source document translations make clear that everything modern Egypt's Copts are currently suffering including the burning, bombing, and banning of their churches; sporadic bouts of violent persecution; the abduction and forced conversion of Coptic girls; and a myriad of other forms of entrenched social discrimination was suffered by their Coptic ancestors over the course of fourteen centuries. The continuity is staggering; think what the Islamic State has been doing to Christians and others but on a prolonged and sometimes much enhanced scale (for instance, under the Mamluks). Moreover, the persecutors were not fringe "radicals," but often the very rulers of Egypt, whether Arabs, Fatimids, Kurds, Mamluks, Turks, or Egyptians. Mr. Guindy's achievement, it should be noted, is not simply to document the historic persecution of Copts. At the end of every chapter, he analyzes the translated material's significance. Additionally, a comprehensive essay providing a synthesized overview with suggestions on moving forward and solving the Coptic question appears at the end of the book. In his analyses, and to his credit, Guindy not infrequently calls out some of history's individual Copts, often clerical leaders, for their complicity in or at least acquiescence to their flock's treatment a phenomenon he traces to the modern era. It is for all these reasons and more that A Sword over the Nile is a most welcome book and contribution to the existing literature. Here in one volume we have the hitherto largely unknown historical experiences of Egypt's Coptic Christians under Islam and from the most primary if previously inaccessible or untranslated sources. Not only is it a window to the past; it may be an ominous look to the future. Raymond Ibrahim, author of Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum. Nokia logo is seen at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona By Anne Kauranen and Supantha Mukherjee HELSINKI/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Finnish telecom network equipment maker Nokia reported an unexpected rise in second-quarter underlying profit on Friday as it took on less low-margin business particularly in China, sending its shares up 13% in early trade. Cutting less-profitable service business and not winning 5G radio deals in the cut-throat Chinese market helped Nokia, where new Chief Executive Pekka Lundmark takes over this weekend, upgrade its earnings outlook for 2020. "We do not mind trading poor revenue which doesn't have high quality margin for better revenue," outgoing chief executive Rajeev Suri told Reuters. Nokia said its underlying earnings in April through June rose to 0.06 euros per share from 0.05 euros a year ago, beating the 0.03 euros consensus in a Refinitiv poll. Nokia, which had warned of a weak second quarter due to the virus, raised its forecast for 2020 underlying earnings per share to between 0.20 and 0.30 euros, from 0.18-0.28 euros. Quarterly revenue fell 11% to 5.09 billion euros, below a consensus figure of 5.28 billion, Refinitiv Eikon data showed. Most of the drop was due to the effects on the economy of COVID-19, but Suri also cited a sharp decline in China based on a "prudent approach" in that market, and proactive steps to reduce low-margin services business, though he didn't say what the latter consisted of. Nokia lowered its outlook for its market share in its main markets, measured by revenue, to underperform from its previous guidance of performing in line with rivals. Suri's successor Lundmark still faces key decisions on finding a balance between improving profitability and defending Nokia's market share, which currently makes it number two behind China's Huawei but ahead of Sweden's Ericsson when measured by revenue. "While the improvement in profitability from extremely low levels is clearly very encouraging, we are unsure on how much further Nokia can take such an improvement when sales are coming under significant pressure," Liberum analyst Janardan Menon said. Story continues Ericsson had reported a rise in 5G network sales and software revenue two weeks ago. Suri steps down after more than a decade in charge of Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks. The leadership change comes as turbulence prevails in European telecoms markets, with increasing pressure from some governments for operators to exclude or limit the use of 5G equipment from Huawei. ($1 = 0.8414 euros) (Reporting by Anne Kauranen and Supantha Mukherjee Editing by Edmund Blair and David Holmes) Biden Harris debate Democratic presidential hopefuls Former Vice President Joe Biden (L) and California Senator Kamala Harris (R) speak while Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders walks by after the third Democratic primary debate. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images Sen. Kamala Harris has been considered by many pundits to be the favorite to become Joe Biden's running mate for quite some time. Yet several recent reports have quoted sources relaying doubts from Biden's inner circle about Harris, and other options like former National Security Adviser Susan Rice or Rep. Karen Bass both Black women with extensive experience in the nation's capital have seen their stocks rise. Related: McCain went out of his way to defend Barack Obama at rally Proponents of Rice and Bass have touted their lack of political ambitions as strengths for either of them serving as a loyal VP pick who can also offer their own policy expertise in the White House the subtext meaning they won't be motivated by a potential run in 2024 or 2028 like Harris might. So what exactly is going on here, and where does Harris stand? Story continues The drama and mystique of a potential VP pick makes the process ripe with innuendo and rumors in the press. On a near daily basis, the supposed favorite can oscillate from one candidate to another. The reasons why unflattering details on a candidate or other rumors are coming out at a certain time can be confusing for those following the saga from afar. When it comes to Harris, the crux of the conflict is split between two places in time: the first televised Democratic primary debate last July, and the 2024 presidential race. As for those who reportedly have reservations about Harris, things get a little murkier, but only a few confidants close to Biden are the ones to watch. This is what the Kamala drama is all about. The 'inner circle' Biden sister wife Former Vice President Joe Biden (C) arrives with wife Jill Biden (R) and sister Valerie Biden Owens (L) at a Super Tuesday campaign event at Baldwin Hills Recreation Center on March 3, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. Mario Tama/Getty Images The big story this week has been about a meeting Harris had with one of Biden's closest advisers and best friends, former Sen. Chris Dodd. Dodd, who championed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, is one of the four members on Biden's official vice presidential selection committee. The 76-year-old reportedly had qualms over Harris showing no "remorse" for going after Biden at the debate over his opposition to federally mandated bussing, with the California senator telling Dodd "that's politics." That viral moment centered around Harris challenging Biden for opposing federally mandated bussing, drawing her personal story into the mix by describing how bussing allowed her to go to a better school. "There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day," Harris told Biden. "That little girl was me. So I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats." Biden and Harris would later appear to bury the hatchet, appearing even chummy at times during the primary before Harris dropped out and eventually endorsed Biden. Yet Dodd's meeting with Harris, first reported by Politico, apparently went so poorly that it revealed "a contingent of Democrats who are lobbying against Harris for VP some privately, some openly," according to Politico. Dodd was looking for an earnest apology for what he reportedly described as a debate "gimmick" that "was cheap," according to Politico, rather than taking Harris' view that Biden's past positions were fair game. Whether Harris could be a trusted deputy to Biden or put her own political ambitions first was what Dodd and others in Biden's inner circle as well as some donors are worried about, Politico reported. Harris' trustworthiness was reportedly the issue Dodd was most concerned about coming out of the meeting, but critics have asked why a septuagenarian white guy should have so much sway over Biden picking a woman of color for his running mate. Gender tropes are also at play, with different connotations of ambition and loyalty potentially working against Harris as a woman in politics. Yet under the radar, two women are also key in Biden's VP decision, and neither are on the official selection committee. One is Biden's wife, Jill, who was on the record as very critical of Harris' attack, calling it "like a punch to the gut" before striking a more conciliatory tone when both appeared on stage together in Michigan back in March. Biden has said he often consults his wife on important decisions, and it has been hard to get a read on where she stands on Harris despite efforts by the campaign to turn the page once the California senator endorsed him. The other crucial figure in Biden's inner circle is his sister, Valerie Biden Owens. Biden sister Valerie Archival photo of Joe Biden and his sister, Valerie Biden Owens. Ira Wyman/Sygma via Getty Images Biden Owens led every single one of her brother's political campaigns until this one, from student government to all seven of his Senate runs and even his 1988 and 2008 presidential bids. She carries many of the same mannerisms as her brother, and can show sharper elbows on the trail than the more conflict-averse Biden. Back when I was in New Hampshire working as the political reporter for The Keene Sentinel covering the 2020 primary, Biden Owens came to the local campaign field office to meet supporters and volunteers. We stepped aside for an interview once she was done shaking hands, and I asked about the debate moment. Biden Owens demeanor suddenly turned to a shade of irritation, and she let loose before an aide stepped in to say she needed to get back to the SUV parked outside to head over to another event. "He's very conscious of that T-shirt moment," she told me, referring to the Harris campaign selling merchandise referring to the debate moment and one of Harris' more memorable quotes, "That Little Girl Was Me." "You know what I mean by the T-shirt moment? 'I was that little girl' and for Christ sake, Joe's been for civil rights since he lived it for his whole life," Biden Owens said. In a late June story from The Washington Post, Sean Sullivan and Annie Linksy reported that qualms with Harris among Biden's wife and sister were enough of a concern for the campaign that they had to be addressed with a show of unity. "Seeking to quell rumblings from some Democrats who have said they detected signs of frustration with Harris from Jill Biden and Valerie Biden Owens, Biden's sister and longtime political adviser, the Biden campaign on Friday looked to publicly dispel the notion that their views of Harris are anything less than positive," Sullivan and Linsky wrote. "Both Dr. Biden and Valerie have nothing but the utmost respect, admiration and affection for Senator Harris," Biden campaign spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander told The Post in a statement. "Any rumors or conjecture to the contrary are not true and have zero basis in reality or fact." Whether those feelings have truly been smoothed over can only be known by those who have unfettered access to Biden's inner circle. But if Harris does come up short, the warning signs were in place long before the summer veepstakes stories started dropping. Read the original article on Business Insider The alleged killer of a Minnesota woman found beaten and strangled inside her home more than three decades ago has been arrested and charged in her death. Michael Allan Carbo Jr., 52, of Chisholm, was charged with second-degree murder for the 1986 killing of Nancy Daugherty, also of Chisholm. Bail was set Thursday at $1 million, The Associated Press reported. This is the day Nancy Daughertys family and all of Chisholm have waited for over 34 years, Chisholm police chief Vern Manner said Wednesday during a press conference. Daugherty was last seen alive just after midnight on July 16, 1986. She was 38 years old at the time, was the mother of two and worked at a nursing home. The night before she died, Daugherty had been out with a friend and planned to move from Chisholm to the Twin Cities the next day, Manner said. When her friend showed up to help her move furniture, Daugherty did not answer the door or phone. The friend and a concerned neighbor called police for a wellness check. They found Daugherty beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled. Evidence pointed to a physical struggle both inside and outside the home, and witnesses reported hearing a woman scream in the early morning hours, Manner said. My mom loved to help people, her daughter Gina Haggard wrote in a statement read by Manner. Haggard described a family trip to Alaska when she helped accident victims until they could be airlifted to a local hospital. She was happy, loved to take care of people and loved her family, Haggard wrote in her statement. So many tears and struggles. She has missed so much. I miss her love and guidance. Over the years, investigators collected DNA samples from more than 100 people but none matched the evidence collected at the scene. We pursued every tip and lead that came in but came up empty every time, Manner said. Earlier this year police turned to genetic genealogy, which combined DNA testing with genetic tracing, to find new leads. Carbo turned up as a possible match. Story continues Agents from Minnesotas Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and Chisholm police arrested Carbo Wednesday after a state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension lab confirmed that his DNA matched DNA from the crime scene. Carbo was 18 years old at the time of Daughertys death, lived less than a mile from the crime scene and attended school with her children, The Associated Press reported. Carbo's attorney could not be reached for comment. New Delhi, July 31 : To check the spread of dengue, malaria and chikungunya in the Capital, more than three lakh houses and five lakh water containers have been checked by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), of which 1,541 have turned out to be positive for larvae-breeding. The NDMC has issued 1,498 notices and 43 challans till Friday. The council has undertaken an intensive drive to check the rooftops, kachcha portions, government and private buildings, hospitals, electrical sub-stations, police stations, markets and residential colonies in all its 14 circle areas to control the spread of dengue, malaria and chikungunya. "Over 3,10,313 houses have been visited and 5,67,408 water containers checked of which 1,541 were found positive for larvae-breeding. As per the provisions of the NDMC Act 1994, 1,498 notices and 43 challans have been issued till this weekend," the NDMC said in a statement. The NDMC's anti-larvae action teams have visited the Lok Nayak Bhavan, UPSC building, Jam Nagar House, PM House, Parliament House, Doordarshan, White House, CAT premises, Punjab House, Haryana Bhavan, Himachal Bhavan, Paryawaran Bhavan, Mausam Bhavan, IIC, IHC and Chinmay Mission. According to the council, there are less cases of the vector-borne disease this year compared to last year. Only one case each of dengue and chikungunya has been reported in the NDMC area. The NDMC has issued advisories to the presidents and secretaries of Residents Welfare Associations, Markets and Traders Associations, SHOs of police stations and the executive engineers of CPWD to take steps against mosquito breeding in their areas. It also focused on raising awareness through messages, mobile phone calls, video-conferencing and other means. The council sends 50,000 SMSes every week to residents, urging remedial action against mosquito breeding in their locality. Premier Doug Ford would not commit Friday to providing nursing-home residents with four hours of hands-on care every day as recommended in a new report on a staff shortage made worse by poor working conditions in the COVID-19 pandemic. Ford acknowledged the shortage but said he needs to take a closer look at the report, whose urgent recommendation echoes long-standing calls for four hours of daily care up from the average of about 2.7 hours now with estimates the additional cost could be $1.6 billion a year. Theres no doubt, you know, we need more staffing, he said at a news conference. Is it going to be that amount? I have to read it over myself. Green Leader Mike Schreiner said Ford needs to act quickly with the potential for a second wave of COVID-19 in the coming months that could further devastate nursing homes, where almost 5,900 vulnerable residents caught the highly contagious virus and 1,844 died. Vague promises wont fix the issues in long-term care, Schreiner said. The premier admits the problem, but since he wont provide funding, his platitudes ring hollow. Almost 2,600 nursing-home workers also contracted COVID-19 and eight died, mostly personal support workers, with unions blaming a lack of personal protective equipment such as masks, face shields and gowns as the illness raced through many facilities. Daily care received by nursing-home residents includes bathing, repositioning to avoid bedsores, toileting, diaper changes, dressing, grooming, feeding, medical examinations and delivery of medications, performed by teams of personal support workers (PSW), registered nurses, registered practical nurses and others. Ford suggested a decision will be made soon. Were going to have money there to hire more staff. Thats a priority. We just have to put a number to that, he told reporters on a conference call. I dont believe in waiting. Lets make a move. A lot of long-term-care homes are in desperate need of the PSWs and nurses and other support workers. The report provided one particularly alarming example of just how bad staffing shortages can get, the burden that places on remaining workers and how that can impact the care residents receive. The largest proportion of missing shifts were among personal support workers, with one home reporting as many as 60 vacant PSW shifts experienced daily. About 58 per cent of the staff in nursing homes are personal support workers. Its long past time Ford came to the rescue of the 78,000 residents and 100,000 workers in Ontarios nursing homes, said New Democrat MPP Teresa Armstrong (London-Fanshawe), her partys critic for long-term care. He keeps calling them heroes but he doesnt put the actions behind his words, she added, calling for funding to create more full-time jobs with benefits in nursing homes so workers arent forced to cobble together a living with a series of part-time gigs that risk spreading illness from one nursing home to another. Theyre being taken for granted by this government, theyre being taken advantage of. The four-hour recommendation was in the Long-Term Care Staffing Study Report prepared by leaders in the long-term-care industry, a geriatrician and several academics at the recommendation of an inquiry into the murders of eight nursing home residents by a nurse. It is being used in the development of a staffing strategy to be released by the Ministry of Long-Term Care later this year. The report notes a shortage of nursing home staff has developed for a number of reasons, including better pay and working conditions in hospitals, and pointed to alarming levels of attrition that make it difficult to replace workers who leave. One-quarter of personal support workers with more than two years of experience quit every year, while the number of students in PSW training programs fell to 6,500 last year from 8,000 in 2016. Industry sources have told the Star that some nursing-home workers fled the sector out of fear for their health and their lives at the peak of COVID-19 this spring, with Fords $4 hourly pandemic pay premium doing little to stem the tide. Read more about: New Delhi: Contrary to reports of there being a party on the night of June 13, 2020, at Sushant Singh Rajput's Bandra residence where he was found dead the next morning, a new revelation has been made by the helper. According to sources, during interrogation, Sushant's house help told Bihar police that there was no party at actor's house on June 13, 2020. The domestic help said Sushant had dinner and went to his bedroom. He did not go out in the night and there was no party at his place. Much like everyday, Sushant got up early on June 14. Earlier, Mumbai police too haad quashed reports of there being a party at Sushant's residence on the night before his death. Sushant made two calls at around 2 am in the intervening night of June 13-14 to Rhea Chakraborty and his close friend Mahesh Shetty but could not connect to both. The four-member police team from Bihar began its investigation process in Mumbai a day before after Sushant's father filed an FIR against Rhea Chakraborty, her family and six others in Patna's Rajiv Nagar police station under IPC Sections 341, 342, 380, 406, 420 and 306 for cheating, exploiting him financially and abetment to suicide. After the FIR was lodged in Bihar, Rhea Chakraborty moved the Supreme Court over the transfer of investigation to Mumbai. This years two-day lobster miniseason in the Florida Keys was relatively peaceful, with no serious injuries or incidents reported, police said. Of 787 vessel stops and resource checks, the Monroe County Sheriffs Office made only five arrests during the 48-hour period, said the agencys spokesman, Adam Linhardt. MCSO reported issuing 49 citations and 166 warnings for the two-day period. For the 2020 lobster miniseason event, the Monroe County Sheriffs Offices law enforcement strategy included using a helicopter to help scan the water, along with an unmarked boat and four personal watercraft. Even amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Keys had its share of traffic on the water over the past two days, officials said. Islamorada closed its boat ramps, parks and beaches due to the COVID-19 pandemic so law enforcement kept tabs down the island chain. Its been pretty busy like normal, Linhardt said. The sheriff focused a lot in the Middle Keys Conch Key, Grassy Key. We dedicated an unmarked boat and jet skis. Out of four jet skis, we used two there. The personal watercraft, four Yamaha WaveRunners, are donated every year to the sheriffs office by Riva Motorsports and Marine of the Keys. In Key Largo, a helicopter helped scan bridges and channels. Lobster miniseason 2020 wraps up Thurday, July 30, 2020. Law enforcement at 4 p.m. Thursday reported no serious accidents or other major incidents. I wanted a strong presence out there this year on air, land and water, Sheriff Rick Ramsay said. The helicopter is a great tool as it provides an effective deterrence to law breakers as well as being at the ready for search and rescue missions. We employed a very large, multi-pronged approach and the figures reflect that. Lets hope that the regular season goes as safely and smoothly as mini season. The tally by the sheriffs office does not include figures from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Key West Police Department, Key Colony Beach Police, Florida Highway Patrol, or the U.S. Coast Guard. FWC said they dont have a running total for miniseason. But county jail records showed the agency Wednesday had jailed two men for boating under the influence in the Upper Keys and on Thursday jailed two men on fishing violations. Monroe County Sheriffs Office deputies, like Middle Keys Deputy Anthony Wales, pictured right, were busy July 30, 2020, checking lobsters during the states two-day miniseason event. FWC Officer Bobby Dube also said miniseason ended without any major incidents or accidents reported. A very safe one, thankfully, Dube said. In order to prevent a repetition of the tragedy wrought by nuclear weapons, Nagasaki residents have continued to convey the reality of the atomic bombing and have appealed for the abolition of nuclear weapons. We are not making an appeal as past victims, but as global citizens who live in a world where the danger of nuclear weapons is very real; we are sounding the alarm to the continued threat that they pose. The passing of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons by the United Nations in 2017 fulfilled the long-awaited wishes of the hibakusha, the atomic bomb survivors, and civil society who have been longing for a peaceful world. Mr. Frishkorn (center) enjoyed ice skating and was active in his flight attendants union. Read more People Weve Lost Paul Frishkorn 65 years old Lived in Springfield He was a people person and active in the Presbyterian church More Memorials When the extrovert genes were handed out, Paul Frishkorn got more than his fair share. He made everybody he knew feel like they were his best friend, said cousin Louise Cochran. I have received so many calls and notes from people I never knew he knew. A flight attendant for American Airlines, Mr. Frishkorn was a creative organizer. As a youngster growing up near Pittsburgh, he would gather the neighborhood children and compose plays that included singing and dancing. Then the children would perform Mr. Frishkorns creations for their families and friends. He always focused on other people in every situation, his cousin said. He never drew attention to himself. Mr. Frishkorn, 65, died on Monday, March 23, of COVID-19 at home. A flight attendant at American for 23 years, Mr. Frishkorn was based in Philadelphia and had lived in Springfield, Delaware County, since 1995. He was an officer at the First Presbyterian Church there, his cousin said, and carried on his familys tradition of service to his church. Mr. Frishkorn was a longtime representative for the flight attendants union and twice was honored as a flight service champion. Paul will be missed by the customers he cared for and everyone at American who worked with him, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants said in a statement. He was an immeasurable asset to all flight attendants as the benefits chair, a union colleague wrote in an online tribute. I had the pleasure of working with him for four years in the [union] office in Philadelphia. He will be sadly missed by all. The only child of Martha and William Frishkorn, Mr. Frishkorn also enjoyed working out and figure skating, and recently served as an announcer at local skating events. A wonderful person and professional to the core, a friend wrote in a Facebook tribute. The world lost a beautiful soul today, another person wrote. I have no words to describe this incredible loss. Gary Miles, gmiles@inquirer.com GREENWICH Four vehicle thefts were reported this week, bringing the year-to-date total to nearly 70 cars in Greenwich, according to police. The thefts were all reported Monday, and all three involved unlocked vehicles, police said. According to police reports, a Kia was taken from Prospect Street. An Audi was taken from Hunting Ridge Road and later recovered in Greenwich, police said. A Jeep and a Porsche were stolen from Will Merry Lane, and the Jeep was recovered in Greenwich, police said. A car was stopped in the roadway on East Putnam Avenue in Riverside around 12:30 a.m. Monday, and the driver was arrested, police said. A 33-year-old resident of New Rochelle, N.Y., was charged with driving while intoxicated, police said. Bail was set at $200. Officers were called to a disturbance in the west end of town Monday night, police said. A 29-year-old resident of Greenwich was charged with assault, unlawful restraint and disorderly conduct after she was accused of being involved in a physical altercation with another person, police said. Bail was set at $500. A dispute arose with a man threatening another with a knife on Mill Street around 10:30 a.m. Monday, resulting in a minor injury, police said. A 30-year-old man from Port Chester, N.Y., was accused of making a threat, police said. He was charged with threatening and breach of peace and was released without bail, police said. A 39-year-old man also from Port Chester was accused of causing a minor injury to the other man, according to the police report. He was charged with assault and breach of peace. He was released without bail. Compiled by Staff Reporter Robert Marchant The key to good customer service is simple, says Paul Sutton. "What we're trying to do here is as old as the golden rule," says Sutton, who owns Palmer Lake-based Peak Structural with wife Lisa; the company specializes in foundation repair and basement waterproofing. "If we came out to serve you in your home, I would want to see that that happens in such a way that if the shoe were on the other foot and I was the customer, that I'd feel great about how I was treated, the value that i received, the kind of workers that were in my home, and the final product. Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson said he never actually met Boris Johnson. (Reuters) The leading epidemiologist whose controversial report predicted a potential coronavirus death toll of more than 500,000 in the UK never actually met Boris Johnson, he has revealed. Professor Neil Ferguson, dubbed Professor Lockdown because his report prompted the governments decision to put a lockdown in place in March, said he never had a one-on-one with the Prime Minister because that is not the way science advice works in the UK. In a wide-ranging interview in the New Statesman, Prof Ferguson said he thought the UK government had a more nuanced and detailed understanding of what we knew and what we didnt about the virus than any other government, but was too slow in dealing with it. The leading scientist previously said the coronavirus death toll 'would have been at least 50% lower' if lockdown had started a week earlier. Prof Ferguson said any scientific advice goes through Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty and UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance. (Reuters) In his latest interview, he told the New Statesman: I never met Johnson, I never had one-on-ones, its not the way science advice works in the UK. It all goes through Sage [the governments Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies] and then the scientific consensus is communicated to Johnson by Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance. He said he did have some conversations on the margins of Sage meetings with No 10 special advisers, but added: that was the closest I got to any politician. His comments give an interesting insight into the process by which key decisions have been made throughout the crisis at the heart of government. In May, four months into the outbreak, Johnson admitted he didnt read the scientific papers presented by Sage, only a digest provided to him by his advisers. The government has also admitted Johnson did not attend five Cobra meetings in the run-up to the outbreak arriving in the UK. The epidemiologist, who resigned from his post on Sage after flouting lockdown rules by receiving visits from his lover at his home, said he didnt know what the perfect system was but compared the way UK scientific advice works to France, after his own report was reportedly shown directly to French President Emmanuel Macron by a colleague in what was a key factor in him deciding to lock the country down. Story continues In other European countries, like France, a small group of scientists experts on the disease - directly talked to the politicians, he said, adding that the structure in the UK prevented charismatic individuals unduly influencing policy. He questioned whether having a very nuanced, reflective, risk-adverse scientific advisory system in relation to policy resulted in an agile-enough system that could deal adequately with something like the coronavirus pandemic. In his interview, which comes as tighter restrictions were imposed on parts of the north west of England amid concerns that infection rates are rising, Prof Ferguson warned that the UK is still in the early stages of the pandemic and that the UK is unlikely to return to normal for the forseeable future. Coronavirus: what happened today Click here to sign up to the latest news and information with our daily Catch-up newsletter (Newser) In what former Department of Homeland Security general counsel John Sandweg calls an "incredibly dumb" move, the department compiled "intelligence reports" on journalists covering the Portland protestsand shared them with state and local law enforcement agencies. The reports, which usually deal with security threats, noted that the journalists had published leaked, unclassified information about DHS activities during the Portland protests, reports the Washington Post. The reports on New York Times journalist Mike Baker and Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes included images of their tweets and the number of times they had been liked. "This has no operational value whatsoever," Sandweg says. story continues below Wittes says that while he isn't concerned by DHS sharing his tweets of leaked memos, it's "the construction of it as an intelligence report on a US person thats disturbing." A DHS rep says acting secretary Chad Wolf has "directed the DHS Intelligence & Analysis Directorate to immediately discontinue collecting information involving members of the press. In no way does the Acting Secretary condone this practice and he has immediately ordered an inquiry into the matter." In Portland, meanwhile, Oregon state troopers arrived at the federal courthouse Thursday to provide security in place of federal agents. The Oregonian reports that protests took place in the area, but they remained "overwhelmingly calm" and troopers did not leave the courthouse. (Read more Department of Homeland Security stories.) Malaysian Chief of Defence Forces General Affendi bin Buang on Thursday expressed gratitude to China for the assistance in Malaysia's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Affendi made the remarks during a virtual reception hosted by the Chinese embassy in Malaysia to celebrate the 93rd anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China, which falls on Aug. 1. In his congratulation message, Affendi took note of the close ties shared by both countries and both militaries which were extended to the fight against COVID-19. "I take this opportunity as well to extend our sincere gratitude and appreciation to the government of China and PLA for their support and donation of healthcare supplies as well as sharing your experiences with Malaysia in combating COVID-19," he said. "We do hope that both countries shall maintain consistent communication and promote pragmatic cooperation in various fields, in a joint effort for regional peace and stability during this trying circumstances," he said. Affendi also expressed his confidence in the continued cooperation between both countries, which would continue to strengthen their defense collaboration and achieve greater heights in bilateral cooperation. For his part, Defense Attache of Chinese Embassy in Malaysia Zhang Ge recounted the wide and positive role the PLA has played in securing peace and stability while actively participating in peacekeeping operations and international efforts in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief including in combating COVID-19. "In the fight against the spread of COVID-19 epidemic, the PLA has actively engaged in international anti-epidemic cooperation with the militaries of many countries and has provided epidemic control supplies to the militaries of more than 20 countries, including Malaysia," said Zhang. "Military-to-military relations are an important part of the overall bilateral ties," he said, adding "the two sides are committed to further enhance existing defense cooperation between the two countries and join hands in safeguarding regional peace and stability," he added. WASHINGTON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Health Coalition on Liability and Access (HCLA) today offered its support of S. 4317, the Safeguarding America's Frontline Employees To Offer Work Opportunities Required to Kickstart the Economy Act (SAFE TO WORK Act), introduced in the U.S. Senate by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). This legislation includes liability protections that will be considered as part of the next COVID-19 relief package. The SAFE TO WORK Act contains critical language protecting pandemic health care responders, and the facilities in which they work, from the unnecessary risk of medical liability lawsuits for acts or omissions arranging for or providing coronavirus-related health care services. This bill is necessary because healthcare professionals and facilities have put themselves at serious risk throughout the pandemic while facing workforce shortages, inadequate safety supplies, and changing guidance from federal, state, and local government officials. The SAFE TO WORK Act would cover coronavirus-related medical liability claims against healthcare providers retroactively to December 1, 2019, and continuing through the next five years. It would still allow damage awards in situations of gross negligence or willful misconduct, preserving the ability of plaintiffs to be compensated. "The patchwork of state laws and executive orders are insufficient to address the medical liability threat that is beginning to emerge for COVID-19 responders. As such, we call upon Congress to take the necessary steps to protect our healthcare system to ensure that patients have access to the care they need," said HCLA Chair Mike Stinson. "The HCLA is encouraged that these protections are a priority as Congressional leaders negotiate another round of pandemic relief legislation." For more details, visit www.hcla.org . The Health Coalition on Liability and Access is a national advocacy coalition representing physicians, hospitals, health care liability insurers, employers, health care providers and consumers. HCLA believes federal legislation is needed to bring fairness, timeliness and cost-effectiveness to America's medical liability system. SOURCE Health Coalition on Liability and Access Related Links http://www.hcla.org Press Release July 31, 2020 Bong Go calls for better internet connectivity to aid E-governance transition; urges telco companies to improve services, prioritize people's welfare Senator Christopher Lawrence "Bong" Go expressed his support to President Rodrigo Duterte's call to telecommunications companies to improve their services for Filipino consumers. The Senator said that improving internet connectivity will help in the transition to E-governance. "I urge the private sector to help government in uplifting the lives of Filipinos especially in these trying times. Now, more than ever, the people's welfare must be prioritized over profits for a few. Unahin po natin ang kapakanan at interes ng ordinaryong Pilipino," Go urged. During his State of the Nation Address, President Duterte demanded telecommunications companies to improve their services in the next months. The President also emphasized the need to maximize information and communications technology in order for the country to transition to E-governance and help the public adapt to E-commerce, E-learning and other online-based transactions that are crucial given the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to the people's regular activities. "Ang E-governance ay makakatulong upang maiwasan ang red tape, walang matutulog na dokumento, at walang mahabang pila na parusa sa taong bayan," Go said. "Tulad ng sabi ng Pangulo, panahon na para mawala ang pangangailangan na pumila para mapagsilbihan ng gobyerno," he added. Go explained that the Philippines still lags behind its neighbors when it comes to internet speed and access. Go cited the 2020 Inclusive Internet Index which reveals the country's sorry situation in terms of internet availability and affordability, among other indicators. "Kahit ako nga nahihirapan sa internet connection. 'Yung mga Senate sessions, hearings at meetings ngayon ay virtual na bilang pagsunod sa social distancing measures. Apektado ang trabaho kapag mabagal at hindi reliable ang ating internet connection," Go said. "Gandahan sana ang serbisyo pagdating sa access to the internet upang matulungan ang mga taong mamuhay sa panahon ng 'new normal'," he added. Go also decried the fact that even countries like Zimbabwe and war-torn Syria have faster internet speeds than the Philippines, as shown in the latest Speedtest Global Index study. He mentioned that for the country's learning continuity plan, as well as efforts to jumpstart the economy, to be a success, speedy and reliable internet connection is vital. The Senator also mentioned that the call of the President for government processes to transition to e-governance will require improvements in the country's internet quality, investments in ICT equipment, and the public's access and awareness in utilizing such technologies to improve their lives. Last July 27, Go filed a measure institutionalizing the transition of the government to e-governance in the digital age amid the current challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Senate Bill No. 1738, or the E-Governance Act of 2020, mandates the government to establish an integrated, interconnected, and interoperable information and resource-sharing and communications network spanning the entirety of the national and local government, an internal records management information system, an information database, and digital portals for the delivery of public services. Go reiterated the benefits of prioritizing the transition to e-governance platforms, saying that they will reduce red tape and corruption, and improve efficiency and productivity of government processes. "Having a transparent, efficient and responsive delivery of government services is key to reducing corruption and empowering the people to exact accountability from public servants," he emphasized. The measure likewise pushes for the digitization of paper-based and other traditional modes of workflows for a more efficient and transparent public service. "Dahil sa COVID-19, kinailangan mag-evolve ang mga transaksyon na normally ay kailangang face-to-face. Importante rin na ang gobyerno ay mag-transition na rin. We should adopt more efficient, responsive and modern ways of transacting with our citizens. This will effectively make the government more in tune to the changing times," the Senator explained. Meanwhile, Go commended the ongoing efforts of the Department of Information and Communications Technology to improve internet connectivity in the country, including the establishment of free wifi areas in public places nationwide. However, he lamented that more efforts must be done in order for the country to adapt to the new normal and improve public service delivery. "Let us work together to help our countrymen, specifically the working class, our youth, our business sector and all other Filipinos, who need to be able to utilize reliable and fast internet access and other ICTs, to improve their lives as we move forward towards a 'better normal' after this pandemic," he ended. Rajasthan Cong chief whip moves SC against HC order on MLAs disqualification process India pti-PTI New Delhi, July 31: Rajasthan Congress chief whip Mahesh Joshi on Friday moved the Supreme Court against High Court order of July 24 asking the assembly speaker to defer disqualification proceeding against sacked deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot and 18 MLAs. The chief whip has moved the top court two days after the assembly speaker CP Joshi filed the appeal against the July 24 Rajasthan High Court order. The plea filed through advocate Varun Chopra said that the High Court order is "ex-facie unconstitutional, illegal and in the teeth of the law laid down by this court in 1992 verdict in the case of Kihoto Hollohon". Rajasthan crisis: Ashok Gehlot says 'horse-trading rates are up as House session dates announced' The 1992 judgement had held that the speaker has the authority to decide the disqualification proceedings and judicial intervention in the process is "not permissible". India extends ban on International flights till August 31st | Oneindia News The Rajasthan Assembly Speaker On July 29 had moved the top court challenging the July 24 order of the high court which had directed maintenance of status quo on the disqualification notice issued to 19 dissident Congress MLAs, including sacked deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot. In his petition, Speaker C P Joshi, has sought stay on the Rajasthan High Court''s order contending that it is "ex-facie unconstitutional" and is a "direct intrusion" into the domain exclusively reserved for the Speaker under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. The Speaker's plea, settled by senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha, has also sought stay on further proceedings in the matter pending before the High Court. The Speaker's plea, filed through advocate Sunil Fernandes, claimed that the high court's order is a "direct interference" in the 'proceedings of the House'' under the Tenth Schedule which is prohibited under Article 212 of the Constitution. On July 27, the top court had allowed the Assembly Speaker to withdraw his plea against the high court''s July 21 order asking him to defer till July 24 the disqualification proceedings against these MLAs. The assembly Speaker had issued the notice to these MLAs on July 14 after the ruling Congress had complained to him that the legislators had defied a whip to attend two legislature party meetings. The high court had passed the order on the plea filed by these MLAs who have challenged the disqualification notice issued to them. Eid Qurban, Qurban Bayarami, Eid ul-Adha (also written as Eid al-Adha) or Bakrid, are all the names for the Feast of the Sacrifice. Bakrid is the second of the two major Islamic holidays observed around the world. Eid al-Fitr, popularly known as Eid or Ramadan Eid falls in the month of May/June every year. It marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan where Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, recite the Holy Quran, and offer prayers to Allah. Iftar is the meal consumed after evening prayers or Maghrib. Eid al-Adha falls on the tenth day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the twelfth month as per the Islamic calendar. Muslims around the world offer prayers at the mosque once the sun has completely risen and as it enters midday (the Zuhr time). The prayer is followed by a sermon by the Imam. This year, Saudi Arabia is celebrating Eid al-Adha on July 31. According to Delhis Jama Masjids Shahi Imam, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, India will celebrate Eid a day later on August 1. Kerala, however, is celebrating the festival (known as Bali Perunnal) along with Saudi Arabia on July 31. Eid al-Adha is the celebration of Ibrahim and Ismaels love for Allah. The sacrifice is meant to be a gesture to show that one is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to prove his love and devotion for the Almighty. Eid al-Adha celebrations are not complete without a feast consisting of tasty food, rituals, decorations and more. Mehndi application is one of the most important customs of the festivities. Mehndi in various designs adds beauty to the entire essence of Eid celebrations. Mehndi is said to have been a part of our culture and traditional practices for centuries. When henna is applied on the hands, it helps the body to relax and keeps the nerve-endings cool, preventing stress. Mehndi leaves are antiseptic in nature and so, highly effective in treating fungal and bacterial skin infections. Instagram is a hub for beautiful designs shared by mehndi artists sharing process, patterns, how to go about it and more. Take a look and get inspired: You can also opt for mehndi tattoos and glitter stickers incase the traditional method is time-consuming for you. Mix and match patterns for quirky looks and give traditional henna designs a creative twist! Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter We should consider a public safety auditor for Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD). Mayor Joe Hogsett, depending on your view, either famously or infamously suggested he would be the public safety director and having one other than him was merely another layer of bureaucracy that allowed politicians to blame someone else for public safety failures. When we look at the data on public safety for the Hogsett administration, we have to acknowledge perhaps a surprising reality for some overall crime has been going down. From 2016 to 2018 there has been a -1%, -8% and -4% overall crimes rates, respectively. In fact, even now the citys preliminary numbers suggest overall property crime is down 12%, violent crime is down 9% and overall crime is down 11%. The truth is Hogsett has technically been a good public safety director. Yet, youd be hard pressed to find too many people in Black neighborhoods who would believe crime rates are improving instead of deteriorating. Twice within the same aforementioned time period we had over 100 Black males murdered in the city. And at 52% of use of force incidents, the Black community hasnt felt these declines and is rightly calling for change. Black Indianapolis exists in a fundamentally different social and economic reality situation a problem that the current administration seems to struggle with at a policy level. We are making great strides on police reform. Perhaps the most promising statistic was that between 2014 and 2019 there was a 95% reduction in policeaction shootings an achievement that IMPD, community leaders and grassroots activists should appreciate and try to understand what caused the decline. A new useofforce policy and useofforce board, which I expect will have majority citizen participation is coming. The citycounty council is looking at adding citizens to the general orders committee. We will have body worn cameras within a matter of weeks. At the next citycounty council meeting there will be a vote on an Indianapolis Commission on African American Males. There has been quite a bit of community led activity. In order to safeguard hard fought wins more than a public safety director, the city might be better served by a public safety auditor. There have been a number of promises that were long delayed in their execution and there are still outstanding issues. The AACI has had to be an accountability partner on reviewing police action shootings. There are concerns that the IMPD Accident Review Board has yet to convene in the last several years. The community knows that a report was produced by the IMPD Office of Diversity and Inclusion, but it hasnt been made public going on a couple of years now. A public safety auditor who had the ability to review all police policies, complaints and just make sure promises happened while reporting directly to the chief would cut through red tape of bureaucratic procedures. Conceptually, they wouldve fought for the many police reforms that were promised and maybe only halfway delivered. They might also compel IMPD to develop a community violence plan for the year as opposed to the summer that directly connects with the Black community. Black leaders have not really been engaged by the city like they should be on public safety. The fights for obvious reforms have undermined credibility in city leadership. If it takes four years to get things done, and when you get them its only halfway done why even trust the process? A secret not widely shared is that research shows citizens defer to officers quite a bit even on citizen oversight boards. We need these boards for legitimate oversight and the right citizens who seek justice and not a biased position either way but research shows this will not be a panacea. A public safety auditor empowered to do their job while remaining insulated from IMPD and mayoral and even citycounty council politics (perhaps a naive wish/dream) is one way to ensure the voice of the people is consistently heard even when we arent convened on any of the internal boards. Its another fighting chance. This must be said. We are in a moment where increasing the level of citizen oversight within a police department seems to be one of the main ways law enforcement can regain legitimacy in some segments of our community the greater irony is that at some point the absence of all of these citizen checks will signal true legitimacy and trust. And at the same time, the good beat officer who truly engages the community and knows the citizens on her beat will do the same thing whether all of the promised and coming reforms are fully implemented or not and ultimately it is the beat officer that will make us safer. Our reforms are not for the vast majority of the good and decent officers we have in this city, but rather the handful that ruin it for everyone and that includes officers who do not break the blue line to get bad officers out of IMPD. The US recorded nearly 25,000 coronavirus deaths in July and cases doubled in at least 18 states as the pandemic's epicenter starts to shift to the Midwest. Deaths rose at least 19 percent in July compared to June to more than 152,000 total and nearly 1.8 million new cases were recorded out of the total 4.4 million, an increase of 66 percent in comparison with last month On July 16, the country also shattered single-day global records when it reported more than 77,000 new cases. During the month, 33 out of 50 states had one-day record increases in cases and 19 set records for how much deaths rose in 24 hours, according to a Reuters tally. Meanwhile, as former hotspot states such as New York and New Jersey report record-lows, Middle America is becoming the new hotspot with cases surging in states such as Ohio and Missouri. In July, coronavirus deaths rose by at least 19% with more than 25,000 fatalities alone recorded across the US Cases also rose by 1.8 million, an increase of 66%, as the pandemic's epicenter shifts to Midwestern states Cases also more than doubled in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, according to the tally. Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York - once the nation's epicenter -had the lowest increases, with cases rising seven percent or less. The epicenter has now showed signs of shifting to the Midwest while Sunbelt states were hopeful that new infections and deaths were starting to decline. Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force response coordinator, told Fox & Friends on Thursday that governors in these states should issue mask mandates. She specifically mentioned Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Tennessee as all showing indicators of rising cases. However, Birx said it's likely 'because of vacations and other reasons of travel' such as visitors to these states from the South. Of the above states, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Tennessee, do not have statewide mask orders. 'We believe if the governors and mayors of every locality right now would mandate masks for their communities and every American would wear a mask and socially distance and not congregate in large settings where you can't socially distance or wear a mask, that we can really get control of this virus and drive down cases,' Birx said. Ohio recorded its highest single-day increase in infections s with 1,733 cases for a total of 89,626 in addition to 40 deaths for a total of 3,442 In Tennessee, 4,333 cases were reported for a total of 102,871 infections as well as 13 deaths, bringing the total of fatalities to 1,033 More than 2,000 new cases were recorded in Missouri on Thursday, a record-high for the state for a total of 45,533 and 13 deaths for a total of 1,233 On Thursday, Ohio's health department reported that the state had seen its highest single-day increase in infections since the pandemic started in January with 1,733 cases. The states's previous record was 1,679 new cases on July 17. Ohio set a one-day record for new coronavirus cases, Gov. Mike DeWine said Thursday. What's more, of the 10 highest numbers of daily cases in Ohio, nine have come in the past three weeks, according to Governor Mike DeWine. 'That's certainly not good news,' he said at a press conference. Additionally, on Tuesday, Ohio reported 1,122 COVID-19 hospitalizations, the highest since late April when 1,103 patients were hospitalized, reported Fox 8 News. Tennessee, another hotspot, currently leads the US in percentage of cases among people under age 18. According to a report published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, The Volunteer State has 13,264 pediatric cases, making up 15.7% of the total cases. Fox 17 reported that Tennessee is one of several states in the 'red zone' for coronavirus, according to Birx. She said '100 percent' of Tennessee counties need to implement a mask mandate to control coronavirus but only 70 percent have. Both California (left) and Texas (right) seem to be stabilizing with cases but saw record-high deaths on Thursday with 391 and 322, respectively Meanwhile, in Missouri, more than 2,000 new cases were recorded on Thursday, a record-high for the state and the third day in the row the state has broke its record high. In fact, the state has broke its total case record seven times over the last 11 days, reported KMOV 4. Missouri added more than 27,000 cases in July, which makes up for 55 percent of the state's total and is an increase of more than 200 percent from the all cases reported in June. After a rapid acceleration in cases, the outbreak appears to be stabilizing in Arizona, Florida and Texas. However, deaths have continued to rise. Over the last week, the average number of deaths per day spiked from 843 to 1,057, more than 25 percent. Arizona recorded a daily high in coronavirus deaths at 172, Florida reported 253 more deaths - third straight single-day record and Texas had 322 new fatalities. SpaceX Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk, has mocked Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates. The duo, both billionaires, are lashing ou... SpaceX Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk, has mocked Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates. The duo, both billionaires, are lashing out at each other over differing stances on the COVID-19 pandemic. On Thursday, he tweeted: The rumor that Bill Gates & I are lovers is completely untrue. His reaction was sequel to Gates advise that Elon should focus on cars and rockets. The tech guru told Musk not to involve himself in areas he has no knowledge of. Earlier, Musk spoke against some of the restrictions put in place by governments. The Tesla CEO called Californias stay-at-home order fascist. Musk said there are a ridiculous number of false positive COVID-19 tests, in some cases, 50%. He tweeted: False positives scale linearly with number of tests. This is a big part of why COVID-19 positive tests are going up while hospitalizations and mortality are declining. Anyone who tests positive should retest. Speaking to CNBC, Gates stated that Elons positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments. Hes not much involved in vaccines. He makes a great electric car. And his rockets work well. So hes allowed to say these things. I hope that he doesnt confuse areas hes not involved in too much. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday strongly condemned US sanctions on the Iranian nation as "a grave crime." "The sanctions the Americans have exerted against the Iranian nation are for sure a grave crime," Khamenei said in a televised speech on the occasion of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha. "Although the sanctions seem to be against the (Islamic) establishment, it is indeed against the entire nation," he noted. In the short term, their pressure aims to exhaust and disturb the Iranian nation and to make the nation stand against the Islamic establishment, he said. Their next major goal is to prevent Iran's development through sanctions, the Iranian top leader added. The United States seeks to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear industry, reduce its defensive capability and give up its regional influence, Khamenei concluded. Search Keywords: Short link: More youth are dying of suicide, overdose than COVID-19 during pandemic: CDC director COVID-19 has put country in 'state of chronic stress,' suicide prevention advocate says Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Suicide and drug overdoses are killing more young people than COVID-19 as the two pre-existing epidemics have been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield warns. In an interview with the Buck Institute for Research on Aging earlier this month, Redfield laid out that suicide and drug overdose have claimed more young lives during the pandemic than COVID-19, a disease that has been attributed to thousands of deaths nationwide this year. "We're seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID, Redfield explained. We're seeing far greater deaths from drug overdose that are above the excess that we had as background than we are seeing the deaths from COVID. A June survey from The Addiction Policy Forum reported a 20% increase in substance abuse with 34% of respondents experiencing a change in their treatment and recovery due to the pandemic. The American Medical Association also voiced concern in a July 20 report stating that over 35 states have reported increases in opioid-related mortality as well as ongoing concerns for those with a mental illness or substance use disorder. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 34 in the United States, second only to unintentional injury, according to the CDC. Suicide took the lives of nearly 15,000 people within that age bracket in 2018, CDC data suggests. Last year, the public health institute reported that the suicide rate for kids 10 to 14 has nearly tripled in the last decade while the suicide rate among older teenagers has increased by 76%. In his July 14 interview, Redfield emphasized the absence of schools for the increase in suicides, overdoses and general mental health difficulties faced by young people during the pandemic. He also said resources to combat these problems have been overworked by COVID-19 or are too dangerous to access. You know, a lot of kids get their mental health services, over 7 million, in school, Redfield explained. A lot of people get food and nutrition in schools. Schools are really important in terms of mandatory reporting of sexual and child abuse. Obviously, socialization is important. Redfield said that the "cost to our nation in continuing to keep these schools closed is substantial." Susan Tellone, the clinical director at The Society for Prevention of Teen Suicide in New Jersey, told The Christian Post that there is an increased concern surrounding suicide and overdose, most of which has come from virus-induced chronic stress. All people experience acute stress, which is a short-term feeling that is not always negative, she said. Chronic stress, though, is ongoing stress that lasts months to years and can lead to an increase in mental health issues like depression. The increase in the U.S. is caused in part by widespread chronic stress, Tellone said. COVID has put all the country, not just youth, in a state of chronic stress, she explained. Thats been across the board. Ive been saying were all in the same storm, but in different boats. According to Tellone, people are experiencing stress in different ways. While some are heavily impacted by physical isolation, others feel the stress from financial burdens or loss of work. For young people, the pandemic has provided a variety of losses. High school seniors have lost the opportunity to partake in graduation ceremonies and milestones. Social interactions have changed form during the virus, which has become a difficult transition for some. Some are stuck in toxic environments where theyre around domestic, substance or sexual abuse, Tellone stated. Its the uncertainty that creates this stress. You cant make plans or know the future. Theres not an end in sight and it is getting to feel exhausting for some people. This is not true for all young people, though. Some young people have enjoyed doing school work from home and have felt less pressure since COVID-19 began, which Tellone defined as a mixed bag of reactions toward COVID-19 closures. Despite the increased demand for mental health resources to combat the increased suicides and overdoses, Tellone said the virus presents an opportunity to end the stigma of talking about mental health. She believes this could lead to further advancements in study and treatment. Because we know mental health is going to be an issue, we could all understand that if you dont have financial means there is still help, she said. Its an opportunity to recognize that mental health is as important as physical health. SEOUL (Reuters) - LG Chem, an electric vehicle battery supplier for Tesla, Volkswagen and others, said on Friday it expects profitability in its battery business to rise in the second half, helping shares surge nearly 10%. "Sales are expected to grow and profitability is expected to remain robust thanks to greater EV shipments for European automakers and increased sales for cylindrical EV batteries," LG Chem said. The company did not mention Tesla, but it supplies small cylindrical-type batteries for the carmaker's China models. LG Chem's energy solutions division, which makes batteries for smartphones and cars, swung to an operating profit in the second quarter, partly due to improved productivity at its Poland factory which caters to European customers like Volkswagen and Audi. LG Chem said its factory utilization rates have normalized starting May after the coronavirus outbreak had led to temporary factory suspensions at automakers in the U.S. and Europe. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the company would expand its business with Panasonic, CATL and LG Chem, adding that the real limitation to it's growth is battery cell production at an affordable price. Musk said Tesla's Shanghai factories will produce some Model 3 sedans with the so-called lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries in volume starting later this year. LG Chem said its batteries have an edge over the cheaper, LFP batteries from Chinese rival and Tesla supplier CATL, saying the latter's lower energy density makes it difficult to be used for longer-range, large cars. "The LFP batteries can be used in relatively short-range cars which are sensitive to prices... We believe that our nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) batteries can be mainstream globally," said Chang Seung-se, senior vice president at LG Chem, referring to its nickel-based batteries. LG Chem, however, said it is trying to "catch up" with LFP batteries in terms of cost competitiveness. (Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Heekyong Yang; Additional reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Stephen Coates and Krishna Chandra Eluri) President Trumps suggestion that the November election be delayed drew an assurance Thursday from Northampton Countys top elected official that the election will happen as planned in the county. County Executive Lamont McClure offered the assurance in a statement on Facebook. Please dont be confused., the Democrat wrote. We will be voting in Northampton County in November. Irrespective of how it turns out; I promise, in our County the count will be fair, legal and accurate. Please dont be confused. We will be voting in Northampton County in November. Irrespective of how it turns out; I promise, in our County the count will be fair, legal and accurate. Posted by Lamont McClure Jr on Thursday, July 30, 2020 U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, the Republican from the Lehigh Valley, also expressed his commitment to a November election, the Wall Street Journal reported. I do not support moving the presidential election and the president does not have the unilateral authority to do so. However the president is right to point out that universally mailing ballots to people who dont request them...would likely lead to voter fraud, Toomey said, per a tweet by Journal reporter Lindsay Wise on Thursday. Sen. @PatToomey: "I do not support moving the presidential election and the president does not have the unilateral authority to do so. However the president is right to point out that universally mailing ballots to people who don't request them...would likely lead to voter fraud" Lindsay Wise (@lindsaywise) July 30, 2020 The reaction came just hours after Trump, lagging in the polls and grappling with deepening economic and public health crises, floated the startling idea of delaying the Nov. 3 presidential election. The notion drew immediate pushback from Democrats and Republicans alike in a nation that has held itself up as a beacon to the world for its history of peaceful transfer of power. Trump suggested the delay as he pushed unsubstantiated allegations that increased mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic would result in fraud. But shifting Election Day is virtually impossible and the very idea represented another bracing attempt by Trump to undermine confidence in the American political system. The date of the presidential election the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in every fourth year is enshrined in federal law and would require an act of Congress to change. In addition to Toomey, other top Republicans in Congress quickly rebuffed Trumps suggestion. Trumps tweet came just minutes after the government reported that the U.S. economy shrank at a dizzying 32.9% annual rate in the April-June quarter, by far the worst quarterly plunge ever, as the coronavirus outbreak shut down businesses, threw tens of millions out of work and sent unemployment surging to 14.7%. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com. Even as the Punjab Police and the excise department launched a crackdown, illicit liquor trade continues to be rampant in Majha. The lockdown has seen a spike in trade with the excise department recovering more than 6 lakh litres of lahan (raw material used for making illicit liquor) in four districts Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur and Pathankot during the past four months. The number of cases registered have been 1,196 in 120-odd days or around 10 cases a day. I havent seen such huge recoveries during my three decades with the department, said a senior officer of the department in Amritsar, on the condition of anonymity. He added the spurt in illicit liquor trade resulted with the liquor in shops getting dearer and increase in unemployment due to the lockdown. Amritsars rural areas and Tarn Tarans Mand areas, situated near the river beds of Sutlej and Beas, are major locations where illicit liquor is made. In July, an excise department team had recovered 2.5 lakh litres of lahan kept in 18 drums and 1,600 bottles of illicit liquor in the Mand area. Roshan Lal, sarpanch of Harike village, said, There are some villages on the Sutlej and Beas riverbeds, where the mafia still produce illicit liquor. These villages include Marad, Kirian, Gharka, Chamba and Kambo. Mohinder Singh of Chamba village said, Mafia men stop producing illicit liquor only police conduct raids, and that too for a day or two. Harikrishan Arora, a social activist in Tarn Taran, said, One can purchase country-made illicit liquor from any locality of the city. Police started acting only after May, when the Punjab CM ordered a crackdown on illicit liquor mafia. Patti deputy superintendent of police Kuljeet Singh said, Liquor mafia men dig a pit along the riverbed, spread a tarpaulin and mix raw ingredients of illicit liquor in it. Our area is free of the menace. 50% CASES REGISTERED IN AMRITSAR Data that HT has accessed from the department shows 590 cases were registered in Amritsar, with the recovery of 75,500 litres of Lahan, 7,500 bottles of illicit liquor and 1,300 bottles of PML (Punjab made liquor) and IMFL (Indian made foreign liquor). The department registered 29 cases in Tarn Taran district and recovered around 4.6 lakh litre of Lahan and 2,000 litre of illicit liquor. In Gurdaspur and Pathankot districts, the department has recovered 70,907 litres of Lahan, 9,638 litres of illicit liquor and 1,496 litres of illicit liquor. The recovery during the lockdown this year is more than the recovery made during the last one year, said excise and taxation officer (ETO), Gurdaspur, Lavinder Singh Brar, adding, People were sitting idle at home and decided to produce home-made liquor than purchasing it from liquor shops. We had strict instructions to check the trade. The cases of the excise department are different from those which have been registered by the police on its own. Joint operations are also carried out. Eight Chinese nationals who allegedly entered Vietnam illegally were caught while taking a walk through a park in Ho Chi Minh City, according to local police. A team of officers in Ward 2, Tan Binh District were conducting a patrol at Hoang Van Thu Park on Thursday morning when they noticed six men and two women they suspected to be foreigners. The team performed an administrative check and found that only six members of the group had passports, none of which contained entry stamps. The entire group was brought to quarantine facility at No. 3 Nguyen Hien Le Street in Tan Binh District. Preliminary information showed that the eight Chinese nationals had entered northern Vietnam illegally before traveling to Ho Chi Minh City by car in order to seek out employment. On the same day, authorities in Tan Phu District also discovered 11 Chinese who had illegally crossed the border into Vietnam. They were later quarantined at No. 28 Che Lan Vien Street in Tan Phu District. On Wednesday, a separate group of 11 Chinese suspected of having entered Vietnam illegally was discovered at a condominium in Binh Thanh District. The Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control said on Wednesday that 38 cases of illegal entry have been detected in the southern metropolis since May. Since then, at least 30 more cases of illegal arrivals have been found and quarantined. Vietnam has recorded 93 community-based cases, all traced back to the central city of Da Nang, since Saturday last week, according to a Tuoi Tre News count. These cases followed a 99-day period without a single community transmission in the Southeast Asian country. Among the new cases, two were diagnosed in Ho Chi Minh City. The countrys COVID-19 tally sits at 509, with 373 having recovered as of Friday afternoon. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! YEREVAN. The information that I had a meeting with Robert Kocharyan has already been dismissed. But I do not rule out the possibility of a meeting with all political forces and individuals in the near futureincluding with [ex-Presidents] Robert Kocharyan, Serzh Sargsyan, and Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Artur Vanetsyan, former Director of the National Security Service (NSS) of Armenia and chairman of the opposition Homeland Party, mentioned this in a conversation with journalists Friday after leaving the NSS building. To the remark that when he was the director of the NSS he had accused the representatives of the former authoritiesincluding Kocharyanof corruption and overthrowing the constitutional order, Vanetsyan responded: "Political processes assume meetings with all political forces and individuals." And to the remark that Robert Kocharyan said that he did not rule out that the people could change power in Armenia by blocking the streets for the second time, Artur Vanetsyan responded: "I am definitely convinced that there will be very active political processes in the near future, during which we will see the developments that will take place. In fact, the country is in a very complicated, dire situation." Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 21:47:50|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close HELSINKI, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Finland-based network equipment manufacturer Nokia said on Friday it had improved its profitability in April-June 2020, though there was a drop in its Q2 net sales. According to the report published by Nokia on Friday, its net sales in Q2 2020 amounted to 5.1 billion euros (6.04 billion U.S. dollars), down by 11 percent year on year, while its operating profit in Q2 was 423 million euros, compared to 451 million euros of Q2 2019. However, Nokia Networks sector has made an excellent performance in Q2 2020. Although net sales of Networks declined by 10 percent year-on-year to 3.96 billion euros, its operating profit up by 109 percent to 249 million euros. Rajeev Suri, President and CEO of Nokia, said in the report that profitability gains in the quarter were supported by a 4.5 percentage point year-on-year improvement in Networks gross margin, building on a 3.5 percentage point gain in the first quarter, and driving Nokia non-IFRS gross margin to 39.6 percent. "Nokia Enterprise also grew year-on-year constant currency sales by 18 percent compared to one year ago and expanded margins," he added. Nokia delivered a strong improvement in Q2, with better-than-expected profitability, significant improvement in cash generation, clear indications of a return to strength in mobile radio, and a year-on-year increase in earnings-per-share, despite the challenges of COVID-19, noted Suri. "These results show that our execution has improved as planned and that we are well-positioned to end the year with a significantly stronger financial position," he said. Suri said the Nokia-level decline in the revenue was mainly driven by COVID-19 pandemic, adding that "we expect that the majority of sales missed in the quarter due to COVID-19 will shift to future periods." Suri said Nokia now has 83 deals for 5G. He noted that shipments of Nokia's 5G powered by ReefShark had continued to increase. Analyst Mikael Rautanen on Friday told Finnish business daily Kauppalehti that the positive cash flow vistas of Nokia are promising, but underlined that the increased profitability at Nokia has been attained through savings. Nokia has taken steps to reduce the volume of low margin services worldwide. Rautanen also noted that Nokia is losing market shares. "Increased profitability has been attained at the expense of market shares," he was quoted by Kauppalehti as saying. Nokia also improved its estimate of profitability, saying that the non-IFRS operating margin could stand at 9.5 percent for the full year of 2020, adjusted from 9.0 percent of earlier estimate. Commentators in Finland noted the change is minute, but indicates that challenges have diminished. Nokia stock started rising quickly in the Helsinki stock exchange. As of midday, it had added 13.8 percent and marked the largest single-day increase in Nokia since 2013, Kauppalehti reported. This was the last quarter report under Rajeev Suri's tenure. Pekka Lundmark will take over as the company's president and CEO on Saturday. Enditem Associated Press Accusing the United States of hostility and threats, North Korea on Thursday said it will consider restarting all temporally-suspended activities it had paused during its diplomacy with the Trump administration, in an apparent threat to resume testing of nuclear explosives and long-range missiles. Officials gave instructions to reconsider in an overall scale the trust-building measures that we took on our own initiative and to promptly examine the issue of restarting all temporally-suspended activities, the KCNA said. Experts say Kim is reviving an old playbook of brinkmanship to extract concessions from Washington and neighbors as he grapples with a decaying economy crippled by the pandemic, mismanagement and U.S.-led sanctions over his nuclear ambitions. VANCOUVER - Documents from lawyers for Canada's attorney general say a series of witnesses will prove Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou lied to HSBC bank about the company's relationship's with Skycom in Iran. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, leaves her home to go to B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, Wednesday, January 22, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward VANCOUVER - Documents from lawyers for Canada's attorney general say a series of witnesses will prove Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou lied to HSBC bank about the company's relationship's with Skycom in Iran. The documents released Friday are the government's arguments to be used during a hearing next April and they say there's enough to prove fraud in support of Meng's extradition to the United States. The documents say witnesses, including former employees of Huawei, FBI investigators and officials with HSBC the bank at the centre of the allegations will say Meng falsely said Huawei didn't control Skycom. Meng was arrested at Vancouver's airport on a request from the United States over allegations both she and Huawei broke American sanctions against Iran, accusations both have denied. The documents say witnesses will tell the court Meng reassured a senior HSBC executive that Skycom was a local partner of Huawei's and that the Chinese company had divested any shares in the company in Iran. Hours after that meeting, Huawei announced it had received a $1.5-billion loan from a group of international banks with HSBC was the principal lender. A few days later, the unnamed witness emailed other senior HSBC personnel, "stating that 'Everything appears to be above board,' 'Huawei has stated that it complies with all laws and sanctions,' and 'I'm pretty much reassured,'" the documents say. The HSBC risk committee responsible for the Asia-Pacific region met in Hong Kong and considered that Huawei advised HSBC that its shares in Skycom were sold in 2009 and Meng resigned her position on the board in the same year, the documents say. "The evidence demonstrates that Ms. Meng deliberately made dishonest representations to HSBC in an attempt to preserve Huawei's relationship with the bank, knowing that in so doing, HSBC would be exposed to risk of economic loss." The evidence establishes fraud and is enough to extradite Meng to the United States, the documents say. Meng's arrest has generated increasing friction between Canada and China. China's arrests of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor and subsequent allegations of spying are widely seen as attempts by China to pressure Canada to release Meng. Her lawyers have accused U.S. President Donald Trump of poisoning the extradition case against Meng with his interference and attempt to use her as a "bargaining chip" in the trade dispute between the U.S. and China. The documents released Friday will be used during the committal hearing planned for April 2021. Before that, there will be other legal arguments, including a hearing next February where Meng's lawyers will argue that she was subject to an abuse of process during her arrest in December 2018. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2020. President Rodrigo Duterte says cases of the virus remain too high for restrictions to be eased. President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday extended restrictions in the Philippines capital Manila until mid-August because of the continued high number of coronavirus cases, and said the government would work with the military to distribute a vaccine for the virus once it became available. The Philippines this month recorded Southeast Asias biggest daily jump in coronavirus deaths and biggest single-day increase in confirmed infections. The capital and areas around it have been under some form of lockdown for months. My plea is to endure some more. Many have been infected, Duterte said in a prerecorded television address that was broadcast on Friday morning. Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the administration was looking to be more innovative in its response to the epidemic and would consider imposing strict localised lockdowns in neighbourhoods with a high concentration of cases. Duterte said his government would work with the military to distribute vaccines, which he promised would be free if they became available by late this year, The poor would have priority and the Philippines would be given precedence by China in any vaccine distribution, he said. Several pharmaceutical companies from China, the United States and the United Kingdom are conducting late-stage trials on vaccines. The Philippines planned to buy 40 million doses worth $400m for 20 million people, around a fifth of the countrys 107 million population, said Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez. Once the vaccine is available I am sure can fully open, Dominguez said. The Philippines has Southeast Asias second-highest number of coronavirus infections after Indonesia, with cases jumping nearly fivefold to 89,374 and deaths more than doubling to 1,983 since a tough lockdown was eased in June. This year's celebrations for the Eid al-Adha festival have been affected by restrictions put in place to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Under normal circumstances, Muslim families and friends would gather to pray together and share meals, but the pandemic has altered the way this Islamic tradition is observed. In Kenyas capital, Nairobi, the streets are empty, reflecting a shadow of its former self, according to the countrys Standard newspaper. There are no groups of women and children moving about excited to buy new clothes and supplies for the festival, the newspaper reports. Many mosques in the country have suspended prayer meetings due to strict government orders to control the spread of the virus. In Nigeria, which has the largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa, the police have asked people to comply with the ban on all mass socio-religious gathering. Eid al-Adha, which means Feast of the Sacrifice in Arabic, remembers Prophet Ibrahims willingness to sacrifice his son when God ordered him to. The World Health Organization has urged African governments to prohibit large gatherings associated with Eid rituals. The Eid celebrations coincide with the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, where the number of pilgrims - usually around two million - has been limited to 10,000 this year. Source: BBC Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Nordstrom says that it will lay off some employees, as its sales struggle amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has dampened consumer spending and battered the U.S. economy. "While our hope was to bring back every one of our employees as our stores reopened,'' the retailer said in a statement Thursday, "based on our needs today, and what we anticipate our needs being in the future, we must adjust the size of our store sales force.'' Nordstrom did not specify how many positions would be cut. The retailer shuttered its storefronts in mid-March, as Americans hunkered down at home and businesses closed throughout the U.S. to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Even though many of its employees have since been able to return to work, "COVID-19 has had an impact on our business,'' Nordstrom said. The company has also cut the pay of many executives and adjusted payment terms for its suppliers to weather the current downturn. Nordstrom is working to help make masks during this uncertain time. Retail has been particularly hard hit during the pandemic as storefronts tentatively reopen and wary consumers watch their budgets at a time when millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Chains like J.C. Penney, already struggling with listless sales and shrinking foot traffic amid competition from e-commerce giants like Amazon were knocked over the edge after they were forced to temporarily close stores in the spring. Ascena Retail Group, Lucky Brand, Neiman Marcus, J. Crew and J.C. Penney are among the retailers who have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since May. Unemployment claims continue to climb: More Americans file for unemployment as extra $600 benefit ends and COVID-19 surges US hits grim record: US economy contracted record 32.9% in Q2 amid state shutdowns, COVID-19 contagion fears As many as 25,000 stores could close this year as the sector struggles to regain its footing amid the ongoing health crisis, according to a recent report from Coresight Research. Story continues Walmart said Thursday that it was also "streamlining some roles,'' though it attributed the cuts to ongoing efforts to become a more nimble organization. Because of "the economic uncertainty from this unprecedented pandemic,'' Walmart said, employees who are let go will be paid through the end of the fiscal year, which ends January 31. And the company is also "creating new roles, particularly in our supply chain, in our stores and in other facilities which will open up new opportunities.'' Follow Charisse Jones on Twitter @charissejones This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nordstrom to lay off workers as coronavirus continues to take toll This is an opinion column. Southern hospitality is dead, I think. If it ever lived. Probably just another myth, glazed with sorghum and honeysuckle and sweet, sweet magnolia. But there used to be an expectation, a smile and a nod to break the ice, to at least give the impression. Manners? We dont need no stinking manners. How else do you explain Alabama School Board Member Wayne Reynolds, who thought it a good idea to write She is gaining weight during a live streaming of Gov. Kay Iveys extension of the states Safer at Home order? Reynolds has made it clear that he doesnt like the governors education policies, which include re-opening schools but requiring all students to wear masks. So he went there. She looked heavy in that white suit, yes, he told AL.coms Howard Koplowitz in a phone interview after the live stream. I dont know what she weighs, I dont know how much she weighs, I just made an observation. I have an observation too: Aint enough sweet tea in Alabama to take the bitter notes off that one. Ivey its probably why people get mad when shes criticized responded in a more traditional Southern way, cutting with a blade her victim couldnt even feel until he was bleeding out on the floor: A lady never discusses her age or her figure a true gentleman doesnt either. Bless his heart. If its still pumping at all. Alabama State Board of Education member Wayne Reynolds said Gov. Kay Ivey "is gaining weight" during AL.com's live stream Wednesday of the governor's extension of the Safer at Home order. I know Southern hospitality was always a myth, a way to pour sugar on a world that divided people into classes and castes, that somehow used a friendly greeting to rationalize wrongs away. But there was pretense, at least. At least one-on-one. But its gone, in a wave of bravado and posturing, in a world where disagreement is an invitation to unleash the hounds. Its the example of our political leadership, of course, and social media, where subtlety is lost in a tweet. Still, I lament the loss, for feigned friendliness at least leaves the door open for conversation, and that might lead to compromise, or a little understanding. Maybe. I dont know. But I know the opposite is true. If you start with an insult, you get nothing but resistance. Nothing but an enemy. I felt for Good Day Alabama anchor Mike Dubberly this week. His father died, and was buried with honors at the U.S. Military National Cemetery in Jacksonville, Fla. He mentioned it on Twitter, and someone thought it appropriate to launch a rant about how Dubberly could honor his father by stopping the fake news and blah blah blah. Attack, attack, attack. Oh, and sorry for your loss. Dubberly shared it on Twitter with this comment: Literally, the dirt on my dads grave barely dried from being buried yesterday at the National Cemetery & I had to leave my distraught, grieving mother to make the 8-hour drive back home & I get this. What a gem. Thanks. I honor my father by trying to be a good human being. Literally, the dirt on my dads grave barely dried from being buried yesterday at the National Cemetery & I had to leave my distraught, grieving mother to make the 8-hour drive back home & I get this. What a gem. Thanks. I honor my father by trying to be a good human being. https://t.co/22rqJumc9K Mike Dubberly GDA (@MikeDubberlyGDA) July 29, 2020 Good for him. Maybe its not Southern hospitality thats dead. Maybe its just common decency. Hell, I fear Im becoming an authority on that subject. Lord knows Ive heard a lot of it over the years, but not like today. Just glancing over my email from the last couple of weeks, theres this: You are an ignorant dumbass. And this: Hey dumbass. And this: Youre a dumbass think for yourself retard (no punctuation). That was just the dumbass search. You dont want to hear about the one with that other word -- the one that starts with an F. But at least they didnt say I looked fat. Those kind of comments, as we sadly know, are usually reserved for women. Let Southern hospitality die with all the other myths, I guess. Why not just try to be decent? John Archibald, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a columnist for AL.com. His column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register, Birmingham Magazine and AL.com. Write him at jarchibald@al.com. To understand the roller coaster ride of the coronavirus economy, look at the experience of Russian River Brewing Company in Sonoma County, Calif. Before the pandemic, half the companys revenue came from retail sales: food and drink at its two brew pubs, tours and tastings at the brewery itself, in-person purchases of bottled beer. When California ordered restaurants to shut down in mid-March, all of that revenue disappeared. We were panicking for 48 hours, said Natalie Cilurzo, who owns Russian River with her husband, Vinnie. But after the panic passed, determination set in. They furloughed about 140 of their roughly 200 employees and cut the hours of many of the rest. They stopped kegging beer and started putting everything into bottles that they could sell in grocery stores. They began selling online. How a Pandemic Helped Expedias Vrbo Fix Its Google Problem What a difference seven months and a global pandemic make. If you recall, Expedia Group forced out CEO Mark Okerstrom last December, in part, because the company hadnt adapted to Google capturing a bunch of its lodging traffic. OK, you can debate whether a revenue decline in Expedia Groups Hotels, Media and Platform business in the third quarter of 2019 could truly be laid at Googles doorstep or whether much of the issue was Expedias lack of execution. But fast forward to Thursday, and one part of Expedia Groups lodging business, its Vrbo vacation rental brand, is thriving in the midst of the coronavirus calamity. Vrbo is extremely profitable in some respects, according to parent company CEO Peter Kern, because the whole-home vacation rental brand is thriving as travelers go directly to its websites to research and book. When you dont have to market much through Google and that has been Expedias achilles heel in recent years bookings can accrue more heavily to the bottom line. So the mix of business has been extremely profitable on a relative basis for Vrbo, and that has been terrific, Kern said during Thursdays earnings call about second quarter financial results, referring to the balance between direct traffic and visitors wooed through Google. Were not against using performance marketing in Vrbo, and we certainly are trying to use it diligently. But our mix and our returns on marketing are at massively higher levels than they we were historically running at in, call it, late 2019. When travel executives refer to performance marketing, they are largely referring to paid advertising through Google versus getting traffic from free links or travelers visiting their websites directly. SimilarWeb estimates that Vrbo currently gets about 83 percent of its traffic organically in other words for free and close to 17 percent through paid ads. Thats a major change for Vrbo, which suffered in 2019 when Expedia Group started phasing out its HomeAway vacation rental brand and transitioning it all to Vrbo, and its organic traffic fell through the floor. Story continues The free traffic boost for Vrbo in the second quarter began as many travel advertisers ceased paid marketing through search engines in March and April, for example. Delicate Paid Marketing Strategy for Vrbo Kern said Expedia Group didnt advertise much in March and April because of the pandemic but has been wading back in to performance marketing with all its brands. However, it has been advertising delicately with Vrbo because of all the free and direct traffic that Vrbo has been attracting. Kern said he is not opposed to using paid advertising for Vrbo, adding but I think the mix (of free versus paid advertising) is terrific right now. He said this is not necessarily a structural shift for Vrbo as it is too soon to tell. Vrbos propensity to benefit from direct traffic could change as competitors get healthier, Kern added. Hotels Versus Short-Term Rental As has been a phenomenon across much of the travel industry, short-term rentals have recovered faster than hotels as travelers tend to want to stay in non-urban destinations within driving distance and away from big-box, urban hotels. Kern said average daily rates are rising in vacation rentals, especially in compressed markets, while the hotel recovery is slower and discounting is more rampant. Simplifying Expedia Group Kern gave an update on Expedia Groups strategic drive to simplify the companys operations. He noted that performance marketing teams from the companys various brands have been integrated; the HomeAway brand will be phased out over the course of the next year; its CarRentals.com business in Europe has been folded into the Expedia brand; and the company shuttered its multifamily building short-term rental business. The company, Kern said, has cut its annual run rate by $400 million, and is on target to reach more than $500 million in cost cuts. In terms of its ability to survive the coronavirus crisis, Expedia Group reported that it had $5.5 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments at the end of June, and in July it raised an additional $1.5 billion. In the second quarter, Expedia Group notched a net loss of $753 million on revenue of $566 million, an 82 percent decline from the comparable period a year earlier. Kern said analysts should give too much weight to second quarter financials as they are not terribly telling. Subscribe to Skift newsletters for essential news about the business of travel. Most Americans now believe that President Trump will not accept the results of Novembers election if he loses to Joe Biden, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll and an even larger majority of Trump voters say they too will refuse to accept a narrow loss if mail-in ballots contribute to Bidens victory. In the midst of a pandemic that has seen many states expand their mail-in balloting systems to limit dangerous crowding on Election Day, the issue of postal voting took center stage Thursday when Trump escalated his months-long campaign to delegitimize the practice and possibly the election itself. 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history, the president tweeted, even though there is no evidence that mail-in voting would lead to widespread voter fraud and several states already conduct elections entirely by mail. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? The results of the latest Yahoo News/YouGov survey suggest that Trumps efforts to sow doubt about the validity of mail-in voting may be starting to have their desired effect. Asked whether Trump would accept the result if he loses in a close election this November, 52 percent of Americans say no. Only 25 percent say yes. Voters who support Trump, meanwhile, share their candidates unfounded suspicions about postal balloting, with a full 55 percent saying they would not accept the result if Biden wins because of an advantage in mail-in votes. Only 21 percent say they would accept a Biden victory under those circumstances. The survey, its worth noting, was conducted July 28 to 30, mostly before Trumps tweet about delaying the election. If anything, these gaps will likely widen in the wake of his incendiary suggestion. Among Biden voters, a mere 26 percent say they would not accept the results if the tables were turned and Trump won because of mail-in votes. Forty-seven percent say they would accept the results. Story continues Its unclear what not accepting the result of a U.S. presidential election would look like in practice. But at a minimum it could involve large numbers of Americans viewing Biden as an illegitimate president with Trumps encouragement. The previous Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that 54 percent of Trump voters said they are very worried about fraudulent postal voting, while 57 percent of Biden voters said they are not worried at all. Trumps preemptive push to invalidate a Biden win reflects a sobering reality for the president: If the election were held today, he would almost certainly lose. Biden leads Trump by 9 percentage points among registered voters, 49 percent to 40 percent; 94 percent of these voters say there is no chance they will change their mind. In the race for Congress, Democrats lead Republicans by 10 percentage points, 49 percent to 39 percent. With coronavirus menacing nearly every corner of the country and protests raging in Portland, Ore., and elsewhere, more than three-quarters of Americans (77 percent) say things currently are out of control. This does not redound to Trumps benefit: The number of Americans who say the incumbent president is the source of the chaos (46 percent) is 20 points higher than the number who say he will protect us from the chaos (26 percent). A protester screams at federal officers after they used tear gas and "less-lethal" weapons to disperse a protest on Thursday in Portland, Ore. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images) The perception of Trump as a national leader who makes matters worse rather than better is pervasive and no issue illustrates this more clearly than Portland. The Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows signs of eroding support for the protests that have roiled the country since the May 25 killing of George Floyd. In early June, Americans were divided over whether the protesters should stop protesting (44 percent) or keep protesting (42 percent); today, 47 percent of Americans want them to stop, while only 36 percent want them to continue. Black Lives Matter still receives a net favorable rating 47 percent favorable versus 43 percent unfavorable but it has contracted by 20 points since early June, when the split was 57 percent favorable to 33 percent unfavorable. Thirty-three percent of Americans now view the protests as mostly violent acts, up from 21 percent in early June. Fifty-seven percent say the protests have gone too far. And 59 percent say they are very or somewhat worried about a breakdown of law and order in American cities. In recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly attempted to capitalize on these worries; more registered voters now believe, for instance, that the president sent federal agents to Portland to bolster his law and order reelection campaign (49 percent) than believe he sent them to keep anarchists from destroying federal buildings (45 percent), his stated rationale. The problem for Trump is that his show of force is not working, either practically or politically. Forty-five percent of Americans say it was not necessary for the administration to send federal agents to Portland; just 38 percent say it was necessary. Forty-eight percent say federal agents have increased tensions in Portland; just 14 percent say they have lessened tensions. Forty-two percent say local police are best suited to handle situations like Portland; just 33 percent would prefer federal agents. Forty-five percent say the administration should not send federal agents to deal with protests in other cities; just 36 percent would support sending federal agents elsewhere. As a result, 44 percent say the country would become less safe if Trump wins reelection. Only 31 percent say the country would become safer. And more American people believe bringing people together will help get things under control (56 percent) than believe the same about law and order (44 percent). Trump supporters wait for Lara Trump in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, on July 22 during a stop on the Women for Trump bus tour. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images) Coronavirus is a similar story. Trumps approval rating for handling the pandemic now stands at its lowest level yet: 37 percent. Disapproval (57 percent) is at a high point. Despite the presidents recent return to the podium for regular COVID-19 briefings, the public has largely concluded that his disengaged, denialist approach to the virus is insufficient: 51 percent of Americans say Trump is not doing enough about the pandemic, compared with only 31 percent who say he is doing the right amount. (Six percent say the president is doing too much.) Just a quarter of the country (26 percent) approves of Trump promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine on Twitter; a majority (54 percent) disapproves. Asked who deserves more blame for the continuing spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. Trump or governors a plurality (42 percent to 31 percent) blames Trump more. A majority blames Trump (51 percent) more than China (31 percent). Forty-nine percent of registered voters say the coronavirus situation would have been better if Biden were president; only 30 percent say it would have been worse. Going forward, a majority of voters (51 percent) say Biden would do a better job handling the pandemic than Trump (30 percent). Polarization remains the defining force in U.S. politics, and Biden isnt held in particularly high esteem. More Americans think the former vice president says what he wants people to hear (47 percent) than what he believes (34 percent), and fewer see him as honest and trustworthy (36 percent) than not (42 percent). Only 19 percent say Biden cares a lot about people like them. Yet at the same time, 55 percent of Americans a number that rises to 58 percent among registered voters say the only thing Trump cares about is himself. Just 36 percent say the same about Biden. A wide majority of registered voters (56 percent) dislike Trump somewhat or a lot. In easier times, voters may have put more stock in the one leadership quality a majority of them say Trump possesses: audacity (57 percent). But today, amid multiple crises, that turns out to be the leadership quality they value the least, with just 31 percent describing it as very important right now. Instead, far more voters say taking responsibility (86 percent), competence (85 percent), honesty (84 percent) and empathy (64 percent) are very important. Trump trails Biden among registered voters in every category: by 12 points, 5 points, 11 points and 22 points, respectively. ____________ The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,506 U.S. adult residents interviewed online between July 28-30, 2020. This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education, as well as 2016 presidential vote, registration status, geographic region and news interest. Respondents were selected from YouGovs opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S residents. The margin of error is approximately 3.3 percent. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Last year saw a series of new high temperature records as climate change exerts 'an increasing impact' on the UK, the Met Office warned. The latest State Of The UK Climate review by the weather experts shows that 2019 was on average 1.1C hotter than long-term 1961-1990 levels. And the country's most recent decade has been 0.9C warmer than the 1961-1990 average, the report said. Last year was the most notable for breaking records, with the UK recording its hottest ever temperature at 38.7C (101.7F) on July 25. The latest State Of The UK Climate review by the Met Office had shown new high temperature records. Pictured: People enjoy the warm weather on Weymouth beach, Dorset, on July 29 And 2019 had the hottest winter day as temperatures reached 21.2C (70.2F) on February 26 in London the first time 20C (68F) has been reached in the UK in a winter month. The changing climate is also bringing other extremes such as flooding which has become more common. Met Office lead author Mike Kendon said: 'Our report shows climate change is exerting an increasing impact on the UK's climate. 'This year was warmer than any other year in the UK between 1884 and 1990, and since 2002 we have seen the warmest 10 years in the series. 'By contrast, to find a year in the coldest 10 we have to go back to 1963 - over 50 years ago.' Dr Mark McCarthy, head of the Met Office's National Climate Information Centre, said: 'The climate statistics over time reveal an undeniable warming trend for the UK. 'We are also reporting on changes in other aspects of our weather and environment, such as rainfall, snow, sunshine, sea level and even tree leafing dates. 'The observed changes are to varying degrees a consequence of both global climate change and natural variability in our climate.' The report includes data on the changing seasons in the natural world, gathered by the Woodland Trust's Nature's Calendar citizen science scheme. People enjoy the sizzling sun in Wandsworth Park in London on July 30 as temperatures continue to rise A group of people jog through a sunny Wimbledon Common on July 29 as sunshine returns It showed the dates for when a range of common shrubs and trees were particularly early in putting out their first leaves - on average 9.7 days earlier than the 1999-2018 baseline, as a result of relatively warm conditions in winter and early spring. The point at which trees were bare of leaves again in autumn was also slightly later than average. Darren Moorcroft, chief executive of the Woodland Trust, said: 'In response to the warm winter and mild spring temperatures, the first leaves appeared on trees nearly 10 days earlier in 2019, compared to our baseline period. 'Whilst this may not sound like much, research using these citizen science records has shown this can have dire impacts further down the food chain. 'Our trees, and all the wildlife they support, are on the front line of climate change and ultimately some species will be able to adapt better than others. 'This is a stark reminder of the need to take immediate action on climate change.' Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has released a video of him chuckling about 'mould' in his lungs, having spent weeks in isolation after catching coronavirus. Bolsonaro, 65, also said in his weekly Facebook live address that antibiotics he has been taking for an undisclosed illness have left him feeling weak. Yesterday, his wife, Michelle, tested positive for coronavirus according to a statement form the presidential palace. Bolsonaro also spent yesterday visiting the city of Sao Raimundo Nonato, in the state of Piaui, and was due to visit the southern Rio Grande do Sul state today. President Bolsonaro's health problems have not stopped him returning to work duties. He visited the city of Sao Raimundo Nonato, in the state of Piaui, on Thursday. And today he is due southern Rio Grande do Sul state today President Bolsonaro's (right) latest update on his health comes as his wife Michelle, 38, (left) has now tested positive for coronavirus. She is in good health and will follow all established protocols,' the president's office has said President Jair Bolsonaro, having now tested negative for coronavirus, said in Facebook live video 'after 20 days indoors, I have other problems. I have mould in my lungs'. Pictured at a press conference on March 18 'I just did a blood test. I was feeling kind of weak yesterday. They found a bit of infection also. Now I'm on antibiotics,' Bolsonaro said in the livestream video, without elaborating on the infection. 'After 20 days indoors, I have other problems. I have mould in my lungs,' he said, referring to nearly three weeks he spent at the official presidential residence. He tested positive for the coronavirus on July 7 and then negative last Saturday. Along with his wife, Science and Technology Minister Marcos Pontes also said he had tested positive for the virus, making him the fifth cabinet minister diagnosed publicly. Bolsonaro has faced criticism for his handling of the pandemic as Brazil has surged to become the country with the second-highest number of infections and deaths in the world, after the United States: more than 2.5 million and 91,000, respectively. The latest figures show that Brazil saw 57,837 new coronavirus cases recorded on July 30, along with 1,129 deaths. President Bolsonaro (centre) has come under criticism for his handling of the coronavirus situation. He has compared the virus to a 'little flu' and has fought to end state and local stay-at-home measures to contain it. Here he gestures before going out for a ride on his motorcycle after he announced he tested negative for the virus more than two weeks after being diagnosed Science and technology minister Marcos Pontes (above) has also wrote on Twitter that he tested positive for coronavirus and is now in isolation Coronavirus case numbers in Brazil hit record numbers this week. On Thursday, the number slightly dipped but the overall trend continues to rise The latest figures show that Brazil saw 57,837 new coronavirus cases recorded on July 30, along with 1,129 deaths The far-right president, who has compared the virus to a 'little flu' has fought to end state and local stay-at-home measures to contain it, arguing the economic fallout could be worse than the disease itself. He is instead pushing the drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, and took it himself when he was infected, despite numerous studies finding it has no benefit against COVID-19. He again touted the medication Thursday, but did not say whether his wife was taking it. 'I would like to first thank God, and second the medication I was given, hydroxychloroquine,' he said in his weekly Facebook live address. 'It worked for me.' Bolsonaro has hailed the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine as a remedy for Covid-19, despite numerous studies finding it has no benefit. 'It worked for me,' he says His wife Michelle, 38, 'is in good health and will follow all established protocols,' the president's office has said. Former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro's leftist nemesis, for his part said he suspected the president faked his coronavirus diagnosis to push hydroxychloroquine as a cure. 'I think Bolsonaro invented his infection so he could do propaganda for this treatment,' the former president (2003-2010) told a video news conference. After Bolsonaro came down with a fever and tested positive for coronavirus on July 7, he spent three weeks in quarantine in the presidential palace, holding meetings remotely. In the first public event since his illness, he greeted a crowd of supporters in the northeastern state of Piaui, removing his face mask to loud cheers. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed an order to provide funding for the construction of Garamaryam-Ismayilli-Shaki (134 km)-Shirinbulag highway. Under the presidential Order, the Azerbaijan Highway State Agency is allocated 12 million manats for the construction of the road connecting 5 residential areas with a total population of 3,000 people. Michigans ballots will have to come in by 8 p.m. on Election Day to count in the election after the Michigan Supreme Court declined to hear a legal challenge seeking to extend the deadline for mail-in ballots. In a 4-3 decision, the court opted not to consider a lawsuit from the League of Women Voters that sought to allow ballots to be counted so long as they were postmarked on Election Day or earlier, with the majority of justices writing they were not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court. That means a recent Michigan Court of Appeals decision ruling that absentee ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day in order to be counted stands. The League of Women Voters has argued having a strict cutoff for counting ballots could mean thousands of mail-in ballots arent received in time to be counted. In a statement, League of Women Voters of Michigan President Christina Schlitt said the group is extremely disappointed by the decision. Our fight is not over, she said. The League will continue to push to remove barriers to voting, to help ensure voting is accessible and convenient and every registered voter in Michigan can participate fully in our democracy. The decision not to hear the case was a 4-3 split, with Justices David Viviano, Stephen Markman, Brian Zahar and Elizabeth Clement issuing the majority and Chief Justice Bridget McCormack and Justices Richard Bernstein and Megan Cavanagh dissenting. In a dissenting opinion, Bernstein said he was baffled and troubled by the majoritys vote considering the important role absentee voting will play in the upcoming election. The news comes as the Michigan Secretary of State and local clerks are now warning voters to drop off their primary election absentee ballots at their local clerks office instead of trying to mail them before Election Day, which is Tuesday, Aug. 4. The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Related coverage: League of Women Voters sues Michigan over absentee ballot access, deadline Group seeking to have absentee ballots postmarked by election day appeals to Michigan Supreme Court Markets regulator Sebi on Friday extended the deadline to October 31 for investors of PACL Ltd, having claims of up to Rs 5,000, to check the status of their application and rectify errors in the form. Earlier, the deadline was July 31. Now, the last date for checking the status of applications and rectification of errors has been extended to October 31, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in a statement. The portal for investors to view status of their claim application has been operational from January 24. PACL, which had raised money from public in the name of agriculture and real estate businesses, was found by Sebi to have collected more than Rs 60,000 crore through illegal collective investment schemes (CIS) over a period of 18 years. A panel, headed by retired Justice R M Lodha, has been set up to manage refunds for investors who invested money in PACL. The panel has successfully effected refunds to the tune of Rs 268.47 crore to 9,71,565 investors with claims up to Rs 8,000, a separate statement noted. The committee had, after making payment to over 8.35 lakh eligible investors having claim amount up to Rs 7,000, initiated the process of payout to investors with claim amount between Rs 7,000 and Rs 8,000. It has effected payment to 1,36,231 such investors. In December 2015, Sebi had ordered attachment of all assets of PACL and its nine promoters and directors for their failure to refund investors' money. In an order on August 22, 2014, Sebi had asked PACL, its promoters and directors to refund the money. The defaulters were directed to wind up the schemes and refund money to investors within three months from the date of the order. Following the announcement of government plans to explore the possibility of the use of nuclear power in the Philippines, Bishop Ruperto Santos says he hopes the study will be transparent, non-partisan, and not exclusive. By Vatican News Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga, Philippines, is calling for a transparent investigation of the possibility of using nuclear power as an option for power generation. Last week, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte issued an executive order creating a committee to study the adoption of a national nuclear energy policy. The order was made public on Wednesday. The Philippines has southeast Asias highest electricity cost, and the supply of electricity is precarious. Nuclear power could help address those problems, but safety concerns have been expressed in a country often hit by natural disasters. We hope that the feasibility study will be transparent, non-partisan and not exclusive, Bishop Santos said. He expressed hope that the study would address the issue of safety. This could settle with finality whether our country is ready, able and safe for nuclear energy, he said. Alfonso Cusi, the nations energy sector, has been advocating for the use of nuclear power to help deal with the growing demand for electricity in the Philippines. A $2.3 billion nuclear power plant was constructed in Bataan (about 100 km north of the capital Manila) in the late 1970s and early 80s, but was never put into operation. If plans for the use of nuclear power go ahead, the Bataan power plant could be rehabilitated, or new facilities could be built. Despite Hurricane Isaias targeting the east coast of Florida this weekend, NASA and SpaceX are continuing with plans to return a pair of American astronauts from the International Space Station, hoping Isaias will miss at least some of the seven designated landing sites arrayed on either side of the Florida peninsula. If all goes according to plan, NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will climb aboard their SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, and undock from the station at about 7:34 p.m. Saturday and splashdown at about 2:42 p.m. Sunday, either in the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. With the storm predicted to churn up Florida's Atlantic coast Sunday, just as the astronauts would be headed home, officials said that it a Gulf landing would be more likely if they do proceed with a landing attempt. The teams will continue to closely monitor the storm and "evaluate impacts to weather around the Florida peninsula," NASA said in a statement late Thursday. It said NASA and SpaceX would make a decision on a primary landing site about six hour before the undocking. There's no rush to bring the crew home, however, especially since it would be the first time NASA astronauts splashed down at sea since Apollo-Soyuz, the joint U.S.-Soviet mission, in 1975. The spacecraft can stay on the space station for up to about 120 days, and is only about halfway through that timeframe. "The systems on Dragon are doing very well," Steve Stich, NASA's commercial crew program manager, said earlier this week. "The spacecraft is very healthy." He said the spacecraft was inspected using a robotic arm, and a team of engineers from NASA and SpaceX looked at the data. The "results were very favorable," Stich said. "There were no areas on the vehicle that were of any concern for re-entry." He said flight controllers would be patient for the most opportune moment, calm seas and gentle winds, ideally under 10 m.p.h., before committing to a return. "We have plenty of opportunities here in August, and we're in no hurry to come home," he said. Speaking to reporters from the station Friday, Behnken and Hurley, both veteran astronauts, said they were looking forward to getting home, but would be patient. "We won't leave the space station without some good landing opportunities in front of us, good splashdown weather in front of us," Behnken said. "We don't control the weather and we know we can stay up here longer. There's more chow. And I know the space station program has got more work we can do." The spacecraft has three days worth of "consumables," oxygen, food and water, in case the spacecraft undocks but then needs to stay in orbit before committing to a return, officials said. Behnken and Hurley lifted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center on May 30, the first flight of NASA astronauts from United States soil since the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011. It also marked the first time a private company flew astronauts to orbit. Along with Boeing, SpaceX is under contract from NASA to develop spacecraft capable of flying people to the station. And this mission, known as Demo-2, is designed to test the Dragon spacecraft to ensure it operates properly before NASA allows the company to fly operational missions of astronauts to the station. Like the launch, the return journey is a perilous one. The spacecraft will be traveling 17,500 m.p.h. and hit the atmosphere with such force that flames will engulf the capsule, testing the heat shield. As it gets closer to Earth, two drogue parachutes will deploy, and then four main chutes are to guide the spacecraft down to the sea, where rescue crews will be standing by. In the case of an emergency, Air Force search and rescue teams as well as contractors from ManTech, a private security company, will be on standby with C-17 cargo aircraft to deploy to either the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. Another team is posted in Hawaii to respond if the mission goes way off course and lands in the Pacific. "If the spacecraft comes down where it is supposed to, in the condition expected, then SpaceX is 100 percent responsible for the recovery of the crew and the spacecraft," said Mike McClure, a ManTech program manager who used to command the Air Force's rescue detachment. "If, however, the spacecraft lands someplace else, or the condition of the spacecraft and the crew drives SpaceX or NASA to request [Department of Defense] assistance, then our team will spring into action." Despite the many challenges of a water landing, Hurley and Behnken said they were not concerned. "Splashdown is closer than it was the last time we were asked questions about it," Behnken said. "But I still don't feel nervous about it. Really, we're focused on the things that we'll need to do to be as safe as possible as we come back." It'll be a fairly long flight, some 18 hours between undocking and splashdown. And the astronauts will be busy monitoring the capsule's systems, making sure everything is on track and operating properly. But they'll also have some time to get some rest. "We'll spend a good share of that sleeping," Hurley said. If COVID-19 were going to be over in a month or two months, this would be an easy decision. Wed say, lets wait it out, she said. But the bottom line is, the earliest I think we are likely to even start seeing a vaccine is early 2021, and I think it will take at least a year for the full rollout of that vaccine. So when we think about COVID-19 planning, were thinking about the next year and a half to two years at minimum. A great deal of effort is being used to maintain the claim that protests are peaceful. If an article begins with "The earth is flat," how many people will continue reading? The reader might conclude that it would be a waste of time and that the author has some serious problems. Credibility is paramount. Propagandists know that every story must have at least a kernel of truth. Progressives appear to be ignoring this axiom. When MSNBC's Ali Velshi claims, "I want to be clear on how I characterize this. This is a mostly a protest. It is not generally speaking unruly," with fires raging behind him, he has no credibility. Ellen Rosenblum, the Oregon attorney general, claims that the riots in Portland were "perfectly peaceful." When Representative Jerry Nadler claims rioting in Portland is a myth he has destroyed his credibility. Snopes has done its best to discredit a report that is unfavorable for the "peaceful protesters." Richmond Police chief Will Smith held a press conference where he recounted how rioters torched a home with a child inside on May 31. Smith claimed, "Protesters prohibited us from getting on scene. We had to force our way to make a clear path for the fire department." This is a harsh indictment of our "peaceful protesters." Apparently, there is no need for it to be reported on by the "mainstream" media. It is also something that needs to be discredited if possible. This is a job for the Snopes website. Snopes asks, "Did Protesters Set Fire to a Building with a Child Inside?" The author points to "conflicting accounts" of what happened. She concludes that the claim is "unproven." Snopes zeroed in on an article in what is described as "the right-leaning news outlet The Washington Times." The Times article quotes Chief Smith making the claim that "protesters" attempted to block the fire department. Snopes then gives Richmond fire lieutenant Christopher Armstrong's account. According to Armstrong, "demonstrators" did not set fire to the house. He related how a car fire spread to the house. There is no mention of how the car caught on fire or how close to the house it was. If demonstrators set the car on fire, and it was parked close to the house, it is reasonable to assume that it would spread to the house. Armstrong disagrees with Smith's claim that protesters used vehicles to stop the fire truck from proceeding to the blaze. He claimed that fire equipment was slowed en route by burning trash cans. Who could possibly be burning trash in the road? Snopes then quotes Armstrong's email: There was a single protestor initially impeding our response however multiple individuals (amount undetermined) joined the single protestor in stopping the truck from after it was already stopped. At least two of individuals threw objects at the fire truck, shortly thereafter they all ran past the fire truck as Richmond Police Officers came around the corner as a response for our request for help. Snopes concludes, "Because the Fire Department and the police chief provided different versions of events for reasons yet unknown to us, we rate this clam 'Unproven.'" Many situations can be labeled fake news if every "t" is not crossed and every "i" not dotted. The bottom line of this story is that there was a house fire. There was a child in the house, and rioters attempted to block the fire department from reaching the fire. I determined that Snopes did not prove its case because it concluded "this clam 'Unproven.'" Where did this clam come from? John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (Algora Publishing). He has a Master of Arts degree in international relations from St. Mary's University. He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. He is featured on the BBC's program "Things We Forgot to Remember:" Morgenthau Plan and Post-War Germany. Image credit: Fox News via shareable YouTube, screen shot. Four technologies to detect coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in 30 seconds developed by scientists from Israel are being evaluated at Delhis Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital. About 10,000 people will be tested twice; once using the gold standard molecular RT-PCR test and then the four Israeli technologies to evaluate whether these innovations will work in a field setting. Unlike the swab sample collection method, for this test, people will have to blow into or speak in front of a breathalyser sort of an instrument which will collect a sample for testing. If successful, these technologies can pave the way for the safe opening of businesses and people will be able to coexist with the virus till a vaccine is developed, researchers said. Click here for full Covid-19 coverage The diagnostics are being tested in a collaboration between the Israeli Defence R&D, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The first technology attempts to detect the virus by a technique called terahertz spectroscopy. In this, a sample is taken, deposited on a chip and then examined in a manner that specifically detects SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19. This does not involve any chemistry or reagents as it does in the current standard tests. The results will come in less than a minute, said professor K Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific advisor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Raghavan said the second approach is called an isothermal test, and it amplifies the genetic material of the virus rapidly. The third approach detects what are called poly amino acids specific to the virus. The fourth approach is to study speech samples from asymptomatic and presymptomatic patients, compare them with others and see if the tools of artificial intelligence can be used to identify those who are Covid-19 positive. All these approaches are working well in the laboratory setting, but the challenge is to see how they will work in a field setting, he said. The final product can be a combination of two or more technologies as well. We will see which of the four technologies works better at detecting Covid-19 afflicted people. It could be a combination of two of these technologies as well. We hope to see a very robust diagnostic test finally, said Israeli ambassador to India Ron Malka. Indias manufacturing capacity, the ambassador said, made India a natural fit for these trials. We are a small country and do not have the manufacturing capability like India. By combining advanced Israeli and Indian technology and Indias manufacturing prowess, we can find a way to resume our lives and exist alongside the virus till a vaccine is developed, he said. Prof Raghavan said, What was yesterday considered esoteric research in now being tested for implementation. Science is about such rigorous tests. If the technologies pass the test, the collaborators will roll them out in India and elsewhere. Apart from the extremely rapid tests that the countries are collaborating on, the Israeli delegation has shared with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences some of the most innovative technologies that were developed in Israel to combat Covid-19. The flight also carried on-board 83 hi-tech respirators for those with severe disease. The export of respirators is banned in Israel, which is now experiencing a second wave of Covid-19 infections, but these were brought to India on a special waiver, Malka said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Seoul, July 31 : North Korea has intensified anti-virus efforts Pyongyang by installing more guard posts to restrict access to the capital city, state-media reported on Friday after leader Kim Jong-un sealed off a border town following the return of a defector from South Korea. "Pyongyang City Emergency Anti-epidemic Headquarters has installed more guard posts at major entry and border points in Pyongyang including subway stations and long-haul bus stops," Yonhap News Agency quoted the Rodong Sinmun, the official daily of the North's ruling party, as saying in a report. North Korea declared a state of emergency over the weekend and put the border town of Kaesong on lockdown after a "runaway" defector returned home from the South with coronavirus symptoms. State-media earlier said the defector has been put under "strict" quarantine after several medical checkups produced an "uncertain result." Meanwhile, a state radio station also reported around 40 guard posts have been newly installed in Pyongyang, saying that necessary measures are being drawn up to closely monitor buses and passengers moving in and out of the capital city. North Korea has said it is coronavirus-free, but it has taken relatively swift and drastic measures, shutting down its borders since late January and tightening quarantine measures. Pyongyang has called its fight against the virus a "political matter" that will determine the fate of the country. By Phuong Nguyen and Khanh Vu HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam told tens of thousands of people who visited a central city to report to disease control centres on Thursday, as nine new coronavirus cases were confirmed and the country scrambled to contain its first outbreak in over three months. The health ministry sent text messages to all mobile phone users among the country's 95 million people urging anyone who visited Danang from July 1 to come forward, after a new wave of the virus spread to at least six cities and provinces in six days, all linked to Danang. Hanoi's ruling body on Thursday said mass testing would be carried out until Saturday among thousands of residents who recently returned from Danang, a popular holiday getaway that has been a big draw since restrictions were eased. The response to the Danang outbreak is in line with a centralised quarantine programme and aggressive contact-tracing system that has seen Vietnam lauded for keeping its coronavirus tally to just a few hundred cases, with no fatalities. Hanoi banned large gatherings and ordered bars closed from midnight Wednesday and its chairman Nguyen Duc Chung declared the city must "act now and act fast". "We have to use full force to test all 21,063 returnees," Chung said on Thursday. "All must be done in three days." Nine new cases were reported on Thursday, taking total infections to 42 since the virus resurfaced at the weekend, ending a run of 99 days without community transmission. Vietnam has recorded 459 cases overall. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has told tourist areas to step up vigilance and imposed a strict lockdown in Danang, where flights have been halted for 15 days. The coastal city has been inundated with visitors taking advantage of promotions to revitalise a tourism sector hurt by border closures and international flight bans designed to keep the virus out. The current wave is traced to Danang, but the source is unclear. The health ministry said one case, an American, had reported symptoms as far back as June 26. (Reporting by Phuong Nguyen and Khanh Vu; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Ed Davies) VirusSafe EDU We have been working closely with many different educational organizations, and weve discovered great concern around parental and student confidence in COVID-19 prevention and compliance, said John New, CEO & Co-Founder, WorkMerk. WorkMerk, veteran-founded workforce management software developer, announced today that its VirusSAFE COVID-19 safety app is now available for use in educational institutions. The app enables schools at all levels to verify that they are performing mandated health and safety compliance measures on schedule and continually communicating with students, parents and other stakeholders about the state of COVID-19 compliance. Schools that embrace the app and its approach to COVID-19 compliance will be able to provide peace-of-mind for everyone involved, enabling schools to reopen. We have been working closely with many different educational organizations, and weve discovered great concern around parental and student confidence in COVID-19 prevention and compliance, said John New, CEO and Co-Founder, WorkMerk. As a parent, I empathize with those who want to know that schools have the best technology to help protect the entire campus community and VirusSAFE Pro can be a great partner in those efforts. VirusSafe EDU is a specially configured version of WorkMerks successful workSMART workforce management software. The app offers continuous communication. It provides college and university employees and students with health and safety checklists and reminders in a timely manner, directly to their mobile devices. This is necessary because each state and locality will have its own specific COVID-19 guidelines for education institutions. VirusSafe EDU can be continuously adapted to meet state and local safety guidelines on a consistent basis. The app closes the information gap on campuses by providing up-to-date safety and health guidelines. Confusion and rumors about COVID-19 prevention and compliance are very serious challenges in a school setting, Tim Wood, WorkMerks Director of Partnership Solutions added. Were solving this problem by equipping everyone with an app that provides clarity on major virus issues consistently and in real-time. WorkMerk has a successful track record applying technology to assist with timely changes in tasks critical to the overall success of an organization. Their solutions are designed to improve workforce engagement through clear messages and task validation, which managers generally see as essential to creating and encouraging good habits. WorkMerk is now applying these principles to mitigating the effect of COVID-19 in educational settings. An easy-to-read dashboard and cumulative analytics function enable compliance verification, which school administrators can review. The app enables the staff to validate that cleaning protocols have been performed. Deploying the app provides transparency and peace of mind. It helps demonstrate to the public that the school has a plan, is executing that plan, and cares about the health and safety of its students, faculty and other employees. The company is now offering a free trial offer for VirusSAFE EDU. To learn more, or to schedule a demo, visit VirusSafeEDU.com. About WorkMerk WorkMerk, is a veteran-founded company that specializes in delivering workflow technologies and solutions that protect and enhance the investments its clients make in people, process, and training. WorkMerk drives optimization in the workplace by providing proprietary A.I.-driven technology solutions that nurture communications, create positive habits, and improve learning retention. WorkMerk solutions drive measurably better results, helping companies mitigate risk, protect their stakeholders, reduce costs, and increase profitability. First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment Ana Teresita Gonzalez Fraga said the achievements of the two countries in fighting the pandemic and upholding their solidarity and international cooperation manifest the preeminence of socialism in protecting the health, life, and rights of the people. She also underlined the mutual aid between the countries during the year when they celebrate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties (December 2, 1960-2020), and re-affirmed the wish to further bolster cooperation and diversify economic relations. Vietnam is Cubas leading investor from Asia and Oceania and second largest trade partner. Vietnamese Charge dAffaires Do Dinh Truong expressed his gratitude to Cuba for sending medicine and health experts to share their experience in the control of the new strain of the coronavirus and in vaccine research. He said this is symbolic of the special friendship, comprehensive cooperation, and mutual trust between the two countries and their people. A U.S. Federal Court has pulled the brakes on President Donald Trumps public charge policy that seeks to bar poor immigrants from liv... A U.S. Federal Court has pulled the brakes on President Donald Trumps public charge policy that seeks to bar poor immigrants from living in the country. Under the rule, which has two versions, immigrants cannot get green cards or visas if immigration officials establish they would depend on public benefits like food stamps. The version pertaining to permanent residency is being implemented by Department of Homeland Security, while the Department of State enforces the part that applies to visa applicants. The Department of Homeland Security started enforcing the policy in February. But in two rulings on Thursday, Justice George Daniels of the district court in New York, ordered the administration to suspend the rule due to the coronavirus pandemic. Noting the additional risk posed by the virus, Daniels specifically ordered the rule be put on hold for immigrants residing legally in the U.S. until the end of the COVID crisis. In spite of several legal challenges, the Trump administration has been trying to expand the policy to Medicaid and certain housing benefits. In March, the Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a notice explaining that immigrants seeking treatment for coronavirus would not be affected. But the judge dismissed the clarification as plainly insufficient, noting that confusion might arise if Medicaid was used for treatment of illnesses in addition to coronavirus. This chilling effect, in turn, undoubtedly hampers efforts to contain the virus and protect the public health of residents across the country, Daniels wrote in his order. Daniels also said the administration went too far in effectively redefining what it means to be a public charge. Washington, July 31 : The COVID-19 death toll in the US is projected to top 230,822 by November, said the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) of the University of Washington. On July 22, the institute forecasted a total of 219,864 deaths from COVID-19 by November in the US, Xinhua news agency quoted CNN report as saying on Thursday. The updated projection is based on the current scenario in the US where infection cases rise and some people refuse to wear masks and practice social distancing, or other measures, said the IHME in its projection model. If the country universally adopts wearing masks, the number of deaths by November would drop to nearly 198,831, it said. As of Friday morning, the US accounted for the world's highest number of infections and fatalities at 4,494,252 and 152,055, according to the Johns Hopkins University. Former U.S. presidential candidate Herman Cain has passed away weeks after he was tested positive for COVID-19. Earlier this July, Cain admitted himself to a hospital in the Atlanta area after receiving a positive COVID-19 diagnosis. "Mr. Cain did not require a respirator, and he is awake and alert," read the statement posted on his official Twitter account after he was admitted to the hospital. "There is no way of knowing for sure how or where Mr. Cain contracted the coronavirus, but we do know he is a fighter who has beaten Stage 4 cancer." Unfortunately, Cain succumbed to the dreaded disease at the age of 74. On July 30, Dan Calabrese announced the unfortunate passing on Cain's website. He stated that five days ago, there were "hopeful indicators" for the ex-presidential candidate in his COVID-19 battle. "I'm sorry I had to bring you bad news this morning. But the good news is that we had a man so good, so solid, so full of love and faith . . . that his death hits us this hard. Thank God for a man like that," Calabrese penned. It was also revealed that Cain's previous battle against colon cancer in 2006 may have worsened his complications and made him more vulnerable to the disease. The announcement failed to mention when and where did Cain contract the virus. owever, it is worth noting that he attended President Donald Trump's indoor rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma less than two weeks before he was tested positive for the virus. After the June 20 gathering, he posted a photograph of himself, which showed that he was not wearing a mask. He also sat in the middle of a group of other Trump fans who were also maskless. Following the heartbreaking news, Bob Jack, the chairman of the Tulsa County Republican Party, assured that the party started to trace those attendees who met with Cain at Trump's rally in Tulsa. "Looking for people that attended the President Trump Rally and met with Herman Cain," Jack posted through the party's official Facebook page. "Please call the Tulsa GOP office and leave a message for the Chairman." Per the Washington Post, Jack also said that he saw Cain at the rally, but he looked like he was "kind of under the radar." He also recalled that the late ex-presidential candidate did not sit close to Republican Governor Kevin Stitt. Colleagues, Followers Pay Tribute To Herman Cain Tributes started to pour on social media following the announcement of Cain's death. President Trump posted a series of tweets after he spoke to the members of Cain's Family. "My friend Herman Cain, a Powerful Voice of Freedom and all that is good, passed away this morning," Trump said in one tweet. "Herman had an incredible career and was adored by everyone that ever met him, especially me. He was a very special man, an American Patriot, and great friend." "Herman Cain embodied the American Dream and represented the very best of the American spirit," White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany wroteon Twitter. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Cain "led an accomplished life" as he was a "business titan, cancer survivor, and Republican presidential candidate." READ MORE: Doja Cat Mocks COVID-19 -- Tests Positive! Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in 'The Kids Are All Right'. (Credit: Focus Features) Julianne Moore doesnt think shed be comfortable being part of a mostly straight cast telling an LGBT+ story in The Kids Are All Right today. The 59-year-old Oscar winner starred alongside Annette Bening in the 2010 drama, which was one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to depict a married same-sex couple raising children conceived via a sperm donor. A decade later, though, Moore has told Variety that some of the criticisms of the movies cast were valid. Read more: Why Moore wasnt in Can You Ever Forgive Me? The actor said she had thought about it a lot, given the fact that all of the lead actors telling the story of a queer family were straight. She said: I look back and go ouch, wow. I dont know that we would do that today, I dont know that we would be comfortable. 'The Kids Are All Right'. (Credit: Focus Features) We need to give real representation to people, but Im grateful for all of the experiences that Ive had as an actor because my job is to communicate a universality of experience to the world. The idea that, rather than othering people, were saying were all the same. Our humanity is shared. Read more: Gods Own Country director furious over edited sex scenes Director Lisa Cholodenko herself a lesbian who had a child using a sperm donor said she could feel the gayness of Moore and Bening and that this influenced her casting choice. While I want to promote gay people representing gay people, trans people, all the rest, queer people its also a commercial prospect. Its all those things, she said. Lisa Cholodenko attends a screening of "The Kids Are All Right" during the 2017 Los Angeles Film Festival. (Photo by Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images) Cholodenko added: It didnt feel phony to me. I didnt feel like I was putting somebody in an outfit and asking them to parade as something that was false. The filmmaker said there were discussions about casting Jodie Foster and so there was an LGBT+ performer in the frame. Foster told Variety she didnt recall being offered the role, but that she was working on her directorial effort The Beaver at the time and so would not have been available. Story continues Read more: Foster criticises superhero movies Also starring Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right went on to be nominated for four Oscars including Best Picture and acting nods for Bening and Ruffalo. It appeared on numerous lists of the best films of 2010 and is now held up as a key work of queer cinema. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 23:03:38|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close KIEV, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Talks with the Iranian delegation on compensation over the crashed Ukraine International Airlines passenger plane were "constructive" and have yielded results, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Friday. Kuleba said during a briefing that one of the main successes of yesterday's 11-hour negotiations was that the Iranian side got involved in the negotiation process to establish all the circumstances of the plane crash, bringing those responsible to justice and having them pay the necessary compensation. Iran has agreed to fulfill its obligations under international aviation conventions, said the minister, noting that the investigators, technical experts, and lawyers of the two countries would continue talks to determine all circumstances and all the legal and technical nuances of the situation. Later, the information will be used to calculate the amount of compensation, Kuleba added. The Boeing-737, en route from Tehran to Kiev, was shot down by two rockets shortly after takeoff from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport on Jan. 8. The tragedy resulted in the deaths of all 167 passengers and nine crew members on board, who were citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, and Britain. Later, Iran's armed forces confirmed that an "unintentional" launch of a military missile by the country was the cause of the incident. The transcript of the black boxes from the plane confirmed the fact of illegal interference with the plane. Earlier this month, Kuleba said it was too soon to blame human error for the downing of the airliner and that many questions remained unanswered. Enditem When it comes to promoting her fifth novel in the Twilight Saga, Midnight Sun (Little, Brown, Aug. 4) during the ongoing pandemic, Stephenie Meyer might wish for a vampires supernatural powers to connect safely with her fans. She will have to do the next best thing on her upcoming tour, however: an in-person appearance to launch the book and three subsequent virtual events to reach readers elsewhere. Midnight Sun is a retelling of the love story between vampire Edward Cullen and human teen Bella Swantold from Edwards perspective. The Twilight SagaTwilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, as well as a related novella, an illustrated guide, and, in 2016, a reimagining of Twilight entitled Life and Death, which featured a reversal in gender roles (Beau and Edythe)has sold nearly 160 million copies worldwide since the first book in the series, Twilight, which told the story from Bellas perspective, was published in 2005. Midnight Sun's initial print run is one million copies in hardcover. And Thursday, in remarks pertaining to the company's first-half results, Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch disclosed that pre-orders for Midnight Sun were the largest in HBG's history. Meyer put a positive spin on the timing of Midnight Suns release, saying in a statement that she realizes how much she herself needs distractions now, how much [she] needs something to look forward to, how much [she] needs more books to read during the pandemic. Thus, she adds, I hope this book gives my readers a little pleasure to anticipate, and after it arrives, a chance to live in an imaginary world for a while. While the book lands on August 4, the tour will kick off on that Friday in Shelton, Wash. at the Skyline Drive-In Theatre there in partnership with Ballast Book Company, an indie store in Bremerton, Wash. After a socially distanced q&a with Meyer on stage, audience memberswho will remain in their vehicles throughoutwill be treated to a screening of the first Twilight movie. If all goes as planned, youll be able to ask me questions from your car and we can share some safe and masked fun, Meyer wrote on her blog, asking her fans to follow safety guidelines set by participating bookstores and theaters on her tour circuit. Follow your states rules about travel and crossing state lines, she wrote. You should skip this if it would require you to stay overnight away from home. Do not attend the event with people outside of your householdwave to your friends from the safety of your car! Wear a mask if you have to leave your car. Be patient and courteous to the wonderful staff who will be running the events. Basically, lets not any of us be Typhoid Mary, please! The book launch will cost $62 (plus fees) per vehicle with up to four occupants, and will include a copy of Midnight Sun with a signed bookplate, plus three additional bookplates and a Twilight-themed face mask (while supplies last). The drive-in holds 300 vehicles and, as of Thursday morning, is sold out. Suzanne Droppert, owner of Ballast Book Co., told PW that a wait list maintained by the store is forming. There will be two lines for cars to enter the premises, with masked and gloved booksellers on each side scanning tickets and handing off a bag with the book, bookplates, and mask. This is the first time that Ballast Book Co. has hosted Meyer. Droppert says that preorders have been steady, despite an economic downturn in the Bremerton area and Sheltons distance from the Seattle metro area (80 miles) having a possible impact. Ballast has sold more than 300 books as of midday Thursday, and expects to sell at least 350 copies total by publication day. Some people in their cars are getting multiple copies, and other people just want the book in the store, she told PW on Wednesday. Im sure itll sell out; I am seeing orders come in as I talk with you on the phone. The following evening, Meyer will appear on screen on the other side of the country, at the Rustic Tri View Drive-In in North Smithfield, R.I., in a collaboration between that theater and An Unlikely Story bookstore in Plainville, Mass., owned by Jeff Kinney, who is embarking on his own tour for the latest Wimpy Kid book, Rowley Jeffersons Awesome Friendly Adventure (Abrams/Amulet). The original plan was for Meyer and Kinney to engage in a socially distanced conversation on stage, but due to the recent surge in coronavirus cases, that had to be scrapped. I really wanted to be there in person, but travel restrictions are keeping me from attending, Meyer, who lives in the Pacific Northwest, wrote on her blog. However, I will be there with you virtually and youll be able to ask all your Midnight Sun questions in real time via Instagram Live, and then watch the movie. Make sure you have Instagram on your phones! Technology Disclaimer: Im told that the tech side of these events will be easy and that even a child can do it, but Im making no promises other than I WILL TRY. Similar to the earlier event in Washington State, tickets are $60 (plus fees) per car, and include a copy of Midnight Sun with a signed bookplate, three additional bookplates, a Twilight-themed face mask, and viewing of the movie for up to four people. Participants will receive a special code from An Unlikely Story allowing them to interact with Meyer via Instagram Live. Kym Havens, An Unlikely Storys events manager, told PW that, despite travel advisories throughout New England, sales have been steady; the event is limited to 100 vehicles. While there were no more tickets for cars as of Thursday morning, there were at midday 10 SUV tickets still remaining. Havens explained also that "a lot of people cant come, but they want the signed bookplates and the facemask so theyre buying [the package]. The store has ordered 350 copies to date, and has sold approximately 300 copies as of today. Little Brown sent An Unlikely Story 750 signed bookplates. The last two virtual stops on the tour will be open to a national audience: Books-A-Million will sponsor a virtual event on Aug. 10, which costs $32 and includes a copy of the book with a signed bookplate that will be shipped to participants. Barnes & Noble will sponsor a free virtual event that will be accessible on their social media platforms on August 14. Fortunately for Meyer's fans, this short tour will not be the only opportunity to meet Meyeralbeit virtually. One lucky fan in the U.S. will be invited along with 20 of their friends to a virtual hangout with Meyer on a date to be determined; all will also receive personalized bookplates. This prize will be given to the winner of the best 500-word essay on why they love their local bookstore, a contest that Meyer announced earlier this month; submissions are now closed. The winner's local bookstore will also receive 50 signed bookplates. Meyer is currently judging entries and plans on making an announcement next week. JACKSON, MI Dawn Dixon-Beys sentence of 35 to 70 years for second-degree murder was unreasonably long, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled. Jackson County Circuit Judge John McBain was ordered by the appeals court to resentence Dixon-Bey, now 48, to be more consistent with the guidelines of 12 to 20 years. The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare reported on Thursday that only 3 vaccine candidates across the world, namely from USA, UK and China, have been able to make it to the 3rd phase of clinical trials in the global mission to find a Covid-19 vaccine; expressed hope that India would emerge as the vaccine leader again with two of its indigenous vaccines in the first two stages already. In the development related to the COVID-19 vaccine across the world, only three vaccine candidates are in phase III clinical trials across the globe. These three coronavirus vaccine candidates are from the USA, UK (University of Oxfords vaccine) and China, informed the official from the Union Health Ministry on Thursday. While there are 24 COVID-19 vaccine candidates in clinical evaluation, 141 vaccine candidates are in pre-clinical evaluation stage across the world, said the official. Once, the phase III clinical trial is done, then they can take concerned regulators permissions and proceed for manufacturing the vaccine. These three vaccine candidates who are in phase II are from the USA, UK (University of Oxfords vaccine) and China, Rajesh Bhushan, Officer on Special Duty at the health ministry. WHO in its bulletin issued on July 24 stated that 24 vaccine candidates are in the stage of clinical evaluation across the globe and 141 vaccine candidates are in the pre-clinical evaluation stage. Also read: 57% slum dwellers had Covid, 16% in housing societies finds Mumbai survey Also read: Anxiety, depression could be a sign of Covid-19: Study This means that there are 24 vaccine candidates in the clinical trial stage are in phase I, II or III done on human volunteers at multi-centric sites. While 141 vaccine candidates are in research or animal studies are being done under and these are under pre-clinical evaluation stage, said Rajesh Bhushan, Officer on Special Duty at the health ministry. In the Indian scenario, there are two indigenously developed vaccines. Clinical trials for phase I, II of both the vaccine candidates have started. At present, the clinical trial is being done on 1,150 subjects for one of the vaccine candidate at eight sites. At least 1,000 subjects have participated for a clinical trial for another indigenously developed vaccine candidate, Bhushan said. As India is a hub of vaccine manufacturing and hence, India would play a key role. When it comes to vaccine distribution can be broadly done in two ways. First, international agencies should develop a system to manufacture and distribute the vaccine. Second, individual countries can negotiate to those people whose vaccine gets successful, he said. The official further informed that WHO has created a mechanism calledAccess to COVID19 Tools (ACT) Acceleratorwith an idea that how vaccines, diagnostic kits and medicines can be provided to countries across the world. Under ACT, a facility calledCOVAX has been created by WHO. This is only dedicated to vaccines. In this facility apart from WHO, GAVI (the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) are part of it and India plays a leading role in both the organizations. So this facility will pool the requirement of vaccine for in all the member countries. So far, India has not signed any agreement with the pharma companies manufacturing vaccines, Bhushan said. There are multiple stakeholders with whom the government is doing a discussion on how the vaccine would be distributed or administered to the masses, said the official. Also read: Donald Trump suggests delay in 2020 Presidential elections over coronavirus fears New Delhi: High alert has been sounded in Northern states after a top Khalistani terrorist along with five others escaped from a Punjab jail, arousing suspicion that the militant might have pre-decided his hideouts. Central security agencies have told the governments of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi Police to remain on high alert as chief of Khalistan Liberation Front Harminder Mintoo could be hiding in their territory to escape from Punjab Police dragnet. Sources said Mintoo is unlikely to escape to Pakistan as there has been heightened security along the border in the last few months due to tension between India and Pakistan and continuing cross-border firing along International Border and Line of Control. Suspicion has arisen that the Khalistani terrorist might have been hiding in pre-decided locations as per the conspiracy hatched to free him from the high-security Nabha prison. In a sensational jailbreak, Mintoo along with five other prisoners escaped on Sunday after armed men in police uniform stormed the high-security Nabha prison in Punjab. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Nokia Corporation NOK reported healthy second-quarter 2020 results, with the bottom line beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate. The Finland-based telecom equipment maker delivered better-than-expected profitability and improvement in cash generation despite the coronavirus-induced challenges. Bottom Line Reported profit (from continuing operations) in the June-end quarter was 85 million or 0.01 per share against a loss of 191 million or loss of 0.03 per share in the year-ago quarter. Non-IFRS profit came in at 316 million ($347.8 million) or 0.06 (7 cents) per share compared with 258 million or 0.05 per share in the prior-year quarter. The upside was driven by higher gross profit in Mobile Access within Networks, progress related to cost-savings program and a net positive fluctuation in financial income and expenses. However, the momentum was partially offset by higher investments in 5G R&D to accelerate product roadmaps and cost. The bottom line beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4 cents. Nokia Corporation Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Nokia Corporation Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Nokia Corporation price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Nokia Corporation Quote Revenues On a reported basis, net sales in the quarter dropped 10.6% year over year to 5,092 million. This was caused by the coronavirus crisis and unique dynamics in China. The company estimates that COVID-19 had an almost 300 million negative impact on sales. Net sales declined in all the six regions on a year-over-year basis the Middle East & Africa, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Greater China and Latin America (down 9%, 2%, 2%, 13%, 41% and 41%, respectively). Second-quarter non-IFRS net sales were 5,093 million ($5,606 million) compared with 5,696 million in the prior-year quarter. The top line lagged the consensus estimate of $5,632 million. Segment Results Sales in Networks (which accounts for the lions share of total revenues) fell 10% year over year to 3,955 million. This was primarily due to Mobile Access and, to a lesser extent, IP Routing, Optical Networks and Fixed Access. The decrease in Mobile Access was due to decreases in network deployment services and legacy radio technologies, partially offset by strong growth in 5G. The segments gross margin surged 450 basis points (bps) to 35.6%. The operating margin increased 360 bps year over year to 6.3%. Sales in Nokia Software were down 11.9% year over year to 597 million. This was in comparison to a particularly strong second-quarter 2019, which benefited from the timing of completions and acceptances of certain projects. The company progressed against its strategy to strengthen the business, supported by strong execution and the comprehensiveness of its portfolio. The segments gross margin fell 230 bps to 50.4%. The operating margin declined 550 bps to 14.7%. Sales in Nokia Technologies dropped 11% year over year to 341 million. This was due to lower one-time net sales, reduced brand licensing sales as well as lower patent licensing sales due to the expiration of some small patent licensing agreements. One-time net sales amounted to around 10 million in second-quarter 2020 and 30 million in the year-ago quarter. The segments gross margin improved 70 bps to 99.4%. Operating margin fell 190 bps to 82.7%. In Group Common and Other, sales declined 20.2% year over year to 210 million. This was primarily due to Radio Frequency Systems and, to a lesser extent, Alcatel Submarine Networks. The downtick in Radio Frequency Systems was due to lower sales of remote radio head cables as well as lower sales to a number of customers in North America. Fall in Alcatel Submarine Networks was due to factory closures as a result of COVID-19, almost entirely offset by the ramp-up of new projects. The segments gross margin was a negative 15.2%, down 2,090 bps. Story continues Other Details Overall, non-IFRS cost of sales fell to 3,076 million from 3,579 million in the year-ago quarter. Non-IFRS gross profit dropped 4.7% year over year to 2,017 million, attributable to lower gross profit in Nokia Software and a gross loss compared to a gross profit in Group Common. Non-IFRS operating profit was 423 million compared with 451 million in the year-ago quarter, driven by lower non-IFRS gross profit and a net negative fluctuation in Nokias venture fund investments. Cash Flow & Liquidity In the first half of 2020, Nokia generated 467 million of net cash from operating activities against a cash utilization of 1,663 million in the year-ago period. As of Jun 30, the company had 7,088 million ($7,958.5 million) in cash and cash equivalents with 5,181 million ($5,817.3 million) of long-term interest-bearing liabilities compared with the respective tallies of 4,693 million and 3,949 million a year ago. Outlook Updated Nokia raised its outlook for 2020. The company now expects non-IFRS earnings per share of 0.25 (+/- 5 cents), adjusted from an earlier expectation of 0.23. Non-IFRS operating margin is estimated to be 9.5% (+/- 1.5 percentage points), changed from an earlier expectation of 9%. The company continues to expect a long-term (3 to 5 years) non-IFRS operating margin between 12% and 14%. Conversion rate used: 1 = $1.100720 (period average from Apr 1, 2020 to Jun 30, 2020) 1 = $1.122819 (as of Jun 30, 2020) Zacks Rank & Other Stocks to Consider Nokia carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), at present. Some other top-ranked stocks in the broader industry are Turtle Beach Corporation HEAR, T-Mobile US, Inc. TMUS and Clearfield, Inc. CLFD, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong 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. Clearfield has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 45.6%, on average. The companys earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in two of the last four quarters. Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Nokia Corporation (NOK) : Free Stock Analysis Report Turtle Beach Corporation (HEAR) : Free Stock Analysis Report TMobile US, Inc. (TMUS) : Free Stock Analysis Report Clearfield, Inc. (CLFD) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Were just scratching the surface of what can be accomplished, said Alvarado. We can no longer be seen as just satisfied with Social Security as our only means of income. It was in the fall of 2017, while studying acting and theater at Temple University, that Kalen Allen first uploaded videos of himself reacting to videos of other people cooking recipes only these recipes were strange. As Allen, now 24, reacted to ketchup cake and apple Twix salad being prepared, his video views grew into the millions, catching the attention of talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. Two months later, Allen was invited to make an appearance on the show and accepted a deal to use her platform for his recipe-reaction video series, Kalen Reacts, which has racked up over 56 million views so far. Since then, hes become a regular guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, hosting on- and off-site segments. Last year, the Kansas City, Kan., native walked in a New York Fashion Week show for designer Christian Cowan. In 2018, he covered the MTV Video Music Awards and the Billboard Music Awards. Now Allen is making his film debut in An American Pickle, starring Seth Rogen. The movie, which premieres Aug. 6 on HBO Max, is a comedy that follows an immigrant pickle factory worker from the 1920s whos accidentally preserved for 100 years and wakes up in modern-day Brooklyn. The Inquirer talked to Allen about working on An American Pickle, rubbing elbows with celebrities, and how hes spending his time quarantined from the coronavirus. This week, multiple news outlets reported that The Ellen DeGeneres Show has become the subject of an internal investigation by WarnerMedia following numerous accounts of workplace problems, for which she apologized in a letter to staff on Thursday. When asked about reports alleging racism and intimidation on the show, Allen was not allowed to answer as instructed by his representative. This interview has been edited and condensed. Tell me about the character you play in this movie. I play the role of Kevin, who helps get the pickle business started. Kevin is in a relationship with Christian, and Christian is kind of like a YouTube blogger. One day were walking down the street and we see this man selling pickles on the corner. We stop and see what the pickles are about, and from there we come up with the idea to help him build this pickle business. We go through a lot of ups and downs ... It is very interesting and very fun. How did the opportunity come about? In my first year [in Los Angeles], once I started working for Ellen. I ended up getting agents. I studied acting in college, so it was important for me to continue to hone that craft. So I went on an audition, and I knew it was a Seth Rogen film. I went in, and I was so nervous for the audition. I did it and the very next morning my agent called me, and she was like, They gave you the role. I was shocked. I thought maybe I would get like a callback or something. I literally had just did it 12 hours ago. Then we started filming around Halloween time [in 2018]. How is working in film different from television and theater? Oh, its very, very, very, very, very different. When youre on the stage you get one time. You get one shot to get it right. But when youre on film, you get many times to get it right. It was weird for me because I came in off-book, I only needed one take. I was ready. The other big difference is that you dont have an audience. When youre doing a stage performance, its about the energy that is taking place on stage but also the energy thats given out from the audience. But in this situation, its just you and the camera. Working on the Ellen show really gave you a lot of exposure very quickly. Did that feel jolting? Very much so. It was only a matter of a couple of months. I made my first video in November, and then the Ellen episode aired in January. I really had to do a lot of soul searching very quickly. I had to figure out what I stood for. I had to make sure I knew where I wanted to go, so I had to do a lot of growing very quickly so that I would be able to move to Hollywood and be able to sustain myself and sustain a career but also stay humble and grounded in who I was. What are some of the things that you stand for? I definitely stand for representation and visibility [for marginalized communities]. Everything I do is for that purpose. I stand for what is right, not what is convenient. And I also stand up for change. A lot of times, we look at change as a bad thing, but I think change is inevitable. It is just so important for us to always continue to grow and become better versions of ourselves. Whos been your most memorable celebrity encounter? Theres two. I would have to say my best celebrity greeting would be Michelle Obama. But my favorite celebrity that Ive worked with would be Mariah Carey. Ive always been a lamb, Ive always loved Mariah Carey. I remember being in Philly and she had a show with Lionel Richie. Tickets were on Groupon, and I remember going down to Wells Fargo Center to get the tickets. I really connect with her music and her story. And I just think shes an icon as a songwriter, as an artist. I put her on the same level as Whitney Houston, and to be able to just be in the room with her and to see how collaborative she was There were times when we were filming stuff, and they would be like, Does that work with you, Mariah? And she would be like, Does that work with you, Kalen? How are you spending your time quarantined? Its interesting. I think this quarantine time has been a time of self-reflection. Its been a time of growth. Especially with the #BlackLivesMatter movement happening at the same time, Ive had a lot of thoughts about the content that I make and figuring out what makes me happy and figuring out how to be better with my platform. Figuring out how to influence more people and to uplift marginalized communities. Im excited to see how my content shifts and elevates. Are you still cooking? Whats been your go-to dish lately? Well, everybody knows I make a mean peach cobbler, thats my signature. Recently Ive been making chicken and dumplings, and Chrissy Teigen, now she makes my recipe. There are many different things that Ive started to learn how to cook since Ive been home. I collaborated with Tabitha Brown, [a vegan social media influencer and actress], because I dont eat vegetables. So Ive been making Brussels sprouts and carrots and green beans. Im like, Who am I? Who have I become? Are you ready to get out of the house? I am, but Im OK with it as long as we are trying to keep everybody safe and healthy. I will stay in the house as long as I need to. Copyright 2020 Albuquerque Journal For the first time since 1858, Jesuit priests will no longer call New Mexico home. Because of a shortage of Jesuit priests, the Rev. Warren Broussard, pastor of Immaculate Conception Church and Parish, will be the last of four Jesuits to depart next June 30. We have a lot of ministries and we cover 14 states, Puerto Rico and Belize, Broussard said Tuesday. Were just stretched too thin to continue ministering to all the places that weve been ministering. Broussard said he did not yet know where he and the other Jesuit priests might be reassigned. The decision to withdraw from New Mexico was made earlier this month by the Rev. Ronald A. Mercier, leader of the Jesuits USA Central and Southern Province, based in St. Louis, Missouri, and in consultation with Archbishop of Santa Fe John C. Wester. Priests from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe will take over administration and pastoral duties at Immaculate Conception after Broussard leaves. Jesuits first came to New Mexico in 1858, where they ministered to parishioners at San Felipe de Neri Catholic Church, in what is now Old Town, Broussard said. Jesuits subsequently started the Immaculate Conception Parish in 1883. The first parish church was torn down when a new one was built Downtown in 1959. Priests from the Jesuit order established other churches in New Mexico on behalf of the Catholic Church over the years, but more recently the Jesuit presence in those churches was reduced as fewer Jesuit priests were ordained. Immaculate Conception Catholic Church at Sixth and Copper, with a parish membership of about 1,200 families, is the last one in the state. The Jesuit Order, based in Rome, is formally named the Society of Jesus and was founded in the early 1500s by Ignatius Loyola. The order has more than 16,000 priests, brothers, scholastics and novices worldwide, according to its website. Broussard, who will have been in New Mexico for more than seven years when he leaves next June, called the Jesuit departure from the state sad, and noted the orders long history here. Ive enjoyed it here and have been very happy working with people who have been generous, kind and loving, he said. People have been very responsive to the Jesuits through the years and we have a lot of ministries that will continue to serve the people of New Mexico. Its just been a wonderful experience. Therese Meyerhoff, spokeswoman for the Jesuits USA Central and Southern Province, said it can take 10-12 years for someone to become an ordained Jesuit priest, and only ordained priests can lead a parish, she said. Its simply a matter of numbers, Meyerhoff added. Part of Jesuit life is community life, so its important to be in a place where there are other Jesuits, something that is not happening in New Mexico with just four Jesuits remaining at one church. In another clergy shift within the Catholic Church in New Mexico, as of July 1, the Norbertine religious order is no longer conducting pastoral duties at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church at 5415 Fortuna NW. Because of some personnel changes, we decided that we had to make a choice between continuing at Holy Rosary or at Isleta Pueblo, said Abbot Joel Garner. Since Holy Rosary was in really good shape, a lot of lay leadership and so forth, and because Isleta doesnt have the resources, we recommended to the archbishop that we stay at Isleta and turn Holy Rosary over to the archdiocese for leadership. Norbertine priests have been at Holy Rosary for 35 years, Garner said. Members of the religious order, which is about 900 years old, came to New Mexico in 1985 from an abbey outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin, with the mission of establishing an abbey under the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. Former Archbishop Robert Sanchez offered them the pastoral leadership of Holy Rosary, and the Norbertines later built their monastery in the South Valley Santa Maria de la Vid Abbey, at 5825 Coors SW. It was named after an abbey in Spain that was built in the 12th century, Garner said. In addition to serving Saint Augustine Catholic Church on Isleta Pueblo, the Norbertines also serve another South Valley parish, St. Edwins Catholic Church. There are currently 12 Norbertines, including four seminarians, providing pastoral duties in the Albuquerque area. All of them live at the abbey. We live a communal style of life, Garner said. We serve the archbishop, as long as we can come home at night. MOORESTOWN, NJ Brian Richards is a former teacher who now prepares students to take standardized tests, and hes never been busier than he is right now as education feels the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Richards, the founder of Mindset Learning and Test Prep in Moorestown, is still working with students who were supposed to take the SAT and ACT in the spring. At the same time, hes working with students who are preparing to take the test as they normally would have. The peak time for them to take the test is the spring of their junior year, Richards said. I start with them a year ahead of time, so I have kids that Ive been working with for over a year that Im still carrying into the fall. New Jersey Coronavirus Updates: Don't miss local and statewide announcements about new coronavirus precautions. Sign up for Patch alerts and daily newsletters. When schools shut down in March to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, SAT/ACT testing was canceled at the same time. Testing was rescheduled, and there are seven ACT testing dates in September and October alone. Theres usually just one test a month in September, October and December. An SAT testing date is scheduled for September, which never happens. But there's an abundance of students who have been studying for the tests for more than a year and expected to take the test in the spring who are still waiting. Thats hard for kids, Richards said. People dont want to study for standardized tests to begin with, and now theyre studying for over a year. Thats in addition to the students who would normally be taking the test at this time. Richards is currently tutoring 30 students, far more than the typical number of students he works with at once. Half of his students have also decided that they will stay home for the school year, and parents are looking for tutors them that go beyond standardized testing preparation. Theres going to be a lot of work for tutors, Richards said. Story continues And then theres the possibility many dont want to mention, but everyone is preparing for: a second outbreak and a second shutdown, which would delay testing yet again. The importance placed on standardized testing has declined in recent years, and colleges across the country have adopted a test optional policy amid the pandemic. Richards points out that test scores make it easier for colleges to make their decisions, though. Without them, they have to dig deeper into grade point averages and other figures that are more objective depending on school districts and class schedules. That situation is muddied by the ways different districts are handling their reopening plans. Some are offering 100 percent in-person learning, while just about all of them are offering a mix of in-person and remote learning. The hybrids vary, as Moorestowns plan calls for students to attend class on Mondays and Wednesdays or Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Friday as a remote day for everyone. In nearby Haddonfield, which is often ranked among the top districts in the state along with Moorestown, the plan calls for students to attend school on Monday and Tuesday or Thursday and Friday, with the all-remote day on Wednesday. Differences in schedule can impact the way students learn. Every district is required to offer a 100 percent remote option, but differences in the way schools do it can also impact a students learning. On a positive note, school districts have said they are improving their remote learning plans for the upcoming school year. The Moorestown Public School District said during the Board of Education meeting this week that students will get more live instruction time with their teachers than they did in the spring, when schools suddenly closed and districts were thrust into an unfamiliar position. The district also said it will improve communication with parents, particularly when it comes to assessments. It also asks parents to let them know how they can improve communication via email. The board will vote on policies related to the plan on Aug. 18. For more on Mindset Learning and Test Preps tutoring programs, visit mindsetprep.com. Lists of tutors in Moorestown can be found here and here. To register for an upcoming SAT test date, click here. To register for an upcoming ACT test date, click here. See more stories about New Jersey's coronavirus recovery. This article originally appeared on the Moorestown Patch The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that easing of Covid-19 restrictions could lead to a resurgence and has asked African governments to strengthen testing and contact tracing. WHO's regional director Dr Matshidiso Moeti said African countries should remember that "no-one is safe until we are all safe". The continent's total number of recorded infections currently stands at around 900,000 cases and some countries have begun easing restrictions. Others, like Morocco, have reintroduced restrictions after a resurgence of cases. "As Africa approaches one million cases, the continent is at a pivotal point, Dr Moeti said at a press conference on Thursday. She noted that five countries accounted for nearly 75% of all cases in Africa. According to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, about three out of four of all the reported cases and deaths on the continent were reported in South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria and Sudan. Source: BBC Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video By Tom Allard JAKARTA (Reuters) - Southeast Asia is on the brink of a "socio-economic crisis" caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that could reverse decades of poverty reduction, the United Nations has warned. "The crisis threatens to destroy the livelihoods of Southeast Asia's 218 million informal workers," a U.N. policy brief released on Thursday said. "Without alternative income, formal social protection systems or savings to buffer these shocks, workers and their families will be pushed into poverty, reversing decades of poverty reduction." The region-wide economy was expected to contract by 0.4 per cent in 2020, it said, while remittances from Southeast Asians working abroad were likely to fall by 13 per cent or $10 billion. The paper urged nations to fix "fiscal termites": budget-sapping problems like tax evasion, transfer pricing and fossil fuel subsidies so they can deliver large stimulus packages to help vulnerable populations and boost their economies. Current low oil prices provided an ideal opportunity to reverse fossil fuel subsidies, it added. In Indonesia, the region's most populous country, fossil fuel subsidies in 2020 will exceed its entire COVID-19 social assistance and stimulus measures, the U.N. report said. As well as boosting social welfare payments, Southeast Asian nations should prioritise higher health spending, said Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, head of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. Six of the 11 countries in the region - including its two biggest nations, Indonesia and the Philippines - received the lowest rating for health spending on the U.N.'s five-tier human development index. Three others were on the second-lowest tier and the remaining two were on the middle tier. The report covered the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Indonesia and Timore-Leste. (Reporting by Tom Allard; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan) Smartphone bank Monzo warns the coronavirus pandemic has raised doubts over whether it could raise money in the future and continue operating. Having already seen losses increase 142 per cent to 114million in the 12 months to February 2020, it said growth had slowed and its revenue had been 'significantly impacted by the pandemic'. The challenger bank, which has around 4.3million customers and issues a 'hot coral' coloured debit card, said it was 'exposed to the risk that revenues are significantly lower for a long period of time', and the pandemic 'makes the fundraising environment more challenging'. Hot coral, red flags: Monzo has 4.3m customers but posted a loss of 114m in the 12 months to February 2020 Its directors warned the loss-making bank faced 'material uncertainties that cast significant doubt upon the group's ability to continue as a going concern'. Monzo raised 58million in mid-June but at the cost of seeing its valuation fall by 40 per cent. The directors added they remained confident 'in Monzo's ability to execute its business plan and raise capital if necessary', but even before the outbreak of the coronavirus the bank posted another stinging loss. Although its net income rose from 9million to 36million this year, losses spiralled from 47million to 114million as the bank poured money into marketing, staff and new products, while expected losses on bad loans rose by 17million. And while the bank increased its customer numbers in 2020 by 2.3million to almost 4million account holders, its results suggest it is still struggling to convince people to use it as a primary bank account. Its deposits rose to nearly 1.4billion, but with 3.9million customers at the end of February 2020 the average customer kept just 357 in their account. It has also struggled to put those deposits to work, with lending to customers, although up year-on-year to 123million, working out at just 8 per cent of deposits. Monzo founder and former chief executive Tom Blomfield said the focus was still on 'becoming a sustainable company' Monzo saw some success in making money from commission on third-party tie-ups that allow customers to open savings accounts or switch energy bills within its apps, with fees from that increasing from 100,000 to 1.4million. Its founder Tom Blomfield, who became Monzo's president earlier this year, told our sister title the Mail on Sunday in June 2019 that he hoped this marketplace model would eventually account for 80 per cent of the bank's business. However, for now it continues to make most of its money from card spending. The bank made 29.4million from fees when customers spent money on their Monzo cards, but with spending falling during the coronavirus lockdown and overseas spending likely plummeting as a result of travel restrictions, this will likely hit the lion's share of the bank's revenue. Blomfield said although this year would be a challenging time for the bank, 'our focus right now is on becoming a sustainable company thats here for the long haul.' Most major UK banks have reported heavy losses this week, with coronavirus taking its toll - however, Monzo largely relies on funding rounds. The bank, popular with generation Z and millennials, is part of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which offers protection on balances up to 85,000. Any money held in pots with third-party savings providers is covered by their own banking licence, meaning a further up to 85,000 would be protected. But the bank insisted it had over 175million in capital after its latest fundraise, and that customers' money was safe. Last October, reports claimed that banking giant RBS considered trying to take over Monzo in 2017 but was put off by the asking price. RBS instead went on to soft launch a digital challenger Bo, which has since been scrapped. Recent current account switching data found Monzo was the third most switched to bank in 2019, just behind HSBC but a long way behind number one, Nationwide Building Society. Yves here. On to the last part of Thomas Franks discussion of his new book, The People, No. Here Frank focuses on the danger to the US of demonizing populism. By Paul Jay. Originally published at TheAnalysis.news Paul Jay Hi, Im Paul Jay. Welcome to the Analysis.news podcast. This is Part Three of my discussion with Thomas Frank about his book, The People, No. So, Thomas, talk more about the mindset and how origins of this, at least modern origins, of this mindset within the elite of the Democratic Party and amongst the elites of the oligarchy, much of it actually on Wall Street, who kind of position themselves as being the anti-right, but really hate the left popular movement. Thomas Frank Theres this fascinating moment, Paul, where the word itself, populism, gets flipped and it goes from being a positive thing, you know, the sort of left-wing worker, farmer/worker movement in the 1890s, it goes from that to be a very negative thing to being, something fearful and dreadful. You know, something thats paranoid and suspicious, and pathological and anti-Semitic. And that moment when that happens is in the 1950s. Its a really fascinating place where the writing of history intersects, with history itself, with the making of history. And the man who is probably single-handedly most responsible for this is Richard Hofstadter, the greatest American historian of his day, probably of the 20th century, and aside here. I got a Ph.D. in American history, thats what I had meant to do with my life when I was young. I was a big admirer of Hofstadter when I was younger and really looked up to him. Hes an elegant writer and an elegant thinker. You know, he brings together these two, these sort of two great functions of a historian, and I thought he was absolutely wonderful. I really looked up to him when I was younger. But now Im an adult, and I look back at his masterpiece, which is a book that came out in 1955 called, The Age of Reform, and now as an adult see very clearly what this book is. It was meant as a history of different reform movements in American life. And, you know talking about which ones succeeded and which ones failed. And it was a vicious attack on populism, on the populist movement of the 1890s. But now, as an adult, I can see that it was something else at the same time. It was a manifesto for Hofstadters generation, so it was these two things at the same time. And lets begin by saying this is the book that really turned the tables on populism and made it into a negative term, a term that you applied to authoritarians and to people like Donald Trump. Hofstetter went back and looked at the original populist movement and said it was, it was pathological. It was an expression of status anxiety. Farmers were people who were on their way down, and because they were on their way down, they imagined all these scapegoats for their problems, and, you know, they were cranks. They rejected expertise, they were anti-intellectual, and above all, they were anti-Semitic. And he actually tried to blame anti-Semitism in America, all of it, basically, on populism, which is ridiculous, which is utterly fatuous, but he said that. This book was massively influential, it was a big bestseller. It won the Pulitzer Prize, it has been described as the most influential work of American history ever published. And Hofstadters larger idea, as I said, it was a manifesto for his generation and his sociological cohort. What I mean by that is he said there are two models for reform. One of them is the populist model, a mass movement of working-class people. And thats how you get reform by bringing together people at the bottom, and he said that doesnt work. We can see that doesnt work because populism was a pathological movement that was delusional. They were all hypnotized demagogues, anti-Semitism, scapegoating, et cetera, all of which turned out to be wrong. But he said theres another way to do reform, and that other way is to bring highly educated people together and put them in charge of all the different organs that go to make up government and society and business and the military. And they will all get together and sit around a big mahogany table in Washington, D.C. and come to an agreement with one another. And thats how you get things done. And he said this at the very moment, of course, this is how things work in, as we know in the world of ideas. That was, in fact, what was happening. That his generation of intellectuals was coming out of the Ivy League schools, top flight schools and were taking over the corporations. Up until then, corporations had been run by people who inherited them or people who built them, entrepreneurs, that sort of thing. But now they were going to be run by people with MBAs. people with economics degrees. People with advanced degrees were running the big departments of the government. People with advanced degrees were running the Pentagon. And Hofstadter and his friends, if you think of the other intellectuals of the time, such as Daniel Bell, thats what they were celebrating. Remember Daniel Bell had a famous book called. The End of Ideology. You didnt need ideology or you didnt need mass movements, you didnt need millions of people in the streets like you had in the 1890s and the 1930s. You needed people like Daniel Bell, sitting around a big table and making decisions on your behalf. That was the model in the 1950s and Hofstadters great book, Attacking Populism. By great, I mean spectacularly influential book, Attacking Populism, was a manifesto for that way of understanding the world. You know, The Organization Man, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, you know what Im talking about. And so this book is hugely influential. All sorts of other intellectuals at the time start copying it. They start writing about populism and the word takes on this life of its own. It becomes a stereotype. Now, heres what Hofstadter never admitted in his book. His stereotype comes directly from the democracy scare of 1896. Remember, we talked about that in the last episode. All of the elites in American society getting together and denouncing William Jennings Bryan. Hofstadter just basically took that picture that they assembled and said, Yeah, thats what populism really was. It really was a bunch of crazy farmers who really had no idea what they were doing and were rejecting the consensus expertise of their day. Paul Jay And then they look at the rise of Hitler and the Nazi dictatorship. Thomas Frank Right. Thats the same thing. Paul Jay Although the truth is Hitler is given birth to mostly by the German elites, Thomas Frank Of course, what happened was that Hofstadter was, within five years after this book came out, this triumphant manifesto for his generation. His attack on populism is completely, crushingly refuted by the American history profession. All of these people who are actual scholars of populism, who dig in the archives and read the Congressional Quarterly. What is it called, though? You know, the speeches in the House of Congress. People who have done the granular, the real research on populism and know what it actually was. These people come back at Hofstadter and within a very short amount of time have completely refuted his understanding of populism. So, like the idea that populism was the fount of anti-Semitism in America is utterly disproven. I mean thats completely wrong. As as I learned myself in my own research, Paul, anti-Semitism is all over the place in American life, especially among the people who hated populism. They were deeply, profoundly anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant and racist, anti-Black. Hes got the picture completely backward in all sorts of ways, and this is proven. We learned this when I studied, when I was a graduate student in American history, one of these classic tales of someone with a daring, Hofstadter comes forward with this thesis and the thesis is crushingly disproven. OK, nobody knows that. His thesis was completely destroyed. And yet, this stereotype that Hofstadter embraced, that he took from the 1890s and from the 1930s and was then sort of grounded in the social science of the 1950s, that stereotype takes off and his redefinition of the word populism takes off. And in fact, that is how we get this modern discipline that I referred to in an earlier episode, the discipline called Global Populism Studies. It takes its baseline definition of what populism is from Richard Hofstadter, whos getting the American populist movement completely wrong, whos using the establishment attack on populism as a definition of what populism is. This is what Im saying, Paul. Long story short, this whole redefinition of populism that we see around us every day is a pedagogy that is based on a mistake, a famous historical mistake made in the 1950s. This whole pedagogy that has departments, big-name academics, they get tenure, they publish books, they write articles, they have conferences, TED talks. All of that is based on a famous mistake. Paul Jay Or rationalized with a famous mistake. Thomas Frank No, its based on it. They build on Hofstadter. They dont often refer to him anymore, but thats where this whole idea of populism, as, you know, a nicer name for right-wing authoritarianismThats where it comes from. It comes from him. And he was completely in error about the populist movement. Anyhow, whats funny, Paul, is with so many of these questions, the facts dont really matter. Its the picture that Hofstadter painted. The stereotype is what really captured peoples imagination. So youve got this emerging class. You know, hes right about that. He and Daniel Bell and the rest of them, theyre right about that. There is this group coming up that is taking charge of the Pentagon, thats taking charge of the Fortune 500, (The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along with privately held companies for which revenues are publicly available), thats taking charge of the, you the branches of the government, the big law firms in New York, et cetera; that there is this new cohort thats running things. And this cohort needs a word to describe who they are, not. To describe what they are displacing, to describe their enemy. And that word is populism. Thats the word they settle upon. Paul Jay You write: Its the current liberal ideal of Washington, D.C. Its the philosophy of mainstream American journalism. Its the strategic model for the cautious, scholarly, consensus minded Clinton and Obama administrations, extending their hands in friendship to fellow elites and Wall Street, Silicon Valley. This is where it all begins. Talk about this kind of modern version of this anti-populism. Thomas Frank Yeah, its in some ways, what were living with now. It is very similar to 1896 and to 1936, except the political valence of it is flipped. And what I mean by that is you see this great coming together of this great consensus of the elites. Thats happening all over again. The newspapers in this country, such as they are, theres basically two of them anymore, The Post and The Times, and they agree on everything. The Post every day you open it up, and its the same thing; five anti-Trump editorials every day often denouncing populism, they do it constantly. New York Times, same thing. Theres this consensus among economists. Theyre always doing these mass signing of letters. 400 economists say that NAFTAs, (The North American Free Trade Agreement was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America), the greatest thing in the world or, you know, whatever the hell it is weve talked about, you and I have talked about this before. The consensus of the elites, the grand, whats that word from European history that when they all came together against Napoleon, what was that called? The concert of Europe. Its like that, its the grand concert of elites only in tones of utter hysteria. And thats where we are now. Now, Im not saying that Donald Trump is a real populist. I cant stand Donald Trump. I think hes a demagogue and has done incredible damage to this country, into the lives of millions of people. But the hysteria and the way that the sort of liberal elite of this country has reacted in the last four years is exactly analogous to the way conservative elites reacted against Bryan in 1896, and the way conservative elites reacted against Roosevelt in 1936. These are elites that that were either threatened or could feel themselves being displaced. And they used, at least in one of those cases, the word populist to describe the people who had displaced them. Paul Jay Your fundamental argument, if I get it from early in the book, is you actually cannot fight this kind of right-wing movement that backs Trump if you dont really get what the history of progressive populism is. But you also, as you write the absolute fear, even hatred of working class mass movements, especially of the left, actually, or of the right, especially of the left, this disbelief that controls the Democratic Party is going to keep reproducing the conditions for the rise of a Trump. Thomas Frank Yes, because they deny that its that. You remember, Paul, I think it was when you and I first met, I had written an article for The Guardian saying, you know, this is early in the days of the of the Democracy scare of 2016 when people were hysterical, that Donald Trump was going to be the Republican nominee. And I said, you know, you look at his speeches. The guy is a bigot. No question about that. And, yeah, a lot of his supporters are racist, no question about that. But hes also saying these other things. You know, he is reaching out to people on other grounds that are legitimate or sound legitimate. Trump is always full of shit, you know this. Hes always wrong. Even when hes talking about something, even when hes, like, superficially correct. His deeper understanding always turns out to be based on something thats completely wrong. You know this, right? But I said, his criticism of the trade agreements, for example, hes right about that. That was a legitimate complaint. And the Democrats blow this off at their peril. And you know, give him credit, the guy was saying these endless-He was criticizing these endless wars. Well, its about God damn time somebody criticized these endless wars. He was criticizing Wall Street all the time for bullshit reasons. He doesnt really understand what happened in the financial crisis. But he at least made a big show of criticizing these people. And then again, remember, hes done very, very little about it. But he harnessed that anger just as the Tea Party did before him, which is also a bullshit movement, if you ask me. But the right does this again and again and again. They harness legitimate public anger and bend it to their own, like Citizen Kane, well, he failed, but they tried to bend it to their own purposes. And Trump has succeeded in doing this. But if you just blow it off, now, heres the thing, if you just blow it off and ignore it, as so many of the Democrats were doing back in 2016, youre going to remain completely clueless how to stop these right-wing, these sort of backlash flashes that happen again and again in American life. The key idea here, and this is what you know, Im reading all of these, these anti-populist books and articles that have come out in the last couple of years. Theres a huge outpouring of them, all of them using the word populist to mean racist authoritarian demagogue. And Im reading these books, and one of the things theyre most upset about is that say populists are anti expert and populism represents the overthrow of legitimate expertise by people who dont know what theyre doing. And I keep waiting, every time I read one of these, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Its like, yeah, but the experts screwed up, you know. What about Vietnam? You know, what about the Iraq war? What about, you know, go down the list? What about the financial crisis? What about the bailouts? Paul Jay What about Covid-19? Thomas Frank Or what about my favorite example, the Hillary Clinton campaign, run by the greatest experts in the business? These people are Theres just a elite failure after elite failure, after elite failure. So Im reading these books who are deploring the rise of people who criticize elites, and Im saying, when are you going to deal with the fact that elites keep failing? Wheres your theory of that? I want to hear your theory of that. They never have one, they never talk about it. Its as though this is impossible. Its like its ruled out by definition, elites do not fail. Paul Jay These elites, particularly these liberal elites because they take zero responsibility for the rise of Trump in the election of Trump. But the fact that you had the greatest inequality gap in the history of the United States under the Obama- Biden administration. I mean, duh, that has no relationship to why theres a Trump? Thomas Frank Absolutely cannot be acknowledged. Absolutely cannot be acknowledged. And even if you make them do it, theyll find some way to say Its not really our fault. There was some legislation from the Bush administration, and we were dealt a bad hand, et cetera, et cetera. Obamas heart was in the right place. And maybe it was, but I mean, come on. The whole-I spent four or five years writing about nothing else but elite failure. And for them to just, you know, pretend as though none of that happened is just absolutely extraordinary. Its funny because what were talking about here, Paul is largely academic literature. These are supposed to be people who are peer-reviewed. This is supposed to be scholarly excellence in action, and if anybody can refute this stuff. Not to mention the fact what I said earlier, it all goes back to Hofstadters based on a famous mistake. Theres something really disturbing and disheartening about all of this. Its as though, well, its not as though, it is. Were living in the middle of this debate where its between two false ideas. Youve got one, an elite that has screwed up many times over and is saying that the only possible opposition to us is racist assholes, bigots with guns driving around in pickup trucks are the only possible alternative to us. And then youve got, rump, who is, you know, this deceiver, this demagogue. Paul Jay One of the best examples of what youre talking about is how Obama turned all the Treasury Department, all his economic policy to the expertise of Wall Street because only they could understand the complexity of global finance. Only they would know how to dig out of the hole of 08. And of course, they did in a way that it totally enrich themselves and created the conditions for a Trump. Thomas Frank Everything that weve said in this episode in the last 20 minutes, Paul, you can summarize it and I hope your listeners have watched the other interviews that you and I have done, because you and I have talked about this subject many, many times, and I keep coming back to the same theme, which is that experts tell us, you know, the sort of people who call themselves experts, the professional class, lets put it that way, people with advanced degrees who basically make the world that you and I live in. They are the ones who make our laws, who design our buildings, who set up our corporations, the people that Richard Hofstadter thought he was writing a manifesto for, this class of people presents themselves to us as neutral, disinterested experts. They will make the right decision on our behalf. And what I have said again and again and again is that like any other social cohort, these people will act in their own self-interest and they will help each other out, and they will help themselves when the chips are down. And you saw that in the financial crisis, in the most extraordinary way, where one set of elites bailed out another set of elites and there was zero accountability. There is zero accountability for these people who had crashed the global economy. None of them got canceled. Theyre all still there, they still have theIr goddamn jobs. Its the most amazing thing. Paul Jay And theres talk that Biden is going to bring them back into run the Treasury Department. Thomas Frank When you go back to Hofsdtatter and Co., and he was writing a manifesto for social class. OK. So again and again my message is that these people act as a class, think as a class, and theyre doing it. Theyre manifestly doing it in a way that is so patently obvious right now. Anyhow, thats my joyous message under the world. Paul Jay Well, just just before we conclude. Thomas Frank I am so negative, Paul. I want to conclude on a hopeful note. What are we going to say? Paul Jay Well, what do you make of this kind of new progressives that are getting elected? Of course, AOC is sort of the most prominent face, in the Sanders campaign. But theres been progressives running all over the place, many in, I know in New York, quite a few are actually winning and overturning some of these anti-populist Democrats are losing seats. There is emotion here. And Im wondering, what do you make of this pandemic moment where both the sort of shift in popular opinion to do with Black Lives Matter, the fact that Bidens up 15 points? Im no fan of Biden, but the American people get that this maniac, Trump, has to go. Thomas Frank Well said. Its been a catastrophe. His handling of the epidemic, I mean, the unemployment is, what, 15%? You dont get re-elected when you deliver results like that. No one does. Paul Jay So what do you make of what is this left of the Democratic Party and also the left not in the Democratic Party? Thomas Frank Oh, Im very excited about it. I think its a hopeful sign. And Im also very excited about Black Lives Matter, because you think about that name. You think about what theyre about, and its the sort of the ultimate. Its a fantastically populist slogan, you know, about But the thing is that they have to turn this corner. Their main issue is, of course, police brutality. But when this movement, if this movement, starts taking on economic inequality, as well, and starts taking on capitalism, start going after modern, this financial system, this economic system that we live under, if and when they start taking that on, thats a genuine populist movement. And all of a sudden, youve got a real force to reckon without in the streets. And I hope that happens. Now, we havent seen it yet. Paul, whats going on right now is kind of the opposite. Youve got sort of woke capital reaching out and trying to take advantage of this moment. You know, all of these corporations trying to cloak themselves in the righteousness of Black Lives Matter. But this could go the other way in a hurry, and I hope it does. I think it would be absolutely wonderful to see. Bernie Sanders, by the way. You know, we havent really talked about him. He represents the populist tradition, I think very clearly. Ive met Bernie Sanders, and I think uniquely among American politicians that Ive met, has a historical sense of how of the importance, the significance of mass movements, and also how you build a mass movement. Not many politicians, like a lot of Democrats, dont give a damn about mass movements. They just want people to go out and vote for them. And, you know, if they have a movement or dont have movement, they dont really care. But Sanders understands that if you want to make a change, its not just about the leader. Youve got to have a force. Youve got to have a mass movement in the streets. I mean, thats how the 30s happened. Thats how the 1890s, thats how the 1960s happened. Thats how change really happens. And Sanders knows that. He understands that. Now, unfortunately, he was beaten and his efforts to build a movement have been, well, its a work in progress, lets put it that way, I hope it works. But anyhow, you know, were in such a crazy time. Never has the need for universal health care been so obvious in this country. And yet we just nominated Joe Biden, who has sworn to veto universal health care if it crosses his desk. Now, I dont want to be too negative about Biden. You know, Sanders really likes him. Did you know this? Paul Jay Yeah, its interesting. I take him at his word that he thinks Biden is kind of a genuine character. Larry Wilkerson knows Biden and worked with him on the Iran nuclear deal. And he says, Biden kind of will go where the political winds take him. But hes not a bad guy. So that all goes back to the point. Thomas Frank Oh, everybody in D.C., theyll love him. You know, everybodys met him and they all love him. Paul Jay It goes back to the point you made, which is if this mass movement takes on a broader vision of, the Green New Deal kind of vision, some variation of that. That really demands a shift in power. And me, I think that means a shift in how things are owned. Thomas Frank Of course. Paul Jay You cant without, for example, public banking on a large scale. You cant weaken Wall Street and so on. But if that movement doesnt take that shape and I say, you know, if we dont all try to make it so, humans are doomed as grandiose, maybe I shouldnt use that word about Bidens climate plan, even what hes proposing is never going to happen. If the mass movement thats in motion now doesnt get much bigger and put on even more pressure once Biden is elected, not less. Our future is not going to be very bright here. But I think its very possible that it will. I certainly hope so So I wanted to end on a happy note. And I dont know if Ive got it in me anymore. But let me just put it this way, populism, when I look back at the different populist movements in American history and the populist tradition in American life, and its a very optimistic tradition, to do what these people did and keep trying against all odds and to try to build them. Oh, my God. The stuff these people did. It requires a faith in humanity that is very rare nowadays, and its really hard for me, even, to summon up nowadays. But I certainly hope that I want to be an optimist. Paul, you know me. Youve had me on your show many times. Im always a negative guy, always the most cynical guy in the room, you know. But the populist side of me wants to believe in the American people. Paul Jay Thanks for joining us, Thomas Thomas Frank And thank you for having me. Mr. Paul Jay. Paul Jay And thank you for joining us on the Analysis.news podcast. Schubach Aviation With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic irrevocably changing what it means and looks like to fly commercial, incentives for choosing private jet travel have never been higher. And respected Carlsbad-based charter operator and aircraft management company, Schubach Aviation, has been perfectly poised to meet this growing demand. Based at McClellan-Palomar Airport, Schubach has been a Southern California jet-setter go-to for almost thirty years its fleet of 12 charter aircraft regularly whisking passengers away to destinations like Palm Springs, West Palm Beach, Paris, and London President and CEO Kimberly Herrell, who acquired the company from founder Henry Schubach just six weeks before Covid-19 hit, shared that while there has been an increase of first-time private flyer inquiries, the pandemic really put relationships with long-term clients in perspective. Schubach President & CEO Kimberly Herrell shot by Monica Hoover We initially saw about a 70 percent decline in operations in April, and although we operated some flights, it was pretty quiet. As soon as hotels started opening back up, we saw a jump in demand, which has subtly increased. Were now pretty much flying the fleet at full capacity again. Herrell, an 18 year veteran of the private jet industry, attributes this organic comeback and growth to the trust built with clients their longest-standing passenger has been flying with them for 25 years alongside stringent but subtly implemented new safety protocols. While aircraft were always professionally detailed after each flight, now CDC recommended cleaning products are being used. They are covid testing pilots every two to four weeks, and passengers must fill out Schubachs online screening form 24-hours before departure. Photo Credit: Brent Haywood A Cut Above the Rest The way we responded to the pandemic just goes back to how we handle our usual safety ratings, explains Herrell. It's a natural extension of how we are as a company. Were just keeping passengers safe in a new way now for even more end to end peace of mind with minimal contact, car service, and the option to arrive a few minutes before departure. Private aviation affords an inherent sense of safety in a Covid-19 world and with many people having no plans to fly commercial in the foreseeable future, Herrell shared the company has also seen an uptick in inquiries from those looking to make the leap from booking block-time to ownership. Ownership comes with more availability, privacy, and a sense of freedom, so demand is high right now. As an aircraft management company, we offer a total step by the step aviation experience and complete oversight to the buying process - including placing an aircraft in charter service to offset buying costs and generate revenue. In response to demand, Herrell has recently been crisscrossing the country for clients to look at aircraft, including Cessna's Citation CJ3 (an economical entry-level option for first-time buyers), the Gulfstream G550, and Bombardier Challenger 300, which has trans-continental range. Schubach Aviation Dream Destinations Although flights to most of Europe are currently off the cards to American travelers, Herrell shared that some island destinations were opening back up, including the Turks and Caicos, where Schubach recently flew passengers assisting with every aspect of the Covid-19 regulation requirements for entry. Closer to home, in-demand summer destinations include Montana where Bozeman, Big Sky, and the Yellowstone Club are major draws and Lake Tahoe, which has seen a recent rise in popularity. And while Hawaii and Mexico continue to be staples, fans of Baja California Sur and anyone in the mood for the Cabo vacation to end all vacations - will want to get Schubachs new Private Passport to Pedregal travel package on their radar. The super-luxe low exposure experience entails a private round-trip flight into Cabo San Lucas International Airport with a seven-night stay in an Ocean View Suite at the exclusive five-star enclave. We have worked with numerous hospitality partners on different one day experiences over the years. The package with Pedregal came from their desire to offer this completely private guest experience, explains Herrell. Passengers take the jet to Los Cabos, and theyre whisked away to this amazing ocean view suite with a private plunge pool and personal butler service. We rolled it out three weeks ago, but its already in big demand. Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal Rumour has it that HMD Global is planning to launch three new smartphones in September. Specifically, the company is alleged to be unveiling the Nokia 2.4, Nokia 6.3 and Nokia 7.3 at IFA 2020, which will be hosted in Berlin between September 3 and 5. Working For Notebookcheck Are you a techie who knows how to write? Then join our Team! English native speakers welcome! News Writer (AUS/NZL based) - Details here HMD Global still has plans to release new Nokia smartphones before the end of the year, according to a new rumour. Last month, Nokiapoweruser (NPU) alleged that the announcement of the Nokia 6.3 and Nokia 7.3 may have been postponed until Q4 2020, along with the release of the Nokia 9.3 PureView. HMD Global apparently originally hoped to release the devices in this quarter, but NPU claimed that the "ongoing COVID19 pandemic" may have been the cause of the delay. However, now Nokiamob.net reports that HMD Global will announce the Nokia 6.3 and Nokia 7.3 in September at IFA 2020. The event, which is hosted annually in Berlin will run between September 3-5 this year. There will be four physical events at this year's IFA, but only industry representatives will be attending. According to past rumours, the Nokia 6.3 may be based on either the Snapdragon 690 or Snapdragon 730 SoC and could feature four rear-facing cameras. By contrast, HMD Global may have 4G and 5G versions of the Nokia 7.3 planned. Both devices have also recently been spotted on certification agency websites. As we mark World Conservation Day this week, it is a good time for some heartening news from the environmental world, which shows how the determined efforts of the few can create positive change and even bring species back from the brink. Deep in central Africa where the borders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda meet lies one of the most ancient habitats on the continent and the last refuge of one of the rarest animals on earth: the mountain gorilla. By the 1980s, the effects of decades of devastating civil war and unbridled poaching had reduced their numbers to about 350 animals. The shadow of extinction was closing in. When we flew through the mist swirling over forest-clad mountains in 2011, the primate was still critically endangered. From above we could see how the hillsides had been stripped bare for cultivation, butting up against the edge of Ugandas Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, where half the worlds remaining mountain gorillas live. The potential for conflict between man and great ape was clear, the fields providing easy pickings for the gorillas which were often subsequently killed in large numbers. A mountain gorilla in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park [File: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters] Fear and wonder After a sweltering trek of several hours through the rainforest, we homed in on a gorilla group. I remember being so close that we could pick out their scent pretty much how pungent, sweaty humans would smell after a lifetime without shower gel. They share 98 percent of our DNA after all. Suddenly Safari, a big alpha male, bowled purposefully into view, stopped and stared us down. We were frozen by an adrenalising combination of fear and wonder. As he shambled off into the undergrowth, a couple of infants, no more than two years old, crashed about in the trees. Their mother, sitting on her haunches, sat calmly observing, chewing handfuls of fibrous leaves. The fact that these gorillas were there at all is down to the success of the International Gorilla Conservation Programme. A 12km long buffer zone had been established along the fringes of the national park, protecting the gorillas and so allowing tourist dollars to flow. Locals could then get a job with the conservation programme itself, becoming guides or trackers, while others could make money from basket weavings and carvings. In 2018, the primates status was changed from critically endangered to endangered, with its population noted to be increasing. Today, mountain gorillas in the wild number more than 1,000. Dangers during the pandemic Mountain gorillas have seen a spectacular revival, but there are new dangers, so efforts must be redoubled. COVID-19 and the absence of cash-rich Westerners have affected local livelihoods with government officials in central Africa warning that people could resort to poaching out of desperation. Conservationists, though, are determined not to lose the gains made by decades of work. The populations of mountain gorillas must continue to thrive and grow. Cross River gorilla babies Meanwhile, recent photos of another sub-species the Cross River gorilla have been released, taken in the mountains of southern Nigeria. At most 300 are known to exist in the wild but the pictures show a number of infant gorillas with the group. And when animals at risk of extinction are reproducing, that can only be good news. Tigers rebound This week also marks Global Tiger Day and here too they are bending the curve. Wild tiger numbers are increasing in five countries. In India in a recovery the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) called an astonishing success the estimate of tigers in the wild more than doubled between 2006 and 2018. In Nepal, numbers have nearly doubled since 2009. In the Royal Manas National Park in Bhutan, they more than doubled from 2010 to 2018. And in China and the Russian Far East, tiger populations are increasing and dispersing into new areas, the NGO said. Elsewhere, conservation group Panthera captured just-released footage of tigers from a forest in western Thailand, where the endangered animals have not been seen for years. From an historic population low in 2010, tigers are finally making a remarkable comeback in much of South Asia, Russia and China, said Stuart Chapman, leader of WWFs Tigers Alive Initiative. And thats great news for the other threatened species they share their home with, and also the millions of people dependent on these ecosystems. The importance of tiger conservation is evident in that Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia have already lost their total tiger populations, while Myanmar is thought to have just 23 individuals left. And all tigers are under intense pressure from the illegal wildlife trade, especially in China. So as threats and challenges continue to grow, this week it is hats off to the unsung heroes of the conservation world. From bringing Red Kites back from the brink in the British countryside to protecting the peatlands of the Congo Basin, from preserving endangered Arctic lichens to enabling the return of beavers in northern Europe, let these stories of success inspire us in challenging times. Your environment round-up 1. Environmental murders: A total of 212 land defenders were killed in 2019, with the majority of deaths in Latin America, according to a report by Global Witness. The five most deadly countries were Colombia, the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico and Honduras. 2. Nuclear fusion: As the world scrambles for more renewable sources of energy, construction has begun on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. Funded by 35 nations, the megaproject plans to replicate fusion the process that powers the sun by colliding hydrogen nuclei to generate heat. It is the worlds first industrial-scale device of its kind, and aims to create limitless, waste-free energy. 3. Bushfires: A new report estimates that almost three billion animals were killed or displaced by Australias bushfires between 2019 and 2020. Dermot OGorman, WWF-Australias chief executive officer, calls it one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history. 4. US elections: With the Donald Trump administration rolling back environmental protections, and the US preparing to leave the Paris climate agreement on November 4 just one day after the presidential polls many worry that the fight to save the planet will be harder than ever if Trump is re-elected. 5. Ancient seaweed: A team of scientists has found 16,000-year-old kelp off the coasts of Ireland, Scotland and France, which they hope can help us better understand marine plants responses to extreme climate changes. 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About Octane5: Octane5 is a team of licensing system and brand compliance experts delivering software and security products to leading global brands and institutions. Octane5 is the team behind BrandComply licensing enterprise platform and BrandComply College that deliver brand compliance and protection through a fully integrated suite of software and security products that control virtually every aspect of the brand licensing ecosystem. Operating out of offices in Atlanta, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and London, the Octane5 team serves a global client base consisting of hundreds of brands and tens of thousands of licensees. Learn more at www.octane5.com or www.brandcomplycollege.com Contact Octane5: Jim Kucia EVP, Business Development [email protected] 404-889-8620 Contact BrandComply College: John Mybeck President [email protected] 317.341.2371 About Nexus Licensing Group: Nexus Licensing Group is a trademark licensing management and advisory firm dedicated to providing guidance and support to colleges and universities of all sizes. The company offers a custom approach to each engagement focusing on each client's unique needs, goals, and objectives. Learn more at www.nexuslicensinggroup.com. About CLPA: The Collegiate Licensed Properties Association (CLPA) is a non-profit organization made up of eleven colleges and universities who manage their own licensing program. Together, these universities created the CLPA Authentication Program, which helps to protect university brands from the production and sale of counterfeit merchandise. SOURCE Octane5 The only city in America where unemployment dropped in June has been revealed as Owensboro, Kentucky, a picturesque town of 60,000 on the Ohio River. Owensboro was the only city among the 200 municipalities tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that had a lower unemployment rate last month than it did in June of last year. Owensboro's unemployment rate was just 4.2 percent last month, compared to 11.1 percent nationwide. Kentucky overall was among the states with the lowest unemployment rates, at 4.8 percent. Leaders in Owensboro cite the city's healthy base of industry in sectors that have done well despite the coronavirus pandemic, including healthcare, bourbon distilling, tobacco products and personal protective equipment. Owensboro, Kentucky, a city of 60,000 on the Ohio River, was the only US city that saw unemployment drop in June compared to the same month last year Owensboro's historic district is seen above. Owensboro's unemployment rate was just 4.2 percent last month, compared to 11.1 percent nationwide Owensboro residents are seen earlier this month. The employment situation in Owensboro was helped by the fact that some of its largest employers have not had to cut jobs. 'We've managed it as a community,' Owensboro Mayor Tom Watson told CNN Business of the city's response to the pandemic. Watson told CNN that the city had seen about 500 confirmed coronavirus cases, which led to 53 hospitalizations and eight deaths. Officials say that the employment situation in Owensboro was helped by the fact that some of its largest employers have not had to cut jobs. Like the rest of Kentucky and most of the nation, bars and restaurants in Owensboro have gone through rounds of shutdowns and layoffs, but larger employers in the area have been able to fill the gap. The city's largest employer, Owensboro Health Regional Hospital, has survived the pandemic well financially, according to the mayor. A number of famed bourbon distilleries have also continued to operate at full capacity in Owensboro, including Glenmore and O.Z. Tyler. Sazerac Company, which owns Glenmore, vowed in March to add 80 new jobs, even as the nation faced an unemployment crisis. Alex Martin plays the song 'Can't You See' by The Marshall Tucker Band on his Takemine acoustic guitar while enjoying the outdoors at Owensboro's Smothers Park on July 1 The city's largest employer, Owensboro Health Regional Hospital, has survived the pandemic well financially, according to the mayor A number of famed bourbon distilleries have also continued to operate at full capacity in Owensboro, including Glenmore and O.Z. Tyler Billy Reid of the famed Reid Orchards trains the limbs of a yellow delicious apple tree on July 15 in Owensboro. Training the tree will help them to grow to fill the trellis system with branches and to have a good balance and to produce more fruit Owensboro is also home to Swedish Match, a company that makes smokeless tobacco and smoking cessation products. The company said that its strong second-quarter growth in the U.S. had been fueled by demand for nicotine patches. As well, workplace uniform company Unifirst has also been manufacturing personal protective equipment, which has been in high demand during the pandemic. Owensboro's good fortune was revealed a day after weekly jobless statistics for the whole of the US showed 1.4 million new unemployment claims - the second week in a row they have gone up. The Labor Department's report Thursday marked the 19th straight week that more than 1 million people have applied for unemployment benefits. Before the coronavirus hit hard in March, the number of Americans seeking unemployment checks had never exceeded 700,000 in any one week, even during the Great Recession. All told, 17 million people are collecting traditional jobless benefits, a sign that unemployment checks are keeping many American families afloat financially at a time of big job losses and agonizing economic uncertainty. The U.S. economy shrank at a dizzying 33% annual rate in the April-June quarter - by far the worst quarterly plunge ever - as coronavirus shut down businesses, throwing tens of millions out of work and sending unemployment surging to 14.7%, the government said Thursday. The Commerce Department's estimate of the second-quarter decline in the gross domestic product, the total output of goods and services, marked the sharpest such drop on records dating to 1947. The previous worst quarterly contraction, a 10% drop, occurred in 1958 during the Eisenhower administration. The city, which declares itself the 'BBQ Capital of the World,' takes pride in the annual International Bar-B-Q Festival and competition (above) Residents enjoy the Hurricane Ride at the 41st Annual International Bar-B-Q Festival last year Children cool off at Horse Fork Creek Spray Park in Owensboro earlier this month The fourth largest city in Kentucky, Owensboro is known as a family-friendly town with festivals and events throughout the year. The city, which declares itself the 'BBQ Capital of the World,' takes pride in the annual International Bar-B-Q Festival and competition, which is normally held in May, but was cancelled this year due to the pandemic. Owensboro's annual bluegrass festival is also a highly anticipated event, and from spring until fall, free concerts are held every weekend on the downtown riverfront. Children are seen playing in Owensboro on Thursday. Of the city's households, 45 percent consist of married couples, and about a quarter had children under the age of 18 at home The city's median income is $41,215, and 55 percent of residents own their own homes. The median value of owner-occupied homes in $111,400 in Owensboro, and median rent is $723, according to Census data. The average commute in Owensboro takes 16 minutes. The median age in the city is 37, with the population spread fairly evenly among various age groups. Of the city's households, 45 percent consist of married couples, and about a quarter had children under the age of 18 living in the home. Owensboro's population is 84 percent non-Hispanic white, 6 percent black, 4 percent Hispanic, and 2 percent Asian. First settled by European Americans in 1797, Owensboro was originally known as 'Yellow Banks' from the color of the land beside the Ohio River. The modern name is in honor of Colonel Abraham Owen, who was a member of the Kentucky Legislature in 1798, and a member of the state constitutional convention the next year. SHELTON The rubber hit the dumpster Saturday as volunteers removed nearly 200 old tires from the wooded area beside Little Pond Trail. This clean-up job was organized by the Shelton Trails Committee, which helps in maintaining some 30 miles of trails throughout the city. The committee regularly holds work parties to clean up city trailways, but committee member Val Gosset said this job called for more heavy lifting. It was amazing the amount of work done in such a short period of time to spruce this area up, said Gosset. Little Pond Trail is in a little-known open space in White Hills, one of the Out and About Challenge spots. The short trail to the pond has recently been cleared and spruced up, but there was still a mound of used tires that needed to be removed. Gosset said the tires were once used for the base of an elaborate wrestling ring built by neighborhood teenagers about 20 years ago. The ring has long since been removed, but the tires remained. We were pleasantly surprised by the turnout, said Gosset about the volunteers who came to the trail to help. It was a hot day. We really got a lot done. Shelton Trails Committee member Mark Vollaro hatched the plan last week when he learned that Highway Department employee Nancy McMonagle knew the homeowner on Pine Tree Hill Road who lived closest to the tire pile. McMonagle secured the homeowners agreement to use his yard to get to the tires and made arrangements for a dumpster to hold them. More than 20 volunteers gathered to tackle the job, dislodging the tires, removing water from them, hauling them out of the woods and stacking them on the trailer platform Trails Vollaro created to transport the tires across the yard. McMonagle and her husband and son loaded the dumpster. Gosset also credited longtime Shelton resident and retired Police Officer David Eldridge, who was unable to go by Saturday so went to the site Friday and moved some 90 tires from the trail to next to the dumpster. I knew the area, and the large task they had, said Eldridge. The homeowners daughter said I had permission to walk through their yard, so I went and spent a couple hours. During these times, families need a release valve and places to go. So now we can see how important our open space and trails are and how they directly benefit the community, said Eldridge. The Open Space Commission Trails Committee are our unsung heroes in our community. The trails they made have never seen the level of usage until COVID-19. Shelton Trails work parties are usually held the second and forth Saturday morning of each month. To receive notifications of future work parties, email sheltontrailscommittee@gmail.com. brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has announced he is stepping down from the role, a year after he took up the job. Matthew Albence, a 25-year veteran of law enforcement who also served as ICE deputy director, said Friday that he will retire and leave the agency within a month. Albence's departure comes as ICE is put under increasing scrutiny as protesters across the nation call for the agency to be defunded or abolished. The move has also left ICE agents 'fearful' of who Trump will appoint in his place, saying Albence often acted as a buffer for pressure coming from the White House. Matthew Albence, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has announced he will be retiring from the role within a month - just a year after he was appointed A source told the Washington Examiner: 'Matt has been... such a defender. He's not a political appointee. Matt's a guy who has done the job. 'Our fear is that theyre going to put a political appointee who's never done the job and doesn't know the difficulty we have in enforcing immigration law.' In an official statement, Albence said: 'This was an exceptionally hard decision to make, a decision prolonged due to the uncertainty of a global pandemic and the essential role ICE continues to play in our nation's response.' The pandemic has created challenges for ICE operations both in the field and in detention centers, where nearly 4,000 migrants have tested positive for coronavirus. Trump has made immigration a major theme of his first four-year term in office and a central part of his 2020 campaign against Democratic challenger Joe Biden. He has implemented a number of sweeping immigration measures during the pandemic, suspending entry of certain foreign workers and green card applicants. The move leaves a hole at the top of an agency which will be key to Trump's reelection bid just months away from the election, and amid mounting calls to abolish it altogether He has also allowed US authorities to rapidly deport migrants encountered at the country's borders with Mexico and Canada. ICE tactical police were part of recent deployment of federal officers sent to quell protests outside a courthouse in Portland, Oregon, an effort that drew criticism from Democratic officials in the state. Oregon's Democratic governor, Kate Brown, said on Wednesday that federal forces had agreed to withdraw from Portland, though U.S. officials said they would stay until conditions improved after weeks of clashes with protesters. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ICE's parent agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about who would replace Albence. Derek Benner, executive associate director for ICE's homeland security investigations division, is the next highest ranking official. The year 2020 is the hottest in Siberia since measurements began 130 years ago. Russian cities across the polar circle recorded record temperatures. In Nizhnyaya Pesha, a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius (86F) was measured and in Khatanga, which usually has a daytime temperature of around freezing at this time of year, the temperature reached 25C (77F) on May 22. The previous record was 12C (54F). In Verkhoyansk, a Russian city in eastern Siberia, the situation is even more extreme. The small city in the state of Sakha was considered the coldest city in the world. But Twitter posts of meteorologist Mika Rantanen have announced that at a hefty 38C (100F), Verkhoyansk has set a record high temperature. Records have been kept since 1885. At least 11 other Arctic weather stations recorded temperatures over 30C. According to announcement of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the May surface temperatures in parts of Siberia were up to 10 degrees Celsius above average. Freja Vamborg, a leading scientist at C3S, said: It is undoubtedly an alarming sign, but not only May was unusually warm in Siberia. The whole of winter and spring had repeated periods of higher-than-average surface air temperatures. Scientists explain that the record heatwave in Siberia is an extreme consequence of global climate change. Martin Stendel of the Danish Meteorological Institute reported that the uncommon temperatures in May would occur once in 100,000 years without anthropogenic contributions to global warming. According to geomorphologist Anna Irrgang of the Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, extreme weather occurrences in this region are not uncommon. What is novel is the frequency of their occurrence. Mika Rantanen likewise warned that the Arctic is warming three-to-four times faster than the global average. Climate scientist Anders Levermann of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research stated: The novel aspect of this phenomenon is that the warming of Siberia is not a short-term observation and as such cannot be explained by the wind system of the jetstream, which can last one or two weeks, but not for five months. The thawing of the permafrost ground layer is especially critical. Permafrost covers about half of the Russian landmass and has been warming for some time. A comparative study of the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost showed in 2019 that across the board, the temperatures at 10 meters depth rose on average 0.3C from 2007 to 2016. Siberia comes in at the high end: There the temperature of the frozen ground measured at individual bore holes warmed 0.9C. In the Antarctic, the researchers measured an average rise of 0.37C. According to experts, regions with permafrost, especially in Alaska, Canada and Siberia, are more strongly affected by climate change than are other parts of the world. Based on statements by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the temperatures of permafrost have risen to record levels in the last 40 years, and that after millions of years of maintaining freezer-like temperatures. The consequences for mankind and nature are dramatic. For years, wooden houses in the east Siberian Yakutsk have been sinking into the softening ground or slowly falling over. On the Yamal peninsula, reindeer have begun bogging down in swamps. The herders complain that they no longer know how to move their animals from winter to summer pastures. In Scandinavian Lapland, reindeer have begun starving because ice, instead of snow that they can scrape aside with their hooves, has prevented them from accessing nourishment. In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on the unusual warmth: Some of our cities were built north of the Arctic Circle, on the permafrost. If it begins to thaw, you can imagine what consequences it would have. Its very serious. This, however, is hypocritical. The fact is that the Russian government is doing almost nothing for climate protection, but rather, like its international rivals, sees the warming of the Arctic as a strategic opportunity to access raw materials and open new trade routes. In August 2019, as part of its new scramble for the Arctic, the Russian government launched a floating nuclear power plant in the Arctic Sea, raising the danger of a nuclear catastrophe. The above-average warming in Siberia is also being blamed for the catastrophic oil spill near the city of Norilsk. This is just one more example of how Russia disregards climate protection for the sake of profit. On May 29, an accident at a power plant belonging to the mining company Nornickel near the northern Siberian city led to a massive oil slick. Some 21,000 tons of diesel were released into the environment and contaminated the regional water system, prompting the declaration of a state of emergency. Another concerning result of the warming is that thawing permafrost will release huge quantities of greenhouse gases that would contribute to further warming. As such, these heat waves are catalyzers for climate change. Among other gases, methane, an exceedingly potent greenhouse gas, would be set free. Viewed over 100 years, methane affects the climate about 34 times more strongly than CO2, and 86 times more strongly viewed over 20 years, said Guido Grosse of the Helmholtz Center. Not only carbon dioxide and methane captured in permafrost will be released, but also the neurotoxin mercury. The polar regions of the Earth harbor huge quantities of heavy metals, transported there on wind currents. Chemical reactions with bromide salts scrub the poisons from the atmosphere and deposit them on the surface. This is how mercury, over thousands of years, has accumulated in the marine food chain, first in aquatic animals and then in seals and polar bears and ultimately to humans who rely on fishing for sustenance. This is demonstrable in blood samples of seal species that live in the Arctic. How fast this accumulation occurs will depend on how fast the climate warms in the next years. Predictions range from 30 percent up to 99 percent of permafrost will thaw before the turn of the century. What would take thousands to millions of years in the natural cycle is now happening in a human lifetime, said Paul Schuster of the US Geological Service. As a result of the record-setting temperatures, wildfires have consumed hundreds of thousands of hectares of Siberian forest. It is common for farmers to burn their fields in spring to clear vegetation, but a combination of high temperatures and strong winds stoked some fires out of control. Thus, on June 27, an area of 1.4 million hectares, an area larger than Austria, burned. In the previous year, according to estimations of the environmental organization Greenpeace, 150,000 square kilometers burned, an area twice the size of Ireland. For weeks on end the residents of many Siberian cities suffered toxic smoke. The problem of the subjugation of climate protection to profit interest is not limited to Russia. It is the trademark of all capitalist governments. In order to fast-track construction projects and supposedly to create jobs, President Trump signed an executive order on June 5 to loosen the environmental restriction in the US. Another example are the tragic wildfires in the Ukraine that on April 4 came within 1 kilometer of the infamous Chernobyl nuclear plant, massively raising the levels of radiation near the fires for the first half of April. Natural catastrophes caused by climate change and reckless destruction of the environment by big business are occurring ever more frequently. The record temperatures and forest fires in Siberia follow just a half-year behind the catastrophic fires in Australia. At the beginning of the year, the WSWS warned in an important statement: The last decade was marked by the continued and increasingly rapid destruction of the environment. Scientists have issued ever more dire warnings that without urgent and far-reaching action on a global scale, the effects of global warming will be devastating and irreversible. The only hope of limiting global warming and putting an end to the reckless exploitation of nature lies in the fight of the international working class against capitalism. Only by means of a socialist planned economy, focused on human need, rather than private profits and national control of resources and raw materials, can the dangers of climate change be surmounted. Cartoonist R. Sikoryak's talent for mimicking other cartoonists, from Krazy Kat's George Herriman to Nancy's Ernie Bushmiiler, is uncanny. He has a new book out, called Constitution Illustrated, published by Drawn & Quarterly and I have been marveling at the illustrations. The publisher kindly gave me permission to run some samples so you can see the versatility of Sikoryak's work. A gifted pastiche and parody artist as well as a New Yorker cartoonist, R. Sikoryak's perhaps best known for his widely lauded graphic novel adaptation of the iTunes Terms and Conditions agreement, where each page referenced a different classic comic. It is a triumph of cartooning, one that demonstrated the power of the comics medium to make the unreadable into a text the average reader could engage with. While the Constitution is hardly so dense, Sikoryak transforms it by interpreting it within 100 years of American pop culture icons, all dressed in period attire, naturally! The 13th Amendment is brought to life by Billy Graham's classic 1973 comic book cover for Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, drawn by one of the few Black cartoonists in the Marvel bullpen. The Boondocks explain the Fourth Amendment preventing seizure. Earlier on, Cathy reminds us that money drawn from the treasury must be appropriately accounted for publically. And it's pretty satisfying to see the cast of Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For assemble in Section 4, as the Constitution lays out what meetings of Congress look like. The news outlets being sued by Ben Roberts-Smith over allegations he was involved in unlawful killings as an Australian soldier have been allowed to include new evidence about two deaths to strengthen their defence for a coming defamation trial. Mr Roberts-Smith, a Victoria Cross recipient and former Special Air Service soldier, is suing The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald over reports he allegedly committed murder on deployments to Afghanistan. He denies the allegations and says the news reports are defamatory because they portray him as a war criminal. Ben Roberts-Smith. Credit:Cole Bennetts The media outlets are defending the claim. A date is yet to be set for a trial in the Federal Court. The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald this year lodged an application to amend their defence based on new evidence that includes allegations Mr Roberts-Smith ordered colleagues to kill two unarmed men on separate days in 2012. An injured monkey that was hit by speeding cars on a highway in Malaysia was rescued by a police officer and a passing motorcycle rider. The traffic cop was patrolling the Lubuhraya Toll road in Selangor on July 20 when he noticed the bloodied monkey. The poor animal had been trying to cross the highway to reach a forest on the other side when it was hit by a vehicle. A kind delivery rider also stopped his bike to help the officers who were having a hard time catching the defensive monkey, who was frightened and hurting. In the video, the long-tailed monkey refused to be carried by the officers because it is was defensive after sustaining injuries. The monkey continued to evade them causing slow traffic until the rider was able to carry it into safety. The heroic rider took the monkey in his arms and carried it on the other side of the road where the thick forest is. It scampered away while the traffic officers and the rider were later praised by the Malaysian Royal Police. They said: "We would like to express our congratulations and thanks to the officers and the rider. The way that they helped the monkey is a good example of cooperation between officers and citizens.'' The HT Nielsen Bestseller list for the week ending 25th July remains largely unchanged from the previous three weeks with Legend of Suheldev by Amishs Immortal Writers Book Centre at the top of the fiction chart and Sadhgurus Death; An Inside Story at the top of the non-fiction section. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides is a new entry at number 4. While the fiction list last week featured many books based on Hindu mythology, the balance has shifted to crime thrillers like Chetan Bhagats The Girl in Room 105, which has been a fixture in the top 10 since the beginning of 2020, and general fiction like Shravya Bhinders Something I Never Told You. In non-fiction, former RBI governor Urjit Patels Overdraft: Saving the Indian Saver, which was first excerpted in Hindustan Times, shoots into the charts at number seven. The top and the bottom of the non-fiction chart are occupied by books by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev Death; An Inside Story begins the list while Emotion & Relationships bring up the tail end. FICTION 1.Legend of Suheldev:The King Who Saved India - Amish: An Immortal Writers Book Centre Westland 2.The Girl in Room 105 Chetan Bhagat Westland 3.Wake Up, Life is Calling Preeti Shenoy Srishti 4.The Silent Patient Alex Michaelides Hachette 5.Raavan: Enemy of Aryavarta: Ram Chandra Series Amish Tripathi Westland 6.Wish I Could Tell You Durjoy Datta - Penguin Random House 7.Stories we never tell Savi Sharma Westland 8.The Vault of Vishnu Ashwin Sanghi Westland 9.Something I Never Told You Shravya Bhinder - Penguin Random House 10. A Girl to Remember AK Pandey Srishti The former RBI governers new book enters the bestseller list at number 7 NON-FICTION 1. Death; An Inside Story: A book for all those who shall die Sadhguru - Penguin Random House 2. The 5 AM Club Robin Sharma Jaico 3. Lifes Amazing Secrets: How to Find Balance and Purpose in Your Life - Gaur Gopal Das - Penguin Random House 4. The Rudest Book Ever Shwetabh Gangwar Westland 5. Dear Stranger, I Know How You Feel Ashish Bagrecha Westland 6. Atomic Habits James Clear - Penguin Random House 7. Overdraft: Saving the Indian Saver Urjit Patel - HarperCollins 8. The 12-Week Fitness Project Rujuta Diwekar - Juggernaut 9. The Anarchy:The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage Of An Empire William Dalrymple Bloomsbury 10. Emotion & Relationships Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev Jaico Three female employees of the Macomb County Medical Examiners Office have been fired for displaying pornographic images of mostly males in the office and on their computers. Two morgue technicians and an investigator were terminated Thursday following a due-process procedure known as a Loudermill hearing Wednesday that resulted from a July 18 complaint by an employee, according to county officials. A fourth employee, the manager, remains on paid administrative leave and under investigation for allowing the behavior to occur, officials said. That employee has not yet had a Loudermill hearing. Images were placed in open areas, including on computer screen-savers, that co-workers could see. Of a number of photos, all but one depicted men, officials said. County Executive Mark Hackel decided to terminate the employees upon recommendation of Human Resources and Corporation Counsel, based on the nature of the material (photographs) and the time that they were there, he said. There is no tolerance for that type of conduct or behavior, Hackel said. Human Resources Director Andrew McKinnon added, We take this super-serious and took action on the substance of the claims. We want our employees to feel comfortable to come forward if they feel there is something inappropriate going on in the work place. We want everyone to feel included, safe and accepted in Macomb County government. Hackel said the situation does not appear to reflect on chief Medical Examiner Dr. Daniel Spitz, who, like two other forensic pathologists, is a contract employee and does not wield authority over ME employees. But he said he would like to wait until the outcome of the fourth employee before commenting definitively. The staff reduction has placed a strain on remaining employees, officials said. Only one technician remains and seven of eight investigators remain. Technicians prepare bodies for autopsies and assist pathologists during autopsies. Investigators probe deaths. Oakland County has offered to provide personnel assistance but officials did not know whether the Macomb office has accepted. Human Resources officials are urgently seeking to hire employees, including notifying the Wayne State University pathology program. The morgue, located off Groesbeck Highway near Elizabeth Road in Mount Clemens, is scheduled to undergo an estimated $2-million expansion by the end of the year to increase capacity for incoming bodies. Funds for the expansion are coming from the federal CARES Act, stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. At the height of the virus spread in the county, the morgue was at capacity, and officials discussed bringing in refrigerated trucks but did not. The complaining employee also alleged that Black employees were more often steered to deal with families of deceased Blacks, but officials said they did not substantiate that. The two technicians, represented by the American Federal of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 411, have filed grievances and will have an appeal process that could lead to binding arbitration. KHABAROVSK, Russia A Russian court sentenced a well-known blogger who has covered ongoing daily protests in the Far Eastern city to seven days in jail after finding him guilty of violating the law on public gatherings. Aleksei Romanov's lawyer, Vitaly Tykhta, told RFE/RL that his client was detained in the morning of July 31 while leaving his appartment and tried in the afternoon. Romanov fled Russia with his family in 2016, saying that he feared for his safety amid a campaign of harassment by the local authorities. He returned to Khabarovsk last year. His YouTube channel has 316,000 subscribers. Over the past three weeks, protesters have taken to the streets of Khabarovsk and other towns and cities in Khabarovsk Krai in support of the arrested former governor of the region, Sergei Furgal. Furgal, who was arrested in Khabarovsk on July 9 and transferred to Moscow, was charged with attempted murder and ordering two murders in 2004-2005. He denies the allegations and his supporters say the charges are politically motivated. Police in Khabarovsk and elsewhere have detained several protesters in recent days. Some of them have been fined or sentenced to detention for several days. The demonstrators nitially demanded Furgal's release, but their anger has grown to include calls for the resignation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Khabarovsk region residents overwhelmingly voted for Furgal in the 2018 gubernatorial elections. His surprise victory was a blow to the ruling United Russia party. On July 31, 2020, this report was posted online as an MMWR Early Release. Limited data are available about transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), among youths. During June 1720, an overnight camp in Georgia (camp A) held orientation for 138 trainees and 120 staff members; staff members remained for the first camp session, scheduled during June 2127, and were joined by 363 campers and three senior staff members on June 21. Camp A adhered to the measures in Georgias Executive Order* that allowed overnight camps to operate beginning on May 31, including requiring all trainees, staff members, and campers to provide documentation of a negative viral SARS-CoV-2 test 12 days before arriving. Camp A adopted most components of CDCs Suggestions for Youth and Summer Camps to minimize the risk for SARS-CoV-2 introduction and transmission. Measures not implemented were cloth masks for campers and opening windows and doors for increased ventilation in buildings. Cloth masks were required for staff members. Camp attendees were cohorted by cabin and engaged in a variety of indoor and outdoor activities, including daily vigorous singing and cheering. On June 23, a teenage staff member left camp A after developing chills the previous evening. The staff member was tested and reported a positive test result for SARS-CoV-2 the following day (June 24). Camp A officials began sending campers home on June 24 and closed the camp on June 27. On June 25, the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) was notified and initiated an investigation. DPH recommended that all attendees be tested and self-quarantine, and isolate if they had a positive test result. A line list of all attendees was obtained and matched to laboratory results from the State Electronic Notifiable Disease Surveillance System and data from DPH case investigations. A COVID-19 case associated with the camp A outbreak was defined as a positive viral SARS-CoV-2 test** in a camp A attendee from a specimen collected or reported to DPH from the first day at camp A (June 17 for staff members and trainees; June 21 for campers) through 14 days after leaving camp A (trainees left on June 21; staff members and campers left during June 24June 27). Out-of-state attendees (27) were excluded from this preliminary analysis. Attack rates were calculated by dividing the number of persons with positive test results by the total number of Georgia attendees, including those who did not have testing results, because negative test results are not consistently reported in Georgia. A total of 597 Georgia residents attended camp A. Median camper age was 12 years (range = 619 years), and 53% (182 of 346) were female. The median age of staff members and trainees was 17 years (range = 1459 years), and 59% (148 of 251) were female. Test results were available for 344 (58%) attendees; among these, 260 (76%) were positive. The overall attack rate was 44% (260 of 597), 51% among those aged 610 years, 44% among those aged 1117 years, and 33% among those aged 1821 years (Table). Attack rates increased with increasing length of time spent at the camp, with staff members having the highest attack rate (56%). During June 2127, occupancy of the 31 cabins averaged 15 persons per cabin (range = 126); median cabin attack rate was 50% (range = 22%70%) among 28 cabins that had one or more cases. Among 136 cases with available symptom data, 36 (26%) patients reported no symptoms; among 100 (74%) who reported symptoms, those most commonly reported were subjective or documented fever (65%), headache (61%), and sore throat (46%). The findings in this report are subject to at least three limitations. First, attack rates presented are likely an underestimate because cases might have been missed among persons not tested or whose test results were not reported. Second, given the increasing incidence of COVID-19 in Georgia in June and July, some cases might have resulted from transmission occurring before or after camp attendance. Finally, it was not possible to assess individual adherence to COVID-19 prevention measures at camp A, including physical distancing between, and within, cabin cohorts and use of cloth masks, which were not required for campers. These findings demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 spread efficiently in a youth-centric overnight setting, resulting in high attack rates among persons in all age groups, despite efforts by camp officials to implement most recommended strategies to prevent transmission. Asymptomatic infection was common and potentially contributed to undetected transmission, as has been previously reported (14). This investigation adds to the body of evidence demonstrating that children of all ages are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection (13) and, contrary to early reports (5,6), might play an important role in transmission (7,8). The multiple measures adopted by the camp were not sufficient to prevent an outbreak in the context of substantial community transmission. Relatively large cohorts sleeping in the same cabin and engaging in regular singing and cheering likely contributed to transmission (9). Use of cloth masks, which has been shown to reduce the risk for infection (10), was not universal. An ongoing investigation will further characterize specific exposures associated with infection, illness course, and any secondary transmission to household members. Physical distancing and consistent and correct use of cloth masks should be emphasized as important strategies for mitigating transmission in congregate settings. China, ASEAN countries explore int'l military cooperation under normalized pandemic situation PLA Daily Source: China Military Online Editor: Huang Panyue 2020-07-30 18:58:42 BEIJING, July 30 -- From July 7 to 8, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defense Senior Officials' Meeting Plus and the ASEAN Regional Forum Security Policy Conference (ASPC) held video conferences, and Chinese military's representatives participated in the video conferences in Beijing, said Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense (MND), in a regular press conference on Thursday. According to Ren, the Chinese military's representatives and the other participating parties of the ASEAN countries exchanged views on the military's participation in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and the international and regional security situation, and discussed on strengthening the coordination of the two meetings. The Chinese side emphatically introduced the Chinese military's experience in fighting COVID-19 pandemic at home and relevant information on conducting international cooperation in the fight against COVID-19,and proposed that all parties should strengthen the capacity in jointly dealing with non-traditional security challenges, said Ren Guoqiang, adding that the meetings have yielded positive results in enhancing understanding and expanding consensus. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the defense departments and militaries of China and the ASEAN countries have maintained close communication and coordination, exploring exchanges and cooperation under normalized pandemic prevention and control situation, Ren introduced. They also have achieved positive effects in terms of anti-pandemic material assistance, dispatching medical expert groups, and holding video conferences in exchange of experience, he added. Next, the Chinese military will, as always, strengthen pragmatic cooperation with all parties in the fields of anti-pandemic efforts, joint exercises and training, humanitarian relief and disaster reduction, so as to jointly maintain regional security and stability, Ren expressed. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address As research for a coronavirus vaccine continues to ramp up worldwide, more and more clinical trials are coming to Louisiana. The latest is being tested by Pfizer; Ochsner Health System officials announced Friday that they would be among the 120 sites around the world doing clinical trials for a coronavirus vaccine the pharmaceutical giant has in the works. Metairie-based Benchmark Research is also studying the vaccine. Coronavirus vaccine volunteers needed in New Orleans, Baton Rouge; here's how study will work After a vaccine for coronavirus showed promising results in a 45-person study conducted by biotech company Moderna, research sites in New Orle Dr. Julia Garcia-Diaz, Ochsners director of clinical infectious disease research, said she expects to enroll between 200 and 300 participants in the clinical trial. She said Ochsner already has a long list of patients who have expressed interest in being part of coronavirus research, and those are the people who they will turn to first to enroll, looking for people over 18 and under 85. Those who participate in the study will be injected with two shots and tracked for 24 months. Half the participants will receive the vaccine, while the other half will receive a placebo. Neither the patients nor the health care workers performing the study will know which shot theyve received. Pfizer hopes to enroll 30,000 participants worldwide. Garcia-Diaz said Ochsner will be keeping close tabs on patients afterward, documenting any side effects that could range from pain at the site of the injection to fever. Doctors will also look closely at whether patients develop any sort of respiratory infections, which could be signs that theyve been infected with coronavirus and that the vaccine if they did not get the placebo was ineffective at preventing it. Heres how Louisiana doctors are using the drug that U.K. scientists tout for coronavirus When Dr. Joshua Denson treated a coronavirus patient in April who was on the verge of needing a ventilator, he decided to give him a steroid, Though vaccines often take years to develop, pharmaceutical companies have been rushing to test possibilities as researchers across the world seek answers on how to block the spread of the coronavirus. Garcia-Diaz said the public should know that the necessary safeguards are in place. 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 Just because were trying to go through this process fast doesnt mean were skipping any steps, she said. The Pfizer clinical trial is the first one Ochsner is participating in, but there are others happening around the state. Meridian Clinical Research in Baton Rouge and Benchmark in Jefferson Parish are also conducting research on a vaccine from the biotech company Moderna. +8 Drug trials, fewer ventilators: here's how Louisianas coronavirus treatments have evolved Louisiana physicians faced a troubling scenario in early March when coronavirus patients started appearing in the states intensive care units The Moderna vaccine was the first to be tested on humans in the U.S., and the company started enrolling people on Monday for a second round of clinical trials. Moderna rolled out its larger study, to include 30,000 test participants, after a 45-person study of its mRNA vaccine showed promising results. Its likely that more clinical trials will begin soon. Oxford University researchers in the U.K. are speeding forward with a vaccine in the final stage of clinical trials, with some studies expected to eventually come to the U.S. And researchers with Johnson & Johnson announced this week that their experimental coronavirus vaccine would start human trials after the vaccine showed promise in monkeys. There are 26 vaccine candidates in clinical evaluation for the coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization. As of Friday, Louisiana reported 116,280 coronavirus cases and 3,835 deaths. Garcia-Diaz said people should not let their guard down thinking a vaccine is on the way. The state is still far from reaching herd immunity, and coronavirus spreads easily. She urged people to continue to wash their hands, wear masks and socially distance. Bikaner: Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on Saturday said land purchase by the BJP was not a new thing and to link it with demonetisation was baseless. The process of land purchase is going on routinely and it has no connection with demonetisation, he told reporters. The Union Minister of State for Finance claimed that the land deals in Bihar had nothing to do with Prime Minister Narendra Modis decision to demonetise high-value currency notes, which is widely being welcomed by the people. ALSO READ: (Watch video |Nitish Kumar describes demonetisation as courageous step, highlights its poor implementation) Despite the difficulties, people have welcomed the decision. They stand by the prime minister and the results will have a positive and far reaching impact, he said. Opposition parties have demanded a probe into land purchases made by the BJP in the run-up to the prime ministers demonetisation decision on November 8. On Rahul Gandhis jibe at the prime minister that he was laughing earlier and crying later, Meghwal, without naming the Congress vice-president, said those who were born rich would not know what poverty was. The prime minister is sensitive towards the poor, but those who were born rich cannot feel poverty. The decision taken by the prime minister, which is widely being welcomed, is in the interest of the nation and the people, he said. ALSO READ: (BJP purchased land worth crores in Bihar days before demonetisation announcement, alleges JD(U) Meghwal said the government was with the families of those who died while standing in queues at banks and ATMs but added that all such incidents should be probed to ascertain the exact cause of death. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. After all-night debates in both chambers of the state legislature, lawmakers passed sweeping police accountability legislation that Gov. Ned Lamont signed into law Friday. Sen. Doug McCrory, D-Hartford, said during debate in the state Senate that he wanted to thank the protesters who risked their lives in the middle of a pandemic because they helped inspire the legislature to act. Want to get this in your inbox every Friday? Subscribe to Capitol Watch at courant.com/newsletters The big story Police accountability bill passes: A comprehensive police accountability bill passed the state Senate around 4 a.m. Wednesday after 10 hours of emotional debate and Lamont signed the measure Friday at the state Capitol. The bill was crafted in response to the racial justice protests spurred by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers and will significantly reform policing in Connecticut. It requires all officers to wear body cameras, bans the use of chokeholds and creates a new independent inspector general tasked with investigating police killings. The measure passed both chambers of the General Assembly largely along party lines, with Republicans who opposed the measure focusing chiefly on changes it makes to qualified immunity that shields police from lawsuits related to their actions while on duty. Police said the changes would open up individual officers to costly legal settlements but proponents of the bill said only officers involved in egregious acts would face a financial penalty. I think its a good bill, Lamont said. It takes into account transparency and accountability builds more trust between the police and the local community. I think its important. Five things you may have missed Electric rate increases paused: State regulators announced Friday they would temporarily suspend higher electricity rates for Eversource Energy that were approved last month amid an outcry from customers upset about increase bills. While electricity usage has risen as residents work and learn from home during the pandemic, much of the increase stems from higher delivery costs. Eversource has said thats because of a deal that state lawmakers reached with the operators of the Millstone nuclear power plant in 2017 that requires the utility to but electricity at a higher price. Dominion Energy, the company that runs Millstone, has rejected those claims. Ive seen a lot of rate increases. This one takes the cake, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Friday. He supported the decision by the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to suspend the increases while an investigation is underway. These bills are virtually incomprehensible to most people, Blumenthal said. Story continues Absentee ballots on the way: Its taken a bit longer than expected but hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots are expected to be in the hands of Connecticut voters this weekend under new rules that have expanded the reasons voters are allowed to use them to include the coronavirus pandemic. Lamont used his emergency powers to allow any voter who wishes to vote in the Aug. 11 primary to vote by absentee ballot. Lawmakers passed a bill during the recent special session that extended that same policy to the November election. Using federal funds, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill sent 1.2 million absentee ballot applications to every registered Republican and Democrat in the state for the upcoming primary. The flood of absentee ballots has led to concern among some local election officials but Merrill has said shes confident the process will run smoothly. Connecticuts registrars of voters are among the best local election officials in the country, she said. Lawmakers agree to cap on insulin costs: The state Senate Tuesday gave final approval to a bill that will cap the price of insulin in Connecticut to $25 a month for people on state-regulated health plans. Additionally, the cost of insulin-related supplies including pumps and syringes will be limited to $100 a month. Lawmakers said the legislation was drafted in response to constituent concerns regarding the cost of insulin, which has shot up in recent years. A 2019 study by the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute said patients with Type 1 diabetes saw annual insulin costs rise from $2,864 in 2012 to $5,705 in 2016. If you have empathy for people this is the right thing to do for our state and our community, said Sen. Matt Lesser, a Middletown Democrat and key supporter of the bill. It passed the Senate 35-1 after sailing through the state House of Representatives by a 142-4 vote. Lamont defers to school districts on reopening: After initially saying that all Connecticut schools would reopen for full-time, in-person instruction this fall, Lamont and state education Commissioner Miguel Cardona Monday said the ultimate decision about how students return will be left to local districts. With the news, many school superintendents said they are leaning toward hybrid models that mix online and in-person classes, particularly at the high school level, so school populations can be reduced to make it easier to practice social distancing and to make classrooms more manageable. While the decision offers districts flexibility, some superintendents say theyd be more comfortable with a uniform plan that would be implemented statewide. To have individual superintendents make the decision, and 169 different plans operating in the state, does not seem particularly efficient or informed, West Hartford Superintendent of Schools Tom Moore said. There are also concerns about educational equity if districts are operating in different fashions. Legislators spend $900K on mailers recapping cancelled session: In a legislative session cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, state lawmakers passed just one bill the annual bond package. But that didnt stop them from recently sending out about $900,000 in taxpayer-funded, legislative update mailers that critics say amount to little more than self-promotion. Oh, its a campaign brochure, all right, Marcus Brown, a Bridgeport city councilman who is challenging state Sen. Marilyn Moore in the Aug. 11 primary, told Courant columnist Jon Lender. While the mailers must be sent at least 90 days in advance of Election Day, the same rule doesnt apply for incumbent legislators facing primary challengers. Rep. Jillian Gilchrest, a West Hartford Democrat who defeated a longtime incumbent in a 2018 primary, vowed during that campaign not to take advantage of the mailers if elected. And she hasnt. Gilchrest said with new technologies and social media there are no-cost ways to keep constituents updated. Odds and ends Oz Griebel, a two-time candidate for governor and longtime booster of Hartford, died Wednesday, more than a week after he was struck by a vehicle while jogging in Pennsylvania. He was 71. Griebel sought the Republican nomination for governor in 2010 but placed third in a GOP primary. In 2018, he ran as an independent, placing a distant third behind Gov. Ned Lamont and Republican Bob Stefanowski. Griebel led the MetroHartford Alliance, the regions chamber of commerce, for 16 years. New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart gave birth to a baby girl, Lina Elizabeth Mutone, on July 26, her office announced Wednesday. We are beyond thrilled to bring this little bundle of joy into the world, Stewart said. I am pleased to report that both the baby and I are healthy, home, and happy. Stewart said she would be taking some family time but would be in constant communication with her office and city department heads. Former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who is advising presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on his search for a running mate, faced an online backlash this past week after Politico reported Dodd had complained to a prominent donor about California Sen. Kamala Harris, a frontrunner for the vice-presidential pick, saying she had shown no remorse for sharp criticism of Biden during a Democratic primary debate last year. A chorus of voices asked whether Biden had wrongly empowered an old friend from his time in the overwhelmingly male Senate to steer his potentially historic pick, Politco reported. ... Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo and the other members of the towns board of selectmen have scheduled a special meeting for Wednesday to discuss stricter enforcement of rules regarding social distancing and mask-wearing after a spike of cases in the town was linked to groups of teenagers partying. Theres going to be consequences now for people who disobey the measures, Camillo, a Republican and former state representative, told The New York Times. The Glastonbury Town Council became the latest legislative body to adopt a local resolution to address racism within its borders in response to cities and towns nationwide that have done the same. Glastonbury plans to create a new racial justice commission that will survey town residents, hold public hearings, collect data on minority residents interactions with police and make recommendations to the council, according to the Journal Inqurier. Russell Blair can be reached at rblair@courant.com. 2020 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) Visit The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) at www.courant.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. Mbare Musika, a high-density suburb in Harare that is usually bustling with activity was empty of people and business on July 31st, the day set aside to protest against high corruption in Zimbabwe. The Tunisian navy on Friday rescued 70 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa on a sinking rubber boat headed to Italy from Libya, the defence ministry said. Ministry spokesman Mohamed Zekri told AFP the boat had broken down in international waters and was taking on water when the navy intervened at around 1:00 am local time. Five women and four children, including a months-old infant, were among those on board, said Mongi Slim of the Red Crescent. The migrants, who had set off Wednesday from western Libya, were taken to Zarzis port, near the Libyan border in southern Tunisia. They were to undergo tests for COVID-19 and be confined to a Red Crescent centre, Slim said. Nearly half of the 11,000 or so migrants who made shore in Italy this year set off from Tunisia, and most of those were Tunisian citizens, according to Rome. Other arrivals largely set off from war-torn Libya. Search Keywords: Short link: A case involving a Winnipeg officer accused of knocking out a suspected shoplifter with a baton while off-duty should have been flagged immediately for Manitoba's police watchdog, an expert on civilian oversight of policing argues. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A case involving a Winnipeg officer accused of knocking out a suspected shoplifter with a baton while off-duty should have been flagged immediately for Manitoba's police watchdog, an expert on civilian oversight of policing argues. Ian Scott, a lawyer and former head of Ontario's Special Investigations Unit, says the case is a clear example of the type of incident that should trigger a notification to the Independent Investigation Unit. "Minimally, the IIU should have been notified, and then the question becomes does it satisfy the IIUs threshold for an investigation? This is sort of a murky situation youve got here," Scott said. "It would seem to me to fit a public interest criteria." KEN GIGLIOTTI / FREE PRESS FILES Patrol-Sgt. Jeffrey Norman, a 22-year veteran of the force, was not in uniform and not on shift Feb. 23 when he followed suspected shoplifters from a Dakota Street liquor store to a residential area where a confrontation ensued. The Winnipeg Police Service did not disclose the February incident to the IIU because the extent of the injuries of all parties did not rise to the definition of "serious injury," the WPS said in a written statement to the Free Press Thursday. "It was determined that the injuries sustained by any involved person in that incident did not meet the definition of serious injury laid out in the Police Services Act Independent Investigations Regulations," said the email from the WPS which declined further comment. The incident, which involves a veteran officer with a history of misconduct complaints and a 19-year-old Indigenous suspect, came to light this week following a Free Press investigation. Scott disagrees with the WPS, saying the case fits a broader pattern of Canadian law enforcement agencies at times missing the spirit of civilian oversight legislation or failing to live up to the letter of the law. WAYNE GLOWACKI / FREE PRESS FILES The IIU has at least one open file looking into Normans use of force. "The whole construct of all these agencies is to ensure theyre notified as quickly as possible so they can do an effective investigation," Scott said. "I had exactly these problems at the SIU with delayed notification, no notification. I wrote hundreds of letters to police agencies on this point while I was there. Sometimes I actually got some action on them but, most of the time, I didnt." Patrol-Sgt. Jeffrey Norman, a 22-year veteran of the force, was not in uniform and not on shift Feb. 23 when he followed suspected shoplifters from a Dakota Street liquor store to a residential area where a confrontation ensued. The suspects allegedly assaulted Norman with a tire iron and liquor bottle. Norman suffered a concussion and sprained wrist and was treated in hospital, according to a bail hearing for one of the three accused. Brian Menson appeared via video at the bail hearing two days after the incident with stitches across his forehead and scabs on face and ear, which prompted provincial court Judge Stacy Cawley to note his "obvious injuries." Defence lawyer Mitchell Enright told the hearing Menson blacked out after being struck in the face by a baton and "the next thing he remembers is waking up in a pool of his own blood." Menson, now 20, is charged with assaulting a peace officer, assaulting a peace officer with a weapon, resisting arrest and theft under $5,000. He and two other suspects are accused of stealing 20 bottles of liquor worth $630. He has no criminal record and a trial date has not yet been set. The whole construct of all these agencies is to ensure theyre notified as quickly as possible so they can do an effective investigation. Former head of Ontario's Special Investigations Unit Ian Scott The Free Press previously asked the WPS about the allegations, if it had notified the IIU, and why Norman would have had a baton while off duty, but the police service didn't respond. The IIU still has not been formally notified of the case, the agency confirmed Thursday. When asked if the IIU will now open an investigation and if it has contacted the police service about the case, a spokesman for the IIU said its investigations begin with a proper notification from police. "In regard to this incident, the IIU has not received any notification from the Winnipeg Police Service. Hence, the IIU has no further comment on the matter," Jack Marquardson wrote in an email. The IIU has at least one open file looking into Normans use of force. The case involves a cyclist who alleged Norman wrongfully detained and pepper sprayed him in April 2019. It did not involve serious injuries. JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Eight months after being told his case had been forwarded to the Crown by the IIU, Thomas Krause is still waiting for a legal opinion. Thomas Krause, now 31, was biking home from work on Home Street near St. Matthews Avenue around 3:15 a.m. on April 12, 2019, when he saw a passing vehicle with high beams on and asked the driver to turn the brights off. Krause then realized it was a police vehicle and said the officer got angry. Krause found out it was Patrol Sgt. Norman when, after the incident, the officer handed him a card with his name on it, a copy of which was provided to the Free Press. "He said he was looking for a white male on a bike with a backpack," Krause told the Free Press a few days after the 2019 incident. "He asked to search my bag, and I told him I dont think its within your rights to do that, and his way to respond was just to mace me in the face, point blank." The IIU hasnt made a decision on whether Norman should face criminal charges in that case. Civilian director Zane Tessler confirmed the investigation is still open. But Krause said an IIU investigator told him in November 2019 the agency had handed the file off to the Crowns office and was waiting for a legal opinion. "He asked to search my bag, and I told him I dont think its within your rights to do that, and his way to respond was just to mace me in the face, point blank." Thomas Krause 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. The Free Press reviewed every final report published on the IIUs website and discovered 18 cases where Tessler noted hed forwarded the investigative file to the Crowns office for a legal opinion. In each case, the Crown advised charges should not be laid. Eight months after being told his case had been forwarded to the Crown, Krause is still waiting. "It's a pretty surreal thing that happened. It feels like a dream, because there's no closure," he said a year and three months after he was pepper sprayed. "It's just sort of like, this thing happened, and then I went home, and there's been no follow-up or anything. That said, I would like to have some sort of punctuation on this whole scenario. But I think I got out easy compared to what most people... go through in terms of excessive force." katie.may@freepress.mb.ca ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca Ryan Thorpe Reporter Ryan Thorpe likes the pace of daily news, the feeling of a broadsheet in his hands and the stress of never-ending deadlines hanging over his head. Read full biography CHICAGO, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Kin + Carta, an award-winning global technology and innovation consulting firm, is a partner for Google's recently expanded Business Messages. With over 1 billion people using Google Maps every month, Google's announcement signals the company's continued investment in helping businesses connect with their customers. Google is working with partners like Kin + Carta to make those experiences more effective, empathetic and efficient. Google's Business Messages allows businesses to connect to their customers via Google Search and Maps results by using Artificial Intelligent (AI) messaging capabilities. "Post launching Business Messages on both Google Search and Maps, we've seen rapid adoption from businesses across a handful of verticals," said Katie Osberg, Global Retail Partnerships Lead, Business Communications, Google. "We're working with partners, like Kin + Carta, to implement this technology, encouraging businesses to leverage smart automation plus human connection to deliver best in class conversational solutions." Any of the millions of businesses on Google Maps, including grocery and retail, can help customers quickly find information about store hours, pick-up and delivery options, and even search for product availability and aisle placement within stores. Other businesses are implementing the technology as a tool for converting sales and troubleshooting customer requests. "We are thrilled to now be integrating with Google's Business Messages," said Ryan Maguire, Kin + Carta CTO. "Our integration is a testament to the work Kin + Carta has been doing with Google and our ability to build solutions that help businesses meet the customer where they're at while returning direct value to their growth." As businesses continue to experience an influx of customer inquiries in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kin + Carta is leveraging its deep expertise in Google Cloud's Contact Center AI (CCAI) and Dialogflow platforms to deliver solutions focused on seamless customer experiences and decreased operational costs. In addition to Business Messages, these solutions also include Rapid Response Virtual Agents , a program for which Kin + Carta is an official Google Cloud integration partner. About Kin + Carta Kin + Carta exists to make the world work better. A consulting firm built for the 2020s, we make the journey to becoming a digital business tangible, sustainable and profitable. By building digital twins to replace existing analog processes, designing and launching new digital products and services, and unlocking future innovation through modernization initiatives, Kin + Carta seamlessly integrates the strategic consulting, software engineering and marketing technology needed to help businesses Make It Happen. As a Premier Google Cloud consulting partner, Kin + Carta helps enterprise clients across industries accelerate their journeys on Google Cloud Platform. Kin + Carta brings expertise in application development, modernization on Anthos, Google Cloud Search, and voice & chat experiences built with Dialogflow. Headquartered out of Chicago and London, our clients have access to a global ecosystem of 1,600 strategists, engineers and creatives across four continents. For more information visit www.kinandcarta.com Contact: Kat Hollingsworth (214) 529-2332 [email protected] SOURCE Kin + Carta Related Links http://www.solstice.com President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the James Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington on July 30, 2020. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Trump Says He Doesnt Want Election to Be Delayed President Donald Trump said he does not want the November presidential election delayed, hours after he stoked strong feelings by floating the idea of a delay. I dont want a delay. I want to have the election, the Republican told reporters at the White House in Washington. Trump took to Twitter on Thursday morning to rail against mail-in voting, saying it would make 2020 the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? he wrote. Members of Congress said Trump doesnt have the power to delay the election and many came out in opposition of any possible delay. No, were not going to delay the election, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in a television appearance. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) at the Capitol accused Trump of proposing an indefinite delay, leaving him in power indefinitely. An election worker feeds ballots into a high speed counting machine to count cast ballots at the Utah County election office in Provo, Utah, on June 30, 2020. (George Frey/Getty Images) Mail-in voting refers to voters receiving ballots in the mail and returning them by mail. Absentee ballots are similar. They have traditionally been available for people to complete by mail if people are not able to show up in person at polling sites. A number of states during the COVID-19 have moved toward sending ballots to every voter and other states are allowing any voter who feels uncomfortable voting in person request a mail-in ballot. While he wants the election to happen on Nov. 3, Trump is still concerned about the method of voting. I also dont want to have to wait for three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing and the election doesnt mean anything. Thats whats going to happen, Steve. Thats common sense, and everyone knows it. Smart people know it. Stupid people may not know it. And some people dont want to talk about it, but they know it, he told reporters. Do want to see a date change? No. But I dont want to see a crooked election. This election will be the most rigged election in history, he added. Several states are struggling to return official results from primary elections conducted primarily by mail, including portions of New York. One district could throw out one in five mail-in ballots, according to election board documents. The state and city election boards didnt respond to requests for comment. In California, more than 100,000 mail-in ballots were rejected during the March primary. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a watchdog group, told The Epoch Times earlier this year that absentee and mail in voting is the vehicle for voting that is most susceptible to fraud, pointing to several reports. It stands to reason when youre not voting at a polling place, and you have ballots that are being voted on lord knows where and transmitted through the mail, it increases the opportunity for voter fraud and intimidation, Fitton added. Voters drop off their presidential primary mail-in ballots at a drop box at King County Elections in Renton, Wash., on March 10, 2020. (Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images) Lawsuits from the Trump campaign over mail-in voting, such as a challenge to Pennsylvanias expansion of the voting, are awaiting judgement. Attorney General William Barr, appearing before lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday, defended recent comments that foreign countries could manufacture counterfeit ballots amid expanded mail-in voting. Barr admitted he doesnt have evidence to support his comments. But I have common sense, he told Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Penn.), who rejoined that such concerns are outrageous, citing state election officials. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters in Washington during her weekly press briefing on Friday that the president doesnt respect the office of the presidency. This is very serious. So we need to have an election that does not jeopardize the health and wellbeing of the American people, she said. Appearing on Fox & Friends Friday morning, White House aide Stephen Miller said Trump brought the whole nations attention to the catastrophic problem of universal mail-in ballots. Here is a shocking thing for your audience to consider: nobody who mails in a ballot has their identity confirmed. Nobody checks to see if theyre even a U.S. citizen. Think about that, he continued. I wish to on behalf of the Ekumfi constituency executives of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) express our joy in joining our Muslim brothers and sisters within the Ekumfi constituency in celebrating their annual Eid. The Eid ul-Adha is celebrated to remember the sacrifices Hazrat Ibrahim made to Allah when Allah instructed him Ibrahim to sacrifice his only male child: Ismail for him Allah. Ibrahim saw the importance and blessings he will receive from offering his son as a sacrifice to Allah. As we celebrate to remember this sacrifice Ibrahim made to Allah, let us also as Muslim brothers and sisters sacrifice our wealth with those who are vulnerable in our communities. The holy Quran admonishes us as Muslims to give alms to the poor, the needy, and the weary. Let us use this occasion to reflect on what Allah has done for us through this government of H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo and his Vice Dr. Alhaji Mahammudu Bawumiah as Muslims in our Zongos. For the first time in the history of Ghana, a minister of state has been appointed to be in charge of our Zngos to see to it that our Zongos also develop. On 7th December 2020, ghana will head to the polls to elect a president and parliamentarians, as a Member of Parliament for Ekumfi, I want to urge you to maintain me as your MP and President Akufo-Addo for us to continue the good social intervention policies the government is implementing. Ekumfi has been noted for peace and let's continue to live in peace and harmony. Once again Happy Eid-ul-Adha Long live Ekumfiman Long live our Muslim brothers and sisters in Ekumfi Signed Honourable Francis Kingsley Ato Codjoe (MP And Deputy Minister For Fisheries And Aquaculture) Google is making it easier for buyers and customers to find Black-owned businesses to support. The tech giant has introduced a Black-owned attribute merchants based in the US can add to their profile, so long as theyre verified. Google will then put the new icon alongside any other attribute business owners choose to display on the Highlights section of their profile. The company gives entrepreneurs a way to proudly display what their businesses have to offer through those attributes. Owners can, for instance, choose to show that their organizations are Woman-led or that their establishments are LGBTQ-friendly to make potential customers feel more at ease about supporting or visiting them. Anybody looking them up will then be able to see those attributes in Search and Maps. Google has teamed up with the US Black Chambers, Inc, which empowers Black-owned businesses through resources and initiatives, to spread awareness about the new attribute. Google and the organization plan to train Black business owners on how to be more visible on the search engine using My Business and Analytics. This move comes a month after the company announced its racial equality initiative. Google chief Sundar Pichai revealed back then that Google will contribute $175 million toward creating economic opportunities for Black businesses and workers. As part of that initiative, Google for Startups has also unveiled its inaugural Accelerator for Black Founders class. Twelve black founders will train under Google and other industry experts on technical challenges, business growth and outside investment opportunities to help them grow their organizations. Canberra, July 31 : Australia on Friday recorded the second largest single-day surge in the number of of new COVID-19 cases, while the death toll was nearing 200. As of Friday noon there had been 196 deaths from COVID-19 in Australia, and the number of new cases in last 24 hours is 651, which is the second largest daily number in the country after Thursday's record of 747, according to the update from Michael Kidd, the government's Deputy Chief Medical Officer. All eight new deaths were in Victoria, including four linked to aged care facilities in the worst-hit state, reports Xinhua news agency. It takes the state's death toll to 113 with more expected to follow as authorities continue to fight outbreaks of the virus in care homes. The total number of confirmed cases in Australia as of Friday noon was 16,905, said Kidd in the update. "The level of new diagnoses remains concerning," he said. "Eight days ago, we had over 500 cases reported for the first time and the trend continues to be upwards." Victoria has confirmed 627 new cases - its second highest daily increase after 723 on Thursday - and reclassified 48 cases that were previously diagnosed. The number of cases nationally has grown by 3,310, or 24.3 per cent, in seven days from 13,595 on July 24. The death toll has risen by 57 from 139 in the same time period. Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday said he supported the Victoria government's decision to make face masks mandatory statewide from Sunday. He said it was concerning that the lockdown on the metropolitan Melbourne area imposed in early July was not having impact on the rate of infection. Morrison said he spoke to Daniel Andrews, the Premier of Victoria, on Thursday night to discuss the possibility of further restrictions in the state. The Australian Medical Association (AMA), has called for further lockdowns across Victoria in the form of certain industries being shut down. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) MORROW, Ga., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Clayton State University archival studies professor Dr. Aisha Johnson-Jones has released a book uncovering the remarkable story of a Jewish businessman who funded the creation of thousands of public libraries and schools across the south for Black children. Entitled "The African American Struggle For Library Equality: The Untold Story of The Julius Rosenwald Fund Library Program," the book details the story of Julius Rosenwald, part owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company in the early 20th century, and his decision to established the Rosenwald Fund in 1917 to invest his wealth into building over 5,000 public schools for African American children in 15 southern states. Johnson-Jones says the Fund led to the development of southern intellect for African Americans in the south. "It really highlights social justice philanthropy for the African American community," Johnson-Jones said. "I really want to let others know that though this was about the African American struggle for access, when you help one culture, you really help all of us." The story has been hidden until now, after Johnson-Jones discovered some documents about Rosenwald and his philanthropic efforts locked away in the archives at Fisk University. Johnson-Jones says archives collections in the libraries of many historically black colleges and universities are filled with other stories of Black progress that have yet to be processed. The next phase of her research will focus squarely on the lack of library and information science programs at HBCUs. She hopes to show that gaps in research, opportunities to do archival studies and limited funding all play a major role in making these collections available to the public. More information about Dr. Johnson-Jones' book can be found at Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. A unit of the University System of Georgia where dreams are made real, Clayton State University is located 15 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta. SOURCE Clayton State University Related Links www.clayton.edu Chandigarh, July 31 : Haryana Power Minister Ranjit Singh on Friday said a case has been registered for illegal electricity connection supplied to 45 farmhouses in Uttar Pradesh from Faridabad distrct. A fine of Rs 1.04 crore was also imposed on them. A case has been registered against six officers and employees of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Ltd (DHBVNL) involved in the case. Singh said acting on a tip-off farmhouses located in Uttar Pradesh border were raided. Faridabad resident Pradeep Tyagi had taken an electricity connection and was illegally supplying electricity to the farmhouses through underground wiring. The Minister said during the investigation it was also found that this illegal work was being carried out in collusion with officers and employees of DHBVNL. The Bar Council said that a panel headed by a retired Supreme Court judge will soon decide upon a new schedule for exams The All India Bar Examination (AIBE) that was to be held on 16 August has been postponed till further notice. The examination has been deferred due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bar Council of India (BCI), regulator of legal education in the country, has also extended the date of receipt of application till 31 August. Keeping in view the present pandemic situation and frequent lockdown, increasing number of corona patients daily, the council has resolved to postpone the All India Bar Examination to be held on August 16, the Bar Council said. According to a report by Live Law, the new date of the examination and schedule will be decided by the monitoring committee for AIBE. The panel will be headed by a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. A report by NDTV mentions that the last AIBE was conducted on 15 September and the results were declared on 22 November. The national level exam is conducted to test a potential advocate who wants to practice law. A lawyer needs to pass this exit examination with two years of enrollment in the Bar Council. An advocate has to clear the AIBE exam to get "Certificate of Practice" by the Bar Council of India. Candidates who have not yet completed the application process can register themselves for AIBE 2020 on the official website - allindiabarexamination.com. A day after seven men of Muchhal village in Baba Bakala sub-division died allegedly after consuming spurious liquor, as many as 34 more deaths under similar circumstances were reported from around 20 villages of Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Gurdaspur districts on Friday, taking up the toll to 41. Of the 34 fresh deaths, four were reported from Muchhal village in Amritsar district, 19 from Tarn Taran and 11 from Batala. The toll may go up as many more were hospitalised. Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday ordered a magisterial inquiry and deputed Jalandhar divisional commissioner to conduct a probe. The CM assured of strict action against those found complicit in the illegal trade. He also directed the police to crack down on spurious liquor-manufacturing units across the state. Punjab Police on Friday arrested seven more people from Amritsar, Batala and Tarn Taran districts in over 40 raids conducted by five teams. A woman, Balwinder Kaur, was arrested on Thursday. One Mithu was arrested from Amritsar Rural area; Darshan Rani and Rajan from Batala; and Kashmir Singh, Angrez Singh, Amarjit and Baljit from Tarn Taran. Four fresh deaths were reported from Muchhal village. They were identified as Jaswant Singh, Joga Singh, Kirpal Singh and Gurpreet Singh. Jaswant is the husband of Balwinder Kaur who was arrested by the police on suspicion of selling home-made liquor in the village. She was booked under Section 304 (culpable homicide) of the IPC and 61-1-14 of the Excise Act by the Tarsikka police. Nineteen deaths were reported from Tarn Taran district. Some of the victims were identified as Gurdeep Singh (50) of Muradpura village, Sukhchain Singh (45) of Jodhpur village, Sucha Singh (80) and Resham Singh (45) of Pandoori Gola village, Nirvail Singh (50) of Jawanda Kalan, Varinder Singh (25) of Kakka Kandiala, Parkash Singh (48) of Bhullar village, Amardeep Singh (45) of Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar, Gurvail Singh (45) of Bachre village, and Pyara Singh (45) and Bhag Mal (50) of Sach Khand Road. Tarn Taran deputy commissioner (DC) Kulwant Singh said nine deaths were confirmed. I have information some victims were cremated before the administration was informed. We are also ascertaining the circumstances under which these deaths took place, he said. Tarn Taran sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Rajneesh Arora said six more people were undergoing treatment in various hospitals and their condition is stated to be critical. Gurpreet Singh, 25, of Sach Khand road area in Tarn Taran said, My father Pyara Singh had gone out to have drinks on Thursday night, but he didnt return. On Friday morning, we found him lying dead in the ground along the Sarhali road. He drank spurious liquor and died. He said the rampant sale of liquor in the area has not only taken his fathers life, but also three of his uncles. A case of murder should be registered against those who sold liquor to my father. After consuming liquor, my father Bhag Mal fell ill on Thursday night. We rushed him to Tarn Taran civil hospital where he was declared brought dead, said Preetam Singh of Sach Khand road. The kin of the victims said had the police acted against the menace of countrymade liquor in time, the lives could have been saved. In Batala, 11 people died after drinking locally-brewed liquor (hooch) at Hathi Gate and adjoining localities on Thursday night. The victims were identified as Buta Ram, Bhupinder, Jatinder, Kallu, Bitta, Rinku, Kala, Naresh, Surinder, Jaspal Singh and Jagdish. Also, two others, Dharminder and Darshan, were undergoing treatment at an Amritsar hospital. A police team led by Batala DSP (city) Parvinder Kaur was hunting for a woman, popularly known as Faujan, who is tipped to have supplied the spurious liquor in the area. DSP Kaur said a case under sections 304, 328 of the IPC, and 61/1/14 of the Excise Act was registered against unidentified people and investigations were on. Rahul of Batalas Kazimori locality said around 9pm on Thursday, his uncle Buta Ram returned drunk. He told us that he bought liquor from a woman and after consuming it, he was feeling uneasy. Within half an hour, my uncle started vomiting and collapsed. He died at a hospital late night, he said. Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta said raiding teams seized chemicals and other material used in illegal and they have been sent for chemical analysis. More arrests are likely. The crackdown on the spurious liquor mafia will continue, he said. Reach key decision makers with sales-ready leads that shorten your sales process. Move the needle by delivering funnel qualified leads to your sales team. Learn more Shoppers are starting to come back to their favorite brick and mortar storefronts as the pandemic restrictions allow consumers to exit from lockdown. But the impact of COVID-19 has etched some far-reaching changes in the retail industry that will not set back the strides online shopping has gained since March. That is a conclusion clearly visible in research published by TrustRadius in late June entitled Ecommerce Software Statistics and Trends. A new normal for retail remains in the wake of the forced reshaping of how retailers and consumers do business. Some employees are heading back to their physical offices as store workers settle into the reopenings. traffic analysis recently released by TrustRadius. For instance, some of the key highlights show the new top online shopping platforms for consumers in order of traffic are Shopify, SAP Commerce Cloud, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud, according to the review site for business technology. To be clear, when referring to e-commerce software, TrustRadius means platforms or plugins that allow online sellers to create and host an e-commerce website, display a product catalog, offer a shopping cart, and provide customers with a secure way to conduct online transactions. The companys research includes both comprehensive e-commerce platforms from vendors like Shopify, SAP, Oracle, and BigCommerce. It also includes customer management systems plugins like WooCommerce in the reports e-commerce platforms category, explained Megan Headley, vice president of research at TrustRadius. TrustRadius does not use an e-commerce platform. Instead, we provide verified customer reviews for e-commerce software products, she told the E-Commerce Times. Key Highlights Predictions say that there could be between 20,000 to 25,000 storefront closures in the U.S. in 2020 as a result of the pandemic. As of June, total retail spending in the U.S. is expected to decline by about 10.5 percent for 2020. The two primary sales channels that make up total retail spending have seen opposite trends during the COVID-19 pandemic. While brick-and-mortar retail sales are expected to decrease by 14 percent, e-commerce sales are predicted to increase by 18 percent to US$710 billion in 2020. While the total retail sales have seen a large decrease during the first half of 2020, e-commerce sales have surged, Headley reiterated. Losses from in-person sales have made a large dent in the retail market. Online sales have soared as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. A D V E R T I S E M E N T A huge spike took place over interest in e-commerce software, according to TrustRadius analysis. This spike was particularly evident among small business-friendly platforms like Shopify. TrustRadius has seen an 85 percent increase in traffic to the e-commerce software category from January through May 2020. In light of COVID-19 impact on retail sales, these statistics could be very encouraging for people in the e-commerce community, according to observers. For instance, 45 percent of e-commerce traffic currently comes from enterprises. Traffic to this category has increased by 85 percent in the past few months. Research Methods TrustRadius is a hub for buyers, sellers, experts, and users of business technology. So the activity we see on our website can be a helpful proxy for market trends, noted Headley. To collect this data specifically, her company examined internal website traffic usage reports using Google Analytics. Researchers verified that the patterns viewed reflected broader market dynamics using external data from sources like Google Trends. The companys researchers used reports from sources such as the New York Times, eMarketer, Statista.com, and the Washington Post to help researchers better understand the narrative behind the numbers they were seeing, Headley explained. E-Commerce Software Demand The company monitors all types of B2B technology. It has taken a keen interest in actively tracking how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected multiple software and hardware categories, including the e-commerce industry. TrustRadius reports aim to help both software buyers and vendors navigate this new business environment. More specifically, to help e-commerce software buyers find the product that best matches their business needs, the company conducts sentiment analysis on the review data it collects. The company also provides average ratings across a variety of product attributes. It then publishes a TrustMap that displays the relative popularity and overall score of products on TrustRadius, Headley detailed about her companys mission. Based on data from TrustRadius and external sources, its clear that interest in e-commerce software has been increasing as of February 2020, she said. The resulting spike in website traffic for products like Shopify, SAP Commerce Cloud, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a key indicator. A D V E R T I S E M E N T At play is a unique opportunity for e-commerce software vendors to reach out to their current and future customers to see how they are being impacted by the pandemic and offer support, Headley suggested. She sees a two-fold gain for those who do. One, there are likely additional e-commerce tools or strategies vendors can provide that will help their customers adapt to the changing business environment. Two, from re-thinking pricing tiers to developing new features, the impacts of the pandemic will change how e-commerce platforms go to market. Reviews from customers can help e-commerce software companies collect the intelligence they need. Changing Times The digital ecosystem is now much larger than we had predicted several months ago. It will only continue to grow moving forward, as it has become more nuanced and complex with the rise of direct-to-consumer, according to Michael Lagoni, CEO of Stackline. Historically, less than 10 percent of consumer brands and manufacturers sold products directly through their own direct-to-consumer site. Now, in 18 months, the ratio will be completely flipped, and the vast majority of brands will be operating a DTC platform of their own, he told the E-Commerce Times. The current DTC, e-commerce competitive landscape is going to be completely transformed. Until recently, smaller, more entrepreneurial digitally native brands built awareness through Facebook and Instagram. They ran their e-commerce business more nimbly around larger incumbent brands, who historically focused on the brick and mortar channel, Lagoni explained. However, many of the large incumbent manufacturers and brands who failed to put resources into e-commerce or integrate direct-to-consumer platforms, because of channel conflicts, are recognizing they cannot be as reliant on brick and mortar. Theyre navigating and changing their strategy very rapidly. Now, youre going to see a new wave of market entrance. Larger, more traditional brands will replicate digital marketing growth strategies smaller entrepreneurial companies employed successfully in the past, Lagoni predicted. Pandemic Fueling E-Commerce Growth The past quarters events have had conditions no one could foresee. E-commerce was already a growing industry that was forecasted to keep growing, according to Ben Parr, co-founder and president of Octane AI. The global pandemic caused E-Commerce growth to accelerate a couple of years ahead of what was forecast, he told the E-Commerce Times. With stores shutting their doors due to the pandemic, consumers who had never shopped online before discovered online shopping and recognized it as a comfortable option. Even with stores reopening, most consumers will view non-essential shopping as a risk, Parr continued. As the economy reopens, consumers will determine if the products they need are worth the risk of going into a brick-and-mortar store. They will choose to shop online in almost every case, he said. Paradigm Shift The paradigm has shifted forever, resulting in e-Commerce and other DTC consumer channels have become the cornerstone of a brands business, offered Shelly Socol, co-founder of One Rockwell, a digital commerce agency located in New York City. In the past, brand wholesale and retail channels were the foundation, and you would layer in e-commerce on top of that. With COVID this structure has been flipped on its head. There will be those who saw this early and succeeded, and those who could not make that shift will not survive, she told the E-Commerce Times. Even with all the adjustments being made by retail stores to encourage shoppers to feel safe and return to an in-store shopping experience, more people will be shopping on their devices as it is the safest way to shop. Online shopping will double or triple from the past. E-commerce will be the main channel where brands will invest their resources, and that being so, will guide their overall strategy, Socol suggested. India remembers the great freedom fighter Udham Singh who fought till his last breath to free India from the Britisher's rule on his 81st death anniversary. The revolutionary freedom breathed his last on July 31, 1940 at Pentonville Prison in London where he was charged and hanged for killing General Michael O'Dwyer. He is often referred as Shaheed-E-Azam. General O'Dwyer who was the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, British India between 1913 and 1919 had ordered the massacre of hundreds of innocent Indians at Jallianwala Bagh. On every 31 July every year, people across the country pay homage to Udham Singh for his fearless contribution to the nation. He considered Bhagat Singh as his role model. It is said that Udham Singh waited for his trial after he killed General O'Dwyer, and he underwent a hunger strike for a period of 42 days after which he was made to eat forcibly. Paying homage to the freedom fighter, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh wrote on Twitter, "I join the nation in paying humble tribute to our great freedom fighter Shaheed-e-Azam Sardar Udham Singh Ji. His patriotism and sacrifice will continue to inspire generations of Indians.'' I join the nation in paying humble tributes to our great freedom fighter Shaheed-E-Azam Sardar Udham Singh Ji. His patriotism & sacrifice will continue to inspire generations of Indians. Work on his Memorial at Sunam is underway & will be completed within a year. Jai Hind! pic.twitter.com/4nKRZGfs56 Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) July 31, 2020 Haryana Chief Minister M L Khattar also paid tribute to the freedom fighter, saying, "I pay my rich tributes to brave son of the soil and great revolutionary Sardar Udham Singh Ji on his martyrdom day. The country will always remember his supreme sacrifice." Singh was born in Sher Singh in Sangrur, Punjab, on December 26, 1899. After the death of their father, Udham Singh and his brother moved to Central Khalsa Orphanage in Putlighar. His remains are till date preserved at the Jallianwala Bagh. Islamabad, July 31 : The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has dismissed a petition challenging the appointment of Special Assistants to the Prime Minister (SAPMs) with dual nationalities, observing that the premier has every right to appoint as many assistants as he wants. "The Prime Minister is the chief executive of one of the most important organs of the state and has to perform multiple/complex functions. A person elected as Prime Minister is answerable to the people of Pakistan and Majlis-i-Shoora (Parliament)," Dawn news quoted the court as saying on Thursday. "A person who holds dual nationality is indeed a citizen of Pakistan and thus his or her commitment to Pakistan and patriotism cannot be doubted. "A Pakistani citizen holding dual nationality is thus not ineligible or barred from being appointed by the prime minister as a special assistant...," it added. The development comes after the government had recently gone public with the assets and nationalities of all the special assistants, bringing to light that seven of them were either held dual citizenship or permanent residency of another country, reports The Express Tribune. Another petition has been filed in the Lahore High Court against the appointment of unelected individuals as advisers and special assistants. On Wednesday, SAPM on Health Zafar Mirza and SAPM on Digital Pakistan Tania Aidrus resigned from their posts amid the government facing stiff criticism for appointing individuals with a dual nationality or holding another country's permanent residency as special assistants. Mirza, who was assigned the portfolio of national health serAvices in April 2019 and overAsaw the country's resAponse to the pandemic, said he made the decision to resign over "negative discussion about the role of SAPMs and criticism of the government". Aidrus said that her Canadian nationality, a consequence of her birth and not an acquisition of choice, served as a distraction to her ability to execute the long-term vision for a digital Pakistan. The United States has expanded sanctions against Irans metals industry, adding 22 materials to the U.S. sanctions regime, a move that allows Washington to blacklist any company or entity that transfers the materials to Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the announcement in a statement on July 30, calling it a "major expansion" of the Iran metals-related sanctions administered by the State Department. Pompeo said the 22 specific materials listed were used in connection with Iran's nuclear, military, or ballistic-missile programs, which pose a grave threat to international peace and security." Pompeo also said he was firm in his determination that Iran's elite security force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), controls Iran's construction sector. As a result, sanctions may still be imposed on those who knowingly transfer certain materials to or from Iran to be used in connection with Irans construction sector, Pompeo said. The materials he said he had determined are used in connection with Iran's nuclear, military, or ballistic-missile programs included aluminum powder with purity above 98 percent. Aluminum powder is a key ingredient in solid-fuel propellants used to launch missiles. Tensions between Tehran and Washington have been on the rise since the United States withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and reimposed crippling sanctions that have battered the Iranian economy. The United States pulled out of the nuclear agreement in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions as part of what it calls a maximum pressure campaign on Iran. In response, Iran gradually started breaching its nuclear commitments. Pompeo also has been urging the UN Security Council to extend an arms embargo on Iran. The United States has formally asked the council to extend the embargo, which is set to be progressively eased beginning in October under UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which enshrined the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. Veto-wielding Russia and China have questioned Washingtons right to use a disputed legal move to force a return of UN sanctions on Iran. The United States has said that allowing the embargo to expire would cause instability in the Middle East. With reporting by Reuters Zimbabwean novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga holds a placard during an anti-corruption protest march along Borrowdale road, on July 31, 2020 in Harare - AFP Police in Zimbabwe on Friday arrested internationally-acclaimed novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga as they enforced a ban on protests coinciding with the anniversary of President Emmerson Mnangagwa's election. Dangarembga, 61, was taken away in a police truck as she demonstrated in the upmarket Harare suburb of Borrowdale alongside another protester, an AFP photographer saw. Streets in the centre of the city were largely deserted as police and soldiers set up checkpoints to prevent entry. Opposition politician Jacob Ngarivhume, head of a small party called Transform Zimbabwe, had called for demonstrations against alleged state corruption and the country's slumping economy The protests were timed to coincide with the second anniversary of Mnangagwa's election, which the opposition says was a fraud. But most people stayed at home after police on Thursday issued a ban and warned of a tough response. "All security arms of government are on full alert and will deal decisively with any individuals or groups fomenting violence," it warned. There were more checkpoints and roadblocks than usual on roads leading to the centre of the capital, manned by police and soldiers. In the central business district, police carrying batons or riot shields were heavily deployed, an AFP journalist saw. In the suburbs, only a handful of people appeared to brave the ban. An AFP photographer saw Dangarembga and a fellow protester, Julie Barnes, hauled into a truck full of police armed with AK-47 rifles and riot gear. Shortly afterwards, she tweeted: "Arrested! At Borrowdale. Ope it will be OK". She also tweeted a photo of herself and Barnes, sitting on the floor at a police station. She had been carrying placards calling for reforms and the release of Hopewell Chin'ono, a prominent journalist arrested last week under a government crackdown. Minutes before her arrest, she told AFP: "It seems that there has been a big reaction by the authorities to this protest. Story continues "They declared it illegal - I'm not quite sure (why), apart from the fact that they don't want it...Our constitution gives Zimbabweans the right to demonstrate peacefully and that's what we are doing." The Cambridge-educated author is the only Zimbabwean woman writer to win the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and has often been praised for speaking out on women's issues. She leapt to prominence in 1988 with "Nervous Conditions", a coming-of-age story about a girl's battle to escape poverty and gain an education. The book became an instant classic. Her arrest came days after her latest novel, "This Mournable Body," entered the long list for the Booker Prize. In a statement, police confirmed she had been arrested "for trying to incite the public to engage in illegal demonstrations while carrying placards written various political messages meant to cause public disorder." Among several others arrested Friday was Fadzayi Mahere, a lawyer and spokeswoman for the main opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change-Alliance. Mahere live-streamed via Facebook images of riot police scaling metal barriers into a suburban eatery where she had retreated after her protest, and arrested her. The British ambassador in Harare, Melanie Robinson tweeted: "Very concerned about reports of abductions, arrests and threats targeting those exercising constitutional rights. Freedom of expression is vital even in times of Covid-19 with social distancing observed". The government had denounced the protests, calling them an "insurrection". Ruling ZANU-PF spokesman Patrick Chinamasa earlier this week claimed that US ambassador Brian Nicholls was sponsoring the protests and called him "a thug". Mnangagwa took over from longtime ruler Robert Mugabe after a coup in November 2017. But hopes among many that he would end Mugabe's disastrous economic slump have been dashed, and many Zimbabweans say they are worse off than before. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) says some 8.6 million Zimbabweans, or 60 percent of the population, will require food aid as a result of a drought, economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The country has recorded 3,092 virus cases including 53 deaths. A teacher gives a lesson to the pupils at the Ziegelau elementary school in Strasbourg, France on June 22, 2020. (Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images) Fully Reopening Elementary Schools Should Be Made Top National Priority, Experts Say Amid the debate over reopening the nations schools, a group of education and health experts argued that it is both essential and feasible to allow young children, particularly elementary school students, to physically return to classrooms in fall. In an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine Wednesday, Harvard Universitys education professor Meira Levinson, along with infectious diseases scientist Muge Cevik and epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, wrote that safely reopening schools full-time for all elementary-school-age children should be made a top national priority. Childrens well-being depends on their being in a setting that is designed for their care, their active and engaged learning, and their healthy development, said Levinson in an interview with Harvard Graduate School of Education. Young children cannot engage for long periods of time with remote teachers and peers; they need in-person support from a trusted adult. Levinson also pointed out that keeping schools closed is especially harmful to those already disadvantaged children, including children living in poverty, children of color, English language learners, and children with diagnosed disabilities. Speaking of schools that offer a mix of online and in-person learning, Levinson argued that while some in-person schooling is better than none, such so-called hybrid model still fails to solve the important child-care issue, since children will still have to spend several days a week at home, preventing parentsparticularly womento fully reenter the workforce. These challenges may be particularly acute for educators who are parents themselves, for other workers who lack flexibility in determining when or where they work, and for parents with multiple children on misaligned attendance schedules, she stated in the article. Children under the age of 10 are less likely to be infected with or transmit the CCP virus than adults and older adolescents, the experts noted, citing recent medical findings based on limited evidence. These findings, however, do seem to align with data on school and community transmission from countries where elementary schools have been reopened or remained open, including France, Israel, New Zealand, and the Netherlands. Still, the experts suggested that in order to reopen elementary schools safely, communities should try to keep the virus transmission rate at a low as they could. Any region experiencing moderate, high, or increasing levels of community transmission should do everything possible to lower transmission, they wrote. Such measures along with universal mask wearing must be implemented now in the United States if we are to bring case numbers down to safe levels for elementary schools to reopen this fall nationwide. Fred Voigt poses with a prize catch in his office at the Committee of Seventy in this 2004 Inquirer file photo. Read more Frederick L. Voigt stood at the front door of his big stone home in Chestnut Hill each December for decades, greeting mayors and governors, lawmakers and friends, a crowd that grew into the hundreds for each of his epic Christmas parties. They were an institution, like the host. Mr. Voigt, 76, died Thursday, July 30, of pancreatic cancer. He took with him an encyclopedic knowledge of elections, politics, public policy, and how they interconnect. He was an avid adviser and curmudgeonly critic. Politicians and journalists were often on the receiving end of Mr. Voigts deeply footnoted opinions about their work. His daughter, Carey Dearnley, said the Christmas party started when her father and mother, Patricia, lived in an apartment on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and then grew with his career and their family. It was the craziest mix of people, she recalled. Mr. Voigt grew up in Longport, N.J., and had a lifelong affinity for the ocean. Dearnley said he was able to take an annual family trip to the beach in Rhode Island this month and returned home last week to enter hospice. In typical fashion, Mr. Voigt reached out to his entire list of contacts, updating them on the news. Am entering hospice today! Thanks for your friendship over the years! Mr. Voigt said in texts. It was really fast, Dearnley said of his death. Hes nothing if not determined. So we kind of figured he was ready to go. Mr. Voigt attended Valley Forge Military Academy, the University of Denver, and Dickinson Law School, according to a Philadelphia City Council resolution last year marking his retirement after 50 years of public service. He met his wife in law school and they celebrated their 50th anniversary last year. In addition, he is survived by daughter Sarah Savage and three grandchildren. Mr. Voigt became a lawyer in 1969, working first as a deputy city solicitor and then as an assistant district attorney under Arlen Specter, who would go on to the U.S. Senate. He established himself as a serious player in Philadelphia by taking the lead in 1977 at the Committee of Seventy, a good government watchdog group founded in 1904. William K. Marimow was then a new City Hall reporter for The Inquirer, a newspaper he would eventually lead. It was a time of great political tension in the city, with a recall effort under way to remove Mayor Frank L. Rizzo from office. Marimow said Mr. Voigt operated like a professional observer of the process, keeping everyone honest. I found him to be a really lovable curmudgeon, in the best meaning of the word, Marimow said. He was occasionally irritable. But he was also an idealist. If he read a story and thought it was on target, hed let you know. And if you missed a bit of nuance, you heard about it instantaneously. Mr. Voigt launched studies on several topics at Seventy, including the Home Rule Charter, housing, policing, and how judges are selected. One study was a forerunner to the movement to create Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, which advocates for merit selection of judges instead of judicial elections. Lynn Marks, who headed that group for 25 years, said the Christmas parties were the best political and social event of the year in the city. He had a huge appetite for politics and interest in everything political in the city, she said. He would read the papers and call all of his contacts, and be a sponge for all this political information. John Hawkins, a lobbyist who worked for Mr. Voigt at the Committee of Seventy, called him the quintessential Philadelphia gentleman who never lost the twinkle in his eye even as he was sticking his finger in the eye of authority. He loved Philadelphia and never stopped trying to do what was right by his city, Hawkins said. A snappy dresser, Mr. Voigt could often be found at City Hall wearing pinstripes in cool weather and seersucker in summer, with suspenders and often accompanied by a bow tie. He had a passion for cultivating orchids, ringing up top prizes at the annual Flower Show. He was very proud of having won some blue ribbons in the last few years, said Bob Warner, a retired reporter for the Daily News and The Inquirer who advised Mr. Voigt on caring for flowers. When he got into something, whether elections or orchids, he really got into it. Mr. Voigt was also a regular in Election Court, a high-tension arena where voting and campaign disputes are decided while the polls are open. Former Common Pleas Court Judge Pamela Dembe recalled how Mr. Voigt stayed calm and maintained a sense of humor. Elections can become very fraught. He was always a gentleman and a calming influence, Dembe said. He knew election law upside down and backwards. He was a straight shooter. Mr. Voigt retired from the Committee of Seventy in 2005 but did not stay away from elections for long. He was hired in 2008 by the Board of City Commissioners, which runs city elections, serving as a deputy commissioner and counsel. Commissioner Al Schmidt said Mr. Voigts 50-year institutional memory is irreplaceable. The law would say one thing and Fred would say, Thats bull. thats not how its done. He would explain the background on everything and how judges along the way changed things, Schmidt recalled. We leaned on Fred heavily to navigate some very trying times. Mr. Voigt mentored Schmidts chief deputy, Seth Bluestein, who received a text from him last week. It said, The goal is to cast a valid ballot in November. Mr. Voigt will miss that election. But he is returning to the ocean. Dearnley said her family will have a public celebration of his life at some point. But for now, Mr. Voigt will be cremated and his family will say a private goodbye. What he really wanted [was to be] cremated and thrown off the jetty in Longport, she said. He wants to go back to the ocean. That was his place. COVID-19 cases continued to rise across the state last week, with 6.4% of the people tested showing up positive for the virus. Radio Romance will "woo the crowd" at Tennessee Riverpark on Saturday. Chattanooga Unite: Healing & Uniting on the River will showcase Radio Romance and Chattanoogas own Fantastic Confabulation. "Headlining the family-friendly concert, Country band Radio Romance brings a youthful, party-loving energy to the music scene with upbeat, harmonic and hook-friendly songs influenced by acts like Alabama, Eric Church and Jason Aldean," organizers said. The Nashville based band Radio Romance headlines at 9 p.m. "Chattanoogas own Fantastic Confabulation is a high energy five-piece band playing a mix of soul-based music including funk, R&B, Jazz, Fusion, Latin and other world music," organizers said. Fantastic Confabulation takes the stage at 7:15 pm. Before the featured bands, the series kicks off with Be the Change Kids Talent Series from 4-6 p.m. The Kids Talent Series showcases young talented musicians from the Chattanooga area. To learn more about the Be the Change Youth Initiative, visit their website at www.bethechangeyi.com/. Find your local food truck favorites on a myriad of menus offering everything from street corn and tacos to pulled pork and fried fish from Hanner International, Bitler Bistro, Chicken -W- Bones, Uncle Lars Outpost and Food NV. And for dessert there will be sweet treats from Double O Sno and Tasty Donuts. The free concert runs from 4-10:30 p.m. Organizers said, "We offer local bands, local food trucks, cold beer and fresh cocktails. The concert is family-friendly and welcomes dogs on leashes. We are following the mandates set forth by the Hamilton County Mayor and the Hamilton County Health Department. We have made social distancing simple with markings on the lawn. We have stations set up with hand sanitizer and were offering free face coverings for anyone who needs one. "Chattanooga Unite: Healing & Uniting on the River is a series of six free concerts, and is designed to be Chattanoogas first celebration of the resurgence of summer, our community and our local economy after the height of the pandemic." The free concert series will continue Saturdays through Aug. 22. For more information, visit www.chattanoogaunite.com. Mumbai, July 31 : Actress Shreya Chaudhry has described her bond with her Bandish Bandits co-star Ritwik Bhowmik saying they are BFFs (best friends forever). "Ritwik and I share a good professional relationship. On a personal level, we are two very different individuals but when it comes to working, we both support each other. It was really fun working with Ritwik in 'Bandish Bandits' as he is a very funloving person and that makes it easier to work with him," Shreya said. She said that they became a "mini family" on the set and that helped them to develop a bond. "We supported and helped each other while prepping for the scenes. We were mere colleagues at the start of the show but now we have become good friends. In fact, I even went to see one of Ritwik's plays. We shared some amazing moments while shooting, and luckily there were no ego clashes on the sets. We are now like BFFs," she added. "Bandish Bandits" is set in Jodhpur, and the show tells the story of Radhey and Tamanna, two young musicians hailing from contrasting backgrounds. Radhe (Ritwik) is a singing prodigy determined to follow in the classical footsteps of his grandfather (Naseeruddin Shah), while Tamanna (Shreya Chaudhry) is a rising pop sensation desperate to become India's first international popstar. The 10-part Amazon Prime Video series also features Naseeruddin Shah, Sheeba Chaddha, Kunal Roy Kapur and Rajesh Tailang. It is created and produced by Amritpal Singh Bindra and directed by Anand Tiwari. The show will go live on August 4. Private businesses and nonprofits are altering or revamping their services in order to help fill the void left by school closures. Their goal is not to replace the virtual instruction that public schools will provide, but to supplement it, as well as create a space where working parents can drop off their children during the school day. Bundle of Joy Child Development Centers co-owner Kelley Womack Mulcunry said her group will offer virtual learning for children up to age 12 at four of its five locations. I think a month ago I was nervous, and worried that we wouldnt be able to meet the needs, Womack Mulcunry said. But Im quite confident now that we will be able to. And I think families that have that need, the more need that is there, the more we will rise to meet it. Bundle of Joy is bringing in additional staff for the fall, and will have a liaison at each location to help bridge the virtual gap between student and teacher. Their plan is to follow the counties school day schedule, complete with meal and recreational times. What were doing is allowing a space for students to be able to follow that school schedule strictly, Womack Mulcunry said. As part of Operation Joggle, Gardai attached to the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) today arrested a male in his 30s. This arrest is in relation to international invoice redirection frauds, totalling 110,000 which were received into Irish bank accounts. The male is currently being detained at Dundalk Garda station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984. He is the third person to be arrested as part of Operation Joggle. Two males (30s and 40s) were arrested in March of this year. Both were released without charge, with files being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions The operation refers back to a search of two premises which were conducted in December 2018 at locations in Tallaght and Lusk, Co. Dublin. The searches were further to the search operation conducted in September of 2018 which saw fifteen (15) premises across Counties Dublin, Louth, Meath, Kildare and Laois being searched. The operation was led by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, who are investigating the activities of a West-African Criminal Network suspected to be involved in the laundering of 14.6 million in criminal proceeds through Irish bank accounts between 2015 and 2017. Gardai from the Dublin Metropolitan Region, along with officers from the Armed Support Unit and Emergency Response Unit assisted in the operation. A significant quantity of documentary and electronic evidence consistent with suspected money laundering activity as well as cash had been seized, and enquiries are ongoing. SINGAPORE / ACCESSWIRE / July 30, 2020 / Bybit has announced it will make a donation of up to 10 BTC to UNICEF, as part of its recently announced World Series of Trading (WSOT). The WSOT will gather traders from across the globe to compete for a prize pool worth 200 BTC, around $2.2 million at the current price. The WSOT event opened for pre-registration in early July, with over 8,000 participants having already signed up. The official registration to join the main event in August is now open. Bybit has confirmed that 5% of the overall prize pool will be allocated to UNICEF to assist in their efforts helping vulnerable children recover from the fallout of the global pandemic. The donation comes thanks to a partnership with the New Zealand branch of UNICEF. According to the official announcement on their website, the Bybit donation is helping to plug a severe funding gap left by the pandemic crisis, which has put 1.6 billion children at risk. "As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cast its long shadow around the globe, its secondary impact is being felt by vulnerable children, who are the future of our world. Their situation is exacerbated by school closures, inadequate care, and shortages in food, sanitation supply, and medical resources. We at Bybit urgently feel it is incumbent upon us to support the ongoing efforts to safeguard our future," states Bybit CEO, Ben Zhou. He continues: "Together with our global community of traders, we would like to use this impetus to help lead positive action in the crypto space and give back to our very own home planet. With this in mind, we are pledging 5% of WSOT's final prize pool to UNICEF to assist in their work to save children's lives, defend their rights, and to help them fulfill their potential." UNICEF NZ Executive Director Vivien Maidaborn added: "This is an exciting opportunity to partner with Bybit and better shape the lives of children significantly impacted by Covid-19. We thank Bybit and traders for their generous Bitcoin donations during this unprecedented global emergency." Story continues About the World Series of Trading The WSOT event is part of Bybit Games Calendar, which last year saw over 7,000 traders battle it out in a competition dubbed the "BTC Brawl." Bybit is aiming for the WSOT to attract even more traders who will compete alongside cryptocurrency influencers and legendary poker players, battling out for a prize pool of up to 200 BTC. Participants will be eligible for a 20% discount on trading fees, and the opportunity to earn up to $9,400 in USDT bonuses. Bybit is now inviting traders to enroll for the main event. Registration is open until August 14, and warm-up participants must now re-register to secure their place. The WSOT contest will start on August 10 and run until the end of the month. For more information on the event, please visit: https://www.bybit.com/en-US/wsot About Bybit Bybit is a global cryptocurrency derivatives exchange established in March 2018 and registered in the BVI. It is headquartered in Singapore. Bybit has a global user base comprising everyone from individual retail clients to professional derivatives traders. For more information, please visit: https://www.bybit.com/ For updates, follow Bybit's social platforms on Twitter and Telegram. Contact: Dan Edelstein pr@marketacross.com +972-545-464-238 SOURCE: Bybit View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/599604/Bybit-Announces-an-Estimated-110000-COVID-19-Relief-Donation-to-UNICEF-from-World-Series-of-Trading-Prize-Fund WASHINGTON (JTA) When John Lewis, the civil rights icon and congressman from Georgia, died at 80 over the weekend, Jews in America and abroad lost an ally of nearly six decades. Lewis never tired of telling folks to get into good trouble, to defy the authorities and the conventional wisdom. It was a creed that guided him as he helped organize the 1963 March on Washington; that led to police severely beating him in Selma, Alabama, in 1965; and that underscored his 33-year career in Congress. He also had a close relationship with the Jewish community dating to the 1960s, fortified b... But people with criminal records are not a monolith. According to the Atlantic, more than 6,000 inmates in Puerto Rico, about one-sixth of all ballots cast, voted in the 2016 Republican primary. A New York state parole officer told WNYC radio that some of his supervisees supported Trump in 2016. A 2018 study of former inmates in Florida who had their voting rights restored under Republican Gov. Charlie Crist found that while 87 percent of Black voters in this group registered as Democrats, among non-Black voters, registration was 40 percent Republican, 34 percent Democratic and 26 percent unaffiliated. Amendment 4, the 2018 Florida constitutional amendment that re-enfranchised 1.4 million people, is under review by an appellate court. But a year after it passed, the Florida Times-Union reported, Democrats voter registration advantage over Republicans is slimmer than it was in 2018 or 2016, when Republicans won the state, and its significantly slimmer than in 2012 and 2008. H1 2020 results Adjusted revenue down -41.6% to 1,075.4 million Adjusted organic revenue down -40.8%, with Q2 at -63.4% Adjusted operating margin of -61.8 million Adjusted EBIT, before impairment charge, of -258.5 million Net income Group share of -254.9 million, including an impairment charge of 55.9 million Positive adjusted free cash flow of 69.5 million (vs. -7.8m in H1 2019) No quarterly guidance on adjusted organic revenue growth provided in 2020 due to Covid19 Paris, July 30th, 2020 JCDecaux SA (Euronext Paris: DEC), the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide, announced today its 2020 half year financial results. Following the adoptions of IFRS 11 from January 1st, 2014 and IFRS 16 from January 1st, 2019, and in compliance with the AMFs instructions, the operating data presented below are adjusted: to include our prorata share in companies under joint control, regarding IFRS 11, to exclude the impact of IFRS 16 on our core business lease agreements (lease agreements of locations for advertising structures excluding real estate and vehicle rental contracts). Please refer to the paragraph Adjusted data on page 6 of this release for the definition of adjusted data and reconciliation with IFRS. The values shown in the tables are generally expressed in millions of euros. The sum of the rounded amounts or variations calculations may differ, albeit to an insignificant extent, from the reported values. Commenting on the 2020 first half-year results, Jean-Charles Decaux, Chairman of the Executive Board and Co-CEO of JCDecaux, said: During the Covid-19 lockdown period, the temporary historic drop in urban and transport audiences as well as severe economic uncertainties led companies to react immediately and to reduce their advertising spend in an unprecedented scale. Once lockdown measures were lifted, urban audiences started to recover progressively in Street Furniture and in Billboard while Transport audiences are still lagging significantly, mainly in airports. Story continues Advertising revenue has, for the time being, not followed the same pace of recovery and we see an important difference between audiences levels, which are in some geographies close to preCovid19, and revenue levels which do not yet reflect the positive momentum in urban audiences. Our Group revenue declined by 766.9 million reaching 1,075.4 million with a decrease in adjusted organic revenue at -40.8%, mainly in Q2 2020 (63.4%). Our H1 2020 operating margin reducing significantly to -61.8 million. While the Group started the year positively, mainly in Street Furniture (up +3.9% by the end of February), the performance was hardly hit by the Covid-19 outbreak from March onwards. Immediate and dedicated action was taken on operating and financial levers to mitigate this decline and save cash, including but not limited to rent reliefs, severe cost management, reduced capital investment, tight control over working capital requirement and dividend cancellation. Our digital revenue now represents 24.0% of Group revenue, up +10bp for the same period last year. After a solid Q1 2020 performance digital revenue declined in Q2 2020, to post for H1 2020 a -41.3% decline. We have further reinforced our global leading position by completing the acquisition of a minority stake in Clear Media Limited as part of a consortium of investors (including Han Zi Jing, Chief Executive Officer of Clear Media, Antfin (Hong Kong) Holding Limited and China Wealth Growth Fund III L.P.). This strategic move combined with the structural long-term growth of the outdoor advertising industry in China will enable the Group to come out of this crisis in a stronger position. JCDecaux has obtained the maximum AAA score in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) rankings of the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) ratings agency for the third consecutive year. The ranking confirms the robustness of the CSR practices and sustainable development policy that JCDecaux has employed for many years, and also reflects its long-term resilience to environmental, social and governance risks. Looking forward, the global advertising market remains highly volatile with low visibility. Considering the risk of new waves of Covid-19 and new local lockdowns being implemented, it remains very difficult to give a guidance for Q3 2020. Finally, I would like to thank all of our teams around the world. Our employees have demonstrated exemplary behaviour, with outstanding commitment and solidarity, including salary cuts, despite the challenges they may have faced, professionally and personally, during and after lockdown periods. In a media landscape increasingly fragmented and more and more digital, out-of-home and digital outofhome advertising reinforce its attractiveness. As the most digitised global OOH company with our new data-led audience targeting and programmatic platform, our well diversified portfolio, our ability to win new contracts, the strength of our balance sheet and the high quality of our teams across the world, we believe we are well positioned to benefit from the rebound. ADJUSTED REVENUE Adjusted revenue for the six months ending June 30th, 2020 decreased by -41.6% to 1,075.4 million from 1,842.3 million in the same period last year. On an organic basis (i.e. excluding the negative impact from foreign exchange variations and the negative impact from changes in perimeter), adjusted revenue decreased by -40.8%. Adjusted advertising revenue, excluding revenue related to sale, rental and maintenance of street furniture and advertising displays, decreased by -42.4% on an organic basis in the first half of 2020. In the second quarter, adjusted revenue decreased by -64.9% to 351.9 million. On an organic basis, adjusted revenue decreased by -63.4% compared to Q2 2019. Adjusted advertising revenue, excluding revenue related to sale, rental and maintenance of street furniture and advertising displays, decreased by -65.7% on an organic basis in Q2 2020. Adjusted revenue m H1 2020 H1 2019 Change 20/19 Q1 Q2 H1 Q1 Q2 H1 Q1 Q2 H1 Street Furniture 325.5 154.4 479.9 344.3 446.3 790.6 -5.5% -65.4% -39.3% Transport 281.7 141.2 423.0 368.0 409.0 777.0 -23.4% -65.5% -45.6% Billboard 116.3 56.3 172.6 127.7 147.0 274.7 -9.0% -61.7% -37.2% Total 723.6 351.9 1,075.4 840.0 1,002.3 1,842.3 -13.9% -64.9% -41.6% Adjusted organic revenue growth (a) Change 20/19 Q1 Q2 H1 Street Furniture -5.0% -64.9% -38.8% Transport -23.8% -62.6% -44.2% Billboard -9.5% -61.1% -37.1% Total -13.9% -63.4% -40.8% (a) Excluding acquisitions/divestitures and the impact of foreign exchange Adjusted revenue by geographic area m H1 2020 H1 2019 Reported growth Organic growth(a) Asia-Pacific 303.2 538.6 -43.7% -41.5% Europe(b) 283.9 472.9 -40.0% -40.6% France 189.2 300.6 -37.1% -37.1% Rest of the World 108.2 208.3 -48.0% -44.5% United Kingdom 98.5 171.9 -42.7% -42.7% North America 92.5 150.0 -38.3% -39.8% Total 1,075.4 1,842.3 -41.6% -40.8% (a) Excluding acquisitions/divestitures and the impact of foreign exchange (b) Excluding France and the United Kingdom Please note that the geographic comments below refer to organic revenue growth. STREET FURNITURE First half adjusted revenue decreased by -39.3% to 479.9 million, -38.8% on an organic basis, significantly impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak. The pandemic affected all regions to varying degrees, depending on the duration of lockdowns. The Rest of the World and North America were the most affected geographies. First half adjusted advertising revenue, excluding revenue related to sale, rental and maintenance of street furniture were down -41.7% on an organic basis compared to the first half of 2019. In the second quarter, adjusted revenue decreased by -65.4% to 154.4 million. On an organic basis, adjusted revenue decreased by -64.9% compared to the same period last year. UK and the Rest of the World were the most impacted regions. While North America was positive in Q1 2020, the region turned significantly negative in Q2 2020. Adjusted advertising revenue, excluding revenue related to sale, rental and maintenance of street furniture were down 69.1% on an organic basis in Q2 2020 compared to Q2 2019. TRANSPORT First half adjusted revenue decreased by -45.6% to 423.0 million, -44.2% on an organic basis, significantly impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak, reflecting a significant decline globally in both airport passenger traffic as well as public transport commuting. Europe (including France and UK) and the Rest of the World were the most affected regions. In the second quarter, adjusted revenue decreased by -65.5% to 141.2 million. On an organic basis, adjusted revenue decreased by -62.6% compared to the same period last year. Asia-Pacific was the least affected geography. BILLBOARD First half adjusted revenue decreased by -37.2% to 172.6 million, -37.1% on an organic basis, significantly impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak. The pandemic affected all regions to varying degrees, depending on the duration of lockdowns. UK and North America were the most affected regions, despite a double-digit positive performance in North America in Q1 2020. In the second quarter, adjusted revenue decreased by -61.7% to 56.3 million. On an organic basis, adjusted revenue decreased by -61.1% compared to the same period last year. ADJUSTED OPERATING MARGIN (1) The Covid-19 outbreak with lockdown measures had a massive impact on our business and our margins by segment. Although the measures taken by the Group to flex its cost structure enabled to absorb 52% of the revenue drop in the first half of 2020, adjusted operating margin decreased by 120.2% to -61.8 million from 306.4 million in the first half of 2019. The adjusted operating margin as a percentage of revenue was -5.7%, -2,230bp below prior year. H1 2020 H1 2019 Change 20/19 m % of revenue m % of revenue Change (%) Margin rate (bp) Street Furniture (20.6) -4.3% 176.1 22.3% -111.7% -2,660bp Transport (11.3) -2.7% 107.2 13.8% -110.5% -1,650bp Billboard (30.0) -17.4% 23.1 8.4% -229.7% -2,580bp Total (61.8) -5.7% 306.4 16.6% -120.2% -2,230bp Street Furniture: In the first half of 2020, adjusted operating margin decreased by -111.7% to 20.6 million. As a percentage of revenue, the adjusted operating margin decreased by -2,660bp to -4.3%, compared to the first half of 2019. Transport: In the first half of 2020, adjusted operating margin decreased by -110.5% to 11.3 million. As a percentage of revenue, the adjusted operating margin decreased by -1,650bp to -2.7% compared to the first half of 2019. Billboard: In the first half of 2020, adjusted operating margin decreased by -229.7% to -30.0 million. As a percentage of revenue, adjusted operating margin decreased by -2,580bp to 17.4% compared to the first half of 2019. ADJUSTED EBIT (2) In the first half of 2020, adjusted EBIT before impairment charge decreased by -289.9% to 258.5 million compared to 136.1 million in the first half of 2019. As a percentage of revenue, this represented a -3,140bp decrease to -24.0%, from 7.4% in H1 2019. The decrease in mainly due to the deterioration of the operating margin and, to a lesser extent, to an increase in net amortisation and provisions in line with our investments related to significant contract wins and digital over the last 2 years as well as intangibles from APN Outdoor purchase price allocation performed in H2 2019. Consumption of maintenance spare parts decreased in H1 2020 in line with the business slowdown. A -14.0 million impairment on tangible and intangible assets and a 1.4 million reversal on provisions for onerous contracts have been recognised in H1 2020 (a -0.1 million impairment on tangible and intangible assets and a 3.2 million reversal on provisions for onerous contracts have been recognised in H1 2019). An impairment charge on goodwill of -48.0m has been recorded in H1 2020 related to the Billboard business in the Rest of the World while no impairment charge on goodwill was recorded in H1 2019. Adjusted EBIT, after impairment charge decreased by -329.3% to -319.2 million compared to 139.2 million in H1 2019. NET FINANCIAL INCOME / (LOSS) (3) In the first half of 2020, interest expenses on IFRS 16 leases were -68.3 million compared to -83.3 million in the first half of 2019, a variation of 15.0 million mainly coming from the mechanical impact of the contract life progression. In the first half of 2020, excluding IFRS 16, other net financial income / (loss) was -14.2 million compared to -12.7 million in the first half of 2019, a variation limited to -1.5 million mainly corresponding to the financial interest expenses relating to the 1 billion bond placed in April 2020. EQUITY AFFILIATES In the first half of 2020, the share of net profit from equity affiliates was -14.6 million, lower compared to the same period last year (38.4 million), their business being negatively impacted by the Covid19 pandemic. NET INCOME GROUP SHARE In the first half of 2020, net income Group share before impairment charge decreased by -313.8% to -199.0 million compared to 93.1 million in H1 2019, due to the impacts detailed above and to a positive tax impact of 43.8m in line with the negative profit before tax. Taking into account the impact from the impairment charge, net income Group share decreased by -365.6% to -254.9 million compared to 96.0 million in H1 2019. ADJUSTED CAPITAL EXPENDITURE In the first half of 2020, adjusted net capex (acquisition of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets, net of disposals of assets) was adjusted downwards significantly by -38.1% from 136.6 million in H1 2019 to 84.5 million. Capex to pursue digitisation in premium locations and to roll-out our programmatic trading platform was maintained. ADJUSTED FREE CASH FLOW (4) In the first half of 2020, adjusted free cash flow was 69.5 million compared to -7.8 million in the same period last year despite a decrease in funds from operations. This increase is mainly due to significantly lower working capital requirements with a tight management over cash collection and payment and a decrease in capex over the period. DIVIDEND On March 25th, 2020, JCDecaux announced the withdrawal of its 2019 dividend proposal in order to strengthen its liquidity and balance sheet as well as its financial flexibility in response to the unprecedented global disruption due to the Covid-19 outbreak. NET DEBT (5) Net debt as of June 30th, 2020 decreased from 1,316.2 million as of June 30th, 2019 to 1,178.6 million thanks to measures taken by the Group to mitigate the revenue decline and preserve cash. RIGHT-OF-USE & LEASE LIABILITIES, IFRS 16 Right-of-use, IFRS 16 as of June 30th, 2020 amounted to 3,543.2 million compared to 3,958.5 million as of December 31st, 2019, a decrease mainly related to the amortisation of rightsofuse during the period net of right-of-use from new contracts and renewals. IFRS 16 lease liabilities decreased by 440.4 million from 4,596.5 million as of December 31st, 2019 to 4,156.1 million as of June 30th, 2020, the decrease in lease liabilities corresponding to rents paid and renegotiated during the period. ADJUSTED DATA Under IFRS 11, applicable from January 1st, 2014, companies under joint control are accounted for using the equity method. Under IFRS 16, applicable from January 1st, 2019, a lease liability for contractual fixed rental payments is recognised on the balance sheet, against a right-of-use asset to be depreciated over the lease term. As regards P&L, the fixed rent expense is replaced by the depreciation of the right-of-use in EBIT, below the operating margin, and a lease interest expense on the lease liability in financial result, below EBIT. IFRS 16 has no impact on cash payments but payment of debt (principal) is booked in funds from financing activities. However, in order to reflect the business reality of the Group and the readability of our performance, our operating management reports used to monitor the activity, allocate resources and measure performance continue: To integrate on proportional basis operating data of the companies under joint control and; To exclude the IFRS 16 impact on our core business (lease agreements of locations for advertising structures excluding real estate and vehicle rental contracts). As regards the P&L, it concerns all aggregates down to the EBIT. As regards the cash flow statement, it concerns all aggregates down to the free cash flow. Consequently, pursuant to IFRS 8, Segment Reporting presented in the financial statements complies with the Groups internal information, and the Groups external financial communication therefore relies on this operating financial information. Financial information and comments are therefore based on adjusted data, consistent with historical data, which is reconciled with IFRS financial statements. In the first half of 2020, the impacts of IFRS 11 and IFRS 16 on our adjusted aggregates are: -106.9 million for IFRS 11 on adjusted revenue (-190.9 million for IFRS 11 in H1 2019) leaving IFRS revenue at 968.6 million (1,651.4 million in H1 2019). -11.2 million for IFRS 11 and 567.3 million for IFRS 16 on adjusted operating margin (-53.5 million for IFRS 11 and 567.6 million for IFRS 16 in H1 2019) leaving IFRS operating margin at 494.3 million (820.5 million in H1 2019). 1.0 million for IFRS 11 and 105.9 million for IFRS 16 on adjusted EBIT before impairment charge (-40.9 million for IFRS 11 and 107.7 million for IFRS 16 in H1 2019) leaving IFRS EBIT before impairment charge at -151.6 million (202.9 million in H1 2019). 1.0 million for IFRS 11 and 105.9 million for IFRS 16 on adjusted EBIT after impairment charge (-40.9 million for IFRS 11 and 107.7 million for IFRS 16 in H1 2019) leaving IFRS EBIT after impairment charge at -212.3 million (206.0 million in H1 2019). 3.5 million for IFRS 11 on adjusted capital expenditure (5.5 million for IFRS 11 in H1 2019) leaving IFRS capital expenditure at -81.0 million (-131.1 million in H1 2019). -12.8 million for IFRS 11 and 329.6 million for IFRS 16 on adjusted free cash flow (-1.0 million for IFRS 11 and 554.1 million for IFRS 16 in H1 2019) leaving IFRS free cash flow at 386.3 million (545.3 million in H1 2019). The full reconciliation between adjusted figures and IFRS figures is provided on page 9 of this release. NOTES Operating Margin: Revenue less Direct Operating Expenses (excluding Maintenance spare parts) less SG&A expenses. EBIT: Earnings Before Interests and Taxes = Operating Margin less Depreciation, amortization and provisions (net) less Impairment of goodwill less Maintenance spare parts less Other operating income and expenses. Net financial income / (loss): Excluding the net impact of discounting and revaluation of debt on commitments to purchase minority interests (-0.2 million and -2.5 million in H1 2020 and H1 2019 respectively). Free cash flow: Net cash flow from operating activities less capital investments (property, plant and equipment and intangible assets) net of disposals. Net debt: Debt net of managed cash less bank overdrafts, excluding the non-cash IAS 32 impact (debt on commitments to purchase minority interests), including the non-cash IFRS 9 impact on both debt and hedging financial derivatives excluding IFRS 16 lease liabilities. ORGANIC GROWTH DEFINITION The Groups organic growth corresponds to the adjusted revenue growth excluding foreign exchange impact and perimeter effect. The reference fiscal year remains unchanged regarding the reported figures, and the organic growth is calculated by converting the revenue of the current fiscal year at the average exchange rates of the previous year and taking into account the perimeter variations prorata temporis, but including revenue variations from the gains of new contracts and the losses of contracts previously held in our portfolio. m Q1 Q2 H1 2019 adjusted revenue (a) 840.0 1,002.3 1,842.3 2020 IFRS revenue (b) 658.2 310.4 968.6 IFRS 11 impacts (c) 65.4 41.5 106.9 2020 adjusted revenue (d) = (b) + (c) 723.6 351.8 1,075.4 Currency impacts (e) 1.7 8.0 9.7 2020 adjusted revenue at 2019 exchange rates (f) = (d) + (e) 725.3 359.9 1,085.2 Change in scope (g) (2.3) 7.0 4.7 2020 adjusted organic revenue (h) = (f) + (g) 723.0 366.8 1,089.8 Organic growth (i) = (h) / (a) -13.9% -63.4% -40.8% m Impact of currency as of June 30th, 2020 BRL 4.4 AUD 3.4 HKD (1.5) USD (2.2) Other 5.6 Total 9.7 Average exchange rate H1 2020 H1 2019 BRL 0.1848 0.2303 AUD 0.5961 0.6249 HKD 0.1169 0.1129 USD 0.9074 0.8851 Next information: Q3 2020 revenue: November 5th, 2020 (after market) Key Figures for JCDecaux 2019 revenue: 3,890m, H1 2020 revenue: 1,075m Present in 3,890 cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants A daily audience of more than 890 million people in more than 80 countries 13,210 employees Leader in self-service bike rental scheme: pioneer in eco-friendly mobility 1 st Out-of-Home Media company to join the RE100 (committed to 100% renewable energy) JCDecaux is listed on the Eurolist of Euronext Paris and is part of the Euronext 100 and Euronext Family Business indexes JCDecaux is recognised for its extra-financial performance in the FTSE4Good index and the MSCI and CDP 'A List' rankings 1,061,630 advertising panels worldwide N1 worldwide in street furniture (517,800 advertising panels) N1 worldwide in transport advertising with more than 160 airports and 270 contracts in metros, buses, trains and tramways (379,970 advertising panels) N1 in Europe for billboards (136,750 advertising panels) N1 in outdoor advertising in Europe (636,620 advertising panels) N1 in outdoor advertising in Asia-Pacific (260,700 advertising panels) N1 in outdoor advertising in Latin America (69,490 advertising panels) N1 in outdoor advertising in Africa (22,760 advertising panels) N1 in outdoor advertising in the Middle East (15,510 advertising panels) For more information about JCDecaux, please visit jcdecaux.com . Join us on Twitter , LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram and YouTube . Forward looking statements This news release may contain some forward-looking statements. These statements are not undertakings as to the future performance of the Company. Although the Company considers that such statements are based on reasonable expectations and assumptions on the date of publication of this release, they are by their nature subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual performance to differ from those indicated or implied in such statements. These risks and uncertainties include without limitation the risk factors that are described in the annual report registered in France with the French Autorite des Marches Financiers. Investors and holders of shares of the Company may obtain copy of such annual report by contacting the Autorite des Marches Financiers on its website www.amf-france.org or directly on the Company website www.jcdecaux.com . The Company does not have the obligation and undertakes no obligation to update or revise any of the forward-looking statements. Communications Department: Agathe Albertini +33 (0) 1 30 79 34 99 agathe.albertini@jcdecaux.com Investor Relations: Arnaud Courtial +33 (0) 1 30 79 79 93 arnaud.courtial@jcdecaux.com RECONCILIATION BETWEEN ADJUSTED FIGURES AND IFRS FIGURES Profit & Loss H1 2020 H1 2019 m Adjusted Impact of companies under joint control Impact of IFRS 16 from controlled entities (1) IFRS Adjusted Impact of companies under joint control Impact of IFRS 16 from controlled entities (1) IFRS Revenue 1,075.4 (106.9) - 968.6 1,842.3 (190.9) - 1,651.4 Net operating costs (1,137.3) 95.7 567.3 (474.3) (1,535.9) 137.4 567.6 (830.9) Operating margin (61.8) (11.2) 567.3 494.3 306.4 (53.5) 567.6 820.5 Maintenance spare parts (12.7) 0.4 - (12.2) (17.6) 0.6 - (17.0) Amortisation and provisions (net) (177.9) 12.4 (461.7) (627.2) (155.1) 11.7 (501.7) (645.1) Other operating income / expenses (6.1) (0.6) 0.2 (6.5) 2.4 0.3 41.8 44.5 EBIT before impairment charge (258.5) 1.0 105.9 (151.6) 136.1 (40.9) 107.7 202.9 Net impairment charge (2) (60.6) - - (60.6) 3.1 - - 3.1 EBIT after impairment charge (319.2) 1.0 105.9 (212.3) 139.2 (40.9) 107.7 206.0 (1) IFRS 16 impact core business from controlled entities (2) Including impairment charge on net assets of companies under joint control. Cash-Flow Statement H1 2020 H1 2019 m Adjusted Impact of companies under joint control Impact of IFRS 16 from controlled entities (1) IFRS Adjusted Impact of companies under joint control Impact of IFRS 16 from controlled entities (1) IFRS Funds from operations net of maintenance costs (151.7) 9.6 365.1 223.0 191.0 0.6 520.7 712.3 Change in working capital requirement 305.7 (25.9) (35.6) 244.3 (62.2) (7.1) 33.4 (35.9) Net cash flow from operating activities 154.0 (16.3) 329.6 467.3 128.8 (6.5) 554.1 676.4 Capital expenditure (84.5) 3.5 - (81.0) (136.6) 5.5 - (131.1) Free cash flow 69.5 (12.8) 329.6 386.3 (7.8) (1.0) 554.1 545.3 (1) IFRS 16 impact core and non-core business from controlled entities Half-year consolidated financial statements H1 2020 Condensed interim consolidated financial statements STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION Assets In million euros 30/06/2020 31/12/2019 Goodwill 1,691.4 1,779.0 Other intangible assets 560.7 612.5 Property, plant and equipment 1,299.2 1,394.7 Right-of-use 3,543.2 3,958.5 Investments under the equity method 438.6 452.3 Other financial assets 176.7 75.8 Financial derivatives 0.0 0.1 Deferred tax assets 142.2 122.7 Current tax assets 0.9 1.4 Other receivables 3.6 17.1 NON-CURRENT ASSETS 7,856.6 8,414.1 Other financial assets 3.6 4.5 Inventories 223.7 175.1 Financial derivatives 3.1 1.1 Trade and other receivables 666.9 1,021.5 Current tax assets 46.2 34.5 Treasury financial assets 58.3 83.5 Cash and cash equivalents 1,742.2 149.8 CURRENT ASSETS 2,743.9 1,470.0 TOTAL ASSETS 10,600.4 9,884.1 Equity and Liabilities In million euros 30/06/2020 31/12/2019 Share capital 3.2 3.2 Additional paid-in capital 608.5 608.5 Consolidated reserves 1,773.1 1,510.2 Consolidated net income (Group share) (254.9) 265.5 Other components of equity (242.2) (155.9) EQUITY ATTRIBUTABLE TO OWNERS OF THE PARENT COMPANY 1,887.7 2,231.5 Non-controlling interests 11.7 36.8 TOTAL EQUITY 1,899.4 2,268.3 Provisions 344.7 360.1 Deferred tax liabilities 104.2 132.1 Financial debt 2,183.3 753.1 Debt on commitments to purchase non-controlling interests 105.0 104.8 Lease liabilities 3,201.0 3,564.3 Other payables 15.2 22.0 Income tax payable 0.0 0.0 Financial derivatives 0.0 0.0 NON-CURRENT LIABILITIES 5,953.5 4,936.5 Provisions 54.8 58.3 Financial debt 770.9 595.7 Debt on commitments to purchase non-controlling interests 4.6 4.6 Financial derivatives 0.6 3.3 Lease liabilities 955.1 1,032.3 Trade and other payables 895.3 930.7 Income tax payable 39.0 46.9 Bank overdrafts 27.3 7.4 CURRENT LIABILITIES 2,747.6 2,679.3 TOTAL LIABILITIES 8,701.0 7,615.7 TOTAL EQUITY AND LIABILITIES 10,600.4 9,884.1 STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME INCOME STATEMENT In million euros 1st half of 2020 1st half of 2019 REVENUE 968.6 1,651.4 Direct operating expenses (253.6) (556.3) Selling, general and administrative expenses (220.7) (274.6) OPERATING MARGIN 494.3 820.5 Depreciation, amortisation and provisions (net) (639.8) (642.0) Impairment of goodwill (48.0) 0.0 Maintenance spare parts (12.2) (17.0) Other operating income 11.0 55.4 Other operating expenses (17.5) (10.9) EBIT (212.3) 206.0 Interest expenses on IFRS 16 lease (68.3) (83.3) Financial income 2.0 2.7 Financial expenses (16.4) (17.9) Net financial income (loss) excluding IFRS 16 (14.3) (15.2) NET FINANCIAL INCOME (LOSS) (82.7) (98.5) Income tax 43.8 (35.2) Share of net profit of companies under the equity method (14.6) 38.4 PROFIT FROM CONTINUING OPERATIONS (265.8) 110.7 Gain or loss on discontinued operations 0.0 0.0 CONSOLIDATED NET INCOME (265.8) 110.7 - Including non-controlling interests (10.8) 14.7 CONSOLIDATED NET INCOME (GROUP SHARE) (254.9) 96.0 Earnings per share (in euros) (1.198) 0.451 Diluted earnings per share (in euros) (1.198) 0.451 Weighted average number of shares 212,750,443 212,843,450 Weighted average number of shares (diluted) 212,750,443 212,889,680 STATEMENT OF OTHER COMPREHENSIVE INCOME In million euros 1st half of 2020 1st half of 2019 CONSOLIDATED NET INCOME (265.8) 110.7 Translation reserve adjustments on foreign operations (1) (81.4) 4.7 Translation reserve adjustments on net foreign investments (0.8) (0.2) Cash flow hedges 0.2 (0.3) Tax on the other comprehensive income subsequently released to net income 0.0 0.3 Share of other comprehensive income of companies under equity method (after tax) (5.4) 3.9 Other comprehensive income subsequently released to net income (87.5) 8.4 Change in actuarial gains and losses on post-employment benefit plans and assets ceiling (5.0) (9.1) Tax on the other comprehensive income not subsequently released to net income 0.8 2.4 Share of other comprehensive income of companies under equity method (after tax) (1.5) (0.1) Other comprehensive income not subsequently released to net income (5.7) (6.8) Total other comprehensive income (93.2) 1.6 TOTAL COMPREHENSIVE INCOME (358.9) 112.3 - Including non-controlling interests (17.7) 15.0 TOTAL COMPREHENSIVE INCOME - GROUP SHARE (341.2) 97.3 STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS In million euros 1st half of 2020 1st half of 2019 Net income before tax (309.6) 145.9 Share of net profit of companies under the equity method 14.7 (38.4) Dividends received from companies under the equity method 15.8 53.7 Expenses related to share-based payments 0.0 0.1 Gains and losses on lease contracts (158.4) (41.6) Depreciation, amortisation and provisions (net) 691.3 640.6 Capital gains and losses and net income (loss) on changes in scope (1.0) (8.1) Net discounting expenses 1.2 4.7 Net interest expense & interest expenses on IFRS 16 lease 78.2 88.5 Financial derivatives, translation adjustments, amortised cost and other (5.7) 2.2 Change in working capital 244.3 (35.9) Change in inventories (51.0) (56.8) Change in trade and other receivables 334.0 8.8 Change in trade and other payables (38.8) 12.1 CASH FLOWS FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES 570.7 811.7 Interest paid on IFRS 16 lease (72.3) (74.2) Interest paid (10.7) (11.5) Interest received 1.9 2.1 Income tax paid (22.3) (51.7) NET CASH FLOWS FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES 467.3 676.4 Cash payments on acquisitions of intangible assets and property, plant and equipment (111.1) (140.5) Cash payments on acquisitions of financial assets (long-term investments) net of cash acquired (1) (5.2) (0.8) Acquisitions of other financial assets (105.1) (1.1) Total investments (221.3) (142.4) Cash receipts on proceeds on disposals of intangible assets and property, plant and equipment 30.1 9.4 Cash receipts on proceeds on disposals of financial assets (long-term investments) net of cash sold (1) (0.0) 1.0 Proceeds on disposals of other financial assets 3.0 3.8 Total asset disposals 33.1 14.2 NET CASH FLOWS FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES (188.2) (128.2) Dividends paid (8.5) (133.0) Purchase of treasury shares (15.5) (1.0) Cash payments on acquisitions of non-controlling interests (0.0) (2.9) Repayment of long-term borrowings (85.5) (28.9) Repayment of lease liabilities (329.6) (554.1) Acquisitions and disposals of treasury financial assets 26.0 24.6 Cash outflow from financing activities (413.0) (695.3) Cash receipts on proceeds on disposals of interests without loss of control 0.0 4.7 Sale of treasury shares 12.5 - Capital increase 0.9 2.2 Increase in long-term borrowings 1,699.1 176.6 Cash inflow from financing activities 1,712.6 183.5 NET CASH FLOWS FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES 1,299.6 (511.8) CHANGE IN NET CASH POSITION 1,578.7 36.4 Net cash position beginning of period 142.4 88.0 Effect of exchange rate fluctuations and other movements (6.2) 0.9 Net cash position end of period (2) 1,714.9 125.3 Attachment The islands first democratically elected president, he started the democratic transition in 1990, after the Tiananmen massacre. A supporter of Taiwan identity, he was disliked by the Communist leadership in Beijing. in Chinese media he was described as the Godfather of Taiwan secessionism. Taipei (AsiaNews / Agencies) Lee Teng-hui, Taiwans first democratically elected president, died yesterday at the age of 97. Lee, who led the island from 1988 to 2000 and started the countrys peaceful and rapid transition from dictatorship to democracy, had been in a hospital for five months. He died of complications from pneumonia. He was born under Japanese colonial rule, and studied in Japan and the United States. A member of the Kuomintang, Lee was the heir apparent of Chiang Ching-kuo, son of Chiang Kai-shek, the nationalist leader who settled on the island in 1949 after losing the civil war on mainland China with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Lee set the country on the path to full democracy in 1990, immediately after the Tiananmen massacre in the wake of student protests. One of the first measures he took was lifting the martial law against the communist rebellion, together with the introduction of a multi-party system and the direct election of the president. At the end of his presidency, Lee made efforts to promote Taiwanese identity and statehood, drawing the ire of Beijing. The CCP considers the island a rebel province to be forcibly reunited if needed. In 1996, when Taiwan held its first direct presidential election, the Chinese launched massive military exercises, which ended when a US fleet intervened. In recent years, Lee emphasised his pro-independence stance by saying the island and Beijing have state-to-state relations of special nature. Because of his closeness to the positions of the Democratic Progressive Party, the pro-independence party led by current President Tsai Ing-wen, he was expelled from the Kuomintang. Lee openly supported Tsais rise to power. As a result of his criticism of Beijings One-China policy, the Chinese state-run newspaper Global Times called him the "Godfather of Taiwanese secessionism". Tens of thousands of supporters of President Alexander Lukashenko's top election rival on Thursday rallied in the Belarusian capital Minsk despite an increasing crackdown on the opposition. The rally came as Belarus authorities accused top members of the opposition of collaborating with Russian fighters to destabilise the ex-Soviet country. Backers of political novice Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a stay-at-home mother-of-two, packed a Minsk square in what appeared to be the largest opposition protest in the ex-Soviet country in a decade, an AFP journalist said. A sea of people waved flags and ballons emblazoned with the opposition's campaign symbols -- a victory sign, a clenched fist, and a heart. "Change!" read one of the placards. The human rights organisation Vyasna said at least 63,000 people had turned out. Earlier Thursday, Belarus investigators accused Tikhanovskaya's husband, blogger, Sergei Tikhanovsky, and another prominent critic, Mikola Statkevich, of working together with Russian mercenaries to plot mass unrest ahead of the August 9 election. Both Tikhanovsky and Statkevich were jailed in the run-up to the polls. The accusation that they were involved with Russian mercenaries was just the latest twist in an extraordinary election campaign in which the 65-year-old Lukashenko, who has dominated Belarus for nearly three decades, is seeking a sixth term in the face of rising anger over his rule. Belarusian authorities on Wednesday detained 33 Russian "militants" on a mission to destabilise the ex-Soviet country. The detentions sparked an apparent crisis in ties with ally Moscow which denied any involvement. Belarusian authorities say the detained men are members of the Wagner group, a shadowy military contractor reportedly controlled by an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin that promotes Moscow's interests in Syria, Libya and Ukraine. Addressing her supporters at the rally, Tikhanovskaya, 37, said authorities were "ruining" not only her husband's life but those of all political prisoners. "The situation involving the fighters is very scary," she said to shouts of "Freedom". 'What Revolution?' She denied that the opposition was collaborating with the Russians to stage an uprising. "People, what revolution? We want honest elections," said Tikhanovskaya, who has emerged as Lukashenko's top rival after main would-be candidates were jailed. She questioned the timing of the arrests, saying Russian private contractors might have been transiting through Belarus for a long time. "I have a question: where was the security service before and why are they raising this issue right before the election?" Investigators opened a criminal case against "Tikhanovsky, Statkevich and 33 detained Russian citizens." "They acted together," spokesman Sergei Kabakovich told AFP. An Investigative Committee also said another criminal probe had been launched against Tikhanovsky for inciting "social hostility" and calling for violence against police. Tikhanovsky, 41, is a popular blogger, who has nicknamed Lukashenko the "cockroach". Statkevich, 63, challenged Lukashenko in a 2010 election and was sentenced to six years in prison afterwards. Lukashenko's top election rival, former banker Viktor Babaryko, has been accused of financial crimes and also jailed. Moscow denied any involvement. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said claims that "organisations from Russia are sending some people to destabilise the situation in Belarus" were "nothing but insinuations". The Russian foreign ministry said its nationals were transiting through Belarus because they worked for a Belarus company, adding that they were en route to Istanbul. Minsk's version of events "does not hold water," the statement said. "An attempt to make what happened look like foreign interference in the republic's affairs causes bewilderment, to put it mildly," Moscow said. Russia urged a halt to the fanning of tensions ahead of the election. 'Regime Change' Moscow is Minsk's closest political and economic ally but relations have been strained for years. Lukashenko has been under increasing pressure to move closer to Russia but the Belarus leader has rejected the idea of outright unification. Some analysts suggested the arrest of the Russians gave Lukashenko an excuse to crack down harder on the opposition while others said Moscow might indeed be considering some action. Russian political analyst Tatyana Stanovaya said the Kremlin had not apparently given up on its unification plans. Stanovaya quipped that the Russian fighters might have arrived in Minsk to "monitor" the election. Search Keywords: Short link: More than four months after students, faculty and staff on the campuses of Cleveland State Community College went home to finish the Spring 2020 term online, the college now enters Phase III of their return to campus plan currently in place. Roughly 1,000 first year students will begin attending Aug. 10. In three weeks, the full student body begins classes for Cleveland States Fall 2020 semester online, as well as on-campus. More than half of the courses being offered at the college next term will have at least some degree of on-campus presence required. We have developed the Know Before You Go campaign as an executive summary of our full Phase III Plan to help educate everyone on what they can expect when they visit campus this fall, said Alisha Fox, vice president of Finance and Operations. The health and safety of each person at all of our locations is our highest priority. COVID-19 has changed things. However, Cleveland State remains committed to making our campuses as safe as possible for everyone who visits. To meet that goal, we have implemented safety protocols consistent with State of Tennessee, CDC, regional and local health authorities guidelines.It all starts with hours of operation for anyone visiting Cleveland State. Beginning Monday, all campuses of Cleveland State will be open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. On Fridays, the college will offer services remotely via online, telephone or email communication. There are exceptions in regards to some services including, but not limited to, the Cleveland State Library, math labs, academic classes and workforce training options.When visiting any CSCC facility during Phase III of Cleveland States return to campus plan, there will be designated doors open for use as an entrance or exit. Most doors will be locked to all employees, students and visitors. Signage will be posted to notify people of the proper door to enter at each building. At the proper entrance, everyone will visit a checkpoint table before being allowed access to the building. Workers will verify all those entering are wearing a proper face covering, as well as having COVID screening questionnaire and temperature check confirmation.All visitors to the college will be required to have their temperature checked via touchless infrared thermometer prior to accessing any CSCC building. COVID-19 screening questionnaires can be found each day online at mycs.cc/c19q.After a person is checked the first time each day, they will be issued a wristband they can wear for the rest of the day which will allow them entrance to other facilities on campus, added Ms. Fox. This will begin Aug. 10 in all academic buildings. For all other campus buildings, it will begin on Aug. 17. Fall 2020 classes officially begin at Cleveland State on Aug. 24.Mask wearing and social distancing practices will remain in place. At CSCC, the practice requires to maintain six feet of distance while sitting, standing, meeting, talking, etc in all settings while on campus. Group seating or group activity areas on campus will have reduced seating capacity. Increased restroom and touchpoint cleaning will take place on the CSCC campuses in Cleveland, Athens and Vonore. The college requests that everyone continue to practice good habits such as washing their hands frequently, as well as using hand sanitizing stations now installed in each building. These changes to how Cleveland State will operate this fall stem from guidelines recommended by the Center for Disease Control, the Tennessee Board of Regents and local Health Departments. One of these quarters, Apples going to announce financial results that dont result in some sort of record. Perhaps as soon as next quarter, even. But on Thursday, Apple announced the results of its financial third quarter of 2020and they were an all-time third quarter record. Literally every measurable category went up, year over year. It was so sunny a set of results that Apple CEO Tim Cook seemed almost embarrassed to be reporting such huge growth amid a global pandemic and some powerful social upheaval in the United States. In any event, heres what I gleaned from the results and Apples regular post-results conference call with analysts that might provide some insight about where Apple is and where it might be going next. Topsy turvy: Mac and iPad lead the way This quarters banner numbers were led by, of all products, the Mac and the iPad. Mac revenue was up 22 percent versus the year-ago quarter. Mac sales were only slightly lower than during last years holiday and back-to-school quarters, which are generally by far the two best quarters for Mac sales. The iPad, meanwhile, only had its best quarter in four-and-a-half years, since the 2015 holiday season. Sales were up 31 percent, and Apple made more money on iPads in the last quarter than any non-holiday quarter in six years, and in any quarter since the 2018 holiday season. How to explain it? This was a quarter where Apple shipped two new laptops with good keyboards, probably releasing a lot of pent-up demand. And the iPad had a good keyboard story, too, with the release of the new iPad Pro and its accompanying Magic Keyboard accessory. But Id wager that the major contributor to this sales bump is people upgrading their work-from-home setups in response to not being able to return to their offices due to the pandemic. Cook suggested as much three months ago, based on some initial sales figures, and now we can see the numbers that motivated him to make that suggestions. However, a few of the analysts on the call with Apple struck some warnings about the great quarter for the Mac and iPad. Doesnt this sales bump just mean that Apple pulled forward some sales that would otherwise have been made during the back-to-school and holiday quarters? Cook says that Apple expects strong performance in the back-to-school period, but his attitude toward the holiday quarter seemed a bit more iffy. I think we need to see a vaccine or a therapeutic or both, and, you know, theres some optimism around that in that particular timeframe, Cook said. I think that would boost consumer confidence quite a bit if it began to happen. Unless Cook has access to reports the rest of us dont have (and he specifically said he didnt), this seems a bit too optimistic. Given the current economic uncertainty, it would not be a bad bet to suggest that Apple will face a challenge at breaking any records during the upcoming holiday season. Services and Wearables motor on Back in 2016 Apple set a goal for itself: double the amount of revenue it generates from the Services portion of its business within five years. Four and a half years later, it has met its goal a bit early. The Services business grew by 15 percent in the past quarter, a rate of growth that it has managed for about two years now. Apples next goal: reach 600 million paid subscriptions before the end of calendar 2020. The other fast-growing Apple product category, Wearables, actually had its slowest growth quarter in three and a half years, though it still grew by 17 percent. It is hard to keep growing at 20 to 30 percent every quarter, so it is not surprising that Wearables might cool off a little bit. Cook also ascribed some weakness in the sales of Apple Watch to the fact that many prospective Apple Watch buyers want to try the watch on in a retail store and look at watch band options as welloptions that were stifled in many regions due to the COVID-19 pandemic closing stores. More hints of Apple silicon Were at the point where were parsing language and slides for clues about how fast Macs running on Apple silicon might perform. So lets parse this statement from Tim Cook: This two-year effort will achieve both unprecedented performance for the Mac and a common architecture across all Apple products. Unprecedented performance! Thats a nice phrase. I like it. (I assume he doesnt mean unprecedentedly bad.) Cook, while scrupulously sticking to Apples policy not to discuss future products, did also provide this tidbit: What well wind up with is a common architecture across all of our products, which gives us some interesting things that we can do in products, that it sort of unleashes another round of innovation. we can envision some products that we can achieve with Apple silicon that we couldnt achieve otherwise. Im excited, and yet also frustrated. Well played, Tim Cook. People like small phones, of course This quarter also brought a little bit of color about how well the new iPhone SE is selling. The answer is: its doing well! Were seeing a higher switcher number than we did in the previous year, which we feel very good about, Cook said. And it also seemed to appeal to some people that were holding onto the device a little longer because they wanted a smaller form factor phone. Yes, indeed, part of the iPhone SEs appeal is that its not the size of the other iPhone models. But do I detect a little bit of seeding the audience for a reaction when Apple announces the new iPhone models this fall? After all, one of the rumors is that among the new iPhone models will be one thats even smaller than the iPhone SE. The spike in cases of Covid-19 infection that caused the British government to change its advice regarding travel to Spain and bring in self-isolation continues. However the distribution of cases is unbalanced regionally, with north-eastern regions, such as Catalonia and Aragon still leading the table, while other regions such as Asturias and Extremadura are much lower. Aragon led the list with 335 cases per 100,000 on Tuesday, compared to the UKs 15. Asturias had 3 per 100,000, as the lowest. The big tourist areas of Balearics and Canaries had 11 per 100,000 and 7 respectively. Daily new case figures nationally had been approaching a thousand for several days earlier this week. Wednesdays figure broke the barrier with 1,153 positive tests and on Thursday there were 1,229 new cases. It was also announced that there had been 400 hospital admissions across Spain linked to Covid-19 in the last week including 25 intensive care admissions. A thousand cases was the limit the government had set for the acceptable management the pandemic during the new normal, before having to bring in stricter confinement measures. Madrid Madrid was showing a surge in cases this week and made mask-wearing outdoors compulsory to bring it in line with other regions. The director of the health alert coordination centre CCAES, Fernando Simon, said this week that behind the sharp rise is the increased work by the health services to detect cases, which implies that the situation is not as bad as it seems. In fact in over 60 per cent of the new cases, the patient showed no symptoms. Simon implied that young people partying was much to blame for the new outbreaks. Some population groups have dropped their guard and we must be clear about that. On Thursday there were nearly 421 live local outbreaks in Spain, an increase of 51 over the past three days. 4,870 cases had been linked directly back to these. Andalucia region On Tuesday the Andalucia region, including Malaga province, had a reported 14 cases per 100,000 people, similar to the UKs figure of 15. On Thursday, Andalucia reported 43 local outbreaks being monitored, four more on the previous day, and announced 118 new daily cases. There were no new deaths in the region on Thursday and there were 51 in hospital, of whom nine were in intensive care. Queensland's sexual consent laws will be "modernised and strengthened" under proposed legislation set to be introduced to State Parliament next month. Following a 10-month review into the definition of consent, the Queensland Law Reform Commission has made five recommendations to government in a 295-page report, expected to be tabled to Queensland Parliament on Friday afternoon. Queensland's consent laws will be strengthened. Credit:Darren Pateman The commission trawled through the transcripts from 135 rape and sexual assault trials and 40 appellate decisions to help form its recommendations. The report was due to be handed to the government in April, but the date was pushed back after an overwhelming amount of public submissions. Kolkata, July 31 : A year after joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Trinamool Congress' former North Dinajpur district President Biplab Mitra on Friday returned to West Bengal's ruling party. Mitra rejoined the Trinamool in the presence of its Secretary General Partha Chatterjee. His brother Prashanta Mitra, who had also switched sides, came back too - a few days after Chief Minister and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee urged all those who had left the party to return. Banerjee gave the call in her address at the July 21 Martyrs' Day rally - held virtually this year. "I am indebted to Mamata Banerjee and I have been with her since the inception of the party in 1998. Later for some reason, I was disillusioned and had joined the BJP. But I am looking forward to working with Didi once again for the upcoming assembly elections scheduled in 2021," Mitra told media persons. The North Dinajpur leader had joined the saffron brigade after the BJP's unprecedented political surge in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when they swept 18 out of the state's 42 seats. BarcelonaOn Thursday Catalan president Quim Torra sent a letter to Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez informing him that he wont be attending the regional presidents summit that is scheduled to be held on Friday in La Rioja. At the meeting which is supposed to address the pandemic in Spain the Spanish government will be detailing the EUs relief package that has recently been approved. Instead of attending the event, president Torra has asked his Spanish counterpart to hold a bilateral meeting between them and their governments next week. While the content of the summit interests me, the way you have pitched the event and the current situation of the pandemic in Catalonia prevent me from attending it, the Catalan leader writes in his letter. Torra emphasises that he asked to participate in the summit remotely owing to the public health crisis in Catalonia, where the Catalan government has advised against all but essential travel. Quim Torra believes that some preparation work was needed ahead of the summit, which hasnt been done: according to Torra, neither his vice president nor the Catalan minister for the Presidency have been given a chance to discuss the agenda of the summit. Furthermore, the Catalan leader slams Pedro Sanchez over the regional presidents Sunday videoconferences held during the state of emergency, when no points were up for discussion and everything was said and done by the central government, according to Torra. Those meetings were of little use because we were merely informed of the decisions Madrid had already made and announced the day before, with no chance of debating or negotiating any changes, he claims in his letter. And he goes on to state that the relationship between my government and the government of Spain must be bilateral. For all those reasons, Torra believes that Fridays is not a meeting to debate and come to an agreement on how the EU aid and funds will be shared. Now is not the time for photo opportunities but to get down to work, he remarks. On Wednesday the Spanish PM wrote to Torra and Basque president Urkullu encouraging them to attend the summit in person, even though both leaders had asked to join the event remotely. The Spanish PM and leader of the socialist party thinks this is a key meeting where information about the EUs agreement for reconstruction will be shared and King Felipe will be in attendance, too. For now the Basque leader refuses to travel to the summit unless a date is set for a meeting of the bilateral commission that discusses the Basque Countrys financial deal, according to Spanish news wire EFE, citing Basque government sources. Sanchez has said to Urkullu that he understands the Basque leaders position, but has urged him to appreciate the circumstances that have afflicted Spain in the last months and he has agreed to holding a meeting of the commission at some point, without setting a date President Torra also criticised the fact that King Felipe will be attending the event: We cannot agree to the use of such a major public health crisis to get the Spanish monarchy involved, especially now that its being put into question more than ever before. Torra believes that the Spanish government and every democrat should probe the Spanish monarchy following newspaper reports [about its shady business dealings] and they should be held to account. Its not our job to whitewash the monarchy by staging an event to do with such a major crisis that has hit so many people, he remarks, and he goes on to say that the king of Spain has been censured by the Catalan parliament. San Francisco, July 31 : As global software major Cognizant implements a programme to improve cost structure amid Covid-19 and optimises its team, the headcount of the company reduced by 10,500 in the second quarter of this year as compared to the previous quarter. As of June 30, the total headcount of the company stood at 2,81,200, from 2,91,700 employees on March 31. The voluntary attrition in the company declined to 10.5 per cent in Q2 of this year, revealed Cognizant CEO Brian Humphries during an earnings call with investors on Wednesday. Humphries said that the company continues to deploy "much more of a performance orientation in the company, which means that we are now removing the underperformers on an annual basis." Cognizant also announced that Karen McLoughlin has decided to retire from the company after more than eight years as Chief Financial Officer and a successful career in the company spanning almost 17 years. Jan Siegmund will serve as the new CFO of the company, effective September 1. The Cognizant CEO also said that the company was looking to hire a new Managing Director for India who will represent its 200,000 employees in the country. In the second quarter of 2020, Cognizant reported revenue of $4 billion, down 3.4 per cent as compared to the year ago period. The company said revenue across its business segments was negatively impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and a ransomware attack, primarily in the month of April. Sarah Schirmer, of New Orleans, is a deputy director of the PFM Center for Justice and Safety Finance. She formerly served as Criminal Justice Policy Advisor to New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and started her career in the New York City Office of Management and Budget. While the New York state Legislatures recent police reforms have received much deserved attention, Gov. Andrew Cuomos June 12, 2020, executive order may have the longest lasting impact to the reinvention of policing and redefinition of safety and justice across the state. The governors order requires every police agency to develop a community-based plan to reduce racial bias in policing, and ties efforts to end systemic racism in policing to the carrot and stick of the budgeting process. As a result, every community will be incentivized to examine the role of policing in a comprehensive and collaborative approach to keeping a community safe. When it comes to internal reforms specific to police departments, the terms of federal consent decrees and the Obama administrations Task Force on 21st Century Policing provide actions steps to improve use of force policies, develop early warning systems, and train on de-escalation and crisis intervention techniques. But training, tracking and limitations on use of force are not going to be enough. New York City had already implemented many of these trainings and prohibited the use of chokeholds when ex-NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo killed Eric Garner in 2014. Communities will need to look far beyond the role of police to meet the breadth of the planning required under the governors order. The order specifically identifies violence prevention and reduction programs as part of a long list of opportunities for review. The reality is, when elected officials talk about safety, their definition is often too narrow. It is more than crime and arrest data. Safety means physical and mental well-being in all communities. In working with local jurisdictions across the nation, one theme has been consistent we need every hand on deck to assure safety for all communities. This means every department in government plays a role, from the health department to recreation to sanitation to public works. As noted in the executive order, even city planners need to consider how elements of environmental design can boost safety. As one example, in New Orleans, NOLA FOR LIFE was a multi-agency comprehensive approach to reducing homicide. We used a public health approach to develop a strategy that had a law enforcement component, but also partnered with numerous city departments, service providers, the faith community and the business community. Cuomos order creates an incentive for local chief executives to adopt a plan that reinvents policing to better achieve safety that meets their communitys specific needs. Luckily, good models exist for how to do just that. Californians for Safety and Justice (CSJ) have developed a Blueprint for Shared Safety that would serve New York chief executives and police departments well because it advocates for a public health approach, defines safety as well-being, centers the voices of crime survivors from the communities that have the highest interactions with police, and seeks to break the cycle of trauma while building legitimacy. Because most local governments spend so much of their resources on policing, the power of its purse can drive systemic change at the local level, as well. For community plans to be meaningful, they need to have a budgetary element as well. Once a community has a plan, an outcomes-based budgeting approach can help to further its implementation. Governments need to examine the responsibilities they have placed on their police departments in the name of safety. Its time to revise old concepts that less crime alone equals safety and that safety can only be achieved with more enforcement; it has not served our communities and will not be the answer. Compelled by the governors recent order, local leaders have the opportunity to do better by their communities and be an example to other states across our country grappling with the issue of how to rethink policing and redefine what it means to be safe. Related: Cops in Syracuse schools: friendly face or occupying force? Their future debated India has now restricted imports of Chinese colour televisions to encourage domestic manufacturing after banning mobile applications and excluding firms from China from participating in public procurement tenders, two officials with direct knowledge of the matter said. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), an arm of the commerce and industry, issued a notification on late Thursday evening amending the import policy of colour television (TV) from free to restricted category. Import of colour TV is now in the restricted category, which would necessitate an importer to seek import license from the government. The main purpose of this move is to check influx of China TVs, one of the officials said requesting anonymity. India has a 15,000 crore TV industry and over 36% of that is imported primarily from China and South East Asia, he added. India has taken a series of actions against China after the violent brawl between Chinese and Indian soldiers on June 15 along the Line of Actual Control in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh. Twenty Indian Army personnel were killed that day. On June 29, the Narendra Modi government announced a ban on 59 mostly Chinese mobile applications such as TikTok, UC Browser and WeChat, citing security concerns. On July 23, it restricted public procurements by the bidders from countries that share a land border with it on the ground of national security. A second official said that some Chinese TV sets were routed through a third country with which India has a free trade agreement (FTA). This move will also curb such illegal trade, he said. Besides China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand and Germany are major exporters of colour TVs. Many such items enter Indian market taking advantage of ASEAN India FTA imports at reduced or zero duty, putting our domestic industry at a disadvantage. Such imports cannot be controlled through increased duty rates. Hence, the government is taking measures such as non-duty actions like import restrictions, the first official cited above said. ASEAN FTA was signed during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime in 2009 with Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. India has created necessary infrastructure and made arrangements to produce electronic items in cost-effective manner under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self-reliant India Imitative), and invite global manufacturers to set up units in India, the second official said. Indias production of electronics grew from $29 billion in 2014 to $70 billion in 2019. Phased Manufacturing Programme (PMP) for TVs is underway and specified parts like open-cell, chips on films, Printed Circuit Boards Assembly (PCBA ) are exempted from duty. Hence, India is ready for a shift of manufacturing to India with cost-effective imports of essential parts, the first official said. The officials said Thursdays decision to restrict the influx of TV sets was taken after extensive consultations with the domestic industry that aims to promote Make in India, create jobs and provide goods at a comparable rate to the consumer. As there is no ban and only a restriction being imposed, there is a possibility of such imports; however, with prior approval of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Divakar Vijayasarathy, the founder and managing partner at consultancy firm DVS Advisors LLP, said. The procedural aspects of acquiring this permit [licence]; however, would be tedious considering the stakes involved. There shall be transition provisions in place for import orders already being given or goods in transit, he added. It was a case of 'love at first sight' for Dublin teenager Charlotte BratuBreen when she met Koda, a golden retriever provided by Autism Assistance Dogs Ireland in Mallow, her father has told The Corkman. A year and a half after the dog arrived from Mallow in their home in Ballyboden, Dublin, Koda has become a vital part of the family and a firm friend of Charlotte, John Breen said, who added that Koda hadn't lost her Cork accent when he barked. Charlotte was diagnosed with autism when she was just three years old and this affected her in ways which could have put her in danger. "She was inclined to run away in traffic and this became such a problem that we just stopped going out and about as a family. "She also suffers from sensory meltdowns, which looks likes she's having a tantrum or can't cope." According to John, before the arrival of Koda, the family simply had 'no tools' to help them deal with these incidents when they took place. Now Koda is here, they can get out and about again as the dog is attached to Charlotte and keeps her safe. Now when the sensory meltdown hits, Koda wanders over to Charlotte and nuzzles her and before long the two are hugging and petting and the sensory meltdown has evaporated. John was speaking as he and Charlotte were appointed as ambassadors for AADI last year in order to become the face of the fundraising campaigns. These have been badly hit due to COVID-19. Woodie's DIY has nominated AADI as its benefitting charity from this year's Woodie's Heroes campaign. With a nationwide fundraising target of 250,000, Woodie's plan to raise the much-needed funds through an array of activities - including their attempt to "walk to the moon" through the combined effort of all 1,400 colleagues and loyal customers upping their step count during the four-week fundraiser to cover the incredible distance of 384,400km! Kyiv says it will seek the extradition of alleged contractors from the Russian private military company Vagner being held in Belarus as Moscow demanded their release, saying they were in transit and headed to Turkey. Belarusian authorities have launched an investigation against 33 Russian contractors from Vagner who were detained earlier this week. Authorities allege they wanted to destabilize the country ahead of the August 9 presidential election. Moscow has vehemently rejected Minsks claims, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying on July 31 that the 33 men were in transit to Istanbul before flying to "a third country." "Their stay is connected neither to Belarus itself nor its internal affairs," Peskov told reporters, calling for their release. However, Alyaksandr Agafonov, who leads the team of Belarusian investigators, later said on national TV that the mens plans for onward travel were just "an alibi." He also said that their "evidence about the reasons for their stay in Belarus was incoherent and contradictory." Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's Office said Kyiv would ask Belarus to hand over 28 of the detainees on charges of fighting alongside Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Nine Ukrainian citizens are among the 28, it said. Fighting between Ukraine's armed forces and the separatists in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk has killed some 13,200 people since April 2014. The Vagner Group is a Russian paramilitary organization believed to be run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an influential Russian businessman close to President Vladimir Putin. Its fighters have turned up in conflicts in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and Africa. The chief of the Belarusian Security Council, Andrey Raukou, said on July 30 that "upwards of up to 200 militants" remain at large in Belarus and efforts to locate them continue. The August 9 presidential vote is shaping up to be a tough race for incumbent Alyaksandr Lukashenka, an authoritarian leader who has been in power since 1994. Lukashenka has cracked down on the opposition during the campaign, with the arrest of hundreds of people, including journalists, bloggers, and political activists. Charges were pressed against two potential candidates. In a statement on July 30, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that from May through July, Belarusian police arrested "at least 1,100 people for gathering peacefully on issues related to the election." Nearly 200 people were sentenced to detention for up to 15 days and more than 300 others were fined, the New York-based human rights group said, urging the international community not to "ignore such serious flouting of human rights obligations." With reporting by TASS, dpa, AFP, and UNIAN Manitobans continue to face longer-than-average waits for key health procedures, according to data released Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Manitobans continue to face longer-than-average waits for key health procedures, according to data released Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. CIHI released pre-pandemic information on wait times for key procedures such as hip and knee replacements, cataract surgeries, radiation therapy and several cancer and bypass surgeries. Wait times have inched up across the country since 2015, though Manitoba-specific numbers have remained relatively constant. Median wait times in the province for hip-replacement surgery are nearly six months (163 days); the Canadian median is about 3 1/2 months, or 106 days. Similarly, for knee replacement, the median 203-day nearly seven months wait is well beyond the national median 121 days, or four months. Even starker is the discrepancy for cataract surgery; Manitobans wait around 162 days, nearly 5 1/2 months, compared to Canada's median of just over two months (67 days). The benchmark a nationally agreed upon acceptable wait time for certain procedures is 112 days for cataract. Only 55 per cent of Manitobans undergo hip-replacement surgery before the pan-Canadian 182-day benchmark. The percentages for knee replacements and cataract surgeries are lower, at 46 and 33 per cent, respectively. Across Canada, 75 per cent of hip replacements, 70 per cent of knee replacements and 71 per cent of cataract surgeries are completed before the benchmark. For urgent procedures, however, Manitoba records much lower waits, with 100 per cent of radiation-therapy patients and 93 per cent of hip-fracture repairs treated within benchmark times. The steady, albeit minor, rise in wait times over the last five years has occurred despite steady increases in the number of surgeries performed in each category in all provinces, said Tracy Johnson, director of health system analysis and emerging issues at CIHI. As for why the waits continue to increase, Johnson said that "million-dollar question" has stumped doctors around the globe in the past several years. "These are diseases of aging, and we do have an aging population," she said. Johnson noted the wait times are a composite of several factors, including increased demand as the population ages, provincial funding, geographic access and availability of hospital beds and physicians. According to CIHI, Manitoba saw an overall 7.6 per cent increase in family and specialist physicians in 2019. The province reports 108 doctors for every 100,000 residents, which is the the smallest number of physicians per capita of any province. The most recent CIHI dataset reports wait times recorded between April and September 2019. Times are expected to drastically increase in the 2020 recording period, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic slamming the brakes on the majority of all planned surgeries. 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. "What we do know is that about 70 per cent of surgeries did not happen across all provinces, and most of those were planned surgeries like these," Johnson said, adding that some provinces have estimated it will take up to two years to work through the backlog. The wait for diagnostic tests such as CT scans and MRIs has spiked as well, recent provincial health data shows. The average wait time for a CT scan in Manitoba in May 2019 was just five weeks; in May 2020, that figure more than quadrupled to 23 weeks. For MRIs, the average wait doubled from 15 to 30 weeks between May 2019 and May 2020. Shared Health Manitoba was unable to provide comment by deadline. julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @jsrutgers Kremlin Refutes Claims That Russia Sends People to Belarus to Destabilize Situation Sputnik News 10:40 GMT 30.07.2020 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refuted on Thursday as "slander" claims that Russia could have tasked anyone with destabilizing the situation in Belarus ahead of the presidential election there. "We are now seeing slanderous claims that some Russian organizations send people to Belarus to destabilize the situation there. Of course, this is nothing but slander. Russia and Belarus are the Union State, we are allies, we are the closest partners, so this is certainly out of question. Of course, it is necessary to clarify this incident with the Russians' detention. We hope we will receive information allowing us to understand the situation," Peskov told reporters. Peskov's comment came amid a probe into over 30 Russians' possible involvement in preparations of terrorist attacks. The Belarusian government believes that the Russian citizens, detained on Wednesday, are members of the Wanger Group paramilitary organization, and some of them have taken part in hostilities in Donbass. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Bola Tinubu, former Lagos State Governor, has commiserated with the family and associates of Afenifere leader, Ayo Fasanmi. Fasanmi died in Osogbo on Wednesday. Tinubu, in a statement on Thursday, said Papas long sojourn on earth was for the good of all. The All Progressives Congress (APC) national leader said the late elder statesman walked at the vanguard of all democrats, freedom fighters and believers in true federalism. Tinubu noted that to have lived to the age of 94 was Gods gift not only to him and his family, but to Nigeria he deeply loved. I had a close relationship with Paba Fasanmi, dating back many years. He was a mentor and role model to me and many others who believe in progressive politics as a means to uplift our society and its people. When Papa was recently admitted to the hospital for age-related sickness, I spoke to him and followed up with his close aide to monitor his situation. As Afenifere leader, Tinubu, said he was a true believer in the importance of fiscal federalism as essential for the growth of Nigeria. He shared the grief with his political soulmates including Pa Fasoranti, Chief Bisi Akande, and others. Tinubu added that Pa Fasoranti devoted himself toward progressive development and democratic advancement. He added: This fine job has not been completed. The Nigeria of our dreams is still a work in progress. Papa Fasanmi struggled for that dream and supported those patriots, like President Muhammadu Buhari, who also toiled for the same goal. Let us all learn from Papa Fasanmis example and join hands to move Nigeria towards the safe harbour of peace and prosperity. Tinubu prayed that Almighty God grant the soul of Pa Fasanmi eternal rest. He beseeched God to guide and comfort his family, and grant them perseverance to continue after him through living by his example. Reactions are trickling in after U.S. President Donald Trump delivered what appeared to be a call for the postponement of the November 3 presidential elections. In a tweet on Thursday, Mr Trump based the suggestion on his repeated claims that voting by mail or mail-in voting would lead to massive fraud. With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote, the tweet read. The president has long opposed mail-in voting, which many states are embracing due the coronavirus pandemic. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi replied Trump with a tweet reminding the president that he lacked the constitutional powers to determine the dates of elections. Ms Pelosi cited Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution. It states: The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States. Chairperson of the U.S. Federal Election Commission, Ellen Weintraub, also said the president lacked the power to move the election. According to the BBC,Ms Weintraub said there was no need to delay the exercise, and called for more funding for states to run safe and secure elections. Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, and the House of Representatives Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, both Republicans, also reportedly dismissed the idea. Never in the history of the federal elections have we ever not held an election and we should go forward with our election, the BBC quoted McCarthy as saying. Another Republican senator, Lindsay Graham, who is an ally of Mr Trump, also said postponing the election was not a good idea. However, a Republican lawmaker from Utah, Chris Stewart, said the president had a legitimate point about mail-in voting being hard to monitor. READ ALSO: Can you ensure the accuracy of mail-in voting? Now in some states you can. In my state in Utah, for example, weve been doing it for quite a while, but were a small state with a relatively small population. Its harder to do on a national scale, the BBC also quoted him as saying. Mr Trumps suggestion also reportedly came as a surprise to some officials in the White House, which referred questions about it to the presidents re-election campaign. The campaigns press secretary, Hogan Gidley, downplayed the presidents message, saying Mr Trump only raised a question about the chaos Democrats had created with their insistence on all mail-in voting. Universal mail-in voting invites chaos and severe delays in results, Gidley stated. (NAN) Houston petrochemical company LyondellBasell improved its earnings as a slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic shows signs of easing. LyondellBasell made $314 million in the second quarter. While that's a 70 percent falloff from the $1 billion profit in the second quarter of 2019, it's more than double the $144 million the company made in the first quarter. Second-quarter revenue declined 39 percent to $5.5 billion from $9 billion in the same quarter of 2019. During the second quarter, LyondellBasell saw demand fall for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and polymers used by manufacturers in the automotive industry but it also saw strong demand for plastics ingredients used in food packaging and health care products such as face masks. Pandemic: Chemical companies battle COVID and tough times With operations around the world, LyondellBasell felt the disruptive effects of COVID-19 in Asia early in the first quarter. As the pandemic moved around the globe, CEO Bob Patel said the company was able to act quickly. Looking ahead to the third quarter, there are signs that the worst may be behind the company. Crude oil prices crashed in the second quarter but have since remained stable, hovering above $40 per barrel. Improved oil prices restored a price advantage for the chemical feedstock ethane in North America, where demand, prices and exports for the plastics ingredient polyethylene have improved. Fuel Fix: Get daily energy news headlines in your inbox "We believe the pandemic-driven decline in demand bottomed during the second quarter," Patel said. South Koreas central bank says agriculture, construction and fishing boosted growth despite impact of sanctions. North Koreas economy grew for the first time in three years in 2019 as better weather conditions boosted crops, but sanctions imposed to stop its nuclear ambitions kept manufacturing weak, according to South Koreas central bank. The secretive countrys gross domestic product (GDP) last year rose 0.4 percent compared with the previous year when the economy suffered the biggest contraction in 21 years as a result of drought and sanctions, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said on Friday. The North does not publish economic data of its own, and the South Korean central bank numbers are considered the most authoritative. North Korea has been under United Nations sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes and the UN Security Council has tightened measures in recent years. The sanctions have not become any tougher since 2017-end and weather conditions have been more favourable, which helped output from the agriculture sector to improve, a BOK official said. Construction also turned positive last year, the BOK said, as did the forestry and fishing sector, while the contraction in mining and manufacturing narrowed. The North is banned from exporting coal, iron and lead as a result of sanctions imposed in 2017. Trade in textiles, once a key export, is banned in both directions. Customers shop for North Korean-produced food at the supermarket of the Kwangbok department store in Pyongyang [File: Ed Jones/AFP] Clocks, wigs Nonetheless, total exports rose by 14.4 percent to $280m in 2019, according to the BOK, with the biggest increases in clocks and watches, along with footwear, hats and wigs. Even so, its too early to say [North Koreas] economy is in a recovery as its trade volume in recent years is half the levels seen before the international sanctions kicked in, the bank noted. Leader Kim Jong Un has repeatedly promised to raise living standards and has quietly sought to liberalise the countrys long-moribund economy to allow market forces to play a greater role. Since taking power in 2011, he has often been pictured visiting construction sites and factories. Since 1991, the BOK has used figures from intelligence agencies and the unification ministry on everything from the size of rice paddy crops, water flows at dams to traffic near the border to make estimates. The BOK official said North Koreas trade was expected to worsen significantly this year as the coronavirus outbreak would have curbed shipments to China, which accounts for more than 90 percent of North Koreas total trade. Despite Kims proclaimed commitment to liberalising the economy, he continues to follow the ideological path of Kim Il Sung, his grandfather, and the countrys founder. The North remains deeply impoverished, with about 40 percent of the population in need of food aid according to UN estimates. The BOK said the Norths economy was less than one-50th of the size of the Souths, which is the 12th biggest in the world. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 22:52:48|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close MACAO, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The total merchandise export from Macao amounted to 776 million patacas (about 97 million U.S. dollars) in June 2020, down by 14.3 percent year-on-year, the special administrative region (SAR)'s statistic department said here on Friday. The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that the value of re-exports went down by 18.1 percent to 649 million patacas (about 81 million dollars), with that of beauty, cosmetic and skincare products falling by 66.8 percent. The value of domestic exports grew by 12.7 percent to 128 million patacas (about 16 million dollars), with that of garments soaring by 1,504.8 percent, the DSEC report added. In the second quarter of 2020, the total value of merchandise export declined by 23.9 percent year-on-year to 2.10 billion patacas (about 263.34 million dollars). In the first half year of 2020, the total value of merchandise export decreased by 19.5 percent year-on-year to 5.16 billion patacas (about 647.06 million dollars). The value of re-exports dropped by 22.2 percent to 4.46 billion patacas (about 559.28 million dollars) in the first half year. But that of domestic exports grew by 3.5 percent to 697 million patacas (about 87 million dollars). Analyzed by destination, merchandise export to Hong Kong SAR fell by 22.4 percent year-on-year to 3.32 billion patacas (about 416.33 million dollars) in the first half year of 2020. Meanwhile, the export to Chinese mainland rose by 25.1 percent to 979 million patacas (about 123 million dollars), and that to the United States and the European Union expanded by 135.7 percent and 8.4 percent year-on-year to 213 million patacas (about 27 million dollars) and 102 million patacas (about 13 million dollars) respectively. In the first half of 2020, the export of textiles and garments grew by 67.9 percent year-on-year to 780 million patacas (about 98 million dollars), while that of non-textiles went down by 26.3 percent to 4.38 billion patacas (about 549.25 million dollars). Enditem Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) --- Police authorities said the recent killings of National Center for Mental Health (NCMH) chief Rolando Cortez and Philippine Charity Sweeptakes Office (PCSO) board secretary Wesley Barayuga could be work-related. Quezon City Police District (QCPD) chief Brigadier General Ronnie Montejo said Cortez's wife revealed that the doctor had received death threats in the past. Montejo said it is not about any power struggle in the leadership of the hospital but may be related to certain improvements within the institution. "Hindi siya agawan ng position actually," Montejo said. "Ito ay tungkol sa improvements, projects. Ito ang tinitingnan nating possible motives." [Translation: Its not about grabbing a position. This is regarding improvements, projects. These are the possible motives we are looking at.] So far, the newly-formed Special Investigation Task Group (SITG-Cortez) has released a facial composite sketch of one of the suspects. Based on the description of a witness, the suspect is around 30 to 40 years old, about five-feet four-inches tall, has black eyes, black-brown hair, brown skin, and is medium built. Two unknown suspects aboard a motorcycle opened fire at Cortez at the corner of Casanova Drive and Tandang Sora Avenue In Quezon City, in morning of July 27, according to police. Cortez and his driver Ernesto Dela Cruz died in the incident. Based on initial investigation, police discovered that one of the suspects alighted a Toyota Vios somewhere near the crime scene. Members of the SITG said they have a lead in the case after they were able to trace the owner of the car. PCSO exec killed by a gambling operator? Meanwhile, the Mandaluyong City Police Station said Barayugas well-planned murder could have been committed by a disgruntled gambling operator. Mandaluyong Police chief Colonel Hector Grijaldo said Barayuga drafted PCSO board resolutions related to franchises and permits for gambling operations. "Before you can operate for a gambling operation, you need to have franchise or authority coming from PCSO," Grijaldo explained. "And this victim is responsible for drafting resolutions so maybe mayroong hindi nagustuhan [there was something the suspect disliked]. Merong na-cancel yung franchise, merong di napagbigyan [Maybe a franchise was canceled or someone was not favored upon]." But authorities are not disregarding the possibility that personal grudges or anything related to Barayuga as a former police officer may be behind the murder. For instance, Barayuga was allegedly included in the government's narcolist. "Of course we will relay it to the investigation," National Capital Region Police chief MGen. Debold Sinas said. "When we conducted background check, we noticed na nandun siya sa (he is in the) list and we are checking kung active pa ba yung list na yun (if that list is still active) and to check if it has something to do with this shooting incident." Barayuga, a retired police officer and a lawyer by profession, was shot dead Thursday afternoon along Calbayog Street, Brgy. Highway Hills, Mandaluyong City. He was on board his vehicle when the unidentified assailant riding a motorcycle opened fire. The PCSO official died while his driver, Salvador Gunao was rushed to the hospital, where he is still under observation. Grijaldo said investigators are coordinating with the PCSO to find out if there are gambling operators who may have the motive to kill Barayuga. "We have gathered some information that there are some gambling operators filing cases against the board, one of them is Atty. Barayuga," Grijaldo revealed. "And this possibility will be validated during formal investigation to the members of PCSO board or any, from the legal office." Sinas admitted though that identifying the suspects is an extra challenge for investigators as everybody is required to wear face masks, while others are also wearing glasses. But Sinas assured that authorities are exhausting other means to unmask the identity of the suspects. The Police has arrested one of the suspects said to have tortured the late Akua Denteh, a 90-year-old woman at Kafaba to death. Akua Denteh was lynched by some residents of Kafaba in the Savannah Region after accusing her of being a witch. A statement from the Police said a two-man team was quickly dispatched to arrest suspect Latifah Bumaye after they received information about her hideout. The suspect is identified as the one who was torturing the deceased in the viral video which led to the death of the deceased. Latifah Bumaye was arrested at Kejewu Bator, a fishing community at Abrumase on Thursday, July 30, 2020, at 9:30 pm. The police further added that she is being escorted through Yeji to the Salaga Divisional Command for investigations. --citinewsroom Ankita Lokhande broke her silence in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case in an interview after she was questioned by a team of Bihar Police officials on Thursday. Ankita had earlier told the police that through a chat around the time of release of her Bollywood debut film, Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi in 2019, Sushant mentioned being "harassed" by his then current girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty. Ankita made her claim while she was visiting Sushant's family in Patna post actor's demise in June. Now, Ankita, on national TV, has debunked the theory that has claimed Sushant was allegedly depressed and killed himself owing to his mental state. Ankita told Republic TV on Thursday, "It took me a lot of time to accept the news of his death by suicide. I want to tell everyone right now that Sushant wasnt the kind of guy who would be in depression. He wasnt someone who would die by suicide because of any sorrows, he wasnt that personality. After Ankita's interview went viral on social media, Sushant's US-based sister Shweta Singh Kirti took to Instagram and shared a portion of Ankita's interview in which the actress clears, "Sushant I was with cant be in depression." Ankita dated Sushant while they featured on hit daily soap Pavitra Rishta together as lead pair. Read: Ankita Lokhande Speaks About Sushant Singh Rajput, Says He Cant Be Depressed While sharing one of Ankita's clip from the chat with Republic TV, Shweta also posted the State Emblem of India writing Satyamev Jayate, meaning truth alone triumphs. View this post on Instagram https://youtu.be/oQLVGnV69UM #satyemevjayate #indiaforsushant. A post shared by Shweta Singh kirti (@shwetasinghkirti) on Jul 30, 2020 at 11:19am PDT Sushant's suicide case took a dramatic turn after it emerged that the late actor's father KK Singh had filed an FIR at the Rajiv Nagar police station in Patna accusing six people, including Rhea, for abetment to suicide. The police are investigating the case and probing the finances of Sushant and Rhea's family. Read: Sushant Singh Rajput Death Case: ED Seeks Details of Rhea Chakraborty's Bank Transactions Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh had earlier said the case will not be transferred to the CBI The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a PIL seeking transfer of probe into Bollywood star Sushant Singh Rajput''s death case from Mumbai Police to the CBI. A bench comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said that Mumbai police be allowed to do the job and if there is something, then a plea be filed before the Bombay High Court. "Go to Bombay High Court if you have anything concrete to show," the bench said when the counsel for PIL petitioner Alka Priya sought the CBI probe into the death of the actor. "We would like to bring to your kind attention that the sudden and mysterious demise of Late Mr Sushant Singh Rajput on 14 June 2020 has created a wave of shock and grief across the nation and which is being investigated by Bihar and Maharashtra Police and it has prima facie raised a number of serious questions on the investigation being conducted by both the State Police and also it has raised a number of unanswered question in the mind of the public at large as it was a suicide or a murder," read the letter petition filed by Pawan Prakash Pathak and Gauraw Kumar. The letter petition further read that with the Bihar Police and Maharashtra Police both investigating the case of the late actor are "not collaborating with each other." "Now there are two states investigating the same sad matter of mysterious death of Late Sushant Singh Rajput, and in the interest of justice there should be a single investigation agency which is not possible as the Bihar Police and the Maharashtra Police not collaborating with each other," it read further. "Therefore, in the interest of justice, equity and good conscience, it is humbly prayed that this Letter Petition be treated as a Public Interest Litigation seeking transfer of investigation from State agency to CBI Or SIT Inquiry," the petition added. Earlier, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said Mumbai Police are investigating the case and it will not be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). A team of Bihar Police that arrived in Mumbai on Tuesday, recorded statements of two persons, including actor Sushant Singh Rajput's sister, on Wednesday in connection with the case. An FIR was filed by Sushant Singh Rajput's father against actor Rhea Chakraborty in Bihar on Tuesday. Rajput was found dead in his Mumbai residence on 14 June. (With inputs from agencies) * 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 Advertisement A breakfast radio host who lost her first husband to suicide and second to cancer has revealed why she will not find love again. Robin Bailey, 50, said she finds the idea and 'expectation' of finding a new partner unsettling after losing Sean Pickwell, her second husband, in September last year. Mr Pickwell, 56, died of terminal liver cancer about two years following his diagnosis and less than a year after the pair married in November 2018. His death came six days after Ms Bailey finished presenting on Triple M's The Big Breakfast to spend more time with her dying spouse. Ms Bailey said she was now focusing on herself and her children as she was 'all good' in the love department. 'I can't even tell you the number of people that say to me, "Oh you'll find someone else," and it's like, "Why do I have to?" Celine Dion said it best when she said, "I'm desperately in love with my husband, he's just not here," and I'm fine with that,' she told the Courier Mail Robin Bailey (pictured) said her second husband, Sean Pickwell (pictured) was her 'absolute soulmate'. He died of terminal liver cancer about two years after his diagnosis and less than 12 months on from the pair marrying in November 2018 Sean Pickwell's death followed that of Robin Bailey's first husband, Tony Smart (pictured), who committed suicide in September 2014 LIVER CANCER *Liver cancer is one of the top 10 causes of cancer deaths in Australia. *An estimated 2,297 Australians - 1,509 males and 788 females - will die from liver cancer in 2020. *Men and those over the age of 60 are more likely to get liver cancer. * The five year survival rate for liver cancer is 19%. Advertisement 'It's OK for me to be a woman on her own I don't want to be getting over him, I don't want to be grieving him, I want to hold him here. I will never settle I had the best.' Ms Bailey has been forced to deal with more than her fair share of tragedy after her first husband Tony Smart committed suicide in September 2014 following a long battle with depression. She was in the process of separating from Mr Smart, her husband of 16 years, when she came home from her breakfast show to find out her life had changed forever. Mr Smart was the father of Ms Bailey's three sons - Fin, 20, Lewin, 18, and Piper, 15. She describes that tragedy as 'traumatic' and says she often use to torture herself about the role she may or may not have played in his death. Comparing how both her husbands died she said her most recent loss was 'much more painful'. Ms Bailey previously told The Sunday Mail she spent a lot of that time searching for a cure for Mr Pickwell's condition, but the pair eventually accepted the prognosis. Despite coming to terms with the prospect of his own death, Mr Pickwell 'had to fight' for doctors to allow him to stop treatment and return home. 'That wasn't living,' he said at the time. 'What I've been able to do in that acceptance is live even more than I ever have before in my life. I came home and would literally stop every single day and think "I'm so grateful".' The couple travelled to Europe and the United States to share as many memories as possible from Mr Pickwell's bucket list with their blended family, which also included Mr Pickwell's daughter Ally. After Mr Pickwell died Ms Bailey shared a heartwrenching post on Facebook about her loss. 'What can I say .. my big beautiful panda has gone. He died as he lived ... his way ....at home with us holding him.... early this morning,' she wrote. 'In this moment there are no words or feelings that can truly express the love and gratitude I have for my husband Sean Pickwell. 'He came into our lives and healed us . He loved me so hard and taught me so much and now whatever life throws at us we will be stronger, wiser and more fierce because of him . Robin Bailey (pictured) only returned to the airwaves in January, joining the Australian Radio Network's (ARN) 97.3 FM's breakfast show While the radio host is unsure of what the next chapter of her life will look life, Robin Bailey (pictured) said her hope, and love for Sean Pickwell (pictured), would keep her moving forward 'He was my absolute soul mate, the true love of my life and whatever I do from now on he will be in my heart and in my corner cheering me on.' The radio star is now unsure of what the next chapter of her life will look like but says her hope, and love for Mr Pickwell, would keep her moving forward. In January she returned to the airwaves, joining the Australian Radio Network's (ARN) 97.3 FM's breakfast show. It is the first time she has worked since resigning from Triple M Brisbane in September. 'The world is full of hope, it's just sometimes it's harder to see, but I want to be the one that believes that good things will happen,' Ms Bailey said. When Sean Pickwell died, Robin Bailey (pictured) sold her $500,000 home to embark on a soul-searching trip to India with her three sons Fin, 20, Lewin, 18, and Piper, 15 Robin Bailey's second husband, Sean Pickwell (pictured), 56, died of terminal liver cancer about two years after his diagnosis The mother-of-three said she would 'survive' the devastation, which would, in turn, make her more grateful for her friends and family in the years to come. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, she had been taking time to reflect on the past 12 months - spending time on the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast alone. Ms Bailey then sold her $500,000 home to embark on a soul-searching trip to India with her three sons. She regularly posted pictures of the family as she worked on reminding the boys 'how lucky they are'. Speaking about his brave mum Piper said that Ms Bailey was incredibly brave and although she 'cries a lot' she is always trying to be the strongest person she can be. For confidential support call Lifeline: 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636. There is a long way to go, but Niagara Regions financial picture for 2020 is coming into focus. The municipality learned Monday another $4 billion in funding from the provincial and federal governments will be available to support Ontario municipalities and transit systems as they deal with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Mondays announcement came on the heels of one in mid-July, when the federal government said it will provide the provinces with $19 billion in relief, $7 billion of which is headed to Ontario. That money is earmarked for child care, contact tracing, mental health, personal protective equipment and help for municipalities. On the local front, a report from Region staff estimates the municipality is facing a $5-million budget deficit for 2020. When the deficits of the local municipalities are included, the total is about $12.9 million. We hope that with a good allocation of funding, we wont have to have drastic cuts in services or substantial increases in property tax, Region Chair Jim Bradley said. As municipalities, we feel weve made a good case to the provincial and federal governments. Niagara isnt alone in making that case. The Region of Waterloo recently estimated its deficit will reach $17 million without help from higher levels of government. The City of Torontos pandemic cost are in the range of $1.5 billion. The Municipal Act prevents municipalities from running deficits, and Bradley doesnt foresee the rule changing. Our hope is for the federal or provincial government to provide assistance, and we are very encouraged with the recent announcements, he said. A report from the Region said gross costs associated with the pandemic are $49 million. When the lower-tier municipalities are added, the figure jumps to $78 million regionwide. Both levels of government in Niagara have been doing things to mitigate those costs, Bradley said. There is a hiring freeze. We are reducing transit services, non-essential repair, and maintenance projects, and deferring some seasonal services. We have cancelled or delayed non-essential capital projects. The local municipalities have closed libraries and arenas and things like that. Bradley said the Region has mandated areas of responsibility, which reduce councils ability to manoeuvre. When you provide ambulance services, you cant cancel them, Bradley said. We fund the Niagara Regional Police. We have public health. We operate eight long-term care homes. Social services are under our umbrella. We operate water treatment and sewage treatment plants. The Region does have reserves on hand for emergencies, including a Taxpayer Relief Fund. As of the end of last year its balance was $23.8 million, or 4.2 per cent of gross budgeted expenditures. That percentage is important because the Region has a minimum reserve target of 10 per cent of gross budgeted operating expenses. Using that figure, the fund should be at $56 million. Councillors could decide to use the fund to cover the deficit for 2020, but that would leave a balance of $18.8 million, or 3.4 per cent of the gross budget, the report said. The report said the depletion of the reserve to extremely low levels would eliminate using the fund to offset budget pressure in 2021 and beyond. Fans called for him to become the next Bachelor after he was brutally rejected by Brittney Weldon and Cassandra Mamone on Bachelor In Paradise this week. But on Thursday, Niranga Amarasinghe said he'd rather meet someone 'the old fashioned way' moving forward. The 29-year-old aircraft engineer told 10 Play that even though he was 'still very single' he was ready to retire his rose for good. Ready to retire his rose: Niranga Amarasinghe is with reality TV and would prefer to find love 'the old fashioned' way after fans started a campaign to see him become the next Bachelor 'I think after this experience, and after Bachelorette, I'm happy finding love the old-fashioned way,' he said. 'I think I'm more content with that. I think I've met more genuine people,' he added. Niranga, who starred on Angie Kent's season last year before his stint in Fiji, said he didn't think people always went on to the dating programs for the right reasons and were chasing fame instead of love. Truth: Niranga admitted he didn't think people always went on to the dating programs for the right reason 'I'm 30 next year but I won't be going on any (more) shows,' he said. Viewers flocked to Twitter following Wednesday night's episode after watching Brittney Weldon refuse a date with Niranga and Cassandra Mamone brutally shut him down. 'Channel 10, Niranga needs to be the next Bachelor because the lack of interest in him is just some straight-up BS,' one person tweeted. Campaign: Bachelor In Paradise fans called for Niranga to be the next Bachelor this week 'Niranga for Bachelor 2021... an absolute sweetheart. Let this poor man experience being the number one guy in the room for once,' another person commented. Another wrote: 'Where do I sign the petitions for Brittney to be the next Bachelorette and Niranga to be the next Bachelor? Give them both a house full of potential dates to choose from please.' 'Niranga for Bachelor with potential matches from varying backgrounds. Give us the diversity we want and deserve,' one person said. 'I don't know what poor Niranga did to deserve such disrespect from these women but its upsetting watching them talk like he's not a human. Niranga for Bachelor 2021 let's get it going,' another agreed. 'Starting the petition now. Niranga for the next Bachelor,' another person wrote. One person tweeted: 'Niranga for Bachelor 2021... an absolute sweetheart. Let this poor man experience being the number one guy in the room for once' On Tuesday night, Brittney Weldon broke down in hysterical tears and refused a date with Niranga after he picked her to spend the evening with him. Once she was picked for the date, she began ranting: 'What? I'm actually not really happy that Niranga's just chosen me for this date card. She continued: 'I don't understand why he would do that when he knows we're just friends and I have a potential spark with Jackson [Garlick].' Becoming progressively more upset, Brittney began crying and became hysterical. 'He's doing that last-minute stitch to try and get a rose from me. This always happens to me, like, being second choice. It's just really disrespectful to my feelings. So upset! On Tuesday night, Brittney Weldon broke down in hysterical tears and refused a date with Niranga after he picked to spend the evening with her On Wednesday, Niranga invited Cassandra on the date but she also brutally shut him down. 'You're never getting out of the friend zone. I don't want to continue in Paradise and pretend to be something we're not, and have affections for each other when we don't.' 'I think it would be wrong to continue giving friendship roses when now I'm just not seeing any potential at all moving forward,' she added. Bachelor In Paradise continues Sunday at 7.30pm on Channel Ten GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Two people were injured in separate shootings early Friday morning, according to a press release from the Grand Rapids Police Department. Both incidents are under investigation as well as a third shooting Thursday, July 30 that injured a male walking eastbound on Wealthy Street SE near Hollister Avenue. Police were dispatched to Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital around 6 p.m., where the victim was dropped off. He sustained a torso gunshot wound to his left side after being struck by a bullet from an unknown vehicle, officials say. He was last known to be in critical but stable condition. Related: Person walking in Southeast Grand Rapids wounded in drive-by shooting Police had no information about suspects in any of the shootings. On Friday, July 31, police first responded to a 1:25 a.m. call about the sound of gunshots in the 600 block of Thomas Street SE on Friday, July 31. Shortly after police arrived, they received a report of a shooting victim on that same street. The male victim, who was not identified, was dropped off at Mercy Health Saint Marys Emergency Room with a gunshot to his left leg. He was in stable condition but uncooperative, so no information was provided, according to the press release. At approximately 2 a.m., officers met the second male shooting victim at his home on Cromwell Avenue SE. The victim, who is also not being identified, told the police he was driving on Hall Street SW near Buchanan Avenue SW at 1:40 a.m. when he heard about 10 gunshots. The victim drove himself home after receiving several gun shot wounds to both arms. He was later transported to Mercy Health Saint Marys with what are believed to be non-life threatening injuries, police say. More on MLive: Friday, July 31: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan Reopening schools depends on how people behave, Michigans Dr. Khaldun says Dear Abby: Phrase meant to be comforting sets widowers grief off anew This photo taken on June 4, 2019 shows police officers patrolling in Kashgar, in China's western Xinjiang region. (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images) US Sanctions 2 More Chinese Officials, Paramilitary Group for Human Rights Abuses in Xinjiang The United States imposed sanctions on two more Chinese officials and one Chinese regime entity over human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other minorities in the far-western region of Xinjiang. The Trump administration on July 31 announced sanctions on current and former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials heading the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a regional paramilitary force under the Party, as well as the XPCC itself. The latest move builds upon sanctions issued earlier this month against four CCP officialsincluding a member of the CCPs powerful Politburo Chen Quanguofor their roles in overseeing the suppression in Xinjiang. The United Nations estimates that more than a million Uyghurs have been detained in internment camps in the Xinjiang region. Survivors of the internment camps said they experienced torture, rape, and political indoctrination while detained. Xinjiang residents are also subject to an expansive system of surveillance through a network of AI-enhanced security cameras, checkpoints, and the collection of biometric data. XPCC; Sun Jinlong, former Party Secretary of the XPCC; and Peng Jiarui, the Deputy Party Secretary of the XPCC were sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act, a federal law that allows the U.S. government to target human rights violators around the world with freezes on U.S. assets and prohibitions on Americans doing business with them. These designations also mean that Sun and Peng will be restricted from being able to travel to the United States, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said regarding the latest sanctions: The United States is committed to using the full breadth of its financial powers to hold human rights abusers accountable in Xinjiang and across the world. Chen, sanctioned earlier this month, is the Party Secretary for the Xinjiang region, and also the First Party Secretary of the XPCC. In his roles, Chen imposed a comprehensive surveillance, detention, and indoctrination program in Xinjiang, targeting Uyghurs and members of other ethnic minorities. The XPCC has been directly involved in implementing these measures, Pompeo explained. The XPCC enhances internal control over the region by advancing Chinas vision of economic developmentthat emphasizes subordination to central planning and resource extraction, a Treasury Department statement said. The XPCCs structure reflects a military organization, with 14 divisions made up of dozens of regiments. The Trump administration also previously added 37 Chinese companies and government entities on a trade blacklist over their role in aiding human rights abuses and surveillance in Xinjiang. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) welcomed the new sanctions, saying, Any individual linked to the human rights abuses against Uyghur and other Turkic minorities must be held accountable. The XPCCs role in forced labor should serve as a warning to any company with supply chains in Xinjiang, Rubio said in an emailed statement. Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh on Thursday said he is proud of his decision to deny permission in writing to a query on whether police should open firing on kar sewaks (literally, religious volunteers) in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. The kar sewaks had gathered to protest at the Ram Janmabhoomi -Babri Masjid site (the mosque is believed to have been built where there once stood a temple to Lord Ram, at the place of birth). The Supreme Court ruled on the decades-old dispute last year and ordered the construction of a temple at the site. The protest on December 6, 1992 went out of hand and the mosque was demolished. Singhs government was dismissed immediately afterwards and the state was placed under Presidents rule. Singh, now 88, said in an interview that, in a sense, it was the demolition that paved the way for the Ram temple bhumi pujan (ground breaking ceremony) scheduled for August 5. I wish to die after watching the temple come up in Ayodhya and then wish to be reborn in the temple town, he said in a freewheeling chat during which he vividly recalled the happenings 28 years ago, Singh, who has also served as governor of Rajasthan, added that the Ram temple would lead to more tourism and the new Ayodhya that would come up would also ensure development. Singh is expected to reach Ayodhya a day before the bhumi pujan. Edited Excerpts from the interview: You were the chief minister when the Babri mosque was demolished 28 years back and your government was dismissed. Today, as you prepare to visit Ayodhya for the bhumi pujan, how do you look back on those developments and all that has happened since? I would call it divine providence. In 1528, Mughal ruler Babars general Mir Baqi demolished the Ram temple at Ayodhya not because he wanted to build another place of worship, but because he wanted to insult Hindus. Maybe it was destined that the dhaancha (structure) would be demolished with me as chief minister. Had there been no demolition, probably the courts too would have ordered status quo. So, in a sense, it was the demolition that actually has paved the way for the August 5 bhumi pujan and naturally, I am elated. Questions have been raised whether as chief minister, you discharged your duty, and did enough to protect the mosque? I will tell you something. That day (December 6) amid the build-up, I got a call from the district magistrate of Ayodhya saying that nearly 3.5 lakh kar sewaks had assembled . I was told that central forces were on way to the temple town but their movement was halted by kar sewaks outside Saket college. I was asked whether to order firing (on kar sewaks) or not. I denied permission in writing and said in my order, which is still there on the files, that firing would lead to the loss of many lives, chaos and law and order issues across the country. And now, in hindsight, you feel you did the right thing? Yes, I am proud of my decision as today I can proudly say that I might have lost my government but saved kar sewaks. Now, in hindsight, I feel that subsequent demolition eventually paved the way for the temple. Was your decision, to not order firing on kar sewaks, shaped in anyway by the firing ordered on kar sewaks by the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in 1990? It (firing on kar sewaks) was wrong then (1990). Killing people is no joke. You are among the select invitees for the bhumi pujan. But, so far, majority of the top opposition leaders like Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Samajwadi Party patron Mulayam Singh Yadav, BSP chief Mayawati and others havent been invited. Are opposition leaders going to be invited for bhumi pujan? That is for the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust to decide but all that I would say is that though Ram belongs to all, most of the names you mentioned have opposed the Ram temple. The Ram temple is going to be real now, but you have also been speaking of ensuring employment. How do you think that will happen? Ram will ensure roti too. The temple will make Ayodhya a globally famous tourist place. A new Ayodhya is going to come up that would co-exist with the ancient one. All this would usher in jobs and prosperity. You say the Ram temple is like a dream realised. Any other wish? Yes, to live till the time the Ram temple comes up and then to be born again, possibly in Ayodhya. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON (Natural News) Without question, Californias economic prospects defy belief. Alone, the states annual gross domestic product (GDP) of an estimated $3.2 trillion makes it the largest in the United States and the fifth-largest in the world. But by the same token, the Golden States massive economy masks systemic societal failures on nearly every level, and its Left-wing governor Gavin Newsom has done next to nothing to correct them. For instance, California is home to the countrys largest homeless population, thanks entirely to the progressive policy of decriminalizing activities like living on sidewalks and relieving oneself in the streets. In addition, California actually has the nations highest poverty rate per capita. Thats right; the land of Hollywood millionaires and tech billionaires has a massive poor underclass that the states woke and compassionate liberals couldnt care less about. Add to that frustration over endless, repetitive coronavirus shutdowns, impossible-to-find affordable housing, rising rents, and bludgeoning taxes and its easy to see why, underneath the veneer of GDP, there is much that is wrong about Democrat-run California and the governor in charge. And thats just scratching the surface. As such, a growing Recall Gavin Newsom effort is now underway while there is still time to salvage the state. Unaffordable housing. Record homelessness. Rising crime. Failing schools. Independent contractors thrown out of work. Exploding pension debt. And now, a locked down population while the prisons are emptied. Hold Gavin Newsom accountable. Gavin Newsom must go, says the RecallNewsome2020 website. Organizers of the site posted last week that the recall petition drive was building, noting that the movement has submitted more than twice as many petitions as the previous effort at this point. Our Recall Gavin campaign is building a grassroots organization with over 80,000 California voters already signed up as volunteers to sign and circulate recall petitions. That number is growing every week. And this is just the beginning, the site notes. The movement ticks off several issues that are either chronic to the state and made worse by Newsom or new phenomena that have made life even worse for millions of Californians, most notably thanks to COVID-19. (Related: Bought-off California lawmakers approve SB 277 mandatory vaccination law.) Are you tired of being locked up, unable to make a living, at the same time as Californias prisons are being emptied? Do you wonder why Gavin Newsoms cronies are building supportive housing for the homeless at a cost of over a half-million dollars per unit, instead of just getting them help in less expensive facilities? the site says. The organization also asks: Did you struggle to run a business, even before this lockdown, because of overregulation and the highest taxes in America? Did you lose your job when Gavin Newsom signed AB 5, which made it illegal for many companies to employ independent contractors? The law, specifically, devastated freelance journalism in the state because it limits writers in the gig economy to just 35 articles per year which is insane. The site also notes that rules and laws in California, many issued or signed by Newsom, also curb First Amendment rights to speech and religion, as well as Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. Do you wonder how Californias cities, counties, and state agencies will ever pay off their pension debt, or balance their budgets, or stop raising taxes, when Gavin Newsom cant even cut spending to provide benefits to illegal immigrants, benefits that arent even offered to working citizens of California? Then join the Recall Gavin 2020 movement, the site intones. To be sure, not every part of the state is deep blue. There are enclaves of red, and it is those regions that suffer the biggest constitutional abuses. But the blue cities are not immune from Newsoms negative influences, nor from the Democrat supermajority legislature, as evidenced by rising crime, homelessness, taxes and lack of affordable housing. Sources include: RecallGavin2020.com NaturalNews.com Brazzaville/Cairo, 30 July 2020 COVID-19 infections in Africa will exceed one million cases in the coming days as the pandemic surges in several hotspot countries. In a little more than three weeks, the number of cases on the continent almost doubled to 889 457, with 18 806 deaths. Overall, the pandemic is accelerating with the number of new cases increasing by 50% during the last 14 days compared with the previous fortnight. However, only five countries account for about 75% of the cumulative COVID-19 cases they are Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa. South Africa alone accounts for around half of the continents total cases. Deaths are also increasing. A total of 4376 new deaths were recorded during the last 14 days, representing a 22% increase from the previous two weeks. Seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa which had imposed lockdowns and have now started easing them have experienced a 20% jump in cases over the past two weeks. Some countries such as the Republic of the Congo and Morocco have had to re-implement partial restrictions because of an increase in cases. As Africa approaches one million cases, the continent is at a pivotal point, said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa. The virus has spilled out of major cities and spread into distant hinterlands. Countries need to keep apace and urgently decentralize their key response services. We can still stop COVID-19 from reaching full momentum, but the time to act is now. One of our most important collective responsibilities is to protect front line health workers, who are at high risk. Forty-one African countries have reported nearly 14 000 health worker infections. In 16 countries which reported health worker infections over the past month, nearly a quarter recorded an increase in the past two weeks compared with the preceding fortnight. Expanding the scale and quality of public health measures such as testing, contact tracing, isolation and care of patients remain central to the response, as well as preventing infection through handwashing, physical distancing and wearing of masks. Lifting of lockdowns that have helped to slow down the spread of COVID-19 should be evidence-based, phased and targeted. As borders start to re-open and with the Islamic holiday, Eid al-Adha, about to begin on Friday marked by social and religious gatherings, there is a concern that the virus could spread further, even to areas that are still untouched by COVID-19, if necessary precautions are not taken. As we approach the Eid Al Adha feast, there is also increased risk of transmission as a result of social and religious mass gatherings. Any decision to restrict, modify, postpone, cancel, or proceed with holding a mass gathering should be based on a standardized risk assessment, and should be part of a comprehensive approach taken by authorities to respond to the pandemic, said Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean. WHO recently released guidance to countries and communities on public health measures for Eid Al Adha in the context of COVID-19. Under-reporting of cases is a challenge as testing for COVID-19 in Africa remains low by global benchmarks, but capacity has expanded significantly. About 7.7 million tests have been performed since February. The number of tests performed per 10 000 population as of mid-July was below 100 in 43 countries out of the 54 assessed. This must improve. Although infections are on the rise across the continent, the trend is varied. Nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa have reported a decline in cases over the past three weeks. Gabon and Mauritania have made significant progress, with the time it takes for case numbers to double increasing. In Djibouti and Tunisia, very few cases have been reported for the last few weeks, and most are imported. In Egypt, Africas second most populous country and one of the hardest hit by COVID-19, a decline in cases has been observed over the last five weeks. WHO is supporting countries respond to COVID-19 by providing technical guidance, crucial medical equipment and has remotely trained more than 72 000 health workers and partnered with regional and national professional associations to build on existing capacity. Through an online supply portal, WHO, other United Nations agencies and partners have also organized shipments of more than 650 requests of key equipment, including more than 2400 oxygen concentrators to 47 countries in the region. Dr Moeti and Dr Al-Mandhari held a virtual press conference today organized by APO Group. Within the WHO system, Africa is divided between two regional offices. The WHO Regional Office for Africa comprises 47 countries which include Algeria and most of sub-Saharan Africa. While the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean includes seven African countries (Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan and Tunisia). MOSCOW, July 31 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Friday it hoped that more than 30 Russian private security contractors detained in neighbouring Belarus and accused of plotting acts of terrorism would soon be released. Russia a day earlier demanded an explanation over what it called Minsk's wrongful arrest of the group, an incident that risks worsening already strained relations between Belarus and traditional ally Moscow. Belarus this week detained the group of Russian men near the capital Minsk, saying it had received information that over 200 fighters had entered the country to destabilise it before an Aug. 9 presidential election. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that the men were travelling to another country via Belarus and had nothing to do with Belarusian politics. "The baseless arrest of Russian citizens, 33 citizens, is not quite in line with our relationship as allies," Peskov told reporters on a conference call. "This is why we hope that our Belarusian allies will clarify this incident in the nearest future and that our citizens will be released." (Reporting by Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber; Editing by Andrew Osborn) Donald Trump New York: US President Donald Trump is likely to travel to New York to attend the annual UN General Assembly session in September, the only world leader to address this year's virtual high-level week in person, the US envoy to the UN said. We're hoping that President Trump will actually be speaking in person in the General Assembly. He will be the only world leader to be speaking in person, US Ambassador Kelly Craft said. Advertisement Donald TrumpFor the first time in the UN's 75-year history, the annual General Assembly session will be held virtually and Heads of State and Government will not be physically attending the annual gathering due to the coronavirus pandemic. World leaders will submit pre-recorded video statements for the high-level week, the 193-member organisation had decided last week. US are the host country of the United Nations and there is a possibility that Trump could travel to New York to address the General Debate of the 75th session of the Assembly on September 22. Advertisement Donald TrumpThe US is traditionally the second speaker at the debate after Brazil. This would be Trump's final address to the General Assembly of the first term of his presidency before the US heads into elections in November and Trump could use the UN platform to highlight his foreign policy achievements while also tout his campaign agenda. New Delhi: The government is encouraging start-ups in the field of agriculture to enhance the income of farmers and providing employment opportunities to youth, said Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Narendra Singh Tomar here on Friday (July 31). Tomar said the Agriculture Ministry is funding start-ups under the innovation and agripreneurship component of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, and in the first phase (2020-21), 112 startups in the area of agro-processing, food technology and value addition will be funded for a sum of Rs 1185.90 lakhs. This fund will be released in instalments to contribute in enhancing the income of farmers, he added. The Union Agriculture Minister stated that as emphasised by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, new technology in the field of agriculture and allied sectors through start-ups and agripreneurship should be promoted. Therefore, under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, the innovation and agripreneurship component has been promoted. Tomar also stressed on the need to make agriculture competitive, provide handholding to agriculture-based activities and adopt new technology at the earliest. Emphasizing on increasing private investment in the field of agriculture, the minister has drawn attention to the need for value addition and start-ups, according to an official statement. In keeping with these initiatives of the Government of India to boost agriculture and allied activities and give an impetus to the rural economy, the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna (RKVY) which aims at strengthening infrastructure in agriculture and allied areas, has been revamped, the statement said. Under the revamped scheme, a component Innovation and Agri-entrepreneurship Development programme has been launched in order to promote innovation and agripreneurship & startups by providing financial support and nurturing the incubation ecosystem. DAC&FW has selected 5 Knowledge Partners (KPs) as Centres of Excellence and 24 RKVY-RAFTAAR Agribusiness Incubators (R-ABIs) from across the country after a nation-wide advertisement and a rigorous selection process. These start-ups were trained for two months at 29 agribusiness incubation centres (KPs & RABIs) spread across India. These start-ups will lead to employment to youth. Besides, they, directly and indirectly, will contribute to enhancing the income of farmers by providing opportunities to them, the statement said. For more details on Agri-entrepreneurship, RKVY website: https://rkvy.nic.in may be visited. Morrison carried this approach all the way through 2019, into bushfire season and early 2020. He persisted with his Trumpist tribalism even in the face of a savage national disaster. He emoted over some fire victims, resisted any role in managing the crisis, and rejected the need for more active climate change policy in response. "I'm angry about the Prime Minister's response," said the former fire chief Greg Mullins. "It reminds me of President Trump when there's multiple shootings, saying it's nothing to do with guns." Illustration: John Shakespeare Credit: A central truth of Trump's divisive populism is that it's not principally about problem solving in the real world. It's about political posturing. It's a style of politicking, not suited to governing. There are many definitions of populism. My preferred definition is that it's a style of politics offering unworkably simple solutions to complex problems. And when it's carried from campaigning into government, it leads to disaster. As Trump is now modelling for the world. A country with 155,000 deaths, mostly avoidable. When Al Qaeda terrorists killed some 3000 Americans on 9/11, George W. Bush launched two wars. When 50 times more died, Donald Trump refused to put on a face mask. Eventually, a few days ago, he changed tack and put on a mask in public. But not because more of his citizens had died than in World War I but because his poll numbers were falling. Loading Morrison is not Trump's pathetic understudy any longer. After Australia's visceral frustration with him during the fires, Morrison reconsidered. And when the pandemic hit, an entirely different Prime Minister emerged to confront it. Instead of a divisive populist avoiding real crises while fomenting fake ones, we saw a unifying leader confronting the disaster. "What's interesting," says the political psychologist James Walter, "is the pragmatism that came to the fore during the pandemic. He did do well with the national cabinet and the early treatment of the pandemic, the willingness to listen to expert advice instead of the usual nonsense." Illustration: Jim Pavlidis Credit: Walter, Monash University professor emeritus and co-author of a two-volume study of Australian prime ministers and leadership, says: "I think he's a better politician and more clever than Donald Trump. He has a healthy ego but he's not as narcissistic as Trump. The thing about Trump and [Brazilian President] Jair Bolsonaro is the magical thinking they both engage in. "I don't think you get that from Morrison, despite his belief that God's on his side." The reborn Morrison continued to evolve this week. We saw three notable developments. One was the emergence of friction between the federal and Victorian governments over the pandemic's resurgence in that state. Victoria's Premier, Daniel Andrews, sought to deflect blame by attacking the quality of private sector aged care homes, which are regulated by the federal government, not the state. Loading "Some of the stories we've seen are unacceptable and I wouldn't want my mum in some of those places," said Andrews. He's right. That state of Australia's aged care homes is deplorable for a prosperous, modern country. That's why Morrison had launched a royal commission into the system two years ago. But because something is true does not necessarily commend it to be spoken by a leader during a crisis. Andrews' intention was not constructive he was putting the blame on Canberra. The federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt, responded with crafty evasiveness. He chose to interpret Andrews' critique as an attack not on federal competence but on the aged care staff: "They are wonderful human beings and I will not hear a word against them." This fracturing between Canberra and Melbourne got a lot of media play. Conflict is the very stuff of news. But when reporters repeatedly asked, invited and almost urged Morrison to attack Andrews, the Prime Minister declined. Morrison emphasised unity over division: "This is an Australian plan, based on Australian values, based on Australian challenges and Australian solutions and that will continue to guide our efforts, practically dealing with the problems that we face, bringing the best minds together, bringing the country together." Donald Trump has fomented ugly division between the federal government and state and city governments. He ordered unwanted teams of armed federal agents into Democrat-controlled cities in the past couple of weeks. In the face of opposition from state governors and city mayors, Trump sent hundreds of officers to break up protests and remove demonstrators from public places. Some were summarily detained without due process. Local leaders were outraged. What would Morrison be doing now if he were still in "Aussie Trump" mode? We can only speculate. But he certainly wouldn't be doing what he is actually doing: While Trump orders federal agents into states to divide, Morrison sends federal agents into states to unite. Loading The Prime Minister has offered troops, health officials and other support to any state that wanted it. Including Victoria. Which, belatedly, has welcomed the help. Together with Andrews, Morrison co-ordinated a federal intervention for crisis management of the stricken Victorian aged care industry this week. Has it been perfect? No. But it's been co-operative, helpful and ultimately must be an improvement. This is real effort to confront a real crisis, the very antithesis of Trumpism. The second notable development was Morrison's willingness to reconsider a decision. The federal position was not to offer paid pandemic leave to workers. But the Fair Work Commission decided otherwise. It granted two weeks' paid pandemic leave to aged care workers, including casuals on condition that they're employed regularly. Fair Work noted that "there is a real risk that employees who do not have access to leave entitlements might not report COVID-19 symptoms which might require them to self-isolate, but rather seek to attend for work out of financial need," which constituted "a significant risk to infection control measures". In the face of demands to widen this entitlement to paid pandemic leave, Morrison has signalled a willingness to rethink his position and change his mind. Would a "Trump mini-me" listen to reason, admit the possibility of error and reconsider? More likely he'd tell workers to inject themselves with bleach and get on with it. Or give similarly helpful advice. Third was this week's meeting of the Morrison government and the Trump administration. Morrison's Foreign Affairs Minister, Marise Payne, and Defence Minister, Linda Reynolds, went to Washington to meet their US counterparts, Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper, for the annual Ausmin session. Loading In his phase as Trump understudy, we can only imagine the sycophancy that Morrison would have ordered his ministers to perform in Washington. Instead, Payne and Reynolds conducted themselves professionally, secured practical new co-operation with the US and calmly avoided Pompeo's invitation to entanglement in Trump's re-election campaign. So at the end of a week where a panicking Trump was toying with the idea of delaying the US election, Morrison continues his evolution from Trumpian tribal warrior to unifying national leader. Which is, needless to say, a supreme relief for Australia's national interest. Which Morrison will emerge post-pandemic? There is an old stand-by for journalists who have to report on an unfinished event: only time will tell. Dr Archibald Yao Letsa, the Volta Regional Minister, on behalf of Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, has presented a bull to the Volta Regional Chief Imam to aid the Eid-ul-Adha celebration in the Region. Accompanied by Mr Prosper Pi-Bansah, the Ho Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) and other executives of the New Patriotic Party, Dr Letsa reassured the people of government's continuous support and reminded them to abide strictly by the protocols on the Covid-19. H.E. the Vice President, as usual of him, considered it necessary to donate the bull as his contribution towards the celebration of the festival, he said. Mr Letsa also donated sanitizers and face masks on behalf of the Ho MCE. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic this year's celebration is being held without the mass gathering for prayers at the Ho Police Depot. Alhaji Anass Hamidu, the Deputy Volta Regional Chief Imam, who received the items, expressed gratitude to the Vice President for the kind gesture and to the Regional Coordinating Council and the Municipal Assembly for the support. Prayers were said for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Vice President Bawumia and the nation. GNA A UAB police sergeant who spent 59 days in the COVID-19 ICU unit was readmitted to the hospital after his discharge last month and now has died. Sgt. Parnell Guyton was released June 30 after being hospitalized since March 31 with COVID-19. His wife, Fekisha Vaughan Guyton, posted late Thursday that the veteran officer was back in the hospital. Please pray for him. He needs all of your thoughts and prayers right away as he is in dire straits, she wrote. God has the final say. UAB Hospital confirmed his death Friday evening. A joint statement was released by UAB President Ray L. Watts and UAB Chief of Police Anthony Purcell: Our hearts are broken by the passing of UAB Police Sergeant Parnell Guyton, who lost his months-long battle today after contracting COVID-19 in the spring. Countless people in the UAB family, the Birmingham community and beyond have followed Sergeant Guytons courageous fight. We thank everyone who has cared for, supported and prayed for Sergeant Guyton and his family and ask for continued prayers. His fighting spirit, bravery and love have inspired us and warmed our hearts, and now our hearts go out to his family, friends and colleagues, who will miss him dearly. If you knew Sergeant Guyton, you are fortunate and better for it. He was an exemplary officer and dear friend. Most importantly, he was a beloved husband and father, and our thoughts, prayers and support are with his family in this difficult time. On Tuesday, March 31, he was taken via ambulance to UAB Hospitals emergency room where he has remained in ICU since his arrival. He was one of the hospitals first COVID-19 cases and hospital officials have described his recovery as miraculous, with two physicians who treated him saying they cant remember anyone with a worse case of acute respiratory distress syndrome surviving. Guyton, 47, spent a month at Spain Rehabilitation after the 59-day stay in the COVID-19 ICU unit. He was on a ventilator for 45 days. UAB officials said they could not comment other than to confirm Guytons hospitalization. For Britain's stock-market quoted firms, this is the summer of the emergency dash-for-cash, brought on by the pandemic. British Airways owner IAG, which will be seeking 2.75billion next month, is the latest to join the list. Since March, as many as 90 others, including WH Smith and Whitbread, have raised about 14billion of new capital through right issues and placings, at an average discount of 10 per cent, according to data from Peel Hunt, the stockbroker. Engine-maker Rolls-Royce may also be selling new shares to repair its battered balance sheet. But private investors have been shut out from many of these issues, some of which may have been an opportunity to buy shares at a low price and store up profits for the future, as the companies involved were in the doldrums. Rights issues are shares offered, normally at a discount to the prevailing market price, by a company to its investors, in proportion to their existing holding. Companies may need the capital to get through a crisis, or want it, to make an acquisition, for example. The convention is that the offer is open to all shareholders, large and small, so the trend to bar small investors during the pandemic has sparked anger. Richard Wilson, chief executive of Interactive Investor, is one of the most vocal critics of this private investor exclusion, seeing it as inspired by 'prejudice'. 'Ownership rights are being switched off,' he says. 'It's wrong, and the fact that it is legal is just a nonsense.' As he points out, one issue is that if private investors are excluded from a rights issue, their stake is diluted. As a result of a sale of new shares, they own less of the company than before. Galling: Some of Asos' investors were excluded when it raised 247m in April by placing shares with large shareholders and the board That must be galling to investors in Asos, who were excluded when it raised 247million in April by placing shares with large shareholders and the board. At the time of the placing, shares in the online fashion retailer were 1559p. They are now 3358p. Companies have been able to cold-shoulder their private shareholders because of a move to suspend the normal rules, which give all existing shareholders, from big City institutions to the smallest private saver, first refusal in an issue of new shares of above 10 per cent of a company's share capital. Until the end of September, they can raise up to 20 per cent of their value from pension funds and other institutions, without including private investors. The rationale is that offering rights issue shares to private investors is too time-consuming, so firms may not be able to raise the capital they need quickly enough a dubious argument at a time when technology makes the admin much faster. Open to all: Taylor Wimpey, the housebuilder and online grocer Ocado have embraced technology to allow all shareholders to join in But not all companies regard smaller shareholders as second-class citizens. Compass, the catering giant, Taylor Wimpey, the housebuilder and online grocer Ocado have embraced technology to allow all shareholders to join in. PrimaryBid, a tech business set up to democratise the process, makes it simple for private investors to apply for the new shares using its app or website. T he company, a partner of the London Stock Exchange, seems likely to assist in more rights issues and placings. But before rushing to buy in a rights issue, investors should ask themselves whether they will indeed be buying shares at a bargain price or throwing good money after bad. In the case of IAG, whose shares have fallen from 636p to 164.75p since January, many experts believe the airline industry is facing an existential crisis. BA's owner will presumably aspire to take advantage of the likely failure of rivals, when its finances are bolstered by the rights issue funds. Rolls-Royce, another casualty of civil aviation's woes, is said to need as much as 6billion. This week its debt was humiliatingly downgraded to junk status. And shares are not necessarily a bargain just because they are cheap either, particularly in the current climate of economic uncertainty. David Coombs, head of multi-asset investment at Rathbones, urges extreme scepticism. 'You should ask yourself how any company is going to use the money. If it wants the cash to purchase another business, remember takeovers tend to have a poor record. Institutional shareholders may be happy to support a rights issue purely to see a company survive, but that shouldn't be enough of a reason for a private investor.' He goes further, suggesting that reluctance to back a rights issue may be a sell signal. Private investors may well not be tempted by the chance to acquire more shares in either IAG or Rolls-Royce. But they would probably still like to have more access to future share sales for the chance to turn a profit and maybe to make a difference. Many among Britain's small shareholder community would like to play a role in the revival of the economy. Anyone who feels strongly about the matter can sign the letter addressed to listed company boards at allinvestorsmatter.co. uk. Why should you put up with inequality? Small groups of pilgrims performed one of the final rites of the Islamic hajj on Friday as Muslims worldwide marked the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday amid a global pandemic that has impacted nearly every aspect of this years pilgrimage and celebrations. The last days of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia coincide with the four-day Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, in which Muslims slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor. The pandemic has pushed millions of people around the world closer to the brink of poverty, making it harder for many to fulfill the religious tradition of purchasing livestock. In Somalia, the price of meat has slightly increased. Abdishakur Dahir, a civil servant in Mogadishu, said that for the first time he wont be able to afford goat for Eid because of the impact of the virus on work. I could hardly buy food for my family, Dahir said. We are just surviving for now. Life is getting tougher by the day. In some parts of West Africa, the price for a ram has doubled. Livestock sellers, used to doing brisk business in the days before the holiday, say sales have dwindled and those who are buying cant afford much. The situation is really complicated by the coronavirus, its a tough market, Oumar Maiga, a livestock trader in Ivory Coast said. We are in a situation weve never seen in other years. The hajj pilgrimage has also been drastically impacted by the virus. Last year, some 2.5 million pilgrims took part, but this year as few as 1,000 pilgrims already residing in Saudi Arabia were allowed to preform the hajj. The Saudi Health Ministry said there have been no cases of the Covid-19 illness among this years pilgrims. The government took numerous precautions, including testing pilgrims for the virus, monitoring their movement with electronic wristbands and requiring them to quarantine before and after the hajj. Pilgrims were selected after applying through an online portal, and all had to be between the ages of 20 and 50 years-old. Just after dawn on Friday, small groups of pilgrims masked and physically distancing made their way toward the massive multi-story Jamarat Complex in the Saudi valley area of Mina. There, the pilgrims cast pebbles at three large columns. It is here where Muslims believe the devil tried to talk the Prophet Ibrahim, or Abraham, out of submitting to Gods will. Muslims commemorate the prophet Ibrahims test of faith by slaughtering livestock and animals and distributing the meat to the poor. During the last days of hajj, male pilgrims shave their heads and remove the terrycloth white garments worn during the pilgrimage. Women cut off a small lock of hair in a sign of spiritual rebirth and renewal. The hajj, both physically and spiritually demanding, intends to bring about greater humility and unity among Muslims. It is required of all Muslims to perform once in a lifetime. Sheikh Abdullah al-Manea, member of the Supreme Council of Senior Scholars of Saudi Arabia, used the hajj sermon Friday to praise the kingdoms leadership for their wise decision to limit the number of pilgrims and protect human life. We thank the positive role of Muslims around the world that have complied with the regulations of the country to protect them from the spread of this virus, which leads to the protection of Mecca and Medina, the sheikh said. Around the world, Muslims gathered with relatives or remained at home to mark the start of Eid. In the Iraqi capital Baghdad, streets were largely empty due to a 10-day lockdown imposed by authorities to prevent further spread of the virus. Eid prayers in mosques were canceled. We had hoped that the curfew would be lifted during the Eid period ... we were surprised that the lockdown period included the Eid holiday and more, said Marwan Madhat, a Baghdad cafe owner. This will cause losses. Kosovo and the United Arab Emirates have also closed mosques to limit the spread of the virus. In Lebanon, Muslim worshipers prayed in mosques under tight security, despite a partial lockdown imposed Thursday that will continue through Aug. 10. Worshipers at the Mohammad al-Amin Mosque in the capital, Beirut, spilled onto the street outside to maintain social distancing rules. In Indonesia, home to the worlds largest population of Muslims, people were allowed to attend Eid prayers in mosques under strict health guidelines, including that they bring their own prayer mats and pray several feet apart from one another. Worshipers must wear masks and are not allowed to shake hands or hug. Authorities in Indonesia also ordered that meat be delivered door-to-door to the poor to avoid long lines. This outbreak has not only changed our tradition entirely, but has also made more and more people fall into poverty, said Agus Supriatna, an Indonesian factory worker who was laid off this year because of the pandemic. Muslim leaders in Albania and Kosovo called on people to be careful in their festivities to avoid transmission of the virus, including limiting family visits. A few days ahead of Eid, Alioune Ndong in Senegal said he did not know how hed come up with the money for his familys feast He called on Senegals government to help struggling families like his. Covid-19 has drained my money, said Ndong, a tailor based in the town of Mbour. Japan's top government spokesperson says the coronavirus outbreak is continuing to expand across the country, but the situation does not require the government to declare a state of emergency again. Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide told reporters on Friday that the expansion is seen as slower than in March and April, but it remains worrisome. He said recently the spread of infection is picking up speed in some parts of Japan, and the number of serious cases has gradually been on the rise. Suga said the government does not believe it is necessary to declare a state of emergency for the time being. He said, however, that it will seek expert views and keep working to balance infection prevention and maintaining social and economic activities. Asked about whether the current situation can be termed a second wave, Suga said the government has no clear definition of the term. He said that regardless of the term, the government will fully brace for upcoming waves of infection. ISLAMABAD - Thousands of radical Islamists rallied on Friday in northwestern Pakistan in support of a man who earlier this week walked into a courtroom in the city of Peshawar and gunned down a U.S. citizen on trial for blasphemy. The American, Tahir Naseem, died of his wounds before he could be taken to hospital while the gunman, Faisal Khan, was taken into custody. The U.S. State Department said Naseem was standing trial after being lured to Pakistan from his home in Illinois and entrapped by the countrys controversial blasphemy law, which international rights groups have sought to have repealed. The U.S. statement did not elaborate on the circumstances in which Naseem came to be in the South Asian country. The blasphemy law calls for the death penalty for anyone found guilty of insulting Islam. But in Pakistan, the mere allegation of blasphemy can cause mobs to riot and vigilantes to kill those accused. We are shocked, saddened, and outraged that American citizen Tahir Naseem was killed yesterday inside a Pakistani courtroom, read the State Department statement, released on Thursday. Pakistani officials said Naseem was charged with blasphemy after he declared himself Islams prophet. Police in Peshawar, who originally identified him as Tahir Shameem Ahmed but later corrected themselves, said he was arrested two years ago. The assailant was also initially identified incorrectly, as Khalid Khan. It was later learned his real name is Faisal Khan. It wasnt clear how he managed to enter the courtroom on Wednesday and get past security with a weapon. We urge Pakistan to immediately reform its often abused blasphemy laws and its court system, which allow such abuses to occur, and to ensure that the suspect is prosecuted to the full extent of the law, said the statement issued by Cale Brown, the State Departments principal deputy spokesperson. However, in deeply conservative Pakistan, any attempt to even amend the blasphemy law to make it more difficult to bring charges or abuse it has brought mobs out on the street. At the rally in Peshawar, the demonstrators carried signs praising Khan for the killing, calling for his immediate release from jail and saying he killed Naseem because the government was too slow in prosecuting blasphemy cases. We are not in favour of taking the law into our own hands, but Faisal did what the government should have done two years ago, said Mufti Shahabuddin Popalzai, who led the rally through the narrow streets of the old city. Although Pakistani authorities have yet to carry out a death sentence for blasphemy, there are scores of accused on death row. Most are Muslims and many belong to the Ahmadyya sect of Islam, reviled by mainstream Muslims as heretics. Besides the State Department, the U.S. Commission on International Freedom condemned Naseems killing. Pakistans blasphemy laws are indefensible to begin with, but it is outrageous beyond belief that the Pakistani government was incapable of keeping an individual from being murdered within a court of law for his faith, and a U.S. citizen, nonetheless, Commissioner Johnnie Moore said in a statement. Pakistan must protect religious minorities, including individuals accused of blasphemy, in order to prevent such unimaginable tragedies, Moore said in the statement. The Commission declared Pakistan a country of particular concern in its 2020 report released last month because of its treatment of minorities. Religious minorities in Pakistan are increasingly under attack even as Prime Minister Imran Khan preaches a tolerant Pakistan. Observers warn of even tougher times ahead as Khan vacillates between trying to forge a pluralistic nation and his conservative Islamic beliefs. A Punjab governor was killed by his own guard in 2011 after he defended a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who was accused of blasphemy. She was acquitted after spending eight years on death row in a case that drew international media attention. Faced with death threats from Islamic extremists upon her release, she flew to Canada to join her daughters last year. ___ Associated Press Writer Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report. Read more about: Keeda Haynes, lawyer and former public defender, is looking to make history in Tennessee's upcoming primary election on August 6. The 42-year-old Democrat, who is looking to represent Tennessee's fifth district in Congress, is running against Democratic candidate Joshua Rawlings and longtime Democratic congressman Rep. Jim Cooper, who has represented the district, which includes Nashville, for 17 years. If Haynes wins, she could become the first Black congresswoman to represent the state; Tennessee has only elected two Black people to Congress in the past. Haynes, who served six-and-a-half years as an assistant public defender at the Metro Nashville Public Defender's Office, currently works as a legal adviser for Free Hearts, a nonprofit organization in Tennessee that provides support, education and advocacy to families impacted by the criminal justice system. Her commitment to fighting for criminal justice reform is one that's very personal as the Tennessee State University graduate spent nearly four years in jail after college for a marijuana-related crime she says she did not commit. Keeda Haynes is running to represent Tennessee's fifth congressional district in Congress. Photo credit: Keeda Haynes Upon her release from prison in December 2006, the Tennessee native set her sights on becoming a public defender after hearing other women in prison share stories about how their public defenders were treating them. "I was fortunate enough to be able to have a private attorney and he was great," she tells CNBC Make It. "Seeing how he was with me really set the bar for the type of lawyer I wanted to be as a public defender. And, I said I wanted to be able to give people the same level of representation that my attorney gave me, but I wanted to give it to the people who couldn't afford to pay for it." Haynes started working as a legal assistant for the attorney who represented her while putting herself through law school at the Nashville School of Law at night. After graduating law school in 2012 and passing the bar exam, Haynes then had to pass the character and fitness examination by the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners. In December 2012, she became a practicing attorney in Nashville. That following year, in 2013, she started working at Nashville's public defender's office, where she remained for six and a half years. "It was there," she says, "at the public defender's office, where I was talking with my clients and speaking with other people in the community, that I realized there were so many things going on in people's lives that no one was doing anything about." A few years ago, she says she wrote a letter to Congressman Jim Cooper, who she's running against in the primary, offering to volunteer with him and other members of Congress to work on criminal justice reform. "We met for 15 minutes and I never heard from him again," Haynes says, adding that since Cooper has been in office she doesn't believe enough focus has been given to the criminal justice system in their district. Cooper confirmed with CNBC Make It that Haynes did in fact send him a letter in 2016. At the time, he says, "I was already working on voting rights issues including restoration of rights for formerly incarcerated individuals so we had a good discussion. I have continued to work with local judges and our DA on these issues, and we are making progress in Nashville. Our correspondence continued when my office followed up to assist her with a tour of the White House." Keeda Haynes is running to represent Tennessee's fifth congressional district in Congress. Photo credit: Keeda Haynes PHOENIX (AP) Authorities on Wednesday announced an arrest in an arson fire that destroyed much of the Arizona and Maricopa County Democratic Party headquarters. Phoenix police said 29-year-old Matthew Egler was booked on one count of arson of an occupied structure. In charging documents obtained by KPNX-TV in Phoenix, police said Egler has been a volunteer for the Maricopa County Democratic Party but was banned for behavioral reasons. Investigators say the fire was retaliation after being recently rejected as a volunteer again. We are deeply saddened and shocked by todays news, but appreciate the swift action by law enforcement to ensure that the suspect is in custody," state and county Democratic leaders said in a statement. A message left at a cellphone number listed for Egler's family was not immediately returned. It was not immediately known if he had an attorney to speak on his behalf. Police in the charging documents also mention that Egler discussed starting the fire and his discontentment with county Democratic officials in a Twitter account. A Twitter account with the handle Valley Leader shows several videos of a man who matches a mugshot of Egler released by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office talking about carrying out the fire. The man also claims to be married to Ivanka Trump. The blaze occurred early Friday in a business district a few miles north of downtown Phoenix. Investigators said evidence indicated it was an act of arson. The building is the longtime home of both the state and county Democrats. The northern portion of the building, which houses the operations for Maricopa County Democrats, was a total loss, said Steven Slugocki, the county chair. Damage was less extensive in the state partys portion of the building, he said. The fire destroyed computers, tablets, phone-banking equipment, campaign literature and years of candidate and organizing information, Slugocki said. It also burned political memorabilia accumulated over decades, including campaign materials for John F. Kennedy, he said. Arizona Republican Party leaders also condemned the fire. Ukraine began negotiations with an Iranian delegation on compensation for the plane of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), which was shot down near Tehran earlier this year, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Facebook. "Today in Kiev, Iranian delegation started the negotiations on compensation for Iran's shooting down of the Ukrainian International Airlines PS752 flight. We have been striving for a long time to start the negotiation process, and I welcome the beginning of negotiations," said the diplomat on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported. Kuleba noted that the process would not be easy, but Ukraine will do everything to achieve maximum compensation for the relatives of the victims of the plane crash. The Boeing-737, en route from Tehran to Kiev, was shot down by two rockets shortly after takeoff from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport on Jan. 8. The tragedy resulted in the deaths of all 167 passengers and nine crew members on board, who were citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, and the United Kingdom. Also Watch: Later, Iran's armed forces confirmed that an "unintentional" launch of a military missile by the country was the cause of the incident. The transcript of the black boxes from the plane confirmed the fact of illegal interference with the plane. Earlier this month, Kuleba said it was too early to blame human error for the downing of the airliner and that many questions remained unanswered. San Francisco Serviced Apartment We are working hard in this new COVID-19 environment as travelers flock to our apartment-style living and avoid crowded hotels. Key Housing, a professional corporate housing service helping busy short term and corporate travelers find hard-to-find housing in California, from San Jose to San Diego, San Francisco to Los Angeles, is proud to announce its August 2020 Northern California featured designee as "Bayside Village." Among the reasons this incredible property offering serviced apartment or furnished rental was chosen is their best-in-class 3D tours. "We are working hard in this new COVID-19 environment as travelers flock to our apartment-style living and avoid crowded hotels," explained Bob Lee, President of Key Housing. "Among the reasons we selected 'Bayside Village' for serviced apartments in San Francisco was their innovative 3D tours. These allow European and British travelers to preview apartments before they leave home and reduce virus exposure for anyone who is hunting for a furnished apartment." Persons seeking to view the complex can visit https://baysidevillage.com/. There, they can click into the 3D tour option and see what the units look like. Next, they should return to the Key Housing landing page at https://www.keyhousing.com/rightside.asp?action=form3&ID=730 and then reach out to the apartment specialists at the company. Given the housing shortages in San Francisco, the savvy European or British traveler seeks out an "inside friend" such as Key Housing to help them locate best-in-class serviced apartments in San Francisco. Working together with an expert is the best way to not only find a rental unit but to find one that meets the various parameters. FINDING SHORT TERM SERVICED APARTMENTS IN THE COVID-19 ENVIRONMENT Here is background on this release. Finding hard-to-find serviced apartments is not easy in San Francisco during "normal" times. Now, with the COVID-19 crisis beginning to abate, it is as difficult or even more difficult. Commercial travelers are reluctant to stay in crowded hotels and want new options. For this reason, many want short term or service apartment rentals that make living in San Francisco more like "home" and less like a "hotel." They also just want to avoid crowds due to the Pandemic. This increases the demand for apartment-style living, especially furnished or serviced apartments in San Francisco. Secondarily, fewer units are available due to restrictions and supply issues, thus further decreasing the supply. And finally, the savvy traveler wants to see, online, what a unit and complex looks like. The 3D tour feature offered by Bayside Village, plus an incredible location, incredible units, and incredible amenities. In this way, Bayside Village and Key Housing are setting the standard for finding best-in-class furnished or serviced apartments during these trying times. ABOUT KEY HOUSING Based in Folsom, California, Key Housing Connections Inc. (http://www.keyhousing.com/) specializes in corporate housing and corporate rentals in cities like San Diego, Huntington Beach, and Costa Mesa. Whether the need is for a serviced apartment or short-term rental, corporate housing, or short-term apartments, browse our listings to find the location that fits one's short-term corporate housing needs. We are competitive with extended stay hotels in cities such as Irvine, Newport Beach, and Mission Viejo. People seeking pet-friendly corporate rentals or corporate relocation services depend on us for furnished apartments and other temporary housing needs. Whether after San Diego corporate housing or short-term rental in Santa Ana, we can aid the search for the right apartment in the Golden State. After all, we're among the top-rated short-term apartment listing service in areas like Orange County and Los Angeles County. Whether it's serviced apartments or a furnished rental, search, click or call today! Key Housing Media Relations (800) 989-0410 Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has been banned from Twitter for breaking the social media platform's sites rules forbidding hate speech. The company said Friday that Duke's account has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of the Twitter Rules on hateful conduct. It didn't specify what exactly Duke posted that triggered the ban, but its policy on hateful conduct prohibits promoting violence or threatening attacks against people based on religious affiliation, race and ethnic origin. Twitter said the ban was in line with its recently updated policy aimed at cutting down on harmful links. Under the new rules, the company may suspend accounts dedicated to sharing hateful content or that try to get around its blocks on sharing links to the material. Duke was the leader of the white supremacist KKK from 1974 to 1978. 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 Duke ran for president in 1992, for Senate in 1996 and for a congressional seat in metro New Orleans in 1999, but lost each time. In 2002, he was convicted of stealing money from his followers and spent a little over a year in prison. Duke resurfaced in 2016 after numerous media outlets quoted him as praising then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. He ran for the U.S. Senate again but, reflecting a steep fall from his heyday, finished seventh with only 3% of the vote. YouTube bans David Duke channel; he says it's about 'hatred against White people' YouTube has shut down the channels of six prominent white supremacists, including David Duke, the one-time Ku Klux Klan grand wizard who was t Duke won more attention in 2017 when he attended the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, where a woman protesting the presence of Duke and the others died when a car slammed into her. Reporter Tyler Bridges contributed to this report. Mumbai. Maharashtra government on Friday informed the Bombay high court (HC) that over 1.6 crore sanitary pads have been sold at highly subsidised rates to adolescent girls studying in Zilla Parishad schools and rural women across the state, ever since the Asmita Yojana was introduced in 2018. In an affidavit filed in HC on Friday, the government said that the Asmita Yojana has been designed and implemented with the objective of ensuring accessibility and availability of affordable sanitary pads across rural Maharashtra and the scheme is being implemented through women self-help groups (SHGs). Under the scheme, a pack of eight sanitary napkins is being sold to adolescent school girls and rural women at a subsidised rate of Rs 5 and Rs 24, respectively. So far, 19,78,140 packets, containing 1.6 crore sanitary pads, have been sold through 29,875 SHGs, the affidavit added. The affidavit was submitted in reply to a public interest litigation (PIL), jointly filed by law graduate Nikita Gore, who is working as a research assistant at Aurangabad bench of the Bombay HC, and law student Vaishnavi Gholave, seeking an order to declare sanitary napkins as an essential commodity and start its distribution through the public distribution system (PDS) along with other essential commodities. In the PIL, filed through advocate Vinod Sangvikar, the petitioners highlighted the need for easy access to sanitary napkins. The PIL stated that hygienic menstrual absorbents help adolescent girls and women to manage menstruation effectively, safely, comfortably, and fearlessly. The freedom from the fear of leakage or unpleasant odour increases their ability to attend schools or at workplaces during menstruation. A woman cannot predict, when menstruation will start and, as a result, there should be easy availability and supply of sanitary pads in schools and at workplaces, it further stated. The petitioners have asserted that sanitary napkins are an essential requirement of every woman. Women have the right to get them at a cheaper rate, as every woman spends about 3,000 days of her life menstruating and lack of cleanliness during this period may lead to infections, the petition pointed out. The petitioners have also sought proper implementation of the national guidelines for menstrual hygiene management issued by the Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation in 2015. Japan has ordered another 105 F-35 stealth fighters. This will cost $23 billion and include spare parts, including 110 engines and additional electronic and other accessories. With earlier purchases this new order will give Japan 147 F-35s. That large force of stealth fighters wont be in service until the mid-2020s because of growing demand for F-35s and limited production capability. Japan will help by manufacturing some components and assembling their F-35s in Japan. All this Japanese F-35 news was not welcome in China. Combined with South Korean F-35s, China now has to deal with over 300 F-35s operating near its northern borders. In the 1990s Chinese support for an aggressive and unpredictable North Korea prompted South Korea to become a major developer, manufacturer and exporter of modern weapons. Now Japan, with a larger population and industrial base than South Korea has followed South Korean in an arms race with China. Most (63) of the new fighters will be the land-based F-35A model but 42 will be F-35Bs, the VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) version that can operate from carriers. Japan already had 42 F-35As on order to replace 73 F-4 interceptors. The new F-35As on order are to replace a hundred older F-15J fighter-bombers. At this point Japan is the largest export customer for the F-35. Japan also asked to have its status as a F-35 upgraded from buyer to partner. That will mean Japan will build more components for F-35s, not just its own but for other customers as well. Japan can and has built modern jet fighters. Before Japan increased its F-35 orders it decided to cancel its plans to build a locally designed F-2 maritime attack aircraft. This move was in recognition of the high production costs and uncertain performance of the maritime F-2. Japan also sought to design and build a stealthy replacement for the 1990s era F-2 fighters but concluded it would be too expensive for just a hundred aircraft and such an X-2 aircraft could not compete against the American F-35 in export markets, assuming Japan changed its constitution to allow weapons exports. The F-2 was an enlarged Japanese version of the American F-16. Now Japan seeks to eventually replace the F-2 with F-35s. Japan imports a lot of foreign warplanes but usually assembles them locally under license, which it will do with the F-35s. For most of the last two decades Japan has been undecided about how to proceed with updating its many warplanes. At the end of the Cold War (1991) Japan had a small but well equipped and trained air force. But since 1991 there was not a lot of enthusiasm in parliament or among voters to spend what was needed to keep the air force up to date. After 2000 it became obvious that China was building a modern, and threatening, air force. Russia was becoming more hostile as well and North Korea remained a problem. Gradually Japan accepted the fact, and cost, of upgrading its air force. A recent example of this was the 2019 decision to act on long-delayed plans to upgrade 98 of its heavily used F-15J interceptors. The parliament was reluctant to spend the billions of dollars this would cost. For some legislatures it was an economic decision, for others it was feared upgrading would anger China and Russia. But as incursions by Chinese and Russia military aircraft increased fivefold over the last decade, to over a thousand a year, parliament changed its mind. The upgrades will cost $4.5 billion and be carried out in Japan using American made electronics. This includes an AESA radar, new computers and EW (Electronic Warfare) equipment. This includes a jam-resistant GPS device. There will also be new communications including jam-resistant digital data links. The growing presence of Russian and (mostly) Chinese military aircraft has also persuaded legislators to spend a lot of money replacing older aircraft. The Japanese Air Force has about 50,000 personnel and 775 aircraft, 39 percent of them fighters. The air force is usually the first responder when any potentially hostile ships or aircraft come near any of the islands. Most of the 302 fighters need upgrades or replacement. The 73 F-4s were built in Japan during the 1970s and are very much in need of replacement despite light use, some upgrades and careful maintenance. The new F-35s were initially replacements for retiring F-4s. The 155 F-15Js were also built in Japan during the 1980s and 90s. These are the most heavily used warplanes as most serve as interceptors. There have already been some upgrades, but the newly ordered upgrades are the most extensive in a while. The 62 F-2s were developed and built in Japan between 1995 and 2011. There are currently 12 F-35s in service. Ordering some F-35Bs makes it clear that Japan is going to experiment with some of these aircraft aboard the existing Japanese helicopter carriers. Since 2017 Japan has had operational two 27,000 ton destroyers (DDH type ships) that look exactly like an aircraft carrier. These Izumo class ships can carry up to 28 helicopters or up to ten vertical takeoff aircraft. The carriers are armed only and two 20mm Phalanx anti-missile cannon and sixteen ESSM missiles for anti-missile and aircraft defense. The DDH have powerful engines capable of destroyer-like speeds of over fifty-four kilometers an hour. There are also more medical facilities than one would expect for a ship of this size. Izumo does have considerable cargo capacity for moving disaster relief supplies quickly to where they are needed. Apparently some of these cargo spaces can be converted to berthing spaces for troops, disaster relief personnel, or people rescued from disasters, as well as additional weapons and equipment needed to support F-35B fighter-bombers. Izumo could carry and operate at least ten of the F-35Bs once modifications were made to the flight deck to handle the extremely high temperatures the F-35B generates when taking off or landing vertically (like a helicopter). When the first DDH entered service in 2015 Japan made no mention of buying F-35Bs or modifying the LPH flight decks to handle the very high temperatures generated by the F-35B. The Izumos already have an elevator (to the hanger deck under the flight deck) large and powerful enough to handle an F-35B. These new Japanese F-35 plans make it clear that Japan agrees with pilots who have many F-35 flight hours. The F-35 software and the degree of automation built in is spectacular, easy to use and very effective. The F-35 has many sensors (receivers for electronic signals, six cameras and a very capable radar) and the fusion of all that data and presentation to the pilot based on the current situation makes the F-35 much easier to fly, despite all the additional capabilities it has. This sort of thing is not a new idea. By the 1990s it was recognized that this new technology (called data fusion) would be a key capability for combat aircraft, as well as ships and ground combat vehicles. Put simply, it's all about taking real-time vidcam, radar and other sensor data (sensor fusion) along with non-sensor information about the battlefield situation (all sorts of databases and reports), and combining them to provide commanders or pilots with a better understanding of current operations, preferably in real time if you are a fighter pilot. Pilots agree that the heart of the F-35 superior capabilities is its software and digital communications with other aircraft and troops on the ground. The F-35 is apparently the best working example of this so far and what is learned from the F-35 software has become the basis for updated software for older aircraft. But beyond the data fusion (and automatic sharing with other aircraft or systems on the surface), the pilots were impressed about how effective the pilot assistant software was. This is another concept that has been around for decades and more frequently installed in new aircraft. These minor advances get reported but never make headlines. But given the F-35's stealth, maneuverability and sensor/data fusion, most pilots quickly become enthusiastic proponents of the aircraft. F-35 software is more complex and omnipresent throughout the aircraft than in any previous warplane. Its a major effort to carry out and test any changes. Some major upgrades are needed in how F-35 software changes are made and how quickly. In wartime this would be essential as otherwise servicable aircraft would be grounded when needed most. As of early 2020 500 F-35s had been delivered, mostly to the U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps. Over 4,000 F-35s are expected to be delivered by the mid-2030s with more than 70 percent going to the United States. The 31-ton F-35 is armed with an internal 25mm cannon and, before the SDB (GPS guided Small Diameter Bomb) arrived, four internal air-to-air missiles (or two missiles and two smart bombs) plus four external smart bombs and two missiles. A new bomb rack allows the F-35 to carry eight SDBs internally. All sensors are carried internally, and max weapon load is 6.8 tons. The aircraft is very stealthy when just carrying only internal weapons. DES MOINES Only school districts in Iowa counties where the two-week average of positive new coronavirus tests is at least 15% will be allowed to operate completely online under state guidance issued Thursday. With no counties currently above that threshold, at this point it appears all Iowa students are headed back to school in their districts buildings this fall. The new state guidance covers a wide array of scenarios, including when school districts will be allowed to divert from in-person learning to online-only or hybrid methods, and what actions should be taken once a student or staff member tests positive for the coronavirus. Gov. Kim Reynolds, state epidemiologist Dr. Caitlin Pedati, and state education department director Ann Lebo introduced the guidelines Thursday during a news conference at the Iowa State Capitol. Education is fundamental to the well-being of our children and our teachers are essential to ensuring that our school kids return to learn rather than mark time and lose ground, Reynolds said. And I know that together we can do this safely and responsibly. The state guidelines use counties rate of positive coronavirus tests to determine how schools may operate. Districts in counties where the positivity rate is less than 15% must operate on-site with exceptions only for families who request a hybrid option or students who are quarantined. Only once a county surpasses a positivity rate of 15% will a district in that county be allowed to petition the state education and public health departments for a two-week waiver to conduct 100% online or remote learning. Waivers must be renewed. As of Thursday afternoon, no Iowa county was above the 15% threshold, according to state public health data. Humboldt County was the highest at 13%. The statewide positivity rate has been 15% or higher on only two days since early June. The World Health Organization says positive rates should be 5% or lower before areas should reopen. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses community transmission terms like minimal, moderate and substantial, but does not assign positive test rates to those terms. U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams was asked recently in an interview with CBS News conducted over Twitter at what point a school should close due to a coronavirus outbreak in the community. There is no hard cutoff right now, but in general, we like to see positivity rates less than 10% in a community, Adams responded. There are also a number of other factors to consider including trends, amount of testing, and local response capacity. Mike Beranek, president of the Iowa State Education Association, the states largest public educators union, issued a statement calling the state guidance an outlandish notion of what constitutes minimal, moderate and uncontrollable spread of COVID-19 (the disease caused by the coronavirus). Most importantly we are not just talking about numbers as we look at this decision, Beranek said in the statement. We are talking about childrens lives and the lives of the educators and the families who are affected. The guidance also suggests districts in counties with a positivity rate of at least 15% cancel school events and gatherings, close communal spaces like cafeterias, and consider regular health checks for students and staff. The state guidance also addresses students and staff who test positive for the coronavirus, including a rule that staff may be allowed to return to work so long as they are not displaying symptoms if they are considered critical personnel and if there are staffing shortages. The guidance also says students and staff may return to school as soon as 24 hours after a positive test, provided they have no fever, their symptoms are improving and it has been at least 10 days since their symptoms started, according to the new state guidance, which follows recent CDC guidance. Anyone determined to have come in close contact with an individual who tested positive for the virus must quarantine away from school for 14 days, according to the state guidance. That creates a hypothetical situation in which a person who tested positive for the virus could be back in school while anyone who came in contact with the person would be forced to remain quarantined for up to another two weeks. Education is fundamental to the well-being of our children and our teachers are essential to ensuring that our school kids return to learn rather than mark time and lose ground, Reynolds said. And I know that together we can do this safely and responsibly. The state guidelines use counties rate of positive coronavirus tests to determine how schools may operate. Districts in counties where the positivity rate is less than 15% must operate on-site with exceptions only for families who request a hybrid option or students who are quarantined. Only once a county surpasses a positivity rate of 15% will a district in that county be allowed to petition the state education and public health departments for a two-week waiver to conduct 100% online or remote learning. Waivers must be renewed. As of Thursday afternoon, no Iowa county was above the 15% threshold, according to state public health data. Humboldt County was the highest at 13%. The statewide positivity rate has been 15% or higher on only two days since early June. The World Health Organization says positive rates should be 5% or lower before areas should reopen. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses community transmission terms like minimal, moderate and substantial, but does not assign positive test rates to those terms. Mike Beranek, president of the Iowa State Education Association, the states largest public educators union, issued a statement calling the state guidance an outlandish notion of what constitutes minimal, moderate and uncontrollable spread of COVID-19. Most importantly we are not just talking about numbers as we look at this decision, Beranek said in the statement. We are talking about childrens lives and the lives of the educators and the families who are affected. The guidance also suggests districts in counties with a positivity rate of at least 15% cancel school events and gatherings, close communal spaces like cafeterias, and consider regular health checks for students and staff. Fashion retailer's 'difficult decision not to re-open the store post lockdown' Jigsaw has become the latest chain to shut down its Newbury outlet after closing its store in Northbrook Street. A note on the door of the fashion retailer from "the Jigsaw team" reads: "We have been reviewing our store locations across the UK and have had to make the difficult decision not to re-open the store post lockdown. "We want to thank you and all our staff for their continued support and loyalty to the company through this time, We remain committed to bringing you the quality of service you expect from us." A Jigsaw spokesperson said: "It is with much regret that we have had to permanently close the Newbury store. "The UK retail sector has been struggling for some time as customers of all ages move to the convenience of online shopping and the coronavirus pandemic has further accelerated this. "We have therefore taken the difficult decision to close a number of our stores and carry out a wider strategic review of our business." The building occupied by Jigsaw at 34 Northbrook Street was the original home of the Newbury Weekly News when it launched in 1867. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Alya Nurbaiti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 18:18 537 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066ab9317 1 National webinar,data-protection-bill,data-protection Free Both the Indonesian government and digital platform companies such as Gojek and Google have agreed that more dialogue between the public and private sectors was needed to ensure that the personal data protection bill, which is currently under deliberation at the House of Representatives, be passed into a comprehensive, effective and enforceable law. Decacorn Gojeks chief of public policy and government relations Shinto Nugroho said such discussion was important as, in addition to protecting citizen's data, the law was expected to provide stimulus instead of being an impediment to start-ups and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Data protection law will have a pivotal role for the digital economy growth in the country, lets not make the law be another burden for MSMEs. This can only be achieved by communicating and coordinating with businesses, NGOs and academics, said Shinto during a public webinar, JakPost UpClose, held by The Jakarta Post on Thursday. Special advisor to Communication and Information Minister, Dedy Permadi, said that opposing views regarding how data protection should be accomplished might emerge between parties. Thus, the ministry is calling on all participating stakeholders to join hands in bridging these gaps by intensifying dialogues, he said. To date, Indonesia has no specific law that comprehensively stipulates personal data protection. Regulation on data protection is rather scattered across at least 33 different laws, said Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) researcher Wahyudi Djafar. Indonesia is home to 175.4 million internet users as of January 2020, but digital literacy, including awareness of online safety, is relatively low. The Global World Digital Competitiveness Index, which includes digital literacy among other indicators, ranked Indonesia 56th out of 63 countries in 2019, far below Singapore and Malaysia, which were ranked 2nd and 26th respectively. In a world where simply having an email account could expose an internet user to cybercrime, data protection law is increasingly urgent. Carmela Acevedo, a senior software engineer at Google, said that Google provided users with easy to understand privacy and data protection. Many malware and phishing attacks actually start with an email. So Gmail protects you from spam, phishing and malware better than any other email service, she said. Also we have blocked billions and billions of bad ads. On average we block 100 ads per second, she went on. The personal data protection bill, the draft of which has been undergoing an assessment by the ministry since 2014, is becoming more essential now than ever, with the COVID-19 pandemic serving as a catalyst for digital adoption including in Indonesia. The House aims to conclude the deliberation of the bill by October this year, according to legislator Bobby Adhityo Rizaldi recently as quoted by kompas.com. Dedy said the draft of the bill had adopted several principles and aspects of the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The Indonesian GDPR also focuses on five main areas, namely data collection, data processing, data security, data breach and the right to be forgotten [a right for individuals to have personal data erased], he said. However, Shinto said that several concepts such as the concept of specific personal data and explicit consent mentioned in the draft were still not aligned with international practices and needed to be reconsidered. She also reminded the lawmakers to consider different business models and sizes when drafting the law to create flexibility while ensuring robust data protection. Wahyudi, meanwhile, mentioned several problems that ELSAM had found in the bill and submitted to the House. Among the most pressing problems, Wahyudi said, were the absence of a data protection authority, a lack of clarity on the obligation of the data controller and data processor and the tendency for criminalization through the formulation of criminal sanctions. An independent authority to monitor data protection is important. We also recommend the House revoke criminal sanctions [in the data protection bill] and rather optimize the use of the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law to act against cybercrime, he said. (TNS) Tiffany Gratiens three kids will be going to two different schools, often on different days, likely at different times.Quinn will go to kindergarten every day.Reagan will go to 4th grade in the elementary school two days a week.Ailyn will go to 6th grade at the middle school two days a week.Somehow, Gratien, who lives in the Jamesville-DeWitt school district, must manage that schedule while shes back at her job teaching kindergarten in the Syracuse City School District. Her husband works in IT and must be onsite, too.A lot of people I know are quitting their jobs to be home with their kids. How is that possible, she said. I cant do that and I dont want to.After months of waiting to hear if kids were going back to school at all, then weeks more to find out how often, Gratien and tens of thousands of other parents are scrambling to deal with the hybrid schedule most districts in Central New York are offering.Instead of bringing every kid back every day, districts are largely offering a mix of in-person learning for a day or two at school and the rest of the days online, at home.Some smaller districts and private schools have been able to offer daily schooling for all, and a few larger districts are bringing the youngest back for full days. But most dont have the space to have all of the kids there every day while maintaining the required 6 feet between students.Related article: How is your school reopening? See Central New York school district coronavirus plans Parents and educators agree that no choice for pandemic schooling is good. Hybrid schedules are simply the best of the bad: Everyone gets some in-person school.But hybrids also leave parents with an even more difficult juggling act than they had in the spring: Instead of trying to do it all from home while the economy was shut down, many now have to figure out how to be on the job with patched-together childcare.Some are planning to leave their kids home alone. Others are deciding that the chaos of a couple days on, the rest off, isnt worth it and are opting to keep their kids home all week.Larger districts really dont have much choice but to go hybrid they are just too large to meet the social distancing guidelines with every kid at school, said Kevin Casey, executive director of the New York State School Administrators Association.There are just no good answers, he said.In districts with spare resources, hybrid schedules lay bare the problems of poverty, raising questions that have few answers: How can kids learn online when they have no computer or internet access? This is true for rural districts and the city of Syracuse.The city has told 10,000 high school students they will learn from home; 10,000 more k-8 students will be online three days week. In the spring, parents scraped together money through Gofundme campaigns to get computers into some of the homes that had none. But there are still plenty of homes without.And then there is the extra cost of childcare for low-wage parents with inflexible jobs, if they can find any to pay for.Im definitely worried that our students are going to be really far behind where they should be, said Beth Myers , an education professor and director of the Taishoff Center for Inclusive Education at Syracuse University.Myers said that even if every student could get online, learning on a screen simply cant provide what sitting in a room with a teacher does.She knows that from her job and she knows it from her life: Myers and her husband have four children ages 4, 8, 10 and 12. They all go to public school in the city of Syracuse.The grown-ups juggled their jobs and the kids schoolwork all spring from their home. Now it seems theyll have to figure out how to have three kids at school some of the time and one 4-year-old home all of the time.The citys universal pre-k program they had planned to send their daughter to likely will not have enough space.Were still trying to figure it out, Myers said. The chaos of doing everything at once can be overwhelming. She may have to cut back on her research for now, but thats nothing compared with the choices other families are grappling with, she said.In the spring, Emily Costello and her husband cobbled together childcare for their twins using vacation time, flex-time, neighbors and family. Both parents have jobs that have to be done onsite: She is an occupational therapist and he services medical equipment.But now that the economy is getting back into full-swing, many of their helpers are back to work. The grandparents who could help live in a state that has high infection rates right now. The twins, who are in the Jamesville-DeWitt district , will likely go to school two days a week.Costello is happy theyll get some school. They need face-to-face time with their teachers and to play with friends. But right now she has no idea what theyll do for the other three days. Its too long for kids their age to be home alone. But its hard to even look for care: At this point, Costello is not sure which days the kids will be home.I hope theres a vaccine soon, she said.Bob Clarys three kids go to three different schools in the North Syracuse school district, which is offering a hybrid plan that could put all of his kids at school on different days of the week. The child who is in elementary school will go two days a week. Clarys other kids, who are in middle school and high school, will each go to school one day a week.Clary can work from home on the days the kids are not at school. But that doesnt solve his main concern.The fundamental thing is Im not a teacherso I am relearning everything all over, he said.Clary was trying to help his daughter, Stella, with her algebra in the spring. Like so many parents, he ended up watching the videos and tutorials right along with her. Algebra is hard enough. But Clary was trying to do it while he was doing his work for his marketing job.Its very challenging to do my work at home while helping teach my kids, Clary said.Jennifer Czarniewicz has three children still in school in 8th, 10th and 11th grades in the North Syracuse district. Theyll be going to school one day a week; the rest will be online.Although her kids are old enough to stay home alone, Czarniewicz said they were frustrated with online learning in the spring. She worries theyll just give up.Getting some in-school instruction is better than nothing, but Id like five days if they could make it safe,' she said.Parents and kids will both struggle and sacrifice in the fall, regardless of the school district. But poor families, often in inner city districts, are at great risk of losing learning and more in a hybrid school model.Youre seeing as you have throughout this crisis the exaggeration of the inequities that exist throughout society already, said Paul Reville, the former Secretary of Education for Massachusetts and a professor at Harvard Universitys Graduate School of Education.A very real problem is getting enough technology into the hands of kids in poor districts. In Boston, the city was able to get funding for 30,000 Chrome books and it set up WiFi hotspots around the city.The city of Syracuse has a plan to provide WiFi access from lightpoles on city streets, but that project is nowhere near done. Both computer and internet access problems remain.Someone, Reville said, will have to step up to make sure kids have access to the technology the need. It doesnt have to be the school district. It could be the city, the state or private business, he suggested.Its a much bigger problem than just schools. Communities need to come together, he said.The city of Syracuse is also losing at least some of its robust pre-kindergarten program to the pandemic. Pre-k parents have not heard what their choices will be, if any at all.Joann Taylor worries that her granddaughter, Amora, will fall behind. Amora is 3 and had been attending the citys Montessori pre-k program, which is housed at LeMoyne College.Amora has learned her letters and to write her name. Her grandmother credits the pre-k program. It was awesome, she said. And it was free, enabling Amoras mom, Hillary, to work her call center job during the day.Hillary has been working from home, but the job is not one that allows for multitasking.Taylor and her husband, who are both disabled, have been watching Amora since the pre-k shut down.Megan Thomas son and Amora are playmates at the school. Bailey Thomas-Barton would play and learn with Amora Taylor while his mom went to work as a lawyer.If the pre-k does not open, Baileys dad will continue to care for him and his baby sister, Madeleine, while Thomas is at work.Richard Barton decided to take a year off from his Phd studies at Cornell University, but he still has teaching obligations that hell have to work around the kids and his wifes schedule.Thomas knows they will be okay. But worries about what her sons playmates are losing. Before she was a lawyer, she taught in cities with the Teach for America program.Kids make the most progress when you get them early. So getting these kids in school at a young age, its pivotal, Thomas said. She hopes the city will be able to swing at least two days a week for pre-k.Most districts, including Syracuse, are offering a completely online option for students this fall.Some parents have decided that school is too risky. Others have decided its not worth the hassle for two days a week.For Jessica Rogala, the risk does not seem worth it. She plans to keep her four school-aged children home.Three attend Roberts School in Syracuse and one is supposed to go to Corcoran High School.She works as a home-care nurse and worries that her kids will get exposed to the novel coronavirus and shell end up infecting one of her patients. Her husband is able to watch the kids and help them with their online learning, she said.Id rather have my kids alive and behind a bit, academically, she said.April McCaslin, one many parents at East Syracuse Minoa who are choosing distance learning, said her daughter is immunocompromised. She is going into second grade and her other daughter is going into 7th grade.I feel like there are too many unknowns,' she said. We have been so careful since this all started.Though her younger daughter struggled with distance learning, McCaslin said the risks outweigh the benefits in her mind.Lemir Teron, a professor at SUNY-ESF, has spent the past months studying the destructive path Covid-19 has cut through communities of color downstate.Syracuse not been as hard-hit, but Teron worries fall will bring a surge. And he worries about the teachers and staff who have to go back to work, despite the risk.I hate the thought of lunch lady, lunch guy, taking the chances, Teron said.He and his wife, both former public school teachers, have decided to keep their boys home in the fall. He realizes everyone cannot afford to make that choice.As parents try to figure out how to manage patched together schedules, teachers have been puzzling over how to make back-to-school as comfortable as possible in a pandemic, said Myers, the city school parent and Syracuse University education expert.A teacher shared her plan with Myers: She was worried about not being able to hug the kids or hold their hands, especially in this time of fear and uncertainty. So she decided she would get a bear for each child and make a point of hugging the bears.Then, when a child is sad or scared, the bear will be there snuggle, full of the teachers love. Bhopal: Congress veteran and former chief minister Kamal Nath on Friday hailed the ongoing process of building Ram temple at Ayodhya, saying, It will realise a cherished dream of millions of people in India. Significantly, Nath is the first senior Congress leader to come out openly in support of Ram temple at Ayodhya ahead of Bhoomi Pujan ceremony, slated to be organised on August 5, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend. Hopes and aspirations of millions of people of the country will be fulfilled with construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. The temple is being constructed with support from all sections in the country. It can only happen in India," a twitter post by him said on Friday. Ruling BJP, however, has taken a jibe at him for extending support for the construction of Ram temple, reminding him of his partys stand on the issue. Congress always opposed Ram temple in Ayodhya and created all kinds of hurdles to stop the temple coming up in Ayodhya. It is a pleasant surprise for us to see a change of heart in Nath over the issue," BJP spokesman Rajneesh Agrawal quipped. He described Naths sudden change of heart on Ram temple issue as merely a poll gimmick to woo Hindu votebank ahead of by-elections in the 27 Assembly constituencies in Madhya Pradesh, scheduled to be held by end of September this year. The Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, had hopped from temple to temple ahead of 2018 assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh to shed partys anti-Hindu image. However, the ploy failed to click. Nath plans to adopt the same strategy in the upcoming assembly by-elections in the state to shed his partys anti-Ram temple image. But, it will also boomerang on Congress in the upcoming Assembly by-elections," he added. CTS Corp (NYSE:CTS) Q2 2020 Earnings Call , 11:00 a.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator Good day, and welcome to the CTS Corporation Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Kieran O'Sullivan. Please go ahead, sir. Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to CTS' Second Quarter 2020 Conference Call. I'll begin by sharing a few thoughts on our Company and our business performance. As we mentioned on our last earnings call, we expected the second quarter to be our most challenging quarter this year due to the impact of COVID-19. Operationally, all of our plants are running, though, we continue to experience challenges at our Mexico locations. The return to the appropriate production staffing levels has been impacted by state and local regulations. Our leadership in global teams are prioritizing the safety of our employees and adapting quickly to serve our customers' needs. Sales were $84 million, down 30% from the second quarter of 2019. As expected, we saw significant challenges in the transportation end market, sales in the rest of our business were stable. Second quarter gross margins were 31.6% compared to 34.1% in the same period in 2019. We delivered an adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.7% despite a 30% drop in sales. Second quarter adjusted earnings per share were $0.16. We had a promising new sensor win in transportation for application in hybrid electric vehicles, and continue to make progress with RF product wins in defense. We added 13 new customers in the quarter. We ended the quarter with $146 million in cash, and $141 million in debt. We expect a prolonged recovery from the COVID-19 impact. As a result, we are implementing a restructuring plan to realign our cost structure to the new demand environment. This plan will be completed over the next 24 months. Ashish Agrawal, our CFO is with me for today's call and will take us through the safe harbor statement. Ashish? Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer I would like to remind our listeners that this conference call contains forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to several risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties is contained in the press release issued today, and more information can be found in the Company's SEC filings. To the extent that today's discussion refers to any non-GAAP measures under Regulation G, the required explanations and reconciliations are available in the Investors section of the CTS website. I will now turn the discussion back over to our CEO, Kieran O'Sullivan. Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board Thanks, Ashish. The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic have been unprecedented. I want to express our appreciation to all our employees, customers and partners for their support as we work to get our factories online this past quarter. Our people demonstrated remarkable flexibility in our operations and supply chain. Our first focus is the safety of our employees and compliance with state and local regulations while doing everything we can to meet our customers' requirements. The temporary expense reduction measures we discussed in our last earnings call are still in effect. As I mentioned in my opening comments, we are announcing a restructuring plan which we expect to be completed over two year timeframe. This plan is necessary to realign our operating cost structure to the new demand environment as we transition through the prolonged impact of COVID-19. More details of the plan will be shared in the quarters ahead. At a macro level, it will involve site consolidations and streamlining other operating costs to leverage economies of scale across the Company. The plan is expected to deliver an annualized EPS improvement of $0.22 to $0.26 by the second half of 2022. We remain focused on our strategic growth investments. Growing our business and expanding our range of sensing, connectivity, and motion products is the priority. New business awards were $105 million for the quarter, a solid performance given several OEMs continue to push out business decisions due to the COVID-19 and the resulting wide scale shutdowns in Europe and in North America in the quarter. As I said, we added 13 new customers in the quarter, six in industrial, three in medical, three in defense and one in telecom. In Transportation, we had an exciting win for a new high load current sensor for a premium European OEM. This is a new hybrid vehicle application. Since it is a customized design, we're still evaluating broader market potential. We also secured several wins for passive safety sensors with existing customers and with a new customer, a large chassis ride height sensor award with a North American OEM, as well as accelerated module brands with several OEMs across all the regions. In defense, we were awarded two RF programs with existing customers. We have multiple wins for military underwater applications, secured a contract with an European OEM, and we received our first order for textured ceramic material. Textured ceramic provides enhanced piezoelectric electric performance at a lower cost point. Over time, we expect this new material formulations to expand our available market. It has the potential to grow at higher single digit levels. With temperature sensing, we secured wins in industrial, defense and medical applications and added new customers. Our precision frequency product was selected for a design win in a 5G small cell application. We also had design wins in pro-audio and in medical applications for encoder products. We continue to advance product innovations. Our focus in the transportation market is to develop sensor solutions that are agnostic to the underlying propulsion technology. Thereby strengthening our growth in the next decade as hybrid and electric vehicle penetration grows. We are researching new material formulations as we target growth in defense, industrial, and medical markets. We are also developing custom ASIC solutions to strengthen our frequency product portfolio. We made more progress in our ceramic foundry operation this past quarter, and we expect further improvements this year. We are also using our expertise in ceramic formulations to improve yields and margins in our temperature sensing acquisition. In our focus 2025 initiatives, we are concentrating on four areas: Number one, driving profitable growth; number two, building stronger customer relationships; number three, improving operating systems and; four, strengthening talent and culture globally. As part of our emphasis on profitable growth, we are evaluating the product portfolio for longer-term growth and margin expansion. Our focus on M&A is to strengthen our pipeline as we seek to expand our range of technologies, products, customers and geographic reach. We are sharpening our go-to-market strategy by adapting our sales and application engineering setup to build stronger customer relationships. Working more closely with our customers on next generation products and applications is more important than ever as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. To advance CTS operating systems, we have added a senior resource to lead this initiative. We aim to build capability and drive continuous improvements. Our goal is to eliminate waste and enhance profitability, and this will be a multi-year initiative. Strengthening our talent pipeline and leadership bench while aligning our culture globally will enable us to achieve our vision of being a leading supplier of sensing and motion devices and connectivity components, and they bring in intelligence and seamless work. We remained cautious on the broader economic environment in the second half of 2020. From a light vehicle view, it is still too early to close the book on the pandemic. Premium brands are expected to rebound faster than volume brands. In the US, sales of used cars increased while the SAAR for 2020 is closer to 13 million, down 23% from last year. On-hand days of supply are at 54 days, down 20% from the five-year average, which should help short-term demand. We expect an improving sales trend in the third quarter, providing operations run normally. European sales are forecasted to decline 26% from last year. The China market continues to recover with volumes predicted to be down 14% in the $21 million to $22 million range for the year. We continue to see growth in medical and defense markets. We suspended guidance for 2020 earlier this year due to continued market uncertainty. Our liquidity remains solid with a positive net cash position. We aim to emerge from this crisis as a stronger Company. Now, Ashish will walk us through the financial performance in more detail. Ashish? Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Kieran. Our second quarter sales were $84.2 million, down 30% compared to the prior year. Sales to transportation customers decreased by 53%, and sales to other end markets increased by 14%. Our temperature sensing acquisition added $5.4 million and organic sales to non-transportation customers were up 1%. We continue to get traction in the aerospace and defense, as well as medical end markets and saw a robust double-digit sales growth rates to customers in these markets. Our gross margin was 31.6% for the second quarter, impacted substantially by lower sales. We are making progress on various actions to improve our tax rate. As a result, we expect to be closer to the lower end of our previously communicated range of 23% to 25% excluding discrete items. As we complete our work on this effort, we expect some further improvements in the tax rate in 2021. Our second quarter 2020 earnings were $0.15 per diluted share, adjusted earnings per diluted share were $0.16. As we communicated back in April, due to lower volume expectations, we implemented measures to reduce cost through temporary payroll reduction, suspension of 401 k contributions, furloughs, plant shutdown, reduced Board compensation and control over all discretionary spending. Revenue in the second quarter was significantly lower and conditions remain uncertain. We will regularly evaluate market conditions to determine the extent and duration of these temporary measures. As Kieran mentioned, we have started implementing a restructuring plan due to the prolonged impact of COVID-19. We expect restructuring costs to be in the range of $10 million to $12 million over the next two years. Anticipated annualized savings are in the range of $0.22 per share to $0.26 per share by the end of 2022. Savings from the restructuring, once fully implemented will help offset the impact of the temporary cost reduction measures as those costs return. Timing for some aspects of the restructuring project is being finalized, and we will communicate more on the timing of savings and cost in the coming quarters. In terms of cash, we were net cash positive by approximately $5 million, which is an improvement from zero net cash at the end of first quarter. We have access to an additional $157 million through our revolving credit facility. In March, we borrowed $50 million from our credit facility. We are continuing to maintain this position to ensure adequate liquidity for the next several quarters at all our sites globally. Including this debt, we remain well within our debt covenants. And at this time, it is our expectation that we will remain compliant. Our controllable working capital as a percent of sales was 21.2% at the end of the second quarter. The increase was driven primarily due to the sharp reduction in revenue in the second quarter. In dollar terms, controllable working capital increased slightly from Q1 to Q2, and our focus remains on improvements in the coming quarters. Our teams are maintaining emphasis on reducing inventory levels across our operations, and on receivables collection. We generated $11.8 million in operating cash flow in the second quarter. Capex was $2.7 million. For the full year, we are expecting capital expenditures to be approximately 4% of sales. We are committed to investing in programs that help us progress our strategic growth objectives. We are continuing to implement SAP, and went live successfully at another large manufacturing location at the beginning of July. This go-live was accomplished despite most of the implementation team working remotely due to COVID-19 related travel constraints. This is a significant accomplishment by our team in Matamoros as well as the SAP implementation team. With the go-live in Matamoros, we have completed the rollout to plants that provide approximately 80% of the Company's revenue. We are on track to complete the SAP implementation around the middle of 2021. This concludes our prepared comments. We would like to open the line for questions at this time. Questions and Answers: Operator Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. And we'll take our first question from Justin Long. Justin Long -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst Thanks, and good morning. Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board Good morning, Justin. Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Hi, Justin. Justin Long -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst Thanks, and good morning. So, maybe to start just given things are changing so rapidly in the world today, could you provide a little bit more color on how your revenue trended throughout the second quarter kind of month to month, and then any update on what you're seeing so far in July? Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board Yes, probably the best way to describe it is, obviously April and May were tough months for us. June was a more normal month, and we've seen a similar increasing trend in July, just to give you a sense of how sales are going. But the earlier part of the quarter was particularly tough. And if you look at the quarter as well, and that 55% in transportation, if you remember, last year we were particularly strong from a comp basis on the commercial vehicle, and that really skewed us a little bit this quarter as well, because that was a tough market for us. And we are -- on the light vehicle side, we are in line with where the market is from everything we see. Justin Long -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst Okay, that's helpful. And I think you made the comment that in the third quarter, you expect sequential improvement in revenue. I know you're not giving formal guidance, but is there any additional color you can share on kind of roughly how much of a pickup we could see in 3Q and maybe talk about the progression you're expecting for the transportation end markets versus the non-transportation end market sequentially. Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board Yeah. So the non-transportation markets performed solidly. We saw we were up 1% organically. We still expect steady performance there. I'm not going to give you percentages, because it's -- it's a moving target, as they are a little bit [Phonetic] at the moment. On the transportation side, what I'd like to emphasize is an improving trend. And the reason why we're a little cautious is, we've got some challenges in our Mexico operations, and where we're not fully staffed with local regulations, and while it's improving, we need that to get back to a full run rate. But the best way to give you a message on the third quarter is, we expect it to improve, we've seen that improving trend already in July. And we -- we've got to make sure we try and support and make that happen. Justin Long -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst Great. And last question from my end. More on the margin side. Ashish, you mentioned that there were some temporary cost-outs. I know you talked about those earlier in the year. Can you help us think about back half of this year, how those could come back online, given the sequential pickup in revenue that you're expecting? Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer So the cost reduction measures are made up of several components. And, given the level of sales reduction we saw in the second quarter, that would be the quarter where we have the maximum impact and we would expect smaller impact of the cost reduction measures, the temporary measures. Some of them will continue through the third quarter, and then as I mentioned, we'll continue evaluating as volume levels in the market are changing, we'll adapt our approach to those temporary measures. Justin Long -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst Okay. But you still feel like if revenue is getting better sequentially, then directionally adjusted operating margin should get sequentially better as well. Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer That would be a good assumption, Justin, yes. Justin Long -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst Okay, thanks. I appreciate the time. Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Thanks, Justin. Operator And we'll take our next question from John Franzreb. John Franzreb -- Sidoti & Company, LLC. -- Analyst Good morning, guys. I guess I want to start a little bit about the -- especially on the revenues sequentially. You -- if I heard you properly, you expect revenues to be up, but you also expect the European revenues to be down 26% and China to be down 14% or you're referencing that as the second quarter, what actually happened. Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board No, John, that's a reference and those percentages on a full year basis year-over-year from '19 to '20. Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer For the industry. Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board For the industry. John Franzreb -- Sidoti & Company, LLC. -- Analyst And that's your expectations for the full year, '20 versus '19? Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board Yeah. On the transportation side, yeah. And to give you a sense, we clearly stated that from Q2, which was going to be our most challenging quarter, we expect revenues to improve in Q3, and obviously we want to make sure that operation stay stable and we're improving in Mexico. But that's an important improvement that we need to have to go through the quarter fully, and again I want to emphasize, our June and July performance was trending in the right direction. John Franzreb -- Sidoti & Company, LLC. -- Analyst Got it. So what's the North American portion of the transportation in that assumption, without Europe and China? Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer John, we don't break out our numbers for the different end markets by region. But as we've talked about, they'll be generally in line with what our overall business is. John Franzreb -- Sidoti & Company, LLC. -- Analyst Okay. I know you kind of don't seem like you want to provide too much color on the consolidation efforts and you're going [Phonetic] to do, but [Technical Issues] at some point here and it actually [Phonetic] worked in till 2022. So you should -- is it fair to assume we will see some sort of profit improvements from these actions in 2021, or is that not fair to assume? Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board So John, if you look at it, you'll see we have minimal impact in the second half of this year, more of the impact as we get to the second half of 2021 and into '22. The projects are more longer-term projects, but they're very focused. John Franzreb -- Sidoti & Company, LLC. -- Analyst Got it. Thank you, Kieran. And just two quick questions, I guess, kind of, it's of late [Phonetic], what's your supply chain issues been like and Mexico has been a problem with a lot of other suppliers. What are your thoughts about when that kind of eases up the restrictions in the -- and the local and federal level down there? Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board John, as far as supply chain overall, we've been doing pretty well, and we're really pleased with our how our plans have come back online. And in Mexico, we are working and monitoring everything as you can imagine on a daily basis. And the staffing levels are limited by the local regulations, so going from a cold red to a cold orange, you're allowed to increase your percentage at the plant. And there has been some positive news, but we wanted to see it stabilizing the [Indecipherable] move. John Franzreb -- Sidoti & Company, LLC. -- Analyst Okay. And one last question, just because [Indecipherable] in a call [Indecipherable] Companies is getting government reimbursements from government sponsored programs that were part of not [Indecipherable] cost of goods sold and SG&A lines. Did you guys receive any just kind of government reimbursements? Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer So John, there are certain portions of government incentives that we are getting a benefit of, but we chose not to move in the direction of getting financing through the programs. But there are certain tax incentives that we are taking benefit of. But they are not significant enough to have a material impact on our financial result. John Franzreb -- Sidoti & Company, LLC. -- Analyst Okay. Thank you, Ashish. Thank you, guys. I'll get back into queue. Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board Thanks, John. Operator [Operator Instructions]. We'll take our next question from Karl Ackerman from Cowen. Karl Ackerman -- Cowen & Co. -- Analyst Hey, good morning, gentlemen. I wanted to follow-up first on the opex commentary, you know, you mentioned you take some cost actions or are in the process of taking some restructuring actions this quarter. That of course would follow some actions you took in both the December quarter and March quarter. So I guess just as a catch-up, how much cost have you taken out of the model at this point, and how much would you view as temporary that gets reinvested in the business versus how much is permanent? Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer So Karl, the actions that we've taken over the last couple of quarters to adjust the structure were more in line with what was happening in the commercial vehicle market at the end of last year. And then the impact that we were dealing with in the second quarter, which was more temporary in nature. The restructuring that we are implementing will allow us to offset the impact of the temporary measures that we were able to implement in the second quarter, once we start realizing the full benefits. So that should give you some idea of the magnitude of the impact on both sides. Karl Ackerman -- Cowen & Co. -- Analyst Okay. So it sounds like the -- it sounds like the restructuring actions that you're taking today are going to be limited from a margin recovery standpoint in second half certainly will lower your fixed cost. Much of the -- the benefit seems to be in '21 and '22, if I understand it correctly. Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Yeah. Karl, as Kieran mentioned, we are expecting a bigger impact from the restructuring actions in the second half of '21 and then going into 2022. Karl Ackerman -- Cowen & Co. -- Analyst Got it, OK. Another follow up if I may, is how would you characterize your inventory in the channel today? And from a working capital perspective what steps are you taking to improve inventory days on hand that I think could drive improving cash flow later on this year? Thank you. Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Yeah. So as you saw, we mentioned that the working capital sequentially increased very slightly, and our plants have been reducing our purchases and just the impact of the sudden drop in sales. We were not able to fully correct that situation, but we expect that we should be able to make good progress as we go forward here in Q3 and into Q4. And in terms of receivables and payables, those components of the working capital remain in good shape and we are managing those carefully and the quality of the receivables remains good as far as we can see so far. Karl Ackerman -- Cowen & Co. -- Analyst Thank you. Operator Thank you. And we will take our last question, and it's from Hendi Susanto from Gabelli Funds. Hendi Susanto -- Gabelli -- Analyst Good morning, Kieran. Good morning, Ashish. Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board Good morning, Hendi. Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Hi, Hendi. How are you? Hendi Susanto -- Gabelli -- Analyst Good. Kieran, if I see the sales of your automotive to transportation market, the sales decline seem weaker than the overall automotive market, some companies believe that the second quarter was the trough. Can you share your insight into those? Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board So Hendi on the -- when we look at the commercial vehicle side of it, we think the second quarter with the trough as well, we think we see improvements there. And when you look at it, and if you look at some of our bigger customers in that space, they had declines of about 55% or so. Much steeper than what you'd see in the light vehicle side of things. So we think that will recover steadily, and some of those products go into the mid-range which may do a little bit better in the heavy-duty side of it. We're not sure exactly yet, if that's one or two quarter cycle or more, but that's something we are monitoring closely. Hendi Susanto -- Gabelli -- Analyst Got it. And then Kieran, you also mentioned that the premium brand in automotive should rebound faster. Could you remind us what kind of exposure CTS has with regard to premium versus non-premium? Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board So in North America, we've got good exposure in Europe. We're a little lighter on the premium side of it, and we're good with the Japanese transplants on the premium side as well. But Europe was a little weaker for us. Hendi Susanto -- Gabelli -- Analyst And then Ashish, with regard to the new $12 million of restructuring costs between now and year-end 2022, what is the linearity of the $12 million cost? Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Hendi, as Kieran mentioned, we are expecting a small impact in 2020. We expect a bigger impact toward the end of 2021. And then obviously by the end of 2022, we should be able to realize all of those targeted savings. Hendi Susanto -- Gabelli -- Analyst I mean, the cost associated with that benefit like... [Speech Overlap] Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Okay. Sorry, I misunderstood your question. Hendi Susanto -- Gabelli -- Analyst No problem. Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer The cost should be generally in line as we get improvements, maybe leading by a quarter or two quarters. But the timing of some of those projects is still being finalized, and we will articulate a little bit more on that as we go forward, Hendi. Hendi Susanto -- Gabelli -- Analyst Got it. Yeah. And then Kieran, the QTI acquisition contribution was stronger than my expectation. Where did you see strength in QTI business in the second quarter, and whether or not you expect to see those strength to continue? Some companies have mentioned the benefit of let's say like outdoor activities, and then outdoor equipment. I'm wondering whether CTS did benefit from those in the second quarter? Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board We've been very pleased with the performance both on a top line, on the margin perspective with the QTI acquisition. Mostly our improvements have been coming in industrial and the medical side, and we're focused on expanding in both of those areas on the hot and cold side, we want to expand. We also want to go deeper into the medical and leverage some of the channels that we have from existing customers at CTS. And then obviously expand into the regions, which is part of our plan as we go forward as well in Europe and Asia. Hendi Susanto -- Gabelli -- Analyst Got it. Thank you, Ashish. Thank you, Kieran. Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board Thanks Hendi. Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Thanks Hendi. Operator And it looks like there are no further questions. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Kieran O'Sullivan for any closing remarks. Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board Thank you, Sylverstina, and thank you all for your participation on today's call. And be safe, we're getting back to work here with much to do, and we look forward to updating you again in October. Thank you very much. Operator [Operator Closing Remarks]. Duration: 31 minutes Call participants: Kieran O'Sullivan -- President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board Ashish Agrawal -- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Justin Long -- Stephens Inc. -- Analyst John Franzreb -- Sidoti & Company, LLC. -- Analyst Karl Ackerman -- Cowen & Co. -- Analyst Hendi Susanto -- Gabelli -- Analyst More CTS analysis All earnings call transcripts Jaipur, July 31 : Amid allegations of horse trading, the Rajasthan Congress MLAs staying at a hotel in Jaipur have been shifted to Jaisalmer for the next 14 days on Friday. The Rajasthan Assembly is scheduled to convene on August 14 and till then the MLAs will stay at the Jaisalmer resort. The MLAs were staying at Hotel Fairmount from July 13 after Sachin Pilot along with 18 MLAs went incommunicado. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot addressed the MLAs and said that the merger of BSP MLAs with Congress cannot be wrong when in Rajya Sabha 4 TDP MPs merged with the ruling BJP. The Chief Minister has hinted that he will seek a vote of confidence once the Assembly convenes on August 14. Gehlot said that horse trading rates in Rajasthan have gone higher as new rates have been announced soon after the Assembly session date was finalised. He had said "The rates of horse trading have increased after a new assembly session has been announced. Earlier, the first instalment was Rs 10 crore and second was Rs 15 crore for MLAs. However, now it's gone unlimited and everyone knows who is involved in horse trading," adding that no one knows who all have collected the first instalment as well. He also targeted Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, and accused her of taking the stand at the behest of BJP. Gehlot also called those MLAs for floor test who were disenchanted and said that as they won the election on Congress sign and symbol, it is their duty to ensure that they stand with the party on the floor. Burn it down is rarely a wise or prudent sentiment. A cadre of Republican opponents of President Donald Trump is nonetheless calling for a purifying fire to sweep through the GOP in the fall, taking down not just Trump but as many Republican officeholders as possible. Only this willy-nilly bloodletting will teach the party the hard lesson it needs to learn and mete out the punishment it deserves for accommodating Trump over the past four years. As a Soviet commissar once put it, We must execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more. These Never Trumpers, as my colleague Ramesh Ponnuru puts it, are becoming Never Republicans. Their ranks run from the estimable columnist George Will, to Charlie Sykes of the anti-Trump website The Bulwark, to the operatives of The Lincoln Project. Their hoped-for GOP electoral apocalypse doesnt make sense on its own terms, and their advocacy for one bears all the hallmarks of this perfervid time in our politics it, too, is rageful and extreme, but satisfyingly emotive. Lets stipulate that Republicans have often excused or looked past the inexcusable during Trumps presidency, and almost every Republican senator has a dimmer view of Trump than he or she will let on publicly. GOP officeholders have been especially loath to speak of the character defects that blight his presidency. All of this deserves to be called out, but should the party of Lincoln be leveled? The Never Republicans refuse to account for the practical calculations of practical politicians hoping, in difficult circumstances, to achieve practical results. Was Mitch McConnell supposed to say after Trumps election, I cant work with him, and, to borrow a phrase, burn down any chance of achieving anything constructive during a rare instance of unified Republican control of Washington? McConnell obviously bites his tongue about the president all the time, but his main project has been working with the White House to confirm judges to the bench who are thoroughly committed to faithfully interpreting our laws and Constitution and will be doing their jobs when Trump is a distant memory. Story continues Even if you think McConnell should have played it differently, what would defeating him and every other Senate Republican accomplish? Back in the Tea Party era, purists insisted on nominating in 2010 the flagrantly unelectable Christine ODonnell to stick it to the Republican establishment good and hard. Sure enough, she lost to Democrat Chris Coons, who is well on his way to a stress-free 30-year career in the Senate. If Susan Collins loses her Senate seat in Maine this year in a burn-it-all-down conflagration, it will play out the same way. Put aside that she is hardly a Trumpist. If she goes down to defeat, Republicans are never winning her seat back. And it doesnt matter who the next Republican president is one of the moderates that some Never Republicans favor, or Don Jr. the Democratic senator from Maine will be there to oppose whatever he or she is doing. What the Never Republicans are hoping for is not just a repudiation of Trump. They want the least resistance to the most progressive president of our lifetimes to give him the greatest possible running room on abortion, conscience rights, health care, judges, climate, immigration, transgender policy, policing, gun rights, campaign finance, taxes, spending and, surely, things we cant even think of yet. This is a high cost to pay, not just for the Republican Party, but for the country at least thats what you think if you are a conservative who believes progressives are deeply wrong on all these questions. Its not even guaranteed that the posited purifying loss will purify. There will never be a Donald Trump again, but its entirely conceivable that a post-Trump party will be more Trumpist, i.e., more populist, than before. Regardless, even after a landslide, the Republican Party will be made up of the same voters and officeholders who steadfastly supported Trump. If the Never Republicans want a party untainted by these people, there is one available, and if they get their wish, it will be at the zenith of its power next year. 2020 by King Features Syndicate More from National Review Fans of the Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput have rallied together in hope to bring justice to him, after his untimely death on June 14. While the case is being investigated by Mumbai police, fans have been sharing their own thoughts and opinions on the same, as more revelations and speculations are made online. Due to the recent case filed against Rhea Chakraborty, Sushant's fans are now called her out on social media. Actress Simi Garewal has responded to one such tweet that claimed Sushant was not depressed. A fan of Sushant shared an old tweet of Rhea from March 2020 in which, she shares that her father is a doctor. Simi Garewal who is very active on social media replied to the tweet and shared her experience with depression. She wrote, "I remember long back I was given a medication - it got me so dark & depressed that I would cry all the time. Chemicals create an imbalance - they can cure - but they can also harm and change your state of mind.." Fan's Tweet On Rhea Chakraborty The fan in the original tweet had said, "Rhea Chakraborty's father is a doctor .So it was easy for her to get the fake pills and prescription....Depression theory will no more work.@Rheachakraborty you think public are fool????? #SushantRheaTwist #Dhara302forSSRCulprits." FIR Filed Against Rhea Many have turned against Rhea on social media due to the recent revelation by the late actor's gym trainer. He went on to share that Sushant was taking medication from December 2019 that was harming his body. He added that Sushant used to be upset after taking the medication. Rhea Has Claimed False Implication Meanwhile, Sushant's girlfriend and actress Rhea Chakraborty has claimed false implication by the late actor's father in her petition in Supreme Court of India. An FIR was filed against Rhea in Patna on Sunday (July 26) that accused her of defrauding Sushant of a large sum of money, of keeping him away from his family and stealing his medical records, threatening to make them public. Worried about your mental well-being or of someone you know? Help is just a call away. Reach out to the nearest mental health specialist at COOJ Mental Health Foundation (COOJ)- 0832-2252525, Parivarthan- +91 7676 602 602, Connecting Trust- +91 992 200 1122/+91-992 200 4305 or Sahai- 080-25497777/ SAHAIHELPLINE@GMAIL.COM Sushant Singh Rajput's Case: SC Dismisses PIL For CBI Probe, Says 'Let Police Do Their Job' Sushant Singh Rajput's Domestic Help Claimed Rhea Was Into Black Magic: Bihar Police Sources And earlier this week, the White House confirmed national security adviser Robert C. OBrien had tested positive for the coronavirus and was working from home after experiencing mild symptoms of the disease. In mid-July, OBrien was in Paris, where he was photographed with his counterparts in meetings in which they sat around a table close to one another without wearing masks. It was not clear when he was first infected, though. China and the UK will continue science, technology and innovation cooperation, which will bring more opportunities than challenges, a Chinese expert said on Wednesday. Xu Xinchao, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission (BMSTC), made the remarks at the Jintai Roundtable seminar on China-UK economic cooperation and innovation development held by People's Daily Online. Both countries enjoy a good foundation for cooperation in this aspect. In 2017, the two governments issued the China-UK Joint Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation, the very first document of this kind between China and the UK, drawing the new blueprint of bilateral cooperation in the field of science and technology. BMSTC has supported the building of the Cambridge Innovation Center in Beijing, and used TusPark Cambridge jointly built by TusHoldings, a Beijing-based company, and Trinity College, to introduce cutting-edge technologies from the UK and promote cooperation in personnel exchanges. While the UKs technological innovation system needs global support, the two countries new economic growth points mainly rely on emerging technologies amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. The strengthening of bilateral cooperation in science and technology will bring new opportunities for the survival and development of enterprises in both countries, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. Xu believes that the digital economy is one of the key industries in China and Britain. The sudden outbreak has spurred the development of the digital economy, generating new business forms and models, such as smart medical care, urban governance, telecommuting and online education, which has been playing an important supporting role in pandemic control and has helped create new blue ocean for the economy. The UK is one of the top digital economies. The digital technology R&D center at TusPark Cambridge has attracted many British digital companies, and TusPark Newcastle has also attracted a large number of innovative companies fueling the digital economy, Xu said. Continuing, Xu explained that these are excellent resources and foundations for China and the UK to deepen cooperation in the digital economy in the future, providing immeasurable opportunities for both countries science, technology and innovation cooperation. Beijing is optimizing policies to boost the development and cooperation in the digital economy with various new measures, according to the official. China and the UK embrace boundless opportunities for science, technology and innovation cooperation, Xu said, adding that the two sides can deepen innovation cooperation in key areas such as the digital economy. To realize the goal, the two countries can build innovation platforms, promote the implementation of key projects, hold exchange events, and strengthen cooperation in personnel exchanges. EDMONTONA former Edmonton nightclub employee convicted of sexually assaulting five women has been sentenced to eight years in prison, a term reduced partly because of a beating he suffered while in custody. Matthew McKnight, 33, was accused of sexually assaulting 13 women ranging in age from 17 to 22 between 2010 and 2016. He pleaded not guilty, but a jury convicted him on five counts. In her ruling Friday, Court of Queens Bench Justice Doreen Sulyma said his prison term on the five counts must be served consecutively. The prosecution had asked for a sentence of 22 1/2 years, while McKnights lawyer had suggested five to nine years. Sulyma provided detailed reasons for sentencing on each of the five counts, including that in some cases McKnight did not use a condom. In each case here, the victim was vulnerable, young, intoxicated and under the control and power of Mr. McKnight, Sulyma said. (They) all gave extremely powerful and articulate accounts of their individual distress. Court has heard that McKnight met most of the women in bars and assaulted them at his apartment. Several victims told court that they have had nightmares, thoughts of suicide and anxiety since they were attacked. For years, I have been terrified of you. You haunt my dreams and dictate my waking moments, one woman said in her victim impact statement read to the court in early July. The victims names are protected by a publication ban. Crown prosecutor Mark Huyser-Wierenga has said that alcohol and something else were used in at least three of the offences in what he dubbed drug-facilitated sexual assaults. Sulyma challenged the submission in her decision, saying that evidence of drugs had not been proven in court. In total, Sulyma assessed 16 1/2 years for the five counts a number she reduced to eight years on her assessment of the moral blameworthiness of McKnight, his excellent chances to rehabilitate and that he was attacked by an inmate while at the Edmonton Remand Centre awaiting bail. A sentence of 16.5 years simply exceeds what would be just and appropriate, she said. The reduced sentence caused outbursts in the courtroom with one woman yelling, you guys are monsters. During McKnights sentencing hearing, his defence lawyer played a four-minute video from a camera in the remand centre showing him being punched, falling to the ground and getting kicked multiple times by a cellmate. Theres blood visible on the floor in the video. McKnight had said he blacked out before the man was taken away by a guard. Several other guards were shown in the video gathering around McKnight and restraining him. He was then led away by guards in handcuffs and a spit mask, and later taken to hospital. The attack (against McKnight) was not just vicious, it was ignored by the appropriate authorities, Sulyma said, adding that the investigation into the matter was meagre. She noted that McKnight is a first-time offender and I find that he has been obedient to the requirements of the justice system. I accept his own statements to me at sentencing that he is very repentive, Sulyma said. Read more about: Queens who influenced the history of their kingdom and female weavers who made the luxurious clothes worn by the grand dames of the era; aristocratic ladies who founded monasteries and powerful abbesses who ruled them; patrons of the arts and illiterate minstrels the role of women in the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages was much more complex and varied than the popular stereotypes that depict them as either nuns, aristocrats or sinners. A three-day course held last week by the Santa Maria la Real Foundation in Aguilar de Campoo, in Spains Palencia province, brought together experts from half a dozen Spanish universities to establish the true role of women during the period dominated by Romanesque art, roughly covering the 11th, 12th and part of the 13th centuries. One example put forward was Dona Mencia de Lara, a countess who, after losing her husband, became the abbess of the Palencia monastery of San Andres de Arroyo, which she herself founded around 1180. Dona Mencia also exercised civil and criminal jurisdiction over 11 villages in the area, explained the course director, Pedro Luis Huerta. We need to get rid of the idea that they were confined to the home, the convent or the palace Diana Pelaz, University of Santiago de Compostela According to Diana Pelaz, from the University of Santiago de Compostela, women were active in all areas of life, and there were a number of exceptional figures. We need to get rid of the idea that they were confined to the home, the convent or the palace. Thats another of the dark ideas associated with the Middle Ages. A French noblewoman named Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was the queen consort of both France and England at various times, also stands out. Already an octogenarian, she crossed the Pyrenees and traveled to Palencia to decide which one of her granddaughters should be the queen consort of France, adds Pelaz, insisting that, although it was a patriarchal society driven by a religious mentality, it did not mean that women were entirely oppressed. We see them wielding their independence, perhaps more so when they were widowed, she says. And there were also those who gave themselves over to religious life without having to adopt a cloistered lifestyle. The lack of definitive regulations typical of the Middle Ages worked in their favor. This, she adds, was the case when it came to guilds. A pioneering woman named Velasquita Giraldez founded the tailors guild in Oviedo in 1232. The problems started when they began to regulate then the women were left out. Composers of high-brow music The supposed silence of women during this period is of particular interest to the medieval expert Josemi Lorenzo Arribas, who says that this perception is owed to subsequent interpretations by historians rather than to the actual state of affairs at the time. The role of women was a cultural taboo that, thanks to feminism, has now been reconsidered, he said. Lorenzo points out that there is evidence of female composers of more classical styles of music as well as troubadours and minstrels, who were no different from the men when it came to their trade. Predominantly nomadic, they would often be from the lower classes and, though sometimes illiterate, would memorize and narrate extensive love stories. The tomb of Dona Mencia de Lara at the monastery of San Andres de Arroyo in Palencia province. FUNDACION SANTA MARIA LA REAL There were cantoras who taught Mass songs and also directed their performance in the monasteries. There were endechaderas who sang funeral chants; and soldaderas who sang for pay You have to take into account that medieval music is almost entirely vocal, as there were hardly any instruments. Lorenzo flags up the abbess Maria Gonzalez de Aguero, who composed a planctus a dirge or song of mourning and who developed her musical skills at the Santa Maria la Real de las Huelgas monastery in Burgos, around 1300. I believe her to be the first female Hispanic composer that we know of, says the researcher. Again, the establishment of norms in this case via the polyphony at academic centers started to shut women out of the picture. But Gonzalez de Aguero agrees with Pelaz that life wasnt as dark as is sometimes painted for the women of the period. They had more freedom then than they did after the [Catholic Churchs] Council of Trent in 1545, for example, she says. And during the Baroque period in the 17th century, their situation was far worse. The Feminas course also touched on womens dress in the Middle Ages. Laura Rodriguez Peinado, a professor of art history at Complutense University of Madrid, explained that womens clothing was very similar to mens The tunic or saya was the basic garment, and was worn over a shirt, which was the undergarment, she said. The lower classes used fabrics made from wool or hemp and they wore their clothes until they fell apart. And they used poor quality dyes. Meanwhile, the ruling classes had a selection of fine garments, although they did not have a large wardrobe. These, she says, were made from fine wool and linen, cotton and silk fabrics with exquisite decoration and bright colors. Rodriguez Peinado highlighted the fact that most of the clothes of the period were fashioned by women. Although it was the men that ran the workshops, it was the women who made the outfits, and there were female weavers with their own looms as well as professional embroiderers. Eleanor of England, the wife of Alfonso VIII of Castile, bankrolled the Huelgas monastery in Burgos Noblewomen would also embroider and weave, and they sometimes commissioned pieces to be made. In fact, there are documents indicating that the stole of Sant Narcis inside the Sant Feliu basilica in Girona, was woven and embroidered by an abbess, who also paid for it. This role of arts patron among the female elite led to the establishment of Cistercian monasteries in the peninsula in the 12th and 13th centuries. Professor Maria Concepcion Cosmen, from the Institute of Medieval Studies at the University of Leon, mentions up to 15 monasteries in present-day Castile and Leon paid for by queens, princesses and aristocratic ladies. The most significant case is that of Eleanor of England, the wife of Alfonso VIII of Castile, who bankrolled the Huelgas monastery in Burgos. Naturally, these powerful women liked to see themselves reflected in what they had paid for. According to Juan Antonio Olaneta, from the University of Barcelona, one of the scenes depicted in the prayer book commissioned by Queen Sancha of Leon for her consort Fernando I shows a scribe handing the gift to the king while looking reverentially back at the queen. After all, shed paid for it. English version by Heather Galloway. Pompeo Claims Chinese Consulate in Houston Was a 'Den of Spies' Sputnik News 12:51 GMT 30.07.2020(updated 13:40 GMT 30.07.2020) Last week, Pompeo announced that the Trump administration has been working to build a coalition of countries that would push China to change its political behaviour. The US closed the Chinese consulate in Houston because it was "a den of spies", Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, testifying at a US Senate hearing on Thursday. Last week, the US announced the closure of the consulate in Houston, with Mr Pompeo saying that the US had made this decision because China was "stealing" intellectual property. China denied the allegations. In response, Beijing ordered the closure of the US consulate in the south-western city of Chengdu, accusing its staff of meddling in its internal affairs. Speaking on Thursday, Pompeo also said that the "tide is turning" on China, referring to international support for US policies towards Beijing, including the step-up of maritime manoeuvres by Washington and its partners in the South China Sea. Previously, US Secretary of State praised the UK for its response to China's new national security law for Hong Kong, describing the recently adopted legislation as a "grip on the semi-autonomous city". He also referred to China as an aggressor over what he described as Beijing's illegal maritime claims and a cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak to pursue its own interests. "We want to see every nation who understands freedom and democracy to understand this threat being posed by the Chinese Communist Party...We hope we can build out a coalition that understands the threat," Pompeo said during a visit to the UK earlier this month. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine says the Kyiv negotiation with Iran was constructive as the two sides agree on the terms of next round. Ukraine has said its first round of talks with Iran held in Kyiv about the downing of a Ukrainian airliner in January had been constructive, but he said it was too early to say how much compensation Tehran would agree to pay. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Friday an Iranian delegation agreed to the terms of next round of talks, which according to the Ukrainian prosecutor generals office was set for October. Of course, if the negotiations with Iran are unsuccessful, then we will go to international courts and I have absolutely no doubt that we will bring Iran to justice. But this is plan B, Kuleba said. And plan A is negotiations with Iran and the solution of all these issues and the payment of compensation. We saw Iran was disposed to a serious and substantive conversation, he said. Abbas Mousavi, Irans foreign ministry spokesman, told the Iranian state news agency IRNA that his country was in principle prepared to pay damages to Ukraine. We consented to it in principle, but the matter is very time-intensive, he said. He also said the exact time of the payments was still to be determined and there remained several technical and legal matters to be examined and discussed. The downing The Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) Boeing 737 airliner was shot down by Iranian air force shortly after the takeoff on January 8, killing all 176 people on board. Iran had initially blamed the crash on a technical problem, but then admitted to unintentionally shooting down the airliner amid heightened tensions with US forces in neighbouring Iraq. In its final report on the crash from mid-July, the Iranian aviation agency spoke of human error, saying that a malfunctioning radar system caused communication problems with the responsible military unit. Iran has handed the planes cockpit black boxes over to France. They are currently being analysed by French air security authorities. The last full month of summer in Massachusetts will come with travel restrictions within the state. As out-of-state residents look to take advantage of the warm-weather weekends, or Bay State vacationers leave the commonwealth, they will all be required to quarantine or present proof of a negative coronavirus test to avoid a fine. Starting Saturday, Aug. 1, visitors from outside of New England, New York, New Jersey and Hawaii will be required to quarantine for 14 days or pass a COVID-19 test, otherwise risking a $500 fine each day under an order issued by Gov. Charlie Baker. Heres everything you need to know about the order. Does it affect Massachusetts residents? Yes. Massachusetts residents traveling beyond New England, New Jersey, New York or Hawaii will also have to quarantine for 14 days upon return to the state or face similar penalties. Whats required of travelers entering Massachusetts? The order looks to restrict travelers from states with higher COVID-19 rates. Travelers are required to fill out a Massachusetts Travel Form and quarantine for 14 days. Those opting not to quarantine for two weeks can take a COVID-19 test within 72 hours of arriving in Massachusetts. They must remain in quarantine, however, until they get their negative test results. The most important thing Ill say today is very simple: every traveler coming to Massachusetts, no matter where theyre from, has a responsibility to help keep COVID-19 out of the commonwealth, Baker said when he announced the order. Where are free testing sites located in Massachusetts? Free testing is also available at sites in Chelsea, Everett, Fall River, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, Marlborough and New Bedford, which were launched on July 10 as part of the program. The cities part of the expanded portion of the program include Agawam, Brockton, Methuen, Randolph, Revere, Springfield, Taunton and Worcester. The free testing program ends on Aug. 14. To see where you can get tested in your community, visit: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/stop-the-spread. Massachusetts has created a website that provides locations for COVID-19 testing across the state. It includes filters that can search by cost, if children are tested, if referrals are required and what kinds of tests are administered. All that information can be found here. Baystate Health is also hosting COVID-19 testing sites in Springfield, Greenfield, Westfield and Ware. More information can be found here. On Monday, Aug. 3, free testing, hand sanitizer and masks will be provided in Worcester at the Main South CDC at 875 Main St. Are college students, military personnel included in the order? The order includes college students from those higher-risk areas entering the state for the fall semester. The order doesnt include travelers passing through the state, including those who cross state lines for work, people entering the state for medical treatment, military personnel complying with orders and others providing essential services per federal law. What are the penalties for not complying? Those who fail to comply with the new order face a $500 fine per day. It is still unclear, however, how this will be enforced. People can, as they have in many other cases, if theyre concerned about this or if they see somebody they believe is violating this, notify either their local board of health or the commonwealths Department of Public Health, or they can call 211, Baker said, responding to the question of enforcement. But the goal here is to rely on what weve relied on from the beginning, which is that people, generally speaking, follow the rules. Whats the status of coronavirus cases in Massachusetts? On Thursday, Baker said officials are reviewing the states guidance on public gathering sizes in light of recent parties and groups that are tied to clusters of COVID-19 infections in parts of the state. Parties across the country, including some on Cape Cod, have come under scrutiny as tinderboxes for COVID-19 transmissions at a time when officials are urging the public to continue wearing masks and social distancing. Also on Thursday, state officials announced another 15 coronavirus deaths on for a total of 8,375 statewide. Officials also confirmed another 304 cases of the virus, for a total of at least 109,400. Officials in Worcester also announced a substantial number of new cases. Since last week, the Worcester has counted 88 new cases of coronavirus for a total of 5,502 so far during the pandemic, the city wrote in a news release. This is the second consecutive week in which the number of new cases has increased in the city. Last week, the city announced 63 new cases, which was an increase from the 43 cases reported on July 16. Related Content: Max Verstappen topped FP1 of the British Grand Prix as he beat Lewis Hamilton and Lance Stroll to top spot. The Dutchman set a 1:27.422 to top the session, 0.474 ahead of Hamilton After a weekend of rest, the Formula 1 circus resumed with the first of two weekends at Silverstone, starting with FP1 of the British Grand Prix. Nico Hulkenberg replaced Sergio Perez this weekend, after the Mexican tested positive for coronavirus. It was the first time the German took part in an F1 session since the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix... Only three races ago. Hulkenberg went out on an installation lap early in the session. He didn't set a time and quickly returned to the pit lane. Lando Norris, Kimi Raikkonen, Pierre Gasly and Max Verstappen all set early times. Raikkonen spun his Alfa Romeo at Luffield but he managed to keep his car out of the pile of tyres and kept the engine running. This allowed him to drive out of the gravel trap back to the pits without too much trouble. Antonio Giovinazzi also spun and had fierce flatspots. The Italian brought his car to the pits in a shaky state. The debris left from the incident meant racing was paused by a red flag. It took about ten minutes to clean up the mess and the drivers got back on the track. Both Mercedes were at the top of the timesheet again. Also Lance Stroll was doing well with half an hour to go, the Canadian was P4. With half an hour Hulkenberg seemed to have found his rhythm. The German rides at 1.7 seconds off the fastest time of Hamilton in tenth place and drives many laps. Shortly after that he manages to improve to sixth position. Meanwhile Verstappen is in first place with a 1:27,422 with twenty minutes to go. The time he set he drove on the soft tyre. Lewis Hamilton is at 0,474 seconds and Stroll is in the top 3. Charles Leclerc was the only Ferrari driver to take part in FP1 as it was confirmed Vettel would not take part. The Monegasque managed to lay down a respectable P5 in FP1 after a tough start to the first three races. But it was Max Verstappen who topped the session with a 1:27.422s ahead of Hamilton and Lance Stroll. After a tough race in Hungary Verstappen and Red Bull looked to have solved some of their problems from last time out. Alex Albon did enough for fourth as he continues to adapt to the Red Bull car. A lot of the headlines will go to Nico Hulkenberg who finished P9, 1.1 seconds off the lead. Guwahati, July 31 : Bhutan's King Jigme Khesar has highly appreciated the Assam government for allowing movement of vehicles carrying essential commodities to the neighbouring country amid the lockdown and ensuring the wellbeing of the people. An Assam government official statement on Friday said that Bhutan King Jigme Khesar hailed Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and his government and thanked him for helping the neighbouring country in tackling the pressing situation precipitated in view of the Covid-induced lockdown. The Bhutan King in a letter to Assam Chief Minister said : "Though Assam with its people fought it hard to contain the pandemic with necessary lockdown and curtailment of people's movement, the benevolence of the authorities of the state in allowing movement of vehicles carrying essential commodities to Bhutan helped its people and ensured their wellbeing during the lockdown period." The King terming the gesture as a "true reflection of the close ties of friendship and brotherhood between the people of Assam and Bhutan", said : "I remain appreciative of your goodwill and look forward to your continued support." The Bhutan King also said that the efforts of the state government would very soon stem the spread of the corona virus as he empathised with the people of Assam in these trying times. The statement said that the Chief Minister also expressed his gratitude to the King. "Ever-increasing bond of friendship and brotherliness between Assam and Bhutan will keep strengthening the mutual ties in days to come," the Assam government statement said. The landlocked Himalayan country is dependent mostly on the land routes through neighbouring Indian state Assam for its supply of essentials, food grains, medicines and various equipments and machineries. There are several roads to Bhutan through Assam and these roads were kept open by administration in Assam during the lockdown period for the benefit of Bhutan which is also strategically so important to India. The three northeastern states of India -- Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim share 267 km, 217 km and 32 km borders with Bhutan respectively. Chinese battery-grade lithium compound prices were stable in the week to Thursday July 30, with some carbonate producers keeping offers firm to test the market, while the lithium hydroxide spot price in Europe and the United States narrowed downward. Chinas battery-grade lithium carbonate and hydroxide prices steady during the week. Chinas industrial-grade lithium carbonate price firm with offers at a high level, lending support to the battery-grade market. Limited fluctuation in Asian lithium spot prices but sentiment remains bearish. Europe, US lithium hydroxide price softens in quiet market. Chinese battery-grade lithium carbonate producers continued to insist on firm prices this past week in light of a slight improvement in downstream demand and firm pricing for industrial-grade material. This supported the lithium carbonate, 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price range exw domestic China at 37,000-41,000 yuan per tonne ($5,281-5,852) on Thursday, unchanged from previous week. Meanwhile, Fastmarkets lithium carbonate index, min 99.5% Li2O3, battery grade, exw China rose by 0.5% week on week to 38,593 yuan per tonne from 38,413 yuan per tonne, reflecting the offers at the high end of the assessment range. This was the second consecutive rise in the index. We are insisting on high offers of above 40,000 yuan per tonne for battery-grade lithium carbonate this week. Though buyers are unwilling to accept higher prices for the moment, we would like to insist for a while to test market acceptance, a producer source told Fastmarkets. Purchasing prices from big buyers remain unchanged, but some small-sized buying prices might see a slight increase, a second producer source said. A buyer, meanwhile, said deals are still around 38,000 yuan per tonne despite the slightly higher offers, adding it would be hard for domestic battery-grade carbonate prices in China to pick up as overall demand remains slow. Chinas technical and industrial grade lithium carbonate price remained firm because producer inventories are at low levels. Fastmarkets assessed the Chinese technical and industrial grade lithium carbonate spot price at 31,000-34,000 yuan per tonne on Thursday July 30, unchanged from the previous week. We keep hearing higher offers for industrial-grade carbonate, but the real trading activity from downstream buyers is still thin as most buyers have already purchased material in previous weeks when prices were cheaper, a trader said. Fastmarkets corresponding lithium hydroxide monohydrate, 56.5% LiOH.H2O min, battery grade, spot price range exw domestic China was at 45,000-51,000 yuan per tonne on July 30, unchanged from a week ago. Market participants said downstream demand has not improved significantly this week. Asian seaborne lithium market quiet The seaborne cif China, Japan and South Korea battery-grade lithium carbonate and hydroxide priced were also steady on Thursday. Fastmarkets assessed the lithium carbonate, 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price at $6.50-8 per kg on a cif China, Japan and Korea basis and the lithium hydroxide monohydrate, 56.5% LiOH.H2O min, battery grade, spot price stood at $8.80-10 per kg. I think Asian seaborne prices remain under pressure considering current slow trading activities, and continued lower offers, especially on the spot market. We havent purchased this week as we still have stock, a second buyer said. Europe, US lithium prices continue to soften The European and the US lithium hydroxide technical-grade and battery-grade spot prices drifted lower in the seven days to July 30 following the bearish trend in a lithium market that is showing no sign of recovery. Fastmarkets assessed the lithium hydroxide monohydrate 56.5% LiOH.H2O min, technical and industrial grades, spot price ddp Europe and US at $7.5-9 per kg on July 30, widening downward from $7.60-9 a week prior. Fastmarkets lithium hydroxide monohydrate 56.5% LiOH.H2O min, battery grade, spot price ddp Europe and US followed suit, falling to $9.75-10.50 per kg on Thursday from $9.75-11 per kg a week prior. A seller active in both Europe and the seaborne Asia markets said he did not expect to see much recovery in prices before the end of this year. Although demand has never been totally quiet through the Covid-19 pandemic, [it is slower than usual] but we have received regular customers inquiries, the same seller added. The softening in prices is also a sign of European and US prices converging with the more liquid seaborne lithium Asia market which traditionally trades at a discount to Europe and the US. The lithium carbonate spot market in Europe and the United States has remained static over the past fortnight at $8-9 per kg after falling at the beginning of July. In other related developments, Swedish battery-maker Northvolt announced on July 29 the signing of a $1.6 billion debt raise sourced by a consortium of commercial banks, pension funds and public financial institutions such as the European Investment Bank. " The momentum for electrification is stronger than ever. Our customers need large volumes of high-quality batteries with a low CO2 footprint, and Europe must build a fully regionalized value chain to support them," Peter Carlsonn, co-founder and chief executive of Northvolt said. Learn more about Fastmarkets lithium pricing methodology here and read the latest lithium price spotlight here. Fastmarkets trade log for battery-grade lithium carbonate in China for July includes all trades, bids and offers reported to Fastmarkets. All lithium carbonate, hydroxide and spodumene prices are available in our Battery Raw Materials Market Tracker. Get a sample of the report here. TEHRAN, Iran - Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Friday his country will not negotiate with the United States because America would only use talks for propaganda purposes. The Trump administration has said it is willing to talk with Iran with no preconditions, but that the U.S. will continue its campaign of pressure against the Islamic Republic. In a televise speech marking the Eid al-Adha holiday, Khamenei said President Donald Trump would benefit from talks, saying Trump wants to use negotiations with us for propaganda like negotiations with North Korea. Khamenei was referring to talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong un. Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear accord between Iran and Western powers in May 2018. Iran later responded by slowly abandoning nearly every aspect of the agreement, though it still allows U.N. inspectors access to its nuclear sites. Trump has maintained that the deal needs to be renegotiated because it didnt address Irans ballistic missile program or its involvement in regional conflicts. The other signatories to the nuclear deal Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia have been struggling to keep it alive. Khamenei said the U.S. wants Iran to give up its nuclear program, defence facilities and regional authority at the negotiating table. He said economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.S. are a crime against Iran. The sanctions are apparently against Irans ruling system, but (in fact) they are against the Iranian people inside. He said Iranians suffering under the sanctions affecting the economy inevitably would stand up against the ruling system. A sharp rise in subsidized gasoline prices led to four days of unrest in cities and towns across Iran in November, in which Amnesty International said more than 300 people were killed in clashes with police and security forces. Tehran has yet to release any official statistics about the scale of the unrest, though in June the government acknowledged that security forces shot and killed protesters. A lawmaker said 230 people were killed in the anti-government protests. Read more about: Authorities in Cambodia arrested outspoken union chief Rong Chhun from his home in Phnom Penh on Friday in connection with a statement he made claiming that the country had ceded land to Vietnam along their shared border, according to officials. Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions and a member of the Cambodia Watchdog Council, was taken into custody on charges of incitement to commit a felony or cause social unrest under Article 495 of Cambodias Penal Code, Ministry of Justice spokesman Chhin Malin told RFAs Khmer Service, confirming an earlier report by government-aligned Fresh News. Fresh News had quoted Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesperson Kuch Kimlong as saying Rong Chhun had been arrested for allegedly distorting news on [the] border issue, adding that he had committed a crime in flagrante delicto, or was caught in the act. On July 20, Rong Chhun had visited Trapeang Phlong commune, in Tbong Khmum provinces Ponhea Kraek district, where Cambodians claimed recently placed border posts had caused them to lose land to neighboring Vietnam. The following day, he issued a statement on behalf of the Cambodia Watchdog Council in which he cited irregularities with the placement of border posts 114 to 119 that resulted in the loss of hundreds of hectares (one hectare = 2.5 acres) of ancestral land belonging to area farmers. However, on Friday, Cambodias official Cambodia Border Committee rejected Rong Chhuns claims, saying his organization had disseminated fake news based on groundless accusations. Rong Chhun colluded with bad actors who claimed their ancestral land was taken by Vietnamese soldiers who ousted them from their farms, the committee said in the statement. Kuy Pisey, vice president of the Cambodia Border Committee, told RFA following the release of the statement that the current border demarcation is based on documentation and that no farmers have lost land. She said the government controls around 60 hectares (150 acres) in Ponhea Kraek district that area farmers never controlled and accused the Cambodia Watchdog Council of trying to confuse people with fake news. What the government has done is not a jokewe are committed to protecting our territory, she said. Rong Chhun, who is also the former president of Cambodias Teachers Association and a former member of the countrys National Election Committee, stood by his July 21 statement in an interview with RFA on Friday. I am only a union memberI dont need to be popular, he said, adding that the Cambodia Border Committees accusations do not reflect my statement. It is the truth, based on the villagers who said they lost around 500 meters (1,640 feet) of their land to the border The border committee must be brave enough to accept the truth. Not long afterwards, police took Rong Chhun into custody for questioning. He is currently being held at an undisclosed location within Phnom Penh, according to family members. Whereabouts unknown Soeung Sengkaruna, a spokesman for local rights group Adhoc, told RFA that he visited the Phnom Penh Municipal Police headquarters, but learned little of Rong Chhuns situation. We want to find out his conditionis he safe and healthy, he said, adding that it was too early for him to comment on the charges facing Rong Chhun. Um Sam An, a former lawmaker from the banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) who once served a prison term for criticizing the countrys handling of the border issue, told RFA that the government is shutting up nationalists. He claimed that farmers are losing land because Cambodia is demarcating the border based on a treaty from 1985, when Vietnam occupied the country following its ouster of the Khmer Rouge regime six years earlier. What Rong Chhun was trying to do was to protect villagers from losing their land, he said. I praise Rong Chhuns conscience and condemn the government for his arrest. Border dispute Rong Chhuns arrest follows the discovery by Cambodian authorities of 31 military shelters, housing armed Vietnamese soldiers, in Kandal provinces Koh Thom and Leuk Daek districts, which prompted Cambodias embassy in Hanoi to issue a May 13 diplomatic demarche, demanding that the structures be taken down. By the end of May, only three had been removed, according to Cambodias Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Authorities in Vietnams An Giang province had claimed troops were deployed to guard the area against illegal entrants who could potentially cause an outbreak of the coronavirus, but border activists, including Rong Chhun, said the move amounted to an invasion of Cambodian territory. Unresolved border issues between Cambodia and Vietnam, former French colonies from the 1860s to 1954, have sparked incidents in the past, with the construction by Vietnam of military posts in contested areas quickly challenged by Cambodian authorities in Phnom Penh. In June 2015, activists from the CNRP were attacked by Vietnamese villagers when they went to inspect an area in Svay Rieng province where they said a road built by authorities in Vietnams Long An province had encroached into Cambodian territory. A joint communique signed by Cambodia and Vietnam in 1995 stipulates that neither side can make any changes to border markers or allow cross-border cultivation or settlement pending the resolution of outstanding border issues. Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. Liverpool, N.Y. A coronavirus outbreak at a 56-bed memory care center in Liverpool has infected 38 residents since July 2, nine of whom have died, operators of the facility told families Thursday night. There are not enough words or feelings which can convey what a loss this is for our families and our community here,' the director of The Hearth at Keepsake Village wrote in an email. The virus also has infected 21 staff members, according to the email from Michelle Gillespie, executive director. Ten days ago, Keepsake Village officials had reported three deaths from the outbreak. Gillespies email Thursday said the facility received some clarification' from the state health department concerning how it reports deaths, but she did not elaborate. Weekly testing of staff members first detected a Keepsake Village worker with Covid-19 on June 16, company officials said previously. That was the first known presence of the virus within the facility, said Kevin Hunter, chief operating officer of parent company Hearth Management, earlier this month. The first resident tested positive for the disease July 2, Hunter said today. Within two weeks, Keepsake Village had sent 22 residents to local hospitals and 18 staff members had caught the virus, Hunter said. At this point, eight of the staff members who contracted the disease have recovered and returned to work, Hunter said today. Five residents also have recovered and returned to Keepsake Village from hospitals, he said. Hunter said the facility has worked with state and county health officials during the outbreak. They have all been extremely supportive,' he said. The outbreak was especially challenging because residents at Keepsake Village have memory issues, dementia or Alzheimers disease, Hunter said. They often require close contact with staff and resist wearing masks and social distancing, he said. Keepsake Village plans a new round of coronavirus testing for residents, to be completed next week, Hunter said. Like other state-regulated adult care facilities, Keepsake Village routinely tests workers once a week. News tips? Contact reporter Tim Knauss of syracuse.com/The Post-Standard: email | Twitter | | 315-470-3023 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. Stock pickers are generally looking for stocks that will outperform the broader market. And while active stock picking involves risks (and requires diversification) it can also provide excess returns. For example, long term United Overseas Australia Limited (ASX:UOS) shareholders have enjoyed a 28% share price rise over the last half decade, well in excess of the market return of around 3.3% (not including dividends). Check out our latest analysis for United Overseas Australia While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS). During five years of share price growth, United Overseas Australia actually saw its EPS drop 3.6% per year. So it's hard to argue that the earnings per share are the best metric to judge the company, as it may not be optimized for profits at this point. Therefore, it's worth taking a look at other metrics to try to understand the share price movements. It is not great to see that revenue has dropped by 2.9% per year over five years. So it seems one might have to take closer look at earnings and revenue trends to see how they might influence the share price. You can see below how earnings and revenue have changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image). Take a more thorough look at United Overseas Australia's financial health with this free report on its balance sheet. What About Dividends? As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. As it happens, United Overseas Australia's TSR for the last 5 years was 62%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments! Story continues A Different Perspective While it's certainly disappointing to see that United Overseas Australia shares lost 6.0% throughout the year, that wasn't as bad as the market loss of 7.7%. Of course, the long term returns are far more important and the good news is that over five years, the stock has returned 10% for each year. It could be that the business is just facing some short term problems, but shareholders should keep a close eye on the fundamentals. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand United Overseas Australia better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for United Overseas Australia (1 is a bit concerning!) that you should be aware of before investing here. If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on AU exchanges. 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. Developing Telecoms has participated in the session with Luc Hindryckx, Director General of European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA), at the Huawei Better World Summit. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200731005335/en/ Luc Hindryckx, Director General of European Competitive Telecommunications Association (Photo: Business Wire) Over the past months, ECTA members have been working around the clock for the networks, services and their users. In a letter to the executive vice president Margrethe Vestager, the chairman of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen,said: "in striving for digital leadership, we must focus on making the markets work better for consumers, businesses, and society, and that we must support industry to adapt to globalization and twin climate and digital transitions. We need companies that compete on equal terms, and consumers that can benefit from lower prices, greater choice, and better quality." A competitive telecoms and digital sector can be a driving force for all the sectors of the economy to successfully address the challenges. Ubiquitous high performance 5G, fibre, and comparable network technologies are increasingly understood to be essential common infrastructure. France, one of the most competitive B2C markets in Europe, with four main integrated fixed/mobile MNOs along with several MVNOs and fibre deployment initiatives, has invested 10,4 Billion in Fixed and Mobile networks year on year for the last 5 years. This indicates the scale and importance of the investment needs, and that competition drives investment. Competition also drives customer service. In Spain, Masmovil entered the Spanish market as a result of the remedies imposed by the European Commission, DG Competition. In an already well-served market it enabled them to successfully focus on customer service and progress to a leading position in the GFK net promoter score. Unlike the last two decades, the new telecom policy focus for the next decade will be B2B. This will require a change in business approach from a focus on the consumer mass market to enabling business users across all industrial sectors, from start-ups to established conglomerates. Developing Telecoms believes that digital transformation has never been so important as it is today for all sectors of the economy. The fear of cannibalizing the existing models is one of the biggest barriers to innovation for well established players. Developing Telecoms also thinks that sufficient competition in all elements of the value chain is most beneficial to society since competition forces market players to keep innovating. About Developing Telecoms Developing Telecoms is the leading online news portal for telecoms in emerging markets, delivering telecommunications news and information for senior management and decision makers at network operators, governments and end users. Developing Telecoms receives 2.2 million yearly page views and gets over 760,000 yearly online visitors. Its weekly emerging markets newsletter has over 40,000 subscribers. Developing Telecoms publishes a range of special reports about telecoms in emerging markets spanning topics including 5G, IoT, Smart Cities and Last Mile Connectivity. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200731005335/en/ Contacts: Media Alec Barton +44 7799 417751 alec@developingtelecoms.com Dublin, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma (PTCL) - Market Insights, Epidemiology and Market Forecast - 2030" drug pipelines has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. This report delivers an in-depth understanding of the PTCL, historical and forecasted epidemiology as well as the PTCL market trends in the United States, EU5 (Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and United Kingdom) and Japan. The PTCL market report provides current treatment practices, emerging drugs, and market share of the individual therapies, current and forecasted 7MM PTCL market size from 2017 to 2030. The report also covers current PTCL treatment practice/algorithm, market drivers, market barriers and unmet medical needs to curate the best of the opportunities and assesses the underlying potential of the market. Epidemiology The disease epidemiology covered in the report provides historical as well as forecasted epidemiology segmented by Total Incident Cases of PTCL, Stage-specific Incident Cases of PTCL, and Subtype-specific Cases of PTCL, a scenario of PTCL in the 7MM covering the United States, EU5 countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and United Kingdom) and Japan from 2017 to 2030. Key Findings The total incident population of PTCL in the seven major markets was 16,298 in 2017, which is expected to increase in the forecast period. The United States accounted for the maximum incident population among the 7MM in 2017. In EU5 countries, Germany accounted for the highest cases of PTCL while Spain had the lowest incident population in 2017. The estimates suggest higher incidence of PTCL in the United States with 6,110 cases in 2017 The epidemiological model of estimates a higher proportion of PTCL cases was found in stage IV as compared to other stages in the United States. In 2017, stage I, stage II, stage III, and stage IV PTCL incident cases were 876, 727, 1,434, and 3,074 respectively. PTCL-NOS accounts for 31% of all incident cases of PTCL followed by Anaplastic Large-Cell Lymphoma (ALCL) with 26% in the United States in year 2017. Other major subtypes include AITL Nasal NK/T-cell lymphoma, Enteropathy-type intestinal TCL, Hepatosplenic TCL and Others. In 2017, the incident cases of PTCL-NOS, ALCL, AITL, nasal NK/T-cell lymphoma, enteropathy-type intestinal TCL, hepatosplenic TCL, and others in the United States were 1,917, 1,577, 1,380, 412, 179, 90, and 555 respectively. Story continues Drug Chapters This segment of the PTCL report encloses the detailed analysis of the mid- and late-stage (Phase-III and Phase-II) pipeline drugs. It also helps to understand the clinical trial details, expressive pharmacological action, agreements and collaborations, approval and patent details of each included drug and the latest news and press releases. Emerging Drugs Denileukin diftitox: Eisai Denileukin diftitox (DD) is a recombinant cytotoxic fusion protein which is being developed by Eisai. The drug is administered intravenously, that binds the enzymatically active portion of the diphtheria toxin to the receptor-binding domain of the interleukin-2 molecule, thereby targeting cells producing the IL-2 receptor. Denileukin diftitox is already approved with name, Ontak for Cutaneous T-cell Lymphoma. The drug candidate is in Phase II stage of development for Peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) in Japan. Azacitidine (CC-486): Celgene Corporation Azacitidine (CC-486) is being developed by Celgene Corporation. Azacitidine (CC-486) is an oral hypomethylating agent that incorporates into DNA and RNA, allowing sustained epigenetic regulation due to prolonged exposure. The main mechanism of action is thought to be hypomethylation of DNA, as well as direct cytotoxicity to abnormal hematopoietic cells in the bone marrow. Currently, the company is investigating the molecule in two phase III clinical trial for Relapsed or Refractory AITL, and phase II clinical trial for Previously Untreated PTCL. HBI-8000: HUYA Bioscience International/Quintiles HBI-8000 (Chidamide/CS055), is a member of the benzamide class of histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs), and HUYA Bioscience International is developing this molecule, as the first approved, oral class I selective HDACI. It works by controlling how tightly DNA is wound around histone proteins, which regulate gene expression. HHBI-8000 became the first benzamide HDAC inhibitor approved worldwide when the drug was approved for the treatment of PTCL in China, where it is now marketed under the trade name Epidaza. Currently, the company is investigating the molecule in phase II clinical trial in Japan, in patients with relapsed or refractory PTCL. Copiktra (Duvelisib): Verastem Copiktra (Duvelisib), is a targeted oral inhibitor of phosphoinositide 3-kinase developed by Verastem. The phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway is a key regulator of cancer proliferation (rapid increase or spread) and metastasis (development of secondary growths away from a primary site of cancer). Currently, the company is investigating the molecule in phase II PRIMO Study in patients with relapsed or refractory PTCL. The company is planning to build upon their existing Fast Track Designation and Orphan Drug Designation and submit a regulatory package to the US FDA to broaden the use of COPIKTRA and to include treatment of PTCL. Tislelizumab: BeiGene Tislelizumab (BGB-A317) is an investigational humanized IgG4 anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody, administered intravenously that is specifically designed to minimize binding to FcR on macrophages. Currently, the molecule is under investigation in phase II clinical study, relapsed or refractory mature T- and NK- Neoplasms (nasal or non-nasal type, peripheral T-cell lymphoma - not otherwise specified, angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, anaplastic large cell lymphoma, mycosis fungoides, or Sezary syndrome). Keytruda: Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp Keytruda is a potent and highly selective humanized monoclonal antibody (mAb) of the IgG4/kappa isotype against PD-1, designed to block its interaction with PD-L1 and PD-L2 directly which is developed by Merck. Moreover, pembrolizumab is a monoclonal antibody that binds to the PD-1 receptor and blocks its interaction with PD-L1 and PD-L2, releasing PD-1 pathway-mediated inhibition of the immune response, including the antitumor immune response. SP-02 (Darinaparsin, ZIO-101): Solasia Pharma A novel mitochondrial-targeted agent (organic arsenic) SP-02 is being developed by Solasia Pharma for the treatment of various hematologic and solid cancers. It is being developed to administer intravenously for the treatment of PTCL. The exact mechanism of darinaparsin is not known, but it appears to generate volatile cytotoxic arsenic compounds when glutathione (GSH) concentrations are low. Ruxolitinib: Incyte/Novartis Ruxolitinib is an orally administered selective kinase inhibitor that inhibits Janus Associated Kinases (JAKs) JAK1 and JAK2. Incyte and Novartis together are developing Ruxolitinib, which is in phase II stage development for PTCL in collaboration with the University of Nebraska. Ruxolitinib is marketed under the brand name Jakafi for the treatment of Myelofibrosis, including Primary Myelofibrosis, Post-Polycythemia Vera Myelofibrosis and post-essential Thrombocythemia Myelofibrosis. Market Outlook Treatment for PTCL aims to cure and includes the use of combination chemotherapy regimens, localized radiotherapy, stem cell transplants and steroid therapy, etc. It is most often treated with a combination of chemotherapies which includes CHOP (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone) and CHOEP or EPOCH (etoposide, vincristine, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, and prednisone). In some cases, stem cell or bone marrow transplant is recommended at the end of combination chemotherapy. There are only five FDA approved products for PTCL treatment, including Beleodaq (Belinostat, Acrotech Biopharma); Istodax (Romidepsin, Celgene), Folotyn (Pralatrexate, Acrotech Biopharma), Arranon (Nelarabine, GlaxoSmithKline), and Adcetris (Brentuximab vedotin, Seattle Genetics). In the past years, with no current standard of care for patients with PTCL, there were no approved therapies for the first-line treatment. But recent approval of Adcetris (Brentuximab vedotin) in November 2018 from the US FDA has changed the market landscape. It is now the only FDA-approved regimen in first-line therapy used in combination with chemotherapy for adults with previously untreated systemic ALCL or other CD30-expressing PTCL. Apart from the available approved therapies, there are some off-label therapies and other emerging therapies that are available for PTCL treatment. Some of the off-label therapies which have been listed in the NCCN guidelines for Relapsed PTCL are MabThera (Rituxan), Bortezomib, Bendamustine, Lenalidomide, and Alemtuzumab. A study conducted by Abramson et al. (2014), determined the impact of PTCL therapies. The study included a retrospective analysis of 341 newly diagnosed PTCL patients from nine US academic centers diagnosed from January 2000 to December 2010. The outcome was compared with a matched cohort of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients, and prognostic factors were assessed using unilabiate and multivariate analyses. The study shows that 7% of the patients received only palliative care whereas 318 received chemotherapy: CHOP-like regimens (70%), hyperCVAD/MA (hyperfractionated cyclophosphamide, vincristine, adriamycin, dexamethasone/methotrexate, cytarabine) (6%), or other (18%). The termed other' was given to EPOCH, CMED (cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, etoposide, and dexamethasone), gemcitabine-based, ifosfamide-based, and other therapies. Ten percent of patients underwent stem-cell transplantation (SCT) in the first remission. The overall response rate was 73% (61% complete), and 24% had the primary refractory disease (Abramson et al., 2014). In Japan, the primary treatment of PTCL is CHOP that has a response rate of 5065% (Kitazume et al., 2019). However, patients who are resistant to this therapy have an extremely poor prognosis. Standard line therapy for R/R PTCL is not established; however, pralatrexate, combination chemotherapy, brentuximab, and romidepsin are used. The approved therapies for the treatment of PTCL in Japan includes Istodax (romidepsin), Folotyn (pralatrexate), Poteligeo (mogamulizumab), Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin), Mundesine (forodesine hydrochloride), and Arranon (nelarabine). Key Findings The market size of PTCL the seven major markets was found to be USD 815.38 Million in 2017. According to estimates, the United States accounts for the largest market size of PTCL, in comparison to Japan and EU5 (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and United Kingdom). Among the EU5 countries, Germany had the highest market size in 2017. Among 7MM, Japan accounts for the second-highest market size during the forecast period 2017-2030. Drugs Uptake This section focusses on the rate of uptake of the potential drugs that are expected to get launched in the market during the study period 2017-2030. The analysis covers PTCL market uptake by drugs; patient uptake by therapies; and sales of each drug. This helps in understanding the drugs with the most rapid uptake, reasons behind the maximal use of new drugs and allow the comparison of the drugs on the basis of market share and size which again will be useful in investigating factors important in market uptake and in making financial and regulatory decisions. Development Activities The report provides insights into different therapeutic candidates in phase II, and phase III stage. It also analyzes key players involved in developing targeted therapeutics. Pipeline Activities The report covers the detailed information of collaborations, acquisition and merger, licensing and patent details for PTCL emerging therapies. Competitive Intelligence Analysis The publisher performs competitive and market intelligence analysis of the PTCL market by using various competitive intelligence tools that include-SWOT analysis, PESTLE analysis, Porter's five forces, BCG Matrix, Market entry strategies, etc. The inclusion of the analysis entirely depends upon the data availability. Scope of the Report The report covers the descriptive overview of PTCL, explaining its causes, signs and symptoms, pathogenesis and currently available therapies. Comprehensive insight has been provided into the PTCL epidemiology and treatment. Additionally, an all-inclusive account of both the current and emerging therapies for PTCL is provided, along with the assessment of new therapies, which will have an impact on the current treatment landscape. A detailed review of PTCL market; historical and forecasted is included in the report, covering the 7MM drug outreach. The report provides an edge while developing business strategies by understanding trends shaping and driving the 7MM PTCL market. Report Highlights The seven major PTCL market is anticipated to increase with a CAGR of 8.43% for the study period 2017-2030. The United States accounted for 53.58% of the market share in the 7MM. Adcetris and Istodax (Romidepsin) for the first line treatment of PTCL is projected to lead the market with the highest market share in 2030. In the coming years, PTCL market is set to change due to the rising awareness of the disease, and incremental healthcare spending across the world; which would expand the size of the market to enable the drug manufacturers to penetrate more into the market. The companies and academics are working to assess challenges and seek opportunities that could influence PTCL R&D. The therapies under development are focused on novel approaches to treat/improve the disease condition. Major players are involved in developing therapies for PTCL. Launch of emerging therapies will significantly impact the PTCL market. In-depth analysis of the pipeline assets across different stages of development (phase III and phase II), different emerging trends and comparative analysis of pipeline products with detailed clinical profiles, key competitors, launch date along with product development activities will support the clients in the decision-making process regarding their therapeutic portfolio by identifying the overall scenario of the research and development activities. Companies Mentioned Eisai Celgene Corporation HUYA Bioscience International/Quintiles Verastem BeiGene Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. Solasia Pharma Incyte/Novartis For more information about this drug pipelines report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/jjni0g 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 Douglas County's health director said Friday that the Nebraska Attorney General's Office challenged her ability to implement a mask requirement in Omaha, so she is backing off her plan to do so. Adi Pour said she will continue to review data every day, "but for now, I have to trust everybody in this community to do the right thing moving ahead." Pour said last week that she thought it was time to require masks in indoor public spaces in Omaha. "We need to get our cases under control if we want to get our schools open," Pour said at a press briefing with Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert last Thursday. Stothert, who was at the Friday briefing where Pour announced the decision, said wearing a mask is very important and will control the spread of the coronavirus. But she said wearing a mask will be "a simple request we want to make to citizens of Omaha," not a requirement. Stothert said she had talked to the president of the Omaha City Council, Chris Jerram, about drafting a resolution that would let the council send a statement to the community strongly supporting the wearing of masks in public places. In May 2020, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) investigated complaints against 251 advertisements, of which 23 were promptly withdrawn by the advertisers. ASCI acted against 222 advertisements on a suo motu basis and its Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) upheld 209 cases. Of the complaints, other than those against the withdrawn advertisements, the CCC evaluated 228 advertisements. Complaints against 221 were upheld. Of these, 162 belonged to the Healthcare sector, 47 to Education, 1 to Food & Beverages, 1 to Personal care and 10 to Others category. As the lockdown was enforced across India, several advertisers, especially in Healthcare, made false claims about COVID-19 cures and preventions. The Ministry of AYUSH sought help from ASCI to alert it about such advertisements. In the months of April and May, over 100 such cases were flagged to the regulator. This period also happened to be the run-up to the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, coming into force on July 20. The law marks a new era of consumer rights in India, providing for jail terms and steep fines for errant marketers. Welcoming it, ASCI is hoping to collaborate with the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) for effective co-regulation. The CCPA, it has been announced, will be headquartered in New Delhi and its members have been named. ASCI already has a successful MoU with the Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA). It hopes to work closely with the CCPA on advertising codes and complaint redressal. In 2015, ASCI and the DoCA tied up to launch the Grievance Against Misleading Advertisements (GAMA) initiative, a portal on which complaints against errant advertisements could be lodged. ASCI manages the back end, judging every complaint received as per its codes. When advertisers do not assure compliance, it is escalated to the regulatory authority. Since the launch of GAMA, ASCI has looked at over 15,500 complaints on the portal. This is a perfect example of co-regulation. Rohit Gupta, Chairman, ASCI, said, We believe in the effectiveness of co-regulation essentially self-regulation acting in alignment with government laws and guidelines. The new law is a tremendous opportunity for the advertising industry and brands to raise their standards even higher and to put the consumer firmly at the centre of their efforts. It paves the way for advertising that is more informative and honest while introducing serious disincentives for violators. As an advertising self-regulator, ASCI has succeeded over the past 35 years to establish and maintain consumer trust in advertising, acting swiftly and effectively against misinformation. With the new law in place, ASCI is strengthening its monitoring mechanism by including digital media in it. Its National Advertising Monitoring Service already tracks potentially misleading ads nationally for suo motu action. On the impact of COVID-19 on the advertising industry in general and ASCI in particular, Gupta said, The past four months have been extremely challenging as we got familiar with virtual processes of monitoring advertisements and the functioning of the CCC. All teams are now well aligned to ensure smooth processing and timely action. Healthcare: 162 advertisements complained against Direct complaint (Three advertisements) Suo Motu Surveillance by ASCI (159advertisements) Education: 47 advertisements complained against Suo Motu Surveillance by ASCI (47 advertisements) Personal Care: 1 advertisement complained against Direct complaint (One advertisement) Food & Beverages: 1 advertisements complained against Direct complaints (One advertisement) Others: 10 advertisements complained against Direct complaints (Seven advertisements) Suo Motu Surveillance by ASCI (Three advertisements) Direct Complaints: The advertisements given below were complained against by the general public or by industry members. Of the 29 advertisements complained against, 10 advertisements were promptly withdrawn by the advertiser on receiving communication from ASCI. For the remaining 19 advertisements, complaints against 12 advertisements were upheld by the CCC. Three belonged to Healthcare, one belonged to the Food and Beverages, and one belonged to personal care. While seven advertisements belonged to the Others category. Seven other advertisements were not considered to be objectionable or in contravention of the ASCI code. US expands charges against former Twitter staff allegedly spying on dissidents for Saudi Iran Press TV Thursday, 30 July 2020 12:41 AM The United States has reportedly expanded charges against two former Twitter employees and another individual accused of spying for Saudi Arabia on dissidents. The announcement was made after reports that the USdropped charges against them. It was not clear why the US wasinitially pushing to have the case against Ahmad Abouammo and Ali Alzabarah, dismissed. A Saudi citizen named Ahmed Almutairwas also implicated as the recruiter to convinceAbouammo and Alzabarah to spy on Saudi dissidents. Abouammo and Alzabarah were allegedly using Twitter credentials to collect email addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, and other data from the accounts of the critics of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The men were charged last fall with acting as illegal foreign agents, and the FBI released wanted posters for two of them, believed to be residing in Saudi Arabia. Abouammo, a US citizen, is reportedly in custody after being arrested in Seattle, where he was then working for Microsoft, in November. Twitter said back then that it "limits access to sensitive account information to a limited group of trained and vetted employees," and that it understands "the incredible risks faced by many who use Twitter to share their perspectives with the world and to hold those in power accountable. We have tools in place to protect their privacy and their ability to do their vital work. We're committed to protecting those who use our service to advocate for equality, individual freedoms, and human rights." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Operation Smile, a nonprofit organization, has provided over 220,000 free surgeries for children born with cleft lips and cleft palates in over 60 countries. In collaboration with Operation Smile Vietnam, a group of 10 athletes from Vietnam Ekiden team have successfully completed a grueling 10-day "Trans-Vietnam Charity Run" to raise fund to help bring life-changing smiles for unfortunate Vietnamese children with facial deformities. The "Trans-Vietnam Charity Run" raised VND 1.035 billion, of which OCB Life contributed VND 900 million, which will be utilized to fund 100 surgeries for children born with cleft lip or cleft palate. The charity run started on June 10, 2020 at Lang Son border in northern Vietnam, and was completed on June 20, 2020 at Ca Mau Cape, the southern tip of mainland Vietnam, after nearly 250 hours and covering a total distance of more than 2,600km. Notable runners include Nong Van Chuyen a runner from the mountainous region, and Pham Tien San a silver-medalist at SEA Games 2017. "At OCB Life, we want to improve the quality of life in the community. The opportunity to partner with Operation Smile Vietnam to bring life-changing smiles for children through this charity run is really meaningful. Moreover, the charity run's theme of 'Changing A Life Everyday' aligns with the 'Change My Life' slogan of OCB Life," said James Franco, Senior Consultant at OCB Life. About OCB Life Pte Ltd. OCB Life Pte Ltd is a Singapore-based technology company powered by blockchain 3.0 technology. The company has developed a new-generation OCB Wallet that is integrated with a debit card. OCB Life is also developing a number of innovative applications across multiple sectors, in electronic payments, services, heathcare and wellness, real estate, finance and investments, media, and technology to help users "Change My Life". SOURCE OCB Life PTE LTD SoftBank to Buy Back up to 12% of Shares for $9.6 Billion (Bloomberg) -- SoftBank Group Corp. unveiled a fresh program to buy back almost $10 billion of its own stock, adding to repurchase plans that have helped lift shares this year. The Tokyo-based company said it would buy back as much as 12.3% of its stock for 1 trillion yen ($9.6 billion) under a program that would would run through July 2021, the fourth such program announced this year. The company has said it plans to sell 4.5 trillion yen in assets to fund repurchases and other activities. SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son turned to asset sales and stock repurchases after his shares tumbled with the coronavirus pandemic and business missteps earlier this year. The strategy has helped his companys price more than double from its low in March to the highest levels in two decades. In Fridays announcement, SoftBank said that, due to the uncertainty in market trends, repurchases under the 4.5 trillion yen asset program may not be completed until April 2021 or later. SoftBank Group shares rose as much as 2.2% to 7048 yen in Tokyo Friday. They had climbed about 45% this year before through Thursdays close. At the peak in February 2000, SoftBank reached what remains its all-time intraday high of exactly 11,000 yen. SoftBanks founder has said that surge led him to surpass Bill Gates as the worlds richest man -- if only for just three days. Analysts have been racing to adjust their models to SoftBanks repurchases. HSBC on July 22 lifted its price target 21% to 7,430 yen. Iwaicosmo Securities Co. has a target of 8,000 yen, while Tokai Tokyo Research Centers analyst has the highest among analysts tracked by Bloomberg at 10,000 yen. We continue to like the risk reward outlook at SoftBank, HSBC analysts Neale Anderson and Binnie Wong wrote. SoftBank is executing rapidly on its share buyback and debt reduction program. (Updates with details of repurchase programs from second paragraph) For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. The aging of America and the recent events of the current virus crisis underscores our need to have a greater commitment to families and caregivers of current and future older Americans. In a Zoom meeting with San Diego professional and family caregivers, one of the nation's top experts in long-term care planning made clear that the issue of long-term health care is not going to disappear. "At one time, we could ignore the problem of long-term care. Today, we see the financial costs and burdens American families face due to the consequences of aging and health issues. Former First Lady Rosalyn Carter was ahead of her time when she said there were only four kinds of people in the world; 'those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.' She was absolutely right, but too many people fail to plan, and the results are dramatic," said Matt McCann, a leading Long-Term Care Insurance specialist, speaker, and publisher of the website LTC NEWS. When he purchased LTC NEWS, McCann said he was thinking about the many families who are impacted by long-term care and those who take care of their loved ones. The website LTC NEWS provides articles, tools, and other resources to learn about long-term health care, aging, health, and retirement planning. "When I formed the company to purchase the assets of LTC NEWS, it showed our commitment to American families and caregivers, both unpaid caregivers and many people whose profession it is to take care of our loved ones. There are many affordable long-term care solutions for those who are preparing for a future retirement to choose. However, many people have not planned, and their families face how to best care for their Mom, Dad, spouse, or other loved one," McCann said. LTC NEWS will continue to offer the resources to help both those who are researching plans to address aging's financial costs and burdens. It will also offer resources and tools for those looking for care options. McCann said his company, McCann Insurance Services, Inc, will continue to offer affordable Long-Term Care Insurance solutions from all the major insurance companies. LTC NEWS will provide many resources to help people nationwide in their research. However, LTC NEWS will also have tools to help families deal with a declining parent or spouse when no advance plan was put in place. The two companies are operated independently of each other. "Whether we like it or not, we all are getting older. Just the other day, the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics tweeted an interesting and scary statistic. They said an 84-year-old woman in America could expect to live another 7 1/2 years on average, about a year longer than a man of the same age. Many of us will live well into our 80s. As a result, we will need help with everyday living activities or supervision due to cognitive decline," McCann said. McCann said many family members across the country quit their jobs or reduce their hours to be a caregiver. They had little choice as they were forced into crisis management. Unlike the many trained professional caregivers on this Zoom meeting, they received little or no training and no pay for their efforts. The result is physical and emotional distress on the family caregiver and their family. Often, McCann added, there is financial strain as well. "Professionally trained caregivers also face tremendous pressure and little pay when compared to their awesome responsibility. There is a way to provide quality care and reduce the burden American families face. However, this means facing reality with advance planning," McCann stated. Forty-five states have active Long-Term Care Insurance Partnership Programs in place. Partnership Long-Term Care Insurance offers dollar-for-dollar asset protection. In some states, total asset protection is available. With a Partnership Long-Term Care Insurance policy a family can custom design an affordable plan and safeguard savings and ensure their choice of quality care at home or in a facility. "In California, there are limited options with the Partnership Program, and the policies are expensive. There is talk of making changes so that California plans can have the same flexibility available in most states. As a result, the policies will be substantially more affordable. However, affordable LTC Insurance exists. No matter where you live, if you are age 45 to 65, you have many affordable options to consider, but you can't wait until your health changes or you get much older," McCann added. McCann called for additional tax incentives on both the federal and state levels to encourage more people to purchase these affordable policies. He said too many people, including financial advisors, know little or nothing about the partnership program. McCann said too many think Long-Term Care Insurance is too expensive, and they fail to mention it to their clients. "The fact is Long-Term Care Insurance is custom designed and very affordable for many American families. Yet, we see many professionals say otherwise. Premiums can vary over 100% between insurance companies for the same benefits. Plus, unlike the policies sold decades ago, today's Long-Term Care Insurance is easy, affordable, and rate stable income and asset protection.," McCann said. McCann said that as more people own policies, it will reduce future pressure on the Medicaid budget allowing for more money for those with little or no assets. In 2019 the top insurance companies paid over $11 billion in Long-Term Care Insurance benefits. These benefits helped people stay in their own homes and avoid or delay the need for a facility. If a person needs a facility or desires one like assisted living, they will have the tax-free resources to choose quality care without draining savings or adversely impacting income. "We, as a nation, need to support the people caring for our parents. At some point, it will be us we will need care. I encourage consumers across the country to learn the facts. Unfortunately, most financial advisors and general insurance agents lack expertise in this area. However, Long-Term Care Insurance specialists, like myself, help families find affordable coverage, so they are prepared for their longevity. We want our families to have the time to be family and not be placed into a crisis," McCann said. He recommends using some of the tools available online to start your research. The LTC NEWS Ultimate Long-Term Care Guide is an outstanding resource, according to McCann. He also suggests visiting his website, which has many tools available. McCann works with consumers nationwide that seek his assistance in helping them plan for the financial costs and burdens of aging. He is licensed nationwide and works with the major insurance companies and their many long-term care solution products. Consumers can seek his assistance directly by contacting him from his website or calling his office 866-751-7957. He is licensed in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. LTC NEWS offers many marketing and advertising opportunities, including sponsored content and sponsorship of key areas of the website. This is ideal for businesses, including home health agencies, assisted living facilities, adult day care centers, rehab facilities, and nursing homes who wish to reach the decision-makers who are researching care options for a parent or loved one. Contact the advertising department at https://www.ltcnews.com/support/advertise. You can write a story for publication on LTC NEWS and let America hear what you have to say. Be sure your article fits the LTC NEWS target audience of adults 40-70. Topics can include stories on: Aging Caregiving Health Long-Term Care Retirement Planning Submit story ideas by emailing newsroom@ltcnews.com Shortly after its launch, NASAs Mars Perseverance Rovers switched to "safe mode due to an engineering glitch. On July 30, 2020, NASAs Mars Rover Perseverance was launched on its onward journey toward the Red Planet at 7:50 a.m. EDT. The Mars Rover was riding an Atlas V rocket into space after being lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. According to a space portal, NASA officials confirmed that such glitches have been fairly common in the past and that they expected it to happen with the Perseverance Rover as well. Read | NASA Launch live stream: How to watch Mars Perseverance rover live NASA Mars Rover-Perseverance: Why did it switch to Safe Mode? NASA Perseverance Mission team revealed the news of the Mars Rover switching to Safe Mode within minutes of the launch. The reason for this being that the temperature in the spacecraft got a bit colder than the engineers had anticipated. The temperature rose when the rocket was passing through Earths shadow. According to NASA, the spacecraft's temperature quickly bounced back, hence there is nothing to be concerned about. NASA also confirmed that the technical glitch would not pose any threat to its Perseverance Mission. A NASA official emphasised in a media statement given post the lift-off, that Safe mode is, as the name implies. It is designed to be safe for the spacecraft and its contents. Read | NASA spacecraft carrying Perseverance rover back online after technical issues How long does it take to reach Mars? According to NASAs official website, with the current state of technology, it will take the Mars Rover seven months to reach and land on the Red Planet. Hence, after commencing its onward journey to the red planet on July 30, the Mars Rover will land on the Martian surface on February 18, 2021. According to NASA reports the rover will land in Mars' Jezero Crater. It is important to note that the distance between Earth to Mars varies a lot, because of Earths orbit around the Sun. Earths orbit around the sun is smaller than Mars orbit as Earth is the third planet from the sun, while Mars is the fourth. Metaphorically speaking, once can compare this distance to that of two cars on a racetrack, and one on the inside track and the other on the outside. Read | NASA's Mars 2020 spaceship facing technical issues, team running 'full health assessment' Given that, Earth is on the inside track, it gets around more quickly. However, sometimes its close to Mars when its making a pass. At other times, its far away at the other side of the track. The minimum distance from the Earth to Mars is about 54.6 million kilometres. When Earth and Mars are farthest apart, they can be at a distance of about 401 million km, while the average distance is about 225 million km. Read | NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launched: Watch the historic liftoff here Is there life on Mars? According to NASA reports, so far Earth is the only place in our solar system that we know for certain supports life. NASA will also look for life on Mars by searching for telltale markers, or biosignatures, of current and past life. The element carbon, for instance, is a fundamental building block of life. Knowing where carbon is present and in what form would tell us a lot about where life might have developed. Source: NASA The Martian atmosphere consists of 95 per cent carbon dioxide and less than 1 per cent oxygen. However, life as we know it, cannot survive with that kind of atmospheric composition. According to the reports of a space portal, if carbonate minerals were formed on the red planets surface by chemical reactions between water and the atmosphere, it could indicate that water had been present on the Martian surface for a long time. May be long enough for life to have developed. One of the main goals of the Mars Perseverance Mission is to find the signs of life on the Red planet. After 80 years, the Twenty Mile Creek Arch Bridge is being replaced. A Niagara Region report back in 2010 recommended the bridge, which crosses Twenty Mile Creek in Jordan Hollow, be rebuilt. A 2017 inspection confirmed the need, and now the Region has started a municipal-class environmental assessment for the bridge replacement. Lincoln Coun. Paul MacPherson said the rebuild coincides with the towns efforts to make the municipality more transportation-friendly. I truly believe this is a great opportunity for us to start that dialogue for making Jordan Hollow an active transportation-friendly route, he said. The bridge can be a difficult area to navigate for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. The narrow road and poor sightlines make it a dangerous stretch. It wasnt built for active transportation, said MacPherson of the bridge, built in 1940. The Region has identified the bridge as having cultural and/or heritage significance, said senior project manager Graeme Guthrie, and the team is developing replacement alternatives. Two public information sessions are planned to solicit residents input, review the design and provide comments or share concerns. Dates have not been determined yet, though Guthrie said they are eyeing October or early November for the first meeting with a second in March 2021. Construction is tentatively scheduled to start in 2022. (Adds strategist quotes and details throughout; updates prices) * Canadian dollar gains 0.3% against the greenback * For the month, the loonie is up 1.5% * Canadian GDP rises 4.5% in May * Canadian bond yields rise across the curve By Fergal Smith TORONTO, July 31 (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar strengthened against its U.S. counterpart on Friday to notch its fourth straight monthly gain, its longest winning run in six years, as domestic data showed the economy expanded more than expected in May. The gain for the loonie on Friday follows a decline in recent days. As the end of the month approaches, some market players tend to rebalance their currency hedges. "As the month-end passed in London for the big global investors ... then I think the market said upward pressure in USD-CAD is off, back to where we were, which is down below 1.34," said Greg Anderson, global head of foreign exchange strategy at BMO Capital Markets. "I think we'll see more of that next week." The loonie has benefited in July from a weakening of the U.S. dollar, as coronavirus cases climbed in the United States, and from higher prices for oil, one of Canada's major exports. On Friday, the loonie was trading 0.3% higher at 1.3377 to the greenback, or 74.76 U.S. cents, taking its gain for the month to 1.5%. The monthly winning streak, which followed a sharp decline in March when financial markets were pummeled by the coronavirus crisis, was the currency's longest since 2014. Canadian gross domestic product rose by 4.5% in May, and a preliminary flash estimate sees a further 5% increase in June as the economy reopens following COVID-19 lockdowns, Statistics Canada said. Economists had expected a 3.5% gain for May GDP. U.S. crude oil futures settled 0.9% higher at $40.27 a barrel, benefiting from news that U.S. oil output cuts in May were the largest on record. Canadian government bond yields were higher across the curve, with the 10-year yield up 2.1 basis points at 0.468%. Canadian financial markets will be closed on Monday for a civic holiday. (Reporting by Fergal Smith; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Kevin Liffey) The interview for this year's Heritage Human Service Award winner was unprecedented. Since an "in person" interview was not possible, Heritage requested a bio and this chosen recipient obliged with an excellent introduction: "The designee for this year's Heritage Human Service Award, Hank Katzen, first visited Israel at age 18 on a UJA Family Mission. It was on a very hot day that Hank and his father [Marc Katzen] climbed to the top of Masada. On the way to the top, Hank experienced a peace and a connection to Israel that has influenced and guided his life ever since." With that said, Heritage Florida Jewish News is pleased to announce that Hank Katzen is this year's recipient of the Heritage Human Service Award. Since 2015, Heritage has received numerous nominations for Katzen from prominent members of the community. He was contending with some of the best and it was always a challenge for the committee to choose just one person from the many who contribute so much to the Central Florida Jewish community. As Katzen wrote, his connection to Israel began when he was 18. That love for Israel and the Jewish world was fed and supported by his parents, Marc and Henrietta Katzen - both of whom have always been active members of the Jewish community. When Katzen married his wife, Marcie, in August 1990, he shared that it was her love of Judaism and family that flamed his passion for tradition, parenthood, and "a sense of obligation to be G-d's partner." Together, they raised three sons: Malcolm Alexander, Max David and Mason Ross, all of whom attended the Jewish Community Center's pre-school program and the Hebrew Day School (now the Jewish Academy of Orlando). All three graduated from college in four years and are now working in their chosen fields. Katzen was born in Pennsylvania. He graduated from the University of New York at Binghamton, then worked in the family business and also owned and operated Taco Bell restaurants. With few Jewish activities in rural Pennsylvania, Katzen turned his attention to a cause introduced to him by his mother - the physically less fortunate. He served as president of both United Cerebral Palsy of Western Pennsylvania and Advancement for the Developmentally Disabled. After he and Marcie wed, they moved to Altoona, Pa., which had a larger Jewish community, and he dived right into serving his community as a board member of Agudath Achim Synagogue, a board member of the Jewish Community Center, a Campaign co-chairman for the Altoona Jewish Federation, and co-chaired the UJC's General Campaign twice in Altoona and twice in Orlando. Hank and Marcie were both members of the United Jewish Community's National Young Leadership Cabinet. While a member of the YLC, Katzen served as the Washington 12 Southeast Region Programming co-chairman, Washington 10 Capital-to-Capital Mission Committee, and as a member of the Chair Delegate Selection Committee. He also sat on the UJC's National Marketing and Public Relations Committee. Hank and Marcie got involved in the Greater Orlando Jewish Community upon arrival in 1993, making quality gifts, volunteering for leadership positions, and emphasizing overseas needs. "During his tenure as co-chairman of the [Orlando] Federation's General Campaign, Hank's soliciting expertise increased the number of Pacesetters significantly," said his proud mom, Henrietta. Not one to take the credit, Katzen was quick to say "the campaign grew with the help of professional superstars like Eric Geboff, Nancy Ludin, and Pat Bornstein." He and Marcie also became "second generation" Pacesetters. "Their example resulted in other peer couples 'stepping up' as well to join their Pacesetter parents. This made a lasting impact on campaign, our community and in the way 30-somethings and 40-somethings view their own capacity to give," Henrietta added. In addition to serving on many committees at the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando - including the Executive Committee, Major Gifts, Super Sunday Solicitor trainer, Religious Pluralism, Finance, Executive Search Committee, Strategic Planning and Allocations - he was awarded the Byron Selber Young Leadership Award. Katzen also was on the Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando Board of Directors and joined the JCC's Executive Committee as the Orlando Delegation to the JCC's Biennial Convention in Boston. Not only was Katzen involved in the organizational aspects of the community, he was a tremendous help in the construction and sale of Temple Israel and the development of Congregation Ohev Shalom's new building. "We have had personal experiences with Hank in the construction of Temple Israel on Markham Woods Road and in the amazing sale of the same," said Sheryl and Julian Meitin in correspondence to the Heritage. "His character and leadership helped Temple Israel remain in the black and continue in its new home serving many families in the same congregation as they have been for decades." Like his father, Marc, Katzen helped in the planning of the future of the Hebrew Day School (now the Jewish Academy of Orlando) and supported it by sending his sons to the school. "Hank's passion for the Jewish Academy of Orlando, his work as the Campaign chair for the Jewish Federation of Orlando as well as his yeoman's work in securing the highest price possible for the sale of Temple Israel have made him a stalwart leaders of our community for decades," said Aaron Weil, executive director and CEO of Central Florida Hillel. Katzen never started any venture without preparation. When he opened the offices of MarKay Management as an HQ for family business and new ventures, he immediately took all the professional courses necessary and getting all the designations as a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers and the National Association of Industrial and Office Parks. He also listened to all those who were "seasoned" in whatever endeavor he undertook. For example, Katzen said he has leveraged his experiences with those of his campaign co-chairs like Mark Abramson and Barbara Chasnov to bring additional funding to many agencies and programs. It was during the time Katzen spent on the Allocations Committee that he had the greatest impact on this Jewish community. Under his leadership, the Central Florida Hillel was firmly established at the University of Central Florida, complete with Northview - a building that houses 600 Jewish students, the Catholic Campus Ministry and the home of the Jeffrey and Diane Ginsburg Center for Jewish Student Life at Central Florida Hillel. As Katzen explained the process, a few Allocation Committee members recognized that with funding granted only one year at a time, it would make it impossible to attract and retain the staff necessary to build a high-functioning Hillel. "Hank spent years investigating and fine-tuning his father's vision for an 'evergreen funding source' to transform agency stability and trajectory," said Henrietta. "Student housing was envisioned by Hank and his dad as the engine to drive the vision, and Alan Ginsburg was inspired with the concept. It didn't hurt that Mr. Ginsburg knew a few things about apartment development." "Some local visionaries, including Dr. Edward Zissman, Bill Sholk and Jeffrey Ginsburg (of blessed memory), concluded that we could better serve Hillel's mission, and the Greater Orlando Jewish community, by forming a new sister agency under the Federation's umbrella. Central Florida Hillel, Inc. was formed in 2002 with Nina Oppenheim as the inaugural president, Susan Bierman soon to follow, Burt Brown was treasurer and Marc Katzen as the development chairman. Vital support also came from Rikki Hanin, Craig Ludin, and Stuart Farb. The board of directors first rented a four-bedroom apartment to support fundraising and governance and to improve programming for Jewish students," Katzen stated. Rental space was seen as temporary; CFH needed a permanent facility to handle growth in enrollment. With the passing of his son, Jeffrey, Ginsburg committed to providing such a home, which would come to be known as Northview. "The original concept of Northview was derived by Hank and his father, who quickly passed the 'baton' to Hank for his follow-through. Without Hank's daily effort, the facility would not have materialized and his daily and constant input was absolutely invaluable," Ginsburg said. "Hank was involved from day one in the conceptual planning, the real estate acquisition, the architectural process, the construction process, the equipping and furnishing processes, the permitting and legal processes that took three years, and he was the all-around 'go-to-guy' during the entire arduous process. Hank's dedication and single-purpose focus is the primary reason that the project has been successfully completed and serves as a beacon of Jewish life on campus for the 6,500+ Jewish students attending UCF, Rollins College and Stetson," Ginsburg stated. With the land purchased and the completion of the building, Katzen could see that CFH now needed professional leadership on a par with the facility. Over a two-year period, he ran a search for the best of the best; he approached Hillel International for assistance, and found Aaron Weil, who had served 10 years as the executive director at Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburg (in Katzen's home state of all places). In the course of designing the job description and qualifying candidates, Katzen was asked to join the Hillel International Board. For six years Katzen would travel, meet, and learn from some of the most talented leaders in North America. He then informed, updated, and partnered with the national staff and lay leaders to create a network of support for CFH. "These contacts and the increased awareness of our project outside greater Orlando resulted in substantial funding for CFH. It also brought several Hillel International events to NorthView and International Drive," Katzen said. "Hank left his work for over a year to dedicate himself to the construction of Northview. He joined the Board of Hillel International in order to be an advocate at the international level for the Orlando Jewish community as well as to bring a national spotlight on Orlando's Jewish community. His efforts have contributed to the fact that Hillel has brought in more money to the Orlando Jewish community from outside Central Florida than all the Jewish organizations in Orlando," stated Weil. Ginsburg summed it all up: "Through all of this, Hank maintained his 'cool' and guided the various committees, individuals and interest groups through the process, displaying great leadership and sensitivity. ... Although Hank is perhaps young in years as compared to other recipients, his experience and time invested in the community certainly qualifies him as the right person at the right time." Jeff Gaeser, owner and publisher of the Heritage, will present the award to Katzen at the annual JFGO meeting to be held virtually on Zoom Wednesday, Aug 19, from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Register at jfgo.org/2020meeting. Prosecutors have indicted the chief executive officer of an asset management company over his alleged involvement in a massive hedge fund scandal. The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office on Thursday indicted Won Jong-jun, head of Seoul-based fund operator Lime Asset Management Co., on charges of fraud and violation of capital market and financial investment laws. A senior marketing executive, only identified by his surname Lee, has been also indicted on the same charges. They were allegedly involved in the firm's cover-up of massive losses and subsequent suspension of fund redemption worth an estimated 1.6 trillion won (US$1.3 billion). According to the investigators, they are accused of deceiving investors into putting a total of 200 billion won into 18 trade finance funds operated by Lime Asset, though the money was actually intended to be used to redeem the company's existing funds. Lime Asset investors filed criminal complaints against Won and Lee in March, arguing they had suffered huge losses after investing in the firm's trade finance funds due to the company's deceptive fundraising. Won has been in pre-trial detention since July 14. In a related development, Lee Jong-pil, a former vice president of Lime Asset, and Kim Bong-hyun, a financier believed to be the largest financial source for the fund operator, have also been arrested and indicted for their alleged involvement in the scandal. Founded in 2012 as an investment adviser, Lime Asset was granted a license to operate private funds in 2015. The company was managing a record high of 5.7 trillion won as of June last year. In October, however, the company froze withdrawals, citing an inability to liquidate enough assets to meet redemption requests, prompting the nation's financial watchdog to conduct a probe and conclude the company duped investors by concealing losses and continuing sales of related products. (Yonhap) As a member of CFA Institute, our society connects members to a global network of investment professionals. Bryan Heart welcomes Natraj Katta, MD Bryan Heart welcomes Natraj Katta, MD, to the practice. As an interventional cardiologist, Dr. Katta specializes in treating cardiovascular diseases and conditions using a variety of non-surgical procedures. Dr. Katta earned his medical degree from Siddhartha Medical College in Vijayawada, India. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Hospital in Pontiac, Michigan, then went on to complete a cardiovascular disease fellowship at the University of Missouri School of Medicine in Columbia, Missouri, and an interventional cardiology fellowship at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. Prior to pursuing cardiology, Dr. Katta was an internal medicine hospitalist at MercyOne North Iowa Medical Center in Mason City, Iowa, and at the University of Missouri Hospital in Columbia, Missouri. While practicing in Columbia, Dr. Katta also served as an assistant professor at the University of Missouri. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 19:24:51|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close HARARE, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe recorded 12 COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, its biggest daily number of deaths so far, to raise the country's death toll to 53. The deaths occurred in Harare and Midlands Provinces, the Ministry of Health and Child Care said in a statement Friday morning. The country recorded 213 new COVID-19 cases, raising the country's total to 3,092. Of the new cases, eight are citizens who returned from the Diaspora while 205 are local cases. Thirty-seven people recovered from the virus, taking the country's total number of recoveries to 924. The country has done a total of 129,899 COVID-19 tests to date. The viral disease has since claimed the life of the country's agriculture minister Perrance Shiri, who became the first cabinet minister in Zimbabwe to die of COVID-19. Shiri, 65, died on Wednesday and will be buried at the National Heroes Acre in Harare on Friday under the World Health Organization guidelines. Enditem Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stressed the need to further develop bilateral relations with Iraq on Friday, Trend reports with reference to Mehr. In a phone talk with the Iraqi President Barham Salih on Friday, Rouhani congratulated Eid al-Adha to the Iraqi nation and government and noted that there has been a deep connection between the people of the two countries throughout history. Rouhani described the Iraqi Prime Minister's visit to Iran as positive and expressed hope that agreements reached between the two countries will be implemented in the near future. The Islamic Republic of Iran is determined to develop bilateral relations with Iraq and is ready to help the country in the fight against coronavirus, he added. Barham Salih, for his part, felicitated Iranians on the advent of Eid al-Adha and called for unity among regional countries amid the spread of COVID-19. He further appreciated Irans aid in the battle against the pandemic and emphasized strengthening bilateral relations with the Islamic Republic. Bags for life should cost more to prevent shoppers from using them too few times, campaigners have warned. Sam Chetan-Welsh, of Greenpeace, said that while sales of plastic carrier bags are down, sales of bags for life rose to 1.5 billion in 2018. He said: Bags for life contain more plastic than carrier bags do. To deter people from using bags for life like throwaways, the Government should increase the cost of bags for life which successfully led to decreased sales in the Republic of Ireland or ideally should ban them. He added: Whilst todays figures are a step in the right direction, the Government shouldnt congratulate itself too much until this hard work is done. More than 680,000 people signed up for this years annual Great British Spring Clean, organised by Keep Britain Tidy and backed by the Mail. Sales of plastic carrier bags have plummeted by 97 per cent since the 5p charge was introduced five years ago [File photo] Sales of plastic carrier bags have plummeted by 97 per cent since the 5p charge was introduced five years ago. Official figures show an incredible drop in numbers from 7.6 billion bags handed out by the biggest supermarkets in 2014 before the ban to 226 million last year. A typical shopper now buys just four bags a year from the main supermarkets, compared with ten last year and 140 in 2014. The heartbreaking sight of sea life choking on plastic waste shocked the nation and led to this papers Banish the Bags campaign a decade ago. Last night Environment Secretary George Eustice praised the Daily Mails war on plastic but said there is more to be done. He added: The success of our plastic carrier bag charge shows were making a real difference in tackling the scourge of single-use plastic but we have more to do. For years the Daily Mail has supported our mission to clamp down on the use of these harmful single-use plastics through its Turn the Tide on Plastic campaign and the Great British Spring Clean. I am very much looking forward to taking part in the upcoming Great British September Clean, as well as continuing to work with the Mail as we take our next steps in the war against plastic pollution. The heartbreaking sight of sea life choking on plastic waste shocked the nation and led to this papers Banish the Bags campaign a decade ago [File photo] The 226 million figure covers stores in England owned by Asda, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsburys, the Co-op, Tesco and Waitrose. Sales across all retailers with more than 250 employees stands at 564 million, down from 2.1 billion in 2016/17. The Mails call for a plastic bag charge was initially resisted by the Treasury amid claims that it would be unpopular. It was finally introduced in October 2015 by George Osborne. It applies to all retailers with more than 250 employees. The Government has consulted on extending it to all businesses as well as increasing the minimum charge to 10p. This newspapers Turn the Tide on Plastic campaign has championed a world-leading ban on microbeads, a deposit return scheme on bottles and cans to come into force by 2023 and a ban on plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds which will come into force in October. The Government is also set to introduce a world-leading tax on plastic packaging which is not at least 30 per cent recycled from April 2022, subject to consultation. Tom Fyans, of countryside charity CPRE, said: As one of the organisations that long campaigned for a carrier bag charge to be introduced, we are pleased to see it having the desired effect. Last night Environment Secretary George Eustice praised the Daily Mails war on plastic but said there is more to be done But we cant stop there. Our throwaway culture persists, with the litter newcomers of gloves and face masks adding to the waste that blights the countryside and harms wildlife. If we are to have any chance of living up to the Governments ambition of being world leaders in this field, we need charges on all single-use, throwaway items from takeaway cups to wooden forks. It was postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak but will now go ahead from September 11 to September 27. For more information, or to sign up to take part, visit: www.keep britaintidy.org/septemberclean. This highly detailed image of the fantastic NGC 2899 planetary nebula was captured using the FORS instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in northern Chile. This object has never before been imaged in such striking detail, with even the faint outer edges of the planetary nebula glowing over the background stars. CREDIT ESO Resembling a butterfly with its symmetrical structure, beautiful colours, and intricate patterns, this striking bubble of gas -- known as NGC 2899 -- appears to float and flutter across the sky in this new picture from ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT). This object has never before been imaged in such striking detail, with even the faint outer edges of the planetary nebula glowing over the background stars. NGC 2899's vast swathes of gas extend up to a maximum of two light-years from its centre, glowing brightly in front of the stars of the Milky Way as the gas reaches temperatures upwards of ten thousand degrees. The high temperatures are due to the large amount of radiation from the nebula's parent star, which causes the hydrogen gas in the nebula to glow in a reddish halo around the oxygen gas, in blue. This object, located between 3000 and 6500 light-years away in the Southern constellation of Vela (The Sails), has two central stars, which are believed to give it its nearly symmetric appearance. After one star reached the end of its life and cast off its outer layers, the other star now interferes with the flow of gas, forming the two-lobed shape seen here. Only about 10-20% of planetary nebulae [1] display this type of bipolar shape. Astronomers were able to capture this highly detailed image of NGC 2899 using the FORS instrument installed on UT1 (Antu), one of the four 8.2-metre telescopes that make up ESO's VLT in Chile. Standing for FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph, this high-resolution instrument was one of the first to be installed on ESO's VLT and is behind numerous beautiful images and discoveries from ESO. FORS has contributed to observations of light from a gravitational wave source, has researched the first known interstellar asteroid, and has been used to study in depth the physics behind the formation of complex planetary nebulae. This image was created under the ESO Cosmic Gems programme, an outreach initiative to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes, for the purposes of education and public outreach. The programme makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations. All data collected may also be suitable for scientific purposes, and are made available to astronomers through ESO's science archive. Notes [1] Unlike what their common name suggests, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. The first astronomers to observe them merely described them as planet-like in appearance. They are instead formed when ancient stars with up to 6 times the mass of our Sun reach the end of their lives, collapse, and blow off expanding shells of gas, rich in heavy elements. Intense ultraviolet radiation energises and lights up these moving shells, causing them to shine brightly for thousands of years until they ultimately disperse slowly through space, making planetary nebulae relatively short-lived phenomena on astronomical timescales. Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. Chinese scientists have made invaluable contributions to the research and development of the country's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS). With all of its core components domestically made, it is one of the four global navigation networks, alongside the United States' GPS, Russia's GLONASS and the European Union's Galileo. In the 502 laboratory of the fifth institute of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, Gao Xing, an 80-year-old scientist who took part in the efforts to develop BeiDou, was holding a Solar Array Drive Assembly (SADA) when the reporter came to visit. SADA can be compared to the shoulder joint in the human body. Its job is to make the solar panel rotate towards the sun, so as to continuously obtain energy and transfer it to the interior of the satellite. Although it looks like an insignificant part, to the experts, it is known as the "lifeline of the satellite". A carrier rocket carrying the last satellite of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) blasts off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province, June 23, 2020. (Xinhua/Xue Chen) In the initial stages of development of the BeiDou-1 project, when China had insufficient technical reserves, the country had no choice but to import SADA from other countries. In order to allow China to bring this "lifeline" firmly into its own hands, Gao Xing led the team to develop SADA independently. In the 1990s, as there was a blockade on technologies imposed by other countries and Chinas domestic component manufacturers were not sufficiently advanced, the SADA prototype that Gao Xings team developed faced major technical challenges. In order to verify that the product prototype designed and produced by the team could withstand fluctuations in temperature of 60 degrees Celsius, Gao Xing set about designing his own experimental equipment and carried out the first temperature gradient experiment in China. This experiment lasted three whole days and nights. After a long period of trial and error, Gao Xings team finally succeeded in developing the first domestically-made SADA. Currently, there have been four series of domestically-made SADA covering more than 300 domestic products. For more than 30 years, 55 Beidou project satellites have been launched, thanks to pioneers like Gao Xing. Long-distance bus services to resume in Kerala from Saturday Uttarakhand lifts lockdown in 4 districts on Aug 1-2 due to festivals Manipur reports 116 new cases, one death in 24 hrs Maharashtra's Covid-19 tally rises to 4,22,118 with 10,320 new cases With 1,153 new cases, Gujarat's Covid-19 tally rises to 61,438 CISF sub inspector in Bengal dies of Covid-19 Chhattisgarh to allow limited number of asymptomatic Covid patients home isolation A doctor collects swab sample during Covid-19 health check up camp at isolation centre, Govandi in Mumbai on Thursday. (Pratik Chorge/HT Photo) Indias Covid-19 tally crossed the 1.6 million mark on Friday with a single day spike of more than 55,000 cases for the first time, according to figures released by the Union ministry of health and family welfare. As many as 1,057,805 people have recovered from the coronavirus disease whereas of the total 16,38,870 confirmed cases in the country 545,318 are active. The toll due to the virus has gone up to 35,747. Click here for complete coronavirus coverage On the global front, the number of infected have surpassed 17 million with the maximum number of cases coming from the United States (4,487,987) followed by Brazil (2,610,102), according to Johns Hopkins University's tally. As cases continue to surge, pharma firms are racing to develop a vaccine to treat the deadly disease. Britains AstraZeneca has said that good data was coming in so far on its vaccine for Covid-19, already in large-scale human trials and widely seen as the front-runner in the race for a shot against the coronavirus disease. Follow latest updates on Covid-19 here Figures were released yesterday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showing that England had the the highest levels of excess mortality in Europe from January 3 (Week 1) to June 12 (Week 24) of the pandemic. The ONS analysed all-cause mortality patterns during the first half of 2020 for 29 European countries. It found that although Spain and Italy had the highest peaks at one singular point, England endured the longest continuous period of excess deaths. The three countries with the highest cumulative excess mortality after England were Spain, Scotland, and Belgium. The response from Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaking to the press in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, was to claim that his government had achieved a massive success in reducing the number of deaths. Even as he acknowledged a surge of cases in UK, which he described as coronavirus bubbling up in up to 30 areas across the UK, he boasted that weve got it under a measure of control. The number of deaths are well, well down. But I have to tell you that were looking at a resurgence of the virus in some other European countries. You can see whats been happening in the United States. Johnson wants everyone to look at what is happening everywhere but the UK, and to forget what happened over the past six months. Behind his stonewalling are definite economic calculations. Mentioning the danger of a second wave, Johnson said this would have real, real consequences, not just medical, but also for the economy. The naked commercial concerns animating Johnsons response to the pandemic are underscored by a document published Wednesday by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR). The NIESR is funded by government departments and agencies, the research councils, particularly the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), charitable foundations, the European Commission, and the private sector. The report "Living with covid-19: balancing costs against benefits in the face of the virus" by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research Living with covid-19: balancing costs against benefits in the face of the virus, is published in the August edition of the National Institute Economic Review. It is authored by David Miles, a professor of financial economics at Imperial College Business School, a member, between May 2009 and September 2015, of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England and Chief UK Economist at Morgan Stanley from October 2004 to May 2009; Mike Stedman, of the RES Consortium; and Adrian Heald of the University of Manchesters School of Medicine. RES Consortium describes itself as a Performance improvement organisation working in partnership with industry and the NHS [National Health Service]. Stedman was previously a supply chain director for large FMCG [Fast-moving consumer goods] company working across Europe. Focus on real world data modelling, online systems, commissioning systems, online care pathways and business frameworks. His CV notes 16 years at the Unilever conglomerate (revenue in 2019 nearly $52 billion), including being supply chain director at Unilever Turkey. The study outlines the economic rationale for the Tory governments ongoing policy of herd immunityi.e., doing nothing to seriously combat the spread of the coronavirus. The report addresses the March 23 lockdown, which Johnson was reluctantly forced to impose due to a massive public backlash at the escalating spread of the virus in Europe and the UK. Just days before the lockdown, leading epidemiologists, including Professor Neil Ferguson, warned that if a lockdown wasnt put in place in the order of 250,000 deaths could take place in Britain, with up 500,000 deaths a possibility. The papers preamble states bluntly, This paper analyses the costs and benefits of lockdown policies in the face of COVID-19. What matters for people is the quality and length of lives and one should measure costs and benefits in terms of those things. With the Tory government already ditching the lockdown, the paper considers policy options for the degree to which restrictions are eased. It declares, There is a need to normalise how we view COVID because its costs and risks are comparable to other health problems (such as cancer, heart problems, diabetes) where governments have made resource decisions for decades. The lockdown is a public health policy and we have valued its impact using the tools that guide health care decisions in the UK public health system. This section concludes, The evidence suggests that the costs of continuing severe restrictions in the UK are large relative to likely benefits so that a substantial easing in general restrictions in favour of more targeted measures is warranted. Every mention of the lockdown in the report in accompanied by a statement about its grave economic costs in order to insist that there must never be another. One reads, This [the UK lockdown] served both to slow the spread of the virus and to signal in a very clear way that people needed to change behaviours quickly; but it also generated great costs. The report adds, But whether keeping such tight restrictions in place for three months (until restrictions began to be eased substantially at the end of June) was warranted, given the large costs, is very far from clear. Even as the need for any further national lockdown is rejected, the report is forced to acknowledge the effectiveness of lockdowns in halting the diseases spread. New measured cases of the infection and of deaths ascribed to the virus were significantly lower within a few weeks of restrictions being introduced. It adds, The slowing in new infections and in deaths has been marked in all countries during late March and into April 2020, though the severity of restrictions and the timing of those restrictions differs. It also acknowledges, While there are reasons to believe that the spread of the infection may have slowed short of a lockdown which kept most people at home, it remains highly likely that this level of restriction did bring the spread down faster than it otherwise would. The fall in deaths soon after lockdowns is so clear across many countries [64 are cited] that it is very unlikely that those severe restrictions had no significant impact at all on lives lost. Despite this, in the section, How effective was the lockdown in the UK?, the authors state, There is contradictory evidence on the effectiveness of the three-month lockdown strategy in the UK. They assert, It is hard to be sure of the precise scale of the health benefits: they range from very few lives saved to a high of perhaps 450,000 lives saved (that is the difference between the 500,000 or so deaths projected by Ferguson et alon the basis of no change in behaviour and the 50,000 or so deaths that might have resulted in the UK by early June 2020). Figures for lives saved in the UK at the extreme ends of that spectrum (near zero or as high as 450,000) seem implausible. This conclusion is inserted only to undermine the assessment of Fergusons team of researchers at Imperial College and others who backed its findings, as well as from the World Health Organisation, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis and the Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics. Miles, Stedman and Heald add that estimates of net saved lives that are effectively zeroseems very unlikely. But this is immediately followed by the declaration, We set the lowest estimated net saved lives well above that and use (rather arbitrarily) a lowest estimate of 20,000. This is simply nonsense. The authors admission that they plucked rather arbitrarily a figure of 20,000 lives saved by the lockdown (much closer to zero than a high of 450,000) is worthless from any scientific criterion. It reflects only their prejudice, rather than any actual research. In calculating the cost of the lockdown, the authors use a formula called the Quality-adjusted Life Year (QALY). They note, The guidelines in the UKare that [National Health Service] treatments that are expected to increase life expectancy for a patient by one year (in quality of life adjusted years, QALYs) should cost no more than 30,000. What follows is a series of calculations and graphs in which the author state, Our low-end estimate of the (narrowly defined) cost of the March to June lockdown was 9 per cent of GDPa figure of 200 billion. They conclude, For every permutation of lives saved and GDP lost the costs of lockdown exceed the benefits. Even if lives saved are as high as 440,000, each of which means an extra ten years of quality adjusted lifeand when the lost output (assumed to be a sufficient and comprehensive measure of all costs of the lockdown) is simply the likely shortfall in incomes in 2020costs are still over 50 per cent higher than the benefits of a three month lockdown (benefits = 132 billion; costs = 200 billion). In backing a more rapid easing of restrictions in the coming months, the authors outline three possible scenarios in all of which mass deaths are contemplatedincluding a scenario that sees deaths steadily increase back up to levels seen at the height of the UK pandemic. This is justified by the ghoulish statement, These are macabre thought experiments and many will feel uneasy at such calculations. But there are implications in terms of deaths and misery on both sides of the ledger from any policy. To think such comparisons are distasteful is to not face that reality. What this number-crunching in fact signifies is that the value of life is determined solely by the interests of the major corporations. If profits are to be made, then the population must get back to work. If lives are lost, including thousands more elderly people, then so be it. What the report does not say is that the real cost of the lockdown was shouldered by the very working people who are now expected to get back to generating profit. The major corporations were handed over hundreds of billions in loan guarantees, even as the taxpayers footed the bill for 80 percent of the wages of workers employed by these corporations. Now that this smash-and-grab raid has been accomplished, the ruling class, and its academic lackeys, rail against the cost of the lockdownbut only those related to saving the lives of working people. Naturally, if it cost 30,000, 300,000, or 3 million to save the life of just one of Britains super-rich oligarchs, this would be considered money well-spent. with many people cancelling their travel plans and firms telling customers to leave Danang, delay tours or change destinations. A corner of a beach in Danang City. The tourism sector in Vietnam, which was just bouncing back from the slump caused by the pandemic for over six months, is once again reeling under the second wave of Covid-19 - PHOTO: DAO LOAN Some events set to be held at hotels and resorts have been put off or canceled and the sector is putting a great deal of efforts into preventing the spread of the coronavirus. An entrepreneur told the Saigon Times on July 28 that in the previous week, his company had sought to assign enough tour guides to serve tourists but the situation has been upended. The summer travel season has been brought to a close after new community-transmitted Covid-19 cases were reported in Danang. His companys customers have canceled tours to not only Danang and other central localities but also to other destinations. Due to the pandemic, the company had to fire 30% of its employees. Only a few employees have jobs with minimum salaries and the others have been furloughed. Only 20% of customers have agreed to delayed tours, while others have canceled their tours completely, said Tu Quy Thanh, director of Lien Bang Travelink. The pandemic should be controlled in 30 days so that the company can resume operations. The company will use its backup fund, which has started to run out, for its operations until September, Thanh added. According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, no tourists are booking tours. Meanwhile, 100% of customers have canceled tours to Covid-19-stricken areas and 30-40% have canceled tours to areas that have yet to report Covid-19 cases. Property service provider Savills Vietnam forecast that hotels and resorts in Danang will face a big impact as their customers have canceled plans to visit the city in August and September. Many travel firms are doubtful about the recovery of the tourism sector this year despite promotional programs. Representatives of some enterprises said they would continue scaling down business, while others revealed plans to suspend their operations or temporarily operate in other sectors. Dong Hoang Thinh, director of tour operator Dong Thi Co., Ltd, said the company has canceled all tours and is considering investing in cloud kitchens. SGT Dao Loan Idris Elba is dying to make a Luther movie (Image by BBC) Idris Elba has once again insisted that a movie version of Luther is going to happen at some point in the future. Elba said as much to various press outlets, including Digital Spy, after he accepted the Special Award at this years Virgin Media BAFTA TV Awards. Read More: Idris Elba slates 'ridiculous' conspiracy theory that black people can't get coronavirus Ive maintained Id like to see it come to a film, and that is where I think we are heading towards a film, Elba teased. And Im looking forward to making that happen. It is happening. With film, the sky is the limit. You can be a little bit more bold with the storylines. And a little bit more international, and a little more up the scale. But John Luther is always going to be John Luther. Actor Idris Elba arrives for the world premiere of the movie "Cats" in Manhattan, New York, U.S., December 16, 2019. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly This isnt the first time this month that Elba has promised a Luther movie, as he told Sky News, Ive made it very clear that Id like to see Luther come back as a film. And I can tell you this, that we are this close to making a film of Luther. It should also be noted that Elba and writer Neil Cross have spent many years insisting that a Luther movie would soon become a reality. Read More: Idris Elba says coronavirus diagnosis had 'traumatic mental impact' Not only did Cross tell the Edinburgh TV Festival back in 2013 that hed written a prequel script that would explore the origins of the detective, but in 2018 Elba told Metro that the planned movie would be inspired by one of David Finchers finest films. Luther has all the ingredients to echo those classic films of the 90s like Seven and Along Came A Spider and I think what wed like to attempt is use that as a blueprint to create it. It will be more murder, more Volvos, more frowning Luther. Essentially we just want to try and take it to a much bigger remit and scale and perhaps international as well. President Donald Trump was caught decrying 'cancel culture' as 'bulls**t' to a Republican senator - who had the call on speakerphone at a Washington D.C. restaurant as the president pleaded to keep Robert E. Lee's name on Army bases. The New York Times obtained audio of a Wednesday night call between Trump and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, as the Oklahoma Republican put a conversation with the president on speaker while he dined at a Capitol Hill restaurant. 'All right, my friend,' said Trump to Inhofe, 85. 'Are you doing good? We're going to keep the name of Robert E. Lee?' Trump was then heard to say: 'I had about 95,000 positive retweets on that. That's a lot. 95,000's a lot. People like it.' The tweet currently has 34,500 retweets, but was liked 134,200 times. It is impossible to know if retweets are 'positive.' 'Bulls**t.' Donald Trump could be heard talking about cancel culture in a speakerphone conversation with an 85-year-old Republican senator broadcast across a restaurant Sen. Jim Inhofe told President Donald Trump that he would 'make it happen,' though it's still unclear if Inhofe, a conferee during Conference Committee discussions, would be able to strip the amendment out of the Defense package, as the bill overwhelmingly passed both houses According to The New York Times, Sen. Jim Inhofe was eating at the Capitol Hill Italian restaurant Trattoria Alberto's and put the president on speakerphone, though still held the device up to his ear. Several neighboring tables heard the conversation On Friday, President Donald Trump tweeted that he had spoken to Sen. Jim Inhofe who had assured him that the amendment to rename military bases named for Confederates wouldn't remain in the Defense bill, despite it being passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress Then Trump could be heard saying: 'They don't want cancel culture. People want to get back to life not this bulls**t. 'So it's very positive, I'll bet you had a lot of good,' Trump said before being drowned out by other noise in the restaurant. 'Sure did, I appreciate it very much,' Inhofe replied. The senator was eating at Trattoria Alberto, a Capitol Hill Italian restaurant popular with Republicans. Trump had tweeted a day after the Republican-led Senate had passed the $740.5 billion defense spending bill that included an amendment proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren to rename the bases still named for Confederate fighters. The Senate bill had strong bipartisan support and passed 86-14. The president had tweeted that Inhofe had told him that the 10 military bases named after Confederate figures would not be renamed. 'I spoke to the highly respected (Chairman) Senator Jim Inhofe, who has informed me that he WILL NOT be changing the names of our great Military Bases and Forts, places from which we won two World Wars (and mores!),' Trump wrote. 'Like me, Jim is not a believer in 'Cancel Culture.'' The bill's companion in the House also passed and includes a provision to rename bases like North Carolina's Fort Bragg, but gives the Defense Department a deadline of a year, instead of the three-year period outlined in the Senate amendment. The provision to rename the bases could be pulled out in Conference Committee and Inhofe is one of the conferees, but with the measure's broad bipartisan support that's unlikely. Trump first came out against the renaming of military bases that are named for Confederate figures on June 10, tweeting out a statement and then having White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany hand it out to reporters and read it aloud. 'These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom,' Trump tweeted. 'The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars.' 'Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations,' Trump said. Virginia's Fort Lee is named after one of the best known figures of the Civil War era, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, who President Abraham Lincoln asked to lead the Union Army and defected to lead the southern troops instead Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy had told Politico he was 'open' to renaming the 10 bases named for Confederate figures. Defense Secretary Mark Esper also supported the conversation. The Memorial Day death of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man who was killed by a white police officer, and the subsequent 'Black Lives Matter' protests, motivated McCarthy's change of heart, one Army official told Politico. The events 'made us start looking at ourselves and the things that we do and how that is communicated to the force as well as the American people,' the source said. Confederate statues, among other things, have been targeted for removal because the south seceded from the United States to keep black Americans enslaved. But Trump has shown no evolution on the issue and instead staked his re-election prospects of taking that side on the culture war. Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, introduced the amendment during a closed-door session on June 11 and with the help of some of her Republican colleagues it passed. The vote was done by voice, so there was no record of which senators voted for it. Trump caught wind of the move, but only after it had happened. 'Seriously failed presidential candidate, Senator Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren, just introduced an Amendment on the renaming of many of our legendary Military Bases from which we trained to WIN two World Wars,' Trump wrote. 'Hopefully our great Republican Senators won't fall for this!' Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, taunted Trump about his threat. 'I dare President Trump to veto the bill over Confederate base naming. It's in the bill. It has bipartisan support. It will stay in the bill,' Schumer said. As the bill worked its way from committee to the full Senate, Trump vowed to veto the legislation late last month. 'I will Veto the Defense Authorization Bill if the Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren (of all people!) Amendment, which will lead to the renaming (plus other bad things!) of Fort Bragg, Fort Robert E. Lee, and many other Military Bases from which we won Two World Wars, is in the Bill!' Trump tweeted on June 30. Both bills passed with veto-proof majorities. By AFP WASHINGTON: The scale of economic devastation from the pandemic was laid bare on Thursday as Western economies recorded historic slumps, just as resurgent caseloads forced many countries into agonising new trade-offs between health and financial stability. Six months after the World Health Organization declared a global emergency, the novel coronavirus has infected more than 17 million people worldwide. The WHO warned Thursday that young people are "not invincible" and were helping to drive resurgences in many places that had largely curbed the disease. "Spikes of cases in some countries are being driven in part by younger people letting down their guard during the northern hemisphere summer," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. COVID-19 has killed more than 668,000 people and is forcing governments into a persistent balancing act between saving lives and preventing economic devastation. Nowhere is that challenge more evident than the world's hardest-hit nation -- also the world's biggest economy -- with the United States posting a second-quarter loss of 9.5 percent compared with the same period a year ago, the worst figure on record. If that trajectory carried through the entire year, its economy would collapse by nearly a third (32.9 percent), the data showed. Historic contractions were additionally recorded in Germany (10.1 percent), Belgium (12.2 percent), Austria (10.7 percent) and Mexico (17 percent). Across the globe, companies were also taking a hit with Volkswagen, oil producer Shell, UK bank Lloyds and Japanese consumer electronics giant Panasonic all reporting huge losses. With travel down to a trickle, aerospace giant Airbus said it burned through more than 12 billion euros in cash in the first half of the year, with a net loss of 1.9 billion euros ($1.4 billion) and plans to cut production by 40 percent. But several Big Tech firms delivered better-than-expected results Thursday, underscoring growing consumer reliance on giants like Amazon during the pandemic as well as their extraordinary economic power. Apple profits rose eight percent to $11.2 billion, Amazon meanwhile said profits nearly doubled to $5.2 billion and Facebook said its profits doubled to $5.2 billion compared with the same period last year. Global daily cases are now approaching the 300,000 mark, with the curve showing no sign of flattening -- it took just 100 hours for one million new cases to be recorded. The US counted 1,379 new deaths in the 24 hours before 8:30 pm Thursday (0030 GMT Friday), plus another 72,238 new infections. And the country also recorded another grim milestone: the death of Buddy, the first US pet dog to test positive for the virus. The seven-year-old German shepherd died after suffering from difficulty breathing and other symptoms for several months. In Japan, Tokyo's governor called for restaurants, bars and karaoke parlours to shut earlier as the capital reported a record number of new infections. Sweden, whose controversial softer approach to curbing coronavirus has received worldwide attention, said it would encourage people to keep working from home into next year where possible, as the country passed 80,000 recorded cases. And Mexico became the world's third hardest-hit country in terms of deaths as it notched more than 46,000 fatalities, according to a tally maintained by AFP. Island resurgences Two island countries that were early poster children for containing the virus offered warnings against complacency on Thursday. In Australia, there were 723 positive tests in the southeastern state of Victoria alone, well beyond the previous nationwide record of 549 cases set on Monday. And Iceland recorded its first hospitalisation since mid-May, as well as 31 new cases, forcing the government to reimpose social distancing and masks, and limit the size of gatherings to 100. Hong Kong, which was also initially lauded for its coronavirus response, is struggling to balance fears of a third wave among its 7.5 million residents, which authorities fear could cripple the healthcare system, against anger at new restrictions. Just a day after restaurants were banned from serving customers indoors, the decision was reversed following a torrent of online criticism over images of mostly blue-collar workers forced to eat on pavements and in parks -- and even inside public toilets to escape a torrential downpour. South Africa faces a similar dilemma and pushed back its nighttime curfew by an hour to 10 pm to help the devastated restaurant sector, despite a recent surge in cases. Ivory Coast however bucked the trend, announcing that bars, nightclubs and cinemas would reopen on Friday. The EU meanwhile carried out its fortnightly update to its list of safe countries. US travellers are still barred and Algeria was removed after a spike in cases. The safe list currently consists of Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay -- and would also include China if Beijing reciprocated. The summer months are typically the busiest of the year in Dr. Kenya Parks office, a steady flow of parents trotting in their little ones to receive immunizations required for school attendance. But the numbers are way down this year, one more casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its quite noticeable, said Parks, a pediatrician with UTHealth and UT Physicians, the practice of doctors at the University of Texas McGovern Medical School in Houston. Parents who usually pack our offices around now instead are putting off or canceling or just not showing up for appointments. Theyre scared. Houston Chronicle Such fear is a primary reason for an average 44 percent drop in the number of doses administered in the Texas Vaccines for Children program during the early months of the pandemic, according to a new state report. The trend puts Texas at risk of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks, a potential disaster when school starts up. The drop is particularly high for immunizations for measles 55 percent the highly infectious disease declared eradicated in the United States 20 years ago but now experiencing a resurgence. The drop in doses administered is slightly higher in the Houston area, site of a measles outbreak in 2019 and identified in a study the same year as one of the nations hot spots, making it vulnerable to an even bigger outbreak. The overall Texas trend is concerning because the states vaccination rates were low even before the pandemic. The state last year failed to meet minimal national goals for eight of 11 immunizations and barely squeaked by for the three it did meet. Its like we got an F in eight classes and a D- in three, and now things are getting worse, when we can least afford it, said Allison Winnike, president of The Immunization Partnership, a statewide vaccine advocacy organization based in Houston. Thats why its crucial parents call their pediatricians and get their kids in for their vaccinations if theyre not up to date. Winnike attributes the regions historically low rate to a mix of access issues, Texans tendency to distrust government recommendations and rules, and the now 20-year rise of the anti-vaccine movement, which has influenced those she calls hesitant about vaccines and open to conspiracies. The 11 immunizations include Hib (haemophilus influenzae type B) and the pneumococcal series by 15 months; hepatitis A and B by 18 months; the rotavirus series by age 4; chickenpox, polio, DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) and MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) by 6; Tdap (separate from DTaP even though it protects against the same three diseases) by 12; and meningococcal by 16. Texas isnt alone in seeing the vaccination downturn. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in May found the weekly number of vaccinations decreased around the nation since the novel coronavirus began spreading. In the first few months, doctors ordered 2.5 million fewer doses from the Federal Vaccines for Children program and administered the measles vaccine at a 70 percent lower rate. 80 million at risk Nor is the problem confined to Texas and U.S. borders. The World Health Organization estimates more than 80 million children under the age of 1 are now at risk of contracting diphtheria, measles, polio, mumps and chickenpox because they havent been vaccinated this year. Doses administered through the Texas Vaccines for Children program declined from about 525,000 in January to 425,000 in February to 350,000 in March. Doses rebounded to 400,000 in April, but that was still considerably below the amount administered in April 2019. Compared with 2019, 2020 doses declined 38 percent in February, 56 percent in March and 37 percent in April. The state does not have data available yet for more recent months. Winnike said shes sure it has not rebounded appreciably. Fear of bringing a child into the doctors office amid a raging pandemic isnt the only reason for the decline. Access is another more than 150 Texas Vaccines for Children sites closed as of mid-May, according to the state report, either because personnel were shifted to help in the COVID-19 battle or because of inactivity. More than 40 percent were school-based clinics. The uncertainty about when schools will start up again also is fueling the decrease, doctors said. Practices such as Parks fill up with vaccination appointments during the summer because children can be denied access to school if theyre not up to date on their shots. Without that urgency, some parents become distracted by other priorities. Peter Hotez, a Texas Childrens Hospital vaccine expert, believes the anti-vaccination movement also is driving the vaccination numbers down. Noting the strength the movement has gained during COVID-19, he expresses concern about a possible triple epidemic of COVID-19, measles and influenza once students return to school. Some of the explanations are speculative, of course. UTHealth has convened a special task force that will try to pin them down more scientifically. But Parks, for one, has heard the message from enough parents that shes confident fear of COVID-19 is one reason. She said she hears both a general reluctance to leave the house for non-essential reasons and specific apprehension about going into a medical facility for fear of being exposed to the virus. Dark clouds on horizon For some parents, it wasnt so much fear as the initial uncertainty. There were so many unknowns at the beginning, said Kristin Kubala, a Katy sales representative who canceled her 1-year-old son Sloans appointment for the second hepatitis B shot about four months ago. We knew so little about the virus, how it was passed from person to person, if it was a good idea to leave the house. Last week, secure in her knowledge that it was safe to return to her pediatricians office, Kubala took Sloan in for the shot. The delay made sense her pediatrician had advised it was fine but Kubala, a big believer in vaccines, acknowledges she was relieved to finally get it done. Pediatricians are trying to get the word out that its safe. In a recent email to parents urging they not postpone their childs vaccination, for instance, Kubalas clinic noted that it has separated well-child checkups and sick visits into different times of the day. Patients are taken quickly to exam rooms instead of sitting in a waiting room and patients go directly to the exit at the appointments end, bypassing checkout. Doctors also are taking appointments outside. Every Thursday in August, Texas Childrens mobile clinic program will provide free drive-thru immunizations to children, 6 weeks to 18 years of age, at Childrens Museum Houston. The decreasing immunization rates are dark clouds forming on the horizon, Dr. Peter Jung, Kubalas pediatrician, wrote in a Memorial Hermann blog post. Hopefully, in the very near future a vaccine for COVID-19 will be discovered and the world will recover from this wretched virus, but until then we must stay diligent with the vaccines which are already readily available. todd.ackerman@chron.com By Tom Plate Some speeches are unforgettable while others are hard to forget no matter how hard you try. Last week, the top U.S. foreign policy official erupted on China in a speech for the ages, if not for war. One hopes the speech will age quickly and pass quietly into the catacombs of history. Given at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's address had the feel of a vintage newsreel, complete with black and white footage and clear-cut good guys and bad guys. Its trendiest idea drew from 1983, when President Ronald Reagan denounced the "evil empire," which was then the Soviet Union. Last week, Pompeo recycled this notion by evil-empiring China. It seems some ideas are just too good to retire, especially in the absence of new ones. "If we don't act now," Pompeo said, "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 children's children may be at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party, whose actions are the primary challenge today in the free world." Is China really Pompeo's primary problem at the moment? No fearsome challenge faces Pompeo's boss, President Donald Trump, in the Republican primary, but November's general election is another matter. Thus, framing China as the free world's "primary challenge" is aimed at shielding Trump from the blows of defeat. Even snake oil takes time to market. Team Trump probably launched its anti-China platform too late to save the election. Even so, the campaign might be starting to have effect, especially in Washington and New York, where pompous sages appear terribly aggrieved that China won't roll over like some well-trained capitalist chihuahua. To make matters worse, there's enough optical ambiguity from the government's policies of President Xi Jinping to make Pompeo's anti-China push seem a plausible product. Then there are the matters of intellectual property theft, internet hacking, spies in U.S. consulates and so on. China has its own set of stories to tell but doesn't seem to know how to tell them, or at least how to sell them, particularly in the U.S. Maybe it's hopeless with people like Pompeo in power. The view from Washington seems to be that almost any story or opinion that offers a sympathetic view of China merits deep suspicion. "This is where I am concerned about the American media, too," Pompeo said in his speech. "When American institutions pick up those storylines [from China's media] and carry them forward, they are, in fact, propagating Chinese propaganda, and we all ought to be wise to that." On the contrary, it might be a better world if there was value attached to at least listening to what China has to say, and perhaps learning something by at least trying to understand the other side. The same goes for China, though Beijing officials give the impression that they lend no more credence to U.S. statements than we do to theirs. China now appears not to care too much any more about what anyone thinks. What we have here is a perfect storm a failure to communicate that at times seems almost deliberate. The world needs Beijing to do better. How far does the Chinese government's soft-power gang think it can get by simply riding on public relations generated by cute pandas? Too much of its hard-earned national wealth goes to its military, as it does in the U.S. Does the U.S. government believe tough-talk policy will actually scare the Chinese? Surely not. Could it frighten its own electorate into believing China is an even greater menace than COVID-19, though? Maybe. One speech will not accomplish that, but many more will come during the election campaign, a quadrennial political pandemic of its own. After more than two centuries of this infectious nonsense, we still have no vaccine. If you hate China or specifically the Communist Party you will enjoy Pompeo's gaseous eruptions. He is actually an intelligent man, albeit one with flawed assumptions about the world, but he can turn a phrase with the worst of them. While negotiating arms control with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan repeatedly used the mantra "trust, but verify." Pompeo takes it further: "Distrust and verify." That's progress? Polls on the mainland report that most Chinese are happy enough with their government. So for Americans who subscribe to Pompeo's view that "the old paradigm of blind engagement with China simply won't get it done. We must not continue it and we must not return to it," one wonders what other option Pompeo has in mind. Professor Tom Plate is the distinguished scholar of Asian and Pacific studies at Loyola Marymount University and vice-president of the Pacific Century Institute, both in Los Angeles. His article was distributed by the South China Morning Post. Prince Charles donned the traditional Scottish kilt when visiting a hospital in Scotland to 'boost morale', much to the delight of the health workers. The Prince of Wales, who is known as the Duke of Rothesay while in Scotland, wore a kilt when visiting Caithness General Hospital in Wick. Staff at the hospital in Wick said they were 'thrilled' to meet Prince Charles, who gave health workers a 'morale boost' during his trip on Friday afternoon. Prince Charles wore traditional Scottish attire when visiting health workers at Caithness General Hospital in Wick The Prince of Wales, who is known as the Duke of Rothesay while in Scotland, gave health workers a 'morale boost' during his trip on Friday afternoon Charles, 71, thanked staff for their 'dedication and hard work throughout the Covid-19 pandemic', according to NHS Highland. He was also said to have spent time 'chatting' with the staff and listening to their experiences during the coronavirus crisis. Professor Boyd Robertson, chairman of the health board, said: 'We were delighted to welcome His Royal Highness The Duke of Rothesay to Caithness General Hospital. 'His Royal Highness spent time chatting with our staff to thank them for their efforts over the last few months and heard their experiences of working across a variety of health and social care roles during the Covid-19 pandemic. 'All of the staff that met him were delighted and it has given the entire team a morale boost after such a demanding and challenging period. 'I would like to thank His Royal Highness most sincerely for his visit to Caithness General Hospital.' Charles, 71, thanked staff for their 'dedication and hard work throughout the Covid-19 pandemic' and then spent time 'chatting' with the staff The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall also visited key workers in Cornwall on July 21, including those at St Austell's GP surgery, during their annual tour. Charles gave a speech recognising the hard work of the staff during the Covid-19 pandemic before stopping to have a socially distanced chat with many of the workers individually. The royal couple spent three months living at Birkhall on the Balmoral estate in Scotland during the coronavirus pandemic, before returning to London last month. Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, were among some of the first royals to resume in-person duties. Mumbai, July 31 : Bollywood actor Shekhar Suman on Friday called on Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and demanded a CBI probe into the suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, officials said here. Accompanied by BJP leader Asif Bhamla and Arun Motwani, Suman met the Governor and submitted a memorandum seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the high-profile case that has rocked Bollywood and political circles. The development came hours after the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra demanded a probe by the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI into Sushant's case. Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis said that since the misappropriation (of funds) and money-laundering angle has emerged, the ED can register an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) to take the probe forward. "There is a huge public sentiment about handing over the case to the CBI, but looking at the reluctance of the state government, at least the ED can register an ECIR since misappropriation and money-laundering angle has come out," said Fadnavis. Making a plea for a 'holistic' probe by the CBI, senior BJP leader Ashish Shelar said that the separate investigations conducted by the Mumbai Police and the Bihar Police are heading in altogether different directions. "The Mumbai Police is also not taking cognizance of people who are being named on social media. The police are calling some film directors and summoning the secretaries of other directors for investigation, so even the probe into the Bollywood angle does not appear to be done properly," alleged Shelar. He said that in order to cover all aspects and give justice to the late actor, the probe must be taken over by the CBI which can conduct a holistic investigation into all the aspects. However, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Wednesday categorically ruled out handing over the investigation to the CBI since the "Mumbai Police probe is heading in the right direction". Interestingly, Sushant's ex-girlfriend and actress Ankita Lokhande has also sought a CBI probe, but the late actor's former companion Rhea Chakraborty has moved the Supreme Court demanding that the case registered against her by the Bihar Police should be transferred to the Mumbai Police. Several other Bollywood personalities have also expressed views that the CBI should be entrusted with the probe in the past few days after the actor allegedly committed suicide at his Mumbai residence on June 14. 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Saudi Arabias King Salman bin Abdulaziz, 84, whose country is home to two of Islam's holiest sites, tweeted holiday congratulations a day after leaving hospital in Riyadh. The Haj pilgrimage is being held in the country with attendance drastically reduced. In Istanbul, Muslims held Eid al-Adha prayers at Hagia Sophia for the first time since the historic building was reconverted to a mosque this month following a court ruling revoking its status as a museum that drew criticism from Western countries. In Lebanon, devastated by economic crisis, many found it hard to afford traditional Eid customs. In Tripoli, the country's second city, there were no decorations or twinkling lights, and no electricity to power them. Instead, a large billboard read: "We're broke." Around the world, the festival had to fit in with the realities of the coronavirus. In Indonesia, the religious ministry asked mosques to shorten ceremonies, while many cancelled the ritual of slaughtering livestock and distributing meat to the community. Instead sheep, goats and cows were being killed in abattoirs to mark the 'Feast of the Sacrifice', celebrated by Muslims to commemorate Prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail at God's command. "This year's Eid al-Adha is very different from previous years because we need to follow health protocols as we perform prayers, like maintaining social distancing," said Devita Ilhami, 30, who was at the Sunda Kelapa mosque in Jakarta. She said they had to bring their own prayer mats, with markers on the ground to show where they should be laid. Elsewhere in Asia, Muslims including in Thailand and Malaysia prayed in or outside mosques wearing masks. Story continues In Malaysia, while some mosques cancelled the ritual of slaughtering livestock, 13 cows were killed in the traditional way, but under rules limiting the number of animals and people at the Tengku Abdul Aziz Shah Jamek mosque in Kuala Lumpur. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani attended prayers in Kabul. Islamist Taliban militants say they will observe a three-day ceasefire for the holiday, offering some respite from weeks of violence. In India, where Eid will be celebrated mostly from Saturday, several states have eased coronavirus restrictions to allow worshippers to gather in mosques in limited numbers. "Only small groups of worshippers will be allowed into mosques," said Shafique Qasim, a senior cleric at the Nakhoda mosque in the eastern city of Kolkata. (Reporting by Angie Teo in Jakarta and Subrata Nagchoudhury in Kolkata; Additional reporting by Lim Huey Teng in KUALA LUMPUR and Derek Francis in BENGALURU; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Giles Elgood) SALISBURY, N.C., July 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Food Lion is celebrating Category Manager Nicole Hulstein, who was awarded the 40-Under-40 award by Produce Business magazine. Winners are chosen from thousands of nominees by fellow industry leaders. I didnt find the produce industry, it found me. What attracted me to the industry is the speed and endurance required to thrive, Hulstein said. There is so much hard work that goes into getting fresh produce onto the shelf, and Im proud to play a role in helping our neighbors nourish their families. Hulstein began working at Food Lion in 2004 immediately after graduating from Pfeiffer University. She joined the produce category team as a category buying assistant. Hard work and tenacity earned her promotion after promotion and helped her to take on her current role in 2018 as fruit category manager for Food Lion. It has been a joy to see Nicole grow in her leadership and the positive impacts to Food Lion and the produce industry every day, said Chris Dove, Food Lion vice president of merchandising for fresh departments. Hulstein plans to continue her work in the produce industry with an emphasis on sustainable growth. Its a must-have to ensure we are able to continue our businesses for the next decade and the decades after that. About Food Lion Food Lion, based in Salisbury, N.C., since 1957, has more than 1,000 stores in 10 Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic states and employs more than 6877,000 associates. By leveraging its longstanding heritage of low prices and convenient locations, Food Lion is working to own the easiest full shop grocery experience in the Southeast, anchored by a strong commitment to affordability, freshness and the communities it serves. Through Food Lion Feeds, the company has donated more than 500 million meals to individuals and families since 2014, and has committed to donate 1 billion more meals by 2025. Food Lion is a company of Ahold Delhaize USA, the U.S. division of Zaandam-based Ahold Delhaize. For more information, visit www.foodlion.com. CONTACTS: Emma Inman, APR 757-408-0110 (m) emma.inman@foodlion.com Matt Harakal 610-349-0814 (m) Matthew.harakal@foodlion.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/88f385bb-f2d8-4473-8789-333282385c18 Italian senate revokes Salvini's immunity from trial over migrant detention in Open Arms case. Italy's senate has voted to allow the prosecution of former interior minister Matteo Salvini for blocking a migrant ship off the Italian coast last August, in the so-called Open Arms case. Salvini is accused of the 'kidnapping' of migrants on the Open Arms rescue ship when he was interior minister in premier Giuseppe Conte's first government, reports Italian news agency ANSA. More than 100 migrants were stuck on board the Spanish rescue ship Open Arms for 19 days off the tiny island of Lampedusa, after Salvini refused to grant the ship permission to dock. The authorisation to proceed with the case was approved on 30 July by the senate which voted 149 to 141 to strip Salvini of his parliamentary immunity, paving the way for prosecution. Salvini, leader of the anti-immigration, right-wing Lega party, stands accused of illegal detention, which could see him serve up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Salvini insists that preventing irregular migrants from disembarking in Italy was government policy at the time and that the decision to block the Open Arms ship was reached collectively within the government. Salvini also faces a separate trial, in which he is accused of blocking migrants from disembarking from the Italian Gregoretti coastguard boat last July, after the senate voted to strip him of his parliamentary immunity in February. Stating that he has a "clear conscience," a defiant Salvini said on 30 July: "Defending Italy is not a crime. I am proud of it, I would do it again, and I will do it again." A recent Demopolis poll found that Salvini's Lega has dropped more than 11 percentage points in a year, from holding 37 per cent of voting intentions to 25.4 per cent today. Photo credit: M.Moira / Shutterstock.com Call for probe of more secessionists after 1st major operation Global Times By Cao Siqi and Chen Qingqing Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/30 20:18:40 There's a call for more secessionists in Hong Kong, including Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and Tai Yiu-ting, to be investigated after four people who claimed to be students were arrested for suspected secessionist activities in the first major operation of the Hong Kong police's new national security unit on Wednesday. A Hong Kong Police Force spokesperson told the Global Times on Thursday that this is the first arrest conducted by the new national security department under the police force against the city's secessionist groups since the department was officially established in early July. The day after the national security law for Hong Kong took effect on June 30, about 370 protesters were arrested for breaching the new law, and 10 of them were apprehended. Many secessionists and their groups shut or rebrand their social media accounts to avoid violating the new security law. The spokesperson said that acting on intelligence and after a thorough investigation, the national security department arrested three men and a woman between the ages of 16 and 21 in Yuen Long, Tuen Mun and Sha Tin on Wednesday. They were suspected of publishing content about secession, and inciting or abetting others to push for secession on online social media platforms in July, which violate Article 20 and Article 21 of the national security law for Hong Kong. Police seized mobile phones, computers and documents, the spokesperson said. He stressed that the internet is not beyond the law. Under Hong Kong law, most of the ordinances stipulated in the real world may also apply in the cyber world. Senior Superintendent Li Kwai-wah, of the national security department under the HKPF, announced at a press conference on Wednesday night that they found a group setting up an organization on a social platform advocating for "Hong Kong independence." The platform of the organization claimed to establish a "Hong Kong Republic." There was also a manifesto inciting others to join the group. They could be sentenced upto 10 years in prison, and police can take DNA samples from those arrested, Li said. The police force did not disclose the names of the suspects and the organization, but Studentlocalism, a secessionist group, announced on Facebook on Wednesday night that Tony Chung Hon-lam, one of the former conveners of the organization, was "arrested for inciting secession." On June 30, Studentslocalism announced it had shut down its headquarters in Hong Kong, the same day the national security law for Hong Kong took effect, and said all the group's affairs would be handled by overseas members instead. But the group continued advocating "Hong Kong independence" on an overseas social media platform after June 30. In a post on Twitter on July 2, they said, "disintegrate China." Hong Kong law states that the suspects could be detained for no more than 48 hours. "During that period, police need to prepare evidence and submit them to the Department of Justice for prosecution. According to the national security law for Hong Kong, they will be denied bail unless the judge has reason to believe that they will not endanger national security," Kennedy Wong Ying-ho, solicitor of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, told the Global Times on Thursday. These students may think they can escape from the law because they published their secessionist opinions on overseas social media platforms. However, as long as they were in Hong Kong, they are still under watch, Wong said. But Wong stressed that the law should severely punish the organization and leaders who incite subversion, but offer leniency to underage suspects deceived by wrong values. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government has enough space for them to express their views. No country will allow a subversive movement, and it should not be different if it happens in China, Nixie Lam, a Tsuen Wan district councilor, told the Global Times on Thursday, calling for a more thorough investigation into secessionists such as Joshua Wong, who continues to incite hatred and defame police actions on social media. Other people like Jimmy Lai, who continues to smear the new security law, and illegal "Occupy Central" movement leader Benny Tai, who openly urged opposition candidates in the "primaries" to paralyze the HKSAR government if they got elected, should be seriously investigated as soon as possible, Kennedy Wong said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Cedric Thomas has published his new book The Oroadex Effect: a compelling futuristic fantasy that keeps the pages turning until the compelling conclusion. The author writes, What youre about to read depicts a higher-genius level of intellectuals deciding to use a mind-transportation device that takes your mind into the body of another mind, entering their life, as long as a pattern is Oroadex Effect (that means that one persons life is triggered simultaneously at the involvement of anothers life just by being in the same vicinity and having some involvement in someones life whether you wanted to or not). The scientists have had plenty of opportunities but never a valid candidate, and now they actually have two. The order came down, and the procedure went according to plan, and now the decision of two different men doing two completely different things at the same time that fitted the puzzle of finding two suitable suitors with the first set of brainwave linking at the same time on the same day set things in motion. But the scientists had no idea that by switching their subjectsJeffery Mantersmind, they would send him on a trip of never-ending pleasure, torture, and more life-changing events. Published by Page Publishing, Cedric Thomass engrossing book is a thought-provoking work of fantasy fiction. Readers who wish to experience this engaging work can purchase The Oroadex Effect 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. Federal and state authorities believe that the worst security breach in Twitters history was perpetrated by three people: 19-year-old Mason Sheppard of the United Kingdom; 22-year-old Nima Fazeli of Orlando, Florida; and 17-your-old Graham Ivan Clark of Tampa, Florida. An investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of California, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement led them to conclude the three individuals were behind a massive hack on July 15 that commandeered accounts belonging to prominent figures including Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Kanye West, Joe Biden, and Elon Musk. According to law enforcement, the hackers were able to rake in more than $100,000 by posting a Bitcoin scam using the hacked accounts. The hackers also allegedly accessed the DMs of 36 accounts and may have downloaded even more data from seven accounts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Big Twitter hack today: Biden, Kanye, Elon Musk & Bill Gates (but not Trump). Heres a screenshot from Bidens hacked account. If you get a message from me promising to send you money, its definitely a hoax. pic.twitter.com/GQysZAfgQ0 CrankyPappy (@CrankyPappy) July 16, 2020 Clarks arrest was announced first. Authorities took him into custody on Friday morning. Twitter said on Thursday that the hackers were able to talk their way into sensitive systems by launching a spear phishing attack over the phone and targeting 130 accounts. However, Twitter did not spell out the specifics of how the attack occurred. Advertisement Advertisement Hes a 17-year-old kid who apparently just graduated high school. But make no mistake, this was not an ordinary 17-year-old. This was a highly sophisticated attack on a magnitude not seen before. It could have been an extremely high amount of loss, said Andrew Warren, state attorney for Hillsborough County, Florida, of Clark. It could have destabilized financial markets, both in America and across the globe, because he had access to powerful politicians Twitter accounts. Warren added that Clark was able to access Twitters internal controls by compromising the companys employees. Advertisement The state attorneys office has charged Clark with 17 accounts of felony communications fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, 10 counts of identity theft, and one count of unlawful access to a computer in furtherance of a scheme to defraud. Warren declined to comment as to whether Clark worked alone. The state attorneys office is handling the case instead of a federal prosecutor because, Warren said in a press conference, Florida law allows for greater latitude in charging a minor as an adult in financial fraud cases. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Shortly after Clarks arrest in Florida was announced, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of California reported that the other two suspects had also been charged. Federal agents said that Sheppard used his personal drivers license to set up accounts with the Binance and Coinbase Bitcoin exchanges. These accounts allegedly transmitted and received some of the filched cryptocurrency. Authorities also claimed that Fazelis Coinbase account, which hed used his drivers license to verify, had received payments in exchange for control over the hacked Twitter accounts. Sheppard faces a maximum 20-year sentence and a $250,000 fine for wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. Fazeli faces a five-year sentence and a $250,000 fine for computer intrusion. Vices Motherboard reported that its reporters were able to get in contact with the hackers shortly after the scam occurred. We used a rep that literally done all the work for us, one hacker told the reporter. Another claimed that they paid a Twitter employee for the access. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. India praised Canada for disavowing the Punjab Referendum 2020 organised by the secessionist group Sikhs for Justice or SFJ. India believes that in clearly disavowing the referendum the Canadian Government has set a precedent that should be emulated by other countries, particularly in the West. Canada taking a lead is good start, a senior official told the Hindustan Times, adding that the position was that this stand now put pressure on others to follow suit. Also Read: Faces of terror: Why India banned 9 Khalistan-linked terrorists in 5 countries A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, the countrys Foreign Ministry, stated in an email that Canada respects the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of India, and the Government of Canada will not recognize the referendum. Following this statement from Ottawa, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had also voiced the hope that other nations would also follow Canadas example and reject the referendum. In effect, India is hopeful that a similar stance will emerge from other nations in the Five Eyes group, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. SFJ has also been active in other European nations like Germany and Italy. The Canadian position came even as contacts between New Delhi and Ottawa have increased since Trudeau came back to power in October 2019. Since then, he has met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G7 summit and has recently spoken on the phone twice. The two foreign ministers, S Jaishankar and Francois-Philippe Champagne have been frequently in touch, most recently last week over the Covid-19 pandemic and coordinated efforts to tackle the outbreak. Similarly, Canadas Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade Mary Ng has been in regular communication with Commerce, Industry and Railways Minister Piyush Goyal. They spoke again on Wednesday on several issues including ongoing negotiations related to the Canada-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement and the Canada-India Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement. SFJ has already attacked the Justin Trudeaus government for the stand and asserted it will go ahead with its plans in Canada and elsewhere. Its general counsel Gurpatwant Pannun in a statement said, Canadian Sikhs will not let the Trudeau regime trump their right to peacefully express and propagate the political opinion of Khalistan by holding Referendum 2020. Trudeau government should find some other way to please India. The Canadian statement appears to have rattled pro-Khalistani groups in Canada. A statement from the Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar Canada attacked Hindustan Times reporting on this matter and said that the Indian Government has admittedly started their phase 2 of its anti-referendum campaign to ensure any foreign Government do not recognize the results of the Sikh Referendum 2020. Hong Kong, July 31 : The Hong Kong government is expected to announce on Friday that it will postpone the Legislative Council elections due on September 6, citing the worsening COVID-19 situation as the primary reason, sources said. The move to postpone the polls comes at the end of the nomination period, which will officially close at 5 p.m. on Friday, and after the mass disqualification of 12 opposition hopefuls, the sources told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) newspaper. If the elections are postponed, they must be held no later than 14 days. At least 22 other opposition hopefuls were still waiting for returning officers' verdicts on their applications. In letters to the aspirants on Thursday, electoral officials cited the city's new national security law, and the pan-democrats' previous calls for foreign governments to sanction Beijing and Hong Kong as reasons for barring four incumbent lawmakers - Civic Party's Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu, Dennis Kwok and Kwok Ka-ki, as well as accountancy sector lawmaker Kenneth Leung. Other opposition figures disqualified include activist Joshua Wong. Following the disqualification of 12 hopefuls on Thursday, the government warned that more candidates might meet the same fate. But an informed source told the SCMP newspaper said no more disqualifications would be announced on Friday. "But returning offices are empowered to do so after the nomination period closes on Friday," the source added. Would you prefer the next Broncos ownership group include John Elway or Peyton Manning? You voted: President Donald Trump warned on Friday the United States would face its 'biggest election disaster in history' with mail-in ballots being used this fall. 'This is going to be the biggest election disaster in history,' Trump predicted of the November contest, adding the results may never be known. 'You won't know the election result for weeks, months, maybe years after. Maybe you'll never know the election result. And that's what I'm concerned with. It'll be fixed. It'll be rigged,' he said at the White House during an event with police chiefs. 'Watch what happens,' he said. President Donald Trump warned the United States would face its 'biggest election disaster in history' with mail-in ballots being used this fall. President Trump also has claimed Hillary Clinton's hasn't accepted the results of the 2016 election - above Clinton formally concedes the election to Trump on November 9, 2016, with husband Bill Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine by her side President Trump has launched repeated attacks on mail-in voting, claiming it will lead to a rigged election His comment about the election - taken with his past statements - have sparked Democratic fears Trump won't accept the results in November if Joe Biden wins. Trump has, of late, refused to say if he'll accept what happens in November. Asked by Axios' Jonathan Swan, in an interview to air Monday on HBO, the president wouldn't say if he would accept the will of the voters but did argue Hillary Clinton hadn't accepted the 2016 election. 'Hillary Clinton didn't accepted them. She's still never accepted them,' Trump said. Clinton formally conceded to President Trump in both a private phone call and in a public speech after the election. Trump has questioned the legitimacy of using mail-in ballots in November, an option many states are using to help combat the spread of the coronavirus. The president went as far to suggest postponing the election. His latest remarks came as he met with the National Association of Police Organizations Leadership at the White House on Friday after law enforcement endorsed his re-election bid to push his 'law and order' message and slam Democratic rival Joe Biden. The president has courted law enforcement and become their biggest advocate in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, the black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. Trump met with police chiefs after the National Association of Police Organizations, which represents more than 1,000 police units and associations nationwide, endorsed his re-election bid earlier this week. The powerful police group did not endorse a candidate in the 2016 election but backed former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in both the 2008 and 2012 elections. Trump has decried efforts by some liberals to defund police departments, a call that came about after Floyd died. The president has falsely claimed Biden wants to defund police units, which he does not. Trump repeated that incorrect claim on Friday and argued Biden, known for his moderate political stances, has been pulled further to the left than Bernie Sanders. 'Joe Biden's pledge to cut police funding. You do know about that. I assume right you've heard that little rumor. This guy has been dragged so far left. Biden has been taken further left than Bernie ever was. Bernie was never this,' he said. Trump labeled himself the 'law and order president' - a moniker he believes will help him politically - when demonstrations sprung up around the country after Floyd died. But his railing against November's voting even had Republicans speaking out against him on Thursday. It came as Trump doubled down on his threat to delay November's election, citing concerns mail-in voting could lead to a 'rigged' and 'crooked' result. The president, in a brief news conference at the White House on Thursday evening, said he didn't want to see the election delayed but also argued he didn't want to see mail-in ballots go missing, indicating his opposition to mail-in voting remains an issue in regards to the general election. Trump and some Republicans have pushed the unproven claim that mail-in voting leads to fraud and they've also questioned the ability of the U.S. Postal Service to get all the ballots delivered to the various state boards of election. 'We're asking for a lot of trouble,' Trump said. 'Do I want to see a date change? No. But I don't want to see a crooked election. This election will be the most rigged election in history.' President Donald Trump doubled down on his threat to delay November's election, citing concerns mail-in voting could lead to a 'rigged' and 'crooked' result President Trump said he was concerned that mail-in voting, which many states are considering as an alternative to in-person voting to help combat the spread of the coronavirus, could lead to miss ballots and a 'rigged' election More and more states are looking at mail-in voting options as a way to counter the coronavirus pandemic but Republicans believe that favors voting blocs that vote Democrats and are suing several states to stop the process. 'I don't want to delay,' Trump added. 'I want to have the election. But I also don't want to have to wait three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing and the election doesn't mean anything. That what's going to happen.' 'And everyone knows it,' he added. 'Smart people know. Stupid people may not know it. Some people don't want to talk about it. But they know it.' Trump also claimed his bombshell attempt to delay November's election was merely a way to get the media to talk about his allegations against mail-in voting and added that he expects to know election results the night of Nov. 3. 'Glad I was able to get the very dishonest LameStream Media to finally start talking about the RISKS to our Democracy from dangerous Universal Mail-In-Voting (not Absentee Voting, which I totally support!),' he tweeted before his news conference. Presidents have no power to change the date of the election. That must be done through an act of Congress. And Republican senators, including several Trump allies, were quick to say it wasn't going happen. President Donald Trump claimed his bombshell attempt to delay November's election was merely a way to get the media to talk about mail-in voting Trump then argued he wanted to bring attention to his argument that mail-in voting causes fraud. Numerous studies have shown that is not the case and that there is very little voter fraud in America. But the president also gave another demand - to know the results on election night. Given that many states are expanding mail-in voting options to limit exposure to the coronavirus, the results of the contest will likely take a few days as any ballot with a November 3 postmark will be counted. Even the results in 2016, which used in-person for the majority of voting, weren't know until later the next day. 'Must know Election results on the night of the Election, not days, months, or even years later!,' Trump wrote. And he added: 'We are going to WIN the 2020 Election, BIG! #MAGA' His chief of staff Mark Meadows, on Capitol Hill to work on coronavirus relief package negotiations, said the president's delay demand was referring to concerns about how long a national mail-in election would take to be tabulated. 'He's highlighting what what he strongly believes and what billions of Americans believe is that, trying to go to a universal mail-in ballot process by its very function will delay the results of the election,' Meadows told reporters on Capitol Hill. He pointed out that results of some of the races in New York's primary, held last month, were still be waited on as the state board of elections counted mail-in ballots. 'Can you imagine what that would be like if we're waiting on who the President of the United States is going to be based on mail-in ballots?' Meadows said. The winner of the presidential election would not be sworn into office until Wednesday, January 20, 2021, which would give almost three months for all ballots to be counted. In 2000, the winner of the George W. Bush and Al Gore contest was not declared until December 12 after numerous recounts in Florida and a ruling by the Supreme Court. Meadows also questioned the ability of the U.S. Postal Service to guarantee the safety of the mail-in ballots, another question Republicans are raising in the fight against mail-in ballots. 'Universal mail in ballots, you would raise the question of does every ballot, when it leaves the election board and goes out in the mail to someone who is registered, does it get returned and is that ballot actually safe and secure? I would suggest, knowing the United States Postal Service as well as I do - and no disrespect to the great men and women who work in the postal system - I don't know that we have a high degree of confidence that the custody of those ballots can be the same as if you were going in and casting your ballot in person,' he added. Trump's clarification also comes after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other top Republicans shot down his suggestion to delay the November election until 'people can properly, securely and safely vote.' McConnell pointed out elections hadn't been delayed in the past and did not need to be now. 'Never in the history of the country through wars, depressions, and the Civil War have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time. And we'll find a way to do that again this November 3,' McConnell told a local Kentucky television station. He confirmed he expected the election to take place on November 3. 'That's right. We'll cope with whatever the situation is in the election on November 3 as already scheduled.' Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell shot down President Donald Trump's suggestion to delay the November election Even some of President Trump's top Republican allies on Capitol Hill disagreed with his suggestion to put off the November 3 contest Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (left) and House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (right), two top Trump allies, said the election should not be delayed Other Republicans agreed. 'I don't believe we should delay the elections. Delaying the election probably wouldn't be a good idea. I think we can be able to safely vote in person in November,' said Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally on Capitol Hill. Senator Rick Scott, another Trump ally, said he 'doesn't agree with delaying the election.' Senator Chuck Grassley, the president pro temp of the Senate, said the country would follow the law when it came to the election date. 'All these things are pretty well set and have been going on for decades. And so we're a country based on the rule of law so nobody's going to change anything until we change the law,' he said. Senator Ted Cruz said election fraud should be investigated but that doesn't mean postponing the election. 'I think election fraud is a serious problem and we need to fight it and stop it. But no, we should not delay the election,' he said. And House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is also close to Trump, said there should be no delay. 'Never in the history of the federal elections have we not held an election and we should go forward,' he said. by Nirmala Carvalho Following an outcry against the proposal, the States Education Department issued a statement on Thursday, saying that the decision to drop certain chapters has been put on hold. A review will be done, following which the deleted chapters will be uploaded to the website. Mumbai (AsiaNews) The BJP-led Government of Karnataka has put on hold a controversial proposal to drop certain chapters from social science textbooks to trim the 2020-21 curriculum for Grades 1 to 10 students. The sections to be removed covered Islam, Christianity, Tipu Sultan and his father, Hyder Ali. State authorities had initially decided to cut the 2020-21 syllabus because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Chapters on the Constitution, Islam and Christianity were left out of school curricula, various media reported. The rationale behind the move was that students would study these topics in Grade 9 anyway. However, media reports noted that Grade 9 teachers were asked to briefly summarise these topics since the syllabus erroneously claims that students already studied them in Grade 6. Speaking about the matter, Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore told AsiaNews that "India is a secular country blessed with a multi-religious heritage of tolerance and harmony. No other country can boast such a rich and interfaith fabric and traditions, which are best taught when children are young and innocent. "To do away with lessons on Islam and Christianity from the school syllabus may not only keep them [students] ignorant of the positive values of these religions, but also infuse them with feelings of indifference, distrust and hostility, said the prelate. Ushering in such major policy changes by the government in this sad season of COVID without much public discussion also smacks of a pre-fabricated agenda, he added. I hope the syllabus committee will undo the damage and restore the lessons on Islam and Christianity in the school standards as before, for a complete holistic education of the child. The Government speaks of Made in India and the best thing we have from Made in India is the tolerance we have due to having so many religions. Diversity among us is a great value to be edified by others. After the outcry, the States Department of Public Instruction on Thursday released a statement by S Suresh Kumar, Karnatakas Minister of Primary and Secondary Education. On his instruction, the decision to drop certain chapters has been put on hold. A review will be done following which the deleted chapters will be uploaded to the website," the note said. Earlier in the day, Kumar had issued another statement, saying that the decision to shorten the syllabus had not been finalised, making it clear that his department would not remove chapters unnecessarily. By Jack Stubbs LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. travel management firm CWT paid $4.5 million this week to hackers who stole reams of sensitive corporate files and said they had knocked 30,000 computers offline, according to a record of the ransom negotiations seen by Reuters. The attackers used a strain of ransomware called Ragnar Locker, which encrypts computer files and renders them unusable until the victim pays for access to be restored. The ensuing negotiations between the hackers and a CWT representative remained publicly accessible in an online chat group, providing a rare insight into the fraught relationship between cyber criminals and their corporate victims. CWT, which posted revenues of $1.5 billion last year and says it represents more than a third of companies on the S&P 500 U.S. stock index, confirmed the attack but declined to comment on the details of what it said was an ongoing investigation. "We can confirm that after temporarily shutting down our systems as a precautionary measure, our systems are back online and the incident has now ceased," it said in a statement. "While the investigation is at an early stage, we have no indication that personally identifiable information/customer and traveller information has been compromised." CWT said it had immediately informed U.S. law enforcement and European data protection authorities. A person familiar with the investigation said the company believed the number of infected computers was considerably less than the 30,000 the hackers told CWT they had infected. DIGITAL RANSOM NOTE The hackers initially demanded a payment of $10 million to restore CWT's files and delete all the stolen data, according to the messages reviewed by Reuters. "It's probably much cheaper than lawsuits expenses (sic), reputation loss caused by leakage," the attackers wrote on July 27. The CWT representative in the negotiations, who said they were acting on behalf of the firm's chief financial officer, said the company had been badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and agreed to pay $4.5 million in the digital currency bitcoin. Story continues "Okay let's get this moving forward. What are the next steps?" the representative said after agreeing to the ransom. A public ledger of digital currency payments, known as the blockchain, shows that an online wallet controlled by the hackers received the requested payment of 414 bitcoin on July 28. Messages sent to email addresses used by the hackers went unanswered. In a ransom note left on infected CWT computers and screenshots posted online, the hackers claimed to have stolen two terabytes of files, including financial reports, security documents and employees' personal data such as email addresses and salary information. It was not clear whether data belong to any of CWT's customers, including Thomson Reuters, was compromised. Western security officials say ransomware attacks are a consistent and serious threat to businesses and private companies, despite the increased attention usually given to the headline-grabbing antics of state-backed hackers. Such attacks are thought to cost billions of dollars each year, either in extorted payments or recovery costs. Cybersecurity experts say the best defence is to keep secure data back-ups, and that paying ransoms encourages further criminal attacks without any guarantee that the encrypted files will be restored. (Additional reporting by Raphael Satter in WASHINGTON; Editing by Gareth Jones) 31.07.2020 LISTEN On Wednesday 29 July 2020, I tuned in online to programme presenter Afia Pokuah's "Gyaso Gyaso" programme. She was interviewing an NDC Member of Parliament on how he finds presidential-candidate John Dramani Mahama's campaign policies on introducing Financial Services Authority in Ghana if he won elections 2020, his readiness to pay all customers who lost their savings to the collapsed and/or consolidated banks and microfinance companies, and the President's directive to Auditor-General Daniel Yaw Domelevo to start his accumulated annual paid holiday leave. The MP could clearly be heard fumbling for tangible answers. He was not being convinced with his answers, leaving one to wonder if such is the calibre of the current crop of lawmakers Ghana has. If yes, there is no doubt that Ghana is mired in a cyclical poverty, corruption, and without a way out. The MP, although a member on the Parliamentary Finance Committee, could not credibly convince the host of the programme, myself and probably the majority of the public audience with his answers. On the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to be introduced by John Mahama to ensure banking discipline in Ghana to avoid the recurrence of banks deliberately criminally going insolvent to need government bailout, he cited the benefit of such a body in the financial and economic prosperity of the United Kingdom as was introduced by the former British Exchequer and Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Such a body has supervisory oversight on the banks to relieve the Central Bank of its cumbersome duty of monitoring the banks and at the same time managing the economic finances of the government. By this, he seems to bring in separation of duties to ensure close and effective monitoring to bring about the best in such bodies or institutions for the general interests of the country and the people. However, he failed to tell that with the total monetary independence of the Bank of Ghana from government meddling, the Bank of Ghana could monitor and supervise the banks in addition to their other central duties of managing the economy for the government. The creation of the Financial Services Authority will be ineffective should the body be still controlled stringently by the government. There is evidence that the Bank of Ghana had investigated most of the banks among whom were the recently collapsed and consolidated banks, under former President John Dramani Mahama's NDC government. The report on their findings and suggestions as were presented to then President John Dramani Mahama's NDC government were never followed through but pushed under the carpet. Therefore, the MP should have explained how the FSA will work to bring sanity into the banking sector but he could not analytically answer that question despite insistence by Afia Pokuah. On the collapse and consolidation of some banks and microfinance companies, the MP could not make me proud but rather ashamed. In answer to the question about why and how some banks have collapsed under the NPP government and how does he see the promise by John Mahama to pay all the outstanding money owed by the collapsed banks to their customers, his answer was completely infantile. No wonder the answer was coming from a member of the NDC. They are people who think about themselves first before the wellbeing of the general Ghanaian public hence always being economical with the truth. He said, the collapsing of the banks and microfinance companies by the NPP government has brought undue economic hardships upon the general public. It has brought about unemployment, lack of availability of money to the people etc. What baffles me most is his questioning of the government's rationale behind collapsing the banks and then offering to pay or paying the customers of those banks who have lost their money to the banks. He asked, what is the sense in the government collapsing the banks for their incapacity to pay their customers, owing them a total of about GHS19 billion while the government goes for GHS21 billion to pay the customers? Why could the government not sensibly have given the banks the lesser figure of GHS19 billion to let the banks stay afloat to help the economy, he queried? This argument by him in the surface sounds intelligent but when one dives deeper into it, he was not being honest to the Ghanaian people. How did the banks come to be collapsed, a question that we need to ask and seek answers to. The banks in the first place ran into financial difficulties right under former President John Dramani Mahama's NDC government. He bailed them out. The Bank of Ghana gave them liquidity support running into hundreds of millions, or if not hundreds of billions, of Ghana New Cedis. In less than no time that the government's liquidity support had been given to them, evidence in the public domain indicates that some shareholders of the banks voraciously availed themselves of the money. They shared the money among themselves as though they were scrambling for free tomatoes in the market place. They took the money as loans without even going through the standing credible banking procedures for granting loans to customers. This happened under John Dramani Mahama, the head of corruption. If the president himself is corruptly availing himself of the nation's money illegally, why not the shareholders of the banks, they may have asked themselves? What was the guarantee that the banks would not have equally misused the money if the NPP government had offered them a second bailout? The MP could not offer any intelligible answer here. Does a useful admonition not forewarn us thus, "Once bitten, twice shy?" Why should further taxpayers' money be thrown down the drain? Was the consolidated UT Bank not established by the receivers to have loaned the younger sibling of then President John Dramani Mahama GHS302 million, without following proper banking lending procedures? There was no collateral to fall on in the event of the borrower refusing to pay back the loan. Now, he has refused to pay even a pesewa to the bank and all the attempts to get President Mahama advise his brother to make efforts to pay back the loan proved futile. Could his failure to honour his promise to pay back the loan not have contributed to the bank becoming insolvent hence its ultimate consolidation? This rogue behaviour was not unique to UT Bank but others also. For some personal reasons, painful of course, I don't want to write about the collapsed banks but the NDC Member of Parliament has by his deplorable partisan explanations touched off this skirmish. When Afia Pokuah asked him about the President's directive to Auditor-General Daniel Yaw Domelevo to proceed on leave to exhaust his accumulated annual paid holiday, he proved himself a total misfit in his post as a lawmaker. If such is the calibre of Ghana lawmakers, then I am afraid there is no wonder that laws are not working in Ghana, giving rise to ramifications of crimes and lawlessness in the country. To sum up all that he said in the twists and turns of the questions posed to him on the Auditor-General Domelevo starting his leave as directed by the President, he accepted that yes, Domelevo has accrued accumulated paid annual holidays but why did the President not ask him to go on leave two years or a year ago but now that we are in election year? Again, he is not the only public officer in Ghana that has accumulated accrued annual paid holidays leave so why is he the only one being directed by the President to proceed on leave to exhaust his annual paid holiday but not the many others? He further went on to say it is all because Domelevo is an incorruptible person, an anti-corruption personality who is exposing the corruption by the NPP government that is why the President feeling so uncomfortable has directed him to proceed on leave to conceal their malfeasances. He was churning out a lot of completely irresponsible explanations unbefitting of a lawmaker. Let me ask that NDC lawmaker the following questions if at all he will not make same stupid arguments. 1. Is legally right for public officers in Ghana to accumulate their paid annual holiday leave for years on end without ever dreaming to proceed on leave to exhaust such accrued holidays? 2. Does the MP know that it is mandatory for a public officer to have annual paid holiday leave which cannot be relinquished by any agreement or to forgo such leave? 3. Does it matter when a public officer without intention to go on leave but keeps accumulating them is directed to take his leave? 4. If there are many public officers in Ghana who are accumulating their paid annual holidays leave, does it negate the legality of a directive to a public officer who has accumulated his leave over three years or more to go on leave? Is asking him to go on leave not grounded in law? If it is, what then is wrong about directing such a public officer to go on leave to finish his accrued but accumulated annual paid holidays? 5. Is the President aware of the other many public officers that have accumulated and continue to accumulate their annual paid holiday leave? Has anyone brought any names of such public officers to the attention of the President but he has hypocritically failed to act on them, by not directing them to proceed on leave? 6. How does he conclude that Mr Domelevo is fighting against the NPP government's corruption that is the motive behind the President's directive to him to proceed on leave? Is this negative perception not the figment of the MP's mind? To conclude, for a lawmaker to express such views is very unfortunate and a denigration of the image of Ghana Parliament. The politicians going on air to express their views, explain the laws or policies should bear in mind that they are being listened to all over the world so they must be circumspect, knowledgeable and well-informed on the subjects but not to allow themselves to be carried away by their political bigotry to talk anyhow or else, they risk making themselves fools in the eyes of the worldwide public. Rockson Adofo Thursday, 30 July 2020 THEY have been entertaining the people of Limerick for over 150 years and now St Johns Brass and Reed Band are turning a new and exciting leaf in an effort ensure its proud traditions live on. The band formed in 1865 and has a rich tradition of introducing music into the lives of thousands of people, while playing a significant role in the cultural development in Limerick since its formation. The band has undergone massive changes over the past few months. They have has appointed Jonathan Luxton as their new Musical Director. Mr Luxton is a renowned international musician having been trained by the Royal Academy of Music in London and has spent the past three decades plying his trade in Portugal. Speaking on his appointment and his plans for the band Mr Luxton said: I am delighted to take over this role, I want to provide opportunities for children in our communities to come and play music. We have a new initiative called First Steps in Music which we hope to roll out in September with the help of the people of Limerick. There is on-going band practice in their band hall in Garryowen where you can join, regardless of skill level. Band chairperson Tony Mc Carthy declared himself absolutely thrilled at the prospect of the programme but is issuing a request to the people of Limerick. We have a serious opportunity here with Jonathon, he is a really talented teacher but we need to do some fundraising for musical equipment to help fulfil our dream. We need to raise around 8,000 to purchase trombones, clarinets and a tuba, he explained. They are appealing to the people of Limerick to donate to the band via its Gofundme page which can be found online. Our new vision for the band is a serious attempt to bring music right into the heart of the community, somewhere we know there is young talent and we are really looking forward to making our dreams a reality Mr McCarthy said. He outlined other ways the people of Limerick can help out with the band's ambitious plans. We want to give young people from all backgrounds an opportunity to play brass and reed instruments. It's very important to us to raise money to buy instruments to give youngsters that can't afford to buy instruments an opportunity to play and you have to hand the youngsters an instrument for them to learn. The musicians are also accepting donations of old instruments that are gathering dust in people's homes. We would put them to really good use. We are hoping that once again, with the help of Limerick people, that we can get back to travelling the world representing our community and our city. He concluded. If you wish to donate instruments to the Limerick Bass and Reed Band please contact Tony Mc Carthy at (087) 670 9376 or Kieran Walsh (085) 855 8414. If you wish to attend band practices or to donate instruments the band hall's address is: 2 Garryowen Road, Limerick, Co. Limerick [V94 YW26]. For more information please visit http://stjohnsband.com Revealing he had 'very mild symptoms,' Bryan Cranston guided his social media followers through the plasma donation process via a video American actor Bryan Cranston recently took to Instagram to reveal that he'd donate his plasma after recovering from the coronavirus. The Breaking Bad actor talked about his symptoms, recovery, and future plan of action in a two-minute video. He announced that he has decided to donate plasma for helping with the research procedure. I wanted to announce that I had COVID-19 a little while ago. Very lucky, very mild symptoms, he said in the clip. Cranston was standing in front of the UCLA Blood and Platelet Center in Los Angeles, while recording the clip as he revealed that he was donating his plasma at the centre. "Hopefully the plasma donation can help some other people". Check out the post The actor then took his followers through the plasma donation process. In the footnotes of the video, he recalled his symptoms, which included a slight headache, tightness of chest and the loss of taste and smell. In order to create awareness, he also asked the medical professional what was going to happen to the plasma taken from him. The nurse explained that the blood taken from Cranston will be sent to a centrifuge where the plasma will be separated from the blood. Then Cranston's platelets will be returned back to him. The whole process took about an hour, revealed the actor. He informed his followers that anybody who has had COVID-19 in the past will have the antibodies and hence can donate their plasma. Calling himself lucky in the caption for recovering from the disease, Cranston urged everyone to keep wearing the damn mask, keep washing hands, and stay socially distant. Cranston is best known for his role as Walter White in the hit series Breaking Bad, The New York Times reported that he is a five-time Emmy winner and two-time Tony Award. In 2019, he won the Tony Award for his acting in Network. GREENWICH Three new recruits are set to join the ranks of the Greenwich Fire Department. The new hires add a range of experience to the department, including in construction, finance, vehicle maintenance, community health and emergency services. They bring vital assets to the fire department, Interim Fire Chief Robert Kick said Friday. First Selectman Fred Camillo swore in the three recruits in a teleconferenced ceremony, a first for the department in the age of coronavirus. A full ceremony will be held later this year for the three firefighters after they complete training at the state fire academy in Windsor Locks. Anthony Ryan is a native of Ridgefield who graduated from Western Connecticut State University, where he studied business administration. He has been working in the construction field, as well as serving as a sergeant in the National Guard. Ryan recently assisted with coronavirus testing in Stamford as part of that service. Ryan is also an auto enthusiast who races competitively. Roger Clapp is currently a corrections officer with the state. He studied at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury and has been a volunteer firefighter with the Deep River Fire Department. John Valentini graduated from the University of Connecticut with a major in political science. He has been a sales representative in firefighting equipment and gear. Valentini has also been serving with the Cromwell Fire Department and received EMT certification. Kick called the three new recruits the cream of the crop. The three men will receive 15 weeks of training at the academy, as well as local training beginning next week. The fire academy has been reworked to accommodate new public-health requirements due to the pandemic. Camillo said he was pleased to induct them into the ranks of the Greenwich Fire Department. Good luck to all of you, he said, Youre joining the best fire department in the state of Connecticut. The three new recruits, who are replacing personnel who are retiring, appeared briefly on a teleconference call. rmarchant@greenwichtime.com Lets not even try to make out everything is tickety-boo in life right now. As a Victorian in the midst of Lockdown 2.0 during a week that registered numbers I hadnt contemplated in a worst-case scenario, I can confirm on behalf of the majority of my fellow Melburnians that it is a challenge to stay positive and upbeat, if not an impossibility. The word "sucks" comes to mind, along with a spluttering of expletives I will spare you. Sydney, I know you are dreading the same and my heart goes out to you. But, damn: I am giving positivity a red hot go despite the odds. I still believe there is much to be grateful for amid this pandemic and much goodness to celebrate. So, in a Karen-free (I promise) musing, let me share some insights that are helping me survive and even smile. A walk in the park is good for mental health. Credit:Quentin Jones As awful as lockdown, or the threat of it, is, I take solace in the fact that it is a necessary means to an end. Imagine living in Trumps USA with astronomical death and infection numbers, yet still being encouraged to carry on as normal under the reassurance the virus will just eventually "go away"? 31.07.2020 LISTEN As Muslims around the world celebrates Eid-ul-Adha today, July 31 the Coalition of Muslim Organizations, Ghana (COMOG) has called for peace to reign in all parts of Ghana. Basing its calls on the value of sacrifice that comes with the Eid celebration, COMOG has asked Muslims and all Ghanaians to work towards peace and unity among themselves. In its Eid-ul-Adha message, COMOG said, The act of animal sacrifices symbolizes our willingness to give up some of our own bounties in order to strengthen and help those who are in need. We recognize that all blessings come from Allah, and we should open our hearts and share with others. The symbolism is in the attitude a willingness to make sacrifices in our lives in order to stay on the right path subscribing to the oneness of humanity and oneness of the creator. Allah does not want anything more from us than asking us to be just, truthful and peaceful. It brings tranquillity and balance to an individual and what surrounds him and the environment. The Coalition also pleaded with political parties to sacrifice their political egos to ensure that our country continues to enjoy peace and development towards the general elections in December. Any political party that will lead in promoting and exhibiting peaceful election 2020, COMOG believes would engender sympathy of Ghanaians who will sacrifice their votes for them, the statement added. Furthermore, COMOG lamented the challenging times for Muslims all over the world due to the restrictions imposed on countries due to the coronavirus pandemic. It, however, acknowledged that the most will still be made out of the Eid and extended its greetings to Islamic, Political Leaders and all Muslims across the country. Read the full statement below: Lets sacrifice for national peace: as we Celebrate Eid of sacrifice In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful All gratitude is to Allah, Lord of all creation, and peace and blessings be on the noble Prophet, his family, Companions and all those who tread the path of righteousness. Eid-ul-Adha, the second biggest religious festival of the Muslims, will be celebrated on Friday with due solemnity and religious fervour. As we partake in the festivities, we must not lose sight of the true essence of the religious practice of sacrifice. The festival originated from the readiness of Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH) to make a supreme sacrifice on Allahs command. Unfortunately, instead of practising self-sacrifice and humility, the occasion these days is marked by ostentation by many. The exhibitionism of wealth during Eid-ul-Adha, apparent in the competition to display the most expensive and grandiose sacrifice, is in sharp contradiction to the spirit of the occasion. On this Eid, we should pledge to break from the temptation of worldly riches and imbue ourselves with the spirit of sharing, compassion and virtue. We should reach out to those who are less fortunate than us and refrain from ostentatious behaviour that can offend others sensitivities. The Coalition of Muslim Organizations, Ghana (COMOG) wishes to urge all Muslims to ensure proper waste disposal and a sanitary environment so that we dont have to sacrifice the cleanliness of our cities in the fulfilment of our religious duty. Never does their flesh reach God, and neither their blood. It is only your God-consciousness that reaches Him. It is to this end that we have made them subservient to your needs so that you might glorify God for all the guidance with which He has graced you. And give thou this glad tiding unto the doers of good. Qur'an Al-Hajj (22): 37 (The Pilgrimage): The act of animal sacrifices symbolizes our willingness to give up some of our own bounties in order to strengthen and help those who are in need. We recognize that all blessings come from Allah, and we should open our hearts and share with others. The meat from the sacrifice of Eid-al-Adha is given away in three ways; self, relatives and the poor. It is a symbolic act of sharing with people who don't get to eat the meat as we do. The symbolism is in the attitude a willingness to make sacrifices in our lives in order to stay on the right path subscribing to the oneness of humanity and oneness of the creator. A Muslim is one who submits himself or herself completely to the Lord. It is indeed the strength of heart, purity in faith and willing obedience that our creator desires from us. Allah does not want anything more from us than asking us to be just, truthful and peaceful. It brings tranquillity and balance to an individual and what surrounds him and the environment. The creator would be pleased when his creation is nurtured, cared for and sustained. Indeed, to be religious is to be a peacemaker, one who seeks to mitigate conflicts and nurtures goodwill for peaceful co-existence. As we approach the general elections, the Coalition of Muslim Organizations, Ghana (COMOG) wishes to call on partisan political players to sacrifice their political egos to ensure that our country continues to enjoy peace and development. COMOG calls on political parties to take the lead in promoting nonviolent campaign. Any political party that will lead in promoting and exhibiting peaceful election 2020, COMOG believes would engender sympathy of Ghanaians who will sacrifice their votes for them. As the restrictions are easing, COVID-19 is still active and requires our communities to act diligently in order to protect ourselves and the wider society. This year, of course, is unlike any other, with restrictions on Hajj in place and therefore presenting a challenging time for Muslims all over the world. However, Muslim communities are still able to make the most of Eid Al Adha. All gratitude is to Allah, Lord of all creation, and peace and blessings on the noble Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) his family and Companions. On this occasion, COMOG extends our greetings to Islamic, Political Leaders and all Muslims across the country. COMOG as an umbrella Muslim organization also urge Islamic organisations nationwide to continue improving their work and to shoulder the responsibility towards Muslims and society in the best possible way. May each year meet and leave us in the most favourable of conditions Aameen. Eid Mubarak .sgnd.. Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Hassan Deputy General Secretary- Media and PR For Hajj Abdel-Manan Abdel-Rahman COMOG President ---citinewsroom Ex-Trump Adviser Says Putin Living In A 'Bubble,' Out Of Fresh Ideas To Move Russia Forward By RFE/RL July 30, 2020 WASHINGTON -- A former senior foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump said U.S. policy toward Russia continues to be hamstrung by partisan politics but that Moscow also needs to change its behavior for bilateral relations to improve. Fiona Hill, who served as the top Russia adviser in the National Security Council until July 2019 and authored a book on President Vladimir Putin, also said the Kremlin leader may be slowly losing touch with his population after more than 20 years in power. In an video discussion hosted by the Wilson Center think tank in Washington on July 29, Hill lamented that Russia remains the subject of "endless" conspiracy theories and congressional hearings over its interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which makes it tough for the administration to pursue progress on key bilateral issues. "We can't keep living in this frame of 2016 forever," said Hill, who is now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. "National security issues should not be partisan, they should not be politicized because they affect all of us, and the risks of something getting out of control are far too high." Hill, however, said Russia continues to view the relationship with the United States as a geopolitical competition and carries out "tactical operations" that undermine bilateral relations. Russia has supported separatists in eastern Ukraine, backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his nation's nine-year civil war, and helped Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar in his fight for control of the North African country. The conflicts at times have resembled proxy wars among world powers. "The more that we are in this tactical mud wrestling fight with Russia, the less we can move forward on addressing big issues" like nuclear nonproliferation, climate change, and the coronavirus, she said. Hill said the United States has been trying to "stabilize and professionalize" the relationship with Russia in recent years through meetings between foreign policy, defense, and intelligence officials. If Russia wants to restore its seat at the table with global powers, it needs to stop "kicking the hell out of everybody" under the table, she said. The Russia analyst said she thinks that Putin has become complacent after two decades in power and questioned whether he can adapt to the changes taking place inside the country. "He is in something of a bubble. I don't want to say that he has lost his edge, but I do think he has kind of lost a little bit of the feel of what is going on domestically, and that is inevitable," she said. She called changes to the Russian Constitution that elevated the primacy of the Russian language and Orthodox religion as "very dangerous." Russians approved the changes -- which also included an amendment that allows Putin to potentially rule until 2036 -- in a June vote that was marred by irregularities. Hill said that Putin had been cautious earlier in his political career to avoid issues that might spark ethnic or religious divisions. "He is obviously fairly confident that he can pander right now to this larger [ethnic Russian] base, and I worry about this. I worry that is a failure to see how things have evolved," she said. Putin seems to be out of "fresh ideas" to move Russia forward this decade, running the risk that his "brand" becomes stale, she said. The Kremlin's current foreign policy is not the answer to that problem, she said. "[Putin] keeps saying he is going to do something for the country, but mud wrestling with the United States from here to perpetuity isn't really doing something for the country," she said. Hill said Putin could seek to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election to sow discord if he thinks he will derive greater benefits from doing so. High voter turnout and more "civil discourse" between Democrats and Republicans would reduce the impact of any Russian interference, she said. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ex-trump-adviser-says-u-s- russia-policy-hamstrung-by-partisan-politics -putin-living-in-a-bubble-/30756400.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Contact tracers have tracked down almost 2000 people who might have been exposed to the coronavirus after two COVID-positive women spent eight days mingling in Brisbane while infectious. Before the virus reached Queensland, the state had 200 people trained in contact tracing, but that number has increased to 1213, including 524 public servants who have been trained up to help during the pandemic. Queensland contact tracers have identified almost 2000 people who could be at risk. Credit:Karleen Minney, Morgan Hancock Those contact tracers have worked around the clock to find people who might have come in contact with Olivia Muranga, 19, and Diana Lasu, 21, who tested positive for COVID-19 after travelling to Melbourne. The pair visited schools, restaurants, shops and a medical centre in the Brisbane and Logan communities while infectious. Workers wear personal protective equipment as they check ballots at a Board of Elections facility in New York last week. (John Minchillo / Associated Press) The elections chief in the Detroit suburb of Rochester Hills, Mich., a competitive softball player in her younger days, feels like shes been pushed back into the batting cage. This time, nobody is giving Tina Barton a bat. It is like I am just standing there without anything to hit the balls back, Barton said. Every day I step in, and something new is coming at me at high speed. Poll workers quitting. A churn of court decisions throwing election rules into tumult. A COVID-19 outbreak at City Hall that could sideline her department at a critical moment. The viral pandemic has put the nation's election system under a level of stress with little precedent. And, although figures in both parties rejected President Trump's suggestion of postponing the November election when he flirted with the idea Thursday, they haven't provided the money that officials like Barton need to get ready for it. The House months ago approved $3.6 billion to aid local and state elections officials in dealing with an expected flood of mail-in ballots this fall, something that threatens to overwhelm elections officials in states where voting by mail is a relative novelty. The money has stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate part of the larger stalemate over a new round of help for people and businesses devastated by the economic impact of the pandemic. Elections officials need that money yesterday, said Justin Levitt, an associate dean at Loyola Law School who worked on voting rights enforcement at the Justice Department during the Obama administration. Considering the trillions Congress is spending to shore up the economy and public institutions, it is bewildering that lawmakers are balking at the few billion needed to keep elections functional, he said. Voting by mail works smoothly in states, mostly in the West, that have had years to hone their procedures. But in places that are now hurriedly trying to improvise, problems became clear during primary elections this spring and summer. Administrative dysfunction and fights over voting rules left tens of thousands predominantly voters of color disenfranchised as voting systems buckled under the strain. Story continues I fear we are bracing for disaster unless there is intervention by Congress and states are given the resources they need to get this right, said Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. We saw long lines in cities across the country in primaries. Those lines could be 10 times longer in some communities. In states where voting went awry during the primaries, Black communities tended to suffer the most. In Wisconsin, for example, the overwhelmingly white city of Madison managed to open 66 polling sites. Milwaukee, more than twice the size and 40% Black, had just five sites open. Although voter turnout was up overall in Wisconsin compared with previous primaries, the state failed to get mail-in ballots to many voters in time, and officials concede that the delays disenfranchised thousands. The pandemic may be amplifying barriers to voting that lawmakers had put in place earlier. These barriers which include requirements in some states that absentee ballots have witness signatures, that voters include a copy of their identification with their mail-in ballot, and that nobody but the voter may deliver their ballot to a polling place tend to have a disproportionate effect of suppressing the Black vote. The primary demonstrated the tremendous damage to communities of color, said Michael Zubrensky, chief counsel for government affairs at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Georgia, which has frequently had problems with its elections, once again had some of the nation's worst failures during the primary season. Malfunctioning voting machines, lack of preparation for the surge of absentee ballots and closure of polling places all contributed to chaos in the state's June 9 primary. Some voters waited in line for seven hours. Hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots were not delivered on time. In Georgia as in other states, the fact that Black and Latino communities have been especially hard hit by the virus made staffing polling stations in cities a much bigger challenge. In other states that are not used to voting by mail, the problems haven't been primarily with casting ballots, but with counting them. In New York, for example, results in several close congressional primaries have been delayed for weeks as elections officials struggle to handle an unprecedented flood of mail ballots. Many election experts fear that if the November election ends up being close, a slow count will provide fuel to conspiracy theories and efforts by Trump to delegitimize the result if he loses. Moreover, lack of voter education about how to fill in and mail absentee ballots rules that vary by state put many inexperienced voters at risk of not having their ballots count. In some states, the rate of ballots that are rejected has soared. As elections officials absorb the harsh lessons of the primaries, legal battles over voting rules breaking out all over the county have further complicated the picture. Already, 166 cases have been filed nationwide, according to a tally Levitt is keeping. Many of them are disputes between Democrats who believe it is to their advantage to make casting a ballot as easy as possible and Republicans who argue that the pandemic is not suitable cause to relax what they see as anti-fraud measures. The resulting court rulings are whipsawing beleaguered elections offices. In Virginia, for example, a consent decree for the primary waived the requirement that absentee voters get a witness to sign their ballots. But the requirement is back in place for the general election for now. The court fight goes on. We dont know how that will turn out, said Brenda Cabrera, director of elections in the city of Fairfax. She said if her office starts mailing voters ballot instructions and the rule changes, we have a problem. During local elections in May, when witnesses were required, some voters who lived alone drove to her office in their desperation to vote. They had nobody else who would be their witness, Cabrera said. We would go out with masks and gloves and do it. The flood of dollars that supporters of both parties are pouring into fights over election rules is often driven by belief that the outcome could help one party over another. Amid the pandemic, however, those calculations often arent panning out. Trumps crusade against mail-in voting, for example, seems to be backfiring in some key places. In Florida, Republicans long held an edge in absentee voting that has now vanished as the party's voters heed the presidents advice not to trust voting by mail. Enthusiasm for voting by mail is fast fading among Republicans in other states, as well, according to Charles Stewart III, an election administration expert at MIT. I find Trumps statements baffling, said Richard L. Hasen, an election law scholar at UC Irvine. They may make it harder for his supporters to vote. All the turmoil alarms Levitt. He likens U.S. elections to a durable water balloon, with lawmakers and attorneys pushing the water in one direction or another as they constantly change the rules. But the strain of the pandemic, he warned, has left the balloon extremely fragile. If you keep pressing too hard on that balloon, it breaks, he said. And it breaks for everyone. Its been scrawled across the pavement in front of government buildings in bright yellow paint, etched into cardboard signs and poster boards as a rallying cry during protests and addressed as a possibility in countless city council meetings. Defund the police. While cities across the country continue to reel in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, some city officials, politicians and activists are taking action, working on measures aimed to divert funding away from what they view as bloated police budgets, and toward community-based organizations. The objective, commonly summed up with the controversial phrase, has both ardent fans and detractors here in California. Yet, four of the biggest cities in the Bay Area San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and San Jose are all heeding calls to defund in different ways. Heres how they plan to address the future of public safety. MediaNews Group/The Mercury News/MediaNews Group via Getty Images San Francisco Its been four years since the California Department of Justice stepped in to audit the San Francisco Police Departments expenditures and training programs, and subsequently handed them a laundry list of 272 points of reform. As of March, the department had only completed a mere 15% of such reforms. Many of their constituents are angry, and in the wake of the George Floyd protests, theyre demanding major changes be made to the police budget now. Cries to defund the police are stronger than ever. San Francisco currently spends roughly 10% of its $6 billion annual budget on its police force. But following demonstrations, Mayor London Breed and other city officials announced an effort to cut a portion of that funding, though its still unclear just how much money will end up being diverted to other programs and what those programs might do. In June, San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said in a roundtable that he has an open mind when it comes to the idea of rerouting funds from the SFPD to other organizations and services. In the virtual meeting at the time, hosted by Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Clubs Niki Solis and attended by San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto and Public Defender Mano Raju, Chief Scott said the moment had come to think about community safety as a whole, and that goes way beyond policing. A handful of immediate changes were made. Breed implemented a plan to stop police officers from responding to non-criminal activities like a homeless individual setting up a tent, for example and replaced responders with trained professionals better equipped to manage such situations. Breed also banned the use of military-style weapons like tear gas and bayonets, mandating that the city take steps to remove those weapons from the departments stockpile. Then, Supervisor Shamann Walton introduced legislation The Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies Act, or the CAREN Act to outlaw racially motivated 9-1-1 calls. But in early July, there was some backtracking. Chief Scott appeared at a police budget hearing to explain the 10-year growth of the police budget, pointing to an increased need to hire and retain more officers. He added that the force likely would not be able to continue making the reforms the California DOJ handed down in 2016 with the decrease in funding. Activists didnt back down. Eight hours of public commentary with calls to defund and abolish the police followed Scotts presentation that day, and a little over a week later, protesters took to the front of City Hall to paint Defund the police on the street. Specifics about the mayors June plan remain evasive, though in late July, San Franciscos Human Rights Commission released an initial outline of areas where the citys Black communities would like to see funds redistributed. Organizations receiving money could be working toward work-based learning programs, mental health services, after-school programs for Black children and subsidies for Black home ownership, according to the Chronicle. This is only the first step in a long process to bring resources and accountability to our community that has for decades been undeserved, underrepresented and ignored, Breed said. Scott noted it was going to be uncomfortable to lose funding for the department, but was optimistic about the eventual outcome, he told the Chronicle. I think if we look at the bigger picture and envision what this is designed to do if its successful, were going to be better off. MediaNews Group/East Bay Times v/MediaNews Group via Getty Images Oakland On Tuesday evening, Oakland officials approved the formation of a new public safety task force that would move the city closer to defunding the police departments budget by 50%, or nearly $150 million. It's a striking measure that would be implemented over the next two years through recommendations from the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force, which proposes that the city invests in various community resources in lieu of police responders. Following a unanimous 8-0 vote by City Council, the resolution aims to increase citywide safety by providing alternatives to 911 calls. Comprised of a membership of 19 residents including at least two youths, the task force will work to reconstruct the citys public safety system by creating a plan that will drastically shift funding from enforcement and punishment to prevention and wellness in the citys 2021-2023 budget, according to a report from the City of Oakland. Formerly incarcerated individuals, survivors of police violence and their families, as well as others affected by violent crime will also represent the board. We are really going for a transformation," said Councilmember Loren Taylor, who later joined the resolution introduced by Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas and the Defund the Police coalition. The coalition represents a broad swath of local activist groups that have protested in the streets of Oakland for months at marches, car caravans and mural painting demonstrations as they pushed for the defunding of the department as well as the removal of police from Oakland schools. Both Taylor and Bas will serve as co-chairs of the task force. This news came just a week after Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf cast a tie-breaking vote that prevented further budget cuts to the department after $14.3 million had been slashed earlier in June. The proposal, introduced by City Council President Rebecca Kaplan as well as Bas, was supported by more than one hundred public speakers during the nine-hour-long meeting, but Schaaf argued that the police budget had already seen significant cuts. As youve heard from our finance director and our chief of police, any further cuts, real cuts to the police department will require a significant reduction to our widely recognized inadequate 911 response, elimination of current police services and as well as further strain on what is well-documented as an understaffed police force, having the lowest officer police per crime staffing of any department in America, Schaaf said of her decision at the time. City Council agreed to discuss Bas and Taylors task force plan the following week, when it was approved and the conversation of police department budget cuts and reallocation continued. While there is still much work to be done, this is a win for the people of Oakland, Cat Brooks, co-founder of the Anti-Police Terror Project, said in a statement. We forced the so-called Equity Caucus to commit to defunding OPD by 50% and investing that money in areas that truly keep us safe like housing, mental health, healthcare, and youth programs. Once the nominated co-chairs are selected by Sept. 14, the task force will have five months to develop draft recommendations to present to the City Council by March 31, 2021. Councilmembers are expected to adopt changes to the budget by June 30. Some of the social services that could see increased funding include housing and community development, expanded and readily accessible mental and physical healthcare, as well as employment, education and violence prevention programs. Council members also intend to seek input from existing public safety groups among them the Community Policing Advisory Board, the Public Safety Services Oversight Commission and the Police Commission to divert funding to other resources and identify solutions that will not involve armed police responders. One example would be to hire trained, trauma-informed crisis responders and mediators that would respond in the event of a mental health crisis. This summer, the Coalition for Police Accountability will roll out a pilot program called Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland, otherwise known as MACRO. Inspired by a similar program in Eugene, Oregon called Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets, or CAHOOTS, Oakland City Council voted in June to allocate $1.85 million in funding for such a resource. I would hope, as every other police agency hopes, that things we have been the default for things that are really safety and mental health services, like homelessness, issues co-occurring with substance abuse and even juvenile delinquency, that there are other agencies and entities that step up to take those kind of calls so that we can focus more on the violent crime, interim Oakland police chief Susan Manheimer said during a July 16 press conference. And I believe that our city is going to try and take this moment, optimize it, embrace it and get it right. What should we be as a business and what does our community want to see a different footprint for OPD on? AMY OSBORNE/AFP via Getty Images Berkeley While the rest of the country largely continues to debate the meaning of defund the police, Berkeley is already moving forward with plans to drastically cut funding to the Berkeley PD. In early July, the Berkeley City Council immediately passed a budget to divert $9.2 million from the police force following outcry from the community. Mayor Jesse Arreguin called the initial move a down-payment on the citys defunding effort. We may need to reduce the Police Department by 30% it may be 60%, it may be 70%, he said at the time. We dont have that number right now. Two weeks later, Arreguin penned an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle regarding the matter, calling now an important opportunity to innovate. Despite my being a longtime social justice advocate, it was this movement, and this moment, that forced me to recognize that we cannot rely on dated and expensive policing models to build the future of public safety, he wrote. The defund the police movement has forced me to recognize that we can no longer invest in one approach to safety at the expense of others, and that we must innovate to achieve true safety, equity and to resolve the most pressing problems of the 21st century. The city then unveiled an ambitious plan to drastically readjust its funding of the police department, pledging to cut its $72 million budget by 50% by next year, and reallocate some duties formerly carried out by police officers. Specifically, under the plan, traffic stops would be managed by a separate traffic enforcement agency to reduce instances of individuals pulled over because of their race, and some calls related to homelessness or mental health would instead be handled by social workers. As Berkeley City Councilmember Sophie Hahn noted, most calls to Berkeleys 911 line are related to mental health, which are typically non-violent. "Law enforcement is not the only way that we get people to understand the rules and abide by them, she added. The plan has its critics. The details about how Berkeley will reach its lofty defunding objectives are, at this point, elusive, and some liken the East Bay citys goals to a wish list that could wind up being even pricier than the current way of doing things. For its part, the Berkeley Police Department is taking a wait-and-see approach, and will begin considering whether some calls could be better responded to by other organizations within the city. MediaNews Group/The Mercury News/MediaNews Group via Getty Images San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo called for a ban on using rubber bullets following the Floyd protests, but promptly rejected the idea of defunding despite some local residents calling for further reform. He released an announcement on the San Jose city website calling the notion the wrong idea at the worst possible time. Liccardo cited federal statistics showing that people of color are disproportionately the victims of violent crimes, though he didnt include any specifics of the findings. "Defunding police will hurt the very people who have suffered the most from systemic racism in this nation," he continued. "Rich, white communities and businesses in suburban malls will just accelerate the hiring of private security guards." Calls to defund nevertheless intensified later in June, when a private Facebook group of active and retired officers came to light, revealing racist posts. Santa Clara County Public Defender Sajid Khan said the posts represented reprehensible, vicious views of these officers and they demonstrated the need to defund the police department. Liccardo, however, still refused to entertain the idea. He responded in a now-deleted tweet, "And when teachers are caught saying vile things, do we defund the schools, or fire the teachers responsible?" He later clarified, adding, If we're [seeking] to address systemic racism in all of our institutions, we'll need many more tools in our toolbox than merely to 'defund.'" Pro-defund activists were again amplified in late July, when a video surfaced depicting a San Jose police officer kicking and dragging a woman in a parking lot with crying children in her car. Liccardo called the video deeply disturbing, and promised immediate change. San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia also commented, noting, It doesnt look good. Chief Garcia has broadly denied any systemic issues with policing among SJPD officers, saying that while we have to get better, the department also [has] empirical data that says there is no culture issue here. Liccardo is seeking to rectify some issues, particularly related to how quickly the police department can release body-camera videos and how fast a city can discipline or fire a police officer. But as for defunding, its still out of the question. Alyssa Pereira is a culture editor at SFGate. Email: alyssa.pereira@sfgate.com | Twitter: @alyspereira Amanda Bartlett is a culture reporter at SFGate. Email: amanda.bartlett@sfgate.com | Twitter: @byabartlett Elisabeth Myers sat at her desk in Castle Hills Elementary School, under a sign that said, Home Sweet Classroom, a tall travel mug of coffee and a quart of Gatorade beside her. That afternoon, she had perfect attendance: 23 third-graders who appeared in little Brady Bunch like squares on her computer screen. The neatly arranged desks in the classroom were vacant, but the staff parking lot outside was full. You all have two more minutes, Myers told her students, who were writing in their journals at home. Stretch if you need to stretch, Myers said, miming into her webcam. Stretch your arms. Do your jumping jacks. Teachers in some San Antonio school districts are being required, with some exceptions, to teach virtually from empty classrooms while students learn remotely in the weeks before Labor Day. Since last week, teachers have been doing so at Castle Hills, which has a year-round calendar, in the North East Independent School District. Some other school superintendents plan to slowly phase teachers back into buildings starting next month, with volunteers coming in first. School district administrators have said teachers will work better, with more resources at hand and fewer distractions, from their classrooms. Local unions are opposing the idea, saying it jeopardizes teachers health while San Antonio continues to see high numbers of coronavirus cases. On ExpressNews.com: Paxton, TEA reverse course on school openings during pandemic Northside ISDs chapter of the American Federation of Teachers proposed to let teachers voluntarily work from classrooms after the pandemic first shut schools in the spring, president Wanda Longoria said, but the case numbers are exponentially higher now. In Northside, the largest school district in Bexar County, teachers must work from their classrooms when school starts Aug. 24, although those with qualifying health conditions can apply for waivers from the the human resources department. Were highly disappointed by this decision and distraught by the lack of focus on human life it displays, Longoria said. Were asking the district leadership to change course immediately. The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District last month prohibited Bexar County schools from opening for in-person classroom learning until Labor Day. The order allows teachers to use classrooms as long as school building occupancy doesnt exceed 10 percent. Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday said local health authorities do not have the power to close schools before there is a coronavirus outbreak on a campus, but most local districts are choosing to follow Metro Healths order. Barry Perez, a spokesman for Northside, said the school district heard from many teachers who want to work from classrooms, where they can access instructional materials, supplies and strong internet connections. They are being asked to wear masks outside of their own classrooms, and socially distance in areas with other teachers and complete health screenings. Teachers living with others who have certain medical conditions also can apply for waivers and the school district is exploring how it can provide child care for elementary-aged children of teachers, Perez said. Classrooms on screens North East ISD is allowing teachers to bring their elementary-aged children to their schools, spokeswoman Aubrey Chancellor said. The children will be spaced apart in an open area, such as the cafeteria or the library, and supervised while they do their own remote learning, she said. The school buildings are large, with multiple entrances and exits for the teachers, Chancellor said. In many cases, a teacher may not have any interaction with another person, she said. In the spring, remote learning was more flexible, but now teachers in North East and many other school districts have more rigid schedules that include set videoconferencing hours with students. We feel that that can best be done by teachers in their classrooms without any distractions, and safely as well, Chancellor said. Tom Cummins, executive director of the Bexar County Federation of Teachers, said his union represents many North East teachers with health concerns, including asthma and diabetes, teachers undergoing cancer treatment and pregnant teachers. For teachers children, being spaced apart in a school for a nine-hour day is a poor solution, he said. We do not approve of sending teachers into the classroom to teach from the classroom right now, Cummins said. We prefer that they do it at home, just as they did in the spring. Myers, who is not a union member, declined to comment on its position. Compared to teaching from home, Myers said it was nice to have all the materials she needed at her disposal in the classroom. The kids can see that we are in the classroom setting, she said. Sometimes well take a virtual field trip to the science lab and well show them the materials there, which is really fun for them, so they still feel like theyre at school with the classroom background. She tried to set up her classroom as normally as possible, but on the walls, lists of rules and awards bore the signatures of last years students. Myers has a live connection to her students for almost the whole day. Sometimes she talks to them and sometimes they work independently as she monitors her screen for questions. Sometimes she puts them in smaller video chats, four or five students to a group. Myers calls those table groups, as if the students were at desks pushed together. The students go to physical education, music and maker space classes, all virtually. Gradual returns When San Antonio ISD begins classes Aug. 17, teachers who volunteered to work from their rooms will do so. The rest will be phased in gradually, as the school district prepares to open Sept. 8 to the students whose families choose classroom learning. Before the teachers come in, acrylic barriers will be installed throughout the building and areas will be marked for social distancing, said Leslie Price, SAISD spokeswoman. Teachers will have to wear masks around each other. Those who volunteer to come back first will be asked to provide feedback about safety protocols. We know at some point were going to need all our teachers back in classrooms, Price said. We want to make sure were fully prepared for students who will return for in-person instruction after Labor Day. In a meeting with the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board, Superintendent Pedro Martinez said SAISD would provide adult supervision, devices and internet access at schools for teachers children to learn remotely while their parents work. Before Labor Day, teachers will need to confer about supporting students both in classrooms and remotely, maintaining rigor and helping children who are struggling or have special needs, Martinez said. The reason I would like our teachers to be phasing in is because they need to work together, Martinez said. They need to problem-solve. Required Reading: Get San Antonio education news sent directly to your inbox Edgewood ISD also is letting teachers choose whether to come to schools starting Aug. 17 and help administrators work through safety issues. Im planning on phasing folks back in so that I can also dispel the rumor that were not ready, Superintendent Eduardo Hernandez told the editorial board. East Central ISD is asking most of its teachers to work from classrooms before buildings open to students. Statewide, school districts decisions run the gamut. Some are allowing teachers to mix working from the classroom and at home, said Clay Robison, spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association, the states National Education Association affiliate. Union leaders believe some administrators dont trust teachers to work from home. Our feeling is that a lot of this is unnecessary, Robison said. I think teachers are quite capable of doing their jobs from home and a lot of them did very good jobs, with very short notice and very little prep time, in the spring. Alia Malik covers several school districts and the University of Texas at San Antonio. To read more from Alia, become a subscriber. amalik@express-news.net | Twitter: @AliaAtSAEN business Business Insight | Centre places import of colour TVs in restricted category In this edition of Business Insight, we look into government's motives for imposing restrictions on imports live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Indian pharma major Sun Pharma's June quarter numbers are expected to be subdued due to high base effect and weak domestic business because of COVID-19. Sun Pharma will release its June quarter scorecard on July 31. Global brokerage firm Phillip Capital expects Sun Pharma's sales to remain muted due to the high base of last year and underperformance in domestic business because of COVID. "Led by a high base of last year in the US, margins may contract by 120 bp, resulting in flat EBITDA. PAT may see a 10 percent decline mainly due to base effect," Phillip Capital said. Phillip Capital expects Sun Pharma's revenue to see a 1 percent year-on-year (YoY) decline and a 4.4 percent YoY decline in EBITDA. Brokerages believe besides the number, outlook on global specialty business and prescription trends in specialty portfolio will be in the focus of investors. Brokerage firm Motilal Oswal Financial Services expects Sun Pharma's US sales to come in at $386 million, down 9 percent YoY due to one-time opportunity in Q1FY20. The high base of the last year in the US and COVID-19 impact on branded generics may keep Sun Pharma's sales flat on YoY basis, Motilal Oswal believes. As per the estimates of Motilal Oswal, the Q1 results may come out softer. Motilal Oswal expects a 29.7 percent YoY fall in Q1 adjusted net profit while net revenue may slip by 0.6 percent YoY. EBITDA is likely to see a 14.9 percent YoY decline. On the other hand, Kotak Institutional Equities expects Sun Pharma's EBITDA margins at 18.4 percent (flat QoQ), given adverse operating leverage with consolidated revenues declining nearly 3 percent. Kotak expects a 3.2 percent YoY drop in net sales, 25.1 percent YoY fall in EBITDA and 540 bps YoY fall in EBITDA margin. Adjusted PAT, as per Kotak, may fall 49.1 percent YoY. Emkay Global sees a 7 percent YoY fall in Q1 net sales and a 60 percent YoY fall in PAT. EBITDA, as per Emkay, may drop 34 percent YoY which will lead to a 690 bps YoY fall in EBITDA margin. "US should decline led by a hit on the specialty portfolio and Taro sales (derma concentration). India sales should be relatively better than peers and decline only marginally due to a higher Chronic portfolio. Margins should be flat QoQ as Q4 base had employee provision in a subsidiary and Rs 140 crore forex loss," said Emkay Global. The above report is compiled from information available on public platforms. Moneycontrol advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. The World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter recently spoke to a worker from the Ford engine plant in Brook Park, Ohio about the unsafe conditions that are leading to the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus at the facility. While the company has told the employees that they are following cleaning and safety protocols, rank-and-file workers have exposed the real conditions. Located in a suburb of Cleveland, the Ford Brook Park engine plant opened in 1951 and currently employs roughly 1,750 workers, mostly hourly employees. The plant ran until 2007 when it was idled for two years, reopening in 2009 with a $55 million investment to begin production of the "EcoBoost" engine, which advertises lower emissions and more fuel economy. Two distinct Ford plants resided on the same property, until the closure of the second plant in 2012. The rising toll of cases at the Brook Park plant takes place as COVID-19 infections are surging across Ohio. There are reports of cases at the Ford Avon Lake plant as well as a rising number of cases at the Fiat Chrysler Jeep operations in Toledo. According to an internal email, American Honda in Marysville recently ordered office staff to work on assembly lines due to COVID-19 related manpower shortages. I would guess weve had at least 100 COVID cases. No one will tell us if there are cases because the union doesnt want us to know, the engine plant worker said. He chose to be interviewed under a pseudonym, Mark, to protect him from possible retaliation. He added, About 200 of us are laid off right now, an entire shift. Ive been out on quarantine since Thursday because one of my relatives came down with COVID. At first they were only allowing three days off for quarantine if you were exposed. They increased it to 14 days now, with pay, but its a one-time deal. If I get sick in two weeks, Ill have to go out on medical. Mark explained how the company is not following proper cleaning protocols. Last week a woman on our team got sick, throwing up on the line. They sent her to medical and then the hospital, but we just had to keep running. They told us it wasnt COVID, that it was some reaction to her medication. There was no clean-up crew. They arent worried about us. They are only worried about the motors. We shouldnt have to clean up our own stations either. They should hire someone who knows how to do that. They tell us we cant rotate unless we clean our stations and we have to rotate because if you dont there is a lot of wear and tear on one part of your body. Mark has complained several times to management and the United Auto Workers about safety issues he notices in the plant. We have to push open these gates every morning. I told the union that the gates need to be cleaned after each worker goes through. They told me that the gates are cleaned twice a day. I told them if they cant clean the gates properly then we shouldnt be using them. Nothing is being done about it. That means if one worker is sick, everyone behind him in line is going to touch the same spot to open the gate. Also there is a big bin of dirty masks close to where we enter and exit. There should be a biohazard bag. Ive brought that up too. He continued, We got inspected by the health department recently because four people came down with COVID-19. We ended up getting a great mark, and there are so many safety issues. I asked the union to send someone from the health department to talk to me because Id like to tell them some things Im concerned about. He didnt send anybody over obviously. The UAW is with the management, thats clear. The basic safety measures that are in place at Ford Engine are rarely working properly. We go through a trailer to enter the plant where they scan our temperature. Last Wednesday, the machine wasnt even working. It doesnt matter to management. They can just fill their pockets up if were at work. They dont care about us. Mark added, Even before COVID, people were getting hurt every day. Paramedics come through and pick people up. Another factor contributing to unsafe and difficult working conditions are the high temperatures and lack of proper ventilation. Mark said, Its tough to wear the mask and glasses in the heat. Our plant is climate controlled but its still about 100 degrees. The only reason its climate controlled is because the motors need to be kept cool. A lot of work stations dont even have fans. Our team ordered three fans about eight months ago. Just last week I asked the plant supervisor about it and she claimed someone stole them. This reporter explained that workers at Detroit-area Fiat Chrysler plants had established rank-and-file safety committees independent of the UAW and management to fight for a healthy and safe workplace. These committees have demanded full disclosure of COVID-19 cases; for production to be halted for cleaning when infections occur; and regular, universal testing. Mark said, Even before COVID, we needed a safety committee. Its important. We need something. Its not impossible to make this place safe. If the union wasnt too afraid to do something, we could fix this place up. Something has to be done. 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. U.S. ATTORNEYaS OFFICE FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK New York When Attorney General William Barr announced a new top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn this month, it was a promotion for one of his closest advisers in Washington. His choice, Seth DuCharme, was not a purely political appointee. DuCharme spent most of his career in Brooklyn prosecuting terrorists and violent gangs, earning a sterling reputation among many law enforcement officers and defense lawyers. Still, DuCharme, 49, is stepping into the position at a fraught time for any U.S. attorney whose office has the jurisdiction to investigate President Donald Trump's associates. With the election just over three months away and as political polarization intensifies across the country, DuCharme is facing scrutiny from all sides. "Look, I know people have strong views about this administration and folks in D.C.," DuCharme said in an interview with The New York Times. "And all I guess I would ask of them is, let's see how I do." DuCharme seemed keenly aware of the appearances surrounding his promotion. But he said that using the office to advance an inappropriate political agenda would be "inconsistent with every fiber of my being." Last month, Barr and the president ousted DuCharme's counterpart in Manhattan, Geoffrey Berman, whose office had clashed with the Justice Department over sensitive investigations, including the decision to charge Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal lawyer. The current environment demands a delicate dance by U.S. attorneys in high-profile districts. They must get approval from the Justice Department in Washington to charge certain cases while preserving enough independence to maintain credibility with their own rank-and-file prosecutors. "These are not normal times," said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at Columbia Law School. "There's a new risk here that somebody dispatched from Washington, even with his own distinguished personal history, will be seen as some minion of the attorney general." DuCharme's office, also known as the Eastern District of New York, has jurisdiction that includes Brooklyn, Long Island and Queens. Like its counterpart in Manhattan, the office is pursuing investigations that have touched the president's associates. Last year, Brooklyn prosecutors subpoenaed Trump's inaugural committee and interviewed Thomas Barrack, a top fundraiser and close friend of Trump. The office has indicted Chinese tech company Huawei, inflaming tensions between the United States and China, and is negotiating with Goldman Sachs to settle the bank's role in a scheme that stole billions of dollars from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. DuCharme, a registered Republican, has returned to a community of largely left-leaning prosecutors and defense lawyers in New York, some of whom have privately questioned whether he can push back against Barr when necessary. Longtime colleagues and even courtroom adversaries of DuCharme said he had a lengthy track record of pursuing cases without partisan motivation, serving under both Republican and Democratic presidents. He rose to become chief of the criminal division in Brooklyn before his 15-month stint in Washington. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. "I understand the skepticism, and I'm a flaming liberal, but Seth is a great choice," said Michael Bachrach, a defense lawyer whose clients had been prosecuted by DuCharme. "He's someone that both sides of the political gamut can be comfortable with." John Gleeson, a retired federal judge who presided over some of DuCharme's cases, said he was confident that DuCharme would preserve the office's independence. "I have no reason to think otherwise, based on my interactions with him," Gleeson said. DuCharme became the acting U.S. attorney July 10 through an unusual legal maneuver that allows the president to designate a temporary replacement for up to 210 days. In effect, Barr arranged for DuCharme to switch jobs with Richard Donoghue, who had served as the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn since January 2018. As DuCharme returned to Brooklyn, Donoghue took DuCharme's old place in the Justice Department office that oversees the nation's federal prosecutors, positioning him to rise should Trump win reelection. Earlier this year, the Justice Department assigned Donoghue to coordinate investigations involving Ukraine a sensitive role, given that federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, broke lobbying laws in his dealings there. At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., suggested that Barr had installed DuCharme as a way to exert more control over those investigations, although it was not clear whether the role would stay in Brooklyn after Donoghue's departure. In Washington, DuCharme had also served for nine months as a counsel to Barr and was closely involved in the investigation into the origins of the FBI's Russia probe, according to emails obtained by the watchdog group American Oversight. The Andhra Pradesh government is gearing up to reopen the schools from September 5 across the state. The reopening of the schools coincides with Teachers Day. The Andhra Pradesh government is gearing up to reopen the schools from September 5 across the state. The reopening of the schools coincides with Teachers Day. Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy instructed the officials to get ready for reopening of school from September 5 and hopefully the situation will be normal by then. He asked the officials to prepare for the launch YSR Vidhya Kanuka on the same day and students will be provided with a kit of a schoolbag, text and notebooks, cloth of three pairs of uniform, a pair of shoes, two pairs of socks and belt. Also read: I believe I will get justice: Rhea Chakraborty breaks silence on Sushant Singh Rajputs death probe Also read: Delhi Govt, LG lock horns again: LG cancels key Unlock 3.0 decisions by AAP Govt The Chief Minister said that masks should also be included in the kit and awareness should be created among the students as to how to use the masks. On the other hand, the government is ready to go ahead with English medium Schools only despite the announcement of the National Education Policy of 2020. the schools were closed as soon as the covid 19 outspread happened in India. Already the admission procedure will begin from Monday and continue for the next 40 days. However, only parents are allowed to go to the schools for completing the admission procedure, by following the COVID-19 guidelines. The school management should provide transfer certificates to the parents in case they decide to join their children in other schools. Students hailing from migrant backgrounds should be allowed to pursue education without asking for any documents, except their identity. Steps should be taken by the educational institutions in utilizing the services of the interested youth in their respective localities. The teachers should attend the schools once a week as per the orders issued by their respective headmasters. Exemptions were given to the teachers having health complications, differently-abled, and those staying in containment zones. Also read: The New Education Policy : Where it gets right When U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn called on the Trump administration to develop a national strategy to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, the president appeared to be watching from afar. Clyburn, a Democratic South Carolina congressman who chairs the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis, declared on Friday that America is now in the middle of a "public health catastrophe." He cited his home state's lagging testing abilities to make the case that the nation can no longer afford to address COVID-19 on a state-by-state basis. "It is clear that the administration's approach of deferring to the states, sidelining the experts and rushing to reopen has prolonged this virus and led to thousands of preventable deaths. The United States' response stands out as among the worst of any country in the world," Clyburn said. To further make his point, Clyburn, a former public school teacher, used a visual aid. He stood up from his seat and gestured to rising lines on a chart, which showed the coronavirus caseload is much higher in the United States than it is in Europe and Asia. That chart sent President Donald Trump straight to Twitter. Trump, who had no public events on his schedule Friday, fired off a pair of tweets criticizing Clyburn's understanding of America's rising coronavirus caseload as the hearing got underway. "Somebody please tell Congressman Clyburn, who doesn't have a clue, that the chart he put up indicating more CASES for the U.S. than Europe, is because we do MUCH MORE testing than any other country in the World. If we had no testing, or bad testing, we would show very few CASES," Trump wrote, repeating a false claim which has been debunked by his own top public health officials. Trump went on to defend America's testing capability as "massive" and said it was being used by "the Lamestream Media and their partner, the Do Nothing Radical Left Democrats, as a point of scorn." .....Our massive testing capability, rather than being praised, is used by the Lamestream Media and their partner, the Do Nothing Radical Left Democrats, as a point of scorn. This testing, and what we have so quickly done, is used as a Fake News weapon. Sad! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2020 But even as the president tried to tweet a counter-message, his own health officials testified that the spike in cases was due to the administration's decision to leave coronavirus shutdown decisions to the states. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said when European countries shut down activities they did so "to the tune of 95-plus percent of the country." That decision, he said, brought cases down to a much lower baseline before the countries reopened. By contrast, Fauci said America "really only functionally shut down about 50 percent of the country." "There were some states that did it very well, and there were some states that did not," Fauci said without citing specific states. Fauci was one of three of the Trump administration's top health officials who faced questions about the pandemic for more than three hours on Friday from the 12-member committee. The other two witnesses were Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield and Brett P. Giroir of the Department of Health and Human Services. Lawmakers zigzagged from topic to topic during the hearing. Each member had five minutes to ask questions, which ranged from inquiries about best practices on school reopenings to whether or not protests should be limited during the pandemic. The top Republican on the panel, U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, accused Democrats of trying to politicize the pandemic. Holding up reams of paper, Scalise questioned how the committee could hold a hearing demanding a national plan when that very stack of paper contained plans from federal agencies and the White House about how to tackle the coronavirus crisis. "You wouldn't even be here today if there wasn't a plan because you are the people tasked with carrying out the plan," Scalise told the witnesses. When the subcommittee returned from a five-minute recess to start a second round of questioning, Clyburn addressed the president's two tweets by reading parts of them aloud. He then posed a question to Fauci that doubled as a real-time fact-check. "Now, Dr. Fauci do you agree with the president's statement, or do you stand by your previous answer that the difference is caused by multiple factors, including the fact that some states did not do a good job of reopening?" Facui did not hesitate, saying he stood by his previous statement. "The increase in cases was due to a number of factors, one of which was in the attempt to reopen," Fauci said. In some situations, he said, states did not abide strictly by the guidelines that the task force and the White House had put out. "And others that even did abide by it, the people in the state, actually, were congregating in crowds and not wearing masks," Fauci said. The hearing on Friday was held exactly six months after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency for the entire United States. GREENSBORO Authorities are investigating after two men robbed a Shell gas station at gunpoint early this morning, police said in a news release. Officers responded about 1 a.m. to a reported robbery at the Summit Shell, 3101 Summit Ave., according to police. Witnesses told officers that two men confronted the clerk and robbed the business at gunpoint, police said. Cash was taken, but no injuries were reported, police said. The suspects, who fled on foot after the robbery, were described to police as two men in their late teens or early 20s. They were wearing face coverings and one of the men had a handgun, police said. Anyone with information is asked to contact Greensboro/Guilford Crime Stoppers at 336-373-1000. People can also download the P3tips app to submit a mobile tip, or go to P3tips.com to submit a web tip. All tips to Crime Stoppers are completely anonymous. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Ranchi, July 31 : The Jharkhand High Court on Friday granted bail to a BJP legislator accused of sexual exploitation. According to the lawyer of BJP legislator Dhullu Mahto, the high court granted him bail after he spent 81 days in jail. Mahto, a legislator from the Baghmara Assembly constituency in Dhanbad district, had surrendered before the court on May 11 this year. A BJP woman leader had accused him of sexual exploitation. The allegation was levelled against him when Jharkhand was ruled by the BJP in 2019. The FIR was lodged against the BJP legislator at the direction of the high court on October 4, 2019. The victim's statement was recorded on February 20 this year. The BJP legislator was absconding and under pressure of the police he surrendered in a Dhanbad district court on May 11. APolie had raided to hideouts for 12 times but he could not be arrested. Seven other cases were lodged against the controversial BJP legislator in February and March this year. Taiwan's former President Lee Teng-hui speaks during an exclusive interview with the Associated Press at his home in Taipei, Taiwan in this May 28, 2008, file photo. / AP-Yonhap Taiwan's former President Lee Teng-hui, who defied China and earned the nickname "Mr. Democracy" for the part he played in the island's transition away from authoritarian rule, has died. He was credited with paving the way for Taiwan to become a modern, free society after decades of one-party dictatorship and became a champion of the island's bid to be treated as a sovereign state internationally. Lee had been in hospital since February after choking on some food and had a history in recent years of chronic illnesses. He died on Thursday aged 97, of septic shock and multiple organ failure, Taipei Veterans General Hospital vice president Hwang Shinn-jang told reporters. Lee's 1988-2000 term in office was marked by growing cross-strait tensions as he pitched himself against Beijing, infuriating Chinese authorities for daring to carve out a separate identity for Taiwan. Despite being self-ruled since 1949, Taiwan has never formally declared independence from the mainland and Beijing has vowed to react with force if it ever does. China still regards Taiwan as part of its territory. Born into a colony Lee was born in Taiwan in 1923 and educated in Japan, which at the time ruled the island as a colony. In 1945 Taiwan was handed back to China, then under the rule of Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) leader Chiang Kai-shek. After Chiang lost a civil war to communist forces four years later, he fled to Taiwan to set up a rival government. Ruling with an iron fist, Chiang instigated a "White Terror" purge of opponents which lasted until his death in 1975. Lee, a professor of agricultural economics, was introduced to Chiang's son Chiang Ching-kuo in the 1970s and gained his trust. By 1984 Lee was vice president and four years later was appointed leader following the younger Chiang's death, becoming the island's first Taiwan-born president. China missiles Martial law had already been lifted by the younger Chiang in 1987 but it was Lee who drove forward Taiwan's largely peaceful transition into a fully functional democracy. His government introduced wide-ranging political reforms, including the election of a new parliament and a direct vote for president. Lee then won Taiwan's first ever public leadership elections in 1996, which he took by a landslide despite threats from Beijing. China fired ballistic missiles into the Taiwan Strait in a bid to stop voters choosing Lee, prompting the US to send warships to the area. Once in office, Lee urged local firms to avoid extensive investments in China, promoting a separate cultural identity from the mainland, which in turn branded him a "sinner" and "splittist." Lee was succeeded by Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 2000 when the KMT lost for the first time. Lee's commitment to formally declaring an independent Taiwan only became clear after he stepped down and helped found the Taiwan Solidarity Union which advocates a split from China, a move that prompted the KMT to expel him from the party. After Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT succeeded Chen in 2008 and oversaw a rapprochement with China, Lee became a vocal critic of the government's Beijing-friendly policies. He was indicted on corruption charges in 2011 but was acquitted and accused the Ma government of "inventing" offences to persecute him. Since 2016, Taiwan has been run by president Tsai Ing-wen who is also loathed by Beijing because she views the island as a sovereign state. In a statement she described Lee as "irreplaceable, and his passing is a tremendous loss to our country." A spokeswoman for Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office the mainland's top body overseeing policy towards the island said Taiwan independence was a "dead end." "The historical trend of national reunification... cannot be stopped by anyone or any forces," said Zhu Fenglian on Thursday. China's nationalistic state-run Global Times newspaper meanwhile labelled Lee the "godfather of Taiwan secessionism." "Lee's death is definitely not sad news to most people in the Chinese mainland," the tabloid wrote. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered condolences, saying Washington would celebrate Lee by "continuing to strengthen our bond with Taiwan and its vibrant democracy." (AFP) San Francisco Mayor London Breed unveiled her two-year budget proposal on Friday, a blueprint for the city shaped in many ways by the enduring, calamitous impact of COVID-19 pandemic. The city is required by law to pass a balanced budget each year, and Breeds proposal closes the $1.5 billion deficit brought on by the shattering economic effects of the still-surging coronavirus without resorting to layoffs or major cuts to service yet. Much of the savings come from leaving vacant positions open and from slashing the money the city will spend on improvements to infrastructure. By restricting spending for all but the most critical maintenance projects, San Francisco will save about $100 million annually for the next two years. At the beginning of this year, we were living in a different world. Our unemployment rate was at a historic low. Tourism was at an all-time high. Our hotels were full. We all had plans to shape the future of this city we all love, Breed said in her budget speech on Friday. What we didnt have plans for was the coronavirus but it certainly had plans for us, she said. Breeds $13.7 billion budget for fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 also proposes considerable investments in many of the citys most pressing issues, including homelessness, mental health and permanent supportive housing. The size of the budget obscures the amount Breed may allocate at her discretion. Roughly half of the budget is composed of enterprise departments, agencies like the airport, Public Utilities Commission, Municipal Transportation Agency and the port, which are partly self-sufficient. The city also has about 20 voter-mandated set-asides that lock in funding for tree maintenance, libraries, parks and other needs. Salaries for the citys workforce account for the largest single cost for the money that remains, leaving Breed about $2 billion in discretionary funds. The budget may be balanced, but it is fraught with uncertainty. Hundreds of millions of dollars are riding on the outcome of a business-tax overhaul ballot measure in November, delicate negotiations with labor unions and the trajectory of the pandemic in the coming months. Breeds budget assumes that voters will pass an initiative to would revamp the citys gross receipt taxes, part of which would unlock $300 million for the general fund. The city would use that money to effectively repay itself money spent on homelessness and housing services. The city has been taxing big businesses to fund such services since voters passed Proposition C in 2018, but legal challenges to that measure have forced the city to keep that revenue on ice. The city has funded homelessness programs in the meantime from its general fund. If that measure does not pass, the city would need to come up with another $300 million, a step that would likely require service cuts and layoffs. Similarly, Breeds budget assumes that labor unions representing 37,000 workers will agree to postpone $250 million in pay raises due over the next two years. Workers have already deferred a 3% raise from July to December, but have so far refused any further delays, citing the critical work theyve done during the pandemic. I want to be very clear if the unions dont agree to delay their raises, then we will be forced to lay people off, Breed said. We will be forced to cut city services. We dont want to see those unemployment numbers go up because we are forced into layoffs. Negotiations with the unions are expected to continue through September the Board of Supervisors must send the budget back to Breed for her final signature no later than Oct. 1. The citys ongoing COVID-19 response also depends heavily on hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency $246 million over the next fiscal year. Combined with other federal and state grants, San Francisco will expect to spend a projected $450 million on pandemic response in the next fiscal year, $93 million of which will come from the citys general fund. Breeds budget office is in the early stages of drawing up contingency plans if these assumed revenue sources dont materialize. The budget does not assume any additional funds from two revenue-generating measures also on the November ballot: one that would tax companies where top executives earn vastly more money than the rest of their workforce, and another that would double taxes on sales of properties valued at $10 million or more. More Information Watch the mayor's budget speech:www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KWcPf3mdzo See More Collapse Huge investments for homeless people, housing and behavioral health reform are also at stake. 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. Breed is aiming to place up to 6,000 people in housing and shelter over the next two years as part of her homelessness recovery plan. At its base, the plan seeks to ensure that homeless people moved into hotels during the pandemic do not return to the streets. That will include acquiring or leasing 1,500 new units of permanent supportive housing. In all, the homelessness recovery plan is expected to cost around $500 million, which includes the shorter-term pandemic responses for unhoused people, like safe-sleeping sites and RVs the city rents. Some of that money will also come from state and federal sources as well as philanthropic donations. We need more than short-term hotel rooms, Breed said. We need more than parking lots for safe sleeping sites. We need housing. Lots of housing. The budget also funds the initial implementation of Mental Health SF, a sweeping reform of the citys behavioral health care system. Over the next two years, the budget includes funds to establish a new Office of Coordinated Care, a central theme of Mental Health SF meant to coordinate and streamline mental health care and substance abuse services. The budget also includes funding to increase behavioral health beds to reduce waiting times for people who need immediate care, pilot a new crisis response team to respond to calls for service on the streets and expand the hours of the citys Behavioral Health Access Center. In all, $66.5 million is required over the next two years a sum that also depends on the passage of the business-tax reform measure and the money it would unlock. Breed still set $5 million aside for Mental Health SF initiatives so the city doesnt need to wait until November to begin work. The Board of Supervisors will now spend August and September holding hearings over videoconference on the budget and make recommendations and adjustments before sending a revised version back to Breed for her signature no later than Oct. 1. I know we will get this budget passed, we will continue to keep people healthy and safe, and we will get through this challenging time together, Breed said. Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa In shutting each other's consulates, the United States and China have done more than strike symbolic blows in their escalating feud. They've also dimmed each other's ability to observe and to spy on critical regions of their countries. For the United States, the loss of the Chengdu mission in southwestern China will, among other things, cloud its view of Tibet, a region where Buddhist residents say Beijing is eroding its culture and its traditional independent streak. China says Tibet has been its territory for centuries. For China, the loss of its mission in Houston ... The presentation of judicial reform by the head of the executive committee of the National Reforms Council under the President of Ukraine, Mikheil Saakashvili, is a broad invitation to a discussion on judicial reform, said Oleh Ustenko, an advisor on economic issues to President Volodymyr Zelensky. "In order to agree on a specific project of judicial reform with the President, it is necessary to understand how society sees it, namely, the specialists, employees of the judicial system itself, public activists, politicians and everyone who is interested in a modern, effective and transparent judicial reform. I am convinced that this dialogue can yield results," he said in a comment to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. Ustenko pointed out that the reform of the judicial system is necessary and interesting to everyone. "And the broader the discussion, the more points of view will be taken into account, the more ideas will be introduced for the improvement and change of the current system," he said. Ustenko also noted that the judicial reform will give an additional impetus to boost investment activities in the country, which is part of President Zelensky's program. (Newser) Vietnam has stood out over the last few months because of an impressive number in regard to the coronavirus: zero. As in, the nation of nearly 100 million people had recorded no deaths attributed to COVID-19. That changed on Friday, reports the BBC. State media says a 70-year-old man from the central city of Hoi An died from the virus, which he appears to have contracted in the popular holiday destination of Danang, per Reuters. The death is a jolt to the country that had won international praise for its handling of the pandemicit acted aggressively before its first confirmed case by, among other things, closing its borders. In fact, Vietnam went 99 straight days without registering a new case before the streak ended last weekend, reports the South China Morning Post. story continues below The source of the outbreak is not known, but it appears to have started in Danang before spreading to other parts of the country. Health officials reported 82 new cases on Friday, the biggest total yet. The capital of Hanoi is under new restrictions, with bars and nightclubs shut down and large gatherings prohibited. By the count of Johns Hopkins, the nation still has only 509 cases, though the figure could jump sharply in the coming days and weeks. The long streak without new cases appeared to have created a sense of complacency among residents, according to the SCMP. It talks to a woman who recently returned to Ho Chi Minh City from a three-day holiday in Danang, a trip during which she and her family did not wear masks or practice social distancing because it seemed the threat was over. They are now self-quarantining for 14 days, so far without symptoms. (Read more Vietnam stories.) The Supreme Court on Friday ordered status quo on bail granted by Delhi High Court to Shivinder Mohan Singh, the former promoter of Fortis Healthcare, in the money laundering case related to Religare Finvest Limited. The bench headed by justice Arun Mishra also said that the high court judgment should not be treated as a precedent in other bail matters. Issue notice. In the meantime, the status quo with respect to bail be maintained. The judgment of Delhi high court not to be treated as a precedent, the court said. The Delhi high court had, on July 23, granted bail to Singh stating there was no rationale for continuing his custody as an undertrial. The bail was conditional subject to him furnishing a personal bond to the tune of Rs 1 crore and two sureties of Rs 25 lakh. He was also directed not to leave the country without the permission of the trial court hearing the case against him. Though he was granted bail, Shivinder continues to remain in jail since he is in judicial custody in another case filed by Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police. Singh was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in December 2019 for offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Before that, EOW had arrested him in October 2019 for offences under Indian Penal Code. The trial court had rejected his bail plea in June. The Supreme Court will also consider the important question of whether the twin conditions for granting of bail under section 45 continues to remain valid. Section 45 was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2017. The section was subsequently amended by Parliament. However, Delhi high court had held in a case of Upendra Rai vs ED that the twin conditions for bail under section 45 will not stand revived despite the amendment made to it. This high court order was, subsequently, stayed by the Supreme Court. In Shivinders bail plea, Delhi high court observed that although there has been an amendment to section 45, there is no subsequent decision of the Supreme Court holding the said two conditions to be constitutionally valid, even when brought back by way of the amendment. Accordingly, it must treat the said two conditions as invalid and struck-down. This aspect has been challenged by ED before SC. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench that the Supreme Court must examine this issue and settle the law conclusively. We will have to settle the law. The solicitor general has made the correct submission by SG, justice Mishra said. A line-up of external actors is preparing to escalate the military conflict in Libya, but none of them want to. Its about securing positions and hoping for a real cease-fire deal that would lead to an end to the conflict. Egypt is ready to deploy troops to Libya to fight in support of General Haftar against the Turkish-backed GNA. Russian mercenaries--Moscows proxy in this war--are securing oil facilities for Haftar, along with a mix of other militias, including Sudans blood-curdling Janjaweed, who are always for hire. The Libyan National Oil Company is in a panic as it watches every single oil facility become militarized at the 11th hour of this conflict, risking irreparable damage if anything goes wrong. Now, the US is threatening sanctions on both Russia and Turkey for escalating the conflict in another move to simply buy time. U.S. lawmakers accuse Moscow of making a move on Libyas oil, but this argument is a pedantic one. All external forces are trying to back what they believe will be the winning side to secure construction and oil contracts when the dust settles, while Turkey is trying to secure its Mediterranean future by backing the GNA. The point is to consolidate military positions for negotiating leverage, but throwing all these bands of militias together is a dangerously explosive setup. The thing to watch once you get past the headlining military news is the Central Bank audit, which officially started off Tuesday. At least two people have reportedly died and 50 have been injured in a high-speed train crash near Coimbra in central Portugal. The accident happened around 300 metres north of the train station in Soure, a town of around 20,000 inhabitants about 20 miles south west of the university city. The train, an Alfa Pendular which connects all the major cities in Portugal, is understood to have derailed after a collision as it was heading south. Around 280 passengers were on board. At least two people have been reported dead and 50 have been injured in a high-speed train crash near Coimbra in central Portugal The accident happened around 300 metres north of the train station in Soure, a town of around 20,000 inhabitants about 20 miles south west of the university city The alarm was sounded around 3pm local time today. Mario Jorge, mayor of Soure, told local press it had hit a maintenance vehicle that was working at the scene of the crash. A local emergency response centre has so far confirmed one death and 30 injuries, although there are reports the number of dead stands at 'at least two' and 50 people are injured. Seven of those hurt are said to be serious. A local emergency response centre has so far confirmed one death and 30 injuries, although there are reports the number of dead stands at 'at least two' and 50 people are injured. Seven of those hurt are said to be serious Portuguese president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has described the train accident as 'very serious'. He said in a statement posted on the presidential website: 'The President of the Republic regrets the serious train accident this afternoon. 'He sends his most sincere condolences to the families and friends of those who have died and wishes the many people injured a speedy recovery.' A field hospital has been set up. A local emergency response centre has so far confirmed one death and 30 injuries, although there are reports the number of dead stands at 'at least two' and 50 people are injured. Seven of those hurt are said to be serious A KLM plane prepares to take off in rainy conditions at Leeds Bradford Airport (Danny Lawson/PA) Dutch carrier KLM said it will cut between 4,500 and 5,000 jobs because of the coronavirus crisis. The company said in a statement that in addition to 1,500 job losses, some 1,500 temporary contracts will not be renewed and 2,000 jobs will be suppressed via a voluntary departure scheme. The group also expects natural attrition through retirement to help cut an extra 500 jobs. Expand Close A KLM Boeing 737 plane lands at Heathrow Airport (Steve Parsons/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A KLM Boeing 737 plane lands at Heathrow Airport (Steve Parsons/PA) KLM said it does not expect demand to fully recover before 2023 or 2024 and said further staff reductions are possible given the high level of uncertainty. Earlier this month, the European Commission approved a bailout package of 3.4 billion euros in loans offered by the Dutch government to help the company navigate the crisis. Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa during a programme of the one year completion of BJP government in the state, in Bengaluru. PTI photo Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadi, whose name has been doing rounds since two days for Chief Minister's post has swung into action clarifying that his Delhi visit was only to meet Union Ministers to get their clearance for pending projects in his department. While speaking to reporters in Delhi, Mr. Savadi reposed his faith in Yediyurappas leadership. Mr. Yediyurappa is our leader and he will complete the remaining three year term, Savadi replied amid speculation about change of leadership in Karnataka. In a series of tweets, Savadi stated: Dont read too much about my Delhi visit. My Delhi visit was to meet party top brasses. Dont give it unnecessary publicity for my Delhi visit. My dear friends in Athani Constituency, please don't post posters or statements on social media platform, Mr. Savadi requested. Merely because of my posters on social media, the media has been giving undue publicity to it. In a social media post, posters congratulating him for becoming the next CM of Karnataka went viral. In another tweet, Savadi said that the state government is completing one year term and successfully fighting against the Covid19 pandemic. We are all obedient soldiers of the party and will abide by decisions taken by the party central leadership, in this tweet, Savadi cleverly stated that he will abide by the party central leadership decision, which means there is nothing more than meets the eye. The Karnataka deputy CM also indirectly blamed the media for speculating a leadership change. In his tweets, he requested the cooperation of the media to publish authentic news rather than publish baseless reports. The talk about change of leadership in the state has led to Savadi supporters projecting him as the next Chief Minister of Karnataka. To put an end to all the speculation, Savadi said, Yediyurappa is our leader and he will be the CM for next three years. Further he also said that there is no discussion held with party top brasses regarding change of leadership. However, he met BJP National President J.P. Nadda. BJP National organizing secretary, B.L. Santhosh, betenoir of the Chief Minister B.S.Yediyurappa. After he arrived in Bengaluru on Wednesday afternoon, Savadi echoed what he said in Delhi. Speaking to reporters here on Wednesday, Savadi said that the media was unnecessarily giving publicity to his Delhi visit. Chief Minister Yediyurappa will complete his term. There is no change of leadership in the State, he reiterated. No change of leadership: Party sources Meanwhile, sources in the party also clarified that there will be no immediate change of leadership. Central leadership has no mood to interfere in Karnataka BJP affairs, till Covid-19 pandemic subsidies. Amidst Covid 19 pandemic, no party will take this kind of major political decision, sources said. Senior functionary in the state BJP told this newspaper that, there is no need to give much attention to Savadi Delhi visit and his absence in completion of one year celebration of BSY government on Monday. The Chief Minister has decided to expand his Cabinet along with a reshuffle of the ministry. Few ministers are likely to be dropped to accommodate new entrants to the BJP. Savadi is also said to be in the drop list. To safeguard his seat, he had taken a Delhi trip to meet the party brasses, a leader added. Marilyn in Louisiana: I can fix this problem for you. Try pinning or sewing fishing weights or heavy washers every six to 12 inches along the bottom of the liner. The extra weight should prevent the billowing. Some shower curtain liners already have suction cups or weights attached. Be sure the liner hangs down into the tub more than an inch or two, or hang the rod lower. By Gabriela Mello SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian wireless carrier TIM Participacoes SA can thrive even if its joint bid for Oi's mobile assets fails, Chief Executive Pietro Labriola said on Thursday, as the company foresees better results despite the pandemic. "This potential transaction is not a do or die situation and we have conditions to thrive regardless of the outcome of this competitive process," Labriola told analysts and investors on a call on second-quarter results. TIM Participacoes and rivals Telefonica Brasil SA and America Movil's Claro on Monday night raised their joint offer to acquire Oi's mobile assets, including spectrum, to 16.5 billion reais ($3.20 billion) after the bankrupt carrier entered exclusive talks with another bidder. "The deal is especially important for TIM, which would extract sizable synergies and potentially close the spectrum gap to its peers," analysts at BTG Pactual said in a report. But Labriola cited other options to add spectrum, with the government's 5G auction of frequencies including 700 MHz and 2.3 GHz, expected next year. "We are moving ahead with our strategy to gain efficiency and manage our spectrum gap in a clever way to provide the best coverage experience," he said. The local subsidiary of Telecom Italia SpA aims to spin off its fiber infrastructure business by year-end and is in talks with potential partners. "We've already signed many non-disclosure agreements," he said. The move follows an industry trend. On Wednesday, Telefonica Brasil also announced plans for an independent unit to build and offer neutral fiber network to wholesale customers. TIM shares fell 0.8% to 14.78 reais, after posting a 23.9% drop in adjusted second-quarter net income. TIM sees a challenging second half, but expects higher revenues in prepaid and post-paid mobile plans, Labriola said. "July should be the second best month for prepaid recharging and we expect further improvement in coming quarters." (Reporting by Gabriela Mello; Editing by Richard Chang) In a Zoom meeting on July 27, commissioners voted 5 to 0 to ask the National Park Service, which manages the fountain and the land on which it rests, to remove a bronze plaque bearing Newlandss name and to create an exhibit nearby that explains the senators racism. The commission will also begin discussions on a new name for the fountain. Apple Inc on Thursday delivered blowout quarterly results, reporting revenue gains across every category and in every geography as consumers working and learning from home during the COVID-19 pandemic turned to its products and services. The report topped Wall Street expectations, with even long-overshadowed categories like iPads and Macs getting a boost. Shares rose as much as 6% in extended trading after the results. The fiscal third-quarter results, which included iPhone sales some $4 billion above analyst expectations, came on the same day that U.S. gross domestic product collapsed at a 32.9% annualized rate last quarter, the nations worst economic performance since the Great Depression. Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri also confirmed supply chain rumblings that the new lineup of iPhones, usually released in late September, would face delays of a few weeks. But executives predicted continued strong performance from the companys products. Other major tech companies Amazon.com Inc and Facebook Inc also posted results that topped Wall Street targets, sending their shares up. With 60% of sales coming from international markets, the Cupertino, California-based company posted iPhone revenues of $26.42 billion, $4 billion above analyst expectations, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. The Apple Inc logo is seen hanging at the entrance to the Apple store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, New York, U.S., October 16, 2019. Photo: Reuters In an interview with Reuters, CEO Tim Cook said that after disruptions in April, sales began to pick back up in May and June, helped by what he called a strong launch for the $399 iPhone SE introduced in April. I think the economic stimulus that was in place - and Im not just focused on the U.S., but more broadly - was a help, Cook told Reuters. The continued growth in services and accessories also showed the durability of the companys brand, which has prompted investors to view it as a comparative safe haven and pushed up share prices since March. The company saw strong sales in its greater China region, where aggressive pricing during a June holiday shopping season and lower-priced iPhone SE model released in April helped boost sales 2% to $9.33 billion. China remains a key ingredient in Apples recipe for success as we estimate roughly 20% of iPhone upgrades will be coming from this region over the coming year, Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securities said in a note. Apple also announced a 4-for-1 stock split, saying it wanted to keep shares accessible to a broad range of investors. Shares soared past $400 for the first time Thursday, though they had been proportionally higher before a 7-for-1 split in 2014. Apples fiscal third-quarter revenue and profits were $59.69 billion and $2.58 per share, compared with analyst expectations of $52.25 billion and $2.04 per share. Sales in its services segment, which also includes offerings such as iCloud and Apple Music, rose 14.8% to $13.16 billion, compared with and analyst expectations of $13.18 billion. Cook told Reuters that Apple has 550 million paying subscribers on its platform, up from 515 in the previous quarter. A municipal police officer wearing a protective face mask walks past the Apple store on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris in France, April 16, 2020. Photo: Reuters Sales in the wearables segment that includes the Apple Watch rose 16.7% to $6.45 billion, compared with estimates of $6.0 billion. Apple did not give a fiscal fourth-quarter forecast. Apple benefited from remote work and learning trends, reporting sales in its iPad and Mac segments of $6.58 billion and $7.08 billion, which beat expectations of $4.88 billion and $6.06 billion. Both had some really significant product announcements at the end of March, beginning of April, Cook told Reuters. You combine that with the work from home and remote learning, and its yielded really, really strong results. But the global smartphone market was already stagnating before the novel coronavirus caused it to contract, and Apple has leaned heavily into growing its services business, which is where the companys fastest revenue growth occurred during the fiscal third quarter. The biggest component of that business is the App Store, where Apple generates commissions between 15% and 30% on some sales. On Wednesday, Cook faced questions from U.S. lawmakers about Apples practices related to the store, which have come under fire from independent app developers who say its rules and unpredictable approval process put them at a disadvantage against the iPhone maker. United States President Donald Trump on Thursday raised the idea of delaying the nations November 3 presidential election. However, Republicans and Democrats immediately dismissed the suggestion saying the power belongs to Congress, not the president. Trump wrote Thursday on Twitter that mail-in voting will lead to the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. He added, Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? The tweet came shortly after the government reported bad economic news. The Commerce Department said the U.S. economy shrank at a yearly rate of 32.9 percent in the months of April to June: a record for the country. With just over three months until Election Day, the president is also running behind former Vice President Joe Biden in many national and states election polls. In addition, an increasing number of American states are making it easier for people to vote by mail during the coronavirus outbreak. Several members of the presidents Republican Party, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, quickly rejected the idea of delaying the election. McConnell told a Kentucky television station, Never in the history of the country, through wars, depressions, and the Civil War have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time, and well find a way to do that again this Nov. 3. Democratic U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren chairs the House committee overseeing election security. She wrote in an email to reporters, Only Congress can change the date of our elections and Congress will not consider it. Republican Governor Chris Sununu of the northeastern state of New Hampshire added Make no mistake: the election will happen in New Hampshire on November 3rd. End of story. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to set the dates of the U.S. presidential elections. Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said, Since 1845 weve had an election on the first Tuesday after November 1st and were going to have one again this year. Rubio added that people should have confidence in it. Does mail-in voting lead to fraud? Trump has previously claimed that mail-in voting will lead to fraud. But this is the first time he ever raised the idea of pushing back the election. Hogan Gidley, the Trump campaigns spokesman, said The President is just raising a question about the chaos Democrats have created with their insistence on all mail-in voting. He added that the state of New York was sending every registered voter a ballot whether they asked for one or not. Just weeks ago, Trump refused to say whether he would accept the results of the upcoming November election. When asked by Chris Wallace of Fox News, he said, No, Im not going to just say yes. Im not going to say no, and I didnt last time, either. Trump made a similar statement during the 2016 election. During primary elections, some states had difficulty finding workers for Election Day. Many reduced places for in-person voting. Voters and health officials have also expressed concerns about the possible dangers of spreading the virus during in-person voting. For the general election, California has already announced plans to send ballots to all registered voters and to also have in-person voting. But many American states are still setting up their plans during the coronavirus outbreak. Earlier this month, Biden told the host of The Daily Show Trevor Noah that Trump was going to try to steal this election. This is a guy who said that all mail-in ballots are fraudulent, voting by mail, while he sits behind the desk in the Oval Office and writes his mail-in ballot to vote in the primary, Biden said. Im Dorothy Gundy. Hai Do wrote this story for VOA Learning English with additional reporting from Reuters and the Associated Press. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story fraudulent adj. something done to trick someone for the purpose of getting something valuable polls n. (pl.) an activity meant to find out what the public thinks in which people are asked their opinion on an issue or who they support in an election outbreak n. a sudden start or increase in the spread of a disease or fighting chaos n. complete confusion and disorder, a state in which behavior and events are not controlled by anything Illinois Tool Works (ITW) came out with quarterly earnings of $1.09 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.70 per share. This compares to earnings of $2 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of 55.71%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this equipment manufacturer for the transportation, power, food and construction industries would post earnings of $1.71 per share when it actually produced earnings of $1.77, delivering a surprise of 3.51%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates four times. Illinois Tool Works, which belongs to the Zacks Manufacturing - General Industrial industry, posted revenues of $2.56 billion for the quarter ended June 2020, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 8.66%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $3.61 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates two times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Illinois Tool Works shares have added about 3.4% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 0.5%. What's Next for Illinois Tool Works? While Illinois Tool Works has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Story continues Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Illinois Tool Works was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $1.22 on $2.74 billion in revenues for the coming quarter and $5.27 on $11.40 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Manufacturing - General Industrial is currently in the top 43% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Illinois Tool Works Inc. (ITW) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research By Guy Faulconbridge LONDON (Reuters) - Britain on Wednesday named career diplomat and intelligence officer Richard Moore as the new chief of the MI6 spy service as the West seeks to bolster its defences against hostile espionage from China and Russia. Moore, 57, joined the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in 1987, just four years before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. An accomplished intelligence officer, Moore served in various diplomatic and security roles before winning one of the most powerful jobs in the Western intelligence. Alex Younger, the current chief of MI6 - or plain "C" - will step down in the autumn. "I am pleased and honoured to be asked to return to lead my Service," said Moore, who is currently director general of political affairs at the Foreign Office. Moore served as British ambassador to Turkey from January 2014 to December 2017 and has also served as deputy national security adviser. Born in Libya, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University and was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard. His biggest challenge is likely to be China, which the United States has identified as its major geopolitical foe, though he will also have to fight for funding after British politicians splurged on the coronavirus crisis. As technology transforms spying, Moore will have to work out how one of the world's pre-eminent human intelligence services can best garner mass data while preserving its renown for getting high-level sources to steal secrets across the world. MI6, depicted by novelists as the employer of some of the most memorable fictional spies, from John le Carres George Smiley to Ian Flemings James Bond, operates overseas and is tasked with defending Britain and its interests. Younger has served since November 2014. He stayed on longer than is usual to ensure stability through the political tumult of the Brexit negotiations. His biggest challenge was the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent turned by MI6, in the English cathedral city of Salisbury in 2018 with a Soviet-designed nerve agent known as Novichok. Britain blamed Russian military intelligence (GRU) but the Kremlin denied any involvement. The attack prompted the biggest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats and spies since the Cold War. (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Paul Sandle and Alison Williams) Tuolumne County Public Health View Photo Sonora, CA Tuolumne County Public Health reports that three new Tuolumne County residents have been identified with coronavirus and they are isolating today. Three individuals are no longer in isolation and are listed as recovered. One person went home from the hospital and is listed as recovered, one previously identified individual has been reassigned to their county of residence. Tuolumne residents tested: 7,920, positive 134 (68 females and 66 males), hospitalized 2, active cases 14, total recovered 118. According to Public Health Director Michelle Jachetta the Sierra Conservation Center has one active COVID-19 case and eleven staff members who have returned to work. She notes the data on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is not up-to-date. The employees who tested positive at the prison are from various counties: eight from Tuolumne, three from Stanislaus, and one from Merced. All have returned to work except one from Stanislaus County. Todays new cases bring Tuolumne countys 14-day case rate to 95.51 new cases per 100,000 population, remaining just below the 100/100k mark for the state county watch list. Tuolumne Public Health remarks, It seems there are some delays in labs reporting results into CalREDIE, the statewide reporting system. It also seems that there are some delays with the reports of our case numbers within the state site. We do not know when the state will put us on the monitoring watch list, but will continue to provide updates as we receive more information. Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools reported all Tuolumne schools will be doing distance learning as detailed here. The most recent Calaveras update is here. Amador reported 21 new cases yesterday an has not released numbers yet today. According to the CDCR the countys Mule Creek State Prison has three active inmates and eight staff members identified with coronavirus. The number of San Joaquin COVID-19 deaths, 151, allows them to release details about comorbidity without violating HIPPA regulations. The report 43.1% had diabetes, 39.9% had cardiovascular disease, 19.6% none or unknown, 16.3% had chronic lung disease, and 7.8% had asthma. The total is more than 100% as patients can have multiple comorbidities. San Joaquins cases listed as recovered jumped by over 5,800 today to 9,951. Their website states they are currently experiencing significant delays in reporting due to increased volume and processing time. Daily COVID-19 Cases County Active Date New Today Hospital/ICU Alpine 0 7/27 0 0 Amador 49 7/29 21 4 Calaveras 27 7/28 7 1 Mariposa 6 7/30 0 0 Madera* 835 7/30 36 44 Merced* 1,646 7/30 31 79 Mono* 64 7/30 2 1 San Joaquin* 1,741 7/30 133 233/78 Stanislaus* 1,106 7/30 204 198/49 Tuolumne* 14 7/30 3 2 Totals (Cumulative) COVID-19 Cases County Recovered (new) Total Positives Deaths Alpine 2(+1) 2 0 Amador 61(+1) 110 0 Calaveras 80(+36) 108 1 Mariposa 43(+6) 51 2 Madera* 1,023(51) 1,886 28 Merced* 2,225(+0) 3,906 35 Mono* 53(+4) 126 1 San Joaquin* 9,951(+5.8k) 11,342 151 Stanislaus* 7,209(+155) 8,492 103 Tuolumne* 118(+3) 134 2 As reported here, 14 days ago Tuolumne increased 5 cases from 79 to 84 cases. Tuolumne County Public Health Updates Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools and our Interim County Health Officer issued a statement today regarding the start of the 20-21 school year. The Health Officer has been, and continues to, work closely with the County Superintendent of Schools and all of the district superintendents in planning for the start of school. Based on the many facets of the ongoing pandemic, including statewide requirements and guidance, and in consultation with the local Health Officer, the district superintendents and Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools have determined that the school year will start with students participating in school remotely. If you are having COVID-like symptoms, please contact your healthcare provider or the Adventist Health Triage Line at 209-536-5166. If you need immediate medical attention, please call ahead and go to Rapid Care or the Emergency Department. You can also visit www.valleycovidhelp.com for more information. The no-cost state testing site is open at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds Tuesday Saturday 7am to 7pm. Appointments can be scheduled ahead of time at: https://lhi.care/covidtesting Appointments are strongly recommended as walk-ins are extremely limited. The site now offers testing for children ages 3 and older (accompanied by a parent or guardian). It is important that people continue to follow prevention guidelines to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, including: Practice physical distancing at all times. Keep 6 feet space between yourself and others who are not part of your household. Stay in your household bubble! Wear a face covering in public. Wash your hands thoroughly and frequently. Avoid gatherings of any size with people who are not part of your household. Stay home if you are sick. Avoid unnecessary travel, and limit your outings to essential tasks. LINKS TO MORE INFORMATION & RESOURCES Community Resources Portal: https://bit.ly/TCcovidPortal Tuolumne County Public Health Website: www.tuolumnecounty.ca.gov/publichealth Public Health COVID-19 Call Center: (209) 533-7440 California COVID-19 website: www.covid19.ca.gov State Testing Site info and Appointments: https://lhi.care/covidtesting Tuolumne County Business: www.tcdisasterassistance.com CDC COVID-19 website: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html Thank you for your support and efforts to protect the safety and health of our community The Municipal Chief Executive of New Juaben South Municipal Assembly in the Eastern Region, Hon. Isaac Appaw-Gyasi has urged Ghanaians to support the government initiatives towards the fight against COVID-19 in the country. Hon. Isaac Appaw-Gyasi who described the president, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as 'Strategic leader' said, the fight against the virus cannot be won by the central government alone, rather cumulative efforts from the citizens to help win this fight. He disclosed this in an interview with the pressmen when some officials and disinfection team from Tebel Ghana Ltd., in partnership with Zoomlion Ghana Ltd through the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development visited the region to disinfect markets as part of the ongoing second phase of nationwide disinfection exercise as one of the government measures to contain the spread of the virus in the country. According to him, the government initiative of disinfection and cleaning up exercise of markets, toilets and public places to fight against the virus was laudable Rebuking some comments made by some of the market women they were not happy and unaware of the exercise, he said, "we have informed them of the exercise which the team went around the market to inform them. We have met them together with their leaders. A day before yesterday and yesterday I personally went to the market to inform them, so they are fully aware of the exercise and that of the time (4:00 am) but the only people whom I can say didn't get the message are few women outside Koforidua which we sincerely apologise for", he said. However, to the market women, the exercise should have been carried out on Saturday or Sunday because weekdays are their market days. He added that the exercise started exactly 4:00 am where the disinfection team disinfected six markets namely, the Koforidua Central Market, Juaben Serwaa Market, Beans Market, Zongo Market, Ejisu Market, and Agartha market; Toilets and Lorry Stations in Koforidua. On her part, the Administration and Accounts Manageress, Tebel Ghana Limited, Ms. Edem Makumator, disclosed that her outfit had been tasked to disinfect and fumigate 246 markets in 33 districts across the Eastern Region. She noted that Tebel Ghana Limited was happy to be collaborating with Zoomlion to undertake the national disinfection exercise. The Eastern Regional Minister, Mr. Ernest Kwakye Daffuor, during a similar exercise at the Regional Coordinating Council, said the nationwide disinfection and fumigation exercise was part of the central governments measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the country. He seized the opportunity to commend health professionals for the risk they were taking to keep Ghanaians safe. The minister also commended the media for the support and good work done towards the fight of COVID-19 and urged them to continue. Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo said Friday it will close nine of its stores in South Korea next month amid a sharp fall in sales stemming from the new coronavirus outbreak and a trade dispute between Seoul and Tokyo. The closure came as online shopping has gained traction amid the COVID-19 pandemic and as its sales were hit hard by strained relations between the two neighboring countries over the trade tussle that started in July last year. The number of Uniqlo's shops in Korea stands at 174, compared with 187 at the end of August 2019. Uniqlo's sales in Korea took a beating as a growing number of Korean consumers has boycotted Japanese products since July last year in protest of Japan's export restrictions of some key industrial materials shipped to Korea. The bilateral ties have been strained since the top court in South Korea ordered Japanese firms to compensate Korean victims of Japan's wartime forced labor in 2018. Tokyo's subsequent export curbs against Seoul exacerbated the situation. (Yonhap) They are three of the most handsome and famous brothers in the world. And on Thursday, Chris, Liam and Luke Hemsworth took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather in NSW to enjoy a surf session in Byron Bay. Chris, 36, Liam, 30, and Luke, 39, were feeling energetic as they enjoyed a vigorous two hour surf. Swim fans: On Thursday, Chris, Liam and Luke Hemsworth took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather in NSW to enjoy a surf session in Byron Bay. Pictured: Chris Hemsworth All three brothers were dressed in wetsuits to help brave the chilly water as they enjoyed their dip. Chris carried a large surfboard in a yellow tone, which had a leg strap to keep it attached as he tumbled in the waves. Luke meanwhile carried a white surfboard, also with a red leg strap, as he walked along the shore alongside his Thor star sibling. Looking good! All three brothers were dressed in wetsuits to help brave the chilly water as they enjoyed their dip. Pictured: Liam Hemsworth Hairy situation: Liam was sporting a bushy hipster beard as he emerged from the water Ready to rumble: The actor carried a white surf board out of the water Tending to his baby: Liam looked lovingly at his board, perhaps checking for damage Looking good! Liam looked particularly buff as he exited the water carrying a white and blue surfboard The brothers walked side by side, water dripping from their bodies, and chatted as they left the water. Liam, who was sporting a beard, looked particularly buff as he exited the water carrying a white and blue surfboard. All three appeared to look tired by their two hours battling the waves on what was a sunny day. Mellow yellow: Chris carried a large surfboard in a yellow tone, which had a leg strap to keep it attached as he tumbled in the waves Strike a pose! The actor showed off his impressive muscles as he posed in the waves What's other there? He appeared to take interest in something in the distance Chris stopped to strike a powerful pose in the waves at one point, showing off his impressively muscular form. Likewise, Liam, who appears to have bulked up of late, looked fetching in his skin-tight wetsuit. Luke and Chris appeared to leave the water slightly ahead of Liam, who emerged looking a tad winded. Lots of energy! Chris, 36, Liam, 30, and Luke, 39, were clearly feeling energetic as they enjoyed a vigorous two hour surf All in check! Chris made sure his leg strap was still attached and in one piece Hey bro! Luke carried a white surfboard, also with a red leg strap. Pictured: Luke Hemsworth Chats: Luke chatted to Liam he walked along the shore alongside his Thor star sibling Local: Chris lives in Byron Bay in a controversial, nearby mega mansion that has been under construction Chris lives in Byron Bay in a controversial, nearby mega mansion that has been under construction. Liam has spent a lot of time in the beach side suburb, visiting with his brother since his marriage to Miley Cryus broke down last year. Luke, a father of four, spends time between Los Angeles and Australia, and all three siblings are known to be very close. NASA-NOAA satellite tracks Isaias' development, movement, soaking potential NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided visible imagery of the development and movement of Tropical Storm Isaias is it moved into the eastern Caribbean Sea. NASA's Aqua satellite provided temperature information that gave insight into Isaias' rainmaking potential. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard Suomi NPP provided a visible image of Potential Tropical Cyclone 9 on July 28. The storm developed into Tropical Storm Isaias on July 29. The imagery showed the broader circulation of the disturbance had become slightly better defined but at the time of the July 29 image, Air Force Reserve reconnaissance aircraft was still unable to find a well-defined circulation. Later in the day, by 5 p.m. EDT, deep convection continued to increase and a band of thunderstorms developed over the southwestern portion of the broad circulation. By 11 p.m., the storm had developed into a tropical storm. The National Hurricane center noted, "Observations from recent scatterometer passes over the system show that it now has a sufficiently well-defined center to be designated as a tropical cyclone." Many Warnings and Watches in Effect The National Hurricane Center (NHC) posted many watches and warnings as Isaias moved through the Caribbean Sea on July 30. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra; the U.S. Virgin Islands; the Dominican Republic entire southern and northern coastlines; the north coast of Haiti from Le Mole St. Nicholas eastward to the northern border with the Dominican Republic; Turks and Caicos Islands; the southeastern Bahamas including the Acklins, Crooked Island, Long Cay, the Inaguas, Mayaguana, the Ragged Islands; the Central Bahamas, including Cat Island, the Exumas, Long Island, Rum Cay, and San Salvador. A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the northwestern Bahamas including Andros Island, New Providence, Eleuthera, Abacos Islands, Berry Islands, Grand Bahamas Island, and Bimini. NASA Infrared Data Reveals a Heavy Rainmaker The AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a look at cloud top temperatures in Isaias and gave insight into the size of the large storm and its rainfall potential. Cloud top temperatures provide information to forecasters about where the strongest storms are located within a tropical cyclone. Tropical cyclones do not always have uniform strength, and some sides have stronger sides than others. The stronger the storms, the higher they extend into the troposphere, and the colder the cloud temperatures. NASA provides that data to forecasters at NOAA's National Hurricane Center or NHC so they can incorporate in their forecasting. On July 30 at 2:35 a.m. EDT (0635 UTC) NASA's Aqua satellite analyzed the storm using the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument. AIRS found coldest cloud top temperatures as cold as or colder than minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 degrees Celsius). NASA research has shown that cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong storms that have the capability to create heavy rain. Rainfall Forecast from NHC NASA's AIRS data, combined with other data is used by NHC in their forecasts. NHC said Isaias is expected to produce the following rain accumulations: In Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and northern Haiti: 4 to 8 inches, with isolated maximum totals of 10 inches. In the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos: 4 to 8 inches. In Cuba: 1 to 2 inches, with isolated maximum totals of 4 inches. These rainfall amounts will lead to life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides, as well as river flooding. Urban and small stream flooding is expected for the U.S. Virgin Islands, eastern and southwestern Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola. Heavy rains associated with Isaias may begin to affect South Florida Saturday morning. This rain could result in isolated flash and urban flooding, especially in low-lying and poorly drained areas. Isaias' Status on July 30 By 11 a.m. EDT on July 30, Isaias had moved northwest and was bringing heavy rain and gusty winds to Puerto Rico. The rainfall was producing life-threatening flash flooding. Heavy rains and gusty winds were also spreading over the Dominican Republic. The center of Tropical Storm Isaias was located near latitude 18.1 degrees north and longitude 68.9 degrees west. That is 50 miles (75 km) southwest of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Isaias was moving toward the northwest near 20 mph (31 kph), and a west-northwestward to northwestward motion with some decrease in forward speed is expected over the next couple of days. Maximum sustained winds are near 60 mph (95 kph) with higher gusts. Some slight weakening is possible as Isaias moves over Hispaniola today. Re-strengthening is forecast on Friday into Friday night. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 310 miles (500 km) primarily to the north of the center. Tropical-storm-force winds are occurring along the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The estimated minimum central pressure is 1003 millibars. Forecast for Isaias On the forecast track, the center of Isaias will move over Hispaniola today, July 30, and move near the Southeastern Bahamas by tonight or early Friday. Isaias is forecast to be near the Central Bahamas Friday night and approach the Northwest Bahamas or southern Florida Friday night and Saturday, August 1. ### NHC Key messages for Isaias can be found in the Tropical Cyclone Discussion on the web at http://www. hurricanes. gov/ text/ MIATCDAT4. shtml . For more than five decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA brings together technology, science, and unique global Earth observations to provide societal benefits and strengthen our nation. Advancing knowledge of our home planet contributes directly to America's leadership in space and scientific exploration For updated forecasts, visit: http://www. nhc. noaa. gov By Rob Gutro NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. New Delhi, July 31 : The MGNREGS has become a major support for daily wage labourers in different villages during the coronavirus crisis, as central government figures show that the beneficiaries got 114 per cent more work in July than last year under the scheme. And since May, this figure has been steadily increasing. Under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) that provides employment to rural people and is operated by the Rural Development Ministry, the beneficiaries got 73 per cent more work in May compared with the corresponding period last year. The figure touched 92 per cent and 114 per cent during June and July respectively. In fact, after the migration of migrant labourers from the metros during coronavirus outbreak, the government also laid special emphasis on MGNREGS to provide means of livelihood for them in their respective villages. The Centre had increased the wages under this scheme from Rs 182 to Rs 202 per day, apart from hiking its budget by Rs 40,000 crore. The budgetary allocation for MNREGS in the 2020-21 fiscal was Rs 61,500 crore, but an additional Rs 40,000 crore was provided for in the economic package of Rs 20 lakh crore announced by the central government under the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative. According to the Ministry data, under MGNREGS, in July 2020, an average of 2.26 crore people got work in the country, which is 114 per cent more than the previous year, while an average of 1.05 crore people got daily work in the same month. In June, an average of 3.35 crore people got daily work, which is 92 per cent more than the 1.74 crore recorded in June last year. In May this year, an average of 2.51 crore people got daily work under MGNREGS, which is 73 per cent higher than 1.45 crore figure in June last year. According to the data, under the MNREGS, people in 1.86 lakh panchayats got work till July 30. According to Rural Development Ministry figures, 9.24 crore beneficiaries got employment till July 30. Till July 29, Rs 50,780 crore had been released under this scheme. According to the data, 157.89 crore man-days were created till July 30 in the current fiscal, as compared to 265.35 person days during the 2019-20 fiscal. Under the MGNREGS, people willing to work in rural areas are guaranteed 100 days of employment per year. OTTAWA - Fighter-jet makers are leading with promises of jobs and other economic spinoffs as they make their final pitches for why Canada should buy their planes to replace the military's aging CF-18 fleet. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. An F-35A Lightning II fighter jet practises for an air show appearance in Ottawa, Friday, Sept. 6, 2019. Fighter-jet makers are leading with promises of jobs and other economic spinoffs as they make their final pitches for why Canada should buy their planes to replace the military's aging CF-18 fleet.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld OTTAWA - Fighter-jet makers are leading with promises of jobs and other economic spinoffs as they make their final pitches for why Canada should buy their planes to replace the military's aging CF-18 fleet. Friday marks the deadline for U.S. aerospace companies Lockheed Martin and Boeing, as well as Swedish firm Saab, to submit their bids in the current fighter-jet competition, which will see Canada spend up to $19 billion on 88 new planes. The closing of the competition marks a major milestone in Canada's decade-long effort to buy new fighter jets for the Royal Canadian Air Force, which has been plagued by government mismanagement and political controversy. While the combat capability of each of the three competing planes Lockheed Martin's F-35, Boeing's Super Hornet and Saab's Gripen will be the main focus as the government evaluates each bid, there will also be a lot of focus on the economic benefits of buying each plane. To that end, Lockheed Martin commissioned a report in February that found up to 4,200 jobs will be created or sustained each year if Canada buys its F-35 stealth fighter, which the company equated to more than 150,000 new jobs over the life of the plane. The analysis provided to The Canadian Press, which was compiled by Toronto-based OMX, also predicted the Canadian economy will see roughly $15 billion in additional activity between now and 2058 if the F-35 is selected to succeed the CF-18 as Canada's primary fighter jet. That is in addition to the $2 billion in economic benefits that Canada has already received since 2007 as one of nine partner countries in the development of the F-35, which lets Canadian companies compete for work associated with the stealth fighter. Canada has contributed US$541 million since 1997 to be a partner in the F-35 program. "Lockheed Martin has prepared a comprehensive proposal," the company said in a statement on Thursday. "The F-35 is the most capable, best-value fighter to strengthen defence, enhance ally partnerships and contribute to economic growth in Canada with significant, long-term industrial opportunities." Lockheed Martin isn't the first to toot its own horn on the potential economic benefits of its fighter. Boeing last month released its own commissioned report showing its existing operations in Canada created $5.3 billion in economic spinoffs last year and supported 20,000 jobs. Boeing says the numbers will go up if the Super Hornet wins, though it has not revealed its exact estimates. The emphasis on jobs and money rather than combat capability comes as Canada's economy has been battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing the federal government to spend tens of billions in financial support for Canadians. Defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute said it makes sense for companies to highlight the potential economic benefits of their bids. He said it helps to make the cost more palatable to the public and is also important in determining the winner. "In any competition like this, you're always looking for any potential partial point that you can get," Perry said. "Companies, if they're going to invest this significant time and significant amount of money preparing a bid like this, then they don't leave anything to chance. You make sure you try to wring every single last partial point you can get out of your proposal." This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2020. On the eve of a ceasefire declared by the Taliban for the festival of Eid a car bomb in Afghanistan has killed at least 17 people. As per reports, the Taliban have come out and denied responsibility for the attack and the Islamic State has not yet commented on the bombing. Explosion near the Governor's house It is believed that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber, the blast occurred in the Logar province of Afghanistan. According to reports, the explosion occurred near the governors house, a place where a large group of people were shopping for the festival. The Taliban and the Afghan government had agreed on a three-day ceasefire starting on July 31, the first day of Eid. Read: UN Chief Welcomes Ceasefire In Afghanistan Ahead Of Eid Read: US Secretary Of State Pompeo Says Threats To US In Afghanistan Raised With Russia As per reports, in a statement released by interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian, he said that terrorists had once again struck on the night of Eid al-Adha and took the life of several Afghans. A Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid in a statement stated that the group had no connection to the car bombing or the group that carried out the attack. More than 10,000 soldiers killed since peace deal: Ashraf Ghani Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on July 28 revealed that at least 10,708 soldiers belonging to the Afghan National Security and Defence Forces (ANDSF) had been killed and injured since the US-Taliban Peace deal. The Afghan President also noted that over 750 civilians had lost their lives with at least a 1,000 more wounded. In accordance with the US-Taliban Peace agreement, the United States has moved several thousand US troops out of 5 bases in Afghanistan. (Image Credit AP) Read: Afghanistan: 10,708 Soldiers Killed, Wounded Since US-Taliban Peace Deal, Says Ghani Read: UN Mission In Afghanistan Lists Terror Attacks Against Minorities, Exposes Pakistan's Hand 2020 Global Threat Intelligence Report Understanding your organizations goals, identifying acceptable risk and building cyber-resilient capabilities are essential to navigating the ever-changing threat landscape. A gap still exists between the current and desired state for cyber capabilities in several industries throughout the UK. The NTT 2020 Global Threat Intelligence Report highlights that Manufacturing is the most attacked business vertical in the UK and Ireland. Manufacturing organizations must ensure a constant focus is placed on the maturity of your cybersecurity process, the correct tools and executive support. Download the latest UK&I findings from the NTT 2020 Global Threat Intelligence Report to learn more about a new approach to OT security. An estimated 600,000 British nationals were on holiday in Spain on Saturday when the UK government announced that they would face a 14-day quarantine when they got home. The government stressed that they could finish their holidays - they didn't have to rush back - but they would have to plan for a two-week interruption to their routine. Julie and Richard Gross arrived in Benalmadena from Southend just three days before the UK announced the new 14-day quarantine for people entering the country from Spain. The couple have been coming to the resort for many years and claim they would still have come even if the quarantine had been announced earlier. "We find it hard to believe that the UK, which has never adhered to a proper lockdown like Spain, should insist on this quarantine period. It will play havoc with people's jobs, because not everyone can afford to take time off. This is not to mention the economic impact it will have on the tourist industry in Spain," Julie said. Although she said they will self-isolate on returning to the UK, Julie stressed that she has felt safe while staying on the coast. "To be honest, we have felt more at ease and safe here than in the UK. We have noticed that everybody wears a mask and most people observe the social distancing: in Southend, the beaches are packed and even the police don't seem too bothered about it," she concluded. Plans have changed Rona Griffiths, from Brighton, East Sussex, arrived in Arroyo de la Miel the week before the announcement was made by the UK government. She had come to see her boyfriend Steve, whom she had not seen since before the lockdown. The couple intended to return to the UK this Sunday in order to celebrate Julie's birthday. Maddy Weavers and Ruben. / SUR "Plans have changed. I'm not going to catch my return flight, as I've decided to stay longer, so hopefully it will be better when I do fly back. I'm disappointed, because I won't be able to celebrate my birthday with my friends and family back home," she said. Rona, who claims to have felt "completely safe" on the coast, says she doesn't believe Boris Johnson was right to enforce a blanket lockdown. "I don't think the government made the right decision: most people who come to Malaga will not be travelling to places like Barcelona. We are well-informed on the Costa del Sol and are kept up to date with information concerning any changes. I would not have travelled if I was concerned," Rona declared. Business damaged British residents whose work in Spain relies on travel between the two countries, also found their plans, and business, disrupted. Debbie Skyrme. / SUR Debbie Skyrme is a wedding celebrant based in Almunecar. One wedding due to take place in August was immediately cancelled due to the unexpected quarantine announcement and others are in serious jeopardy as guests cannot afford time to self-isolate at home on returning from a Spanish wedding ceremony. "[With] this quarantine announcement I'm incensed! I honestly don't know how much more the wedding suppliers and venues here can take. "Destination weddings are a large contributor to the tourism industry and the GDP so there is a knock-on effect to the wider community," she said. Maddy Weavers flew to Spain from the UK on Friday with her seven-year-old son Ruben so that he could spend the summer with his Spanish family. Maddy returned to the UK on Monday as planned, but had to delay her moving house from Surrey to Oxford and quarantine instead. "I can move but [I would go] directly into quarantine. I couldn't go out and buy new furniture and I can't live in an empty house," Maddy said on Monday. NEW BRITAIN, Conn., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Fast Company announced its second annual Best Workplaces for Innovators and named Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE:SWK) as one of the 100 Best Workplaces For Innovators. The company ranked 55th in its first appearance on the list. "For more than 177 years, Stanley Black & Decker has continued to innovate its products, culture and operating model to thrive across three industrial revolutions, and we are honored to receive this recognition," said Stanley Black & Decker CEO Jim Loree. "As we enter the fourth industrial revolution, we continue to aspire to be known as one of the world's leading innovators and serve those who make the world. In today's era, the acceleration of emerging technology and rapidly changing customer needs require digital tools, better analytics and extreme innovation. To us, that means innovation everywhere, of everything, by everyone." Developed in collaboration with Accenture, the 2020 Best Workplaces for Innovators ranks 100 winners from a variety of industries, including computer science, biotech, consumer packaged goods, nonprofit, education, financial services, cybersecurity, and engineering. Working together, Fast Company editors and Accenture researchers scored nearly 900 applications, and a panel of eight eminent judges reviewed and endorsed the top 100 companiesan increase from last year's list of 50. "As much of the world recovers from health, economic, and social crises, we need innovation more than ever," says Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. "This new list of the Best Workplaces for Innovators celebrates organizations that have fostered innovative thinking by investing in technology, research and development, and their employees." About Stanley Black & Decker's Innovation Ecosystem In an effort to continue to grow its innovation ecosystem, Stanley Black & Decker has expanded a number of collaborations with startups and entrepreneurs, academic institutions, research labs and others. This innovation culture, which includes a focus on social impact in addition to the company's traditional core product and customer focus, enables the organization to reimagine how it operates in today's technology-enabled, fast-paced world. A few recent examples include investments in breakthrough innovation hubs around the world where commercial and startup resources are concentrated to develop game-changing solutions. Additionally, the company has added resources to their STANLEY X business, a Silicon Valley-based team to build and incubate disruptive technologies and explore new business models. Internally, the company has invested in "Innovation Everywhere," a grassroots movement that encourages all employees to bring forward problems or ideas that they see within the company, regardless of role, title or geography. To learn more about the company's innovation ecosystem, click here. Stanley Black & Decker has recently established a COVID-19 Community Response Task Force to work with universities, hospitals, manufacturers and other partners around the globe to apply its innovation and expertise to tackle today's challenges. Ongoing projects include 3D face shield printing, innovations in mask technology, and fasteners and battery technology for medical products such as respirators. Click here to see what the company is doing in response to COVID-19. To see the complete list, go to: www.fastcompany.com/best-workplaces-for-innovators/2020 ABOUT FAST COMPANY Fast Company is one of the world's leading business media brands, with an editorial focus on innovation with deep emphasis on creativity, technology, social impact, leadership, and design. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at fastcompany.com. ABOUT ACCENTURE Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology, and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions underpinned by the world's largest delivery network Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With 482,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com. ABOUT STANLEY BLACK & DECKER Stanley Black & Decker is a purpose-driven, $14 billion revenue industrial organization. Stanley Black & Decker has 60,000 employees in more than 60 countries and operates the world's largest tools and storage business, the world's second-largest commercial electronic security services company, a leading engineered fastening business as well as Oil & Gas and Infrastructure businesses. The company's iconic brands include Black & Decker, Bostitch, CRAFTSMAN, DEWALT, FACOM, Irwin, Lenox, Porter Cable and Stanley. Stanley Black & Decker is a company for the makers and innovators, the craftsmen and the caregivers, and those doing the hard work to make the world a better place. Learn more at www.stanleyblackanddecker.com. SOURCE Stanley Black & Decker Related Links http://www.stanleyblackanddecker.com The economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with the long-term decline in print advertising, delivered another blow to media jobs this week. Metro Corp., which publishes Philadelphia Magazine and its counterpart in Boston, said this week that it is cutting eight positions and putting 13 employees on furlough in its Boston and Philadelphia offices. Remaining employees are being forced to take 20% pay cuts for 90 days, said an employee who was not authorized to speak for the company. This difficult decision will allow us to devote resources to produce our trusted brand of quality journalism and reader service that our audiences have come to expect and count on, Metro said in a statement on Philadelphia Magazines website. Details on the categories of employees affected by the cuts or on how many employees will remain in the two offices were not available. The company, which made the announcement Tuesday, did not respond to a voicemail at its Center City office. In April, The Inquirer reported that Philadelphia Magazines circulation was 90,000. Metro is owned by the Lipson family, which in April for the first time tapped someone outside the family as chief executive. The new CEO, Nick Fischer, a Connecticut-based consultant who is listed on LinkedIn as interim CEO, was not available to comment Thursday. The magazine announced in June that editor Tom McGrath was stepping down at the end of the summer. McGrath said that the publication needed to evolve and that it should replace him with someone who is not a middle-aged white guy. Economic fallout from COVID-19, which has shut down large swathes of the economy, has caused steep declines in advertising revenue for newspapers, magazines, radio stations, websites, and TV channels. Among them is The Inquirer, which on Wednesday announced a buyout offer to cut costs. Inquirer publisher and CEO Elizabeth H. Hughes said in an email to staff that the companys revenue was expected to fall 13% this year when compared with last year. The NewsGuild of Greater Philadelphia, which represents editorial, finance, advertising, and other Inquirer employees, said that 61 union employees are eligible for the buyout based on age and years of service, and that the company wants at least 12 to take it. According to the union, which represents 284 Inquirer employees, the company has not said whether it will resort to layoffs if it does not achieve its savings goal through buyouts. Also eligible for the buyout are 17 nonunion employees in The Inquirers information technology, marketing, and newsroom divisions. Earlier this year, The Inquirer had six newsroom buyouts, and 21 buyouts and five layoffs in advertising and the events division. A stubborn fire at a warehouse in west Houston kept firefighters busy for hours Friday, sending two to the hospital for heat exhaustion and destroying a ladder truck, Fire Chief Samuel Pena said. The fire department responded to the blaze at 7830 Westpark around 10:30 a.m. Friday, reporting a collapse. The building houses the cosmetic supplier Salon and Spa Wholesaler and was the site of blue runoff as firefighters tried to extinguish the flames. By Anousha Sakoui Los Angeles Times (TNS) Los Angeles TV star Ellen DeGeneres finally addressed criticisms of her shows workplace culture, after months of anonymous complaints piled up from former and current employees who reported experiencing racism and intimidation. In a memo sent to the staff of the Warner Bros.-produced talk show, DeGeneres said that she and the studio would immediately take steps to address the issues raised. Senior-level staffing changes were expected. "As we've grown exponentially, I've not been able to stay on top of everything and relied on others to do their jobs as they knew I'd want them done," DeGeneres said in the memo viewed by the Los Angeles Times. "Clearly some didn't. That will now change and I'm committed to ensuring this does not happen again." DeGeneres was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2016, acknowledging the courage it took to come out to a national audience as gay in 1997. Im also learning that people who work with me and for me are speaking on my behalf and misrepresenting who I am and that has to stop, the comedian said. As someone who was judged and nearly lost everything for just being who I am, I truly understand and have deep compassion for those being looked at differently, or treated unfairly, not equal, or worse disregarded. To think that any one of you felt that way is awful to me. The statement addresses months during which reports have described mistreatment of the show's crew and a toxic workplace. The criticisms were in stark contrast to the image of Ellen who is seen as a happy-go-lucky comedian with the tag line "Be kind to one another," and who describes her show as "a place of happiness." "I want everyone at home to love our show and I want everyone who makes it to love working on it," DeGeneres said. "I'm so sorry to anyone who didn't have that experience. If not for COVID, I'd have done this in person, and I can't wait to be back on our stage and see you all then." A BuzzFeed News report quoted anonymous current and former employees alleging they had been fired for taking medical or bereavement leave; one said she was a victim of racial discrimination. There were also concerns among the crew about their pay and treatment during the production shutdown due to the pandemic. WarnerMedia said it took the allegations seriously and interviewed dozens of current and former employees about the environment at "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" as part of an ongoing investigation. Although the studio said it could not corroborate all of the allegations, it said it was disappointed that its primary findings indicated "some deficiencies related to the show's day-to-day management." As a result, staffing changes were planned, the company said. We have identified several staffing changes, along with appropriate measures to address the issues that have been raised, and are taking the first steps to implement them, the company said in a statement. Warner Bros. and Ellen DeGeneres are all committed to ensuring a workplace based on respect and inclusion. Meanwhile, ComEd and its associates regularly donate to Democrats and Republicans through their campaign committees. ComEd, including lobbyist Mike McClain, whose home the feds raided, has written checks to Rep. Zalewskis campaign account over the years. ComEd donates to just about everyone in Springfield. At one point, Carrie Zalewski served as her husbands campaign account treasurer. That was before the feds say the favors scandal began to take shape around 2011. But Rep. Zalewskis primary campaign account in November 2018 received a $150,000 donation from the Illinois Democratic Party, which is headed by Madigan, and to which ComEds contributions can end up. FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: Michael Cohen, the former lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump, arrives back at home after being released from prison in New York By Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) - Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer and fixer for Donald Trump, will be allowed to publish a book critical of the U.S. president before the Nov. 3 election while completing his criminal sentence at home, under an agreement filed on Thursday. The agreement between Cohen's lawyers and federal prosecutors also frees Cohen to engage with news organizations and use social media, as he serves the remainder of his three-year term for campaign finance violations and other crimes in home confinement. "There shall be no specific media provision" governing Cohen's activities, according to the agreement, which requires approval by U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan. Cohen, 53, had served about one year of his prison term before being sent home to his Manhattan apartment in May, because of the risk of contracting COVID-19 behind bars. Federal authorities returned him to prison on July 9, one week after Cohen tweeted he was close to finishing his book, when Cohen questioned their new requirement that he agree to steer clear of media. But Hellerstein ordered his release last week, saying the return to prison amounted to government retaliation against Cohen's desire to exercise his First Amendment rights. The judge gave both sides a week to negotiate a media provision that is "consistent with the First Amendment but yet serves the purposes of confinement." Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign violations tied to hush money payments to pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed they had affairs with Trump. He also pleaded guilty to evading taxes on more than $4 million in income and making false statements to a bank. Trump has denied having the encounters with Daniels and McDougal, and called Cohen a "rat." Cohen, who once said he would "take a bullet" for Trump, said in court papers that his planned book would contain unflattering details about Trump, including racist and anti-Semitic remarks. (Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel; editing by Jonathan Oatis) Police appear to be turning a blind eye to a growing crowd of drug addicts shooting up in broad daylight in Manhattan's Midtown neighborhood as locals plead for someone to step in and put an end to the unsettling scenes. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the once bustling area at the heart of the Big Apple has emptied of office workers rushing to and from meetings and tourists snapping photos of sparking skyscrapers. They've now been replaced with people down on their luck, many of them struggling with drug addiction, who have come to call that stretch of Broadway 'home'. Distressing photos taken by DailyMail.com at a pedestrian plaza bordered by Broadway and West 40th on Wednesday captured a disheveled woman injecting herself with a needle in broad daylight, and then settling down for a nap in the sun. The wider scope of the problem has now been captured in another set of snaps taken several blocks south at West 34th on Thursday, where clusters of people in tattered clothing were seen milling about with glazed expressions on their faces. Some of the photos showed two men huddled over a bag containing a suspicious substance, one of them with a band wrapped around his upper arm. Others showed people splayed out on the ground or hunched over railings as they struggled to stay upright. Meanwhile, several NYPD officers were seen passing through the area unfazed by the drug use that witnesses say has been happening in full view all day, every day for months. Police appear to be turning a blind eye to a growing crowd of drug addicts shooting up in broad daylight in Manhattan's Midtown neighborhood as locals plead for someone to step in and put an end to the unsettling scenes. Pictured: One man doubles over on the ground while another holds onto a railing for support in a plaza at 34th St and 8th Ave on Thursday Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the once bustling area at the heart of the Big Apple has emptied of office workers rushing to and from meetings and tourists snapping photos of skyscrapers. They've now been replaced with people down on their luck, many of them struggling with drug addiction, who have come to call that section of the city 'home' Two men were seen openly engaging in a possible drug deal on a bench in the plaza at West 40th St and 8th Ave on Thursday A man is seen taking a drag out of a hand-rolled cigarette while sitting in the plaza near Penn Station on Thursday. Moments later he leaned over the table and placed his head in his hands while wearing a pained expression Several NYPD officers were seen passing through the plaza outside Penn Station without paying any mind to the drug use that witnesses say has been happening in full view all day, every day for months A woman is seen preparing to injecting herself with a needle in broad daylight at the intersection of Broadway and West 40th Street in Midtown on Wednesday Local business owners and residents have been up in arms about their neighborhood's rapid transformation into an open-air drug den, reminiscent of the 1970s and 80s, when rampant crime and crumbling infrastructure earned New York the moniker 'Fear City.' Officials at City Hall have acknowledged the unsettling situation and branded it 'entirely unacceptable', but locals say it's only getting worse as little is being done to address it. Hours after DailyMail.com published photos of the woman appearing to inject herself at the pedestrian plaza by West 40th Street, city sanitation workers were dispatched to the area to clean up evidence of drug use there. A sanitation staffer wearing a heavy-duty respirator and gloves was seen using a trash-picker to collect used syringes buried in a planter and place them into a special disposal container. Other disturbing photos showed a man sprawled out on the sidewalk and grimacing in apparent pain, with what looked like pill bottles or vials resting next to him. Meanwhile, several groups of homeless people congregated in another plaza further downtown at the corner of West 34th Street and 8th Avenue, passing around hand-rolled cigarettes and examining what appeared to be drug paraphernalia. Two men are seen huddled over bag with an unknown substance in the plaza at West 34th Street and 8th Avenue on Thursday Possible drug paraphernalia is seen on the table next to the men One of the men was later seen laying down on a bench where suit-and-tie clad office workers used to eat lunch A man appears to fall asleep against a railing outside a Duane Reade while two of his friends stretch out on the ground A man counts cash while sitting alongside several other disheveled people outside a Duane Reade near Penn Station The man then appeared to roll an unidentified substance into paper to make a cigarette Several police cars were seen in the area but officers did not appear to approach any of the people scattered around the plaza A sanitation worker is seen on Thursday picking up a syringe at the pedestrian plaza at Broadway at West 40th Street The gloved and masked worker deposited the needle into a special blade disposal container This section of Midtown Manhattan has been overtaken by apparent drug users, who have been observed shooting up substances in broad daylight A closeup view of a syringe filled with an unknown substance, which was found inside a planter at the pedestrian plaza once popular among tourists and office workers A man is seen sprawled in the middle of the sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan, with pill bottles or vials resting next to him A man who appears to be homeless is seen walking through the deserted sitting area, carrying hefty black garbage bags The New York Post first raised alarm about the burgeoning 'shooting gallery' in Midtown on Tuesday and published a photo of the same woman wearing the same clothes as she pierced her arm with a needle. While it cannot be said for certain whether the woman was using drugs, locals said it wasn't an uncommon sight in the plaza. 'They've taken over the tables, blatantly using needles and shooting up heroin all day long,' a local worker named James told the Post. 'There's no police action, there's no reach-out. There's nobody preventing this, and you know we've had multiple calls to 311 but nobody really responds. It's becoming a real problem.' The lack of law enforcement attention was highlighted in another photo obtained by the outlet which showed an NYPD officer walking by the alleged junkie without batting an eye. A third image showed four people huddled around a table with drug paraphernalia in clear view. The NYPD told the Post that they've only received one drug complaint in the area in the past month, and that the suspects were gone when officers arrived. James said that he's personally contacted the city's 311 line, but he referred to those calls as 'futile exercises'. The woman appears to fill the needle with an unidentified substance as she sits barefoot at a table in the middle of the pedestrian plaza once bustling with people in suits The woman then turns around and appears to inject the needle into her arm Moments later the woman stretched out across three chairs for a nap Construction worker Edgar Rivera, who's been working near the intersection for the past few weeks, said he's come to recognize many of the addicts. 'It's almost always the same people you see around,' Rivera told the Post. 'It's always the same ones all the time. 'They are here every day, they start in the early morning. We see them sleeping on the floor. 'Sometimes the ambulances come around here to help them out. It's always the same guys.' Another man named Jeff who has worked for a private sanitation company in the area for about six years confirmed that the situation has worsened in the last year. 'It's gotten really bad,' he said. 'I've been seeing more syringes, discarded syringes, ever since they started coming in.' A spokeswoman for City Hall called the situation 'entirely unacceptable' when approached by the Post on Tuesday. 'We will do everything we can to connect these people with drug treatment and help so they can get their lives back on track,' the spokeswoman said. She said plans were in place to send outreach workers with the city health department to clean up the area by providing syringe disposal kits, naloxone to reverse overdoses and connecting addicts with treatment services. DailyMail.com has reached out to City Hall for clarification about when those outreach workers will be deployed. Locals, meanwhile, don't sound very optimistic about how effective the outreach will be. The Post spoke to a security officer with the Garment District Alliance on Wednesday who said: 'There have been outreach programs out here, but most of the time they don't accept the help.' That officer, who was helping power wash the pavement in the plaza at the time, said he's worked in the area for seven years. DailyMail.com has also reached out to the city health department for comment about the purported outreach plans. The New York Post first raised alarm about the burgeoning 'shooting gallery' on Tuesday and published a photo of the same woman wearing the same clothes as she injected herself While it cannot be said for certain whether the woman was using drugs, locals said it wasn't an uncommon sight in the plaza The woman looked around to see if anyone was watching before she pulled out the needle After appearing to inject herself she was seen walking away with the used needle in her hand. Locals have complained that the plaza is littered with improperly discarded syringes The apparent rise in brazen public drug use comes as New York City is roiled by an alarming surge in criminal activity, with gun violence doubling in the past two months compared with the same period last year. Mayor Bill de Blasio has blamed the recent spike in shootings on the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that people grew stir crazy after weeks under a strict stay at home order. But NYPD leaders placed the blame squarely on de Blasio, accusing him of losing control of the city after he bowed to demands of Black Lives Matter protesters and slashed the department's budget by $1billion. Police officials have also charged that the crime surge was driven in part by the recent release of thousands of prisoners from Rikers Island under a new bail law and due to coronavirus concerns. Former New York Governor George Pataki bemoaned the state of the Big Apple in an interview on Sunday, saying that the violence is a 'regression to those dark days when criminals ruled the streets'. 'When I took office, New York was the most dangerous state in America. People got used to safety over the last 20 years. They don't remember the time back when we were so dangerous,' the Republican said during a radio interview with John Catsimatidis on 770 AM. 'I'm worried about the future of New York. We're going backwards. It's tragic. We've got to change it.' President Donald Trump has also voiced his concern over the rise of violence in New York and threatened to send in federal officers if local leaders couldn't buckle down on the shootings. The violence is now fueling fears that many of the thousands of people who left the Big Apple when the pandemic set in will no longer want to return. And if they don't come back, the city and state would take a massive hit in income and sales tax revenue on top of the enormous cost of the coronavirus response and the sustained shutdown. The Midtown neighborhood used to see a constant stream of people - tourists and professionals at all hours of the day - but it emptied out when the coronavirus pandemic hit in March There is a concern that New York City could be headed back to the bad days of 1970s and 80s, when skyrocketing crime rates and the crack epidemic overwhelmed the city. Pictured: a crack dealer is arrested in 1989 A Transit Authority police officer with a German shepherd stands in a subway car defaced with graffiti as a crime deterrent, New York in 1981 NYPD officers are photographed January 12, 1988 frisking a man, presumed to be homeless, near Port Authority in New York City The rise in shootings, homelessness and public drug use has raised concerns that New York City could be heading back to the bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s, when crime and crack reigned supreme. At the time, Midtown Manhattan was a far cry from the relatively clean, safe and family-friendly destination of the 2000s. Facing a massive deficit and a possible bankruptcy, New York descended into lawlessness ranging from graffiti everywhere and trash in the streets to skyrocketing murder and robbery rates. The NYPD revolted, going so far as to issue a pamphlet called Welcome to Fear City: A Survival Guide for Visitors to the City of New York. Crime persisted in the 1980s and the crack and the HIV/AIDS epidemics took hold of the city, ravaging its most vulnerable populations. Crime started to recede under Mayor David Dinkins, but it wasn't until Rudy Giuliani moved into Gracie Mansion in 1994 that crime took a nose dive. Mayor Giuliani and his new police commissioner William Bratton implemented the so-called 'broken windows' policy that focused on minor crimes, such as jumping the turnstile to get on the subway for free and tagging subway trains with graffiti. Giuliani also focused on cleaning up Times Square, an area that was populated with pornography and sex workers. It is unclear the extent that 'broken windows' worked and critics pointed out it disproportionately focused on low-income communities and people on color, but murders and crime went down in the latter half of the 1990s and crime remained down until the increase of shootings that have hit the city over the past few months. In New York there were 634 shootings through July 12, compared with only 396 in the same period last year, according to police data. Police have made arrests in 23 percent of shootings thus far in 2020, which is below the typical rate of 30 percent. Police pictured at scene of shooting on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn on July 18 During Mayor Michael Bloomberg's three terms from 2002 to 2013, New York City enjoyed growth and prosperity - although his stop-and-frisk policy targeting young men of color remains controversial. Current Mayor Bill de Blasio campaigned and won on a platform of equality, such as building affordable housing, and a different type of policing and department than Bloomberg. But the city that never sleeps ground to a halt in March due to the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic and instituted a lockdown to curb the virus that so far has killed over 18,600 New Yorkers. The lifeblood of the economy that included tourism, the service industry and small businesses closed. After years of the city's budgets being in the green, it is now faced with a $9billion hole, high unemployment and protests against police brutality. Police retake Avenue A during a riot outside Tompkins Square Park that erupted after police allegedly beat a homeless man. The late 1980's and early 1990's was a period of rapid gentrification in the East Village, and many homeless residents, activists, and squatters, battled the process, frequently clashing with the police around Tompkins Square RESTON, VA Reston residents looking to be tested for COVID-19, the virus associated with the new coronavirus, will have the chance to received a free test thanks to the Fairfax County Health Department and the South Gate Community Center. The health department will be providing free testing Wednesday, Aug. 5, from 5-8 p.m., at the South Gate Community Center (12125 Pinecrest Road, Reston). In sharing information about this event on Twitter, the Reston Association reported this event is intended for people living within a 2-mile radius of the community center. NOTE: This is not a large public testing event open to anyone. Testing is intended for those residents within a two-mile radius of the Southgate Community Center testing site. pic.twitter.com/9auJCkCEZF Reston Association (@RestonOnline) July 31, 2020 Patients do not need a doctor's referral nor do they need to bring identification. No health insurance is required and the COVID-19 testing will not affect a public charge determination. Patients must be 5 or older and Spanish speakers will be present to facilitate the testing. All patients must pre-register for this one-day, free COVID-19 testing event. Pre-register by calling 703-267-3511 or filling out an online form. This article originally appeared on the Reston Patch Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov received US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Earle Litzenberger on July 30, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. During the meeting, the parties discussed a wide range of the cooperation issues in many spheres, including those in the energy sector, the work of the Azerbaijan-US Economic Partnership Commission, cooperation on global security issues, solidarity in the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic and others. The ambassador congratulated Bayramov on his appointment to the post, wished him success in his work and also conveyed congratulations on the occasion of the Gurban holiday. The statement was made that Azerbaijan is an important partner for the US and the parties have a number of common interests. Cold Laser Therapy Market Research Report by Product (Diode Laser System, Dye Lasers System, Gas Laser System, and Solid-State Laser System), by Application (Dentistry, Dermatology, Laser Acupuncture, Neurology, and Orthopedics), by End User - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19 New York, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Cold Laser Therapy Market Research Report by Product, by Application, by End User - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940192/?utm_source=GNW The Global Cold Laser Therapy Market is expected to grow from USD 293.48 Million in 2019 to USD 442.38 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.07%. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Cold Laser Therapy to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: "The Diode Laser System is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Product, the Cold Laser Therapy Market studied across Diode Laser System, Dye Lasers System, Gas Laser System, and Solid-State Laser System. The Diode Laser System commanded the largest size in the Cold Laser Therapy Market in 2019, and it is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Dermatology is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Application, the Cold Laser Therapy Market studied across Dentistry, Dermatology, Laser Acupuncture, Neurology, Orthopedics, and Gynecology. The Dermatology commanded the largest size in the Cold Laser Therapy Market in 2019, and it is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. Based on End User, the Cold Laser Therapy Market studied across Home Care, Hospital, and Specialty Clinic. "The Asia-Pacific is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Geography, the Cold Laser Therapy Market studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region surveyed across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region surveyed across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region surveyed across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. The Americas commanded the largest size in the Cold Laser Therapy Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. Company Usability Profiles: The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Cold Laser Therapy Market including Apira Science Inc., B-Cure laser Australia, Biolase Inc., BioLight Technologies LLC, Boston Scientific Corporation, CryoLife, Inc., Ellex Medical Lasers Ltd., Erchonia Corporation, IRIDEX Corporation, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Lumenis Ltd., Novartis AG, Quantumpm, Theralase Inc., and THOR Photomedicine. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Cold Laser Therapy Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Cold Laser Therapy Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Cold Laser Therapy Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Cold Laser Therapy Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Cold Laser Therapy Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Cold Laser Therapy Market? 6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Cold Laser Therapy Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940192/?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 Mumbai, July 31 : In a video doing the rounds on social media, actress Rhea Chakraborty is seen addressing the allegations against over the death of her boyfriend, actor Sushant Singh Rajput. "I have an immense faith in God and the judiciary. I believe that I will get justice," said an emotional Rhea in the video. "Even though a lot of horrible things have been said about me in the electronic media, I will refrain from commenting on the advice of my lawyer as the matter is sub judice," she added. "Satyamev Jayate. The truth shall prevail," Rhea concluded in the video, which is available on the official Instagram handle of celebrity photographer Viral Bhayani. Earlier this week, Sushant's suicide case took a dramatic turn after it came to light that the late actor's father KK Singh has filed an FIR in Patna accusing six people, including Rhea, for abetment to suicide. The actress has received widespread flak ever since. Sushant and Rhea were in a relationship before the actor's alleged suicide on June 14. Sushant's father has levelled several allegations against Rhea, including syphoning money from his son's account and also threatening to disclose his medical reports to the media if he carried out his plan of quitting acting and taking up farming in Coorg. Sushant's kin has also accused Rhea of keeping him away from his family. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery -- Syndicated from IANS Blasphemy is a highly combustible and sensitive subject in Pakistan, with emotions flaring over mere rumors that Islam has been insulted. The government has never executed anyone under blasphemy laws, but people accused of it are often killed by mobs even before the police can take action, rights groups say. Members of the rastreadoras stand around the grave of a body unearthed on a mountainside in the state of Sinaloa. (Zahara Gomez Lucini) The recipe Mirna Medina Quinonez named in honor of her dead son guides you through the preparation of a braised beef and shredded cheese quesadilla, paired with a light salad, chunky salsa and refried beans. The dish, called Pizzadillas for Roberto, appears in a new cookbook created to raise money for women in search of their missing relatives in Mexico those known as desaparecidos. Its very simple, but it was my sons favorite meal, Medina Quinonez said recently. He called them pizzadillas because Id use two tortillas, instead of just folding one in half. Then, my son would cut it into four pieces, just like pizza slices." Medina Quinonez, whose 21-year-old son Roberto Corrales Medina disappeared in the northwestern state of Sinaloa in 2014, is a retired schoolteacher and founder of Las Rastreadoras del Fuerte. The group, made up of about 130 mothers, is one of dozens of collectives that have sprung up across the country, where more than 73,000 people have disappeared in a decades-long cycle of violence and impunity waged by drug traffickers, corrupt public officials and members of the military and police. The group in the city of El Fuerte got its name, a play on the Spanish verb rastrear, to track, from investigative reporter and editor Javier Valdez Cardenas. He was fatally shot by assailants in Sinaloa in 2017. The women's efforts can get costly, with collectives trying to cover expenses like rent for office space and internet access to maintain their databases. Money for gasoline is especially important, as it's needed to get to and from the mountains or countrysides where they search for the remains of the missing. Medina Quinonez said it takes about $1,450 dollars (32,000 pesos) per month for her group to stay afloat. The office space, she said, serves as a key location for the rastreadoras, who also accompany one another when meeting with authorities. Sometimes they manage to secure financial support from the state government. Last year, they received three subsidies, each worth about $180 dollars (4,000 pesos). So far this year, Medina Quinonez said, they have received no assistance. Story continues In hopes of generating a more steady cash flow, the mothers began selling the cookbook this summer, a compendium of 30 recipes, all dedicated to a missing loved one. The book, titled "Recetario para la memoria," can be purchased on their website for about $22. In honor of her 23-year-old daughter Marian, who also disappeared in Sinaloa in 2014, Miriam Violeta Maldonado Valdez contributed Ceviche for Marian, a recipe that calls for lots of Serrano peppers and salsa huichol, a hot sauce that's popular in the area. "I'd been searching and searching for her when I joined the rastreadoras," said Maldonado Valdez, who became a part of the group that same year. "And I found my daughter the very day I joined them. They were digging when I recognized her shirt. 'She's mine,' I told them." Clad in denim and long-sleeved shirts to ward off the looming sun's rays, the rastreadoras gather early every Wednesday and Sunday at their tiny rented storefront in El Fuerte. The space offers scarce natural light. Posters of the women's missing relatives mostly adult children cover the windows. Inside, the women share coffee and sweet bread as they prepare for the work ahead. Their loved ones were students, workers, ordinary people, several of them say. By 8 a.m., theyve hopped aboard pickup trucks headed toward the search sites, machetes and shovels in tow. Wearing the white shirt donned by mothers whose children are still missing, a member of the rastreadoras prepares a meal in her kitchen in Los Mochis in the state of Sinaloa. (Zahara Gomez Lucini) While on their expeditions, most of the rastreadoras also wear white T-shirts emblazoned with photographs of their disappeared loved ones. On the back, the shirts read: "Te buscare hasta encontrarte," Ill search for you until I find you. Those who've found their loved ones wear green T-shirts. These read: Promesa cumplida, Promise fulfilled. In 2017, the state attorney general notified Medina Quinonez that her son's bones had been found in a mass grave. Since then, she has worn green. When photographer Zahara Gomez Lucini, who'd been documenting their work, first pitched the cookbook project to the rastreadoras in December 2018, Medina Quinonez hesitated. I thought it was a very lovely idea, she said, but I didn't want to reopen that wound. And then I thought, what better way is there to raise funds than through something like this? My sons memory will be honored wherever my recipe is prepared. Gomez Lucini is the daughter of an Argentine journalist who fled his country during its 1976-83 military dictatorship . As a child growing up in Spain, Gomez Lucini heard her father talking about los desaparecidos in conversations with friends who were also in exile. Shes never experienced a loss like Medina Quinonez or the other women, but shes worked alongside forensics teams and parents groups throughout Latin America, including Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. For me, its important that the disappeared do not become distant, mythological figures, Gomez Lucini said. Her hope is that the book which has the support of Mexican culinary giants like Enrique Olvera and Eduardo Garcia, a former migrant worker who picked vegetables as a child in the United States before being deported will connect people with different realities. "Maybe through something so simple as a meal, those who havent lost a loved one in such a terrible way can consider the pain of others, she said. Spreading awareness about what it's like to have a loved one go missing matters to the rastreadoras. When families file their reports with authorities, theyre often asked: Well, what was he doing?' But they say it as if wanting to say, Well, they mustve taken him for a reason,'" Medina Quinonez said. "And its not just the authorities. Sometimes the first thing friends, neighbors and even family members think to ask is if your child was a drug dealer or a hit man. Delfina Herrera Ruiz's recipe, "Shrimp ceviche for Luis," is slightly less spicy than pizzadillas. It's dedicated to her brother Luis Reynaldo Herrera Ruiz, who was 50 when he went missing in the city of Los Mochis. Before deciding to participate in the cookbook project, she hadn't prepared the meal since his disappearance in 2016. "There are people who call us crazy," Herrera Ruiz said. "And maybe we are, but it's because of the pain." She still uses the present tense when talking about Luis Reynaldo. "He likes for the shrimp and the vegetables to be very finely chopped," she said. In mid-July, Mexicos Interior Ministry announced that 73,201 people have been reported missing since 1964, the year the federal government began keeping track. More than 90% of these cases occurred after former President Felipe Calderon launched a militarized war on drugs" in 2006. Alejandro Encinas Rodriguez, Mexico's undersecretary on human rights, said on the day of the announcement that there has been a decline in the number of reported missing people in 2020 compared with recent years, but he acknowledged that six of the countrys 32 states did not supply their data, resulting in criticism of the newly released national registry of disappeared people. Since 2006, Encinas Rodriguez said, 3,978 clandestine mass graves have been discovered. The states with the most mass graves are Colima, Guerrero, Sonora, Veracruz and Sinaloa, where members of Las Rastreadoras del Fuerte do their work. To protect themselves from scorpions and rattlesnakes, the mothers have learned to wear shoes with thick soles. Other risks, like death threats, are harder to protect against. Now they also have to worry about the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the coronavirus spread across globe, as many as 50 women at a time would gather in the office. Now, in an effort to practice social distancing, they have substantially scaled back. No more than 15 women come together at a time. Even so, 13 of them have been infected, and three of them were hospitalized. The infections, Medina Quinonez said, happened while the group took a break between March and July. We needed time to figure things out and secure protective equipment, like masks and face shields," she said. "I would never say something ridiculous like Not even the pandemic will slow us down! That's irresponsible. Weve definitely had to make changes. We have to stay healthy so we can keep searching. But why keep looking if she's already found Roberto? I made a commitment to the other mothers, Medina Quinonez said. I will help them find their children, just like they helped me find my son. Plus, some of the women are elderly and dont have the strength to go out there. And other mothers are simply scared. She took a deep breath and exhaled. The truth is it's kind of like therapy for me. It helps me live," she said. "People think it stops hurting once you find your loved ones remains. But the pain never ends. (Natural News) Zachary Trudo, an AI (artificial intelligence) software developer who works for Google, was reportedly arrested in Portland the other day after allegedly committing numerous crimes at a Black Lives Matter (BLM) riot. Trudo is now being held at the Multnomah County Detention Center on charges of assault, resisting arrest, interfering with a peace officer, and trying to escape. He is an outspoken supporter of Bernie Sanders, and a self-described Marxist who, prior to his arrest, used social media to call for Portland to be burned to the ground. Before being booked, Trudo had indicated online that he couldnt be more proud of all the violence and chaos happening in Portland. He also wrote that protesters are taking real action against the system, which makes him happy. Before working at Google, Trudo worked for Nike, Intel, and even the U.S. Army in a role as a systems administrator. He studied at the University of Oregon, and now programs AI censorship tools for Google yes, the very same ones that censor your search results and even plot to commit mass murder. Project Veritas expose reveals countless Trudos who work for Google and other tech giants That a high-level Google employee was caught and arrested for participating in a BLM riot is not all that surprising when considering the evidence unearthed by Project Veritas showing that most Big Tech employees are far-left radicals with criminal intent. Google executive Jen Gennai, we now know, also admitted to undercover reporters that the search engine giant is actively interfering with the upcoming presidential election through AI and algorithmic manipulation, which is exactly what Trudo creates for Google. We all got screwed over in 2016, against it wasnt just us, it was, the people got screwed over, the news media got screwed over, like, everybody got screwed over so weve rapidly been like, what happened there and how do we prevent it from happening again, Gennai was heard rambling somewhat incoherently in the footage. People like Trudo and there are many Trudos who work for Big Tech, by the way are hired on by Google to actively develop code and algorithms that specifically target conservative content for removal. This is how Google is planning to help steal the election this fall. Ive been coding since I was 10 [years old], says Greg Coppola, a Google whistleblower who recently came forward to admit that his employer is up to no good when it comes to how it handles data online. I have a PhD, I have five years experience at Google, and I just know how algorithms are. They dont write themselves. We write them to do what we want them to do. Trudo, whose LinkedIn account currently indicates that he lives in Seattle though KTVZ says he lives in Hillsboro is just another cog in the far-leftist wheel of deception and manipulation. His job is to steer the digital media ship away from freedom and directly into the bog of totalitarianism, committing felonies along the way, if necessary, to accomplish that goal. At the time when Trudo was arrested, several others like him were also apprehended. These include 29-year-old Dana Parks, 29-year-old Rhys Alan Wiski-Sutton, 29-year-old Christopher J. Briggs, 28-year-old Mackenzie D. Kirsch, and 24-year-old Ahnauna Andrews. There were thousands gathered, claims KTVZ. There were thousands gathered. Throughout the night some people in this crowd spent their time shaking the fence around the building, throwing rocks, bottles, and assorted debris over the fence, shining lasers through the fence, firing explosive fireworks into the area blocked by the fence, and using power tools to try to cut through the fence. To keep up with the latest news about Big Tech censorship, as well as the criminal violence of Big Tech employees, be sure to check out Censorship.news. Sources for this article include: NewsWars.com NaturalNews.com KTVZ.com A jawan of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was arrested for allegedly raping a woman in Maoist-hit Sukma district, police said on Thursday. The jawan was posted in CRPF camp in Dubbakota area of South Sukma. The victim came to us on Wednesday evening and lodged a complaint. We immediately lodged a case under Section 376 of Indian Penal Court (IPC) and started investigation, Sukma Superintendent of Police, Shalabh Sinha, told Hindustan Times. On Thursday, the woman identified the jawan, after which he was arrested by Dornapal police. As per the womans complaint, on July 27, she took out her cattle to graze in a field near the CRPF camp when the accused jawan came and forcefully raped her. The woman saw the accused going towards CRPF camp and went back to her village. She narrated the incident to some of the family members and on Thursday reached police station to lodge a complaint, said the SP. Sources said that the accused jawan was quarantined outside the camp of CRPF since he recently returned from Balaghat after leave. Investigation of the case is going on, the SP added. Stabatha in real life (top center) is surrounded by several of the portraits artists have created of her to help find her a home. Read more When Kyle Cassidy learned that a stray cat was frequenting his friends porch in West Philly, the longtime feline foster dad offered to take the girl in, certain he could find a home for her in three days or less. Cassidy posted pictures of the black-and-white cat on Facebook and Twitter in June and asked his thousands of followers to help name her. It was decided Stabatha would be her primary name, though she would also have alternative nicknames (Cat Batman and Jolt Cola) to be used when appropriate. When his name-that-cat experiment didnt elicit any adoption offers, Cassidy, 54, a West Philly writer and photographer, penned a few epic Facebook posts extolling Stabathas virtues: She has an IQ of 122, speaks some French, and has put three stockbrokers in prison for insider trading. I thought shed find a home quickly, but it didnt happen, he said. Nobody expressed any interest in her, and I was in shock. But people were paying attention. Deanna Leist Aliano, a Point Pleasant, N.J., artist whos friends with Cassidy on Facebook, painted a portrait of Stabatha as an incentive for prospective adopters. Inspired by that work, Cassidy created an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to raise money to pay out-of-work artists microgrants of $50 to paint Stabathas portrait, in the hope that the artworks might move someone to adopt her. It was all part of a not really elaborate plot to keep her on peoples minds and have a street team trying to find her a home, he said. Since he began the campaign Monday, Cassidy has raised more than $600 ($100 more than his goal) and has given out seven grants. Artists from London to Italy have submitted portraits of Stabatha, portraying her as everything from a doctor fighting COVID-19 to an isolated kitty living in a surveillance state. Its interesting to see our times reflected through the pressures on these artists, Cassidy said of the portraits. They are compressed like coal, and the pressures that are on them are popping out in some of this art. Stabatha herself is under some pressure. The cat with the clipped ear tip (which means at some point she was likely trapped, spayed, and released) was diagnosed with feline leukemia virus (FelV) when Cassidy took her to the vet. The median survival time for cats after a FelV diagnosis is about 2 years and since the virus is transmissible between felines, Cassidy must keep Stabatha in his enclosed front porch, separated from his own house cat. But despite her intimidating name and medical diagnosis, Stabatha one of more than 400,000 stray cats in Philadelphia is as affectionate and snuggly as they come, Cassidy said. Shes extraordinarily chatty. When I come down to visit her in the morning, she tells me the story of the entire night, of all the birds and opossums that walked past the window, he said. But when you sit down, shell curl up on your foot. The first painting of Stabatha that was created and paid for by Cassidys fundraising campaign came from New York City-based artist Mia Wolff, who painted Stabatha in a reclined pose in just three hours. Ambler-based artist Lynette Shelley, 45, a Facebook friend of Cassidys whos been following Stabathas story, also submitted a portrait. I was getting ready to do a new painting anyway, and I figured, You know what? Ill do one of Stabatha, she said. I hope she finds a home, and Im hoping it will get a little attention for the artists. Those who receive grants from Cassidy for the portraits of Stabatha send digital images of their works for Cassidy to use but get to keep the original. If Shelley sells her portrait, she said, she will donate 40% of the proceeds to a cat trap-and-release program in New Jersey. Of the submissions Cassidy has received, the most surprising one came from Peter Yates, the former guitarist for Cassidys favorite band, Fields of the Nephilim, a London-based goth rock group. I followed him on Twitter and mentioned him in quite a number of sycophantic tweets. Astonishingly, he followed me back, Cassidy said. Then, out of the blue, I got this email from him that said, I painted Stabatha for you. Cassidy said Yates didnt want money for his portrait, which portrays Stabatha alone in a cinderblock room, under the watchful eyes of two surveillance cameras. I assume he has coffins full of money at home, Cassidy said. He said hed mail it to me and I could auction it off for the cat. Other people have proposed sculptures and cat-size poetry books in honor of Stabatha. One woman received a grant from Cassidy for an essay about her experiences with homelessness and how the love of her cats helped her through. Artists interested in applying for a Stabatha grant can reach Cassidy through his website (kylecassidy.com) and send him a link to their portfolio before creating any works. He doesnt want anybody to lift a paintbrush or pen in Stabathas name until they have a grant from him. Some people have volunteered. Ive discouraged it because everybody expects artists to work for free and I dont want to perpetuate that, he said. But if youre a famous rock star and you send me a painting, Im not going to send it back. Cassidy said hes already had people from as far away as Georgia and Virginia offer to drive up and adopt Stabatha, but he wants her to remain a Philly cat. I think stray cat problems are local and perennial, he said. If you drive up from Georgia to get this stray cat, youre driving past thousands of other stray cats. Those interested in applying to adopt Stabatha can contact City Kitties, the Philadelphia foster-based rescue service thats handling her adoption. Shes received three local adoption applications so far, but Cassidy is hoping for many more, so City Kitties can find her the best home. This is a win-win-win situation. Its a perpetual motion machine of joy. Everybody gets something out of it, he said. Artists get groceries. The cat gets a home. And I get my front porch back. Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of ORIX Corporation Global Credit Research - 30 Jul 2020 Tokyo, July 30, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of ORIX Corporation 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. ORIX Corporation's (ORIX) A3 rating reflects our expectation that the company will sustain its strong liquidity, which will support its business through this period of economic and financial market disruption. Since the global financial crisis in 2008-09, ORIX has reduced its reliance on short-term debt and has lengthened its debt maturities. Consequently, ORIX has reduced its reliance on the most confidence-sensitive sources of wholesale funding. We expect the company to maintain its strong liquidity. ORIX maintains strong funding relationships with Japanese banks. Our assessment of the company's liquidity takes into account our assumption that ORIX is an important customer of major Japanese banks and that these banks will remain supportive of the company. Story continues ORIX's profitability is high, and the increased share of fee-focused activities has added stability to its earnings. We expect the company to maintain net income/average managed assets above 2%. 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 Finance Companies Methodology (Japanese) published in November 2019. 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. 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Mumbai, July 31 : A new post by Shweta Singh Kirti, sister of Sushant Singh Rajput, once again puts a question mark on whether the actor actually committed suicide as his post-mortem has suggested, or was any other foul means involved. Shweta's Facebook post on Friday evening shows Sushant was actually planning ahead in life, and had chalked out plans for his daily regime till June 29. He was found hanging at his residence on June 14. In the Facebook post, Shweta shared a photograph of a whiteboard. On the board, in Sushant's handwriting, is a daily to-do list for himself. The list includes his plans to practice transcendental meditation daily from June 29. Other instructions include "make your bed" after waking up, "read books, watch content movies/series, learn guitar and workout" among other things. "Bhai's White Board where he was planning to start his workout and transcendental meditation from 29th June daily. So he was planning ahead. #justiceforsushantsinghrajput," Shweta wrote on Facebook. Commenting on her post, netizens extended their support to her and prayed for justice to be delivered to the departed soul. "Shweta ji, Sushant has taught us so much. He is an unforgettable energy. I tell his stories to my kids. He had morals and such infectious positive energy. He is within us. thank you for bringing him to us," shared a user. "Sushant never committed suicide or forced to do, He isn't the kind of men who can take such a mad step, He is a genius, wise, talented, ambitious and real hero. He was murdered, they killed him. It's a real clear murder, God will help us to get him the justice he deserves, I have a strong faith and let's continue praying," commented another user. "He is such a project manager. writing down everything! such an inspiration. i wish he had taken that Stanford scholarship and just came here!" shared a fan from California. Earlier in the day, Shweta had shared an adorable video of Sushant where he can be seen singing "Mahadev Shambhu", a song dedicated to Lord Shiva and playing his guitar. "I want everyone to pray to Lord Shiva, Let him guide us towards the truth and give us strength to keep fighting. #letspraytogether #SatyamevaJayate #JusticeforSushantSingRajput," Shweta captioned her video. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text After a while, you barely remember what a Friday night in the Mission used to feel like. Two years after the coronavirus first sent civic life into a tailspin, some people are out slowly, they emerged from their Zoom trivia nights and into the street, cautiously meeting up with one friend, two at most, and deciding on a bar for the evening. Still, youre standing on the corner of 18th and Valencia as the sun goes down, and the thrum is missing. Yes, there are bacon-wrapped hot dog carts on the corners and hip-hop radio blaring from passing cars. But when it comes to options for a night on the town, the pandemic might as well have been a sinkhole. First theres the obvious: Which bars still exist? When the PPP money ran out, there were closures gradually at first, then a tsunami. You bought gift cards, donated to fundraisers, and bought merch, so much merch. You own nine shot glasses, a dozen beer koozies and most of your clothes are bar or music venue T-shirts. Half of them now advertise places gone for good. In their stead are new spots, since closures freed up the liquor licenses that had previously been damn near impossible to obtain. The new places are VC-backed, and safe in that they are almost entirely free of human interaction: automatic temp checks at the door, touchless ordering by QR code, rooms forged from stainless steel and bleach. Then there are underground options, which, if you squint, are almost quaint in a Prohibition-era way. Instead of alcohol, whats illicit is unregulated proximity to other bodies, the kind of closeness where you can smell your neighbors shampoo, where a drunk stranger might bump into you and spill your whiskey and in the Before Times you would have been so, so annoyed. In 2022, such an interaction sounds so intimate it makes you blush. There are a half-dozen spots in the city where you can have it, if you know someone, or youre willing to pay a little more. Of course, as during Prohibition, there is the threat of legal consequences. Unlike Prohibition, there is also the possibility that you might get sick and die. And then there are the old standbys. Against all odds, some of the citys most iconic bars survived the coronavirus. They operate legally, serving alcohol to paying customers. But they havent been themselves in a very long time. If I stand in one corner and map out six feet (between customers), I can get about 12 people in there, says Myron Mu, the longtime proprietor of the Saloon in North Beach, with more than a hint of weariness. And thats if theres no music. Opened in 1861, the Saloon is a small place, known for cheap drinks, live blues and dancing, with a $5 cover on weekends. Its a spot where the band packs in tight and the crowd packs in tighter, and the folks sitting at the bar are always within spitting distance. Like all business owners whose incomes screeched to a halt since San Franciscos shelter-in-place order in March, July of 2020 finds Mu staring down a sea of unknowns. There are immediate questions about how to stay afloat with no income, and infinite, thorny variations on the answers that depend on leases, owning vs. renting and, accordingly, different levels of desperation. Small-business loans, fundraisers, outdoor table service? To-go drinks are great, but under Alcohol Beverage Control regulations, they have to be sold with food. Is it worth partnering with a restaurant? Do you invest in Plexiglass dividers when the rules might change next month? In the absence of clear guidance, its no wonder that a Wild West of pop-ups, grocery stores and delivery services have proliferated in recent weeks. But Mu, like many bar owners, has also begun doing the math on the more distant future: the one where maybe theres a vaccine, but its been sparsely administered; where indoor bars and restaurants can reopen, but with stringent regulations and its up to individual proprietors to decide if, when and how to take the risk. OPTIMISM METER Lukewarm: Without substantial aid, the outlook is bleak for some of S.F.s classic bars, but insiders point to one potential bright spot: The market value of liquor licenses is dropping, so when the industry begins to rebuild, there may be fewer barriers for a first-time owner. Theres a thin line between life and death for a bar, says Mu, noting that at one point, in the 90s, the bar lost its license for dancing and the business began tanking. That taught me the business is fragile. If this virus sticks around like the common cold does, it just kind of changes everything a bit. And I dont know, quite honestly, how the Saloon will survive that. Operating with a capacity of 12, hed have to raise drink prices substantially. He worries about his beloved 60-something doorman who lives with his 90-something mother; Mu, whos 72, says his employees are like family: He couldnt live with it if someone got sick. And then theres the fact that the Saloon without music is, well, another animal entirely. Which brings us here: San Franciscos most beloved bars, having survived recessions, earthquakes and fires, now face a series of brain-breaking riddles. What does social distance mean at a business whose product is close-up human connection? And how do you reinvent a space whose charm is that it always stays the same? Its a gross understatement to say that San Franciscans simply love our old bars. We project onto them, rely on them as portals to the past. Theyre keepers of our cultural mythology, a way to catch a whiff of this citys formerly debaucherous glory. We clutch that story the way a drunk grips their drink at last call: Sure, the rent might be unfathomable and the new condos are hideous and all our queer artist friends have been forced to either move away or get jobs at Facebook, but see this corner table in this small and kind of dingy room? Jack Kerouac used to drink here. Thats gotta count for something. Classic bars are also tourist destinations, which means theyre good for city business. Bars in general are a crucial valve in San Franciscos financial engine: A 2016 economic impact report found that nightlife generated some $6 billion in revenue. But the coronavirus has been bad, to put it gently, for bar PR. And though we may love them, its impossible to predict the collective psychology around returning to our favorite spots in a year, or even three: How will we balance our desperation for social interaction, desire to support small businesses and fear of getting sick? How many of us will be too broke to do anything other than just keep drinking at home? I dont think anybody is smart enough to really understand the big cultural changes that are coming, but were talking about a major sociological shift, says Tavahn Ghazi, whose family owns the Little Shamrock in the Inner Sunset. Ghazi grew up in San Francisco, and hes been taking the closures hard; nearby Arts Cafe was a childhood favorite. The Shamrock, a homey Irish pub, has been operating since 1893, including through both the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes. (During the Loma Prieta, the electricity went out and the TVs fell down. Patrons ran outside but then the bartenders lit candles and kept pouring, so everyone came back in to drink.) Ghazis father, Saeed, bought the building 30 years ago, so at least theres no rent to pay right now. But they know other owners arent so lucky. This isnt just about a bar, says Ghazi. In some cases youre talking about places that were anchoring nostalgia for something weve all known we were losing for a long time anyway, the freaks that made SF what it was culturally. But now the (businesses) that were hanging on the edge of the cliff are going under. And a lot of places are just not going to make it. While they wait to see what the next year brings, the Shamrock is holding weekend pop-ups with to-go drinks; Ghazi has also been expanding his side business, a catering company that specializes in stromboli. Do I want to make food for a living? No, I hate it, but Ill do it, because being in a kitchen is a lot better than being in a soup line, Ghazi says. The margins arent good. But theres no worse margin than a closed door. Some historic-bar owners find themselves looking to the past for guidance. Ive been asking What would my grandpa do in this situation? says Maralisa Simmons-Cook, a co-owner, alongside her mother, Elly Simmons, of Specs Twelve Adler Museum Cafe. Would he say, Screw it, Im closing down, or would he find some way to poke fun at it? Named for its founder, Simmons-Cooks grandfather Richard Specs Simmons, the lively, tchotchke-jammed North Beach bar has been a hub for artists, writers and musicians since it opened in 1968. For me and my mom, I know it doesnt even feel like its our choice about whether or not to keep it going, she says. It has a legacy. Its for the community. The Simmonses tried a pop-up for a few weekends, but eventually decided the math didnt make sense. Then Elly Simmons launched a successful GoFundMe after some prodding from jazz musician Taj Mahal. But with rent to pay, as they stare down another few months of no business, those funds have barely made a dent. For now, like many bar owners, theyve fixed their sights on the future: reservations and table service; creative ways to space out a room thats meant to be full and cozy. Maybe if its slammed we take your name and number at the door and then we text you. Which is just so crazy and futuristic to think about at Specs, I know, says Simmons-Cook with a laugh. But once youre inside, itll still be Specs. Michael Krouse, who owns Madrone Art Bar near Alamo Square, has been chewing over an idea for a socially distanced reopening that would look a bit like a live-action board game. There could be a timer that dings to move 10 or 12 people through the space during a half-hour time slot, for example, and when you stand on a certain square you would order a certain type of drink. But Krouse has already spent his PPP money, and with no pause on rent, he worries he wont get the chance to try it out. I think many people dont understand the plight were in, says Krouse, who recently published an open letter calling for industry-specific government relief. Yes, we serve drinks, but every bar is also a community, a little ecosystem. Thats why people need to speak up our public officials need to know that these are beloved places. You decide on Elixir, which has been on the corner of 16th and Guerrero in one form or another since 1858. It burned with the rest of the city in 1906, but owner Patrick McGinnis rebuilt it. During Prohibition it was a soda fountain. It has also been, as a Chronicle story noted in 2017, a Wild West bar, an Irish working-mans place, a sailor bar, a shot-and-a-beer joint, a gay Latino hangout, a dingy dive (and) a beer bar with 63 brews on tap before assuming its current incarnation as a cocktail spot. It has seen some things. During the height of the pandemic, the bar leaned on delivery and virtual cocktail tastings. In 2022, it has a human at the door with a touchless thermometer and a clipboard for taking names when things get busy. The bar opens at noon now, to do lunch and coffee, since owner H. Joseph Ermann realized no one was out partying till 2 a.m. anymore, and he needed to get back that 8-10 hours of business. Inside, you help yourself to hand sanitizer, nod at the masked bartender, and slide into a snug, with a wooden divider separating your table from the next. Its an idea Ehrmann got from old pubs in Ireland, where they were originally installed for modesty: to prevent women from being seen in bars. The last time you were here, before the pandemic, it was January of 2020. It was cold out, the Christmas lights were still up, and you were with four friends. The bartender told you to help yourself to red beans and rice steaming in a hot pot at the end of the bar. As you did, the old guy sitting closest to it passed you the hot sauce and you started talking. It turned out you were neighbors. This time, its the uncanny valley of dive bars; no serendipity, no rowdiness, no one elbow-to-elbow as they try to order a drink. Still, its not so bad, here in this room thats had a half-dozen names and personalities over 150 years. It smells the same, and its a place to be, with a good whiskey selection. Like an animal, it has adapted to its surroundings, evolved in order to survive, and it will do that again. It is this thing, for now. Youll have to wait and see what comes next. Emma Silvers is a freelance writer in San Francisco. Email: Culture@sfchronicle.com. MONTREAL - Quebec's pension fund manager, the Caisse de depot, has hired Canada's United Nations ambassador as a senior executive. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Marc-Andre Blanchard, chair of the delegation of Canada, addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Monday, Sept. 30, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Richard Drew MONTREAL - Quebec's pension fund manager, the Caisse de depot, has hired Canada's United Nations ambassador as a senior executive. Marc-Andre Blanchard, 54, will head CDPQ Global with responsibility for the United States/Latin America, Europe and Asia/Pacific as of Sept. 8. Blanchard has been ambassador since 2016, and was previously chairman and CEO of law firm McCarthy Tetrault. Former Liberal MP and former Ontario premier Bob Rae will replace him as ambassador. 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. Blanchard will be backed up by Anita George, who becomes deputy head of CDPQ Global with an expanded mandate to cover all geographies. She was previously executive vice-president strategic partnership, growth markets. Caisse CEO Charles Emond says moving towards a more integrated structure for its international investments that have increased by more than $140 billion in five years is the next step in its evolution. He says the new structure will allow the large institutional investor with $340.1 billion in net assets as of Dec. 31 to continue diversifying its portfolio. "With his experience in leading roles on the international stage, Marc-Andre is the ideal person for the position. He possesses a remarkable ability to develop and maintain business networks, understand regional specificities while mobilizing diverse teams located around the world under a shared vision," Emond says in a statement. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2020. By PTI NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday filed a money laundering case on the basis of a Bihar Police FIR in which Sushant Singh Rajput's father has accused actress Rhea Chakraborty and her family of abetting the Bollywood actor's suicide. The central probe agency had recently called for the Bihar police first investigation report (FIR) and after studying it, the ED decided to slap charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), officials said. They said an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) has been filed against the accused named in the Bihar Police FIR that includes Chakraborty, her family and six others. Chakraborty and some others are expected to be called for questioning in the case soon, official sources said. Rajput, 34, was found hanging in his apartment in Mumbai's Bandra area on June 14. The ED is understood to have taken up the case after it analysed the contents of the FIR and gathered some independent information about Rajput's income, bank accounts and companies. More such details and another FIR filed by the Mumbai Police to probe Rajput's death will be part of the ED's probe, according to the officials. Rajput's father Krishna Kumar Singh (74), who resides in Patna, had on Tuesday lodged a complaint with the Bihar Police against Chakraborty, her family members and six others for abetment to suicide of his son and fraud. Singh has accused Chakraborty, a budding TV and film actress and purported girlfriend of Rajput, of having befriended his son in May, 2019 with the intention of furthering her own career. In his complaint, Rajput's father also sought to invoke the provisions of the Mental Health Care Act, alleging that the "machinations" of Chakraborty and her family members had caused his son to crack up, despite a successful career in films, and ultimately drove him to commit suicide. He also alleged that the actress was aided by her family members, including parents, since they all were looking to purloin the assets of his son worth crores of rupees and started interfering in all aspects of his life. The father also wanted a police investigation to ascertain where the Rs 15 crore deposited in a bank account held by Rajput was transferred. He also alleged that on June 6, less than a week before Rajput was found hanging from a ceiling of his house, Chakraborty came to his place and decamped with many of his belongings, including cash, his laptop, ATM card and other important documents. The ED will probe these allegations of mishandling and purported diversion of Rajput's money and operation of his bank accounts. The agency will probe if anyone used Rajput's income and his companies for money laundering and creating illegal assets, the officials said. The ED has powers to attach The Bihar Police had pressed various sections of Indian Penal Code in its FIR, including 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 380 (theft in dwelling house), 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 306 (abetment of suicide). Sometime back, Chakraborty had tweeted and requested Union Home Minister Amit Shah to order a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in this case. "I request you with folded hands to initiate a CBI enquiry. I only want to understand what pressures prompted Sushant to take this step," she posted on Twitter. The Mumbai police is already probing the alleged suicide case, and has questioned several Bollywood bigwigs including filmmakers Mahesh Bhatt and Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Chakraborty has also recorded her statement. Rajput's death by suicide has also triggered a debate on alleged nepotism and favouritism in the Hindi film industry. The young actor starred in films like "Shuddh Desi Romance", "Raabta", "Kedarnath", "Chhichhore" and "Sonchiriya". His most prominent role was that of cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni's biopic "MS Dhoni: The Untold Story". Description GIS 31 July 2020: An Agreement for the reception of a donation of medical equipment from the Peoples Republic of China to Mauritius was signed, today, by the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Peoples Republic of China to the Republic of Mauritius, Mr Sun Gongyi, and the Senior Chief Executive of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, in Port Louis. The Minister of Health and Wellness, Mr Kailesh Jagutpal, was present on this occasion. In his address, the Health and Wellness Minister expressed his gratitude to the Peoples Republic of China for this additional contribution to Mauritius in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. He pointed out that the batch of medical equipment which has been donated will without doubt allow Mauritius to further enhance its preparedness level as to the ongoing threat. Moreover, Minister Jagutpal recalled that the strong bilateral ties between the two countries go beyond the establishment of diplomatic relations established in 1972. He expressed his confidence that the bilateral relations will keep on strengthening and, as soon as the Covid-19 situation is behind us, both countries will be able to explore new avenues to bounce back from the backlash of the pandemic. For his part, Ambassador Gongyi underlined that the Covid-19 pandemic showed that unity and cooperation are the necessary tools in the fight against the pandemic. He further congratulated the Mauritian Government for having taken bold measures to mitigate the spread of the virus in the country, and praised Mauritian people who have shown discipline vis-a-vis imposed restrictions during the lockdown period. The worldwide popularity of Rioja wines has made many people think of Spain as red wine country and little else. The truth is that Spanish vineyards produce more white wine grapes than red. The acreage of vineyards on which white wine grapes are grown is also much more extensive than red and its a white wine grape, airen, that tops Spains production league. Airen is cultivated on almost three times as much land as that used to grow the second most planted variety, the red garnacha. Airen, in fact, is the worlds most widely planted grape, red or white, in terms of acreage and most of it is grown in Spain, especially in La Mancha, Andalusia and Valdepenas. However, the best Spanish whites are not made with the airen grape. Spains most memorable whites come from grapes grown in relatively small quantities in the northwest of the country, especially Galicia and Rueda. One of these whites is Galicias albarino. This grape is grown in the Rias Baixas area and many experts rate it Spains best white wine grape. I go even further and call it one of the worlds finest white wine grapes. However, some 45 years ago albarino makers didnt realise what a splendid grape they had in their vineyards. In those day the albarino vines were used mainly to mark the borders of orchards and other plots of land. But by the time Rias Baixas won Denominacion de Origen status (DO) in 1988, cultivators were well aware that the albarino grape was something very special and that the wines it produced were in a category all of their own. The albarino grape is now one of the areas main agricultural products and it makes an important contribution to the local economy. Even so, its cultivation is still very much a cottage industry. Of the four sub-zones that make up the Rias Baixas DO, only one has vineyards with an average size of one acre. But in Rias Baixas its quality, not quantity, that counts. Small is beautiful there and that even applies to the actual grape. The albarino is a tiny grape but it is packed with juice that is loaded with fruity and floral aromas and flavours. This is what helps to make albarino such a memorable wine. In many ways, the albarino is a miracle grape. Nature endowed it with a thick skin that helps it to survive in Galicias particularly damp climate. It also takes advantage of the areas relatively benign climate (temperatures seldom drop below 9C) to build up enough sugar content to produce wines with 13 per cent of alcohol, while maintaining a nice touch of acidity. Albarino is one of the worlds mystery grapes: no one knows where it came from. It has similar characteristics to grapes grown in the Rhine and Moselle regions and some experts say German monks took those grapes to Galicia in the 9th century. But other authorities claim that German monks, on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, took albarino grapes back with them and planted them in the Rhine and Moselle. However, one of the greatest experts on Galician viticulture, Jose Luis Hernaez Manes, is convinced the albarino grape is simply a selection of clones that came from the grafting of native Galician grapes with vines brought in by the Romans. Most of the worlds albarino crop is grown in Rias Baixas, with only a small amount being cultivated in Portugals Vinho Verde region, where it is known as alvarinho. In Rias Baixas, albarino is grown on some 96 per cent of the vineyard acreage. The remaining four per cent is made up of caino, loureira and treixadura, the other grapes allowed by the DOs governing council. In the old days albarinos were always young wines bottled and distributed as soon as they were ready. Production was so low that for a long time the wine never left Galicia in fact, there was barely enough for Galicians. Even today, some 32 years after Rias Baixas was given DO status for it albarino wines, some 75 per cent is sold in Galicia, leaving only 25 per cent for the rest of Spain. The foreign market is a tiny one. Some Rias Baixas winemakers eventually fermented and aged albarinos in oak casks. The oaked Fillaboa made by Isabel Salcedo was a huge success and won prizes at serious tastings and contests. Bodegas Salnesur did an albarino fermented and aged in oak casks. Thats about as complex as you can get with white wines. Other winemakers werent as daring and simply aged their albarinos in stainless steel vats. Those that have been fermented in oak (fermentada en barrica) and aged in wood (con crianza) and which you are likely to find in Palma, include Fillaboa, Valdamor and Pazo de Senorans. Some sell for more than 20. Fillaboa also do a young albarino (which costs less) and which has been one of my favourites since I first tasted it more than 25 years ago at La Vinoteca in Calle Bartolome Pou 28. Juan Luis of La Vinoteca has an excellent choice of albarinos and he or one of his assistants will advise you on their merits. With the exception of moscatel, albarino is the most potent of Spanish white wine grapes. It is in the same league as chardonnay, riesling, gewurztraminer and sauvignon blanc. The most dominant fruity aroma is that of apples, but there are also floral nuances and sometimes a touch of honey. When pairing albarinos with food, they are superb with fish and shellfish and they are best of all with raw shellfish such as oysters and clams. If you are fortunate enough to have a plate of sea urchins before you, then an albarino fermented in wood and aged in the bottle for a couple of years will be the perfect partner. This means you should consider drinking albarinos with Japanese dishes such as sushi and sashimi. But when eating raw fish (with the exception of sea urchins with their rich iodine taste) I go for young albarinos. The more complex aromas and flavours of the oaked albarinos overwhelm the delicate taste of most raw fish dishes. Fermented and aged albarinos also match nicely with strong flavoured shellfish dishes made with lobster and crab. And if you have ordered one of the more highly flavoured white fish dishes done with turbot, members of the bream family, sea bass or sole, then albarino (with or without oak) will be an ideal choice. During the blazing summer months, do try drinking white wines at a much lower temperature than usual. Most whites should be served at about 10C, but in the summer my albarinos and cavas are nearer 5C. The colder a white wine is, the less we are aware of its merits and faults. But in the unbearable heat of a Majorcan summer, I push the merits and faults into the background: its a glass of really cold wine I want. There will be plenty of occasions in the autumn, winter and spring to consider a white wines intrinsic qualities. NOTE: The Oregonian/OregonLive published a story Sept. 23, 2020, with results from specialized testing conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Matthew Irvin tested negative for coronavirus and the Oregon Health Authority removed his death from its tally. The family of a 26-year-old Yamhill County man suspected of dying with COVID-19 is awaiting formal laboratory findings by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after he initially tested negative for coronavirus. OTTAWA - The federal environment minister is backtracking on a previous decision to keep Ottawa out of the approval process for a major coal mine expansion in Alberta. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The federal environment minister is backtracking on a previous decision to keep Ottawa out of the approval process for a major coal-mine expansion in Alberta. Minister of Environment and Climate Change Jonathan Wilkinson speaks to media during the Liberal cabinet retreat at the Fairmont Hotel in Winnipeg, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mike Sudoma OTTAWA - The federal environment minister is backtracking on a previous decision to keep Ottawa out of the approval process for a major coal mine expansion in Alberta. The existing Vista mine, which is owned by the U.S. coal giant Cline Group, began shipping coal for export in May 2019 and the company is now looking to double, or possibly even triple, its output. Minister Jonathan Wilkinson declined in December to order a federal impact assessment of the project near Hinton, saying the potential risks to the environment and Indigenous rights would be dealt with by a provincial approval process. Dozens of environmental, Indigenous, health and faith-based organizations wrote to Wilkinson this month asking him to take a second look at the expansion. In a decision Thursday supporting a federal designation for the project, Wilkinson says the expansion may cause "adverse direct and cumulative effects" on areas of federal jurisdiction, such as fish and fish habitat, species at risk, and Indigenous peoples. The decision also notes that the mine expansion would produce more than 18,600 tonnes of coal per day, which is above the total production capacity threshold of 5,000 tonnes per day in regulations of the Impact Assessment Act. "The minister acknowledges that, cumulatively, the projects may result in adverse effects of greater magnitude to those previously considered," the decision reads. "(Those effects) may not be mitigated through project design or the application of standard mitigation measures." In 2017, Canada and the United Kingdom jointly launched the Powering Past Coal Alliance, aiming to convince the world's wealthiest countries to eliminate coal as a source of electricity by 2030, and the rest of the world to do so by 2050. When the alliance began, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called coal "the dirtiest of all fossil fuels.'' "Let me be very blunt about this. Coal represents perhaps the greatest challenge to the world not meeting its climate-change targets,'' Trudeau said. "Unless we reduce coal consumption, we are not going to be able to prevent catastrophic global warming.'' This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2020 San Antonio police are searching for four people who fled on foot after their vehicle hit a moving train Thursday night. Around 11 p.m., San Antonio police were called to the area of Loop 410 and FM 78 for the accident. Witnesses told police that an SUV collided with the train after exiting the highway, and four people ran from the vehicle. F or years the big question around Royal Bank of Scotland, now NatWest Group, is when it could be fully returned to private ownership, away from the clutches of government. How about this for a plan: forget it. Leave it as it is. Since the government has a 62% stake it can do what it likes. And since it plainly cant get, perhaps ever, the money back that it put in to save the bank, why worry? Leaving it as state controlled would irritate the 38% of private shareholders who may need some small level of compensation. Lets say 50p a share (they trade at 108p) and well chuck the valuable lesson youve just learnt in for free. The new NatWest could merge with the Post Office. It could pioneer a new sort of banking treating people well and see if that catches on. The old and the poor would get far better service, far better interest on savings than they could at other big banks. Barclays, Lloyds and the rest would be forced to compete on those terms, and if they couldnt too bad. This new NatWest wouldnt make a profit, but since it seldom does anyway, whats to lose? Banking executives think about these things in narrow terms, quarters or half years. The government should think about the next 100 and decide that since its going to end up owning banks from time to time anyway, it might as well make a virtue of owning this one. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill that will prohibit cryptocurrencies as a means of payment in the country, according to a report published this morning by Russian news agency RIA. The development comes after Russian lawmakers proposed a version of the law that would make any business issuing or trading crypto illegal. The new bill, signed Friday, appears to represent a more mild version of the first proposal. According to RIA, although the bill defines cryptocurrency as a kind of property for tax purposes, they cannot be used to pay for goods and services in Russia. The bill also contains language stating that companies can issue digital securities via blockchain, provided that they receive approval from the Bank of Russia, the country's central bank. The law is set to come into effect in January 2021. Russian individuals and entities will be able to challenge transactions involving digital currencies in court only if plaintiffs report proof of transactions and crypto holdings, according to RIA. Lawmaker Anatoly Aksakov told RIA that another bill, which will focus on more specific aspects of digital currencies, is in the works and could be adopted in the coming months. 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. SOUTH GLENS FALLS After 137 days, bowling alley operators on Friday said their facilities are safe, clean and ready to roll, but their businesses are in danger of falling into the gutter because the state has yet to provide guidelines on how they can reopen. About 300 bowling alley operators statewide have been without income for more than four months and are in danger of missing out on essential revenue from fall leagues, said Doug Bohannon, the owner of Kingpins Alley Family Fun Center in South Glens Falls and the president of the New York State Bowling Proprietors Association. Were worried and were scared, he said at a press conference inside his 42-lane business, where more than two dozen other owners from across the state had gathered to call on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to allow bowling centers to open. State Sen. Daphne Jordan, R-Halfmoon, and Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, D-Round Lake, were also in attendance. Risking a permanent closure The fall league season attracts hundreds of bowlers to centers like Kingpins across the state, accounting for thousands in revenue. Without that income, Bohannon said, dozens of alleys across the state are in danger of closing their doors permanently. Two bowling alleys in the state closed in the last 10 days because of the shutdown, he said. Several local bowling alleys, including Broadway Lanes in Fort Edward and Slate Valley Lanes in Granville, are also in danger of closing their doors for good. Each day that passes, we run the risk of losing more of these bowling centers, Bohannon said. The more than two dozen owners who gathered on Friday some from as far as Binghamton and Oswego said they were confused as to why the state wont give them guidance on reopening. Balls rolling elsewhere Bowling alleys in New Jersey and Connecticut have been operating for weeks. Both states entered into a regional pact with New York at the onset of the pandemic back in March. A spokesman for Cuomo said the agreement doesnt mean each states plans have to be identical. New York, he said, is focused on keeping the infection rate low to prevent another shutdown. Reports show that infections are rising in more than 40 states and that officials in those states have been forced to re-close businesses and other parts of the economy that were opened too early. Every public opinion survey has shown an overwhelming majority of New Yorkers support our reopening approach. We understand that some people arent happy but better unhappy than sick or worse, Jason Conwall, the Cuomo spokesman, said in a statement. Bohannon argues that bowling centers can open safely and said the Proprietors Association has submitted a 23-page proposal to the state that addresses everything from social distancing to the disinfecting of shared equipment. He said if bowling alleys close, not only would local economies suffer, but communities would lose a vital hub, where everything from birthday parties to fundraisers are hosted. Junior bowlers also earn thousands in scholarships. The majority of bowling centers are owned by families, many of them are second- and third-generation operators that have served their communities for years, he said. Economic impact Bowling alleys in New York employ more than 9,000 people, according to Jordan. Since being forced to close on March 17, the centers have lost a combined $90 million in revenue, and employees have lost over $30 million in wages, she said. Jordan said bowling centers are a vital part of the states economy and play a critical role in the communities they serve. She said operators across New York have already put in place safety protocols, but they need the state to tell them what, if any, additional steps need to be taken. We do have to protect lives, but we also need to safeguard livelihoods, Jordan said. Woerner had similar sentiments, saying that bowling alleys are safe places where families can spend quality time together during the pandemic. Its time for the governor to get to work, draft the guidelines and provide the direction for how bowling centers can reopen, she said. Plans take shape Meanwhile, inside Kingpins, signs reminding visitors to maintain social distancing were spotted throughout the center. Plexiglass surrounds the counter, and sanitation stations were set up throughout the building. Bohannon said there are 11-and-a-half feet between each set of lanes, more than enough space to maintain social distancing if bowlers use every other lane. The center has bought disposable slip covers that go over shoes to allow people to bowl without renting shoes, and there are plans in place to disinfect every ball after use. The Proprietor Association, last month, submitted at 23-page safety plan that would require everything from temperature checks to daily cleaning, but has not heard anything from state officials regarding the plan. During this entire month, weve heard nothing from Albany as to when we can get back to making a living, Bohannon said Local impact Sean and Brandon Bickford have operated Broadway Lanes in Fort Edward and Slate Valley Lanes in Granville for the last 25 years with their father, John. They said both centers are in danger of closing because of the loss in revenue created by the shutdown. Revenue, the brothers said, is down 95% compared to last year. If we dont get going and are able to have our fall leagues, its going to be a grim sight, Sean said. We need to have fall leagues to be able to continue as a business. The brothers have been forced to lay off 10 employees. A loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program allowed them to rehire staff temporarily, but that has since expired. Elsewhere, local nonprofits, like Big Brother Big Sisters of the Southern Adirondacks, have been left with a major revenue gap because they can no longer have a place to host popular fund raisers. The organization hosts its Bowl for Kids Sake charity event at Kingpins each year. The event raises over $120,000 and allows the organization to support children throughout the region. Without that support, dozens of children will be left without the organizations services, said Bill Moon, executive director of Big Brother Big Sisters of the Southern Adirondacks. Bowling alleys are more than just a business that employs individuals, as if that wasnt important enough. Theyre community hubs, he said. Bohannon, meanwhile, said bowling center proprietors cant wait any longer. I can assure that if bowling centers cannot floor their fall leagues in September, the number of centers that are going to fail will grow exponentially, he said. Chad Arnold is a reporter for The Post-Star covering the city of Glens Falls and the town and village of Lake George. Follow him on Twitter @ChadGArnold. Love 2 Funny 34 Wow 2 Sad 8 Angry 8 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Defense lawyers on Thursday challenged attempts by prosecutors to bar defendants arrested during recent protests from carrying lasers while out of jail awaiting their trials. A CD player is a device that contains a laser,' Assistant Federal Public Defender Thomas Price said in federal court. Or a cat toy you play with your cat, Price said. I think some cars have lasers. Price was arguing on behalf of a man who wasnt accused of pointing a laser at anybody but is facing a misdemeanor allegation of assault on an officer. Prosecutors had included a laser on the list of weapons that they wanted to prevent his client, Sabastian Dubar, from carrying while out of custody. Price convinced U.S. Magistrate Judge Jolie A. Russo to drop the laser prohibition for Dubar. The next defendant, Christopher Fellini, wasnt as successful. He was accused of shining a laser at a federal officer on July 5. His defense lawyer, John Robb, echoed Prices argument, telling the court theres a variety of lasers used in daily life. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Sussman called the defense posture absurd. Nobody is suggesting were talking about cat toys or CDs,' Sussman said. Thats ludicrous. Sussman said the government doesnt want Fellini having a hand-held, high-powered laser that specifically comes with a warning not to shine directly into anyones eyes and can disorient or blind someone. Everyone knows those are the lasers in question, Sussman said. Federal officials have said three or four officers have suffered impaired eyesight due to high-powered green lasers pointed at them in recent weeks outside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse, which has been a flashpoint for nightly conflict since early July. Fellini has pleaded not guilty to one count of assault on a federal officer. He pointed a laser, a device that generates an intense beam of coherent monochromatic light (or other electromagnetic radiation) by stimulated emission of photons from excited atoms or molecules, towards officers during the performance of their duties at the Hatfield Courthouse, Federal Protective Service agent David Miller wrote in a federal affidavit. Other federal officers spotted Fellini shining the laser at federal officers from about 40 yards away in Lownsdale Square across the street. As they entered the square to arrest him, he ran and dropped the laser, which officers confiscated, according to the affidavit. The magistrate judge kept, as a condition of Fellinis release, lasers as among the weapons Fellini cant possess, in addition to guns, mortars and fireworks. A laser on the far right was among the items tied to Christopher Fellini, who has pleaded not guilty to assault on a federal officer, according to court records. As with most people facing federal allegations in the demonstrations, the judge has released them with the condition they stay out of a five-block radius around the downtown federal courthouse between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The boundaries are Southwest Washington Street to the north, Willamette River to the east, Southwest Market Street to the south and Park Avenue to the west. -- Maxine Bernstein Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212 Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian Subscribe to Facebook page Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. 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In a scathing letter shared on West Point Island Dock Dispute - a page created by the residents, which included photos of a long dock already in place - the Goodfellas star shared that he was in 'strong opposition' to the two applications in place. The two applications ask to extend docks on Barnegat Bay to 300ft, similar to a 2018 addition to another dock that saw its size increase by more than 180ft. 'More than doubling the length of these docks undoubtedly would block views of the Bay currently enjoyed by other area homeowners,' Pesci said in his letter, witten last October. Joe Pesci joined other Lavallette, New Jersey, residents upset about two proposals from neighbors to extend their docks to 300ft in the Barnegat Bay. The two latest proposals are similar to a 2018 addition to another dock that saw its size increase by more than 180ft to 300ft The two neighbors seeking an extension are to the left of the 300ft dock 'More importantly, these extensions would force boaters, kayakers and paddlers in this area which include children in addition to adults to operate in waters far from land, and accordingly in the wakes of large watercraft.' The 77-year-old actor wrote in his letter that he has owned the property in Lavallette since 1990 and has maintained his own dock that has been 120ft, the standard size. Pesci said that when the extension for the dock in 2018 occurred, which he opposed then, northern views of the Bay became 'impaired' from his property. Pesci also shared that the dock 'negatively impacted' boat travels and made the Bay more unsafe Pesci has had the property since 1990 and has maintained his own dock that has been 120ft, the standard size. A side view shows how long the 2018 dock is in comparison He said that when the extension for the dock in 2018 occurred, which he opposed then, northern views of the Bay became 'impaired' from his property. Pesci also shared that the dock 'negatively impacted' boat travels and made the Bay more unsafe. The two proposals are currently awaiting approval by the Tidelands Resource Counsel within the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) He concluded in the letter: 'As a 30-year resident of West Point Island, I respectfully ask the Department to take this opportunity to stop this trend now by denying the pending applications before it is too late.' Pesci has recently put the home on the market for $6.5million. The dock is seen protruding far out into the water West Point Island Dock Dispute features a picture of how it would look if all the homes extended their docks Pesci has recently put the home on the market for $6.5million, Patch reports. Decades ago, an artificial boundary line was established for the docks. Dock owner P.T. Jibsail is being represented by Neil Yoskin, who argues that the state owns the water and added that the plaintiff's rights only extends to a certain point. The NJDEP has added that it is not clear how far an owners' rights extends. To receive Steve Gutterman's Week In Russia each week via e-mail, subscribe by clicking here. The fears of a perestroika foe who has died at age 81 have echoes in President Vladimir Putin's political planning, and Russia's intentions in Belarus face new scrutiny after Kremlin-linked mercenaries are arrested and the embattled authoritarian who is arguably Putin's closest foreign ally accuses Moscow of a plot to destabilize elections. Protests persist in Khabarovsk, and an American ex-Marine is sentenced to nine years in prison in what the U.S. ambassador calls an "absurd" ruling in a trial over a drunken incident last summer whose crucial details are in dispute. Here are some of the key developments in Russia over the past week and some of the takeaways going forward. 'Breakthrough' Blues Nina Andreyeva didn't like perestroika, and neither does Vladimir Putin, apparently. Andreyeva, a St. Petersburg chemistry instructor who rocketed to fame when she railed against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's reform program in a letter published in the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossia in March 1988, died on July 24 at the age of 81. Andreyeva's letter, which included a defense of dictator Josef Stalin and was the first real criticism of perestroika (restructuring) in the tightly controlled Soviet press, became a kind of manifesto for opponents of Gorbachev's reforms. Possibly ghostwritten by someone with a dog in the political fight of the late Soviet era -- which at the time, of course, was not known to be the late Soviet era -- the letter remained a topic of discussion and debate as change picked up speed and spun out of Gorbachev's control. Its publication came three years before the hardline communist coup of August 1991, which was aimed at turning back the reforms and preserving the Soviet Union but ended up accelerating the country's disintegration and preceded its demise that December. Andreyeva's name later receded into the blurry background of those momentous times, as Russia moved on into the 1990s and then segued into the Putin era as the Kremlin bells struck midnight and the year 2000 began. When that era may end is unclear, and Putin has ensured that it could potentially last until 2036 by securing a constitutional amendment that allows him to seek two more six-year terms after 2024. The fear of perestroika -- the fear of too much change too fast, a restructuring that could leave him out of the ruling structures -- may have prompted him to open up the most direct path to many more years in power, Aleksandr Baunov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center and editor in chief of its website, wrote in a July 30 article. 'A Flamboyant Change Of Heart' Despite a few hints in the weeks before the amendment setting Putin's presidential term count to zero instead of four was proposed in March, the move surprised many who had parsed his comments for years and concluded that he was far more likely to step down in 2024 -- or earlier -- and preserve power by other means. Putin is often described as pragmatic, but Baunov suggested that in this case, he had a "flamboyant change of heart" brought on by fear of "ushering in a perestroika 2.0." With real incomes dropping and economic growth underwhelming even before the coronavirus pandemic and now expected to shrink at least 6 percent, the biggest contraction in more than a decade, polls show that "the Russian public no longer values 'stability' and the status quo as much as it did a few years ago," Baunov wrote. "The public is increasingly hungry for change." As a result, Putin has taken to using the word "breakthrough" to describe what Russia needs. But this word "suggests a break with the past," Baunov wrote -- and Putin does not want a break that is big enough or clean enough to leave him in the past. To put it in terms perhaps appropriate for a Saturday morning, Putin knows Russia needs a breakthrough but fears he will end up like Wile E. Coyote, the Road Runner's unfortunate cartoon nemesis -- busting though a barrier only to find that he has gone off the edge of a cliff on the other side and is suspended in midair, legs windmilling furiously over the abyss. "The limiting factor now is that Putin and his inner circle fear change could get out of hand," Baunov wrote. He suggested that this was a major factor in Putin's decision to quash "tandem" partner Dmitry Medvedev's hopes for a second term -- along with the hopes of those Russians who saw Medvedev as the candidate of change and reform, at least in relative terms -- and return to the Kremlin himself in 2012 after four years as prime minister. This time, the political analyst concluded, "the paradox is that by choosing what he regards as the safest option both domestically and geopolitically, Putin may condemn Russia to a new period of stagnation --and thereby become the unwitting godfather of the very perestroika he seeks to avoid." Persistent Protests The people's hunger for change is evident in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, where people have been protesting for three weeks -- in numbers ranging from the hundreds to the tens of thousands -- over the arrest of now-former regional Governor Sergei Furgal. In fact, they voted for change in 2018, when they elected Furgal -- now charged with involvement in two murders and an attempted murder in 2004-05 -- by a large margin over the Kremlin-backed incumbent from the United Russia party, which dominates politics nationwide but is unpopular. Those two characteristics, dominance and a low or decreasing level of popularity, may now be shared by Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the long-ruling Belarusian president who is facing the challenge of his career in an August 9 election that is expected to hand him a sixth term -- at least officially. Despite a clampdown in which top would-be challengers have been barred from the ballot and in at least two cases jailed, while many other people have been detained during demonstrations, large crowds have gathered in cities and towns nationwide to back Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is essentially running as the candidate of the united opposition. Tens of thousands of people rallied in Minsk on July 30. The already remarkable run-up to the least predictable election in Belarus since Lukashenka took office in 1994 took a turn for the bizarre this week when authorities in a country that is one of Russia's few allies and arguably has closer ties to Moscow than any other arrested 33 alleged contractors from the Kremlin-linked private military company Vagner and accused them of planning "to destabilize the country" ahead of the election. Broadly, the Belarusian state's narrative -- telegraphed by Lukashenka just days earlier, when he predicted that "professional soldiers, bandits" would be dispatched abroad to foment a revolt in Belarus -- was that the mercenaries were there to mount a Moscow-backed coup. Such a suggestion fits well with one of the tacks the authoritarian leader has frequently taken in the past few years to seek to rally support: by saying or insinuating that Russia is eager to swallow up Belarus. The Russian ambassador to Minsk said that the men had been en route to another country and had missed their flight, and several analysts and experts on paramilitary groups including Vagner said the evidence at hand indicated it was unlikely that they were on a mission inside Belarus. Widespread disbelief of the Belarusian state's claims did not stop Lukashenka from using the incident -- whatever its true nature -- as a blunt tool in the presidential campaign. On July 30, a day after the arrests were announced, the state Investigative Committee issued a statement linking the mercenaries with two jailed opposition leaders Mikalay Statkevich and Tsikhanouskaya's husband, Syarhey Tsikhanouski, both of whom it said face charges of plotting riots, a crime punishable by up to eight years in prison. No Urge To Merge If the contract soldiers were merely transiting through Belarus, the question remains as to whether Russian authorities might have been in on a plan to use the incident in a bid to tame the Belarusian opposition and shift momentum in the election. Russia's intentions regarding the vote are murky, but for the next few years the safest bet for the Kremlin could be to have Lukashenka remaining in power, albeit weakened by growing public dissatisfaction. Also, it may be worth noting that if the mercenaries were not in Belarus in the capacity that Lukashenka suggested -- as part of a Russian influence campaign or takeover plot this does not reverse more than 15 years of both overt and shadowy evidence that Putin's Kremlin wants more influence over Belarus. Since the start of his fourth term in 2018, Putin has been pressing Lukashenka to integrate the countries more closely in a Union State that has existed largely on paper since the 1990s. Lukashenka has balked, perhaps recalling the time in 2002 when he was the one pushing for a tighter merger and Putin called his bluff, proposing speedy integration but making clear that it would turn the Belarusian leader into little more than a provincial governor. A suggestion that more aggressive designs on Belarus exist in the Kremlin came on the same day as the arrests of the alleged Vagner fighters were announced, when the political-analysis Telegram channel R.Politik cited an unnamed source as saying that purported Vagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin and the influential secretary of Putin's Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, have been working "on a project that explores the idea of completely integrating Belarus into Russia's territory." Such a plan sounds awfully ambitious, given the trouble Putin seems to be having with more modest integration efforts -- R.Politik commented that it sounded like the kind of thing "typically pushed by Putin's hawks" and that Putin might not be "ready to opt for full integration, given that such plans may result in mass protests in Belarus." But the source's statement may have been meant to serve a purpose amid the current tension -- as an echo, for example, of Putin's warning to Lukashenka in 2002. A 'Preposterous' Case There have also been questions about the purpose of Russia's prosecution of Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine who was taken to a Moscow precinct house after a drunken night out with his girlfriend and others in August 2019, and was later charged with endangering the lives of the officers who took him to the station. On July 30, Reed was handed a nine-year prison term -- a "ridiculous" conviction and sentence following a trial in which the prosecution's case and the evidence presented against Mr. Reed were so preposterous that they provoked laughter in the courtroom," U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan said in statement. Sullivan said that he had spoken to Reed's father, Joey Reed and "assured him that we will not rest until Trevor is freed and returns home to the United States." The Russian government may be hoping that, when Reed is freed and returns home, it will be as part of a swap for Russians behind bars in the United States: Kremlin critics, lawyers, and observers have charged that Moscow is using Americans like Reed and Paul Whelan, an American who was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison in June on an espionage charge he denies, as pawns for potential use in prisoner exchanges or other geopolitical deals. "It all looks like a provocation designed to obtain a certain resource that can be used later in international negotiations," Russian lawyer Ivan Pavlov was quoted as saying by The New York Times. "This can be a bargaining chip." STAMFORD The customer base for telecommunications giant Charter Communications grew significantly in the past quarter as it benefited from rising demand for internet service, the company reported Friday. In the second quarter, the Stamford-based company added about 751,000 residential customers and 4,000 small and medium-size business consumers, compared with a combined gain of 203,000 in the same period last year. It also connected an additional 325,000 Spectrum Mobile lines. Reflecting the spike in working from home this spring amid the national spread of the coronavirus crisis, residential internet connections across Charters 41-state footprint grew 8.5 percent year over year. In comparison, connections for video and voice phone services, respectively, dipped 1 percent and 4 percent from a year ago. The combined number of residential customers and business customers in the second quarter totaled 30.5 million, up 6 percent from the same period last year. We remain focused on serving our customers and the communities where we operate through a difficult period of time, Charter CEO and Chairman Tom Rutledge said on a call with investment analysts. These services have been able to promote working, distant learning, tele-health services and family communication in support of the broader economy and the welfare of our communities. Quarterly revenues for the No. 71 company on last years Fortune list increased 3 percent year over year, to nearly $12 billion. Profits totaled about $766 million, compared with $314 million a year ago. The burgeoning bottom line was driven by higher adjusted earnings, a non-cash gain on financial instruments compared with a loss in the 2019 second quarter and lower depreciation and amortization costs. Charter shares closed Friday at about $580, up 3 percent from their Thursday finish. They opened the day at a 52-week high of about $594. During the quarter, Charter purchased about 2.3 million shares of Charter Class A common stock and Charter Holdings common units, worth a total of approximately $1.2 billion. Customer support To assist communities affected by the pandemic, Charter launched in March a Remote Education Offer, which has provided free Spectrum-branded internet service for 60 days to households with students in the K-12 and/or college systems, as well as educators who do not already have Spectrum internet. Through June 30, about 448,000 internet customers had been added through the program. Of that total, 160,000 were still receiving free service after June 30. In the past quarter, Charter also took part in the Federal Communications Commissions Keep Americans Connected Pledge, which suspended disconnections and collection payments for residential customers and small and medium businesses financially hurt by the crisis. About 600,000 residential customers and 100,000 business consumers requested protection from disconnection. At its peak, the initiative was serving about 208,000 residences and 14,000 businesses that would have been disconnected under regular collection policies. In turn, Charter said it waived $76 million of receivables for residences, as well as $6 million for businesses and $3 million for mobile accounts. Charter has also been offering a seasonal plan, with reduced rates, to small and medium businesses that have temporarily closed or reduced their own services. Among other initiatives, the company has opened its WiFi hot spots to the public. Employee concerns Charter has maintained its operations throughout the pandemic through its government designation as an essential-services provider. In April, the company pledged to raise its minimum wage for all hourly workers from $15 per hour to $20 per hour during the next two years and also announced that it would not lay off or furlough any employees for at least the next two months. But the company has also faced scrutiny of its workplace environment. The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James confirmed in April that it had launched an inquiry into Charters coronavirus-related labor practices. A number of New York-based workers filed complaints about what they saw as unnecessary requests for them to continue reporting to their offices amid the spread of COVID-19. Charter has declined to comment on the probe. At the companys downtown Stamford headquarters, where about 1,300 workers are based, a number of employees expressed concerns in the early spring about working conditions. pschott@stamfordadvocate.com; twitter: @paulschott Christian groups oppose new DHS policy denying new DACA applicants: 'Unconscionable' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Some Christian advocacy organizations have condemned the Trump administrations announcement that it will reject new applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a plan to scrap the program last month. In a memo Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security stated that it will allow DACA recipients to renew their status after the high court ruled last month that the administration could not proceed with its plans to end the temporary program protecting hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought the U.S. illegally as minors. However, the memo, issued by Acting Secretary Chad Wolf, orders all new and pending initial applications to the program enacted in 2012 under the Obama administration be rejected. The program has allowed more than 700,000 immigrants to stay in the U.S. and authorized them to work in the country. Whatever the merits of these asserted reliance interests on the maintenance of the DACA policy, they are significantly lessened, if not entirely lacking, with regard to aliens who have never before received deferred action pursuant to the policy, Wolf wrote. The memo also explains that those reapplying for DACA authorization can only reapply for an authorization period of one year, rather than the two-year authorizations they had been given. In accordance with the Supreme Courts decision, I am determined to give careful consideration to whether the DACA policy should be maintained, rescinded, or modified, Wolf stated. In the meantime, given my serious concerns about the policy, I have determined that some changes should immediately be made to the policy to limit its scope in the interim. According to an administration official who spoke with Politico, the new policy allows the agency to conduct a comprehensive review of the program as well as assess the legality after the Supreme Court ruling. Some faith-based immigration advocacy organizations that for years have called for a legislative solution for Dreamers another term that describes those eligible for DACA protection are outraged by the announcement. They argue that many have no memory of their home countries since they were brought to the U.S. at an early age. While were grateful that the administration has not, at this point, again sought to terminate DACA, todays actions present new hardships for Dreamers, requiring a renewal application and accompanying fee on a more regular basis and seeking to prevent new applicants, said Scott Arbeiter, president of the National Association of Evangelicals humanitarian arm, World Relief. Furthermore, the memo makes clear that rescission is still ultimately quite possible, which means that hundreds of thousands of young people will continue to live with the fear that the government may ultimately mandate the loss of their jobs or even deport them to countries that they cannot even remember. According to Arbeiter, the harm would extend further to these young peoples families, including hundreds of thousands of young children of DACA recipient parents, and to their employers and churches. The Rev. John L. McCullough, president and CEO of Church World Service, a cooperative ministry of 37 Christian denominations and communions that serves as a refugee resettlement organization, argued in a statement that the DHS memo is a wrongful attempt by the administration to subvert the Supreme Courts ruling last month. According to McCullough, the order puts about 300,000 young people who do not have authorization under DACA under threat of deportation. Eliminating protection from deportation for DACA recipients is particularly cruel, especially during a global health crisis, McCullough said. The administrations actions are unconscionable and immoral. Both Church World Service and World Relief are calling on members of Congress to pass a permanent, legislative solution for those who do not have legal residency status. Were thankful that the House of Representatives has already taken action, passing the American Dream and Promise Act, on a bipartisan basis last year, World Relief CEO Tim Breene said in a statement. We urge the U.S. Senate to take up the bill, or similar legislation, as quickly as possible. In the 5-4 ruling last month, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal justices and wrote that the ruling does not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies. Instead, the decision was rooted in whether the DHS complied with the procedural requirement that it provide a reasoned explanation for its action. The administration maintains that the DACA program goes above and beyond executive authority because it was enacted unilaterally by the Obama administration without an act of Congress. In dissent, Justice Samuel Alito argued that the ruling did not resolve the merit of the administrations plan to end DACA. Instead, it tells the Department of Homeland Security to go back and try again, Alito wrote. What this means is that the Federal Judiciary, without holding that DACA cannot be rescinded, has prevented that from occurring during an entire Presidential term. Our constitutional system is not supposed to work that way. A more recent publication of this set of statistics is available. Latest publication: Prices of dwellings in housing companies 2021, November Published: 31 July 2020 Differentiation of prices of old dwellings in housing companies continued as housing transactions picked up in June According to Statistics Finland's preliminary data, prices of old dwellings in housing companies rose by just under one per cent in Greater Helsinki compared to June 2019 and decreased by four per cent in the rest of Finland. Compared with May, prices remained unchanged in the whole country. Based on transactions made through real estate agents, the number of transactions of old dwellings in housing companies was unchanged in June compared to the corresponding period the previous year and nearly 30 per cent higher than in May. Development of prices of old dwellings in housing companies by month, index 2015=100 Compared with the corresponding period last year, preliminary data published monthly indicate that prices fell most in Eastern Finland and in the satellite municipalities. Development of prices of old dwellings in housing companies by month in Major regions, index 2015=100 Of large towns, prices rose compared with the previous year in Turku, Vantaa, Helsinki and Oulu and fell slightly in Espoo and Tampere. Of regions, prices of old dwellings in housing companies rose only in Uusimaa in the second quarter compared with the corresponding period last year According to preliminary data, prices of old dwellings in housing companies rose by around two per cent in Greater Helsinki in the second quarter of 2020 from the corresponding quarter of the year before. Prices decreased by nearly three per cent elsewhere in Finland. Compared with the previous quarter, prices went up by 1.4 per cent in Greater Helsinki and fell by 0.6 per cent in the rest of Finland. Examined by region, prices rose in the second quarter only in Uusimaa, by around one per cent, compared with the corresponding period last year. In the second quarter, prices were on level with the previous year in Pirkanmaa and Southwest Finland. Compared with the year before, prices fell most in Central Ostrobothnia, Paijat-Hame and South Savo. Development of prices of old dwellings in housing companies by regions, quarterly, index 2015=100 The price development of old dwellings in housing companies remained stable in large towns in the second quarter. Prices rose most clearly compared with the corresponding period of the previous year in Turku and Helsinki. The average price per square metre of a one-bedroom dwelling in an old block of flats was EUR 7,735 in the centre of Helsinki and EUR 3,452 in the centre of Turku in the second quarter of the year. Development of prices of old dwellings in housing companies quarterly, index 2015=100 Prices of old dwellings in housing companies in different parts of the country have fallen in recent years, but account has to be taken of differences between areas and inside towns in price development and price levels. For example, prices of old dwellings in housing companies in Jyvaskyla have gone down by around nine per cent from 2015. In the centre area of Jyvaskyla prices have gone down by around two per cent, while farther from the centre they have gone down by over 15 per cent. Differences in price development are large also inside Helsinki, for example. Prices of old dwellings in housing companies, 2nd quarter 2020 1) Area Price, EUR/m Index 2015=100 Quarterly change, % Yearly change, % Whole country 2,086 103.9 0.4 -0.4 Greater Helsinki 3,823 113.0 1.4 1.9 Rest of the country (whole country- Greater Helsinki) 1,585 95.8 -0.6 -2.7 Helsinki 4,412 117.8 2.0 2.8 Espoo-Kauniainen 3,553 105.8 -0.4 0.0 Vantaa 2,737 104.1 2.3 1.5 Satellite municipalities 2) 2,042 95.0 -1.2 -3.5 Tampere 2,520 108.8 -0.5 0.0 Turku 2,177 116.0 2.4 3.8 Lahti 1,579 85.9 -8.3 -10.3 Kuopio 1,784 92.5 1.1 3.6 Jyvaskyla 1,687 91.2 -5.5 -6.5 Oulu 1,812 100.1 0.2 -2.2 Prices of new dwellings in housing companies rose in the second quarter 1) Preliminary data2) Satellite municipalities = Hyvinkaa, Jarvenpaa, Kerava, Kirkkonummi, Nurmijarvi, Riihimaki, Sipoo, Tuusula and Vihti In the second quarter of 2020, prices of new dwellings in housing companies rose by around two per cent in Greater Helsinki and by five per cent elsewhere in Finland, compared with the corresponding period last year. Compared to the previous quarter, prices of new dwellings rose in Greater Helsinki by one per cent and remained unchanged elsewhere in Finland. Compared with the previous year, prices of new dwellings fell in Vantaa and rose in other large towns. The number of sold new dwellings decreased in the second quarter by over 30 per cent compared to the corresponding period the previous year. Development of prices of new dwellings in housing companies quarterly, index 2015=100 The average price per square metre for a new dwelling in a block of flats located on own plot was EUR 7,581 in Helsinki and EUR 5,093 in Turku in the second quarter of the year. When the monthly statistics on prices of dwellings in housing companies are published, they cover approximately 70 per cent of all transactions made in the latest statistical month. The monthly data become revised during the following months so that the final data for the year are published in the release concerning the first quarter of the following year. Further information about data revisions can be found in separate tables. Data on prices of dwellings in housing companies in different areas and by house type are available at stat.fi/til/ashi/tau_en.html. The tables also contain data on the prices per square metre at the municipal and postal code levels and on the numbers of transactions. If only a few transactions are known in the area, a couple of deviating cases may significantly affect the average price for an area and the price index. Starting from March 2020, the data used in the statistics on prices of old dwellings in housing companies are the Tax Administration's data on dwellings (data on ownership of dwellings in housing companies). Data on dwellings should not be used to assess the activity of transactions in latest periods. The data on new dwellings in housing companies are based on information on the transaction prices reported by the largest building contractors and real estate agents. The numbers of old dwellings in housing companies sold through real estate agents are based on the price monitoring service of the Central Federation of Finnish Real Estate Agencies. Source: Prices of dwellings in housing companies, Statistics Finland Inquiries: Petri Kettunen 029 551 3558, Elina Vuorio 029 551 3385, asuminen.hinnat@stat.fi Director in charge: Mari Yla-Jarkko Publication in pdf-format (481.8 kB) Updated 31.7.2020 Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Prices of dwellings in housing companies [e-publication]. ISSN=2323-8801. June 2020. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 20.1.2022]. Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/ashi/2020/06/ashi_2020_06_2020-07-31_tie_001_en.html Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 17:33:37|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a press briefing in Washington D.C., the United States, on March 5, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) - "The worst secretary of state in American history, without a single diplomatic achievement." - "Can you be any more unprofessional?" - A "common thug" and a "criminal" who has been "lying through his teeth" for the U.S. administration. WASHINGTON, July 31 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been widely denounced by domestic media for his egregious performance in office, with The New York Times calling him "the worst secretary of state in American history, without a single diplomatic achievement." In an opinion piece published by the newspaper, Thomas L. Friedman pointed out that Pompeo's two most notable accomplishments as secretary of state are "shooting two of his senior State Department officials in the back," and pushing conspiracy theories in terms of Washington's response to COVID-19 to scapegoat China and distract domestic attention. "The secretary of state first accuses China of manufacturing a virus that has killed over 340,000 people worldwide and then, when reminded that our intelligence agencies have concluded no such thing, he backs off with no explanation. Can you be any more unprofessional?" he wrote in late May. "The morale and effectiveness of our State Department - and our standing in the world - are both the worse for him," Friedman lashed out. In a hostile speech at Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum last Thursday, Pompeo groundlessly attacked the domestic and foreign policies of China, incited ideological hatred against the Communist Party of China and tried to instigate "the free world" to stand up against China. "The problem was not simply that the nation's chief diplomat was decidedly undiplomatic. Worse was his misrepresentation of history and his failure to suggest a coherent or viable path forward for managing a relationship that more than any other will define this era," Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an article in The Washington Post on July 26. Pompeo sought to commit the United States to a path that is "bound to fail," Haass warned. Joe Scarborough, a cable news host on MSNBC, slapped Pompeo over Ukraine issues as a "common thug" and a "criminal" who has been "lying through his teeth" for the U.S. administration. "He's acting like a common thug. He's lying about our country. He was in on [the Ukraine] call that he knows crossed every line of propriety," Scarborough said. "Now he's behaving like a thug in trying to basically tell Congress that he can do whatever he wants to do and not to reach out to anybody at the State Department." Likewise, Pompeo was acting like "a bald-faced liar" over Ukraine issues, according to Dartagnan, a community member of Daily Kors, a U.S. group blog and internet forum. "As it turns out, he's looking just as corrupt as his pals," Dartagnan wrote. "If there was ever a time for the House to exercise its power of Inherent Contempt, this would be that time. Because you'd really be hard pressed to find anyone more inherently contemptible than Mike Pompeo," the writer noted. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 18:21:44|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close WARSAW, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The Polish government will consider imposing new restrictions to stem the spread of COVID-19 after it reported the country's highest number of new infections for the second day in a row on Friday. According to the country's health ministry, 657 new cases and seven deaths were recorded on Friday, taking the total number of cases to 45,688 and the death toll to 1,716. Government spokesman Piotr Muller tweeted that the government would discuss what action it would take, including whether to introduce new quarantine measures, though the country recently lifted most lockdown restrictions. Enditem Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ruled out negotiations with Washington over Tehran's ballistic missile and nuclear programs, calling the United States "Iran's main enemy." "America's brutal sanctions on Iran are aimed at collapsing our economy.....Their aim is to limit our influence in the region and to halt our missile and nuclear capabilities," Khamenei said on July 31 in a live speech on state television. "Relying on national capabilities and cutting our dependence on oil exports will help us to resist America's pressure," he added. Tensions between Washington and Tehran have been on the rise since President Donald Trump in May 2018 pulled the United States out of a landmark 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers under which Iran pledge to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump has called the accord, signed by the administration of his predecessor, Barack Obama, "the worst deal ever." Washington then reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran as part of what it calls a maximum pressure campaign. In response, Iran gradually started breaching its nuclear commitments. Khamenei said he would not agree to negtiations with the United State that were aimed only at boosting Trump's reelection hopes. "This old man in charge, he apparently made some propaganda use out of his negotiations with North Korea. Now he wants to use (talks with Iran) for the (November 3 U.S. presidential) election," he said. Khamenei, 81, is seven years older than the U.S. president. During his speech, Khamenei also criticized the Europeans for failing to salvage the 2015 deal. "They have inflicted a blow on Iran's economy by hollow promises," Khamenei said in a televised speech, referring to efforts by Britain, France, and Germany to salvage the 2015 deal. The Trump administration says it wants Tehran to negotiate a wider deal to further curb Iran's nuclear work, halt its missile program, and limit the Islamic republic's regional influence. Washington is also pressing for the extension of a years-long UN weapons embargo on Tehran that is due to expire in October. With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP A man and a woman are facing multiple charges after Halton police concluded an investigation into suspected prescription drug trafficking in Burlington. Police said an investigation into the suspected drug house began in early July when several residents came forward a reported suspicious activity at a home in the Francis Road and Plains Road East area to police. During the early morning hours of Thursday, July 30 investigators with the assistance of the Halton police Tactical Rescue Unit and K9 unit executed a search warrant at the residence. As a result of the search police seized $1,200 worth of prescription drugs and 32 grams of marijuana. The seized prescription drugs included Nabilone, Codeine, Alprozolam, Quetiapine, Risperidone, Bupropion Hydrochloride and Olanzapine. Police also made two arrests. Scott Ross, 27, of Burlington has been charged with four counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking, possession for the purpose of distribution and unauthorized selling of prescription drugs under the Food and Drug Act. Crystal McMullen, 37, of Burlington has been charged with four counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking and two counts of unauthorized selling of prescription drugs under the Food and Drug Act. Both parties have since been released on an undertaking. This was a great example of community policing, said Det. Scott Heyerman of the Burlington Criminal Investigations Bureau. People were not comfortable on their own street and they decided to do something about it by approaching us about what was happening. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact Halton police at 905-825-4747 ext. 2342 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477). Read more about: Things are really heating up. And Im not talking about the temperature outside, but rather a debate in communities across America. Parents, teachers and school administrators are faced with a dilemma: How does a new school year begin safely while the country is still immersed in a pandemic and the number of cases and deaths continues to spike in many states? Connecticut, New Jersey and New York have implemented a travel advisory for 31 states whose numbers are on the rise. Thirty-one states. Let that sink in. Parents in the Greater New Milford area are raising their concerns about opening schools to local leaders, boards and committees, and legislators. Many parents including myself do not want to send their children back to school. And my children have expressed their concerns about going to back to school this coming year. Families like mine that already have a loved one in the home who falls into the high-risk category have heightened concern of the potential consequences of sending a child or children from that home to a school. A friend of mine spoke with her two young children about what the new school year would look like masks all day, social distancing and desks far apart, hand sanitizer. One child wants to stay home; the other wants to go back. She reminded them if they go back to school, they would have to cut down on who they see in their family because their attendance at school would bring possible exposure to their loved ones. The decision to send a child back to school comes with such heavy emotion. New Milford posted its draft 38-page document, Path to Reopening 2020-21, July 17 at www.newmilfordps.org. At the direction of the state, school districts had to come up with a plan for reopening that encompasses in-person, hybrid and remote learning by July 24. New Milford parents immediately raised their concerns about information included and not included in the draft. Topics have included the use of masks, social distancing and coherts (small groups), notification of exposure and much more. Everyone needs to think about varied ways to continue to provide education to our children, so the proposed plans make sense. I get that. But the new academic year will start in the coming weeks, and most school districts dont know what that will really look like. Things change almost on a daily basis. I am not a fan of in-school learning. Or the hybrid option, for that matter. They both carry too many risks. With the hybrid model, whats the point of having children go to school two or three days a week and do remote learning the rest of the week? Exposure risks would still exist at school on the days they attend. Thats as bad as going five days a week. I appreciate the efforts being made to get students back into the classroom. They thrive with structure and social interaction. They need it. I recognize that not all families can easily participate in remote learning. Jobs and other responsibilities make it difficult to help children with their schoolwork at home. But the reality is, the virus is still out there. Look at the hot spots around the country. Having helped my two children with remote learning for the last several months of the 2019-20 school year, I acknowledge the challenges involved. There were days neither child wanted to do work, and I agreed. I picked my battles, but we made things work. I feel its worth facing those challenges again with remote learning for the 2020-21 school year than sending the kids back to the classroom with so many uncertainties. The days are ticking away. We are closer to the start of the school year, and whatever is decided by school districts wont make everyone happy. This is not a one-size-fits-all situation. Families will have to decide what is best for them. Its that simple. Deborah Rose is a lifelong New Milford resident who has worked at The Spectrum since its inception in 1998. She can be reached by email at drose@newstimes.com. SAN FRANCISCO Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions, as President Donald Trump said Friday that he was considering taking steps that would effectively ban the app from the United States. Its unclear how advanced the talks between Microsoft and TikTok are, but any deal could help alter TikToks ownership, said the person with knowledge of the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese internet company that is valued at $100 billion. That has raised scrutiny of the app, with Trump administration officials saying that they have been concerned that TikTok poses a threat to national security. The Trump administration has been weighing whether to order ByteDance to divest from U.S. assets it acquired in 2017, which were later merged into TikTok. Bloomberg reported Friday that the president was poised to announce an order that would force ByteDance to sell TikToks U.S. operations. PUNKED: TikTok teens and K-pop stans say they sunk Trump rally The Trump administration has also been weighing other potential actions against the company, including adding ByteDance to a so-called entity list, which prevents foreign companies from purchasing U.S. products and services without a special license, according to people familiar with the matter. Were looking at TikTok. We may be banning TikTok, Trump told reporters Friday before heading to Florida. We may be doing some other things. Theres a couple of options. But a lot of things are happening, so well see what happens. But we are looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to TikTok. Representatives from TikTok did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Microsoft declined to comment. The discussions between Microsoft and TikTok were earlier reported by Fox Business. Lawmakers and the Trump administration have increasingly questioned whether TikTok is susceptible to influence from the Chinese government, including potential requests to censor material shared on the platform or to share American user data with Chinese officials. The app has been under review since late last year by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a federal panel that examines foreign acquisitions of U.S. firms for national security threats. RELEASE NOTES: Get Dwight Silverman's weekly tech newsletter each Monday In response to the heightened scrutiny, TikTok has aimed to ease government concerns by tapping an American to head its U.S. business. In May, TikTok hired a top Disney executive, Kevin Mayer, to be its chief executive. Executives at TikTok have discussed other scenarios to alleviate regulator concerns, including one in which U.S. investors like Sequoia Capital and General Atlantic could purchase TikTok back from ByteDance, people familiar with the discussions have said, with the Chinese company retaining a minority stake in the social app. Founded in 2014, TikTok has grown from an esoteric music video app into a global social media phenomenon. The app, which is used by more than 800 million people across the world, was acquired in 2017 by ByteDance. The app grew popular with young people by adding music tracks to user-generated video content. The videos often travel virally across Facebook and Twitter. Since the ByteDance acquisition, the companys Chinese offices have swollen to tens of thousands of employees. But the company has maintained a U.S. presence, with offices in New York and Los Angeles, and has continued to hire Americans aggressively. TikTok has spent the past few months bulking up its lobbying operation in Washington in an attempt to convince lawmakers that it is a U.S. company and to prevent the United States from forcing it to break away from its Chinese parent company. With help from prominent investors like SoftBank and General Atlantic, it has overhauled its presence in Washington, including hiring the former head of the Internet Association, a trade group that represents companies like Google and Facebook, and staff members from prominent members from Congress. The company has signed on more than 35 lobbyists, including David Urban, a former West Point classmate of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and an ally of Trump. The companys lobbyists have highlighted TikToks American investors and Mayers hire. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. ALGER COUNTY, MI A man who was sucked into strong Lake Superior currents survived thanks to an off-duty conservation officer. Michigan Department of Natural Resources Conservation Officer Mark Zitnik immediately jumped into rescue-mode and then into the water when he heard shouts of help while out boating with his family on July 25 off Sand Point Beach in Alger Countys Munising Bay. A conservation officer is never truly off-duty, said DNR Law Enforcement Division Chief Gary Hagler. Officer Mark Zitnik is a prime example of the training and dedication that all conservation officers commit to. Without hesitating, he risked his life while with his own family to save these two men. Zitnik heard the first yell for help as he navigated around a sandbar. He asked everyone in the boat to be quiet, and then heard another shout and saw people onshore pointing to two swimmers struggling in the water. They were about 200 yards from the boat. The two men had been wading in shallow water at the sandbar but were sucked into deep water with strong currents. Accelerating the boat to reach the swimmers, Zitnik dove from the moving vessel when he was 10-15 yards from the swimmer who was struggling more. Displaying normal signs of an active drowning, the swimmer attempted to climb on top of Zitnik saying, I cant swim. Save me. Help me. Zitnik was able to put the man in a water rescue hold involving putting the swimmers back against his chest and wrapping his arm around the swimmers chest. The hold caused the swimmer to panic more and resist the rescue. Zitnik identified himself as a conservation officer and rescue swimmer to calm the man. After a brief struggle, Zitnik swam the man to the boat. Once on the boat, the man thanked Zitnik, saying, You saved my life, man. The second swimmer was able to swim to a different boat that had stopped to assist. Both swimmers were transported back to shore where they reunited with family and friends. Zitnik patrols Alger County and has been with the DNR Law Enforcement Division since January 2015. There have been 43 drowning deaths in the Great Lakes so far in 2020, according to Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project. Twenty-two of those were in Lake Michigan. One was in Lake Superior. There have been many drowning deaths and near-drownings in Michigan this summer. RELATED: DNR Director: Enjoy Michigans water this summer, but do so safely If you dont know the water youre swimming in, ask locals about the conditions before you leave shore and always wear a life jacket or flotation device while boating, kayaking, canoeing or paddle boarding, Hagler said. Visit the DNR website for more tips on boating and Great Lakes beach safety. READ MORE: Detroit police fatally shoot man who wields sword, threw dagger at officer 3 teens found dead of suspected overdose in Southeast Michigan hotel FBI offers $25K reward in case of 4-year-old Michigan boy shot to death Child dead, 1-year-old twin injured in alleged abuse; mother, boyfriend arrested Huawei and TikTok were two of the most successful examples of globalisation. Huawei started as a small private firm in 1987 and has risen in just over 30 years to become a world champion in telecommunications. TikTok has succeeded over a much shorter time period. Having only launched in 2016, the video-sharing service is now the fourth most popular app in the world and has achieved 1.9 billion downloads worldwide. Both of these Chinese companies are now at the mercy of a widening geopolitical divide. The US has led an increasingly successful campaign to eliminate Huawei from the global market over alleged security fears, and is threatening to ban TikTok too. There has also been speculation that other Chinese tech companies such as Lenovo, ZTE and Xiaomi could be at risk. Meanwhile, HSBC has risked getting caught in the crossfire by expressing support for Chinas security crackdown on Hong Kong. These developments are signs of attempts by the US to decouple from Chinas economy and concentrate on alliances within its own political and economic sphere. It chimes with the wider drift away from globalisation towards a more regional approach to trade, reflected in the difficulties of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the rise of regional trading blocs. Regional retrenchment In response to the US moves to restrict its activities, Huawei is now trying to forge closer supply alliances with companies in China and elsewhere in Asia, such as Samsung. TikTok could be making a similar move but in the opposite direction, amid reports that several US investment capitalists might buy the brand from owner ByteDance and separate it from its Chinese version, which is called Douyin. In both cases, these companies appear to be retrenching from a global to a regional focus. These developments are being driven by the growing antagonism between China and the US but many other multinationals are facing a similar dilemma, because the global trade system is at risk of breaking down. Multinationals established their dominance by forging global supply chains that maximised the comparative advantages of each country involved. They have been encouraged since the 1940s by global trade policies that have struck down national trade barriers and deepened global economic integration. In recent years, this has been done through WTO agreements. But the wealth created by globalisation has been very unevenly distributed, which has caused domestic political disturbance in many corners of the world. Nationalist governments have responded to this new reality with protectionist measures, of which the US-China trade war is only the most prominent example. As a result, the trade liberalisation promoted by the WTO has run into difficulty. This was clear from the breakdown of the Doha Round of negotiations in the mid-2010s due to unsolvable tensions between the member states. The WTOs system for resolving trade disputes between countries has also become dysfunctional, stemming from a row over how it operates. Regrettably but not surprisingly the WTOs director-general, Roberto Azevedo, announced he was stepping down a few weeks ago a year before his term was due to end. The emerging trading order In parallel with the rise in protectionism and the WTO problems, countries have increasingly been building regional trade blocs. Examples include the renewed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Pacific rims Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTTP), and the forthcoming China-led Regional Inter-sessional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). These agreements are all about further liberalising trade between member states within a region. They do this by cutting tariffs, reducing administrative burdens by mutually recognising one anothers technical standards, harmonising public procurement rules, establishing similar employment levels and environmental protections, and giving easier market access to services. These measures significantly reduce companies operating costs, particularly if their production lines are spread across the countries in the bloc. Ultimately they make supply chains more regional, making it easier to buy and sell goods and services within the zone. But just like the US-China conflict has caused difficulties for Huawei and TikTok, this regional approach to free trade creates tensions with the multilateralism of the WTO. Regional trading blocs run against the principle on which the WTO is founded, namely most favoured nation treatment. This says that whenever one nation grants a trading concession to another, it should be extended to all other nations in the world. Whenever regional blocs expand trade within their region, producers outside the bloc who can make the same goods more cheaply end up being discriminated against. Global welfare suffers as a result. For multinationals trying to operate global supply chains and trade around the world, this also represents a spaghetti bowl of red tape. Yet the fact that we are now going to have rival trade blocs in Asia when RCEP launches at the end of the year suggests that more regionalism could be the shape of things to come. If so, this could further fragment the global trade system. It is of course possible that more regionalism could stimulate global free trade in the long run. Once the nations within a bloc have become highly economically integrated, it may encourage outsider countries to join in a attempt to take advantages of the bloc. The UKs move to participate in the CPTTP could be an early example. If this eventually encouraged multinationals to trade across regional blocs, global trade liberalisation could move back up the agenda. Equally, the superiority of certain players within certain blocs might make this happen by necessity. For example, Huaweis dominance in 5G technologies and its efforts to establish an alliance in Asia and other developing countries raises the possibility that it might one day overtake the US tech giants. If so, it may make western governments think again about whether protectionism was working as intended, and encourage them to re-embrace the system of global trade. Zhongdong Niu, Lecturer in Law, Edinburgh Napier University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The conversation Matt McCarroll, left, and Amanda Rothert, right, of SIU Carbondales Fermentation Science Institute, show the first batch of Saluki Sanitizer facility is making for use on campus. They found the institute could produce a cleaner hand sanitizing product than most available commercial versions at a significantly lower cost. (Photo by Russell Bailey) Fermentation Science Institute is producing Saluki Sanitizer for campus by Pete Rosenbery CARBONDALE, Ill. The mixture might not be barley and hops, yet the latest products of Southern Illinois University Carbondales Fermentation Science Institute will serve a vital role on campus beginning this fall. The first batch of Saluki Sanitizer was produced earlier this month and is ready for distribution for use throughout campus. Given a major shortage and the high cost of hand sanitizer due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a newsletter from the American Distilling Institute mentioned that some distilleries were moving toward making hand sanitizer. Matt McCarroll, FSI director, said the article prompted him to investigate the feasibility producing the product at SIU We spent a little time back in April researching what it would take to produce it and evaluated if it was something we could do, he said. McCarroll and Amanda Rothert, FSI lab manager, found that the institute could produce a cleaner product than most available commercial versions at a significantly lower nearly half cost. I think we are in the time of being creative to make things work, McCarroll said. The universitys Plant and Service Operations team provided 55 gallon drums and plans to centrally dispense the product from the 55-gallon quantities, which allowed the FSI to provide a dependable supply at half the market price. Thus far, FSI has produced 276 gallons of hand-sanitizer. With students returning for the start of the semester next month, officials will monitor how much hand sanitizer will be needed. We are equipped and ready to produce what is needed on campus, he said. Lot of planning FSI worked with the universitys Environmental Health and Safety office, Plant and Service Operations and building architects and engineers to ensure that the endeavor could be done safely. The 95 percent U.S. pharmaceutical-grade ethanol initially used and the finished hand sanitizer, which contains 80 percent ethanol, are both Class 3 flammable hazardous materials. Proper safety precautions and ventilation are required. The project also required registering with the FDA as a manufacturer. The 300-liter mixing tank and explosion-proof pump used in making the hand sanitizer were already slated for use later in FSIs distillery, which is in the final design process, McCarroll said. Exacting procedure Manufacturing the hand sanitizer includes a spirit mixing tank to hold nearly 80 gallons of product and the pump within a closed loop system. Exact amounts of hydrogen peroxide, glycerol, denatonium benzoate and purified water used to dilute the product so it contains 80 percent ethanol are added into the tank before the 55 gallons of ethanol is introduced. The product mixes in the closed loop system and is then sampled to measure for alcohol content. Adjustments to the amount of ethanol or water can be then be made to reach the proper 80 percent ethanol density, Rothert said. Its an advantage that we have a full testing laboratory available, McCarroll said. FSI is following the World Health Organizations formula also recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and the FDA. McCarroll and Rothert noted the formula the university is using is cleaner than many hand sanitizers sold commercially. Due to the pandemic and shortage, the FDA loosened the criteria on the purity of the ethanol for use. While still deemed safe for use, the less pure sanitizer has a stronger odor than that manufactured by the FSI. Good training for students McCarroll noted students will have the opportunity to become involved with the project once they return to campus for the start of classes next month. Students will receive safety training and learn to implement a standard operating procedure. It will give them an invaluable learning opportunity to work on something that is a little larger scale and on a product that is being brought to market, he said. Available for outside sales McCarroll noted that each batch produces about 66 gallons of hand sanitizer, which leaves about 11 gallons after the 55-gallon drums are filled. The remaining hand sanitizer is being packaged into one-gallon containers and plans are for those to become available for sale, he said. President Akufo-Addo is urging all Muslims to use the Eid-ul-Adha celebrations to pray for peace as the nation prepares for the 2020 polls. President Akufo-Addo made the call in a statement to the Muslim community wishing them well ahead of their celebration. Eid-ul-Adha is a celebration of the true essence of Islam, peace, and submission to the will of Allah. I pray we use the occasion of Eid-ul-Adha to reflect on the spirit of sacrifice and loyalty that inspired Prophet Ibrahim to accept Allahs command to sacrifice his son Ishmael. Our nation requires that we sacrifice our abilities and talents to the nation-building of a Ghana Beyond Aid. I urge all Muslims to take advantage of this Holy Month of Zhul-hajj to pray for the peace of our nation, as we count down to election 2020. President Akufo-Addo assured the general public of creating opportunities for all but not a particular section of people. On my part, I pledge to continue to do my utmost to help build a society of opportunities for all, irrespective of creed, ethnicity, or gender. The President further urged Muslims to observe the COVID-19 preventive protocols during the Eid celebrations. Even as we celebrate, I urge all of us to continue to observe the protocols that will keep us safe from COVID-19. I am confident that, Insha Allah, next year, we shall celebrate together in a more brotherly and sisterly fashion. Akufo-Addos message to Muslims ---citinewsroom Travel Travelers Return to Hpa-an as Myanmars Domestic Tourism Reopens Travel blogger Kyaw Soe Lwin with a horse at Hpa-An Hideout Cafe in Hpa-An. / Kyaw Soe Lwin As Myanmar has allowed domestic tourism to reopen, businesses in tourist hotspots have welcomed back travelersincluding foreigners already in the country. Since the beginning of the June, most popular travel destinations, including Mandalay, Bagan, Pyin Oo Lwin, Inle Lake, Kalaw, Hsipaw, Hpa-An and others, have opened up. Among them is Hpa-An, the capital of Karen State and a picturesque town with lush green rice fields, limestone mountains and huge caves. Located 270 km from Yangon in eastern Myanmar, the destination has become viral on social media and popular among local travelers. Since the middle of June, the number of travelers in Hpa-An has increased amazingly, with hotels 80 percent booked even on the weekdays, said Ma Khine Wint Phyu, director of sales and marketing for Amata Hotel Group, which runs the My Hpa-An Residence hotel. Compared with the high season, travel to Hpa-An is up 20 percent during COVID-19, she added. This whole July is fully bookedall the visitors are local and only 3 percent are expats. In late March, Myanmar went into lockdown and all schools, restaurants and hotels were closed, with most people staying home. But since the start of June, the government has eased some restrictions as the country has seen few local transmissions of COVID-19. People suffocated at home for over two months during lockdown and they are all badly wanting to relax by travelling, Ma Khine Wint Phyu said. Hpa-An is greener in monsoon season and everywhere is green and freshand its not very far from Yangon. Thats why people are choosing Hpa-An, I think. Hotel employees now check the temperatures of visitors before they enter and visitors must wear masks before they check-in. All of our staff also wear masks, face shields and gloves and practice social distancing from guests, Ma Khine Winy Phyu said. She added that all rooms are sprayed with disinfectant one day before guests arrive as well as after they leave. Hotels are also offering special promotion rates on rooms. Hpa-An is only five hours drive from Yangon and many activities like hiking, kayaking and cave trekking are there, popular local food and travel blogger Ko Kyaw Soe Lwin told The Irrawaddy in Hpa-An. All the views are beautiful and scenic, and its more crowded in weekend. Warning notes and signs related to COVID-19 are placed in every hotel and restaurant, but some travelers are not following the rules, he added. For example, some people are not wearing masks and forget about social distancing while visiting the Hpa-An night market. The authorities from the region should be strict with the rules, like to limit the number of people entering the main attractions in order to have social distancing. He said that the increase in people means more travelers are also throwing trash along the way while trekking and hiking, polluting the area with plastic. Hpa-An itself is always beautiful during the monsoon or winter, Ko Kyaw Soe Lwin said. There are plenty of good restaurants and its a nice spot to spend the weekend. Hpa-An has many tourist spots, including mount Taung Wine, mount Zwekabin, Kyauk Kalap pagoda, Kawgun cave, Saddan cave, boat tours to Mawlamyine, bike tours around Hpa-An and more. Domestic tourism develop more in the coming months. The tourism industry has to depend on local travellers during this COVID-19 situation, I think, said Ma Khine Wint Phyu. You may also like these stories: Myanmar Closes Bagans Temples Ahead of Weekend Holiday Amid COVID-19 Fears Singaporeans Urged to Take Local Holidays to Boost Tourism Amid Virus Garbo Bar at Myanmars Melia Hotel Reopens With New Giant Burger Set As Domestic Tourism Reopens in Myanmar, Businesses Struggle to Get Back on Their Feet The Ukrainian party will apply to the Republic of Belarus for the extradition of the fighters of the Russian private military company of Wagner suspected of war crimes in Donbas in compliance with all envisaged procedures, the presidential press service reported. The press service of the President's Office says that the Belarusian authorities have published a list of 33 people detained in the Republic of Belarus on July 29, 2020. Consultations with the Belarusian side are currently underway. "Ukraine will insist on the extradition of all persons involved in war crimes in the temporarily occupied territory and regarding whom the Security Service of Ukraine has collected sufficient evidence. The entire world community is extremely negative about crimes against peace and security of mankind, so the actions of these people must be carefully and properly investigated, and the guilty must be punished," the message reads. New Delhi, July 31 : Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday said that the government will soon allow 100 per cent FDI in the rental housing segment. Speaking at a webinar, the minister also announced that the real estate sector will have a 'Permanent Working Group' to attend any issues or matters pertaining to the sector for faster decision making. "Responding to a demand raised by NAREDCO about permitting a 100 per cent FDI in affordable rental housing sector, Hardeep Singh Puri announced that the Government will soon allow it," a National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO) statement said. The minister also launched "CREDAI Awaas App" and NAREDCO's online portal "HousingforAll.com". In a bid to resurrect from a continuous decline in the housing sales and revive the demand amid the Covid pandemic, NAREDCO announced that developers will soon offer over 2.70 lakh ready-to-move-in houses for online sales to the home buyers in a housing sale drive. In this festival, developers from all over India will list their housing properties for sale on the exclusively-created "NAREDCO Housing For All", it said. Niranjan Hiranandani, National President of NAREDCO said: "The real estate sector needs an immediate demand shock and unlocking the potential of unsold housing inventory is the immediate remedy. This e-commerce platform is curated supporting the 'Digital India' initiative which will not only boost the sales process but also instil confidence among the respective stakeholders." Further, the CREDAI Awaas App, a platform to discover residential projects online would offer projects from 220 cities across the country. The app aims to facilitate transparent home buying in India of RERA approved projects by CREDAI developers, said a CREDAI statement. Jaxay Shah, Chairman, CREDAI National, said: "Proptech is the future of Real Estate and initiatives like the CREDAI Awaas App will be instrumental in bridging the hiatus between the customer and developer in the coming days. The significant feature of the app is that the dream of buying a home remains a click away and one can simultaneously connect with developers across India." The Housing Ministry had directed CREDAI & NAREDCO at the 3rd RERA Conclave, held at Lucknow in 2019, to launch online project discovery platforms which would be RERA regulated and would help the sector be more proficient when it comes to home buying. "The CREDAI Awaas app will aid developers in selling their finished projects faster and improve home buyers' sentiment at large," the industry body said. President Volodymyr Zelensky told members of the Supervisory Board of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, "The establishment of the memorial is extremely important for our country" KYIV, Ukraine, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- At an online meeting to discuss construction of the future Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in the city of Kyiv, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Center's Supervisory Board that he supports its construction: "The establishment of the memorial is extremely important for our country. Its history contains a lot of tragic pages. But we must bear them in mind and tell the coming generations about them. Such moments should stay in the history of Ukraine. They are in our talks, in our memory, in books. It would be very good if this project were brought into life and we built history together with you." President Zelensky also emphasized the importance of remembering the Ukrainian "Righteous Among the Nations," who saved Jews in the Holocaust. In a significant development, the meeting participants agreed to form a working committee, headed by Andrii Yermak, Head of the Presidential Administration. The committee will coordinate regarding the framework of the Memorial's establishment as well as to prepare for the 80th anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy. Supervisory Board member, President of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, stressed that the future memorial must give visitors a clear answer to the question of what is anti-Semitism and draw the world's attention to Babyn Yar. Ronald Lauder said, "This is the third generation that knows about the Holocaust. But while almost everybody knows about Auschwitz, the history of Babyn Yar is almost unknown to young people. I want people to visit Kyiv in order to see the Babyn Yar Memorial, to understand what happened here. We have a chance now to do something fantastic. The more people that know what happened at Babyn Yar, the better off the world will be." The Head of the Supervisory Board, Natan Sharansky pointed out that the history of Babyn Yar is not only of importance for Jewish people, as it is also the site where other nationalities perished, in particular, Ukrainian, Belarus, and Polish people. Natan Sharansky said, "This initiative is not just a monument, but a critical memorial, with a museum, a research center, contributing to raising the degree of tolerance in society, playing a global role in Ukraine's positioning in the world. Such institutions throughout the world are established in partnership with the state and supported by its key officials." The first President of Ukraine (1991-1994) Leonid Kravchuk, who has also joined the Supervisory Board, emphasized that the future Memorial will make an indisputable historical statement. "This Project is interesting, important, and highly comprehensive. It is part of history. Babyn Yar is a terrible tragedy and that's why we have to create an unrivalled memory of it, to make the best project possible." Another Supervisory Board member, former-Minister of Foreign Affairs and Vice-Chancellor of Germany (1998-2005) Joschka Fischer, said "For my country, it's very important not to forget and to contribute everything that we can towards memory of the Holocaust and this terrible crime." In September 1941, just days after the Nazis occupied Kyiv, around 34,000 of the city's Jews were marched to the Babyn Yar ravine and shot dead over a two-day period. Later massacres were also carried out at the same site, killing victims of other minorities and nationalities. The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center will respectfully commemorate the victims of the tragedy and promote the humanization of mankind through preserving memory and study of the history of the Holocaust. About the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre is a non-governmental charity whose purpose is to preserve and cultivate the memory of the Holocaust and the Babyn Yar tragedy in Ukraine by turning the Babyn Yar area into a place of remembrance. The Foundation's mission is to worthily honour the memory of the victims of the tragedy and to contribute to the humanization of society through preserving and studying the history of the Holocaust. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1222366/President_Ukraine_Volodymyr_Zelensky.jpg On Thursday, ten whales were found dead on a Indonesian beach. However, locals rushed to save a still alive member of the pod. They tried to push it back into the sea. Talking to AFP the head of the region's water conservation agency Ikram Sangadji said that the mammals, ranging from 2-6 metres (6.5-20 feet) in length, were found in the remote province of East Nusa Tenggara. AFP Images show a group of about 10 people struggling to save the eleventh whale that washed up on the shore, and push it back in the ocean. Finally, after much labour the men managed to get the creature into water. The mammal that was scarred with deep cuts appeared to swim off by itself, prompting loud cheers from the group. A video of the rescue is going viral as well. One can see the amount of effort it took for the group to push the whale towards the sea. Also read: 75 Ft Dead Blue Whale Washes Up On Beach In Indonesia, Leaves Experts Flummoxed According to Sangadji, the stricken pod were likely short-finned pilot whales. Short-finned pilot whales are highly social and are often involved in mass strandings. After rescuing the one whale, the locals dug graves to respectfully bury the carcasses of the ten dead whales. Their bodies had deep cuts which could have been caused by them coming it contact with sharp rocks. Also Read: Italian Coast Guard Rescues Sperm Whale Caught In Illegal Fishing Nets AFP Cross-currents off beaches pose a danger to whales as they can get caught between reefs close to shore. Thanks to the locals at least one whale swam to safety and possibly a longer life. Also Read: Drone Footage Captures Mother Humpback Whale Protecting Calf From Pod Of Killer Whales Pandemic dramatically alters energy consumption patterns, leaving suppliers vulnerable DENVER, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered electricity consumption patterns, shifting energy supply and demand curves that may lead to structural changes in the U.S. power sector sooner than previously expected. According to a new report from CoBanks Knowledge Exchange Division, the recent load recovery appears to be short-lived and energy demand is unlikely to revisit pre-pandemic levels before 2022. While residential demand has staved off the worst of the losses, there are worrisome signs that this sector will also begin to weaken. In particular, the prospect that one-in-five Americans has already been dislocated by the pandemic suggests an additional drag on total demand is coming before year-end. As federal jobless benefits lapse, service disconnections wont be offset by new service requests. Traditional relief measures for energy suppliers like accelerated load recovery, higher wholesale power prices or rate relief might not be available this time around, said Teri Viswanath, lead economist, power, water and energy, CoBank. This leads us to believe that the power sector will likely need to make tough choices to navigate the pandemic. The available avenues for upstream adaptation start with belt tightening. Namely, shifting or deferring capital spending and reassessing underutilized assets are in order. More to the point, the prospect of a sustained drag on demand might fast-track coal unit retirements, as owners simply find the operating overhead too burdensome. Generation losses over the past quarter have largely been borne by U.S. coal-fired power plants. Coal generations market share has been trending down since 2010. The pandemic has intensified fuel competition, accelerated this development and possibly fast-forwarded what would have otherwise been a decade-long cycle of energy transition in the U.S. dispatch stack. Story continues The full report, Power Sector Demand Destruction Forces Hard Choices, is available on cobank.com. About CoBank CoBank is a $158 billion cooperative bank serving vital industries across rural America. The bank provides loans, leases, export financing and other financial services to agribusinesses and rural power, water and communications providers in all 50 states. The bank also provides wholesale loans and other financial services to affiliated Farm Credit associations serving more than 70,000 farmers, ranchers and other rural borrowers in 23 states around the country. CoBank is a member of the Farm Credit System, a nationwide network of banks and retail lending associations chartered to support the borrowing needs of U.S. agriculture, rural infrastructure and rural communities. Headquartered outside Denver, Colorado, CoBank serves customers from regional banking centers across the U.S. and also maintains an international representative office in Singapore. CONTACT: Corporate Communications CoBank 800-542-8072 news@cobank.com Dave Harding Knowledge Exchange Media Relations 262-825-7926 david.h.harding@outlook.com The election board members follow state statute, which states that if the signatures dont correspond or if a signature is missing the ballot has to be rejected, Angerman said. In a typical election, there is one team of election board members reviewing signatures brought to their attention, but with the large number of absentee ballots received in the 2020 primary there were two teams of election board members reviewing signatures, she said. We freed all of them as a good will gesture so that they may pass their Eid days with their families and also we announced the cease-fire in order to create a conducive atmosphere for the start of intra-Afghan negotiations, Shaheen said. But on the other hand the head of the Kabul administration, instead of removing hurdles in the way of peace and intra-Afghan negotiations, is creating ... hurdles and obstacles. With monuments and other memorials honoring everyone from Robert E. Lee to Christopher Columbus tumbling, James Farmer Hall is a laudable change. If we can assume that humankind becomes more enlightened as we stumble along, the sins of a 15th-century explorer or a 19th-century general are more excusable than the actions of a governor who served some 60 years after the Civil War ended. In addition to the racial backwardness exhibited by Trinkle, there is eugenics, a practice that should have made any decent human squeamish even a century ago. Until the year 2000, the Virginia Press Associations W.S. Copeland Memorial Award for Journalistic Integrity and Community Service was the VPAs most valued award. Then, it was revealed that Walter S. Copeland, longtime Virginia newspaper publisher, had, like Trinkle, been a devoted supporter of segregation and eugenics. The Copeland Award was renamed almost immediately. It has been said that newspaper articles are the first draft of history. However, it should be noted that history often requires more than one additional draft. YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. The Armenia-USA parliamentary friendship group of the National Assembly of Armenia and the U.S. Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues signed a memorandum of understanding, reaffirming the importance of strengthening the partnership between Armenia and the USA, ARMENPRESS reports the signing of the memorandum took place through a video-conference. Lilit Makunts signed from the Armenian side, while Rep. Frank Pallone signed from the American side. US Ambassador to Armenia Lynne Tracy noted that she is greatly honored to salute the virtual signing of the historical document. ''By the signing of the document today we will deepen the partnership of 28 years between Armenia and the USA. Partnership, for which we have invested over 2 billion USD to improve the lives of the Armenian people, helping the Armenian people to improve democracy, economy and social management'', she said. HMD Global is looking for a grand entry to this year's IFA in Berlin. The Finnish company is poised to launch as many as three smartphones, Nokia 2.4, Nokia 6.3, and Nokia 7.3, at the tech conference. The caretaker of Nokia's mobile phone portfolio launched the Nokia 8.3 and Nokia 5.3 smartphones back in May but its Nokia 9.3 PureView still remains to be unconfirmed so far. At IFA, HMD Global is not expected to launch its 2020 flagship, instead, it is going to upgrade its mid- and low-ranges of smartphones. All three Nokia-branded smartphones have been spotted on certification websites. The Nokia 2.4, codenamed Wolverine, has now been spotted on Geekbench 5. The listing has revealed the smartphone is going to have a 6.5-inch display and a 4500mAh battery, as opposed to the 6.2-inch display and a 4000mAh battery on the Nokia 2.3. The Nokia 2.4 will be powered by the entry-level MediaTek Helio P22 processor with eight Cortex-A53 cores and a PowerVR GE8320 GPU. It will pack 2GB of RAM and run Android 10. However, as per a tipster cited in a Nokiamob.net report, the Nokia 2.4 will also have a 3GB/32GB variant. Coming to other specifications, the Nokia 2.4 will have a 13-megapixel and 2-megapixel camera setup at the back while a 5-megapixel shooter will sit on the front. The Nokia 2.4 is expected to arrive in a Light Purple colour but there could be more of those. While the Nokia 2.4 will be a budget smartphone, the Nokia 6.3 is going to find its position in the mid-range and the Nokia 7.3 will be priced a little higher. The successor to the Nokia 6.2 and Nokia 7.2, respectively, will come with ZEISS optics on the cameras at the back, which will be an upgrade over the last generation's. The Nokia 7.3 is said to run a Snapdragon 700-series chipset, which means there will be 5G connectivity on it. But, according to reports, there will also be a 4G variant for the markets that do not have 5G ready yet. The Nokia 6.3, on the other hand, will have the Snapdragon 670 or Snapdragon 675 chipset. HMD Global has also a device codenamed Gamora Plus, which has been spotted on the Geekbench 5 benchmarking website. While the commercial name of this device is not known, its specifications are available via the listing. The Nokia Gamora Plus has a model number TA-1258. The same model was spotted on TENAA certification website a day before. It has a Unisoc processor, which is expected to be similar to the Helio P22 in performance but has eight Cortex-A55 cores and a GE8322 GPU under the hood. Moreover, it will have 2GB and 3GB of RAM options, as revealed by Geekbench and TENAA, respectively. There will also be Android 10 on this smartphone and not the Android One version. For now, it is not clear what Gamora Plus device's commercial name will be. But it will definitely be not the Nokia 9.3 PureView. The dust appeared to be well and truly settled on Thursday evening as James Argent moved on from his recent love split by partying with close friends in Marbella. The Only Way Is Essex star is a single man following the collapse of his relationship with Gemma Collins, and he was in high spirits during an appearance at popular local nightspot Olivia's La Cala. With the venue owned by old friend and former co-star Elliott Wright, Argent, 32, was in good company as he let his hair down with Romana Bright - the younger sister of ex-girlfriend Lydia. Good times: The dust appeared to be well and truly settled on Thursday evening as James Argent moved on from his recent love split by partying with close friends in Marbella Sporting a plain white shirt with a seasonal revere collar, Argent beamed as he made his way inside the venue after pausing for a photo opportunity with Elliott and a troupe of flamboyantly dressed dancers. The TV personality added to his look with a pair of plain black trousers, while brown suede shoes rounded off his smart-casual look. Joining Argent for a night of revelry, Romana caught the eye in a thigh-skimming white evening dress teamed with strappy silver heels and statement earrings. Upbeat: Argent beamed as he made his way inside nightspot Olivia's La Cala after pausing for a photo opportunity with owner Elliott Wright and a troupe of flamboyantly dressed dancers The appearance comes after Argent and recent ex Gemma ended their relationship in July after she revealed a string of abuse messages, purportedly sent to her by the TV personality prior to their split. It's understood that Argent had made derogatory remarks abut her weight after she suggested that he had bought another woman dinner. The series of texts began with Gemma saying: 'What man pays for another woman!!!', while Arg responded by saying: 'Insensitive.' Make way: Joining Argent for a night of revelry, Romana Bright - the younger sister of his ex-girlfriend Lydia Bright - caught the eye in a thigh-skimming white evening dress 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. All over: The appearance comes after Argent and recent ex Gemma (pictured) ended their relationship after she revealed abuse messages, purportedly sent to her by the TV personality prior to their split The self-proclaimed diva has decided to take some time off social media, citing that she was 'devastated' and 'heartbroken' by the exchange. However after returning to the UK from her own 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) It's been a tough year for Argent, with him recently admitting that he is a cocaine addict and that he had 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 lost five stone in the process. Bryan Callen, seen here in 2015, is being accused of sexual impropriety by four women. (Michael S. Schwartz / WireImage) As soon as she saw his name, Katherine Fiore Tigerman broke out in a cold sweat. Her shirt damp, she scrolled through the text messages from her best friend alerting her that comedian Chris DElia was being accused of sexual misconduct by scores of women on Twitter. Shed never watched the comics stand-up. She just knew he was the best friend of Bryan Callen, a fellow comedian and actor. And Callen, shed long told those closest to her, had once raped her. Lightheaded, she logged on to Twitter to scan the allegations. She found that many of the tweets referred not just to DElias supposed misconduct but to that of his tight circle of male comedians. My first thought was: Is something going to happen with Bryan? Tigerman recalled. Reading all the comments, I thought: Here it comes. Ive known how terrible this person is for 20 years. And maybe Im not the only one. In a statement to The Times, Callen adamantly denied raping Tigerman and said their encounter was consensual. Tigerman is not the only woman to say Callen was sexually inappropriate. Since June 17 the day DElia started trending on social media three additional women told The Times that they had been mistreated by Callen, 53, describing sexual incidents ranging from assault to misconduct to disturbing comments. Their stories suggest a pattern of behavior going back at least as far as 1999, when, Tigerman said, Callen held her down and forced her to have sex with him as she pleaded with him to stop. In the years since, three women said, the cast member of The Goldbergs continued to be both verbally and physically aggressive. An American Apparel saleswoman said that in 2009, Callen pinned her against the wall of a fitting room against her will and began to kiss her. An aspiring actress who had a four-year affair with Callen while he was married said he told her in 2016 that women have a biological, primal desire to be raped. One year later, a female comedian said, he suggested she give him oral sex in exchange for stage time and money. Story continues Callen denied all these accounts. Let me be very clear: I have never raped, forced myself upon any woman nor offered to trade stage time for sex. EVER," he said in a statement to The Times. "I know the truth. And I can only hold my head up high, remain true to myself, my family, my audience and know that I will not allow the cancel culture to subvert what I know and as importantly, what they know, is the truth. In recent weeks, Callen has come to the defense of DElia, who said last month that hed only ever had consensual relationships and hadnt knowingly pursued underage females. On a June 18 episode of his podcast, The Fighter and the Kid, Callen described DElia as a ladies' man whom hed never seen or heard engaging in illegal activity. And right now I have to believe that, because hes still a friend, he said. Bryan Callen, pictured in ABC's "Schooled," left, and Chris D'Elia. (ABC/Getty Images) Despite that assertion, within days, Callen had scrubbed his Instagram account of any trace of DElia. Previously, the comic had played up their friendship on the app, where he has 897,000 followers about 1.4 million fewer than DElia. They appeared onstage together at the Comedy Store, did stints on Joe Rogans popular podcast and had closed a deal this summer to make a prank show for Netflix. (The streaming network scrapped plans for the docuseries after the headlines about DElia surfaced.) Even Tigerman, whod tried her best to avoid Callen since that night in 1999, was aware that Callen's friendship with D'Elia was part of his public persona. Every few years, she said against her better judgment she'd Google his name, and inevitably most of the search results linked Callen to DElia. When Tigerman first met him in 1994, Callen was not established as an actor or comedian. He had yet to be cast on the inaugural season of MADtv, the sketch comedy series she herself would join four years after his departure in 1997. He hadnt landed roles on prestigious television shows like Oz or Kingdom or scored cameos from his pal, director Todd Phillips, in films like The Hangover. And it would be years before he became a series regular on the ABC family sitcom The Goldbergs, playing a gym teacher and coach who was later one of the main figures on the short-lived spinoff series Schooled. In fact, Tigerman's father, actor Bill Fiore, gave Callen one of his first acting gigs: a role in a mid-90s New York City theater production. Years later, when Tigerman moved to L.A. in 1999, she ran into Callen at a bank and he expressed excitement at the prospect of showing the 23-year-old around town. So they became friends, meeting up at group dinners and trading stories about auditions. That spring, she booked a television pilot, and Callen suggested he take her out to a celebratory dinner at Chaya, the late industry haunt. When he arrived to pick her up at her West Hollywood apartment, Callen immediately commented on her outfit, she said. I come downstairs in these dumb jeans and a gray long sleeve shirt and he goes, What are you wearing a bra for? Girls dont wear bras. Take it off! recalled Tigerman, now 44. She laughed it off and they got in his car. Katherine Fiore Tigerman alleges that Bryan Callen raped her in 1999. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) At dinner, she ordered a glass of wine and excused herself to go to the restroom. By the end of the meal, shed consumed only about half the glass but felt off nauseated and disoriented. Still, when Callen suggested they head to a movie theater after dinner, she obliged. Back in the car, he attempted to find a newsstand where he could purchase a paper to look up showtimes but ultimately decided to stop at his house to do so. At his home above the Sunset Strip, the two sat down on the couch and Callen began kissing Tigerman. She was uncomfortable and still felt ill, so she went to the bathroom. I remember looking in the mirror and being, like, OK, you just have to tell him to take you home. This isnt going right, Tigerman said. I needed to sit with him and have a conversation about how we were best buds and I was in love with another dude. But when she emerged from the restroom, she said, Callen was immediately outside the doorway. He moved behind her, staring at her in the mirror. Look how hot you are. You could be a Playboy Playmate, she said he told her. Within moments, she said, she found herself in his bedroom, where he pushed her down on the mattress. As he ran his hands over her body, she said, she kept saying no. Her mind drifted to a crime show shed recently seen on TV in which a woman repeated her name aloud to her abuser in an attempt to humanize herself to him. So I said, 'Im Katherine. Im Katherine. Its me. Please, this is not what I want to be doing right now, she said. And hes like, Youre gonna love this. Were just going to get this out of the way. Youre going to love this. Youre going to be my girlfriend. She felt powerless. If she screamed, she feared no one would hear her from his private home. She didnt think she could escape from under the weight of his body. So she checked out, eventually ceasing her pleading and remaining silent. This is not how Callen remembers the incident. He stressed to The Times on Thursday that Tigerman's allegation of rape is "demonstrably false," saying they had "BOTH agreed to have sex." Tigerman said that after the 1999 encounter was over, she immediately began crying and searching for her underwear. Her bottoms had been thrown on the ground, where Callens dog had chewed holes in them. Noticing her tears, he tried to calm her down. Aw, come on. What am I, a big bad rapist? Im not a big bad rapist, she said he told her. Come on, youre gonna be my girlfriend now. We needed to get this out of the way. Callen did not respond to a question about this comment. Tigerman, now 44, said she felt inspired to speak out about Callen after reading similar allegations about his friend Chris D'Elia. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Tigerman told Callen he needed to drive her home, which he did. Back at her apartment, she called her best friend and then her boyfriend, Rino Romano, both of whom remembered her distraught phone calls and corroborated Tigermans account. Romano drove to be with her, but she was so upset she wouldnt let him touch her. I just wanted to kill the guy, Romano recalled. I tried to gently encourage her to do something about it, but she insisted it was better to put it behind her. Indeed, Tigerman acknowledged, she threatened to break up with Romano if he told anyone what she'd told him. She feared that if her father found out, he would get into a physical altercation with Callen and end up in jail. And the idea of going to the cops and submitting a rape kit felt too physically invasive. So she went alone to get pregnancy and STD tests. Eventually, Callen stopped calling. But Tigerman would go on to confide in those closest to her about the alleged assault. Within a year, she had shared the story with a fellow actress. Her husband, Gabriel Tigerman, heard the story early on in their courtship in 2006. And her best friend, actress Jenny Wade, learned about the incident in 2014. All three confirmed these accounts in interviews with The Times. As Callen's star rose, other women said, his brazen behavior continued. In 2009, Callen walked into an American Apparel store in Pittsburgh. Rachel Green, an employee there, had no idea who he was. But her colleagues recognized him and pulled up IMDb to show her his credits. The actor, meanwhile, had ventured to the second floor of the store an area that required employee supervision. So Green trailed him upstairs and helped him gather clothes to try on. He was friendly, she said, though he did emerge from the fitting room wearing only his boxer briefs numerous times. The following day, Callen returned to the store and requested Greens help. This time, he was wearing a Speedo. It was one of those tight gross little things, she said. He ran out of the fitting room to grab something, so I went in to get the clothes hed already tried on. And then he comes in, pushes me against the wall, closes the curtains and starts kissing my neck as he asks me if Im going to get in trouble. Shocked, Green said she pushed Callen off her and ran downstairs, telling her colleagues hed just attempted to make out with her. I remember not really taking it seriously, which is something I have felt guilty about, frankly, for a couple of years, said Lydia, a co-worker who asked that her last name not be used. Lydia is one of two co-workers who told The Times that Green immediately told them something untoward had occurred with Callen that day. As Id see him on TV over the years, Id be like, That was really not OK, and I tried to laugh it off. Callen denied ever forcing himself on any woman. Bryan Callen performs at KROQ's "Kevin & Bean's April Foolishness" in 2018. (Timothy Norris / Getty Images) Callen often played up his reputation as a self-proclaimed dirtbag. In a 2016 episode of his podcast featuring comedian Whitney Cummings as a guest, Callen joked about how hed been sexually harassing her since early in her career. Cummings then revealed that Callen had once asked for a ride home after a comedy show and pulled his penis out in her car. He said he didnt remember the incident but believed her version of events. My definition on creepy is that if Im into you, youre gonna know it, front and center, he said. Its when guys kind of pull this gentleman thing and hes being a really nice guy and then you look and hes got his dick out. Youre a serial killer. Be honest about your creepy. Which, of course, Ive always been. Though Cummings was laughing as she recounted the story on The Fighter and the Kid, she said she gleaned that Callen was the type of guy who does not hear no a lot or you dont listen to it. You dont take it seriously. Im a rapist, Callen replied in jest. I remember being like, Oh, Im just going to have to have sex with him because hes not going to take no for an answer. Im just gonna do this to get him to go away, said Cummings on the show. She declined to comment for this article. Callen, who described Cummings as a "good friend," said that they had "ranted ad nauseam about showing her my penis on my podcast, which is no secret to anyone at this point anywhere." Whitney Cummings, seen here with Chris D'Elia, a former costar, against whom she spoke out last month. (Associated Press) Cummings is not the only female comedian who remembers a surprising experience with Callen. Tiffany King met Callen while performing on the comedy circuit in Hollywood, and though he was always touchy feely with her, she counted him as a friend. Hed given her stage time before one of his gigs in Houston, so when she found herself down on her luck in 2017, she put his name on a list of contacts to reach out to. In the midst of a contentious divorce and fighting for custody of her daughter, King had been seeking financial aid from colleagues. At the time, she was living in Pennsylvania and saw that Callen had a show within driving distance. When she arrived at the Helium Comedy Club, she approached Callen and began crying as she relayed her situation. He goes, Are you on drugs?" King said. I dont understand you, Tiffany. Youre a really beautiful woman. But theres something thats always been off about you. You need to learn how to work with what youve got. He declined to offer King monetary help but invited her out to dinner after his show. She said they ate and then Callen asked if she could give him and his opening act a ride back to their Airbnb. About two minutes from the destination, she said the opener who goes by the name Stevie Blue Eyes but is legally named Steve Pearson asked to be let out of the car. King said she obliged and continued down the road to drop off Callen. But instead of getting out of the vehicle, she said, he asked: How about that blow job? Im not going to give you a blow job for stage time, she responded. No, Ill give you some money too, King said he told her. She said she rebuffed him and drove home in tears. But in his statement to The Times, Callen denied ever offering to "trade stage time for sex." And Pearson who spent time in federal prison for selling drugs insisted that King dropped off Callen and him simultaneously. "We got out at the same time and went upstairs," he said. "There was no separation. He was never alone with her." The Times spoke to two female comedians who said King told them each about the incident that year. King also shared the experience in a one-woman show she performed in January. It was so humiliating, she said. He was somebody I looked up to as a comedian who had control over something I loved. If it had been another woman, she could have done it and killed herself the next day because she felt so horrible. Comedian Tiffany King, who says Bryan Callen asked her to give him oral sex in exchange for stage time and money. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) A young woman who had a four-year affair with Callen said she felt so devalued and demoralized by her illicit interactions with the comic that her mental health suffered. Claire Ganshert was 23 when she met Callen in 2012 while working as a barista at a New York City coffee shop. He was in town filming the movie My Man Is a Loser. When the actor walked into the cafe, Ganshert recognized him immediately from an episode of Sex and the City. As she served him, they struck up a conversation and she revealed that she was hoping to become an actress. He invited her to set after her shift, and she was thrilled, her eyes wide as she saw his costars like John Stamos in the flesh. The grandiosity of it all I was so starstruck and beside myself, and that transferred to Bryan, said Ganshert, now 31. It started an infatuation on my part. During the five weeks Callen was in town filming, he and Ganshert began a sexual relationship. She said she was not yet aware he had been married since 2008. After the movie wrapped, Ganshert said, she and Callen continued to see each other in New York and Los Angeles. He told her he wanted to help her with her career, offering her advice on how to secure parts. He would say things like, When you go into an audition room, you definitely cant wear an engagement ring. You need to make them think they can fuck you, she said. Im a theater actor, but he kept telling me I needed to be funny and create content based off of me sexualizing myself. One of her co-workers at the time said she remembered thinking: This guy is sleazy. Hes, what, 40? It wasnt illegal, but she was an impressionable, aspiring actor, said the friend, one of two who confirmed Gansherts account to The Times. She talked about him all the time. He brought her to things, and hed always say hed introduce her to a casting director or somebody. It was this weird relationship where he was sort of like a mentor but they would hook up. Still, Ganshert was so taken with his extreme and aggressive energy that she pushed down any negative feelings. Once, during a 2016 visit in Philadelphia, she said, he told her that women have a biological, primal desire to be raped. She did not challenge him. Callen said Ganshert's allegations were false, arguing that she was "mud-slinging" in an attempt to "get her name in the press." He also noted that in 2019, she wrote him an email "apologizing for her unrelated misdeeds and promising going forward to only treat [him] with kindness and respect." He did not specify what misdeeds he was referring to, but Ganshert said she did apologize to him last year for showing a friend messages Callen sent her. After ending her sexual relationship with Callen in 2016, Ganshert said, she began seeing a therapist who helped her realize that the comic took advantage of the power dynamic between them. I was just a wide-eyed girl starting out in the industry when he swooped in, Ganshert said. There were these moments that were so intense, where it felt like he was really seeing me for my sexuality and my mouth and my body. Now, I see that for what it was. When I would start talking, he didnt care what I had to say. No, he didnt expose himself to me backstage; the things he did were more in the gray area. And I think that story is relatable. I am not a victim but Im standing up for that 23-year-old girl by saying that a 45-year-old man should have known better. Tigerman is hopeful that speaking about her experience with Callen will encourage other women to feel less alone. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Tigerman, too, said she views the act of speaking out about Callen as an act of love for her younger self. As she navigated Hollywood, she often encountered reminders of what had happened. After booking MADtv, she turned up to find Callens nameplate still on her dressing room door. A friend even persuaded her not to bail on a chemistry read with him for a television series because it was just work. In his statement, Callen pointed out that Tigerman did multiple auditions to play his character's wife on a show "that would have had us working together every day for years." "That is not what rape victims do," he said. Tigerman, who remembered auditioning with Callen only once, said she was at Mel's Diner with a friend when her agents called her to tell her about the chemistry read. She hung up, began sobbing and told her friend she could not work with a man who she said assaulted her. But her friend, also an actor, advised her to "not let [Callen] win. If you miss out on this job, then he wins," she recalled. "She said she was raped by an actor she was supposed to do a chemistry read with," the friend told The Times, although he said he no longer remembered the name of the actor. "And I remember forcing her to go to the audition. I am a very persuasive person. I gave an Independence Day speech. 'By you not going, that person wins.'" Tigerman also had aging parents whose medical care she was financing, and felt like she shouldn't pass up the opportunity for a gig. But at the audition, she said, she was so shaky and anxious that she botched it. She said she "stupidly" never considered the possibility that she might end up working with Callen on a permanent basis. Indeed, she didn't get the job. And eventually, she left acting though not because of Callen. In 2013, while in labor with her first child, Tigerman contracted an infection and went into septic shock. She was placed in a coma and put on life support, her body in organ failure. During the three months she spent in the hospital, doctors constantly poked and prodded her body, which no longer felt like her own. The trauma of it compounded what Callen had done to her years earlier, she said. So when Bryans name started coming up on Twitter last month, for the first time in 20 years, I started feeling relief, she said. 'Oh, Im not by myself in this. I finally feel powerful against him.' And if I can give that feeling to somebody else, that would be great. Group mobilized for all stakeholders Performance shows good resistance in a very deteriorated environment Organic change in sales -15.2% Adjusted operating margin 17.5% Many measures to adapt to consequences of the crisis Solid financial position Continued deployment of the Legrand model in a still uncertain environment Regulatory News: Benoit Coquart, Legrand's (Paris:LR) Chief Executive Officer, commented: "Group mobilized for all stakeholders Against a backdrop of an unprecedented health and economic crisis, Legrand mobilized for all of its stakeholders. Protecting employees and partners was a key priority. We also actively supported our customers in pursuing their business one example being the decision to keep almost all of our logistics and production centers open. In a spirit of responsibility given the efforts the crisis requires, Legrand has made a balanced appeal to all stakeholders management, employees, partners, shareholders, civil society and government authorities. Performance shows good resistance in a very deteriorated environment In the first half of 2020, Legrand recorded a -12.2% fall in sales, primarily due to an organic decline (-15.2%) that was particularly marked in the second quarter across our main markets. This decline was partly offset by an increase in the scope of consolidation (+3.6%), while the exchange-rate effect was limited (-0.1%). Against this backdrop, adjusted operating margin stood at 17.5%, i.e., a limited 3-point decrease from the first half of 2019. This good resistance reflects in particular the immediate roll-out of initiatives, some one-off, to protect Group profitability. Legrand has also a solid financial position, as seen in particular in the high level of available cash. Continued deployment of the Legrand model in a still uncertain environment The outlook for the global health situation and the world economy remains particularly unpredictable. In this context, and subject to a favorable trend in the global health situation, net sales in the second half of the year should see a sequential improvement compared with the second quarter. Given this environment, Legrand is continuing to actively deploy its model, building on the fundamentals that underpin the Group's value-creating strategy. This means extending and promoting products that are perfectly positioned to meet the major changes the building industry is facing; innovating; adopting initiatives to optimize our performance; and pursuing disciplined growth through acquisitions while confirming our responsible commitments, in particular an accelerated fight against global warming." Group mobilized for all stakeholders Amid the current unprecedented health crisis arising from the Covid-19 epidemic, Legrand has adopted a responsible approach towards all of its stakeholders, focusing on key priorities that include: protecting employees and partners by moving very early on to deploy the most stringent health protocols possible throughout the Group, and by adapting its work methods (widespread use of teleworking, digitalization of customer relations, and more); actively supporting customers in pursuing their business, which is an essential part of keeping the economy running smoothly. For example, Legrand kept nearly all of its logistics and production centers open, applying optimum health measures, to keep supply chains operating and to pursue with no disruption its customer support and service operations wherever it operates. Legrand also continued to show solidarity to local communities by helping fight the impact of the health crisis. This has involved many initiatives1 (from donating equipment to helping produce ventilators, supporting communities that are the most exposed, and more). The Group also committed to assisting the most vulnerable members of society by creating a solidarity fund dedicated to nursing homes for the elderly, such as EHPADs in France. Beneficiaries included 228 institutions and 15,000 of their staff members. Finally, in a spirit of responsibility given the efforts the crisis requires, Legrand has made a balanced appeal to all stakeholders management, employees, partners, shareholders, civil society and government authorities2 Performance shows good resistance in a very deteriorated environment Key figures Consolidated data ( millions)(1) 1st half 2019 1st half 2020 Change Sales 3,226.8 2,832.6 -12.2% Adjusted operating profit 662.6 496.9 -25.0% As of sales 20.5% 17.5% 17.1% before acquisitions(2) Operating profit 619.6 449.8 -27.4% As of sales 19.2% 15.9% Net profit attributable to the Group 415.3 285.7 -31.2% As of sales 12.9% 10.1% Normalized free cash flow 514.5 469.7 -8.7% As of sales 15.9% 16.6% Free cash flow 375.4 258.9 -31.0% As of sales 11.6% 9.1% Net financial debt at June 30 3,023.2 3,109.1 +2.8% (1) See appendices to this press release for definitions and indicator reconciliation tables. (2) At 2019 scope of consolidation. Consolidated sales Sales totaled 2,832.6 million, down -12.2% from the first half of 2019. The organic change in sales was -15.2% in the first half of 2020, with declines in both mature countries (-14.3%) and in new economies (-17.8%). The impact of the broader scope of consolidation was +3.6%. Based on acquisitions made in 2019 and 2020, and their likely consolidation dates, the full-year impact should be around +3% in 2020. The exchange-rate effect was slightly negative at -0.1% over the period. Applying average exchange rates observed in June 2020 to the last six months of the year, the theoretical impact on sales of exchange-rate fluctuations should come to around -1.5% for 2020 as a whole. Changes in sales by destination at constant scope of consolidation and exchange rates broke down as follows by region: 1st half 2020 1st half 2019 2nd quarter 2020 2nd quarter 2019 Europe -16.7% -28.2% North and Central America -11.2% -17.5% Rest of the world -19.9% -22.4% Total -15.2% -22.8% These changes at constant scope of consolidation and exchange rates are analyzed below by geographical region: Europe (39.7% of Group sales): in the first-half of 2020, sales in Europe were down -16.7% at constant scope of consolidation and exchange rates. In mature European countries, sales declined by -19.7% in the first half of 2020, including -31.8% in the second quarter alone. Business was down in almost all countries due to the impact of the health crisis, compounded by one-off factors relating to destocking by distributors. The decline was more marked in France, Italy and Spain, i.e., the hardest hit markets by the pandemic. Sales in these countries fell -23% in the first half, compared with a -9% decline in other mature European countries. In Europe's new economies, sales were up +2.2% at constant scope of consolidation and exchange rates compared with the first half of 2019, including -5.2% in the second quarter alone. Sales recorded a slight decline in Eastern Europe compared to the first half of 2019 and rose in Turkey, buoyed by ongoing projects initiated before the start of the pandemic. In this deteriorated context, the offerings of the Eliot program, but also the ones linked to assisted living, datacenters and DIY stores showed good resistance in a number of countries. North and Central America (41.4% of Group sales): sales declined by -11.2% at constant scope of consolidation and exchange rates in the first half of 2020. In the United States, sales were down -10.1% compared with the first half of 2019, including a -15.6% drop in the second quarter. Over the first six months, an increase in sales of products for datacenters, including busways and PDUs, was not enough to offset declining sales observed in other ranges. Sales fell more markedly in Canada and Mexico. Rest of the world (18.9% of Group sales): sales were down -19.9% from the first half of 2019 at constant scope of consolidation and exchange rates. Sales retreated -16.9% in Asia-Pacific in the first half of 2020, with decreases in most countries, including China and India, and a slight rise in Australia. In the second quarter alone, sales were down -13.7%, with contrasts from one market to another that included business halved in India and a marked rise in China. In South America, net sales fell by -29.3% at constant scope of consolidation and exchange rates, with a -47.8% drop in the second quarter, as a worsening in the epidemic took a heavy toll in the main countries. Sales were down -19.0% in Africa and the Middle East in the first half, including -25.2% in the second quarter alone. Compared with the first half of 2019, sales were down in Africa, where the 2019 basis for comparison was particularly demanding in many countries, and in the Middle East due to the strained health and geopolitical environment. Adjusted operating profit and margin Adjusted operating profit for the first half of 2020 came to 496.9 million, or 17.5% of sales, down -25.0% from the first half of 2019. Adjusted operating margin before acquisitions (at 2019 scope of consolidation) was 17.1% of sales. Coming against a steep and sudden decline in business volumes, this limited decrease from the first half of 2019 reflects the Group's quick action in implementing crisis adaptation measures. More specifically, this trend resulted from: efficient management of sales and purchase prices; a significant adjustment in production costs and in administrative and selling expenses, with a double-digit decline at constant scope of consolidation and exchange rates compared with the first half of 2019, due partly to one-off initiatives; and an increase in other income and expenses, in particular restructuring costs, which totaled 40 million3 over the first half, reflecting roll-out of structural adaptation measures. Net profit attributable to the Group In the first half of 2020, net profit attributable to the Group was down -31.2% from the first half of 2019, i.e., -129.6 million, mainly reflecting: a decrease in operating profit (-170 million); an unfavorable trend (-10 million) in net financial expenses and the foreign-exchange result; and a decrease in the absolute value of corporate income tax (+50 million) due to the fall in profit before tax, while the corporate income tax rate was almost unchanged at 28.5%. Cash generation and balance sheet structure Cash flow from operations came to 15.7% of sales in the first half of 2020, down -2.5 points from the first half of 2019. Normalized free cash flow retreated -8.7% to 16.6% of sales. Working capital requirement stood at 10.7% of sales at June 30, 20204, -0.5 points lower than at June 30, 2019. The balance sheet structure remained very solid at June 30, 2020. This included: cash and cash equivalents of 2.7 billion; and net debt of 3.1 billion representing an EBITDA5 ratio of 2.2, i.e., very close to the figure at June 30, 2019 and whose maturity was extended by the successful issue of a new bond6, reflecting investor confidence in the Group's model. Continued deployment of the Legrand model in a still uncertain environment Environment remains uncertain The outlook for the global health situation and the world economy remains particularly unpredictable. In this context, and subject to a favorable trend in the global health situation, net sales in the second half of the year should see a sequential improvement compared with the second quarter. Continued deployment of development model Against this backdrop, Legrand is continuing to actively deploy its model by: extending and promoting its product catalog, including items driven by structural trends linked to society, the environment and technologies. This is the case in particular for offerings linked to or targeting: energy efficiency in non-residential buildings (UPS systems, transformers, Digital Lighting Management offerings, etc.) as well as residential spaces (smart electrical panels, intelligent thermostats, lighting control systems, etc.); data centers (smart PDUs, busways, structured cabling, cable racks, etc.); the office of tomorrow and teleworking (desk grommets, power and data distribution, cameras used in video-conferencing and screen mounts); assisted living and home comfort (connected user interfaces, audio/video door entry systems, air quality control systems, security cameras, personal alarm systems, light pathways, sockets for easy unplugging, etc.); and healthcare buildings (headboard ducts, medical call systems, antibacterial lighting solutions, etc.). maintaining its drive to develop new products, including preserving levels of investment in R&D, particularly the ones for connected solutions under the Eliot program; pursuing disciplined growth through acquisitions and working actively to dock newly acquired companies, while maintaining close contacts with small and medium-sized companies that are leaders in their markets and that could potentially join the Group when conditions are right; deploying many structural initiatives designed to adjust its cost base and strengthen the efficiency and agility of its organization, in particular by digitizing processes and customer relations; confirming its responsible commitments to the demanding objectives set out in the fourth CSR roadmap. Here, Legrand is: accelerating its fight against global warming 7 with commitments for 2022, 2030 and 2050, aiming in particular for carbon neutrality by eliminating the Group's net greenhouse gas emissions. Legrand is now aligning with the most ambitious target of the Paris Agreement (limiting the increase in the planet's temperature to 1.5 above pre-industrial levels); and continuing initiatives to promote diversity at the workplace 8 and exemplary governance 9 Legrand's demanding and recognized approach to CSR qualified the Group to join the Euronext ESG 80 Index in 2020. The consolidated financial statements for the first half of 2020 that were subject of a limited review by the Group's auditors were adopted by the Board of Directors at its meeting on July 30, 2020. These consolidated financial statements, a presentation of 2020 first-half results and the related teleconference (live and replay) are available at www.legrandgroup.com. KEY FINANCIAL DATES: 2020 nine-month results: November 5, 2020 "Quiet period 10 " starts October 6, 2020 "Quiet period " starts October 6, 2020 2020 annual results: February 11, 2021 "Quiet period 10 " starts January 12, 2021 "Quiet period " starts January 12, 2021 General Meeting of Shareholders: May 26, 2021 ABOUT LEGRAND Legrand is the global specialist in electrical and digital building infrastructures. Its comprehensive offering of solutions for commercial, industrial and residential markets makes it a benchmark for customers worldwide. The Group harnesses technological and societal trends with lasting impacts on buildings with the purpose of improving life by transforming the spaces where people live, work and meet with electrical, digital infrastructures and connected solutions that are simple, innovative and sustainable. Drawing on an approach that involves all teams and stakeholders, Legrand is pursuing its strategy of profitable and sustainable growth driven by acquisitions and innovation, with a steady flow of new offerings-including Eliot* connected products with enhanced value in use. Legrand reported sales of close to 6.6 billion in 2019. The company is listed on Euronext Paris and is notably a component stock of the CAC 40 and Euronext ESG 80 indexes. (code ISIN FR0010307819). https://www.legrandgroup.com *Eliot is a program launched in 2015 by Legrand to speed up deployment of the Internet of Things in its offering. A result of the group's innovation strategy, Eliot aims to develop connected and interoperable solutions that deliver lasting benefits to private individual users and professionals. https://www.legrandgroup.com/en/group/eliot-legrands-connected-objects-program Appendices Glossary Adjusted operating profit: Adjusted operating profit is defined as operating profit adjusted for amortization and depreciation of revaluation of assets at the time of acquisitions and for other P&L impacts relating to acquisitions and, where applicable, for impairment of goodwill. Busways:electric power distribution systems based on metal busbars. Cash flow from operations: Cash flow from operations is defined as net cash from operating activities excluding changes in working capital requirement. CSR: Corporate Social Responsibility. EBITDA: EBITDA is defined as operating profit plus depreciation and impairment of tangible assets, amortization and impairment of intangible assets (including capitalized development costs), reversal of inventory step-up and impairment of goodwill. Free cash flow: Free cash flow is defined as the sum of net cash from operating activities and net proceeds from sales of fixed and financial assets, less capital expenditure and capitalized development costs. KVM: Keyboard, Video and Mouse. Net financial debt: Net financial debt is defined as the sum of short-term borrowings and long-term borrowings, less cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities. Normalized free cash flow: Normalized free cash flow is defined as the sum of net cash from operating activities-based on a normalized working capital requirement representing 10% of the last 12 months' sales and whose change at constant scope of consolidation and exchange rates is adjusted for the period considered-and net proceeds of sales from fixed and financial assets, less capital expenditure and capitalized development costs. Organic growth: Organic growth is defined as the change in sales at constant structure (scope of consolidation) and exchange rates. Payout: Payout is defined as the ratio between the proposed dividend per share for a given year, divided by the net profit attributable to the Group per share of the same year, calculated on the basis of the average number of ordinary shares at December 31 of that year, excluding shares held in treasury. PDU: Power Distribution Units. UPS: Uninterruptible Power Supply. Working capital requirement: Working capital requirement is defined as the sum of trade receivables, inventories, other current assets, income tax receivables and short-term deferred tax assets, less the sum of trade payables, other current liabilities, income tax payables, short-term provisions and short-term deferred tax liabilities. Calculation of working capital requirement In millions H1 2019 H1 2020 Trade receivables 853.1 731.1 Inventories 918.5 879.7 Other current assets 220.4 224.9 Income tax receivables 35.1 60.5 Short-term deferred taxes assets/(liabilities) 85.5 90.8 Trade payables (642.0) (549.1) Other current liabilities (630.5) (612.9) Income tax payables (42.3) (41.5) Short-term provisions (98.8) (119.7) Working capital required 699.0 663.8 Calculation of net financial debt In millions H1 2019 H1 2020 Short-term borrowings 613.2 1,625.6 Long-term borrowings 3,559.0 4,154.7 Cash and cash equivalents (1,149.0) (2,671.2) Net financial debt 3,023.2 3,109.1 Reconciliation of adjusted operating profit with profit for the period In millions H1 2019 H1 2020 Profit for the period 416.1 285.8 Share of profits (losses) of equity-accounted entities 0.9 0.9 Income tax expense 164.0 114.3 Exchange (gains) losses 0.3 6.5 Financial income (6.5) (3.6) Financial expense 44.8 45.9 Operating profit 619.6 449.8 Amortization depreciation of revaluation of assets at the time of acquisitions and other P&L impacts relating to acquisitions 43.0 47.1 Impairment of goodwill 0.0 0.0 Adjusted operating profit 662.6 496.9 Reconciliation of EBITDA with profit for the period In millions H1 2019 H1 2020 Profit for the period 416.1 285.8 Share of profits (losses) of equity-accounted entities 0.9 0.9 Income tax expense 164.0 114.3 Exchange (gains) losses 0.3 6.5 Financial income (6.5) (3.6) Financial expense 44.8 45.9 Operating profit 619.6 449.8 Depreciation and impairment of tangible assets 88.2 92.4 Amortization and impairment of intangible assets (including capitalized development costs) 60.4 65.1 Impairment of goodwill 0.0 0.0 EBITDA 768.2 607.3 Reconciliation of cash flow from operations, free cash flow and normalized free cash flow with profit for the period In millions H1 2019 H1 2020 Profit for the period 416.1 285.8 Adjustments for non-cash movements in assets and liabilities: Depreciation, amortization and impairment 149.8 159.1 Changes in other non-current assets and liabilities and long-term deferred taxes 23.5 34.0 Unrealized exchange (gains)/losses (1.1) (15.7) (Gains)/losses on sales of assets, net (2.0) (15.9) Other adjustments 0.6 (1.6) Cash flow from operations 586.9 445.7 Decrease (Increase) in working capital requirement (145.9) (161.6) Net cash provided from operating activities 441.0 284.1 Capital expenditure (including capitalized development costs) (71.7) (46.0) Net proceeds from sales of fixed and financial assets 6.1 20.8 Free cash flow 375.4 258.9 Increase (Decrease) in working capital requirement 145.9 161.6 (Increase) Decrease in normalized working capital requirement (6.8) 49.2 Normalized free cash flow 514.5 469.7 Scope of consolidation 2019 Q1 H1 9M Full year Full consolidation method Debflex Balance sheet only 6 months 9 months 12 months Netatmo Balance sheet only 6 months 9 months 12 months Trical Balance sheet only 6 months 9 months 12 months Universal Electric Corporation Balance sheet only 6 months 9 months Connectrac Balance sheet only Jobo Smartech Balance sheet only 2020 Q1 H1 9M Full year Full consolidation method Debflex 3 months 6 months 9 months 12 months Netatmo 3 months 6 months 9 months 12 months Trical 3 months 6 months 9 months 12 months Universal Electric Corporation 3 months 6 months 9 months 12 months Connectrac 3 months 6 months 9 months 12 months Jobo Smartech Balance sheet only 6 months 9 months 12 months Focal Point Balance sheet only Balance sheet only To be determined To be determined Disclaimer This press release may contain forward-looking statements which are not historical data. Although Legrand considers these statements to be based on reasonable assumptions at the time of publication of this release, they are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied herein. Details on risks are provided in the Legrand Registration Document filed with the Autorite des marches financiers (Financial Markets Authority, AMF), which is available on-line on the websites of both AMF (www.amf-france.org) and Legrand (www.legrandgroup.com). No forward-looking statement contained in this press release is or should be construed as a promise or a guarantee of actual results, which are liable to differ significantly. Therefore, such statements should be used with caution, taking into account their inherent uncertainty. Subject to applicable regulations, Legrand does not undertake to update these statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of publication of this release. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy Legrand shares in any jurisdiction. The reader is invited to verify authenticity of press releases by Legrand with the CertiDox app. More information on www.certidox.com. _________________ 1 For more information, readers are invited to consult the press release issued April 9, 2020. 2 For more information, readers are invited to consult the press release issued May 7, 2020. 3 Excluding gains on building disposals recorded over the period. 4 Based on sales for the last 12 months. 5 Based on EBITDA for the last 12 months. 6 For more information, readers are invited to consult the press release issued May 12, 2020. 7 For more information, readers are referred to the press release issued July 2, 2020. 8 For more information, readers are referred to the news items published on www.legrandgroup.com on March 9, 2020 and on February 13, 2020. 9 For more information, readers are referred to the press release issued February 28, 2020. 10 Period of time when all communication is suspended in the run-up to publication of results. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200730005955/en/ Contacts: Investor relations Legrand Ronan Marc +33 (0)1 49 72 53 53 ronan.marc@legrand.fr Press relations Publicis Consultants Vilizara Lazarova +33 (0)1 44 82 46 34 Mob: +33 (0)6 26 72 57 14 vilizara.lazarova@publicisconsultants.com An Isleta Pueblo police investigator will be heading up the federal governments response to cases involving missing and murdered indigenous people. U.S. Attorney John Anderson said in a news release Tuesday that Denise Billy will serve as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person Coordinator for the District of New Mexico. Ms. Billy served in many law enforcement capacities for years, which I believe will suit her well in this new position, Anderson said in a news release. Billy, who served as a Navajo Nation patrol officer and a criminal investigator before joining the Isleta department, will gather data to identify MMIP cases connected to New Mexicos 22 tribal nations. She will also assist in the creation and implementation of community action plans. I look forward to continuing to serve tribal communities here in the heart of Indian Country, Billy said. This issue is of utmost importance to me and to our Tribal Nations. Isleta Police Chief Sylvester Stanley said Billy has been a valuable asset to his department. While she is leaving as an employee, we are pleased that she will still be assisting us on several issues from her new position, he said. Billy is the first coordinator under a new Department of Justice initiative established in November 2019 to address the issue of missing and murdered indigenous people. Her duties will include coordinating with tribal, local, state and federal law enforcement to develop protocols and procedures for responding to and addressing MMIP cases. While officials on both the state and federal level have expressed an interest in collaboration, the federal initiative is separate from the state Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force established by New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham late last year. According to a 2018 report by the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle, 37 indigenous women and girls have been reported missing or murdered in Albuquerque since 1996, making the city second only to Seattle in the country in reported cases. In urban New Mexico that includes Albuquerque, Farmington, Gallup and Santa Fe 78 women and girls were reported missing or murdered since 1956, making it the state with the highest instances of violence against Native American females. Hamilton is only testing Lake Ontario beaches for bacterial safety once a month this summer less frequently than any other city on the Canadian side of the lake. Up until this year, Hamilton tested all beaches at least once a week for E. coli bacteria, and it continues to sample weekly at harbour and inland reservoir beaches like Valens and Christie. High bacteria counts that could endanger public health spur warnings and beach closures. The public health department says the switch to monthly tests on Lake Ontario meets minimum provincial standards because those three beaches boast consistently and historically clean water. But every other city or region on the Canadian shoreline contacted by The Spectator is sampling for E. coli bacteria at Lake Ontario beaches at least weekly if not more frequently. The change bothers Callie Archer, who lives in Burlington but has a favourite stretch of sand on the less busy Hamilton side of the Lake Ontario shoreline. If they test once (a month), how do I know its safe to swim two weeks later? asked the 73-year-old, who regularly consults email notifications about water quality on the Burlington side of the lake. Halton Region tests the most popular beaches on the Burlington lakefront Beachway Park and Brant Street twice a week. All other regional beaches are tested weekly. I dont understand why (Hamilton) wouldnt test more often, said Archer, who added local beaches seem busier during the COVID-19 pandemic. Especially now, people just want to feel safe. Provincial guidelines updated in 2018 give health units the option of doing monthly rather than weekly beach testing if the historical water quality is consistently good, said Richard MacDonald, a water safety manager for public health. Since 2015, the citys three Lake Ontario beaches Beach Boulevard, Van Wagners and Confederation Park have remained open more than 90 per cent of each summer. Recent water quality is even better: only a single beach closure over the last two years due to bacterial contamination. Public health reviewed that great history and decided to reduce the default monitoring frequency, MacDonald said. He stressed the city can still do extra Lake Ontario sampling based on complaints and if a single test shows E. coli levels high enough to close a beach, the city would go back to weekly sampling. Frequent testing is a better way to build public trust, said Mark Mattson, a founder of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and the Swim Drink Fish organization that publishes beach safety information all along the lake. We would say the more testing, the better for the public, he said. And I think increasingly, the public wants to see those regular test results. They want to be informed. Mattson said Toronto does daily beach water testing and boasts the best monitoring on the lake. A Spectator survey shows all cities and regions along the Canadian side of Lake Ontario do at least weekly testing of shoreline beaches but some have also switched to monthly sampling at smaller inland lakes or reservoirs. Hamiltons shoreline neighbours, Halton and Niagara, both test more frequently. Halton samples two lakeshore beaches twice a week, while Niagara tests a few popular locations daily. MacDonald said every health unit must make testing decisions based on local conditions. He said beach proximity to creek outlets, stormwater drains and combined sewer outfalls can all factor into decisions to test more or less frequently. (Worth noting: swimmers are always urged to stay out of the lake directly after a storm or heavy rainfall, regardless of beach location.) Torontos waterfront has several beaches, like Cherry and Wards Island, that qualify for Blue Flag status awarded for meeting criteria like consistently good water quality meaning it must be safe to swim at least 80 per cent of the time. A few other Toronto lakeside beaches still struggle, including Sunnyside beach, which has been posted unsafe more often than not this year. In Hamilton, most pipes that spew sewage in storms empty into the harbour, rather than directly into Lake Ontario. So while the water is typically clean along the lake, the harbours Pier 4 beach, which is tested weekly, is often closed for half of each summer due to high bacterial counts. Some (jurisdictions) may do more testing, but as long as were all meeting the minimum standard, I think thats acceptable practice, MacDonald said. YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan introduced today newly-appointed minister of environment Romanos Petrosyan to the ministry staff. Pashinyan expressed hope that Romanos Petrosyan will manage to further develop the good results existing in the ministry. Mr. Petrosyan moves here from the position of the Governor of Kotayk, and we must record that he has carried out quite a productive activity in that status and must be confident that his activity in this new position will be more effective, the PM said. In his turn Romanos Petrosyan thanked for the high trust, adding that he will continue making efforts for creating a more protected environment. Romanos Petrosyan has been appointed minister of environment on July 30. Before this appointment he was serving as Governor of Kotayk Province. Reporting by Norayr Shoghikyan; Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan A crown prince has reportedly paid the hospital bills for a mum and her newborn quadruplets stranded due to the coronavirus pandemic. Suliyat Adulkareem, 29, gave birth to two boys and two girls at Dubais Latifa Hospital for Women and Children on July 1, CNN reported. All four were born prematurely and delivered via caesarean. The family, from Nigeria, didnt have insurance though so Dubais Nigerian community and other residents donated $15,900 to help. Suliyat Adulkareem and her husband, Tijani. Source: Instagram/ helpsuliyatuae But the hospital told CNN Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum found out about the familys plight and paid the bills himself. The babies father Tijani Abdulkareem, 32, told CNN he was still in shock the prince came to the familys aid. I had been sleepless wondering how to pay the bill," he said. One of the babies. The family plan to name two of their children after the prince. Source: CNN The new dad added the prince had done his family a huge favour. Mr Abdulkareem said he planned to name two of his children after the prince. Reports about how much the crown prince paid are inconsistent, but, according to Nigerian news site Naija News, he forked out $168,000. The United Arab Emirates has more than 60,000 COVID-19 cases and 349 deaths according to Johns Hopkins University data. Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum came forward to pay hospital bills for the mum of the quadruplets. Source: Getty Images, file 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. Mount Greylock Proposing Fully Remote Learning for Most in High School Update: On Friday , Mount Greylock Interim Superintendent Robert Putnam announced the district is planning to have 10th through 12th graders in the building for instruction one day a week, on Wednesdays, to open the year. WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. Sophomores, juniors and seniors at Mount Greylock Regional School will begin the year with remote learning if the district moves forward with a plan favored by its interim superintendent. On Wednesday evening, Robert Putnam explained to the School Committee why on Friday he will submit to state authorities plans that see children from pre-kindergarten through ninth grade start the school year with a hybrid instruction model while the three upper grades at the high school remain fully remote. Putnam said it is a difficult decision with priorities for social and emotional wellness and academic integrity coming into conflict. But he is acting on the recommendation of the instructional working group that the district has looking at back-to-school plans this summer in formulating the response he plans to send to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. "In Grades 10-12, necessary grouping in cohorts will substantially reduce the variety and diversity of schedules," Putnam wrote in a memo to the state that he read at Wednesday's committee meeting. "Students will not have access to the full program of studies, due to the tracking that will be required. Scheduling would lean toward small, homogeneously grouped grade cohorts. "For these reasons, there is currently a recommendation to provide a substantially remote learning program for grades 10-12 with the caveat that all students would have ample opportunity to go to school to receive help, and that high needs students would have regular in-person instruction." Several members of the School Committee pressed Putnam on the plan for students in the upper grades, with one saying the district needs to have a good "explanation for the community." Putnam said that while the school has the physical space to provide in-person instruction, state guidelines about keeping students in cohorts that do not change throughout the day would make it impossible for Mount Greylock students to have the class schedules that they normally would have. "It's just the nature of Grades 10 to 12," Putnam said. "The way that's organized, in many cases, kids are intermixing in ways that are just not the same in the previous grades. In ninth grade, you can do cohorts. But 10 through 12, there are tremendous differences in the individual programs. "If we bring kids to school, we will not be able to provide the variety and richness of opportunity. On the other hand, [if we don't bring them to school], we don't give them the opportunity for an in-person experience that the wellness [working group] says is vital. My general sense is, if it is the wish of the School Committee to maintain the breadth of the curriculum, the instructional committee believes it can only be offered remotely." Mount Greylock Principal Jacob Schutz supported Putnam's decision. At one point, School Committee member Steven Miller suggested that the school could bring sophomores, juniors and seniors to the Cold Spring Road campus to give them the sense of physical connection but allow them to participate remotely in different elective classes from within their physical cohort by using the same Chromebooks they would be using at home. "I think it increases the level of structure and placement and supervision that would need to happen as far as staffing goes," Schutz said. "So a staff member might teach a Zoom class while simultaneously monitoring a group of students taking four other classes? I don't think it's feasible." The School Committee ultimately without taking a formal vote consented to Putnam submitting his plan, the first of a two-step reporting process to Boston this summer. The committee did not formally approve a revised school calendar to reflect the state's decision to allow schools to hold off on the start of instruction until mid-September. Putnam informed the regional school district community about that potential change and other parts of his reopening plan on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he laid out for the School Committee the reasoning he will use in proposing to Boston a hybrid instruction model for students from PreK through freshman year in high school. "A full-time in-person model is not an option for September 2020," Putnam wrote. "There are too many prerequisites that would need to be in place to ensure a safe reopening using this model. First, protocols for most all aspects of public schooling need to be revised and then systematically taught to students, staff and families until such time that all parties can consistently execute those protocols necessary for a safe reopening of the schools. Second, a full, in-person model of instruction would require hiring additional special education teachers in order to meet the needs of students within the confines of schedules as well as paraprofessionals for supervision. Third, bringing all students into the schools would make social distancing difficult, thereby limiting opportunities to train students in safety protocols." Putnam said the district still is trying to figure out hybrid scheduling model that works best, noting that options include alternating cohorts by week, by time of day (morning and afternoon) and by days of the week. The latter would have the students in school buildings on Mondays and Tuesdays and the other half on Thursdays and Fridays, for example, with remote learning for each group on the days when they are not on campus. He said the weekly rotation would be particularly difficult for younger children to transition back on Mondays after a week away from the building. The AM/PM rotation would give students a consistent schedule, but it would maximize the risk of COVID-19 transmission because of the difficulty cleaning school buildings between cohorts. Putnam indicated that the district is leaning toward rotation by days for the start of the school year. And he said that an analysis of the district's vacation calendar shows that neither cohort would be disadvantaged under the plan; the district has five planned days off on Mondays and Tuesdays and five planned days that fall on Thursdays and Fridays. Picture for representation (Pixlr) To mark the auspicious occasion of Ram mandir bhoomi poojan, the Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust will be sending Bikaneri Laddoos to all foreign embassies in Delhi. The Ram temple trust will also be distributing sweets in Ayodhya, where the temple will be erected. In India, people have traditionally greeted each other with sweets to mark an auspicious occasion. News18 report mentions that the members of the trust have placed orders for four lakh packets of Bikaneri laddoos and each packet will contain four laddoos. These will be packed and sent from Lucknow. The bhoomi poojan preparations are in full swing in Ayodhya at the moment as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is supposed to attend the foundation stone laying ceremony on August 5. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be reaching Ayodhya on August 1 to take stock of the situation and make sure the much-awaited auspicious moment is celebrated like Diwali. Authorities have been tasked with ensuring all of this is executed to perfection while maintaining strict social distancing norms so as to ensure the event does not turn into a coronavirus super spreader. The states tourism department has also stepped in to ensure the preparations go smooth, while locals have been directed to light earthen lamps on August 4 to mark the occasion. The entire fanfare will be streamed live on Doordarshan to make sure all devotees of Lord Ram get to witness this historic event. James Murdoch has quit the board of News Corp as he blames 'disagreements over certain editorial content published by the company's news outlets'. The 47-year-old, who is the younger son of media mogul Rupert, had been on the board of directors since 2013 and was the CEO of 21st Century Fox. He said: 'My resignation is due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company's news outlets and certain other strategic decisions.' He did not go into detail about his differences with the company, but has been publicly critical of its news platforms in the past. It means the board will now consist of ten members, headed by Rupert and his oldest son Lachlan. James Murdoch, the younger son of Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch (pictured together in 2013) announced he is resigning from the board of News Corp on Friday In his resignation letter, James cited 'disagreements over certain editorial content' as the reason for his departure James has spoken out against his father's company on a number of occasions, with him and his wife Kathryn slamming the family business for promoting climate change 'denials' during the Australian bushfire crisis in January. The pair released a statement saying they were 'disappointed' by the coverage of the fires by Fox News and other News Corp outlets. 'Kathryn and James's views on climate are well established and their frustration with some of the News Corp and Fox coverage of the topic is also well known. 'They are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given obvious evidence to the contrary,' their statement read. The 'denials' were in reference to allegations arsonists and not climate change were to blame for the destructive wildfires. His comments were perceived as 'unprecedented' and sparked speculation of a feud within the family since he rarely speaks publicly about his role in the business. James also opened up about his professional break from the family business in a revealing interview with the New Yorker last year. James and older brother Lachlan (far left) had shared power at 21st Century Fox, but the sale of much of the Fox entertainment business to Disney in 2019 saw James depart as CEO. (Pictured: Rupert Murdoch with his sons in 2016) Rumors of a family rift have swirled over the years after eldest son Lachlan (pictured with James, father Rupert and mom Anna in 1987) became heir apparent of his dad's media empire He found himself out of work when Fox merged with Disney early last year, but also $2billion richer thanks to his shares in the company. This seems to have caused some friction between father and son and when asked if he had recently spoken to his former boss, James said: 'There are periods of time when we do not.' He was similarly laconic when asked if he had ever watched Succession, the HBO show that is loosely based on his family's empire. 'Not even a peek. Why would I?' asked Murdoch. He did note things were great post-Fox, saying: 'I just feel very lucky to have the opportunity at this point to make a clean break, and literally have an empty slate. James is known as the more liberal Murdoch brother, while older brother Lachlan's views seem to be more aligned with those of his conservative father. In January, James, the more liberal of the Murdoch brothers, and his wife Kathryn spoke out against the family business for promoting climate change 'denials' during the Australian bushfire crisis Lachlan, pictured with wife Sarah, is executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corp, home to conservative news network Fox News, the Fox broadcast and sports networks and local TV stations He was even last year reportedly looking to set up a $1billion new project including a liberal news outlet, in stark contrast to his father's Fox News. In March it was further suggested he pumped money into start-ups looking to combat fake news. His firm Lupa Systems was said to have teamed up with Betaworks to create a 'more sustainable news ecosystem'. Rupert designed his companies to benefit his family, making certain that he and his children always had control, meaning that his children and generations to follow would be taken care of financially. The tycoon was able to show that plan in work earlier last year year, when upon the sale of Fox's film and television assets to Disney, each of his six children pocketed approximately $2billion. One thing Murdoch has not left his children with however is a plan for the future of his media empire, refusing to officially name an heir despite making no secret of his preferred child. THE MURDOCH FAMILY MEDIA EMPIRE RUPERT MURDOCH, EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN OF NEWS CORP The Australian-born mogul began building his media empire in Australia by acquiring numerous publications in the 1950s, before entering the British newspaper market in 1969, and expanding to the US in 1974. He founded News Corporation in 1980, which quickly evolved into one of the largest media groups in the world owning assets in print, news, and television. In 2013, News Corporation split into two sister companies, News Corp and 21st Century Fox. The latter was later rebranded as Fox Corporation after the majority of its assets were sold to The Walt Disney Company in 2019. Murdoch currently serves as the executive chairman of News Corp and the chairman of Fox Corporation. He is estimated to be worth $17billion. LACHLAN MURDOCH, EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF FOX CORPORATION, CO-CHAIR OF NEWS CORP Lachlan Murdoch, 48, the eldest of the Murdoch children, is the heir apparent to News Corp Executive Chairman Rupert and is co-chairman of News Corp. He was named executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corp in 2019, after 21st Century Fox was sold to Disney. Before the sale, younger brother James had been the CEO of the company and Lachlan was executive chairman. Lachlan is also chairman of Australian entertainment company NOVA Entertainment, which operates a number of radio stations across the country. JAMES MURDOCH, FORMER BOARD MEMBER OF NEWS CORP The younger son of Rupert Murdoch, James, 47, had been on the board of News Corp since 2013. He and brother Lachlan had shared power at 21st Century Fox, but the sale of much of the Fox entertainment business to Disney in 2019 saw James depart as CEO. Since then, he has worked at the helm of investment fund Lupa Systems. James is considered more liberal than his older brother who is CEO of Fox Corp, home to conservative news network Fox News, the Fox broadcast and sports networks and local TV stations. James has been critical of News Corp's editorial decisions and has said he disagreed with Fox News coverage. He resigned from the board on July 31, 2020. PRUDENCE MURDOCH, NON-EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBER OF NEWS CORP Prudence Murdoch, 62, is the eldest child of Rupert Murdoch through his first marriage with Patricia Booker. She formerly worked as journalist for now-defunct British tabloid, News of the World, which was owned by her father. Prudence was once described in the media as the 'only one of [Murdoch's] children not directly competing for his business affections.' ELISABETH MURDOCH, MEDIA EXECUTIVE AND FORMER CHAIRPERSON OF SHINE GROUP Elisabeth is Rupert Murdoch's daughter from his second marriage with Anna Maria Torv. Born in Sydney, she moved to London in 1990s where she worked on the operations side of BSkyB, ran by her father. She founded UK-based TV programming company Shine Limited in 2001, which was sold to News Corp ten years later. She currently serves as executive chairman of production company Sister. GRACE AND CHLOE MURDOCH The sisters, aged 19 and 17, are Rupert's daughters from his third marriage to Wendi Deng. Advertisement It is not his oldest child Prudence or the next in line Elisabeth, who has found incredible success outside the family business in emerging media markets. It is not James, the son who has stood by his side for decades and weathered the fallout from the 2011 hacking scandal at News of the World and the 2016 sexual assault scandal at Fox News. It is Lachlan, Murdoch's older son, who is the 'golden child' according to multiple sources. And the empire looks to be his for the taking - but it is not clear if he is interested in the job. The family company and its future were the focus of a New York Times piece last year that provided an in depth look at the mogul's two sons while completely ignoring the lives and accomplishments of his four daughters. By some accounts, Murdoch's heirs are now battling behind the scenes for control of the empire, with the two top contenders appearing to be his sons James and Lachlan. The brothers have had a tumultuous relationship over the years which had become more frayed than ever of recent after Lachlan was promoted over his younger brother by their father, despite James' loyalty to the family company. Others claim however most of the children have soured on the notion of taking over from their father. The media mogul is the father of six children, who range in age from 61 to 16. The oldest is Prudence, who is Murdoch's only child with his first wife, Australian model Patricia Booker. She has held various positions in her father's companies but now lives in Australia where she is largely focused on raising her three children. Prue, as she is called by her family, has made it clear she is not interested in taking the reins and did not even attend college after graduating from Dalton in New York. That does not mean she would oppose seeing her second husband, Alasdair MacLeod, move up the ranks at News Corp - despite her protests about him working with her father, or her offspring - who are Murdoch's three oldest grandchildren - landing nice roles at the company. But as Vanity Fair reported back in 2008, Prue is in many ways the one link the family has to reality. 'She gets away with saying what the others won't, even things that the others won't think, and she takes the various family members much less seriously than they do themselves,' reported the magazine. 'This involves, not least of all, seeing her three oldest half-siblings - Elisabeth, Lachlan, and James - as, each in his or her way, master-race prototypes.' It is those three who have long seem poised to battle it out for their father's media empire - Elisabeth, 50, Lachlan, 47, and James, 46. All three work in media, with Elisabeth currently experiencing success with Vertical Networks, a startup that provides app-based series that are produced to be viewed in cellular devices. The relationship between Lachlan and his father has run hot and cold over the years, but that all changed back in 2014 when Murdoch's older son returned to New York to work for News Corp. Now, he is the Chairman and CEO of the Fox Corporation. James, the youngest of the three, was the most loyal, staying by his father's side and joining News Corp shortly after he dropped out of Harvard. That devotion was tested however when Murdoch elected to promote Lachlan over James after he return to work in the US following an extended stint in Australia. The brothers already strained relationship only got worse when Lachlan informed James of this decision over lunch. James even briefly quit the company, but then ultimately decided to return before then exiting for good. Murdoch's youngest children are Grace, 18, and Chloe, 16, the New York-based daughters born to Murdoch's third wife Wendi Deng. Chloe is currently attending an Ivy League college while her sister attends private school in Manhattan. The ambitions of the two teenagers are unknown, but their fiercely intelligent mother has no doubt seen to it that the two get not one bit less than their older half-siblings. James, meanwhile, is a longtime environmental advocate. His wife Kathryn works at the Clinton Climate Initiative and the pair are known contributors to the Clinton Foundation. The couple last month endorsed presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden by donating $615,000 each to his campaign after previously donating to former candidate Pete Buttigieg. Rupert and Lachlan said in a statement: 'We're grateful to James for his many years of service to the company. We wish him the very best in his future endeavors.' News Corp is one of the two major media conglomerates owned by the Murdochs, the other being Fox Corporation, which was established after The Walt Disney Company acquired the majority of 21st Century Fox last year. The two sister companies were formed following the split of the original News Corporation, founded in 1980, in 2013. James previously served as the CEO of 21st Century Fox but stepped down following the sale. Since then, he has worked at the helm of the investment fund Lupa Systems. News Corp also publishes major papers in Australia and the UK and owns the HarperCollins book publisher. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) Researchers from the University of the Philippines and University of Santo Tomas see coronavirus cases possibly reaching 150,000 with 3,000 deaths by August 31. The UP OCTA Research Team said this is the likely scenario under current anti-COVID measures. This is important because a less effective implementation of the general community quarantine (GCQ) may lead to an additional 20,000 cases more, UP OCTA Research Team said in its recent report. As of July 31, COVID-19 cases already reached 93,354, with 2,023 deaths. The group calculated the possible number of additional infections based on what is called R naught, or the reproduction rate of the virus. This represents the number of people who may be infected by a confirmed case. Ideally, this should be one or less, as anything higher means significant community transmission. The R naught in the Philippines is 1.4 as of July 30. This is relatively lower than 1.75 R during the first week of the month, but still higher than 1.28 in June. RELATED: UP, UST researchers predict 85,000 COVID-19 cases in PH by end-July Epicenters, high-risk areas The three epicenters of the pandemic are Metro Manila, Cebu and Calabarzon, the researchers said. It is important that we maintain our efforts in these three regions, the researchers said, calling them the main battleground against the pandemic." Professor Guido David, a UP OCTA fellow, said Calabarzon recorded a surge in infections in July, particularly in Laguna, Cavite and Rizal. There are at least 100 cases in these provinces from July 22 to 28. Medyo maraming cases sa Laguna ngayon and pati sa Rizal and Cavite. We have to take extra precaution sa mga province na ito because we dont want to let the numbers to go out of hand na hindi na natin macontrol at ma-overwhlem ang system natin, he said. [Translation: There are many cases in Laguna now, as well as Rizal and Cavite. We have to take extra precaution in these provinces because we dont want to let the numbers to go out of hand to the point that we can no longer control it and our system is overwhelmed.] As of June 30, over half or 60 percent of the total coronavirus cases are from Metro Manila, 18 percent from Cebu province and 10 percent from Calabarzon. The remaining 11% are from other regions. The researchers tagged the following provinces as high-risk areas: Laguna Cavite Rizal Bulacan Negros Occidental Davao del Sur (including Davao City) Zamboanga del Sur Meanwhile, the following are medium-risk areas: Batangas Quezon Camarines Sur Pampanga Pangasinan Bohol Iloilo province Leyte Davao del Norte Lanao del Norte Misamis Oriental Researchers said Nueva Ecija is already a low-risk area with only less than two cases per day per million population. Metro Manila's virus cases may double As of July 30, the research said Metro Manila has the highest number of infections with 48,389 COVID-19 cases. But the UP OCTA Research Team said this may double up to 100,000 by August 31 under GCQ. If Metro Manila reverted to a stricter modified enhanced community quarantine, the total projection would be lower at 75,000 to 80,000. But when restrictions are relaxed, such as a modified GCQ, Metro Manila alone might have a total of 120,000 cases by next month, researchers said. The high positivity rate in NCR indicates that the pandemic is far from controlled," the researchers noted. Were far from passing the danger zone. Even ngayon even if may 1.3 it is still a signifcant transmission. We are still getting 1,000 cases per day in NCR and that is a lot. The problem is really the healthcare system natin baka ma-overwhelm, David said. UP OCTA warned that NCR hospitals face an imminent danger of becoming overwhelmed in the next two weeks. READ: Metro Manila hospitals could be overwhelmed in the next two weeks as COVID-19 cases continue to surge, UP research team warns Cebu projections Cebu province already seems to be flattening the epidemic curve of COVID-19, the researchers said. Virus reproduction rate in the province is less than one, which is ideal in managing and fighting the pandemic. The positivity rate in the province has also gone down to less than 10%. The target positivity rate is 5%. Although the curve is flattening in Cebu, it should be noted that eliminating the pandemic in a region with a high number of new cases will take a while, the UP OCTA Research Teams forecast report read. Given the current rate of transmission, for example, it will require at least 30 days before the number of new cases is reduced to less than 100 per day. Despite the positive outcome of anti-coronavirus measures in the province, David said Cebuanos should remain vigilant. Current efforts to contain the virus should also continue. The reproduction number has decreased less than one, that is a positive result for Cebu. Kaya lang it doesnt mean na pwede na tayo maging kampante sa Cebu kasi (But it doesnt mean that we can be complacent in Cebu because) we are still seeing 200 new cases, David said. UP OCTA projects the coronavirus cases in Cebu province would reach 20,000 to 25,000 by end of August. Franklin Graham warns of all-out socialism if Americans dont vote for leaders who love this country Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Prominent evangelist Franklin Graham warned of all-out socialism if Americans do not vote for leaders who love this country, defend the Constitution, & support law & order. In a Twitter thread Monday, Graham warned about the consequences of complacency from evangelical conservatives and every person who loves this country. He pointed to the chaos erupting in cities controlled by liberal, socialist-leaning leadership as a harbinger of things to come on a national level if this kind of leadership wins in local, state & national elections in November. If this kind of leadership wins in local, state & national elections in November, we'll see more of this, which would lead to the demise of our nation as we know it, said Graham, son of the late evangelist Billy Graham. In a subsequent tweet, he described the violence and unrest in Portland, Oregon, as an example of what will take place in other cities if Americans do not take a stand in defense of the nationthrough the power of the vote. Socialism is dangerous, and we have a party and many politicians who are flirting with all-out socialism, he stressed. I would encourage every person who loves this country to pray & to turn out by the millions to vote. Dont just watch the news & be depressedstand up for America! Vote for leaders who love this country, defend the Constitution, & support law & order. Most importantly, pray. During the previous election in 2016, Graham made a similar warning, saying that Americas new enemies are progressives and godless secularism. He also described the presidential election taking place that year as the most critical in our lifetime. In an op-ed Tuesday, Dr. James Dobson, psychologist and founder of the Christian organization Focus on the Family, echoed Grahams concerns about the perils of socialism. He listed the battle between capitalism versus socialism as one of several reasons why the stakes are high this election year. Socialism limits enterprise and creates undue reliance on the state, he said. Socialism, at its core, is a secular framework that installs government as god. It has no use for faith, freedom, or the will of the people. The aforementioned Twitter thread sent out by Graham is not his first effort to motivate evangelical Christians to go to the polls this fall. The evangelist appeared in a documentary film called Trump 2024. The movie, which organizers hope will be shown at 1,500 theaters across the country, warns of socialism and the End Times if President Donald Trump is not re-elected this fall. According to Pew Research Center, Trump received 81% of the white evangelical vote in the 2016 presidential election, exceeding the share received by the three previous Republican presidential nominees. While some polls have shown the presidents support slipping with white evangelicals, a poll from Pew Research Center taken last month showed that 82% of white evangelicals planned to vote for Trump. Graham is not the only evangelical leader working to motivate Christians to get out and vote in November. Jason Yates, the CEO of the group My Faith Votes, has launched a bipartisan initiative called Our Church Votes. Through this initiative, Yates hopes to encourage the 25 million Christians who did not vote in the 2016 presidential election to participate this time around. Although some employees use the mechanisms without reprisal, many federal employees say these channels are a waste of time, and that they fear retaliation . . . or have faced reprisal from agency management for using them, says the report by the nonprofit Project On Government Oversight, or POGO. There appear to be few public success stories where use of dissent channels led to change, or factored into a serious reconsideration of policies. After a somber reunion with Kanye West on Monday, the Kim Kardashian came back home to L.A. on Tuesday. The 39-year-old star of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" arrived home alone. On photos released by the TMZ, Kim Kardashian was spotted after her plane landed. According to the outlet, West was staying in Cody, Wyoming, at his ranch where he has been living and recording his music. As seen in a video published by The Daily Mail, Kardashian was wearing a white sweatshirt partnered with sweatpants, and her hair is tightly bunned as she left the plane and moved towards her SUV that was waiting to pick her up. According to a source, the time spent by Kim with Kanye was brief but really needed and added that Kim wanted to go alone because the actress felt that it was necessary for them to have their time without outside influences. And now that Kim is back in L.A. she will be focusing on her work, her kids, and getting her husband on the right track. Kim Kardashian's return to L.A. came a day after she had a tearful meeting with her husband. The couple was spotted having an emotional conversation on Monday at the back of their SUV. Read also: Biden's Presidential Campaign Prohibits Staff to Use TikTok According to the statement of a source, on Monday Kim flew to Wyoming to visit Kanye after weeks of trying to communicate with him and made him agree to see her, saying that the meeting between the couple was very emotional as the two have several things to work through at the moment and most importantly assuring that Kanye is healthy and in good condition. The source added through Kim is still dismayed with her husband, she knew that she needed to focus on him getting better, saying that Kim was willing to do whatever she can to provide Kanye with the help he needed. The reunion of the couple was marked as the first time they have seen each other after West made a chaotic presidential rally debut in South Carolina and his succeeding Twitter storm of the deleted comments about his wife and the Kardashian family. It came a day after West has apologized to his wife through a tweet saying that he regretted publicizing matters which should have been kept in private. On Saturday, the rapper tweeted, apologizing to his wife, Kim Kardashian West, for posting private matters, adding that he failed to cover his wife as she did for him. West also asked for Kim's forgiveness, admitting that he hurt her and thanking Kim for always being there for him, ET Online reported. On Saturday, West was spotted in a hospital near his ranch. He stayed for about 10 minutes and came back to his home, with an ambulance showing up to his property after a short while. Reportedly, West was feeling anxious that he decided to go to the hospital. On a statement by a source, when West arrived in the hospital, he decided to be checked at his ranch that is why an ambulance showed up to his property. His vital signs were checked and were found to be normal, after which he felt better. Related article: Kanye West Calls Mother-in-Law Kris Jenner 'Kris Jong-Un' @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. R ishi Sunak has been told he has just 24 hours to change course on the Government's furlough scheme or risk making a "historic mistake". Labour warned the Chancellor that jobs could be lost if he does not abandon his "one-size-fits-all" withdrawal of support. From August 1 employers will have to pay National Insurance and pension contributions for their staff. And in September, companies will have to pay 10 per cent of furloughed employees' salaries - rising to 20 per cent in October. Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said the move could lead to a "python-like" squeeze on jobs in some of the sectors that have been hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Anneliese Dodds: Sunak has 24 hours to change course / PA Ms Dodds made the comments ahead of a visit to Peterborough with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, where the party will launch its nationwide jobs campaign. "The Chancellor's refusal to abandon his one-size-fits-all withdrawal of furlough is a historic mistake that risks a python-like squeeze on jobs in the worst-hit sectors," said Ms Dodds. "The reward for months of hard work and sacrifice by the British people cannot be a P45. "It's not too late for the Chancellor to see sense, change course and support the businesses and sectors that need it most. But, even if he does, there is still much to do. "That's why Labour is today launching the Jobs Jobs Jobs campaign, to offer concrete, constructive proposals that would protect the economy and people's livelihoods." Furlough scheme can't save all jobs, admits Chancellor Ms Dodds added: "The Government should back viable businesses that are still impacted by coronavirus, support the self-employed and come up with a plan to drive job creation as we emerge from the pandemic. "And it must ensure our NHS and care services are fully prepared for a second wave - because we won't recover from this economic crisis until the Government gets a grip on the health crisis." As part of its campaign, Labour has set out a five-point pledge, with a focus on protecting jobs and businesses. The party has urged the Government to reform the furlough scheme so that it supports jobs in the worst-hit sectors and targets aid to struggling industries. It has also called for a 1.7 billion "fightback fund" to prevent firms going under, additional support to areas forced into local lockdowns, and an investment in infrastructure. Making workplaces safe and giving NHS and care services the resources to avoid a second wave is also outlined in the campaign, along with the protection of workers' right and increasing sick pay. SNP Treasury spokeswoman Alison Thewliss also warned that changes to the furlough scheme are "dangerously premature". She said: "The decision by the Tory Government to cut the furlough scheme in the middle of the global pandemic, and ahead of a potential second wave, is dangerously premature and poses a threat to thousands of jobs across Scotland and the UK. "With the first round of cuts to the income support scheme due to begin this Saturday, businesses are already having to plan for the worst." Chancellor Rishi Sunak, right, has been warned that jobs could be lost if he does not abandon his "one-size-fits-all" withdrawal of support / PA Ms Thewliss added: "Rather than abandoning firms and workers, the Treasury must heed the dire warnings and act before it's too late." A Government source said that the support being provided is "comprehensive and generous". They said: "This Government has worked tirelessly during this crisis to protect jobs, livelihoods and businesses. At every step we have acted at scale and at pace to ensure as many people as possible are supported during this difficult time. "The furlough scheme is unprecedented and has so far supported the wages of 9.5 million people, at a cost of 31.7 billion and will run for eight months in total. "It is not a 'one-size-fits-all' policy, it is the most comprehensive and generous version of support that can be provided." They added: "The Labour Party seem to be very good at calling for things, but repeatedly fail to put forward any realistic or detailed plan on how they can be delivered. We are yet to hear for example who they think should be left out of this 'targeted support' and why. "While Labour shout into the wind, this Government is getting on with delivering our Plan for Jobs. As the economy reopens, we are adjusting the support provided to ensure people can get back to work and we can rebuild our economy." On August 8, 1945, the main headline across the entire front page of The Springfield Republican read in all capital letters, HIROSHIMA 60 PER CENT WIPED OUT. Two days earlier, the B-29 Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb, which detonated over the Japanese industrial city of Hiroshima at an altitude of 2,000 feet. On August 9, the Japanese seaport city of Nagasaki was also bombed. Death estimates range from 66,000 to 150,000, mostly civilians. Japan surrendered six days after the bombing of Nagasaki. The bombings remain the first and only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict. Immediately after the bombings, a Gallup poll found that 85% of Americans approved of using atomic weapons on Japan. That support waned over the years. A 1991 poll in the Detroit Free Press indicated 63% of Americans said the bomb attacks were justified. In 2015 a Pew Research Center survey found 56% of Americans believe the use of nuclear weapons was justified. Fully 75 years after the bombings, the debate over whether America should have taken an alternate course to end the conflict continues, with some asking whether the U.S. should apologize for the bombings. In 2016, after a G7 meeting of world leaders in Tokyo, President Obama visited Hiroshima to become the first U.S. president to visit the city since the bombing. And there was concern within the White House that his visit would be seen as an apology. After all, the president of the United States isnt a mere tourist. During the tour, Obama said the memory of the attack must never fade, but did not apologize, which was the correct thing to do. The memory of Hiroshima, allows us to fight complacencies, fuels our moral imagination and allows us to change, Obama said. The bombings in Japan effectively ended the war. It cannot be known how many lives would have been lost if the United States had invaded Japan. But it would have been undeniably cataclysmic with massive casualties on both sides. A paper commissioned by President Truman in June 1945 estimated a quarter-million casualties if the war continued. But that was the bare minimum. An aide added the phrase as much as a million to the final draft. The U.S. and Japan have come to view each other as allies and friends. The two nations have a vibrant trading structure and strong economic relations and cultural ties -- which would likely never have happened if we opted for a long, drawn-out war. Reflecting on the anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki offers a painful reminder of the devastation that can occur for those that choose war. And appreciate any and all steps to avoid and prevent it. The Rotary Club of The Woodlands has just completed its 45th year, so today we journey to South County to celebrate the accomplishments of this vibrant club. RCW is the largest club in our county, with 180 active and honorary members. That number includes 15 members of The RAH (Rotary After Hours) Satellite Club. RCW is one of the largest in our District 5910 and also in District 5890, which encompasses the Greater Houston area. The working dynamics of a club the size of RCW is markedly different from the 4 small clubs in our county. The RC of Conroe has an average of 42 active members on its roster, with the Rotay Clubs of Lake Conroe, Magnolia and East Montgomery County all averaging about 25 active members. When I look over the list of RCW projects, its difficult to even wrap my mind around one club accomplishing so much in such a short period of time. Outgoing Club President Randy Kruchten recently presented both the luncheon club and the RAH group with a wrap up of the year, stating in his opening remarks We made it! Lets give ourselves a hand! In thinking about this year, I could only come up with the words of that great philosopher and songwriter of my youth, Jerry Garcia, What a long strange trip its been. So very true Randy! The club began the Rotary year in July of 2019 by continuing with their huge list of youth activities. The club annually provides leadership training for all the Interact Clubs throughout District 5910. As the second largest sponsor of Interact Clubs in the world, they certainly know the drill. Even being shut down for COVID said Randy, the 334 kids of The Woodlands High School Interact contributed over 5,000 (service) hours and the 251 kids of College Park contributed over 4,500 hours of community service. With Interact, we gave a Christmas celebration to those in our nursing facilities who otherwise may not have had one. And we added an Interact Club at Grand Oaks High School. Club members also mentored students within CISD and sent 20 students to RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) training and continued their scholarship programs. The club has always had a large presence feeding the hungry, and this year was no exception. Members helped with Meals on Wheels, The End Hunger Now Project and The Montgomery County Food Bank. The club honored Veterans, Lit Up The Night for The Leukemia Lymphoma Society and honored cancer survivors. They rang bells for the Salvation Army, and held on to their position as No. 1 highest grossing partner with the organization. Approximately 4,250 lives were potentially saved with the 177 gallons of blood donated last year during the clubs blood drives. A book was donated weekly to Interfaith of The Woodlands, and members had a great time participating in the annual Dragon Boat Races benifiting The YMCA. There is so much more to say, but weve run out of room for today, so well just end with Randys closing remarks and save the rest for another day. Ladies and Gentlemen, there you have it. The Rotary Club of The Woodlands year in review ... Are you breathing hard? I know I am. And hopefully, you will agree with me when I say Rotary is the greatest tool for good on the planet. This is but a small piece of what Rotary is. And, in my opinion, its a thumbnail of what The Rotary Club of The Woodlands is the best darn Rotary Club on the planet! ... I was so very proud, privileged and humbled to have served as your President over this long, strange trip. And, I am eternally grateful to each and every one of you for being dumb enough to let me. Ya gotta love Randy! Bravo and congrats to WRC for another outstanding year of service. To learn more about Rotary contact Kris via email at KrisCommService@aol.com or text 713-825-0141. Also see the website and Facebook pages of any of our local clubs, or the Rotary District 5910 website at www.rotary5910.org. System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
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As per the committee agenda, it will "hear the views of Secretary, Department of Health and Family Welfare, and Secretary of Department of Health Research on the status of the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic and related contingent and mitigation plan." India has reported a single-day spike of 55,079 coronavirus cases and 779 deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing the total cases to 16,38,871 and 35,747 deaths, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Friday. More than one million people have recovered till now, over 1.9 times the number of active cases. As many as 10,57,805 patients have been cured and discharged, while 5,45,318 still remain under treatment. While much of corporate America, from airlines to hospitality, has been savaged by the pandemic, big tech is enjoying what can only be perversely described as a good lockdown. The big four Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google's parent Alphabet posted combined quarterly sales of 156billion from April to June, and all reported higher profit. Unsurprisingly, Amazon came out top with a record quarter of 68billion in sales, sending its shares shooting up 4 per cent. Another 4billion or so was added to the Bezos wallet. Centre of the universe?: Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google's parent Alphabet posted combined quarterly sales of 156billion from April to June Yet the rise in value of the tech giants was all the more astonishing because it came just hours after their chief executives were grilled on Capitol Hill about their alleged abuse of monopoly power and global dominance. Perhaps just as well that the results did not come out until a day after the hearing, on what was dubbed 'Super Thursday' so the congressmen were not armed with fresh proof of just how powerful and profitable they are. And the fact all four reported on the same day meant none could be singled out. Strength in unity, as the saying goes. As it was, Apple's Tim Cook, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Alphabet's Sundar Pichai and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg squirmed and struggled to defend themselves during what was a combative hearing in which they did not for once have all the slick answers. Zuckerberg admitted to 'neutralising' rivals, and has already described his purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram as a 'digital land grab'. Even Bezos sweated when asked about a bookseller being taken out by his Amazonian beast. What a land grab it is. The four horsemen control nearly all that we do on the internet: selling apps, sending messages, pestering us with ads, stealing news, answering people's questions and buying just about everything one wants. This is extraordinary power. Fortunately, the US politicians are serious about discovering how this power works, how it is wielded and if necessary cracking down on their reach. Plans: The Australian Government has announced plans to force Google and Facebook to pay news outlets for content in an attempt to prevent the country's media from being ravaged The sub-committee of the House Judiciary Committee has been investigating their dominance over the internet for a year now, and came well prepared with ammunition to show how the tech titans have been responsible for bullying and destroying small businesses. That's on top of charges that big tech controls how we are surveilled and our data manipulated, that Facebook spreads misinformation and censors, while Amazon handles laundered goods. But what should the policymakers do? Should the big tech behemoths be broken up in the same way Theodore Roosevelt took the axe to Standard Oil and the telephone companies in the 1920s? Or can their power be reined in by higher taxes and stiffer regulation? It's a daunting dilemma. On the one hand, there is a strong argument that the West should support rather than demonise these great success stories, because the real threat is China. Nearly half of the world's biggest online firms including Alibaba and JD.com are Chinese, and they are growing fast. There is another point. Would breaking them up benefit the customer? As most of us could testify, going through lockdown without Facetime on our mobile phones and Amazon to shop online may have been tougher still. But not impossible. As we also saw during lockdown, small business owners snapped into action and came up with the most enterprising solutions. Now what we need is a fairer environment in which smaller social media outlets or online retailers can compete before being crushed by the big guns. How can a more level playing field be achieved? Well, US politicians should look to the Australian government for inspiration. It has announced plans to force Google and Facebook to pay news outlets for content in an attempt to prevent the country's media from being ravaged. If they don't pay, the Australian regulators will fine them hundreds of millions of dollars. Facebook and Google have already threatened to walk away rather than pay for news. Good. Let them walk. Unusually, there is cross-party support for change. Both the Republicans and Democrats want to see big tech reformed, to varying degrees and for different reasons. But don't hold your breath, certainly not until after the November US elections. Which is why the share prices of the big tech corporations largely stormed ahead after their results. Investors take the view that the regulators will not be cracking down any time soon. These are the best offers from our affiliate partners. We may get a commission from qualifying sales. A British teenager has been charged with hacking Twitter and stealing thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin by taking over the accounts of celebrities and top businessmen. The US Department of Justice charged Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and the intentional access of a protected computer. Mr Sheppard was one of three people charged with the hack, which took place earlier this month and saw accounts belonging to Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Barack Obama hijacked and used to post links to Bitcoin wallets along with false claims that payments would be matched. A British teenager has been charged with hacking the social media site Twitter and stealing thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin by taking over the accounts of celebrities and business leaders (file photo) Former US president Barack Obama, the most followed account on Twitter, was among the high-profile targets used to carry out the bitcoin scam US teenager Graham Ivan Clark, 17, was arrested on Friday morning in Tampa More than $100,000 was stolen in the scam, the DoJ said. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 45 years in prison. US Attorney David L. Anderson said: 'Criminal conduct over the Internet may feel stealthy to the people who perpetrate it, but there is nothing stealthy about it.' Sheppard, also known as 'Chaewon,' 19, was charged in a criminal complaint in the Northern District of California. The charges were conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and the intentional access of a protected computer. Nima Fazeli, also known as 'Rolex,' 22, of Orlando, Florida, was charged with aiding and abetting the intentional access of a protected computer. The third defendant is a juvenile who will not be identified, the justice department said. United States Attorney David L Anderson (pictured in 2019) said: 'There is a false belief within the criminal hacker community that attacks like the Twitter hack can be perpetrated anonymously and without consequence' Twitter says hackers 'manipulated' employees to access 130 accounts Twitter said last week that hackers 'manipulated' some of its employees to access accounts. More than $100,000 worth of the virtual currency was sent to email addresses mentioned in the tweets, according to Blockchain.com, which monitors crypto transactions. 'We know that they accessed tools only available to our internal support teams to target 130 Twitter accounts,' said a statement posted on Twitter's blog. For 45 of those accounts, the hackers were able to reset passwords, login and send tweets, it added, while the personal data of up to eight unverified users was downloaded. Twitter locked down affected accounts and removed the fraudulent tweets. It also shut off accounts not affected by the hack as a precaution. Advertisement Anderson said: 'There is a false belief within the criminal hacker community that attacks like the Twitter hack can be perpetrated anonymously and without consequence. 'Today's charging announcement demonstrates that the elation of nefarious hacking into a secure environment for fun or profit will be short-lived. 'Criminal conduct over the Internet may feel stealthy to the people who perpetrate it, but there is nothing stealthy about it. In particular, I want to say to would-be offenders, break the law, and we will find you.' The criminal complaints says the Twitter attack consisted of a combination of technical breaches and social engineering. 'The result of the Twitter hack was the compromise of approximately 130 Twitter accounts pertaining to politicians, celebrities, and musicians,' it says. 'The hackers are alleged to have created a scam bitcoin account, to have hacked into Twitter VIP accounts, to have sent solicitations from the Twitter VIP accounts with a false promise to double any bitcoin deposits made to the scam account, and then to have stolen the bitcoin that victims deposited into the scam account. 'As alleged in the complaints, the scam bitcoin account received more than 400 transfers worth more than 100,000 US dollars (76,000). 'The defendants are alleged to have victimised the Twitter VIP users whose accounts were hacked. The defendants are alleged to have victimised the people who sent bitcoin in response to the scam solicitations.' A San Jose police officer used a private security company to evade taxes, steal wages, commit insurance fraud and launder more than $18 million, authorities said Friday. Officer Robert Foster, a 47-year-old Morgan Hill resident, used and traded on his protected status as an active-duty police officer to further his business interests all while concealing his company from the San Jose Police Department, according to the Santa Clara County district attorneys office. On Friday, prosecutors charged Foster, along with his wife, Mikaila Foster, and eight other employees at Atlas Securities, with four counts of felony conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, unemployment insurance fraud, money laundering and wage theft, as well as 39 other felonies, including extortion. Fosters attorney declined to comment Friday, saying he still needed to review the case. Over six months ago, the district attorneys office in collaboration with several state departments launched a probe into the company, which Foster allegedly did not disclose to the San Jose Police Department. Police did not respond to a request for comment on the charges. The investigation found that Foster and his employees reduced insurance premiums and taxes by reporting false and inaccurate payroll information, under-reporting head count, paying employees off the books and not reporting employee injuries, prosecutors said. In one incident, an employee was allegedly threatened with deportation if she continued to speak to attorneys about her workers compensation rights after she was injured on the job. The company also allegedly hid approximately $8.09 million in payroll over three years and avoided approximately $579,000 in tax liability and $560,000 in insurance premiums. To carry on the fraud scheme, Atlas employees allegedly laundered approximately $18.2 million. 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. On July 21, District Attorney Jeff Rosen announced a series of criminal and social justice reforms that included a Workers Exploitation Task Force. This Office will root out and prosecute anyone whether they wear a badge or not taking criminal advantage of workers, Rosen said in a statement. Our new task force will protect and heal the victims of labor trafficking, wage theft and illegal exploitation and raise awareness about how these insidious crimes are attacks on our communities of color. Brett Simpson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: brett.simpson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @brettvsimpson Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican who has frequently walked around the Capitol without wearing a face mask or maintaining social distance from others, has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to a person familiar with the results. Gohmert had been scheduled to travel with President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One to Texas on Wednesday but tested positive at the White House and did not join the trip, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. News of Gohmert's diagnosis was first reported by Politico. Several other members of Congress have also tested positive or have been presumed to have tested positive for coronavirus in recent months, including Reps. H. Morgan Griffith, R-Va.; Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y.; Joe Cunningham, D-S.C.; Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla.; Ben McAdams, D-Utah; Seth Moulton, D-Mass.;, Mike Kelly, R-Pa.; and Tom Rice, R-S.C.; as well as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. FACT CHECK: Texas congressman touts product, says it kills coronavirus for 2 weeks Because of the memorial services for the late congressman John Lewis, D-Ga., the full House has only held one roll call vote, at lunchtime Monday, over the past five days, so many lawmakers would not have been around the Texan in recent days. Gohmert has typically worn a mask as required during House hearings, including during Tuesday's nearly six-hour testimony by Attorney General William Barr before the House Judiciary Committee. That session was held in a massive auditorium with lawmakers spaced out, and Gohmert appears to have adhered to the committee rules that one must wear a mask at all times unless it is his or her turn to speak. But he has not always worn one or maintained social distance while walking around the Capitol. Gohmert defended his actions in a CNN interview in June. "I don't have the coronavirus, turns out as of yesterday I've never had it. But if I get it, you'll never see me without a mask," he said. In May, Gohmert was among some two dozen House Republicans who met with Trump at the White House without wearing masks. EARLIER THIS YEAR: Rep. Louie Gohmert is lone Texan to vote against anti-lynching bill "I do want to advise our media friends before they write stories about how we didn't wear masks and we didn't possibly socially distance adequately, that you saw to it that we had tests, and that nobody in here had the coronavirus unless it's somebody in the media," Gohmert said at the time, according to NBC News. "So the only reason we would wear masks is if we were trying to protect ourselves from you in the media. And we're not scared of you. So that's why we can be here like this," he added. Gohmert's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Told of Gohmert's positive test, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters that too many Republicans followed Trump into the anti-mask movement solely for political reasons. "I'm concerned about the irresponsible behavior of many of the Republicans, who have chosen to consistently flout well-established public health guidance, perhaps out of fealty to their boss, Donald Trump, who is the head of the anti-mask movement in America," Jeffries, a member of Democratic leadership, told reporters Wednesday at his weekly news conference. "That's a concern, and it's my plea to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle ... that they stop politicizing public-health guidance and do the right thing," he added. PORTLAND, Ore., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A Change.org petition has been created to demand transparency and the protection of free speech on the popular social-media website Reddit.com. Reddit has made efforts to clean up its online communities by banning subreddits that were considered hateful in nature. In June, about 2000 subreddits were taken down, from popular ones like the Trump-supporting /r/The_Donald, to the pro-LGBT community /r/RightwingLGBT. Human Rights Media But a closer look at what they decided to ban shows significant inconsistencies and subjectivity in how the company enforced the rules. And with many communities banned without explanation, rule-abiding users are left in the dark. Will they be allowed to speak freely? Or will they be the next to be banned? Prior to a recent edit due to community uproar, one example of Reddit's lack of clarity was its rule on protecting minority groups. One user highlighted this rule back in the post titled "Update to our Content Policy." It stated, "the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate." The user then asked "So can we be racist towards black people in a black-majority country, and racist to white people in a white-majority country?" This inconsistency is a simple example of how Reddit's rules and values were not thought through, and were problematic at best. If a subreddit faces a ban, Reddit offers an appeals process to find out more information. But in reality, these requests don't reach the right people, and efforts to elevate and raise these issues are often ignored. With Reddit enforcing its rules in such an opaque way, the site has drifted away from values of free speech to a tyrannical rule of law. This sets a dangerous precedent for the future of the site: no longer is it a place where one can speak freely. Rather, the site is governed by its vague rules and by the ideologies and political leanings of those in charge. To protect the future of Reddit.com, the Change.org petition calls for the site and its users to do better. To create an online community that is inclusive and welcoming, Reddit must require transparency in all decisions regarding banning, suspension, and content removal, and open communication without repercussion between users and moderators. Read through and sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/p/reddit-demand-transparency-and-protection-of-free-speech-from-reddit ABOUT THE HUMAN RIGHTS MEDIA: Human Rights Media is a nonprofit news organization dedicated to covering the human rights issues of the past, present, and future. For more information, please visit https://humanrightsmedia.org . Jesse Moore Phone: 503-470-7924 Email address: [email protected] SOURCE Human Rights Media Related Links http://www.humanrightsmedia.org (JNS) The U.S. House of Representatives passed a $740.5 billion National Defense Authorization Act for 2021 on Tuesday that includes the continuation of American assistance to Israel for missile-defense programs and other initiatives. The Pentagon blueprint for the upcoming year allocates $500 million towards missile-defense systems in Israel such as the Iron Dome, Davids Sling and Arrow 3 in accordance with the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, between the United States and Israel worth $38 billion over a decade. The NDAA would continue the grant program on post-traumatic st... In Punjab's Amritsar, Batala, and Tarn Tarna districts twenty-one people have died allegedly after drinking toxic liquor, prompting Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to order a high-level investigation, officials said on Friday. In Punjabs Amritsar, Batala, and Tarn Tarna districts twenty-one people have died allegedly after drinking toxic liquor, prompting Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to order a high-level investigation, officials said on Friday. It said that the inquiry will look into the facts and circumstances leading to the incidents. The investigation will be conducted by the Divisional Commissioner, Jalandhar, along with the Punjab Joint Excise and Taxation Commissioner and the SP in the concerned districts. The senior Congress leader later tweeted that the guilty will not be pardoned. Also read: Mehbooba Muftis detainment extended for another 3 months Also read: Gujarat Technological University: Systems hacked, private data of 1200 students leaked Mr. Singh tweeted that he had ordered a magisterial inquiry into suspected spurious liquor deaths in Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran. Commissioner, Jalandhar Division will conduct the inquiry and coordinate with concerned SSPs and other officers. Anyone found guilty will not be spared. I have ordered a magisterial enquiry into suspected spurious liquor deaths in Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran. Commissioner, Jalandhar Division will conduct the enquiry and coordinate with concerned SSPs and other officers. Anyone found guilty will not be spared. Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) July 31, 2020 Police said that on July 29, the first five deaths were reported at Mucchal and Tangra villages in Amritsars Tarsikka. In Amritsar, one person died at Sri Guru Ram Das Hospital after being shifted from Tangra. At Amritsars Muchhal village, two more people died under suspicious circumstances on Thursday evening. The DGP said that five people died in Batala on Friday, taking the death toll in the city to seven. He also added that four deaths were reported from Tarn Taran. Locals said that some villagers make spurious liquor in their houses but the police dont take any action against them. Senior officers have reached the spot and are taking statements, as per the reports. Also read: Shivraj Singh Chouhan urges state ministers, MLAs to contribute 30% salary to CM Covid Relief Fund EAST MARLBOROUGH Leaders of the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District discussed reopening options for the fall on Wednesday evening during a virtual Curriculum and Instruction Committee meeting. The task force discussed three plans as options, with enhanced safety measures, for the start of the 2020-21 school year come September. The board will vote on the administrations recommended option during the board meeting on Monday, Aug. 3, said Christa M. Fazio, district communications, on Thursday. The mission of the Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board is to: Empower each student to succeed in life and contribute to society. Administration recommends bringing our youngest learners K through 3 in daily in classes with fewer students so that we can maintain six feet of social distancing, said Superintendent John Sanville on Thursday. It is essential that we provide our youngest minds with the educational opportunities and experiences that are best provided in school with our exceptional teachers and their peers, he said. Our older students can better access learning through a hybrid model that allows for both in-person and distance learning. Sanville continued, This plan meets the needs of our community while being true to our guiding principles of keeping students and staff safe, providing an outstanding educational program, and also meeting the social and emotional needs of all. Tory Baratta serves as chairman of the Curriculum and Instruction Committee. Of the three plans presented by the task force on July 29, the third plan called for remote learning only if school closures become again mandated by the state. The first and second options focus on the reopening of schools with various new enhanced safety measures in place. Education Plan No. 1 The first plan calls for all students to attend school every day for children enrolled in kindergarten up to the third grade. Students from fourth graders to high school students would attend classroom learning on a different schedule, based on a six-day schedule, and would only attend in-person instruction twice a week, with another four days of learning conducted remotely from home. This plan requires the hiring of up to 21 new teachers to reduce class sizes and ensure six-feet of separation learning for social distancing. The plan cites rationale for this plan as: ? Supported by administration; ? 82 percent of surveyed parents support some kind of brick-and-mortar plan; ? Majority of the task force support a brick-and-mortar plan; ? Follows mitigation recommendations and requirements outlined by Pennsylvania Department of Health, Chester County Department of Health and the federal government including suggested mandates for 6-feet of social distancing; face masks; hand-washing; frequent cleaning of high-touch surfaces; transportation safety measures; and maximum occupancy limitations; ? Provides an effective way to transition students back to school in a safe and careful manner; ? Flexible, this plan can quickly scale up or down; and ? Provides live, synchronous remote instruction. If the first plan is approved, schools shall reopen in September. Students would be divided by families, meaning siblings would attend in-person classroom instruction on the same days; and based on their last names per groupings. The first half of students in K-3 grades would return to school on Sept. 8 and Sept. 9. The second half of youngsters would return to the classroom, for the first time since mid-March, on Sept. 10 and Sept. 11. Older students would return to the classroom on rotating schedules beginning Sept. 8 until Sept. 15. The district plans to teach all physical education courses outside, weather permitting. Education Plan No. 2 The second plan is similar to option one, however all students would attend in-person classes only twice a week rather than allowing students in K-3 to attend classes five days a week. Key highlights of the second plan include: ? In-person instruction for two consecutive days out of a six-day cycle; ? Live, synchronous remote instruction via Zoom for four consecutive days out of a six-day cycle; ? Participation of students would be required. This plan is supported by the majority of the committee task force. Education Plan No. 3 The final plan, Option 3, would be in play if Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf mandated Chester County return to a red phase which calls for people to stay at home unless traveling for emergency supplies, such as food. This plan would be enhanced and improved from lessons learned during this past spring. The district said students and parents would be given clearer expectations regarding new remote learning requirements and improved assessment and grading processes would also be implemented. If students are allowed to return to the classroom in September, the district will enforce new enhanced safety measures including for school bus drivers. For instance, the district is calling for all passengers to wear masks. Drivers would be allowed to remove their masks while driving, but would be required to put them back on while students are entering or exiting the buses. The district will also be requiring all school children and teens as well as staff to wear masks on school grounds and inside the buildings with the possible exception of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities and students and staff who have trouble breathing. Additionally, the district said that students who refuse to wear a mask must participate in remote learning. The district added that mask breaks will be allowed when outdoors and at least six-feet apart. Further six-feet of social distancing will be established in classrooms with desks appropriately placed to achieve this Procedures to maintain six feet of social distancing in hallways, cafeteria and other common areas will be implemented Traffic flow in hallways and in stairwells will be established in a one-way direction to avoid congestion. As for music instruction, singing will be banned unless students are able to go outside and have six feet of social distancing. Lastly, staff may use outdoor spaces when appropriate. As of press deadline, there are 3,941 students enrolled within the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District for the 2020-21 school year. To watch the July 29 discussion, visit: https://youtu.be/jhrqy2t0da0. To read the plan options, visit: https://go.boarddocs.com/pa/uncf/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=BRQNRJ5E06A8. US Expands Sanctions Against Iran to Target Nuclear, Military, Ballistic Missile Programs - Pompeo Sputnik News 21:37 GMT 30.07.2020(updated 22:41 GMT 30.07.2020) United States sanctions against Tehran were reimposed after President Donald Trump in 2018 announced a unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on Thursday that the Trump administration would expand its metals sanctions against Iran to cover 22 additional materials used in various Iranian programs. "Today, the State Department is identifying 22 specific materials used in connection with Iran's nuclear, military, or ballistic missile programs. Those who knowingly transfer such materials to Iran are now sanctionable pursuant to Section 1245 of the Iranian Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act," the Pompeo statement said. Pompeo also noted that the IRGC's construction firm and many of its subsidiaries remain sanctioned by the United Nations, claiming that "they were directly involved in the construction of the uranium enrichment site at Fordow". "As a result of this IRGC determination, any knowing transfer of certain materials, including graphite or raw or semi-finished metals, to or from Iran to be used in connection with the construction sector of Iran remains sanctionable", his statement said. In early July, Tehran filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the impact of Washington's sanctions amid the coronavirus pandemic, implying that not only the country's oil-dependent economy had suffered, but the sanctions also undermine Iran's efforts to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. The Islamic republic has been one of the most coronavirus-affected countries in the region, with currently over 290,000 registered cases. Several countries, including Russia and China, and even some US lawmakers, have urged the trump administration to lift the sanctions amid the pandemic. Pompeo has claimed that the sanctions do not prevent Iran from receiving humanitarian aid. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani estimated the economic damage done to the country by the US sanctions to be about $50 billion. Sanctions against Iran were re-imposed after Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew the United States from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), that envisaged Tehran scaling back its nuclear program in exchange for sanction relief. After Trump's exit from the deal, Tehran announced that it would step away from its nuclear commitments, noting, however, that the country's nuclear program remains exclusively peaceful. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address On Monday, the U.S. Commerce Department barred 11 Chinese companies from accessing U.S.-sourced commodities, technology, and other items. 11 Chinese companies situated in the northwestern China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have allegedly been involved in violating human rights of exploiting Uyghur and other minority Muslim workers. The U.S. Commerce Department added these 11 Chinese companies to the Entities List which is maintained by the Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce criticized the 11 Chinese companies for being involved in "reprehensible practice of forced labor and abusive DNA collection and analysis schemes to repress its citizens." "This action will ensure that our goods and technologies are not used in the Chinese Communist Party's despicable offensive against defenseless Muslim minority populations," Ross added. Nury Turkel, the member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, supported the U.S. decision saying that the decision "will help ensure that the fruits of American innovation and industry are not inadvertently fueling outrageous religious freedom and labor violations." "We urge Congress to pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would bar imports of all goods mined, produced, or manufactured in Xinjiang, unless proven by clear and convincing evidence that the goods were not produced using forced labor," Turkel added. The Trump administration imposed stronger sanctions on some of the top Chinese officials who were determined responsible for violating human rights in Xinjiang. China has been enforcing strict rules on Muslim minorities in XUAR or mostly Uyghurs by prohibiting the use of native languages, expressional traditional culture, and family planning. If the Muslim minorities did not abide, they were sent to internment camps to be "re-educated" from "terrorist-like" behavior. Beijing labels these reeducation camps "vocational centers" despite social media outlets exposing the detainees being held against their will to endure inhumane treatment and political indoctrination. CAMBRIDGE Drugs, weapons and cash are among the items seized from a Cambridge home in a drug bust on Thursday afternoon. At around 5 p.m. Waterloo Regional Police officers executed a search warrant at a home on Lena Crescent and seized suspected cocaine, methamphetamine, pills, scales, packaging and approximately $40,000 in Canadian currency. Police also seized weapons, including a conducted energy weapon, and two vehicles as property related to the alleged offences. A 33-year-old female and a 30-year-old male both from Cambridge are facing drug and weapons-related charges, including possession for the purpose of trafficking. US Senator Accuses Twitter Of Violating Sanctions By Providing Platform To Iran's Khamenei Maryam Sinaiee July 30, 2020 U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has said that Twitter is violating sanctions on Iran by providing the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei with account services. In a tweet on Thursday, Senator Cruz also said that he has urged The United States Attorney General William Barr to open a criminal investigation into the alleged violations including "antisemitic vitriol and hatred against America". Senator Cruz also quoted Israeli international human rights lawyer and political analyst Arsen Ostrovsky's tweet who wrote that at a hearing of the Knesset - Israel's unicameral legislature - on antisemitism the representative of Twitter told him that they flag the U.S. President Donald Trump because it serves "public conversation" but not the Iranian ruler's "call for genocide" which passes for acceptable "commentary on political issues of the day" according to the representative. Jack Beyrer wrote in The Washington Free Beacon on July 29 that Twitter does not apply the same standards to Khamenei as it does to President Trump. On several occasions Twitter has taken down Trump's tweets for "glorifying violence" while the Ayatollah's tweets some of which advocate for the genocide of Israeli Jews remain untouched, he wrote. Khamenei has in several tweets called Israel "a cancerous tumor" and called for its "elimination". Critics say this rhetoric encourages violence against Israelis. However, Khamenei has also said that the State of Israel and Zionism are different from Jews in his view. "We aren't against Jews. [Eliminating Israel] means abolishing the imposed regime [of Israel] and [allowing] Muslim, Christian and Jewish Palestinians choose their own government and expel thugs like Netanyahu," one of his tweets says and adds: "This is 'eliminating Israel' and it will happen". In February Khamenei's English account was temporarily suspended by Twitter for an offensive post in which he endorsed a religious ruling (fatwa) in late 1980s condemning Salman Rushdie -- the author of the book The Satanic Verses -- to death. Twitter is one of a host of websites and social media platforms that are banned in Iran. Iranian netizens need to use proxy servers to access these sites and platforms. However, not only Khamenei but many of other high-ranking officials including the Iranian president and even the Minister of Communications who is responsible for enforcing the bans use Twitter and other social media platforms to get their messages out at domestic and international levels. Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/us-senator-accuses- twitter-of-violating-sanctions-by-providing-platform- to-iran-s-khamenei/30757176.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press release Zurich, 31 July 2020 Change in CREALOGIX Group Management Volker Weimer will step down as a member of the CREALOGIX Group Management Board at the end of July 2020. As of that date, he will continue to work for CREALOGIX as a consultant. Succession planning is in progress and will be communicated in due course. In the meantime, Oliver Weber, CEO of the CREALOGIX Group, will act as Chairman of the Management Board of the German CREALOGIX subsidiary. Volker Weimer became CEO of CREALOGIX (Deutschland) AG in 2015 and was appointed to the CREALOGIX Group Management Board in 2016. Volker Weimer has made a significant contribution to establishing the German market as CREALOGIX's second home market and also played a key role in the international expansion of CREALOGIX's Digital Advisory solutions. Oliver Weber, CEO of the CREALOGIX Group, has expressed regret over Volker Weimer's departure from the Group Management Board and his decision to step down from the Executive Board of CREALOGIX (Deutschland) AG: "Volker Weimer has made a valuable contribution to CREALOGIX and has laid the foundation for future growth. We thank him for his contribution and wish him all the best for the future." About CREALOGIX TheCREALOGIX Group is a Swiss Fintech 100 company and is among the global market leaders in digital banking. CREALOGIX develops and implements innovative fintech solutions for the financial institutions of tomorrow. Using digital solutions from CREALOGIX, banks, wealth managers, and other financial institutions can better respond to evolving customer needs in the area of digital transformation, enabling them to hold their ground in a very demanding and dynamic market and remain ahead of their competitors. The group, founded in 1996, has more than 700 employees worldwide. The shares of CREALOGIX Group (CLXN) are traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange. The economic projections and predictions contained in this information relate to future facts. Such projections and predictions are subject to risks, uncertainties and changes which cannot be foreseen and which are beyond the control of CREALOGIX Holding AG. CREALOGIX Holding AG is therefore not in a position to make any representations as to the accuracy of economic projections and predictions or their impact on the financial situation of CREALOGIX Holding AG or the market in the securities of CREALOGIX Holding AG. This document does not constitute an offer or invitation to subscribe for or purchase any securities. It is not being issued in countries where the public dissemination of the information contained herein may be restricted or prohibited by law. In particular, this document is not being issued in the United States of America and should not be distributed to U.S. persons or publications with a general circulation in the United States. Any non-compliance with such restrictions may result in an infringement of U.S. securities laws. Securities of CREALOGIX Holding AG ('COMPANY') are not being publicly offered outside of Switzerland. In particular, the securities of the company have not been registered under the U.S. securities laws and may not be offered, sold or delivered within the United States or to U.S. persons absent the registration under or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. securities laws. This document does not constitute a prospectus according to article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss code of obligations or article 27 et seq. of the SIX Swiss Exchange listing rules. Contact Investor Relations Daniel Bader, Chief Financial Officer E-Mail:daniel.bader@crealogix.com Media Relations Christoph Flueckiger E-mail:christoph.flueckiger@crealogix.com Phone: +41 58 404 80 00 SAN FRANCISCOIf there's one group of businesses the Small Business Administration would apparently like to forget during the pandemic-caused economic crisis, it's adult businesses, and these businesses have generally not only been barred from securing Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, but 13 California clubs are having similar trouble obtaining a different kind of loan: Emergency Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL), which are another category set up under the CARES Act. But unlike the PPP loans, the adult businesses are in a better legal position to receive EIDLs. "Unlike the PPP loans, that are generally forgiven, so they're basically grants, these are in fact actual loans, with the exception of the first $10,000," explained Bradley J. Shafer, one of the attorneys for the clubs. "That first $10,000 is a grant; the rest of it is a loan." On June 15, Shafer and his co-counsel filed suit in the District Court for the Northern District of California for clubs throughout the Ninth Circuit, including Deja vu and related clubs in San Francisco, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, Spokane, Lake Springs and Colorado Springs, seeking to "restrain Defendants from discriminating against businesses and workers who are entitled to benefit from Economic Injury Disaster Loans ('EIDL'), especially the 'Emergency EIDL Program' provisions of the Coronavirus, Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the 'CARES Act')." "While Congress designed and enacted the CARES Act to speed broad relief to the economy through the businesses and workers who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Small Business Administration (the 'SBA') and its Administrator have chosen to saddle those recovery efforts with the irrelevant ballast of decades-old regulations that impermissibly and unconscionably narrow the relief programs," the suit's introduction continues. "Plaintiffs are First Amendment-protected businesses that have been denied EIDLs based on their expressive viewpoint and thereby the ability to participate in economic stabilization. Because their inability to access EIDL funds threatens their very existence, Plaintiffs, on an emergency basis, seek to restrain the SBA from continuing to violate the law and Plaintiffs fundamental First Amendment rights." [Citations omitted here and below] The plaintiffs also requested expedited consideration of the suit and its accompanying Temporary Restraining Order because when the funds set aside for that program are depleted, it was (and continues to be) unclear when or if more funds would be allocated. However, Shafer told AVN that the government has already set aside EIDL funds for the clubs to receive if they win their suit. The problem appeared at first to be similar to the one facing clubs seeking PPP loans, in that the Code of Federal Regulations, Vol. 13 Sec. 123.301, states in part that, "Your business is not eligible for an economic disaster loan if you (or any principal of the business) fits into any of the categories in 123.101 and 123.201," with Sec. 123.201 stating, similar to the PPP loan exclusion, "You are not eligible if your business presents live performances of a prurient sexual nature or derives directly or indirectly more than de minimis gross revenue through the sale of products or services, or the presentation of any depictions or displays, of a prurient sexual nature." Strip clubs, of course, don't put on "prurient sexual" performances, with "prurient" having been defined by the Supreme Court in Miller v. California as "a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion, which goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters and is matter which is utterly without redeeming social importance." However, what distinguishes the Ninth Circuit suit from the suits in Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida seeking PPP funds is that Shafer, while looking through the voluminous Small Business Administration Act, found that the criteria set forth there for securing EIDLs is substantially different from the "prurient sexual nature" restriction the SBA has applied to PPP loans. "There's a provision in the Small Business Act that specifically precludes loans to businesses and persons whose materials have been found by a court to be legally obscene," Shafer told AVN in a phone interview, "and what we did was, when I first found this, which was Wednesday morning, I then had my staff research the legislative history and lo and behold, we found the initial draft of this law, which wasn't 'adjudicated by a court of law'; it said 'determine to be obscene,' which meant that the SBA could have determined that. So we also found the conciliation conference history, where the House and Senate reconcile the wording of each chamber's prospective bills, and there's a conference note that specifically says that, 'In order to clarify that the materials have to be devoid of constitutional protections and therefore be legally obscene, we're changing this language so that it's not "determined" to be obscene but it has been found by a court of law to have been obscene.'" Trouble was, Wednesday was the evening before a scheduled Zoom hearing on the plaintiffs' Preliminary Injunction motion, which took place at 9:30 a.m. yesterday before Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler, and while some argument on the motion did take place, the judge adjourned the hearing until August 27, but required the attorneys to further supplement the briefing on this issue by next Thursday. At yesterday's hearing, SBA attorney James Gilligan argued that his client wasn't actually discriminating, but that not allowing EIDLs for adult businesses is "not a restriction on plaintiffs' speech at all." However, Judge Beeler, who said she found the case "interesting," appeared to have a different view. "As the government says, it is allowed to decide what it wants to fund. But I'm not unsympathetic to the [plaintiffs'] larger argument that 'we're a business too,'" Judge Beeler said. In fact, one of the clubs' main arguments in their complaint is that the CARES Act was enacted to provide broad economic relief for businesses and workers who have been impacted by the pandemic, and that the SBA can't "saddle those recovery efforts with the irrelevant ballast of decades-old regulations that impermissibly and unconscionably narrow the relief programs," and that denying clubs emergency loans based on the businesses' expressive viewpoint "threatens their very existence" and their First Amendment rights. In his argument, Shafer also noted that the lawsuits filed by clubs in Wisconsin and Michigan resulted in the clubs receiving their requested PPP loans, and he told AVN that the only remaining issue in those suits is whether those funds will be forgiven, as they should be as part of the PPP program. The most recent version of the lawsuit in Deja vu-San Francisco LLC, et al. v. the U.S. Small Business Administration, et al, may be found here. Two Iraqi commanders were killed in attacks claimed by the Islamic State in Sunni tribal-dominated areas in the second half of July. The first was just north of Baghdad in Tarmiya, where a sniper shot a popular general on July 17. The second came on July 29 near the western Anbar town of Hit, where the commander of the 29th Brigade of the Armys 7th Division was killed. The 7th Division seemed generally well liked among the local population in Anbar when this journalist accompanied it on operations to liberate western Anbar in late 2017. Many of its officers have received training from the international coalition. On July 25, when a mukhtar from a village near Samarra in Salahhuddin province and members of his family were killed, parliamentarian Muthanna al-Samarraie, whose family also hails from Samarra, called for arming local tribes to deal with security threats themselves. IS has long focused much of its efforts on attacking Sunni provinces and fostering insurgency in them. Though tribes in Iraqs Shiite-majority south are also important, Shiite anti-IS tribe-based militias do not exist in those areas as IS does not try to win over Shiite areas and IS attacks on them are rarer. Many from the south are instead involved in the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), including ones linked to Iran that claim to be fighting as part of a religious jihad and operate in Salahhuddin. Iraq has a Shiite-majority population but much of the Anbar, Salahhuddin and Nineveh provinces, where IS held significant territory from 2014 until 2017, has a Sunni majority. Salahhuddin Trial Sheikhs Council spokesperson Marwan al-Jbara, from the Jabouri tribe, told Al-Monitor via WhatsApp July 28, We dont need security reinforcements so much as involvement of locals in security-related decisions. The Jabouri tribe is one of the largest in Iraq and some local PMUs in Salahhuddin are largely made up of its members. Jbara stressed that if the factions referring to Iran-linked PMUs were to be forced to leave the area, as he feels would be best, then Irans control over our areas would be over. He noted, Thousands of men are still missing from our region, many of whom he said he believes were taken by these groups. He also noted that he thinks two explosions in Camp Speicher in his native province on July 27 were actually an attack by US forces against a Shiite-led PMU faction deployed at the base. Coalition spokesman Col. Myles B. Caggins III told Al-Monitor via WhatsApp on July 29 that the coalition had not been involved in any attacks or security incidents in the past week. He added that the coalition continues to support Iraqi security forces for operations throughout Anbar province and the northern and central regions of Iraq. He went on, In Salahhuddin province, in recent weeks the coalition has conducted several airstrikes in support of the Iraqi Counterterrorism Services. Caggins noted that the coalition had moved out of and transferred about seven bases this year but we still remain partnered and have good relationships with a lot of the operational commands and some of the divisions underneath them as well as the Peshmerga and anti-terrorism forces. Despite the role played by the tribal Sahwa, or Arab Awakening, in the fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq starting in late 2005, there has been scant international coalition support for tribal-based fighting groups in the fight against IS. The only tribal PMU this journalist knows to have been trained and equipped by coalition forces in recent years is the Aaly al-Furat Brigade, led by and mostly consisting of fighters from the Karabla/Karbouly tribe in the Qaim area of western Anbar. The brigade was trained by an elite Danish unit on the Ain al-Asad base. Two of the largest tribes in Qaim, a strategic city along Iraqs western border with Syria, are the Karabla and the Albu Mahal. Many in the Albu Mahal rose up against al-Qaeda in 2005, after an initial resistance against the occupation in the post-2003 period. The leader of the main local PMU of the Albu Mahal tribe in the border area, Kataeb al-Hamza, has told this journalist during previous trips to Qaim that it had not received any coalition training or support in recent years for the fight against IS. PMU leaders in Salahhuddin have also complained of being forced to look to Iran for help during the fight against IS after not receiving help initially from the United States, despite having taken part in the fight against al-Qaeda during the Sahwa period. On the issue of arming tribal fighters now, Hilal al-Shimmari, a poet, activist and former local council member from Salahhuddin who this journalist previously interviewed in his home province in 2018, echoed Sheikhs Council Spokesman Jbaras views on the need for more local say in decision-making. In a July 29 WhatsApp conversation, he stressed, I don't think arming the tribes has any benefit, because protecting the citizen is the states responsibility. All weapons must be withdrawn from illegal entities, whether tribes or groups outside the law. He noted that local councils had been eliminated in late 2019 as an attempt by the parliament to respond to protesters demands to reduce corruption in the country. However, he said, the decision was wrong and against the constitution and there needs to be more local representation. He added that for IS, targeting mukhtars is an priority because these village chiefs convey security-related information to the authorities in their sector. He also expressed serious concern about the international coalitions continuing withdrawal from Iraq, which he claimed is not in the interests of Iraqi citizens. Shimmari said many people were still missing from the Shimmari tribal area of the region after its liberation from IS and that they are all innocent. He did not, however, want to discuss who he thought might be responsible simply stressing that it's important for locals to have a say in what forces are deployed to their areas. A suicide bombing in Afghanistan's eastern Logar province late on Thursday killed at least nine people and wounded at least 40, authorities said. The attack struck in the provincial capital of Pul-e-Alam and targeted a police checkpoint. Speaking on Friday, one man described hearing "a very powerful explosion" before rushing to the scene and witnessing the aftermath. Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian initially said most of the victims were civilians but later, he said six of the dead were policemen and three were civilians. Many of the wounded however were civilians, he added. Provincial police spokesman Shahpoor Ahmadzai said the civilian casualties were mainly in cars that had stopped at the checkpoint for a security check. There were conflicting reports about the casualty figures, with a provincial council chief saying he had reports of as many as 15 deaths. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy. At the hospital where the victims were brought to, witnesses reported seeing several children who had been hurt in the bombing. The witnesses asked their names not be used because of fears of retaliation. The Taliban promptly denied responsibility for the attack, which came on the eve of the major Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha and a three-day cease-fire that has been declared for the occasion by the Taliban. The Islamic State group's affiliate for Afghanistan also operates in the region but did not immediately claim responsibility for the bombing. The militant group has stepped up its attacks lately. The US blamed IS for a brutal attack in May on a maternity hospital in the Afghan capital, Kabul, that killed 24 people, including newborn infants. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 10:13:13|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BUENOS AIRES, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The recent opening of China's domestic market to Argentine lemon has brought a new opportunity for the local citrus sector, and the Asian giant has the potential to become a main export market in the near future, said to an industry insider. San Miguel Global is one of several companies which, after more than 20 years of negotiations between China and Argentina, have started to export fresh lemons to the Asian nation, with an eye to expanding in a "market with high potential due to its volume and sophisticated consumption," the company's regional manager for America and Asia Juan Martin Hilbert told Xinhua. "Exports to China was very important news for us, since we consider the market to be essential. Before that, we depended on exports to Europe and the United States, and we lacked that key player which is China," said Hilbert. The end of June saw the first 24-ton shipment of lemons exported by Argentine company Citromax to Hong Kong, a "milestone" in trade and widely celebrated by the nation's citrus sector. Shipments hew to "strict" rules to guarantee quality, so the lemons first undergo a 24-day cold treatment against possible pests or other contaminants, Hilbert said. San Miguel's shipment is due to arrive in China in early August and will be sold at the wholesale market, online, and to tea shops across southern China, he said. "These tea shops are very popular throughout China, and lemon is one of the main ingredients used there to flavor tea." The rules paving the way for Argentine's lemon exports to China were finalized in late 2019 after a historic bilateral agreement, and updated existing rules dating from 2004 that regulated the sale of sweet citrus fruits, such as oranges, tangerines and grapefruits. "It is important for us to continue expanding in a country that is increasing its citrus consumption through tea and through vitamin C for the immune system. There are multiple uses for lemons in China and we want to capture that niche, that opportunity," said Hilbert. The upcoming third China International Import Expo (CIIE) to be held in November in Shanghai "shows China is opening up much more, including fruit imports," he noted. The initial lemon shipments to China may be relatively small by export standards, but they are part of a vital learning curve for Argentina's exporters, he said. "For us it is important to do things well, for the fruit to arrive in very good quality both inside and outside, and gradually win over Chinese consumers to definitively consolidate this important market for our country," said Hilbert. Enditem Iran still has enough loyal (to Iran) Iraqi militias to be a threat to the Iraqi government. Most Iraqi politicians and voters want less Iranian influence. Iran wants fewer foreign troops in Iraq. That is a point of contention because Iraqis realize the foreign troops offer some assurance that Western and Arab states would actively assist Iraq if Iran sought to take control via a civil war or invasion. Civil war is the more likely option, but only in an emergency, such as Iraq appearing to succeed in disbanding all the pro-Iran militias. Iran has ordered its associates in Iraq to try terror, as in kidnapping and assassination, to extract cooperation from Iraqi officials. Iran also ordered its militiamen to fire on protestors who were protesting corruption or Iran. In response to that the prime minister officially announced that the security forces had orders to not shoot at protestors but to use force against anyone who is harming protestors. Iran was not mentioned but this announcement made it clear that anyone shooting at protestors was working for Iran. Same with the growing number of kidnappings and assassinations. Some of these are the work of ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) but a growing number are carried out by pro-Iran Iraqis. If the victim has been speaking out against Iran and the perpetrator wasnt an Islamic terrorist then Iran was probably responsible. Worse still is the fact that Iranian influence inside Iraq has waned since the American airstrike in January that killed Quds commander Qassem Soleimani, along with the commander of the Iraqi Katab Hezbollah and several other key Iran-backed Iraqi militia leaders. Iranian influence was already declining rapidly in 2019 and Soleimani was seen as a major factor in slowing that decline. Soleimani was an exceptional leader and Iran was unable to replace him with anyone of similar capabilities, stature and influence. This was made worse by the growing Iranian financial crises. This was demonstrated when Esmail Ghaani, the new Quds commander, made his first visit to Iraq and he, like Soleimani, crossed the border with impunity. Things went downhill from there. Iraqi supporters of Iran expected Esmail Ghaani to bring lots of cash for Iraqi commanders, to reinforce the alliance with and obedience to Iran. Ghaani didnt have any cash and passed out some cheap jewelry. Ghaani went back to Iran and reported that he had made progress. That turned out to be overly optimistic because they next time he tried to cross the into Iraq, he was stopped by border guards and told he, specifically him, had to apply for a visa first. Once Ghaani got back into Iraq he found that the reports of declining PMF morale and evaporating support for Iran were true. Again, Ghaani did not have any cash to pass around to encourage his followers. Iraqis are also aware of similar anti-Iran sentiments in Lebanon, which provided trainers and advisors to create the Iraqi Katab Hezbollah, which is openly accused of working for Iran to achieve Iranian control over Iraq. Growing popular anger in Iran against the religious dictatorship there also sends a message to Iraqis that even Iranians dont trust or like the Iranian government. Both Iranians and Iraqis are defying the Iranian government thugs in both countries and tearing down or defacing posters and billboards promoting the Iranian government and its policies. The Iraqi government does not back off on its resistance to Iranian control keeps applying economic and other pressure on PMF militias to act like they are Iraqi, not agents of Iran. Reduced support for Iran within the PMF crippled the recent Iranian attack plan against American forces in Iraq. This effort began in October and has included over 40 attacks so far. Few of these efforts did any damage and caused even fewer caused casualties. General Soleimani was trying to fix that when the American got to him in January. Iran expected the death of Soleimani would trigger more anti-American anger among Iraqis. Didnt happen. Most Iraqis saw Soleimani as more of a threat than the Americans. Iran was next door and forever threatening. The Americans were far away and had left once before, in 2011, and had to be asked to return in 2014 to deal with the ISIL invasion. The Americans are again eager to leave, the Iranians are not. Most Iranians want less money spent on subverting Iraq and more spent on building the Iranian economy and raising the standard of living. That is not a priority with the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) and its Quds Force that specializes in destabilizing other countries, like Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Creeping Covid19 Crisis Back in April Iraq had 1,621 covid19 cases and 83 dead. That was 41 cases per million population and two dead per million. Three months later and its 2,900 cases per million and 114 dead per million. Iraqi medical experts know a lot of covid19 infections and deaths are still going unreported and often unnoticed. The virus mainly kills the elderly and anyone with existing medical problems. A covid19 death can easily be mistaken for pneumonia or just an already very sick patient dying of their non-covid19 illness. Known covid19 infections and deaths are mainly an urban thing and Iraq has several large cities where the virus has settled in. Covid19 experience throughout the region varies. In Iran there have been 3,531 cases per million people and 194 deaths per million. The Iranian official data is bogus and the true death rates are more than four times higher. Covid19 has become a major crisis in Iran. In Turkey its 2,723 cases and 67 deaths per million. In Kuwait it is 15,409 and 104. In Saudi Arabia it is 7,806 and 81. In the UAE it is 6,006 and 35. Identified cases are not as important as confirmed deaths. That is a true indication of how far the virus has spread. It is also now known that for most of the population covid19 is no more of a than a bad strain of influenza, like the one that came along as recently as 2018 and not as fatal as flu strains that showed up in the late 1950s and 60s. Where covid19 does the most damage is among those already seriously ill with something else. This means many of the elderly. Protect the most vulnerable and you limit the covid19 death rate enormously. Wealthier nations have better medical care and larger populations of older people who are being treated, but not cured, of many afflictions that covid19 can turn into a fatal condition. Most of the covid19 deaths so far have been among the most vulnerable, not the general population. Among the large industrialized nations with good public health, several have suffered over 500 deaths per million so far. These include Britain (677), Spain (608), Italy (581) and Sweden (567). Sweden was notable because they did not impose any restrictions on Swedes but did report the status of the disease and who to keep isolated (the already ill plus the elderly). Sweden did not shut down its economy. Several industrialized nations have done much better, like Germany (110), Canada (236) and the United States (465). Even the death data from industrialized nations is not entirely accurate because not all suspected covid19 deaths are checked for the presence of the virus. Hospitals in industrialized nations find a lot of sickly people showing up claiming to have covid19 but turn out not to have it. They have something similar or nothing at all. Its a common reaction during well publicized epidemics. Even during the annual influenza season hospitals and doctors are visited by a lot of people who think they have the flu but dont. These are complex diseases in more ways than most people know or will admit. July 29, 2020: In the northwest, across the border in Syria (Deir Ezzor province) Iran backed Iraqi Katab Hezbollah have been seen operating 20 kilometers from the Iraq border. The Iraqi government forbids Iraqi militias from operating in Syria without government permission. Iran is increasingly flaunting this rule. July 27, 2020: In the north (Saladin, or Salahuddin, Province) two explosions at an army base 85 kilometers north of Baghdad that also hosted some U.S. troops was the result of four rockets fired at the base and two of them landing inside the base. Back in March a similar attack killed three foreign soldiers. July 26, 2020: Turkish airstrikes and ground attacks in northern Iraq continue. Turkey has been crossing the border for over a decade. The cause is the PKK, an organization of Turkish separatist Kurds fighting to create an autonomous Kurdish region in eastern Turkey. Iraqi Kurds tolerate the PKK presence in remote areas of the north, and sometimes in populated areas where the PKK helped with the fight against ISIL. The ISIL threat faded several years ago and now PKK presence anywhere in the north is considered a target for Turkish airstrikes or raids by Turkish troops. The current Turkish campaign began in June 16 and is still active, more so than any previous campaign against PKK activity in northern Iraq. Turkey has established about 30 temporary bases on the Iraqi side of the border indicating that Turkish ground forces, which have already advanced as far as 40 kilometers inside Iraq, will be in Iraq for a while. The Turks consider the current operation a continuation of a smaller cross border offensive that began at the end of May. Turkish warplanes, armed UAVs and artillery hit over 700 targets in a combat zone extending from border areas of Dohuk province (on the Syrian border) to Hakurk, the mountainous region where the borders of Iraq, Turkey and Iran meet. There were also airstrikes against a refugee camp outside Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish north. Iran cooperated in this operation by attacking PKK and local Iranian Kurd separatists found inside Iran opposite the Iraqi Hakurk region. The Iraqi Kurds asked the PKK to get out of Iraq. For a long time, the Iraqi Kurds had tolerated the PKK presence with the understanding that the PKK would not be violent inside Iraq and would stay away from Iraqi Arab and Kurd population centers. Over the last decade the PKK has increasingly violated that understanding and the Turkish attacks have become more frequent and intense. Iraqi Kurds will not go to war with the Turkish Kurds but now the PKK accuses Iraqi Kurds of supplying the Turks with information about where PKK camps are. There is no proof of that but more damage is done to the PKK-Iraqi Kurd relationship. The Arab world has noticed that Turkey is actively fighting Arabs in Libya, Syria and Iraq and ready to get involved elsewhere as well. Centuries of Turkish rule over Arabs ended a century ago when the Western allies defeated the Ottoman Empire. The Turks are determined to keep their own separatists and Arab Islamic terrorists under control in or near Turkey, no matter what the cost. July 25, 2020: Oil exports for June were 2.8 million BPD (Barrels Per Day) at $34 per barrel. Exports were down 12 percent from May. Oil income has been down sharply in 2020 because of the covid19 generated global recession. This drop in income has forced the government to consider going after the massive, blatant and longstanding corruption at border crossings where corrupt officials or local tribal militias take control of collecting the various fees that must be paid by those entering the country. The government loses about $10 billion a year to this theft. With oil prices stuck at around $30 a barrel Iraq called on Arab Gulf oil states to give or lend Iraq billions of dollars to keep their government operating. Any financial help from other Arab oil states is unlikely because all of them are suffering budget deficits. Iraq is more dependent on oil income than any other Gulf nation. Because of lower oil prices and lower oil demand the Iraqi GDP is expected to shrink at least ten percent in 2020. The monthly government payroll is $4.5 billion and so far this year oil income has only been able to cover a third of that. The 2020 government budget is $135 billion but taxes, mainly on oil income, are less than $90 billion. The shortfall must be obtained elsewhere. The Arab Oil states are willing to help, but only if Iraq can reduce the Iranian operations in Iraq and control the corruption. Most Iraqis agree with both of these demands but there are doubts that the current Iraqi politicians can deliver. Despite a year of violent anti-corruption protests and national (parliamentary) elections that have most politicians denouncing corruption, not much has changed. Its not that Arab states cannot reduce corruption because several Gulf states have. The UAE is now less corrupt than Israel and Saudi Arabia is carrying out reforms. So why not Iraq? Unless the Iraqi politicians can demonstrate real change, the Arb oil states are reluctant to provide the emergency cash. If Iraq cannot get the loans it will not be able to pay salaries and pensions that a fifth of the population depends on. Most of the salary and pension payments are actually bonuses or adjustments. A lot of this is bribes and outright theft. So how the government actually makes the cuts, if no loans are obtained, will reveal how serious the current politicians are about reducing corruption. Another problem with the reduced income is that it makes it difficult to do anything about the growing electricity shortage. Decades of corruption in the construction and management of power plants. This is a very volatile issue with all Iraqis. Jobs and working/living conditions depend on there being a steady and sufficient supply of electricity. There is neither and this creates anger in the workplace and at home. The unreliable electricity supply also cripples other essential utilities like water supply and sanitation. July 24, 2020: South of Baghdad four rockets landed in a base used by foreign troops. That ends tomorrow as the Besmaya base is turned over to the Iraqi Army. The rockets damaged some buildings but there were no casualties. July 23, 2020: In Baghdad security forces found, seized and disarmed a quadcopter armed with a two kg (4.4 pound) bomb. This quadcopter was modified to release the bomb on command and return to be equipped with another bomb. Outside Baghdad the airport resumed operations after being closed since March because of covid19. Commercial flights will resume on August 1st. Until then there will be charter and other special flights. July 22, 2020: In the south a pro-Iran militia took credit for an attack on a convoy transporting equipment from Kuwait to an American base near Baghdad. Two roadside bombs were used but the explosions only damaged some trucks. July 19, 2020: In Baghdad two rockets landed in the Green Zone but there was no damage except to some vegetation. July 15, 2020: The U.S. led TFTC (Terrorist Financing Targeting Center) and key members Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE (United Arab Emirates) detected and identified the components of the ISIL financial network and are now cooperating on destroying that network and detecting and going after replacement networks. TFTC has been around since 2017 when it was established as a joint American-Saudi effort to detect and take down terrorist financial networks, especially those used by ISIL and Iran. There are still a lot of individual Arabs, including some very wealthy ones, who support Islamic terrorism and some even support Iran. But the majority of Gulf Arabs are hostile to ISIL and Iran and TFTC uses American knowledge of and influence over the international banking system along with the Gulf Arab knowledge and role in local or international Moslem banking systems to detect and go over ISIL and Iranian cash movements. For a long time, a weakness of Western efforts to disrupt financial networks used by Islamic terrorists was the inability to obtain detailed information about this separate Islamic banking system that had been around for centuries and had few links with the current Western dominated international banking system. It was known that billions of dollars a year seemingly disappeared into this ancient Islamic money transfer system and ended up elsewhere, often to finance Islamic terrorist operations. Before TFTC Western investigators could do some damage to the this less formal banking system and came to realize that the center of this system was in the Persian Gulf, where oil-rich Arab states, plus non-Arab Iran generated a lot of the cash for both traditional and Islamic banking systems and provided major transfer points between the two. The Arabs are mainly concerned with disrupting Iranian cash movements but everyone can agree on hurting ISIL finances because ISIL is literally at war with all Moslems and non-Moslems. ISIL got a lot (over $100 million) of cash out of their collapsing Syrian-Iraq Islamic State by 2017. Access to that cash is a major reason why ISIL is still so active. Remove a lot of the cash for a long time and ISIL activity will diminish as well. Currently most remaining ISIL activity is in rural areas of eastern Syria and northern Iraq. How effective the recent TFTC action is will make itself manifest In Syria and Iraq by the end of the year. July 11, 2020: In the south a pro-Iran militia took credit for an attack on a convoy transporting equipment from Kuwait to an American base near Baghdad. Several vehicles being transported were set on fire. The fire was put out as the attackers fled. In the northwest, across the border in eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) an airstrike, apparently Israeli, hit a convoy of Iranian mercenaries in Syrian Army uniforms. At least 35 men were killed including two officers. Deir Ezzor is now a key link in a land route from Iran, via Iraq to Lebanon. Deir Ezzor is also where Iran bases most of its mercenaries and a growing number of them are Iraqis. 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. June 28, 2020: In the northwest, across the border in eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) two airstrikes, apparently Israeli, hit Iranian targets near the Al Bukamal crossing into Iraq. Structures and vehicles were damaged or destroyed and about ten Iranians or Iranian mercenaries. In the aftermath of these two attacks Iran ordered the remaining troops in the camps bombed to temporarily leave their camps and move to the countryside, dispersed into small groups living in the open. Many of the Iranian controlled gunmen passing through here are Iraqis. The Armenian genocide. Its a tragedy that affected a million and a half ethnic Armenians just over 100 years ago. Its also the basis of the documentary What Will Become of Us, which airs at 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 6, on New Mexico PBS, Channel 9.1. When we started making the film in 2015, it was the 100th anniversary of the genocide, says filmmaker Stephanie Ayanian. That year, there was more presence in the media. What Will Become of Us tells the story of 1915, when 1.5 million Armenians were killed or expelled in a genocide by the Ottoman Turks as one of the worlds ancient civilizations was nearly destroyed. Today, many countries, including Turkey and the United States, do not recognize the genocide because it is geopolitically inconvenient. Without recognition, the long shadow of genocide persists, she says. For Armenian-Americans, the long shadow of genocide is paralyzing. In an effort to preserve what was saved, successive generations hold fast to a pre-genocide conception of culture, an idea frozen in time. The innovation needed to create a flourishing future is stymied by culturally imposed litmus tests. The future of Armenian-American culture is in danger. What Will Become of Us moves past staid notions of what it means to be a good Armenian. Prev 1 of 5 Next Ayanian says that in three dramatic acts, the characters travel through the American landscape while grappling with their identities and the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. Their interwoven stories build on one another to create a cohesive narrative where the past and future are in constant tension. We wanted the stories to come to life, she says. There were a lot more characters than we could include in the 60 minutes of film. The first edit, we had 90 minutes and had to whittle that down. Ayanian also wanted to find stories that were relatable to all immigrant communities that have faced past horrors. Some of the people chronicled are: Sebu Simonian, from the band Capital Cities, tells about his journey of learning about his past, while raising his son with the stories from his ancestry. John and Annie Sweers, who volunteer in Armenia. John Sweers is one-quarter Armenian, and he lost his grandmother and only connection to his culture at age 7. He grew up with a nagging feeling that something was missing, so he and his wife travel to Armenia to find answers. Michael Aram Wolohojian, a designer and artist who created a public sculpture for the 100th anniversary of the genocide. Richard and Andrew Hagopian; Richard Hagopian is a world-famous oud player one of the last greats. Andrew is his 15-year-old grandson, who is learning how to play the oud and learning the history. Karine Shamlian, who is the granddaughter of Asdghig Alemian. Shamlians life has been shaped by the experiences of her 108-year-old grandmother, a survivor of the Aremenian genocide. I hope a non-Armenian viewer learns more about who we are as a people historically, she says. We arent too different from them. We are a nation of immigrants. We all have similar identities, and for the Armenians that see it, I hope they learn something from it, because it was a personal project for me. I want the film to bring out hope for the future of us in America. There is a message of hope. On TV What Will Become of Us premieres at 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 6, on New Mexico PBS, Channel 9.1. The chorus is growing. Most banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) are of the opinion that the moratorium for term loans announced by the banking regulator should not be extended beyond August 31. This is because they feel that even borrowers who can pay are not doing so, impacting the cash flows of banks. Instead, lenders want a one-time restructuring scheme for loans affected by COVID-19. We have demanded a one-time restructuring facility instead of moratorium extension. Moratorium is availed by even those borrowers who are earning. That is not a solution to the current problem. Instead, a restructuring can be done on a case-to-case basis, said Ramesh Iyer, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Mahindra Finance. A restructuring can be done either by reducing the rate of interest, extending tenure or giving a repayment holiday. There is a fundamental difference between the two, Iyer said. At least three other officials from banks and NBFCs too told Moneycontrol that the industry has made this request to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the government in recent meetings. Banks do not want another extension of the moratorium scheme. Even if banks can charge interest later on moratorium loans, it is impacting the current cash flows of banks, said a senior banking industry official on condition of anonymity. Early this week, heads of banks and NBFCs had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss industry issues. In that meeting, banks are believed to have raised this point among other issues. The moratorium was originally launched by RBI for a three month period beginning March to May to help borrowers hit by COVID-19 crisis to defer their monthly instalments on term loans. This was later extended for another three months till August in view of the continuing stress in the economy. The idea of giving moratorium was to avoid a sudden spike in bad loans. Higher bad loans will necessitate higher provisions which impacts the profitability of banks. Provision refers to the money set aside to cover bad loans. However, banks have witnessed that many borrowers, who don't really require the scheme, are opting for it to delay repayments. Most banks have seen their moratorium loan portion declining in the second round compared with the first round of moratorium. Big banks like HDFC Bank and Axis Bank have seen their moratorium loans dropping to around 9 per cent in the June-quarter compared with 25-30 per cent in the preceding quarter. In the case of ICICI Bank, moratorium loans as on June 30 stands at 17.5 per cent. In a recent CII interaction with RBI governor, Shaktikanta Das, HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh, had requested not to extend the moratorium beyond August. Please do not extend the moratorium. We see people who have the ability to pay are using this not to pay. Another moratorium will hurt us, especially smaller NBFCs, Parekh said. A source of uncertainty The COVID-19 lockdown has had a significant impact on all industrial activities in the economy resulting in major income loss to many. This, in turn, has impacted the loan repayment ability of borrowers too. Though the number of people who have availed the moratorium in the second round is far less compared to the first, banks have taken aggressive provisions expecting an asset quality shock. For the banking industry, the moratorium scheme makes assessment of asset quality difficult. For instance, ICICI Bank has made an additional Covid provision of Rs 5,550 crore in the June quarter taking the total COVID-19 provision to Rs 8,275 crore. Among the NBFCs, Bajaj Finance has set aside Rs 1,450 crore COVID-19 provisions in Q1. RBI caution In the latest financial stability report, the RBI warned that moratorium loans could lead to higher NPAs in the financial system. The regulatory dispensations that the pandemic has necessitated in terms of the moratorium on loan instalments and deferment of interest payments may have implications for the financial health of SCBs (scheduled commercial banks), going forward, the RBI said. According to the RBI, Gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) of scheduled commercial banks could spike to 14.7 percent of the total loans by March 2021 in a worse scenario. In a base case scenario, the GNPAs could rise to 12.5 percent by March next year, the RBI said. Macro stress tests for credit risk indicate that the GNPA ratio of all SCBs may increase from 8.5 per cent in March 2020 to 12.5 per cent by March 2021 under the baseline scenario; the ratio may escalate to 14.7 per cent under a very severely stressed scenario, the RBI said. The capital to risk-weighted assets ratio (CRAR) of banks edged down to 14.8 per cent in March 2020 from 15 per cent in September 2019 while their gross non-performing asset (GNPA) ratio declined to 8.5 per cent from 9.3 per cent, the RBI said. At the same time, the provision coverage ratio (PCR) improved to 65.4 percent from 61.6 per cent over this period, the RBI said. The decks have been cleared for the formation of three capital cities for Andhra Pradesh the executive capital at Visakhapatnam, the legislative capital at Amaravati and the judicial capital at Kurnool. Governor Biswabhushan Harichandan on Friday gave his nod to the two bills AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill, 2020 aimed at creating the three capital cities for the state and the AP Capital Region Development Authority (Repeal) Bill, 2020, seeking to abolish the APCRDA formed in December 2014 to develop Amaravati as the state capital. The two bills were passed for a second time by the state legislative assembly on June 16, but were stalled in the state legislative council, which was adjourned sine die without discussing them. Since the council had not taken any decision within one month, the bills were deemed to have been passed and were sent to the Governor for his approval on July 18. Governor Harichandan, who had several rounds of talks with legal experts, finally gave his assent on Friday, paving the way for the formation of the three capitals for Andhra Pradesh. Once the state government notifies the approved bills in the state gazette, they will become acts and Amaravati will cease to be the capital city of Andhra Pradesh, an official in the chief ministers office said. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has been arguing that the fresh bills pertaining to the capital are legally invalid, as the two bills introduced by the state government in the state legislative council in January had been referred to the select committee. Former finance minister and senior Telugu Desam Party leader Yanamala Ramakrishnudu said the two fresh bills had no legal sanctity, because the earlier bills had already been pending study by the select committee and the government had given an undertaking to that extent in the high court. Though the constitution of select committees could not take place due to bureaucratic hurdles, the process is still on. So, the reintroduction of the same bills again in the state legislature in June cannot be legally tenable, Ramakrishnudu said. The state high court has been hearing a batch of petitions filed by the farmers of Amaravati, opposing the trifurcation of the capital and abolition of APCRDA. The next hearing is scheduled for August 6. Todays Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. Email address By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy If the educational environment changes, training quality improves, and teaching methods are more reasonable, students will choose to stay in Vietnam to follow tertiary education instead of going abroad, educators believe. Universities in Vietnam all state that they are ready to admit students who have returned to Vietnam because of Covid-19 and want to continue studying here. VinUniversity in Vietnam However, a question has been raised if students can study at Vietnams schools if there are big differences between Vietnamese and foreign curricula and training methods. Nguyen Tien Thao from the Hanoi National University said there was no need to worry about returning students ability to follow Vietnams curricula. The students who cannot meet the requirements to follow the training programs they choose will be introduced to other training programs, or encouraged to go to junior colleges (3-year training) or intermediate schools (2-year training). All schools will have to establish enrollment councils to assess students abilities, referring to the rankings of the foreign schools the students once studied at, and the learning records of the students, he explained. We wont admit all students returning from overseas schools automatically, he said. The students who cannot meet the requirements to follow the training programs they choose will be introduced to other training programs, or encouraged to go to junior colleges (3-year training) or intermediate schools (2-year training). According to Nguyen Phong Dien from the Hanoi University of Science and Technology, there are many different programs for returning students to choose from. The school has 12 programs with teaching in English, 10 international joint training programs with teaching in English, French, German and Japanese. There are also programs under which credits are recognized mutually by parties and students can transfer credits to study at the partner schools. Vu Thi Hien from the Hanoi Foreign Trade University (FTU) also said the exchange of international students is implemented regularly. The school has international joint training programs for bachelor's and master's degrees. According to Hien, some students of the school left FTU after two years of study to study abroad because this is believed to be better than domestic training. I think that Covid-19 is an opportunity for students to come back to Vietnam to see how the training quality of Vietnamese schools has changed, Hien said. Pham Pho, former rector of the Sai Gon Economics & Polytechnic Junior College, said there are two groups of returning students. The first group comprises students studying abroad who have real learning capability. Many of them left to study abroad with scholarships granted by their schools. The students can easily adapt to the training curricula applied by schools in Vietnam, including the most prestigious state-owned schools. The second group comprises students who dont have good learning capability. Many of them went abroad because they failed university entrance exams in Vietnam and they studied at schools with low rankings overseas. Le Ha Universities told to be selective about returning students Universities in Vietnam are welcoming returning students, but say that they will only admit students who can satisfy their requirements. The life of late congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis was celebrated yesterday at an Atlanta church, by mourners including Barack Obama and George W Bush. The ceremony took place at Ebenezer Baptist Church in the city, a sacred place for many of those who helped to shape US civil rights history. The arc of Mr Lewis's legacy of activism was tied to Ebenezer's former pastor Martin Luther King Jr, whose sermons Mr Lewis discovered while scanning the radio dial as a 15-year-old boy growing up in then-segregated Alabama. Mr King continued to inspire Mr Lewis's civil rights work for the next 65 years as he fought segregation during sometimes bloody marches, Greyhound bus 'freedom rides' across the south to protest segregated bus terminals, and later during his long tenure in the US Congress. Mr Lewis died on July 17 of pancreatic cancer, at the age of 80. Former US president Barack Obama was expected to address mourners yesterday. George W. Bush's office said the former president and first lady Laura Bush also were expected to be in attendance. Former president Bill Clinton was also in the church. "Here lies a true American patriot who risked his life for the hope and promise of democracy," Ebenezer's senior pastor, the Rev Raphael Warnock, told the congregation as the funeral began. Hundreds of people gathered outside Ebenezer to watch the service on a large screen outside the church. When Mr Lewis was 15, he heard Mr King's sermons on WRMA, a radio station in Montgomery, Alabama, he recalled in an interview for the Southern Oral History Program. "Later I saw him on many occasions in Nashville while I was in school between 1958 and '61," Mr Lewis said. "In a sense, he was my leader." Mr King was "the person who, more than any other, continued to influence my life, who made me who I was," Mr Lewis wrote in his 1998 autobiography, 'Walking with the Wind'. By the summer of 1963, Mr Lewis was addressing thousands of people during the March on Washington, speaking shortly before Mr King gave his 'I Have a Dream' speech. He spoke then about black people beaten by police and jailed - themes that resonate vividly in light of America's social justice protests in recent months. "My friends, let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution," Mr Lewis told the huge crowd on the Washington Mall. "To those who have said, 'Be patient and wait,' we have long said that we cannot be patient," he added. "We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now! We are tired. We are tired of being beaten by policemen." In 1965, Mr Lewis was beaten by Alabama state troopers in the city of Selma, in what became known as Bloody Sunday. He was later awarded the Medal of Freedom by Mr Obama, the nation's first black president, in 2011. He spent more than three decades in Congress, and his district included most of Atlanta. Shortly before he died, Lewis wrote an essay for 'The New York Times' and asked that it be published on the day of his funeral. In the piece published yesterday, Lewis recalled the teachings of King: "He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice," Mr Lewis wrote. "He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out." Harry Belafonte Photo Courtesy of Sankofa When I asked Harry if he would consider being on the advisory board, without hesitation, he said I happily say yesWe are honored. The Harlem School of the Arts at The Herb Alpert Center has announced the addition of esteemed cultural icon and civil rights activist, Harry Belafonte, to its Advisory Council. Mr. Belafonte joins an eclectic list of influential names, with diverse experience, expertise and insight, who provide guidance, and serve as stewards of this historic cultural institution. It seems fitting that the 56-year-old organization, founded by artist Dorothy Maynor, in answer to a significant need in her community, has now attracted the interest of Mr. Belafonte, an ardent proponent of the arts as a tool for transformative change. Mr. Belafonte has said that his life has been guided by his mentor, Paul Robesons words, artists are the gatekeepers of truth, they are civilizations radical voice. Throughout his storied career, Mr. Belafonte has been known for using his artistic platform to champion a wide variety of civil and human rights causes, and to call attention to social justice issues. Responding to the news, Charles J. Hamilton, Jr., Chair of the HSA Board of Directors had this to say, Harry Belafonte is one of our countrys treasures, a hero of the Civil Rights movement, a celebrated, award-winning performer who has deeply influenced American culture and the world. We are extremely honored to welcome him to the Advisory Council and to the HSA family. Eric Pryor, president of the organization added, We at HSA, could not be prouder to have Harlems own, Mr. Harry Belafonte, add his name in support of the institution, and its mission to provide children in the Harlem community, and all across the tristate area, with access to quality, world-class training and a rich multidisciplinary artistic experience. Mr. Belafontes decision came after a conversation with his good friend, award-winning musician, Herb Alpert. When I asked Harry if he would consider being on the advisory board, without hesitation, he said I happily say yesWe are honored. The legendary trumpeter and his wife, Grammy Award-winning vocalist and author Lani Hall Alpert, have demonstrated their philanthropic commitment to the arts community, investing millions in support of arts education programs and organizations that include the Harlem School of the Arts. Over the past decade, the institution has been the beneficiary of over $17 million dollars in funding from the Herb Alpert Foundation, including $9.5 million dollars for the renovation and modernization of the institutions 37,000 square foot facility, which is now nearing completion. # # # About Harlem School of the Arts at The Herb Alpert Center New York Citys premier community arts institution, the Harlem School of the Arts at the Herb Alpert Center stands uniquely apart as the sole provider of arts education in four disciplines: music, dance, theatre, and art & design, all within our award-winning 37,000 square foot facility. The Schools reputation for artistic rigor and excellence attracts students of diverse socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds from the five New York City boroughs as well as Westchester County and the tristate area, which includes Connecticut and New Jersey. HSAs alumni and faculty are counted among the most talented leaders in the arts. For over 50-years HSA has enriched the lives of tens of thousands of people through world-class training in the arts. HSA offers its students the freedom to find and develop the artist and citizen within themselves in an environment that teaches discipline, stimulates creativity, builds self-confidence, and adds a dimension of beauty to their lives, empowering them to become the creative thinkers and innovative leaders of tomorrow. To learn more about the Harlem School of the Arts, please visit http://www.HSAnyc.org. Mumbais Commissioner of Police, Param Bir Singh often takes to Twitter to share various posts to spread awareness among people regarding different topics. His recent post fits the bill perfectly as it aims to inform and remind people about the essential safety precautions one should follow amid the perilous times. Pull a reverse on the virus, dont skip your mask, he tweeted along with different hashtags including #SayNoToVirus and #SayYesToMask. He also shared an image which shows three cards kept on a surface. What, however, is interesting to note are the images depicted on the cards. While one of the cards shows a mask, the other has a bottle of hand sanitiser drawn on it. As for the third card, it has the silhouettes of two people who are standing apart from each other indicating at the safety measure of social distancing. Shared a little over an hour ago, the post has already gathered close to 150 likes. People shared all sorts of comments on the post to express their reactions. Chances are youll agree with some of them too. Three Aces for winning the big game #TakingOncCorona, wrote a Twitter user. Wow, commented another. A few days ago, the police commissioner shared an Xtraodinary meme on Twitter to remind people about the importance of wearing masks. Be Xtraodinary. Act Responsibly. #XtraResponsible #TakingOnCorona, he tweeted and shared an image. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON VANCOUVER Jenny Kwan doesnt know if shell ever go back to Hong Kong. The city has always had a special connection to her childhood. It holds memories of a whimsical life exploring the local markets while her mother grocery shopped. The excitement of the city constantly amazed her when she was little, she says. That carefreeness is no more, Kwan says. Very different times. The New Democrat MP for Vancouver-East and immigration critic may never again see the packed streets, neon lights and endless nooks and crannies of one of the worlds premier cities that, critics say, is on a steep decline at the hands of mainland Chinas President Xi Jinping. With a new national security law introduced, many worry speaking out against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could lead to their detention if they so much as transit through Hong Kong. Some politicians tell the Star that despite assertions from officials in Hong Kong and mainland China, they fear arrest for words they have said in Canada. Though the law applies to everyone who enters Hong Kong, some activists say it is more likely to be used against people of Chinese descent. Kwan has in the past spoken up about the issues plaguing the region. The situation has made her fear going to the city, she said, or even taking her own children to visit and learn more about their heritage. In light of this national security law, I have to wonder, Should I be doing that? she said. If I did do that, could I be arbitrarily detained? What would happen to my children? By their association with me, are they at risk? The national security law effectively brings Hong Kong under Beijings control on security issues. Opponents argue it breaches the Sino-British Joint Declaration under which China took possession of Hong Kong from the U.K. in 1997. Article 38 of the new law says it applies to offences perpetrated outside the (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) by a person who is not a permanent resident of the Region. Conservative MP Kenny Chiu has been vocal in community discussions about his concern Hong Kong is losing its freedoms at the hands of Beijing. He has pressured the Canadian government through the media and in Parliament to take action against the CCP. Chiu said Article 38 makes him wonder if he should ever travel to Hong Kong again to visit his close relatives. What do I do? Should I say goodbye to my family forever? Chiu asked. That thought has also come to my mind. Such fears were underscored this week as Beijings consul-general told a Chinese language radio station in Vancouver biased media reports and Canadian politicians are to blame for concerns about the national security law. Tong Xiaoling accused Chinese groups within Canada of trying to divide Chinese communities and working with outside forces, listing ways one could interpret as endangering national security under the new law. We observed an extremely small group of people, whether in Hong Kong or in Canada who are deliberately smearing and attacking Hong Kongs national security law, Tong said on AM 1320. They are even collaborating with anti-Chinese powers, in attempts to cause trouble overseas, to even create bases in foreign countries to stand against China and disrupt Hong Kong. Chinas officials insist only those endangering national security need to worry about arrest. On Wednesday, four student protesters were arrested by officers in unmarked vehicles on suspicion of inciting secession. On Thursday, a dozen pro-democracy activists or candidates were also banned from Hong Kongs upcoming legislative elections. Last November, Global News reported former B.C. Liberal MLA Richard Lee had been detained upon entering China in 2015. Officials accused him of endangering state security and improperly held him for eight hours. Chinese authorities also went through his government cellphone, Global reported. It isnt just high-profile politicians having worries. Human rights and democracy activists have also voiced concerns for their personal safety should they return to the region. Cheuk Kwan of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China said he will not be going to Hong Kong, from which he emigrated at age 13, for the foreseeable future. He said the interview by Tong this week was predictable. The CCP has long been trying to claim ownership of Chinese communities abroad, he said. The Chinese government look at every single ethnic Chinese in the world as their subject, no matter how many generations after youve moved out of China, he said. The MPs, Kwan and Chiu, recently signed a letter with dozens of other members of Parliament and community leaders, asking for Ottawa to lay sanctions on certain officials in mainland China and Hong Kong for their role in human rights abuses. She said Tongs accusation Canadians are interfering in Chinas internal affairs is weak because the law clearly targets people in Canada and around the world. If it does not apply to foreign nationals, what is Article 38 doing in the national security law? Canadas suspension of its extradition treaty with Hong Kong reflects those concerns, she added. Kwan said the Canadian government needs to step up and prepare a lifeboat for Hong Kong residents who want to leave the city, but said Ottawa is reacting slowly to the situation. In response to Tongs comments during the radio interview, Barbara Harvey of Global Affairs Canada said freedom of speech is core to the countrys values. Harvey said the federal government has made its concerns about the national security law known. Read more about: Rachelle Khalaf and her family are bringing to the forefront the need for more accessible design by building a wheelchair ramp made out of Legos for her husband. Khalaf, who is an advocate for accessible design, saw this project as a great way to inspire the love her children have for Legos, while highlighting the need for better designs to aid people with disabilities. Khalaf's husband, who is a wheelchair user, was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2008, according to ABC 13. H-E-B LAUNCHES SUMMER OF GIVING INITIATIVE: H-E-B plans to provide $2M - 20 million meals - to Texas food banks with 'Summer of Giving' During the pandemic, Khalaf, along with her husband and two children, was inspired to work on what she calls a "Lego ramp building project," after watching video footage of the "Lego Grandma" from Germany. The "Lego Grandma" is a retiree, who is a wheelchair user herself, describes how she wanted to be able to get into shops she wanted to visit. "When the pandemic hit and the stay at home order was put in place, I started to think more seriously about this project as a way for the kids to do something that they love - and also for it to be a useful project that they could take pride in," said Khalaf. The Lego ramp is an ongoing project they have been working on for nine weeks, said Khalaf. "We've had to build and rebuild 3 times because we're trying to construct the most durable and appropriately sized ramp." After putting a call out on social media for donations of more Legos, Khalaf said the response has been positive. "It's like Christmas every time a package is delivered," said Khalaf. "We've received several boxes of Legos from people around the Houston area. We even received a box from someone in Austin!" Khalaf started a blog called jugglehustlerepeat.com to reach out for more information about the project or make a donation of Legos. There are even plans to build a ramp for one of their neighbors who has the occasional use of a wheelchair, said Khalaf. "For our own children, I hope that they come to realize that you're never too young to make a difference in someone else's life," said Khalaf. "I also hope that this project highlights the need for more accessible design." STAY INFORMED: Sign up to receive breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. A 56-year-old woman was sentenced to 33 years in prison for aggravated animal cruelty. According to the Carroll County Circuit Court, authorities found 27 dogs dead and 27 dogs alive in horrifying conditions on Black Rock Road in Hampstead in 2019. Animal cruelty On July 28, Judge Fred S. Hecker sentenced the suspect Laura Filler to serve 33 years in prison with seven years and seven days suspended for 11 counts of aggravated animal cruelty. Her probation was set by the court to 5 years and she is not allowed to have animals during her probation period. The suspect will get credit for 480 days served, she has been arrested without bond since April 2019. Filler was originally charged with 109 counts, with most of them linked to animal cruelty. She pleaded guilty to 11 counts in October 2019. Filler and her 50-year-old husband, John J, Roberts, were arrested back in April of last year after officers found 38 dogs in their house, as reported by Baltimore Sun. Also Read: Woman Heard Screaming in Background of 911 Call Before Boyfriend Stabbed Her to Death According to authorities, 11 of the 38 dogs were found dead at the property that they rented at Black Rock Road. After a few days, 16 more dogs were found in the property. The Office of the State's Attorney for Carroll County said that Filler and her husband had been operating an unlicensed breeding operation. Meanwhile, Roberts pleaded guilty to 11 counts of aggravate animal cruelty back in October. He was sentenced to 33 years in prison, suspending 11 years and 11 days, as reported by The New York Post. The senior assistant state's attorney for Carroll County, Melissa Hockensmith, showed in court two videos of Filler and Robert's house after the remaining living dogs had been removed by authorities. Hecker described the videos as a scene from a "chamber of horrors." Hockensmith said that grime was found on dog crates, the ground was covered with sludge and it was also smeared on the walls and the ceiling. The dog food was moldy and was littered around the house. The remains of the dead dogs were piled in the bathtub and they were decaying when the authorities discovered it. Some of the remains were placed in the shed. The sentence The state has requested Filler to serve the same sentence that was given to Roberts. Janette DeBoissiere and Lee McNulty, Filler's public defenders, appealed for 6 years with 2 years suspended. The court called Joanna Brandt, a psychiatrist, who testified that Filler has battered spouse syndrome. Brandt has also diagnosed Filler of having three mental health disorders. According to Filler's defense team, she was abused and controlled by her husband and that he was the main reason for what happened on their property. Filler's defense team said their client's role in the whole incident was abetting and aiding. Filler was ordered to pay $10,900 to the Humane Society of Carroll County. The Humane Society of Carroll County took the remaining dogs. She was also ordered by the court to pay $91,400 in restitution to the Dennis and Sharon Chiodi Living Trust. The Dennis and Sharon Chiodi Living Trust owned the house and property in Black Rock Road. Related Article: Dismembered Bodies of Teacher on Vacation in France Found in Storm Drainage @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (Natural News) In 2003, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) induced a global panica dress rehearsal, as it were, for Covid-19 in 2020. Although SARS fatalities rapidly petered out (with an eventual worldwide tally of just 774 deaths), concerns about the potential for future spread of the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) left doctors eager to identify effective drugs for treatment and prevention. In short order, researchers in Europe (2003 and 2004) and at the Special Pathogens Branch of the CDC (2005) published theoretical models and detailed in vitro findings about a drug offering likely prophylactic and therapeutic advantage: chloroquine (CQ). (Article republished from ChildrensHealthDefense.org) Following these promising cell culture studies (cited hundreds of times in the scientific literature), researchers around the world continued to explore the antiviral potential of CQ and its more benign analog hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). A 2006 paper in The Lancet Infectious Diseases again directed attention to CQ as a valuable therapeutic option if SARS re-emerges. In 2014, in the aftermath of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), researchers at the Anthony-Fauci-led National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) identified 27 existing compounds with activity against both MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, including CQ and HCQ. Noting that the screening of approved drugs to identify therapeutics for drug repurposing is a valid approach, the NIAID researchers singled out CQ and one other drug in their closing paragraph as having noteworthy potential to reconfigure the two coronavirus illnesses into a less virulent subclinical infection resulting in less adverse disease outcomes. This ongoing body of research was clearly at the forefront of many doctors minds when SARS-CoV-2 surfaced this year. In early April, a survey of U.S. physicians found that two-thirds (65%) would prescribe CQ or HCQ to treat or prevent COVID-19 in a family member, and roughly the same percentage (67%) would take it themselves. (The company conducting the survey noted that the best way to get a candid perspective on treatment options from a physician is to ask: Would you give this to your family?) Another early April survey of over 6,000 physicians in 30 countries found that 37% of respondents who had already treated Covid-19 rated HCQ as the most effective therapy. Apparently, the physicians advising the worlds heads of state are likewise favorably disposed to HCQ. In May, the White House doctor confirmed HCQs excellent benefit-to-risk ratio, and the president of El Salvador not only reported taking HCQ as prophylaxis for Covid-19 himself but asserted that most of the worlds leaders, including President Trump, have been doing the same. However, in what has turned out to be a gross understatement, the Salvadorean leader also admitted that Sometimes whats recommended to the people is something different than whats recommended to the leaders. For the biopharma companies poised to profit from new drugs and Covid-19 vaccines it is not an attractive option to keep older drugs that have outlived their patent terms in the running. Extra-scientific factors In March, the U.S. readily accepted millions of HCQ tablets donated by pharmaceutical giants Bayer and Sandoz for the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile, and the FDA even granted emergency use authorization for HCQ as a Covid-19 therapy, yet what has been recommended to the American people ever since has most certainly not been HCQ. In factignoring over five dozen studies (and counting) that have shown CQ or HCQ to be effective against Covid-19 under certain conditionsthe FDA revoked the drugs Covid-19 authorization in June. Meanwhile, the nations number-one-ranked hospital, the Mayo Clinic, currently states on its website that there are no Covid-19 medications or cures. At this point, when countries using HCQ are displaying a Covid-19 mortality rate that is only one-tenth the mortality rate in countries where there is interference with this medication, such as the United States, it is difficult to deny that an HCQ hit job is taking place both domestically and internationally. Columbia University medical graduate Dr. James Todaro recently declared as much: If it seems like there is an orchestrated attack thats going on against hydroxychloroquine, its because there is. For the biopharma companies poised to profit from new drugs and Covid-19 vaccinesincluding the alarming Moderna vaccine co-developed by NIAIDit is not an attractive option to keep older drugs that have outlived their patent terms in the running. In a Rachel Maddow interview earlier this spring, Columbia Universitys Dr. Ian Lipkin admitted to Maddowwith a grinthat sexy and new and patentable formulations are far more attractive to researchers and investors than tried-and-true, classical sort of methods repurposing drugs and strategies that have already been shown to work. As a result of the HCQ attacksenabled by the pharmaceutical industry, Fauci and other top health officials, social media giants and captured media, regulatory and scientific journal partnerstens of thousands of Covid-19 patients are dying unnecessarily for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science. The expert making that dire assessmentYale epidemiology professor Harvey Risch, MD, PhDbelieves that in the future, this misbegotten episode regarding hydroxychloroquine will be studied by sociologists of medicine as a classic example of how extra-scientific factors overrode clear-cut medical evidence. Instead, the doctors were met with Googles removal of their white paper. From essential medicine to political hot potato Until this year, CQ and HCQ had an uneventful track record. The German company Bayer developed CQ as an antimalarial in 1934, and HCQ came along about a decade later. In 1955, the FDA approved HCQ for use in the U.S., where the drug has become a staple for the control of certain autoimmune-inflammatory conditions. The World Health Organization (WHO) includes CQ and HCQ on its list of essential medicines, and both have the reputation of being safe if dosed properly. The most problematic sequelae have been the emergence of drug-resistant malaria and, with long-term use and higher-than-recommended doses, retinopathy. On March 13, 2020, Dr. Todaro and a coauthor published an online white paper that pointed to the CDCs 2005 chloroquine research and outlined the early and successful use of CQ in Covid-19 patients in South Korea and China. Noting these promising results and the fact that China had zeroed in on CQ after several screening rounds of thousands of existing drugs, the two physicians urged the U.S. to give Americas medical profession an immediate green light to prescribe CQ and HCQ for Covid-19 patients. Instead, the doctors were met with Googles removal of their white paper. Around the same time, France reported positive results for HCQ use in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin. The French doctor achieving these results, Dr. Didier Raoult, has been writing for years about the potential to recycle CQ and HCQ for 21st century viral and other infections. More recently, a Michigan study of patients hospitalized with a Covid-19-related admission and treated early confirmed that both HCQ alone and HCQ plus azithromycin can significantly reduce Covid-19-linked mortality. Other studies have highlighted the success of a triple combination of HCQ, azithromycin and zinc, a known antiviral. CQ/HCQ rapidly increase intracellular zinc levelsimportant given that the individuals most likely to be Covid-19 patients (the elderly and those with comorbid chronic conditions) tend to be zinc-deficient. As of late July, a tally of 65 studies around the world indicated that 100% of the studies that assessed HCQ for Covid-19 pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) or early use showed high effectiveness, as did 61% of the studies examining HCQ use in later stages of illness. Describing a natural experiment in Switzerland, Yales Dr. Risch has noted: On May 27, the Swiss national government banned outpatient use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19. Around June 10, COVID-19 deaths increased four-fold and remained elevated. On June 11, the Swiss government revoked the ban, and on June 23 the death rate reverted to what it had been beforehand. Even with the mixed results for late use, some clinicians have described clear-cut and dramatically positive clinical responses in individuals treated when breathing was already very difficult and continuing to worsen. In six patients: [S]ignificant improvement in breathing was seen within about four hours after the first dose, with a complete clinical recovery seen after about an average of three days. [] The rapidity with which the shortness of breath evolved in all these individuals strongly suggested that respiratory failure secondary to COVID-19-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome was imminent. [clinical trials] that were supposed to lay questions about HCQ safety and effectiveness to rest administered non-therapeutic, toxic and potentially lethal doses of HCQ (four times higher than standard doses) to thousands of study participants. A nefarious agenda The medias flagrant misrepresentation of the HCQ science is bad enough, but the willingness of top-tier journals to finagle the science in an anti-HCQ direction is even more shocking. In early June, scrutiny from dozens of independent scientists forced The Lancet to retract a study it had published just 13 days previouslya study out of thin air that used apparently fabricated data to undermine CQ/HCQ therapy. The debacle has since become known as #LancetGate. (The same day as the Lancet retraction, the New England Journal of Medicine retracted a separate Covid-19-related study that relied on unverifiable data sourced from the same company that supplied the data for the Lancet study.) The French health minister used the Lancet study results as justification to ban HCQs use despite widespread public interest in and support for the drug. Confirming that the anti-HCQ campaign is international in scope, several large-scale, multicenter clinical trials (the WHO-led Solidarity trial, the UK-led Recovery trial and the REMAP-Covid study) that were supposed to lay questions about HCQ safety and effectiveness to rest administered non-therapeutic, toxic and potentially lethal doses of HCQ (four times higher than standard doses) to thousands of study participants. The trials also selected clinically inappropriate patients who either had severe late-stage illness (Solidarity and Recovery) or were near death and not even able to provide consent in some cases (REMAP). The sponsoring agencies then used the disastrously skewed results to discredit HCQ and unblushingly marshalled the bogus Lancet study (before its retraction) in support of their negative conclusions. When medical internist and biowarfare expert Meryl Nass, MD conducted a detailed analysis of the study protocols, she concluded that WHO and other national health agencies, and charities, have designed huge clinical trials to assure that hydroxychloroquine will fail to show benefit, and in so doing, conspired to increase the number of deaths in these trials and deprive billions of people from potentially benefiting from a safe and inexpensive drug during a major pandemic. a propaganda war against a potentially life-saving medication is being waged for political purposes, not based on medical facts. Therapeutics, not politics In the U.S., physician and Stanford-educated lawyer Simone Gold, MD, JD pointed out in a mid-June interview about HCQs politicization that There was never controversy about hydroxychloroquine right up until March 20, 2020the day that President Trump praised HCQ as a game changer (timestamp 3:42). This week, Dr. Gold and an accompanying group of frontline doctors from around the U.S. went public on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court with their frustration about HCQs marginalization. In their video, the doctors reiterated the effectiveness of HCQ, azithromycin and zinc for Covid-19 prophylaxis and early-stage illness and asserted that nobody needs to die. The video garnered an astonishing 17 million views on Facebook and over 80,000 views on YouTube before the two tech giants (plus Twitter) took it down. The mainstream media then swiftly followed up with pieces designed to character-assassinate the doctors and, ironically, slam them as too political. Rather than promote the HCQ+azithromycin+zinc combination or other inexpensive therapies that have achieved real-world results, Fauci (Americas doctor) continues to disparage HCQ while painting a grim no end in sight picture in which non-evidence-based lockdowns and social distancing are the only response. In Faucis recent speeches, it is difficult to find any mention of therapies at all, other than praise for the risky, high-dollar Ebola drug Remdesivir manufactured by Faucis pharmaceutical counterparts. Tested in NIAID-sponsored trials, Remdesivir has failed to deliver any clinically meaningful results for Covid-19 patients. Fauci, the man who has had continuous job security at the National Institutes of Health since 1968, has dismissed the stunning and health-threatening loss of millions of American jobsnearly 50 million first-time unemployment applications thus faras merely inconvenient. In a late July speech to cancer doctors, Faucis sole concession to the havoc that his lockdown advice has helped propagate was to dispassionately admit that up to 10,000 extra cancer deaths may result from the cancer screenings that Americans are currently foregoing. The message that ought to be equally distressing to the American public is that a propaganda war against a potentially life-saving medication is being waged for political purposes, not based on medical facts. Read more at: ChildrensHealthDefense.org Ritually cleaning their bodies, donning masks and setting prayer mats down six feet apart from fellow worshippers, Muslims gathered at the Islamic Center of Wallingford to observe the Eid al-Adha holy day on Friday. The mandatory cleaning of oneself before prayer, known as the Wudu, is doubly important during the coronavirus outbreak, said Abdus Salam, a member of the mosques committee. Hand sanitizer and extra masks have been made available throughout the mosque. Before prayers begin, the imam instructs worshippers on proper distancing. It is part of our faith before you can pray, you have to clean yourself, Salam said. The faith allows Muslims to conduct Friday prayers usually the day of communal prayer in their homes. For those who come to the mosque, the capacity of the main room has been reduced and a second room opened for overflow with a monitor to stream the service. Over a month after the state began allowing places of worship to resume in-person services, clergy are grappling with the best ways to keep their congregations safe while continuing to keep them connected to their faith. This is uncharted territory for all of us and were trying to figure it out like everyone else, said Rabbi Micah Ellenson of Temple Beth David in Cheshire. Most of the synagogues services are being held via video conferencing software, however, since the state began to allow worshippers to congregate again in June, Temple Beth David has resumed holding some activities at the temple. For its observance of Tisha BAv on July 29, the temple had a service on its lawn and has also had camp days for children. The weekly worship services on Friday evenings remain virtual and a decision on when to bring the community back inside continues to be reevaluated daily. Well do what weve been doing all along: listen to the professionals and make a decision, Ellenson said. Continuing to work from the temple, Ellenson and a few other staff members have been in communication with other rabbis as well as clergy from other faiths to share wisdom and ways to keep people tied to their beliefs. When members of his community ask for counseling, Ellenson has been largely speaking with them over the phone, however, hes also held some meetings on the temples lawn or outside homes. I think that in some ways with or without the pandemic, religion provides an anchor for people it anchors them spiritually which is not a small thing, he said. St. Pauls in Southington St. Pauls Episcopal Church in Southington is also continuing to hold its services online after polling members about returning to the pews. Based on the feedback, Senior Warden Jennifer Hinekley said the church is looking at reopening in August. After the church closed its doors, St. Pauls began sending out weekly written sermons from its priest and online links to services at the Washington National Cathedral. The churchs administration began creating their own live-streams in June. People go to church for a variety of different reasons and they are still getting what they needed from the virtual services we are providing, Hinekley said. St. Rose in Meriden Sunday Mass resumed in person at St. Rose of Lima in Meriden in June, though the Catholic churchs capacity has been reduced from around 300 to just 40 worshippers at once, plus staff and volunteers. Those who wish to attend Mass must pre-register on the website or call into its office to ensure that the service doesnt exceed capacity. Registration also allows the church to notify parishioners in the event someone at Mass tests positive for coronavirus. Volunteers keep track of the number of people entering and exiting the church and check temperatures before worshippers are allowed inside. During Mass, only instrumental music is being played following guidance from the Archdiocese of Hartford that prohibits singing over concerns that choirs could spread coronavirus. I think we are doing OK and people have been very patient and people are following the rules and everything, said secretary Vinary Parra. dleithyessian@record-journal.com203-317-2317Twitter: @leith_yessian Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tri Indah Oktavianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 13:00 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066aae328 1 World endangered-animal,endangered-species,Philippines,repatriation,endemic-species,Environment-and-Forestry-Ministry,North-Sulawesi,Bitung Free Ninety-one endangered animals endemic to Indonesia that had been smuggled to the Philippines have returned to their home country. Comprising reptiles, mammals and birds, such as wallabies, cassowaries and Papuan blyths hornbills, the animals arrived at Bitung Port in North Sulawesi on Thursday morning. The Environment and Forestry Ministrys law enforcement director general, Rasio Ridho Sani, Bitung Mayor Maximilian J. Lomban and North Sulawesi Natural Resources Conservation (BKSDA) head Noel Layuk Allo welcomed them upon their return home. The animals will stay at the Tasikosi Animal Rescue Center in Bitung before eventually being released in their natural habitats, the ministrys law enforcement directorate general spokesperson, Dodi Kurniawan, said in a statement. Philippine authorities had confiscated the trafficked animals, which are considered endangered under the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), on April 2019. SunStar Philippines reported at the time that Davaos Department of Environment and Natural Resources had rescued 300 species of wild animals. Local law enforcers also arrested two men for allegedly smuggling the animals from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea by sea. Rasio said in the statement that the ministrys biodiversity conservation director, Indra Exploitasia Semiawan, who also serves as the CITES Management Authority in Indonesia, had been working to repatriate the animals. A court in the city of Mati in Davao ordered in October 2019 the return of 134 animals to Indonesia, Rasio said. While both countries agreed on the repatriation, only 91 animals were considered fit for a journey to Indonesia. He went on to say that the Indonesian government had been investigating several animal trade operations, including sales made online. The ministry is cooperating with several other countries and Interpol to curb this transnational crime. We have uncovered more than 300 cases involving the illegal trade of endangered species, Rasio said. According to the 1990 Natural Resources Conservation Law, anyone found guilty of trading endangered animals and plants can be sentenced to a maximum of five years and prison and required to pay a fine of Rp 100 million (US$6,934). WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University startup is turning gameplay into serious learning for elementary students away from classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Explore Interactive markets an augmented reality platform to help students learn about science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The team conducted educational research with researchers at the INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering at Purdue under SBIR funding from National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and Elevate Ventures. Now, the founders of the startup have partnered with the Museum of Science, Boston, and Homewood Science Center, located near Chicago, to host a virtual STEM camp. The virtual camp will take place the first week of August for students 8-12 years of age. It will include virtual sessions, and then the students will complete projects on their own. "Our newest product, MindLabs, extends the foundational Explore platform to allow kids to collaborate remotely on engineering and design of circuits," said Amanda Thompson, CEO of Explore Interactive. Explore Interactive has worked with educators and elementary students from across the U.S. in the development of the MindLabs platform, which lets children work together to solve hands-on STEM challenges and conduct open-ended design and play. "There is no better time to empower racially and ethnically diverse children to see themselves as scientists," said Heather Gunsallus, vice president of STEM education at the Museum of Science, Boston. "The team at the Museum of Science, Boston, is thrilled to support the vital work of Purdue, Explore Interactive and Homewood Science Center with the students in Chicago's Southland." Thompson said MindLabs platform unlocks the potential of augmented reality to deliver analytics of soft skills like collaboration and hard skills like systems thinking through applied, hands-on design and troubleshooting, a far more effective approach compared to worksheets and multiple choice tests. "In spite of these challenging times, we are able to fulfil our mission of inspiring scientific wonder, learning and pursuit," said Edie Dobrez, executive director of the Homewood Science Center. "We are honored to work with esteemed colleagues at Purdue and the Museum of Science, Boston, to offer Augmented Reality: Northern Lights for our racially and ethnically diverse student population in Chicago's Southland." Explore has received support and guidance from the Purdue Foundry, an entrepreneurship and commercialization hub housed in the Convergence Center for Innovation and Collaboration in Purdue's Discovery Park District, adjacent to the Purdue campus. "In the current remote learning environment, MindLabs is a solution for teachers who have very limited options for students to engage collaboratively on STEM projects," Thompson said. ### About Purdue Research Foundation The Purdue Research Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Established in 1930, the foundation accepts gifts; administers trusts; funds scholarships and grants; acquires property; protects Purdue's intellectual property; and promotes entrepreneurial activities on behalf of Purdue. The foundation manages the Purdue Foundry, Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization, Purdue Research Park, Purdue Technology Centers and University Development Office. In 2020, the IPWatchdog Institute ranked Purdue third nationally in startup creation and in the top 20 for patents. The foundation received the 2019 Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Award for Place from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. For more information about involvement and investment opportunities in startups based on a Purdue innovation, contact the Purdue Foundry at foundry@prf.org. Writer: Chris Adam, 765-588-3341, cladam@prf.org Source: Amanda Thompson, athompson@exploresupport.com The leader of the Green Party Eamon Ryan has said he has warned members that voting against the Government weakens it. It comes after he sanctioned two of his TDs for failing to support a Government housing bill yesterday. Junior Minister Joe O'Brien and Deputy Neasa Hourigan have had speaking rights removed for two months, which will cover just two weeks of Dail time when it returns. Minister Ryan said he took current circumstances into account when deciding how the TDs should be reprimanded. The leader of the Greens said: "Every party has a different approach, this is not unusual circumstances we had to take into account precedent and also the circumstances of this moment. "It's the last day of the Dail, we want to regroup and come back stronger working together as a team when we come back in September because the country needs stable, strong Government." He added that he made it very clear at a parliamentary party meeting last night that members cannot vote against Government, as it weakens its strength. Minister Ryan said: "You cannot vote against Government, if you are in Government, you cannot abstain if you are in Government. "It weakens our strength, it weakens Government, it doesn't work and I'm confident that our own party members know that." Ms Hourigan said it was not her intention to vote against the Government in the future and hoped there was still a place for her within the Green Party. Commenting on the controversy which erupted over her opposition to Government legislation, Ms Hourigan said she expected to be sanctioned by her party for her actions and accepted the ruling. I knew what I was doing and therefore whatever they decided was right, said Ms Hourigan. The Dublin Central TD declined to comment on what was discussed at Thursdays night parliamentary party meeting but confirmed she attended the discussion that decided on her sanction. She added: I hope that this simply wont arise again. Ms Hourigan, who had opposed the Green Party entering into coalition with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael despite being one of her partys chief negotiators, acknowledged that what happened was probably very frustrating for the Greens government partners. She admitted dealing with her must be very trying at times. Defending her position, Ms Hourigan said she had been anxious to ensure protections introduced for tenants following the Covid-19 outbreak remained in place until January and had made her concerns known to her parliamentary party at the start of the week. She claimed some of the amendments proposed by Opposition TD were quite good for extending protections to a wider group of people. I felt that it was worth trying to open a conversation around the accepting of Opposition amendments when they were worthwhile, she observed. Ms Hourigan said she had received contrary advice to that given to the Government by the Attorney General that a further extension of the legislation beyond August would be unconstitutional. She believed having the issue adjudicated on by the courts would have been the thing to do. Ms Hourigan said the Green Party had a tradition of accepting diverse voices but she was also aware that there are huge compromises to be made when you go into government. Pompeo claims 'tide is turning' in US dealings with China Iran Press TV Thursday, 30 July 2020 4:15 PM US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that the "tide is turning" in United States dealings with China, claiming that there is international support for American policies against Beijing. However, Pompeo said on Thursday that he was disappointed at the number of countries supporting China's new security law for Hong Kong. The top US diplomat made the remarks while testifying on China before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "We see the Chinese Communist Party for what it is: the central threat of our times," Pompeo said, taking a tough line on China during rising tensions between Washington and Beijing. He claimed that other countries are supporting American initiatives like the US effort not to use Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] equipment in 5G networks and military maneuvers in the South China Sea. "Our vigorous diplomacy has helped lead an international awakening to the threat of the CCP. Senators, the tide is turning," Pompeo said. China and the US are at loggerheads over a host of issues, including a new security law introduced in Hong Kong, the origins and handling of the COVID-19 contagious disease, Taiwan and the disputed South China Sea. Washington and Beijing have also been engaged in an unprecedented trade war resulting in sanctions and counter-sanctions. They have also exchanged harsh words for the past several months. Trump considers China as the West's main rival, accusing Chinese President Xi Jinping of taking over trade and not telling the truth about the COVID-19 pandemic, which apparently originated in a Chinese city late last year. The US president has even called the new respiratory disease the "China plague", angering the Chinese government. Beijing, in response, has fiercely defended its handling of the new coronavirus, repeatedly saying it "has been nothing but open, transparent and responsible" about the pandemic. Washington and Beijing have also been engaged in an unprecedented trade war resulting in sanctions and counter-sanctions. They have also exchanged harsh words for the past several months. Trump considers China as the West's main rival, accusing Chinese President Xi Jinping of taking over trade and not telling the truth about the COVID-19 pandemic, which apparently originated in a Chinese city late last year. The American president has even called the new respiratory disease the "China plague", angering the Chinese government. Recently, Washington has taken a markedly more aggressive posture against Beijing. Pompeo has called for regime change in "Communist China." Both the US and China have recently closed two consulates as well, and Pompeo announced an end to Hong Kong's special trading status. On Thursday, Pompeo acknowledged the difficulty of establishing an alliance against China because of its economic strength. He said he was "surprised and dismayed" at the number of countries that supported Beijing's actions in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, China has said the United States is triggering a new Cold War as a number of American politicians are looking for a scapegoat to rally support for President Donald Trump ahead of the US presidential election in November. On Thursday, China's ambassador to London, Liu Xiaoming, said Washington had commenced a trade war with China, which it would not win. "It is not China that has become assertive. It's the other side of the Pacific Ocean who want to start new Cold War on China, so we have to make response to that," he said in a press conference, stressing that Beijing was not interested in any kind of war, let alone a cold one. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address People who laugh frequently in their everyday lives may be better equipped to deal with stressful events -- although this does not seem to apply to the intensity of laughter. These are the findings reported by a research team from the University of Basel in the journal PLOS ONE. It is estimated that people typically laugh 18 times a day -- generally during interactions with other people and depending on the degree of pleasure they experience. Researchers have also reported differences related to time of day, age, and gender -- for example, it is known that women smile more than men on average. Now, researchers from the Division of Clinical Psychology and Epidemiology of the Department of Psychology at the University of Basel have recently conducted a study on the relationship between stressful events and laughter in terms of perceived stress in everyday life. Questions asked by app In the intensive longitudinal study, an acoustic signal from a mobile phone app prompted participants to answer questions eight times a day at irregular intervals for a period of 14 days. The questions related to the frequency and intensity of laughter and the reason for laughing -- as well as any stressful events or stress symptoms experienced -- in the time since the last signal. Using this method, the researchers working with the lead authors, Dr. Thea Zander-Schellenberg and Dr. Isabella Collins, were able to study the relationships between laughter, stressful events, and physical and psychological symptoms of stress ("I had a headache" or "I felt restless") as part of everyday life. The newly published analysis was based on data from 41 psychology students, 33 of whom were women, with an average age of just under 22. Intensity of laughter has less influence The first result of the observational study was expected based on the specialist literature: in phases in which the subjects laughed frequently, stressful events were associated with more minor symptoms of subjective stress. However, the second finding was unexpected. When it came to the interplay between stressful events and intensity of laughter (strong, medium or weak), there was no statistical correlation with stress symptoms. "This could be because people are better at estimating the frequency of their laughter, rather than its intensity, over the last few hours," says the research team. GCB Bank Limited has held its 26th Annual General Meeting (AGM) via a virtual platform for its shareholders to consider and adopt the Reports of the Directors, Auditors, and the Financial Statements for the year ended December 31, 2019. The virtual AGM was held on Thursday, July 30, 2020, at the GCB Head Office in Accra was in compliance with the Imposition of Restriction Act 2020 (Act 1012), the Registrar Generals Department and Securities and Exchange Commission directives and guidance on holding virtual Annual General Meetings. GCB Bank recorded a significant growth in Profit before Tax of GHS573.67 million from GHS450.17 million in 2018, up by 27.4 per cent and paid a dividend of twenty pesewas per share. STERLING PERFORMANCE Commenting on the performance of the Bank, Board Chairman of GCB Bank, Mr. Jude Arthur, attributed GCBs impressive financial performance to its strategic focus of growing the balance sheet and diversifying the Banks income base, underpinned by a robust risk management framework, strengthening of the Internal Audit and combined Assurance functions. DIVIDEND PAYMENT On the payment of dividend, the Board Chairman stated that even though the Bank of Ghana (BOG) had placed a temporary ban on the payment of dividends due to the potential negative impact of Covid-19 on the liquidity and solvency of banks, GCB was given the permission to pay dividends due to the Banks impressive financial performance and a case made by the Bank to the Central Bank to outline measures put in place to ensure sustainable growth. IMPACT OF COVID-19 Commenting on the impact of Covid-19 on the Banks operations, Mr. Arthur stated that the Board has developed measures to combat the effects of the pandemic on both the bank and its clients. He added that measures adopted include; staff rotation and working from home, stringent adoption and adherence to Covid-19 principles in the workplace and a framework that prioritises capital expenditure spend taking cognizance of Covid-19. Customers in sectors that have been hard hit have been provided with concessionary rates and moratorium on principal and interest on loan facilities. Deployment of E-Banking Solutions The Bank has also deployed measures aimed at aggressively growing the Banks business in identified areas, particularly in the development of electronic banking solutions. PARTICIPATION OF SHAREHOLDERS Shareholders participated and voted at the AGM through a dedicated portal created for the AGM and a unique password. The AGM proceedings was transmitted live on GTV and also streamed via https://gcbbankagm.com and across all GCB Banks social media platforms. At the end of the meeting, shareholders adopted the 2019 audited financials as presented by Deloitte & Touche for the period and approved all resolutions on the agenda which included the declaration of dividend, re-election of the Board Directors company retiring by rotation, re-election of Directors and the authorization of the Directors to fix the remuneration of Directors. DEPARTURE OF GCB MD AND DEPUTY Prior to officially bringing the AGM to a close, the Board Chairman announced that the Managing Director of the Bank; Anselm Ray Sowah, whose three-year tenure ends this year has opted not to seek a renewal of his contract and will depart the Bank. The Deputy Managing Director Operations of the Bank, Mr. Samuel Amankwah, has also reached the mandatory retirement age and will be retired from the Bank. The Board Chairman and the Shareholders congratulated them for their stellar performance and wished them well. Financial Performance GCB Banks Profit before Tax (PBT) increased by 27.4 per cent to GHS573.67 million in 2019 from GHS450.17 million in 2018 driven by solid revenue growth. Net interest income increased by 20.8 per cent; from GHS967.10million in 2018 to GHS1,168.45 million. Net trading income increased from GHS90.64 in 2018 to GHS141.75 million representing an increase of 57.3 per cent. The Bank also increased net fees and commissions by 22.2 per cent; from GHS197.60 per cent in 2018 to 241.51 million. GCB Bank increased its total assets from GHS10.72 billion in 2018 to GHS12.52 billion in 2019 representing an increase of 16.8 per cent. Total deposit also increased by 18.4 per cent to GHS9.82 billion from GHS8.30 billion in 2018, making GCB the number one ranked bank in terms of deposit and asset size in the banking industry. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) Mr. Arthur stated that GCB Bank invested GHS10.37 million in CSR activities for 2019 as compared to GHS5.62 million spent in 2018 largely in the areas of health, education, environment and sanitation. He added that CSR has been highlighted in the new BoG guidelines as an activity that should be under the purview of the Board and a new policy framework is being developed to define the Banks contribution to the communities in which it operates. Way forward On the way forward, the Board Chairman stated that over the past few years GCB has embarked on an aggressive digital strategy aimed at enhancing the frontiers of branchless banking, deepening financial inclusion and putting GCB at the heart of the ongoing mobile money revolution with the launch of key initiatives like the launch of G-Money; an industry first mobile money service. He emphasized that GCB Bank would continue to position itself to attract the unbanked segment of the market and also deploy its mobile money services to help customers make the transition from the informal to the formal banking sector and provide them with innovative financial products. GCB is also poised to take advantage of the new normal precipitated by Covid-19 to develop and promote a range of digital solutions aimed at delivering value to stakeholders Kuwait: Taking a big decision, the Gulf country Kuwait has currently banned the entry of Indian citizens into the country. On Thursday, the Kuwait government has announced that except for citizens of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran and the Philippines, Kuwaiti citizens and expatriates residing in other countries can travel to Kuwait. Kuwait has announced that the international airlines which have been closed for three and a half months will also be restored. The Indian Foreign Ministry is aware of this restriction imposed on Indian citizens and is trying to resolve the matter at the administrative level. According to Arab News report, Rajpal Tyagi, Chief of the India Community Support Group, has informed that this decision will lead to the loss of jobs for thousands of people who are trapped in India due to Corona epidemic, He further said that there are many families, some of whom have lived in Kuwait and have been trapped in India, and now they all want to return. He said that if people who have gone on vacation do not return, then their jobs are in danger. Visa of many people is about to expire and if Kuwait has the same attitude then the visa will not be renewed. Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan says "Like Other countries, India is in the race of making corona vaccine" EU's big action, ban cyber spies of these countries including China Obama furious over Donald Trump, says "Government sending agents to use tear gas against peaceful demonstrators" TROY, N.Y. Rensselaer County District Attorney Mary Pat Donnelly announced that Oscar Rodriguez, 26, of Troy, was indicted and arraigned in Rensselaer County Court before the Honorable Debra J. Young. Rodriguez was charged with second and third-degree robbery, third-degree grand larceny, and second-degree menacing in connection with robbing the Keybank on Hoosick Street. On July 6, 2020, Rodriguez is accused of entering the bank on July 6, 2020, removing what appeared to be a shotgun from a box, racking a shotgun and demanding money from the teller. He proceeded to flee from the bank with approximately $13,000 dollars but was quickly apprehended by New York State Police. Rodriguez has been remanded to Rensselaer County Jail and is scheduled for conference on Aug. 12. Actor Sonu Sood is the man of the hour and for all the right reasons. Being one of the most sought-after actors of Bollywood, Sood has also left no stone unturned when it comes to his brilliant acting skills while playing the bad boy on-screen. Since he is quite active on all the social media platforms, the actor took us by surprise recently by posting a throwback picture on Instagram that made all his fans go berserk over it. Instagram/Sonu Sood When it comes to physical transformation as well, the actor has come a long way. Sharing a picture on social media feed, the actor went ahead and cracked a joke on himself. He wrote ...and I dared to become an actor. #1997 This picture is from his modelling days, when the actor had only ventured into Bollywood. He is seen flaunting his lean physique and lanky avatar, wearing a loose denim shirt coupled with denim pants. Say what may, but this picture has definitely garnered all the attention and his fans poured in a lot of love in the comment section. The actor is not just riding high on his career, but a quick look at more of his pictures and you would know that he puts a lot of emphasis on leading a healthy lifestyle as well. The regular workouts and his envious, chiselled physique, has him in the league of the fittest actors in Bollywood. While most of us struggled to hit the gym even when things were normal, Sonu Sood has transformed his home into a gym, which truly is an inspiration. Check out some of Sonu's transformation pictures here: Instagram/Sonu Sood 1. While Sood's washboard abs totally made our jaws drop, we truly can't divert our attention from his son, Eshaan. Instagram/Sonu Sood 2. Here's how to flaunt your biceps with the Badshah Of Bollywood ft. Shah Rukh Khan. Instagram/Sonu Sood 3. Fitness addict, yes! Instagram/Sonu Sood 4. When it was International Yoga Day and the actor said 'Yoga se hi Hoga'. True that! Instagram/Sonu Sood 5. Workout game stronger and on-point. Instagram/Sonu Sood (7) This is what we call a perfect 'sweat it out' picture. Instagram/Sonu Sood Meanwhile, the actor is constantly in the news for helping the migrant workers reunite with their families. From arranging flights and buses, to also providing jobs to the ones in need, the man's generosity will be remembered for years to come. On the work front, the actor was last seen in Simmba, which came in 2018 and post that, he also starred in several South movies. Way to go, Sonu! Penn State University outlined its Back to State plan that includes an extensive COVID-19 testing system, a behavioral contract for students and a glimpse at how campuses will feel come this fall during a virtual town hall Thursday afternoon. Penn State President Eric Barron said 50 percent of classes will be offered in person or partially in person, though there is a chance classes could move back to completely remote instruction if COVID conditions worsen. He said the university community needs to work together to keep in-person instruction and limit the spread of the virus. University administrators emphasized that school will look and feel much different than what students and staff are used to. Masks will be required in all buildings and outdoor spaces where social distancing isnt possible. There will be signage posted around campuses and staggered class release periods to limit the density of people on campus at a given time. For everyone that comes to our campuses, for students and for faculty and staff alike, things are going to be a little different than what they expect, Damon Sims, vice president for student affairs, said. Thats true for both new and returning students frankly. Testing students, faculty and staff The university is adopting a multilayered testing protocol that will start before students even set foot on campus to limit the spread through asymptomatic cases. They will send out 30,000 COVID-19 tests to students who live in areas with high infection rates one week before school starts. Students that test positive will not be allowed on campus until they are cleared by a doctor and are no longer COVID-19 positive. This prearrival strategy, focusing on individuals coming from areas of high disease prevalence provides us the opportunity to begin the semester with a far lower number of asymptomatic, but COVID-positive individuals on campus, which is essential to allowing campuses to remain open throughout the semester, Dr. Kevin Black, dean of the college of medicine, said. One percent of students, faculty and staff will be randomly selected for testing on campus every day, regardless of if they have symptoms or not, throughout the school year. Each campus will also provide testing and contact tracing for symptomatic cases as they appear. We know that each of these measures is imperfect. We made each of them the very best we can and then we layer them together into a coherent whole, Executive Vice President and Provost Nick Jones said. Working in concert and in parallel on a number of levels is critical. Expectations from students Administrators are asking students to self-quarantine seven days before they come back to campus and follow the best practices for social distancing and mask-wearing once they arrive. Students are expected to sign a COVID Compact that outlines behavior expectations and acknowledges the risks of going back to school. Students who violate health guidelines could risk suspension, Sims said. An awful lot of this depends on you, it depends whether or not you follow all of the rules and social distancing, masking, Barron said. The key to us staying in face-to-face education is the degree to which you accept responsibility for your behavior, and keep everyone else safe and healthy. Reporting positive cases Students will have access to live updates and testing information through the university app, and testing results will be made public to the community. Penn State said they plan to report both positive and negative test numbers on a campus-by-campus basis to keep the community informed. They outlined information on how students who test positive will quarantine as well. Students will have to remain under quarantine for 14 days, during which the university will support them with bringing them food and personal items. Academic and mental health support will be provided as well. Changes to classes and campus life There will not be the family weekend that traditionally happens every fall, as that is too great a risk. Welcome activities and orientation will still be held, and the student union, dining halls and rec center will remain open with modified seating arrangements and sanitation efforts. The first day of fall semester is Aug. 24. In-person instruction will end on Nov. 20 and the remainder of the semester will be taught remotely following the Thanksgiving break. Barron said 50 percent of classes will be taught remotely, while the other 50 pecent will be either in person or a hybrid model. He said only 6 percent of classes will be taught asynchronously. More information and resources: Thousands of pensioners face being driven into food and fuel poverty after their free TV licences are axed from today, warn campaigners. The BBC's decision to scrap the freebie for most over-75s means more than three million households will be asked to stump up the 157.50 annual fee for the first time. However, a study by a major charity says more than 500,000 pensioners are unaware that they could qualify for a free licence because they are on low incomes. Over-75s can keep a free licence if they claim pension credit, a form of benefits. But the Age UK research says there are up to 590,000 over-75s eligible for the credit who don't claim it. File photo shows an elderly woman watching television. Over-75s can keep a free licence if they claim pension credit, a form of benefits. But the Age UK research says there are up to 590,000 over-75s eligible for the credit who don't claim it BBC staff 'cull' hits just two per cent The workforce at the BBC has fallen by just two per cent over ten years, analysis reveals. In 2009, the total was 22,874 while last year it was 22,401, an overall decline of only 473. Bosses had wanted to cut staff by 10 per cent, reported the Press Gazette. By 2017, more than 2,600 had gone but this was cancelled out by new jobs in World Service News and public service broadcasting plus the launch of BBC Scotland. Staff costs rose 188million to 1.48billion for 2009-19. Advertisement They could be forced to choose between having no TV and slashing their food and energy bills if they fail to register for pension credit, says the charity. There are many reasons pensioners don't claim the benefit, from ill-health to feeling embarrassed about asking for help. Age UK says the disabled and dementia patients will be among those who come under pressure to pay up. The BBC faced renewed calls last night to scrap the policy, with critics accusing the corporation of exploiting pensioners to plug budget gaps when money could be saved elsewhere. Caroline Abrahams, of Age UK, said: 'As things stand, more than half a million of the poorest pensioners will still have to pay for a licence, cut spending on other essentials like food or heating, give up TV altogether, or keep watching without a licence, in breach of the law. 'Plus, there's the over-75s whose income is just a few pounds or even pence too high for them to qualify for pension credit. As the disastrous impact of the BBC's plan on some of our 'oldest old' becomes apparent, we hope this will bring the corporation and the Government back to the table.' Philip Davies MP, who sits on the Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee, said pensioners may end up in court for not paying. 'Is that really where the BBC wants to go with this?' Peter Bone, one of more than 60 Tory MPs who wrote to BBC director-general Lord Hall to complain, said: 'It's just mean and nasty.' Philip Davies MP, who sits on the Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee, said pensioners may end up in court for not paying. 'Is that really where the BBC wants to go with this?' TV has become a lifeline for many during the pandemic. Nearly 2.5million over-75s live alone. The corporation had planned to axe the free licences on June 1, but postponed it to today due to the pandemic. They used to be funded by the Government but responsibility has been transferred to the BBC which says ending them could prevent it from having to axe BBC Two, BBC Four, Radio 5 Live and other channels and radio stations. TV Licencing insisted the elderly would not be hounded and that it has 'considerably increased' staff in its customer support office for when applications begin today. Ottawa, July 31 : Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that despite his family's ties with a charity, he did not place himself in a conflict of interest through his involvement in cabinet discussions on getting the group to run a now-halted C$900 million student grant program. "I was not in a position of conflict of interest. I apologized because of the perception (over) ties with my family. I should have recused myself," CBC News quoted Trudeau as saying to a House of Commons committee on Thursday. The Prime Minister has been under fire since June 25 when his government granted the WE Charity group a sole-sourced contract to run the program. The Trudeau family has a close relationship with the organization. The Canadian leader's wife, mother and brother were allegedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their appearances at WE Charity events. Due to public outcry, the WE Charity and the Trudeau government announced on July 3 that they were ending the contract. Addressing the committe on Thursday, the Prime Ministersaid that when his government was working on the grant program, events related to the COVID-19 pandemic were moving fast and his government was sprinting to get programs out the door. He said that haste was part of the reason why he failed to recuse himself from cabinet discussions regarding WE Charity, reports CBC News. Trudeau also said he does not know the details of his family members' private business interests or how much money they might have received in expenses from WE Charity. "My mother and my brother are professionals in their own right who have engagements and have for many, many years, with many different organizations across the country, and I don't have the details of their work experiences or expenses," Trudeau said. Under questioning by Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre, Trudeau said that his wife Sophie works for free as a mental health advocate and that the expenses she's collected from WE Charity for her volunteer work have been cleared by the ethics commissioner's office. Trudeau's chief of staff Katie Telford also appeared before the Committee. The Canadian Conservative Party and other opposition parties have been pushing for more answers and have launched three separate parliamentary probes. They have also prompted the Parliamentary ethics commissioner to launch conflict of interest investigations into both Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau's dealings on granting WE Charity the contract, calling on both to resign. All spring season expeditions that usually last from March to May were suspended in the wake of the pandemic, reports Xinhua news agency. Kathmandu, July 30 (IANS) Nepal has opened Mount Everest and other Himalayan peaks from Thursday after a a nearly 5-month closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Tourism Department official. The government had halted the issuance of climbing permits for expeditions and cancelled issued permits for the spring season 2020 on March 13. An expedition to Everest usually takes 45 to 90 days, a short climbing window, depending on favourable weather, and generally falls after mid-May. "The mountains are now open for mountaineers and the department has started issuing climbing permits starting today (Thursday)," said Mira Acharya, director at the Department of Tourism (DoT). The country has opened 414 peaks for mountaineering purposes. In line with the relaxation on economic activities, the government has allowed hotels, restaurants, trekking and mountaineering services to resume operations from Thursday. Nepal bags more than $4 million as royalty from climbers annually. The DoT collects $5,500 as climbing permit fee for Mount Everest's normal route and $5,000 for the other route uring autumn. As the country is gearing up to resume international flights, it is expecting tourists for the autumn season. "The quarantine modality is still under discussion because of which we are unable to project the flow of climbers into the country," Acharya told Xinhua. The Himalayan nation has so far reported 19,273 coronavirus cases, with 49 deaths. --IANS ksk/ The privilege my husband and I had up until this point was weeding out any seedlings of racism that sprung up around my daughter. This meant strategically removing friends who kept pointing out her physical differences when she was younger. I knew she was going to face prejudice and racism once she got older, but, if I could help it, she wouldnt have to meet it as a child. Growing up in Nigeria, I never had to worry about race or being referred to as Black, because we were all Black and we focused more on our cultural differences. That in itself came with a certain privilege that meant my skin color wasnt constantly thrown in my face on a daily basis. That privilege ended when I moved to the United States at 15 to start college. Once I learned Americas dark history, I shared the pain and deeply felt the Black experience of having to fight for your right to thrive and simply exist. But not just thrive because others have created bubbles of comfort in a corner for you, but to achieve your dreams as a Black African woman without having to always prove your worth, or work twice and thrice as hard as your white counterparts. You see, the specific words Protect and Feel sorry for that my daughter said her friends told her triggered me. As innocent as their delivery might have been, those words harkened back to their parents. I wondered how those conversations of what it means to be Black, or to have white privilege, happened in their own homes. Do those discussions center themselves as having to protect others less fortunate? And are Black and Brown people automatically seen as such without their own agency; are they seen in need of protecting? As a naturalized Swede, I have a multilayered relationship with my new home. On one hand, its a place that demands gratitude from all immigrants, expatriates and refugees. After all, our collective taxes go toward creating a darn-near perfect society when it comes to work-life balance. Almost a year and a half of parental leave per child, heavily-subsidized child care and health care, along with tons of sick leave. How dare I complain? It is a country that proudly wears its world-revered cape of mediator, egalitarian negotiator, and global defender of human rights a place where everyone is supposed to be protected. And for this, I truly love Sweden. However, it would also make sense that my daughters friends would use the word protect. Swedens position and reputation globally further perpetuates a preconceived narrative that continues to get passed down through generations. By An Puzhong and Yang Longquan BEIJING, July 31According to the recruiting office of the Ministry of National Defense(MND) of the People's Republic of China, the recruitment videos for 2020 were officially released on July 30, appealing for young people to join the Chinese military. The two recruitment videos for 2020 were jointly produced by the National Defense Mobilization Department under the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the China Media Group. One of the videos displays the training and growth experienced by the youth in military camps, while the other one is in micro-film version that shows the personal growth from the perspective of an enlisted college student. Starting from July 30th, these two short videos will begin to be targeted and accurately pushed to a wide range of young people and applicant groups across the country on traditional television and advertising media, as well as on the Internet and social media platforms. At the same time, various branches of the services and arms, together with recruiting departments at different levels across the country, will also simultaneously launch a series of different types and styles of recruiting promotional videos, micro videos, micro animations, and other products. One of the mysteries around the whole WE Charity controversy has revolved around this question: where were Justin Trudeaus political instincts? For a prime minister who has been a master of image and perception, Trudeau would be expected to immediately recognize the perils of pairing his government with a charity so closely tied to his family. In political marketing terms, it was an extremely risky merger of brands one that would have stopped any professional brand manager in his tracks. Or, as the political pros say, the optics werent ideal. On Thursday, in a rare appearance before a Commons committee, Trudeau testified that his instincts about optics hadnt completely failed him in this whole mess: he said he pushed back when he first learned on May 8 that WE and the Liberal we were going into business together to give pandemic relief to students. Trudeau didnt say no, he claimed, but rather not now. He pushed back, slowed it down, but he didnt slam his foot on the brakes. When I learned that WE Charity was recommended, I pushed back, Trudeau said. I know that appearances can harm a good program, and of course, that's exactly what happened here. Trudeau also knows that failure to appear can speak volumes in politics, and thats what landed him in front of the finance committee for 90 minutes on Thursday to testify that he wasnt using his office to benefit friends of his family or government. But this controversy is not all about optics. From the moment it exploded over the governments decision to contract out an aid program for students to the WE Charity, there have been two raging debates and they are not mutually exclusive. Was this a failure of political perception? Was it a contravention of the ethics rules? Or is it both? In either case, its argued, Trudeau and the Prime Ministers Office should have seen this coming. On this point, many serious Liberals and their opposition critics have agreed Trudeaus inability to anticipate this furor was inexplicable, given how seriously this imbroglio has taken his government off track. The prime ministers testimony on Thursday, and that of his chief of staff, Katie Telford, went part of the way to answering the crucial what were they thinking question, in terms of perception and rules. Trudeaus political instincts only slowed things down, he explained, by kicking the decision down the road. As for the worries about ethics rules, its not like the people in the PMO were completely unconcerned. As Telford testified in some detail, the ethics commissioner had cleared the prime ministers wife to deal with the WE Charity for her podcast and travel. This was new information, and will reassure people (mainly Liberals) who feared the Trudeau government just shrugged or worse, applauded when the WE proposal arrived at the top ranks for rubber stamping. It didnt get rubber stamped. Still, its not the same as asking the ethics commissioner about whether the government as a whole not just the prime ministers wife should get entangled with WE Charity. Conservative MP Michael Cooper did a good job on Thursday of making that distinction, asking Telford why the prime ministers fears about perception didnt turn into a full-fledged inquiry about the rules. Or, in other words, if this government had gone to the trouble of asking the ethics commissioner whether it was OK for Sophie Gregoire Trudeau to deal with WE Charity, why not ask when it came to something much larger like giving a charity responsibility to hand out hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID relief? The New Democrats Charlie Angus was also adept at boiling his questions down to the ones that are on the minds of many Canadians, and even some Liberals. More in sorrow than in anger not an entirely familiar look for Angus he asked how this had all happened while the country was in the midst of a pandemic and political parties had suspended their usual partisan antagonism. It comes down fundamentally to a question of your judgment, Angus said. There were numerous red flags with this proposal. Trudeau, in reply, expressed the same regret, saying he was sorry that this had all ended up where we (not WE) are now. The prime ministers testimony hasnt ended the saga. There remains an ethics commissioners inquiry. The opposition is saying that it has a lot more questions about time lines, and who said yes and no. As he did on May 8, Trudeau has pushed back a development that may not put the brakes on this controversy, but possibly slowed it down. The report helped give rise to the consent decree, a court order calling for broad reforms in the way police treat people. The former federal prosecutor overseeing progress toward reform has noted that the department has taken some steps to tighten supervision and further limit when cops can use force. Still, reform advocates have voiced skepticism of city leaders commitment to reform, as the city missed more than 70% of its deadlines during the first year under the order. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The boroughs annual 9/11 Postcards Memorial Ceremony will be held virtually this year as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, unless the facts on the ground change, said the ceremonys host, Borough President James Oddo. Each year, several hundreds of people gather at the Postcards Memorial on the St. George Esplanade to honor the Staten Islanders who lost their lives in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in a ceremony hosted by Oddo. But this year, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Oddo to rethink how to plan the annual ceremony. Oddo said his office plans to have families read the names of their loved ones via videotape and incorporate those videos into a live stream. He said they are trying to keep the virtual ceremony as close to a traditional ceremony as possible despite the current challenges. However, his office will weigh all options as the date nears and adjust their plans if needed, Oddo said. We have sent invitations to the families of those lost on 9/11 and to the families of first responders indicating that we will proceed as if we will need to do a virtual ceremony, Oddo said. We believe it is likely we will have no choice but to do a virtual ceremony, but if there is some way the facts on the ground change, we will weigh all options and perhaps adjust those plans, Oddo continued. The safety of all is the most important factor here, and we will remember all of our loved ones on that date, no matter how different it may feel, he continued. Ultimately, Oddo said the borough has an obligation to remember and honor those we lost and would fulfill that responsibility in whatever form it is permitted to take. [W]e want these families and those Staten Islanders who have chosen to be at Postcards year after year to realize they are known, seen, and loved, and that connection we all share will endure, Oddo said. Oddos decision to host a virtual ceremony comes as the 9/11 Memorial and Museum announced plans last week to play pre-recorded names of the victims from the museums Memoriam exhibition at the Lower Manhattan memorial rather than having family members go on stage and read the names of their loved ones as part of the annual ceremonial tradition. President and CEO Alice M. Greenwald of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum told family members in a letter last week that the decision was made out of an abundance of caution and in line with the latest social distancing guidelines. But Greenwald said family members could still gather on the Memorial plaza following state and federal social distancing guidelines. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced earlier this month that large events would be canceled through Sept. 30, while the states current guidelines only allow for social gatherings of up to 50 people. However, the change of plans have upset some, who have questioned why protests have been allowed to continue across the city but the annual ceremony cant continue on as planned. @NYCMayor @MaxRose4NY @CarolynBMaloney @aoc and nearly every other #NYC politician, each of you has participated in a march, rally or street painting. Youve all told us it was safe to do so. Explain how we cant safely get two ppl on a stage at the same time, outdoors. https://t.co/RCtJe6g5Gv pic.twitter.com/ULUWRMDOEK Rob Serra (@SerraRob) July 28, 2020 I know their plan is to play the reading of the names ... throughout the grounds, but I feel like that doesnt really do much for the people who are watching at home, said retired firefighter, Rob Serra of Great Kills. Serra helped rally fellow first responders to fully fund and permanently authorize the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, which President Donald Trump signed into law last summer. It would be my hope to work out some kind of virtual ceremony for the people at home like weve done for pretty much everything else, Serra continued. Organizers of the Lower Manhattan memorial event said the way the annual ceremony is set up, with family members coming up on stage and reading the names of their loved ones one-by-one, would not have allowed them to socially distance. They also said the ceremony will still be televised and attendees will continue to observe a moment of silence with houses of worship ringing their toll bells at that time. FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies remotely via videoconference during a U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law hearing on "Online Platforms and Market Power" in this screengrab made from video as the committee meets on Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C., July 29, 2020. The Big Tech companies of Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google combined to spend over $20 million on lobbying in the first half of 2020, with part of their focus on legislation that was meant to combat the economic downturn of the coronavirus pandemic. Facebook and Amazon have been the leaders in lobbying investments throughout the past six months. The social media giant spent just over $10 million, a record amount for its lobbying efforts in the first half of the year, according to data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Amazon also broke records, investing a bit above $10 million in lobbying over that same time period. Out of the many congressional efforts the tech juggernauts tried to influence, issues relating to coronavirus legislation were part of their lobbying itinerary, according to disclosure reports reviewed by CNBC. This effort included, at times, the CARES Act, which was meant to give relief to small businesses through a federal loan program known as the Paycheck Protection Program. That program has been implemented by the Small Business Administration and has led to billions of dollars in loans. The lobbying also comes as these companies have been under scrutiny by Congress, the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general about the potential violation of antitrust laws. The CEOs of these companies Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai all faced questions from Congress at a hearing Wednesday. The House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust released a trove of documents after the hearing that provide a clearer picture of the four tech giants' approach to competition. Still, most of the four companies did not answer questions on what specifically their companies were looking for through their lobbying campaigns when it came to the coronavirus relief efforts. A spokesman for Facebook said it was focused on supporting small businesses but did not respond to follow-up requests for comment. Facebook has publicly stood by small businesses through the pandemic. The company's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, previously said on her own Facebook page that the company was moving ahead with a $100 million grant program to support small businesses. Apple declined to comment while Google and Amazon did not respond to emails seeking comment. (Natural News) Over the weekend there were multiple shootings at mostly peaceful demonstrations across the US. In Louisville, KY, three members of the Black Nationalist militia group, NFAC, were injured due to a negligent discharge from one of their own members. In Aurora, CO, a mostly peaceful demonstrator who was blocking traffic opened fire on motorists who did not stop and wait to be assaulted by the mob. In Austin, TX, an armed Black Lives Matter protester was killed after allegedly pointing his gun at a motorist, who then shot the protester in self defense. These tragic shootings follow an ongoing campaign of agitation, targeted political violence, and organized insurgency. And while DNC leaders like Congressman Nadler claim this violence is just a myth, it is unquestionably escalating in frequency, intensity, and organization. (Article republished from FarLeftWatch.com) The latest example of this escalation comes from the Columbia, SC based far-left militia group, Civil Defense Corps. According to their website, they are actively recruiting former infantry and will be using these armed Reserve Units to investigate hate crimes and threats against minorities as well as the LGBTQ+ community. The group claims to be a 501(c)3 and even has a somewhat formal application process. In addition to general employment information and professional references, there are four questions for the applicant. The first two are Are you comfortable around firearms? and What is your opinion on MAGA?. Unfortunately, this group does not stop at just recruiting armed anti-Trump extremists, they also actively use their social media accounts to coordinate offline harm. In a recent Facebook post (archive), they encouraged their followers to shoot Federal agents in the face. On their Instagram page (archive), they openly flaunt their proclivity towards militancy and their affiliation with the domestic terrorist movement, Antifa. The Facebook page (archive) of the leader of this militia group, Walid Hakim, is littered with Communist iconography and Black Lives Matter logos. And after encouraging his Facebook followers to shoot Federal agents in the face using his Civil Defense Corps account, he later used his personal account to encourage people to attend an upcoming protest at South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) in downtown Columbia, SC. So what else do we know about this group? Well, they have generated some local press in which they were referred to as a Leftist Peace Group and they claim (archive) to have the vocal support of the Mayor of Columbia, Stephan Benjamin. The Mayors office did not immediately respond when we reached out to confirm his support of this far-left militia group. WILLIAMSPORT A Lycoming County judge sentenced a Williamsport woman to 12 to 25 years in state prison Thursday in a homicide case. Then he lamented how todays confrontations get resolved. Weve lost our sense on how we handle disputes, Judge Marc F. Lovecchio said. There is no respect for human dignity. We dont think, just act. He was referring to the crime Monica Latoya Burns admitted committing that he said is the kind that sends shivers through the community. She admitted grabbing a knife from the kitchen in the apartment where she was attending a New Years Eve party early on Jan. 1, 2019, and stabbing Ryan D. Jones who was fighting with her brother. What happened to stepping outside, fighting and then its all over, the judge questioned. Its all violence and weapons these days, he said. Jones, 28, of South Williamsport, ran from the unit in the Timberland complex and was found dead about 6:30 a.m. in the parking lot of the nearby city fire headquarters. Burns, 30, who lived in suburban Williamsport, fled to Philadelphia where U.S. marshals arrested her eight days later. She has been in jail since. She pleaded guilty to charges of third-degree murder and possession of an instrument of crime. She apologized to the Jones family, saying she is truly sorry and it was not her intention to harm him. Im not a bad person, said the mother of children ages 13, 8 and 2 who dropped out of school after the ninth grade because she was pregnant. A good person did a horrible thing that night, her attorney Jeremy Evan Alva said. Burns admitted she had been drinking and smoked marijuana when she stabbed Jones. She claimed that she was protecting her brother, who was fighting with him. She acknowledged she did not need to protect her brother because by the time she grabbed the knife others had gotten involved in the fight and Jones was losing. You took my sons life for no reason and then ran likely a guilty coward, an emotional H. Dean Jones said, fighting back tears as he looked directly at Burns. Claiming she should spend the rest of her life behind bars, he accused her of leaving his son to die alone in the cold. He pointed out his son had recently been promoted in the Army National Guard Three other family members told how the killing had impacted their lives. Its like a nightmare we will never wake up from, one said. Another called the sentence pathetic and not acceptable. Burns could have received up to 40 years in state prison. District Attorney Ryan C. Gardner explained for the judge the difficulty in prosecuting the case was the lack of cooperation from others at the party. The Jones family was consulted as the plea agreement was developed, he said. Burns sentence also requires her to pay $6,500 to the Crime Victims Compensation Board. 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. The year 2020 has been one of upheaval and change, but the American love for the outdoors has remained constant. Unsurprisingly, climate change and protecting the environment are two key issues in this years election cycle. To pitch his vision for the future, former vice president Joe Biden has unveiled his revamped plan to build a modern, sustainable infrastructure and an equitable clean energy future. However, for a plan that takes aim at greenhouse emissions, the manifesto is filled with an excessive amount of hot air. Flashy spending targets and en vogue nomenclature are an unsustainable alternative to detailed policy. The 7,000-word plan draws from the Democratic nominees initial climate plan, albeit renovated in light of the Coronavirus pandemicand the suggestions of Bernie Sanders and John Kerry. At the cost of $2 trillion, this new and improved version roams from rebuilding infrastructure to restoring wetlands, while constructing 1.5 million energy efficient homes and public housing units en route. It also sets the target of creating millions upon millions of jobs in industries as diverse as auto manufacturing and climate-smart agriculture. The problem with these lofty ambitions is that they are often vague, and sometimes outright misleading. For example, the plan calls for the creation of an Environmental and Climate Justice Division within the Department of Justice (DOJ). The plan doesnt, however, detail why the lawyers and regulators in the DOJ, Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of Energy are so beyond reform that taxpayers need to hire more bureaucrats. Rather than marshalling a platoon of Erin Brockoviches, this eco-vanity department with no clear rationale risks emulating the seriousness and legal rigor of Greta Thunberg. Even the clearest promises are short on details. Take the aim to convert all 500,000 school buses in our country including diesel to zero emissions. In principle, clean school transportation from door to desk is an easy sell for most Americans, but who is going to convert the buses and how much of the $2 trillion budget will be eaten up by it? Detailing the practical implementation of these ambitions would take them from fantasy to fact. In its most egregious moments, Bidens Clean Energy plan plays dirty with reality. One of the plans ambitious objectives is to make the American power sector carbon pollution-free by 2035. To achieve this, the plan carves out a role for greater nuclear power, offering reliable, emissions-free energy for consumers. But the plan conveniently omits how a Biden administration would manage the nuclear waste created in the process. The former vice president has been a long-time critic of the perpetually beleaguered Yucca Mountain nuclear repository, and some have credited him with axing the project during the Obama administration. So where will the waste be stored? Which community gets to host Americas inaugural carbon pollution-free nuclear dumping ground? The glibness of the Biden blueprint lies in sharp contrast to the now-shuttered campaign of Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose policy prescriptions offered the profound detail and depth one would expect from a Harvard professor. Putting aside the merits and limitations of those detailed policies, at least consumers and taxpayers knew how the Massachusetts senator would spend their public money. In the 2020 election cycle, the clean energy hawks have come home to roost. For decades, environmentalists have labored to draw the American publics attention to green issues. Now that consumers and taxpayers are demonstrably interested, environmental sweet nothings simply dont cut it. With months to go until the election, the former vice president should cap and trade the hot air for detailed policy proposals. Oliver McPherson-Smith writes for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit educational and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit www.TheAmericanConsumer.Org. Kanpur: Uttar Pradesh Police have booked slain gangster Vikas Dubey's close aide Jaykant Vajpayee under the Gangster Act. Vajpayee has been booked under sections 147, 148, 149, 302, 307, 395, 412, 120B of IPC and Section 3 (1) of Uttar Pradesh Gangster Act. Others who were booked along with Vajpayee by the police are his brothers Shobhit Vajpayee (24), Rajaykant Vajpayee (39) and Ajaykant Vajpayee (45). "Jaykant Vajpayee and others have an organised gang. They engaged in acts such as capturing government land, anti-social activities, abuse and physical altercations to cause pecuniary gains to themselves," Uttar Pradesh police said in a press note. "He is feared in the area and no one dares to submit evidence against him and his gang members in the court. In light of these facts, the police are taking action against Vajpayee under the Gangster Act," it added. The accused Jaykant Vajpayee is presently under arrest in the district prison, Kanpur (Rural) while the others are being pursued by the police. It is to be noted that Jaykant alias Jai Vajpayee used to work for Rs 4,000 salary at a printing press during 2012-13 in Kanpur. He also had a partnership at a 'paan' shop. It is believed that he met Vikas Dubey at the printing press where he worked and became friends with him. Later, both of them got involved in property dealing. According to reports, Vajpayee took care of Dubey's black money and helped him use it in his various businesses, including real estate. The police found out that he used to arrange a huge amount of cash for Dubey on short notice and also used to provide him with luxury cars. Vikas Dubey was arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Police in Ujjain on July 9 from premises of Mahakal temple after he was on the run for several days. He was killed in an encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Police on July 10 after he "attempted to flee". The gangster was the main accused in the encounter that took place in Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur, in which a group of assailants opened fire on a police team, which had gone to arrest him. Eight police personnel were killed in the encounter. A "Walter Mitty" character who is a serial fraud offender and convicted stalker pretended to be an airline pilot to obtain a bank loan of over 40,000. David Nevin (46) was busted after a major investigation by detectives from the gardai's Stolen Motor Vehicle Investigation Unit (SMVIU). Yesterday Nevin, who had lived in a high-end apartment in the Malahide area of the capital, pleaded guilty to a number of theft and fraud-related offences at Dublin Circuit Court. Bogus In a scene straight out of the Hollywood blockbuster Catch Me If You Can, the crook managed to secure tens of thousands of euro in loans after posing as a pilot. In the film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio playing the real life fraudster Frank Abagnale, the protagonist makes millions through bogus cheques posing as a pilot, doctor and lawyer. Expand Close David Nevin posed as an Etihad Airways pilot as part of his schemes / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp David Nevin posed as an Etihad Airways pilot as part of his schemes While Nevin's scam did not manage to net him millions, he did secure major loans after posing as a pilot for Etihad Airways. At yesterday's sentencing hearing, Detective Garda Mark O' Riordan outlined the facts of the case, including an incident in 2017 when he secured a loan from Bank Of Ireland by providing a false AIB bank statement which claimed he was being paid over 8,000 a month working as a pilot for Etihad. At the time, the convicted swindler was actually unemployed and as soon as obtaining the funds, the loan immediately went into arrears and the current balance on it is 43,472, the court heard. Det Gda O' Riordan outlined a number of other offences which Nevin pleaded guilty to, including when he secured a 181reg high-end Audi car from Leaseplan by providing it with a false AIB Bank statement and agreeing to pay 1,000 a month for the vehicle. His false statement showed monthly income of over 3,900 but his actual wage was far less than that as he was being paid 12.50 an hour at the time while working for a security company. He failed to meet the security downpayment of 2,500 and both cheques he issued for this amount bounced due to lack of funds in his account. The company got its car back from Nevin after a number of weeks, but because he had driven it for "thousands of kilometres", the company was left 3,796 out of pocket on the value of the car. Dublin Circuit Court also heard he used "false instruments" in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a KBC bank personal credit card with a limit of 7,000 in June 2017, but the bank contacted gardai, made a formal complaint and a major investigation began. The court heard Nevin made two separate representations to a car dealership in Athlone, Co Westmeath, when he attempted to use falsified bank accounts and utility bills to buy high-end Audi cars, but he was unsuccessful on both occasions. Det Gda O'Riordan agreed that Nevin was fully co-operative and admitted the offences when interviewed by gardai on three occasions when the SMVIU arrested him after building a case against him. The garda agreed that Nevin gave officers access to the computer he used to scan the fake documents he used for his crimes, which was located in his Marina Village apartment in Malahide. Nevin's defence counsel told Judge Elma Sheahan her client committed the crimes when he was suffering from "desperate economic circumstances" and that he had a "Walter Mitty" type of personality. "He was attempting to live a life that was not his," the lawyer said, before stating that a psychological report said that he had nominated himself as a "person of interest" in another garda case in which he had no involvement and was living a "fantasy life". The lawyer asked the judge to read Nevin's interviews with gardai and pointed out that he had used his own legitimate passport with the false documentation when he committed the various crimes. Judge Sheahan decided to adjourn sentencing in the case until September 21, after agreeing to read Nevin's interviews with detectives, and he was further remanded in custody, where he has been since March. While the court heard Nevin had 20 previous criminal convictions, the details of a suspended sentence he received at Dublin Circuit Court in June 2015 were not outlined. On that occasion he stalked and harassed his former girlfriend for over six months in an attempt to rekindle their relationship. Nevin sent text messages to Patricia Dardis, phoned her, emailed her, sent faxes to her office, handwritten notes to her home, turned up at her place of work and home and at one point tried to contact the chief executive of the firm where she worked. Nevin, who is originally from Terryglass, Nenagh, Co Tipperary, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on that occasion to harassment of Ms Dardis from August 2012 to February 2013 at locations in Dublin. He had contacted Ms Dardis on a daily basis and had also tried to communicate with her 40 times in one day. Ms Dardis was in a relationship with Nevin from March 2010 until January 2011 and she had helped him secure finance for a car during that time. When the relationship ended, loan repayments were being deducted from her account and she contacted Nevin in order to get the money repaid. Nevin has a previous conviction for harassment of another former partner from Cork Circuit Criminal Court in May 2011, for which he was bound to the peace. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend: Russia and Kazakhstan were the only exporters of rice to Turkmenistan from Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) countries from January through May 2020, Trend reports, citing statistics from the Eurasian Economic Commission. The mentioned countries exported 114,100 kilograms of rice to Turkmenistan for a total amount of $72,515. The share of Kazakhstan in the total amount of exported rice was $30,166, while Russias share - $42,348. In addition to rice, the same countries exported 18.2 million kilograms of wheat to Turkmenistan for the total amount of $5.9 million. Kazakhstan's share in the above mentioned amount of wheat export was $4.5 million, while Russia's share - $1.4 million. Also, Russia was the only exporter of other cereals from the EEU countries to Turkmenistan from January through May in the amount of 102,870 kilograms, for the total amount of $35,869. As it was reported earlier, from January through May 2020, a significant amount of potatoes, onions and garlic was exported to Turkmenistan from the EEU countries, in particular from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva The South African comedy Seriously Single begins with its heroine, Dineo (Fulu Mugovhani) a social media manager in Johannesburg who thrives at work and in friendship accidentally livestreaming her latest breakup. Humiliated, Dineo tries to rebound straight to happily-ever-after with a new flame, Lunga (Bohang Moeko), who seems like he might be the one. But when the relationship with him goes up in smoke, Dineo turns to her roommate and best friend, Noni (Tumi Morake), to become her guide to single life. What follows is a charming journey to self-discovery; Noni supports Dineo as she stumbles through romantic disappointment toward fresh independence. Although the polls look bad for Trumps future, they look even worse for the nations. The fact that 46 percent of those who voted in 2016 opted for Trump is much less dismaying than the fact that today, in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, 43 percent approve of his job performance. In 2016, he was a largely undefined figure to low-information voters, who are a large majority. Now, however, everyone has had three and a half years of exposure to him, and more than 2 in 5 Americans seem amenable to four more years of this. Britain's AstraZeneca said on Thursday that good data was coming in so far on its vaccine for COVID-19, already in large-scale human trials and widely seen as the front-runner in the race for a shot against the novel coronavirus. The drugmaker, Britain's most valuable listed company, also announced second quarter results that beat its sales and profit estimates, thanks to strong sales from a diverse product line-up. "The vaccine development is progressing well. We have had good data so far. We need to show the efficacy in the clinical programme, but so far, so good," Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said on a media call. AstraZeneca has already reached deals with countries to make more than 2 billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, developed in partnership with the University of Oxford, and says it could be approved by the end of this year. The company has had a busy few months: it took on development of the COVID-19 shot, received billions in government funding, signed several supply deals, and was even the subject of a mega-merger speculation - all while marching on with its core business. It stuck by its 2020 outlook on Thursday, and its shares were up about 3% at 88.6 pounds after product sales of $6.05 billion in the three months to June surpassed consensus of $6.01 billion. The figure excludes payments from tie-ups. Newer drugs for diabetes, heart conditions and cancer, including its top selling lung cancer drug Tagrisso, performed well in the quarter and AstraZeneca remains on track for a third consecutive year of growth. Among drugs with better-than-expected revenues, sales of respiratory drug Symbicort rose 12% to $653 million, about $90 million above consensus, while revenue from cancer drug Lynparza jumped 62% to $554 million. There are no approved vaccines for the illness caused by the new virus, but AstraZeneca's shot is widely considered the leading candidate after results from early-stage human trials showed it was safe and produced an immune response. Core earnings of 96 cents per share beat analysts' expectation of 93 cents. Total revenue rose 11%. Also read: Coronavirus vaccine: UK's Imperial College scientists to immunise hundreds in early-stage trial No other event or movement has defined contemporary Indian history and politics more than the Ram Janmabhoomi- Babri Masjid dispute. The Supreme Court decision last year brought to an end the protracted case, paving the way for the construction of a temple precisely at the site where the mosque once stood. A case that has a history of legal dispute from 1857, however, truly came to influence Indian society and politics 1980 onwards. At the helm of it were some significant faces from different sides. People for the movement and the countermovement. Those who gained from the turmoil and those who lost. Amid the galaxy of pro-temple agitators, dominating the spectrum was the troika of an ascetic from Ayodhya, an engineer turned full-time RSS pracharak (proponent) and a politician born in erstwhile Pakistan. They were Mahant Ramchandra Paramhans Das, Ashok Singhal and Lal Krishna Advani. While the first two are no more, 92-year-old Advani is set to see his dream come true in Ayodhya. Paramhans Das and Ashok Singhal Born in Bihar in 1913, Ramchandra Paramhans Das shifted to Ayodhya in his early years and became a sadhu. In 1949, when idols were placed inside the mosque, Das was the city president for the Hindu Mahasabha. Though he was never named as an accused in the case, many believed he played a part in the events of the intervening night of December 22-23. In 1991, in an interview to The New York Times, Das had admitted to his role in placing the idols inside the mosque. When the temple campaign gained pace in the 1980s, Das became the chairman of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas and was a key figure among saints and seers closely associated with the RSS and BJPs movement. He was also an accused in the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition case. Das passed away in 2003. His close associate was Ashok Singhal. Born in 1923, Singhal obtained his degree in engineering from Banaras Hindu University, but became a full-time RSS pracharak in 1942. After that, he dedicated his life to the Ayodhya movement. In 1981, as the Sangh focused its attention on the Ram Janmabhoomi matter, Singhal was shifted as national joint secretary of the Vishva Hindu Parishad. He gradually became a key face of the RSS, linking the BJP with the saints and seers, spearheading the temple movement. Singhal moved on to become the president of the Hindutva outfit. He was also one of the key accused in the demolition case. He died in 2016. ADVANI AND THE TEAM MM JOSHI, KALYAN SINGH, UMA BHARTI AND VINAY KATIYAR Though the biggest gainer from the Ram temple movement was Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whose moderate Hindutva image led to his emergence as an acceptable face for Prime Minister in the era of coalition politics in the late 1990s and early 2000s , it was Advani who played the most pivotal role in the BJPs crusade on the Ayodhya issue. Becoming the president of the party in 1989, he set the ball rolling with his controversial Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya in 1990. The yatra which saw many communal riots and bloodbath, propelled the BJP in a big way in national politics. Advani, however, got categorised as a hard liner, who had to be content being number two to Atal. An accused in the mosque demolition case, Advani became deputy prime minister in the Vajpayee government. In 2009, it was the final opportunity for him to be the Prime Minister, but with the BJP losing the electoral battle to the Congress, it was time for emergence of new leadership in the party under Narendra Modi. But the story of the Advani era is not complete without Murli Manohar Joshi, his compatriot in national politics, and Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti and Vinay Katiyar. Joshi, a professor of Physics at Allahabad University, was a founder member of the BJP, along with Vajpayee and Advani. He was the BJP's national president in 1992, when Babri Masjid was demolished. A co-accused with Advani in the demolition case, Joshi for long dominated the political spectrum, only to gradually fizzle out because of growing age and change in the party leadership. He and Advani are now part of the nondescript 'Margdarshak Mandal' of the BJP. While Advani and Joshi ruffled the Hindutva feathers at the national level, it was Kalyan, Uma Bharti and Katiyar who fired the movement on the ground in Ayodhya and Uttar Pradesh. They brought a new shrillness and aggression to the movement. While it was under the Kalyan Singh government in 1992 that the mosque was demolished, Uma Bharti was the fiery sadhvi who became the symbol of women and religion in the movement. Vinay Katiyar was the face of the militant, dreaded youth outfit Bajrang Dal, associated with the RSS. While Uma went on to be the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Katiyar too entered national politics, becoming a Member of Parliament for several terms. All of them are accused in the demolition case, but as of now have been pushed to the fringes within the party. THE MUSLIM SIDE: ALI MIYA, ZAFARYAB JILANI, AZAM KHAN AND HASHIM ANSARI As the temple movement gained pace from the 1980s onward, the socio-political space also saw the emergence of a countermovement, both at the religious as well as political level. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and, under its umbrella, the Babri Masjid Action Committee rose to prominence. The names of Ali Miya, Hashim Ansari, Zafaryab Jilani and Azam Khan were established as voices of the countermovement. In 1986, as the gates to the mosque in Ayodhya were opened, Ali Miya, the-then president of AIMPLB, called for a crucial meeting of the board, and thereby paved the way for the formation of the Babri Masjid Action Committee. Advocate Zafaryab Jilani and Azam Khan, the sitting Samajwadi Party MP, were elected as its first conveners. The board also took on the responsibility of monitoring of the legal trial in the title suit. While Jilani gradually rose to become the leading face of the legal battle for the Muslim side, Hashim Ansari was the veteran among Muslim litigants who had appealed in court as early as in 1961. After Hashims death, his son Iqbal became a litigant in the case. Azam moved on in politics with Mulayam Singh Yadav, going on to become one of the most prominent Muslim political voices against the Sangh Parivar and the BJP. THE LOSERS: RAJIV GANDHI AND NARASIMHA RAO However, the story of the major characters of the Mandir-Masjid saga is not complete without defining the roles of the late Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao: the two Congress prime ministers who erred in their judgement, dangerously dabbled with soft Hindutva, and ultimately dented their partys prospects. While Rajiv as Prime Minister decided to open the locks of Babri Masjid, thereby unwittingly giving much needed impetus to the BJP and the Hindutva brigade, the Rao governments failure to prevent the demolition was the final blow. As the saffron brigade had the last laugh, Muslims were further distanced from the Congress. GAINERS FROM CONGRESS'S LOSS: LALU PRASAD AND MULAYAM SINGH YADAV Away from the BJP and Congress, new political forces were emerging in the Hindi heartland to gain a foothold. They were the rising political stars amid the new backward caste resurgence under the Mandal wave in the late 1980s: Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh and Janata Dals Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar. While Lalu, as chief minister of Bihar, halted Advanis Rath Yatra in 1990 and got him arrested, Mulayam as the chief minister of UP in the very same year declared, Parinda bhi par nahi maar sakta (It's impenetrable), in response to the VHP-BJPS proposed kar seva in Ayodhya. Subsequent firing by the police on kar sevaks in Ayodhya earned Mulayam long-standing loyalty among the minorities. The Congresss loss was Lalu-Mulayams gain. Both built a strong Muslim-Yadav vote base, or the M-Y factor, an electoral formula that still holds weight in the two Hindi states. THE PRESENT With a resolution to the lengthy dispute now reached, movers and shakers, gainers and losers of it have mostly been replaced by new players in the political arena. Some of them are dead and others in political oblivion, But the temple, and more so Hindutva and its antithesis, will continue to define India's political landscape for a long time to come. (This story is Part 2 of a series on Ayodhya's Ram Temple which is set for a grand 'Bhoomi Poojan' on August 5) Advertisement Remdesivir was the first medicine authorized at the EU level for treatment of COVID-19 after the European Commission fast-tracked the request for authorization earlier this month.At the time, the media reported that the US had locked down all the production for July and 90 percent of it for August and September.But EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides was upbeat about the drug reaching Europe."In recent weeks, the Commission has been working tirelessly with Gilead to reach an agreement to ensure that stocks of the first treatment authorized against COVID-19 are delivered to the EU," she said in the statement.Kyriakides said the contract, funded by the Commission's Emergency Support Instrument, was signed on Tuesday, and thus would enable the provision of the medicine for the treatment of around 30,000 European patients presenting severe COVID-19 symptoms, helping cover the current needs.The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control will be involved in the allocation at the EU level to ensure fair distribution.The Commission said it was preparing a joint procurement for more supplies of the medicine for the period of October onwards.Remdesivir is a treatment against COVID-19 for adults and adolescents as from age 12 with pneumonia who require supplemental oxygen.Its producer, Gilead, must submit the final reports of the Remdesivir studies by December as part of the conditions to move from conditional marketing authorization to full marketing authorization.Source: IANS Christian filmmakers launch first-ever fan-owned faith-based movie studio: Called Higher Studios Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Called Higher Studios is making its debut amid the global coronavirus pandemic as the first film studio to give Christian fans a hand in making faith and family movies that will spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Launched in Franklin, Tennessee, by movie executives Jason Brown and Ash Greyson, the studio wishes to revolutionize Christian movie-making by becoming the first fan-owned faith-based movie studio. The co-founders wish to honor God and serve others while making their content. "Our goal is to give a voice to creators through a lens of faith. We are not just a studio or production company; we are a production community," Greyson told The Christian Post on Wednesday. Brown commented, "I cant think of a better time to start a studio to share the Gospel through media. If you look at the news for more than a few minutes, I believe it's easy to see that we need some hope and the light of the world." In April, Brown and Greyson and the Called Higher Studios team managed to raise $1 million from over 3,700 investors to fund the studios operations. The campaign was not a traditional fundraiser. Instead, it invited donors to become investors and buy stock in the company, naming them owners alongside the studio co-founders and other investors. According to a statement shared with CP, Called Higher Studios first production will be The Grace of Christ. The film is a period piece based on the crucifixion of Jesus, written by Brian Baugh ("Im Not Ashamed"). Production will begin in 2021. Called Higher Studios will assemble world class writers, producers, actors, marketers, and industry professionals who will partner together to support the vision of Christian fans who invested in the studio. The goal is to make world-class content, while giving investors hands-on experience in making and developing movies. The supporters will be able to weigh in on projects, help to choose actors and even possibly be featured in the films as well. Along with making faith-based films, Called Higher Studios is engaging with nonprofits, charities and NGOs. With a core objective to be Called Higher, the studio aims to do good work worldwide in partnership with organizations such as Reboot Combat Recovery, The Joseph School in Haiti and Josiahs House. CLAYTON A gay St. Louis County police lieutenant who in February settled a workplace discrimination lawsuit against the police department for $10.25 million said Friday that he is stepping down from command of its Diversity and Inclusion unit and asking to be transferred to another unit. Lt. Keith Wildhaber had been appointed as commander of the newly created unit in late 2019 by then-Chief Jon Belmar, weeks after a St. Louis County jury found the department had discriminated and retaliated against him because of his sexuality. But Wildhabers appointment had been criticized by the Ethical Society of Police, a group that represents minority officers to address racial discrimination, whose leaders called for a more diverse group of employees to be included in the unit. The group said in mid-July that it wanted proof that Wildhaber was capable of making transformative change in racial diversity, inclusion and equity. In a Facebook post on Friday, Wildhaber wrote that he was qualified to lead the unit and had been enrolled in a national certification program that was postponed until September because of the coronavirus pandemic. He said he now was the victim of racism. The dog whispers of a gay, white guy being unable to lead Diversity and Inclusion were loud and clear, he wrote. Systemic racism is alive and well. I tried to ignore the background noise, but Im not battling ESOP and the activists for another 3 years. This afternoon, I notified the department of my decision to transfer back to Patrol. Wildhaber could not be reached for comment on Friday. Asked how the department planned to proceed, police spokeswoman Tracy Panus said in an email those were personnel issues which we will be handling internally, per Department policy. Sgt. Heather Taylor, president of ESOP, said the department should hire someone that is actually qualified for the position . . . someone from the outside who doesnt have any affiliation to anyone and are given the authority to make decisions that are not overruled by the police board. They are not going to get that person at a cheap cost, but the cost (of not doing it) is lawsuits they are going to settle for racial discrimination. Wildhaber filed his discrimination lawsuit in 2017, alleging that Belmar and his administration repeatedly passed him over for promotion to lieutenant because hes gay. He also claimed administrators retaliated against him for filing a complaint. A jury found in his favor on Oct. 24 after a five-day trial, awarding him nearly $20 million. Wildhaber and the county settled on $10.25 million in February. The choice of Wildhaber to lead the unit was immediately criticized by ESOP, which asked in an op-ed in the St. Louis American newspaper why the department had not formed such a unit after multiple allegations of racial discrimination. ESOP long had been advocating for standing in the department. The county in June officially recognized the group, which was founded in 1972 to address racial discrimination in policing. At a police board meeting in July, Wildhaber acknowledged he had no formal training in diversity and inclusion, but had lived experience with the desire to make sure no employee on this police department was made to feel like I did for four years. Shake off your afternoon slump with the oft-shared and offbeat news of the day, hand-brewed by our online news editors. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Trenbe's website / Screen captured from Trenbe's official website By Kim Jae-heun The coronavirus pandemic has had both negative and positive effects on many businesses here. In coronavirus pandemic has affected many businesses here both negatively and positively. In the fashion industry, market-leading Samsung C&T, LF and Shinsegae International have all failed to avoid a drop in sales. As a result, Samsung will close 150 stores of its signature brand Beanpole by next February and LF will shut down 30 shops of its outdoor-clothing label Lafuma. Online fashion startups, however, are thriving and some have successfully attracted huge venture capital investments in approval of their promising outlook. Domestic fashion startup Must It drew a 15 billion won ($12.45 million) Series A investment on July 21, bringing a surprise to the industry. It is unusual for fashion companies that have been operating for less than three years to attract more than 10 billion won in funding. The large investment in Must It shows high expectations for online luxury goods platforms. Through this case, the fashion startup's corporate value rose to 100 billion won in the market. Its gross merchandise value reached 150 billion won last year and in the first half of this year it has already exceeded 100 billion won. On July 15, another luxury goods platform Trenbe received an 11 billion won Series B investment. Trenbe uses artificial intelligence to find the cheapest prices for luxury items around the world. Last year, it attracted investments worth 7 billion won in recognition of its high-tech searching system and fast-growing sales. Trenbe now receives 2.5 million users monthly and has 1.5 million luxury products available online. Recently, it held online exhibitions in collaboration with global fashion houses Louis Vuitton and Celine selling items that are not available in existing domestic markets. Brandi, a mobile fashion application service, also secured 21 billion won from the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund this year. Established in 2016, Brandi has been offering a fast delivery service based on its advanced logistics system, which helped it to record over 300 billion won of accumulated gross merchandise value. Brandi brings various items to its online platform from social media markets, online shopping malls and fashion brand stores. However, its biggest strength lies in the fulfillment service that adopted information technology to form a distribution supply chain based in Dongdaemun, a large commercial district in Seoul with shopping centers for wholesale and retail goods. Over 390,000 people use the mobile application on a monthly basis and it has attracted 35 billion won in investments. The success of Musinsa, one of the largest fashion retailers here, inspired huge investments in domestic online fashion platforms. Last year, U.S. venture capital firm Sequoia Capital invested 200 billion won into Musinsa, which helped the fashion retailer to become a unicorn startup with a corporate value of 1 trillion won. This led many venture firms to search for the next Musinsa. Startup Alliance Korea said there are 47 firms in the fashion and beauty sector here that received 1 billion won in funds and 15 firms that received over 10 billion won. TIFF, which is set to run 10-19 September, has plotted a largely virtual 45th edition due to the coronavirus pandemic The Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday unveiled a lineup bearing little in common with its normal barrage of awards contenders and premier fall films, but features the directorial debut of Regina King and the latest documentaries from Frederick Wiseman and Werner Herzog. Toronto, which is set to run 10-19 September, has plotted a largely virtual 45th edition due to the pandemic. In normal years, TIFF is the largest film festival in North America. This year, it has drastically scaled down its plans and scrapped together 50 films or TV series from around the world, leaning on projects set to debut on streaming services or television this fall. Cameron Bailey, artistic director and co-head of the festival, acknowledged it was far from TIFFs regular lineup. We began this year planning for a 45th Festival much like our previous editions, but along the way we had to rethink just about everything, Bailey said. This years lineup reflects that tumult. The names you already know are doing brand new things this year, and theres a whole crop of exciting new names to discover. Some of the notable films include the 90-year-old Wisemans City Hall, a portrait of Bostons City Hall; Regina Kings drama about a young Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, titled One Night in Miami; Herzog and Clive Oppenheimers Apple TV+ meteorite documentary Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds; Pieces of a Woman, Kornel Mundruczos family drama with Shia LaBeouf; and Glendyn Ivins Penguin Bloom, with Naomi Watts. Some of the films will play first at the much smaller Venice Film Festival the week prior in September. Toronto will also showcase new work from Mira Nair, Thomas Vinterberg, and Michel Franco. Toronto earlier announced that Spike Lees filmed version of David Byrnes Broadway theatrical concert American Utopia, an HBO release, will open this years festival. The major fall festivals Venice, Toronto, Telluride, and New York earlier announced an alliance, saying they would collaborate on programming. Since then, Colorados Telluride has been cancelled but reborn as a drive-in series in Los Angeles. The festivals earlier announced Chloe Zhaos Nomadland will debut across all four events. Toronto organisers say they continue to work with health officials to determine how and if it can host in-person events. With travel restricted between the US and Canadian border, it has urged many festival-goers who flock to Toronto to stay home. Check out the post .@ReginaKing's feature directorial debut ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI is a fictionalized account of a 1964 meeting between Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown. #TIFF20 https://t.co/0sTZXhdmwM pic.twitter.com/AtitQ9YX19 TIFF (@TIFF_NET) July 30, 2020 (With inputs from The Associated Press) President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday warned against the vandalization of oil pipelines in the Niger Delta and oil-producing areas whic... President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday warned against the vandalization of oil pipelines in the Niger Delta and oil-producing areas which often results in environmental pollution. He spoke shortly after performing his Eid prayer at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. A statement forwarded by his spokesman, Garba Shehu quoted Buhari as saying: Those who are blowing pipelines and interfering with the production of petroleum products are hurting their people more than the rest of Nigerians because majority of their people are fishermen, fisherwomen and farmers. Now if they pollute the land and the waters, the fish goes into the deeper sea where the people cannot go and they cannot grow anything. They are hurting their immediate communities more than any other thing. He also decried the wastage of the resources earmarked for the betterment of the lives of the people of the Niger Delta. - Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister, has disclosed the possible establishment of a Development Bank Ghana in September 2020 - Four partners have agreed to help raise $500 million for the bank by December 2021 - Ofori-Atta added that the Bank would mobilise medium to long-term funds for Ghana Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in YEN.com.gh has learned that the government is set to establish the Development Bank Ghana (DBG) in two months. Information available shows the bank would be resourced with seed funds to the tune of $500 million. In line with the plan, four international financial institutions are being consulted to ensure the bank is established by September 2020. Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta Source: Bloomberg Source: UGC READ ALSO: Depreciation of the cedi: Bank of Ghana to build reserves of up to GHc300 million A graphic.com.gh report lists the partner institutions as KfW, the World Bank, AFD, and the European Investment Bank (EIB). It has been gathered that the partners intend to raise the $500 million for the bank by December 2021. The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, said the DBG would serve as a promotional bank for Ghana and will focus on mobilising medium to long-term funds. DBG will then transfer them into the economy through the financial system as a wholesale bank. He went on to say that a competitively selected independent board and management team would be tasked to run the DBG. In other news, Ken Ofori-Atta has called for deeper reforms as Africa combats the outbreak of the coronavirus. In his opinion, the coronavirus pandemic has undoubtedly had the greatest economic impact since World War II. He added that Ghana expected to record a GDP growth of 6.8% in 2020 but is currently projecting a 1.2% growth. READ ALSO: Ken Ofori-Atta hints of plans by government to protect jobs and businesses Enjoyed reading our story? Download YEN's news app on Google Playstore now and stay up-to-date with major Ghana news! Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish on YEN.com.gh? Get in contact with us on or Instagram now! Source: YEN.com.gh PLA conducts 'high-intensity exercises' in South China Sea PLA Daily Source: China Daily Editor: Li Wei 2020-07-30 19:31:38 The naval aviation units of the Southern Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army conducted routine exercises in the South China Sea that improved pilots' combat techniques and overall all-weather fighting capability of the units, a military spokesman said on Thursday. The units trained planes such as H-6G and H-6J bombers, as well as other new war planes, said Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang, spokesman of the Ministry of National Defense. The "high-intensity exercises" were conducted in the South China Sea, featuring drills such as taking off during day and night settings, long distance assault, and attacking maritime surface targets, he told a regular news briefing. "The drills have met training expectations," he said, adding the exercises are planned drills in this year's training schedule. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The initiative is being closely watched, with news media suffering as tech giants have hoovered up advertising revenue. Australia on Friday unveiled the worlds first draft law to force Google and Facebook to pay traditional news media to publish their material in a move that is likely to encounter resistance from the tech behemoths. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced the mandatory code of conduct to govern relations between the struggling news industry and the United States social media and search firms after 18 months of negotiations failed to bring the two sides together. Under the plan, the tech giants will have to negotiate with Australian media companies to use their content. The code also covers issues like access to user data, transparency of algorithms and ranking of content in the platforms news feeds and search results. Its about a fair go for Australian news media businesses, Frydenberg told a media conference. Its about ensuring that we have increased competition, increased consumer protection, and a sustainable media landscape. Neither Facebook nor Google responded to requests for comment from Reuters news agency. Both companies, the worlds two biggest sellers of online ads, have spent years fending off demands from news media around the world for a share of the advertising revenue. The draft version of the code, drawn up by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, is open for consultation until August 28. Frydenberg said legislation would be introduced to parliament shortly afterwards and could be implemented by the end of the year. It will include substantial penalties that could cost the tech companies hundreds of millions of dollars, he said. World-leading While Australia envisages the code will eventually apply to any digital platform using Australian news content, Frydenberg said it would initially focus on Facebook and Google, two of the worlds richest and most powerful companies. This could be huge https://t.co/DHQFIbh0uk Jinghua Qian (@qianjinghua) July 31, 2020 The initiative has been closely watched around the globe because news media have suffered as tech giants like Facebook and Google hoover up the advertising revenue that once helped support them. The news industry crisis has been exacerbated by the economic collapse caused by the coronavirus pandemic, with dozens of Australian newspapers closed and hundreds of journalists sacked in recent months. Even as broader economies have plunged into their worst recessions in years, tech firms have continued to prosper. Facebook on Thursday reported net profit of $5.2 billion for the three months ended June, as ad sales on its platform rose 10 percent to $18.3 billion. Google, which is owned by Alphabet and makes money through advertising on search and through sites such as YouTube, said online ad sales were recovering after a March plunge and rising on Youtube. Its second quarter profit was above expectations at nearly $7 billion. Both companies have strongly opposed any move forcing them to share advertising revenue, hinting they could simply boycott Australian media if mandatory payments are imposed. But Frydenberg warned that the code would prohibit any discrimination against Australian media by the tech companies. Todays draft legislation will draw the attention of many regulatory agencies and many governments around the world, he said, calling the proposed law world-leading. Nothing less than the future of the Australian media landscape is at stake with these changes. New Delhi: Tata Steels ousted Chairman Cyrus Mistry and Board Director Nusli Wadia are likely to address shareholders at the December 21 extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to present their side of the story in the ongoing Tata-Mistry board room battle. Both Mistry and Wadia want to make written and oral representation to the firms shareholders in respect of their removal, Tata Steel said on Saturday. Mistry was on Friday ousted as Chairman of the firm, the third Tata Group entity to do so. Tata Steel has also called the EGM next month for the removal of Mistry and Wadia from the directorship of the Board. Mistry has informed the company that he intends to make both, written and oral representation to the shareholders in respect of his removal, Tata Steel said in a regulatory filing. The company will in terms of Section 169(4) of the Companies Act, 2013, subject to proviso of the said Section and if the time permits it to do so, circulate the written representation to the shareholders, it added. Tata Steels EGM notice further said the company, subject to the proviso of the said Section and if the time permits it to do so, circulate written representation to the shareholders. Tata Steel said Wadia too has informed that he intends to make both written and oral representation to the shareholders in respect of his removal. Wadia has been supporting Mistry, who was ousted as Chairman of Tata Sons - the holding company of the Tata group firms. Mistry however continued to be at the helm and/or director of some of the group companies. In further escalation of the boardroom brawl at one of the countrys biggest business conglomerates, the 10-member board of Tata Steel by majority consent removed Mistry as Chairman and named O P Bhatt, an independent director and former head of State Bank of India, as interim head. Tata Steel is the third group firm to remove Mistry as chairman. First Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) removed him as chairman but that ouster was not through a vote but by virtue of Tata Sons holding a commanding 73.26 per cent stake in the Indias largest software services firm. Then on November 15, seven out of 10 board members of Tata Global Beverages voted him out. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Federal executions resume in the US as the Covid-19 pandemic lays bare serious structural inequalities of the American judicial system. Anti-death penalty activist, Sr Helen Prejean, reiterates it is time to end the suffering. By Linda Bordoni The U.S. Justice Department has set 26 August as the execution date for Lezmond Mitchell, who is scheduled to be put to death in the same week as Keith Dwayne Nelson. Three other people have been executed over the course of four days in July after the US Supreme Court cleared the way for federal executions after a 17-year moratorium. This is more than the United States has put to death in half a century. Analysts point out that the controversial decision represents an intrusion by the federal government into matters the states and cities normally handle. They say it is a decision taken despite a series of legal concerns including reservations regarding medical precautions and the opposition of family members of the executed prisoners victims. Sr Helen Prejean CSJ has dedicated her life and ministry to the fight for justice for the men she continues to accompany in death row and to changing hearts and minds in the struggle against capital punishment. Internationally known for her best-selling book, that became an Oscar-winning film, Dead Man Walking, Sr Helen told Vatican Radios Linda Bordoni that injustice is deeply embedded in the United States judicial system. Listen to Sr Helen Prejean CSJ The fact, Sr Helen, says, that the Supreme Courts decision to resume federal executions at a time in which people around the country are demanding justice, equality and accountability, highlights the intrinsic injustice in the system. She explains that, back in 1976, the Supreme Court defined the criteria according to which a person was deemed "worthy" of death: it was only the worst of the worst murderers who would be selected, she says, and it has proved to be an impossible criterion, because it means that out of all the murders that happen, you were going to select what you call the the worst of the worst by the nature of the crime itself, and also by the character of the person. This criteria, she says, is based on the belief that a person is so evil, they can't be redeemed. And so we must kill them. Sr Helen notes that the resumption of federal executions reveals the deep weakness in the application of the death penalty because it rests on a prosecutor to determine that he or she is going to seek death, and to seek it relentlessly. In 17 years, she says, "we haven't had federal prosecutors who want death, and the American people realize the death penalty serves no purpose". What's more, she notes, is has also come to be undertood it is not even helpful for the healing process of the victims families. Cultural legacy Sr Helen points out the arbitrariness of a system, that depends on the will of individual prosecutors, is underscored also by other kinds of injustice and cultural legacies. She remarks how the southern states, with their history and legacy of slavery and racism, is where over 75% of executions take place. This, she says, is a direct result of a certain kind of culture as is witnessed by the fact that a disproportionate number of people of colour are selected for federal executions. No possibility of redemption Sr Helen spoke passionately about the suffering entwined in the whole death penalty process and its total lack of the Christian perspective of redemption. I have accompanied six human beings to execution. Six! And watched this process of the killing of a human being and what is so sad about it and so against our Catholic faith, our belief in Jesus and the Gospel, is that it is based on the premise This is an evil person who cannot be redeemed. According to the criteria we have set, there is no hope, no matter how a person changes." She reveals that the last man put to death this month, Dustin Lee Honken, quoted the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins as he uttered his last words: I seek a place of safety and love. He was a redeemed man, she says. He had killed, but he was sorry for his actions. He learned to love everybody around him. The man they killed was not the man who had committed the terrible crime. People grow, she says. The arrogance of the death penalty is: God has finished with you and we have decided that you must die. What the eyes cant see the heart cant feel Sr Helen says the reason she wrote Dead Man Walking and all her other books was to enable people to gain awareness and feel what was happening. According to a Latin American saying, she says, What the eyes dont see the heart cant feel. So, her books aim to "bring people close." She says her second book, The Death of Innocents, is about the plight of so many innocent people who do not receive a fair trial and end up being killed because the truth never came to light. Weve had 168 wrongfully convicted people sent to death row, " she said. "Some of them for 30 years before they could finally get the break" and a good lawyer upholding the evidence to prove that they were innocent. Following Jesus's way Sr Helen speaks of how important it has been that the Catholic Church has taken a principled stand, and of the step taken in May 2018 by Pope Francis when he updated the teaching in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "that under no circumstances can the death penalty be allowed." Its a struggle that continues, Sr Helen says. This is why I just wrote this book River of Fire about how it took me a long time to wake up, to be a Christian, to follow Jesus. I've always tried to follow the way of Jesus, but this also meant to recognize the racism in our system, the injustice and to roll up my sleeves and to get involved." "I was hungry and you not only gave me to eat, but you visited me and critically analyzed the system that has overwhelmingly put so many people of colour, and only poor people in prison." For me, she continues, it meant embracing the cause against the death penalty. God, she says, intends for us to use our intellect, as well as our heart and emotions and our deep spiritual ideals: I finally awakened to that. Its what River of Fire is about, about the awakening. Right now, Sr Helen, points out, we are in the midst of a pandemic in which we have lost more people than those who were killed in the Civil War, when the Confederacy in the South fought against the Union. And in the prisons, she concluded, hundreds of inmates (and officers) are being infected and are simply waiting to die in their cells: So where is the leadership to get the testing? to do the tracking? for life, for the people ? It doesn't exist because politics is all that exists at the top and then to resume executions! DEAR ABBY: I am a small business owner. My store has local (repeat) and onetime customers. The other day, while checking out, one of my local customers spewed out a verbal and extremely bigoted rant. I was stunned speechless. I felt I should do something, but I wasn't sure what it should be. I have started losing sleep over it. If it happens again, should I remain silent and keep the peace, or stand up for all Americans and lose this customer and probably more? Freaked out in Florida DEAR FREAKED OUT: To paraphrase a well-know saying, "All that's necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to ignore it and say nothing." If the rant your bigoted customer spewed was aimed at another shopper, you had a responsibility to protect the victim of the onslaught. In the future, it would not be out of line to state firmly that you don't want that kind of talk in your establishment. While doing that may (or may not) lose you a few customers, you would at least be able to sleep better than you're sleeping now. P.S. It may also gain you some customers once word gets around. DEAR ABBY: I have been with the same doctor for 15 years, only requiring an annual checkup. The problem is, the office is about a 40-minute drive, longer if I hit a rush hour. I have stayed with the provider because the care is so good. However, I recently found a doctor who is 10 minutes away and provides the same quality of care. Do I call the original doctor to let them know I am leaving the practice? Write a note? Leave it alone? What is the proper protocol? Good patient in Michigan DEAR PATIENT: Contact your longtime doctor's office and ask either that your medical records be sent to your new doctor's office, or they be readied for you to pick up so you can deliver them yourself. In light of the fact that you have had a 15-year relationship with "Longtime Doctor," it would be nice if you wrote a letter thanking him/her for taking such good care of you all these years and explain that the commute has become more than you can now handle, which is why you are leaving. DEAR ABBY: I was sitting around bored with nothing to do and started thinking about my classmates from 1960. I hadn't seen or heard from some of them in more than 55 years, so I decided to call them and found all but two. Boy, was it ever worth it! Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Most of the conversations lasted 30 minutes or more. I enjoyed hearing their voices and reminiscing about old times. I couldn't believe how quickly the day went by. It made me feel great, and I hope it did the same for them. When I told them why I was calling, some of them thought it was such a good idea they were going to do it too. Maybe others will want to consider this. Try it. It's worth it. Catching up in Wisconsin DEAR CATCHING UP: What you did was wonderful. Many people have been using this quarantine period to reconnect with long-lost friends, and I highly recommend it. There's no surer cure for the blues -- or boredom -- than reaching out to others. Thank you for an upper of a letter. On Sunday, North Korea said that it has put Kaesong on lockdown, claiming that a "runaway" defector suspected of COVID-19 infection recently returned from the South. Seoul, July 30 (IANS) North Korea's No. 2 leader visited Kaesong to inspect anti-coronavirus efforts, state media reported on Thursday, after leader Kim Jong-un sealed off the border city over COVID-19 fears following the return of a defector from South Korea. Seoul later said a North Korean defector is believed to have swan across the border but doubted he had contracted the virus, reports Yonhap News Agency. Choe Ryong-hae, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, visited Kaesong and inspected emergency anti-virus efforts underway in the city, according to Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Choe held a meeting with local officials and instructed them to make sure that food and medical supplies are provided to residents in need and that disinfection and other anti-virus measures should be strictly carried out as required, KCNA added. His trip to Kaesong appears aimed at emphasizing the importance of antivirus efforts and urging people to stay vigilant amid growing fears that the coronavirus could break out in the border town and spread to the rest of the country. State media, however, said Thursday there has been no COVID-19 infection in North Korea, the first mention that the country remains virus-free since Pyongyang put Kaesong on lockdown following the return of the defector showing virus symptoms. "There has not been even a single case of new coronavirus infection so far in our country," Yonhap News Agency quoted Rodong Sinmun, the official daily of the North's ruling party, as saying in an article. It is still unclear whether the report means the defector with virus symptoms eventually tested negative for the disease or not. State media earlier said the defector has been put under "strict" quarantine after several medical checkups produced an "uncertain result". --IANS ksk/ Gov. Ned Lamont signed a police accountability bill into law Friday, but the campaign to change police training and culture in Connecticut ultimately may turn on what comes next: How to implement, and possibly refine, a measure so bitterly fought by cops. The governors chief of staff, general counsel and policy director met with four police unions Thursday to simultaneously underscore Lamonts support for reforms and his willingness to entertain changes before the sweeping legislation takes effect next year. I emphasized the fact the governor is going to sign the bill, said Paul Mounds, the chief of staff. But he has dialogued with all parties that are affected by the bill, and he looks forward to keeping the conversation going. Andrew Matthews, the retired state trooper who is executive director of the Connecticut State Police Union, called the meeting a productive first step, while noting in an email summary to members that a legal challenge to some provisions still was possible. You could tell they listened, Matthews said. We had a good dialogue. The meeting neither surprised nor alarmed two of the bills chief architects, Rep. Steve Stafstrom of Bridgeport and Sen. Gary Winfield of New Haven, the Democratic co-chairs of the legislatures Judiciary Committee. Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, began explaining the police accountability bill at 1:19 a.m. last Friday. Now that the bill is passed, certainly the intent of the bill remains the same. Were not looking to go back and repeal whole sections of the bill, anything like that, Stafstrom said. But Im certainly willing to work with police departments and the unions on implementation. Matthews said Mounds met personally at State Police Union headquarters in East Hartford with leaders of the unions representing state troopers and police officers in Hartford, New Haven and Waterbury. A face-to-face meeting during the pandemic was an appreciated gesture, Matthews said. The governors legal adviser and policy director participated by video conference. Matthews said police officers feel under siege, alarmed by the scope of protests across the U.S. and some provisions of the bill passed this week in Connecticut, both a response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis two months ago. Right now, the psychological impact on members in the field, they are really concerned about how all this is going to play out. I dont blame them, he said. Passage comes as protesters demand the defunding of police. State troopers complain that the state has failed to replace retirees. Matthews said the uniformed force has shrunk by about 400 in recent years to 882. Eleven troopers or supervisors are retiring on Aug. 1, including one of the two remaining captains; the other is retiring in September, he said. Weve already been defunded, he said. Stafstrom and Winfield said they are optimistic that some of the police opposition will wane as the 45-section bill is better understood or possibly changed. I think the first thing that needs to happen is education, Winfield said. People were so focused on stopping the bill, they were not making an attempt to understand the bill. I think it is incumbent on us and people who do training to make sure they understand what the bill actually does. But the legislators and police unions disagree sharply on the extent to which the bill limits the qualified immunity enjoyed by police and exposes them to litigation. Qualified immunity is a judicial doctrine that limits police liability in federal civil rights cases. The legislation creates a new cause of action that opens police to litigation in state courts, where qualified immunity does not apply. But Stafstrom said other language makes clear that officers are not financially liable, other than in extreme cases of civil rights violations. We keep hearing people say qualified immunity as a defense is being eliminated. That is false,Stafstrom said. Officers face little additional risk of being sued under this bill. Matthews said police also are concerned about a new use of force standard, a requirement that he or she has exhausted the reasonable alternatives to the use of deadly force. Matthews said it is not clearly defined. The bill creates the office of an inspector general to investigate complaints of police misconduct, requires police and correction officers to intervene when witnessing brutality, mandates body and dash cameras, bans chokeholds in most circumstances and clarifies that deadly force can be used only when police exhaust all reasonable alternatives. It also revamps and empowers the Police Officers Training and Standards Council, giving it the authority to decertify a police officer revoking a necessary credential for employment. POST, as the council is commonly known, also would play a large role in shaping training for every police agency in Connecticut, including the State Police, and help set policies on crowd control and the use of force. A police accountability task force will review the bill, and the POST Council will work on implementation. And if there are rough edges that need to be smoothed over, I am willing to engage in those conversation, Stafstrom said. Stafstrom said he has told the leadership of POST that lawmakers are open to changes. He believes a constructive conversation is possible and necessary to making the legislation effective. We do need police officers and departments to buy into the change, Stafstrom said. In order for this to work, we need both sides to buy into the change that is coming. Stafstrom said he found one encouraging sign Thursday. It was on Twitter, of all places. Andrew Rinaldi, the president of the Hartford Police Union, who was at the meeting with Mounds, could not be reached for comment. But the Hartford Police Union posted this message: Bring on the accountability and transparency. I know we pushed back because of the haste, but we will cooperate and earn the publics trust. DES MOINES Gov. Kim Reynolds on Thursday said while scientists say face masks slow the spread of coronavirus, some people would tell you just the opposite. Reynolds made the comment as she defended her decision not to mandate all Iowans wear face masks in public. When a reporter noted scientists agree face masks work to slow the spread of the virus, Reynolds responded, But theres people that would tell you just the opposite. Public health and infectious disease experts are in near unanimous agreement that face coverings are effective in slowing the spread of the coronavirus, a fact verified by multiple studies. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization recommend individuals wear face masks in public. Iowas public health department also recommends face masks for Iowans when they are unable to remain at least six feet away from others. Cloth face coverings are one of the most powerful weapons we have to slow and stop the spread of the virus particularly when used universally within a community setting, federal CDC Director Dr. Robert R. Redfield said recently. On Wednesday, 300 Iowa doctors signed a letter urging Reynolds to issue a statewide mask mandate. On Thursday, the Iowa chapter of the American College of Physicians sent a statement to the governor calling for masks to be worn in community settings. Black Hawk County Health Department director Nafissa Cisse Egbuonye was among the signatories. Face masks are required in public or for certain workers in 42 states, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that monitors federal and states health care policy. Iowa is not among them. Reynolds has consistently promoted state public health department guidance that Iowans should wear face masks when they are in public and come within six feet of other people. Her administration recently started a public campaign urging Iowans to wear masks, and she reiterated the recommendation Thursday. But Reynolds has stopped requiring face masks in public. She says a mandate would be difficult to enforce and suggested some states with mask mandates have still seen increases in coronavirus cases. However, a study published in June determined U.S. states that have mandated the use of face masks experienced a greater decline in daily coronavirus cases compared with states without a mandate. And a CDC study found a mask mandate was likely a contributing factor in preventing spread of the virus in a Missouri hair salon where two stylists were infected with the virus but did not transmit it to any of their customers. Reynolds said Thursday she believes most Iowans are wearing face masks in public, even without a mandate. All along weve said if you cant social distance, wear a mask. We know that those are two things that can help slow the spread and have an impact on COVID-19 in our state. I believe that Iowans are doing the right thing, and Im doing it through a PR campaign, Reynolds said. Theres not a silver bullet. Theres not a single answer. Statewide, Iowas coronavirus cases have surged back to near the states May peak. Deaths and hospitalizations also have been climbing, albeit more gradually than cases. As of Thursday afternoon, more than 44,000 Iowans had contracted the virus and 857 Iowans have died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, since the pandemic first arrived in early March. An alarming report of UNhas warned that there are significant numbers of ISIS terrorists in Kerala and Karnataka, noting that the al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent terror group, which reportedly has between 150 and 200 militants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, is planning attacks in the region. According to the 26th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team concerning ISIS, al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities said that the al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) operates under the Taliban umbrella from Nimruz, Helmand and Kandahar provinces of Afghanistan. It also said that there are significant numbers of ISIL operatives in Kerala and Karnataka states.. has launched a new UV sterilizer with that can be used to disinfect Galaxy smartphones, Galaxy Buds and smartwatches. It will be available for purchase from next month for Rs 3,599. "The UV Sterilizer is a perfect and compact device to keep our personal daily belongings germ free, protected and disinfected," said Mohandeep Singh, Senior Vice President, Mobile Business, India. The device has been manufactured by C&T, a partner of the Samsung Mobile Accessory Partnership Programme (SMAPP) and is designed to fit a variety of device sizes so you can sterilize many of the products you use the most. According to tests done by two independent certification institutes, Intertek and SGS, UV Sterilizer effectively kills up to 99 per cent of the bacteria and germs that includes E Coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans. UV Sterilizer can be accessed with a single button that switches the device on and off. The device automatically switches off after 10 minutes, allowing users to sanitize their belongings. The box comes with dual UV lights that sterilize both the top and bottom surface of items that are placed inside. It comes with a 10W Wireless Charger that can charge smartphones, Buds or other devices, and charging continues even after sanitization is done. New Delhi, July 31 : Ishkaran Singh Bhandari, whom BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy earlier appointed to initiate a CBI probe into the Sushant Singh Rajput case, wants to build a mass movement to get justice for the late actor. Bhandari, a lawyer and political analyst, feels a CBI probe has become mandatory in the case, in order to avoid the brewing turf war between Bihar Police and Mumbai Police. Back in June, the news of Sushant's death and subsequent reports on depression and suicide, left many wondering about the factors that might have driven the actor to take his own life. A twist in the narrative came when it emerged that the late actor's father KK Singh has filed an FIR in Bihar accusing six people including Sushant's girlfriend, actress Rhea Chakraborty, for abetment to suicide. A Bihar Police team is currently investigating the case in Mumbai. "From the first week of July, I have been saying after studying the case that it needs a CBI investigation. Unfortunately, Mumbai Police have not even registered an FIR up till now. An FIR is the first step to investigate a criminal offence. They did not even take the first step," Bhandari told IANS. "The family went to Bihar, and Bihar Police has now registered a criminal case, which they are investigating. But the Bihar Police will face some jurisdictional issues as well as logistical issues because law and order is the state's affair," he added. The lawyer continued: "So everybody wants justice and we have already wasted 45 days and more on this case. Evidence gets lost and evidence gets tampered. So, in the interest of justice and transparency, it is best that the case now goes to CBI. Also because the Enforcement Directorate, a central agency, is already looking into the money laundering angle." "A central agency is anyway going to get involved. So, it should go to a central agency. This would probably not have been needed if Mumbai police had done a fair investigation and registered an FIR. But since they haven't, the only solution to this is a CBI investigation and not a turf war between Bihar and Mumbai government, and lengthy court proceedings. Just give it to CBI, let us have justice and a thorough investigation into the Sushant Singh Rajput case." On June 14, Sushant was found hanging in his residence in Mumbai. The post-mortem report stated that the actor had committed suicide. Bhandari feels it was "completely wrong to have said it is a case of suicide". "Mumbai Police said it even before the post mortem was final, or even before other reports had come in. What if these reports stated that there was poison in the body? How can you decide in, not even day one, (that it was suicide), and you didn't call it a mysterious death? You didn't seal the flat. We all know so many lapses in investigation and I have written three letters to Mumbai Police, pointing out what all should have been done," he said. The lawyer, who recently initiated a peaceful digital protest #Candle4SSR demanding justice for Sushant, feels that the narrative laid out by the Mumbai Police is riddled with loopholes. "They know the law, so are they deliberately not following the law, or do they have some ulterior motive for not doing it strictly as per the law? That clearly shows that it has to go to CBI. In these cases, if there is a deliberate attempt to not investigate a matter, sometimes the CBI investigates the entire probe team, too. We really need to get to the bottom of it because at the end of the day we need to ensure justice to Sushant Singh Rajput," said Bhandari. However, he says there is a significant improvement now. "Now, an issue which was basically considered dead and buried, is out in the public light and the nation is on it. Everybody is speaking about it. We are still away from justice, as there will be a turf war. So we need to have more changes so that we reach to justice in this case," he said, adding that every step should be taken to ensure justice. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text EDITORS NOTE: NJ Cannabis Insider produces exclusive weekly content and monthly events geared toward those interested in the marijuana and hemp industries. The U.S. House voted Thursday to ban the U.S. Justice Department from enforcing the federal ban on cannabis in any state that has legalized the drug for any purpose. The amendment to the legislation funding several federal agencies for the 12 moths beginning Oct. 1 passed, 254-163, with 31 Republicans voting yes. As we work to ultimately end the senseless prohibition of cannabis and the failed war on drugs, these amendments will help ensure the protection of legal state, territory and tribal cannabis programs, said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., the co-founder of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus and the amendments chief sponsor. Justin Strekal, political director of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, called the action the most significant vote on marijuana policy reform that the House of Representatives has taken this year. The importance of this bipartisan vote cannot be overstated as today; nearly one in four Americans reside in a jurisdiction where the adult use of cannabis is legal under state statute, he said. The House is expected to pass the legislation, which funds the Departments of Defense, Commerce, Justice, Labor, Energy, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development and other federal agencies, on Friday. Congress long has used the annual spending bill as a tool to prevent the federal government from going after states that have legalized medical marijuana even as cannabis remains illegal under U.S. law. The House last year attempted to expand the restrictions on the Justice Department to also include recreational marijuana, but the Senate disagreed and the provision did not make it into the final bill. For far too long, our federal cannabis policies have been rooted in our discriminatory past and have continued inflicting harm on communities of color, said Rep. Barbara Lee., D-Calif., a co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus. As the publics views toward cannabis have evolved, Congress has a responsibility to ensure that our policies follow suit and move toward restorative justice. It will be up to the Senate again to decide whether the Justice Department will be banned from interfering with legal recreational marijuana as well as medical weed. Now, its time for the Senate to do the right thing and ensure this sensible provision makes it into the final budget legislation so that states can continue to forge their own path on marijuana policy without federal intrusion, said Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Uber Abandons Plan to Move Regional Headquarters to Hong Kong Ding Yi / Jul 31, 2020 07:01 PM / World Uber has abandoned a plan to relocate its Asian-Pacific headquarters to Hong Kong from Singapore because of its inability to persuade the Hong Kong government to enact legislation for the ride-hailing industry. In a statement issued Thursday, the U.S. company said that it will keep Singapore as a regional hub for the medium term and will continue with its efforts to seek legislation to regulate the ride-hailing business in Hong Kong. The announcement comes a month after Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong, a move that has dampened some tech firms confidence in the citys future as a hub for international business. In May, Uber announced that it was ready to move its regional headquarters from Singapore to Hong Kong and planned to build an innovation and engineering hub in the former British colony on condition that the Hong Kong government removed regulatory hurdles. Since entering Hong Kong six years ago, Uber has faced strong resistance from local policy stipulating that drivers must obtain a hire-car permit before using their private vehicles to transport passengers for profit. According to a report by Nikkei Asian Review, such permits cost HK$5 million ($645,157) each at open auction as the Hong Kong government has not issued new permits since 1998 to reduce traffic and air pollution. In addition, Uber has also encountered boycotts from drivers working for taxi companies. Currently, Uber, which sold its Chinese mainland business to local rival Didi Chuxing in 2016, operates across the Asian-Pacific region in Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Contact reporter Ding Yi (yiding@caixin.com) Related: Didi to March Into 20 New Australian Cities Next Month A police officer was injured as he tried to break up a 200-strong street party in east London of people celebrating Eid. The incident happened shortly before midnight on Thursday in Ilford. Metropolitan Police officers swooped after worried calls from the public who had spotted a large group of people gathered on the street ahead of the religious festival. Officers approached people in the crowd and urged them to go home, however, as the people dispersed a fight broke out. A group of 200 people gathered in Ilford, London ahead of this weekend's Eid celebrations Police asked the group to disperse after arriving at the scene around 11.30pm Thursday Police rushed to break up the fight between the two groups and one officer suffered a head injury. One man was arrested on suspicion of a public order offence and assaulting an emergency worker. Chief Superintendent Stephen Clayman of the Met's East Area Command said: 'While we accept that celebrations take place, and we have no desire to spoil them for the community, if they descend into violence we absolutely will step in. 'A number of calls were received last night from concerned members of the public and while we appreciate this is a time of excitement and celebration for some, the sight and sound of such a large group was concerning and even distressing for others. 'That this size of gathering has taken place during a pandemic is concerning. I remind all of our communities to respect each other and ensure that the government guidelines around social distancing are followed. 'Following a work day of protecting the public, one of my officers has had to return home to his family with a head injury. This is beyond unacceptable and I would like to be very clear that anyone assaulting an officer in the course of his or her duty will be arrested and placed before the courts.' Scotland Yard confirmed the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards has been notified and will review body worn cameras. One man was arrested after two groups of people started fighting leading to one arrest A man was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer Last night's disturbance happened just as the Government announced a raft of new restrictions across the North West of England due to a spike in Covid-19. The affected area spreads across Greater Manchester, parts of east Lancashire and West Yorkshire. However, the government were accused of rushing through the restrictions ahead of Eid - where Muslim families traditionally meet up in large groups. The new restrictions apply to Greater Manchester, including the City of Manchester, Trafford, Stockport, Oldham, Bury, Wigan, Bolton, Tameside, Rochdale and Salford. They also apply to Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle and Rossendale in Lancashire, and Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees in West Yorkshire. Similar restrictions will also apply to Leicester, which saw the first so-called 'local lockdown' imposed on June 29. Worshippers arriving at Bradford's Grand Mosque, pictured, were advised of social distancing rules while they arrived to pray today The government faced criticism of implementing strict restrictions on the eve of Eid because it is such an important date in Islamic calendar and a time for Muslim families to meet and celebrate with each other Mohammed Ashrif Tahir Nushai, 84, a community leader in Bradford, spoke out as the Government was blasted for imposing a new lockdown in Manchester, east Lancashire and West Yorkshire at the start of Eid. Mr Nushai told MailOnline: Sadly, there are people within our community who are not taking coronavirus seriously enough. Since the easing of the main lockdown, a lot of people have been visiting relatives and friends and attending events in each others homes with very little thought of keeping themselves safe. We have been trying to get them to understand the message and take greater precautions but what can we do? Now, in Bradford we find ourselves in a very dangerous situation with coronavirus cases on the rise. Akhtar Mahmood, a member of the mosque committee added: One of the big problems we have had is of people going to pay their respects at the homes of those who have recently died. We lost a member of our congregation two weeks ago and there were 50 people gathered at his house to express their sympathies. A single road in Bradford registered an astonishing 17 coronavirus cases within six days, it has emerged. On Friday morning Mr Hancock told the BBC that two households can still meet 'at a social distance in a public place outdoors' such as a park, where there is lots of space, but meeting another household in pub gardens or outdoor restaurant space is not allowed in the newly restricted area of the North West. Muslims celebrating Eid in the affected areas are being urged not to host or visit friends and family in each other's homes or gardens and not to meet friends and family in other venues - including restaurants or cafes. Health Secretary Matt Hancock, pictured, announced the new restrictions late on Thursday night affecting the lives of more than four million people. Prime Minister Boris Johnson later announced a slowdown in efforts to reopen the economy due to the threat of a second spike The Government has said it will pass new laws to enforce the changes, which will mean police can take action against those who break the rules, including asking people to disperse and issuing 100 fines, which could double if further offences are committed. According to the most recent figures from Public Health England (PHE) the rate of infection is increasing across 13 of the 19 local authorities in the areas where the new measures are being imposed. In Blackburn with Darwen, the rate has risen from 83.3 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to July 20 to 89.3 in the seven days to July 27. A total of 133 new cases have been recorded. Leicester has the second highest seven-day rate despite it falling from 67.8 per 100,000 people to 60.2 over the same period, with 214 new cases. Over the same period the rate has also increased in Manchester, Burnley, Pendle, Bradford, Calderdale, Oldham, Bury, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan, but fell in Hyndburn, Rossendale, Kirklees, Bolton and Rochdale. Rochdale, Oldham, Blackburn and Pendle have been on a PHE watchlist as an "area of concern" after elevated rates of infection. The first nightly protest in downtown Portland, Oregon after a deal was struck for the withdrawal of federal agents guarding a court was largely peaceful and ended on Friday without any major confrontations between state police and demonstrators. The scene outside the federal court that started with yet another demonstration on Thursday night stood in sharp contrast to the two weeks of violent clashes between the protesters and the agents sent by President Donald Trump to quell the unrest in Oregons largest city. State and local officers stepped up their presence as part of the deal between Democratic Governor Kate Brown and the Trump administration to draw down the number of United States agents at the demonstrations that have taken place in the city for more than 60 days following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Portlands federal court became a target for protesters, with the demonstrators trying to tear down a fence that was erected to protect it, lighting fires at the courts entryway and hurling objects at the agents holed up inside. The agents most nights fired tear gas in return. But at Thursday nights protest, there was little violence and few signs of confrontation as several thousand people gathered near the court, the Oregonian newspaper reported. A handful of protesters pointed lights and lasers at the building at about 10pm local time on Thursday, but state troopers remained inside and did not respond. About 30 minutes later, hundreds of demonstrators gathered about a block from the court to listen to speeches. There was little sign of a law enforcement presence. The mood remained calm at 1am on Friday as the crowd dwindled to about 500 demonstrators. In preparation for the law enforcement handover from federal authorities, state troopers, the local sheriff and Portland police met and agreed not to use tear gas except in situations with a threat of serious injury or death, Mayor Ted Wheeler said. Wheeler, who was tear gassed when he joined protesters outside the court last week, added that tear gas as a tactic really isnt all that effective because protesters have donned gas masks and often return to the action after recovering for a few minutes. The Democrat also apologised to peaceful demonstrators exposed to tear gas used by Portland police before federal officials arrived. Under the deal announced by Brown, the agents will withdraw in phases. But federal officials said the agents will not leave the city completely and will be kept on standby. Acting Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Chad Wolf said on Thursday that National Guard troops could be sent in should state police be overrun. Separately, a DHS spokesman said Wolf had ordered an intelligence unit to stop collecting information on American journalists covering protests in Portland after a media report on the practice. US newspaper The Washington Post on Thursday reported that the department compiled intelligence reports on journalists using a government system meant to share information about suspected terrorists and violent actors. Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said he believes the new collaboration between local law enforcement agencies will be seen as a victory in many ways. Portland police are set to take over from federal agents after a deal was made with the Trump administration[John Rudoff/Anadolu] A lot of people came out to express their displeasure of folks from the federal government here and engaging in crowd control with members of our community, Lovell said. So Im hoping that on many levels that people are happy in this development. Portlands demonstrations have attracted up to 10,000 people for peaceful marches and rallies. The violence that has emerged was increasingly directed at federal property. The US government had arrested 94 people as of Wednesday. Over the past two months of protests, Lovell said the city police department made more than 400 arrests and tried many strategies to deescalate the confrontations. Its been a long two months, he said. WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration is willing to consider dropping its insistence on pursuing the death penalty to secure British cooperation in the prosecution of two admitted Islamic State detainees accused of involvement in the executions of American, British and other foreign hostages in Syria. The breakthrough in the long-stalled case came Wednesday, when Attorney General William Barr told other senior administration officials at a White House meeting that he would be willing to take the death penalty off the table if that would facilitate Britain's sharing of crucial evidence, according to officials familiar with the matter. The meeting came amid recent pressure from the Pentagon to get the pair, both former British citizens, out of U.S. military custody in Iraq and as FBI agents were in London and a federal prosecutor was in Iraq seeking to gather more evidence. Barr and his predecessor Jeff Sessions had opposed removing death as a possible sentence for El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, two members of a quartet of British-raised militants implicated in the beheadings of hostages and whose accents led their captives to dub them "The Beatles." A third is in prison in Turkey. The fourth and most notorious member, Mohammed Emwazi - better known as "Jihadi John" - was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2015. Barr's decision marks "a fundamental shift in the discussion," said one senior official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations. "This was the first breakthrough we've had in a long time. The sense was, 'We're going to get this done. We're going to get the diplomatic piece moving.'" Elsheikh and Kotey have been held at Al Asad air base in Iraq since October, after a Turkish invasion of northern Syria led the U.S. military to move them from a prison in Syria run by allied Kurdish forces. They were first captured by Syrian Kurdish fighters in early 2018. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, hoping to limit the military's involvement in holding detainees, had said the matter needed to be resolved by July 31. He backed off that hard deadline, but it accelerated the internal debate over what to do with the Islamic State detainees, officials said. "DOD does not want to hold them indefinitely in Iraq or elsewhere," a defense official said. "The temporary facility that they are currently in was never designed to house detainees for extended periods of time." The only long-term facility is the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the official said, but the military does not want to add to the population there. The United States had long maintained it was Britain's responsibility to prosecute the pair, who were British citizens until their citizenship was stripped in 2018. But British officials have said they feared they could not mount a strong prosecution under their laws and that they lacked sufficient evidence in Elsheikh's case. U.S. prosecutors, for their part, believe they can bring a case. The main issue for the Justice Department is ensuring prosecutors can obtain a conviction that will send the men away for life or close to it. "The nightmare scenario is they come here and get a short sentence or no sentence - then where would you remove them to?'' said one national security official. "They've been stripped of their citizenship. . . . They're stateless. We don't take a lot of chances on matters like this." Prosecutors would like to use evidence obtained by British investigators that includes voice analysis believed to tie the two men to hostages and details on how they got to Syria. Officials also are interested in evidence showing that the duo did not make a snap decision to join the Islamic State, but rather took a long path to becoming "hardcore" Islamist militants, a department official said. Without that evidence, officials believe, it will be harder to bring a case that could result in a substantial prison sentence. One obstacle has been a legal challenge in London. In 2018, the British government decided it would transmit the material even without a "death penalty assurance." Elsheikh's mother sued, arguing that would be unlawful. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in March agreed, but not because of the capital punishment issue. Rather, it found in a preliminary judgment that the home secretary had failed to analyze the transfer of information under Britain's 2018 data privacy law. "There is as yet no established principle . . . which prohibits the sharing of information relevant to a criminal prosecution . . . merely because it carries a risk of leading to the death penalty in that country," one of the justices, Lord Robert Carnwath, wrote. A final order is pending. The families of four American hostages are unanimous in their opposition to the death penalty, said Diane Foley, the mother of James Foley, a journalist taken hostage by the Islamic State and beheaded by Emwazi in 2014. She said there were two "major" reasons. "One is we do not want them to end up in the U.K., where they'll get a very light sentence," she said. "And two, we know that the U.K. evidence together with the U.S. evidence will make a much stronger case against Kotey and Elsheikh." A number of journalists have obtained interviews in the past year or so in which the pair discussed interactions with American and European hostages. In an interview with The Washington Post last August, Elsheikh said that Emwazi "asked me to get emails and details about [the hostages'] family contacts, work contacts - anything that's relevant like that - and pass them over to him." The email addresses were used to contact the families to conduct ransom negotiations, the men said. One or both admitted in media interviews to interactions with several Americans, including Foley; aid worker Kayla Mueller, who was also tortured and sexually abused; journalist Steven Sotloff and aid worker Peter Kassig; as well as British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines. "The so-called 'Beatles' have been in legal limbo for far too long," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), a member of the armed services committee. "This has been an excruciating process for the families of James Foley, Peter Kassig, Steven Sotloff and Kayla Mueller, who have fought tirelessly for a fair trial in the United States. I've urged Attorney General Barr to do what's necessary in this case. Today's news gives new hope that justice will be served." Asked whom he had contact with, Elsheikh said, "All of them - the famous ones, the known ones; James Foley . . . Peter, Alan, David - the major ones that were in the [beheading] videos. "It was more like taking an email," he said. "It was just on one side of the door, the other side of the door, what's your email address? What's the email address of your brother?" He also acknowledged interacting with Mueller, who was killed in 2015, noting that Emwazi directed him to get email addresses from her as well. "So I went to her and said, how long have you been here? I don't know how long she said. I can't remember now." He said he did not torture anyone, but, he acknowledged, "I did things that were not Islamically justified. . . . Harsh treatment. Yeah. I accept that [characterization]." Kotey, who said he did not see Mueller, said there was "some real effort to negotiate for her release," which ended in a request for $7 million. He did not recall through whom the request was made. "This didn't go anywhere," he said. Asked what he would tell the parents of the hostages, Kotey told The Post, "What could I tell them? Is sorry going to be sufficient? I'm sorry of course that that was their fate. "Did we make mistakes? Definitely. Did I do things that I regret? Of course - like my role with the prisoners" in Syria. "I wish," he said, "I didn't have anything to do with joining a jihadi organization." A much-anticipated virtual rally of Bihar Chief Minister next week, where he was expected to sound the bugle for assembly polls, has been put off for the time being, a top office-bearer of the ruling Janata Dal (United) said here on Friday. In a statement, the party's state unit president Vashishtha Narayan Singh said the rally, scheduled for August 7, has been postponed "in view of the coronavirus pandemic and floods. Nearly four million people in north Bihar have been affected by the floods caused by a rise in water levels of rivers originating in Nepal. A fresh date for the virtual rally will be decided in due course, the statement added. Senior leaders of the party, of which the chief minister is the president, had been busy holding orientation workshops for grassroots-level workers over video conferences for the past two weeks. Prominent among those who took part in the exercise included the party's leaders in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha, RCP Singh and Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh respectively, and state ministers Sanjay Kumar Jha, Bijendra Yadav and Ashok Choudhary. RCP Singh, who also holds the key party post of general secretary (organization), had coined a new catchphrase "main bhi hoon Nitish Kumar" (I too am Nitish Kumar) in a bid to enthuse the party foot soldiers. The catchphrase was said to be inspired from a poem penned by JD(U) media cell chief Amardeep and bore a canny resemblance to the "main bhi chowkidar" slogan adopted by the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls last year which it won with a thumping majority. Incidentally, the BJP shares power with the JD(U) in the state, and the combine had been drawing flak from the opposition for being busy with electioneering at a time when the state was rocked by its worst spike in COVID 19 cases, which necessitated the re-imposition of the lockdown. Parties such as the Congress and the RJD have also been insisting that either the assembly polls, scheduled in October-November, be deferred or "traditional" mode of campaign be allowed since digital electioneering put them at a disadvantage. THE COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that migrant workers in Canada are performing essential work that supports our families, workplaces and communities. Migrant workers in Canada plant and harvest crops on farms and in greenhouses; they work in factories that process and provide us with meat; and they are employed as care workers, providing the life-sustaining labour needed by young, old and ill members of our families. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion THE COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that migrant workers in Canada are performing essential work that supports our families, workplaces and communities. Migrant workers in Canada plant and harvest crops on farms and in greenhouses; they work in factories that process and provide us with meat; and they are employed as care workers, providing the life-sustaining labour needed by young, old and ill members of our families. However, the pandemic has also exposed the lack of protection available for these essential workers. Three migrant farm workers have died of COVID-19 so far in Ontario. More than 1,000 migrant farm workers and meat-processing plant workers have tested positive and fallen ill with the virus, shining a light on the dangerous working and living conditions endured by many migrant workers. During the pandemic, migrant workers have reported crowded housing, lack of access to washrooms, having their movements restricted by their employers after the quarantine period, and insufficient food and groceries, as well as racial profiling and increased surveillance. In Canada, migrant workers have always had limited access to income supports, health care and the workplace rights provided to the rest of workers. This lack of access to basic protections that are always needed, but especially crucial in a pandemic, is a result of migrant workers temporary status in Canada, which systematically excludes them from these rights and leaves them vulnerable to abuse, injury and illness. Canadas immigration system was not always designed this way. Only in the last couple of decades has our immigration system transitioned from one based on permanent immigration to one based on temporary immigration. Currently, more than 70 per cent of migrants entering Canada are doing so with temporary rather than permanent status. The authors own families immigrated to Canada under a permanent immigration system that allowed our families to put down roots, stay together and to build our communities. During the pandemic, migrant workers have reported crowded housing, lack of access to washrooms, having their movements restricted by their employers after the quarantine period, and insufficient food and groceries, as well as racial profiling and increased surveillance. 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. Temporary immigration, on the other hand, is designed to make use of the labour of migrant workers and to keep them in the country only as long as they remain useful to their employer. A workers ability to stay in the country is tied to his or her employer through a work permit, which prevents workers from finding a new job with a different employer in the event of poor working conditions or ill treatment. This gives employers an inordinate and excessive amount of power over workers lives and leads to the types of abuses reported by migrant workers during the pandemic. The Winnipeg Free Presss recent editorial ("Ottawa must enforce temporary worker rules" July 13) correctly identifies this employment relationship as a form of indentured labour, an appalling reality in the year 2020. Despite workers temporary status, jobs on farms, in meat-processing factories and caring for children and the elderly are not temporary. Employers in all of these sectors cite a permanent need for workers with the necessary skills. While working in Canada, migrant workers pay into the systems that are designed to support workers: income tax, Employment Insurance and Canada Pension Plan. Yet they are unable to access the very services they help fund for the rest of us. When migrant workers become ill, disabled or even pregnant, they are promptly fired and sent back to their home countries. In the context of a global conversation about systemic racism, we must understand that an immigration system that is based on maintaining the temporary status of racialized migrant workers is a systemically racist system. Across the country, migrant workers organizations are calling for a new normal: permanent status on arrival. We can no longer claim we are unaware of the essential work of migrant workers or the systemic dangers they face in their working and living conditions. As we emerge from this pandemic, we must do so by tackling systemic racism and honouring what is now so obvious: migrant workers are essential, and it is time for the Canadian government to grant them permanent status with access to the same rights and services as all workers. Karen Hamilton and Diwa Marcelino are migrant justice activists on Treaty 1 Territory in Winnipeg. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for documents he turned over to a Senate panel that is investigating Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Committee Chairman Eliot Engel said Friday he had issued the subpoena as part an investigation into Pompeos apparent use of Department of State resources to advance a political smear of former Vice President Joe Biden. The subpoena demands all of the records that the department has turned over to Republican-led Senate committees that are investigating Hunter Bidens work for a gas company in Ukraine while his father was vice president. It also asks for internal department emails about responding to Congress. The committee says Pompeo had delivered more than 16,000 pages of records to the Senate but refused to send the same materials to the Democrat-led House. Secretary Pompeo has turned the State Department into an arm of the Trump campaign and hes not even trying to disguise it," Engel said in a statement announcing the suboena, which demands the materials by next week. The subpoena represents another escalation in an election-year battle between Democrats and the GOP Senate committees investigating Hunter Biden. Democrats have criticized Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., in particular for his probe of Hunter Biden and the gas company, Burisma. They say Johnsons probe is amplifying Russian propaganda, a charge he denies. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens, and Hunter Biden has denied using his influence with his father to aid Burisma. House and Senate Democratic leaders sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray last month, saying they are concerned that Congress appears to be the target of a concerted foreign interference campaign to influence the 2020 presidential election. The letter, which did not mention Johnson or his committee by name, asked Wray for an all-members, classified briefing on the matter before the August recess. Wray hasnt yet offered the requested briefing, but lawmakers did receive a classified briefing early Friday on general election security. Leaving that meeting, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she is concerned the American people should be better informed. The presidents efforts to have Ukraine investigate Hunter Bidens role as a board member for Burisma were at the heart of House Democrats impeachment probe last year. Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens on a July 2019 phone call that was later revealed by a whistleblowers complaint. The House impeached Trump in December for pressuring the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation while withholding military aid to the country. The Senate acquitted him in February. The new efforts by Democrats come as the nations intelligence agencies, congressional intelligence committees and Joe Biden have all warned of renewed election interference by Russia this year. Trump himself has been loath to discuss the subject or acknowledge that Russia tried to sow discord in the 2016 contest by hacking Democratic accounts and pushing out inflammatory content on social media. Still, his administration has warned that Russia and other countries will likely try again. In a statement last week, William Evanina, the governments chief counterintelligence official, said adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran are seeking to compromise U.S. private communications and infrastructure in campaigns. It also warned of disinformation campaigns on social media. Democrats said the statement didnt go far enough, and have pushed for more information on the meddling to be public. They have also sought to bring attention to their apparent concerns about the Senate investigations while declining to talk in specifics because much of the information is classified. On Thursday, the House Intelligence Committee voted to make a classified attachment to the letter detailing their concerns about interference available for review by members of the House. In a transcript the committee released of that closed meeting, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said he has the same concerns today as he did in 2016 that Russians were working to disrupt American elections. I believe today, as I did then, that any effort to interfere in elections must be deterred, disrupted, and exposed, because complacency will further erode the basic precept underlying our democracy, that Americans alone must decide American elections, Schiff said. At the same meeting, Democrats asked the panels top Republican, California Rep. Devin Nunes, whether he had received a package of information from Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach and whether he would share it with Democrats. Derkach is a member of Ukraines parliament who has promoted unsubstantiated claims against the Bidens. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., said committee staff is in possession of evidence that a package was received." Asked by Schiff if he would respond to Maloneys question, Nunes said no. Nunes said the Democrats letter on election interference was a political exercise. He said the classified attachment focuses entirely on Russia while ignoring potential election meddling by any other nations. 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 WASHINGTON President Donald Trump might have floated the idea on Twitter of delaying the presidential election in a tweet Thursday morning, but a president doesnt have the authority to change the date of the presidential election on his own, legal experts say. Punctuating his tweet with three question marks, Trump appears to be more raising an issue that will wrest attention away from Thursday mornings bad economic numbers than announcing what he wants to do with the election timing. With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? Trump tweeted. But election law experts say theres already a clear answer. The executive branch is basically the only part of government that doesnt have the authority to change the date of the presidential election on its own, legal experts say. The Constitution gives Congress the power to determine when presidential electors are chosen, and a federal law says that will be the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. While Congress could change the date, the Constitution limits the presidents term to four years and ends it at noon on Jan. 20. And that is about as clear cut a rule as there is in the document that established Americas government. So, at most, if you got Congress on board, you could delay it a few weeks. And thats all you get, Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Iowa who focuses on election law, said. Trump would no longer be president at that Jan. 20 date if there were no election, something that federal courts could enforce. Even a drastic step like declaring martial law or something similar would not override the Constitution, said Josh Douglas, an election law professor at the University of Kentucky. Theres some legal debate about who then would become acting president if there were no presidential or congressional elections potentially the longest-serving member of the Senate, Muller said. I think its very easy to say who is not. It would not be either Donald Trump, or Mike Pence, at that point, Muller said. The National Task Force on Election Crises, a cross-partisan group of more than 40 experts in election law and voting rights, also says the Constitution is explicit in ending the presidents term. Accordingly, all steps in the election including voting, recounts, legal contests and importantly, the meeting of the Electoral College must be concluded in time for the newly elected or reelected president to be sworn into office on January 20, 2021, the task force wrote in a recent election guide. The federal law that sets the date of the election also allows state legislatures to change the date because of an unexpected emergency, Michael Morely, a Florida State University law professor who specializes in election law, wrote in a 22-page research essay on the topic in June. And courts can move the date to avoid violations of constitutional rights, but are cautious about doing so and would only do so in a limited way, Morely wrote. Neither the Constitution nor any statute passed by Congress gives the president the authority to cancel or postpone an election, even in an emergency, the election crisis task force wrote. The power Congress has delegated to the president in emergencies, even public health emergencies, is limited. The limits of that power are seen now in how state governors have been the ones to order public health responses in each of their states to the coronavirus outbreaks. The general power to order or enact measures to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people is vested primarily in state governments, the task force wrote. That, in the end, leaves only the president who cant do anything to delay the election. One person who isnt as sure about the law on this is Attorney General William Barr, who told the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that he hasnt looked into the question about whether a sitting president can move an election date. Louisiana Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond asked Barr about the federal law that sets the election date and whether a president can take executive action to override it. Ive never been asked the question before, Barr replied. Ive never looked into it. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked Thursday about whether the president had the power to delay the date of the election, and he referred the question to the Justice Department. Im not going to enter a legal judgment on that on the fly this morning, Pompeo said in response to a question from Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., at a rare appearance before the Foreign Relations Committee. Kaine pointed out Pompeos distinguished legal background, including the Harvard Law Review. The Department of Justice and others will make that legal determination, Pompeo said. We all should want, I know you do too, Sen. Kaine, want to make sure we have an election that everyone is confident in. After Pompeo passed the question to the Justice Department Thursday, Kaine made clear the law by which Congress established the date of the election. There is no ability for a president to delay an election, Kaine said. I dont think its that hard of a question or one that should lead to any equivocation by somebody whos fourth in line in succession to be president of the United States, he said, referring to Pompeo. Todd Ruger of CQ-Roll Call wrote this story. Rachel Oswald and Niels Lesniewski contributed to this report. 2020 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved Visit CQ Roll Call at www.rollcall.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. As the government continues to warn against non-essential travel this summer, people have been re-discovering this beautiful country of ours by booking a variety of staycations or as the cool kids are now calling it, a localiday. They range from booking a unique stay in their home country, travelling to a county they have never been to or splurging on that hotel they see the who's who continuously check-in at. And weve got a range of activities to do during your visit that will reignite your gra for Ireland. Next up.... Clare Christy Moore said it best: Here we are in the County Clare. It's a long, long way from here to there. There's the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher, the Tulla and the Kilfenora. But here are a few things he left out of the famous tune. The Burren Perfumery Standing as Irelands first ever perfumery, The Burren Perfumery is a busy working factory, where visitors are welcome free-of-charge and year-round to observe the Perfumery team members as they go about their daily tasks. All products are hand-made on-site and can be purchased in the Perfumery shop. Perfume talks, open door sessions and tours take place throughout the Summer season. The rose-covered tea rooms also act as the perfect place for a little lunch. COVID-19 update: Opening hours have been amending to Thursday to Monday, 11AM to 5PM each week. They will be closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Tearooms will be operating a reduced, takeaway menu and reduced capacity in our shop area. The Father Ted House Ah go on, go on, go on - it may be cliche but you cant say its not unique. Glanquin Farmhouse is part of an organic farm and the home of the McCormack family. It is also known as the location for the Fr Ted series. Located near Corofin, a lot of people pair this up with a visit to the Cliffs of Moher, so if Doolin is your starting point, its about a 40-minute drive. If youre leaving from Galway, here are the directions: Leaving Galway take Dublin Road and then the N18 in the direction of Limerick. After 8.5km on the N18, turn right onto the N67. Drive for 11km then turn left onto the L8587 After 800m turn left and continue on that road for 11.3km. At the T-junction, turn left and then take the first road on the right, Father Teds House will be about 3.5km down the road on your right. Note: Please be mindful that the house still runs as a family home. Covid-19 Update: Afternoon tea at the famous location has been available by appointment only, but at the time of writing, the owners were not taking any bookings. Visit the smallest microbrewery in Ireland The Roadside Tavern is located in Lisdonvarna and has been run by the Curtin Family since 1893. Not only does this make it one of the oldest pubs in the Burren area, it also houses Irelands smallest microbrewery, The Burren Brewery. Peter Curtin is brewing a very characterful lager called Burren Gold, then a quaffable Red Ale called Burren Red, and the very stout Burren Black. The result can be tasted in the Roadside Tavern and the Burren Storehouse next door, it is not available in bottles. Covid-19 Update: Booking essential. Flaggy Shore Oysters Even if youre not a lover of an Oyster shuck, we hear meeting the hilarious and charismatic Gerry from Redbank Food Company in New Quay is a unique experience. Tour the facilities and hear about the history of their family business and the world of Oysters before picking your own from their seawater tanks and learning how to shuck them from a professional. You can also see the many sea creatures that inhabit the seabed touch tanks outside their premises. Visit the Aran Island Take a day trip to the Aran Islands and discover the P.S. I Love You-esk rugged landscape of Inis Mor, Inis Meain or Inis Oirr. Dun Dubh Cathair, InisMor. Inis Mor ("Big Island") is the largest of the three islands, Inis Meain is known for its beautiful beach, charm and amazing scenery, and Inis Oirr is the quietest, most traditional and famous for inspiring J.M. Synges Playboy of the Western World. Trip run daily with family-run business, doolinferries.com Covid-19 update: As it may not be always possible to maintain the recommended social distancing guidelines, face masks must be worn to protect everyone on the vessels. They advise you to use the pier toilets before boarding and if at all possible, they ask that you do not use the toilets on board in order to keep any possible risks to a minimum. All bookings should be made online so that we are in complete control of passengers numbers and also to reduce queuing and visitor numbers on Doolin pier. Sea Cliff Climbing in The Burren Sea cliff climbing is one of the most unique and adventurous disciplines of rock climbing that you can try and the sea cliffs in The Burren are undisputed as being the best in Ireland. Imagine the feeling as you abseil down to a ledge, literally metres above the waves of the wild Atlantic ocean itself, with no other option but to climb upwards. Its a truly unique adventure and will have your heart pumping from start to finish. For more information, check out: Climbit.ie ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. (JTA) The Babylonian Talmud in Tractate Kiddushin teaches that devarim shebalev einam devarim words not put out into the universe are irrelevant and that we must speak our minds when we feel the imperative to do so. I want to be clear that the following does not speak for, or represent, the congregation where I serve as a senior rabbi. These are my own words within my heart that I am bringing out into the open. During Rep. Ilhan Omars time in the House of Representatives, I have talked and worked with her, even though there are a number of topic... SIG University, a leader in online certification programs for sourcing, procurement, supply chain and risk professionals, was developed by Sourcing Industry Group. A career in sourcing, procurement and supply chain management offers exceptional growth opportunities, pays well and is a job that can be done remotely. In July, jobless claims rose for the first time since March, but recruitment for talent in procurement and supply chain is on the rise. With one in five Americans unemployed, many are looking to expand their expertise or learn an entirely new skillset. Certification programs are a cost-effective alternative to lengthy degree programs, especially in an economic recession. An area that has seen an uptick in hiring amid record unemployment are jobs in sourcing, procurement and supply chain management, but the skill sets required for these positions are now more specialized than they were pre-COVID-19. SIG University, a leader in online certification programs for sourcing, procurement, supply chain and risk professionals, was developed by Sourcing Industry Group (SIG) to directly address this talent gap that employers are urgently seeking to fill. Workforce education and industry certifications are essential to getting the economy back on track and making our supply chains more resilient, said SIG CEO and President Dawn Tiura. Employers not only value industry-specific certifications, but a career in sourcing, procurement and supply chain management offers exceptional growth opportunities, pays well and is a job that can be done remotely. The advanced training programs benefit experienced professionals with comprehensive training on new industry best practices and discussion forums to connect with other practitioners. For those who are new to the industry, the certifications help secure job opportunities in what is sure to become a competitive job market. Each certification program creates a common language among procurement teams that breaks down silos, improves business outcomes and fortifies compliance. The certification programs are delivered entirely online, so students have the flexibility to balance work and home life with their studies. Depending on the area of study, certification programs can be completed in five, six, 10 or 12 weeks. SIG was recently approved by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. CPAs and equivalent designations who enroll in the CPE-track of SIG Universitys Certified Third Party Risk Management Professional program can receive 66 CPE credits upon graduation. SIG University faculty members are subject-matter experts and senior practitioners who bring first-hand experience with sourcing and risk events to life in the virtual classroom. A unique aspect of SIG Universitys learning model is weekly discussion forums, where students and faculty discuss the weeks lessons and real-world applications. These discussions solidify learning outcomes and provide a professional network to engage with industry peers. Closed cohorts are available for groups and discounts are available for companies enrolling teams. Visit the SIG University website for a complete listing of all certification programs and the detailed curriculum guide. About SIG University SIG University is the premier training and certification program for sourcing, outsourcing and risk professionals looking to enhance their practical experience with the latest industry education. SIG University was founded on the ideals of elevating sourcing and risk professionals to deliver strategic value to the corporation. SIG University is an inclusive, internationally recognized university with a mission of advancing the sourcing and risk management industries and transforming careers. About SIG SIG, https://sig.org/ is a membership organization that provides thought leadership and networking opportunities to executives in sourcing, procurement and outsourcing from Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies and the advisors who serve them. SIG is widely known as a forum for sharing next practices and thought leadership through live and virtual networking events, training and a comprehensive online SIG resource center (SRC), which was developed by and for professionals in sourcing and outsourcing. The organization is unique in that it blends practitioners, service providers and advisory firms in a non-commercial environment. SIG is also the parent organization for SIG University, a one-of-a-kind certification and training program for professionals and executives seeking deep expertise in sourcing and governance for themselves or their teams, as well as Future of Sourcing, which provides unrivaled digital content for the opinion-formers and decision-makers at the heart of the outsourcing space. The continuing complaints from nationals returning during this period of COVID-19 restrictions must be causing the Prime Minister some unnecessary bother. A COVID-19 related protocol which was revised just about a week before last Saturdays scheduled American Airlines flight from Miami to the Argyle International Airport (AIA), may just be at the root of consternation that set in after the flight arrived. The protocol required that persons travelling directly from the USA to the AIA or persons transiting to the AIA whether from other Caribbean territories or otherwise, must provide proof on arrival that they had been tested for COVID-19 and the result was negative; and proof of reservation at a designated hotel for five nights (of quarantine). During this period, persons are not allowed in public areas or to leave their rooms until a specified date, according to a release from the Hotels and Tourism Association. Knowledge of new protocol The consternation set in when some passengers claimed that they learned about the new quarantine requirement after they had booked their flights, and therefore, had made or could not afford to make reservations at any hotel. Government officials indicated off the record that they had expected the airline to bar a passenger from boarding the flight concerned, if they could not produce evidence of proof that they had complied with both requirements. But, it seemed that this might not have been enforced. Whatever the situation, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, while speaking on the ULP-owned Star FM earlier this week, refuted the claims by passengers that they were not informed of the revised protocols, when those protocols were communicated as early as July 20 to the various airlines and other relevant parties. Further, he recalled that last week Wednesday, on his early morning segment on the state-owned NBC radio, he had gone at length to make the revised protocols known. Govt would pay The resulting situation on Saturday was that a number of passengers turned up at designated hotels and voiced strong objection to having to pay, in some cases, US$120 a night for five nights. But Dr. Gonsalves said on Radio that if persons who had difficulty meeting the hotel bill and had made that known, the government would have guaranteed payment on their behalf. By mid-week, the consternation had all about subsided. The revised protocols for persons arriving from the USA is that they should be tested for COVID-19 before being released from the initial (five day) period of quarantine in a hotel. They, will be required to continue quarantine in an approved home/facility for a period of nine to 16 days but for a total of 14 to 21 days, to be determined by a Health Officers. News circulating earlier this week told of at least one person who arrived from Miami on the AA flight last Saturday, was reported to the police for having broken quarantine. There was no further information, up to press time, regarding the outcome of this. Persons who break quarantine are subject to a fine of EC$2000 and six months imprisonment. ACROSS AMERICA Clifford Peterson and Carol Ryan probably crossed paths at Ramapo College of New Jersey in the early 1970s, but they didnt officially meet until plans were underway for a celebration of the liberal arts schools 50th birthday. Now, the 79-year-old Peterson and 78-year-old Ryan are husband and wife. They married in front of 400 from around the world who had come home for the celebration. Peterson was very intrigued by the questionnaire Carol sent ahead of the party, and they spoke on the phone a couple of times. I was not only enchanted by her answers but how she sounded on the phone, he said. From there, their love blossomed. It was the small world department run amok, the groom said. By Lanning Taliaferro for Ossining-Croton-On-Hudson Patch Following are 12 more good news stories from Patch editors across America, starting with a few that are all about family. A Surprise Sister Jenn Roster had always thought she was an only child. But then she got the results of a 23andMe DNA test she took to satisfy curiosity about her ancestry. She was surprised to learn she wasnt German or Italian, but French and Jewish. The biggest surprise was that she has a half sister she never knew. The siblings are looking forward to the day they can meet, but in the meantime are exploring their similarities and there are many from a distance. By Alexis Tarrazi for Bridgewater Patch (Photos courtesy of Jenn Roster and Chrissy Goeller) Keeping The Organs In The Family There was some good news and bad news when doctors tested Jeff Camp to see if he could donate a kidney to his son, Tyler. Yes, his kidney was a strong match for Tylers. Then came the but he needed to lose weight and rein in his blood pressure. Dad began to exercise and eat healthier as if his sons life depended on it and it did. Tyler is recovering splendidly from the transplant. By Rich Kirby for Shelton Patch Twin Babies Are Home, No Thanks To Coronavirus Alison Herman and John Waterman are finally able to hug their twins after a two-month, 2,288-mile separation, thanks to an air ambulance company that operates out of a hangar at Tampa International Airport. The twins were born 10 weeks prematurely to a surrogate mother in Utah on May 29. The coronavirus pandemic complicated everything from that point on: It was too risky to travel 33 hours by car across the country with the immune-vulnerable babies, and flying the babies home on a commercial airline flight was equally dicey. Other options were beyond their financial reach. But then air ambulance company, JET ICU, decided to play stork. By DAnn Lawrence White for Tampa Patch Story continues The Family Table Luca Di Pietro had to make an excruciating decision in March when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio limited the citys restaurants to takeout and delivery only. Di Pietro had to lay off 95 of his 102 employees and close four restaurants. Within a couple of days, a friend of his wife called and asked about ordering 40 dinners for delivery to a hospital emergency room. And an idea was born. His daughter and a few of her friends at Harvard University spent the night building the Feed the Frontlines NYC website, a platform that allows people to contribute to food deliveries to front-line workers across the city. By Gus Saltonstall for Upper West Side Patch (Photo courtesy of Feed the Frontlines NYC) Beer For Equity And Inclusivity Latiesha Cook noticed something as she and her husband visited their favorite Florida breweries. We were usually the only Black or brown people in the room," she told Patch. She and her husband of 16 years started buying craft beer and sharing it with their neighbors, developed impressive credentials to compete in the craft beer market and then teamed with Beer Kulture, which partners with breweries already doing inclusion and equity work in their space. Their eventual goal is to create collaboration beers that would raise money to help not only minority communities, but communities that are already doing great things around St. Pete. By Skyla Luckey for St. Pete Patch (Photo courtesy of Latiesha Cook) Doing John Lewis Work John Lewis, memorialized at public ceremonies over the past two weeks as a civil rights titan whom history will remember as founder of an equitable society, also was remembered quietly at a place that honors his legacy of service: the Bread of Life Fourth Street Seventh-Day Adventist Soup Kitchen in Washington, D.C. Many of them are Washingtonians, so they have a concept of the civil rights movement, Tijuana Griffin told Patch of the people who stop by for meals. Thats why we put a little flyer in each of their lunches for them to take with them as a reminder of the service he gave to America and the service he gave to the homeless population." By Michael OConnell for Washington, D.C., Patch (Michael OConnell/Patch) Healing Ink When New Jersey began to reopen from coronavirus shutdowns, people rushed to the mall for retail therapy or to their favorite salon for a full cut, color and blowout. Others went to their favorite tattoo artist. "For some people, it's almost like therapy," said Mike Curtin, the manager and head piercer of South Side Tattoo in Howell, New Jersey. "I have several clients that are in some form of recovery, and they move to body art as a way of getting a fix. Like, 'I need that something that I used to do whatever for, let me go get a tattoo instead.' " By Nicole Rosenthal for Howell Patch (Photo courtesy of Tattoo Tony Rodriguez) Doing The Right Thing The noise about 60 inmates made near Atlanta wasnt the sound of a jail uprising. Rather, they wanted to alert jail staff after a deputy slipped from his chair, split his head open and started to bleed. The racket revived the deputy somewhat, and he hit a button that released three inmates from their cells. They helped the bleeding deputy until medical help arrived, telling reporters it was the right thing to do. Lots of people have strong opinions about law enforcement officers and criminals, the deputy said later, but this incident clearly illustrates the potential goodness found in both." By Jim Massara for Dacula Patch Out-Of-This-World Naming Rights When NASA sent its next rover to Mars on Thursday, it carried a piece of Burke, Virginia, with it. Lake Braddock Secondary School student Alexander Mather had earlier won a contest to name the rover Perseverance. Another student, 11th grader Vaneeza Rupani, came up with the name Ingenuity for the Mars helicopter. By Emily Leayman for Burke Patch (Aubrey Gemignani/NASA via Getty Images) The Good Samaritan Of Reading Hello! read the thick bookmark in a book that a New Jersey woman found left next to her mailbox. The note from a mystery good Samaritan known only as The Bookworm had a singular request: "If you choose not to read the book, PLEASE DO NOT THROW THE BOOK OUT, pass it on! I want this to be a fun experience for everyone. Once you have read the book you may keep it or pass it on to one of your neighbors with a message of your own!" By Josh Bakan for Lacey Patch Backyard Makeover Starts With A Haircut When Stephanie Ebert began cutting Lenny Kobilca's hair last summer after he suffered a spinal cord injury in a bicycle accident that forced him to use a wheelchair, she began thinking of how she and others could do something to do something to help his family. She knew just what to do when she noticed Kobilcas mother and sister admiring the shade-giving pergola in her backyard. She rallied her neighbors for a backyard makeover for the Kobilca family. It happens this weekend. By Jeff Arnold for Palos Patch Mask Up In Style A St. Petersburg, Florida, sculptor wanted to create a community project of self-expression and integrity to benefit artists struggling during the coronavirus pandemic. The result is a display of eclectic and even eccentric masks from St. Pete artists of all ages. The eye-catching works of arts are available for purchase, stylishly spreading the word that wearing masks helps stem the spread of the virus. By Skyla Luckey for St. Pete Patch (Skyla Luckey/Patch) This article originally appeared on the Across America Patch ATLANTA (AP) John Lewis was celebrated as an American hero during his funeral Thursday as former President Barack Obama and others called on people to follow Lewis' example and fight injustice. Three former presidents joined in the eulogies at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church after nearly a week of mourning that took the civil rights icon from his birthplace in Alabama to the nations capital of Washington to his final resting place in his home of Atlanta. Lewis was a man of pure joy and unbreakable perseverance," Obama said during a fiery speech in which he hearkened back to Lewis' legacy and connected it to the ongoing fight against those who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting. He as much as anyone in our history brought this country a little bit closer to our highest ideals," Obama said. And some day when we do finish that long journey towards freedom, when we do form a more perfect union, whether it's years from now or decades or even if it takes another two centuries, John Lewis will be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America. Obama, speaking from the pulpit of the church that Martin Luther King Jr. once led, called on Congress to renew the Voting Rights Act, which the Supreme Court diminished in 2012. You want to honor John, lets honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for, Obama said. Obama endorsed ending the Senate filibuster if that is whats needed to pass an overhauled voting law. The first Black president called the procedural hurdle that effectively requires 60 votes to pass major legislation a Jim Crow relic, referring to the segregation era. Former President George W. Bush said Lewis preached the Gospel and lived its ideals, insisting that hate and fear had to be answered with love and hope." Lewis died July 17 at the age of 80. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recalled how Lewis' body was lying in state at the U.S. Capitol earlier this week, and a double rainbow appeared. There was this double rainbow over the casket," she said. He was telling us, I'm home in heaven, I'm home in heaven.' We always knew he worked on the side of angels, and now he is with them. The arc of Lewis legacy of activism was once again tied to Ebenezers former pastor King, whose sermons Lewis discovered while scanning the radio dial as a 15-year-old boy growing up in then-segregated Alabama. King continued to inspire Lewis civil rights work for the next 65 years as he fought segregation during sometimes bloody marches, Greyhound bus Freedom Rides across the South and later during his long tenure in the U.S. Congress. Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America, Lewis said of his run-ins with the law. The phrase was repeated several times during the funeral. We will continue to get into good trouble as long as you grant us the breath to do so, one of Kings daughters, the Rev. Bernice King, said as she led the congregation in prayer. Here lies a true American patriot who risked his life for the hope and promise of democracy, Ebenezers senior pastor, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, told the congregation. Outside Ebenezer, hundreds gathered to watch the service on a large screen outside the church. Some sang the gospel song We Shall Overcome. When Lewis was 15, he heard King's sermons on WRMA, a radio station in Montgomery, Alabama, he recalled in an interview for the Southern Oral History Program. Later I saw him on many occasions in Nashville while I was in school between 1958 and 61," Lewis said. In a sense, he was my leader. King was the person who, more than any other, continued to influence my life, who made me who I was," Lewis wrote in his 1998 autobiography, Walking with the Wind." By the summer of 1963, Lewis was addressing thousands of people during the March on Washington, where King gave his I Have a Dream" speech. He spoke then about Black people beaten by police and jailed themes that resonate vividly in today's times. My friends, let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution," Lewis told the huge crowd on the Washington Mall. To those who have said, Be patient and wait,' we have long said that we cannot be patient," he added. We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now! We are tired. We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over again." In 1965, Lewis was beaten by Alabama state troopers in the city of Selma in what became known as Bloody Sunday." Last Sunday, his casket was carried across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. The wagon rolled over a carpet of rose petals on the bridge that spans the Alabama River. On the south side of the bridge, where Lewis was attacked by the law officers, family members placed red roses that the carriage rolled over, marking the spot where Lewis spilled his blood and suffered a head injury. Lewis was later awarded the Medal of Freedom by the nations first Black president in 2011. He spent more than three decades in Congress, and his district included most of Atlanta. Shortly before he died, Lewis wrote an essay for The New York Times and asked that it be published on the day of his funeral. In the piece published Thursday, Lewis recalled the teachings of King: He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice," Lewis wrote. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out." Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe," Lewis added. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring." Former President Bill Clinton referenced the essay during his remarks Thursday: It is so fitting on the day of his service, he leaves us his marching orders: Keep moving. Associated Press Writer Ben Nadler in Atlanta contributed. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Chandigarh, July 31 : Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday paid tributes to Shaheed Udham Singh on his death anniversary. "I join the nation in paying my humble tributes to our great freedom fighter Shaheed-e-Azam Sardar Udham Singh ji," Amarinder said tweeted. "His patriotism and sacrifice will continue to inspire generations of Indians. Work on his memorial at Sunam is underway and will be completed within a year," he said. Khattar said quoting the revolutionary: "What greater honour could be bestowed on me than death for the sake of my motherland." Udham Singh was a revolutionary belonging to the Ghadar Party. He shot dead Michael O'Dwyer, a former Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, in London on March 13, 1940 to avenge the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar in 1919. Udham Singh was subsequently convicted of the murder and hanged on July 31, 1940. Living standards among the people have gone down in the past 10 years. They are not exemplary, and the general attitude of our elected representatives has not helped much. by Victor Cherubim Sri Lanka Sinhala and Tamil and Muslim are all going to the polls on 5 August 2020 to elect our representatives to the 16th session of our Parliament. There is no misgiving that we are heading together for lean times, not just economically, socially, and politically. Something more needs to be done first, in the next 100 days to bring back our sanity, to uplift the poverty of our masses. Absolute poverty is the severe deprivation of basic human needs including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and other welfare. Wealth on the other hand is distributed among the affluent which includes politicians and elite businessmen. But much of the population lives on a hand to mouth lifestyle, some more destitute than others. At the same time, we have a land endowed with natural resources, knowledge, skill sets, and abilities. What we have lacked is proper guidance, or direction by politicians. As Sri Lankans, we patriotically defend our homeland from being poor, but the fact is living standards remain comparatively low, as nearly 45%live on less than $5.00 per day. Living standards among the people have gone down in the past 10 years. They are not exemplary, and the general attitude of our elected representatives has not helped much. Economic activity has been stagnant Why is living in Sri Lanka so expensive? Although the overall standards of living of the people has increased compared with neighbouring countries, even with the enormous debt, the country has a significant per capita income, wealth distribution among the population is lacking. Taxes are increasing by the day; prices of goods and services are rising, and people are getting hard up. There are all sorts of things that hinder development. Politicians are all the time sugar coating their performance, which does not relate to the reality in the land. Enough is enough when we keep blaming each other for not tackling levels of poverty which has passed the threshold of tolerance. We need to give a fresh startto guarantee that the rich do not get richer, while the poor get poorer. Of course, there have been many poverty alleviation programmes implemented in the meantime including Janasaviya (1989), Samurdhi (1994). But much more needs immediate action. Another area of concern is high rates of unemployment The paradox is that the high rate of unemployment is especially among the educated youth. More than 70% of the large scale industries are confined to the Western Province. Unless more job opportunities are created in the underdeveloped regions, it would be difficult to reduce the incidence of poverty in deprived areas. Income Transfer Properly targeting the destitute poor and the unemployed should be the Number 1 Priority of our new elected representatives. For this to happen, we need people who will represent the very people who have been most affected by years of destitution. They must be able to plan without raising our expectations, outside of the obvious scope of the next term of the fixed Parliament.They need to lay the groundwork for laying the groundwork now, to pave the way for future poverty alleviation over the next generation. Further income transfer with amounts of transfer used to provide jobs to at least one member of a poor family will be better than giving financial assistance, which may not be adequate to get them out of poverty. The drought in the North, the floods in the South Minister of Mahaweli, Agriculture, Irrigation and Rural Development, Chamal Rajapaksa. last week inspected the progress of the drinking water supply project at Chavakachcheri, in the Jaffna Peninsula and the Iranamadhu bund extension development programme. The greatest need to unite the North and the South is water. Lack of water has been a severe problem for the people of the North for over many decades. Too much water has also been a problem for the people in the South. Turning the Jaffna Peninsula over to a desert in the years ahead, is not in the best interest of the nation. Likewise,severe floods and landslides must be tackled as a matter of urgency. Giving priority of Parliamentary time to these projects considering the urgent necessity of the people in these areas is long overdue and will produce results in due time. All in all, understanding the needs of the people and acting on these projects which have been neglected over half a century is the need of the hour. It is the hope that the new Parliament will address all the issues that have been neglected. Yuriy Draganchuk, Deputy Minister of Finance of Ukraine On July 29, the Government adopted a resolution developed by the Ministry of Finance together with the State Customs Service, which will allow the practical implementation of the program of authorized economic operators (AEO) in Ukraine. AEO status is a formalized sign of the highest trust in the company by the customs authorities. Authorization of AEO can be of two types: the granting of the right to apply special simplifications (AEO-C) and the confirmation of security and safety (AEO-B). The company independently chooses the type of authorization and can have both types of authorization at the same time. AEO authorization is recognized throughout Ukraine, is provided free of charge and is valid indefinitely. An enterprise with the status of AEO gets the opportunity to apply special simplifications and use the benefits when completing customs formalities for the goods it moves. The AEO Institute was established by the World Customs Organization in 2005 through the adoption of the SAFE Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade. Today AEO programs are implemented in 83 countries. Another 19 are being implemented. For Ukraine, the AEO program will be a tool to increase the efficiency of doing business, improve the marketing status of the company, which will be able to take advantage of AEO status. AEO status will allow well-doing companies to reduce time and material costs for customs formalities by approximately 30%. After all, delays at the border will be less, as, in fact, the cost of customs terminals. The mentioned decision of the Government approved the procedure and algorithm for assessing compliance with the criteria of the AEO, the form of documents to be submitted by enterprises and issued by customs authorities to obtain this status. To obtain AEO authorization, an enterprise must submit an application and a self-assessment questionnaire in the form of electronic documents to the State Customs Service. At the first stage - through the official e-mail of the State Customs Service. At the same time (within 120 days from the date of entry into force of the resolution) the State Customs Service will create an IT-tool for the practical operation of the AEO. Within 30 days from the date of registration of such documents in the State Customs Service will carry out their preliminary consideration. Based on the results, a decision will be made to assess the company's compliance with the AEO criteria or to refuse such an assessment. It should be considered that in the case of a decision on conformity assessment, the company must be prepared for this. For example, such a criterion as "proper accounting system, commercial and transport documentation" involves its verification on the spot, with the departure of the commission to the relevant facilities. During such a departure, the company must provide the commission with documents confirming the answers in the self-assessment questionnaire. Customs authorities may also interview employees on certain issues to confirm the information to be assessed for AEO status. Assessment of the company's compliance with the criteria of the AEO is carried out within 120 days from the date of the decision. If the enterprise according to the conclusion meets the criteria, the State Customs Service will decide to grant authorization to the AEO. At the same time, I draw the attention of enterprises to the need for careful preparation of documents submitted to obtain the authorization of the AEO. After all, in case of refusal the next time such documents will be considered in the State Customs Service not earlier than in six months. During the first year, in order to gain experience, the customs authorities will be able to process no more than 10 applications for AEO status at a time. Information on the submitted applications (impersonal, only in the form of serial numbers of applications) and the status of their consideration will be provided by the State Customs Service on the official website. This level of transparency will allow applicants to monitor the status of their implementation. During the second (from November 8, 2020) and third (from November 8, 2021) years, the number of applications and conformity assessment will increase to 20 and 30, respectively. It is important that the government decree is developed taking into account the EU Guidelines on AEO (AEO Guidelines) and European practice, as well as the expectations of the European Commission, business associations, international experts. In the future, this will allow Ukraine to implement agreements on mutual recognition of AEO status (AEO MRA). The implementation of the AEO program in Ukraine and the conclusion of agreements on mutual recognition of AEO status will facilitate the entry of Ukrainian business involved in international supply chains into the EU markets and, potentially, 56 countries around the world. WASHINGTON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Project On Government Oversight released a new report today that examines existing dissent channels at federal agencies and makes recommendations on how to strengthen them. At a time when the White House is explicitly hostile toward career government experts, it's clear that federal workers need more effective, independent channels for constructively criticizing policy decisions and need better protections for expressing policy dissent. The report found that the existing channels at the State Department and other agencies are underutilized, and that the systems don't provide sufficient incentives or protections for employees. With improvements, dissent channels would offer a much-needed protected avenue for government experts to weigh in on policy matters. If employed effectively, these channels could improve policies or prevent ill-conceived proposals from taking effect. Among several recommendations, POGO urges agencies with existing channels to allow staff to anonymously dissent, to set up systems for staff to appeal initial rejections of their policy dissent, and to provide public information on how the dissent channel is used and on whether users have reported facing retaliation. Many of the recommendations are based on best practices in place at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The White House must also embrace dissent and encourage agency leaders to do the same, and Congress should strengthen protections for federal workers who voice their concerns through dissent channels and in other ways. "The federal government needs more robust systems to encourage federal workers to raise concerns about policy decisions," said Nick Schwellenbach, senior investigator at POGO. "There's untapped potential in dissent channels, and both Congress and the White House should bolster these systems. With reforms, dissent channels could improve policy decisions across the government." Founded in 1981, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is a nonpartisan independent watchdog that investigates and exposes waste, corruption, abuse of power, and when the government fails to serve the public or silences those who report wrongdoing. We champion reforms to achieve a more effective, ethical, and accountable federal government that safeguards constitutional principles. SOURCE Project On Government Oversight Related Links pogo.org Punjab school education minister Vijay Inder Singla said on Friday that the state government has decided to allow provisional admission of as many as 31,022 open category candidates in 10+1 in schools as regular students. However, such students will have to take the examinations of Class 10 when things became normal, the minister added. The education minister informed that the matriculation result of regular students was declared by the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) on the basis of Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) but open school students were not covered under CCE criteria. The open category candidates were in dilemma as they were not getting admission in schools as regular students. After reviewing the situation, we have decided to provide them a short-term relief. Now, they will get admission in 10+1 provisionally subject to the condition that as and when the things become normal, they will take the matriculation examinations, said Singla. He said the government has also decided to declare the result of supplementary examination of last year students on the basis of CCE of the relevant year. He added that these students had to appear in one subject as supplementary examination this year but they were not able to take it due to cancellation of exam in view of Covid-19 outbreak. Panaji: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday said India did not seek war, but would gouge out eyes of the enemy if provoked. We dont itch for a fight, but if someone looks at the country with evil eye, we will gouge his eyes out and put them back in his hand, we have that much power, he said while addressing a rally in Aldona Assembly constituency in Goa. Goans can tell the world that they had sent a man to the Centre who had slapped the enemy across the face, he said. There was no firing on the border for the last three days because if they (Pakistan) fire once, we fire twice at them. We are giving tit-for-tat response, and when they realised it, they approached us, seeking to stop it, Parrikar said in an apparent referrence to the request by Pakistan for DGMO-level talks three days ago. Asserting that, Armed Forces were fully prepared, Parrikar said his mother had taught him that even if you are going to hunt a rabbit, be prepared to kill a tiger. Also read | Manohar Parrikar claims crime rate has reduced in Mumbai due to demonetisation For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. HALIFAXOne of the three people selected to lead the public inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass shooting has dropped out. Anne McLellan has informed the federal and provincial governments that she supports the decision to call a public inquiry but is unable to commit the time required to carry out an inquiry commissioners responsibilities. Bill Blair, the federal minister of public safety, and Mark Furey, Nova Scotias justice minister, had described the former federal Liberal cabinet minister as someone whose expertise would help delve into the circumstances surrounding the mass shooting. McLellan had agreed to serve on a panel reviewing the killings alongside Michael MacDonald, a former chief justice of Nova Scotia, and Leanne Fitch, the former chief of police in Fredericton. But the closed-door review came in for strong criticism from relatives of the 22 victims of the April 18-19 killings, who had advocated for a public inquiry with the power to subpoena witnesses to testify under oath. The two governments did an about-face on the review Tuesday and ordered a public inquiry, and at the time Blair said the three people appointed for the review had also agreed to serve as commissioners. In a statement Friday afternoon, Blair and Furey said the inquiry will continue to move forward, and their governments will keep Canadians informed on the appointment of commissioners to the inquiry. Before the inquiry was announced, the two ministers had said the review panel was to complete an interim report by Feb. 28, 2021 and a final report by Aug. 31, 2021. However, fresh terms of reference and timelines havent been announced yet. The original goals and issues of the review were wide-ranging. They called for a probe into the police response, the gunmans acquisition of firearms, the methods of alerting the public and the police procedures for dealing with domestic violence. The victims families have said they wanted a mechanism that could compel testimony about the RCMPs response during the shootings, as well as prior police knowledge of the gunmans alleged criminal behaviour. Feminist groups have called for an investigation into the issue of domestic abuse, noting the killer had abused his common-law partner. Read more about: 2Q 2020 net sales totaled $3,400,000, up $465,000 or 16% versus prior year, primarily driven by organic growth, addition of new customers and new product line extensions Net income for the quarter was $453,000 or 13.1% of net sales, an increase of $1,100,000, compared to a net loss of ($606,000) in the same period of 2019 EBITDA for the quarter was $596,000 or 17% of net sales, an increase of $1,100,000 versus ($481,000) EBIDTA in the second quarter of 2019 YTD EBITDA is $836,000 or 13% of net sales versus ($1,200,000) in 2019 for the same time frame. CLEVELAND, OH / ACCESSWIRE / July 31, 2020 / Mace Security International (OTCQX:MACE) today announced second quarter 2020 financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020. The Company's net sales for the second quarter were $3,400,000, up 16% versus prior year. The increase reflects organic growth across our retail and e-commerce channels, addition of new customers across core channel segments as well as product line extensions at existing retailers. Net sales across the consumer and e-commerce channels were up $867,000 even when offset by decreases in Sporting Goods and International channels of $239,000 due to store closures and product availability related to COVID-19. The Company reported a gross margin rate for the quarter of 41%, up 1000 bp from the same time last year. SG&A expenses were $841,000 or 25% of net sales, compared with $1,400,000 or 48% in 2Q 2019, reflecting non-recurring charges last year. Working capital turns were 4.7 on an annualized basis. President and CEO Gary Medved commented: "Our business exhibited increasing strength as the quarter progressed despite a few challenges created by COVID-19. The company's renewed focus on Mace Brand, product lineup, and digital awareness allowed us to capitalize on the accelerated shift to consumer personal safety products, as well as online spending brought on by the pandemic. Between our branded website and online marketplaces, total digital sales increased triple digits on a percentage basis in the second quarter driven by existing customers and a dramatic increase in new customer acquisition." "The pace accelerated as the quarter progressed. Meanwhile, the strong relationships we have forged with our key retail partners helped us weather a severe slowdown in April and early May due to reduced traffic and store closures. The country's lockdown restrictions began to ease midway through the second quarter, when we experienced a significant pick up in weekly sell-through at retail. Given the circumstances, we are pleased with our recent performance and encouraged as this momentum has carried into July and future months. Orders across retail and digital segments have increased in the past two months at a triple-digit percentage rate over the same period in 2019. Though uncertainty remains about the ultimate impact COVID-19 will have on the personal safety products industry, I am confident that our newly refined business model and strengthening balance sheet have Mace Brand well positioned going forward." Sanjay Singh, Executive Chairman, commented: "We raised the bar within the company on self-accountability and meeting commitments to our employees, customers and stakeholders. The entire team stepped up, from customer service to those who ship the products amidst challenging supply chain issues and a burgeoning backlog." "Orders in April were the lowest the company has seen in a very long time but bounced back as businesses opened up in mid-May. The results of our awareness campaign also drove meaningful digital sales. The company is on a solid footing now as we focus our efforts on executing all the initiatives that were launched this year. Balance sheet strength and operations excellence continue to be our areas of focus. I am very proud and inspired by our team's ability to rise to the occasion. The focus on continuous improvement company-wide will continue in 3Q as we continue to ship a sizeable backlog. Gary and his team did a tremendous job this quarter." Second Quarter 2020 Financial Highlights Net sales increased $465,000 or 16% versus prior year, primarily driven by organic growth, addition of new customers both in retail and e-commerce segments and new product line extensions at retailers Gross profit for the second quarter increased by $473,000 or 51% over the same period in the prior year, driven primarily by increased sales volume, labor efficiencies, and a non-recurring inventory provision that occurred last year SG&A expenses declined by $578,000 to $841,000 for the quarter, or 25% of net sales, driven primarily by lower spending in salaries and benefits, reduced legal and outside marketing services, and a non-recurring impairment of receivables expense that occurred in the second quarter of 2019 Net income increased by$1,100,000 Cash and cash equivalents increased to $1,600,000 as of June 30, 2020, an increase of $1,300,000 over the $307,000 on hand on December 31, 2019. During the second quarter of 2020, the Company received $619,000 from our lender as part of the PPP stimulus. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $655,000 (1 cent per share) Second Quarter 2020 Operational Highlights The Company maintained full manufacturing and distribution activities throughout the quarter, and to date has experienced some supply chain disruptions due to the COVID-19 emergency. Labor efficiencies have improved over last year during the same time last year. YTD 2020 Operational Highlights Net Sales increased by $544,000 or 9.6% versus the same period last year driven by organic growth, product line extensions in the second quarter and sales to new customers Gross Profits increased by $514,000 or 26% when compared to the same period last year mostly due to increases in labor efficiencies and the impact of one-time costs that occurred last year SG&A decreased by $1,500,000 or 47% mostly from one-time costs that occurred last year and from cost controls and lower wages Net Income was $573,000 or 9% of net sales versus a loss of $1,500,000 last year Conference Call Mace will conduct a conference call on Tuesday August 4th, 2020 at 11 AM EDT, 8 AM PDT to discuss its financial and operational performance for the quarter. Participant Toll-Free Dial-In Number: (833) 360-0862; Conference ID 9602639 A full set of the consolidated financial statements and accompanying slide presentation are available on www.Mace.com. A digital recording of the conference call will be available for replay two hours after the call's completion. The date ranges the recording will be available are listed below. To access the recording, use the dial-in number listed below and the conference ID 9602639 Encore dial-in number: 855-859-2056 (or internationally on 404-537-3406) Encore dates: Will be available 2 hours after the call and will expire midnight on October 3, 2020 About Mace Security International, Inc. Mace Security International Inc. is a globally recognized leader in personal safety products. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, the Company has spent more than 30 years designing and manufacturing consumer and tactical products for personal defense and security under its world-renowned Mace Brand - the original trusted brand of pepper spray products. The Company's other leading brands include Tornado Brand stun guns and pepper spray, and Vigilant Brand personal alarms. The Company also offers aerosol defense sprays for law enforcement and security professionals worldwide through its Take Down Brand. Mace Security International distributes and supports its products and services through mass-market retailers, wholesale distributors, independent dealers, e-commerce channels and through its website, www.Mace.com. For more information, please visit www.mace.com. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements and information included in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Federal Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this press release, the words or phrases "will likely result," "are expected to," "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimate," "projected," "intend to" or similar expressions are intended to identify "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are subject to certain risks, known and unknown, and uncertainties, including but not limited to economic conditions, dependence on management, our ability to compete with competitors, dilution to shareholders, and limited capital resources. Mace Security International, Inc. and Subsidiaries CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (Unaudited) (Amounts in thousands) Three Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 Net sales $ 3,432 $ 2,967 Cost of goods sold 2,032 2,040 Gross profit 1,400 927 Selling, general, and administrative expenses 841 1,419 Amortization of intangible assets 96 67 Loss on disposal of property and equipment - 29 Operating income (loss) 463 (588 ) Interest expense (10) (17 ) Other expense, net - (1 ) Income (loss) before income tax provision 453 (606 ) Income tax provision - - Net income (loss) $ 453 $ (606 ) Mace Security International, Inc. and Subsidiaries CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (Unaudited) (Amounts in thousands) Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 Net sales $ 6,223 $ 5,679 Cost of goods sold 3,742 3,712 Gross profit 2,481 1,967 Selling, general, and administrative expenses 1,721 3,237 Amortization of intangible assets 165 134 Loss on disposal of property and equipment - 29 Operating income (loss) 595 (1,433 ) Interest expense (22) (31 ) Interest income - 4 Loss on short-term investments - (1 ) Other expense, net - (1 ) Income (loss) before income tax provision 573 (1,462 ) Income tax provision - - Net income (loss) $ 573 $ (1,462 ) Mace Security International, Inc. and Subsidiaries CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (Amounts in thousands, except share and per share information) ASSETS June 30, 2020 December 31, 2019 (Unaudited) Current assets: Cash $ 1,620 $ 307 Accounts receivable, less allowance for doubtful accounts of $535 and $536 at June 30, 2020 and December 31, 2019, respectively 2,246 1,544 Inventories 1,672 1,591 Notes receivable, net of allowance, and other current assets 276 446 Total current assets 5,814 3,888 Property and equipment: Buildings and leasehold improvements 255 245 Machinery and equipment 2,017 2,003 Furniture and fixtures 110 110 Total property and equipment 2,382 2,358 Accumulated depreciation and amortization (1,873) (1,796 ) Total property and equipment, net 509 562 Operating lease - right-of-use asset, net of amortization 647 752 Finance lease - right-of-use asset, net of amortization 30 11 Goodwill 1,031 1,031 Intangible assets, net 2,579 2,744 Notes receivable, net of allowance, and other non-current assets 14 14 Total other assets 4,301 4,552 Total assets $ 10,624 $ 9,002 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY June 30, 2020 December 31, 2019 (Unaudited) Current liabilities: Current portion of long-term debt $ 220 $ 215 Bank line of credit 600 600 Current operating lease obligation 211 209 Current finance lease obligation 6 3 Accounts payable 904 364 Income taxes payable 55 56 Accrued expenses and other current liabilities 364 412 Total current liabilities 2,360 1,859 Long-term debt, net of current portion 173 284 Payroll Protection Program Loan, non-current 619 - Non-current operating lease obligations 455 565 Non-current finance lease obligations 25 8 Total liabilities 3,632 2,716 Stockholders' equity: Preferred stock, $.01 par value; authorized 10,000,000 shares, no shares issued and outstanding at June 30, 2020 and December 31, 2019 - - Common stock, $.01 par value; authorized 100,000,000 shares, issued and outstanding shares of 63,954,003 and 63,319,834, at June 30, 2020 and December 31, 2019, respectively 639 633 Additional paid-in capital 103,379 103,252 Accumulated deficit (97,004) (97,577 ) 7,014 6,308 Less treasury stock at cost, 90,548 shares at both June30, 2020 and December 31, 2019 (22) (22 ) Total stockholders' equity 6,992 6,286 Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $ 10,624 $ 9,002 Mace Security International, Inc. and Subsidiaries RECONCILIATION OF NET INCOME TO EBITDA AND ADJUSTED EBITDA (Unaudited) (Amounts in thousands) Three Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 Net income (loss) $ 453 $ (606 ) Adjustments: Interest expense 10 17 Interest income - - Income tax expense - - Depreciation and amortization 133 108 EBITDA 596 (481) Severance 12 - Non-cash stock compensation expense 47 6 Adjusted EBITDA $ 655 $ (475 ) Mace Security International, Inc. and Subsidiaries RECONCILIATION OF NET INCOME TO EBITDA AND ADJUSTED EBITDA (Unaudited) (Amounts in thousands) Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 Net income (loss) $ 573 $ (1,462 ) Adjustments: Interest expense 22 31 Interest income - (4 ) Income tax expense - - Depreciation and amortization 241 218 EBITDA 836 (481) Severance - - Non-cash stock compensation expense 77 242 Adjusted EBITDA $ 913 $ (239 ) In this press release, the Company's financial results and financial guidance are provided in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (GAAP) and using certain non-GAAP financial measures. Management believes that presentation of operating results using non-GAAP financial measures provides useful supplemental information to investors and facilitates the analysis of the Company's core operating results and comparison of operating results across reporting periods. Management also uses non-GAAP financial measures to establish budgets and to manage the Company's business. A reconciliation of the GAAP financial results to non-GAAP financial results is included in the attached schedules. Contacts: Gary Medved President and Chief Executive Officer gmedved@mace.com SOURCE: MACE SECURITY INTERNATIONAL INC View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/599731/Mace-Security-International-Reports-Second-Quarter-2020-Financial-Results Washington: Joe Biden's campaign on Thursday announced launch of its outreach to the influential Indian-Americans in 14 languages, reflecting the linguistic diversity of an ethnic community, which is being sought after by both Democratic and Republican Party in the key battleground states. For instance, "America Ka Neta Kaisa Ho, Joe Biden Jaisa Ho," (America's leader needs to be like Biden) has been picked from a popular electioneering slogan from the world's largest democracy. Opposition Democratic Party's election slogan in 14 Indian languages comes four years after the phenomenal success of Trump campaign's election slogan in 2016, "Ab Ki Trump Sarkar" (This time, Trump government), on the lines of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 2014 election catch-line "Ab Ki Baar Modi Sarkaar". Ajay Bhutoria, national finance committee member for Biden for President 2020, said the campaign is planning to reach out to the Indian-American voters in their own languages. Currently, he is collaborating with the Biden Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Team to communicate directly with Indian-Americans in more than 14 languages including Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Urdu, Kannada, Malayalee, Oriya, Marathi and Nepali. Bhutoria, in a statement, acknowledged that this is influenced by his upbringing in India, wherein elections are community celebrations, with catchy slogans and rallies featuring Bollywood music on loudspeakers. The slogan "America Ka Neta Kaisa Ho Joe Biden Jaisa Ho" has been created to generate similar enthusiasm among Indian-American voters in the country. The presidential elections are scheduled for November 3. Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, is challenging Republican incumbent President Donald Trump. Bhutoria hoped that his digital outreach will motivate more Indian-Americans to become engaged in politics, register to vote, and cast their ballots for former vice president Biden this November. "The Biden campaign felt that there was a need to create campaign graphics in regional Indian languages so that our diverse community feels even more connected to Joe Biden,? said Neha Dewan, national director, South Asians for Biden. "As vice president, Biden often reminds us that immigrants are a core chapter of the American story. 'Our country's ability to draw hard-working people from every culture and every nation has always made us stronger'," she said. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has recorded 481 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of infection in the country to 42,689. The NCDC made this known on Thursday night via its Twitter page, where it disclosed that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) recorded the highest number of infections with 96 cases, with Lagos State following with 89 cases. Other states with new COVID-19 cases includes : Plateau-68 Ogun-49 Edo-44 Rivers-43 Oyo-25 Osun-23 Delta-15 Enugu-11 Kano-7 Kaduna-7 Bauchi-2 Bayelsa-1 Yobe-1. The health centre further revealed that 19,270 persons infected with the virus have been successfully treated and discharged, while 878 deaths had been recorded across the country. On the 30th of July 2020, 481 new confirmed cases and 5 deaths were recorded in Nigeria, NCDC said. The 481 new COVID-19 cases are reported from 15 states- FCT (96), Lagos (89), Plateau (68), Ogun (49), Edo (44), Rivers (43), Oyo (25), Osun (23), Delta (15), Enugu (11), Kano (7), Kaduna (7), Bauchi (2), Bayelsa (1), Yobe (1). Till date, 42689 cases have been confirmed, 19270 cases have been discharged and 878 deaths have been recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. See the breakdown of cases by state below; A breakdown of cases by state can be found via https://t.co/zQrpNeOfet#TakeResponsibility pic.twitter.com/z9IkAkYnlm NCDC (@NCDCgov) July 30, 2020 BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 Trend: Azerbaijan continues to rely on the Helsinki Final Act in an effort to restore its territorial integrity, Trend reports via the statement of Azerbaijan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the 45th anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act. August 1 marks the 45th anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act. After 45 years, the Act and the ten principles (the Decalogue) guiding inter-State relations enshrined therein continue to be the foundation of the rules-based European order. They can in no way be a subject for re-negotiation, revision, or more so re-interpretation, said the statement. The ten principles governing the conduct of States towards each other and their citizens have played an indispensable role in diffusing tensions and laid the ground for cooperative and indivisible security in the OSCE area, where all states must respect each others rights inherent in and encompassed by sovereignty, in particular the right of every State to juridical equality, territorial integrity and to freedom and political independence, the statement noted. The Final Act puts the obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity and internationally recognized borders at the core of the inter-State relations. The Act codified the principles of territorial integrity, the inviolability of frontiers of States, and the non-use of force in such a way as to emphasize that they are consequential principles generated by the foundational norm of territorial integrity and are hence inextricably linked under international law. The Act prohibits making the territories of States the object of military occupation or other direct or indirect measures of force in contravention of international law, or the object of acquisition by means of such measures or the threat of them. Under the Helsinki Final Act, no such occupation and acquisition will be recognized as legal, added the statement. The ten Principles of the Helsinki Final Act complement each other and must be applied in their entirety, equally and unreservedly, taking into account each other. It is not without a reason, in this regard, that the Act unequivocally conditions equal rights and right to self-determination of the peoples with the respect for the norms and principles of international law, in particular those relating to the territorial integrity of States, the statement said. Misinterpretation or selective application of the founding principles of the Helsinki Final Act, in particular, in the context of conflict resolution impedes the settlement of the conflict and further contributes to an erosion of trust and confidence in the OSCE area. In this context, it is imperative more than ever to denounce any manifestation of double standards in the application of the founding principles. All conflicts dealt with by the OSCE, without exception, must be resolved exclusively on the basis of the norms and principles of international law, as enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act, in full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the affected States within their internationally recognized borders, said the statement. Azerbaijan, since the very first days of its regained independence, has been faced with a direct threat to its sovereignty and territorial integrity and therefore, attaches particular importance to the OSCE and all its principles and commitments, in particular those enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act. The Act, along with the four United Nations Security Council Resolutions adopted in 1993 (822, 853, 874, and 884), constitutes the basis for a peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the statement noted. Azerbaijan commemorates this solemn occasion of the 45th anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act and continues to rely on the Act in its efforts to restore its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and inviolability of frontiers. Azerbaijan counts on the support and solidarity of OSCE participating States in defense of these fundamental principles of the Helsinki Final Act, added the statement. Manama Bahrain yesterday announced launching a new look e-Visa website, which is the only official website to apply for an eVisa to the Kingdom. The Nationality, Passports and Residence Affairs Authority, which is the organisation responsible for managing the borders of the Kingdom, launched the website. Those wishing to enter Bahrain can apply for an electronic visa through the website, NPRA said in a statement. Visa on arrival or issuance of instant visa is stopped, until further notice. Services on offer include applying for an eVisa, check eligibility and application status, register a new guaran- tor and make payment among others. The Chinese and Australian envoys to India had a terse exchange on Twitter on Friday on Chinas actions in the South China Sea and elsewhere, with the latter saying Beijing should refrain from actions that unilaterally alter the status quo. Sun Weidong, the Chinese envoy, objected to remarks made by the Australian high commissioner, Barry OFarrell, regarding the situation in the South China Sea by saying in a tweet that they were made disregarding facts. Noted remarks by Australian HC to India on #SouthChinaSea disregarding facts. #Chinas territorial sovereignty & maritime rights & interests are in conformity [with] intl law incl UNCLOS [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea]. Its clear who safeguard peace & stability & who destabilize & provoke escalation in the region, Sun tweeted. A short while later, OFarrell responded in a tweet: Thank you @China_Amb_India. I would hope then you follow the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award which is final and binding under international law, and also generally refrain from actions that unilaterally alter the status quo. Also read: US backs ASEAN on South China Sea, challenges Chinas predatory world view OFarrell was referring to the verdict by the arbitral tribunal in the Philippines case against Chinas activities in the South China Sea. The tribunal ruled overwhelmingly in favour of the Philippines and concluded that Chinas territorial claims were unlawful. China didnt accept the verdict. Chinas claims in the South China Sea have been challenged by several countries, including the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan. Suns tweet was a response to remarks by OFarrell in a statement issued by the Australian mission after his meeting with external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Thursday. OFarrell backed Indias position on the border standoff with China, saying Australia opposed attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as this could increase the risk of instability. The statement said Australia continues to be concerned by Chinas actions in the South China Sea, which are destabilising and could provoke escalation. On July 23, Australia had lodged a note with the UN Secretary General refuting Chinas unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea. Also read: Amid rising tension with US, China holds live-fire drills near South China Sea While Sun didnt respond to OFarrells comments on the border standoff, he took exception to the references to the South China Sea. The Chinese envoy also faced criticism from former Indian diplomats and military officials for his comments during a webinar on India-China relations held on Thursday. During the webinar, Sun sought to blame India for both the border standoff and the June 15 clash at Galwan Valley that resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and unspecified Chinese casualties. He also sought to imply that Indias position on interpreting the LAC could lead to new disputes, and that this was one of the reasons why the process for clarifying the disputed had stalled since 2002. Responding to these remarks, former army chief Gen VP Malik tweeted: By his statement yesterday, #Ambassador Sun Weidong of China has virtually ended any possible progress in LAC talks between military commanders. Former Former ambassador Rajiv Bhatia, distinguished fellow for foreign policy studies at Gateway House, described the Chinese envoys address at the webinar as a classic dialogue of the deaf. Bhatia added: He talks at, not to, us. Charlize Theron is happily dating herself. The 44-year-old actress, appearing on the podcast InCharge with DVF, Diane Von Furstenbergs podcast, shared a discussion she had with daughters Jackson, eight, and August, four, about her love life, telling them how she's dating herself. 'Two days ago I was in the car with my two girls and my little one said something like, "You need a boyfriend,"' the Oscar-winning Monster star said. 'And I said, "Actually, I dont. Right now, I feel really good." The latest: Charlize Theron, 44, told the podcast InCharge with DVF , Diane Von Furstenbergs podcast, shared a discussion she had with daughters Jackson, eight, and August, four, about her love life, telling that how she's happily dating herself 'And shes like, "You know what, mom? You just need a boyfriend, you need a relationship!"' The South African actress said after she said she's dating herself, August 'had this look in her eye like she had never really contemplated that that was even a possibility.' The Atomic Blonde actress added, 'Her mind was blown; but, I know that was the day that she realized theres a different possibility.' Theron adopted Jackson in 2012 and August in 2015; she and also opened up about she had always wanted to adopt children, and the thought and technical process in doing so. Stunning: The A-list beauty was snapped at the Vanity Fair Oscar bash this year Sign of the times: The Oscar-winner took to Instagram earlier this month with a selfie with a mask on Theron said the process began when she 'was leaving a relationship, a long, almost 10-year relationship,' purportedly with actor Stuart Townsend. 'In the last couple of years of that relationship, I really wanted to become a mother, and it didnt happen,' she said. 'And so when the relationship ended, I think it was, like, the next morning, I wanted to file for adoption. 'So I found an adoption lawyer here in Los Angeles, and I filed not only domestically but also internationally.' She opened up on being 'the mom to two African American girls' and 'the mom to an African American trans girl' in Jackson. 'All of these things have kind of made me more aware of how little I know,' she said. 'My children have completely reopened my eyes to the world. 'And I jokingly always say, "Im back at university. Im back having to learn every single day, because they challenge me in that way." State regulators suspended an Eversource customer rate increase Friday that took effect at the start of July, even as the company pledged to work with electricity customers struggling to pay bills that popped in tandem with a summer heat wave. It was a highly unusual move by the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority amid an uproar over skyrocketing bills, with elected officials in both parties calling for rollbacks and investigations in recent days. An Eversource spokesperson indicated the company will comply promptly and reiterated any customers struggling with bills can contact it to explore alternative payment arrangements. We understand and share concerns that customers are expressing regarding recent higher-than-normal bills, stated Eversource spokesperson Tricia Modifica, in an email Friday afternoon. We will work quickly to enact PURAs temporary suspension of the rate adjustment and look forward to participating in the process to ensure transparency for customers and policy makers. Some families have complained of bills doubling to more than $300, even as they continue to hunker down during the COVID-19 pandemic that has put more than 250,000 Connecticut residents onto unemployment compensation. In fact, taking into account all the charges on a customers bill, Eversource rates went down on July 1, not up, as the biggest element the cost of generation declined by 22 percent for customers who pay the standard rate. Those rising bills are largely the result of increased electric consumption for air conditioning. But the agency took aim at a charge that did increase, in part because of a special deal the state gave the owner of the owner of Millstone nuclear plant in Waterford last year. In July, Eversource customers began paying nearly twice as much as before for the power generated by the Millstone, along with an additional transmission access charge mandated by the federal government. Combined, the two measures amount to about $25 extra on the average homes bill if a household is using air conditioning. Gov. Ned Lamont had brokered the increase for Millstone last year a change in the way the nuclear-generated electicity was purchased citing a threat from operator Dominion Energy that it might seek to shutter Millstone if it could not earn profits that are competitive with those of electricity plants fired by natural gas. Those natural gas plants are paying historically low prices for fuel that has pushed some drillers into bankruptcy. On Friday, Lamont pledged to have his administration weigh in during a PURA hearing slated for August 24. The issue is complicate by the fact that Eversource, United Illuminating and other utilities do not make more or less money as the generation rates rise and fall. It was just worth taking a pause, Lamont said Friday afternoon in Hartford. Lets face it, the people of Connecticut [and] the people of this country have gotten slammed by a COVID economy over the last four months. The last thing you wanted to see was a big, new electric bill coming in. He continued, Were doing everything we can to make sure you have confidence that if there is an increase, why theres an increase and make sure theres no excess. He added that the state is doing everything we can to advance energy efficiency measures, to make sure it makes it less expensive for you to cool your home in the summer and heat your home in the winter. Making plenty of money PURA made a quick decision after opening a probe this week at the request of nearly a dozen members of the Connecticut General Assembly. In a separate action Friday, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and state Attorney General William Tong asked federal regulators to postpone for one year the new transmission access charge that they estimated tacked $9 on average to household electricity bills in June. Electricity usage has spiked on a spate of hot weather this summer, as more families turn up the air conditioning while at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The bills in general are due to much hotter weather in June and more customers working at home, said Philip Lembo, chief financial officer of Eversource, speaking early Friday. People are hurting [and] we want to be part of the solution here. ... We are working closely with all our customers, the regulators and other folks to get the message out. PURA ordered the rollback Friday, with its executive secretary Jeffrey Gaudiosi noting in a letter to Eversource the suspension is temporary as PURA conducts its query amid numerous complaints it has received. Earlier in the day, Eversource indicated thousands of customers have called about their bill increases. The intent of this reexamination is to ensure that Eversource is not over-collecting revenues in the short term at the expense of ratepayers during this period of financial hardship, Gaudiosi stated in his letter to Eversource. In Hartford on Friday, Blumenthal weighed in on PURAs action, calling the rate increase absolutely damaging to our whole economy. Blumenthal also said the Millstone agreement needs to be looked at anew, but kept the focus on Eversource. PURA has provided a short-term solution it suspends the rate increase but what we need is a more fundamental solution, Blumenthal said Friday. This utilitys making plenty of money. Special payment plans On a Friday morning conference call, an Eversource executive estimated the new Millstone terms added 3.5 percent to customers most recent bill in Connecticut while noting customer consumption was 26 percent higher in June on average as measured in kilowatt hours. July bills, due to hit mailboxes next week, will reflect the full Millstone impact of the increase in a federally mandated congestion charge that appears as FMCC Delivery on bills. The new rate nearly doubled to nearly 3 cents per kilowatt hour, which for many customers could add $15 or more to their monthly amounts due, depending on the degree to which they use air conditioning, basement dehumidifiers as a guard against mold, electric vehicles or other major appliances. Eversource has created a COVID-19 Payment Program in which any customer can enroll, through which they can defer payments over up to two years without fees or interest, with a deadline of Nov. 1 for residential customers to sign up and Oct. 1 for business customers. The company is also expanding enrollment in an existing New Start program through which customers can get overdue balances forgiven if they are otherwise up to date on current amounts due. New Start eligibility is typically limited to customers with combined income at less than 60 percent of the states median income, or less than $70,000 for a household of four. Information is online at www.eversource.com; customers can inquire on their eligibility for any programs by phone as well at 1-800-286-2000. The company has not adjusted the income limits on the program, according to Penni Conner, chief customer officer for Eversource, but more customers in Connecticut now qualify due to having lost jobs or otherwise seen their income reduced during the pandemic. As of mid-July, the U.S. Department of Labor listed 253,000 state residents receiving unemployment compensation, about 3,200 more than the previous week, not including nearly 50,000 more people who qualify as independent contractors under the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. We want them to call in, because we have programs that ... can help them, Conner said Friday morning during an interview. June was 13 degrees warmer than the previous June [and] bills are high. August is going to also be very high. ... A lot of customers who perhaps did not qualify before may qualify today. She added Eversource has seen an 11 percent increase in the number of customers classified as delinquent in payments, of those six weeks past due on bills of $75 or more. Moratorium on shutoffs Eversource is the largest utility in New England with some 4 million customers, running the company from dual headquarters in Boston and Hartford and a sprawling operations hub in Berlin. Eversources electric transmission and distribution services span Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire; the company also provides water service through its Bridgeport-based Aquarion subsidiary, and natural gas as well. Orange-based Avangrid is Connecticuts other major electric transmission service provider via its United Illuminating division. Earlier this week, the Connecticut Office of Consumer Counsel asked PURA to authorize a United Illuminating repayment of more than $8 million to consumers, after the company requested permission to do so in March after better-than-expected profits last year. Under a Lamont executive order early into the COVID-19 pandemic, utilities are prevented from discontinuing service for nonpayment of bills. Massachusetts and New Hampshire put similar bans in place, with Gov. Chris Sununu having lifted it since in New Hampshire. Eversource stated Friday it has not implemented shutoffs in New Hampshire since the states moratorium reached its sunset in mid-July. Over the three months prior to the Dominion bump, Eversource spent $9 million more for purchased power, fuel and electric transmission costs, a 1.4 percent increase from the second quarter of 2019. Eversources electric transmission and distribution operations produced profits of $246 million in the second quarter, up $22 million from the year before. Under Connecticuts decoupling law, Eversource and Avangrid cannot profit off higher costs for power that is purchased for transmission over their lines to customers. Eversources overall 2019 earnings were impacted by a $204 million charge to account for the utility ending its Northern Pass proposal to build new transmission lines in New Hampshire to import hydroelectric power from Canada. Avangrid is now pushing ahead with a plan to run lines south through Maine. Eversource filed separately on Friday an overarching proposal to modernize Connecticuts grid, to include advanced customer meters, electric vehicle chargers, and batteries to store the electricity generated by renewable sources of energy. Staff Writer Luther Turmelle contributed to this report. Corrected from an initial version to include Eversource reply to a Friday afternoon query. Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. During a working visit in Artsakh Defense Minister of Armenia Davit Tonoyan visited several military units and separate divisions of the Defense Army, his spokesperson Shushan Stepanyan said on Facebook. The minister was accompanied by Commander of the Artaskh Defense Army, Major-General Jalal Harutyunyan. Minister Tonoyan arrived in Artsakh on a two-day working visit within the framework of the mutual partnership and action combination program between the two defense ministries. During the visit to the military units minister Tonoyan got acquainted with the service conditions of soldiers and other issues which need to be solved. He also paid attention to the latest weapons and technical upgrade in the Defense Army. Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan VANCOUVERMarine mammal rescue groups and federal fisheries officials are working against time in waters off the coast of British Columbia to save three humpback whales entangled in fishing gear. The first entangled animal, named Checkmate, was seen Saturday off east Vancouver Island but rescuers couldnt get close enough to help it, said Paul Cottrell, the Pacific marine mammals co-ordinator for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Checkmate has a trap and line running through its mouth and is trailing other gear, he said. When the whale was found, he said rescuers realized someone had cut off the buoy making it difficult to spot the animal and remove other gear. The trap is very close to the body so its going to be very difficult to remove the rest of the gear, said Cottrell. The other two entangled whales were sighted while rescuers were out looking for Checkmate. We get entanglements every year so its not atypical, Cottrell said. But its not usual to get so many at one time. Its just been crazy. Fortunately, teams were able to remove a lot of the gear that the second whale, named X-ray, had been trailing, he said. A satellite tag was also attached to X-ray so it could be relocated, and the rest of the gear could be removed but the team hasnt seen the whale since. Its very hard to follow the animals because they can move large distances and stay underwater for so long, Cottrell explained. The third yet-to-be-named whale seen near the Central Coast has netting around its head that Cottrell described as problematic because it makes it difficult for the animal to eat. That whale is also trailing other gear, he said. Once a whale gets entangled in one trap, it picks up other gear as it moves through the water column, he explained. Its like if you step on gum, youre going to pick up dirt and other stuff. Cottrell said these whales are amazingly robust and can carry gear for long periods of time, sometimes more than a year, depending on how it affects their foraging ability. The whale with the net around its head and the one with the line running through its mouth are of greatest concern, he said. British Columbia has seen a resurgence in humpback populations over the last few years with most of the animals coming from Hawaii to the inshore waters, said Cottrell. And really thats a success story. But the downside is that we do have recreational commercial fisheries and we have a lot of lines in the water. Joe Gaydos said the humpback population is recovering so the entanglement of three animals is not going to affect overall numbers as it could for a species like the endangered North Atlantic right whale. That said, this is a huge animal welfare concern, said the science director for the SeaDoc Society from the University of California, Davis. There is no denying that it is human caused injury and we know these animals can trail that gear for a long time causing prolonged suffering before death. Humpbacks are classified as special concern under the Species at Risk Act. They number about 18,000 according to the Fisheries and Oceans Canada website. Cottrell said removing entangled fishing gear from whales is an exercise in caution and patience. Experts use drones to assess the gear, entanglement and the best way to approach these animals to free them, he said. Whales are huge and powerful and it can take a while to tire them out before getting close to them, he said adding they are usually agitated and uncomfortable because of the entanglement. They cant do what they want to do, what they normally do and theyre not happy. Theres behavioural cues around trumpet blowing and theyll do breaches, theyll do tail slaps and all sorts of other things, he said. Martin Haulena, head veterinarian at the Ocean Wise Marine Mammal Centre and the Vancouver Aquarium, said it is important to catalogue the gear. So, we know what is affecting which whales so that we can help mitigate that in the future, he said. I think it is a huge animal welfare concern as animals can suffer for a really long time and it is directly the result of human activity. Read more about: Bengaluru: Backing former Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs demonetisation comments in Parliament, CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Saturday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Narendra Moun Modi for remaining silent in Parliament over the issue. Mr Narendra Modi used to call Manmohan Singh Moun Mohan Singh - that he doesnt open his mouth. In this Parliament session, the tables have reversed. Manmohan Singh spoke rather eloquently and it was Modi who was sitting silent and did not come back to Parliament after the break, he told reporters. The statement comes in the wake of Singhs comments on demonetisation when he said the step would lead to a dip in GDP growth by at least two per cent and that it was a case of organised loot and legalised plunder and reflected a monumental management failure. Yechury said demonetisation would have a deep impact on the Indian economy on a medium term basis as it would take at least six months for things to settle down. It will take 175 days - it means six months - to actually bring back the economy to a level which was there prior to the November 8 announcement. It will have a very deep impact on the Indian economy for medium term, he said. Yechury said that even after this period, there would be circulation of counterfeit currency, black money and continuation of corruption. Black money is not always a stock. Only five to six per cent is as stock. Much of the black money is a flow. It is in real estate and jewellery, he added. Yechury said the success of demonetisation in India is a far cry as the country has 1.3 billion people with inadequate internet connectivity, unlike Sweden, the worlds only cashless economy. That country could achieve it as they have a small population and have 100 per cent internet connectivity. By the time the transition takes place it will be many many years, he said. Yechury opined it would not be possible to weed out black money unless there was a check on corporate funding to political parties. However, it could be a reality if there were state funded elections. If you want to stop corruption, block the supply side of corruption. Why are you not stopping corporate funding to political parties? Let there be a system of state funding of elections. Unless you do this, how can you check this sort of black money? he asked. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. 'The hack may have been done by a rogue Twitter employee, or it may have been a smart hack into the Twitter system, or a social hack where someone conned Twitter's employees into giving them access,' suspects Devangshu Datta. Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com The details of how the Twitter-bitcoin hack occurred are as yet unclear. What we know is that somebody gained access to about 130 verified and highly followed Twitter accounts, and used that access to scam an estimated $120,000 equivalent. This list of hacked Twitter accounts included the accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Apple, Uber, etc. The hacker or hackers sent out a series of identical messages. These essentially solicited bitcoin donations into a couple of cryptocurrency wallets with a promise that the sender would reciprocate by sending back double the amount. Mr Musk's first scam-tweet, for instance, said he would double any payment sent to a given bitcoin wallet because he was feeling generous due to COVID-19. The other messages from other verified accounts were identical or similar, with minor variations, and at least one other bitcoin wallet mentioned. These were all verified, blue tick twitter accounts, with two factor authentication enabled in many cases. According to Twitter, which shut down access to all verified accounts for a brief while, passwords were not compromised. The hacker or hackers gained access to the tools used within Twitter to spoof these messages. How they did this is not yet clear. The hack may have been done by a rogue Twitter employee, or it may have been a smart hack into the Twitter system, or a social hack where someone conned Twitter's employees into giving them access. Some people fell for the scam and transferred bitcoins equivalent to about $120,000 to the referred wallets. Bitcoin traded at around $9,100 when the hack happened, so there were around 13 coins transferred to those wallets. Each coin can be broken up into multiple, unique micro-units, down to a Satoshi, which is one-hundred-millionth of a coin. So, there may have been a large number of people who fell for the scam. Bitcoin is famous for its blockchain, the electronic ledger which can be accessed by anyone who cares to do so. Blockchains are difficult to hack. Every bitcoin transaction has to be verified by a majority of blockchain users, and every transaction ever made in bitcoin is recorded on the blockchain. Using the blockchain we can look at a wallet and see the coins it holds. A transaction is confirmed when users agree that the unique coin 'X' was in a given wallet 'A', and that X was transferred to another given wallet 'B', by using a unique cryptographic key possessed by only the owner of that wallet A. However, the bitcoin blockchain is anonymous by design. While anybody can verify a specific bitcoin has been transferred from wallet 'A'/ to wallet 'B', the name of the owner of either wallet is not verifiable. Anybody can own any number of wallets. Indeed, anybody can make a wallet, or download any number of wallets for free, anonymously from different services. Since transactions can only be made by the use of that unique key which is associated with each wallet, the owner of a wallet can remain anonymous. Finding the actual owner of the wallets used in the hack will be hard. Transfers of coins can be tracked, even though a smart hacker will layer in multiple transactions to make this hard. Transfers of the hacked coins on crypto exchanges outside the jurisdiction of US law enforcement will be impossible to stop. It's very likely that the victims will never get their money back. It's clear there are ways of bypassing 2FA and taking control of verified accounts even at one of the world's most high-profile tech companies. Whether this involves a social hack, or a smart guy bypassing security is almost irrelevant. There will always be routes into widely used systems, where a multitude of people (Twitter's employees in this case) have access to system tools. Twitter stores little in the way of sensitive personal information, even about verified accounts. The US also has a good set up for investigating cybercrimes. What happens in India if somebody hacks into Aadhaar or Aarogya Setu, where there is a truckload of sensitive personal information and no law for personal data protection? Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com Mqhayi Day organising team: From left, Stembele Johnson, Tolakele Silo and Rendani Molubo. This prestigious event is held annually to celebrate the life and the works of Samuel Edward Krune Loliwe Ngxekengxeke (S.E.K.) Mqhayi, who is regarded as the Father of isiXhosa Poetry. The brains behind this prestigious event is the former Senior Lecturer of the African Languages Studies Section, Dr Mhlobo Wabantwana Jadezweni, who is now a visiting fellow in the School of Languages and Literatures, at Rhodes University. Mqhayi was a teacher, Xhosa dramatist, essayist, critic, novelist, historian, biographer, translator and poet whose works are regarded as instrumental in standardising the grammar of isiXhosa and preserving the language in the 20th century. He was born on 1 December 1875 near Gqumahashe in Alice. One of the organisers of the event and Head of the African Languages Studies Section, Mr Msindisi Sam, said the committee decided to hold the event online instead of cancelling it. He said the significance of the event and the fact that it has become part of Rhodes University calendar motivated them to carry on with the event. He said: Having the event online helped us reach an extensive audience. We had people from University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, University of New York and we even had the pleasure of having the former Vice Chancellor of Unisa Professor Barney Pityana attending. We normally only have attendees from the universities in the Eastern Cape Province. We also had an extensive number of members of the Mqhayi family and extended family in attendance, yet when we have it on campus we usually only have about three to five family members. Subject Head of Creative Writing, Dr Hleze Kunju said the event attracted over 70 people on Zoom and they received an overwhelming response on Facebook. The African Languages Lectures, such as Sabelo Sawula, Rendani Molubo and Sthembele Johnson did an excellent job in planning and marketing the event. These are young people, this also shows the impact that Mqhayi still has. His writing was way ahead of his time. The first isiXhosa novel was written and published by Mqhayi, his main aim in this novel was to encourage youth to support black leaders, and that is still relevant to this day. Makhanda-born award-wining scribe and government employee working in the office of the President, Dr Siphiwo Mahala was the guest speaker at the event. He said even though Mqhayi passed away exactly 75 years ago, he remains one of the most respected African intellectuals. He was instrumental in standardising the grammar and orthography of the isiXhosa language. The hallmark of his contribution to the development of the isiXhosa language and literature is poetry, is in both its oral and written forms. This is a tradition that has been handed down from generation to generation. It is for this reason that as we reflect on the life of S.E.K. Mqhayi, we also acknowledge those who carry on his legacy, he said. Dr Mahala said the life of S.E.K. Mqhayi teaches us to be proud of who we are our languages, culture and traditions. He established an intellectual practice where he dedicated his life to knowledge production. Most importantly, what stands out is his courage to venture into unexplored paths and created new pathways for us to follow. Perhaps, the pertinent question that can be asked at this stage is who are the Mqhayis of our generation who aspire to the same intellectual practice? he questioned. He further suggested that there are a number of other interventions that can and should be made in our efforts to sustain the legacy of S.E.K Mqhayi. We often wonder where the new writers who will serve as the vanguards of our indigenous languages are. The truth is, there are many young aspirant writers with great potential, but they vanish in thin air because of lack of support mechanisms. We need to create publishing opportunities and alternative distribution channels for new writers. Books must be easily accessible to communities so that reading becomes part of our national pastime, he said. He paid homage to two poets who passed away recently, Bonisile Nqweniso and Zindzi Mandela. He said he considered Nqweniso as one of the leading proponents of oral poetry in the Makana District and he looked up to him as he was growing up in the streets of Makhanda. He described Mandela as a courageous woman of power, more well-known as a political activist than as a poet. She was named after the daughter of S.E.K. Mqhayi, Zindziswa, because her father, Nelson Mandela, was a great admirer of the bard. The former Statesman writes extensively in Long Walk to Freedom, about his profound encounter with Mqhayi when he was a student in Healdtown, he added. Mr Sam attributed the success of the event over the years to the founder Dr Mhlobo Jadazweni. He challenged the youth to pay more interest in the works of Mqhayi as it speaks to the issue of language and importance of mother tongue. I would also like to acknowledge other colleagues from other departments who use isiXhosa in their teaching. At the Department of Statistics we have Thina Maqubela who uses isiXhosa and does YouTube videos in isiXhosa. That contributes to the work that we do. At Economics and Economic History, we have Professor Jen Snowball, who allows students to express themselves in isiXhosa, he concluded. As part of Rhodes Universitys transformation agenda, the SEK Mqhayi Day is held on 29 July annually, which marks the anniversary of his death in 1945 Source: Communications Please help us to raise funds so that we can give all our students a chance to access online teaching and learning. Covid-19 has disrupted our students' education. Don't let the digital divide put their future at risk. Visit www.ru.ac.za/rucoronavirusgateway to donate FILE - In this April 13, 2020, file photo a person wearing a protective mask walks down Market Street in Philadelphia. Across an arc of vital swing states, the coronavirus has put politics on an uneasy pause. Political fights are raging among state leaders from Iowa to Pennsylvania over the handling of the pandemics impact. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) Read more The federal program that has delivered an extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits to millions of Americans ended Friday, and negotiations over extending it have stalled in Washington. About three million people in Pennsylvania get the checks, which have helped tide a lot of people over during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the deepening economic fallout. The last $600 payments in Pennsylvania and New Jersey went out last week. So, what do you do now? Here are some ways you can find support: Rent and mortgage help If you need rent relief because of the pandemic, you can apply for assistance through a program from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. If you are applying for rent relief through the PHFA program, you must have become unemployed after March 1 as a result of the pandemic. Those who can demonstrate a drop in their annual income of at least 30% due to the pandemic can also qualify. If you qualify for rent assistance, you can get up to $750 a month in relief for a maximum of six months, for rent due between March 1 and Nov. 30 up to $4,500 in assistance. The money goes directly to landlords, not to renters. Homeowners who are eligible can get up to $1,000 a month in assistance for up to six months for mortgage payments owed between March and December. Just like the rent program, the money goes straight to the mortgage lenders, not to the homeowner. Applications close Sept. 30. If you have questions about the program and your eligibility, you can reach the PHFA at 855-827-3466 weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. In addition, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services offers rental assistance, bridge housing, emergency housing, and more support through its Homeless Assistance Program. HAP benefits go up to $1,500 for a family with children, and $1,000 for an individual. READ MORE: You can apply for mortgage and rent assistance in Pennsylvania right now. Heres how. Food assistance Here are some area food banks where you can get help. Its a good idea to visit their websites and/or social media pages for updated information. Philabundance serves about 350 local pantries in nine counties, five in Southeastern Pennsylvania and four in South Jersey. (Those counties are Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, and Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Salem in New Jersey.) Just type in your zip code and see which food pantry is closest to you. The City of Philadelphia has a list of where to find free food during the COVID-19 crisis here. There are also sites where families can pick up meals for children at locations across the city. All children are eligible and no ID is required. Find a meal site near you. To find a lunch site near you, text FOOD or COMIDA to 877-877. Additional meals for children can also be found at the Coalition Against Hunger. In New Jersey, here are some resources: Food Bank of South Jersey. This food bank supplies approximately 190 food pantries in Camden, Burlington, Gloucester, and Salem Counties. Community Food Bank of New Jersey (Southern Branch). Located in Egg Harbor Township, this branch covers Atlantic, Cape May, and Cumberland Counties. READ MORE: Where to find free food right now if you need it Help with bills In Philadelphia, there is the Utility Emergency Services Fund. UESF provides assistance to families facing utility terminations or are already shut off. In addition to help with utility payments, the program also offers help with rent, security deposits, and mortgage payments. The Philadelphia Water Department also offers a low-income assistance program with payments based on household income, not water usage, making monthly bills more affordable and consistent. For more information, call the Water Department at 215-685-6300. PECO has also suspended nonpayment service disconnections and waived new late fees, as well as offering payment options and financial assistance to help pay down existing bills. If you have a past-due bill, you may also be eligible for up to $800 through LIHEAPs (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) Recovery Crisis Program, which is open to renters and homeowners through Aug. 31. Any assistance does not have to be repaid. READ MORE: Federal, state and city programs that can help you if youve been affected by the pandemic Help for families In Philly, the city is offering support for pregnant women, toddlers, and babies, with free food and diapers at more than 10 sites across the city. In New Jersey, the WIC program helps pregnant women or parents with kids who are 5 and under. For information on how to get that support, check the website. READ MORE: Philly is offering free meals for seniors and free diapers for babies. Heres how to get them. Mental health help There are many places that are offering free or low-cost support right now, including counseling, grief support, substance use issues and more. And you dont have to leave your house to use it. Heres a list of resources around the region. READ MORE: Where to find free and low-cost therapy and support right now Help looking for a job Here is a list of companies in Philly that are currently hiring. The Philadelphia Inquirer is one of more than 20 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the citys push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at brokeinphilly.org. A woman who thinks things are about to change. Photo: Bravo TV I have to begin with a mea culpa. In my column last week, I misspelled Andy Sandbergs name, as some astute readers pointed out on Twitter. I am deeply sorry for misspelling Andi Sanburgs name, which is famously one of the worst things you can do to another human being. I solemnly swear to do better in the future and that I will never misspell Andee Snailbugs name ever again. Now that Ive issued a perfect apology, this was a huge week in late night, because the Emmy nominations were announced on Tuesday. Remember award shows? That thing where celebrities give other celebrities tiny little trophies for being exceptionally celebrity-esque in any given year? Theres truly nothing I love more. The Daily Show With Trevor Noah, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, and The Late Show With Stephen Colbert were the lucky five to get nominated for Outstanding Variety Talk Series, while Late Night With Seth Meyers took Emmy host Jimmy Kimmels slot for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series. Somewhat surprisingly, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon didnt score any nominations, despite being wildly popular with wine moms across the country. The only duo more deserving of an Emmy nomination than Winnie and Franny is Desus & Mero. Now, its time for me to announce the Emmy nominees for Best Moment in Late-Night Television the Last Week of July. And the nominees are 5. Seth Rogen Drinks Pickle Juice on The Tonight Show Although Jimmy Fallon didnt receive any Emmy nominations this year, he does get a slot on this list for his subtle work in the Pickle Juice Challenge co-starring Seth Rogen. Inspired by Rogens upcoming film An American Pickle, Fallon challenged Rogen to a pickle-themed trivia contest, which saw the pair take a shot of pickle juice whenever the other answered a question correctly about pickles, which was surprisingly often. While I dont particularly like or care for pickles (sorry), Rogen drinking pickle juice in a fun, patterned shirt with his pinky up is an undeniable mood. Come to think of it, my favorite thing about pickle juice is Nicki Minajs infamous monologue about pickle juice, which is 90 percent of the reason this clip made the list. Also, Rogens cool-ass glasses. Hes bossed up. 4. Desus and Meros Baroque Boys Verzuz Battle Im sorry, but who else is doing it like the Bodega Baroque Boys? Desus and Mero gloriously spoofed the Verzuz battle trend with their very own historically accurate Verzuz battle between Beethoven and his alter ego Jayhoven. The segment was set during the Black Plague, so Desus told everyone to wear their masks and keep a sack of onions in your left pocket, while Mero softly suggested that maybe if people stopped defecating in the street then drinking the water, the plague would maybe go away. Why there is no GIF of Desus licking the strings of his violin yet is a mystery to me, but so is the fact that Desus & Mero didnt get nominated for an Emmy. Special shout-out to whoever made the comment section and made the Instagram handles !SuckMyDickBach!, DJharpsikhaled, and my personal favorite, REAL_Claude_DeBU$$Y. Pop that, Debussy. 3. John Oliver on Uighurs in China The first late-night show to be nominated for an Emmy to appear on this list, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver tackled the alarming human-rights abuses currently happening to the Uighur people, an ethnic minority group mostly located in northwestern China, at the hands of the Chinese government. As per usual, Oliver was able to pack in an incredible amount of information detailing the atrocities that are currently being waged against the Uighur people, who are being sent to forced labor camps and reeducation centers where they are unable to leave of their own volition, while also, somehow, managing to throw in a plethora of jokes. While censorship is obviously very bad, I wouldnt mind seeing an animated series starring the cactus in a Santa hat. Oliver ended the segment by calling out companies such as Nike and Volkswagen for using Uighur labor to make their products, both of which claimed they were unaware of the human-rights atrocities happening in their very own factories. Look, I know things are pretty bleak in the USA right now, but whats happening to the Uighurs is incredibly alarming and deserves our attention. 2. Trevor Noah Shines a Light on Black Women Speaking of things that deserve our collective attention, this week on The Daily Show, Trevor Noah devoted a segment to highlighting and celebrating Black women. In the latest installment of If You Dont Know, Now You Know, Noah detailed the history of the erasure of Black women as leaders of social-justice movements, from Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, and Mary Church Terrell in the womens suffrage movement all the way to the Black Lives Matter movement founded by Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors. The segment was such a great example of how whitewashed history is. I clearly remember learning about Susan B. Anthony (shes on a coin) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Seneca Falls Convention, lets go) in grade school, but I absolutely didnt hear the names Ida B. Wells or Mary Church Terrell uttered in an academic context until my junior year of college, and that is an example of academic misogynoir. Merci beaucoup to Trevor Noah et. al for educating the masses and centering Black women in the narrative, while also serving an incredible example of Black French New Wave Cinema. 1. Naomi Campbell Being Naomi Campbell In the spirit of centering Black women and giving credit where credit is due, the Emmy Award for Best Late-Night Television Performance in the Last Week of July goes to [opens envelope] none other than Naomi Campbell. The supermodel stopped by Watch What Happens Live this week and did what she does best: look breathtakingly gorgeous and deliver absolutely massive amounts of shade. While everything Campbell said was a delight, the best moment happened when Andy Cohen asked her thoughts about Anna Wintours statement about Vogue not finding enough ways to elevate Black creators. I think things are about to change, dont you? said Campbell, encapsulating everything there is to say about Wintour, Conde Nast, and the world at large in one perfect sentence. Her delivery, her laugh at the end, her lean into the camera its all exquisite. Its work on par with Dakota Johnsons Thats not true, Ellen and should be recognized as such. Campbell went on to express how much she hated being tokenized in the fashion industry and the need for equality in all levels of of every industry, but in that one sentence she said everything that needed to be said. A well-deserved (fake) Emmy win by Ms. Campbell. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 17:16:49|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close KABUL, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The Afghans on Friday began to celebrate Eid al-Adha, the annual Festival of Sacrifice, by attending prayers as the Taliban and government security forces observed a three-day ceasefire during Eid days. Afghan worshippers offered prayers in big mosques across the country while practicing social distancing amid the COVID-19 pandemic on Friday morning. President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani also took part in Eid prayers together with senior officials and cabinet members in a mosque at the Presidential Palace earlier on Friday. Greeting the nation, the Afghan president greeted the people and security forces, saying "let's also honor the sacrifices of our brave soldiers and keep them in our prayers." "As the Taliban announced ceasefire, for a good will and taking in mind the acceleration of peace process, I announce the release of up to 500 additional Taliban prisoners within four days, in addition to the list given by the Taliban," President Ghani said in a short speech. The exchange of 5,000 Taliban prisoners and 1,000 government soldiers is part of a peace agreement signed between the United States and Taliban in Qatar in February. The government is not a signatory of the deal. About 4,600 Taliban inmates have been freed so far since March but the Afghan government suspended the release of the last 400 Taliban inmates over their involvement in serious crimes. "The government of Afghanistan, under the country's constitution and the criminal of (Code of Law) has no authority to release 400 prisoners listed by the Taliban. But this doesn't mean we give negative response to the release of all Taliban prisoners," Ghani noted. "I have to confer with the nation by convening Loya Jirga or grand assembly to take decision in connection to the fate of the said 400 prisoners." Meanwhile, Taliban militants freed 82 Afghan soldiers on Thursday, bringing to 1,000 the total number of Afghan security force members released by the group. Following the Eid prayers, the worshipers joined the sacrificing of animals and distributing the meat to the poor families. Muslims wear new clothes on Eid days and greet relatives and friends to boost cordial relations. Pocket money and gifts are given to children on this occasion. However, nine people were killed and 40 others wounded in a suicide car bomb explosion in Pul-e-Alam, capital city of eastern Logar province on Thursday evening. The Taliban denied that its fighters were involved in the attack. The deadly blast also damaged scores of shops and buildings near a main traffic square in the region, 60 km south of Kabul. Enditem It's a milestone the country was never supposed to reach. First, there were the reassurances: "Like a miracle, it will disappear," the president promised months ago. And then came the shutdowns, with calls for a coherent national strategy and optimistic projected death tolls. But the divine has not intervened. The shutdowns were lifted, the warnings ignored and the predictions surpassed. And now, the novel coronavirus has officially killed more than 150,000 people in the United States, according to data gathered by The Washington Post. While the disease continues to kill the oldest with impunity, other disturbing trends have emerged. Among them: Hispanics make up an increasing proportion of covid-19 deaths. More than 25,800 have been struck down by the merciless pathogen, which now accounts for 1 out of every 5 deaths among Hispanics, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by The Post. America's death count reached six figures just after Memorial Day. In the summer weeks that followed, leaders who triumphantly reopened their states reversed course as coronavirus infections soared among their residents. Instead of jump-starting the economy, the restart fueled the virus's spread. The national fatality rate, on the decline for most of June, began rising steadily in July, and scenes from the pandemic's darkest days - the overwhelmed hospitals and overflowing morgues of New York City - were reenacted in states across the South and West. The contours of the crisis have not changed much: The virus has continued to deepen the country's divides and exploit its systemic inequities. The willingness to wear a mask, perhaps the most basic precaution, varies widely by political affiliation. And those hurt most by the rampant spread are still overwhelmingly elderly and disproportionately people of color. New numbers published recently by the CDC present one of the most complete pictures yet of the pandemic's evolving impact and shifting burden. When the virus first swept across the country, it devastated Black communities, killing African Americans at a disproportionately high rate in nearly every jurisdiction that published race data. In recent weeks, Hispanics and Native Americans have made up an increasing proportion of covid-19 deaths. The disease now accounts for nearly 20% of all deaths among those groups, higher than any other race or ethnicity in recent weeks, according to a Post analysis of the CDC data. Both in hot-spot states, and in states where the total number of deaths has decreased, Hispanics make up an increasing share of those deaths - a signal that the pandemic's shifting demographics are not due to its shifting geography. The death rate among Native Americans, meanwhile, has stayed somewhat consistent, even as it declines for other groups. States have reported an average of more than 1,000 virus-related deaths per day this week, the highest rate since late May, and experts say the toll is likely to increase rapidly. "We're playing with fire and gasoline and pine needles, and it could very well explode in our face, and I'm very concerned it will without serious and concerted action," said Howard Markel, a historian and physician at the University of Michigan. "I fear that we are headed, given the way it's being handled, to the worst contagious crisis in human history." Official government tallies tell only part of the story. The true toll probably exceeded 150,000 weeks ago. Epidemiologists say the country's shoddy testing infrastructure has allowed virus fatalities to go undiagnosed. Also, the pandemic's far-reaching effect on the health-care system has almost certainly contributed indirectly to many more deaths - in people afraid to seek medical care for other maladies, for example. Some fear the growing toll will have a numbing effect on Americans' psyches. "At some point, the numbers get so big that they lose their impact," said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "I worry as we continue to mark these milestones that they just become numbers, and they stop really resonating with us as deaths." In the pandemic's first few months, deadly outbreaks in New York, along with surges in other cities in the Northeast and Midwest, fueled the country's toll. In mid-April, New York state reported more than 1,000 deaths in a single day three times, accounting for nearly half of all deaths nationally. But now the virus is entrenched in the Sun Belt. Texas, Florida, California, Arizona and South Carolina have recorded the most average daily deaths in the past week. Mississippi and Louisiana have also seen sharp upticks in their numbers of fatalities per capita. And in many of these places, where the Hispanic share of the population is far higher than the national average, the coronavirus's shifting demographic impact is most acute. In Florida, California and Arizona, Hispanics consistently made up a disproportionate share of covid-19 deaths in June and early July. The disparity may be persisting, but CDC data lags state statistics, and the agency's most recent numbers were not complete enough to include in the analysis. (The federal data about age and gender among covid-19 deaths were not broken down at the state level over time, so those demographic factors were not included in the analysis.) In California, Hispanics account for 39% of the state population, but 46% of all virus deaths and 57% of virus deaths reported in the last week of June. In Texas, where Hispanics are 40% of the population, they account for an approximately proportional share of all virus deaths. In the last week of June, however, they made up 57% of the deaths. Poor data reporting, which initially masked the disease's disproportionate burden on Black communities, has continued to hinder researchers trying to study consequences for Hispanics. A recent report, however, links long-standing inequality to the surges in Hispanic infections and deaths. Crowded housing, exposure to air pollution and jobs in the meatpacking industry, which President Donald Trump declared were "essential," put Latinos at a particularly high risk for coronavirus infection and death, said Carlos Rodriguez-Diaz, a George Washington University professor who is the lead author of a recent paper published by the journal Annals of Epidemiology. Rodriguez-Diaz and his team found that, in most parts of the country, counties where more Latinos live saw more cases and deaths - especially in the Midwest, home to most of the nation's meat-processing plants, many of which hire large numbers of Latino migrants. The researchers called for Medicaid expansion to address disparate access to health care and for better outreach, testing and infectious-disease surveillance to serve the diverse experiences of the country's Latino communities. In Arizona's Maricopa County, where almost a third of residents are Hispanic, the virus has killed more than 2,000 people. Bertha Esteban Diego, a 25-year-old from Mesa, was one of them. She died June 2 while giving birth to her second son, about two weeks after she was diagnosed with the virus. She and Gaspar Santiago were planning their church wedding. Instead, the couple's friends raised money for a funeral. Santiago told a local TV station that his family's story is an example of the danger the virus poses to Latino communities. "We say, 'This is not real, it won't happen to me,'" Santiago said in an interview with ABC15. "But you say that because you haven't lived it. This is a difficult disease. I wouldn't wish it upon anyone." Arizona and neighboring New Mexico also have seen alarmingly disproportionate deaths among Native Americans. In Arizona, Native Americans account for just 4% of the population, but triple that share of virus deaths. And in New Mexico, where Native Americans are 9% of the population, they make up 75%, of the state's deaths. The Navajo Nation, which straddles both states, has reported 453 covid-19 fatalities. Adjusted for population, Navajo Nation has seen more virus deaths than any U.S. state. Experts disagree about exactly how the pandemic will end, but most are united on at least one point: The country and its leaders can still influence whether - or when - another milestone is reached. "I don't want people to lose sight of the fact that this is preventable and we can change course," said Rivers, the epidemiologist. "This month counts, and the next month and the month after. I do see a lot of missed opportunities behind us that I mourn, but there is always time to make a change and chart a better course." One influential and oft-cited mathematical model has projected some such scenarios. At its current pace, the United States will surpass 219,000 deaths by November, says the forecast from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The model assumes that most schools will reopen in the fall and that state leaders will resume social distancing mandates once their local death tolls reach a certain threshold. But the model also predicts an alternate future, one in which at least 95% of people wear masks in public. In that scenario, more than 33,000 lives could be saved in the next three months. "A lot of things in our control," said Christopher Murray, the institute's director. "It's clear the two big drivers here are what people do and what governments do to encourage peoples' behavior change." Another forecast, from the University of Texas at Austin, projects an escalating death toll through Aug. 20, at which point it predicts the number of daily fatalities will top 3,000, a mark that would be record-setting. "We didn't have to go from 100,000 to 150,000 as fast as this has happened. I think it's been a real learning experience and maybe a wake-up call for the United States," said Lauren Ancel Meyers, a biology professor at the university and an architect of its U.S. covid-19 model. "I am hopeful that more of the American public have become amateur epidemiologists and really understand the impact of their individual choices on how many people die of this virus." The group's model, Meyers said, is based on past behaviors. It doesn't project further than three weeks because researchers cannot predict how the public will act. "The question is not so much what can we do about the number of people who will die in three weeks, but what we can do about the people who will die in four weeks," she said. "That's who our behavior today impacts." In interviews, leading public health experts were baffled that, after 150,000 lives lost, there is still seemingly no national plan. "These numbers will continue to accelerate. Our nation is in free fall right now with no federal plan," said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor University. "The plan is for states to be in the lead. That was a failed strategy from the beginning. States never had epidemiological horsepower to understand how severe the problem could get and what the interventions needed to be. This was all predicted and predictable." The pandemic is so destabilizing, Hotez argued, that the best way to think about it is as a homeland security threat. He recently published an editorial in the journal Microbes and Infection urging a simple approach: The country should set a containment goal - one new case daily per 1 million residents, say - and impose stay-at-home orders until it's reached. At that point, he wrote, contact tracing would be possible and officials could stamp out any remaining infections. But Hotez sees an unwillingness to advance such a plan from both political parties, and he worries that Democrats are more focused on defeating Trump and inaugurating a President Joe Biden in the new year. "That won't work," he said. "If we wait until January 2021, we're not going to have a country by then at this rate of acceleration." Many experts fear the situation will only get worse in the fall, and they said three factors could influence the severity: colder weather driving more people indoors, where the virus has shown special vigor, a possible flu outbreak that could put even more strain on hospitals and, most pressing, the new school year. Schools are a vital part of every community in the country, the experts said, and they will play a crucial role in students' development and states' economic restarts, but some are worried the facilities will become virus hubs when in-person learning resumes. The coronavirus has spread with brutal efficiency in close, congregate settings, such as nursing homes, prisons and cruise ships. Schools, especially those with cramped classrooms, share some of the same risk factors. "There's no scenario here where everyone wins and everyone is protected," said Tara Smith, a professor of public health at Kent State University. "It's the elephant in the room right now, and unfortunately we have no good guidance at the federal level. It's every school for themselves." The prospect of an effective vaccine remains the biggest cause for hope, but one is unlikely to make it to market in the next year - despite the Trump administration's aspirations, said Hotez, who as director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital is researching coronavirus vaccines. "We're not going to vaccinate our way out of this mess - at least not any time soon," he said. "Waiting around for a vaccine is a false hope and one guaranteed to fail." When the pandemic finally does subside, Smith said, it's likely to be "with a whimper." There'll be no clear-cut end, she said, like the conclusion of a recent Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Instead, the coronavirus will eventually become endemic, she predicted - more nuisance than nightmare, thanks to vaccines, other treatments and enough immunity in the population. But that could take years. "I fear we're going to hit a lot more of these milestones," Smith said. "I don't see this burning out any time soon." - - - Data on deaths by region comes from The Washington Post's coronavirus tracker. Death data by jurisdiction, race and Hispanic origin comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. The analysis using the Post's tracking data includes Feb. 29 to July 25. NCHS data are collected at a lag and recent weeks are likely to be incomplete, so The Post's analysis only used deaths recorded through July 4. The analysis used provisional counts, which weight results to account for potential underreporting. The Washington Post's Jacqueline Dupree contributed to this report. National Defence Ministry NOC must for broadcasting military content New Delhi, Jul 31 (IANS) | Publish Date: 7/31/2020 12:56:24 PM IST Any content on the military will have to obtain a no objection certificate (NOC) or clearance from the Ministry of Defence from now onwards. The decision was taken after a few web series allegedly presented a distorted image of the armed forces. The Defence Ministry has written a letter to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to advise production houses to obtain NOC from them before telecasting any film/documentary/web series on army theme in public domain. The letter was sent by the Ministry of Defence on July 27. Sources said the ministry had received complaints raising strong objections about portrayal of Indian Army personnel and military uniform in an insulting manner. In some of the web series like Code M on Zee 5 and XXX Uncensored (season-2) on ALT Balaji, the scenes related to the Army are far from reality and present a distorted image of the Armed Forces, said a senior government official. Some concerned citizens and ex-servicemen associations have even lodged a case against ALT Balaji seeking legal action against the producer and the OTT platform. The over-the-top (OTT) media service is a streaming media service offered directly to the viewers via internet. The step to make obtaining NOC mandatory has been taken after much deliberation. Sources further pointed out that this has been done to curtail the incidents which distort the image of the defence forces and hurt the sentiments of the defence personnel and veterans. The military has been very particular about its image and the content projected in different web series or documentaries or movies. Bollywood films on military go through a mandatory clearance process. However, with increased OTT platforms, the military feels that it needs to moderate any possible alleged negative depiction of the uniform. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) Starting August 1, violators of the governments policies on motorcycle back riding will be fined as high as 10,000, according to the joint police task force on COVID-19. The government allowed back riding for spouses and cohabiting couples early this month and gave them a three-week grace period or until Friday to install the required barriers. They can either put up an acrylic barrier held by a steel frame attached to the passenger foot pegs or the driver can wear the backpack-like design. For more than three weeks, we were just warning and advising the violators to comply until July 31. As the grace period ends today, we expect that all motorcycle riders have already complied in order for them to avoid inconvenience as they go to work and ride back home, Police Lieutenant General Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, Commander of Joint Task Force COVID Shield said in a statement. According to the task force, motorists who fail to wear face masks and helmets or install the government-approved protective shield will be fined 1,500 to 2,000 for the first offense, 3,000 for the second offense, and 5,000 to 10,000 for subsequent offenses. This is in line with the penalties for reckless driving. Those caught back-riding people other than their spouses or live-in partners will be meted out with a 1,000 fine, in line with the penalty for overloading of passengers. Valid IDs and other documents should be presented to prove that the riders are married or living together. For the past three weeks, a total of 29,444 people were accosted nationwide for violating this rule, the task force said. They were let go with a warning. Drivers who are not considered authorized persons outside residence will face a 3,000 fine, the same amount for driving without a license, the task force said. Police commanders and the Highway Patrol Group have already been instructed to apprehend violators starting August, the task force added. Experts earlier warned that installing barriers could cause accidents as the approved designs are not compatible with all types of motorcycles. They added that shields pose a danger because of its effect on aerodynamics while motorists are on transit. Motorcycle Development Program Participants Association, Inc. said wearing helmets and face masks or balaclava is already an excellent measure" in preventing COVID-19 infection. Officials have stood by the government-approved designs, with the Department of Interior and Local Government blaming faulty materials for barrier-related accidents. The task force also said the couples will be a "test case" and their compliance will be considered when the National Task Force against COVID-19 decides on whether to allow back riding for all. North Korean border guards stand in a field at the Yalu River near the North Korean city of Hyesan, which borders China's Changbai county, in a file photo. Authorities in North Korea are investigating allegations that central Party officials of the ruling Workers Party are involved in gold and platinum smuggling after seven alleged smugglers were arrested as they were attempting to deliver a large amount of the metals to buyers in China, local sources told RFA. After the provincial security department of Ryanggang Province received a tip that the handover was to take place, officers caught the seven smugglers in the act at a secluded area near the border city of Hyesan earlier this month. The smugglers were believed by sources to have been working not only with border guards, but also with members of the central Party, a 13,000-strong group of officials responsible for implementing Kim Jong Uns orders. They attempted to get out of trouble by offering to bribe the arresting officers with 100,000 yuan (U.S. $14,000), which is more than an average North Korean earns in years. They confessed during the investigation that some of the gold they were trying to smuggle came from central Party officials, an official of the judicial authorities in Ryanggang province, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFAs Korean Service Thursday Some of the smugglers were found to have carried a large amount of gold to Hyesan on the instructions of the central Party officials. The officials hid their identities, and tried to get the gold into China by hiring the smugglers, said the source. A corruption scandal involving such high-level officials would create a shockwave among North Korean elites if word were to spread inside the country. The source added that the seized contraband included a small amount of platinum that pointed to high-level involvement. This incident is all the more problematic because platinum, which is strictly controlled by the state, has been found among the goods that were to be smuggled across the border line, the source said. But for some reason, the provincial security department has been passive in their investigation, because they realize that a number of central Party officials and Ryanggang province officials were also involved in this case, said the source. Maintaining secrecy The source said the investigators want to keep everyone tight-lipped about the incident. The investigators are under pressure from the central Party and the state security department. Mindful of the potentially serious repercussions that could stem from the incident, the provincial security department officials are focusing on keeping the mouths of the people involved in the case shut. They dont want the whole story to be leaked to the outside world, the source said. A second source, a Ryanggang resident who requested anonymity to speak freely, confirmed to RFA that the seven alleged smugglers were arrested, and that senior officials were involved. The provincial security department got a tip that the seven were trying to sell large quantities of gold to [someone in] China. After tailing them, they were caught in the act, the second source said. The moment the smugglers, who were in league with border guards, entered the border area to hand over the gold, they were ambushed by the provincial security agents lying in wait, the second source said. The second source said he knew that the amount of gold they were trying to smuggle was a gigantic sum, based on the amount in bribes they offered to their captors. The arrested smugglers reportedly promised 100,000 yuan to the border guards if they would turn a blind eye to their smuggling operation, the second source said. Smuggling amid a crisis Under ordinary conditions, smuggling of goods to and from China across the porous border is very commonplace, and is vital to the countrys nascent market economy amid U.S. and UN sanctions aimed at depriving North Korea of resources and cash that could be diverted into its nuclear and missile programs. Since January, the closure of the border to prevent the spread of coronavirus and authorities extra attention on smuggling has had a crippling effect on the livelihoods of people who make most of what they earn by trading imported necessities from China, or sending domestic goods to be sold in the enormous Chinese market. [These days] ordinary residents are unable to even think about smuggling as border closures continue due to the coronavirus crisis. But this proves that the central Party officials are behind this case, because only they would have the power to try to smuggle gold bars at a time like this. But North Korean authorities have issued directives to go after the illicit activities of the countrys elite. In February, the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper severely criticized the fact that tax breaks, special privileges and corruption were frequently found among Central Committee officials and the staff of Party officials. The price of gold has risen nearly 30 percent in 2020, and reached an all-time high Monday. As of Thursday evening it stood at $1,958.55 per Troy Ounce. Reported by Sewon Kim for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari on Friday inaugurated one side of the reconstructed Mahatma Gandhi (MG) Setu on river Gangathe communication lifeline between north and south Biharand said when completed it would be a technological feat for civil engineering students to study. Gadkari inaugurated the long-awaited bridge through video conferencing from New Delhi, while chief minister Nitish Kumar, deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi and state road construction department minister Nand Kishore Yadav joined the proceedings from Patna. The opening of one of the two flanks of the bridge, connecting Patna with Hajipur, assumes considerable significance before the impending assembly elections. Roads, power and potable water to every household are the main issues, which the ruling JD(U)-led NDA dispensation is banking on for return to power in the state. Also Read: 1,11,000 laddoos being prepared in Ayodhya for foundation ceremony Gadkari, who also holds the shipping portfolio, said the waterways through Ganga would revolutionise the economy of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. While the waterway from Varanasi to Haldia through river Ganga is almost complete, a Rs 12,000 crore proposal to develop waterways connecting Delhi to Prayagraraj via Mathura, Agra and Itawa has been submitted to the World Bank, said the minister, adding that once it is finished, Delhi could be connected through waterways from the rest of the world. The minister said that dredging of Ganga up to Bangladesh has been completed. Forty river ports, including one at Varanasi, Sahebganj and Patna, are being built along the river. We have carried out dredging in Hooghly at the cost of Rs 250 crore to ensure ships movement to the international port in the Bay of Bengal, said the minister, adding that litchi and other micro, medium and small enterprises products from Bihar can be transported to other countries through waterways. Also Read: Ram temple to be grander than planned earlier: Architect Underlining the need for holistic development of Bihar, the Union minister urged Bihar CM Nitish Kumar to emphasize on development of industrial clusters along the roads. He said he was working on a plan to increase the turnover of village industries to Rs 5 lakh crore from the current Rs 88,000 crore in the next two years. Handicrafts and handlooms could be the thrust areas to work on in Bihar. Proposals to develop cottage industries in Bihar are always welcome, said Gadkari, adding that the fund would not be any issue for development of road and cottage industries in the state. The minister also listed various bridge projects sanctioned in the state and said work on a four-lane bridge parallel to the MG Setu would begin in the next couple of months. CM Nitish Kumar urged Gadkari to build a direct road between Buxar and Varanasi, as people have to make a detour to get to an important religious and trade centre in UP. He also requested the minister to widen some of the busy stretches of National Highways, including from Mokama to Munger, Barauni to Khagaria and NH 77 from Muzaffapur to Nepal border, which is likely to see substantially increased traffic after construction of various bridges on Ganga in the coming years. The CM also urged Gadkari to arrange for additional funds for the MSME sector in Bihar while terming the existing allocation of Rs 25,000 crore as too little, compared to the population density of the state. Officials said that reconstruction of eastern flank of the bridge would start in the next couple of months. The superstructure of the bridge, which was originally built in the eighties on cantilever technology, has been replaced with superstructure made of steel trusses. Inaugurated as the longest bridge on the river in India by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi Setu went into repair mode in 1999 and it remained so till 2016, until the Central government approved its reconstruction plan. About Rs 250 crore is said to have been spent on its repair as against the original estimated construction cost of Rs 87 crore. Union ministers Ram Vilas Paswan, who represents Hajipur constituency in Lok Sabha, and Patna MP Ravi Shankar Prasad, also attended the function through video conferencing. RCD minister Nand Kishore Yadav and additional chief secretary, RCD, Amrit Lal Meena were also present at the programme, besides almost all local MPs and MLAs. Syracuse, N.Y. -- In 2008, a police officer assigned to Corcoran High School broke a 15-year-old girls nose after he punched her in the face. The officer said the girl hit him first and couldnt be subdued. So he hit her in the shoulders, then in the chest, then, finally, in the face. He arrested her and charged her with menacing an officer and attempted assault. She ended up in the Family Court system. The fight started after the student was found skipping class in the girls bathroom, according to police reports from the time. That incident sparked backlash from parents and civil liberties groups. They held heated meetings where school officials and students both decried and defended the officers actions. Parents questioned why a police officer needed to be involved in enforcing something as harmless as truancy. The police chief deemed the violence justified, but the superintendent removed the officer from the school. For many city activists, that use of force was the spark that ignited a 12-year struggle to remove police officers from the citys schools. That struggle has found new urgency and new support in the wake of police reform protests gripping this city and the nation. Now, as it nears a tipping point, activists are cautiously optimistic theyll see their demands met, while school and city leaders weigh options for new ways to handle safety and security in the schools. *** Over the past month, activists met with the mayor, superintendent, police chief and school board president to demand officers be removed from the schools. It was one of nine demands activists made regarding police reform. The school board met to discuss the issue, even as members wrestled with the more immediate issue of whether and how to reopen schools. And protesters held a public forum to outline their experiences and perspectives on school policing. Mayor Ben Walsh pledged action to reform school safety, in response to the specific demand from protesters, though he has not said whether he plans to remove officers. His police chief, Kenton Buckner, said he supports having cops in schools but only if theyre wanted. Otherwise, he could use more officers on the streets. Walsh will meet with school officials Monday to discuss options for a new plan. Mayor Ben Walsh listens during the People's Agenda for Police Reform meeting with city officials to demand reforms, City Hall, Syracuse, N.Y., Thursday July 2, 2020Scott Schild | sschild@syracuse.com The arguments for removing the officers are complex and involve deep-rooted issues of race and criminal justice. There have been high-profile cases of violence among students in recent years, as well as cases of extreme force by officers. Two years ago, a 17-year-old stabbed two students at Nottingham High School. The year before that, a student stabbed a substitute teacher. An officer also broke a 14-year-old students elbow in 2017 while arresting the boy. That officer was later removed from the school. But people on both sides point to those cases as outliers. Its the day-to-day interactions they say justify removing or keeping the cops. The most frequent complaint from activists is that officers presence has led teachers and administrators to rely on them too heavily. Cops are called for behavioral issues that shouldnt require a gun and a badge, they say, but rather a social worker or a mental health expert. For some, the violent arrests epitomize what activists refer to as the school-to-prison pipeline, setting children up in an environment thats prepared to criminalize actions that should be mere disciplinary issues. Trouble at school, then, becomes a gateway to the court system, rather than a suspension or a trip to the principals office. But many school officials and teachers say the officers inside the building provide a necessary layer of safety in a city where gun and gang violence are harsh realities, even among kids. Tamica Barnett, a school board member, said in a meeting last week that the school resource officers help young people establish positive relationships with police. And those officers are sometimes necessary when violence occurs. Im inside the schools, she said. I would encourage anybody thats really pushing for the SROs to be removed to spend days inside the schools. Barnett also said shed like the board to have oversight of SROs, allowing education commissioners to pick which officers are in the schools and help define their role. The school district spends about $1.6 million on policing every year. There are 10 detectives assigned to the citys five high schools, and three supervisors. Last year, officers recovered 39 weapons from the citys five high schools and handled 95 criminal cases, according to the departments annual report. *** Cjala Surratt is a co-founder of the Black Leadership Coalition. Shes also a parent who is helping lead the movement to remove the officers. Her daughter spoke during a public forum this month about the experience of having drug-sniffing dogs search her backpack when she was in eighth grade. She described it as a traumatic event, and Surratt said the school never notified her that anything had happened. Surratt said police are too often used to deal with students whose behavior should be a disciplinary matter, not a criminal one. The primary reason SROs are called in is for non-violent disruptive behaviors, she said. ...theyre being used to criminalize our childrenkids with mental health problems and dealing with puberty...What they need is what theyre not getting: Mental health workers; mentors in those classrooms who look like them and teachers who look like them. Various proposals suggest redirecting money for police toward hiring more of those kinds of social workers who can help kids deal with their struggles and trauma, not simply punish or arrest them. Twiggy Billue, director of the local chapter of the National Action Network, has been fighting to remove cops from schools since 2008. That issue was one of the factors that motivated her to run for school board last year (she did not win). Billue said despite hyperbole from opponents, activists dont want to abandon safety in the schools. They just dont want officers patrolling the schools hallways alongside students, she said. She and others developed a multi-pronged model of safety and social work to replace cops in the buildings. It includes posting police officers at the entrances to school grounds. If theres a need for police, then, officers are still nearby. The schools could then rely on existing anti-violence resources like the Trauma Response Team or OGs Against Violence to be community aides inside the buildings. Those programs are operated by people who are a part of the communities they work within, Billue said. These are the people who are already on the ground stopping stuff from happening, Billue said. The plan also involves more extensive training for teachers assistants, who could be trained in de-escalation techniques. The police would still be called into the buildings for any serious crimes or violence that might occur, Billue said, but they wouldnt be patrolling the halls. Yusuf Abdul-Qadir, director of the Syracuse chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said there are also legal reasons for removing officers. He pointed to a state law that requires a school board to have specific policies in place establishing protocols for a school security force. Syracuse, he said, flouts that law. Youre talking about wanting to keep law enforcement in schools, but you dont have a job description for them, he said. Youre talking about wanting them to be involved in discipline, but the law says that they cant be involved in discipline. Twiggy Billue (left) holds a poster at demonstration was held on the steps of Syracuse's city hall June 5, 2019. It was to bring information on the alleged police brutality by Syracuse Police. The incident involved Shaolin Moore, 23, he is accused of refusing an order to leave his vehicle after being pulled over for loud music. A video surface showing Moore being pulled out of the car. Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.comDennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com *** The people who prefer to keep the cops in schools argue that the school resource officers give students a role model, a positive authority figure and a chance to know police in a non-confrontational setting, according to those who support their presence. Det. Containa Black has spent six years as the school resource officer at ITC High School. Before that, she worked in Nottingham and in Henninger. Shes been an officer 17 years. When the topic of keeping officers in schools arose again, she sent a letter to the board, asking them to consider keeping the SROs. She sees her role as a positive influence on the kids she works with daily. Black is a city graduate herself -- she went to Fowler. Shes also a mother. To her, the students in her school are like family. Her role and her experience give her discretion when kids break the rules or break the law, she said. She shared an example of a student who gets caught with a knife in his backpack. A student would often have an excuse, like he didnt know the knife was in the bag, or he needed it for self-defense. In a case like that, Black said she would let school officials handle discipline rather than arrest the kid. As a police officer are you going to arrest this child? Or are you going to allow officials to handle that matter on a school level? ...Personally, no...this is a child were talking about, and were going to charge them with possession of a weapon? No. Black also said having an officer in the school saves precious response time in case there is some kind of violence. Billue knows Det. Black and called her one of the good ones. But she said Blacks experience and attitude isnt shared by all the officers in the schools. Youre talking about a Black mother with Black children, Billue said. She has a different rapport with children because she comes from the same neighborhood and the same psyche. She can network with the kids in different ways. Det. Taina Black, second from left, poses with former chief Frank Fowler during a Christmas gift giveaway event with local kids. *** According to the district, most teachers favor keeping officers in the schools. In response to the activists demand, the district conducted an online survey, which officials said was distributed to teachers, parents and students in the high schools. They presented the results to the school board. More than 85% of respondents wanted to keep officers in the schools. But board members were critical of the survey, arguing it was rushed and inadequate. Only two dozen students took the survey. It also did not include the opinions of the middle school community -- parents and students who would soon be in the high schools. It was mostly made up of responses from teachers, almost all of whom wanted to keep the cops. Activists, including Billue and Surratt, roundly rejected the survey, arguing it didnt at all reflect the opinions of Black and brown members of the school community. Billue said activists conducted their own survey of about 700 students and the results overwhelmingly showed those students wanted officers out of the schools. Bill Scott is president of the Syracuse Teachers Association. He said hed welcome an invitation to hear from activists who want the officers gone and to be at the table as decisions on SROs are being made. He, too, said many teachers hes heard from favor keeping officers, including many teachers who have participated in recent police reform protests and rallies. Scott said its important to hear and understand the concerns about officers, and that the current model is broken. But the solution, he said, shouldnt involve removing those officers altogether. Scott, like many of the school board members, said there needs to be more selectivity and oversight from the public on who is assigned to the schools and how the officers role is defined. Weve got a broken system and we need to work together to fix it, but I dont think removing officers from the buildings is the right approach, he said. Its about identifying the right persons for the job and making sure the district has a say in who are SROs, then making sure theyre properly trained. A Syracuse police car parked outside Grant Middle School in 2015.Ken Sturtz *** If Syracuse does decide to remove the officers, it wouldnt be the first city to do so. In Rochester, the city council voted earlier this summer to remove officers from the schools, among other cuts to the departments budget. Rochester, then, became the first major New York city to remove officers from its schools. Its unlikely any decision on the issue will be made before the school year starts, according to School Board President Katie Sojewicz. The district is frantically trying to figure out details for re-starting education amid a pandemic that shut down schools statewide in March. Sojewicz said solving the policing issue is a priority. But talks among school officials have primarily focused on reopening and public health. Its a real complication, because while we take this very seriously, we have this other looming decision that has to be made about schools, she said. I think its safe to say that a decision will not be made before the school year starts. Read more: live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Motilal Oswal 's research report on Havells India While revenue decline of 45% YoY was in line with our expectations, aggressive cost rationalization measures led to a strong beat in earnings. Ad spends stood at INR60m (0.4% of sales) in 1QFY21 v/s INR1.4b (5% of sales) in 1QFY20. Employee costs were also lower by 27% YoY on account of certain voluntary actions, which should normalize from 2QFY21. As demand recovers, we expect the large part of these cost elements to scale back. Havells core portfolio witnessed 4% YoY growth in June, while Lloyd was up 8% YoY. Overall, demand for B2C products grew by 12% YoY in Jun20, a key positive. However, the outlook remains hazy due to the local lockdowns; hence, the management appears cautious on extrapolating the June run-rate to the coming quarters. The results of peers suggest that with a demand level of 8085% v/s last year in July, Havells is likely witnessing market share gains across key categories. Factoring cost savings in 1QFY21, we increase our FY21/FY22 EPS estimates by 14%/4%. Our FY2022E revenue/EBITDA/adj. PAT CAGR stands at 7%/12%/7%. Outlook The deterioration in working capital was disappointing, but this should normalize in the coming quarters. Maintain Neutral, with TP of INR560 (earlier: INR515) as we await a better entry point. For all recommendations report, click here Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts/broking houses/rating agencies on moneycontrol.com are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. Read More Amid COVID-19 pandemic, Muslims in Kerala celebrate a low-key Bakrid India oi-Madhuri Adnal Thiruvananthapuram, July 31: The Muslim community in Kerala on Friday celebrated Bakrid amid the COVID-19 pandemic, adhering to the strict health protocols laid down by the government. As per the guidelines, 100 people would be allowed in large mosques, butstrict health protocols, including social distancing norms, wearing of masks and using sanitisers have to be followed. Mosques in containment zones cannot allow people to perform the namaz. 7-year-old Buddy, 1st dog to test positive for COVID-19 dies in New York Large Idgahs have not been allowed this year due to the pandemic. The famed sweet market (Mittayi theruvu) in Kozhikode which usually bustles with activity during the Id festival, wore a deserted look as it is in a containment zone. Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News In his Eid greetings, Governor Arif Mohammed Khan wished all Keralites and said, "May Bakrid, which glorifies sacrifice and eternal faith in the Almighty, inspire us to remain united through love, compassion and mutual support, both in our daily lives and in our fight against COVID-19." Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan also wished the people on the occasion. The three-week summer school session that began Monday is the first in-person instruction the Anaconda School District has had since mid-March, when the governor ordered public K-12 schools across Montana to close over coronavirus concerns. Besides helping about 70 students across grade levels with their academics, Anaconda school staff plan to use the summer session to answer questions and prepare for the upcoming school year, which are tentatively set to resume on Aug. 31. The Butte School District did not offer summer school this year. Were definitely trying to try out some things, like taking temperatures, cleaning and how long that is going to take, wearing masks and how thats going with the kids, said Norah Barney, principal at Lincoln Primary School. A lot of questions about health and safety were answered this week with school. The students are met at their cars with a thermometer. Once they pass the screening, they proceed to the entrance of the school and sanitize their hands before heading to their classrooms. The four-week summer session runs from Monday through Friday. Students in pre-Kindergarten through Grade 2 head to Lincoln Primary School and attend either the morning session from 8 to 11 a.m. or the afternoon session from 12 to 3 p.m. Those in third through sixth grades head to the Anaconda Jr./Sr. High School from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. or part of the day. Meanwhile, about five high school students head to the districts administrative building to attend credit recovery courses between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. The curriculum for students at Lincoln is more about remediation and trying to fill the holes, Barney said. Some didnt have access to online material, some had parents who were working and couldnt help their kids. Some completed all the work, but couldn't hit grade level performance. We wanted to make sure we hit all those needs as much as possible. Barney said that some students just needed that community environment to thrive. When you move to remote learning, you lose that sense of community, she said. Many students really missed that classroom community. She said, overall, students are doing good with wearing their masks. You can tell that families are working with their kids about wearing their masks in public and preparing them for wearing them at school, she added. Lilly OBrien, whos entering the second grade in the fall at Lincoln, said she was enjoying summer school thus far and brought cupcakes for her friends to eat. I love it! I missed my friends, she said. Ryder Anderson, a student wholl be entering fifth grade at Fred Moodry, said summer school has been really fun. Were learning science, like the water cycle. Were reading books, and Im learning the definitions of new words, he said while eating lunch. Remote learning was kind of hard because the online stuff sometimes wouldnt work, and so we would have to get the packets. Christine Leipheimer, fifth and sixth grade science teacher at Fred Moodry Intermediate School, said in-person classes allow her students to do hands-on lab work. Hand-on lab is what science is all about. Like today, well be talking about pollution. Some think dilution is the solution to pollution, and theyll learn why its not, she said. The kids wouldnt be able to do the labs at home unless they have the equipment, and most of them dont. The Anaconda School District is using this summer to understand the challenges that lie ahead for schools as they try to safely reopen amid a raging pandemic. "So far, it's really going well," said Jake Kelly, who oversees the summer school program for the district. "We're working this program so we can get all of the kinks out of it when students return for the fall. Its a good way to ease in and see where were at and how were doing. He said the district was able to run the summer session through support from a 21st Century Grant. The grant covers the costs of staff, school supplies and academic resources that we might need, he said. Were really fortunate to be able to offer our kids summer courses. Kelly said the students in Grades 3 through 6 receive STEM enrichment courses like LEGO robotics and coding at least once a week. Remote learning was tough, but I think it was for everyone in the country. There was a learning curve, and this year I think itll be easier than last. Weve learned a lot in the spring, said Kelly, wholl be teaching high school English this fall. The new school year is going to be different, and were working on our plans. But Im excited to be back in school and see the kids again, he said. Love 4 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 1 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Ensure states pay doctors salaries by Aug 10, SC tells Centre India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, July 31: The Supreme Court has directed the Centre to ensure that doctors are paid their salaries by August 10. Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News The directive came after the Centre told the court that doctors and health workers in Delhi, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tripura and Karnataka have not been paid their salaries regularly. This despite the Government of India's directive, the Centre also told the Supreme Court. The court then said that the Centre is not powerless to ensure that the states obeyed its directive. Ensure that the doctors and health workers are paid their salaries by August 10, the court also said. Doctors can still prescribe HCQ to patients, says US health Secretary The court also asked the Centre when the quarantine period of doctors and health workers is being treated as period of leave. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that this should be treated as on duty. The court, then told the Centre to issue necessary clarifications on this issue to the states. Syracuse, N.Y. The states top government transparency agency told Syracuse officials they can continue to withhold unfounded complaints against police officers, despite a law change that made police disciplinary records public. The states Committee on Open Government issued its opinion on unfounded complaints this week in response to an inquiry from Syracuse City Hall. City Hall had asked the agency whether it could withhold unsubstantiated and unfounded complaints against an officer, or if the employer is obligated to disclose all complaints against an employee regardless of outcome. The COOG opined that those records could be withheld if they are considered an unwarranted invasion of the officers privacy. The opinion leaves the city with the option, however, to release those records if it does not feel they are an invasion of privacy. The opinion comes on the heels of a landmark law change by state legislators. The legislature and the governor agreed to repeal section 50-a of the states Civil Rights Law, which prevented disclosure of discipline records for police officers. Syracuses legal department has been flooded with requests for access to police records in the weeks following the repeal of 50-a. Lawyers have asked media outlets and the public for patience on those requests as they sort out what should be public and what shouldnt, and try to collect records. Similarly, the Committee on Open Governments Executive Director, Shoshanah Bewlay, wrote that her agency has received many questions about which records can and should be made public. Last week, a federal judge halted the release of police disciplinary records until at least Aug. 18. The judge, Katherine Polk Failla, will hear arguments from the New York City police union, which sued Mayor Bill di Blasio to block the release of disciplinary records. Di Blasio had planned to post a database online of all police misconduct complaints. Read the Committee on Open Governments full opinion here. Donald Trumps latest provocation prompts us once again to wonder what Barack Obama makes of his successor. The current president is like an art performance, designed to stoke the deepest fears of mild-mannered, right-thinking liberals for whom Obama was the Platonic ideal of a leader. Now Trump has suggested that hed like to postpone the election, with entirely predictable results. He doesnt have the power to do so, even under emergency legislation, and he doesnt have the majorities he needs in Congress to change the law, but he knows what will send elite liberals into a meltdown. He did the same with his response to the conspiracy theory that he would refuse to accept the result of the election if Joe Biden won in November. By failing to say he would accept the result, he pressed the same big red button. Even if he could, for example, persuade Republican state legislatures to refuse to certify the results in their states, he could not prevent the electoral college from meeting, and the constitution requires a president to be inaugurated in January. If he loses the election by a clear margin, that is not going to be him. ARLINGTON, Va., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Common App, the non-profit membership organization dedicated to access, equity and integrity in the college admissions process, is announcing the launch of the 2020-2021 application on Saturday, August 1. Used by more than three million applicants, teachers, and counselors across the United States and around the world each year, the Common App platform streamlines the college application process for students. In addition to providing a single, online application and 24/7/365 support for students applying to more than 900 member colleges and universities, Common App connects applicants to financial aid and scholarship information , virtual fairs , online portfolios , and a vast library of counselor resources available in English and Spanish. Common App's website also includes new easy-to-use resources to help families support their students through the college application process, including information on application fees, scholarships, and financial aid. "These are tumultuous times and now more than ever, we want all students to feel supported by Common App regardless of where they are on their path to education attainment," said Jenny Rickard, President and CEO of Common App. "We are offering the tools and resources needed to meet more students where they are and help them get to and through college." Common App is providing students with a dedicated space on the application in which to elaborate on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, both personally and academically. The goal of a "common" space for this information is to provide consistent questions and language that colleges and universities can use to review applications, and that applicants will only have to answer once. Counselors will also find space in their Common App counselor forms to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on their school communities. "The inclusion of the COVID-19 question, in addition to the Common App essay, will give our students an opportunity to name and describe the challenges and triumphs they have endured due to these troubling times. I am grateful to Common App for including the concerns and feedback from the school counseling and higher education communities when crafting this question. We're looking forward to kicking off this application season, and thank Common App for giving students a space to feel seen and be heard," said Sanjay K. Mitchell, Director of College & Alumni Programs, Thurgood Marshall Academy (DC). Common App is introducing several user experience improvements to the 2020-2021 application, including a new recommender system, a new mobile app coming this fall, and an update of the transfer application personal statement prompt to align with first-year application essay prompts. Students applying to college in 2020-2021 will also have access to more than 40 additional diverse colleges and universities through Common App's online application. "Our goal at Virginia Tech is to make the admissions process more accessible for students. We are excited to add the Common App as that next logical step," said Juan Espinoza, Director of Admissions at Virginia Tech. "With a record number of underserved and underrepresented students in this fall's incoming class, adding the Common App will help Virginia Tech continue fulfilling its mission of partnering with students from the commonwealth, the nation, and the world in a top-tier educational experience." "Texas Tech University is excited to announce our new membership with Common App beginning in the 2020-2021 application season," said Jamie Hansard, Vice President of Enrollment Management at Texas Tech University. "We are looking forward to expanding our reach while educating, attracting, and attaining students who might not have considered Texas Tech as an option before." New Members of The Common App for 2020-2021 Application Season Mid-Atlantic Bryn Athyn College (PA) Carlow University (PA) Holy Family University (PA) Point Park University (PA) Medaille College (NY) Mid-West Baker College (MI) Buena Vista University (IA) Bethel University (MN) Cornerstone University (MI) Lake Superior State University (MI) Indiana Wesleyan University (IN) Loyola University Chicago (IL) Northern Illinois University (IL) University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (WI) Wilmington College (OH) South Arkansas Baptist College (AR) Auburn University (AL) Augusta University (GA) Clemson University (SC) Coastal Carolina University (SC) Lees-McRae University (NC) Milligan University (TN) Palm Beach Atlantic University (FL) Richard Bland College of William and Mary (VA) Spalding University (KY) Texas Tech University (TX) Trevecca Nazarene University (TN) University of Georgia (GA) University of Louisville (KY) University of Texas at Dallas (TX) University of Texas at San Antonio (TX) University of South Florida (FL) Virginia Tech (VA) Winthrop University (SC) West Fresno Pacific University (CA) University of Colorado Denver (CO) University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (CO) About Common App Common App is a not-for-profit member organization committed to the pursuit of access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. Each year, more than one million students, one-third of whom are first-generation, apply to college through the Common App's online application. In January 2019, the Common App united with Reach Higher, the college access and success campaign started by former First Lady Michelle Obama during her time at the White House. Its core programming, including Better Make Room, UpNext, College Signing Day, Beating the Odds, school counselor support, and current grants continues as part of the Common App's work with its member institutions, school counselors, and students. By joining forces, Common App and Reach Higher accelerated progress toward our joint goal of supporting all students, especially low-income and first-generation students, in achieving their higher education dreams. Our access and equity work for students include a college advising texting campaign with AdmitHub and College Advising Corps, scholarships and community college initiatives, Dear Class of 2020 Fund , and more. Founded in 1975, Common App serves over 900 member colleges and universities worldwide. To learn more, visit commonapp.org, and follow @CommonApp and #CommonApp on social media. SOURCE Common App Related Links http://www.commonapp.org Posted to the UN as a 23-year-old she caused quite a stir in New York when she was invited onto a UN panel for the American TV show What's My Line. It never occurred to Shand to ask for permission as she was doing it out of hours. She appeared on the panel, answered questions, succeeded and won US$750 more money than she had ever seen before plus cartons of cigarettes which she gave to her taxi driver. The next morning before work she went to Saks on Fifth Avenue and spent the money on two Gucci dresses and a gold lame jacket. Later that day sitting peacefully in her office, feeling very pleased with herself and her marvellous new wardrobe, the British permanent representative met with Sir James Plimpsoll who mentioned the young attractive Australian third secretary who had been fabulous on US television the night before. Sir James was incandescent, demanding Shand immediately donate the money to the Canberra Cricket Club. When she explained she had already spent the money he could not understand how that could happen in the one hour before the office opened. Years later a subsequent boss would read to Shand Sir James' words from her official file, rather unflattering remarks and his view of her "limited career prospects and aptitude". The UN New York term ended when she met and decided to marry the third son in a legal family, Richard Shand, a passionate developmental economist with the Australian National University. After her compulsory resignation and a two-week honeymoon, she reapplied for a temporary position with the department and within a year was forced to resign again due to the impending arrival two weeks later of their daughter, Brigit. Shand's boss at the time, concerned about her heavily pregnant state, advised her to resign as he was concerned she was "planning to give birth in your out tray". The Indonesian Embassy National Day. Chief of protocol Tonia Shand with the ambassador, Erman Harirustaman, on August 17, 1983. In 1973 an opportunity arrived that was to change Tonia and Ricky's lives a posting to India but only if the head of mission agreed to having a married woman on his staff. Sir Patrick Shaw, a father of girls, readily agreed adding "but only if you promote her". For Ricky, then in the Economics Department, School of Pacific Studies of ANU, this meant a sabbatical to travel with Tonia and Brigit to India. Within months Ricky landed a job with the Indian Planning Commission, unheard of for a non-Indian, and he travelled widely throughout India with Tonia and Brigit. During official and unofficial travels throughout India, Shand would have the opportunity to watch Indian politicians interact with their constituents including Indira Gandhi and Jayaprakash Narayan. In Delhi the legend of the Shand parties was born and would continue during her subsequent postings as deputy high commissioner in Kuala Lumpur, high commissioner in Sri Lanka and throughout all Canberra home postings including during her two terms as the first female head of protocol. The Pakistani ambassador, Major General Husain, and the chief of protocol, Tonia Shand, at Pakistani Independence Day celebrations in Canberra, 1983. Credit:Archive An Australian contemporary and party guest recalls "Shand parties were highpoints of the Delhi social scene with entertaining Indians her priority, more especially MPs, journalists and academics rather than concentrating on officials. Her looks and personality attracted Indians like a magnet and thereby did much to expand and develop the mission status and standing in Delhi." Official embassy entertaining for Australian dignitaries such as Indian visit by then prime minister Gough Whitlam, deputy Jim Cairns and Junie Morosi and spouses were not as fluid but no less eventful. In 1985 Tonia and Ricky's partnership was tested with the loss of their talented musician daughter, Brigit, at 21 years old. When foreign minister Bill Hayden saw that Shand was struggling from the death of her only child, he suggested another overseas posting. Once again, despite the opposition of the departmental mandarins, they left Canberra with Shand as Australia's first female high commissioner to Sri Lanka, from 1988 to 1991. During that troubled time in Sri Lanka's history, they travelled and engaged with the locals as much as they could despite the restrictions and closure of hospitals, schools and universities following the insurrection, the Tamil Tigers and the violence with the Singhalese armed forces. She recalled with horror villages being razed, the countless 'disappearances' and the bus detonations killing hundreds of innocent citizens. Despite all this Ricky and Tonia loved Sri Lanka and its people. Sir Lanka was to be their last overseas DFAT posting as Shand rejected an African posting in favour of Ricky's career. She was embarrassed but proud when one of the meeting rooms at the Australian Sri Lankan embassy was renamed the Shand Room. The naming of that room stood equally alongside her pride at receiving her AO in 1990. Shand was a mentor before the term was fashionable and that is how she'll be remembered. Secretary Francis Adamson wrote in the forward for the Portraits and Mirrors exhibition that Shand was "one of DFAT's trailblazing women, Tonia was well loved and it is and an exemplar of determination and courage, paving the way for Australia's female diplomat today and into the future". She is survived by sisters Helen and Kim and sisters-in-law Robin and Lorraine Shand and their families. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) The Duterte administration said it has enough funds to purchase and distribute free coronavirus vaccines to 20 million Filipinos once it is available. President Rodrigo Duterte expressed confidence that a vaccine will be developed by December. He said it is possible that China will be one of the first countries to complete its research, and claimed the Philippines will get priority access to the vaccines because it is "friendly" to the East Asian giant. "I promise you by the grace of God, I hope by December we will be back to normal," he said in his taped address which aired on Friday. Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, who was tasked by Duterte to take care of the funding, detailed how the Philippines plans to procure 40 million doses of vaccines estimated to cost P20 billion. "We have a plan," Dominguez said during the televised meeting. "We can execute it as soon as the Department of Health (DOH) chooses which vaccine or vaccines they want. Certainly, by late this year, if it's available, we can already buy it." He said the vaccine chosen by the DOH will be bought through the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC), which is under the Department of Trade. It will be initially financed by the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines, then paid off by the DOH. "The Department of Health will put in their budget to pay this $400 million or roughly P20 billion. We can pay that over maybe two or three years. Babayaran nila (they will pay) through the financing company, which is Landbank and DBP," he said. The finance chief added, "That is totally available, the financing is available for this program." Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez, in a separate briefing, assured the Philippines does need to sell state assets to fund the vaccine purchase. Dominguez also said that once the vaccine is readily available in the Philippines, the country's economy will finally recover especially after hitting the "lowest part" in April and May. "Once the vaccine is available, I'm sure the economy now can be fully opened and we can start not the new normal but the normal life," he said. The President wants to prioritize the poor families in the initial distribution of vaccines, with the military in charge of handing them out. Meanwhile, Manila Mayor Isko Moreno said that the local government will allocate P200 million in its budget for next year to procure vaccines once available. In preparation for the end game of this crisis, I have asked VM Honey Lacuna and the City Council, to appropriate P200 million sa [in the] 2021 budget na gagamitin bilang pambili ng COVID-19 vaccine [that will be used to procure the COVID-19 vaccine], said Moreno in an online post. To date, the coronavirus disease has hit more than 93,000 people in the country. Of this number, some 26,000 are active cases or currently ill patients, after around 65,000 recovered and nearly 2,000 died. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, president of the United Malays National Organization party, arrives at the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Agency in Putrajaya, Oct. 18, 2018. UMNO, the party of disgraced former leader Najib Razak, distanced itself Thursday from the coalition that returned it to power months ago, in a move that makes the razor-thin parliamentary majority of the current prime minister appear even more precarious. The announcement came two days after a judge sentenced Najib to 12 years in prison and fined him U.S. $49 million after finding him guilty on seven charges related to the siphoning of funds from an affiliate of state investment fund 1MDB during his time in office. That financial scandal led to his coalitions defeat at the ballot box in May 2018, but his United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party regained power in March as part of a new alliance, Perikatan Nasional (PN), after infighting caused the government of Mahathir Mohamad to collapse. But UMNO President Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Thursday his party would now focus on other partners. UMNO has decided not to join PN. Instead we will strengthen Muafakat Nasional (MN), he said, referring to an alliance it formed with the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) last year. He said Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin himself was planning to abandon plans to register PN as a political bloc, and was instead seeking to join Muafakat along with his party, Bersatu. I leave it to the central committee of Muafakat Nasional to consider Bersatus request whether it has the potential to further strengthen Muafakat Nasional for the interest of the country and its people, Zahid said. Support for the PN government was only based on support from UMNO and BN members of parliament, and state assemblymen in forming the federal government and certain state governments, Zahid said in a statement. Zahid, who served as deputy prime minister under Najib, has himself been charged with 45 criminal offenses, including abuse of power, criminal breach of power and money laundering in October 2018. The charges are linked to alleged bribes in exchange for helping companies win contracts for government projects when he served as home minister. UMNO has 39 seats in parliament while PAS has 18 and Bersatu has 31. The prime minister must have the support of at least 112 MPs one more than half of the 222-member parliament to retain power. Within hours of Najibs conviction, Zahid, who sat next to the ex-prime minister throughout Tuesdays courtroom deliberations, told reporters but without elaborating surely, we will make a political decision as a result of todays decision. Big brother dictates In March, Muhyiddin established Perikatan to create an alliance to support his bid for prime minister after the Pakatan Harapan alliance led by Mahathir collapsed. Both Mahathir and Muhyiddin were leaders in Pakatans Bersatu party, but the party expelled Mahathir, his son Mukhriz and four other MPs who were affiliated with it, after Muhyiddin withdrew from Pakatan and formed a new ruling coalition. Mukhriz Mahathir said Muhyiddin would be in a precarious situation whichever way the verdict in Najibs first corruption trial played out. My take is that Muhyiddin himself doesnt benefit no matter the outcome of Najibs verdict, Mukhriz told the Nikkei Asian Review in an interview published on Thursday. If Najib had been acquitted, Muhyiddin would have been blamed for letting him off. If convicted as has happened, some in UMNO may consider this a betrayal on Muhyiddins part, he added, referring to UMNO. Either way, Muhyiddins government is in an unenviable and precarious situation, Mukhriz said. Isham Jalil, the Selangor state UMNO chief who served as a special officer to Najib when he was prime minister, issued a statement calling Zahids political maneuver brilliant considering what could lie ahead for Muhyiddin and Bersatu. The optimum and least damaging choice for Bersatu now is to cozy up with UMNO and PAS in Muafakat Nasional, he said Thursday. He said Bersatu could not go back to Pakatan Harapan after Muhyiddin quit from that alliance in February. In addition, the party could not hope to maintain power alone after losing the trust of non-Malays who had voted for it as part of the Pakatan Harapan coalition, he said. But they can contest in elections under Muafakat Nasional if the grassroots members of UMNO and PAS accept them, Isham said. Looking at Tuesdays verdict from UMNOs point of view, party members now want rein in Muhyiddin and pressure him to follow their agenda or risk losing power, according to political analyst Oh Ei Sun, who is a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. So instead of an equal partnership in the PN coalition, UMNO wants to go back to the old style under Barisan Nasional where big brother dictates in Muafakat Nasional, Oh told BenarNews. UMNO had anchored Malaysian ruling coalitions for 61 years until it was defeated in the general election two years ago. Tuesdays verdict was a factor, but the main factor is UMNOs survival in the next general election, another political analyst, Azmi Hassan of the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, told BenarNews. Muhyiddin is the policy maker in PN, but through Muafakat Nasional structure, UMNO has a bigger voice. Sabah assembly dissolved Meanwhile in Malaysian Borneo on Thursday, the Sabah state assembly was dissolved, thwarting an attempt by Muhyiddins camp to wrest power from incumbent Chief Minister Shafie Apdal through shifting allegiances among assembly members. In the state capital Kota Kinabalu, Apdal who serves as caretaker chief minister said state Gov. Juhar Mahiruddin had agreed to dissolve the assembly after two separate audiences at the state palace late Wednesday and early Thursday. I wrote a letter yesterday, and I met with His Excellency the Governor last night. This morning I met him again and His Excellency had granted the dissolution of the assembly, Shafie said while holding a copy of the letter. In it, Shafie wrote that the political climate in the state was no longer stable because of threats by certain individuals who intend to forcefully get rid of the state government. Therefore it is best that we return the mandate to the people of Sabah to choose the new government, the letter read. Shafie said Sabah must hold a state election within 60 days said Shafie, adding that the election commission would decide on and announce the date. The moves followed a surprise announcement on Wednesday by former Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman, who claimed to have enough support to again lead the state government. Speaking from his house in Kota Kinabalu, Musa stressed that he could be sworn in to replace Shafie. I am eligible to be appointed as Sabah chief minister by the governor as I have the support of the majority (of state representatives), Musa said, adding that security personnel blocked him and an entourage from entering the palace to present declarations of support from 33 assembly members. Intersociety, Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria, Friday, 31st July 2020 : There are eight major indicators vicariously linking the present Government of Nigeria and its security and law enforcement agencies to ongoing orgy of terror against Christians in the country. The jihadist terror activities against Christians especially by Jihadist Herdsmen is likened or modeled after Sudans Janjaweed Jihadism under the ousted Gen Omar Hassan el-Bashir Government (1989-2019). The present Government of Nigeria and its security and law enforcement agencies have since mid 2015 defended and stood by Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen whose frontiers have further expanded to include foreign or imported Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen and Shuwa Arabs. These Jihadist groups are also fingered in the ongoing socio-political instabilities or crises in the Central African Republic and Republic of Burkina Faso, etc. The Nigerias central Government has continuously failed woefully in its constitutional duties to protect and secure the countrys individual and group citizens irrespective of their religion, tribe and creed. Same Government has also failed woefully to protect the countrys secularity status and seemed most likely to have adopted radical Islamism as a state religion, contrary to Sections 10 and 38 of the 1999 Constitution as amended. The Governments defense of the Jihadist Herdsmen and their heinous atrocities had included and still includes description of their anti Christian butcheries as herders-farmers clash(es), or killings arising from revenge and reprisal violence and criminal gangs, or communal clashes such as killings involving two warring Christian communities. The latest of such indefensible Governments cuddling and defense of Jihadist Herdsmen is a false narrative of balance of terror or symmetric killings and counter killings between communal Muslims and communal Christians. In all these, we, the Intl Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law, are not unaware of the fact that the Government is bent not only to continue its monumental failure to act to end the butcheries but also its attempts at deceiving and misleading the world. Therefore, having, since 2010, carefully followed, monitored, researched, investigated, documented, exposed or published the killings perpetrated against Christians and Minority Muslims in Nigeria or any part thereof including patterns and trends of the attacks, we have identified eight major indicators vicariously and inescapably linking the named Government and its security and law enforcement agencies to Fulani Herdsmen Jihadism in the country. The eight major indicators are summarized as follows: (1) Government of Nigeria has consistently and undeniably risen since mid 2015 in strong defense and protection of Herdsmen Jihadists and their atrocities which have now escalated and spread country-wide. The central Government of Nigeria and its Armed Forces has also vicariously and officially maintained a policy of soft spot for Boko Haram and its terror jihadism in the Northeast. This, the same Government does to through window dressing and, some say, conflict profiteering. Two (2):Government has introduced RUGA (Rural Grazing Area or Settlement for Fulani Herders throughout Nigeria) and NLTP (National Livestock Transformation Plan); all resulting in forceful settlement of Fulani Herders or making them to violently occupy indigenous Christian lands throughout Nigeria. Included, too, is the Nigerian Military (Fulani) Cattle ranching program which seems to have reduced same to a Fulani colony or Armed Forces. The Nigerian Military particularly the Army has also since Oct 2016, established annual regional military operations with different code names, camouflaged and remotely targeted at Christian parts of Nigeria; during which ways are militarily and vicariously paved for Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen to move into indigenous Christian lands and occupy them under heavy military or security backing and protection. Strong pieces of evidence abound. All the programs above are widely viewed as jihad friendly or oriented and through them the Jihadist Herdsmen have been provided state cover to move in and forcefully occupy indigenous Christian communities and their forests, bushes and farmlands across the country; from where they launch attacks and jihadist campaigns targeted at Christians, their lands, farmlands, houses and worship and learning centers. They have been responsible for burning or destruction of not less than 1,500 churches and Christian learning centers across the country since 2015. Not a single Mosque has been destroyed or burnt in their name till date. As a matter of fact, it must be reminded that Jihadist Herdsmen have never killed a single Muslim or destroyed or burnt any Mosque or Islamic learning center anywhere in Nigeria or any part thereof. All their victims are Christians and other non Muslims. Before mid 2015, for instance, less than two percent of the farmlands, bushes and forests in over 500 Igbo communities in Igbo Land (including Igbo parts of Delta, Benue and Kogi) presently occupied or under the occupation of the Jihadist Herdsmen was occupied or under occupation by same Jihadist Herdsmen. They had existed as Hausa Settlements or Ogbe Hausa. This is also similarly the case in the Christian parts of Benue, Southern Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kogi, Yobe, Taraba, Gombe, Adamawa, Edo and Delta, etc. Two (2):grossly lopsided composition of the countrys security forces including their commands and controls which have remained, some say, 90% Muslim controlled. Three (3): refusing to arrest and prosecute the atrocious jihadists or hold them to account for their heinous atrocities since July 2015. Four (4):continued recognition of the mother bodies of the genocidal Fulani jihadists (i.e. MACBAN, FUNAM and Fulani Koutal Hore) as registered organizations and deregistration of nonviolent socio-cultural, etc groups and declaration, using draconian legal instruments, of other nonviolent ethno-religious groups as terrorist organizations. Five (5):indiscriminate and unilateral granting of state pardon to terror jihadists (i.e. repentant Boko Haram combatants) and their alleged enlistment into security forces as well as abandonment and persecution of victim groups or communities. Six (6): Governments false labeling of killing of Christians as killings arising from herders-farmers clashes and use of different false narratives to back and protect the jihadists and cover their atrocities. Seven (7): in furtherance of the above false labeling and narratives, the present Nigerias central Government also tries to introduce a balance of terror or symmetric narrative, between the Fulani Herdsmen jihadists and the victim Christian communities by describing the brutally asymmetric killings as killings arising from revenge, reprisals and criminal gangs. Same Government has till date, refused to recognize and declare Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen as a terror group. This is despite the fact that the group is internationally outlawed and named worlds fourth deadliest terror group. The balance of terror Governments false narrative has further exposed the complicity of the Nigerian Government in the anti Christian butcheries and its monumental failure in discharging its constitutional duties of protecting and safeguarding the citizens irrespective of their religion, tribe or creed. Eight (8):Nigerian Government and its security and law enforcement agencies particularly the Nigeria Police Force do not have official credible data or crime statistics particularly with respect to ceaseless massacre of Christians in Nigeria. The Government has not only failed to provide official credible data of the killings, maiming and Christian properties destroyed or burnt but also undermined, mangled and denied same when independently presented. Government has also failed woefully in letting Nigerians and the Intl Community know, with verifiable statistics, the proportionality or dis-proportionality of such inter faith asymmetric killings, maiming and destroyed or burnt or lost properties. That is say that there are no credible data from the present central Government of Nigeria or its security and law enforcement agencies including Nigeria Police Force and Defense or Army Headquarters, showing the percentage or number of attacks against defenseless Christian communities by the state backed and protected Jihadist Herdsmen or reprisals by the victim Christian communities, if any. In other words: there are no credible Governments records or from its security and law enforcement agencies showing the number of attacks against Christians since mid 2015 by Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen, number of Christians killed, number of their lands seized and occupied by the Jihadists and number of Christians properties including dwelling houses, worship and learning centers destroyed or burnt or lost to Jihadist Herdsmen. Government or security or law enforcement records are near totally absent, if not totally absent regarding the number of Jihadist Herdsmen arrested and investigated, convicted and jailed since mid 2015 for killing Christians or seizing or destroying their properties especially their sacred learning and worship centers. Independent records have continued to indicate that such perpetrators are often not arrested, but shielded by the security forces. On the other hand, there are also no credible records from the same Government or its security and law enforcement agencies showing the number of attacks against Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen or Fulani citizens or settlements by the victim Christian groups or communities, number of Fulani citizens killed, number of their lands seized and occupied, number of Fulani properties including dwelling houses, Mosques and learning centers destroyed or burnt by same Christian avengers. The present Government of Nigeria and its security and law enforcement agencies should also answer the following questions: how many Muslims or Muslim farmers have been killed by Jihadist Herdsmen in Nigeria since mid 2015 and how many Islamic properties such as Mosques and learning centers have the same Jihadist Herdsmen destroyed or burnt? Therefore, since the central Government of Nigeria is now introducing locally and internationally, balance of terror narrative or symmetric violence ratio into the anti Christians massacre, we challenge them to furnish Nigerians and the Intl Community with credible official records or data or crime statistics regarding the above highlighted. The failure of the Government in this regard will mean same shutting up its mouth permanently and licking the wounds of its monumental failure to act to protect the vulnerable and persecuted Christians in Nigeria. On our part and independently speaking, the evidence on the ground grossly shows the contrary or contradicts all the Government claims. Apart from attacks on Christians in Nigeria being brutally asymmetric or 98%/2% ratio; or radical Islamists attacks or violence against Christians 98% and reprisals against such attacks or violence 2% or less; the Nigerian Government, adding to its monumental failure to protect Christians and fish out and punish their attackers, has also repeatedly repelled such reprisals if rarely risen or rarely about to occur. Under the same Government, any reprisal killing of a Fulani Herdsman is given widest media attention locally and internationally; with wheel of justice speeded up against the perpetrator(s). But when Christians are massacred, Government rolls out industrially its media censorship and inaction including aiding and abetting; for purpose of dwarfing or mangling same. Both in principle and in practice, the present Government of Nigeria has provided and still provides maximum protection for Fulani settlements and their jihadist groups and turned and still turns blind eyes including little or zero response to early warning or distress calls on the side of the persecuted Christians and their properties, especially when under attack or about to be attacked. Naturally, individual or group victim citizens reprisals become inevitable when governing or securing authorities woefully failed in their duties to protect them and go after their attackers; or whereby same governing or securing authorities take sides and shield the perpetrators and cover up their atrocities. Royal watchers usually get just the occasional glimpse of their favourites on official engagements, two Italian princesses are rapidly amassing legions of fans on Instagram as they show off their charmed lifestyle - and you've probably never heard of them. Princess Maria Carolina, 17, and Maria Chiara Di Bourbon-Two Sicilies, 15, are the daughters of Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro, 57, and Princess Camilla, Duchess of Castro, 49. Prince Carlo holds a claim to the now defunct throne of the former House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the Spanish royal family, which descends from the Capetian Dynasty and ruled over Southern Italy and Sicily during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the family has no official remit, they spend their time doing charity work and promoting the interest of Southern Italy. The prince's daughters enjoy a life of luxury, spending their time between Italy, Monaco, Paris and St Tropez, soaking up the sun, sporting designer labels and making the most of their families' wealth. They are also actively involved with charity work and rub shoulders with the most elite socialites of Europe, speaking fluently in English, French and Italian. Two Italian Princesses are making waves online with snaps of their lavish lifestyle. Princess Maria Carolina, 17 and Maria Chiara Di Bourbon-Two Sicilies, 15, are the daughter of Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro, 57 and Princess Camilla, Duchess of Castro, 49 Princess Chiara, pictured in St Tropez, the younger of the two sisters, shares her sister's passion for fashion and lvoes sharing pictures of her holidays on Instagram The two princesses want for nothing and are often showered with gifts from their doting parents for their birthdays. On their respective Instagram accounts, they share snaps of their holidays around the globe, from Paris to Dubai and New York. The eldest, Maria Carolina, Duchess of Calabria and of Palermo - or Carolina for short - was born in 2003 in Rome. She is her father's direct heir and will inherit his title and duties, as well as his claim to Head of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Her godparents at her Sardinia baptism were Prince Pierre of Arenberg, Anna Maria Pisanu (the spouse of Sardiana's president Guisseppe Pisanu) and Spanish model and actress Ines Sastre. At just 17, she's already a natural at public engagements, having accompanied her parents throughout her teenage years, worked as a model for Chopard and Dolce & Gabbana, and even made their big screen debut in a film with Nicole Kidman. The girls with their mother Princess Camilla at the wedding of Jean-Christophe Napoleon to Olympia Von Arco-Zinneberg at Les Invalides in Paris in October 2019 Carolina (pictured) and Chiara are often showered with gifts from their parents for their birthdays In an interview with French-speaking magazine SoirMag in 2018, she revealed she was home-schooled in six languages. She is an ambassador for Passion Sea since 2015, a project which promotes the safeguarding of the oceans and seas eco-system. Carolina is also a member of the UN Women For Peace Association and took part in its Peace March in 2016, in New York. Her eyes are set on the silver-screen, and Carolina hopes to study at the New York University of Art and pursue a career in film, following in the footsteps of her grandmother, Edy Vessel, who held a small role in Otto e Mezzo by famed Italian director Federico Fellini. In 2014, she and her sister had cameos as young girls reading poetry in Grace of Monaco, starring Hollywood legend Nicole Kidman. When she's not attending to her charity work, the aristocratic beauty is seen at Paris, Rome and Monaco's most select events, such as the Debutante Ball - known in French as 'Le Bal des Debutantes', or 'Le Bal,' - where she and her younger sister were spotted in November 2019. The two princesses pose like models on their respective Instagram account. Here, Carolina enjoys the sun in St Tropez Demure Chiara loves fashion, make-up and is making her way in the world as a 15-year-old socialite (pictured in Paris in April) Carolina and the family's golden Christmas tree and presents in 2019. Nothing is too good for the Bourbon-Two Sicilies On Instagram she indulges her 87,500 followers with snaps of her designer outfits, families trips around the world and enthuses about her love of make-up by documenting her visits to Sephora stores. She has a close relationship with her family, especially her mother and sister, who make regular appearances in her feed. Charia, Duchess of Noto, who is two years younger, was also born in Rome, in 2005. Like her sister, she has illustrious godparents, which include Princess Michael of Kent, Princess Victoria Windisch-Graetz, Prince Augusto Ruffo di Calabria, and Swiss businessman Sergio Mantegazza, who, according to Forbes, is the 16th richest man in Switzerland. Who are the ancient royal family of Bourbon-Two Sicilies? The last King of Two Sicilies was Francis II, who was overthrown in 1860 and spent the remainder of his life in exile The Royal House of Bourbon Two Sicilies is an ancient branch of the Spanish royal family which ruled parts of southern Italy for more than 100 years from 1734 to 1861. Its descendants still carry the name today, some 150 years later. The line descends from Philippe de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV of France (16381715), who established the Bourbon dynasty in Spain in 1700 as Philip V (16831746). In 1759 King Philip's younger grandson was appanaged with the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, becoming Ferdinand IV and III (17511825), respectively, of those realms. His descendants occupied the joint throne (renamed 'Kingdom of the Two Sicilies' in 1816) until 1860. The family, then led by Francis II, was overthrown in 1860 by Italian general Giuseppe Garibaldi, who proclaimed a dictatorship on behalf of Victor Emmanuel II, the the King of Piedmont-Sardinia and later King of Italy. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Kingdom of Sardinia were merged into the newly formed Kingdom of Italy. The deposed Francis II and his wife spent time in Rome as guests of the Pope where they ran a government in exile. They left the city before it was occupied by the Italians in 1870. They led a wandering life from then on, living in Austria, France, and Bavaria. Francis II died in 1894 and was succeeded by his half-brother, Prince Alfonso, who was in turn succeeded by his son, Prince Ferdinand Pius, Duke of Calabria. The succession has been disputed since Ferdinand's death in 1960 because he had six daughters and no sons to carry the family line. Both his nephew Infante Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, and brother Prince Ranieri, pictured, Duke of Castro, laid claim to the throne. This feud continues between their descendants today The succession has been disputed since Ferdinand's death in 1960 because he had six daughters and no sons to carry the family line. Both his nephew Infante Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, and brother Prince Ranieri, Duke of Castro, laid claim to the throne. This feud continues between their descendants today. Chiara and Carolina are the daughters of Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro, grandson of Prince Ranieri. The claimant on the other side of the family is Prince Pedro, Duke of Calabria, grandson of Infante Alfonso. Chiara and Carolina are the daughters of Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro, grandson of Prince Ranieri, and his wife Camilla. split their time between homes in Monte Carlo and Paris. The couple in Monaco last year Prince Carlo, who only has two daughters, has overturned centuries of male primogeniture and has stated his title will pass to his eldest daughter, Carolina. Prince Carlo married his wife Camilla, daughter of Italian film star Edoarda Crociani, better known as Edy Vessel, in 1998 at Monte Carlo cathedral. Camilla's sister Cristina revealed their mother was obsessed with her daughters marrying princes. As Head of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Carlo holds many honours, including Sovereign Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Saint Januarius, of the Two Sicilian Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George and Order of Saint Ferdinand and Merit. Today Carlo and Camilla are 'very active in promoting the cultural, artistic, historical, and spiritual identity of southern Italy,' according to their official website. They split their time between homes in Monte Carlo and Paris. Camilla is also active in charity work and gives her time to the Red Cross and UNICEF, as well as the Association Monaco Against Autism, Amitie sans Frontieres et la Princess Grace of Monaco Foundation. She campaigns against animal cruelty and is in charge of her own non-profit organisation, the Camilla of Bourbon Charitable Foundation, which works with the government in Mauritius to preserve its wildlife and promote sustainable development. Advertisement The two sisters are close and often share pictures of each other on their Instagram feeds. Pictured together in St Tropez in front of their residence The oldest, Carolina, is active with charity work, being the ambassador from an ocean preservation non-profit, and a members of the UN Women for Peace association The two heiresses are living in the lap of luxury. Because she is the eldest, Caroline (pictured) will inherit her father's claim to the headship of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies She shares her sister's passion for travelling and charity work and documents her love of fashion on Instagram, where she counts 57,800 followers. Their mother, Duchess Camilla, born Crociani, is the daughter of Italian industry Tycoon Camilla Crociani and the actress Edy Vessel. Like her daughters, she is also active with her charity work. She has worked with the Red Cross and UNICEF, as well as the Association Monaco Against Autism, Amitie sans Frontieres et la Princess Grace of Monaco Foundation. She campaigns against animal cruelty and is in charge of her own non-profit organisation, the Camilla of Bourbon Charitable Foundation, which works with the government in Mauritius to preserve its wildlife and promote sustainable development. The sisters at Le Bal Des Debutantes in Paris in 2018, with their parents Duchess Camilla and Duke Carlo The family posing for pictures at the Influencer Awards in Monaco in 2019, with Chiara in a lovely pink gown, Camilla in a grey number and Carolina in a rose gold dress The two sisters have rubbed elbows with the world's most influencial people including Bill Gates (centre\) during a United States visit in 2018 In March 2017, she received an UN Women For Peace Award due to her charity efforts to help under-privileged children. Her husband, Prince Carlo succeeded his father Ferdinand, Duke of Castro's claim to the headship of the Bourcon-Two Sicilies' house in after his death 2008, and held his title. He is issued from the French branch of the Bourbon-Two Sicilies and his claim to the head of the House is disputed, by the Spanish branch. His claim stems from the decision of his great uncle Infante Carlos to renounce the throne for himself and his descendants in 1900. The House Bourbon-Two Sicilies are related to the Grand Ducal family of Luxembourg. Pictured: Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Theresa Carolina at Le Bal in 2019 with her cousin Leopold of Nassau, the nephew of Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg Chiara enjoying the sun during a boat trip around St Tropez, where the sisters spend most of their summers This meant that the rights of succession were passed on to Carlo's grandfather, Ranieri, Duke of Castro, then to his father Ferdinand and eventually to Carlo himself. Infante's Carlos' claim to the throne were recognised by the Spanish government, and an investigation into the matter found that Carlo's claim to the throne was legitimate. As Head of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Carlo holds many honours, including Sovereign Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Saint Januarius, of the Two Sicilian Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George and Order of Saint Ferdinand and Merit. A picture of the mountain of presents awaiting Chiara on her 15 birthday, which the family celebrated last year in Dubai Chiara celebrating with an army of balloons during her Dubai birthday last year, where she turned 15. Chiara posing by the water in St Tropez during the sister's summer last year. The socialites are well known around their habitual haunts Chiara on a family ski holiday in 2018 at the Peak Walk by Tissot, located by the Glacier 3000 in Switzerland He also holds national and international honours, which include the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, and Bailiff Knight Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. In the UK, he also holds the Freedom of the City of London award, which is a recognition awarded to people who have achieved success, recognition or celebrity in their chosen field and is a companion of the Order of Mercy, a Catholic order. The family are often spotted together at several events around the globe and count famous relatives all around the continent. In October last year, they attended the wedding of Camilla's nephew Jean-Christophe Napoleon Bonaparte, 33, the great-great-great nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte I, Emperor of France, and Olympia, 31, the great-great-great niece of the French Emperor's wife in Paris. The family also has links with the Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg. Through their father's side, Chiara and Carolina are cousins with Leopold de Naussau, the son of nephew of Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg and and the nephew of Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa. The final attempt to plug the blowout at an Oil India Limiteds (OIL) natural gas well at Baghjan in Upper Assams Tinsukia district, which has been on fire since June 9, suffered a setback on Friday, when a wagon used in the process toppled over. Foreign experts and their Indian counterparts were attempting to place the blowout preventer (BOP) stack, weighing nearly 3 tonnes, on the wellhead, when the Athey Wagon, a type of hydraulic lift used to fight oil-field fires consisting of a track-mounted boom with a hook in one end, fell down. BOP stack was hooked up with the Athey Wagon for placing on the wellhead. While the final capping operation was being attempted, the Athey Wagon toppled over at the last moment and the attempt did not succeed, said a statement issued by OIL. It added that the reasons for the incident are being ascertained in a bid to undertake the next course of action. Installation of the BOP was the penultimate task needed to complete the operation. Once the BOP is installed, the process of killing the well was to start immediately. That was to be done by injecting a kill fluid, a sludge-like specially prepared mud, into the well slowly to push the gas from it back to the reservoir. Earlier this week, OIL authorities had stated that the process would take two-three days and the operation would be over by Thursday (July 30). But Fridays incident is expected to delay the process further. Experts are looking at all issues right now. Operations to cap the well will resume on Saturday morning, said Tridiv Hazarika, spokesperson, OIL. The gas well had witnessed a blowout -- an uncontrolled release of gas or oil -- during a workover operation, or maintenance work, to locate a new reservoir, on May 27. While efforts were underway to plug the blowout, the well caught fire on June 9, killing two firefighters. The fire has been burning ever since. Initially, OIL authorities had said that the blowout would be plugged in a month. Later, the deadline was extended to July 7. But delays due to floods, technical glitches, and burn injury of three foreign experts while attempting to douse the flames have led to several delays. Since the Baghjan well is located close to Dibru Saikhowa National Park (DNSP) and the ecologically-sensitive Maguri Motapung Wetland, there were fears of environmental damage to the area due to the blowout and the blaze. Several studies by different agencies are underway to measure the extent of damage in the ecologically-fragile surroundings. In June, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had ordered the formation of an expert committee to probe the blowout and subsequent fire and assess the damage caused to human life, wildlife, and the environment because of the industrial disaster. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks via video conference during a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law on "Online Platforms and Market Power", in the Rayburn House office Building on Capitol Hill, in Washington, U.S., July 29, 2020. Graeme Jennings/Pool via REUTERS Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg were all questioned by Congress earlier this week. Marketing agency SJR provided Business Insider with a look at people's attitudes online toward these tech CEOs before and after Wednesday's hearing. Their results show that Pichai had the highest positive sentiment prior to the congressional hearing, but he was also the only CEO where positive sentiment decreased afterward. Overall, negative sentiment increased for all four of these CEOs. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg were questioned, virtually, by Congress on Wednesday about antitrust issues. The antitrust hearing comes after a yearlong investigation by Congress into the digital marketplace operations and competition. It is also the first time that all of them were questioned at the same hearing. This hearing is similar to the antitrust hearing with another tech giant Microsoft back in 1998. Marketing agency SJR has been looking at online attitudes toward top CEOs with the help of social risk advisory firm ENODO Global during the pandemic. The firm gathered news articles and social media posts from across the internet to get a sense of whether attitudes towards those executives are mostly positive or mostly negative based on the language used in those posts. They recently shared with Business Insider an analysis comparing how people were feeling about the four tech executives in late May and early June to sentiments held after this week's congressional hearing. Of these four tech CEOs, the Alphabet CEO was the only one that had a drop in positive sentiment, while the other three CEOs experienced at least a slight increase. Positive sentiment declined by 12 percentage points for Pichai from 51% to 39% of the posts analyzed being mostly positive. However, positive sentiment rose by 15 percentage points for Bezos, who testified in front of Congress for the first time on Wednesday, from 37% to 52%. The following chart highlights the share of mostly positive articles and posts about these CEOs before and after the antitrust hearing. Story continues Changes in negative sentiment varied, but all of the CEOs saw an increase after the hearing. Negative sentiment toward Zuckerberg only increased by two percentage points from 51% to 53% of analyzed articles and posts being mostly negative, while negative sentiment toward Bezos jumped by 16 percentage points from 28% to 44%. The following chart highlights the share of mostly negative articles and posts about these CEOs before and after the antitrust hearing. Read the original article on Business Insider Hong Kong police arrest 4 people on suspicion of breach of national security law People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 10:27, July 30, 2020 Hong Kong police said on late Wednesday that they had arrested four people on suspicion of breach of the national security law in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). The National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police Force arrested three males and one female on Wednesday afternoon in different districts including Yuen Long, Tuen Mun and Sha Tin, Li Kwai-wah, senior superintendent of the National Security Department told a media briefing Wednesday night. The four people, aged between 16 and 21 and claiming to be students, were arrested on suspicion of violating Article 20 and 21 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the HKSAR, Li said. Intelligence and investigation showed that a group recently announced on social media the establishment of an organization advocating "Hong Kong independence," and incited others to join them, he added. This is the first law enforcement operation launched by the National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police Force in accordance with the national security law in Hong Kong. The national security law in Hong Kong clearly defines offences endangering national security, the Hong Kong police pointed out, urging people not to defy the law and emphasizing that those who commit relevant crimes online will also be held liable. The police did not disclose the identity of the arrested. Local media said one of them is Tony Chung Hon-lam, the former convener of a student organization advocating "Hong Kong independence." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 20:47:54|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close KUWAIT CITY, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait on Friday reported 428 new COVID-19 cases and two more deaths, raising the tally of infections to 66,957 and the death toll to 447, the Health Ministry said in a statement. Currently, 8,578 patients are receiving treatment, including 134 in ICU, the statement added. The ministry also announced the recovery of 602 more patients, raising the total recoveries in the country to 57,932. Kuwait started on July 28 the third-phase plan of restoring normal life. During the third phase, labor capacity will increase to no more than 50 percent and visits to social care homes will be allowed. 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 A $570,000 expense uncovered during a fraud audit at Eastons charter school resulted from a bookkeeping error, according to the school board president. Michael Lieberman explained the error in a letter sent to the Easton Arts Academy Elementary Charter School community Thursday, July 30. Commencement ceremonies at the University of Alabama looked a great deal different for summer graduates as festivities kicked off on Friday, but that didn't stop students, families and the UA faculty from making the most of the situation. Ceremonies will also be held on Saturday and Sunday, with each lasting approximately two hours. Here are some of the scenes from Friday's ceremonies: Space was put between each of the graduates to promote social distancing (Matthew Wood - University of Alabama Photography) Some students sat in the stands at Coleman Coliseum (Matthew Wood - University of Alabama Photography) A limited number of family members were also allowed to attend (Matthew Wood - University of Alabama Photography) Some students sat in the stands at Coleman Coliseum (Matthew Wood - University of Alabama Photography) Graduates were also required to wear masks during the ceremonies (Matthew Wood - University of Alabama Photography) Students maintained six feet of distance as they waited for their diplomas Some students sat in the stands at Coleman Coliseum (Matthew Wood - University of Alabama Photography) This article originally appeared on the Tuscaloosa Patch Israeli police arrested another two Israeli-Arabs and charged them with spying for Hezbollah. The two had been recruited while on a trip to Turkey in December 2019. The recruiters were two Israeli-Arabs who had been suspected of espionage but who fled to Lebanon before they could be arrested. From Lebanon the married couple continue to seek out Arab-Israelis who might be recruited. This can be done via the Internet, which is regularly monitored by Israeli intelligence for such activity. The recruiters offer money for obtaining low-level information about Israeli military operations in northern Israel where most Arab-Israelis live. Israel first became aware of how extensive this Hezbollah recruiting operation was in 20016 when they captured many Hezbollah facilities during the 2006 war in Lebanon. Also captured were many Hezbollah operatives who were interrogated. Israel learned a lot about Hezbollah intelligence gathering activities. Hezbollah intel operations were more widespread and energetic than the Israelis believed. In addition to information collected electronically (like cell phone numbers of Israeli soldiers), there was apparently a network of spies within Israel. Most Arab-Israelis live in northern Israel, and some appear to have been on Hezbollahs payroll. Since these 2006 revelations Hezbollah has openly boasted of its spy network along the Israeli border and inside Israel. Hezbollah agents are constantly photographing Israeli border guard activity, and sometimes sneaking across the border to do so. Then there is the growing number of Israeli Arabs are also spying for Hezbollah. Mainly Hezbollah wants better target information for its 50,000 Iranian supplied rockets and missiles. Since 2006 there has been a growing problem with the loyalty of Israeli Arabs, who make up 20 percent of the population. A 2007 opinion survey of the Israeli Arabs revealed some scary attitudes. For example, 48 percent believed the Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel in 2006 were justified, even though Israeli Arabs suffered a disproportionate number of the Israeli casualties simply because most Israeli Arabs live in the north. Moreover, half saw the Hezbollah kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, which triggered the 2006 war, as justified, and 89 percent considered the Israeli attack on Lebanon a war crime. Only 44 percent believed the Hezbollah rocket attack was a war crime. A third of Arab high school and college graduates don't believe that six million Jews were killed during World War II compared to 28 percent of all Israeli Arabs. Israeli Arabs also have fears like the possibility of mass expulsions from Israel (60 percent), or transfer of their communities to a new Palestinian state (62 percent). In fact, 68 percent would prefer to live in Israel even if there were a peace deal that led to the creation of a Palestinian state. Meanwhile, 63 percent of Israel Jews avoid entering Arab towns or neighborhoods, and 68 percent fear civil unrest among Israeli Arabs. Since 2007 these anti-Israel attitudes among Arab Israelis have gotten worse and Hamas, Hezbollah and ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) try to take advantage of it. ISIL has been the most successful, mainly because it is the most radical Islamic terrorist group and that appeals to the young (especially teenage) Moslem males who are big fans of Islamic terrorism. At least fifty Israeli Arabs are known to have joined ISIL and most appear to have died there or otherwise disappeared from view or at least contact with their families back in Israel. At least seven Israeli-Arabs were confirmed dying while fighting for ISIL. In many instances Israeli-Arab activities that help Hezbollah have nothing to do with actually spying. In 2010 Israeli police arrested an army NCO and charged him with treason for supplying information on border security, along the Lebanese frontier, to a local drug smuggling gang. The NCO, who worked on vehicle maintenance in a northern Israel army base, also provided the names of seven local civilians who were also working for the drug gang. Five of these were arrested. What was most troublesome about this was that the drug gang was known to work with Hezbollah, which controls most of southern Lebanon. The NCO provided information on which border posts were having problems with their surveillance equipment, or other gear, and what the patrol schedules were. The drug gangs bring their stuff in from Lebanon, where Hezbollah has to be paid off. Information on the Israeli military is very valuable, and it's believed that Hezbollah was getting what the Israeli sergeant was passing on to the drug gang. The Israeli NCO said he did it for the money offered by the drug smugglers. New Delhi: The Union Cabinet is likely to take decide on the privatisation of six airports in its next meeting. The Cabinet may approve for privatisation of Amritsar, Indore, Ranchi, Trichy, Bhubaneshwar and Raipur airports. While Varanasi, Amritsar, Indore, Bhubaneswar and Trichy airports operate international flights, Raipur currently handles only domestic flight operations. According to sources, the government wants to approve privatisation of six airports before August 15. The bidding process will begin after approval from the Cabinet. The government had started the privatisation process of 12 state-run airports in November 2018. In the first phase, the decision was taken to privatise these six airports; Ahmadabad, Mangalore, Lucknow, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram and Jaipur. The Adani Group had emerged as the highest bidder for all the six airports from the first phase. In May 2020, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) took a review meeting of the Divestment and privatisation status and it directed that within three months, the process of privatisation of the remaining six airports must be completed. Vietnam on Friday documented a total of 82 COVID-19 patients, including imported cases, the largest daily spike since the virus first hit Vietnam this year. Forty-five local infections were registered in Da Nang, eight in neighboring Quang Nam Province three in Ho Chi Minh City, and 26 imported cases, the Ministry of Health said. All of the community-based cases are linked to Da Nang, which is the countrys outbreak epicenter now. One hundred and four cases of the respiratory disease have been reported in Vietnam since Saturday last week, when the Southeast Asian country recorded its first community transmission after 99 days. Eighty were diagnosed in Da Nang, 15 in Quang Nam, one in central Quang Ngai, five in Ho Chi Minh City, two in Hanoi, and one in Dak Lak, located in the Central Highlands. Vietnam has logged 546 coronavirus cases since January 23, when its first-ever patient was confirmed, the health ministry said. A total of 302 cases were imported and quarantined upon entry into the nation. Recoveries have reached 373 while Vietnams first virus-related fatality, a 70-year-old patient with many underlying conditions, was announced on Friday afternoon. Enhanced social distancing has been imposed on the entirety of Da Nang since Tuesday. Hanoi on Friday decided to close down bars, karaoke parlors, and roadside drinks stores from Saturday to prevent viral spread. Ho Chi Minh City authorities on Thursday ordered bars and discos to shut down from Friday until further notice amid new COVID-19 developments. About 21,000 people have returned to Hanoi from Da Nang over the past days while the number in Ho Chi Minh City is 18,000. Both cities are aggressively tracing these for coronavirus testing. Vietnam is closing its borders to all foreigners but foreign experts and skilled workers are still permitted to make an entry, subject to government approval and mandatory quarantine. The Vietnamese government has sent planes to bring back citizens stranded in other countries. They are all quarantined upon arrival. Local authorities have detected dozens of Chinese illegally crossing the border into Vietnam over the past weeks. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Nepals foreign minister Pradeep Gyawali on Friday called on India to start negotiations as soon as possible to resolve the border row over the Kalapani region, saying New Delhi hadnt responded to several requests from Kathmandu for talks on the issue. Gyawali also described a tripartite agreement signed by India, Nepal and the UK in 1947 for the recruitment of Nepalese Gorkha soldiers as redundant and said Kathmandu would prefer to handle this issue bilaterally with the two countries. Participating in a webinar organised by the Nepal Institute of International Relations, the minister responded to a question on the border row with India by saying that the issue was one of the unresolved questions left by history. We are still requesting India to start negotiations at the earliest so that the problems would not go to the streets, he said. Formal diplomatic engagement [on the issue] is extremely critical, he added. Nepal had formally asked several times to start diplomatic negotiations to settle problems over the Kalapani region, and proposed dates for talks but there was no timely response from New Delhi, Gyawali said. Though New Delhi cited the Covid-19 pandemic as a factor for the talks not being held at the current juncture, India has had diplomatic engagements with countries such as Australia, China and the US in recent months, he noted. There was no immediate response from Indian officials to Gyawalis remarks. The border row over Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura became a major irritant in bilateral ties after India opened a new road to Lipulekh to facilitate pilgrims going to Kailash Mansarovar. Nepal responded by publishing a new map that included the disputed territories. Nepal continues to be in touch with India on the issue through informal channels though no dates have been decided for talks, Gyawali said. He also acknowledged that the rest of the relationship with India is okay as critical supply chains were unaffected and India-funded development projects were carrying on. We have been able to differentiate the boundary issue from other broader engagements and I think it is the right way to deal with a close neighbour, he said. Referring to the tripartite agreement on the recruitment of Nepalese Gorkha soldiers in the armies of India and the UK, he said this was a legacy of the past and the pact has become redundant. [The agreement] had created a lot of jobs in the past, but in the changed context, some of its provisions are questionable, he said, adding Nepal would prefer to handle the matter bilaterally with India and the UK. Responding to a question about Nepals position on the India-China border standoff, Gyawali said: Being a close friend and a close neighbour of both countries, we urge both nations to de-escalate the tensions, to start negotiations, to solve peacefully the problems, engage constructively to solve the problems and to play a bigger role for the betterment of both countries, the region and the globe. When the tensions escalate, naturally Nepal becomes very worried because it will create a bigger and wider impact in the region, he said, adding it is important for India and China to continue their engagements to reduce tensions. Gyawali also said a recent virtual meeting of the foreign ministers of Afghanistan, Nepal and Pakistan hosted by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi was focused solely on the response to Covid-19 and wasnt an attempt to create a new sub-regional grouping. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON If you own a small business or a professional practice medical, dental, law, accounting, engineering you should know about an alternative to 401(k) plans that can turbocharge your retirement savings and ease your tax burden as well. Cash balance pension plans offer much higher contribution limits than do 401(k) plans. These plans which date back to 1985 and were codified by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 contain elements of both a defined contribution plan (401(k) plan) and a defined benefit plan (traditional pensions). Many employers offer both a cash balance plan and a 401(k) plan. With a cash balance plan, the employer contributes a pay credit per employee (usually between 5 percent and 8 percent of salary) and an additional interest credit at a fixed or variable rate. The employee does not contribute any funds. The pretax money is pooled into a trust account and invested as a whole. Owners and employees are guaranteed a certain amount at retirement, regardless of the actual performance of the underlying investments. If the investment returns fall short of the promised final pension total, the employer bears the loss. The plan managers calculate annual benefits, and ultimately total retirement benefits, for each owner and employee based on a formula that includes wages, the pay credit rate, account balances and the interest credit rate. So high-earning owners are guaranteed higher retirement sums than are rank-and-file employees, since, say, 8 percent of their earnings is higher than 8 percent of an employees earnings. Federal regulations are in place to protect the interests of employees in administering these plans. Unlike a 401(k) plan, cash balance plans must offer employees the option to take either a lump sum or annual annuity payments. Business owners note: A cash balance plan is more costly than a 401(k) plan due to setup fees and annual administration costs that include the requirement that an actuary must certify every year that the accounts are adequately funded. Despite the higher costs, many professionals and business owners have converted to cash balance plans. One reason is because pay credits are allowed to reach far higher annual limits than are traditional 401(k) contributions, reaching $200,000 a year and up in pretax contributions for those 60 and older. That compares with a 2020 limit of $63,500 on 401(k) plan contributions by participants 50 and over. The ability to contribute more money (in the form of employer-paid pay credits, not direct employee contributions) not only boosts investment returns but also shields more income from taxes because these are pretax earnings. With either type of retirement fund the idea is to pay taxes at a far lower tax rate when you begin to withdraw the funds after you retire. Since you can contribute far more under a cash balance plan, you save more in taxes over the long run. If youre an older business owner or a professional, seek out a financial planner to run the numbers and help you determine whether a cash balance plan might help you improve your retirement planning and tax planning picture. Your financial adviser will also consider whether setting up both a cash balance plan and a 401(k) plan would be your best option. Eric Tashlein is a Certified Financial Planner professional and founding Principal of Connecticut Capital Management Group, LLC, 2 Schooner Lane, Suite 1-12, in Milford. He can be reached at 203-877-1520 or through www.connecticutcapital.com. This is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as personalized investment advice or legal/tax advice. Please consult your advisor/attorney/tax advisor. Investment Advisor Representative, Connecticut Capital Management Group, LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor. Connecticut Capital Management Group, LLC and Connecticut Benefits Group, LLC are not affiliated. Taking a swipe at Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot now moving his MLAs to Jaisalmer, the BJP state chief Satish Poonia said at this rate the legislators will soon reach Pakistan. The MLAs, who had been camping in a hotel on the Jaipur-Delhi highway since July 13, arrived at the Jaipur airport amid tight security. Five chartered flights ferried them to Jaisalmer, some 550km from state capital Jaipur. CM Gehlot, facing rebellion from Sachin Pilot and 18 Congress MLAs, alleged poaching attempts by the BJP as reason to move his lawmakers to a new destination. The government needs to be saved as you can see the way the Centre and its departments (I-T and ED) are after us. The pressure will be less there (Jaisalmer). I and most of the ministers will stay here and the rest will keep coming. There will be no compromise in governance, CM Gehlot told reporters before boarding the flight to Jaisalmer. The CM said since the governor announced assembly session dates, the MLAs and their family members have been receiving calls. Even threatening calls are being made. What will happen to a country where horse trading is done at such a level? asked CM Gehlot. Hitting out at home minister Amit Shah, the CM said, I take name of (Amit) Shah again and again as he was at the forefront (of toppling the governments) in Goa, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa. What has happened to Amit Shah? Day or nightawake or sleeping, he only thinks how to topple opposition governments. If the elected government will be toppled in such a manner, then how will democracy be saved? According to Jaipur airport officials, the planes were hired from India Fly Safe Aviation Pvt Ltd and Himalayaputra Aviation Pvt. Ltd. A total of five charter planes --- three in afternoon and two in evening (carrying the CM) took around 100 MLAs to Jaisalmer. Jaisalmer superintendent of police Ajay Singh escorted the legislators to Hotel Suryagarh, located about 20 km from the city on the Jaisalmer-Sam highway. Heavy security has been deployed in and around the hotel. BJP state chief Satish Poonia questioned where will the CM move them next? Pakistan is ahead now. The CM talks high of democracy and constitution, but if there is unity and no fear then why do this. The CM should run the government from secretariat and not from Fairmont hotel, said Poonia. The government, Poonia added, will not be able to face the opposition in the assembly this time. The situation of Congress in Rajasthan is self destructive. The CM talks of democracy but is acting dictatorial and there is no governance, he said. Defending the government, transport minister Pratap Singh said the MLAs were moved to Jaisalmer so that they can remain united. The chief ministers strategy is that not a single MLA is poached, he said. The minister said shifting was part of their strategy. Work of people will not suffer, he assured. The hotel, built with Jaisalmers famous yellow limestone and shaped with high parkota-style walls, has 70 rooms and all of them are booked for MLAs. Suryagarh has been the venue of shooting of TV serials and films. The hotel has hosted many celebrity weddings, said Manoj Choudhary, a Jaisalmer-based travel agent. In June 2017, I ran into John Lewis outside of Atlanta, where he was campaigning for his former intern Jon Ossoff in the special election for Georgias Sixth Congressional District. I asked him something I asked everyone in those days, when the horror of this administration was still fresh: How confident was he that America would recover from Donald Trump? We will get there, Lewis said. We will survive. We will survive. During the civil rights movement, he said, there were people who said that we wouldnt get a Civil Rights Act when we were marching from Selma. We wouldnt get a Voting Rights Act. We wouldnt get a Fair Housing Act. But we never gave up, we never gave in. We kept the faith. There was something saintly about Lewis, whose funeral was held on Thursday. Whats striking in accounts of his youthful encounters with snarling, murderous white supremacy is not just his courage, but also his calm and otherworldly clarity. The historian Taylor Branch described a 1961 debate within part of the civil rights movement about whether to keep up demonstrations in Nashville in the face of escalating white violence. Whenever asked a question, he ignored the fine points of whatever theory was being put forward and said simply, Were gonna march tonight, Branch wrote of Lewis. loading......... Malibu, CA, July 31, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Join Ellis Martin for a conversation with Jordan Trimble, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Skyharbour Resources ( CVE:SYH ) ( OTCMKTS:SYHBF ) a preeminent uranium and thorium exploration Company with projects located in the prolific Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan, Canada which was ranked as the best mining jurisdiction to work in globally by the Fraser Institute in 2017.The Company has been acquiring top tier exploration projects at attractive valuations culminating in five uranium properties totalling approx. 200,000 hectares throughout the Basin. In July 2016, Skyharbour secured an option from Denison Mines ( TSE:DML ) to acquire a 100% interest in the Moore Uranium Project, now the flagship project, which hosts the high grade Maverick Zone. The Company is run by a strong management and geological team who are major shareholders with extensive capital markets experience as well as focused uranium exploration expertise in the Basin. In this segment Mr. Trimble discusses the start of the 2020 summer diamond 2500m drilling program at its high grade Moore Uranium Project in Saskatchewan, Canada as well as supply and demand trends in the uranium market reflected in the rise in spot prices since early April 2020.To view the interview, please visit:About Skyharbour Resources Ltd. Skyharbour Resources (CVE:SYH) (OTCMKTS:SYHBF) holds an extensive portfolio of uranium and thorium exploration projects in Canada's Athabasca Basin and is well positioned to benefit from improving uranium market fundamentals with six drill-ready projects. In July 2016, Skyharbour acquired an option from Denison Mines, a large strategic shareholder of the Company, to acquire 100% of the Moore Uranium Project which is located approximately 15 kilometres east of Denison's Wheeler River project and 39 kilometres south of Cameco's McArthur River uranium mine. Moore is an advanced stage uranium exploration project with high grade uranium mineralization at the Maverick Zone. Drill results have returned up to 6.0% U3O8 over 5.9 metres, including 20.8% U3O8 over 1.5 metres at a vertical depth of 265 metres. Skyharbour has signed option agreements with Orano Canada Inc. and Azincourt Energy whereby Orano and Azincourt can earn in up to 70% of specific segments of the Preston Project through a combined $9,800,000 in total exploration expenditures, as well as $1,700,000 in total cash payments and Azincourt shares. Preston is a large, geologically prospective property proximal to Fission Uranium's Triple R deposit as well as NexGen Energy's Arrow deposit. The Company also owns a 100% interest in the Falcon Point Uranium Project which hosts a high-grade surface showing with up to 68% U3O8 in grab samples from a massive pitchblende vein, the source of which has yet to be discovered. The Company's 100% owned Mann Lake Uranium project on the east side of the Basin is strategically located adjacent to the Mann Lake Joint Venture operated by Cameco, where high-grade uranium mineralization has been identified. Skyharbour's goal is to maximize shareholder value through new mineral discoveries, committed long-term partnerships, and the advancement of exploration projects in geopolitically favourable jurisdictions. About The Ellis Martin Report The Ellis Martin Report (TEMR) is an internet based radio program showcasing potentially undervalued companies to an audience of potential retail investors and fund managers that comprise our listening audience. TEMR is broadcasted on the VoiceAmerica Business Channel and The Opportunity Radio Network. CEO and company interviews are paid for by those represented on the program. RFI Durante la ultima oleada de coronavirus en Estados Unidos impulsada por la variante delta, las personas no vacunadas pero que sobrevivieron al covid estaban mejor protegidas que aquellas que se vacunaron y no estuvieron infectadas antes, segun un nuevo estudio publicado el miercoles. El hallazgo se suma al debate sobre las fortalezas relativas de la inmunidad natural en comparacion con la que se adquiere mediante la vacuna contra el SARS-CoV-2, y tiene el visto bueno de la agencia federal de los Clearing the legislative hurdle to Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy's plan for three capitals for Andhra Pradesh, Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan on Friday gave his assent to the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill, 2020, and the AP Capital Region Development Authority (Repeal) Bill, 2020. Although the two Bills will now formally become law following the Governor's assent, the government will have to clear legal hurdles before it can finally make its three-capital plan a reality. The issue is now pending before the AP High Court. The two Bills were passed only by the Legislative Assembly twice, first on January 20 and the next on June 16 and were not cleared by the Legislative Council. The Council Chairman, using his discretionary powers, referred the two Bills to Select Committees for wider examinations but the Committees itself were not constituted all these months. But the government sent the Bills to the Governor for his assent under Article 197 (1) and (2) of the Constitution and, after wide-ranging legal consultations, he gave his assent to the new legislation, said official sources. The Reddy government brought in the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill, 2020, to give shape to its plan of having three capitals for the state, with the executive capital in Visakhapatnam, Legislative capital in Amaravati and judicial capital in Kurnool. It also provides for dividing the state into various zones and establishing zonal planning and development boards. The village and (municipal) ward secretariats system that the government brought in last October now gets statutory backing as it has been made part of the new legislation. The other legislation is intended to repeal the AP Capital Region Development Authority Act, 2014. The CRDA Act was enacted on December 22, 2014 for the development of the state capital post-bifurcation with a specific area demarcated as the capital region. Now that the YSR Congress government decided to have three capitals for the state, the CRDA Act is being repealed. The government now intends to constitute a new Amaravati Metropolitan Region Development Area under the provisions of AP Metropolitan Region and Urban Development Authorities Act, 2016. The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Friday extended the detention of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti by another three months under the stringent Public Safety Act. Mufti among others had been taken into preventive custody barely hours before the Centre revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5 last year. The state was subsequently divided into two union territories Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The detention order of the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister was scheduled to lapse on August 5, 2020. Mufti is the only politician currently, who is still detained under the PSA. She will continue to remain under detention for another three months at her official residence, which had earlier been declared a subsidiary jail, the order issued by the Home Department of the government said. A number of other prominent politicians, including two former chief ministers, Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah, have been released from custody. The political leaders were arrested last August, hours after the Centre proposed the revocation of Article 370, which granted special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and proposed the bifurcation of the state into two union territories. Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Conference leaders Sajjad Lone and Imran Ansari were also arrested. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend: Italian ProBusiness company completed the contract with Turkmenistan's Turkmennebit State Concern by delivering the relevant amount of drill pipes, ProBusiness told Trend. The contract was concluded based on the results of the relevant tenders and was implemented smoothly, noted the company. The company pointed out that the delivered material will contribute to drilling plans of Turkmennebit. In addition, the company said that Turkmenistan has excellent business environment and that they are happy to have the opportunity to work with Turkmenistan and supply products for the country's oil and gas fields. We consider business environment in Turkmenistan extremely positive with excellent potential, excellent professional work with all State Concerns and we definitely will keep participating on all international tenders offering our products to supply additional equipment (drill pipes, drilling bits, etc), said ProBusiness. As it was reported last year, ProBusiness had to deliver 2,424 tons of various drill pipes required for drilling and repair work at oil and gas fields to the Turkmenistan's Turkmennebit State Concern. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva Three people, including a 19-year-old from Britain, have been charged in the United States over a hack of high profile Twitter users earlier this month. The US Department of Justice said Mason Sheppard, from Bognor Regis, faces three charges in connection with an apparent cyber scam targeting around 130 accounts on the social media site on July 15. Sheppard, who US authorities say is also known as "Chaewon", faces charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and the intentional access of a protected computer. A 17-year-old said to be the mastermind behind the hack was arrested during an early morning raid in Florida,. The Tampa teenager, Graham Ivan Clark, is facing 30 felony charges over the "Bit-Con" hack of famous celebrities, politicians and business leaders including Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and many others. The DoJ later announced charges against two alleged co-conspirators, Sheppard and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, Florida, who goes by the hacker name Rolex. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the DoJ, IRS and Secret Service conducted a global search after the biggest security breach in Twitters history exposed 130 accounts, allowing the hacker to tweet from 45, access the direct message in-boxes of 36, and download data from seven. Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said the extensive fraud was sophisticated and used famous personalities to target regular Americans, with more than $100,000 worth of the cryptocurrency sent in a single day. He told a news conference that the hack could have stolen massive amounts of money and destabilized financial markets across the globe He had access to powerful politicians Twitter accounts, he could have undermined politics as well as international diplomacy, Mr Warren said. The boy, who was arrested at an apartment where he lives alone, has been charged as an adult with felonies including organised fraud, communications fraud, identity theft and hacking. Mr Warren said Clark gained access to the accounts and internal Twitter controls through compromising a company employee, before selling access to some accounts and using high-profile identities to solicit bitcoin. The specific accounts he was charged for using included Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, Floyd Mayweather, Kim Kardashian, and Kanye West, as well as the companies Apple, Bitcoin, Uber, and bitcoin exchanges Coinbase, Gemini, and Binance. While the celebrity tweets went live on 15 July, the charges stem over a period of more than two months dating back to 3 May. Mr Clark is currently in police custody and is expected to appear in court as early as tomorrow morning. Mr Warren said he would not face federal charges so that he could be tried as an adult under Florida law. Hes a 17-year-old kid who apparently just graduated high school, but make no mistake this was not an ordinary 17-year-old. This was a highly sophisticated attack on a magnitude not seen before, Mr Warren said. Twitter thanked law enforcement in a statement on Friday, saying they were focused on being transparent about the hack. A day earlier, the company said the attack targeted a small number of employees through a phone spear phishing attack that relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems. TORONTO, July 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (TSX:BPRF, BPRF.U) Brompton Flaherty & Crumrine Investment Grade Preferred ETF (the Fund) announces a change to the risk rating of the Fund. The change to the Funds risk rating is a result of ongoing review of the risk rating and not as a result of any changes to the Funds investment objectives, strategies, restrictions or management of the Fund. Previous Risk Rating New Risk Rating Low Low to Medium About Flaherty & Crumrine Flaherty & Crumrine Incorporated (FCI) is the sub-advisor to the Fund. FCI was established in 1983 and specializes in US-dollar-denominated preferred securities and corporate debt instruments. The firm uses 30 years of proprietary data on over 1,500 preferred securities to carry out intensive credit analysis, thorough vetting of securities terms and structures, and active portfolio management, with the goal of exploiting pricing inefficiencies in the preferred securities market to provide attractive rates of return to investors. About Brompton Funds Founded in 2000, Brompton Funds Limited (Brompton) is an experienced investment fund manager with with income focused investment solutions including Toronto Stock Exchange listed closed-end funds and exchange-traded funds. For further information, please contact your investment advisor, call Bromptons investor relations line at 416-642-6000 (toll-free at 1-866-642-6001), email us at info@bromptongroup.com or visit our website at www.bromptongroup.com . Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with exchange-traded fund investments. Please read the prospectus before investing. Exchange-traded funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated. Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information may relate to matters disclosed in this press release and to other matters identified in public filings relating to the Fund, to the future outlook of the Fund and anticipated events or results and may include statements regarding the future financial performance of the Fund. In some cases, forward-looking information can be identified by terms such as may, will, should, expect, plan, anticipate, believe, intend, estimate, predict, potential, continue or other similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. Actual results may vary from such forward-looking information. Investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and we assume no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. Patna, July 31 : Following the alleged suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, the Bihar Police team which reached Mumbai to investigate the case after an FIR filed by his father K.K. Singh, is not getting any support from the Mumbai Police. Due to their limited resources, the Bihar police is searching for all the people related to this case and interrogating them on its own. According to a top source at Police Headquarters in Patna, the Bihar Police is awaiting the decision of the Supreme Court in the case as the accused Rhea Chakraborty, Sushant's girlfriend, has filed a petition in the Supreme Court to shift the case filed in Patna to Mumbai. Sushant allegedly committed suicide on June 14 at his home in Mumbai. Sources say that the Bihar police cannot take any action before the Supreme Court order. Sushant's father had filed an FIR against Rhea and several of her family members in Patna on July 28. After this, a team of Bihar Police travelled to Mumbai to investigate the matter. The four-member team has recorded statements of several people related to the case for the past three days, including Sushant's ex-girlfriend actress Ankita Lokhande and his sister but Rhea Chakraborty's whereabouts are unknown. The Bihar Police team also went to her flat on Thursday but she was not there. A top police officer told IANS on condition of anonymity, "Nothing is happening anywhere. We are awaiting the order of the Supreme Court in this entire matter. Rhea has gone to the Supreme Court and her petition says that the case should be brought in the jurisdiction of Mumbai. Until the order of the Supreme Court comes, nothing can be done in this matter." The officer, however, said that the Bihar Police team will continue to do its work in Mumbai, but it has faced many problems because it is not getting support from the Mumbai Police at all. He said, "Now whatever has to be done, we have to do it on our own. Sadly, we are not getting along with the Mumbai Police at all. It is very difficult to work." Regarding reports of Bihar police sending women police officers for Rhea's arrest, the officer said this is all pointless. He said "When we have not got a warrant to arrest Rhea, then there is no question of sending women officers to Mumbai." The officer did say that a meeting of senior police officers of the state was held at Bihar Police Headquarters on Friday, in which aspects related to Sushant's case were discussed. This was a regular meeting in which the most senior officers of the Bihar Police attended and discussed the developments so far. The Mumbai Police is also investigating the case on its own level. In this connection, it has questioned many veteran film actors but has not been able to reach a firm conclusion yet. Meanwhile, all major political parties in Bihar have supported the demand for a CBI probe in the case. The Bihar government has also waded into the matter. It has decided to approach the Supreme Court against the petition filed by Rhea on moving the entire case from Patna to Mumbai. The Bihar BJP has also questioned the "silence" of Maharashtra Chief Minister's son and Shiv Sena leader Aditya Thackeray in the matter. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text Dr. Anthony Fauci testified that 250,000 people have registered on a National Institutes of Health website to take part in experimental vaccine trials. The study of the first vaccine involving 30,000 people began this week. The U.S. government plans to launch studies of additional vaccines every month through the fall. Trials are pivotal for establishing the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines. Not all patients who volunteer for clinical trials are eligible to participate. Fauci made the comment while testifying before House lawmakers on the federal response to the pandemic, alongside the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the governments testing czar. With hospitalizations and deaths on the rise in areas around the country, Fauci says Americans most again embrace public health basics such as social distancing and mask-wearing. Related Content: Chandigarh, July 31 : With its coronavirus cases crossing 1,000 mark, the Chandigarh administration on Friday decided not to lift night curfew restrictions. Also, it banned weekend visits of people to the famed Sukhna lake. The administration said night curfews will remain in force daily from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Also odd-even system will be re-introduced in selected congested markets. All markets will close by 8 p.m., but restaurants and eating establishments can operate till 9 p.m., an official statement said. Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) Director Jagat Ram said the hospital has 105 Covid-19 patients, out of which 40 belong to Chandigarh, 37 from Punjab, 16 from Haryana, four from Himachal Pradesh and others from other states. He said they have tested 953 samples, out of which 54 samples were found positive. Administrator V.P. Singh Badnore directed Director General of Police Sanjay Baniwal to enforce strictness in monitoring visitors, who could be carriers of the virus. A new government study shows that nearly 40 % of people who have died with COVID-19 had diabetes. Among deaths of those under 65, half had the chronic condition and the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed more than 10,000 deaths in 15 states, February to May. Many Americans who have diabetes are concerned about their health more than anybody else. With fear, people are encouraged to follow up with the procedure more careful than usual. Andrew Boulton, president of the IDF stated, 'my fear is we will see a tsunami of problems once this is over.' According to the report, some tested positive for the virus in May and was admitted to the hospital. A man named Darrell Cager Sr, 64 years old had died from complications of COVID-19 on June 11. Darell's daughter, Lina spoke with a reporter at a Sacramento, California TV station, "It's hard to accept he is gone. I have to stop myself from wanting to call him. A lot of these death were in some way preventable." Being terrified and shocked by the sudden death caused from diabetes-related to COVID-19, Americans are starting to take bigger actions towards their own health. "I'm thinking, Lord, this could happen to me," Lina exclaimed with fear. The coronavirus is proving particularly dangerous for people with pre-existing conditions. Government officials have warned, and data shows, that many of those who have died already suffered from one disease-diabetes. AUSTIN, Texas (AP) A Dallas law firm said it is representing a soldier stationed at Fort Hood who fatally shot an armed demonstrator at an Austin rally against police violence last weekend. The law firm Broden & Mickelsen said Thursday night that it is representing Sgt. Daniel Perry, who is on active duty with the U.S. Army. Perry has not been charged, and Austin police have not named him as a suspect in their investigation. Police asked the public for tips and video Thursday to help in their investigation of the killing of Garrett Foster, 28. Foster was shot July 25 as demonstrators marched through downtown Austin. He was taken to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. The law firm said Perry was in Austin that night driving for a ride-share company. Perry dropped off a client off and was waiting for his next rider when he turned right onto a street and encountered the protest that he didn't know was happening, according to a statement from attorney Clint Broden. When Sgt. Perry turned on the Congress Avenue, several people started beating on his vehicle, the law firm's statement said. An individual carrying an assault rifle, now known to be Garrett Foster, quickly approached the car and then motioned with the assault rifle for Mr. Perry to lower his window. Perry initially thought Foster worked in law enforcement and put his window down, the law firm said. But then Foster raised his weapon toward Perry, according to the law firm, and Perry realized Foster was not a police officer. The statement said several witnesses confirmed this account. Perry, who carried a handgun in his car, fired at Foster in self defense, Broden said. Someone in the crowd then fired at Perrys vehicle, so Perry drove to away and called the police. Perry is cooperating with the police investigation, Broden said, and offered sympathy to Foster's family on his client's behalf. Sgt. Perry is devastated by what happened, Broden said. Story continues Austin police did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday. A day earlier, the department said it would not be releasing or confirming the identity of the person who shot Foster, citing an ongoing investigation. U.S. Army officials confirmed that Perry is on active duty and assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood. "The unit continues to cooperate with the Austin Police Department in their ongoing investigation, Army officials said Friday in a statement. Perry is a decorated soldier from North Texas who has served in the military for eight years, Broden said. Police said witnesses told them a disturbance began when a vehicle started honking at protesters. The vehicle stopped as protesters crossed the street and Foster, who was holding an AK-47 type assault rifle, approached the drivers side window. He was shot from inside the vehicle. Witness Michael Capochiano said the car sped through the protesters before it apparently hit an orange barrier and stopped, told the Austin American-Statesman. In video that was streamed live on Facebook, a car can be heard honking before several shots ring out and protesters start screaming and scattering. Police can then be seen tending to someone lying in the street. Austin police say they have interviewed the person who shot Foster and have the gun used in the confrontation secured as evidence. ___ Acacia Coronado is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. News / Film & TV Reporter James is on the news desk where he focuses on protest reporting. Outside of reporting for the Daily Emerald, he is a former reporter and copy editor at LCC's The Torch, has contributed to KISS vinyl guides as a collector and is a vintage vinyl dealer. Ms. Phillipson insisted her work was not simply about her political views or lifestyle choices. Yes, Im a vegan, but Im also a woman, a feminist, she said. All kinds of things feed into my art, because whatever ideologies I have will be in there at some level. But Im not presenting an argument. Ekow Eshun, the chairman of the group that commissions works for the Fourth Plinth, as the pedestal in Trafalgar Square is known, said in a telephone interview that Ms. Phillipson was very good at summoning the strangeness and discomfort and absurdity of the contemporary moment and assembling that into forms that are unexpected. Her work also happened to be extremely enjoyable, he added. Iwona Blazwick, the director of Londons Whitechapel Gallery, which has commissioned work by Ms. Phillipson, said in a Zoom interview that her art managed to be both hilarious and terrifying at the same time. She reminds me of the Surrealists, actually, Ms. Blazwick said. Like them, Phillipson juxtaposes unrelated items to give them new meaning. That is what sets her apart, and makes her a great sculptor, Ms. Blazwick added. In her studio, Ms. Phillipson who has no gallery representation and worked as an office administrator until about five years ago seemed surprised by her recent success. She never expected to get the Fourth Plinth commission, she said. When she received an email in 2016 inviting her to submit an idea, her response, she said, was, This is hilarious. Theres no way Im going to get it. COVID-19 continues to force changes in Nebraskaland Days plans, including the parade that was scheduled for Aug. 8. Because the states directed health measures remain in Phase 3 for North Platte, regular parades are not allowed, so Executive Director David Fudge said the event will now be a reverse parade. What were going to do is take the entries we have and line them up around the interior of Cody Park, Fudge said. People will enter the southwest entrance of the park south of the Buffalo Bill statue. Miss Rodeo America Jordan Tierney and Miss Rodeo Nebraska Joeli Walrath will greet people as they enter the park. Others will direct the drivers in a counterclockwise direction around the inside perimeter of the park. Theyll be able to see the entries in the reverse parade and then will exit the park through the main entrance north of the Buffalo Bill memorial, Fudge said. The parade starts at 1 p.m. Well do the parade judging at 12:30 p.m. and then let people drive through the park from 1 to 2 p.m., Fudge said. Then well pick her up and put her away for the year. By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After many weeks of stringent Covid-related restrictions, the state government on Thursday announced the resumption of long-distance KSRTC bus services from Saturday and the lifting of trawling ban on Friday night. With the Centres Unlock 3.0 guidelines set to remove night curfew from August 1 and allow gymnasiums and yoga institutes to function, the state government too is hinting at a calibrated reopening of various sectors. KSRTC will resume long-distance services within the state from August 1, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said during his daily briefing.With the suspension of long-distance services, KSRTC since June 26 has been using relay services connecting neighbouring districts to facilitate long-distance travel. The schedules were arranged in a manner allowing for passengers to alight in the nearest district to catch connection buses to further their journeys. The relay services will run parallel to the long-distance services for at least a week, said an officer with KSRTC. The number of long-distance buses will be less to start with, but will be increased gradually depending on the passenger demand, said the officer.The services will follow the Covid-19 protocol, with no stoppages within containment zones. With the trawling ban coming to an end, controlled fishing in strict adherence to the Covid protocol will be allowed in the state from August 5, the CM said. Auctioning of fish will be banned. Boats will be allowed to operate, including in containment zones, every alternate day based on their registration numbers. Fish obtained from containment zones can be sold only in those areas and fishermen are not allowed to move out to sell fish.Excess catch will reach markets through cooperative societies, he said.After work, fishers are to return to the same place from where they set out for fishing. Local-level committees, comprising harbour management society members, fishermen representatives and officials, will be constituted to fix the price and to control the fishing activities and sales. The CM urged schools to limit the timing of virtual classes. He said private schools were providing classes online for up to five hours. Some students also have tuitions, of two to three extra hours, making the virtual session extend up to seven hours. Besides physical strain, it also causes mental stress, anxiety, attention deficit and sleeplessness. On the lines of government schools, classes should be limited to a few hours. Also, online classes should be conducted live to ensure communication. Classes should not be conducted at one stretch and adequate breaks should be provided. It can be conducted in morning and afternoon sessions, he said. He suggested a special curriculum for online education and a reduction in homework. The CM said the digital education initiatives implemented by the state have received national recognition. As per a Ministry of Education report on Strides in Distance Education, Kerala has been presented as the best model in the country, he said. Eamon Ryan, the Green Party leader, briefed his partners in coalition about the steps taken over a junior minister's failure to back Government policy. Joe O'Brien, the junior minister for charities, abstained on a Housing Bill amid Green Party internal unhappiness that it could erode the situation of some tenants. Mr Ryan responded by suspending him for two months -- but the Dail has gone into recess for six weeks, meaning he will face the maximum of a fortnight on furlough. Backbenchers in Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have privately suggested that the punishment is a wrist-slap that will do little to deter future deviation from Government policy. Read More But Taoiseach Micheal Martin declared at Dublin Castle that internal disciplinary matters were for political parties themselves. "Eamon Ryan has spoken to minister O'Brien in relation to this. He (Ryan) has taken steps. The parties are different, and we want to keep the focus on the policy agenda." There was much to be progressed in the Autumn, he added, citing the land development Bill, as well as health, housing and climate change. Pressed on the rebellion, which was accompanied by Dublin Central Green TD Neasa Hourigan resigning the whip - as GP whip herself - in order to vote against the Bill, Mr Martin professed himself undisturbed at the ill-discipline within the ranks of his junior coalition partner. "I've been in Government before, I don't get totally fazed by events," he said. He claimed to believe that there enough attention on the substance of Government and the achievements of his administration so far, whether it was the July stimulus or the roadmap for the re-opening of schools. Channelling US President Donald Trump, Mr Martin said "I think a lot of people have been surprised" at how many decisions the Government had processed since taking office. Asked again about whether the punishment was sufficient, Mr Martin said: "Every party has its own internal disciplinary procedures. "Eamon Ryan spoke to me last evening, and to Leo Varadkar as well, and we are progressing the Programme for Government and its policy priorities." New Delhi: Muslims across the globe are celebrating the auspicious festival of Eid-al-Adha or Bakr Eid, also known as 'festival of sacrifice'. On this day, people who are away from their near and loved ones due to the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak this year can extend wishes and celebrate the essence of the festival. Saudi Arabia announced it on July 31 while the Shahi Imam of Delhis Jama Masjid declared August 1 as Eid-al-Adha for India. The special day is considered to be the second of the two most important Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide each year. The first one being Eid-al-Fitr, and the second one Eid-al-Adhait is considered the holier of the two. The festival of Eid-al-Adha falls on the 10th day of Dhu al-Hijjah as per the Islamic lunar calendar. As per the Gregorian calendar, Eid-al-Adha dates may vary from year-to-year drifting approximately 11 days earlier each year. Take a look at these heartfelt WhatsApp, Facebook and Text messages for your loved ones: May Allah be the guiding light in your life and bless your family with prosperity! Eid Mubarak Sending all my love and wishes to you. May Allah bless you on Eid! Another year, another reason to celebrate, The same festival but a different date! Here's wishing you all the happiness and blessings. Eid Mubarak! Allahaapko saari khushiyaan dein. May Allah light up your life even brighter And take away all your troubles this year. Wishing you and your family Eid Mubarak! May Allah always embrace you with good health and success. Eid Mubarak! This Eid-ul-Adha, we wish you happy times. May you get prosperity, health, wealth, success and happiness. Eid Mubarak! Sending you a box full of wishes and love, May Allah protect you and keep you happy. Eid Mubarak! Eid Mubarak aap sabko, Hamesha khush rakhe Allah aapko. Eid-ul-Adha Mubarak ho Aapko! Eid Mubarak to all! Here's praying that Allah shower his choicest blessings upon you and family! Here's wishing you and your near ones Eid Mubarak! Despite COVID-19s devastating impact on the economy, Oppenheimers Chief Investment Strategist John Stoltzfus remains overweight on U.S. equities, and is more bullish on cyclical sectors versus defensive sectors. As for the legitimate concerns about the virus re-emergence, Stolzfus argues investors should consider the reopening setbacks as just that and not something that is permanent. "In the past week along with legitimate concerns about the recent resurgences of Covid-19 stateside and abroad there was also a resurgence of the life will never be the same kind of worry creeping into the theme du jour. We dont attribute much value to the latter worry as collaborative efforts by scientists across the globe continue at record pace to pursue vaccines to stem the spread of the virus as well as drugs of greater efficacy to treat those who have fallen ill to it," Stoltzfus noted. Applying Stolzfus take to its recommendations, Oppenheimer is pounding the table on three stocks in particular. Noting that all three have solid long-term growth prospects, the firms analysts believe each has at least 50% upside potential. After running the tickers through TipRanks database, its clear the rest of the Street is in agreement, with each earning a Strong Buy consensus rating. NuCana PLC (NCNA) Using its ProTide technology, NuCana is working on transforming some of the most widely prescribed chemotherapy agents and nucleoside analogs into more effective and safer medicines. Given its potential to address the key limitations of other therapies, Oppenheimer has high hopes for this healthcare name. Representing the firm, 5-star analyst Leland Gershell points out that nucleoside analogs are commonly used treatments for viral infections and many cancers, but cellular resistance mechanisms that impede drug entry and activation, as well as enhance breakdown and toxicity, hamper the fuller realization of their therapeutic potential. NCNAs technology, on the other hand, uses a prodrug strategy exemplified by Gileads HIV and HCV programs to address these issues. Story continues NCNAs lead asset, Acelarin, is in Phase 3 development for front-line biliary tract cancer after the therapy combined with cisplatin demonstrated a superior clinical efficacy signal compared to gemcitabine, the current standard-of-care. These combinations are being compared head-to-head in a recently initiated Phase 3 in front-line disease, and interim efficacy analyses expected 2022-23 could enable this orphan indication's first approval, Gershell commented. "We assign a 50% probability of success for Acelarinin biliary tract cancer, assume 35% peak penetration of the target ~18K patient annual incidence, with peak 2028 sales of ~$319M." Adding to the good news, investors could get an update on NUC-3373, NuCanas second product in clinical development, in the second half of 2020. NUC-3373 is an optimized active metabolite of 5- fluorouracil which is moving towards a registrational Phase 2/3 trial in early-line colorectal cancer Looking at the available data, compared to 5-FU, NUC-3373 was able to generate significantly more anti-cancer activity, required a lower infusion time and had a better tolerability profile. On top of this, a Phase 1b multiple combination therapy trial in advanced colorectal cancer showed the candidate might benefit patients that are refractory to 5-FU, a claim Gershell believes could be validated by the 2H20 results. The implication? Gershell stated, With 5-FU a standard treatment component for a wide range of cancers, NUC-3373's key advantages position it to become the preferred alternative among the 500,000 U.S. individuals who receive 5-FU annually. Beyond colorectal cancer, NCNA has indicated interest in exploring NUC-3373 in other malignancies treated with 5- FU (e.g., gastric, esophageal cancer). To this end, Gershell rates NCNA an Outperform (i.e. Buy) along with a $20 price target. Shares could appreciate by 295%, should the analysts thesis play out in the coming months. (To watch Gershells track record, click here) Its not often that the analysts all agree on a stock, so when it does happen, take note. NCNAs Strong Buy consensus rating is based on a unanimous 4 Buys. The stocks $17 average price target suggests a 236% upside from the current share price of $5.08. (See NCNA stock analysis on TipRanks) Milestone Pharmaceuticals (MIST) Hoping to address the unmet needs of patients, Milestone Pharmaceuticals develops therapies for the acute treatment of arrhythmias and other cardiac conditions. Even though the company experienced a setback related to one of its therapies in March, Oppenheimer believes it is back on track. 5-star analyst Leland Gershell, who also covers NCNA, acknowledges that there was some uncertainty following NODE-301's primary endpoint miss in March. However, he argues MIST has emerged from constructive FDA discussions on track to complete etripamil's development in paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (PSVT) without the need to run a new trial, a solid positive to expectations. Although NODE-301 wasnt able to meet the original primary endpoint of time to conversion (TTC), statistical analysis demonstrated that the therapy showed efficacy earlier on when evaluated over shorter periods. Therefore, the FDA agreed to a new statistical analysis plan that defines the primary endpoint as TTC at 30 minutes, so NODE-301 was technically successful. What does this change mean for MIST? Gershell noted, NODE-301's original five-hour primary analysis period provided time for a sufficient number of placebo subjects to experience spontaneous resolutions, precluding the ability to show a difference. The use of a 30-minute window as the primary assessment retains etripamil nasal spray's value proposition to avoid/reduce emergency department visits, and bodes well for RAPID success. Originally, the RAPID study (formerly NODE-301B) was set to include 170 participants who had been randomized into the double-blind, event-driven trial but had not experienced an SVT event upon reaching the target event number. Now, the trial will continue until 180 total events have been witnessed, and MIST will re-open enrollment in 2H20 with 1:1 randomization. With top-line data slated for release in late 2021/early 2022, the data readout could reflect a major catalyst. When it comes to its cash position, MIST boasted $102 million as of March 31, with the $25 million private placement by lead shareholder RTW supporting its operations into Q2 2022. This capital was provided in exchange for about 6.66 million pre-funded stock warrants. According to Gershell, this means MIST should have enough funding to reach key catalysts. All of the above makes it clear why Gershell is now standing with the bulls. In addition to upgrading the rating to Outperform, he put an $18 price target on the stock. This brings the upside potential to 117%. Judging by the consensus breakdown, other analysts also like what theyre seeing. 3 Buys and a single Hold add up to a Strong Buy consensus rating. Based on the $13.25 average price target, the upside potential lands at 59%. (See MIST stock analysis on TipRanks) InterDigital (IDCC) Counting tech industry titans like Apple, Samsung, LG and Huawei as customers, InterDigital is one of the top R&D companies in the world. With it boasting 32,000 patents, applications in wireless and video technologies and a broad international footprint, Oppenheimer thinks now is the time to get on board. Analyst Ian Zaffino tells clients that IDCCs product portfolio gives it significant earnings power. Expounding on this, he stated, Its patents are integrated into the major wireless standards and comprise ~6% of all 5G patents, including ones that cover signal power control... Roughly 93% of revenues come from fixed-fee payments, which create a predictable and recurring revenue stream. Additionally, the company has a history of IP enforcement. Speaking to its efforts on this front, IDCC signed agreements with Samsung in 2014, Apple in 2016 and LG Electronics in 2017. It should be noted that the tech name recently renewed its license with Huawei, which could open the door for licensing deals with other handset makers, in Zaffinos opinion. Currently, there are five Chinese manufacturers, including Oppo, Xiaomi, Vivo, Lenovo and TCL, as well as a group of smaller players that use IDCCs technology without a license. Over the next several years, we believe the company can ink deals with each one. If we assume each large manufacturer represents ~$30 million-$40 million of annual revenues, IDCC has the potential to generate revenues of ~$500 million and EPS of ~$6, Zaffino explained. Representing another positive, IDCC recently acquired Technicolor, a move that could pay off big time. According to Zaffino, revenues here would most likely come from major television manufacturers, including Samsung and LG, who already have relationships with IDCC on the wireless side. The company also has an opportunity in the IoT space. Everything that IDCC has going for it prompted Zaffino to rate the stock an Outperform (i.e. Buy). The cherry on top? His $90 price target implies a 53% upside from current levels. (To watch Zaffinos track record, click here) Other analysts back Zaffinos take. 3 Buys and no Holds or Sells have been assigned in the last three months, so the word on the Street is that IDCC is a Strong Buy. The $94.67 average price target puts the upside potential at 60%. (See InterDigital stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights. Bengaluru, July 31 : Tata Capital Growth Fund will invest Rs 225 crore in Biocon Biologics India Ltd for an equity stake of 0.85 per cent. In a regulatory filing on Friday, Biocon Ltd said that the Board of its subsidiary Biocon Biologics has approved a primary equity investment by Tata Capital Growth Fund. "As per the terms of the proposed agreement, Tata Capital will invest Rs 225 crore for a 0.85 per cent minority stake in the biosimilar business, valuing Biocon Biologics at an equity valuation of Rs 26,250 crore, or $3.5 billion, and an enterprise valuation of Rs 30,400 crore, or $4.0 billion," it said. The transaction is subject to standard condition precedents and approvals. Post the completion of this transaction, Biocon will hold 95.25 per cent stake in Biocon Biologics. Christiane Hamacher, CEO, Biocon Biologics, said: "We are pleased with Tata Capital's investment in Biocon Biologics, which is an endorsement of the value we have created through our demonstrated success and credibility as a global biosimilars player, with two products commercialised in the U.S. and the launch of the third biosimilar on the anvil." "This equity infusion is the next step in our journey of unlocking value. Through prudent investments in R&D and high-quality manufacturing infrastructure, we are confident of achieving our aspiration of serving 5 million patients through our biosimilars portfolio and achieving a target revenue of 1 billion dollars in FY22," the CEO said. The filing said that the equity infusion by Tata Capital will enable Biocon Biologics' future growth through prudent capital allocation, while the Biocon arm continues its investments in R&D and manufacturing to meet the growing demands of patients worldwide. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie and Dyaning Pangestika (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, August 1 2020 The National Police have brought Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra, a graft convict who had been on the run for 11 years, back to Indonesia after arresting him in Malaysia on Thursday. Guarded by members of the police's Criminal Investigation Unit (Bareskrim), Djoko, in handcuffs and wearing an orange shirt, arrived at Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport in East Jakarta on Thursday evening. He was then taken to Bareskrims headquarters for detention. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Attorney Alan Dershowitz says his 'greatest hope' is that he was caught on Jeffrey Epstein's secret cameras because the footage will confirm he had no sexual encounter with minors or 'erotic' massages at the warped financier's mansion, he told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview Friday. The newly released tranche of documents in the Virginia Roberts defamation case against Ghislaine Maxwell allege that Epstein forced a minor - 'Jane Doe 3', believed to be Roberts, - to have sexual relations with Dershowitz. Celebrity attorney and professor Alan Dershowitz was accused by Virginia Roberts in unsealed documents of having sexual relationships with minors Epstein is believed to have rigged up clandestine devices to film prominent figures receiving sex acts at his various homes to use as 'insurance policies' against anyone who tried to take down his teen trafficking empire. DailyMail.com revealed last month that the tapes were allegedly squirreled away by the dead billionaire's alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, and could feature in evidence when she goes to trial next year accused of pimping underage girls. But while the prospect of having intimate footage aired in public has horrified both victims and alleged accomplices alike, Dershowitz has told DailyMail.com he will be thrilled to see himself in the secret clips. 'My greatest hope is that is that Maxwell has videotapes of every sexual encounter that ever took place because it would show I was not involved in any of them,' he said in an exclusive interview Friday. 'I've said from day one that there were no photographs of me because I never did anything wrong. I never did anything that would be worthy of being videoed - but I hope there are videos. 'It would show my wife and me getting massages from middle-aged professional massage therapists.' Dershowitz, one of the attorneys who secured a much-criticized plea deal more than a decade ago in Florida, has called Roberts a 'complete, total liar' in her allegations against Epstein Dershowitz was named in unsealed documents released Thursday. The Harvard law professor was back in the Epstein crosshairs Friday after his name appeared in a tranche of newly unsealed documents revisiting accusations that he had sex with 'Jane Doe 3', who is identified elsewhere as his longtime accuser Virginia Giuffre, formerly Roberts. The documents allege that Epstein required 'Jane Doe 3' to have sex with Dershowitz 'on numerous occasions when she was a minor, not only in Florida but on private planes, in New York, New Mexico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The docs also claim that Dershowitz was an eyewitness to the sexual abuse of many other minors by Epstein. The documents state that Epstein forced a minor - Jane Doe 3, believed to be Virginia Roberts Giuffre - to have sexual relations with Dershowitz, who was close friends with Epstein Dershowitz told DailyMail.com the allegations that date back to 2014 were 'old news' and he has denied them numerous times. Dershowitz said he had previously admitted having a perfectly innocent massage at Epstein's Palm Beach mansion, where the dead predator attacked many of his underage victims and took secret photos of the abuse. 'We were guests and everybody got massages,' insisted the famed 81-year-old lawyer, who was on President Trumps defense team in his Senate impeachment trial. 'When you went into Epstein's house, the first thing they offered you was to have a massage therapist come to your room and give you a massage. 'I did it once. And my massage therapist was a middle aged woman from Eastern Europe. I had never had a quote erotic massage in my life, period.' The new Epstein documents were released late Thursday despite an onslaught of last-gasp legal appeals by Maxwell's legal team. The socialite had spent the previous 48 hours peppering Federal Judge Loretta Preska with gripes and complaints about how the material could scuttle her chances of receiving a fair trial on charges that she procured underage girls for Epstein. After an 'eleventh hour' flurry of letters, motions and demands for fresh hearings, her lawyers managed to delay the release of several key dockets - including a 2016 deposition from Maxwell herself said to include intrusive details about her sex life until Monday, while she launches yet another appeal. But the rest of the cache, comprising previously-sealed documents related to a defamation suit brought against Maxwell by Giuffre, was uploaded to the court's public records database just before 10pm. Ghislaine vs Maxwell was settled in 2017 and much of it lay buried beneath a protective order however the case was revived last year by dogged media attempts to shine a light into every corner of Epstein's sick world. Interest in the records only intensified when Maxwell was arrested last month by the FBI and accused of playing a pivotal role in the pervert's cult-like child sex trafficking operation. This flight log shows American attorney Alan Dershowitz on board Epstein's 'Lolita Express' Dershowitz helped Epstein agree a cushy non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in 2008 which allowed him to plead guilty to minor charges and spend only 13 months in jail, most of it on work release. In 2014 Giuffre named him as one of several prominent men she was forced to have sex with, including Britain's Prince Andrew, who also denies the allegations. She sued Dershowitz in 2019 claiming he had made 'false and malicious defamatory statements against her' while he was making his vociferous denials. The veteran TV attorney responded by vowing to prove she was a liar in open court and predicted Giuffre would end up behind bars herself for perjury. Giuffre also sued Maxwell for making alleged smears about her credibility but that case was settled in 2017 and much of the evidence sealed. After appeals from the Miami Herald and other outlets Judge Preska has been going through the cache of sealed and heavily redacted documents one by one since last year, giving anyone mentioned in them the chance to lodge an objection. The entire process is taking too long and is becoming farcical, according to Dershowitz who says he wants all the papers released today as they will 'fully exonerate' him. 'There are no accusations, everything that she alleges has already been alleged in previous lawsuits,' he told DailyMail.com. 'Just so you know, I was the one who demanded the release of these documents. Everything should be released. There should be no secrets. 'Literally everything should come out now. That's my attitude, because the public has the right to know. 'Particularly since she's accused some very prominent people, very prominent people. She [Guiffre] is influencing events in the United States, she is influencing Great Britain. 'When Joe Biden was accused everyone looked into it, when Justice Kavanaugh was accused everyone looked into the accusers. Why is nobody looking into her [Giuffre] background? Please quote me on that.' Maxwell was arrested on in New Hampshire and indicted on charges of perjury, sex trafficking, and enticement to minors. She denies the charges and remains in custody after being denied bail. The New Education Policy 2020 unveiled by the Government of India is more important than the procurement of Rafale fighter planes but there are concerns on its proper implementation, Shiv Sena said in its mouthpiece Saamna on Thursday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi did a good job. He changed the countrys educational policy completely. This change occurred after 34 years. This is more important than the Rafale planes from France. We call the new education policy important as the country has now got the Ministry of Education. So now the country will get an Education Minister. If a person is knowledgeable in the education sector then let him become Education Minister. Many people who do not have finance-related information or who do not have health-related information, often those ministries were given to those who did not do good work there, an editorial in Saamna read. The Shiv Sena welcomed the policy for its focus on education up to class fifth in the mother tongue but expressed reservation whether this will only be limited to government schools and not spread to private schools run by missionaries and others. One thing is good that education up to the fifth grade is kept in the mother tongue. The demand for education in the mother tongue was constantly being made by the Sangh Parivar. The only question is that this mother tongue should not be limited to education only in government schools. There are English medium schools, convent schools of missionaries, Central schools and how will we implement this mother tongue education rule in the context of international schools? the editorial read. Today there is a wave of education in English all over the country. Language and culture are dying due to this. People have assumed that the mother tongue is not suitable for livelihood, business, industry and research. Marathi schools were closed in cities like Mumbai and Thane. Marathi teachers became unemployed. This picture is surprising, it added. Saamna further said that the proposed change of education from 10+2 to 5+3+3+4 is a step towards a more practical, skill-based and quality-oriented setup. But it went on to say whether the desired results will be achieved is circumspect as the quality is hardly valued in the system. According to the new policy, the exams of the tenth-twelfth have now ended. By cancelling their boards, the Central government has prepared a new framework of 5+3+3+4. Future education will not only be a book-making or graduate-producing factory but also practical and professional. The fear of results has been removed. Results will also be evaluated by the student, classmates and teachers themselves, not only by giving marks and remarks of teachers, it said. The standard of education which was once tenth-twelfth will no longer be there. The importance of certificates in the tenth-twelfth system has been done away with. Modi government abolished percentage competition. Governance also does not run on the criteria of quality, what about education there? There is an eagerness to know in which university will prepare the curriculum of the new educational policy and from which branch (university) these experts are coming, it read. The Shiv Sena mouthpiece expressed concern that there is no scope for moral education in the new education policy. The system of teaching morality lessons is not available in the new education policy. Graduates and skilled people can be established, but we must also develop a good man, a good citizen. It is not possible to be a good politician without a citizen respecting rules, constitution, law and majority. Looking at the current mess in politics, there is a need for this moral lesson, the editorial read. Dupa inscrierea pe site-ul HotNews.ro, poti deschide sectiunea MyHotNews ca sa completezi sau sa schimbi profilul de utilizator. Atentie! Logarea pe site se face cu adresa de email, nu cu nickname-ul. Adresa ta de email va ramane confidentiala si nu va fi niciodata data unor terte persoane sau institutii. Inainte de a te inscrie pe site te rugam sa parcurgi termenii si conditiile atasate unui cont HotNews.ro. Karnataka: Will soon come out with new Fishing Policy: Minister July 31,2020 | Source: UNI India Karnataka Minister in-charge of Dakshina Kannada District Kota Srinivas Poojary said that the draft on comprehensive fisheries policy was ready and it would be soon placed before the State Cabinet for approval. The policy will be tabled in the upcoming Assembly Session for approval, he further said. He was speaking to the media after attending a video conference with Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on the occasion of government completing one year in office on Monday evening. ''Already, objections and suggestions for the draft on fisheries policy have been received from various quarters. Based on the suggestions and objections, the policy will be finalised. The fisheries policy will help in promoting the fisheries sector,'' he stated. The Minister further stated that the World Fisheries Day would be observed at Vidhana Soudha on July 30 and a book on the achievement of the fisheries sector would be released on the occasion. He affirmed that at the fisheries meeting, the funds that Karnataka would get for the fisheries sector, under Atma Nirbhar Bharat of the Union government would be discussed and the future programmes of the fisheries department would also be discussed. Mr Poojary informed that there was a demand for fish chips, launched by Karnataka Fisheries Development Corporation (KFDC) and accordingly, it has been decided to set up units manufacturing fish chips in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts, to cater to the demand. He further affirmed that Dakshina Kannada district was effectively tackling the Covid-19 situation. In the last one year, works related to rural roads, drinking water supply and port have been taken up. Assistance has been provided to the fishermen. The Krishi Samman Yojane too has benefited the farmers in the district, he added. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. New Delhi, July 31 : The Supreme Court Friday declined to pass an interim order on a batch of pleas opposing the UGCs July 6 guidelines mandating universities across India to conduct their final-year examinations by September-end. Advocate Alak Alok Srivastava requested the top court to pass an interim order as many students are stuck in flood-affected regions in Bihar and Assam. "How will they travel my lord?" argued Srivastava. A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan said the court is not passing any interim order now and posted the matter for further hearing on August 10. The apex court also asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, to make the MHA stand clear on the matter. Mehta replied it will be done by Monday. He insisted that students' should not be under the impression that they do not have to prepare for the exams, instead they should prepare. Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for final-year law student Yash Dubey, argued before the bench that there are 16 lakh cases of COVID-19 now, and the response by UGC has been filed without any application of mind. He asked the top court to examine the earlier guidelines and then look at the guidelines issued on July 6. "Heavens will not fall if exams are cancelled", said Singhvi. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has told the Supreme Court that it is not possible to alter its July 6 guidelines mandating universities across India to conduct their final-year examinations by September-end. The UGC informed the court that the expert committee, headed by Prof R.C. Kuhad, submitted a report recommending that terminal semester examinations should be conducted by universities/institutions by the end of September. This report was deliberated and approved by the UGC in a meeting held on July 6. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs had also permitted the schedule of exams by universities and institutions. "It is submitted that the UGC has issued such guidelines to protect the academic future of students across the country which will be irreparably damaged if their final year/terminal examinations are not held, while also keeping in mind their health and safety," said the academic regulator in its affidavit. New Delhi: The blowout at state-run Oil India Limited (OIL)s Baghjan well in Assam since June 27 has harmed endangered species like Gangetic dolphins in the biodiverse region and the impact of the uncontrolled oil and gas emissions will be long term due to contamination of the groundwater it is likely to cause, a Wildlife Institute of India (WII) report has said. The July 15 report, which was submitted to the Union environment ministry earlier this month, said one dolphin was found dead from poisoning from the oil spill. The well, which has been on fire since June 9, is located near Dibru Saikhowa National Park, the Maguri-Motapung wetlands, and the forest villages of Barekuri, which are home to endangered hoolock gibbons and Gangetic dolphins. The report said oil wells in and around the national park will be detrimental to the regions unique ecosystem and that it is also extremely vulnerable to earthquakes. The environment ministrys expert appraisal committee, which met in December and January, recommended environmental clearance for drilling and testing of hydrocarbons at seven locations under the national park. [Given] the potential of oil blowout and oil spill disaster like this...such oil wells in the vicinity of Dibru-Saikhowa National park and important bird area complex...will be detrimental to the conservation value of this unique ecosystem, the report said. It called for an assessment for a cumulative impact of the existing gas wells. The report said bird species richness was found to increase with an increase in distance from the site possibly due to oil spill and intense noise from the blowout. The bird species decline is highest in grasslands (59%) and wetland (85%) compared to areas located away from the site, it added. The report said the fish species have also declined in wetland and river tributaries, where dissolved oxygen levels have fallen due to the oil spill. It added the concentration of toxic polyaromatic hydrocarbons in fish samples from the wetland was found to be 10- to 100-fold higher than normal. The report said there has been a massive decrease in the Gangetic Dolphin presence in Lohit, Dibru, and Maguri-Motapung after the blowout. It added the loud noise due to the blowout can be heard as far as 12 km and beyond, making the area extremely unhealthy for humans, animals, and birds. The impact is significant and will have a long term effect, as many of these pollutants will leach into the ground and contaminate groundwater. The report said the 65-70 ha burnt-out area mapped includes crop fields, grasslands, and swamps. There was a visible oil spill [oil and sediment] on June 16, downstream of the well. The report underlined the wetland and surrounding lowland forests are unique and hence extremely vulnerable to more oil spill disasters. The Brahmaputra and the Ganges floodplain landscape is unique in its morphology and fragility, and is responsible for shaping the unique community of plants and animalsthe landscape [in Baghjan] is fragile and is engineered by flooding. The dynamic nature of wetland creates mosaics of habitat which are in perpetual flux. In India as well as the world over, there are only a handful of Protected Areas where this system and unique biodiversity is surviving, among them Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and Kaziranga Orang National Park tops the list, the report said. The report is based on a study WII scientist Qamar Qureshi led. It has asked the government to initiate a study to monitor the long term impact on the ecology of Maguri-Motapung and DibruSaikhowa National Park as well as the health and socio-economic conditions of local communities. Soumitra Dasgupta, additional director general (wildlife), environment ministry, said it is a voluminous report and they were trying to get more details. We are sending the findings to the Assam government to begin mitigation and restoration work. I understand that the situation is still grim. Tridiv Hazarika, an OIL spokesman, said they will need time to respond. Since it is a technical report, we will also have to get it reviewed by our independent experts. Our focus is presently on resolving the blowout. Technavio has been monitoring the plant-based burger patties market and it is poised to grow by USD 650.86 million during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of almost 41% 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/20200731005035/en/ Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Plant-based Burger Patties Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire). Although the COVID-19 pandemic continues to transform the growth of various industries, the immediate impact of the outbreak is varied. While a few industries will register a drop in demand, numerous others will continue to remain unscathed and show promising growth opportunities. Technavio's in-depth research has all your needs covered as our research reports include all foreseeable market scenarios, including pre- post-COVID-19 analysis. Download a Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impacts Frequently Asked Questions- Based on segmentation by distribution channel, which is the leading segment in the market? The offline distribution channel segment is expected to be the leading segment in the global market during the forecast period. At what rate is the market projected to grow? The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of almost 41% during the forecast period. Who are the top players in the market? Amazon.com Inc., Beyond Meat Inc, Conagra Brands Inc, Impossible Foods Inc, Kellogg Co, Maple Leaf Foods Inc, Nestle SA, Tesco Plc, The Kroger Co, and WH Group Ltd. are some of the major market participants. What is the key market driver? The increased adoption of sustainable manufacturing is the major factor driving the market. How big is the North American market? The North America region will contribute 53% of the market share. The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Amazon.com Inc., Beyond Meat Inc, Conagra Brands Inc, Impossible Foods Inc, Kellogg Co, Maple Leaf Foods Inc, Nestle SA, Tesco Plc, The Kroger Co, and WH Group Ltd. 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. Buy 1 Technavio report and get the second for 50% off. Buy 2 Technavio reports and get the third for free. View market snapshot before purchasing Increased adoption of sustainable manufacturing has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. Technavio's custom research reports offer detailed insights on the impact of COVID-19 at an industry level, a regional level, and subsequent supply chain operations. This customized report will also help clients keep up with new product launches in direct indirect COVID-19 related markets, upcoming vaccines and pipeline analysis, and significant developments in vendor operations and government regulations. Plant-based Burger Patties Market 2020-2024: Segmentation Plant-based Burger Patties Market is segmented as below: Distribution Channel Offline Online 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=IRTNTR41146 Plant-based Burger Patties 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. The plant-based burger patties market report covers the following areas: Plant-based Burger Patties Market Size Plant-based Burger Patties Market Trends Plant-based Burger Patties Market Analysis This study identifies awareness about the adverse effects of consumption of meat as one of the prime reasons driving the plant-based burger patties market growth during the next few years. Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Technavio's in-depth research has direct and indirect COVID-19 impacted market research reports. Register for a free trial today and gain instant access to 17,000+ market research reports. Technavio's SUBSCRIPTION platform Plant-based Burger Patties Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024 Detailed information on factors that will assist plant-based burger patties market growth during the next five years Estimation of the plant-based burger patties market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the plant-based burger patties market Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of plant-based burger patties 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 DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL Market segmentation by distribution channel Comparison by distribution channel Offline Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Online Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Market opportunity by distribution channel PART 07: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE PART 08: GEOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE Geographic segmentation Geographic comparison North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024 APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024 South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024 MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Key leading countries Market opportunity PART 09: DECISION FRAMEWORK PART 10: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES Market drivers Market challenges PART 11: MARKET TRENDS Partnership with global foodservice chains Increase in M&A and strategic alliance activities Increased adoption of sustainable manufacturing PART 12: VENDOR LANDSCAPE Overview Landscape disruption Competitive scenario PART 13: VENDOR ANALYSIS Vendors covered Vendor classification Market positioning of vendors Amazon.com Inc. Beyond Meat, Inc. Conagra Brands, Inc. Impossible Foods, Inc. Kellogg Co. Maple Leaf Foods, Inc. Nestle SA Tesco Plc The Kroger Co. WH Group Ltd. 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/20200731005035/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: media@technavio.com Website: www.technavio.com/ Nationwide survey of 1,337 respondents across eight cities shows low awareness on typhoid prevalence and ways to prevent it including vaccination Abbott, one of Indias leading healthcare companies, partnered with Delhi based startup Babygogo (part of the Sheroes Network), to conduct a nationwide survey across eight cities to assess awareness around typhoid fever. With 2.2 million cases of typhoid being recorded in India alone in 2016, typhoid fever poses a serious disease burden in the country. In fact, in Karnataka alone, there were 137,973 cases in 2017, contributing 6.21% to Indias total burden. Typhoid fever, which is a bacterial infection, tends to affect children most, with peak incidence occurring in children aged 5-15 years. Currently available evidence shows that vaccination against typhoid is effective and tolerable. The survey results highlighted that only 66% of respondents reported being aware of a typhoid vaccination. Key Survey Findings There are higher levels of awareness for mandatory vaccines, i.e., vaccines given in National Immunization Program of the country (NIP) such as rotavirus (82%) compared to vaccines not given in NIP such as influenza (67%) and typhoid (66%). The survey revealed that more than one sixth of respondents in Bangalore who did not vaccinate their children (17%) considered typhoid to be not at all serious or mild/easily manageable, unaware of the fact that the bacterial infection can lead to serious complications if left untreated or treated with inappropriate medicines. Other findings suggest that key reasons for not vaccinating include absence of vaccine recommendation by the pediatrician (48%) and non-inclusion in the list of NIP vaccines (36%). Survey findings also show that myths about the disease are highly prevalent. As a bacterial bloodstream infection, typhoid fever spreads through contaminated water and food, often due to lack of hygiene and access to drinkable water. Yet 57% of survey respondents nationwide inaccurately attributed the cause of typhoid to a change of weather or season. Significantly, less than half of mothers from Bangalore identified close contact (37%), touching contaminated surfaces (20%) or eating food cooked by a typhoid patient (25%) as risky behaviours that could spread typhoid. Studies have shown that vaccinations can help lower the incidence of infection, but 13% of the respondents in Bangalore stated that they prefer to take the risk of getting a serious medical condition than to receive a vaccination for it. Dr Srirupa Das, Medical Director, Abbott India, explains, The findings shed light on awareness levels, motivation and behaviors around typhoid vaccination in India. They suggest that increased awareness on typhoid and ways to prevent it, such as improved hygiene levels and vaccination, can contribute to lessening Indias health burden due to typhoid infections. As part of our mission of helping people live healthier lives, we support educational initiatives on typhoid fever in India, especially amongst new mothers and parents in general. It's not everyday that a million-dollar Standardbred yearling is in action on the racetrack. It seems even more rare, given that there have only been two in harness racing history, that those yearlings would both be on the track on the same card. Granted, both of those 2019 yearlings are 2020 rookie trotting colts. So the target races for both Maverick and Damien from here on out might have a number of events in common, and these two might make more appearances that force a sharing of the spotlight. On Friday (July 31) during the Breakfast With the Babies qualifying session at The Meadowlands, $1.1 million yearling Maverick and $1 million yearling Damien were sent postward with the latter making his on-track debut. The more experienced of the two at this point is Maverick, making his fourth appearance of the year and third at the Big M. Driver Andy McCarthy settled Maverick away in third behind Cartier Bi (Andy Miller) and Boaster Coaster (Jimmy Takter) through fractions of :29.1 and :59 before right-lining and advancing first over through a 1:29 third panel. In the stretch, Maverick responded with good trot in the lane and he pulled away from the first front-runner en route to victory in 1:58. Boaster Coaster was 1-3/4 lengths back in second and Cartier Bi completed the top trio. Trained by Tony Alagna for Maverick Racing of Milton, Ont., Maverick (Father Patrick - Designed To Be) is a full brother to 2019 U.S. Trotter of the Year Greenshoe. In the next qualifier, Damien was making his first appearance for trainer Marcus Melander and driver Brian Sears. Damien landed in second behind stablemate Swan Hill (Mattias Melander) early but then made a break after suffering interference at the first quarter. He landed back trotting and recovered well, trotting strongly through the lane with a :29.3 final quarter. Owned by Brixton Medical Ab of Sweden, Damien (Muscle Hill - Danae) is a full brother to Swedish trotting star Propulsion and the decorated stakes-winning trotting mare Dream Together. While he didn't sell for $1 million as a yearling, pacer One Eight Hundred did set a new sale record for a pacing-bred yearling at auction with his impressive $800,000 price tag. Yannick Gingras had the son of Somebeachsomewhere - Economy Terror on the move through a :29.1 opening quarter, cleared to the front just after the first station and then powered through panels of :57.3 and 1:25 before sprinting home in :27.3 to win in 1:52.3 at second asking. Both Beach Party (Scott Zeron) and Four More Years (Dexter Dunn) closed well to respectively round out the top three. One Eight Hundred is owned by trainer Nancy Takter with co-owner Brixton Medical. Pacing filly Making Waves continues to do just that, winning her fourth qualifier in four outings. Driver Scott Zeron was content to sit the pocket behind Three Way Split (McCarthy) through fractions of :28.3, :58.0 and 1:27.1. Eased to the two path in the stretch, Making Waves responded through a :26.2 final quarter to draw clear of her rivals and trip the timer in 1:53.4. A daughter of Captaintreacherous - Trim Hanover, and thus a half sibling to standouts American Jewel and Luck Be Withyou, Making Waves is trained by Linda Toscano for Brittany Farms LLC. To view the results from the Friday morning qualifying session, click one of the following links: Friday Results - Meadowlands Racetrack (Baby Races) Friday Results - Meadowlands Racetrack (Qualifiers) (Photos courtesy Chris Tully, USTA/Mark Hall) Buyer of Kyiv's Dnipro Hotel vetted by Ukraine's State Property Fund 11:55, 31.07.20 2452 The asset was sold for US$40.1 million. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size On a blue-sky March day, one week after the World Health Organisation declared the pandemic, a nearly 300-metre-long tanker set sail from Chevron's Wheatstone project on the coast of Western Australia carrying a cargo of liquefied natural gas. The gas on board had been super-chilled: first to minus 130 degrees the point at which it flashes over to a liquid then even further to minus 162 degrees. Like almost all tankers leaving Australia loaded with liquefied gas, this vessel, the British Mentor, would usually have been bound for a port somewhere in North Asia Japan, China, South Korea where its contents would be regasified, put into pipelines and sent to customers for power generation, heating and manufacturing. Instead, it would spend the next two weeks idling at sea, either anchored in the sparkling Indian Ocean or sailing around in circles. And finally, after finding a new buyer, it set off on a highly unusual voyage crossing the entire South Pacific to Manzanillo, Mexico, 15,000 kilometres away. Chevron's Wheatstone LNG project. Credit: Australia's big producers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) the nation's second largest commodity export have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, and the story of the stranded British Mentor is far from isolated. As lockdown restrictions wipe fuel demand and buyers delay deliveries, the number of LNG cargoes loaded in Australia last month fell from 93 to 85, according to EnergyQuest, and, of those, one in three was forced to spend extended periods idling at sea. No one in the industry disputes the magnitude of the crisis pummelling oil and gas right now, or that the shock will be felt for years. BP and Shell responded first, radically reducing future price assumptions causing write-downs of up to $54 billion combined. In Australia, Woodside wrote off $6.3 billion, Origin $1.2 billion and Santos $1.1 billion. Oil Search slashed $500 million and axed a third of its workforce. Most producers significantly lowered their forecasts for benchmark Brent oil and LNG which is tied to the oil price out to 2025-26. Advertisement Loading On the question of what lies beyond, however, an unmistakable split in the industry is coming into focus: Once the COVID-19 smog lifts, will demand and prices for oil and gas return to pre-pandemic levels? Or will the downturn be deeper, longer-lasting, and accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels in favour of clean alternatives? "We are seeing a really big difference narratively between companies in different regions and we've been observing it for a while," says Zoe Whitton, Citi's head of environment, social and governance research for Asia. "But the Europeans are reading a much longer-term transition into this crisis than the Americans or the Australians." As crude prices tumbled below $US16 a barrel, producers such as Britains BP, Italy's Eni, Frances Total and Royal Dutch Shell have been hastening preparations for a future that needs less oil and gas, renewing commitments to diversifying, sparing clean-energy investments from budget cuts and bringing forward projections for when they expect oil consumption to peak and decline. COVID-19 has gutted demand to such an extent and at a time when electric vehicles and renewable energy already loom as near-term threats that BP's Bernard Looney has openly queried whether fossil fuel usage may have peaked already. "I would not rule that out," he says. Advertisement This focus in Europe, analysts explain, has much to do with the combination of greater climate pressure from investors and assertive government decarbonisation policies. Australian producers and the Morrison government which backs a gas-led recovery from COVID-19 remain trenchantly committed to expanding fossil fuels. The idea that oil and gas demand may have peaked has been brushed off by many in the sector, who say energy demand is growing not shrinking, renewables lack scale, and the fundamentals of their business have not changed. I see some of those demand forecasts and to be quite honest with you I'm not sure how theyve developed them," Woodside chief Peter Coleman tells The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. It may take some time to recover and that will be based on the travel restrictions that will be in place by host governments around COVID-19 and I can't predict how long it will take for COVID-19 to work its way out of the system. But I think you are crystal ball-gazing if you develop a view that the world has had permanent demand destruction." Investors, however, are no longer as quick to dismiss the notion of peak demand. Credit Suisse's oil and gas analyst, Saul Kavonic, says the shock of COVID-19 has made "downside scenarios more stark and more plausible". The possibility of peak oil, he says, has to be considered. Advertisement Woodside chief Peter Coleman says in the longer term there will be a splitting of crude oil and gas pricing. Credit:Attila Csaszar "That's the issue with COVID, there are quite a few different scenarios that could play out here, he says. A prudent approach would be to consider the downside scenarios, and the downside scenario that we have already seen peak oil, to ensure the investment decisions you make are still resilient to those scenarios. Peaking demand will not trigger a sharp consumption decline. Even low-case forecasts say the world needs another trillion barrels of oil in the next 30 years. There'll be robust oil and gas demand for decades, says Kavonic. It will just become a declining industry. "Exactly where that demand peaks and the pace at which it declines is a debatable question. The chief concern now, he adds, is the danger of oversupply if LNG producers invest in new projects based on overly optimistic demand forecasts. I think you are crystal ball-gazing if you develop a view that the world has had permanent demand destruction. Peter Coleman, Woodside CEO Aside from Origin, most Australian producers are "pure-play", meaning they are solely in oil and gas. While large European counterparts are blazing into wind and solar power, Santos and Woodside's diversification strategies rest in emerging gas-related technologies such as hydrogen. Woodside recently noted renewables were unable to generate adequate returns. Australians, however, produce more gas than oil, so are not as vulnerable to the most undeniable transition threats. Transport electrification will erode oil demand, but some trends are powerfully in LNGs favour. Its usage in industrial heat, for example, lacks viable alternatives. Industry chiefs also believe that because gas is less-polluting than coal and less-intermittent than renewables, LNG will be what bridges the gap. Advertisement Oil tankers are seen anchored in the Pacific Ocean carrying crude oil no one will buy. Credit:Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg "We believe in the longer term there will be a splitting of crude oil and gas pricing as gas becomes more and more into demand as people see that it becomes a necessary not an optional, but necessary part of the transition to a lower-carbon world," Woodside's Coleman says. However, gas's future as a "transition fuel" is no longer the sure thing it once was, owing to increasing scientific concerns around emissions in drilling and shipping, and ever-growing advances in renewable technology. "Investors have really struggled with the phrase gas is a transition fuel for a number of years now ... that's no longer a strategy in and of itself," says Julien Vincent of shareholder activist Market Forces. "The claims by fossil fuel companies that their futures are secure no matter what has been disproven." Citi's Whitton agrees that gas's future under all scenarios aligned with Paris climate goals is far less certain, but says the "swing factor" for Australian producers is exposure to Asia, where decarbonisation policies guiding energy investment could go either way. Will they or won't they continue increasing gas in their energy mix? "When you are a pure-play producer, it is difficult to change, yet you are more exposed rather than less exposed and there is a danger that you'll interpret the energy-system change as a choice you make rather than a choice the rest of the world makes, Whitton says. I suspect there's a bit of that happening." A man high on drugs violently crashed a stolen car and instead of helping his three injured passengers, he retrieved drugs inside the wreck and left them to die. Dylan Cassidy had been on a 'one-man crime wave' of 'breathtaking stupidity', culminating in the deaths of 16-year-old Byron Hampton and 20-year-old Jordana Dudas-Kirkwood outside a suburban Melbourne McDonald's on August 11, 2019. Cassidy, 20, was on ice, speeding and didn't have a licence when he crashed the stolen car while trying to overtake another vehicle at Cranbourne. Mr Hampton and Ms Dudas-Kirwood died at the scene. Another passenger, a 17-year-old girl, survived with serious injuries while a fourth, an 18-year-old man, escaped largely unscathed. Dylan Cassidy (pictured) had been on a 'one-man crime wave' of 'breathtaking stupidity', culminating in the deaths of 16-year-old Byron Hampton and 20-year-old Jordana Dudas-Kirkwood outside a suburban Melbourne McDonald's on August 11, 2019 Cassidy's barrister, Jason Gullaci, told Victoria's County Court on Thursday the 20-year-old had essentially been on a 'one-man crime wave' to support his ice habit at the time. 'There's a breathtaking level of stupidity,' Mr Gullaci said, describing his client's actions in the lead-up to the crash. He had been using up to one gram of ice a day after becoming hooked following his 14th birthday. Byron's mother described Cassidy's behaviour as 'beyond revolting'. 'Did he come back to help? No, he came back to take belongings from the car and flee yet again, with no regard for anyone,' Nicole Hampton said. Her son had been a gentle giant who always put other people before himself. 'He lay there suffering, alone and in pain until his body could not fight anymore,' Ms Hampton told the court. Cassidy, 20, was on ice, speeding and didn't have a licence when he crashed the stolen car while trying to overtake another vehicle at Cranbourne (pictured: The stolen vehicle Cassidy wrecked) Cassidy had escaped the wrecked car through a window and made a run for it before returning to grab a satchel containing ice and GHB. He ditched them on the street and was restrained by witnesses at a nearby intersection. Cassidy pleaded guilty to 11 charges, including two each of culpable driving causing death, reckless conduct endangering life and drug possession. He also admitted to three counts of negligently causing serious injury, and one each of theft and failing to assist after the crash. The car had been stolen from a Frankston home hours earlier that day and was spotted travelling 123km/h along a freeway before Cassidy's passengers hopped in at a Somerville factory. Mr Hampton (left) and Ms Dudas-Kirwood (right) died at the scene. Another passenger, a 17-year-old girl, survived with serious injuries while a fourth, an 18-year-old man, escaped largely unscathed Another driver injured in the crash sobbed as she described being trapped in her car with her two children. 'To see your children hurt, to hear them scream in terror and to be stuck in the car and not to be able to get to them is like being stuck in a horror movie,' she cried. Her right wrist was shattered and she's unlikely to regain full use of it. 'It feels like everyone is living their lives and moving on; however, I'm still stuck in a car,' the woman said. Judge Liz Gaynor said Cassidy had spent his adolescence in a fog of drugs. She described his behaviour on the day of the crash as 'crazy, dangerous and appalling'. He remains in custody and is due to be sentenced on August 20. The Christian Council of Ghana (CCG) has expressed its support for justice for Madam Akua Denteh, the 90 year old woman murdered for being accused as a witch. The Council expressed concern about the practice of labelling poor old women and young girls from poor families as witches. We therefore caution persons who in the name of spirituality and deliverance label people as witches to desist from such acts, as they have negative effects on the victims and community as a whole, the Council said in a release signed and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra by the Secretary-General Reverend Dr. Cyril G. K. Fayose. Referring to the recent unsolved murder of a 90-year old Madam Akua Denteh in Kafaba in the Savannah Region, the Council said it was very much saddened by that act. The Council, has therefore, condemned the act in no uncertain terms, and called on the security agencies to swiftly investigate the matter and ensure that both those who were directly involved, and those who aided the act, faced the full rigours of the law. The gruesome act is an affront to human dignity and the only way to ensure justice for Madam Denteh is to bring all the culprits to book. We pray and hope that no blood will be shed in the future in such barbaric manner. All lives in Ghana matter and we need everybody to build our nation. The release said the only way to end such inhumane practice was to punish perpetrators to serve as deterrent to others. The Council wants to state emphatically that such labels and public disgrace of women and girls are against their rights and dignity as persons created in the image and likeness of God. We, the leadership of the CCG urge all Ghanaians to report persons known to be involved in such cruel acts to the police for swift actions to be taken. We pledge our prayer support to the family of Madam Denteh and express our deepest condolence to them, the release said. 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 Paris (AFP) - People who had visited Italy accounted for more than a quarter of the first reported cases of the new coronavirus outside China, according to a new study that found most initial infections were linked to just three countries. Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used publicly-available data to trace the early spread of COVID-19 to dozens of affected countries in the 11 weeks before the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic. They found that 27 percent of all the first reported cases were people with travel links to Italy, while 22 percent had been to China and 11 percent had travelled from Iran. "Our findings suggest that travel from just a few countries with substantial SARS-CoV-2 transmission may have seeded additional outbreaks around the world before the characterisation of COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11, 2020," said the CDC's Fatimah Dawood, who co-led the research. The study, which was published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases this week, found that overall three quarters of the first cases in affected countries were linked to recent travel. Other initial cases were travellers from Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. Researchers examined online reports from health ministries and other government agency websites, social media feeds, and press releases for information on first cases and early outbreaks. - Transmission clusters - More than 17 million cases have so far been recorded worldwide since the virus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. Its spread prompted China to quarantine millions of people in January. Days before the pandemic was declared on March 11, northern Italy went into lockdown, quickly followed by the rest of the country. The study also looked at the characteristics of the early spread of infections, identifying 101 clusters -- involving 386 cases -- in 29 countries during the period before the pandemic was declared. Story continues Three quarters of these were attributed to relatively limited household transmission, with an average of 2.6 cases per cluster, the report said. The 11 clusters relating to community gatherings -- for example tour groups, religious meetings and dinner parties -- were associated with much greater levels of infection, with 14.2 cases on average per cluster. Transmission in non-healthcare workplaces was associated with an average of 4.3 cases per cluster, researchers said, adding that the findings supported social distancing measures as a means to stop the spread. The authors cautioned that the first confirmed cases may not have been the true beginning of a country's outbreak given differences in different nation's abilities to detect the virus. The province's chief public health officer says he's satisfied with the investigation into Manitoba's latest COVID-19 fatality, even though the man died several days before it was discovered that he was infected with the coronavirus. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The province's chief public health officer says he's satisfied with the investigation into Manitoba's latest COVID-19 fatality, even though the man died several days before it was discovered that he was infected with the coronavirus. "Contacts were investigated and notified," Dr. Brent Roussin said Thursday. "If the individual was in a place where we couldn't identify all of the (contacts), we would make an announcement on that." In its COVID-19 bulletin on Tuesday, the province announced that a man in his 70s from the Southern Health region had become the eighth Manitoban to die of the virus. Officials said the man died on July 22, but he was only listed this week as a new COVID-19 case. Officials also said that the man had not been hospitalized with the coronavirus. Dr. Brent Roussin, chief provincial public health officer, refuses to add details about the latest COVID-19 death in Manitoba: a man in his 70s. (Mikaela Mackenzie / Winnipeg Free Press) Roussin provided few additional details about the case at the media briefing, citing privacy concerns. He would not say whether a COVID-19 test was conducted on the man after he died. "Public health received the positive lab result on the 26th of July and so we then announced it on the (28th) after an investigation," he said. "Thats all the details that we will be releasing." Officials havent disclosed whether the man had underlying health issues before contracting COVID. That has been the case in most of the provinces recorded deaths, the first of which was announced March 27. On Thursday, Roussin announced two new cases of the virus two men in their 30s from the Prairie Mountain Health region bringing the total number since the virus arrived in Manitoba to 409. The current five-day test positivity rate is 0.40 per cent. A total of 1,179 laboratory tests were completed Wednesday. The number of Manitobans in hospital with COVID remained at six, with four people in intensive care. There are 76 active cases, 75 more than reported on July 13. With the continued high number of Manitobans getting tested for the virus, Roussin urged employers not to mandate the testing of asymptomatic employees. "Testing of asymptomatic individuals is not that useful, so it puts an extra strain on our system to mandate that," he said. "If the individual was in a place where we couldn't identify all of the (contacts), we would make an announcement on that." Dr. Brent Roussin Roussin noted that some Manitobans are becoming impatient with the wait time for test results. 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. "We are hearing that people are frustrated with the testing and the result wait times," he said. Roussin emphasized that positive test results are "identified quite early" and are reported to individuals. The Cadham Provincial Lab is still completing tests on samples within 24 to 48 hours of receiving them, he said. However, there can be delays in transporting samples and entering results into the system, he said, and officials are trying to rectify the problem. The transportation of samples could be an issue now because the virus is predominately spreading outside Winnipeg. Of the 74 active coronavirus cases announced on Wednesday, only 12 were in Winnipeg. Thirty-seven were in the Interlake-Eastern health authority, 13 were in Prairie Mountain Health and 12 were in Southern Health. larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca At 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, after a 10-hour debate, the state Senate approved the landmark police accountability bill by a 21-15 vote. The 71-page bill, proposed by the leadership of the Judiciary Committee, including co-chair Sen. Gary Winfield of New Haven, and approved by the House of Representatives the previous Friday after an all-night debate, was prompted by the large number of fatalities caused by the use of deadly force by police the Division of Criminal Justice reports there have been 72 such fatalities in the state since 2000, 42 of them since 2010; the fact that criminal charges have been brought in only one of the 76 cases in which an officer used deadly force; and the deaths of Eric Garner, George Floyd and many others as the result of police chokeholds. It represents the most comprehensive reform of policing ever undertaken in the state. The Act Concerning Police Accountability, as the bill is formally titled, addresses many important issues in the training and conduct of police. It will require that all police receive training in regard to the use of physical force, the use of body-worn recording equipment, and in recognizing and dealing with unconscious biases against particular segments of the population that might influence an officers judgments and decisions. It requires the officer in charge of any law enforcement unit that serves a community with a relatively high concentration of minority residents to report each year to the Police Officer Standards and Training Council on community efforts to recruit, retain and promote minority police officers. And it allows the legislative body of a town to create a civilian review board that would have the power to issue subpoenas to compel witnesses to appear and require production of any materials the board deems to be relevant to an investigation. The act requires all police officers to wear and use body recording equipment and all police vehicles to be equipped with and use dashboard cameras. It limits the use of physical force to situations in which an officer reasonably believes such use is necessary to effect an arrest of a person who has committed an offense or to defend himself or herself or someone else from the use or imminent use of physical force. It does allow a police officer to use a chokehold or other method of restraint that impedes the ability to breathe or restricts circulation of blood to the brain, but only when the officer reasonably believes such use is necessary in order to defend himself or herself from the use or imminent use of deadly physical force. It requires any police officer who witnesses another officer use unreasonable, excessive or illegal force to intervene and attempt to stop the other officer from using such force. And it requires any officer who witnesses another officer using unreasonable, excessive or illegal force to report that use. Failure to do either could result in prosecution. The act undoubtedly represents the most comprehensive reform of policing ever undertaken by the state. Nevertheless, there are two troubling provisions. One involves the politicization of the appointment of a prosecutor to the newly created position of inspector general. The other involves the vague and imprecise language pertaining to governmental immunity and the circumstances under which an officer may or may not be protected from financial liability as a result of using deadly force. The act creates an Office of the Inspector General within the Division of Criminal Justice and authorizes the Criminal Justice Commission to nominate a deputy chief states attorney to serve, subject to appointment by the General Assembly, as inspector general. The office will investigate every case in which a person dies as a result of the use of physical force or deadly force by a police officer, determine whether the use of such force was justified, and prosecute any case in which the inspector general determines an officer used unjustifiable force or failed to intervene in or report such incident. The idea of creating the office makes a good deal of sense; for one thing, it avoids the current ad hoc system in which a states attorney is selected to review a case in another judicial district and it would also ensure that the investigation of cases involving the use of deadly force is carried out expeditiously something that currently doesnt always happen. But assigning the responsibility for appointing the inspector general to the General Assembly, rather than to the commission, is wrong; it will inevitably politicize the appointment and could lead to political interference in the operation of the office. The act rightly prohibits any officer from depriving anyone of their right to the equal protection of the laws of the state and notwithstanding the strong objections of many chiefs, officers and police unions allows anyone aggrieved by a violation of that right to bring a civil action for relief or damages against the officer and/or the officers municipality or law enforcement unit. The act provides governmental immunity in some circumstances specifically, if, at the time of the conduct, the officer had an objectively good faith belief that his or her conduct didnt violate the law. Officers, however, will no longer have qualified immunity; the officers municipality or law enforcement unit will protect and save harmless any such officer from financial loss and expense arising out of any claim, demand or suit instituted for any act undertaken while the officer was carrying out his or her duties, but only if theres no court judgment against the officer for a malicious, wanton or willful act. If, however, there is such a judgment, the officer would be obliged to reimburse the municipality for its expenses in defending the officer and would be responsible for paying the damages. Given what would be at stake, its unfortunate the act uses such imprecise terms as an objectively good faith belief and malicious, wanton or willful act in defining the circumstances under which a municipality or an officer, or both, might face a very significant financial loss. David R. Cameron is a professor of political science at Yale University. The U.S. governments poor track record in bolstering Americans data privacy more broadly lessens its credibility in taking on Chinese-owned companies, according to Susan Ariel Aaronson, a professor at George Washington University and a data governance and national-security expert. The federal government has not passed broad privacy or data-security legislation despite efforts to do so last year, and the Justice Department has tried to undermine encryption - which makes sure only a sender and receiver can see content they exchange - for law-enforcement reasons. Tech companies have pushed back against that. LINCOLN, Neb., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A new and serious side-effect from stress caused by the pandemic has been detected by Nebraska chiropractor Dr. Scott Donkin. Neck, back and jaw pain, headaches, and insomnia have worsened significantly, and they are the direct result of excessive "clenching." Dr. Donkin said, "Patients are acknowledging that they find themselves intensely clenching multiple times an hour. I suspected that COVID-19 was causing patients to feel extra stress and pain issues. After considerable study these last few months, I attribute the clenching and resulting pain to concern about the virus." "My patients express uncertainty about the state of the world, the state of our communities, the economy, and even our families' futures," Donkin said. "We all have a lot to be concerned about, and patients are revealing their fears with new or worsening symptoms that are stress-related. On examination, Dr. Donkin finds patients with temple muscles and the muscles between the cheek and lower jawbone extremely tight, and neck, shoulder, and arm muscles as hard as concrete. "I have found this 'COVID Clenching' to be rather common with my patients," Dr. Donkin says. He explains that we have all had stressful situations that cause tension. Now we are experiencing the sustained grip that the COVID unknowns have on a person. In reality, the tensing effects of a conversation, reading an article, or viewing a program create an ongoing environment for stress and its manifestations, such as jaw clenching and pain. "Awareness is key to unclenching this monster," Donkin says. "Many people are totally unaware that they are locked up through clenching in so many ways by the sustained COVID-19 worries, and they are harming themselves. Once they become aware, they can relax, realizing that they are not alone." Dr. Donkin's patients demonstrate that clenching is apparent in several forms. The most obvious is the clenching of the teeth, which makes the temple and jaw muscles contract deeply, and can lead to increased tension in the neck and back. Second is clenching the fists, which is not limited to the hands. This clenching can quickly spread to the elbows and then to the shoulders. Finally, whole-body clenching is similar to the reaction of sudden cold. The whole bodyshoulders and knees includedcurls inward as the body reacts. Whole-body clenching can exacerbate muscle and joint pain. Dr. Donkin recommends to his patients that they become aware of their particular clenching response, so they can separate the cause (COVID-19 talk) from the effect (clenching in the jaw, head, neck, arms, and body) and begin to work on what they can control, which is their body's tensing response to stress. Steps to combat clenching: Use the pads of middle fingers to gently rub temples and jaw muscles to relax them. Try a heating pad or warm shower to relax the neck, shoulders, arms, and back muscles. Gently rotate, not shake, hands and elbows to relax muscles and move joints. Learn deep breathing techniques to relieve tension. Listen to relaxing music. Gently stretch shoulders, neck, and back to encourage movement where stiffness usually occurs Exercise to release the tensing effects of stress. Eat healthier foods to help ward off the negative physical effects of stress. Before falling asleep and when waking occurs during the night, unclench the fists while relaxing arms, shoulders, neck, back, hips, and legs and take deep breaths in and out. Dr. Donkin explains, "We may not be able to control the course of the virus, but we can influence the impact it has on us." This general information is not intended to replace appropriate treatment for any condition. People should consult with their healthcare professional for help with unique circumstances. About: Scott Donkin, DC, DACBOH, has been in chiropractic practice for 38 years in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is the author of the books SittingSmarts and Sitting on the Job, and multiple articles on health and related subjects. He is an ergonomic consultant to the office furniture industry and a recognized expert for local and national media. Media Contact: Scott Donkin, DC, DACBOH Phone: (402) 488-1500 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Scott Donkin The United Nations has been forced to delete an anti-meat social media post following backlash from farming groups across the world. The UN's tweet, posted on Sunday 26 July, said: "The meat industry is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the worlds biggest oil companies." It went on to say that meat production 'contributed to the depletion of water resources and drives deforestation'. See how you can ActNow to protect our planet, the tweet, which is now deleted, said. Farming unions and organisations reacted to the message, with Australia's Cattle Council calling the post 'reckless'. Cattle Council president Tony Hegarty said: The oil business unlocks long-term carbon storage, the meat business does not. It is reckless to say we are the same as an industry that unlocks millennia-old carbon storage. "The earths oil reserves have been locked away for more than 50-million years. The United Nations should know meat producers absorb carbon in pasture before emitting it," he said. Frank Mitloehner, a University of California, Davis professor and air quality CE specialist, also slammed the UN for posting the tweet. THREAD: To throw blame on animal agriculture for the planets climate crisis, while essentially giving Big Oil a pass is RECKLESS. It not only ignores science, but distracts from real solutions. As you can imagine, I have a lot to say about this. https://t.co/Qt9pHW7wkn 1/ Frank Mitloehner (@GHGGuru) July 27, 2020 "To throw blame on animal agriculture for the planets climate crisis, while essentially giving Big Oil a pass is reckless," he said on a tweet. "It not only ignores science, but distracts from real solutions" After decades of progress in reducing overall, premature cardiac death rates in the U.S., a county-by-county population study has found the decline began slowing in 2011, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access journal of the American Heart Association. Researchers in China and the U.S. accessed multiple databases to analyze county-by-county data on nearly 1.6 million premature cardiac deaths in the U.S. that occurred between 1999 and 2017, among individuals between 35 and 74 years of age. While rates declined between 1999 and 2017, since 2010 the pace of the decline has slowed significantly. "From the 1960s to 2010s, the United States experienced remarkable decline in cardiovascular disease mortality that was coined as one of the major public health accomplishments of the 20th century," said lead investigator Zhi-Jie Zheng, M.D., Ph.D., a University Endowed Distinguished Professor and chair of the department of global health at Peking University in Beijing, China, who leads studies analyzing global and country-specific trends in diseases of major global health importance. Zheng previously served as a lead epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and a supervisory medical epidemiologist at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. "Increasing numbers of out-of-hospital deaths and fatal heart attacks in younger age groups, coupled with a steady widening of disparity of socioeconomic and health environment factors affecting health care at the county level, appear to be the key drivers of the slowdown we have seen since 2010." The study is one of the first national analyses on factors related to disparities in premature cardiac death rates among U.S. counties. In 2012, all United Nations-member countries including the U.S. committed to achieving a 25% reduction in premature death from cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes or chronic respiratory diseases by the year 2025, as proposed by World Health Organization (WHO). In addition, The Global Cardiovascular Disease Taskforce, which includes the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology Foundation and other organizations, set a goal to reducing premature deaths from cardiovascular diseases and stroke (The Heart of 25 by 25). advertisement In this study, premature cardiac death was defined as any death that occurred between ages 35 and 74 attributed to heart disease. Among the key findings: Of nearly 1.6 million premature cardiac deaths from 1999 to 2017, about 61% occurred outside of a hospital. Although overall premature cardiac death rates fell, the proportion of out-of-hospital deaths rose from 58.3% to 61.5% in 2017. Twice as many premature cardiac deaths occurred in men compared to women. Premature death rates were 3.4 times higher among African Americans than Asians or Pacific Islanders. "Our findings suggest a need for health care policy changes and programs that can identify high-risk, young populations prone to premature cardiac death and support improved cardiac health," Zheng said. "The decline in the reduction of premature deaths attributable to heart disease is disheartening and is an urgent call to action," said American Heart Association President Mitchell S. V. Elkind, M.D., M.S., FAHA, FAAN, professor of neurology and epidemiology at Columbia University New York and attending neurologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center of the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. "We must invest and focus public and private efforts to address the disparities in risk factors, access to care and other factors slowing the progress in heart disease so that we can increase the opportunity for all Americans to live longer and healthier lives." "Heart attacks can occur at any age, not just in older persons," Zheng said. "The slower decline in out-of-hospital rates is alarming and warrants more precision targeting and sustained efforts to integrate lifestyle and behavioral interventions that increase heart health and reduce the risk of premature cardiac death." Disparities were largely associated with demographic composition and socioeconomic status. Demographic composition, which included population size, rural living, sex, age, racial/ethnic and foreign-born as factors, accounted for just over a third of out-of-hospital and in-hospital premature cardiac deaths. Differences in socioeconomic factors, which included median household income, unemployment, school enrollment and number of violent crimes per 100,000 population, accounted for about 20% of deaths. Health care environment, which included density of primary care physicians; diabetic, Medicare enrollees who had diabetes confirmed by an HbA1c test; access to places for physical activity; and access to healthy foods, accounted for 18.6% of out-of-hospital and 13.9% of in-hospital deaths. While population health status, which included scoring according to the cardiovascular disease risk index derived from a set of major cardiovascular risk factors, self-rated poor/fair health and total Medicare reimbursements per enrollee (a measure of health care utilization as a proxy for illness), accounted for 23.7% of out-of-hospital death and 30.2% in-hospital deaths. The study had several limitations including potential errors in the reporting of cause of death, which is reliant on county-level, government health department data. LOS ANGELES - California on Wednesday charged the leader of a Mexican megachurch with child rape and human trafficking, months after a court dismissed the previous allegations because of prosecution errors. Naason Joaquin Garcia, the self-proclaimed apostle of La Luz del Mundo, was charged with three dozen felony counts. Also charged were Susana Medina Oaxaca and Alondra Ocampo. Prosecutors contend the three committed sex crimes and also produced child pornography involving five women and girls who were church group members. The crimes took place between 2015 and 2018 in Los Angeles County, authorities said. Garcia is the spiritual leader of La Luz del Mundo, which is Spanish for The Light Of The World. The Guadalajara, Mexico-based evangelical Christian church was founded by his grandfather and claims 5 million followers worldwide. Garcia and Ocampo already were being held in custody in Los Angeles County while prosecutors decided whether to refile charges. He was rebooked on $50 million bail and Ocampo was booked on $25 million bail, while Oaxaca remained free on bail, according to the California attorney generals office. Messages to their attorneys seeking comment werent immediately returned but Garcia has previously denied wrongdoing. In April, an appeals court ordered Los Angeles Superior Court to dismiss charges against Garcia, ruling that his preliminary hearing was not held in a timely manner and he did not waive his right to one. His hearing was postponed several times in some instances, because prosecutors had not turned over evidence to the defence. The refiled charges accuse Garcia and Ocampo of committing a lewd act on a 15-year-old girl. Garcia fondled the girl in his office, authorities said. The two also are accused of raping and committing forced oral copulation with a second girl. All three defendants are accused of committing forced oral copulation with a third girl. Garcia was charged with raping two others. Ocampo took part in one rape, authorities said. Oaxaca is charged with two counts of committing forced and illegal copulation on a minor. Among other allegations, Ocampo is accused of having some church group members send explicit photos or pose for explicit photos that were intended for Garcia. In one case, prosecutors allege Ocampo told a group of underage girls to take off their clothes and touch each other sexually in order to send photographs to Garcia. The girls were told that if they if they went against any desires or wishes of the Apostle ... that they were going against God, according to the indictment. The charges also include human trafficking by procuring a child to engage in a lewd act, conspiracy to commit human trafficking for production of child pornography, production of child pornography, extortion of the victims and unlawful sexual intercourse. A fourth defendant, Azalea Rangel Melendez, previously was charged with rape and forcible oral copulation and is a fugitive. In February, a Southern California woman filed a federal lawsuit against the church and Garcia. In it, she said Garcia, 50, and his father sexually abused her for 18 years starting when she was 12, manipulating Bible passages to convince her the mistreatment actually was a gift from God. ___ Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles contributed to this report. The writer, of Omaha, is a state senator representing District 6 in the Nebraska Legislature. Nebraskans are facing unprecedented challenges. In times like these, we look to our leaders to stand up and work even harder for the voiceless. This global health pandemic is far from over, and the economic impact of the public health crisis continues to reverberate in our communities. The effects of the pandemic continue to be deep and widespread, and its health and economic impacts have fallen hardest on Nebraskans of color. These disparities are reflected in barriers to health care, to safe and stable jobs, to paid leave, and to overall financial stability. According to information provided by the nonprofit organization Nebraska Appleseed, 51,502 jobs have been lost since the onset of the pandemic and 38% of Nebraskans have experienced income loss. It is clear that Nebraska families are hurting, and with the July 25 expiration of expanded unemployment benefits, this hurt will only become more acute. MUSKEGON HEIGHTS, MI -- A 61-year-old man, located years later in Alabama, has been arrested for a 37-year-old cold case for sexual assault against a girl in Muskegon Heights. The suspect, Dale Rose, was arraigned on the criminal sexual misconduct charge against a 6-year-old girl Wednesday in district court in Muskegon County. Muskegon Heights police have been investigating the case for years and received several tips from confidential informants, Muskegon Heights Police Chief Joseph E. Thomas Jr. said. Using federal resources, the suspect was finally located in Clarke County, Alabama in July and transported by Muskegon Heights police to Muskegon County Jail. The assault took place in April 1983 in the 2000 block of 6th Street in Muskegon Heights. After Child Protective Services conducted an investigation into the matter, a warrant was issued on April 4, 1984 for the suspect. The suspect was identified as Rose, a 61-year-old man who was living in Muskegon County at the time. He fled the area, the chief said. Over the following years, Muskegon Heights police received several phone calls from confidential informants but the suspect could not be located by police. He was reportedly seen in Ohio, Tennessee and Texas, Thomas said. The subject was previously located in February 2017 but was then released, reportedly due to a glitch in a county sheriffs office system. Once the subject was located in Alabama in July 2020, Muskegon Heights police obtained a governors warrant, allowing officers to apprehend the suspect in another state and transport him back to Muskegon County. More on MLive: Walmarts must-have back to school supplies and the coolest at-home learning activities Wolverine recruiting report: Decision date for Clarkston 4-star OL Rocco Spindler looming Thursday, July 30: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan Sangrur (Punjab): Congress Punjab unit President Amarinder Singh on Sunday accused the Badal government of complicity in the Nabha jailbreak and said it has exposed a complete breakdown of law and order and triggered fears of revival of terrorism in the state ahead of the Assembly polls. The shocking manner in which the gangsters walked into the high-security jail and freed a dreaded Khalistani terrorist, along with four others, clearly showed complicity at the highest levels, he said. Talking to reporters during the second day of the second phase of his roadshow, he said the law and order situation in the state had deteriorated to unprecedented levels under the Badal regime, especially in the run-up to the Assembly polls. Also read | Punjab jailbreak: Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal calls for an emergency meeting (Live updates) Armed men in police uniform on Sunday stormed the high-security Nabha Jail in Patiala district, opening indiscriminate fire and fleeing with five prisoners including Khalistan Liberation Front chief Harminder Mintoo, an accused in 10 cases. The rescue of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) chief clearly suggested an active effort from across the border to revive terrorism in Punjab, he alleged and expressed fears of terror attacks and other violent incidents in the state ahead of the polls. The gangsters seemed to have driven fearlessly to the prison, entered in police fatigues and escaped with Mintoo and the others, all hardcore gangsters, without being stopped, clearly indicating that it was a pre-planned assault managed with the complicity of the highest authorities, he said. Also read | Nabha jailbreak: Woman killed as cops fire at car for jumping barrier He accused the Badal government of playing into the hands of the enemies of the nation and allowing the situation to come to such a pass where terrorists could walk out of high-security prisons so effortlessly. He demanded beefing up of security across the state to prevent recurrence of such incidents and strong measures to catch Mintoo and the others gangsters. Also read | Nabha Jailbreak: Centre seeks report from Punjab govt For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Pentagon Justifies Need for First New Nuke in Decades With Rare Critique of Current Weapons Sputnik News 08:59 GMT 30.07.2020 The Trump administration has been seeking funding for the modernisation of US nuclear capabilities; it plans to develop a new submarine-launched warhead, which will be included in the nation's arsenal by 2040. The Pentagon has outlined the perceived vulnerabilities of its existing arsenal in trying to convince lawmakers to provide funding for a new atomic weapon. The sea-based nuclear warhead, known as the W93, was proposed this year to replace the W76 and the W88. The W93, which would be the nation's first new warhead design in decades, was supposed to be deployed in the late 2030s. The entire programme is estimated to cost at least $14 billion. House appropriators this month blocked the $53-million request by Donald Trump for funding to begin initial design work on the warhead and the Mark 7 reentry vehicle in fiscal year 2021. The move has yet to be discussed in the Senate. Roll Call, a DC-based newspaper covering legislation, reported on Wednesday that it had obtained a budget white paper pitching the programme to the lawmakers. The document was sent by the Defence Department and the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration to Congress this spring, according to the report. The W93 would "enhance operational effectiveness and mitigate a variety of risks that are present in the current force", said the memo. In making the case for a new warhead, the Pentagon and the NSSA reportedly claimed that it "provides a technical hedge" against the risk that the current Navy warheads also carried on Trident missiles and launched from Ohio-class submarines might have hardware issues. They also argued that relying on Air Force bombers would "reduce responsiveness". Bigger dependence on ICBM launchers would "increase reliance on a launch under attack posture", they said, alluding to the strategy which calls for launching nuclear weapons on warning that attacking weapons are on their way an approach critics have long insisted is poses risks of accidental launches and lapses of judgement. The US Navy currently employs around 1,900 nukes, which come in two varieties: nearly 1,500 W76s (and its low-yield versions) and about 400 W88s. The W76, in service since 1978, has the power of six Hiroshima bombs (100 kt), while the newer W88 is about five times as destructive as the W76 (475 kt). The white paper also stated that the Navy needs to have a more powerful third option which could help it avoid a possible technical problem in either of the two existing warheads. A NNSA spokesperson told Role Call that the agency works to minimise the chance of any significant technical problems but "because of our dependence on the W76, prudence calls for us to have risk mitigation in place." A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Belarusian Authorities Link Jailed Opposition Politicians With Detained Russian Military Contarctors By RFE/RL's Belarus Service July 30, 2020 MINSK -- Belarusian authorities have linked jailed opposition politicians with a probe launched against 33 contractors from the private Russian military company Vagner, who were detained and allegedly wanted to destabilize the country ahead of an August 9 presidential election. The Investigative Committee of Belarus said on July 30 that popular vlogger Syarhey Tsikhanouski, who was jailed after he expressed his intention to run for the presidency last month, was charged with "committing actions to incite social hatred and the assault of law enforcement officers." The statement added that Tsikhanouski, along with a veteran opposition politician Mikalay Statkevich and several unnamed individuals, were charged with preparing mass disorder, a crime that may be punished by up to eight years in prison. "As a result of a check of operative information received from special services, 33 citizens of the Russian Federation, servicemen of the Vagner private military company... were detained on suspicion of committing the aforementioned crime," the statement added. Tsikhanouski is the husband of a registered presidential candidate, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who has said that she decided to take part in the poll after her husband was arrested. Earlier in the day, security officials warned candidates in the upcoming presidential election to beware of possible "provocations" during the campaign as authorities opened a criminal probe into the 33 contractors from Vagner. Andrey Raukou, the chief of the Belarusian Security Council, said he met on July 30 with Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Syarhey Cherachan, Hanna Kanapatskaya, Andrey Dzmitryyeu, and parliamentary Chairwoman Natallya Kachanava, who represented incumbent Alyaksandr Lukashenka, to inform the candidates about "additional security measures at public events." Raukou added that in addition to detaining 33 Russian citizens on July 29, "upwards of up to 200 militants" remain at large in Belarus and efforts to locate them continue as a probe was launched into what officials said were the "preparation of terrorist acts" in Belarus by the suspects. The Vagner Group is a Russian paramilitary organization believed to be run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an influential Russian businessman close to President Vladimir Putin. Its fighters have turned up in conflicts in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and Africa. Neighboring Ukraine said on July 30 that it was initiating an extradition request for some of the mercenaries, who it believes have fought alongside Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry said on July 30 that it had separately summoned Russian Ambassador Dmitry Mezentsev and the acting head of the Ukrainian Embassy in Belarus, Petro Vrublevskiy, to discuss the situation. The ministry said "the Russian ambassador has been asked for detailed explanations regarding the goals and other aspects of the arrival and stay in our country of this organized group of persons, many of whom have proven combat experience." "Taking into account the confirmed information on the participation of a number of detainees in combat activities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine (against Ukrainian armed forces) as well as the Ukrainian origin and Ukrainian citizenship of some of them, Petro Vrublevskiy was asked to provide the relevant information for a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the reasons for their presence in Belarus," the ministry said. Lukashenka, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, is seeking a sixth term in the upcoming election. The Belarusian leader has faced mounting public opposition in recent months, in part from public discontent over the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. 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 the election officials. According to Raukou, it is not known who exactly sent the militants as the investigation continues and the 33 Russian citizens are interrogated. Tsikhanouskaya told journalists after the meeting with Raukou that all events for her campaign will proceed as planned despite the warning. A large concert and gathering to support Tsikhanouskaya is planned in Minsk for later in the day. Belarusian authorities said they found the suspects at a health resort near Minsk overnight on July 29, after receiving information that more than 200 Russian military contractors had arrived days earlier in Belarus to "destabilize the situation in the country ahead of the election." Another suspect was detained in the south of the country, according to the BelTA news agency, which also published a list of the 33 Russian citizens, aged between 24 and 55, who had been apprehended. In 2018, the U.S. State Department blacklisted Vagner along with more than 30 other Russian companies and individuals with ties to military and intelligence agencies. Separately, Veranika Tsapkala, the wife of former potential presidential candidate Valer Tsapkala, who had to flee the country with their children for safety reasons, said on July 30 that her sister had been kidnapped by unknown individuals. Tsapkala said on July 30 that unknown individuals wearing civilian clothes "kidnapped" her sister in a parking lot in Minsk earlier in the day and took her away. Her whereabouts are currently unknown. Later, it turned out that her sister, Natallya Leanyuk, was briefly detained by police for questioning in a probe launched against Valer Tsapkala following a lawsuit filed by a Turkish businessman who accused him of bribery and insult. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-accuses- russian-suspects-of-preelection-plot-warns- candidates/30756834.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address In the early stages of the pandemic, doctors and scientists focused on how COVID-19 an acute respiratory disease attacks the lungs. Two new studies out of Germany suggest that even if patients escape hospitalization, the virus can damage the heart. Its too soon to determine if the damage is permanent, but the findings are not encouraging. The first study, published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Cardiology, looked at the cardiac MRIs of 100 relatively young patients who had recovered from COVID-19 and compared them to MRIs of 100 similar people who had not contracted the disease. Two-thirds of the patients recovered at home. Two months following their recovery, 78 infected patients were found to have structural changes to their hearts. A biomarker indicating myocardial injury similar to that occurring in heart attacks was found in 76 patients. Sixty patients suffered inflammation of the heart. The average age of the infected patients was 49. None had previous heart issues or other pre-existing conditions; in fact, many were skiers returning from vacation. The second study, also published in JAMA Cardiology on Monday, examined autopsy reports from 39 people, 78 to 89 years old, who died in April. Analysis of cardiac tissue revealed the virus had infiltrated the hearts of 24 of the patients. The studies results appeared to validate concerns expressed earlier this month by John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology in the the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program. There is evidence now that the virus can directly attack heart muscle cells, and theres also evidence that the cytokine storm that the virus triggers in the body not only damages the lungs, but can damage the heart, Swartzberg told Berkeley News. We dont know what the long-term effects of that may be, but it could be that we will have a population of people who survive COVID-19 only to go on and have chronic cardiac problems. Among those problems are chronic heart failure, a progressive illness in which the heart slowly becomes less able to pump blood throughout the body. Boston Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez, 27, on Sunday confirmed that he was suffering from myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, attributed to his coronavirus infection earlier this summer. Rodriguez had been cleared to pitch after testing negative, but the new diagnosis sidelined him. Symptoms of myocarditis, according to the Mayo Clinic, include disruption of your heart muscle and your heart's electrical system, reducing your heart's ability to pump and causing rapid or abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias). The condition can lead to heart failure. The Boston Globe's Stat News was a source for this article. Mike Moffitt is an SFGATE Reporter. Email: moffitt@sfgate.com. Twitter: @Mike_at_SFGate The Rajasthan government on Thursday announced opening of all religious places for public from September 1. The states home department will issue guidelines for the same. Chief minister Ashok Gehlot held a meeting with officials yesterday where he directed all district collectors to start preparations for opening the religious places, and ensuring that social distancing and other health protocols are followed. Gehlot also directed them to select Gram Rakshak (village guards) for all gram panchayats by August 31. He said that these village guards will act as a bridge between the police and the public, which will increase the confidence of the public in the police. It will help in effective monitoring of criminal activities. While reviewing the Covid-19 situation in the state, the chief minister directed that for better monitoring of the pandemic in the districts, the in-charge secretary should go on a two-day visit from August 31 and take stock of all arrangements. During the visit, they should make an in-depth review of arrangements including awareness campaign, status of medical resources, plasma therapy and make the state government aware of the requirements, Gehlot said. He also directed the officials that special attention should be paid to those districts where maximum Covid-19 positive cases have been reported in July. Gehlot directed to start plasma therapy at all medical colleges in the state with the permission of ICMR at the earliest. He said that people should be motivated to donate plasma. The chief minister expressed satisfaction that after Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota and Udaipur, plasma therapy has started in Bikaner. It was informed in the meeting that efforts are being made to start plasma therapy in Ajmer by August 15. A regular meeting of the Central Election Commission of Ukraine (CEC) took place, at which the commission appealed to Donetsk and Luhansk regional state administrations regional military and civil administrations for conclusions regarding the possibility of holding local elections in the regions on October 25, 2020. "For the purpose to properly organize the preparation and conduct of local elections on October 25, 2020 in the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in particular, those near the demarcation line, to ensure the rights and freedoms of citizens, and also in view of the fact that, according to the law on the CMA [civil-military administration], district, regional military-civil administrations exercise the authority to provide the commission with conclusions on the possibility of organizing and preparing for the relevant elections in certain territories, the Central Election Commission appealed to Donetsk and Luhansk regional state administrations regional civil-military administrations regarding the provision of conclusions on the possibility of organizing the preparation and holding of local elections on October 25, 2020," the Central Election Commission's press service said on Thursday, July 30. We are talking about voting stations, which were formed in accordance with the Central Election Commission's resolution No. 117 on the formation of ordinary and special voting stations on a permanent basis, dated June 25, 2020. "The commission expects to receive such conclusions no later than August 5, 2020," the commission said in the statement. While many AWCs have fared well with respect to healthcare for mothers and infants, helped support parents and build communities, providing critical nutrition and health awareness, but their success is not quite impressive when it comes to the educational aspects of early childhood care and education. The rough translation of the above Sanskrit saying goes thus: Among all the things that an individual possesses, education is supreme because education cannot be lost to anyone, no price can be put on it and it can never be destroyed. Perhaps the adage better late than never fits the nod the Union Cabinet gave to the National Education Policy 2020 on Wednesday which seeks to transform the country's academic scenario from all the way from a toddler to the level of a research scholar. The magnitude of the process is evident from the number of suggestions made (over 2 lakh), the involvement of 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats, 6,600 blocks, 6,000 urban local bodies and 676 districts across the country which came to the panel chaired by former cabinet secretary TSR Subramaniam who headed the Committee for Evolution of the New Education Policy. Following that, a nine-member Committee for the Draft National Education Policy was formed in June 2017 under the chairmanship of former ISRO chief K Kasturirangan and it submitted the Draft National Education Policy, 2019 to the government last May. 'Severe learning crisis in India' "Studies tracking student learning outcomes clearly demonstrate that children who start out behind tend to stay behind throughout their school years. At the current time, there is a severe learning crisis in India, where children are enrolled in primary school but are failing to attain even basic skills such as foundational literacy and numeracy," the Kasturigan committee said in the NEP 2020. Apart from the problems of access, quality-related deficiencies such as inappropriate curriculum, lack of qualified and trained educators and less-than-optimal pedagogy have only compounded the problem. The deficiency in grade school-preparedness is particularly distinct between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. According to the IMD World Talent Ranking, India stands at a poor 62 out of 63 surveyed when it comes to the total public expenditure on education per student across the spectrum. It spends 4.4 percent of its GDP on education which the Kasturirangan committee wants to be hiked to 6 percent of GDP at the earliest. The country also does poorly in the overall performance, securing the rank 59 among 63 countries. Although the Constitution (86th Amendment) Act, 2002 inserted Article 21-A to make free and compulsory education for all children in the age group of six to 14 years as a fundamental right on the basis of which the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act) came into force in April 2010, the country's attempt to universal elementary education is nowhere near its goal despite the constitutional and legal underpinnings. Mincing no words to drive the seriousness of the issue, the NEP 2020 said: "If action is not taken soon, over the next few years the country could lose 10 crore or more students the size of a large country from the learning system and to illiteracy... Attaining foundational literacy and numeracy for all children must become an immediate national mission." What is worrisome is that far too many six-year-olds are entering Class 1 with very limited Early Childhood Care and Education due to lack of any suitable preprimary options. "Schooling in the early years also lays too little curricular emphasis on foundational literacy and numeracy and, in general, on the reading, writing, and speaking of languages and on mathematical ideas and thinking," the NEP 2020 said. Despite painting a grim picture of the state of affairs, the policy prepared a roadmap for the way ahead with an increased focus on foundational literacy and numeracy recommending a redesign of school and classroom curriculum and schedules for Classes 1 to 5 to build a love for reading and mathematics among students. The policy also called for a large-scale community and volunteer involvement for the process to be a success. "Qualified volunteers (such as retired teachers and army officers, excellent students from neighbouring schools, and passionate socially-conscious college graduates from across the country) will also be drawn on a large scale to join the NTP and the RIAP on an unpaid basis, during the academic year as well as in the summer, as a service to their communities and to the country," the NEP 2020 said. The institution of National Tutors Programme (NTP) has been incorporated in the policy where the best performers in each school will be drawn for up to five hours a week as tutors during the school for fellow (generally younger) students who need help. "Being selected as a peer tutor will be considered a prestigious position, earning a certificate from the State each year that indicates the hours of service," the NEP 2020 said to encourage such participation. The formulation of Remedial Instructional Aides Programme (RIAP) is another recommendation as a temporary 10-year project to draw instructors especially women from local communities to formally help students who have fallen behind and bring them back into the fold. Revamping Anganwadi system The Kasturirangan committee rightly realised unless imparting of education is methodically approached right from the toddler level it is near impossible to fix the curve as an individual advance in age. It is here the Anganwadi, which means "courtyard shelter", a system that was started by the Central government way back in 1975 as part of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme to combat child hunger and malnutrition, becomes critical. There are 13.42 lakh Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) functioning across the country today. The AWCs are the focal point for the implementation of all health, nutrition and early learning initiatives under ICDS. The observation of the committee on the present condition of AWCs is not very enthusiastic. "Anganwadis are currently quite deficient in supplies and infrastructure for education; as a result, they tend to contain more children in the 2-4 year age range and fewer in the educationally critical 4-6 year age range; they also have few teachers trained in or specially dedicated to early childhood education. Meanwhile, private and other pre-schools have largely functioned as downward extensions of primary school," the committee said in the National Education Policy 2020. The high focus on strengthening the AWCs in terms of infrastructure and human resources is not unfounded as it is the first layer of foundation on which a strong education system will rest and consequently determine the quality of the future product. "The learning process for a child commences immediately at birth. Evidence from neuroscience shows that over 85% of a childs cumulative brain development occurs prior to the age of 6, indicating the critical importance of developmentally appropriate care and stimulation of the brain in a childs early years to promote sustained and healthy brain development and growth," the committee said in NEP 2020. Without proper care in the early years, deficiencies in the development of critical areas of the brain and corresponding adverse effects on cognitive and emotional processing ultimately stand as an obstacle in shaping up a quality human asset. "Excellent care, nurture, nutrition, physical activity, psycho-social environment, and cognitive and emotional stimulation during a childs first six years are thus considered extremely critical for ensuring proper brain development and, consequently, desired learning curves over a persons lifetime," the NEP 2020 said. While many AWCs have fared well with respect to healthcare for mothers and infants, helped support parents and build communities, providing critical nutrition and health awareness, immunisation, basic health check-ups, and referrals and connections to local public health systems, their success is not impressive when it comes to the educational aspects of ECCE. The number of beneficiaries of supplementary nutrition for children (6 months - 6 years) in AWCs across India have been huge. In the year 2011-12, it was 7,90,05,328; in 2012-13 it was 7,74,04,279; in 2013-14 it was 8,49,40,601; in 2014-15 it was 8,28,99,424; in 2015-16 it was 8,28,78,916 and in 2016-17 it was 8,00,73,473. However, in 2017-18it fell sharply to 7,19,41,717. In February 2016, the government issued guidelines to construct 4 lakh AWCs across the country in convergence with Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Under the 14th Finance Commission period, drinking water and sanitation facilities at AWCs were provided from funds available with the Panchayti Raj Institutions. The number of AWCs having toilets increased from 8.68 lakh to 9.46 lakh during 2016-17 to 2018-19 and those having drinking water facilities increased from 10.16 lakh to 11.76 lakh. In no uncertain terms, the NEP 2020 made it clear that the strengthening of the Anganwadi system is non-negotiable. "Anganwadi Centres will be heavily built up to deal with the educational needs of children up to the age of 6. In particular, Anganwadi workers trained in techniques of cognitive stimulation for infants and of play-based and multilevel education for 3-6 year olds will be stationed across the country," the policy said. The policy stressed the colocation of AWCs and primary schools as a primary requirement during location planning for new AWCs and primary schools or to ensure high-quality stand-alone pre-schools in areas where existing AWCs and primary schools are not able to take on the educational requirements. Talking about the administrative side, the policy said that the responsibility for planning and implementation of all ECCE curriculum and pedagogy in AWCs and all pre-schools will lie with the human resource development ministry. Catch 'em tiny The NEP 2020 highly emphasises on the right approach to early childhood care and education. "During the ages prior to 3 years, quality ECCE includes the health and nutrition of both the mother and the child, but also crucially includes cognitive and emotional stimulation of the infant through talking, playing, moving, listening to music and sounds, and stimulating all the other senses particularly sight and touch," the NEP 2020 said. There is also thrust on exposure to languages, numbers, and simple problem-solving during this period. Going forward from the age of 3 to 6, the policy emphasised on developing "self-help skills (such as getting ready on ones own), motor skills, cleanliness, the handling of separation anxiety, being comfortable around ones peers, moral development (such as knowing the difference between right and wrong), physical development through movement and exercise." Communication with parents and others to express thoughts and feelings, gaining patience to finish a task and acquiring good habits are also key focus during this period of an ideal ECCE. During all this, continuous healthcare and nutrition should go on unhindered. "... it is important that children of ages 3-8 have access to a flexible, multifaceted, multilevel, play-based, activity-based, and discovery-based education. It also becomes natural then to view this period, from up to three years of pre-school (ages 3-6) to the end of Grade 2 (age 8), as a single pedagogical unit called the Foundational Stage," the NEP 2020 said. The committee also recommended that to ensure ECCE to all children before the age of six, ECCE should be included as an integral part of the RTE Act. Fitting into global education development agenda The global education development agenda, which is part of the sustainable development goal 4 (SDG4) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030. However, if India fails to achieve universal foundational literacy and numeracy in primary school and beyond by 2025, any National Educational Policy, no matter how grand, will translate only into a mere vacuum that will push the nation into a permanent abyss. A Berkeley police officer fired her gun Thursday night while attempting to detain theft suspects at a CVS pharmacy, officials said. The officer was patrolling the area near the store at 1451 Shattuck Ave. around 9:18 p.m. when she encountered a theft in progress at the CVS Pharmacy, according to the Berkeley Police Department. While attempting to detain three suspects, the officer fired her weapon. The Police Department has not found anyone struck by the shots, and its unclear how many rounds were fired. No arrests were announced. The officer suffered an injury to her foot during the encounter and was taken to the hospital, police said. An investigation into the incident, which was the first officer-involved shooting the department has had since 2012, remained ongoing Friday. The department placed the officer on administrative leave pending the outcome of investigations by the departments Homicide Unit, Internal Affairs and the Alameda County district attorneys office. 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. Any time an officer discharges a firearm in performance of their duties, its a serious matter, and its important that we conduct the investigation in a thorough, thoughtful and methodical manner, said Officer Byron White, a Police Department spokesman. Brett Simpson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: brett.simpson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @brettvsimpson By Julie Roginsky For over a decade, I served on the board of an organization dedicated to ensuring that more women work in politics. As part of my duties, I spoke each year before a group of highly motivated, ambitious women, whose goal was to climb the political ladder. After my talk, the women would share their personal experiences and then, inevitably, at least one woman feeling that she was among the sisterhood would recount a story about her treatment by men in politics that would never have happened to a man. Once, after one such story, the woman telling it began to cry. And I, standing at the podium, did my best not to roll my eyes and tell her that there is no crying in politics, that the best way to get ahead in this business is to suck it up and just move forward. I believed this for 20 years. And for 20 years, I was wrong. I was reminded of this when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to the well of the House of Representatives recently to denounce Rep. Ted Yoho for his unprovoked decision to call her a f**king b*tch. Unfortunately for Yoho, a member of the press had overheard his tirade. Ocasio-Cortez, a millennial Latina who had refused to patiently wait her turn to ascend the political ladder when she defeated a 20-year incumbent to win a congressional seat two years ago, was not willing to just suck it up. Instead, she powerfully and forthrightly castigated Yoho for calling her disgusting, crazy and out of [her] mind and reminded her male colleagues that being a husband and father of daughters was by no means a prophylactic against misogyny. Women viscerally understood what Yohos words meant to convey. Yet another powerful white man had launched a misogynistic attack on a woman for no reason whatsoever. It was not enough for Yoho to use gender-neutral profanity. The old canard about her being mentally insane was, of course, of a piece with similar epithets being directed at women who dare to call out entrenched men for their misogyny. These women, we are told, have lost their way. Rather than looking the other way when subjected to abusive behavior, they are taking to the media or the well of the House. It is precisely the womens refusal to shut up while these men are exercising their inalienable right to misogynistic abuse that makes them disgusting. Yohos actions would have been bad enough had they occurred in a vacuum. But it was the reaction to Yohos outburst that renders this situation a master class in male toxicity. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy promptly castigated Ocasio-Cortez for failing to accept Yohos apology which was, of course, disingenuous and coerced. I watched that Congressman Yoho went to the floor apologized not once, but twice to the congresswoman from New York, McCarthy huffed. I watched the Majority Leader of the House accept his apology. In McCarthys telling, there was obvious merit to Yohos original claim that Ocasio-Cortez is unhinged. After all, the House majority leader, yet another white male septuagenarian, had apparently looked into the incident and had accepted Yohos apology. Left unsaid was that the House majority leader was in no position to accept Yohos apology because he had not been the target of his vitriol. Until leaders actually penalize men who engage in misogynistic rhetoric toward women, Ocasio-Cortezs brave words will not have real, practical impact. Notably, her speech has been applauded by millions but it has not led to a real call for action or for real consequences. Yoho could have been censored by the House. He could have been stripped of his committee assignments. He could have been otherwise penalized by the House Republican Conference if only to demonstrate that the Republican Party would not stand for such treatment of women. But, of course, none of that happened. It was Ocasio-Cortez who was forced to go to the House floor to explain why Yoho's behavior was unacceptable. It was Ocasio-Cortez who had to refute charges by powerful men that she was unreasonable because she would not suck it up and accept a tepid non-apology, done under duress, without a shred of real remorse. It was Ocasio-Cortez who had to act as the conscience for the House of Representatives on behalf of all women in the workplace. None of her male colleagues were inclined to join a call for action after her speech. Every single day, women much less powerful than a sitting member of Congress are subjected to abusive, misogynistic language at work. If they are lucky, they have the freedom from confidentiality agreements to bring public attention to this behavior. Yet even then, powerful men band together to protect their own by blaming the woman the victim for refusing to keep quiet about the abuse. Too often, the woman is sidelined. The misogynist is protected by his fellows and their enablers. If men are serious about treating women equally if they are serious about the harm this behavior inflicts on their oft-mentioned wives and daughters they will not only stow the gender-based rhetoric but impose real penalties on those who wont. Every woman, from a congresswoman to a seasonal migrant worker, deserves to be treated with respect. The happy talk is empty if men in power dont rid themselves of toxic colleagues and make it crystal clear, through tangible action that it is not the woman standing up for herself who has lost her way but the man who calls her disgusting, crazy and worse. Julie Roginsky is a political consultant and a co-founder of Lift Our Voices, a national organization dedicated to eradicating non-disclosure agreements for toxic work issues. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Heres how to submit an op-ed or Letter to the Editor. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. In the morning warmth they walked relaxedly, in couples and knots, suits and dresses, as if bound for a country chapel and the making of vows. Well dressed, shiny-shoed and smiling, men and women teetered over the sloping cobbles at Dublin Castle, hoping not to trip and fall headlong. Except there was no single photographer you could persuade not to make a print in such a case, but a whole bank of them, clicking away. That was one reason for keeping a fixed grin and moving gingerly at the North-South Ministerial Council, while pretending that everything was not in the least bit awkward. The other reason, of course, is that we've all been there... mixing with the other side at a nuptials while not having anything in common. Read More So it was, as Leo uncomfortably accompanied Michelle ONeill, and Micheal tried to be mature about it with Arlene, who knew her own mind. What can you really say? Just for God's sake don't even think of offering the elbow-thing in public or the pair of us will look a right pair of goms in the newspaper. It's always artificial when meeting the in-laws, who also happen to be your neighbours. Especially when we haven't spoken in nearly four years. There was that bonfire, you see... a few flakes of ash drifting over the fence, when we might have had the washing out. And then those raised voices between them, and the man storming out and slamming the door. And it wouldn't matter, but we all have to share the island, it's been going on for years, and would it really be too hard to show a small bit of consideration? Which is why Arlene and Michelle had a joke prepared to break the ash, sorry ice. The two ladies could give advice on power-sharing, if the three gentlemen were wondering how to manage it. Forced laughs all round, everyone in the same boat of having to make the best of it, although didnt they get a great day with the weather? Isnt a bit of levity a good thing? said Michelle. It got the meeting off to a good start." Which really shows how leaden it was, a stilted ceremony behind closed doors. One could imagine the droning liturgy, because it came out at the press conference... ever closer cooperation on health... the Ulster canal a road called the A5 Giant Hogweed (probably),and (possibly) joint recognition of library cards north and south, and of piddling fines for late returns. But of course it is much more important than that, and only responsible to treat the matter with due and proper seriousness. There was the matter of the green list of safe countries to which to travel, although, of course, they don't have a green list in the North. They instead have a travel list. You'd want to wise up to cross-community colour consciousness. This is why Eamon Ryans exhaustively extolled Greenway, from Sligo to Enniskillen, will no doubt mysteriously become a cycleway when it crosses into the wee North. Outnumbered, Arlene was perfectly cordial but still managed to stitch in some micro-aggressions to southern ears, such as references to the mainland and the rest of the UK. She said she didnt feel in the least bit threatened by Micheals new Shared Island Unit in the Department of the Taoiseach, and would never shy away from her Unionism. It will never change who I am, or what I believe in, but I do think its good to talk. If there was a border poll she would vote to remain in the UK, she said. Steely stuff, but she did find herself in Dublin Castle, seat of British rule in Ireland for some many fine centuries, and so she felt emboldened to make another joke, which was a somewhat lackadaisical two in the one day. We were so well socially distanced in that large room, that it was like Father Ted. I didnt know if you were small or far away. She might prefer both. Tehran has agreed to pay compensation for the January downing of a Ukrainian plane, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said. "Iran agreed to pay compensation for the plane, but the implementation of this issue will take time and has various aspects from a technical and legal point of view", Mousavi said, according to state-run news agency IRNA. Reiterating that Tehran has accepted accountability for the tragedy, he noted that "many passengers" on the downed plane were Iranian citizens, adding that talks on Ukrainian citizens will continue. Earlier, reports emerged suggesting that Ukraine and the Iranian delegation in Kiev were negotiating on compensations for the crash of the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800. The aircraft was shot down on 8 January shortly after takeoff from Tehrans Imam Khomeini International Airport, resulting in the deaths of all 176 people on board. YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. On July 31, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh Masis Mayilian met with Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan in Yerevan, the Artsakh MFA told Armenpress. During the meeting, the sides touched upon the situation, created as a result of the armed aggression launched by Azerbaijan on July 12 in the section of the Tavush region of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, when it directly targeted the civilian population and infrastructure of the border settlements. The Foreign Ministers emphasized that another attempt by Azerbaijan to deliberately escalate tensions in the conflict zone was a serious blow to the process of peaceful settlement of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict, once again demonstrating the open contempt of the Azerbaijani authorities for their international obligations. In this context, the sides stressed the need to take active steps to deter the aspirations of Azerbaijan for unleashing a new aggression and to bring the authorities of that country to a constructive path. The Foreign Ministers emphasized the imperative of establishing international mechanisms for the reduction of risks of tension in the conflict zone and for controlling the ceasefire regime. Masis Mayilian and Zohrab Mnatsakanyan reiterated the urgency of giving a new content to the security cooperation between the two Armenian states. In this context, they noted the need to develop the legal basis for cooperation in this area, taking into account the overall security challenges. In this regard, the sides highlighted the inadmissibility of a destabilizing policy in the region and the necessity of its resolute rejection. Newly appointed Permanent Representative of the Republic of Artsakh to the Republic of Armenia Sergey Ghazaryan also participated in the meeting. WASHINGTON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Red Cross has elected to its National Board of Governors Brett Biggs, executive vice president and chief financial officer for Walmart Inc. The Red Cross is led by a Board of Governors with all of the powers of governing and directing, as well as overseeing the management of the business and affairs of the organization. At the Annual Meeting of the Red Cross held on July 29, 2020, delegates from local Red Cross units elected Biggs to a three-year term. "We are truly privileged to welcome Brett Biggs to the Red Cross Board of Governors," said Chairman Bonnie McElveen-Hunter. "Brett's expertise in retail, strategic operations, and finance will help us continue to fulfill the American Red Cross legacy of humanitarian service." Prior to his current role as Walmart's chief financial officer, Biggs served as chief financial officer for Walmart International, Walmart U.S. and Sam's Club; senior vice president of International Strategy, Mergers and Acquisitions'; senior vice president of Corporate Finance; and senior vice president of Operations for Sam's Club. Before joining Walmart in 2000, Brett held various mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance positions with Leggett & Platt, Phillips Petroleum Co. and Price Waterhouse. 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 redcross.org or cruzrojaamericana.org, or visit us on Twitter at @RedCross. SOURCE American Red Cross Related Links http://redcross.org When her South Carolina high school went online this spring, Maya Green struggled through the same emotions as many of her fellow seniors: She missed her friends. Her online assignments were too easy. She struggled to stay focused. But Green, 18, also found herself working harder for the teachers who knew her well and cared about her. "My school doesn't do a ton of lessons on social and emotional learning," said Green, who just graduated from Charleston County School of the Arts, a magnet school, and is headed to Stanford University. "But I grew up in this creative writing program, and I'm really close to my teachers there, and we had at least one purposeful conversation about my emotions after we moved online." From the other teachers, Green didn't hear much to support her mental health. That was a common complaint among parents when classes went online in March to stem the spread of coronavirus. With the sudden halt to in-person learning, many students missed their friends, yearned to be out of the house, developed erratic sleep habits and drove their (often working) parents crazy. On top of that, many were dealing with the trauma of sick or dying family members, economic hardship and disruption to the life they once had. 'This is hell': Parents and kids hate online learning, but many face more of it As the pandemic drags on, it's clear that not all kids are all right. Nearly 3 in 10 parents said their child is experiencing emotional or mental harm because of social distancing and school closures, according to a nationwide Gallup poll in June. "'Unmoored' is the best way I can describe it," said Michael Rich, associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. He's seen a rise in young patients with anxiety and depression during the pandemic. "They don't feel like getting up and going to another Zoom class," Rich said. "They don't feel like finishing their college applications." Story continues Ty Jackson, 18, studies with his sister Ellie, 15, at their home during the coronavirus pandemic April 16 in Jacksonville, Fla. As more districts are electing to start the school year virtually, teachers will have to get better at delivering new academic content online while also meeting students' social and emotional needs. Schools, Rich said, should think about using the virtual environment to create new relationships between teachers and students. "Not just one where kids can get help with algebra, but where kids are talking to teachers about what's going on." Coronavirus and kid mental health:Kids can bounce back, but it's easier if they have good supports Fitting it all in: Academic and emotional learning In normal times, many schools didn't deliberately set aside time for teaching non-academic "soft skills" such as empathy, determination and self-care. That makes ramping up the focus in a virtual setting, amid a set of challenging circumstances, even more daunting. But the world is a stressful place right now, given the global health crisis, economic downturn and protests over racial injustice. It's important for school staff to nurture emotional connections, child psychologists and mental health experts say, even if addressing students' academic slide seems more urgent. There's a lot of fear and consternation and confusion, but not everyone is living the same pandemic, said Frank Ghinassi, behavioral health leader at RWJBarnabas Health and Rutgers University. The children most hurt, he said, are those who were already disadvantaged by food or housing instability, domestic violence, unsafe neighborhoods, fragmented families or absent role models. "The dilemma teachers face in a virtual environment is that they likely know who struggles the most with poverty and other difficulties, and yet virtually they have to treat everyone more or less equal," Ghinassi said. That's why some districts are stressing the emotional side of learning for all kids before asking them to hit the books. In Falls Church City Public Schools in Virginia, the district of about 2,800 students will start online Aug. 24 and spend the entire first week establishing class expectations, procedures, behaviors and simply getting all students accustomed to going to class and learning again, said Superintendent Peter Noonan in a memo July 24. Philadelphia Public Schools is sponsoring a free mental health hotline to connect kids and families to grief support services to cope with the trauma of the pandemic, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The service is a partnership with Uplift Center for Grieving Children, a local agency that staffs the line with master's level clinicians. In El Paso, Texas, schools are planning a 30- to 45-minute weekly block for students to connect with their teachers around social and emotional skills. And each day will include a short, live session on connection and community building, said Ray Lozano, executive director of student and family empowerment for the El Paso Independent School District. Lozano said time spent on those skills will be more structured than in spring. Teaching and learning, especially this year, needs to be "more relational and less transactional," he said. What is your school's online program like? 9 questions to help vet your back-to-school choices Why stress emotional health so much? In recent years, "social and emotional learning" has become a buzzword in schools, but it doesn't get as much attention as academic learning because it's harder to measure progress and results. But a growing body of research, as well as anecdotal evidence from schools, suggests students perform better academically when they're taught how to control their emotions and how to develop traits like empathy, determination, a collaborative spirit and the ability to navigate conflict. "We're talking about fostering an inclusive environment and caring relationships that elevate student voice and agency," said Justina Schlund, director of field learning for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, a nonprofit in Chicago. "They can contribute to their own learning, but also contribute to their school and their community." The challenge: how to do that when classes are starting virtually, before teachers have ever met some or all of their students, and before the students know each other well. Austin Achieve Public Schools, a charter school network in Texas, plans to start each morning with 45 minutes of social and emotional learning. The network will adapt its tradition of "circle time" where kids sit in a circle for a moderated talk, and where just one student speaks at a time to an online setting. Usually, those in a circle pass around a token known as the "talking piece," but when circling up via videoconference, teachers will have to get better at using the mute button on everyone but the speaker, said Danielle Owens, restorative justice coordinator at Austin Achieve. In California's Oakland Unified School District, which will open Aug. 10 with all students learning remotely, virtual morning meetings will be held for 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the grade level, said Sonny Kim, who coordinates the Office of Social and Emotional Learning. The plan is to have teachers greet every student individually, set the tone and purpose of the day and teach or practice a social skill through a virtual activity. The district hopes to create a sense of belonging and build inclusion, Kim said. "The goal is more student talk than teacher talk," he said. "We want to be asking, 'Who else agrees and why?' and 'Who has something to add to what was just said?'" Allison Grill, a third-grade teacher at Emerson Elementary in Oakland, started adapting social and emotional learning to an online space in spring. She and her fellow third-grade teacher even devised a "virtual recess" for students. Staff members at Emerson Elementary in Oakland participate in a meeting via Zoom. Photo submitted by Allison Grill. The teachers would mute themselves in the videoconference program and encourage the students to talk live and chat live in the application with each other about anything they liked. Also, each morning in a quick online form, they'd have students pick a color that described their feelings, like red for angry, yellow for high energy but positive, green for focused, calm and ready to learn. "We'd ask them: 'Is there anything you want your teacher to know about you today?'" Grill said. "And we then asked a question to start the day, like, 'What TikTok dance do you want to learn this week?' Or, 'What's your favorite ice cream?'" In the spring, students had already gotten to know their teachers in person. So for this fall, Emerson's teachers are working more closely with their colleagues in the previous grade to understand the individual personalities of incoming students. That's easier at Emerson, Grill said, because teacher retention is high and there are only two classes of students per grade. Another idea that's brewing in Oakland: Teachers might make home visits either in-person outside, or virtually to all their students' families at the beginning of the school year, to try to foster strong relationships. Teachers wanted respect: It only took a coronavirus pandemic and worldwide economic collapse Parents are co-teachers. Here's how they can help. Because so much development is happening at home right now, parents and caregivers can do a lot to encourage good mental health, several behavioral health experts said. That means enforcing regular times for sleeping, eating, and exercising. And sit-down family meals are still important, said Rich, who also runs a specialty clinic for children with internet use disorders at Boston Children's Hospital. Parents also must put down their own devices and listen to their kids, he said. "Ask how theyre doing," Rich said. "Observe them. I am as concerned about parental screen time as kid screen time. It erodes our connectedness with each other." Student takes online class in San Francisco on April 9, 2020. Teachers can model good at-home behaviors, too, said Ghinassi of Rutgers. During virtual connections with students, teachers can encourage kids to do jumping jacks before focusing on their work. Teachers and staff can talk about having gone for a walk or run that morning, and they can stress to students how they keep their own consistent bedtimes and wake-up times, he said. "With older kids, you can convince them at the beginning or end of class to go through a deep breathing exercise or a mindfulness strategy," Ghinassi said. One problem, however, is that parents are already overwhelmed right now. In Randolph, Massachusetts, just outside Boston, Yahaira Lopez is the mom of twin boys headed into fifth grade. One has attention deficit disorder and the other has autism, and both rely heavily on social and emotional supports at school. Through the pandemic, she said, one of her sons has become convinced he has to eat every two hours, while the other has become addicted to online games. If Lopez doesn't sit next to her sons while they're doing schoolwork, they'll open another tab on their computers and goof around instead of doing their work. "They're bored at home, and they don't want to be here," Lopez said. But the boys also feel safer at home and don't want to go back to a school building, she said. Lopez hopes the boys' new teachers figure out ways to help them express their anxiety and uncertainty through art or music or books when school starts virtually. "I feel like they need something creative that helps them understand their world," Lopez said. "Their music teacher gave them an app that let them download their own beats in the spring. They loved that. Could they sing a song and upload it?" Taking care of teachers is important, too One of the most overlooked areas of social and emotional learning, several experts said, is how much schools need to foster it among teachers and staff. School staff have faced their own trauma since March, including economic uncertainty, the challenges of remote learning, managing their own children while working remotely, caring for sick family members or being sick themselves. School reopenings: Teachers fear for their safety Because much of the teaching that happened in spring was chaotic and disorganized, teachers need to feel a sense of safety and belonging before they can discuss among their peers and superiors what didn't work and how they can improve, said Grill, from Oakland. The first virtual back-to-school staff meeting at her school didn't go very well, because teachers just dove into talking about how to reinvent school this fall, Grill said. "We all forgot to stop and do the kind of community building among ourselves that we do so well with students," she said. When the staff reconvened virtually two days later, they started with a check-in about everyone's emotions, and they played a little game. That helped build connection and trust, and the talks about how to improve online school this fall went much more smoothly, Grill said. Adults need this kind of support before they can foster it in students, said Schlund, of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. "It might sound basic to say: 'Lets have adults sit in a circle and talk about our feelings,'" Schlund said. "But were seeing that these are really important moments, especially when talking about race and identity and being able to develop the type of community who can have difficult conversations and work with each other to solve problems." Education coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation does not provide editorial input. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: COVID online school impacts kids' mental health. What can teachers do? EDWARDSVILLE Criminal sexual assault charges have been filed against a Collinsville woman for sexual assault accusations against a minor dating back to 2006. Sharilyn A. Whittaker, 65, was charged with four counts of criminal sexual assault, Class 1 felonies, and one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, a Class 2 felony. The charges date back to a series of encounters between June 1, 2006, through April 13, 2010, where Whittaker committed the act of sexual penetration upon an 18-year-old male minor while she was in a position of trust, authority or supervision as a family friend of the victim. Following interviews with the victim and defendant, charges were filed. Whittaker turned herself in to the Troy Police Department, who led the investigation alongside Assistant States Attorney Kathleen Nolan. The collaboration allowed for the evidence needed to charge Whittaker, according to States Attorney Tom Gibbons. For so many victims of sexual assault, it can take years to finally reach the point where they are able to tell their story and begin the path through the justice system to vindication. When victims are heard and supported, we have an opportunity to connect them with a support system that allows them to continue their path to healing. As a community, we have to continue to provide these opportunities and remain vigilant to listen for the voices of those who have been victimized, so they can have their day in court and their opportunity for justice, said Gibbons, who filed the charges against Whittaker. Bond was set at $250,000 by Associate Judge Janet Heflin. Whittaker posted a cash bond and has been released with a no-contact order with the victim. If convicted of the Class 1 felony, the maximum penalty is 15 years per count served at 85% in the Illinois Department of Corrections. Both counts, if convicted, require the defendant to register as a lifetime child sex offender. These charges, as well as the statements made herein, are based upon probable cause. The defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Varanasi: Central government's demonetisation move has received lavish praise from Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh. Terming the decision as a bold and 'courageous experiment, the SP leader went a step further as he claimed that 'proud' to have Narendra Modi as his Prime Minister. Singh, whose party has slammed Modi for demonetisation, claimed the step has reduced the gap between rich and the poor and now people would pay taxes instead of evading them. Though it was implemented without "proper arrangements", the sudden implementation of the move helped prevent "adjustment" of black money and unaccounted cash by hoarders, the Rajya Sabha member said on Friday. Describing the decision as "courageous" experiment to eliminate black money, corruption and fake currency, Singh said he as "a countryman is proud to have such a Prime Minister who is so dedicated and adamant to root out corruption. "According to him, now the black money hoarders are getting "sleepless nights". "The people standing in queues outside banks are saying that the Prime Minister has punished all who have amassed huge wealth, whether they are from his party (BJP) or others," he said. Even people who are facing problems and suffering are saying that they can bear the hardship for some days but will support the Modi-led government's demonetisation scheme to curb corruption, black money and terrorism, Singh said. "I am not a BJP spokesperson but a SP Rajya Sabha member, whatever the opinion of my party might be on the issue but I have shared my personal view on it," he said. Also Read: Narendra Modi App demonetisation survey results update: 10 lakh responses in first 100 hrs; 91% of those polled say they don't mind inconvenience However, he registered his protest against the "mismanagement" in implementing the demonetisation move, saying he was pained to the see people suffering due to it. "I am not against this scheme, but the government's failure in making proper arrangement before implementing the scheme has only brought sufferings in the lives of common people which has pained each one of us," Singh said.. "What is the purpose of implementing a scheme due to which poor, farmers, small traders and common people have to suffer?" he said. Singh claimed that due to demonetisation many companies have started reducing their staff to cut their cost. Raising questions over the app-based survey by the Modi government over demonetisation, in which allegedly majority of people have supported the move, the Rajya Sabha member said there were "doubts" on the survey. Read Full Coverage: Black Money Crackdown For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. CAIRO - A recent surge of violence in Darfur, the war-scarred region of western Sudan, has deprived more than 14,000 children of medical care, a leading aid group reported on Thursday. Save the Children said it was forced to close two major health facilities and its field office in the village of Masteri in west Darfur. An assault there last Saturday killed 60 civilians, including five toddlers, according to the U.N. Hundreds of Arab militiamen shot families, stole livestock and torched hundreds of homes in the area, forcing over 10,000 to run for their lives and leaving residents in dire need of aid, according to the U.N. Save the Children said it had no choice but to close facilities that provide nutritional and health services, fearing for the safety of its staff. If the centres are not reopened soon, childrens lives will be put at further risk, said Arshad Malik, the groups Sudan director, at a time when a staggering 1.1 million children are facing severe hunger in Sudan, more than twice the amount reported last year. This conflict can only increase the number of children in need. Residents of Masteri say they are stranded. We have no hospital, there is effectively no help, and people are terrified, said Mustafa Younes, a senior leader of the displaced community in Masteri. Earlier this month, on July 13, he watched dozens of militiamen on horses and camels storm the town and kill two women, one who he knew to be pregnant. The farms are burned and hundreds are fleeing to Chad, they are not taking anything with them, Younes said. The episode in Masteri was just the latest in a string of at least seven attacks in the past few weeks that recalled the brutal tenure of ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir. In the early 2000s, al-Bashir waged a scorched-earth counterinsurgency campaign against ethnic minority rebels who blamed the government for economic and political marginalization. Government forces and primarily Arab militias known as the Janjaweed are accused of widespread atrocities in the conflict, which killed over 300,000 people and forced 2.7 million to flee their homes. Al-Bashir, now imprisoned in the capital, Khartoum, was indicted for war crimes and genocide by the International Criminal Court. The fighting gradually declined but violence continues to flare, as Arab militias roaming the provinces remain heavily armed and retain control over the land theyve seized. Ethnic tensions still simmer, frequently erupting into tribal clashes during the summer agricultural season. Al-Bashirs government collapsed when the military removed him from power in April 2019 following months of massive street protests. A ruling council jointly composed of civilian and military leaders is navigating a fraught transition to democracy and has promised to bring security to Darfur. But Darfuris say their suffering is the same. These attacks are out of the Bashir days, said Adam Regal, spokesman for a local organization that runs displacement camps in Darfur. The government is not only allowing the Janjaweed to kill, but encouraging it. He pointed to an incident earlier this month, when Sudanese armed groups brutally dispersed protest camps in North Darfur, leaving over a dozen dead. We have only one goal, and that is to feel safe, to work our fields in peace, Regal said. This is planting season, and if we dont get our seeds in the ground, we will see famine next year. Read more about: You may not be able to travel to Jezero Crater on Mars, but you can visit the next best thing: Lake Salda, Turkey. Though it is located a world away, Lake Salda shares similar minerology and geology as the dry Martian lakebed. Researchers are using their understanding of Lake Salda to help guide the Mars 2020 mission, which will drop the Perseverance rover into the crater to search for signs of ancient life. "One of the great things about visiting Lake Salda is it really gives you a sense of what it would have been like to stand on the shores of ancient Lake Jezero," said Briony Horgan, a planetary scientist at Purdue University and member of the Perseverance science team. Jezero is a 45-kilometer (28-mile) wide ancient impact crater located in the northwest corner of a larger impact basin on Mars--essentially an impact crater within an impact crater. It is noteworthy because it once contained a lake, as evidenced by delta deposits. Previously, scientists discovered carbonate minerals throughout the crater. Using data taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), Horgan and her team recently discovered evidence that some of these carbonate minerals may have formed in the lake. "Carbonates are important because they are really good at trapping anything that existed within that environment, such as microbes, organics, or certain textures that provide evidence of past microbial life," said Brad Garczynski, a graduate student at Purdue who works with Horgan. "But before we go to Jezero, it is really important to gain context on how these carbonates form on Earth in order to focus our search for signs for life." It just so happens that Lake Salda is the only known lake on Earth that contains the carbonates and depositional features (deltas) similar to those found at Jezero Crater. The first image above shows Jezero Crater as observed by MRO's Context Camera. Spectral data showed signatures of carbonates on the western edge of the crater, which scientists believe to be the shoreline and beaches of an ancient lake. The carbonates are also present in the delta, which is the planned site of the Perseverance landing. The second image shows Lake Salda on June 8, 2020, as observed by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8. The lake contains alluvial fans full of rock deposits eroded and washed down from the surrounding bedrock (similar to the delta in Jezero). By studying how material is deposited in Lake Salda, the team can learn more about the various depositional processes at Lake Jezero. The white shoreline around Lake Salda is comprised of sands and gravels that are dominated by hydromagnesite, which is similar to the carbonate minerals detected at Jezero. Horgan explained that the hydomagnesite sediments along Lake Salda's shoreline are thought to have eroded from large mounds called "microbialites"--rocks formed with the help of microbes. In Lake Salda, they formed from microbial mats that lived just beneath the surface of the water near the shoreline. As the microbialities grew, they incorporated carbonate materials and created large terrace islands. In August 2019, Garczynski took this photo of an exposed microbialite island on Lake Salda. Collaborating with colleagues at the Istanbul Technical University, the Purdue research team spent almost a week surveying the lake's perimeter and surrounding area. Garczynski said these islands are expected to erode over time and will eventually be transported, reworked, and deposited as beach sediments along the shoreline. "The structures themselves are good indicators that microbial activity was involved," said Horgan. "The best case scenario is to find something like the microbialites we see in Lake Salda also preserved in the rock in Jezero Crater." Horgan is a co-investigator for the Mastcam-Z imaging instrument, which will serve as the main scientific eyes for the Perseverance rover. The instrument will create mosaics of Jezero, perform simple mineral identification, and map the terrain. "A lot of our work at Lake Salda is already helping to determine which deposits are most promising to go visit on Mars," said Horgan. "We're excited to do the same kind of work that we were doing at Lake Salda, but now with our instruments on the ground at Jezero." NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Jezero Crater image courtesy of NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / Tanya Harrison. Photograph courtesy of Garczynski, B. J, et al. (2020). Story by Kasha Patel. Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. China launched its first Mars exploration mission Tianwen-1 on July 23 with the fourth Long March-5 rocket coded as Long March-5 Y4 at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China's Hainan province. The Mars probe is expected to take about seven months to reach the planned orbit around Mars, after which it will carry out tasks of orbiting, landing and roving in one mission. On July 27, with its optical navigation instruments, the probe captured an image of the Earth and Moon from some 1.2 million kilometers away from Earth. China has made a lot of preparations for the mission. The Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center has carried out repeated drills for various systems to support the launch, while the Xi'an Satellite Control Center in northwest China's Shaanxi province has improved the adaptability of the space-ground communication system for the mission. Deep-space ground control stations in Kashgar, northwest Chinas Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and Jiamusi, northeast China's Heilongjiang province, had been well-prepared to provide support in measurement and control before the launch. Meanwhile, two Tianlian satellites, China's tracking and data relay satellite series, had constantly sent telemetry data back to the ground from the geosynchronous orbit. The reason why China chose to launch its Tianwen-1 probe to Mars at this time of the year is to take advantage of the Hohmann transfer orbit, which is considered the best route from Earth to Mars. Proposed in the 1920s by German engineer Walter Hohmann, the Hohmann transfer orbit forms every 26 months and falls in the summer this year. Whats the most difficult part of the Mars mission? To escape Earth's gravitational field and fly to Mars, an object has to reach the "second cosmic velocity" of about 11.2 kilometers per second. The greater the mass of the object is, the more difficult it is for the object to attain the speed. The Tianwen-1 probe, however, weighs about five tonnes, making it the heaviest deep-space probe ever launched by China. This mission marks the first time that Long March-5 carrier rocket exceeds the second cosmic velocity, the fastest China's carrier rockets have gone to date. Another problem for the mission lay in the information transmission. The fastest speed at which human beings can transmit information is the speed of light, which is 300,000 kilometers per second. However, the distance between Mars and the Earth exceeds 50 million kilometers at the closest and reaches 400 million kilometers at the farthest, which results in an information transfer delay ranging from several minutes to dozens of minutes. The delay in information transmission means the Tianwen-1 probe can't be directly controlled by the control center on Earth and needs to deal with the unknown environment in the deep space by itself and make judgments and choices on its own. Whats the purpose of the Mars mission? The purpose of the Mars mission is not just reaching Mars, as the real goal is to collect as much effective scientific data as possible, according to Liu Tongjie, spokesperson for Chinas Mars probe mission as well as deputy head of the Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center under the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The orbiter is equipped with seven instruments and the rover set up with six payloads, Liu added. After it landed on Mars, the Tianwen-1 probe will send back images of Mars, investigate the surface and geological structure of the planet, measure and record the climate and magnetic fields, and collect a large amount of scientific data. Why Mars? Mars has similar natural environment with Earth and has always been a priority target for manned deep-space exploration outside the Earth-Moon system, Liu pointed out. In previous explorations, human beings have found evidence that suggests the existence of water on Mars. Since then, whether Mars is hospitable to life and whether it has connections with Earth have become major scientific issues of the research on Mars. The study of Mars is believed to be significant for understanding the evolution of the Earth. Tianwen-1, meaning Questions to Heaven, comes from a poem by Qu Yuan (about 340-278 BC), one of the greatest poets of ancient China. Although about 2,300 years have passed, human beings nowadays still have many questions about the outer space. Representing a starting point of the planetary exploration program in China's aerospace cause, the Mars mission symbolizes China's pursuit of and progress in exploring the deeper space. So far, China has established space stations hundreds of kilometers away from the ground, sent spacecrafts to the Moon that is 300,000 kilometers away from the Earth, and started to explore Mars in the deeper space. Step by step, China is marching toward farther places in the universe with the exploration spirit and persistent efforts of Chinese astronauts. People in Sindh gathered in massive numbers on Thursday to protest disappearance of political activists, state enforced terrorism in the region; most disappeared activists are said to belong to JSSM, a separatist party which demands an independent Sindh nation. A massive protest erupts in Qazi Ahmed town of Shaheed Behazir Abad district of Sindh province as people defy state terrorism amid the rise in enforced disappearances incidents. The protesters shouted slogans saying Stop state terrorism, fascism and brutality in Sindh and they were holding banners demanding stop enforced disappearances of political activists in Sindh. A large number of protesters include women and children, who have their family members missing for months and years. Sindh National Voice shared a long list of missing persons including Nawab Mahr, Aslam Maheri, Aijaz Gaho and Hafeez Pirzado. Also read: US lauds EU for its first-ever cyber-sanctions framework Also read: US talks tough to Pak, condemns shameful tragedy of American citizens killing in Pak Many of these political activists belong to Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM), a separatist political party that believes in the separation of Sindhudesh from Pakistan. The Chairman of JSMM, Shafi Burfat who is living in exile in Germany told ANI, The rally was organised for the safe release of political activists abducted by Pakistans ISI and Army. Seven protesters were picked by the secret agencies during the rally. Protests are continuing in different parts of Sindh province as people have been facing brutality in the hands of security forces. A large number of political activists, journalists and other intellectuals are missing, who are allegedly abducted by secret agencies and kept in isolated detention centres. Sindh is a resource-rich province of Pakistan, but the people are facing immense poverty and unemployment. A majority of people here demand freedom from Pakistan which led to efforts by security agencies to silence the voice of dissent. Also read: Despite FATF sword hanging, Pak refuses to crack down on terror financing Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have found new evidence that a very young neutron star is hiding deep inside the remains of the supernova 1987A (SN 1987A). SN 1987A is a stellar explosion that occurred from a star about 20 times the mass of the Sun. This supernova was first observed on February 23, 1987 in a nearby dwarf galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, some 164,000 light-years away. It was the first naked-eye supernova to be observed since Johannes Kepler witnessed a supernova over 400 years ago. Ever since astronomers witnessed SN 1987A, they have been searching for a compact object that should have formed in the leftovers from the blast. Because particles known as neutrinos were detected on Earth on the day of the explosion, they expected that a neutron star had formed in the collapsed center of the star. But when they could not find any evidence for that star, they started to wonder whether it subsequently collapsed into a black hole instead. Recently, observations from the ALMA radio telescope provided the first indication of the missing neutron star after the explosion. Extremely high-resolution images revealed a hot blob in the dusty core of SN 1987A, which is brighter than its surroundings and matches the suspected location of the neutron star. We were very surprised to see this warm blob made by a thick cloud of dust in the supernova remnant, said Dr. Mikako Matsuura, an astronomer at Cardiff University. There has to be something in the cloud that has heated up the dust and which makes it shine. Thats why we suggested that there is a neutron star hiding inside the dust cloud. In spite of the supreme complexity of a supernova explosion and the extreme conditions reigning in the interior of a neutron star, the detection of a warm blob of dust is a confirmation of several predictions, said Dr. Dany Page, an astrophysicist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. According to supernova computer models, SN 1987A kicked away the neutron star from its birthplace with a speed of hundreds of km per second. The blob is exactly at the place where astronomers think the neutron star would be today. And the temperature of the neutron star, which was predicted to be around 5 million degrees Celsius, provides enough energy to explain the brightness of the blob. The neutron star behaves exactly like we expected, said Dr. James Lattimer, an astronomer at Stony Brook University. The supernovas neutrino signal suggested that a black hole never formed, and moreover it seems difficult for a black hole to explain the observed brightness of the blob. We compared all possibilities and concluded that a hot neutron star is the most likely explanation. According to the team, the neutron star is a 25-km (15.5-mile) wide hot ball of ultra-dense matter. Because it can only be 33 years old, it would be the youngest neutron star ever found. The second-youngest known neutron star is located in the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A and is 330 years old. Only a direct picture of the neutron star would give definite proof that it exists, but for that astronomers may need to wait a few more decades until the dust and gas in the supernova remnant become more transparent. The findings were published in two papers in the Astrophysical Journal. _____ Dany Page et al. 2020. NS 1987A in SN 1987A. ApJ 898, 125; doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab93c2 Phil Cigan et al. 2020. High Angular Resolution ALMA Images of Dust and Molecules in the SN 1987A Ejecta. ApJ 886, 51; doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab4b46 Just a shake of the head. Thats all it was. Boris Johnson had just announced a backwards leap in his plan to have sent coronavirus packing by Christmas. This was in itself a downgrade. On 19 March, he said it was to have been sent packing in 12 weeks, and that came to an end two months ago. (Top tip: dont buy anything from Boris Johnson on ebay. Promises on speed of dispatch are unlikely to be met.) By his side was chief medical officer Chris Whitty. Did he have anything he wanted to add, Johnson asked him? To which only a shake of the head was offered. There has been an an increase in infection rates and as such, plans to further ease lockdown restrictions have been scrapped. But Whitty had nothing he wanted to say. What was he doing there then? Someone had put a lectern out for him, after all. Could it possibly be that, after months of the politicians claiming to have been led by the science, the science isnt going to be led about anymore? Whitty spoke only to answer the questions put to him directly by journalists at the end. And he did so, only to hose down the man to his right with a cold, hard jet of reality. There had been Johnson claiming that, well, when he said it would all be over by Christmas, that was always going to be conditional CONDITIONAL on the virus not coming back, and that he always said he wouldnt hesitate to reimpose measures as and when they were needed, which he now had done. And there was Chris Whitty, standing behind a lectern plastered with the words control the virus, and saying the following: We have to be realistic. The idea we can open up everything and keep the virus under control is clearly wrong. There was Boris Johnson, saying, you know, youll just have to wait a bit longer before you get to go back to the casinos and the bowling alleys and the skating rinks. And there was Chris Whitty, saying: We have probably reached the limits of what we can do in terms of opening up as a society. That its not just somehow, as if by magic, going to be open by Christmas. That desperately pointing out that you always said it was conditional doesnt make any difference. Theres nothing conditional about the overwhelmingly foreseeably inevitable coming to pass. That optimism, which is absolutely all Boris Johnson has to offer, is not something the Sars-Cov2-virus and its deathly glycoprotein spikes are ever going to be cowed by. And theres certainly nothing inevitable about the scientists just being taken along for the ride. There had been Chris Whitty saying we had reached the limits of unlocking, and yet here was Boris Johnson, still ploughing on with plans to send everyone back to work on Monday. Asked whether UK-based holidays were still such a great idea, given all that had just been said, and given tripling infection rates in Cornwall in the last week, all he could say was that my favourite holiday memories are UK bucket and spade jobs, as if thats even a tenth of an answer. Optimism is a powerful emotion, but it is a close relative of false hope. Johnson seems to be clinging to the idea that you can unlock, re-lock again, and the next time you unlock, things are somehow going to be different. That maybe the virus will get bored and give up. What if the delicate balancing act just cant be balanced? That the tightrope is too thin and you simply must choose over which side youd rather fall? That, ultimately, even a serial reality shielder cant shield you from reality forever. Boris Johnson, it is occasionally pointed out, has been sacked three times for reality shielding. It is clear that Chris Whitty doesnt wish to be shielded anymore and nor, for that matter, do the rest of us. Its no mystery that Im passionate about Andalucia. I sometimes I feel like an unofficial ambassador to be honest, such is my enthusiasm for southern Spain, its nature, cuisine, history, and people. So, when I was invited to contribute to the SUR in English Summers Here magazine, I knew I wanted to write about one of my favourite parts of the south - the Costa de la Luz. This sparkling Atlantic coast of light, that runs all the way from Huelvas Rio Guadiana down to the evocative port town of Tarifa on Cadizs spectacular coast is home to many of Spains best beaches. Thats why the Costa de la Luz is my go-to place to chill and unwind. A place of wild nature, virgin beaches and a laid-back surfer vibe that makes me feel younger and freer. So here I want to share a few secrets of this Atlantic shoreline that runs along Cadiz province, so you too can create unforgettable holiday memories. Road trip Los Canos de Meca. / FORBES If you dont have a car youll need to rent one to explore this windswept yet magical coast. The seaside roads meander through laidback villages and small tuna fishing ports. Water sport aficionados love the area, as the wind is channelled by the proximity of the African and European continents, making it perfect for kite surfing. Look out across the water from Tarifa towards Morocco and the horizon is often cluttered with colourful kites of surfers who leap up into the air. Unsurprisingly its been christened Cadizfornia, a hip, cool yet open and friendly place for lovers of the outdoors. Maybe choose a vintage campervan or rugged 4x4 for your Coast of Light road trip. After all, youll be immersed in splendid isolation among remote nature, from dense Atlantic and Mediterranean pine forests, to sweeping beaches of massive slow-moving dunes and crashing waves. My first piece of advice is to take your time, allow for diversions, stops and unexpected discoveries. This is the wild west of Andalucia. Dont expect the typical Spanish coastal sprawl; no, this is a special place where you can change the pace of your holiday. So, take it easy. Browse the surf shacks near Tarifa; enjoy a cold beer on the weatherworn deck of a beach bar; climb the sweeping sand dunes and be intoxicated by the freshness of the pine and sea-scented air. Authentic lodging Im going to let you into a secret - Los Canos de Meca. This small beach community is a favourite with Spaniards. Once you pass the Strait of Gibraltar and reach the Atlantic coast of Andalucia, you will not want to leave. Hotel Madreselva. / FORBES So, if youre looking for an authentic place to stay, then Hotel Madreselva is it. In summer, the village of Los Canos de Meca pulsates with life, a vibrant community of locals and visitors who are drawn to the ocean and beaches. Madreselva will be your calming oasis. The hotel is an intimate place. Built in a hacienda style, the comfortable rooms are found around a central, scented courtyard patio filled with Mediterranean and sub-tropical plants. Each guest room has a small private furnished terrace, and a simple en suite bathroom with shower and tub, and amenities made with organic citrus essential oils. Although youll probably head straight to the beaches just across the street, there is also a private pool in a walled patio if you want to find a more private place to sunbathe. When it comes to beaches you can take you pick; family, nudist, gay - its an open and inclusive culture in Los Canos de Meca - capturing the timeless appeal of an Andalusian summer. Hotel Madreselva is managed by the friendly people who created La Casa de La Califa, on the central plaza of the charming, nearby hilltop town of Vejer de la Frontera. Youll be made to feel welcome and at home. If youre enjoying a road trip along the coast, youll appreciate the free, off-road hotel parking too; and if you love the sundowners at the local beach terrace bars, dont worry if you get back late, as theres 24-hour reception. Gastronomy Cadiz province has emerged as a culinary destination, thanks to the exceptional quality of local produce from the sea and land. Although far from being the richest part of Andalucia, this region has a wealth of fish, seafood, beef, and produce - and wines of course, including Vinos de Jerez, or sherry, as they are better known. Enjoy a chilled Manzanilla sherry wine with a tapa of fresh Atlantic prawns and believe me, your notion of sherry will be changed for ever. Carabineros prawns at El Cuartel del Mar. / FORBES Little wonder the Costa de la Luz has been the secret of success for chefs here. Aponiente, in El Puerto de Santa Maria, is Angel Leons remarkable three-Michelin-star restaurant which showcases his unique Cuisine of the Sea. Also, in nearby Jerez de la Frontera, Juan Luis Fernandez, or JuanLu, has created his Lu, Cocina y Alma restaurant which has been recognised with a Michelin star, for his creative fusion of French and Andalusian cuisine. More than any ingredient, it is probably the wild red tuna of the Costa de la Luz that defines the gastronomy here. Caught during the almadraba season, using sustainable techniques that date back to the Phoenicians, these magnificent animals inspire remarkably creative dishes. The port town of Barbate is where most the of tuna are landed and it is here one finds El Campero restaurant. Depending on your mood, and your budget, you can choose to dine on an exquisite tasting menu in the formal dining room, or head to the bar and try some of the creative tapas of the day. Beachside bliss This is where I shall share another secret with you. For something completely new, then head to Chiclana de la Frontera. This unpretentious, historic seaside town over looks magnificent beaches. Its home to one of the coasts newest restaurants, El Cuartel del Mar, boasting a spectacular setting beside an ancient lookout tower, on the vast Playa de la Barrosa. El Cuartel del Mar. / FORBES Here hip urban style converges with the simplicity and authenticity of the Costa del la Luz. Its the most unforgettable place to eat. Design, art, music, and cuisine collide to create a modern interpretation of the Cadiz beach lifestyle. A once-abandoned Civil Guard HQ has been reimagined as a super-stylish ocean view restaurant where Chef Manuel Berganza and his colleague Chef Mikel Badiola bring renowned international expertise and creativity to Andalucias Atlantic shores. To make the most of the setting, I recommend starting your meal with a cocktail in the patio. Mixologist Luca Anastasio creates original and beautiful drinks - many of which can be prepared as low alcohol drinks if you want something light and refreshing. At El Cuartel del Mar, the ocean is of course the inspiration, and the local produce the protagonists in the restaurants menu. Expect exquisite fish and seafood, including the local wild red tuna, wonderful rice dishes with local white shrimps and also the scarlet Atlantic carabineros prawns. Cadiz also has excellent fruit and vegetables like plump tomatoes and artichokes which feature in many dishes. Try the tasty tortillitas de camarones (shrimp fritters) for a quick snack as you read the menu, or a place of gourmet cured ham. If you are not tempted by the fish, then there are the finest beef steaks from Scotland and Spain, prepared on the wood-burning grill. The curated wine list inevitably includes vinos de Jerez. Let the wine waiter guide you to discover some superb, dry white sherries that perfectly complement the dishes. If you love discovering new things, then try one of the local Chiclana wines. Naturally inspiring La Brena nature reserve. / FORBES Its not just the beaches and the food that will make you fall in love with this corner of Spain. Here are protected natural parks of pine forest and mountains too. Its a joy to explore. For a real insider perspective, my secret is to hike with a local guide. Carlos Miburn has established Explore La Tierra, a private tour and hiking company. A speciality is nature hikes; Carlos shares insights into the rich biodiversity of the region. As you walk trails that hug the coast and explore the woodlands, you learn the secrets of the Mediterranean and Atlantic pine forests, including the edible and medicinal plants that can be found and their traditional uses. Whats more, youll enjoy an unforgettable time out in the great outdoors. So, heres to you discovering some of your very own secrets of the Costa de la Luz - a place of authenticity; fab beaches; genuine hospitality; splendid cuisine; and calming nature. The US government will pay $2.1 billion to Sanofi SA and GlaxoSmithKline Plc for COVID-19 vaccines to cover 50 million people and to underwrite the drug makers' testing and manufacturing, the companies said on Friday. The award is the biggest yet from 'Operation Warp Speed,' the White House initiative aimed at accelerating access to vaccines and treatments to fight COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Operation Warp Speed is headed up by Moncef Slaoui, a former GSK executive who is still not employed by the federal government, but working on contract at the helm of the vaccine initiative. He took the job on the condition that he not have to give up his shares in GSK, which rose two percent in premarket trading following the Friday announcement. Sanofi was up a little less than one percent before the bell. The US signed a $2.1 billion deal with Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline to get 100 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine the companies are developing (pictured) The deal, announced by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Department of Defense, works out at a cost of around $42 per person inoculated. That is almost identical to the $40 per patient the US agreed to pay Pfizer and BioNTech when it inked a nearly $2 billion deal for 50 million courses of that potential vaccine last week. The Sanofi-GSK deal is for 100 million doses, at two per person, and gives the government an option to purchase an additional 500 million doses at an unspecified price. Sanofi and GSK plan to start clinical trials for the vaccine in September. Sanofi executive Clement Lewin said the companies had not yet agreed with the government on a specific price for the additional doses. French drugmaker Sanofi is slated to reap the majority of the profits from the shot it is making with British partner GSK Operation Warp Speed is headed up by Moncef Slaoui, a former GSK executive working for the US government on contract GSK said in a statement that more than half of the total funding will go into further development of the vaccine, including clinical trials, with the remainder used for a manufacturing ramp-up and delivery of doses. The two companies' inoculation is combination of a vaccine based on Sanofi's flu shots and a complementary technology from GSK called an adjuvant, designed to improve the vaccine's potency. Sanofi will receive the bulk of the proceeds from the deal. It marks the second contract for the Franco-British pair's vaccine candidate after they agreed earlier this week to supply 60 million doses to the British government. Reuters reported last week that Pfizer's deal was expected to set a pricing benchmark for future deals between drugmakers and governments. Moderna Inc and Pfizer began two 30,000-subject trials of COVID-19 vaccines on Monday that could clear the way for regulatory approval and use by the end of 2020. To the Editor: Re Crises Abound, Yet Trump Chooses to Attack Election (front page, July 31): President Trump has finally played the delay-the-election card, and that he has is a measure of how desperate he is to stay in power. He is, as this and other articles point out, unmoored, isolated and sinking in the polls. However, the fact that many Republicans did not join the Democrats in condemning him shows how strong the political class feels he still is. Mr. Trump and his enablers are still powerful and capable of great mischief between now and the election. We cannot let our guard down. Isolated and sinking or not, Mr. Trump and his cronies remain a potent menace to society and American ideals, and must be taken seriously right up to the end. Tim Shaw Cambridge, Mass. To the Editor: President Trump should be called out for the absurd hypocrisy he is showing by whining about the possibility of a rigged election. If he is seriously worried about the election being rigged against him (as opposed to being rigged for him), there is still time to fix the situation. He should allot more (not less) funding to the post office to handle the absentee ballots. And he should give the states funds so they can open up more and safer polling places, and so they can hire more monitors to allow people to drop off their ballots in person, perhaps even a drive-through. Irish stars Dermot Kennedy and Maynooth man Paul Mescal blew fans away with their performance as part of the Some Summer Night series in London's Natural History Museum on Thursday evening. Normal People's Connell (Mescal) joined his fellow countryman Kennedy for a special gig and the internet exploded with love for their duet of 'Giants', which you can watch below: Kennedy is a well established headliner on the music scene, but up until last night Mescal's singing exploits had been mostly confined to a handful of Instagram videos, some featuring his very talented sister, and a recent RTE Does Comic Relief performance alongside his co-star Daisy Edgar-Jones and Fleabag star Andrew Scott. Mescal also entertained the masses by reciting poetry between each song. Kennedy took to Twitter after the gig last night to thank fans for the support. Thank you for tonight guys, honestly. It really means the world to me. Thank you for supporting all of this X Dermot Kennedy (@DermotKennedy) July 31, 2020 It's been a whirlwind few months for the former Kildare GAA player with his meteoric rise to fame for his portrayal of Connell in the BBC series Normal People, and just this week the series received no less than four Emmy nominations. And as if we needed any more proof, he's proven he can sing now too. Is there anything he can't do?! Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra on Friday called upon people who have recovered from COVID-19 to come forward and donate plasma for the treatment of other patients suffering from the novel coronavirus. "Plasma therapy is an effective treatment of the coronavirus. Plasma is taken from the person who has recovered. Around 27,000 persons who were infected have recovered in the state," he was quoted as saying in a release. Mishra said donating plasma by those who have recovered will help in the treatment of critical COVID-19 patients. A person who has recently recovered from COVID-19, usually develops antibodies against the coronavirus and then this is collected and transferred to a sick patient through plasma. Each person can donate 250-500 ml of plasma. The first dosage of 250 ml is given to the recipient, and if needed second dosage of 250 ml after 24 hours can be given. Raise your hand if you think kids will return to school in late August and still be there to celebrate Halloween. Right. I didnt think so. Kelly Bensimon appears to have been living in the lap of luxury during her quarantine. But the Real Housewives of New York City alum is also keeping up with her fitness routine during isolation. She showed off her stunning figure Thursday in black activewear, as she took a jog through her Manhattan neighborhood, after returning from vacation. Activewear chic: Kelly Bensimon showed off her stunning figure Thursday in black activewear, as she took a jog through her Manhattan neighborhood, after returning from vacation The 52-year-old donned a black spaghetti-strap tank top with a pair of matching short shorts and immaculate white trainers. She finished the look with some gold necklaces and matching bracelets, while wearing a face mask below her chin. Bensimon recently gave another glimpse at her beautiful bod, posting some bikini snaps from her getaway to Newport, Rhode Island. She captioned some photos of herself scantily clad in a purple string bikini, writing: 'There is something about the water in Newport.' Working up a sweat: The 52-year-old donned a black spaghetti-strap tank top with a pair of matching short shorts and immaculate white trainers Bikini babe: Bensimon recently gave another glimpse at her beautiful bod, posting some bikini snaps from her getaway to Newport, Rhode Island Beach day: She captioned some photos of herself scantily clad in a purple string bikini, writing: 'There is something about the water in Newport' Pretty in pink: The former Elle editor also sported a pink ruffled babydoll dress while flying kites and walking her white Havanese Fluffy, writing: 'Newport has colored my world' The former Elle editor also sported a pink ruffled babydoll dress while flying kites and walking her white Havanese Fluffy, writing: 'Newport has colored my world.' She previously spent time with her family in Palm Beach, Florida, where she moved last year from New York City. A source told Page Six at the time: 'Yes, shes planning to move to Florida full time. She loves beaches, horses it has everything she loves.' Bensimon returned to the Big Apple last month, as the city began phase two of quarantine, with many businesses reopening. She wrote on her blog: 'I thought NYC was going to be a dark and scary place, and it ended up being warm, sunny, and quiet. It felt more like a holiday weekend, then it did anything else.' Moving south: She previously spent time with her family in Palm Beach, Florida, where she moved last year from New York City Woman in white: Kelly traded out the sporty look on Friday for a lovely white lace crop top and skirt that highlighted her taut tummy as she strolled through Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood New Delhi, July 31 : Government has put further squeeze on imports of items coming from countries such as China by putting imports of colour television sets of different sizes in the restricted list. Accordingly, a notification issued by Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has put television sets of different types with screen sizes ranging from 36cm to 105cm and above in the restricted list of items for imports from existing free import category. The restrictions mean that import of all listed items would have to follow a process of verification and scrutiny by the Commerce Ministry before any permission is given to bring restricted list items into the country. The latest checks on imports follows the government's earlier decision to make its approval mandatory for foreign investments from countries that share land border with India, a move which largely restricts FDI from China. Restrictions on imports of TV sets is expected to boost governments Atmanirbhar Bharat mission that focuses on making the country self sufficient by developing domestic manufacturing capabilities. The TV industry in India is about Rs 15,000 crore of which more than 36 per cent is coming as imports primarily from China and South East Asia. Government has gone for changing the export import policy for TV sets as under the existing ASEAN India FTA many of these imports are coming at reduced/zero duty which cannot be controlled through increased duty. Hence, actions like import restrictions are one of the main actions available to Government by which it could bring about the necessary checks. Apart from normal TV sets of different sizes, the DGFT has also put, a 'Liquid Crystal Display' television set of screen size below 63 cm and 'Other' category of sets in the restricted list. "Actual user condition would not be applicable for importers applying for an authorisation to import the goods 'Restricted' in this 'Notification',"the DGFT notification said. "The procedure for grant of license will be separately issued by DGFT." Government has gone in for import restriction of TV sets as Phased Manufacturing Programme (PMP) for TVs is already underway and specified parts like open cell, chips on films, Printed Circuit Boards Assembly (PCBA) are exempted from duty. Hence, India is ready for shift of manufacturing to India with cost effective imports of essential parts. Government sources said that current action has been taken after Extensive consultations with industry and after exploring ways to reduce the imports. "It is not a unilateral exercise executed by Government without taking industry in confidence. Hence Industry will be able to rapidly move to do mestic manufacturing and consumer will not see any price escalation," said the source. PC Music founder A. G. Cook is back with a new album thats 49 songs long. 7G, split across seven discs, is out August 12. Listen to a seven-minute megamix preview of the album below. In addition to a wealth of new original material, 7G features covers of songs by Taylor Swift, Blur, Charli XCX, the Strokes, Smashing Pumpkins, Tommy James and the Shondells, Life Sim, and Sia. Caroline Polachek, Tommy Cash, Hannah Diamond, Cecile Believe, and Alaska Reid all contributed to the new album. Cook has also announced an August 6 livestream where hell perform music from 7G. Read PC Musics Inverted Consumerism on the Pitch. A. G. Cook: 7G Originally Appeared on Pitchfork Yang sketches lively portraits of the famous and obscure players behind the legislative fights, like Rep. Emanuel Celler, a freshman congressman who came to Washington from Brooklyn in 1923 and found himself a lost soul, aching for his wife and baby daughter, but who, like a number of Jewish lawmakers and advocates, became a stalwart defender of postwar refugees and other immigrants. Then there was Takao Ozawa, who arrived in the United States at 19 and petitioned unsuccessfully for the right of Japanese immigrants like himself to become U.S. citizens, arguing in 1915: In name, General Benedict Arnold was an American, but at heart he was a traitor. In name, I am not an American, but at heart I am a true American. [July 31, 2020] CPI Card Group Inc. To Release Second Quarter and First Half 2020 Results on August 5, 2020 CPI Card Group Inc. (OTCQX: PMTS) (TSX: PMTS) ("CPI Card Group" or the "Company"), a payment technology company and leading provider of credit, debit and prepaid solutions, today announced it will issue a press release reporting financial results for the second quarter and first half of 2020 before the market opens on August 5, 2020. Consistent with the release of earnings for the first quarter 2020 results, the Company plans to provide written commentary regarding its quarterly performance and other business matters in lieu of an earnings call. The earnings press release and additional written commentary will be made available at http://investor.cpicardgroup.com. About CPI Card Group Inc. CPI Card Group is a payment technology company and leading provider of credit, debit and prepaid solutions delivered physically, digitally and on-demand. CPI helps our customers foster connections and build their brands through innovative and reliable solutions, including financial payment cards, personalization, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) instant issuance. CPI has more than 20 years of experience in the payments market and is a trusted partner to financial institutions and payments services providers. Serving customers from locations throughout the United States, CPI has a large network of high security facilities, each of which is registered as PCI (News - Alert) compliant by one or more of the payment brands: Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover. Learn more at www.cpicardgroup.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200731005481/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Parliament on Thursday eulogized longtime US congressman John Robert Lewis, a member of the US congressional delegation to Ghana in 2019, who succumbed to cancer on July 17, 2020 at age 80. In an elegy, after statements by the Leaders from both Sides, and contributions from Members, Speaker Professor Aaron Michael Oquaye epilogued the tributes, and said, Like Ghana, incidentally, the peaceful civil rights movement in the USA has a Big Six, as they are well known in the United States of America, of whom Dr Martin Luther King stood tall. The last of the Bix Six on this earth, John Robert Lewis, will be buried today. May he rest in perfect peace, then followed by a minutes silence by the legislators in memory of the deceased. May the soul of the John Robert Lewis, and all of the Big Six, and the faithful departed. First Deputy Speaker Joseph Osei Owusu recalled having met with the late US congressman in Ghanas parliamentary chamber and at a reception in honour of the delegation, and later at a programme in the US, observing the respect and love the late lawmaker, described as the conscience of the congress of US. He was eulogized, he was respected and was loved, Mr Osei Owusu said, and extolled the virtues of self-sacrifice and forgiveness of the late Lewis. He attributed the late Lewis respect to his deep commitment to a course, and not responding to violence in the face of provocative acts to himself and his civil rights group. Mr Osei Owusu advised all public office holders to learn the trait of forgiveness and moving on in life to maintain the peace of the nation. Furthermore, the First Deputy Speaker recalled how the late Lewis and others reacted when George Floyd, a black American man killed last May by a police officer Derek Chauvin,who knelt on Floyd's neck for nearly eight minutes. Mr Osei Owusu described how Lewis and a team, clothed in Ghanaian handmade kente cloth, knelt down to echo the last words of George Floyd, I cant breathe. He said the wearing of the cloth was indication of Lewis commitment to his African roots. Mr Patrick Yaw Boamah, Deputy Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources and Mr Ras Mubarak, MP for Kumbungu, also noted that three former presidents of the US were attending the funeral of the late congressman, and praised him for his quest to have equality within the citizenry in America. 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 Nouakchott, Mauritania (PANA) - The National Rally for Reform and Development (RNRD/Tawassoul/Islamist Movement), the main opposition party in Mauritania, says it welcomed the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CEP), formed in January 2020 to carry out broad investigations into a decade of governance of the regime of President Mohamed ould Abdel Aziz (2006-2019), according to an official statement received by PANA on Friday Herman Cain, a former US Republican presidential candidate, died at age 74 after battling the coronavirus, or COVID-19, a spokesperson said. "We knew when he was first hospitalized with COVID-19 that this was going to be a rough fight," Cain's website editor, Dan Calabrese, wrote in a post on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported. Calabrese said there were hopeful indicators, referring to that doctors said less than a week ago that "they thought he would eventually recover." "We were relieved to be told that, and passed on the news via Herman's social media," the editor explained. "And yet we also felt real concern about the fact that he never quite seemed to get to the point where the doctors could advance him to the recovery phase." Cain, a stage 4 cancer survivor, was diagnosed with the coronavirus last month and admitted to a hospital in Atlanta, southeastern state of Georgia, earlier this month. "Although he was basically pretty healthy in recent years, he was still in a high-risk group because of his history with cancer," Calabrese said. A former businessman and chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Missouri, Cain unsuccessfully ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Last month, Cain, who had campaigned for US President Donald Trump, tweeted a photograph of himself at the Tulsa, Oklahoma rally, showing him surrounded by other attendees, none of whom wore a mask. Several members of the staff who helped prepare the Trump rally, the first of its kind in more than three months during the pandemic, tested positive for the coronavirus, while a spokesperson said there is no way of knowing for sure how or where Cain contracted the disease. Trump tweeted his condolences for Cain and his family on Thursday. "Herman had an incredible career and was adored by everyone that ever met him, especially me," the president wrote. "He was a very special man, an American Patriot, and great friend." New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote to Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina on Friday sending greetings on the occasion of Eid ul Adha and assuring support for the country's health sector amidst COVID-19 pandemic. Highlighting that the festival of Eid ul Adha which is also celebrated in India shows "deep historical and cultural links" between both the countries, PM said, "We hope that this festival will further enhance the spirit of peace and tolerance in our respective societies and promote fraternal ties between our two countries." Lauding the steps taken by the Bangladesh government to deal with the COVID crisis, the PM said he is "confident that Bangladesh will tide over these challenging times". He added that India remains "available to support your efforts in any way, including through capacity-building in the health sector". India in its second tranche of COVID-19 emergency medical supplies to Bangladesh sent 100,000 Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) medicine tablets and 50,000 sterile surgical latex gloves. The first tranche consisted of 30,000 surgical masks and 15,000 head-cover. Both leaders had spoken to each other on April 29 to discuss the regional situation in the wake of the pandemic. President Muhammadu Buhari has given assurances that there will be more resources for the countrys military, police and other security agencies to deal with the unwanted security situation in some parts of the country. The president gave the assurance shortly after performing the Eid prayers with his family and aides at the forecourt of the State House, Abuja on Friday. While assessing the state of security in the country, the president described the situation, particularly in the North West and the North Central parts of the country as very disturbing. Mr Buhari said while much had been achieved, security wise, from the situation he inherited in 2015, more still needed to be done. He said considering the security situation on ground when he came to office, Nigerians know that we have done our best. However, what is coming out of the North West and the North Central is very disturbing. Responding to a specific question on the performance of the service chiefs which recently, he said needed to get better, the president said the military, the police and other security agencies are working hard. We are making available resources to them to even do better. From the reports I am getting, they could do much betterthey could do much better. But we are keeping them on the alert all the time to do their duties, he added. On the issue of corruption, Mr Buhari also assured that all past and present cases would be fully investigated. This is why we put the commission (of investigation) in place. There has been abuse of trust by people trusted by the previous administration and this administration, he said. He stressed that all of such cases would be uncovered and firmly dealt with by his government. On the specific case of the Niger Delta, the president decried the wastage of the resources earmarked for the betterment of the lives of the people of that region. He lamented that corruption had been unhelpful in that regard, especially if you recall there is the 13 per cent derivation. He also warned against the vandalisation of oil pipelines in the oil- producing areas which often results in environmental pollution. Those who are blowing pipelines and interfering with the production of petroleum products are hurting their people more than the rest of Nigerians because the majority of their people are fishermen, fisherwomen and farmers. READ ALSO: Now if they pollute the land and the waters, the fish goes into the deeper sea where the people cannot go and they cannot grow anything. They are hurting their immediate communities more than any other thing, the president further noted. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that members of the nations first family, presidential aides and some staff of the State House joined Mr Buhari in performing the Eid prayers. The president, after the prayer, personally slaughtered his own ram in accordance with Islamic injunctions. (NAN) The Enforcement DIrectorate, has registered an ECIR in the case of actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death. This comes after a First Information Report was filed by the actor's father against actress Rhea Chakraborty, in Bihar. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death case. ED registered the report after a First Information Report (FIR) was filed by Sushant Singh Rajputs father against actor Rhea Chakraborty in Bihar. On Tuesday, a team of Bihar Police arrived in Mumbai, recorded statements of two persons, including actor Sushant Singh Rajputs sister in connection with the case. Maharashtras MoS Home Satej Patil has said that the Mumbai Police is investigating in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case and there is no need to handover the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Bihar Police might have come here because a separate complaint was filed there, but the Mumbai Polices investigation is in the right direction and it will investigate the case properly, Patil said. Also Read: 21 dead in Punjab from toxic liquor, Punjab CM order probe Also Read: We cannot go on ignoring our informal sector: Rahul Gandhi in interaction with Mohammad Yunus Meanwhile, Chakraborty had moved a petition in the Supreme Court seeking directions to transfer the investigation of the case to Mumbai instead of Patna, where Sushants father registered an FIR. Following the petition, the Bihar government filed a caveat before the Supreme Court challenging Rheas plea seeking transfer of the FIR registered in Patna to Mumbai. Rajput was found dead in his Mumbai residence on June 14. According to the Maharashtra police, statements of 41 people, including filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, film critic Rajeev Masand, director-producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and filmmaker Aditya Chopra have been recorded in the investigation so far. Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajput Death: Bihar govt. moves SC challenging Rhea Chakrabortys position Every so often, the world of tennis is thrown into the spotlight for reasons that have littl A Chinese military spokesperson on Thursday voiced firm opposition to the U.S. sending military personnel to China's Taiwan region for exercises and exchange. Such "deliberate and provocative" moves seriously violated basic norms of international relations and sent a wrong signal to separatist elements advocating "Taiwan independence," said Ren Guoqiang, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense. In doing so, the U.S. side has violated its political commitment to China, Ren said in response to a question at a regular press conference, warning the step had a severe negative impact on bilateral relations and military-to-military ties between China and the United States, as well as peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. Ren noted that China has lodged solemn representations with the United States, urging Washington to immediately rectify its mistake, and halt official and military contacts of any form with Taiwan region. The U.S. side should honor its commitment to the one-China principle and the three China-U.S. joint communiques, and ensure that such incidents will not happen again, said Ren. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, Ren said, stressing the future of Taiwan lies in national reunification and the well-being of Taiwan compatriots depends on national rejuvenation. Borrowing the strength of foreign influence will never succeed, Ren said. China has the resolve, full confidence, and sufficient capability to thwart any form of interference by external forces and separatist acts of "Taiwan independence," Ren noted. China will resolutely defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and safeguard peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, he said. China to safeguard peace in South China Sea despite U.S. disruption China will be more determined to defend its own sovereignty and security, and maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea despite the U.S. attempts to make waves in the region, the defense ministry spokesperson continued. Commenting on the U.S. side's sending two aircraft carriers to the South China Sea for exercises and other moves, Ren Guoqiang, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, told a regular press conference that the U.S. actions have fully exposed its hegemonic mentality and double standards. The United States portrays itself as an "arbitrator" of the South China Sea issue, but is, in fact, a disruptor of regional peace, a destroyer of regional cooperation, and an instigator of international tensions, said Ren. He said China has indisputable sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and their adjacent waters, which is based on sufficient historical and jurisprudential evidence. Ren noted that with the concerted efforts by China and ASEAN countries, the situation in the South China Sea is generally stable and relevant negotiations have made positive progress. He urged the U.S. side to stop making false remarks, stop taking provocative military actions in the South China Sea, and stop sowing discord among countries in the region. Chinese military refutes US defense secretary's verbal attacks The spokesperson refuted the recent verbal attacks by U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper on China. "His accusations against China are utterly groundless and unjustifiable, and his speech was teeming with arrogance, prejudice and malice. We firmly oppose such remarks," Ren Guoqiang, a spokesperson of the ministry, said at a press conference in response to a question on Esper's recent smearing remarks about China. It is well known by the international community that the United States only abides by international rules that are in its favor, pushes for "America First" agenda and bullies other countries, Ren said. In striking contrast to the U.S. side's frequent rules-breaking moves, China joined the Arms Trade Treaty to further fulfill its international responsibilities and obligations on the day the United States announced its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, Ren added. Ren urged the U.S. side to stop undermining global peace and regional stability, or sowing discord around the international community. He said the U.S. side should discard its Cold War mentality and stop its attacks on China, and do something meaningful to promote the common interests of the two militaries and the two countries. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin David Harding (Agence France-Presse) London, United Kingdom Fri, July 31, 2020 15:31 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066ab4f96 2 News quarantine,Britain,United-Kingdom,travel,coronavirus,COVID-19,Spain,tourism Free The Lunt family from Bath, in western England, had planned to visit Spain this summer but like so many British holidaymakers have had their plans upended by the coronavirus pandemic. The family-of-five, who had booked two weeks on the Balearic island of Majorca next month, are now headed to Rock, an upmarket resort in the southwest English county Cornwall dubbed "Chelsea-on-Sea" after the wealthy London suburb. They finally decided to swap the azure waters of the Mediterranean for the cooler currents of the North Atlantic amid growing fears about a second wave of COVID-19 sweeping Europe. Initially, the family were worried they might test positive for the virus on arrival in Spain and have to spend their holiday in self-isolation, before the British government abruptly imposed its own quarantine. "We were worried about having our temperature taken at the airport and potentially having to quarantine for two weeks," Rosie Lunt, mother to a boy and two girls aged between five and nine, told AFP. So instead they chose to stay at home in Britain -- which proved to be a good decision following the weekend order by the government to require everyone entering the UK from Spain to self-isolate for 14 days. Read also: British decision to quarantine travelers from Spain causes anger, worry Quarantine spat The British government's hastily-imposed new rules announced Saturday follow a dramatic spike in virus cases in mainland Spain. The controversial move drew criticism from the travel sector and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, but his British counterpart Boris Johnson has insisted the "swift and decisive" action is necessary. In addition to the minor diplomatic fallout, the decision has again exposed the fragility of the tourist market, and people and places heavily reliant on it, as the deadly pandemic proves stubbornly resistant. It is a major blow to Spain in particular, with the Exceltur tourism association estimating it could cost the travel sector there almost 9 billion euros in August and September. The losses are not confined to the Spanish market. The decision is already having huge repercussions for Britain's tour operators, who organize millions of Britons' annual summer visits to Spain. UK tourists throng the country's resorts each year, partying in Ibiza, sunbathing on the Costa Brava and eating full English breakfasts in the Costa del Sol. This summer that is unlikely, with UK travel trade association ABTA saying the quarantine would have "major financial implications" for British travel businesses. It noted Spain was the most popular destination for British tourists last year, ahead of France and the US. More than 18 million of them visited the country every year in 2017, 2018 and 2019, according to market research company Euromonitor. Within days of the quarantine rollout Britain's biggest tour operator TUI said it was scrapping flights to Spain until early August, and on Thursday announced it was cutting 166 shops in Britain and Ireland. Meanwhile the UK's struggling airlines and airports have said they were "disappointed" by the government's move, and called on it to introduce a virus testing regime at ports of entry. Read also: UK eyes France, Germany after slapping coronavirus quarantine on Spain Travel trade disaster Alexis Frick, a research manager at Euromonitor, said over the last 15 years British tourists have accounted for almost a quarter of all holiday visits to Spain. "Britain's overnight decision to make tourists travelling from Spain self-isolate for 14 days will create uncertainty among holidaymakers planning to visit the country in August," Frick told AFP. It seems unlikely that Spain will remain the only destination to be affected by the new quarantine rules. UK ministers are said to be watching other countries closely including Croatia and Belgium. The TSSA union, which represents staff in UK travel agencies, told AFP that any decision to expand the quarantine "would be a disaster for the travel trade, a real body blow for the industry". "Nobody wants a repeat of the collapse of Thomas Cook which cost the taxpayer over 158 million," said TSSA leader, Manuel Cortes. British travel group Thomas Cook went bust in 2019, leaving hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers stranded abroad. UK government ministers have urged people to continue booking holidays but be "aware of the risk". San Juan, Puerto Rico Tropical Storm Isaias knocked out power and caused flooding and small landslides across Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic on Thursday as forecasters predicted it would strengthen into a hurricane while moving toward the Bahamas and U.S. East Coast. The storm's maximum sustained winds of 60 mph turned several streets into fast-flowing rivers and toppled trees and some telephone and electrical cables in Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from previous hurricanes and earthquakes. The National Guard rescued at least 35 people, including two newborns. Authorities in Rincon reported a woman missing after floodwaters swept her away when she tried to drive across a bridge. Government workers in the Dominican Republic used loudspeakers to urge people to evacuate ahead of the worst of the storm, while police arrested a handful of surfers in Santo Domingo accused of violating government storm warnings. Especially hard hit was Puerto Rico's southern region, which still shakes daily from aftershocks. Heavy rains inundated neighborhoods weakened by the tremors, causing some recently abandoned homes to collapse. Isaias was centered about 250 miles southeast of the southeastern Bahamas late Thursday afternoon, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. It was moving northwest at 20 mph, and its center was forecast to move near the southeastern Bahamas by early Friday. Tropical storm warnings were issued for the Turks and Caicos Islands and portions of the Dominican Republic, Haiti and the Bahamas, as well as for the east coast of Florida from Ocean Reef to Sebastian Inlet. The storm knocked out power to more than 400,000 clients across Puerto Rico, and left some 150,000 customers without water. President Donald Trump approved an emergency declaration in Puerto Rico as a result of the storm. Isaias was expected to produce 4 to 8 inches of rain across Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Haiti, with isolated maximum totals of 10 inches. Isaias is the earliest ninth Atlantic named storm to form, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. BC-CB--Tropical Storm, 8th Ld-Writethru,0641 TS Isaias causes floods, slides; likely to become hurricane Tropical Storm Isaias has knocked out power and caused flooding and small landslides across Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic as forecasters predict it will strengthen into a hurricane while moving toward the Bahamas and U.S. East Coast Eds: UPDATES: Adds 14% of cell towers down in Puerto Rico. EDITS: Makes minor edits. By DANICA COTO Associated Press SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) Tropical Storm Isaias knocked out power and caused flooding and small landslides across Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic on Thursday as forecasters predicted it would strengthen into a hurricane while moving toward the Bahamas and U.S. East Coast. The storm's maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kph) turned several streets into fast-flowing rivers and toppled trees and some telephone and electrical cables in Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from previous hurricanes and earthquakes. The National Guard rescued at least 35 people, including two newborns. Authorities in the northwest town of Rincon reported a woman missing after floodwaters swept her away when she tried to drive across a bridge. Government workers in the Dominican Republic used loudspeakers to urge people to evacuate ahead of the worst of the storm, while police arrested a handful of surfers in the capital of Santo Domingo accused of violating government storm warnings. Especially hard hit was Puerto Rico's southern region, which still shakes daily from aftershocks. Heavy rains inundated neighborhoods weakened by the tremors, causing some recently abandoned homes to collapse. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. "Everyone is in a constant state of emergency," said Marieli Grant with Mercy Corps. Isaias was centered about 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of the southeastern Bahamas late Thursday afternoon, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. It was moving northwest at 20 mph (31 kph), and its center was forecast to move near the southeastern Bahamas by early Friday. Tropical storm warnings were issued for the Turks and Caicos Islands and portions of the Dominican Republic, Haiti and the Bahamas, as well as for the east coast of Florida from Ocean Reef to Sebastian Inlet. The storm knocked out power to more than 400,000 clients across Puerto Rico, including hospitals that switched to generators, and left some 150,000 customers without water. Crews opened the gates of one dam that last month had such a low water level that officials cut service every other day for some 140,000 customers. Outages also were reported in the neighboring U.S. Virgin Islands. Other damage including 14% of cell towers down was reported elsewhere across Puerto Rico, where tens of thousands of people still use tarps as roofs over homes damaged by Hurricane Maria in September 2017. "I didn't think it was going to be this strong," said Jose Pagan, a 22-year-old who lives in the eastern mountain town of Juncos and whose home was slightly flooded. "It's a rather difficult experience because it reminds us of Maria." More than 50 people sought shelter in Puerto Rico, said Gov. Wanda Vazquez, who urged those living near swollen rivers to find refuge. But many remained wary of shelter given a spike in COVID-19 cases on the island. In the western town of Mayaguez, Alan Rivera, a 40-year-old engineer, told the AP that the street in front of his house turned into a flowing river something that didn't even happen during Hurricane Maria. He and his family planned to temporarily move in with his parents despite concerns about the coronavirus. "We have to take the risk," he said. "There's no other alternative." U.S. President Donald Trump approved an emergency declaration in Puerto Rico as a result of the storm. Isaias was expected to produce 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain across Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and northern Haiti, with isolated maximum totals of 10 inches (25 centimeters). Isaias is the earliest ninth Atlantic named storm to form, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. The previous record was Irene on August 7, 2005, Klotzbach tweeted. So far this year, Cristobal, Danielle, Edouard, Fay, Gert and Hanna have also been the earliest named Atlantic storms for their alphabetic order. Last year, a similar punishment was meted out to a woman in Devigarh village in the same district of Madhya Pradesh, for having an affair with a man belonging to a different caste. A woman was beaten up and forced to carry her him on her shoulders over an alleged extramarital affair in a tribal-dominated village of Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday evening. The woman is seen carrying her husband on her shoulders as punishment, jeered and heckled by villagers, in a video that has emerged from Jhabua district. "This is an incident in the Chhapri Ranwas Village, where the husband and his wife entered into an argument. As per the information we received, after the arguments, the man was made to sit on her shoulders and she asked to walk across the village," Jhabua Station in-charge Surendra Gadariya, said. The woman obviously struggled to walk as she carried her husband, but the villagers forced her to go on in the video. The mother of three was hit with sticks when she stopped at one point. "The woman recorded her statement at a police station later on," he added. Last year, a similar punishment was meted out to a woman in Devigarh village in the same district of Madhya Pradesh, for allegedly having an affair with a man belonging to a different caste. According to the data released by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in 21 October, 2019, Madhya Pradesh was the worst place for women with the state registering the highest number of domestic violence cases. "In 2019, a total of 616 cases were recorded in the entire country under Domestic Violence Act, 2005. The act was meant to provide effective protection of the rights of women. Of the total cases, 241 were registered in Madhya Pradesh in 2017," according to the data. With inputs from ANI By Express News Service JAIPUR: In a fresh twist to the Rajasthan political drama, pro-Gehlot MLAs were shifted to Jaisalmer from Jaipur on Friday afternoon. After a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party at the Fairmont Hotel, the MLAs were flown to Jaisalmer by a special flight. Sources said the MLAs will stay at two luxury hotels in Jaisalmer till they return a day before the Assembly session begins on August 14. Though there was no official word yet on why the MLAs were shifted, it came a day after CM Ashok Gehlot alleged that the rates for buying MLAs were rising after the Assembly session was fixed for Aug 14. Ever since the revolt by Sachin Pilot and 18 MLAs supporting him, Gehlot has claimed that the BJP is indulging in horse-trading to topple the Rajasthan government. Sources said the MLAs were getting tired and bored at the Jaipur hotel where they have been corralled for over a fortnight. In an interaction with the media at Jaipur, Gehlot said horse-trading efforts have been intensified by the BJP and Pilot camp. Our MLAs and their families are facing all kinds of pressure and threats on phones. READ | Rajasthan crisis: Poaching fear as both sides gear up for Assembly session To save democracy, we are moving them. Gehlot also insisted that governance would not suffer. I along with most ministers will be staying in Jaipur so that there is no compromise on governance. I am holding videoconferences on the corona crisis and we have also handled law and order in the state. It is equally important to save our government because the Centre, the Home Ministry itself, is trying to bring down our government, he said. When the MLAs were taken by buses to the Jaipur airport around noon, they were seen without wearing masks. Revenue Minister Harish Choudhry, while leaving for Jaisalmer, remarked, The entire state is like our home The BJP conspiracy has failed. The shifting of MLAs gave the BJP a chance to poke fun at the Congress. Rajasthan BJP chief Satish Poonia tweeted: Ahead of Jaisalmer is Pakistan. And on its other side is Gujarat (a BJP-ruled state). So where do you want to go? The CM should set his MLAs free. Meanwhile, Sachin Pilot and his 18 MLAs continue to be elusive. A team of the states Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) that went to the Manesar hotel (near Gurugram in Haryana), from where the MLAs had disappeared a fortnight back, could not find the two MLAs the sleuths were looking for. The two -- Bhanwar Lal Sharma and Vishwendra Singh -- are allegedly involved in the audio tape case. Raj police not allowed to enter Haryana hotels A team of the Rajasthan Polices Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) which went to service notices to two rebel Congress MLAs of the former deputy CM Sachin Pilot camp in a corruption case at a five-star resort in Haryanas Manesar was not allowed to enter the premises. Sources said the team, headed by DSP Saleh Mohammad, went to all three five-star resorts in Manesar and Nuh where the legislators are said to be staying along with the 16 other rebel MLAs. While two resort managements gave the team in writing that the MLAs were not staying at their facilities, the third resort management told the team that it was closed. While weve had to implement restrictions and take hard measures to combat a recent rise COVID-19 activity, we will continue to ensure our restaurants, bars and businesses have the supports they need to survive during these unprecedented times, said Mayor Lightfoot in a statement. Our innovative Outdoor Dining Program has already helped more than 250 restaurants and bars in our communities, and now by expanding our efforts to better support our bars impacted by these new restrictions, we are providing a lifeline to hundreds of local establishments across Chicagos neighborhoods. T his is the first picture of a 32-year-old man who was stabbed to death in Hounslow. Officers found Nathan Mitra with stab wounds at Clements Court, in Green Lane, on Thursday after they were called to the scene at 2.47am. The London Ambulance Service also attended, but paramedics were not able to save him and he was pronounced dead at 3.34am. Although formal identification has not taken place, his next of kin have been informed and a post-mortem examination will be scheduled in due course. A man was found outside Clements Court with stab wounds / Google Maps Police have launched a murder investigation and have arrested a 22-year-old woman on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. She was taken to a central London police station where she remains at this time. Detective Chief Inspector Rob Pack said: At this early stage we are retaining an open mind concerning motive, and are keen to hear from anyone who has information or footage of the events leading up to the attack that ended Nathans life. There was a party going on at the venue; there were lots of people there and I urge those people to come forward and pass on what they saw no matter how insignificant it may seem. In addition, anyone who was in the area during the early hours of Thursday morning and noticed anything unusual or suspicions should contact my team without delay. Local policing commander Chief Superintendent Peter Gardner added: This is a senseless act of violence and we have needlessly lost another life at the point of blade. "My thoughts and condolences are with Nathans family at this desperately sad time. Id like to thank the officers and members of the London Ambulance Service that were first on the scene and worked tirelessly to try and save his life. We understand the impact of violent crime on our communities and residents can expect to see an increased police presence in the area as part of reassurance patrols. "There will be some disruption to the local area whilst crime scenes are in place as part of our investigation. Please do speak with officers about any concerns you may have, or information that you would like to provide. Anyone with information asked to call 101 or Tweet @MetCC quoting reference Cad 843/30Jul. To remain anonymous call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. The California prison population dropped below 100,000 people for the first time in three decades on Thursday, officials said. There were 99,929 people incarcerated at state prisons as of Thursday, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The last time that number was below 100,000 was in 1990, when CA's overall population was 10 million less, the agency said. The population decline comes amid pressure from advocates to release more inmates, especially those who are older or have chronic illness, during the coronavirus pandemic. Three weeks ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom pledged to release 8,000 prisoners by the end of August in an effort to save lives. The states prison population had already decreased by roughly 10,000 since the end of February as officials froze intake of new inmates and sped up the parole process. Still, even after the population dropped, the California prison system was at 123% capacity by early July. The virus swept through close quarters at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County in June and early July. The outbreak had infected 2,170 prisoners and killed 19 people by Thursday. 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. Across the state, 8,039 coronavirus cases have been confirmed at California prisons, according to data from the corrections department. Forty-seven inmates have died from COVID-19. The population was on a downward trajectory even before the coronavirus pandemic as political views on crime and the criminal justice system have shifted in the past several decades. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered California to reduce its prison population of 143,000 to 110,00 in two years a deadline that was extended due to unconstitutional standards. Anna Bauman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: anna.bauman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @abauman2 Patna, July 31 : Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi on Friday attacked the Mumbai Police, saying that they are not cooperating with the Bihar Police in the probe related to the alleged suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Taking to Twitter, the Deputy CM said,"Mumbai police is putting an obstruction in the way of a fair investigation by the Bihar police in the in Sushant Singh Rajput's death case." "Bihar police is doing its best but Mumbai police is not cooperating with the team. BJP feels that the CBI should take over the case," he added. Sushant, 34, was found hanging from the ceiling of his apartment in suburban Bandra in Mumbai on June 14 and since then the police have been probing the case keeping in mind various angles. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery The absence of listening to own cadre, is perhaps the single most important factor for partys steady decline. AICC interim chief Sonia Gandhis web interaction with her partys Rajya Sabha MPs has brought in focus a vicious power struggle within the grand old party. There are several takeaways: Sonia Gandhi wants to pass on the baton urgently. Rahul Gandhi is ready to return as AICC president but he would want to have Team Rahul in key places. The old guard has pockets of influence within the Congress. In-house lawyers are influencing decision-making. Party is craving for change and some semblance of inner-party democracy. A majority of Congress leaders want Sonias successor to initiate a process to hold the Congress Working Committee (CWC) elections so that at least a political hierarchy among non-Nehru Gandhi family members is established and adhered to. A back to basics approach is required. It is an open fact that Congress leaders are unwilling to acknowledge that Sonias continuation has become a liability as every decision that Rahul contemplates to take, old guard seeks refuge in Sonia veto. If Rahul can muster the courage to openly return as party president, he needs to announce party polls for Congress Working Committee and other levels of hierarchy so that proximity to the high command gets a tag of democratic credentials. There is a provision of a 10-member parliamentary board where many veteran leaders (old guard) can be packed off for ceremonial advisory role. The new party president as needs to hear voices from the ground rather than going for releasing videos or interviewing domain experts like Raghuram Rajan, Abhijit Banerjee and Mohammad Yunus as some sort of settling of scores. The Congress under Sonia-Rahul can go on claiming to be a democratic party, but it has stopped listening to its own cadres. Sample the partys stand on Article 370, triple talaq, the RCEP agreement, CAA-NRC, Golwan valley standoff and other key issues. There were murmurs and noises seeking more nuanced approach but Rahul and Sonia enforced their views instead of paying attention to what district or state level party delegates had to say. The absence of listening to own cadre, is perhaps the single most important factor for partys steady decline. Strange as it may sound, the Congress has not held an All India Congress Committee (AICC) session since March 2018. As per the Congress constitution, it is mandatory to meet at least once, preferably twice. The story of AICC media department is more bizarre. The Congress has not changed its head since 2014 although it keeps complaining that its communication strategy is weak. If not listening to party rank and file is a significant factor for Congress decline, reliance on legal eagles is another recipe for disaster. Since UPA-2 period, the Congress has been giving extraordinary weightage to the legal opinion on all political matters from 2G, Commonwealth scam allegations to recent Rajasthan crisis. Messrs Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, P Chidambaram, Vivek Tankha, Salman Khurshid, Anand Sharma and others may be erudite and excellent at marshalling arguments, but their success in electoral politics has not been inspirational. Moreover, unlike politics, the very nature of legal profession puts little accountability on the final outcome or consequences for the client. In this case, the Congress and its sympathisers have been the biggest losers. I remember late R K Dhawan repeatedly asserting that Indira, during the difficult times prior to Emergency was not inclined to declare Emergency. The political aide claimed that it was thrust upon her by legal luminaries such as Sidharatha Shankar Ray, Barrister Rajni Patel, A R Antulay and H R Gokhale, the then law minister. From Indira to Rajiv, Sonia and Rahul, their constant expression of regret for the Emergency in public has cut little ice. Gokhale had also messed the recruitment and supersession of judges, leading to a general discontent of judiciary against the Congress regime. Cut to Sonia era. Upset over Subramaniam Swamys constant criticism, Sonia had consulted in-house lawyers who readily advised filing of defamation against Swamy, currently BJP MP. When some paper work was reportedly underway, a family friend urged her to reconsider the move. Heeding to the former editors advice, Sonia reportedly turned to same set of lawyers who sheepishly told her about the lengthy procedure of filing defamation that stipulates a person who files the defamation, to depose and get exposed to all sorts of crazy and often nasty things. The idea was dropped. Tailpiece: When Rajiv Gandhi appointed Bindeshwari Dubey as union law minister, Dubeys first reaction was, Rajiv Gandhi is okay and I hope he knows I am not even a law graduate! Tara Barrows feels her late grandmother Dorritt Paul, a 102-year-old double-leg amputee, deserved better. The spry centenarian, who is survived by seven children, 12 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, was one of 34 residents at Sienna Senior Living Inc.s Weston Terrace Care Community who died of COVID-19. After my grandmother passed away, we had a lot of questions and concerns and didnt have the answers, said Barrows, whose grandmother lived at the 18-year-old, 224-bed long-term-care home at 2005 Lawrence Ave. W. for just over two years. Determined to honour her grandmothers life and ensure other families dont have to go through what they did, Barrows, along with her mother Jocelyn, has filed a class-action lawsuit against Sienna Senior Living Inc. The allegations of the lawsuit have not been tested in court. Barrows said, among other things, communication between the home and the families of its residents was a serious and ongoing problem during the pandemic. Barrows said in the last five months it was especially challenging to get information about her grandmothers condition and to raise concerns about her care. Barrows said back in late April she learned Humber River Hospital came in to test all of Weston Terraces residents for COVID-19. At that time, her grandmother, who resided on the third floor, tested negative. However, knowing the illness was running rampant in many long-term-care homes, Barrows said her family remained concerned and wanted to know if workers there were infected. The home refused to provide more information, said Barrows, who said her grandmother started sharing concerns about the level of care she was receiving with her relatives. Barrows said her grandmother spoke about showers that were not happening when expected, meals that didnt arrive and one instance where she accidentally soiled herself but wasnt cleaned up for several hours. Every day it seemed she lost a worker. We reached a point where everyone who knew her needs was gone. My grandmother was dealing with strangers, she said, adding it suddenly seemed most of the staff members her grandmother and their family had come to know and trust were gone without explanation. It wasnt until early May that Barrows said they got some clarity about the extent of the COVID-19 outbreak at her grandmothers nursing home when she came across provincial data posted online that indicated 13 Weston Terrace residents had died of COVID-19. She also said at that time they learned 29 staff members had tested positive. Barrows said the nursing home did not relay this information to the family members of its residents, as Sienna Senior Living was only providing details about cases affecting residents. That was when we got the big shock. We didnt know until then how many workers (there) had COVID-19, she said, adding if they had been informed earlier they could have advocated better for their loved one and made decisions that could have saved her life. I dont understand why we had to fight for information. I appreciate the need to protect (the privacy) of front-line workers, but these are the same people interacting with our family members. On May 7, Sienna Senior Living issued a written update to families about Weston Terrace residents that had tested positive for COVID-19. It was then that Pauls family said they learned there were now active cases on their loved ones floor. By then, Pauls health had started to rapidly deteriorate, so much so Barrows said they had started to plan to remove her from Weston Terrace to ensure she was taken care of properly. Sadly, Paul, who lived in the Weston neighbourhood for 30 years before moving into Weston Terrace, fell into a coma on Mothers Day, May 10. Barrows said the family only learned she had tested positive for COVID-19 two days later on May 12 after they kept pressing the home for information. Less than a week later, the family matriarch was dead. None of Pauls loved ones were present when she took her last breath on May 16. What we experienced is not acceptable. My family feels that trust was broken, said Barrows, who said she just hopes her grandmother didnt suffer alone in her final days. The lawsuit, which is the third class action Thomson Rogers has advanced on behalf of residents at a Sienna Senior Living facility, is claiming $15 million in damages. The legal firm has also filed class actions against Sienna Senior Livings Altamont Care Community and Woodbridge Vista Care Community. The class action against Weston Terrace alleges Sienna Senior Living failed to implement screening measures of its staff and basic social distancing practices. It also claims, since the outbreak, there was severe understaffing at Weston Terrace and a failure to provide the basic care to the residents, resulting in neglect, illness and death. This lawsuit means we have to relive all of this, but were willing to do this for her, Barrows said. She deserves us to stand up for her. Toronto.com reached out to Sienna Senior Living Inc. for comment and received the following statement: We are aware of the proposed class action. We intend to respond in due course through the appropriate court processes, company spokesperson Swaraj Mann said in a July 27 email. Sienna Senior Living was offered a second opportunity to respond directly to the allegations and comment further on the matter, but the spokesperson said they have nothing further to add at this time. The next step in the legal process is for the class action to be certified, but this likely wont happen for at least a year. In the meantime, Pauls loved ones said theyd be lending their support to a proposed independent commission into Ontarios long-term-care system, which they hope will result in meaningful change and their negative experience not being repeated. According to provincial data, 34 residents at Weston Terrace Care Community have died of COVID-19. Currently, there is no active outbreak at the facility. In its latest online communication to Weston Terrace families, Sienna Senior Living said as of July 21 there have been 59 resolved COVID-19 cases at the facility. The company also indicated there are no active resident cases, and one active team member case. ATLANTA, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Georgia Power continues to grow renewable energy in Georgia through its new Customer-Connected Solar Program (CCSP), a 25-megawatt (MW) Distributed Generation customer-sited program. Working with the Georgia Public Service Commission on the program design, the Commissioners gave their approval in May 2020. "We are excited to offer programs that help renewable energy grow and thrive in Georgia," said Wilson Mallard, director of Renewable Development for Georgia Power. "This program will provide a new renewable energy option for participating customers, while also benefitting all of our customers by continuing to expand our state's diverse energy generation resources." Georgia Power will purchase 100% of the solar energy generated by directly paying the customer. Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) will be retired by Georgia Power on behalf of participating customers, allowing the customer to claim the renewable benefits of the local solar energy. The CCSP program will accept applications on a first-come, first-served basis until the 25 MW AC portfolio is filled, or until January 2022, whichever comes first. Customers can choose agreement terms between 10 and 30 years and projects can be sized from 1 kW up to 3 MW (AC). The average price ranges from 4.3-6.7 cents/kWh. Find other important details about Georgia Power's new Customer-Connected Solar Program at www.GeorgiaPower.com/CustomerConnectedSolar. Community Solar and Simple Solar Programs The company also encourages customers who are not eligible to participate in CCSP to consider additional renewable programs such as Georgia Power Community Solar and Simple Solar. Community Solar gives residential customers who subscribe the opportunity to earn an energy credit on their bill based on actual solar energy production at Georgia Power's Community Solar facilities. The Simple Solar program is a solar REC purchase program available to all customers that allow participants to claim solar benefits for either 50 percent or 100 percent of their energy usage. Renewable Energy Growth Through programs and projects developed in coordination with the PSC, Georgia Power is committed to maintaining a diverse generation portfolio while providing all customers with renewable energy options. With more than 1,625 MW* of solar capacity currently online, the company continues to have the most extensive voluntary renewable portfolio in the nation. Through continued development of CCSP, as well as other solar projects and programs, Georgia Power expects to add up to 1,400 MW* of additional renewable capacity by the end of 2021. * REC Disclaimer: Georgia Power purchases only the null energy output from some renewable generating facilities that have contracted to sell that energy to Georgia Power. Ownership of the associated RECs is specified in each respective power purchase agreement. The party that owns the RECs retains the right to use them. About Georgia Power Georgia Power is the largest electric subsidiary of Southern Company (NYSE: SO), America's premier energy company. Value, Reliability, Customer Service and Stewardship are the cornerstones of the company's promise to 2.6 million customers in all but four of Georgia's 159 counties. Committed to delivering clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy at rates below the national average, Georgia Power maintains a diverse, innovative generation mix that includes nuclear, coal and natural gas, as well as renewables such as solar, hydroelectric and wind. Georgia Power focuses on delivering world-class service to its customers every day and the company is consistently recognized by J.D. Power and Associates as an industry leader in customer satisfaction. For more information, visit www.GeorgiaPower.com and connect with the company on Facebook (Facebook.com/GeorgiaPower), Twitter (Twitter.com/GeorgiaPower) and Instagram (Instagram.com/ga_power). SOURCE Georgia Power Related Links http://www.georgiapower.com Government officials say the United States is using less energy than it has in thirty years. The officials noted that this was because much of the nations economy has been shut down by measures meant to contain the new coronavirus. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a report that reduced demand for coal, gasoline and jet fuel drove the decrease. The numbers were similar in countries around the world where energy use has fallen. Those trends are expected to turn around as commercial activity restarts. But a decline in U.S. and worldwide greenhouse gas emissions is expected. Greenhouse gases are gasses in the atmosphere that trap heat and are believed to cause rising temperatures. Overall U.S. energy usage dropped 14 percent during April compared to the same time a year earlier, the energy administration said. That is the lowest monthly level since 1989. It is also the largest decrease ever recorded since the government began collecting the data in 1973. Before April, the largest drop was in December 2001. That period followed the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. which shocked the economy. A mild winter also depressed demand for electricity. Not all forms of energy, however, have had decreases. Natural gas usage did not follow the trend and increased by 15 percent during April. Lockdown or stay-at-home orders may have played a part in the increase. Petroleum use fell to 14.7 million barrels a day in April, down almost a third compared to the same period last year. However, demand already has rebounded after stay-at-home orders ended and large parts of the economy started moving again. Americans are driving again People appear to be returning to their old driving habits. Petroleum use in June was back up to 17.6 million barrels a day. That number comes from the American Petroleum Institute. However, the group noted that new drilling activity continues to be weak. Oil exploration has decreased for seven straight months as stockpiles of oil and petroleum products remain near record levels. While we are not out of the woods yet, we do appear to be headed in the right direction, said Dean Foreman, the industry groups chief economist. Coal companies are expected to have more difficulty than petroleum producers in recovering from the coronavirus crisis. The industry has been decreasing since 2007 although President Donald Trump has sought to support it. Coal use fell 27 percent in April compared to the same period in 2019. Most coal produced in the U.S. is used to create electricity, but many electricity producers have switched to less costly natural gas and renewables: wind and solar. The energy administration predicts that all energy usage will remain below 2019 levels for the rest of the year. Im Mario Ritter, Jr. Matthew Brown reported this story for the Associated Press. Mario Ritter Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English. Hai Do was the editor. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story trend n. the general direction in which something is moving rebound v. to bounce back to an earlier level, to improve to where it once was stockpile n. a surplus supply kept to prevent a future shortage : Smuggled weighing 3.11 kg and valued at Rs 1.66 crore was seized at the international airport here from 11 passengers, Customs officials said on Friday. According to Customs officials, the passengers,who arrived here fromDammam (in Saudi Arabia) by a Vande Bharath Mission flight on Thursday had "concealed the gold" (bars) in the inner pocket of their trousers which they were wearing. Based on suspicion and profiling of the passengers, cases were booked against 11 passengers for allegedly "smuggling" ofgold and they were being questioned. In another case, Customs in coordination with CISF detected five passengers who were trying to smuggle out sandalwood and a total of 78.5 kg of sandalwood was seized from them at the airport on Thursday. The five passengers were to travel from Hyderabad to Khartoum (in Sudan). Further investigation is being conducted by Customs. (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.) Avowed white supremacist and former leader of the Ku Klux Klan has been permanently banned from Twitter for repeated violations of the platforms policies on hate speech, according to the Associated Press. Twitter didnt specify what exactly Duke posted that triggered the ban, but its policy on hateful conduct prohibits promoting violence or threatening attacks against people based on religious affiliation, race and ethnic origin. Twitter told the Associated Press the ban was in line with its recently updated policy aimed at cutting down on harmful links. Under the new rules, the company may suspend accounts dedicated to sharing hateful content or that try to get around its blocks on sharing links to the material. The one-time Louisiana legislators most recent tweets included a link to an interview he conducted with Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf, according to the Washington Post. Other posts said he would expose the systemic racism lie and the incitement of violence against white people by Jewish-owned media, the Post reported. A Duke tweet also said, People who refuse the mask are the real heroes. Public health officials across the country have endorsed mask wearing as one of the best ways to defeat the coronavirus. Misinformation regarding the coronavirus resulted in Donald Trump Jr. having his Twitter account suspended for 12 hours earlier this week. Duke was banned from YouTube for violating its policies in June. Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. The Kapurbawdi police have detained MNS Thane district president Avinash Jadhav along with two other MNS party workers for staging a protest along with 30 nurses outside the Thane Municipal Corporation office and Balkum Covid Hospital set up in Global Impact Hub building in Thane on Friday. They were protesting against the non-payment of dues to the nursing staff in the hospital and also sacking of few on contract basis even though the contract was not yet over. The police informed that the procedure to arrest the three was going on at the time of going to the press. A case is also registered against Jadhav at Naupada Police station on Friday. Jadhav also has being served two years externment notice by a sub-divisional police officer of Virar on the recommendation of the police department of Palghar, Thane, Thane Rural, Navi Mumbai, Raigad and Mumbai for alleged constant protest during the Pandemic. Jadhav will be given a hearing on the notice on August 4. On Friday morning, three to four MNS workers led by Jadhav staged a protest outside Thane Municipal Corporations headquarters in Panchpakhadi. Anil Mangle, Senior Police Inspector of Naupada said, There were 30 nurses along with the MNS party worker which is against the lockdown norms. We booked Jadhav under section 188 and 269 for disobedience. Jadhav also created a ruckus outside Covid Hospital in Balkum. A civic official requesting anonymity said, The MNS workers came near the security without wearing a mask and demanded to talk to the authorities. They violated the safety protocol putting the hospital employees at risk. We registered a case against them in Kapurbawdi Police station. The police also booked Mahesh Kadam and Ravindra More, two other MNS leaders with Jadhav. Assistant commissioner of police, zone 5, Pankaj Shirsat, said, Apart from 188 and 269 we have also filed a case under section 353 IPC for obstructing work of a civil servant. The process to arrest all three is underway, they will be arrested late at night. Jadhav told media persons, that despite the action and pressure on him by the government he will continue to fight for the cause of common people. There was no need for Anti Extortion and crime branch officer to come to detain me. Local police would have sufficed, these are merely pressure tactics, we will not bow to it, he said. In the meantime, Jadhav also got a two-year externment notice from Palghar police. Renuka Bagade, sub-divisional officer of Virar said, Under the Mumbai Police Act 1951, section 53, police department of five different cities have proposed to extern Jadhav for two years outside the limit of their cities. I am the investigating officer on this case and the decision on externment will be taken after a hearing given to Jadhav on August 4. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON EAST GREENBUSH The East Greenbush school district will sponsor an American Red Cross babysitting class for Columbia High School students as a way to address the steep demand for child care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials announced the plan at a Board of Education meeting Wednesday evening. Under the district reopening plan, just two days of in-class instruction to K-12 students will be provided each week in order to adhere to social distancing mandates. "The rationale for providing this training for free is to help families in the community with any child care needs due to the current pandemic while also giving work and community service opportunities to students," school officials wrote in a memo to families. Columbia High School students ages 16 or older may sign up for the online advanced certification course. The district will compile a list of interested students and pay the $45.00 fee for each student. The Red Cross will then notify students of when they can take the online training. A certificate of completion will be issued. Since Wednesday's meeting, 15 students requested information on how to sign up for the babysitting course, school officials said. Superintendent Jeff Simons said he would encourage students to sign up for the program, but asked them to be reasonable in their rates. "We have a lot of good kids who take a lot of social responsibility in our high school. It's one of the points of pride in our high school.... every year our students win the entrepreneurial award through our business department. ... I don't oppose kids making a buck to provide a service for the families, but doing it for the good of the whole is also important," Simon said Wednesday. The district is also working with Greenbush Child Caring and the YMCA to identify child care sites to meet the needs of working parents. Possible sites include the Church of Saint Mary at Clinton Heights and the East Greenbush Fire Station on Phillips Road. East Greenbush's preliminary reopening plan offers all students in grades K-12 a hybrid of online and in-person classes. To reduce classroom density, students will be divided into A groups and B groups. Each cohort would attend in-person classes two days a week, have live virtual instruction once a week and remote learning two days a week. Special education students would receive in-class instruction four days a week. No decision has been made on resuming after-school clubs and activities. Parents requesting instruction that is entirely remote must request the accommodation from their child's principal before the start of the school year. Most Capital Region school districts say they will use middle school buildings, cafeterias, gyms, and other spaces in order to ensure that elementary school children could return to class full-time. Simon said East Greenbush conducted a space study and found that it would have to reduce capacity in all of its building by 50 percent to keep students six-feet apart, as required regulations from the state's Education Department and Department of Health. The district simply did not have the staffing and space capability to return any students to class full time, he said. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 23:59:52|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close NAIROBI, July 31 (Xinhua) -- A total of 723 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Kenya on Friday, raising the national tally to 20,636 as preparations to resume international flights on Saturday went into top gear. Mutahi Kagwe, cabinet secretary for health, said that 700 Kenyans and 23 foreigners were confirmed positive to the disease after 8,679 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, bringing cumulative tests to 303,959. "We continue to record high numbers of positive cases and that is why we are pleading that you must take care of yourself," Kagwe said at a briefing in Nairobi. He said that 16 people succumbed to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, raising the total number of fatalities to 341 amid concerns that young people with no pre-existing health conditions had become the latest victims. Kagwe said that some of the patients who succumbed to the disease were aged below 30 years and had no history of chronic ailments. "You must not be an old person or with diabetes to get COVID-19. It does not discriminate," said Kagwe, adding that flouting of containment measures by the urban youth was undermining the war against the pandemic. He said that 450 men and 273 women had tested positive to COVID-19, and the age of patients ranged from nine months to 87 years, while an additional 44 had recovered from the disease, bringing the total number of recoveries to 8,165. Kagwe said the ministry of health had developed guidelines to ensure that resumption of international travel does not jeopardize the war against COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya. "Categorization of what passengers will be subjected to is based on risk assessment of the COVID-19 situation in the various countries people arrive from or travel to," said Kagwe. He said the government will introduce a mobile application to enable passengers to fill their details with ease and avoid crowding at the country's main airports. "These details will assist in tracing should it be necessary," said Kagwe, adding that travel guidelines will be subject to regular adjustment given the evolving nature of COVID-19 pandemic. He said that Kenya has effectively deployed contact tracing infrastructure to the devolved units amid spike in local transmission of the disease. Enditem The Andrews government has again delayed a critical decision on how deeply it will cut climate emissions over the next decade because of the economic upheaval created by the coronavirus pandemic. The states own laws required it set climate emissions reduction targets for 2025 and 2030 by the end of March - a deadline missed due to the first wave of the pandemic - and table them in parliament by August 6. A windfarm in south western Victoria. Credit:Jessica Shapiro Despite being urged by environment and industry groups to provide certainty, the Andrews government will not say when it will publicly reveal its emissions reduction targets, or plans for sectors that will need to do much of heavy lifting. Global scientific consensus holds that massive emissions reductions in the next decade are critical to limit the worst of the damage wrought by the climate crisis. Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-01 02:41:50|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close RAMALLAH/GAZA, July 31 (Xinhua) -- As part of the precautionary measures against coronavirus, Palestine imposed a full lockdown on the West Bank districts during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha that started on Friday in Palestine. The lockdown began on Friday upon an earlier government's decision and will be valid until Sunday morning. The measures include banning transportation between towns and villages all over the West Bank. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a press statement that it recorded one death, 394 new COVID-19 infections, and 62 recovered cases in the West Bank during the last 24 hours. "Since March 5, the ministry recorded 15,232 COVID-19 infections, including 85 deaths, 6,351 cases that recovered, and 8,796 cases still receiving medical care," said the statement. The statement added that 14 cases are in critical conditions, including five linked to ventilators at intensive care units. In Gaza, the Hamas-run Ministry of Health announced that it recorded two new COVID-19 cases on Thursday night, adding that the two infections are of citizens of Gaza who returned in recent days from abroad through Israel. The ministry said in a press statement that since March 5, it recorded 78 infections, including 71 cases who had recovered in the Gaza Strip. Enditem (L-R) Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidates Erin O'Toole, Peter MacKay, Derek Sloan, and Leslyn Lewis wait for the start of the French Leadership Debate in Toronto on June 17, 2020. (The Canadian Press/Frank Gunn) Conservative Leadership Race Enters the Home Stretch The Conservative Party leadership race is still up for grabs, despite a recent poll showing that Peter MacKay has more support than his three opponents combined, strategists and advocates say. Voting, which is currently underway by mail, must be completed by Aug. 21. The new leader will be announced shortly after. A poll of Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) voters released by Maru/Blue on July 28 showed that 55 percent support MacKay. Erin OToole trailed at second with 23 percent, while Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan were tied at 11 percent. Even so, MacKay trailed on some other metrics. Its worthwhile to note that even in our own poll, two other candidates fared better than the perceived frontrunnerOToole on momentum and Lewis on favourability, John Wright, executive vice-president of Maru/Blue, said in an email to The Epoch Times. Among the general public, the poll showed 51 percent support for MacKay, 25 percent for OToole, 16 percent for Lewis, and 8 percent for Sloan. Wright said the poll accurately captured the views of potential CPC citizen voters and the general public, and if they all had a vote, the race would be over. But they dont, so everything is still up to voting delegates. The 269,469 people who signed up for CPC membership by May 15 can rank their choices for next party leader by mail-in ballot. Recent history suggests some wont bother. In the 2017 race, just under 55 percent of the membership cast a vote. The membership has swelled by roughly 10,000 since 2017, however. The CPC says Nova Scotia, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Alberta, have respectively seen the largest percentage of membership growth. While MacKay may be the favourite of many conservatives, he is the least favourite of those who are social conservatives. Alissa Golob, founder of pro-life group RightNow, has chastised social conservative MPs who have endorsed MacKay. She also dismissed the Maru/Blue poll, saying on Twitter that she expects the actual results to be very different from what it shows. On Instagram, Golob posted a photo of her ballot placing Lewis as her first choice, with Sloan second and OToole third. The voters guide by My Canada, a Christian organization, made the same recommendation. In a column for the CBC, Conservative strategist Kory Teneycke said Lewis has attracted substantial campaign contributions and support from a wide spectrum of Conservative voters. He said quiet momentum for Lewis has grown, and should Sloan supporters pick Lewis as their second choice, she could overtake OToole for second place and have a narrow path to victory for the leadership. Lewis missed the July 29 leaders debate on doctors orders as she battled an ear infection and fever. After she announced her absence, MacKay announced that he wouldnt be taking part, either. To be fair to all, I will not participate in a debate where she is not present, he said in a statement released hours before the debate. Jacqueline Biollo of Aurora Strategy Group told The Epoch Times that debate no-shows can leave a bad impression. Skipping a debate can be interpreted as elitist, that you have more important matters to attend to, or that you are so far ahead in the polls not to bother or care, Biollo says. What candidates miss by skipping a debate is an opportunity to connect with the very people they hope to secure their vote, and at some point represent. She says that no lead is insurmountable and that candidates should remember the old fable of the tortoise and the hare. Stay the course. Build your base. Look forward, not behind, and focus more on what youre doing to win the race than what the other candidates are doing. Leave nothing to chance, plan for and execute a Plan A, B, and C. Be confident but not cocky, Biollo advises. Others, like University of Calgary political science professor Melanee Thomas, believe a MacKay victory has been long apparent. We always thought this would be a done deal, given MacKays profile and past career. So from that angle, these results confirm that this race isnt exactly competitive. Not like the previous race, at any rate, she says. Even so, Thomas says, every contender is in the race with their own priorities. For some its to win, but for others its about positioning themselves, issues, or both within the party, she explains. So while MacKay is the most palatable for Canadians who arent Conservative partisans, how that process plays out will structure a lot of how palatable MacKay will be during a general election. Royal Dutch Shell (A Shares) (NYSE:RDS.A) Q2 2020 Earnings Call , 9:30 a.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator Welcome to the Royal Dutch Shell Q2 2020 announcement results. Today's call is being recorded. [Operator instructions] I would now like to introduce the first speaker, Ben Van Beurden. Please go ahead. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Thank you very much, Rochelle. And ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our second-quarter 2020 results call. Thank you very much for joining us today. We realize it's a very busy day today. I hope that you and your families and friends and colleagues are safe and well and that you are taking good care through these very extraordinary times that we are facing at the moment. Before I get going, let me point out to you again the disclaimer statement. But as I said, these are extraordinary times. They are challenging times for our business, many others, of course, as well. You will see the effect of COVID-19 and the overall global economic weakness and what they have meant for Shell in the second quarter when Jessica speaks shortly about the results and while there's, of course, nothing that Shell can do about the times we find ourselves in, we can always run our business well. We can keep it resilient, and that is exactly our focus. So today, I would like to give you some insight into the actions, the big ones, the small ones that Shell is taking. So, yes, we are in the midst of a global crisis, but we are working to make sure we come out of it much stronger and much fitter. Through the second quarter, we continued operating our assets with minimal disruption, and we saw resilient cash, and that shows both the quality of our assets and our people. The near-term macro demanded quick action, and we took decisive measures to protect value, to strengthen our balance sheet and preserve cash. It was included rethinking and substantially reducing our cost, as well as rebasing our dividend and not continuing with the next tranche of the share buyback program. We quickly changed our processes, our operations into the virtual world, accelerating digitalization initiatives that were already under way. And we can already see that these actions will also reap long-term benefits. And while we remain focused on preserving cash, counter near-term challenges, we continue to position Shell for what comes next because the foundations of our investment proposition go deeper than a resilient balance sheet. We believe the long-term fundamentals of our business are strong. And that is why despite all the immediate action we have taken, we have not rushed to change our strategy and our cash allocation priorities. Strategy is still very much centered around our customers, and it is centered around driving in the energy transition to a lower carbon future. But before I go any further, I must give you an update on something that is crucially important no matter what time frame you look at, our performance on health, safety, security and the environment. Through these challenging times, our priority has been to ensure safe business continuity. And after a difficult 2019, I'm pleased that we have not had any work-related fatalities, Shell-operated ventures in the first half of the year. We've also reported about 40% fewer injuries in the first half of this year, if you compare it with the same period in 2019. And we improved our performance in process safety, but also the volume of spills. And we remain below our target on greenhouse gas intensity emissions, both upstream and integrated gas. Now, our refineries and our petrochemical plants, however, have been unable to match this performance on greenhouse gas intensity as we saw lower utilization across many sites due to the economic environment, and at lower utilizations, these assets simply run at higher intensity. But with a good progress on our health and safety performance, pleasing as it is, I'm also very sad to say that COVID-19 has left its mark on Shell. Seven of our colleagues are among the hundreds of thousands worldwide who have regretfully fallen to this virus. We are doing all we can to support their families, their communities. Safety is always a top priority, and current environment calls for even more vigilant care for each other. This quarter, we have continued to work with partners and governments around the world to help local communities to respond to the global pandemic. So, in Brazil, for example, we supported the construction of a field hospital in Rio de Janeiro through the Brazilian Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels Institute, the trade association. And in Nigeria, we work with renewable energy companies to provide solar power to emergency health centers that are being set up to fight the COVID-19 pandemic there. Across all our assets, our contingency plans have worked well in the quarter. So, as an example, 99% of our retail sites have remained open. And besides the usual safety measures, we are taking extra precautions with our front-line people. So, at our Rheinland refinery in Germany, our site staff are staggered in shifts and keeping the same teams working together to minimize new contact. Our lubricants customers in Canada and China are now offered a zero-touch oil change. And our trading team that currently manages 1,300 sea ferries, 40 Shell-managed vessels has reduced the level of contact when our ships arrive at ports and terminals to load or discharge. Most of our people, tens of thousands, normally work on our facilities. And with the lockdown in many locations, we have virtualized processes and operations significantly. We have increased the number of virtual inspections, using images, project and instrumentation diagrams, robots, even augmented reality embedded in helmets that support remote technical activity. Amongst other initiatives, we are validating and testing the design of our projects and equipment virtually, using the expertise of our teams in different locations around the world to ensure business continuity. And we are also using technology to support our customers remotely as if we were just next to them. So, for example, we recently launched a new lubricants logistics model optimizing U.S. and Canada customer deliveries by successfully handing over our logistics operations to Penske in a virtual environment. We've also launched an app-based virtual payment card in China and in India for our customers with fleets of cars and trucks, growing our business-to-business solutions in these two markets. And then in finance, in the first quarter of 2020, we closed our financial books faster than in any quarter in 2019 in a fully virtual environment. And this quarter, we set a new record and closed the books even faster. We're working to make the efficiency gains structural and to free up resources across all countries and businesses in which we operate. Through the current virtual working environment, we have also progressed further digitalization. For example, we further integrated machine learning into predictive maintenance activities of our refining and our deepwater assets with the potential to now roll it out across other parts of the portfolio as well. We have implemented new digital features that allow us to further optimize the inventory of materials in our refineries, and we are increasing the use of artificial intelligence to run and optimize our assets in this unprecedented environment, as well as to simulate return-to-office scenarios for it. For us, all these actions are more than initiatives to just ensure business continuity through the crisis. They are actually opportunities to further build resilient operating models and optimize costs. Now, talking about cost improvement, let me give you an update on how we are progressing the countermeasures we have taken to reduce our operating expenses. We're on track to deliver the reduction in underlying operating expenses by 3 to $4 billion by the end of Q1 2020. And that is compared with 2019 actuals. As you can imagine, that scale of action meant some difficult decisions had to be taken, like initiating voluntary severance programs and announcing no staff bonus this year. But beyond measures with short-term impact, we have also challenged ourselves to find structural improvement opportunities in operating models across our businesses and functions. So, for example, in shales, we have implemented a new operating model through a zero-based approach, focusing on core workflow and asset centricity. And this new model, once fully implemented, is expected to reduce overhead expenses by around 40% per annum when compared to 2019 levels. And the majority of these savings will be recognized between now and 2021. We're also reducing feasibility study cost across our portfolio and identifying operating efficiency opportunities in IT, in asset maintenance and with suppliers. Across all our businesses, we are further moving activities to our business operation centers, where we can optimize and standardize our process. And this is a journey that we had already embarked on quite some time ago, and we continue to see opportunities benefits in this model. So, for example, we are further consolidating research and development into those centers, which will bring structural cost reduction. And finally, as we improve our processes and operating models, we are reviewing the structures around them to maximize the efficiencies we can create. That is why in the second quarter, we have also started a program in Shell to redesign and restructure toward a fundamentally simpler, more effective organization that can deliver the very best from our traditional businesses, from our customer-centric businesses as well and rapidly and purposefully innovate for our future business models. You will hear more about all of this in time, but I can tell you now that besides reshaping and redesigning, we will also resize as appropriate. We're working to reduce our contingent workforce. We are rationalizing our expatriation pool and further accelerate automation and digitalization. A simpler, leaner and a more focused organization will also cost much less. We're also finding cost efficiencies when it comes to capital expenditure. And we are doing so while spending what we need to spend to ensure asset integrity and to continue with projects that are under construction. In some cases, we have decided that joining these are currently not attractive enough, and we stopped them. We're also deferring many projects. So, we can better face the capital spend while maintaining the flow of projects we need to sustain growth. For example, we have reduced our exploration budget by some $600 million for 2020, which partly appears in our capital expenditure numbers, partly in operating expense. An agreement with partners and with governments, we plan to drill 22 exploration wells this year, and that compares with 77 originally planned. By reducing the spend, we have continued adding resources to our growth fund. In addition to stopping and deferring projects, we have rethought how we can become more efficient in deploying capital. So, in shales, for example, we have reduced activity in various basins, taking advantage of the thought cycles and the flexibility that they allow. And with all these initiatives that I just mentioned, we are on track to achieve $5 billion reduction in cash capital expenditure from our originally planned levels for this year. So on this slide here, you can see how that translates to each of our businesses for 2020, focusing on our ability to reduce spend and make choices, minimizing the impacts on our growth funnel and future cash flows. So, we are keeping the growth in the leading transition themes, balancing our capital spend with upstream and we continue to invest in power. For example, last night, the CrossWind consortium, a joint venture between Shell and Eneco was awarded a tender for a subsidy-free offshore wind farm off the coast of the Netherlands. Offshore wind as a source of low-carbon electricity will play a pivotal role in the energy transition. As we said previously, our annual ceiling for the period from '21 to '25 was around $30 billion, but this level assumes a stable macroeconomic environment. However, in the current recessionary environment, if it warrants it, we can extend this year's cash capex spend of around $20 billion to next year as well. Currently budgeting for those scenarios, designing our capex plan for 2021 with flexibility in mind, so we can respond to the environment accordingly. But then, of course, we're also reviewing our future capex beyond 2021 as part of our broader strategic review. And we plan to provide revised details at our strategy day early next year. Now, these are, as I'm sure you will appreciate, major moves, but all this action does not change the cash priorities we have previously set out. So, our near-term focus remains on reducing net debt, strengthen the balance sheet and maintain AA credit metrics. So, we are paying dividends and investing at the revised cash capex levels. Strong credit metrics are important due to the high volatility in price and margins, combined with high cash obligations that we need to meet. And for us, it is particularly key given our integrated business model. So, for example, to support trading contracts without the need for collateral payments and for our long-term offtake and supply agreements. And it is also important with self-insurance, as well as for liquidity and cost of debt. And I'm sure you will agree that the last six months demonstrate the importance of having this strong balance sheet. So in the current recessionary environment, we look to protect value. And this means further deleveraging to maintain AA credit metrics, paying an annual dividend of $5 billion, spending around $20 billion in cash capex. In the current environment, we expect our gearing to remain or even be higher than the top of the end of our range of 15 to 25%. But then bear in mind, gearing is only a proxy for the multiple credit metrics that we consider when managing our balance sheet. And as the macroeconomic situation recovers and there is a surplus of cash, we intend to strike a balance between additional shareholder distributions, capex to enable additional growth and further strengthening of the balance sheet. So, in a more stable environment, we would further deleverage within our gearing range of 15 to 25% to maintain AA credit metrics through the cycle. We would raise capex for growth and increase dividends per share, as well as undertake share buybacks, also what we said before. In the last few years, we had enough liquidity to cover the dividends and bought back around $15 billion in shares. With a rebased dividend and lower cost, we expect to ensure that our sources of cash meet our cash obligations in 2020 and beyond. And as the world recovers, strong balance sheet will allow Shell to stride out better than ever. Now, let me hand over to Jessica. She will give you some further details on our second-quarter performance. Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Ben, and to everyone for joining the call today. I hope you and your families are all safe and well. As Ben just said, Shell is becoming a simpler, leaner, more focused organization. We are changing the company even as our cash priorities remain the same. We can do this because of the strong fundamentals of our business. To show you where the strength comes from, I'm going to speak to you of our resilient cash generation and sector-leading cash flow. So, let me start by outlining Shell's financial performance in the second quarter. Our Q2 2020 cash flow from operations, excluding working capital movements, was $6.5 billion, and our adjusted earnings amounted to $638 million in the quarter. Return on average capital employed was 5.3%. At the end of Q2 2020, our gearing increased to 32.7%. 2.8% of this was driven by impairments and pension remeasurements impacting the equity side of the equation. Our cash capital expenditure in the quarter was $3.6 billion, which was kept low, mainly due to the countermeasures highlighted earlier by Ben. Now, let us look at our Q2 earnings in more detail. Q2 2020 earnings were down, reflecting the impacts of COVID-19 on energy demand, prices and margins. Adjusted earnings this quarter were $638 million. Integrated gas adjusted earnings were $362 million due to lower realized oil and LNG prices, as well as unfavorable movements in deferred tax positions and well write-off compared with the second quarter 2019. In upstream, production reduced by about 7% compared with the second-quarter 2019, but sales volumes were up due to the timing of liftings, mainly in Brazil. We reported an adjusted loss of $1.5 billion, largely reflecting lower realized oil and gas prices. In oil products, adjusted earnings were $2.4 billion in the second quarter, very strong contributions from crude oil and product -- crude and oil products, trading and optimization, as well as lower operating expenses offset lower realized refining margins and lower marketing volumes compared with the same quarter last year. This strong performance from trading and optimization was underpinned by unprecedented market volatility, as well as by price, demand and supply dislocations among different geographies. We also saw the emergence of fixed and floating storage opportunities resulting from the contango structure during the quarter. We are already seeing a reduction in volatility we experienced in the second quarter, and I would note that the very strong trading and optimization performance in the second quarter is not necessarily an indication for the third quarter. In chemicals, adjusted earnings were $206 million, up from the second-quarter 2019, reflecting lower operating expenses compared with Q2 2019. Finally, in the corporate segment, our adjusted earnings reflected lower net interest expense. Given the outlook of the macroeconomic and energy market impact of COVID-19, as well as expectations on long-term supply and demand fundamentals, we revised our commodity price and margin outlook. This resulted in lower medium- and long-term oil and gas prices and a reduction in our refining margin assumptions by about 30% on average compared with our prior assumption of mid-cycle refining margins. These lower prices and margins, among other assumptions, have resulted in several impairments across our portfolio. In total, we are writing down $16.8 billion of our assets, post-tax, which represents about 6% of our average capital employed. Although impairments do not affect our adjusted earnings, they reflect our current outlook of the near and long-term environment, as well as our expectations on capital allocation and development plans. In line with accounting practices, impairment tests are performed on a stand-alone basis at the cash-generating unit level. This does not take into account the value generated by the integration of our portfolio. Given our integrated business model, value from an asset may be realized in other parts of our portfolio. And as we continue focusing on cash generation in our assets, we are constantly high-grading our portfolio. For example, we've previously said that we plan to further rationalize our refining footprint, focusing on the truly strategic assets. We plan to reduce our refining assets from 15 less than 10 refineries over time, and some of the refining assets that we impaired this quarter will be strategic for us as we evolve these into new low-carbon value chain. Our cash generation proved resilient this quarter. Cash flow from operations in Q2 2020 was $2.6 billion and was negatively impacted by working capital movements of around $4 billion, driven by the increase in oil and gas prices in the quarter. Our cash flow from operations, excluding working capital movements, amounted to $6.5 billion. This primarily reflected lower earnings compared with Q2 2019, partly offset by the cash effect of tax. Cash flow from operations was also negatively impacted by the settlement for the unitization of the Lula field in Brazil. This is offset by a positive impact in cash flow from investing activities, so there is no impact in free cash flow from this unitization settlement at the group level. I would now like to turn to a longer-term perspective on our cash generation and how our strategy, portfolio actions and operational performance contributed to the step change in our cash flow profile. Over the last few years, we have high-graded our portfolio and focused on improving operational excellence across. We now have each of our businesses generating significant cash, improving our resilience and competitiveness through the cycle. With material cash generation from our customer-facing businesses in downstream and integrated gas and resilient cash delivery from upstream, the repositioned portfolio of higher-value barrels that retain upside potential. This has translated into the highest cash flow in our peer group for more than three years, and we've demonstrated disciplined execution. Our performance on unit cash flow has increased significantly in the last few years in upstream and integrated gas, as well as in oil products, which is also leading within our peer group. This shows the quality and resilience of our integrated business model, as well as our leading position in deepwater, marketing and LNG in particular, bolstered by our trading and optimization capabilities, which differentiates us in the sector. With that, let me hand back to Ben. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer OK. Thanks, Jessica. So, let me sum it up. On the one hand, this was a quarter that confirmed our earlier expectations on the challenging macroeconomic condition. But then on the other hand, it was also a quarter that confirmed our competitive advantages. And this starts with what we have today, strong portfolio with strong fundamentals, market leader of a resilient and growing LNG business with a portfolio that is continuously optimized by our trading capabilities, world-class deepwater asset with very low breakeven prices and Tier 1 resources, the Brazilian presold in the Gulf of Mexico. Sector-leading marketing business. This offers high returns and has been steadily growing, bringing the brand of choice for customers worldwide. But this strong portfolio is managed with disciplined execution, and we are taking tough decisions to strengthen the balance sheet and we are extracting more value out of the already high-value portfolio, leading the peer group on cash generation. And if you look ahead, our strategy embeds the transition to the cleaner energy system in every single one of our business. We're making sound choices, not only looking at the financial side of the balance sheet, but also future-proofing our portfolio. We're taking steps to remain competitive, but also reorienting Shell for the future, seeking higher returns through all our businesses, that's grow value per share, delivering superior returns for our shareholders. But this is our investment proposition, platform growing shareholder value. Now, we are looking forward to providing you with a comprehensive update on all of this on our next strategy day, which will be on the 11th of February 2021. With that, let's go for your questions. [Operator instructions] Questions & Answers: Operator Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We'll take a question from Oswald Clint with Bernstein. Oswald Clint -- Sanford C. Bernstein -- Analyst Ben, Jessica, thank you very much. Ben, I'm sorry, just a broad or high-level question, actually, on the topic of hydrogen that something Shell know pretty well, and I see it's blended into your wind project yesterday in the Netherlands. And actually it'll be great if you could talk about expected returns on that project. But the bigger question is, with everything that's happening with hydrogen, is there a risk or are you worried about some of these projects in the Middle East, solar turning into ammonia and transporting ammonia, and then you could crack that back to hydrogen that can be blended into gas residentially, even into power stations and even talking about burning ammonia? So is this potentially some serious threat to gas and LNG demand risk, I guess, in much longer term? And then secondly, a little bit closer to the quarter. Chemicals pretty strong. One of the best quarters you've had, I think, in the last 12 months, at least. Utilization was down, so it's cost reduction and you gave a lot of good group examples there within your comments. But which one was applicable to chemicals? How did you get the cost out of a finely tuned Chemical business? And frankly, I mean you didn't downgrade your Chemical margins in the macro reset. So, can you just give us what are you looking at, or when can we expect this next chemical upcycle to really begin? Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Thanks very much, Oswald. Really a nice set of questions. I'll take a stab at both of them and then hand over to Jessica. The hydrogen story, yes, it's -- and for those of you who have not paid close attention to that particular press release yesterday evening so we -- in winning the HKN wind tender in the Netherlands, we also have as part of the integration into the downstream value chain division that we should build a very large hydrogen plant in Rotterdam fueled by green electricity. We will use that hydrogen for which there is, at this point in time, not a high-graded, high-quality market other than, say, industrial use. We will use that hydrogen initially in our refining and chemical facilities, but then with a view that we, over time, upgrade it to hydrogen for heavy-duty road transport, building that business in Northwest Europe from the Port of Rotterdam throughout the distribution systems of Northwest Europe. I think that's a typical example, in my mind, of how these businesses can play to our strength. Many a time when we talk about new energies or power, people think of us just being another wind farm developer. And in reality, of course, it needs to be much more sophisticated if we really want to play to our strengths and if you really want to have superior returns that you can build on the back of it. It'll be a bit presumptuous, I think, at this point in time, Oswald, to say, well, these are the returns. This is a market that we have to -- and that will take us some time. But I do believe it will set us up very well already as one of the largest, if not the largest, hydrogen player in the mobility sector to really capture very significant parts of that future value pine. You're absolutely right that there are multiple other energy vectors under consideration, ammonia being one of them, and the idea of ammonia for shipping is a good one. And indeed, Middle East, cheap solar could be a way of doing it. I couldn't see why that also wouldn't be a way for us if that was a very valuable way of developing it. And we try to unlock these types of opportunities with a strategic update of looking at the sectors of the economy to bring value into the house. So, figuring out what customers need and then working back from there. I can also see how hydrogen and liquefaction could be an opportunity, and that's why we are also participating in pathfinding projects to do liquid hydrogen shipping. Now, bear in mind, I'm incredibly excited by the opportunities that this will bring, but this will not be a business to rival deepwater in the next 10 years. This will take some time as many of these businesses will take decades to develop. But the first movers who lay out the strategic advantages in their own networks and capabilities will be the winners of the future. And that's why you see us go after these opportunities with so much bigger. Chemicals is indeed a bit of a bright spot at this point in time, and everything is, of course, relatively speaking. I couldn't say that chemicals is anywhere near sort of average conditions, but some aspects of chemicals have performed really well. And you can probably guess which ones they are. So, those sectors that feed the detergent market, the personal care market, but also the packaging market, the medical sector, all these segments of our chemical business have performed well. Not so well, of course, is durable goods, cars, fridges, etc.. But then again, these things will probably come a little bit later as we see the economy picking up. So, there is more to come, but I'm hopeful that chemicals has entered the path of recovery now. In terms of cost and other aspects, Jessica, anything to add? Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Perhaps two points. Just on the first one to emphasize, things like HKN and getting into the wind project in the Netherlands is really the kind of the starting point of creating options and designing and implementing new business models for the low-carbon energy future. And linking that to our existing capabilities and where we believe the energy system is moving ultimately to hydrogen -- excuse me, pointed to something. And the integrated value chain that we can create, starting with this wind position, converting it to hydrogen and then bringing it into the transport sector or to the manufacturing sector, that will create differentiated business models for us that I think we're uniquely placed to deliver against and also differentiated return potential. So, it's not the unsubsidized wind project return that we're interested in. We're interested in that bigger story, that bigger idea around the integrated value that we believe significant value and returns can be created. On the chemicals business, a couple of points to pull out of the story. Feedstock has also contributed to some of the better performance that we're seeing in the quarter. So, some of the lower costs, the lower prices are helping part of our business. And of course, as Ben mentioned, all of the belt-tightening that we're doing across the organization, every corner of the company is being touched and that's also being reflected in the operating cost for chemicals. Oswald Clint -- Sanford C. Bernstein -- Analyst That's excellent. Thank you. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer OK. Thank you very much, Oswald. Rochelle, who can we go to next? Operator To Alastair Syme with Citi. Alastair Syme -- Citi -- Analyst Hi. Thanks to both. Can I just ask about impairment? I was still trying to figure out how much of the macro change is ultimately COVID-related versus something that's been maybe building in your thinking for some time. For instance, I made the observation that the plan to rationalize the refining footprint from 15 to 10 assets has been in place for some time. So, what sort of why wait until now to impair? And then, the second question, just to pull on the strap-line that Shell is becoming a leaner, more focused company. It sounds very similar to something I remember at the time of the BG acquisition. So, I wonder really what that means and how you think you'll measure success on that metric. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer OK. Thanks, Alastair. Would you take the impairment question first, Jessica? I'll work to more focus. Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Yes. So, the impairments are a reflection or an outcome of our resetting our long-term prices for oil, gas and refining margins, in particular. That was the main driver, price. But of course, we've completely changed our capex profile in the near term, and that also has implications. The ultimate value will realize from some of our assets. So, both the price change and the shift in some of the developments that we'll do, given the capex program that we're following, also has an impact. Now, how much of that is COVID versus kind of other circumstances, a significant portion of it is COVID. Certainly, the near-term outlook is largely, if not entirely, driven by the macroeconomic implications of what COVID has unleashed. But indeed, as you mentioned, Alastair, there are some strategic elements that we have been speaking to for the last couple of years. So, our outlook on the refining sector and where we believe we can create value and where we see the refining business fitting into the future of energy and the future low-carbon energy system, certainly is influencing our view on the assets and the potential that we see with the assets, but that came into play as well, both in terms of our margin outlook, as well as kind of the investment profile that we have for our assets. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer And then on the more focus, I do, first of all, believe, Alastair, that the BG acquisition gave us more focus. So, on the back of it, we created from two strong parts of our portfolio, two really strong crown jewels and maybe even helped the third one. So, our Deep Water business, which was a good business, became a really core focus area in our portfolio as we added the BG deepwater assets into it. And very clearly, now it is a foundation piece going forward. And the same can be said about our LNG business where we -- basically through combining No.1, two, and if you go a bit further deep, the Repsol acquisition, also No. 3, into a really significant, now global player that is totally unrivaled. We -- you could argue that some of our trading capabilities were further boosted as well, and that's our third crown jewel that we have. And then in the process, we went out of oil sands. We rationalized the portfolio in one relatively concentrated effort with $30 billion of assets that we got out of, with another $10 billion being worked on, the half of which has been delivered already last year. So, yes, indeed, the portfolio has become much more concentrated on back of that BG deal. Now, can we do that again? Well, in a different way, yes, we can. I do believe that if, indeed, we reduce our refining footprint, we probably have a much more high-graded view on how we want to cluster our manufacturing assets in general together. So, refining and chemicals, I think, is now really down to a very high-quality core footprint around which we can trade and optimize and that can serve multiple segments of the economy so that, again, will be a portfolio simplification in that area with all the simplifications that come with it, all the attributes that organizationally hang of it can be made much more focused. And the same will be true for our upstream portfolio. I have no doubt that at the end of the journey, we can present you with a much more high-graded focused portfolio that really concentrates on the core assets within it, core countries within it and where we will have a differentiated approach, do what it is that we will really nurture and look after and what we will really manage is for residual value. And then with all of that, I'm sure we can also, having learned in the last six months how to operate things differently, become much more focused about where we want to emphasize controls and oversight. So, having had to work on a very -- either localized level or a very centralized level, we are discovering new ways in which we can actually effectively manage this very large portfolio of businesses, markets, assets, etc.. And also there, therefore, we can make some further simplification, which ultimately will lead to more nimbleness, but also more focus on where we want to put our attention, where we want to put our money, where we want to make our difference. It will be, therefore, a slightly different story than the BG story, but it will be an equally compelling story, Alastair. Rochelle, how can we go to the next? Operator We'll hear from Michele Della Vigna with Goldman Sachs. Michele Della Vigna -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst Ben and Jessica, it's Michele. I wanted to ask you two questions. The first one is about cash distributions to shareholders. You operate in a highly cyclical business, and it's important to preserve flexibility. But I was wondering how you're thinking about the current cash distribution model of progressive dividend and buybacks in upcycles versus a possible model of progressive -- of variable dividends with a guaranteed floor and the more cyclical element to it as well? And then, secondly, in terms of investment opportunities, you continue to upgrade your portfolio. I was wondering if the economic environment improves and you can increase your capex back toward the mid-20s, which project and which area would you give priority to for that extra investment. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer OK. Very good. Thanks very much, Michele. Why don't you take the shareholder distribution question first, Jessica? I will talk a little bit about the capex and upgrade portfolio. Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Thank you for the question. And it's a very important question and one that we spend a considerable amount of time considering and looking at different alternatives and options to ensure that the dividend policy that we have is right for the company and, hopefully, right for our shareholders. It's also an area that we've actively sought input from our shareholders on as well, and we continue to do that. I think particularly at this moment in time, given, as you said, this high degree of cyclicality that we're experiencing and particularly with the uncertainty around the outlook, our view is that certain level of stability is warranted and appropriate and getting to a dividend level that is sustainable and resilient through the cycle and through considerable stress, which brought us to the dividend level that we're having today. As things recover, at this moment in time, we think the progressive dividend is the right way to go. Of course, we can top that up with share buybacks, and I would expect that would be a feature as we have excess cash in terms of the nature of shareholder distributions going forward. But at this moment in time, I think right now, we see the value of stability and introducing a high degree of volatility around the dividend, particularly at this moment in time, didn't look like the right choice for us, but we actively review it. And as the company changes, cash flow changes over the next five to 10 years, different models may be appropriate, and we'll continue to actively consider it. But with the progressive dividend, combined with share buybacks, we think that's likely the right outcome for us at this moment in time. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer And then on the portfolio development and where to grow capex back, of course, we will give you a lot more detail in the strategy day when we get there, and we have done a lot of work, and we have a better view on, indeed, how that economic recovery is playing out. But there's a few hints already, of course, in today's material and also if you look back at our management day last year. So if you look back at our management day last year, we were going to keep upstream basically in sustained mode. We were going to put disproportionate growth into the transition themes, and we were going to mature over time a power business that will position us for the future. If you look at our capital program today, which, of course, we had to vigorously scale back, you will basically see that we are not sustaining our upstream with the sort of capital nurturing that we give it. We still try to grow our transition themes where we can, partly also because there's projects under way. And we preserve a certain amount of money for good opportunities in the Power theme. Now if we find ourselves a bit more cash to spend and if we want to prioritize some of that cash back again to growing capital project portfolio, first of all, we will have plenty to choose from because a lot of it has been squeezed out of this year, potentially even next year into years to come. So, we will have a very rich cupboard to pick from and we will, of course, pick the best projects. But you will probably see the same sort of trend as a trend between today's program, what we were talking about last year. So in other words, a preference for leaning into the energy transition, a desire to build the business of the future, but all of that having to compete with what you could almost call the base projects in upstream that bring a certain return around and that we also have to sustain in order to provide the cash for the future. So, I think that healthy tension where the different sort of strategic vectors compete for capital, we will maintain, but we will have a clear view to understand our capital allocation, we lean into the energy system of the future. With more details to come, Michele, in February next year. Rochelle, can we go to the next question, please? Operator Yes. We'll hear from Thomas Adolff with Credit Suisse. Thomas Adolff -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst Good afternoon, Jessica, Ben. Two questions for me as well. Just firstly, on trading. Trading, obviously, is a key part of how you run and optimize your business and your value chain, be it in oil, gas and in the future, electricity. And in this quarter, you generated strong earnings in oil. They're still in gas products' life. But generally speaking, how differentiated and how difficult is it to replicate such business model as yours? And then, secondly, as it relates to the electricity business, and I'm excluding trading optimization here. In your view, what is the competitive advantage that Shell brings versus in terms of the incumbents, the utility companies? And what are the benefits or trade-offs of having everything under one roof? Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer OK. Very good. Thanks, Thomas, two very important questions. Usually, I would talk about Electricity business and Jessica about trading. Why don't we flip it around? I will talk about trading, and Jessica will talk about the logic that we want to deploy in our power business. So is trading really differentiated, or if you -- if there is a strong contango in the market, well, people who actually are so minded can make money, whether you are a good or a bad trader. Well, first of all, let me say, indeed, we did make money off the conventional contango plays. We did very well, and we have a lot of opportunities to do so. But it's not just a conventional contango plays we make money with. We are very well positioned to enter into contango plays of non-benchmark crudes that we understand a whole lot better than your average commodity trader in the market. We can also make money out of contango plays in blending components, particularly in fuel oil where the reconstitution of these components into end products, having gone through a contango phase, can be value that is very hard to see unless you truly understand structure and the nature of the business. So, yes, contango plays have been important, but I think we do contango on steroids. Then if you look at second factor of value creation, it's around volatility. And of course, a lot of people can make money in volatility. A lot of people, by the way, can also lose a lot of money. But what we see, again, is arbitrage opportunities that we can capture, and we can probably see and understand and lock in these arbitrage opportunities a bit better than some of the others. That is because we are very well positioned with our marketing positions around the world, shipping operations that have access to a lot of data, our refining positions that we have. And the sheer trading flow that we have gives us a data flow that allows us to really eke out transient value a whole lot better than perhaps your average trader. And then again, we can do it with assets. It's not just a matter of, can I arbitrage unlocking an advantage, but again, can I lock it in or blending in unusual ways, or can I do really things that others can't do? And let me give you a really nice example. So, take the Pernis refinery in Rotterdam, largest refinery in Europe, sits in a market where it produces normally quite a bit of jet fuel. That market disappeared for 90%. We were able to completely reconstruct the way we work around this refinery, but that it could produce zero jet fuel, but that we could buy jet fuel, make money on the -- on that particular trade and then, again, reconstitute the products coming out of its refinery to make money elsewhere. That's not ordinary trading. That is actually optimizing market positions that we know better than anybody how to take advantage of. And then more generally, the amount of data flow that comes through our trading and optimization organization is, I think, probably the richest in the world. So again, if we want to, we can understand where positions are opening up, which positions are smart to take, but also how we can see things coming. So, every week, on every Wednesday and every Sunday night, I read the trading analysis of what we see coming in the week, and I see how we respond to it. The insights that we have, truly unique. And they are not just trying to understand what is happening with hydrocarbons around the world that tap in into multiple data repositories of every aspect of the economy. So, it is a very sophisticated machinery that also works with the underlying asset base and the underlying market positions to create value that others cannot create. So yes, did it work particularly well in today's environment? Of course, it worked particularly well. But again, it is -- it has an element of uniqueness in it that I believe sets us apart from many of the other conventional players in the market. Let me hand over to have you talk about electricity. Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Great. Thank you, Thomas, for the question. And let me speak to a number of points where I think Shell brings distinct competitive advantage to the power sector. Start off with, we are the second largest marketer of power in the U.S., which is the largest market available -- energy market available to private players. And we've created that position over the last 10, 15 years, and that gives us capability insight that we're increasingly leveraging in other parts of the world, whether that be in Europe, in Australia or Brazil. So, we have experience and capability today in the power system that is unique, certainly, in our sector. If you think about the future and the future of the energy system, power will be essential into the decarbonization of the economy. And going back to the project we were just speaking about, HKN, it's a great example of what the future of energy is going to look like, what the future business models are going to look like. I think there's a few companies that can compete with Shell in terms of trying to create these integrated business models and value chains. There's a few companies that could participate in the building and operations of these large wind farms, then build the largest electrolyzer planet to convert that to hydrogen and then bring that to refineries, our own refineries which has certain amount of de-risking in it, but importantly, then to build out the hydrogen molecule flows for transport in Europe. And I don't think there's any other company that can span that in the same way, bringing capabilities that we have today and positions that we have today to serve the business models and the future energy flows. Our position in energy around the globe, I think, again, gives us unique insight on how energy flows today. That speaks to the trading capability and, importantly, the position that we have with -- across different sectors, where we're increasingly taking a sectorial approach to how we believe the systems need to decarbonize. The leadership that we can bring to that in terms of our convening power and bringing groups of people together to figure out how do we decarbonize these different value chains and then bringing genuine skill and capability and making that happen. We've talked about how we're doing that in the aviation sector. That's more speaking to kind of future of biofuels and other and bio jets, so a different way of serving that sector. But if you think about the IT sector, the Microsoft, the Amazons, the Facebook, they have significant power needs around the globe, and they're trying to decarbonize their companies, and they're speaking to us because we're present around the globe. We bring the power capability today, certainly from the trading perspective and increasingly from the generation and development perspective, solar and wind assets. And again, being able to bring together these different capabilities, bring together different participants in a sector to figure out how do we decarbonize these sectors. And to do this globally, leveraging our assets and our people and skills, I believe, is a distinct advantage that we bring to power. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Jessica. OK, Rochelle. Who is next? Operator And next, we have Biraj Borkhataria. Biraj Borkhataria -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I have also two, please. The first one is on the CrossWind announcement yesterday. Obviously, there's a bunch of elements attached to that that you've run through and it does strike me as something very Shell like to find innovative ways to do things. I guess the question I have is, is these innovations are not always good for the shareholders? So maybe could you talk about the extra elements of that project and what it does for project returns? I'm just trying to understand whether -- or understand the benefits of being a fast mover versus a fast follower in that type of business. And then the second question is on your shales business. There's obviously a lot of focus on new energies at the moment, but you're still planning to spend $1.5 million on shales this year, which is more than in new energies. And a couple of years ago, you and all your peers were extremely positive on that theme and talked about growing the business. And I just wonder, at this point, given your view on commodity prices, could you outline why you need to be in that business at all? It doesn't appear that you have an obvious strategic advantage. The track record isn't great. And you've got plenty of competition that is willing to plough more money in that business model, which hasn't been proven, especially at scale. So, would you consider exiting? That would be -- just some thoughts on that would be helpful. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Biraj. Let me talk about CrossWind, and Jessica will say a few words about shales and the strategic logic and what we're trying to achieve there. Indeed, I thank you for recognizing that doing a project like CrossWind with a broader value chain hanging off it is very Shell like. I think that is an important observation. We like to think that as well for the reasons that Jessica just mentioned. We are able to actually assemble a future value chain, not just building a wind farm and trying to sell it in the merchant market in the Netherlands, but assembling an entire value chain around it. That again will set us up to win. What the returns of these value chains are? Well, let me focus on the power project first. We think the power project is competitive. But the -- and what exactly the returns are? We normally don't disclose very much depends, of course, also on your outlook on the power market. But then again, setting up the value chains of the future, forward integrating it into hydrogen for transportation and industrial use is actually a pathfinding way that will, in the midterm, I think, give differentiated returns, simply because we are capturing markets where people want to decarbonize, but do not have the available tools to do so. So, before such a technology becomes common good and completely commoditizes and becomes subject to the usual competitive forces, there is a sweet spot where, indeed, very good revs can be captured. But to enter that sweet spot, indeed, you have to take risk. Or sometimes, you have to figure out ways and means to make the economics work, sometimes even with government support and other ways to sort of level the playing field against the conventional alternatives for the industrial and mobility sectors. That is our game as well. We are not just a commodity player where we step in as the No. 4 or No. 5 follower. We break open new technologies, new markets. We were trailblazers also in the field of LNG. I am sure that you would be able to go back to those times. People were wondering, why bother? This is a small market. Doesn't really matter. Here we are, indeed, many years later, but now we believe it's one of the most successful sectors of the oil and gas industry going forward. So sometimes, you have to place these things in a somewhat longer perspective, Biraj. It's -- are we splashing billions of dollars on hydrogen? No, of course, not. This is a -- these are structurally seeding our businesses, and we have to go at a pace that it is absorbable, that we understand how we are derisking it, that we are ready to make the next step, etc.. But it is definitely a path we want to travel because we do believe that in years to come, we will look back on these decisions and say, right, that was a good strategic move, and now we are enjoying a growing business with strong returns. On shales then, Jessica? Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Yes. So, on shales, fundamentals of shales can translate to what we believe is a high-return business. If you've got the right assets, you've got the right capability and you steward the resources appropriately, we can see our way to high returns with our shales business. Our Permian asset, we think, is one of the kind of crown jewels in the Shale industry. The capability we've developed in terms of our wells' performance, we believe it's best in class. And our stewardship of capital and the kind of unit development costs we've been able to achieve and what we're doing on the operational expense side that Ben spoke to earlier, speaks to, I think, the quality of our management, as well as the quality of our stewardship. So, when you put those different elements together, it can be a very exciting business and a very competitive business in the upstream sector. And of course, at this moment in time, I think it's challenging for many upstream businesses to look particularly good at the very low point in the cycle. So, I wouldn't use this moment to necessarily judge the quality of the sector nor the quality of the business. But again, you need to have each of those elements in play in order to achieve good return business. A couple of other points I would -- I think, are worth mentioning. I think the shales business has been an important area of innovation for the upstream business. We've gained a lot from our participation in our shales business that we've translated to other parts of Shell, where we've tested some of our digital technologies, innovative ways we're working with data and learning how to do the upstream business out of a very different pace. So, I think there's other knock-on benefits of continuing to operate in that sector. In addition, as most of you know, there is a high degree of flexibility. So, when you think about the portfolio and the ability to ramp up and ramp down, which can be difficult in other parts of the upstream business, that's one of the elements that Shale brings to the party that other parts of the upstream business doesn't. And then finally, there's the integration opportunity, particularly in North America, that we have and that is a source of potential of further value creation, either connecting to our downstream business or through our trading by optimization activities, as well as from a risk management perspective and that's served us well over the last couple of years. I think there's a number of reasons to believe it is a difficult moment in the cycle. But the fundamentals, if you run the business well, are worth it. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Jessica. Thanks, Biraj. Can I have the next question please, Rochelle? Operator Yes. Certainly, we'll hear from Lydia Rainforth with Barclays. Lydia Rainforth -- Barclays -- Analyst Thanks and good morning. Two questions again. The first one, when we're talking about the idea of fundamentally restructuring and simplifying Shell, is that what you need to do to get to that 3 to $4 billion of operating expense reduction by next year, or is it [Inaudible]. And secondly, there's something you talked about in the opening remarks about being clear, both on the customer and shareholder value. If I reflect on that, we have seen a lot of changes in the last six months, be it the move toward net zero, the dividend change, the lower oil and gas price assumptions, the downstream impairments. But as a lot of things changed, has your thinking [Inaudible] out the strategy, and what [Inaudible]? Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Thanks very much, Lydia. You were on the line, broke up a little bit, but I believe I got what it is that you said. Let me try to see whether I can get to your next question, which I thought was -- there's a lot of change as our strategy fundamentally changed. I'll say a few words about the fundamental change and the relation to cost. And I'm sure that Jessica will have a few things to add there as well. We discussed that also in great detail over the last few weeks and yesterday with the board. I think on the sort of the change that you mentioned, stronger customer centricity. Indeed, we have come out with a sharpened ambition. We have better articulated what it means to be in line with Paris. I think these are natural progressions from strategy that we probably entered into years ago, when we said we want to be part of the energy system of the future, and that means that we have to change the product portfolio, probably has to mean that we have to have a slightly different investment mix. And progressively, we have found out that we have to actually work from the customer back, particularly if you want to have a focus on reducing Scope 3 emissions and finding the business models of the future that will do so. So, I wouldn't say that things that you've heard in that space are somehow radical rethink. They are progressive insight that is founded by the idea that if you want to thrive in the energy transition, if you want to be around in another 100 years' time, we need to evolve as we have evolved over the last 100. Now, indeed, it's tempting to think that that then is sort of logically connected to the dividend and other things that we have done, maybe even the impairment, etc., but it isn't. The reduction in dividend and the reset that we had to do was the result of a macroeconomic shock that gave us the risk of reducing our financial resilience we have to countermeasure, not only with cost and capex measures, but unfortunately, also with shareholder distributions. So, there is no correlation between one and the other. We could have done one and the other at the same time in a normal macro environment as well. I think that's quite important to note. And the same is true for the impairments. The impairments are a -- if I put it as a gross of a simplification, but nevertheless, a bit a core of truth in it, it's an accounting event. If you look at the fundamental change in the company, well, yes. So, we are, as we said, a bit progressive insight, understanding what we need to do different in order to position the company successfully for the future on the energy transition and other things that are happening. But at the same time, we're also learning how to cope with the pandemic, anticipating what would come next from it and also learning out of necessities sometimes, how different ways of working can actually be quite beneficial. So, if you just don't want to suffer the pandemic and see how you work your way through it, but if you want to see it as an opportunity for renewal, you think through, what am I going to do differently at the end of this? And there is actually quite a few things that we can do different and actually then require us to rethink. It's not just going to be trimming at the edges. That's all work from home a day, a week. It's completely rethinking how we are going to run this company in a different way and how we're going to have maybe different ways of oversight, different portfolio as a result of it, and that's what I mean. Now to what extent do we need to do all of this to deliver on the original commitment, let me hand over to Jessica. Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Lydia, thank you for the question. I was going to start with the strategy, but I'll start instead with the cost piece. When we set out the target for the market in the first quarter to reduce our opex by some 3 to $4 billion by the end of Q1 2021 relative to 2019, that was before we initiated this larger look at our organization and how do we ensure we're designed and organizing our resources to deliver on our strategy going forward. That was looking at what are the measures that we can take in the next 12 months to reduce our costs. And you see that happening already today. So, our costs in the second quarter were down by some $1 billion relative to Q1 and, importantly, on an underlying basis, down some $2 billion from Q2 2019. So these are the immediate measures we've put in place. There's things like reducing travel costs, there's the stopping of the bonus for this year, which is about $1 billion and reducing activity, repacing growth spend, etc. And I have a lot of confidence that we'll achieve that reduction over the next 12 months. But not all of those reductions are sustainable, and they are short term -- a number of them are short-term measures. This is where the reshape program that we're doing looks to then sustainably change the way we work to ensure we're designed to support delivery of our strategy and ultimately be a simpler company and have lower costs. But that will be really felt kind of 2021, 2022 as those changes are put in place. So there are different numbers and kind of different activity levels that are driving those outcomes, probably comparable numbers [Inaudible]. But the first one is really kind of the short-term measures. Well, the restructuring program or the resizing program, that is more about how do we sustainably change the way we work, both in terms of delivering our strategy, but also to be more simpler and lower cost going forward. On the strategy one that Ben has more than well covered very well, I just want to -- I would characterize it as, as Ben said, progressive insights, that is kind of an evolution of the strategy. I think the important point for me is that it's increased pace and increased intensity. It's not that they're new ideas or new concept. A lot of this has been embedded in our thinking when we had the strategic pillar of driving to the energy transition. We believe that the appetite and the opportunity is accelerating. And it's with that in mind that we're looking to move probably more quickly and more intensely than perhaps 12 or 24 months ago. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Jessica. Thank you. I see we have quite a few more questions in the queue, so let's see whether we can add a little bit of comment at the end of it to make sure that we cover them all well. Rochelle, who can we give the mic to next? Operator We'll hear from Jon Rigby with UBS. Jon Rigby -- UBS -- Analyst Hi, yes. Thanks. A question or two, please. First, on the impairments, you've alluded a couple of times to accounting issues. You also then talked about the benefits of locking together some of the Shell activities, the BG activities in LNG. You obviously reported a huge trading benefit and talked about the recurring nature of the optimization around assets and so on. And my question really is, is there a genuine -- particularly in the downstream and integrated gas, is there a genuine impairment in value that you're signaling with this Q2 impairment charge? And when you considered and looked at this, was there an option to sort of think about the sort of consolidated activities of the business rather than the way that the legacy and assets had originally been constituted because it seems to me is there's been a lot of repurposing over the last few years? That's first question. And the second one is, I noticed that you took about a $5 billion charge through equity for the pension fund. And the pension fund, there's an obligation, I think, of about $95 billion at the end of the year of 2019. So, not much short of your market capitalization. And that's a big swing. So, I just wondered whether, a, is there a way of managing that going forward, or is that an obligation that we're going to have to live with and some of the implications that come with that, which are often not good? And the second is, is there a potential for increased cash out going forward to fund that pension obligation? Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Very good questions. So, Jon, let me make a beginning on the impairment point and then hand over to Jessica, who will undoubtedly add some to it and then can also cover with the pension fund adjustment. So if I understand your question correctly, Jon, so how can you square the idea that we would impair assets, say, for instance, in integrated gas, where you've seen actually the largest impairment occur, when there is so much associated trading value, for instance, with that asset? And is it indeed correct to take the impairment in the way that we have done. That is a very good question, but we are absolutely bound by accounting convention, where we have to look at the cash-generating unit, which is often just very narrowly defined to the asset that sits on the books. The intangible value that sits in our trading organization that adds a lot of extrinsic value to such an asset because it's part of a portfolio within which we can trade and optimize around that asset. We can, from an earnings perspective, segment that income perhaps back to that asset that is not possible to use as a methodology when we go through the accounting process of impairing of value erosion review on assets. That's narrow. So, that means that, indeed, in some cases, yes, we have to recognize that the asset was on the books with more value than it strictly speaking has on an intrinsic basis, but it doesn't necessarily mean that that value has disappeared. And we have that not only in our gas business, we also have that in other businesses, but the assets are part of a broader value creation network as value creation extrinsic to the asset cannot be taken into account when looking at the valuation of that asset on. Let's see whether I have that sufficiently correct for Jessica to add something to it. And then maybe if you can also talk to the pension fund question, Jessica. Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Sure. Jon, thank you for the questions. And I think Ben covered it well. We engaged deeply on this with our internal accountants and our auditors as well because some of the answers that are right from an accounting perspective are not intuitive from a business perspective for the reasons that you've mentioned, Jon, and Ben has as well. So, we're doing this technically correct. But does that mean that the impairment reflects the true kind of economic value of that asset in the value chain? In many cases, it doesn't. And so, there are many instances in assets that were impaired this quarter, where they provide tremendous value to our integrated gas business, to our downstream business, and as I mentioned in my speech, where we see some of these assets to be very strategic for us in the future. But that is -- we're doing things right from an accounting perspective, but it may not make intuitive business sense. That being said, there are some assets that -- where there is value, some of the exploration assets that we're not going to pursue. But I'd say, a significant number of the larger assets that were impacted are ones that we see significant strategic and economic value going forward. Pension fund. It's a really important question and good to raise and acknowledge that is a large number from a liability perspective. We also have significant assets against those liabilities. And what you're seeing is kind of the net of those two things. The impact on that balance does change, driven by the interest rate environment. That's been the single largest driver of change in the last couple of years. Sometimes that has gone in our favor. So, last quarter, we had opposite effect of a comparable amount as interest rates increased. So, that is a reflection of the interest rate environment. I don't think there's much we can do. That's simply the accounting and the reporting. And if you look over the last couple of years, it's been pluses and minuses going both directions. You also have movements on the asset side as well. And so, as the equity markets recover, the asset values also increase. And so, what you're seeing is the net of all of those effects coming through. That's on the reporting side. That's different from the funding side. Funding is handled very, very differently, and it's given -- it's driven by the requirements of each of the pension plans in the countries where we operate. There is the potential for us to have additional funding requirements. To some extent, that's always the case. We manage this very carefully as a group. And I believe we're in a very solid funding position. But depending on what happens with interest rates, what happens with the equity markets, additional funding can be required and that's part of what we planned for and resiliency of the company and the cash flows going forward. So, it depends on what happens, as I said, in the interest rate environment and the equity markets, in particular, but that's well-considered in all of our plans going forward. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer OK, thanks. Can we have the next, please -- question please, Rochelle? Operator We'll hear from Christyan Malek with Morgan Stanley. Christyan Malek -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst Yes. Thanks for taking my questions. It's Christyan Malek with JP Morgan. First, the outlook for demand. Shell prides itself on being integrated in most end markets yet this crisis is sort of seeing the entire energy complex contracts in unprecedented way. What green shoots are you seeing, if any, in the outlook for crude demand when compared to your views a quarter ago? Has anything, I guess, changed the better or worse? And I guess, secondly, in allied to that. I wanted to ask you more about the portfolio reshaping as far as being fit in the future vis-a-vis your volatility and not the least, energy transition? But February next year does seem quite a long time away, and I'm not sure I can take away from this call the major changes on the horizon or not, especially in what you would consider core versus non-core. Are you open to divestment? You mentioned deepwater LNG marketing quite a bit. And would it be fair to say that you may need a more radical overall in the business? And what I'm trying to get to is, can you at least provide a basic framework into helping us model Shell Version 2.0, the backdrop being that one could argue the financial frame as it stands, either need the major cash injection or higher all-in order to deliver the investment needed to materially scale up new energies? Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer OK. Thanks, Christyan. I'm not entirely sure whether I got everything because there was a bit of a disturbance on the line as well for me. The demand outlook, it's, of course, a very important question. I'll talk to that a little bit. Jessica, you OK to do some of the portfolio reshaping? It is, of course, very hard to predict exactly where demand will go going forward. It -- in some sectors, we see the beginnings of a recovery. I mentioned earlier, the Chemical sector that is still a very significant driver for oil and gas demand as well. But of course, for us, it's also a significant part of cash flow if it works well, and we see the beginnings of a recovery trajectory, we believe. On the more conventional fuel side and, therefore, oil, I think it's very mixed. So, in some sectors, we see actually quite good recovery. So, take, for instance, motor gasoline and diesel, there's a fair degree of recovery, particularly in countries that are a bit further down the first wave. We see actually, in some cases, a stronger demand than we saw before the pandemic. That's not -- that we have, but it's in a few cases, absolutely true, partly because people tend to use public transport less and a more safe and secure in their own car for commuting. We see countries coming out of lockdown, of course, going into a bit of a fast recovery on personal mobility fuels. And then there is a wide spread in this. So, we see resilient demand in China, as I said, ahead of last year. The biggest growth we are actually seeing in Russia, that's 13% up. But the worst-performing market is India, 45% down. So, we are dealing with a very wide tapestry of market recovery archetypes. If you look at lubricants, we see also quite a wide range of performance. So, Europe down very considerably, but now recovering back to 90% of what it was. But then in other places like China, for instance, we are seeing 15% more lubricants' demand in the second quarter of this year than in the second quarter of last year. So, it is quite surprising to see the differentiated approach. I probably don't have to tell you much about aviation, where we probably see a recovery back up to, well, probably 50% what it used to be by the end of this year. So, altogether, I do think that we will end this year not in a fully recovered market. And it may well take 2021, of course, to get back to where we were. What happens after that is, I think, much more difficult to predict. And everybody who can tell you certain things with certainty, I think you have to take with a great pinch of salt. And of course, we don't know how this pandemic is going to work out. I hope it will work out well. And I hope that any subsequent episodes are going to be limited to outbreaks rather than massively new waves, and I hope we will be able to deal with it a whole lot better. But the uncertainty that hangs over the market is still, I think, very palpable, not only in demand, but I'm sure you've seen as well, pricing and everything. So on gas, I'm a little bit more hopeful. I think the gas markets will recover more strongly. Industrial demand will come back. There is limited short-term alternatives for that. I think also if we see a resumption of normal economic activity, pace heating, power demand, etc., will all come back. But I think the chances are that a full recovery are -- is going to be probably more toward the end of next year. Let me leave it at that. And Jessica, can you take care of Christyan's next question? Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Yes. Christyan, it was a little bit difficult to hear you. So, hopefully, I'm answering the right question. The main takeaway I had from your question was, do we have right portfolio as it fits for the future? So that's what I'm going to speak to and, hopefully, that touches on the elements that you wanted us to touch on. I'd start off with what I believe is a view that the quality of our portfolio today is evident in the very strong cash generation that you see in the quarter against a very difficult backdrop, difficult prices, difficult margins, difficult volume levels, and yet, the capacity to generate 6.5 billion. I was kind of expecting, Christyan, you might ask us about the breakeven price because usually -- and this would be a good quarter to have that conversation, given the cash generated. Against this profile. So, I -- in terms of the quality of the portfolio, I think the results, certainly from a cash generation, large extent, speaks for itself in terms of the quality of the assets that we have in IG and in our deepwater business and our marketing business, which continues to show a lot of resilience through a number of different macroeconomic backdrops. That being said, we want to continue to improve, make more robust, more resilient, more competitive our portfolio, so we're never off that train. On the refining side, we've been clear that we're going to reduce the number to some 15 to less than 10, and that is about having the assets that best align with our strategy and where we think we can competitively differentiate. And with those assets to continue to retool them for a low-carbon energy future. That will be the work that we're doing in the portfolio over the coming years. And then there's a piece of leaning into the energy transition. So, what are we going to do with our capital as the economy recovers? It will recover at some point in time, and we will have surplus cash. And when we have that surplus cash, we want to grow the company. Where are we going to look, and Ben talked about leaning into the energy transition. And just to make sure when we use those words, energy transition, that we're clear what that means. It's not just our power business, it is our chemicals business, it's our retail business, it's our lubricants business, as well as power, hydrogen, biofuels. This is the future of the energy system. This is where we believe we can meet and where we're going to be building out these businesses. And there are different degrees of maturity. Obviously, the chemicals business, retail business, lubricants business, those are all much more mature businesses. And so, your ability to invest more and see the returns and have confidence in that capital program is greater. Our hydrogen, biofuels, those are continuing to be maturing businesses and business models, so we're going to invest in those, but we're going to be prudent and make sure that we have confidence in the business model. And the return profile, we'll take some risk, but we want to take prudent risk as we build out these new businesses and business models of the future. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Great. Thanks very much, Jessica. Thank you very much. Can we have the next question, please, Rochelle? Operator We'll move to Henry Tarr with Berenberg. Henry Tarr -- Berenberg Capital Markets -- Analyst Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So, two quick ones, hopefully. Firstly, have you started marketing any of the refineries already? And is there any interest in those assets in what looks like a relatively challenged space longer term? And then secondly, at this point, balance sheet permitting, do you have any appetite for M&A with distressed assets available in certain sections, particularly, looking at the U.S. where you suggest that shale remains a core part of the business? Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Thanks very much, Henry, and two very relevant questions. So, yes, we are marketing our refineries at the moment. We have active, and they are actually in active discussions. So, this is not like we've put out some information package. We are actually in discussions, and they are at various stages of -- selling refineries is not a very trivial process. There's, of course, all sorts of, you can imagine, long-term liability issues and other things that have to be taken care of as well. But we started, when I worked in that business in 2004 with 55 refineries, now down to 15. So, we know how to also not only run them, but also to get rid of them. And that's what we will be doing. On the M&A front, of course, we always have to look at opportunities in the market that you would expect us to do so. And of course, there could well be opportunities available. But we've also, I think, been very clear about what our priorities for cash are. So, you can rely on the things that we have set when it comes to allocation of capital between the different priorities that we have. And we have to live within the frameworks that we have set out. Does that mean that we can do small-sized acquisitions that fit within the framework? Yes, absolutely. And that's why we are indeed looking, but we have to obey the constraints that we have set to ourselves, if we want to continue to market ourselves as a disciplined allocator of capital and one that preserves the financial resilience of the -- thanks, Henry. Can we have the next question, please? Operator We'll move to Jason from Jefferies. Jason Gammel -- Jefferies -- Analyst Thanks very much. Ben, in your prepared comments, you mentioned that in a more stable environment, you would allocate capital to deleveraging, increasing growth capex and increasing shareholder returns. But I guess the question I have is, what's the priority there? Because you have talked several times about needing to step up capital spending for growth, and you've also talked about getting the leverage ratio back down into the guidance range. The second question that I had is, I thought it was quite interesting you made a comment about evolving some refineries into low carbon chains. And I was hoping that you might expand a little bit on what you meant there. Is that converting into biodiesel refinery? Is that further integrating into petrochemicals? Just anything you can add there would be helpful and maybe even your outlook for the biodiesel market. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer OK. Great question, Jason. I'll take the second one, Jessica the first. Yes. So, what we -- what I think is reasonably clear, I hope, from our outlook is. We believe the future of refining tech or pure refining is going to be challenged. Doesn't mean you can't make money in it? But you have to have a sophisticated position in it, but that means refineries with high complexity, very well placed, deeply connected into well operating trading networks, so we can do all the tricks that I referred to earlier on in this call, but also, of course, more deeply integrated with other parts of the business. Conventional way of doing it, of course, is petrochemicals. But there's other ways you can do this. We can think indeed of bio components. We can think of also bringing green power, hydrogen and other ways of integrating to it. Now, so what you will see us do over time is indeed high grading. That's sort of more broad manufacturing part of our overall asset portfolio to just that, very sophisticated, multipurpose energy parks, if you like, integrated with product facilities. So, what that means, in some cases, may well be reducing the straight-run fuels in a refinery, so rightsizing it down to a more fit-for-purpose output, but then repurposing some of the units to do other things with. So, you can repurpose, say, for instance, hydrocracking units to be a feedstock provider for extremely high-quality base oils for lubricants. And then you're tapping into a completely different market. You can indeed integrate some of the biofuel technologies in units that then make more money than to just do, say, hydro processing. Or you can bring a deeper integration formula with petrochemicals in areas where that is possible. And so, what you will see us do is just that. So, it's probably going to be a combination of shrinking the fuel make, repurposing units in such a refinery to other types of processing capabilities and in the process, producing higher-quality products or products that are less susceptible to the pressures that we are seeing at the moment. Very simple and conventional ways. If I just bring it to life with one more example is to say, for instance, why would I want to upgrade the bottom of the barrel to sort of middle distillate, if I can also turn it into bitumen? And that may not sound like a very sexy proposition, but I can tell you, if you are the most sophisticated bitumen marketer in the world, which we also are, it can actually be an incredibly profitable proposition. So, it is tricks like this that you will see us do over the coming quarters. Jessica? Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Jason, for the question on our capital allocation and how are we going to prioritize cash as we return to a stable environment, hopefully sooner rather than later. We've tried to be very clear about our cash priorities. We've spoken to them in the same way for the last three years. And I want to be very clear that paying of our interest, our dividend and, importantly, ensuring that sufficient capex to maintain our assets and doing that all within a AA frame is a top priority for us. And so, the resilience of our balance sheet and acting prudently at this moment in time is absolutely front of mind and what drove the decisions that we've been making over the last six months and, in particular, the dividend decision. When the world returns to a more stable place and prices and margins recover and our cash flow recovers in that environment, we're looking to get to comfortably within AA range. We don't have to be at the bottom of our targets. We don't have to necessarily be in the middle of the target, but we want to be comfortably within it and have confidence in the outlook. Once we're in that position, we are going to look at continuing to grow the company, so capex. We've put a lot of things on hold. And of course, everything hangs off of investing in the company and creating more value and generating cash that we're able to fund even greater shareholder distributions and work further growth going forward. So, the investment in the company and investing in future cash flow growth is important. It's also very important that we have a compelling investment proposition for our shareholders. And increasing returns for our shareholders is also front of mind. We want to be No. 1 from a total shareholder return perspective, and that's only going to happen if we increase dividends or do buybacks and/or through share price appreciation. And I hope that all three of those things are featured in our very near future. So, ensuring that we've got the right return profile for our shareholders is absolutely front in mind. But we've got to keep all of these things in balance. Right now, the priority, given the circumstances that we're in and the outlook and the uncertainty around the outlook, focusing on the balance sheet, I believe, is absolutely the right thing to do. At one point in time, we'll be out of this moment. We'll have a strong balance sheet. We'll get comfortably in the AA metrics. We'll be looking to invest in the future of this company and creating value, and, importantly, ensuring that we've got a competitive and leading term profile for our shareholders. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer OK. Thank you very much. I see there's a few more questions. So, I know we are over time, but I want to make sure we do justice to all of you. So, we're going to continue until the questions are done. Who can we give the mic to next, Rochelle? Operator Martijn Rats with Morgan Stanley. Martijn Rats -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst Yes. Hi Martijn, not of JP Morgan. I'll keep it to one just because it's a long call already. Ben, you were recently quoted in a Dutch newspaper, talking about moving the headquarters to the U.K., and I briefly wanted to take you up sort of on that comment. It seemed a little out of context, but I wanted to sort of make sure I raise it and not specifically at that point, but actually the broader sort of issue of the vacation of the shares. How do you think about that? And also as part of that, what did you actually say about moving headquarters to the U.K.? Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Martijn. As both of you -- both you and I are Dutch speakers, I think you can actually read the interview in the Shell Dutch blog and see what exactly I said. I hadn't quite expected it to be actually a headline on the front page, I must admit. But it was entirely correct and true what I said. So it's very clear, we are a unified company that is quite often insufficiently well understood. We are 100% British plc, but we are headquartered in the Netherlands. That means that we are subject to the tax regime of the Netherlands. That was a conscious choice we made at the time in 2005 when we did the unification. Consequence of all of that was that we had to live with a unified share, but with two classes, if you like, or a single class but two versions of it, the As and the Bs, one with withholding tax and the other without withholding tax on the dividend. The expectation at the time was that the dividend withholding tax in the Netherlands would disappear. And at that point in time, we would indeed be able to simplify a dual share position as well. That hasn't happened. We've been in dialogue with the Dutch government for a long time on that. We have looked at all sorts of alternatives. But so far, we have not been able to exactly resolve it. Now, is that an issue for us at this point in time? No, it's not. But it gives us certain limitations that we have to obey. So, for instance, when we did the BG acquisition, we had to get permission upfront from the Dutch fisk to issue B shares to be able to do the acquisition. We got the permission, obviously, but it is less than ideal. We can also not completely freely buy back any -- and issue any of the two shares. We can well live within that limitation, but I'm concerned that some point in time, that limitation is actually going to be a real constraint for us. So, we've been very clear that we need to resolve that over time. We are very clear that it's not an issue for us at the moment. And one of the solutions would indeed be to step out of the Dutch tax regime. We have no plans of doing that. There is nothing in the making at this point in time, but it is indeed, you have to have an open mind on anything. That is just what good business people need to do, have an open mind. And that's exactly what I said. I think we have now a new impetus to dialogue with key people in the Netherlands on how our share structure issue gets resolved, and I'm hopeful and confident that it will get resolved. But there is nothing specifically in the making at this point in time, much unlike it has been suggested in some Dutch newspaper. Now, let's -- OK, thanks, Martijn. Let's go to the next question, please? Operator We'll hear from Irene Himona with Societe Generale. Irene Himona -- Societe Generale -- Analyst Thank you. Good afternoon. One question from me as well, I guess, for Jessica. If we assume that the unprecedented volatility of the first half doesn't repeat, if we stay where we are, more or less in terms of pricing, can you say whether you're managing working capital so as to release cash in the second half of the year, please? Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Irene. I think, Jessica, if you would take that one? Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Yes. So, Irene, the working capital increase in this quarter was driven by the increase in price predominantly at about two-thirds, and then a third of it was associated with increase in volumes. And that, of course, is the basis of how we secure the trading upside that we saw in the quarter. So, the most important driver, typically, of our working capital changes, particularly with respect to inventory, which tends to be what drives the working capital number each quarter, is really price driven. So, that's not so much a connection to the volatility. Volatility is probably connected to the volumes, but I think that's really difficult to kind of call. We -- that's part of the strength of our balance sheet is to use that to create value. So, to the extent that we see value out there, then we're going to maintain those volumes. But if that's not the case, then potentially, you'd see a rundown in the inventory levels in the coming months. Hopefully, that's helpful. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Let me add one point to it. We manage working capital on a relatively intensive basis. It is cash after all. And of course, while we can make good returns on working capital, as you have seen this quarter, it doesn't mean that it's on tap in the trading organization. So, we have a very strict management framework with involvement from the treasury to make sure that we deploy working capital in a very disciplined way as well. Let me see whether we have a next question, please, Rochelle. Operator Yes. We'll move to Christopher Kuplent, Bank of America. Christopher Kuplent -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Thank you. Two questions, please. And please call me impatient, but both of them are trying to look ahead to your capital markets update and your 2025 outlook. Firstly, even if capex under a nonrecessionary environment steps up, currently, you're spending about 5% on emerging power. And I think it wasn't so long ago that I heard Martijn say, you wanted to become the largest electricity company in the world in the 2030. So, would you agree that 5% of group capex is probably not the right level for the coming decade? Just to see where the direction is going. I don't want to put any words in your mouth. And secondly, you impaired assets down on a lower short-term price deck, but you still left the 60 brands real term. And can you comment whether that is also going to be the very oil price that you used in the past for your 2025 outlook or whether actually impairment tests are completely separate from your view of the next five years as you're updating that plan to February? Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Thanks very much, Christopher, and we understand that you are impatient. I'm sure you're not the only one on this. You're also absolutely right that, indeed, with the constrained and reduced impaired back capital program that we have this year, everything had to give a little bit. And it -- and even though we may have been a little bit more prepared to still preserve a good de minimis investment program in power, it definitely did not escape very, very close scrutiny as well. So, with this diet, can we succeed in our ambitions through the decade? Well, I can safely say, no. But then a decade is a long time. And a lot of things will happen and have to happen for us to evolve to the company we want to be. If indeed, this environment would stay with us for the rest of the decade, well, I guess we would be living in a totally different world at the end of the decade as well. So, I'm not at the point where I just say everything is permanently different, and it will only be like this going forward. Of course, there will be a recovery. Of course, there will be more capital for us to play with. Of course, we will have again an abundance of choices to make. We will not be on a very, very strict diet. And indeed, we -- if you are talking about a decade here, Christopher, let me set it very clearly as a preface, in the next decade, there will also be inorganic opportunities available to us if we play our strategic guides very well. So, with that, I think you all have to wait indeed for the 11th of February before we can say a little bit more about it. Jessica? Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Chris, for the question on the impairments and the price lines. In terms of the decision or the choice made in terms of our outlook on prices in April, May this year, to be clear for the upstream and IG business, that reflected a changed view in the outlook of prices, a reduction of some 15 to 20%, whereas in the downstream business, it was around 30%. So, we did change our long-term outlook, in addition to kind of the short- to medium-term outlook out to 2022. As part of the processes of -- we take a lot of input in terms of making the decisions of what is the right price line from an impairment perspective. We compare that against peers, against consultants, against analysts, bank reports, etc.. In that comparison, we show up to be relatively conservative in the first few years and kind of middle of the pack to the lower part of the pack for the later years. So, just to get a sense of where we are in the range of informed opinions on the price line, this is an impairment line. Basis of what we do our strategy on and basis of what we plan on isn't necessarily these numbers. Importantly, we're consistently looking at a range of outcomes because of the dynamic elements that we've been speaking to, not only of the short term, but of the long term as well. But I think it's an indication of a view, and it's certainly important in terms of the balance sheet valuation, and you have to pick one number when you do the impairment line. And we try and do that in a way that's informed and wise. And I think that these numbers represent that, but it's not necessarily the one view or the only view, particularly, when thinking from a strategic perspective and planning for the business. Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer OK. Thanks very much. And I think actually, that brings us to the end of the call. We've gone over a bit. And I apologize for that, but I hope you found it nevertheless valuable. Thank you very much for staying with us for this extra time. Thank you very much for all your questions and, of course, for joining the call in the first place. If there's any further questions outstanding, our IR team will make sure that they get properly answered. Of course, we will have third-quarter results as well. They are on the 29th of October. And we look forward to talking to you then. And then, of course, we have the strategy day, which we will do on the 11th of February 2021. And let me tell you, I look forward to seeing you then. And with that, I hope you will have a good rest of your day and, indeed, a good summer. Thank you very much. Operator [Operator signoff] Duration: 0 minutes Call participants: Ben Van Beurden -- Chief Executive Officer Jessica Uhl -- Chief Financial Officer Oswald Clint -- Sanford C. Bernstein -- Analyst Alastair Syme -- Citi -- Analyst Michele Della Vigna -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst Thomas Adolff -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst Biraj Borkhataria -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst Lydia Rainforth -- Barclays -- Analyst Jon Rigby -- UBS -- Analyst Christyan Malek -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst Henry Tarr -- Berenberg Capital Markets -- Analyst Jason Gammel -- Jefferies -- Analyst Martijn Rats -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst Irene Himona -- Societe Generale -- Analyst Christopher Kuplent -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst More RDS.A analysis All earnings call transcripts Iran has joined the negotiation process to establish all the circumstances under which the plane of Ukraine International Airlines was shot down on January 8, to bring all those responsible to justice and to pay all the necessary compensations, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. "Three main results of yesterday's talks can be identified. Result number one is that Iran has joined the negotiation process to establish all the circumstances of the tragedy, bring all the perpetrators to justice and pay all necessary compensation. The process has begun," Kuleba said at an online briefing on Friday. The second result, according to the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, is that Iran has agreed to fulfill all its obligations under international conventions in the field of aviation, to which it is a party. The minister noted that he hopes that the Iranian side will adhere to these positions throughout all rounds of negotiations. "The third result: we have agreed with the Iranian side on how to structure the further negotiation process. It will take place at several levels. Investigators, technical experts, lawyers will speak in order to determine as much as possible all the circumstances and all the legal and technical nuances of this situation, and on the basis of this information it will be possible to calculate the amount of compensation," explained Kuleba. Kuleba added that the talks ended late Thursday night and lasted 11 hours. "In general, they were held in a constructive spirit. We note the disposition to solve the problems with which the Iranian delegation arrived. There is an agreement and understanding that the most transparent and unbiased technical investigation by Iran is necessary. Yesterday, delegations read through the entire spectrum of issues and discussed everything in detail as much as possible," he said. He also stressed that Ukraine is committed to constructive interaction with the Iranian side, if it has the same attitude. "If we see that the process is going in the wrong direction, is artificially delayed, we are ready for alternative scenarios. I assure you that we will make every effort and we are ready to ensure justice and compensation for all losses and compensation in any way. But above all, the negotiations with Iran is a priority for us," Kuleba explained. Also, according to Kuleba, on Friday he met with the Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran, who leads the Iranian negotiating delegation, and they agreed to negotiate in such a way as to achieve a result that will satisfy all parties and establish justice. As reported, Ukraine International Airlines' Boeing 737-800 passenger plane on flight PS752 from Tehran to Kyiv crashed near Tehran minutes after takeoff on January 8, killing all 167 passengers on board the plane. The commander of Aerospace Force of the IRGC Brigadier-General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh admitted full responsibility for the tragic air disaster. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Budi Sutrisno (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 10:09 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066aa9096 1 National exploitation,fishermen,fishing-vessel,Indonesian-migrant-workers,Plan-Indonesia,Plan-International-Indonesia,COVID-19 Free Plan International Indonesia Foundation (Plan Indonesia) has called on the government to improve its multistakeholder efforts in combating exploitative practices and trafficking in the fishing industry amid COVID-19. Concerns have mounted over the vulnerability of Indonesian workers to exploitation, following several reports of alleged abuse and violence against Indonesian fishing crew members on foreign vessels. Plan Indonesia program director Romatio Wulandari said the pandemic had led to a rise in human trafficking at sea because of economic uncertainties for fishers, who often had to travel further for their catch. World Day against Trafficking in Persons [July 30] reminds us that we need to work collaboratively to end this modern-day slavery in the fishing industry, Romatio said in a webinar on Thursday. The Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister said the government was in the process of ratifying the International Labour Organization (ILO) Work in Fishing Convention No. 188/2007, which would be used to reinforce the protection of fishers fundamental rights. It is also expected to improve synergy among ministries in harmonizing regulations for workers recruitment, placement and travel, said the ministrys assistant deputy for maritime security and resilience, Basilio Dias Araujo. Basilio said Indonesia had developed a national team tasked with the protection of fishing crew members in 2019, and that the government was now finalizing its 2020-2024 action plan for fishing crew protection. He added that Indonesia ranked third in the global supply and demand for seafarers, after China and the Philippines. The number of Indonesian seafarers had reached more than 1.1 million as of early June. Read also: Indonesia makes more arrests in sailor's torture killing According to the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, Indonesia had developed a system for fishing companies to obtain certification for human rights protection in 2015, but no company had been certified to date. Going forward, we will continue to push for a comprehensive sea work agreement and raise awareness of the concept of human rights in the industry, said the ministrys fishing vessels and equipment director, Goenaryo. Plan International, funded by the United States Department of Labor (USOL), has developed a project called Safeguarding Against and Addressing Fishers Exploitation at Sea (SAFE Seas), now being implemented in Indonesia and the Philippines. Through SAFE Seas, Plan Indonesia has established a Safe Fishing Alliance (SFA) to promote a fair and transparent supply chain in the fishing industry among workers, the private sector and the government. At the community-level, Plan Indonesia is partnering with Destructive Fishing Watch (DFW) Indonesia to establish fisher centers in Tegal, Central Java, and Bitung, North Sulawesi, to ensure reporting mechanisms are accessible for fishermen. Through these fisher centers, we aim to combat exploitative practices on fishing vessels and at the same time, educate workers in the fishing industry about their labor rights and acceptable working conditions, said SAFE Seas project director Nono Sumarsono. A senior officer at the US Department of Labor, Marina Colby, reported that the department was currently funding approximately US$11 million for technical assistance programs to address forced labor and child labor in the seafood sector, including SAFE Seas. Indonesias fisheries are a global importance, along with all the fishers that keep the sector afloat. Today, we are all seeing the vulnerability of fishers increased due to COVID-19, pressing us to do more to help mitigate the risks, Colby said. Anticipating the hoarding and black marketing of antiviral drugs, the government had decided to supply Remdesivir through the government hospitals. However, private hospitals are now facing a shortage of the drug due to an astronomical jump in the demand, which has resulted in black marketing. Dr Suriraju V, chief consultant, urology, and MD Regal Hospital, stated that black marketing has skyrocketed the prices of Remdisvir drug in Karnataka. He also said that a "one size fits all approach" will not be applicable in healthcare, adding that it is yet to be established that Remdisvir is effective among all the patients across the different age group. Remdisvir is a repurposed drug being used to treat COVID-19 for certain category of patients. There is a shortage as the Remdisvir is being procured by health care providers across the country. This has led to some hospitals having more stocks while some others not having even a single vial. In Karnataka, the government has decided to regulate the distribution of Remdisvir, which is a welcome move. I am sure it will rationalise the shortage and supply concerns, he said At ACE Suhas Hospital, patients reportedly told doctors that they will get Remdesivir if the hospital fails to source the drug. However, the patients refused to divulge more details about the source of black marketing. Yes, it is still difficult to get stock of Remdisvir and we have been talking to the pharmaceutical company, however, there is a waiting time of a week or two. We hope that the governments intervention will solve the problem of shortage of Remdisvir, Dr Jagadish Hiremath, CEO, ACE Suhas Hospital. Dr Hiremath opined that the way forward to contain the virus is to have a robust mechanism of contact tracing and isolation of anyone who has symptoms, or has been in touch with COVID-19 patients. Since last week, more than 150 recovered COVID-19 patients have come forward to donate plasma. With the inauguration of plasma banks in Bengaluru, the state government is now looking forward to helping other states too. "Plasma therapy has shown encouraging results in clinical trial settings, especially in critical COVID-19 patients. 95 per cent of patients who recover well from COVID-19 can attempt to prevent the 5 per cent of deaths. In India, this will also help to decrease the burden on the hospitals. Faster recovery is expected to result in an earlier return to work and thus a lower socio-economic impact on families," Dr Vishal Rao, a part of COVID-19 consultative group, and Regional Director - Head and Neck Surgical Oncology, HCG Global, said. Dr Rao said that convalescent plasma is safe with no side effects but added that the therapy has not been marketed properly. If it is packaged and sold like Remdesevir, it may get the necessary attention, Dr Rao said. San Francisco (AFP) - US prosecutors on Friday announced they have charged three people, one of them from Britain, for roles in hijacking celebrity Twitter accounts and tricking people out of money. The US attorney's office in California said 19-year-old Mason "Chaewon" Sheppard of Britain along with Nima Fazeli, 22, of Florida were facing criminal charges in the case. Details about the third individual were not released by US officials, but state prosecutors in Florida separately announced criminal charges against a 17-year-old accused of masterminding the massive hack of high-profile Twitter users. The attack on Twitter involved a combination of "technical breaches and social engineering" that let hackers hijack accounts of politicians, celebrities, and musicians, according to federal prosecutors. The three defendants are accused of hacking Twitter accounts, creating a scam Bitcoin account, and sending out imposter tweets from hijacked account offering to double cryptocurrency deposits. "This case serves as a great example of how following the money, international collaboration, and public-private partnerships can work to successfully take down a perceived anonymous criminal enterprise," said IRS criminal investigation special agent Kelly Jackson. State Prosecutors in Florida said they filed 30 felony counts against a 17-year-old Florida resident they described as the "mastermind" of the cyberattack. The you, arrested in Tampa, will be tried as an adult in Florida, Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said. The attack which Twitter said resulted from a "phone spear phishing" attack enabled hackers to take control of accounts of famous people such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk and former US president Barack Obama and dupe people into sending Bitcoin. "These crimes were perpetrated using the names of famous people and celebrities, but they're not the primary victims here," Warren said in a release. "This 'Bit-Con' was designed to steal money from regular Americans from all over the country." Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > FSDR The Ghost of FRDI: Rescuing failed banks at whose cost? | S G (...) In 2019, media reported that Government was preparing to table a new legislation, the Financial Sector Development & Regulation (Resolution) Bill (FSDR, hereafter). [1]. Reportedly FSDR is meant to rescue banks, among other financial sector institutions, from collapse. It replaces the Financial Regulation and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017 (FRDI hereafter), which was withdrawn in 2018 following public outcry against a bail-in provision, which small depositors did not trust. Trust-factor in banking The bank-investor relationship is based upon fiduciary prudence. Millions of people, especially senior citizens depend upon this relationship. However sometimes, banks fail them not only financially but equally importantly in terms of trust. Making even a list of bank scams would occupy too much space. Failure or incipient failure of banks, for which there are many reasons, is not new. Perhaps the most prominent reason is bad loans provided by banks. Banks are unable to, or under influence of powerful lobbies asked not to, recover the interest or principal from defaulting, large-account borrowers. Bad loans are accounted for as non-performing assets (NPAs). The bank approaches collapse when NPAs become a sizeable percentage of the banks capital. Bank collapse has enormous repercussions on public trust in the banking-financial-economic system. So when a bank is on the verge of collapse, the Finance Ministrys bails out the bank by infusing public funds to re-capitalize it, not unlike blood transfusion for a bleeding patient in ICU. Successive governments have used the bail-out measure to resolve banks NPA-caused collapse, so as not to raise public investors fears or affect the vital trust-factor. NPAs and the economic system Around 45% of GDP is generated by small businesses (unincorporated proprietor and partnership firms and MSME) and only around 18% by corporates. But taken value-wise, a few thousand corporates account for 86% of NPAs, while many million small borrowers including farmers owe only 14%. This is evidence of Governments skewed financial and economic policies. Indeed Prof.R.Vaidyanathan writes: The unincorporated or the non-corporate sector in India is the largest contributor to national income, savings and investments and taxes, and accounts for the largest share in manufacturing and service activites and employment. Yet, it is a victim of the myth of superiority [emphasis added] surrounding the corporate sector. [2]. This remains true even today. Over decades, faulty economic policies have resulted in 1% of the population owning over 50% of wealth, 77% of total national wealth held by the top 10%, and the richest 1% getting 73% of wealth (2017), even while 67 million Indians comprising the poorest half of the population increasing their wealth by merely 1%. All this reveals a politician-bureaucrat-corporate nexus growing at public cost. Governments favour big borrowers Banks also write-off NPAs from their books, the most recent being SBI prudentially writing-off 1,23,000-crores while recovering only 8,969-crores from borrowers over 8-years FY2013 to FY2020. [3] Such questionable prudence amounts to waiving borrowers liability and effectively transferring the difference, namely 1,14,031-crores of public money, to wilful defaulters. As of September 2019, 2,426 borrowers with dues of 1,47,350-crores were categorised as wilful defaulters of PSBs alone. [4]. In April 2020, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) revealed that Indian banks have written-off 68,607-crores due from 50 top wilful defaulters, including absconding diamantaire Mehul Choksi. [5]. Reportedly, 80% of 7-lakh-crores of bad loans of the last decade were written-off in the last 5-years evidence of governments increasing bias favouring wealthy borrowers at public cost. Such management of public finances in times of severe financial crisis is unjust. It is only fair to point out that such injustice has been unabashedly displayed at least since 1991 by successive governments. This bias is compounded in successive union budgets up to the present, by foregoing revenues from corporate tax and customs & excise duties amounting to many lakh-crores. This is done to incentivize industry but in effect it indirectly strikes at public health infrastructure, farmers, housing, education, welfare, etc., for the majority population. [6]. Bank mergers Government ordered merger of ten PSBs effective April 1, 2020, to relieve the precarious situation of NPA-wounded PSBs before the Covid-19 Pandemic. Merging PSBs prevents bank collapse by merging the liabilities of a collapsing bank with a bank declaring less liabilities. However, insofar as cancerous NPAs are concerned, it is merely a band-aid dressing. Merger has no curative value. The NPA crisis is expected to worsen, with a pile of bad loans adding up to 20-lakh-crore by year-end [7] due to post-Pandemic borrower-defaults. Banks will need re-capitalization to prevent collapse. Indias financial crisis is due to a combination of global and domestic financial crises including demonetization and unprepared GST rollout, coming on top of regularly writing off NPAs and foregoing revenues to favour big business. Today, Government has no money to re-capitalize banks using the bail-out resolution process, since bank-mergers are only cosmetic. It is more than probable that Government may resort to rescuing failed/failing banks using the earnings and savings of small investors. Thus, bail-in is a near certainty. The bail-in fear In 2017, when FRDI draft became available for comments, it was noticed that NPA-affected banks could re-capitalize by utilizing the moneys of its depositor-creditors by a process called bail-in. Depositors savings were safe only to the extent of the insured amount according to governments discretion. Since 58% of bank deposits belong to many million small investors, the bail-in clause triggered serious public apprehensions, even though government gave assurance that fears were misplaced. [8] Knowing government bias favouring big borrowers responsible for around 80% of NPAs, small investors feared loss of their life-savings. The FRDI bail-in clause had punctured the trust of large numbers of small investors. Briefly, FRDI ... had triggered panic among depositors over the controversial bail-in provision which held out the threat of forcibly converting term deposits with banks (above a certain insured threshold) into equity to recapitalise failed banks. [9]. Thus, following public outcry, Government announced in 2018 that it had withdrawn the FRDI Bill. FSDR Bill What is known about FSDR is from articles and YouTube interviews [10], since the Draft is not available to the public. The reason for secrecy is difficult to understand especially since the law when operationalized, can impact millions of individuals, institutions and public funds. According to FSDR, when financial sector entities like stock exchanges, clearing authorities and depositories or other capital market and insurance market intermediaries fail or are about to fail, the means for resuscitation are inadequate. FSDR establishes a comprehensive and effective resolution regime for the financial sector, of which banks are at the core. FSDR is a legislation to save financial institutions from bankruptcy caused by financial imprudence, mismanagement, defalcation, fraud, etc. FSDR creates a Financial Resolution Authority (FRA) with absolute authority to undertake resolution measures. FRA will # Assess vulnerability of a financial service provider (a bank) to failure due to NPAs, etc., # Grade its risk as low, moderate or imminent/critical, and # Resolve banks at imminent/critical risk. Resolution options are # Bail-out, # Merger with another financial entity, or # Transfer banks NPA liabilities to other financial entities. But further, FRA is also empowered to terminate contract, write down debt, and modify liability of the bank under resolution. That is, terminate the contract between the depositor and the bank, write down the banks debt to its creditors (depositors), and modify the banks liability to protect the deposits of its investors. Although bail-in is not explicitly mentioned, these resolution measures are effectively jargon for bail-in. FSDR assumes that consumers deposits are vulnerable to risk of bail-in. So FRA provides insurance at its discretion. At best for the depositor it can keep individual deposits on hold and, with a no-appeal finality, disburse deposit insurance at its discretion. Bottom line Scams of mismanagement, financial imprudence, defalcation, fraud, etc., among financial service providers, and growth of NPAs taking PSBs to the brink of collapse, are cause for public disquiet because personal savings are at stake. Government has no finances to bail-out failed/failing PSBs, even as it writes-off big borrowers NPAs (86%), and foregoes revenues favouring corporates which contribute only 18% to GDP. It is worrying that FSDR helps truant corporates by re-introducing disguised bail-in which threatens small depositors savings. Is this not questionable financial and economic policy? Whether FSDR actually does or does not include disguised bail-in will only be known if the Finance Ministry provides the draft for public information and comments, giving adequate time. Only this can show that Government cares for the People and values their trust. **Maj Gen S.G.Vombatkere//410 Aspen//Sankalp Central Park//Yadavagiri//Mysuru-570020. Email: sg9kere[at]live.com Evening Standard With the number of letters of no confidence in the Prime Minister said to be growing and the mood in the Tory ranks becoming more toxic, Mr Johnsons performance at PMQs was vital. With Mr Johnson under attack from all sides, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was understandably in confident mood grilling the PM on whether he misled Parliament over lockdown busting parties. The Supreme Court has overturned the Governments "excessively vague and aspirational" plan to combat climate change. A seven-judge court ruled the National Mitigation Plan (2017-2022) - the NMP - lacks specificity and does not comply with Irelands obligations under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. That Act requires sufficient detail be given about achieving the national transition objective (NTO) of a low carbon economy by the end of 2050. The Government is obliged to give "some realistic level of detail" about how it intended to meet the NTO and the plan "falls a long way short" of the sort of specificity the 2015 Act requires, the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Frank Clarke, said. He did not consider any reasonable and interested observer would know, in any sufficient detail, how it really is intended, under current government policy, to achieve the NTO by 2050 on the basis of the information in the plan. The plan does not comply with the requirements of the 2015 act, in particular section 4, and should be quashed, he held. The Government must now devise a new plan taking into account the court's findings, made in an appeal by Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE). In other findings, the court ruled FIE, a corporate entity, could not pursue claims of breach of personal rights to life and bodily integrity under the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003. Had the case been brought by an individual or individuals, the court might have had to consider whether the climate change measures, or lack of same, interfered with those rights, it said. In an important observation concerning whether there is a "derived" right to a healthy environment, the Chief Justice said he considered the High Court's Mr Justice Max Barrett's finding in an unrelated case of a right to a healthy environment consistent with human dignity as "impermissibly vague" and "ill-defined". He would not suggest a right so described can be derived from the Constitution, he said. Read More ISIS suspect Lisa Smith sent for trial to non-jury Special Criminal Court There may well be environmental cases, such as this one, where constitutional rights and obligations may be engaged if pursued by individuals, he stressed. In its proceedings against the Government, Ireland and the Attorney General, FIE argued the NMP fails to set out measures to substantially reduce emissions by 20% by 2020 and further reductions in the short to medium term. In a judgment delivered via video link on Friday, the Chief Justice, with whom Judges Mary Irvine, Donal ODonnell, John MacMenamin, Elizabeth Dunne, Iseult OMalley and Marie Baker agreed, allowed FIE's appeal over the High Court's dismissal of its challenge. The Chief Justice noted the broad underlying scientific evidence as to the causes of, and problems created by, climate change, was not in dispute and the case centred on the measures FIE argued the Government is legally required to take to alleviate climate change. He rejected the State's arguments that the NMP simply involves the adoption of policy and is therefore not "justiciable" by the courts. In this case, there is legislation, the 2015 Act, not policy, he said. Where the legislation requires a plan formulated under its provisions does certain things, the law requires a plan complies with those obligations. The overriding requirement of a compliant NMP is that it must, in accordance with section 4.2, "specify the manner in which it is proposed to achieve the national transition objective (NTO)". While section 4 requires a new plan at least every fifth year, that did not mean a series of five-year plans but rather of "rolling plans", each designed to specify, in general terms and on a sectoral basis, how it is proposed the NTO be achieved. The NMP, adopted in 2017, was required to be a 33-year plan, albeit one likely to be adjusted every five years to take developments into account. While the Government argued a more recent plan, the 2019 Climate Action Plan, was an example of how policy was evolving, and had identified measures first envisaged in the 2015 NMP aimed at partially closing the carbon gap, the 2019 plan is not a plan in the sense that term is used in the 2015 act, he said. The 2019 plan had not, for example, been through a public consultation process as mandated by the 2015 act. Whatever level of clarity is required by the Act about Government policy to achieve the NTO by 2050, it must be provided in a formal plan adopted in accordance with public participation measures in the 2015 Act. While the Government was not bound by the views of the Climate Change Advisory Council, it seemed appropriate to place significant weight on the latter's views, he said. In its 2018 annual report, the Council, a body established by statute, had said Ireland is "completely off course" in terms of its commitments to addressing climate change. It also appeared reasonable to characterise significant parts of the policies the NMP suggested should be followed as "excessively vague or aspirational", including in agriculture, he said. On foot of those and other findings, the plan does not comply with the 2015 act, particularly section 4, and should be quashed, the court held. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Many Ohio University students enrolled at its main campus in Athens will begin the semester remotely, the university announced Friday. A letter from President Duane Nellis states that officials reconsidered their plans after sharp increases of coronavirus cases in the state and across the country. Athens County was downgraded from a Level 3 alert to a Level 2 alert in the states coronavirus alert system, or from red to orange. But daily case numbers are still increasing in other parts of the state; Ohio as a whole set a record for daily increases on Thursday. The new phased approach for the Athens campus will bring back graduate and undergraduate students in a carefully selected set of academic programs. These programs require in-person experiences throughout the semester to meet accreditation or require access to essential, on-campus equipment or facilities, the letter reads. Those students will return Aug. 24. Other students will begin the school year online until Sept. 27. University leaders will then, using information learned through the first phase and updates from health officials, decide who will come back to campus in the next phase. This does not affect regional campuses, where there is no on-campus housing. In-person instruction there is only for students participating in clinical, practical or lab-based classes. Undergraduate students have the option to take fall semester completely remotely. More information is available on the universitys website. A video of conversation between Speaker CP joshi, and the son of Ashok Gehlot, Vaibhav Gehlot, has just gone viral. In it, the two can be seen discussing what would have happened if Former DCM Sachin Pilot, had managed to get 30 MLAs to leave with him. Recently, a video of a conversation between Speaker CP joshi, and Ashok Gehlots son, Vaibhav Gehlot, has gone viral. In the video, the Speaker mentions how tough the situation would have been, had Former Deputy Chief Minster Sachin Pilot managed to get 30 MLAs on his side. Nothing could have been done had 30 MLAs left the camp. Then you could have done nothing, and they could have toppled the government., says Joshi in the video. Before the Rajya Sabha polls, a similar situation had taken place, where, after suspecting rebellion by Pilot, the Congress MLAs were shifted to a hotel. Vaibhav Gehlot can be seen in the video, bring this up and making the comparison to the current situation. Also Read: Indias Covid-19 tally crosses 16 Lakh mark, testing hits record high Also Read: Rajasthan Crisis: Gehlot urges rebel MLAs to attend assembly session The BJP, has demanded that the Speaker resign, on the grounds that he is biased in favor of one side. Satish Poonia, Rajasthan BJP President termed this behaviour unconstitutional, and said The Speaker is not talking to any ordinary person, but to the son of Ashok Gehlot. In such a situation, it is clear he is not impartial but supporting the Congress. Speaker CP Joshi seems more concerned about saving the government. His inclination towards the ruling party is evident in the video which is against the constitutional post he is holding, Speaker is supposed to be a neutral post he said. According to Poonia, it would be better for the Speaker to leave his post, in order to maintain his integrity and reputation. The video was shot at Speaker Joshis home, as Vaibhav Gehlot had gone to wish him well on his birthday, on Wednesday. The two have a special connection, as Vaibhav succeeded Joshi as RCA President, and Joshi has long been Vaibhavs mentor. Also Read: SCSC launches its plasma donation online portal in Pune City On July 31, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev made a phone call to President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The head of state congratulated Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the brotherly people of Turkey on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, and wished the Turkish President the best of health and the Turkish people prosperity. Recep Tayyip Erdogan thanked for attention and congratulations, and extended his best wishes to the head of state and the people of Azerbaijan on the occasion of the holiday. During the phone talk, the presidents hailed the continuous development of the brotherly ties between Azerbaijan and Turkey, expressing confidence that the bilateral relationship would continue to strengthen. The heads of state praised the successful conduct of the Azerbaijani-Turkish joint military drills in different regions of Azerbaijan these days, describing this as yet another manifestation of the relations of friendship and brotherhood between the two countries. President Ilham Aliyev praised the Turkish President`s resolute support for Azerbaijan in connection with Armenia`s recent military provocation on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border in the direction of Tovuz district. The heads of state also discussed prospects for cooperation in a variety of areas. One year after triple talaq was outlawed India oi-Vicky Nanjappa By Bhupender Yadav It's been a year since the Narendra Modi government ensured gender justice for Muslim women by abolishing triple talaq, making it a criminal offence. Numerous women have benefitted from the move since then. Gender justice is a fight that unites women across the world transcending religious, ethnic, political and social divides. It is a demand to correct the wrongs committed over centuries. Describing western thought on women, which believed Eve came out of Adam's rib, feminist thinker and writer Simone de Beauvoir asserts in The Second Sex, "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman... Therefore, the patriarchal culture surrounding Eve in Paradise Lost, in fact, forces her into submission to the point where she internalises it, making her 'become a woman." In Indian thought, both men and women have individual souls. The right to equality and equity has been taken ahead in India from here and it is for this reason that reforms in personal laws have happened from time to time. In 1955, the Hindu Marriage Act laid out the conditions for a valid Hindu marriage. One of the conditions introduced was that neither of the parties to the matrimonial alliance should have a living spouse at the time of marriage. It has taken unrelenting fight from women to claim their right to exist as individuals and not be seen merely as an entity in conjunction with men. The job of governments is to provide women an enabling environment to be what they want to be. This was a gender just law. As has been the abolition of triple talaq, which allowed men to desert women at whim without any liabilities. This year, rather just this month, the government the Ministry of Defence has issued the formal government sanction letter for grant of permanent commission to women officers in the Indian Army. The move will pave the way for empowering women in Army to shoulder larger roles in the organisation. The government has made women the centre of welfare schemes by ensuring women in families are receivers of the benefits. The amount of empowerment it has given women in immeasurable. The first term of Modi government started with Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojna because education is what gives people the confidence to be on their own. In 2016, the government extended maternity leave for women from 12 weeks to 26 weeks. This was not just for women working in government sector, but also those in private jobs. From Ujjwala Yojana, to Mahila Haats, to the preference given to women in Mudra schemes are ways in which women across India are being empowered to see claim their existence as individuals. This is an endeavour which has miles to cover... (Bhupendra Yadav is a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha & National General Secretary, BJP) The views expressed are solely of the author and oneindia.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. Oneindia.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, July 31, 2020, 11:09 [IST] Shin Jong-chul, 88, poses for a photo in front of Chungin Pharmacy which he has operated for more than 60 years in Goesan, North Chungcheong Province. / Courtesy of Goesan County Office By Jun Ji-hye Shin Jong-chul, who has operated a pharmacy for more than 60 years at a rural village in Goesan, North Chungcheong Province, donated his pharmacy to the county, so the old wooden building can be transformed into a tourist attraction. Goesan County Office said Thursday that the 88-year-old pharmacist had donated to the county his pharmacy, called Chungin Pharmacy, with a size of 33.72 square meters as well as its 73-square-meter site, June 25. Shin also donated old medicine cabinets, his diary and books, hoping to preserve the old pharmacy for posterity. The county office will preserve the old building and site, and utilize them as a tourist spot, it said, noting that other tourist attractions near the pharmacy include a 200-year-old Zelkova tree and a dolmen. Mural paintings that decorate the walls of the pharmacy have made the old building more attractive, the office said. Shin opened the pharmacy in the small village back in 1958 and has since been an important member of the community dispensing medicine and health products to local residents. As a highly respected elder of the village, he has been invited to weddings of more than 1,700 couples as a marriage officiant. He has even guaranteed to pay the debts of hundreds of residents, and has already been helping to pay off debts for some, estimated at about 1 billion won ($840,000), over 40 years. Shin's story has been featured in several magazines as well as TV programs such as "Hometown Report," the county office said, noting this has made his pharmacy one of the most famous places of the town. "We will make full efforts to heighten the value of Shin's pharmacy as a cultural heritage spot so it can long remain in the memories of townspeople and visitors," said Lee Cha-young, who heads the county office of Goesan. LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 30, 2020 / In every part of the world, one can expect to find a plethora of talent which takes on many different shapes and forms. Of course, there are talented individuals who are widely known on a global scale for their abilities, but there is a substantial amount of talent that has yet to be recognized internationally. Runway Influence, a worldwide digital marketing agency, has established strong relationships with both international and regional talent from across the world, and has organized some of the most influential campaigns with iconic brands while doing so. Runway Influence specializes in working with social media influencers from all around the globe to help major brands achieve recognition and growth in the most strategic and efficient way possible. Brands find success working with Runway Influence due to the versatility of their influencers, as they function on the mega, macro, and micro levels of social media influencer marketing. They typically work with top-tier models as well as other social media influencers who tote the highest quality of followers, and have executed successful marketing campaigns for many of the most notable brands in the world such as McLaren and Adidas, to name a few. Runway Influence CEO, Ernest Sturm, created this company 5 years ago when he noticed the quick transition models were making from the fashion industry to social media marketing. He found that social media models have the capability to rapidly increase brand awareness through their ability to draw attention to the brand, and recognized the diverse makeup of their social media followings. According to Sturm, these followings generally include prominent individuals such as investors, entrepreneurs, businessmen, designers, photographers, and the "shakers and movers" of the industry. As a serial entrepreneur, Sturm commonly finds himself traveling to many different cities and countries, something he is very passionate about. He emphasized that he finds great joy in experiencing various cultures as well as interacting with people from all walks of life. Through these experiences, Sturm has developed the ability to naturally connect and build relationships with anyone he encounters, a skill he deems invaluable as it directly applies to his company. Not only does Runway Influence travel worldwide to meet with many of their influencers and clients in person, but Sturm and his team have strong personal relationships with every influencer they work with. He stated, "Our influencers are not just a number on our roster. We speak to each them on regular basis and understand their strengths and weaknesses which allows us to strategically assemble the best team possible for our clients' campaigns." Ernest Sturm and Runway Influence have no plans to slow down any time soon. They are constantly looking to add to their impressive group of influencer talent, and they have plans to expand into new industries to work with many new clients internationally. So far, Runway Influence has found substantial success with clients in the CBD, wellness, apparel, fashion, beauty, medical, cosmetic, and beverage industries. Sturm believes his team at Runway Influence is the best in the business, and with them by his side, he strives to be known as the go-to expert in social media branding and advertising. Whether in the United States or visiting a country somewhere overseas, the sky is the limit for Runway Influence and Ernest Sturm. You can keep up with Runway Influence on their Instagram, or contact them on their Website. SOURCE: BIGWORK Media View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/599746/Runway-Influence-The-Premier-Digital-Marketing-Agency-for-Worldwide-Exposure Thousands of people were expected to land at Brisbane Airport on Friday morning ahead of a border lockdown with Greater Sydney as police admit some travellers have tried to sneak across remote border crossings. Queensland residents returning from Greater Sydney after 1am on Saturday will have to quarantine themselves in a hotel for 14 days at their own expense. Thousands were expected to land in Queensland on Friday. State disaster coordinator Steve Gollschewski said police would be checking border declarations of about 8000 people arriving in Brisbane from interstate on Friday. "That is a lot more than we would normally see, so clearly people coming back from Sydney and we are ready for that," he said. To avoid paying too much for a claim, car insurance companies will investigate any request. The claims adjuster will make sure that the customer will get exactly how much is needed and will eliminate the risk of insurance fraud, said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director Insurance companies will do their own investigations, before paying the claims made by their customers. They do that in order to avoid insurance fraud or because they dont want to pay for losses if they dont have to. Drivers that file a claim should know the following: Drivers will have to deal with a claims adjuster. Insurers will dispatch a claims adjuster to handle a claim made by a policyholder. The claims adjuster will ask the policyholder to provide details about the incident. A copy of the police reports and eyewitness testimonials will strengthen the claim. Based on the gathered information, the claims adjuster can decide if the claim is covered under the current insurance policy. In some cases, the claims adjuster will ask for additional information, such as medical reports from the healthcare provider, medical bills, proof of lost wages, proofs that show damage to the property (photos, or videos). Why claims are investigated. The reasons for this decision are quite obvious. Insurers will suffer a loss whenever they will have to pay for a claim. To avoid that, insurance companies will thoroughly investigate the claim to decide if they will pay for it. Insurance fraud is quite common and many persons tried to make money by asking for reimbursement after they deliberately damaged their cars. Preparing for the investigation. Policyholders will have to prepare all the evidence they gathered from the accident scene, eyewitness testimonials, a copy of the police report, medical bills, and other relevant pieces of evidence. In most cases, the claims adjuster will document the case by taking pictures of the vehicle, the damages it suffered, and the place where the incident happened. Claims adjusters will also ask various questions depending on the nature of the incident. It is important to remember to not lie to a claims adjuster. For additional info, money-saving tips and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.org/ Compare-autoinsurance.org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. Iran has joined the negotiation process to establish all the circumstances of the tragedy. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has announced the outcome of negotiations with an Iranian delegation on the payment of compensation in the case of the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) flight PS752 crash. "The talks ended late last night. The talks lasted 11 hours. In general, they were constructive. We note the willingness of the Iranian delegation to resolve this issue. There is agreement and understanding that the most transparent and impartial technical investigation by Iran is needed. Yesterday, the delegations went through the entire range of issues and discussed everything in detail," he said during an online briefing on Friday, according to an UNIAN correspondent. According to Kuleba, three main points of the outcome of the July 30 talks with the Iranian delegation could be outlined. Read alsoReuters: Ukraine makes every effort to maximize compensation for downed plane minister "Result No. 1: Iran has joined the negotiation process to establish all the circumstances of the tragedy, bring all the perpetrators to justice and pay all necessary compensations. The process has begun. Unfortunately, only now, many months after the tragedy," the minister said. "No. 2: Iran has agreed to fulfill all its obligations under international aviation conventions to which it is a party. This means we can build the relevant work constructively, and I hope the Iranian side will adhere to this position throughout all rounds of negotiations," he said. According to Kuleba, result No.3 is that it was agreed with Iran how to structure the further process of negotiations. "It will be held at several levels. Investigators, technical experts, lawyers will speak to determine all the circumstances and all legal and technical nuances of this situation, and it will be possible to calculate the amount of damage based on this information," the official said. So far, there is no answer to a question about the amount of compensation, he said. "The necessary moment has not yet come for this. The amount is not plucked out of the air, not pulled out of a hat it is the result of all the factors taken into account," Kuleba added. UNIAN memo. Iranian forces say they downed the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 jet after mistaking it for a missile at a time when tensions with the United States had risen. All 176 people on board including 57 Canadians were killed. President Volodymyr Zelensky said in February that Ukraine was not satisfied with the size of compensation Iran had offered to families of Ukrainians killed in the incident. An international team has started examining the flight recorders from the plane. A senior Ukrainian diplomat said last week that the transcript from the black boxes showed there had been illegal interference with the plane. Many Madison voters and others whose leases are up this summer are running into a newly reinstated residency requirement that could complicate where they are able to cast ballots this August. The changes, from a recent federal court ruling that also cut short the window for in-person absentee voting to two weeks, means voters must live at a residence for at least 28 days before voting for most offices at their new address, up from the former requirement of 10 days. That means anyone who moved or is moving after July 14 would need to vote from their previous address on Election Day, during in-person absentee opportunities ahead of Aug. 11 or by mail with local elections officials recommending individuals use whichever option works best for them. The Madison City Clerks office also cautioned in a recent Twitter thread that temporary departures dont impact residency: If you move into a new place today and leave for a weekend or two, you're still good to go [because] you intend to return home. The changes also mean that anyone who is moving to Wisconsin from out-of-state after July 14 is unable to participate in the Aug. 11 primary, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. But those individuals would still be able to vote come November once they register and provide the other necessary documentation needed to cast ballots. The lengthened residency requirement is just one of many things voters should be aware of before they cast ballots in the Aug. 11 election: How do I check if Im registered to vote? How do I know whats on the ballot? To confirm the status of voter registration, voters can check My Vote Wisconsin using their name and date of birth. The online tool allows voters to view a list of previous elections they voted in, update name and address, request and track an absentee ballot and find their elected officials. The same tool can be used to find out what will be on the ballot. Voters can search by their street address to see who is on the ballot and what voting ward theyre in. While Wednesday was the last day voters could register to vote online, individuals can register if they cast ballots via the in-person absentee process or on Election Day, as the state allows same-day voter registration. What voter ID do I need? While the recent court ruling narrowed in-person absentee voting opportunities and changed voter residency requirements, the decision did uphold allowing college students to use expired student IDs to vote. Thats just one of the acceptable forms of ID to vote. While there is no separate voter ID card, as state agency officials have warned previously, there are many forms of identification that voters can show at the polls. That includes, but is not limited to: A Wisconsin Department of Transportation-issued driver license (note that a REAL ID card, which has a star in the right-hand corner, is NOT required for voting) A Wisconsin DOT-issued identification card A military ID card A U.S. passport An identification card issued by a federally recognized Native American tribe in Wisconsin Voters can see the Wisconsin Elections Commissions website, bringit.wi.gov, for more information. How do I fill out a primary election ballot? For the Aug. 11 primary, each political party narrows down candidates for the November ballot. Voters can only choose candidates in one political party. Voters should mark their preferred party in the Party Preference Section on the ballot and then choose individual candidates for that party. If voters mistakenly vote for candidates in other parties, the tabulator machine will ignore those other parties. If voters do not mark a party preference and the top of the ballot and vote in more than one political party, nothing on the ballot will be counted. This is the election where cross-over voting will invalidate your entire ballot, Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl warned in an email. It is important to select a party at the top of the ballot, and then vote for individual candidates within that party. Voters, particularly those who vote in-person, should review their ballots and double check that the candidates they expected to see are listed, she said. If a voter is able to tell volunteers at a polling place before their ballot has been run through the tabulator, or been counted, they can be issued a new ballot. Still, she noted the issue tends to come up when ballots are specific to school districts and in wards that have multiple districts. "If a voter tells us the school district was wrong after they fed their ballot into the tabulator into the machine to be counted, it is too late to fix the problem," she added. How do I request an absentee ballot? Voters can request an absentee ballot up until 5 p.m. the Thursday before the election, however, requesting ballots earlier will ensure there is enough time to get the ballot back to the clerks office by Election Day. Absentee requests can be made through My Vote Wisconsin. Voters can also mail or email the city clerks office a request using an absentee ballot request form. The form is not required but written requests should include the following: Name Madison address Address to which the ballot should be mailed Signature Copy of voter ID, if not already on file in Clerks Office How do I vote by mail? In the presence of a witness, voters should use a black or blue ballpoint pen to mark the ballot once it is sent to them, fold it and seal it in the enclosed absentee envelope. Be sure to verify the name and address on the envelope. Then, both the voter and witness should sign the envelope. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, voters could consider having witnesses observe through a window or outside at a safe distance. Wisconsin law requires absentee ballots be delivered to the clerks office by Election Day. Postage is not required. Voters can request a replacement ballot the Thursday before the election if they wish to correct an error on their first ballot. Absentee ballots can also be returned in person at absentee ballot drop off sites. When should I return an absentee ballot? Absentee ballots need to be returned to the city clerks office early enough on Election Day to be counted. Witzel-Behl said that the clerks office determined that it takes about a week for many voters to receive their absentee ballots. To be assured an absentee ballot arrives by mail, she recommends mailing ballots back to the clerks office 10 days before the election (or by Aug. 1) or using one of the ballot drop-off sites. Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Statewide All information from the Iowa Department of Public Health, except where noted. (In parentheses: Change from yesterday.) Cases of coronavirus: 44,475 (+697) The total number of people who have ever tested positive for active novel coronavirus infection since testing began March 8, 2020. Average number of cases per day: 380 (-4) As of yesterday, over a seven-day average. Percent change in cases over 14 days: -12.7% (+0.9%). National average: 2.8% (-1.2%). (Info: KFF.org) Rate of spread: 1.03 (+0.02) The average number of people who currently become infected by an infectious person. Over 1.0 means the virus will spread, and below 1.0 means it has stopped spreading. (Info: Rt.live) Positive testing rate on previous day: 8.0% (-0.6%) As of May 12, the World Health Organization recommends a positive testing rate of less than 5% or lower for at least 14 days before a state loosens disease restrictions. Deaths: 865 (+11) The total number of people whose deaths were attributable to the novel coronavirus since IDPH began tracking such deaths March 8, 2020. Average number of deaths per day: 4.4 (+0.7) As of yesterday, over a seven-day average. Fatality rate: 1.9% (-0.1%). National average: 3.4% (no change). The percentage of deaths out of the total number of infected. (Info: KFF.org) National ranking in cases per capita: 19th (+1; Connecticut now 20th) (Info: KFF.org) National ranking in deaths per capita: 25th (no change) (Info: KFF.org) Recoveries: 32,503 (+762) As of June 30, IDPH now classifies anyone not hospitalized or deceased after 28 days to be recovered. Recovery rate: 73.1% (+0.6%) Positive serology tests: 2,740 (+5) The number of people with no current infection who tested positive for antibodies of the novel coronavirus. Number of current infections: 11,107 (-76) The number of cases minus the number of recoveries and deaths. Percent currently infected of total infections: 23.5% (-0.5%) The number of current infections out of the number of total infections plus serology positive cases. Total population of state currently infected: 0.4% (no change) The total number of current infections divided by the state population estimate of 3,155,100. Total population of state ever infected: 1.5% (no change) Based on U.S. Census population estimate of Iowa of 3,155,100, combining total cases and serology positive cases. Hospitalized patients with COVID-19: 225 (-12) Hospitalized in NE Iowa (RMCC Region 6): 54 (+2) Patients admitted in last 24 hours: 31 (-2) Last 24 hours in NE Iowa: 5 (-2) Hospitalized in intensive care units: 71 (-5) In ICU in NE Iowa: 14 (no change) Hospitalized on a ventilator: 29 (-2) On ventilator in NE Iowa: 3 (+1) Long-term care facility outbreaks: 22 (no change) An outbreak is added when a facility has three or more residents test positive, and removed when no new cases appear. Deaths attributable to long-term care facility outbreaks: 468 (+3). Percentage of total deaths: 54.1% (-0.4%) By county in Courier coverage area Black Hawk County: Cases: 2,953 (+30) Recoveries: 2,231 (+50) Number currently infected: 660 (-20) Percent currently infected of total infections: 18.1% (-0.7%) Deaths: 62 (no change) Fatality rate: 2.1% (no change) Serology positive: 698 (+1) Total population currently infected: 0.5% (no change) Total population ever infected: 2.8% (+0.1%) Average cases per day (7-day average): 24 (+3.7) Average deaths per day (7-day average): 0.1 (no change) Reported cases by sex: Male: 54.8% (no change) Female: 45.2% (no change) Reported cases by age: 0-17: 4.9% (no change) 18-40: 53.4% (no change) 41-60: 30.5% (no change) 61-80: 9.1% (no change) 80+: 2.2% (no change) Reported cases by race: Asian: 10.8% (no change) Black: 25.3% (no change) Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 2.2% (no change) White: 61.7% (no change) Reported cases by ethnicity: Hispanic/Latinx: 16.3% (no change) Non-Hispanic: 83.7% (no change) Hospitalization rate: 4.3% (no change) Bremer County: Cases: 179 (+4) Recoveries: 88 (no change) Number currently infected: 84 (+4) Percent currently infected of total infections: 45.4% (+2.2%) Deaths: 7 (no change) Fatality rate: 3.9% (-0.1%) Serology positive: 6 (no change) Total population currently infected: 0.3% (no change) Total population ever infected: 0.7% (no change) Average cases per day (7-day average): 3.5 (+0.1) Average deaths per day (7-day average): 0 (no change) Buchanan County: Cases: 103 (+8) Recoveries: 55 (+2) Number currently infected: 47 (+6) Percent currently infected of total infections: 43.9% (+2.5%) Deaths: 1 (no change) Fatality rate: 1.0% (-0.1%) Serology positive: 4 (no change) Total population currently infected: 0.2% (no change) Total population ever infected: 0.5% (no change) Average cases per day (7-day average): 3 (+0.6) Average deaths per day (7-day average): 0 (no change) Butler County: Cases: 106 (+4) Recoveries: 83 (no change) Number currently infected: 21 (+4) Percent currently infected of total infections: 19.1% (+3.1%) Deaths: 2 (no change) Fatality rate: 2.0% (no change) Serology positive: 4 (no change) Total population currently infected: 0.1% (no change) Total population ever infected: 0.8% (+0.1%) Average cases per day (7-day average): 2.6 (+0.6) Average deaths per day (7-day average): 0 (no change) Fayette County: Cases: 76 (+1) Recoveries: 49 (+9) Number currently infected: 27 (-8) Percent currently infected of total infections: 31.0% (-9.7%) Deaths: 0 Fatality rate: 0% Serology positive: 11 (no change) Total population currently infected: 0.1% (-0.1%) Total population ever infected: 0.4% (no change) Average cases per day (7-day average): 1.1 (no change) Average deaths per day (7-day average): 0 (no change) Floyd County: Cases: 107 (+6) Recoveries: 89 (+16) Number currently infected: 16 (-10) Percent currently infected of total infections: 14.0% (-10.1%) Deaths: 2 (no change) Fatality rate: 1.9% (-0.1%) Serology positive: 7 (no change) Total population currently infected: 0.1% (-0.1%) Total population ever infected: 0.7% (no change) Average cases per day (7-day average): 1.5 (+0.8) Average deaths per day (7-day average): 0 (no change) Grundy County: Cases: 71 (+1) Recoveries: 39 (+4) Number currently infected: 31 (-3) Percent currently infected of total infections: 40.8% (-4.5%) Deaths: 1 (no change) Fatality rate: 1.4% (no change) Serology positive: 5 (no change) Total population currently infected: 0.3% (no change) Total population ever infected: 0.6% (no change) Average cases per day (7-day average): 1.4 (+0.1) Average deaths per day (7-day average): 0 (no change) Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Niyo is also offering bonuses and ESOPs, taking the total stock grants to over Rs 100 crore for all eligible employees. In an effort to boost employee morale and support them during Covid-19, Niyo, a fintech company, said it is offering 10-12 per cent salary hikes to employees. It is also offering bonuses and ESOPs (employee stock ownership plans), taking the total stock grants to over Rs 100 crore for all eligible employees. The salary increment and bonuses will be credited to the employees accounts by the end of this month. Niyo is also planning to double the size of its tech and product teams by the end of March 2021. The company said it is starting these initiatives at a time when most fintech start-ups have laid off employees or cut salaries to reduce costs. Being employees for the first 15 years of our careers, my co-founder Vinay Bagri and I can relate to what our employees are going through and what their expectations are. "Rewarding our employees for their patience and hard work is our humble way of supporting them in these challenging times and showing them that we care, said Niyo co-founder and CTO Virender Bisht. We strongly believe that if employees have a feeling of ownership, they can make a significant contribution to our vision of providing great customer value and experience. "While the last four months have been difficult for us, all our teams have been putting in their best efforts to contribute to Niyos continued success and realising its long-term vision, he said. Bisht, a former top executive at MakeMyTrip and MobiKwik, founded Niyo in 2015 along with Vinay Bagri, a banking veteran. The soonicorn operates out of corporate offices in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi. It has a sales presence in more than 20 states and union territories. The firm serves a customer base of around 1.5 million and has a corporate and small businesses base of over 6,000. It employs around 1000 people. The company is backed by marquee investors such as Social+Capital, JS Capital and Prime Venture Partners, and has raised about $49 million in funding so far. Niyo said it has continued to invest in product development even during the lockdown. This paid rich dividends in the form of a quick business rebound and the successful launch of Indias first co-branded savings account. Niyo believes that Covid-19 will accelerate the digital adoption of financial services and that the present crisis offers a great opportunity to ride the digital wave. Niyo has also rolled out several initiatives to ensure the physical and mental well-being of its employees. The company recently hosted a unique virtual hackathon event, to encourage employees to make the most of the lockdown and focus on innovations in product, design and technology. Niyo also offered its employees, numbering over 700, the option to return to their native places and work from home until September 30, 2020. The company also utilised the lockdown to bolster its product suite through merger and acquisition. The firm recently announced the acquisition of Goalwise, a new-age mutual funds platform, to launch a vertical under the brand name Niyo Wealth. This would be headed by the founders of Goalwise. Niyo Wealth will offer robo advisory, auto investments, and domestic and international stocks by the end of September. Niyo said it has also been playing a significant role in increasing branchless banking culture during the pandemic. The company said it was one of the first fintech firms in India to launch co-branded savings account in partnership with IDFC First Bank, combining banking, forex and wealth management features. MONTREALSNC-Lavalin Group Inc. is restructuring its money-losing resources business with a plan to sell off or shut down the non-profitable parts and fold the remnants into its engineering services division. The announcement Friday came alongside earnings that fell short of analysts expectations as the engineering giant lost $111.6 million in the second quarter compared to $2.12 billion a year earlier. The legacy resources projects business and associated lump-sum turnkey projects will be largely wound down and the projects complete by the end of 2020, SNC-Lavalin said in a release Friday. The company forecasts the business will be profitable next year. The move, which wraps up a strategic review launched by CEO Ian Edwards when he took the helm in June 2019, narrows SNCs focus on resources to the Americas and the Middle East, where the company said it has profitable relationships with long-standing customers in energy and mining. The turn away from resources will reduce that segments operations to nine countries from 30 and cut its headcount to 8,000 from 15,000 by the end of the year, with 2,000 more departures expected by 2021, SNC said. The resources division continued to drag on profitability last quarter. Its so-called lump-sum turnkey projects fixed-price contracts under which companies have to eat any cost overruns accounted for 78 per cent of the companys $122 million in adjusted losses before interest and taxes. Edwards pledged a year ago to retreat from fixed-price projects, with one resources contract completed last quarter and the vast majority of work on the four remaining ones on track for completion by the end of 2020 a key milestone in terms of de-risking the business, Desjardins Securities analyst Benoit Poirier said in a research note. Bottom line, while we acknowledge that SNCs (second-quarter) results were below expectations, we note that the miss was related to lump-sum turnkey projects which management is in the progress of exiting, Poirier said. SNC announced the restructure as it reported a net loss of 64 cents per diluted share for the three months ended June 30, compared with a loss of $12.07 per share a year earlier. The quarterly loss includes $47.3 million of restructuring costs mainly related to the resources services transformation. The adjusted loss improved to $31.6 million or 18 cents per share, versus a loss of $234.2 million or $1.34 per share in the second quarter of 2019. Revenues decreased 14.5 per cent to $1.95 billion from $2.28 billion in the prior year. The company was expected to report six cents per share in adjusted profits on $2 billion of revenues, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv. SNCs challenges have escalated on the back of COVID, said Laurentian Bank Securities analyst Mona Nazir in a research note. Edwards cited the economic downturn prompted by the pandemic which halted construction and resources projects around the globe as well as a downturn in oil prices as evidence that its pivot toward core engineering services was the right move. Read more about: The #MeToo and Time's Up movements sparked a paradigm shift, bringing some hope to the stories of survivors. In this two-part series, we look at documentary and fiction films which foregrounded the narratives of survivors while raising questions about the pervasive complicity machines that protected the Weinsteins of the world. It's been nearly three years since the Pandora's box opened on Harvey Weinstein, and his downfall fuelled a worldwide reckoning on sexual violence against women. The #MeToo and Time's Up movements sparked a paradigm shift, bringing some hope to the stories of survivors. In this two-part series, we look at documentary and fiction films which foregrounded the narratives of survivors while raising questions about the pervasive complicity machines that protected the Weinsteins of the world. *** In The Assistant, Kitty Green takes us away from the glamour of show business to a standard desk-and-cubicle production office. The film follows a day in the life of an assistant to a Weinstein-like studio mogul. Always the first to arrive and last to leave, Jane (Julia Garner) is tasked with everything, from photocopying documents to doing the dishes to cleaning the boss's office the boring and routine tasks her colleagues refuse to do. While cleaning her boss's office, she finds an earring next to the couch. We know, and she knows, what's happened. From the frantic enquiries made by the boss's wife to the small-town waitress staying in a luxury hotel to the revolving door of aspiring actresses in his private office, it is clear this is a man abusing his position of power. But we never see him or hear his name uttered. By disembodying the sexual harasser, Green highlights this is not an individual instance, but an institutional issue. She reinforces the idea that it is an issue that pervades the whole industry and that this man could be anyone. Green also never shows the act of harassment. The Assistants potency lies in its suggestions: the predator's nameless and faceless presence is evoked in every threatening phone call and email to Jane, every joke made about his sexual exploits by her colleagues, and every trace evidence of sexual assault he leaves. The fear and anxiety of these suggestions are reflected in Garner's eyes and wordless gestures, which also capture her internal conflict: whether or not to blow the whistle at the risk of derailing her own career. Herein, lies the power of fiction filmmaking: it finds truth in the unspoken moments, the omissions and even the lies. Through the experiences of three women, Jay Roachs Bombshell illustrates the truth of why sexual harassment survivors often refuse to come forward. Before Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) became the catalyst that brought down former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, she feared she might end up being the only one. Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) was conflicted because the man who harassed her also championed her career, and she fears testifying might jeopardise everything she worked for. It was even harder for the Kaylas (Margot Robbie), the young ambitious women who were just starting their careers in the industry. In the film, the three characters share one scene together a quiet elevator ride made all the more powerful because of it but it reflects the truth about the lack of female solidarity in Fox News. In a troubling scene, Kayla is summoned to Ailes office and she eagerly goes in expecting it to be the perfect opportunity to talk to him about her career. But what's waiting for her is a nightmare she can't possibly be ready for. Under the pretext that "TV is a visual medium", he asks her to stand up and give him a twirl. She complies, and tries not to make too much of it. He then asks her to pull up her dress a little higher and higher until we see her undergarments. Roach's staging and sequence of shots do not reflect the dehumanising nature of Ailes requests. The way the camera slowly descends on Kayla's body, Roach adopts the gaze of the tormentor rather than the tormented. It's a perfect illustration of the male gaze, one which objectifies and eroticises the female body even during a traumatic event. All he needed to do was keep the focus on Robbie's face, which alone conveyed the horror and humiliation and would have made for a far more empathetic portrayal. *** It's this lack of empathy that prevented Bombshell from having the emotional impact of other emblematic works of the post-#MeToo era. Its execution runs contrary to the spirit of the movement. In this interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, Green explains why she was not a big fan of the film, despite its star-studded cast. "I think it's sensational in a way I find unsettling. I feel the way they chose to cover it ignores the broader systemic issues and cultural sexism at that company and focused instead on some high-powered people with problems. We may be rid of Harvey Weinstein, but the culture that keeps these predators in power and allows them to do what they do exists still. We need to unpick that a little more." Green does exactly that in The Assistant, showing how the casting couch culture is normalised. In the film, everyone in the office is so familiar with the boss closed-door meetings with women that they joke about it. When one of them says in jest, "Never sit on the couch," everyone laughs. Except Jane, who can only internalise her shock at their collusion in enabling a serial predator to operate freely in the workplace. Green was a documentary filmmaker before she made her first feature film. So The Assistant feels enriched from the savvy gained from her past output. It is minimalist and realistic in all the right ways. The same holds true with Jennifer Fox, a documentary filmmaker who made her feature debut with The Tale. Fox was 13 when she was sexually abused by her riding instructor. Thirty-five years later, she stages the story she told herself and the reality of what had happened. This exercise in introspection is reproduced with an unconventional narrative structure: Fox confronts ghosts from her past in an inner conversation, while confronting them in the flesh in the present. The flashback here is not just a narrative device, but a therapeutic one. She tries to recollect every detail, reconstruct every moment in the past to ensure her memory isn't betraying her. However, it isn't a betrayal, but a defense mechanism to prevent her world from collapsing so, she can move on. Before #MeToo, women often had little recourse but to internalise this trauma. Now, films like The Tale inspire them to recover from it in their own way and at their own pace. Like Fox says in this Blood + Milk feature, "Memory can be protective in a good way and denial can also be helpful. I understand that the mind works in protective ways and people need to take the time they can and face things when they can. Theres no right or wrong speed for facing these things." *** In the wake of this cultural awakening, some filmmakers have also integrated #MeToo-adjacent storylines into genre fare. In The Invisible Man, Leigh Whannell turns the classic monster movie into a metaphor for gaslighting and domestic abuse. The #MeToo movement also coincided with a new wave of rape-revenge films directed by women, like Natalia Leite's M.F.A., Coralie Fargeat's Revenge and Emerald Fennell's upcoming Promising Young Woman. Previously, these films which were usually helmed by men were often accused of radical feminism and the opposite: the exploitation of a woman's trauma. Now, they are no more collectively dismissed as a subgenre of exploitation films; they are instead marketed as "#MeToo revenge tales", as they have taken on a whole new meaning. The narrative more or less follows the same three-act structure: rape, resurrection and revenge. A woman suffers an unforgivable act of sexual violence and is left for dead, she overcomes her physical and psychological traumas, and she punishes the perpetrators in brutal fashion. Coralie Fargeat reimagines a similar narrative in her debut feature, Revenge. Jen (Matilda Lutz) and her married boyfriend Richard decide to spend the weekend in a secluded getaway in the middle of a desert, accessible only by helicopter. Their plans are disrupted by the arrival of Richard's friends, Stan and Dimitri, who show up a day early for their annual hunting expedition. When Richard is away, Stan rapes her after she rejects his advances. Dimitri sees them but blithely ignores her cries for help drowning them out instead by raising the TV's volume. On his return, Richard sees her distraught, realises what has happened and offers her hush money. When she refuses and threatens to inform his wife about their affair, he hits her. She runs, they chase after her, cornering her to the edge of a canyon before pushing her off it. In her staging of the first act, Fargeat deliberately plays with exaggerated stereotypes. Jen is introduced as a Lolita-type figure: crop tops, short skirts, sucking on a lollipop in slo-mo. But it is still Jen who sets the rules of seduction. Fargeat frames her in the genre's own codes but the subtext is calling out the voyeuristic gaze, which treats women as expendable objects. She does not depict the rape in a graphic way, but uses symbolism which illustrate its grotesqueness: she switches to a close-up of Dimitri chomping on nougat candy and an ant crawling over a rotting apple. Richard, Stan and Dmitri embody the pernicious collusion of three masculinity types in rape culture: Richard is the pathological philanderer who can go from sweet to hostile if threatened; Stan is the "nice guy" who feels entitled to sex and can't tell the difference between friendly and flirty; Dmitri is all the men who turn a blind eye to sexual violence. The symbolism is anything but subtle and it is sure effective. When Jen cauterises her wounds with a beer can, its phoenix logo is branded onto her skin. This ritual of resurrection happens in a cave. Fargeat seems to suggest women have been reawakening from their traumas to hunt down their predators since prehistoric times. Unlike in rape-revenge films made by men, the male gaze transforms into a female one post-resurrection in Revenge. Like the title suggests, Fargeat is less interested in the rape, more in the revenge and it's as bloody, brutal and satisfying as they come. Indeed, even if these films stage the evolution of a woman from a passive figure to a vengeful angel, some questions still remain: Is subverting the male gaze of the rape-revenge film enough to reverse the tide of female objectification? Is the evolution of a woman from prey to predator enough to overcome the trauma? Can violence inflicted on the predator ever be commensurate with the trauma of the survivor? "Pseudo-empowering femininity" or a "feminist weapon for the #MeToo generation" the jury is still out. *** TV and streaming giants have followed the movies, tackling #MeToo themes across a whole season or a standalone episode. Unbelievable, based on a real life story, exposed a justice system that continually fails women. The Netflix drama traces the investigation of two detectives who eventually arrest a serial rapist, whose first victim was not only forced to recant her statement but charged with filing a false report. The Morning Show examines the notion of consent, after a celebrated news anchor is fired over sexual misconduct allegations. Sitcoms have also been tackling #MeToo in their own distinct comedic ways. In Season 14 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Gang is forced to attend a sexual harassment seminar after Paddy's Pub is named in a list of Philly bars hostile to women. The comedy comes from our awareness but their obliviousness to their toxic behaviours: be it Charlie openly stalking the waitress or Dee and Charlie's non consensual encounter. In Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Season 6 episode, "He Said, She Said", Santiago and Diaz are on opposing sides of an incredibly nuanced argument on bringing the harasser to justice vs accepting hush money. BoJack Horseman's Season 5 forced the titular Hollywood has-been to introspect on his inappropriate behaviours. More recently, the HBO series I May Destroy You like The Tale is an example of how personal trauma can be turned into therapeutic art. Michaela Coel, who based the story on her own sexual assault experience, finds catharsis for herself and her fictional surrogate Arabella, a novelist who is drugged and raped while on a night out in London. But Arabella can't quite remember the details. With each fractured memory, comes a devastating piece of the puzzle of what happened, but she can't say it out loud. Articulating what happened will bring it all back, and she won't be able to suppress the trauma back into the dark recesses of her mind. Reality and fiction co-exist in all these works. Even in Bombshell, which combines the real stories of several women into the fictional story of Kayla. After all, the epidemic of sexual violence cannot be studied in a single work of fiction or non-fiction. This is why documentary and feature filmmakers both feed off each other and we need them both to arrive at the larger truth, the truth that diagnoses the epidemic and shapes the future of the #MeToo discourse. Featured image: Still from Bombshell In part 2, analysing documentaries arising out of the #MeToo movement U.S. lawmaker introduces Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act ROC Central News Agency 07/30/2020 11:13 AM Washington, July 29 (CNA) U.S. Congressman Ted Yoho on Wednesday announced the introduction of the Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act, which would authorize the United States to respond militarily if China resorts to the use of force against Taiwan. In a statement, Yoho, ranking member of the U.S. House of Representative's Subcommittee on Asian Affairs, said the bill would "clarify and strengthen the commitment of the United States to defend Taiwan in the event of an armed attack." "The U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity towards Taiwan, initially implemented to avoid provoking Beijing to attack Taiwan and encourage peaceful relations, has clearly failed," he said. A longtime supporter of Taiwan, Yoho believes the U.S. needs to establish a clear red line over Taiwan that must not be crossed by China. "As a vibrant democracy with nearly 24 million people, the U.S. is obligated to stand strong in support of Taiwan and encourage a return to peaceful relations between Taiwan and China," the lawmaker explained. The bill also highlights the fact that since the election of President Tsai Ing-wen () in 2016, the Chinese government has intensified its efforts to pressure Taiwan through diplomatic isolation, and most notably, military provocations. "It is the policy of the United States to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by anything other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area, and of grave concern to the United States," it read. According to the legislation, "the authorization for use of the Armed Forces under this section shall expire on the date that is 5 years after the date of the enactment of this Act." Meanwhile, the Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act also suggests establishing a series of security dialogues and combined military exercises by the U.S., Taiwan, and like minded security partners. Other notable proposals include promoting a bilateral trade agreement between the U.S. and Taiwan, encouraging the U.S. President, or Secretary of State, to meet with the President of Taiwan in Taiwan, and welcoming the President of Taiwan to address a Joint Meeting of Congress. (By Chiang Chin-yeh and Ko Lin) Enditem/AW NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India's COVID-19 case fatality rate is progressively declining and now stands at 2.18 per cent, one of the lowest globally, while just 0.28 per cent of the total active patients are on ventilator, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Friday. IMAGE: A health worker collects swab sample from a woman for COVID-19 testing, at Cantonment area Bollrum in Secunderabad on Thursday. Photograph: ANI Photo He also said of the total 5,45,318 active cases, 1.61 per cent patients need ICU care and 2.32 per cent are on oxygen support. Chairing the 19th meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 through video-conference on Friday, Vardhan said India has achieved the milestone of more than 10 lakh recoveries, a recovery rate to 64.54 per cent. 'This shows that the active cases under medical supervision are only 33.27 per cent or approximately 1/3rd of total positive cases,' he was quoted as saying in a health ministry statement. "India's Case Fatality Rate is also progressively reducing and currently stands at 2.18 per cent, one of the lowest globally," he said. Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep Puri, MoS Shipping (Independent Charge) Mansukh Lal Mandaviya, MoS Health Ashwini Kumar Choubey and MoS Home Nityanand Rai joined the meeting. Speaking on the severity of the disease, Vardhan said, "Out of the total active cases, only 0.28 pc patients are on ventilators, 1.61 pc patients needed ICU support and 2.32 pc are on oxygen support." On the country's testing capacity, he said 6,42,588 tests were conducted in a span of 24 hours through a network of 1,331 labs -- 911 government and 420 private -- which has taken the cumulative number to more than 1.88 crore tests so far. The GoM was briefed on the current status of COVID-19 in India and was apprised about the ramping up of the domestic production capacities of various sectors for manufacturing PPEs, masks, ventilators and drugs such as hydroxychloroquine, the statement said. In terms of healthcare logistics, cumulatively 268.25 lakh N-95 masks, 120.40 lakh PPEs and 1,083.77 lakh HCQ tablets have been distributed to states/UTs and Central institutions, it said. During the meeting, National Centre for Disease Control Director Dr Sujeet K Singh presented a comparison on daily cases, deaths and growth rate in 10 countries with the highest caseload, it stated. The GoM was briefed that the overall recovery rate for India is 64.54 per cent -- the highest 89.08 per cent in Delhi, followed by 79.82 per cent in Haryana. Karnataka has the lowest recovery rate of 39.36 per cent. The GoM was also apprised on the distribution of confirmed cases and active cases in the containment zones across the country. The statement said the NCDC director also briefed the GoM on the growth rate in top 12 states -- Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Telangana, Bihar, Rajasthan and Assam. He also told the meeting about the number of tests and positivity rate across states and UTs and active cases and deaths in top 20 districts and containment zones across districts. He highlighted that efforts are being made to reduce mortality in high caseload regions and cities like Pune, Thane, Bengaluru, Hyderabad etc that are showing recent upsurge. The meeting also suggested some measures including: revamping the strategy for effective management of containment zones through stricter perimeter control, widespread rapid antigen tests, intensive and rapid door-to-door search, more isolation facilities for suspects/cases and standard case management protocols. These have to be aided by increase in oxygen beds and ventilators and assessing the true burden through planned sero-surveys, the statement said. In moderate case load districts/cities, the efforts would focus on preventing spill-over from the high burden areas, limiting local spread, early identification of cases, strengthening contact tracing with the use of technology and community involvement, the ministry said. As for the low burden districts, the efforts aim at preventing infection among the population from other areas, strengthening Influenza Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) surveillance and targeted testing, rigorous contact tracing with targets to be set by the local administration and prior identification of high risk population, it said. Director General of Foreign Trade Amit Yadav briefed the GoM on different items that were put under export restriction and prohibition during the COVID-19 pandemic and their present status. The GoM deliberated upon the protocols being followed at the airports and the systemic improvements in triaging of incoming passengers. Meanwhile, India's COVID-19 case tally zoomed past 16 lakh on Friday, registering a record single-day jump of 55,078 infections. The death toll due to the disease rose to 35,747 with 779 fatalities being reported in a 24-hours span, a health ministry bulletin updated at 8 am showed. MONROE Two people have been charged in connection with an alleged counterfeiting operation, police said. Orlando Dominguez, 41, of Bridgeport, was arrested Wednesday and charged with second-degree forgery, conspiracy to commit second-degree forgery, first-degree forgery and third-degree telephone fraud. Krista Karch, 48, of Essex, was arrested Tuesday and charged with second-degree forgery, conspiracy to commit second-degree forgery, third-degree telephone fraud and fourth-degree money laundering. Monroe Police Lt. Stephen Corrone said the pair were arrested for their involvement in a conspiracy intended to defraud the State of Connecticut by falsely completing and causing to be made instruments and public records. Corrone said the arrests stem from a complaint Monroe police received on Feb. 26 about the sale of a motor vehicle with a fraudulent title. Monroe detectives, with assistance from the Bridgeport Police Department, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the Department of Motor Vehicle Commercial Vehicle Safety Division, developed several suspects, Corrone said. During the execution of multiple search warrants, evidence was seized, Corrone said, that pointed to a larger, well-organized counterfeiting organization. The investigation found that Dominguez produced counterfeit Connecticut and New York car titles, auto insurance cards, U.S Currency, emissions paperwork and boating certificates, Corrone said. Corrone said investigators also learned that Karch is authorized by the state DEEP to provide boating licensing classes. Corrone said Karch was allegedly not providing the classes. Instead, she was working with Dominguez, who allegedly arranged for forged boating certificates to be sold to individuals without the need of the required eight-hour class, Corrone said. This conspiracy was carried out via cellphone and utilizing the banking system, Corrone said. Dominguez and Karch were each released on $2,500 bond and are both due in Bridgeport Superior Court on Sept. 23. brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said that the state police were competent enough to probe Sushant Singh Rajputs death and the transfer of the investigation would be an insult to them as they have been fighting the Covid-19 pandemic like warriors. The chief minister said that nobody should politicise the death of the actor. Thackeray also criticised leader of opposition in the legislative assembly Devendra Fadnavis saying that he had doubted the capability of the Mumbai Police despite having served as chief minister of the state for five years. The state police and Mumbai police are fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. They are Covid-19 warriors and not to trust them is an insult to them. I would like to tell all Sushant Singh Rajputs fans that they should trust Mumbai Police and pass on whatever information you have (about the case) to them, he said. ALSO READ | Rhea Chakraborty issues statement on Sushant Singh Rajput death case, says truth shall prevail There has been an increasing demand for a CBI probe into the death of the actor, but the Maharashtra government has insisted that the state police were capable of handling the investigation. The 34-year-old actor was found dead at his apartment in Bandra on June 14. A Bihar police team is probing a separate abetment to suicide case on the basis of a complaint filed by the actors father Krishna Kumar Singh in Patna. Earlier on Friday afternoon, the Enforcement Directorate filed a money laundering case in connection with the death of the actor. The case was filed on the basis of a First Information Report filed by the Bihar police, officials said. Sushant Singhs father had alleged that there were unexplained transfers from his sons bank account involving actress Rhea Chakraborty and six others. ALSO READ | Sushant Singh Rajputs kin file caveat in SC, seek hearing on Rheas plea to transfer probe to Mumbai The late actors father has accused Chakraborty, a budding TV and film actress, of having befriended his son in May 2019 with the intention of furthering her own career. The investigating agency will probe allegations of alleged mishandling of the actors money and his bank accounts. According to officials, Rhea Chakraborty and others named in the ED case are likely to be summoned next week. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend: Foreign Kito Investments Ltd (registered in Singapore) sold 18.6 percent of Savdogarbank (Uzbekistan) to Uzbek businessmanJahongir Usmanov, Trend reports citing the Toshkent Republican Stock Exchange. As a result, Usmanov became the owner of 30 percent of Savdogarbank, the message said. Kito Investments Pte.Ltd sold 18.6 percent of bank shares for 12.1 billion soum ($1.1 million), on July 28, 2020. Savdogarbank was founded in 1994. In 2005, German R&D Express-Aussenhandels bought 40 percent of the bank's shares. Also among the foreign shareholders is All Americas International Inc. (US) and Astrata AG (Switzerland). At the end of the first quarter of 2020, total assets of the bank increased by 57.3 percent and reached 1.1 trillion soums ($107.5 million). The bank now has 22 branches, 74 points and 16 mini-banks. The bank also has a subsidiary insurance company Garant Insurance Group. --- Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini A 62-year-old man arrested Thursday is accused by federal officials of using his cell phone to share child pornography. Juan Benavidez is charged with distributing child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Texas. author: Anthony Russo TikTok's owner and Chinese conglomerate ByteDance is now reportedly considering listing its native business closer to home in either Hong Kong or Shanghai. Of the two destinations, ByteDance prefers Hong Kong's financial hub, as Reuters reported today, citing two anonymous sources. Originally, the desire was to list as a combined entity, which would include TikTok. However, the news comes as Sino-U.S. trade tensions remain high, and as Washington considers banning the Chinese short-video sharing app for allegedly spying on Americans. Meanwhile, One source cited by Reuters said that ByteDance is "simultaneously" eyeing listing its smaller non-Chinese operations in Europe or the United States, which includes TikTok. China has also been under fire from India, as the country banned 59 apps mobile apps in June including TikTok. In 2019, ByteDance brought $2.9 billion in profit, one person cited by news outlet said. In 2020, the company has aimed to generate $28.62 billion in revenues with TikTok expected to account for $1 billion of the total. China accounts for the majority of ByteDance's revenues of roughly $16 billion in 2019, which were mainly derived from apps such as Douyin, Jinri Toutiao, Xigua, and Pipixia. A standalone IPO could drive ByteDance's China-focused business to a valuation of over $100 billion on either a Hong Kong or Shanghai bourse. While ByteDance has been in talks with Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing and Chinese securities regulators regarding the listing, the discussions are preliminary and are subject to change. Many uncertainties remain including the proposed mandated audit inspection over Chinese firms that list on American bourses and Sino-U.S. tensions more generally. Terming the renovated Mahatma Gandhi Setu in Bihar as "an engineering marvel" and "lifeline" for the masses, Union road minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday said the government is laying a network of bridges and highways to beef up infrastructure in the state. He also said that multiple steps are being taken to promote economic growth and create employment opportunities in Bihar. Inaugurating two completed lanes of the 4-lane bridge being renovated at a cost of Rs 1,742 crore through video conference, the road transport and highways minister said that in addition bridge projects worth Rs 10,338 crore are on the anvil on the river Ganga which will change the economy of the state. He said the renovated Gandhi Setu connecting Hajipur to Patna is one of its kind in the country and the superstructure consumed 66,000 tonnes of steel and will prove as a case study. Under the project existing concrete structure has been replaced by new steel deck superstructure. The designing of the bridge has been done by IIT Roorkee and international consultants were consulted for it, he said. The remaining two lanes of the 5-km long Mahatma Gandhi Setu that connects north Bihar and south Bihar and sees about 1 lakh PCU (passenger car unit) traffic daily will be completed by December 2021, he said. The bridge benefits Hajipur, Chhapra, Muzzafarpur, Samastipur, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Sitamarhi, Siwan and eastern Uttar Pradesh on the northern side and Patna, Ara, Arwal, Jahanabad, Nalanda, Gaya, Aurangabad and Jharkhand on the southern side, the Minister said. He said a number of obstacles were being faced in renovation of the existing bridge but ultimately technological research paved way for its renovation. In addition of the existing old Mahatma Gandhi Setu, a parallel new 5-km long and 4-lane bridge on Ganga will be constructed at a cost of Rs 2,926 crore, he said and added that the work on the project will begin in October and completed by March 2024. "The new bridge will be the first bridge in the country which will have a span of 242 metres and vessels can pass below it," he said. Providing details of the upcoming bridges, the minister said construction will begin on Rs 1,478 crore bridge on Koshi river which will serve as a connectivity link between Bhagalpur and Madhepura besides improving connectivity to Nepal, West Bengal and North Eastern states. The other bridges include Rs 1,100 crore Vikramshila bridge to connect Bhagalpur and Naugachia and Bhojpur-Buxar bridge on Ganga that will provide connectivity to Uttar Pradesh and will be completed before 2021. The minister said work will start soon on the Sahebganj bridge where tender had to be cancelled due to Chinese participation. In addition, for the development of Bihar, Madhubani paintings were being promoted while state products like litchi will be exported. Emphasis is also on creating a huge network of waterways to bring down logistics cost which is exceptionally high in India at 17-18 percent as compared to 7-8 percent in countries like China. "The Rs 10,338 crore bridges on Ganga will change the economy of Bihar. The government is committed to address issues of poverty unemployment etc," he said and added that the turnover of village industries which was Rs 88,000 crore is being planned to be taken to Rs 5 lakh crore in two years. Union Law & Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad stressed the need for a bridge in Kala Diara in Bakhtiyarpur across Ganga. On the occasion, Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan lauded Gadkari for transforming the face of highways in the country. Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways VK Singh said Rs 30,000 crore worth of work was being implemented in Bihar. He said Rs 3,800 crore was transferred to farmers' accounts in lieu of land acquisition. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar sought linking Buxar to Varanasi through highways, besides widening of the important national highway stretches. Japanese businesses in Vietnam say the country is a safe and successful destination for investors. Sagara Hirohide, CEO of Marubeni Vietnam, a Japanese investor, participated recently in the Vietnam-Japan online investment promotion conference held by the Ministry of Planning and Investment and Japanese Embassy in Vietnam. One day I accidentally forgot my wallet at a pho shop and I only realized that I could not find my mobile phone when I went out to buy power bank. Shortly after that, the owner of the shop ran after me and gave me back the wallet, he said. In Vietnam, I am not afraid of losing things if I drop them, he added. Regarding business opportunities, Hirohide said since problems have arisen in China, Vietnam has proven to be a reliable investment destination. He believes that Vietnam will offer attractive investment mechanisms that will help bring Vietnam to a new development turning point. Miura Nobufumi, chair of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), affirmed that Japanese businesses have serious interest in the Vietnamese market. Vietnam is the first country in the world showing the advantages of supply diversification. Japanese businesses have high interest in Vietnam, viewing it as an investment destination in the new normal status of today. Up to 2,800 people surveyed by JCCI said they want to come to Vietnam to seek investment opportunities. However, JCCI pointed out that there are many problems Japanese businesses complain about, including poor infrastructure and complicated procedures. Praising Vietnams achievements in fighting against Covid-19, Envoy Okabe Daisuke from the Japanese Embassy in Vietnam said with high risk management administration, Vietnam has begun to revive its economy. Vietnam is the first country in the world showing the advantages of supply diversification. Japanese businesses have high interest in Vietnam, viewing it as an investment destination in the new normal status of today. Okabe Daisuke made a 4-point proposal to the government of Vietnam. First, relaunch travel between the two countries. In May and June, Vietnam allowed 500 Japanese specialists to enter Vietnam. Second, improve the implementation of public investment projects. No economic stimulus measure can bring high efficiency as public investment can. The subway No 1 Ben Thanh Suoi Tien, the Ben Luc Long Thanh Highway and Nhon urban railway are effective measures to stimulate the economy. Third, attract foreign direct investors, including Japanese. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is providing a $2.3 billion credit package to help businesses diversify their production chains. Meanwhile, Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) also has a finance support package to help businesses overcome the Covid-19 pandemic. Fourth, it is necessary to upgrade Vietnams credit rating and improve the disbursement and decision-making process. Le Ha Vietnam govt to offer extraordinary incentives for high-impact FDI projects By fulfiling certain criteria, some foreign investors would receive special treatment, said Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung. Sarah Ferguson gave a shout-out to her new son-in-law Edoardo 'Edo' Mapelli Mozzi and his four-year-old Wolfie on Friday as she launched three new children's books. The Duchess of York, 60, was speaking on her Youtube channel to unveil the books - entitled Genie Gems, Arthur Fantastic and The Enchanted Oak Tree. At the end of the broadcast she said she was missing her 'girlies' - newly-married Beatrice and Eugenie - before sending her love to Edo, Wolfie and Eugenie's husband Jack Brooksbank. She said: 'I miss my girlies, where are you girlies? Beatrice, Eugenie, Edo, Wolfie and of course Jack, Jack the man! Sarah also wished her sister Jane, who lives in Sydney, 'lots of love' before thanking her publisher Serenity Press and her staff for making 'all this madness happen'. Sarah Ferguson gave a shout-out to her new son-in-law Edoardo 'Edo' Mapelli Mozzi and his four-year-old Wolfie on Friday as she launched three new children's books The Duchess of York, 60, has been entertaining children and adults alike for the past few months with her daily 'Storytime with Fergie and Friends' - broadcast from her Royal Lodge home in Windsor. But today she unveiled the new trio of her own. The books are dubbed the 'Serenity Collection', and Sarah claimed: 'As you sit and read these beautiful books you know that you really are bringing a smile to a child's face.' At the end of Friday's Youtube live stream, Sarah said: 'Oh and lots of love, love you sister and to all my team back here, the fairies and buttercups Antonia and all the team back here that make all this madness happen for me because poor people theyre exhausted, they have to put with this craziness, and Fergie and Friends.' She then finished off by sending love to her daughters and their husbands. At the end of the Youtube broadcast she said she was missing her 'girlies' - newly-married Beatrice and Eugenie - before sending her love to Edo, Wolfie and Eugenie's husband Jack Brooksbank. Pictured: Beatrice and Edo on their wedding day on July 17 Also in the broadcast, she said she thinks people find her 'strange' when she was speaking about her character Arthur Fantastic. She said: 'Arthur Fantastic is an extraordinary tale about colour and magic and being who you are. 'I think people find me very strange because they can't put me in a box. 'They don't know where to put me in life, because I find extreme happiness, I take it very seriously. 'I take joy very seriously and I take kindness and goodness very seriously.' Yesterday Fergie announced she's launching three new children's books - after spending lockdown reading other people's on her YouTube channel It comes after Sarah yesterday said on Twitter she was 'so excited' about the book launch. Sarah announced she'd signed a seven book deal to write children's stories, consisting of five picture books and a two young chapter books, back in February - with son-in-law Edo among the first to congratulate her on the project on Instagram. The works will be published in Australia and New Zealand. At the time Ms McDermott described the duchess' tales as 'nurturing stories'. She said: 'We are delighted to welcome the Duchess to our press. Her beautiful books are aligned with our core value of sharing nurturing stories that empower young minds. The works will be published in Australia and New Zealand. At the time publisher Karen McDermott described the duchess' tales as 'nurturing stories'. Writing on Twitter yesterday, the Duchess of York said she is 'so excited' about the launch 'We cannot wait to bring these books into readers' hands.' The royal is already the author of more than 25 books, including the Budgie the Little Helicopter and the Little Red series. It's been a busy time for the Duchess; earlier this month her daughter Princess Beatrice married fiance Edoardo in secret. The royal wedding was initially due to take place on May 29, but had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Beatrice eventually decided to have an intimate ceremony in front of 20 loved ones, which included her mother Sarah, father Prince Andrew, grandmother the Queen and grandfather the Duke of Edinburgh. Fergie also has an exciting TV project in the pipeline - judging celebrities as they dance with horses for a new show. She has filmed the pilot for upcoming Fox production Dancing With Horses, where stars devise complicated dance routines with the animals. A keen rider herself, Prince Andrew's ex-wife is an expert on the panel - and former ITV commissioner Claudia Rosencrantz has claimed she was 'wonderful' to work with. The pilot was shot in the UK because Studio 1 required access to highly trained horses from Britain and France, and Claudia admitted shooting with them was a 'complicated' job. Imphal, July 31 : Despite the sacrifice of lives of three of its troopers in Manipur, the Assam Rifles remained committed to the security of the nation and would continue to uphold its ideals in its pursuit to defeat secessionist forces, a defence spokesman said on Friday. Three Assam Rifles troopers were killed while five others were injured in an ambush by an insurgent group near the India-Myanmar border in Chandel area in Manipur on Wednesday night. Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh said on Friday that the state government would not remain quiet but "hunt down the perpetrators" involved in the militant attack that killed three Assam Rifles personnel. Defence spokesman Lt. Col. P. Khongsai said the martyred soldiers hailing from Manipur, Nagaland and Assam truly represented the idea of unity in diversity - "the strength of our nation and the Assam Rifles". He said that to honour the supreme sacrifice made by Havildar (GD) Pranay Kalita, Rifleman (GD) Methna Konyak and Rifleman (GD) Ratan Salam of the Assam Rifles, who laid down their lives in the line of duty in Manipur, a wreath-laying ceremony with full military honours was organised at Tulihal airport in Imphal on Friday. Wreaths were laid to pay homage to the fallen soldiers by the Manipur Chief Minister, Director General of Manipur Police L. M. Khaute, Brigadier D. S. Shisodia, Brigadier Deepak Joshi and other senior officers. Havildar (GD) Pranay Kalita, a resident of Assam's Barpeta district, is survived by his wife and two daughters, while Rifleman (GD) Methna Konyak is a resident of Mon District in Nagaland and is survived by his wife and daughter. Rifleman Ratan Salam is a resident of Manipur's Kakching Makha Leikai area and he has left behind his wife and two sons. "The nation salutes their supreme sacrifice made in the highest traditions of the force in service of the nation. In this hour of grief, Assam Rifles stands firm in its solemn commitment to ensure the welfare of the families of the fallen soldiers," a defence release said. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and his Manipur counterpart N. Biren Singh condemned the attack on the Assam Rifles troopers. Sonowal in a statement said: "It is really shocking to know the loss of the life of a brave jawan of our state who became an innocent victim of the dastardly attack of the militants. Militancy is not a solution to any problem, rather it complicates the situation. The indiscriminate attack on the on-duty jawans deserves to be disapproved by all sections." "This is a testing time for the family of slain jawan Pranay Kalita, and I express my heartfelt empathy with the bereaved family members and pray to God for eternal peace of the departed soul," he added. Biren Singh said in a tweet: "As we lost a son of Manipur in a cowardly attack by militants in Chandel, the Govt of Manipur would take up necessary arrangement to rehabilitate and provide a quality life for the families of the martyrs from Manipur who have served in the military and para-military forces." The Manipur Chief Minister told the media that there is no place for violence in a democratic country like India. "The government would not remain a silent spectator, and the perpetrators would be positively hunted down," he said and appealed to the armed militant outfits to shun violence and join the mainstream for a political solution of their genuine issues, if any. The matter would be discussed in the state cabinet, Singh added. TW: this post includes references to sexual assault, rape, and suicide, as well as graphic descriptions of murder, body mutilation, and animal abuse. 1. It by Stephen King. "I read the book in 2016 before the new movie came out. I got to the part when the kids are trying to get out of the tunnels and "the Losers' Club", who are all 11 or 12 years old, take turns having sex with Beverly, I couldn't believe what I was reading. I re-read the scene thinking I must have misunderstood. Once I realised I hadn't, I couldn't believe this had ever gotten published! " : Welcome to Derry, Maine ...Its a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real...They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. "For me it's the bit when Esther is talking about picturing her life like a fig tree. It made me physically put the book down, stare straight ahead and wonder about my life. It made me wonder where Im going to be in 10, 20, 30 year's time. It really made me ponder about every aspect of my life, whether my personality is just a figment of my imagination, and whether people see me differently. Its an incredible book, a masterpiece, if you will." : Sylvia Plath's shocking, realistic, and intensely emotional novel about a woman falling into the grip of insanity.Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going undermaybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes palpably real, even rationalas accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. "Patrick Bateman starves a rat, shoves part of a PVC pipe into the vagina of a woman hes holding captive, pushes cheese inside her, and releases the rat into the pipe to go after the cheese. He then pulls out the pipe trapping the rat inside her. She screams as it eats her from the inside out; its almost a relief when he cuts her in half with a chainsaw later! This remains the most difficult scene Ive ever read, and its one I try so hard to forget but cant." : Patrick Bateman is twenty-six and he works on Wall Street, he is handsome, sophisticated, charming and intelligent. He is also a psychopath. Taking us to head-on collision with America's greatest dreamand its worst nightmareAmerican Psycho is bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognise but do not wish to confront. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. "When I read it I had one of my first major panic attacks. The first half was all about saving these two doggos, but then they both die! One dog dies first, and then the other slowly dies from literal sadness. I cried writing this comment." : A loving threesome, they ranged the dark hills and river bottoms of Cherokee country. Old Dan had the brawn. Little Ann had the brains, and Billy had the will to make them into the finest hunting team in the valley. Glory and victory were coming to them, but sadness waited too. Where the Red Fern Grows is an exciting tale of love and adventure you'll never forget. Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup. "There's a lot of awful stuff in the book that sums up just how unforgivably evil slavery was, but the scene that was the hardest to finish was when Patsey was whipped nearly to death. It was so devastating in writing that I couldn't bring myself to watch it on film, but I STRONGLY believe that every student in America should be required to read the book or see the film." : Twelve Years a Slave, sub-title: Narrative of Solomon Northup, citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana, is a memoir by Solomon Northup as told to and edited by David Wilson. It is a slave narrative of a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped in Washington, D.C., sold into slavery, and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana. He provided details of slave markets in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, as well as describing at length cotton and sugar cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana. SAN FRANCISCO TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app that has been under scrutiny from the Trump administration, is in talks to sell itself to Microsoft and other companies as President Trump weighs harsh actions against the business, including forcing TikTok to divorce itself from its parent company, ByteDance, said people with knowledge of the discussions. The powerful Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, has been examining ByteDances 2017 purchase of Musical.ly, an app that eventually morphed to become TikTok. The committee has decided to order ByteDance to divest TikTok, and the government is engaged in negotiations over the terms of the separation, according to a person familiar with the administrations plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. White House officials have said TikTok may pose a national security threat because of its Chinese ownership. On Friday, Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, who leads the committee, briefed the president on the divestment plan. But it remains unclear what the president will do, including whether the U.S. would apply a divestment order to all of TikToks American operations and whether its actions would affect the apps global business as well. Mr. Trump is weighing several other courses of action, including an executive order that could use the vast powers of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to bar certain foreign apps from American app stores. The Trump administration has also considered whether to add TikToks parent to a so-called entity list, which would prevent it from purchasing American products and services without a special license, said people with knowledge of the matter. Discussions are expected to continue into this weekend. New Delhi: Taking strong objection to the depiction of armed forces personnel in some web series, the Defence Ministry has written to the Central Board of Film Certification, urging that production houses may be advised to obtain a no objection certificate from the ministry before telecasting any film, documentary or web series on an Army theme, sources said. The Defence Ministry had received some complaints raising strong objections about the portrayal of Indian Army personnel and the military uniform in an "insulting manner", they said. The sources said that in some web series streamed recently, the scenes related to the Army are far from reality and present a distorted image of the armed forces. The Defence Ministry has now formally written to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) urging that production houses may be advised to obtain an NOC from it before the telecast of any film, documentary or web series on Army theme in public domain, the sources said. They added that the communication has also been sent to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for consideration. The communication to Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has been done to curtail the incidents which distort the image of defence forces and hurt the sentiments of defence personnel and veterans, they said. In the letter to the CBFC, the ministry said that it has been brought to its notice that some production houses making films on Army theme, are using contents which are distorting the image of the Indian Army, according to sources. PTI This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics High levels of COVID-19 abroad make it difficult for Canada to open its borders to even more travellers. Canada adds one more month of travel restrictions High levels of COVID-19 abroad make it difficult for Canada to open its borders to even more travellers. Canada adds one more month of travel restrictions High levels of COVID-19 abroad make it difficult for Canada to open its borders to even more travellers. Canada adds one more month of travel restrictions High levels of COVID-19 abroad make it difficult for Canada to open its borders to even more travellers. Kareem El-Assal Shelby Thevenot Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif Sans Font Size A A Canada is extending the travel restrictions it first put in place for most foreign travellers at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. This morning, Canada issued a new Order in Council announcing its travel restrictions will be extended by another month, until August 31. In mid-March, Canada announced it was introducing travel restrictions effective March 18. Originally, the restrictions were in place until June 30, but then at the end of last month, Canada extended them until today, July 31. Who can come to Canada right now According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the following are among those who can travel to Canada right now: Canadian citizens Permanent residents Some people who have been approved for Canadian permanent residence Some temporary foreign workers Some international students Immediate family members of Canadian citizens and permanent residents (spouses or common-law partners, dependent children, dependent child of a dependent child, parent or step-parent, guardian or tutor) The full list of exempt individuals is available here Need Canadian immigration help? Fill out a free assessment Canadas coronavirus curve experiencing downward trend The decision to extend restrictions is largely a function of the high levels of COVID-19 cases abroad, which runs in stark contrast to Canadas situation. As shown in World Health Organization (WHO) data, daily COVID-19 cases unfortunately continue to rise around the world. Source: World Health Organization. Since experiencing a peak in cases in April, Canada has seen its COVID-19 curve slope downward. For the most part, new COVID-19 cases have been under 400 per day since early June. There was an uptick in cases in mid-July, but daily cases have once again fallen to below 400 in recent weeks. At the start of the pandemic, Canada imposed lockdowns which have since been eased significantly. However, social distancing and other public safety measures (e.g., such as mandatory mask-wearing in some jurisdictions) remain in place. These measures, which include the restriction of foreign travel, have helped to lower Canadas coronavirus count. Source: Government of Canada. Canadas immigration system continues to operate In the first few months of the pandemic, Canada continued to hold Express Entry draws, inviting immigration candidates to apply for permanent residence. However, the bi-weekly draws only selected candidates from the Canadian Experience Class, and people who had received provincial nominations. Canada held one all-program draw in early July, which included Foreign Skilled Worker Program candidates. At least one Express Entry draw is expected to take place next week, given the governments previous activities. The Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) has also been operational during the pandemic, though most provinces have implemented special measures. Saskatchewan, for example, put in measures to help nominees not lose their chance at permanent residence, and Alberta is only inviting immigrants who are in the province. Hopeful immigrants have been invited from B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Quebec has also invited immigration candidates. Temporary foreign workers are largely exempt from the travel restrictions and have been less affected than another groups of immigrants and temporary residents. They are able to come to Canada so long as the purpose of their travel is non-discretionary and non-optional (e.g., they are coming to work in a job that was pre-arranged prior to their arrival). Canada is also trying to support international students by allowing online study to be eligible for Post-Graduation Work Permits. Some international students are currently exempt from travel restrictions. Canada also has a temporary two-step study permit process in place. Read our Canadian immigration coronavirus FAQ What to expect for the rest of 2020 Canada will continue to monitor the coronavirus situation, both domestically and abroad, to inform its travel rules for the rest of the year. Despite todays extension of travel restrictions, Canada is in the midst of reviewing whether to introduce additional exemptions. As first reported by CIC News earlier this week, the Government of Canada is currently engaging with provinces, territories, universities, colleges, and other educational institutions about how to potentially welcome more international students in a safe manner. As has been the case since the start of the pandemic, Canada may gradually announce more exemptions in the months to come. In the meantime, its immigration policy objectives remain unchanged from what they were prior to the pandemic. Canada is guided by its 2020-2022 Immigration Levels Plan. Beyond the pandemic, it seems unlikely Canada will significantly alter its immigration policies given the importance of immigration to strengthen its economy in wake of an aging population and low birth rate. Find out if you are eligible for any Canadian immigration programs 2020 CIC News All Rights Reserved To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! New Delhi, July 31 : Born in the times of harsh military rule of General Zia ul Haq, defying draconian censorship and indoctrination of a "certain kind of intolerant and bigoted Islam", Pakistan's best known theatre group 'Ajoka' prides itself with defiance in its grain. "We have learnt how to survive in difficult times and rely on our human resources, not financial or technological. Originally it was the young theatre activists led by Madeeha Gauhar, who managed to link social content with indigenous forms, and then the inspiration came from the enthusiastic support from our audience. The social commitment of our core team ensures that we stay on course and don't succumb to political, fundamentalist or market pressures..." said Shahid Nadeem, playwright and Director of Pakistan-based Ajoka theatre which has also performed widely across India. Part of the recently released documentary 'Pakistan's Best Kept Secret', which will be showcased during the first edition of Indus Valley International Film Festival (to be screened digitally from August 1 to 9), the playwright says that through the film that explores the extraordinary collection of Lahore museum, the team has tried to rediscover and re-acknowledge Pakistan's past: Hindu, Budhist, Sikh, Islamic, and Colonial heritage. "From the beginning, there have been two Pakistans, one which was born in 1947, turning its back to India and disowning its Indo-Muslim heritage, and another which was always there, from the times of Indus Valley civilization, which owned and admired its rich cultural heritage. But the ruling establishment always denied and even rejected the pre-1947 or pre-Islamic heritage. Lahore Museum is one great example, where artifacts and relics from the past 5000 years are kept, but very little is known about it in the country or internationally. A visit there acquaints us with the fact that we are inheritors of one of the most ancient and most developed civilizations: Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Taxila, Hindu, Sikh, Iranian and Arabic. Uk-based Anwar Akhtar played a major role in mustering resources for the project," said Nadeem about the film which has already gained two million views on Facebook. Lamenting that unlike the west, museums in our part of the world are mostly boring, and even scary places, he added, "There are not 21st, or even 20th century places to visit for grown ups, leave alone children. Synonymous with lack of professional presentation, bad lighting, and the non-usage of modern technology and exciting forms of information-giving, we try to ignore museums in general, as they remind us of our glorious (and inglorious) past. In a way it also seems to suggest our unwillingness to learn from history. Museums ought to be happening and fun places -- linking our past to our present, and our future too." Talk to him about independent theatre groups in Pakistan, and he says that they are in a worse state as compared to their counterparts in India. "Corporates don't want to touch us as they regard us as political and controversial. The government considers us unreliable an a nuisance as our plays are critical of their policies. Not to mention, there is ideological resistance considering the fact that religious conservatives regard theatre and performing arts un-Islamic. We do get some support from progressive individuals and have now started acting and writing classes, but this is not enough to run an establishment." A bi-lingual playwright, whose collection of my 15 plays in Gurmukhi was published from India just a week back, Nadeem says that though Punjabi poetry is flourishing in Pakistan, the written script has been much ignored, even stigmatized in that country. "Despite the fact that it is the mother tongue of a majority of Pakistanis (Punjab being the 66 per cent of population), it is not taught. Punjabi kids are forced to study in Urdu or English. There are no newspapers in Punjabi, hardly a TV or Radio channel at school or college level. The Punjab Assembly bars members to speak in the language. I teach at the Institute for Art and Culture which teaches Punjabi at the university level. Silver lining being that there are websites promoting Punjabi and also linking up with Gurmukhi." Nadeem, who is working on a new play written especially for the online medium which centers around a girl's harassment at a local elite school says that though the initial days of the pandemic were a setback, Ajoka recovered quite quickly. "We produced 'Manto Online' last week and our 'Cronologue Online Theatre Festival' was a massive success," he smiled. Stressing that the theatre group is deeply committed to the cause of Indo-Pak peace and people-to-people contact, Nadeem pointed out, "We have produced plays and held Indo-Pak festivals to celebrate shared heritage. Traveling to India and hosting Indian artists has been a sheer pleasure. In fact, Ajoka has performed from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and Amritsar to Kolkata. We are still in regular contact with our counterparts in India and hope to resume our journey soon." A Florida teenager's hack of Twitter led to bogus tweets being sent out July 15 from the accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires. Read more MIAMI A British man, a Florida man and a Florida teen were identified by authorities Friday as the hackers who earlier this month took over Twitter accounts of prominent politicians, celebrities and technology moguls to scam people around the globe out of more than $100,000 in Bitcoin. Graham Ivan Clark, 17, was arrested Friday in Tampa, where the Hillsborough State Attorneys Office will prosecute him as adult. He faces 30 felony charges, according to a news release. Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, U.K., and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, were charged in California federal court. In one of the most high-profile security breaches in recent years, hackers sent out bogus tweets on July 15 from the accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Celebrities Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, were also hacked. The tweets offered to send $2,000 for every $1,000 sent to an anonymous Bitcoin address. There is a false belief within the criminal hacker community that attacks like the Twitter hack can be perpetrated anonymously and without consequence, U.S. Attorney David L. Anderson for the Northern District of California said in a news release. Todays charging announcement demonstrates that the elation of nefarious hacking into a secure environment for fun or profit will be short-lived. Although the case against the teen was also investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice, Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren explained that his office is prosecuting Clark in Florida state court because Florida law allows minors to be charged as adults in financial fraud cases such as this when appropriate. He added that Clark was the leader of the hacking scam. This defendant lives here in Tampa, he committed the crime here, and hell be prosecuted here, Warren said. Security experts were not surprised that the alleged mastermind of the hack is a 17-year-old, given the relative amateur nature both of the operation and the hackers willingness afterward to discuss the hack with reporters online. I think this is a great case study showing how technology democratizes the ability to commit serious criminal acts, said Jake Williams, founder of the cybersecurity firm Rendition Infosec. Im not terribly surprised that at least one of the suspects is a minor. There wasnt a ton of development that went into this attack. Williams said the hackers were extremely sloppy in how they moved the Bitcoin around. Williams said it did not appear that the three used any services that make cryptocurrency difficult to trace by tumbling transactions of multiple users, a technique akin to money laundering. He also said he was conflicted about whether Clark should be charged as an adult. He definitely deserves to pay (for jumping on the opportunity) but potentially serving decades in prison doesnt seem like justice in this case, Williams said. Twitter previously said hackers used the phone to fool the social media companys employees into giving them access. It said hackers targeted a small number of employees through a phone spear-phishing attack. This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems, the company tweeted. After stealing employee credentials and getting into Twitter's systems, the hackers were able to target other employees who had access to account support tools, the company said. The hackers targeted 130 accounts. They managed to tweet from 45 accounts, access the direct message inboxes of 36, and download the Twitter data from seven. Dutch anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders has said his inbox was among those accessed. Internal Revenue Service investigators in Washington, D.C., were able to identify two of the hackers by analyzing Bitcoin transactions on the blockchain the ledger where transactions are recorded including ones the hackers attempted to keep anonymous, federal prosecutors said. Spear-phishing is a more targeted version of phishing, an impersonation scam that uses email or other electronic communications to deceive recipients into handing over sensitive information. Twitter said it would provide a more detailed report later given the ongoing law enforcement investigation. The company has previously said the incident was a coordinated social engineering attack that targeted some of its employees with access to internal systems and tools. It didnt provide any more information about how the attack was carried out, but the details released so far suggest the hackers started by using the old-fashioned method of talking their way past security. British cybersecurity analyst Graham Cluley said his guess was that a targeted Twitter employee or contractor received a message by phone asking them to call a number. When the worker called the number they might have been taken to a convincing (but fake) helpdesk operator, who was then able to use social engineering techniques to trick the intended victim into handing over their credentials, Clulely wrote Friday on his blog. Its also possible the hackers pretended to call from the companys legitimate help line by spoofing the number, he said. Fazelis father said Friday he hasnt been able to talk to his son since Thursday. Im 100% sure my son is innocent, Mohamad Fazeli said. Hes a very good person, very honest, very smart and loyal. We are as shocked as everybody else, he said by phone. Im sure this is a mix up. Attempts to reach relatives of the other two werent immediately successful. Hillsborough County court records didnt list an attorney for Clark, and federal court records didnt list attorneys for Sheppard or Fazeli. His family failed him, LaVerne Cheatham, his closest sibling, said in an interview. It was a sad situation. All of us, including me, didnt give him what he needed. She said of her mother, There wasnt a day that she didnt worry about him. With public schools unable or unwilling to accommodate him, he stayed at home. In his book, Johnson describes himself as having had an insatiable appetite and a penchant for stealing food from stores and running away. His mother, he wrote, didnt know how to handle me. To punish him, he said, shed first heat a knife on a stove. Then she put it on my hand and burnt me with it, he wrote. And then she had an iron and she whipped me with the iron cord and made bruises all over my back. I dont blame her for it I probably needed it, a licking. My mother tried but she couldnt take it anymore. His parents turned to the Philadelphia childrens court for help. Instructed to send him to a state institution, they chose Pennhurst, originally called the Eastern State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic when it opened in 1908. This is it for me, Johnson remembered thinking. I guess I will be locked up in there, in a big cellar with locks. At Pennhurst he was traumatized by the emotional and physical abuse. He was ridiculed: Youre stupid. Youre crazy. Dummy, Dopey, dont know nothing. He witnessed patients being beaten by other patients with broom handles and hid under the bed to avoid the same fate. He saw a young patient drink a bottle of liquid Thorazine, an antipsychotic, and die of an overdose. A young friend was strangled with a rope and left to die in a filthy, rat-infested punishment ward. In his frustration and anger, Johnson broke windows, for which he was locked in the punishment ward and forced to scrub its walls and floors. The sexual abuse began early on. All this stuff happened late at night, he wrote, adding, They did awful things to me. From multiple rapes, he said, he contracted sexually transmitted diseases. Years after he left Pennhurst he learned that he was H.I.V. positive. Sebastian Vettel insists he is not under "time pressure" to decide his next career move. We reported that a July 31 deadline, tying in with an exit clause in Sergio Perez's contract, had been set for the quadruple world champion to decide whether to move to Racing Point for 2021. "There is no time pressure," Vettel told German media on Thursday, one day before the supposed deadline. "Maybe I will know in weeks, maybe it will take longer. For me the most important thing is that I make the right decision and that the package is right." There are rumours Vettel may still be holding out for a Red Bull seat, even though his former bosses have said there is no room at the senior team. However, if the protest lodged by Renault against the legality of Racing Point's 2020 car is rejected, Dr Helmut Marko says the junior team Alpha Tauri may run the same car as the senior Red Bull team in 2021. "Everything depends on the protest," Ralf Schumacher told Sky Deutschland. "That will be crucial. It will all be very interesting. "If Renault's protest is rejected, Red Bull will use four identical cars in 2021. And then it doesn't really matter which of the four cars he drives," Schumacher also told f1-insider.com. When asked about the protest, Red Bull's Marko said: "First of all we have to get the judgement. That shouldn't happen before the race on Sunday." And when also asked about the supposed July 31 deadline for Vettel, Marko added: "To my knowledge, he has more time to choose after that." (GMM) Press Release July 31, 2020 ANC: Matters of Fact interview of Sen. Win Gatchalian with Christian Esguerra on death penalty, COVID-19 response, Bayanihan 2 and telcos Death Penalty Q: why did you give your seat in the Justice and Human Rights Committee to accommodate Senator Dela Rosa? SEN WIN: I can see Senator Dela Rosa's passion on tackling death penalty so to give him the opportunity to participate in the deliberations of the committee as well as to vote in the committee, I relinquished my membership in the Justice Committee. Q: Can this be interpreted as something that is meant to push it further, meaning push it closer to being passed by the Senate? SEN WIN: Not necessarily because the chairman of that committee is Senator Gordon and the chairman as we all know dictates the pace and proceedings in the committee. Chairman Gordon is still maintaining the chairmanship of the committee and he still wants to chair the committee when the time comes that we will hear the death penalty law. Q: Are you in favor in reviving the death penalty in terms of drug traffickers? SEN WIN: I filed a bill that will revive the death penalty but only exclusively for drug lords and my reasons for that is during my time as Mayor of Valenzuela, I have encountered a lot of cases wherein the drug lords are funding to protect drug syndicates, drug peddlers. In my view the root cause of the drug menace in our country is coming from drug lords. Looking at past experiences, even if drug lords get convicted and put in jail they still manage to conduct businesses so if they don't meet the death penalty we will have a difficult time curbing drugs in our communities. Q: Given the criminal justice system, do you actually think they will focus solely on drug lords and not just small drug peddlers? SEN WIN: That's why I particularly focused on the drug lords. Based on studies, our own research and also from my own investigation, when I was a Mayor it gave me a good perspective on how these illegal drug trade is being conducted from the drug lords all the way to our streets. In my view the drug lords are really the root cause of our drug menace in our country. Q: Should this be a priority on whether we revive the death penalty given the other serious problems that we have now, the pandemic? SEN WIN: From my research, looking at the deliberations during the past congresses and senate deliberations on the average a death penalty law will need around a year to a year and a half to be deliberated. During the privilege speech of Senator Dela Rosa, no less than the Senate President said it took them almost more than a year to come up with some form of voting on the death penalty law. So we can start the conversation, in fact the conversation already started a long time ago. We can then present our arguments for or against it. The deliberations would probably take a year or more than a year. By the time we vote hopefully the pandemic will be over. COVID-19 response Q: With the worsening health crisis here in the Philippines, what do you think of the adjustment, in reporting the data collection and reporting by the DOH? SEN WIN: Two things, the virus is here to stay for a while until we find a vaccine and I can see even from the national level all the way to the local level that we're already doing everything we can to stop the spread of the virus but from our experience we cannot stop the spread of the virus we can only delay it, slow it down so that our health system can catch up and not be overwhelmed. Having said that, both national and local governments are already doing all the WHO protocols from contact tracing to testing to isolation but it's really difficult to balance. Nakita naman natin an ECQ is the best way to completely stop the spread of the virus but that's detrimental for our economy so it's really a very difficult balancing act and what's important right now is our hospitals will not get overwhelmed. That's why I've been lobbying and been pushing to create more field hospitals so that our patients will have space and get medical care. Q: What do you think of the adjustment it seems like they want to make the figures look less? SEN WIN: I was quite surprised, 38,000 recoveries in one day and our active cases from 50,000 dropped to 22,000. It was quite surprising from a layman standpoint but I also consulted our Senate doctor, I also consulted some public government health experts and to be fair to the DOH the global protocol now is after ten days, even after ten days if you do not exhibit symptoms anymore, you can be released and categorized as recovered. But that's actually a lot of debate right now even on the local level because sometimes the families are not comfortable to go home and say 'oh wala na kong COVID kasi lumagpas na ko ng ten days.' The best way still is to test and make sure they are negative, to make sure that they can bring home the certification to show that their families are negative. From the policy standpoint it's better to test at the end so that we will completely know that the recoveries are indeed negative from COVID. Q: Policy, the data coming from DOH because that will dictate the course of the government's response? SEN WIN: Correct. The data coming from the DOH is very important because that will dictate the decisions that we will be making from the legislative all the way to the executive branch especially the executive branch because they're the ones executing the policies and strategies to stop COVID. So it's important to be timely and have accurate information but all of the things that I've been telling the DOH and also telling the IATF is to automate the data gathering because as we speak right now, data gathering inputting is still manual. They gather data by physical presence and they send the data by email. If they can do that online or in the cloud that will be much accurate and much faster. There's a lot of things that need to be improved in terms of data gathering and data processing. Bayanihan 2 Q: Are you satisfied with the figure, with the amount of the package, 140 billion pesos only? SEN WIN: I'm not satisfied with it, its very small compared to other countries. Other countries are spending more in terms of response and stimulus. What's important right now we have to address hunger and people who are losing their jobs. As we speak, we're not addressing hunger in our country. We only released half of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP), the second tranche and if this prolongs, we have to make sure there is food in the tables of our constituents. At the same time we are losing jobs. Companies are closing down, MSME's are closing down. We have to address them also so the 140 billion is definitely small. My own estimate we need about 530 billion in terms of SAP and in addressing unemployment here in our country. Q: The other question is this, why did you settle for the 140 billion? SEN WIN: Right now, it's a compromise but in the Bayanihan 2 it's stated there that any additional revenue or earning from the government should be channeled to response and stimulus activities for our economy. So any additional revenue, if our revenue starts to grow, and businesses will start flourishing again, then that additional revenue can be channeled to the stimulus and response program. That 530 billion that I proposed is only an additional 2% in our deficit. If we're targeting around 9% that's additional 11% to our deficit. Some countries that I have been tracking the deficit can go as high as 20% or even higher. What's important is our economic engine is functioning, na-pause lang siya ngayon because of the COVID but come 2021 we are projecting around 8% to even 9% economic growth and we can definitely pay the loans that will be incurred so that we can respond better and address our COVID problems better. Q: What is a more realistic amount that can be hammered out in the bicam? SEN WIN: We have to balance and the DOF is very strict in the 140 million cap but then again as a balance and as a compromise the Senate inserted a colatilla there wherein if revenue exceeds a certain point and we have added sources of revenue we can channel it to the response and the stimulus program. So we will be monitoring the revenue growth and what's important right now is spending on the right aspects. Like what I said earlier, let's go back to the basics, let's go back to the essentials of our constituents, that is food on the table for their families. Q: What are the items that you are looking at in the GAA? SEN WIN: Budget season is coming in so timing wise it's actually a good time to insert a lot of provisions on stimulus and also on social safety net programs. In the budget we will be looking at ways to stimulate the economy assuming that the vaccine will be available within the year. We have to make sure that we have money to buy the vaccine. My own estimate we will be needing approximately 230 billion to buy 100 million vaccines. If you look at the vaccine makers, six of them are entering already phase 3 and hopefully by November we will have some form of vaccine. We have to be ready with the money to buy because it's important that we have the financial capability to buy the vaccine in case it comes already. Q: What do you think of the 1.3 trillion economic stimulus package? SEN WIN: I think it's realistic in my own computation we can spend as high as 1.4 trillion that will reach to about 52% of our GDP. That's a manageable figure. Again some countries have raised it two times or three times compared to ours. We have managed our debt to GDP ratio quite well in the last 20 years going down to as low as 39% debt to GDP. At this time we need cash the most and additional funds, this is the best time to use the good management that we implemented in the last 20 years by increasing it to about 52%. I think we can go as high as 52% of our GDP and that's about 1.4 trillion. My proposal is half of that will go to SAP and in addressing unemployment. Q: Have you articulated this to the DOF? SEN WIN: We had a lot of meetings with the DOF. We also talked to the chair of our Finance Committee, Senator Angara about this but we have to find a middle ground because it's important to get this moving already. So we're trying to understand each other and of course at the end of the day what's important is to get this up and running so our constituents can be assisted but let me stress also that all of these funds, all of the support will be nothing if we do not execute it. Absorptive capacity is also very important and execution is very important. I mentioned earlier that the second tranche of the SAP is at less than 40%. If you ask me, we should have been given the third trance already or even the fourth. We cannot give eight thousand pesos a month and expect people to save all that 8,000 pesos. They have to buy food and medicine. If this prolongs, we have to make sure that we give them 8,000 pesos every month and on time or else people will suffer and go hungry. In the SWS self-rated survey, we have approximately 5.2 million families already going hungry. That's up from 3 million six months ago. We can see that hunger is worsening in our country and we have to address that, that's the most basic. Q: and 7.3 million jobless Filipinos last April. SEN WIN: Correct. And in the formal sector also, so those for example in tourism, in the manufacturing companies, MSMEs, these are the formal sector that are releasing, furloughing and even retrenching jobs because the economy is quite uncertain so we have to address that also at least in the meantime while the pandemic is here we have to make sure we're addressing the basic needs of our constituents in the short-term. Q: Did you see a clear roadmap on how we're supposed to recover especially on the supposed pandemic future? SEN WIN: I have identified approximately about 10 pieces of legislation that the President mentioned. He outlined several bills that will stimulate the economy and help us recover as quickly as possible. The CREATE bill was mentioned, there was of course the FIST bill which will unclog bank loans in the banking sector. These are very important bills that the President mentioned. I would have wanted to hear some sort of timetable and some form of numbers so that it can be concertized but definitely the policies for economic recoveries through those pieces of legislation are already laid for. Telcos Q: the deadline set to improve their services, do you think it's reasonable and achievable? SEN WIN: Definitely the problem here when it comes to mobile internet and mobile reach is the cell towers and by far if you look at developing nations they have three to four times more cell site towers. I understand in Vietnam they have 50,000 to 60,000 cell towers compared to our less than 15,000 cell towers here. I think Both sides need to improve, the telco needs to invest in putting the infrastructure in place but at the same time the environment should be conducive. In the Ease of Doing Business Law or what we call the Anti-Red Tape Law there is a very specific provision there, people don't know this, there is a very specific provision that the Senate inserted last minute to help telcos put up cell towers. It's very specific there, the timeframe that the LGU's need to fulfill and give the permits. The LGU's, they need to give out the permit within seven days or else it's deemed approved already and even the home owners we're embedded in that Ease of Doing Business Law. As we all know yung mga homeowners din, they themselves are fighting to put up cell towers and this is a cause of delay. I know for a fact in some of the exclusive villages it's becoming a very personal issue to them to put up cell towers but if you don't put up that cell tower, it's not just the exclusive village that will be affected but the entire barangay. So my point of the matter is, the government needs to implement the Ease of Doing Business Law, it's already there and it's not being implemented. If you implement that, I'm calling on the Anti-Red Tape Council, if you implement that then you make it easier for the telcos to put up the cell towers cause it's already prescribed in the law. It is a shared responsibility because you have to make the environment conducive but as we speak I've talked to Mayor Rex, apparently the DILG has already issued guidelines on how to expedite putting up of cell towers. So things are moving and apparently the process is now even much faster, you have to give a permit inclusive of the subdivision concurrence within seven days. Q: The other concern, it might spook investors because of the President's approach to telco companies which is seen as a shakedown especially with the third telco player set for a commercial rollout by March next year? SEN WIN: We're all frustrated with the services of the telcos. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm very frustrated even here in our hometown. It's very difficult to get a good signal and we have drop calls almost every day. It's very frustrating because in this time of pandemic you want to have a strong signal and communicate clearly but that's not what is happening and it's been going on for many, many years and we have to take responsibility. Having said that, it's very hard for me to connect it to the third telco because my experience is also the same with what the President is experiencing and what the rest of our constituents are experiencing. It's the bad service, it's the poor signal and we need to improve on that especially going into what we call the better normal or the new normal in the next few decades. The Tripura Board of Secondary Education announced the results of TBSE Class 12 students on Friday (July 31, 2020) at 9 am. The results will be announced in online mode only owing to the prevalent coronavirus COVID-19 situation. After the results are declared from Pragya Bhwan by 9:45 am the result link will be active on the official website of the board. The exams were scheduled to be held in March, but it was postponed halfway due to the outbreak. When announced, students will be able to check their TBSE 12th result 2020 by visiting the official website of TBSE. How to check TBSE Tripura Board Uccha Madhyamik 12th Results: Step 1: Visit the website tripuraresults.nic.in or tbse.in Step 2: Click on the Class 12 result link provided Step 3: Enter the Registration number mentioned in the admit card Step 4: Click on Submit Step 5: Download Tripura Board Higher Secondary Exam Result 2020 The TBSE 12th result 2020 will be announced today and students will be able to view the outcome of their year-long hard work. The results will be available on the website - tsu.trp.nic.in/tripuraresults or tripuraresults.nic.in or tbse.in. Due to Coronavirus pandemic, the declaration dates of TBSE Board Exam Results 2020 have been delayed quite significantly. The Delhi government will redesign 500 kilometres of 100-foot-wide roads in the national capital on the lines of those in European cities, an official statement said on Tuesday. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal held a review meeting of the Public Works Department (PWD) regarding redesigning of seven roads in Delhi on the lines of European cities, it said. "During the meeting, the chief minister directed that all 100-foot-wide roads of Delhi, total 500 km, will be completely redesigned as per international standards and along the lines of the newly redesigned Chandni Chowk's main road," the statement said. He has asked the PWD for a detailed plan in three weeks, it said. "Delhi is the capital of the country. Through this project, it is our dream that Delhi looks like other global capital cities. This will present a better image of India in the world," the chief minister said. The Delhi government is continuously working to improve Delhi's roads. A large number of people come to Delhi from abroad and if the roads here are beautiful and congestion-free, a different image of India would be presented in front of the world, he said. "We will also increase the greenery beside these roads which will help us to combat pollution," Kejriwal said. The roads will be redesigned on BuildOperateTransfer (BOT) model and the construction company will have the responsibility to maintain the roads for 15 years, the statement said. The deadline of redesigning the first seven roads was December 2019 but it was extended till August 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, it said. People face issues because there are bottleneck roads, which cause traffic congestions at various locations in the city. Wide roads in many parts of Delhi turn into narrow ones and then back again into wide roads after a few kilometres, creating a bottleneck situation and heavy traffic. The priority will be to remove the bottlenecks first for a smooth flow of traffic and an organised lane system, the statement said. The next goal would be to increase the efficiency of the existing space of the roads in the city. There will be measured and planned spaces for vehicles, non-motorised vehicles, footpaths, and side-lanes. The footpaths will be widely mapped to an average of 10 feet for the convenience of pedestrians, it said. Also Watch: No surface will be left unpaved for dust control. In order to ensure that there is no dust on the roads, grass and shrubs will be planted, the statement said. The footpaths will be redesigned and reconstructed as per a standard height for the convenience of the physically handicapped. The roads will also have separate spaces for tree plantation and parking of e-vehicles and autos, and a cycle lane. The slope of the roads, as well as the drains, will be redesigned to tackle the problem of waterlogging. Rainwater harvesting structures will be built inside the drainage systems, it said. Different types of designs will be displayed on the walls by the road, it added. Earlier this year, former Hollywood power couple Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston broke the internet as they reunited on-screen after almost a decade since their divorce. During the 26th Screen Actor Guild Awards last January, the 56-year-old Pitt and 51-year-old Aniston had a victorious night after bagging the awards for their respective nominations. Pitt won the Best Supporting Actor for "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood," while Jennifer got the Best Female Actor in a Drama Series award for her role in Apple TV's "The Morning Show." The ex-couple had an unexpected reunion at the backstage and exchanged pleasantries at each other. The photos of Brad and Jennifer exchanging a congratulatory hug and holding each other's hands immediately went viral on social media and sent the Brad-Jenn shippers into a total frenzy. Their historical reunion also led to several speculations that the exes are now back on each other's arms and are only keeping their relationship low-key to avoid public scrutiny. Since then, fans have been longing to see the former golden couple back on screen once again and cross their fingers to rekindle their 90s romance. Six months after the sensational reunion, it looks like Brad and Jennifer will have the chance to be reunited again in a prestigious awards night. Emmys 2020 Just recently, the Television Academy dropped the list of nominations for the 72nd Emmy Awards ceremony. The much-awaited awards night will happen on September 20, 2020, and will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel on ABC. Both Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston received a nomination for the Emmys 2020, which means fans could see another sweet reunion from both stars. The "Friends" alum scored a nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role in "The Morning Show." Meanwhile, the "Troy" star received a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his appearance as Dr. Anthony Fauci on Saturday Night Live. On Tuesday, Jennifer took to Instagram to acknowledge her nomination and commended the team behind the show, who worked so hard to produce a great program. "What a morning waking up to this news! I am so proud of my @themorningshow family," Jennifer wrote alongside a series of behind-the-scene and promotional photos from her hit Apple TV series. Brad-Jen Reunion 2.0 But fans and Brad-Jenn shippers should not get their hopes high for another physical reunion. Since the coronavirus global pandemic threat is still around us, a typical awards night with red carpet, audience, and backstage interviews are unlikely to happen. The Emmys 2020 might also have a virtual ceremony, just like how the other production proceeds with their show. While Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston will unlikely cross paths during the awards ceremony, fans are still hoping to see them reunited virtually during TV's biggest night. Let us just cross our fingers to get a glimpse of the e-couple even only on "split-screens." READ MORE: 'Riverdale' Star Makes Heartbreaking Claim About TV Series Nestle Vietnam receiving the Certificate of Merit from Hung Yen Peoples Committee For several years, the company has been continuously awarded certificates of merit by local and central tax administration agencies for fulfilling its tax payment obligations and contributing to socioeconomic development. Nguyen Van Phong, chairman of Hung Yen People's Committee said that the global COVID-19 epidemic has negatively impacted every walk of life. The local authority, in collaboration with businesses and entrepreneurs, has made efforts to overcome difficulties and increase the province's regional GDP (GRDP) by 6.83 per cent, the highest growth rate in the country. This once again confirmed the important role of businesses and entrepreneurs in the province's socioeconomic development. In 2017, Nestle Vietnam officially launched Nestle Bong Sen Factory in Hung Yen to optimise its supply chain and bring its food and beverage products to consumers in a short period of time. With its long-term commitment to sustainable development, Nestle Vietnam continues to expand the factory and double its production capacity. Nestle Bong Sen Factorys distribution centre has been equipped with state-of-the-art technology to operate and deliver products. Nestle Vietnam has actively developed business and created employment, thereby contributing to the local budget. The company also implement several initiatives to support social security and create common values in the communities where it operates. During the earlier COVID-19 outbreak this year, Nestle Vietnam has granted more than 30,000 food and nutritional products to Hung Yen province worth VND500 million ($21,740) to support COVID-19 prevention activities and those affected. Besides, through the Ministry of Health, the company donated 12,000 medical masks and KN95 masks to Hung Yen province to support frontline doctors to effectively prevent and combat the disease. Over the past 25 years, Nestle Vietnam has been actively making contribution to Vietnams socioeconomic development. We always serve the people and stand beside the countrys fast-paced development. So far, Nestle Vietnam has invested $600 million in Vietnam, Binu Jacob, general director of Nestle Vietnam said. We are very happy about the recognition of Hung Yen Peoples Committee for our contribution to socioeconomic development and the state budget. The expansion and investment of Nestle Bong Sen Factory reflects our long-term commitment to the development of Vietnam in general and Hung Yen in particular. S erious public disorder in the coming months could overwhelm all attempts to control coronavirus, the Government's scientific advisers have been warned. The current volatile and highly complex situation means the UK will face grave challenges in maintaining order, according to a paper considered by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) in July. The academics warn that tensions duirng the pandemic have become inextricably bound with structural inequalities and international events. They cited the Black Lives Matter movement that gained traction in May and early June after the death of George Floyd in the US. There is an increasing sense of racial injustice, inequality and discrimination felt among black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, which have been disproportionately affected by the virus. At the same time, the authors say extreme right-wing groups are mobilising at a scale not seen for a decade, and exploiting fatal stabbing incidents in Reading, London and Glasgow. 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 The paper, by Professors Cliff Stott and Mark Harrison, reads: While widespread urban disorder is not inevitable, currently, the situation in the UK is precariously balanced and the smallest error in policing (whether perceived or real, inside or outside the UK) or policy could unleash a dynamic which will make the management of Covid-19 all but impossible. Put simply, a serious deterioration of public order could overwhelm all attempts to control contagion, overwhelm hospitals, the criminal justice system and hinder revival of the economy. The authors observe that large-scale protests, celebrations and unlicensed music events have been increasing, while public health messaging has become less clear. A major incident was declared when people massed on a beach in Bournemouth in June, while the resumption of football has led to large-scale gatherings and conflict. Brixton street party erupts into chaos The paper, Public Disorder and Public Health: Contemporary Threats and Risks, was considered by Sage two days before pubs reopened in England, which the authors warned would complicate and introduce new problems. They also warned that localised lockdowns could be problematic if they occur over Eid, which is the case after last-minute measures were imposed in Greater Manchester, parts of east Lancashire and West Yorkshire on Thursday evening. The scapegoating of various communities, and a sense of inequality or grievance due to localised lockdowns, could also stoke flames. Any resulting disorder could be of equal or greater scale to the 2011 London riots, with police capacity having diminished in the intervening years. This will mean officers being redeployed from different roles, affecting police forces ability to deliver business as usual, they say. If such a situation were to develop a security crisis would ensue, undermining public trust in Government and catastrophically undermining its Covid-19 recovery plans, the paper adds. Oregon Gov. Kate Browns decision Thursday to push Umatilla County back to stay-at-home status came after she learned of alarmingly high coronavirus spread in Hermiston estimated by researchers at Oregon State University. A random sampling of Hermiston residents last Saturday and Sunday found that 41 of 471 people or 8.7% tested positive for coronavirus. Researchers subsequently calculated that the actual prevalence was 17%, or about 3,000 active infections in a city of about 18,000 residents. This study confirms what we have feared based on weeks of troubling data from the Oregon Health Authority: The coronavirus has spread throughout Hermiston and threatens the entire community, Brown said in a statement. Brown learned about the study results Thursday during a briefing from top leaders at the Oregon Health Authority, who also shared other state-collected data points showing persistent problems in Umatilla County. Coronavirus cases have been surging in Umatilla County for a month and a half, pushing the jurisdiction to the fourth-most cases in Oregon despite having the 13th most residents. Cases are also climbing in neighboring Morrow County, prompting Brown to push it back into Phase 1 reopening status. The growth of cases in the Hermiston area had been well documented even before the latest study, conducted by Oregon State University as part of its months-long project that began in Corvallis before moving to Bend and Newport. State data showed that Hermistons 97838 ZIP code has regularly had among the highest number of new cases since June. Our results indicate the virus is extremely widespread in Hermiston and more prevalent than previous data had indicated, Ben Dalziel, an assistant professor and co-director of the project, said in a statement. Its not clear how many of the 41 people who tested positive during the OSU study had already been identified as testing positive and included in numbers compiled by the Oregon Health Authority. The state has identified 1,902 Umatilla County residents with confirmed or presumed infections. Dalziel told The Oregonian/OregonLive that participants who submit test samples are not asked if they have already been tested or if they have tested positive for COVID-19. But researchers do ask about symptoms, and four out five Hermiston residents who tested positive during OSUs project did not report having indicators of the virus. Participants are given a swab to collect a sample from their nose. Researchers also collected samples from sewage in Hermiston, and Boardman in Morrow County, to monitor spread. Those also showed high levels of the virus. Hermistons mayor, David Drotzmann, expressed alarm at the findings. The results of this study are a significant warning, he said in a statement. We now have a clearer picture of how many people are carrying this disease without knowing it, and how rapidly it is spreading family to family, household to household. -- Brad Schmidt; bschmidt@oregonian.com; 503-294-7628; @_brad_schmidt Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. The Motor Traffic and Transport Directorate (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service says over GHS700,000 has been realised from vehicle-related offences for the first half of this year 2020. This was as a result of the conviction of 1,350 motorcycle riders and other road users by motor courts across the country. Fifteen persons have however been jailed. Speaking to Citi News, Superintendent Alexander Obeng, Director in charge of education, research and training at the MTTD admonished the general public to adhere to road regulations. Apart from our enforcement efforts, we use this opportunity to admonish all Ghanaians to comply with motorcycle use protocols, i.e all motorbikes should be registered, ensure roadworthy with number plates embossed at the rear side. All motor riders or prospective motor riders should be 18 years and above and should proceed to the DVLA yard for training for the acquisition of Ghana drivers license category A that permits the holder to use it ride motorcycles only. And that needed training will inculcate in the holder of the motor license the skills, attitudes, values and the kind of competence required by any license holder to behave appropriately when the person is riding on any public road. 2020 statistics on motor crashes About 40 percent of the deaths recorded on the country's roads in the first half of this year were due to motorcycle crashes, according to the MTTD. These few crashes accounted for 440 deaths out of 1,141 from January to June, Superintendent Alexander Obeng said to Citi News on July 27. The motorcycle impact on our lives is worrying, he added. In comparison, for the entirety of 2019, there were 732 deaths resulting from 4,643 motorcycle crashes. In general, the National Road Safety Authority says there has been a 14 percent decline in road traffic deaths as at the end of May 2020. ---citinewsroom The depleting population of Tigers was a concern for the Indian Government due to the excessive hunting and poaching of the majestic wild cat species along with deforestation, leading to encroachment of habitat for tigers. The Government took several initiatives in mission mode to save the majestic wild cat species as India accounts for 70 percent of the world's tiger population. Norwegian Diplomat Erik Solheim has taken to Twitter to share the efforts taken by the governments of the countries such as India and Nepal which are the major habitable zones of tigers, to protect the majestic species. Bravo! This is how India and Nepalbrought tigers back from extinction. Clamping down on poachers, creating reserves and connecting them. A great example that conservation works. pic.twitter.com/haPsWzphmF Erik Solheim (@ErikSolheim) July 31, 2020 READ | International Tiger Day Posters, Importance, Wishes And All Species Of Tigers READ | International Tiger Day 2020: History, Meaning, And Its Significance The world celebrated the International Tiger's day on Tuesday, July 29. Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar on the occasion of Tiger's day, released the 4th All India Tiger report on the estimation of tiger population in the country on the eve of Global Tiger Day. Addressing a press conference, Javadekar revealed that India accounted for 70% of the world's tiger population and 8% of the world's biodiversity. "We have a large amount of flora and fauna that we are proud of, our effort is to improve the environment and biodiversity. We account for 70% of the world's tiger population. We are in a leading position and we are ready to work with all the 13 tiger range countries. We are working for their training, capacity building, management of tiger reserves," he said. All 50 tiger sanctuaries in good condition During the brief, Prakash Javedkar released 'Project Tiger: Securing India's Small Cats' along with posters of 'Smile - Small Wildcats of India' "Conservation of tigers has improved in India. We are working with many countries in tiger conservation," he said. The Environment Minister added that the conservation of tigers ensured the well being of the entire ecosystem. He also said that the 50 tiger sanctuaries in India were in good condition. MoS Babul Supriyo was also present during the press brief held at the National Media Centre. READ | Soha Ali Khan Shares Photo Of Tiger Pataudi, Says 'After All It's International Tiger Day' READ | Ankita Lokhande Recounts Precise Moment She Heard Of Sushant's 'suicide'; Speaks To Arnab '30,000 cameras installed' While addressing the tiger population in the country, Babul Supriyo said, "About 3.5 crore photos were taken by the camera traps in the forests in the Tiger Census 2018, 76,651 of which were of tigers and 51,777 were of leopards. More than 30,000 camera traps covered more than 3,81,400 sq km area." He revealed that these photos helped in the analysis of the number of tigers. "Initially we would just use pug prints to look for tigers. Now we have more than 30,00 camera traps to assess numbers," he said. Prakash Javadekar also released the numbers of other endangered animals in the country saying, "India has 30,000 elephants, 3,000 one-horned rhinos and more than 500 lions." (Representative image. Credit: PTI) tech2 News Staff Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, it was speculated that the launch of Apple's 2020 iPhone lineup might get delayed. However, in the earnings call of the third fiscal quarter of 2020, Apple CFO Luca Maestri confirmed that the iPhone 12 series supply will be "available a few weeks later", according to report by MacRumours. While the Apple official hinted at a delay in availability according to a The Verge report, Qualcomm has hinted at a delay in the release of the new iPhone series as well, in the Q3 earnings report. The report states that Qualcomm mentioned a "partial impact from the delay of a global 5G flagship phone launch for its fourth-quarter projections. Traditionally, the iPhone event happens in the early weeks of September and goes on sale later the same month. In addition to this, in line with the Qualcomm report on delayed released, tipster Jon Posser has also recently tweeted that the iPhone 12 lineup and new iPads will be launched in October. iPhone 12 New iPads October Jon Prosser (@jon_prosser) July 29, 2020 iPhone 12 series expected specifications Reportedly, the new iPhone 12 will come with a 20W power adapter. Prosser also posted a few pictures of the charger to drive his point home. iPhone 12 will come in four models, a new 5.4-inch screen size, two 6.1-inch models and a high-end 6.7-inch Max. However, it is not clear if the 20W adapter will exclusively be available for iPhone 12 Pro or whether the company will offer fast charging power chargers for the entire iPhone 12 lineup this year. New iPhone 12 will Be Equipped with 20W Power Adapter pic.twitter.com/FBJxlJXyYW Mrwhite (@laobaiTD) June 24, 2020 Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 12 lineup later this year. The renders of new designs of the iPhone 12 suggest that it has been borrowed heavily from the popular iPhone 4 model. However, it is expected to have more pronounced edges and angles, as well as a smaller notch that does not intrude upon the screen. The upcoming phone is likely to feature an all-new Super Retina XDR display and will be powered by the Apple A14 Bionic chip. It will come with 120Hz ProMotion technology and 10-bit colour depth. The 5.4-inch standard iPhone may package a full-size display into a smaller form, while Pro models are expected to sport either a 6.1-inch screen or a 6.7-inch screen. iPhone 12 Pro will have a quad-camera setup at the rear. The device will be equipped with 5G support. Karen Reyes, who teaches deaf and hard-of-hearing children in Austin, Texas, worries about her first-grade pupils who will be learning online this fall. Shes concerned that virtual learning is harder for younger, special needs children, especially those who may not have as much support at home as students in more affluent communities.It has brought out a lot of the inequities in our district, especially in special education, Reyes said of the distance learning program.In her school, 93% of the students are considered economically disadvantaged, according to a city estimate Either one or both of the parents have to work, said Reyes, 31, who also is a leader in the local American Federation of Teachers chapter, in a phone interview. That makes it even harder because small children need adults with them when they are learning.By contrast, in affluent Howard County, Maryland, in the outer Washington, D.C., suburbs, which is also going to virtual classes in the fall, many parents are scrambling to line up tutors to help their kids. Families also are banding together to form pods of children, with tutors whose rates can range from $70 an hour for tutoring one child to $29 an hour each for a pod of four.Delaney Fox, who runs a small, independent tutoring and babysitting service in Howard County, said her phone is ringing constantly with potential clients.The demand? she said. Its mass hysteria. We were getting calls during the Board of Ed meeting [when the remote learning policy was being set]. People wanted to be first on the list when it seemed like the board was voting that way. Im trying to help as many people as I can.The contrasting examples illustrate what many educators and experts fear that inequities in local school systems because of a lack of funding, technology or parental involvement will be exacerbated by schools remote learning and hybrid plans in response to the rapidly spreading coronavirus.School districts that can afford it are trying to help. Some are giving or loaning laptops to students who dont have them. Others are giving out Wi-Fi hotspots so that children can get online. In New Jersey, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy came up with a plan to address unmet technological needs in his states schools, including asking corporations to help supply laptops and dedicating $10 million in state funds to technological upgrades for students.Elsewhere, some teachers are calling students individually to help with assignments, or even dropping off textbooks and paper homework. But in a lot of places, its hit or miss.The inequity is even more stark between public and private schools. Many smaller private schools with large campuses or big buildings have the ability and resources to spread students out in classrooms. Many regions report a run on private school applications. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, sparked an uproar and a lawsuit when he tried to dedicate a portion of the federal stimulus money allocated to states to private school vouchers.National Association of Independent Schools spokeswoman Myra McGovern said the lack of a centralized national authority setting policy for all schools, public and private, is a blessing and a curse.Having a national standard or guidelines could make things a lot less confusing, she said in a phone interview.Absent that, private schools have been relying on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, often leaving the decision up to private school principals, who, she noted, didnt go to medical school.While many public school districts were hoping to hold in-person classes, the surging virus has forced them to scale back their plans or go to all-virtual education, at least to start the fall semester.John Rury, professor emeritus at the University of Kansas and author of a study on racial and socio-economic disparities in Kansas Citys educational achievement, said the biggest concern of going to distance learning is that the achievement gap is going to get worse. The gap is going to widen.And Rury said its not just the issue of slow or no internet connections in some areas. That can be addressed by distributing hotspots or allowing students to connect in a school parking lot, he said. But children, especially younger ones, need parental or other supervision for distance learning to really work. It really comes down to the role of the parents, he said in a phone interview. Its critical.Rury said other studies have shown that college-educated parents already make a huge difference in their childrens curiosity and interaction with the world. With distance learning, he said, that gap intensifies.The working-class kids are much more school-dependent to get the skills for a knowledge-based economy, he said. Take away that interactive [in-person] schooling, that puts them at a disadvantage compared to the kids of the college educated, who can more likely work at home. [In-person] school mitigates class differences. study published by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University projects that students returning to school this fall are likely to come in with about 63-68% of the gains they would have been expected to achieve in reading this past spring, and only 37-50% of the usual gains in math. But, the study said, the gains will not be universal, with the top third of students making larger gains in reading than the rest.In preparing for fall 2020, educators will likely need to consider ways to support students who are academically behind and further differentiate instruction, the study said.Megan Kuhfeld, one of the studys authors and a senior research scientist at NWEA, a nonprofit testing and educational research company, noted that higher-income parents are using whatever resources they can during this period to try to make up for remote learning, while lower-income parents may not be able to, resulting in more learning loss.We dont think the losses will be universal, she said.For school systems trying to decide whether to reopen, theres conflicting advice. The American Academy of Pediatrics called for schools to be open with social distancing measures in place. President Donald Trump and White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx also called for schools to be open, as have some governors. But other governors are being more cautious, and some are leaving the decisions to local counties and school boards.In New York, for example, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has laid out criteria for schools to meet to hold in-person classes, including that the local average infection rate is below 5% over a two-week period by Aug. 1.A Kaiser Family Foundation poll showed 60% of parents with children in school said it was better to hold off on opening schools until later in the year to minimize infection risk, even if children miss out on academics and social services and some parents cant work.In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, ordered students to return to the classroom, but the states teachers union filed suit over the issue, saying schools shouldnt fully open yet to protect the health of both educators and students.Rural school districts might find reopening even harder because of a lack of internet access.Saranac Central, New York, school district teacher Michele Bushey said that in the spring, both teachers and students searched for internet access in the mountainous Adirondack region. Some of the teachers and students went to library parking lots to connect, she said, and some teachers brought their own children with them, turning their cars into mini-schools.The inequalities were obvious, said Bushey, who is also president of the Saranac Teachers Association and a political action coordinator for the New York State United Teachers. Some families might have one laptop for three children all day long, she said. There is an absolute inequity between those who have and those who do not have. Its poverty, and its geography, for us.Busheys district is considering a hybrid system for fall, with some students attending virtually and others in-person.Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union, said in an interview that teachers are fighting hard to have real plans because we know in-school learning is so important for kids. But we will leave nothing on the table no strategy is off limits anymore to keep kids and educators safe.However, she said, at some point even the best in-school plans cant overcome the virus surge, lack of readiness and lack of resources endemic to many school districts.Anna Griesbach, a high school computer science teacher in Kansas City, Missouri, said shes comfortable with the technology, but even that cant overcome the problems associated with lower-income students trying to learn remotely. A lot of our parents have multiple kids and they might be sharing one device, she said, so how do you schedule on one device?About a quarter of her districts students were stymied by lousy internet connections in the spring, which worries her.But, she said, Id rather have an imperfect solution and keep the kids safe than have a perfect solution and have the kids die. Id hate to have to sub in a class where a teacher died. Second human trafficking sex ring located in Cancun Hotel Zone Cancun, Q.R. Another four people have been taken into police custody for human trafficking after authorities bust a second prostitution ring. The second ring was discovered operating in the Cancun Hotel Zone Wednesday night. On Thursday, the Attorney General of the State of Quintana Roo reported the arrest of four adults and rescue of seven foreign women from a building located on Kukulcan Boulevard in the hotel zone. The FGE says three men and one woman were taken into custody for the crime of trafficking persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The arrests were made by Investigative Police officers after compliance of a judge-issued search warrant. As a result of the search, seven foreign victims were rescued. The four detainees are alleged members of a criminal group that benefit from exploitation through prostitution. La Fiscalia General del Estado also reports that the investigation began by cybernetic police of the FGE after an advertisement related to sexual practices was detected on social networks. Their investigation lead to the discovery of two rings, one in Playa del Carmen and now the other, in Cancun. On Wednesday, nine people were reported arrested in Playa del Carmen for their alleged involvement in a human trafficking ring in which 14 young women were rescued. The solution to the challenge of conducting an election in the midst of a pandemic, and with states potentially unprepared to cope with the deluge of mail-in ballots, is to take whatever steps necessary, and provide whatever funds might be needed, to ensure that as many votes as possible are counted, quickly and securely. Fanning the flames of public doubt about the legitimacy of an election that he has not yet lost may be among the most unpresidential of Trumps many unpresidential indeed, unpatriotic acts. Thirty-two people have died in Punjab's three districts allegedly after drinking spurious liquor, prompting Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to order a magisterial probe, officials said on Friday. The deaths took place in Punjab's Amritsar, Batala and Tarn Taran districts since Wednesday night, an official statement said. The death toll increased to 38 by Friday night. While 13 people died in Tarn Taran, 11 died in Amritsar and eight in Batala. Eight people have been arrested so far in connection with the deaths. Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Dinkar Gupta said the first five fatalities were reported from Mucchal and Tangra villages in Amritsar's Tarsikka on the night of July 29. On Thursday evening, two more people died under suspicious circumstances at Amritsar's Muchhal village. One person died at Sri Guru Ram Das Hospital in Amritsar after being shifted from Tangra. Two more deaths were later reported from Mucchal village while another two people died in Batala, also due to consumption of spurious liquor. On Friday, five people died in Batala, taking the death toll in the city to seven, said Gupta, adding that four fatalities were reported from Tarn Taran. Singh has ordered a magisterial inquiry by the Jalandhar Divisional Commissioner into the deaths allegedly due to the consumption of spurious liquor, said the official statement. The inquiry will look into the facts and circumstances leading to the incidents. The inquiry will be conducted by the Jalandhar Divisional Commissioner along with the Punjab Joint Excise and Taxation Commissioner and the SP (Investigation) in the concerned districts. Singh has given the Divisional Commissioner the liberty to co-opt any civil/police officer or any expert to facilitate the expeditious conduct of the probe. Meanwhile, the police have arrested Balwinder Kaur, a resident of Muchhal village, under Section 304 of the IPC (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and under provisions of the Excise Act, said the DGP. Singh has promised strict action against anyone found complicit in the case and directed police to launch a search operation to crack down on any spurious liquor manufacturing unit operating in the state. The post-mortem of four people -- Jaswinder Singh, Kashmir Singh, Kirpal Singh and Jaswant Singh--will be conducted on Friday to ascertain the exact cause of their death, the statement said. According to it, the victims have been identified as Mangal Singh, Balwinder Singh, Dalbir Singh, Gurpreet Singh, Kashmir Singh, Kaka Singh, Kirpal Singh, Jaswant Singh and Joga Singh, all residents of Muchhal village; and Baldev Singh of Tangra. Those who died in Batala have been identified as Buta Ram, Bhinda, Riku Singh, Kala, Kalu, Billa and Jatinder. Those who died in Tarn Taran are Sahib Singh, Harban Singh, Sukhdev Singh and Dharam Singh. (With inputs from agencies) This article by Jared Keller originally appeared on Task & Purpose, a digital news and culture publication dedicated to military and veterans issues. Taliban fighters are increasingly targeting Afghan security forces with foreign-made anti-tank missiles, the New York Times reports, an alarming jump in firepower for the militant group that casts a shadow over Afghanistan's fragile security situation. Twice this year, Taliban militants have downed Afghan National Defense and Security Forces helicopters in Afghanistan's Helmand province with anti-tank guided missiles "rarely seen in the hands of the Taliban," reported the New York Times, citing both U.S. and Afghan officials. The officials claimed that the weapons used in both attacks were "likely" supplied by the Iranian military despite presenting zero evidence to support the claim. "The accusation would be alarming if true, as the influx of anti-tank guided missiles could not only give the Taliban a tactical advantage over the Afghan military but also suggest Tehran was trying to undermine the American mission as it is poised to wind down," the New York Times reports. "Iran has denied supplying weapons to the Taliban." The proliferation of anti-tank missiles among terror organizations across the Middle East has become a growing concern in recent years, and the U.S. State Department has certainly pointed the finger at Iran before. But as The Wall Street Journal noted in January 2019, the spread of ATGMs isn't just the result of Russian and Iranian arms transfers to proxy forces, but U.S. ones as well. Indeed, U.S.-made ATGMs captured from military bases and other weapons caches have become increasingly commonplace among certain terror organizations. In 2015, an ISIS propaganda video showed militants targeting Syrian government forces with BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles; and over the course of several months in 2017, ATGMs like the FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missile began showing up in ISIS weapons caches in both Iraq and Syria. Trump administration moved to end a covert CIA program that sought to funnel weapons, ATGMs included, to Syrian rebels locked in a protracted civil war against regime of Bashar al-Assad. It turns out its a lot of al-Qaeda were giving these weapons to," President Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal in July 2017 How ATGMs ended up in Afghanistan, however, remains unclear. As the New York Times notes, the weapons are far less accessible to the Taliban than to their fellow terrorists elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, even though a private aviation company reportedly tracked a shipment of the weapons from Pakistan to Afghanistan back in 2017. The Defense Department did not immediately respond to request for comment More articles from Task & Purpose: What should US troops expect if Joe Biden is elected president? Kim Jong Un appears ready to drop the hottest diss track of 2020 Arizona National Guard soldier dies after collapsing during fitness test U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) (R) speak during a press conference to announce Green New Deal legislation, outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Feb. 7, 2019. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) Basis for Biden Climate Plan Challenged by Experts News Analysis Joe Bidens proposed plan to meet the existential threat of climate change by achieving a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 proceeds from faulty scientific assumptions, according to energy policy analysts and a Princeton physicist. The former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee unveiled his plan to build a modern sustainable infrastructure and an equitable clean energy future on July 14. The proposal to replace carbon-emitting power sources with wind and solar energy by 2035 is 1 of 7 key elements of the plan, which draws heavily from a task force Biden formed with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had previously challenged Biden for the nomination. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) primary proponent of the Green New Deal in the House, and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) served as co-chairs for the Biden-Sanders Task Force, which released its recommendations on July 8. The task force opened with a series of proposed green energy initiatives aimed at combating the climate crisis and pursuing environmental justice. The Green New Deal refers to a package of climate change proposals Ocasio-Cortez introduced as a resolution in the House and that Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced in the Senate in February 2019. Markeys version failed to advance in the Senate. The Green New Deal could cost up to $93 trillion or $600,000 per household, according to one study. Although the task force doesnt explicitly reference the Green New Deal, like Ocasio-Cortezs proposal, it calls for the United States to achieve net zero global emissions by 2050, as does Bidens official plan. The task force recommends eliminating emissions from power plants by 2035 to achieve this goal. To reach net-zero emissions as rapidly as possible, Democrats commit to eliminating carbon pollution from power plants by 2035 through technology-neutral standards for clean energy and energy efficiency, the task force states. We will dramatically expand solar and wind energy deployment through community-based and utility scale systems. Within five years, we will install 500 million solar panels, including eight million solar roofs and community solar energy systems and 60,000 made-in-America wind turbines. The Biden plan also calls for carbon-pollution free energy in electricity generation by 2035 and for making use of wind and solar technology as an alternative to fossil fuels. The Biden plan envisions a clean energy revolution that will spur the installation of millions of solar panelsincluding utility-scale, rooftop, and community solar systemsand tens of thousands of wind turbinesincluding thousands of turbines off our coasts. Suppositions Challenged The task force and the Biden plan repeatedly invoke the phrases carbon pollution and climate crisis while making the case for net-zero carbon emissions. But William Happer, the Cyrus Fogg Bracket professor emeritus of physics at Princeton University, challenges the suppositions about carbon dioxide standing behind the task force recommendations and Bidens plan. Carbon dioxide isnt a pollutant and is beneficial to life on earth, the Princeton physics professor wrote in an email. It is depressing to see the Democratic Party, once a champion for Americans who believed in truth, honesty, and fair play, hijacked by ignorant and cynical climate fanatics, Happer wrote. Carbon dioxide is not carbon pollution but a benefit to life on Earth. Climate change is not a global emergency. Most of the alarmist claims about climate are vicious propaganda disguised as science. Fellow Americans, dont drink this toxic coolaid! Happer wrote. If implemented, these climate plans will cause great harm to our environment and will turn our beloved country into a miserable eco-dictatorship. America will no longer be the land of the free and the home of the brave. What Science Says The Democratic Party officials who authored the recommendations claim that President Donald Trump has denied science while refusing to embrace anti-emissions policies. However, Kevin Dayaratna, a research fellow and principal statistician at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, finds that science is on the side of climate skeptics who dont accept the premise of theories that link human activity with catastrophic climate change. Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring colorless, odorless, nontoxic gas, Dayaratna said. I do not believe it is a pollutant in the sense that soot and smog are pollutants. However, even if you do believe that CO2 is a pollutant, it makes more sense to focus on free market solutions to reducing emissions that will not destroy jobs in the process. The natural gas revolution, for instance, has reduced emissions without unnecessarily raising electricity costs for everyone. Dayaratna also agrees with Happers assessment that CO2 has benefits that go largely unheralded. CO2 is a key element of photosynthesis and thus has agricultural benefits, Dayaratna said. In fact, we find that these benefits have been vastly understated in social cost of carbon modeling, which my co-authors and I have sought to address in a recently published peer reviewed research. The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, or NIPCC, an international body of scientists, researchers, and scholars who operate independently from any government agency, have published a series of reports debunking the idea that human CO2 emissions are responsible for catastrophic climate change. The panel first came together in 2003 to critique the conclusions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has repeatedly linked human CO2 emissions with potentially dangerous levels of global warming. In a 2008 report titled Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate, the nongovernmental panel determined that the computer models used by the U.N.s intergovernmental panel dont provide evidence of anthropogenic [man-made] global warming and that the correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide levels is weak and inconclusive. With regard to the U.N.s climate models, the nongovernmental panel report concludes that the mismatch of observed and calculated fingerprints clearly falsifies the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming and that human emissions can contribute only in a minor way to the current warming, which is mainly of natural origin. Fast-forward to one of the nongovernmental panels more recent reports published in 2018, and the authors conclude that the warming of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has not been shown to be beyond the bounds of natural variability. The report also makes the point that since the geological record shows temperatures and Co2 levels in the atmosphere have not been stable, making untenable the IPCCs assumption that they would be stable in the absence of human emissions. The NIPCC is co-sponsored by three nonprofit outfits: the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, the Science & Environmental Policy Project, and The Heartland Institute. The Epoch Times contacted the Biden campaign by email and asked if the campaign could clarify if Biden views CO2 as a dangerous pollutant and asked if the campaign could comment on the relationship between the task force recommendations and Bidens clean energy plan. The campaign didnt respond by press time. Political Power But Dan Kish, a senior vice president for policy at the American Energy Alliance based in Washington, sees a palpable connection between Bidens formal proposal and the task force. Joe Bidens energy plan was sprung from the loins of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who headed up his task force, Kish wrote in an email. But the Green New Deal has its roots in much, much more than energy, as her chief of staff let slip to the Washington Post, when he said, It wasnt originally a climate thing at all. We really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing. It turns out that Joes plan is not so much about energy as it is about power the power over peoples lives and the economy. And nothing would give the government more power than controlling everyones energy supply. Long-Term Advantages Derek Walker, vice president for U.S. Climate at the Environmental Defense Action Fund, sees advantages to Bidens plan, which he views as a bargain for the U.S. economy when compared to the impact of climate change. The Biden plan is a commonsense path to increase clean energy, create millions of good-paying, union jobs in manufacturing and infrastructure across the U.S. and reduce carbon pollution in line with what the science says is necessary, Walker wrote in an email. Compared to the rising cost of climate change impacts, these investments are a bargain for our economy and will make communities across the U.S. more resilient in the long term. The Environmental Defense Action Fund is the advocacy partner of the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit group headquartered in New York. Other green groups that have expressed support for the Biden plan include the Sierra Club, which has offices in Oakland, California, and Washington, D.C. Ariel Hayes, political director for the Sierra Club, released the following statement taking aim at Trump while crediting Biden for showing a willingness to listen to environmental activists. While Donald Trump spreads lies about windmills, tries to block legislative efforts to advance electric vehicles, and ignores the millions of Americans working in clean energy, Joe Biden is presenting a vision to invest in and grow an equitable clean energy economy, Hayes said in her statement. The Sierra Club is encouraged by Bidens proposal, which shows he is listening to the continued calls from activists and organizations across the country demanding a bold and ambitious plan that meets the size and scale of the crisis and completes the transition to a clean energy economy. Make Red China Great Kish, the policy analyst with the American Energy Alliance, expressed concern about the geopolitical implications of Bidens energy plan, which he said could be described as a Make Red China Great energy plan, since China is a top producer of wind energy parts and solar energy panels. Instead of using Americas God-given energy that has made us the largest oil and gas producer in the world and energy independent for the first time in 70 years, Joes program would cost trillions of tax dollars and trillions more in increased energy prices for Americans to buy Chinese solar panels, windmill parts, and batteries, Kish said. Along the way, his green energy donors who import Chinese products will get even richer by feasting on the shattered dreams of working Americans. Where China is concerned, the Biden plan contends that Trump has held American workers from leading the world on clean energy, giving China and other countries a free pass to outcompete the United States in key technologies and the jobs that come with them. Bidens stated commitment to rejoin the United Nations Paris Agreement aimed at curtailing greenhouse gas emissions would also work to Chinas advantage and Americas disadvantage, Kish warns. His promise to sign the U.S. up to the UNs Paris Deal, which leaves China to do whatever they want for 10 years as their coal consumption skyrockets to dizzying heights to run factories making solar panels Joe would subsidize, means further misery for working American men and women as they would pay more and more for energy while China gets a free pass, while they labor at jobs made scarce by higher energy costs, Kish said. Selling out America to Red China and unaccountable UN bureaucrats is a slap in the face to Americans who believe their children deserve a better future. PORTLAND, Ore., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Portland General Electric Company (NYSE: POR) today reported net income of $39 million, or 43 cents per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2020. This compares with net income of $25 million, or 28 cents per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2019. "We achieved solid second quarter financial results, driven by a combination of favorable hydro and wind conditions and lower operating expenses," said Maria Pope, PGE president and CEO. "As an essential service provider, we will continue working to keep costs low to support economic recovery and the communities we serve in this unprecedented time." Second quarter 2020 earnings compared to second quarter 2019 earnings Total revenues increased as a result of higher residential, industrial and wholesale demand, which was partially offset by lower commercial demand. Power costs increased due to higher overall system deliveries, which more than offset a decline in the average cost per MWh due to lower gas prices and surplus hydro in the region. Operating expense declined due to continuous efforts to reduce the company's overall cost structure as well as lower plant maintenance expense. Tax expense was favorable due to higher Production Tax Credit generation at PGE's wind facilities. Company Update Major Capital Projects PGE's Integrated Operations Center and the Wheatridge Renewable Energy Facility remain on schedule and on budget. There have been no significant supply chain or operational disruptions as a result of COVID-19. Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) The Public Utility Commission of Oregon acknowledged the Action Plan in PGE's 2019 IRP in a written Order on May 6, 2020. PGE plans to begin procurement activities for renewables and capacity later this year and will consider the potential impacts of economic conditions on resource needs. 2020 Earnings Guidance PGE is reaffirming its 2020 earnings guidance of $2.20 to $2.50 per diluted share. This guidance is based on the following assumptions: Revised annual retail deliveries from a decrease of 1% to 2%, weather adjusted, to flat energy deliveries, weather adjusted, year over year. This upward revision reflects stronger residential and industrial demand offset by a decline in commercial deliveries; Net variable power costs for the year ending December 31, 2020 to be below the power cost adjustment mechanism baseline, but within the established deadband range; to be below the power cost adjustment mechanism baseline, but within the established deadband range; Average hydro conditions for the year; Wind generation based on five years of historical levels or forecast studies when historical data is not available; Normal thermal plant operations; Operating and maintenance expense between $570 million and $590 million , which includes a full-year forecasted bad debt expense of $15 million due to moratoriums on collection activities and customer disconnects; and and , which includes a full-year forecasted bad debt expense of due to moratoriums on collection activities and customer disconnects; and Depreciation and amortization expense between $410 million and $430 million . Second Quarter 2020 earnings call and webcast July 31, 2020 PGE will host a conference call with financial analysts and investors on Friday, July 31, 2020, at 11 a.m. ET. The conference call will be webcast live on the PGE website at investors.portlandgeneral.com . A replay of the call will be available beginning at 2 p.m. ET on Friday, July 31, 2020, through 1 p.m. ET on Friday, August 7, 2020. Maria Pope, president and CEO; Jim Lobdell, senior vice president of Finance, CFO, and treasurer; and Jardon Jaramillo, senior director, Investor Relations, Treasury, and Finance Operations, will participate in the call. Management will respond to questions following formal comments. The attached unaudited condensed consolidated statements of income and comprehensive income, condensed consolidated balance sheets and condensed consolidated statements of cash flows, as well as the supplemental operating statistics, are an integral part of this earnings release. About Portland General Electric Company Portland General Electric (NYSE: POR) is a fully integrated energy company based in Portland, Oregon, with operations across the state. The company serves 901,000 customers with a service area population of 1.9 million Oregonians in 51 cities. PGE has 16 generation plants in five Oregon counties, and maintains and operates 13 public parks and recreation areas. For over 130 years, PGE has delivered safe, affordable and reliable energy to Oregonians. Together with its customers, PGE has the No. 1 voluntary renewable energy program in the U.S. PGE and its 3,000 employees are working with customers to build a clean energy future. In 2019, PGE, employees, retirees and the PGE Foundation donated $4.7 million and volunteered 32,900 hours with more than 700 nonprofits across Oregon. For more information visit portlandgeneral.com/news . Safe Harbor Statement Statements in this news release that relate to future plans, objectives, expectations, performance, events and the like may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding earnings guidance; statements regarding future load, hydro conditions and operating and maintenance costs; statements concerning implementation of the company's integrated resource plan; statements concerning future compliance with regulations limiting emissions from generation facilities and the costs to achieve such compliance; as well as other statements containing words such as "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "promises," "expects," "should," "conditioned upon," and similar expressions. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including reductions in demand for electricity; the sale of excess energy during periods of low demand or low wholesale market prices; operational risks relating to the company's generation facilities, including hydro conditions, wind conditions, disruption of fuel supply, and unscheduled plant outages, which may result in unanticipated operating, maintenance and repair costs, as well as replacement power costs; failure to complete capital projects on schedule or within budget, or the abandonment of capital projects, which could result in the company's inability to recover project costs; the costs of compliance with environmental laws and regulations, including those that govern emissions from thermal power plants; changes in weather, hydroelectric and energy markets conditions, which could affect the availability and cost of purchased power and fuel; changes in capital market conditions, which could affect the availability and cost of capital and result in delay or cancellation of capital projects; the outcome of various legal and regulatory proceedings; general economic and financial market conditions; severe weather conditions, wildfires, and other natural phenomena and natural disasters that could result in operational disruptions, unanticipated restoration costs, or liability for third party property damage; and cyber security breaches of the company's customer information system or operating systems, which may affect customer bills or other aspects of our operations; and widespread health emergencies or outbreaks of infectious diseases such as the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which may affect our financial position, results of operations and cash flows. As a result, actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements included in this news release are based on information available to the company on the date hereof and such statements speak only as of the date hereof. The company expressly disclaims any current intention to update publicly any forward-looking statement after the distribution of this release, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions or otherwise. Prospective investors should also review the risks, assumptions and uncertainties listed in the company's most recent annual report on form 10-K and in other documents that we file with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, including management's discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations and the risks described therein from time to time. POR Source: Portland General Company PORTLAND GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY AND SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME AND COMPREHENSIVE INCOME (Dollars in millions, except per share amounts) (Unaudited) Three Months Ended June 30, Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 2020 2019 Revenues: Revenues, net $ 469 $ 462 $ 1,033 $ 1,032 Alternative revenue programs, net of amortization (2) 9 1 Total revenues 469 460 1,042 1,033 Operating expenses: Purchased power and fuel 109 105 262 284 Generation, transmission and distribution 77 86 150 163 Administrative and other 74 78 145 149 Depreciation and amortization 104 101 212 202 Taxes other than income taxes 34 33 69 67 Total operating expenses 398 403 838 865 Income from operations 71 57 204 168 Interest expense, net 34 31 67 63 Other income: Allowance for equity funds used during construction 4 2 7 5 Miscellaneous income (loss), net 3 (1) 2 Other income, net 7 2 6 7 Income before income tax expense 44 28 143 112 Income tax expense 5 3 23 14 Net income 39 25 120 98 Other comprehensive income 1 1 2 Comprehensive income $ 39 $ 26 $ 121 $ 100 Weighted-average common shares outstanding (in thousands): Basic 89,489 89,357 89,459 89,333 Diluted 89,625 89,561 89,602 89,537 Earnings per share: Basic $ 0.44 $ 0.28 $ 1.34 $ 1.10 Diluted $ 0.43 $ 0.28 $ 1.34 $ 1.09 PORTLAND GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY AND SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (Dollars in millions) (Unaudited) June 30, 2020 December 31, 2019 ASSETS Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 303 $ 30 Accounts receivable, net 204 253 Inventories 109 96 Regulatory assetscurrent 12 17 Other current assets 108 104 Total current assets 736 500 Electric utility plant, net 7,301 7,161 Regulatory assetsnoncurrent 526 483 Nuclear decommissioning trust 47 46 Non-qualified benefit plan trust 37 38 Other noncurrent assets 158 166 Total assets $ 8,805 $ 8,394 PORTLAND GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY AND SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS, continued (Dollars in millions) (Unaudited) June 30, 2020 December 31, 2019 LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 134 $ 165 Liabilities from price risk management activitiescurrent 40 23 Short-term debt 150 Current portion of long-term debt 140 Current portion of finance lease obligation 16 16 Accrued expenses and other current liabilities 289 315 Total current liabilities 769 519 Long-term debt, net of current portion 2,676 2,597 Regulatory liabilitiesnoncurrent 1,362 1,377 Deferred income taxes 385 378 Unfunded status of pension and postretirement plans 249 247 Liabilities from price risk management activitiesnoncurrent 145 108 Asset retirement obligations 265 263 Non-qualified benefit plan liabilities 101 103 Finance lease obligations, net of current portion 132 135 Other noncurrent liabilities 75 76 Total liabilities 6,159 5,803 Shareholders' Equity: Preferred stock, no par value, 30,000,000 shares authorized; none issued and outstanding as of June 30, 2020 and December 31, 2019 Common stock, no par value, 160,000,000 shares authorized; 89,506,951 and 89,387,124 shares issued and outstanding as of June 30, 2020 and December 31, 2019, respectively 1,224 1,220 Accumulated other comprehensive loss (9) (10) Retained earnings 1,431 1,381 Total shareholders' equity 2,646 2,591 Total liabilities and shareholders' equity $ 8,805 $ 8,394 PORTLAND GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY AND SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (In millions) (Unaudited) Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 Cash flows from operating activities: Net income $ 120 $ 98 Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities: Depreciation and amortization 212 202 Deferred income taxes 4 6 Pension and other postretirement benefits 12 12 Allowance for equity funds used during construction (7) (5) Decoupling mechanism deferrals, net of amortization (8) (1) (Amortization) of net benefits due to Tax Reform (11) (11) Other non-cash income and expenses, net 46 21 Changes in working capital: Decrease in accounts receivable, net 40 63 (Increase) in inventories (13) (17) (Increase)/decrease in margin deposits (9) 11 (Decrease) in accounts payable and accrued liabilities (27) (65) Other working capital items, net 18 16 Other, net (21) (16) Net cash provided by operating activities 356 314 Cash flows from investing activities: Capital expenditures (370) (271) Sales of Nuclear decommissioning trust securities 4 7 Purchases of Nuclear decommissioning trust securities (3) (5) Other, net (1) (2) Net cash used in investing activities (370) (271) Cash flows from financing activities: Proceeds from issuance of long-term debt 319 200 Payments on long-term debt (98) (300) Borrowings on short-term debt 200 Repayments of short-term debt (50) Issuance of commercial paper, net 17 Dividends paid (69) (65) Other (15) (3) Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities 287 (151) Increase (Decrease) in cash and cash equivalents 273 (108) Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period 30 119 Cash and cash equivalents, end of period $ 303 $ 11 Supplemental cash flow information is as follows: Cash paid for interest, net of amounts capitalized $ 56 $ 60 Cash paid for income taxes 5 20 PORTLAND GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY AND SUBSIDIARIES SUPPLEMENTAL OPERATING STATISTICS (Unaudited) Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 Revenues (dollars in millions): Retail: Residential $ 502 48 % $ 495 48 % Commercial 299 29 312 30 Industrial 104 10 94 9 Direct Access 23 2 21 2 Subtotal 928 89 922 89 Alternative revenue programs, net of amortization 9 1 1 Other accrued revenues, net 6 1 13 1 Total retail revenues 943 91 936 90 Wholesale revenues 74 7 53 5 Other operating revenues 25 2 44 5 Total revenues $ 1,042 100 % $ 1,033 100 % Energy deliveries (MWhs in thousands): Retail: Residential 3,789 30 % 3,782 34 % Commercial 3,000 24 3,261 29 Industrial 1,638 13 1,510 14 Subtotal 8,427 67 8,553 77 Direct access: Commercial 311 3 341 3 Industrial 725 6 720 7 Subtotal 1,036 9 1,061 10 Total retail energy deliveries 9,463 76 9,614 87 Wholesale energy deliveries 2,980 24 1,459 13 Total energy deliveries 12,443 100 % 11,073 100 % Average number of retail customers: Residential 788,511 88 % 776,816 88 % Commercial 110,116 12 109,470 12 Industrial 194 195 Direct access 631 633 Total 899,452 100 % 887,114 100 % PORTLAND GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY AND SUBSIDIARIES SUPPLEMENTAL OPERATING STATISTICS, continued (Unaudited) Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 Sources of energy (MWhs in thousands): Generation: Thermal: Natural gas 3,477 29 % 3,318 31 % Coal 1,504 13 1,713 16 Total thermal 4,981 42 5,031 47 Hydro 686 6 837 8 Wind 1,193 10 820 8 Total generation 6,860 58 6,688 63 Purchased power: Term 4,108 34 3,177 30 Hydro 804 7 566 6 Wind 178 1 123 1 Total purchased power 5,090 42 3,866 37 Total system load 11,950 100 % 10,554 100 % Less: wholesale sales (2,980) (1,459) Retail load requirement 8,970 9,095 The following table indicates the number of heating and cooling degree-days for the three months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019, along with 15-year averages based on weather data provided by the National Weather Service, as measured at Portland International Airport: Heating Degree-days Cooling Degree-days 2020 2019 Avg. 2020 2019 Avg. First Quarter 1,761 1,992 1,849 April 305 312 375 3 May 174 109 185 39 28 24 June 75 46 76 60 74 62 Second Quarter 554 467 636 99 102 89 Year-to-date 2,315 2,459 2,485 99 102 89 (Decrease)/increase from the 15-year average (7) % (1) % 11 % 15 % Media Contact: Investor Contact: Andrea Platt Jardon Jaramillo Corporate Communications Investor Relations Phone: 503-464-7980 Phone: 503-464-7051 SOURCE Portland General Company Related Links http://www.portlandgeneral.com As part of the July stimulus, the Coalition Government announced the extension of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP). While the cost to the State of such supports seems large, the unconditional sense of 'social security' created by the payment is worth preserving. During lockdown in April and May, UCC carried out a digital survey among recipients of the PUP and wage-support scheme. They were shocked by the sudden loss of jobs and worried for their future. Decades of research on unemployment across Europe shows that it is a difficult experience. Beyond economic hardship, it is isolating, tedious and uncertain, while it also eats away at self-esteem and causes mental-health issues. States respond to this by providing back-to-work education, training and even internships, often made compulsory, on threat of reduced welfare payments Surprisingly, respondents to our survey reported few characteristics that are generally associated with unemployment. Many were shocked by the initial onset of unemployment and offered descriptive sentiments. "I was anxious when I lost my job," wrote one. "Gutted, completely unexpected - it happened suddenly, with only a half-hour notice... I felt devastated," said another. These reactions and experiences are typical of sudden redundancy. However, despite being isolated due to lockdown, and sometimes idle or bored, they did not suffer the challenges to self-esteem typically created by unemployment. Unsurprisingly, there was a strong general feeling of anxiety about Covid-19 as a pandemic, both as a health issue and in terms of its economic impact. One respondent said: "I have been trying to keep motivated. However, the uncertainty discourages and sometimes it is just too difficult to take advantage of free time. I can't wait to go back, but the uncertainty of not knowing when this will be is unnerving." However, the classic experience of unemployment as a loss of status, purpose and structure was not recorded in responses. Recipients of the PUP generally did not appear to feel depressed or stigmatised. This 'dog that didn't bark' in our research is easily explained: The State response to the pandemic was based on the principle of 'social security'. Access to payments was straightforward and automatic, which reassured people that they would be supported through the crisis. Essentially, the recipients of the PUP were not treated as unemployed. They were not scrutinised regarding how they lost their work, nor directed in how to seek new work. Their unemployment was rightly treated as being caused by external events rather than personal responsibility. Given economic unpredictability, this should always be the case, yet contemporary states have increasingly taken to blaming and pressurising the unemployed. The automatic and trusting character of the PUP effectively destigmatised unemployment. Within our research, moral judgments did emerge. For instance, some people registered an objection to students, those on low wages or part-time workers receiving the 350 payment. Others worried about how these new costs would be paid back. What many people are unaware of is that the most costly 'social transfers' in Ireland, and elsewhere, is for pensions. The far smaller bill for supporting the unemployed varies with economic cycles. Critical researchers argue that such policies increase pressure on individuals, and reinforce unwarranted social prejudices, ie blaming a person for widespread unemployment. Ideas of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' recipients of welfare in our culture impose moral judgments and stigma. The State clearly succeeded in providing 'social security'. Despite the background of an unprecedented pandemic, individuals felt sure that the State would support them, unconditionally. This 'unconditional' character of support is precisely what has been undermined in the last decade of 'welfare reforms' in Ireland, whereby access to payments depends on attending meetings, proving job searches and so forth. In June, the State moved to a twin-track payment, depending on previous wage levels. This basically reimposed hardship on those who, for whatever reason, were less gainfully employed before the pandemic. CSO data consistently demonstrates that around one-third of part-time workers would like more hours. Furthermore, those who were unemployed before the pandemic - for whatever reason - still receive a little over half of the PUP payment. While the cost of the PUP may seem large, it is still dwarfed by annual spending on State pensions. Like retirement, unemployment is generally caused by external factors, and should be treated in the same way. If we have learned anything from the PUP, it is that automatic payments to those in need creates individual security, supporting personal well-being and ensuring social solidarity. Whatever rate payments are set at, they should be unconditional. Tom Boland is a lecturer in sociology at UCC. Fiona Dukelow and Joe Whelan, also of UCC, assisted in the construction of this article. MELBOURNE, Australia, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clean TeQ Holdings Limited (Clean TeQ or Company) (ASX/TSX:CLQ; OTCQX:CTEQF) expects to recognise a non-cash write down of the carrying value of its Sunrise Project and project-related assets of approximately $A180 million in the 30 June 2020 full-year financial results based on a preliminary review of the carrying value of non-current assets undertaken by the Company. The Company has been progressing the Project Execution Plan (PEP) in conjunction with Fluor Australia Pty Ltd, part of the Fluor global engineering group headquartered in Irving, Texas. As previously advised, the PEP deliverables include an update to the 2018 Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) outputs including the production forecast, resources, reserves and operating cost estimates for the Project as well as a revised master schedule. Although the PEP deliverables are not yet complete, in preparing the 30 June 2020 full-year financial results the Company has undertaken a review of the carrying value of the Sunrise Project assets based on a conservative best estimate of what the probable PEP outcomes will be as well as highly conservative macroeconomic assumptions including forecast metal prices. The PEP work scope includes a detailed re-estimation of the Projects capital development cost, incorporating the latest engineering and design work. Updated vendor pricing for key equipment packages is being obtained for virtually all major equipment packages. Materials and labour costs are being re-estimated based on updated quantities and current market rates. As the PEP progresses towards completion, a number of trends are emerging, including a trend indicating that there is upward pressure on the capital cost estimate. Although the final economic outcomes of the PEP are yet to be determined, as per the announcement of 17 July 2020, the Company advises that the PEP capital estimate will likely be higher than the 2018 DFS estimate. A likely higher capital development cost has impacted negatively on the review of the carrying value of the Sunrise assets. Story continues The partnering process the Company has been running with the support of Macquarie Capital remains on-going, however, to date the Company has not been able to secure an investment partner for the Project. As such, the Company is not able to commit to a final investment decision (FID) in mid-2020, as was targeted. Not unexpectedly, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented difficult conditions for financial markets and challenges for funding new project development. However, the Company remains optimistic on the outlook for demand growth in the electric vehicle (EV) and lithium-ion battery sectors, and in particular the strategic importance of Sunrise as one of the largest suppliers of battery-grade nickel and cobalt into the global EV supply chain. Given the strong outlook for nickel and cobalt demand, the Company remains committed to developing the Project once funding has been secured. As such, the partnering process will continue, however the targeted timing for completion of any transaction is not possible to forecast, particularly in light of the significant uncertainty currently impacting the global economy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In assessing the carrying value of the Sunrise assets, the Company has taken into account the negative impact of the anticipated longer development timeframes for the Project. The write-down will impact the value of the exploration and evaluation asset and other assets recorded in relation to the Sunrise Project. The review of the carrying value of non-current assets will be finalised in conjunction with release of the 30 June 2020 full-year financial statements. This release is scheduled for Friday 21 August. The value of the Sunrise Project is supported by its large scale and long-life nickel, cobalt and scandium resource, which is expected to remain extremely competitive, with the PEP outcomes still targeting first quartile nickel production costs as a result of strong cobalt by-product credits. Sunrise will also be the global standard bearer for sustainable production of battery cathode materials, maintaining the highest standards in health, safety, environmental management and community relations. By applying our proprietary ion exchange technology for the recovery of these key metals, we are building the next generation of nickel/cobalt mines that are lower risk, lower cost and dedicated to producing the specific materials that the battery industry needs. For more information, please contact: Ben Stockdale, CFO and Investor Relations +61 3 9797 6700 About Clean TeQ Holdings Limited (ASX/TSX: CLQ) Based in Melbourne, Australia, Clean TeQ is a global leader in metals recovery and industrial water treatment through the application of its proprietary Clean-iX continuous ion exchange technology. For more information about Clean TeQ please visit the Companys website www.cleanteq.com. About the Clean TeQ Sunrise Project Clean TeQ is the 100% owner of the Clean TeQ Sunrise Project, located in New South Wales. Clean TeQ Sunrise is one of the largest cobalt deposits outside of Africa, and one of the largest and highest-grade accumulations of scandium ever discovered. About Clean TeQ Water Through its wholly owned subsidiary Clean TeQ Water, Clean TeQ is also providing innovative wastewater treatment solutions for removing hardness, desalination, nutrient removal and zero liquid discharge. The sectors of focus include municipal wastewater, surface water, industrial waste water and mining waste water. For more information about Clean TeQ Water please visit www.cleanteqwater.com. This announcement is authorised for release to the market by the Board of Directors of Clean TeQ Holdings Limited. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS Certain statements in this news release constitute forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the Company 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. These statements reflect the Companys current expectations regarding future events, performance and results, and speak only as of the date of this new release. Statements in this news release that constitute forward-looking statements or information include, but are not limited to, statements regarding: the completion of the Sunrise Project Execution Plan; financing of the Sunrise Project; the outlook for electric vehicle markets and demand for nickel and cobalt; and the production cost and sustainability of Sunrise metal production. Readers are cautioned that actual results may vary from those presented. All such forward-looking information and statements are based on certain assumptions and analyses made by Clean TeQs management in light of their experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors management believe are appropriate in the circumstances. These statements, however, are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information or statements including, but not limited to, unexpected changes in laws, rules or regulations, or their enforcement by applicable authorities; the failure of parties to contracts to perform as agreed; changes in commodity prices; unexpected failure or inadequacy of infrastructure, or delays in the development of infrastructure, and the failure of exploration programs or other studies to deliver anticipated results or results that would justify and support continued studies, development or operations. Other important factors that could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements also include those described under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's most recently filed Annual Information Form available under its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information or statements. 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. Westlife Development reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 57.56 crore in Q1 FY20 compared with net profit of Rs 6.44 crore in Q1 FY20. The company owns Hardcastle Restaurants - the master franchisee of McDonald's restaurants for west and south India. Total Revenues declined 75.4% on a year-on-year (YoY) basis to Rs 93.89 crore in the June quarter. The company reported a negative operating EBITDA of Rs 57.68 crore with a negative operating EBITDA margin of 61.4% in Q1 June 2020. It had reported a operating EBITDA of Rs 32.63 crore with a operating EBITDA margin of 8.5% in Q1 June 2019. The Quick Service Restaurants operator recorded a pre-tax loss of Rs 76.82 crore in Q1 FY21 as against pre-tax profit of Rs 8.51 crore in Q1 FY20. The company started seeing green shoots in the business starting June 2020, as the lock-down started easing in select markets. The company's convenience platform which includes Delivery, Take-Out and Drive-Thru channels showed great results as sales from these platforms bounced back to pre-COVID levels, for operational stores. Per day per store McDelivery sales bounced back to 70% of pre-COVID levels and daily take-out sales from operational stores surged 1.7 times vis-vis pre-COVID levels. Additionally, convenience platform sales came back to pre-COVID levels for operational Drive-thru stores. The company is confident of growing this momentum and further accelerating sales in the coming months. Westlife Development (WDL) focuses on setting up and operating quick service restaurants (QSR) in India through its subsidiary Hardcastle Restaurants (HRPL). The company operates a chain of McDonald's restaurants in West and South India, having a master franchisee relationship with McDonald's Corporation USA, through the latter's Indian subsidiary. The scrip slipped 0.70% to Rs 352.20. It traded in the range of 352.20 and 355 during the day. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) 10. And finally, lizard Popsicles, anyone? Many members of the reptilian genus Liolaemus can supercool their bodies, tolerate full-body freezing and live farther south and at higher elevations than any other known lizard species. Scientists are still figuring how they survive such cold climates, but one thing is clear: The lizards are indisputably the coolest on the planet. Scientists found some species of the lizard can withstand temperatures as low as 21.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Most Liolaemus are found in Argentina and Chile, although one researcher has even heard stories of them walking on a glacier in Patagonia. Hope this blueberry Popsicle recipe helps keep you cool tonight. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com. The Bombay high court (HC) has directed Maharashtra government to inform the family members of academic and civil rights activist Dr. Anand Teltumbde, an accused in the Elgar Parishad/Bhima Koregaon case, about the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) test results. Dr. Teltumbde had undergone the Covid-19 test on Thursday. The counsel for the other co-accused, Vernon Gonsalves, informed the court that his client had tested Covid-19 negative earlier this week and also spoke to his family members to convey his well-being to them. However, Dr. Teltumbdes family members are anxious, as his Covid-19 test results are still awaited and he has not spoken to them yet. Public prosecutor Deepak Thakare, who represented the Maharashtra government, informed the court that Dr. Teltumbdes Covid-19 test result would be made available on Saturday. The court will hear the case next on August 4, when the state government will also submit Dr. Teltumbdes Covid-19 test report. An HC division bench, comprising Justices RD Dhanuka and VG Bisht, while hearing the plea of Gonsalves and Dr. Teltumbde seeking directions to the jail authorities to test them for SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, was informed by senior advocate Mihir Desai on Friday that Gonsalves had been tested for the viral infection and the results had come negative. Desai further submitted that Gonsalves is back in the normal barracks at Taloja Jail in Navi Mumbai on completion of his mandatory quarantine period. Last week, Gonsalves and Dr. Teltumbde had pleaded with the court to allow them to undergo Covid-19 tests after fellow accused and reputed Telugu poet and social activist P Varavara Rao (81) was found to be infected with the viral infection over two weeks ago. Gonsalves was helping Rao with his day-to-day activities in Taloja Jail because of the latters advanced age and Dr. Teltumbde is also lodged in the same prison. Rao is undergoing treatment at Nanavati Super Speciality Hospital after he had tested Covid-19 positive. Two people were killed and three injured after a portion of a multi-storey building collapsed in Uttar Pradesh's Noida on Friday, police said. The under-construction building is located in Sector 11 and belongs to a private firm. The incident took place around 7:30 PM, they said. A large number of police personnel along with senior officers and teams of the fire department and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were present on the spot for rescue operations. "Five people have been rescued from the building. Two of them have died while three others have been hospitalised with injuries but they are out of danger," the district police said in a statement. Taking cognisance of the incident, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asked Gautam Buddh Nagar Police Commissioner Alok Singh to reach the spot. He also asked Singh to ensure all victims are rescued and given proper treatment, according to an official statement released in Lucknow. Singh said information was received this evening that a part of the building had collapsed during construction work. "Teams of firefighters, police, district administration and ambulances reached the spot swiftly. The chief minister himself is monitoring the situation and a team of the NDRF has also been deployed for rescue work on his instructions," he told reporters after inspecting the incident site. "Those rescued have been sent to hospital and the NDRF team is continuing the rescue operation. The NDRF has teams of (sniffer) dogs and technical squads on the ground and is highly equipped for the work. They are looking for survivors, if any," he added. On the cause of the collapse, Singh said engineers and technical teams from the Noida Authority have reached the spot to ascertain the reason. The front portion of the building collapsed due to the construction work. The office of a solar panel manufacturing firm is located on the floor on which the work was going on, according to senior officials at the site. America can be proud of many things: our innovation, generosity and entrepreneurial spirit are unsurpassed. Yet when it comes to our nation understanding one of the greatest gifts ever given to humanitythe Biblewe're moving from dumb to dumber, and it's no laughing matter. A passerby took a double-take when he spotted a guard dog sitting in the front of a security patrol car with two more huge hounds in the back on a London street. The surreal footage, filmed on Portobello Road, Notting Hill, shows a car marked with 'dog section' stopped at traffic lights with three happy canines inside. Andrew Threlfall, 46, said the three German Shepherd-style dogs seemed almost human as they travelled in the vehicle, looking out of the open windows. The video, taken in Notting Hill, London, shows three happy canines sitting in a car marked with 'dog section' as it is stopped at traffic lights The dogs seemed almost human as they travelled in the passenger and back seats of the private security car The video, taken on July 29, shows the three German Shepherd-type dogs travelling in the seats in Portobello Road From the pavement it looks as though there aren't any humans in the car. Mr Threlfall said: 'As the dogs were travelling past the pub everyone turned to look as it looked from the pavement as if the dogs were driving the car. 'It wasn't until I got up to see it we could see a human was driving. It was uniquely crazy, I've never seen anything like it.' The video was taken around 7pm on July 29. From the pavement Andrew Threlfall said it looked like there was no human in the car and it was four dogs driving down the road The dogs live their best human life as they cruise down Portobello Road with the windows open. Just as the car begins to move, the canine in front passenger seat instinctively sits, and they stick their heads out the window for some fresh air. Dogs are allowed to travel inside a car but they need to be suitably restrained with a harness or other support in line with rule 57 of the Highway Code. Drivers risk a maximum fine of 5,000 if they do not comply. On July 29, the world's largest COVID-19 vaccine study commenced with more than 30,000 volunteers receiving the latest test vaccination, according to AP. Every month through fall, the COVID-19 Prevention Network, which is government funded, will roll out a new study of a leading vaccine candidate, each one with 30,000 new volunteers. The hope is to eventually roll out a vaccine for the general public. Hearst Connecticut Media Group is conducting an informal poll asking readers if they plan to get the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available. As of July 31, the majority of poll respondents had voted "no." RELATED: What you need to know about FDA vaccine testing and trials We spoke to the following public health and infectious disease experts in Connecticut to find out if they plan to be vaccinated and why: Virginia Pitzer, associate professor of epidemiology - Yale School of Medicine Dr. Kevin D. Dieckhaus, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, director of Global Health & International Studies - UConn Health Department of Medicine Dr. Richard Martinello, associate professor of internal medicine & pediatrics (infectious diseases) - Yale School of Medicine; medical director of Infection Prevention - Yale New Haven Hospital Note: Answers have been edited and condensed for clarity The longer the Syrian war continues, the more paradoxes have sprung up out of it. The latest involves the Moscow-backed military group striving to carve out an autonomous zone for itself in southwestern Syria and even clashing with the regime forces. By offering its backing to the formation, the Russians, once the guarantors that those southwest territories would remain solidly under President Bashar al-Assads control, are now trying to kill two birds with one stone. They seek to both contain the Iranian influence near the Israeli border and quash any signs of dissent that emerged following the "reconciliation." For all practical purposes, it is highly unlikely that Russia-backed formation comprising former rebels and acting autonomously from Assads forces can ever form the backbone of the renewed armed services. Even so, Russias backing may yield some benefit by making the upcoming Syrian elections in 2021 appear more democratic. On July 28 the Fifth Corps Eighth Brigade welcomed 900 new fighters at a graduation ceremony in Bosra al Sham, Daraa province. The ceremony took place near the ancient citadel Bosra under the flags of both the Syrian Arab Republic and the Syrian Army. Also present were the local protesters chanting anti-government slogans such as Bashar, we are coming for you and Assads regime will fall and holding placards demanding the release of political prisoners. Russian military police were reportedly also at the scene, quietly observing from the sidelines. The ceremony marked an important milestone for the Eighth Brigade, considering its modest headcount of just 2,000 fighters prior to the ceremony. The battalions commander, Ahmad al-Oda, is a former leader of the opposition group Shabaab al-Sunnah, which joined the revolution in 2011. Al-Oda is also rumored to have participated in recruiting Syrian fighters to assist Libyan warlord Khalifa Hifter. As Foreign Policy Magazine reported, it was Col. Alexander Zorin who oversaw the recruitment drive for Hifter's forces. In 2016 Zorin served as the Russian Defense Ministrys envoy to the Geneva-based task force and visited the south of Syria in early April. According to sources among the Russian military who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, however, Zorins April visit had nothing to do with recruiting new fighters for Hifter but was concerned instead with negotiations regarding the Iranian presence in Syria and the release of prisoners. As a result, the Russian military opened a station in Daraa to collect information on prisoners detained by Damascus directly from their relatives. The measures real purpose appears to be a largely symbolic gesture of reconciliation. According to local lawyers, the Central Committee a body that unites rebels who accepted the reconciliation pact already issued Russia the list of detainees it sought. That is not to suggest, however, that Russias patronage of the Eighth Brigade (a formation that has largely served tactical, not strategic purposes) has been inconsequential. At the end of June, the Eighth Brigade exchanged gunfire with the Syrian security services in a deadly checkpoint clash, setting off a series of escalatory actions. On June 20, a bus carrying soldiers from the Eighth Brigade hit an improvised explosive device in eastern Daraa province. The explosion left nine dead and 13 wounded and sparked protests against Hezbollah and Iran, whom the locals blamed for planting the bomb. The accusations are hardly surprising as pro-Iranian forces had on several occasions attempted to attack the former rebels active under the Fifth Corps umbrella. Southern Syria, the cradle of the countrys revolution, now serves as a compelling example of what can happen to a former rebel territory with lingering anti-Assad sentiments that was returned to the regimes control. More pertinently, it is also an indicator of Moscows desire to find a stable compromise with regional and sub-regional players. In 2018 Russia, the United States, Israel and Jordan reached a deal on reconciliation between Damascus and territories in southwestern Syria. Moscows aim at the time was to create a so-called "Sunni buffer" on the border with Israel in an attempt to minimize the presence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as other local and foreign militias loyal to Tehran who had threatened Israel with opening a new Syrian front to bolster the so-called "axis of resistance." Consequently, Russia emerged as a de facto security guarantor for ex-rebels in the southwest in exchange for their role in fighting the Islamic State. Already by April 2019, former rebels from the Syrian Free Armys Southern Front made up more than three-quarters of all the fighters in the Eight Brigade of the Fifth Volunteer Corps active in Daraa province. The brigade had for a number of years been managed directly by a Russian general and there were Russian officers at different levels of command. Those efforts bore fruit in the end, as local forces succeeded in suppressing the IS insurgence and turned hundreds of fighters over to Assads security services. Having said that, however, the Eight Brigade and locals in Daraa province have also encountered some obstacles along the way. First of all, they have been facing stiff competition for the allegiance of former rebels, most notably from Maher Assad, the presidents brother and a commander of the Syrian Armys Fourth Division. Assad maintains tight links with Iran, while the Fourth Division comprises many pro-Iran units, including the foreign ones. The division also serves as a cover for the activities of Hezbollah and the IRGC. The Eighth Brigade launched several attacks on the Fourth Divisions checkpoints in retaliation for the regimes repression. Russian military police in the area reportedly sided with the ex-rebels. Secondly, southern Syria suffered a drop in living standards following the dissolution of local councils (civilian authorities in rebel-held areas assisting the population with everyday matters), as well as the shutting down of nongovernmental and civil society organizations. Thirdly, the terms of the reconciliation agreement between the regime and ex-rebels are not always observed. Damascus has been accused of repression, conducting criminal investigations into former opposition members over dubious charges and arbitrary detentions. All this presents Moscow with a conundrum. If Russia is prepared to stand by the Eighth Brigade or other units under the Fifth Corps umbrella, it needs to coordinate its actions with Damascus. The Syrian regime is wary of Moscows support to ex-rebels and sees it as an abetment to autonomy in the south and a threat to its smuggling networks. In June, the secretary of the Syrian People's Council, Syria's parliament, Khaled al-Abboud, called on Russia to give up its protectorate over the armed groups that are part of the local reconciliation deal concerning Daraa and to walk back the agreement entirely. Going forward, it is not unfathomable that Moscow will use the factor of Syrias "grey zones" where the governments control is not absolute to boost the legitimacy of the Assad regime. A degree of protest vote in the upcoming 2021 election might create an appearance of liberalization within the country in the eyes of foreign journalists. This "liberalization" can then be presented as means to appeal to potential investors in the region. If Russia is trying to create a renewed Syrian Armed Forces on its own terms, this ambition requires investing substantial resources on a countrywide scale, given countervailing efforts on behalf of Iran to strengthen the Fourth Division and the Republican Guard. Any halfhearted measures would therefore risk exacerbating tensions with Damascus and lead to new skirmishes and hostilities, causing even more human suffering. CORAL, MI -- A 31-year-old man who shot himself as police entered his residence for a well-being check had a court appearance scheduled for the same day. State police released the information Thursday, July 30, several hours after they used a robot to determine the mans whereabouts and condition inside the house. When the shots rang out, police did not know whether shots were being fired at them. They later determined they were not. Two state police troopers and a Montcalm County sheriffs deputy responded to the residence about 7:45 p.m. after a relative called them to check on the man. He had made concerning statements to the relative. When the shots were fired, police retreated from the house and set up a perimeter around the house. About 11 a.m., officers used a state police robot to enter the residence and they discovered the man was deceased. More from MLive Person walking in Southeast Grand Rapids wounded in drive-by shooting Murder charge authorized in death of 2-year-old child in Allegan County 07/30/2020 By Ed Brennen Xarielle Gittens, a chemistry major from the University of Guyana, enjoyed working with students from different cultures during the GE2 workshop. Lydiah Zachary, a doctoral student at the University of Nairobi, says her biggest takeaway from the GE2 workshop was the importance of a business model. Xarielle Gittens had one complaint after participating in the Manning School of Business Global Entrepreneurship Exchange ( GE2 ) program this summer.I didnt want it to end, said Gittens, a chemistry major from the University of Guyana. I wish it could have lasted another week.Scores of undergraduate and graduate college students from around the world usually travel to UMass Lowell each July for two weeks of entrepreneurship, innovation and cultural exchange through the GE2 program. When the coronavirus pandemic made that impossible this summer, GE2 Directorand his team scrambled to put together a free, one-week virtual workshop instead.We had students from many universities in China, India, Thailand all expecting to come here. When we had to cancel, we were concerned, said Mehta, an associate teaching professor ofwho founded GE2 in 2014.The virtual version turned out to be a resounding success. More than 640 students and faculty from 23 countries signed up for the daily 90-minute workshop sessions, which were led by Manning School faculty on Zoom. They covered topics including business model generation, customer discovery and venture financing.Lydiah Zachary, a doctoral student in entrepreneurship and small business development at the University of Nairobi in Kenya, had been looking forward to coming to Lowell this summer, but she appreciated the online version.It was much more than I anticipated, said Zachary, who enjoyed learning real-world lessons from Prof. Yi Yang , Assoc. Prof.and adjunct faculty members Dave Vatalaro and Bill Yelle. These professors are entrepreneurs with a wealth of experience, so its really interesting to hear what they have to say.Manning School Dean Sandra Richtermeyer , who led a session with Yelle on venture implementation, was inspired to see students interacting and collaborating so well despite language barriers and time zone differences. She encouraged them to continue their entrepreneurial efforts wherever they live.Thats what this is all about: starting new ventures and contributing to a healthy and prosperous global society, Richtermeyer said.Of the 640 registrants, 245 signed up for a free, certificate-track version of the workshop that gave them the opportunity to compete in an idea pitch contest. Working in small, multinational teams of around five students, the groups had to come up with a business venture in one of five categories: technology, health, social, environment, or small and medium-sized enterprises. Several of the projects addressed COVID-19, including one from Gittens team that proposed making personal protective equipment from hemp.For Matt Zablocki, one of around 15 UML students who took part in the session, collaborating remotely with students from Japan, Vietnam and Myanmar was one of the most valuable portions of this workshop.It was truly unique having to break down the tasks to complete the project when there was a 12- to 13-hour time difference with other students, said Zablocki, who took part in the workshop as part of his three-credit Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation summer course. It was a great experience.At weeks end, 45 teams submitted three-minute PowerPoint presentations to YouTube, where the public had a chance to vote on them with likes (several of the projects racked up over 4,000 views). The five most-liked projects in each category advanced to the judges round, where the top three were awarded cash prizes ($250 for first-place teams; $200 for second; and $150 for third).Mehta thanked the program sponsors Jaishree and Desh Deshpande; the Deshpande Foundation; David Gagnon 90 at KPMG; Wayne Cole 90 at MKS Instruments; and the Independent University Alumni Association for making the prize money possible.Takashi Ando, whose team won the health category, was among five MBA students from Japan to participate through the Manning Schools partnership with Abitus, an executive education firm based in Tokyo.A former cardiovascular surgeon who now works for a medical device company, Ando had hoped to travel to UML from Japan for the summer session.Hopefully I can come next year for my graduation ceremony, Ando said.Myat Su Khaing, whose team took second place in the social category, was among 88 students from Myanmar to participate. An MBA student at the University of Thai Chamber of Commerce, Khaing works in procurement supply management for the United Nations.Coming into the program, she wasnt sure if she was cut out to be an entrepreneur. But after attending this workshop, I feel motivated, Khaing said. If I try, I can be an entrepreneur.The GE2 program is an initiative of theEntrepreneurship unites the world at a time when the world needs a lot of uniting, the centers founder, UML Distinguished Professor Jack Wilson , told students. This workshop to me was a symbol of how you overcome every challenge to keep everything together.Now that hes seen the demand for a virtual version of GE2, Mehta said it could continue post-pandemic.Being able to work together remotely is critical in a global economy, Mehta said. Well see if we can make it another signature program of the Wilson Center for Entrepreneurship. The Massachusetts Senate passed a bill that would require genocide and human rights education for middle school and high school students. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Michael J. Rodrigues, would require a unit of instruction on the Holocaust and genocide in every Massachusetts school district. The studying of this material is a reaffirmation of the commitment of free peoples from all nations to never again permit the occurrence of another genocide, the bill states. And a recognition that crimes of genocide continue to be perpetrated across the globe. The bill comes at a time when more and more Americans dont know the details of the Holocaust. This important legislation will ensure that more students understand the history of #genocide so that it never happens again., state Sen. Jason Lewis, Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Education, said on Twitter. He thanked his colleague for championing this legislation and to all of the educators and advocates who have worked to see this bill passed. A Pew research study released in 2020 found that half of Americans dont know that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust and more than 30% of Americans didnt know when the Holocaust occurred. We cannot simply say Never Again if we do not also commit to educating the next generation and to by giving them the resources they need to recognize and stand up to injustice before it takes root, said Aaron Agulnek, Director of Government Affairs for the Jewish Community Relations Council, according to a press release. Massachusetts has seen an increase of anti-Semitic incidents in Massachusetts over the past five years, the Associated Press reported. There were 114 reported incidents in 2019. 75 years after the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp, we, as a society, continue to grapple with the root causes of hatred and discrimination, said Rodrigues. As the forces of fake news, division, and ignorance continue to march on, I applaud Senate President Spilka and my colleagues in the Senate for standing up to say that we will never forget the lessons of the past. Massachusetts had the fourth highest number of incidents in the county with 61 cities and towns recording at least one anti-Semitic incident last year, the AP reported. And its not uncommon for these incidents to happen in schools. The majority of anti-Semitic incidents weve tracked in the last two years have occurred in middle and high schools, Robert Trestan, director of the ADLs New England chapter said. Related Content: The BBC has cut staff numbers by just two per cent in the last decade, despite spending more than 500 million on severance pay and restructuring. The difference in the number of people employed by the corporation compared to 10 years ago is fewer than 500, according to analysis by Press Gazette. In 2009, the BBC had a total of 22,874 staff across the organisation - a figure which has only dropped slightly to 22,401 in 2019, which are the latest full-year accounts available. The BBC has cut staff numbers by just two per cent in the last decade, despite spending more than 500 million on severance pay and restructuring How the BBC has maintained a steady number of staff despite paying out millions (Credit: Press Gazette) Year Total staff Restructuring costs and severance pay 2009 22,874 40.3m 2010 Not published 61.9m 2011 22,899 63.3m 2012 21,940 103m 2013 21,282 43.7m 2014 20,736 42.1m 2015 21,404 29.1m 2016 21,265 46.9m 2017 21,271 83m 2018 21,583 50.9m 2019 22,401 43.8m Annual reports show how the BBC constantly drove to reduce staff numbers where possible, while simultaneously investing in new, sustainable roles within the organisation. The analysis reveals how the corporation paid out hundreds of millions in restructuring costs and severance pay, as thousands of redundancies were made. The BBC's 2008/09 annual report explained plans to axe 10 per cent of staff - equivalent to 1,800 jobs - over the next four years, having made similar cuts from 2005 to 2008. By 2017, the drive had seen more than 2,600 roles go and more than 750m saved, though that year's report highlighted 'a continued requirement to invest and recruit in different skill types to build the BBC of the future'. Indeed, 179 jobs were created within World Service News after a 289m Government cash injection, allowing it to expand into 12 new languages, while further 'significant recruitment' is still ongoing. Headcount fell in its licence fee-funded public service broadcasting division, where most staff are employed, by 12 per cent over the decade, but grew by five per cent between 2018 and 2019 after more than 1,000 extra jobs were created. The corporation also saw group staff costs rise by 14.5 per cent over the last 10 years, growing by 188m to 1.48bn in 2019. Earlier this month, the BBC came under fire after it announced the end of free TV licences for everyone over the age of 75 from August, meaning more than three million households have to find a way to pay 157.50 for the service, or risk criminal prosecution. Only those who receive pension credit - estimated to be around 1.5 million people - will still be able to access live television and the BBC's iPlayer for free - services which have been an invaluable lifeline for the elderly during lockdown. Boris Johnson's spokesman said it was 'the wrong decision' while Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said he felt 'let down' and that the decision will 'have an impact' on proposals to decriminalise the licence fee. Julian Knight, chairman of the Commons' digital culture, media and sport committee, told the Telegraph: 'It will be an own goal of epic proportions to start hauling people over 75 in front of the courts. There needs to be common sense here.' Tony Hall has been the BBC's Director-General since 2013 and has overseen many of the changes A BBC spokesperson said: 'As ever, our staffing numbers and redundancy figures don't tell the full story here. 'During this time, the Government awarded the BBC a grant as part of the biggest expansion of the World Service since the 1940s, we launched the BBC Scotland channel and developed our digital services, all of which could not have happened without taking on staff according to our changing business needs. 'We have also taken a value for money approach to contracts by bringing resources and some teams in-house whilst reducing the number of back office and support roles. 'As such, an independent report by Ernst & Young found the BBC among the most efficient 25 per cent regulated and non-profit organisations in the UK. 'The continued need for savings, compounded by the Coronavirus pandemic, means we have recently launched a voluntary redundancy programme for all public service staff and announced a number of job closures across the organisation.' The more than 40,000 British nationals registered as resident in the province of Malaga have been expressing their indignation this week at the UK government's decision to order all travellers arriving from Spain to self-isolate for two weeks. Many described the decision as "unfair" and complained that once again - referring back to the Brexit negotiations - Brits in Spain feel "forgotten". These were words used by the spokesperson of the organisation Brexpats in Spain, Anne Hernandez, who spoke on Monday of the situation of British residents in Spain and especially on the Costa del Sol in no uncertain terms. "They're treating us as if we were refugees," she said indignantly. The spokesperson for the association - which has around 10,000 members living in Spain - also expressed her doubts as to the real reasons behind the measure. She pointed out that Boris Johnson's government took nearly ten days to decide whether face masks should be made obligatory, but the news of the quarantine rule came barely four hours before it came into force. "There's something strange here," she said, "which seems like it has little to do with a health measure." Hernandez hinted at a possible financial interest in keeping tourism within the UK and preventing an exodus to Spain. "Last week we've seen British tourists buying tickets for 15 pounds to come to the Costa del Sol. I think that someone there has decided that tourism should stay in the United Kingdom," said Hernandez. The spokesperson, who was much in demand this week from Spanish and foreign media to give her views as a British resident in Spain, gave the example of the US, to illustrate her view that the measure makes no sense. "No one denies that the health crisis is much worse there than in Spain, however you can go from Florida (where there are thousands of infections every day) to London and not have to quarantine," she explained. The retired university lecturer also brought up the case of a nurse who arrived in London after a few days in Malaga and they let her (even encouraged her) to go back to work. "If this were serious, how could they let her gone back into a hospital. It's ridiculous," said Hernandez. The measure is not just affecting Brits in Spain who might have been planning to travel to their home country, but also those whose livelihoods depend on UK tourists. "There are bars, restaurants and shops that will be forced to close with this quarantine. Doesn't our government care about that?" said Hernandez. "Nobody can afford to spend 14 days at home. Not those who live there, nor the residents on the Costa. Jobs won't wait and people could lose theirs," added Hernandez. "This is a disaster for everyone." In a rare feat, a poacher has been sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment on charges of killing a rare silverback gorilla in Uganda. According to international media reports, the gorilla named Rafiki (which means friend in the local language) was part of the famous Nkuringo gorilla group that lives in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. As per the reports, the animal was found missing on June 1 and its body was found the next day inside the park. Rafiki was highly popular among tourists and his mysterious death is reported to have caused an uproar in Uganda. READ: Florida: Gorilla From Miami Zoo Tests Negative For COVID-19 Felix arrested in possession with illegal meat As per reports, the postmortem investigation revealed that Rafiki was injured by a sharp object in the abdomen which led to internal organ injuries. The authorities said that the poacher, Byamukama Felix, was arrested after a few days and was found in possession of illegal meat and several hunting devices. The report added that Felix was found guilty on various charges which include killing the gorilla, entering protected area, and being in possession of illegal meat. READ: World's Most Endangered Gorillas Spotted With Infants In Nigeria's Forest Rafiki receives justice The poacher is reported to have claimed that he killed Rafiki in self-defense as he went with a group to hunt in the park and suddenly came across the group of gorillas. He claimed that the silverback attacked him and he speared it in defence. As per the reports, three other men were also arrested with Felix and are awaiting trial as they have pleaded not guilty. Sam Mwandha, Executive Director of the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) is reported to have welcomed the court's decision and said that Rafiki has received justice. The Uganda Wildlife Authority has stated that when Rafiki died, the Nkuringo group had 17 gorillas. As per the reports, the silverback was the dominant male in the group which included three blackbacks, eight adult females, two juveniles, and three infants. READ: Nigeria: Thought To Be Extinct For Ages, Rare Gorillas Captured On Camera With Babies READ: Endangered Gorilla In New Orleans Zoo Expecting First Baby, Being Trained With Doll Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 18:03:25|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- China's Army Day falls on Aug. 1. As the top commander, President Xi Jinping has been leading efforts to modernize national defense and the armed forces, and turn the People's Liberation Army (PLA) into world-class forces. To reach this goal, Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, has designed and carried out massive military reforms and directed military development through meetings, orders and instructions. In addition, Xi has reviewed troops, visited barracks, boarded armored vehicles and warships, and sent his regards to border patrol soldiers. The following are some highlights of such moments over the past few years: DRONE LAB Xi visited a laboratory for drone technology at the Aviation University of the Air Force when he inspected northeast China's Jilin Province in July 2020. He inspected teaching facilities for drone operating systems and learned about the training of drone operators. He 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. AIRCRAFT CARRIER Xi attended the commissioning ceremony of China's first domestically built aircraft carrier, the Shandong, in December 2019 at a naval port in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province. Xi boarded the aircraft carrier and reviewed the guards of honor. He also inspected the onboard equipment and asked about the work and life of carrier-based aircraft pilots. Commending China's achievements in aircraft carrier construction, Xi encouraged the officers and soldiers to continue their efforts to make new contributions in the service of the Party and the people. TIAN'ANMEN SQUARE PARADE On Oct. 1, 2019, Xi reviewed the armed forces at Tian'anmen Square in central Beijing as a grand rally was held to mark the 70th founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China. The National Day parade was the first overall demonstration of Chinese armed forces after their comprehensive reform and restructuring in recent years. A total of 15,000 personnel, 580 pieces of armament and more than 160 aircraft in 15 foot formations, 32 armament formations and 12 echelons took part in the historic parade. Xi stressed that the PLA and the People's Armed Police Force should always preserve their nature, purpose and character as the forces of the people, resolutely safeguard China's sovereignty, security and development interests, and firmly uphold world peace. MULTINATIONAL NAVAL PARADE In April 2019, Xi reviewed a multinational fleet in the Yellow Sea as part of the activities to mark the 70th founding anniversary of the PLA Navy. Xi boarded the destroyer Xining, and reviewed 32 Chinese navy vessels and 39 aircraft, including China's first aircraft carrier the Liaoning and nuclear-powered submarines, as well as 18 visiting naval ships from 13 countries. In a group meeting with the heads of foreign delegations, Xi proposed building a maritime community with a shared future, and called for joint efforts to address common threats and challenges at sea and safeguard maritime peace and tranquility. ELITE GROUND FORCE Inspecting a division of the PLA ground force in the Central Theater Command in January 2018, Xi boarded China's self-developed main battlefield 99A tank, known as the "king of land battles," and the Red Arrow-10 anti-tank missile launching vehicle to learn about armaments used in the army. He visited a reconnaissance company to watch training conducted by snipers, visited a simulation training center and met with officers of the division. He also visited the exhibition center detailing the division's history. Xi stressed building an elite combat force through real combat training, digitalization, innovation and reform. FIELD PARADE Xi reviewed the armed forces in July 2017 as part of the commemorations to mark the 90th PLA founding anniversary. More than 12,000 service personnel took part in the parade at Zhurihe military training base in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Advanced weapons including stealth fighters and nuclear missiles were displayed. It was the first time for Xi to oversee such a large military parade in the field. Delivering a speech after the parade, Xi said China's need to build strong armed forces is greater than at any other time in history, as the Chinese nation is closer to the goal of great rejuvenation than ever. "The PLA has the confidence and capability to defeat all invading enemies and safeguard China's national sovereignty, security and development interests," said Xi. BORDER TROOPS In January 2014, Xi visited soldiers stationed on the Chinese-Mongolian border. Braving the cold, Xi met soldiers on a patrol mission and expressed his appreciation to them for working in the harsh weather to safeguard the country. He also stopped at a hilltop border post and inspected the garrison of a border troop company, where he joined officers and soldiers for lunch at their canteen. "I am very proud of our border troops. With you guarding the country's border, people feel safe and can concentrate on economic development, reform and opening-up," Xi said, stressing the great responsibility of border troops and urging them to work hard and perform their duties well. Enditem (Natural News) With at least 11 different pharmaceutical and vaccine companies now working on new vaccines for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), the financial gravy train has never been more lucrative. According to reports, biotech executives and other insiders who are exploiting the plandemic for their own personal gain are raking in billions from stock sales, with shares surging at the prospect that future vaccines might bring the world out of this mess. Some serious insider trading appears to be taking place as senior officials at various Big Pharma companies are cashing out while the going is good, and in some cases receiving stock option awards right before market-moving announcements about their vaccine progress are made. In some cases, company insiders are profiting from regularly scheduled compensation or automatic stock trades, reports The New York Times, as relayed by Zero Hedge. But in other situations, senior officials appear to be pounding on opportunities to cash out while their stock prices are sky high. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel, for instance, is now a billionaire after his company was given top pick by the Trump administration to head up the development of a Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine for the American market. Bancel and other insiders at Moderna reportedly cashed out on about $30 million worth of stock options back in May, and since that time have been raking in the dough from other financial maneuvers. The companys market value is now nearly $30 billion thanks to a stream of positive press releases, while insiders have sold around $248 million together since January, reports Zero Hedge. most of it (is) coming following an April announcement that the company had been selected to receive federal funding to support their efforts. Other Operation Warp Speed pharma companies are lying about their vaccines simply to get rich quick In the case of Vaxart, a South San Francisco-based drug giant, it was selected by the federal government to participate in an Operation Warp Speed (OWS) initiative that saw its stock values soar six-fold following an announcement. But there was just one problem: Vaxarts oral vaccine has not technically been selected as a viable vaccine candidate, but was rather chosen to be a participant in a trial on primates, and is not necessarily going to receive financial support from OWS as claimed. According to Michael R. Caputo, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) assistant secretary for public affairs, the federal government has entered into funding agreements with certain vaccine manufacturers, and we are negotiating with others, but neither is the case with Vaxart. However, this did not stop Vaxart from making a false announcement entitled, Vaxarts Covid-19 Vaccine Selected for the U.S. Governments Operation Warp Speed, which resulted in hundreds of millions of ill-gotten gains for the companys executives, including CEO Andrei Floroiu. Floroiu, whose stock options worth $4.3 million back in June have since soared to $28 million, came out to defend his companys honor, suggesting in a statement that: Vaxart abides by good corporate governance guidelines and policies and makes decisions in accordance with the best interests of the company and its shareholders. We believe that Vaxarts Covid-19 vaccine is the most exciting one in OWS because it is the only oral vaccine (a pill) in OWS. Many have come out to criticize pharma companies like Vaxart for not only lying, but also for cashing in on a crisis. Every day, Americans wake up and make sacrifices during this pandemic, stated Ben Wakana, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs. Drug companies see this as a payday. More news about the Big Pharma fat cats who are making out like bandits from the plandemic is available at Pandemic.news. Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com NaturalNews.com Late actor Sushant Singh Rajputs familys lawyer said on Thursday that the case filed against his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty has nothing to do with nepotism in Bollywood, as suggested by actor Kangana Ranaut in multiple videos and interviews. However, her team is still asking fans not to ignore the angle. Taking to their Twitter account, the team tweeted, Lets not reduce a legend like Sushant into a gullible majnu, lets not ignore his own complains about Nepotism & his posts begging people to watch his films, his fears of movie mafia bans that he expressed in his fan interactions on social media #ShameOnMumbaiPolice. Movie Mafia repeat after me ... Sushant wasnt mentally ill, depressed or bipolar, #dhandabandkar #SushantConspiracy https://t.co/gpvi7hUcSN Team Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) July 30, 2020 They also called Rhea a gold digger and pushed for a CBI enquiry into the case. Yes Rhea is a small time gold digger, she should be punished she took advantage of his situation, But CBI must find out what was that situation? Why was he so fragile and needy ? What was that chakraveyu ? #ShameOnMumbaiPolice, they wrote. More tweets mentioned how Rhea is simply a scapegoat, who is being used as a pawn by the more powerful ones, responsible for his death. The witch hunt hs started bt Rhea met Sushant in May 2019, how come a genius like him left everything in her hands, Y? Is it possible to control someone like this within few days f meeting them? Or ws his mind already broken? Is Rhea jst a pawn in this game ?#ShameOnMumbaiPolice, they wrote. Also read: Ankita Lokhande breaks silence on Sushant Singh Rajputs death, says he could not have taken his own life, was not depressed Sushant died by suicide on June 14. Lawyer Vikas Singh told Zoom TV that the nepotism debate is a different angle completely. He said, If tomorrow, the Mumbai Police feel that any outsider or any person who comes from a small town to this industry needs protection and they feel like it is a cognisable offence, then they can go ahead and do that angle. In my legal mind, it really does not require the police to go into this matter. Maybe an actors association or producers association can take up this matter but I dont think that this case has anything to do with what Kangana has suggested or anybody else is talking about. He also said that, to his knowledge, Kangana didnt contact the family. He confirmed that she hadnt reached out to Sushants father. Kangana has not contacted my client, Mr KK Singh, he said. Follow @htshowbiz for more SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 16:05 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066ab68ac 1 News AirAsia,new-normal,domestic-flights,travel,COVID-19,rapid-testing Free Low-cost carrier AirAsia Indonesia is scheduled to resume three of its round-trip domestic flights in August. The routes are YogyakartaMedan in North Sumatra, Surabaya in East JavaDenpasar in Bali and JakartaSemarang in Central Java. Tickets are available to book on the carriers website, app and Travel Service Center, with prices starting from Rp 1,179,000 (US$80.50) for the YogyakartaMedan route, Rp 321,000 for the SurabayaDenpasar route and Rp 368,000 for the JakartaSemarang route. Prices include a free baggage allowance of up to 15 kg. AirAsia Indonesia president director Veranita Yosephine Sinaga said the airline had reopened eight domestic routes so far. AirAsia is also offering rapid COVID-19 testing in 15 locations and drive-through rapid COVID-19 testing with prices starting from Rp 95,500. With competitive rates, flexible schedule change, same-day Credit Account process and up to 15 kg of free baggage for domestic passengers, we hope that we can be a one-stop service for [your] business or other important trips during the new normal adaptation, said Veranita in a statement. AirAsia Indonesia gradually resumed operations on June 19 for certain domestic routes on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The routes included Jakarta-Bali, Bali-Jakarta, Jakarta-Medan and Medan-Jakarta. (wir/wng) BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Thursday imposed travel and financial sanctions on a department of Russia's military intelligence service and on firms from North Korea and China over their suspected participation in major cyberattacks across the world. In its first ever sanctions related to cybercrime, the EU targeted the department for special technologies of the Russian military intelligence service, known as Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, it said in a statement. The bloc accused the Russian service of having carried out two cyberattacks in June 2017, which hit several companies in Europe resulting in large financial losses. The service is also accused of two cyberattacks against Ukraine's power grid in 2015 and 2016. Four individuals working for the Russian military intelligence service were also sanctioned for allegedly participating in an attempted cyberattack against the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Netherlands in April 2018. North Korean company Chosun Expo was also sanctioned on suspicion of having supported the Lazarus Group, which is deemed responsible for a series of major attacks worldwide, including an $81 million heist against Bangladesh Bank's account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2016, the world's biggest cyber fraud. The company is also allegedly linked to an attack against Hollywood film studio Sony Pictures to prevent the release of a satirical movie about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2014. The U.S. Treasury last year imposed sanctions on the Lazarus Group and two other North Korean hacking groups for their alleged participation in the attacks on Sony Pictures and the central bank of Bangladesh, among others. It said North Korea's main intelligence service was behind the hacking groups. North Korea has denied any involvement in cyberattacks. The EU sanctions also hit Chinese firm Haitai Technology Development, which is accused of having supported cyberattacks - known as Operation Cloud Hopper - aimed at stealing commercially sensitive data from multinationals across the world. Two Chinese individuals allegedly involved in the attacks were also sanctioned. Story continues Sanctions include travel bans and asset freezes. EU individuals, companies and other entities are forbidden from making funds available to those blacklisted. China's diplomatic mission to the European Union said in a statement early on Friday that China "is a staunch defender of network security and one of the biggest victims of hacker attacks." China wants global cyberspace security to be maintained through "dialogue and cooperation" and not by unilateral sanctions, the statement added. (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; Additional reporting by Wang Jing and David Stanway in Shanghai; Editing by Mark Potter, Hugh Lawson and Lincoln Feast.) This is an evolution between Tibco, the client, and the DataTerrain team. Weekly joint sessions capture the best possible options for the client-specific requirements. We worked with great techniques in analytics and reporting that can be used for other projects and our substantial client base. DataTerrain, a California-based provider of business Intelligence automation and a host of related, technology-driven services, recently provided crucial assistance to a Canadian provincial government with automated migration from SAP Crystal Reports to Jaspersoft. The automation tool is BI neutral. It can convert reports, dashboards, analytics, and metadata from a variety of BI products. In this specific project, it is a transition from SAP Crystal reports to Tibco Jaspersoft. Canadian provincial government decided to use Tibco software's Jaspersoft for its business reporting and analytics. Jaspersoft, an open architecture reporting software that allows users and developers to customize data sources and deployment methods. As a result of the decision, DataTerrain was approached to perform extensive presentation and proof of concepts to showcase the possibility of moving to a newer BI faster and seamless. There was a clear list of needs specified by the customer before the project. To preserve familiar Graphic User Interface (among other benefits) was one of priority one request, this allowed the client not to lose out on the design efforts that were spent for years to develop business-critical custom reports and analytics. While all reporting data and Business Intelligence is sensitive, providing service to a governmental body was an opportunity to highlight the attention to security and accuracy. DataTerrain applied 2-factor authentication and RSA token authorization for users across the reporting platform. DataTerrain was able to preserve the security standards and provide enhancements. Throughout the project, DataTerrain achieved pixel perfect, 1:1 conversion of reports through rigorous testing and state of the art automation. DataTerrain's team consisted of 5 offshore developers, one offshore QA analyst, and one Canada-based project manager. This agile, offshore team was able to work across time zones, utilize immediate feedback from the collocated QA analyst to reduce development time, and implement automation to migrate and convert 14 highly complex reports from SAPCrystal Reports to Jaspersoft in 1 month per the customer timeline. DataTerrain automation successfully converted complex reports, subreports, and charts from SAP Crystal Reports to Jaspersoft while maintaining existing reporting structure. Advanced HTML5 chart properties were implemented within Jaspersoft to create charts within the client's reports. Broad user groups welcomed the rich visualization and simplicity in reporting and analysis. With successful migration, the provincial government can generate the necessary reports they've grown accustomed to, while also using the capabilities of Jaspersoft to improve in-report charting. The customizable nature of their new platform also creates future value, giving the organization options for new methods of the data assessment and reporting as needs arise. Project management was critical for two reasons: time and security-sensitive nature of the projects. DataTerrain delivered all the reports on time with outstanding quality. Regular meetings were held with customers to exchange ideas and collect feedback. Details were implemented, and technical aspects of each report and dashboard discussed on a biweekly basis to ensure accuracy throughout the migration. All updated reports delivered with zero bugs identified by the client or DataTerrain teams. Bug tracking mechanisms and project tracking methods were shared with the client on-demand basis. All the teams were able to update the status and feedback at a central reporting system; thereby, multiple teams need not wait for the status checks on the meetings unless it is a particular case. This facilitated significant interaction between teams and fast-forwarded the project movement. It was critical to have team members with in-depth knowledge of both technologies for making the equivalent choices when moving over and incorporating the new product's best practices. This is an evolution between Tibco, the client, and the DataTerrain team. Weekly joint sessions capture the best possible options for the client-specific requirements. DataTerrain worked with great techniques in analytics and reporting and created logs for all the activities that can be used efficiently for many other projects. The team carries forward these experiences to the more substantial client base and provide knowledge transfer from extensive research during ongoing Jasper-focused webinars and presentations. Training sessions were conducted for the users and extensive documentation provided. DataTerrain approached this project with the utmost care, understanding the immediate importance of governmental information, and the need for a fast, seamless migration away from a family of software that is nearing End of Life. Through customizable solutions and a workflow based on agility and communication, DataTerrain was able to meet and exceed client expectations well within the designated time frame, and more importantly, allow the Canadian province to continue serving its citizens without significant disruption. DataTerrain is grateful to the client and Tibco teams for working together as one team. Viva Aerobus to add another 15 routes into Cancun International Cancun, Q.R. Mexicos Viva Aerobus says they will open another 15 national routes into the Cancun International Airport during the month of August. In a statement, Juan Carlos Zuazua, the companys CEO, explained that the addition of the flights is part of the gradual reopening taking place nationwide. He says Viva Aerobus will connect flights with Cancun to and from Mexico City, Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Guadalajara, Leon, Monterrey, Puebla, Queretaro, Reynosa, Tampico, Tijuana, Torreon, Tuxtla Gutierrez, Veracruz and Villahermosa. The operation of these routes in Cancun is part of the gradual reactivation of flights nationwide, reiterated Juan Carlos Zuazua. He pointed out that all flights are carried out under disciplined prevention, hygiene and safety protocols with adherence to the recommendations and sanitary measures issued by national and international authorities. Mexico and its passengers can trust Viva Aerobus to transport themselves safely and at the best price. We continue reactivating flights under a renewed approach that prioritizes hygiene and prevention measures that we guarantee with our Viva Contigo program, he said. He says during the month of August, the airline will offer more than 80 routes nationwide and will operate at 60 percent of its total flight capacity in order to meet Mexicos air connectivity needs according to analysis market recovery trends. All these efforts prove that we are prepared for the new normal and for an agile recovery, focusing on what is important for our passengers. Reliability, low prices and flexibility, he said. Court of Arbitration in Paris starts hearing case on seizure of Ukrenergo's facilities by Russia in Crimea The Court of Arbitration in Paris on July 16 began hearing the lawsuit on the illegal seizure of infrastructure facilities of NEC Ukrenergo in the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the company said on its website on Friday. As part of the lawsuit, Ukrenergo is seeking for compensation for Russia's violation of the 1988 Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on encouragement and mutual protection of investments, namely for the seizure of trunk networks and other facilities owned by Ukrenergo during the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the company said. In addition, Ukrenergo's claims include compensation for damage from the illegal expropriation of Ukrenergo's investments in Crimea and violation of obligations to guarantee full and unconditional legal protection. According to Ukrenergo board member Maksym Yurkov, who is quoted in the report, the value of assets against which the claim is filed will be determined after their assessment. The company said that on March 27, 2020, the tribunal's composition was approved. It includes Justice Lawrence Collins, Ukrenergo's appointed arbitrator D. Brian King and Russia's appointed arbitrator Gabriel Bottini. According to the company, today the Court of Arbitration has refused to the Russian side a petition regarding the possibility of filing a request for division of proceedings into the stage of determining the jurisdiction of the case and the stage of hearing the case, in fact, before Ukrenergo submits a detailed statement of claim. At the same time, the company said that the procedural calendar for the remainder of the arbitration will be established after the court makes a decision on the need to divide the case into stages. DES MOINES Iowa officials are planning to issue fines and license suspensions in order to enforce social distancing requirements in bars and restaurants during the new coronavirus pandemic, a pair of state agencies announced Thursday. Under Iowas current state public health emergency declaration, bars and restaurants are allowed to be open with no capacity restrictions, but they must employ social distancing measures. Businesses are required to create at least 6 feet of physical distance between each group or individual dining alone, and all patrons must be seated and cannot gather closer than 6 feet. The state agencies that regulate bars and restaurants said they plan to work together to enforce those social distancing requirements, according to a news release. For first offenses, businesses with an alcohol license will be fined $1,000 by the state Alcoholic Beverages Division, and restaurants will be issued a warning by the state Department of Inspections and Appeals. A second offense will result in a seven-day suspension of a business alcohol or food license; a third offense will result in the business losing that license. Public safety is of the utmost importance. Although a majority of bars and restaurants are voluntarily complying with social distancing requirements, we will take these necessary steps to ensure the health and safety of Iowans, Inspections and Appeals director Larry Johnson said in the news release. A statement from the Iowa Restaurant Association also suggested just a small number of restaurants and bars are not adhering to the states social distancing requirements. The vast majority of Iowas hospitality establishments are strictly adhering to the mitigation and social distancing mandates addressed in the governors most recent proclamation, Jessica Dunker, president and CEO of the Iowa Restaurant Association, said in a news release. Our industry simply cant take the economic devastation of another across-the-board shut down of on-premise service, additional limitations on alcohol service hours, or patron capacity reductions because a few establishments are unwilling to operate within current requirements. We appreciate that todays announced policy will not penalize the entire industry when it is just a few unwilling to comply. The latest report from the White House pandemic response task force said Iowa and eight of the states counties are red zones, indicating a high rate of spread of the coronavirus. In those areas, the task force recommends bars and gyms be closed, restaurants be limited to strict social distancing, and face masks be required inside all businesses. Iowa does not have a face mask mandate, and bars and gyms are allowed to be open. Statewide, Iowas coronavirus cases have surged back to near the states first peak of positive test results in early May, according to state public health data. Virus-related deaths and hospitalizations also have been climbing, albeit more gradually than cases. Her left sleeve rolled up, Mary Dixson was poked with a tiny needle, receiving an injection as part of a test of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine. She said it hurt less than a flu shot. Dixson, 48, a communications instructor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, was at the head of the line Thursday, the first day of a study taking place at San Antonios Clinical Trials of Texas, Inc. I want to be part of the solution, she said. Clinical Trials of Texas is enrolling adult participants in two-year trials of drugmaker Modernas mRNA-1273 vaccine and Pfizers trio of experimental COVID-19 vaccines, which the pharmaceutical giant developed with biotechnology firm BioNTech of Germany. Diagnostics Research Group, another San Antonio clinical trial operator, also is investigating the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. Both facilities started their trials this week. Dixson is participating in the Pfizer-BioNTech study. Like most people, Dixson misses her routine. The sooner a vaccine is on the market, she said, the sooner so she can resume in-person classes with her students. She doesnt know whether she was injected with the experimental vaccine or a saline-solution placebo as part of the Phase 3, or final stage, study. In clinical trials, researchers usually give placebos to one group of participants to compare their outcomes to those of participants who received the drug or vaccine under examination. Dixson said she has no underlying medical conditions. Shell return to the clinic in late August for another dose and log onto a smartphone app every night to document her temperature and any symptoms she experiences. On ExpressNews.com: Get the latest update on coronavirus and a tracking map of U.S. cases Researchers are seeking 32,000 participants at 62 locations across the U.S. for the Pfizer study, including the two San Antonio sites, both located near the South Texas Medical Center. We need volunteers so that we can gather this data as quickly as possible and hopefully end this pandemic, said Kay Scroggins, CEO of Clinical Trials of Texas. On Friday, CTT started enrolling participants in its clinical trial for the Moderna vaccine. This study has drawn attention and criticism because the U.S. government is bankrolling Modernas efforts. Moderna is a relatively new drugmaker that has no products on the market, but is valued at $31 billion. Its coronavirus vaccine was the first to be tested on humans in the U.S. and has been considered the front-runner in the race for a vaccine. The Cambridge, Mass., company is working on the vaccine with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Moderna secured $955 million from the federal government to develop the vaccine, but reportedly still intends to sell the two-dose treatment at a profit, for up to $60. Other drug companies, such as Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, have said they will not seek to profit from their prospective vaccines, at least not initially. Pfizer is developing its vaccine candidates without federal support. However, the company and BioNTech struck a $1.95 billion deal with the federal government to produce and deliver 100 million doses of the vaccine if it secures emergency approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Normally, new vaccines take 10 to 15 years to develop, test and win approval, but the urgency of the pandemic has accelerated the regulatory approval process. COVID-19 has killed more than 662,000 people worldwide, including nearly 350 people in San Antonio. The U.S. government so far has pumped $10 billion into Operation Warp Speed, which aims to fast-track vaccine candidates so 300 million doses can be delivered to patients by January. According to the World Health Organization, there are 164 coronavirus vaccine candidates in development, with six that have made it to the final stage of testing. Scroggins said Clinical Trials of Texas could get approved for three additional COVID-19 vaccine studies by the end of the year. Her staff likely will work some Saturday shifts to keep up with the work required to run the trials. Government officials sent a 60-foot-long trailer to the testing site Wednesday. Its parked behind CTTs office building and will be used for extra clinical space, needed because of social-distancing measures. Scroggins clinic typically conducts 100 trials at a time, and recently tested a continuous glucose sensor that made monitoring blood sugar levels easier and less painful for diabetic patients. On ExpressNews.com: Four San Antonio institutions boost COVID-19 research projects The focus on the coronavirus vaccine studies is intense because, if one or more of the vaccines works, normalcy could be restored to lives turned upside down by the pandemic. Theres been a lot of excitement around these trials, Scroggins said. Physicians have been calling us to find out how they can participate. One rural doctor is willing to make a four-hour round-trip to San Antonio to participate in one of the studies underway. Dr. Monte Horne, a family physician in Mason, said its a small sacrifice and if the vaccine works, it could provide him with extra protection against the virus. Horne has followed the progress of many potential COVID-19 vaccines, and said preliminary results mostly look promising. I dont know if we have a clear winner, he said, but weve got a lot of smart people working on this. Moderna and Pfizer both are relying on new biotechnology, called messenger RNA, or mRNA, that hasnt yet been used in approved vaccines. While traditional vaccines use inactive viruses, vaccines made with mRNA use a genetic code that tells cells how to make protein, which helps the body make antibodies to fight off the virus. But in order for any of these vaccines to win FDA approval, they must be studied in thousands of people who are closely monitored for any adverse reactions. Clinical investigators are using public health data to identify COVID-19 hot zones such as San Antonio, which has seen a surge in cases for more than a month and currently has more than 1,000 people hospitalized with the illness. Cindi Nellis, CTTs recruitment director, said her clinic is targeting people for enrollment in the study who have higher than normal risks of infection. That could include health care workers and employees whose jobs require frequent close contact with others, those who live with five or more people and adults who are older than 65. South Texas also is home to a population that has a higher rate of diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar , D-Laredo, said hes pushing to increase ethnic diversity among participants in the Moderna trial. His district includes the eastern side of San Antonio and runs south to Laredo and parts of the Rio Grande Valley. Hispanic populations have long been underrepresented in medical research despite being disproportionately affected by many of the studied diseases, he said. We want to make sure that we dont have a situation where minority communities are left behind. Laura Garcia covers the health care industry. To read more from Laura, become a subscriber. laura.garcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @Reporter_Laura COVID-19 tests of potentially infected residents and staff at the site of Melbourne's largest aged care outbreak were left unattended in an unsealed garbage bag for six hours before being collected by a taxi. This came after Victorian and Commonwealth health authorities took six days after the first case at St Basil's in Fawkner was confirmed to arrange for a testing team to visit the home. A resident of St Basil's is evacuated to hospital on Friday. Credit:Justin McManus St Basil's chairman Konstantin Kontis said that when the July 15 tests were done, it took a further three days for some of the results to be returned to St Basil's management and clinical staff. Some tests were inconclusive. St Basil's, a not-for-profit aged care facility owned by the Greek Orthodox Church, is temporarily closed after a fresh outbreak of cases among "surge" staff deployed to the home by the federal government prompted health authorities on Friday to evacuate the remaining residents. Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty Recent excavations in the ancient Kingdom of Judah, close to Jerusalem in Israel, has unearthed a number of anthropomorphic male figurine heads from the 10th century B.C. A bearded man with a square flat-topped head, protruding nose, holes for earrings, and somewhat bulging eyes. The similarity between the figurine heads suggests that they depict the same figure, but who is this oddly shaped character? In an article published this week, archaeologist and Hebrew University professor Yosef Garfinkel argues that they show the face of Yahweh, the God of Israel. If accurate the sensational claim would mean both that ancient Israelites made idols (despite the strict biblical commands not to) and that we now have an early portrait of God. The results of Garfinkels research were published this week in Biblical Archaeology Review. Three figurine heads were recently excavated from Khirbet Qeiyafa and Tel Moza, sites located close to the modern city of Jerusalem. (Garfinkel also refers to two other figurines, that were almost certainly looted, but BAR does not publish unprovenanced artifacts). Garfinkel argues that the discovery of some horse-like figurines close by to the heads from Moza shows that, originally, this anthropomorphic figure was a rider on a horse. For Garfinkel its clear that the image depicts an ancient deity. The question is, which one? There are several candidates up for the position. The Canaanite deity Baal (a rival of Yahwehs in the Bible) is, as Nicholas Wyatt has written, repeatedly described as the rider of the clouds in ancient Ugaritic texts. Garfinkel argues, however, that the figure isnt Baal but, rather, Yahweh. The same language of riding the clouds, he writes, appears in the Psalms, Deuteronomy, 2 Kings, Isaiah, and Habbukuk. Psalm 68:4 reads, Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds. Which is it? Is the figurine Yahweh, the protector of Israel or Baal, the Canaanite storm God who enjoyed infant sacrifice? Story continues The Canaanites, writes Garfinkel did not depict a male god on a horse. Only in Iron Age texts and iconography does the horse became a divine companion animal. So, the iconographic elements of the figurines correspond with descriptions of Yahweh in the biblical tradition. Tenth and ninth century B.C. pilgrims, he argues, would have journeyed to cultic centers in order to see the face of Yahweh. Just as other ancient Near Eastern pilgrims were shown the face of God, so too devotees of Yahweh were able to see the face of the idol. This encounter between the pilgrim and the face of God, he writes, was an important religious experience and metaphysical moment in which heaven and earth are brought together. One straightforward objection to Garfinkels hypothesis is that this is just the kind of thing that the Bible tells ancient Israelites not to do. Idols are expressly prohibited in a number of texts including the Ten Commandments. Maybe the references to seeing the face of God in the Hebrew Bible are strictly metaphorical? Drawing on earlier scholarship, Garfinkel argues that the ban on cultic images of Yahweh was not operative in the 10th century, when the figurines were in use, but was only introduced during the eight century B.C. Its a bold and eye-opening claim, but there are many who disagree. In an article published earlier this year, University of Tel Aviv scholars Shua Kisilevitz and Oded Lipschits, the archaeologists who oversee excavations at Tel Moza, argued something quite different about the temple where two of the figurines were found. While Kisilevits and Lipschits agree that the figurines are cultic objects, they do not believe that they are images of Yahweh. Noting parallels to the example from Khirbet Qeiyafa and other examples from the region, they describe them as human figures that were used in ritual practices in the temple at Tel Moza. They persuasively argue that the previously unknown temple at Moza was dedicated to the worship of a local Canaanite fertility deity. The cultic center in Jerusalem allowed the Canaanite temple to remain active because it produced a great deal of revenue. In sum, the figurines cant be images of Yahweh, because this was never a temple dedicated to Yahweh. When it comes to interpreting the archaeology of ancient Israel, tensions run high. Lipschits regularly clashes with Garfinkel on matters of archaeological interpretation; in particular, Garfinkels pattern of linking all of his discoveries from the 10th century to biblical and national hero King David. In a recent interview on King David for the New Yorker, Lipschits said Yossi Garfinkel is a prehistorian who hadnt dealt with this period before, and he came into it with no real understanding. This is more than just an academic disagreement turned public spat, however; the political and financial stakes are high. There are many, both Jewish and Christian, who are invested in the Bibles narrative of conquest for political or religious reasons and sponsor excavations in the region. For these putative investors King David is more appealing than ancient Canaanite society. William Schniedewind, a professor at UCLA, intimated that these motivations may be at work when he told the New Yorker that Garfinkels excavations have been seminal, but his interpretations sometimes are a little bit... Well, I mean, you need money, right? The first season of Garfinkels excavations at Qeiyafa, for example, were sponsored by Foundation Stone, an organization that uses history to support a particular notion of Jewish identity. Prof. Robert Cargill, the editor of BAR and an archaeology professor at the University of Iowa, told The Daily Beast that the magazines mandate is to report the claims made by professional archaeologists at licensed excavations in Israel while [Garfinkels claims are] certainly a sensational interpretation and minority opinion, we felt obligated to publish the claim made by this tenured Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor of archaeology. The jury is out on whether or not these figurines actually depict Yahweh, the God of Israel, but if they do we have learned something unexpected about the appearance of God. In addition to riding a horse, sporting a beard, and wearing his hair in a longish COVID-era style, he also has pierced ears. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. By Michael D'Antonio Thomas Dunne. 338 pp. $29.99 --- In the introduction to this exhausting book, Michael D'Antonio raises the possibility that Hillary Clinton has achieved mythic status, and not in a good way. He compares her to the ancient "ghosts and goblins and devils" who are "unconscious projections of the insecurities . . . of their creators. 'They' are heaped with our sins and shortcomings so that 'we' can feel pure." D'Antonio lets it go at that, but the notion of scapegoat sacrifice deserves more thoughtful exploration. In the ancient world, it was a death sentence. It was the most profound and sacred of all rituals because the scapegoat was always guilty. It was a necessary expiation, a symbolic cleansing of society's ills. "In Greek mythology, the scapegoat is never wrongfully accused," Rene Girard, the author of "Violence and the Sacred," once told me. "But he is always magical. He has the capacity to relieve the burden of guilt from a society. This seems a basic human impulse. There is a need to consume scapegoats." (The Jews civilized the ritual by replacing humans with actual goats.) This may be the best anthropological explanation for the demented and relentless "hunting" of Clinton and her husband. They are perfect scapegoats for the caricatured excesses of the baby boom generation. They represent the permissiveness - sexual for him, feminist for her - that terrified and entranced, and tempted, their opponents. The Clintons were also stupendously guilty of the more subtle failings of their (my) generation, the solipsistic idealism and sense of entitlement; the belief that they could cut corners - fly free on private planes, give speeches for fabulous sums, indulge in insider stock trades - for the greater good. Early on, D'Antonio produces a quote from the revered Arkansas liberal Dale Bumpers, who later defended President Bill Clinton in his impeachment trial: "Clinton ought to be most grateful . . . but he never is. You can never do quite enough for him and Hillary. . . . They are the most manic obsessed people I have ever known in my life, and perhaps even the most insensitive to everybody else's feelings. Everything centers around them and their ambitions. It is precisely the reason Bill got beat [for governor of Arkansas] in 1980. People felt, and correctly, that they were being manipulated." D'Antonio produces occasional nuggets like that one throughout "The Hunting of Hillary," which raise the hope of a more insightful book than the one he has produced. But his aim is simple: to lay out, in detail, the often lunatic 40-year campaign to destroy Hillary Clinton. We've read most of this before. D'Antonio is a workmanlike compiler of other people's reporting and insights - he produces a new book every year or so - and his intentions are good. But there is no art to it. Indeed, quite the opposite: The book plods along through Whitewater and Lewinsky and Benghazi and the email non-scandals, and a host of others. There is the familiar cast of twisted characters: Richard Mellon Scaife, who funds a scad of hit groups to "investigate" the Clintons, and then winds up voting for Hillary against Donald Trump; Congressman Dan Burton, who shot a melon in his backyard to prove that Clinton's close friend Vince Foster didn't commit suicide but was murdered (by the Clintons, of course); the eternal "investigator" David Bossie, who turned conspiracy-mongering into millions; special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who took a weirdly salacious interest - worthy of a scapegoat sacrifice - in Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky. There are Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh and all the right-wing fake-news promoters. And there are the mainstream journalists - William Safire, Michael Isikoff, others - who pasteurized the poison for public consumption. I could go on; D'Antonio certainly does. Clinton-hating was, and remains, a lascivious phenomenon. There are occasional revelations - or rediscoveries - along the way. George Conway, the current Trump scourge and husband of Kellyanne, makes a special guest appearance as one of the "Elves," the lawyers representing Paula Jones against Bill Clinton: "[Conway] was so virulently anti-Clinton that he typically referred to the president not by name but by the term scumbag and literally jumped for joy" when he saw a TV report of new sexual allegations. And then there's future Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh, working for Starr, who seemed demonically fixed on Foster's suicide and "persuaded" Starr to reopen the case as a murder investigation, which lasted three years and cost $2 million. "Members of Foster's family were interviewed again and again, resented the interference, but Kavanaugh pressed on," D'Antonio claims, "and even sent FBI agents to collect a sample of Foster's daughter's hair." I suppose there is value in compiling all this vile stuff. There will be first-time voters in 2020 who weren't even born when Bill Clinton was president, and they should know where the Trumpist wing-nuttery came from. For the rest of us, though, there is a larger question, unasked in this book: In the end, what are we to make of Bill and Hillary Clinton - not just as "magical" scapegoats but as public servants. They are not in very good standing now: Bill, laid low by the #MeToo movement; Hillary, by her ineffective campaign against Trump. But Bill Clinton was an admirable and substantive president (except for his personal life). He taxed the rich, balanced the budget, reformed welfare and passed a scad of laws to benefit the working poor. He didn't pursue silly wars overseas. When there was trouble - like the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing - he could soothe and lead the country. Hillary Clinton's legacy is more complicated. D'Antonio's assessment is saintly, although he does allow that she has a temper. He does not mention that it was Hillary who nixed The Washington Post's offer to go through the Whitewater materials, no matter how long it took - a session that might have prevented the explosion of that non-scandal. Her strict, defensive quality, reinforced by a staunch sense of moral superiority, did her great damage at times, crippling her efforts to produce universal health care and rendering her presidential campaign a joyless death march. Successful presidents require a greatness of spirit, a prevailing sense of optimism, a light touch, a certain lyricism. She had none of those. At least, not for public consumption. But was she a failure? I don't think so. She was an excellent senator from New York. I watched her master the intricacies of defense policy after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. When David Petraeus was asked, in 2006, whether there were any Democratic presidential aspirants who understood how his mind worked, he said: "You mean, aside from Hillary?" She represented the United States brilliantly as secretary of state, especially when it came to public diplomacy. She cultivated, over the years, a smart and dedicated staff - no insider ever wrote a tell-all about her. The reality of Hillary Clinton was always more traditional, more Methodist than radical, than the trumped-up fantasies about her. In the end, a true scapegoat sacrifice tells us more about the sins of the society in question than about the goat. The "Hunting of Hillary" was always more about us than it was about her. - - - Klein is the author of seven books, including "Primary Colors" and, most recently, "Charlie Mike." Abby Sanchez, member of the Seminole County School Board, represents District 3 in Central Florida. First elected in 2016, Sanchez's current term ends in 2020. She is running for re-election in the primary election on Aug. 18, 2020; the general election is on Nov. 3 (check your local polling place for early voting). Growing up in South Florida, Sanchez, earned the nickname "Dear Abby" for her compassion, desire to listen, and problem-solving propensities. The moniker lives on four decades later, with Sanchez spending her first term, "listening and learning" to the needs of Seminole County'... TROY A man stabbing a woman during a domestic dispute in Troy on Thursday was shot and killed by an off-duty city police officer who lived in the apartment below and who was trying to intervene, Troy police said. The incident happened during the early evening at 2342 17th St., according to Deputy Police Chief Dan DeWolf, in a two-family apartment building. The officer, who has not yet been named, heard a commotion and screaming above him and went up, DeWolf said. It is as yet undetermined how the officer gained entry and where the shooting took place. The officer fired one round from a shotgun after telling the man several times to drop the knife and stop, DeWolf told reporters at the scene. DeWolf said he believes the shotgun may belong to the officer, but that is being investigated. Police said the officer has been on the force for two to three years. He was taken to Samaritan Hospital in Troy accompanied by a fellow officer and police union representative. He will be assigned to desk duty during the course of the investigation. As for the alleged assailant, age 26, police are not identifying him until relatives are notified. The woman who was stabbed is 25, DeWolf said, and was in critical condition at Albany Medical Center Thursday evening. He said he is unsure of the relationship between the man and woman. Another woman in the building came to the stabbing victim's assistance, administering first aid to her, he said. "It was my understanding that this was a pretty, pretty horrific scene," DeWolf said. As part of their investigation, police are looking into whether there is a history of domestic calls between the two. Police also got multiple calls about the incident and they are interviewing potential witnesses. DeWolf said it was too early to term the shooting as justified, but said that a police officer has a duty to intervene when he or she believes a crime is being committed. Its a tragic situation for everybody," he said. "Right now the person Im praying for is the poor victim thats at (Albany Medical Center) and obviously Im keeping the officer in my thoughts and prayers too because this is a horrific incident for him to have to go through as well, you know? Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. The location is generally a quiet one, DeWolf said. Police kept bystanders and media well away from the scene, where a white tent had been set up as part of the evidence collection and investigation. The Rensselaer County District Attorney's office and the state Attorney General's office were called and representatives of those agencies were at the scene. Under an executive order signed several years ago by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, the Attorney General's office can investigate police shootings that involve unarmed people. Well have to see where the investigation goes. Its up to the DA to bring that forward. If its gonna go to a grand jury or if its gonna go to the AGs office, its really too early to really get into too much of that at this point, DeWolf said. FILE PHOTO: Flames emerge from flare stacks at Nahr Bin Umar oil field, as a man is seen wearing a protective face mask , following the outbreak of the coronavirus, north of Basra By Shu Zhang, Florence Tan and Dmitry Zhdannikov SINGAPORE/LONDON (Reuters) - Rising OPEC and U.S. oil supply, coupled with stalled economic and crude demand recovery, have pushed the futures market structure back to indicating a surplus, last observed during oil's collapse in April and May amid the coronavirus pandemic. The development is a headache for OPEC, which had been hoping demand would recover quicker after a round of record global output cuts. The group will either have to consider further production cuts or tolerate lower oil prices for longer. The surplus market structure, when prompt prices are weaker than future prices, is also a boon for traders, as they can store crude in the hope to resell it later at a profit. Royal Dutch/Shell, Total, Eni and Norway's Equinor have all reported bumper trading profits over the past week. Front-month September Brent futures in the past week have been trading at a discount of $2 per barrel to March 2021, the steepest discount since May, when lockdown measures against the virus outbreak cut global oil demand by a third. The structure is known as contango and usually indicates an immediate oil surplus and hopes for a demand recovery in future months. The opposite structure is known as backwardation. "OPEC's experiment to increase production from August could backfire as we are still nowhere near out of the woods yet in terms of oil demand," said Bjornar Tonhaugen, Rystad Energy's Head of Oil Market Research. "The market will flip back into a mini-supply glut and a swing into deficit will not happen again until December 2020." OPEC did not respond to a request for comment. Howie Lee, economist at Singapore's OCBC bank, said the market was unconvinced demand was recovering and instead was choosing to buy further down the curve at a rising premium. Record coronavirus infection and death rates in the United States and some other parts of the world are stoking fears that a new virus wave could further hit demand. Story continues Many exchange traded funds were also spreading their long positions more equally across the curve after some asset managers were badly burnt by April's negative expiry of U.S. front-month WTI crude futures, Lee said. Brent spreads have historically been a good proxy for the global production-consumption balance as well as inventories (https://tmsnrt.rs/2BMrcPi). PHYSICAL CRUDE WEAKNESS The physical oil market is also weakening. Cash Dubai and DME Oman prices on Tuesday flipped into discounts to Dubai swaps for the first time since end-May due to weak demand including from China. Dubai August/September inter-month spreads also flipped from backwardation into contango in late July. Abu Dhabi, Iraqi and Qatari grades all fell to spot discounts to their official selling prices and some cargoes are still hanging unsold, according to three Asian traders. Demand from top buyer China softened due to weak margins, prolonged port congestion, severe flood and limited crude import quotas, several China-focused traders have said. In Europe, rising U.S. exports are also depressing spot physical prices. "U.S. producers are bringing back wells they had previously shut... Given the disappointing demand, it raises the possibility that the market returns to building inventories," said Warren Patterson from ING. U.S. crude exports have risen to 3.2 million barrels per day last week, the highest since mid-May. Much of the U.S. production curtailments in the spring came from shale wells that were choked back but not shut-in completely. WTI at Midland, Texas, the heart of the Permian basin, this week slid to trade at a discount to benchmark futures as curtailed volumes returned to the market, traders said. "The market is most certainly feeling the effects of the China buying ending after the massive buying seen over the last few months," said Scott Shelton from United ICAP. (Additional reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar; Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Veronica Brown and David Evans) FILE PHOTO: A local villager drive a boat where the future site of the Luang Prabang dam will be on the Mekong River, outskirt of Luang Prabang province BANGKOK (Reuters) - Laos is pushing ahead with a hydropower project on the Mekong River, despite reservations aired by neighbouring countries over its potential to harm fisheries and farming downstream, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) said on Wednesday. The 1,400-megawatt (MW) Luang Prabang project will be Laos's third and largest dam on the river, with construction originally set to begin this year. The governments of Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam flagged their concerns to Laos and urged more time to assess the impact after the commission officially completed a six-month consultation process for the project on Tuesday. "While the three countries recognised the sovereignty and rights of (Laos) ... they requested that Lao PDR take due account of their recommendations," the commission said in a statement. However the 1995 Mekong treaty gives the three neighbours no power to veto any project inside Laos. "Further transboundary environmental impact assessments should be conducted," Cambodia's government told the MRC during the consultation process, while Vietnam asked Laos to "spare more time and resources". MRC studies have shown mainstream Mekong dams can damage farmland downstream by impeding the flow of sediment into the river delta and blocking fish migration. The government of Laos did not respond to a request for comment. Hydropower development is central to Laos' plan to export around 20,000 megawatts of electricity to its neighbours by 2030. Last year, it completed two Mekong dams, the 1,285-megawatt Xayaburi Dam and the 260-megawatt Don Sahong Dam, despite objections by environmental groups. Just as the new dams came online, the river waters sank to their lowest levels in more than half a century, prompting questions from environmentalists. The Luang Prabang project is a joint development among the government of Laos, subsidiaries of Vietnamese oil and gas company, PetroVietnam Power Cooperation, and Thai construction giant Ch Karnchang PCL. Story continues The consultation outcome was never in doubt, said Pianporn Deetes, a Thai activist of the group International Rivers. "This process has...never led to meaningful debate about impact or problems that may arise from these hydropower projects. So the questions raised by people, NGOs and governments has never received a proper reply." (Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um; Editing by Kay Johnson and Clarence Fernandez) New Delhi, July 31 : Educators across the country have lauded the National Education Policy (NEP) approved by the Union Cabinet for introducing many reformations in the Indian education system after 34 years. Starting with the renaming of the Ministry of Human Resource and Development as the Ministry of Education, the new policy approved by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday envisions to offer a new structure to the education system in the country. The NEP 2020 proposes the revision and revamping of all aspects of the education structure, including its regulation and governance, to create a new system that is aligned with the aspirational goals of 21st-century education, while remaining consistent with India's traditions and value systems, the educators said. "This policy was long due and brings about the transformation to learn and turn the future Indian minds," Niranjan Hiranandani, Provost, HSNC University Mumbai, said in a statement. "The NEP will offer multiple exit points in studies, which means that one could actually get into employment at different ages, different times, and different levels of education which is a thoughtful strategic structure," Hiranandani said. Earlier in June, three reputed colleges in Mumbai -- K. C. College, H. R. College, and Bombay Teachers' Training College (BTTC) came together to form Maharashtra's second cluster University; named as "HSNC University". The university aims at ushering in a new wave of education and offers interdisciplinary, liberal, choice-based credit system and talent-oriented education approach and advocates for an industry-focused, technology, and skill development-driven curriculum that will make undergraduate and postgraduate students employment-ready. "I am pleased to see the National Education Policy 2020 is in sync with the vision of our university and look forward to it," Hiranandani added. With the New Education Policy 2020 focusing on boosting and integrating technology into the education sector, several educators and academicians are lauding the effort being made. Speaking on this integration, Atul Kulshrestha, Chairperson, FICCI Edtech Task Force, and Chairman and MD, Extramarks, said that the New Education Policy strives to completely transform the school education sector by aiming to provide high-quality education to all. Kulshrestha lauded the new policy for aiming to integrate technology, implementing a new assessment methodology and using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to track student performance to optimise their career. Another very important development as a part of the NEP 2020 is the directive to teach students till the 5th grade in the mother tongue of the state or local language whenever possible. "This is a welcome development. It is important to understand that deep and profound learning happens in the language a child is comfortable with," said Vinod Malhotra, Chairman, Academic council, Saamarthya Teachers Training Academy of Research, Ghaziabad. "The primary objective of an education policy initiative is to enhance learning. Mother tongue is the most effective instrument of building strong foundations of knowledge," Malhotra said. Vishnu Karthik, CEO, Xperiential Learning Systems and Director, The Heritage Schools said: "We first have to distinguish between language and literacy. Language is speaking and is natural for our brains. Literacy is reading and writing which is to be learned by our brains." "Children's brains are designed to learn multiple languages and the more they are exposed to multiple languages, the more they can absorb languages at an early age. Thus, teaching in only one language is not the best use of the critical learning windows nature has given for learning languages," Karthik said. If implemented in true 'letter and spirit' by all stakeholders, the New Education Policy will undoubtedly transform the overall educational ecosystem in the country and should be brought into force as early as possible as it is the need of the hour, according to the experts. Bengaluru, July 31 : The City police department is waging a war on narcotics and drug peddlers, busting multiple racketeers of late. Marijuana or ganja has emerged as the most peddled and seized drug in Bengaluru in the first six months of 2020. "We are waging a war against drugs. Trying hard to collect information and pursue further," told Central Crime Branch (CCB) Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Kuldeep Jain to IANS. On Wednesday, the crime branch busted a darknet drug racket involving four educated Kerala youngsters, targeting pub hopping youth and seized drugs worth Rs 1.25 crore. The case assumed such significance that the state Home Minister Basavaraj S. Bommai himself and Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao attended the press conference. Last weekend, Bengaluru East DCP S. D. Sharanappa conducted a special drive against drugs, arresting 29 people including a Nigerian national, and booking 29 cases in just 48 hours. "Seized MDMA, ganja drugs. Watch also kept on hotels and lodges being misused for narcotics during Covid," said Sharanappa highlighting that the special drive was continuing. Similarly, Bengaluru South DCP Rohini Katoch Sepat had also conducted a weekend drive against drugs, registering 18 cases and arresting 19 persons. Sepat appealed to the people to come forward and fight the drug menace alongside the police, asking for tip-offs on 1908 or 100 police numbers. To reinforce the police crackdown further, Joint Commissioner of Police Sandeep Patil has invited the general public to call toll free number 1908 to report on drugs and narcotics. "1908 toll free number to report drugs and narcotics related issues. So far this year, received 18 calls but 18 is a very small number. Request more to come forward, amplify our action against drugs," said Patil. Incidentally, the 18 tip-offs lead to raids and cases while Patil promised protecting the informants' identity. Bengaluru police social media handles are also reaching out to the public actively, asking for leads in busting the drug rackets. Bommai warned managements of educational institutions that they will be held liable if banned drugs are found in their institutions' premises. Recently, Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police Gautam Sawang said drug dealers in Visakhapatnam have links with similar others in Bengaluru, after a drug peddling quartet was busted. Sawang said drugs peddlers are sourcing MDMA and LSD from Bengaluru and Goa. On June 26, International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, the CCB displayed the total quantity of drugs seized in the city in the first six months of 2020, amounting to 312 kg marijuana and others. "As many as 510 ganja cases have been registered, leading to the seizure of 312 kg of ganja in 2020," said Jain then. Cases and seizures of other drugs paled in comparison to marijuana. Only one case each has been registered for brown sugar, opium and others. Hashish was the only other seized narcotic which weighed more than a kg at 17 kg while the rest of the drugs were all under a kg. Other banned substances included charas, cocaine and MDMA. Police also seized 91 papers of LSD and 550 tablets belonging to the Yaba, Restyl, Anxit and Nitrosun category of drugs. A total of 781 Indians and 14 foreigners had been arrested in drugs cases. Bommai, Director General of Police (DGP) Praveen Sood and Rao were among the officials who commemorated the event and took a pledge reaffirming zero tolerance policy on drugs. Police also roped in celebrities such as Milana Nagaraj, Darling Krishna and Anil Kumble to send across the message to give up drugs. The police department had also rewarded those policemen who performed well in the war against drugs. (Sharon Thambala can be contacted at thambalasharon@gmail.com) Twitter Inc. revealed additional details about the highest-profile security breach in its history, confirming that hackers gained entry to its computer systems by reaching out to employees on their phones. In an update on its internal investigation, Twitter said the July 15 incident targeted employees using a phone spear phishing attack. By misleading workers and exploiting human vulnerabilities, the hackers were able to obtain credentials and access 130 accounts. Forty-five of those put out tweets -- including from the accounts of Barack Obama, Elon Musk and Bill Gates touting a Bitcoin scam -- and seven of them had their full set of Twitter data downloaded. Twitter had previously indicated that eight accounts had their data downloaded. Read more: Twitters Security Woes Included Broad Access to User Accounts Bloomberg News reported this week that the attackers contacted at least one Twitter employee over the phone in an attempt to gain access to user-support tools. The company required employees to take an online security training course last week, which covered a number of phishing techniques including phone calls, people familiar with the matter said. The company continues to operate with significantly limited access to its internal tools and systems as a precautionary measure two weeks after the hack, the company said. Until we can safely resume normal operations, our response times to some support needs and reports will be slower, the company said in a series of update tweets. Were accelerating several of our pre-existing security workstreams and improvements to our tools. As the US presidents go-to social media platform, Twitter bears additional responsibility for ensuring that its security protocols are robust. While Donald Trumps account was not among those compromised in the July hack, his Democratic opponent in the upcoming November election, former vice president Joe Biden, was. Twitters latest communication acknowledges how important each person on our team is in protecting our service. We take that responsibility seriously and everyone at Twitter is committed to keeping your information safe. Member of Parliament for Bantama constituency and Finance Committee member in Parliament, Daniel Okyem Aboagye has defended governments decision to suspend the Fiscal Responsibility Act which requires the deficit to be kept at a maximum of 5 percent of GDP. He argued that the suspension was needful to save the country from spending beyond its budget in an election year something the minority in parliament is against after they called on the Finance Minister to resign from his post. The President through the Finance Minister wants us to be disciplined in our spending during this election year, he justified in an interview with NEAT FMs morning show Ghana Montie. We cannot sit down for the minority to make nonsense of the majority, Daniel Okyem Aboagye added. Listen to the full interview Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Friday dismissed a plea by former Congress municipal councillor Ishrat Jahan, booked under anti-terror law UAPA in a case related to communal violence in northeast Delhi in February, challenging an order that extended by 60 days the time for completing the investigation. Justice Suresh Kumar Kait said there is no illegality or perversity in the trial courts order. Finding no merit in the present petition, the same is accordingly dismissed with no order as to costs, the HC said. Jahan, who was arrested on February 26, has challenged the trial court order extending, beyond the 90 days mandated under UAPA, the time for completing the investigation by two more months. Delhi Police has opposed the plea saying that the high court should not intervene in the matter as far as the order of the additional sessions judge, extending the time to probe the case, is concerned as there was no infirmity in it. The HC said the trial court judge had passed the June 15 order after going through the mandate of the provisions of the law and after recording his satisfaction. The high court said the trial court judge has in unequivocal terms held that there exist sufficient reasons to extend the period of probe, detention of the accused beyond the period of 90 days as contemplated under the UAPA. (With PTI inputs) Chelsea were sounded out over a stunning move for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in January. Sportsmail understands that contact was made on behalf of the Arsenal striker - who is set to line up against their London rivals in Saturday's FA Cup final - but that high wage demands saw off what would have been a shock switch. The 31-year-old, whose contract expires at the end of next season, was said to be keen on a move that would no-doubt have infuriated Gunners' supporters. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is getting ready to lead Arsenal out vs Chelsea in the FA Cup final But insiders said that a subsequent request for a staggering salary - which would have made him comfortably the highest-paid player in Chelsea's history - put an end to the prospect at the time. Aubamayeng signed for Arsenal from Borussia Dortmund for 56m in 2018. Since his arrival, only Mohamed Salah has scored more Premier League goals than his 49. Chelsea manager Frank Lampard is currently looking for a striker, but the Gabon international would have to lower his demands to make the prospect of a deal a reality. The striker sounded out a shock move to Arsenal's FA Cup final opponents in January Aubameyang has scored 27 goals this season and Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta will be desperate to keep him, with the likes of Barcelona and AC Milan circling. Fans fear that Wembley may see his final outing for the Gunners, although much will depend on the result. Should Arsenal defeat their rivals, they will qualify for the Europa League and the increased revenue that would bring will raise the likelihood of them being able to tie the striker down. Arlene Foster has rejected speculation her leadership of the DUP may be under threat (Rebecca Black/PA). Arlene Foster has rejected speculation her leadership of the DUP may be under threat. Eleven of her Stormont Assembly members abstained from this weeks vote on legislation giving ministers more powers. At issue is the partys ability in future to veto a ministers actions which it disagrees with. The First Minister said her colleagues harboured concerns about the speed with which the law was passed. She added: There was a gap identified in relation to significant and controversial issues. If we did not have a programme for government then those issues could be taken by those ministers in their departments. She said: It is now very clear that all significant or controversial matters must come to the Executive committee whether or not we have a programme for government. The Executive Committee Functions Bill passed its final stage on Tuesday. The bill was passed before Stormont went into recess on Tuesday. South Belfast representative Christopher Stalford said his party fully supported it, but his colleague Jim Wells voted no and said some other members were extremely unhappy. Trevor Clarke, Alex Easton, William Humphrey and former ministers Mervyn Storey and Michelle McIlveen were amongst those to abstain. The new law was introduced after a court judgment two years ago over a waste incinerator. It overturned the Executives approval for the facility near Mallusk in Co Antrim and cast into doubt the extent of ministerial powers. Mrs Foster said she had access to a broad range of legal opinion before backing the bill. Others do not have access to that and I acknowledge that. She said nobody had communicated any threat to her leadership. No one has expressed that to me or any of my senior colleagues. A handful of 3000-year-old 'male' clay heads unearthed in Israel may reveal the earliest depiction of God's face, an archaeologist says. The figurines were excavated along side small horse statues and represent a bearded man with a flat-topped head, protruding features, ear holes for jewelry and topped with a crown. The controversial claim comes from professor Yosef Garfinkel, who references Bible scriptures of God riding a horse to add weight to this theory. However, Garfinkel's idea has been rejected by a number of archaeologists who argue that creating 'anything that is in heaven above' was prohibited during this time period. A handful of 3000-year-old 'male' clay heads unearthed in Israel may reveal the earliest depiction of God's face Garfinkle, who is a professor at Hebrew University, is basing this claims on the fact that all three figurines date back between the 9th and 10th centuries, were found near horse statues and in areas of worship. One head was discovered a decade ago in Khirbet Qeiyafa, about 20 miles from Tel Motza where Shua Kisilevitz and Oded Lipschits uncovered two others earlier this year. Following the news from Tel Motza, Garfinkle began to wonder if the clay heads were related, is this a god and if so, which one? And he looked to the book of Habakkuk and Psalms to find the answers. The figurines were excavated along side small horse statues and represent a bearded man with a flat-topped head, protruding features, ear holes for jewelry and topped with a crown Garfinkle, who is a professor at Hebrew University, is basing this claims on the fact that all three figurines date back between the 9th and 10th centuries, were found near horse statues and in areas of worship Habakkuk 3:8 reads: 'Were you angry with the rivers, Lord? Was your wrath against the streams? Did you rage against the sea when you rode your horses and your chariots to victory?' The second example he found was shown in Psalm 68:4, which says 'Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds.' 'Some biblical traditions, then, describe Yahweh as a rider on the sky or clouds, exactly as at Ugarit. But some texts present a new development in which he is riding on a horse,' Garfinkle shared in an article on BAS Library. The other clay heads found in Tel Motza were pulled from a temple near Jerusalem and due to the biblical instructions that banned such images, the team proposes the area was used to worship a variety of different gods 'not just Yahweh.' One head was discovered a decade ago in Khirbet Qeiyafa, about 20 miles from Tel Motza where Shua Kisilevitz and Oded Lipschits uncovered two others earlier this year One head was discovered a decade ago in Khirbet Qeiyafa, about 20 miles from Tel Motza where Shua Kisilevitz (right) and Oded Lipschits uncovered two others earlier this year. Kisilevitz and Oded Lipschits wrote: 'Unfortunately, this article is pure sensationalism that caters to popular, money-generating, demand, in presenting an unfounded and (at best) tentative identification as factual as he ignores existing professional research and studies, including avoiding reference to any of the publications by the excavators.' Garfinkel addresses that the Bible is very clear on the prohibition against physical representations of god. Nearby settlements did in fact pray to many gods, but 'the Kingdom of Judah was a different story and based on two concepts that there is only one god and not many, and that you shouldn't make a statute, a graven image of it,' he shared. Some 3,000 years ago there were those who worshiped Yahweh and then there was the Canaanite storm God. 'The Canaanites,' writes Garfinkel 'did not depict a male god on a horse. 'Only in Iron Age texts and iconography does the horse became a divine companion animal.' 'So, the iconographic elements of the figurines correspond with descriptions of Yahweh in the biblical tradition.' He also argues that the ban on creating images of Yahweh was not adopted until the 10th century, when the clay heads were in use. Garfinkle has received widespread criticism for his claims but said: 'Like every discovery, some will accept and some will reject.' The controversial claim comes from professor Yosef Garfinkel (left), who references Bible scriptures of God riding a horse to add weight to this theory. However, Shua Kisilevitz (right) rejects the claim citing people were banned from creating images of God during this time Kisilevitz and Lipschits reject his claims, although the agree that the figures were used for worship - the team describes them as 'human figures.' 'Although we cannot rule out the possibility that the human heads from Motza and Qeiyafa depicted gods, they have no markings, symbols or attributes (such as horns, crescents, bulls), found on figures and visual representations throughout the ancient Near East, that would identify them as divine figures.' 'Furthermore, when gods were depicted on animals, they did not sit on them (they do not need the transport) they stood on them!' they wrote. By Fang Xiaozhi The foreign ministers and defense ministers of the US and Australia held the annual meeting in Washington, discussing how to build and deepen the so-called "unbreakable "relationship in the Indo-Pacific region and the world on July 28. They also unreasonably accused China of relevant regional security issues. The Australia-U.S. Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) 2020 is Australia's first ministerial overseas trip since Australia closed its border for three months amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Flying to the US, the epicenter of the global pandemic, shows how much the Australian side values this meeting. For Australia, due to its limited strength, its national security, army building, national defense research and technological development all rely on the help from the US to a large extent. For example, currently nearly half of Australia's weapons and equipment are imported from the US. The two countries have signed a purchase contract for 72 F-35 stealth fighters and decided to upgrade and transform the existing F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters to further improve its air control, land and sea combat capabilities. For the US, it has taken Australia's special geographical location and regional influence as an important support for realizing its regional and even global strategies. Especially in recent years, as the US Indo-Pacific strategy continues to deepen and the regional security situation continues to become more complex, Australia's strategic value continues to rise, and its position and weight in the US Indo-Pacific strategy are also increasing. Australia plays a key role in the US implementing its "Indo-Pacific" strategy. Under such circumstances, Australia has fully realized its unique value. Based on its judgment on the focus of national security in the future, Australia has shown a high degree of strategic coordination with the deepening of the US Indo-Pacific strategy. Australia has followed the US closely and has continuously expanded the scope of military activities in the Indo-Pacific region. Australia has established close cooperation mechanisms with the US in terms of diplomatic consultations, strategic planning, defense cooperation, joint military exercises, intelligence sharing, and technology transfer. According to the current Force Posture Agreement signed by the two countries, the US can station troops at the port of Darwin in northern Australia, which will greatly benefit the two parties' control over key passages such as the Strait of Malacca, Makassar Strait, Sunda Strait and Lombok Strait. In the recently released 2020 Defence Strategic Update, Australia also particularly emphasized the Indo-Pacific region as the key direction of future defense planning, and advocated playing the role of a pivot country in the Indo-Pacific region. During AUSMIN 2020, the two countries also plan to set up a new bilateral working group to coordinate hardware and personnel deployment issues in the Indo-Pacific joint military operations. In addition, the two countries have also decided to strengthen cooperation in new defense fields such as ballistic missiles, hypersonic defense technology, electronic warfare, and space warfare, and strengthen the strength and depth of their joint military training. From the perspective of future development, the US and Australia will continue to expand the scope and areas of cooperation with a trend of increasing regionalization and focalization in order to jointly cope with the various security challenges facing the two countries. This will objectively create a more confrontational geostrategic structure in the Indo-Pacific region, greatly increase the factors of regional security instability, and exert a significant impact on the regional security environment and strategic structure. (The author Fang Xiaozhi is a researcher at the Institute of Strategic Studies and International Security under Fudan Institute of Belt and Road & Global Governance.) When Michael Hatfield of Makanda received a packet of seeds he did not order, he remembered a post he had seen on social media about mysterious seeds being mailed to people across the country. Hatfifeld and his wife, Jessica, operate and live on Flyway Family Farm, a small family farm that specializes in growing mushrooms. It was a small envelope in the mailbox. I had seen a post or two online, Hatfield said. The package read Flower Stud Earrings. When he opened the package, it contained a tiny little Ziploc-style bag filled with tiny black seeds. Hatfield said his package looked identical to one he saw with a story online. He said the seeds looked a lot like small flower seeds. As a farmer and forester, Hatfield knows the damage invasive species can do to natural areas and farming operations. I put it in a metal bowl and torched the heck out of it. I wasnt about to plant or throw out those seeds, he said. There was no way I was letting those survive. According to Krista Lisser, spokesperson for Illinois Department of Agriculture, Hatfield is not the only Illinois resident to receive unsolicited seeds in the mail. The agency received more than 500 reports of similar packages on Thursday morning alone. Lisser said the reports came from across the entire state and were not centralized in one location. Illinois Department of Agriculture released the following statement with guidelines for handling unsolicited seeds: We are currently working with USDAs Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to address reports of unsolicited shipments of seeds from foreign countries. Anyone who receives unordered seeds in the mail should contact the Illinois Department of Agriculture by emailing the following information to agr.seeds@Illinois.gov: First and last name, phone number and the number of packages received. Do not open the package, plant the seeds, or throw them out. Please keep all seeds unopened and with their original packaging and labels, including mailing labels, until further instruction is provided. University of Illinois Extension also sent a news release regarding unsolicited seed packets. The release said the U.S. Department of Agriculture is investigating the situation and collecting seeds packets to test their contents. It also said Illinois Extension horticulture experts advise it is not a good practice to plant seeds from unknown origins or of an unknown species. One of the major risks would be the introduction of a potential invasive plant species, Illinois Extension forester Chris Evans said in the release. Those seeds could also harbor pests or diseases that could impact native species, agricultural crops, or desirable ornamentals. To complicate matters even more for Illinois residents, Illinois Extension sent out Together We Bloom packets of wildflower and forget-me-not seeds in late July to encourage residents to fill out their census forms. Illinois Extensions packets of forget-me-nots are the variety myosotis sylvatica and will arrive in packets clearly labeled with the contents of the packet and the organization who sent them, the press release read. The forget-me-nots are safe to plant. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. 1) Premier Service: Press Release Written PR Blast to 1000 Media Contacts and all the interviews requested At Least THREE terrestrial Radio INTERVIEWS guaranteed. 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Earlier this month, a joint investigation by El Pais and The Guardian revealed that the mobile phone of the president of the Catalan regional parliament, Roger Torrent, and those of several other pro-independence politicians have been targeted with Pegasus a spy programme developed by an Israeli company named NSO, which can only be purchased by governments and law enforcement agencies to fight crime and terrorism. While the investigation did not prove the Spanish governments involvement in the apparent political espionage plot, a former NSO Group employee who spoke to Vice on condition of anonymity said Spain has been a client of the company since 2015. The revelation caused anger among Catalan politicians and activists, but it did not surprise anyone who is familiar with the Spanish states surveillance activities. Indeed, Madrid has long been accused of illegally spying on Catalan activists and politicians not only in the country, but throughout Europe. Last year, on August 11, the Swiss newspaper Blick reported that Spain has been spying on Catalans living in the country and monitoring their activities as well as the activities of the Catalan representation in the country. The news that the Spanish secret service, the CNI, has been conducting illegal surveillance activities in the country angered both Catalan and Swiss politicians. A month earlier, documents obtained by the Spanish daily El Diario had already revealed an extensive Spanish espionage scheme targeting the Catalan government employees working in diplomatic missions in the UK, Switzerland and Germany. After the scandal surfaced, British member of Parliament Hywel Williams told the House of Commons the Spanish government secretly surveilled the activities of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Catalonia (APPG) which he presides. During his address, members of Parliament in the background shouted shame, shame to protest Madrids alleged illegal activities. Around the same time, British press reported that Spain has also spied on the activities of Scottish members of Parliament and officials from the Scottish National Party in an attempt to prevent the Catalan government from getting closer to Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. The allegations did not come as a shock to Catalan activists working in the UK who had long been accustomed to using encrypted communication methods and paying extra attention to new, unknown faces attending their meetings to prevent the Spanish state from spying on their activities. Members of ANC-England, the UK branch of a pro-independence Catalan non-profit organisation, told me they have known about Spains espionage activities in the UK since last January. An ANC-England member who talked to me on condition of anonymity said while they do not know the extent of the surveillance operation directed at their organisation, they do know that a debate organised by the APPG at the British parliament and attended by members of the Catalan parliament and other Catalan activists has been spied on by Spanish agents. We suspect this was not the only event to which Spanish embassy sent informants to report back, they added. I also talked to political scientist Janne Riitakorpi, the leader of the well-known Catalan pro-sovereignty movement, the Foreign Friends of Catalonia, about the allegations. He told me the latest revelations about the extent of the Spanish espionage operation against Catalan activists and politicians shows that Spanish authorities are desperate, and fearful of the growing international support for Catalonia. Foreign Friends of Catalonia as an association has not been the target of espionage so far, he added, however, myself and Finnish member of Parliament Mikko Karna were spied on by the Spanish secret service when we organised [former Catalan President Carles] Puigdemonts visit to Finland in March 2018. After this visit, Puigdemont attempted to travel by car from Finland to Belgium, where he resides. But due to a European arrest warrant against him issued by Spain, the Catalan leader was arrested in Germany, near the Danish border. He was then forced to remain in the country and wait for a local court to decide on Spains extradition request, which was ultimately denied. Sources in CNI later told Spanish media outlets that the Spanish intelligence agency had used the geolocation service on the mobile phone of at least one of Puigdemonts companions to monitor his movements during his visit to Finland, as well as fitting a tracking device to the car the group had been travelling in. According to these reports, twelve CNI agents were involved in the operation. Spains attempts to monitor the movements and activities of Puigdemont in a foreign country, without the knowledge or consent of the relevant local authorities, is clearly illegal. But the Spanish intelligence appears not concerned about breaking international laws and regulations in their pursuit of Catalan politicians, diplomats and activists. The Catalan governments delegate in Germany, Marie Kapretz, who is a German citizen, also claims the Spanish government spied on her inside Germany. Kapretz told me Spanish authorities continued to track her activities in Germany from November 2017 to July 2018, even though at the time she was not even carrying out any duties as delegate due to the suspension of Catalonias home rule. She filed a criminal complaint with the countrys federal prosecutor against Spanish authorities under article 99 of Germanys criminal code, which forbids foreign secret services from carrying out an intelligence action against the Federal Republic of Germany. In August 2019, the German prosecutors office accepted the case and said it would begin investigating the actions of then Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell. In December 2019, just a few months after the start of the German investigation, however, Borrell became the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Borrells appointment as EUs top diplomat, while an investigation into his activities as Spains foreign minister was still continuing, was indicative of Europes indifference to the Spanish states persecution of Catalan politicians and activists, as well as its reluctance to hold Madrid to account for its activities against the laws of the union. After witnessing the violence the Spanish state unleashed on pro-independence activists and politicians in many Catalan cities in the aftermath of the 2017 independence referendum, most Catalans expected an increase in Madrids repressive and authoritarian measures aimed at silencing the peaceful movement for Catalan independence. This is why activists in Spain and across Europe were not surprised to hear the Spanish state had succumbed to illegal espionage to hinder their campaigning efforts. They, however, were not prepared for the absolute silence of the majority of European institutions before Spains blatantly illegal activities. Every Catalan activist I talked to told me while they are disheartened by Madrids apparent efforts to control and silence them, they are not willing to give up on their dream of independence. But their perseverance and resolve should not prevent us from acknowledging the gravity of the situation. There is overwhelming evidence that a European state is illegally surveilling peaceful political actors across the unions borders. Europes silence in the face of police violence targeted at Catalan protesters and the jailing of Catalan leaders for the sole crime of trying to act on the Catalan peoples will, already demonstrated the shaky foundations of the EUs democratic principles. If it fails to investigate the shocking revelations that came out of the Guardian/El Pais investigation, it will be sending the message to not only Catalans but all Europeans that there is no one to protect them from the oppressive practices of their governments. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) restrictions to boost indigenous manufacturing of televisions has been welcomed the trade bodies as well as Chinese OEMs. With the revision in the policy, brands will have to apply for a license for importing color TVs. Primarily imported from China and South East Asia, the new amendment will require OEMs to furnish details such as the origin of the consignment, even when the shipment is routed through a different country. "Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) welcomes the move by the government to impose restrictions on imports of TV sets. This is expected to have a positive impact as it will provide a major boost to the indigenous manufacturing and 'self-reliant' theme of India. It will attract more investments in the technology and manufacturing which will lead to creation of more jobs," says Kamal Nandi, President of CEAMA and Business Head & Executive Vice President at Godrej Appliances. TV is one of the larger segments under the entire domain of Appliance and Consumer Electronics, accounting to a volume of almost 17 million with an estimated sale value ranging between 15,000 crore. The TV industry is also one of the biggest employers with estimated employment of 40,000+ people directly and many more indirectly through the ancillary units. Similar to the smartphone segment, there has been a sudden influx of Chinese OEMs such as Xiaomi, TCL, OnePlus, Honor, etc., in the smart TV space over the last couple of years. While some of the OEMs have been manufacturing locally, more than 36 per cent of the overall estimated value is still imported. The new amendment will increase paperwork and might delay shipments, helping defer dependence on imports from China and South-East Asia. However, this move has been welcomed by some of the Chinese OEMs too. Dominated by the likes of LG, Samsung and Sony, Xiaomi revolutionised the TV space in India with its feature-rich yet aggressively priced smart TVs. "Xiaomi has been manufacturing smart TVs in India since the launch of Mi TVs in 2018. We believe that this decision will encourage and give a boost to local manufacturing," a Xiaomi spokesperson said. Of the total sales, 85 per cent of the Mi TVs are manufactured in India. "The change is welcoming given India is a potential market for electronics. As a brand, we do understand that the move is important to strengthen the electronic and manufacturing roots of India. We are adhering to all norms laid out by the Government," says Mike Chen, General Manager, TCL India. One of the leading names in TV panels worldwide, TCL recently started manufacturing TVs in India. The plant in Tirupati, which is equipped to produce 8 million TVs a year, has been able to meet 70 per cent of the domestic demand. According to the sources, the country is ready for the shift of manufacturing to India with cost-effective imports of essential parts, if required. A Phased Manufacturing Programme (PMP) for TVs is underway and specified parts like open-cell, chips on films, Printed Circuit Boards Assembly (PCBA ) are exempted from duty. Over the last couple of years, through sustained support, the extent of domestic demand has increased from 50 per cent in 2018-19 to 64 per cent in 2019 -20. It is believed that extensive consultations have been held with industry and ways to reduce the imports are under process. "CEAMA is committed to promoting indigenous manufacturing of TVs in the country and is closely working with the government to formulate and facilitate both phased manufacturing and end-to-end manufacturing of Televisions in the country. It has been in discussion with the government on a phased manufacturing plan of TVs since 2017 and has submitted various representations to the government to convey the benefits of such a plan," adds Nandi. It is not a unilateral exercise executed by the government without taking the industry in confidence. Hence, industry will be able to rapidly move to domestic manufacturing and consumer will not see any price escalation. Also Read: Govt working with RBI to extend moratorium, restructure loans, says FM Nirmala Sitharaman Also Read: TV imports restriction won't impact LG, Panasonic, Sony; move to boost domestic production Major studios are pulling out of annual trade event MIPCOM in Cannes this year, in which shows are bought and sold with players from around the world. A+E Networks, BBC Studios, Fremantle, eOne, ITV Studios, Sony have all signalled they will not be attending the French event, due to COVID-19 concerns. Banijay and All3Media are yet to commit. The event is planned for October 12-14, one day shorter than usual and without the usual exhibitor stands. Organisers dub this Mipcom Rendezvous Cannes, with MIPJunior running alongside the main event. We understand that some people will be unable to travel to Cannes, so they can be part of the Mipcom experience digitally, said Reed Midems television division director Laurine Garaude. New health and safety guidelines meant considerable disruption and extra costs for exhibitors and their stands, so we decided there will be no exhibition stands at Mipcom Rendezvous Cannes. However ITV Studios is also launching its own virtual event for buyers. Source: Deadline Theres a countdown on the University of Alabamas webpage dedicated to their summer commencement ceremonies. Days, hours, minutes and seconds tick down to a graduation weekend unlike any in the past. Beginning at 9 a.m. Friday, nine ceremonies will span the next three days inside Coleman Coliseum as coronavirus infection rates remain high in Tuscaloosa and around the state. While peer universities like Auburn postponed graduations set for early August, a UA official said they are confident in their plan to stage nine events over three days. In a written response to questions submitted by AL.com, UAs interim vice president for strategic communications Ryan Bradley said the plan to move forward with the ceremonies was made with guidance from medical professionals and others on the advisory committees tasked with a safe return to campus. Bradley said Coleman Coliseum was the largest and best-suited venue to hold these events. Outdoor sites were considered, Bradley said, but were less suitable for a variety of reasons, including our ability to provide a secure environment and adhere to social distancing and all other health and safety guidelines. UA expects between 3,000 and 3,500 graduates to participate instead of the 5,000 who traditionally walk in summer graduations. Each graduate can invite four guests to attend, so with 300 to 500 receiving diplomas in each of the nine ceremonies, UA expects to have between 1,500 and 2,500 in each sitting. Coleman Coliseum seats more than 15,000 with additional seating on the floor for the graduates themselves. Masks will be required for all who attend. Signage will serve as reminders inside the arena after the school said it provided extensive communications to graduates and their families of the mandate. Event staff will monitor adherence to the safety policies inside the facility and reinforcement messages will be shared on the video boards, Bradley said. We have every expectation that our graduates and their guests will care for themselves and those around them by complying fully with these important requirements. We will livestream each ceremony at ua.edu/commencement for those who are unwilling or unable to comply with the requirements or cannot attend for other reasons. Both the graduates and guests will be seated in socially distant formations as an additional precaution. The ceremonies themselves will take on a different look once everyone is seated. A hallmark of a commencement is the walk across the stage punctuated by a handshake from the university president. That greeting from UA president Stuart Bell will not be part of this weekends graduations. Instead, graduates will be handed their diploma cover by a gloved staff member prior to walking across the stage, Bradley said. They will be greeted and verbally congratulated in a socially distant manner on stage by Dr. Bell and the dean of their respective college and pose for a photo. Auburn also had summer graduation ceremonies scheduled for Aug. 1 and Aug. 8. Those plans were nixed Monday in an announcement by the university. Despite the universitys efforts to coordinate ceremonies that promoted numerous safety protocols and aligned with Centers for Disease Control and state guidelines, the Auburn announcement read, growing concerns over graduates and guests ability to travel to and from other states and attend large in-person gatherings led the university to postpone the commencement ceremonies. The University of Alabama plans to resume in-person classes for the fall semester starting Aug. 19. Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook. Mobils efforts to demolish dozens of large petroleum storage tanks on a contaminated site next to Melbournes soaring West Gate bridge, then clean up the land and sell it off, are finally coming to fruition in a $52 million deal six years after the fuel giant began the process. ExxonMobil's former storage terminal has been cleaned up for future use. Credit:Penny Stephens Boutique developer Time & Place is believed to be the last company standing in a tender process to snare the fuel producer's prime eight-hectare industrial site in Spotswood on the south side of the western end of the West Gate. The facilty, known as the Spotswood Terminal, is on a huge block of land that was once Mobils main fuel storage depot. Melbourne-based Time & Place is understood to be in due diligence to put its foot on the 87,738-square-metre industrial plot at 44-76 Simcock Avenue, industry sources said. Lawmakers agreed on the sanction by voice vote, dealing a major blow to the reelection campaign of Schweikert, who represents a competitive district and has been under investigation since June 2018. The congressman, who was elected in the 2010 tea party class, had previously blamed some of the alleged violations on an unintended clerical screw-up, but his campaign later shifted course and said Schweikerts trust in his former chief of staff, whose finances had also come under investigation, had been grossly misplaced. The devil is sly and malicious, with hopes of destroying your relationship with God. Fear is one of the devils most effective weapons used to stifle believers. In scripture, Satan and demons often involved themselves with spiritual darkness, deception, and death. They thrive in these environments. The devil is also a trickster and can invoke fear by getting you to believe things about God that arent true. The devil wants you to stress about things outside of your control so that you dont rely on Christ, the One who strengthens. He wants you to be so fearful that you will rely on the enemy, the One who will do everything to make you doubt all forms of joy and happiness. He wants you confused, anxious, even angry about your life circumstances so that you will and eventually become distant from God and rely on your understanding. The devil also wants to trick you into believing the Bible is a collection of myths, hoping that you will doubt Gods Word and even His existence. He also wants you to believe that the Bible, written nearly 3500 years ago, is no longer relevant in our modern world because it was written so long ago. Yet, Gods Word is real and has real significance. More than 40 different writers wrote it over 2000 years with remarkable consistency. It explains life and the human experience in a way no other book has or ever will. Another thing the devil will do is find your most vulnerable points and use those to attack you. Isaiah writes, even the youths shall faint and be weary. Young men shall feel exhausted, but waiting on God renews their strength and displays godly wisdom, for there is an empowerment in waiting, resting, and relying upon God and not ourselves. When were fearful, were often frustrated, which is when the devil will swoop in. During a spiritual attack, the enemy uses various circumstances to repress the mind and bring great frustration. When you are under siege, you may find yourself feeling on edge, anxious, or agitated. In these moments, a simple conversation with your partner or friend can turn into an explosive argument, and a simple thought in your head can take you down a roller coaster of negative emotions. You may also find yourself saying things that are out of character or not feeling quite like yourself. The devil also attacks us when were alone because he knows we are most vulnerable when others arent around us. He also thinks this is when were at our weakest point. The Bible tells us, Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1). He knew Jesus was alone, and he tempted him. The devil can detect when youre feeling alone. In these moments of the attack, he wants you to believe that youre all alone. When you feel like the devil wont leave you alone, its important to remember that God is with you! While many Christians fear the devil, we shouldnt because we have power in Christ. Second Corinthians 5:17 tells us, Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and are free through the waters of baptism, our lives begin anew. When we live our lives for Jesus, our lives are completely transformed. If you are living your life without fear of the devil, you trust Jesus in all that you do. You think about the decisions you make based on your commitments to Christ and your faith. If you know a decision you may make isnt reflecting the faith walk youre on, you will steer away. You give yourself to Jesus and Jesus alone and are happy when you do things pleasing to Him. A life without fear of the devil also includes a strong prayer life. When we commit ourselves to prayer, we confess our troubles, our longings, and our praises. We lift prayers of concern, and also of thanksgiving. Having an active prayer life is an indicator that youre living your life for Christ. When you actively reach out to Him, it reflects how meaningful God is in your everyday life. First Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to pray without ceasing. Prayer doesnt always have to be you sitting alone in a room, with your eyes closed and your hands crossed. Prayer can happen anywhere you are. If youre constantly in dialogue with God, we are fully committed to the responses and promises our Heavenly Father offers. If you are part of the body of Christ, then be assured the devil is going to try to destroy you. While everything cant be blamed on the devil, many things are a result of his work, and its important to know when he is working in our own lives. If we are not on guard, he has the power to destroy us and separate us from our Heavenly Father. There is nothing he would love more. Yet, when we are protected and guarded, we have the power to push back at any of his attacks and live without fear of him. Apple has confirmed that it will be launching the 2020 line-up of the Apple iPhones a bit later this year. Instead of the September launch as it happened in the previous years, Apple says the new iPhone line-up will be delayed by a few weeks. This confirmation came as Apple reported the Q3 2020 results. The company posted quarterly revenue of $59.7 billion, which is an increase of 11 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Apple says they saw double digit growth in the June quarter for Products and Services. It is not clear whether the delay in the launch of the iPhone line-up for 2020 is because of supply delays or logistical constraints. Last year we started selling new iPhones in late September, this year we expect supply to be available a few weeks later, said Apple CFO Luca Maestri, during the earnings call. Earlier this week, chipmaker Qualcomm during their quarterly earnings call had also hinted at delays when they said phones expected to launch around September this year may now be delayed as far as December. More iPhones were sold in the Q3 2020 period, clocking $26.41 million in net sales, up from $25.98 million in same quarter last year Apple and Qualcomm made peace last year after a long-drawn legal battle which ended with a $4.5 billion settlement. That means Qualcomm will again supply 5G modems for the next line-up of 5G capable iPhones. It is expected that some, if not all, of the 2020 line-up of Apple iPhones will use Qualcomms 5G modems. Apple usually launches the annual line-up of iPhones in September, and ships devices to certain parts of the world before the end of the month. As of this moment, it isnt clear whether Apple is indicating at delayed shipping or a delayed launch itself. Apple may very well go ahead with unveiling the iPhones in September as usual, but shipping may be delayed into October or beyond. During the quarterly earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook also spoke about Apples new $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative as well as commitment to be carbon neutral by the year 2030. Were living the principle that what we make and do should create opportunity and leave the world better than we found it, he said. During Q3 2020, which was largely impacted by the COVID, or Coronavirus pandemic, Apple says they clocked a significant increase in revenue from products and services. Apples net product sales, which includes iPhones and the Mac line-up of computing devices, as well as services including Apple Music and iCloud, clocked $59.68 million in sales, up from $53.8 million in the same quarter last year. More iPhones were sold in the Q3 2020 period, clocking $26.41 million in net sales, up from $25.98 million in same quarter last year. Macs also saw a surge in sales clocking $7.07 million in total sales, up from $5.82 million. The iPads, wearables, home accessories and services all saw a significant increase in sales as well in the quarter. Within the past five months business owners in the Houston area have had to adjust to the COVID-19 pandemic, whether that meant opting for an online business, installing social distancing conscious efforts into their day-to-day, or having to temporarily or permanently close their businesses. Cy-Fair COVID Resources: Where to find free food, blood drives and bill assistance As the local business community adjusts to the new normal that is COVID-19, Cy-Fair Houston Chamber of Commerce is asking business owners how they are handling the pandemic and providing the information free-of-charge on their YouTube channel. On HoustonChronicle.com: Cy-Fair COVID Resources: Where to find free food, blood drives and bill assistance The chamber began uploading the videos in May, speaking with owners of various businesses like Shaka Power Yoga and Bridgeland. Chamber Vice President Paula Harvey said the idea came to Angila Ervin, memberships and sales lead for the chamber, after the chamber recently started a podcast and wanted to make the content more available during the pandemic. Weve been called by a lot of our members saying, How can I promote myself? I have this great thing that everyone can use right now, Harvey said. We started looking at some of the bigger members like Bridgeland and the hospital, Houston Methodist, and we have some of those (members) mixed in there too and theyve got some great information. Each interview is less than 15 minutes, as the chamber opted to ask interviewees specific questions about how they have adjusted to COVID-19 and tips they have for other members. The chamber is also uploading video versions of their monthly lunch-ins to YouTube, which are free for the time being. The interviews have also been a resource for parents looking for guidance as the fall semester approaches. Kevin Kalra talked about Montessori Preschool and how parents are changing how its delivered; Zenith Learning is putting pods together in neighborhoods to sit down and do tutoring together, Harvey said. Its really a cool thing. The videos were a result of a need to serve members, Harvey said. Although the chamber is receiving less revenue due to monthly luncheons becoming free and less events overall, Harvey said that the chamber is more worried about the wellbeing of business owners. Its what we found the need was for our members and were just trying to stay connected because any time we can talk to them and keep things going, the better renewals, the better the retention and we want to help them right now, she said. We want them to survive, we want them to do good, we want to reach out to them to see how theyre doing and just show our support and hope that they carry on and stay with us too as members. But thats not first and foremost; we want to see how theyre doing. To view the interviews, visit the CyFair Chamber YouTube channel. chevall.pryce@chron.com The Arizona PR executive who was dubbed a 'Karen' for filming herself destroying a rack of face masks inside a Target while shouting that the pandemic is over now says she regrets the outburst and is seeking help. Melissa Rein Lively made headlines on July 4 when she uploaded an Instagram video showing her throwing face masks on the ground and yelling at two Target employees in Scottsdale, Arizona, while boasting about her $40,000 Rolex. Lively, who runs a public relations company, says she was going through a mental breakdown 'due to stress related to the pandemic' and is apologizing for the incident. 'I want to deeply apologize for my words and actions that took place earlier this month,' Rein Lively said in a statement to DailyMail.com. She revealed that her husand initally filed for divorce and she lost all of her public relations firm's clients following her tirade. Arizona PR executive Melissa Rein Lively, who filmed herself destroying a rack of face masks in a Target store earlier this months, is issuing a public apology for her outburst and says she was going through a mental breakdown sparked the pandemic On July 4 Rein Lively stormed into a Scottsdale, Arizona Target and threw all the face masks on a rack onto the ground shouting: 'This s***'s over!' 'For the last year and a half, I have been facing a silent and debilitating experience with mental illness as well as other health diagnoses that recently escalated my condition and its severity,' she said. 'I have accepted the medical help and professional intervention that is needed to establish mental and physical stability for myself and my family,' she added. The outburst was just one of many that have emerged across the country with citizens refusing to wear facemasks and throwing fits in public in defiance of the order designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In the viral video Rein Lively filmed herself pulling down a mask display in a Target while yelling 'This s***'s over, this s***'s over, this s****'s over. Woo! I dont need this s***. We dont want any of this anymore, this s***'s over.' When two Target employees confronted her she claimed she was targeted because she was white. 'Why? You let everyone else do it. Why? I cant do it cause Im a blonde, white woman? Wearing a f***ing $40,000 Rolex? I dont have the right to f*** s*** up?' she fumed. Another video showed police coming to Rein Livelys home where she claimed she was President Donald Trumps spokesperson and a spokesperson for the QAnon conspiracy theory, which believes there's a supposed 'Deep State' secret plot against Trump. Social media users later pointed out she used racial slurs multiple times on her platforms. 'I want to deeply apologize for my words and actions that took place earlier this month,' Rein Lively said in a statement to DailyMail.com. She revealed that her husband initially filed for divorce and she lost all of her public relations firm's clients following her tirade Rein Lively revealed her husband Jared Lively called the police and she was subsequently taken in for a psychiatric evaluation and spent more than a week in a mental health facility. 'Everything that I was kind of doing was facetious and sarcastic and I realize now the world, obviously, took everything I was saying seriously like I really believed that,' she said to USA Today. 'I was not arrested, I was taken in for a mental health evaluation. That was something that like really opened my eyes to this whole process.' Speaking to DailyMail.com she said shes been working with doctors to understand how the episode unfolded. 'I have learned there are several serious underlying conditions that were untreated and triggered an episode due to extreme stress by the pandemic and everything else going on,' she said. 'I really cant express how scary the whole situation was and how out-of-control I felt and I wanted to share this so people know they are not alone in facing mental illness,' she added. The executive says shes now seeking help and has no problem wearing a mask. She added she and her husband Jared have mended their relationship but have received death threats since the incident. She said they 'have since made the decision to work through this health challenge together as a family.' She filmed herself ripping face masks off their racks and throwing them onto the ground. Her clip was uploaded on Twitter where it racked up over 10.1 million views When two employees asked her to stop Lively replied: 'Why? You let everyone else do it. Why? I cant do it cause Im a blonde, white woman? Wearing a f***ing $40,000 Rolex? I dont have the right to f*** s*** up?' A second video Lively shared on Instagram Live using her brand's account shows cops at her home. When confronted by police she claimed she was the spokesperson for QAnon and the White House 'I will be entering an intensive treatment program to address these health concerns from a mental, physical and spiritual level. I am deeply committed to repairing my marriage, family and personal and professional relationships and pursuing treatment is the first step,' Rein Lively said. She also issued an apology for her co-workers and family, saying she'd regret her outburst 'for the rest of my life'. 'For those my actions directly impacted, I am truly sorry for breaking your trust and flat out letting you down. Nothing gave me more pride and honor than the opportunity to represent my community and work in the professional realm that I did, I will regret those choices and the impact they had on my family, clients and friends for the rest of my life,' she said. She said shes speaking out with the hopes to spread awareness on mental illness. 'Kanye West says being bipolar is his superpower. I intend to make it mine too. For now, I am just taking to day by day and doing whats right for my mind, body and soul,' Rein Lively said. The National Security Service of Armenia (NSS) opened a criminal case under Art. 329 - an illegal crossing of the state border - and 131 - kidnapping - of the Criminal Code of Armenia amid the fact that 30-year-old resident of the village of Nerkin Khndzoresk Narek Sardaryan ended up in Azerbaijan. The information was confirmed by the NSS in response to a request from Armenpress. The Armenian citizen, born in 1990, disappeared on the pasture in the Syunik province, bordering on the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan. According to the NSS, Sardaryan got lost while searching for the missing cattle and crossed to the territory of Nakhichevan, where he was taken prisoner. Sardaryan is characterized as a patriot, calm and hardworking person, he has never had problems neither with the local government nor with law enforcement agencies. Sardaryan has family and minor children. present, appropriate measures are being taken to return Narek Sardaryan to Armenia. On July 22, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the claim for urgent action in the case of Narek Sardaryan. A team of researchers from the UK and South Africa has discovered that most of the hulking sandstone boulders called sarsens that make up the famous Stonehenge monument appear to share a common origin 25 km (15.5 miles) away in West Woods on the edge of the Marlborough Downs, Wiltshire. The origins of the stones used to build Stonehenge around 2500 BCE and their transportation methods and routes have been the subject of debate among archaeologists and geologists for over 400 years. Two main types of stones are present at the monument: the sarsen stones that form the primary architecture of Stonehenge and the bluestones near the center of the monument. The smaller bluestones have been traced to Wales, but the origins of the sarsens have remained unknown, until now. Archaeologists and geologists have been debating where the sarsen stones used to build Stonehenge came from for more than four centuries, said Professor David Nash, a scientist in the School of Environment and Technology at the University of Brighton and the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. These significant new data will help explain more of how the monument was constructed and, perhaps, offer insights into the routes by which the 20- to 30-ton stones were transported. To learn where the huge boulders came from, Professor Nash and colleagues used portable x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (PXRF) to initially characterize their chemical composition, then analyzed the data statistically to determine their degree of chemical variability. Next, they performed inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and ICP-atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) of samples from a core previously drilled through one sarsen stone Stone 58 and a range of sarsen boulders from across southern Britain. After comparing these signatures, they were able to point to West Woods as the sarsens earliest home. The reason the monuments builders selected this site remains a mystery, although the scientists suggest the size and quality of West Woods stones, and the ease with which the builders could access them, may have factored into the decision. We still dont know where two of the 52 remaining sarsens at the monument came from, Professor Nash said. These are upright Stone 26 at the northernmost point of the outer sarsen circle and lintel Stone 160 from the inner trilithon horseshoe. It is possible that these stones were once more local to Stonehenge, but at this stage we do not know. We also dont know the exact areas of West Woods where the sarsens were extracted. Further geochemical testing of sarsens and archaeological investigations to discover extraction pits are needed to answer these questions. The research is published in the journal Science Advances. _____ David J. Nash et al. 2020. Origins of the sarsen megaliths at Stonehenge. Science Advances 6 (31): eabc0133; doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abc0133 British businesses were forced to pay out more than 200 million in ransoms to cybercriminal gangs last year, it has been revealed. High profile companies including smartwatch maker Garmin, foreign exchange giant Travelex and the National Trust have been targeted with malicious software by hackers, many from Russia or Eastern European countries. Fears of public embarrassment, fines from regulators and lost data means firms are now showing 'more willingness to pay the ransom', according to the Times. Criminals across the world have made an estimated 19 billion from the practice, which has proved so successful that job listings have even appeared on the dark web to attract recruits. A number of attacks across the globe, including the hit on Garmin, was reportedly carried out by a group called Evil Corp, headed by 33-year-old Russian playboy hacker, Maksim Yakubets, who drives a customized 190,000 Lamborghini, complete with a number plate that says 'thief'. A number of attacks across the globe, including the hit on Garmin, was reportedly carried out by a group called Evil Corp, headed by 33-year-old Russian playboy hacker, Maksim Yakubets, who drives a customized 190,000 Lamborghini, complete with a number plate that says 'thief' Watchmaker Garmin was a victim of an attack and ended up having to close its services for a week MPs demand ransoms be made illegal Calls have been made for tougher laws against the payment of ransoms, which are legal to make unless it is known the money is for the purposes of terrorism. MPs are and more resources for police and security agencies, after the World Economic Forum described a 'stunning enforcement gap' in dealing with cybercrime. Security specialists have warned ransomware attacks is proving an increasingly attractive proposition for criminals due to the lucrative returns and slim chances of getting caught. Julian Knight, Tory chairman of the digital, culture, media and sport committee, told the Times: 'The UK has always massively under-invested in the area of tackling cybercrime, making our country a soft target. I urge extra to be spent on proper policing and our government to redouble efforts to coordinate a global response.' Analysts add that publicity can play into the hands of criminals as high profile companies who fall victim to attacks may feel encouraged to pay up to avoid having their name splashed in the media. Furthermore, insurance firms are increasingly urging clients to pay the ransom when attacked in order to regain access to files and avoid even greater costs long-term. The downtime cost for a ransomware attack averages more than 4,277 a minute, according to consultancy firm, Gartner. Advertisement The United States has put up a $5million (3.8million) reward the largest ever offered for a cyber-criminal for Yakubets' capture. US consultancy Emsisoft said British companies have likely been hit by 5,000 'ransomware' attacks last year, which resulted in estimated payments of 210m to criminals, often in the form of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which can't be traced to an individual. The ransom figure could be even higher with many businesses reluctant to admit they had taken part, as the Emsisoft report reveals only France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the US have paid out more than Britain in ransom fees. It comes as MPs demand tougher laws against the payment of ransoms, which are legal to make unless it is known the money is for the purposes of terrorism, and more resources for police and security agencies, after the World Economic Forum described a 'stunning enforcement gap' in dealing with cybercrime. Former cabinet minister David Davis told the Times: 'It should be illegal. Companies are just being irresponsible in paying these people off.' The National Crime Agency added that a decision ultimately lies with the victim but said it encourages industry and the public not to pay up. Recent victims of hacking include 33 British universities and dozens of charities such as the National Trust, who were hit by an attack on Blackbaud, a software provider they all used. Garmin was also a victim, and ended up having to close its services for a week, as was Travelex which had to use pen and paper when serving customers. Blackbaud and Travelex are believed to have paid ransoms to regain access to networks. Garmin has not revealed whether it has. Brett Callow, a threat analyst for Emsisoft said: 'The groups are successfully hunting ever bigger game. Organisations paid about $25 billion in ransom demands in 2019, which means the groups have no shortage of money to invest in ramping up their operations in terms of scale and sophistication.' Recent victims of hacking include dozens of charities such as the National Trust (Knole house in Kent, pictured), who were hit by an attack on Blackbaud, a software provider they all used Travelex had to use pen and paper when serving customers after being targeted by hackers Who are Russian cybercriminal group Evil Corp? Evil Corp is a Russia-based cybercriminal organization who are believed to be responsible for ransomware attack against Garmin. The group are known for the development and distribution of Dridex malware which worked to steal confidential information, including online banking credentials from infected computers. In 2016, it was estimated the group had managed to obtain banking credentials from customers at more than 300 banks and financial institutions in more than 40 countries earning them at least $100 million. Evil Corp operates as a business run by a group of individuals based in Moscow, Russia. In December 2019, the Department of State announced a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of its leader, Maksim Yakubets who is thought to be responsible for managing and supervising the groups malicious cyber activities. Advertisement The NCA, Metropolitan Police and National Cyber Security Centre, working alongside the US Justice Department and FBI, have spent five years investigating Evil Corp, which is said to pose the 'most significant cyber-crime threat to the UK'. According to investigators, Evil Corp has targeted the UK for a decade. It uses several types of rogue software that have intercepted bank transfers from the public and hundreds of businesses including schools and religious organisations. Yakubets is alleged to have run the operation since May 2009 from the basements of Moscow cafes. He is said to have employed dozens of people to steal money from victims in 43 countries using computer viruses that are designed to target only victims outside Russia. The 'malware' is downloaded when a victim clicks on an email attachment. It remains hidden on their computer to harvest their personal and financial data such as online banking details which is subsequently used to drain their accounts. Operating online under the name Aqua, the hacker and his associates are accused of stealing at least 76million. US treasury officials also say Yakubets has provided 'direct assistance to the Russian government' by acquiring confidential documents for the FSB. He was also said to be part of a scheme in which Russian intelligence agencies recruit criminals to hack national security targets. The Information Commissioner's Office said this week 'multiple' organisations in the UK had been hit. A spokeswoman said: 'People have the right to expect that organisations will handle their personal information securely and responsibly. If an individual has concerns about how their data has been handled, they should raise it with the organisation first then report them to us if they are not satisfied with the response.' China has reacted strongly to remarks made by Australian high commissioner on South China Sea. Chinas envoy to India Sun Weidong said the remarks are disregarding facts. Noted remarks by Australian HC to India on #SouthChinaSea disregarding facts. #Chinas territorial sovereignty & maritime rights & interests are in conformity w/ intl law incl UNCLOS. Its clear who safeguard peace & stability & who destablize & provoke escalation in the region, Sun said on Twitter. Noted remarks by Australian HC to India on #SouthChinaSea disregarding facts. #China's territorial sovereignty & maritime rights&interests are in conformity w/ int'l law incl UNCLOS. It's clear who safeguard peace&stability & who destablize&provoke escalation in the region. Sun Weidong (@China_Amb_India) July 31, 2020 Australian High Commissioner to India Barry OFarrell had said on Thursday that his country is deeply concerned by destabilising actions in the South China Sea. We remain deeply concerned by actions in the South China Sea that are destabilising and could provoke escalation. Last week, Australia launched a note with UN Secretary-General refusing Chinas unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea, he had told news agency ANI. The Australian government has rejected any claims by China that are not consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In a veiled criticism of China, the envoy said Australia opposes any attempts to unilaterally alter status-quo as it only increases tension and instability. The US and Australian leaders had held a meeting in Washington on Tuesday where they expressed serious concerns about Chinas recent coercive and destabilising actions across the Indo-Pacific. The meeting was held between US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and defence secretary Mark Esper and their Australian counterparts Marise Payne and Linda Reynolds. They discussed about strengthening partnerships in the Indian Ocean region and discussed the key role India will play in defence cooperation. On Thursday, Pompeo said that US efforts to lead an international awakening against the Chinese government is working and the tide is turning as a result. He went on to cite Indian ban on Chinese apps as a manifestation of it along with the closer interactions of the Quad, and separate actions by other countries. Mexico has seen 71,000 deaths more than would have been expected during the pandemic, most officially due to causes such as respiratory disease and hypertension. With relatively limited testing in the country, it remains unclear how many actually had coronavirus. The government is reviewing 8,000 death certificates that list possible coronavirus as a cause of death but werent included in the official toll, now at 46,000. Despite Very Challenging Crop Year, CN Delivered Exceptionally and is Prepared for 2020-2021 Crop MONTREAL, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, CN (TSX: CNR) (NYSE: CNI) filed and published its 2020-2021 Grain Plan, announcing that it set a new record by moving over 30 million metric tonnes (MMT) of grain from across Canada during the 2019-2020 crop year. CN also announced that it is prepared to move up to 7,600 bulk and processed hopper cars per week outside of winter, and up to 6,100 per week during winter in the upcoming crop year. During the 2019-2020 crop year, over 28.2 MMT of grain moved from Western Canada as well as over 1.1 MMT moved through intermodal containers. Although we achieved our best grain movement volumes in 20192020, we are far from complacent. As an essential transportation service to the economy, to our customers, supply chain partners, and to the communities we serve, we remain committed to continue making capacity-enhancing investments to our network and to upgrade our rolling stock, including the purchase of 1,500 additional railcars manufactured in North America in 2020-2021. With all those, we are on our way to reach continuously improved performances. These investments benefit our grain customers as well as all those from the other sectors we serve. CN recognizes that the Grain Plan has been a helpful initiative to increase supply chain performance and keep everyone focused on moving annual crops. - JJ Ruest, President and Chief Executive Officer, CN Over the last year, the CN Agricultural Advisory Council has been providing CN with insight and feedback from the Ag community. Our input has improved CNs understanding of the issues that matter to farmers and has helped to contribute to better service. The challenges faced this year demonstrated how essential transportation is and how having a collaborative and resilient supply chain can keep goods moving. - Alanna Koch, Chair of the CN Agricultural Advisory Council Story continues The annual Grain Plan is prepared through an extensive consultation process and with the input of key stakeholders through an open invitation on the Companys website. The plan reviews CNs performance during the last crop year, assesses CNs ability to move anticipated levels of grain during the upcoming crop year, and it explains specific steps that CN is taking to ensure it has the necessary capacity to move grain safely and efficiently for the benefit of farmers, customers and supply chain partners. CN will continue its monthly update to the plan. The plan is available here . CN is a world-class transportation leader and trade-enabler. Essential to the economy, to the customers, and to the communities it serves, CN safely transports more than 300 million tons of natural resources, manufactured products, and finished goods throughout North America every year. As the only railroad connecting Canadas Eastern and Western coasts with the Southern tip of the U.S through a 19,500 mile rail network, CN and its affiliates have been contributing to community prosperity and sustainable trade since 1919. CN is committed to programs supporting social responsibility and environmental stewardship. Contacts: Media Investors Jonathan Abecassis Paul Butcher Senior Manager Vice-President Media Relations Investor Relations 1-833-946-3342 (514) 399-0052 Media@cn.ca HAVANA Eusebio Leal, a historian and orator who befriended Fidel Castro and led the reconstruction of the crumbling historic center of Havana, died on Friday morning from a painful illness," Cuban official media said. He was 77. Calling himself a Fidelist" rather than a Marxist, Leal was a member of the ruling Cuban Communist Partys elite Central Committee and came to be seen as an elder statesman of Cuba. Inside Cuba, he earned recognition as an articulate historian, originally a self-taught student who through intellect and hard work passed the university entrance exam without a formal education. He would go on to earn a doctorate in history and become a member of Cubas National Assembly. Outside Cuba, he was best known as leader of the project to rebuild Old Havana, the historic center built by Spanish colonists which had been deteriorating from age, neglect and the damaging effects of seawater on the buildings along Havanas famous boardwalk. The United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) named Old Havana a World Heritage site. With financial help from Spain and under the direction of Leal, Cuba rebuilt dozens of colonial-era buildings, contrasting sharply with the many that continued to crumble. The campaign helped make Old Havana a tourist attraction that was an alternative to the countrys popular beach resorts. Leal was a close friend of Castro as well as his younger brother Raul Castro, who officially took over the leadership of the Cuban Communist Party in 2011, though he shied away from overtly political gestures, concentrating on academia and rebuilding the historic center. More than a Marxist, I was a Fidelist," Leal told a meeting of artists and writers in April 2014. He added, referring to Fidel Castro, His thinking was more inclusive and comprehensive than the dogmatic canons or doctrine." Fidel was the only one capable of uniting this country after the revolution, in the face of so many discordant ideas," he said. Leal said he built his appreciation for restoring old buildings on his early dedication to the Roman Catholic Church, which fell out of favor in the early days of the communist government but later regained stature with the Castro brothers and other aging revolutionaries. My cultural education was formed through the discipline of the church," he said in a 2010 interview with Cuban state television. It was difficult to make religion and revolution compatible. People didnt understand, and there were some difficult moments, but for me they were never incompatible." Leal also embraced the market-oriented economic reforms implemented under Raul Castro, saying the country must produce economically in order to progress. Bread is just as important as thinking. One must have bread in order to think," Leal said. Think about it. Bread comes before philosophy." 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 CALGARY - The CEO of Imperial Oil Ltd. says the company will be cautious in ramping up spending despite a recovery in fuel demand following the collapse earlier this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Shares in Imperial Oil Ltd. are trading lower after it beat analyst expectations on oil and gas production but fell well short of second quarter earnings. The Imperial Oil logo is seen at the company's annual meeting in Calgary on April 28, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh CALGARY - The CEO of Imperial Oil Ltd. says the company will be cautious in ramping up spending despite a recovery in fuel demand following the collapse earlier this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Brad Corson said the company can't talk about whether it will reverse this year's spending cuts next year, but it's unlikely spending will return to pre-COVID levels in 2021 because the market outlook remains so uncertain. "A big question right now is what will the COVID situation look like as we finish up this year and move into next year," he said on a conference call to discuss second-quarter results. "Because of that, we're going to maintain flexibility with our plans, just as we did this year." The caution is consistent with outlooks from the CEOs of Calgary-based rivals Suncor Energy Inc. and Husky Energy Corp. companies that also own both oil production and refineries on their recent second-quarter conference calls. Corson said Imperial is well on the way to meeting its goal announced in March to cut $500 million from its 2020 capital spending plan of between $1.6 billion and $1.7 billion and find another $500 million in operating savings this year. On Friday, Imperial reported a net loss of $526 million on revenue of $3.7 billion in the three months ended June 30, down from a net profit of $1.2 billion on revenue of $9.26 billion in the year-earlier period. Analysts had expected a $188 million net loss and revenue of $4.24 billion, according to markets data firm Refinitiv. Imperial, which is 69.6 per cent owned by American giant Exxon Mobil Corp., blamed the performance on lower oil prices and refinery profit margins due to the COVID-19-related economic slump. Refinery utilization rates were about 66 per cent for the quarter thanks to demand weakness and maintenance interruptions, it said. Corson said demand for Imperial's gasoline and diesel have recovered to about 90 per cent of normal levels but jet fuel demand is still only at about one-third. The company reported production of 347,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the second quarter, down from 400,000 boe/d a year earlier, as maintenance shutdowns at its Kearl oilsands mine were extended to better control spread of the coronavirus after an outbreak there. 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. Kearl's average production of 190,000 barrels of oil per day was higher than expected due to the recent addition of supplemental ore crushers at the mine, Corson said. The mine's production peaked at 300,000 bpd during a two-week period between maintenance shutdowns at its two oilsands processing plants and it will be well-positioned to maximize production when the second plant is back online again in late August, he said. The company estimates Kearl production will average about 220,000 bpd this year, down from earlier forecasts of 240,000 bpd. Imperial Oil shares, which have fallen 37 per cent since Dec. 31, lost 96 cents or 4.4 per cent at $21.05 at afternoon trading in Toronto. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2020. Companies in this story: (TSX:IMO, TSX:SU, TSX:HSE) Oregon man caught in Lyon County with $760,000 of marijuana Teon Smith is terrified of law enforcement. Smith, a Black single mother living in Montgomery, Ala., has never been convicted of a crime, but she has traffic tickets she can't afford to pay. As a result, her driver's license has been suspended and she must return to court frequently to explain why she hasn't paid. If she misses a hearing, the court could issue an arrest warrant. If that were to happen, she'd risk being locked away from her children, another victim of a criminal-justice system that disproportionately impacts the lives of people of color.Sadly, Smith's situation is not unique. Fines and court fees stemming from traffic stops and minor municipal-code violations are big money makers for hundreds of local governments across the country. But when governments rely on those revenues, people of color end up funding the police forces that routinely terrorize them.Deploying police to impose debt and using the justice system to collect it undermine public safety. A 2018 study found that police departments in cities that rely heavily on court debt as a revenue source solve violent crimes at lower rates than those that rely on more equitable revenue sources. Possible reasons for this include pressure to focus on debt collection instead of police work and distrust of police by people who perceive them as debt collectors with guns and badges.The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many other Black people at the hands of police have sparked worldwide protests and enraged communities that are routinely subject to police violence. As we are inundated with images of law enforcement rolling heavily armored vehicles down residential streets, we can no longer ignore the devastating toll that over-policing has taken on communities of color.In response to the ongoing protests and calls to rethink policing, state, local and federal policymakers have started to propose reforms. But these reforms won't effectively address police violence unless they also address fines-and-fees policies that criminalize poverty, routinely result in incarceration, transform police officers into armed debt collectors, and bleed intergenerational wealth from Black families, who on average hold $10 in net worth for every $100 that white families hold The impact of these policies on families is broader than many might realize. Most people with crushing court debt turn to family members for help , meaning that those who haven't even incurred fines and fees are driven to take out payday loans and sacrifice necessities like food and medicine, using their savings to keep loved ones from being jailed for nonpayment.As pandemic-driven jobless claims and layoffs rise and cities project reduced property-tax revenues due to delinquencies and foreclosures, policymakers may be tempted to fund government services, including police departments, by increasing the imposition and enforcement of fines and fees. That's what happened following the 2008 financial crisis. But asking police officers to generate revenue and act as debt collectors creates excessive and unnecessary interactions between the police and the public that too often lead to police violence and perpetuate economic and racial injustice.To address police violence effectively, state and local governments must stop relying on fines and fees, analyze the impact of existing revenue sources on communities of color, and implement equitable revenue policies. State policymakers should prioritize legislation granting localities sufficient taxation authority to provide a more stable and fairer revenue base. Policymakers should also cap the percentage of local revenue that can be generated from law enforcement and the courts.In Alabama and many other states, another important step is to end the practice of suspending drivers' licenses in connection with anything but dangerous driving. In addition to reducing the burden created by fines and fees, leaving people free to drive makes economic sense. Studies show that people who lack licenses struggle to find and maintain employment. Letting people drive means letting them work.Congress also has an important role to play. State and local governments that commit to reducing and capping the amount of revenue they receive from fines and fees should receive additional federal funding, particularly as they struggle to balance their budgets in the midst of the pandemic.Back in Montgomery, Teon Smith desperately wants a job, but her suspended license disqualifies her from some and makes others impossible to get. She pays what she can on her traffic tickets and continues to worry about an arrest warrant that would have devastating consequences for her and her family. Policymakers must act now to end government policies that lead to unnecessary interactions between the public and police and worsen the cycle of poverty experienced by Smith and so many others across the country.GoverningGoverning President Muhammadu Buhari Friday celebrated the Eid-el-Kabir festival with his family at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. The president had earlier announced that he would not be going for the traditional Islamic eid prayer held in large gatherings, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr Buhari also said he would not be entertaining visitors during the Islamic celebration. Photos of the celebration the president had with his family were shared by presidential aides on Friday. See the photos below. President Muhammadu Buhari celebrates Eid-el-Kabir with family President Muhammadu Buhari celebrates Eid-el-Kabir with family Boris Johnson has approved Labour rebels in the Government's proposed list of 36 new peers in the House of Lords - but has not named Jeremy Corbyn's reported nominations Tom Watson and John Bercow. The Government published its list of proposed peerages and political honours on Friday, confirming that Labour Brexiteers are set to be elevated. Former MPs who rebelled against Labour to back Brexit, including Kate Hoey, Ian Austin, Frank Field and Gisela Stuart, are all set to receive peerages. But the list failed to include Tom Watson and former speaker John Bercow, who were both reportedly nominated by the former Labour leader. Boris Johnson has approved Labour rebels in the Government's proposed list of 36 new peers in the House of Lords, including Vote Leave campaign chair Gisela Stuart Former Labour MP Frank Field, who quit the party in protest at Mr Corbyn's stance, was also included in the list of proposed peerages published on Friday Former MPs who rebelled against Labour to back the Brexit, including Kate Hoey, Ian Austin (above), Frank Field and Gisela Stuart, are all set to receive peerages Ms Hoey, who served as Labour's Vauxhall MP for 30 years until not standing for re-election last year, was among five MPs who defied the whip to vote with the Conservatives on a Brexit amendment in 2018. The former chairwoman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee is one of the ex-Labour MPs to be nominated for non-affiliated peerages. Ms Hoey was a member of the Labour Leave group alongside former Labour whip Mr Field, who has also been approved for a peerage. The Vote Leave campaign was chaired by Ms Stuart, defying the Labour Party's Remain stance. John Woodcock, who never backed Brexit and supported a second referendum, is also among those set to be given a peerage. But Mr Woodcock, who had the Labour whip withdrawn after a sexual harassment allegation, which he denied, did not support former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Mr Woodcock said he would vote for the Conservatives to stop Mr Corbyn 'getting his hands on the levers of national security and defence'. He was joined by Mr Austin, who urged voters to support Boris Johnson to stop Mr Corbyn from becoming prime minister. Mr Austin, the ex-Labour turned Independent MP for Dudley North, and Mr Field both quit the party in protest at Mr Corbyn's stance. John Woodcock, who never backed Brexit and supported a second referendum, is also among those set to be given a peerage, according to the Government's nominations Mr Woodcock, who said he would vote Conservative to block Jeremy Corbyn, took to Twitter to announce his delight at being approved for a peerage Kate Hoey, who served as Labour's Vauxhall MP for 30 years, was among five MPs who defied the whip to vote with the Conservatives on a Brexit amendment in 2018 Mr Woodcock, who served as MP for Barrow and Furness between 2010 and 2019, has taken to Twitter to announce his delight at the news of his peerage approval. He said: 'It's a huge honour to be put forward as a peer. I've agreed to continue my work as UK special envoy on countering violent extremism as a non-aligned member. 'Relishing the chance to speak up once again for the causes I championed as an MP and for the community we love.' But there were some notable absentees from the list, as some of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's reported nominations were not included. The Prime Minister has not named Labour's former deputy leader Tom Watson and the last Commons speaker John Bercow on the list, despite it being tradition for the Government to put the retiring speaker's name forward for a peerage. But Mr Bercow was said to have been rejected by the independent Lords appointment commission because of a series of bullying claims, which he denied. Mr Watson, Labour's former deputy leader, is thought to have been blocked because of his role in highlighting fantasist Carl Beech's false allegations of a paedophile ring in Westminster. This led to dawn raids on the homes of the late military chief Lord Bramall, former Tory Home Secretary Lord Brittan and ex-MP Harvey Proctor. But Mr Johnson did pick Conservative former chancellors Ken Clarke and Philip Hammond for peerages, after he stripped them from the Tory whip after they defied him over Brexit. Boris Johnson has not named Labour's former deputy leader Tom Watson and the last Commons speaker John Bercow on the list of proposed peerages John Bercow (pictured), said to have been rejected for a peerage by the independent Lords appointment commission because of a series of bullying claims, which he denied Former chancellor Philip Hammond, who stood down during last year's general election, was elected six times in his seat of Runnymede and Weybridge but had the whip removed in September 2019. The Prime Minister has also come under fire since the peerage list was announced, being accused by his political rivals of 'cronyism'. He approved his brother Jo Johnson, his chief strategic adviser Sir Edward Lister and several Tory grandees for peerages. Lord Fowler, a former Conservative cabinet minister, said the House will 'soon be nearly 830 strong', accusing Mr Johnson of 'the abandonment of an established policy' to reduce its size. The Liberal Democrats' leader in the Lords, Lord Newby, added: 'By giving a large number of his cronies peerages, he has shown that the Tories have abandoned any pretence of reducing the size of the bloated House of Lords.' Mr Johnson's long-term ally Sir Edward, who supported him as London mayor, also made the approvals. Theresa May's husband Philip is also destined for a knighthood, the list of nominations revealed. Others to get nominations include Charles Moore, the former Daily Telegraph editor and Margaret Thatcher biographer, and Claire Fox, who was a Brexit Party MEP. A New Mexico Hispanic activist upset about the removal of Spanish conquistador monuments and who demanded the states largest university remove some Ethnic Studies classes is no longer a leader in the nations oldest Latino civil rights group. Fred Baca, the newly named League of United Latin American Citizens New Mexico director, told the Associated Press that Ralph Arellanes was informed this week he wont be returning as the groups state executive director. Baca said Arellanes then resigned. In effect, he is no longer in that position, Baca said. Last week, Arellanes drew anger among LULAC members nationally after writing a letter to the president of the University of New Mexico and urging the school to remove any classes critical of Spanish conquistadors. Arellanes, who signed that letter in his role as New Mexico LULAC executive director and chair of the Hispano Roundtable of New Mexico, said he has collected stories of Hispanic students leaving classrooms crying after being told by professors that Spanish conquistadors participated in genocide against Indigenous populations. The Hispano Roundtable of New Mexico, New Mexico LULAC and our many expert historians in New Mexico request a meeting with you to discuss our concerns, Arellanes wrote. We will be calling for the removal of these courses and programs that are teaching our New Mexico students this kind of hate and complete propaganda. However, LULAC said Arellanes did not get approval from the group to use its name in the letter, and removing Ethnic Studies classes was not the organizations position. Chicano Studies and Native American Studies professors around the country sharply criticized the letter as promoting censorship and attacking their programs. The National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies values the varied work of Chicana/o/x and Indigenous scholars, writers, teachers and artists in their pursuit of new and reconsidered research areas and the development of transformative pedagogies, including critical studies of colonization processes in the Americas, the professional academic organization said in a statement in response to Arellanes. Arellanes took to social media and said he was not talking about Chicano Studies or Native American Studies classes, but declined to say which programs he wanted to abolish. Previously, Arellanes had attacked Chicano Studies professors at the University of New Mexico on Facebook and demanded they be fired over their views on Spanish conquistadors or because they were from California or Texas. Baca also announced New Mexico LULAC was leaving the umbrella group, the Hispano Roundtable of New Mexico, which Arellanes leads. That group seeks to pull Latino groups from around the nations most Hispanic state into one coalition. I need to learn more about what the Roundtable does and what its goals are, Baca said. I do not know how active it is or even who comprises this organization. By Trend The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense has commented on the information spread by the Armenian media that the positions of the Armenian armed forces were allegedly shot at from the direction of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan, Trend reports citing the press service of the Ministry. The news disseminated by the Armenian media is a lie. On the contrary, in response to the shelling of Azerbaijani positions by the Armenian army, the units of the Nakhchivan Separate Combined Arms Army took adequate measures, the ministry stressed. 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 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. As important as the scale of the package, however, is how its being funded, and what that says about the future of the EU. Member nations will collectively borrow funds from the capital markets to fund the package, making them all collectively responsible for the debt. While this sounds like a bit of a boring footnote, its actually a major step forward for EU unity. Sharing debt responsibility in this way is a big development that the EU has avoided thus far, and has previously been seen by many as a step towards a United States of Europe. While its not likely to lead to a European super-state in the near future or at all, in fact it demonstrates that theres political will to get the member states of the EU to work more closely on economic development. Lilian says, Thats important to investors because it creates a potentially more favourable environment for European companies. With close co-operation across European national borders and less chance of a break-up down the line, companies could find it easier to grow and develop and ultimately increase earnings for shareholders. The green agenda A key part of the agreement is that almost a third of the funding has been set aside for projects that tackle climate change. Combined with the EUs commitment to focus its 1 trillion long-term budget also announced last week on sustainable projects over the next seven years, this means the EU is engaging on the biggest green stimulus in history. Were likely to see many European companies take on projects to improve the environment and change how they operate to reduce their carbon footprint. This will help us fulfil our own target to reduce the carbon emissions in our portfolios by 50% by 2030. Not all plain sailing yet Europe nonetheless has some way to go before its business as usual. As weve seen with the UKs announcement of quarantine for travellers arriving from Spain, the pattern of infections can still disrupt the European economy. The hospitality sector in Spain relies heavily on UK tourist trade so this will be a blow for the Spanish economy. We could see these spikes in infection and international reaction have an impact on individual countries. In addition, weve yet to see what the autumn and winter could bring in terms of a second wave and further lockdown measures, says Lilian. Despite this, the recovery package could be enormously positive for the longer-term prospects of European equity, supporting our moves to increase our allocation. Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, expressed concern over the ministry's recent decision to revoke the charitable status of defector groups for sending propaganda flyers across the border and audit them and other rights groups. A UN human rights official on Thursday urged the Unification Ministry not to discourage the activities of North Korean defector activists. According to the ministry, Quintana made the remarks in a virtual meeting with Lee Jong-joo, the director of humanitarian cooperation at the ministry. Quintana said Seoul needs to listen to the voices of defector and rights groups and cooperate with them. Lee claimed the groups were not targeted for audits just because they sent propaganda flyers into North Korea, and added, "Revoking their charitable status isn't the purpose of inspection." The virtual meeting held at Quintana's request lasted about two hours. Quintana last week said, "We will request more detailed information and then we have the possibility to issue a formal communication with the government of South Korea, calling for a balanced management of the regulation and control of civil society organizations." UK Considering New Online Sales Tax by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London 31 July 2020 Alongside a review into the reform of the business rates system (commercial property tax) in the UK, the Government is looking at possible taxes that could replace or supplement the regime, including a new tax on online sales. In a call for evidence on reform of business rates, the Government said COVID-19 may have made previously considered policy alternatives to business rates more attractive. The call for evidence states: "Some stakeholders continue to advocate for alternative or complementary systems of taxation to business rates, as highlighted by the Treasury Select Committee's 2019 report. More recently, COVID-19 and associated public health measures have significantly affected how non-domestic property can be used. COVID-19 has also, in the near-term, increased the use of online shopping. It is too soon to tell what the lasting impact of COVID-19 might be on the non-domestic property market." "The government will need to strike the right balance between continuing to raise the revenue necessary to fund essential public services and supporting the economic recovery. Therefore, the Government is again seeking views on the case for the introduction of alternative taxes to either replace or complement the business rates system. Any move towards the introduction of a new tax would be a long-term proposition." On options, the Government's report revisits previously proposed alternative taxes, or changes to existing taxes, including an online sales tax, or increased rates of VAT or corporation tax. The Government acknowledged, though, that, "each proposal has potentially significant challenges, some practical or administrative, and others more fundamental." "In light of the advantages of property taxes set out above, this call for evidence focuses on an alternative means of taxing non-residential property as a potential replacement for business rates and, due to the prevalence of concerns about online retail trends and divided public opinion, an online sales tax." "Given that an online sales tax would be unlikely to raise revenue sufficient to replace business rates, we expect that any such tax would exist alongside business rates." The report says: "Some commentators argue that the business rates system creates a distortion within the retail sector, favouring online retailers that can operate without the high-value properties that are a feature of more traditional retail. This has led to proposals that the government should levy a tax on companies based on their online sales, and that this could be used to fund business rates reductions for retail properties." The report adds: "There is also a risk that an online sales tax could, subject to its scope, be distortive and incentivise the bundling together of certain online purchases of goods and services; any new tax should maintain purchasing neutrality and not incentivise this consumer behaviour." Calling for input on the measure, the Government appears to express its support, stating: "Historical trends in online retail sales, and the more recent increases driven by COVID-19, suggests that while an online sales tax would not replace business rates, it could still provide a sustainable and meaningful revenue source for the government." "While the scope of an online sales tax would need further consideration, it could be levied on the revenues that businesses generate from online sales to UK customers, and focused on sales in direct competition with those carried out through physical premises. Given divided opinion on this idea, the government is seeking evidence on the potential effects." Input is sought by September 18, 2020. A SoftBank Robotics official introduces the company's Whiz robot vacuum during a press conference in Seoul, Tuesday. / Korea Times photo by Baek Byung-yeul By Baek Byung-yeul SoftBank Robotics, an affiliate of Japanese tech giant SoftBank, has announced its bid to enter the Korean market with its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered robot vacuums, its Korean unit said Tuesday. SoftBank Robotics Korea had a press preview for its Whiz robot vacuum in Seoul. It said it plans to sell the products in the country's business-to-business (B2B) market to commercial enterprises such as offices, hotels and airports. Following the outbreak of COVID-19, the company also expects there will be a need for its vacuum cleaning robot in hospitals due to the growing demand for unmanned cleaning systems. "Today, we held a press conference to announce our bid to enter the Korean market and introduce the Whiz," Kim Dong-hyup, business development director at SoftBank Robotics, told reporters. "We don't think we can replace human labor with our Whiz robot vacuum. Instead, we are aiming to lessen the human workload." SoftBank Robotics' robot vacuum Whiz is on display during a press conference held in Seoul, Tuesday. / Korea Times photo by Baek Byung-yeul So far in the 2020 election cycle, AFP Action has spent nearly $4 million backing the five GOP lawmakers, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. AFP Action plans to unleash a seven-figure digital ad buy in August that will include supportive spots for all five Senate candidates, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. Another Koch-linked outside group, Concerned Veterans for America Action, will launch separate digital ads next week backing Daines and Tillis. The overall buy will be spread across various social media platforms, connected TV and streaming services, these people added. They declined to be named as the decisions have yet to be made public. Four of the five Senate races have been deemed toss-ups by the Cook Political Report, and in some cases, these Republicans incumbents are down in the polls. Their five states combined have had more than 768,000 reported cases of Covid-19 , with most coming from the state of Texas. There are more than 4 million confirmed cases nationwide and at least 152,000 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Americans for Prosperity Action, a super PAC tied to the larger Koch network, is reactivating its in-person door knocking with just under 100 days until the general election after shifting to a virtual campaign earlier in the year. The activist organization backed by libertarian billionaire Charles Koch is getting back to its ground game for its preferred candidates, while the coronavirus pandemic continues to sweep across parts of the country. Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, told CNBC in an interview that starting in late May he traveled to some of these states to see if the team could return to conducting in-person engagement with voters. Since then, he said, they've been "doubling down our on the ground effort" with a focus on swing state voters. Phillips said his teams have been following all of the state guidelines. When they go knock on doors, the volunteers practice social distancing, he said. In some states, though highly encouraged, people are not required by the state to wear a mask while walking outside and, Phillips noted, they do not always wear masks when they are speaking with voters outside their homes. They do encourage volunteers to wear masks while they are traveling together in a car. When they are in their offices, the activists follow the strict state guidelines for the number of people allowed simultaneously in a workspace and urge their representatives to wear masks while confined to that area. Phillips pointed to field offices in North Carolina as an example, where they are only allowing 10 people indoors at a time. They often shift groups of 10 people through each office at different times in order to follow state rules. Once they determined voters were willing to engage with them again, AFP went back to work in late June and has since started framing the election on who is best to help bring back a sense of normalcy in the wake of the pandemic. "More than any single issue, these swing voters are raising one question. And that question is: 'how do I get back to my normal life for me and the people I love?'" Phillips said. Their job, he said, is to explain how their Senate candidates could help them get back to what they once had. The renewed efforts have led to AFP Action connect to nearly 6 million registered voters in targeted races across the country. It's knocked on at least 100,000 doors in those races. Through his own recent door-knocking experience, Phillips says swing state voters don't appear to be settled on one candidate over the other and he defined the races as "fluid," particularly as people struggle to overcome health and financial hurdles due to Covid-19. He also senses that more people are paying attention to politics than he's ever seen in his over three decades of experience, which could lead to a record turnout. "They are profoundly impacted and so they're paying more attention to the news and to politics than they normally do by a wide margin," he said. "I do believe that the swing voters are fluid where they are headed and I do think they are withholding judgment right now," he added. That does not mean voters should expect AFP Action spots on broadcast television over the next few months. Phillips told CNBC that it has no plans to air TV ads this cycle and are instead solely going to be airing digital spots. That too is a change as the group spent just over $2 million during the 2018 congressional midterm election on TV ads. The Government has come under fire for announcing new coronavirus restrictions covering parts of north west England via Twitter late at night just hours before they came into force. Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced on Thursday evening that immediate action was needed across Greater Manchester and parts of east Lancashire and West Yorkshire to keep people safe, banning people from different households from meeting indoors. But the fact the stricter measures were announced via Hancocks Twitter feed at around 9pm and later posted online has attracted criticism. No one would argue with putting in place local action to reduce the transmission of coronavirus. But announcing measures affecting potentially millions of people late at night on Twitter is a new low for the governments communications during this crisis. Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) July 30, 2020 Labour leader Keir Starmer said: No one would argue with putting in place local action to reduce the transmission of coronavirus. But announcing measures affecting potentially millions of people late at night on Twitter is a new low for the governments communications during this crisis. When the government ended the daily press conferences, they said they would hold them for significant announcements, including local lockdowns. Its hard to imagine what could be more significant than this. The new measures that were introduced late last night on stopping the spread of #coronavirus to millions of people including my constituents was sneaked out and has caused confusion despite what the Heath Secretary has said today. Not acceptable to announce via twitter in a rush Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) July 31, 2020 Labours deputy leader Angela Rayner tweeted: The new measures that were introduced late last night on stopping the spread of #coronavirus to millions of people including my constituents was sneaked out and has caused confusion despite what the Heath Secretary has said today. Not acceptable to announce via twitter in a rush. Story continues Manchester City Councillor Pat Karney tweeted: Its 12 midnight and Manchester Council have new legal powers to enforce the new regulations we heard about 30 mins ago. You wont stop the virus if we have make it up as we go along Government. It's 12 midnight and Manchester Council have new legal powers to enforce the new regulations we heard about 30 mins ago. You won't stop the virus if we have make it up as we go along Government. Pat Karney (@patkarney) July 30, 2020 Shadow business minister Lucy Powell described the way in which the Government had announced the new coronavirus restrictions on parts of northern England as a disaster. Speaking on Times Radio, the MP for Manchester Central said: I mean announcing them two hours before they come into effect is a bit of a bolt out of the blue. With no one around to be able to answer some of the basic questions, I really think is not the way to build confidence and to take people with you and maximise compliance with these steps. I have to say a few tweets from a Minister late at night is not the way to announce something as significant as this Jonathan Reynolds (@jreynoldsMP) July 30, 2020 Leeds North West MP Alex Sobel said: Government gave information very late and with a lack of clarity to local councils, MPs and it seems within the Department of Health. The lack of planning and clarity of what to do in different scenarios is breathtaking. Surely they planned these scenarios out! Scottish National party MP Dr Philippa Whitford said: Do you seriously think this is the way to announce such a huge #Lockdown 10 oclock at night to start at midnight? What about all those who arent on Twitter? Maybe if you hadnt stopped #COVID19 daily updates but then again, youd have to try to talk sense! Government gave information very late and with a lack of clarity to local councils, MPs and it seems within the Department of Health. The lack of planning and clarity of what to do in different scenarios is breathtaking. Surely they planned these scenarios out! https://t.co/CZndt6ozVG Alex Sobel (@alexsobel) July 30, 2020 Politicians in Leicester, where restrictions were introduced on June 29, shared their frustrations with the situation. Claudia Webbe, Labour MP for Leicester East, said: If you are confused by the Govt message in relation to #LeicesterLockdown dont worry you are not alone as the good people of Greater Manchester, parts of West Yorkshire & East Lancashire are confused too. Dont worry if you missed it the Govt announcement was made on Twitter!! The latest restrictions, which came into force at midnight on Friday, cover the whole of Greater Manchester, as well as the east Lancashire boroughs of Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Pendle, Rossendale and Hyndburn. Residents in the West Yorkshire areas of Bradford, Calderdale which includes the town of Halifax and Kirklees which includes the town of Huddersfield are also affected. If you are confused by the Govt message in relation to #LeicesterLockdown dont worry you are not alone as the good people of Greater Manchester, parts of West Yorkshire & East Lancashire are confused too. Dont worry if you missed it the Govt announcement was made on Twitter!! Claudia Webbe MP (@ClaudiaWebbe) July 30, 2020 Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham urged locals to remain vigilant and protect one another. He said: Over recent days, there has been a marked change in the picture across Greater Manchester with regard to the spread of Covid-19. We have always said that we will remain vigilant and be ready to respond quickly should the need arise. I ask all Greater Manchester residents young and old alike to protect each other by observing these new requirements. They will be reviewed weekly; meaning the more we stick to them, the quicker they will be removed. WHO Special Envoy Dr David Nabarro told LBC he recognised that people are frustrated, but he said measures are necessary to ultimately prevent deaths. He said: Unless you are rapid and robust when you see early signs of numbers climbing, you really are at risk of a further massive level of illness and deaths and thats the last thing that anyone wants anywhere. Coronavirus: what happened today Click here to sign up to the latest news and information with our daily Catch-up newsletter Kristi Nix Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday that he would extend emergency SNAP food benefits through the month of August as the coronavirus pandemic continues. Abbott said the Texas Health and Human Services Commission will provide around $185 million in emergency Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave approval to the Health and Human Services Commission to extend the maximum SNAP benefits to families in need. Eid Mubarak! Today, July 31, Muslims around the world are celebrating Eid al-Adha, one of the holiest festivals in the Islamic faith. Its a holiday thats all about community, whether its coming together for prayers or donating money to help those in need. With the current pandemic, Eid al-Adha will look a little different, as public gatherings have been prohibited or restricted in many parts of the world. Still, many mosques are doing their best to have a semblance of normality. In Harrisburg, for instance, the Islamic Center Masjid Al-Sabereen held prayer services during the morning, but required worshipers to wear face masks and to register in advance in order to attend. But lets take a step back and look at what, exactly, is Eid al-Adha and what it celebrates. What Eid al-Adha it? Eid al-Adha is also known as the Festival of Sacrifice. It commemorates the story in the Quran of the Prophet Ibrahim being told by God to sacrifice his first-born son, Ismail. Ibrahim is about to follow Gods commands, when God has a sheep appear and tells Ibrahim to sacrifice that animal instead. The Torah and Old Testament feature a similar story, where Abraham (aka Ibrahim) is told to sacrifice his son Isaac. Eid Al-Adha is celebrated on the 10th day of the last month of the Islamic lunar calendar. In 2020, that date falls on July 31. How is Eid al-Adha celebrated? Eid al-Adha begins in the morning with prayer. Later, people will get together to worship with one another. But the big part of the holiday is when an animal is sacrificed -- often this is a goat, camel, sheep or cow. People will donate either the meat from the animal or money that would have been spent on the animal to the less fortunate. Al Jazeera reports that those who choose to donate money will often give to a charity that distributes meat to those in need, including refugees and the elderly. Another key part of the holiday is making a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. This year only those who live in Saudi Arabia, where Mecca sits, are allowed to complete the pilgrimage. Usually around two million will complete the pilgrimage. This year, the BBC reports that only 10,000 pilgrims are expected. READ MORE: Celebratory holiday of Eid al-Adha darkened by coronavirus losses 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. Ajay Pal, a migrant labourer who returned from Mumbai to his village in Pratapgarh due to Covid-19 lockdown in early May, is happy. This Raksha Bandhan, it will be exactly 12 years since my sister tied rakhi on my wrist. All these years I had been away, said Pal, who is eagerly waiting for Raksha Bandhan. Pal, who worked as a mechanic in Mumbai, is using this time to meet the members of his extended family and relatives and replenish the old ties which he overlooked while working in Mumbai. I left home when I was 18. That was the last time I got rakhi tied by my sister. I have got this opportunity again this time, said Pal. He is third born among four children. Pal is two years younger to Rupa, the only sister among three brothers. Rupa was married two years after Pal left for Mumbai in search of work. He met Rupa on several occasions in the meantime, but never on Raksha Bandhan. I use to visit my village only during Diwali or Holi. I use to speak to my sister on phone on rakhi but never thought of visiting her on the day. I think I should have come every year just for few days around rakhi, after all she is our only sister, said Pal. As the day gets closer, Pal has started keeping a close watch on the notices of lockdown issued by the government. The house of my sister is some 15 kilometres away from here. It will be difficult for me if lockdown is declared due to rising Covid-19 cases. In that case I will have to think of some other way but I have made up my mind to meet my sister on rakhi which is on August 3 this year, asserted Ajay adding that his younger brother will also accompany him. Another migrant worker, Dinesh Verma, 36, in Prayagraj district is also looking forward to meeting his sisters on Raksha Bandhan. I will meet my sisters after five years on this Raksha Bandhan day. Though they used to post me rakhi every year, getting it tied by them will be special, Verma said. Both his sisters, Divya and Madhuri, are married in the same district some 20 kilometres away from his house. Verma has asked his wife to prepare some sweets at home which he would take as a gift to their house on rakhi. I use to send money for my sisters on rakhi in the past years but dont have much to give this time. My wife will prepare something that I will take along with me, said Verma, who worked as a waiter in a restaurant in Nagpur before Covid-19 pandemic hit. He lost his job and returned home on one of the Shramik special trains. He now helps his father on the farms. Like me there are many migrant workers who will meet their sisters after a long time on this festival, which has come as a brief glimmer in these gloomy times, said Verma. The May 25 death of George Floyd at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer presented a dilemma for Donald Trump. Shortly after Floyds death, Trump called it a grave tragedy. As protests spread across the country, the President appeared to be standing back, trying to decide how to play his cardswhether to take meaningful steps to address racial justice and police accountability, or whether to exploit the growing Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to his political advantage. We now know he chose the anti-BLM course. Quite frankly, his choice was already dictated by the cards he held in his hand. He had been elected with the strong support of a cadre of dedicated white extremists. These were the neo-Nazis and white supremacists at Charlottesville who he complimented as being very fine people. Facing a tight election contest, he could not risk losing this segment of his base. Trump tipped his hand the day after emerging from a protective lockdown in the bowels of the White House. On May 30, he proclaimed that the peaceful protesters would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, if they had gotten out of hand. Bull Connor, the Alabama segregationist who used attack dogs against civil rights demonstrators in the 1960s, would have approved. Since then, Trump has been seeking opportunities to graphically portray his anti-BLM campaign message. On June 1st, Trump had peaceful demonstrators forcibly ejected from a park near the White House by a rough and tumble collection of unmarked Feds, wielding batons and firing chemical agents. The sole purpose of the fiasco was to make a campaign photo-op of Trump brandishing a Holy Bible in front of a church. The publicity stunt backfired badly, but he was not deterred. Trump next sent a collection of federal paramilitary forces to Portland to quell largely peaceful protests. He almost waited too long for this gambit because the Portland demonstrations had pretty much run their course by the time the Feds arrived to save the day. Those forces include border agents who cut their teeth manhandling asylum seekers on the border and who are admittedly untrained in dealing with U.S. citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. The flagging protests immediately reignited, causing thousands to turn out in place of the previous dozens. The protesters cause morphed somewhat from racial justice concerns to protesting heavy-handed, unwanted federal intervention into local policing, a matter left to the states under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Adding to the fire was the illegal detention of demonstrators and the copious use of nightsticks, tear gas and pepper spray against predominantly peaceful protesters. Groups of mothers and American military veterans have joined to protest the Feds violations of the Constitutional rights of the demonstrators. Trump has gotten what he wanteda small slice of Portland in the throes of the turmoil provoked by the federal agents, which has been given practically non-stop airtime on Fox News. It was a wonderful photo-op for Trumps campaign effort and appears to be slated for reproduction in other U.S. cities with Democrat mayors. It is not certain how the electoral optics will eventually play out, because America was born in protest and its citizens dont generally take lightly to ham-handed federal efforts to tamp down their Constitutional rights. Jim Jones served as an artillery officer in Vietnam (July 68-August 69). He has written about that experience and its effect on his life in VietnamCant get you out of my mind. The book relies heavily upon news clippings from Stars and Stripes. Jones is an Eden native and former Idaho Attorney General and former Idaho Supreme Court Chief Justice. His previous opinion work can be found at JJCommontater.com. Love 4 Funny 5 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 WASHINGTON President Donald Trump, lagging in the polls and grappling with deepening economic and public health crises, on Thursday floated the startling idea of delaying the Nov. 3 presidential election. The notion drew immediate pushback from Democrats and Republicans alike in a nation that has held itself up as a beacon to the world for its history of peaceful transfer of power. In Connecticut, Democrats reacted angrily and the Republican state chairman downplayed the idea as a radical concept. Trump suggested the delay as he pushed unsubstantiated allegations that increased mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic would result in fraud. But shifting Election Day is virtually impossible and the very idea represented another bracing attempt by Trump to undermine confidence in the American political system. The date of the presidential election the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in every fourth year is enshrined in federal law and would require an act of Congress to change. Top Republicans in Congress quickly rebuffed Trumps suggestion. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the election date is set in stone and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said the election should go forward as planned. Regardless, the Constitution makes no provisions for a delay in the end of Trump's term noon on Jan. 20, 2021. With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history, Trump tweeted Thursday. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? In a press briefing Thursday evening, he doubled down on the idea, speaking at length about how he thought states decisions to mail ballots to voters would result in fraud. He claimed it might takes weeks, months or years to get the final results. Do I want to see a date change? No, he said. But I dont want to see a crooked election. In fact, only five states conduct elections entirely by mail, although more states expect to rely more heavily on mail-in ballots in November because of the virus outbreak. Connecticuts Secretary of the State Denise Merrill has sent applications for absentee ballots to every registered Republican and Democrat in the state for the upcoming party primaries, and a bill passed during the recent legislative special session that Gov. Ned Lamont said he will sign, will allow voters who are afraid of going to the polls because of the coronavirus to use mail-in ballots for the November general election. Lamont, asked about Trumps tweet during his daily news briefing, said Were ready. The states are ready, and it is a really lousy idea. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, in a statement, said the presidents tweet was an indicator that the Trump realizes hes in danger of losing re-election. Facing dismal polling, Trump now threatens the unthinkableto postpone the election, Tong said in a statement. This blatantly unlawful threat is clearly in violation of the U.S. Constitution, and the fact that we are even discussing the legality of this rant is a glaring threat to our democracy. The Constitution empowers Congress to set election timing. There is no emergency power that allows the president to delay the election or block the transfer of power. It is the states duty to hold the election, seat electors, and certify our results to Congress. Connecticut will hold its election and perform its duty to elect a President. Merrill, the states top election official, tweeted a one-word response to Trump: No. But J.R. Romano, GOP state chairman who plans to fly to Charlotte, N.C. next month for the truncated Republican National Convention activities, said Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont changed the states primary elections twice during the coronavirus pandemic, finally settling on August 11. We've moved elections here in Connecticut, because of COVID, Romano said. There are states that are not prepared for the chain of custody needed to keep track of ballots. The idea is it's simply about fraud. Most of the mail-in states have infrastructure that has been in place for 10 years. He pointed to last year's absentee-ballot scandal in Bridgeport's Democratic mayoral primary that is still under investigation by the State Elections Enforcement Commission. I'm not opposed to mail-in balloting, he said. Voting in a presidential election is literally the most-important thing a citizen can do, Romano said. Romano noted eight recounts in the 2018 legislative races, and that 28 races were decided by less than 1 percent of the vote. These margins are tiny, and 10 or 15 votes could result in a shift of the entire General Assembly. What if a ballot box [outside city and town halls to collect ballots] is destroyed, would President Trump be right? Trump charged after winning the 2016 election that millions of votes were illegally cast for his opponent, former Secetary of State Hillary Clinton. No evidence of such wrongdoing has emerged. Trumps comments came on a day when the Commerce Department reported the nations economy shrank at an annual rate of 32.9 percent in the spring quarter, an all-time record, due to the coronavirus shutdown. Nancy DiNardo, chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, blasted Trump. Its bad enough that Donald Trump would advocate for subverting a national election on the day that America is eulogizing John Lewis, one of the greatest advocates of voting rights, DiNardo said in a statement. Its unconscionable that he continues to use his position as President of the United States to undermine confidence in our most basic right: voting. So, very simply, no." DiNardo, in response to Romano, said that primary dates differ at all levels of government and those dates can change by legislative or municipal action. In fact, Lamont used his executive power in the public health emergency to move the dates of Connecticuts primaries. J.R. knows the difference between that and Election Day, DiNardo continued. Even Mitch McConnell rejects the idea of a delay. The Connecticut Republicans fealty to Donald Trump seems to know no bounds. With just over three months until Election Day, Trump trails in the polls nationally and across battleground states, and some surveys even suggest traditionally Republican-leaning states could be in play. While Trump has come back before after trailing consistently in the polls throughout 2016, the survey data has raised the possibility that he could face a landslide loss if he doesnt turn things around. Trump has increasingly sought to cast doubt on Novembers election and the expected pandemic-induced surge in mail-in and absentee voting. He has called remote voting options the biggest risk to his reelection. His campaign and the Republican Party have sued to combat the practice, which was once a significant advantage for the GOP. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud through mail-in voting and the states that use it exclusively say they have necessary safeguards in place to ensure that a hostile foreign actor doesnt disrupt the vote. Election security experts say that all forms of voter fraud are rare, including absentee balloting. Staff writer Ken Dixon contributed to this report and an Associated Press story is included. Description Wedding Salon of Manhasset in New York will be hosting an exclusive Ines Di Santo trunk show featuring styles from her Spring/Summer 2021 Bridal Collection on Friday, July 31st through Sunday, August 9th. By appointment only. Due to the current circumstances, there is a limitation on appointments to ensure everyone's safety. All appointments are limited to the bride and 2 guests. Masks required. To book, please call (516) 869-8455. Ines Di Santos designs capture the essence of sophisticated glamour. Using techniques that are often found only in Couture design, Ines plays to the feminine side of a womans beauty in both her bridal and evening collections. Be the first to try on these very special dresses that are here only for the trunk show. HOURS: Mon. Closed Tues. 12pm - 6pm (Aug. 4) Wed. 11am - 6pm (Aug. 5) Thurs. 12pm - 9pm (Aug. 6) Fri. 11am - 6pm (July 31 & Aug. 7) Sat. 10am - 6pm (Aug. 1 & Aug. 8) Sun. 12pm - 5pm (Aug. 2 & Aug. 9) Most of the team came from crime families. Peter David McEvoy was different. Far from growing up in the hard streets, he had lived in a peaceful cottage in the Botanic Gardens as his father, Stan, was chauffeur for governors Sir Dallas Brooks and Sir Rohan Delacombe. We met kings and queens, McEvoys brother Geoff remembers. Sir Rohan Delacombe being driven to the front of Government House in Melbourne on his last day in office in 1974. Credit:Bruce Postle He says they were regularly dropped at their private school in the governors Austin Princess limousine. Geoff says they played together because they werent allowed friends inside the governors grounds. Peter loved to play Cowboys and Indians in the gardens. That is, until he turned rotten. His decent, loving family tried to support him and then turned away, totally ashamed. Geoff became a policeman and then a prison officer when Peter was an inmate: He spent more time in Pentridge than I did. After police shot dead robbers Mark Militano (March 1987) and Frankie Valastro (June 1987), detectives were told the Flemington Crew had developed a so-called two for one pact. If police killed another of their associates, they would kill two cops. The intelligence was the gang would target members of the armed robbery squad, following them from the crime department to their private homes. No one thought it would be a random attack. On October 11, three carloads of armed robbery detectives planned to arrest Jensen, the prime suspect in the murder of security guard Dominik Hefti, who was shot dead during an armed robbery at Barkly Square, Brunswick. They considered storming Jensen's house in Narre Warren but rejected the idea because he was known to be armed. Instead they waited for him to leave, planning to surround him when he stopped. But there was a glitch. When he pulled up at the local shopping strip to buy a spark plug, the last unmarked police car that was to box him in arrived late and skidded through, leaving Jensen an escape route. He reversed out and was shot dead. A firearm was found in Jensens car and detectives at the scene said he was shot in self-defence. (Jensen was found not to be Heftis killer.) That night Peirce and McEvoy spoke on the phone and decided to launch the ambush. Abdallah was told to steal a car that was dumped as bait in Walsh Street. A police taskforce named Ty-Eyre after the two officers slain in Walsh Street was set up under the joint leadership of David Sprague and John Noonan. It was hamstrung from the beginning by a lack of computer facilities, micro-management from above, police outside of the taskforce taking unauthorised action and internal divisions. Eventually five men - Peirce, McEvoy, Farrell, Pettingill and teenager Jason Ryan - were charged. Ryan was indemnified to give evidence against the others. Two other suspects - Houghton (November 17, 1988) and Abdallah (April 9, 1989) - had been shot dead by police. Walsh Street witness Wendy Peirce said the police murders were carried out as as payback. Credit:Craig Abraham The star witness was Peirces wife Wendy, who made detailed statements to police and was placed in witness protection. But at the 1991 trial she flipped, refusing to give evidence. Many, including Noonan, wanted her to be declared a hostile witness and forced to testify. Instead the jury did not hear from her. She was later jailed for perjury. After a seven-week trail in 1991 the four men were acquitted. Years later, Wendy confessed to me she believed they were guilty. It was spur of the moment; we were on the run. Victor was the organiser. It was more Jedd and Macca [McEvoy] than the others. "Jedd was the trigger man; he had the shotgun. Macca took [Damian Eyres] handgun." Both police were shot with a shotgun. Eyre, seriously wounded, was then shot with his own gun. On acquittal McEvoy baited police at the court, yelling he wanted an inquiry: What do you think about that? 'Ill fix you; Ill fix you.' Is that what you said? Ill be waiting. Im not afraid to die. His enthusiasm for an inquiry dissolved quickly. He did jail time for stick-ups and then moved to New South Wales, occasionally surfacing to say he was not involved in Walsh Street. Peter David McEvoy, charged and acquitted of the Walsh Street police murders. Credit:Bruce Postle Behind the scenes he traded on the notoriety. A prison officer told me: On the day police served McEvoy with a copy of the brief of evidence, which contained a box of the evidence photos of the two slain members, McEvoy began to hold court inside the unit and distribute the evidence booklets to the gathered inmates. When McEvoy was quizzed by his audience about the shootings he just smiled. It was a smile that exuded pure evil and at that point, I knew he was as guilty as sin. When he was arrested in NSW in February 2010 he taunted police, saying: The sweetest thing I ever heard was the police officer's last words while he was dying. McEvoy also allegedly told the arresting police: I can't wait to put a shotgun to your head. Loaded up with a solid [shot] and watching your f---ing head get blown up. Claims that this was just an unfortunate lapse sounded hollow when it was revealed he had broken a mans collarbone with a baseball bat. Regardless, in 2012 the Coroners Court refused to reopen the inquest, saying those statements alone did not place McEvoy at the scene. Geoff McEvoy is a year older than his brother. He says Peter was a normal kid who, when jailed for 14 days as a teenager for driving whilst disqualified, came home saying: I will never go back there again. By the age of 20 he was part of a gang said to be responsible for the abduction, torture and sexual abuse of up to 24 girls mostly aged between 13 and 16. He was found guilty of two counts of rape and acquitted of several. While inside prison he started to associate with crooks, including Victor Peirce. It broke dads heart, says Geoff. Geoff McEvoy graduating from the Police Depot with his father Stan. While working in a maximum-security division at Pentridge he received a phone call from his brother. He said I hear you are giving a friend of mine a hard time. I told him it had nothing to do with him and he said just remember I know where you live'. If he wants to say he was not involved in Walsh Street, perhaps he shouldnt brag that he was. About 10 years ago the brothers exchanged angry texts. Geoff says Peter threatened: Youll be lying on the ground like the second Jack [policeman] we offed [killed] saying No, No, dont shoot. 'I am certainly convinced they did it': Geoff McEvoy today. If he is going to make those sort of comments to me then I am going to take them on board. I am certainly convinced they did it- 100 per cent. He says he took screenshots of the threats and gave them to NSW Police but they were destroyed in a flood of a storage area. Retired Inspector John Noonan has long thought there should be a new coronial inquest to establish the facts, though he believes the accused men ultimately suffered the consequences of their actions. Four of those alleged to have been involved are dead; Houghton and Abdallah were shot by police and Farrell died of natural causes. With Guilford County preparing to start school on Aug. 17 with nine weeks of online learning, the problem is more urgent, Contreras said. Republican state Sen. Deanna Ballard, co-chair of the N.C. Senate Education and Education Appropriations Committees, said at the news conference that rural counties have the lowest access to broadband internet, at 50% for some of the least-connected, while such urban counties as Wake have up to 90% of homes connected to broadband. Ballard added that as many as 10% of teachers dont have access to broadband, which hinders their ability to teach students in virtual classes. She said that not only do governments have an obligation to provide money for greater connectivity, but private internet service providers need to be more focused on building their systems to reach people who currently dont have service. Its just going to take everybody in there working together, Ballard said. Perdue said she hates to take a strictly bottom line approach to the problem, but as many as a third of students could lose a year of real academic progress during the pandemic partly because of poor virtual learning access, and that will hurt the economy. We are training the next generation of workers and we will poorly train them if one-third of them are left behind, she said. Contact Richard M. Barron at 336-373-7371 and follow @BarronBizNR on Twitter. Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), fellow journalists and rights groups called Thursday for Algerian authorities to release detained journalist Khaled Drareni. The head of the Casbah Tribune website and correspondent for RSF and French-language television channel TV5Monde, Drareni has become a symbol of the fight for press freedom in the North African country. He was arrested in March while covering an anti-government protest and accused of "inciting an unarmed gathering" and undermining the territorial integrity of the nation. His trial is expected to start on August 3. RSF says he could face 10 years in prison. "Khaled Drareni must be released, out of loyalty to the ideals of Algerian independence," RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire and Pierre Audin, the son of anti-colonial activist Maurice Audin, wrote in an opinion piece published in French daily Le Monde. Pierre Audin is also a member of an international support committee for Drareni whose creation RSF announced Thursday. The committee includes Algerian and foreign journalists, and groups including Human Rights Watch. "Algerian independence... for which the Algerian people fought hard, aimed to liberate the country from colonial domination based in particular on the control of information," Deloire and Audin wrote. "Remaining faithful to the fight for emancipation clearly presupposes respecting freedom of expression, in particular freedom of the press." Arrests of journalists have increased in recent months in the North African country. The latest were a correspondent and a cameraman who have worked with France 24 and were released Wednesday after being arrested a day earlier. Algeria ranks 146th on RSF's 180-country World Press Freedom Index. The Hong Kong government's decision to disqualify 12 opposition pro-democracy figures from running in elections has been internationally condemned. The strongest remark came from British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who said: "I condemn the decision to disqualify opposition candidates from standing in Hong Kong's Legislative Council elections." He said it was "clear they have been disqualified because of their political views", adding that "the Hong Kong authorities must uphold their commitments to the people of Hong Kong". The government decision, Raab said, undermined the integrity of "one country, two systems" principle - which stipulates China's relationship with Hong Kong - and the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and Hong Kong's Basic Law. In addition, lawmakers from more than a dozen countries issued a statement on what they called "the obstruction of the democratic process". "We urge the international community to meet this further diminution of Hong Kong's rights and freedoms with a proportionate response," said the group led by US Senator Marco Rubio and former British Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith. Reinhard Butikofer, the European Parliament member in charge of China, called on European Union leaders to impose sanctions on Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor. Chris Patten, former British governor of Hong Kong, called it "an outrageous political purge of Hong Kong's democrats". "The national security law is being used to disenfranchise the majority of Hong Kong's citizens," Patten said. "It is obviously now illegal to believe in democracy, although this was what Beijing promised in and after the Joint Declaration. This is the sort of behaviour that you would expect in a police state." Citing the city's national security law and the pan-democrats' previous calls for foreign governments to sanction Beijing and Hong Kong as key reasons, election officials on Thursday invalidated the candidacies of four incumbent lawmakers - the Civic Party's Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu, Dennis Kwok and Kwok Ka-ki, along with that of accountancy sector lawmaker Kenneth Leung. Story continues Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor attends a press conference at Central Government Offices (CGO) in Tamar to announce tightened measures in curbing COVID-19 from further spreading in the community. 19JUL20 SCMP / Edmond So alt=Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor attends a press conference at Central Government Offices (CGO) in Tamar to announce tightened measures in curbing COVID-19 from further spreading in the community. 19JUL20 SCMP / Edmond So The returning officers cited similar reasons, as well as the opposition hopefuls' pledge to vote down the government's budget and other proposals should it win its first-ever legislative majority, in barring four activists including Joshua Wong and four district councillors. Speaking on Thursday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the Hong Kong government to proceed with the election as planned on September 6. "The next big marker will be a set of elections scheduled for - goodness - a month and half from now on September 6th ... They must proceed on time. They must be held," Pompeo said on The Joe Pags Show, a radio programme. "The people of Hong Kong deserve to have their voice represented by the elected officials that they choose in those elections. "If they destroy that, if they take that down, it will be another marker that will simply prove that the Chinese Communist Party has now made Hong Kong just another communist-run city," Pompeo added. Several Hong Kong media outlets on Wednesday reported the government may delay the election for a year. There was no announcement on Thursday. While pro-Beijing lawmakers said the election should be delayed because of coronavirus, pan-democrats accuse them of usurping an election highly likely to result in the first ever majority for the opposition camp. Meanwhile, China's ambassador to London, Liu Xiaoming, accused the UK of having "poisoned the atmosphere" of its relations with China and said that it is putting the post-Brexit vision of "Global Britain" at risk by "decoupling" from Beijing. In a belligerent online press conference, Liu said the relationship between the two states was at "a historic political juncture" following recent disputes over Hong Kong and the role of tech firm Huawei in the UK's 5G network. He warned that London would "pay the price" if it treated China as a hostile state. "Does it see China as an opportunity and partner or a threat ... as a friendly country or a hostile or potentially hostile state?" Liu said. Additional reporting by POLITICO 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. A woman says she was forced to sleep rough in Amsterdam for two nights last weekend after her travel agent allegedly cancelled a hotel booking without telling her. Zea Hudson, 26, turned up at her hotel in the city but was turned away after hotel clerks said the travel agent had cancelled their booking a week earlier. Ms Hudson and her boyfriend, 42, booked their flights and accommodation through Loveholidays in February for 1,600. She said she couldn't find another cheap booking so ended up cowering under a thin jumper under an underpass. Zea Hudson, 26, said she was forced to sleep rough for two nights in Amsterdam after hotel clerks told them Loveholidays had cancelled their booking a week earlier Ms Hudson, who spoke about her experience on TikTok where she has 16,000 followers, said she slept rough until they found somewhere else to stay and barely slept during the 48 hours. The couple flew with EasyJet from Gatwick on July 24 and took the tram into the city before walking to the Corendon City Hotel Amsterdam, where they were due to stay. The only rooms left were going for the price of 800 per person for the four days and the couple had just 500 spending money. They carried their suitcases in the pouring rain but all other nearby hotels were either fully booked or out of their price range. Ms Hudson, of Worthing, West Sussex, had recently been made redundant from her part-time job as a breakfast and after school club assistant and her boyfriend is on furlough. She and her boyfriend, 42, flew with EasyJet from Gatwick on July 24 and took the tram into the city before walking to the Corendon City Hotel Amsterdam, where they were due to stay They found a good deal for both of them to stay at a Best Western hotel on Sunday and Monday last week for 400. Ms Hudson said: 'I felt really vulnerable. I was completely terrified. You feel like you are constantly looking over your shoulder. 'And with coronavirus about, I said to my partner: "Are we going to catch something?" 'We had masks on and were trying to stay clean but how can you? We were on the streets around all sorts of germs.' She added: 'You cant sleep rough in the city centre so we found this tunnel - I think it was under a metro line - and went under there because from when we arrived it was absolutely soaking. 'It was so scary. It was getting really dark and I was getting anxious because you dont know when youre in a different country what type of people are about. 'Amsterdam has a Red Light District so you dont know what type of men are about. 'I was absolutely freezing and wet and didnt get much sleep at all - it was a really stressful situation. 'Im really glad I had my partner with me because I wouldnt have been able to do it on my own.' Ms Hudson suffers from endometriosis, asthma, arthritis and hip dysplasia, all of which made the experience of sleeping rough in the freezing rain especially uncomfortable. She said she caught a cold while sleeping on the concrete floor, using her suitcase for a pillow, and has since been having acute asthma attacks. Ms Hudson said she suffers from endometriosis, asthma, arthritis and hip dysplasia which made the experience of sleeping rough in the rain especially uncomfortable Ms Hudson added: 'A lot of people kept walking through the underpass and you dont expect that when it is really late, it makes you feel really uncomfortable. 'You would hear weird animal noises in the night and that was frightening.' She was exhausted and coming down with a cold by the time they checked in to the Best Western on Sunday. She plans to get tested for Covid-19 if her symptoms persist. Ms Hudson, who's also a first-year student reading music business management at Greater Brighton Metropolitan College, said she's had 'no reply whatsoever' from Loveholidays and wants a refund and apology. She said she's sent them four messages, phoned them 30 times and contacted them through their online Facebook chat. She added: 'Im really worried it will happen to other people. 'I feel really angry and also disappointed because when you book a holiday through someone you are putting your trust in them. 'And the fact they cant even get back to us is disgusting.' Ms Hudson said she has sent Loveholidays four messages, phoned them 30 times and contacted them through their online Facebook chat The company said it has since been in contact with Zea to apologise and are providing her with a refund. Loveholidays said: 'We are very sorry to hear about the experience of Zea. On 13 July, Loveholidays was incorrectly informed through official flight data that the flight Zea had been due to take had been cancelled. 'We contacted Zea immediately to inform her of this and provided her with options regarding her cancelled booking. 'These would have been visible on the Manage My Booking portal on our website, which as an online travel agency, is how our customers book and manage their holidays with us. 'We were unaware that Zea travelled as we were operating on the basis that the holiday had been cancelled, as official flight data had confirmed the cancellation of the flight, which had been communicated to Zea. 'We are now aware that Zea attempted to contact us but was not able to do so, as an incorrect number was being used. 'Our customer service team has since been in contact with Zea to apologise and we have been pleased to provide her with a refund.' Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) Wearing of face shields in public is highly encouraged, but not yet required for now, government officials clarified on Friday. During President Rodrigo Duterte's taped address to the nation that aired on Friday, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said wearing of face shields will be the fourth minimum health standard that forms part of "conditionalities" in keeping Metro Manila and Calabarzon under general community quarantine despite rising COVID-19 cases. "Ito ang hugas kamay, suot ng mask, at social distancing. At pagsuot na rin po ng face shield," he said. [Translation: The new minimum health standard is washing of hands, wearing of face masks, social distancing, and wearing of face shield.] However, the resolution of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases detailing the new announcements did not mention the use of face shields. When sought for clarification, Roque said he merely "recommended" it. Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez also said it is not mandatory, but it may soon be one of the guidelines of the IATF. He said using face shields on top of masks will increase protection up to over 90 percent as coronavirus is spread through respiratory droplets. "Hindi pa po 'yan nire-require ngayon pero baka in the future ay ma-require na natin kung kakailanganin pa natin ng extra protection. Sa ngayon po we will just encourage ang pagsusuot ng face shield. Umpisahan na natin," Lopez said in a separate briefing. [Translation: It is not required for now, but in the future, we may require it if there is a need to increase protection. For now, we encourage it. Let's start using it.] To date, the coronavirus disease has hit more than 89,000 people in the country. Of this number, some 22,000 are active cases or currently ill patients, after around 65,000 recovered and nearly 2,000 died. New Delhi: Eight years ago on November 26, 2008, Mumbai was attacked by LeT terrorists from Pakistan who took 168 lives and wounded more than 300 people. It left a deep scar in the hearts Mumbaikars (people of Mumbai) and the whole nation was in the state of shock. Mumbai is called city of dreams and presence of Bollywood adds glamour to its way of life. Bollywood celebrities have their own memories and stories during the terror attacks in the city. But some of them are marked with controversies. Here we look at some of those controversies which occurred in the aftermath of Mumbai terror attacks. Ram Gopal Varmas visit to Taj Hotel post- terror attack: Perhaps one of the most talented and innovative film director in India, Ram Gopal Varma visited Taj hotel after Mumbai terror attacks along with actor Riteish Deshmukh, son of Vilasrao Deshmukh who was Chief Minister of Maharashtra when Mumbai terror attack took place. ALSO READ: (26/11 Mumbai attacks anniversary: The supreme sacrifice of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan which nation can never forget) Varmas visit was criticized for being insensitive towards the people of Mumbai. There were allegations on the director that his visit was facilitated by Vilasrao Deshmukh and the speculation of casting Riteish Deshmukh in one of his upcoming movie based on terror attacks in Mumbai. Varma denied all the allegations and said that the sole purpose of his visit was nothing but his curiosity to witness a scene of an unprecedented happening. Riteish himself did not know that anybody would read meanings into this act and his father Vilasrao did not even know that he was in the group of members visiting Taj hotel. In 2012 Varma also apologized regarding his visit to Taj hotel. Rahul Bhatt and David Headley: Rahul Bhatt is an Indian fitness trainer and an aspiring film actor he is the son of famous film director Mahesh Bhatt and Kiran Bhatt. In September 2008, Rahul Bhatt and friend Vilas Varak met David Headley at a Mumbai gym. After the 26/11 attacks, Headley wrote Rahul an email in which he said he would soon be visiting them again. Headley claims to have warned Bhatt not to visit South Mumbai area on November 26, the day the Mumbai attacks started. Rahul Bhatt has denied all the allegations made against him. David Coleman Headley is an American terrorist of Pakistani origin, and a spy who conspired with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in plotting the 2008 Mumbai attacks. It has been alleged that Headley made periodic trips to Pakistan for LeT training. Under the direction of Lashkar chiefs, Headley performed five spying missions in Mumbai to scout targets for the attacks, which killed 168 people. ALSO READ: (26/11 Mumbai Terror Attack Anniversary: How celluloid portrayed the mayhem) Death of celebritys relative: Bollywood actor Ashish Chowdhury's sister, Monica Chhabaria, and her husband also were killed during the terror attack at the Oberoi. The actor waited outside the hotel for word of his sister, who he said had stopped answering phone calls after the siege began. Salman Khan's statement: In an interview to Pakistani channel Express TV, Salman had said: "Too much hype has been created around the 26/11 attacks because elite people were targetted. Attacks have happened in trains and small towns too, but no one talked about it so much." This was met with strong criticism and Salman apologized for his statement. Later on, speaking to an Indian TV channel, Salman said: "The interview has been twisted. I saw it myself, the way it is coming across on TV, it is sounding insensitive. I was just saying life is equal for both rich and poor, some attacks get more media coverage and some don't. Why is that? Every human life is important." READ FULL COVERAGE: 26/11 MUMBAI TERROR ATTACKS For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA) President, George Tsereteli, expressed deep concerns about recent reports of ceasefire violations in Donetsk region right after the agreement of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) regarding additional measures to strengthen the ceasefire as of 27 July 2020. The press service of the OSCE PA said in a press release published on Friday that President Tsereteli underlined the importance of maintenance of cessation of military actions and urged sides to respect ceasefire orders and to fulfill their commitments foreseen by the Minsk Agreements. "The ceasefire agreement achieved during the meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group was a significant step toward the implementation of the Minsk agreements. Sustainable political solution of the conflict in eastern Ukraine should be based first and foremost on the end of armed clashes. For the people in conflict zones, who are most affected by military operations, this long-awaited silence was a signal of hope for an end of their suffering in sight," the OSCE PA President said. Expressing his regret over the escalation of the situation in Eastern Ukraine and violation of ceasefire agreements, as reported by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, President Tsereteli called for the sides to refrain from provocative actions and respect international commitments. "I am very disappointed that ceasefire support measures were violated so quickly. Comprehensive settlement can be achieved only through mutual trust in agreements. Disrespect to the ceasefire commitments puts future negotiations and conflict resolution efforts at risk. All words stated by conflict sides should match their actions. I encourage conflict sides to immediately stop ceasefire violations and stay dedicated to their obligations," he said. At the same time President also highlighted the efforts taken in the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group stressing out that "only results-oriented diplomatic dialogue based on political will to implement Minsk Agreements can put an end to the conflict." The Bombay high court has directed Mumbai police to depute two police constables at a society in Mahim till August 2 to curb any act of slaughtering during the Bakri Eid festival that will be observed on August 1 and 2. The petitioner society approached the court seeking a restraint on members from slaughtering animals on the premise in light of previous high court orders that ban slaughtering of animals outside the abattoir at Deonar or any other place designated by the BMC during the festival. After the BMC informed the court that it had not issued any permission to the members, the court directed the police to depute constables. A division bench of justice R D Dhanuka and justice V G Bisht while hearing a petition filed by Lingam Battula and other members of Unnati Cooperative Housing Society at Mahim (W) was informed by advocates Siddh Vidya and Ashish Verma that despite high court orders restricting slaughtering of animals in private properties, the society had an apprehension that some members may carry out slaughtering on the occasion of Bakri Eid. Vidya informed the court that as the festival was observed over a period of three days the court should direct the authorities to restrict slaughtering of animals in the society on all three days. The advocates also sought similar orders for the entire city. On its part senior counsel, Anil Sakhare for the BMC informed the court that the civic body which is responsible for issuing licenses for the slaughtering of animals on festive occasions had not issued any license to any of the society members. Following an order by a previous bench of the HC in 2017, the BMC had made it mandatory for devotees to secure a license before undertaking to slaughter of sacrificial animals. The order was further beefed up by another bench in 2019 wherein slaughtering in homes and private properties were restricted due to health and hygiene issues. The bench had directed that slaughtering of sacrificial animals could take place only in the Deonar abattoir but after it was informed that such an arrangement would lead to chaos, it had directed the BMC to identify areas in each ward where slaughtering could take place under the supervision of civic officials. After hearing the submissions, the court directed the Mumbai police to depute two constables at the society during the duration of the festival to ensure that the members do not violate court orders. The bench, however, refused to pass orders on the prayer seeking a blanket order for the entire city and directed the petitioners to resort to appropriate proceedings in the form of public interest litigation for the same and disposed of the petition. By David Shepardson WASHINGTON, July 31 (Reuters) - Four U.S. Senate Democrats on Friday pressed new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy about complaints from Americans about slow delivery since he took office in June and whether service problems could hinder attempts to mail in 2020 election ballots during the pandemic. Gary Peters, top Democrat on the committee overseeing the Postal Service, along with Amy Klobuchar, Tom Carper and Charles Schumer sought answers about mail delivery under DeJoy, a top supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump who was also finance chair for the 2020 Republican National Convention. "Recent concerns raised by constituents and postal workers have brought to light questionable changes under your leadership now taking place in post offices and processing centers across the nation that may negatively impact mail delivery," the senators wrote DeJoy who took office in June. "It is essential that the Postal Service not slow down mail or in any way compromise service." The senators raised concerns that delaying mail deliveries could hinder attempts to mail in ballots for the 2020 election by Americans nervous about voting in person during a pandemic. Trump has repeatedly said he believes millions of mail-in ballots would cause problems. On July 20, senior House Democrats warned in a letter that "increases in mail delivery timing would impair the ability of ballots to be received and counted in a timely manner an unacceptable outcome for a free and fair election." The senators cited Postal Service documents that discussed limiting carrier trips from processing centers to deliver mail and eliminating overtime and other cost-cutting measures. A Postal Service spokesman said the agency "is taking immediate steps to increase operational efficiency by re-emphasizing existing plans that have been designed to provide prompt and reliable service within current service standards." He added the "Postal Service is developing a business plan to ensure that we will be financially stable" that will be presented to the Board of Governors when it is finalized. The Postal Service has faced financial woes with the rise of email and social media, and a measure passed in 2006 requiring it to prefund 75 years of retiree health benefits over the span of 10 years at a cost of more than $100 billion. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by David Gregorio) Protesters gather Saturday at the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse in Portland, Ore. (AFP / Getty Images) To the editor: Nicholas Goldberg makes an excellent point. While many of us support peaceful protest and Black Lives Matter demonstrations, the destruction of government buildings and especially the small businesses of decent, hardworking people is not acceptable. ("How the nightly clashes on American streets benefit Trump," Opinion, July 28) Plus, it seriously detracts from the message. God forbid this presidency gets another four years based on the average citizens' disgust with what has gone on unabated. This violence has to stop, and it's a shame that President Trump sends in his thugs to stop it. Whether it exacerbates the problem or not, I'm not sure. But it does seem as if the mayors and governors are being held hostage by this violent, lawless element, which is obviously not interested in furthering the cause of Black Lives Matter. Thank you, Mr. Goldberg. May your message ring loud and clear. Denise Brink, Newport Beach .. To the editor: The man who says he stands for "law and order" has defied and broken more laws and rules than anyone I know. The worst of his transgressions is sending storm troopers to Portland. Where are the lawyers when we need them? What are judges thinking when they allow federal police to invade our cities? The Constitution has parameters regarding the use of federal police forces, which basically is to protect federal property. It's obvious the unidentified, secret police in Portland have overstepped that boundary. Yet the judicial system is allowing these forces to continue to incite riots, based on technicalities. This is fascism, and our legal system is not alarmed. I am terrified of what this means for our democracy, and I am not alone. So, I challenge lawyers to use their best skills and file lawsuits. Then we need to challenge the judges to look at the bigger picture of this situation. Marlene Bronson, Los Angeles .. To the editor: It's difficult to believe that more people are not stating clearly what Trump is doing in Portland. He is brazenly using Gestapo tactics, developed in Nazi Germany, in an attempt to terrorize Americans into yielding to him. Story continues Why haven't the L.A. Times, other media and other prominent voices used the word "Gestapo"? We all know this is what he is doing. Is it so awful that we can't believe it and bring ourselves to say what is happening? Trump has crossed the line, and we should let him know we see it. Allan Baker, Morongo Valley On July 24, 2020, Teslas Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that a second US government stimulus package is not in the best interests of the people. Someone responded to Musk soon after, You know what wasnt in the best interest of people? The US government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there. Musk then wrote: We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it. Musk refers here to the coup against President Evo Morales Ayma, who was removed illegally from his office in November 2019. Morales had just won an election for a term that was to have begun in January 2020. Even if there was a challenge against that election, Morales term should rightfully have continued through November and December of 2019. Instead, the Bolivian military, at the behest of Bolivias far right and the United States government, threatened Morales; Morales went into exile in Mexico and is now in Argentina. At that time, the evidence of fraud was offered by the far right and by a preliminary report by the Organization of American States; only after Morales was removed from office was there grudging acknowledgement by the liberal media that there was in fact no evidence of fraud. It was too late for Bolivia, which has been condemned to a dangerous government that has suspended democracy in the country. Lithium Coup Over his 14 years in office, Morales fought to use the wealth of Bolivia for the Bolivian people, who saw after centuries of oppression remarkable advances in their basic needs. Literacy rates rose and hunger rates dropped. The use of Bolivias wealth to advance the interests of the people rather than North American multinational corporations was an abomination to the US embassy in La Paz, which had egged on the worst elements of the military and the far right to overthrow the government. This is just what happened in November 2019. Musks admission, however intemperate, is at least honest. His company Tesla has long wanted access at a low price to the large lithium deposits in Bolivia; lithium is a key ingredient for batteries. Earlier this year, Musk and his company revealed that they wanted to build a Tesla factory in Brazil, which would be supplied by lithium from Bolivia; when we wrote about that we called our report Elon Musk Is Acting Like a Neo-Conquistador for South Americas Lithium. Everything we wrote there is condensed in his new tweet: the arrogance toward the political life of other countries, and the greed toward resources that people like Musk think are their entitlement. Musk went on to delete his tweet. He then said, we get our lithium from Australia; this will not settle the issue, since eyebrows are being raised in Australia regarding the environmental damage from lithium mining. Suspension of Democracy After Morales was removed, an insignificant far-right politician named Jeanine Anez set aside the constitutional process and seized power. She showed the character of her politics when she signed a presidential decree on November 15, 2019, that gave the military the right to do whatever it wanted; even her allies found this to be too far and repealed it on November 28. Arrests and intimidation of activists from the Movement for Socialism (MAS) the party of Morales began in November 2019 and still continue. On July 7, 2020, seven US senators published a statement that said, We are increasingly concerned by the growing number of human rights violations and curtailments of civil liberties by the interim government of Bolivia. Without a change in course by the interim government, the senators wrote, we fear that basic civil rights in Bolivia will be further eroded and the legitimacy of the crucial upcoming elections will be put at risk. Theres no need to worry about that, since the government of Anez seems unwilling to hold an election. By all polls, Anez looks likely to be defeated in the general elections. A recent poll by El Centro Estrategico Latinoamericano de Geopolitica (CELAG) says that Anez will get a mere 13.3 per cent, far behind the Movement for Socialisms Luis Arce (41.9 per cent) and the center rights Carlos Mesa (26.8 per cent). The election was supposed to have taken place in May, but it was rescheduled for September 6; it has now been postponed once more, this time to October 18. Bolivia would not have had an elected government for an entire year. Luis Arce of MAS recently told Oliver Vargas, We face persecution, we face surveillance we are facing a very difficult campaign. But, he said, we are sure that we will win these elections. If elections are permitted. The CELAG study shows that 9 out of 10 Bolivians have seen their incomes decline due to the coronavirus recession. Because of this and of the attack by this government on the MAS 65.2 per cent of Bolivians have a negative appraisal of Anez. It is important to note that due to the positive policies of Morales MAS, there is widespread support for a socialist orientation; 64.1 per cent of Bolivians support taxes against the rich, and Bolivians in general support the resource socialism of the MAS and Morales. CoronaShock and Bolivia The government of Anez has been utterly incompetent regarding the coronavirus. The number of confirmedcases of COVID-19 in this country of 11 million people is 66,456; since testing is low, the number is likely much higher. Musk returns to our story. Earlier this year, on March 31, Bolivias Foreign Minister Karen Longaric wrote an obsequious letter to Musk asking him about the offer of cooperation posted by you regarding ventilators ready to be dispatched to countries where they are needed the most. Longaric said, If it is not possible to send it to Bolivia, we can arrange its receipt in Miami, FL. and transport them from there as quickly as possible. No such ventilators came. Instead, the government bought ventilators from a Spanish supplier for $27,000 for each of the 170 devices; Bolivian producers had said they could supply ventilators for $1,000 per unit. The health minister in the Anez government Marcelo Navajas was arrested for this scandal. Morales Evo Morales read Musks tweet about the coup in Bolivia and responded: Elon Musk, the owner of the largest electric car company, says about the coup in Bolivia: We will coup whoever we want. Another proof that the coup was about Bolivian lithium; at the cost of two massacres. We will always defend our resources! The reference to the massacres is important. In November, from Mexico City, Morales watched as the government of Anez let loose the dogs of war against the people of Bolivia from Cochabamba to El Alto. They are killing my brothers and sisters, Morales said at a press conference. This is the kind of thing the old military dictatorships used to do. It is the toxic character of the government of Anez, backed fully by the US government and Elon Musk. Protests across Bolivia began on July 27 for the restoration of democracy. * Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. This article was produced by Globetrotter , a project of the Independent Media Institute . This week has seen a number of worrying headlines from countries initially viewed as major pandemic success stories. Why it matters: After enormous sacrifices made to prevent or contain widespread outbreaks, countries are grappling with the challenge of preserving that success without daily life, and the economy, grinding to a halt once again. Australia recorded its highest daily death toll, 13, on Thursday. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a new lockdown in the state of Victoria which recorded 723 new cases today wasn't working as well as hoped, and he acknowledged a virus Australia had nearly stamped out will be around "for some time." recorded its highest daily death toll, 13, on Thursday. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a new lockdown in the state of Victoria which recorded 723 new cases today wasn't working as well as hoped, and he acknowledged a virus Australia had nearly stamped out will be around "for some time." Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam issued a more dire warning the city is "on the verge of a large-scale community outbreak" that could cause its hospital system to "collapse." Hong Kong is recording upwards of 100 new cases each day. leader Carrie Lam issued a more dire warning the city is "on the verge of a large-scale community outbreak" that could cause its hospital system to "collapse." Hong Kong is recording upwards of 100 new cases each day. Vietnam had eliminated community transmission altogether for 99 days, and it has still yet to record a single death, but it's seen 39 new cases over the last three days. The government is tightening border controls and ramping up contact tracing. had eliminated community transmission altogether for 99 days, and it has still yet to record a single death, but it's seen 39 new cases over the last three days. The government is tightening border controls and ramping up contact tracing. Japan is recording many more cases now than during its first wave in March and April. The government finds itself in the awkward position of urging caution to limit the spread while promoting domestic travel to boost the economy. Germany has been a model for the rest of Europe, but the head of the national public health agency now says Germans have become "negligent," causing a rise in cases. Spain and Belgium, which were both hit very hard but turned a corner after imposing strict lockdowns in the spring, are now recording case levels not seen since May. which were both hit very hard but turned a corner after imposing strict lockdowns in the spring, are now recording case levels not seen since May. Catalonia is back under curfew, with nearly 7,000 cases recorded there just last week. is back under curfew, with nearly 7,000 cases recorded there just last week. Belgium has halted its reopening process and imposed new local restrictions in Antwerp. Our aim is clear avoid another full lockdown, Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes said. Among the factors blamed by leaders and public health experts are the abandonment of social distancing, particularly among younger people, the reopening of bars and the loosening of travel restrictions. What to watch: We are unlikely to re-enter a period in which most of the world is living under lockdown. Instead, we're seeing stalled reopening plans and targeted lockdowns, as countries hope the worst is behind them but prepare for the possibility it isn't. Go deeper: Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro says he tested negative for coronavirus Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 17:54:11|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close CANBERRA, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of workers from the Pacific are set to be allowed to enter Australia to help farmers harvest crops despite border closures. Under a pilot program to be given by the federal government, up to 200 workers from Vanuatu will be allowed to enter the Northern Territory (NT) to help harvest mangoes. It comes after farmers around Australia voiced concerns that their crops would rot without foreign workers on farms. Paul Kirby, the NT's Primary Industries Minister, said the plan has been "agreed upon and confirmed" by the government. There have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Vanuatu. "The federal government has committed to processing visas for seasonal workers from Vanuatu and allow them entry to Australia," Kirby told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday. "The exact number of workers entering the NT during the first intake is expected to be between 120 and 200, and we would hope for more after the initial pilot program," However, Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said there were still issues that remain "unresolved" and would need to be addressed before the pilot program can begin. Under the agreement, the workers will be required to quarantine for two weeks on arrival in Australia. The cost of the quarantine period will be covered by mango growers. The mango industry wants the workers to arrive in Australia by August 20, meaning that they would be on farms by early September. "We're hoping to bring in the first planeload early, so the workers can quarantine and be available for the earliest possible crop," said Leo Skliros, president of the Northern Territory Mango Industry Association. "But then the plan is to get every two weeks, possibly two planes at once, so we're quarantining 300 workers. "So it's not just that one pilot program, we hope this all goes well and it opens up the avenue to bring more workers in. We hope it could be a shortfall of 1,000 people we could bring in if required." Enditem Joyce Leven of Family Resources of Rhode Island and, at right, Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, help load boxes of fresh produce, meat and other staples for elderly and disabled tenants of Kennedy Manor. Aryan Khan case an attempt by BJP to move Bollywood out of Maharashtra: Malik How OTT filmmakers like Suravi Patnaik are driving the game away from Bollywood Amiee Misobbah slaying the elegant bride look in her latest music video with veteran Padmini Kolhapure Truth shall prevail: Rhea Chakraborty on allegations of Sushant Singh Rajput's family India pti-PTI Mumbai, July 31: Actor Rhea Chakraborty, who has been accused by Sushant Singh Rajput's family of abetting the actor's suicide, has broken her silence in the case, claiming "the truth shall prevail". Rhea Chakraborty breaks silence, releases emotional video message: Watch | Oneindia News Rajput, who was dating Chakraborty, was found dead at his Bandra residence on June 14. Over a month after the 34-year-old actor's death, his father lodged a police complaint in Patna on Tuesday against Chakraborty. Sushant Rajput death: Ball in SCs court as Bihar, Maharashtra police fight it out In a video statement released through her lawyers, Chakraborty said she had faith in the judiciary. "I have immense faith in god and the judiciary. I believe that I will get justice. Even though a lot of horrible things are being said about me on the electronic media, I refrain from commenting on the advice of my lawyers as the matter is sub-judice. Satyamev Jayate, the truth shall prevail," the actor said. In his complaint, Rajput's father Krishna Kumar Singh, also sought to invoke the provisions of the Mental Health Care Act, alleging that the "machinations" of Rhea and her family members had caused his son to crack up, despite a successful career in films, and ultimately drove him to suicide. Singh has accused Chakraborty of having befriended his son in May, 2019 with the intention of furthering her own career. The Mumbai Police is already investigating Rajput's death. On July 16, Chakraborty had requested Union Home Minister Amit Shah to order a CBI inquiry to understand what "pressures" prompted Sushant to take the extreme step of suicide. Addressing herself as Rajput's "girlfriend" for the first time in public, Chakraborty said though she has "complete faith" in the government, a CBI inquiry would help bring justice to the case. Sushant Singh Rajput death: ED files money laundering case, to summon Rhea, others soon "Respected @AmitShah sir, I'm Sushant Singh Rajput's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty. It is now over a month since his sudden demise. I have complete faith in the government, however in the interest of justice, I request you with folded hands to initiate a CBI enquiry into this matter," the 28-year-old actor wrote on Instagram alongside Rajput''s photo. "I only want to understand what pressures prompted Sushant to take this step. Yours sincerely, Rhea Chakraborty. #satyamevajayate," she added. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Friday postponed a Sept. 6 election to the Chinese-ruled city's legislature by a year because of a rise in coronavirus cases, dealing a blow to the pro-democracy opposition which had hoped to make huge gains. The decision came after 12 pro-democracy candidates were disqualified from running for perceived subversive intentions and opposition to a sweeping new security law imposed by Beijing, prompting questions among many about whether the pandemic was the real reason for the delay. "Postponing the September elections for a year is a cynical move to contain a political emergency, not a public health one," said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. "This simply allows Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam to deny Hong Kong people their right to choose their government." Avery Ng, secretary-general of the League of Social Democrats, was equally sceptical. "Obviously the Chinese Communist Party is using COVID-19 as a cover to stop Hong Kongers from voting against the government and democrats potential majority win," he told Reuters. "Together with the mass disqualification of candidates, the CCP ... only allows an election in which they can control the outcome to take place." The opposition had aimed to ride a wave of resentment over the national security law to win a majority in the Legislative Council, where half the seats are directly elected with the other half filled mostly by pro-Beijing appointees. Lam said she had to invoke an emergency law to make the postponement and no political considerations were involved. China's parliament would decide how to fill the legislative vacuum, she added. She told reporters the decision was aimed at safeguarding people's health. "We have 3 million voters going out in one day across Hong Kong, such flow of people would cause high risk of infection," Lam said. Hong Kong has reported more than 3,000 coronavirus cases since January, far lower than in other major cities around the world. But the number of new infections has been in the triple-digits for the past 10 days. Rival finance hub Singapore, which has had a larger coronavirus outbreak, held a general election in July. Many pro-democracy activists had suspected Lam would use the coronavirus to delay the election. The poll would have been the former British colony's first official vote since Beijing imposed the security law to tackle what China broadly defines as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, with punishment of up to life in prison. Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula guaranteeing freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland. Critics of the new law say it undermines that autonomy. The Chinese and Hong Kong governments say the law is necessary to preserve order and prosperity after months of often-violent anti-China protests last year. "I anticipated it, because of this year's social movements, we already anticipated that the government wouldnt give us the right to let us vote," said resident Janis Chow, 25. "Im disappointed but I was ready for it." 'Political Purge' News of the postponement came as the nomination period for candidates seeking to run in the election closed. Among the 12 opposition candidates disqualified was Joshua Wong, who rose to fame leading pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong as a teenager in 2012 and 2014. "Barring me from running ... would not stop our cause for democracy," said Wong, 23, Wong, who China calls a "black hand" of foreign forces, said his disqualification was "invalid and ridiculous" and the new law a "legal weapon used against dissidents". The government denies political censorship or suppression of the right to run for the legislature. Authorities also disqualified some members of the Civic Party, a moderate, old-guard opposition group, and others who won an unofficial "primary" vote held by the opposition camp this month. That independently organised vote saw a younger, more defiant generation of democrats taking over the helm of the opposition, but the Civic Party disqualifications signal Beijing is becoming less tolerant of even moderate voices. Britain said it was clear the candidates had been barred because of their political views. Hong Kong's last British governor, Chris Patten, called it an "outrageous political purge". China's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs office said in a statement that officials would be sent down to Hong Kong to conduct large-scale coronavirus tests "to help Hong Kong build a large-scale quarantine and treatment centre", again sparking concerns among some local residents, this time that China may use this as an excuse to collect DNA samples for surveillance purposes. Search Keywords: Short link: South Africa: SANParks welcomes relaxation of regulations The South African National Parks (SANParks) has welcomed the announcement by the Tourism Minister on the relaxation of travel and leisure regulations. "We appreciate that after four months of confinement, the public is keen to engage with nature. However, we are obligated to ensure that the opening of our national parks for accommodation is done under the strictest health protocols to safeguard both our staff and guests, said SANParks CEO Mketeni. Mketeni said SANParks is likely to implement some additional visitor management procedures to ease entry into the parks and further mitigate the risk of the spread of Coronavirus. He said in due course, SANParks will make further announcements regarding the opening dates of accommodation in individual parks as and when they are comfortable with their state of preparedness to welcome visitors back. We therefore beg your indulgence as the opening needs to be done in a responsible manner for the safety and enjoyment of all our guests, Mketeni said. As per the Ministers announcement, overnight accommodation is only permissible for residents of the various provinces that the respective National Parks are located in. Therefore guests will be required to provide proof of residence at the time of booking accommodation and again when checking in. Inter-provincial visitors will be prohibited entry into the parks. Tour operators will be allowed to conduct guided tours in open safari vehicles, subject to directives that are still to be communicated and gazetted. Self-drive guests are restricted to a 70% vehicle capacity, as per the Department of Transports regulations published on 2 April. Further details for overnight accommodation protocols will be available on www.sanparks.org. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Vice President of the Republic, H.E Dr Bawumia has yesterday, July 30 donated a fat male cow to the Council of Zongo Chiefs in Kumasi. The donation was done by one Awal Mohammed and Dr Audu Rauf who is the Registrar of Pharmacy Council of Ghana on behalf of the Vice President who was at a ceremony far away in Accra. The donation came a day before people of the Islam faith will observe their Eid D' Fitr and it is believed the bull will be slaughtered and shared among people in the community as always been the case. Receiving the donation on behalf of the Chiefs, the President of the Council said; over 14 years that he has been a Chief, it is the first time a President or Vice President donates bull to the Council to complement their celebration of annual festival. This year's Eid D'Fitr will be celebrated moderately for fear of coronavirus virus which has since changed the way of life of people and Muslims are no exception. Source: Pushkar Banakar By Express News Service NEW DELHI: in a veiled attack on Chinas debt diplomacy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday some nations were tricked into dependence partnerships in the guise of development partnerships, adding that Indias development cooperation does not come with any conditions. History has taught us that in the name of development partnerships, nations were forced into dependence partnerships. It gave rise to colonial and imperial rule. It also gave rise to global power blocks, Modi said at a virtual event during which he jointly inaugurated the Supreme Court building of Mauritius with Mauritian Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth. For India, the most fundamental principle in development cooperation is respecting our partners. This sharing of development lessons is our only motivation. That is why our development cooperation does not come with any conditions, Modi said. Chinas debt diplomacy involves striking favourable deals with countries that face huge debts which they cannot pay back. The prime example of such tactics is the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota, which is currently in Chinese hands as Colombo is unable to pay back its debt. MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said the SC building in Mauritius was an example of Indias ability to implement projects in various parts of the world. The new Supreme Court building provides state of the art facilities. It is a fully green building. The project has been completed on schedule and at a cost below the initial estimates, he said. Disengagement not complete, says MEA Rejecting Chinas claim on LAC disengagement, India said on Thursday it is still a work in progress. Theres been some progress but the disengagement process has as yet not been completed, said MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday restrained the Punjab police from arresting two doctors and sought a probe report in the alleged incident of preparing fake Covid-19 reports in Amritsar in June. The high court acted on the plea of Dr Robin Tuli and Dr Mohinder Singh, who had approached high court seeking anticipatory bail in the FIR registered on June 23 by Punjab vigilance bureau. The states counsel, GS Dhuriwala had told court that a medical board, constituted on June 18, is examining the matter. During the investigation, 72 cases were declared positive by Tuli Diagnostic Centre, Majithia Road, Amritsar, and cycle threshold values were handwritten on test requisition slips, the court was informed. It was further stated that no printout from machine was available for examination and no raw data or graph was present to know whether the figures given by the lab match those generated by the machine. On the other hand, appearing for doctors, senior advocate RS Rai had contended that the reports are in fact computer generated and there might be a noting on the side of computerised reports regarding Covid-19 Virus Qualitative PCR. The high court bench of justice Jaishree Thakur sought a report from the medical board in a sealed cover along with a photocopy of 72 positive reports purported to have been handwritten. Apart from these reports, if there is other evidence available against the petitioners, that too is to be submitted, the court said while fixing August 17 as the next date of hearing and staying the arrest of both the doctors. As per reports, these doctors in collusion with others allegedly prepared fake Covid-19 positive reports at their laboratory to fleece patients. The alleged racket had surfaced in June when at least four patients, reported to be Covid-19 positive at the accuseds lab, turned out to be negative for the disease after a retest at the lab in Government Medical College (GMC), Amritsar, the reports had claimed. On June 23, Punjab vigilance bureau registered a case against the owner of TDC, Dr Tuli, and others for attempt to murder, fraud, criminal conspiracy and corruption. New Delhi, July 31 : Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Friday chaired the 19th meeting of the Group of Ministers on the COVID-19 situation in the country. The meeting came at a time when India has logged over 16 lakh coronavirus cases and 35,000 deaths. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, "The GoM was apprised of the status of COVID-19 in the country and the concerted efforts taken for its effective management." External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Ashwini K. Choubey were also present at the meeting. Minister of State for Shipping Mansukh Mandviya and Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai were also part of the meeting. The last meeting was held on July 9. The average time to get results from a coronavirus test in Alabama has grown from two to three days to seven days in recent weeks as the state struggles with a surge of cases, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health. The long wait makes it difficult to treat and quarantine patients under investigation for coronavirus. Although the percentage of positive tests has started to decline, Alabama is still seeing high numbers of new cases and hospitalizations due to the virus. Officials from the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) said a number of factors have caused a backlog at laboratories that delays the reporting of test results. A nationwide surge in demand and shortage of testing materials have slowed the process. In some cases, unnecessary testing has contributed to the problem, according to the department. The current turnaround time for most COVID-19 testing performed in Alabama by commercial laboratories and the state laboratory is now averaging about seven days, according to the press release. The Alabama Department of Public Health recognizes that this is too long and asks for consumers and physicians and other providers to help in making sure that those who are most vulnerable become the focus for testing: the elderly, those in congregate living settings, healthcare personnel, those with symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and those with underlying medical conditions that place them most at risk. Employers should not require employees to test negative for COVID-19 before returning to work, according to ADPH and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People with symptoms of COVID-19 or known exposure to a positive case should quarantine for 14 days, even with a negative test result. The only exception includes symptomatic patients who have received another diagnosis and tested negative for COVID-19. Two activists were arrested during a protest aimed at shutting down eviction proceedings at the Jackson County courthouse in Kansas City, Missouri, a tenants rights group said Thursday. The protest, which took place in courtrooms, over teleconference calls and in a rally outside the courthouse, occurred nearly two months after an eviction moratorium put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic was lifted. (TNS) Acknowledging that body cameras are not a cure-all, members of the Community Relations Commission on Thursday recommended the city pursue acquiring them for the Rockford, Ill., Police Department.The commission found that some cities have seen decreases in excessive force complaints and improved interactions with police following introduction of body-worn cameras.But commissioners said success is far from guaranteed and depends heavily on how the cameras are used."This is not a panacea," Commission Chairman Todd Burton said. "It's not going to solve anything unless we do it right."Commissioners found that the success of body cameras has varied by city. The most important factor "appears to be the department's rules, policies, and training associated with implementation," the commission wrote in a review provided to Mayor Tom McNamara.McNamara formed the commission last year to advise the City Council on issues of racial equity, equal opportunity and fair housing.Activists here have demanded that police be equipped with body cameras, viewing them as a way to deter officers from using excessive force during arrests.McNamara said he supports their use and issued a request for information from companies that supply the body cameras while asking the commission for a review of how effective they are.Police Chief Dan O'Shea and the union representing officers believe cameras would show police acting professionally and have expressed support for them as well.Acquiring cameras could become a question of whether the city can afford them. Officials are considering responses to the city's request for information. Once that information is reviewed, it will be presented to the City Council along with the commission's findings, McNamara said.The benefits of "transparency" and "accountability" the cameras offer could outweigh the costs of purchasing them and maintaining the electronic infrastructure necessary to support them, McNamara said."It's true and undeniable we face major budget deficits due to COVID-19," McNamara said. "But the question really is: Can we afford not to do it? I think we need to prioritize body cameras in our budget as we did dash cams."The commission's review found body cameras in some cities:Reduce use of force.Reduce complaints from the public.Improve civility.Enhance police accountability, productivity and effectiveness.In addition, body cameras can raise policing standards and enhance perceptions of the police department, produce evidence for criminal prosecutions, help improve police officer training and identify departmental strengths and weaknesses, the commission's review found.However, commissioners also acknowledged that some studies have found little or no change in officer behavior, resident behavior or the public perception of police. How effective they are appears dependent on the rules governing them.They urged the city to adopt "clear policies and procedures on the use of cameras and to provide thorough officer training on how to use the technology." Celebrations may be in order for Forestar Group Inc. (NYSE:FOR) shareholders, with the analysts delivering a significant upgrade to their statutory estimates for the company. Consensus estimates suggest investors could expect greatly increased statutory revenues and earnings per share, with analysts modelling a real improvement in business performance. After this upgrade, Forestar Group's four analysts are now forecasting revenues of US$927m in 2021. This would be a notable 13% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to climb 17% to US$1.20. Before this latest update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$748m and earnings per share (EPS) of US$0.91 in 2021. So we can see there's been a pretty clear increase in analyst sentiment in recent times, with both revenues and earnings per share receiving a decent lift in the latest estimates. View our latest analysis for Forestar Group It will come as no surprise to learn that the analysts have increased their price target for Forestar Group 27% to US$20.60 on the back of these upgrades. There's another way to think about price targets though, and that's to look at the range of price targets put forward by analysts, because a wide range of estimates could suggest a diverse view on possible outcomes for the business. The most optimistic Forestar Group analyst has a price target of US$23.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$19.00. With such a narrow range of valuations, analysts apparently share similar views on what they think the business is worth. Looking at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can make sense of these forecasts is to see how they measure up against both past performance and industry growth estimates. It's pretty clear that there is an expectation that Forestar Group's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues next year expected to grow 13%, compared to a historical growth rate of 30% over the past five years. By way of comparison, the other companies in this industry with analyst coverage are forecast to grow their revenue at 9.3% next year. So it's pretty clear that, while Forestar Group's revenue growth is expected to slow, it's still expected to grow faster than the industry itself. Story continues The Bottom Line The most important thing to take away from this upgrade is that analysts upgraded their earnings per share estimates for next year, expecting improving business conditions. They also upgraded their revenue estimates for next year, and sales are expected to grow faster than the wider market. With a serious upgrade to expectations and a rising price target, it might be time to take another look at Forestar Group. Analysts are clearly in love with Forestar Group at the moment, but before diving in - you should be aware that we've identified some warning flags with the business, such as dilutive stock issuance over the past year. You can learn more, and discover the 3 other risks we've identified, for free on our platform here. Another way to search for interesting companies that could be reaching an inflection point is to track whether management are buying or selling, with our free list of growing companies that insiders are buying. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Representational Image The ground for the latest tussle between the Narendra Modi government and its detractors seem to be in the area of environmental laws. A draft of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA 2020) notification is open for public comments till August 11, after the Delhi High Court directed the government to grant further time. The problems with the draft notification are many: environmentalists lament that it dilutes an already weak framework for environmental protection. It reduces the rigour and number of regulatory oversights, it reclassifies industries so that they are not required to get environmental clearance, and reduces the time period for and scope of mandatory public hearings before clearances are accorded. For instance, mandatory public consultation has been waived off for several types of projects that greatly affect local communities, including building construction and area development projects, widening or expansion of highways, elevated road projects and flyovers, and inland waterways projects. Another set of projects have been exempted from obtaining prior environmental clearance altogether. Information relating to clearance for projects dubbed strategic (what is strategic is not defined) will not be put in the public domain. However, the most alarming of changes is the provision for regularisation of projects operating without environmental clearance. Clause 22 of the draft notification requires the project proponent to make a self-assessment of the ecological damage caused by its operations, as well as prepare a remediation plan. The violations, if condoned, will cost the proponent a mere 1.5 times the ecological damage caused, as well as the economic benefit derived, due to the violation. Or in other words, a post-facto clearance. This is a contentious issue with a chequered history. At least twice before, various governments have tried to usher in similar provisions. In 2002, a circular from the ministry of environment and forests granted a last and final opportunity for defaulting units to obtain ex-post facto environmental clearance, provided that they earmark a separate fund for eco-development measures. This was, however, struck down by the National Green Tribunal in 2016. In 2017, the environment ministry issued another notification which again provided for post-facto clearances, this time with a more stringent (at least on paper) vetting process by an Expert Appraisal Committee. This was challenged before the High Court at Madras, during the hearings of which the government stated that the benefit shall clearly and certainly be a one-time measure. Indeed, Paragraph 14 of that notification gave a six month window for project proponents to apply for such condonation. In these circumstances, the high court upheld the notification. Meanwhile, while hearing the appeal against the 2016 NGT order, the Supreme Court observed [Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd. vs Rohit Prajapati] that the concept of an ex-post facto EC is in derogation to the fundamental principles of environmental jurisprudence. Therefore, it most certainly follows that the latest notification is directly in violation of the law laid down by the Supreme Court, apart from being contradictory to its own explicit undertaking given to the high court. As it turned out, even as the Supreme Court ruled against the principle of ex-post facto clearances, it still allowed the three violators who were before it to continue operations, imposing a fine of Rs 10 crore each as compensation. This, then, is the big worry for environmentalists. Once operations are commenced, courts are much more reluctant to order closure, as has been seen in so many cases, even though it perhaps would have withheld approval to a similar project that was yet to commence. What the draft notification does is magnify this risk. It will incentivise the practice of setting up industries without any regard for environmental concerns knowing that any violation is highly likely to be condoned in due course. However, damage to the ecology is most often, irreversible. Interestingly, this is a theme that is being played out in several countries today. Just this month, United States President Donald Trump rolled back provisions of the countrys National Environmental Policy Act, reducing the number of industries that are subject to the Acts review requirements, and substantially curtailing the publics right to have a say in development of projects in their neighbourhoods. Brazil also regularly makes news for giving industrialists an almost free pass, and ignoring environmental concerns. Often environmental concerns are framed as a conflict between conservation and development. That is a false illusion. It is more often than not, a conflict between conservation and wilful violations. Regulation must dis-incentivise violations before they are committed, if development is to benefit the community at large. The draft EIA does the opposite. HARLEM, NY An NYPD school safety agent is facing weapons charges after police searched her Harlem home and found a cache of guns and ammunition, police said. Sofia Ramirez was arrested Thursday and charged with possession of a large capacity ammunition feeding device, police said. The misdemeanor charge bars New Yorkers from owning a bullet magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition, according to state laws. Ramirez's husband Jason Ramirez took the brunt of the charges, the New York Daily News reported. Jason Ramirez was charged with eight counts of illegal weapons possession and 27 counts of possession of a large capacity ammo device, according to the report. Facing pressure to cut funding from the NYPD, city lawmakers reached a deal to reallocate school safety enforcement from the police department to the city Department of Education in the city's 2021 budget. Many critics argued the moves only shifted policing duties from the NYPD to other city agencies, instead of reallocating funds to offset budget cuts caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This article originally appeared on the Harlem Patch Telemedicine, in which a doctors appointment happens over phone or video, could be the health care game changer to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. But a perfect marriage with offline services is needed to make the system work efficiently, say experts in the health care industry. Due to Covid-19, people have noticed that a lot of things could be done online. But health care is unique. There is still a large portion of services needed to be done offline, said Jeff Chen, chief innovation officer of Fullerton Healthcare Corporation. When we talk about online health care, we never talk about purely online health care. We are talking about how to leverage online services to make the whole health care service better. Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China. Fullerton is an online platform founded nine years ago in Singapore that provides health care facilities across nine markets in Asia-Pacific. Chen was speaking in a webinar on a new blueprint for health care systems, co-presented by the South China Morning Post and the Milken Institute Asia Centre on July 30. When there is more advanced hardware, the proportion of online services will increase, said Chen. Rearranging a consultation after seeing a doctor in person, seeking a second opinion, and getting referrals are all functions that can be efficiently delivered through telemedicine, he said. In May, his company launched a free Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled Covid-19 symptom checker and an in-app chat function that allows users to interact with Fullertons team members about their coronavirus-related concerns. The services were launched in Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. In the future, health care systems are expected to adjust the way they evaluate and care for patients, increasingly using methods that do not rely on in-person encounters. Digital health can play a role in providing the care patients need while minimising the transmission risk of infectious diseases like Covid-19, according to panellists on the webinar. Story continues Digital health is a good alternative during challenging times when a physical encounter is difficult or hazardous, said Dr Donald Li Kwok-tung, president of the World Organisation of Family Doctors, also a senior adviser to Ping An Good Doctor, a mainland Chinese online health care platform. Li said Ping An Good Doctor has been shifting from a family doctor concept to promoting prevention, early diagnosis, and continuous long-term care. Tycoon Li Ka-shing to donate another HK$101 million amid pandemic But we need back-up services with clinics. Online and offline cooperation is very important, he said. The importance of the online platform is that they are able to ensure all patients get access to health care, including those not related to Covid-19 cases, said Roberta Lipson, the chief executive of New Frontier Health, which owns United Family Healthcare (UFH), a private operator in China worth US$1.4 billion. Her company has extended online services to include free consultations during the Covid 19 pandemic. With data searches carried out by AI, consumers and patients can make better decisions about their health and the care they receive, and the costs will be brought down, said Grace Park, co-founder of DocDoc, a Singapore-based virtual network of physicians and hospitals helping patients to find medical care in Asia. China's healthcare sector was one of the best-performing equity classes globally in the first half of 2020. Get a comprehensive industry review and insights on Covid-19 induced market shifts with the China Healthcare Report, brought to you by SCMP Research. Sign up for our 50% early bird discount now. You will also receive access to 6 closed-door webinars led by China healthcares most influential C-suite executives. Offer Valid until August 10th 2020. More from South China Morning Post: This article Telemedicine is the big health care game changer to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, say experts first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2020. New York President Donald Trump repeatedly tests the Republican Partys limits on issues including race, trade and immigration. Now he has struck a boundary. GOP officials from New Hampshire to Mississippi to Iowa quickly pushed back against Trump's suggestion on Thursday that it might be necessary to delay the November election which he cannot do without congressional approval because of the unfounded threat of voter fraud. They reassured voters that the election would proceed on the constitutionally mandated day as it has for more than two centuries. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley was especially blunt: All I can say is, it doesnt matter what one individual in this country says. We still are a country based on the rule of law, and we want to follow the law. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu vowed his state would hold its November elections as scheduled: End of story. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who leads the House Republican Conference, said, The resistance to this idea among Republicans is overwhelming. The top Republicans in the House and Senate, who have spent the past four years championing Trump in Congress, also distanced themselves from the notion of a delayed election. It was a rare rebuke for Trump from his fellow Republicans but one that might not last. There was little conservative opposition to Trump's broader push to raise questions about the legitimacy of the Nov. 3 election, including his suggestion later Thursday that a delayed result because of mail-in ballots would be a sign of fraud. The simple reality remains that Republicans up and down the ballot this fall need Trump's fervent base on their side to have any chance of winning. The dynamic has forced Trump-backed politicians to walk a delicate balance as they condemn the president's most erratic behavior and ideas while trying not to upset his die-hard loyalists. At the same time, many Republican leaders are struggling under the weight of health, economic and social crises that the Trump administration has failed to contain. The government announced Thursday that the U.S. economy plunged by a record-shattering 32.9% annual rate last quarter as the pandemic forces a wave of layoffs that shows no sign of abating. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, in an interview with The Associated Press, said he feared a new wave of economic downturn as he grapples with pressure to institute a second stay-at-home order as coronavirus infections in his state surge. The first-term Republican governor said he would do everything possible to avoid another shutdown but could not rule out the possibility. Reeves encouraged Trump to embrace a reelection message focused on his ability to revive the nation's economy, a familiar suggestion from frustrated Republican officials, though the president has shown little interest in adopting a consistent message. Reeves said he opposes any plan to change the election date: I dont personally think a delay in the election at this point in time is necessary. But he said he remained 100% committed to doing everything possible to help Trump beat Democratic rival Joe Biden in November. I dont believe that the president is losing significant support from Republicans, Reeves said. Indeed, Trump confidant Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, said he would support Trumps call to delay the election until things are normal so people can walk in. If it takes a few more months, then so be it, Falwell said in an interview, raising the prospect of limiting the presidents powers if the delay extends beyond his first term. There have been a handful of moments that strained the GOP's allegiance to Trump since he emerged as his party's unlikely presidential nominee four years ago, yet his party has increasingly acquiesced to his turbulent leadership as his presidency progressed. Just weeks before the 2016 election, several elected officials, including then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, publicly turned their back on Trump after he was caught admitting sexual predatory behavior in an Access Hollywood video. Less than a year later, the Republican National Committee rebuked the president after he claimed there were very fine people on both sides of a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. And Republican leaders briefly raised concerns last year when Trump was caught pressuring Ukrainian leaders to investigate Biden an episode that would ultimately lead to his impeachment. There have been a series of lower-profile flashpoints over the last four years that prompted modest concerns from Republicans that were quickly forgotten, and the latest debate over the election date may soon fall into that category. Trump cannot change the election date without the approval of Congress, and policymakers in both parties made clear they would oppose such a move. Trump's ultimate goal, however, may have less to do with the election date than undermining the results of the election if he loses. Current polls suggest that Trump is trailing Biden by a significant margin in several swing states. The Republican president did not deny that he was trying to cast doubt about the election results when asked directly during Thursday's press briefing. Instead, he repeatedly cited the prospect of voter fraud, which is virtually nonexistent in U.S. politics. I dont want to delay. I want to have the election. But I also dont want to wait for three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing, and the election doesnt mean anything, Trump said, warning of the possibility of a crooked election. Back in New Hampshire, a swing state where Trump hosted a virtual event Thursday night, Sununu said the president's comments about the election date would not affect his continued support for Trump's reelection. Look, the president says things and tweets things all the time, the governor said. I dont know what his thought process is there. I can only speak for New Hampshire, and we have a great system. Source: khmertimeskh.com Senior Colonel Li Jingfeng Aug 1, 2020 is the 93rd anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army(PLA). Over the past 93 years, The PLA has overcome all obstacles, made great sacrifices and achieved brilliant victories one after another, making great contributions to national security and world peace. At present, guided by the Partys goal of strengthening the army under the new situation, the PLA is unswervingly taking the path of strengthening itself with Chinese characteristics, constantly fulfilling its mission of safeguarding peace as the army of a major power and marching forward courageously towards the goal of building a world-class army in all respects. The world today is undergoing major changes unseen in a century. Traditional and non-traditional security threats are intertwined and new challenges facing human society are constantly emerging. The Chinese military has always been committed to contributing to the maintenance of world peace and tranquility. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the PLAs participation in UN peacekeeping operations. So far it has dispatched more than 40,000 officers and soldiers to a total of 25 UN peacekeeping missions. They have built and repaired more than 15,000 kilometres (km) of roads and more than 300 bridges, cleared more than 10,000 pieces of landmines and other unexploded ordnance, transported more than 1.3 million tonnes of materials and equipment with a total length of more than 13 million km and treated more than 200,000 patients. This year also marks the 12th year of PLAs participation in the escort operation in the Gulf of Aden under the UN resolution. A total of 105 Chinese Navy escort vessels have been dispatched in 35 batches, which have successfully escorted more than 6,000 civilian ships. The PLA has demonstrated to the world that China is a responsible major power that loves peace and actively participates in UN affairs and is fulfilling its solemn commitment to safeguard regional and world peace. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on global health security. Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out: No country in the world can enjoy absolute security. When neighbours are in trouble, instead of tightening ones own fences, one should extend a helping hand to them. After the PLA quickly and successfully helped to win the pandemic prevention and control war in China, it immediately dispatched anti-COVID-19 medical experts to Cambodia and three other countries, provided materials to the militaries of 50 countries and held pandemic prevention experience exchange video conferences with the militaries of 17 countries. In this way the PLA has contributed Chinese strength to the international communitys fight against the pandemic. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1958, China-Cambodia friendship has been strong and especially in the 21st century, it has been constantly radiating with new vigour and vitality. Under the strategic guidance of the leaders of the two countries, all-round exchanges and cooperation between the two militaries in various fields have developed smoothly, setting an example for the world. The initial peacekeeping operations brought the Chinese military to Cambodia. From April 1992 to September 1993, China sent more than 800 engineering troops to Cambodia in two batches. This was the first time that China sent troops to participate in a UN peacekeeping mission. They overcame various difficulties, repairing more than 500km of roads, erecting 36 bridges, repairing two airports and building thousands of square metres of barracks. Among them, No. 4 and No. 6 highways, which had been severely damaged by the war, were repaired by Chinese troops and became the lifelines for delivering UN relief supplies and peacekeeping forces to various places in Cambodia. During this period, two Chinese peacekeeping soldiers died and gave their young lives for the cause of peace in Cambodia. People later built a monument for them and it is indeed a monument of Sino-Cambodian friendship. The latest joint fight against the pandemic has brought the relationship between the two militaries to a new level. Right after the pandemic outbreak in China, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen visited Beijing to express his firm support for China. Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense Tea Banh went to the Chinese embassy to donate anti-pandemic materials to the Chinese Ministry of National Defence.When the pandemic started in Cambodia, the PLA quickly sent an anti-COVID-19 expert team to Cambodia, the first Chinese military expert team going abroad. The PLA also dispatched military transport planes to provide urgently needed medical supplies to Cambodia in four times, the most in the PLAs foreign aid flights. The Chinese military experts inherited the spirit of internationalism that the Chinese young peacekeepers defended with their lives. The experts are the messengers of Sino-Cambodian friendship in the new era. They worked hard for two months in Cambodia and performed very well. In return, Samdech Tea Banh specially hosted a ceremony to give them honour medals and to bid them farewell. President Xi Jinping emphasised that mankind is a community with a shared future and solidarity and cooperation are the most powerful weapons for the international community to overcome the pandemic. The exchanges and cooperation between the PLA and the military of Cambodia and other countries are sincere. Their feelings are truthful and their mutual support is unconditional and wholehearted. In sharp contrast, some countries are practising egoism, unilateralism and bullying and are playing the blame game in order to divert domestic political pressure. In particular, to shift the spotlight, while criticised for their poor handling of the pandemic, some countries outside the region do not concentrate on saving their peoples lives at home, but try everything possible to stir up trouble in the South China Sea, driving wedges between regional countries and China and undermining China and Asean countries efforts in maintaining peace in the South China Sea. At present, because of cooperation between China and Asean countries, the situation in the South China Sea is generally stable. China and Asean countries are not only abiding by the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, but also stepping up discussions on a more binding code of conduct in the South China Sea. We firmly believe that the incitement by some countries outside the region will not prevail. The international community has a very clear view of who is the troublemaker and who is damaging peace and stability in this region. On the occasion of celebrating the 93rd anniversary of the founding of PLA, while looking back on history, we recalled all the hardships we have gone through for national sovereignty and peace and, while looking around the world, we realised that we still have a long way to go for security and development. China has always been a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development and a defender of international order. The PLA will continue to carry out international military exchanges and cooperation, jointly respond to global security challenges and actively fulfill its responsibilities and obligations commensurate with Chinas international status. The PLA will stay true to its original intentions of advocating cooperation, opposing hegemony and actively contributing to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. Senior Colonel Li Jingfeng is defence attache of the Chinese embassy in Cambodia Americans across the political spectrum have widespread concerns that Novembers U.S. election will be marred by fraud, interference or efforts to suppress the vote, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday. About half of the registered voters in the United States, including some 80% of Republicans surveyed, say they are concerned that an increase in voting by mail will lead to widespread fraud in the Nov. 3 election, the poll showed. The finding suggests that a wide swath of the country may have trouble accepting the result of the election, which is expected to see a surge in mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic. Republican President Donald Trump is trailing his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, in opinion polls. It also shows that Republicans are sharply aligned on the issue with Trump, who has been attacking the use of mail-in ballots for months, and on Thursday for the first time raised the idea of delaying the election, which he cannot do. The poll, taken on Wednesday and Thursday partially before Trumps tweet, also found broad concerns in both parties about the integrity of the election, with nearly three quarters concerned about voter suppression or possible election interference. In 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies determined that Russia meddled in the presidential election to damage Democrat Hillary Clintons campaign and sow distrust of American democracy. The poll found 74% of registered voters were concerned about organized voter fraud by political actors hoping to sway the results of the elections," including seven of 10 Democrats and eight of 10 Republicans. About 73% of registered voters also said they were concerned about voter suppression," including eight of 10 Democrats and six of 10 Republicans. Democrats and voting rights groups say mail-in voting is a way to protect voters from the virus, and that a failure to guarantee that option amid a pandemic will disenfranchise millions of Americans, especially the poor and African Americans who are deemed more vulnerable to the virus and who tend to vote Democratic. Presidential nominating contests held this year exposed massive challenges in conducting elections during the worst public health crisis in a century, raising fears of a large-scale disenfranchisement in November if the number of polling places is slashed yet mail-in voting remains restricted. FRAUD CONCERNS A bipartisan majority of registered voters, 67%, said they were confident their ballot would be accurately counted if they voted by mail. That included eight of 10 Democrats and six of 10 Republicans. But eight of every 10 Republicans, compared with three of every 10 Democrats, said they were concerned that increased voting by mail will lead to widespread fraud in the voting process." The poll also found that eight of every 10 Republicans, compared with four of every 10 Democrats, were concerned about ineligible people casting ballots. Overall, seven of every 10 Republicans, and four of every 10 Democrats, believed any kind of voter fraud was a widespread election problem, the poll found. Trumps suggestion of an election delay on Thursday was immediately rejected by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, the sole branch of government with the authority to make such a change. But some legal experts warned that his repeated attacks could undermine his supporters faith in the election process. Without evidence, Trump has claimed that ramped-up mail voting would be rife with fraud, setting off a political battle with Democrats who have pushed all-mail balloting as a safe way to cast a ballot in the pandemic. Voting by mail is not new in the United States. About one in five voters cast 2016 presidential ballots that way, according to U.S. census figures, and experts and officials expect that number to at least double in November. Numerous academic, government and news investigations over the years have found little evidence of fraud in voting by mail. Deeply Republican Utah and four other states - Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Colorado - vote almost entirely by mail and have reported few problems with fraud. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,215 American adults, including 1,027 who identified as registered voters. The poll had a credibility interval - a measure of precision - of plus or minus 4 percentage points. 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 Yaseen Butt, a 20-year-old man who was fatally shot near a Revere ice cream shop over the weekend, was beaten by a group of men before he was killed by a person he had allegedly been pursuing for stealing his backpack, prosecutors said. The man suspected of killing Butt, 19-year-old Felix Martinez, has since been arrested in connection to the July 26 shooting, according to a statement from Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins office. He was arraigned by telephone Thursday in Chelsea District Court on charges of murder, assault with a dangerous weapon and two counts of armed robbery, the statement said. The 19-year-old man was ordered held without bail while the case is pending. Martinez is accused of stealing two backpacks from Butt, one of which was valued at $800, on Sunday near Garfield Avenue in Revere, according to Rollins office. The person with Martinez threatened Butt with a gun during the robbery, Assistant Suffolk District Attorney David McGowan told the court. Following the robbery, the victims gathered a group of companions and set out to find Martinez in an attempt to retrieve the backpacks, Rollins office said in its statement. They located Martinez among a group of individuals in the area of Revere Beach Boulevard; he was in possession of one of the backpacks. During the confrontation between the two groups, Martinez, authorities claimed, tried to get a gun from another person. In response, Butt ran away from the scene and was allegedly chased by Martinez and the group of individuals he was with to a grassy area in front of the Twist N Shake ice cream shop on 82 Revere Beach Blvd., according to the district attorney. The victim fell to the ground, where the group began to kick and beat him. It was during the attack, authorities said, Martinez shot Butt. The 20-year-old man was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he died, according to Rollins office. Yaseens life was stolen over a backpack. This violence and complete disregard for human life is unacceptable, Rollins said in her statement. We intend to support Yaseens loved ones and connect them with resources. We will also work directly with the Revere community in the wake of this senseless act of violence. The district attorney noted security cameras captured Martinez and the other members of the group running away to a nearby MBTA station after the shooting. The 19-year-old suspect jumped onto the live tracks and was narrowly missed by a train as he made his escape, according to authorities. More evidence from security camera footage, social media, witness statements and ballistics were later gathered by Massachusetts State Police and the Revere Police Department, who conducted the investigation, Rollins office said. First and foremost, my thoughts and prayers go out to the victims family. As a community, were all shocked by this terrible and heinous crime, Revere Police Chief David Callahan said in a statement. I want to thank the investigators who worked tirelessly on this case over the last several days, leading to todays arrest. Revere Police are continuing to work with State Police detectives and the Suffolk DAs Office to make sure that those who had a role in this crime are arrested, and to prevent further violence in the city of Revere. The case is expected to be heard again in court on Sept. 2, according to the district attorney. Related Content: 20-year-old Yaseen Butt identified as victim of fatal shooting near Twist N Shake ice cream shop in Revere Muslims celebrate feast of sacrifice amidst crises, virus Over 300 mn Muslims celebrating from Morocco to Afghanistan (ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, JULY 31 - More than 300 million Muslims in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia are celebrating Eid al-Adha, also called Eid Qurban - the feast of sacrifice - on Friday and for the coming three days. The feast is the main holiday in the Islamic calendar, which recalls Abraham's offering to sacrifice his son. Like the pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, which has been underway for days and is taking place in an extremely reduced format due to anti-Covid measures, Eid al-Adha is also being celebrated in a muted form in nearly all capitals of the Arab-Islamic world. Many cities have been experiencing popular protests due to the serious economic crisis, which is being aggravated by the coronavirus crisis. On Friday morning in Istanbul, the first community prayer on a feast day took place at the Hagia Sophia mosque. In Afghanistan, a three-day ceasefire, corresponding to the feast, starts Friday between the government of Kabul and the Taliban. Five hundred Taliban prisoners were released by the central government for the feast. In Mecca, pilgrims making the Hajj - one of the pillars of Islam that every Muslim has to complete at least once in their lifetime - took part in the ritual "stoning of the devil" in which pebbles are thrown at idols and pillars portraying Shaitan (Satan). In Iraq, which is getting ready to mark the 30th anniversary of the start of the Gulf War, the feast was marked by popular anti-government protests and police repression, and by renewed rocket attacks by pro-Iranian militants against US interests in the country. In the war-torn Syrian region of Idlib, being fought over by the government and insurgents backed by Russia and Turkey, respectively, local authorities intensified anti-Covid measures, calling on the population to avoid gatherings and family reunions. In nearby Libya, the country is formally once again in a total lockdown from Friday until Monday evening due to a spike in positive cases. However, the deep economic crisis, which existed prior to the coronavirus outbreak, is pushing many people to keep their businesses open anyways.(ANSAmed). (ANSA). ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With Florida in the path of Hurricane Isaias, Duke Energy Florida is preparing for potential outages and is encouraging customers to do the same. Hurricane Isaias is forecast to reach the Southeast coast of Florida on Saturday, bringing strong winds, heavy rainfall and the potential for flooding. Duke Energy customers in central and eastern Florida may experience weather-related outages. "We understand now more than ever that our customers are depending upon us to provide safe and reliable power," said Jason Cutliffe, Duke Energy's storm director for Florida. "With COVID-19, customers are spending more time at home and even brief outages can be concerning. Our team is ready to respond as quickly and safely as possible to minimize the effects to our customers. We'll also adjust our plans in the event the path of the storm shifts or changes." During non-pandemic times, restoring power after a storm can be difficult for utility repair crews, as travel and work conditions can be affected by high winds and widespread flooding. In addition to these concerns, Duke Energy's detailed storm response plan has incorporated CDC recommendations for COVID compliance and social distancing measures to help keep our customers and communities safe. Crews are wearing face coverings when the job allows and have modified work practices to reduce interactions. Customers are asked to remain outside of marked work zones and refrain from approaching crews working to restore outages during storms. Outage alerts and reporting power outages Before the storm hits, customers can sign up to receive outage alerts and should make sure their contact information is up to date and select their communication preferences. Customers who experience a power outage can report it the following ways: Visit duke-energy.com on a desktop computer or mobile device. Use the Duke Energy mobile app download the Duke Energy App from a smartphone via Apple Store or Google Play. Text OUT to 57801 (standard text and data charges may apply). Call the automated outage-reporting system for Duke Energy Florida: 800.228.8485 Important safety tips and reminders Duke Energy encourages customers to have a plan in place if they experience a power outage. Below are tips to help you and your family stay safe. Create (or update) an emergency supply kit to save valuable time later. The kit should include everything an individual or family would need for at least two weeks, especially medicines, water, non-perishable foods and other supplies that might be hard to find after a storm strikes. Your emergency kit should also include items that can help protect you and others from COVID-19, such as hand sanitizer, bar or liquid soap, and face coverings aligned with CDC guidance. Keep a portable radio or TV, or NOAA weather radio on hand to monitor weather forecasts and important information from state and local officials. Charge cellphones, computers and other electronic devices in advance of storms to stay connected to important safety and response information. Consider purchasing portable chargers and make sure they are fully charged as well. Maintain a plan to move family members especially those with special needs to a safe, alternative location in case an extended power outage occurs or evacuation is required. When checking on neighbors and friends, be sure to follow social distancing recommendations (staying at least 6 feet from others) and other CDC recommendations to protect yourself and others. If a power line falls across a car that you're in, stay in the car. If you MUST get out of the car due to a fire or other immediate life-threatening situation, do your best to jump clear of the car and land on both feet. Be sure that no part of your body is touching the car when your feet touch the ground. If you need to go to a disaster shelter, follow CDC recommendations for staying safe and healthy in a public disaster shelter during the COVID-19 pandemic. More tips on what to do before, during and after a storm can be found at duke-energy.com/safety-and-preparedness/storm-safety. A checklist serves as a helpful guide, but it's critical before, during and after a storm to follow the instructions and warnings of emergency management officials in your area. Power restoration process Duke Energy focuses on restoring power in a sequence that enables power restoration to public health and safety facilities and to the greatest number of customers as safely and quickly as possible. Click here for information on how Duke Energy restores power. High-water safety reminders People who live along lakes and rivers, and in other low-lying areas or areas prone to flooding, should pay close attention to local emergency management officials, national weather service and media for changing weather conditions and rising lake and river levels. High water conditions can create navigational hazards, and the public should use caution and adhere to the advice of local emergency management officials before going on area lakes or rivers. Members of the public who have electrical service to facilities (piers, outside lighting on seawalls, etc.) on or near water should have this service de-energized to avoid injuries and equipment damage. If rising water threatens your home or if you evacuate your home turn off your power at the circuit breaker panel or fuse box. Electric current passes easily through water, so stay away from downed power lines and electrical wires. Don't drive over and don't stand near downed power lines. Downed lines will be hard to see in the rain and can potentially be hidden in standing water. If you encounter large pools of standing water, stop, back up and choose another path. If your home or business is flooded, Duke Energy cannot reconnect power until the electrical system has been inspected by a licensed electrician. If there is damage, an electrician will need to make repairs and obtain verification from your local building inspection authority before power can be restored. Tips to protect refrigerated food during a power outage For customers who lose power and have full refrigerators and freezers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends the following: Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible to maintain the cold temperature. A refrigerator can keep food cold for about four hours if it is unopened. If the power will be out for more than four hours, use coolers to keep refrigerated food cold. A full freezer will keep the temperature for approximately 48 hours (24 hours if it is half full) if the door remains closed. The FDA offers additional tips for proper food handling and storage before, during and after a power outage at www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-and-water-safety-during-power-outages-and-floods. Duke Energy Florida Duke Energy Florida, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, owns a diverse generation mix of natural gas, coal and renewables, providing about 10,200 megawatts of owned electric capacity to approximately 1.8 million customers in a 13,000-square-mile service area. Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, is one of the largest energy holding companies in the U.S. It employs 30,000 people and has an electric generating capacity of 51,000 megawatts through its regulated utilities, and 3,000 megawatts through its nonregulated Duke Energy Renewables unit. Duke Energy is transforming its customers' experience, modernizing the energy grid, generating cleaner energy and expanding natural gas infrastructure to create a smarter energy future for the people and communities it serves. The Electric Utilities and Infrastructure unit's regulated utilities serve approximately 7.7 million retail electric customers in six states North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. The Gas Utilities and Infrastructure unit distributes natural gas to more than 1.6 million customers in five states North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. The Duke Energy Renewables unit operates wind and solar generation facilities across the U.S., as well as energy storage and microgrid projects. Duke Energy was named to Fortune's 2020 "World's Most Admired Companies" list, and Forbes' 2019 "America's Best Employers" list. More information about the company is available at duke-energy.com. The Duke Energy News Center contains news releases, fact sheets, photos, videos and other materials. Duke Energy's illumination features stories about people, innovations, community topics and environmental issues. Follow Duke Energy on Twitter , LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. Media Contact: Allison Barker 800.559.3853 SOURCE Duke Energy Related Links http://www.duke-energy.com (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Last weeks 750 billion-euro ($877 billion) Covid-19 rescue fund marked a high point in the European Unions plan to tackle the economic fallout of the virus. But a new flare-up in infections on the continent is a grim reminder of the more immediate epidemiological threat. While its not a second wave yet, its a serious test of government strategies intended to avoid one. Cases are rising across the region at the fastest pace since tough lockdown measures were lifted, although overall infections remain much lower than the outbreaks April peak. In Spain, new daily cases hit almost 1,000 last week, driven by local spikes in areas such as Aragon and Catalonia, where nightclubs are now being closed and curfews applied on bars. In Belgium, an increase in infections has forced the government to roll out tougher social-distancing measures, such as limiting face-to-face interactions. This shouldnt come as a shock, given the epidemiological trade-off of easing lockdowns. People are naturally moving around more as stay-at-home curbs are rolled back, and this was always going to give the coronavirus more opportunities to mingle. Even if offices and public transport are still quiet, European streets are filled with shoppers, diners, and drinkers. Google mobility data indicate human traffic is almost back to pre-virus levels in regions like Paris, Madrid and Italys Lombardy. Estimates of the viruss reproduction rate from Bank of America economists suggest that its risen back to around or above 1 in countries including the U.K., France, Italy, Spain and Belgium, meaning one infected person will on average spread it to more than one other person. So far, the alertness of public authorities has been encouraging. While one might question whether nightclubs in Catalonia should have reopened, you could hardly accuse governments in general of sleepwalking into a new public-health crisis. The new widespread curbs in Spain and Belgium are worrying, but smaller smart lockdowns have been effective too in towns and regions in Germany, the U.K. and Italy. Thats testament to the improvement in virus monitoring tools since the peak of the outbreak, as my colleague Ferdinando Giugliano has written. And the wearing of face masks, initially discouraged in many countries, is now being wisely enforced by policymakers. Story continues Less reassuring are the signs of social-distancing fatigue, particularly among young people. Case statistics in Spain show people in their 20s and 30s are a key source of new infections, as the warm weather, vacation season and reopening of bars and restaurants have made transmission dangers seem less urgent. While young people are far less susceptible to the worst manifestations of Covid-19, governments are right to worry about their ability to spread it. French Health Minister Olivier Veran this week implored youngsters to be more vigilant, warning that bars across France could be closed once again. With governments naturally reluctant to shut their economies again, Europes ability to avoid a new spiral of infections and lockdowns depends a lot on testing and tracing resources to keep tabs on chains of transmission. Much has improved in this department: France, Spain and Italy are testing so widely that only an estimated 1% of tests return a positive result. But there are gaps. Contact-tracing apps have been a flop, suffering from delays and low take-up. And testing laboratories are suffering bottlenecks as demand exceeds supply, meaning the delivery of results is slow. This new normal of having to respond to the virus on a daily basis was never going to be easy, and until a vaccine or treatment is found it will create huge uncertainty for business sectors such as leisure and tourism. In Spain, the expected flow of tourists from abroad will slow after the U.K. and Norway imposed new quarantine measures on people returning from the country. Not every country has followed suit France, for example, is only discouraging travel to Catalonia but the risk of an EU-wide response is ever-present. Overall, while theres reason for cautious optimism, Europe hasnt definitively escaped the threat of a second wave. Its going to be a long summer, and maybe an even harder winter. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Brussels. He previously worked at Reuters and Forbes. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Mumbai, July 31 : Bengali star Jisshu Sengupta avers that, irrespective of whether one is a star kid or not, survival in the film industry depends only on talent and luck. Jisshu, who features opposite Vidya Balan in the new OTT release, "Shakuntala Devi", rose from a humble background to become a big success story in contemporary Bengali cinema. "I really don't know why people are talking about it so much. It (nepotism) was always there, it will be there. My daughter has already done a film. She is very young but she is a good actress. If she wants to take up films as a career and if I help her, is it wrong? I can put in money for her and I will. What is wrong in it if I support my daughter and make films with her if I feel she can make it big one day. I don't think there is any problem with that. I don't know if that is nepotism but I will help my daughter. But only on one condition, she has to be talented and she has to prove herself as an actor," Jisshu told IANS. "If something wrong is happening, you should protest but you should not judge others without having proof. This is what I believe," he added. Apart from making a mark in Bangla films, Jisshu has worked in Bollywood, in films like "Mardaani", "Barfi", "Piku", and "Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi". Has he ever experienced any kind of discrimination? "In Bengal, I was called 'unlucky actor' for almost a decade but that didn't stop me. Right now, I guess I give money back to the producers," replied Jisshu. He added: "Things change, you know. It is about perception -- how you look at it. I was promised a big film with a big director when I was young. When the film's poster released I realised I was not a part of it. But that didn't stop me. Today, that director is nowhere. I am still around." Talking about his off-screen camaraderie with "Shakuntala Devi" co-actor Vidya, he shared: "Working with Vidya was always on my mind. I was a huge fan of her as an actor. But now I am also her fan as a human being. She is a good person and a prankster. We had a lot of fun on the set. We have become good friends. It was fun working with her. The way she looks at life inspires me a lot. She is always having fun, she is always very positive towards everything. Yes, we have struck a chord somewhere." Also starring Sanya Malhotra and Amit Sadh, "Shakuntala Devi" premieres on Amazon Prime on July 31. With lingering questions about the start of a new school year during an unprecedented global pandemic, the educators union in Worcester says teachers have been left to advocate for themselves. The Worcester Public Schools is weighing whether to start the year with a hybrid method of in-class and online learning or to begin with completely remote learning. With plans still pending, teachers are left waiting for more information about returning to classrooms. Roger Nugent, the president of the Educational Association of Worcester, said feelings are split between members of the union. Some want to return to school buildings, arguing that classes should commence if malls and restaurants are open to the public. But other teachers, especially those at a high risk of becoming severely ill from coronavirus, are afraid to return. While the union itself hasnt taken a stance on the hybrid versus remote debate, Nugent said theres no room for compromise when it comes to safety. As the leader of the EAW, health and safety is first, Nugent said. We cant be asking people to go into buildings that are not safe to be inhabited during the day. Nugent said teachers have myriad questions and are left waiting for answers. Asked if there could be an educator strike over safety concerns, Nugent said anything is possible. There have not been any formal union conversations about a strike as of Wednesday. I dont want to speak for my members because I havent polled them as to what they think or even questioned them about this, Nugent said, reiterating that anything is possible. The last thing we want to do is hang the students out to dry but at the same time its clear that we have to look out for ourselves, that if we dont advocate for ourselves and our working conditions then no one is going to do it for us. The American Federation of Teachers, one of the nations largest teachers unions representing 1.7 million school employees, has authorized members to strike if schools plan to reopen without proper safety measures. Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Jeff Riley announced earlier this week that the school year will start two weeks later than planned, giving districts additional 10 days to prepare. The decision followed discussions with the Massachusetts Teachers Association, AFT-Massachusetts and the Boston Teachers Union. The MTA is pushing for a remote start to the school year. Worcester Public Schools Superintendent Maureen Binienda said Wednesday that in a recent survey asking teachers if they planned to come back to school, many answered not sure. Binienda said she believes educators are waiting to learn more specifics of the school year plan before making a final decision. Earlier this month, the school system unveiled preliminary plans, which are slated to be submitted to DESE today for review and feedback. The superintendent added that she hopes to plan a public forum to discuss the plans once feedback is in. The plans offered two hybrid learning models: One based on having about of students occupying a school building at a time, with students learning on Mondays with their teacher/s while at home, one day per week of in-person learning at their schools either Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays, and remote learning the other days each week when they are not in school; the other was a model with 50% of students occupying a school building at a time, with some days in school buildings and other days with online learning. The 50% model is not possible based on the busing guidelines since released by DESE, Binienda said. Buses will run with a decreased capacity to allow social distancing: 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; and a 14-passenger bus may only be used to transport 6 people. Worcester, which already uses buses at full capacity and runs four tiers of buses in the morning and afternoon, cannot follow the 50% model with those guidelines, Binienda said. Binienda said she feels the district is leaning toward the remote learning option to start, but decisions are not final. With just weeks before school starts, teachers still have basic questions about what the school year will look like, which educators will be back in the buildings and which, if any, will not. Teachers that work in older school buildings are concerned about ventilation. Nugent said the Columbus Park Preparatory Academy and Elm Park Community School are two aging buildings that come to mind with questions about safety. Elm Park has new windows, Nugent said, but those windows cant open. Binienda said that the district will be closing classrooms in basements and that have no windows. The EAW has already been in a years-long battle to address the presence of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in Worcester schools. The coronavirus pandemic, Nugent said, feels like a culmination of important health and safety questions that union educators have been asking about for years. Related Content: Alexey Rubtsov: bouldering at world-class Djan Tugan in Russia Alexey Rubtsov reports about the huge bouldering potential at Djan Tugan in the Caucasus in Russia where he has established 30 boulder problems up to 8B+. The Russian bouldering champ has described the area as 'new world-class bouldering area. For decades Alexey Rubtsov has been one of the fiercest competitors on the international bouldering scene. In 2009 the Russian was crowned Boulder World Champion at Qinghai in China and even today he can easily end up on the podium. The 31-year-old has just returned from a climbing trip to Djan Tugan in Russia which he has described as a "new world-class bouldering area in Russia! Everything as needed: a beautiful area with mountains views, glaciers, gorges; the rocks start right next to the parking; good infrastructure; and most importantly, very high quality granite." Intrigued by these words, planetmountain.com got in touch with Rubtsov to find out more. RUSSIAN ROCKS by Alexey Rubtsov The Djan-Tugan area is located in the Caucasus at the foothills of Mount Elbrus. The nearest airport is in Nalchik, 120 km away. The climbing area is located in the gorge shaped by the Adyl-su river, and starts at an altitude of 2200m; although theres mainly bouldering, there are some walls for sport climbing. You can sleep both in the gorge, in a campsite adjacent to the bouldering spot, or lower down in hotels, located about 10-15 km away. This valley initially developed as a ski resort, so there are no problems finding hotels, cafes, shops, but take note, theyre all Caucasus style :-) The gorge is extremely picturesque and there are several glaciers and waterfalls in it. In good weather the highest peak in Europe, Mount Elbrus, is clearly visible from the river sector. The rock is granite. At present there is a small guide with about 200 blocks, but in my opinion only 5 - 10% of the area has been explored. I stayed there for 2 weeks and made 30 first ascents from 5 to 8B+, ranging from very safe and low boulders to big highballs. In the river sector the climbing is very specific, sloper style, which is extremely rare for granite. I believe Djan Tugan is undoubtedly the most promising area in Russia for bouldering. There is a minor hassle though if you wish to visit: since the rocks are located close to the Georgian border, foreigners need a pass. This is issued free of charge, but it takes a long time to get. When planning a trip, youll need to apply for it a couple of months before your trip. But don't worry, you won't be disappointed! Share Tweet Users are asking, whats going to happen now? What are we going to use? Who has our data? . . . Are tools like Signal and Tor going to be safe to use if they lose the funding to update their code regularly? she said. Trust is the most expensive thing in the world, and you can lose it so easily. Information campaign The UK Government has launched a public information campaign across Europe to help UK nationals prepare for the end of the UKs transition period on 31 December. UK nationals living in Spain will receive information about specific actions they need to take to keep their rights and access to services in Spain, including around residency, healthcare, driving licences and passports. The campaign will use multiple channels including Facebook, digital media and newspaper and radio advertising in urging people to take necessary action to protect their rights so that they can continue living, working and travelling in Europe after the transition period. This builds on the work the British Embassy and Consulates have already been doing to support UK Nationals in Spain. Hugh Elliott, British Ambassador to Spain is one of several British Ambassadors from across Europe, who is featured in a video encouraging UK nationals to take action which can be found here. UK Nationals Support Fund Following the United Kingdoms departure from the European Union, three organisations in Spain have received funding to provide practical support to at-risk UK nationals to complete their residency applications in Spain and secure their rights under the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement. Age in Spain, Babelia and Organizacion Internacional para las Migraciones (IOM) are each receiving government funding to support those who need additional help to complete the paperwork required for residency applications. This may include pensioners, people with disabilities, those living in remote areas or who have mobility difficulties, and those who require help with language translation or interpretation. British Ambassador Hugh Elliott welcomed the initiative: Supporting UK nationals is one of our highest priorities and the assistance available through this fund builds on the support that we are already providing at the British Embassy and through our network of consulates. We are delighted that this project will help the most vulnerable UK nationals get the support they need to protect their residency rights and continue to live safely here in Spain. UK nationals should visit our Living in Guides on gov.uk where they can find more information on the steps they need to take and how to access support. This project is funded by the UK Government as part of the UK National Support Fund (UKNSF), which has made available a total of 3 million for charities and organisations to provide practical support for UK nationals living in the EU. Residents in countries including Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy and Poland will also benefit. The services available for people who need this additional support include: answering questions about residency applications, such as the documents required and application procedure guiding individuals through the process, if necessary supporting people facing language barriers or difficulty accessing technology IOM will cover Andalusia, Madrid and Murcia, Babelia will cover Alicante, and Age in Spain will cover Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. There will also be information provided through the organisations websites and helplines, which will be available for people across Spain. If you or someone you know is having difficulties completing their residency paperwork, you can contact them using the details below to discuss how they may be able to help you. IOM The International Organisation for Migration (Andalusia, Madrid and Murcia) Visit the IOM Spain website Email: UKnationalsSP@iom.int Helplines: Andalusia: +34 650 339 754, Madrid: +34 699 581 855, Murcia: +34 648 642 543, all available Mon to Thurs, 3.30pm to 5pm Babelia (Alicante) Visit the Babelia website Email: info@asociacionbabelia.org Helpline: +34 865 820 229 available Mon to Fri, 9am to 2pm Babelia contact form Age in Spain (Catalonia and Balearic Islands) Visit the Age in Spain website Email: residency@ageinspain.org Age in Spain contact form Helpline: +34 932 20 97 41 available Mon to Fri, 11am to 1pm Further information for UK nationals on residency is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/residency-requirements-in-spain www.facebook.com/britsinspain A group of Iowa teachers have sent their own mock obituaries to their governor in hopes she'll revisit plans for reopening schools. "I'm very scared," 7th grade teacher Kerry Finley of Iowa City told "Good Morning America." "Are we going to wear scrubs? Are they going to amend the dress code? If we are going to do this, we are going to have to do this the way the hospitals did. We need training. We can't just say, 'OK, go back.'" Finley is one of several educators who wrote their obituaries after art teacher Jeremy Dumkrieger shared his own obit with the local news blog, Iowa Starting Line. In the article, Dumkrieger calls on teachers to email their obits to the office of Gov. Kimberly Reynolds. PHOTO: Jeremy Dumkrieger, an art teacher from Iowa, wrote his own mock obituary and sent to Iowa Gov. Kimberly Reynolds in protest of the state's reopening plans of schools amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. (Jeremy Dumkrieger) "I think what we were trying to do is humanize us in her mind, make her see us as people," Finley said. MORE: Teachers DIY safety equipment for school year in the middle of coronavirus pandemic In Iowa, there's been at least 42,928 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and new daily cases reached 232 this week. Some schools, like where Dumkrieger teaches, plan to reopen in late August with specific dates varying from school to school. "The governor issued no guidance," Dumkrieger told "GMA." "That means every district in Iowa will have completely different plans. Some will wear masks, some will not." Teachers send mock obituary to governor of Iowa (ABC News Photo Illustration, Jeremy Dumkrieger) During a July 24 press conference in Van Meter, Iowa, Gov. Reynolds said schools must prioritize in-person learning. Half of online learning could be implemented, and school districts can request temporary exceptions. MORE: Teachers have a lot of questions about returning to school during the pandemic: Here are 18 of them Educators have been protesting in hopes that Reynolds will give local school leaders control in determining the safest return-to-learn plans. "I would like to see masks on everyone," Dumkrieger said. "We want a safe return to school, which means safe plans." Story continues Dumkrieger said he sent his obit to grab Reynolds' attention. Teachers send mock obituary to governor of Iowa (ABC News Photo Illustration) "And [to] say, 'This is what we're thinking about and a lot of teachers are too scared to say it," he explained. "Writing your own obituary reflects on who you are, what you've been and who you want to become. It's sobering for sure." In his biographical mock notice of death, Dumkrieger wrote: Jeremy Dumkrieger, 43, passed away on [insert Date here] due to complications arising from COVID-19. He died alone, isolated from the family who meant the world to him. Dumkrieger also mentions his career path as an educator, his wife Tisha and their children. In her obit, Finley wrote about her family and career change from attorney to teacher. Then, she pivoted: You know what? I'm not dying for this - I won't even pretend to. I will fight with every fiber of my being as a mother, a teacher, a lawyer, an Iowan, and an American to make our current leadership understand and act with reason. Teachers send mock obituary to governor of Iowa (ABC News Photo Illustration) "I'm very worried. I'm a breast cancer survivor and I have some compromised immune system," Finley said. "I've only been a teacher for one year. Children can't learn unless they're in an emotionally-stable and safe environment." Pat Garrett, a spokesman for the Governor's Office, said Reynolds believes getting Iowa's students and teachers back to school safely is an important part of the state's coronavirus recovery plan. Teachers send mock obituary to governor of Iowa (ABC News Photo Illustration, Kerry Finley) "Her proclamation helps implement the statute the legislature passed unanimously this summer and also gives flexibility and options for educators, schools, parents and students," Garrett said in a statement to "GMA." In a statement posted to its website, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) wrote that it "strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school." PHOTO: Kerry Finley, a 7th grade teacher from Iowa City, wrote her own mock obituary and sent to Iowa Gov. Kimberly Reynolds in protest of the state's reopening plans of schools amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. (Kerry Finley) The AAP stressed the importance of school in children's lives. "Schools are fundamental to child and adolescent development and well-being and provide our children and adolescents with academic instruction, social and emotional skills, safety, reliable nutrition, physical/speech and mental health therapy, and opportunities for physical activity, among other benefits," the AAP said. "Beyond supporting the educational development of children and adolescents, schools play a critical role in addressing racial and social inequity." PHOTO: Teachers send mock obituaries to governor of Iowa (ABC News Photo Illustration, Getty Images) Finley believes mandating a premature return to face-to-face learning without a concrete plan, forces teachers and staff to choose between exposing themselves or their loved ones or keeping their health insurance, should they choose to exit the teaching force. Teachers are writing their own obituaries as schools near reopening amid COVID-19 originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com The Census Bureaus plans to stop door-knocking, aimed to boost participation in the decennial count, a month early is the federal governments latest effort to disrupt the census, Secretary of State William F. Galvin said Friday. The Census Bureau told employees it would end the door-to-door count by Sept. 31, rather than the scheduled end date of Oct. 31, NPR first reported. The door-knocking process, which targets households that have not responded to the census, typically starts in mid-April but was postponed to mid-August because of the coronavirus pandemic. The day after of the beginning of door-to-door counting in Massachusetts, and more than three months after door-to-door counting was supposed to start, we have learned that the U.S. Census Bureau plans to stop counting a month early, said Galvin, the states 2020 Census liasion. Ending the door-to-door count early will mean that many people will not be counted, and it is obviously just another attempt by the Trump Administration to sabotage the census. As of Friday, Massachusetts has a 64.8% response rate, just higher than the national response rate of 62.8%. The door-knocking effort is seen as a crucial step in preventing an undercount, including in historically hard to count communities. Galvin launched the states door-knocking campaign Thursday in Springfield, where 56.5% of households have responded. Unless the Western Massachusetts city boosts its participation rate, it could risk losing federal funding and political influence in the redistricting process. Worcester has a response rate of 52.6% and one census tracks response rate is 29.9%. Parts of the Cape and Islands have similarly low response rates. Perhaps one of the lowest response rates in Massachusetts is in Bostons South End. One tract in the area has a response rate of 29.2%, according to the Census 2020 Hard to Count Map developed by the CUNY Mapping Service. As of Friday, Boston has a response rate of 53.2%. Related Content: Sri Lanka: Japan gives Rs500mn worth canned fish for Sri Lanka school meals July 31,2020 | Source: Economy Next Japan has donated 388 tonnes of canned worth 300 million yen (519 million rupees_ for Sri Lankas school meals scheme for the next two years, which is supported by the World Food Program. The canned fish came from areas Sri Lanka had supported during an earthquake and tsunami. Kitamura Toshihiro, Charge dAffaires ad interim of Japan to Sri Lanka recalled Sri Lankas donation of cash and tea during the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in March 2011. The canned fish provided by Japan is sourced from the areas supported by Sri Lanka, as an extension of the continuous supply provided by Japan, reflecting our appreciation of our Sri Lankan friends for lending a hand to Japan in times of need, he was quoted as saying after an exchange of documents. We will continue to support Sri Lanka, in the spirit of unity and solidarity in our joint battle against the effects of Covid-19. The WFP has been supporting schools meals in Sri Lanka since 2003. It had been disrupted by school closures during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Canned fish is given twice a week to expand the diversity of meals and provide protein. Nutritious meals are the foundation to good health, especially for children, Andrea Berardo, WFP Deputy Country Director in Sri Lanka said. This generous contribution from Japan comes at a crucial time when so many Sri Lankan families are hard hit by COVID-19 with reduced incomes and job loss. The 388 tonnes of canned fish is enough to prepare 19 million meals, rich in protein, for 270,000 school children. Japan, which has supported the program through WFP from 2011 had given 1,500 metric tonnes of canned fish worth 1 billion yen up to now. The Government of Sri Lanka has been conducting the National School Meal Programme for several decades, Secretary of the Ministry of Education, N.H.M. Chitrananda said. The programme was developed with the objective of ensuring that children are healthy and can optimally benefit from educational opportunities provided to them. We are thankful to the Government of Japan and WFP for providing canned fish to supplement the school meal programme and for supporting us in enhancing the nutritional status of school children. Ryanair has initiated legal proceedings against the Taoiseach and the State over travel restrictions and the green list of countries deemed safe to travel to. The airline, whose business has been decimated this year by the Covid-19 crisis, is asking the High Court for a judicial review of the Government decision that resulted in the production of the list. The list, announced on July 22, contains just 15 countries and does not include the UK, Germany, France or Spain, all of which are major destinations on Ryanairs network. The airline argues the list was not provided for in legislation and has been put in place by the Government by way of public announcement, on a non-statutory basis. Read More It says that consequently, the Oireachtas was been denied the opportunity to consider the travel restrictions, and they have not been subjected to the democratic scrutiny, or the safeguards, checks and balances they should have been. The proceedings, which were widely expected, were initiated on Thursday. Ryanair is being represented by Big Five law firm Arthur Cox. A Ryanair spokesman declined to discuss the case, saying: We dont comment on pending legal matters. Independent.ie has sought comment from the Government, which is continuing to advise against all non-essential foreign travel. If people do travel to green list jurisdictions, they will not have to restrict their movements when they return to Ireland. People coming in from other countries are being asked to restrict their movements for 14 days. The list is made up of jurisdictions where the incidence of Covid-19 is similar or lower than in Ireland and currently comprises Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Monaco, San Marino and Gibraltar. In a submission to the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response earlier this week, Ryanair claimed Ireland was on a solo run in relation to travel restrictions. We have now cut ourselves off from the largest economies in Europe, Germany, France, UK, Spain, Austria, Netherlands, Poland, and telling them that Ireland is closed for business, it said. In particular it described the decision to exclude Germany from the list as puzzling, saying the Covid-19 death rate there per head of population was 70pc less than Irelands and the German response had been recognised as the gold standard in terms of track and trace, localised lockdowns and the volume of testing. The submission claimed Irelands policy on foreign travel was unjustified and completely disproportionate to the risk. It claimed there was no clarity on what scientific evidence there was to support the travel restrictions or the green list. The airline also criticised the restrictions as providing no defined guidelines for those who need to travel. It said it was not clear what is permitted by essential travel, or the extent to which people are required to restrict their movements. Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks about American energy production during a visit to the Double Eagle Energy Oil Rig in Midland, Texas on 29 July, 2020: AP Donald Trump declared victory in what he called a Democratic "war" on the American energy industry, defying polls while visiting a Texas oil rig by predicting he will win the state in November as he once again turned an official trip into a mini-campaign rally. "As long as I'm president we will never allow anyone to put American energy out of business, which is what they want to do," he said on an oil rig in Midland, Texas. "We unlocked the full energy potential of Texas and New Mexico. ... We have become a net energy exporter." The president announced export authorisations for US liquified natural gas will be extended well into the future, through 2050. "That seems like a long time," Mr Trump said, claiming his administration is also safeguarding the environment -- though conservation groups and congressional Democrats sharply disagree, saying he has taken a blow torch to regulations and other environmental safeguards. He touted "800,000 new energy jobs" he contended his administration created across the country before the coronavirus recession kicked in, saying one-third of those were in Texas. "We're back," he declared, despite recent volatility in crude oil prices and US production rates, with crude prices hovering around $40 per barrel after hitting nearly $69 per barrel in April 2019. He criticised Democrats for opposing fracking, which also will be a big issue in another key swing state: Pennsylvania. With the 2020 presidential race on his mind, he accused Democrats of proposing to "wipe out your jobs". He attempted once again to link his presumptive general election foe, former Vice President Joe Biden, to the Democratic Party's progressive wing and its "Green New Deal", which he mocked: "No drilling, no fracking, no shale, no oil, no gas", and claimed it pitches a ban on all cows. Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks about American energy production during a visit to the Double Eagle Energy Oil Rig in Midland, Texas on 29 July, 2020 (AP) "I don't think Biden is going to do too well in Texas," the president said, despite multiple polls suggesting otherwise, before minutes later warning about violence in cities with mayors from the opposition party: "[Democrats] want to ... leave every city at the mercy of the radical left." Story continues Global crude oil prices have dropped since the Covid-19 pandemic began early this spring, with US oil production down sharply after swelling in the second half of 2019. But in recent weeks, production has been on the uptick, according to OilPrice.com. The president was in the Lone Star State where some polls showing him trailing Mr Biden in a state that has been a GOP stronghold since 1976. Mr Trump likely could not capture a second term if Mr Biden won the state's whopping haul of 38 Electoral College votes. The non-partisan Cook Political Report lists the state as "lean Republican", writing in a blog post: "There is evidence that Texas is very much in play at the presidential level." Inside Elections with Nathan L Gonzalez, also non-partisan, ranks it "tilt Republican". Mr Trump took the state by 9 percentage points in 2016 over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But Mr Biden leads the incumbent there 47 per cent to 45 per cent less than 100 days from election day, according to a new poll from Morning Consult and Politico released on Wednesday morning. "We will defend the Lone Star State," Mr Trump said in Midland. "I love this state." That new survey underscores dramatic shifts in polls around the country since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, when Mr Trump led in several key swing states and others he won rather easily four years ago. He led the former VP by 7 percentage points in Texas two months ago, according to an earlier version of the same survey. "I'm not quite ready to believe that Texas is really in play, but I'm now willing to suspend my disbelief," said one Washington-based political operative, granted anonymity to speak freely. "Things have been going so poorly for the president for so long that even in places like Texas and Florida and Georgia, where he didn't have to work that hard in 2016, are going to be really big fights for him between now and November." Before he arrived in Midland, Mr Trump hosted a campaign fundraiser in Odessa. That event was expected to raise $7m for the Republican National Committee and Mr Trump's campaign via the Trump Victory organisation, which also doles out monies to 22 state GOP parties. Tickets to the closed-door political pep rally went for $2,800 each, with attendees able to get a picture with the president for the price of $50,000, according to a Texas television station. A seat at a roundtable discussion he held in Odessa went for $100,000, KOSA-TV reported. Don't mask with Texas Attendees at the fundraiser were spotted by reporters travelling with Mr Trump as they headed into the ballroom. Many were not wearing masks to guard against contracting or spreading the coronavirus, even though Texas has become a hotspot. Mr Trump went ahead with the Texas trip despite recently referring to the surge of coronavirus cases in the entire Sun Belt region as serious. But by Tuesday evening, he was painting the situation in America's southern states as on the turnaround. "We're seeing improvements across the major metro areas and most hotspots. You can look at large portions of our country, it's corona-free," he said in a statement undermined by his own administration's data. "But we are watching very carefully California, Arizona, Texas, and most of Florida," he said, making clear the Lone Star is among the most Covid-covered states. "It's starting to head down in the right direction, and I think you'll see it rapidly head down very soon." Not in Midland County and neighbouring Ector County. Both have seen a sharp increase in coronavirus cases and deaths since 1 July, with the latter ballooning from 1,259 to 3,264. Since even before the 2018 midterm elections, political operatives have said Texas has shown a steady slide towards becoming a blue state. Mr Trump has dismissed such talk. But Wednesday marked his 16th visit to the state since he took office, and his 10th in the last two years. In 2019, the only states he visited more were ones where he often spends weekends and holidays at his resorts: Florida and New Jersey. Read more How America reached its latest tragic coronavirus milestone Zuckerberg defends Twitter's ban of Trump Jr over 'harmful' post Trump says he 'never discussed' Russian bounties on troops with Putin Trump warns Democrats about 'bail out' for violent cities Trump says Kamala Harris would be a 'fine choice' for Biden's VP pick Trump says he is considering banning TikTok These perspectives are diverse. For Laing, showing work from her Buddens series, this means visualising the traces humans leave in the landscape and the impact they have, while Clancys Undercurrent project investigates the way First Nations histories are physically and metaphorically covered up. Michael Cook presents images from his Invasion series, portraying First Nations people and indigenous fauna as invaders in central London, flipping the colonial narrative. Hoda Afshar, pictured in her Melbourne studio, travelled to Manus Island in 2018. Credit:Joe Armao Afshar, who was born and grew up in Teheran and has been living in Australia since 2007, working and lecturing in photography, also tells a story of truth: how one culture seeks to subjugate the other. The ideas for Remain were born out of exchanges and conversations she had with Boochani in which he shared many ideas and pieces of writing. She decided to transpose these thoughts into an artwork, and when she arrived on Manus, the first thing that struck her was the beauty of the island. I have been to other tropical islands before but I have never seen anything like that, Afshar says. At the same time, she heard the terrible stories told by the men she met there. The contrast between what I was listening to and the beauty of the island was the most disturbing thing I experienced. Immediately I thought that is what I should bring into the work the contrast between the beauty and the trauma. She knew this was risky: having followed the social media accounts of some of the men, she worried that trolls might react to images of them moving about the island in freedom. Through conversation with the men, they were all saying What freedom? An island can be a prison. They are in the middle of nowhere. The fact they were all calling it a green hell was a testament to that. Remain begins with Boochani standing by a waterfall, telling a story. This was one of the first places he took Afshar when she arrived on Manus. Behrouz didnt tell me where we were going. It was the second day, when we started filming. When we arrived, I was mesmerised by the beauty of it. He jumped in and swam and he came back and said Do you know where we are at? This is where Kamil Hussain died. Behrouz Boochani in a still from Remain. Credit:Courtesy Hoda Afshar and Milani Gallery One of about eight detainees who died on Manus, Hussain had recently been released to freedom. Afshar records this story and others throughout the film, responding with a delicate, powerful sequence of images. The experience of Remain was influenced by a previous photo-based work called Behold, in which Afshar photographed gay men in Iranian bathhouses. Both are concerned with ideas around recognition and visibility, the desire to be seen, she says. The narrative of a lot of people remains untold or misrepresented. What I wanted to do was to bring people close to their stories and pain, make people feel compassionate towards them. "Not sympathy sympathy to me is quite dangerous. It is like taking someone elses pain for no purpose; it only makes you feel better about knowing but nothing changes. When you feel empathy and compassion, you decide to act on it in whatever way possible. While speaking with the men on Manus, Afshar became intrigued by stories of Processing Centre staff from Australia who had complained about the refugees situation and demanded changes. They were immediately sent back to Australia and dismissed and not allowed to go back, Afshar says. They were not allowed to talk about what they witnessed because of the confidentiality agreement they signed with the government of Australia. Remain, by Hoda Afshar. Credit:Courtesy Hoda Afshar and Milani Gallery She is now completing a work about whistleblowers, to be exhibited next year as part of the PHOTO 2021 festival. She has tracked down some of these people and explored through her artwork the way they have had their lives and families jeopardised by speaking out. At first it was really hard to believe that in a liberal, democratic system, such things can happen, but also it reminded me of another piece of writing by Behrouz in which he said if Australian people close their eyes to the suffering and plight of the refugees on Manus and Nauru, to remember it is like a cancer growing its roots and coming to your house one day soon. It's little surprise the new work is infused with an aesthetic adapted from Greek tragedy. In all the Greek tragedies, the main figure is the one who struggles with law and morality, she says. To me, whistleblowers are modern tragic figures. Ukraine and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) from the World Bank Group plan to sign a $350 million loan agreement at the end of August 2020, the press service of the Ministry of Finance has told Interfax-Ukraine. "It is expected that the loan agreement between Ukraine and the IBRD will signed at the end of August. After the signing and entry into force of the loan agreement, its funds will be transferred to the general fund of the national budget," the press service said. As reported, at the end of June 2020, the World Bank's Board of Executive Directors approved a $350 million First Economic Recovery Development Policy Loan (DPL) for Ukraine in support of reforms that are critical to economic recovery. The key reforms supported by the DPL include: strengthening land and credit markets by creating a transparent and efficient market for agricultural land and resolving non-performing loans in state owned banks; fostering de-monopolization and anti-corruption institutions including by restructuring the gas sector; bolstering the social safety net for the vulnerable elderly population to cushion the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysts from Moody's Investors Service said that an increased uncertainty around the leadership of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) and its autonomy places at risk Ukraine's further external financing. Kyrylo Shevchenko was appointed new NBU governor. On Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a guidance letter stating that local health authorities do not have the power to issue sweeping school closures to minimize infection rates. According to the Texas Education Agency, any school that stays closed due to a local health mandate will not be funded unless given the agencys permission to stay closed. Paxton announced that guidance despite contradicting the TEAs earlier guidelines. However, the agency quickly changed their guidelines, which now disrupts the plans made by local school districts. Laredo Health Authority Victor Trevino, who on July 9 signed an order for local schools to conduct classes virtually, said he appreciates Paxtons opinion, but that his mandates and duties to protect the health and safety of the community were granted to him by the state Legislature. Thats all it is an opinion. I am not bound by his opinion, Trevino said. ... It just confuses everybody, especially educators and administrators from the school. In speaking with the city attorney, Trevino said he feels confident of his authority and does not fear potential lawsuits. I think (Paxton) mentioned I cant close the school due to prevention of illness. But this is not prevention, this is already an outbreak in the whole city. This has not nothing to do with prevention, he said. Medically, whats right is right, Trevino said. As of Tuesday evening he had not been in contact with the school districts and planned to meet with them Wednesday. The coronavirus has totaled 5,396 positives with 118 deaths in Laredo. July has been the most problematic month with 4,138 cases and 96 deaths, accounting for 76.7% and 81.4% of the totals, respectively. Rep. Pramila Jayapal is on a roll. Over the past two days, the Democrat from Washington has orchestrated two of the most memorable exchanges in two separate House hearings. In the first, she exposed the naked racism and political motivations behind Attorney General William Barrs attacks on Portland, Oregon, protesters. In the second, she all but caught Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a series of lies about Facebooks business practices. During Jayapals questioning of Barr on Tuesday, the attorney general tried to dispute that law enforcement officers used tear gas to disperse protesters for the presidents photo-op near Lafayette Square in June. Officials have admitted to using chemical eye irritants in the attack on demonstrators, but, Barr said on Tuesday, tear gas is a particular compound that was not used. Jayapal stood firm. Im starting to lose my temper, she told him, after he refused to address the substance of the question for the third or fourth time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Subscribe to the Slatest newsletter A daily email update of the stories you need to read right now. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again. Please enable javascript to use form. Email address: Send me updates about Slate special offers. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Sign Up Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. Barr also attempted to defend the deployment of federal agents to quash racial justice protests in Portland under the guise of protecting a federal building. Meanwhile, he denied ever hearing about the armed protesters in Michigan who, demanding an end to stay-at-home orders, stormed the state Capitol and threatened to lynch Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in May. Jayapal pointed out the disparity in his responses to these two groups of demonstrators. When Barr tried to interrupt her to say he only cared about protests that affect federal property, Jayapal cut him off. This is my time, and I control it, she said. She went on: When protesters carry guns and Confederate flags and swastikas and call for the governor of Michigan to be beheaded and shot and lynched, somehow youre not aware of that because theyre getting the presidents personal agenda done. But when Black people and people of color protest police brutality, systemic racism, and the presidents very own lack of response to those critical issues, then you forcibly remove them with armed federal officers, pepper bombs, because they are considered terrorists by the president. Advertisement Advertisement Unlike her Democratic colleagues, who effectively questioned Barr on racism within police forces and his fearmongering around mail-in voting, Jayapal didnt get Barr on the record with any particularly damning statements. But her line of questioning offered more than just the hollow satisfaction of a good burn and the pleasure of watching a righteous legislator exert her power over a man who routinely abuses his. Most people dont have the time or inclination to watch lengthy congressional hearings. If theres big news, theyll read the headlines or watch clips on their nightly news shows, but much of the substance of these hearings often goes unnoticed. By reacting to Barrs outrageous deflections with the outrage they warranted, Jayapal ensured shed make headlines. Then, she gave viewers and readers a concrete example of the Trump administrations racist hypocrisy, in bracingly clear language. Unlike Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who said in an address on Tuesday that anarchists should be prosecutedleading some progressives to argue that Trump and Biden are two sides of the same coinJayapal made no mealy-mouthed qualifications. She focused the blame where it belonged: not on political dissidents but on state entities that are violently attempting to suppress them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Her line of questioning offered more than just the hollow satisfaction of a good burn. On Wednesday, Jayapal emerged in the spotlight again. The House Judiciarys antitrust subcommittee convened the giants of the tech worldZuckerberg, Amazons Jeff Bezos, Googles Sundar Pichai, and Apples Tim Cookto answer questions about their anti-competitive business practices. Jayapal began her Zuckerberg interrogation by quoting emails and statements from multiple Facebook executives, including the CEO himself, whove said that Facebook should block competitors from gaining traction in the marketplace and copy their products if necessary. Then she asked him, Has Facebook ever taken steps to prevent competitors from getting footholds by copying competitors? Zuckerberg dodged. So she rephrased: Since March of 2012, after that email conversation, how many competitors did Facebook end up copying? Congresswoman, II cant give you a number of companies, Zuckerberg replied. Advertisement Advertisement After Zuckerberg said he didnt remember any conversations in which hed threatened to copy competitors products if they didnt let Facebook acquire their businesses, Jayapal read aloud quotes from an online chat transcript that showed Zuckerberg doing exactly that in conversation with Instagrams founder. Facebook is a case study, in my opinion, in monopoly power, because your company harvests and monetizes our data and then your company uses that data to spy on competitors and to copy, acquire, and kill rivals, Jayapal said. These tactics reinforce Facebooks dominance, which you then use in increasingly destructive ways. Advertisement Advertisement These hearings arent trials. In some cases, their public value is largely theatrical: The big shots who are called to testify hedge and stall, while the members of Congress pontificate from their seats, putting on a show for their constituents. Wednesdays hearing fit this mold. The antitrust subcommittee had already been investigating these companies for more than a year, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews and collecting more than 1 million documents. At the hearing, the members didnt extract much new information. Their main job was to make public the information they already hadand to make their constituents care. And Jayapal has proved herself to be remarkably skilled at merging performance with substance. Advertisement Advertisement If there was ever any illusion that elected officials in this pseudo-democracy could be trusted to uphold the laws that govern it, the events of the past few years should have extinguished that hope. Powerful corporations and politicians will not police themselves, and many members of Congress will not risk angering the donor class unless theres a public outcry to justify it. Jayapal didnt just catch Zuckerberg in a defensive posture about Facebooks unjustifiable consolidation of power in the tech industry. She laid the groundwork for the rest of America to understand what Facebook has been doing, grasp the cynicism of Zuckerbergs attempted self-exoneration, and connect the dots between Facebooks anti-competitive strategies and its role in the erosion of American democracy. If congressional Democrats ever hope to build popular support for breaking up or imposing stricter regulations on monopolies like Facebook, theyll need people like Jayapalwho represents a district where many Amazon employees liveto sell the public on the urgency of the issue. Advertisement There is great value in confronting abuses of power directly, in public view, with such clarity. Jayapals week of scorchings comes on the heels of another notable show of strength in the House. Last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood on the House floor and addressed her Republican colleague Rep. Ted Yoho, whod called her a fucking bitch in front of an audience of reporters. She got a lot of approving (and deserved) press coverage of her speech, in which she laid into Republicans whove used their wives and daughters as shields against allegations of misogyny. Some would dismiss quotable, passionate, made-for-TV addresses like hersand heated exchanges like Jayapalsas sound-bitey clapbacks with little concrete political import. But there is great value in confronting abuses of power directly, in public view, with such clarity. It gives people who havent been paying much attention an accessible explanation for why they should be worked up and the language they need to explain it to others. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It also gives many of us a worthy proxy for our impotent anger, transforming feelings of powerlessness into those of power. Yoho insists he said bullshit, not bitch, and besides, he says, Ocasio-Cortez deserved it; Zuckerberg insists that the threat he delivered to Instagram was no threat at all. Its enough to make any rational, incensed observer wonder if shes going madand yet, here are two members of Congress who firmly assure her shes not. It is a formidable prophylactic against political apathy to see ones fury at seemingly unchecked injustices expressed on a public stage by an elected official. Its representative democracy at work. For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below. Irate California lawmakers peppered the head of the state Employment Development Department Thursday with questions about its problems in helping unemployed people get their benefits. The contentious hearing by the Assembly Budget Subcommittee came a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a strike team to modernize the agencys antiquated technology and improve its responsiveness to applicants. The team has 45 days to formulate suggestions. The assembled lawmakers, who all said theyve fielded hundreds if not thousands of pleas from constituents desperate for benefits to pay their rent and buy food, grilled Director Sharon Hilliard about the agencys shortcomings, and expressed dismay about the slow pace of reforms. Nearly 20% of Californians who have filed for unemployment since the pandemic began are still awaiting payments, according to numbers from Hilliard. About 6 million Californians filed for unemployment between March 8 and July 18. Of those, 4.8 million have been paid and 162,000 were determined ineligible. Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle 2020 There are about 239,000 claims awaiting resolution, where EDD has all the required information but it needs to take further action to process the claim. Thats about 4% of the total filings. Hilliard said EDD is working to resolve those claims in the order they were filed and hopes to do so by the end of September. An additional 889,000 people may be eligible if they submit additional information. Of those, 587,000 have never gone into the system to certify their eligibility. EDD has started contacting them by email to educate them about the steps they must take. Theres only so much we can do if the claimant isnt going to go in and certify, Hilliard said. This desperation (among jobless people) is being met by a disinterested bureaucracy failing to answer the phones, reply to emails or offer even the most basic help, said Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Laguna Beach (Orange County). EDD has been failing California, said Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco. We need fundamental reform of this agency at the leadership level; weve needed it for years. Spending hours fruitlessly trying to call EDD is a widespread issue for jobless Californians. We realize the current call center operations are not currently servicing all our customers in a timely manner, Hilliard said. The agency needs a long-term solution for its rigid information technology structure, she said. It still relies on old and obsolete technology, including COBOL which is nearly impossible to modernize. COBOL is a programming language that dates to 1959. Other issues addressed during the hearing: Long lag time for new supplemental benefits. Congress is still thrashing out a replacement for the extra $600 a week in pandemic benefits that have ended. One solution would call for switching to a system that would replace 70% of claimants incomes. Implementing that could take three to five months. Any time we get into some kind of calculator based on prior wages, that is very challenging for us, and thats from 12 to 20 weeks of programming, Hilliard said. Call center issues. Experienced agents who can answer specific questions about claims are available only from 8 a.m. to noon Monday to Friday. EDD has 100 people in this role. It has 1,100 on a general information line open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week and will add 700 to that line the end of this week. Staff on the latter line were trained to provide general information and take callers names for call-backs, but Hilliard said EDD is adding fully trained agents to that number, without saying how many. Eventually, the EDD plans to merge the two call centers for more comprehensive coverage, but it wont even start doing that until mid-October, after it implements skills-based routing in which calls go into different buckets depending on customers needs, she said. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes Hilliard said it takes four to six weeks to return calls from claimants. Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, said many people miss those calls because they come from blocked numbers, which they dont pick up. Hilliard acknowledged that problem and said EDD is working with Verizon on a solution. Digital uploads for documents. Currently, claimants have to mail or fax documents about their cases. By late September, EDD hopes to have a system for uploading the documents online. That is one of our highest priority (technology) efforts, Hilliard said. Legislative contacts. Lawmakers have become a liaison between their constituents and EDD. The agency told legislators in July it would limit them to one hardship referral per week, leaving them with impossible decisions about which of their constituents to help. Its backtracked and now said it will assign a single point of contact for each legislative office to expedite constituents claims. By next week, it will give lawmakers formal guidance on how that will work, Hilliard said. The agency now has 93 staff devoted to legislative offices, up from one when the pandemic began. Several EDD employees spoke up during public comments to say that they understand theyre a lifeline for the public and are working as hard as they can, but feel the agency is underfunded and understaffed. We deserve to be more than just a number to you; we deserve to be heard; we deserve to be seen, said one unemployed woman who called in during the public comments. A caller named Michelle Wright said she was one of the 889,000 people waiting for benefits. She said she filed a claim on March 21 when her company shut down and has called the toll-free line every week since then, 200 times a day, only to be hung up on every time. Ive reached three kind and wonderful specialists at the 800 number that were able to push one payment through. This is my life, my familys life, she said, breaking into tears. Chas Alamo, the principal fiscal and policy analyst for the Legislative Analysts Office, said that federal guidelines call for resolving 87% of claims within 21 days. He added that California is normally able to pay 80% within 21 days, but in the second quarter paid 62% within three weeks. The average nationwide during the pandemic, he said, is 69%. Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer and Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com, kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid, @kathpender This week, Adrian and Sunday Independent business editor, Samantha McCaughren, discuss the rise of paywalls across major newspaper brands. Adrian argues that while they sometimes attract narky comments from online readers, paywalls have simplified the news consumption process and set a more solid path for future business models. They discuss whether its ethical to put critical news, such as Covid-19 updates, behind a subscription paywall. They also look at how related business models, such as reader contributions and online advertising, are faring for those who depend on them. When it comes to the Albuquerque Public Schools budget, many things are up in the air. The district is planning for cuts and reallocations in different forms, including the state taking credit for the districts federal coronavirus relief funding. But the extent of the hits was unknown as of Monday as the district has been waiting for the state Public Education Department to determine the unit value, a crucial figure in determining how much money districts receive from the school funding formula. PED spokeswoman Deborah Martinez previously told the Journal that the department has been working on setting the new unit value and has until Aug. 1 to do so. The new unit value is a piece of the mechanism that the state will use to reduce the allocations to schools as a result of reductions to funding that took place during the special session, Martinez wrote in an email to the Journal. But Chief Financial Officer Tami Coleman said APS does know that it will see a roughly $1 million decrease to the $21 million transportation budget. The district is looking at applying for Federal Emergency Management Agency funding and is being fastidious about filling vacancies to help with projected budget shortfalls in the meantime. OUTBREAK PLANS IN PLACE: While in-person classes are pushed back tentatively until September, districts and the state have plans in place should there be positive cases of COVID-19 at a school. PED Secretary Ryan Stewart said if theres a COVID-19 outbreak, the state Department of Health will come in, and conduct a case investigation and contact tracing, guiding any shutdowns. APS said its already had to shut down some schools after employees tested positive for coronavirus. On Monday, interim chief operations officer Gabriella Blakey said 14 sites in the district have been affected since March. We follow a strict protocol in these cases, working closely with the New Mexico Department of Health to decide whether to close a classroom, a portion of the building, or the whole school and for how long, Acting Superintendent Scott Elder said in a letter to the public, adding that the school community is informed if a case is confirmed. During shutdowns, deep cleans occur and electrostatic foggers are used, he said. Blakey added that the district has 972 custodians and is looking to fill 35 vacancies before schools let kids back into the classroom. MEAL DISTRIBUTION RESUMES: APS will be providing meals for students in the coming days. For the first two Mondays in August, all families can scoop a weeks worth of meals from any of APS comprehensive high schools. The district said pick-up times are from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. or 4 to 5:30 p.m. But starting Aug. 17, the district will move to a ticket system for meal distribution. Families who qualify for free and reduced-price meals can get a free ticket from their school ahead of time. More details are at APS.edu. APS families who need to fill out a free and reduced-price meal application can do so online. A lot of APS schools automatically qualify, but there is a list of schools on the APS website whose communities need to fill out an application, if eligible. Shelby Perea: sperea@abqjournal.com by Paul Wang All the excluded were hostile to new security law. For the Hong Kong government, there is no "political censorship". For Beijing, the excluded are "unscrupulous delinquents ". Chris Patten calls the action "An outrageous political purge. [. . .] In Hong Kong, it is obviously now illegal to believe in democracy. Hong Kong (AsiaNews) Beijing is behind the disqualification of 12 pro-democracy figures who were planning to run in the upcoming Legislative Council (LegCo) elections, said Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, a think tank that collaborates with mainland China. Speaking on Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), Lau explained that Beijing had to intervene because theres collusion between external [and] internal hostile voices. This situation prompted Beijing into doing something to prevent the hostile forces from taking over LegCo and to make sure that national security is safeguarded," Lau added. Lau Siu-kais patriotic interpretation clashes however with the opinion of many others who view the exclusion as an act of censorship and repression. News of the disqualification of the 12 candidates for the LegCo broke around 4 pm yesterday. Some of the excluded are well known social activists and critics of the security law, like Joshua Wong, former leader of Demosisto (a dissolved pro-independence party); Civic Party members like Dennis Kwok, Kwok Ka-ki and Alvin Yeung; and Tsuen Wan district councillor Lester Shum. Other are Tat Cheng (Civic Party), localist Ventus Lau, Tiffany Yuen (ex Demosisto), Kenneth Leung, Cheng Kam-mun, former journalist Gwyneth Ho, and district councillor Fergus Leung. In a press release issued yesterday, the government pointed out that it is precisely the hostility of these candidates to the security law that made them ineligible. There is no question of any political censorship, restriction of the freedom of speech or deprivation of the right to stand for elections, the statement said. The security law imposed by Beijing has been criticised and rejected by a broad section of Hong Kong society. It criminalises acts of "secession, subversion, terrorism, collaboration with foreign forces". Among the excluded, perhaps only a few former Demosisto members could be accused of being in favour of Hong Kong independence or involved in collusion with foreign forces since they sought US help to push the government to engage protesters in dialogue. For the others there is only a strong hostility to the security law, which is enough for them to be accused of "terrorism". The Beijing Liaison Office with Hong Kong and Macau says that those disqualified have "crossed the legal bottom line". "How could Hong Kong's legislative body . . . allow these unscrupulous delinquents seeking to destroy 'One Country, Two Systems' and Hong Kong's prosperity into its chamber," it said in a statement. Internationally, many countries, first of all the United Kingdom and the United States, have condemned Beijing's move on Hong Kong. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab pointed out that the removal of 12 candidates undermines the integrity of the One Country, Two Systems principle, which China pledged to uphold in the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984. For his part, Chris Patten, Hong Kongs last British governor, called Beijings action "an outrageous political purge of Hong Kongs democrats. [. . .] It is obviously now illegal to believe in democracy. China's recent aggression in India's eastern Ladakh and claims for the real estate in Bhutan are indicative of its intentions, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said, asserting that Beijing under President Xi Jinping is testing the world to see if anyone is going to stand up to its threats and bullying. Indian and Chinese troops have been locked in a bitter 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 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. China recently staked claim over the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in Bhutan at the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council and opposed funding to the project. Pompeo, during a Congressional hearing on Thursday, told the members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that 'the actions are entirely consistent with what they have been signalling to the world for decades you might even argue since 1989, but certainly since General Secretary Xi came to power'. The Secretary of State said China has the desire to expand its power and reach. "They talk about bringing socialism with Chinese characteristics to the world. Claims that they have now made for real estate in Bhutan, the incursion that took place in India, these are indicative of Chinese intentions, and they are testing, they are probing the world to see if we are going to stand up to their threats and their bullying," Pompeo said. "I am more confident than I was even a year ago that the world is prepared to do that. "There's a lot more work to do, and we need to be serious about it," said the top American diplomat. In his testimony, Pompeo told lawmakers that India has banned 106 Chinese applications that threatened its citizens' privacy and security. "Our diplomatic efforts are working and momentum is building to mitigate the threats that the Chinese Communist Party presents. "All 10 ASEAN nations have insisted that the South China Sea disputes be settled on the basis of international law, including UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). Japan led the G-7's condemnation of China's national security law targeting Hong Kong," he said. The European Union condemned the law too and also declared China a systemic rival to us, he said. At the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Secretary General Stoltenberg has called to make China a greater part of that alliance's focus. We led a multilateral effort to ensure that the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organisation elected a director from a country that cared about intellectual property. "Our QUAD (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) -- the US, Australia, India, and Japan -- has been reinvigorated. We've worked hard at this. "Our diplomats have done wonderful work. I'm very proud of the progress we are making. "In addition to these multilateral efforts, Department of Justice is cracking down on Chinese intellectual property threats," he said. The US has sanctioned Chinese leaders for their treatment of Uighur minorities in Xinjiang province, imposed export controls on companies that supported, and warned US businesses against using slave labour in their supply chains, he said. The US has terminated special treatment agreements with Hong Kong in response to the Communist Party of China's actions to deny freedom to the people of Hong Kong, he said. "We closed our consulate in Houston because it was a den of spies," Pompeo added. A US economic slowdown is bad news for Ireland, and could leave our own stimulus package looking threadbare. Its not a surprise that the US economy came to a screeching halt in April. The scale of the hit has surprised markets - particularly because the trend for US jobs has swung back into reverse. The US economy needs a shot in the arm, but with an election coming in November, Donald Trump's divisive - and successful - campaign tactics mean the chances of Washington agreeing an economy-boosting financial stimulus plan before that looks pretty remote - he'd need to work with opposition Democrats for that. The Fed's Jerome Powell has called for more US fiscal support. Without a big stimulus bang to get America back to work, Ireland's economy will be slower coming out of the crisis. It was US investment that pulled Ireland into a belated recovery after the last crash, remember. In fact, in many ways our July Stimulus Package looks like a holding scheme, to keep Ireland ticking over until a global economy - inevitably US-led - kicks into gear. Ministers here might claim ours is a 7bn package, but strip out 2bn of loan guarantees that might never be used, and discount, for example, the extent the Pandemic Unemployment Payment repackages social welfare spending that would have happened even without the scheme and our stimulus looks anaemic compared to the 10bn of spend the Fiscal Advisory Council, for instance, indicated we need. That makes sense if ministers think a global lift will boost Ireland's recovery. But if the US economic cavalry is not coming, the budget in October will have to ramp up our own firepower, or we risk a more painful recession next year. Rosneft has discovered oil in a new field in Western Siberia, with reserves estimated at 20 million tons of crude oil (146.6 million barrels) and some 1 billion cubic meters of natural gas, the company said. The discovery will help Rosneft fulfill its reserve replacement program, which aims at a replacement rate of 100 percent. The Novoognennoye field is the fourth new oil field discovered as part of the Vankor project, which is exploring for oil and gas in the northern part of the Krasnoyarsk territory and the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district. Since the launch of the project in 2009, its resource potential has doubled, with crude oil reserves increasing by 20 percent and natural gas reserves rising by 54 percent, Rosneft also said. The state-owned energy giant is the largest oil producer in Russia, accounting for as much as 40 percent of the countrys total oil production and 5 percent of global oil production. The head of the company, Igor Sechin, has been a vocal opponent to the production cuts agreed by Russia with OPEC and several non-member producers. Because of the cuts, the company has found it difficult to fulfill its contractual obligations, Reuters reported in Maywhen the cuts beganciting sources familiar with the matter. According to them, Rosneft did not have enough oil in storage to ship to clients with whom it had long-term supply contracts. This made it challenging for Rosneft to stick to the deepest cuts agreed by OPEC+ after they were supposed to expire in June. OPEC+ agreed in June to extend the deep cuts until the end of July, interfering with Rosnefts supply deals with traders such as Trafigura and Glencore. There is no doubt Rosneft will strictly fulfil all obligations under supply contracts with its foreign and Russian counterparties despite output cuts made by the company as a part of OPEC+ deal, Sechin said in late May despite the difficulties. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Diamond giant De Beers likely to cut jobs after COVID-19 hit FILE PHOTO: Logo of Anglo American is seen on a jacket of an employee of the Los Bronces copper mine on the outskirts of Santiago LONDON/GABORONE (Reuters) - Diamond mining giant De Beers is likely to have to cut jobs, its chief executive said on Thursday, as it outlined plans for an overhaul of its business after the coronavirus hit jewellery demand. De Beers, a unit of Anglo American , earlier reported plunging earnings in the first half of 2020 as a drop in rough diamond sales and prices hurt margins. Underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) were just $2 million (1.5 million pounds) in the period, down from $518 million in the first half of last year. De Beers CEO Bruce Cleaver told Reuters official consultations with workers will begin on Aug. 11. He said the business overhaul "is likely to lead to some job losses, but I can't tell you at this point what that number will be". Cleaver said the process would last for three months and involve a review of mining, rough sales, retail and the corporate centre, but exclude joint venture businesses in Botswana and Namibia which have different governance structures. De Beers employs 20,000 people across its entire business. The country's coronavirus state of emergency, which ends in October, prohibits businesses from laying off workers. Asked whether De Beers was planning job cuts in Botswana, executive vice president for diamond trading Paul Rowley said that as the transformation plan was a work in progress, he couldn't take anything off the table. South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers did not immediately reply to a request for comment on possible job cuts by De Beers. Maintaining that the long-term outlook is positive, however, the miner said its business transformation plan aims to boost margins by, among other things, modernising the way it sells diamonds. (This story, in paragraph 8, corrects last name to Rowley from Rawley, changes to couldn't from could) (Reporting by Zandi Shabalala in London and Brian Benza in Gaborone; Additional Reporting by Tanisha Heiberg in Johannesburg; Writing by Helen Reid; Editing by Jan Harvey and David Evans) A man who led police on high speed chase on the Queen Elizabeth Way before abandoning his vehicle and running across three lanes of traffic in attempt to escape has been sentenced to six months behind bars. Moises Medeiros pleaded guilty Friday in an Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines to a slew of charges including failing to stop for police and possession of fentanyl. On April 17, court was told, police spotted a vehicle travelling at a high rate of speed on Highway 420 in Niagara Falls. Police attempted to pull over the vehicle but the driver failed to stop and continued on to the QEW. At one point during the pursuit, the vehicle struck the curb, causing a tire to deflate. Ultimately, Mr. Medeiros jumped out of the vehicle and jumped over two guardrails and ran across three lanes of oncoming traffic on the QEW, said assistant Crown attorney Stacey Sheehan. The defendant was arrested following a brief foot pursuit along the side of the highway. Court heard Medeiros, who was a prohibited driver, was found to be carrying 2.3 grams of fentanyl. A search of the vehicle also produced a dagger-style knife and a wooden billy club. The mans lawyer argued for a sentence of time served so his client could pursue treatment for drug addiction. He has had a long uphill battle with respect to addition to crystal meth and fentanyl, he said. Any extra amount of time in jail would not address the underlying issues with respect to the offences. The judge disagreed. The overriding principal here is not rehabilitation, said Judge Joseph De Filippis. Rehabilitation is important, and I wish you well, but thats not the overriding principal. The overriding principal here is specific deterrents. In addition to the jail term, which was reduced to 45 days due to credit given for the amount of time spent in presentence custody, the offender was placed on probation and banned from driving for two years. South Africa: COVID-19 highlights need to support innovation: Patel Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel says the shortage of testing kits, ventilators and medical grade masks has underlined the importance of Africa developing a strong innovation and manufacturing capability, and building more resilient economies. In March, when the virus reached our shores, we had no local manufacturing capacity for ventilators and yet the health care demand for ventilators surged. But today as we speak, South African-designed and manufactured ventilators are rolling off the production line, Patel said. He was speaking at a virtual National COVID-19 Conference held on Friday, held under the theme, Harnessing science, technology and innovation in response to COVID-19: A national and international effort. The conference, which brought together scientists, governments, business and civil society from all over the world, focused on health innovations and technologies, and social and economic sustainability during and after the pandemic. Patel announced that over the next month, South Africa expects thousands of non-invasive ventilators to be delivered to hospitals and medical facilities across the country all made possible by South African ingenuity, and by South African hands. Within a space of four months, our country has gone from having no capacity to produce Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) ventilators, to now having the first units coming off the production line. As we build our production capacity, we will support our neighbours across the African continent with these ventilators. South African manufacturers have supplied sanitisers, masks and other critical medical goods to neighbouring countries, Patel said. He said the National Ventilator Project is one example of what can be done with solidarity and science, and what can be achieved when we work together toward common objectives. Other initiatives include the production of millions of litres of locally-made hand sanitisers and surface disinfectants, and the doubling of the local production of medical grade masks from six million a month to 13 million a month. We now need to bring that same spirit to the wider task of economic reconstruction and use our technologies, our know-how, our expertise and our social solidarity to rebuild the economy, the Minister said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Electrophysiology Market Research Report by Indication (Atrial Fibrillation, Atrial Flutter, Atrioventricular Nodal Reentry Tachycardia, and Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome), by Product (Access Device, Electrophysiology Ablation Catheter, Electrophysiology Diagnostic Catheter, and Electrophysiology Laboratory Device) - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19 New York, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Electrophysiology Market Research Report by Indication, by Product - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940530/?utm_source=GNW The Global Electrophysiology Market is expected to grow from USD 4,121.26 Million in 2019 to USD 7,870.52 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11.38%. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Electrophysiology to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: "The Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Indication, the Electrophysiology Market studied across Atrial Fibrillation, Atrial Flutter, Atrioventricular Nodal Reentry Tachycardia, and Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome. The Atrial Fibrillation commanded the largest size in the Electrophysiology Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Electrophysiology Laboratory Device is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Product, the Electrophysiology Market studied across Access Device, Electrophysiology Ablation Catheter, Electrophysiology Diagnostic Catheter, and Electrophysiology Laboratory Device. The Electrophysiology Ablation Catheter further studied across Cryoablation Electrophysiology Catheter, Laser Ablation System, Microwave Ablation System, Navigational Advanced Mapping Accessories, and Radiofrequency Ablation Catheter. The Electrophysiology Diagnostic Catheter further studied across Advanced Electrophysiology Diagnostic Catheter, Conventional Electrophysiology Diagnostic Catheter, and Ultrasound Electrophysiology Diagnostic Catheter. The Electrophysiology Laboratory Device further studied across 3D Mapping System, Electrophysiology Recording System, Electrophysiology Remote Steering System, Electrophysiology X-Ray System, Intracardiac Echocardiography System, and Radiofrequency Ablation Generator. The Electrophysiology Ablation Catheter commanded the largest size in the Electrophysiology Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Electrophysiology Laboratory Device is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Asia-Pacific is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Geography, the Electrophysiology Market studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region surveyed across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region surveyed across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region surveyed across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. The Americas commanded the largest size in the Electrophysiology Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. Company Usability Profiles: The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Electrophysiology Market including Abbott Laboratories, Access Point Technologies EP, Inc., AtriCure, Inc., Biosense Webster, Inc. by Jonshon & Johnson, Biotronik SE & Co. KG, Boston Scientific Corporation, CardioFocus, Inc., CathRx Ltd, GE Healthcare, Japan Lifeline Co., Ltd., Koninklijke Philips N.V., Medtronic, Inc., Melys AFS Ltd, Microport Scientific Corporation, and Siemens Healthineers. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Electrophysiology Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Electrophysiology Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Electrophysiology Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Electrophysiology Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Electrophysiology Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Electrophysiology Market? 6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Electrophysiology Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940530/?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 He described Naths sudden change of heart on Ram temple issue as merely a poll gimmick Bhopal: Congress veteran and former chief minister Kamal Nath on Friday hailed the ongoing process of building Ram temple at Ayodhya, saying, It will realise a cherished dream of millions of people in India. Significantly, Nath is the first senior Congress leader to come out openly in support of Ram temple at Ayodhya ahead of Bhoomi Pujan ceremony, slated to be organised on August 5, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend. Hopes and aspirations of millions of people of the country will be fulfilled with construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. The temple is being constructed with support from all sections in the country. It can only happen in India," a twitter post by him said on Friday. Ruling BJP, however, has taken a jibe at him for extending support for the construction of Ram temple, reminding him of his partys stand on the issue. Congress always opposed Ram temple in Ayodhya and created all kinds of hurdles to stop the temple coming up in Ayodhya. It is a pleasant surprise for us to see a change of heart in Nath over the issue," BJP spokesman Rajneesh Agrawal quipped. He described Naths sudden change of heart on Ram temple issue as merely a poll gimmick to woo Hindu votebank ahead of by-elections in the 27 Assembly constituencies in Madhya Pradesh, scheduled to be held by end of September this year. The Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, had hopped from temple to temple ahead of 2018 assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh to shed partys anti-Hindu image. However, the ploy failed to click. Nath plans to adopt the same strategy in the upcoming assembly by-elections in the state to shed his partys anti-Ram temple image. But, it will also boomerang on Congress in the upcoming Assembly by-elections," he added. Two months after NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley made history by launching into space from U.S. soil for the first time in nearly a decade, the duo returned to Earth on Sunday. Behnken and Hurley, whose flight was the first to take place in a commercially built spacecraft, departed the International Space Station on Saturday evening and splashed down off the Florida coast on Sunday. The splash down took place at around 2:48 pm ET. With all eyes on Tropical Storm Isaias, which was bearing down on Florida's east coast, NASA on Saturday had declared "conditions are 'Go'" for Sunday's return. Isaias was downgraded from a hurricane Saturday. The successful return happened in the Gulf of Mexico while the storm slogged up Florida's east coast. The splashdown took place off the coast of Pensacola, where a recovery boat that departed its port at 9:20 a.m. was staged for operations. An alternate site of Panama City, also on the gulf, was at the ready, NASA said in a statement Saturday. After their scorched capsule was lifted onto the recovery ship, the Go Navigator, a livestream showed crew members in personal protective gear purging toxic fuel vapors before opening the hatch. Shortly after 4 pm, as Behnken emerged from the capsule and gave a thumbs up, Hurley could be heard thanking everyone who participated in the mission. "Anybody who has touched Endeavour should take a moment to cherish this day, especially given all of the things that have happened this year," he said. Hurley emerged moments later and was placed on a stretcher. Both men were taken for standard medical checks before returning to Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base in Houston. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken, left, and Doug Hurley inside SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule. Behnken and Hurley boarded their spacecraft, SpaceXs Crew Dragon capsule, and undocked from the space station on Saturday at 7:35 p.m. EDT, according to an International Space Station Facebook post. The astronauts then spent hours orbiting the Earth before splashing down off the Florida coast Sunday afternoon. Story continues The return marks a major milestone for human spaceflight the first time that NASA astronauts have traveled to and from space aboard a commercially built spacecraft. Completion of the test flight is also a big accomplishment for SpaceX and the entire commercial spaceflight industry. Prior to Behnken and Hurleys launch May 30, NASA had been unable to launch astronauts into orbit from American soil since the agencys space shuttle fleet was retired in 2011. A successful Crew Dragon mission ushers in a new era of commercial spaceflight, with private companies such as SpaceX and Boeing taking over routine trips to the space station while NASA pursues other lofty science and exploration goals. The Crew Dragon capsule had two sets of parachutes that slowed the spacecraft down as it traveled through the Earths atmosphere. The first chutes were deployed when the capsule was at an altitude of around 18,000 feet and traveling about 350 miles per hour. Four main parachutes were then released at an altitude of 6,000 feet, when the capsule was moving at around 119 miles per hour, according to SpaceX. After the spacecraft splashed down, a recovery ship with more than 40 NASA and SpaceX personnel onboard rendezvoused with the capsule andhoisted it out of the water and onto the ships main deck. The astronauts are to undergo medical checks before boarding a NASA plane back to Houston. NASA has already announced the astronauts selected for the next Crew Dragon launch to the space station, but the capsule will first need to complete NASAs certification process. After Behnken and Hurley's return to Earth, their spacecraft will now undergo a series of inspections in Florida to assess how the vehicle performed throughout its flight. If certified, the next Crew Dragon capsule will launch NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, to the space station in late September. The four-person crew will subsequently spend six months living and working aboard the orbiting outpost. Flash Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng held a phone conversation Friday with Singaporean Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat on bilateral ties and the fight against COVID-19. Han, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that Chinese President Xi Jinping has recently held a telephone conversation with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and the two leaders reached new consensus on bilateral ties, anti-epidemic cooperation and important issues of common concern. Noting that this year marks the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Singapore, Han said that cooperation in the fight against COVID-19 has become a new highlight of bilateral relations and set a good example at both regional and international levels. The two sides have helped each other, overcome difficulties, and ensured that supply chains of the two countries and the region remain stable, he said. China is ready to work with Singapore to adequately implement the consensus reached by leaders of the two countries, enhance mutual learning, and make good use of their cooperation mechanisms, Han said. China welcomes Singapore's continued active participation in China's regional development strategies, so as to better achieve common development, he added. For his part, Heng said that a friend in need is a friend indeed, and that the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Singapore and China presents a new opportunity. Singapore is willing to work closely with China to fully leverage the role of bilateral cooperation mechanisms, accelerate economic transformation and jointly deal with challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Heng said. Sergei Pugachev was sentenced to two years in his absence by a High Court judge in 2016 for breaching court orders relating to hundreds of millions in allegedly stolen cash. He is pictured above with Countess Alexandra Tolstoy A fugitive Russian oligarch once nicknamed Putins banker is using a legal loophole to evade extradition to the UK where he faces jail. Sergei Pugachev was sentenced to two years in his absence by a High Court judge in 2016 for breaching court orders relating to hundreds of millions in allegedly stolen cash. But the billionaire remains in his chateau in France because the British authorities have failed to haul him back amid apparent confusion over using the European Arrest Warrant. Details have just emerged a week after his estranged partner Countess Alexandra Tolstoy was evicted with their three children from the 9million family home in Chelsea where he lived before fleeing in 2015. The couple appeared in a recent BBC documentary, The Countess and the Russian Billionaire, largely shot at his opulent chateau near Nice. Pugachev, 57, built up a Russian business empire worth a reputed 11.5billion, including the worlds largest mine, two shipyards and valuable properties in Moscow and St Petersburg. Also once known as the Kremlins banker, he was previously close to Vladimir Putin but fell into disfavour and was labelled a traitor by the Russian president. After arriving in the UK in 2011, he was accused of siphoning a fortune out of his finance house Mezhprombank. State creditors in Moscow pursued him in the British courts, claiming he embezzled hundreds of millions. Pugachev fled to France before the High Court ruling in a case brought by Russias Deposit Insurance Agency, in which he was sentenced for 12 breaches of court orders connected to a freezing order imposed on him over attempts to recover the cash. Also once known as the Kremlins banker, he was previously close to Vladimir Putin but fell into disfavour and was labelled a traitor by the Russian president In unrelated previous cases, High Court judges have said the European Arrest Warrant cannot be used to extradite someone back to the UK if they have been sentenced for contempt of court in a civil case. This would suggest Pugachev could not be extradited. But the Home Office insisted this week there was nothing legally to stop him being extradited from France using the warrant. In the meantime, the frustrated creditors of the Russian bank pursuing Pugachev for the missing cash have criticised the muddle. A source close to the creditors said: It is remarkable that tactical moves across jurisdictions, even in illegal flight, should still be able to frustrate European national authorities in their co-operation against theft on a grand scale. In the BBC documentary, Miss Tolstoy a distant relative of the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy described her life of luxury when she first met Pugachev. As well as the French chateau and Chelsea townhouse, they owned an estate in Herefordshire, a 32million villa in St Barts, a yacht in Monaco, a private jet and a suite on standby at Claridges as well as a shoe collection worth thousands and thousands. In the February 2016 High Court judgment, no ruling was made on the allegations of embezzled cash and Pugachev told the court he had not stolen any money. In her judgment jailing him, Mrs Justice Rose noted he does have a genuine fear that his life is in danger from agents of the Russian state. Anne-Jessica Faure, a lawyer for Mr Pugachev, said there has been no court decision establishing financial wrongdoing by him. She added he cannot be extradited to the UK because he is a French citizen and because he was jailed for a civil contempt of court, claims the Home Office denies. The Gate Tower Building is one of the many several tall office buildings that make up Osakas impressive skyline, but there is something about it that makes it unique in the world it has a functional highway going right through it. Photos of this architectural anomaly have been doing the rounds on social media for over two decades now, and its easy to see why. 16-storey buildings dont usually have highway off-ramps going right through them, but the Gate Tower Building does, and the traffic doesnt affect the people working inside it one bit. The elevators are located on the side of the building, and the highway itself doesnt touch the tower, which is properly insulated against traffic noise and vibrations anyway. Its still quite a sight to behold, and if youre ever in Osaka you should definitely pass by, or rather, through. Photo: Hiroshi Nakai/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) The Gate Tower Building was the result of a compromise in a 5-year-long land dispute. Property rights for this particular plot of land had been held by a wood and charcoal company since the Meiji period, but the buildings on it had deteriorated over time, due to gradual decline of the business. However, in 1983, when a redevelopment of the area was approved, the owners of the land were denied permits because the Japanese Government had already planned the Hanshin Expressway to pass through there. This was the beginning of a long and tedious legal battle. View this post on Instagram A post shared by ViajeroTotal.com (@viajero_total) on Jul 21, 2020 at 10:41am PDT The owners of the land refused to move from their land, so after five long years, to avoid delaying the Hanshin Expressway project any longer, authorities proposed an interesting compromise. The company would maintain ownership of the land, but would agree to have the highway pass through their property. The highway off-ramp is essentially a tenant in the Gate Tower Building and is even listed as such on the list of tenants by floor. And as any good tenant, the highway, or rather its owner, pays rent. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Bernat por el mundo (@bernatxelmundo) on Nov 19, 2019 at 4:03am PST Floors 5 through 7 are inaccessible by elevator, as they are taken by the unusual tenant, but you can go up to the 8th floor and watch the traffic pass through from above. The Gate Tower Building is currently the headquarters of the TKP Corporation, so youll have to ask for permission to go inside their property. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Thomas Bachmayr (@thomasbachmayr) on Feb 25, 2020 at 10:19am PST You would expect working so close to busy highway traffic to be a nightmare for the office workers in the Gate Tower Building, especially those located on the 4th and 8th floors, but thats apparently not the case at all. Because the highway never touches the building, and because of the excellent insulation work, the unique building is surprisingly quiet. View this post on Instagram A post shared by PR | Marketing | Mediation (@f_r_ame) on Sep 30, 2019 at 11:34am PDT Driving through the Gate Tower Building is not very exciting, as you are basically passing through a short tunnel than doesnt touch the building. Its one of those sights that is way more cooler to admire from afar than actually see up-close. Osakas Gate Tower Building reminds me of another architectural anomaly we featured a while back a 19-floor residential building in Chongqing with a train track passing through it. Dear Editor: I believe that it is worth noting that your fine publication noted in separate columns that the prime minister of the Palestinian entity has submitted in writing plans for a Palestinian state (PA says it is ready to restart peace negotiations with Israel, July 10; and 52 years late isnt too late, July 17). This was apparently a response to the solution offered on behalf of the Trump Administration after an extensive research by very knowledgeable and highly intelligent professionals. The Trump plan reflected the realization that there was no one to negotiate with... New Delhi, July 31 : India's Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan on Friday said that the magnitude of the damages caused by the coronavirus pandemic to the world economy is "immense". "About 17 million people have been infected by Covid-19 and more than 662,000 precious lives have been lost worldwide due to this pandemic. The magnitude of the damages caused to the world economy is also immense," said Harsh Vardhan, while presiding over a virtual meeting of the Bureau of the Executive Board of the WHO. He expressed his deepest condolences and concern at the loss of lives due to Covid-19 and offered sincere gratitude for the efforts of those on the frontline. During the meeting, Harsh Vardhan, who is the Chairman of the Executive Board, emphasised that the world has realised the importance of health and need for greater cooperation amongst countries to tackle the risks posed by communicable and non-communicable diseases. "In the era of globalisation, when the world is a large home to all humanity, the risk and challenge to spread of a disease is even bigger since it does not distinguish between boundaries of countries." He also urged the WHO members "to forge multi-sectoral collaboration to mobilise and galvanise global response, support and cooperation to fight communicable and non-communicable diseases more effectively". There is a need to explore innovative ways to address new threats and challenges in the post-pandemic phase, he added. He further stressed on the mutual "need to come together to be more responsive in terms of managing the new challenges being faced so as to ensure a timely, adequate & coordinated global response". The agenda of the meet included finalisation of dates of the 32nd session of the programme, budget and administration committee (PBAC), and resumed sessions of the 73rd World Health Assembly and 147th Executive Board. The Bureau also includes the Vice Chairs of the Executive Board and the Director General of WHO. Observer participants and senior officials of WHO Headquarters were also present. At the outset, Harsh Vardhan welcomed the participants to the first meeting of the Bureau of the Executive Board and wished them well during the ongoing pandemic. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) Adrian and Geanne Share came to the Orlando area in 1998. "My husband's an engineer whose passion is to see high-speed rail built in the U.S., and we came to Florida for that purpose. He's spent 20 years on different attempts to bring high-speed passenger service between Miami and Orlando. He led the engineering for the system that is being built between Orlando and Miami by Brightline, and oversaw the construction of the first phase between Miami and West Palm Beach that is temporarily shut down due to Covid-19," Geanne said. The train from Orlando to Miami will travel up to 125 mph, it w... This summer, the community activist from Cedar Lake has been renovating yet another abandoned home in Gary, a city he adopted after moving to this Region from Boston. While living on the East Coast and working in the real estate industry, he stumbled online onto a dilapidated property available in Gary, a city he knew nothing about. While later visiting that property, Hayward experienced a divine epiphany, he believes. The Niger State government has signed N10 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Manzuwa Nigeria Ltd. for the construction of 40 kilometers road in the state. Gov. Abubakar Bello of Niger said during the signing of the MoU on Thursday in Minna, that the project was to decongest Minna city and expand it for development. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) report that the project tagged Abubakar Sani Bello Bypass/Minna City Expansion Project, would pass through Gidan Kwano-Garatu-Tutungo-Gurusu totally 40 kilometers. Bello, who was represented by Alhaji Ahmed Matane, Secretary to the State Government, explained that the project was an initiative of Manzuwa but the government would provide an enabling environment for the project. He added that the road project would serve as alternative route and exit for motorists in terms of traffic gridlock within Minna city. He disclosed that three ministries, Lands and Housing, Works and Infrastructure, Development and Transport would drive the project. The Ministry of Land will do the assessment, payment of compensation and facilitate the project, while the Ministry of Works which is the eye of the government will ensure that the project is aligned with quality and standard. The Ministry of Transport will be in charge of movement of goods and services and as a responsible government, we will ensure that the project is started and and completed within stipulated period, he said. Earlier, Alhaji Adamu Ibn-Adamu, Chief Executive Officer of Manzuwa Venture, said the project would commence in October for a period of 36 months at the cost of N10 billion. He disclosed that Manzuwa venture would be responsible for the financing of the project, adding that the company would recuperate its funds through a financing institution. Ibn-Adamu disclosed that the firm would recuperate its funds through sales of layout and issuing of certificates of occupancy on the allotted land by government. The land for the project is 10,000 hectares and it will benefit the 25 local government areas of the state, he said. He said that the project would commence from Pago to Federal University Minna (FUT) Permanent site, adding that the road would consist of a city and layout. NAN reports the roads to be constructed includes: Bida-Minna road, Garatu-Gidan Kwano junction, Tutungo-Pago roundabout, Gurusu junction and Minna-Gwada road by Gurusu junction.(NAN) BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend: Turkish government sends medical masks, overalls and medicines for treatment of COVID-19 to Uzbekistan, Trend reports citing Uzbekistan National News Agency. Charter flight of Uzbekistan Airways with the cargo of humanitarian aid arrived from Istanbul to Tashkent International Airport, on July 31, 2020. The humanitarian aid cargo was shipped from Turkey as part of an agreement signed between the two governments. The cargo, weighing about 12.5 tons, included 50,000 N-95 masks, 200,000 surgical masks, 40,000 overalls, 5,000 full-face masks, as well as medicines for treatment of COVID-19. In May 2020, Turkey shipped 50 lung ventilators manufactured at the Arcelik factory in Istanbul to Uzbekistan. Representative delegation of Uzbekistan headed by Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade Sardor Umurzakov arrived in Turkey on July 26, 2020. During this visit, the delegation of representatives of ministries and agencies of Uzbekistan discussed the issues of deepening bilateral relations in trade-economic, investment and other areas with Turkish authorities. The sides confirmed mutual aspiration to double the volume of mutual trade despite the impact of pandemic. Moreover representatives of Uzbekistan and Turkey agreed to jointly develop and approve a program of cooperation for the period from 2021 through 2023. --- Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, on July 31, overruled the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party governments decision to open hotels and allow weekly bazaars on a trial basis. Under the third phase of gradual unlocking in India, more curbs were lifted by the Centre, while allowing states and union territories to decide the course of action in the non-containment zones. Based on the directive, the Delhi government had decided to allow hotels, hospitality services, and street hawkers from August 1 alongside lifting the night curfew. The AAP government also had plans to allow weekly bazaars for a week on a trial basis to see if people are adhering to social distancing norms. A statement issued by the Chief Ministers Office read: These decisions are in continuation of several important decisions taken by CM Arvind Kejriwal in the past few days to ensure Delhis economy, which was impacted severely by the lockdown, gets back on track. 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 Hotels were reopened on the ground that several of them had been delinked and were no longer linked to hospitals. The LG's decision comes a day after he junked Delhi governments decision to reject the panel of lawyers appointed by Delhi Police to fight cases related to the February riots. With PTI inputs Follow our coverage of the coronavirus crisis here Matt Brown and his wife were waiting for an order from Amazon, but what they got when the opened up a white package from China in May smelled so badly and was so concerning, he called the cops and a HazMat team was sent in. Two months after it happened at his South Jersey home, Brown retold the story to NJ Advance Media this week after reading a story on NJ.com about the state Department of Agriculture advising against opening packages containing seeds from China. He now thinks what he got might have been the mystery seeds that were just badly decomposed. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 11:44:26|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close WASHINGTON, July 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he doesn't want to delay the November election hours after raising the possibility on Twitter. "Do I want to see a date change? No," Trump said during a press conference at the White House. "I don't want a delay. I want to have the election." "But I don't want to see a crooked election," he added, doubling down his criticism of mail-in voting. "I also don't want to have to wait for three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing and the election doesn't mean anything," the president told reporters. "Mail-in ballots will lead to the greatest fraud." In a tweet on Thursday morning, Trump claimed -- without providing any proof or evidence -- that 2020, with mail-in voting, will be "the most inaccurate & fraudulent election in history." "It will be a great embarrassment to the USA," he wrote. "Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" The tweet immediately ignited a political firestorm and has drawn bipartisan pushback from Capitol Hill, as legal analysts agreed that Trump has no authority to delay the presidential election as the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to set the date. Enditem The recent Public Education Commission hearing that denied the Mission Achievement and Success Carter Schools (MAS) request for additional student enrollment sparked an Albuquerque Journal editorial criticizing that decision, urging a re-examination of the request. It seems the primary reasons for the denial were traffic safety concerns, issues the MAS officials have tried to address with the city and the neighborhood. This issue reminded me of a similar effort by another successful charter school, the Albuquerque Institute for Math and Science (AIMS), currently located on UNM south campus, which wanted to add a second location at the north UNM campus in Rio Rancho. AIMS applied for the second campus in May 2013 but Rio Rancho officials objected to the new school on procedural grounds. AIMS director and founder Kathy Sandoval labeled it a turf war. Rio Rancho filed and lost a lawsuit in the Santa Fe 1st Judicial Court in May 2017 in an attempt to stop the new campus. Superintendent Sue Cleveland decided to continue the legal fight, spending more taxpayer money on an appeal in the New Mexico Court of Appeals. But wait a minute, what about the children, the students? Sadly, our children are the ones losing out. Statistics show these charter schools are very successful in educating students to achieve grade-level proficiency. Generally, students at MAS are low-income, disadvantaged kids, with 78% reading at grade level compared to just 36% statewide. AIMS was recently rated the best school in New Mexico and 43rd in the nation. Both schools have student wait lists exceeding 1,000. But turf wars and traffic concerns punish rather than reward exemplary performance. The day after the editorial the headline in the Metro section was NM again ranks last in child well-being. The article states New Mexico was also last in 2019, 2018 and 2013. The connection between a poor education system and these dismal statistics is obvious. My fundamental question is why do our institutions and officials put up so many roadblocks that stymie the critical education process that means so much for the children in this state? There are solutions to these schools problems. Rio Rancho: Help facilitate AIMS through the application process for a second campus rather than suing. Residents and neighbors near MAS: It isnt rocket science. Solve traffic complaints, add playground equipment, donate money to enrich the schools facilities. Devise solutions rather than create barriers for these amazing success stories for the benefit of all concerned. Lets be the best we can be, not the worst. But right now pettiness and shallow vision obscure what is really important. This disgusting mindset is why New Mexico is last in every good list and first in every bad list. If the counterproductive mentality doesnt change, New Mexico will forever be in last place. A solid, meaningful education is the key fundamental building block to upward social mobility. President Lyndon Johnsons War on Poverty program proves one thing: Throwing billions of dollars and uncountable social programs at poverty accomplishes nothing. The bottom line is personal responsibility and accountability; relying on yourself to improve ones position in life is the ultimate solution. Securing an advanced education whether college or learning a skilled trade staying off drugs, no babies in adolescent years and maintaining a two-parent family will be key steps to a more rewarding and productive life. Thats the answer to our immense education, social and financial problems. The structure of Muppets Now goes back to the early days, and taking a cue from the original Muppet Show. At the dawn of The Muppet Show in the late 1970s, a visit to the Muppet Labs consisted of watching its nebbish-y proprietor, Dr Bunsen Honeydew, demonstrate misbegotten inventions like an exploding hat or a self-destructing necktie with a brief burst of pyrotechnics, a canned explosion sound, and a puff of smoke. Today, a return visit to those labs on the Disney+ series Muppets Now features Honeydew and his agitated assistant, Beaker, using a homemade device called the Infern-O-Matic to reduce everyday items a carton of eggs, a wall clock, a guitar to smoldering piles of ashes. If this scene from Muppets Now feels manic and combustible and even a bit familiar that is by design: as Leigh Slaughter, vice president of the Muppets Studio, explained recently, she and her colleagues are hopeful that this series will conjure up that true Muppet anarchy that complete chaos. She added: If theyre going to take on real-world science, we thought, we have to burn things. We have to drop things. We have to blow things up. Muppets Now, a six-episode series that debuts on 31 July, is both Disneys attempt to bring those familiar, fuzzy faces to its streaming service and a parody of internet content. Its segments feature characters like Miss Piggy and the Swedish Chef in rapid-fire comedy sketches that lampoon popular online formats. The new series also strives to reconnect the Muppets with the disorderly sensibility they embodied in the era of The Muppet Show, and get back to basics after other recent efforts to reboot the characters fizzled out. The thinking is to stop trying so hard to be like everybody else and just be the Muppets, said Bill Barretta, a veteran Muppet performer and an executive producer of Muppets Now. Lets celebrate the fact that they all have to deal with each other and just be silly, and play and entertain again. Nearly 45 years after its debut, The Muppet Show (which originally ran in syndication from 1976 to 1981) remains a high-water mark for the franchise. Fueled by the subversive imagination of the Muppets creator, Jim Henson, and a small band of like-minded performers and writers, it was a backstage showbiz satire bolstered by kitschy celebrity hosts and a madcap attitude inherited from sketch shows like Saturday Night Live (where the Muppets had previously appeared) and Monty Pythons Flying Circus. The popularity of The Muppet Show paved the way for hit films like The Muppet Movie (1979), which tempered the mayhem of the TV series with a sentimental streak, and endeared founding performers like Henson and Frank Oz to a generation of viewers. But keeping the Muppets relevant to modern audiences has proved elusive, particularly since they were acquired by Disney in 2004. (The Muppet characters created for Sesame Street remain the property of Sesame Workshop, a non-profit organisation, while other shows like Fraggle Rock are owned by the Jim Henson Co.) A 2011 film, The Muppets, written by Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) was a critical and commercial hit that won an Academy Award for its song Man or Muppet, written by Bret McKenzie. But a 2014 follow-up, Muppets Most Wanted, was a disappointment and quickly curtailed the revival. In 2015, an ABC sitcom called The Muppets drew attention for its single-camera mockumentary style (similar to shows like The Office), and a plotline in which Kermit and Miss Piggy broke up. But the show was not well-received; it was troubled by staff changes and canceled after one season. Barretta, who plays Muppets like Rowlf the Dog and Pepe the King Prawn, said the approach of that sitcom was too much, too stereotypical of the characters. Dan Silver, who is vice president of original unscripted content for Disney+, agreed that serialised plot twists were not necessarily going to bring viewers back to the Muppets. Sometimes its not about if Piggy and Kermit are going to get together, he said. Its about, how does that make something funny in a skit? The Muppets have had other contemporary successes that seemed to point to a path forward, including a 2009 viral video in which they performed Queens pop-rock operetta 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' and a live show presented at the Hollywood Bowl (in 2017) and Londons O2 Arena (in 2018). Eric Jacobson, a Muppets performer who now plays Fozzie and Miss Piggy, said that the live concerts were a crucial step in steering the puppet troupe back to its fundamental values. They were very collaborative experiences, Jacobson said of the shows, which included classic Muppets numbers like 'Mahna Mahna' and 'Rainbow Connection.' There was a real conscious effort to go back to the Muppets roots, to play up the personalities and that sense of abandon that people really respond to, he added. Last year, Disney announced that it was working with the Muppets Studio to create a new sketch show. (Another planned Muppets series being prepared by Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis of Once Upon a Time and Josh Gad of Frozen was halted around this time amid creative differences.) Silver, the Disney+ executive, said that Muppets Now should reflect the elasticity of the underlying property. Like Mickey Mouse or the Simpsons, he said, the Muppets are meant to live among us theyre not a nostalgia play, they just exist in whatever time were in. What makes the Muppets work, Silver said, can be found in something as rudimentary as the early test footage for The Muppet Movie that shows Henson and Oz roaming the countryside as they ad-lib dialogue for Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. Its just Jim and Frank figuring out, how do you put them in the real world outside a studio? Silver said. Its completely improvised and its hilarious. The whole framework was there. It just needed to be appropriated into today. The structure of Muppets Now, he said, was also suggested by going back to the early days, and taking a cue from the original Muppet Show, which was in part a send-up of comedy-variety programs of the 1960s and 70s. As Silver put it: If The Muppet Show was a subversion of Sonny and Cher and Ed Sullivan, what would that be in this day and age? And the answer is YouTube. Taking the programming formats of streaming video and populating them with its antic characters, Muppets Now gives us segments like a beauty and lifestyle video blog hosted by Miss Piggy; a cooking competition with the Swedish Chef; and a high-octane Muppet Labs science test with Dr Honeydew and Beaker. (Of course, there are also cheeky cameos from celebrities like Aubrey Plaza, Danny Trejo, and Linda Cardellini.) Most of the sketches were filmed last summer, amid a process that the Muppet performers said was collaborative and open to a wide range of inputs. When were on set, there is discussion among the Muppet performers with the writer and the producer and director, said Matt Vogel, who plays Kermit the Frog. Well talk it through before we shoot something, Vogel said, and even when were shooting things, the Muppet performers are pretty adept at ad-libbing as long as its character-appropriate. Still, some remaining footage for interstitial segments was produced during the coronavirus pandemic. This required performers to record themselves at home and required spouses, partners and children to lend a hand or keep quiet during their creation. Vogel explained that his family had grown accustomed to the unusual parameters of his double life. I have five kids, and theyre all used to having Muppets around the house or being on set with Muppets, he said. Theyre always very respectful and kind, but they have their own kid lives that theyre more concerned about than whether or not Kermits playing the banjo in their basement. Beyond this first season of Muppets Now, Disney and the Muppets Studio are hopeful that the series will provide a starting point for further projects, but they were wary when it came to discussing specific plans. We definitely have ambitions for the Muppets to be doing more, said Slaughter, the Muppets Studio vice president. But theres nothing that were ready to reveal at this point. In the meantime, the creators and performers on Muppets Now said that, in trying to reproduce the do-it-yourself aesthetics of the internet, they felt they had also tapped into something essential about the Muppet characters: They are proud underdogs who seem to do their best work with limited resources. The Muppets have always flown by the seat of their pants, Jacobson said, explaining that they operate on primitive production values and a very low bar that they set for themselves. Our aim was to produce these segments as though they were held together by spit and glue, he added. The fact that Muppets Now is arriving during a summer when viewers are famished for original content felt consistent with the minimal aspirations of its title characters, Jacobson said. Summoning up a self-deprecating sentiment that could just as easily come from the mouth of Statler or Waldorf, Jacobson said with a laugh, Peoples expectations for anything new on television have gone down so much that the Muppets can actually deliver. Dave Itzkoff c.2020 The New York Times Company All images from Twitter. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 18:32:21|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close WELLINGTON, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Learning Forum was held in Wellington, capital city of New Zealand on Friday. This event is the first re-gathering of students from Mandarin Chinese for Business, a program co-launched by Wellington China Cultural Centre and Wellington City Council in 2018, which was temporarily shut down earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students were learning a new sentence in Chinese with enthusiasm --"Xue Hua Piao Piao Bei Feng Xiao Xiao." The line from Chinese song has gone viral on Tiktok in past months. As part of cultural practice, students tried calligraphy and enjoyed some dumplings at the event. "You learn more when you're having fun. Now the students are keen to go back to our class," said Michelle Zhou, teacher of the day. The language class focuses on practical Chinese in business, tourism and culture, with students mainly from Wellington City Council and other public sectors. Tom Yuan, manager of Wellington City Council's international relations as well as a co-organizer of the event, has been working with this program for over two years. "I believe learning Chinese is an effective way to improve our public service in tourism and business sectors," said Yuan. Miske Harsch, a young employee from Wellington City Council, mentioned that he had downloaded two apps for learning Chinese. "Hopefully the class will soon be resumed. Learning Chinese is useful for my job and benefits my friendships and daily life." "We are currently preparing for the Chinese classes to resume. COVID-19 resulted in social isolation. But communication brings us back together, and language is a great advocate for communication between different cultures," said Guo Zongguang, director of Wellington China Cultural Centre. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 14:34:29|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close SEOUL, July 31 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's first military communications satellite has reached a geostationary orbit on Friday, 10 days after its liftoff, the country's arms procurement agency said. The Anasis-II arrived successfully at the geostationary orbit, about 36,000 km above the Earth, at around 7:11 a.m. local time Friday after the 10-day orbital migration, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). The Anasis-II satellite lifted off atop a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, manufactured by the U.S. commercial space company SpaceX, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 21. The South Korean military will take over its first communications satellite for military purposes only around October, after testing functions and operability, the DAPA said. South Korea has separately developed eight different devices that can be connected on the ground to the satellite, planning to take a final operability test by the end of this year for the military purposes. With the satellite, the South Korean military would significantly enhance its transmission capacity and anti-jamming capability by securing a core system for the network centric warfare. South Korea has become the 10th country in the world to run a military-only communications satellite. Enditem Bay League boys and girls basketball teams will play five league games and then there will be a tournament to determine seeding for CIF-Southern Section playoffs. AUSTIN Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, Speaker Dennis Bonnen, Senate Education Chairman Larry Taylor, and House Education Chairman Dan Huberty released the following statement on school re-openings this fall: "The Texas Education Agencys (TEA) guidance for opening public schools in Texas for the 2020-21 school year remains the same as announced two weeks ago. This guidance followed a letter issued jointly by the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Speaker, and Chairs of the Senate and House Education Committees. "The top priority is protecting the safety and health of students, teachers, staff, and families. To achieve that goal, the TEA provided local school boards the flexibility they need to open schools in ways that ensure public safety while also providing the best education options for students during this challenging school year. "The TEA guidance applies long-standing state law and Executive Orders to conclude that the authority to make decisions about when and how schools safely open rests with the constitutionally and statutorily established local school boards. "The authority to decide when the school year will begin lies with local school boards. They can choose dates in August, September, or even later. But, whenever the local school board chooses to open, the board must comply with the requirement to provide the necessary number of days and hours of instruction for students. "The authority to decide how schools will safely open this year, again, lies with local school boards. It can be with students in schools, it can be through remote learning, or a combination of the two. In making that decision, school boards have the ability to base their decisions on advice and recommendations by local public health authorities but are not bound by those recommendations. "As the TEA previously announced, school boards have up to a 4-week back to school transition period during which they can offer a solely remote instructional setting if that is deemed needed for the health and safety of students, teachers, staff and parents. After 4 weeks, the school district can extend the transition period up to another 4 weeks with a vote of the school board and receiving a waiver. If any school district believes they need an extension beyond 8 weeks due to COVID-19 related issues, the TEA will review that request on a case-by-case basis. "If at any time during the school year a COVID-19 case is confirmed on a school campus, the school board has the ability to close the campus for up to 5 days to sanitize the campus. Schools that close under this scenario will continue to be funded for providing remote-only instruction. "Additionally, during the course of the school year, a local public health authority may determine that a school building must be closed in response to an outbreak. If that occurs, that school will continue to receive funding for providing remote-only instruction during the period of that closure. "Local school boards also have the flexibility to achieve health and safety goals by offering alternating on-campus/remote instruction for high school students in order to reduce the number of students in campus buildings at one time.\ "The TEA and the Attorney General correctly note that local health authorities play an important role in school closure determinations during the course of a school year if it is determined that a contamination has occurred necessitating closure, but local health authorities do not have the power to issue preemptive, blanket closures of schools weeks or months in advance of when a school may open its doors to students. Pre-existing Executive Orders have repeatedly made clear that local government operations, such as public schools, are permitted to be open. "School boards established by the Texas legislature play a unique and pivotal role in school decisions that must not be superseded by other local authorities unless expressly allowed. It is clear that school boards can and should work collaboratively with, but not be subject to the advance directives of, local public health authorities, to ensure a safe and effective learning environment for Texas students." P olice today vowed a crackdown on dealers using social media platforms such as Instagram to sell drugs to children following an Evening Standard investigation. A senior Metropolitan Police detective went on the offensive after dealers were found posting pictures and videos of drugs on the social media app and encouraging users to contact them on encrypted messaging to avoid detection. The revelations add to fears among police, teachers and charities that children out of school since March are being increasingly targeted. The summer holidays have been identified as a particularly risky time, when bored teenagers socialising in parks become an attractive target for dealers. A child seeing a drugs post on Instagram can easily share the message with friends, quickly giving the dealer access to a large number of children. There also concerns that vulnerable youngsters are being recruited by dealers. The Home Office said it was unacceptable that criminals are able to exploit social media platforms to sell illegal drugs. Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Rose said today: The selling of drugs on social media will not be tolerated and we will take strong action against anyone reported to us. Det Ch Supt Simon Rose / Jeremy Selwyn A quarter of 16 to 24-year-olds have seen cannabis, cocaine or other illegal drugs for sale online, mostly on Instagram and Snapchat, according to a report by the think tank Volteface. In 10 minutes, the Standard found criminals on Instagram recommending local suppliers of cocaine, cannabis and LSD. Once users make contact, the drugs are handed over at a meeting place, such as a park, or sent in the post. Instagram removed the accounts after we informed them. Emojis are sometimes used as a code to advertise drugs without breaking social media rules. The Standard found several dealers on Instagram using emojis such as a horse representing ketamine or a nose or snowflake for cocaine. A rocket emoji can also denote cocaine, while a fire emoji means good-quality drugs. Following a drug dealers account or liking a post triggers suggestions to follow other dealers. One with weed in its title provided a username for the encrypted messaging app Wickr to sell cannabis with the hashtags linked to drug connotations. Another account posted: We supply [we.ed] ~ [shro.oms] ~ [co.ke] ~ [Ca.rts] ~ [LSD], attempting to disguise their activities by adding a full stop in drug names so they wouldnt appear in searches. One mother in west London said she found posts from drug dealers on her teenage sons Instagram. The postings revealed when the dealers would be in certain areas. They sounded quite friendly talking about a bit of weed for sale as they attempted to lure the teenagers in, she said. But I have no doubt these dealers are serious players offering harder drugs. If my child is being exposed to this, then many other children across London are also being targeted. Carol Homden, CEO of childrens charity Coram, said: Following months away from education and with closures of activities this summer, there is real concern for young people going unseen and being targeted for exploitation. Francesca Nyman, service manager for The Childrens Societys Stride initiative supporting victims of county lines exploitation, said: While vulnerable children, including those in care, with learning difficulties, in poverty and who have been excluded from school, may be targeted, any child in any community can be groomed and lockdown may have presented new opportunities for criminals to exploit other young people. Its more important than ever that parents, carers and anyone who comes into contact with young people looks out for signs that something is wrong and seeks help from childrens social care or the police if they are worried. This week, a court heard how 13-year-old Carson Price died after taking ecstasy. A 15-year-old boy arranged to sell three 2 Donkey Kong tablets over Snapchat and went to meet Carson outside a garage. Carson died after being found unconscious in a park near his home in Hengoed, Caerphilly, in April last year. Carson Price / PA His Snapchat messages led police to the teenage dealer, who gave officers the names of two men who he said had supplied him with drugs. Scotland Yard is already worried about a violent crime spike this summer after July became the bloodiest month for killings in London so far this year, with 17 homicides. There are also concerns that teenagers are being targeted at illegal music events, including block parties and warehouse raves. More than 530 such events have taken place in London since last month. On Saturday July 18 alone there were 86. Mr Rose said the majority were being used by gangs as a cover to sell drugs. He said: Organised crime isnt going to stop, its just forced to do things differently. This weekend hundreds of Met officers will be on duty in an effort to shut down unlicensed music events. There are also fears about the safety of vulnerable teenagers. Javed Khan, chief executive of Barnardos, said: The pandemic has meant that most children have spent months hidden from the view of professionals such as teachers. During this time, job losses, worsening mental health and increasing poverty have increased pressure on families. "Many more children will now be at risk of exploitation. Gangs are capitalising on the lockdown situation to be able to exploit more children. Headteachers believe summer is prime time for teenagers to slip into gang life. Peter Groves, principal of Harris Boys Academy East Dulwich, told the Standard: We would pick up really easily if there is a new pair of trainers, or a 15-year-old boy getting out of an Uber. But now we dont know who they are mixing with. Mr Groves added that he fears chicken-shop grooming could pick up, when children are given free food and then asked to do a favour before being sucked into criminality. Dealers most common method for supplying is to use a broadcast pay-as-you-go phone to send hundreds of messages to customers in one go. Mr Rose added: London is different from the rest of the country. Theres a lot more youth, diversity, money and extremes. Instagram said anyone can report drugs being sold on the platform and its team of reviewers quickly remove content that breaches guidelines. It is aware of users changing tactics and even terminology to avoid detection. Loading.... A spokesman said: We dont allow the sale or purchase of illegal or prescription drugs on Instagram and weve removed any accounts brought to our attention. We work closely with the police to detect and keep illegal material off our platform and encourage anyone to report this kind of content. The Home Office said: We expect all companies to abide by the law and social media companies need to take a proactive approach to stop this activity. A man who stabbed a mental health support worker in the neck after she failed to reciprocate his romantic feelings has been acquitted of murder, with a Perth judge ruling he was of unsound mind. Shannon Scott Westerman Smith, 38, stood trial in the WA Supreme Court charged with murdering Jacqueline Lynn Francis, 50, with a kitchen knife outside his Rockingham flat in October 2018. The mother-of-three drove herself to a nearby cafe for help and was rushed to hospital where she died. Mr Smith, whose history of psychiatric illness dates back to when he was 19, has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Shannon Scott Westerman Smith (pictured), 38, stabbed Jacqueline Lynn Francis, 50, with a kitchen knife as she did not reciprocate romantic feelings for him Jacqueline Lynn Francis (pictured), 50, drove herself to a nearby cafe for help after the attack outside Mr Smith's Rockingham flat and was rushed to hospital where she died Justice Bruno Fiannaca presided over the trial without a jury and said in his judgment on Friday Mr Smith's mind was acutely disordered at the time of the killing. 'Although it cannot be known precisely what precipitated the violent attack, I am satisfied the accused was incapable of thinking rationally of the reasons which would lead ordinary people to consider the act right or wrong by ordinary standards, as opposed to the law,' he said. 'He was deprived of the capacity to know that he ought not to do the act that resulted in the death.' Ms Francis worked for Neami National and Mr Smith became her client in February 2018. Mr Smith later confessed romantic feelings for Ms Francis, saying he wanted to kiss her, but she did not reciprocate and said he would need to get a new support worker. The court heard Ms Francis visited Mr Smith's home on the day she died because she was concerned his mental health was deteriorating. Shannon Scott Westerman Smith, 38, stood trial in the WA Supreme Court (pictured) charged with murdering Jacqueline Lynn Francis, 50, with a kitchen knife in 2018 Mr Smith later told his father over the phone he did not know why he stabbed Ms Francis. Justice Fiannaca described the case as tragic, saying Ms Francis had lost her life while acting with compassion and found herself in an 'imperfect storm'. He made a custody order, which means Mr Smith will be held indefinitely in a secure mental health facility. Outside court, Ms Francis' cousin Scherri Davenhill said the family believed the system had failed them. 'We hope that changes can be made to prevent this from happening to any other family,' she said. The government has extended the suspension of scheduled international flights till August 31. The current suspension was to expire today (July 31). India had first suspended international flights on March 22, just before the national lockdown was announced. At the same time, the government will allow for a gradual movement of passenger traffic during the Covid-19 situation. It has signed Transport Bubble agreements with the US, France, and Germany. "Recently,Transport Bubble agreement has also been signed with Kuwait... More similar arrangements are likely to fructify and ease passenger movements from different countries," the government said in a notification on July 31. 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 suspension does not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by industry regulator DGCA. Meanwhile, the government has approved more than 2,500 repatriation flights by foreign carriers to and from India. Further, under the Vande Bharat Mission exercise, Air India and its unit Air India Express have flown 2,67,436 passengers from May 6 to July 30, 2020. Other charters carried 4,86,811 passengers. Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett has apologised for the club's breach of the AFL's COVID-19 protocols which he said put the game at risk and brought "our club into disrepute". The breach occurred when non-selected Hawthorn players walked into the public area of the SCG during last Saturday's match against Sydney and led to the AFL hitting the club with a $50,000 fine. It made the Hawks the fourth club to be hit with financial penalties for breaking the AFL's tough stance on COVID-19 protocols. Jeff Kennett. Credit:Fairfax archives The Hawks' players were not selected in the game and it is unclear how long they spent outside the approved area but mixing with spectators is banned under the AFL's tough guidelines. CAIRO The Egyptian Ministry of Interior announced July 23 that it has arrested a Muslim Brotherhood cell in Alexandria governorate, around 200 kilometers (124 miles) to the north of Cairo. The cell was spreading lies and rumors about the Egyptian regime, with the Egyptian Senate elections just around the corner, in August. Al-Monitor received a copy of the Ministry of Interiors statement, which stated, The National Security Agency [formerly the State Security] received information showing that several Muslim Brotherhood leaders who fled Egypt gave orders to Brotherhood members in Egypt to implement a Brotherhood plan. It continued, The plan included spreading rumors and hubbub among citizens coinciding with the upcoming [Senate] elections by producing fabricated reports and media programs that include false information about the internal situation and the political leadership. On July 4, the National Elections Commission announced the date of holding the Senate elections on Aug. 11-12, six years after the dissolution of the Shura Council. The Ministry of Interior said in its statement that the Muslim Brotherhood cell wanted to spread rumors to target these elections. Prominent Brotherhood leader and media figure Hamza Zawbaa, who resides in Turkey since 2013, was among those accused of funding and managing the cell. He had left Egypt after the fall of late President Mohammed Morsi, and he is the host of shows on the Brotherhood-affiliated Mekameleen channel that broadcasts from Turkey. Al-Monitor tried to contact Zawbaa to talk about his accusation, but he could not be reached. The Ministry of Interior posted videos showing the defendants making their confessions. Rights attorney and former presidential candidate Khaled Ali told Al-Monitor via phone, Posting photos and confessions of the accused persons violates the law and constitution. He stressed the need to respect the secrecy of investigation and the importance of refraining from publishing or broadcasting any details related to the case. Ali added, The Ministry of Interior has no right to publish these confessions at all, because this is in violation of all customs and laws and infringes on the principle of a person being innocent until proven guilty. If a person is proven innocent of a charge after they are photographed and their identity is revealed, they would have faced defamation, which is in violation of the law. Article 75 of the Egyptian Criminal Procedure Code stipulates, Investigation procedures and the results thereof shall be deemed classified and shall not be disclosed by the investigating magistrates, members of the Public Prosecution and assistants thereof including relevant clerks, experts and other persons having taken part in the investigation or having been present there as a result of the job or task thereof. Any person in violation of such shall be subject to punishment in accordance with Article 310 of the Penal Code. Article 187 of the Penal Code states, The same penalties shall be inflicted on whoever publishes issues that are liable to influence the judges who are entrusted with deciding an action brought before any of the judicial authorities investigating a case. Another attorney who works at a rights center based in Cairo told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity for security concerns, Several lawyers are looking into prosecuting the Ministry of Interior for publishing the confessions of accused people before the conclusion of investigations and for assuming they committed the crime. The attorney, who volunteered to defend the accused people in the case, added, I suspect that they were tortured into confessing, especially as such confessions of receiving funding from the Muslim Brotherhood and attempting to spread rumors would implicate them and sentence them to long years in prison. Therefore, it is unlikely that they confessed voluntarily without torture or pressure. Brotherhood leader Mohammad Elhami, who resides in Turkey, denied the Brotherhoods formation of a cell in Egypt. He told Al-Monitor via an online app, The Egyptian Ministry of Interior is fabricating accusations to arrest the men and members of the Brotherhood in Egypt to delude Egyptians into thinking there is a conspiracy against the Egyptian state. He added, The Egyptian security does not flinch in violating the law and publishing confessions of defendants who are still being investigated, and this is a major crime. The Egyptian regime is trying all it can to control everything and impose oppression and dictatorship, even if that means fabricating charges against citizens. The security media official at the Ministry of Interior refused to comment on the accusations of lawyers of violating the law by publishing confessions of the defendants while still under investigation. He only briefly told Al-Monitor over the phone, There is no legal violation. Even if there was, the Egyptian judiciary will settle this controversy. CHICAGO, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hillrom (NYSE: HRC) today announced financial results for its fiscal third quarter ended June 30, 2020 and provided commentary on current business trends and outlook. For the fiscal third quarter, Hillrom reported earnings of $1.40 per diluted share compared to $0.48 per diluted share in the prior-year period. On an adjusted basis, excluding special items, earnings of $1.95 per diluted share rose 59 percent from $1.23 per diluted share in the prior-year period. Third quarter financial results reflect strong revenue that benefited from COVID-related purchases, strategic investments to drive future growth, disciplined cost management and margin expansion. Adjustments to reported earnings are detailed in the reconciliation schedules provided. "I'd like to acknowledge the dedication and contributions of the entire Hillrom team for their extraordinary efforts to deliver critical products and solutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Their responsiveness was instrumental in driving record financial performance during the fiscal third quarter," said John Groetelaars, Hillrom president and CEO. "We remain confident in the compelling value propositions of our products, underlying fundamentals and sustainability of our diverse growth platforms as we continue to navigate the uncertain business and healthcare environment. Hillrom's vision of Advancing Connected Care has become more vital as we support the evolving needs of our customers." Fiscal Third Quarter 2020 Financial Results In the fiscal third quarter, worldwide reported revenue of $768 million increased 6 percent on a reported basis, or 7 percent on a constant currency basis, reflecting the diversity of the company's product portfolio and accelerated demand for critical care products in response to COVID-19. Hillrom's core revenue advanced 12 percent, including the contribution of the Breathe Technologies acquisition of approximately 400 basis points and benefit of more than $100 million for COVID-related purchases. Core revenue excludes foreign currency, divestitures, and non-strategic assets the company may exit, including the Surgical Solutions international OEM business. By reporting segment: Patient Support Systems revenue of $448 million increased 20 percent on a reported basis, or 21 percent on a constant currency basis. Core revenue increased 23 percent, reflecting a surge in global demand related to COVID-19 for med-surg and ICU bed systems and rentals, including the Centrella Smart+Bed and Progressa bed system. This growth more than offset declines in patient handling equipment and Care Communications' nurse call and mobile offerings, which were impacted by limited hospital access for installations. Front Line Care generated revenue of $252 million , an increase of 3 percent on a reported basis, or 4 percent on a constant currency basis. Performance was driven by strong international growth, elevated global demand for Welch Allyn vital signs monitoring equipment and thermometry, as well as fulfillment of one-time Life2000 non-invasive ventilator orders of approximately $25 million . In the U.S., reduced physician office visits led to a decline in certain product categories, including physical assessment and diagnostic tools. Surgical Solutions revenue of $68 million declined 37 percent on a reported and constant currency basis reflecting project delays, limited hospital access for installations and the surgical consumables divestiture. Core revenue declined 21 percent. Recent Highlights The company recently achieved several key milestones aimed at advancing Hillrom's innovation, transforming the portfolio and delivering sustainable value to shareholders. Highlights include: Achieving more than $440 million in new product revenue during the first nine months of fiscal 2020. Contributing to this performance were several innovative products including the company's portfolio of smart beds, vital signs monitoring devices, respiratory and vision products, as well as Integrated Table Motion. Introducing five innovative products in the areas of remote monitoring, respiratory care and surgical workflow, such as: Extended Care Solution, a connected, remote vital signs monitoring device that allows clinicians to shift care closer to home. This device combines the recently launched Welch Allyn Spot Vital Signs 4400 device, a next-generation vital signs device for ambulatory and emergency department settings, with a patient app and clinician review portal to help extend patient care beyond the walls of a healthcare facility and ensure patient data is securely relayed. Two new respiratory therapy devices: Volara System for oscillation and lung expansion (OLE) therapy and Synclara cough system. The Volara System delivers trusted OLE therapy, combining continuous positive expiratory pressure, continuous high-frequency oscillation and a nebulizer in one portable, lightweight device. It is suitable for acute and chronic conditions including post-operative pulmonary complications, that are treated both in acute care and home settings. The Synclara cough system uses mechanical insufflation-exsufflation technology to clear secretions from the upper airways. Synclara has been designed to improve the patient experience in the hospital or at home given its portability and ease-of-use, with programmability and sensing technology to deliver a more individualized treatment. PST 500, a precision surgical table that provides a wide range of positions across various surgical applications. The PST 500 includes a modular design, ergonomic handling, 360-degree imaging and light-messaging system to streamline workflow; and the next-generation Yellofins Apex stirrups, lithotomy positioning devices that offer enhanced safety and greater ease-of-use. Entering a partnership with Aiva, Inc., to facilitate hands-free voice-enabled communication on the Voalte Mobile solution. Aiva technology works with Amazon Alexa to facilitate touch-free communication, allowing a caregiver to enter a room in full PPE and communicate with other caregivers without touching their mobile devices. With this new capability, Hillrom's Voalte system is the only mobile clinical communication platform with a comprehensive solution that includes hands-free caregiver-to-caregiver communication unique to Hillrom as well as nurse call, medical device integration, alert and alarm management and waveform digitization. Completing two acquisitions, Connecta Soft, S.A. de C.V. and Videomed S.r.l, to enhance Hillrom's digital footprint and advance the company's vision of Advancing Connected Care. Connecta brings custom connectivity solutions, tailored to emerging markets, that capture vital signs data and provide patient monitoring visualization in acute care environments. The acquisition of Videomed expands the Surgical Solutions portfolio by adding operating room integration and real-time video and data management capability to improve clinical workflows, standardize set-up, reduce time in the OR, and enhance safety. Videomed's Truelink 4 system has been deployed in Europe , China , Japan and other international markets. The aggregate financial impact of these acquisitions is immaterial. Delivering significant value to shareholders by returning $114 million through dividends and share repurchases during the first nine months of fiscal 2020. The company's strong financial position is supported by a healthy balance sheet, including $332 million in cash and cash equivalents, and revolving credit facilities totaling $1.2 billion that can used to address additional capital needs as necessary. Current Business Trends and Outlook As expected, Hillrom's diverse portfolio experienced tailwinds with peak demand across a portion of its portfolio during the fiscal third quarter, which now appears to be normalizing. In addition, the company is seeing signs of recovery across select areas of the portfolio that have been negatively impacted by project delays, hospital access and reduced physician office visits, including various product categories in the Front Line Care and Care Communications businesses. While the company is not reinstating financial guidance due to the ongoing uncertainty, scope and evolving nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, given strong financial performance through the fiscal third quarter and effective management of the company during this challenging period, Hillrom now projects fiscal 2020 adjusted earnings of at least $5.40 per diluted share. Hillrom will continue to actively monitor and assess business operations and will provide additional information as appropriate. The company remains confident in the long-term underlying strength of its business portfolio, its strategic direction and future growth prospects. Discussion of Adjusted Financial Measures In addition to the results reported in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (GAAP), Hillrom routinely provides gross margin, operating margin, income before taxes, income tax expense, and earnings per diluted share results on an adjusted basis because the company's management believes these measures contribute to an understanding of our financial performance, provide additional analytical tools to understand our results from core operations and reveal underlying operating trends. These measures exclude strategic developments, acquisition and integration costs and related fair value adjustments, gains and losses associated with disposals of businesses or significant product lines, regulatory costs related to updating existing product registrations to comply with the European Medical Device Regulations, special charges, the transitional impacts of U.S. tax reform legislation, changes in tax accounting methods, other tax law changes and expenses associated with these tax items, the impacts of significant litigation matters, certain impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and other unusual events. The company also excludes expenses associated with the amortization of purchased intangible assets. These adjustments are made to allow investors to evaluate and understand operating trends excluding their impact on operating income and earnings per diluted share. Management uses these measures internally for planning, forecasting and evaluating the performance of the business. Investors should consider these non-GAAP measures in addition to, not as a substitute for, or as superior to, measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of GAAP measures to adjusted measures appear in the financial tables of this release. The company also routinely provides earnings per diluted share guidance on an adjusted basis. This excludes the impact of intangible asset amortization associated with prior business acquisitions, which we expect to be $1.23-$1.28 per diluted share for the fiscal year 2020. Management also does not include adjusted items such as strategic developments, acquisition and integration costs, special charges, and other special items or unusual items in our guidance because such items are evaluated on an ongoing basis, can be highly variable and cannot be reasonably predicted. As such, prospective quantification of these items is not feasible, and a full reconciliation of non-GAAP earnings per diluted share guidance to GAAP earnings per diluted share has not been provided. However, as a result of acquisitions, our ongoing portfolio and business optimization initiatives, and any change to the transitional impacts from U.S. tax reform legislation, we do expect adjusted items we have not predicted to potentially be significant to our GAAP measures including gross margin, operating margin, income tax expense and earnings per diluted share. The company also presents certain results on a constant currency basis, which compares results between periods as if foreign currency exchange rates had remained consistent period-over-period. Management monitors sales performance on an adjusted basis that eliminates the positive or negative effects that result from translating international sales into U.S. dollars. Management calculates constant currency by applying the foreign currency exchange rate for the prior period to the local currency results for the current period. Management believes that evaluating growth in net revenue on a constant currency basis provides an additional and meaningful assessment to both management and investors. Conference Call Webcast and Dial-in Information The company will host a conference call and webcast today beginning at 7:30 a.m. (CT) / 8:30 a.m. (ET). Conference Call Audio Only Dial-in Information: Conference Call Audio Only Dial-in Information: To participate in the conference call, dial (844) 654-5620 (domestic) or (647) 253-8654 (international). Please dial into the call at least 10 minutes prior to the start to allow time to connect. The confirmation code is 3939989. Webcast: A simultaneous webcast of the call will be accessible via the company's website at www.hillrom.com. A supplementary presentation will be posted to the Hillrom website prior to the webcast. A recording of the webcast/call audio will be available for telephone replay through August 7, 2020. To access the replay, dial (800) 585-8367 (domestic) or (416) 621-4642 (international). For the replay, callers will need to use confirmation code 3939989. If you are unable to listen to the live webcast or the telephone replay, the webcast will be archived at www.hillrom.com. About Hillrom Hillrom is a global medical technology leader whose 10,000 employees have a single purpose: enhancing outcomes for patients and their caregivers by advancing connected care. Around the world, our innovations touch over 7 million patients each day. They help enable earlier diagnosis and treatment, optimize surgical efficiency and accelerate patient recovery while simplifying clinical communication and shifting care closer to home. We make these outcomes possible through connected smart beds, patient lifts, patient assessment and monitoring technologies, caregiver collaboration tools, respiratory care devices, advanced operating room equipment and more, delivering actionable, real-time insights at the point of care. Learn more at hillrom.com. Disclosure Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements herein contain forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, regarding the company's future plans, proposed divestitures, product launches, objectives, beliefs, expectations, representations and projections. It is important to note that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and the company's actual results could differ materially from those set forth in any forward-looking statements. The company's actual results also could be materially adversely impacted by the length and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, and related impacts on the company's business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects. For a more in-depth discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in forward-looking statements, see the discussions under the heading "Risk Factors" in the company's previously filed most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. The company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward- looking statements, unless required by law. Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Statements of Income (Unaudited) (In millions, except per share data) Three Months Ended June 30 Nine Months Ended June 30 2020 2019 2020 2019 Net Revenue Product sales and service $ 685.8 $ 653.0 $ 1,947.1 $ 1,901.1 Rental revenue 81.7 73.8 228.6 223.4 Total net revenue 767.5 726.8 2,175.7 2,124.5 Cost of Net Revenue Cost of goods sold 323.1 332.3 946.6 971.3 Rental expenses 35.4 37.9 110.9 114.0 Total cost of net revenue (excludes acquisition-related intangible asset amortization) 358.5 370.2 1,057.5 1,085.3 Research and development expenses 34.4 34.1 100.3 103.9 Selling and administrative expenses 202.3 217.1 609.0 613.3 Acquisition-related intangible asset amortization 27.5 29.3 81.3 82.3 Special charges 9.5 6.2 26.1 17.7 Operating Profit 135.3 69.9 301.5 222.0 Interest expense (17.3) (23.1) (55.8) (66.2) Loss on extinguishment of debt (15.6) Investment income (expense) and other, net 2.2 (1.1) (10.5) 0.2 Income Before Income Taxes 120.2 45.7 219.6 156.0 Income tax expense 26.3 13.1 39.0 31.7 Net Income $ 93.9 $ 32.6 $ 180.6 $ 124.3 Net Income per Basic Common Share $ 1.41 $ 0.49 $ 2.71 $ 1.86 Net Income per Diluted Common Share $ 1.40 $ 0.48 $ 2.68 $ 1.84 Average Basic Common Shares Outstanding (in thousands) 66,558 66.777 66,660 66.822 Average Diluted Common Shares Outstanding (in thousands) 67,183 67,446 67,292 67,484 Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. and Subsidiaries Revenue Constant Currency (Unaudited) (In millions) U.S. OUS Three Months Ended June 30 Change As Reported Constant Currency Change As Reported Change As Reported Constant Currency 2020 2019 Net Revenue: Product sales and service $ 685.8 $ 653.0 5.0 % 6.2 % (6.5) % 33.5 % 37.3 % Rental revenue 81.7 73.8 10.6 % 10.9 % 12.2 % 0.3 % 2.5 % Total net revenue $ 767.5 $ 726.8 5.6 % 6.6 % (4.2) % 31.9 % 35.6 % Net Revenue: Patient Support Systems $ 447.8 $ 374.5 19.6 % 20.6 % 9.0 % 56.4 % 60.8 % Front Line Care 252.1 244.4 3.2 % 4.4 % (5.9) % 27.7 % 32.2 % Surgical Solutions 67.6 107.9 (37.4) % (36.7) % (62.7) % (5.4) % (3.8) % Total net revenue $ 767.5 $ 726.8 5.6 % 6.6 % (4.2) % 31.9 % 35.6 % OUS - Outside of the United States U.S. OUS Nine Months Ended June 30 Change As Reported Constant Currency Change As Reported Change As Reported Constant Currency 2020 2019 Net Revenue: Product sales and service $ 1,947.1 $ 1,901.1 2.4 % 3.3 % (0.1) % 7.9 % 10.6 % Rental revenue 228.6 223.4 2.3 % 2.6 % 3.2 % (3.6) % (1.4) % Total net revenue $ 2,175.7 $ 2,124.5 2.4 % 3.2 % 0.3 % 7.3 % 10.1 % Net Revenue: Patient Support Systems $ 1,174.0 $ 1,075.1 9.2 % 10.0 % 8.3 % 12.0 % 15.3 % Front Line Care 765.0 720.9 6.1 % 6.8 % 2.0 % 16.5 % 19.1 % Surgical Solutions 236.7 328.5 (27.9) % (27.0) % (42.5) % (12.4) % (10.5) % Total net revenue $ 2,175.7 $ 2,124.5 2.4 % 3.2 % 0.3 % 7.3 % 10.1 % Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. and Subsidiaries Reconciliation: Earnings Per Share (Unaudited) (In millions, except per share data) Three Months Ended June 30, 2020 Three Months Ended June 30, 2019 Operating Margin Income Before Income Taxes Income Tax Expense Diluted EPS Operating Margin Income Before Income Taxes Income Tax Expense Diluted EPS GAAP Basis 17.6 % $ 120.2 $ 26.3 $ 1.40 9.6 % $ 45.7 $ 13.1 $ 0.48 Adjustments: Acquisition and integration costs and related fair value adjustments 0.2 % 1.2 0.5 0.01 1.9 % 13.9 2.8 0.16 Acquisition-related intangible asset amortization 3.6 % 27.5 6.6 0.31 4.0 % 29.3 7.4 0.33 Field corrective actions 0.1 % 0.8 0.2 0.01 0.8 % 5.6 1.4 0.06 Regulatory compliance costs 0.5 % 4.1 1.1 0.04 0.6 % 4.6 1.1 0.05 Special charges 1.2 % 9.5 2.5 0.10 0.9 % 6.2 1.5 0.07 Tax law and method changes % % (5.4) 0.08 Gain on disposition of business % (0.3) (4.2) 0.06 % Pension settlement expense % (0.1) % COVID-19 related costs and benefits, net 0.5 % 1.9 0.8 0.02 % Adjusted Basis 23.7 % $ 164.8 $ 33.8 $ 1.95 17.8 % $ 105.3 $ 21.9 $ 1.23 Nine Months Ended June 30, 2020 Nine Months Ended June 30, 2019 Operating Margin Income Before Income Taxes Income Tax Expense Diluted EPS Operating Margin Income Before Income Taxes Income Tax Expense Diluted EPS GAAP Basis 13.9 % $ 219.6 $ 39.0 $ 2.68 10.5 % $ 156.0 $ 31.7 $ 1.84 Adjustments: Acquisition and integration costs and related fair value adjustments (0.1) % (2.6) 1.4 (0.06) 0.7 % 15.7 3.2 0.19 Acquisition-related intangible asset amortization 3.7 % 81.3 19.6 0.92 3.9 % 82.3 19.7 0.93 Field corrective actions 0.1 % 2.1 0.6 0.02 0.3 % 5.6 1.4 0.06 Regulatory compliance costs 0.5 % 12.9 3.1 0.15 0.5 % 10.7 2.7 0.12 Special charges 1.2 % 26.1 6.1 0.30 0.8 % 17.7 4.3 0.20 Tax law and method changes % % (4.4) 0.06 Debt refinancing costs % 16.1 3.7 0.18 % Loss on disposition of business % 0.2 (4.1) 0.06 % Pension settlement expense % 8.4 1.9 0.10 % Litigation settlement % (1.2) (0.3) (0.01) % COVID-19 related costs and benefits, net 0.2 % 1.9 0.8 0.02 % Adjusted Basis 19.5 % $ 364.8 $ 71.8 $ 4.36 16.7 % $ 288.0 $ 58.6 $ 3.40 Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (Unaudited) (In millions) June 30, 2020 September 30, 2019 ASSETS Current Assets Cash and cash equivalents $ 331.8 $ 214.1 Restricted cash 419.7 Trade accounts receivable, net of allowances of $23.0 and $20.6 as of June 30, 2020 and September 30, 2019 646.2 653.3 Inventories, net of reserves 322.8 269.6 Other current assets 114.6 106.7 Total current assets 1,415.4 1,663.4 Property, plant and equipment 852.1 829.6 Less accumulated depreciation (555.4) (532.8) Property, plant and equipment, net 296.7 296.8 Goodwill 1,816.9 1,800.9 Other intangible assets and software, net 988.5 1,033.5 Deferred income taxes 33.5 33.1 Other assets 170.2 91.3 Total Assets $ 4,721.2 $ 4,919.0 LIABILITIES Current Liabilities Trade accounts payable $ 221.7 $ 197.6 Short-term borrowings 250.1 660.4 Accrued compensation 127.6 130.4 Accrued product warranties 30.5 29.7 Accrued rebates 39.8 47.7 Deferred revenue 106.7 107.3 Other current liabilities 164.7 95.2 Total current liabilities 941.1 1,268.3 Long-term debt 1,782.6 1,783.1 Accrued pension and postretirement benefits 101.1 80.8 Deferred income taxes 117.0 143.0 Other long-term liabilities 127.0 70.5 Total Liabilities 3,068.8 3,345.7 Commitments and Contingencies SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY Capital Stock: Preferred stock - without par value: Authorized - 1,000,000; none issued or outstanding Common stock - without par value: Authorized - 199,000,000 4.4 4.4 Issued: 88,457,634 shares as of June 30, 2020 and September 30, 2019; Outstanding: 66,602,366 as of June 30, 2020 and 66,625,011 as of September 30, 2019 Additional paid-in capital 654.4 637.4 Retained earnings 2,104.6 1,967.4 Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) (212.2) (182.5) Treasury stock, common shares at cost: 21,855,268 as of June 30, 2020 and 21,832,623 as of September 30, 2019 (898.8) (853.4) Total Shareholders' Equity 1,652.4 1,573.3 Total Liabilities and Shareholders' Equity $ 4,721.2 $ 4,919.0 Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (Unaudited) (In millions) Nine Months Ended June 30 2020 2019 Operating Activities Net income $ 180.6 $ 124.3 Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash provided by operating activities: Depreciation and amortization of property, plant, equipment and software 51.6 54.7 Acquisition-related intangible asset amortization 81.3 82.3 Amortization of debt discounts and issuance costs 3.0 4.8 Loss on extinguishment of debt 15.6 Benefit for deferred income taxes (14.1) (12.2) Loss on disposal of property, equipment, intangible assets, and impairments 1.5 3.3 Stock compensation 27.2 26.9 Other operating activities 16.0 (2.9) Change in working capital excluding cash, current debt, acquisitions and dispositions: Trade accounts receivable 12.3 15.3 Inventories (60.2) (4.9) Other current assets (10.4) (3.5) Trade accounts payable 16.5 (9.0) Accrued expenses and other liabilities (8.1) 14.3 Other assets and liabilities 2.0 7.7 Net cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash provided by operating activities 314.8 301.1 Investing Activities Purchases of property, plant, equipment and software (72.0) (50.9) Proceeds on sale of property and equipment 1.6 2.5 Payments for acquisition of businesses, net of cash acquired (20.6) (175.8) Payment for acquisition of intangible assets (17.1) Payments for acquisition of investments (26.6) Other investing activities 0.6 Net cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash used in investing activities (90.4) (267.9) Financing Activities Payment of long-term debt (37.6) (0.1) Borrowings on Revolving Credit Facility 190.0 330.0 Payments on Revolving Credit Facility (155.0) (230.0) Borrowings on Securitization Facility 17.7 4.9 Payments on Securitization Facility (17.7) (5.5) Borrowings on Note Securitization Facility 32.6 46.0 Payments on Note Securitization Facility (21.2) (51.3) Prepayment premium on extinguishment of 5.75% Notes (12.2) Redemption of 5.75% Notes (425.0) Cash dividends (43.3) (41.4) Proceeds on exercise of stock options 8.5 9.2 Stock repurchases for stock award withholding obligations (16.4) (4.2) Stock repurchases in the open market (54.1) (75.0) Other financing activities 6.0 5.5 Net cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash used in financing activities (527.7) (11.9) Effect of exchange rate changes on cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash 1.3 (1.7) Net Cash Flows (302.0) 19.6 Cash, Cash Equivalents and Restricted Cash: At beginning of period 633.8 183.0 At end of period $ 331.8 $ 202.6 CONTACT INFORMATION Investor Relations Contact: Mary Kay Ladone, Senior Vice Contact: Lorna Williams, Executive Director, President, Corporate Development, Investor Relations and Strategy Strategy and Investor Relations Phone: 312-233-7799 Phone: 312-819-9387 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Media Contact: Howard Karesh, Vice President, Corporate Communications Phone: 312-819-7268 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Hillrom Related Links https://www.hillrom.com Representative image live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The shortage of Remdesivir, the antiviral drug used for treating hospitalised COVID-19 patients, is expected to ease in August, as Zydus Cadila and Dr Reddy's are set to enter the market with their generic versions. Even the existing manufacturers are trying to ramp up production capacity. Sources told Moneycontrol that around 8 lakh doses are expected to be available in August, with likely entry of new manufacturers. Till now, only Cipla, Hetero and Mylan have launched the generic versions of Remdesivir in India. Jubilant Life Sciences also has the approval to make the drug and is expected to launch it in August. While Cipla and Hetero can produce up to 2 lakh doses a month, the production capacity of Mylan is not known. Dr Reddy's, Zydus Cadila and Syngene are other companies that have the licence from Gilead to manufacture and distribute Remdesivir generic versions. Pankaj Patel, Chairman of Zydus Cadila, in an interview with Moneycontrol earlier this month, said the company has the potential to produce as much as 3-4 lakh doses a month, and it plans to launch the drug by August. 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 Erez Israeli, Chief Executive Officer of Dr. Reddy's, also hinted at substantial Remdesivir supply capacity. "(We have capacities) as much as India needs and beyond," Israeli said at the company's post-earnings media briefing. Both Zydus Cadila and Dr Reddy's applications for the launch of generic versions of Remdesivir have been pending before the regulator. A spokesperson of Hetero told Moneycontrol that the company is trying to expand capacity. Shortages At the moment, due to the shortage, black market sales of Remdesivir continue to thrive as COVID-19 cases are rising at a fast pace. Remdesivir is prescribed for hospitalised patients who are on oxygen. The drug has to be taken for five days, with 200 mg IV (intravenous) on day 1 followed by 100 mg IV daily for four days. The drug was approved as an experimental therapy for restricted emergency use on patients. A vial of the medication from Cipla costs Rs 4,000 while Hetero's product is priced highest, at Rs 5400 per vial. The companies were supplying to the government in bulk at 20-30 percent cheaper rates. Meanwhile, call from health activists to include the expensive treatment in the price-controlled category is growing louder. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, the domestic drug price regulator, has clarified that it can't regulate the price of Remdesivir, as it has not been notified as a drug. The Post-Dispatch spoke with nine former Maritz employees, most of whom contacted the newspaper and agreed to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity for fear of hurting their future prospects in the local job market. Some left before the recent layoffs or furloughs. Some had been with the company for decades. The Post-Dispatch did not hear from any employees from the Global Events and travel side of the business. It was talked about greatly among upper management that this company has too many people over the age of 50, that the average age is just too high, said one former high-level Motivation manager, who left before the pandemic. More than a dozen Motivation vice presidents have left since Carter took over, the person said. Thats a huge massive change to have not only a new president of Motivation who did not grow up in the company, and all of the senior leadership is new, said an employee who worked there over 20 years and left prior to the pandemic layoffs. Pretty much all of the midlevel management, like director and above, has been changed as well. (Natural News) Sediment cores taken from White Pond in South Carolina show that an extraterrestrial collision may have triggered an abrupt change in the Earths climate 12,800 years ago, said archaeologist Christopher Moore of the University of South Carolina. About 14,500 years ago, Earths climate began to shift from glacial to interglacial, characterized by warmer temperatures. However, partway through this shift, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere reverted to near-glacial climate conditions. This period of abrupt climate change is called the Younger Dryas. It saw the beginning of a decline in ice-age megafauna such as mammoths and mastodons, as well as leading to potential shifts in Native American populations. Researchers led by Moore attempted to pin down what caused this climate event. They looked at sediment deposits in the bed of a lake located in southern Kershaw County and found metal and soot anomalies, as well as a decrease in fungal spores all of which appear to have occurred at the same time during the Younger Dryas. These findings are consistent with earlier studies suggesting that the abrupt change in climate could have been caused by the impact of an extraterrestrial object. What is the Impact Hypothesis? The Impact Hypothesis argues that the Younger Dryas was triggered by a comet or asteroid impacting the Earth. Proponents of the theory have explained that the impact could have disrupted the glacial ice sheet and ocean currents, contributing to a return to a cooler climate. Furthermore, it may have set off massive wildfires whose thick blanket of smoke blocked sunlight. Wildfires typically leave burning-related particles such as charcoal and soot. And scientific records show large peaks in these particles during the Younger Dryas. Much of the evidence came from the Younger Dryas Boundary, the layer of sediment on Earths surface that accumulated 12,800 years ago and which was subsequently covered by other layers over the millennia. It corresponds to a layer of Earth that is ascribed to the period when the Younger Dryas occurred. Scientists also found various exotic impact-related materials in the Younger Dryas Boundary in other areas around the globe. These materials might have been transmitted by either wind or water. They included high-temperature iron and silica-rich tiny magnetic spheres, nanodiamonds, soot, high-temperature melt-glass, as well as elevated concentrations of nickel, osmium, iridium and platinum. Recently, proponents of the hypothesis suggested that a 31-kilometer-wide crater in Greenland may be the site of the extraterrestrial impact. Radar images have suggested that the impact potentially occurred at around the same time in which the Younger Dryas began. Scientists also examined ice cores from the center of Greenland and found a spike in platinum, similar to ones measured in samples from the crater site. (Related: Theia and proto-Earth: Did a planetary collision result in life on Earth over 4.4 billion years ago?) Sediment cores show impact-related materials In the study, Moore and his colleagues turned to a lake in South Carolina called White Pond. The lake is around for at least 20,000 years, collecting more than six meters of thick peat and organic-rich mud and silt deposits. They extracted sediment samples by drilling four-meter straw-like tubes that preserved the order and integrity of the many sediment layers that accumulated over the eons. The researchers tested a 10-centimeter thick layer that dated to the Younger Dryas Boundary from between 12,835 and 12,735 years ago. They found high amounts of platinum, a dense metal that is present in the Earths crust only at very low concentrations but is common in comets and asteroids. Volcanic activity could have been the cause of the deposits, however, sites with elevated platinum do not have other markers of large-scale volcanism. In addition, previous research also identified anomalously high amounts of platinum in other areas associated with the Younger Dryas, the most recent being a site called the Wonderkrater in South Africa. The team also observed that there was so much more platinum than palladium. Both elements occur naturally in small quantities. Given the unusual ratio between the two, the extra platinum could have possibly come from an outside source such as an atmospheric fallout after an extraterrestrial impact. There was also a large increase in soot and a decrease in fungal spores. Previous time periods demonstrate higher amounts of fungal spores, which are usually found in the dung of large herbivores. The decrease in fungal spores suggests that there was a sudden decline in megafauna in the region during the Younger Dryas. (Related: Astronomers conduct planetary defense exercise to prepare for extinction-level events.) These findings show that the platinum and soot anomalies, as well as the decline in fungal spore, happened at the same time. Although the cause of these markers is still uncertain, the study supports previous research suggesting that a comet or asteroid collision caused continent-scale environmental calamity 12,800 years ago, via vast burning and a brief impact winter. This is to say that climate change, megafaunal extinctions and even temporary shifts in some human populations associated with the Younger Dryas may be caused by events originating in space. Learn more about the consequences of an extraterrestrial impact at ClimateScienceNews.com. Sources include: WattsUpWithThat.com NCDC.NOAA.gov ScienceMag.org ScienceDaily.com A 31-year-old suspected gangster, who figures on the list of Delhis most wanted, was arrested from Surat in Gujarat, where he was being sheltered by a local liquor mafia allegedly on the directions of his counterparts in Haryana, the police said Friday. A life convict and parole jumper, Jyoti Prakash alias Baba was involved in a dozen crimes, including murder, kidnapping, and robbery in Delhi and Haryana, police said. Baba was fleeing to another city in Gujarat in an Audi Q7, allegedly provided to him by the liquor don Dhirenbhai Karia, when the Delhi Polices counter intelligence team caught him. Karia, who had contested the 2019 Parliamentary elections from Gujarats Junagarh as an independent candidate and lost, is presently lodged in Surat jail in connection with bootlegging cases, said deputy commissioner of police (counter intelligence) Manishi Chandra. Originally from Delhis Najafgarh, Baba is the elder brother of fugitive gangster Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu, who carries a 50,000 reward on his arrest. Together, the brothers helm the Baba-Nandu gang, which has a longstanding rivalry with another gang led by jailed gangster Manjeet Mahal. Their rivalry led to a dozen bloodbaths, including the killings of their relatives, in the south-western outskirts of Delhi and bordering areas of Haryana, the DCP said. DCP Chandra said his team had received intelligence that Baba-Nandu gang had joined ranks with liquor mafias in Haryana and Gujarat and Baba was being provided luxurious shelters in these states. The team prepared a list of major liquor mafias in these states and started infiltrating them, while also carrying out technical surveillance, he said. Our efforts paid off when we learnt that Baba, who had fled to Nepal, had returned some three or four months ago and was hiding in Gujarat. A team was dispatched and it kept a patient watch on him for nearly a week. Baba was caught on Thursday while trying to flee to another city, Chandra said. Baba was brought to Delhi on Friday and his interrogation led to the recovery of two pistols, including a sophisticated US Army make gun, and four rounds of ammunition from his hideout in Najafgarh. Baba was carrying a reward of 1 lakh on his arrest after he jumped parole in August 2019 in Haryana. He was also wanted in a case of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), officials said. Syracuse, NY -- A Syracuse lawyer, who has probably handled more criminal defense cases than anyone else recent years, is in the middle of a high-stakes battle with the district attorneys office over his own reputation in the wake of a dismissed perjury charge against him. Robert Baska, 61, of Kirkville, who until recently ran the top-grossing assigned counsel law firm in Syracuse, faced near-ruin after the DA accused him of conspiring with a client to lie to a judge. A grand jury indicted him on perjury, conspiracy and related charges. But a judge ruled that there was not enough evidence to legally accuse Baska of lying. The only witness? The client himself, a repeat offender who has admitted lying himself, Judge John Crandall ruled. (The judge was brought in from out of town because Baska, over many years, has appeared before nearly every judge in Syracuse qualified to hear the case.) The dismissed indictment had accused Baska of conspiring with the client to lie in sworn testimony. Baska was charged as an accomplice -- not as one who lied under oath himself. But his client was the only witness who testified about a conspiracy between the two men at grand jury, the judge ruled. Under law, a criminal charge requires corroboration -- some other evidence besides the word of a co-conspirator. RELATED: Syracuse prosecutor counting on repeat felon to convict defense lawyer of lying Since that decision in January, Baska has resumed his defense work and continues to handle cases against the very prosecutors who believe he should be a convicted criminal. Behind the scenes, Baska is firing back with an expected lawsuit against DA William Fitzpatricks office, accusing prosecutors of maliciously indicting him to stifle his outstanding defense work, specifically in retaliation for his role in a high-profile case during 2019s election season. Baskas indictment was in total and unequivocal retaliation against him as an outstanding defense attorney who does and did his job prior to the erroneous and malicious indictment that was handed down by a Grand Jury of Onondaga County, Baskas lawyer, Jarrod Smith, wrote in pre-lawsuit paperwork. While Baska seeks to sue the DA, prosecutors are moving forward on an appeal that aims to get the indictment reinstated. If successfully prosecuted, Baska could end up with a felony record and possible jail or prison time. Assistant prosecutor Caleb Petzoldt has vowed to appeal the judges ruling, arguing there was enough evidence to take Baska to trial on charges he lied under oath. DA Fitzpatrick declined further comment on the case. In virtual court Thursday, both sides met via Skype with Crandall, the judge, to decide which paperwork should be considered by the appellate court. Smith had previously vowed to sue the county DAs office for malicious prosecution. During court, he confirmed that process had already started. Legally, Baska has to file whats called a notice of claim before launching a full-scale lawsuit against the DAs office. Upon request, Smith emailed a copy of the notice of claim to Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard following Thursdays court appearance. The notice cites a high-profile case involving one of Baskas clients, from 2019. The child sex case against Austin Pratt was eventually tossed by a judge -- after Baskas arguments -- based on perceived errors by prosecutors. (Pratts state case remains tied up on appeal, but he has been arrested separately by federal authorities for the same crime.) The dismissal of Pratts case came during Fitzpatricks reelection campaign against defense lawyer Charles Keller. And Keller cited the judges ruling against prosecutors in that case as a sign of DA office mismanagement. Baska alleges that the DA decided to go after him because of his work on Pratts behalf. The Indictment against Mr. Baska is retaliatory by the Onondaga County District Attorney, William Fitzpatricks malicious prosecution of Baska because of the Austin Pratt case, Smith wrote in the notice of claim. Baska argues that the criminal case against him led to numerous articles on Syracuse.com, subjecting him to treatment like a common criminal and emotional distress from the possibility of losing his law license, his job and possibly a sentence in state prison, the notice continues. The indictment filed by prosecutors led to news articles that included Baskas history of questionable behavior as a surgeon years ago. Baskas medical career ended when he lost his medical license in Vermont over a sexual relationship with a patient and other unprofessional behavior. He later went to law school and eventually settled in Syracuse, beginning his practice in 2008. Hes turned into a prolific defense lawyer, taking assigned cases -- from relatively minor offenses and DWIs to big sex cases. In 2017, Baskas law office was paid $246,415 to represent poor clients, nearly $30,000 more than the second-highest paid assigned counsel law office, according to the assigned counsel programs tax records. Those payouts reflect all of the billable hours and other services submitted and approved by the program. Baska split the work that year with an associate. Prior to his medical career, Baska served in the U.S. Army with the 82nd Airborne, including action during the First Gulf War, according to his biography. He also notes his prolific writings, from DWI and criminal defense books to science fiction. Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at ddowty@syracuse.com or 315-470-6070. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ghina Ghaliya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 08:53 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066aa1c58 1 National Nadiem-Makarim,Nadiem-Merdeka-Belajar,Tanoto-Foundation,sampoerna-foundation,Education-and-Culture-Ministry Free The Tanoto Foundation and the Putera Sampoerna Foundation will not be eligible for a grant from a government teacher training program, Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim has said. They will instead use a self-financing scheme to participate in the Mobilization Organization Program (POP), which is part of the ministrys Freedom to Learn initiative aimed at improving the quality of Indonesia's teachers by involving communities and organizations. "The ministry has made an agreement with the Tanoto Foundation and the Putera Sampoerna Foundation that they will participate in the program without using any funds from the state budget. They will fund their own efforts," Nadiem said in a written statement on Tuesday. Read also: Nadiem in hot water after PGRI, NU, Muhammadiyah withdraw from education ministry program The Tanoto Foundation had chosen to be part of the self-financing scheme from the beginning, while the Putera Sampoerna Foundation wanted to use the matching-fund scheme. We suggested that the Putera Sampoerna Foundation use the self-financing scheme and they agreed, Nadiem said. Tanoto and Putera Sampoerna are among the selected 156 organizations out of 4,464 that registered for the POP. Their involvement has outraged the Indonesian Teachers Association (PGRI) and the two-largest Muslim organizations in the country, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah. They expressed their objections and withdrew from the program, saying that organizations with corporate backing should not be allowed to participate and get support from the state budget. The three organizations were selected to participate in the Elephant category of the program, making them eligible for the largest grant of Rp 20 billion (US$1.3 million) to train teachers at 100 schools. Tanoto and Putera Sampoerna are also in the "Elephant" category. In addition to emphasizing the latter two's participation in the self-financing scheme, Nadiem also apologized to the three organizations and promised to evaluate the POP. However, they have yet to decide whether they would reenter. Syaiful Huda, chairman of the House of Representatives Commission X overseeing education, said Nadiem had not informed lawmakers about financing schemes other than a fully funded scheme sourced from the state budget. "If there had been no public criticism, maybe the program would still have only one scheme. But I think adding the two new schemes is a good idea," Syaiful said on Thursday. Tanoto and Putera Sampoerna, he said, should be the supporting organizations taking part in the program using their own money. "I think this is the best policy and its acceptable, the National Awakening Party (PKB) politician said. However, he added that the House would still summon Nadiem to provide an explanation as to why the House had never been told about the other two financing schemes for the program. There was only a single scheme, the fully funded one worth Rp 595 billion. John Piper on what critics got wrong about his new book Coronavirus and Christ Theologian says 'coronavirus is a call for repentance to all of us' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Popular Reformed theologian John Piper clarified his stance on whether the coronavirus is Gods judgment of sin and what the Bible says after a legal group called for an Army chaplain to be punished for sharing the minister's new book, Coronavirus and Christ. In a 17-minute audio interview posted online Monday, the founder of DesiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota, responded to claims made by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and its founder, Mikey Weinstein, in a letter sent to U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper last month. Weinstein claimed that Pipers new book pushes the belief that the coronavirus is Gods judgment and could even be judgment for homosexuality. MRFF called for Senior Chaplain Col. Moon H. Kim, the command chaplain of U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys in South Korea, to be court-martialed for sharing a PDF copy of Pipers new book with 35 other chaplains via email. In the interview, Piper was asked if he thought Weinstein and MRFFs criticism of his new book is fair. Well, Tony, some of it is. I think it would be fair to say that some of my views about what the Bible teaches, even rightly understood, the author of that letter hates. He hates what I think, Piper said. They are, he says, incendiary, bigoted, vulgar not just because he misunderstands, but, in part, because he does understand, and thats how he thinks and feels about some of what the Bible teaches. Piper went on to say that Romans 5:16 states that all death is the result of Gods judgment on the human race because sin entered the world. Piper further noted that God is sovereign over the coronavirus, and sends it and ends it when He wills. Piper added that homosexual intercourse is a sin and that the coronavirus is a call for repentance to all of us to bring our lives into alignment with the infinite worth of Jesus. I consider all of those views to be true because they are what the Bible teaches, and therefore, theyre very valuable to know, Piper stressed. So I think its not just that he misunderstands, but that he gets some things right in those quotes, and he just doesnt like them. Piper said there are three areas where Weinstein seems to misrepresent his stance in either the letter to Esper or an earlier interview with The Christian Post. For example, when I say that some people will be infected with the coronavirus as a specific judgment from God because of their sinful attitudes and actions, he assumes that I know who those people are, or at least what kind of people they are, Piper said. But heres what I write on page 72. ... The coronavirus is ... never a clear and simple punishment on any person. The most loving, spirit-filled Christian, whose sins are forgiven through Christ, may die of the coronavirus disease. But it is fitting that every one of us search our own heart to discern if our suffering is Gods judgment on the way we live. Piper explained that God does judge people with sickness. Thats very clear from 1 Corinthians 11:32, and there its even talking about Christians, Piper said. But John Piper or you or anybody else cant determine from outside who is experiencing the coronavirus as a judgment in a punitive sense, and whos experiencing it, say, as purification or whos experiencing it for other reasons that God may have. Piper said his point is that God does many things for many reasons and people should do sober-minded self-assessment to discern what Gods purposes are in all that happens to us. Piper also underlined that he is not saying every person who engages in homosexual acts and who gets the coronavirus is being punished by God for those acts. In Romans 1:27 the Bible says that living in homosexual behavior is sometimes punished by God with a due penalty, which could be a disease, but not always, Piper said. And sometimes disease comes not as punishment, but as a merciful wake-up call that results in repentance and reconciliation and hope. Gods ways are simply more complex than the letter acknowledges. I suspect though, Tony, that this clarification wont even come close to satisfying the author of this letter since he considers it drivel and vulgar to even suggest that God controls this disease and would judge anyone with it, Piper added. Weinstein told CP that MRFF and the 22 Christian clients it's representing in the chaplain case do not have a misunderstanding of Piper's book. Weinstein doubled down on his disdain for Piper's Christian views. "Pipers despicable assertion of 'misunderstanding' is a wretched insult to those 22 Christian armed forces chaplains who desperately came to MRFF for civil rights advocacy help to engage this superior military officer," Weinstein added in an emailed response to CP. "As for 'not liking' Pipers declaration that the coronavirus is Gods judgment on sinners, and particularly for the 'sin' of 'homosexual intercourse,' [darn] right MRFF doesnt like it! Nor should ANY thinking, compassionate and caring human being 'like' such blatant and brazen prejudice, bigotry and bullying!" In the interview, Piper also responded to Weinsteins claim in the letter that there is no pastoral care and comfort in Pipers beliefs about the coronavirus. My response is Sir, no. You are profoundly wrong. We have the best news in the world for the hardest moments in the world the best care, the best comfort, Piper said. The very heart of Christianity is that, through Christ, God rescues guilty sinners. Thats me and you and all of us. Through Christ, God rescues guilty sinners from his own wrath. Piper then cited Romans 5:9: Since, therefore, we have now been justified by [Christs] blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. Thats what God sent Christ to do: rescue us from his own righteous punishment, Piper added. THE chief executive of the UL hospitals group (UHL) Dr Collette Cowan has urged people to remain vigilant amid a fresh growth in coronavirus numbers. There are now almost 600 confirmed cases of the disease in Limerick, and Dr Cowan, while thanking people for adhering to the public health advice so far during the pandemic, there is still more to do. In a video message, she said: I would like to thank our community, patients and staff in the Mid-West for adhering to the public health advice on Covid-19 The social distancing and good cough and handwashing etiquette has helped suppress Covid-19 in our community. But we must remain vigilant as this disease is very dangerous and very virulent. We must remain vigilant as this disease is very dangerous and very virulent. Colette Cowan, CEO @ULHospitals on the slow & careful reintroduction of services across our hospitals where patient & staff care is the central priority#MidwestTogether@colettecowan1 @HSELive 1/2 pic.twitter.com/B0bhcpdAX0 UL Hospitals (@ULHospitals) July 31, 2020 She confirmed footfall will remain low at University Hospital Limerick, with more patients attending clinics over the internet. We are asking those who do attend our hospitals to wear a face covering. Please be patient with us. We are aware some of you have waited a long time to receive an outpatient consultation. Others have had surgery deferred.We are making every effort to get every service started up as safely as we can, she said. And she asked people who might be considering attending the emergency department to consider alternative care options before heading there. She said patients might consider their local GP or pharmacy or the minor injury units at St Johns Hospital. If you are experiencing symptoms of Covid-19, she asked people to stay at home and telephone their GP for advice. Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) President Chandra Babu Naidu on Friday said the governor's decision on decentralisation of the state Pradesh administration and the cancellation of Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) Bill is a historical mistake. Reaction to Governor Biswabhushan Harichandans approval to the Bills, Naidu said, Today is a dark day in the history of the state. It is unconstitutional. The governors decision creates unnecessary confusion among the people. Naidu said about 29,000 farmers have sacrificed their lands for the capital with confidence in his government in 2014. He alleged that the ruling YSR Congress Party government has destroyed the capital and ruined the people's dreams. The three capitals are nowhere in the world. These Bills are against the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014. YSRCP supported Amaravati when they were in the opposition and now they are opposing. People need decentralisation in development, employment and job opportunities," said Naidu. Naidu said Amaravati is the central point of the state and during the declaration of the city as the capital, they had announced the district-wise development plan for industries expansion. Dublin, July 31 : Former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion Conor McGregor has hinted on a UFC return with a tweet which has not revealed much but enough to create a flutter. The Irishman in a cryptic tweet accepted a fight with UFC superstar Khamzat Chimaev after responding to his call-out on social media. "I'm getting bored, please @danawhite give me @NateDiaz209 @GamebredFighter @TheNotoriousMMA same night. I can smash all these guys... I'm just confident. I understand if they don't want to fight me," Chimaev said in a tweet. Moments later, McGregor responded to the tweet writing: "I accept". Chimaev hit back at McGregor: "Beg me". McGregor, last month, had said that he is retiring from fighting. In a Twitter post, McGregor had posted a photo with his mother Margaret that he said was from one of his "World title wins". He had earlier tweeted twice about retirement from fighting, both times when he was involved in arguments with the UFC. His last fight came in January against Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone which he won and he has since expressed interest to face a number of opponents. He was tied this summer to face current top lightweight contender Justin Gaethje. A trilogy fight with Nate Diaz was also something he expressed interest in repeatedly and he had also tweeted on May 28 that he had accepted a proposal for a fight against MMA legend Anderson Silva. A resolution to eradicate racism and to create more equitable and inclusive schools for children now and in the future is being considered by the Memphis Community Schools Board of Education. The issue was on the agenda for the latest school board meeting, and it was something being suggested through St. Clair County, Superintendent Brad Gudme said. He told the board the goal is to get all schools in the county to adopt the resolution to eradicate racism and so far, both Marysville and Port Huron schools have adopted the plan while other districts will be addressing it soon. The July 27 meeting, hosted in a virtual format due to COVID-19, had Kevin Watkins, president of the Port Huron branch of the NAACP, calling in to discuss the matter with the school board. He said things all started with the recent occurrences of police brutality against mostly black Americans followed by marches and protests against those incidents. He said its important for both municipalities and school districts to make a bold statement that they are against institutional systemic racism and adopt a resolution to eradicate racism to create a more equitable and peaceful school environment. School board Trustee Susan Durst said she felt the plan could pose a teachable moment by the board for those who look to them for direction. Along those lines she said by selecting one ethnic group they would be excluding many others who are part of the schools, the community and the nation. This could lend itself to divisiveness, where as we wish to end violence and injustices we need to unequivocally declare that an injustice to one is an injustice to all, Durst said. Board Secretary Karyn McCue said she agreed with Durst that there are many ethnicities and in it should say that all lives matter. Trustee Amanda Bobcean said the board needs to have a clear statement and wondered if Gudme had an attorney look over the resolution. Gudme said no, that they were just utilizing a template from the Port Huron resolution. Bobcean said she felt the document was too vague about what the district planned to do going forward. Are we going to try to get more diversity of staff? Are we trying to get implicit bias training? What are we as a district saying were going to do? Because I want to follow through on that, Bobcean said. She also pointed out the second to last paragraph of the resolution states its a partnership and asked who they were partnering with, what the partnership will mean and how the board will address things listed, like state budgets, standards and policies. I just think this is a very important thing we have to tackle and it needs more conversation, time and thought to say what we want to say, Bobcean said. Treasurer Marty Cook said he agreed with the point being made by Durst about inclusion. This is a non-partisan office, and Im not comfortable relating to or swearing allegiance to, in any way, shape or form a partisan group, so I would ask that the adjustment to the section Mrs. Durst brought up be made, Cook said. On a personal note, Cook said his late father has a criminal record in Alabama for marching for racial justice in the 1960s, so thats the house he was brought up in. I personally have no tolerance for racism of any kind against anyone but I want to understand clearly what we are committing to, Cook said. He also expressed concern about the fact that the resolution was authored for the Port Huron district, which is much larger than Memphis, so officials need to understand what they are committing to in adopting the resolution. Board Vice President Christopher Pare said he found the statements in the resolution about partnerships and looking at future budgets or legislation was an area that needed more clarity. Board President David Rhein suggested the board utilize an upcoming workshop to work through the resolution while also consulting with their attorneys and putting together some guidelines including things for the curriculum. We really need a real commitment of what we are going to do, put some thought into and make a clear strong statement of what we are going to do to help with this, Bobcean said. Trustee Audrey OConnor said from a workshop perspective it would be nice to include others beyond the board like Watkins and individuals who can provide ideas that are outside of the boards experiences. The board then voted 7-0 against adopting the resolution as presented in favor of holding a workshop to look into the matter. The board set a workshop meeting for 7 p.m. Aug. 6. Gudme will look into whether it will need to be a virtual meeting or if it can be hosted at an outdoor venue that would accommodate the board and the public. Barb Pert Templeton is a freelance reporter. She can be contacted at barbperttempleton.reporter@yahoo.com. Cao Guohua does housework in her apartment in Wangjiayan Village of Tianzhen County on June 15. [For China Daily/Liu Yukun] When it comes to making big changes in life, at some point the thoughts need to be turned into action, especially if one wants tangible, lasting results, judging by Cao Guohua's experience. Cao, a 54-year old housewife, was no different from the rest of her peers in Wangjiayan Village of Tianzhen County, a poverty-stricken area in Shanxi Province. But Cao took the momentous decision to free herself and her family from the shackles of poverty by becoming a home-care service provider in Beijing. "When I first embarked on the journey, little did I realize that doing housework and taking care of elderly people, simple tasks that I used to do for my family for free, would be extremely rewarding and earn me in excess of 50,000 yuan ($7,141) every year in Beijing," Cao said. "Most of the tasks were those that I did normally in my village apart from doing the farm work and other family chores. By doing farm work, our family could earn about 10,000 yuan every year with my sons' income combined, which was just enough for food and shelter," she said. Since her husband was physically challenged and not capable of hard labor, it was left to Cao to keep the kitchen and home fires running. Cao made her life-changing choice in 2017, when she heard that Tianzhen Sunshine Vocational Training School offered home-care training and related job opportunities for free. "I registered without any hesitation. Some of my peers were reluctant because they were afraid of seeking their fortunes in a new place after the age of 50. I did not think of it in that manner. I thought it was a great opportunity that enabled people at my age to go outside, earn more and learn more," she said. In 2017, Cao studied housekeeping and elderly care at the school, and a month later boarded the train to Beijing. "My first client was a grandmother who was diagnosed with lung cancer. I took care of her for over three months, and then I switched to another family. I earn about 50,000 yuan to 60,000 yuan every year and in the last three years I have been able to pay off our family debts and decorate our new apartment," Cao said. Cao is not the only one who benefited from the home-care service training and got out of the poverty chain. To date, about 30,000 women from Tianzhen were trained in home-care services and have found jobs outside of their home county. Almost all of them were trained in Tianzhen Sunshine Vocational Training School."We offer students training for free for entry-and middle-level classes, and we do not charge clients for introduction fees. We received a lot of financial support from the government," said Li Chun, headmaster of Tianzhen Sunshine Vocational Training School. Founded in 2011 with an investment of 50 million yuan, the job training school now has 45 teaching staff. The school said most of their students are now working in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and other places. Twelve students who were trained in home-care services are now working in the United States and Japan, with monthly salaries ranging from 11,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan. Today, Tianzhen's home-care services have grown into a national brand and are proving to be an important source of revenue. But eight years ago, Tianzhen was one of the worst poverty-stricken counties in China. Located in the northeastern part of Shanxi province, Tianzhen is situated at a high altitude and has a relatively shorter frost-free period compared to southern areas, which means farmers in Tianzhen only have four to five months a year to do field work and make money. Although many farmers chose to find a side job in their spare time, very few of them would succeed due to the lack of skills and formal educational. In 2012, the local government decided to promote home-care services as a poverty-alleviation measure in Tianzhen county, largely due to the support from the Dewdrop Project, a government-led charity project offering training to people in poverty-stricken areas. The project was also buoyed by the huge market for home-care services in Beijing, about 280 kilometers from Tianzhen. Since then, government officials and training school teachers have spared no efforts to encourage local women to come outside of their homes and develop skills to find jobs in other cities. "It was harder than you would imagine. Most of the women were living in Tianzhen since they were born and had never stepped out of the county. A majority of them feared going to other cities alone, especially after turning 40. Many were quite old-fashioned and considered offering home-care services and taking care of other people as shameful and so did their families," said Fu Xiaoyan, deputy head of Tianzhen Sunshine Vocational Training School. "But with more people going outside, making money and learning new skills, many people changed their views. Now some would think rather than just making money, going to Beijing and interacting with people from different backgrounds is an eye-opening experience," Fu said. (Source: China Daily) Advertisement Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal were reunited on Friday afternoon as the Normal People co-stars attended the socially distanced Virgin Media BAFTA British Academy Television Awards held at Television Centre in London. The pair were in high spirits as they made an early red carpet showing at the star studded event, their first joint appearance since being propelled to stardom on the BBC Three show. The actors were joined by a host of glamorous arrivals at the television studios including Emily Atack, 30, and Stacey Dooley, 33, while nominees including Killing Eve star Jodie Comer celebrated from home. Old friends: Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal were reunited on Friday afternoon as the Normal People co-stars attended the socially distanced Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards Adhering to the social distancing guidelines that have been put in place as a consequence of COVID-19, onscreen lovers Paul and Daisy stayed two metres apart while posing for photos. Referencing the abrupt changes to protocol, the pair held each end of a tape measure for the benefit of waiting photographers as they stood the required distance apart. Looking appropriately glamorous, Daisy, 22, commanded attention in a sweeping black gown with mesh embellishments while joining her former co-star. With a delicately cinched waistline, the outfit drew attention to her slender physique, while a notable lack of accessories gave the overall look an understated flourish. Safety first: Referencing the abrupt changes to protocol, the pair held each end of a tape measure for the benefit of waiting photographers as they stood the required distance apart Stunning! The actors were joined by a host of glamorous arrivals at the television studios including Emily Atack, 30, and Stacey Dooley Cheers! Killing Eve star Jodie Comer celebrated from home after previously joking she'd attend in her pyjamas Stunning: Looking appropriately glamorous, Daisy, 22, commanded attention in a sweeping black gown with mesh embellishments while joining her former co-star Stay back: Adhering to the social distancing guidelines that have been put in place as a consequence of COVID-19 , the onscreen lovers stayed two metres apart Gorgeous: Even from behind her face mask, Daisy's smile was clear to see Speaking on social media during a pre-ceremony interview, Paul spoke of their excitement to be starring in Normal People and what they made of the show's success. He said: 'It's hard to tell but I think both myself and Daisy were so excited to be doing it, but it's kind of grown legs.' Daisy explained: 'It's really surreal like being in person to talk about it, because we've mostly been in our own rooms,' she said, referring to their previous interviews about the show having taken place via Zoom. Asked whether she felt pressure being in a show that's based on a beloved book, she admitted: 'Before filming it was like "ooh" you get cast and you're like "this is the best thing ever," and then you're like "I can't do this." 'It has been a bit of a whirlwind and something we're both incredibly grateful for,' added Paul. Fun with friends: Daisy bumped elbows with Aisling Bea as they had fun backstage Behind closed doors: The annual event which was previously postponed earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic is being held at the Television Centre, with all nominees accepting their awards virtually from home Time to celebrate! Jessica Hynes and Nina Toussaint were both signing the Taittinger Methuzelah backstage Daisy agreed, and admitted the BAFTAs was the first taste of how successful Normal People has been, as she said: 'It's really nice but it's also hard to wrap your head around. 'This is the first time I've actually been to an event, and this is the first time I'm getting my head wrapped around what it really means.' Emily Atack and Stacey Dooley were among the first of the glamorous arrivals at the TV BAFTAs, which is being held in a closed studio in accordance with social distancing guidelines. The comedian and TV presenter, 30, still pulled out all the stops despite the unusual circumstances, as she donned a chic duck egg blue shorts suit for the occasion. Emily teamed her stylish linen suit with a plunging black top, while completing her look with a pair of strappy black heeled sandals. Postponed: The BAFTA Television Craft Awards and Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards were originally scheduled for 26 April and 17 May New date: Organisers confirmed at the time that following government advice they had opted to reschedule the ceremonies until later in the year Raring to go: Glam teams were seen preparing make-up backstage wearing surgical masks Amping up the glamour, Emily wore her blonde tresses in a pretty up do, while also sporting an expertly-applied coat of make-up at the event. Meanwhile, Stacey looked every inch the star in a stunning sweetheart neckline gown, which hugged her figure before fanning out into an eye-catching fishtail. The broadcaster wore her ginger locks up in a pretty bun, while opting for a full face of make-up including a sultry grey smokey eye and gold earrings. The annual event which was previously postponed earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic is being held at the Television Centre, with all nominees accepting their awards virtually from home. Pretty: Amping up the glamour, Emily wore her blonde tresses in a pretty up do, while also sporting an expertly-applied coat of make-up at the event Sizzling: Stacey opted for a stunning form-fitting dress which puffed out into a decadent fishtail Spotty sensation: Aisling Bea looked lovely in a polka dot monochrome dress Gorgeous: Daisy and Aisling stood close together as they posed for a quick snap backstage Here he is! Host Richard Ayoade arrived wearing a grey suit and red die ahead of his BAFTAs presenting debut The BAFTA Television Craft Awards and Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards were originally scheduled for 26 April and 17 May. Organisers confirmed at the time that following government advice they had opted to reschedule the ceremonies until later in the year. The awards show is being held in a BBC studio and in accordance with government guidelines the ceremony will be socially distanced, with nominees accepting their prizes virtually. Smart: Paul looked the part in a two piece suit, teamed with a white T-shirt and trainers Tasteful: With a delicately cinched waistline, the outfit drew attention to her slender physique, while a notable lack of accessories gave the overall look an understated flourish Upbeat: Daisy and Paul laughed and joked outside the venue before making their way inside Making his debut as host of the all-star ceremony, actor and comedian Richard Ayoade will steer audiences through this years' nominations, with nominees invited to get involved through video link-ups. Richard, who has himself won a BAFTA, previously joked about hosting the socially distanced programme: 'I am as surprised as you are that this is still going ahead.' Earlier this month the full list of nominations for the BAFTA Television Awards 2020 were announced. High glamour: Daisy adjusted her sweeping dress while preparing to make her entrance I say: The actress's backless gown drew further attention to her slimline figure as she chatted to fellow guests at the socially distanced event Plenty to smile about: Daisy beamed while chatting to a pal outside the BBC venue Killing Eve star Jodie has led a bevvy of stars preparing to celebrate the 2020 British Academy Television Awards' first ever socially-distanced ceremony from home. The actress, 27, shared a stunning social media snap of the plunging mixed-printed dress as she prepared to mark the occasion with her BBQ at her Liverpool home. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many stars have been forced to stay at home for the usually lavish and glitzy awards ceremony, which will take place at Television Centre with strictly distancing measures in place. Jodie shared a stunning snap of her dress, which boasted a plunging front and an array of floral prints as she posed with her blonde billowing in the breeze, joking she 'nearly had to wear her pyjamas to the ceremony' as her outfit had been delivered just hours earlier. Ready to go! Gentleman Jack star Suranne Jones also shared a snap ahead of the ceremony, wearing her character Anne Lister's signature top hat Glass of champagne in hand, the star revealed she'd be celebrating at her home with a laid-back BBQ. Her caption read: 'BAFTA is looking a little different this year. Ive swapped the Royal Festival Hall for a BBQ in the back garden!! Shout out to the legend General Manager at Liverpool Parcelforce who hand delivered this beautiful @duroolowu dress to me this morning. 'After saying I was going to wear my pyjamas to this years BAFTAs I nearly got what I wished for! And thanks to @noblepanacea for the glow. Congratulations to all the nominees, lets dance!' Jodie is nominated for Leading Actress for her performance as the ruthless assassin Villanelle, and will go head-to-head with Gentleman Jack's Suranne Jones, I Am Kirsty star Samantha Morton for I Am Kirsty, and Elizabeth Is Missing's Glenda Jackson. That's a way to do it! The Virtues star Stephan Graham - who is nominated for Best Leading Actor - shared how he was attempting to stay cool with his wife Hannah Walters during the warm weather, by posing in a paddling pool Suranne Jones also paid tribute to her character Anne Lister from the acclaimed period drama, as she donned her signature top hat for a fun snap ahead of the ceremony. Posing alongside a thermometer on what's been confirmed as the hottest day of the year, she penned: 'Happy BAFTA day: tonight at 7pm. Good luck to all the nominees. 'The Gentleman Jack team are very honoured to have been included in the Drama series category. With so much content out there to choose from.. this is already a massive win for us.' Giddy: Rylan Clark-Neal (left) gushed that he 'didn't have to get dressed' as he prepared to watch the ceremony, and posted a hilarious TikTok of the gifts he'd received to enjoy the awards from his Essex home The Virtues star Stephan Graham - who is nominated for Best Leading Actor - shared how he was attempting to stay cool with his wife Hannah Walters during the warm weather, by donning their red carpet outfits and posing in a paddling pool. He captioned the post: 'Back garden Baftas! @BAFTA @HannahWalters74.' Rylan Clark-Neal also shared a hilarious TikTok joking he 'wouldn't have to get dressed' along with a video of the gift box he'd been sent so he could enjoy the awards from the comfort of his Essex home. The BAFTA Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards are being held in a closed studio after the original date was postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Legs for days: Emilyk- who has been preparing to host BAFTAs social media channels during the awards - showcased her gorgeous mint green short suit for the occasion Nearly done! Stacey shared a brief video of her pre-awards transformation, though ensured she was prepared as boyfriend Kevin Clifton could be heard asking if she'd like a cup of tea Leggy! Emily was later spotted outside the studios enjoying the scorching hot sunshine Suave: Actor and director Adrian Anthony Lester OBE opted for smart casual in a tweed blazer and jeans Casual: Peaky Blinders actor Joe Cole looked casual in a Harrington jacket and trousers which he wore with trainers The Virtues star Stephan Graham - who is nominated for Best Leading Actor - shared how he was attempting to stay cool with his wife Hannah Walters during the warm weather, by donning their red carpet outfits and posing in a paddling pool. He captioned the post: 'Back garden Baftas! @BAFTA @HannahWalters74.' Chernobyl, Fleabag, The Crown, Giri/Haji and The Virtues all lead the way with three nominations each. Sky Atlantic's Chernobyl has taken the world by storm and scored a higher IMDb rating than Game Of Thrones and Breaking Bad. Looking good! Before entering the studio with his co-star Daisy, Paul covered up by wearing a face mask Here she is! Stacey oozed glamour as she arrived at the studios in a stunning black velvet gown Elegant: Stacey wore her ginger locks swept back into a pretty bun while opting for a full face of make-up including a sultry smoke eye The five-part series follows an investigative commission appointed in the wake of the devastating nuclear accident on April 26, 1986. Actors Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgard have been recognised in the Leading Actor and Supporting Actor categories. Elsewhere, Girl/Haji has also picked up nominations. The eight-part series is set in England and Japan with dialogue in English and subtitled Japanese, and has a pair of brothers at its heart, Kenzo and Yuto Mori. Main man: Paul stood out as he arrived at the event, just days after being nominated for a Primetime Emmy That's better: Daisy quickly fixed her hair before being ushered inside Overnight success: The star has become a household name thanks to her role in Normal People Glam: Bodyguard actress Nina Toussaint took to the red carpet wearing a beautiful white strapless gown Protection: Inbetweeners actor Greg Davies wasn't taking any risks he donned a face mask for the event Fabulous: Tom Allen added an eye-catching suit to his look while a cardboard cut out of Jeff Goldblum also appeared on the red carpet Kenzo is a respectable Tokyo-based detective, and Yuto is rumoured to be part of the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza, and is lying low in London after allegedly murdering a Japanese businessman there. Nominations include Takehiro Hira in the Leading Actor category and Supporting Actor (for Will Sharpe) at the awards. Channel 4 drama The Virtues, starring Line of Duty's Stephen Graham has picked up nominations in the Leading Actor, Mini-Series and Supporting Actress (for Helen Behan) categories. Sex Education picked up a nod in the Breakthrough Talent for Male Performance in a Comedy Programme (for Ncuti Gatwa). Showstopping: Jessica Hynes refused to forgo the glamour as she arrived in a black satin gown Glam squad! A team of make-up artists were on hand to touch up the stars faces after they arrived at the studio Stunning: Nina and Emily were both in the hot seat as they had their make-up touched up by a professional Glowing: Emily's make-up artist was protected with a face mask and shield while adding make-up to her face Rounding off the top nominees, Top Boy, which was revived in 2019, has scored a nod for Supporting Actress (for Jasmine Jobson) categories. Notable snubs include EastEnders, which won Best Soap at the 2019 awards, but has failed to be nominated at the 2020 show. The shortlist was selected by an independent BAFTA-approved jury of media experts, with BAFTA Television Committee Chair Hannah Wyatt heading the group. While the BAFTA Television Awards is typically a glitzy affair, winners will accept their awards from home, while presenters will appear live in the studio. The star-studded presenting line-up in the studio includes, Adrian Lester, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Greg Davies, Himesh Patel, Jessia Hynes, Joe Cole, Nina Sosanya, Paul Mescal, Sope Dirisu and Stacey Dooley. BAFTA TV Awards 2020: WINNERS BRITISH ACADEMY TELEVISION AWARDS COMEDY ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMME The Graham Norton Show The Last Leg Taskmaster - WINNER The Ranganation CURRENT AFFAIRS Growing Up Poor: Britain's Breadline Kids (Dispatches) The Hunt For Jihadi John Is Labour Anti-Semitic (Panorama) Undercover: Inside China's Digital Gulug (Exposure) - WINNER DRAMA SERIES The Crown Gentleman Jack Giri/Haji The End of the F***ing World - WINNER ENTERTAINMENT PERFORMANCE Frankie Boyle for Frankie Boyle's New World Order Graham Norton for The Graham Norton Show Lee Mack for Would I Lie To You Mo Gilligan for The Lateish Show with Mo Gilligan - WINNER ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMME Strictly Come Dancing - WINNER The Voice The Greatest Dancer The Rap Game UK FACTUAL SERIES Crime and Punishment Leaving Neverland - WINNER Don't F**k With Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer Our Dementia Choir with Vicky McClure FEATURES The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan - WINNER Snackmasters Joe Lycett's Got Your Back Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing FEMALE PERFORMANCE IN A COMEDY PROGRAMME Phoebe Waller- Bridge in Fleabag Sarah Kendall in Frayed Sian Clifford in Fleabag - WINNER Gbemisola Ikumelo in Famalam INTERNATIONAL Succession When They See Us - WINNER Euphoria Unbelievable LEADING ACTOR Stephen Graham for The Virtues Jared Harris for Chernobyl - WINNER Takehiro Hira for Giri/Haji Callum Turner for The Capture LEADING ACTRESS Jodie Comer for Killing Eve Suranne Jones for Gentleman Jack Samantha Morton for I Am Kirsty Glenda Jackson for Elizabeth Is Missing - WINNER LIVE EVENT Blue Planet Live - WINNER Election 2019 Live: The Results Glastonbury 2019 Operation Live MALE PERFORMANCE IN A COMEDY PROGRAMME Ncuti Gatwa for Sex Education Guz Khan for Man Like Mobeen Youssef Kerkour for Home Jamie Demetriou for Stath Lets Flats - WINNER MINI-SERIES Chernobyl - WINNER A Confession The Virtues The Victim NEWS COVERAGE Hong Kong Protests - WINNER ITV News At Ten: Election Results Prince Andrew & The Epstein Scandal (Newsnight) Victoria Derbyshire: Men who lost loved ones to knife crime REALITY & CONSTRUCTED FACTUAL Celebrity Gogglebox Race Across The World - WINNER RuPaul's Drag Race UK Harry's Heroes: The Full English SCRIPTED COMEDY Derry Girls Fleabag Derry Girls Stath Lets Flats - WINNER SHORT FORM PROGRAMME Anywhere But Westminster Brain In Gear - WINNER Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle toni_with_an_i (Born Digital: First Cuts) SINGLE DOCUMENTARY The Abused The Family Secret The Last Survivors - WINNER David Harewood: Psychosis and Me SINGLE DRAMA Brexit: The Uncivil War Elizabeth Is Missing The Left Behind - WINNER Responsible Child SOAP & CONTINUING DRAMA Coronation Street Casualty Holby City Emmerdale - WINNER SPECIALIST FACTUAL 8 Days: To The Moon and Back Seven Worlds: One Planet Thatcher: A Very British Revolution Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime Story - WINNER SPORT 2019 RUGBY WORLD CUP FINAL: ENGLAND V SOUTH AFRICA - WINNER ICC CRICKET WORLD CUP FINAL FIFA WOMENS WORLD CUP 2019 SEMI FINAL: ENGLAND V USA WIMBLEDON 2019 MENS FINAL SUPPORTING ACTOR Joe Absolom for A Confession Josh O'Connor for The Crown Stellan Skarsgard for Chernobyl Will Sharpe for Giri/Haji - WINNER SUPPORTING ACTRESS Helen Behan for The Virtues Helena Bonham Carter for The Crown Jasmine Jobson for Top Boy Naomi Ackie for The End of the F***ing World - WINNER VIRGIN MEDIAS MUST-SEE MOMENT (voted for by the public) CORONATION STREET - The Death of Sinead Osborne FLEABAG - Confessional scene GAME OF THRONES - Arya Kills the Night King GAVIN AND STACEY - Nessa Proposes to Smithy - WINNER LINE OF DUTY - John Corbetts Death LOVE ISLAND - Michael recouples after Casa Amor SPECIAL AWARD Idris Elba BRITISH ACADEMY TELEVISION CRAFT AWARDS bREAKTHROUGH TALENT AISLING BEA (Writer) This Way Up Merman TV/Channel 4 ANEIL KARIA (Director) (episode 3) Drama Republic/Channel 4 & Top Boy (ep 10) Cowboy Films, Easter Partisan Films, Dream Crew, SpringHill Entertainment/Netflix LAURIE NUNN (Writer) Sex Educatiion Eleven Film/Netflix SEAN BUCKLEY (Writer) Responsible Child Kudos, 72 Films/BBC Two COSTUME DESIGN CAROLINE MCCALL His Dark Materials Bad Wolf/BBC One JOANNA EATWELL Beecham House Bend It TV/ITV MICHELE CLAPTON Game Of Thrones HBO, Bighead, Littlehead, 36 Television, Startling Television/Sky Atlantic ODILE DICKS-MIREAUX Chernobyl Sister Pictures, The Mighty Mint, Word Games/HBO/Sky Atlantic DIRECTOR: FACTUAL ARTHUR CARY The Last Survivors Minnow Films/BBC Two DAN REED Leaving Neverland AMOS Pictures/Channel 4 MARK LEWIS Dont F*** With Cats Raw TV/Netflix ROBIN BARNWELL Undercover: Inside China's Digital Gulag Hardcash Productions/ITV DIRECTOR: FICTION HARRY BRADBEER Fleabag Two Brothers Pictures/BBC Three JOHAN RENCK Chernobyl Sister Pictures, The Mighty Mint, Word Games/HBO/Sky Atlantic SHANE MEADOWS The Virtues Warp Films, Big Arty Productions/Channel 4 TOBY HAYNES Brexit: The Uncivil War House Productions/Channel 4 DIRECTOR: MULTI-CAMERA BRIDGET CALDWELL The Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance BBC Studios/BBC One JANET FRASER CROOK Glastonbury 2019 BBC Studios/BBC Two MATTHEW GRIFFITHS Six Nations 2019 Wales v England BBC Sport/BBC One PAUL MCNAMARA ITV Racing: Cheltenham Festival ITV Sport/ITV EDITING: FACTUAL ANDY R. WORBOYS Untouchable: The Rise And Fall Of Harvey Weinstein Lightbox/BBC Two JULES CORNELL Leaving Neverland AMOS Pictures/Channel 4 KIM HORTON 63 Up MultiStory Media/ITV MICHAEL HARTE Dont F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer Raw TV/Netflix EDITING: FICTION DAN CRINNION Killing Eve (Episode 4) Sid Gentle Films/BBC One ELEN PIERCE LEWIS Giri/Haji Sister Pictures/BBC Two GARY DOLLNER Fleabag Two Brothers Pictures/BBC Three SIMON SMITH, JINX GODFREY Chernobyl Sister Pictures, The Mighty Mint, Word Games/HBO/Sky Atlantic ENTERTAINMENT CRAFT TEAM AMBER RIMELL, BRONSKI, MISTY BUCKLEY, TIM ROUTLEDGE Glastonbury 2019 (Stormzy) BBC Studios, Tawbox/BBC Two DAVID BISHOP, VICKY GILL, ANDY TAPLEY, PATRICK DOHERTY Strictly Come Dancing BBC Studios/BBC One MARK BUSK-COWLEY, STEVE KRUGER, IAIN STIRLING, JAMES TINSLEY Love Island ITV Studios, Motion Content Group/ITV 2 NIGEL CATMUR, PATRICK DOHERTY, KEVIN DUFF, ANDREW STOKES The Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance BBC Studios/BBC One MAKE UP & HAIR DESIGN DANIEL PARKER, BARRIE GOWER Chernobyl Sister Pictures, The Mighty Mint, Word Games/HBO/Sky Atlantic INMA AZORIN The Trial Of Christine Keeler Ecosse Films, Great Meadow Productions/BBC One KIRSTIN CHALMERS Catherine The Great New Pictures, Origin Pictures/HBO/Sky Atlantic LOZ SCHIAVO Peaky Blinders Caryn Mandabach Productions, Tiger Aspect/BBC One ORIGINAL MUSIC ADRIAN JOHNSTON Giri/Haji Sister Pictures/BBC Two ANDREW PHILLIPS War In The Blood Minnow Films/BBC Two DAVID HOLMES, KEEFUS CIANCIA Killing Eve Sid Gentle Films/BBC One HILDUR GUDNADOTTIR Chernobyl Sister Pictures, The Mighty Mint, Word Games/HBO/Sky Atlantic PHOTOGRAPHY: FACTUAL BERTIE GREGORY, HOWARD BOURNE, JOHN SHIER Seven Worlds, One Planet BBC Studios/BBC One DOUG ANDERSON, ROGER HORROCKS, GAVIN THURSTON Our Planet (Coastal Seas) Silverback Films/Netflix JAMIE MCPHERSON, HECTOR SKEVINGTON-POSTLES, BARRIE BRITTON Our Planet (Frozen Worlds) Silverback Films/Netflix PATRICK SMITH, NEIL HARVEY Untouchable: The Rise And Fall Of Harvey Weinstein Lightbox/BBC Two PHOTOGRAPHY & LIGHTING: FICTION ADRIANO GOLDMAN The Crown Left Bank Pictures, Sony Pictures Television/Netflix JAKOB IHRE Chernobyl Sister Pictures, The Mighty Mint, Word Games/HBO/Sky Atlantic JOE ANDERSON Top Boy Cowboy Films, Easter Partisan Films, Dream Crew, SpringHill Entertainment/Netflix SUZIE LAVELLE His Dark Materials (Episode 3) Bad Wolf, BBC Studios, HBO/BBC One PRODUCTION DESIGN LAURENCE DORMAN Killing Eve Sid Gentle Films/BBC One LUKE HULL, CLAIRE LEVINSON-GENDLER Chernobyl Sister Pictures, The Mighty Mint, Word Games/HBOSky Atlantic MARTIN CHILDS, ALISON HARVEY The Crown Left Bank Pictures, Sony Pictures Television/Netflix SAMANTHA HARLEY, MIRI KATZ Sex Education Eleven Film/Netflix SCRIPTED CASTING DES HAMILTON Top Boy Cowboy Films, Easter Partisan Films, Dream Crew, SpringHill Entertainment/Netflix LAUREN EVANS Sex Education Eleven Film/Netflix NINA GOLD, ROBERT STERNE Chernobyl Sister Pictures, The Mighty Mint, Word Games/HBO/Sky Atlantic YOKO NARAHASHI, SHAHEEN BAIG, LAYLA MERRICK-WOLF Giri/Haji Sister/BBC Two SOUND: FACTUAL GRAHAM WILD, KATE HOPKINS Seven Worlds, One Planet BBC Studios/BBC One GRAHAM WILD, KATE HOPKINS, TIM OWENS Our Planet (One Planet) Silverback Films Production/Netflix NICK FRY, STEVE SPEED, JAMES EVANS, NICK ADAMS Formula 1: Drive To Survive Box to Box Films/Netflix SOUND TEAM Battle of the Brass Bands Two Four/Sky Arts SOUND: FICTION DILLON BENNETT, JON THOMAS, GARETH BULL, JAMES RIDGEWAY His Dark Materials Bad Wolf, BBC Studios, HBO/BBC One IAN WILKINSON, LEE WALPOLE, FRASER BARBER, STUART HILLIKER A Cristmas Carol FX Productions in association with the BBC, Minim UK Productions, Scott Free, and Hardy Son & Baker/BBC One STEFAN HENRIX, JOE BEAL, STUART HILIKER, VINCENT PIPONNIER Chernobyl Sister Pictures, The Mighty Mint, Word Games/HBO/Sky Atlantic SOUND TEAM The Crown Left Bank Pictures, Sony Pictures Television/Netflix SPECIAL, VISUAL & GRAPHIC EFFECTS BEN TURNER, CHRIS REYNOLDS, ASA SHOUL The Crown Left Bank Pictures, Sony Pictures Television/Netflix FRAMESTORE, PAINTING PRACTICE, REAL SFX, RUSSELL DODGSON His Dark Materials Bad Wolf, BBC Studios/HBO/BBC One LINDSAY MCFARLANE, CLAUDIUS CHRISTIAN RAUCH, JEAN-CLEMENT SORET, DNEG Chernobyl Sister Pictures, The Mighty Mint, Word Games/HBO/Sky Atlantic MILK VISUAL EFFECTS, GARETH SPENSLEY, REAL SFX Good Omens Amazon Studios, BBC Studios, Narrativia, The Blank Corporation/Amazon Prime Video TITLES & GRAPHIC IDENTITY ALEX MACLEAN The Durrells Sid Gentle Films/ITV ELASTIC Catherine The Great New Pictures, Origin Pictures/HBO/Sky Atlantic ELASTIC, PAINTING PRACTICE His Dark Materials Bad Wolf, BBC Studios, HBO/BBC One LIGHT CREATIVE Ghosts Monumental Television, Them There/BBC One WRITER: COMEDY DANNY BROCKLEHURST Brassic Calamity Films/Sky One JAMIE DEMETRIOU Stath Lets Flats Roughcut TV/Channel 4 PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE Fleabag Two Brothers Pictures/BBC Three SAM LEIFER, TOM BASDEN Plebs Rise Films/ITV2 WRITER: DRAMA CHARLIE COVELL The End Of The F***ing World Clerkenwell Films, Dominic Buchanan Productions/Channel 4 CRAIG MAZIN Chernobyl Sister Pictures, The Mighty Mint, Word Games/HBO/Sky Atlantic JESSE ARMSTRONG Succession HBO, Project Zeus, Hyperobject Industries, Gary Sanchez Productions/Sky Atlantic SHANE MEADOWS, JACK THORNE The Virtues Warp Films, Big Arty Productions/Channel 4 SPECIAL AWARD NICKY SARGENT, VIKKI DUNN, founders of post-production house The Farm Advertisement Richard will also be joined virtually by some big names in television including Billy Porter, Chris O'Dowd, David Tennant, Jeff Goldblum, Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Michael Sheen and Ruth Madeley, who will be presenting awards via video link. Audiences will also be treated to two performances from internationally-acclaimed comedian, musician, actor and writer Tim Minchin, including an original song composed specially for the event. British actor, writer and producer Idris Elba will receive the Special Award, one of BAFTA's highest accolades, in recognition of his exceptional career and commitment to championing diversity and new talent in the industry. There will also be some very special surprise guests dialling in to present his award on the night. The winner of the Virgin Media's Must-See Moment Award will also be announced. As the only award to be voted for by the public, the Must-See Moment celebrates the dramatic scenes, cliff hangers and edge-of-your-seat moments that truly resonated with TV fans across the UK. The conclusion to last year's Gavin and Stacey Christmas special, in which Ruth Jones' character Nessa proposed to James Corden's alter-ego Smithy, is among the contenders in the shortlist, which is voted for by the British public. Line Of Duty's shock killing of undercover police officer John Corbett, played by Stephen Graham, is up for the award, while the scene where Arya Stark kills the Night King in the final season of Game Of Thrones also got a nod. Elsewhere, BAFTA have responded to criticism of its lack of diversity by nominating three times as many BAME actors and performers as last year's TV awards show. Nine stars including Sex Education's Ncuti Gatwa, The End of the F***ing World's Naomi Ackie and comedians Guz Khan and Mo Gilligan are among those nominated for the individual awards. They make up around a third of all those nominated, a marked improvement on the three from last year. BAFTA has come under fire for its lack of representation in both its film and TV award shows in recent years. Watch Normal People on BBC Three, or on Stan in Australia. Switch the Market flag Open the menu and switch the Market flag for targeted data from your country of choice. for targeted data from your country of choice. India imposed restrictions on imports of colour televisions sets on Thursday. The restrictions announced by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) come as India tries to encourage local manufacturing. The notification said that the import policy of colour television sets has been amended from "free" to "restricted". The TV sets that will be impacted by the import policy are: Colour television sets of screen size up to 36 cm Television sets of screen size of 36 cm but not exceeding 54 cm Television sets of screen size of 54 cm but not exceeding 68 cm Television sets of screen size of 68 cm but not exceeding 74 cm Television sets of screen size of 74 cm but not exceeding 87 cm Television sets of screen size of 87 cm but not exceeding 105 cm Television sets of screen size exceeding 105 cm Liquid crystal display television set of screen size below 63 cm "Actual user conditions would not be applicable for importers applying for an authorization to import the goods 'restricted' in this notification. The procedure for grant of license will be separately issued by DGFT (Directorate General of Foreign Trade)," stated the notification. India imported colour television sets worth $781 million in the year ended March. Most of the imports were from Vietnam that amounted to over $400 million and China that amounted to nearly $300 million worth of imports. This notification comes as Chinese imports and investments continue to face immense scrutiny in India after the recent India-China border clash at Galwan Valley that led to the death of 20 jawans. Government had recently banned 59 Chinese apps citing security risks. The government also amended the General Financial Rules 2017 to impose restrictions on bidders from countries sharing a land border with India. The curbs have been imposed on procurement of public projects on the grounds of matters directly or indirectly related to "national security". Also read: TV ad inventory volumes bounce back, but broadcasters still offering deep discounts Also read: Govt may soon scrap sentences for minor offences under Cable TV Act Chief Minister on Friday appealed to the Ministers and MLAs in the state to contribute 30 per cent of their salaries to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund in the fight against pandemic. "If all of you agree then we will contribute 30 per cent of our salary towards the CM Relief Fund, to fight COVID-19, until the pandemic doesn't come under control - be it July, August, September or October," Chouhan said in a conversation with state's Ministers, via video conferencing. "I appeal to all MLAs to contribute 30 per cent of their salaries for three months towards CM Relief Fund, in the fight against I also appeal to the people to give their contribution in the Fund," he added. He also said that the COVID testing campaign will continue in the first fortnight of August. "We had a COVID campaign from July 1-31 wherein tests were done extensively. Phase 2 of the campaign will be from August 1-14 wherein we'll resolve to maintain social distancing and wear masks to break the chain of infection," he said. "During this period Chief Minister, Ministers, MLAs and other public representatives won't have any public rallies. Foundation stone laying ceremonies, 'Bhoomi pujan', inaugurations and all functions where a large crowd gathers, will be prohibited. These can be done via video conferencing," he added. Meanwhile, Chirayu Hospital released Chouhan's health bulletin stating that he continues to be in good stead on the seventh day of admission after being detected positive. (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.) While deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. are mounting rapidly, public health experts are seeing a flicker of good news: The second surge of confirmed cases appears to be leveling off. Scientists arent celebrating by any means, warning that the trend is driven by four big, hard-hit places Arizona, California, Florida and Texas and that cases are rising in close to 30 states in all, with the outbreak's center of gravity seemingly shifting from the Sun Belt toward the Midwest. Some experts wonder whether the apparent caseload improvements will endure. It's also not clear when deaths will start coming down. COVID-19 deaths do not move in perfect lockstep with the infection curve, for the simple reason that it can take weeks to get sick and die from the virus. The future? I think its very difficult to predict, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's foremost infectious-disease expert. "What inevitably is going to happen is that the states that are not yet in trouble, will likely get into trouble," Fauci said Wednesday in an interview on MSNBC. States including Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee are seeing an increase in the percentage of coronavirus tests coming back positive, he said, a development that preceded the spike in the South and West. The White House coronavirus task force has warned Midwestern governors that the time to get ahead of the curve is now before the numbers start to skyrocket in their states, Fauci said. "Before you know it, two to three weeks down the pike, you're in trouble," he said. Already, West Virginia is watching coronavirus migrate from the South daily, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said. The state has lost five more people to the virus since Monday, bringing the total to more than 112 deaths in the state. "It's just not good. That's just all there is to it," Justice said. The latest numbers More than 4.4 million cases of the virus and 152,000 deaths have been reported in the US, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Where western and southern states stand now States across the West and South have set records for daily cases and deaths this month as the virus has surged. California set a grim record of 197 deaths in a single day, the California Department of Public Health reported Wednesday. The last record for the state was set just the week before at 159. Los Angeles County also saw its highest COVID-19 death toll to date with 91 deaths, bringing the total in the county to 4,516. But the county's Health Director Barbara Ferrer warned that some of Wednesday's fatalities are also attributed to a reporting backlog. Also setting a record for coronavirus deaths in one day, Florida reported 216 deaths Wednesday. The state has been at the forefront of the resurgence in coronavirus cases. Texas cases surpass New York Coronavirus cases in Texas have risen to more than 418,00, putting the state at a higher case count than New York. Once the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, New York now ranks fourth in total case count behind California, Florida and Texas, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Medical teams on the frontlines in Texas said that spikes in the state have taken a toll. "It's very hard. We're seeing entire families in our communities ravaged by the virus," said Dr. Martin Schwartz, who treats patients in intensive care units. "A lot of deaths inside one single family. It's terrible." The main hotspot in the state has been the Rio Grande Valley, where hospitals began reaching capacity earlier this month. Health officials say the pandemic is wreaking havoc on communities in Hidalgo County. "It's a tsunami what we're seeing right now," said Dr. Federico Vallejo, a critical care pulmonologist. He told CNN last week that he is treating up to 70 patients a day compared to the usual 15 to 20 a critical care doctor sees during a rotation. Texas was one of the first states to reopen in May, but Gov. Greg Abbott announced a pause to any further reopening in June when cases surged. Now Texas is one of the 41 states to implement mask requirements in some form to protect against the virus's spread. Though many health experts stress the importance of wearing masks to protect against the spread of the virus, their use has been under debate in the public. Texas Republican Louie Gohmert, who has frequently refused to wear a mask, has tested positive for the virus. Gohmert told KETK on Wednesday he may have contracted coronavirus by incorrectly wearing his mask. "I can't help but think that if I hadn't been wearing a mask so much in the last 10 days or so, I really wonder if I would have gotten it," Gohmert added. "You know, moving the mask around, getting it just right, we're bound to put some virus on the mask that I sucked in. That's most likely what happened." While wearing a mask incorrectly can expose a person to the virus, experts say it primarily spreads person to person. Florida sheriff issues more than 200 citations for gatherings Florida's Broward County sheriff says he's got no plans to end an operation cracking down on large gatherings, which has already resulted in more than 200 citations. The operation's goals were two-fold, Sheriff Gregory Tony said in a virtual news conference Wednesday: to reduce the large gatherings that were taking place and to crack down on "roving car clubs" that were bringing dozens of young people together throughout certain parts of the community. There have been more than 1,100 calls of service about parties and social gatherings, the sheriff said. In the two weeks since the operation was launched, Tony says police have responded to at least 13 different gatherings or parties and issued more than 260 different citations. "Anytime we're having large gatherings of 100, 150 plus people, it's crystal clear that we're not seeing a compliance with the CDC recommendations and therefore more people will contract this virus," the sheriff said. "We have no interest at this point in time to discontinue having this type of enforcement operation," he said. Broward County borders Miami-Dade County, which has been called by some experts the country's new coronavirus epicenter, with overwhelmed hospitals and maxed out ICUs sounding the alarm over the rise in patients. And in the last week, sick Floridians seeking treatment in Miami-Dade County spilled over to the neighboring county's hospitals. And across the state, the daily number of coronavirus-related deaths broke a record Wednesday for the second day in a row. During his news conference, the sheriff urged the use of face masks, asking residents in the community to take a "common sense approach." "It's not about the individual person anymore," Tony said. "When you don't wear a mask when you don't comply, you are potentially exposing someone else. So it's not simply about what you can do for yourself as well what you can do for other people that you don't even know." He said several businesses who weren't following coronavirus guidelines were shut down for at least a day or fined. "We do need to get better compliance out of our community, they need to take on a greater deal of social responsibility. If not, we will be out there enforcing, citing, and writing notices," the sheriff said. Stop the spread of COVID-19 To help stop the spread of the coronavirus, the CDC recommends wearing a face mask. Masks are required in public places in some states and businesses. Multiple major retailers have announced mask requirement policies as the nation continues to see a large number of cases reported in certain areas. The CDC also recommends you keep 6 feet of distance between yourself and others. Make sure to wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds and avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. For more tips on how to stay safe, CLICK HERE. The Associated Press contributed to this report. CPS workers arrested, charged for removing kids from parents without court oversight Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Three current and former employees of a child services agency in North Carolina were arrested this week and indicted with over three dozen felony and misdemeanor charges related to its alleged practice of separating children from their families without proper judicial oversight. Carolina Public Press reports that among the former and current workers arrested on Monday was Cindy Palmer, the former director of the Cherokee County Department of Social Services and wife of Cherokee County Sheriff Derrick Palmer. The other two are former Child Protective Unit supervisor David Huges and former agency attorney Scott Lindsay. The indictment follows two years of investigations and legal action from parents who said their children were unlawfully removed from their homes by the agencys use of coercion. According to the independent news outlet, the practice of removing children from homes without judicial oversight is said to have occurred in the county for over a decade before the state intervened in 2017. Palmer and Hughes were booked within minutes of each other at the Cherokee County Detention Center while Lindsay was booked on Tuesday. Palmer was released on an $8,000 bond, while Hughes was let go on a $12,500 bond and Lindsay was released on a $25,000 bond. In total, grand jurors indicted the three accused on 41 charges that will be prosecuted by the state attorney generals office. However, investigations did not cover all allegations against the department and there could be more charges pressed down the road. Palmer, who served as a business officer for the department after her 2018 resignation as director, faces two felony obstruction of justice charges for allowing social workers to use controversial forms called custody and visitation agreements during 2016 and 2017. The forms essentially let agents remove children without court participation in the process. According to her indictment, the use of the agreements avoided judicial oversight into the activities of Cherokee County DSS and subverted the statutory process for determining abuse and neglect of children, and determining custody and parental rights. This offense was done in secrecy and with malice; with deceit and intent to defraud; was infamous; and was done in violation of the common law, and against the peace and dignity of the state, the indictment contends. Additionally, Palmer faces a charge of perjury that was allegedly committed during a 2018 court hearing in which she claimed to not recall anything about the custody and visitation agreements. However, Palmer is being held responsible for agreements dating back to 2016. According to Carolina Public Press, Palmers attorneys came to her defense by saying that the agreements happened before she became the departments director and that she relied on the departments lawyer who she thought was following the law. She adamantly denies ever acting with any sort of criminal intent, attorney Hart Miles wrote, according to Carolina Public Press. And she is confident that those in the community that know her understand that she is a dedicated public servant who has been wrongfully targeted in this investigation. A Carolina Public Press investigation found evidence in 2019 that a massive number of documents at DSS were shredded around the same time Palmer assumed her new officer position after stepping down as director. As the former attorney for the department, Lindsay faces 20 felony counts of obstruction of justice. Lindsay claimed when asked about the origin of the custody and visitation agreement that he received the form when he attended a class for attorneys in 2007 or 2010 and that the department started using the form in 2014. According to the news outlet, Hughes had previously testified in 2018 that he was aware of around two dozen custody and visitation agreements that the department executed since he worked there. A proposed class-action lawsuit brought by families against the county DSS is pending in federal court. The lawsuit contends that DSS employees coerced parents into signing the unlawful agreements and parent-child relationships were negatively impacted by the unlawful agreement. The lead plaintiff in the case is a father who was granted custody of his daughter in 2016 but was later questioned by the DSS over concerns regarding his parental abilities. After meeting with DSS officials in November 2016, officials allegedly threatened the father into signing the agreement to relinquish custody of his daughter to her paternal grandfather. According to the lawsuit, the father was told that the agreement was in lieu of court action and that he would be subjected to adverse legal proceedings and other consequences if he did not sign the CVA. Other false threatening and coercive statements that the lawsuit claims DSS officials made against the father as possible actions if he did not sign include: Your child will be adopted out and you will never see her again, and Your child will be placed in a location where you will have little or no contact with her. Plaintiff Hogan was neither advised nor given an opportunity to contact independent legal counsel when confronted with and unlawfully pressured to sign the unlawful CVA, the lawsuit says. CCDSS never contacted Hogan's prior attorney regarding the meeting or the CVA. The lawsuit argues that the county maintained a pattern of condoning improper, illegal, and unconstitutional techniques. Defendants' actions caused Plaintiffs and Unnamed Class Members to be deprived of fundamental rights, particularly, a parental relationship with their biological children, in violation of substantive and procedural due process of the law and in violation of all Plaintiffs' equal protection rights, the lawsuit adds. Across the United States, some courts have come down on other social services agencies that have unlawfully removed children from their parents or legal guardians. In California last year, a mother was awarded $1.49 million in legal settlements against Orange County, Los Angeles County, and Childrens Hospital after the state removed her sons from her custody. In Texas last December, a state judge ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to drop its five-month-long case after a 4-year-old child was removed from his parents home over allegations of medical abuse. JAIPUR: The MLAs of the Ashok Gehlot camp, who have been staying at the Fairmont Hotel on the Jaipur-Delhi Highway since the political crisis hit Rajasthan, were shifted to Jaisalmer on Friday (July 31). The MLAs will be shifted after the Congress Legislature Party meeting in the hotel, sources said, adding, CM Gehlot will address the MLAs. As per reports, the MLAs will stay there until state Assembly convenes on August 14. Jaipur: #Rajasthan Congress MLAs, supporting Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, leave from Fairmont Hotel for the airport. They are now being shifted to Jaisalmer. pic.twitter.com/O5NfmKKfmT ANI (@ANI) July 31, 2020 The MLAs have been staying in the hotel since July 13 after Sachin Pilot and 18 other Congress MLAs rebelled against the government, triggering the political crisis. The sources did not elaborate on the reasons for shifting the MLAs. On July 30, CM Gehlot indicated that he will seek a confidence vote when the assembly convenes next fortnight and claimed that the money offered to the MLAs to switch sides had increased sharply ahead of the session. "The floor test will happen; we are going to the assembly. The BAC decides this," he told reporters, referring to the assembly's business advisory committee. He said the House will also discuss the coronavirus pandemic and the state's economy after the lockdown. He also asked the rebels MLAs to return to the party, saying "those who did not accept money should return to Congress fold." Gehlot accused BSP supremo Mayawati of acting at the behest of the BJP, referring to her party's petition in the high court challenging the merger of six BSP MLAs with the Congress last year. The Chief Minister claimed that MLAs have been getting calls after Governor Kalraj Mishra agreed Wednesday night to convene a session from August 14. He said earlier the 'rate' was Rs 10 crore as the first instalment and Rs 15 crore as the second. "Now, it is being asked how much do you want? This means that the rate has increased. Everyone knows who is doing the horse-trading," he was quoted as saying by PTI. Rajasthan CM Gehlot is trying to save his government after Sachin Pilot and 18 other Congress MLAs rebelled. The Congress has accused the BJP of being behind the conspiracy to topple the state government. People wait in line to be tested for COVID-19 in Hanoi, Vietnam, Friday, July 31, 2020. Vietnam reported on Friday the country's first ever coronavirus deaths as it struggles with a renewed outbreak after 99 days without any cases. Two Vietnamese patients infected with the deadly coronavirus died Fridaythe countrys first two deaths since COVID-19 entered its borders in January, according to an announcement from health authorities. Vietnam has been among the most successful countries in tackling COVID-19, with only 546 confirmed cases among its 95 million peoplea record that was attributed to effective contact tracing, strict quarantines, and early testing enforced by an authoritarian government. The National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Control and Prevention said the two deaths were patients 428 and 437 in Vietnam. The 428th patient was a 70-year-old man from Hoian citys Minh An ward in Quang Nam province. The patient had multiple comorbidities and died Friday morning. The cause of death was said to be a myocardial infarction, and the patient also suffered from hypertension, heart failure and end-stage chronic renal failure. Heart and respiratory failure had also taken hold due to his COVID-19 infection. Meanwhile, patient 437 was a 61-year-old resident of Hoa An ward in Danang citys Cam Le district. The patient died Friday afternoon from septic shock, multiple organ failure, stopped breathing as a result of pneumonia onset by COVID-19, which also caused chronic renal failure and gout. Last weekend Vietnam suspended all flights and travel by train or bus to or from the coastal city of Danang for 15 days following a surge of at least 18 new cases in the coastal city. Prior to the Danang outbreak, the country had gone 99 days without any new confirmed infections. Following the deaths, the Ministry of Health sent an urgent announcement advising those who had recently visited hospitals in Danang or who were aboard Vietnam Airlines flight 166 from Danang to Hanoi on the morning of July 25 to contact their local health clinics for further consultation. Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Huy Le. Written in English by Eugene Whong. General Overseer, Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, MFM, Pastor Daniel Olukoya has said that the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo neve... General Overseer, Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, MFM, Pastor Daniel Olukoya has said that the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo never fulfilled his destiny because he did not give his life to Christ. He said despite the greatness and exploit of Awolowo on the political scene, he refused to give his life to Christ even when the great Apostle Joseph Ayo Babalola once went to his house. In one of his preaching, as captured by Church Gist, a popular Facebook Christian page, Olukoya said The great Apostle, Joseph Ayo Babalola once went to the house of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Who knows Chief Obafemi Awolowo? Awo. Anybody heard about Awo? Now let me be honest with you as a man of God. By the time the Civil War of Nigeria ended, Ojukwu (Odumegwu) said something. He said, Nigeria did not fight us, Awo fought usBecause he was Minister of Finance at that time and Nigeria did not borrow 1 Kobo. Not only that, he gave some advice that made victory possible. Then when he died, Ojukwu now said, this man was the best President Nigeria never had and when you say Presidential Debate and you put Awo on TV to be debating with the others, by the time Awo begins to talk, the others look like fools. They look like fools because the knowledge with which he is talking and what he is saying, makes them look like fools. Olukoya added: I had a friend who was in the Executive Military Council during the time of Gowon, the time they brought Awo from prison (Calabar) to become Finance Minister. He said when they brought him to that Executive Council and he sat down and looked at all those soldiers. He said you want to make me Minister of Finance? Okay, let me give you a short lecture. Then he gave those military boys a short lecture on Primary School Economics. By the time he finished, all those people who were there gave him a round of applause. Simple Primary Economics. Awo was the person that said that anybody who wants to trade with Nigeria, has to be primitive trade by barter. Bring this, I take this. Bring this, I take this. We are not going to be bringing money to go and buy. When you bring, we take. Its an exchange. And when they were going to do Festac 77, they asked for Awos opinion. Awo said, This Festac 77 is a show of our primitivity and that the white man will be quite happy to see us exhibit our primitivity. He said that the money that would be used for Festac 77 should be spent on technology for education, for things that will move people forward, not going back to the idols that dragged us to where we were, and the man had this uncanny attribute of being right. One day they asked him a question on television. They said, why is it that you dont take advice from other politicians?. He said Advice?, how can I take advice from someone who is busy dancing with free women on the street at night when Im busy struggling and thinking about how things will go forward?. Thats Awo. Ive been to other places in the world. Do you know the President I see that matches Awo in intelligence is Fidel Castro of Cuba. When you see that one too talk, you will know that this man understands what he is talking about. According to Olukoya, The great Apostle, Joseph Babalola went to visit Awo. Awo was not at home, he met his wife (Hannah Dideolu). And he said, thus saith the Lord, the Lord said he has called me on the spiritual arena and he has called this man on the political arena. For this man to fulfill his calling, he has to surrender his life to Jesus. Awo never surrendered his life to Jesus till he died and Awo never fulfilled his destiny. Mali's prime minister, Boubou Cisse, told DW that "no one is expected to achieve the impossible" in finding a solution to form a unity government for the crisis-rocked country. His resignation isn't on the agenda. Mali's Prime Minister Boubou Cisse has told DW in an exclusive interview that his resignation "is not on the agenda." The opposition alliance M5-RFP is calling for Cisse, along with President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, to resign. "The President of the Republic is the only one who has that prerogative. So far, he has not shown me this on the contrary," Cisse told DW on Thursday in a telephone interview from Mali's capital, Bamako. "We are completely in step with everything that is happening, with the attempt to find a way out of the crisis, and the President of the Republic wants me to continue to deal with the government's work program." The controversial cleric's offer Imam Mahmoud Dicko, the Muslim cleric seen as the driving force behind Mali's protest movement, said the country's political crisis could be resolved without President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita resigning. "I think we can find a solution without going as far as the resignation of the president. Aside from his resignation, there are lots of things that can be done," Dicko said. The West African state has seen repeated anti-government protests since early June. According to the French international broadcaster RFI, 14 people died and more than 120 were injured in demonstrations since the beginning of July. Cisse and Dicko met on Tuesday to discuss recommendations made by the West African Economic Community (ECOWAS) to form a government of national unity. Referring to Dicko, Cisse said: "I found a man who was obviously open to dialogue between the different actors, between the children of Mali, and a man who would like us to reach a solution as quickly as possible to end the crisis and return to normality." 14 people died and more than 120 were injured in demonstrations since the beginning of July Three negotiations attempts have so far failed. One of ECOWAS's recommendations was the resignation of 31 parliamentarians. Cisse confirmed to DW that some of the deputies have refused this option. On Wednesday, the lawyers of the concerned MPs told the press that they were not prepared to resign, but would insist on completing their five-year term of office. Still, Cisse described the discussions with the opposition as going well. "A draft roadmap has been drawn up. We hope that the various actors behind this roadmap will support it the presidential majority, of course, the opposition actors, but also civil society." According to Prime Minister Cisse, the roadmap will be the agenda of the government of national unity. "We are in the process of finalizing the roadmap. It has been distributed to all the players. At the moment, their comments are coming in," Cisse told DW. "Of course, the opposition is not yet fully in line with the roadmap but we are continuing the negotiations and we hope that, in the coming days, we will be able to bring together all the players behind this roadmap. This accession will enable us to move towards the establishment of the government of national unity." Moving forward "Our wish, and personally my most fervent wish, is that we can find a consensus around this roadmap with the opposition, in particular with M5-RFP," he said referring to the opposition coalition calling for President Keita's resignation. "At the moment, no one is expected to achieve the impossible," Cisse told DW. "Men move on, but a country remains. So we are going to ensure the continuity of the state together with the nation's stakeholders who will agree to accompany us." According to the US non-governmental organization ACLED, which collects data on crises worldwide, 2,612 people have died violently in Mali in the past twelve months. Christian persecution grows in Nigeria and never seems to cease. Many believers in Nigeria have been defeated, murdered, and executed. Last week, five Nigerian men have been executed in Nigeria by Islamist extremists. The deaths were recorded in a 35-second video posted to YouTube by Eons Intelligence before being removed. The video contained violent killing which showed the men blindfolded and kneeling in front of five militants standing behind them holding AK-47 rifles. According to Christian Post, One of the executioners then spoke to the camera before the executions were carried out to warn other Christians that they would be next if they did not stop sharing the Gospel and convert to Islam. "This is a message to all those being used by infidels to convert Muslims to Christianity," "We want you out there to understand that those of you being used to convert Muslims to Christianity are only being used for selfish purposes." "That is the reason whenever we capture you, they don't care to rescue you or work towards securing your release from us; and this is because they don't need you or value your lives. We, therefore, call on you to return to Allah by becoming Muslims. We shall continue to block all routes [highways] you travel." "If you don't heed our warning, the fate of these five individuals will be your fate." According to the report, the five men were shot dead after their last sentence of warning. The three Christians were known to be Ishaku Yakubu, an aid worker from Chibok with Action Against Hunger who was a member of the Church of the Brethren (EYN); Luka Filibus, an aid worker from Monguno with the International Rescue Committee and also an EYN member; and Joseph Prince, a private security firm worker who was a member of the Redeemed Christian Church in Maiduguri. The perpetrators have been identified as members of the Boko Haram splinter group the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP). The other two victims in the execution are believed to have been Muslim. ISWAP had reportedly requested $500,000 for their release. "These cowardly executions constitute a gross violation of international law, and we condemn them in the strongest terms." "Once again a death cult that goes to the most appalling lengths to extort money and garner headlines has deprived the world of dedicated, courageous individuals who worked selflessly to assist vulnerable communities in a dangerous area." HELSINKI: Nokia has reported better than expected second-quarter earnings on the back of improved margins for telecoms equipment and software despite the coronavirus crisis causing a substantial drop in revenue. The Espoo, Finland-based maker of new-generation 5G mobile and other networks said Friday that its net profit for the April-June period was up 22% at 316 million euros ($376 million). Sales were down 11% at 5.1 billion euros. CEO Rajeev Suri said in a statement that the majority of the drop in revenue was "the result of COVID-19 as well as a sharp decline in China based on the prudent approach we have taken in that market." Nokia estimated that the COVID-19 crisis hurt its net sales by about 300 million euros in the second quarter and about 500 million euros in the first half of the year. We expect that the majority of sales missed in the (second) quarter due to COVID-19 will shift to future periods," Suri said. Though the company warned it was expecting to lose some market this year, it gave an upbeat outlook for its main network business and lifted its profit and cash flow guidance for full year 2020. Suri said that Nokia has now concluded 83 commercial deals for 5G, the new network technology that allows ultra-fast downloading speeds among other things. Along with Chinas Huawei and Swedens Ericsson, Nokia is one of the three main providers of 5G networks. Huawei is at the center of a U.S.-China dispute over technology, with the Trump administration saying it can help the Chinese government spy on people, a claim the company denies. Friday marked the last day as a CEO for Suri, a Nokia veteran with 25 years in service and the head of the company since 2014, as his appointed successor Pekka Lundmark takes over on Aug. 1. Lundmark, 56, is the former CEO of the Finnish energy group Fortum and worked at Nokia between 1990 and 2000. In May, Sari Baldauf who named as the companys new chair. Baldauf headed Nokia's network business from 1998 until 2005 and Lundmark was her team colleague in the 1990s. Nokia has played catch up with Huawei and Ericsson in the 5G business, which has become increasingly politicized amid the U.S.-China rift, and industry observers say one of Lundmarks immediate priorities is to review the companys strategies. Suris tenure was dominated by Nokias 15.6 billion-euro acquisition of the French telecoms group Alcatel-Lucent in 2016. Analysts say that integrating the company has taken more time than expected, causing Nokia to get a late start in the 5G race, which took off in 2018. In late 2019, U.S. Attorney General William Barr suggested the U.S. government should, either directly or through a U.S. company, take a stake in Nokia or Ericsson to stay ahead in the 5G and technological battle with Huawei and China. This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics Even as the coronavirus pandemic is bringing global economies to a grinding halt this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, undeterred by the enormity of the challenge, recently unleashed a Rs 20.97 lakh crore mega stimulus package, equal to roughly 10.48 per cent of Indias GDP. Another Rs 90,000 crores is being spent for providing free foodgrain to over 80 crore people, which is more than double the population of the United States. From being an importer in March this year to becoming the worlds second largest PPE kit manufacturer, producing over 4.5 lakh kits daily, Aatmanirbhar Bharat has taken firm roots. Reduction in corporate tax rate from 30 per cent to 22 per cent and for new companies to 15 per cent, allowing the private sector in commercial coal mining on a revenue sharing basis with no end use restrictions, 100 per cent FDI via the automatic route in defence manufacturing, single brand retail and real estate broking services and privatisation of power distribution companies in Union Territories underpin the essence of Modinomics. In the first year of his second term, Narendra Modis landmark steps have been many the decision to implement Rs 102 lakh crore worth of infrastructure projects via the national infrastructure pipeline, lowering employees state insurance act (ESIC) contribution from 6.5 per cent to four per cent, which benefits 3.6 crore employees and 12.85 lakh employers, a monthly pension of Rs 3,000 to over 42 crore small traders and shopkeepers in the unorganised sector after they attain 60 years of age under the PM Shram Yogi Maandhan Yojana, passing the Code on Wages Bill 2019, which will benefit over 500 million workers across the country and, of course, the recent historic decision to defang agricultural produce marketing committees and amend the Essential Commodities Act of 1955, to enable farmers to sell their produce to whomsoever they wish to sell to without any inter-state barriers or any price or quantity related restrictions are measures that showcase how good politics and good economics can peacefully co-exist. More recently, measures like the Rs 3 lakh crore of collateral free loans to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), liquidity support of Rs 6,750 crore by bringing provident fund rate down from 12 per cent to 10 per cent, reducing the benchmark repo rate to four per cent, the lowest in 20 years, Rs 2 lakh crore concessional credit for farmers and fishermen via Kisan Credit cards, throwing open six new airports for privatisation via the public-private partnership (PPP) route, allowing private sector in space exploration and, of course, decriminalising certain offences under the Companies Act have been commendable. The Bank Nationalisation Act of 1969, a forgettable vestige of outdated Nehruvian socialism, has been a millstone for public sector banks. By merging SBI with its five associates and the Bharatiya Mahila Bank in 2017, Mr Modi created a banking behemoth with an asset size of over Rs 41 lakh crores and over 370 million customers. The decision to thereafter consolidate 10 public sector banks into four, allowing the private sector to enter into non-strategic areas and, the decision to privatise power distribution companies in Union Territories, are a reflection of how Modinomics is following the path of minimum government, maximum governance. Be it Ayushman Bharat, the largest healthcare scheme globally, which has given free treatment to well over one crore people since its inception, the PM-Kisan initiative which gives Rs 6,000 per annum to over 14.5 crore farmers, or the PM Ujjwala Yojana that gave free gas connections last year, to over eight crore households, the Modi government has given last mile connectivity a whole new meaning. Clearly, Mr Modi has many firsts to his credit, including PM Jan Dhan Yojana, the largest financial inclusion scheme in the world with over 38 crore account holders, the Swachh Bharat mission, the largest sanitation scheme globally, with over 11 crore toilets built and, of course,the direct benefit transfer scheme, that till date has directly transferred cash worth Rs 8.91 lakh crores, to various beneficiaries. Under an inept UPA, money meant for the poor was pilfered by wily middlemen, but under the Modi government, the policy framework has been overhauled to ensure that Nehruvian-style nepotism does not stand a chance. The Manipur water supply project, meant to provide clean drinking water to Greater Imphal and 1,700 villages in Manipur, is yet another example of how Modinomics is mainstreaming the North-east, which was neglected by the Congress for decades together. Giving self-reliance and Indias domestic civilian nuclear programme a new dimension is the Kakrapar project, the countrys first 700 MWe unit and the biggest indigenously developed variant of the pressurised heavy water reactor. Prime Minister Narendra Modis Aatmanirbhar Bharat is inclusive, pluralistic, bereft of incrementalism and seeks to be globally competitive. This is evident from tech giant Apples decision of manufacturing one of its latest offerings the iPhone 11, at Foxconn's Chennai plant. Be it Googles decision to invest $10bn in the next five-seven years via a digitisation fund, Samsungs decision to manufacture smartwatches at its Noida plant, Amazon setting up its largest facility centre in Hyderabad last year, or the 750MW solar power plant coming up at Rewa in Madhya Pradesh, Mr Modis Make in India vision is shaping up robustly. With a forex war chest of over $517 billion, clearly, the world is Indias oyster. A rare Rolex watch like the one worn by Sean Connery's James Bond that was bought second hand for just 20 is now set to sell for 150,000. The stainless steel Submariner wristwatch belongs to a man whose father was unable to afford a brand new one for diving. The original owner, who has not been named, sourced a second hand model in 1970 and it is now worth 1,500 times more than he paid for it. The item is a Submariner 6538 4 Line series which was Sean Connery's timepiece of choice as Bond. They seldom appear on the open market today and attract an army of loyal collectors whenever they do. The watch has now been consigned for sale with auctioneers Bonhams. The original owner, who has not been named, sourced a second hand model of the watch in 1970 and it is now worth 1,500 times more than he paid for it The item is a Submariner 6538 4 Line series which was Sean Connery's timepiece of choice as Bond The watch was made by the famous Swiss company in 1956 and remains in perfect original condition. It measures 37mm and has a black face with gold hands with a Mercedes Benz logo on the hour hand. A spokesman for Bonhams said: 'The present owner's father bought this watch second hand in 1970 for 20 as he could not afford a new watch for diving. 'Little did he realise he was buying into the Submariner legacy and has become one of the touch points for collectors the world over. 'The 6538 was supplied for just four years but it has become one of the best known and sought after of the Submariner models. The watch measures 37mm and has a black face with gold hands with a Mercedes Benz logo on the hour hand 'Its general defining features are the over sized crown, lack of protective crown guards and gilt dial. 'The gilt dial comes with gilt hands which are unusual for a stainless steel case but typical for this date. 'These features mean that it is instantly recognisable and since it became the adopted watch of the James Bond film character played by Sean Connery, rather famous too.' The sale takes place on August 5. Launching in April of 2000, O magazine has featured on every one of its covers its namesake and visionary, Oprah Winfrey, in one bright and colorful photograph or another. For the first time in the magazines history, the media mogul has chosen not to appear on the magazines cover and heres why. Oprah Winfrey | Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images Os powerful upcoming cover explains Oprah Winfreys absence On the cover of the upcoming September 2020 edition of O, instead of a photo of Winfrey in some kind of fall setting, readers will instead see a digital artists rendering of slain Kentucky resident Breonna Taylor. Its the first time in the magazines existence that Winfrey has not appeared on the cover. Taylor was killed in March 2020 by police who had burst into the apartment she shared with her boyfriend. He, in the chaotic moment, opened fire. The officers returned fire, killing 26-year-old Taylor. In the magazines issue, Winfrey explains her absence from the cover. I think about Breonna Taylor often, she writes. She was the same age as the two daughter-girls from my school in South Africa whove been quarantining with Stedman and me since MarchTheir whole lives shine with the light of hopefulness. That was taken away from Breonna in such a horrifying manner. What I know for sure: We cant be silent. We have to use whatever megaphone we have to cry for justice. And that is why Breonna Taylor is on the cover of O magazine, Winfrey stated. Oprah Winfrey is ending the print version of O After publishing a print version for the last 20 years, Winfrey decided to begin focusing solely on the magazines digital edition. Published jointly by Hearst Corporation and Winfreys Harpo Productions, the media company explained the magazines shift to digital. RELATED: Greys Anatomy Creator Shonda Rhimes Shares How She Was Inspired by Oprah Winfrey As the brand celebrates twenty years of O, The Oprah Magazine, were thinking about whats next, but again the partnership and the brand are not going away, Hearst stated. This is a natural next step for the brand, which has grown to an online audience of 8 million, extending its voice and vision with video and social content. We will continue to invest in this platform as the brand grows and evolves into one that is more digitally-centric. The final print edition will be its December 2020 issue, but it may still make occasional special edition print newsstand appearances from time to time. O launched 20 years ago at the height of The Oprah Winfrey Shows popularity When Hearst Corporation in 2000 announced the name of Winfreys upcoming magazine, they allowed her to explain the choice for herself. What I like about O is that it is simple and direct, and it is what a lot of my friends call me, said Oprah Winfrey. O reflects the close bond and inclusion which readers will experience with the magazine, said Ellen Kunes, editor-in-chief at the time. O will be the womens personal growth guide for this new century, inspired by Oprahs unique vision. The magazine has lived up to that vision and hopes to expand upon its original mission in its predominantly digital venture. RELATED: Did This Celebrity Really Give Oprah Her Start? Halton students will be back in the classroom this fall. Based on the best health advice available, the province announced its planThursday for the reopening of schools, calling for the resumption of in-class education. At the elementary level, instruction will be five days a week, five hours a day, while the adaptive model, a combination of in-class and online learning, will be used at the secondary level. There is still the option for distance learning should parents not want their children to return to school. Ontario premier Doug Ford promised $309 million to fund additional supplies and personnel, including 500 new public health nurses and 900 custodians, as well as expanded mental health services. On September 8, parents will be able to drop their children off at school and be assured that detailed protocols will be in place for kids safety, said Ford. These will include mandatory masks for staff and students in Grades 4-12 (with exceptions for those with certain medical conditions), the cohosting of students to limit contact, frequent cleaning and additional health and safety training for teachers Public health nurses will act as support for parents, teachers and administration, as well as be dispatched to schools for training, screening and testing purposes if necessary. We need to weigh the risks of COVID-19 against the harm of school closures. We need to consider the toll its taking on the physical and mental health and personal development of our kids; we know isolation has been extremely hard on them, said Ford. The full-time cohorts at the elementary level will negate the need for outside child care that was the crux of the boards issue with the hybrid/adaptive model for K-6 students, commented Halton District School Board chair, Andrea Grebenc. This may lift a major stressor for parents heading into September who may have otherwise needed to access and afford care. This will also reduce the potential for virus spread within our classroom bubbles by reducing the need for out-of-the-home child care situations. Grebenc said she was also glad to see the plan address the need for additional public health nurses as part of the reopening plan, as well as supports for mental health, special needs, personal protective equipment, more staff, training and cleaning supplies. Although she is unsure yet if the amount of funding to be allocated to the board will be adequate to address the boards needs, she added. Mandatory masks for high school students and staff and maintaining cohorts are steps in the right direction, said Cindy Gage, President, District 20 Halton Teachers Bargaining Unit. The announcement at the end of July has left teachers and education workers a very short timeline to plan and this is concerning, as there are many specifics that still need to be worked out; these include extra custodians and education staff hired to meet the needs of increased cleaning, and cohorts, as well as planning courses to be taught face to face and online. The announcement has served to calm some members anxiety, but with specifics missing, and a plan not fully costed, there is still uncertainty for both teachers and students, said Gage, adding that the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation was not consulted in the planning although the union reached out. Kathy Proctor expressed shock and disappointment to see masks were not mandatory for kindergarten to Grade 3 students, and that children will be expected to be one metre apart as opposed to two. Of course its our youngest children that have the hardest time self-regulating, said Proctor, president of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, Halton division. Its astonishingly short-sighted, said Proctor. I fear that come not too far into the school year theres going to be an outbreak in schools with this plan and well be right back to full-time online learning. Crown Resorts opened accounts with the Commonwealth Bank using "misleading" names that masked their use for gambling and accepted high-risk cash deposits, despite ANZ shutting down similar accounts over money laundering concerns, an inquiry has heard. Crown's chief legal and regulatory compliance officer Joshua Preston told the NSW government probity inquiry into the James Packer-backed casino group on Friday he could not recall why CBA then also shut down the accounts in late 2019, but it "would not surprise" him if it was also due to fears about dirty cash. Crown set up two companies to give its patrons 'privacy'. Credit:Getty Images The NSW Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority's inquiry is investigating revelations by The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes that Crown went into business with "junket" tour operators linked to organised crime and was used to launder suspected drug money. The inquiry heard Crown used two holdings companies with Crown executives as directors called Southbank Investments and Riverbank Investments, linked to Crown's Melbourne and Perth casinos respectively, which opened banks accounts for patrons to deposit money into. Once credited to a patron's Crown account, they could withdraw it as cash, a cheque or as gambling chips. Former presidential candidate Herman Cain has died of complications from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), while Rep. Louie Gohmert has tested positive for the virus. According to an article of Atlanta News Now, Cain was known as a computer analyst, millionaire business executive, political lobbyist, broadcaster, motivational speaker, and author. He was also known for his rich baritone voice. But despite his success and popularity, the man who has achieved a high level of milestone in his life, got infected with the deadly COVID-19. Unfortunately, he was not able to recover from the disease and he died at the age of 74 on Thursday. One of Cain's employees wrote on the social media: "We're heartbroken, and the world is poorer: Herman Cain has gone to be with the Lord." Cain has been hospitalized since July 1 after traveling in multiple places in June. His travels included the rally of President Donald Trump in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where several people have been reported to have also contracted the coronavirus in the event. Trump has mourned the death of Cain. He wrote on his social media account: "My friend Herman Cain, a Powerful Voice of Freedom and all that is good, passed away this morning. Herman had an incredible career and was adored by everyone that ever met him, especially me. He was a very special man, an American Patriot, and a great friend. I just got off." Rep. Louie Gohmert tests positive for coronavirus Meanwhile, Gohmert has tested positive for coronavirus before his planned travel with Trump to Texas. According to a report in Fox 5 Atlanta, he was removed from the trip after the result of his test. According to The Hill, Gohmert had extensive contact with Attorney General William Barr, who also tested positive for the virus. This means that Gohmert might had get his infection from Barr. Gohmert was also expected to travel aboard Air Force One with Trump for a campaign fundraising and an energy event at a Midland oil rig. If Gohmert did not know that he tested positive for the virus and went with Trump, then the president and those who are close to him would have been subjected to COVID-19 routine screening. Gohmert has been seen not wearing a face mask, while inside Capitol Hill. He also attended a high-profile Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, wherein Barr testified for hours. Last month, Gohmert said he chose not to wear a face mask because he was being tested regularly for the virus. "I don't have the coronavirus, turns out as of yesterday I've never had it. But if I get it, you'll never see me without a mask," he told a news outlet. Gohmert is the latest high-ranking official, who tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began, while National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien is the highest-ranking administration member to contract the infectious and deadly COVID-19. Check this out! Just south of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights stands a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, a man celebrated worldwide for his nonviolent protests against British colonial occupation in India. Did you know Gandhi also held deeply racist views? Did you know he allowed his wife to die by denying her access to modern medicine for apparent religious reasons, and then later allowed his own life to be saved twice by modern medicine? Did you know there is evidence he regularly sexually abused young girls? Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion Just south of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights stands a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, a man celebrated worldwide for his nonviolent protests against British colonial occupation in India. Did you know Gandhi also held deeply racist views? Did you know he allowed his wife to die by denying her access to modern medicine for apparent religious reasons, and then later allowed his own life to be saved twice by modern medicine? Did you know there is evidence he regularly sexually abused young girls? I didnt know these things until recently, despite my training as a historian, even though this information is accessible with a simple Google search. I didnt know these things because the way that we make myths out of historical figures does not allow for this information to be common knowledge. WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILE PHOTOS An anti-violence group gathers for contemplation at The Forks near the statue of Mahatma Gandhi, a man renowned for peaceful protest but less known for his deeply racist views. In what seems to be a significant international cultural shift, systemic racism and gendered violence are finally at the forefront of conversations about structural change. Emerging from this moment is a discussion about whether it should be culturally acceptable to display monuments of historical figures who have, sometimes even by the standards of their own time, committed horrific acts. There have been calls to take down a Montreal statue of Sir John A. MacDonald, the dominant figure of Canadian Confederation and the architect of a starvation policy that forced Indigenous people onto reserves so their land could be stolen for European settlers. In Winnipeg, we have a statue of suffragette Nellie McClung who, like many first-wave feminists, was a staunch supporter of eugenics and the forcible sterilization of people with disabilities. Their movement was also insistent that only white women should be given the vote. On the front lawn of the Manitoba Legislative Building sits a towering statue of Queen Victoria, who reigned over the most successful age of British colonial land-theft. An elementary school in the North End is named for Cecil Rhodes, a self-proclaimed white supremacist whose policies paved the way for apartheid. Winnipeg has a Columbia Drive and a Columbus Crescent, both named for one of the most monstrous perpetrators of genocide in the history of our species. These people did interesting, important things, but they did those things exclusively to the benefit of white people (usually wealthy men). They also committed atrocious violence against other groups. "But this is our history" is often the argument against removing these monuments or renaming schools and streets. I would argue instead that statues and monuments are not really places where history is taught. History is taught in schools, in museums, in books and in documentaries. Statues commemorate people or moments from history. Monuments are meant to celebrate a person or an event, and to construct the type of popular myth that makes it difficult to accept that Gandhi the humanitarian and Gandhi the racist are one and the same. These myths are the function of heritage. 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. Public memory is a social phenomenon. The acts of deciding which histories to tell, which figures to make heroes, whose stories are preserved and whose are not, are not simply personal actions but cultural, collective ones. When was the last time you went to a heritage site and learned anything about the past significantly more negative than "it was a hard life, but pioneers were tough"? Racism, classism, gendered violence and colonialism are rarely taught at heritage sites, because that is not their purpose. Instead they portray very specific slices of the past that act to legitimize modern society by assuring us that we came from good, honest, hardworking people. But when we are forced to grapple with the terrible things past societies have done, the myth breaks down. It is vital to have these nuanced conversations, but difficult to have them in the space of a few sentences under a giant monument that most people dont bother to read in the first place. A statue or monument inherently makes the statement "We, the people living in this community, value this person or thing." When that statue is of someone who committed terrible human rights violations, to a person who is a member of the harmed group, it communicates "We, the people living in this community, do not value you." History is complex, because humans are complex. There are no simple answers to this question. What does seem simple to me is that when people who have been historically oppressed and abused are saying "this harms us," the very least we can do is listen. Andrea Smorang is a historian of Canadian culture and heritage tourism who holds a degree from the University of Manitoba. A Rottweiler attacks and kills a Spitz in Eunpyeong-gu, northwestern Seoul, July 25 / Screen capture from Yonhap TV By Lee Hyo-jin Calls are mounting to punish the owner of a Rottweiler after it killed another pet dog, a Spitz, July 25 in Bulgwang-dong, Eunpyeong District, northwestern Seoul. A public petition posted on the presidential website, Wednesday, urging strong punishment for the Rottweiler's owner, has gathered more than 28,000 signatures as of 2 p.m., Thursday. The petitioner, who claimed to be a witness to the incident, stated that the owner has been irresponsible in controlling the fierce dog in the neighborhood. Surveillance footage showed how the attack occurred in just a few seconds. The unleashed black Rottweiler ran toward the white Spitz walking on the other side of the street. It brutally attacked the small dog while two people, including the Spitz's owner, attempted to restrain the dog. The Spitz died shortly after the attack. Its owner reportedly suffered minor injuries while trying to protect her dog. A public petition calling for strong punishment of the owner of a Rottweiler that killed another pet dos has gathered more than 28,000 signatures. / Screen capture from Cheong Wa Dae official website "This is the fifth time the Rottweiler has attacked or killed another dog. But the owner remains uncaring, leaving the ferocious dog unleashed on the porch," the petitioner said. They also urged tougher regulations for dog owners to prevent similar incidents in the future. "The government should require people who want to own fierce breeds to apply for a license. Also, if ferocious dogs are seen in the street without a muzzle, their owner should be fined more than 10 million won ($8,380)." Under the petition, one user with the id 'kakao-***' left a comment saying, "This should be dealt with properly, otherwise the dog might attack a child in the future." Another comment read, "We need stronger laws to punish irresponsible dog owners." A Rottweiler is a German breed, known for its aggressiveness and strong build. A full-grown Rottweiler can weigh up to 60 kilograms. Under the Animal Protection Law, it is categorized as a "ferocious breed," which must be leashed and muzzled in public areas. Also, its owner should take a mandatory education program given by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Erhan Dogan, a 39-year-old Kurdish schoolteacher from Turkeys eastern province of Elazig, says he first experienced torture on the night of July 26, 2016. It began following his arrest by Turkish police in Ankara on terrorism charges. Dogan says he was repeatedly beaten and kicked in the ribs and on the head, his hands cuffed behind him. He was suspended by a rope attached to his wrists for two hours at a time. He was blindfolded and threatened with rape as his tormentors ran their clubs over his buttocks and groin. A bucket of ice-cold water was poured over his head, then it would start all over again. When interrogators threatened to rape his wife and daughter if you dont give us names, Dogan says he knew they were serious, because he had seen three young women being hauled off at the makeshift detention center and heard their anguished screams. Thats when I decided to kill myself; it was the fifth day, Dogan recalled. I was going to knot my T-shirt into a noose from a pipe over the toilet, but my faith intervened. On the ninth day, he was told he was being transferred to Ankaras Sincan Prison. I felt rewarded; I was overjoyed," he said. Turkeys ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power 18 years ago pledging zero tolerance for torture. For a while, it seemed sincere. AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan was determined to end the militarys grip over politics for he knew how much the men in uniform hated him and his fellow Islamists. Ending army tutelage was one of the top conditions laid down by the European Union to launch full membership talks with Turkey. The AKP swiftly embarked on a raft of dizzying reforms that were meant to propel the country onto the path of full democracy. Generals no longer got to bark orders through the national security council. Pressure on the countrys brutally repressed Kurds eased. Husbands accused of raping their wives were now deemed criminals. They were also shorn of their status as the head of the family under a revamped civil code crafted by AKP lawmakers as women activists breathed down their necks literally. The presence of a lawyer during pretrial interrogation of detainees, when forced confessions under torture would typically occur, became mandatory. In 2005, the EU formally opened full membership talks with Turkey. For a brief time, there was real hope, said Sebnem Korur Fincanci, a forensics doctor and president of Turkeys Human Rights Foundation, which treats victims of torture. Such hopes now lie in tatters, and torture is back in its cruelest forms, Fincanci told Al-Monitor in a telephone interview. The gutting of independent media and the ongoing jailing of critical journalists there were more than 80 behind bars at the last count means that with the exception of a handful of oppositional online news sites, the abuses go unreported. The New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch said in a July 29 report it had credible evidence that Turkish police and a swelling force of night watchmen with expanded powers had committed serious abuses over the past two months against at least 14 people in Istanbul and the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in the southeast. In all cases, the authorities have claimed without evidence that those alleging police ill-treatment violently resisted arrest and the police, the report said. So sorry, so sad Seyhmus Yilmaz, a 35-year-old worker from Diyarbakir, and his wife, Menice, were among the victims. Police smashed into his flat in the low-income Baglar district without warning at midnight on May 31. There were about 20 policemen and three German shepherd dogs, Yilmaz told Al-Monitor in a telephone interview from Diyarbakir. They first went after my wife, who fled with our three children into one of their rooms, and unleashed one of the dogs on her. I was sleeping and awoke with the commotion. No sooner did I step into the living room, the police set upon me kicking me and hitting me with their rifle butts while the dogs began to bite me all over. This is him, hold him, kill him, they shouted, Yilmaz said. They were looking for another man accused of murdering a policeman. Muhammed Emir Cura was caught later that day. According to Human Rights Watch, police stripped Cura naked, thrashed him with their batons and pummeled him with their fists. He was threatened with rape and choked till he passed out on the floor of the local police station, his lawyers say. Photos depicting the scene were posted on social media. It took Yilmazs attackers five minutes of unfettered violence to finally grasp that he was telling the truth about his own identity. Wounds on Seyhmus Yilmaz's arm, taken on May 31, 2020. (Courtesy of the Yilmaz family) A new batch of policemen arrived soon after to apologize for their mistake. The urged him not to file a criminal complaint and promised to replace the broken door. Yilmaz did file a complaint together with a medical report listing his injuries. The Diyarbakir governors office responded in a June 3 statement saying that Yilmaz was to blame for the affair. He had resisted the police and kicked their dog. The authorities never fixed his door. Torture and ill-treatment, and police violence more generally, is becoming pervasive with a rise in reports. Theres always been entrenched impunity and denial, but now the authorities issue denials that close down the avenues to investigating abuses, said Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey director for Human Rights Watch. The dogs are new, and it's particularly awful they are used to bite and terrorize people. There are no bombs, no narcotics in the two cases that we looked at, so why the dogs? she added in a telephone interview. In a further ominous turn, the culture of impunity has spread beyond Turkeys borders to northern Syria, where Turkish forces occupy broad swaths of territory. Reports of ill-treatment, sexual abuse and extrajudicial killings carried out by Turkish-supervised Syrian rebels have been described as war crimes by the United Nations. At the same time, Turkish forces have been abducting and jailing Syrians accused of terrorist ties with little evidence to support the charges, a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention, rights groups say. Interior Ministry and Justice Ministry officials did not respond to Al-Monitor written requests for comment about the allegations of torture detailed in the Human Rights Watch report. Fincanci says she has no interlocutors left in the government. With right-wing populists hostile to Muslims and immigrants on the rise in EU nations, few care about whats happening in Turkey and the government no longer cares what the EU says, leaving rights groups feeling ever more vulnerable. Could they shut us down? Yes, they could, Fincanci said. In its most recent annual progress report that came out in May 2019 on the status Turkeys membership bid, the EU noted that Allegations of torture and ill treatment remain a serious concern. The repeated extensions of the state of emergency led to profound human rights violations, and the Government failed to take steps to investigate, prosecute, and punish members of the security forces and other officials accused of human rights abuses. The report continued, "The removal of crucial safeguards by means of emergency decrees has increased impunity for perpetrators of such crimes, and has led to allegations of an increase in the number of cases of torture and ill-treatment in custody. The abuses began spiking across the country in the immediate aftermath of the July 15, 2016, attempt to violently topple Erdogan. The government says that Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based leader of a sprawling Sunni Muslim global network of schools and businesses, masterminded the putsch. The pair were allies with thousands of Gulen sympathizers installed in positions of influence until their partnership blew up in 2013 over the direction and the spoils of power. Gulen denies any involvement in the affair. But tens of thousands of his disciples in the military, the bureaucracy, academia, the media and the business world have been purged and jailed for their alleged links to the imam under the cover of a state of emergency that wasnt lifted until July 2018. Fifty-thousand were expelled from the armed forces alone. Ever since the coup attempt, weve had the government examine the cases we document and respond by telling us the victims are criminals or under investigation as terrorists. They skip over the torture allegation and end up with denial. It suggests they are condoning this, Sinclair-Webb said. Kurdish "bastard" Dogan, the school teacher, was among the first to be rounded up and taken to the recreation hall at the security directorate headquarters in Ankara where hundreds of military officers were interned when the coup collapsed. He says dried blood caked the walls. There were roughly 1,000 men of different ages wearing Guantanamo-style orange clothes. The women were held in a different section. We were forced to remain upright on our knees for hours on end. Whenever anyone keeled over from fatigue, they were beaten. We were forbidden to speak, and those who did were beaten as well. Every so often a guard would call out peoples names to take them to a block of cells where the torture took place. It was the moment we all dreaded, Dogan told Al-Monitor in a three-hour-long interview. He was summoned five times. They called him the Kurdish bastard," he said. The torture began at 11 p.m., lasted till around 5 a.m. and was carried out by bearded men in civilian clothes mouthing Islamist and racist slogans. The demands were always the same: provide names of leading Gulenist figures, confess that he had selected his wife from a catalog of Gulenist brides and admit that he was a member of what authorities refer to as the Fethullah Terrorist Organization. The Kurd in me refused to cave, Dogan said. After each session, Dogan says he would be dragged to an office where a medical doctor would rubber stamp reports saying the detainees were in good physical condition without bothering to examine them. The doctor must have been in her late 20s. She had long, dark hair and wore a white coat. She would stare fixedly at a form on her desk. I would stand in the doorway without actually entering the room. When she asked me Are you ok? I was finally unable to contain myself and responded Cant you see that I am not? I was soaked in blood. I could barely walk. For the first time, she raised her head and looked at me. The guard who escorted me was furious. He said Wait a second and took me away for a further bashing. When we returned, he told the doctor, Look, hes fine. She signed the form. Erhan Dogan and his family after they were reunited in Europe on May 21, 2020. (Courtesy of Erhan Dogan) Prosecutors failed to prove that Dogan, who taught in a Gulen-run school that was shuttered along with hundreds of others in 2013, took part in the plot. After serving 16 months, Dogan was sentenced to seven years and six months for membership in the Fethullah Terrorist Organization and freed on parole. He fled Turkey in August 2018 with the help of smugglers, crossing the Evros River on a rubber boat to Greece. He was recently granted asylum in a northern European country, and his wife and three children have joined him there. His 16-year-old daughter still suffers from psychological problems, compulsively pulling out her eyelashes and her eyebrows. Shunned by even his closest relatives, Dogan says he will never go back to Turkey again. Dogans story appeared to be corroborated by the allegations in the court testimony that surfaced last week of a first lieutenant from the Special Operations Forces that was published by Bold Medya. The online news site, which is banned in Turkey, was set up by exiled journalists who used to work for pro-Gulenist outlets. Musa Kilicaslan, who was decorated by Erdogan for his fight against Kurdish rebels, told the court of his ordeal at the same recreation center following his arrest in the wake of the botched coup. He said the centers floors were covered in blood and urine, and prisoners were forced to sit in it. The torture he endured broke his ribs and impaired his mobility, but he witnessed worse. He said a female officer wearing pajamas was beaten over and over before his eyes at the security directorates infirmary. She was curled up on the bed in 'a ball of shame.' They started to undress her. They said they would take her to the basement and gang-rape her. They did this to an officer of the armed forces, Kilicaslan claimed. It later emerged that the woman had not stepped out of her home on the night of the coup, Kilicaslan said, which might explain why she was wearing pajamas at the time of her arrest. He says she was set free. Kilicaslan remains in an Ankara jail. In June, he was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment without parole along with 85 other defendants after being convicted of taking part in the coup attempt at the gendarmerie headquarters in Ankara, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. The Turkish government denies the allegations of torture. An interior ministry spokesman did not respond to Al-Monitor's request for comment. Cevheri Guven is an investigative journalist who was twice imprisoned for his reporting for Gulen-friendly outlets. He fled with his family to Germany after the coup and has since been collecting the stories of people who were tortured in its aftermath. He publishes them in raw form in Bold Medya. Bold broke Dogans story with a video in which he relayed his hellish experiences, his voice frequently breaking. Dogans description of the recreation center matched those he had heard from three other men held there, Guven told Al-Monitor in a telephone interview. Rights defenders say its understandable that authorities would want to bring the coup plotters to justice. Over 200 people died that night. More than 2,000 were injured. The putschists rained bombs on the parliament. Men known to have close relations with Gulen were seen at the Akinci airbase in Ankara where the plotters were headquartered and other critical points in the city on the night the takeover was launched. But the allegations of torture overshadow the governments case against them. Erdal Dogan, an Istanbul-based rights lawyer, said the government and the parliament ought to have investigated the torture claims echoing Kilicaslan and Dogans version of events as documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Contemporary Jurists Association in the immediate wake of the failed coup. They never did. It was a missed opportunity, Dogan told Al-Monitor. "Touch them, you burn" Guven and his colleagues searing scoops Kilicaslan's alleged court testimony, a transcript of which was seen by Al-Monitor, was one of them are rarely picked up by Turkeys oppositional media let alone by pro-Erdogan mouthpieces. Theres always been antipathy toward the Gulenists among leftists and secular liberals. Likeminded journalists were at the butt end of Gulenist orchestrated disinformation campaigns to discredit critical reporting of their actions at the heyday of their power between 2003 and 2011. Several were jailed on trumped-up charges. Touch them, you burn, shouted journalist Ahmet Sik, as he was carted off to prison in 2011. There was no doubt who Sik had "touched" and why he was burned." Hed written a book called "The Imam's Army" about Gulens apparent drive to control the levers of power. Scrutiny of the group began in earnest when it became clear that Gulenist prosecutors and their allies were manipulating and outright fabricating evidence against hundreds of military officers who were wrongfully jailed and tried for the very same charge tens of thousands of Gulenists now face themselves: alleged coup plotting. Firdevs Robinson, a London-based expert on Turkey, the Caucasus and Central Asia who does advocacy work in support of free expression, said, Selective empathy and outrage have always been a pervasive problem in Turkey. Human rights and freedom of speech advocacy come at a high cost these days. Many of us feel the necessity to focus our energies where our strongest grievances lie. The lies and machinations of the Gulen movement in the past and their failure to be accountable today discourage even the most principled from defending them publicly. Yet, just as we cannot pick and choose among rights, we cannot be selective in their implementation either, Robinson told Al-Monitor in emailed comments. Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, a lawmaker for the Kurd-friendly Peoples Democratic Party and a member of the parliaments human rights commission, is a rare public figure who has made it his lifes mission to seek justice for all victims of miscarried justice, be they Gulenists, Kurds or gays. His pet causes are the more than 800 newly born babies jailed with their mothers and the disappeared. Since January 2016, at least 28 individuals all but one of them male are thought to have been forcibly disappeared by alleged members of Turkeys National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and held at black sites in Ankara, Gergerlioglu said. Human Rights Watch reported some of the cases in an April report. The Ankara Bar Association and the Human Rights Association also reported on the cases. Two of the men remain unaccounted for. "Death foretold"? A third, Yusuf Bilge Tunc, a former employee of the governments defense industry secretariat who was sacked in the post-coup cull, went missing in Ankara on Aug. 6 last year. His disappearance is believed to be connected to the other cases, though this remains unconfirmed. It took the authorities more than three months to agree to his wifes pleas to launch an investigation, Gergerlioglu said. Fears for Tuncs life are growing by the day. His father is on antidepressants. His three children, aged 10, seven and three, believe he is in a place where there is no cell phone reception. Mustafa Tunc, the father of Yusuf Bilge Tunc who went missing on Aug. 6, 2019, speaks during an interview with AFP on Aug. 27, 2019 about the disappearance of his son in Ankara. (AFP via Getty Images) The men are accused of running and recruiting MIT agents on behalf of Gulen. Its unclear why they were disappeared rather than formally arrested. All of these men are being used against each other. Theres an internal settling of scores. MIT people are in all walks of life, and MIT is being particularly vicious to its own, speculated a rights defender, who asked not to be identified by name. Either way, such is MITs apparent sense of impunity, it's doing little to cover its tracks. In the old days when people were disappeared, the government would make an effort to do it secretly. Now they do everything in broad daylight, Gergerlioglu noted in a telephone interview. He was referring in particular to the case of two men, Yasin Ugan and Ozgur Kaya, who vanished on Feb. 13 last year from an apartment in Ankaras Altindag neighborhood where they had been hiding to evade arrest. Gergerlioglu rushed to the scene after being contacted by the missing mens loved ones. He interviewed neighbors who all repeated the same story. Around 50 people some of them uniformed, others not had laid siege to the building, ransacked the pairs apartment then marched them off with black hoods over their head in the middle of the day. Security cameras in the area were ripped out. Ugan and Kaya were not seen in the neighborhood again. Gergerlioglu said his demands for information about their whereabouts were left unanswered by the justice and interior ministries. The parliaments human rights commission, chaired by an AKP deputy, spurned his request to launch an investigation. As a "last resort, he invited the deputy interior minister to brief the commission. It was June. He agreed to come. When asked about the missing men, he responded with a guffaw and said, Oh we are looking for them too. If you find them, kindly let us know. I didnt know whether to laugh or to cry, Gergerlioglu said. On July 28, the Ankara security directorate announced that Ugan and Kaya had been picked up together with two other men, who had gone missing in Istanbul and the western town of Edirne, respectively, as they were walking together in Ankara. We were expected to swallow this lie, Gergerlioglu said. Their wives could barely recognize them. They had lost massive amounts of weight and their skin was ghostly pale. Many others who disappeared surfaced after long months and in similarly nebulous circumstances bearing traces of ill-treatment. Fincanci contended one reason why cases involving alleged Gulenists have received so little attention is that unlike other persecuted groups, notably Kurds, victims and their families choose not to speak out. She said the Human Rights Foundation had repeatedly offered to help but they do not respond." The few who dare to speak up are swiftly punished. Melek Cetinkaya, whose son Furkan is among some 355 cadets handed life sentences for their supposed involvement in the coup, has been staging solo protests for the past four years. Shes been detained over 30 times for demanding justice for Furkan, who was only 19 at the time of his arrest. Cetinkaya insists he has nothing to do with Gulen. She was re-arrested earlier this month on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda after appearing on the pro-government AKIT TV. Her crime was having resisted calling Gulen and his flock terrorists during the interview. In February, one of the disappeared men, Gokhan Turkmen, broke his silence during his courtroom hearing and revealed how MIT agents had kept pressuring him after his formal arrest to not reveal the truth about the horrible abuse he was subjected to during the 271 days he was held incommunicado. In June, Ugan followed suit during his court hearing. He said hed faced similar coercion by MIT agents who visited him in jail and was forced into signing a false confession that he was among Gulens MIT imams. Ugan denies the charges. Ugans lawyer, Anil Arman Akkus, said his client had been subjected to a cocktail of torture methods during his confinement at a suspected black site in Ankara. Some I had never heard of before, like being backed into a dog kennel blindfolded and handcuffed and made to crouch in it for hours, Akkus told Al-Monitor in a telephone interview. Its a whole new level, he concluded. In 2018 The Brown family decided to leave Las Vegas and move to Flagstaff, Arizona. The familys decision to move was chronicled on Sister Wives. While Kody Brown originally floated the idea that moving would save the family money in the long term, it seems as though the opposite turned out to be true. Since moving to Arizona, the family has encountered serious financial struggles. Exactly how much did the family spend to uproot their lives? It took the Brown family more than a year to sell all of their Las Vegas properties When the Brown family packed up their belongings and moved away from Las Vegas, they left some loose ends behind. Meri Brown, Christine Brown, Janelle Brown, and Robyn Brown all had homes that they had purchased in Sin City, and none of them were sold by the time the last box was packed into a UHaul. Initially, the family assumed the homes would sell quickly, but the majority of them languished on the market for months. RELATED: Sister Wives: Meri Browns Las Vegas Home Has Been Sold! Robyns home was the first to sell. The house was officially sold to a private buyer in February 2019, according to Realtor. Janelle signed over ownership of her home in April 2019, followed by Meri in May 2019. Christines house was the last to sell. Before the sale in October 2019, Christine dropped the price on her home several times. Initially listed for $599,000, it sold for $535,000. Two of Kodys four wives are still renting properties The family has been in Flagstaff for more than two years now, but two of Kodys four wives have yet to set down permanent roots. Meri and Janelle, Kodys first and second wives, are still renting homes. Neither is living particularly frugally, though. Meris house, with multiple bedrooms and a full acre of land, is costing her $4,500 per month. Janelle, who has a couple of children still living at home, rents a 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom house for $2,900 per month. RELATED: Sister Wives: Is The Brown Family Land Finally Inhabitable? Christine and Robyn have both purchased homes in Flagstaff, leading fans to assume that the Coyote Pass property the family originally bought will never be built on. Christine bought a house ahead of the move, claiming she couldnt find a rental property that would accept her pets. Robyn purchased a home with her husband, Kody, after a rental didnt work out long term. How much did the Brown family spend to move to Flagstaff? While the Flagstaff move was originally intended to save the family money, it has done the opposite. Between multiple moves, rent payments, mortgages, and taxes, the Browns have spent more than $1.8 million on properties since landing in the college town, according to The Sun. The first big expenditure came when the family plunked down more than $800,000 on a parcel of land where they planned to build a house. RELATED: Sister Wives: Kody Brown Knew He Was Headed Toward Financial Ruin Before Officially Moving to Flagstaff The next big expenditure came when Christine purchased her home. According to court documents, Christines house cost the family more than $500,000. Robyn Browns home was purchased for $890,000. According to The Sun, Kody and Robyn put down more than $600,000 as a down payment on the property. Channing Tatum attends MusiCares Person of the Year on January 24, 2020. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for The Recording Academy) He broke through thanks to his dancing shoes in Step Up and sizzled as a stripper in the Magic Mike films, but Channing Tatum is now set to act as producer for a brand new movie musical inspired by Lady Macbeth. The 40-year-old star is joining forces with record exec Scooter Braun for the young adult-orientated project, which has been snapped up by Amazon Studios. Its not thought to be connected to the 2017 Lady Macbeth which starred Florence Pugh. According to The Hollywood Reporter: The story is said to centre on a teenage girl who grapples with her own morality as she contends with the dreadful consequences of her ambition. Read more: Channing Tatums Gambit movie is finally dead S.J. Inwards is writing the script, with Scottish filmmaker John McPhail stepping behind the camera to direct the movie. Scooter Braun and Justin Bieber arrive for YouTube Originals' "Justin Bieber: Seasons" premiere on January 27, 2020. (Photo by Lisa O'Connor/AFP via Getty Images) McPhail has form in the teen musical arena, as well as with ambitious genre hybrids, given his last project was Anna and the Apocalypse. Set at Christmas in and around a Scottish school, its a zombie-comedy-musical that plays merrily with the various genres and tones baked into its concept. The movie premiered to considerable buzz at Fantastic Fest in 2017 and then received strong reviews from critics on its UK release in 2018. Read more: Tatums Kingsman prank war with Taron Egerton Further details about the upcoming project are being kept under wraps, but the prospect of a major YA musical take on the Lady Macbeth story is a fascinating one. Channing Tatum in 2015's 'Magic Mike XXL'. (Credit: Warner Bros) Its not the only musical on Tatums slate, with the star attached to appear alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Wingmen. The R-rated project was announced in 2017 and was described as Pitch Perfect meets Book of Mormon, following two pilots who crash land in Las Vegas. Read more: Joseph Gordon-Levitt explains movie hiatus Gordon-Levitt is set to hop back into the directors chair for the project after making his directorial debut with Don Jon in 2013. MANZINI In the past four- and-a-half months, 18 947 employees have been placed on unpaid leave. This is a cumulative figure as of July 24, 2020. This figure reflects an increment of 4 899 employees from the 14 048 workers who were reported by the Labour Commissioner, Mthunzi Shabangu, in May. According to Shabangu, 159 companies have so far invoked Section 5 (a) of the Guidelines on Employment Contingency Measures in Response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic, General Notice No. 22 of 2020, by filing applications for temporary layoffs of their workers. Shabangu said it must be noted that this was a cumulative figure, which included those industries which had since opened in the gradual relaxation of the partial lockdown and recalled their employees back to work. Moreover, he said most of the employers who were now filing applications for layoffs were those who were seeking retrospective approval of their layoffs because they wanted to apply for compensatory relief on behalf of their employees from the Unpaid Layoffs Relief Fund. He said: In terms of the guidelines for the fund, an employer who applies for compensatory relief on behalf of her employees must be in possession of a letter of approval of the layoffs issued by the office of the commissioner of labour. Shabangu said 77 companies that had sought unpaid layoffs were from the Hhohho Region; 62 were from the Manzini Region; 10 were from the Lubombo Region and 10 were from the Shiselweni Region. He said of the 159 companies, 118 of them had since had their applications approved after due processes. This, according to Shabangu, resulted in the total of 18 947 employees being affected by the unpaid layoffs. J odie Comer revealed Stephen Graham talked her out of dropping her Liverpudlian accent when she first started out in acting The 27-year-old, who first worked with Graham in 2012 series Good Cop, revealed she was considering softening her natural dialect in order to be taken more seriously. Speaking to Tom Allen and Graham ahead of Virgin Media TV Bafta Awards, the Killing Eve actor said: I always had this thing in my head that I needed to or that I would be taken more seriously if I did. And Stephen was like: Are you kidding? Never, ever do that. I was so glad that you reminded me because he is so authentic in himself. And to see someone from Liverpool doing what they are doing was so inspiring. Jodie Comer's best red carpet looks 1 /17 Jodie Comer's best red carpet looks May 14, 2019 At the "Killing Eve" Series Two premiere wearing Giambattista Valli Getty Images May 12, 2019 At the TV BAFTA Television Awards wearing Stella McCartney Getty Images April 01, 2019 At the premiere of BBC America and AMC's 'Killing Eve' wearing Victoria Beckham Getty Images March 19, 2019 At the Royal Television Society Programme Awards wearing The Vampire's Wife Getty Images March 5, 2019 Attending the Miu Miu show at Paris Fashion Week wearing Miu Miu SplashNews.com February 9, 2019 At the "Killing Eve" panel during the 2019 Winter TCA Getty Images for AMC Networks January 13, 2019 At the 24th annual Critics' Choice Awards wearing Zuhair Murad Getty Images for The Critics' Ch January 6, 2019 At 76th Annual Golden Globe Awards wearing Ralph & Russo Getty Images January 5, 2019 At the BAFTA Los Angeles Tea Party wearing Erdem Getty Images April 8, 2018 At the Killing Eve screening at Cannes International Series Festival wearing Stella McCartney Getty Images May 14, 2017 At the TV BAFTA Television Awards wearing Alberta Ferretti Getty Images March 19, 2017 At the Empire awards wearing Temperley London Getty Images March 20, 2016 At the Empire awards Getty Images Graham, 46, is nominated for Best Actor at tonights award ceremony, added he knew that Comer was talented from the very first time they worked together. Jodie had a small part, and she was just magnificent to work with, he said. I just saw her talent immediately. I said to her, look, I think youve got an amazing talent and Id like to put you in touch with my agent on your behalf. Stephen Graham introduced Comer to his agent / Brian J Ritchie/Hotsauce/REX Comer herself is up as Best Actress in tonights awards, having previously won the award at last years ceremony. A number of stars were at the socially-distanced TV Bafta Awards, which took place behind closed doors and without an audience. Normal People stars Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones were among the celebrities at the event, the first time they had been reunited since the show first aired. The pair were particularly keen to adhere to government guidelines, each holding one part of tape measure to ensure they were one metre apart GREENSBORO After voyaging across the Atlantic Ocean for more than a year, a bottled message from a Greensboro Day School student landed more than 4,000 miles away. Student Vivian Byerly now knows what happened to her bottled letter because she received a reply to it Sunday. The letters journey began in April 2019 when Vivian and her classmates, now rising fifth graders, sealed personalized messages in glass bottles to send out to sea. In Vivians letter, she told the future reader her name and that she was a third grader at Greensboro Day School. She included her teachers name and email address, along with the schools address. If you find this message, please let us know, Vivian wrote. Her classmates included the same plea in their letters, but Vivian customized her message with a drawing of a ship and an inspiring quote of her choice from an unknown author. While other business managers responded to the pandemic by cutting staff and postponing investment, Peter Fenkl doubled down. This month Mr. Fenkl broke ground on a major addition to a factory he oversees in southern Germany that produces high-performance fans. Mr. Fenkl is chief executive of Ziehl-Abegg, a maker of ventilation systems for hospitals, factories and large buildings. The companys investment of 16 million euros, or $19 million, in additional floor space helps explain why the German economy is showing signs of bouncing back with surprising pep. In a nation not known for producing sunny optimists, German business leaders are upbeat about their prospects. If we wait to invest until the market recovers, thats too late, Mr. Fenkl said in an interview. We want to be prepared. Surveys show that managers expectations for future sales are almost back to pre-virus levels, despite a steep slump in German economic output from April through June when lockdowns were in force. That optimism translates directly into growth, emboldening companies to rehire furloughed workers and invest in expansion. Using data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, scientists have developed a new model that successfully predicted seven of the Sun's biggest flares from the last solar cycle, out of a set of nine. With more development, the model could be used to one day inform forecasts of these intense bursts of solar radiation. As it progresses through its natural 11-year cycle, the Sun transitions from periods of high to low activity, and back to high again. The scientists focused on X-class flares, the most powerful kind of these solar fireworks. Compared to smaller flares, big flares like these are relatively infrequent; in the last solar cycle, there were around 50. But they can have big impacts, from disrupting radio communications and power grid operations, to -- at their most severe -- endangering astronauts in the path of harsh solar radiation. Scientists who work on modeling flares hope that one day their efforts can help mitigate these effects. Led by Kanya Kusano, the director of the Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research at Japan's Nagoya University, a team of scientists built their model on a kind of magnetic map: SDO's observations of magnetic fields on the Sun's surface. Their results were published in Science on July 30, 2020. It's well-understood that flares erupt from hot spots of magnetic activity on the solar surface, called active regions. (In visible light, they appear as sunspots, dark blotches that freckle the Sun.) The new model works by identifying key characteristics in an active region, characteristics the scientists theorized are necessary to setting off a massive flare. The first is the initial trigger. Solar flares, especially X-class ones, unleash huge amounts of energy. Before an eruption, that energy is contained in twisting magnetic field lines that form unstable arches over the active region. According to the scientists, highly twisted rope-like lines are a precursor for the Sun's biggest flares. With enough twisting, two neighboring arches can combine into one big, double-humped arch. This is an example of what's known as magnetic reconnection, and the result is an unstable magnetic structure -- a bit like a rounded "M" -- that can trigger the release of a flood of energy, in the form of a flare. Where the magnetic reconnection happens is important too, and one of the details the scientists built their model to calculate. Within an active region, there are boundaries where the magnetic field is positive on one side and negative on the other, just like a regular refrigerator magnet. "It's similar to an avalanche," Kusano said. "Avalanches start with a small crack. If the crack is up high on a steep slope, a bigger crash is possible." In this case, the crack that starts the cascade is magnetic reconnection. When reconnection happens near the boundary, there's potential for a big flare. Far from the boundary, there's less available energy, and a budding flare can fizzle out -- although, Kusano pointed out, the Sun could still unleash a swift cloud of solar material, called a coronal mass ejection. Kusano and his team looked at the seven active regions from the last solar cycle that produced the strongest flares on the Earth-facing side of the Sun (they also focused on flares from part of the Sun that is closest to Earth, where magnetic field observations are best). SDO's observations of the active regions helped them locate the right magnetic boundaries, and calculate instabilities in the hot spots. In the end, their model predicted seven out of nine total flares, with three false positives. The two that the model didn't account for, Kusano explained, were exceptions to the rest: Unlike the others, the active region they exploded from were much larger, and didn't produce a coronal mass ejection along with the flare. "Predictions are a main goal of NASA's Living with a Star program and missions," said Dean Pesnell, the SDO principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who did not participate in the study. SDO was the first Living with a Star program mission. "Accurate precursors such as this that can anticipate significant solar flares show the progress we have made towards predicting these solar storms that can affect everyone." While it takes a lot more work and validation to get models to the point where they can make forecasts that spacecraft or power grid operators can act upon, the scientists have identified conditions they think are necessary for a major flare. Kusano said he is excited to have a promising first result. "I am glad our new model can contribute to the effort," he said. A Brock University professor is demanding his employer retract a statement it issued condemning his opinions and issue a public apology. This comes nearly two months after the university described an article by chemistry professor Tomas Hudlicky, published by a Germany-based online academic magazine, as hurtful and alienating. Hudlickys article, published by Angewandte Chemie International Edition on June 4 and quietly removed from the website two days later, created a full-fledged storm on social media, as people condemned it as racist and misogynistic. In a statement Hudlicky published Thursday on his personal website, www.hudlicky.ca, he said many people on Twitter condemned the content of the essay, the journal for publishing it, and me for writing it. At the time, Brock provost and vice-president academic Greg Finn also posted statements on the universitys website, calling Hudlickys opinions highly objectionable" and hurtful and alienating to members of diverse communities and historically marginalized groups who have, too often, seen their qualifications and abilities called into question. Hudlicky said Finns open letter which can still be found on Brocks website greatly damaged my standing not only within but also outside Brock community. I will demand that Brock retract their open letter and issue a public apology in a timely manner, as per the terms of a grievance filed on my behalf by the Brock University Faculty Union (BUFA), Hudlicky said in his statement. Contacted Friday, Brock spokesman Kevin Cavanagh said the university has nothing further to add to its previous statements regarding its condemnation of the Hudlicky article. Hudlicky said much of criticism generated by his article was in response to his opinions on workforce diversity, when he wrote that candidates should be hired based strictly on their merit rather than identification with any particular group. Despite the criticism, Hudlicky said his article did not contain anything that would qualify as unethical or unacceptable speech or conduct, as described in codes of conduct of many learned societies and certainly in the policies of Brock University and other institutions. I stand by the views I wished to express in the essay, some of which are common knowledge, while others were duly cited from primary and secondary sources, Hudlicky said. He added, however, that he could have worded his opinions in a clearer and more diplomatic way. For instance, Hudlicky said, he supports workforce diversity and believes if a group of candidates are similarly qualified, someone from a disadvantaged group should be offered the position. But if a special advantage is offered to one group, he said, another group is unfairly disadvantaged. In view of some apparent misunderstandings and misinterpretations generated by the essay, I am planning to edit the now disappeared document and publish it in revised form for the permanent record, Hudlicky said. It is tragic to see that in several Western democratic societies, open discourse and debate can apparently be easily superseded by censorship, persecution, and condemnation, propagated by social media, reacted to by Brock University, all contrary to the norms of legal process and the upholding of freedom of speech. The appearance and pursuit in recent years of certain new and politically correct ideologies has led to the establishment of a society in which any opposition or any dissenting opinion regarding the new norms are silenced and punished rather than discussed. This is a very dangerous trend and one that may even evolve further into a new cultural revolution. In an email, Hudlicky told The Standard he is not concerned about the issues, knowing the universitys faculty union is behind me. Rhea Chakraborty recently released a video on social media platform saying that she believes she will get justice. A few days back, Sushant Singh Rajput's father KK Singh filed an FIR against Rhea Chakraborty, accusing her of abetting his son's suicide. Rhea Chakraborty recently released a video on social media platform saying that she believes she will get justice. A few days back, Sushant Singh Rajputs father KK Singh filed an FIR against Rhea Chakraborty, accusing her of abetting his sons suicide. A teary-eyed Rhea can be heard in the video statement saying that she has immense faith in God and the judiciary. She believes that she will get justice. Even though a lot of horrible things are being said about her, she refrains from commenting on the advice of her lawyers as the matter is sub judice. Satyamev Jayate. The truth shall prevail. Also read: Delhi Govt, LG lock horns again: LG cancels key Unlock 3.0 decisions by AAP Govt Also read: The New Education Policy : Where it gets right On Wednesday, Sushants father registered an FIR with the Bihar police and accused Rhea, her parents, and brother Showik Chakraborty of theft, cheating, and conspiracy. KK Singh said that Rhea had been overdosing Sushant with certain medicines. He also alleged that the actress threatened to make Sushants medical reports public when he wanted to quit acting and do farming in Coorg with his friend Mahesh Shetty. A total of Rs 15 crores have been transferred from Sushants account to some unknown account, which has no link with the late actor, the FIR stated. A team of four cops from the Bihar police came over to Mumbai and currently questioning people close to the actor. They are also investigating the contents of the FIR. Rhea has also filed a petition in SC seeking transfer of the case from the Bihar police to the Mumbai police. Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide at his Mumbai residence on June 14. Also read: CLAT 2020: Mistakes to avoid, precautions and everything you need to know Fayaz Wani By Express News Service SRINAGAR: Nearly 14 hours after Jammu and Kashmir government spokesman took to twitter to claim that senior Congress leader and former minister Saif-ud-Din Soz is not under arrest or detention, the Congress leader on Friday said he is not a free man and continues to be under house detention and the government was lying. Talking to New Indian Express today morning, Soz said that he continues to be under detention. "The restrictions on my movement continue and have not been lifted. The government is telling lies. I am not a free man and still under house detention. I am not being allowed to move out," he said. Soz has been under house arrest at his residence at Friends Enclave Humhama near Srinagar airport since the scrapping of Article 370 by centre on August 5 last year. Jammu and Kashmir government spokesman Rohit Kansal had taken to social networking site Twitter at around 9.05 pm yesterday to claim that Soz was not under house arrest. "Mr. Saiffudin Soz former MP and Minister not under arrest or detention. He has been to Delhi twice- in October and December. Free to go wherever he likes with usual security drill. No question of lying in Hon SC (sic)," Kansal had tweeted. Mr. Saiffudin Soz former MP and Minister not under arrest or detention. He has been to Delhi twice- in October and December. Free to go wherever he likes with usual security drill. No question of lying in Hon SC @diprjk Rohit Kansal (@kansalrohit69) July 30, 2020 However, Soz said Kansal, the J&K government and central government is telling lies that there are no restrictions on his movement. "The reality is that I am under house arrest and I am under detention," Soz said. This is the second time that the Jammu and Kashmir government has been caught on wrong foot as far as Soz's detention is concerned. Earlier, on Tuesday, Jammu and Kashmir government had informed the Supreme court that Soz is a free man and was never under detention. The apex court, which was hearing petition by Soz's wife challenging his detention, accepted the J&K governments statement and closed the case. Yesterday many videos had gone viral on social media in which Soz was barred by policemen deployed at his residence from venturing out. Soz said he visited his ailing sister today after permission from the police. "The policemen accompanied me to my sisters residence and not allowed to visit any other place," the senior Congress leader said. Earlier, Soz said he had twice been allowed to leave his house since August 5. "I visited my ailing sister and Delhi for seeking medical advice. However, whenever I went out of my premises since August 5, 2019, I had to obtain permission from the government," he said. The Congress leader has decided to sue J&K government for his 'unlawful' house arrest since August 5, 2019. "I will further sue the government for compensation for the incarceration and illegal suspension of civil liberties to which I am entitled under the Constitution," he added. A strong rebound in June helped to limit the revenue decline at Lagardere Publishing to a drop of 7% in the first half of 2020 compared to the first six months of 2019. (Excluding the purchase of Blackrock Games and Short Books and a gain from exchange rates of 8 million, sales were down 8.3%.) Sales declined to 971 million in the period, and recurring EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) fell 25%, to 27 million. Lagardere said that after falling 38.6% in April and 21.8% in May, revenue across the publishing group jumped 20.6% in June. Sales in the first quarter were down 3.3% on a like-for-like basis compared to the first quarter of 2019. The companys U.S. subsidiary, Hachette Book Group, had the best performance in the first half of the year, with sales down only 1%. HBG CEO Michael Pietsch attributed the solid results during the pandemic to a range of factors, including strong performances from the Orbit divisionled by sales of the Witcher novelsand from Little, Brown, thanks to continuing good sales for Malcolm Gladwells 2019 bestseller Talking to Strangers. In addition, Pietsch said the first half of the year benefited from higher sales of new and backlist books by Black writers, including So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram Kendi, Kendis Stamped from the Beginning, Little Leaders by Vashti Harrison, and Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Tatum. Good sales from bestselling authors David Baldacci, James Patterson, Michael Connelly, Elin Hilderbrand, Scott Turow, and Harlan Coben also contributed to the first half results. Pietsch noted that unit sales grew over the first six months of 2019, led by an increase in sales of lower-price formats such as mass-market paperbacks, e-books, and downloadable audio, largely offsetting decreases in adult hardcovers and trade paperbacks. The growth in sales of e-books and digital audio in the first half of 2020 was reflected in the report that e-books accounted for 10.6% of total Lagardere Publishing revenue in the first half of 2020, up from 8.2% in first half, while digital audiobooks represented 5.3% of revenue compared to 3.4% a year ago. In Lagardere Publishings other groups, strict lockdown measures during a number of months led to a 14.7% decline in sales in France, a 5.2% drop in Spain/Latin America, and a 2.9% decline in the U.K. Lagardere said financial results in the second half of 2020 will not only be affected by the uncertainty caused by the pandemic but by unfavorable comparisons to 2019, due to the absence of Asterix collection releases and just one level of high school curriculum reform in France in 2020, compared to two in 2019. Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks via video conference during the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law hearing on Online Platforms and Market Power in the Rayburn House office Building, July 29, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Mandel Ngan-Pool/Getty Images) Contact tracing is underway after a man who flew from Melbourne to Darwin on a Jetstar flight tested positive to the coronavirus. Northern Territory Health Minister Natasha Fyles confirmed the 'complex case' at a press conference on Friday. She said the man was on a Jetstar flight at the time of his diagnosis. He was travelling with his family, who were approved to fly interstate to receive 'essential medical care' in Victoria. They returned on flight JQ 678, which departed Melbourne at 9.15am and arrived at Darwin at 1.10pm. It was the only Jetstar flight on the Melbourne-Darwin route on Friday. The man who tested positive to the coronavirus flew into the Darwin Airport (pictured, left) from Melbourne on Friday. Northern Territory Health Minister Natasha Fyles (pictured, right) said the man received his COVID-19 positive diagnosis mid-flight The man returned on flight JQ 678, which departed Melbourne at 9.15am and arrived at Darwin at 1.10pm The man's case takes the number of COVID-19 infections in the Northern Territory to 33. They are all related to international or interstate travel. 'This person and their family had been approved to return to the Northern Territory after receiving that essential medical care, and were to come in and undertake quarantine [at Howard Springs],' Ms Fyles said at the press conference. 'At no point were these people just returning and simply going back into our community. 'So [it's] a complex case. Not someone that has chosen to go away for holidays, but someone that had to travel interstate and unfortunately now has been diagnosed with coronavirus.' Ms Fyles said the man was now in isolation at Royal Darwin Hospital. Northern Territory Health Minister Natasha Fyles said the man who tested positive to COVID-19 mid-flight to Darwin was now in isolation at Royal Darwin Hospital (pictured) He and his family were wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) while on the flight. They were asymptomatic and tested in Melbourne prior to boarding flight, Ms Fyles said. Contact tracers are now working to identify passengers sitting within two rows of the man, with a number of others being placed into quarantine at Howard Springs. 'Anyone on the plane is able to come forward and be tested,' she said. 'We remind them - please watch for their health. Any symptoms, please isolate and reach out.' All arrivals into the Northern Territory from declared COVID-19 hotspots are required to quarantine for two weeks at their own expense at a government approved facility. People flying into Darwin from hotspots including Victoria, Greater Sydney, Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, Port Stephens and Euobodalla Shire are required to quarantine for 14 days. Pictured: Passengers queuing to check in for flights to Queensland at Sydney Domestic Airport These hotspots include Victoria, Greater Sydney, Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, Port Stephens and Euobodalla Shire. 'To reassure the community, all the precautions had taken place. We have through the coronavirus seen situations where families haven't been able to catch up with loved ones, people have passed away and one of the aspects is people receiving medical care,' she said. 'Some people have chosen not to travel - other people we have been able to care for here. 'But for some people they've still had to travel and, unfortunately, now this family that had to care for a loved one that had serious medical treatment interstate have now got a family member with coronavirus so we do respect their privacy and wish them well.' All arrivals into the Northern Territory from declared COVID-19 hotspots are required to quarantine for two weeks at their own expense at a government approved facility. Pictured: Inside a Darwin quarantine facility a couple from the Diamond Princess were being held in Meanwhile, three men and a woman are in isolation in Alice Springs as authorities investigate whether they arrived in the Northern Territory from a coronavirus hotspot. The men - aged 26, 27 and 29 - and a 28-year-old woman travelled to the Northern Territory by road, passing through a control point on the Territory-Queensland border on Monday. Police said information received from a member of the public indicated the three men may have travelled from a declared COVID-19 hotspot in the previous 14 days. The four people are being held in quarantine while three other people they had close contact with have also been placed in isolation. Spending on electronics or computer-related equipment is expected to increase more than any other category, according to the National Retail Federations survey. Seventy-two percent of families whose children will be taking classes from home expect to buy computers, home furnishings or other supplies for virtual learning, the survey found. The back-to-school season has already looked different at the Best Buy near Chesterfield Towne Center mall. The hot items this year are any products that will help with at-home learning or at-home teaching, said Matthew Early, the general manager of Best Buy on Koger Center Boulevard. People want to make sure their home networks are up and running and capable of supporting the number of devices that are on it, he said. Online learning will cause a bigger drain on peoples networks than usual, so people are asking for help with that. Many customers also are looking for webcams, an external mouse or keyboard, and extra monitors. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has on July 30 extended its directions for three urban cooperative banks the Vasantdada Nagari Sahakari Bank, the Kapol Cooperative Bank and the Maratha Sahakari Bank all from Maharashtra. The central bank in separate notifications for the latter two, said that extension should not per-se be construed to imply that it is satisfied of substantive improvement in the financial position of the aforementioned banks, the Hindu BusinessLine reported. For the Vasantdada Nagari Sahakari Bank in Osmanabad, which closed in November 2017, the RBI has extended period of directions by two months to September 30, 2020 from August 1, 2020 subject to review. The central bank clarified that this should not per se be construed as cancellation of banking license by it. The bank will continue to undertake banking business with restrictions till its financial position improves. For The Kapol Cooperative Bank in Mumbai, which closed in March 2017, the RBI has extended validity of directions by six months till January 31, 2021 from August 1, 2020. This will be subject to review. For the Maratha Sahakari Bank in Mumbai, which has been under RBI directions since its closure in August 2016, the period of directions has been extended for five months from August 1, 2020 till December 31, 2020. It was a thrilling moment, Phil Weicker admits being at the California-based company he helped start, sitting in the all-electric vehicle he helped design and taking it for that first spin. Thats how you know that youre in the right job, says Weicker, 41, who is from St. Catharines. That still feels exciting, and sort of like you have that Christmas morning feeling. Thats how you know youre doing what you were always supposed to be doing. From Laura Secord Secondary School, where he graduated in 1997, Weicker made a few stops before settling in L.A. He studied electrical engineering at McMaster University, then earned his masters degree at McGill University in Montreal. It was early in the dot-com era and, while many grads gravitated toward communications, he kind of went the other way, I focused on power electronics, controls. At the time, it sort of seemed if you could squint your eyes really tightly and look toward the future, you could see that probably electric vehicles were going to become an important part of how we use energy in a smarter way. After nearly a decade working for other peoples companies, he and several others co-founded Canoo in Torrance, Calif., just south of Los Angeles, in December 2017. Weicker is responsible for powertrain and electronics. Its no small goal they have set for themselves: To change the way people get around the city. Far into the prototype stage with a launch planned for the end of 2021, its a fully electric vehicle with a battery that can go for 400 kilometres. It seats seven, but without a combustion engine the interior is roomer than in traditional cars. The backseat is sofa-style, bending with the curve of the car. There is no steering column. It steers by wire using electrical signals. And you wont buy a Canoo the way you would normally purchase a car, either. Vehicles are sold on subscription. Canoo describes itself as your electric car membership. For a monthly fee you get the vehicle, access to insurance, registration, charging and maintenance. When youre done, you turn it in. Another co-founder, Richard Kim, calls it a loft on wheels in a YouTube video in which TV comic Jay Leno, a well-known car buff, visits the Canoo plant for his Jay Lenos Garage program. Its not a car, Leno notes, its a weekly transportation pod, just to get you to work. Weicker believes the way people use their cars is changing, especially in large urban areas. More practical, less flashy. Our goal, he says, was to do something better, but not necessarily something better in terms of faster or higher performance. Canoo with minimal environmental impact and extra large interior is designed for people driving in the city amid traffic, he says, though its capable of highway speeds. Weicker cant disclose the price because its a developing, competitive market, but were definitely focused on something thats affordable. RELATED STORIES Business Falls serves as backdrop for Porsche electric car unveiling We think that solving the problem that electric vehicles can solve in terms of air pollution, greenhouse gases, only really matters if we do it at a large scale, right? At Canoo, his team has about 100 members, several of them Canadians from McMaster. One of Canoos suppliers is based in St. Catharines, THK Rhythm Automotive Canada Ltd. Its still a little bit like the wild, wild west, Weicker says of the electric car industry. I think people are looking at the success of Tesla and that has certainly buoyed public interest in electric vehicles, but I think there is room for others. Canoo not named for any Canadian canoe connection, it was just a catchy title is still a new company, so we have to sort of build the plane as were flying it, says Weicker. We dont have too much room for error, and were kind of the definition of working without a net. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) Three government officials branded as unbelievable the recorded all-time high recovery of over 38,000 COVID-19 patients on Thursday, saying it only further casts doubt on the Department of Health's reporting system. 38k recoveries in one day only shows there's a problem with data interpretation," Senator Joel Villanueva tweeted on Thursday after the DOH released its newest case bulletin. "Worse, it's giving people a false sense of security. Mas kapani-paniwala pa ngayon yung mga palabas sa perya kesa sa mga binibigay sa ating reports, Villanueva remarked. [Translation: Performances in fairs are more believable than the reports provided to us.] On the same night, Senator Risa Hontiveros sent a tweet to the official account of the DOH to air her sentiments regarding the latest data: People are anxious & tired. Huwag na dagdagan @DOHgovph. [Translation: Dont compound the problem.] Meanwhile, Sorsogon Governor Chiz Escudero also questioned the timing of releasing record-breaking recoveries and infections on the same day. Escudero, a former senator, said in a tweet, this is only in the Philippines & is intolerable & insulting as he implored President Rodrigo Duterte to fire Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, asserting that the Filipinos deserve better. The DOH announced in its July 30 case bulletin that 38,075 more people have gotten well, bringing the total number of recoveries to 65,064. It said that of the new recoveries reported, the bulk or 37,166 are from Oplan Recovery or efforts to monitor the status of confirmed cases. Heres why The DOH explained that the highest single-day rise in recoveries is due to its enhanced data reconciliation efforts. It noted that 37,166 mild or asymptomatic cases have been re-tagged as recovered. The basis for this reclassification was laid out in a DOH Memorandum 2020-0258 dated May 29, which was only adopted by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases on Thursday. According to the updated protocol of releasing COVID-19 patients, which Health spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said is in line with the guidelines of other countries, those who are mildly ill are now tagged as recovered 14 days from the onset of symptoms, while asymptomatic cases are considered recovered two weeks after their specimens were collected for testing. Vergeire said repeat testing is not needed anymore, saying tests can only confirm an infection, not recovery. She added that this clinical guidance is based on the new evidence that asymptomatic cases are unlikely to spread the virus 10 days from the time they tested positive. The protocol was also recommended by the World Health Organization. For his part, infectious disease expert Dr. Rontgene Solante from San Lazaro Hospital in Manila said those with mild symptoms have a higher chance of recovery. 80-percent to 90-percent have mild manifestations. In fact, 10-percent of them don't have symptoms. There is a higher possibility that they will recover spontaneously, he told CNN Philippines. The DOH earlier required that a patient should test negative for the virus twice in a row, and results must be from samples taken 24 hours apart. Vergeire has said this may be one of the factors why the Philippines has a high number of active cases. Prior to the implementation of the new protocol, it usually takes a month before a person could be considered well, as the individual needs to complete 14 days more of quarantine at home after going through quarantine in a facility or hospital for two weeks. In response to U.S. President Donald Trump's intention to attend this year's General Assembly General Debate in person, a German diplomat said on Thursday that it makes no sense for world leaders to be physically present given the COVID-19 pandemic. "We have been looking at developments in the United States on COVID. We have been looking at the situation in New York. And we know what the high-level week means when you have 190 delegations coming into the city," said Christoph Heusgen, Germany's permanent representative to the United Nations. "Taking into consideration the prognostics for September, we believe that it doesn't really make sense to have a high-level week, to have the General Assembly, where you have leaders attending," he told a press encounter at the end of his country's Security Council presidency for the month of July. Heusgen confirmed that there are no plans in Germany for either Chancellor Angela Merkel or Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to fly to New York for the General Assembly high-level week. "We have to be careful. We must not endanger people by coming with a big delegation here. And therefore we agreed to the proposal to have the leaders present their speeches in a virtual way." U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, said Thursday that Trump hopes to address the UN General Assembly in person in September. A UN spokesman said Trump's presence at the General Assembly is a matter to be coordinated by the United Nations and the United States. "I don't want to speculate on what the future will hold. As you know, the (UN) Secretariat will be in touch, basically through the Office of the President of the General Assembly, with the member states on their representation," Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told a virtual press briefing. "We have made clear to all member states the need to keep the delegations' numbers low. There is an absolute upper limit of how many people we can safely accommodate, and all member states have been made aware of that. How they will adjust is a matter ultimately of discussion between the member states and the United Nations." UN member states agreed last week on special measures for the upcoming high-level week, which allow one, at most two, New York-based representatives per delegation in the General Assembly Hall. According to the decision adopted by the General Assembly on July 22, dignitaries of member states will not be in New York. Instead, each member state can submit a pre-recorded statement of its leaders, which will be played in the General Assembly Hall. "We trust and expect that all member states will abide by the need to keep the numbers low, and we'll see what they do in terms of their preparations," said Haq. "We will be in touch with all the member states to make sure that the arrangements are appropriate. And we'll need to make sure, again, that we remain within limited numbers so that we can practice social distancing and have safe conditions for everyone who comes into the building." WASHINGTON - The House Foreign Affairs Committee has subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for documents he turned over to a Senate panel that is investigating Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Committee Chairman Eliot Engel said Friday he had issued the subpoena as part an investigation into Pompeos apparent use of Department of State resources to advance a political smear of former Vice-President Joe Biden. The subpoena demands all of the records that the department has turned over to Republican-led Senate committees that are investigating Hunter Bidens work for a gas company in Ukraine while his father was vice-president. It also asks for internal department emails about responding to Congress. The committee says Pompeo had delivered more than 16,000 pages of records to the Senate but refused to send the same materials to the Democrat-led House. Secretary Pompeo has turned the State Department into an arm of the Trump campaign and hes not even trying to disguise it, Engel said in a statement announcing the suboena, which demands the materials by next week. The subpoena represents another escalation in an election-year battle between Democrats and the GOP Senate committees investigating Hunter Biden. Democrats have criticized Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., in particular for his probe of Hunter Biden and the gas company, Burisma. They say Johnsons probe is amplifying Russian propaganda, a charge he denies. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens, and Hunter Biden has denied using his influence with his father to aid Burisma. House and Senate Democratic leaders sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray last month, saying they are concerned that Congress appears to be the target of a concerted foreign interference campaign to influence the 2020 presidential election. The letter, which did not mention Johnson or his committee by name, asked Wray for an all-members, classified briefing on the matter before the August recess. Wray hasnt yet offered the requested briefing, but lawmakers did receive a classified briefing early Friday on general election security. Leaving that meeting, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she is concerned the American people should be better informed. The presidents efforts to have Ukraine investigate Hunter Bidens role as a board member for Burisma were at the heart of House Democrats impeachment probe last year. Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens on a July 2019 phone call that was later revealed by a whistleblowers complaint. The House impeached Trump in December for pressuring the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation while withholding military aid to the country. The Senate acquitted him in February. The new efforts by Democrats come as the nations intelligence agencies, congressional intelligence committees and Joe Biden have all warned of renewed election interference by Russia this year. Trump himself has been loath to discuss the subject or acknowledge that Russia tried to sow discord in the 2016 contest by hacking Democratic accounts and pushing out inflammatory content on social media. Still, his administration has warned that Russia and other countries will likely try again. In a statement last week, William Evanina, the governments chief counterintelligence official, said adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran are seeking to compromise U.S. private communications and infrastructure in campaigns. It also warned of disinformation campaigns on social media. Democrats said the statement didnt go far enough, and have pushed for more information on the meddling to be public. They have also sought to bring attention to their apparent concerns about the Senate investigations while declining to talk in specifics because much of the information is classified. On Thursday, the House Intelligence Committee voted to make a classified attachment to the letter detailing their concerns about interference available for review by members of the House. In a transcript the committee released of that closed meeting, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said he has the same concerns today as he did in 2016 that Russians were working to disrupt American elections. I believe today, as I did then, that any effort to interfere in elections must be deterred, disrupted, and exposed, because complacency will further erode the basic precept underlying our democracy, that Americans alone must decide American elections, Schiff said. At the same meeting, Democrats asked the panels top Republican, California Rep. Devin Nunes, whether he had received a package of information from Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach and whether he would share it with Democrats. Derkach is a member of Ukraines parliament who has promoted unsubstantiated claims against the Bidens. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., said committee staff is in possession of evidence that a package was received. Asked by Schiff if he would respond to Maloneys question, Nunes said no. Nunes said the Democrats letter on election interference was a political exercise. He said the classified attachment focuses entirely on Russia while ignoring potential election meddling by any other nations. By Chien Mi Wong, Evelynn Lin and Mirzaan Jamwal HONG KONG/SINGAPORE, July 31 (LPC) - Commodities trader Trafigura Beheer has become the first company to offer a defined Covid premium on an Asian syndicated loan, paying up to an extra 20bp all-in on its latest US$1bn-equivalent financing. The novel pricing structure is a first for Asia, if not globally, and could set a precedent for other price-sensitive borrowers looking to limit the long-term effects of the pandemic on their funding costs. Without the Covid premiums, the terms of Trafigura's new deal are little changed from loans it signed in 2018 and 2019. "Trafigura is compensating lenders for their liquidity as a recognition of the difficult market environment that has resulted in increased costs of borrowing for everyone. However, it is also mindful that the additional compensation does not set a new pricing benchmark for its own borrowings," said one senior loans banker in Hong Kong. Standard Chartered Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp are the mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners of a US dollar-denominated facility, while Agricultural Bank of China and China Construction Bank are the active bookrunners of a renminbi tranche. The financing comprises a 365-day US dollar revolving credit facility (tranche A), a one-year renminbi term loan (tranche B) and a three-year US dollar term loan (tranche C). Tranches A and C pay interest margins of 65bp and 110bp over Libor, respectively, as well as a 10bp Covid-19 margin premium for both portions and fee premiums of 5bp and 30bp. Excluding the premiums, the margins are similar to that on a US$1.505bn-equivalent loan Trafigura closed last September. All participating lenders will receive the Covid-19 margin and fee premiums, regardless of their commitment levels. LIQUIDITY TEST Frequent high-grade European borrowers are sensitive about their pricing benchmarks and Trafigura is no different, said the banker, emphasising that the premium was a one-off compensation for lenders. Story continues "The premium is not based on any pricing grid and does not fall away if Covid-19 has a resolution or if a vaccine is developed," said the banker in Hong Kong. Syndication will determine what lenders think of the attempt to draw liquidity with the Covid-19 premium. At least one lender is not participating. "While the Covid-19 premium is an incentive for us to do the business, we are not actively looking at the deal as we are concerned about the market volatility in the energy sector due to the coronavirus pandemic," said a senior banker from a Taiwanese bank. Another banker in Singapore questioned the logic of tying pricing to Covid-19, given how governments worldwide are struggling to contain the disease. "It will be very difficult to administer and monitor Covid-19's impact on the loan," he said. "What criteria does one set the country of origin of the borrower, its operations or the jurisdictions in which the participating lenders operate?" "Moreover, the benchmark for a one-year revolver's interest margin is reset monthly. Given the rapidly changing situation relating to the pandemic, any exercise to structure a pricing grid tied to it will be pointless." LENDING RELATIONSHIPS Lenders committing an aggregate amount of US$100m or above to tranches A or C will receive the MLA title and top-level all-in pricing of 95bp and 140bp respectively (not including the Covid premium), via participation fees of 30bp and 90bp. Those joining with US$50m$99m as lead arrangers earn all-ins of 92.50bp and 138.33bp for tranches A and C, respectively, via fees of 27.50bp and 85bp. Banks taking US$10m$49m as arrangers receive all-ins of 90bp and 136.67bp for tranches A and C, respectively, via fees of 25bp and 80bp. These all-in calculations do not include the fee premiums for tranches A and C. Tranche B pays a margin of 100bp over CNH Hibor. MLAs taking US$45m-equivalent or above receive a top-level all-in pricing of 130bp via a participation fee of 30bp, while lead arrangers coming in for tickets of US$30m$44m earn an all-in of 127bp through fees of 27bp. Arrangers joining with US$10m$29m are offered an all-in of 125bp via a 25bp fee. The deadline for commitments is August 28. Trafigura's Singapore unit is the borrower and proceeds are for refinancing and general corporate purposes. The loan agreed by Trafigura in September last year comprises a US$750m 365-day revolver (tranche A), a US$875m-equivalent one-year renminbi term loan (tranche B) and a US$300m three-year term loan (tranche C). DBS Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China London branch, StanChart and SMBC were the MLABs of the facility. CCB and ICBC were the active bookrunners of the renminbi tranche. CTBC Bank was the coordinator of the Taipei bank meeting. Last month, Trafigura Trading, a subsidiary of Trafigura Group, signed a US$4bn loan to renew its North American borrowing base credit facility. The one-year facility was reduced from US$4.395bn because of a smaller financing need in the lower priced commodity environment, the company said. MUFG, Natixis and Societe Generale were lead arrangers and joint bookrunners on the financing. MUFG also acted as administrative agent. Trafigura posted a 27% year-on-year rise in net profit to US$542m for the six months to March 31, its highest first-half net profit since 2016. This was despite US$580m in impairments as its oil and metals trading divisions thrived in the extreme volatility caused by events in the Middle East and the coronavirus pandemic. (Reporting By Chien Mi Wong, Evelynn Lin and Mirzaan Jamwal; additional reporting by Prakash Chakravarti; editing by Vincent Baby) At least 41 people have died in three districts in Punjab after reportedly drinking spurious liquor over two days, prompting chief minister Amarinder Singh to order a magisterial probe, officials said on Friday. The deaths took place in Punjabs Amritsar, Batala and Tarn Taran districts since Wednesday night, according to a statement by the government. The youngest of the victims was believed to be in his early twenties and the oldest 80 years old. Among the dead was the husband of a woman who has been arrested for selling the suspect liquor. Punjab director general of police Dinkar Gupta said the first five fatalities were reported from Mucchal and Tangra villages in Amritsars Tarsikka on July 29 night. On Thursday evening, two more people died under suspicious circumstances at Amritsars Muchhal village. One person died at Sri Guru Ram Das Hospital in Amritsar after being shifted from Tangra. Later, two more deaths were reported from Mucchal village while another two people died in Batala, also due to the consumption of spurious liquor. On Friday, five people died in Batala, taking the death toll in the city to seven, the DGP said, adding that four fatalities were reported from Tarn Taran. Chief minister Amarinder Singh ordered a magisterial inquiry by the divisional commissioner, Jalandhar, into the deaths. Police have arrested Balwinder Kaur, a resident of Muchhal village, under Section 304 of the IPC (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and under provisions of the Excise Act, the DGP said. The CM has promised strict action against anyone found complicit in the case and directed police to launch a search operation to crack down on any spurious liquor manufacturing unit operating in the state. Gurpreet Singh, 25, of Sach Khand road area in Tarn Taran said, My father Pyara Singh had gone to drink liquor on Thursday night, but he didnt return. On Friday morning, we found him lying dead in the ground situated at the Sarhali road. He had drunk illicit liquor due to which he died. Talking to HT, Rahul, a resident of Kazimori locality said that on Thursday night around 9pm, his uncle Buta Ram came to the house under the influence of liquor. When we questioned him, my uncle told us that he had taken liquor from a woman and after drinking that liquor his condition is unstable. Within half an hour, my uncle started vomiting and faded. We rushed him to civil hospital, where he died late night, he said. DAVISON, MI - Davison Community Schools plans to offer a five-day, in-person school option for all students when the districts academic year begins Monday, Aug. 17. The districts COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan includes an option for all students to return to the classroom provided the state is still in Phase 4 or higher of Gov. Gretchen Whitmers reopening plan. An entirely online and hybrid option will also be available to students and families. In a June parent survey, 62% of parents indicated they wanted to send their students back for full time face-to-face instruction, according to a Q&A released by the district. A partial shutdown now could result in a safe reopening of Michigan schools this fall, experts say Approximately 50% of our families qualify for free or reduced lunch and many families simply cant afford child care on the days when their students would not be in school. Numerous parents let us know that part time school just didnt work for them, the document reads. We also recognize that kids need to be in school. We all know that online learning is not as effective as face to face instruction, especially for elementary students. Children need the social and emotional benefits of school and a lot of our students receive important services at school. For many of our students school is the best and safest place for them to be. For all these reasons our goal was to give all of our students the opportunity to return five days a week. Online and in-person curriculum will be similar, according to the district. Districts across the state will pursue a reopening plan based on which economic recovery phase a district is in at the time. The Lower Peninsula of Michigan is currently in Phase 4. If the state is in Phase 3 or lower, schools will pursue remote learning. If its in Phase 4, the improving phase, schools can pursue in-person instruction with strict protocols. In Phase 5, the containing phase, schools can resume in-person instruction with more flexibility. It is time to get back to school, said Principal of Siple Elementary School Christy Flowers, one of many Davison administrators who welcomed students back to school in a YouTube video released by the district. As you are thinking about back to school supplies, I want to remind you that this years most important back to school supply is our face mask, Flowers said. If in Phase 4 of Whitmers Safe Start plan, all students and staff will be required to wear a face covering. Most students will be required to wear a mask at all times, however, kindergarten through fifth grade students in a self-contained classroom are exempt. However, the Davison plan states the district will also require fifth grade students to wear a mask since fifth and sixth grade students are in the same building and the 6th grade students are required to wear a mask. Kindergarten through fourth grade students will be required to wear a mask on the bus and in common areas and shared spaces of the school such as hallways. As you are preparing your students to return to school, please begin to have them practice using a face mask, Flowers said. This will help with their level of comfort when its time to put them on at school. Start with a short amount of time and build up over time. This will help them get ready. The other part I need parents to help me out with is, as we are getting ready for school, to have you demonstrating a positive attitude -- not only about wearing our masks-- but just about being in school in general. You are the students most important educators and your positive attitude will help them have a positive attitude. The district is excited to welcome students back to the very unique school year, Central Elementary Principal Christine Kuzinski. In the video, Kuzinski also emphasized the importance of wearing masks. We often wear accessories to protect us from things, she said. For example, we wear hats and mittens and gloves outside to protect us from the cold. We also wear sunglasses to protect us from the sun. This year, were going to be wearing a new accessory: a mask. The masks will help protect us from germs and getting sick. Read more: Voters pass $71.39M Davison school bond proposal Flint schools announce new assistant superintendent, administrators Kalamazoo schools cant open safely, must be remote, teachers union says Flint school board passes plan to start virtually Aug. 5, possibly return to classrooms in Sept. Mt. Morris schools release back-to-school plan, prep for online or in-person learning Lapeer schools push start date to fall, opt to suspend balanced calendar year The problem with Johnsons vaudevillian performance was that this regulation was written by the British government. This fact was, however, no problem for Johnson, who became prime minister. As Anne Applebaum says in her book Twilight of Democracy, Johnson has a penchant for fabrication he was fired from the Times of London for concocting quotes, and from a Conservative shadow cabinet for lying. This is part of what her books subtitle calls the seductive lure of authoritarianism, which delivers delightful liberation from the tyranny of facts. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 22:28:33|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attends the completion and commissioning ceremony for the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS-3) in Beijing, capital of China, July 31, 2020. Xi declared the official commissioning of the newly completed BDS-3 system. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, officially announced the commissioning of China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS-3) on Friday. Xi made the announcement while attending the completion and commissioning ceremony for the newly completed BDS-3 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. After the ceremony, Xi visited the exhibition of the construction and development of the BDS, and listened to the introduction of project construction, operation services, application and promotion, international cooperation, and prospects for future development. Xi said the completion and opening of the BDS-3 fully reflects the political advantage of China's socialist system in mobilizing resources for major undertakings. It is of great significance to enhance China's comprehensive national strength, to promote China's economic development and improvement of people's livelihood under regular epidemic prevention and control, to promote China's opening-up under the current international economic situation, to further enhance national self-confidence, and to strive to achieve the two centenary goals, noted Xi. He said over the past 26 years, all personnel participating in the development and construction of the BDS have overcome difficulties, dared to fight hard battles and worked hard. They have cultivated a spirit in the new era which should be passed on and carried forward. Xi called for promoting BDS applications and ensuring good follow-up work, such as the stable operation of the system, to make new and greater contributions to China's economic and social development as well as the building of a community with a shared future for humanity. Premier Li Keqiang and Vice Premier Han Zheng, both members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, also attended the ceremony. The CPC Central Committee, the State Council and the Central Military Commission jointly sent a message of congratulations and greetings to all personnel participating in the BDS-3 project. The message said that all participating units and personnel had been working in solidarity and had overcome difficulties amid the COVID-19 epidemic to complete the construction of China's independent, open and compatible global navigation satellite system ahead of schedule. It noted that the completion and launch of the BDS-3 is a major milestone on the nation's journey to ascend the peak of science and technology, and develop its space industry. It added that this is a major contribution from China to the global public service infrastructure, and a major landmark strategic achievement of socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era. The BDS has entered a new stage of providing global services. Expanding the application of the system will face broad prospects and new challenges. The follow-up tasks, such as building a more comprehensive BDS with positioning, navigation and timing functions, are still arduous, said the message. It called for more efforts to carry forward independent innovation, openness, integration and unity, and pursuing excellence in the new era to make more contributions to the realization of the two centenary goals and the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation. China has explored its navigation satellite system in a three-step strategy. The BDS-1 project got official approval in 1994 and was completed in 2000. The BDS-2 was completed in 2012. The completion and official launch of the BDS-3 marks the success of the three-step strategy. China has become the third country in the world to independently own a global navigation satellite system. Currently, over 120 countries and regions in the world use the BDS. Enditem Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Alya Nurbaiti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, August 1 2020 Millions of Muslims in Indonesia observed this year's Idul Adha (Day of Sacrifice) under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic as health protocols limited the scale of festivities. But those who took part in the celebration said they could still find solace in the holiday, either with or without their families. Private sector employee Nadia Khairani works in Jakarta. She decided to travel to Bandung, West Java, to spend Idul Adha, which fell on Friday, with her family. It was the first time she had returned to her hometown since COVID-19 cases were detected in the country in March. The central government and the Jakarta administration had lifted travel bans that were previously in place during the Idul Fitri holiday in May. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login RESTON, Va., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Leidos Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: LDOS) today announced that its board of directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.34 per outstanding share of common stock of Leidos Holdings, Inc. The cash dividend is payable on September 30, 2020 to stockholders of record as of the close of business on September 15, 2020. About Leidos Leidos is a Fortune 500information technology, engineering, and science solutions and services leader working to solve the world's toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, civil, and health markets. The company's 37,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $11.09 billion for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2020. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com. Media contact: Melissa Lee Duenas 571.526.6850 [email protected] Investor Relations: Peter Berl 571.526.7582 [email protected] SOURCE Leidos Related Links http://www.leidos.com After recent dam failures caused massive flooding in mid-Michigan last spring, the state says it want to improve safety monitoring of state-regulated dams. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) announced Thursday that it will hire a third dam safety inspector for its Dam Safety Program. The department called the move an important first step in bolstering the program under EGLEs Water Resources Division in a statement. In May, a flood triggered by heavy rains and the failure of the Edenville and Sanford dams largely wiped out the village of Sanford, and flooded parts of downtown Midland and beyond. Midland County officials have estimated that the flooding caused upwards of $209 million in damage. More than 2,500 homes and businesses were damaged. About 150 were completely destroyed. Few properties had flooding insurance and many werent located in a flood plain. The newly hired senior environmental engineer will help track more than 1,050 state-regulated dams, the department said. EGLE also announced there will be a review of the states dam safety operations, performed by the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. That review will recommend ways to improve the performance and management of the program, and evaluate its mission, objectives, and policies and procedures, the department said in a statement. A new task force will do a review of dam safety throughout Michigan and how to avoid future failures. The Michigan Dam Safety Task Force will be made up of state and federal agencies, local governments and other affected stakeholders, the department said. It will provide recommendations to boost dam safety and hopefully prevent future dam failures, the state said. After reviewing findings from the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, which will also perform an independent review, the task force will, propose recommendations for program improvements that would help ensure that dams are appropriately maintained, operated and overseen to ensure the safety of Michigans citizens and aquatic resources, the department said. Last month, EGLE announced that a team of six experts will perform an independent forensic investigation of what contributed to the failures of the Edenville and Sanford dams. The department said that investigation could take up to 18 months to complete. The state is currently involved in lawsuits with Edenville dam owner, Boyce Hydro, seeking fines and compensation for major damage that occurred in mid-Michigan. MORE FROM MLIVE: Casinos can reopen, Up North gets more restrictions: A reminder of whats allowed in Michigan Trumps call to delay election more about politics than safety, Whitmer says A partial shutdown now could result in a safe reopening of Michigan schools this fall, experts say China's island province of Hainan has recorded 2.22 billion yuan (about 317.45 million U.S. dollars) in duty-free shopping by tourists from July 1 to 27, up 234.19 percent from the same period last year, the General Administration of Customs said Thursday. During the period, about 281,000 tourists visited the island, up 42.71 percent year on year. Starting from July 1, Hainan has increased its annual tax-free shopping quota from 30,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan per person each year. The range of duty-free goods has also expanded, growing from 38 categories to 45, while the previous tax-free limit of 8,000 yuan for a single product has been lifted. China released a master plan in early June on building the southern island province into a globally influential free trade port. According to provincial government statistics, authorities in Yunnan have dispatched more than 50 fleets of autonomous drones to help with crop monitoring and mobilized 57,000 people to assist with pest control efforts. Authorities in Southwest China are conducting emergency drills, spraying pesticide and deploying drones to ward off an invasion of crop-devouring locusts from neighboring countries. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs ordered the response after the pests were found to have damaged about 90 square kilometers (22,240 acres) of cropland over a one-month period in the border regions of Yunnan province, which lies adjacent to Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. The insects were found to be yellow-spined bamboo locusts, a species endemic to southern China and Southeast Asia, which feasts on major crops like rice, corn, bamboo and bananas. The ministry said at a forum Monday that effective prevention had so far stopped the unwelcome critters from causing extensive crop losses in the region. However, officials are bracing for possible widespread swarming in August, when more of the animals that hatched earlier this spring reach maturity. According to provincial government statistics, authorities in Yunnan have dispatched more than 50 fleets of autonomous drones to help with crop monitoring and mobilized 57,000 people to assist with pest control efforts. A person familiar with the pest control work, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, told Caixin on Wednesday: The swarms are constantly moving, so every township and county has to be on their guard. Wherever they land, we have to follow them. Some of the work has paid off, the person said, adding that as long as its not raining, were out killing bugs. But in other places, the damage has already been done. Although locusts have appeared in Yunnan every summer for the past three years, they caused particularly severe damage this July, according to a factsheet published by a research institute affiliated with the Yunnan Academy of Forestry and Grassland. Farmers in Puer, a prefecture-level city in Yunnan, told Caixin that clouds of locusts descended on their fields in mid-July, causing devastation on a scale not seen for years. Locusts are types of normally solitary grasshoppers that can start breeding in great numbers, swarming and migrating when they experience periods of drought followed by rapid plant growth. Contact reporter Matthew Walsh (matthewwalsh@caixin.com) and editor Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com) WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump drew immediate rebukes from across the political spectrum Thursday after proposing a delay to the November election and claiming without evidence that widespread mail balloting would be a "catastrophic disaster" leading to fraudulent results. The suggestion represented Trump's latest, and most dramatic, attempt to undermine public faith in the Nov. 3 election, with a series of attacks that have grown more frequent and emphatic as polls have shown his political fortunes declining. The president has gone after mail voting nearly 70 times since late March in interviews, remarks and tweets, including at least 17 times this month, according to a tally by The Washington Post. Thursday's tweet came on the heels of a report showing that the economy shrank nearly 10% from April through June, the largest quarterly decline since the government began publishing such data 70 years ago. The president does not have the authority to change the date of the general election, which is set by Congress. Trump encountered unprecedented pushback to his idea from senior Republicans on Capitol Hill and conservative leaders outside government, as well as legal scholars, historians and Democrats. Former president Barack Obama, speaking at the funeral of the late civil rights icon John Lewis in Atlanta, alluded to the intensifying war over voting rights, saying that "even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting." Obama, who has avoided public comments on much of Trump's presidency, did not specifically cite his successor's latest suggestion or mention him by name. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was among many Republican senators who quickly and unequivocally rejected Trump's idea. "Never in the history of the country, through wars, depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time," McConnell said in a television interview with WNKY of Bowling Green, Ky. "We'll find a way to do that again this November 3." Trump gave no indication that he would launch a serious push for the date change, or that he thinks he has the power to do so without congressional approval. But he appeared unfazed by the criticism. Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford He "pinned" the tweet in which he first floated the idea Thursday, fixing it to the top of his Twitter feed. "With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history," he wrote in the message. "It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" At a news conference late in the day, Trump said he does not want to delay the election but said the alternative is a "crooked election" that could take months or even years to resolve - suggesting that he is prepared to contest the results if he loses. "I want to have the election," he said. "But I also don't want to wait for three months and find out that all the ballots are all missing and the election won't mean anything. That's what's going to happen, and everyone knows it." Several Trump advisers said no internal discussions were underway within the White House about moving the date. The tweet caught aides by surprise, said one senior adviser, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations. "He is just trolling," said another. The Constitution gives the power to regulate the "time, place and manner" of general elections to Congress, while states control the dates of primary elections. Nowhere is the president granted such power. In addition, the Constitution's 20th Amendment spells out a hard end to a president's and vice president's four-year terms on Jan. 20, whether an election is held or not. "The president has no power to change the date of the election," said Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California at Irvine. "This is yet another statement by the president which undermines voter confidence and that seeks without evidence to undermine the legitimacy of voting by mail." No president has ever before tried to postpone a federal election, said historian Michael Beschloss. The idea was floated to President Abraham Lincoln in 1864, during the Civil War, and to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942, during World War II. Lincoln said at the time that postponing an election because of the "Southern rebellion" would mean "our system has been defeated," while Roosevelt said doing so while fighting fascists would mean "we have become fascists ourselves," Beschloss said. "That tweet claims powers that he does not have, period," he said. "He is not a dictator." One of the most dramatic critiques of Trump's tweet came from Steven Calabrese, a co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society, who wrote in an opinion piece published in The New York Times on Thursday that the idea was "fascistic" and "grounds for the president's immediate impeachment." Trump has enjoyed full-throated support from conservatives and nearly all congressional Republicans; the Federalist Society, for instance, has cheered on and even helped select his Supreme Court nominations. That backing appeared to wobble Thursday, with many Republicans not only alarmed by the president's apparent disregard for the limits of his power but emboldened to say so in public. "Election Day is and will be Nov 3, 2020," tweeted Republican Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary to George W. Bush. "Mr. President - please don't even pretend to mess with this. It's a harmful idea." Added Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., on Twitter: "We are not moving the date of the election. The resistance to this idea among Republicans is overwhelming." Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., weighed in similarly. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tweeted the relevant passage from the Constitution granting Congress the power to set election dates. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, told supporters at a virtual fundraiser Thursday that Trump probably was trying to steal attention away from Lewis's funeral. Other Democrats suggested that Trump's suggestion reflected a realization that he could lose to Biden, who has been leading in national and battleground-state polls. "Donald Trump is terrified," tweeted Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who is among those being considered as a running mate for Biden. "He knows he's going to lose to @JoeBiden. It will require every single one of us to make that happen. We will see you at the ballot box on November 3rd, @realDonaldTrump." Some Democrats used the occasion to promote how-to instructions on mail balloting. "President Trump is talking about delaying the November election because he is afraid of people voting by mail," Rep. Donna Shalala, D-Fla., said in a tweet, in which she included a link to a Florida government website with instructions on how to do so. "You know what to do," she added. The president of the American Postal Workers Union, Mark Dimondstein, also rebuked the president for undermining confidence in the U.S. Postal Service. He noted that there is "essentially no fraud" in mail balloting. "It's a tremendous insult for the president be railing against vote by mail over and over and over and over, railing against the post office," Dimondstein said. "It's an insult to every postal worker and every customer who trusts the post office." Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said on Fox Business that "obviously" the president understands that he doesn't have the authority to move the election. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Trump's tweet. Earlier this week at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, however, Attorney General William Barr told Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., that he had not studied the question of whether the president could move the election date. "I've never been asked the question before. I've never looked into it," Barr said. Biden suggested in April that Trump might try to move the election date. At the time, Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh accused Biden of "incoherent, conspiracy-theory ramblings" and said the president "has been clear" that the election will happen on Nov. 3. Another Trump campaign spokesman, Hogan Gidley, said in a statement Thursday that the president was merely "raising a question about the chaos Democrats have created with their insistence on all mail-in voting." In fact, most Democrats are pushing for mail balloting in addition to early in-person and Election Day voting - not universal mail balloting, as Trump has alleged - because even though many voters have expressed a new preference for voting by mail because of fear of infection, many other voters remain more comfortable casting their ballots in person. Trump has argued that mail-in voting tends to hurt Republicans at the ballot box, but some Republicans worry that the president's own rhetoric is what's turning their voters off from mail balloting. A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted this month found that 51% of Democrats prefer voting by mail this fall, compared with 20% of Republicans. A recent study by Stanford University researchers found no partisan impact of expanding voting by mail. At the congressional hearing, Barr repeated his concern that he felt there was a "high risk" that mail-in voting would lead to fraud but said he did not believe the election would be rigged - seeming to break with Trump. "I have no reason to think it will be," Barr said. Even if Congress voted to delay the general election, the electoral college is still required to elect a president under federal law. If lawmakers changed that, too, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence would still be required to leave office by noon Jan. 20. With no successor, the speaker of the House of Representatives, currently Pelosi, would be next in line. - - - The Washington Post's Elise Viebeck, Scott Clement, Matt Zapotosky, Erica Werner, Jacob Bogage, Seung Min Kim, Annie Linskey and Devlin Barrett contributed to this report. Comedy Central It has been 20 weeks since Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in her own home. And the cops who killed her still have not been arrested. If youre online a lot, youve probably seen Breonna Taylor being turned into just another meme, Trevor Noah said on Thursday night near the top of the 12-minute segment he dedicated to her story. While the people keeping her name trending may be well-intentioned, the Daily Show host said they were essentially using her name as a punchline. Memes are not the best way to honor someone who has passed, he continued. Its the reason Obama didnt dab at John Lewis funeral today. So instead of using jokes to examine her case, Noah instead decided to take viewers on a journey about her life and unnecessary death. After playing an extended montage about what Taylor was really like as a person, Noah said, Its actually nice to see the news covering a Black persons death at the hands of police by using their good pictures and not that one picture that makes us all look like weve robbed 50 banks. He added that you know Breonna Taylor was a good person, because if she had jay-walked once, the news would have been like, Frequent jay-walker and occasionally EMT Breonna Taylor was sadly killed by the police. Breonna Taylors Death Highlights Misogynoir in the Black Community Trevor Noah Unloads on Trump for Trusting Dr. Demon Sperm For the next several minutes, Noah recounted exactly how officers from the Louisville Metro Police Department ended up executing a so-called no-knock warrant, busting into Taylors apartment and fatally shooting her eight times even though they should never have even been there in the first place. They used bogus intel and came in guns blazing, even though they knew she wasnt a threat, he said. Every step of the way this investigation ran, the police screwed up. They made a million mistakes, which are a million more than any Black person is ever allowed to make. Then he corrected himself, saying they werent mistakes at all, but rather just actively not giving a fuck. Story continues Its one thing to shoot someone accidentally eight times, Noah added. But leaving her on the floor without any medical attention? That isnt an accident. Thats just a blatant disregard for Black life. And while those cops have still not been charged for the killing, Noah pointed out that dozens of mostly Black protesters in Louisville have been arrested. Every single day in America, were reminded that there are different criminal justice systems, depending on who you are, he said. Theres one for the rich and one for the poor. Theres one for white people, and theres a different one for Black people. And apparently theres also one for those who oppose police brutality and those who commit it, he added. Noah ended by telling viewers, What happened to Breonna Taylor wasnt a failure of the system, it was the system working as its intended. And that is why people are fighting for the system to be changed. For more, listen to Daily Show correspondent Dulce Sloan on The Last Laugh podcast. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. Grassroots knowledge from Indigenous people can help to map and monitor ecological changes and improve scientific studies, according to Rutgers-led research. The study, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, shows the importance of Indigenous and local knowledge for monitoring ecosystem changes and managing ecosystems. The team collected more than 300 indicators developed by Indigenous people to monitor ecosystem change, and most revealed negative trends, such as increased invasive species or changes in the health of wild animals. Such local knowledge influences decisions about where and how to hunt, benefits ecosystem management and is important for scientific monitoring at a global scale. "Scientists and Indigenous communities working together are needed to understand our rapidly changing world," said lead author Pamela McElwee, an associate professor in the Department of Human Ecology in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. "Many Indigenous peoples have unique abilities to notice ecosystems altering before their eyes by using local indicators, like the color of fat in hunted prey or changes in types of species found together. Scientists wouldn't be able to perform these kinds of observations over the long run for many reasons, including costs and the remoteness of some areas. So Indigenous knowledge is absolutely essential for understanding the cumulative impacts of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation." Indigenous and local knowledge is the practical information that people use to manage resources and pass on between generations. Such knowledge benefits conservation initiatives and economies that depend on natural resources in vast areas of the world. The study follows the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services released last year by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. That report was the first global ecological assessment to use Indigenous and local knowledge as a source of evidence. The new study, by researchers at many institutions who were part of the global assessment, provides background on how the report tapped into Indigenous knowledge systems and lessons learned. Working with these local sources of information in ecological research and in management requires a deliberate approach from the start, additional resources and engagement with stakeholders reflecting diverse worldviews, McElwee said. "Partnering with Indigenous peoples can help scientists and researchers understand how natural and cultural systems affect each other, identify trends through diverse indicators and improve sustainable development goals and policies for all," she said. North Korean defector 'shocked' by kindness in US, was taught Americans 'torture and kill' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A North Korean defector said he was shocked by the kindness he encountered when he first visited the United States because his home country portrays U.S. citizens as people who torture and kill. [The U.S.] is not just bad, Kim Geum-Hyuk, who now lives in Seoul, South Korea, said in an interview with the YouTube channel DIMPLE. America is a complete enemy for [North Korea]. They taught us to fight [Americans] til the end. I also was one of the victims of brainwash education so I had hostility toward America. According to Kim, who currently works as a peace ambassador for One Young World and is studying political science and diplomacy at Korea University, North Korea portrays Americans as "street dogs, wolves, and "people who torture and kill." But after arriving in California, Kim said he realized his home countrys depiction of U.S. citizens was "totally wrong. What I was taught in North Korea was an image of the coldness and wickedness of Americans, he said. They were an image of scary people to me, but it was totally wrong ... its totally different from the image that North Koreans think. I believed they were full of hostility, but they were just so nice, Kim added, expressing his surprise that "everyone actually said 'hi' on the street." Because he had never seen photos of the U.S., he was shocked at the beauty and size of the country. Kim said visiting the Grand Canyon was like going to Mars and that the size of Texas was bigger than he ever imagined. "[Americans are] so nice, funny, and open to anything, he said. There are Mexicans, Chinese, Koreans ... So many people made up one community ... I was just so surprised by the diversity." Led by Kim Jong Un, the North Korean regimes penchant for teaching its citizens anti-American propaganda is well documented. Painting the U.S. as an aggressive threat determined to destroy North Koreans, the countrys regime uses the fear of an outside threat to bolster national pride and government power. North Korean defector Jeon Geum-ju shared with The Washington Post how, from the earliest age, North Korean children are taught cunning American wolves want to kill them, while the countrys leaders are portrayed as godlike. A recently-discovered propaganda video revealed how the North Korean government seeks to silence Christianity by painting believers as religious fanatics and spies bent on undermining the stability of the hermit kingdom. The video, obtained by The Voice of the Martyrs, was allegedly used to teach state security agents how to identify and silence those who promote religion inside the country. North Korea has for the last 18 years ranked as the worst persecutor of Christians in the world on Open Doors USAs World Watch List. In the hermit country, those who profess Christ or are caught communicating with missionaries face severe repercussions like torture and imprisonment. Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American pastor who was held hostage in North Korea from 2012 to 2014, shared how the North Korean government is more afraid of Christians than nuclear weapons. According to Bae, most North Koreans have never heard the name of Jesus. "They said, 'we are not afraid of nuclear weapons ... we are afraid of someone like you bringing religion into our country and use it against us and then everybody will turn to God and this will become God's country and we will fall," Bae said. CHICAGO, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Midwest Hemp Coalition is continuing the mission of the Illinois Chapter of the National Hemp Industries Association (HIA) after the sudden, unexpected, and deeply disappointing decision by the HIA to close their State Chapters Program. As the Midwest Hemp Coalition, the organization will have the unique opportunity to help grow and advocate for the hemp market, in Illinois, as well as the entire Midwest region. Hemp became legal as part of the 2018 US Farm Bill and is used widely in healthcare, food and beverage, personal care, textile and many other industries. The global hemp market was estimated to be 4.71 billion in 2019 and is forecasted to grow at a rate of 15.8%. Currently, 9 out of 12 states within the Midwest region have active hemp commercial or research programs. In support of hemp producers and advocates, The Midwest Hemp Coalition is excited to extend an honorary membership to all 2020 members of the IL-HIA Chapter. The Midwest Hemp Coalition is also reaching out to all lapsed and pending members with a special two-year membership for the price of one. In addition, they are offering newly reduced membership levels for veterans, students, and qualifying social equity applicants. "Our mission is to increase accessibility and opportunity in the hemp industry through advocacy and diverse community connections. The industry and the Coalition's activities are particularly important in the current pandemic and recession," said Kalee Hooghkirk, Coalition President and owner of United Hemp Co in West Dundee, Illinois. "Partnering with other supporters is extremely important to us. The Midwest Hemp Coalition welcomes people from all aspects of our industry with a focus on creating space for minorities and women who historically have been disproportionately represented within the hemp and cannabis industry." The Midwest Hemp Coalition is eager to connect with legislators, educators, advocates, and business partners across the Midwest to strengthen and unify the regional hemp market. As the Coalition expands, it looks for opportunities to collaborate with associations across the country with similar missions including other former HIA Chapters and new hemp organizations. To join, learn more, and get involved, please visit the Coalition's new website: www.midwesthempcoalition.com. SOURCE Midwest Hemp Coalition Related Links https://www.midwesthempcoalition.com Seton Hall University is working with the City of East Orange and the Mayors Office of Employment and Training on a Virtual Summer Work Experience Program. The program, which started on July 1, runs through Aug. 21. It is being offered through VIP Online Academy, which was started in response to COVID-19 by author and entrepreneur Jamila Davis in partnership with civil rights activist Tamika Mallory and Love and Hip Hops Yandy Smith. The program is being directed by East Orange Mayor Ted Green and Juan Rios, director of the Department of Social Work at Seton Hall University. The program was made available to 300 East Orange residents between the ages of 14 and 20. Participants are paid $10 per hour for a 20-hour work week. Capacity for the program was reached quickly. Rios spearheaded the initiative at Seton Hall, identifying faculty presenters, assessing presentation themes from faculty and also presenting weekly workshops within the cohort. In addition to workshops on the cultivation of mental well being and the benefits of higher education and job opportunities within the academic world, the presentations often highlight the narratives of faculty members of color at Seton Hall who have beaten the odds to take their place in the academic world. Faculty workshops have also included leadership training. Rios has also developed the means to track and gauge the success of the program, measuring self-efficacy through a pre/post-test assessment model to provide data points on the outcome variables, thereby allowing for success-based adjustments in programming for subsequent iterations in East Orange and other cities. This is an extraordinary opportunity for us to reach into the community and begin to make a real difference in the lives of our youth, said Rios. This isnt about preparing students to achieve only in the future, but now with real marketable skills and the wherewithal for them to flourish personally, within the community and in the economy at large. This partnership between community leaders, entrepreneurs, activists of color and a university is a model that is innovative, current and absolutely necessary. Regular program participants and mentors from Seton Hall also include Majid Whitney, associate dean and director of Seton Halls Educational Opportunity Fund and freshman adviser and ROTC Military Science Instructor Julius Moore, who retired from the U.S Army with the rank of Sergeant First Class after 24 years of service, which included three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The virtual Summer Work Experience program offers six modules: OSHA 30 for construction and labor Media/Podcast Music Development Personal Care for hair, makeup, etc. Web/Graphic Design; Wellness/Physical Fitness Students choose one module and receive certification in that area upon completion of the six-week program. A small number of interested applicants have also received traditional on-site employment with the citys Department of Public Works and the East Orange Water Department. I cannot tell you how excited I am to be able to provide our students with a relevant job training experience that can translate into income long after this summer program ends, Green said. Weve had to shut down and cancel so much over the past few months, but there was no way we were going to allow COVID-19 to stop us from giving our young people a chance to learn and earn this summer. He continued, As successful as this program has been so far, were looking for meaningful ways in which to expand this partnership with Seton Hall, VIP and some of the many business leaders that have expressed an interest in doing more to bring marketable skills and employment to our youth. The online program, which emphasizes personal accountability, entrepreneurship and job training as well as academics, was started by Davis as a supportive resource to incentivize students to do well in school, discover viable career opportunities and learn to avoid poor choices. VIP Online Academy is the COVID-inspired virtual follow up to Davis work over the last three years with Smith and Mallory conducting community engagement services, providing workshops in schools, communities and cities throughout the country that teach students various specialized skills sets to help them to be successful and o make sound decisions. Partnering with Seton Hall and the City of East Orange will allow us to empower our students to choose the right road, right now, Davis said. And now is the time. It costs more than $60,000 per year to incarcerate someone in New Jersey, and even more in New York as a society, we simply cant afford to lose another generation to the streets. How much better would it be to help create a generation of business owners, entrepreneurs and employees? Those who would like more information or would like to talk about additional partnership opportunities are encouraged to contact the VIP Online Academy directly, which functions under the auspices of the nonprofit, Partners Uplifting Our Daughter & Sons, at info@viponlineacademy.com; or the City of East Orange at 973-677-8914 or eastorangeswep.org. By Chris Gallagher TOKYO (Reuters) - Some of Japan's best-known artists are finding new avenues of expression in areas such as online communication and the environment, as the novel coronavirus outbreak sparks ideas as radical as renaming the country's "Reiwa" imperial era. Five contemporary artists including Takashi Murakami were on hand on Thursday at Mori Art Museum for the unveiling of their "STARS" exhibition, which had been delayed by several months as the museum closed due to the pandemic. Murakami, with works on display including his iconic life-size sculptures "Miss Ko" and "My Lonesome Cowboy" as well as two new 20 metre length paintings, said expansion of his online business since lockdown was helping him communicate more closely with fans. "The museum exhibition was delayed and we're still not in a situation where a lot of people can gather, but I think human beings need communication through art," Murakami told reporters outfitted in mandatory masks and face shields. "So I'm conveying various messages in detail online," he said. South Korean-born Lee Ufan, a resident of Japan since the 1950s and known for promoting the "Mono-ha" art movement, described the pandemic as a warning over the impact that human development was having on the environment. He highlighted the improvement in air quality and freedom for wild animals to roam while the world was locked down. "This is the turning point where we need to go back to nature," Lee said. Photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, active in the United States since the 1970s, suggested turning the page on the pandemic by renaming the current Reiwa era, which began in May last year with the enthronement of a new emperor. He noted that Japan in ancient times changed era names when there was a disaster or epidemic. "We should immediately change the name Reiwa," he said. "It's like a calling from the gods - Reiwa is not a good name!" The exhibition, open to the public from Friday, also features works from Yayoi Kusama, Tatsuo Miyajima and Yoshitomo Nara. (Reporting by Chris Gallagher; Editing by Christopher Cushing) Students attending Nederland ISD will now return to campus or begin remote instruction on Aug. 31, with 30 minutes added to the end of each day, the district announced Thursday. NISD is the latest district in Southeast Texas to delay its in-person start date in order to better prepare the campus for learning during the coronavirus pandemic, distribute hot spot devices for students learning remotely and ensure all teachers have personal protective equipment. The No. 1 priority of Nederland ISD is to ensure the safety and well-being of our school community while providing students with an exceptional educational experience, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Stuart Kieschnick said in a letter to parents. This decision was not easy and was made after reviewing guidance issued by the Texas Education Agency, in consideration of recommendations by local health officials, and reviewing student, parent and teacher survey results. Beaumont ISD is the largest school district in the region to announce it would delay in-person schooling. The district last month initially announced three weeks of virtual instruction to begin the school year but increased it to four weeks. After the delay, which could be extended based on local health conditions, students can choose to learn on campus or virtually. Port Arthur ISD also announced last week it would begin with online-only education for all students. The four-week transitional period, from Aug. 18 to Sept. 11 or longer, will provide the district additional time to safely prepare for in-person instruction. Students will receive instruction through the Schoology platform, PAISD officials said in the announcement. Unlike those districts, Nederland will not provide virtual instruction during the delay. NISD will still add 30 minutes to each school day upon returning in order to meet state attendance requirements, which allow for a four-week transition period without in-person instruction. The district had already agreed on that extension earlier in the summer, when other districts opted to extend the school year with interspersed breaks designed to act as buffers in the event of another shutdown. There is nothing wrong with those options, but our committee decided to stick with a more traditional calendar, Kieschnick told The Enterprise at the time. Our committee decided to stick with a more traditional calendar, and in doing that we added 30 minutes to the school day. With just weeks before the planned start date, some parents will have to make alternative arrangements for childcare, the district noted in the letter. This situation changes daily and we have to adapt to the new challenges presented to us. Our goal is to provide the best educational experience for our students possible. We realize that this decision could place a burden on families who need to arrange for childcare, Kieschnick said. We apologize for the inconvenience. However, as a district, we feel this is necessary to keep our students and employees safe. We are eager to welcome your students back with open arms on Aug. 31. The last day of school will be May 26. The delay will be used to train students and parents in Google Classroom, distribute safety and health supplies, which the district says are currently on backorder, distribute mobile devices and further refine plans that help increase positive student outcomes. NISD also hopes the delay will contribute to flattening the curve of coronavirus. Teachers will return to campus on Aug. 10, and parents must choose between in-person or virtual classes by Aug 17. Updated information will be posted on Nederland ISD social media accounts and the district website. A return to campus remains weeks away for some Southeast Texas students but is imminent for others. While BISD, for instance, has pushed back its classroom returns to September, Bridge City ISD will see students return to class this coming Monday. isaac.windes@hearstnp.com twitter.com/isaacdwindes Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos during the hearing on July 29, 2020. Graeme Jennings-Pool/Getty Images Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos started to answer a lawmaker's question at Wednesday's tech antitrust hearing only to be told that he had to unmute his microphone. "Mr. Bezos, I believe you're on mute," one lawmaker can be heard saying. Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were all allowed to participate in the hearing remotely, due to the pandemic. It was a standout moment in the hearing and a sign of the times, as a powerful tech exec struggled with the same everyday annoyance as countless others during the current period of remote office work. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Wednesday was a historic day for the tech industry the CEOs of the sector's most powerful companies were grilled in front of Congress over antitrust concerns. The virtual nature of the hearing, however, meant that the executives attending remotely ran into some of the common pitfalls of modern remote work including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who at one point had to be reminded by lawmakers to unmute his microphone. Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL), asked all four leaders if they believe the Chinese government has stolen from American technology firms in the past. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg replied that he thinks such theft is "well-documented," before Bezos chimed in with his answer except that he started speaking with the mute button on. "You're on mute," Stuebe said. "Mr. Bezos, I believe you're on mute," said another lawmaker. Bezos unmuted, apologized, and proceeded to respond to the question. You can watch the clip, posted by a Twitter user, below. The exchange was a surreal moment as the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing protocols allowed for Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Zuckerberg, and Bezos to dial in virtually to deliver their testimonies at the hearing. Representatives of the House Judiciary's antitrust subcommittee were stationed in-person at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington DC to grill the four execs over business practices that they say might give them an unfair advantage in the marketplace. Story continues So far, the hearing hasn't generated the same kind of viral memes as previous Congressional tech hearings remember when Zuckerberg faced-off with Congress in 2018? but some viewers online took notice of the moment. It wasn't the only noteworthy example of how technology played a role in the hearing. The event was paused at one point so one of the four witnesses' video connection could be fixed. And Rep. David Cicilline's swearing-in of the CEOs was also telling, when he asked the witnesses to "unmute your microphone, and raise your right hand." Read the original article on Business Insider I see it in my dreams. I was 7. Our first night in the Tabernacle, the central building where we prayed, attended school and cooked and ate our meals, a blonde-haired girl in a denim skirt hissed as she walked by me. Just what we need, she said. Another city slicker. I soon learned that I had been paid the ultimate insult by this girl, and I would spend the next five years trying to prove her wrong. The farm had been established by people who knew what they were doing, but by the time we arrived, it was populated with well-intentioned people like my parents, whose backgrounds in civil engineering and music were useful to the group but not especially relevant to feeding a family. The crops were thin, the animals thinner. We were trying to live as far away from society as possible, and this meant little food for people and even less for animals. We children lived with our parents but spent our days in groups managed by other adults. One of my first shifts was in the cow barn where I was kicked into a pile of manure. I tried to regain my dignity by carrying two five-gallon buckets of milk up to the separator. The milk sloshed into my boots and my arms felt like they were tearing from my shoulders, but I made it. The blonde, a year older, tanned and wiry, trotted up behind me with her two full pails, flashing me a nearly sincere smile. The next day she put me on a horse, a stocky pinto mare, and told me I would be a true horsewoman when I had fallen off 100 times. I kept count. Falls 34 to 40 happened on one day. After each tumble, I limped over and dragged myself back onto the horse, my blonde nemesis watching astride the fence. I logged every fall, named the resulting scars on my knees, forehead and shins. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Josa Lukman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 11:58 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066aac25c 1 Art & Culture #theater,#art,#theater-group,#play,#digital,#culture,#streaming,#TeaterKoma Free Teater Komas Tanda Cinta (Sign of Love) provides a glimpse into a question all couples have probably thought about but repress: What happens when the spark disappears? After several streams of laugh-inducing plays, Bakti Budaya Djarum Foundations #NontonTeaterDiRumahAja program serves up something more dramatic. Tanda Cinta (Sign of Love) by theater troupe Teater Koma, one of Indonesias biggest and most prominent theatrical ensembles, streamed via Indonesia Kayas website and YouTube account. Virtual shows have become a popular way to reach the audience since the pandemic has made it almost impossible for many art groups to deliver performances like before. Teater Koma, for one, has announced the rescheduling of its 160th production, Sampek Engtay, from its originally planned premiere in March to Jan. 30-31, 2021 at the Ciputra Artpreneur theater in South Jakarta. Tanda Cinta, like previous entries in the program, was recorded footage, this one being from a series of performances held from July 27 to 29, 2005. The date of the original play is also significant, as it marked actors Nano Riantiarno and Ratna Riantiarnos 27th wedding anniversary. While that might be considered some neat trivia, the fact of the matter is that Tanda Cintas subject matter is very much relevant for any couple in a relationship. As the years go by: 'Tanda Cinta' centers on a married couple and the age-old question of love. (Courtesy of Teater Koma/-) Nano and Ratna portray a married couple entering old age, when the question hits: Does love still exist between us? The husband wants a simple yes-or-no answer to the question, but the wifes lengthy answer just raises more questions. For her, love does not always come in the form of words but also through action. For him, though actions are important, so are words. Still curious, the husband prints out leaflets to be spread in public with the question. With only a simple yes-or-no answer, he hopes to find an answer, but none of the leaflets are returned and thus, no answers. He asks the skies, but still no answer. As the years go by, the husband eventually finds that the answer was there all along: The faithful wife is the source of his answers, and his question has been answered long ago. Much of the play is straightforward with dialogues and monologues, with the addition of what can be considered performance art between scenes. Hear me out: Like other Teater Koma productions, 'Tanda Cinta' is filled with political undertones. (Courtesy of Teater Koma/-) Though the plays theme is rather serious, there are still laughs here and there, like how in a rant about political headlines and bad news, Nano slips in a line about theater criticism in the newspapers. Political themes are also very much prevalent in the play, like when the wife questions whether the husbands supposed 10,000 respondents could possibly represent the countrys 200 million inhabitants. Other laughs are less political, like how the wife teases the husband about an envelope full of pictures of women that he says is a stack of bills. However, he soon brings her an envelope filled with pictures of men, ostensibly hers. Tanda Cinta is reminiscent of a married couples daily life, with the husband and wife sitting in their chairs in the morning. He rants about political issues of the day while she listens patiently and contributes to the sometimes one-sided conversation. Amidst rants and arguments, questions and thoughts on love and relationships will show up regardless. The golden question of the play is a personal one, one that every couple should find the answer to in their own way. Nano, who also served as the director for the play, said the question could also be considered a latent question for society at large. If people loved each other, there would be no conflicts, no tensions related to race, ethnicity or religion, no corruption and the like. It is our shared task to foster love between humans, he said in a statement. As for Tanda Cintas origins, Nano revealed in an Instagram Live session ahead of the stream that the script was a gift for his wife to celebrate their anniversary. Meanwhile, Ratna said that, at first, she was disappointed with the gift but later warmed to the idea. After I thought about it some more, being given a script and playing it together has never been done before, so I was really proud of being given such a unique gift, she said. However, even though the script was created for a personal celebration, he noted that the married couple in the play was meant to represent couples in general. Its meant to be general, so that people can see [themselves], especially the ending; from their youth to old age. The main question is not answered at first, but it is answered as they become older, he said. Ratna said the love in the question was a metaphor, not as a love between husband and wife, but rather as love between all humans. If there is no love, then danger prevails. (ste) WASHINGTON - The annual meeting of world leaders at the United Nations is going virtual this year for the first time in its 75-year history because of the COVID-19 pandemic except for the likely personal appearance by President Donald Trump. Were hoping that President Trump will actually be speaking in person in the General Assembly, Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Thursday, adding that he will be the only leader to speak in the assembly chamber. In past years, thousands of people have flocked to New York for the annual meeting of world leaders at the General Assembly, known as the General Debate. During the weeklong gathering, presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and foreign ministers from the 193 U.N. member nations deliver a formal address, but much of the real action takes place at the hundreds of side events and private meetings, lunches and dinners. Because of COVID-19, General Assembly members agreed this month to have each countrys leader deliver a prerecorded speech that will be broadcast in the assembly chamber with a small number of New York-based diplomats allowed to be present. Just a few side events will be permitted. The speeches will start as scheduled on Sept. 22, but will be preceded by an event on Sept. 21 marking the U.N.s 75th anniversary. The theme: The Future We Want, the U.N. We Need: Reaffirming our Collective Commitment to Multilateralism. At that event, assembly members will formally adopt a declaration to commemorate the 75th anniversary that diplomats agreed on in early July. It recalls the U.N.s successes and failures and vows to build a post-pandemic world that is more equal, works together and protects the planet. Craft said that this years meeting is even more special because of the anniversary and that its important for the occasion to be amplified by all U.N. member nations. For the United States, she said, were going to be focused on human rights issues, on transparency and on accountability. Page Content The application process for the annual Hurricane Passes for the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season concluded at the end of the June. There are two types of passes, the Disaster Pass and the Hurricane Pass. Hurricane passes are issued to essential business owners and workers of essential organizations who comply with the requirements. The hurricane pass is only for the bearer and is issued to essential services workers and allows to access the public road to visit the place of business and to assess possible damage to their property and to continue their operations which are vital for society as soon as possible, only during certain hours that will be stipulated and announced by the Prime Minister under a curfew situation. The disaster pass is only for the bearer and is issued to essential services workers and allows to access the public road to visit the place of business and to carry out the necessary works and make sure to continue operations of essential services which are vital for society even during the curfew hours stipulated and announced by the Prime Minister. The bearer of the pass is not allowed to be traveling during the curfew with family members or employees who do not have a pass. The Office of Disaster Management that falls under the Ministry of General Affairs, handles the application process for the passes on behalf of the Prime Minister. The Hurricane Pass is valid for the 2020 and 2021 hurricane seasons and will remain the property of the Government of Sint Maarten. Any abuse of the pass can mean the pass will be taken away and the person will not be eligible to request a pass in the future. The pass system is a mechanism to maintain public order during emergency situations. The Prime Minister assesses the damage in conjunction with Emergency Disaster Management entities of the Government after a disaster has occurred and can impose a curfew if the extent of the damage poses a threat to the safety and security of the community. PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Angostura, world renowned for aromatic bitters, has added yet another flavour to its portfolio with the latest innovation- ANGOSTURA cocoa bitters. It's made using Trinidad and Tobago's own Trinitario cocoa which is a unique and untapped resource. In fact, the beans from the Trinitario cocoa are well-known globally for its bold characteristics, its depth of flavour and aroma, which command a premium price on the international market. T&T is designated as a 100% fine or flavour cocoa producer, a status it has held for decades. This latest innovation is part of Angostura's bid to promote our local agricultural treasure, cocoa, around the world. The Trinitario cocoa adds a sweet and elegantly balanced flavour to our bitters line which makes it one of our most exclusive innovations in decades. After years of continuous research and trials, the Angostura team led by Master Blender, Carol Homer-Caesar, created the perfect recipe for this latest product, using T&T's internationally famous, and indigenous, Trinitario cocoa to produce ANGOSTURA cocoa bitters; as we continue to push the boundaries of flavour, taking inspiration from our history and local heritage. Ms. Homer-Caesar says: "We believe our locally cultivated Trinitario cocoa delivers a far superior flavour profile to other geographic regions. Our hope is that our new, expertly crafted, cocoa bitters inspires people to create their own signature cocktail and food recipes to savour and enjoy with family and friends." The launch of ANGOSTURA cocoa bitters coincides with an unprecedented moment, when people around the globe are spending more time than ever at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has sparked a wave of 'DIY' in the kitchen at home and at bars. As a timeless brand that has been flavouring the world for the past 196 years, we have an opportunity to inspire mixologists, drinks enthusiasts and home chefs to seize this time of creativity and address their appetite for authenticity and natural ingredients. Angostura launched orange bitters 13 years ago, and today, we are proud to announce that as part of our efforts to support our local agricultural industry, we are adding cocoa bitters to our portfolio. Angostura's forecasts for the demand of cocoa will result in increased output in local cocoa production. We have already been in contact with many of the local producers to ensure a steady supply of cocoa for our production process which has put local producers in expansion mode. In fact, the demand for our latest innovation has already surpassed initial projections. We are delighted that this latest product is quickly capturing market share across the globe, which is exactly what our team had in mind when they were formulating the perfect recipe. As one of this country's major exporters, ANGOSTURA cocoa bitters will be exported to several markets including the U.S.A where it will be placed in over 1,200 Walmart stores in the introductory phase. It will also be sold in the U.K. and Europe. This has further enhanced our strategic position globally. ANGOSTURA cocoa bitters contains top notes of rich, floral and nutty cocoa combined with an intoxicating infusion of aromatic botanicals. Crafted to inspire creativity and experimentation with flavour combinations, this new product is ideal for use in both professional and at-home settings, and for sweet and savoury applications. It can be used to remix classic cocktails or put a luxurious spin on a main dish or sweet treat. It pairs perfectly with sweet vermouth or aged spirits, like whiskey, rum, cognac and tequila, while bringing new layers of depth and complexity to cocktails, such as the classic espresso martini. ANGOSTURA cocoa bitters can innovate your creations. For further information please contact: VITRA DEONARINE MARKETING MANAGER Tel: (868) 623-1841 ext. 290 Email: vdeonarine@angostura.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1221733/Updated_100ml_CocoaBitters_EU_Hero_0524_R05.jpg Thai renewable energy company BCPG plans to build Southeast Asias largest wind farm in Laos and sell its electricity to Vietnam. The company announced it will spend US$840 million developing the facility, which has a capacity of 600 megawatts (MW), on 64,000 hectares in southern Laos, according to Bangkok Post. The farm will be located near the Mekong River across the city of Ubon Ratchathani. Electricity will be sold to Vietnams state-run Electricity Vietnam (EVN). BCPGs president and chief executive Bundit Sapianchai said his company plans to sign a power purchase agreement with EVN this October to kick-start the project, named Swan. The company invests in the project through its subsidiary, Impact Energy Asia Development Co., which it owns 45 percent. The other 55 percent is held by Impact Electrons Siam. Swan construction will start after the signing. The wind farm is expected to enter operation in 2023. Bundit said Laos and Vietnam have an agreement to trade power across the border at a combined capacity of 5,000MW, so there is plenty of opportunity for investment. BCPG previously took over the 114MW Nam San 3A and 3B hydropower plants from a firm in Laos to sell electricity to EVN. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! We get it. It's hot outside. But cool weather is coming, even though we can't promise exactly when. In the meantime you can chill out with our quiz on snow, ice and the coldest weather in history. (Natural News) After the popular Americas Frontline Doctors (AFD) livestream event went viral the other day, the tech platform Squarespace, where AFD had been hosting its website, shut the whole thing down for alleged activity thats false, fraudulent, inaccurate or deceiving. A screenshot captured and shared by Dr. Simone Gold, who heads up AFD, reveals that Squarespace did not want to be left out of all the fun in censoring the group alongside Facebook, Twitter, Periscope, and YouTube, all of which blocked the video livestream event for spreading medical misinformation. Our website host @Squarespace has just completely and arbitrarily shut down our website, claiming a violation of their terms of service, Gold tweeted along with a screenshot of the message she received from Squarespace. This writer can confirm that while trying to write about the AFD event earlier in the week, I was unable to access the AFD website, which had been pulled within just hours of the livestream event. The homepage now generically states, This account has expired, along with information about how the owner can login. It is nothing short of disingenuous to even call AFD the owner of this website if Squarespace can simply delete its contents on a whim. But this is exactly what happened as AFD has been systematically silenced and canceled by the leftist mob from virtually the entire internet. While you can still watch the AFD livestream event at Brighteon.com here is one link among many it is impossible to share anything from either Brighteon or Natural News to any of the major tech platforms anymore, which means not as many people will be able to find it. Squarespace admits it can remove paying customer websites at any time, for any reason Prior to being pulled, the AFD livestream video had generated more than one million views on Periscope, which is run by Twitter. On Facebook, that number swelled to 17 million views, and at one point had 185,000 people simultaneously viewing it in real-time. On YouTube, a clip of the event had reached about 80,000 views before the Google-owned video platform struck it down for violating YouTubes Community Guidelines. The aforementioned tech platforms did the same thing, claiming that the AFD video contained dangerous information about the plandemic. According to Squarespace, the entire AFD website had to go because suddenly it stood in violation of Section 3.1 of our Acceptable Use Policy regarding activity thats false, fraudulent, inaccurate or deceiving. An email from Squarespace to AFD went on to explain that the tech provider supposedly maintains the right to suspend any organizations account at any time, and for any reason. We are a group of physicians advocating for a better understanding of COVID-19 and its available treatment options, tweeted Dr. Gold. This is outrageous. Since being pulled from Squarespace, AFD says it has received multiple offers from others companies to re-host the site. A professional designer and developer by the name of Sal Baldovinos, for instance, tweeted that he could have the AFD website back up and running in a matter of hours. My company offers a censorship-free web hosting service. We can definitely help you here and prevent something like that from happening again. Would you be interested in learning more? tweeted another by the name of Aaron Tao. As of this writing, AFD still does not appear to have a website up and running, and has mostly been communicating via Twitter as its page there has not yet been suspended or pulled, though Donald Trump Jr.s was for sharing the AFD video. For more related news stories about Big Tech censorship, and to keep up with the latest about this one as the situation develops, be sure to check out Censorship.news. Sources for this article include: Breitbart.com AmericasFrontlineDoctors.com NaturalNews.com Mumbai, July 31 : Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan, who is currently undergoing Covid treatment, took a late night walk in the hospital. Sharing the fact on Instagram, Abhishek posted a photograph from an empty corridor in the hospital. "Light at the end of the tunnel! #latenightwalks," he captioned the image. Abhishek received several messages from his friends and colleagues from the industry, wishing him good health. Reacting to the post, Abhishek's sister Shweta Bachchan Nanda wrote: "Soon". Filmmaker and choreographer Farah Khan Kunder commented: "Get well soon junior." Abhishek is in the hospital along with his father, veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan, who is also battling the coronavirus. Abhishek's actress wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and their daughter Aaradhya were discharged from hospital after testing negative for Covid-19 on July 27. "Thank you all for your continued prayers and good wishes. Indebted forever. Aishwarya and Aaradhya have thankfully tested negative and have been discharged from the hospital," Abhishek had tweeted after Aishwarya and Aaradhya's discharge. "They will now be at home. My father and I remain in hospital under the care of the medical staff," he had added. (Newser) Comedian Bryan Callen is facing allegations of sexual misconductincluding one rape claimweeks after allegations surfaced against his best friend, fellow comedian Chris DElia. Katherine Fiore Tigerman, who tells the Los Angeles Times that The Goldbergs actor raped her in 1999, came forward after reading about misconduct claims surrounding male comedians, including D'Elia's alleged pursuit of underage girls. She says she became friends with Callen in 1994, years before they would appear separately on MADtv. At dinner with the comedian one night, Tigerman says she felt nauseous and disoriented despite consuming only half a glass of wine. She says Callen then drove her to his place, where he pushed her down on the bed and raped her while she told him "no." Tigerman didn't go to police but immediately told her best friend and then-boyfriend, who corroborated the story along with others, reports the Times. story continues below The Times spoke with three other women who accuse Callen of misconduct. Rachel Green says she was working at an American Apparel store in Pittsburgh in 2009 when Callen pinned her up against a fitting room wall and kissed her. Claire Ganshert, who previously had an affair with Callen, claims he told her women have a "biological, primal desire to be raped" in 2016. And comedian Tiffany King says Callen demanded oral sex in exchange for stage time and money in 2017. Additionally, during a 2016 episode of Callen's podcast, comedian Whitney Cummings said Callen had pulled out his penis in front of her. "I remember being like, 'Oh, I'm just going to have to have sex with him because he's not going to take 'no' for an answer," she said. Cummings declined to speak to the Times. In a statement, Callen says "I have never raped, forced myself upon any woman nor offered to trade stage time for sex. EVER." Amy Schumer came out with a statement of support for the women interviewed after the story was published. (Read more sexual misconduct stories.) DETROIT - Fiat Chrysler overcame coronavirus-related factory shutdowns to post losses that were not as bad as feared, and the company predicted improving conditions for the remainder of 2020. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. FILE - This May 27, 2019, file photo shows the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles world headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich. A federal judge in Detroit dismissed General MotorsAo lawsuit Wednesday, July 8, 2020, alleging that rival Fiat Chrysler paid off union leaders to get better contract terms than GM. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File) DETROIT - Fiat Chrysler overcame coronavirus-related factory shutdowns to post losses that were not as bad as feared, and the company predicted improving conditions for the remainder of 2020. The Italian-American automaker lost just over $1.2 billion, (1.05 billion euros) but still made $46.2 million before taxes in North America, where it was forced to idle plants for about seven weeks. That sapped much of the revenue from its most profitable market. The company said Friday that it would have recovering profitability and positive free cash flows during the second half of the year, driven largely by North America. It said the normal summer factory shutdowns have been eliminated or shortened at most North America plants to meet stronger-than-expected demand for vehicles. The company lost an adjusted 77 cents per share from April through June, yet that was far better than the losses of $1.48 that Wall Street was bracing for, according to a survey by FactSet. The loss was a huge reversal from last years second quarter when Fiat Chrysler made $884 million. This May 12, 2020, photo shows a general view of the Renaissance Center, headquarters for General Motors, along the Detroit skyline from the Detroit River. A federal judge in Detroit dismissed General MotorsAo lawsuit Wednesday, July 8, 2020, alleging that rival Fiat Chrysler paid off union leaders to get better contract terms than GM. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) The company had warned that the second quarter would be much worse than the first, when it lost $1.84 billion. While the company remains vigilant about the health and safety of employees, our plants are up and running, dealers are selling in showrooms and online, and we have the flexibility and financial strength to push ahead with our plans, CEO Mike Manley said in a prepared statement. The company attributed the surprise performance to the successful and safe restart of its factories, which in the U.S. were closed from mid-March until May 18. 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. FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 file photo, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles FCA logo is shown at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Fiat Chrysler overcame coronavirus-related factory shutdowns to post losses that were not as bad as feared, and the company predicted improvement for the remainder of 2020. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, file) Fiat Chrysler still burned through $3.8 billion in cash to fund its operations during the period as vehicle shipments worldwide fell 63% to 424,000. It had nearly $21 billion in available liquidity at the end of June. The company said it still plans full-year capital spending of $9.48 billion to just over $10 billion as it rolls out five new electric vehicles during the year, plus a new three-row big Jeep SUV early next year and a redesigned Grand Cherokee in the third quarter of 2021. Four of the new electric vehicles will be made in Europe, Manley said Friday in a call with industry analysts and reporters. The electric vehicles include the battery powered Fiat 500 small car, a fully electric Ducato van, and plug-in gas-electric hybrid versions of the Jeep Compass, Wrangler and Renegade. The Wrangler will hit showrooms by the end of the year, Manley said. All will help the company meet rising global emissions and fuel efficiency requirements, he said. Fiat Chrysler currently doesn't make its own electric vehicle batteries, but Manley predicted all automakers will progressively begin to manufacture them, including assembly of cells into packs. He told analysts they would hear more on this from FCA and France's PSA Groupe as the year progresses. A proposed merger of the two companies is expected to be finished by the first quarter of next year. Twelve of 22 nations have given antitrust approval thus far, the company said. The merger will create the worlds fourth largest automaker that will be named Stellantis. On Tuesday, PSA said its first first-half profits fell to 595 million euros ($696 million) from 1.83 billion euros a year earlier. The Bombay high court (HC) last week granted temporary bail to a murder convict until December 31 on the ground that he is a senior citizen (65) and is at high risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2, which causes coronavirus disease (Covid-19). The two-member HC division bench, comprising Justices SS Shinde and Surendra Tavade, refused to grant regular bail to the murder convict, Sitaram Kamble, as it was not in a position to scrutinise the complete evidence in his plea for temporary bail. It, however, took note of the fact that Kamble (65) is a senior citizen and, as a result, very vulnerable if he is infected with SARS-CoV-2. The bench said: In such condition, the applicant can be released on temporary bail for a limited period. Earlier in November 2014, the Ratnagiri sessions court had convicted Kamble for life for the murder of a neighbour on February 1, 2013. The convict had killed his neighbour because of an illicit affair between his son and the murder victims wife. He had moved HC seeking regular bail during the pendency of his appeal against the conviction. It was argued on his behalf that the conviction under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was not sustainable in law, as the convict had inflicted a single blow of scythe in a fit of rage, and he did not act in a cruel or unusual manner. His lawyer, advocate Payoshi Roy, pointed out that the act had shown that since the convict had no intention to kill the deceased, at best it could be a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder attracting maximum punishment up to 10 years, and urged the court to release him on bail during the pendency of his appeal, as he had already served seven years in jail. Additional public prosecutor FR Shaikh opposed the plea. He argued that there are three eye-witnesses to the incident and the trial court had convicted him for the murder because the convict had inflicted a fatal blow with the sharp weapon on the chest of the deceased. HC refused to consider the plea for regular bail on the ground that it can be done only after scrutinising the complete evidence on record. The bench, however, granted Kamble temporary bail until December 31 and ordered him to report to the prison on January 1, 2021. Read this weeks overview of culture and travel stories from Slovakia. PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Glass master Marek Vanko melts and experiments with glass in an historical glass furnace from the 9th century in the Archeopark in Hanusovce nad Toplou, Presov Region, in late July 2020. (Source: TASR) Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled TRAVEL The Mountain Rescue Service (HZS) launched an app in Slovak - that allows tourists to call for help with one button and share their location with rescuers. Tourists can check the weather forecast and warnings in mountains anywhere in Slovakia. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Red or white? Pick the right wine for you from our detailed guide on Slovak wine. Moreover, discover all the best vineyards and wine manufacturers in Slovakia. Tokaj Wine Region in eastern Slovakia. (Source: SITA) 20,000 notes were released and are obtainable, just like the coin, from the bank only. The coin combines 24-carat gold with hand-coloured painting. The best place to observe the night sky free of light pollution in Slovakia is in the east, at Poloniny National Park. However, it is not recommended to come during a full moon. More information about travelling in Slovakia Please see our Please see our Spectacular Slovakia travel guide 10 AUGUST EVENTS IN SLOVAKIA Keeping all the coronavirus measures in mind, set out on a trip around Slovakia and attend one of the events from the list put together by The Slovak Spectator. Festivals, tours, and exhibitions dominate the selection. Top 10 August events around Slovakia Read more QUOTEWORTHY I see the folk costume at its utmost as a work of art, which in traditional culture bears similar importance to architecture, a song, or a tale. Karel Plicka, a late Czechoslovak filmmaker folklorist WEEKEND READS The best way to learn more about Slovakias folklore heritage is to pay a visit to traditional villages such as Osturna and open-air museums, like the one in Martin. Moreover, Slovakia boasts of several folk festivals. Nina Polakova (34) started to work as a soloist in the Ballet of the Slovak National Theatre during her studies. Since then, she has worked her way up to the role of prima ballerina in the Vienna State Ballet. Slovak ballet dancer Nina Polakova. (Source: Wiener Staatsballett/Ashley Taylor) Rugby player Charles Cimetiere refused to give up on his passion in Slovakia. He joined the rugby club, Slovan Bratislava, in 2009. He founded his own RKB club a few years later. Bringing World to the Classroom If you have a few more minutes, have a listen to The Slovak Spectator podcast, Bringing World to the Classroom, supported by the US Embassy in Bratislava. Colombian-Slovak photographer Gustavo Pizano talks about his life in Slovakia. You can find more podcasts here. No job, 200 dollars in his pocket. How a Colombian photographer became Slovak Read more The next Spectacular Slovakia Weekly: August 7, 2020. Read last week's roundup. A Harris County grand jury on Thursday indicted six former Houston police narcotics officers charged with crimes stemming from an investigation into a fatal 2019 drug raid, District Attorney Kim Ogg said. Grand jurors returned indictments against case agent Gerald Goines and his former partner, Steven Bryant, as well as four others: former Lt. Robert Gonzales, Sgts. Clemente Reyna and Thomas Wood, and Goines old partner, Hodgie Armstrong. All of the officers retired in the months after the raid. These indictments reinforce our decision to prosecute the graft, greed and corruption in this troubled Houston police division, Ogg said. We look forward to presenting all the evidence in a courtroom to a jury and the people of Harris County. Ogg previously charged the former officers in July with 15 felony charges, including lying on search warrants and other documents as part of a scheme to enrich themselves, or mishandling department finances. Prosecutors can file charges directly, but they must later be affirmed by a grand jury. Thursdays indictments make official the charges Ogg announced earlier in July. The grand jury also issued two additional charges against Hodgie Armstrong an additional tampering charge and a charge of aggregate theft by a public servant. Because the alleged misconduct occurred during the scope of the former officers jobs, they are being represented by their union, said Doug Griffith, vice president of the Houston Police Officers Union. My former members look forward to their day in court, he said, adding that he was troubled by allegations the six had been treated differently from other officers brought before a grand jury. The indictments are the latest to emerge in the investigation into the Jan. 28, 2019, Harding Street raid, which led to the deaths of homeowners Dennis Tuttle, 59, and Rhogena Nicholas, 58. Five HPD officers were injured in the raid. RELATED: 'An operation completely out of control' Damning HPD narcotics audit reveals hundreds of errors Ogg previously accused the sergeants of lying in documents by stating falsely that they witnessed the undercover officers handle drug transactions, Ogg said. She also accused the officers of lying in government documents to enrich themselves by boosting each others overtime hours a move Ogg called straight-up graft. The grand jury indictments mirrored the previously announced charges, but grand jurors filed two additional indictments against Armstrong: one for tampering with a government record and one for aggregate theft by a public servant. Houston police officers had accused Ogg of filing the charges as a political ploy to win public favor before the November elections. The indictments formal charges, not formal adjudications of guilt or innocence signal grand jurors agreed there was sufficient evidence to charge the former officers. Goines and Bryant had already been charged in state and federal court. Goines is charged with felony murder and tampering charges in state court, and civil rights violations and tampering charges in federal court. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. Bryant is charged with tampering in both state and federal court. Five of the six officers have been indicted with tampering with government records and aggregate theft by a public servant. Gonzales received one indictment of misapplication of fiduciary property, for reckless handling of police department funds. DEFENDANT LAWSUIT: Man who says false claims by Goines led to his imprisonment sues the former HPD narcotics officer Criminal complaints previously filed in the case show investigators found that multiple times Gonzales acted contrary to the police departments general orders, resulting in thousands of dollars of HPD funds being disbursed without proper authorization or verification. The documents also allege that Goines listed himself as present while executing search warrants when he was miles away and then requested overtime. Goines routinely inflated his overtime records, the documents allege, wrongly claiming thousands of dollars for hours he did not work. The charges come as the Houston department is responding to calls for more transparency in the wake of a spate of officer-involved shootings and an audit of the narcotics department that Houston Chief Art Acevedo refused for months to release. When Ogg announced the charges earlier in July, she said the charges came after officers lied repeatedly and intentionally cast aside HPD rules. Prosecutors believe as many as 160 defendants so far may need to have their convictions overturned because of Goines alleged misconduct. Three people have already seen their convictions reversed. New Delhi, July 31 : Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Cloud arm of retail behemoth Amazon, has become a $43 billion annualized run rate business, up nearly $10 billion in run rate in the last 12 months. According to Brian Olsavsky, Chief Financial Officer at Amazon, the companies are realising that their on-premise infrastructure is not really flexible to go up or down. "Especially in the time of sinking demand, it's a big fixed cost for them. So we're seeing migration plans accelerate. They're certainly not going to happen overnight, but we see companies moving more in that direction," he said during the company's earnings call on Thursday. The average contract length is over three years now for the AWS contracts. According to Olsavsky, they are also seeing a lot of companies that are really wishing that they had made more progress on the cloud "because they're seeing how companies that are on the cloud can turn into a variable cost and either scale up or scale down depending on their particular situation". Meanwhile, led by infrastructure offerings and data and analytics platform, Google Cloud has hit $3 billion in sales for the second quarter, up 43 per cent year-on-year. The Google Cloud Platform (GCP) maintained the strong level of revenue growth it delivered in the first quarter, and its revenue growth was again meaningfully above cloud overall. "The GCP growth was again led by our infrastructure offerings and our data and analytics platform. Overall, the lower Google Cloud revenue growth in the second quarter relative to the first quarter reflects the fact that G Suite lapped a price increase that was introduced in April last year," explained Ruth Porat, CFO, Google. "G suite maintained healthy growth in average revenue per seat as well as in seat growth, which does not include customers who took advantage of our free trials as they shifted their employees to work-from-home," he told the analyists after announcing the quarterly results on Thursday. According to Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, in the first half of 2020, technology and innovation proved to be a significant recovery mechanism for businesses. "Those who are shifting to digital and embracing the spirit to innovate are evolving and growing," he said. "Customers are choosing Google Cloud to either lower their cost by improving operating efficiency or to drive innovation through digital transformation,"Pichai added. ROME - A ship with the company Grandi Navi Veloci will arrive in Sicily in the coming days to allow for the transfer aboard of migrants who arrive on Italian shores and have to be placed in quarantine. The interior ministry assigned the contract from the July 26 call for tenders. The ship will most likely be anchored off the island of Lampedusa, and has more than 1,000 places: between 600 and 700 for migrants, after places are assigned for on-board personnel, police, and Red Cross personnel. The first migrants aboard will be those currently hosted at the Lampedusa hotspot and in the reception centre of Porto Empedocle. The interior ministry is also working to find a second, smaller ship that will be transferred to Calabria. CLEVELAND, Ohio Despite Republican President Donald Trumps wishes to delay the Nov. 3 presidential election, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, also a Republican, said that wont be the case. The coronavirus pandemic has necessitated that states shift how they run elections, with many pushing for expanded mail-in ballots to prevent potential spread at crowded poll sites. Shortly after news was released Thursday morning that the United States experienced its worst economic quarter for gross domestic product on record, Trump tweeted about delaying the election, erroneously citing inaccuracy and widespread fraud with mail-in elections which there is no evidence to support. With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 Trump often opines on mail-in voting in inaccurate ways. Evidence does not exist of widespread voter fraud, which the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan think tank, describes as a myth. Trump also doesnt have the ability to unilaterally postpone an election. The presidential election is set constitutionally and administered by the states. The United States must hold its election on Tuesday, November 3rd, LaRose said in his tweet. Ohio will have four weeks of absentee voting, early in-person voting and election day voting as we always have. And we will be ready. Ohio will have a safe, secure and accurate Election Day. The United States must hold its election on Tuesday, November 3rd. Ohio will have four weeks of absentee voting, early in-person voting and election day voting as we always have. And we will be ready. Ohio will have a safe, secure and accurate Election Day. Frank LaRose (@FrankLaRose) July 30, 2020 Gov. Mike DeWine also said Thursday that Trumps request was without merit. Theres absolutely no reason to think this election cannot be held on that day, DeWine said. This is not something the president can do. If there was going to be a change, it would have to be a change by Congress and the states. Thats not what we should strive for. I see no reason that that would occur. Trumps re-election chances are shaky right now, with Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden routinely leading in polls in crucial states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida. In Ohio, where Trump won by 8 percentage points in 2016, polls have consistently shown a close race between Biden and Trump. Read more politics coverage: Ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, four others indicted by grand jury in $60M bribery case How Cleveland Clinic and CWRU ended up landing the first presidential debate FirstEnergy connections are widespread in Gov. Mike DeWines administration Ohio House votes to remove Larry Householder as Ohio Speaker following corruption arrest Meanwhile, the Arlington County Board on Friday passed an emergency ordinance that bans groups of more than three people from congregating on sidewalks and streets that are posted with the restrictions and requires those who are walking to stay at least six feet away from others in those areas. Violations could include a traffic fine of up to $100, the county said in a news release. South Africa: Infrastructure Commission to fast-track projects valued at R340bn Government will in the coming months expedite the implementation of at least 50 infrastructure projects with a total investment value of more than R340 billion. The fast-tracking of the projects forms part of the reconstruction and recovery of the South African economy. This was the key outcome of the inaugural meeting of the reconstituted Council of the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission on Thursday. President Cyril Ramaphosa chaired the meeting, which brought together Ministers, Premiers, Mayors and the South African Local Government Association to ensure the effective integration of the countrys substantial infrastructure programme. President Ramaphosa said the focus of this administration is to consolidate infrastructure under one roof to ensure effective implementation. Our experience has been that infrastructure can only be sustainable if there is cooperation and partnership between all three spheres of government and if there is a common intent, he said. In terms of the Infrastructure Development Act of 2014, the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission (PICC) acts through its council. The council coordinates the development, maintenance, implementation and monitoring of the National Infrastructure Plan; coordinates the determination of priorities for infrastructure development; designates strategic integrated projects (SIPS) and ensures that infrastructure development, in respect of any SIP, is given priority in planning, approval and implementation. The council also coordinates the identification of strategic partners with which to conclude agreements that seek to promote the objects of infrastructure development. The council must ensure that infrastructure projects promote economic equality, social cohesion, decent employment opportunities and skills development. In keeping with this mandate, the council agreed to expedite the implementation of projects in prioritised sectors such as human settlements, transport, energy, water and sanitation, agriculture and agro-processing, and digital infrastructure. The council confirmed a new approach to infrastructure build including: Preventing corruption through transparent tender processes and stronger due diligence; Greater involvement of communities in design and implementation; Emphasis on local employment and procurement, and targeted involvement of SMEs, and Blended financing through the Infrastructure Fund to mobilise more resources from the private sector, multilateral development banks and development finance institutions. President Ramaphosa emphasised the vital importance of infrastructure development in responding to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, restoring growth and creating jobs. Extraordinary measures are required to return us to a path of sustainable growth. Central to this effort is infrastructure construction and maintenance, which is the flywheel for economic growth and large-scale job creation, he said. - SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has received credentials from the newly appointed ambassadors of Denmark, Afghanistan, Lithuania, Montenegro, and Saudi Arabia, the head of state's press service has said. According to the report, Zelensky received credentials from Ambassador of the Kingdom of Denmark Ole Egberg Mikkelsen, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Wali Monawar, Ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania Valdemaras Sarapinas, Ambassador of Montenegro Dragica Ponorac, and Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Suleiman al-Mashar. The head of state congratulated Mikkelsen on the beginning of his mission in Ukraine as ambassador of Denmark. "I know you had a mission in Poland. We are good neighbors with Poland, and I think that this experience will help you a lot in Ukraine. We are different sovereign states, but it seems to me that people are very similar," Zelensky said. He also thanked the Danish side for its strong support of Ukraine, in particular for the recently transferred rescue equipment to overcome the consequences of floods in Ukraine's western regions. Zelensky also expressed hope that Denmark would continue to support Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and continue sanctions policy against Russia. During his conversation with the ambassador of Afghanistan, Zelensky stressed the need to intensify the bilateral political dialogue with this country, as well as to realize the potential of Ukrainian-Afghan cooperation in the trade, economic and defense spheres. The president thanked the Afghan side for its constructive position within the international group for coordination of assistance to the victims of the crash of the Ukrainian plane (flight PS752) in Iran. Zelensky also thanked the ambassador of Lithuania for its firm and consistent support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and the significant practical assistance in the sphere of the country's European and Euro-Atlantic integration. "I congratulate you on the beginning of your important mission in Ukraine. Ukraine and Lithuania have warm, good relations at such a difficult time. When the war broke out in our country, Lithuania was one of the first countries to support Ukraine at all levels, to support our sovereignty and territorial integrity," he said. The importance of strengthening bilateral trade, economic and investment cooperation was stressed. The president emphasized a common interest in holding a regular meeting of the Council of Presidents of Ukraine and Lithuania in Kyiv at the end of 2020. In a conversation with the newly appointed ambassador of Montenegro, Zelensky stressed Ukraine's readiness to develop practical cooperation in all areas of mutual interest. The measures being taken by Ukraine and Montenegro to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on citizens in view of the tourist period were discussed. "Ukrainians love Montenegro very much. They love to holiday there. You have very beautiful nature, a very beautiful country," Zelensky said. He also expressed readiness to develop political contacts with Saudi Arabia and stressed the interest of the Ukrainian side in expanding cooperation in trade, economic, agricultural and defense spheres, as well as in the field of aircraft construction. The president invited the King of Saudi Arabia to pay his first official visit to Ukraine. Zelensky thanked the ambassador of Saudi Arabia for the support of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and expressed hope that Riyadh would be able to help protect the rights and freedoms of Crimean Tatars who are under difficult conditions of occupation in Crimea. op WASHINGTON (AP) Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that he remains confident that a coronavirus vaccine will be ready by early next year, telling lawmakers that a quarter-million Americans already have volunteered to take part in clinical trials. But if the future looks encouraging, public health alarms are still going off in the present. Officials testifying with Fauci at a contentious House hearing acknowledged that the U.S. remains unable to deliver all COVID-19 test results within two or three days, and they jointly pleaded with Americans to comply with basic precautions such as wearing masks, avoiding crowds, and washing their hands frequently. Those simple steps can deliver the same bang for the buck as if we just shut the entire economy down, said a frustrated Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, adding that he has studies to back that up. Looking ahead, Fauci said he's "cautiously optimistic that we will have a vaccine by the end of this year and as we go into 2021. I dont think its dreaming ... I believe its a reality (and) will be shown to be reality. As the government's top infectious disease expert, Fauci heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Under White House orders, federal health agencies and the Defense Department are carrying out a plan dubbed Operation Warp Speed to deliver 300 million vaccine doses on a compressed timeline. That will happen only after the Food and Drug Administration determines that one or more vaccines are safe and effective. Several candidates are being tested. Don't look for a mass nationwide vaccination right away, Fauci told lawmakers. There will be a priority list based on recommendations from scientific advisers. Topping the list could be critical workers, such as as medical personnel, or vulnerable groups of people such as older adults with other underlying health problems. But ultimately, within a reasonable period of time, the plans now allow for any American who needs a vaccine to get it within the year 2021, Fauci said. Fauci, Redfield, and Department of Health and Human Services testing czar Admiral Brett Giroir testified at a moment when early progress against the coronavirus seems to have been frittered away. High numbers of new cases cloud the nations path. The three officials appeared before a special House panel investigating the government's pandemic response, itself sharply divided along party lines. Story continues Nearly 4.5 million Americans have been infected with COVID-19, and more than 150,000 have died. In recent weeks the virus has rebounded in the South and West, and now upticks are being seen in the Midwest. Testing bottlenecks remain a major issue. Asked if it's possible to deliver coronavirus test results to patients within 48 to 72 hours, Giroir acknowledged it is not a possible benchmark we can achieve today given the demand and supply. But rapid, widespread testing is critical to containing the pandemic. It makes it easier for public health workers to trace the contacts of an infected person. Delayed test results only allow more people to get infected. Giroir said a two- to three-day turnaround "is absolutely a benchmark we can achieve moving forward. While hospitals can generally deliver in-house test results within 24 hours, large commercial labs that do about half the testing for the country take longer, particularly if there's a surge in new cases. The latest government data shows about 75% of test results are coming back within 5 days, but the remainder are taking longer, Giroir told lawmakers. The bitter politics surrounding the U.S. response to the coronavirus was evident at the hearing by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. As the health officials were testifying, President Donald Trump in a tweet repeated a false claim that high numbers of U.S. cases are due to extensive testing. Committee Chairman James Clyburn, D-S.C., tried to enlist Fauci to rebut the president. And Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio tried to press Fauci into saying that demonstrations against police violence toward Black Americans spread the virus and should be curbed. Fauci didn't bite. You make all kinds of recommendations, Jordan said, taking aim at Fauci. You made comments on dating, baseball, and everything you can imagine ... Im just asking should we try to limit the protesting? Fauci said it's not his role to opine on curbing political protests. But Jordan shot back, noting that church services have been shut down due to virus precautions, and implying that Fauci has a double standard on two First Amendment rights, religious liberty and freedom of expression. Im not favoring anybody over anybody, Fauci answered. And I dont judge one crowd versus another crowd. When youre in a crowd, particularly if youre not wearing a mask, that induces the spread. Some Trump supporters have urged the president to sack Fauci, and the president's tweet raised the stakes. During the hearing Clyburn had displayed a chart showing rising cases in the U.S. juxtaposed with lower levels across Europe. That caught the president's eye. Trump tweeted: Somebody please tell Congressman Clyburn, who doesnt have a clue, that the chart he put up indicating more CASES for the U.S. than Europe, is because we do MUCH MORE testing than any other country in the World. Clyburn turned to Fauci for a real-time fact check. Now Dr. Fauci, the chairman intoned, do you agree with the presidents statement, or do you stand by your previous answer that the difference is caused by multiple factors including the fact that some states did not do a good job of reopening? Fauci answered directly. I stand by my previous statement that the increase in cases was due to a number of factors, he said. One was that in the attempt to reopen, that in some situations, states did not abide strictly by the guidelines that the task force and the White House had put out. 'The most important thing to do is to stop taxing citizens so brutally,' recommends T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan. Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com Now that practically every economy in the world is down on its knees, a question that was frequently asked 75 years ago, when the Second World War ended, is being asked again: How to get them back on their feet and trotting again? It's not that hard a question, provided you remember two answers from back then. If you don't -- and it is likely that you either don't or were never taught it -- here it is. One is known as the Harrod-Domar model. The other is the Big push Theory. The former is named after a British economist, Sir Roy Harrod, and Mr Evesy Domar, a Russian-American economist. The latter is due to P N Rosenstein-Rodan, a Polish-American economist. The Harrod-Domar model addressed itself to a political problem: How to maintain a high rate of employment? Remember, this was when Communism was all the ideological rage in Europe and used unemployment as fodder. Rosenstein-Rodan, too, tried to provide an antidote to communism. His solution was called the Big Push Theory. The Harrod-Domar answer was, in Clintonese, 'It's investment, stupid.' The more an economy invests, the model said, the better off it would be in terms of expansion of output and employment. Rosenstein-Rodan's Big Push theory said the same thing, but emphasised that achieving economic growth was like getting a plane off the ground. Just as it needs a critical minimum speed, an economy also needs a critical minimum level of investment. In both, the important thing was the term 'critical'. China, South Korea, and other East Asian countries focused on that part. India, obsessing over equity, focused on 'minimum'. China has been investing around half of its GDP. India invests not even half that. Look where China is. Look where we are. So that's all there is to it, folks, investment. Increase it and you are flying. Decrease it and you are taxiing forever. Import substitution The question still remains, though: Invest, yes, but with or without tariff protection? India got it all wrong between 1957 and 1991, when it provided high tariff protection to a low-investment economy. The result was economic disaster. Then came the 1991 reforms, which undid this foolishness. But over the next 20 years it overshot the tariff protection thing by lowering tariffs for everything far too much. And, to make matters worse, it kept the rupee overvalued. China did the opposite. As a result, the Chinese moved in and Indian industry has got destroyed. Manufacturing contributes less than 20 per cent to GDP. This is what the Modi government has been trying to reverse, without much success so far, because of Mr Modi's mistaken dalliance with China. But now that China has spurned his love, the atmanirbhar effort has to be accelerated and tripled by increasing tariff protection to micro, small, and medium enterprises. An increase of just 15 to 20 per cent will suffice to kick-start Indian manufacturing. Critics will protest that this is a 'reversal of reform'. I would put it differently, that it's just a response to China, which refuses to observe any rules whatsoever. There is no shame in protecting your industry against predatory pricing and exchange rate policy of the sort China practises. Less taxation, please But how can the savings rate go up so that investment also goes up? The first thing to do is to give up the pretence to socialism. It's like a ball and chain around our feet. The most important thing to do is to stop taxing citizens so brutally. All told, Indians part with a little over half their incomes by way of taxes. Even the Mughals didn't take so much although they had 12 separate taxes. Given the new costs of education, health, communication, transport, and loan servicing, this rate of extraction means that there is very little left to save. The middle class is paying for a billion Indians. We need a single GST rate of 15 per cent, and two slabs of income tax of 15 per cent and 30 per cent for annual incomes of Rs 30 lakh a year and above, respectively. The finance minister wrote a few days ago 'NDA (has) brought in major reforms in taxation. Corporate tax was reduced to 15 per cent for new manufacturing companies and for the old to 22 per cent.' Madam, it is the turn of the citizens now. Remember what Colbert said: 'The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.' This is Mr Modi's last chance. If he can do all this, he will truly achieve Make in India and atmanirbharta. Economic historians will judge him by this just as they judge P Chidambaram by his bold cuts in income tax rates in 1997 and Manmohan Singh by his 1991 reforms. By 2030, that's all that will matter. Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com Armstrong World Industries, Inc. (NYSE:AWI) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in 4 days. You can purchase shares before the 5th of August in order to receive the dividend, which the company will pay on the 20th of August. Armstrong World Industries's next dividend payment will be US$0.20 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of US$0.80 per share. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Armstrong World Industries stock has a trailing yield of around 1.1% on the current share price of $71.71. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. So we need to check whether the dividend payments are covered, and if earnings are growing. See our latest analysis for Armstrong World Industries If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Armstrong World Industries reported a loss after tax last year, which means it's paying a dividend despite being unprofitable. While this might be a one-off event, this is unlikely to be sustainable in the long term. Given that the company reported a loss last year, we now need to see if it generated enough free cash flow to fund the dividend. If cash earnings don't cover the dividend, the company would have to pay dividends out of cash in the bank, or by borrowing money, neither of which is long-term sustainable. It paid out 25% of its free cash flow as dividends last year, which is conservatively low. Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends. Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing? Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it's easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. If business enters a downturn and the dividend is cut, the company could see its value fall precipitously. Armstrong World Industries reported a loss last year, but at least the general trend suggests its income has been improving over the past five years. Even so, an unprofitable company whose business does not quickly recover is usually not a good candidate for dividend investors. Story continues Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. In the past two years, Armstrong World Industries has increased its dividend at approximately 6.9% a year on average. We're glad to see dividends rising alongside earnings over a number of years, which may be a sign the company intends to share the growth with shareholders. Remember, you can always get a snapshot of Armstrong World Industries's financial health, by checking our visualisation of its financial health, here. To Sum It Up Is Armstrong World Industries worth buying for its dividend? We're a bit uncomfortable with it paying a dividend while being loss-making. However, we note that the dividend was covered by cash flow. Overall, it's hard to get excited about Armstrong World Industries from a dividend perspective. In light of that, while Armstrong World Industries has an appealing dividend, it's worth knowing the risks involved with this stock. Case in point: We've spotted 1 warning sign for Armstrong World Industries you should be aware of. A common investment mistake is buying the first interesting stock you see. Here you can find a list of promising dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend. 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. A journalist has slammed the 'black and white' selfie challenge saying that the Wonderbra had done more to support women than the social media challenge. This week Instagram feeds were flooded black and white selfies taken by women with vague captions about supporting each other, with the aim of empowerment. But the campaign quickly backfired because nobody is clear on whether there's a political purpose behind it or not. Some have claimed that it has been hijacked after women in Turkey started posting black and white images to raise awareness of femicide. Speaking to Rochelle Humes and Dermot O'Leary on This Morning, from her home in south London journalist Kat Brown (pictured) said she consider posting a black and white snap from an old Wonderbra campaign as that's doing more to support women. Speaking to This Morning hosts Rochelle Humes and Dermot O'Leary from her home in south London journalist Kat Brown said she consider posting a black and white snap from an old Wonderbra campaign because that's doing more to support women. 'The issue with this is, as you say, it's not really a campaign, it's a hashtag that's been used several times before,' she explained. 'Back in 2016 it was used for that awfully nebulous "cancer awareness" which anyone who's experienced cancer loathes because raising awareness doesn't do anything. 'Social media journalist Taylor Lorenz at the New York Times was speaking to Instagram about how it's being used by women in Turkey to highlight their murder. Host Rochelle Humes, who posted a black and white selfie to her Instagram, admitted she didn't realise it was a campaign at first. Pictured is her image The show was hosted by Rochelle Humes (right) and Dermot O'Leary (left) who discussed whether the selfie challenge was vain or a celebration My issue is 100 per cent not with women posting pictures, one of our roles as loyal friends and women is to post "Yes Queen and three fire emojis" anytime a friends posts a gorgeous picture. My issue is that it feels like the old days of Facebook when somebody, usually an aunt of somebody, would post one of the chain mails 'There are so many important hashtags we could be looking at instead. Kat (pictured) said that she doesn't have an issue with women posting pictures, but the lack of the call to action amid the photos Jennifer Aniston posted a picture and said 'I don't really understand what this challenge is about, but register to vote 'Or Alexa Chung who posted a pictured of Breonna Taylor who was murdered in the states by three police men. 'There's no defined call to action in this hashtag, which is why people are making up their own. Host Rochelle Humes, who posted a picture, admitted she didn't realise it was a campaign at first. TV presenter Anna Williamson, who spoke via videolink from her home in Hertfordshire, told the hosts that she posted a selfie because it's been a 'very challenging and negative time for a lot of people'. He selfie is pictured Like a lot of people on Instagram, I got nominated. It was sort of a generic message. I just thought, "How lovely, women backing other women". 'As a lot of people did, I posted my picture, and I didn't realise until the day that there was part of a bigger image.' TV presenter Anna Williamson, who spoke via videolink from her home in Hertfordshire, told the hosts that she posted a selfie because it's been a 'very challenging and negative time for a lot of people'. Alexa Chung shared a pictured with the hashtag. Instead of a selfie she shared an image of Breonna Taylor, an Amerian paramedic who was shot by police while she slept in her bed 'I'm so supportive on the campaigns, I think there's great positive people, I've got fellow women's backs, then we find out it's about Turkish femicide, I've now educated myself on that When I got these in my inbox, I thought it was vacuous but when I got my 12th, 13th nomination it made me feel special, I thought: "Yay, thank you for making me feel less rubbish today".' Millions of women who have posted flattering black-and-white photos of themselves this week using the hashtags #WomenSupportingWomen and #ChallengeAccepted in the name of female empowerment. Celebrities such as Reese Witherspoon, Khloe Kardashian, Eva Longoria, Jennifer Aniston, and Kelly Rowland have all taken part in the social media 'challenge,' though many have found Ivanka's participation to be problematic for a number of reasons. Friends star Jennifer Aniston said that she didn't understand the challenge but encouraged her followers to register to vote New York Times writer Taylor Lorenz pointed out that people have been sharing black-and-white photos using the #ChallengeAccepted hashtag since 2016, including a campaign to raise awareness for cancer. A representative from Instagram told The New York Times that the earliest post for 'this current cycle of the challenge' was shared a week and a half ago by Brazilian journalist Ana Paula Padrao. Others have claimed that the trend was recently started in Turkey when women began sharing black-and-white photos to raise awareness about femicide and domestic violence. Many have participated in the challenge without question simply because they were nominated by their friends, and the recent backlash has even led some, including Jennifer Love Hewitt, to delete their #ChallengeAccepted posts. Jamie Doran doesn't just have a lawyer in his upcoming legal battle against Channel 10: he also has the Lord Almighty on his side. The 40-year-old, who is suing the network over his negative portrayal on The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise, quoted a Bible verse on Instagram on Thursday. He updated the caption of his earlier post announcing his intention to sue Channel 10 for defamation with a simple message: '1 Samuel 17:45 NIV.' Cryptic: Bachelor in Paradise star Jamie Doran has updated the Instagram caption of his earlier post announcing his intention to sue Channel 10 for defamation over hurtful editing. It now reads '1 Samuel 17:45 NIV', which is a verse from the Bible That particular Bible passage states: 'David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied."' Jamie has made no further comment on the significance of the Bible verse, leaving fans to interpret it however they wish. On Thursday, the firefighter officially started legal proceedings against Chanel 10 and Warner Bros. by hiring a defamation lawyer to represent him. God on his side: That particular Bible passage states, 'David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied"' He has hired Sydney lawyer Keith Redenbach, a partner of Redenbach Lee, who also represented Married At First Sight star Nasser Sultan in his case against The Daily Telegraph two years ago. 'Channel 10 came out with a statement basically saying Jamie was bluffing,' a source close to Jamie told Daily Mail Australia. 'Now he has lawyered up. He wants to take a stand for all future reality stars who are bullied and slandered on national TV.' Taking action: On Thursday, the firefighter officially started legal proceedings against Chanel 10 and Warner Bros. by hiring a defamation lawyer to represent him. He has hired Sydney lawyer Keith Redenbach, a partner of Redenbach Lee, who also represented Married At First Sight star Nasser Sultan (pictured) in his case against The Daily Telegraph two years ago Mr Redenbach helped Nasser win an undisclosed financial settlement from The Daily Telegraph in 2018. The newspaper had falsely claimed that Nasser had 'gatecrashed an A-list event' in Sydney when he had actually been invited as a special guest. Jamie announced on Wednesday morning that he was taking legal action over his negative portrayal in the Channel 10 dating franchise. Jamie has been portrayed as a 'stage-five clinger' on Bachelor in Paradise so far this season, and received a similar edit on The Bachelorette last year. Bad wrap: Jamie has been portrayed as a 'stage-five clinger' on Bachelor in Paradise so far this season, and received a similar edit on The Bachelorette last year 'This is not the news I wanted to post, but I feel I owe this to at least my family, friends, and also fans of The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise,' he wrote on Instagram. 'After lengthy consideration, I've decided to begin legal proceedings against Network 10 and Warner Bros. Australia. 'I'm not going to comment on this any further for the time being and would appreciate it if people would respect my privacy.' The junior market has seen a spate of recovery stories this week, hinting a V-shaped return to pre-pandemic levels could become a reality for some. If so, they would be bucking the wider trend, according to the Office for National Statistics, which said 57 per cent companies expect turnover to drop this year. While fallers made up the largest slice of the pie this week, there were some notable risers. Coronavirus crisis: The junior market has seen a spate of recovery stories this week Zinc Media Group surged 41 per cent to 60p after winning 2.7million of new business since May. The TV company resumed production faster than planned and now has more than 20 programmes in the pipeline, including Britain's Lost Masterpieces for BBC4. A different sector but same story: Immotion Group shot up 31 per cent to 2p after the aquariums where it operates virtual reality experiences opened for business. Meanwhile, marketing agency M&C Saatchi jumped 26 per cent to 56p after contract wins with TikTok, BP and the UK government. Belvoir Groups shares rose 9 per cent to 141p after it said it expects to hit its pre-lockdown targets. Turning to the wider market, the AIM All-Share rose 0.6 per cent to 889, recouping Thursdays losses, while the FTSE 100 wallowed in the red with a 1.9 per cent fall to 6,008. Drug developer Diurnal rose 57 per cent to 47p after a positive meeting with the US regulator. The gains would have been more significant but for a bout of mild profit-taking. Sticking with the sector, Tiziana Life Sciences surged 30 per cent to 214p after submitting a patent application for the potential use of a Foralumab administered nasally or by mouth for the treatment of COVID-19 either alone or in combination with other antiviral drugs. It also said the demerger of its StemPrintER unit was progressing to plan. M&C Saatchi jumped 26% after contract wins with TikTok, BP and the UK government Oncimmune Holdings rose 15 per cent to 137p after its collaboration with Swiss giant Roche was expanded substantially, so it eyes an increase in the value of the contract. Fellow pharma developer SkinBioTherapeutics advanced 12 per cent to 22p after announcing its cosmetic skincare partnership with FTSE 100 specialty chemicals producer Croda is progressing well, while it is recruiting participants to study a separate food supplement for psoriasis patients. In the mining sector, Cora Gold soared 55 per cent to 12p after revealing the discovery of a new 1,500-metre gold zone adjacent to its flagship Sanankoro Gold Project in Mali. Similarly, Ariana Resources advanced 19 per cent to 5p after flagging the resource at its Salinbas project has increased in size by 50 per cent. Elsewhere, mass spectrometry instruments producer Microsaic Systems jumped 40 per cent to 0.7p on the news it may be up for sale, although investors did not react well when it was first revealed. Likewise, property manager HML Holdings was up 24 per cent to 36p after agreeing to a takeover offer from private firm BDB Nominee, valuing the company at 19million. Meanwhile, building services firm Bilby climbed 26 per cent to 22p after announcing net debt at the end of June was 7million, the same levels of March, despite disruption caused by the pandemic. Among the fallers, oil and gas company Coro Energy lost 18 per cent to 0.3p after scrapping the sale of its Italian portfolio to Zenith Energy because regulatory approval could not be obtained before the July 31 deadline to conclude the deal. Peer Echo Energy slipped 17 per cent to 0.5p after raising 475,000 by placing shares at a 17 per cent discount to continue funding the Santa Cruz Sur project in Argentina. Finally, miner Oracle Power shed 8 per cent to 0.6p despite signing an initial agreement with the private office of Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, a member of Dubais ruling family, to potentially explore mining opportunities in Africa. Though some districts have pledged to return to in-person classes, most appear headed to full-time online instruction or a hybrid approach, ensuring that education by internet will remain a staple in Illinois. Students, parents and teachers interviewed by the Tribune were mostly unenthusiastic but understanding about their experiences with virtual learning in the spring, noting that the pandemic forced the quick adoption of an educational model for which many were not prepared. Christine Osburn Jackson stood from the safety of her front door Friday, socially distanced from the small group who had assembled outside her home to celebrate her life's work in civil rights. Though a small woman, the former executive director of the YWCA Greater Charleston an organization dedicated to empowering women and eliminating racism was called by city officials Friday a "towering force" in the lives of thousands of Charleston residents who are still benefiting from her work. "We're so thankful that fate and divine providence led her here to Charleston years ago," said Mayor John Tecklenburg, who presented Jackson with a proclamation in honor of her 92nd birthday, which is Saturday. Jackson's roots in America's civil rights movement run deep. Born in Alabama in 1928, she inherited a passion to engage in social activism from her parents, who participated in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march that saw protesters beaten by law enforcement on a day known as "Bloody Sunday." She married the late Rev. E.L. Jackson, an Alabama civil rights activist who marched alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The couple moved to Charleston in 1963 after the Rev. Jackson was fired from his job for marching with King to the Alabama State House to pray. Jackson, though, has even closer ties to the King family. She is the first cousin of Coretta Scott King, social justice champion and deceased wife of the Rev. King. The Jackson family's work with King would continue in South Carolina. Jackson was with the Rev. King during his final appearance in Charleston in 1967 when he spoke for more than an hour before 3,000 people at the old County Hall on King Street. King would be assassinated nine months later. For 37 years, Jackson led YWCA Greater Charleston. She oversaw the group's expansion of women and empowerment programs, which included day care, summer camp, voter registration programs, and the annual Tribute to Women in Industry. In 1972, Jackson founded the annual celebration honoring Rev. King, which is considered today the state's largest tribute to the civil rights leader. Jackson's journey has involved the challenge of having to overcome barriers brought by racism, including a legal battle early in her career that eventually resulted in the end of segregation among YWCAs in Charleston. Among her many awards and accolades, Jackson was best known for her skill in recruiting volunteers. "When Mrs. Jackson called, you just couldn't say no," Tecklenburg said. Attending Friday's ceremony were Christine Jackson's daughter Kim Jackson, City Councilwoman Carol Jackson and Geona Shaw Johnson, the city's director for housing and community development. City officials took the opportunity to shed light on the city's Substantial Rehabilitation Program, which provides assistance for homeowners for home repairs. Jackson's home was chosen earlier this year for rehabilitation and the house received work including exterior painting, window replacement, HVAC installation, floor replacement and electrical work. "We are thankful for the opportunity to give back to a person who's given so much to our community," Shaw Johnson said. Jackson's daughter, Kim, thanked the city for rehabilitating her mother's home and invited well-wishers to celebrate her mother's birthday in a motorcade. The motorcade will depart from First Baptist Church of James Island at 12:45 p.m. Saturday and proceed past Jackson's residence, paying tribute to the Charleston legend who fought for racial equality and women's empowerment. One of the Queen's bodyguards was arrested on suspicion of drugs possession after white powder was found in a bathroom at St James's Palace. The private was said to have nine bags of cocaine and ketamine among his possessions after police searched his room and car at Wellington Barracks by Buckingham Palace. The Coldstream Guardsman was arrested on Tuesday by the Royal Military Police and has been removed from ceremonial duties pending the outcome of the investigation. The private was said to have nine bags of cocaine and ketamine among his possessions after police searched his room and car at Wellington Barracks by Buckingham Palace Officers launched an investigation after white powder was found in the guardroom toilets where the soldier had been on duty, reported The Sun. They then uncovered five bags of what was suspected to be cocaine and four of ketamine, a horse sedative that is also a Class A drug. An Army spokesman told MailOnline: 'We can confirm that a soldier from the Coldstream Guards has been arrested for a suspected drug offence by the Royal Military Police. 'It would be inappropriate to comment further.' The Coldstream Guards, nicknamed 'Lilywhites,' were formed in the English Civil War when Oliver Cromwell gave Colonel George Monck permission to have his own regiment. After Cromwell's death, Monck supported the monarchy and on January 1, 1660, crossed the River Tweed into England at the village of Coldstream and began a five-week march to London. It is the oldest continuously-serving regiment in the British Army. Alongside serving as an elite infantry regiment is has a ceremonial role as protectors of the royal palaces, including Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace. The Regimental Band of the Coldstream Guards is one of the oldest and best-known military marching bands in the world. A view of a Plataine manufacturing plant. Plataine's optimization systems have been installed in heavy industrial plants, such as wind-turbine manufacturing, automotive supplies, furniture manufacturers and civilian-aircraft production sites. (JNS) - Despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and increasing tensions between the United States and China, Israeli companies continue to view China as a major market for growth and development. Executives from two such companies have told JNS in recent weeks about their ongoing operations in China. The PTL Group is an Israeli-owned Chinese company that provides support to multiple international companies taking their first steps in the Chinese market. Its chairman, Zvi Shalgo, said in a statement that "the demand for the Chinese market goes on and continues to grow. We haven't seen compa... SAN DIEGO With the coronavirus pandemic affecting sailing as much as it has other sports, an American-based team planning to compete in the next Ocean Race will relocate from France back to Rhode Island. Newport-based 11th Hour Racing will leave France on Saturday aboard its 60-foot foiling monohull on a trans-Atlantic voyage that will take approximately 11 days. It will give the sailors a chance to get back in their element after a long pandemic-forced shutdown and to test everything from a radical new hydrofoil to a collision-avoidance system. Given the uncertainty of the world, we want to be closer to home and closer to our sponsor, Charlie Enright, co-skipper along with fellow Brown alum Mark Towill, said in a phone interview. The team has been off since December due to the pandemic and a boat retrofit. The next edition of the Ocean Race had been scheduled to start in October 2021 but has been pushed back a year. Thats had a very dramatic effect to planning and operations, Towill said. Weve just been trying to stay safe and take this thing seriously. Towill said the crew has an extensive COVID policy in place, and has found theres a fine balance between trying to keep the program moving along while being safe and responsible. Weve been wearing masks while sailing in France, living together, essentially being in a bubble. When we set sail, well definitely be in a bubble on the boat. The boat will be sailed with the normal crew of four males and one female, plus onboard reporter Amory Ross. Towill, the team CEO, was scheduled to make the voyage but had to tend to a personal issue in Hawaii. He is being replaced by Justin Shaffer, who is in charge of special projects. Also on the crew are veteran ocean racer Simon Fisher of Britain, former Americas Cup champion Kyle Langford of Australia and 2017-18 Ocean Race participant Emily Nagel of Bermuda. Fisher won the Volvo Ocean Race in 2014-15 as navigator of Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and sailed with Enright and Towill in the 2017-18 VOR. Langford sailed every offshore leg with third-place finisher Team Brunel in 2017-18. He won the Americas Cup in 2013 with Oracle Team USA and was with the Australian team that won the inaugural SailGP title last year. The voyage will give the crew a great opportunity to test a new hydrofoil. Being in the middle of the ocean is the best way to get hours on the water, Towill said. When youre day sailing, you only get a few hours of quality sailing, but when you sail across an ocean, its 24/7. The team is committed to ocean health. With the amount of trash increasing in the oceans, the crew will test a collision-avoidance system called OSCAR. Its a growing concern for us, Towill said. We have observed more and marine debris in the ocean, which has been at the top of our minds. The collision-avoidance system includes powerful cameras mounted on top of the mast. The crew has also installed equipment to measure carbon dioxide, among other things, in the ocean. Towill and Enright said the amount of microplastics in the oceans is staggering. Its not what you see, its what you dont see, Enright said. If youre looking for a visual, watching a refrigerator float by is scary. We wouldnt want to hit that with the new foil. Towill and Enright are motivated heading into their third ocean race. They have finished fifth both times, including in the last edition after two major setbacks. Their sloop collided with a Chinese fishing boat in the dark while approaching Hong Kong at the end of Leg 4, killing one person aboard the fishing boat, which sank. The race boat was also damaged and had to be shipped to New Zealand. The sloop dismasted off the Falkland Islands while the team was in second place on Leg 7. The crew motored to the Falkland Islands, where a jury rig was fashioned before a delivery crew motored the 1,200 nautical miles to the next port. The crew finished second and first on the races last two legs. Towill and Enright arent daunted by what can happen on the high seas. I think thats part of what this race is all about, Towill said. You try to do your preparation and planning, and inevitably you do the best job you can dealing with what you didnt prepare for and what it throws at you. ___ Follow Bernie Wilson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/berniewilson 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 ST. JOHNS, N.L.A former Provincial Court judge will lead a public inquiry into Newfoundland and Labradors search-and-rescue protocols for missing people. Judge James Igloliortes appointment was announced Thursday. There have been calls for such an inquiry since the 2012 death of 14-year-old Burton Winters. His body was found on sea ice outside Makkovik, in Labrador, after he had disappeared while snowmobiling. The provincial government says details about the $2-million public inquiry will come in the fall. Igloliorte is expected to help shape the nature, scope and mechanisms of the inquiry, which was first announced in December 2018. The Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry is interested in resuming the work of the Ukrainian-Italian Council for Economic, Industrial and Financial Cooperation, Infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Kryklii has said. He said this at a working meeting with Italian Ambassador to Ukraine Davide La Cecilia, the ministry's press service told Ukrinform. "Vladyslav Kryklii thanked the ambassador for fruitful bilateral cooperation between the two countries in the field of transport and stressed the ministry's interest in resuming the work of the Ukrainian-Italian Council for Economic, Industrial and Financial Cooperation to intensify cooperation in transport and infrastructure," the report said. The sides discussed prospects for further cooperation between the two countries in various areas. Kryklii praised the long-term and mutually beneficial relations between Ukraine and Italy in the field of aviation and stressed his readiness to sign a joint aviation agreement with the EU, which provides for the removal of existing restrictions on Ukrainian airlines' requests for scheduled flights to Italy. He reaffirmed his readiness to act on the principle of reciprocity, positively considering all requests from air carriers to be appointed by Italy. The participants in the meeting paid attention to the development of cooperation between the two countries in road transport. Kryklii briefed the ambassador on a number of important investment projects planned in the industry, including in the construction of roads, bridges, concessions of seaports and railway stations. The parties also discussed possible cooperation between Ukravtodor and Alitalia in the field of road infrastructure development and "smart roads." In addition, the sides noted the importance of developing airports and container trains. op RTHK: Republicans push back against Trump's poll delay bid Republican Party officials from New Hampshire to Mississippi to Iowa quickly pushed back against President Donald Trump's suggestion that it might be necessary to delay the November election which he cannot do without congressional approval because of the unfounded threat of voter fraud. They reassured voters that the election would proceed on the constitutionally mandated day as it has for more than two centuries. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley was especially blunt: "All I can say is, it doesn't matter what one individual in this country says. We still are a country based on the rule of law, and we want to follow the law." New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu vowed his state would hold its November elections as scheduled: "End of story." The top Republicans in the House and Senate, who have spent the past four years championing Trump in Congress, also distanced themselves from the notion of a delayed election. It was a rare rebuke for Trump from his fellow Republicans, but one that might not last. There was little conservative opposition to Trump's broader push to raise questions about the legitimacy of the November 3 election, including his suggestion that a delayed result because of mail-in ballots would be a sign of fraud. The simple reality remains that Republicans up and down the ballot later this year need Trump's fervent base on their side to have any chance of winning. The dynamic has forced Trump-backed politicians to walk a delicate balance as they condemn the president's most erratic behavior and ideas while trying not to upset his die-hard loyalists. At the same time, many Republican leaders are struggling under the weight of health, economic and social crises that the Trump administration has failed to contain. Mississippi Governor, Tate Reeves, said he would do "everything possible" to avoid another shutdown but could not rule out the possibility. Reeves encouraged Trump to embrace a reelection message focused on his ability to revive the nation's economy, a familiar suggestion from frustrated Republican officials, though the president has shown little interest in adopting a consistent message. Reeves said he opposes any plan to change the election date. But he said he remained "100% committed to doing everything possible" to help Trump beat Democratic rival Joe Biden in November. Indeed, Trump confidant Jerry Falwell Jr, the president of Liberty University, said he would support Trump's call to delay the election "until things are normal so people can walk in. Trump cannot change the election date without the approval of Congress, and policymakers in both parties made clear they would oppose such a move. Trump's ultimate goal, however, may have less to do with the election date than undermining the results of the election if he loses. Current polls suggest that Trump is trailing Biden by a significant margin in several swing states. (AP) This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. File photo Vanguard reports that the Nigerian Army said on Thursday that it had begun an investigation into the circumstances that led to the attack in Borno state, Professor Babagana Zulum by Boko Haram terrorists who opened fire on his convoy, which made the Governor abort his trip to Baga to distribute Palliatives to IDPs in the area. The Army regretted the incident saying it was an isolated and most unfortunate incident that occurred in a territory where normalcy has since been restored with socio-economic activities picking up. A statement to this effect was issued by Col Sagir Musa, Acting Director, Army Public Relations and titled, Re: report of Attack on The Convoy of Borno State Governor. It reads, The convoy of the Executive Governor of Borno State, Professor Babagana Gana Zulum came under Boko Haram terrorist fire while visiting Baga Town on the 29th of July 2020. The Executive Governor had earlier paid a visit to the Commander, 19 Brigade at the Nigerian Army Super Camp Baga where he was fully briefed about the prevailing security situation in the general area. The unfortunate incident occurred shortly after the Governor and his entourage departed the Super Campaign to visit other parts of Baga town. The incident forced the Governor to abort his planned movement to Baga. Although, details of the unfortunate incident are sketchy and under investigation, efforts are ongoing to comb the area where the incident occurred with a view to track down and deal decisively with the attackers. An investigation is also in progress to identify the circumstances that led to the attack. Regrettably, this is an isolated and most unfortunate incident that occurred in a territory where normalcy has since been restored with socio-economic activities picking up. The Nigerian Army wants to reassure the general public that this will be interrogated with a view to forestalling future re-occurrence. Additionally, Nigerian Army wishes to inform the general public that it will continue to discharge its responsibilities professionally with respect for the fundamental human rights of all Nigerians and in compliance with the extant rules of engagement. The good people of Baga town and indeed the entire Borno State are enjoined to continue to provide credible information that will assist the security agencies to successfully combat terrorism as well as apprehend and flush out the perpetrators of the attack. Presiding Bishop, Living Faith Church Worldwide, David Oyedepo has said that the world will soon realise that they have been grossly d... Presiding Bishop, Living Faith Church Worldwide, David Oyedepo has said that the world will soon realise that they have been grossly deceived by the Coronavirus outrage. He threw his weight behind the purported discovery of Dr. Stella Immanuel that antimalarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and antibacterial drug, Zithromax, were effective cures for the virus. Oyedepo spoke at the Covenant Hour of Prayer programme of his church. a noise from hell. According to him, he had said severally that this coronavirus stuff was a mere noise, anda noise from hell. I watched something yesterday on the Frontline Doctors in the US. Its a noise from hell and there is nothing hidden that is not known by God. Nothing! Every positive report contrary to that demonic propaganda is doused, it is not allowed to have expression because of the evil machinations of the perpetrators. Now, they will know that Gods greatest interest on the earth are the souls of men and everyone that is out to destroy them, my God will destroy them, he said. Oyedepo stated that there there was no week the Church did not have testimony of coronavirus, saying its like fever. There is nothing there, its like fever! Evil intentions, evil scheming. What is coronavirus? We have found a cure they say it is not relevant. They got it off YouTube, got it off all the various platforms just to keep their propaganda going. But I can tell you this, God is in the midst of His people. Everyone that is after the souls of men to destroy them, they shall all be destroyed in the name of Jesus Christ. Whatever they have as intention is falling on their heads, on their families, their generations in the name of Jesus! If somebody comes out and say we have treated 350 people with this drug and none died, they say, No, thats not necessary. So, whats necessary? To kill them is necessary or to force your demonic vaccines on human race? Who knows what you have inside it? To turn human beings to properties for wealth sake, for political reasons? The same way Pharaoh perished because he wont let people go, these evil men will disappear into shame and ignominy, wherever they may be and whatever forces are behind them. Its mere noise. The Bible calls it noisome pestilence. It just came with noise, zero. Ebola came, we didnt shut down. Zero. It didnt make the first 20 of the worst viruses that visited the earth, so whats the noise about? Well, the world will discover that they have been deceived, he added. Oyedepo said he had been saying that before, and that the world would soon discover that they had been grossly deceived, saying I refuse to be deceived. I refuse forever! Jesus is the resurrection and the life, what is coronavirus that everybody is making nonsense? Noise-making all kinds of demonic money. The good news is, Christ is still strong in the midst of His people. Our rescue is here! Those who wont let others live, they will not live. Those who want to instill fear for their selfish reasons, my God will deal with them, he said. Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-01 03:11:39|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Carrying forward the traditional friendship between China and Algeria is a shared obligation and serves the common interests of the two peoples, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Friday in a phone talk with Algerian Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum. The China-Algeria traditional friendship condenses the devotion of the two heads of state and becomes firmer as time goes by, Wang said, adding that the friendship has been further demonstrated as the two countries work together and help each other to overcome the difficulties in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Noting that Algeria is the first Arab country to establish comprehensive strategic partnership with China, Wang said China is ready to work with the Algerian side to formulate a new five-year plan for comprehensive strategic cooperation through consultation, coordinate efforts to advance anti-epidemic cooperation and resume production of key projects in an orderly manner, continuously deepen joint construction of the Belt and Road (B&R), so as to create a new milestone in the friendly cooperation between the two countries. For his part, Boukadoum said the two sides should cherish and carry forward the traditional Algeria-China friendship, and continuously deepen their comprehensive strategic partnership. As one of the first countries to sign the agreement on the B&R cooperation with China, Algeria is willing to accelerate the promotion of establishing key cooperation projects within the framework of Belt and Road Initiative, and expects China to play an important role in constructing more major projects in Algeria. Boukadoum said the Algerian side sincerely thanks China for providing anti-epidemic materials assistance, and is ready to work with China to overcome the COVID-19 outbreak at an early date. The two sides also exchanged views on other issues of common concern. Boukadoum expressed strong concern over the deteriorating situation in Libya, expecting the Chinese side to play a constructive role. Wang elaborated on China's principled position of being committed to a political settlement of the issue. Enditem Health sources said another GP, aged in their 30s, has also been hospitalised after being infected with the virus while working at a drive-through testing clinic. It comes as 65 more healthcare workers were revealed to have tested positive to the virus on Friday and another outbreak spread through St Vincents Hospital in Melbourne. At least six staff at the hospital have tested positive to COVID-19 in the hospital's general medicine ward that provides care to immuno-compromised patients with complex multi-system disorders and single organ donation problems. Staff in the ward have been ordered to wear personal protective equipment at all times, with all patients to be treated as if they are COVID-19 positive. "Contact tracing is underway and close contact staff are being placed in precautionary quarantine as that process continues based on potential exposure," the hospital said in a statement. "To minimise risk to our patients and staff, we have commenced asymptomatic testing of all staff who work on this ward." The three doctors and radiographer in intensive care are among more than 1000 healthcare workers who have been infected with the virus since the pandemic began. As of Friday afternoon, there were 614 healthcare workers with active coronavirus infections. Australian Medical Association Victorian President Julian Rait said healthcare workers were growing increasingly concerned about their own safety and the welfare of their colleagues. Hundreds of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals from major Melbourne hospitals have been sent into isolation at home after COVID-19 clusters spread through emergency departments, a coronavirus ward, an oncology unit and two rehabilitation wards in recent weeks. "The AMA is extremely disappointed that we have been raising concerns about safety of healthcare workers for many months and we are very distressed that some healthcare workers are becoming seriously ill after being exposed to COVID-19 in the workplace," Professor Rait said. "There are naturally many distressed and anxious healthcare workers and doctors-in-training who are aware of a number of their peers who have become unwell after being infected." Professor Rait said the early-career doctor is understood to have been exposed to COVID-19 while working with infected patients. Worryingly, the young doctor seemed to be part of a growing cohort of healthcare workers that appeared to be infected on the job rather than outside their workplace, Professor Rait said. The AMA has been strenuously calling for more personal protective equipment, such as N95 surgical masks, gloves and gowns, to be provided to hospitals as frontline workers treat a growing of wave of critically ill people. The "gold standard model" was Western Health which requires all staff in high-risk areas to wear N95 face masks and a face shield, he said. Australasian College for Emergency Medicine president John Bonning said serious questions remained about how and where infections were occurring in hospitals and greater transparency around reporting of official data was needed. "This is a deeply distressing development," he said. Dr Bonning said the risk of the virus spreading in hospitals was being exacerbated by a lack of inpatient beds currently facing many hospitals and the long periods of time that patients wait in emergency departments. Professor Rait said he did not want to see a repeat of the tragic situation experienced by other countries in the world, like Italy and the United States, where about 20 percent of frontline medical workers had been infected and many had died. "We want to make sure that zero workers are infected through their employment," he said. An article published in the Medical Journal of Australia recently by a group of leading infectious disease experts called for the urgent establishment of a national database reporting health worker infections in real time to halt the undetected spread of the virus in hospitals. It is a concept strongly supported by Professor Rait, who said it was "critical to understand how healthcare worker infections are being acquired and spread." By PTI MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Friday directed the BMC to issue forthwith a circular indicating the regulatory steps and procedures to be followed at the suburban Deonar abattoir during animals sacrifices on Saturday in view of Eid-al-Adha celebrations. A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sarang Kotwal said the circular will have to be issued by Friday evening considering Eid is to commence on Saturday. "The BMC shall issue a circular indicating regulatory steps and procedures that need to be followed while making sacrifices at Deonar abattoir. BMC and police administration shall ensure these steps and procedures are adhered to strictly," the court said. The court was hearing a petition filed by Al Qureshi Human Welfare Association seeking free movement at the Deonar abattoir. The petitioner's lawyer Asif Ali Siddiqui told the court that, like the petitioner, there are several other NGOs who would handle the animal sacrificing procedure at the abattoir. "We will maintain social distancing and all other norms prescribed," Siddiqui told the court. BMC counsel Anil Sakhare told the court the number of sacrifices permitted at the Deonar abattoir this year has been reduced by one-third of what was permitted in the past. The bench then said the Maharashtra government had this year called for symbolic sacrifices owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. "It has to be on a lower scale this time. Everyone has to wait for the situation to improve," Chief Justice Datta said and disposed of the petition. The credit rating models for micro, small and medium enterprises should be revisited in the wake of the coronavirus crisis as these companies are currently facing the problem of capital erosion, financial experts said on Thursday. Speaking at a webinar organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce, credit information company TransUnion CIBIL managing director and CEO Rajesh Kumar said the MSMEs play an important role in the economy and their rating models should be looked into afresh. "All rating models have to be revisited in the present scenario arising out of the pandemic. This is more so because capital erosion of the entities has taken place," Kumar said. He also called for the availability of data from the GST system and payment history of the MSMEs, which would help the rating firms to estimate the probability of default. According to him, access to GST database will be helpful in getting the invoices and understanding the production cycles, supplies, cash flows and bank statements. "All this information will help estimate the probability of default," he said. Of the 50 million MSMEs in India, only ten million are registered with the GST system, he said. CIBIL has already come up with MSME rankings, Kumar said. Central Bank of India managing director and chief executive officer Pallav Mohapatra said rating parameters should undergo change due to the coronavirus pandemic. "When there is no realisation of sales proceeds by the MSMEs, their cash flows get affected. In such a case, the parameters used for ratings during the pre-COVID period and now should not be the same," he said. Mohapatra said the working capital cycles of MSMEs are shorter than that of the large companies and they rely largely on borrowed funds. Tata Capital managing director Rajiv Sabharwal said that the MSMEs have been adversely impacted and they need fund for their businesses. He said Tata Capital is also lending to these entities but the cost of funds is not cheap as compared to banks. PTI dc BDC Also read: New procurement policy to ensure timely payments by govt, push Make in India More than 4 million people across a large part of northern England must comply with tighter lockdown rules after Boris Johnson's government rushed to tackle a new spike in coronavirus cases. Residents in Greater Manchester, and parts of East Lancashire and West Yorkshire will no longer be able to meet indoors with members of other households, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said. "We take this action with a heavy heart," Hancock told Sky News. "We've seen that households meeting up and a lack of social distancing is one of the causes of this rising rate of coronavirus, and we'll do whatever is necessary to keep the country safe." The surprise announcement, affecting more than 4.3 million people, came late on Thursday. It provoked criticism from Johnson's own Conservative politicians representing the area, who objected to the blanket restrictions when some districts were not seeing an increase in infections. For Johnson's administration, as well as Britons across the country, the fear will be that the new measures in the North are just the start of a wider crackdown as the virus takes off again, and that the economy will suffer another devastating blow. The premier was attacked for his handling of the initial peak of the pandemic, which left the U.K. with the highest death toll in Europe and facing one of the heaviest economic hits of any developed country. As before, Johnson will try to balance the need to keep control over the disease with avoiding a full lockdown of businesses across the country. But it is not yet clear whether the U.K.'s new testing and tracing program will be able to keep track of infections well enough to allow authorities to target measures effectively. The snap decision to tighten the rules in the North, first communicated on Twitter, reflects the government's growing unease about the virus's renewed spread. Johnson earlier warned of a surge in cases in Europe and urged the public to keep their "discipline." Underscoring reasons for his concern, the U.K. registered 846 new Covid-19 cases Thursday, the highest daily total this month. At the same time, the government partly eased social-distancing rules in Leicester, which weeks ago became the first English city to have to cope with tougher local restrictions. The government is now allowing pubs and restaurants to reopen, but said members of different households still shouldn't mix indoors. The new measures spurred confusion. Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary whose Wigan constituency lies within Greater Manchester, expressed frustration on Twitter that the rules "aren't clear" but said people can still go to public places where social-distancing measures are in place, and can still travel to work. The sudden announcement further underlined how mixed messaging has dogged the government's handling of the crisis from the outset. "No one would argue with putting in place local action to reduce the transmission of coronavirus," Labour leader Keir Starmer said. "But announcing measures affecting potentially millions of people late at night on Twitter is a new low for the government's communications during this crisis." Among Johnson's own Conservatives, there was also unease. Conservative MP William Wragg said treating all 10 districts in the Greater Manchester area as if they were the same was "not the right approach," a view endorsed by Graham Brady, a senior Conservative who represents a nearby constituency. Another local Tory, Jason McCartney, said he'd told government officials directly on a Zoom call of his "surprise and disappointment" that his Colne Valley district was included in the new restrictions. The renewed curbs on social contact in parts of the North reverse easements made earlier in July. In the parts of northern England affected, people will still be able to go out to work. They can go to pubs and restaurants but not to meet members of other households. Hancock's statement came hours after authorities lengthened the self-isolation period for coronavirus patients to 10 days from seven. The guidance was issued by England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and his counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and is effective immediately. Officials are also monitoring the uptick of the virus abroad. On Friday, Luxembourg will be removed from the list of countries that are exempt from rules requiring people to quarantine themselves upon returning to the U.K. from abroad, the Foreign Office said on its website. Last weekend, travelers from Spain were told to self-isolate for 14 days after arrival. The Gujarat High Court on Friday struck down a clause in a state government resolution which asked self-financed schools not to collect fees while they remain closed. The GR by the state education department was issued on July 16, and it was challenged in HC by Federation of Self Financed Schools, which claimed they were conducting online classes since June and staff and teachers salaries had to be paid. On Friday, the bench set aside that particular clause in the GR and directed the government and school federation to sit together and find an amicable solution on the fee issue. While hearing the petition earlier on Thursday, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice JB Pardiwala had questioned the state governments logic behind such a directive to schools. Since other PILs are also linked with this petition, it is expected that a detailed order will be issued soon. Schools had stopped online classes for three days after the GR came out but then restarted it saying they would abide by the HC order. Kolkata, July 31 : This was not the first time when nefarious tales about Indias biggest confectionary chain Haldirams became the focal point of controversy. Their alleged role in various despicable acts related to in-house bickerings and plans to expand have earlier too made headlines. The big names of the multi-crore business family was embroiled in notorious controversies in the past as well and even included attempt to murder of a poor tea stall owner in Kolkata's busy Burrabazar area. On June 5, 2005, Haldiram Bhujiawala proprietor Prabhu Shankar Agarwal was arrested in connection with a case of alleged attempt to murder a tea stall owner in order to gain access to his land, that was in front of a food mart that Agarwal was building near Kalakar Street-Satyanarayan Park area in Burrabazar -- known as Asia's largest wholesale market. According to police sources, Agarwal who was then building a swanky food plaza right on the main road of Kalakar Street had failed to persuade the tea stall owner Satyanarayan Sharma who had a kiosk in front on the land. He had hired goons to kill Satyanarayan. On March 30, 2005, the hoodlums, led by Gopal Tiwari, raided the tiny tea kiosk looking for the owner and shot Satyanarayan's nephew Pramod Sharma in a thickly-populated market area in broad daylight. Tiwari was arrested on May 22 the same year from Hyderabad by sleuths of Kolkata Police. Based on information provided by Tiwari, Agarwal was arrested from the Indira Gandhi International Airport while he was coming back after opening a branch of his food chain in London. A fast-track court in Kolkata had sentenced Agarwal and four others to life imprisonment on January 29, 2010 for conspiring to kill the tea stall owner. Tapan Sen, judge of the fourth fast track court at the City Sessions Court, had handed the punishment to Agarwal, his aide Arun Khandelwal, as well as contract killer Gopal Tiwari and his two henchmen Raja Sonkar and Monoj Thakur. The confectionary baron was sentenced to life imprisonment under Section 120B (criminal conspiracy), besides 10 years rigorous imprisonment under section 307/34 (attempt to murder/common intention). "Everything is happening as per the almighty's wish. One has to pay for one's sins. He (Agarwal) is also paying for his crime," victim Pramod Sharma had said in 2010, after the fast track city session count gave its judgement in the case. The recent developments of the Haldiram family's serious internal tussle over property issues once again triggered those memories of the 2005 incident. The family feud broke out in the open when a group of miscreants, reportedly encouraged by a section of the family, attacked two of their stores in Kolkata and took away items, like laptops and pen drives that contained sensitive information such as bank details of the company and its properties. The incident took place following the death of Haldiram's Kolkata food chain owner Mahesh Agarwal in Singapore in April. A complaint and counter complaint was filed with the Kolkata Police in regard to the matter. A case has been filed with the Shakespeare Sarani police station and a lot of CCTV footage was also gathered in connection with the incident. The sleuths are now looking into all possible aspects of the case. The company was started by Ganga Bhishen Agarwal, a businessman from Bikaner in Rajasthan. The family had migrated to Kolkata a decade after India gained Independence in 1947. The Agarwal siblings split in the early 1990s, dividing its operations in four different zones. Manoharlal and Madhusudan got the north Indian markets, Shiv Kishan got the south and west Indian markets and Prabhu Shankar and Ashok got the markets in east India. In 2013, a court ruling banned Prabhu Shankar and Ashok from using the "Haldiram's Bhujiawala" name. The duo rebranded it to "Prabhuji: From the house of Haldiram's". According to reports, the food and confectionary brand split into three geographic entities with nearly 12 companies, grossed Rs7,130 crore during FY19. The sales of Haldiram products were at par with Hindustan Unilever's food and refreshment division. In FY18, the combined sales of Haldiram products grossed at Rs 6,241 crore. Aerial photo taken on June 21, 2018 shows morning view of the Lujiazui area in Pudong of Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua/Ren Long) Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on Tuesday presided over and addressed a symposium for soliciting opinions and suggestions on the current economic situation and economic work in the second half of the year from non-CPC personages. Xi underscored the correct understanding of the current economic situation and in-depth research, calling for greater efforts to comprehensively deepen reform, and actively tackle various difficulties in development and risks, challenges and enormous pressure in various sectors. Such efforts are meant to build a broad consensus, pool powerful strength to advance reform and development, and overcome various risks and challenges, he said. "We have strong determination, firm will and solid national strength to deal with these challenges. We have sufficient confidence, ability and wisdom to overcome all kinds of risks and tests. No country or individual can stop the historical pace of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," Xi said. The symposium was attended by Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, Wang Huning and Han Zheng, all members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Li reviewed China's economic work in the first half of the year and introduced the CPC Central Committee's considerations for economic work in the second half of the year. Heads of the central committees of eight non-Communist parties and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, as well as a representative of personages without party affiliations, made their respective speeches, agreeing with the CPC Central Committee's analysis of the current economic situation and considerations for economic work in the second half of the year. Aerial photo taken on July 16, 2020 shows a ship loading cargo at a container dock in Tangshan City, north China's Hebei Province. (Xinhua/Yang Shiyao) They also gave suggestions on the economy, which, Xi said, were well-targeted and would be seriously considered by the CPC Central Committee. "From the beginning of this year, we have been faced with an unexpected, severe test," Xi said. The COVID-19 epidemic is a major, fast-spreading public health emergency with the widest range of infection and the greatest difficulty to prevent and control since the founding of the New China, and has created an unprecedented impact on China's economic and social development, Xi said. Xi appreciated the non-CPC personages for their work on resolutely implementing the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee and guiding people to devote themselves to medical assistance, scientific research, donations and work resumption. He also praised their offers of advice, and their significant contributions in winning the war of the people against the epidemic. Xi stressed that as the epidemic prevention and control in China has become stable and the economic operation has basically recovered, China in the second half the year should take advantage of the favorable situation and consolidate the achievements to make up for the losses in the first half. He called for adherence to the underlying principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, and sticking to new development philosophies. He urged better coordination between regular epidemic prevention and control, and efforts related to economic and social development. Sticking to the supply-side structural reform as the main line and firmly grasping the strategic basis of expanding domestic demand, China shall vigorously protect and spur the vitality of market entities, he said. Efforts should be made to ensure stability on the six fronts and security in the six areas, fully implement macroeconomic policies to produce the desired results, and improve the stability and competitiveness of China's industrial chains and supply chains, he noted. He called for greater efforts to push forward the reform and opening-up, promote high-quality economic development, do a good job in ensuring people's livelihoods and flood relief, maintain social stability, and strive to achieve this year's economic and social development goals. Xi said he hoped all non-CPC personages would view the difficulties and challenges in economic development in a comprehensive, dialectical and developmental perspective, focus on the key tasks, give full play to their respective advantages, and properly handle challenges from home and abroad. Arsenal have revealed their shirts for Saturdays FA Cup final against Chelsea as they move the Black Lives Matter, NHS and Heads Up badges to the back. The Gunners got creative with their jerseys after Heads Up - the Prince William-led mental health charity asked to add a patch to their kits. Arsenal have now moved the NHS and BLM patches to the back of their shirts underneath the number, while Chelsea have shifted the NHS to the back of the jersey and will put the BLM message on their shorts. Arsenal have revealed their shirt for the 2020 FA Cup final against Chelsea on Saturday Arsenal's shirt will have its main sponsor Emirates on the front while the sleeves will have 'Visit Rwanda'. The Gunners will be wearing the shirts on August 1 as they bid to win their 14th FA Cup in the all-London affair at Wembley. Victory for Arsenal will also secure them a place in next season's Europa League after missing out on qualification through their Premier League finish. The front will consist of their main sponsor, sleeve sponsors and a patch for FA Cup sponsor While the BLM, NHS and Heads Up badges have been moved to the back under the number Chelsea will also pay tribute to their own 1970 success in the competition with stitching underneath club crest. 'Wembley 2020' will be embroidered the same way it was for that game against Leeds United 50 years ago. The match between Chelsea and Leeds was the first FA Cup final to require a replay since 1912. The final result represented a historic first FA Cup win for Chelsea and led them to more silverware in the following season as they picked up the European Cup Winners Cup. Chelsea will pay tribute to club's 1970 FA Cup success with stitching underneath club crest The completion and commissioning ceremony for the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS-3) is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, July 31, 2020. (Xinhua/Yan Yan) Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the completion and commissioning ceremony for the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS-3) on Friday. Xi declared the official commissioning of the newly completed BDS-3 system at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. New Delhi, July 31 : Keeping in mind rush of passengers on Raksha Bandhan, Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) will roll out all the buses of its active fleet on Monday. Due to current situation of COVID-19 and as per the guidelines issued by the Delhi government, buses will be run from the places where bus sanitisation facility is available. Apart from this, all the concerned officers have also been instructed to ensure bus operations at the bus terminals falling in their respective areas. R S Minhas, Deputy CGM, Delhi Transport Corporation, told IANS that, "On a normal day 90 per cent buses ply on roads and 10 per cent buses are kept for maintenance, but on the day of Raksha Bandhan DTC will roll out all its buses on roads. Currently DTC has around 3,800 buses plying in Delhi." Since last year DTC used to give free rides to women on Raksha Bandhan but from October last year, DTC buses have been made free in Delhi for all women passengers. RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA More than 300 prison inmates who are being released early in California due to coronavirus concerns will come to Riverside County, but most were nearly done serving their sentences and all have a "low risk for violence," the Riverside County Probation Department announced Friday. "The Riverside County Probation Department is prepared to supervise the 330 California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) inmates scheduled for early release to the county as part of Californias plan to slow the spread of COVID-19 in state prisons," the department said in a news release. Our department is ready to manage the influx of new clients, said Riverside County Chief Probation Officer Ronald L. Miller. Most of these individuals were already scheduled to return to the county over the next few months. We are simply receiving them in a short period instead of staggered over time. Approximately 300 of the inmates granted early release have 180 days or less left on their sentences, are not currently serving time for domestic violence or a violent crime, have no current or prior sentences that require them to register as a sex offender and have an assessment score that indicates a low risk for violence, according to the probation department. The remaining inmates have a year or less to serve on their sentences, meet the same crime and risk criteria and are inside prisons with large populations of people considered high-risk for becoming seriously ill from COVID-19, the probation department said. All of the inmates must test negative for COVID-19 prior to their release, according to the probation department. Once released, the parolees will report to their local probation office where probation officers will "initiate supervision, begin building a case plan and arrange housing if needed," according to the probation department. The department will also work with partner agencies and community-based organizations to provide health, employment and other services to facilitate "a smooth re-entry and reinforce public safety," the department said. Story continues Probation department data show where 292 of the inmates will be released in the county (see below). The release locations for the other 38 people have yet to be determined, according to Kevin Slusarski, public information specialist for the county. City/unincorporated area Number of inmates released Anza 3 Banning 2 Beaumont 3 Blythe 1 Canyon Lake 1 Cathedral City 4 Coachella 3 Corona 22 Desert Hot Springs 9 Eastvale 1 Hemet 36 Homeland 1 Idyllwild 1 Indio 13 Jurupa Valley 2 La Quinta 2 Lake Elsinore 7 Mecca 1 Menifee 2 Mira Loma 4 Moreno Valley 32 Murrieta 7 Norco 1 Nuevo 1 Palm Desert 5 Palm Springs 7 Perris 20 Quail Valley 2 Rancho Mirage 1 Riverside 76 San Jacinto 11 Sun City 5 Temecula 3 Wildomar 3 As of Friday, there were 1,443 inmates actively infected with COVID-19 and 47 inmate deaths reported by CDCR. Overall, the agency reported Friday 8,100 COVID-19 cases among inmates, and 1,791 employee cases as of Thursday. On July 10, CDCR announced that approximately 8,000 inmates statewide would be released early if they met specific criteria. Riverside County officials anticipated up to 500 inmates would be released locally. Hemet Police Department Chief Eddie Pust said that inmates paroled early will cause crime to rise in his city and elsewhere. "The impacts to the communities and the public will change significantly, and California communities will see a significant increase in crime," he said. This article originally appeared on the Temecula Patch Gwalior, July 31 : Government officials and employees in Gwalior division of Madhya Pradesh have been instructed to come to office wearing 'decent and dignified' clothes. They have been banned from wearing 'faded jeans' and 'T-shirt' in office. Divisional commissioner M B Ojha in an order has asked all officials and employees of the division to wear dignified, decent and formal attire while discharging their responsibilities in the office. Disciplinary action would be initiated against those who disobey the order. He said that during his visit to Ashok Nagar district, senior officials such as an additional collector wearing faded jeans at the meeting was contrary to the dignity of the post of a government servant and as such inappropriate. In the letter sent by Ojha to all divisional officials and district collectors of the division, he has said that government servants should come to office only in formal clothes. Complaints should be sent to the competent officer for disciplinary action against employees who disregard these instructions. The chief secretary and the chief minister expressed their displeasure at the Mandsaur district magistrate wearing a T-shirt during a review meeting organized through video conferencing under the chairmanship of the chief minister on July 20, 2020. Facebook and Apple have both posted quarterly revenue growth of 11 percent, blowing past analyst expectations and shrugging off the pandemic to prosper. On Thursday, both tech giants reported results for recently ended quarter, with Facebook saying it made a profit of $5.2 billion on $18.7 billion in revenue, as the number of people using the platform monthly rose to 2.7 billion. It came despite a punishing ad boycott that has seen giant brands such as Unilever and Honda pull ads from Facebook for the rest of the year in a call for the social network to crack down on what activists call hate speech and political misinformation. 'This was a strong quarter for us, especially compared to what we expected at the start,' Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is seen testifying by video link before a House committee hearing on Thursday. The company reported solid earnings later in the day Shares in the Silicon Valley-based social media giant were up six percent in after-hours trading following release of the earnings figures. The number of people using the tech giant's overall 'family' of apps including WhatsApp and Messenger each month topped three billion, according to Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg said he could not predict when Facebook employees would return their offices, in light of surge in coronavirus cases. 'It is incredibly disappointing because it seems like the US could have avoided this current surge in cases if our government had handled this better,' Zuckerberg said. Facebook expected as much as half of its employees to be working from home on a long-term basis in the next five to ten years. Meanwhile, Apple also delivered blowout quarterly results, reporting revenue gains across every category and in every geography as consumers working and learning from home during the COVID-19 pandemic turned to its products and services. The report topped Wall Street expectations, with even long-overshadowed categories like iPads and Macs getting a boost. Shares rose as much as 6 percent in extended trading after the results. A year-to-date chart of Facebook's share price shows the company's quick rebound during the pandemic Apple's stock has surged to all time highs, as seen in this year-to-date chart Apple CEO Tim Cook is seen in Thursday's hearing. Apple also delivered blowout quarterly results, reporting revenue gains across every category and in every geography The fiscal third-quarter results, which included iPhone sales some $4 billion above analyst expectations, came on the same day that U.S. gross domestic product collapsed at a 32.9 percent annualized rate last quarter, the nation's worst economic performance since the Great Depression. Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri also confirmed supply chain rumblings that the new lineup of iPhones, usually released in late September, would face delays of a few weeks. But executives predicted continued strong performance from the company's products. Other major tech companies Amazon.com Inc and Facebook Inc also posted results that topped Wall Street targets, sending their shares up. With 60 percent of sales coming from international markets, the Cupertino, California-based company posted iPhone revenues of $26.42 billion, $4 billion above analyst expectations, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. In an interview with Reuters, CEO Tim Cook said that after disruptions in April, sales began to pick back up in May and June, helped by what he called a 'strong' launch for the $399 iPhone SE introduced in April. 'I think the economic stimulus that was in place - and I'm not just focused on the U.S., but more broadly - was a help,' Cook told Reuters. The continued growth in services and accessories also showed the durability of the company's brand, which has prompted investors to view it as a comparative safe haven and pushed up share prices since March. The company saw strong sales in its greater China region, where aggressive pricing during a June holiday shopping season and lower-priced iPhone SE model released in April helped boost sales 2 percent to $9.33 billion. 'China remains a key ingredient in Apples recipe for success as we estimate roughly 20 percent of iPhone upgrades will be coming from this region over the coming year,' Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securities said in a note. Apple also announced a 4-for-1 stock split, saying it wanted to keep shares accessible to a broad range of investors. Shares soared past $400 for the first time Thursday, though they had been proportionally higher before a 7-for-1 split in 2014. Apple's fiscal third-quarter revenue and profits were $59.69 billion and $2.58 per share, compared with analyst expectations of $52.25 billion and $2.04 per share. Sales in its services segment, which also includes offerings such as iCloud and Apple Music, rose 14.8 percent to $13.16 billion, compared with and analyst expectations of $13.18 billion. Cook told Reuters that Apple has 550 million paying subscribers on its platform, up from 515 in the previous quarter. Sales in the wearables segment that includes the Apple Watch rose 16.7 percent to $6.45 billion, compared with estimates of $6.0 billion. Apple did not give a fiscal fourth-quarter forecast. Apple benefited from remote work and learning trends, reporting sales in its iPad and Mac segments of $6.58 billion and $7.08 billion, which beat expectations of $4.88 billion and $6.06 billion. 'Both had some really significant product announcements at the end of March, beginning of April,' Cook told Reuters. 'You combine that with the work from home and remote learning, and it's yielded really, really strong results.' But the global smartphone market was already stagnating before the novel coronavirus caused it to contract, and Apple has leaned heavily into growing its services business, which is where the company's fastest revenue growth occurred during the fiscal third quarter. The biggest component of that business is the App Store, where Apple generates commissions between 15 percent and 30 percent on some sales. On Wednesday, Cook faced questions from U.S. lawmakers about Apple's practices related to the store, which have come under fire from independent app developers who say its rules and unpredictable approval process put them at a disadvantage against the iPhone maker. The chief executives of Apple and Facebook joined Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Google's Sundar Pichai in testifying before members of the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. At several points during Wednesday's hearing the executives - Cook, Bezos, Pichai and Zuckerberg - struggled to defend themselves against scathing criticisms of their monopoly-like power and accusations of widespread anti-competitive practices from both sides of the aisle. After the financial reports came out hours later, many analysts agreed that the firms were smart to delay their release until after the hearing. Pichai and Zuckerberg took particularly sharp jabs from Democrats and Republicans who say Google and Facebook have crippled smaller rivals in the quest for market share - while Bezos was interrogated over Amazon's treatment of small merchants who use its online marketplace. In one of the most damaging moments, lawmakers unveiled Zuckerberg's internal emails boasting about buying competitors, saying Instagram was a threat as he plotted to purchase it, and talking about a 'land grab' on other competition. Democratic Representative Joe Neguse bluntly told Zuckerberg he was running a monopoly in the tech marketplace as he read from the emails. 'You did tell one of Facebook's senior engineers in 2012 that you can, quote 'Likely just buy any competitive start up, but it will be a while until we can buy Google.' Do you recall writing that?' Neguse asked of the Facebook co-founder. 'Congressman, I don't specifically, but it sounds like a joke,' Zuckerberg said. TROY, N.Y. The Troy Police Department on Friday continued to probe a reported domestic incident that led to the fatal shooting of a city man by an off-duty city officer on Thursday evening. Colin E. Davis, 25, was fatally shot by officer Adam Harbour, Captain Steven Barker confirmed. Deputy Chief Dan DeWolf said police received several calls to a domestic incident on the second floor of a residence at 2342 17th St. The incident happened around 6:07 p.m. on Thursday. The first-floor tenant of that residence is an off-duty Troy police officer. That officer heard a domestic commotion going on. He encountered the subject up there involved in the stabbing, DeWolf said. The preliminary reports are that [Officer Harbour] witnessed the assailant stabbing a female. [Officer Harbour] shot that assailant once after telling him several times to drop the knife and stop, DeWolf added, noting the officer shot the alleged assailant with a shotgun. The victim of the reported domestic stabbing incident, a 26-year-old woman, is the estranged wife of Davis. Police have yet to release her identity. After being taken to Albany Medical Center Thursday evening in critical condition, police said she is still being treated and her condition has been upgraded from serious to fair (stable). DeWolf also said Harbour was also being looked at, at Samaritan Hospital. His current bid assignment is within the uniform patrol division and, as mentioned by Deputy Chief DeWolf, Officer Harbour will be assigned to administrative duties until otherwise directed by the Chief of Police, Barker noted. Harbour has been with the Troy Police Department for more than three years. Officer Harbour has demonstrated himself as a model officer throughout his career with no disciplinary issues. Our thoughts remain with him, the victim and all those others who have been effected by the incidents of last night. We will utilize our partnerships with local victims resources organizations to ensure all those effected receive the support they need, Barker added. Assisting with the case are the Rensselaer County District Attorneys Office and the New York State Attorney Generals Office. We did make phone calls to the [Rensselaer County] District Attorneys Office, so theyre on scene here. The New York State Attorney Generals Office is also on scene here, we called them, let them know whats going on so they can see whether or not this is going to be in their purview or not, DeWolf said. Rensselaer District Attorney Mary Pat Donnelly and Chief Assistant District Attorney Matt Hauf responded to the scene. By request of the District Attorney, the Office of the Attorney General also responded to determine if the incident falls under NYS Executive Order No. 147, which would appoint the Attorney General as special prosecutor. That order typically applies in cases where a law enforcement officer causes the death of an unarmed civilian or where there is a significant question as to whether the civilian was armed and dangerous. The outside agencies who originally responded to the scene are still actively involved in the investigation. These include the Rensselaer County District Attorneys Office and the New York State Office of the Attorney General. We offer both our full appreciation for their assistance and guidance, Barker added. Both the Rensselaer County District Attorneys Office and the Troy Police Department have and will continue to coordinate with the Attorney General as they process the incident to determine the applicability of the Executive Order. This is a tragedy that is best handled with transparency and cooperation, Donnelly stated. A thorough investigation will continue as we await the Attorney Generals determination, Donnelly added. If you or someone you know witnessed any part of the incident youre asked to report that information to the Troy Police Department at (518) 270-4421 or the Rensselaer County District Attorneys Office at (518) 270-4040. The investigation of the incident remains ongoing. It's time for Ireland to go nuclear instead of opting for "ugly windfarms", a Fianna Fail senator insists. Ned O'Sullivan's comments in favour of nuclear energy will alarm his party's allies in Government, the Green Party. Calling for a debate on "clear" nuclear power, Mr O'Sullivan says: "Over-reliance on wind power is turning our beautiful rural landscape into a forest of ugly windmills." He also insists it was a mistake to protest against the building of a nuclear power plant at Carnsore Point in Co Wexford half a century ago. "Resistance to nuclear energy is not, in my opinion, anything like as strong as it was in the 1960s," he added. "We are all committed to the target of 70pc renewable energy by 2030, but how many of us believe it can be attained? On any given day last week, over 60pc of our electricity was generated from gas. "My own county of Kerry has seen an inexplicable rush to facilitate planning for even bigger and uglier windfarms, some of them in built-up, suburban areas." He maintains that nuclear power is now safe and becoming increasingly efficient in the generation of cheap energy for all. "For many people, nuclear power creates fear - understandable fear," he said. "People think of Chernobyl and they think of nuclear weapons. "But we are now in the era of smaller, modular nuclear reactors. It is very likely that most EU countries will be utilising smaller nuclear modules in the next decade." The Citizens' Assembly on climate and the Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action had both "inexplicably failed to properly address the option of nuclear generation", he declared. A debate should be held as early as possible in the Oireachtas, insists Mr O'Sullivan, who generated massive media coverage six years ago when he warned that something needed to be done about aggressive seagulls in Dublin. Quoting US President Franklin D Roosevelt in support of nuclear power, he said: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Job seekers wait at a career fair in Ontario last year. An unprecedented number of unemployment claims have left the state agency that processes claims "overwhelmed," officials said Thursday. (Patrick T. Fallon / Bloomberg) California lawmakers lashed out Thursday at a state plan that would take two months to resolve a backlog of nearly 1 million unemployment benefit claims, warning at a legislative hearing that many jobless people are struggling to pay for food and rent. Workers left unemployed by the COVID-19 pandemic also voiced frustration during an hours-long hearing of an Assembly budget subcommittee on state administration, complaining they have been unable for months to get through clogged phone lines or overcome computer glitches to obtain approval of unemployment benefits. With the supplemental federal unemployment benefit of $600 a week having expired Saturday, the hearing at the state Capitol reflected a new level of despair by those struggling to get benefits from the state Employment Development Department. Because of EDDs failures, our constituents are depleting their life savings, going into extreme debt and having trouble paying rent and putting food on the table, said Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco), who clashed with the head of the state employment agency and said fundamental reform is needed. Assemblyman Jim Cooper (D-Elk Grove), the panels chairman, criticized how long the state is taking to get to claims. Its tragic, its unconscionable what is happening to these people, and now we are hearing that we are still two months behind, Cooper said, adding that people are suffering because we cant get our act together. Other lawmakers, including Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Laguna Beach), told of constituents who filed for unemployment benefits months ago but have not heard back from the EDD or received any benefits. EDD is failing California," Petrie-Norris said. She said the desperation of unemployed Californians is being met by a "disinterested bureaucracy" that fails to answer the phone or return emails, and she called the current situation "heart-wrenching." "It is maddening and it is totally unacceptable," she said. Story continues Testifying by phone, EDD Director Sharon Hilliard said plans are in the works to improve the state's system and added that the agency "sincerely regrets any payment delays experienced by our customers." Hilliard acknowledged that complex new formulas being considered by Congress to extend supplemental unemployment benefits could require up to 20 weeks of programming to allow the state's computer system to make payments. Assemblyman Jay Obernolte (R-Big Bear Lake) warned that such delays would cause outrage by the public and urged Hilliard to find a quicker solution. The hearing was held a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom disclosed that nearly 1 million unpaid claims may be eligible for payment but require more information, including identity verification. Hilliard said the EDD has the information needed to approve 239,000 of the claims, but the rest require claimants to provide additional information. The governor said he has ordered the EDD to focus on resolving those claims with hopes of eliminating the backlog by the end of September. That timetable is drawing criticism from state lawmakers who note that some unemployed Californians have gone without income for months because they have been unable to get claims approved. Waiting until late September to clear the backlog of unfulfilled claims and to devise a blueprint for web improvements feels inadequate given the number of people left without income since March, Chiu said. He accused Hilliard of lying to the public for months about the scope of the problem. She denied that she has misrepresented how many people have gone without payments. The lawmakers heard more than an hour of testimony from unemployed Californians some in tears and others whose voices broke with emotion who told of calling the EDD hundreds of times and being unable to get help to resolve their problems. I have heart palpitations when thinking of the emotional trauma I have endured at the hands of the dysfunction of EDD, said one caller, who identified herself as Jennifer. She said she waited on hold for six hours one day only to have an EDD representative hang up on her after saying she could not answer her questions. Joanne DAntonio of Valley Glen said she had been receiving unemployment insurance payments before she missed an email from the EDD that required a response for her to stay certified. That caused her to miss six weeks of benefits totaling more than $5,300. "Is there a way the Assembly can help?" she asked. A caller who identified herself as Kelly from the San Diego area said she filed a claim in May but has not received any benefits. The EDD experience has been nothing but abominable, she said. On Wednesday, Newsom announced that he has created a strike team to draft a plan in 45 days for improvements at the EDD, including an overhaul of its inefficient technology systems. The COVID-19 pandemic has left millions without jobs as the governors March order for residents to stay at home forced many businesses to close or scale back operations. On Thursday, the EDD said it has processed 9.3 million claims from people who lost jobs or work hours since March, more than double the number filed during the worst year of the Great Recession. Lawmakers have expressed concerns over a call center that operates from 8 a.m. to noon to resolve problems for claim filers and is staffed by only 100 of the EDDs more than 7,500 employees. Hilliard said that a new, second phone line has 1,100 workers assigned to it with 700 more on the way. She told legislators at the hearing that her agency is merging its two call centers to better serve customers and plans to adopt a new routing system to send calls to specialized agents in mid-October. There is currently a four- to six-week wait time for EDD workers to call back customers with problems, she said. We realize that the current call center operations are not currently serving all of our customers in a timely manner, Hilliard said. She also said a contract to replace the obsolete technology at the agency is scheduled to be awarded in October. Lawmakers voiced dissatisfaction with Hilliard's plans. "My concern is that all of these timelines just seem totally out of step with the urgency we are in," Petrie-Norris told the director. Newsoms strike team will develop short- and long-term plans for overhauling the technology so it works better, the governor said. There should be no barriers between Californians and the benefits they have earned, Newsom said in a statement Wednesday. Movie star Ryan Reynolds is launching a diversity initiative that he's paying for with his own salary. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) Inclusivity might be a group effort for some, but Ryan Reynolds is making good on his promise to do the work himself. The "Deadpool 2" star on Friday announced his upcoming, self-financed diversity initiative, the Group Effort, to give people of color a chance to work and learn on his productions. "Making a movie is a group effort," Reynolds said in the video announcement. "But for entirely too long that group has systemically excluded Black, Indigenous, people of color and a whole host of other marginalized communities." So, he's starting to do the work that social justice warriors have called for from people of privilege. The Group Effort Initiative is designed to invest in the talent and creativity of any and all under-represented communities whove felt this industry didnt have room for their dreams. To register yourself, go to: https://t.co/DXMM9VuPhL #GroupEffort #MaximumEffort pic.twitter.com/TJ0FGUMe2l Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) July 31, 2020 The irreverent star said he's "committing to bringing between 10 and 20 trainees from the BIPOC community and any and all other marginalized communities of all ages" to learn about the film industry alongside him and other professionals on the set of his upcoming film. Those trainees, who can apply for the program online, will be paid, housed and traveled out of his salary, Reynolds said. He added that this effort is "a long overdue action" and thanked Netflix and Skydance for making it happen. "We're hoping that people with the privilege that I'm lucky enough to experience will join in that effort," he said. Story continues The initiative, launching through his Maximum Effort production banner, will begin on the set of the actor's untitled time-travel adventure thriller directed by Shawn Levy, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Though pandemic restrictions could adversely affect production, the film is prepping for a fall shoot in Reynolds' native Vancouver, Canada. Reynolds and his team reportedly worked with Stacy L. Smith of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at USC to design the program. In June, Reynolds and his wife, actress Blake Lively, penned an open letter confessing they're "ashamed that in the past weve allowed ourselves to be uninformed about how deeply rooted systematic racism is." The pair vowed to "end the cycle of hate" to honor George Floyd and "all the other [B]lack men and women who have been killed when a camera wasn't rolling." They also donated $200,000 to NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She's been proudly sharing shots of her newly slimmed down physique in a variety of bikinis during her sunny break in Mykonos, after losing 3 stone in weight. And Gemma Collins, 39, stayed true to form on Friday, when she shared new snaps of herself posing in a bright yellow and pink floral bikini, teamed with a cover up. Teaming her swimwear with a pair of bold Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses, the TOWIE star, who recently split from James Argent, wowed as she posed in a grand doorway. All things bright and beautiful: Gemma Collins shared a shot of herself posing in a bright floral bikini with a matching cover up as she holidayed in Mykonos on Friday With her flaxen locks falling past her shoulders in soft waves, the reality TV star kept her makeup light and natural for the images, which showed her wearing flip-flops. Captioning the post, she shared a quote attributed to Oprah Winfrey, which read: 'The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.' Gemma has flown out to Mykonos with her personal trainer pal and former TOWIE star Charlie King to help heal her broken heart. Bold: Teaming her swimwear with a pair of bold Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses, the TOWIE star, who recently split from James Argent, wowed as she posed in a grand doorway The Diva Forever star, who has been vocal about her use of controversial 250 SkinnyJabs, has reportedly booked a boob job because her 'body is getting smaller'. She told The Sun: 'I can't wait to get rid of these boobs, they're massive and look ridiculous. I have never looked better than I do now and I've never felt so good.' While admitting it tends to be the 'norm' to opt for larger breasts when booking cosmetic procedures, Gemma insisted that she wants a her natural boobs reduced. She added: 'I never have wanted surgery. But as my body is getting smaller, I feel like I am falling over on top and I just want them gone.' Confident: On Thursday, the slimmed-down star shared an empowering message on Instagram, telling fans she felt 'liberated' as she posed in a leopard print bikini Meanwhile, her ex Argent seemed to be moving on from the couple's recent love split by partying with close friends in Marbella. He was in high spirits during an appearance at popular local nightspot Olivia's La Cala, owned by old friend and former co-star Elliott Wright. Argent, 32, was in good company as he let his hair down with Romana Bright - the younger sister of ex-girlfriend Lydia. Argent and Gemma ended their relationship in July after she revealed a string of abuse messages, purportedly sent to her by the TV personality prior to their split. Walk on the wild side: The TOWIE star, 39, who has lost three stone in recent months, showed off her slimmer figure in the strapless animal print two-piece as she posed by the pool It's understood that Argent had made derogatory remarks abut her weight after she suggested that he had bought another woman dinner. 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. Work it! It comes Gemma declared she was 'all woman' as she posed up a storm in a plunging palm-print swimsuit on Wednesday '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. However after returning to the UK from her own 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. Good times: The dust appeared to be well and truly settled on Thursday evening as James Argent moved on from his recent love split by partying with close friends in Marbella 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) It's been a tough year for Argent, with him recently admitting that he is a cocaine addict and that he had 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 lost five stone in the process. Soldiers of A Pa Chai border guard post in Dien Bien province patrol border crossings (Photo: VNA) Hanoi The border guard force has intensified monitoring of the border line over the past more than three months to stop the illegal entry into Vietnam. A total of 1,600 checkpoints have been set up along the border, manned by nearly 10,000 soldiers and officers, who coordinated with local military and self-defence forces to detect more than 15,000 people illegally entering the country and put them in quarantine. The border guard force have also maintained regular patrols to guard national sovereignty and border security. However, some localities have seen the rise of some rings which illegally brought foreigners into the country by road, by sea and by air, using sophisticated tricks such as hiding people in cargo or containers to go through border gates, which have caused negative impacts on the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam. Under the Prime Ministers instruction, the Ministry of National Defence has assigned its Criminal Investigation Office, the Central Military Procuracy, and the Military Security Agency to set up working teams to investigate such rings. The ministry assigned the Border Guard Command, the Coast Guard Command and military zones to inform the instructions of the PM and the Minister of Defence to every soldier and officer, thus raising their sense of responsibility in preventing illegal entry into the country. The ministry ordered intensifying patrols and inspections along the entire border line in order to keep the border safe, while coordinating with the public security force to early bring to trial cases of illegally bringing people into the country. Military units are also urged to actively fight back wrongful views of hostile elements about the guidelines and viewpoints of the Party, State and Army on COVID-19 prevention and control. 'Deeply compassionate': NARAL president praises Biden's leftward shift on abortion Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The president of one of the largest pro-abortion advocacy groups in the United States has praised presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for his deeply compassionate evolution on the issue of abortion. In an interview with McClatchy DC this week, Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, explained why she can give her full-throated support as her organization is endorsing of the former vice president whose campaign was viewed skeptically by some abortion-rights supporters during the Democratic primary. Weve had awesome and robust conversations with the campaign, Hogue was quoted as saying. I think, collectively, were clear-eyed about the work that needs to be done. Biden made headlines last year by reversing his support for the Hyde Amendment, a federal measure in place since 1976 that bans the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. Hogue said Bidens evolution on the issue is evidence of his deeply compassionate character and willingness to listen to advocates. She stated that Bidens agenda has evolved. In addition to changing his position on the Hyde Amendment, Biden has pledged to codify the Supreme Courts 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which ruled that women have the right to an abortion without excessive government restrictions. Biden also pledged in February to have an abortion litmus test for Supreme Court nominees as president. One month before he received NARALs endorsement, another pro-abortion advocacy group, the political fundraising arm of Planned Parenthood, also came out in full support of Biden. Both groups have pledged to spend millions in the upcoming general election to influence voters. NARAL plans to spend nearly $35 million, while Planned Parenthood announced its intention to spend $45 million, tripling the amount it spent in support of Democrats in the 2016 election. The interview with McClatchy DC is hardly the first time Hogue has used the word compassionate concerning the topic of abortion. As a speaker at the Democratic National Convention four years ago, Hogue used the phrase compassionate care when talking about an abortion that she had years ago. Hogue described President Donald Trump as the manifestation of a long-term movement of which the anti-choice movement was really instrumental. Hogue has strongly criticized Trump and his administrations policies since taking office in 2016. In January, she took issue with his decision to speak to anti-choicers gathered at the 2020 March for Life in Washington D.C. Trump became the first president to speak in-person at the annual gathering of thousands of pro-lifers from across the nation. Enthusiasm and investment in the 2020 presidential election are not limited to pro-abortion groups. Susan B. Anthony List, a leading national pro-life lobbying organization, announced earlier this year that it will spend $52 million to help re-elect Donald Trump and safeguard the pro-life majority in Congress. The abortion debate has intensified during the Trump administration as a series of states have passed laws addressing the hot-button issue. In 2019, several states passed laws banning abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. That same year, the state of New York passed a law allowing abortions to take place up until the moment of birth and removing the procedure from the states penal code. The abortion debate has also made it to the judicial branch, as the aforementioned pro-life laws have been met with legal challenges from pro-abortion activists. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a Louisiana law that required abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where they perform the procedure. The ousted national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, has continued to incur the wrath of the people of Edo State with his de-constructive attacks on incumbent Governor Godwin Obaseki in the electioneering campaign for the September 19 governorship election. National Daily survey found that the more Oshiomhole speaks evil about Governor Obaseki, the more the Edo people hate him, increase their support for Obaseki and dislike the APC candidate sponsored by Oshiomhole, Ize-Iyamu. The people of Edo State, according to findings have consigned the former APC national chairman to the bin of crass irresponsibility. A notable counter-productivity of Oshiomholes caustic criticism of incumbent Governor Obaseki is that his words make the people love Obaseki the more and raise their consciousness to voluntarily embark on campaign and mobilization of support for Obaseki. Oshiomhole further make the people of Edo develop subtle hatred for Ize-Iyamu than would have ordinarily not been the case if the former chairmans intermediary warfare did not exist in the campaign. National Daily survey on a statement by Oshiomhole to damage incumbent Governor Obaseki found that the people rather turned against the former chairman with strong warning that Oshiomhole is still kneeling begging round the state for forgiveness on similar damage he did to Ize-Iyamu in 2016. When Oshiomhole was reported to have said at a campaign rally: Obaseki is a con man, I can say it before Edo people, these are what the people of Edo State said in response on the social media platform: Edo people be warned about this man, whenever you see a man without shame, please do not have anything to do with him. Please reject him and his godfatherism. Edo people be warned! He don start to dey talk (has started talking) rubbish again, another election don come na (has come now its) Obaseki this year, it was Ize-Iyamu last year. Senseless man who does not know that the more you open your mouth and speak, the more Edo people hate you. Useless Oshiomhole, the example of the people that destroyed Nigeria for their selfish gain. He talks from both sides of his mouth. Senseless human being, short devil, you created issues in salary scale when were labour leader, your generation will not know peace. Now Osha ugly is using the power of the press and social media to rubbish same thief he brought into Edo, just to bring another thief who is loyal to him. Edo people wise up o! I hope we all have our PVC to ensure this short man doesnt conveniently make a nuisance of our intelligence. Mr. Oshiomhole, godfather wont work in the south-south and middle belt. So, please dont give yourself nightmare. You are the number one con man. I will weep for Edo people if they ever listen to you, a (rambler), again. Just imagine Ize-Iyamu Oshiomhole called a thief three years ago sitting, and Oshiomhole kneeling begging for forgiveness; what a shame! Why cant Oshiomhole allow Ize-Iyamu to speak for himself The fireworks for the Edo governorship election is on but Oshiomhole appears to be provoking the people of Edo State in participating in the fireworks rather than being spectators as the parties prove themselves. Perhaps, Oshiomhole may curtail further humiliation and minimize deepening hatred if he refrains from personality clash and focus on issues of change in the state. You are here: World Flash COVID-19 cases is mounting in South Asia and Southeast Asia as both India and the Philippines reported the highest single-day new cases on Thursday. India's health ministry Thursday morning said 775 new deaths due to COVID-19, besides fresh 52,123 positive cases, were reported during the past 24 hours across the country, taking the number of deaths to 34,968 and the total cases to 1,583,792. This is the highest single day spike in terms of fresh COVID-19 cases in the country so far. The number of active cases in the country right now is 528,242, according to the ministry. The number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines surged to 89,374 after the Department of Health (DOH) reported 3,954 new cases, the largest single-day increase since the highly-infectious disease emerged in the country in January. The DOH said that the number of recoveries further rose to 65,064 after it reported a record-high 38,075 new recoveries. The death toll also increased to 1,983 after 23 more patients died, the DOH said. Bangladesh's COVID-19 cases rose to 234,889 with nearly 2,700 new cases reported, and deaths from the virus increased to 3,083. Senior Health Ministry official Nasima Sultana said in a briefing that 2,695 new COVID-19 positive cases and 48 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours across Bangladesh. "The number of confirmed infections in the country totaled 234,889 while fatalities stood at 3,083," she said. The COVID-19 cases in Indonesia rose by 1,904 within one day to 106,336, with the death toll adding by 83 to 5,058, the health ministry said. The ministry added that 2,154 more people were discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 64,292. The latest number of suspected cases across the country is 53,723. Cambodia confirmed that a U.S. diplomat was tested positive for COVID-19, raising the total number of infections in the kingdom to 234, said a Health Ministry's statement. The Southeast Asian country has so far recorded a total of 234 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 162 patients cured and 72 remained in hospital. Australia recorded its deadliest day of the COVID-19 pandemic so far, with 13 deaths, on top of a record 744 new infections. The southeastern state of Victoria recorded 723 of Thursday's positive tests, taking the total number of active cases within the state to over 5,500. Meanwhile, Australia's most populous city Sydney was declared a COVID-19 hotspot by Queensland state Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, barring anyone who has visited the city in the previous two weeks. South Korea reported 18 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Thursday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 14,269. The daily caseload fell below 20 in 38 days since June 22, but it continued to grow in double digits due to imported cases and small cluster infections. No more death was confirmed, leaving the death toll at 300. The total fatality rate stood at 2.10 percent. Vietnam's Ministry of Health on Thursday morning confirmed nine new cases of COVID-19, all of which are in the community, bringing the total cases in the country to 459. Vietnam's central city of Da Nang, which has seen several community cases since July 25, reported eight new infections including local citizens, according to the ministry. Another case was found in the capital city Hanoi, who is a 76-year-old man that recently traveled to Da Nang. A total of 369 patients in Vietnam have totally recovered from the disease with zero deaths as of Thursday morning, while there are over 81,500 people being quarantined and monitored in the country, said the health ministry. Malaysia reported another eight new COVID-19 infections, the Health Ministry said, bringing the national total to 8,964. Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a press statement that three of the cases are imported and five more are local transmissions. No new deaths had been reported, leaving the total deaths at 124. Thailand on Thursday recorded six new COVID-19 cases, all returnees from abroad and in state quarantine. Cumulative infections in Thailand to date are 3,304, with 3,111 recoveries and 58 deaths, while 135 others are still being treated in hospitals. Cocaine in Boss for dentistry BANGKOK: Police officers have claimed that illicit chemical substances, including cocaine, found in Red Bull scion Vorayuth Boss Yoovidhya in the 2012 hit-and-run case were used for his dental treatment, according to a House committee. accidentscrimedrugspolicecorruption By Bangkok Post Friday 31 July 2020, 09:16AM Senior police officers meet the House committee on police affairs at the parliament in Bangkok on Thursday. Photo: Chanat Katanyu / Bangkok Post The committee had on Thursday (July 30) invited officials for questioning regarding the hit-and-run case, reports the Bangkok Post. Natchanon Srikokuea, spokesman of the committee, told a press briefing on Thursday the panel had questioned officers who handled the case as to why they did not press charges related to illicit drug use against Mr Vorayuth despite a positive blood test proving the use of narcotics. The officers told the committee they did not press the charge because a dentist confirmed he had administered medicines which had cocaine as a component for dental treatment. When Mr Vorayuth drank alcohol, it mixed with the medicines which caused some chemical substances in the body to be released, Mr Natchanon quoted the police as saying. However, the police did not provide clear details and had no medical documents to prove that chemical substances found in Mr Vorayuths body were the result of dental treatment, Mr Natchanon said, adding it was just a verbal explanation. This issue is important and the Royal Thai Police is duty-bound to provide an explanation to clear suspicion, Mr Natchanon said. Meanwhile, Sira Jenjaka, chairman of the House committee on legal affairs, justice and human rights, said on Thursday that police will consider bringing a new drugs-related charge against Mr Vorayuth. Mr Sira, a Palang Pracharath Party MP for Bangkok, said police who handled the case told the committee on Wednesday that a medical report containing results of a test on Mr Vorayuth was in an investigation file that had been submitted to prosecutors. The results show there were substances found in the body of Mr Vorayuth. But the officers could not explain to the committee why they did not bring this charge from the beginning, Mr Sira said. Three activists claimed previously they had evidence to prove that Mr Vorayuth had illicit chemical substances, including cocaine, in his system on Sept 3, 2012, the day of the fatal accident. They cited a copy of a letter by Vichan Peonim, head of the Forensic Pathology programme at Mahidol Universitys Faculty of Medicine at Ramathibodi Hospital, made to the head of the facultys Department of Pathology. Mr Sira said on Thursday that his committee on the affairs of courts of justice and a panel on police will meet on Aug 5 to discuss the case. Among those who will testify before the committee will be national police chief Pol Gen Chakthip Chaijinda, Nate Naksuk, director-general of the Department of Appellate Litigation, and assistant police chief, Pol Lt Gen Permpoon Chidchob, who decided not to oppose the prosecutors acquittal as well as two new witnesses in the case, Mr Sira said. However, one of the two witnesses whose testimony reportedly convinced prosecutors to drop all charges against Red Bull scion Vorayuth "Boss" Yoovidhya died following a motorcycle crash in Chiang Mai earlier yesterday morning. Jaruchart Maadthong, 40, was involved in a motorcycle crash at 1am. He died shortly after at Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital. Mr Aira also said that Mr Vorayuth and his lawyer have been invited to testify before the panel. If they fail to show up, they will be summoned using a law on the summons power of House committees. Meanwhile, Warawit Sukboon, secretary-general of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), said on Thursday that the anti-graft agency is ready to investigate the prosecutors who dropped all charges against Mr Vorayuth. He was speaking after lawyer Ronnarong Kaewphet led law students from across the country to lodge a petition with the anti-graft agency asking it to look into whether prosecutors who acquitted Mr Vorayuth exercised their power honestly and in line with the law. The New York Times Presents: Dominic Fike, at First Producer/Director Alexandra Garcia Reporter Joe Coscarelli Now streaming on Hulu and available here for New York Times subscribers in the U.S. Dominic Fike was fresh out of jail when he landed a multimillion-dollar record deal. He didnt have an album or even a single that could be heard, but a few mysterious demo tracks posted to the internet were enough to kick off a frenzied bidding war for an artist who record executives believed could be their next breakout star. It was ugly and competitive as it should be nice and old-school, said Imran Majid, an executive vice president / co-president of A&R at Columbia Records, which eventually signed Fike, then 22. It was a big bet to make on an artist with no music anyone had heard, and Fikes genre-bending crossover appeal prompted some critics to speculate that he was a music-industry plant, dreamed up by marketing executives. A man in China may need to have his hand amputated after a fishbone poked into it and triggered a severe inflammation, doctors have warned. The seafood lover, 60, said he was gutting a fish at home without wearing gloves when the bone pricked two of his fingers, leaving no blood or visible injuries. Medics said the patient had contracted a lethal bacterium, which normally lives in warm seawater and is sometimes described as 'flesh-eating'. Pictures and footage released by Pear Video show that the man's injured hand was extremely inflamed and full of pus-filled blisters. He was injured while gutting a fish at home in China A doctor from the Guizhou Provincial People's Hospital warned the 60-year-old could need an amputation. The patient went to hospital after finding red spots and swelling on his hand Doctors have given the man emergency treatment, but they feared that he would need to undergo an amputation should his condition keep worsening, reported China's Guiyang Evening News. According to the outlet, the man, known by his surname Wang, got wounded without realising on July 17. Mr Wang said he was processing a 2.9-pound fresh perch, a type of fish popular among Chinese diners, when he felt a jab on the ring finger and little finger on his left hand. He did not see blood or cuts and, therefore, did not think much of the incident. But the fish fan discovered several red spots and slight swelling on his hand the next morning. He went for medical attention after his condition became worse in the afternoon. Mr Wang's condition developed from slight swelling on his hand (left) to a severe inflammation of the entire arm. His infection had extended to his armpit when he was rushed to the ICU Mr Wang was admitted into an ordinary ward at a small hospital on the same day. However, his hand became more and more swollen, and the infection had started to spread onto his arm. Doctors thought Mr Wang could be infected with vibrio vulnificus, a type of bacteria that is lethal to about 33 per cent of people who contract it. The man was transferred to the emergency intensive care units of the Guizhou Provincial People's Hospital two days later and was diagnosed with the infection. Pictures and footage released by Pear Video show that the man's injured hand was extremely inflamed and full of pus-filled blisters. A doctor from the People's Hospital, known by his surname Dong, told reporters that Mr Wang's infection had extended to his armpit when he was brought in. Mr Wang was gutting a 2.9-pound fresh perch (file photo) at home when he was wounded Medics gave the patient antibiotic treatment, which managed to relieve the condition on his limb. But the infection on his hand did not improve, and he had lost feelings of his hand. Surgeons decided to make a few cuts on his hand to help reduce the pressure the swelling had caused during a medical procedure. Dr Dong said that the medical team were observing the patient's condition closely. He noted Mr Wang could feel his fingers following the emergency surgery, but his condition was not stable. The medic warned that Mr Wang's life would be in danger if tissue necrosis continued to develop, and an amputation would be required under the circumstances. Johnson & Johnson's experimental coronavirus vaccine protected macaque monkeys with a single shot in a pre-clinical study, potentially gaining on other vaccines that are further along in testing but require two doses over time. Five of six primates exposed to the pandemic-causing pathogen were immune after a single injection. The exception showed low levels of the virus, according to a study published in the medical journal Nature. Researchers evaluated a total of 52 macaques and seven different vaccine prototypes. The health-care behemoth kick-started human trials on July 22 in Belgium and in the U.S. earlier this week. Although other vaccine-makers have moved more quickly into development, with AstraZeneca having already administered its experimental vaccine to almost 10,000 people in the U.K., gaining protection with a single dose could prove an advantage in the logistical challenge of rolling out massive vaccination programs worldwide. "The findings published today are a very important part of the profile that we can bring to the table over the next few weeks as we work with different countries on reaching advanced agreements" for supply of the still-experimental vaccine, Paul Stoffels, the drugmaker's chief scientific officer, said in an interview. The primate data show that the coronavirus vaccine candidate generated a strong antibody response, and provided protection with only a single dose, Stoffels said. J&J aims to embark on the last phase of tests in September, compressing the traditional timeline as it races against others including AstraZeneca, Moderna Inc., Pfizer Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline Plc for a shot to end the pandemic. "This is clearly good news," Louise Chen, a Cantor Fitzgerald analyst said in a Thursday note to investors. "The positive data today is important since J&J has a vaccine platform that has been used before which could ease concerns about the safety of new vaccines being developed for Covid-19." After slight pre-market gains, J&J fell 0.06% to $146.45 at 12:13 p.m. in New York. The New Brunswick, New Jersey-based drugmaker will test both a one-dose coronavirus shot, and a shot coupled with a booster in its early-stage studies of more than 1,000 adults, which launched this month. As the vaccine candidate accelerates through later-stage trials, data will first report out from the one-dose arm of its trials, and Stoffels said J&J will likely seek an emergency use authorization from regulators for a single shot. The shot-plus-booster regimen, however, poses better prospects for enduring immunity, Stoffels said. "That is the optimal approach for long-term protection. If you give a boost, you get 100-fold more neutralizing antibodies. The paper shows that the higher your neutralizing antibodies, the better for your protection." Stoffels said vaccine-makers must rise to the challenge of protecting 70% of the world's population from Covid-19 through safe and effective inoculation. Should they achieve that goal, the virus could be "eliminated from the world entirely," he said. But it's not clear how long coronavirus antibodies can protect people from the disease, and clinical trials haven't yielded proof that a shot could prevent infection for an extended period of time. Albert Bourla, chief executive officer of Pfizer, said on Tuesday that he's preparing for the coronavirus to endure, leading to long-term demand for a seasonal shot to protect against covid-19. "There is a likely scenario that either the vaccine's immunity will not be lasting forever," Bourla said, "or that the virus will mutate, or that the virus will find ways to come back again and again." J&J's Stoffels offers a different perspective. "I hope we can protect people for a long time with one, two, or even three boosters. Hopefully, by then, it will be done," and the world will achieve comprehensive heard immunity, he said. J&J, which received a $456 million award from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, has already entered discussions with the U.S., the European Union, and governments around the world about supplying its vaccine should it prove successful in the clinic. Stoffels said those negotiations will advance in light of the new data. J&J's technology is based on the human adenovirus, a type of common cold virus. It's an approach that is perhaps best known for its use in an Ebola vaccine. The company has not yet determined a price for its shot, though top executives suggest it will be offered on a not-for-profit basis for the duration of the pandemic. Jaisa Johnson was born fighting. She came into the world at just 27-weeks-old- 13 weeks premature. Johnson, the daughter of Resheeda Rhines and Jeremy Johnson, made her alarmingly early debut on Jan. 20. Jaisa Johnson was rushed to the Houston Methodist Childbirth Center at Sugar Lands Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Related: Memorial Parks new Eastern Glades puts visitors in awe Johnson is the first baby born severely premature to be treated in Houston Methodist Sugar Lands NICU. Until recently, Methodists NICU lacked the equipment to care for such a high-risk infant. Premature babies born in Fort Bend County like Johnson would have been transferred to Texas Childrens Hospital in Harris County. For families like Johnsons, who live in Sugar Land, the trek back and forth to see their child was a struggle. Related: What happens if divorced parents dont agree on COVID-19 learning? In years past, babies born as early as Jaisa would have been transferred to Texas Childrens for more specialized care, said Kaelyn Bujnoch, a representative from Houston Methodist Hospital Sugar Land. However, now Houston Methodist Sugar Lands NICU - soon to be classified Level III, the only one in Fort Bend - is capable of providing complex, round-the-clock care for infants born at less than 32-weeks gestational age or who weigh less than 3.3 pounds, as well as any critically ill newborn. Johnson is the first baby to graduate from the NICU, as the hospital has only recently upgraded to a Level III NICU. We have been preparing and working to earn Level III designation for some time, so we were pleased that we were able to keep Jaisa close to home and near her parents, said board certified neonatologist Dr. Shaeequa Dasnadi medical director of the Houston Methodist Childbirth Centers NICU. Having a Level III NICU in Fort Bend is a tremendous benefit to families with premature infants. It can take several weeks or months before a premature baby is able to go home and being close by removes a great deal of the stress, time and travel involved for parents. When Johnson was healthy enough to go home, Houston Methodist Childbirth Center staff surprised her parents with a special celebration. Once word got out that we were planning a celebration for Jaisa, there was no stopping the kindness and generosity of our Houston Methodist Sugar Land family, said Terri Walters, NICU manager. We had an outpouring of support from not only the NICU staff, but also from all of the teams that worked together to get Jaisa home - nurses, occupational and physical therapists, respiratory therapists, physicians, nurse practitioners, patient liaisons and more. It was an amazing show of love. claire.goodman@chron.com Inam Ullah Yousafzai, a lawyer who was in the courtroom, said that after killing Naseem, the gunman placed his pistol on a table and surrendered to police. Another lawyer present at the court remarked on how difficult it would be to bring a weapon into the building. The courthouse is heavily guarded, with multiple security searches and checkpoints that anyone who wants to enter must pass through. Delegations of Ukraine and Iran met in Kyiv on July 30. Ukraine will make every effort to maximize compensation for a Ukrainian jet shot down by Iran on January 8 but talks with Tehran, which began on Thursday, will not be easy, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. "We will achieve justice, no matter how much time and effort it costs," Kuleba said in a statement published by the ministry after the two delegations met in Kyiv, Reuters reported. Read alsoPS752: Black box transcript confirms illegal interference with jet downed in Iran media The ministry said more details would be reported on Friday. Iranian forces say they downed the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 jet after mistaking it for a missile at a time when tensions with the United States had risen. All 176 people on board including 57 Canadians were killed. President Volodymyr Zelensky said in February that Ukraine was not satisfied with the size of compensation Iran had offered to families of Ukrainians killed in the incident. An international team has started examining the flight recorders from the plane. A senior Ukrainian diplomat said last week that the transcript from the black boxes showed there had been illegal interference with the plane. (CNN) It seemed harmless enough at first. Celebrities and regular folks flooded Instagram feeds with black-and-white selfies and professionally shot photos of themselves with the caption #WomenSupportingWomen and "challenge accepted." The "challenge" was women's empowerment then. Then came the deriders, who criticized the posts as a meaningless, distracting act in a time when social justice causes are competing for oxygen. Then, the "challenge" changed shape again. Some claimed the campaign started in Turkey with a noble purpose that was diluted when it reached the States. Now, there's another turn. Instagram's "challenge accepted" trend has gone from harmless to tone-deaf and back again more than a few times this week. But this much is true it did not originate in Turkey as an awareness campaign for violence against women there. According to Instagram, this iteration of "challenge accepted," in which women share black-and-white photos of themselves as a show of support for other women, started in Brazil. How it apparently began At first, American Instagram users, or at least most celebrities who participated, didn't reference Turkey in their captions for the challenge. The motive behind the photos wasn't immediately clear, though most users captioned the images with the hashtag #WomenSupportingWomen and supportive messages for the women who nominated them. Then users began to claim the trend was created in Turkey to call out the killings of women in the country. Recently, the killing of 27-year-old university student Pinar Gultekin, for which her ex-boyfriend was arrested, mobilized hundreds of Turkish women to protest violence against women perpetrated by men. How it really began But the current trend doesn't seem to be connected to that. The earliest post connected to this "cycle" of the hashtag was posted over a week ago, an Instagram spokesperson told CNN. The #WomenSupportingWomen challenge gained traction in Brazil in part from a July 17 post from Ana Paula Padrao, a Brazilian journalist. It seems the challenge was women's empowerment all along. Reporter Taylor Lorenz of the New York Times first confirmed the trend was not created in Turkey. Turkish Instagrammers used the hashtag #IstanbulSozlesmesiYasatr, which refers to the Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe's human rights treaty to prevent domestic violence against women. Turkey is considering withdrawing from the convention, which has spurred mass protests in the country. Instagram told CNN the Turkish movement didn't appear related to the more recent trend based on its analysis. Melek Onder of We Will Stop Femicide Platform, a Turkish group that tracks women's killings in the country, confirmed to CNN that the trend originated in Brazil, not Turkey. Either way, it's raised awareness Even if the challenge didn't originate as a plea for justice for the Turkish women killed in the country this year, it's raised global awareness of violence against women there. Domestic violence concerns have surged during the pandemic, when couples are encouraged to isolate themselves which could increase the likelihood of violence. The same concerns plague Turkey, too -- in June, at least 27 women were killed in the country, according to We will Stop Femicide Platform. The group took up reporting killings of women after the Turkish government stopped counting them in 2009, NPR reported in 2019. We Will Stop Femicide Platform also works to encourage the implementation of the Istanbul Convention, which now Turkey is considering withdrawing from. The agreement urges countries to establish equal rights for women residents and enact legislation to prevent violence against them. Most of the projects on IDOTs wish list have been carried over from previous years. The plan indicates the number of past years a project has been listed in the document. For example, a $33 million project to rebuild the interchange of Harlem Avenue and 95th Street in Bridgeview has been on the list for 22 years, according to IDOT. CYNTHIA CHANDRAN By Express News Service Geetha, writer-director of Run Kalyani, is on cloud nine after her debut Malayalam feature premiered at the prestigious New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF). Her joy knew no bounds when it was nominated for best film, best director, and best actress at the NYIFF. As Geetha is based in Thiruvananthapuram and unable to fly due to the pandemic situation, she will be honoured on August 2 in a virtual award ceremony. If Geetha was a tad bit disappointed when Run Kalyani was not chosen at the 24th IFFK 2019, she is now thrilled that her film has evoked keen interest among the connoisseurs of cinema at the NYIFF. The premiere was followed by a conversation between Geetha and Shashi Tharoor MP. Geetha said she is thrilled that Run Kalyani was the opening film at the oldest and prestigious Indian festival abroad, and consider it an honour to be nominated for three awards. It has been a rough ride for us but like Kalyani, we keep going forward. When she means us, she is indeed referring to the films crew comprising Garggi Ananthan (who plays the main protagonist), Meera Nair, Manoj Menon, and others aside from cinematographer Madhu Neelakandan, editor B. Ajith Kumar, and creative producer Ian McDonald who is also her husband. ALSO READ | Run Kalyani review: An unhurried, empowering and rewarding film Run Kalyani was premiered at Kolkata International Film Festival in November 2019, where it won the Special Jury Award. It was also screened under the competition section at the Bangalore International Film Festival and International Film Festival of Thrissur, where it won the FIPRESCI-India award. It is also listed in the Top 20 Indian films of 2019 voted by FIPRESCI-India. Its preview screening at Sooryas Ganesham, parallel to the 24th IFFK 2019, was met with tremendous applause. An artistic film that has induced curiosity, it also got support from other eminent figures like M A Baby, A R Rahman, Vidya Balan, and Manju Warrier amongst others. Geetha has collaborated with multi-award winning documentary filmmaker Ian McDonald on all his works, most notably the internationally acclaimed Grierson-nominated feature documentary, Algorithms (2012), about young blind chess players from India. The latest in a long series with Ian as director and Geetha as producer is Who Is Europe? (2018), a split-screen docu that questions what Europe is and who belongs to it. This follows their highly successful Freedom (2017), a four-screen film installation on the radical legacy of Martin Luther King. Geetha and Ian make films that confront the political and the personal with their unique take on a subject, humanity of treatment, and an unusual visual richness. Their films have been screened at film festivals, galleries, academic conferences, campaign-meetings and in cinemas around the world. Geetha shuttles between her home town Thiruvananthapuram and Newcastle, UK where she lectures on Film Practice at Film@CultureLab. WATCH TRAILER: WHO gives nod to Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for emergency use listing Emergency Use Listing nod to Covaxin expands availability of vaccines: WHO Days after recommending booster dose, INSACOG says more experiments needed to assess its impact Vaccine is hurried, won't take it: Rajiv Bajaj India oi-Briti Roy Barman Mumbai, July 31: After controversial take on COVID-19 lockdown, Rajiv Bajaj this time came in light after saying he is not waiting for a vaccine. The Managing Director of one of India's biggest motorcycle companies said he will not take the vaccine unless the government makes it mandatory. "A vaccine that is new and hurried is the last thing I will take", Bajaj said in an interview to ET. Elderly, poor, comorbid patients: Govt identifying who needs COVID vaccine Bajaj said he will rely on social distancing, homoeopathy and yoga and not on a vaccine. He also urges the young and healthy to get rid of their fear of the coronavirus. He argues that instead of sporadic, arbitrary lockdowns government should let those who are healthy between the ages of 20 and 60 go out and work normally. Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News "We have the worst of both worlds right now", Bajaj said calling the multiple, short-duration lockdowns unscientific. Rajiv Bajaj said his company is unable to take advantage in the return of demand because they cannot produce at the required capacity levels. Bajaj Auto's Aurangabad plant was faced with a demand to suspend operations after an outbreak of COVID positive cases. Earllier, Rajiv Bajaj had warned of a 50 per cent pay cut for employees if he was forced to suspend operations. "We did not retrench anyone, no pay was cut", he said. "How do you expect passengers on the ship to be secure till you secure the ship?", Bajaj also said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, July 31, 2020, 13:41 [IST] (Support Free Thought) - Dallas, TX The taxpayers of Dallas, Texas may want to request a refund this week after finding out that they have been paying for a pedophile to distribute child porn to other disgusting pedophiles online. This high level cops entire operation was conducted on duty, on official government computers, and also on Google. According to federal court documents, Sr. Cpl. Daniel Lee Collins allegedly uploaded sexual photos of underage girls to various Google accounts using the City of Dallas internet network, according to the Department of Justice. According to the federal criminal complaint, Collins, a 35-year-old senior corporal assigned to Dallas Police Departments Auto Theft Unit, was charged via criminal complaint with transportation of child pornography. Law enforcement officers take an oath to protect and serve, said U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox. This defendant allegedly undermined that vow, preying upon our most vulnerable. The Department of Justice will not tolerate the exploitation of children especially by our public servants. The investigation began with a tip to the the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in May and another in June. The images were being uploaded from multiple accounts held by Collins. Google flagged the images one uploaded on May 13 to an account tagged Dan Collins and two more uploaded on June 29 to an account tagged John Smith. An IT expert in Dallas later traced the IP addresses for the uploads and found them to be coming from the City of Dallas internet network. Investigators determined that the same Google accounts were also accessed from Collins residence, according to the federal complaint. In an interview with federal agents, Collins allegedly admitted to accessing the Google accounts and saving child pornography, according to court documents. Despite admitting to the heinous acts of exploiting children through the uploading of child pornography, Collin is still on the job. He has only been placed on paid administrative leave pending the results of an internal investigation. But his blue privilege didnt stop there. Likely due to his police officer status, Magistrate Judge David L. Horan denied the governments motion for detention and granted Collins release on a personal recognizance bond. Imagine that. While people are paying thousands to bail themselves out over an arrest for possessing an arbitrary substance deemed illegal by the state, this child predator is allowed to walk out bail free. WFAA reports that Collins has been released pending trial and must comply with conditions, which include no unsupervised contact with minors, no possession of pornographic material or any internet-capable devices. No further deaths and 10 new cases of coronavirus have been reported in Northern Ireland, the Department of Health has confirmed. The total death toll remains at 556 people. Ten new cases have been confirmed after 1,621 people were tested. The total number of infections has risen to 5,948. Three people are in hospital with Covid-19, with two patients in intensive care. There are five active outbreaks of coronavirus at care homes in Northern Ireland. Read More It comes as the number of weekly coronavirus deaths in Northern Ireland has risen for the first time since mid June, newly release figures show. The latest figures published today by the Nisra official statistics agency showed that four deaths involving Covid-19 occurred in the last week, from July 18 to 24, bringing the total of deaths to 854. Of this total, 448 (52.5%) took place in hospital, 349 (40.9%) in care homes, eight (0.9%) in hospices and 49 (5.7%) at residential addresses or other locations. The 357 deaths which occurred in care homes and hospices involved 81 separate establishments. Here's how Friday unfolded: A surprise inspection of the combat readiness of the troops is under way in the Armenian Armed Forces, press secretary of the Ministry of Defense Shushan Stepanyan said today. According to her, the inspection involves military units of the first echelon and part of the central subordination forces, which are put on a high level of combat readiness, ARKA reported. The inspection was ordered to find out the combat effectiveness of the military units and their ability to act quickly in the current situation. Interaction between divisions and assistance forces will also be inspected. The inspection includes also fire control drills and operational-tactical episodes. Starting from July 12 afternoon, while grossly violating the ceasefire regime in Azerbaijans Tovuz district on the Azerbaijan-Armenia state border, the Armenian armed forces opened fire at the Azerbaijani positions by using artillery. The battles continued until July 16. 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% 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. MOSCOW (Reuters) - British Airways is expected to resume flights to Russia on Aug. 2, Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency said on Friday, as Russia plans to restart some regular international flights on Saturday. International flights were grounded on March 30 after the imposition of lockdown measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which has infected nearly 840,000 people in Russia. The first regular flight by Russia's Aeroflot will fly from Moscow to Istanbul on Saturday. Aeroflot also plans two Moscow-London flights on Aug. 1. (Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Chris Reese) Native women were highly visible in early 20th-century suffrage activism. White suffragists, fascinated by Native matriarchal power, invited Native women to speak at conferences, join parades and write for their publications. Native suffragists took advantage of these opportunities to speak about pressing issues in their communities Native voting, land loss and treaty rights. But their stories have largely been forgotten. After the 19th Amendment was ratified on Aug. 18, 1920, and celebrated by millions of women across the country, the Indigenous suffragist Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, also known as Zitkala-Sa, a citizen of the Yankton Sioux Tribe, reminded newly enfranchised white women that the fight was far from over. The Indian woman rejoices with you, she proclaimed to members of Alice Pauls National Womans Party, but she urged them to remember their Native sisters, many of whom lacked the right to vote. Not only that, she explained, many were not United States citizens, but legally wards of the government, without a political voice to address the many problems facing their communities. Bonnin and other Native suffragists would continue to remind audiences that federal assimilation policy had attacked their communities and cultures. Despite treaty promises, the U.S. dismantled tribal governments, privatized tribally-held land and removed Native children to boarding schools. Those devastating policies resulted in massive land loss, poverty and poor health that reverberate through these communities today. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the North Atlantic Ocean, it gathered water vapor data on Isaias, while NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided forecasters with a visible image that showed a more organized tropical cyclone. A Visible View of Isaias NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the Atlantic Ocean during the afternoon on July 30, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument provided forecasters with a visible image of Isaias as it was intensifying. VIIRS revealed strong thunderstorms had circled the center of circulation. The image showed the center near the northeastern coast of the Dominican Republic and bands of thunderstorms from the eastern quadrant stretching over Puerto Rico. At the time of the image, Isaias had not yet reached Turks and Caicos. A thick band of thunderstorms from the center of circulation also stretched out in a southwesterly direction and over the Caribbean Sea. Water Vapor Imagery Reveals Heavy Rainfall Potential Water vapor analysis of tropical cyclones tells forecasters how much potential a storm has to develop. Water vapor releases latent heat as it condenses into liquid. That liquid becomes clouds and thunderstorms that make up a tropical cyclone. Temperature is important when trying to understand how strong storms can be. The higher the cloud tops, the colder and stronger the storms. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Hurricane Isaias on July 31 at 3:20 a.m. EDT (0720 UTC), and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument gathered water vapor content and temperature information. The MODIS image showed highest concentrations of water vapor and coldest cloud top temperatures were around the center of circulation and in a thick band of thunderstorms that extends southwest over western Hispaniola and into the Caribbean Sea. Those cloud top temperatures were as cold as or colder than minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6 degrees Celsius) in those storms. Storms with cloud top temperatures that cold have the capability to produce heavy rainfall. That rainfall potential is apparent in today's forecast from the National Hurricane Center. NHC said the Dominican Republic and northern Haiti: 4 to 8 inches, with isolated maximum totals of 12 inches through Saturday. For the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos: 4 to 8 inches, and for Cuba: 1 to 2 inches, with isolated maximum totals of 4 inches. Warnings and Watches on July 31, 2020 On July 31, NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued a Hurricane Warning for the northwestern Bahamas including Andros Island, New Providence, Eleuthera, Abacos Islands, Berry Islands, Grand Bahamas Island, and Bimini. It is also in effect for the southeastern Bahamas including the Acklins, Crooked Island, Long Cay, the Inaguas, Mayaguana, and the Ragged Islands; and for the central Bahamas, including Cat Island, the Exumas, Long Island, Rum Cay, and San Salvador. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the Dominican Republic entire southern and northern coastlines, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. In addition, a Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the east coast of Florida from Ocean Reef to Sebastian Inlet and for Lake Okeechobee. Isaias' Status on July 31, 2020 At 8 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC) on July 31, NHC reported the center of Hurricane Isaias was located by NOAA and Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft near latitude 21.3 north, longitude 73.9 west. That puts the center about 30 miles (50 km) northwest of Great Inagua Island, and 340 miles (545 km) southeast of Nassau. Reports from the reconnaissance aircraft indicate that the minimum central pressure is 990 millibars. Isaias was moving toward the northwest near 17 mph (28 kph), and a generally northwestward motion with some decrease in forward speed is expected for the next couple of days followed by a turn toward the north-northwest. Maximum sustained winds are near 80 mph (130 kph) with higher gusts. Some strengthening is possible today, and Isaias is expected to remain a hurricane for the next few days. NOAA's NHC Forecast for Isaias On the forecast track, the center of Isaias will move near or over the southeastern Bahamas today. Isaias is forecast to be near the central Bahamas tonight, and move near or over the northwestern Bahamas and be near or east of the Florida peninsula on Saturday and Sunday. Interests elsewhere along the southeast coast of the United States should monitor the progress of this system. Additional watches or warnings may be required for a portion of the Florida peninsula later today. NASA Researches Tropical Cyclones Hurricanes/tropical cyclones are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting. NASA's Aqua satellite is one in a fleet of NASA satellites that provide data for hurricane research. For more than five decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA brings together technology, science, and unique global Earth observations to provide societal benefits and strengthen our nation. Advancing knowledge of our home planet contributes directly to America's leadership in space and scientific exploration. For updated forecasts, visit: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov By Rob Gutro NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ### Gina Brass wanted to support survivors of sexual violence, so she shared her own story. "I'm hoping to give other people the courage to know that if you're comfortable you can tell your story, too," she said. She submitted her story to an Instagram account called Survivors Stories Regina. The account is meant to provide a platform for Regina people who have experienced sexual violence. In just over a week, it has received hundreds of stories from people detailing experiences with sexual violence and has more than 5,000 follows. Brass, a Regina-based freelance photographer and makeup artist who also works in the service industry, said she had shared her story before. Brass said she was sexually violated in a changeroom at work in a Toronto restaurant. She said she smacked the man's hand away, shouted no and went to management. She said management believed her, but that she had to keep working with the man who violated her, which was a hard pill to swallow. "But after that incident he knew what he did was wrong." She shared her story to show that it happened to her, too, but also to build connections and trust with other survivors in the community. Photo by Celine Kim Brass said she leaves little notes of support on some of the posts to let others know she's there to listen and that what happened to them doesn't define their worth. Some have reached out to her, and some of her friends have since become comfortable making their stories public. "It's just kind of had this ripple effect." 'A reckoning' The creator of the Instagram page, who CBC has agreed not to name, was also sexually violated. "As a survivor myself, I've found a lot of healing in telling my story," she said, adding sharing can lead to empathy and understanding among others. She created the page in response to the numerous allegations of verbal sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour against mental health advocate and former Earls manager Jim Demeray, which came to light in a CBC News Investigation. Story continues She said she drew inspiration from similar accounts across Canada. There have been #metoo conversations in Regina before, but never quite like this, she said. "I think that it's a reckoning that's long overdue," she said. "It's Regina's time." Anonymity can offer survivors safety The survivors who come forward to the page are anonymous, but some of the accused are named. Jill Arnott, executive director of the University of Regina's Women's Centre, said this setup can make victims feel safe. "People are able to say what happened to them even if they aren't comfortable putting their own personal self out there," Arnott said. "They can still tell their story. They can contribute to the larger narrative and support each other in a way that doesn't require a victim to out themselves." She said the climate remains unforgiving for victim's who identify themselves, despite past #metoo movements around the globe. People call survivors liars or blame them, saying they must have done something to provoke or imply consent to the violence, or they make excuses for abusers and vouch for their character, Arnott said. Anonymity protects victims from that additional trauma she said, adding it also allows women to corroborate how pervasive violence is. "To bolster the claims, to say no it is real. They're not lying. Me too, me too, me too." Submitted by Jill Arnott Arnott said it's historically been "easy" for people in Regina to look away from sexual violence or suggest it doesn't happen here, but that the publication of allegations against Demeray, a prominent public figure, changed that. "In a small community, when somebody is named, it's sort of sparked this it reignited the flame," she said. Arnott, Brass and the creator of the page all called on men to be louder and more public in their support of survivors, to call out predatory behaviour and to reflect on their own actions. The moderator said some men contacted the page after they were publicly accused. Some have offered apologies or tried to be accountable. She said this is positive, but that each apology is approached with caution. "An apology is one thing, but action is another." Movements happening across Canada Several similar Instagram accounts are making waves in Quebec and Manitoba this month, giving space for hundreds of anonymous survivors to come forward. Kharoll-Ann Souffrant, a PhD student in social work at the University of Ottawa who has studied the #metoo and #beenrapedneverreported movements, said the movement happening now comes on the heels of other social movements that swept the nation in 2020. Submitted by Kharoll-Ann Souffrant She said attention to social injustices, like systemic racism and police brutality toward Black and Indigenous people, helped pave the way. Souffrant said that as momentum grows, it's also important to remember that many survivors of sexual violence still remain silent, "especially people from more marginalized communities, so Indigenous communities, Black people, or people from LGBTQ communities." Debunking criticisms Some Instagram accounts are being criticized as "cancel culture." Souffrant said victims who come forward aren't the ones asking for people to be "cancelled." They're sharing their stories to support others, or in search of healing or accountability. She said it's the often industry members who do the "cancelling" once people are called out. She said they're trying "to show they're taking the problem seriously," but many knew about the behaviour long before the allegations were made public. Other critics have asked why victims don't go to the police. Souffrant noted there is a deep mistrust of the justice system amongst survivors, because the small number of victims who do report are often let down. "There's a huge gap because of how many people are actually affected by this and how many cases actually end up in criminal convictions," she said. In other instances, victims report to police but the Crown doesn't pursue charges. The court process can also be retraumatizing if it does happen. The moderator of the Survivors Stories Regina account said some have suggested survivors have something to gain. "You do not get money or fame. You just get trauma or PTSD or anxiety and fear," she said. Others have suggested posts could be fake or that the page is an inappropriate avenue for survivors, but Brass said that misses the point. "I want the conversation just to stay focused and circle around believing survivors." Moving beyond the page The moderator said the page isn't sustainable, because of both the number of stories pouring in and the threats and messages of hate or deterrence. She said she needs to focus on her mental health, too, as she tries to ward off trolls and navigates dozens of stories of sexual violence and tries to connect directly with survivors writing in. She's also trying to take this movement beyond Instagram. She said she's reaching out to MLAs, OH & S and city officials to see what can change, especially in specific job industries. She called on people to hold others accountable and take action. "Rallies, petitions, talking to your MLAs about where funding is going and how accessible these services are," she said. Arnott said people must insist that this momentum doesn't go away. "It's grassroots. It's individual people looking around their lives and saying I'm going to hold you to account the same way I'm going to hold myself to account," she said. "That's how we achieve change is from all of us taking our own personal responsibility and accountability." The next round of Ukraine-Iran talks on the investigation into PS752 flight crash is scheduled for October. "On July 30, 2020, the first round of talks with the delegation of the Islamic Republic of Iran on cooperation in the investigation into UIAs PS752 flight crash took place in Kyiv. The next round of talks is scheduled for October," the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office informs. Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Giunduz Mamedov stressed the need to establish cooperation between Ukrainian and Iranian law enforcement agencies in order to investigate all circumstances of the plane crash promptly and impartially. "We have enough legal tools for effective two-way communication during the investigation. The Montreal Convention, which standardizes the rules of international air transportation, and bilateral agreements on legal relations; clearly define the rights, obligations, and procedures for cooperation. Therefore, we must find a compromise, and these talks are an opportunity to establish ties," Mamedov said. The Prosecutor General's Office informed that four requests for international legal assistance had been sent to the Iranian side during the investigation. The parties discussed the proposals of the Ukrainian side in more detail at the first round of talks. In particular, the creation of a Ukraine-Iran investigative group, the conduct of joint investigative actions in the territory of Iran, examinations, and interrogations were touched upon. As noted, the visit of the prosecutor of the Military Prosecutor's Office of Iran and the Chief of Staff of the Vice President of Iran to the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine is scheduled for Friday. As reported, Irans delegation arrived in Kyiv to participate in talks on compensation for the downing of UIA flight PS752. The Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) plane (flight PS752) heading from Tehran to Kyiv crashed shortly after it took off from the Imam Khomeini International Airport at about 06:00 Tehran time (04:30 Kyiv time) on January 8. There were 176 people on board nine crew members (all Ukrainians) and 167 passengers (citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, Germany, and the UK). All passengers and crew were killed in the crash. On July 18, France's Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authority (BEA) received Flight PS752s recorders from Iran. On July 24, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Yevhenii Yenin informed that the transcript from Flight PS752s recorders had confirmed illegal interference with the plane. ol The process takes place almost entirely online, saving both broker and client time. Rather than be stuck on the phone answering a brokers questions, potential borrowers can provide all the required information through the Nesto portal, where it can then be thoroughly vetted. Clients dont want to be on the phone for two hours, Yacoubi says. They want to do it when theyre on the train with their mobile phone or on their computer at night. When theyre ready to talk with someone, the conversation is way more valuable to them and the broker as well. Nestos platform also contains a risk-matching profile that pairs customers with specific loan products, allowing the company to send files to lenders based on the kinds of borrowers they currently prefer to lend to. We know that this lender is looking for this kind of customer, Yacoubi says, and then we validate all the information prior to sending it to them. Thanks to the companys impressive underwriting performance so far the high funding ratio, its direct connection to CMHC, its ability to provide letters of approval on the behalf of lenders directly to borrowers Nesto has attracted the attention of its lenders. The company has been in talks with several about becoming their third-party underwriting solution. A pilot project with a lender in the Ottawa area is currently underway, as are negotiations with other firms. Mammootty, the megastar is all set to play the CBI officer Sethurama Iyer in the upcoming fifth installment of CBI Series. In a recent interview, CBI 5 writer SN Swamy opened up about his special bond with the megastar. Interestingly, the veteran writer revealed that Mammootty is the only actor, who is free to give him suggestions. According to SN Swamy, he is not someone who encourages his lead actors to interfere in his scripts. The writer strongly feels that changing a film's script to just satisfy its lead actor's ego is totally wrong. But, he has given Mammootty the complete freedom to interfere in his scripts, as he gives great inputs to the screenplay and the roles he plays. To the uninitiated, it was Mammootty who suggested making the central character of CBI Series a soft-spoken Tamil brahmin, as he felt that such a character is very new to the Malayalam cinema of the 1980s. The megastar himself decided the get-up and mannerisms of Sethurama Iyer, including the kumkum in the forehead, formal outfits, and walking style. CBI 5, which is directed by the senior filmmaker K Madhu, is expected to start rolling as Mammootty's first project post lockdown. The movie will feature the senior actors Mukesh and Saikumar once again in the roles of CBI officer Chacko and DySP Sathya Das, respectively. Renji Panicker, the actor-writer is said to be the new addition to the star cast. The makers are yet to finalise the rest of the star cast of the project, which is bankrolled by the prestigious banner Swargachitra. Jakes Bejoy, the popular musician will compose the music for the project. The iconic CBI theme music, which is composed by the veteran musician Shyam, will be retained in the movie. However, CBI 5 will not have any songs, much like the first four installments in the series. Also Read: Miya George Opens Up About Her Wedding With Ashwin Philip: Reveals Some Interesting Details! Anoop Menon-Priya Prakash Varrier's Nalpathukaarante Irupathiyonnukaari To Get A Direct OTT Release! DUBLIN, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Subscriber Data Management Market by Service Provider Type (Carriers and OTT Service Providers), Network Type (LTE and 5G), Operational Model (Premise and Cloud) and Region 2020 - 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. This report provides an assessment of the Subscriber Data Management (SDM) market, including business models, value chain analysis, carrier and vendor strategies, and a quantitative assessment of the industry from 2020 to 2025. The report includes analysis by service provider type (carriers and OTT service providers), network type (LTE and 5G), operational model (premise and cloud-based), and by geographic region of the world. Subscriber data is a crucial commodity for network carriers worldwide, as it can be leveraged to provide customized services and optimize applications to the market based upon subscriber preferences. This creates opportunities for new and highly focused applications and services. Optimally leveraging subscriber data also facilitates revenue expansion as well as improved customer loyalty and profitability. However, access to subscriber data is often a challenge for network operators. This is due largely to subscriber data being stored in a non-unified, distributed architecture that consists of a variety of different network elements and services. This legacy subscriber data architecture approach is often vendor-specific, which makes it costly to establish and maintain a consolidated view of the operational data. Subscriber Data Management (SDM) systems provide solutions to these problems by unifying subscriber data into a central repository. With this repository, SDM solutions unify cross-domain subscriber data, including identity, location, presence, authentication, services and access preferences. These data elements may feed multiple applications through an API interface. An important aspect of SDM is the 3GPP defined Unified Data Repository (UDR) function, which is central to storage and retrieval of data in 5G networks. UDR is also central to the 5G Service Based Architecture (SBA) approach, including application, subscription, authentication, service authorization, policy data, session binding, and application state information. It is estimated that carriers can save up to 47 % in OpEx (associated with customer provisioning, administration, and application/service OSS/BSS) with next-generation SDM as compared to legacy non-UDR mechanisms for managing subscriber data. In addition to OpEx savings, SDM solutions allow carriers to reduce churn rates by enabling carriers to personalize services, improve marketing campaigns, and improve overall revenue and customer retention by gaining rich customer insights. Furthermore, SDM also allows carriers to establish themselves as brokers of subscriber identity through SDM APIs. Driven by internal utilization within carrier services and identity brokering, SDM APIs are anticipated to become a critical asset for 5G SBA based services realization and operation. As network operators continue to invest in network modernization and migrate networks towards 5G, vendors from both telecommunications and IT-centric database backgrounds are competing to gain SDM market share. As part of the 5G network build-out, global carriers are committed to continuing the migration toward a unified data environment that began with LTE networks. As a consequence, SDM vendor revenues are forecast to reach $9.75B by 2025. North America is poised to benefit the most from this trend, becoming a $3.3B market by 2025. Target Audience: SDM vendors Application developers Data mining companies ICT infrastructure vendors Managed service providers Select Report Findings: Driven by 5G infrastructure investment, the Global SDM market will reach $9.75B by 2025 by 2025 North America is poised to benefit the most from this trend, becoming a $3.3B market by 2025 is poised to benefit the most from this trend, becoming a market by 2025 Global cloud-based 5G Unified Data Management (UDM) will become a $370M market by 2025 market by 2025 Global 5G and LTE SDM will be $3.48B at 17.4% CAGR and $1.95B at 60.8% CAGR respectively by 2025 at 17.4% CAGR and at 60.8% CAGR respectively by 2025 The global market for third-party SDM (OTT and managed services providers) infrastructure will exceed $1B by 2025 by 2025 Centralized data management supported by cloud-based storage and retrieval will enable operational savings of up to 47% Key Topics Covered: 1.0 Executive Summary 2.0 Subscriber Data Management Technology 3.0 Subscriber Data Management Market Business Case 4.0 Carrier SDM Deployment Case Studies 5.0 Global SDM Market Analysis and Forecasts 2020 - 2025 6.0 Carrier SDM Market Analysis and Forecasts 2020 - 2025 7.0 SDM Market by Third-Party Service Provider 2020 - 2025 Companies Mentioned Bell Mobility Canada Bharti Airtel Cell C South Africa China Mobile Hutchison (H3G) Mobily Saudi Arabia Movistar Argentina Orascom Telecom Algeria Safaricom Kenya Sprint Tele2 Sweden Telenor Pakistan TeliaSonera TIM Brasil Verizon Wireless For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/amyhwz About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] 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 smolaw11/iStockBy TENZIN SHAKYA and ANTHONY RIVAS, ABC News (PENSACOLA, Fla.) -- Florida is one of a handful of states that have mandated in-person learning in schools this fall. Parents, educators and students talk about balancing the risks as the state fights high transmission. As Florida cases of the coronavirus continue to rise, Pensacola mom Latoya Floyd says she doesn't want to risk her childrens health by sending them back to school next month but that she doesnt have a choice, either. The single parent of two elementary school kids, one of whom has asthma, works at a Publix where she has been an associate throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. While there, her kids stay at a daycare that she says is poised to become overwhelmed with children, making it difficult for them to learn adequately and maintain social distance, she says. She says she works too many hours to ensure her kids are getting a proper education on her own. I absolutely have no choice but to send them to school because I work 45 hours a week, so it would be extremely hard to try to juggle making sure that their curriculum is on task, Floyd told Nightline, adding that her kids get too distracted learning from home. I feel like they should have an environment that they can sit and learn, and know that when theyre in this environment, its all about education, its all about school. Over the weekend, Florida surpassed New York, the former U.S. epicenter of the virus, to become the state with the second most COVID-19 cases. There were record numbers of hospitalizations and deaths last week, as its rate of positive cases has begun to trend downward. As Florida began seeing a surge in cases in early July, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order requiring schools to open for traditional in-person learning. In response to the order, some educators in Florida have sued the governor, Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, asking for an injunction to stop state officials from taking action if schools dont reopen for in-person learning, arguing that it violates the Florida constitution to open schools if it is unsafe. I would rather actually keep them home than to send them back right now because the virus is still yet rising, Floyd said. Nothing has really happened to decrease people being sick and there hasnt really been a cure for COVID-19. So if my children contract COVID-19 then its all a waiting game on if they will get better, and with my son having asthma, that just puts a little bit more on him and his conditions. Floyd is not alone. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday found 55% of American parents were against schools reopening for in-person instruction in the fall. Only 44% of parents said theyd be willing to send their kids back to school in the fall despite 59% of them saying they were concerned their children were falling behind in school because of the pandemic. Floyd said her children, 10-year-old Tyler Floyd and 6-year-old Skylar Woods, are supposed to begin fifth-grade and first-grade classes at Ferry Pass Elementary School in Pensacola next month. The school, which is part of the School District of Escambia County, had given parents three choices for their kids 2020-2021 education: remote learning, virtual school and traditional. The school had previously been scheduled to start classes on Aug. 10, but its start date was postponed to Aug. 24 last week after the school districts superintendent Malcolm Thomas said twice the expected number of parents chose remote learning and virtual school over traditional. The number of students participating in the Remote Learning/Virtual School option means additional training for a number of our current instructors, Thomas said in a statement on the schools website. Pushing the student start date is necessary to provide our educators with the professional development required for quality virtual instruction. This also means students returning to Traditional School can improve social distancing within the classroom and school buses. Still, educators within the Escambia school district expressed concerns about the safety precautions their schools will have when they reopen. Math teacher Willie Craig is also the director of Camp Magnolia Summer Day Camp in Milton, Florida. When the pandemic began in the U.S. in March, he made the decision to shut down the program, saying the risk of kids being sick and just spreading that among the other kids was too high. His sister, a music teacher and pastor, has been on a ventilator with COVID-19 for 19 days now. He says hes concerned reopening in an area of high transmission will place teachers and students at risk of exposure. As a member of the Pensacola Citywide Choir, Craig said at least four other members are in the hospital fighting COVID-19. I really want to be there and see the students, Craig told Nightline. I have a passion for the kids. I absolutely love my kids. However life is just too precious and we cant get this wrong. Safety has to be first before anything else. Carol Cleaver, a science teacher in the Escambia school district, says that while she wants schools to reopen, she thinks we need to be realistic about in what fashion is the safest way. I certainly have elderly people in my family that Im concerned about. There are other people in my family that have immuno-compromised issues, she told Nightline. And so, Im terrified that I might bring something back to their household. A lot of my students are being raised by their grandparents and its just not realistically a safe situation for anyone. Cleaver had also been part of a task force charged with creating a reopening plan for the Florida Education Association teachers union. She says the group presented their plan to DeSantis and Corcoran in early June. Im disappointed that the governor has issued a unilateral order I really think that, especially in light of the rising numbers in Florida, we need a little more leadership. I feel like that the governor has put superintendents in a very difficult position -- that hes kind of making them make the tough decision of closing schools when I think it should be a statewide decision. I think we need leadership at the state level and were not getting that. Cleaver said the Escambia school district had pre-purchased 400,000 paper masks and installed hand sanitizing stations, but said she was worried the schools would run out of paper towels and soap, which typically ran out early in the day. We are not certain that we will be given anything else to help us keep our classrooms clean, like paper towels or disinfectant Cleaver said, adding that family members have been collecting these items so theyd be available. As part of the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) guidelines for reopening K-12 schools, the agency says its critical that school administrators implement multiple COVID-19 mitigation strategies, including using cloth face coverings and social distancing, maintaining a healthy environment through frequent cleaning and disinfecting surfaces and making decisions that take into account the level of community transmission of COVID-19. The School District of Escambia Superintendent Malcom Thomas did not respond to a request for comment on the schools masks requirements or other steps it would be taking to ensure safety in schools. However, the school districts website says that face coverings will be worn in district facilities as directed by staff and instructional leaders. If a situation arises whereas a student, member of staff, or a visitor is not wearing, or is incapable of wearing a face covering, such individual may be assisted or guided by appropriate authorities within the district to undertake alternative, reasonable and accommodating actions to protect self and others. The site also says no one is expected to wear face coverings for six to seven hours at a time, and that its particularly important to comply on school buses, in hallways and in shared spaces. Students will also be socially distancing to the extent possible, according to the website. Maintenance staff and custodians will also clean frequently touched surfaces throughout the day and conduct overall cleanings at the conclusion of every day. Non-custodial staff will be given spray bottles and microfiber cloths for additional cleanin, and teachers will have access to cleaning supplies for their classrooms. The schools are also changing their air conditioning filters and giving temperature checks to students and staff as appropriate. In Clay County, Florida, kindergarten teacher Megan Carrigan has been teaching 18 students in an in-person summer school program at Charles E. Bennett Elementary School in Green Cove Springs, Florida, since July 8th. We take risk in all that we do each day. But given the circumstances that I've already gone through, I feel like I need to do the best that I can to live my life the fullest, she said. And as long as I know that I am taking all the precautions that I need to take. Then I'm going to be OK. Carrigan is a cancer survivor and diabetic who says shes aware of the risks shes taking every time she walks into the classroom. My family had to take extra measures to help keep my immune system strong. ... We would naturally come in and sanitize our hands, change clothes, take showers -- things like that, she said. And so, with COVID, we're doing the exact same thing. She says that experience helped her with implementing new rules and procedures within her classroom. I actually have written it into our schedule when they come in, we hand sanitize. We start our morning work. Then, we do bathroom break with hand washing, and then we do an activity and then we do bathroom break and hand washing, she says. So, we just built into the schedule more hand washing and sanitizing. And then, when they line up to go anywhere -- the student center for lunch or dismissal -- we've taught them to line up with social distancing. For these tough decisions parents and teachers across the U.S. will soon need to make, Carrigan says to each their own. "As a teacher, as a person, as a parent, you need to do what's best for you and your family, she said. And if you do not feel like it's a place that you need to be at that time, then you need to stand true to what you feel. ... For me, personally, being in the classroom is where I want to be and where I feel safe going." Dr. Jason Wilson, an emergency physician at Tampa General Hospital in Tampa, Florida, says it was difficult deciding whether hed send his son to school, but that he ultimately decided he would. If this is so hard for me, how can any other parent make this decision right now, he said. I don't even understand that, when the world is shifting so much, when our cases are as high as they are. Wilson says that after weighing the risks, he decided enrolling his son was the best option for his family. However, hes hoping his sons school district will consider delaying the reopening date until COVID-19 hospitalization rates go down. We're having to make decisions about science and about policy and about our own children based on this serious virus that we know very little about. It takes time to make these things and bring these things out. And we really haven't gotten it yet. Like many parents, Wilson is still struggling with his decision. I don't feel completely safe in this decision I have made. I felt it was the best decision and that gave me the most options at the time that I signed the letter. But I don't see how anyone can feel perfectly safe in this current place where I am right now in Tampa. he said. It's a risk calculation and I'm not sure where the risk is going to sit three weeks from now, or a month. When compared to the speed at which schools had to transition to remote learning at the beginning of the pandemic, Craig says reopening the schools can be different. If we take time now and plan correctly, then we can make huge strides as far as education is concerned. But if we dont and we go back into brick and mortar [schools] and there is going to have to be quarantines here and quarantines there -- we dont do this effectively -- then learning would be limited. It may already be too late. Like many other parents, Floyd is concerned her kids have fallen behind during the pandemic. She said theres a lot of pressure right now to ensure her daughter is prepared for first grade and that her daughter is in a structured setting to ensure she is grasping the curriculum. They took children out of school like mid semester and that slowed things down tremendously. Me, having a kindergartner, we were still in a really tight learning spot because [of] having to make sure she knows her sight words, Floyd said. Theres a lot of pressure before going into the first grade because you have to know these words to be able to read in the first grade. Floyd said her childrens education is super important to her because itll equip them to be self-sustaining, confident adults. Having spent several months making sure their school work gets done after day care and working full-time, she said she has a newfound respect for educators. I love them, she said. I wish them the best and I hope things are really, really normal again." Copyright 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. SPRINGFIELD Cracks are beginning to show in the Illinois House Democratic caucus that Michael Madigan has overseen as speaker for all but two years since 1983. Three more members of that caucus called for Madigan to resign this week, at least as House Speaker and chair of the states Democratic Party. They join another Democratic representative and three senators all women and a number of high-profile Republicans in calling for Madigans resignation from at least one of his leadership positions. A Madigan spokesperson initially declined to comment Thursday afternoon on Capitol News Illinois questions as to whether the speaker was considering the request. But, later Thursday night, the spokesperson released a statement on behalf of Madigan after he reportedly spent much of the day calling Democratic caucus members. I understand that the last couple of weeks have been difficult for our caucus and party, and I have had many candid conversations with members of the Democratic caucus on this matter. The feedback is positive and demonstrates continued support for me and my leadership roles," Madigan said in the statement. "I have no plans to resign. I have never made a legislative decision with improper motives and any claim otherwise is unfounded. I will continue to lead the effort to defeat Donald Trump, expand the Illinois congressional delegation and the majorities in the Illinois House and Senate. The latest calls for the speakers resignation come nearly two weeks after he was implicated in a bribery scheme relating to utility giant Commonwealth Edison. In a court document, ComEd admitted to handing out benefits such as lobbying jobs and subcontracts to close associates of the Illinois House speaker in an effort to gain support for legislation benefitting the company. Madigan has not been charged with any crime and has denied wrongdoing. Rep. Anne Stava-Murray, a Naperville Democrat, was the only member of the House Democratic caucus who had called for his resignation before this week. She was also the only Democrat who did not vote for Madigan as speaker at the beginning of this session of the General Assembly. This week, Reps. Terra Costa Howard, D-Glen Ellyn, and Stephanie Kifowit, D-Oswego, added their names to the growing list seeking Madigans resignation. Others have called for the speaker to resign if the allegations in the ComEd court document are true. Howard, in a statement Wednesday, called for Madigans resignation as speaker and party chair. The sworn statements in the U.S. Attorneys agreement with Commonwealth Edison detail a yearslong scheme of payoffs and bribery involving many of Speaker Madigans closest allies. Even if he was not directly involved in this scheme, these accusations clearly demonstrate that the speakers leadership has failed, she said in the statement. Speaker Madigan has a duty to recognize that these allegations have cast a deep shadow on the reputation of our House. He must take action now to avoid inflicting further damage on the members of the House and the Democratic Party. While she said Madigan has not been charged and is entitled to the presumption of innocence and due process, his ties to the investigation make it impossible for Rep. Madigan to continue in his leadership roles. I hope he will do the honorable thing and step down, she said. On Thursday morning, Kifowit tweeted that she electronically delivered a letter to the speaker requesting he step down. I write this letter as a legislator who voted for you for Speaker in the past, Kifowit wrote. The reality is that each time, the vote I made for you was carefully considered. I voted with the view that you would respect and honor the leadership position of the Speaker of the House. But, in light of the ComEd document, Kifowit said it was clear that Madigan or at least those he empowered in his inner circle did not hold the respect and dignity of the institution of the Illinois State House and the General Assembly as a whole. The actions described in the U.S. Attorneys deferred prosecution agreement by ComEd show that you have compromised the integrity of the office of Speaker of the House and undermined the public trust, she said. Therefore, I demand you to do the right thing and step down immediately as Speaker of the House. In the event that you do not, and if you choose to seek nomination to this position again, I will vote against said nomination and will not vote for you should your nomination be successful. Hours after Kifowits letter, Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, joined her colleagues in calling for the speaker to resign from his leadership roles. I have long been an outspoken critic of Speaker Madigan, but I have always stopped short of calling for his resignation, deferring to many of my colleagues concerns about due process, she said in a statement. As a leader on criminal justice reform, I feel strongly about the principles of innocent until proven guilty and the right to due process. I also believe leadership must be held to a higher standard, and it is clear that the constant drip of corruption stories will interfere with our ability to advance a progressive agenda. Whether these investigations ultimately implicate him or continue to pick away at his inner circle, the damage is done. Earlier in the week, prominent Democratic Sen. Heather Steans, of Chicago, called on Madigan to resign those two positions, as well. Some will argue that the Speaker is innocent until charges are filed and hes proven guilty. But those are not the standards that should apply to his leadership role. Serving as Speaker is not a right; its a privilege. A leaders actions must avoid even the perception of wrongdoing. Speaker Madigan repeatedly has violated that trust, she wrote in a statement. Sen. Melinda Bush, D-Grayslake, called for his resignation to both those positions and as a member of the General Assembly shortly after the ComEd news broke as well. Sen. Iris Martinez, D-Chicago, has called for Madigans resignation as party chairman. Republicans have been steadily beating the drum on the ethics issue since the news broke, with Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin taking a stronger stance Thursday than he had previously. After reviewing the facts contained in the ComEd deferred prosecution agreement, it is abundantly clear that Michael J. Madigan is unable to execute his responsibilities as Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives and as state representative for the 22nd House District, Durkin said in a statement. I call for the immediate resignation of Speaker Madigan from the Illinois House of Representatives, and will be filing a resolution to have the House Chamber vote on a new Speaker immediately. Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. Love 3 Funny 2 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State has freed 29 inmates who were serving different jail terms at the Goron-Dutse Prison in Kano. The governor, who ordered the release of the inmates during his visit to the prison in Kano on Friday, said the gesture was in the spirit of activities of Eid-el-Kabir. Mr Ganduje said the beneficiaries of the gesture were selected based on the gravity of offence and sign of reformation while in prison. He added that the decision to visit the prison was to show the inmates that the state government was aware of their existence and that they were also regarded as citizens of the state. He, however, advised the freed inmates to desist from acts that would warrant bringing them back to prison. READ ALSO: He said each of the inmates would be given N5,000 to enable them travel to their destination. The comptroller of Prisons, Abdullahi Magaji, commended Mr Ganduje for freeing the inmates. Mr Magaji also advised the freed inmates to be of good character and stay off crimes to avoid going back to prison. The governor was accompanied to the centre by his deputy, Nasiru Gawuna, and some members of the cabinet. (NAN) The Archdiocese of Ho Chi Minh City has announced the suspension of all of its community activities due to increasingly complicated developments of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic. The suspension started on Friday and will last until further notice, the Vietnam News Agency reported. During this period, all local Catholics are exempt from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass. Starting August 1, masses will be broadcast live for those who wish to attend remotely. The number of priests in charge of organizing daily ceremonies must not exceed 30 and must keep at least two meters from each other, the archdiocese said in a statement. All people must wear face masks and sanitize their hands when going to local churches and chapels. These venues must be regularly disinfected. Church members who have symptoms of respiratory disease or have recently returned from COVID-19-hit localities must practice home quarantine, it said. Vietnams COVID-19 tally sits at 509, with 373 recoveries and one death as of Friday afternoon. The country has recorded 93 community-based cases, all traced back to the central city of Da Nang, since Saturday last week, according to a Tuoi Tre News count. Among the new wave of cases, two were diagnosed in Ho Chi Minh City. The municipal administration previously ordered bars and discos to shut down from Friday until further notice amid new COVID-19 developments. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! (JTA) Since retiring from his post as national director of the Anti-Defamation League in 2015, Abraham Foxman has had plenty of opportunities to take on other projects in the Jewish world. Until now, hes almost always said no. But now the 80-year-old is coming out of retirement with an ambitious goal: to raise $28 million to feed Holocaust survivors during the pandemic. Foxman will lead the national initiative for the Met Council, a social service agency and the largest distributor of kosher food to New Yorkers living in poverty. Since early April, the organization has been deliverin... This article by Jeff Schogol originally appeared on Task & Purpose, a digital news and culture publication dedicated to military and veterans issues. A "small number" of sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush have tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), Naval Air Force Atlantic spokeswoman Cmdr. Jennifer Cragg confirmed on Thursday. Cragg said she was unable to say exactly how many sailors were sickened with the coronavirus or when they tested positive for the disease due to limits imposed by the Pentagon on what information can be made public. "The Department of Defense does not release the number of infected individuals at the unit, facility or geographic area level due to operational security," Cragg said in a statement. Navy Times reporter Geoff Ziezulewicz first revealed that an unspecified number of the aircraft carrier's crew had been diagnosed with the coronavirus and are currently in isolation at home while the ship is undergoing maintenance at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Virginia. The sailors tested positive for the coronavirus "this summer," said Cragg, who declined to be more specific. Those sailors are receiving daily medical care and support. "Additionally, USS George H.W. Bush is actively enforcing physical distancing, minimizing group gatherings, wearing PPE [personal protective equipment], and cleaning extensively," Cragg said. "Norfolk Naval Shipyard is conducting temperature checks and screening all personnel with a medical symptoms questionnaire, and if required, referring Sailors with symptoms for medical evaluation." The coronavirus has shown how shockingly vulnerable Navy ships are to disease outbreaks. On the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, 1,273 sailors became infected with the virus, one of whom died: Chief Petty Officer Charles Robert Thacker Jr. Separately, more than 70 sailors aboard the destroyer USS Kidd tested positive for the coronavirus this spring. As of July 29, a total of 9,078 Navy sailors, civilians, contractors, and dependents had tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the Navy's latest figures. Of those cases, 18 people have died: One sailor, four contractors, and 13 civilians. More articles from Task & Purpose: What should US troops expect if Joe Biden is elected president? Kim Jong Un appears ready to drop the hottest diss track of 2020 Arizona National Guard soldier dies after collapsing during fitness test Reliance Industries (RIL) reported a 31% jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 13,248 crore in Q1 June 2020 compared with Rs 10,141 crore in the corresponding period of last year. Consolidated total income for the quarter stood at Rs 95,626 crore, down 42.11% compared with Rs 165,199 crore year-on-year. The decline in revenue was primarily due to fall in O2C revenues, led by sharp decline of 57.6% in average Brent crude price. Retail business also witnessed 17% decline in revenues due to lockdown and restrictions in store operations. Overall decline in revenue was partially offset by increase in revenue of Digital services business with strong subscriber addition and significant improvement in ARPU. Wipro announced that Metro Bank, a large UK based retail and commercial bank, has awarded a multi-year contract to deliver and transform Testing and Environment Management Services. State Bank of India, Tata Motors, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries and Indian Oil Corporation will announce their April-June their quarterly results today, 31 July 2020. Indian Overseas Bank's board approved raising up to Rs 500 crore through equity and Rs 1,500 crore in Tier II capital. Rain Industries reported 78.88% fall in consolidated net profit to Rs 26.54 crore on 29.19% fall in total income to Rs 2,387.39 crore in Q2 June 2020 over Q2 June 2019. Linde India reported 1.74% fall in consolidated net profit to Rs 19.81 crore on 49.8% fall in total income to Rs 251.35 crore in Q2 June 2020 over Q2 June 2019. Essel Propack reported 13.28% rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 44.45 crore on 15.33% rise in total income to Rs 746.64 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019. Kesoram Industries said that the board of directors of the company approved a fund raising plan of an amount aggregating up to 2,000 crore, by way of equity and/or debt instruments including Non-Convertible Debentures and/or Preference Shares for the company and also including Rights Issue and/or Preferential Allotment and/or by a combination of any. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. WARE The Selectboard on Tuesday will discuss passing a petition urging the state to construct a new Holyoke Soldiers Home for veterans. The Ware petition refers to $199 million now being spent to build a new facility to replace Chelsea Soldiers Home near Boston. The new Chelsea facility currently under construction is expected to open in 2022, with 247,000 square feet of interior space. The proposed Ware resolution says in part: Whereas in November 2017, with the support of Governor Baker and the Legislature, the state approved $199 million to build a new 154-bed long-term care facility at the Soldiers Home in Chelsea; while disregarding the long-documented deficiencies at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. The Holyoke facility was built in 1952. The petition says, all veterans deserve equal treatment in Massachusetts state-funded Veterans Homes. It says a state needs assessment study completed eight years ago determined that of the 278 current beds, less than 5% meet VA Standards and that in 2013 the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs was prepared to underwrite 65% of cost for a major upgrade to the Holyoke facility, but the state has repeatedly failed to commit its 35% share of matching funds. This year, at least 76 veterans that contracted the COVID-19 disease living at the Holyoke Soldiers Home perished, according to an investigation report Baker ordered. A 174 page report the governor released on June 24 says: The most substantial error by the Homes leadership team was a decision on March 27, 2020 to move all veterans from one of the two locked dementia units (2-North) into the other locked dementia unit (1-North), where they would be crowded in with the veterans already living there. At the time, each unit had some veterans who were COVID-19 positive, some who were suspected of having the disease, and others who were displaying no COVID-19 symptoms. The report says: the consolidation of these two units resulted in more than 40 veterans crowded into a space designed to hold 25. This overcrowding was the opposite of infection control; instead, it put those who were asymptomatic at even greater risk of contracting COVID-19. Ludlow, Southwick and Granby selectboards have approved resolutions similar to the one the Ware board will consider on Aug. 4. Modi government is pursuing big goals to mark the 75th anniversary of the independence in 2022. The government has prepared a vision document through which it aims to make a New India by 2022 by eradicating and It plans to achieve this goal through inclusive and sustainable development. Prime Minister last year said that celebration of 75th Independence day in 2022 will mark the celebration of the dream of New India in an unique way. The Vision document for 2024 prepared by Ministry of Rural Development envisages several big goals. According to the New India Strategy column of the Vision document, the Modi government has set a big goal to eradicate by 2022. The vision document prepared by NITI Aayog and Ministry of Rural Development states that India has succeeded in finding a solution to the problem of Under the New India 2022 strategy, Prime Minister aims for balanced development of all sectors, recognising the challenges of development. The government is emphasizing on inclusive development. There is a special focus on the development of rural areas. The main objective is to reduce poverty. Everyone will be given a home by 2022. Poverty will be eradicated by strengthening sectors like electricity, drinking water, health, education etc. in villages. Special attention will be given to economic and social development. The document also states that basic needs will be identified in the villages. Facilities will be increased to improve living. The focus will be on increasing employment by developing rural basic resources and women empowerment. Training and capacity development programs will be conducted in the villages. The vision document aims of changing the lifestyle of people living in villages by 2022 through Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana, Livelihood Mission, Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, MNREGA, Skill Development Program, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Rurban Mission, Social Assistance Program, etc. Sources in the Ministry of Rural Development told IANS that under the mission of New India 2022, work is going on with a focus on a dozen of targets. The government is focussing on education, skill development, bank credit, water conservation, health and nutrition, electricity, housing, ODF, waste disposal, road, internet, LPG, DBT, social protection of elderly, widows, disabled, sports, youth club, non-agricultural activities in rural areas. Union Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar stated in the vision document, "The ministry is dedicated to meet the goals of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's New India 2022. The aim is of economic development by increasing livelihood opportunities in agriculture and non-agriculture sector, improving road connectivity, improving supply chain, providing houses, electricity and education to all. The Vision document contains all the goals of development of rural India." --IANS hindi-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.) The banging of protesters fists could be heard inside City Hall as Allentown City Council met with the police chief for three hours Wednesday night to go over suggested reforms for the Allentown Police Department. The scene outside as day gave way to night was tense at times, Bethlehem-based public radio WLVR reports, as counter-protesters -- one openly carrying a semiautomatic rifle -- sought to make their voices heard, too. Two groups have gathered at Allentown City Hall tonight: Black Lives Matter and a Back the Blue. The council will discuss possible changes to the police policy tonight. pic.twitter.com/X0rr6nfXr2 Tyler Pratt (@theTylerPratt) July 29, 2020 The group against changes to police police is praying, waving Trump and American Flags, includes several bikers and one person is displaying a gun pic.twitter.com/ckC4WrAent Tyler Pratt (@theTylerPratt) July 29, 2020 It all played out against the backdrop of increased scrutiny on police, ever since George Floyd died on Memorial Day in Minneapolis with an officers knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes. The national debate over police powers came home to Allentown when police were filmed kneeling on the head of an allegedly intoxicated man they were restraining July 11 outside St. Lukes Sacred Heart Hospital. Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin ruled July 17 the officers involved used reasonable force and would not face criminal charges, and Allentown Chief of Police Glenn Granitz Jr. the same day said the officers would not face discipline. Councilwoman Ce-Ce Gerlach proposed the two-page resolution outlining new limits and requirements for police. We couldnt be silent, she said at Wednesday nights meeting. So even though this may have caused a lot of division, this needed to come up. During a time of national outrage when buildings are burning, rubber bullets are flying, riot gear is in full force, we could not do nothing. So thats why this came about and what passes is what passes, but at least were having the conversation. And Im hoping that at some point we can get beyond this divisive youre either anti-cop if you want reform or you are a hardcore KKK member if you dont want reform. Theres got to be a way that we can start having these conversations in a civil way without pigeonholing people. The seven-person council, with two former Allentown police officers, took no action on the resolution but is scheduled to take up the matter again the evening of Aug. 12. The night before, Bethlehem City Council members are meeting to discuss their own police departments use of force policies and statistics, as well as a proposed Community Engagement Initiative. Wednesday night in Allentown, Granitz joined council in going over 14 reform recommendations presented by Gerlach. Due to the coronavirus, the meeting was held without anyone from the public in council chambers, though it was streamed live for anyone to watch. Public comment received by 2 p.m. and read into the record by city Clerk Michael Hanlon skewed about two-thirds in support of the resolution. Beyond 14 bullet points of proposed reforms, the resolution calls for Allentown to draft a plan of divestment of resources currently allocated to the police department to other areas or sectors of the city to more appropriately address such issues as mental health, drug & alcohol treatment, housing and social services, and the like. That move toward so-called defunding the police follows calls from groups like Lehigh Valley Stands Up to take $25 million away from the police departments $40.3 million budget and put it toward housing infrastructure, substance abuse treatment and educational opportunities. Our demands have been clear, the grassroots group said in a statement in support of Gerlachs resolution. We demand that this money be invested into non-policing forms of public safety and community support. Community members gather for a rally July 13, 2020, at Seventh and Hamilton Streets in Allentown in the wake of Allentown police restraining a man two days prior outside St. Luke's Sacred Heart Hospital. The demonstration marked at least the second in the city since video circulated depicting an Allentown police officer placing a knee on the head of a man on the ground. Matt Smith | For NJ Advance Media Cutting the police budget was a non-starter for council President Daryl Hendricks, a former police officer like Councilman Ed Zucal. Theres only one agency you can call 24 hours a day 365 days .. and thats the men and women of the Allentown Police Department, Fire Department or EMS, so I have a real problem when someone wants to suggest that we divest our funds for social workers, Hendricks said. Theyre not the ones that are going to come either when you have that barricaded gunman -- or quite frankly, an incident such as what happened in front of the hospital. Granitz said budget cuts would impact most the police departments newest recruits, who represent the most diverse officers in city history in terms of people of color, women and those who live in Allentown. For us to scrap that and throw that out, honestly it doesnt make sense to me, he said. It would also impact training, Councilwoman Candida Affa noted. Taking that money away from you, in my opinion, were not having the quality of police officers that we want, she said. So this is one of the reasons Im totally against it. Mayor Ray OConnell asserted hed like to see Lehigh County do more from a social services standpoint to complement police. A St. Luke's worker in medical scrubs watches as Allentown police use force to subdue a man who was vomiting outside the Sacred Heart campus emergency room. Screenshot of YouTube video Several of Gerlachs suggestions are beyond the citys control and would need to be taken up by the state Legislature, officials said. Councilman Joshua Siegel said he wants to see individual resolutions voted on as soon as possible to push for changes in laws like those governing the public release of body camera footage, giving the state attorney general jurisdiction over misuse of force and establishing a citizens review board for cases where excessive force is used or a weapon is discharged. Several of Gerlachs suggestions are already incorporated in department policies, Granitz said. That includes some points relating to discipline. In my career Ive had the opportunity to hold officers accountable. Ive been in a position where Ive been involved in the investigations and the arresting officer of police officers, and as chief of police Ive had to fire officers, he said, adding later: I will not throw officers under the bus or rush to judgment without a full and thorough investigation. Gerlach stressed that the resolution is not about individuals like Granitz or the current district attorney but about establishing standards for whoever might be in those positions. One of the resolutions points that seems unlikely to pass calls for council intervention on any policy changes that would decrease adherence to 8 Cant Wait policies. Granitz has called the 8 Cant Wait proposals solid principles of policing that many police departments have enacted, but the discussion Wednesday indicated some points -- like a ban on chokeholds and strangleholds -- are impractical. I certainly understand the problem, weve had many conversations, and I know Mr. Zucal does because weve been in the trenches, said Hendricks, the council president. We know what happens and the reason you cant remove that. Granitz also pushed back against Gerlachs suggestion to automatically suspend officers suspected of violating the citys use of force policy. The chief also disputed the need to ban no-knock warrants -- something the department doesnt practice -- or to prohibit stop and frisk. The latter is a tactic permitted under U.S. Supreme Court precedent to check anyone -- with reasonable suspicion -- for weapons, identification, warrants or potential involvement in a crime, Zucal said. This is actually illegal, as far as Im concerned, to even attempt to take this away from the police, Zucal said. Here is the resolution as proposed: Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. After an almost one-year break, Tbilisi and Tskhinval resumed contacts within the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM). The negotiations, which were interrupted on August 29, 2019 after the protest of the Ossetian side against the establishment of a Georgian police station without its approval, are traditionally held with the participation of the EU Monitoring Mission. Nothing special was expected from the new round of negotiations, but, taking into account the current situation, any contacts between the opposing sides are a good thing. Tskhinvali and Tbilisi, as always, have claims to each other. The Ossetian side wants the Georgian one to "stop provocations." The last such provocation happened a few days ago: several cars drove up to the border, people who got out of them did something and hastily left, noticing that border guards were taking pictures of them. The Georgian side insists on stopping the abductions of Georgian citizens near the border, which is a "state" border, according to Tskhinval, and "administrative" border or "occupation line", according to Tbilisi. Now the Ossetian security forces have two Georgian citizens - Zaza Gakheladze and Khvich Mgebrishvili. Gakheladze's story is generally common for the current Georgian-Ossetian incidents, not counting the fact that a Georgian citizen wandered to the "other side" was wounded by border guards. According to Tbilisi, Gakheladze and his friend were picking mushrooms. Tskhinval points out that mushroom pickers do not have guns, thus explaining the use of weapons by border guards, emphasizing that Gakheladze, who was slightly wounded in the leg, received the necessary assistance and was placed in a quarantine zone. Much more non-standard and resonant was Mgebrishvili's case, who, after being arrested, said on camera that he had gone to Ossetian villages for ... "bat cocoons", as they cost a lot of money - 10 thousand dollars each. The authorities and the media started to speculate on this topic, linking Mgebrishvili with the US-funded Lugar lab in Tbilisi, biological sabotage, etc. According to them, the U.S. laboratory has been intensely interested in South Ossetian bats since about 2012. The statements are "backed up" by the testimonies of South Ossetian law enforcement officials about the facts of catching bats by the Georgian side. There is even a clarification - the bat project costs almost $3 million and is designed for 5 years. There is also a reminder: bats are included in the Red Book and catching them is punishable by imprisonment. The South Ossetian Foreign Ministry accused Georgia of "dangerous military biological cooperation with the United States and other countries." "It is well known that international experts say that bats are the most probable cause of the COVID-19 pandemic," the ministry said in a statement, emphasizing that Khvichi Mgebrishvili's actions should be qualified as "a planned special operation to extract biological material - live bats, whose habitat is the territory of South Ossetia." Biologist Valery Aslanov told Vestnik Kavkaza that he was sincerely surprised at the interpretation of what happened. In his opinion, Mgebrishvili is either not quite all there, or became the victim of someone's prank. "Cocoons and nests?! The habits of bats have not been studied deeply, but it is well known that they do not build nests and are viviparous! The arrested person is either a madman or someone deceived him, taking advantage of his illiteracy," Aslanov said. According to him, if this is a provocation on the part of the Ossetian security forces, then it was carried out rudely and illiterately: "Is there no one in Tskhinvali who has some knowledge of bat mating habits to stop this nonsense?!" According to observers, the version "bat cocoons that cost $10 000" was probably thrown into the local society to exacerbate the Ossetian distrust of Georgians, but unexpectedly for its authors received a much wider resonance, which is unprofitable for Tskhinval on the eve of resuming negotiations with Tbilisi - when one claim is "nonsense", then the rest cease to look well-founded. With the coronavirus identified six months ago, many are wondering how the outbreak could play out in the rest of 2020. (Getty Images) The novel coronavirus was formally identified six months ago on 31 December. What started as a handful of cases in the Chinese city Wuhan grew into an unprecedented pandemic, with more than 17 million confirmed incidences since the outbreak began. While the global death toll exceeds 673,000, officials have warned fatalities are far from the only consequence. Read more: Hearing problems emerging as coronavirus complication Lockdowns have battered the worldwide economy, while postponed cancer screenings are said to have left millions in a care backlog in the UK alone. The easing of restrictions means some semblance of normality has returned for many, however, experts have stressed the coronavirus will be with us for some time, with a vaccine often being hailed as the way back to life as we knew it. Six months into the outbreak, many are undoubtedly wondering what the rest of 2020 may hold. The head of a children's centre wears a mask in Hessen, Germany. More than 17 million coronavirus cases have been confirmed since the start of the outbreak. (Getty Images) How could the global situation play out? While no one has a crystal ball, one expert has warned the global situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. At this point in time the pandemic is gathering pace, Dr Michael Head from the University of Southampton told Yahoo UK. India, Brazil and the US have many new cases. Sub-saharan Africa is spiralling. I expect to see a continued acceleration of the pandemic. Its not going to go away anytime soon; itll get worse before it gets better. Read more: Quarantines prevent 'less than one coronavirus case reaching UK' from Europe a week Europe, once the epicentre of the pandemic, has gradually reopened. While lockdowns were never intended to be permanent, renewed socialising has caused the number of infected people to creep back up. In Europe, there are upticks in new daily cases, said Dr Head. In the UK, its not massive, but they are going up. A spike in incidences has led to a ban on separate households meeting up in parts of northern England. Surging cases in Luxembourg and parts of Spain also mean anyone arriving in the UK from these countries must quarantine for 14 days. Story continues Its not a resurgence per se, but there are new cases, said Dr Head. We will see spikes or second waves. What is the risk of a second wave? An infectious wave has no set definition. It is broadly considered a rise in cases, followed by a decline, which may occur several times over. The start of a second wave is usually said to take place after an initial outbreak has been brought under control, rather than the two bleeding into each other. While a resurgence of cases will inevitably lead to deaths, Dr Head stressed countries cant stay locked down forever. Since the coronavirus outbreak really took hold in the UK around March, testing has come on a long way. Anyone with the tell-tale fever, cough, or loss of taste or smell is encouraged to get tested. Read more: Coronavirus: What is a cytokine storm? Although the current testing regime does not catch every positive case, we do have a much better sight of the virus, Professor James Naismith from the Rosalind Franklin Institute told Yahoo UK. The increase in cases was to be expected. As the lockdown eases, the opportunity for the virus to spread will increase. The government intervention that will make the most difference in keeping the lid on this flare-up is the isolation of positive cases. While measures are in place, Professor Naismith believes a second wave is highly likely. I remain concerned not enough effort has been put into isolation measures, for example financial support or free hotel stays, he said. Its self-defeating to vilify young people who are infectious but otherwise well for not wanting to keep making disproportionately heavy financial and life sacrifices. How likely is another national lockdown? When it comes to another nationwide lockdown, experts have mixed opinions. Now were a few months in, we have knowledge of how [the coronavirus] spreads and whos at risk, said Dr Head. [Therefore], local lockdowns are more likely. Scientists have repeatedly expressed concern over a second wave as the UK heads into winter, when seasonal flu is also circulating. Read more: Cosmetic surgery booms after lockdown Although unclear, respiratory viral infections are thought to become more common as people huddle together indoors. This threat leaves Professor Naismith less confident another national lockdown is off the cards. With the normal winter illnesses and greater indoor living, we could see a return to exponential growth in COVID-19 [the disease caused by the coronavirus] cases that overwhelms the NHS and requires complete lockdown, he said. Many scientists have consistently emphasised we have only short time to get our systems ready to prevent this. Professor Michael Tildesley from the University of Warwick hopes we can manage with local lockdowns. If these are unsuccessful, however, we might need larger scale controls, he said. What are realistic vaccine expectations? Scientists around the world are racing to develop a vaccine. Hopes were raised after a promising candidate stimulated an immune response in an early-stage clinical trial. Experts praised the exciting results, but stressed it is not the end of the road, far from it. Ill be amazed if we have a vaccine distributed in the next six months, said Dr Head. At Easter I said [maybe a jab will be ready in] 12 months. I still think thats the earliest realistic estimate to have a vaccine available, manufactured and distributed. Professor Naismith agreed a jab will not be available in the near future. Optimistically a vaccine campaign could be underway by the end of this year, he said. More realistically sometime next year. Even if a vaccine is developed, it is unclear how long immunity may last. We cant think of a vaccine as our magic bullet out of this, Professor Tildesley told Yahoo UK. A man wears a mask in Caen, northwest France. Globally, the coronavirus death toll has exceeded 673,000. (Getty Images) What is the best-case scenario? With the UK approaching autumn, Professor Naismith sees a best-case scenario as keeping infection levels under control as temperatures drop. In this scenario we will have hundreds of infections per week and a small number of deaths, he said. Professor Tildesley hopes the outbreak can be controlled with local lockdowns. I dont think in six months time this will have gone away, but [the best case scenario would be] we are successful at managing this with local controls, he said. The key unknown is adherence. If we go into lockdown again, is that going to be sustainable? People have fundamentally changed their lives in the past six months. There will become a point when people want to get their lives back. In the meantime, Dr Head stressed Britons must take care when out and about. Encourage meeting outdoors in small groups, he said. Wash your hands a lot. Those are aspects of infection control most of us can do quite easily. We need to do our bit to reduce the risk of transmission for the next few months at least. Professor Naismith agreed, adding: We all still have a role to play: isolate if we are sick or test positive, wash our hands regularly, socially distance and wear a mask indoors. Officials also must stay on the ball to keep infections at bay. Surveillance systems have to be on high alert at all times, said Dr Head. Track and trace needs to be on the ball. We must react and bring in new [quarantine] rules as new cases occur around the globe. With the outbreak a worldwide issue, Dr Gail Carson from the University of Oxford emphasised the need for collaboration. This is a unique situation as we find ourselves recovering, responding and preparing all at the same time, she said. Countries must learn from each other and this is where the eagle eye view [of the] World Health Organization can come in. Governments need to communicate regularly across the world to learn real time what measures work in helping ease out of lockdown, the processes involved to support that and to recognise the warning signs of an increase in viral spread. Do not let the virus activity drive us apart as countries but bring us together to protect our health, economy, political relations and society. Alhaji Mahmud Issaka, Hohoe Municipal Chief Imam, said the adherence to COVID-19 precautionary measures will ensure a successful Eid al-Adha celebration without Covid-19 related issues. He commended Muslims for their cooperation towards the adherence to the directives by the President and the National Chief Imam and urged them to continue to pray for a solution to the pandemic for life to be restored to normalcy. Alhaji Issaka, in an interview with Ghana News Agency, called on Muslims to observe all safety protocols, especially social distancing, hand washing with soap under running water, and avoid hugs and handshakes in their merrymaking. Our Quran admonishes us to respect Allah, His son, Mohammed and our leaders to make us a holy people so if we do not respect our leaders and we decline what they say, we fall short of Allahs blessings, he said. The Chief Imam said with the enforcement of all safety protocols, he was encouraging individual and family prayers with only limited worshippers having access to various mosques for prayers. Eid al-Adha, also known as "Festival of the Sacrifice," is considered the holier of the two Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide, each year. It honours the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, as a sign of faith and obedience to God's command. 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 SEBEWAING Although a new power plant in the village of Sebewaing was dedicated several months ago, there are still some steps that need to be completed. The plant has been operational and remained parallel since the fall of 2019," explained Sebewaing Light and Water Department Superintendent Charlene Hudson. "We finalized the operating scenarios for island mode. Black start capability and testing will be completed by mid-August. The council approved spending $45,000 to rent load banks to test the power engines. The power plant has to do load-bank testing before they can run on their own, said village Clerk Travis Youatt. The effort to develop a more efficient and reliable source of power for village residents started in 2018. The first step in doing that was replacing the Sebewaing Light and Water Pine Street power station with a newer and more powerful station. The new power plant has one 4.4 megawatt and one 3.3 megawatt GE engine from Clarke Energy, Waukesha, Wisconsin. Because the new engines were too large to fit inside the structure that was on Pine Street, a new facility had to be built that had enough room for the new engines and to allow for air flow. The new facility was built on the east side of the old power plant, which was later demolished. Another component of the project was hiring Kemp Tiling Company for $25,890 to complete the required retention pond associated with the Pine Street Engine Plant. A retention pond is part of our floodplain permit," Hudson said. "We were required to remove the same amount of material to build the generator pad. We called it a retention pond, but it really is an area where we removed the appropriate amount of soil. The area will be properly maintained. The overall cost of the project was about $9.6 million. The power plant at 110 W. Main St. will remain for emergency power generation. In other village matters, the council approved two events. One was for a harvest dinner Aug. 20 in the downtown area, which will require street closures, and allowing the Christian Motorcycle Association to host a block party Sept. 5 from noon to 7 p.m. at the main park. The board also approved the purchase of a playscape. SUWON, South Korea, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Gyeonggi Province announced the introduction of "untact" initiatives in preparation for a post-COVID-19 era, allocating USD 43.4 million over the next two years. Under the vision of "Untact Society Improving Quality of Life Through Leading Responses," the initiatives are implemented to foster an untact society in which: all enjoy convenience in daily life; all are happy; and the local economy is revitalized. First, to foster an untact society in which all enjoy convenience in daily life, a "tagless" bus fare payment system is piloted. It detects a passenger's smartphone signal via a Bluetooth receiver and automatically processes payments. It trial runs a "one-pass" system through which people can use a smartphone app to open front doors and call elevators. Besides, the Gyeonggi Online Lifelong Learning Knowledge (GSEEK) system, a video education service that enables real-time communication, is strengthened. Second, to create an untact society in which all can be happy, educational content for the digitally vulnerable is reinforced. For students living in low-income households and in areas with limited access to arts and physical education, one-on-one matching with college students is offered to promote customized remote mentoring. In addition, "drive-in theaters" are run, through which people can enjoy performances or watch independent movies from the comfort of their cars. Furthermore, residents can utilize a free service through which they borrow and return books from the convenience of their homes, while IoT devices are provided to senior citizens living alone so that they can engage in conversation, ask for emergency assistance, and avoid the possibility of a solitary death. Third, to revitalize the local economy, an integrated job matching system is run so that residents can find remote-based employment opportunities. For traditional market merchants and small business owners, online integrated shopping malls are created to provide online sales channels, while online video consultation and interpretation services are offered to small and medium-sized companies. To strengthen the competitiveness of farmers, "drive-thru" vending and delivery systems are established, and environment-friendly agricultural product packages will be developed. Governor Lee Jae-myung said, "Untact culture is a trend of the new world, one that will continue even after COVID-19. We continue to consider what we should and can do in this new era to create a sustainable Gyeonggi Province." Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1221320/Drive_in_theater_Goyang_Gyeonggi_Province.jpg On a crisp morning last December, Guillermo Sanchez was driving on US 59 through Fort Bend County southwest of Houston when he saw flashing lights in his rear-view mirror. Recently laid off from his job as an electrician, he had found himself with time to drop his cousin off in Houston for his refinery job. Now he was returning to Brownsville. A construction zone near the Wharton County line dropped the highway speed limit from 65 mph to 55. The Rosenberg police officer informed Sanchez hed clocked him at 57 two mph over the limit. The officer, Aaron Gillory, told him to get out of the car. After frisking him, the officer ordered Sanchez to get inside his patrol vehicle. Gillory pointed a small camera at Sanchez and began asking him questions. Where was he traveling? From where? What was his cousins name and where did he work? After about 15 minutes, Sanchez recalled, Gillory told him he wasnt a regular traffic cop, but was looking for drugs and money: Did Sanchez have either in his car? Sanchez said he didnt. Gillory asked if he could search it anyway. Traffic records show Gillory, who is assigned to the Fort Bend County Narcotics Task Force, stopped four other cars for speeding that day, all at the same location, driven by Ricardo Rodriguez, Javier Leal, Cesar Hernandez and Armondo Segura. That made it a boilerplate day for the task forces highway interdiction team. An analysis of traffic stops performed by unit members shows minority drivers are detained and searched in numbers that defy statistical probability. Just under 90 percent of the motorists stopped by Todd Ganey, a Richmond Police Department officer assigned to the team, were Black or Hispanic, according to 2019 records from the Fort Bend Sheriffs Office, which oversees the task force. Nearly three of every four stops Danny Tondera made last year were of Hispanic drivers. An analysis of traffic stops made over the past two years by Gillory shows just under 98 percent of the drivers he pulled over were Hispanic. Gillory searched 187 of the vehicles, all but two driven by Hispanics; 94 percent of the time the searches came to nothing. At least two local attorneys have alerted prosecutors to the lopsided numbers. But the task forces traffic enforcement history provides a stark illustration of the obstacles that make it nearly impossible to hold officers accountable, even when their policing appears skewed by racial bias. Thanks to laws and judicial decisions granting police wide discretion in stopping and searching drivers, Right now the courts make it impossible to prove a case of racial profiling, said Frank Baumgartner, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina. His analyses of law enforcement agencies across the country has found most departments stop and search minority drivers at higher rates than white people. DIGGING DEEPER: For first time, independent experts to analyze racial profiling data from 2,000 Texas police agencies Even if statistical evidence points to unusual enforcement disparities by race, vague statutes make it difficult to legally accuse a police department or individual officer of profiling. While police policies ban the practice and Texas law forbids it, both fail to define it in any useful way, meaning as a practical matter it isnt enforced. As a result, few departments or officers ever face any accountability. The U.S. Department of Justice can investigate law enforcement agencies for a pattern and practice of discriminatory policing but has done so only in a handful of instances none since President Donald Trump took office. With no Texas agency monitoring compliance, oversight falls to each of the states 2,000 police departments that do traffic enforcement, which must be willing to track and scrutinize their officers behavior for signs of racial bias. Most dont, said Alex del Carmen, a criminal justice professor at Tarleton State University. And if theres no analysis, you cant identify systemic issues. Sugar Land attorney Jeff Strange first noticed the task forces record last year, after a string of Hispanic clients and their relatives reported being stopped and searched by Gillory. His request for detailed information on the units stops to the Fort Bend Sheriffs Office, which oversees the task force, revealed the tilted numbers. Whats the good of keeping that information if youre not going to do anything with it? he said. Its unconstitutional Last year, fewer than 16 percent of the traffic stops made by Fort Bend County sheriffs deputies were of Hispanic drivers. By comparison, only 21 of Gillorys 819 stops in 2018 and 2019 2.5 percent were not Hispanic, the records compiled by Strange show. According to addresses on the citations, most were of out-of-towners; many lived in the Valley region of Texas, by the Mexican border. In disclosures required under Texas racial profiling laws, officers must report how often they knew the race of a driver prior to a stop. In 2019, the task force interdiction members reported they did in 1 percent of their stops a figure profiling experts called deeply improbable given their records. You dont even need a statistician for that, Baumgartner said. Task force members did not respond to requests for comment. David Marcaurele, chief deputy for the Fort Bend Sheriffs Office, did not dispute the numbers, but defended the units tactics. All highway interdiction stops must be lawful and based on the observation of a violation of law or probable cause to believe that some law has been or is being violated, he wrote in response to questions. He added that for a unit seeking cartel narcotics and drug money, it is to be expected that many suspects would be Hispanic. The main supplier of drugs traveling the I-69 corridor is Mexican national drug organizations, Marcaurele wrote. While we do not target ethnicity it is only logical that if you are performing drug interdiction duties looking for legitimate indicators of potential drug traffickers you would expect that the resultant ethnicity would correlate with whatever ethnicity the drug organizations are using to do this trafficking. Del Carmen, who teaches racial profiling law to police executives, said that explanation approached the definition of the term: The use of race or ethnicity as a sole predictor of criminal behavior constitutes the essence of racial profiling. Theres little dispute the corridor is a popular drug smuggling route from Mexico, and police may consider stopping and searching only Hispanics an effective interdiction strategy, said David Guillory, a Nacogdoches attorney who successfully sued the Tenaha Police Department for its forfeiture program that disproportionately affected minority drivers along Highway 59. But, he added, its unconstitutional. Lots of warnings Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Traffic records, court affidavits and interviews show that Gillorys investigative method appears to be identical in many cases. Most of his 2018 and 2019 traffic stops occurred on the same stretch of road in Fort Bend County,where long-running construction work lowers the speed limit. Some drivers were traveling well above it, but many were not: 126 were driving under 60 mph when stopped. Others were pulled over for minor non-moving vehicle infractions such as darkened glass, objects hanging from the rear view mirror or missing lights. Eron Otero said he saw Gillory from a mile away last July while driving north through the construction zone, so set his cruise control to just below the speed limit. After stopping him, Gillory said Otero was driving at 57 mph, records show. When Otero argued hed been using cruise control, he recalled, Gilllory suggested his tires were the wrong size and said his window tinting was illegal. Just search my vehicle, he recalled responding. Im kind of in a rush. Two hours later, Otero estimated, Gillory released him with a warning after finding nothing. In 99 percent of their stops, the records show, task force highway interdiction members issued warnings instead of tickets even to those traveling well in excess of the speed limit. Our main goal is education and in many first time stops for these violations we routinely issue warnings, Marcaurele said. But as a 25-year Texas prosecutor who oversaw a county narcotics task force, Strange said the pattern indicated the Fort Bend unit was uninterested in enforcing traffic laws. Rather than doing police work, theyre just stopping as many Hispanics as they can, he said. Theyre making race-based stops thinking theyre going to find narcotics. Its like cold calling. After informing drivers they would receive only a warning, task force members often instructed them to exit their cars and get into the patrol vehicle for safety while they completed paperwork. There, the officers pointed a camera at them and engaged in casual conversation or conversation about his travels, police reports said. While some states and cities have limited the scope of their officers questioning during traffic stops often in response to racial profiling investigations Texas has not. Interviews and documents indicate task force members conversation could be anything but casual, with drivers being peppered with detailed questions about their vehicles, travel and work histories. In court records, officers said they were alert to a persons contradictory statements or subtle body clues such as pulsing veins, rapid breathing and deceptive or pacifying behaviors. If their suspicions were aroused, they asked for the drivers permission to search the vehicle. Cesar Cruz was on the final leg of a trip back from Michoacan when Gillory pulled him over for speeding. Cruz, who was born in the US, said he goes to Mexico a couple of times a year to see relatives. Gillory asked him to sit in his police SUV, turned on the camera and began asking him more questions: How much had his truck cost? How much money did he have on him? Why do you want to know all this? Cruz recalled thinking. Its a traffic stop. Gillory said he smelled marijuana in the car and asked to search the vehicle, Cruz recalled. He hadnt smoked any, he said, but he granted permission for the search. Can I search your car? So-called consent searches are controversial because drivers often dont know they can refuse. The Supreme Court has said police dont have to advise people of their right to decline the request. A traffic stop is not a voluntary encounter, said Sarah Seo, a Columbia Law School professor and author of Policing the Open Road, which traces the history of vehicles and the 4th Amendment. So in a situation where a person is not free to leave, and then is asked, Can I search your car? how do people know theyre able to say no? In 2005, Texas legislators passed a law requiring police to obtain written permission before searching a drivers car, which can dramatically decrease motorist consent. Gov. Rick Perry vetoed it, writing there is insufficient information available at this time to determine whether signed or taped consent requirements place too onerous a burden on law enforcement or provide additional protections to the public. Cruz said Gillory spent about 30 minutes rummaging through his vehicle. Finding nothing, the officer released him with a warning. Traffic records show that over the past two years Gillory searched 23 percent of his recorded stops. By comparison, in 2019 Fort Bend sheriffs deputies searched 3 percent of the vehicles they stopped. The Texas Department of Public Safety, the states busiest traffic enforcement agency, conducted searches in 5 percent of its 2.8 million traffic stops. Marcaurele said his count showed Gillory conducted searches in only 17 percent of stops. He added it was unfair to compare the search rate of the task force seeking drugs and their proceeds to agencies merely doing traffic enforcement. Fort Bend County court records show criminal charges or civil forfeiture cases were brought in 11 of Gillorys traffic stops. A handful delivered large amounts of drugs or money. After stopping a pickup in December 2018 for drifting onto the white shoulder line and speeding at 57 mph, his search turned up 67 pounds of marijuana. Last August, he seized $15,000 from a woman driving on US 59. Overwhelmingly, however, the searches came to nothing. Patrick OBurke, a former deputy commander at the Texas Department of Public Safety who oversaw drug law enforcement, said low hit rates were common among task forces doing highway interdiction. Stop enough people and Eventually theyre going to find drugs, because there are drugs out there, he said. But its all the other people, who had to go through (getting stopped) who were innocent thats inappropriate. In addition to inconveniencing and humiliating people, baseless stops and searches can erode a communitys trust in the police, added Baumgartner. You could stop 10,000 people and find two drug kingpins and declare yourself a hero, he said. But we dont give any weight or value in policing or the court system to those who did nothing wrong. We dont count the people who were inconvenienced in the equation. A lawyers complaint Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Strange sent his findings to Fort Bend County District Attorney Brian Middleton on June 15. His immediate goal was to have evidence from the searches performed on his clients tossed, but he said he also hoped the task force would cease using race as a basis for roadside investigations: I just want them to stop doing this. Contacted by Hearst Newspapers five weeks later, a spokesman for the DA said there was no record of a complaint. Provided details of the correspondence, the spokesman, Wesley Wittig, said the matter was being referred to the agencys public integrity unit. Citing that investigation, Middleton declined additional comment. It wasnt the first time the prosecutors heard the claim. In an August 2019 suppression motion, Pablo Perez Jr.s attorney noted that of the stops Tondera made from June 2017 to June 2018, more than 70 percent were of Hispanic drivers. They see Hispanic drivers and if their license comes back to a Rio Grande Valley address, they find some reason to stop them, said his attorney, Juan Luis Guerra, Jr. People need to know about this. Its rampant, and its bad. Carlos Maltos, 71, said when Gillory stopped him for driving 57 mph in a 55 zone it was a familiar experience. No matter how I leave the Valley, every road I come back, they stop me, he said. When Gillory asked him to sit in his car, turned on his camera, and began asking questions, Maltos asked if he was under arrest. Gillory said they were waiting for a K-9 officer. An hour and a half later, after the search turned up nothing, Maltos was released. He wants to do his job, but hes not doing it the right way, Maltos said. He probably thinks only Mexicans deal drugs. Driving down Queenston Street the other day, I noticed St. Barnabas Anglican Church is celebrating its 150 anniversary this year. In 1870, St. Georges Anglican Church, the first church established in St. Catharines, in 1796, decided to establish a mission church to serve the rapidly growing east side of town. The new mission was named after St. Barnabas, himself an early Christian missionary co-worker with St. Paul in spreading the Gospel in the eastern Mediterranean area in the first century AD. St. Georges new east side mission first held services on the third floor of the Collier Block, a now vanished commercial building that once stood at the Queenston-Niagara street intersection just east of Geneva Street. In 1873, the mission began building its first proper church building on the east side of Tasker Street, midway between Queenston and Davidson. The first service was held there on May 30, 1875. In March 1879, the St. Barnabas mission was elevated to the status of a parish, the Parish of St. Barnabas Church, to serve Anglicans east of Geneva Street. The Parish evidently was successful, and within a decade had outgrown its original Tasker Street building. Discussions about this space problem yielded two decisions: first, that the old Tasker Street church would be moved westward to a more central location, on Queenston west of Calvin Street. Secondly, it would be placed toward the rear of that new lot and then a larger stone church would be constructed between it and Queenston Street. The move from Tasker to the new property was carried out sometime in 1891. Meanwhile, preparations were being made for the new church. Toronto architect Charles Gibson was hired to design the new building. Its cornerstone was laid on June 12, 1893. The new St. Barnabas Church opened for worship in September of the same year. Our old photo this week shows the final results of all this activity, with the new stone church in the foreground and the original wood frame church visible behind it. The church is a very distinguished looking building, both inside and out. The exterior is clad with the reddish-brown sandstone that we are so familiar with in other major late 19th-century St. Catharines buildings notably Merritton Town Hall and St. Thomas Church. The churchs interior is notable for its heavy beamed ceiling, its intricately carved panelling around the altar, and its colourful stained glass windows. (The old wood frame church was long used for the meetings of a variety of parish groups, but it finally fell into such disrepair that it had to be demolished in June 1933.) St. Barnabas Church, happy anniversary. NEW YORK, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- COVID-19 has had a profound effect on the criminal justice system. Before this year, no one would have considered how the prison population would be affected by a pandemic. Most prisons do not have the most ideal health conditions, and it's easy enough for the flu to spread. It isn't surprising that the Coronavirus, which is much more contagious and deadly, is especially dangerous for the incarcerated. Image of Camp Delta Many jails realized this once the virus began to spread, and this led many jails to reduce their population by over 30%. Most state prisons reduced their population by an average of 5%. Even this figure was mostly due to their refusal to admit new prisoners. Many prosecutors in the United States and internationally are refusing to charge people for low-level and nonviolent offences to avoid raising the already-high prison population. Despite this, there are some groups still frequently being admitted to jails and prisons. In one example, earlier this month three leaders from Shincheonji church were jailed to await charges of "murder by willful negligence." They were not able to provide authorities with a complete member list for contact tracing immediately after the outbreak at their church, and received blame for the virus's spread. They alleged that the prison guards mocked them, saying to eat food through their masks so they don't spread the virus farther. In China, the ethnic minority known as the Uyghurs, which is predominantly Muslim in religion, has faced considerable discrimination. Since 2016, many Uyghurs and other minorities have been held in "re-education camps" throughout China. It is estimated that approximately 1 million total are being held, although the government has censored any such mention of such camps from the country's search engines and social media. According to human rights groups, an outbreak amongst the Uyghurs, which is likely to have already happened, would be disastrous. Like other prisons and internment camps, these are especially dangerous locations in terms of Coronavirus spread. Prisons are extremely susceptible to the spread of the Coronavirus. And so, the many prisoners throughout the world, many of whom may be imprisoned unjustly, must endure the worst of the virus. Whether or not they deserve to be there, we hope their dignity is not taken from them and they are allowed to carry out their rights like any other person. The Persecuted is a news source dedicated to the factual research and analysis of human rights violations. For more information, visit thepersecuted.org. Media Contact: Mary Oliver (718) 962-9794 [email protected] SOURCE The Persecuted New US rules restricting exports to China to prevent sensitive technologies from being used by the Chinese military are the latest development in the deteriorating relationship between the two countries. And the worst is yet to come, legal experts say. The new rules, which went into effect on June 29, expanded requirements for US exporters to obtain licenses for goods intended for military purposes, including for weapon development, military aircraft or surveillance operations. The expansion, first introduced by the US Commerce Department in April, also banned exports to any entities in any relationship with China's People's Liberation Army, labelling them as potential military end users. While the rules, also applicable to Russia and Venezuela, have existed for more than a decade, the expansion shows the Trump administration's commitment to find every angle in its "whole of government" approach to confronting China and containing China's technological ambitions. People's Liberation Army soldiers wearing protective face masks as they march past the Forbidden City in Beijing. The US has tightened export restrictions for products that could wind up used by the PLA. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=People's Liberation Army soldiers wearing protective face masks as they march past the Forbidden City in Beijing. The US has tightened export restrictions for products that could wind up used by the PLA. Photo: EPA-EFE The administration has ratcheted up fights against China, first in trade, then on multiple fronts with a focus on tech. US export policy has toughened extensively. In recent years, the Commerce, Defence and State departments have instituted a slew of regulations to rein in tech transfers to China. Among other measures, Chinese tech acquisitions have faced more stringent reviews, and scores of Chinese individuals and companies have been placed on an "entity list" to block them, for national security concerns, from doing business with American counterparts. Story continues After China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong a month ago - alarming US officials who now regard the city as merely another part of the mainland - Washington swiftly removed Hong Kong's export licensing privileges to restrict its access to "sensitive US technology" and cut off Beijing's access to hi-tech goods that can be used to bolster the PLA. "This is just one rule out of a number of actions we've seen that are impacting China. And there is more to come," George Grammas, a Washington-based international trade lawyer at law firm Squire Patton Boggs, said on Wednesday. Grammas said he anticipated more regulations that would be "taking technologies, goods and products that are not subject to a license requirement for China today and transition into a license requirement. "And I don't think it will be limited to this administration." The Hogan Lovells law firm assembled a "toolbox" of export controls, sanctions and other measures the US can use against China. Chart: Hogan Lovells alt=The Hogan Lovells law firm assembled a "toolbox" of export controls, sanctions and other measures the US can use against China. Chart: Hogan Lovells The US government has been concerned with technology leadership by China at least since the Obama administration. China's ambitions were publicised in 2015 through its "Made in China 2025" initiative, shifting the government's focus to developing higher-tech products and emphasising critical industries including robotics, aerospace and artificial intelligence. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, Beijing's industrial policies are seen to leverage China's private sector for state-directed objectives through "military-civil fusion", a national strategy to develop the PLA into a world-class military by 2049. "The Chinese government's military-civil fusion policy aims to spur innovation and economic growth through an array of policies and other government-supported mechanisms, including venture capital funds, while leveraging the fruits of civilian innovation for China's defence sector," the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a Congressional advisory body, wrote in its annual report last year. "Business partnerships between the United States and China could aid China's military development," the report warned. As one example, the report noted that China is already the global leader in producing commercial drones. If through involvement with US companies, it learns how to make cheaper, lighter and longer-lasting lithium-ion batteries, it can make unmanned aerial vehicles that strengthen its military capability. Military end-use and end-user restrictions aren't new. In 2007, the Commerce Department introduced a rule that significantly expanded the types of commercial products requiring a license for export to China. That new rule was colloquially referred to as the China "Military Catch-All". But export controls have previously focused narrowly on so-called dual-use technologies and sanctions violations. Now the regulations seem to be coming from a range of angles, lawyers said. The US has put more than 80 Chinese companies - including Huawei Technologies - and their affiliates on the Commerce Department's entity list, effectively blocking them from doing business with American suppliers. With the latest expansion of the export rules, the administration is "really clamping down on Chinese companies that are supporting Huawei as [it] seeks to outsource its production or development efforts", Grammas said. Separately, last month the Defence Department issued a list of 20 companies that it said were operating directly or indirectly in the US and were owned or controlled by "Communist Chinese military". Along with Huawei, the list included leading Chinese tech firms Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, China Mobile Communications and China Telecommunications. Huawei Technologies and its affiliates have been a particular focus of US export restrictions. Photo: Reuters alt=Huawei Technologies and its affiliates have been a particular focus of US export restrictions. Photo: Reuters "I wouldn't be surprised to see the DOD list being transitioned to the entity list," said Grammas. "We'll certainly see more use of the entity list." If there is a silver lining to the wave of regulations, Ajay Kuntamukkala, who specialises in national security issues at the Hogan Lovells law firm, noted that the US has so far stayed clear of invoking "the nuclear option": the Treasury Department's Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. The assets of those persons or entities on that list are blocked and US persons and businesses are generally prohibited from dealing with them. The entity list "has a more limited impact", Kuntamukkala said. Yet nobody can rule out the possibility of harsher regulations to come, legal experts said, as the US-China relationship - already in its worst state in decades - continues to degrade. 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. Iranian Media Name Potential Candidates For 2021 Presidential Election Radio Farda July 30, 2020 Nine months before the next presidential election in Iran, concerns over the coronavirus pandemic has pushed competition over the post of president of the Islamic Republic to backstage. Unofficial campaigning for presidential election in Iran usually starts as early as the inauguration of the second term of the incumbent President. Iranian media have lined up possible candidates several times before the pandemic overshadowed everything including the presidential race. Last week when the last acts of the controversy over choosing the head of the State Auditing Organization was playing out, almost every report on the case also noted that Mehrdad Bazrpash who was finally chosen for the post is going to use the position as a step on the ladder to the presidency. In fact, Bazrpash was a candidate in the 2017 presidential election, but in an odd way, he missed the deadline for registering his candidacy at the Interior Ministry. During the past week, as over 150 MPs mainly those affiliated with the ultraconservative Paydari Front lent him their support, many media reports pointed out the fact that Bazrpash would be the front's candidate for the 2021 presidential election in May 2021. Regardless of the controversy over his credentials, he is an example of a "young revolutionary" president as Supreme Leader AIi Khamenei has determined. He is an ex-Basij (IRGC militia) member and has been in charge of a leading car manufacturing company for many years. Another political figure who has been presenting himself as a candidate for quite some time is former State TV IRIB Chief Ezatollah Zarghami. Despite his hardliner background, Zarghami has been presenting himself as an advocate of human rights and civil liberties on every possible opportunity, defending women and youths in a way he never did when he was Culture Minister and later as head of the IRIB. Currently a vocal member of the Cyberspace Task Force that operates under President Rouhani, he comes from a background in IRGC which makes him a revolutionary, although he is not as young as Bazrpash and has no track record in managing economic institutions. According to leading economic website Eqtesad News, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raeesi have made it clear that they will not run for president in 2021. However, denying intentions at this stage and a change of decision a couple of months before the election has been a routine practice in Iran since 1997 when Khatami announced his candidacy in late March for the election in May while he kept denying he had any intention to run during the preceding year. Like Raeesi, Majles Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf has also been a candidate in the previous round of presidential election in 2017, but although he has never concealed his ambition it is unlikely that the Majles and even Khamenei would allow him to run for president. He is already the head of one of the three powers of the government. Two "young revolutionary" men are also being mentioned as potential candidates and some have even said Khamenei might support their candidacy although the Supreme Leader never names a candidate. But Iranians have seen candidates or kingmakers who portray a certain person as someone "liked" by Khamenei. Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi and Ayatollah Ali Jannati said that about Ahmadinejad in the 2005 and 2009 election. The two "young revolutionaries" are Mostazafan Foundation chief Parviz Fattah and Vice-President for Scientific affairs Surena Sattari. The latter has been lately taking part in public events after a long time of silence and Fattah started his campaign-like activities a year ago. Recently while going around to oversee economic projects, he keeps portraying himself as someone close to former IRGC Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani. Fattah comes from an IRGC background indeed. None of the two have ever grown long beards probably hoping for popularity among younger Iranians. Eqtesad News also names Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Vice-President Es'haq Jahangiri, Tehran City Council Chief Mohsen Hashemi and former Majles Speaker Ali Larijani as potential candidates for the 2021 elections. From among the trio, Larijani is less likely to be willing to run as the modest number of votes he won in the 2005 presidential elections was an embarrassment. Fararu news website has recently named several conservative individuals as potential candidates. They are: Raeesi, Qalibaf, Fattah and Bazrpash as well as MP Alireza Zakani, former Ahmadinejad cabinet minister Ali Nikzad, former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, and Islamic Propaganda Organization Chief Mohammad Qomi, who has been characterized by Fararua as "a young cleric with a smile." There are many other lists of possible candidates for the 2021 presidential election in Iran and some political figures appear in more than one list. One of the most interesting combination of possible candidates has been named by the Mashad-based Shahrara News. It includes outspoken former MP Ali Motahari, Communication and Information Technology Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Parviz Fattah, Surena Sattari, Mehrdad Bazrpash, Saeed Jalili, Es'haq Jahangiri, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Javad Zarif, Ali Larijani and former reformist MP Mohammad Reza Aref, some of whom lack "one or two criteria of a young revolutionary candidate well-versed in economics." The four or six candidates to run officially for the post need to be vetted by the hardliner Guardian Council first. Some even say that they should meet with Khamenei beforehand and get his go-ahead to run. Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iranian- media-name-potential-candidates-for-2021- presidential-election/30757385.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gorey's Ian Lacey, author of 'Half the World Away', is happy to be back home after a challenging time being stuck abroad during the Covid-19 pandemic. He had been living in Kathmandu, Nepal working for UNICEF but got stuck in Dubai alone for two months after a visit to Pakistan. He continued working on the Covid-19 response for UNICEF across South Asia but returned home due to fears of being stranded. He is now working on another book after the success of his 2016 travel novel. In his own words, he tells us about his unique experience and perspective on this global pandemic: A close friend of mine describes the beginning of the pandemic as a time when the entire world was tripped up at once. Normally, we encounter difficult events in some sort of bubble - as a family, community or country - but this period in our history stands out from the rest. Everyone stumbled, and we now must help to pick each other up. I had just boarded a flight from Kathmandu, Nepal to Islamabad, Pakistan when the seriousness of Covid-19 became apparent to me. The constant reminders to wash your hands. The requests to wear a face mask. The strange suggestion you should stay at least two metres away from the closest person. It was early March and I felt huge change was on the horizon. I had been working for UNICEF in Nepal, but Aine Lynch, my partner, was in Pakistan with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a medical organisation that assists those affected by conflict, natural disasters and epidemics. I was visiting her for a few weeks, but almost as soon as I had arrived, we were planning to leave again. Aine got word that travel outside Pakistan may soon be restricted, so we decided to head for Dubai earlier than expected, as we had planned a week's holiday there. But almost as soon as the plane touched the ground, she was called back for fear she might not be able to return the following week. Around the same time, Nepal was taking measures to curb the spread of the virus. The capital had gone into lockdown and the airports were closed. This meant I just couldn't get back, and in the end, never did. In the two and a half months that followed, I bided my time in Dubai hoping that I could catch a flight back to Kathmandu. But as weeks and eventually months passed, hope of even returning to collect my things from the apartment and say goodbye to friends faded as the virus spread through South Asia and saw the region become one of the epicentres of the outbreak. Now that I'm back in Gorey, those months locked out of Nepal and living in an AirBnB in Dubai feels totally surreal. I was lucky that I could work remotely, and for the most part, putting the head down to concentrate on that made the time pass much quicker. As I worked for UNICEF's regional office for South Asia, I spent all of my time helping to coordinate communications on the Covid-19 response in countries from Afghanistan to the Maldives. In short, my job was to get out the core messages on hand hygiene and physical distancing, but much of it also focused on the secondary effects the pandemic was causing, such as the impact on children's mental health, their nutrition, and the discrimination many faced because they were of a particular religious or ethnic group. Perhaps the most difficult part of the entire time in Dubai was that I went to bed and woke up thinking about Covid-19. I found it a little tough to switch off in the evenings, and being confined to the apartment in a city that only allowed you to leave it for essential reasons did cause some down days. But then again, there was solace in knowing everyone was in it together, and in reality, I had it extremely lucky. Working for UNICEF during a global crisis helped me understand just how fortunate I was compared to so many others. It shone a light on the harsh realities of life for so many, even before the pandemic began. How could those living in urban slums maintain a physical distance between each other? What about women and children who face violence in the home on a regular basis and now were locked in with their abusers? Or how is a child supposed to learn from home when they have no access to the internet, let alone a tablet or computer? For me, having the laptop was a lifeline. It was great catching up with friends on Zoom calls at the weekends, and even for playing exercise videos to maintain some level of fitness, even if it was just running and doing star jumps on the spot. But looking out on other apartment balconies, I realised I wasn't the only one trying to keep active in the strangest of circumstances. Now that I'm back home I'm trying to do many of the things I missed while being stuck inside for so long. It's been amazing to go on hill walks and just ride my bicycle around Gorey. After self-isolating on my return, the first few days after that felt like a total release, swapping the confines of a Dubai apartment for a run on Courtown beach. I may have taken these things for granted before, but I definitely won't again. Ian Lacey's book, 'Half The World Away', is available in paperback or as an e-book from Amazon. London: A small collection of islands in Hawaii has become the first place in the world to vote in plans for a "feminist economic recovery" from COVID-19. Khara Jabola-Carolus is executive director of Hawaii's State Commission on the Status of Women. Credit:Twitter/@KharaJabola Maui county voted to put gender equality at the heart of its recovery plan last month, and two of the US state's four other counties are following suit. The plans, based on a paper called Building bridges, not walking on backs: A feminist economic recovery plan for COVID-19, could include proposals such as a universal basic income, a higher living wage for single mothers, and free childcare. Khara Jabola-Carolus, executive director of Hawaii's State Commission on the Status of Women, said the pandemic had given the world a chance to change society. After criticising the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government almost incessantly on social media and in public statements since last year, West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar took to YouTube on Thursday night. To mark the completion of his first year in office, the governor uploaded his first YouTube video. It is an address featuring photos of his meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, central ministers, the Lok Sabha speaker, Indian and foreign dignitaries and his visits to different places. All these have been compiled with background scores and Dhankhars voice-over. It is the script of the address, however, that is not likely to go down well with chief minister Mamata Banerjee, although she too features in several photos with the governor and his wife. Taking the acrimony between Raj Bhawan and the TMC government to a new crest, Dhankhar has compared the states governance to the dictatorship depicted by Satyajit Ray in his landmark 1980 movie Hirak Rajar Deshe (Land of the Diamond King). He drew the reference earlier in a tweet but this time the script gets longer. Ray portrayed a king who was obsessed with his diamond mines and subjected farmers, labourers and students to slavery and clinical brainwashing before being ousted by mass revolution. After praising the history, heritage and people of West Bengal and Kolkata, Dhankhar says, Some facets of governance are cause of concern. Violence, corruption, hegemony and goondaism (ruffian activity) under police protection have become part of governance. I am sure Satyajit Day would have never liked the day he depicted in his movie to happen someday in the state of West Bengal. It is very serious dilution of democratic values... womens right have been compromised... Fear of operation by police is all pervasive... All this has led to steep decline in growth of trade and industry, education and service sector. Flight of our youth and workforce is alarming and needs to be contained. Ground level governance is sought to be superimposed by cosmetic projections in media that is controlled. I am tirelessly working to secure authentic, democratic governance, says the governor. Dhankhar also says that free and fair elections are necessary to normalise democracy but it is not possible if there is institutionalised rigging of polls. The film was uploaded three days after Banerjee complained about Dhankhar, without taking any names, at a virtual meeting with the Prime Minister. Quoting Tagores famous lines, where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, Dhankhar says, Sadly, in this state we are far distanced from the thoughts of Tagore. The film ends with the national anthem and some video clippings of Dhankhar taking to the media. No senior TMC leader was available for comment on Thursday. Three volunteers were administered the second dose of Covaxin at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) on Friday. Dr Savita Verma, principal investigator of the human trials at the Rohtak facility, said these three volunteers had completed the 14-day period after receiving the first dose of 0.5 ml intramuscular injection of the vaccine. Today, we gave them the second dose in same quantity. All of them have tolerated the vaccine very well. We kept them under observation for three hours and they showed positive results. We will collect their blood samples on August 14 and send the same to National Institute of Virology, Pune, to check how many antibodies developed in their bodies, she added. Dr Ramesh Verma, co-investigator of the trials, said, Doctors will monitor the response of vaccination through immunogenicity testing. We are praying that this vaccine gets successful and India takes a lead in saving the world from the deadly virus, one of the volunteers said. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 14:13:17|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close by Xinhua writer Shi Xiaomeng BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- China's BeiDou-3 Navigation Satellite System (BDS) was officially launched for world service on Friday, marking a major milestone in the country's endeavor to promote interconnectivity across the globe. Over one month ago, China sent the final satellite of the BDS into space, completing its nearly 30-year-long deployment of the orbital navigation network. Yet for the BDS to play a bigger role in connecting the world, it is only a start. For starters, BeiDou offers one more choice for global users in terms of global navigation satellite systems, along with the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's GLONASS, and Europe's Galileo system. Currently, more than 100 countries and regions are using the Beidou-based services. So far, the BeiDou system has been widely used in transportation, agriculture, forestry and fishery, communication time unification, and other fields. It has enabled the development of transformative technologies like precision farming, digital development and smart port construction in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa. In recent years, some Arab countries and those along the Belt and Road have chosen to join the BeiDou system, in a vote of confidence in the reliability of the system and its huge development potential. The BeiDou system also features openness and compatibility. Being compatible with the other three positioning systems, BeiDou boasts unique advantages such as providing two-way messaging services, which can not only tell one's position, but also relay it to others. Through cooperation mechanisms, BeiDou has been working with the other three global systems on compatibility and interoperability to jointly build a compatible satellite cluster that can provide more accurate and reliable services for users worldwide. Science is not bound by national borders and innovation is an endless endeavor, said Chinese President Xi Jinping in a congratulatory message for the start of assembly of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. International scientific and technological cooperation is critical to addressing global challenges faced by mankind, he stressed. Moreover, China's independent development of the BeiDou system is a strong proof that China's capability of technological innovation is unstoppable. In recent years, Washington has imposed tough hi-tech blockade against China as well as a raft of measures to crack down on Chinese hi-tech companies, including the 5G pioneer Huawei. In spite of such measures, China's innovation capability has only grown stronger. Just as President Xi recently said at a symposium on China's economic work: "No country nor individual can stop the historical pace of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." In ancient world, the Chinese invented the compass, a tool which helped navigate inter-continental explorations thousands of years ago. Today, China's BeiDou system, named after the Big Dipper constellation, will serve as a bright lodestar to light up the way for peoples around the world to come even closer in the new era of global interdependence. Enditem NEW HAVEN Police are investigating the shooting of a 29-year-old man on Thursday night. Capt. Anthony Duff said the man was shot in the leg around 10:30 p.m. as he walked on Shelton Avenue, near Division Street. The man suffered non-life-threatening injuries, Duff said. He was brought by private vehicle to Yale-New Haven Hospital. Anyone with information is asked to contact the New Haven Police Department at 203-946-6304. The Centre on Friday informed the Madras high court that it is committed to bringing back all Tamils stranded aboard in a phased manner. It further undertook to operate as many flights as possible to evacuate the last Indian stranded abroad due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown. "The government has proposed to operate 792 flights in phase V all over the world and out of which 127 flights are to be operated for Tamil Nadu alone. These operations shall be from August 4 to August 31, " the Centre said. The submissions were made in the plea moved by DMK seeking direction to the state government to permit operation of such rescue flights to Tamil Nadu. When the plea came up on Friday, a division bench of Justice M M Sundresh and Justice R Hemalatha recorded the submissions and disposed of the plea. In a memo filed by the Centre, it was submitted that the ministry of external affairs has operated 1,248 flights the world over in Phase-I, Phase-II, and Phase-III. This apart, it has proposed 1,203 flights in Phase-IV as of July 28 of which 130 flights are operated to Tamil Nadu. (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.) Reliance Jio Adds 99 Lakh Customers In Q1 2021 News oi-Priyanka Dua Reliance Jio reported a 182.8 percent jump in its profit to Rs. 2,520 crore in the Q1 2021. The net profit was Rs. 891 crore for the corresponding quarter as compared to the previous financial year. This means that the company has posted a three-fold jump in its profit in Q1 2021. Reliance Jio said that it added 99 lakh customers during Q1 2021. However, the numbers are less than Jio added from January to March 2020. The operator subscriber base now stands at 398.3 million, while average revenue per user stood at Rs. 140.3. Further, the operator states that the lockdown and work from home have increased the data traffic by 30.2 percent to 1, 420 crore GB data. "There has been strong wireless gross addition of 15.1 million during the quarter despite COVID-19 related restrictions across the country," Reliance Jio said. Adding to that, "Monthly churn rate for wireless subscribers at only 0.46 percent during the quarter." Reliance Jio has raised Rs. 152,056 crores from 13 investors, leaving the company with only 66.48 stakes in the platform. The 13 investors, include Facebook, Google, Silver Lake, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, ADIA, TPG, L Catterton, Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, Intel Capital, Vista Equity Partners, and Qualcomm. "Our growth strategy is aimed at meeting the needs of all the 1.3 billion Indians. We remain focused on playing a leading role in India's transformation into a Digital Society," Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Mukesh Ambani said. Qatar Investment Authority Might Buy Stake In Jio Platforms After selling its stake to 13 firms, Reliance Jio is likely to sell its assets in the fibre business. The company is reportedly in talks with Doha-based sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) for the deal. The QIA is likely to invest Rs. 11,200 crore in the Jio platforms. Notably, the company is offering six plans to broadband users, and it starts from Rs. 699 that goes up to Rs. 8,499. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania agreed on a new format of cooperation, the so-called "Lublin Triangle," on July 28. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said Ukraine will host the next meeting of the Lublin Triangle foreign ministers this autumn. Read alsoUkraine's FM calls on EU to stick to sanctions policies toward Russia "I can tell you we have reached an agreement with my Polish and Lithuanian counterparts that the next meeting of the Lublin Triangle foreign ministers will take place in Ukraine this autumn," he said during an online briefing on Friday, an UNIAN correspondent reported. As UNIAN reported earlier, Kuleba announced on July 28 that Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania had agreed on a new format of interstate cooperation, the so-called "Lublin Triangle." I reland has seen a surge in coronavirus with 85 new cases diagnosed in a worrying escalation, health chiefs said. Acting chief medical officer said 68 per cent of those who tested positive were under the ager of 45. The new cluster of infections has emerged in a factory in Kildare as well as at least two direct provision centres in the Midlands where some of the workers live. Construction sites were also connected to the sudden increase, health officials said. Acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said: We are very concerned. I hope this is a blip, I hope we see a much smaller number of cases tomorrow, he said. A woman wearing a face mask walks past the GPO on a very quiet O'Connell Street in Dublin's city centre / PA He said the factory in Co Kildare had seen 30 to 40 positive cases. Not all tests have been returned yet. A total of 18 of Thursdays tally were associated with the factory. Dr Glynn added: We need to watch this extremely closely, we need to see in particular what happens tomorrow and the next day. Now is not the time for a knee-jerk reaction. We do understand where the vast majority of these cases have come from. The question now is what happens next. A priest wearing a protective face mask at Terminal 2 in Dublin Airport / Brian Lawless/PA Wire/PA Images One more death was reported on Thursday by the National Public Health Emergency Team. Infection control experts are working with the direct provision centres. The Kildare factory has been closed. A smaller number of cases were associated with the construction industry and others with households and extended families. Over the last 14 days 331 new cases have been notified. Dr Glynn said: Todays figures demonstrate how quickly Covid-19 can remerge in our country. People queue outside shops in Dublin / Getty Images We are now at a crucial point in our response to Covid-19. Ireland has announced a five-stage plan for relaxing restrictions designed to limit spread of the disease, but dates for some reopenings have been pushed back as the pandemic worldwide shows now sign of abating. Professor Philip Nolan, chair of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said: Over a two-day period Ireland moved from a relatively stable epidemiology to a significant pattern connected to outbreaks. We now need to be really careful and adhere to public health advice so we do not further spread the virus. Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has said he hopes pubs that do not serve food can reopen for business on August 10, but there are no guarantees. Pub lobby groups have called on the Government to release guidelines that will allow them to reopen safely, after their previous reopening date was delayed due to an increase in coronavirus cases earlier this month. Dr Glynn said it was too early to say when a decision would be taken. Hospitality group Failte Ireland is expected to publish reopening guidelines for pubs in the coming days. Authorities are battling a large swarm of locusts, the third and biggest found so far this year, in Argentina's northern province of Formosa. According to Hector Emilio Medina, Director of the National Locusts Control Program, the swarm is up to 40 square kilometres in size, double the size of another swarm in the same province. The locusts in Formosa province can be found in livestock land and could affect cattle's food source. Medina said that despite resources, the plague is very difficult to control and neighbouring countries will seek international financing to improve the regional detection systems. He also warned that the region should be on alert and a new locust cloud was spotted today in the Bolivian region of Machareti. The first swarm of locusts that entered from Paraguay earlier this year and moved close to the border with Brasil is now under control. (Image Credit Pixabay) A drive-thru COVID-19 testing centre exclusively for hospitality and tourism industry employees will open Wednesday in the parking lot of Scotiabank Convention Centre in Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls Tourism president Janice Thomson said it will be open weekdays 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. to take the pressure off of the other testing centres for the region. It will be for hospitality and tourism workers and Niagara Falls Tourism. Our role is to time the appointments keep track of when people are coming (to get tested), she said. Theyre able to test approximately 250 people a day at this centre. You wont get out of your car it will simply be a drive-thru situation. Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati said he sent an email to Niagara Region Public Health and Niagara Health about having an assessment centre for hospitality and tourism workers. He said hospital system officials immediately got back to him to discuss a way to make it happen. I cant say enough about the collaboration with Niagara Health. They have been amazing, he said. Because the tourism and hospitality sector employs thousands of people, opening a testing centre exclusively for them will prevent overcrowding and reduce wait times for the public at our three existing centres at hospitals in Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and Welland, said Derek McNally, executive vice-president clinical services and chief nursing executive for Niagara Health. Despite Niagara Healths call for people to pre-book their test at the three existing sites rather than simply showing up, more than 550 people turned out for testing last Monday, including 300 walk-ins. High volumes led to a spike in wait times as high as two hours for walk-ins. Diodati said the centre is one more way officials can show theyre taking the pandemic very seriously. An employee wont do it on their own, theyll do it through their employer, he said. HR departments will be promoting this, some will be encouraging it, some may be mandating it. Theyll give you a time to go, because we dont want long lines. We want this to be very efficient and streamlined. Anyone from the public wanting to be tested for COVID-19 can book an appointment through Niagara Health by phoning 905-378-4647 ext. 42819. THE MEDDLER German Cabrera in The Meddler. Credit:MIFF Down the mean streets of Guatemala City drives a chunky guy in a white cap, on the lookout for crime scenes he can capture on video and pass on to a local TV channel, rather like the sinister go-getter played by Jake Gyllenhaal in Dan Gilroys 2014 satire Nightcrawler. But German Cabrera is a nobler figure than his fictional counterpart, at least if you take him at face value, as Australian filmmakers Alex Roberts and Daniel Leclair seem inclined to on the whole. He isnt paid for his often risky work, though he may not be immune to the lure of fame. In truth, we never get much sense of how Cabrera feels about being filmed in turn, one of several absences in this atmospheric but not entirely satisfying documentary portrait made over the course of several years. The often gruesome crimes recorded by Cabrera imply a larger pattern, with the history of civil war somewhere in the background. But the big picture never fully emerges from the murk. Roberts and Leclair remain a bit too entranced by the grimy glamour of it all, the endless moody shots of their guy brooding at the wheel as he speeds into the night. JW EMA Chiles Pablo Larrain is arguably the most interesting director now working; his trilogy about life under the Pinochet dictatorship (including the Oscar-nominated No); The Club, about a hideaway for rogue priests, and the anti-biopic Jackie have earned him huge critical plaudits. Unification Minister Lee In-young said Friday that he will seek to resume a long-suspended tour program to North Korea's Mount Kumgang. "I'll actively look for ways to restart the Mount Kumgang tour project," he said while visiting Jejin Station in Goseong, northeast of Seoul, near the Demilitarized Zone that separates two Koreas. "The resumption of the tour program will send a message of peace on the Korean Peninsula and revive the economy of border regions." The minister also said he will go ahead with plans to reconnect the rail network to North Korea in a bid to create a new economic order on the Korean Peninsula. During his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Lee said he would look for a "creative solution" to restart the tour program to North Korea's scenic mountains in the form of individual tours as a way to improve inter-Korean relations without violating international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang. Started in 2003, the project was suspended after a South Korean tourist was shot dead near the mountain resort in 2008. The program's formal resumption requires a sanctions waiver, as it involves bulk cash transfer to the North. (Yonhap) The responsibilities of municipal clerks may vary, but the pandemic has led many of them to take a hard look at the services they can enhance through technology.Ethan Watson, city clerk of Albuquerque, N.M., said a key focus of his office is managing documents for other city departments and citizens. In response to the need for social distancing, Watsons office has started accepting some documents electronically, such as public bid submissions.Before the pandemic, Watsons team had been digitizing the most frequently requested public records, such as underground storage tank inspection and fire code inspection reports. The office has been ramping up its efforts on this front, scanning close to 10,000 documents a week, but identifying which records are worth the time to scan has been harder than it sounds.Were where people go to get information, Watson said. There are a lot of records that are electronic. But there are also a lot of records on paper, and trying to think of how to negotiate that [digitization process] is challenging at this time.Watsons office also holds public bid openings and conducts hearings for administrative appeals of city ordinances. These events have been converted into Zoom meetings, which have worked well on the whole, though using Zoom does present an access issue for people without good Internet connections.The biggest change that Watson wants to see is an electronic payment option for public records requests.People have continued to submit requests, but its been a challenge for everyone to process payments, he said. In the past, customers could go to this window downstairs. Now they can mail a check. We would really like to transition to an e-model.Soulinnee Phan, interim city clerk of Lincoln, Neb., said her office facilitates a variety of committee meetings. These meetings had to be made virtual, but the transition took some time because a good percentage of staff had little or no experience with the technology.Moving beyond outdated processes has been a deliberate process for Phan since she started working for the city. In recent years, city council agendas were created with WordPerfect. Since the pandemic, however, Phans office has been utilizing software like Granicus and OnBase more and more.For the most part, its a lot better than it was seven years ago, before I came into the office, Phan said.Still, Phan sees plenty of room for improvement from a technological standpoint, and the health crisis has magnified the limitations of her office. For one, she would like to implement a platform that allows applications and payments to be submitted online. Such an option is frequently requested by customers.Phan believes part of the challenge is a culture that doesnt necessarily want to advance at the same pace as the community and the world. She wants to continue to visit big cities to see how functions can be modernized.You cant keep doing things the same way over and over again over 30 years, she said.Stephen Ruger, city clerk of Aurora, Colo., said his office made city council meetings 100 percent virtual back in March. One current challenge involves citizen participation. Citizens can still comment at the meetings, but only through emails and prerecorded voicemails. Ruger hopes that for the next council meeting, the city will be able to deploy a system that patches in a public phone queue.Other changes for Rugers office include only accepting records in an electronic format which is something the office was pushing for before COVID-19 and preparing for a transition to digital signatures on key documents.We are putting together a policy for that as we speak, Ruger said.One thing the pandemic has highlighted for Ruger is the size of Aurora. The city spans roughly 150 square miles. This realization has led his office to start planning for the rollout of kiosks throughout the city that will let residents help themselves to whatever records they may need.Its going to be tied to our reopening, Ruger said. We have so many unknowns with COVID-19, but were hoping by the time we reopen, well have some of these kiosks, if not all of them, available.Were migrating to as many laptops as we can, Ruger added, so these kiosks would be a good way to recycle our functioning towers once we get people on laptops.Like Phan, Ruger has sensed that not everyone wants to get away from standbys like paper. Ruger said its important to be sensitive to different preferences, but he anticipates moving away from paper as much as possible.He also believes government needs to recognize that not everyone can access city services during regular working hours Monday through Friday. Thats where he feels technology is especially important.We can respond to them on their terms rather than our terms, he said. We owe it to the public.Teneshia Hudspeth, chief deputy clerk of the Harris County Clerks Office in the Houston area, said the first challenge for her office was acquiring the necessary equipment for everyone to work from home. Operations came to somewhat of a halt for a couple of weeks.Once the office was up and running again, Hudspeth was surprised to find that a lot of people still wanted to get married despite the pandemic. After consulting with other counties, her office was able to put the application and payment portions of the marriage license online, which has made the process smoother for everyone.However, individuals still must come to an office to receive and certify the license. The marriage license process cant be fully online until a legal hurdle is crossed.Thats one of the legislative items were going to be looking at, she said.Hudspeth said the marriage license system change inspired her office to start looking at other document-related processes that can be virtualized and identifying related legal obstacles. For instance, the team is now testing out a streamlined procedure for Doing Business As (DBA) filings. Additionally, Hudspeths office also provides legal services for courts, so theres a movement now to start digitizing as many court documents as possible.Hudspeth suggested there is an increased urgency for her office to modernize. After all, Harris County is the third largest county in the country and provides services for Houston, the fourth most populated U.S. city.Other counties look to us for best practices, but were having to learn best practices [ourselves], Hudspeth said.Its not a matter of if this should this happen, she added, in regard to modernizing. Its a matter of when it can happen and what the cost effect will be. President Akufo-Addo has expressed satisfaction with the arrest of five persons believed to have taken part in the lynching of Akua Denteh, the 90-year-old woman who was accused of witchcraft in Kafaba in the Savannah Region. He is hopeful the prosecution of the five will serve as a deterrent to others. The President was speaking at Damongo as part of his tour of the Savannah Region. I am happy that the Regional Minister says five people have been arrested and will be arraigned. I beg you. We do not want to hear of such an incident again, he said. The President had earlier said the lynching had disfigured the nation and prayed for justice to prevail. The five suspects were handed over to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Savannah Regional Police Command at Damongo after their arrest on Wednesday. They are currently on remand for three weeks and have been formally charged with conspiracy to commit murder. The only other arrest over the lynching was that of the Chief of Kafaba, Zackaria Yahaya, who was questioned by police. But the main suspects following the lynching, a traditional priestess and two others, are yet to be picked up. The priestess is said to have fingered Akua Denteh as a witch. The incident was captured on camera and went viral. What followed was public outrage and condemnation of the culture of witchcraft accusations. The priestess is believed to be the woman in the video leading the lynching. Aside from the main suspects in the lynching, the victim's family maintained that the chief had some knowledge of the activities of the priestess. The police put up a bounty of GHS2,000 for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators. ---citinewsroom The Trump administration has announced it will sanction the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a paramilitary organization operating in Xinjiang, where Chinese authorities, aided by the XPCC, are perpetrating a cultural and demographic genocide against ethnic minorities. Why it matters: XPCC controls vast swaths of the economy in Xinjiang. Depending on how rigorously the sanctions are enforced, they could hobble the region's economy and blunt China's plans for further economic development of the region. The Trump administration also said it would sanction two Chinese Communist Party officials affiliated with the XPCC, according to a press release from the Department of Treasury. As previously stated, the United States is committed to using the full breadth of its financial powers to hold human rights abusers accountable in Xinjiang and across the world, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also announced the sanctions on Twitter, writing, "We call on the world to join us in condemning the CCPs heinous abuse of the human rights of its own citizens." The sanctions fall under the Global Magnitsky Act, implemented in 2016 to make it easier for the U.S. government to sanction foreign government officials and entities complicit in human rights abuses. Background: Little known outside of China, the XPCC, also known as the "Bingtuan" meaning "military unit" in Chinese, is a powerful, secretive organization that has dominated Xinjiang's economy and politics for decades. It employs almost 12% of Xinjiang's total population, though very few of those employees come from the non-Han ethnic groups that comprise nearly half the region's population. The XPCC is involved in the production of one-third of China's cotton, and in 2014, XPCC-controlled interests comprised 17% of Xinjiang's economy. The Xinjiang government views the XPCC as playing "crucial roles in fighting terrorism and maintaining stability" a reference to the draconian security state that authorities have forced on Uighurs and other Muslim groups there. My thought bubble: This is a huge move by the Trump administration, and a major win for human rights advocates who have raised the alarm about the XPCC's role in running the mass internment camps. Washington Congress has awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, its highest honor, to surviving crew members of the USS Indianapolis, the ship that delivered key components of the first nuclear bomb and was later sunk by Japan during World War II. The ship, with 1,195 personnel aboard, delivered enriched uranium and other parts of the atomic bomb "Little Boy" that was later dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945. Four days after delivering its top secret cargo, the ship was sunk by Japanese torpedoes on July 30, 1945. Of nearly 900 men who went into the Philippine Sea, just 316 survived before being rescued nearly five days later. The death toll of 879 was the largest single disaster at sea in U.S. Navy history. Survivors were stranded in the open ocean with few lifeboats and almost no food or water, enduring severe burns, dehydration and shark attacks. "In an instant, her crew went from fighting the battles without to fighting the battles within," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of a host of congressional and Navy leaders who spoke at Thursday's virtual ceremony honoring the eight surviving crew members on the 75th anniversary of the sinking. The Gold Medal was awarded to the ship's entire crew, living and dead, and will be displayed at the Indiana War Memorial Museum in Indianapolis. After the sinking, the crew "fought to stay alert, to look after each other literally to hold on for dear life," said McConnell, R-Ky. He and other speakers were shown on video because of the global coronavirus pandemic. "Those who perished in the water gave our nation the ultimate sacrifice ... but the true legacy of the Indianapolis was secured before those torpedoes struck," McConnell said. "Her crew turned the tide of the war. So to her crew members who are still standing watch: Your Congress and your nation say thank you." Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Retired Navy Capt. William Toti, who led a nuclear submarine named in honor of the Indianapolis, said the Gold Medal honors the crew's accomplishments not the fact that the ship was sunk. The medal "recognizes a fighting ship's crew, one that helped end the most terrible war this world has ever known," Toti said. He called the crew members "among the best the United States Navy has to offer." None of the crew members would call himself a hero, Toti added, "but they would all say they served in a crew of heroes." Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite addressed the surviving crew members directly, saying "All Americans owe you a forever debt of gratitude." Braithwaite called the sinking "one of the darkest chapters in our Naval history" and said, "We can never forget the astounding grit and bravery shown by those who lived to tell the tale" or "the important lessons our Navy learned from that tragedy." NASA's latest Mars rover Perseverance launched Thursday on an astrobiology mission to look for signs of ancient microbial life on the Red Planet -- and to fly a helicopter-drone on another world for the first time. Previous trips to Mars have discovered it was far warmer and wetter three billion years ago than it is today, creating the conditions necessary for carbon-based life. Perseverance's goal is to go a step further, and discover whether "habitable" translated to "habited." "There would be no bigger discovery in the history of humanity than finding life that is not on our own world," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said. "If we were to make a discovery that it in fact was, everything from that point forward is going to be 'Okay, what other life is out there? How do we get to it? How do we study it?'" An Atlas V rocket carrying Perseverance's spaceship took off on schedule at 7:50 am (1150 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and its stages separated according to plan. But as the spacecraft passed through the Earth's shadow, the temperature of a heating system dropped, triggering a "safe mode" that switched off all but essential systems. NASA said it hadn't encountered this problem before because previous spaceships followed a different flight path, but added the issue was not serious and the vessel would soon be back in normal mode. "The philosophy is that it is far better to trigger a safe mode event when not required, than miss one that is," the agency said. If all goes to plan, Perseverance will reach Mars on February 18, 2021, becoming the fifth rover to complete the voyage since 1997. So far, all have been American. China launched its first Mars rover last week, which should arrive by May 2021. By next year, the planet could have three active rovers, including NASA's Curiosity, which landed in 2012. - Faster and smarter - Perseverance is an improved version of Curiosity -- faster, smarter, and capable of autonomously navigating 200 meters (650 feet) per day. About the size of a small SUV, it weighs a metric ton, has 19 cameras and two microphones -- which scientists hope will be the first to record sound on Mars. It has a two-meter-long robotic arm, and is powered by a small nuclear battery. Once on the surface, NASA will deploy the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter -- a small 1.8 kilogram (four pound) aircraft that will attempt to fly in an atmosphere that is only one percent the density of Earth's. The idea is to lay down a proof of concept that could one day revolutionize planetary exploration, since rovers can only cover a few dozen kilometers in their whole lifespans and are vulnerable to sand dunes and other obstacles. - A little MOXIE - Another goal is to help pave the way for future human missions -- and a major obstacle is the planet's atmosphere of 96 percent carbon dioxide. Liquid oxygen can be brought from Earth, or oxygen can be mined from ice underneath the Martian surface. A simpler approach is converting it from the atmosphere, which is what the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE can do, using a process called electrolysis. The plan is to perform at least 10 oxygen-producing runs using the car battery-sized device under as many different seasonal and environmental conditions as possible. But Perseverance's primary mission is to scour the planet for evidence of ancient life forms. The rover's drill will collect around 30 intact rock cores and place them in test tubes, to be collected by a future joint US-European mission. Indisputable proof of past life on Mars will most likely not be confirmed, if it exists, until these samples are analyzed, which is unlikely to happen before the 2030s. - Ancient delta - NASA has chosen the Jezero crater as its landing site, a giant impact basin just north of the Martian equator. Between three and four billion years ago, a river flowed there into a large body of water. "At Jezero we have river valleys that flow into and out of the crater and we know that the lake filled up with water and that overflowed," geologist Katie Stack Morgan of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said Thursday. "We think that Jezero has all the building blocks to support past life." The mission is set to last at least two years, but probably much longer given the endurance previous rovers have shown. CHICAGO, IL Bridget Outlaw may not know first-hand what it is like to live in poverty, but based on the number of impoverished people she comes into contact with on a regular basis on Chicagos South Side, she certainly can understand the need that exists among her neighbors. As the Chief Executive Officer of Daughters of Destiny Outreach, Outlaw has witnessed the struggles that are prevalent among a growing percentage of Cook County residents, especially since the coronavirus pandemic began in March. And while the pandemic has led to the loss of employment and regular income, which in turn, has worsened issues of food insecurity and other socioeconomic difficulties, the demand for clothing among the poor has sometimes gone unnoticed. Thanks to a $500,000 donation of clothing and household goods from Burlington stores, Daughters of Destiny will host a pop-up event on Saturday when clothing for men, women and children along with items like baby strollers and other household necessities will be given away to those who need it most. The event will be held from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Chicagoland Christian Center, located at 929 E. 103rd Street. Burlington Stores, in conjunction with its not-for-profit partner, Delivering Good, made a $2.75 million donation to assist with pop-up events across the country. Six cities, including Chicago, were selected to participate in the effort. For Outlaw, whose organization is located in the West Lawndale neighborhood, but serves the entirety of Cook County, Burlingtons philanthropic efforts could not have come at a better time. Burlington has 33 stores in the greater Chicago area and will add a Burbank location later this summer. Burlington Stores in conjunction with its not-for-profit arm has made a $2.75 million donation to reach under-served communities. (Photo courtesy of the Tierney Group) To be honest, its life-changing, Outlaw said on Friday. You have hope and (people) have hope but sometimes in these communities, they have no hope. I see (Burlingtons effort) as a rescue mission of hope. Outlaw has seen local residents come to her organization in need of clothing. But at a time when there is so much demand for clothing and other goods, the coronavirus pandemic has also impacted bigger businesses and their ability to work with not-for-profits to help communities in need. Story continues In recent months, she has watched as people have come to different faith-based and community groups seeking assistance only to be told that there is nothing that neighborhood agencies can do to help because of the impact felt due to the pandemic. In addition to the pandemic, businesses and community assistance agencies in Chicago were also impacted by the protests that sometimes turned violent following the death of George Floyd, which further kept them from serving communities like they normally might. But after receiving the shipment of goods from Burlington three weeks ago, Outlaw has looked forward to Saturdays event. She understands the turnout will be great, but after being the recipient of Burlingtons generosity, Outlaw looks forward to being able to help as many people as possible over the six hours the pop-up store will be open while providing assistance to people who live in neighborhoods that are often under-served when it comes to retail shopping opportunities. When you look into the eyes of people in poverty, theres no way youre not touched by their plight, Outlaw said. You cant look at these people and said, Im good. You just cant do that. We look at (the fact) that a lot of these people cant help themselves. So this is like a rescue mission. Its like the Cavalry is coming in in the old cowboy movies. Thats how I am seeing it. This article originally appeared on the Chicago Patch MGM Resorts International (NYSE:MGM) missed Wall Street estimates on the top line, in the second-quarter results it released yesterday, but beat on the bottom as the losses the casino operator generated were slightly less than expected. Bill Hornbuckle, who was just made MGM's permanent CEO and president, said in a statement that although the near-term outlook is uncertain, "the long term fundamentals of our business and the broader industry remain intact." Gloom too dense to see very far The casino operator reported revenue of less than $290 million for the period, compared to the more than $3.2 billion it recorded a year ago, as its U.S. resorts were closed for almost the entire quarter while its China-based operations, though open, experienced difficulty in getting gamblers to come back. MGM's Macao revenue plunged 95% during the quarter, matching the decline in industry gross monthly gaming revenue even though casinos have been operational the entire time. Travel restrictions remain tight to the peninsula, the only place where it is legal to gamble in China. The resort operator's U.S. properties haven't fared much better in attracting gamblers as they've reopened following the industry shutdown. MGM swung to a loss of $1.52 per share compared to a $0.23 per share profit last year, but its finances still seem sound. It has $4.8 billion in cash and equivalents and $8.1 billion in total liquidity, with $11.4 billion in outstanding indebtedness. MGM Resorts slashed its dividend to just a penny per share, and will be making a quarter-cent payout on Sept. 15. It scrapped its earnings guidance back in February for the remainder of the year. Herman Cain, a former Republican presidential candidate and supporter of President Donald Trump has died from coronavirus, his website confirmed on Thursday. Cain, 74, learned of his diagnosis on June 29, nine days after attending a Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he and many others crowded together without wearing face masks aimed at preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus. Cain was also in the news after he had refused to wear a mask during the coronavirus pandemic. Cain, a stage 4 cancer survivor, was diagnosed with the coronavirus last month and admitted to a hospital in Atlanta, southeastern state of Georgia, earlier in July. Expressing sadness over Cain's death, US President Donald Trump took to Twitter and wrote, "Herman had an incredible career and was adored by everyone that ever met him, especially me. He was a very special man, an American Patriot, and great friend.'' My friend Herman Cain, a Powerful Voice of Freedom and all that is good, passed away this morning. Herman had an incredible career and was adored by everyone that ever met him, especially me. He was a very special man, an American Patriot, and great friend. I just got off... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 As per Reuters, just before announcing his diagnosis on July 2, Cain posted support for not mandating masks at a July 4 event at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota that Trump was planning to attend. Messages of condolences poured in from prominent conservatives, while some opposing the idea of not wearing masks also used the occasion to promote the wearing of masks. A doctor working at a private hospital in Bhopal has devised a brilliant gear to ensure medicos and healthcare workers on COVID-19 duty are not exposed to coronavirus. The doctor has built air bubbles, which are entirely sealed transparent face coverings, reported NDTV. They are filled with virus-free compressed air so that the COVID-19 warriors do not contract the disease while treating patients. For live updates on coronavirus, click here Most air bubbles are connected to a compressor kept 200 feet away from the hospital building, but there are some air bubbles that are portable so that doctors can interact with patients while wearing these. Cardiologist Dr Skand Trivedi, who built the simple yet effective device, said it was specifically made to ensure the safety of healthcare workers, doctors, and nurses who attend to coronavirus patients. 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 Explaining why this air bubble will help prevent new infections, Dr Trivedi said since COVID-19 spreads primarily through breathing contaminated air, it is important that the medicos and healthcare workers on coronavirus duty do not inhale the air exhaled by patients. These warriors have to take care of coronavirus patients for eight hours at a stretch, so they must breathe clean air, which the air bubble provides. The doctor added: We have lost some of our colleagues. I would be happy if this model is replicated by other COVID-19 facilities as doctors and healthcare workers are not only getting COVID-19, but also dying because of it. This air bubble can be the biggest tribute to all Corona Warriors. The staff at the private hospital are currently doing their rounds using the air bubble and they are reportedly comfortable using it, unlike PPE kits that cause suffocation and dehydration since they cannot be taken off till the shift ends. Follow our coverage of the coronavirus crisis here China: Police shutter house churches nationwide, order Christians to stop believing in God Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment House churches across China have experienced intensified persecution in recent months, with Communist officials telling Christians they are not permitted to believe in God in the atheist country. Bitter Winter, a publication produced by the Center for Studies on New Religion which covers human rights issues in China, documented numerous instances where Christians were threatened and harassed by Chinese Communist Party officials. In June, a group of officials in the county-level city of Leiyang, in the central province of Hunan, raided a house church. They confiscated the churchs donation box and destroyed 10 Bible verses on the walls, telling the Christians their actions were the result of their disobedience and that it was illegal to hold religious gatherings without a permit or joining the Three-Self Church. In May, the Religious Affairs Bureau in the provinces Yongzhou city shut down a house church for holding illegal gatherings without permits and confiscated all valuables in the venue, including a computer, a photocopier, and Bibles. In April, police in Dengzhou city in the central province of Henan raided a house church, confiscated its Bibles and hymnbooks, and took eight congregation members to a police station for interrogation. One Christian later revealed that a police officer said to him that they could "not believe in God in China. The believer also revealed that half a month later, police visited the eight arrested members at home to ask if they had continued to attend religious gatherings. Officers warned them that they would be sentenced to three to five years in prison if they gather again. We dont break any law by believing in God, but the government treats us this way, the believer said. The government wants to eliminate all religions and threatens us with the future of our family members, forcing us to give up our belief. Its really shameless. Protestant Christianity is one of five approved religions alongside Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, and Catholicism in China. Religious organizations must register with one of five state-sanctioned patriotic religious associations, which are supervised by the State Administration for Religious Affairs. Christian churches that refuse to register with the government, known as house churches, are illegal. However, even Three-Self churches those registered with the government have experienced an uptick in persecution in recent months. Numerous reports have revealed the persecution Christians have endured at the hands of the CCP, including arrests, detentions, imprisonments, and church attacks. Such persecution is part of Chinese President Xi Jinpings efforts to abolish religion and enforce greater control over people's lives. In Yugan county, authorities shut down at least 48 Three-Self churches and meeting venues between April 18-30, according to Bitter Winter. The magazine reported that countless number of churches were also ordered to remove their crosses in Jiujiang, Fuzhou, Fengcheng, Shangrao, and a few other cities in the province in April. Persecution watchdog Open Doors USA ranks China as one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to the persecution of Christians. The organization notes that all churches are perceived as a threat if they become too large, too political, or invite foreign guests. According to some estimates, there are more Christians in China than Communist Party members. An Australian model, who worked alongside Meghan Markle on an American game show before she was a duchess, has lifted the lid on what she was really like. Lisa Gleave, from the Gold Coast in Queensland, and a younger Meghan used to be 'briefcase beauties' on the American version of Deal or No Deal. Speaking about Meghan, 38, Ms Gleave said the actress was 'quiet but very sweet' and used the show to boost her acting career. Speaking about Meghan, 38, Australian model Lisa Gleave said the actress was 'quiet but very sweet' 'I remember her being very focused on her acting career and her role as a briefcase beauty, as we were called, was just a stepping stone in her career,' she told the Gold Coast Bulletin. 'She only did a few seasons and then landed her role in Suits which took her away. I was so happy for her when I heard about the marriage.' A promotional image for season two of the show shows Ms Gleave, a former beauty queen, and Meghan holding briefcases next to each other. Meghan worked as a 'briefcase girl' on Deal or No Deal, hosted by Howie Mandel, for 34 episodes between 2006 and 2007, before earning a leading role as Rachel Zane on Suits. Meghan was in charge of briefcase 24 during season two of the show, and when a contestant picked her number, she would then reveal the amount inside the case. The original briefcase from the show went up for auction last December in Hollywood: A Collectors Ransom Auction. Lisa Gleave (pictured), from the Gold Coast in Queensland, and the newly crowned Duchess of Sussex used to be briefcase beauties on the American version of Deal or No Deal In a book written by Andrew Norton, Meghan, A Hollywood Princess, it was revealed that the briefcase girls would start filming at 5.30am and would stand for hours in high heels, after lengthy hair and make-up sittings. Meghan has spoken briefly about her days on the show, telling Esquire in 2013 that the pretty-girl-with-a-briefcase job was a way to pay the bills. 'Definitely working on Deal or No Deal was a learning experience, and it helped me to understand what I would rather be doing,' she said, adding that it was 'in the category of things I was doing while I was auditioning to try to make ends meet.' Meghan starred on Deal or No Deal alongside Chrissy Teigen, Aubrie Lemon and Leyla Milani. 'I am especially a fan of Meghan,' Chrissy Teigen told Mail on Sunday last year. 'I was on Deal or No Deal with her and she was lovely. Now everyone asks me what she was like and I say, "Sorry, no dirt. Shes gorgeous".' Earlier this year, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry (pictured in October 2018) quit their royal duties and said they would separate their time between Britain and America Meghan married Prince Harry on May 19, 2018, and the couple have since welcomed a baby son, Archie. Earlier this year, the couple quit their royal duties and said they would separate their time between Britain and America. In their explosive statement, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said they wanted to 'carve out a progressive new role' and 'step back as 'senior' members of the Royal Family'. They said they wanted to balance their time between the UK and North America, 'continuing to honour our duty to the Queen, the Commonwealth, and our patronages'. EnQuest PLC - London-based petroleum exploration and production company which operates mainly in the United Kingdom continental shelf - Signs a purchase agreement with Equinor ASA to purchase a 41% equity interest in the Bressay oil field. The initial consideration is GBP2.2 million. EnQuest will also make a contingent payment of USD15 million following the approval of a Bressay field development plan. Under the terms of the agreement, EnQuest will also assume operatorship of the licences following the plugging and abandonment of the 3/28-1 well by Equinor. This is a low-cost addition to EnQuest of up to 115 million barrels of net 2C resources, depending on development concept. There are no gross assets or pretax profit associated with the assets. EnQuest Chief Executive Amjad Bseisu said: "With the addition of up to 115 million barrels of net 2C resources, Bressay provides EnQuest an opportunity to demonstrate its proven capabilities in low-cost drilling, near-field and heavy oil development." Current stock price: 13.07 pence Year-to-date change: down 39% By Greg Roxburgh; gregroxburgh@alliancenews.com Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. Google has rolled out a couple of security tools to protect the financial info and passwords you saved with Chromes autofill feature. One of them will allow you to verify your identity using biometric information, such as your fingerprint, whenever you want to use your credit card online. Currently, autofill requires you to type in your cards CVC every time you use it. But if you choose to switch on biometric authentication its completely optional and can be found in Chromes Settings page you only have to type in your CVC the first time you use a card. This could help prevent card loss or theft, since you dont need to take out your CC anymore in case youre in public. You can already rely on the feature to retrieve your card details on Chrome for Windows and Mac, and its coming to Android in the next few weeks. The tech giant has also updated Chromes touch-to-fill dialog box, so that youre presented with both your username and password when you need to log in. You dont need to scroll to their form fields one by one anymore and simply have to choose one of the log-in credential pairs in the box if you have more than one. Google says this feature is arriving on Chrome for Android in the coming weeks, as well. Biden is said to be focused on finding a running mate he regards as capable of advancing his priorities in governing and who can be counted on not to stray from the urgent challenges facing the nation to pursue their own political priorities, according to people familiar with his thinking. His advisers would also prefer a running mate who would not present a rich political target for President Donald Trump, given that the incumbent is lagging badly in the polls and has so far struggled to deliver credible negative attacks against Biden. One home goods retailer has seen its sales soar during the coronavirus pandemic, with consumers flocking to its website and stores for new patio furniture and office accessories. And it has big goals to grow, while many retailers are slimming down, or some in its category like Pier 1 Imports are going out of business entirely. The CEO of Plano, Texas-based At Home told CNBC's Kelly Evans Friday afternoon that the company could grow from the 219 locations it has today to more than 600 shops nationwide. "We're a growth company," Chief Executive Lee Bird said. "We've been growing almost 20% ... for the past seven years." While some have been struggling through the Covid-19 crisis and seen sales tumble, At Home's business is booming, according to a recent preliminary earnings report. Earlier this week, At Home released preliminary, unaudited results for its latest quarter ended July 25. It said quarterly same-store sales are expected to be up 42%. And At Home's second-quarter net income is forecast to be least $82 million, with sales amounting to about $515 million. "We think this is going to last for some time," Bird said Friday about people investing in their homes. "People are going to feel a lot more comfortable staying at home than being out. ... After 9/11, people stayed at home ... and that was a multi-year benefit for our industry." At Home shares have soared more than 123% this year. The company has a market cap of $778.6 million. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 16:43:24|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close XINING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- At the Zonag Lake at the Hoh Xil National Nature Reserve in northwest China's Qinghai Province, newborn antelopes and their mothers are finding their way home with not a care in the world. For more than a decade, peace has reigned in this sacred land where a rare species rules, as local rangers cheer the fact that not a single gunshot has been heard since 2009. The species, called the Tibetan antelope, is viewed as a treasure in the region. Every May, pregnant antelopes start their annual migration to the lake region, known as their "delivery room." Poaching sprees had once driven the species to the edge of extinction, and the population dropped from 200,000 to 20,000 during the 1980s when they were cruelly hunted for expensive shawls. Each shawl, priced as high as 50,000 U.S. dollars, was made at the expense of three to five antelopes. To curb the rampant slaughter of Tibetan antelopes and save them from extinction, Qinghai set up the Hoh Xil provincial-level nature reserve in 1996, and it was upgraded to a state-listed reserve in 1997. Thanks to the anti-poaching campaign and the ban on illegal hunting for years, Hoh Xil is now home to more than 70,000 Tibetan antelopes. According to the reserve, not a single gunshot has been heard in the reserve since 2009, and it is now free from poachers. Choephel Tashi, head of the Zonag Lake protection station, has been witnessing the changes as part of history. Born and raised in a family of rangers, he spent most of his life protecting the species and the land, and he has even confronted threatening poachers. Every year, Tashi and his fellow rangers still go on at least 12 patrols across the lake region, and they are willing to go the extra mile for the animal they hold so dear. As the baby antelopes now head back from the lake region to their habitats behind their mothers, the rangers are busy ensuring that all antelopes find their way home safe and sound. "Some weak baby antelopes may fall behind and get separated from the herd during their migration journey," said Tashi. Passing vehicles will slow down for the antelopes crossing the highway. When they gather in large groups however, the rangers will close the road to make way for the animals to prevent them from having interactions with humans. Founded in 1997, at an altitude of around 4,500 meters, the Sonam Dargye Protection Station is one of five stations in the reserve, and takes a leading role in wildlife protection. It is also a showcase for visitors and volunteers to know more about this pristine land. "Hoh Xil is one of the areas with the best preservation of the original ecological environment, and it's home to wild animals living on the plateau," said ranger Tsering Dorje, pointing at the map hanging on the exhibition hall. In July 2017, Hoh Xil was inscribed on the World Heritage List and is now an appealing destination for visitors from all over the world. "As I watched the movie Mountain Patrol, I had great sorrow for the hunted antelopes and the rangers who died protecting them. Now, standing near the stunning Hoh Xil and seeing the antelopes run wild, I can feel the tranquility and peace of this pure land," said Liu Yan, a tourist from the city of Guangzhou. Enditem Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Made Anthony Iswara (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 09:04 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066aa3684 1 World religion,society,culture,tolerance,Pew-Research-Center Free Indonesians are among the most religious people in the world, a recently released survey from the Pew Research Center says. Nearly all Indonesian respondents (96 percent) surveyed stated that belief in God was necessary to be moral and have good values, revealed the Pew Research Center's The Global God Divide report, published on July 20. The results of the survey, which covered 34 countries, places Indonesia alongside the Philippines as the two countries with the highest percentage of citizens (96 percent) who equate belief in God with having good values. Most Indonesians also deemed religion, God and prayer to be an important part of their lives, at respectively 98 percent, 91 percent and 95 percent of respondents. Over time, the importance of religion in Indonesia has not changed, making it one of the most religiously devout public that we surveyed, Jacob Poushter, Pew associate director of global attitudes research, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. The survey confirmed that it was important for Indonesians to define themselves along religious lines, with "religiously unaffiliated people" like agnostics and atheists rarely found in the country. Read also: 'Like a robot': Indonesias nonbelievers struggle to blend in during Ramadan Indonesian laws guarantee freedom of religion, although in its implementation, citizens must subscribe to one of the six approved official religions: Buddhism, Catholicism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam or Protestantism. Experts have said that Muslim-majority Indonesia is neither an Islamic state nor an entirely secular one, with religion largely recontextualized as a sociopolitical issue through the country's democratic and nationalist principles. Meanwhile, Poushter noted that Indonesia bore similarities with other highly religious societies in emerging and developing economies, where people generally tended to be more religious than people in more advanced economies. Wahid Foundation researcher Alamsyah M. Djafar suggested that the governments move to formalize religion may have bolstered Indonesians' high level of religiosity as shown in the Pew survey. The governments policy on religion includes permitting specific regions to adopt sharia, such as Aceh where it is obligatory for Muslim women to wear hijab. Other factors like economic inequality, the politicization of religion and wide-ranging uncertainties across various sectors may have also contributed to high religiosity in Indonesia, as religious institutions offered their congregations a sense of certainty and safety. But Alamsyah also pointed out that intolerance remained prevalent in the country. He criticized a 2006 decree that made it difficult for minority religions to build places of worship. The joint ministerial decree on houses of worship requires a congregation to collect 90 signatures from its members and another 60 signatures from other residents in the community before a building permit can be issued. Many minority religions have been unable to fulfill the requirement and so have been unable to build a house of worship. Alamsyah also said that local administrations had been inconsistent in supporting minority religions that could not meet the decree's requirements. His view echoes that of many activists who have long criticized the decree and its misuse by local communities across the country as a means of obstructing the construction of places of worship for minority religions. Read also: Supreme Court asked to review provision on places of worship Experts have also previously condemned the draconian 1965 Blasphemy Law that privileged the Muslim majority over religious minorities, as well as discriminative regional bylaws that provide justification for religious intolerance. In addition to fixing the regulatory loopholes, Alamysah called on the public to employ critical thinking in their religious belief. Critical thinking is shown in how people understand religion from more than one source or opinion. If they deem one [religion] is wrong and another is right, then he or she is likely following a conservative view, he said. Meanwhile, Religious Affairs Ministry spokesman Oman Fathurahman said on Monday that the Indonesian results of the Pew survey were unsurprising. Spirituality has been an inseparable part of Indonesia for hundreds of years, he said. Oman was quick to add that Indonesia's high religiosity must be balanced with moderate, inclusive understanding that did not claim a [particular] religious interpretation as absolute truth, considering the diverse religious beliefs and practices of Indonesia. Read also: Religious harmony index up but intolerance remains He said the ministry was currently strengthening and expanding its religious moderation programs and was including the programs in the ministrys five-year development plan to guide future policies on religion. Oman stressed that the purpose of religious moderation was to prevent acts of intolerance and conservative extremism, as well as to educate people to avoid freely ignoring or degrading [other] religious values. In principle, they must be fair and balanced in practicing religious teachings and not be excessive [in leaning toward] either the extreme right and left, because they will both be counterproductive for the very religious people of Indonesia, he said. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Portland police on Thursday cleared a downtown park, making at least one arrest, as part of a plan for federal tactical police to leave the city following weeks of clashes with protesters. A day after Oregon's governor, Kate Brown, and U.S. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Portland police on Thursday cleared a downtown park, making at least one arrest, as part of a plan for federal tactical police to leave the city following weeks of clashes with protesters. A day after Oregon's governor, Kate Brown, and U.S. officials announced a phased withdrawal deal, Oregon State Police requested the park be closed before their planned takeover of security at a nearby federal courthouse, Portland police tweeted. President Donald Trump on Thursday said Brown was still not doing enough to rein in "Anarchists & Agitators" who have clashed with federal tactical police guarding the Portland courthouse on an almost nightly basis. "If she cant do it, the Federal Government will do it for her. We will not be leaving until there is safety!" Trump tweeted. Brown responded that Trump's plan to "dominate" the streets of American cities, announced in a June 1 speech as police used gas and batons to clear Washington protesters, had failed. "Today, federal troops are preparing to leave downtown Portland," she tweeted on Thursday. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security deployed tactical agents to protect the courthouse in early July after protesters set fires inside the structure, broke windows and graffitied its walls. Their presence drew national attention after camouflage-clad agents were videoed snatching a protester off the street and whisking him away in an unmarked minivan. Democrats and civil rights groups said agents were acting as an unconstitutional, occupying force and committing civil rights violations. Trump, seeking re-election in November, has sought to crack down on protests to highlight his focus on law and order amid demonstrations and unrest after the May 25 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. The Portland clashes sparked a standoff between Trump and Democratic mayors who said his deployment of federal police to their cities was a political stunt dangerously escalating tensions among racial justice and police violence protesters. (Reporting by Susan Heavey and Andrew Hay; editing by Chris Reese and Jonathan Oatis) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. July 30, 2020 News By David Vergun , DOD News Defense.gov China, Russia Nearing Status as U.S. Nuclear Peers, Stratcom Commander Says For the first time, the United States will face two peer competitors with nuclear capabilities China and Russia by the end of this decade, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command said. Speaking today at the Nuclear Deterrence Forum sponsored by the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute, Navy Adm. Charles A. Richard discussed the rapid modernization and readiness improvements by Russia and China in both their strategic and conventional military capabilities and the challenges those improvements pose for the United States. "China is on a trajectory to be a strategic peer to us by the end of the decade. So for the first time ever, the U.S. is going to face two peer-capable nuclear competitors," Richard said, adding that Russia is the other peer. "We have never faced that situation before." China is in the process of completely building out its own nuclear triad, with the strategic bomber being the last part to be put into place, he said. The other two legs of the triad intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarines are already operational. In addition, the admiral said, China is expanding all of its other capabilities, including new command and control systems and new warning systems, as well as conventional readiness and modernization improvements. In its rapid expansion of across-the-board military capabilities, Richard said, China always goes faster than the United States. He noted that in 2013, the Chinese didn't have a coast guard. Today, he said, it has 255 cutters, adding that the coast guard is a perfect instrument to use below the threshold of armed conflict. Likewise, Richard said, Russia has been modernizing everything over the last 15 years, and that process is about 70% complete. That includes command and control, warning systems, doctrine, as well as improved readiness and competence in conducting exercises, he said. "The United States and the Department of Defense have not had to consider the full implications of competition through possible crisis and possible armed conflict with a nuclear-capable peer adversary in close to 30 years," he said. "The implications are profound." The department has good leadership and a good strategy for addressing the situation, in the National Defense Strategy, Richard said. The NDS states that, in conflict, all domains sea, air, land, space and cyber will be challenged, he said, adding that it warns that strategic deterrence, which has always been foundational to the rest of the defense strategy, "will be tested in ways that haven't been tested before." The admiral said that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Stratcom "did not miss a beat." "We remained fully mission-capable throughout," he said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-01 04:19:02|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close by Sanaa Kamal RAMALLAH/GAZA, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Palestinians of the West Bank have began the celebration of Eid al-Adha amid strict measures imposed by the government to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The Palestinian authorities announced a full lockdown from Friday to Sunday morning on the West Bank, as transportation between towns and villages are banned during that period of time. In the early morning of Friday, hundreds of worshipers flocked to the Qalandia Camp Stadium to perform the Eid prayer. The public prayers are required to bring their own prayer rugs, wear facemasks and adhere to social distancing. Jihad Abu Latifa, a member of the support committee to fight coronavirus in Qalandia, said, "Our role is not limited to monitoring the worshippers and making sure they observe the government's instructions, we are also responsible of educating the people on how to behave to block the spread of the virus." Zakareia Abu Faiala, a senior official of the Fatah movement, told Xinhua the primary tasks of the support teams were to implement all governmental instructions, including a ban on weddings and mourning tents, and make sure all citizens stay at home during the night curfews. After the Eid prayer ended, the Palestinians flocked to the slaughterhouses to sacrifice sheep and other animals and distribute the meat to needy families, friends and relatives, in accordance with the Islamic tradition. "In such days, we are used to visit each other to celebrate our holy festival, but now we will not be able to do so due to the outbreak of the new virus in the West Bank," Hilmi al-Barq from Qalandya told Xinhua, as he was slaughtering a sheep. "We will provide the meat to the poor families in our neighborhood only," the 45-year-old man said, adding that he congratulated his relatives by phone instead of visiting them. After the end of the slaughtering sacrifices, streets that are usually busy remained deserted, with only the security forces patrolling the neighborhoods to make sure the public was adhering to the restrictions. In the neighboring Gaza, the situation was different. Thousands of worshippers gathered in public places and mosques in the blockaded coastal enclave to perform the Eid prayer. People also visited their relatives, while children went out on the streets to play. Mohamed Hamid, a resident of Gaza city, told Xinhua that the atmosphere of Eid al-Adha in Gaza was normal, due to the low number of registered cases in that area. Enditem President Trump on Friday disputed a finding by U.S. intelligence that Russia paid bounties to Taliban fighters in exchange for killing American troops stationed in Afghanistan. It was never brought to my attention, and perhaps it was never brought because I didnt consider it to be real, Trump said during a visit to Orlando, Fla., adding, If it did take place, it would have been brought to my attention and I would take very strong action. Yet the finding by U.S. intelligence was included in one of the Presidents Daily Briefs in late February, and Trump was asked Friday whether that meant he didnt read them. It was never brought to my attention. I think its another Russia hoax. Theyve been giving me the Russia hoax, Shifty Schiff and all these characters from the day I got here and were working with Russia right now on a nonproliferation agreement. On Tuesday, Trump said that he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin this week but did not bring up the finding that Russia had paid bounties on U.S. troops. That was a phone call to discuss other things, and frankly thats an issue that many people said was fake news, Trump said. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images Since the finding appeared in the Presidential Daily Brief, Trump has spoken to Putin on eight different occasions, Axios reported. Former Vice President Joe Biden has seized on the story, and Trumps responses to it, as a campaign issue. The idea that somehow he didnt know or isnt being briefed, it is a dereliction of duty. If thats the case, and if he was briefed and nothing was done about this, thats a dereliction of duty, Biden told reporters earlier this month. Biden spokesman Andrew Bates released a statement on Wednesday that continued the criticism of Trump. The most critical and sacred obligation of a commander-in-chief is to protect those who serve our nation in harms way, Bates said. But months after the U.S. intelligence community sounded the alarm to Donald Trump and to our allies that Russia was placing bounties on the heads of American servicemen and women in a war zone, our president continues to turn his back on those who put their lives on the line for our country, and on his own duty. Story continues _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed his condolences on Friday following the death of former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui He praised Lee for his contributions to a bolstering friendship between Japan and Taiwan. "As a person who had built the foundation of Japan-Taiwan relations, many Japanese people feel a special attachment towards him," Abe said. Lee strove to create a separate, non-Chinese identity for Taiwan, angering not only China, which considers the island part of its territory, but also members of his Nationalist Party who hoped to return victorious to the mainland. He later openly endorsed formal independence for the island, but illness in his later years prompted him to largely withdraw from public life. Physically imposing and charismatic, Lee spanned Taiwan's modern history and was native to the island, unlike many who arrived with Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, at the end of the Chinese civil war. Ukrtelecom (Kyiv) has proposed the Digital Transformation Ministry of Ukraine to reach a 95% fiber optic Internet penetration in rural areas in two stages. At the first stage, the company proposes to provide 3,900 residential locations, each of which has 200 households, with access to the Internet within two to two and a half years by constructing 23,000 kilometers of fiber optic links to residential locations and 26,000 kilometers of distribution network. "As a result, an 85% Internet penetration will be reached in the rural area, as well as connection of educational, medical and administrative facilities in these residential locations. For the implementation of the first stage, Ukrtelecom is ready to invest UAH 1.6 billion, while the government will invest UAH 1.4 billion. Such an approach complies with the regular European practice of public-private partnership," the company said. The second stage includes connection of the largest secluded residential locations taking into account the optical infrastructure constructed at the first stage, Ukrtelecom said. "Given a transparent public-private partnership, Ukrtelecom is ready to satisfy the government's demand for the development of the optical Internet in villages. We consider ths state financing in the amount of UAH 5.46 billion proposed by the Digital Transformation Ministry sufficient for the connection of social infrastructure establishments. From its side, Ukrtelecom is also ready to make a significant investment into providing the rural population with a possibility to connect to high-speed Internet by 95%," the company's CEO, Yuriy Kurmaz, said. (Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of London-listed company director and manager changes announced on Friday and not separately reported by Alliance News: Babcock International Group PLC - London-based defence contractor - Franco Martinelli to retire as finance director after 18 years with Babcock. Will remain in post until a successor is in place. DWF Group PLC - London-based legal business - Hires Jonathan Bloomer as new chair from Saturday. Interim Chair Chris Sullivan to be deputy chair and continue as senior independent director. Bloomer was CEO of Prudential Group PLC from 2000 to 2005 and then European partner at Cerberus Capital until 2012. He is currently chair of Morgan Stanley International and Arrow Global Group PLC. Orchard Funding Group PLC- Luton-based insurance premium finance - Independent Non-Executive Director Steven Hicks promoted to chair from October 7, replacing Mark Sismey-Durrant. SSP Group PLC - London-based travel food and beverage outlets operator - Hires Judy Vezmar as an independent non-executive director from Saturday. Vezmar was CEO of LexisNexis International, part of RELX PLC, until 2014. She is a non-executive director of Ascential PLC. Wincanton PLC - Chippenham, Wiltshire-based logistics - Hires Costain Group PLC Chief Financial Officer Anthony Bickerstaff as non-executive director, from September 1. Paul Dean will step down as non-executive director from the end of February 2021. Time Out Group PLC - London-based publishing and food markets - Adam Silver steps down from the board on Friday "for personal reasons". Says has begun process to find a successor. Redrow PLC - Deeside-based housebuilder - Vanda Murray to retire as non-executive director from November 6 annual general meeting. Calisen PLC - Manchester-headquartered smart energy meters - Oleg Shamovsky and Jim Macdonald, both non-independent non-executive directors, to retire from Saturday. Alberto Signori replaces Shamovsky as one of the board representatives of 73% shareholder KKR Evergreen Aggregator LP. He is managing director in KKR's Infrastructure team in London. Lisa Harrington, "a tech executive and diversity advocate", joins board as an independent non-executive director. By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Faith-based investing has long been a sort of odd side-show to the secular investing industry, but that is quickly changing. Faith-based investing gained serious traction over the past few years, and is growing as a common practice among people of faith, and especially among Christians, who are applying a biblical worldview to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in accord with biblically responsible investing (BRI) principles. Industry jargon aside, the secular investing and corporate world is sitting up and taking notice of faith-based investors as a force to be reckoned with when it comes to how businesses relate with issues such as abortion and LGBT activism that are important to people of faith. As more Christians are investing with biblical values in mind, more corporations are finding the need to engage with the faith-based investing community and understand the unique perspective they have on issues such as diversity, environment, corporate philanthropy, and lobbying activity. Case in point, a cohort of Christian investment firms and non-profits recently initiated a shareholder resolution with Amazon.com that aimed to ensure that conservative, faith and family-friendly viewpoints be considered within the Board of Directors decisions, instead of lopsided support of liberal/secular-only views. Despite opposition from Amazon.coms Board of Directors, the support for this resolution was strong enough to make it to the official ballot on the annual shareholder meeting, and though it did not pass (independent resolutions rarely do), it did garner enough votes to make Amazon.com pay attention and take action to address the issue. Not even the largest companies in the world can afford to ignore the voice of faith-based investors any longer. FAITH-BASED INVESTOR ENGAGEMENT Faith-based investors, and especially Christian investors here in the United States, are faced with a huge opportunity to impact the world for the glory of God. We need to continue to encourage one another to diligently consider the values we are supporting and profiting from with our investment dollars. We need to analyze not only the financial aspect of our portfolio, but we need to use tools like inspireinsight.com to analyze the moral, ethical and spiritual impact of our portfolios as good stewards of the Lords money. And importantly, we must enter into winsome, respectful dialogue with corporations to help them understand the biblical perspective on social issues and how they can take steps to honor the viewpoints of their Christian investors in their business activities. If we can do this well, and if the Lord is gracious to grant us favor and bless our efforts, I believe that we will see great transformation across the business world in the coming years and generations to the glory of God. GETTING INVOLVED AS A FAITH-BASED INVESTOR There are numerous opportunities for faith-based investors to get involved in raising our collective voice in support of biblical values with the companies we invest in. One way we are doing that at Inspire Investing is with our Faith-Based ESG Investor Engagement Campaign, where we have identified fifty-five companies to intentionally engage with, each on selected with specific rationale to help them connect with and respond to the viewpoints of Christian shareholders. These fifty-five companies each currently have favorable Inspire Impact Scores (our faith-based ESG method of calculating alignment with biblical values), but are at risk of seeing their scores downgraded due to recent actions each company has taken. Many companies are like a blind man playing with a Rubix Cube, making unintended mistakes because they simply do not see the full picture. Our goal is to bring the issues to light for them so that they can have opportunity to better consider faith-based investor concerns in the future and improve their Inspire Impact Scores in the process. Christian investors have an opportunity to help pull these fifty-five companies back from the edge before they are carried over the same waterfall of secular, liberal activism that other businesses have fallen prey to. Every Christian investor can take a moment and send an email to the investor relations department at these companies and just let them know that you are here, you invest and you care about biblical values. Join us in praying for and working toward inspiring transformation for Gods glory throughout the business world! FAITH-BASED ESG INVESTOR ENGAGEMENT LIST FOR 2020 The list of companies selected for engagement in Inspire Investings Faith-Based ESG Investor Engagement Campaign 2020 are below: *Note: Inspire and Inspire employees and affiliates may own shares of the below companies in portfolios and funds under management, including third-party and personal investment accounts. This is not an endorsement of, or recommendation to invest in, the companies named herein. Not investment advice. Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) and Boeing (NYSE:BA) have both submitted proposals to supply Canada's next-generation fighter, the latest step in a lucrative competition that has been beset by delays, political uncertainty, and international trade battles. Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet were entered into what is expected to be a $12 billion competition ahead of the July 31 deadline. Swedish aircraft-maker Saab was also expected to submit its Gripen-E fighter, with the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Aviation Rafale also potential candidates. The fight to modernize Canada's air arsenal has been simmering for more than a decade. Canada is a founding member of the international coalition assembled to design the F-35, and was assumed to be an eventual customer. But current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on the election trail in 2015, said his government would not buy the fighter because of its high cost. That seemingly played into Boeing's hand, as the Super Hornet -- while not as modern as the F-35 -- is less expensive. However, Boeing potentially squandered that advantage in 2017 when it accused Canadian manufacturer Bombardier of selling commercial aircraft in the U.S. below cost. Canada responded by saying it would disqualify from the fighter competition any defense contractors that caused "harm" to the national economy, a clear shot at Boeing. It's hard to say who has an advantage now. The Canadian Air Force is said to strongly favor the F-35, which was designed with coordination between North American allies in mind, but the Trudeau Administration is likely to stick to its guns on pricing. And while it is hard to say if there are lingering hard feelings toward Boeing, the company was not prohibited from entering the competition. Saab is attempting to present the Gripen as a good compromise, with next-gen features including short take-off capabilities and interoperability with allies, without the F-35's costs and political baggage. Canada plans to buy a total of 88 fighters, with deliveries not expected before 2025. NatWest CEO Alison Rose gives a speech to staff and stakeholders for the publication of the annual results at the bank's London headquarters. Photo: Nick Ansell/PA Images via Getty Images NatWest (NWG.L) CEO Alison Rose said the major British lender is completely prepared for a possible no deal Brexit at the end of 2020. We have planned operationally for a hard Brexit, Rose told journalists on a call on Friday. Operational, were completely ready. While the bank is prepared, NatWest thinks a no deal Brexit would lead to more economic damage to the UK and could force the bank to set aside billions more to cover losses. READ MORE: NatWest makes loss as it more than triples COVID-19 buffers NatWest laid our four economic models for the UK as part of its half-year results on Friday. The models include two central scenarios as well as upside and downside forecasts. All of them include some level of Brexit, chief financial officer Katie Murray said. If you look to what would be a disorderly Brexit, youre probably getting into a downside scenario. NatWests downside scenario sees UK GDP fall by 17% in 2020 and unemployment jump above 14%. Murray said NatWest saw only a 10% likelihood of this scenario coming to pass but said: If [Brexit] was very disorderly, thats where youd get to. NatWest said on Friday would likely set aside up to 4.5bn ($5.9bn) this year to cover an expected spike in bad loans. But the bank warned it could need to add 1.9bn to the pile if its downside model comes to pass. READ MORE: EU's Brexit negotiator says trade deal 'unlikely' by year end The Brexit transition period between the EU and UK end on 31 December 2020. Negotiators have just weeks to agree a trade deal to avoid trade reverting to World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms. European Union chief negotiator Michel Barnier said recently a deal looked unlikely, with significant differences remaining between the two sides. Economists at Bank of America said on Friday a no deal Brexit or a skinny trade deal were now the only two likely outcomes. Both options would cut UK GDP 5-10% in the long-run in our view, with major short-run disruption especially in the no deal case, the investment banks economists wrote. Story continues Rose and Murrays comments came as NatWest reported worse-than-expected results. The bank fell to a half-year loss as it set aside 2bn to cover an expected surge in bad debts. Listen to the latest podcast from Yahoo Finance UK The staff and faculty of the St. Thomas the Apostle School on Balboa Street in San Francisco arrived at their workplace on Tuesday to discover that 100 laptops meant for their students were stolen early that morning. The burglary took place around 1 a.m. on Tuesday, according to ABC 7 News. A member of the schools parent-teacher group told the news outlet that the suspect also "ate all of the food in the faculty room that has been there since March." The history of East Texas is rich with stories of Texans fighting for our states independence. In July 1832, an order was given requiring Texans to surrender their weapons to the Mexican army. In response, a band of settlers in Nacogdoches attacked the towns Mexican garrison. To some historians, the Battle of Nacogdoches not only freed East Texas from Mexican military rule, but also served as the starting point of the Texas Revolution and led to the independence of our great state. Here are five things happening around your state: 1. Comptroller Projections Earlier this month Texas State Comptroller Glen Hegar released his projected forecast for the states biennial budget. Due to economic troubles caused by the global pandemic, Texas is predicted to have $11.6 billion less than was originally estimated. This means the states budget could have a $4.6 billion deficit when the biennium ends in September 2021. Texas relies on state sales tax revenue as its single largest source of funding. Revenue for sales tax in April, May, June was approximately 9.7 percent lower compared to the same time last year. While Comptroller Hegar will release an updated forecast before we go into the 87th Legislative Session this coming January, this latest estimate will help the state budget writers as they begin to prepare for this coming session. As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, I will be working with my colleagues to ensure we are efficiently allocating funds, while ensuring we have a balanced budget for the state. 2. STAAR Test Each Spring, students in third through 12th grade must take the STAAR exam. For fifth and eighth graders, they must pass these exams to be able to move to the next grade. If they do not pass the first time, they have an opportunity to retake it later in the semester, or over the summer. Gov. Greg Abbott announced recently that the reading and math tests for fifth and eighth grade would only be offered one time this coming year. Local school officials will have the discretion to determine whether a student should be promoted to the next grade, whether they passed or failed the STAAR exam. 3. Federal Funding for Higher Education At the beginning of July, the State of Texas announced it will invest $57 million in federal funding to help the states need-based financial aid programs to help students to be able to stay enrolled in their colleges and universities. In addition to this, an additional $118 million has been allocated for higher education from the Governors Emergency Education Relief Fund made available through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed into law by President Trump. This funding includes allocations to assist students, whose families have been severely financially impacted by COVID-19, to stay in their higher education institutions. It will also provide financial aid for upskilling and reskilling displaced workers in high-demand fields, including workers who have earned some college credit but no credential, allowing new paths into the workforce with higher earning potential. 4. November Early Voting In light of the many issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a proclamation which allows for an extended time period for early voting for the upcoming November elections. Early voting for the Nov. 3 election will now begin Oct. 13 instead of Oct. 19. The end date will remain on Oct. 30. The proclamation also allows for those who are eligible for a mail-in ballot to hand deliver their ballots to the early voting clerks office before election day 5. Tax-Free Holiday Mark your calendars for this years sales tax holiday, which be held on Aug. 7-9. Timed to help families during back-to-school shopping, the law exempts most clothing, footwear, school supplies and backpacks priced under $100 from sales and use taxes, which could save shoppers about $8 on every $100 they spend. Layaway is also available for the purchases of qualifying items. All sellers in the state are required to honor the sales tax holiday, so its a great time to get prepared for the upcoming school year while saving some money in the process Due to COVID-19, you can buy qualifying items online, by telephone, mail or custom order during the tax-free weekend if the order is paid for and delivered during the weekend, or if the order is paid for, and the seller accepts it for immediate delivery, even if it is delivered after the tax-free weekend. Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, represents District 3. Chinese FM urges US to stop politicization of trade in response to TikTok review Global Times Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/30 20:48:40 China urged the US to provide an open, just, fair and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies and stop the politicization of trade issues, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Thursday in response to the US government's national security review of TikTok. The Chinese government has always demanded Chinese companies to apply overseas economic cooperation on a legal basis. The US side, without any evidence, made a "presumption of guilt" against Chinese companies and threatened the companies, which showed the falsity of the US in maintaining so-called freedom, Wang Wenbin, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said at a routine press conference on Thursday. Wang added that the US' behavior violates the openness, transparency and the non-discriminatory principles of the WTO and would harm the benefits of Americans and companies. Recently there are some countries' governments and media saying that there should be no "double standards" in the social media sector. Related Chinese social media software has met the needs of the public and the market, providing multiple choices to different users, which is beneficial for the healthy development of the social media market in every country, he said. We urge some people in the US listen to voices from international society carefully and to provide an open, just, fair and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies and other markets and stop the politicization of trade issues, he said, adding "This matters for the national image and credit of the US." A group of Republican US senators such as Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton claimed in a letter to US President Donald Trump that TikTok censored sensitive content and it may be used by the Chinese government to manipulate political discussions on social media platforms, Reuters reported. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed on Wednesday that the app is under a national security review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, media reported. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The AHA Dick Davidson NOVA Award honors hospital-led collaborative efforts improving community health. The Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine was honored for its contributions through the Human Dimension program, a key part of the curriculum which puts students out in the community to work on social determinants of health in day-to-day life. "The School of Medicine was just one of five programs in the nation to be awarded the American Hospital Association's NOVA Award for improving community health," said Robert C. Garrett, FACHE, the CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health. "The Human Dimension and the innovative curriculum at this unique school are ensuring New Jersey communities, and beyond, will achieve high levels of wellness." "The involved communities and the faculty, students and staff at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine are deeply honored to receive The NOVA Award honoring the Human Dimension program," said Dean Bonita Stanton, M.D., of the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. "The HD program serves both as the platform for our curriculum and as tangible evidence to our commitment to the importance of community in health education and health care delivery." "We are honored to partner with our communities for this transformational work," said Carmela Rocchetti, M.D., director of the Human Dimension. "We strive to instill in our students that the patient is our teacher, the community is our classroom. We have found the most important learning comes from these valued partnerships. We look forward to evolving this unique program in the years to come." The Human Dimension is a three-year course focused on "social determinants of health" which include housing, food access and other standard-of-life factors. Pairs of medical students are matched with families in the community. The students come to know these individuals, families and communities very welland in turn, the families and communities have become connected to the school. So far, nearly 150 families and 80 community partners have been touched by the program, in communities including Clifton, Nutley, Passaic, Paterson, Hackensack, Garfield, Bloomfield, West New York, Union City and groups spanning the State of New Jersey. The Human Dimension also links to classroom-based activities and small group mentorship with a faculty mentor, providing students with the critical knowledge, skills, and supervision to enrich the real-world learning. For instance, while a student is learning anatomy of the heart and risk factors for cardiovascular disease in their lab and classroom sessions, in the Human Dimension they review health histories with their families, and even go out to that family's community and complete a "food map" looking to see if there are sources of fresh fruits and vegetables or safe places to exercise in the family's neighborhood and community. The AHA Dick Davidson NOVA Award recognizes health systems and hospitals for their collaborative efforts toward improving community health status, whether through health care, economic or social initiatives. Honorees participate in joint efforts among health care systems or hospitals, or among hospitals and other community leaders and organizations. "The most successful hospitals and health systems put in the work every day to improve the health of both patients and the communities they serve," said AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack. "This year's AHA Dick Davidson NOVA award winners demonstrated this commitment through partnerships and innovative programs that address urgent and immediate public health challenges." ABOUT HACKENSACK MERIDIAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE The Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, the first private medical school in New Jersey in more than 50 years, welcomed its first class of students in 2018 to its On3 campus in Nutley and Clifton. Hackensack Meridian Health assumed its independent operation in July 2020. The school's vision is that each person in New Jersey, and in the United States, regardless of race or socioeconomic status, will enjoy the highest levels of wellness in an economically and behaviorally sustainable fashion. The School's unique curriculum focuses on linking the basic science with clinical relevance, through an integrated curriculum in a team-oriented, collaborative environment. The school prides itself on outreach, through programs like the Human Dimension, which is active in communities across New Jersey. ABOUT HACKENSACK MERIDIAN HEALTH Hackensack Meridian Health is a leading not-for-profit health care organization that is the largest, most comprehensive and truly integrated health care network in New Jersey, offering a complete range of medical services, innovative research and life-enhancing care. Hackensack Meridian Health comprises 17 hospitals from Bergen to Ocean counties, which includes three academic medical centers Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, JFK Medical Center in Edison; two children's hospitals - Joseph M. Sanzari Children's Hospital in Hackensack, K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital in Neptune; nine community hospitals Bayshore Medical Center in Holmdel, Mountainside Medical Center in Montclair, Ocean Medical Center in Brick, Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, Pascack Valley Medical Center in Westwood, Raritan Bay Medical Center in Old Bridge, Raritan Bay Medical Center in Perth Amboy, Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, and Southern Ocean Medical Center in Manahawkin; a behavioral health hospital Carrier Clinic in Belle Mead; and two rehabilitation hospitals - JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute in Edison and Shore Rehabilitation Institute in Brick. Additionally, the network has more than 500 patient care locations throughout the state which include ambulatory care centers, surgery centers, home health services, long-term care and assisted living communities, ambulance services, lifesaving air medical transportation, fitness and wellness centers, rehabilitation centers, urgent care centers and physician practice locations. Hackensack Meridian Health has more than 34,100 team members, and 6,500 physicians and is a distinguished leader in health care philanthropy, committed to the health and well-being of the communities it serves. The network's notable distinctions include having four hospitals among the top 10 in New Jersey by U.S. News and World Report. Other honors include consistently achieving Magnet recognition for nursing excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center and being named to Becker's Healthcare's "150 Top Places to Work in Healthcare/2019" list. Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, the first private medical school in New Jersey in more than 50 years, welcomed its first class of students in 2018 to its On3 campus in Nutley and Clifton. Additionally, the network partnered with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to find more cures for cancer faster while ensuring that patients have access to the highest quality, most individualized cancer care when and where they need it. Hackensack Meridian Health is a member of AllSpire Health Partners, an interstate consortium of leading health systems, to focus on the sharing of best practices in clinical care and achieving efficiencies. For additional information, please visit www.HackensackMeridianHealth.org. SOURCE Hackensack Meridian Health A motorist assist volunteer was struck and killed Thursday on Kennedy Freeway just north of the Sarpy County line. John Holcomb, 70, had stepped into the southbound lanes to remove tire debris when he was struck by a Honda Civic, according to Omaha police. The impact threw Holcomb into a ditch, and he died at the scene, police said. The crash occurred about 1:30 p.m. Our hearts go out to Johns family and his friends, at this very hour, they are mourning his loss, Colonel John Bolduc, superintendent of the Nebraska State Patrol, said at a 4:30 p.m. press conference at patrol offices in Omaha. Holcomb began volunteering with the Metro Area Motorist Assist program in 2014, according to the patrol. He logged thousands of miles on Omaha area roadways and assisted countless motorists, the agency said in a statement. Typically, volunteers tasks include helping stranded motorists with gas or changing a tire and clearing debris from the roadway. An 'utterley stupid' man who spray-painted a giant penis on the memorial of murdered woman Eurydice Dixon has lost an appeal to get out out of prison. Andrew Nolch, 30, offended most of the country when the anti-feminist activist painted the 25m penis at Princess Park in Carlton North, Victoria's Court of Appeal justice Mark Weingberg said on Thursday. Ms Dixon, a 22-year-old comedian, was raped and murdered while walking through the Melbourne park at night in June 2018. Andrew Nolch, 30, (pictured) painted a 25m penis at Princess Park in Carlton North, Victoria's Court of Appeal justice Mark Weingberg said on Thursday Ms Dixon (pictured), a 22-year-old comedian, was raped and murdered while walking through the Melbourne park at night in June 2018 Justice Weinberg said Nolch should have 'thanked his lucky stars' for the kindness of the sentencing magistrate at Melbourne Magistrates Court who slapped him with 200 hours community work and and a $19,500 compensation order. He appealed the sentence in the County Court but it was denied, meaning he will remain in prison. He also failed to comply by travelling overseas twice and missing community work on five instances. Nolch was jailed for two weeks and re-sentenced to five months jail for criminal damage. Ms Dixon's killer, 19-year-old Jaymes Todd, is serving a minimum of 35 years in prison. Nolch's lawyer argued that the vandal's prison sentence was manifestly excessive and didn't take into account that he had largely complied with the court's orders. He also presented new evidence - a statement from Ms Dixon's father, claiming while he reviled his views, Nolch's jailing was 'detrimental to (his) daughter's legacy'. 'His term of imprisonment offers me no relief but rather, further distress,' Jeremy Dixon said, describing the giant phallus as 'just graffiti on grass'. More than 10,000 people attended vigils in Princess Park after the shocking 2018 Melbourne attack (pictured, a memorial on June 18, 2018) 'I do not want the applicant's imprisonment to be a part of my daughter's story and her legacy. I want good things to stem from her life.' But Mr Dixon wasn't the only victim of Nolch's crimes, the appeal judges said. Justice Philip Priest said Nolch 'wasn't exactly racked with remorse' in the aftermath of what he'd done, telling police he wanted to annoy feminists and see his actions reported in the news. 'Pretty much I just thought it would be funny, like, 'memorial vandalised with giant d**k',' Nolch had told police. Justice Priest said Nolch's intention had been to cause maximum offence, while Justice Weinberg added it was a crime against the community as a whole. Few people would agree with what Nolch did and 'a great number of people would view it with complete and entire disgust', Justice Weinberg said. He described Nolch's repeated decisions to appeal as 'something I can only classify as utterly stupid'. While his lawyer agreed that it wasn't for Nolch to pick and choose which parts of the court order he could comply with, he should be given a second chance. The judges, however, found the penis painting sentence handed down in May was 'moderate' and ruled the five month sentence should not be changed. Justice Weinberg added that Nolch had 'strange, bizarre views' that you 'wouldn't use the term erudite' to describe. In this episode of the Corporate Buzz podcast, host Keerthana Tiwari joins Moneycontrol's corporate bureau chief Prince Thomas to discuss the corporate top news of the week. While vaccine developer Moderna has said they plan to price their vaccines $50 to $60 per course, AstraZeneca promised not to profit from the vaccine. Thomas explains how pricing and distribution would work once the vaccine is ready. He talks about how 80% of India Inc may recovery by June 2021, a possibility that was revealed in PwC survey. Lastly, he talks about the quarterly results from IndiGo and Spicejet, and how the auto sector will be dealing with the current surge in demand. The Harris County Libertarian Party is hosting an event that attempts to get Jo Jorgensen on the debate stage against President Donald Trump and democratic challenger Joe Biden. On Saturday, Aug. 8, at 11:30 a.m., protesters meet for Let Her Speak at 2706 White Oak Drive, Houston. The group will decorate their cars, go live on social media and drive through the Heights and Montrose areas in a bid to get Jorgensen to Cleveland on Sept. 29 for the next presidential debate. Election 2020: Wesley Hunt is ready to contest Fletcher for TX-7 Current restrictions set by the Commission on Presidential Debates limit participation to candidates that are polling at 15 percent or higher in at least five national polls. Even though Jorgensen is on the ballot in 36 states, including Texas, according to the Libertarian Partys official website, she doesnt meet the threshold to join the debate. The idea is to have a socially distanced and peaceful protest in order to bring attention to the fact that the Libertarian Party candidate for president, Dr. Jo Jorgensen, is being ignored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, said Elliot Scheirman, who is one of the protests hosts. He is also running for United States Congress in Houstons second congressional district, which is currently occupied by U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw. With 107 confirmed protests happening across the country on Aug. 8, the Libertarian Party is hoping to get CPDs attention. The catch?, the Harris County Libertarian Partys press release notes, Most of these polls do not even mention a third-party candidate... Voters are being left in the dark... However, Jorgensen and Libertarian officials said they believe Americans want a viable third option. According to a 2017 Gallup poll, 77 percent of independent voters favor having a third major party. And according to a 2020 Gallup poll conducted this summer, 40 percent of Americans identify as independent. Theres an appetite here, said Scheirman. People are walking away from the duopoly of the Republicans and Democrats when they see that we have offerings of people who are qualified, articulate, are able to communicate a message that shows how we can solve problems that we have in society without resorting to government force, rather working on voluntary solutions. Jorgensen, who received her Ph. D. in Organizational Psychology from Clemson University where she is also a senior lecturer in psychology, hopes she can capture this sentiment. The top issues on her presidential platform include goals to end foreign wars, eliminate the federal debt and deficit, lower high healthcare costs and lower incarceration rates. ELECTION 2020: U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher faces a challenge for TX7 Government is too big, too bossy, too nosy, and, worst of all, often hurts the very people it intends to help. The government doesnt work; liberty and freedom do, said Jorgensen in a press release. Scheirman said he also wants to challenge the stereotype that Libertarians are, just Republicans who like weed." He said the Libertarian party draws in Republicans and Democrats, as well as, people who never wanted to be either. He believes Libertarian policy positions are rooted in individual choice, individual consent, and individual rights. According to Scheirman, people should be able to live their lives however they want, free from persecution, with dignity, as long as theyre not harming others in the process. Thats something that appeals to a lot of people, said Scheirman. At the end of the day, our motto is: Live and Let Live. ryan.nickerson@hcnonline.com WATERLOO REGION High-risk sex offender Christopher Watts, who has repeatedly breached his conditions of supervision, has done it again. This time, Watts, who was convicted of manslaughter in 2003 in connection with the death of Kitchener teen Amanda Raymond, was in a bookstore on June 3 and told a girl there that she was the prettiest girl in the store and that she should be lying on a beach somewhere. Watts went on to say she would look good on the back of a motorcycle, similar to the one he was driving that day. He also made a suggestion about dating older men. In a report this week, the Parole Board of Canada, while not stating in which city this most recent breach occurred, recommended Watts, now 60, be charged with violating his supervision order because he made inappropriate comments to a girl under 18. The board report says Watts behaviour is a continuation of your lackadaisical attitude toward the supervision order. You took the opportunity to make comments to her that had sexual connotations and were inappropriate. Given the dynamics of your offences and your preference for young females, such behaviour is extremely concerning, the report said. The board said Watts, who has committed numerous breaches since he was given a 10-year supervisory order in November 2015, does not take his violations seriously. You continuously place yourself in situations that are in direct violation of these special conditions, the July 28 report said. The board went so far as to say there are no supervision programs that could adequately manage your risk in the community. Watts has been living at a Community Correctional Centre under conditions not to attend or go where children are present. Community Correctional Centres, also known as halfway houses, are minimum-security institutions that house offenders who are under long-term supervision orders. Last year, Watts was living in a halfway house in Halifax. In 2003, Watts was sentenced to 12 years in prison for manslaughter, sexual assault and sexual interference in the death of 13-year-old Amanda Raymond after a drug-fuelled party at his home at Somme Island on Puslinch Lake. Raymond overdosed on drugs supplied by Watts during an all-night party in 2001. The girl fell into a drug-induced coma. A toxicology report showed that she had morphine, oxycodone and amphetamine in her system. The amount of each drug on its own would have been fatal for her, the report said. Watts had 27 criminal convictions before being arrested in Raymonds death. Most of them were for property and driving-related offences, but he also has convictions for weapons-related offences and a conviction for forcible confinement in 1989. Watts prison sentence for manslaughter ended in November 2015. He then was given a 10-year supervision order. Among the conditions imposed in the order, Watts cannot be in the presence of any girl under the age of 18 unless he is supervised by an adult approved by his parole supervisor. In previous breaches cited by the parole board, he went to a fair, to the YMCA, to a toy store, and to a business to use a computer and access the internet to view photos of women in lingerie and bikinis. He also accessed dating sites, targeted a previous parole officer and carried a photograph of Raymond. Watts had asked the board to review his conditions and asked that a condition requiring him not to be near children be removed. The board did not agree and the condition remains. A sex offender report on Watts has described him as highly committed to an antisocial and acquisitive lifestyle. It notes your absence of empathy and insight into your criminal behaviour which is consistent with significant personality traits associates with psychopathy. The two-day Digital Indo-Italian Business Mission on Food Processing saw digital conferences, trade fairs, B2B meetings, and insightful webinars on Italy's expertise in food packaging and processing technologies and how India can become one of the biggest markets for this sector BENGALURU, India, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A two-day virtual event on food processing, organised by the Embassy of Italy and the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), was a resounding success, with the emphasis being laid on the potential of new technologies in the food processing and packaging sector. The Digital Indo-Italian Business Mission on Food Processing, which concluded on July 16, saw a series of digital conferences, trade fairs, B2B meetings, and webinars, with participants from senior government officials from India and Italy. Given the exponential growth potential in the Indian food processing sector, this mega event helped Indian firms understand and take cues from the technological prowess of Italian entities. This proved beneficial, especially at a time when the demand for packaged food products is set to jump amid the COVID-19 crisis. To put things into perspective, Italy is the leading builder and exporter of food packaging and processing equipment, helping many companies around the world to innovate in the sector. In 2016, the country produced more than $8.5 billion worth of packaging machinery and $7.5 billion worth of food processing technology and exported more than 70 percent of both to other countries. In 2019, Italy exported $54.9 million worth of packaging machines to India. The event kicked off with a session that featured prominent leaders from governments of India and Italy, stakeholders from the food technology industry and leading industry and trade associations that included more than 600 companies from both the nations. Following an opening address by Chandrajit Banerjee, the Director General at CII, India's Minister for Food Processing Industries, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, highlighted the huge partnership opportunities for both the nations. "India is promoting food processing in a big way by offering an incentive of $1 billion, with hope of leveraging another investment of $5 billion. We invite Italy to invest in us and our 42 mega food parks. You can come and just plug and play," she said, adding that the country has opened up to the importance of ready-to-eat and frozen food due to the current situation. Other key speakers during the session included Manlio Di Stefano, Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs in charge of International Trade, Italy, Ambassador Lorenzo Angeloni, Director General for Economic Promotion, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Italy, Vincenzo de Luca, Ambassador of Italy to India, Carlo Ferro, President of the Italian Trade Agency, Deepak Bagla, Managing Director & CEO of InvestIndia and Barbara Beltrame, Vice President of Confindustria. All these speakers emphasised on strengthening economic ties between the two countries, boosting partnerships in the food sectors, the Indian government's efforts in making investments in India easier and re-establishing it as the fastest-growing economy in the world. The inaugural session concluded with closing remarks by the Ambassador of Italy to India. "Italy will promote a technological partnership in the framework of a further development of the Make in India initiative, therefore contributing to support the role of India as a global manufacturing platform," Vincenzo de Luca said. Other key sessions and webinars stressed on food processing technologies that were dedicated to fruits and vegetables, milk and milk products and cereal processing and packaging, featuring marquee names from Indian and Italian industries. With Italy's experience and strength in cluster development and technology solutions in the area of food supply chains, a synergy can be created for the mutual benefit of the food industry in the two countries. The webinar also explored opportunities for promoting innovation and collaboration in food processing technologies between India and Italy that help reduce wastage levels and other areas that include infrastructure, cold chain, processing infrastructure, and R&D for innovative methods of processing and packaging. In total over 1000 accesses were registered on the CII HIVE platform, over 300 B2B were conducted and more than 70000 persons attended the live streaming of the main session on the social media channels. This numbers mark the success of what is the first indo-italian digital sectorial mission, a true landmark in economic bilateral cooperation. - Authored by Ambassador of Italy to India - Vincenzo de Luca For more information, visit https://ambnewdelhi.esteri.it/ambasciata_newdelhi/en/ambasciata/ambasciatore/ambasciatore.html About Embassy of Italy in India Building bridges between Italy and India everyday, through culture, business, tourism, science, education and thanks to great people. For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/ItalyInIndia/about/?ref=page_internal SOURCE Embassy of Italy in India By Kang Seung-woo North Korea is highly expected to use a defector who recently returned to the North with alleged coronavirus symptoms to promote its regime's healthcare system, according to watchers of the reclusive state, Wednesday. This photo shows a culvert in the northern part of Ganghwa Island that may have been used by a North Korean defector to return home. The other side has been blurred for security purposes. / Yonhap As parents plot increasingly byzantine care arrangements for children whose schools and day cares decide to stay closed this fallpod? Home school? Part school, part pod? Leverage a neighborhood teenager?their stress mounts over the prospect of having to mix work, child care, and education. A lot of their problems would be solved if the government would financially enable more parents to be their kids caregivers and teachers, just for the duration. Imagine: a dedicated educator for every kidif not someone whos professionally trained, at least someone whos not extremely stressed by trying to work and teach simultaneously. Plus, effective suppression of coronavirus transmission, without all that podding and traveling. Advertisement There are problemsin-person education would be much better for kids, academically and socially; so far in this pandemic, its tended to be mothers who step back from the workforce, harming their future prospects. Still, this seems like at least as much of a win as you can find in August 2020, and its the kind of choice that many more privileged parents are making already. But those who can afford it arent the only ones leaning this way: Over the summer, a series of polls have found that nonwhite and low-income parents are more likely than white and higher-income counterparts to be considering keeping kids home from school and to already be scaling back their work hours to take care of those kids. As things stand, lower-income households will pay quite a price for that safety-minded choice. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Is there a way for the government to underwrite more parents choices to concentrate on caregiving this fall? Advocates for children and families see a few ways to do it. The nature of the crisisrolling, uncertainmeans that more than one provision may be necessary. The paid leave portions of the Family First Coronavirus Response Act, passed in March, were meant to provide time for people who have COVID-19 to quarantine as well as 10 paid weeks (and an additional two unpaid weeks) to take care of a child whose school or day care is closed. This was a dramatic expansion of existing paid leave provisions, but it was still full of holes. According to calculations from the Center for American Progress Sarah Jane Glynn, if every business eligible for exemption from the law were to take it, only 17 percent of private sector workers would get the kind of coverage it offers. One huge loophole was the exclusion of companies with more than 500 workers from the rule. (Immediately, workers at places like McDonalds, Kroger, and Amazon were no longer eligible.) Theres also a stipulation that companies with under 50 employees could be exempt from providing leave for parents with kids out of school if they thought that their businesses would be harmed. Poor and low-income workers are more likely to be employed by the kinds of small businesses covered under that exemption. Advertisement Advertisement But even if you were covered by the FFCRA, its benefits end on Dec. 31 of this year, are limited to 12 weeks, and are paid at two-thirds of the regular rate of pay, making the option less than ideal. In March, we didnt know very much, Vicki Shabo, an expert on paid leave policy at New Americas Better Life Lab, said. We didnt know how long this pandemic was going to last. We didnt know what the effects of the disease itself were going to be, that there would be long-haul cases or ongoing health effects. Congress didnt think a lot about a family maybe having sequential cases of COVIDone person gets sick, then another one, so somebody needs to take off time for sickness, and then more for caregiving. And, of course, in March, we didnt know that many school districts would be making the decisions theyre having to make now. The HEROES Act, passed by House Democrats in May and stymied by the Senate, included $32 billion to extend and expand the paid leave credit for businesses, to fix some of these loopholes; by contrast, the HEALS Act, put forth by Senate Republicans last week, contains nothing for paid leave. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But paid leave is only one possible provision that could help parents face an autumn (or a year? Dont say it!) without child care or school. According to Michelle Dallafior, of the advocacy group First Focus on Children, the nature of the crisisrolling, uncertainmeans that more than one provision may be necessary. Families are finding themselves in different situations at different times in this crisis, she said. And it looks like its going to continue for a long time. Even some people who were able to take paid leave under FFCRA, she pointed out, may already have used up their 12 weeks, since schools have been closed since March and many summer care arrangements were canceled. Advertisement An additional measure, Dallafior added, should be for the government to provide cash assistance for families where parents dont have jobs to take leave from. Enhanced unemployment insurance payments, of course, have been part of that picture; as of Friday, negotiations between congressional Democrats and the White House on extending those benefits stand, once again, at an impasse. Dallafior and her organization think that another way to get more money into the hands of people who have kids at home, and to take the pressure off this fall, would be to expand coverage of the child tax credit so that it covers the many low-income families who currently dont qualify due to lack of earnings, and then to convert that credit into a monthly allowance for families with kids. This wouldnt be a giant amount of money, but Dallafior emphasized that the regularity of those payments would give some sense of security for families to make decisionsto spend the monthly money on child care, or rent, or whatever else would keep their household on an even keel. That measure to expand the tax credit is in the HEROES Act but not in the HEALS Act. And the proposed Pandemic TANF Assistance Act, which would help needy families get emergency money for housing and food, wasnt included in the HEALS Act either. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Of course, as my colleague Jordan Weissmann recently wrote, everything in the HEALS Act is calculated to push people out into the public sphere. This is grotesque, in the middle of a pandemic, but its only logical, given our recent political history around the idea of welfare. In a recent Twitter thread, Jen Roesch, an activist, writer, teacher in training, and parent of a child in middle school in New York City, argued that part of the reason why paying parents to help them stay home with kids has been absent from the discussion over school closures is the ideological legacy of the war on welfare. Im not saying that we should have to stay home with kids, Roesch said in an interview, but we should also recognize that there are a lot of women, especially women of color, who might want to be able to take care of their own children right now, and all of our policies are being engineered to send them out to take care of essential labor, at the expense of their own families. Advertisement The idea that even poor parents might be paid something to full-time parent, if they want to do it, is painfully far from present in our politics. When this preexisting paradigm meets the conditions of COVID, the results are more stress, sickness, and pain. This [situation] is being placed on top of the American context, and the assumption that poor people cannot be trusted to make decisions that are right for their families and, frankly, good for society, Myra Jones-Taylor, of the early-childhood advocacy organization Zero to Three, said in an interview, so government has to step in and compel them to do the right thing. From the perspective of the Republicans in control, the right thing, at least for people who cant afford to assign one parent to take charge of schooling and supervision, involves work for parents and school or day care for kids. COVID makes doing that supposed right thing, and still staying safe, impossible. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Is there any hope that negotiations in Congress in coming weeks might result in movement on paid leave or other help for parents? Vicki Shabo pointed out that support for paid sick and family leave has long been robust in the United States and that polls around questions of paid leave to help people to get through the pandemic reflect similar levels of support. She pointed me to June polling that showed that most respondents favored the idea of expanding the coverage available through the FFCRA to cover the classes of employees left out by the original act as well as to cover people who need to take caregiving leave when an adult family member or loved one needs it. Another poll taken in June showed that 80 percent of American respondents supported the idea of expanding leave to workers for businesses with more than 500 employees. If legislators are responsive to public opinion, we may see a shift before the relief package is finalized. But thats a big if. For her part, Jones-Taylor found some hope in the increasing universality of parents current predicament, pointing out that now, the pathologizing of poverty was coming to apply to more and more peoplemore people are in need of SNAP, in need of WIC. I think, she said, there is going to be a reckoninga recognition that these narratives have been wrong forever, and are tired, and need to be upended. For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below. A former high school student from Paterson who sued after he was injured while running from bees has settled his lawsuit with the board of education and city officials, according to court documents. Luis A. Silverio, now 20, claimed in a 2017 complaint that he fell while running from swarming wasps after his fellow students at John F. Kennedy High School tossed rocks at a nest in a tree. Silverio, who had been running laps with other students at the instruction of his gym teacher, fled back toward the high school as students began getting stung by the bees, according to the lawsuit, filed in Superior Court of Passaic County. While running, Silverio fell into a pothole and suffered physical, emotional and psychological injuries, the suit claimed, alleging that the track was in a dilapidated condition. The incident occurred at Westside Park during an outdoor gym class. The city of Paterson was also named as a defendant for failure to maintain the track. The lawsuit, which was filed by Silverio and his parents, blamed the gym teacher and others who worked for the district for failing to stop the other students from throwing rocks at the bees nest. An attorney for Silverio and his family offered to settle the case in October 2019 for $135,000, according to court documents. The Paterson Board of Education approved a $100,000 settlement during its meeting on Monday night, reported NorthJersey.com. The familys attorney said through a receptionist on Friday that she could not comment on the settlement. City officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook. DALLAS, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Securus Technologies announced today that it has provided more than 10 million JPay Stamps for electronic messaging to incarcerated individuals and their families since March 13, when the COVID-19 pandemic was officially declared a national emergency in the United States. The new benchmark is just one component of a comprehensive suite of free and reduced cost services the company is providing during the unprecedented emergency. The program is a response to a number of public health policies implemented at correctional facilities across the country, which include restricting in-person visitation to reduce the likelihood of viral transmission for incarcerated Americans and correctional staff. That decision makes alternative communication methods offered by Securus, like telephone, video, and digital messaging services, even more important than ever before. In conjunction with its correctional partners, Securus continues to offer free and discounted services to 398 agencies and 738 sites nationwide. The company's assistance thus far totals: 21.7 million free call credits for incarcerated individuals and their families, resulting in 165.6 million free minutes of phone connections; 4.8 million free video connections to friends and families of incarcerated individuals; 10.2 million free JPay Stamps to incarcerated individuals for electronic messaging. "Digital communication resources have played a critical role in keeping incarcerated Americans and their families connected, sharing photos and other sentiments during a time when remaining close to loved ones matters most," said Dave Abel, president and CEO of Aventiv Technologies, parent company of Securus Technologies. "We are extremely proud to have worked with institutional partners across the country to provide more than 10 million free JPay Stamps to facilitate those connections while maintaining safety and security measures." In addition to its expansive emergency program, Securus is also providing compassion credits to individuals who fall ill with COVID-19. Those credits, which are loaded onto prepaid cards and distributed by correctional facilities on as as-needed basis, provide access to Securus phone calls and video connections for the duration of medical care. The company provides those credits on prepaid cards, which are then distributed by correctional facilities to individuals on as as-needed basis. At many locations, Securus is also providing public defenders with free calls during the emergency. At participating facilities, Securus has introduced select free movie and game titles for individuals. These new titles are offered in addition to a vast preexisting collection of educational offerings, e-books, podcasts, and other materials that are always available at no-cost. Securus is undergoing a corporate transformation to make its services more accessible, affordable, and transparent for incarcerated Americans and their families. The company is monitoring the public health crisis in facilities across America and will continue to partner with agencies to provide assistance. ABOUT SECURUS TECHNOLOGIES Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, an Aventiv Technologies company, serving more than 3,450 public safety, law enforcement and corrections agencies and over 1,200,000 incarcerated individuals across North America, Securus Technologies is committed to serve and connect by providing emergency response, incident management, public information, investigation, biometric analysis, communication, information management, incarcerated individual self-service, and monitoring products and services in order to make our world a safer place to live. Securus Technologies connecting what matters. For more information, please visit SecurusTechnologies.com. Aventiv is a portfolio company of Platinum Equity. Founded in 1995 by Tom Gores, Platinum Equity is a global investment firm with a portfolio of approximately 40 operating companies that serve customers around the world. SOURCE Securus Technologies Union minister and BJP leader Prakash Javadekar on Friday said the Shiv Sena had "betrayed" the mandate of the 2019 assembly elections just to get the Chief Minister's post in Maharashtra. The Sena had snapped ties with the BJP, its pre-poll ally and long-term partner, and joined hands with the Congress and the NCP after the election results to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government last November. "The BJP and the Shiv Sena fought the Lok Sabha and later the assembly elections (in Maharashtra) under (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi's leadership and got the mandate for another term. But the Shiv Sena betrayed the mandate and joined hands with two parties who had been defeated in the elections just to get the chief minister's post," Javadekar said at an event organised by a Marathi news channel. The Information & Broadcasting Minister claimed differences exist among the ruling MVA allies in Maharashtra. "The recent history cannot be forgotten. There are inner contradictions among the the present ruling allies and the obvious will happen," he said in an apparent reference to the stability of the Sena-led government. Javadekar said the Congress has been left alone at the national level. "Whatever issues Rahul Gandhi raises, like the China issue, has no takers from other opposition parties as well the within the Congress. This is because the Congress has become family-centric," he said. Update: The ribbon cutting for the new clinic, pictured below, was held Tuesday, August 18. View the KATV News story CONWAY, Ark. (July 30, 2020) Conway Regional Health System has opened a family medical clinic with expanded hours that is accessible to the public as well as the Hendrix College community. The clinic is a partnership between Conway Regional and Hendrix College and officially opened on July 6. The partnership with Hendrix College is another innovative way that Conway Regional is keeping its promise to provide high-quality, compassionate care to the community, said Matt Troup, President and CEO of Conway Regional Health System. Partnerships are what make our community successful and organization stronger. As a community-based hospital, the partnership with Hendrix College supports our mission, and we look forward to serving the students and our community through this new clinic. Conway Regional Hendrix Medical Clinic is available to meet the primary care needs of Conway residents as well as the Hendrix community including faculty, staff, and students. We are excited about the opening of the new clinic, and we are grateful to Conway Regional for their partnership, said Hendrix President Ellis Arnold. The new clinic will offer a higher level of care and service for our students and employees and will serve the health and wellness needs of our campus and community for years to come. Allison Wilson, APRN, and Necie Reed, APRN, are currently accepting telemedicine as well as in-person appointments. Katie Deacon, APRN, and Samantha Primm, PA-C, will be joining the medical staff in September. Located at 1700 Altus St. Suite 100, the site of the former Hendrix College Bookstore, the office building has four exam rooms, x-ray and laboratory services, and a procedure room, as well as offices and work areas for the staff. To schedule an appointment, call 501-852-1366 or visit www.conwayregional.org/appointments. About Conway Regional Conway Regional Health System provides complete health care services to a seven-county service area of North Central Arkansas including Cleburne, Conway, Faulkner, Perry, Pope, Van Buren and Yell Counties. Centered on a 150-bed, acute care medical center, the health system provides patients with a variety of services including heart health, orthopedic care, neuro-spine surgery, vascular surgery, gastroenterology services, womens health, surgery, and rehabilitation. Conway Regional operates an expansive physician enterprise, including ten primary care clinics and seven specialty clinics. Additionally, the health system operates a Rehabilitation Hospital and a 70,000-square-foot Health and Fitness Center. In June of 2019, Conway Regional announced a management agreement with the Dardanelle Hospital, since renamed as the Dardanelle Regional Medical Center. With more than 200 physicians providing services at Conway Regional, the organization partners with the medical staff in an Accountable Clinical Management Model (ACM). This one-of-a-kind partnership creates a model of shared governance to promote meaningful engagement of physician leaders with hospital administrative leadershipall in an effort to improve patient experience and enhance care. Conway Regional maintains an employee engagement score in the top 20% of hospitals throughout the country and a Medical Staff engagement score in the top 5%, as compared to hospitals of similar size and scope. Conway Regional was the first hospital in Arkansas to partner with Arkansas Childrens Hospital in the Nursery Alliance, allowing more babies to receive care closer to home. Conway Regional is the only hospital in Arkansas named to Modern Healthcares National Best Places to Work in 2018, 2019, and received the honor again in 2020. Conway Regional has been named an Arkansas Best Place to Work in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Learn more at conwayregional.org. Leftists were all atwitter about a tweet Trump sent out early on Thursday. In it, after attacking voting by mail, he suggested that it might be a good idea to delay the election until people can vote in person. Leftists, predictably, were outraged and poured out pixels explaining why this wasn't possible. They probably still don't realize that they were being played and that they just made Trump's case for him about getting voters into booths on November 3. One of the things reflexively oppositional people don't realize is that they're incredibly easy to manipulate. Someone who invariably says "no" is just as much a puppet as the easily controlled person who always says "yes." If you say "not X" every time I say "X," if I want you to fall in line, I just start by saying "not X." This is a principle as old as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck telling Elmer Fudd which of them he should shoot: With that principle in mind, let's talk about what Donald Trump did. The starting point is that Democrats are worried that they can't win. Polls are of dubious value, especially because they're weighted heavily in favor of Democrats; they poll nationally rather than by state, thereby ignoring the Electoral College; and they ask anybody for an opinion instead of asking registered or likely voters. Savvy Democrats are warning fellow Dems against trusting the polls. Biden is also a problem. Putting aside his fondness for segregationists in the 1970s, as well as his being behind imprisoning more black men than any president since the Confederacy, he's decompensating by the minute. This is Biden: Voters are utterly disinterested in him, too: 247 people are watching Joe Biden attempt to read the teleprompter in his basement pic.twitter.com/XAGfwZ6lIN Trump War Room - Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) July 30, 2020 What do you do if you can't win honestly, you have no moral principles, and your only goal is power? You cheat. In a system with traditional voting with people showing up at polling places and, in many states, having to show ID fraud is, well, hard. For the Democrats, therefore, the Wuhan virus has offered a wonderful opportunity: mandate that in-person voting be banned in America. Instead, some Democrats are proposing that the states should mail ballots to everyone who has a driver's license (including, presumably, all those illegal aliens in the 15 states that give them licenses and all those people who Democrats insist don't know how to obtain ID to show at polling places). Then, the Democrats promise, everyone who is a registered voter and is not committing fraud will dutifully mail the ballots back. The opportunities for fraud are boundless. Leftists insist there's no fraud (you can easily find the cites because the search engines frontload them), but reality says the opposite. (See here and here, for example.) In New York, a month after the primaries, the huge number of legitimately obtained absentee ballots has meant that there's still no winner. In the last four elections alone, 28 million mail-in ballots went wandering, to be lost forever. So what does Trump do? He sends out a tweet worrying about the risks of mail-in elections and suggests that the election be delayed until the virus fears are gone: With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 Within seconds, the media are insisting that the election must go forward as planned. Their hysteria alerts non-political junkies that this is an issue. These voters don't want to be disenfranchised in an important election. Trump bets they're going to say, "If I can go to Walmart to buy potatoes, I can go to my polling place to vote." As Trump later explained: Glad I was able to get the very dishonest LameStream Media to finally start talking about the RISKS to our Democracy from dangerous Universal Mail-In-Voting (not Absentee Voting, which I totally support!). Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 Must know Election results on the night of the Election, not days, months, or even years later! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 The media are Daffy Duck. Trump is Bugs Bunny squared. Image is a YouTube screen grab plus original content. India insisted on 'complete disengagement' in all its talks with China on eastern Ladakh row: Govt We will continue to deal with Chinese PLA in firm, resolute manner: Army chief Pangong Tso, Gogra to feature in 5th military commander level talks India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, July 31: The stand off at Pangong Tso and Patrolling Point 17A at Gogra will be the focus of the fifth military commander level talks between India and China. The next round of talks is expected in a couple of days, sources have told OneIndia while adding that the ground work is being laid for the same. The talks were initially planned over the weekend, but an official word on the same is still awaited. Sources said that on the disengagement, there has not been positive movement on the ground for at least 15 days now. On China's claim that disengagement had taken place, sources said that the statement is incorrect. 'Disengagement process along LAC not yet complete: India slams China Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News Earlier, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin had made the claim at a briefing in Beijing when he was asked whether the border troops from India and China have completed the disengagement from Galwan, Gogra and Hot Spring areas in eastern Ladakh. The reference to Pangong Tso, a major friction point, was conspicuously absent in the question asked by a reporter from China's official media. During the briefing, the spokesman noted that China and India have recently conducted "intensive communication through military and diplomatic channels." "Now the frontline border troops have completed disengagement in most locations and the situation on the ground is easing," Wang said. At the briefing, Wang said, "We have held four rounds of commander level talks and three meetings of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC)." China not strategic threat to India: Chinese Ambassador "Now we are preparing for the fifth round of commander level talks to study the settlement of the remaining issue. We hope India will work with China to implement our consensus and uphold peace and stability along our border areas," he added. Taliban Announces Prisoner Release By Ayesha Tanzeem July 30, 2020 The Taliban announced late Wednesday it will soon release remaining imprisoned Afghan security force members, a day after a similar announcement from Afghanistan's president, Ashraf Ghani, indicating that the start of negotiations between the warring factions in Afghanistan may be close. "The Islamic Emirate due to compassion of the Amirul-Momineen and as a goodwill gesture, will release the remaining prisoners of the Kabul Administration before Eid al-Adha, thus completing the release of 1000 prisoners," Tweeted Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman based in Doha. Ghani had indicated Tuesday that intra-Afghan negotiations with the Taliban were imminent. "With this action, we look forward to the start of direct negotiations with the Taliban in a week's time," he said, announcing the decision to release the remaining of the 5,000 total Taliban prisoners. Both sides also have agreed to a three-day cease-fire during the Muslim holy festival of Eid. On Wednesday, Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, met senior Afghan officials in Kabul and discussed the latest developments. "Meeting @US4AfghanPeace accompanied by @USAmbKabul this evening and welcoming the mutual 3-day Eid al-adha truce announcement, we focused on the last phase of prisoner exchanges leading to intra-Afghan talks & a permanent ceasefire, preceded by further reduction in violence," tweeted Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, charged with leading the negotiations with the Taliban. Participants, including President Ghani and former President Hamid Karzai, also discussed the possibility of extending the cease-fire beyond Eid, according to the office of the president. The exchange of prisoners had been holding up the start of intra-Afghan negotiations since March. The Afghan government resisted releasing Taliban prisoners unless the militants reduced the level of violence in the country. The Taliban refused to sit for negotiations unless all of their 5,000 prisoners were released. Faridom Khawzoon, a spokesman for the council, said the two sides have resolved their issued. "The problem has almost been resolved and in the coming days this issue will be completely resolve. Five-thousand prisoners of the Taliban will be released, and 1,000 prisoners of Afghans security forces will be released," he told VOA Thursday. While several countries are being considered as a possible venue for intra-Afghan negotiations, the spread of the novel coronavirus has complicated logistics. The negotiations will include a political team of Taliban and a team of Afghans representing various political factions, activists, women, and Afghan civil society. The first round may be held in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where a Taliban political team has been living for years and where it negotiated for almost a year-and-a-half with Khalilzad and his team. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address This pandemic transformed how we are interacting with each other at all levels; home offices and home schooling have become the new normal. Moreover, the healthcare system is witnessing a complete disruption in the engagement with and between healthcare professionals and patients... Psyma Group AG, a global provider of strategic marketing research, in partnership with Netquest, a global panel and data collection provider, recently released the results of an international survey on the impact of COVID-19 conducted among 1502 adults, across the United Kingdom, Germany and France. COVID-19 continues to have a major disruptive impact on our daily lives despite our return to some sort of normalcy in Europe. This pandemic transformed how we are interacting with each other at all levels; home offices and home schooling have become the new normal. Moreover, the healthcare system is witnessing a complete disruption in the engagement with and between healthcare professionals and patients; remote consultations and virtual engagements are becoming common practice during the pandemic and are likely to stay. With the reopening of the economy and businesses across Europe, organisations need to understand the short- and long-term implications of the pandemic on the population within Europe. Now more than ever, organisations need to engage with their customers to better understand the level of disruption that took place and quickly adapt to a new business environment. Doing so, will give organisations a unique opportunity to reimagine their business practices, reassess their marketing strategy, remap their customer journey, and rethink their brand experience. We are pleased to be partnering with Netquest to conduct several surveys to gain early insights on peoples rapidly changing attitudes and behaviours, notes Richard Habis, PharmD. Global Account Director Healthcare at Psyma Group AG. OVERVIEW: As measures to counter the spread of the pandemic start to ease across Europe, and the economy is returning to some sort of normalcy, organisations need to understand the short- and long-term implications of the pandemic on the population within Europe. The Psyma / Netquest survey initiative offers a snapshot of the attitudinal, behavioural, financial, and emotional impact of the pandemic on the population. It also looks at current opinions of institutions (government, pharmaceutical industry, including vaccine manufacturers, healthcare professionals and scientific communities), as well as receptivity and readiness of being traced and vaccinated against COVID-19. The Psyma / Netquest survey offers early insight on behaviours that will likely stay beyond the pandemic restrictions (e.g., mask wearing, telehealth visits, online shopping, social distancing, school openings, and so forth). Finally, it looks at what specific values, brands need to emphasize during these uncertain times. DOWNLOAD (FREE) EU COVID-19 IMPACT REPORT KEY HIGHLIGHTS ABOUT THE PSYMA GROUP The Psyma Group of companies is an independent, global strategy and insights consultancy that offers creative solutions to the Healthcare, Automotive, Financial, Consumer and B2B industries. The Psyma Group of companies has been providing marketing insights for over 60 years, operates 13 offices in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia, and employs close to 300 research professionals. For more information, please visit us at http://www.psyma.com or connect with us on LinkedIn. ABOUT NETQUEST For over 15 years, Netquest has provided market researchers with genuine, insightful data. Netquests digital consumer-panel and data-collection capabilities in more than 20 countries are a reliable partner that helps institutions and businesses analyse the market, gain valuable insights and genuinely understand consumers. Netquest maintains passively metered subpanels in each of its markets allowing for first-party data collection and observation of digital behaviours across devices. Staff at Aer Lingus have been warned the airline may seek compulsory redundancies in a bid to slash costs, and have been told the future of bases in Cork and Shannon is potentially under threat. Aer Lingus CEO Sean Doyle outlined the potentially dramatic moves in an internal video to staff members on Friday. We have no line of sight on any meaningful resumption of operations out of either Cork or Shannon Airports. As such we are reviewing the scale of our flying programme from these airports and the ongoing viability of our regional bases there, he told staff. Staff were told the airline recorded an operating loss of 98m in the three months to the end of June, its biggest ever quarterly loss, when it operated at less than 5pc of capacity compared with 2019. Staff were told that Irelands travel restrictions are tougher than EU peers. As such, Ireland is in the unfortunate position of firstly having the most restrictive travel policies in Europe and secondly having so far done the least in Europe to support its aviation sector. The airline has been unable to make progress on reaching agreement on cost cutting with unions representing our Cabin Crew and Ground Operations staff, the CEO said. Essentially there has been a failure in Ireland amongst a number of key stakeholders to understand or appreciate the scale and depth of this crisis in the aviation sector. "These factors mean that Aer Lingus will have to take further steps to address the crisis. Job losses will be implemented on a voluntary basis if possible, but on a compulsory basis if necessary, he said. The airline has 350 staff based in Cork and Shannon. Aer Lingus is seeking 500 redundancies across the airline. In a statement the airline said the impact of COVID-19 on the aviation sector has been compounded in Ireland by what it called the most restrictive travel policies in Europe and the failure to implement supports for the sector. Aer Lingus has also not made the required progress on the implementation of industry standard work practices with key cohorts of employees. In this context and given the Aer Lingus quarterly results today, significant redundancies are required across the business. "The redundancies will be on voluntary basis if possible but may be implemented compulsorily if required. Consultations are ongoing with the relevant representative bodies in this regard. Aer Lingus is also reviewing the scale of our flying programme from Cork and Shannon Airports and the ongoing viability of our regional bases there. Ashok Gehlot, the Rajasthan Chief Minster, alleged that 'horse-trading rates' had gone up, after the announcement of the assembly session on 14th August. He has now moved his MLAs to Jaisalmer, due to this fear. Rajasthan Chief Minster Ashok Gehlot, has alleged that rate of horse-trading has gone up, ever since the announcement of the assembly session on 14th of August. Due to this, he has now moved his MLAs almost 500 KMs away from the state capital of Jaipur, to Jaisalmer. The MLAs will be moved in batches, using charter planes. They had been staying at a hotel outside Jaipur since July 13 after Sachin Pilot and 18 Congress MLAs decided to revolt against the established government. On Thursday, Gehlot, claimed that the money offered for defection to the other side had been increasing sharply, and that he would call for a confidence vote at the next assembly. He also asked the party rebels who had not accepted any monetary benefits, to return to the party. He felt that if the dissident MLAs had any complaints, they should have gone to the AICC office, instead of keeping away. The dissident Congress MLAs are at Manesar in Gurgaon and the Rajasthan police is unable to reach them, at this time. Also Read: Expect China to work sincerely towards complete disengagement: India Also Read: Rajasthan Crisis: CMs son, Speakers conversation goes viral, BJP calls for Joshis resignation The floor test will happen; we are going to the assembly. The BAC decides this, he said The House also plans to discuss discuss the coronavirus pandemic and the states economy after the lockdown. He claimed that MLAs had been receiving calls abut defecting to the opposing party ever since the session was announced. According to him, earlier the rate was Rs 10 crore as the first instalment and Rs 15 crore as the second. I am not aware who all have taken the first instalment among those who had left. It is possible that some might not have taken it. I want them to come back, he said. Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajput death: Bihar government moves SC challenging Rhea Chakrabortys petition South Africa: Funerals, protests linked to rapid spread of COVID-19 in Gauteng Funerals and protests continue to be a breeding ground for the spread of Coronavirus in Gauteng, says Premier David Makhura. Speaking during the Gauteng Provincial Command Council update on Friday, the Premier said he was particularly worried about public gatherings. Gauteng, which is the countrys epicentre in terms of the number of infections, has 171 574 COVID-19 cases since the outbreak, even though the number of recoveries is also high. Soweto is now the Gautengs hotspot and has overtaken the Inner City and Mayfair, followed by the Alexandra and Wynberg area. If you have a funeral at a hotspot, more people are likely to be infected, said the Premier, noting that some residents continue to gather socially and host parties, which is prohibited by the regulations. The Premier cited a time when infections in Soshanguve, Mabopane and Ga-Rankuwa were shooting up. We traced it from one funeral [and another] where over 1 000 people attended the funeral on 17 July (sic). Makhura said he was also concerned about public transport, which poses a threat ever since the economy opened. While the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks of July have been decreasing, it is too early to celebrate, Makhura said. In Ekurhuleni, which is home to Tembisa, and Diepsloot in Johannesburg, the rate of infections has been dropping. Were still in the midst of the storm. We still need to take the necessary precautions, the Premier said, urging citizens to take personal responsibility for their safety. Makhura said the province has 400 ward-based teams out of 500, which consist of health workers, who are driving awareness campaigns. Not out of the woods Dr Mary Kawonga, who is leading the provincial COVID-19 advisory committee, said Gauteng has not reached the peak of infections. Theres ongoing transmission of this infection in the population, Kawonga said, adding that there were still transmissions occurring in areas outside the hotspots. Kawonga stressed the need to keep medically vulnerable people safe from infection. She stressed the importance of adopting non-pharmaceutical measures to curb the spread. Social distancing is our first point of call. There are situations where we cant socially distance as well as wed like to, such as getting into a taxi to get home, she said, urging people to use masks in public. Kawonga said people should play their role, as government is doing its part. She appealed to those who are meant to be in isolation or quarantine to adhere to the rules. Weve had reports of people still going out shopping, going out with friends and still visiting when they have COVID-19, she said, urging people not be lulled into a sense of false security when they start to feel better. She urged people to avoid gatherings and adhere to the funeral and religious regulations, as the province identifies hotspots that are growing rapidly. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. "The establishment of the memorial is extremely important for our country. Its history contains a lot of tragic pages. But we must bear them in mind and tell the coming generations about them. Such moments should stay in the history of Ukraine. They are in our talks, in our memory, in books. It would be very good if this project were brought into life and we built history together with you." President Zelensky also emphasized the importance of remembering the Ukrainian "Righteous Among the Nations," who saved Jews in the Holocaust. In a significant development, the meeting participants agreed to form a working committee, headed by Andrii Yermak, Head of the Presidential Administration. The committee will coordinate regarding the framework of the Memorial's establishment as well as to prepare for the 80th anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy. Supervisory Board member, President of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, stressed that the future memorial must give visitors a clear answer to the question of what is anti-Semitism and draw the world's attention to Babyn Yar. Ronald Lauder said, "This is the third generation that knows about the Holocaust. But while almost everybody knows about Auschwitz, the history of Babyn Yar is almost unknown to young people. I want people to visit Kyiv in order to see the Babyn Yar Memorial, to understand what happened here. We have a chance now to do something fantastic. The more people that know what happened at Babyn Yar, the better off the world will be." The Head of the Supervisory Board, Natan Sharansky pointed out that the history of Babyn Yar is not only of importance for Jewish people, as it is also the site where other nationalities perished, in particular, Ukrainian, Belarus, and Polish people. Natan Sharansky said, "This initiative is not just a monument, but a critical memorial, with a museum, a research center, contributing to raising the degree of tolerance in society, playing a global role in Ukraine's positioning in the world. Such institutions throughout the world are established in partnership with the state and supported by its key officials." The first President of Ukraine (1991-1994) Leonid Kravchuk, who has also joined the Supervisory Board, emphasized that the future Memorial will make an indisputable historical statement. "This Project is interesting, important, and highly comprehensive. It is part of history. Babyn Yar is a terrible tragedy and that's why we have to create an unrivalled memory of it, to make the best project possible." Another Supervisory Board member, former-Minister of Foreign Affairs and Vice-Chancellor of Germany (1998-2005) Joschka Fischer, said "For my country, it's very important not to forget and to contribute everything that we can towards memory of the Holocaust and this terrible crime." In September 1941, just days after the Nazis occupied Kyiv, around 34,000 of the city's Jews were marched to the Babyn Yar ravine and shot dead over a two-day period. Later massacres were also carried out at the same site, killing victims of other minorities and nationalities. The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center will respectfully commemorate the victims of the tragedy and promote the humanization of mankind through preserving memory and study of the history of the Holocaust. About the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre is a non-governmental charity whose purpose is to preserve and cultivate the memory of the Holocaust and the Babyn Yar tragedy in Ukraine by turning the Babyn Yar area into a place of remembrance. The Foundation's mission is to worthily honour the memory of the victims of the tragedy and to contribute to the humanization of society through preserving and studying the history of the Holocaust. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1222366/President_Ukraine_Volodymyr_Zelensky.jpg SOURCE Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center Clive Thompson Jr. outside the First United Methodist Church of Germantown, where his parents live in sanctuary. He was accepted into Columbia University but is not eligible for federal aid because he is a DACA recipient. Read more At age 22, DACA recipient Clive Thompson Jr. has accomplished something extraordinary: admission to the elite Columbia University in New York City. But his dream could end at the Ivy League gates. He doesnt have the money to pay even a fraction of the estimated $75,000 annual bill. He and the 700,000 other young immigrants who are permitted to live and work in the United States under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals arent eligible for federal school aid. And crowdsourcing a college education is impractical a GoFundMe effort begun two weeks ago by a family friend has, so far, raised $1,050. So what does Thompson have? Inspiration from his parents, undocumented immigrants Oneita and Clive Thompson Sr. They fled their Jamaican homeland in 2004 after gang members burned their farm and threatened to kill them, and then built an American life in far South Jersey. The U.S. government denied them asylum, yet allowed them to stay, to hold jobs, pay taxes, buy a house, and raise seven children here. For 14 years, the Thompsons lives were indistinguishable from those of their neighbors in the Cumberland County community of Cedarville until the Trump administration took power and put them on a fast track to deportation. Now, theyve spent nearly two years in sanctuary inside the First United Methodist Church of Germantown, fighting to avoid removal. CJ, as hes known, was protected from deportation by his DACA status. He stayed in the family home as his parents took sanctuary, working late-night shifts at a meatball plant to help keep up the mortgage on their house. My parents battle has taught me how to continue to push forward despite setbacks, Thompson said. They both sacrificed a lot to bring me and my siblings to the United States. They looked in the face of danger and said, No, we wont quit. Thompson wants to take film and media classes, intending to become a director. READ MORE: Asylum in shambles: A Jamaican couple living in church sanctuary in Germantown are both the victims and beneficiaries of the dysfunction in U.S. immigration policy. How did they get there? And now, how will they get out? Hes a very thoughtful, loving person, said Peter Pedemonti, codirector of the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, which helped the family move into the church and supports them now. Really sharp. A big vision. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Trump administrations attempt to end DACA, a decision that protected some 700,000 young immigrants in America, at least for the time being. All were, as children, illegally brought into the country by their parents. But the court left open the possibility that President Donald Trump could try anew to end the program a reiteration, recipients said, of how DACA strands them half-in and half-out of American society, granted some rights but denied others, the future always uncertain. DACA recipients can obtain work permits and renewable, two-year deferments from deportation. But they get no U.S. citizenship or legal status, and no path to achieve it. They are allowed to attend American colleges and universities, but only if they can somehow afford it. Most states, like the federal government, offer no financial aid programs for them. DACA authorizes us to work, Thompson said, but keeps us in a place of work where we cant really improve ourselves. CJ was only 14 when President Barack Obama created DACA in 2012. His mother saw the opportunity and made sure he enrolled. All of the Thompson children have permission to be in the United States. Younger siblings Christine and Timothy, both U.S. citizens by birth, moved into the church when their parents took sanctuary in late August 2018. It fell to CJ to maintain the family house in South Jersey. He felt the isolation. He worked the 3-11 p.m. shift at meatball-maker Buona Vita Inc., his pay helping the family hold on to its home, and took classes at what was then Cumberland County College. Always, he said, his parents emphasized education as a way to a better life. His father, a heavy-equipment operator at Bridgeton-based Cumberland Dairy, took money from his retirement savings to help CJ pay for classes. His mother started coursework at the Cumberland college, advancing to become a certified nursing assistant at Friends Village retirement home in Woodstown. Getting into the Ivy League is one thing, but how to get funding is another thing, said Oneita. It makes me angry that he can work and pay taxes, but hes not able to get a foot up as a Black man in this country. To not just be an immigrant, but a Black man and immigrant, the journey is harder. Its unclear what aid Columbia itself might offer. The university says its dedicated to removing barriers to college and operates one of the most generous financial aid programs in the country. The school is committed to meeting all of the demonstrated financial need for first-year or transfer students pursuing their first degree, regardless of citizenship status, according to the university website. Columbia did not immediately respond to questions about what aid might be available to students in Thompsons position. We tell him, Never give up, his mother said. America is still the best place on Earth. This is our home. One day were going to get out [of sanctuary]. We still believe change will come, and things will get better. For DACA recipients, things may first get worse. The loss before the Supreme Court has not stopped Trump from attacking the program. The administration now says it will reject new requests for DACA and will reduce renewals from two years to one. Thats consistent with the policies of a president who, in one of his first official acts, freed deportation officers from Obama-era restraints, allowing them to arrest people who, in many cases, committed no crime and had long resided in the United States. Trump has accused immigrants of using fraudulent or meritless asylum claims to gain entry into our great country, and then trying to stay permanently. Churches are considered safe places because ICEs sensitive location guidelines generally bar agents from taking action inside houses of worship, hospitals, and schools. READ MORE: How advocates helped free a Honduran mother from sanctuary after 18 months inside a Philadelphia church Those who seek sanctuary can continue to fight their legal cases from the inside. And sometimes they win. In March, Honduran immigrant Suyapa Reyes, who took sanctuary with her four children in the same church at the same time as the Thompsons, won her freedom after 18 months, when the government reversed itself and said she could stay in this country. Thompson recently moved to Philadelphia, where he lives between the church and a relatives house; fund-raisers have enabled the family to keep their New Jersey home. He enrolled full time at Drexel University in fall 2019 and winter 2020. He took out loans, was awarded some scholarship money, and worked as a server at the South Philly Barbacoa restaurant to fund his education, but lost his job amid the pandemic. Getting accepted at Columbia, he said, was a dream fulfilled. He was at the church when he received the message from the university, and ran into the next room to tell his mother and father the big news. At times I wanted to give up, Thompson said, but I had to have faith that I would succeed. Columbia is just the start. Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam on Friday announced the postponement of elections to the Legislative Council (LegCo) by one year, in a move that was immediately slammed by pro-democracy lawmakers as questionable, and tantamount to a political coup. Lam said the 2020 LegCo election, originally scheduled for Sept. 6, would now be held on Sept. 5, 2021. The government said the move was made "in order to protect public safety and public health as well as ensure elections are conducted openly and fairly." But 22 lawmakers issued a joint statement on Friday saying the decision had sparked a "constitutional crisis." "Postponement of elections is tantamount to detonating a constitutional crisis, which is tantamount to a political coup," the statement said. "Hong Kongs constitution and laws should not allow such manipulation to take place," it said. The Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO) of China's cabinet, the State Council, and Beijing's Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong issued separate statements on Friday expressing their understanding and support for the decision. A Hong Kong government spokesman cited growing risks of a major community outbreak of coronavirus that could overload the city's public hospitals. "A situation with millions of voters casting their votes on the same day will create a very high infection risk," the spokesman said. "Under the existing regulation to prohibit group gatherings, it would not be possible for candidates to carry out any meaningful rallying activities." He said Hongkongers living and working in mainland China would be unable to return to their city to cast votes, while many remain stranded overseas due to the pandemic. He said the government would invoke the Emergency Regulations Ordinance and that the decision would take effect on Aug. 1. Hong Kong's Basic Law states that the Legislative Council shall be elected every four years, and that elections can only be postponed for a maximum of 14 days. Beijing sends two messages Sing Ming, associate social sciences professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said the government wanted to send two messages with the announcement. "The first is that the Beijing is taking a hard line; the second is that the plan by pro-democracy candidates to win more than 35 seats in LegCo must not be allowed to succeed." Opposition and pro-democracy candidates swept the board in District Council elections last November, prompting fears among pro-China politicians that they could win a majority in LegCo on a wave of popular anger and months of street protests over the loss of Hong Kong's promised freedoms and autonomy under Chinese rule. Sing said Lam is at a low ebb in opinion polls, amid widespread public anger at her administration's handling of the pandemic, and widespread fear and public opposition to the draconian national security law imposed on the city by Beijing. "If elections are held in September, even if they disqualify a lot of pro-democracy candidates, the government could still end up with less support from voters," he said. "Also, it's difficult for them to disqualify pro-democracy candidates if they never say anything publicly about the national security law or China's violation of [Hong Kong's mini-constitution] the Basic Law," he said. "I am guessing that the hardliners in Beijing are going all out to demolish any political opposition, and to plug all possible loopholes [for their resurgence]," Sing said. Chung Kim-wah, assistant professor of social policy at Hong Kong's Polytechnic University, said the postponement could spell the end of LegCo as a meaningful political body. Chung said the government could select anyone it wants to act as provisional lawmakers pending an election that never takes place. "This could have a massive impact," Chung said. "Maybe there won't be any voting ever again, and they will just recruit some of their lackeys to form a provisional LegCo, meaning that the government can do anything it wants." Sing said the government could also use the weakening of the democratic camp to resurrect unpopular political reforms granting votes to all five million voters, but only for candidates subject to approval by the authorities. The announcement of this plan on Aug. 31, 2014 sparked the 79-day Occupy Central movement for fully democratic elections. Call for sanctions Friday's announcement came as the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on governments around the world to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials responsible for imposing the national security law on Hong Kong and to refuse requests for cooperation under the law. "In just one month, Chinese and Hong Kong authorities have made painfully clear that the new law is a tool of repression, not national security," HRW China director Sophie Richardson said in a statement. HRW said it had written to 40 governments in a letter that was signed by more than a dozen other groups, including Human Rights in China, ChinaAid, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders network, Freedom House, Hong Kong Watch, and Humanitarian China. Meanwhile, U.K. foreign secretary Dominic Raab condemned the earlier disqualifications of 12 pro-democracy election hopefuls by election officials on Thursday. "I condemn the decision to disqualify opposition candidates from standing in Hong Kongs Legislative Council elections," Raab said in a statement. "It is clear they have been disqualified because of their political views, undermining the ... rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Joint Declaration and Hong Kongs Basic Law," he said, in a reference to the 1984 agreement governing the 1997 handover of Hong Kong back to China. Reported by Man Hoi-tsan and Lau Siu-fung for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Lu Xi for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Chinas expansionist greed is being implemented with definite game plan. China is making no effort to conceal it. by N.S.Venkataraman It is now well recognized all over the world that China has made spectacular progress in the industrial and technological front in the last few decades. Certainly, there are many admirers of China in the world , who are impressed that China has changed its image from being a developing country to a developed country in a short span of time. Obviously, this is a tribute to the native intelligence of Chinese people , their determined and hard working capability and above all, an unbending desire to improve earnings and profit. So far so good. The minus factor While China has contributed significantly to the industrial and economic prospects of the world, one can not admire the greedy ambitions of China to become the world super power, with least regard for fairness in dealing with other countries and its lack of scruples as well as its view that it can adopt any means to achieve its objectives of emerging as super power. The concept that the means should justify end is not in Chinas dictum. Definite game plan : Chinas expansionist greed is being implemented with definite game plan. China is making no effort to conceal it. China aggressively entered Tibet in 1950s , massacred innocent Tibetan protestors and has been occupying Tibet for several decades now. The unfortunate fact is that Chinas aggression in Tibet was not challenged by other countries in the world and Tibet became the first victim of Chinas greed for world dominance. India was the second victim of Chinas greed, when China started a war with India in 1962 , defeated the ill equipped Indian army and occupied large Indian territory , which it continues to occupy till today. Further, China is laying claim for the Arunachal province in India . The next victim of Chinas greed is Japan , where China is laying claim for Senkaku Island. There are other countries like Philippines, Vietnam who are yet other victims of Chinas greed, as China is laying claim on South China Sea, questioning the legitimate claims of countries like Philippines, Vietnam and others. Economic exploitation of weak countries : Apart from such aggressive military interventions, as part of its game plan to implement its expansionist greed approach, China is steadily bringing several weak countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh under its control by extending debt for implementing projects, clearly knowing that these weak countries will never be able to repay their debt to China. The debt ridden countries are being forced to surrender projects and related territory to China in lieu of the debt such as Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, Gwadar port in Pakistan and several others. The One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative is another clever strategy by China to subjugate the weak countries in Asia, Africa and elsewhere to Chinas economic domination and it has already made substantial inroads in these countries , that have succumbed to OBOR temptation and have unwittingly got themselves in OBOR trap. Cause for concern : Even as China has been recording steady growth in multiple directions , the fact is that it has shown aggressive behavior in expanding its territories and implementing its schemes to dominate the world. This is justifiably causing concern all over the world . The present view of most section of world community about China is not much different from the view of the world community about Hitler during the second world war. Many people in the world felt in 1940s that eliminating Hitler was a pre condition for the prevalence of peace in the world. Potential threat to world peace : While China believes that it has enough economic and military strength to gradually advance its expansionist ambition and it would not be effectively challenged in advancing its plans, several countries in the world are now realizing that China can be a potential threat to world peace. There is gradual realization amongst several countries that some coordinated action amongst them is required to checkmate China in the present juncture. All the concerned countries do understand that unlike in the case of World War II , when Hitler was defeated by a military war, this cannot be so in the present conditions in tackling China. Vulnerable to trade pressure : Obviously, number of concerned countries seem to be veering to the view that China has to be confronted on trade front to make it behave. While China has built huge capacities in industries and in the production of goods and services, the fact is that such capacities are much more than what China needs now and in the immediate future. Obviously, China has become an export dependent economy and any adverse impact on the export trade of China would cause unbearable pain for Chinese economy. Suppression of freedom : Apart from the expansionist greed of China that causes world wide concern, the suppression of liberty and freedom in China and human rights violation is disturbing the world conscience to some extent. China seem to be creating an impression that suppression of freedom and growth of economy should go in parallel , which is unacceptable from ethical and civilization view point. Is it right to target a particular country ?: It is certainly not right to target a particular country but when that country has faith in aggressive methods , has territorial ambitions and expansionist greed , the world is left with no alternative other than striving to defeat such approach of the country . The confrontation is not with the Chinese people per se but with the present Chinese government, which is totalitarian in outlook and methods and is not a credible representative of the Chinese people. It is sad that the present Chinese government has become a pain in the neck of the world and Chinese government does not seem to mind this. An extreme heat wave is bringing record high temperatures to the Middle East. Tuesday's preliminary high of 125.2 degrees (51.8 Celsius) in Baghdad shatters the Iraqi capital's previous record of 123.8 degrees set on July 30, 2015, for any day of the year. On Wednesday, Baghdad followed up with a temperature of 124 degrees, its second highest temperature on record. On Monday, it had reached 123 degrees. The heat forced many residents indoors, and street merchants sought whatever shade they could find. With the state electricity grid failing, many households were relying on generators to power refrigerators, fans or air-conditioning units, the machines adding a guttural hum to the city's already-noisy streets. Security forces fatally shot two protesters Monday during demonstrations over a lack of electricity and basic services amid the heat wave. In nearby Lebanon, where a nationwide electricity crisis has left much of the country with less than three hours of state-provided power per day, the cost of a generator had doubled, leaving many households to go without. Weather-records expert Maximiliano Herrera tweeted that a location about 30 miles east of Beirut registered Lebanon's highest temperature on record Tuesday, 113.7 degrees (45.4 Celsius), while additional locations in Iraq and Saudi Arabia also set records. Herrera added that on Wednesday, Damascus, Syria's capital, tied its hottest temperature on record, hitting 114.8 degrees (46 Celsius). More near-record temperatures in the 120s are likely Thursday in and around Baghdad before a slight moderation Friday. Highs to round out the week into the weekend should fall back into the upper 110s. For comparison, the hottest temperature ever measured in Phoenix is 122 degrees in 1990. Records date back to 1895. Phoenix has not made it to 120 degrees or higher since 1995. The excessively hot temperatures can be attributed to a ridge of high pressure anchored over the Middle East, drifting west over the Red Sea toward Egypt. Beneath the "heat dome," sinking air has warmed to extreme levels, while ridding the sky of any cloud cover that could offer the respite of brief cooling shade. On Tuesday, the most intense part of the heat dome stretched from Israel and the eastern Mediterranean Sea to southern Israel and northern Saudi Arabia. That placed Baghdad under the core of the sweltering heat, while light clockwise winds around the high brought a gentle north-northwesterly breeze. In Baghdad, a northwesterly breeze would bring in slightly more humid air from Lake Tharthar, which would acutely reduce the air's ability to warm up. But a more northerly component to the wind, as occurred, draws in slightly drier air. Such high temperatures expand the air, and the lower half of the atmosphere grew more than 280 feet taller than average on Tuesday. That expansion also causes the air to push outward more, explaining how "high pressure" systems get their name. The high pressure ridge will shift southwest in the coming days, parking over the Balat Desert in Egypt. Meanwhile, temperatures may rise into the upper 120s on Thursday over southeastern Mesopotamia near the Zagros Mountains in southwestern Iran. While heat records can occur thanks solely to natural variability, they are disproportionately more likely to occur because of warming effects of climate change. Human contribution of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere has knocked Earth's relative balance of cold and warm anomalies off-kilter, making the planet hotter. Several major cities have notched their highest temperature on record in the past several summers, including Havana, Glasgow, Paris, Montreal and San Francisco. - - - Salim reported from Baghdad. Louisa Loveluck contributed to this article from Beirut. Jason Samenow contributed from Washington. BOSTON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Ginkgo Bioworks announced it has been awarded a contract from the NIH Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Advanced Technology Platforms (RADx-ATP) program to scale its automated technology for SARS-CoV-2 testing using next-generation sequencing (NGS). The contract, which is for a maximum of approximately $40 million, will go toward expanding the operational capacity for large-scale SARS-CoV-2 testing in Ginkgo's automated "Bioworks" facilities. Testing is a major pillar of public health responses necessary to predict, understand, control, and eventually end a pandemic. While national capacity has grown significantly during the course of the pandemic thus far, there is still a large, unmet need for more testing experts believe millions of tests per day are needed for the United States to slow the spread and eventually, to contain COVID-19. The RADx initiative was launched by NIH in order to speed innovation in the development, commercialization, and implementation of technologies for COVID-19 testing. In particular, the RADx-ATP is supporting the expansion of labs, such as Ginkgo's automated Bioworks facilities, that can significantly scale the number of SARS-CoV-2 tests that can be performed each day in the United States. Originally designed for sequencing the 3-billion base pair human genome, NGS equipment can read, process and analyze many DNA and RNA samples in parallel on one machine, making it possible to run tens of thousands of tests to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus at the same time. Coupled with Ginkgo's hardware and software that is designed for the large-scale automation of biological experiments, NGS has the potential to significantly increase COVID-19 testing capacity, contributing to the testing volume that many public health experts believe is necessary for slowing the spread of the virus. "We're committed to expanding and ensuring access to testing and helping enable large scale suppression testing," said Jason Kelly, co-founder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks. "Ginkgo and the other NIH-RADx award recipients have shown that the United States has the technology to use widespread testing to suppress this virus now we all need to get to work to scale it." About Ginkgo Bioworks: Headquartered in Boston, Ginkgo Bioworks uses the most advanced technology on the planetbiologyto grow better products. The company's cell programming platform is enabling the growth of biotechnology across diverse markets, from food to fragrance to pharmaceuticals. Ginkgo is also actively supporting a number of COVID-19 response efforts, including community testing, epidemiological tracing, vaccine development and therapeutics discovery. For more information, visit www.ginkgobioworks.com . Ginkgo Bioworks Contact: Kelsey Donohue [email protected] SOURCE Ginkgo Bioworks Related Links https://www.ginkgobioworks.com A version of this article first appeared in Emily Osters newsletter, ParentData. The school reopening debate continues. A number of large school districts have made decisions mostly to move to a fully remote schedule but some are still deciding (like New York), as are many smaller districts and private schools. Fear and anxiety rage amid all the unknowns, but we arent totally flying blind: Summer camps and others child care settings are valuable sources of information on what to expect school reopens. In the service of this, I (with some help from my colleagues at COVID-Explained) have been trying to aggregate information. Here is some of what I think we are seeing, triangulating from several sources. Advertisement Its important to be clear on what we are looking for in the data. From a decision-making standpoint, the central question is whether these settings are sources of outbreaks. That is: If we open schools, will they contribute to spread, make it worse, raise the R0 value we hear so much about? (Thats the reproductive rate of the virusthe measure of how many people each infected person infects.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is different from the question of whether people in schools will have COVID-19. As Ive written about recently elsewhere, when we open schools, we should expect some cases. The rates in the school will mirror the community even if schools do not contribute to spread at all. This is a reason, in my view, to limit opening to places where the virus levels are lower. (No, I do not have an exact cutoff, but heres a link to some people who do.) But its also a reason to focus in the data on looking for outbreaks, not single cases. Advertisement Advertisement The ideal way to identify outbreaks, from a data standpoint, would be if every child care settingcamp, child care center, etc.were required to report their enrollment and any COVID-19 cases regularly (say, once a week). Perhaps they could also indicate any precautions they are taking. This could be coordinated by states or, better yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It would give us a complete picture of what is going on. But there is nothing like this. So today Im going to talk through three imperfect pieces of information and see how we can extrapolate. Specifically, well talk about: Advertisement 1. Information Ive crowd-sourced from camps and child care settings 2. Media reports on outbreaks Advertisement 3. State-reported data Ill sum up at the endat least what I take from this. No TL;DR here since I think we should all draw our own conclusions. First, the crowd-sourced information. A couple of months ago, fueled by coffee and frustration, I started an effort to collect information from open child care settings on outbreaks. A piece of this effort has involved tracking locations over time, looking at their enrollment and cases by week. (Big thanks toamong otherspeople at the YMCA, the American Camp Association, and Winnie.com for their help on recruitment.) Advertisement Advertisement Effectively, Im attempting to generate a voluntary, crowd-sourced sample that would approach what I describe as the ideal above. However, this approach is far from the ideal. The problem is not so much that it is not universalthats an inevitable part of samplingbut that its not random. Places with COVID-19 outbreaks may be less likely to participate. More generally, the places that want to engage on an effort like this are likely those that are taking other precautions about COVID-19. For all of these reasons, the numbers generated by this approach are likely to understate what wed see in a random sample. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You may ask (people have) why bother working with this data given its issues. I can see a few reasons. The first is to match anecdote with anecdote. The media coverage (more on this below) can give one the impression that it is impossible to operate a child care setting without outbreaks. The data I have collected contradicts this. Second, by tracking the same place over time, we can see how common it is for a single case to turn into an outbreak. And, finally, this is an opportunity to see what methods these settings are using as prevention. What are we seeing? First, if you want to access all the (de-identified) raw data, you can see it here. Enjoy! Advertisement To summarize: The case numbers are limited. Among more than 11,500 students and 3,800 staff in the most recent week, for example, there were two student cases and one staff case. The campsat least some of which are large overnight campsshowed similarly low numbers. In the Google sheet, we can focus on places in hotspots, and the rates are still low. Again, I am not saying these are the average rates for all organizations. But what we do see is that it is possible to run, for example, a large overnight camp in Texas without any cases of COVID-19. We also see is that there are places that have one or two cases in a week and then do not have cases the following week. Effectively, we see containment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the most recent week, I asked locations what they are doing to prevent COVID-19. Ninety percent of the locations contributing data are doing routine temperature checks (note that many states require this) and 73 percent are doing symptom tracking (again, often required). More notable, about 15 percent of the sample is doing some routine testing of either staff or students. These numbers reflect good compliance, and may be part of what has kept cases down in this, again, un-random sample. In a sense, the polar opposite of the crowd-sourced data is media reports on outbreaks. I say this because these focus only on settings with casesstories of camps with no cases are not interesting. Still, this provides a different kind of evidence. It tells us about what can happen in the other direction, the bad direction. Advertisement Its difficult to be comprehensive about outbreaks reported in the media. We sourced from Twitter, from online searches, from various threads. To make it easy to see, we put it in a table, with some key information added. (The table with sources is here.) An important note here is that we found additional media stories reporting on a camp or child care closing due to one case among staff, or reporting the presence (or suspected presence) of a case. We did not include these in the table for the simple reason that one case isnt an outbreak. We focused on cases where there were more than two cases noted. Advertisement Advertisement Some of the outbreaks we found are very smallthree or four cases in a setting, with limited details provided. There are, however, several notable, larger outbreaks. Some of these seem inevitable. One locationa camp at Allaso Ranch, in Texasposted Instagram photos showing large, indoor gatherings with singing and no masks. Given the overall COVID-19 levels in Texas and what we know about indoor unmasked singing events, it is not surprising that an outbreak happened there. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But there are other examples where the outbreak seems less explicable. In one casethe Lake Grove, Oregon, KinderCarethere were a large number of cases in both staff and children and (based on some digging we did) it doesnt seem like the location did anything objectively wrong. It would be helpful if we knew more about these situations, although I think its understandable that privacy concerns limit how much locations want to reveal. The last thing Ive been looking at is the data that states have been publishing. Were doing this analysis over at COVID-Explained, and you can see the whole messy disaster here. This data mostly focuses on child care facilities, not camps, but its a bit of a hodge-podge. Advertisement Advertisement A challenge with the data provided from many states it is that it provides no ability to look at outbreaks as distinct from cases. For example, California reports out cases linked to child care centers, but they do not provide evidence on clustering of cases. Youd expect some base rate of cases in these settings, but without knowing if the cases are clustered, theres not sufficient information to know whether child care centers are driving outbreaks. There are a few states that specifically focus on outbreak data. Colorado reports all clusters of two or more cases within 14 days as outbreaks; their data shows seven child care facility outbreaks since the start of the pandemic, mostly with very small case numbers. North Carolina reports ongoing clusters here, and its most recent update includes 14 clusters, with case counts ranging from five to 14. Oregon does a similar type of reporting and has two clusters identified, one of which is that larger Lake Grove KinderCare case we talked about above. Advertisement Advertisement The random nature of this reporting, the fact that much of it must be dug out of newspaper articles, is not great. But more data is better, even if we cringe a bit at the quality. Advertisement Advertisement Ultimately, the idea is to pull these data together and extrapolateat least a bitwhat we might see in schools. I think there is both bad news and good news here. On the bad news side, the fact that we see some outbreaks here tells me that it is not realistic to expect no school outbreaks at all. In some cases, the large outbreaks cited above seem clearly linked to behaviors wed hope schools would avoid, but it is simply not realistic to expect zero clusters of cases to emerge. Some of these could be large. Advertisement But on the positive side: Many child care centers and camps, even large ones and even in high-prevalence areas, are operating without significant outbreaks. They are dealing with cases without having them turn into clusters. We see this in the crowd-sourced data. We can also infer it, to some extent, from the media reports and state-level data. The number of clusters observed is simply very limited relative to the overall population. Its easy to forget the denominator, but estimates suggest in the range of 5,000 summer camps are operating this summer, including perhaps 1,500 overnight camps. The number of child care centers in the U.S. is in the hundreds of thousands. Yes, it is concerning that there are 14 child care locations in North Carolina with clusters, but this is out of a total of about 6,500 locations, so 0.2 percent. Advertisement Again, this doesnt mean that there arent individual cases at other centerswe know there arebut the cluster rate seems limited. Some people will say it is not responsible to open schools if there is going to even one cluster. If we take that approach, this data is not good news, and I think it would realistically say we need to stay closed. Advertisement A different approach would be to say that these data suggest the risk of a cluster is fairly small, and focus on opening in states with low case rates, with a key set of procedures in place for limiting spread when individual cases do crop up. But everyone, cautious or not, should leave this conversation with the sinking feeling that our data isnt good enough, and that it would be great if I were not the one collecting it. Advertisement If you want to help improve the data, here are three action items: 1. If you are a camp/school/child care center and want to be part of the tracking, the baseline survey is here. If you think you can connect me more broadly, please email. 2. If you know of outbreaks I missed, submit information here. 3. If you can help me with better state data, please email. Finally: As we go into the fall, if any schools do open in person, we need more systematic data collection. My sense is the approach of newsletter-lady-armed-with-Google-Forms could be improved on. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 23:12 537 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066adb019 1 People #poetry,#Obituary,#literature,#Indonesia,#literary,#people,#AjipRosidi,#author,#Poet Free The month of July marked another blow for the Indonesian literary scene with the passing of award-winning author and poet Ajip Rosidi. Ajip died at the age of 82 on Wednesday evening at the Tidar Regional Hospital in Magelang, Central Java, where he had been undergoing post-operative treatment after a fall at one of his childrens homes. He was buried at a family cemetery in Pabelan, Magelang, on Thursday. He is survived by his wife senior actress Nani Widjaja, whom he married in 2017 six children, 11 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Hailing from Jatiwangi, West Java, Ajip has been a prolific writer since his childhood, with his first story published in the childrens section of the newspaper Indonesia Raya at the tender age of 12. By the age of 15, his poems and short stories had been published in prominent magazines like Siasat and Zenith. He was paid between Rp 25 and Rp 125, a substantial amount of money at a time when a kilogram of rice cost Rp 1. Two years later, Ajips first collection of short stories, Tahun-tahun Kematian (Years of Death) graced bookstores in 1955. At the age of 17, he became editor-in-chief of Prosa magazine. A year after the publication of Tahun-tahun Kematian, he published his poetry collection Pesta (Party), which landed him the BMKN National Literary Award for poetry in the 1955-1956 period, along with another award this time for his short story collection Sebuah Rumah buat Hari Tua (A House for Old Age) for the 1957-1958 period. So great was his love of writing that he dropped out of high school in 1956 to focus on writing full time. While it may be an unthinkable decision for most young people, the jump was a success for Ajip. Researcher Ulrich Kratz said in 1988 that Ajip was the most productive writer in Indonesia, with 326 works published in 22 magazines before 1983, with dozens of titles having been translated to languages like Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, English, French, Croatian and Russian. He even lived in Japan, where he was asked to teach Indonesian literature, including in Tenri Daigaku, Kyoto Sangyo Daigaku and at the Asahi Cultural Center in Osaka, from 1980 to 2003. Indonesian renowned literary figure Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana predicted in 1954 that Ajip would become a great poet, noting his ability to express feelings through his works. "I learned a lot by listening to people who were much older than me and had more experience. My self-confidence to make a living as a writer became stronger," Ajip says in his autobiography, Hidup Tanpa Ijasah (Living without a Certificate). Born into a Sundanese-speaking community, Ajip held a strong love for Sundanese culture, making efforts to preserve its language and literature. In 1989, he started setting aside part of his earnings to present the Rancage Literary Award every Jan. 31 his birthday to honor authors who preserve regional languages by using them in their works. Though the award only covered Sundanese literature in its beginnings, it soon began to include other regional languages, such as Javanese, Balinese, Lampung, Banjar and Batak. This year marks the first time the award has included Madura language titles, being awarded to the short story collection Kerrong ka Omba by Mat Toyu. "As I learned about cultures other than Sundanese, I became aware of the specific values in Sundanese culture [...] noble and positive values that I want to maintain and develop," Ajip once said. Throughout the years, the Rancage Literary Award was awarded with no financial support from the government. In fact, Ajip himself was skeptical of the Tourism and Culture Ministry the former name of the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry and expressed concern about the commercialization of culture. Outside of the Rancage Literary Award, his cultural preservation efforts included cofounding the H. B. Jassin Literary Documentation Center in 1977 as well as proposing to then-governor of Jakarta Ali Sadikin the establishment of the Jakarta Arts Council (DKJ) in 1968, where Ajip served as chairman for three consecutive periods from 1972 to 1981. Other positions he held included the head of the Sundanese Writers Association from 1966 to 1975, as well as the head of the Indonesian Publishers Association (IKAPI) for two consecutive terms from 1973 to 1979. In 2011, Ajip received an honorary doctorate from the University of Padjajaran in Bandung, West Java, for his contributions to Indonesian literature. The chairman of the H. B. Jassin Literary Documentation Foundation, Abrory Abdul Jabbar, remembers Ajip as a figure deeply concerned for the country through his works and efforts in preserving literature and culture, particularly in shaping the nations character through reading. That was his intention, for our people to have a love of reading and understanding of the situation, so that we can become an advanced nation, he said as quoted by news agency Antara. Abrory said Ajips concern for regional languages stemmed mostly from his thinking that the nation could be united by building on regional literature. So, by respecting and building regional literature, our love for our nation can become stronger. That is what we must thank him for. (ste) It seems that Microsoft is considering buying the incredibly popular but under-fire social media network TikTok. Microsoft is believed to be in talks with Chinese tech company ByteDance to buy the social media apps US operations. This comes at a time when US President Donald Trump has again expressed concerns about the national security threat that the Chinese-owned app poses and threatened to ban it in the US altogether. India banned TikTok a few weeks ago as part of a larger list of Chinese owned apps that are no longer accessible in India. TikTok is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, valued at around $100 billion. It is unclear at this time as to how advanced the talks between Microsoft and ByteDance really are and what terms the two tech giants are looking at, if at all. This development was earlier reported by Fox Business Network's Charles Gasparino who tweeted, My banking sources say they are looking at it; can't guarantee a purchase but this thing is being shopped and one of the stops has been @Microsoft. Earlier, Trump had made his intentions clear. Were looking at TikTok, we may be banning TikTok. We may be doing some other things. Theres a couple of options. But a lot of things are happening, so well see what happens. But we are looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to TikTok, said Trump while speaking with reporters. In China, the National Intelligence Law of 2017 governs all tech companies that are based in China or are under Chinese ownership. The law mandates all businesses to share any and all information that the Chinese Government may ask for. This is something that is worrying governments around the world, including India. It is also not clear what Microsofts potential purchase of TikTok would mean for the structure of the social networks operations in the country, and whether any Chinese investors would retain a stake in the company. It is believed that the US administration is weighing its options whether it can force ByteDance to sell its US operations or whether the company can be added to the entity list that prevents American companies from conducting any business with these companies. Chinese tech company Huawei was on this list last year, and suspicions continue to circle around Chinese tech companies regarding the data they share with the Chinese government. At this time, Microsofts social media stakes rely heavily on LinkedIn, a network aimed more at working professionals rather than a more casual and friend-driven approach that Facebook has, for instance. Yet, Microsoft must also consider the implications of such an acquisition, if at all. Earlier this week, the big tech companies, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon testified at the US Congress antitrust hearing about business practices and regulation. Microsoft has managed to stay under the radar and out of the attention of regulators in the US mostly because it focused on business consumers. With a TikTok purchase for instance, which is as consumer centric as it can be, Microsoft might come under scrutiny. TikTok has more than 800 million users worldwide. It was acquired by ByteDance in 2017 and is incredibly popular with the demographic that is also the target audience for the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Snap. Earlier this week, it was reported that the Indian authorities are scanning as many as 275 more apps for potential user privacy violations and national security threats. This follows the ban on 59 Chinese-owned apps last month, a list that included the very popular social media app TikTok. It is believed that the latest list of apps under the scanner include the incredibly popular game PUBG Mobile, ecommerce platform AliExpress and another popular game Ludo World. A controversial Catholic priest in San Francisco criticized his parishioners for putting 'safety' over 'sanctity', skipping Mass to 'avoid the remote possibility of dying from Covid' and claimed the news reports about the global virus as 'largely unreal.' Father Joseph Illo also claimed that the media had exaggerated the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic to upset President Trump's chances at winning at the November election. Father Illo, of the Stars of the Sea Parish, made the remarks on July 26 in a now-deleted post on the church's online bulletin board. It come after San Francisco city officials sent a cease-and-desist order to Stars of the Sea Parish after religious leaders, including Illo, continued to hold several large indoor gatherings in violation of the city's public health orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Father Joseph Illo (pictured), of the Star of the Sea Parish in San Francisco, California, wrote a now-deleted post that criticized parishioners for putting 'safety' over 'sanctity' 'The only reason to be a Catholic is to become a saint,' wrote Illo, a priest of 30 years, according to SFist. 'But we are more concerned about "safety" than sanctity,' he added, referring to the ongoing pandemic. 'During the pandemic we have chosen safety above sacraments. Fear has replaced faith.' Illo continued to downplay the severity of the pandemic and urged his parishioners to attend mass - despite California having emerged as a new coronavirus hot spot with nearly 500,000 confirmed cases and 8,000 deaths. Then, Illo began to push misinformation about the pandemic and made claims about hospitalization numbers without citing evidence. 'COVID is real, but please know that the news reports about COVID are largely unreal,' he wrote. 'Actual hospitalization numbers easily obtainable on hospital websites will show a much less alarming picture. We cannot ignore the fact that the glaring discrepancy between media reports and hospital reports is taking place in an election year.' Illo also noted that although he knows thousands of people, he only knows three who have tested positive so far, including a 94-year-old woman who 'has no symptoms and feels fine. In the letter, Father Illo accused the media of exaggerating the infection numbers and hospitalizations related to COVID-19 According to Illo, what he perceives as inflated numbers are part of a larger agenda, or political ploy, by the media to see Trump out of the White House come November. 'Note two facts: 1) Those who control the media have stated vitriolic opposition to our incumbent president,' he wrote, SFGate reports. '2) A proven means of unseating an elected official is to induce fear among the incumbent's constituents.' Instead, Illo wrote that people should 'see God's peaceful order in the flowers and the trees' and stop engaging with coronavirus media reports. 'You can break your addiction to the internet and the news cycles,' he wrote. Illo's comments echo some of Trump's most controversial statements that he's made during the coronavirus pandemic Illo said the alleged inflated numbers showed by the media are a tactic to remove President Trump (pictured) from office come the November election In May, he accused the 'lamestream media' of conspiring against him after two reporters challenged Trump about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has been widely criticized for a myriad of reasons. 'The Lamestream Media is truly out of control, Trump blasted on Twitter. 'Look how they work (conspire!) together. They are the Enemy of the People, but dont worry, we will WIN in November!' Trump has also launched an aggressive campaign to reopen America's economy, despite the significant number of case surges and what some have described as a lack of national leadership. Just this month, Trump publicly donned a face mask for the first time and has continued to push the medically unproven coronavirus drug hydroxychloroquine. But Illo's letter is just the latest move in a larger back-and-forth between the church and San Francisco officials. In a statement shared to SFChronicle, Mayor London Breed denounced Illo's newsletter. 'It is absolutely irresponsible for anyone to use their spirituality to spread potentially deadly misinformation,' said Breed. 'Whether you are a religious or political leader, we all have a responsibility to serve and protect the public at all times, especially during a pandemic that has killed 150,000 Americans.' San Francisco Mayor London Breed (pictured): 'It is absolutely irresponsible for anyone to use their spirituality to spread potentially deadly misinformation' Under San Francisco's new health order, religious services are only allowed to be held outside with a limit of 12 parishioners, unless the people come from the same household. Dr. Brown, a senior pastor at the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, also lambasted Illo's newsletter as irresponsible to Kron 4. '[It] doesnt speak well of people who claim to be spiritual and religious,' said Brown. 'It is more like their operation is a hustle and a self-serving entity.' Both Illo and Stars of the Sea have flouted the city's public health guidelines to hold religious events. In one instance, residents complained about a Mass service held on June 14 that was confirmed on the church's bulletin board and in a YouTube video. In the video, 'neither the priest giving the sermon nor the altar boy are wearing face coverings.' Later, Star of the Sea Parish was issued a cease-and-desist letter by the city attorney's office for holding 'multiple indoor large gatherings at its facilities.' The cease-and-desist from City Attorney Dennis Herrera ordered the archdiocese to stop indoor religious services held in recent weeks or get slapped with a temporary restraining order. In the letter, Herrera wrote city officials were worried about archdiocese's 'alarming failure to follow common-sense safety protocols.' 'Upon reviewing the reports of multiple San Francisco parishes holding indoor mass over the last few weeks, (San Francisco Health Officer Dr. Tomas Aragon) has concluded that the archdiocese is putting not only its parishioners but the larger community at risk of serious illness and death,' wrote Herrera. 'Dr. Aragon finds quite troubling the failures to comply with the face covering health order that are endangering not only parishioners, but particularly the children who serve as altar boys,' Herrera wrote that city officials contacted the archdiocese several times to share San Francisco's reopening planes. A spokesperson for the archdiocese said there was some confusion surrounding public health guidelines, but priests have been informed of the update. Pictured: A hundred faithful sit while minding social distancing, listening to Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez celebrate Mass at Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Pictured: People wearing facemasks line up to receive Communion at an outdoor Sunday service at Saints Simon & Jude Catholic Church in Huntington Beach Illo was specifically cited for hosting a large Mass service outdoors. At the moment, it's unclear if Star of the Sea will continue to hold in-person Mass, but the church's website has a schedule of online streamed services. In California and across the country, some religious institutions ignored lockdown orders and suggestions from top health experts during the panedmic. In July, city officials in San Francisco shut down a secret Catholic wedding with 100 guests held at Saints Peter and Paul Church in North Beach. Guests were asked to enter the enter the venue though an underground garage. The newlywed couple and at least eight people tested positive for coronavirus after the wedding. In Louisiana, Pastor Tony Spelling held several packed services where members of the congregation worshiped indoors without face coverings or social distancing. On Easter Sunday, Spell had more than 1,300 people in his church to celebrate the holiday. One 78-year-old parishioner died of coronavirus in the wake of Spell's continual services. Spell denied the diagnosis. Apart from public health violations, Illo has a history of controversial opinions and actions. Many parents blamed Illo when the Star of the Sea K-8 school cancelled classes because of the declining enrollment. They claimed Illo had several disagreements with parents. Parishioners in 2015 later protested Illo's ban on allowing girls to serve at the alter during Mass. In one incident, Illo was blasted for giving pamphlets to children before confessions that had questions about abortion, masturbation, vasectomies and sodomy. Another time, Illo allegedly demanded that a man order his wife to apologize over her complaints about the priest's handling of the school, SFChronicle reports. Even before coming to San Francisco, Illo made waves in Modesto, Texas, over his comments about former President Barack Obama. He told parishioners in 2008 that voting for Obama, who supported abortion rights, should result in a trip to the confessional. 'Voting for a candidate who promises abortion rights, even if he promises every other good thing, is voting for abortion,' said Illo. 'It is a grave mistake and probably a grave sin.' As of Friday, California has recorded 485,502 confirmed cases and 8,909 deaths. Wednesday saw more than 10,000 new cases and 194 new deaths. San Francisco has so far recorded 6,041 cases, with 153 new cases, and 57 deaths. Cigarette maker British American Tobacco PLC has made a potential COVID-19 vaccine from tobacco. The company is set to begin testing its experimental COVID-19 vaccine made from tobacco in humans. The London-based maker of Lucky Strike cigarettes has claimed to have developed the inoculation using protein from tobacco leaves. The company is likely to start the human clinical trials of its potential vaccine soon and is expecting a response from the US Food and Drug Administration any day now, Kingsley Wheaton, Chief Marketing Officer, Lucky Strike cigarettes said in an interview, Bloomberg reported. Also Read: Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine: 5 sites selected for phase 3 clinical trial in India "We are optimistic," Wheaton said adding that "it's an important part of our strategy to try and build a better tomorrow." The company had earlier said that its experimental vaccine has manifested a positive immune response in pre-clinical human trials. British American Tobacco had in April announced that its subsidiary Kentucky BioProcessing is developing an experimental coronavirus vaccine made from tobacco plants. The potential inoculation is derived from the genetic sequence of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. According to the company, the process generates the vaccine faster than traditional approaches, reducing the time required from several months to around six weeks. Also Read: Coronavirus Vaccine News Live Updates: Can turmeric treat COVID-19, research shows it has antiviral properties Tobacco makers globally have quickened their pace to develop a vaccine against COVID-19 that has claimed over 6.5 lakh lives worldwide. However, the success rate of such programmes is usually 10 per cent, World Health Organisation's Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said last week, adding that there are 24 such vaccine candidates in human clinical trials. Medicago Inc., a biotechnology firm partly owned by rival cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris International Inc., is also in the process of making a plant-based vaccine that may be accessible in the first half of 2021, if it is successful. ALBANY Rabbi Don Cashman says he never expected to end his 35 years at Albanys Bnai Sholom Reform Congregation as the rabbi of the Temple of Zoom. But the coronavirus pandemic swept America in the months before his long-planned retirement, forcing him to adapt. Nonetheless, the beloved rabbi, who is as well known for his eloquent sermons as he is for his colorful Purim costumes, did not disappoint his congregation as he shared insights about civil unrest and racism during his final sermon on June 26. He tackled an epic theme: what humans owe to each other in the fight to create a just and compassionate world. He quoted from the Pirkei Avot (often translated as Chapters of the Fathers), a collection of Rabbinic wisdom and maxims from Rabbinic Jewish tradition. Its not upon you to complete the task. However, you are not free to ignore it. He loves that sage observation so much, its on his license plate: AVOT 221. Over the decades, Cashman helped develop a Hebrew high school that held its first classes in his synagogue's library. He's raised money for scholarships to send youths in his congregation to tour Israel. And he's helped organize tours for his congregation. Now, the next chapter of his life will be written in Israel. He and his wife, Sharona, will be moving permanently to a new Jerusalem home. We realized years ago that would be where our lives would be after retirement, Cashman told the Times Union. Weve been to Florida. We dont want Florida. Israels hot, dry climate is even more appealing when he thinks of Albanys snowy winters and humid summers. The move wont happen this year. But Cashman is already enthused about Jerusalems vibrant visual arts and music scene, its cultural treasures. And he can clearly envision living on what he calls Jewish time. Stores close before sundown on Fridays, he said wistfully. Cashiers and waiters wish you Shabbat Shalom. You arent overwhelmed by Christmas every December. And there are moments of solemn unity such as the annual Yom HaShoah. When a siren sounds, drivers promptly pull over and stop on the sides of streets and roads to stand at attention, to show reverence toward those killed in the Holocaust. Cashmans embrace of the next stage of life is part of his core belief that theres always time to grow and improve. In his final sermon, he recalled buying an antique Gibson mandolin as a gift to himself for his ordination. Thirty-seven years later, am I a mandolin player? Not yet, he said. Each of us has things we want to do that we havent gotten around to yet. We all have plans or hopes for the future which may or may not come to fruition. Still, we keep them on our to-do list. Exploring Israel will be a new adventure yet hes confident he wont be homesick. He recalls visiting the Masada, the ancient fortress on a high desert plateau that was the stronghold of a Roman garrison and then the Jewish rebels who overwhelmed them. As he moved through the fortifications that once seemed as remote as the end of the earth, he bumped into Rabbi Matt Cutler from Schenectady who was with a different tour group. Rounding a corner, Cashman was surprised to seeRabbi Dan Ornstein from Albany's Ohav Shalom who was traveling with yet a different group from Albany. .Its not like Im leaving friends or colleagues here behind; they'll be coming to Israel where I'll see them sooner or later, he said. MasterChef Junior's Ben Watkins has been diagnosed with a tumor, three years after losing both of his parents. Watkins, 13, has been diagnosed with Angiomatoid Fibrous Histiocytoma, his family said in a related campaign on GoFundMe. The teenage cook, who is from Chicago, is being treated at the city's Lurie Children's Hospital. The latest: MasterChef Junior's Ben Watkins, 13, has been diagnosed with a tumor, three years after losing both of his parents The disease, which impacts a small percentage of children and teens, impacts soft tissue. Watkins lost his parents Leila Edwards and Mike Watkins in a 2017 murder-suicide when his father fatally shot his mother before taking his own life, authorities told the Chicago Tribune. Watkins had recently shot MasterChef Junior's sixth season at the time of the tragic incident. It aired the following year, and fans donated $30,000 for a fundraising campaign called #Love4Ben toward a trust fund for the talented young cook, who was just 11 when he was on the show. Tragic backstory: Watkins lost his parents Leila Edwards and Mike Watkins in a 2017 murder-suicide Sad: Watkins had recently filmed MasterChef Junior's sixth season at the time of the tragic incident Watkins' family has revived the #Love4Ben campaign on GoFundMe, seeking help with covering his medical and educational expenses. 'Despite all of Bens trials and tribulations, he remains positive and looks forward to getting back in the kitchen and pursuing his dream to become an Engineer,' a statement on the fundraising page read. It continued: 'We want Ben to be able to continue his education in the culinary arts and/or Engineering wherever he wants to in the world.' 'On behalf of Grandma Donna and Uncle Anthony, thank you for your #Love4Ben!' (Natural News) In the July/August issue of Vanity Fair, contributor Sonia Saraiya wonders, Is Hollywood Too Soft on Conservative Women? Its a ridiculous question to anyone remotely moderate or right-leaning who is familiar with pop culture, but it appears Saraiya thinks portraying conservative women as anything other than a white nationalist racist gender traitor is going too soft. (Article by Alexa Moutevelis republished from NewsBusters.org) For all that Hollywood and the mainstream media are supposed to be a hotbed of liberal propaganda, we pull our punches when it comes to the tales of handmaidens of conservative politics, she says. Im sorry, what planet is Saraiya living on that she thinks conservative women arent constantly subject to brutal misogynistic attacks from the leftist elites? In films and tv, Characterization is an attempt to evoke empathy, she explains. When Hollywood takes on conservative women, the empathy often feels grafted on, sometimes shamelessly. Presumably because conservative women are so awful they arent worthy of empathy. Consider the 2011 film The Iron Lady, which won Meryl Streep an Oscar for her sensitive portrayal of dying prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Screenwriter Abi Morgan used Thatchers dementia as a way to explore the politicians uneasy legacy. But the illness, a tragedy for anyone, became a cloying veil that obscured Thatchers real effect on her nation. Former London mayor Ken Livingstone put it this way at the time of Thatchers death: She created todays housing crisis. She created the banking crisis. And she created the benefits crisis. The late prime minister sent British troops to train the Khmer Rouge, befriended the dictator Augusto Pinochet, and demonized the gay community; under her rule, poverty and inequality spiked in the United Kingdom and the country has arguably never recovered. This is who Streep humanized with her extraordinary gifts. Of course, Vanity Fair would twist history beyond recognition, ignoring Thatchers role in ending the Cold War and her success in reinvigorating the economy and reversing Englands decline on the world stage. And its not as if the movie was some pro-Thatcher propaganda piece her family criticized it at the time. But God forbid one of Britains most successful prime ministers one of the greatest female world leaders in history be humanized by an award-winning actor! Saraiya went on laughably, Imagine a liberal female politician being treated to this kind of hagiographyHillary Clinton, say. Imagine the vitriol that would follow. We dont have to imagine, Hulu is set to produce an alternate history of Hillary where she breaks up with Bill and becomes a politician in her own right. Not to mention all the hagiography dedicated to leftist female heroes like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anita Hill, and Gloria Steinem. Saraiya is either being deliberately obtuse or shes been living under a rock. Her contempt for conservative women white conservative women specifically spills over to the point she damns them as honorary men, a trope commonly hurled at conservative women. Yet conservative white women in particular also have an ideology that elevates them over women from other racial or socioeconomic backgrounds. They believe theyre superior to the rest of their genderthe writer Ariel Levy calls them loophole womenand become honorary men. She goes on to bash Phyllis Schlafly (played by Cate Blanchett in Mrs. America), repeating the series lie that Schlafly was allied with the KKK and it becomes clear she considers conservative to be interchangeable with KKK when she describes a scene in BlacKkKlansman. However, Saraiya generously allows that, No, not all Republican women are white nationalists. How kind of her to acknowledge that! But white women have long been essential helpmeets to white nationalism, which the alt-right has adopted nearly wholesale, again indiscriminately lumping together large swaths of distinct people. Why does all this matter? Because of the election, of course! As we hurtle toward the 2020 election, our blindness to what creates and motivates these women feels like a ticking bomb. The less we understand their motivations, the better it is for them: They remain shielded by our tied tongues and politesse. Yup, thats the problem! Liberals are too gosh darn kind to conservative women! Meanwhile, she boils down the definition of a Karen to white nationalist racist gender traitor. This supposedly gets us to some kind of understanding of the conservative woman. Makes you wonder what theyd say about us if they werent so tongue tied and polite! Read more at: NewsBusters.org Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) Many hospitals in Metro Manila are in 'imminent danger of becoming overwhelmed' with COVID-19 patients in the next two weeks as surges of infections continue while designated beds are near capacity in the capital region, experts cautioned on Friday. The University of the Philippines OCTA Research said in a study that hospitals in 12 local government units filled up 70 percent of the total allotted space for COVID-19 cases as of Monday. This is also what they call the "critical danger" threshold for bed capacity. Seven cities also reached the critical danger stage for bed capacity in the intensive care unit for infected patients. Meanwhile, Makati City and Pateros have already reached full capacity for their COVID-19 beds, the study noted. This comes despite the government's efforts to increase spaces reserved for infected patients. "[W]e are concerned that expanding COVID-19 hospital and critical care capacity will come at the expense of our health care workers and non-COVID-19 patients," the study stated, adding that more deaths may also be expected. The researchers also pointed out that Metro Manila's case positivity rate or the percentage of people testing positive, has jumped to over 15 percent for the first time since April. The rate is alarming since the World Health Organization said a country should strive for a five percent positivity rate to temper the pandemic. "To reach this target positivity rate, the number of new cases per day in NCR, which is around 1,100 as of July 28, should be reduced to about 350 cases per day," the study indicated. This development comes on the same day President Rodrigo Duterte announced that Metro Manila will remain under general community quarantine until August 15 with localized lockdowns in areas with high number of cases. Burn it down is rarely a wise or prudent sentiment. A cadre of Republican opponents of President Donald Trump is nonetheless calling for a purifying fire to sweep through the GOP in the fall, taking down as many Republican officeholders as possible. Only this willy-nilly bloodletting will teach the party the hard lesson it needs to learn for accommodating Trump over the past four years. As a Soviet commissar once put it: We must execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more. These Never Trumpers, as my colleague Ramesh Ponnuru puts it, are becoming Never Republicans. Their ranks run from columnist George Will, to Charlie Sykes of the anti-Trump website The Bulwark, to the operatives of The Lincoln Project. Their hoped-for GOP electoral apocalypse doesnt make sense on its own terms, and their advocacy for one bears all the hallmarks of this perfervid time in our politics it, too, is rageful and extreme, but satisfyingly emotive. Lets stipulate that Republicans have often excused or looked past the inexcusable during Trumps presidency, and almost every Republican senator has a dimmer view of Trump than he or she will let on publicly. GOP officeholders have been especially loath to speak of the character defects that blight his presidency. All of this deserves to be called out, but should the party of Lincoln be leveled? The Never Republicans refuse to account for the practical calculations of practical politicians hoping, in difficult circumstances, to achieve practical results. Was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell supposed to say after Trumps election, I cant work with him and, to borrow a phrase, burn down any chance of achieving anything constructive during a rare instance of unified Republican control of Washington? McConnell obviously bites his tongue about the president all the time, but his main project has been working with the White House to confirm judges to the bench who are thoroughly committed to faithfully interpreting our laws and Constitution, and will be doing their jobs when Trump is a distant memory. Even if you think McConnell should have played it differently, what would defeating him and every other Senate Republican accomplish? Back in the tea party era, purists insisted on nominating in 2010 the flagrantly unelectable Christine ODonnell to stick it to the Republican establishment. Sure enough, she lost to Democrat Chris Coons, who is well on his way to a stress-free 30-year career in the Senate. If Susan Collins loses her Senate seat in Maine this year in a burn-it-all-down conflagration, it will play out the same way. Put aside that she is hardly a Trumpist. If she goes down to defeat, Republicans are never winning her seat back. And it doesnt matter who the next Republican president is an anti-Trump moderate or Don Jr. the Democratic senator from Maine will be there to oppose whatever he or she is doing. What the Never Republicans are hoping for is the least resistance to the most progressive president of our lifetimes to give him the greatest possible running room on abortion, conscience rights, health care, judges, climate, immigration, policing, gun rights, campaign finance, taxes and spending. This is a high cost to pay, not just for the GOP but for the country at least, thats what you think if you are a conservative who believes progressives are deeply wrong on all these questions. Its not even guaranteed that the posited purifying loss will purify. Its entirely conceivable that a post-Trump party will be more Trumpist, i.e., more populist, than before. Regardless, even after a landslide, the Republican Party will be made up of the same voters and officeholders who steadfastly supported Trump. If the Never Republicans want a party untainted by these people, there is one available, and if they get their wish, it will be at the zenith of its power next year. @RichLowry By Trend F-16 aircraft of the Turkish Air Force has arrived in Azerbaijan to participate in the 'TurAz Qartal-2020' joint exercises, Trend reports citing the press service of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry. At the beginning of the ceremony, the anthems of the two states were performed, a minute of silence was honored in memory of the National Leader Heydar Aliyev and the martyrs who died for the independence and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Speakers at the event noted the importance of conducting military exercises in Azerbaijan and wished the participants good luck in performing combat missions. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz If youre looking for a pick-me-up to be inspired by human ingenuity in the midst of a whole lot of bad news todays newsletter is for you. I recently asked readers to tell us about innovative ways that people were moving activities outdoors, where the coronavirus spreads less easily than it does indoors. Hundreds of you responded. My colleagues and I were energized by the ideas. They made us want to move more of our own activities outdoors and made us hope that more companies, government agencies and other organizations take similar steps. One of our favorites will resonate with many parents, children and teachers: Its an attempt to hold school in a way thats both safe and in person. China's territorial claims in Bhutan and the recent incursion into Indian land are indicative of their intentions, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday, adding that Beijing under President Xi Jinping was trying to find out whether other countries are going to push back. Indian and Chinese troops have been locked in a bitter 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. China recently staked claim over the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in Bhutan at the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council and opposed funding to the project. "I think the actions are entirely consistent with what they have been signalling to the world for decades you might even argue since 1989 but certainly since General Secretary Xi (Jinping) came to power," Pompeo told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee during a Congressional hearing on Thursday. The secretary of state said China has the desire to expand its power and reach. "They talk about bringing socialism with Chinese characteristics to the world. Claims that they have now made for real estate in Bhutan, the incursion that took place in India, these are indicative of Chinese intentions, and they are testing, they are probing the world to see if we are going to stand up to their threats and their bullying," Pompeo said. "I am more confident than I was even a year ago that the world is prepared to do that. There's a lot more work to do, and we need to be serious about it," said the top American diplomat. In his testimony, Pompeo told lawmakers that India has banned 106 Chinese applications that threatened its citizens' privacy and security. "Our diplomatic efforts are working and momentum is building to mitigate the threats that the Chinese Communist Party presents. All 10 ASEAN nations have insisted that the South China Sea disputes be settled on the basis of international law, including UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). Japan led the G-7's condemnation of China's national security law targeting Hong Kong," he said. The European Union condemned the law too and also declared China a systemic rival to us, he said. At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Secretary General Stoltenberg has called to make China a greater part of that alliance's focus. We led a multilateral effort to ensure that the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organisation elected a director from a country that cared about intellectual property, the secretary of state said. "Our QUAD (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) -- the United States, Australia, India, and Japan -- has been reinvigorated. We've worked hard at this. Our diplomats have done wonderful work. I'm very proud of the progress we are making. In addition to these multilateral efforts, Department of Justice is cracking down on Chinese intellectual property threats," he said. The United States has sanctioned Chinese leaders for their treatment of Uyghur minorities in Xinjiang province, imposed export controls on companies that supported, and warned US businesses against using slave labour in their supply chains, he said. The US has terminated special treatment agreements with Hong Kong in response to the CCP's actions to deny freedom to the people of Hong Kong. "We closed our consulate in Houston because it was a den of spies," he said. North American brand expands digital footprint in China By:Wu Qiong | From:english.eastday.com | 2020-07-30 09:34 With the online new economy booming in Shanghai as well as the rest of China, global brands have been active in showcasing their products through live streaming, ranging from cosmetics and snacks to cars and houses. In a live streaming room in the citys Songjiang district, salespeople are busy promoting faucets from North America in front of the camera. The products, available on Tmall, are developed by Moen, a consumer faucet brand under Fortune Brands Global Plumbing Group. On July 29, the company signed a cooperative agreement with transcosmos, a comprehensive one-stop global e-commerce services provider from Japan, aiming to further develop the North American brands online business in the category of home building materials. The move is a step for Moen's expansion in China's e-commerce market. Since the 1990s, Moen has been focused on Chinas offline market of building materials and real estate. Nearly a decade ago, it launched its official flagship store online. This year, having witnessed the increase of its sales during the coronavirus epidemic, the company noticed the shift of consumers habits of purchasing home products, building materials and accessories for kitchen and bathroom from offline to online. (Left: George Wu, Moen Asia President; right: Toshiya Okada, GM of transcosmos China) As a means of promoting the economic development of traditional industries, the online new economy makes consumption more convenient and allows merchants to meet consumer demands more accurately, thus saving social resources. It is a promising economic format. In the future, Moen will continue to take into consideration the consumer experience, provide customer-focused shopping experiences and services which integrate more channels, so as to boost the development of Chinas new online economy, said George Wu, Moen Asia President. Moen is the first major international brand that transcosmos has worked with in the category of home building materials, according to Toshiya Okada, general manager at transcosmos China. As he said, people used to shop in brick-and-mortar stores for building materials. However, with the improvement of online shoppings after-sales services, the younger generation are getting used to purchasing these supplies online. We are very optimistic about this market. Speaking of the Shanghai municipalitys three-year plan of promoting the tonline new economy, Toshiya Okada believes that the policies are favorable to the development of online economy, which will surely achieve growth in Shanghai. Statistics show that Shanghai ranks number one among Chinas first-tier cities, in terms of livestreaming e-commerce. Besides Moen, international brands like Tesla, IKEA and Nike (many of which have regional headquarters in Shanghai) have tested the water in Chinas market by setting up online flagship stores and turning to livestreaming. EAST GREENBUSH The East Greenbush school district will sponsor an American Red Cross babysitting class for Columbia High School students as a way to address the steep demand for child care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials announced the plan at a Board of Education meeting Wednesday evening. Under the district reopening plan, just two days of in-class instruction to K-12 students will be provided each week in order to adhere to social distancing mandates. "The rationale for providing this training for free is to help families in the community with any child care needs due to the current pandemic while also giving work and community service opportunities to students," school officials wrote in a memo to families. Columbia High School students ages 16 or older may sign up for the online advanced certification course. The district will compile a list of interested students and pay the $45.00 fee for each student. The Red Cross will then notify students of when they can take the online training. A certificate of completion will be issued. Since Wednesday's meeting, 15 students requested information on how to sign up for the babysitting course, school officials said. Superintendent Jeff Simons said he would encourage students to sign up for the program, but asked them to be reasonable in their rates. "We have a lot of good kids who take a lot of social responsibility in our high school. It's one of the points of pride in our high school.... every year our students win the entrepreneurial award through our business department. ... I don't oppose kids making a buck to provide a service for the families, but doing it for the good of the whole is also important," Simon said Wednesday. The district is also working with Greenbush Child Caring and the YMCA to identify child care sites to meet the needs of working parents. Possible sites include the Church of Saint Mary at Clinton Heights and the East Greenbush Fire Station on Phillips Road. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. East Greenbush's preliminary reopening plan offers all students in grades K-12 a hybrid of online and in-person classes. To reduce classroom density, students will be divided into A groups and B groups. Each cohort would attend in-person classes two days a week, have live virtual instruction once a week and remote learning two days a week. Special education students would receive in-class instruction four days a week. No decision has been made on resuming after-school clubs and activities. Parents requesting instruction that is entirely remote must request the accommodation from their child's principal before the start of the school year. Most Capital Region school districts say they will use middle school buildings, cafeterias, gyms, and other spaces in order to ensure that elementary school children could return to class full-time. Simon said East Greenbush conducted a space study and found that it would have to reduce capacity in all of its building by 50 percent to keep students six-feet apart, as required regulations from the state's Education Department and Department of Health. The district simply did not have the staffing and space capability to return any students to class full time, he said. The American Cancer Society has been slammed for using the phrase 'individuals with a cervix' in its latest pap screening advice, rather than women. Cervical cancer screening is now recommended to start at 25, instead of 21, and HPV testing should begin at 25 rather than 30. But in updating its advice, the ACS used 'individuals with a cervix', rather than 'women' in its guidance, because transgender, non-binary and gender-nonconforming individuals can also have a cervix. The phrasing was ridiculed online, with one Twitter user saying: 'Individuals with a cervix is a long way to just say women.' The ACS has updated its 2012 guidelines and now recommends pap tests begin at 25, not 21 The ACS used 'individuals with a cervix', rather than 'women' in its guidance because transgender, non-binary and gender-nonconforming individuals can also have a cervix Blogger Matt Walsh told his 410,000 followers: 'I'm pretty sure there's a word for these individuals but I can't be certain.' Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, sarcastically asked how he knew if the guidelines applied to him. 'How do I find out if I have a cervix? Do I need a scan? Or is there some sort of general concept that identified individuals with a cervix?' he tweeted. Some people, however, leapt to the defense of the ACS. They argued that it was 'the correct way to phrase that statement' to make it inclusive and inoffensive. The controversy echoes one involving JK Rowling last month, when the Harry Potter author mocked the global development website Devex for its report about 'people who menstruate.' '"People who menstruate." I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?' Rowling tweeted on June 6. She is yet to weigh in on the ACS phrasing. Criticism of the phrase was fierce, but there were a few people who defended the wording Disappointed fans and other Twitter users branded the screenwriter's remarks 'anti-trans' and 'transphobic'. Rowling stood by her tweet as she later insisted: 'If sex isnt real, theres no same-sex attraction. 'If sex isnt real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isnt hate to speak the truth.' The Harry Potter's tweet sparked a firestorm online and a wave of condemnation and debate She seemingly denied claims of transphobia as she insisted she 'respects every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them.' J. K. elaborated: 'The idea that women like me, whove been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because theyre vulnerable in the same way as women - ie, to male violence - hate trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences - is a nonsense. 'Id march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe its hateful to say so. 'Ive spent much of the last three years reading books, blogs and scientific papers by trans people, medics and gender specialists. I know exactly what the distinction is. Never assume that because someone thinks differently, they have no knowledge.' Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has offered his sincere condolences over the death of former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Abe said Lee greatly contributed to promoting friendship between Japan and Taiwan. The prime minister said the former Taiwan president dealt with Japan with special feelings toward the country. He added that many Japanese feel particularly close to Lee, who brought Taiwan freedom, democracy, human rights and other universal values, and built the basis of today's bilateral ties. He said he is deeply sorry about Lee's death, and will pray for his soul. If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says it is taking legal action against a Mexican international oil firm which it accused of being a crime syndicate, SAMANO SA DE CV, and its officials over attempts to swindle the Nigerian government of over $125 million. Counsel to the NNPC, Afe Babalola & Co., said in a statement on Thursday in Abuja that the management of the national oil company has already initiated plans to seek redress for the injury to the Corporation and its officials through series of falsehoods peddled by SAMANO and its agents. Last Sunday, reports circulated about how some Nigerian government officials and NNPC staff allegedly sold about 48 million barrels of stolen Nigeria crude oil and shared the proceeds. The report quoted contents of a recent correspondence to NNPC by the law firm of Messrs. Lords & Temple claiming to be Solicitors to SAMANO SA DE CV. In the letter signed by Gboyega Oyewole, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), the law firm said its client was accusing the Nigerian government officials and NNPC of reneging on an agreement to pay it 5 per cent of whistleblower compensation for information furnished them over an oil deal. Mr Oyewole made reference to discussions between SAMANO SA DE CV and the officials involved in 2015 over an information about 48 million barrels of Nigerian Bonny Light Crude Oil allegedly stolen from Nigeria and stored in various ports and terminals in the Peoples Republic of China. The law firm said SAMANO, led by its top officials, Messrs Marco Ramirez Ramirez and Jose Salazar Tinajero, had contacted the senior officials of the Nigeria government with an offer to purchase the alleged stolen oil apparently abandoned by some unknown persons. Although they claimed the officials used the information provided, which led to the sale of the crude oil, SAMANO said it was neither carried along in the sharing of the proceeds from the sale, nor were they paid the agreed 5 per cent whistleblower compensation. However, the NNPC through its lawyers, said not only were the reports replete with falsehoods, they were calculated attempts by SAMANO, working in concert with its local and international agents, to intimidate, blackmail and extort money from the Nigerian government and NNPC. NNPCs story In its reaction to the series of reports, the NNPC said SAMANO first contacted the Nigerian government officials sometime in 2015 to claim that it was approached by an unnamed group in the Peoples Republic of China to buy 48 million barrels of Nigerian crude oil they believed were stolen from Nigeria. The NNPC said SAMANO sought the permission of the Nigerian government to purchase the stolen crude it alleged was shipped to China before the inception of President Muhammadu Buharis administration in 2015. President Muhammadu Buhari [PHOTO CREDIT: Bashir Ahmad] Shortly thereafter, the NNPC said SAMANO made a U-turn to say it was no more interested in buying the crude oil as it was only obliging the federal government with the information as its support to the Buhari administrations fight against corruption. Skeptical about the possibility of shipping about 48 million barrels of crude oil from Nigeria to China without any record or trace, in view of the tedious procedures involved in international crude oil market handling and export operations, the NNPC said it asked for time to confirm the information. For context, as of 2015, the daily production of crude oil in Nigeria was below 1.6 million barrels. Therefore, 48 million barrels of crude oil would have been the total production capacity of the country for a whole month. It was and remains simply impossible for one-month crude oil production for the entire country to disappear without any record or trace from the shores of the country, the NNPC said. As of the time the report was made, and considering that China is one of the most regulated economies in the world, the NNPC said the export of crude oil from Nigeria to China was exclusively undertaken by four known companies approved under the control, ownership, and management of the Chinese government. In the circumstance, the NNPC said it would have been impossible to transport such a huge volume of crude oil from Nigeria to China without the active involvement of those companies. Besides, the NNPC argued that it would have made little economic sense to store that huge volume of crude oil in China for such a period in view of especially the attendant significant storage costs. Also, the NNPC said the Chinese government, through its officials, in response to the allegations by SAMANO, said at the time at different fora, including the United Nations General Assembly that there was no stolen Nigerian crude oil stored in any port or terminal or storage facility in its domain. Presidential committee The NNPC said a Presidential Committee on Recovery of Stolen Nigerian Crude Oil was set up in response to claims by several companies, including SAMANO over alleged stolen Nigerian crude oil stored in China. Despite the request for SAMANO to furnish the committee with evidence to proof its allegations to enable it investigate and verify its claim, the NNPC said the company refused, neglected or failed to provide the committee with any cogent and verifiable evidence in support of its allegations. Notwithstanding the failure of SAMANO to produce verifiable evidence in support of its allegations, the NNPC said relevant officials were mandated to visit China to further investigate SAMANOs claims. During this fact-finding trip to China, the NNPC said the team discovered that SAMANOs claims were false as there were no trace of any stolen Nigerian crude oil in any port, terminal or storage facility in China. Advertisements Also, the team discovered that all the documents previously presented by SAMANO in support of its claims were fake. A report of this finding was reportedly issued by the committee to the Nigerian president. Consequently, the federal government promptly terminated all communications with SAMANO and its agents, as it became apparent that its claims were a hoax. SAMANOs antics Realising that the federal government was no longer interested in the non-existent stolen crude, the NNPC said SAMANO resorted to cheap blackmail and intimidation of key officials of the government, including the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mele Kyari. Mr Kyari was then the Group General Manager in charge of the Crude Oil Marketing Department of the NNPC. The NNPC said SAMANO threatened to publicise allegations that the non-existent crude had been recovered, sold and its proceeds looted by senior government officials and other personalities, when in reality it knew this was absolute falsehood. Again, the NNPC said SAMANO made several demands, including the payment of about $125 million by the government officials to prevent it from disclosing this false information to the public. Failure to realise its demands, the NNPC said, SAMANO resorted to the harassment and embarrassment of the Nigerian government on international media. The group also took its campaign of calumny to several international institutions like the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) all in a calculated bid to blackmail the Nigerian government and NNPC into paying it a significant amount of money as compensation, the NNPC said. As a result of the constant harassment, the NNPC said it was constrained to make a formal report to the State Security Service (SSS) and the Nigerian police, while other victims petitioned the Attorney-General of the Federation. SSS Officials Following investigations by both the police and SSS, during which confessional statement were received from SAMANO agents, the NNPC said the government established allegations of conspiracy, forgery, obtaining money by false pretence, blackmail and extortion as well as some fraudulent activities against agents of SAMANO, Messrs Ramirez and Salazar. During its investigation, the NNPC said the Nigerian police discovered that SAMANO was part of a notorious crime syndicate that habitually intimidates, blackmails, and defrauds government officials and other high-profile persons around the world. For instance, the NNPC said it was discovered that Mr Ramirez was indicted by the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Texas as the mastermind of a scheme leading to the loss of several millions of dollars through various mail and wire frauds between 2010 and 2013. In addition, the NNPC said the police became aware that Mr Ramirez fled the United States of America and settled in Nigeria for a period where he continued his criminal activities in conjunction with SAMANO and its Managing Director. There is a subsisting warrant issued by the United States Government for the arrest of Mr Ramirez. His wife has been convicted in the United States for her role in a visa lottery scam he masterminded. NNPC is aware that this investigation led to the filing of Charge No.: FCT/HC/BU/CR/134/2019 between Federal Republic of Nigeria v. Marco Antonio Ramirez & 4 Others at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Some of the offences in the charge are criminal conspiracy, forgery, extortion and attempt to obtain money by false pretence. NNPC also understands that Mr Ramirez and his cohorts are being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for other unrelated offences at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja in Charge No: FCT/HC/CR/147/2016 and the Federal High Court, Lagos in Charge No: ID/2763/2016. NNPC is convinced that the chameleonic posture of SAMANO as a potential buyer, then gratuitous informant and subsequently a whistle-blower demonstrates its desperation to hoodwink and defraud the Federal Republic of Nigeria by all means, the NNPC said. False compensation claims The NNPC said claims by SAMANO in a recent correspondence demanding compensation for supplying information on the missing crude oil pursuant to the federal governments Whistleblower Policy was false. While the information about the transaction, which formed the basis of SAMANOs, claim was furnished in 2015, the NNPC noted that the policy of the federal government only commenced in December 2016. Again, the NNPC said SAMANO also failed to follow due process or establish that the information it allegedly provided led to any recovery. It also failed to show that the information was disseminated through the proper channel the Federal Ministry of Finance online portal or in writing to the Federal Ministry of Finance or the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit Unit. The NNPC said SAMANOs actions contravened the laid down policy of the government on whistleblowing, as it was not qualified under this policy, particularly as no benefit was derived from the falsehood it provided at the time. It urged the public to disregard the publications sponsored by SAMANO. The NNPC described the allegations as diversionary tactics in furtherance of the scheme to fleece Nigeria. SAMANOs attempt to shift attention from the ongoing criminal charges against its Managing Director and agents will not fly. NNPC has instructed its counsel to take appropriate legal actions against SAMANO and its officers for the injury done to the corporation and its officials by the falsehoods peddled by SAMANO and its agents, the NNPC said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has conducted a survey of Ukrainian industrial exporters and identified a list of 10 countries and regions that interest them the most, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. "We are building our work not on imposing our own vision of the world on Ukrainian business, but, first of all, we want to hear the needs of the business, where it wants to head, and where it needs our support. And we conducted a survey of Ukrainian exporters-industrialists for this, which regions for exporting products interest them the most," Kuleba said at an online briefing on Friday. He stressed that there is still a large agricultural block, but "the Ukrainian industry needs additional attention, additional support." "And we want to provide such support within the limits of our capabilities in the Foreign Ministry," the minister assured. "This is a list of 10 countries that are most often recalled in the responses of Ukrainian business. Therefore, Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Latin American countries, China, Australia, South Africa, ASEAN countries, Turkey and Bangladesh are among those countries," Kuleba said. According to him, these are the top 10 countries that are of interest to Ukrainian industry, they will be in the focus of attention of the ministry, and it will help Ukrainian business, Ukrainian industrial goods to enter the markets of these countries. Mitsubishi Motors Corp.as announcement on Monday of the closure of a factory that manufactures its Pajero SUV came as a shock to the town of Sakahogi, Gifu Prefecture, where the plant is located. There is growing concern over the impact of the closure of the factory a which hires around 1,200 workers, making it the largest local employer a on the townas economy, employment and finances. Mitsubishi Motors said Monday it is expecting a group net loss of A360 billion for the current business year through March due to sluggish sales as the coronavirus pandemic takes its toll. It would be up from the A25.7 billion loss posted in the previous business year and the largest since a loss of A474.7 billion recorded in fiscal 2004, when the firm incurred massive recall costs. As part of restructuring measures, the firm said it will stop producing its Pajero SUV at a plant run by its subsidiary Pajero Manufacturing Co. in Gifu in the first half of fiscal 2021 and close the plant. Production of the Pajero for the domestic market ended last year, but the SUV has been manufactured for overseas markets. Mitsubishi Motors said it will halt the production of the Pajero completely and transfer production of other vehicles at the Gifu plant to its factory in Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture. Pajero Manufacturing has a 44-year history in the town, after its predecessor Toyo Koki transferred its factory to Sakahogi in 1976. The town, with a population of 8,200, has promoted auto production as its main industry and took pride in the factory bearing the name of a legendary car that won the Paris-Dakar Rally a number of times. According to the Sakahogi government, the townas tax revenues related to Pajero Manufacturing made up 13 percent of total corporate tax revenues and 22 percent of real estate tax revenues in fiscal 2019, reaching 15 percent of the townas overall tax revenues. As many as 12 companies in the town have direct transactions with the firm. While expressing concern, Shibayama said new ways to develop the town will be explored. aWe hope to attract a company of good standing to the town with the help of the Mitsubishi group,a he said. Aman Vyas, who was accused of rape and murder of a woman and rape of three other women in 2009, fled to India and was extradited to the UK in October 2019, has been found guilty and faces a long term in jail when sentenced on August 21. Vyas, 35, who raped and murdered Michelle Samaraweera, was the third Indian citizen extradited from India since the 1992 India-UK extradition treaty. His extradition was the subject of a campaign over the years by Labour MP Stella Creasy. Scotland Yard said on Friday that Vyas was convicted at the high court on Thursday for offences that occurred in Walthamstow in north London between March 24 and May 30 of 2009. He was also found guilty of one count of grievous bodily harm and six counts of rape. After the crimes sparked anger, the police said that it was established that on July 2, 2009, a month after Samaraweeras murder and just a few days after a television appeal about the case, Vyas purchased a one-way ticket to India, leaving the same day. A manhunt commenced to find Vyas and extradite him back to the UK. In 2011, inquiries revealed at one stage that Vyas was in New Zealand, he then made his way to Singapore and the trail went cold. It was on July 4, 2011 that police were informed by Indian authorities that they had arrested Vyas in New Delhi as he tried to take an outbound flight. Extradition proceedings commenced but it was not until October 4, 2019 that British officers escorted him from New Delhi to London Heathrow that he was arrested. Detective sergeant Shaleena Sheikh said: Vyas did all he could to avoid responsibility for his crimes. He fled abroad and then added to the distress of those he hurt by making them go through the ordeal of a trial. However, the injuries Vyas inflicted told the true story of this violent criminal and the jury have seen right through his lies. She added: Although we had DNA from the scenes of his crimes, Vyas was not on the DNA database and was a complete stranger to his victims; to bring him to justice required an extraordinary investigation. This case lasted more than ten years, needed enquiries in many different countries and finally a lengthy extradition process. The sheer scale of the investigation was also remarkable. There were extensive media appeals, and thousands of homes and businesses were contacted, in person or through leaflets. Vyass crimes were wicked and relentless and I am thankful that such violent predators are rare. Previous extraditions from India to the UK are: Maninder Pal Singh Kohli (Indian citizen), on July 29, 2007, for the rape and murder of British teenager Hannah Foster; Somaia Ketan Surendra (Kenyan citizen), on July 8, 2009, in a cheating case; and Kulwinder Singh Uppal (Indian citizen), on November 14, 2013, in kidnapping and false imprisonment case. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON ABOUT THE AUTHOR Prasun Sonwalkar Prasun Sonwalkar was Editor (UK & Europe), Hindustan Times. During more than three decades, he held senior positions on the Desk, besides reporting from Indias north-east and other states, including a decade covering politics from New Delhi. He has been reporting from UK and Europe since 1999. ...view detail Fashion models strut the catwalk during the 2018/19 Chanel Cruise Collection at Grand Palais in Paris in this 2018 file photo. / EPA-Yonhap By Kim Jae-heun The global trend in the luxury goods industry today is to reuse, recycle and regenerate fashion. Many luxury brands have already taken action to save the Earth but Chanel is still falling behind when it comes to the eco-friendly movement. In 2018, the French fashion house was criticized by environmental activists for cutting down over-century-old trees to create a winter atmosphere at the Chanel Cruise Collection held at Grand Palais, Paris, in March 2018. In the same year, Chanel announced it would stop producing fur products and using leather made from endangered animals while promising to cut carbon emissions by 50 percent through use of renewable electricity by 2030. However, it is unresponsive to joining the trend of using eco-friendly materials in its fashion. Chanel Korea did not provide any information about a campaign relevant to the matter. U.K. luxury brand Burberry has said production by all of its fashion items would use sustainable materials by 2022. Burberry also unveiled "ReBurberry Edit" in April introducing a new eco-friendly collection for spring and summer seasons. Apparel used eco-friendly materials such as Econyl, an alternative to nylon that is made from recycled industrial plastic and waste fabric. For some items, only minimal energy and water were used in the production process. Last year, Italian brand Prada's Re-Nylon bag collection used the same nylon fiber made of waste materials collected from all over the world. Alexander McQueen did not discard leftover silk and lace in the previous collection and reused them for this year's spring and summer show. Even Louis Vuitton of fashion conglomerate LVMH introduced accessories made of remaining silk fabric and the French fashion house will unveil its first recycled collection this month at the men's 2021 spring & summer show in Shanghai, China. Gucci introduced its first new sustainable line "Off the Grid" in June too. Its creative director Alessandro Michele used both organic and recycled eco-friendly fabrics. "Recently, we have started an eco-friendly program called Gucci Equilibrium, which follows the fashion house's ideology to go green and pursue environmental sustainability," a Gucci Korea official said. "We also opened a website and Instagram account for our program to share information on our eco-friendly activities," the official added. "Gucci also acquired ISO 14001 environmental certification after hosting a fashion show using only recyclable materials in September last year." British fashion house Mulberry is going further to not only use Econyl but also recycle leftover heavy grain leather to make its "Portobello Bag." The bag is manufactured at a carbon-neutral factory one that achieves net zero emissions by balancing carbon emissions with carbon removal. This move by global fashion firms came after an allegation that Burberry had been incinerating luxury inventory for five years from 2013 to 2018. It was suggested that to keep its brand value up the company had incinerated 90 million pounds worth of stock. However, this has raised concerns of resource waste and environmental pollution. In January, France established the world's first law banning fashion firms from discarding unsold stocks of clothing and cosmetic goods. "There is a growing trend towards environmental and human rights issues among the younger generations who are purchasing more products. The luxury goods industry is following this along with others," an industry insider said. By Nam Sang-so Tsutomu Yamaguchi (March 1916~January 2010), a resident of Nagasaki, was an engineer when his employer, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries at Nagasaki asked him to take a temporary duty at its Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Yard in Hiroshima, some 5 hours train ride to east. Yamaguchi was supposed to return to his home office on Kyushu Island on Aug. 7. He was on his way to the Mitsubishi Shipyard, Hiroshima, on the morning of Aug. 6, when the atomic bomb named Little Boy was dropped. His left eardrum was ruptured and his torso was badly burnt. Despite the unbearable pain, he took a train back to his home in Nagasaki. On August 9, he was being treated for his burns at the infirmary of Mitsubishi in Nagasaki when the second atomic bomb was dropped over the city. Yamaguchi survived again. His wife and son died later from issues related to the aftereffects from the atomic bomb. Earlier in July 1945, just before the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some 1,000 B-29s flew over to Japan and dropped nearly 100,000 tons of incendiary bombs over 26 cities each with populations of 50,000 killing over 500,000 people. I was 12 years old attending an elementary school in Osaka, some 250 km east of Hiroshima. In choosing the cities to be targeted with atomic bombs, the U.S. military identified the Japanese cities that had not been bombed and the cities that had over 50,000 population. And they made sure that target cities had no American POW camps. Nagasaki was initially a Plan-B target. It was Kokura city, also in the Kyushu region, but the sky over the city was experiencing heavy cloud cover. Due to the visibility issues the B-29 holding the other A-bomb, named Fat Man, flew to Nagasaki, and dropped its payload there instead. The August summer in Japan was muggy under the hot sun. The students, boys and girls alike, had been mobilized to work at factories that produced weapon parts and the senior students of elementary schools were asked to help dig up the roots of pine trees in the nearby mountains. The trees had been cut down earlier by adult laborers. It took almost a day of sweaty labor by the children to dig out just one tree's roots from the earth. The dugout roots were sent to a factory to extract pine oil, about a cup's worth from one root, which were to be used by Kamikaze fighter plane units that carried out suicide dive bombing missions against enemy ships, our teachers told us. In the blue sky, we saw parallel condensation-trails left by the American bombers. We knew that Japan was losing the war. Many years later in 1985, I made an engineering business relationship with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Hiroshima and was invited to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Some men from Mitsubishi told me about Yamaguchi's story. He was still living in Nagasaki at the time. He died of stomach cancer in 2010 at the age of 93. The writer ( sangsonam@gmail.com ) is a Korean War veteran who survived the World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War. Job description from a WWII B-17 training manual, The inflight Armorer-Gunner inspects, repairs, maintains machine guns, cannons, bomb release mechanisms, bomb racks, aerial gun sites, the auxiliary equipment and chemical carrying release mechanisms, and flare racks. He fuses and places the bombs in racks, field strips machine guns to repair as necessary, oils and cleans, mans a gun position during combat. His B-17 was named Barr Fly after the pilot, Lt. Tom Barr. On Feb. 25, 1944, inflight Armorer-Gunner Robert John Zekowski took off with the crew of Barr Fly from the Lucera airfield near Foggia in northern Italy. After completing a precarious airborne grouping, 289 B-17 heavy bombers began their flight to their targets in Aschersleben, Bernburg, Halberstadt, and the vital Bf-109 fighter production plant in Regensburg, Germany. The raid lost 38 bombers, 4 shot-up beyond repair, and another 141 received damaged. Zekowskis bravery under fire would earn him the Distinguished Flying Cross. A Brooklyn native born on Oct 9, 1921, Zekowski stated before the interview, Youll have to bear with me, because at my age Ive forgotten a lot but not my Brooklyn accent. He was booted out of high school. When describing a conference between the school principal and his mother, he recalled, I remember the word incorrigible was used several times. Sad thing is, they were right. Incorrigible in school perhaps, but young Zekowski knew how to make a buck. I worked odd jobs but my favorite was washing and cleaning the seaplanes at the airport in Brooklyn. My work impressed the pilots so much theyd give me free hops on the seaplanes. Theyd let me hold the stick occasionally. Airplanes became my life. Note: The most likely airport/seaport Zekowski mentioned was Floyd Bennett Field, complete with a wide variety of out-of-date seaplanes including the Savoia Marcheirri S-56 and Loening Flying Boat. As a teenager, Zekowski found a good-paying vocation as an auctioneer. He said, I auctioned fine arts and high-end oriental rugs. My personal collection of fine art numbers about 150. The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor enraged Zekowski. I enlisted the next day on Dec 8, 1941. Of course I preferred the Army Air Corps and shot my hand in the air when they asked for pilot trainees. Zekowski had no problems with the oral, written, or physical exams. He had no problems with take-offs or landings behind the controls of the legendary Yellow Peril Boeing Steerman bi-plane. Spins and stalls? Again, no problems. Zekowski stated, One day my instructor said, Okay, return to base, and I said, Yes, sir, then he repeated, Return to base, and I kept saying, Yes, sir, and he eventually indicated, Were going to end up in Paris. Thats when we realized yours truly had a slight problem with my directional aptitude. Of course, the word incorrigible was tossed in my direction, again. Booted out of pilot training, Zekowski trained as and became one of the Army Air Corps highly-skilled inflight B-17 bomber Armorer/Gunners. I loved the B-17, he said. And I loved flying on it. Once airborne, however, it got pretty cold at high altitude. If you spit inside the bomber your spit would bounce off the floor, frozen solid. The 15th Air Force, 301st Bomb Group, 419th Squadron served as Zekowskis home. A Missing Air Crew Report indicated between September, 42 and April,45, the unit lost 126 heavy bombers. Zekowski recalled the deadly raid on Regensburg. Flak was all over the sky, he stated. Our tail gunner had his head blown off. Regensburg was foremost in Zekowskis memory, but online research by yours truly discovered the mans outstanding war record. Among many awards, he received the Europe/Africa/ Middle East Medal, indicating a multi-missioned role in WWII. Zekowski admitted, I weighed 155 lbs and was nasty as can be. Perhaps, but being incorrigible did not keep Zekowski from receiving the Good Conduct Medal. The Distinguished Flying Cross was earned over Regensburg. The new bombs, smaller and novel to his crew, apparently malfunctioned as the bomb bay opened over Regenburg. The bombs nose propellers began spinning, which indicated the bombs were arming. Nobody knew if the arming was real or a fluke. Zekowski didnt care. He hustled inside the open bomb bay at risk to life and limb and somehow neutralized the bombs from arming too early. Dont really recall what the heck I did, he said. But they called me a hero. I had a nice high altitude view of Regenburg, too.Missions included targets in Greece, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and the Balkans. Wounded by flak on one mission, Zekowski spent time in the hospital before returning to duty. Here the fog of war intervenes with an incorrect paper trail. He never received a Purple Heart and has attempted for years to correct the mistake. One problem is official Army discharge paperwork indicating Zekowski flew on B-24 Liberators, not B-17s, and with an entirely different crew. Even more annoying, the truth concerning his service to his country is listed in the formal unit history of the 301st Bomb Group that specifically shows his accomplishments as a B-17 Armorer/Gunner with the aforementioned same missions and citations. His crew photo in front of their B-17 apparently has no bearings on the stubbornness of federal bureaucrats. Ironically, Zekowski said of the crew photo, None of us airmen liked those group shots in front of our planes, at least our group didnt. Superstition, I suppose, but too many groups shots were taken of crews that never returned. Zekowski lives on Jackson Lake. Its peaceful, he said. Its a nice view of a nice lake. He and his wife sold 500 of the 800 lots on Turtle Cove. Of the new tattoo on his right triceps, he said, Its the Distinguished Flying Cross. Young people ask me questions about it. That gives me the chance to explain the true cost of freedom. Amazingly, I was shown his recently renewed pilots license, circa 2011. Yep, he said with a smile. The same folks that claim I fought the war on the wrong bomber with the wrong crew claim Im still able to pilot a private plane. Gives folks the impression that bureaucrats can be a bit incorrigible, dont you think? Mr. Incorrigible reported for his final inspection in 2016. Pete Mecca is a Vietnam veteran. For story consideration visit his website at VETERANSARTICLE.COM and click on contact us. Yves here. Ignacios review of some of the key elements of vaccine research, development, and approval will hopefully serve as an important primer for future discussions. Notice that even this basic discussion demonstrates that a full year after Phase III vaccine trials have started is a bare minimum to reach any conclusions about efficacy.yet the media is braying that we might have an idea on Phase III trials starting now by this October. By Ignacio Moreno Echanove, an epidemiologist I regret to say this article is less comprehensive than I would like. For two reasons: time and space. I needed more time to review, read and re-read scientific literature to have a clearer picture. Space: a single post is not enough. I will start with the conclusion: Better understanding of the immunology of Covid-19 and Covid-19 vaccines is central. The more effort is dedicated to this, in both clinical and pre-clinical research, the faster we will get to better treatment and vaccine solutions and less risks will be assumed. Now lets see whats going on: How Good Does a Vaccine Have To Be? When Might We Have One Approved? First and foremost, before deploying any vaccine on a mass scale, apart of efficacy results, it must have been shown to be safe. In case that there are some safety issues but the protective effect is overwhelmingly beneficial so as to view those risks as a toll we can collectively/individually pay, these should be carefully analysed, described, quantified and communicated to the public before approval. One of the biggest mistakes would be to approve of a vaccine only to later see more frequent or more severe adverse effects than had been anticipated. Rare adverse events occurring at about 1:20.000 or lower frequency is something that we should to have in mind as a possibility once we have an approved candidate. The WHO provides general guidelines (2004) for vaccine evaluation/development. It has to be noted that because we are talking here about a novel virus and antigens in all cases, except the BCG candidate, massive trials will be starting with nearly zero previous information even if we can count with experience on SARS1.0 and MERS trials (never scaled up to Phase III) that might give hints but not assurances on vaccine development against Covid-19. Regarding clinical trials, Phase Iis a safeguard trial done with a few individuals (10-20) to check that the candidate is safe enough for trials with more volunteers. Being in a hurry, some candidates are running directly with so-called Phase I/II trials. So far, such acceleration has not been seen as problematic. So far. The objective of Phase II (about 100 to few hundreds of subjects) is to characterize the immune response that the vaccine provides and decide if it looks good enough to proceed with Phase III. Before starting Phase III all considerations about safe manufacturing and scaling up should/must have been settled (I wonder if this was the problem with delays in Moderna vaccine Phase III, but if so, they have just resumed to Phase III). Phase III (many thousands on subjects, the larger the trial, the shorter the duration, but also depending on the rate of spread when and where the trial starts). Some selection of racial and age cohorts will be necessary given the known information. Phase III is to assess the efficacy of the vaccine, so during Phase III both, placebo and vaccinated subjects, will be naturally challenged in the normal epidemic evolution and tested to see how the vaccine provides immunity/protection against the vaccine. Forced challenging (as in deliberate exposure to Covid-19) has been proposed to accelerate development . As you can imagine, this proposal is the subject of bioethical questions with no easy answer. I think there is a Chinese candidate being tested among the militaries probably with forced challenge. So far, this is a simplified overview of the clinical trials. Let me introduce some definitions from the WHO document that will help us to understand results better. I will focus only on definitions relevant to the evaluation of the vaccine and set aside those related with the experimental design of the trials. Adverse reaction : A response to a vaccine that is noxious and unintended and that occurs at doses tested in humans for prophylaxis, or during subsequent clinical use, following licensure. The term adverse reaction is usually reserved for a true causal association with a drug or a vaccine. Tolerability to adverse events has to be defined. Booster vaccination : Vaccination given at a certain time interval (at least 6 months) after primary vaccination in order to induce long-term protection. [Note that primary vaccination can consist in one or more doses repeats in a short span] Geometric mean titre : Calculation of the average titre (of antibodies reacting with the antigen or a relevant part of it) for a group of subjects by multiplying all values and taking the nthroot of this number, where n is the number of subjects. Immunogenicity : The capacity of a vaccine to induce antibody-mediated and/or cell-mediated immunity and/or immunological memory. [This is where I am skipping over a more comprehensive discussion] Potency : The quantitative measure of the specific ability or capacity of the product to achieve a defined biological effect. For instance, quantitative virus neutralization assays . [This is of course all important for those vaccines based on the SARS CoV 2 Spike protein or epitopes therein. Neutralization titres (VNTs) usually correlate very well with immunity and vaccine efficacy] Reactogenicity : Reactions, either local or systemic, that are considered to have a causal relationship to the vaccination. [As we will see, vaccine candidates using SARS CoV 2 Spike protein result in relatively high reactogenicity. Not severe but yet an issue and if a vaccine candidate based on the Spike protein is finally approved, we will have to accept some nasty symptoms shortly after vaccination. This will have to be carefully studied in all age cohorts. It has some potential to be problematic.] Serious adverse event : An event occurring in connection with the clinical trial that results in death, admission to hospital, prolongation of a hospital stay, persistent disability or incapacity, or is otherwise life-threatening. [When a serious event is identified it will force prospective monitoring in the subjects of the trial. Uncommon serious adverse events might not be detected during the trial so it is advisable a follow-up for these if the candidate is approved. Rare events : T hese are usually detected retrospectively. Common adverse effects are defined as those occurring at ratios between 1:100 and 1:1000 while less common but not necessarily rare would go to about 1:10.000. Below this frequency we could deem as more or less rare events. Detecting and monitoring adverse effects is one of the most difficult challenges during Phase III trials and that is why risk assessment in preclinical trials is important.] Seroconversion : Predefined increase in antibody concentration, considered to correlate with the transition from seronegative to seropositive, providing information on the immunogenicity of a vaccine. If there are pre-existing antibodies, seroconversion is defined by a transition from a predefined low level to a significantly higher defined level such as a four-fold increase in geometric mean antibody concentration. Vaccine (protective) efficacy : The reduction in the chance or odds of developing clinical disease after vaccination relative to the chance or odds when unvaccinated. Vaccine efficacy measures direct protection (i.e. protection induced by vaccination in the vaccinated population sample). Vaccine efficacy is calculated according to the following formula: Where Iu = incidence in unvaccinated population; Iv = incidence in vaccinated population. [Importantly the end-point is defined as clinical efficacy but the endpoint definition(s) of efficacy will be made according to outcomes: absence of infection or immunity, reduction of virus shedding, mild disease, preventing development of lung lesions, hospitalization required Immunity would be the most stringent definition. When the trials include placebo treatment (an inactivated vaccine or an alternative vaccine) and double blinding these are called superiority trials and will demonstrate if the vaccine gives superior results to the placebo treatment. The estimate of efficacy will be defined by statistical estimates with, for instance, quantitative RT-PCR diagnostics, virus shedding analysis, visualization of lung lesions by CT scanning etc. Being this a new disease, we cannot yet resort to surrogate indicators such as plasma VNPs.] Vaccine failure : The onset of infection or disease, biologically confirmed, in a subject who is supposed to be protected, following completion of age-appropriate immunization as recommended by the manufacturer. The WHO guidelines state that pre-clinical and laboratory evaluation are pre-requisites for clinical evaluation of vaccine candidates but this step has been skipped in some cases. The rationale for this is that, apart from the rush we are in, the coronavirus itself was not used to make the vaccine. If a vaccine candidate consists on inactivated SARS CoV 2, pre-clinical stage cannot be skipped. The primary objective of the pre-clinical evaluation is to demonstrate that the candidate is suitable for testing in humans. This should include indicators of safety in both in vitro assays and in animal models. Yet, pre-clinical studies provide more than that and are very useful to study risk of known adverse effects. For Covid-19, to my knowledge, there are three different animal models available: murine (mice, rats, hamsters), ferrets, and a few non-human simian species being the latter the models that more closely resemble human Covid-19 infection. Toxicity of the vaccine has to be evaluated in these models and this includes determination of safe doses, need for repeated doses, tolerability, potential to induce antibodies that cross-react with human tissues The WHO document doesnt explicitly mention the possibility of ADE (Antibody Dependent Enhancement) and/or VERD (Vaccine-associated Enhanced Respiratory Disease), and this should be considered a must in preclinical phase. The FDA has released guidelines for Covid-19 vaccine developers, with non-binding recommendations. One of the pre-clinical key factors listed that should be addressed is VERD. ADE is not mentioned though it can be the mechanism behind some cases of VERD. An excellent discussion on how to address this problem can be found in this paper, not good reading for the immunology-naive, but for us, the common people, it might be enough to highlight the main conclusion: Although the development of vaccines and therapeutics for SARS-CoV-2 remains urgent, we must proceed with caution, using the full armoury of vaccine and protein design tools at our disposal to rationally minimize the risk of ADE. Remember these phrases proceed with caution, use advanced tools. Looks like we are not doing enough of this. Preclinical assays will also inform on vaccine potency, immunogenicity and efficacy in such animal models. Preclinical trials also help with the selection of adjuvants, additives, formulations and other vaccine-specific information. Since the pre-clinical pre-requisite has been removed in several vaccine candidates several scientists have complained this might be a mistake. It could indeed be a mistake. Given that this is a new and rapidly spreading disease, efficacy testing Phase III trials should be large. Somewhere between 10.000-50.000 individuals and the follow-up would take 1-2 years though some conclusions on efficacy might be obtained in about a year. If some kind of protection is seen it is crucial to check the duration. So, if at least a 6-month duration of protection before and in case a booster vaccination is seen as necessary after 6 months or later is a pre-requisite for approval this means that first results wont be seen until about one year after the start of Phase III trials. Recruiting volunteers, vaccinating them, time to full development of immune response, challenging of subjects through the natural course of the epidemic, more than 6 months monitoring after immune response, and all the work associated mean that 1 year is a bare minimum for results. Everybody is trying to be optimistic with the timelines but it will be challenging to have something approved before the end of 2021. This could be accelerated with forced challenging, but results would be obtained with age cohorts that are not representative of the most susceptible part of the population. Given the current state of the epidemic, the US it is now one of the best places in the world to start Phase III trials. Another way to accelerate this would be relying on wishful thinking after some months of promising results. Phase IV studies (after approval) are basically safety evaluation studies and should be mandatory for Covid-19 vaccines given the uncertainties mentioned. Pre-exposure cohort studies or secondary attack-rate studies will also be needed given the high attack rate of Covid-19. Evaluation of vaccine efficacy. Given the epidemiological characteristics of Covid-19 (high attack rate in vaccine-speak), depending on the measured efficacy, the observed seroprevalence at the start of the vaccination program, and the results of pre-exposure cohort studies it will be decided what is the coverage needed in the population. The higher the efficacy, the lower the coverage. According to a study based on computational models (Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, New York City, NY, USA) applied to Covid-19 epidemics to either prevent or largely extinguish an epidemic without any other measures (e.g., social distancing), the vaccine has to have an efficacy of at least 70%. Lets keep in mind this 70% efficacy as a reference for the future. I will end this section underlining a fact that can be important about fast-track candidates. These candidates were designed very early in the pandemic, as soon as the SARS CoV 2 genome sequence was published. so their respective designs didnt have in consideration the knowledge on the disease that has been accumulating ever since. Speed, in this sense could be an advantage but could well also result in high failure rates. Late candidates might benefit from better knowledge on the immunological and pathological aspects of the disease, as well as mistakes of the speediest. Just lets hope these mistakes are not too dramatic. Current Timelines Now lets take a look at the vaccine race as preliminary results are being announced or published by some candidates. Next figure from the GAVI site gives a geographical snapshot on the current state of the race with candidates already in clinical trials. The figure above includes 10 vaccine candidates already in Phase I, 4 candidates in combined Phase I/II trials, 2 candidates in Phase II and 3 Candidates in Phase II/III (Moderna is already for a total of 18 candidates in clinical phases. Impressive! The University of Oxford-AstraZeneca candidate (AXD 1222, UK, Adenovirus vector) was first to announce a Phase II/III trial in May 22ndwith about 10.000 volunteers in the UK, and including small children/elder cohorts. It is said to be expanded with trials in Brazil, South Africa and the US with now more raging epidemics. It had already showed preclinical results Rhesus macaques and additional preclinical trials are ongoing. This project also aims to soon start controversial challenge trials in which healthy participants, vaccinated or not, will be artificially challenged with SARS CoV 2. This might accelerate efficiency results but also rises serious concerns about safety issues that could backfire later. Australian commenter Hilda Bastian highlights that this also increases what she calls the activism risk factor or vulnerability to deliberate doubt- sowing on vaccines. I strongly recommend reading her posts in full. Moreover, given that 3 out of 6 macaques vaccinated with this candidate and then challenged with SARS CoV 2 showed symptoms of respiratory distress one wonders if this could be the best candidate to try forced challenging with human subjects. The Wuhan IBP-Sinopharm CNBG is a 100% public project (China, Inactivated virus) that in June 23rd announced start of Phase III in the UAE, and has undergone mandatory preclinical studies given it contains virus. Similarly, SinoVac Life Sciences (China, inactivated vaccine) has published preclinical results, has ongoing Phase I/II trials and planned to start Phase III in Brazil in July with nearly 9,000 participants according to NIH site for this trial with results expected in October 2021. Moderna candidate (mRNA-1273, US, mRNA vaccine) is set to start Phase III trials on July 27thwith 30.000 participants. No preclinical studies done or planned. CasSinoBIO (Ad5-nCoV, China, adenovirus vector) has undergone Phase I/II trials and in 29thJune was announced it had received military specially-needed approval and this means approval limited to military use in China for at least one year. They announced on July 11th talks for Phase III trials with Brazil, Russia, Chile and KSA and expect to enrol about 40.000 subjects. The Pfizer-BioNtech (BNT 162, Germany, mRNA) candidate has just published Phase I/II results with one of their variant candidates (1b) and has also showed preclinical results. The developers plan to start Phase III later in the summer enrolling about 30.000 subjects in the US. BioNTech CEO believes hat BNT162 could be ready for approval by the end of the year. As I see this, the 6-month protective duration prerequisite could only be fulfilled if Phase I/II subjects are artificially challenged later in the year. So, there are 6 candidates already in or about to enter Phase III trials. One wonders if this is the result of rational thinking or if we are running all candidates into Phase III trials like a run of beheaded chickens. Time will have a say on this. Other players that might go in relative short times to Phase III include Inovio (INO-4800, US, DNA vaccine) that has announced positive interim Phase I data, and Novavax (US, protein subunit vaccine) whose stocks had gone through a 3500% rally between May and July and is expected to publish results of Phase I clinical trials anytime soon. Novavax looks to be now on dive-watch in case the results fall short on expectations. Brokers are learning what VNTs mean but I am not quite sure if they can interpret the results correctly particularly if already published numbers can be readily compared. We dont know how this will end but billionaires, as well as the corresponding losers, are made along the way no matter the final results. Among other mRNA candidates, CureVac (Germany, mRNA), is expected to show first clinical results by September, has announced promising pre-clinical results. Now I think I have touched a theme that is central to Naked Capitalism which is about the discussions on how markets operate and if we should believe on those neoclassical pontifications on rational market expectations versus market failures related with not so rational expectations. It looks like, and we are seeing now this in vivo, these so called rational expectations frequently work with much less than perfect information, for instance VNTs estimated in a Phase I study. There are risks associated with vaccine development, that are the result of truly rational thinking, which have not yet been resolved and arent considered in such Phase I/II results. In the meantime, markets might show wild gyrations on the basis of data that are or should be known to be inconclusive/insufficient. Imagine that some vaccine candidates fail to be marketed, most will do so, but on the way, billionaires are created to the expense of many others. Is this a rational market or something that better resembles lottery winners? I leave this as food for thinking. The newsrooms are all alert on the preliminary results and announcements being issued this summer on clinical trials. It is tempting to do a comparative analysis trying to identify who among the front runners is showing better results but because these are all preliminary, I think this would result highlighting the selling points that each candidate wants to make depending on their particular results. Also, because some candidates have skipped preclinical studies and because surrogate indicators using equal materials and methods (the best would be a single or a few coordinated labs doing this with standardized protocols) do not really exist, conclusions could be misleading. I will leave for a posible future post a discussion of the immunological aspects of the vaccine and the reported results if I manage to become confident in what I write. So far, I have seen information on preclinical studies which is scant, involving very few animal subjects (particularly non-human simians), and in some cases with insufficient immunological analyses. The same caveat about immunological studies can be extended to published Phase I/II results. There might be better studies that havent been made available to the public or ongoing efforts to complement those. I dont know, but not knowing I stick to the precautionary principle. B usinesses have called the postponement of easing lockdown restrictions "devastating" as England's Chief Medical Officer prompted fears of a longer shutdown by warning the UK may have reached its "limit" for reopening. Boris Johnson announced on Friday that some of the planned changes to lockdown restrictions due to take place in England on August 1 are being paused due to a rise in coronavirus cases in some regions. Businesses including bowling alleys, beauty salons offering close-contact services and casinos can no longer open on Saturday, and must stay closed until at least August 15. Pilots of indoor music and theatre performances will now also be postponed until further notice. England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty / PA It comes as Office for National Statistics figures suggested that coronavirus infections are rising in England, from an estimated 3,200 to 4,200 since last week. Meanwhile, the Government Office for Science and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) revealed on Friday that it is not confident that the rate of transmission in England - the R number - is currently below one. It all comes as England's Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, said the UK may have reached a limit for how much of society can be opened up safely - potentially meaning businesses unable to open their doors this weekend will have to remain shuttered for longer than another two weeks. Lockdown London 1 /18 Lockdown London Speaking at the government's Friday afternoon briefing, Mr Whitty said: "I think what we're seeing from the data from ONS and other data is that we have probably reached near the limit or the limits of what we can do in terms of opening up society. "So what that means potentially is that if we wish to do more things in the future, we may have to do less of some other things. "And these will be difficult trade-offs, some of which will be decisions for government and some of which are for all of us as citizens to do. "But we have to be realistic about this. The idea that we can open up everything and keep the virus under control is clearly wrong." Boris Johnson announces lockdown relaxation delay: the key points UK Hospitality is the industry's largest trade association in the UK. Chief Executive Kate Nicholls told the Standard the industry will need "clear communication" from the government going forward, and additional support for businesses unable to reopen this weekend. She said: "Full furlough ends tomorrow and businesses that remain closed are going to need help to protect jobs and keep their operations afloat. "We understand that safety is the priority, but it is still devastating news for hospitality businesses. They have spent a lot of time and money, which they can ill afford to lose at the minute, getting ready to reopen. For those people who work in those sectors, the security of their jobs remains uncertain." London-based entrepreneurs and business owners agreed, saying the last-minute change in their situation has cost struggling companies precious reserve money. One casino owner said his sector will have lost "hundreds of thousands of pounds". Simon Thomas, the CEO of the Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square, told the Standard the government's handling of the situation is "farcical". The iconic Hippodrome Casino is among London businesses no longer able to reopen / H. Michael Miley/Flickr He said: It is an appalling last minute decision. We were due to be opening in 12 hours and to be told last minute like this is devastating. To open a business takes a huge amount of preparation.. the investment in reopening a business is possibly hundreds of thousands of pounds, and to be told last minute its not possible is an absolute waste. Its hard enough out here. To shutter an entire sector because of what is happening in the north west is unacceptable. It just seems farcical to us. Nothing has changed in London. There are sectors that have reopened that are far higher risk than casinos. He added: We will work and lobby as hard as we can to ensure we can reopen on the 15th August." Harry Lobek is the owner of seafood restaurant group London Shell Company. He branched into deliveries during the pandemic and re-opened his two restaurants in July. Mr Lobek said the news was "frustrating" and Mr Whitty's statements were concerning, as many of his peers have still not reopened and he has found that, despite having a better July intake than expected, "trade is still very much weekend driven and practically non existent in Zone 1". He said: "For businesses to remain open and survive the rapidly approaching winter this needs to change and become more consistent throughout the week. We accepted back in March that this year is all about survival. There needs to be strong plans and designs to ensure that next year isn't a blank year. People's livelihoods are at risk." He added: "Our business is seasonal and like many others in our position we are forecasting for a difficult winter. We need all the help we can get to get through to next summer." UK Music's acting CEO has labelled the decision a "bitter blow" to the music industry, and says the sector "risks being left behind as other sectors get back on their feet." Last week Andrew Lloyd Webber had trialled a socially-distanced theatre performance at the Palladium / Andy Paradise Tom Kiehl said in a statement: Having a date for indoor performances with social distancing was an important symbolic step on the road to recovery. The decision to push the date back by at least two weeks shows how vulnerable the music industry is in this pandemic and why financial support measures for musicians, creators and others must continue. The Music Venue Trust has said that the financial loss to venues, who had spent money getting prepared to host concerts and gigs from tomorrow only to have to close again, "now adds to the growing mountain of debts accrued by those venues working within the Government guidelines. A spokesperson from digital consultancy Publicis Sapient commented: Businesses cross-sector will likely feel the aftershocks of todays announcement. "The rising cases in England will do little for already-low consumer confidence and fears over personal health and safety, and will be a setback in encouraging people into stores, restaurants and leisure facilities. This in turn, will offer another blow to the already bruised UK economy as it crawls towards recovery." One U.S. Marine has died, two were injured and eight others were missing after a 'tragic incident' involving an amphibious assault vehicle off the coast of Southern California on Thursday, the U.S. Marine Corps said. Search and rescue efforts were underway with support from the Navy and Coast Guard, the First Marine Expeditionary Force said in a tweet. The I Marine Expeditionary Force said in a tweet: '1 Marine has died, 8 service members remain missing and 2 were injured after an AAV [Assault Amphibious Vehicle] mishap July 30 off the coast of Southern California. Search and rescue efforts were underway with support from the Navy and Coast Guard following the Assault Amphibious Vehicle accident. The 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit is seen during training on Monday The vehicle took on water at around 5.45pm while 15 Marines and one sailor were inside near San Clemente Island in Los Angeles County. The 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit is seen during training on Monday 'All are assigned to the 15th MEU [15th Marine Expeditionary Unit]. Search and rescue efforts are still underway with support from the Navy and Coast Guard.' The vehicle took on water at around 5.45pm while 15 Marines and one sailor were inside near San Clemente Island in Los Angeles County. The Marine Expeditionary Force is the Marine Corps' main warfighting organization. There are three such groups which are made up of ground, air and logistics forces. The I Marine Expeditionary Force offered few details in a tweet early Friday morning Colonel Christopher Bronzi said on Twitter: 'We are deeply saddened by this tragic incident. I ask that you keep our Marines, sailors and their families in your prayers as we continue our search' 'We are deeply saddened by this tragic incident. I ask that you keep our Marines, sailors and their families in your prayers as we continue our search,' Colonel Christopher Bronzi said on Twitter, without giving further details of what had happened. One Marine was taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla where he died. The two injured Marines were taken to San Diego-area hospitals where one is in critical condition and the other is stable. Daisy Edgar-Jones put her recent awards snub to one side as she stepped out for breakfast with a friend on Friday morning. The talented actress was overlooked for a nomination at the forthcoming 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, despite Normal People co-star Paul Mescal being named in the category for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. But Daisy, 22, brushed the surprise omission off while venturing out in her native London. Moving on: Daisy Edgar-Jones put her her recent awards snub to one side as she stepped out for breakfast with a friend on Friday morning The actress looked typically stylish in a sleeveless sweater and white T-shirt as she juggled a tray of takeaway coffees across the street. She added to her look with a pair of high-slung jeans, while smart slip-on loafers rounded things off. In accordance with current safety guidelines, Daisy covered her increasingly recognisable features with a face mask during her latest public appearance. Missing out: The talented actress was overlooked for a nomination at the forthcoming 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, despite Normal People co-star Paul Mescal getting his own nomination Looking good: The actress looked typically stylish in a sleeveless sweater and white T-shirt as she juggled a tray of takeaway coffees across the street Finishing touches: She added to her look with a pair of high-slung jeans, while smart slip-on loafers rounded things off Normal People has received a total of four nods, including Outstanding Writing For A Limited Series, Movie Or Dramatic Special and Outstanding Casting For A Limited Series, Movie Or Special. Despite missing out on her own nomination at the Emmy Awards, Daisy shared a sweet tribute to co-star Mescal after he was recognised for his work on the show. Taking to Instagram, she wrote: 'I could not be more proud of these two utterly incredible people, working with you both has been one of the greatest joys of my life. Well done: Despite missing out on her own nomination at the Emmy Awards, Daisy shared a sweet tribute to co-star Mescal after he was recognised for his work on the show 'Also huge congrats to @louisekielycasting, you're incredible, and also Sally and Alice and @element_pictures, we smashed it.' Mescal also credited Daisy for his nomination, where he will go up against Jeremy Irons, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Pope and Hugh Jackman for the top prize. Taking to Twitter to talk about the nod, he thanked the actress for her work and championed her 'extraordinary talent' for the show's success. Sharing a picture of his character Connell Waldron in tears, the Irish star wrote: 'My actual face right now! Thank you to absolutely everyone at @ElementPictures, @Hulu and @BBCThree! '@lennyabrahamson I will never be able to thank you enough! @DaisyEdgarJones this only exists because of you and your extraordinary talent it's as simple as that! Thank you all.' Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 15:51:29|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close SUVA, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Fiji reported its first death from COVID-19 infection on Friday. Health Minister Ifereimi Waqainabete said the 66-year-old Fijian man, who had a history of cardiac problems and returned from India early July, died on Thursday in the hospital in Lautoka, Fiji's the second largest city. The man was the island nation's first border quarantine case of COVID-19. The man's son, who returned to Fiji from India with his father on a repatriation flight carrying 107 passengers, also tested positive of COVID-19 and has been isolated for treatment. There are nine border quarantine cases in the country and no positive cases were reported since July 20. Meanwhile, Fiji's Acting Permanent Secretary for the Health Ministry James Fong said the man was isolated early and the public remains safe. He also said the remaining confirmed cases in Fiji are currently in stable condition. Fiji had reported a total of 18 COVID-19 patients since it confirmed its first case on March 19, and all of them have fully recovered before June 5. Fiji has conducted more than 4,500 COVID-19 tests since January. Currently, Fiji still maintains a nationwide curfew effective from March 30. Enditem A protester with a home-made gas mask chants toward the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 30, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images) Less Violence Occurs in Portland Overnight in Bid to Send Federal Officers Home President Trump threatened to send in the National Guard if the situation doesn't improve People gathering in Portland overnight committed less violence than normal in the first detente since May, just hours after President Donald Trump threatened to send in the National Guard. Little law enforcement presence was seen downtown as protesters listened to speeches and urged each other not to provoke a response from federal law enforcement. Both protesters and city and state officials are hoping the Trump administration draws down the number of officers. Federal agents responded nightly to riots throughout July after the Portland Police Bureau failed to protect a U.S. courthouse. Speeches began at the Justice Center, a county building that houses a jail and a sheriffs office, late Thursday. Speakers urged people to refrain from violence, shouted anti-Trump slogans, and verbally attacked the police and other law enforcement. A police officer looks on during a protest in Portland, Ore., on July 30, 2020. (Caitlin Ochs/Reuters) Protesters at one point chanted: No cops, no KKK, no fascist USA. The Black Lives Matter protesters also spoke of racial justice. The crowd of several hundrednoticeably smaller than earlier this monthlater moved a few blocks to the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse, where they gathered outside a fence erected by federal officials to protect the building. Rioters repeatedly set fire to the courthouse, smashed windows, and assaulted law enforcement before the fence was put up. They only succeeded in toppling the barrier once. Protesters briefly engaged in acts that have previously sparked a federal response, including trying to take down the fence, hurling items over the fence, and starting fires inside the barrier. Others in the crowd put the fires out, according to video footage from the scene and a nightly summary from the bureau. A pigs head with a police hat burns during a protest outside the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 30, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images) Some people climbed on or near the fence at the federal courthouse, but others admonished them and they got down. People could be heard in the crowd repeating that the protest was to remain peaceful, police added. The crowd ultimately dispersed by 3 a.m. without police interaction. Though they didnt cause as much mayhem as other nights, the group did block traffic and break COVID-19 restrictions imposed by Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat. Current rules dictate that outdoor gatherings must include no more than 100 people. Brown reached an agreement on Wednesday with the Trump administration. Under the deal, federal officers will leave when state and city law enforcement prove they can protect the courthouse and other federal properties. Brown said officers would start leaving on Thursday, a claim disputed by a number of officials, including acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf. Trump, a Republican, told reporters at the White House hours earlier that federal officers are remaining in place at least until Saturday. Our people are staying there to see whether or not they can do it today and tomorrow. And if they dont do it, we will send in the National Guard and well take care of it, he said. Portland police officers, in a rare show of action, earlier Thursday cleared two parks near the courthouse that had been used as a staging ground during the riots. The action was part of the effort to get the federal government to leave, Mayor and Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler said. Protesters walk through Lownsdale Square after some tore down police tape and signs aimed at keeping people out, near the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 30, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images) However, video footage showed people taking down caution tape placed around the parks and re-entering them before night fell. Two court battles related to the unrest, meanwhile, continued playing out. Multnomah County Circuit Court Presiding Judge Stephen Bushong temporarily forbade the bureau from live streaming videos captured by protesters on the ground. Todays decision is an important step towards ensuring all people can exercise their rights to protest and assembly without fear of government surveillance, Jann Carson, interim executive director of the American Civil Liberties Unions Oregon chapter, said in a statement. The chapter filed a lawsuit this week challenging the bureaus practice of filming and broadcasting protesters. Lawyers for the Department of Justice in a separate case said in a filing that people posing as journalists during the rioting should lead to U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon changing his ruling, which temporarily barred federal authorities from arresting or using physical force against journalists and legal observers. People are abusing the restraining order, or TRO, to masquerade as members of the press and evade lawful orders, or actively participating in protest activities and even illegal acts while holding themselves out to be members of the press under the protection of the TRO, the departments attorneys argued. The TRO has become an instrument of wrong, and must be dissolved, they added later. Churches in California once again filed a lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday regarding lockdown orders against holding indoor church services. Although some believers understand the procedure of staying 6 feet apart and that indoor services are unsafe, Newsom, on the other hand, banned church members from holding Bible studies and other small group meetings in their own homes. "Newsom encourages tens of thousands of people to gather for mass protests, he bans all in-person worship and home Bible studies and fellowship. Such repression is well-known in despotic governments, and it is shocking that even home fellowship is banned in America." Out of frustration, California pastors stated, 'churches aren't the problem' that virus is not easing down. Numerous amounts of pastors explained we must pray and rethink about this matter that small Bible study gatherings are not allowed while all other small events, markets, and stores are open. "This outrage will not stand!" "I want us to pray right now that we will win that court case. No one is above the Constitution. No one is above the law," Ahn told his congregation. "As a pastor, I believe we've been essential for 2,000 years." (Redundant. It seems to be saying the same thing that was already said) Not being able to do anything throughout this moment, pastors constantly encourages Christians to pray and have faith in the Lord. In response to outbreaks, the British government on Thursday night announced new restrictions affecting 4 million people in north England. A ban on gatherings of any size at private homes applies to greater Manchester and parts of Lancashire and West Yorkshire. That means people cant visit friends houses or even have a one-on-one chat in a friends backyard. They can still go to pubs and restaurants, but only with members of their own households. Muslims across the world will be celebrating the Eid-ul-Adha tomorrow, July 31, to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim, or Abraham who obeyed Allah's command to sacrifice his only son, Ismael. The celebrations, also known as "Festival of Sacrifice" is the second of the two Islamic festivities which is celebrated annually worldwide. This is the day where Muslim families and friends unite to pray together and also give alms, especially in the form of sacrificed animal meat. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year's celebration cannot be observed with its normal characteristics such as picnics. In this regard, the National Chief Imam has advised the Muslim Ummah in Ghana to observe the celebration from home to contain the spread of the virus. Though the government has eased restrictions on religious gatherings effective August 1, the Eid-ul-Adha celebration falls on 31th July. "This means that the celebrations falls under the first restrictions hence, the need to stay home." The Chief Imam, will announced a virtual Eid-ul-Adha at the forecourt of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) at 0900 hours on July 31, to fill the vacuum and help contain the spread of the virus. He encouraged Muslims to continue to observe the existing COVID-19 safety protocols especially during the festive occasion, adding that slaughtering and distribution of sacrificial animals should be done hygienically. The Coalition of Muslim Organizations in Ghana (COMOG) however, called on Muslims to celebrate this years festival with a pledge to break the temptation of worldly riches and imbue in themselves the spirit of sharing, compassion and virtue. "We should reach out to those who are less fortunate than us and refrain from ostentatious behaviors that can offend others sensitivity," it said. The Ghana Association of Muslim Professionals, (GAMP) also urged Muslims to observe the COVID-19 safety protocols as they celebrate with their families. 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 Portland General Electric Co (NYSE:POR) Q2 2020 Earnings Call , 11:00 a.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Portland General Electric Company's Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Results Conference Call. Today is Friday, July 31, 2020. This call is being recorded, and as such all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period. [Operator Instructions] For opening remarks, I will turn the conference call over to Portland General Electric's Senior Director of Investor Relations, Jardon Jaramillo. Please go ahead, sir. Jardon Jaramillo -- Senior Director, Investor Relations, Treasury and Finance Operations Thank you, Andrew. Good morning, everyone. I'm pleased that you're able to join us today. Before we begin this morning, I'd like to remind you that we have prepared a presentation to supplement our discussion, which we'll be referencing throughout the call. The slides are available on our website at investors.portlandgeneral.com. Referring to Slide 2, some of our remarks this morning will constitute forward-looking statements. We caution you that such statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from our expectations. For a description of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, please refer to our earnings press release and our most recent periodic reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, which are available on our website. Leading our discussion today are Maria Pope, President and CEO; and Jim Lobdell, Senior Vice President of Finance, CFO and Treasurer. Following their prepared remarks, we will open the line for your questions. Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Maria. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Jardon, and good morning. Welcome to Portland General Electric's earnings call. I hope that you're all staying safe and healthy during these unprecedented times. Today, I'll provide an overview of our financial results, updates on our economy and actions we've taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Jim will provide more detail on our financial results, as well as the outlook for the remainder of the year. Before I go through the quarter, I want to first address the social unrest that we are experiencing in our state, across our country, focused on racial inequities and the ongoing protests that have placed Portland front and center. We are reminded daily that we are living in historic time for our community and country. This tumultuous time, corporations have an opportunity to use our influence for positive change. PGE is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. While we are proud of our work to date and making progress toward our DE&I goals, we know that there is much more to do. We're looking at all the ways, we have impact through policy, employee hiring, promotion and retention as well as supporting the communities we serve. And we will do so while working together collaboratively with customers and communities as we continue to provide safe, reliable, affordable and clean energy. Now, let's turn to the financial forecast and our performance on Slide 4. On our last earnings call, we lowered our guidance to reflect the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting drop in economic activity. Our response included reducing operating expenses as part of our ongoing commitment to control costs across the organization. For the overall quarter, revenue was strong under the circumstances and was led by high-tech and digital industrial deliveries, favorable hydro and wind conditions across the region resulted in surplus energy and low power prices. Additionally, we were able to lower operating expenses due to operational efficiencies and lower dispatch rates at our generating plants. As a result, our second quarter 2020, net income was $39 million or $0.43 per share, which represents an increase of $0.15, when compared to 2019. You may recall in the second quarter of 2019, we experienced the opposite condition, record low hydro in the region and unfavorable weather, which negatively impacted our gross margin. With year-to-date earnings per share of $1.34, we are more than halfway to our midpoint of our guidance making a solid first half of the year. The second half of the year presents challenges as the economic fallout from the pandemic will continue to impact retail revenue and wholesale market condition. Retail deliveries for the balance of the year will also be impacted by the decoupling mechanism. Gross margin will face additional headwinds due to more normal power market conditions. Jim will further address both decoupling and power markets later in the call. While the first full year financial picture presents challenges, we continue to aggressively manage costs to drive strong business results and are reaffirming our revised full-year guidance of $2.20 to $2.50, reflecting anticipated economic challenges that our customers and our community face. As we move forward, we continue to pay close attention to economic conditions and the course of the pandemic. Our first quarter forecast projected a gradual recovery into 2021, that forecast remains largely unchanged and our outlook for the balance of '21 -- excuse me 2020 remains cautious. Turning to Slide 5, the economic impact of the pandemic on businesses, communities and residential customers is reflected in the spike [Technical Issues] in the unemployment rate, which rose from historic lows of 3% in March to 14% in April, and is now 11%. In response to the economic hardships faced by our customers, we have paused collection of late fees and service disconnections, and are working with customers to implement flexible payment options. The impact of economic conditions on energy usage has been relatively consistent with our forecast. Second quarter residential loads increased 7% on a weather adjusted basis and the number of customers increased by 1.6%. Industrial deliveries increased 3% on a weather adjusted basis as our digital services and high-tech manufacturing customers continue their long-term trend of steady growth despite the pandemic. These increases were more than offset by the 16% decrease in the commercial sector or declines were concentrated in hospitality, government, education and office buildings. Turning to Slide 6, we are on track to achieve our strategic targets and major capital projects. We've had no significant supply chain or operational disruptions as a result of COVID-19. Wheatridge and the integrated operation center remain on schedule. In May, we announced our partnership with the Douglas County Public Utility District for a five-year power purchase agreement for capacity that provides up to 160 megawatts of emissions free hydroelectric power. As part of this partnership, we will be providing load management and wholesale marketing and services, leveraging our power portfolio management expertise. Regarding future resources, we expect to issue one or more RFPs for the new admitting resources. Over the next several years, Portland General Electric and the region sees growing capacity needs as regional coal resources are retired. We will also continue to assess the region's energy needs, given long-term economic consequences of the pandemic and other factors and market dynamics. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jim. Thank you. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Thank you, Maria, and good morning everyone. Turning to Slide 7, I'd like to walk through our quarter-over-quarter results. As Maria mentioned, earlier, our earnings guidance -- our earnings per diluted share of $0.43 is up $0.15 from the same period in 2019. Starting with $0.28 in the second quarter of 2019 on the slide, first, gross margin increased earnings a total of $0.04 per diluted share. This increase is the result of a $0.01 decrease in retail revenues, which includes the negative impacts of weather for the quarter and the effects of customer class composition on retail deliveries, and a $0.05 increase in net variable power costs, which includes higher wholesale revenues driven by a surplus of hydro and wind in the region. Next, an $0.08 increase from lower operating and maintenance expense, which consists of a $0.06 from reduced maintenance at our Boardman facility and a reduction in operating expenses for other fleet assets. A $0.07 benefit from lower administrative expenses from savings and outside services and lower incentives, and a $0.05 decrease from higher bad debt expense associated with COVID-19. A $0.01 decrease from higher depreciation and amortization expense due to greater plant in service in 2020 a $0.01 increase from other items including higher returns on non-qualified benefit plan assets, and finally, a $0.03 increase from lower tax expense primarily due to PTC generation from strong wind production. On the slide 8, we are continuing to monitor our liquidity as economic conditions evolve. Our balance sheet remains strong following actions taken earlier this year to improve our liquidity and ensure that we can continue to best serve our customers. We expect to fund 2020 capital requirements with cash from operations, issuance of debt securities and the issuance of commercial paper as needed. Earlier this week, our Board approved a dividend increase of $0.09 per share on an annualized basis, which represents a 5.8% increase. This increase follows the decision to hold the dividend flat in the first quarter as we assess the potential impact of the pandemic and is consistent with our long-term dividend guidance. In regulatory matters, last quarter we filed with the Oregon Public Utility Commission to defer expenses associated with the impact of COVID-19 for potential recovery. The Commission is conducting a process to determine the next steps and we have yet to defer any COVID-19 related costs. Last month, Commissioner Letha Tawney was reappointed to the Oregon commission and we are pleased that she continues to represent our customers. Moving to Slide 9, which shows our updated capital forecast for 2020 through 2024, we are continuing to focus our investments on the reliability and resiliency of our system, while minimizing the impact on customer prices. We are on track to execute our planned capital projects for the year and believe the adjustments to our liquidity and capital plan made last quarter were one-time events. Finally, I'll cover our earnings outlook for the remainder of 2020. We expect continued impacts from the pandemic on the economy and the regional power picture. As Maria mentioned, we achieved $1.34 on earnings to date, with $1 remaining to reach the midpoint of our earnings guidance, I would like to cover a few considerations. Despite strong gross margin through the first half of the year and retail revenue above expectations, we expect lower gross margin in the second half of the year. We also anticipate a similar load composition to the second quarter and as such we are raising our full year load guidance assumption to flat on a weather adjusted basis. Our commercial customers continue to face risks associated with economic -- with the economic impact of the pandemic in Oregon, but the strength of residential and industrial energy deliveries has mitigated this. Despite this upward revision in demand, we are maintaining guidance due to the structure of the decoupling mechanism. Residential customer usage on a weather adjusted basis, that is above the established baseline is refunded to customers while the commercial decoupling collections are capped at 2% of revenue for the commercial customer class. We are also experiencing a unique year in the power markets. We're currently $38 million below the PTM baseline year-to-date due to favorable wind and hydro conditions in the region. We estimate that we will continue to remain below the baseline at year-end, but within the established deadband range. This increase in power costs for the balance of the year is a result of the interaction of lower power prices in the region and our forward power position to serve anticipated load. Additionally, as Maria mentioned, we are reaffirming our full-year earnings guidance of $2.20 to $2.50 per share based on the assumptions outlined in our press release and our long-term EPS growth target of 4% to 6% over time. And now, operator, we are ready for questions. Questions and Answers: Operator Thank you. [Operator Instruction] The first question comes from the line of Insoo Kim with Goldman Sachs. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Good morning, Insoo. Insoo Kim -- Goldman, Sachs & Co. -- Analyst Good morning, and thank you, and I hope you guys are doing -- staying safe as well in these crazy times. Just a question on the guidance, and thank you for the details on the decoupling mechanism. I think that was something that we had talked about in the last quarter as well. But given just the year-to-date results and I think some of the benefit you had realized from certain -- better than expected demand trends, was the second half impact of the decoupling [mechanism] [0:16:28] somewhat anticipated and if that was so, all else being equal, are you looking at something more in the upper half of the range or are there some other considerations beyond the decoupling that we should be considering? Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer So, thanks Insoo. So first of all, yes, we did anticipate the decoupling mechanism when we reaffirmed our guidance this quarter, but then also when we lowered guidance last quarter. And so we were looking at not only the economic impact of the pandemic, but our regulatory environment as we move forward. Let me let Jim to walk you through a little bit in more detail on how the decoupling mechanism works. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Yes, thanks Maria. Insoo, as I was mentioning in my statement, when we look at the residential customers, they are actually up more than what we originally anticipated, but at the same time we are seeing more of a downside on the commercial side and expected and we are continuing to see strength in the industrial side. So on the residential that's being completely decoupled away, on the commercial as I had mentioned earlier, once you hit that 2% then effectively you can no longer collect from customers in the future point in time associated with that and then the industrial is helping to offset some of what we are experiencing on the commercial side as far as on recovery. Insoo Kim -- Goldman, Sachs & Co. -- Analyst Right. So just from what you recorded in the second quarter, the residential benefit that you received and -- that you saw in the second quarter from a income statement or earnings purposes weren't really a benefit to earnings or is there actually a timing component where that was reflected in second quarter, but then you actually have to adjust that in the later quarters? James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer No, it was all reflected in the second quarter. Any -- the refund to customers that would occur associated with amount over the weather-adjusted baseline, that was set in our January -- 2019 January case will be refunded back to customers in the 2022 time period, if I've got it correctly? Insoo Kim -- Goldman, Sachs & Co. -- Analyst Understood. And in terms of the capex that you had deferred, whether it's 2020 or 2021 at last quarter, I know you don't really change that for now and you spoke on being more cautious if things start to slowly improve throughout the balance of the year and early into next year. Could you see a bulk of that coming back in the 2021 timeframe? And at this point for 2020, do you not anticipate any reopening of capital for the rest of the year? Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Because you know Insoo, we have a regular capital forecasting process that we followed at the Company and will remain disciplined on our spending given our cautious stance with regards to the economy and the length of time that we could be in a recessionary environment. One of the things we noted on the prior call was our positive growth in the high tech sector. And if there are new customers that come into our area and there are some in current conversations with us around additional capital investment, they may need, let's say for new substations or for other buildouts [Phonetic] particular to their operations and that would be an upside. Insoo Kim -- Goldman, Sachs & Co. -- Analyst Got it. Thank you so much. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Thank you. Insoo. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Julien Smith with Bank of America. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Good morning, Julien. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Good morning, Julien. Dariusz Lozny -- Bank of America -- Analyst Hey, good morning. This is Dariusz Lozny on for Julien actually. Just a quick one here. Can you... James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Hey Darius, we can barely hear you. Dariusz Lozny -- Bank of America -- Analyst I apologize, this is better? James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Yeah, it's much better. Thank you. Dariusz Lozny -- Bank of America -- Analyst Okay, sorry about that. This is Dariusz Lozny on for Julien. Just a quick one on your expectations for your average CWIP balance for the year. I was wondering if you could speak of that at all? James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Yeah, it's unchanged. Dariusz Lozny -- Bank of America -- Analyst Unchanged. Excellent. Okay, thank you. That's it from me. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Thank you. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you. Operator Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Brian Russo with Sidoti & Company. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Good morning, Brian. Brian Russo -- Sidoti -- Analyst Hi. Good morning. Hey, it was nice to see the dividend increase. I was just curious, if you could just elaborate more on what factors the Board considered when raising the dividend now in July verses in April, when it was held flat? Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer So first of all, we recognize that our dividend is important component of our shareholder return and being a steady and financially healthy company. It's really important that as we invest for the long term in infrastructure to maintain a safe, reliable system that having a financially healthy utility is critically important. During the early days of the pandemic, there were a lot of unknowns with regards to our economic environment and we remain taking a cautious stance, but we announced at that point in time that we would continue to reassess our dividend, engaged with the Board on the discussion and what we're doing is proceeding with what otherwise would have been sort of our normal course in terms of maintaining healthy financial environment. Brian Russo -- Sidoti -- Analyst Hello. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Brian. Brian Russo -- Sidoti -- Analyst I'm sorry. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Can you hear? Brian Russo -- Sidoti -- Analyst I can hear you now. Thanks for that. And I guess you've kind of reinforces your confidence in your EPS CAGR just based on your target payout ratio? Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Yes, one of the things that we have moved very aggressively on is cost reduce across our Company. On the O&M, and as you know and we just spoke about, we've also reduced our capital spending. We've brought in additional debt financing into the Company to maintain a stable and healthy balance sheet to ensure that we can weather what comes our way in the future as well as control our own destiny by maintaining a reliable and safe utility system. Brian Russo -- Sidoti -- Analyst Okay, great. And then just on the additional debt financing. When I look at the last disclosures versus the updated disclosures, it looks like you're now not forecasting any debt issuances in the third quarter versus previously you were assuming $135 million of debt insurances. So when you sum it all up, it looks like you're going to issue $125 million less debt in 2020 than previously forecasted? Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer So, Jim will give you all the details. One of the things I want to make sure we recognize is that we have been very successful at pulling back our capital expenditures and more importantly we've been successful in lowering our operating costs during this very challenging time. We've used the crisis in many ways to accelerate our use of technology, to reduce costs and to really focus on what matters to customers and we've probably exceeded some of our expectations and our ability to move quickly and we still have -- while we're still having a tremendous amount of work to do. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer And Brian, I'll add to that. We took out 10-year first mortgage bond earlier this year, and then we did a bank loan that help shore up the finances of the Company, because obviously we didn't know where things are going to go from a COVID economic impact perspective. And so as we're looking at our financing for the balance of the year. Given the fact that FERC has come out with a waiver on the imputation or the implications of short-term debt in the AFUDC crediting rate. We are looking at how we are going to time the repayment of that bank loan and whether the timing associated with additional long-term debt we would take out in the -- in probably Q4 of the year around $190 million, possibly. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Overall, we remain a net borrower for the year. Brian Russo -- Sidoti -- Analyst Understood. And just on the net variable power costs in the PCAM, just remind me real quickly how it works? You were at $30 million below the baseline at the end of the first quarter. [Technical Issues] It looks like you're now [Technical Issues] $38 million, so it was $18 million incremental positive benefit in the second quarter. Is that in the 5% of year-over-year gross margin benefit that you discussed, even though it's below the baseline and it's within the 90/10 sharing, because that calculation isn't made until year end. Is that the simplistic way to think about it? James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Yes, that it. You got to keep in mind that $38 million and getting to within the dead band is for the balance of the year. So it gives you an indication as what we're expecting in the power markets. Brian Russo -- Sidoti -- Analyst Okay. So, at the very least, you're expecting an $8 million reversal or $8 million incremental costs to get back to that baseline in the second half? James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Well, Brian, we're $38 million below the baseline right now. The dead band is $15 million below. So it would be moving from $38 million into the $15 million range. Brian Russo -- Sidoti -- Analyst Okay, got it. All right. Thank you very much. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Thanks, Brian. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Chris Ellinghaus with Williams [Phonetic]. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Good morning, Chris. Christopher R. Ellinghaus -- Williams Capital Group, LP -- Analyst Hey, everybody. How are you? Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Fine, Chris. Christopher R. Ellinghaus -- Williams Capital Group, LP -- Analyst Maria, you talked about being cautious. Can you give us a little more color on what you're cautious about? Is it just the economic recovery, is it how the pandemic will behave for the rest of the year and how that affects the economy? What are your thoughts there? Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Chris, I think it's all of the above. As an essential service provider during these extraordinary times, delivering consistent reliable power services to our customers is our highest priority, ensuring the continuity of our generation fleet, the interaction and our capabilities in power markets, the transmitting of that power and distributing it to our customers day in and day out is our highest priority. And I can tell you with the stress that families and customers and the communities that we serve are going through and I'm ensuring that we've minimized outages create payment plans that work for them, access LIHEAP and Oregon HEAT funds to support those that are struggling is -- takes enormous amount of focus. And also as I mentioned, we're using this period of time to really focus on our cost structure, accelerating our use of technology, simplifying our processes on our procedures to ensure that everything that we do is meaningful to our customers and the communities that we serve. We have a long ways to go with regards to this economic recovery, and there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty and we will remain focused on investing in our system prudently and to ensure reliability. All of us have aging assets. We also have the opportunities to reduce costs through technology. Christopher R. Ellinghaus -- Williams Capital Group, LP -- Analyst Okay. Thanks. Maria, can we assume that the Company will plan to revert to the April date for the dividend? Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer That's a really good question, Chris. And we're going to assess that as we go forward. One of the things that we have noted in this process is that we are one of the early companies in announcing our dividend and we're going to think about what's the most prudent and practical thing to do as we move forward. We do recognize that a dividend and a solid dividend policy is important to investors and helps create financial stability for the Company as we continue to move forward into the future. Christopher R. Ellinghaus -- Williams Capital Group, LP -- Analyst Okay. Jim, have you got sort of a net impact number for COVID-19 for the quarter? James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer No, we don't, Chris. Christopher R. Ellinghaus -- Williams Capital Group, LP -- Analyst Okay. Did I hear you right when you said bad debt was a nickel? Jardon Jaramillo -- Senior Director, Investor Relations, Treasury and Finance Operations Bad debt is estimated to be about $15 million when we get to year-end. Christopher R. Ellinghaus -- Williams Capital Group, LP -- Analyst Okay. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Hey, Chris, you know one of the things, I couldn't be more proud of how we have shown up during the pandemic. With people working from home six feet apart, we have maintained reliability and safety of our system and our employees have really showing up in a remarkable way. We've also worked collaboratively with the communities we serve to enhance our ability to work in the right away, and lower our cost in some instances in serving customers. We will continue to do that, but it's -- we're really working hard to minimize our cost increases due to the pandemic, and use this period of time as I've talked about to accelerate our opportunity for success as we go forward through lowering costs because we know that affordability is that much more important to customers today than it ever has been. Christopher R. Ellinghaus -- Williams Capital Group, LP -- Analyst Right. In that O&M number, is it fair to say that some of the reduction was passive in the sense that some things went down because of COVID. And so is some of that be active component in some things like medical expenses and some work that might have been deferred because of customer behaviors was a more passive element. Can you talk about that? James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Well, there is all different types of components embedded in the change in O&M. I mean there are some one-time items that are structural in nature that occurred. I mean, we did mention that incentives have gone down for the company, given the change and the EPS target for us. There are items that -- we don't have too many employees who are jumping on airplanes. Actually, I can't imagine anybody jumping on airplane for us. We are maintaining our headcount and trying to reduce it. As Maria had mentioned, we are using more and more technology to be able to find operational efficiencies and processes that we have in the Company. And we've got 2,000 employees who are now working from home. So we're doing that very effectively and we're evaluating what the next normal looks like on a going forward basis for our Company. Christopher R. Ellinghaus -- Williams Capital Group, LP -- Analyst Okay. One last thing. In the other bucket, the equity returns for the quarter were quite extraordinary. Were there any offsets to the equity return benefit in that other bucket? Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer So what you're referring to is our pension returns and other investment returns? Christopher R. Ellinghaus -- Williams Capital Group, LP -- Analyst Yes. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Yes. Not that I wouldn't really classify it as that, I mean incremental interest expense that we incurred associated with the additional liquidity that we brought into our balance sheet, but that's about it. Christopher R. Ellinghaus -- Williams Capital Group, LP -- Analyst Okay, great. Thanks for the color. Appreciate it. Stay safe, guys. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you. You too. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Thank you, Chris. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Peters with Wolfe Research. David Peters -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst Hey. Good morning. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Good morning, David. David Peters -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst You guys reiterated the 1% load growth expectation over the long-term. I'm just wondering, do you have an expectation of how that might shape, looking into next year versus flat this year? Meaning, do you expect things to kind of rebound at that level or should we interpret that is more long dated? Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer I think you should interpret it as long dated. And we feel very fortunate to operate in a region where people want to move and locate their businesses here. We're forecasting a pretty modest to almost flat rise in residential deliveries. We are hoping that commercial will certainly come back and we talked a little bit in our prepared remarks around what we're expecting in terms of our forecast. Long-term 0.5% increase in our commercial deliveries is our expectation. And where we really benefit and we've been talking about for quite a while is the growth in high tech and digital manufacturing in our region. And we're looking at just under 2% sort of ongoing growth in that area. So we are very fortunate to again, operate in an area where people want to live and locate their businesses and that gives us the opportunity to continue to serve them. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Yes. The in-migration is still a positive for the state and we continue to grow faster than other states. David Peters -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst Great. And then the deferral docket that's sitting at the commission, do you have any sense when they might look to act on that. Has there been any sort of procedural schedule put forth? And is there anything that would give you guys comfort in deferring some of those costs as you kind of work through this? James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer David, No schedule has been set at this particular point in time, continuing to work through the process to make sure that we've got all the information on the table. We're working collaboratively with all of the other parties. We are concerned that as we move -- as this process takes longer, we start getting closer and closer to the winter time period, which will have bills that are at higher levels. So we're trying to move everybody along. David Peters -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst Okay. And then lastly, just given everything that's transpired this fall with COVID and wanting to demand for customers, has it shaped at all how you might think about the timing for your next rate case filing? James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer No, it's still -- we're looking at the base economics of the Company. Yes, we are having some reduction in operating costs, that's helping us is our consideration. We're still investing in, as Maria talked about, in reliability of the system and with new MLA or master or minimum load agreements that we've been entering into with customers and so on and so forth. We are making capital additions. We also have the Wheatridge facility coming in, but that will come in through Renewable Adjustment Clause. And then we're making to the point of reliability of our system, especially, we designed this facility for an earthquake, and now we're dealing which who knows when that one is going to happen, but it's key to the recovery of the state and the communities that we serve. But now we're dealing with something else we didn't predict and that's a pandemic. So it just increases the importance of completing that integrated operating center to be able to support our customers and our communities. David Peters -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst Great. Thanks, guys. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Thanks, David. Operator Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Travis Miller with Morningstar. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Good morning, Travis. Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst Good morning. I was wondering real quick back to the O&M. How does that $0.08 of savings in the quarter relate to the $570 million to $590 million guidance range. Does that put you -- is that already incorporated in that range? Does that put you at a high or low end, you had mentioned some one-time items in there? And just wondering kind of where that fits in terms of the full-year outlook? James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Well, all I say Travis is when we get to year end, we anticipate being within that range. So that's where I'll continue the guidance to be based on everything that we've been able to do from one-time to structural to timing, we believe that we will be in that guidance range. Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst Okay. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer The cost reduction work and focus on O&M is a really important component to us staying in that range for the balance of the year. Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst Okay. So that $570 million to $590 million would include what you would call some one-time items -- net any other one-time items or other changes in Qs one, three and four? James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer That's correct, Travis. Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst Okay. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Correct, as well as the ongoing work to keep our costs under control. Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst Sure. Okay. And then real quick just high level, wondering if you're seeing any additional battery or storage in general opportunities? What the pipeline or backlog might look like in that area? Anything going forward or change from the last couple of quarters apart from Wheatridge and the other smaller ones you got? Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah. So in terms of projects that we have going on that we're taking into our capital forecast in the near term, no. However, there is no question that we are seeing an acceleration in the interest of our customers in renewable energy, and a clean energy future. We're seeing an acceleration of interest in electric vehicles and battery storage. And we are really excited about the long-term opportunities, which we think will come at us at a faster pace than they otherwise would have, if not, but for the pandemic. And so the focus across all sectors on technology and using technology better to solve problems for our Company as well as for society in general. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer And we're going to be installing batteries in some of our residential customer homes in order to test out the capability and benefits associated with that, along with putting batteries in one of our substations and then also next to one of our generating stations in order to help with black start and with variations from the renewable energy resources that are on our system. So we're really looking forward to this. This is going to be an exciting time. Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst Okay. With all these, the rate base opportunities? James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Yes, we believe so. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Yes, they're all to serve customers. Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst Okay. And then, sorry, just one quick follow-up on that. Is there any kind of gating period? I know you go through the IRPs and such. Is there any next period where we might see a large battery or storage commitment show up in some of the capex numbers? Or will this be something that's just incremental quarter-to-quarter depending on opportunities out there? If you get my gesture [Phonetic]. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Yes. No, absolutely. And we just received acknowledgments in May on our IRP in our Action Plan. We've entered into a contract with Douglas PUD. We will be filing an update to that IRP. And then also at the tail end of this year and into next year, we will be issuing RFPs. First step in that process will be the selection of an independent evaluator. And overall, our focus on capital additions on the generation or storage side are focused on not admitting resources. Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst Okay. Great. Appreciate it. James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Thanks, Travis. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Travis. Operator Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to President and CEO, Maria Pope, for closing remarks. Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you very much for joining us today. We appreciate that these are extraordinary times and we value your interest in Portland General Electric, and we hope to connect with you virtually in the future. Thank you very much and have a great day. Operator [Operator Closing Remarks] Duration: 43 minutes Call participants: Jardon Jaramillo -- Senior Director, Investor Relations, Treasury and Finance Operations Maria Pope -- President and Chief Executive Officer James Lobdell -- Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Insoo Kim -- Goldman, Sachs & Co. -- Analyst Dariusz Lozny -- Bank of America -- Analyst Brian Russo -- Sidoti -- Analyst Christopher R. Ellinghaus -- Williams Capital Group, LP -- Analyst David Peters -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst More POR analysis All earnings call transcripts Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 17:08:56|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close ISLAMABAD, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Police in Pakistan's east Punjab province foiled a major terror plot by killing at least five terrorists of a proscribed organization, the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of police said in a statement on Friday. According to the CTD officials, the operation was carried out on an intelligence tip-off regarding presence of suspected militants in a building in Arabi Tibba of Rajanpur district of Punjab province. Police came under fire from terrorists to which the CTD personnel responded with effective retaliatory fire and killed all five terrorists, said the CTD officials, adding that the militants were planning to conduct terrorist activities in the province. Police recovered arms, ammunition and maps of sensitive buildings of the province from the militants' compound. The officials also seized a 10-15 kg bomb which has been defused by bomb disposal squad of police. Earlier in June, four militants were gunned down during a CTD operation on the outskirts of Peshawar, the provincial capital of northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Enditem The likelihood of cooperation between the State Agency for Roads of Ukraine (Ukravtodor) and Alitalia in the development of road infrastructure and "smart roads" was discussed by Minister of Infrastructure Vladyslav Krykliy and Italian Ambassador to Ukraine Davide La Cecilia in Kyiv on Friday. "The minister briefed the ambassador on a number of important investment projects that are planned in the industry, in particular, in the construction of highways, bridges, concessions of seaports and railway stations. The parties also discussed possible cooperation between Ukravtodor and Alitalia in the development of road infrastructure and 'smart roads.' In addition, they noted the importance of developing airports and container trains," the ministry said in a message on its website. Krykliy also stressed the interest of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine in the resumption of the work of the Ukrainian-Italian Council for Economic, Industrial and Financial Cooperation with the aim of enhancing relations in the field of transport and infrastructure. He positively noted the long-term and mutually beneficial relations between Ukraine and Italy in the field of aviation and confirmed his readiness to act on the principle of reciprocity, positively considering all requests from air carriers that will be appointed by the Italian side. In addition, the parties discussed further cooperation between the two countries in road traffic. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 10:27:34|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close A worker assembles engines on a producing line of a Weichai company in Weifang, east China's Shandong Province, March 19, 2020. (Xinhua/Guo Xulei) China's manufacturing PMI has remained in the expansion territory five months in a row. BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The purchasing managers' index (PMI) for China's manufacturing sector rose to 51.1 in July from 50.9 in June, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below reflects contraction. It is the fifth month in a row that the figure remained in the expansion territory. Commenting on the sustained expansion, NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe said: "Policies of balancing epidemic control and economic development further yield tangible fruit, as economic vitality continues recovering and enterprises keep registering better operational outcomes." Zhao cited sub-indices of the manufacturing PMI as evidence of economic recovery across the board. The sub-index for production edged up 0.1 points to 54 in July. New orders picked up 0.3 points to 51.7, rising for three consecutive months. While the sub-index measuring new export orders gained 5.8 points to 48.4. "Enterprises stay optimistic about recovery in their industries," Zhao said. How do we stick it to the poor, the unconnected, the voiceless, the weak and powerless among us? Count the ways ending, today, with the stomach-turning abandonment of plans to deliver a desperately needed cultural and community hub project to Jane-Finch. The weasels are the double-dealers at Metrolinx, builders of the Finch West LRT; they are never to be trusted again. If there is one neighbourhood that you dare not backstab, dupe, mislead and totally promise to help, only to turn your back, it is Jane and Finch. Not ever, considering its deficiencies. And certainly not at a time when the world is growing wise to what systemic anti-Black racism looks like in all its ugly forms. And the LRT fiasco on Finch is so clearly among the ugliest. Jane-Finch. The metaphor for crime and punishment. The intersection whose very name is a symbol of urban living gone awry. Black. Ghetto. Canadian-style, of course. Lite. A long, long, long time ago a Toronto Star editor had the idea that I should drive around Jane-Finch with a white female reporter in a big car and see what happens. Maybe the cops would think I am a pimp. Maybe wed see the underbelly of a broken community, who knows. Nothing happened. This is it? my consort asked, unimpressed at the utterly run-of-the-mill presentation of the place. The big, bad Jane and Finch? How many times have I taken American visitors through the intersection only to evoke laughter and You got to be kidding when they are told, This is our ghetto, my friend, the heart of the Black community in Toronto? That is what my great Jane-Finch friends deal with all their lives. An amazing community of hard-working people, sharing an eclectic mix of bungalows, single-family homes, semis, townhouses and apartment buildings with a little bit too much of a tilt toward multiple conglomerations of social housing and enduring the stigma. Cause what else is there in Jane-Finch on the surface? Where is its curb appeal? Where are its community assets? Point to the public infrastructure amenities that says the entire city so cares about you in this corner that the city is willing to invest in your beauty and your capacity and your livability and enjoyment of life so that you feel good about yourself and the space you inhabit and you then transform that sense of pride into productivity and a competitive spirit that propagates and multiplies and spawns more like you. Jane-Finch was a poor neighbourhood before they coined the nice phrase priority neighbourhood to funnel tax money into social and community programs because, yknow, you have to strategize and scheme to spend public money on poor people who dont vote and have no time to sit on ratepayers associations when they spend their days catching hell doing two jobs with no one to take care of their kids at home after school. North York shouldnt have a Jane-Finch, no sir. If its civic representatives were worth their compensation and if they cared about the poor apartment dwellers there, instead of the voting homeowners the community would look oh so different. North York is rich. Has been rich. Mayor Mel Lastman used to boast that he cleared the snow before it hit the sidewalk. Garbage was picked up twice a week; snow cleared out from in front of your driveway. Go along Sheppard and Finch to see North Yorks wealth and strength where the city wanted to showcase it, before amalgamation in 1998. From Don Mills Road to Bathurst, does it get better? Willowdale is Shangri-La. Stable neighbourhoods in the midst of massive redevelopment means tiny bungalows turning into $2-million-plus monster homes. Two subway lines, along Yonge and along Sheppard East. But trail further west toward Keele and Finch and you trade in forgotten or compromised spaces. Take Finch West. It tries. The Xerox towers and condo alley at Yonge give a hint of urbanism. A little west, the privileged neighbourhood managed to seize a beautiful Edithvale Community Centre near Senlac Rd. Privilege knows privilege, and how to keep it. One intersection west, at Bathurst, there is a community hub and a rearguard action to rescue the Branson-Westminster neighbourhood, hard hit when the Mike Harris government closed the Branson Hospital there. At Dufferin, what passes for public infrastructure is the 1000 Finch courthouse building. Then, it is industrial wasteland the infamous oilfields where gasoline tankers come by the hundreds to refuel the gas stations of southern Ontario. By the time you get to Jane, the message is clear. The city is not invested here. At Jane and Finch there is zero sign of any public realm. The four corners? Gas station, mall parking, gas station, apartment highrise. A block west, at Norfinch, next to Hwy. 400, used to be home to York Finch hospital. That hospital closed most of its services when Humber River Hospital opened in 2015. By some providence, a large and flat open green space exists half a block west of Jane on the north side of Finch, directly opposite York Gate mall. On the south side is Hawthorne Place, where COVID-19 raged to dangerous effects last month. It is here, on the open field, that residents of Jane and Finch dared to hope that they might have something to treasure: swimming pool, theatre, studios, mental health and employment and multiple services, business incubator, and the like. With Metrolinxs blessings, community members consulted and planned following the blueprint of privileged communities. Plans were years in the making. For Metrolinx to threaten to take it away is despicable. The transit agency sent the city councillor a letter saying, in effect, Oops. Somebody made a mistake. This land is too valuable to give to the people of Jane Finch. We can sell it to the highest bidder for between $7 million and $9 million. Odious, yes. But it stinks even more. When governments announce they will spend our money to build major infrastructure like transit lines, we understand the nature of the social contract we enter. It costs us all some $1.2 billion in this case. The construction will be noisy and disruptive along the route for years. Businesses will be greatly impacted, as along Eglinton Avenue. However, as compensation for enduring most of the pain, the local neighbourhood gets more of the benefits. Yet before the prospect of the community arts hub, all Jane-Finch stood to gain from the 11-kilometre LRT line was a maintenance yard. In the middle of the community, on its most precious open space, the city and province and Metrolinx is putting 100,000 square feet of repair and maintenance shop and attendant facility for as many as 26 light rail vehicles. Jane-Finch is left on the other side of the tracks. Again. Except some smart citizens, learning from their allies in privileged neighbourhoods downtown and in midtown, proposed this: OK, put in the maintenance yard if you must, but cut off a 32-metre sliver closest to Finch so we can build a community treasure a perfect mask for the industrial-style repair shop that would dominate the open space. Metrolinx said yes. But now that the maintenance yard is being constructed (LRT service is scheduled for 2023) Metrolinx has effected the double-cross. They plan to relocate the community treasure. Hell, no. Its sickening. Metrolinx would not contemplate such a ruse on the Kingsway, Leaside, Rosedale, Willowdale (insert 100 other neighbourhoods here). Jane-Finch residents should be leery of promises of support from the premier, mayor and other politicians that do not expressly say stick to the original deal. If you think Jane-Finch is not worth $7 million to $9 million, consider the costs of police, courts, detention centres, jails, hospitals and grief counsellors to manage the carnage of urban blight. Correction Aug. 4, 2020: This article has been edited to correct the date of the closing of York Finch Hospital. PHILADELPHIA, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- National plaintiffs' class action and complex litigation law firm Berger Montague filed a preliminary injunction motion today with Community Legal Services and Villanova Federal Tax Clinic against the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") and United States Treasury Department over their failure to rapidly and effectively distribute economic impact payments during the COVID-19 pandemic to the eligible children of parents and caretakers who do not file federal income tax returns. The lawsuit is Willard McGruder, et al. v. Steven Mnuchin, et al., pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The suit alleges that the IRS and Treasury Department have refused to issue economic impact payments ("EIPs") in a timely manner to federal benefits recipients with eligible dependent children, as Congress directed in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security ("CARES") Act. In response to the unprecedented economic disruption wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress authorized EIPs of up to $1,200 per adult and $500 per dependent child under age 17 to millions of American households via the CARES Act. The CARES Act uses the federal tax infrastructure to distribute the EIPs as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, this is not an effective method for distributing EIPs to "non-filers": individuals who are not required to file tax returns, mostly due to having severe disabilities. In April 2020, after considerable Congressional and public pressure, the IRS and Treasury Department announced that they would automatically send EIPs to non-filer adults who are "known" to the federal government because they are receiving Social Security retirement, Social Security disability, Railroad Retirement Board ("RRB"), Veteran Affairs ("VA") or Supplemental Security Income ("SSI") benefits. However, the IRS and Treasury Department later stated that they would not make automatic payments to eligible dependents of federal benefits recipients. Instead, the IRS and Treasury Department announced that non-filers who receive Social Security retirement, disability, and RRB benefits had less than 48 hours to add their dependents to their EIPs via a non-filer online portal. VA and SSI benefits recipients were provided ten days to use the non-filer portal. In sharp contrast to these tight deadlines, non-filers who do not receive federal benefits have until October 15, 2020, to access the same portal. Unsurprisingly, many non-filer federal beneficiaries with dependents were unable to meet the very short deadlines set by the IRS and Treasury Department: many did not learn of the IRS announcements, some encountered technical issues with the portal, and others have disabilities that prevented them from using the portal without reasonable accommodations, which were not provided during the applicable window to add dependents. Despite these difficulties and the Congressional mandate to provide payment rapidly, the IRS and Treasury Department have decided that non-filer federal benefits recipients who missed the deadlines to receive dependent EIPs must wait to receive their payments until the spring of 2021, after they file 2020 federal income tax returns (and, in order to receive dependent EIPs, they must file 2020 federal tax returns even if they would not otherwise be required to do so). Federal benefits recipients who did not receive $500 payments for their eligible dependent children because they were unable to meet their deadline to use the non-filer portal are encouraged to reach out. Please share your story with us online at: https://clsphila.org/coronavirus/share-your-portal-story/ or contact Berger Montague's case team at: https://bergermontague.com/coronavirus-eips. Berger Montague has assembled a task force of dedicated attorneys and staff who will respond promptly. Berger Montague is a national plaintiffs' class action and complex litigation law firm headquartered in Philadelphia with offices in Minneapolis, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. Berger Montague litigates complex civil cases and class actions in federal and state courts throughout the United States. In its 50 years of operation, the Firm has pioneered the use of class actions in America and recovered well over $36 billion for its clients and the class members it has represented. Founded in 1966 by the Philadelphia Bar Association, Community Legal Services ("CLS") has provided free civil legal assistance to more than one million low-income Philadelphians. Approximately 10,000 clients were represented by CLS in the past year. CLS assists clients when they face the threat of losing their homes, incomes, healthcare, and even their families. CLS attorneys and other staff provide a full range of legal services, from individual representation to administrative advocacy to class action litigation, as well as community education and social work. CLS is nationally recognized as a model legal services program. The Federal Tax Clinic at Villanova University's Charles Widger School of Law melds Villanova Law's dedication to public service with hands-on learning. For over 20 years, the Federal Tax Clinic has sought to protect taxpayer rights and ensure the fairness and integrity of the tax system by providing representation, education, and systemic advocacy for low-income individuals on federal tax matters. Contact Ellen T. Noteware Berger Montague Shareholder (215) 875-3051 [email protected] SOURCE Berger Montague Related Links https://bergermontague.com/ Chandigarh, July 31 : Even as the toll in the hooch tragedy rose to 38, Punjab Police on Friday arrested seven more bootleggers from Amritsar, Batala and Tarn Taran districts in over 40 raids conducted by five teams led by senior officers. With these arrests, the total number of persons apprehended so far in the spurious liquor death case has gone up to eight, including Balwinder Kaur, who was arrested on Thursday night from Muchhal village. Director General of Police (DGP) Dinkar Gupta said a huge quantity of spurious liquor, drums, storage cans etc. has been recovered from the accused and they have been sent for chemical analysis to check for constituents of spurious liquor. More arrests are likely, he said, adding that raids were continuing and the police teams would continue to crack down on all those involved in the case to unravel the extend of the spurious liquor mafia operating in the region. While Balwinder Kaur and Mithu were arrested from Amritsar Rural district, two persons identified as Darshan Rani and Rajan were nabbed from Batala district. Four others, namely Kashmir Singh, Angrez Singh, Amarjit and Baljit, have been arrested from Tarn Taran. An FIR was registered against the four accused arrested from Tarn Taran district, said the DGP, adding that the bootleggers had admitted to supplying spurious liquor in Norangabad village. Mithu, who was arrested from Jasso Nangal village, has also admitted to his role in the supply of spurious liquor, said the DGP. As of Friday evening, 10 persons had died of spurious liquor consumption in Amritsar Rural, nine in Batala and 19 in Tarn Taran. The death toll could rise further as the spurious liquor network was evidently spread across many areas, said the DGP, adding that questioning of the arrested accused was expected to lead to further arrests in the case. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has already ordered a magisterial inquiry by Divisional Commissioner Jalandhar into the hooch tragedy. The inquiry will look into the facts and circumstances leading to incidents, as well as into any other issue(s) connected or relevant to the incident(s) and the circumstances leading to it. It will be conducted by Divisional Commissioner of Jalandhar along with the Joint Excise and Taxation Commissioner and SPs Investigation of the concerned districts, according to an official spokesperson. The Chief Minister has given Commissioner Jalandhar Division the liberty to co-opt any civil or police officer or any expert to facilitate the expeditious conduct of the enquiry. He has promised strict action against anyone found complicit in the case. Tehrans fire department says a huge blaze broke out this morning in a large commercial area housing depots for various manufactured goods. The local ISNA new website quoted a fire department official who said the blaze started before 11:00 am and fire trucks rushed to the scene at Fadaiyan-e-Islam Street within minutes. They discovered a warehouse and docks covering 3,000 sq. meters (33,000 sq. feet) engulfed in flames. The main blaze covered an area of 700 sq. meters. As of early afternoon, firefighters were still battling the blaze. There are so far no reports of human casualties. Iran has experienced many fires and explosions in the last two months, raising suspicions of deliberate destruction. Forest fires and fires at industrial sites have been frequent. However, incidents at or near military sites have raised more serious questions. An explosion and fire at the highly-guarded uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, central Iran, on July 2 was attributed to some sort of attack or sabotage even by government officials who are usually keen to attribute such incidents to accidents. Theories about the cause of the Natanz incident range from a possible cyberattack by Israel to internal sabotage and even a cruise missile strike. Did you know that the sale of the humble turmeric or haldi has surged by over 40 per cent on e-commerce platforms in the last few months? Curcumin, the most important ingredient in turmeric is known for its immunity boosting properties and this explains why consumers are generously spending on haldi at a time when immunity is the biggest concern. Consuming haldi-doodh (turmeric milk), a popular home remedy for cold or a kadha made out of haldi, honey and tulsi has become a morning ritual in many Indian homes in the last few months. Food brands are also latching on to this trend. Amul has launched turmeric milk, while Dabur has launched Dabur Haldi Drops, and Tata Consumer Products is aggressively promoting the health benefits of its Tata Sampann Haldi. "We have seen a spike in sales," says Richa Arora, President Packaged Foods (India), Tata Consumers Products. It's not just turmeric, there is a surge in sales in honey, fruit juices and chyavanprash too. A recent Nielsen report says that chyavanprash sales have increased by 283 per cent (traditional and modern trade) in June, while the sales of honey in modern trade surged by 39 per cent. A product like honey which used to be 9 per cent of a consumer's shopping bill, is now upwards of 15 per cent, according to Snapbizz. Similarly, fruit juices which comprised about 22 per cent of a consumer's shopping bill has increased to about 30 per cent. These juices are not necessarily popular choices such as orange or mixed fruit, even amla juice has enough takers. A shot of amla juice every morning is also considered a great way to build immunity. "There is an awakening towards healthy and immunity building food products. The number of merchants stocking honey, for instance, has dramatically gone up," says Prem Kumar, Founder, Snapbizz. Immunity building or health products, which was under 10 per cent of most food companies' portfolio is now an integral part of their offerings, says Former Dabur COO (currently Managing Partner, Fireside Ventures), Kannan Sitaram. The health foods category (which would include energy drinks such as Horlicks, chyavanprash, juices etc) would be in the region of Rs 5,000-6,000 crore. Sitaram expects this category to grow by 40-50 per cent in the medium to long-term. Sitaram is surprised that a product like chyavanprash, which only sold during the winter months has done so well during the peak of summer. "The ingredients of chyavanprash are believed to heat the body and most companies found it difficult to sell the product during the summer month. It has sold like hot cakes during the summer months, which shows consumers' increasing concern for immunity. Earlier, immunity building products catered to either kids or senior citizens, now people across age groups are looking for immunity." Mohit Malhotra, CEO, Dabur, says that his company has increased production of products such as chyavanprash and honey. "We are ensuring uninterrupted supplies of these products to consumers across the country. On the other hand, we have strengthened our health and hygiene portfolio with the introduction of a range of new products to meet the growing consumer need for immunity and personal and household hygiene." Innovations Galore Consumer products companies are trying to capitalise on this trend on a war-footing. Hindustan Unilever, after completing the merger of GSK Consumer, has launched an immunity-building variant of Horlicks, which promises to have Vitamins C & D as well as Zinc. ITC has partnered with Amway to launch a range of immunity building juices. Amul has launched haldi, tulsi and ginger milk, all of which are popular immunity boosting home remedies. Similarly, Emami in the last three months has rolled out as many as 15 immunity boosting supplements under its brand, Zandu. The products include Zandu Giloy, Zandu Ayush Kwath Powder and Zandu Amlaki among others. "Our immunity building products have seen a 3X growth. Consumers have finally started taking immunity products seriously. Moreover, with a vaccine for Coronavirus a still a while away, immunity building food products are becoming a way of life," points out Harsha Vardhan Agarwal, Director, Emami. Dabur's all new immunity portfolio includes products such as tulsi drops, haldi drops, amla juice and giloy-neem tulsi juice. Though launched during the lockdown months, Malhotra says that these products were already in the pipeline. However, COVID ensured that they were fast-tracked. Healthy Staples The immunity-building product innovations are limited not just to chyavanprash, honey or juices. Emami Agrotech has launched Emami Healthy & Tasty Smart Balance Immunity Booster Oil, which claims to have five immunity boosting vitamins such as vitamin A-B-C-D as well as Omega 3. Aditya Agarwal, Owner, Emami Group of Companies, claims this is the first time an immunity boosting edible oil has been launched in the market. "While our competitors have oils for the heart, none of them talk about immunity. COVID symptoms are related to immunity and if the nutritional level in your body is high, your immunity will also be high," he explains. Arora of TCPL says that Tata Sampann right from inception has been positioned as everyday nourishing food for the modern Indian plate. "When we launched our range of spices in 2017, we changed the category narrative. Till then masalas were just about taste, we started educating consumers about the therapeutic properties and health benefits of various masalas." She says that the COVID crisis has further strengthened the brand's health focus. "Consumers too are rediscovering not just overall cooking, but also traditional Indian food, which is unprocessed, full of nutrients. People are realising that it is a natural way to build immunity and good health," she further adds. Bread lovers can also choose from a variety of healthy breads apart from multigrain bread. Ludhiana-headquartered, Bonn Group, has launched the NU Health range of breads, which include variants such as Herb & Seeds, Active Heart, Active Nutrition & Digestive Balance; all of which provide a mix of vitamins, protein, iron and a host of other nutrients. "In order to boost the immune system to fight the Coronavirus pandemic, we have added essential ingredients like turmeric, black pepper, oregano, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. Turmeric helps in regulating the immune system and quick healing. Oregano contains compounds like carvacrol and thymol that help boost the immune system, Black pepper has anti-oxidant properties, pumpkin seeds are a rich source of omega-6 fatty acids and sunflower seeds contain selenium which controls cell damage," says Amrinder Singh, Director, Bonn Group of Industries. Start-Ups A scion of the Baidyanth family, Ameve Sharma, Co-Founder, Kapiva Ayurveda, says that his two-year old Ayurvedic food brand has witnessed an over 100 per cent growth ever since the outbreak of the pandemic. Sharma says that Indians are finally looking at Ayurveda in the right perspective. "India has never had a preventive mindset when it comes to healthcare, it has always been curative. Lot of people turn to Ayurveda, after allopathy, but Ayurveda was never meant to be curative. Majority of Ayurveda is how you live your daily life, how do you stay healthy and not fall sick as opposed to falling sick," he explains. Though Kapiva's Ayurvedic juices, honey and ghee are gaining popularity, Sharma shortly plans to launch Ayurvedic breakfast mixes that would contain whole grains, oats, barley, tulsi, turmeric and amla. "The idea is to incorporate Ayurveda into one's daily lifestyle. We are trying to make it convenient for people to consume Ayurveda and build their immunity," says Sharma. On the other hand, Evocus H2O, a brand of black alkaline bottled water is yet another immunity boosting product in the multi-functional water category that has been generating interest among high end consumers. Enriched with over 70 minerals, Evocus claims to reduce acidity and keeps one hydrated longer. "It also flushes toxins which come through food and vegetables and regulates the PH of water," says Akash Vaghela, Founder, AV Organics. The COVID scare has definitely heightened demand for these immunity building food and beverage products. But will this demand sustain? "People at the beginning of the crisis bought immunity building products to fire-fight, but as they move ahead they will find a logical reason to invest in immunity products," says Agarwal, Director, Emami Group. Kapiva's Sharma believes that post COVID the numbers may not be as high, but people are building habits of consuming healthy. "They are open to the habit of consuming an Ayurvedic juice in the morning. Some people may drop off, but for many of them it will become a habit." For a better experience on our website and avoid any trouble, we strongly recommand to activate Javascript ( click here ). Hello and welcome to Journal des Palaces You are a communication or the PR manager? Click here You are an applicant? Check out our questions and answers here ! Many readers saw nothing funny in Tuesdays Six Chix comic strip. For those who missed it, the comic depicted a Black person wearing a mask and a t-shirt with the saying I cant breathe written on it. A blue-eyed white woman beside her says, If you cant breathe, then take that silly mask off! The public editor inbox started to fill with complaints that the single-frame comic was offensive on two critical issues of the day the pandemic, and diversity and the fight against racism. There were questions how it ever saw the light of day in the Star and demands for an apology. Most complaints charged that the comic demeaned Black people and the Black Lives Matter movement, which has taken on fresh urgency since the May death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd. Floyd, a Black man, was handcuffed and dying as a white police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes even as he repeatedly gasped, I cant breathe. The officer was fired and has been charged with murder. Readers also criticized what they saw as the comics flip response to public health advice to wear a mask to curb the spread of COVID-19. Todays Six Chix cartoon was absolutely the most tasteless, ill-informed and racist illustration that I have ever seen in the Star, wrote David Coates, of Toronto. I read the comics and felt the cartoon by Six Chix was completely inappropriate and was certainly negative towards both Covid safety and Black Lives Matter, wrote Kathy Fearn, of Markham. It was appalling to see both issues being ridiculed so obviously. And a reader from Caledon wrote, It is an attack, not humour or satire, on both public health and the rational movement to end racial discrimination. There were many more, but you get the idea. Ill admit my first reaction to the comic was one of puzzlement and dismay too. But what if we all missed the point? What if the ignorance and insensitivity of the woman not wearing the mask and her glib response was the artists intended message? Six Chix is the work of six women cartoonists who each draw once a week and take turns for Sunday. Tuesdays cartoon was the work of Bianca Xunise, an African-American cartoonist and one of only three Black women who are nationally syndicated in the U.S., according to King Features, distributor of the strip. I reached out to Xunise via her agent hoping to chat. I was told she wasnt available but Tea Fougner, the editorial director of comics for King Features, told me that Xunise meant the comic to be a joke commenting on how Black issues are often disregarded as a personal problem and not a systemic issue. Xunise herself took to Twitter to explain the comic because, everyone has been getting it wrong. She continued, Its easy to assume that the white woman talking to me is a racist, that may or may not be true but that is not the point. The point is how white people see issues that (affect) black peoples as trivial, suggesting that she drew herself in the cartoon. The whole mask debate has been compared to oppression which I find incredibly offensive. The fact that white peoples want to claim oppression now for having to do their civic duty of protecting others is not the black struggle whatsoever, she said on social media. Yt ppl have assumed for generations that racism is simply about our sensitivity & not a systemic issue. Furthermore I want this comic to challenge liberal whites who assume that every white person they feel superior over is racist, Xunise wrote, using a phrase sometimes used to refer to white people. I passed Fougners statement to the readers who had raised concerns. For some, the explanation helped. I too have now had a chance to rethink my opinion on it, and I agree it was a reflection of whats happening these days; sad, replied one reader. But for others like Coates, the comic still fell flat. Run this past a dozen Canadians and I think 10 would find it as meanspirited and racist as I did. Pray tell where is the punchline? he said in a follow-up email. It was certainly a moment when everyday life found its way into the funnies. Instead of prompting a chuckle, it prompted some reflection on assumptions, viewpoints, and the conversations we need to have. Interesting too, because it wasnt an editorial cartoon, where the very purpose is to use pointed caricatures to persuade and provoke. Readers know those cartoons are likely to be edgy. Rather, Six Chix is found in the comics section. Packaged with the puzzles, this corner of the newspaper is meant to provide readers with an entertaining diversion to the days routines. On this day, one cartoon packed a punch we werent expecting. OTTAWAPrime Minister Justin Trudeau says his call for further due diligence on a proposal to outsource a $544-million program to WE Charity was to defend against inevitable questions about his familys ties to the Toronto-based organization. Even though he spotted red flags in the proposal from the public service to award the program to a charity that has given his wife, mother and brother tens of thousands of dollars for fees and expenses, Trudeau said Friday that he did not discuss it with the House of Commons conflict of interest and ethics commissioner. Instead, he said he asked the public service to triple check their claim that only WE Charity and not the government or any other private organization could deliver the grant program for student volunteers to make sure it was the hard and cold truth. That way, Trudeau said he could explain the decision when questions came up around perceptions of his familys ties to the organization. The extra due diligence I asked for was really about being able to stand in front of Canadians and to stand in front of critiques from the opposition that were undoubtedly to come, the prime minister told reporters in Ottawa. The concerns around the personal connections that my family had were all around perception, he added. We needed to make sure that the public service and others could stand up and say, No the decision to go with WE was because they are the right organization to deliver this, and indeed the only organization to deliver this. Trudeau was elaborating after his extraordinary appearance before a parliamentary committee on Thursday, in which he weathered questions from opposition MPs amidst a controversy that has enveloped the Liberal minority government in the weeks since the prime minister announced a $912-million grant program for student volunteers on June 25. The prime minister testified that he was presented with a recommendation from the public service on May 8 to outsource the initiative to WE Charity, a youth service organization founded by Torontos Marc and Craig Kielburger. Trudeau said he had expected the governments Canada Service Corps to head the program, and that he was also concerned how the public would see ties that he and other members of his government have with WE if they awarded the charity a massive program. Thats why Trudeau said he pulled the proposal from his cabinet agenda that day and asked public servants to go-over the proposal again to ensure there was no other option. By May 22, Trudeau said this was done and his cabinet approved the plan, which ended up involving a deal to pay WE up to $43.5 million to administer up to $500 million in volunteer grants. The prime minister and Finance Minister Bill Morneau who said he would repay WE more than $41,000 for trips that he and his family took with the organization in 2017 have since apologized for participating in that decision. The program has now been cancelled, and Trudeau and Morneau are each facing an ethics probe over whether they broke parliaments Conflict of Interest Act, a law Trudeau has already violated twice as prime minister. Regarding his ties with WE, the prime minister said this week that his wifes role with the organization as an unpaid podcast host and event speaker whose travel expenses are covered by WE was cleared by the ethics commissioner. But asked Friday whether he or his staff had gone back to discuss the proposal to outsource a massive government program to WE with the commissioner, Trudeau said no, we did not and that his wifes link with the group was pre-cleared. The commissioners office says it cant comment on any discussions with office holders about the Conflict of Interest Act. In a statement Friday, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer questioned whether there was any additional scrutiny, pointing to reports of problems with WE that should have disqualified them from receiving government funding. Former WE staffers have told the Star the organization exaggerates its reach with youth, while the Kielburger brothers told the committee this week the entity laid off about 200 staff in March because of financial troubles during the pandemic. Scheer also pointed to testimony from Katie Telford, Trudeaus chief of staff, that an official in the Prime Ministers Office spoke with WE on May 5 the same day the outsourcing plan was endorsed by the governments COVID-19 committee and that WE started working on the program. Cabinet didnt approve it until 17 days later. Its clear that this program was never about helping students. It was about bailing out the prime ministers friends, Scheers statement said. Asked Friday why WE started working on the program more than two weeks before it was approved, Trudeau pointed to the Kielburgers explanation that they were willing to risk losing money spent getting it started if it was ultimately rejected by the government. They knew how important it was to get this program out, and they assumed certain risks in going forward and starting to spend on a program that hadnt yet been approved, he said. In the absence of the police making the first move, they were forced to just march with the rest of us, he said. The best way for the police to handle it would have been to just let us finish. I could see where my car was parked from the bridge, and we were all just ready to go home. Gray, who was not working that night but oversees the departments Uniform Patrol Bureau, supports the officers decision to arrest marchers because the group wasnt heeding their warnings. Police also had intelligence that violence could occur. If you just cite someone and turn them loose, are they just going to continue their behavior as before? Gray said. Gray said, however, that in the future, the departments goal is to not make mass arrests. If situations are different and were able to just arrest the agitators and not have to arrest the entire group of people, thats what we would prefer to do, he said. Some protests, such as the march to Memorial Park a week after Scurlock, 22, was fatally shot by a downtown bar owner, are coordinated with police to ensure safety. In that case, officers knew in advance the route the march would take and blocked traffic for the demonstrators. RTHK: White House condemns Hong Kong's election delay The White House on Friday condemned the decision by Hong Kong's authorities to delay local elections for a year, saying this "undermines" democracy." "We condemn the Hong Kong government's decision to postpone for one year its legislative council elections and to disqualify opposition candidates," President Donald Trump's press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, told reporters. "This action undermines the democratic processes and freedoms that have underpinned Hong Kong's prosperity." (AFP) This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Srinagar, July 31 : The Indian Army foiled an infiltration bid on the Line of Control (LoC) on Friday in J&K's Kupwara district recovering arms and ammunition from withdrawing infiltrators. Colonel Rajesh Kalia, defence ministry spokesman said, "Today early morning at about 3 a.m. suspicious movement of unidentified persons was detected 600 metres on our side of the LoC at Machhal sector of Kupwara district. "Infiltrating terrorists were intercepted by own troops. A firefight ensued. After first light searches were carried out. "Blood trail was seen. 2 AK rifles, a sniper rifle, 8 grenades and other warlike stores were recovered. Searches are still in progress". Airbnb on Thursday began suspending and removing 35 listings in New Jersey after numerous complaints of house parties in violation of state restrictions on gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic, including one in Ocean County last weekend that drew hundreds. Most of the suspensions that were announced Friday morning were the result of neighbors who had called Airbnbs 24-hour hotline to complain about large, unauthorized parties, the company said in a statement. We stand with Gov. Murphy, and we support his call to action to stop parties and promote behavior that respects the publics health, said Chris Lehane, Airbnb Senior Vice President of Global Policy and Communications. We ban party houses and will not tolerate irresponsible behavior on our platform. The move comes days after police broke up a mansion party at an Airbnb rental in Jackson Township that grew to over 700 people, clogging streets with traffic and prompting neighbors to call police. Three people were charged with violating the governors executive order limiting gatherings, police said. Officials in Jackson Township later said they were moving ahead with a plan to ban short-term rentals. Airbnb said it has suspended or removed listings in the following New Jersey municipalities: North Jersey Hoboken Guttenberg Irvington Jersey City Long Hill Montclair New Milford Newark Nutley Sparta Township Wood-ridge Central Jersey Asbury Park Bridgewater Township East Brunswick Jackson Township Pennington Piscataway Toms River Trenton Watchung Woodbridge South Jersey Atlantic City Brigantine Stafford Township Ventnor City In April, Airbnb had announced that it had temporarily removed the parties and events allowed rule from New Jersey listings that had authorized parties to take place. Stopping large gatherings is more important than ever in this current environment, Airbnb said in Fridays statement. The party house measures come on the heels of several other anti-party initiatives from Airbnb, including a strengthening of our policies to prohibit gatherings that violate public health mandates, the statement said. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Business leaders are clear drivers for meeting UN Sustainable Development Goals LONDON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The environment is in crisis, but with governments distracted by the immediacy of COVID-19 and individual efforts being too small to make a difference, businesses are increasingly taking on the responsibility of building a sustainable future. Agile businesses are meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals by changing their products and operations with economies of scale that are making a real difference to the planet. Businesses involved in the 50 Climate Leaders campaign include: Bank of the West Celsius Energy Schlumberger Constantia Flexibles Export Development Canada IEnova Lekela LIXIL Group Corporation Lumina Foundation PensionDanmark Philip Morris International Ritter Sport Rolls-Royce Schroders Wallenius Wilhelmsen UL The campaign is the latest project devised by Paolo Emilio Zanini, CEO and Founder at TBD Media Group. Zanini says that sustainability is the ultimate challenge for businesses in the 21st century: "Many people feel overwhelmed by the threat of climate change," says Zanini. "But the most innovative companies in the world are stepping up to the challenge. We should be optimistic that these organizations have the will to meet and surpass the UN's Sustainable Development Goals." The 50 Climate Leaders series documents the businesses leading industries towards taking greater responsibility for the future of our planet and showcases the approaches they are taking to tackle the most pressing issue facing the world today. For further background, please visit our 50 Climate Leaders website: https://www.50climateleaders.com You can also watch all of these campaigns on our TBD Media YouTube Channel Page. Every worker's nightmare is the horrible boss everyone knows at least one who is utterly incompetent yet refuses to step aside. Such bosses have the reverse Midas touch everything they handle turns to crud but they'll pull out every stop, violate every norm, to stay in that corner office. And they damage, sometimes destroy, the institutions they're supposed to lead. Donald Trump is, of course, one of those bosses. Unfortunately, he's not just a bad business executive. He is, God help us, the president. And the institution he may destroy is the United States of America. President Trump's promised rapid economic recovery has been dealt a blow after a spate of fresh coronavirus cases. Credit:Bloomberg Has any previous president failed his big test as thoroughly as Trump has these past few months? He rejected the advice of health experts and pushed for a rapid economic reopening, hoping for a boom leading into the election. He ridiculed and belittled measures that would have helped slow the spread of the coronavirus, including wearing face masks and practicing social distancing, turning what should have been common sense into a front in the culture war. The result has been a disaster both epidemiological and economic. Federal agents that were sent to Seattle as protests fighting against police brutality and systemic racism have continued have left the area, officials said Tuesday. Mayor Jenny Durkan confirmed the Department of Homeland Security's Border Patrol Tactical Unit which had been sent to increase security on federal buildings had demobilized. "This demobilization means Washingtonians no longer have to worry about the White House's aim to provoke confrontation and undermine peaceful protests," Gov. Jay Inslee said in a news release. "Those peacefully protesting have raised the public's consciousness of the urgent need for racial justice, and I have no doubt they will continue to use their voices to call for action. We must continue making progress toward a better and more just Washington for everyone." Durkan in a statement condemned the use of federal forces in Seattle and other cities across the country. The presidents actions to target and dominate Democratic cities through the use of federal forces is chilling. It has increased violence in Portland, Seattle and other cities across the country, which was what the president intended. Policing decisions in Seattle should be made by Chief Best not Donald Trump, and we can rest assured that they will be, Durkan said. "We will continue to heed this moment in history and to work with the community to make systemic and generational changes to make Seattle more just." Protests have been continuing in Seattle and across the country over the past two months. In Seattle, thousands of people have been marching in the streets, demanding officials defund the Seattle Police Department by at least 50% and reinvest in the community. The Seattle City Council in recent weeks have been discussing defunding SPD and what that would look like. Last week, Inslee expressed concern over conflicting information about whether or not there were federal forces in Seattle. "After a day of conflicting messages from the federal government, where they told my staff repeatedly that there was no surge of additional personnel to Seattle, it appears they are doing just that," Inslee tweeted Thursday. "Now we are hearing a different story where they have a limited number of agents who are in the area on standby, if needed." Inslee said he was concerned the presence of these agents could "aggravate the situation." The next day, Inslee said President Trump chose to send in federal forces because he wants a confrontation. He, along with Durkan, urged people to protest peacefully. Over the weekend on Saturday, Seattle Police declared a protest happening in Capitol Hill a riot and used tear gas, pepper spray and flashbangs to disperse crowds. In Portland, federal forces have been in the city for weeks, where they have repeatedly clashed with protesters and used tear gas, flashbangs and other means in attempts to disperse crowds. We should all be outraged at the nightly specter we see in Portland of an unaccountable military force that answers only to the president using excessive force on moms, veterans and citizens with a legitimate grievance against their government, King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg said in a news release. They made everything worse there and they have no exit strategy. This is good news for Seattle, but lets not lose focus on Portland. RELATED: Global insurer Chubbs employees have begun to return to their offices in many countries around the world as governments have brought the coronavirus pandemic under control. However, the United State government has not been able to get the virus under control, which is causing greater problems, according to President and CEO Evan Greenberg. We have been ready to begin our return to [the] office in the U.S., but took a pause, given the increase in infection rates in many parts of the world, Greenberg said during Chubbs 2019 second-quarter earnings call on July 29. Among developed countries in the world, the U.S. stands out in its inability to manage the health crisis on a national basis. This is damaging our economic recovery and our image globally. According to Greenberg, the situation is far different for Chubb and its 31,000 global employees at many of its other global locations. He said Chubb continues to operate around the globe as a normal company during extremely abnormal times. Depending on where you are in the world, with exceptions, a substantial portion of our international staff is back in the office at any given day, he said. This includes most of Asia Pacific, where about 50 percent [of employees] are back in the office, and in some countries, 100 percent. According to Greenberg, Chubbs European operations, excluding Spain and Italy, have seen 25 percent of employees resume office work. In the UK, where working from home is continuing, Greenberg said that Chubb expects 20 percent to 25 percent of its staff to return to formal offices in August. There are exceptions in the United States, Greenberg noted, with office life resuming where sections of the country have brought the coronavirus pandemic under better control. Where conditions have stabilized in the U.S., like the Northeast, weve begun to bring employees back to the office for meetings, to collaborate, learn and plan, Greenberg said. We are ready to return on a broader basis when conditions warrant [but] the health and well-being of our staff is of paramount concern. Greenberg sounded the alarm, as he has previously, that the pandemic could be huge. COVID-19 is a slow rolling global catastrophe impacting virtually all countries, unlike other natural catastrophes it has no geographic or time limits and the event continues as we speak. Together the health and consequent economic crisis will likely produce the largest loss in insurance history, particularly considering its worldwide scope and how both sides of the balance sheet are ultimately impacted, the Chubb leader said. Greenberg had plenty to say about other matters, too, particularly the Black Lives Matter protests that have erupted across the United States, and a continued condemnation of efforts to force retroactive business interruption coverage of pandemics. On Diversity and Inclusion. Greenberg, referencing the Black Lives Matter protests and marches against police brutality, said that the events have unfolded in our nation these past few months have focused our attention on what we should do as citizens and as a company. He said that Chubb considers itself as an inclusive meritocracy that strives to make all colleagues feel comfortable and recognize them for their contributions. With that in mind, Chubb developed an action plan it shared with its employees designed to help enhance individual and collective understanding of racism in society and strive within Chubb to be antiracist in its behavior. We want to actively support each other, Greenberg said. It starts with more frank dialogue between our employees of color, particularly our black colleagues, and white colleagues, to create better understanding of racism. Greenberg said the insurer will hold its executives and other leaders accountable for developing and leading an inclusive environment. Also envisioned: the elimination of policies and practices that potentially create bias and inhibit our ability to create a greater racial mix of our workforce at all levels of the company. As Greenberg explained: This is an enduring process, not a momentary event in time. On the Pandemic and Business Interruption. As he has previously, Greenberg railed against attempts by trial attorneys and others to force carriers to retroactively cover pandemic-related business interruption claims. The insurance industry is under attack by the trial bar over business interruption claims, Greenberg said. They represent many businesses which purchased BI coverage that does not provide cover for pandemic. Those customers are understandably disappointed and upset. Greenberg accused trial attorneys of reverse engineering insurance language to conjure up business interruption coverage that for the most part simply doesnt exist. He said that coverage for pandemic was not contemplated for most standard business interruption policies, which were designed for interruptions such as fire or flood damage interruptions. He added that state insurance regulators who approved the policies agree that this risk is not covered and that the industry could not cover the massive open-ended tail risk of a global pandemic, because it threatens the industry solvency. Greenberg said Chubb will pay business interruption coverage for policies that specifically cover pandemic related shutdowns. But without the federal government playing a major role, he said pandemics are uninsurable on a broad basis. He said a federal backstop is one way to provide coverage more widely, he said, citing a proposed public-provide program Chubb unveiled earlier in July as one way to do this. I believe the industry can and should take pandemic risk along with the government. This is a peril that can be covered to a greater degree than we do today as long as the tail exposure is covered by the government, Greenberg said. It is our job to figure out how to do that. Topics COVID-19 USA Chubb Generally speaking, Republicans are seeking tighter regulation of the process, while Democrats are seeking greater leniency. (Conventional wisdom holds that high turnout favors Democrats because it means more nonwhite and low-income voters are participating.) In Minnesota, groups including the NAACP and League of Women of Voters are challenging a requirement that a witness be present when a mail-in ballot is filled out. For those who live alone, that requirement poses a direct threat to their health because of the COVID-19 threat, says the NAACPs complaint. In a lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania, Trumps campaign and the Republican National Committee seek to ensure that all written ballots are delivered in person or by mail to county boards of elections, not collected at places such as shopping centers, retirement homes, college campuses and municipal government. They also want to disqualify any ballots not received in an unmarked envelope inside the mailing envelope (to guarantee voter anonymity) and to allow poll watchers to be present at all locations where absentee or mail-in ballots are being returned. Ukraine participates in the World Health Organization's (WHO) program of global access to coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine, within the framework of which the country will receive the number of doses sufficient for 20% of its population, Ukraine's chief sanitary doctor Viktor Liashko has said. "Thanks to this cooperation, Ukraine will obtain vaccines for 20% of its population (in tranches) at an affordable price or for free, which will allow decreasing a load on the budget for the immunization of other high-risk groups," Liashko said on his Facebook page on Friday. He also said that 139 vaccines are already undergoing pre-clinical studies, 25 have been passed for clinical testing, and six of them are as close to practical as use as possible. At the same time, Liashko said that it is hard to make any forecasts regarding the type of vaccine and the ways of its application. The newly appointed representative of Ukraine in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Leonid Kravchuk, has said he is ready for compromises in talks with Russia on the settlement of the situation in Donbas. He said this in an interview with the RBC-Ukraine online news site. In particular, according to Kravchuk, his mission as head of the Ukrainian delegation to the TCG is to end the war and bring peace to Ukraine. "This is my mission, so that there is peace in Donbas and in Ukraine. I will do everything I can for this. We will make compromises," Kravchuk said. He said compromises were possible on the issue of "how to manage the situation," but the issues of Ukraine's sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence are not subject to compromise. Kravchuk said he considered it necessary to agree on a management in Donbas that will benefit the people who live there. "There is the status of Donbas, and there is the status of management of the territory of Donbas. There is the status of local self-government, and there is the political status of Donbas. I will call for moving from general words to concrete actions so that this is the management that will benefit the people who live there, and people will feel that they are the masters of their land," he said. At the same time, Kravchuk stressed that unity is needed to solve all problems in Ukraine. "If there is no concord in Ukraine, if there is no unity of all political parties in Ukraine, of course, it will be difficult to resolve any issues. Therefore, we must address political, national, strategic, legal, economic issues together. The 'Minsk format,' the Minsk agreements will play an important role, but we should not think that the 'Minsk format' can solve everything on its own," he said. On July 30, President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Kravchuk head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group for the Peaceful Settlement of the Situation in Donetsk and Luhansk Regions. Prior to that, Leonid Kuchma represented Ukraine in the TCG. op Born in Calais, France, Fabrice Fourmanoir, 63, might once have been dismissed as a crackpot, a wannabe who would never be welcomed into the sophisticated enclave of art scholarship. But since January hes gained some standing in this forbidding world, after playing a leading role in a blush-inducing admission by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles that a Gauguin sculpture, purchased in 2002 for a reported $3 million to $5 million, is not actually by Gauguin. Washington Post Big Brother 21 winner Jackson Michie and runner-up Holly Allen continued a relationship after they walked out of the Big Brother house. However, they called it quits nearly a year later, during the COVID-19 pandemic. After a few weeks of staying with her friends, the former pageant beauty recently found another place to live. She seemingly shaded her ex on her move-in day. Jackson Michie and Holly Alexander on Big Brother 21 | Sonja Flemming Holly Allen and Jackson Michie broke up after nearly a year Last summer, 31-year-old Holly Allen and 24-year-old Jackson Michie met while competing on Big Brother Season 21. They developed a showmance and made it to the final two seats, mainly due to Michies physical prowess in competitions. He won over his girlfriend in a 6-3 vote, and they continued dating after filming wrapped. They moved into a Los Angeles-based apartment together in January 2020 and adopted a dog, Sahara, six months later. RELATED: Big Brother: Jackson Michie and Holly Allen Break up After Nearly a Year A few weeks after getting the puppy, the couple took to Instagram to announce their breakup. In a July 2020 interview with The Publyssity Podcast, the former pageant beauty admitted she wanted to process their breakup before making it public, but claims Michie was adamant about announcing it immediately. Allen called her breakup incredibly devastating and noted she has to find another place to live in the middle of a pandemic. Holly Allen on her breakup with Jackson Michie According to the former pageant beauty, she and Michie didnt break up due to a specific reason, making her feel like her life had been uprooted out of nowhere. However, she did admit the two struggled after the show due to hate from viewers who were upset with Michies behavior in the house. They also had a hard time transitioning back into the real world, so they depended on each other for everything. Did Kat fulfill her dream and become an influencer? Is Jackson and Holly's showmance surviving the real world? Here's where the #BB21 HGs are today: https://t.co/ZPAGrQqPDv pic.twitter.com/zWkYBaTxuI Big Brother (@CBSBigBrother) December 10, 2019 RELATED: Big Brother 21: Holly Allen Reveals Why She and Jackson Michie Broke Up Therefore, the couple stopped seeing their friends as much and lost sight of the real world. Additionally, their age difference might have played a part in the breakup as Allen has already done a lot and has different priorities from her 25-year-old boyfriend. The former pageant beauty was in Wyoming, helping her mother after a knee replacement surgery when they announced their breakup. She and her dog, ironically named Jackson, have lived with a few friends until she found a new place to live. Holly Allen seemingly shades Jackson Michie while moving out A little over a month after the couple broke up, Allen uploaded pictures and videos to her Instagram story of her move-in day. She showed a fast-forward video of the nearly barren apartment she shared with her ex, titling it, the old place looks so weird with all of my stuff out! via Holly Allen Instagram story In the next clip, the 32-year-old showed her current apartment, writing, and the new places now exploding with all of it! with a laughing emoji. via Holly Allen Instagram story RELATED: Big Brother: Holly Allen Living on Couches While Ex Jackson Michie Parties With Friends She seemingly shaded her ex because Allen spoke about spending a lot of money furnishing the old place she shared with Michie and wanting it back in a post-breakup podcast with BB21 finalist Nicole Anthony. Big Brother 22: All-Stars premieres Aug. 5 at 9 p.m. EST on CBS. Members of the joint services military honour guard carry the casket of John Lewis into the Ebenezer Baptist Church on July 30, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia: Getty Images Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush have arrived at Ebenezer Baptist Church to pay tribute to civil rights icon John Lewis as Barack Obama plans to deliver a eulogy. After the coffin was carried into the Atlanta church on Thursday morning, the service began with a moment of silence as more than 500 churches across the country rang bells 80 times to honour the late congressman, who died at the age of 80. While past presidents were expected to feature in the funeral, Donald Trump has indicated that he wouldn't be attending. Reverend Raphael Warnock invoked the current president as he welcomed mourners to the spiritual home of Mr Lewis, saying they were summoned to honour the civil rights hero as "some in high office" are much better at division than vision. "In a moment when there is so much political cynicism and narcissism that masquerades as patriotism, here lies a true American patriot who risked his life and limb for the hope and the promise of democracy," Mr Warnock said. Mr Warnock added that while they had come to say farewell to a friend, these difficult days made grieving more challenging. "At a time we would find comfort embracing one another, love compels us to socially distance from one another," he said. Mr Bush had mourners in hysterics as he recounted Lewis' first non-violent protest of refusing to eat his own "flock" of chickens, who he baptised, married and preached to. "Every morning he would rise before the sun to attend the flock of chickens. He love those chickens," Mr Bush said. "He's been called an American saint, a believer willing to give up everything. Even life itself to bear witness to the truth that drove him all his life. That we could build a world of peace and justice and harmony and love." Mr Clinton said that for a fellow that got his start speaking to chickens, Mr Lewis had a pretty finely organised, orchestrated and deeply deserved send-off. Story continues "I think it's important that all of us who love him remember that he was after all, a human being. A man like all other humans born with strengths that he made the most of when many don't," Mr Clinton said. "Born with weaknesses that he worked hard to beat down when many can't. But still a person. It made him more interesting, and it made him in my mind even greater." Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, held back tears and she remembered the night their friend, mentor and colleague died. "When John Lewis served with us he wanted us to see the civil rights movement and the rest through his eyes. He told us so many stories, he taught us so much and he took us to Selma," she said. "He wanted us to see how important it was to understand the spirit of non-violence." She said that while it hadn't rained on his last night at the Capitol as thousands of people showed up to pay their respects, a double rainbow appeared over Mr Lewis's casket. "We waved goodbye when he started to leave us. He was telling us. He was telling us. I'm home in heaven. I'm home in heaven. We always he knew he was on the side of the angels and now he's with them," she said. Reverend James Lawson said that all the stories about Mr Lewis preaching to his chickens as a young boy were a sign that something else was happening to him in those early years, where he saw the malignancy of racism in Troy, Alabama. "That formed in him a sensibility that he had to do something about it," Mr Lawson said. "He did not know what that was but he was convinced that he was called, indeed to do whatever he could do, get in good trouble, but stop the horror that so many folk lived through and in in this country in that part of the 20th century." Mr Obama is expected to deliver a eulogy shortly, but in the meantime a letter from Jimmy Carter was read out by Reverend Warnock. "Throughout his remarkable life John has been a blessing to countless people and we are proud to be among those who's lives he has touched," Mr Carter said in the letter. "We Georgians know him as our neighbour, friend and representative. His enormous contributions will continue to be an inspiration for generations to come." Reverend James Lawson added more context to Mr Bush's stories of Mr Lewis preaching to his chickens as a young boy, saying it was a sign that something else was happening in those early years. "John saw the malignancy of racism in Troy Alabama," Mr Lawson said. "That formed in him a sensibility that he had to do something about it." Mr Lawson continued: "He did not know what that was but he was convinced that he was called, indeed to do whatever he could do, get in good trouble, but stop the horror that so many folks lived through and in in this country in that part of the 20th century." More follows Four Vietnamese students at the 2020 International Chemistry Olympiad with two officials from the Ministry of Education and Training (C) at Hanoi National University of Education. Photo courtesy of the ministry. All four Vietnamese contestants at the International Chemistry Olympiad 2020 won gold medals, making them the second highest-ranking team after the U.S. This is Vietnam's best ever International Chemistry Olympiad result so far. The gold medalists are Nguyen Hoang Duong, a 11th grader from Hanoi, Ly Hai Dang, a 12th grader from Hai Phong, Dam Thi Minh Trang, a 12th grader from nearby Nam Dinh Province, and Pham Trung Quoc Anh, a 12th grader from Nghe An Province in central Vietnam, according to the results released Thursday. Dang scored the highest among the four - 97/100 - to rank 5th out of 231 candidates, while Duong ranked 9th, Anh 15th and Trang 22nd. Their achievements allowed Vietnam to rank second out of 60 competing countries and territories. The competition from July 6-25 was supposed to be held in Istanbul, but the pandemic prompted event organizers to host it online instead. The Vietnamese students took the exam at Hanoi National University of Education where they were monitored via the organizers camera system in real-time. This year's competition saw 20 national teams less than the previous year due to Covid-19. Last year, Vietnam bagged two gold medals and two silvers, finishing fifth out of 80 teams. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the countrys biggest refiner and fuel retailer, doesnt expect its capacity utilization to return to pre-pandemic levels in the near future, IOCs chairman S.M. Vaidya told reporters on Friday. IOC had been gradually boosting its refinery capacity utilization since May, but utilization has been down in recent weeks as many states in India re-imposed localized lockdowns, after the nationwide lockdown in April-May, following a surge in COVID-19 cases. IOCs capacity utilization has dropped to 75 percent these days, from around 93 percent in the first week of July, Indian media quoted the company as saying alongside its results for the first quarter of its 2020-2021 financial year. In May, Indias fuel demand picked up pace from the April lows, and IOC began to gradually boost operations across its refineries, aiming to raise utilization to 80 percent by the end of May, compared to 45 percent in early April. At the end of June, Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that fuel demand in India was set to rebound to pre-crisis levels by the end of September. Yet, Indias crude oil imports slumped in June to their lowest levels since 2011, with oil refiners buying less crude because of maintenance and weaker demand, according to data from industry sources reported by Reuters. Indian refiners are now cutting processing rates because fuel demand up from the lows in April and May has slowed this month as fuel prices are higher and parts of India are again under local lockdowns, while the monsoon rain season is also stalling economic activity and transport, officials at refineries told Reuters this week. Shells chief executive Ben van Beurden said on the supermajors earnings call on Thursday that India is the worst-performing market in terms of demand, while China continues to be resilient. The worst-performing market is India, 45% down. So, we are dealing with a very wide tapestry of market recovery archetypes, van Beurden said. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: SAN FRANCISCO, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today the Mayor's office submitted a budget proposal that fails to address the seriousness of the pandemic's impact to San Francisco communities and the resulting recession by balancing the budget on the backs of workers and services. In the wake of COVID-19, city workers have given back $49 million in scheduled raises, with a potential $50 million more the following year, while risking their lives every day. City workers increasingly do more with less; as of June 1, there was over $560 million in annualized vacant budgeted positions. The sacrifices by San Francisco's workforce have covered most of the projected budget shortfall. The Mayor's office has a path forward that doesn't rely on further harmful cuts. "Since day one we've been working at COVID testing sites, local food banks and with the homeless. We need SF leaders to fund services while we do our part keeping our community strong," said Nzugu Kitenge, who normally works as Library Assistant and is member of SEIU 1021. During the COVID-19 pandemic she and library coworkers have stepped up as disaster service workers. "Our members have been in the field, uninterrupted by the crisis, maintaining key infrastructure to support our city. We keep the power, water and others systems online and need city leaders to value this important work, especially during a crisis," Larry Mazzola, Jr., PEC Vice-Chair and President of the SF Building and Construction Trades Council. San Francisco residents and city workers need a budget that takes action by tapping the rainy day funds and existing reserves. Over one billion dollars in reserves has been built over the past ten years and during the City's worst public health crisis the Mayor's office is choosing to only use 1/3rd over two years. Additionally, the city must also curtail contracting-out, and pursue new revenue by ensuring billionaire CEO's are paying their fair share to fund public services. "Over 5000 disaster service workers and San Francisco community members have signed a petition to Mayor Breed asking that the city stabilize services and spend down rainy day funds to maintain the structure of our pandemic response. Frontline workers continue to answer the call and we need to keep them working to get through this crisis and support or economic recovery," said Rudy Gonzalez, Executive Director of the San Francisco Labor Council. Now that the Mayor's office has submitted their proposed budget, the Board of Supervisors' Budget Committee will engage in deliberations around the proposal over the next few weeks. "Cutting services and laying off public workers will cripple our COVID-19 response and slow our recovery in the long run," said Gus Vallejo, IFPTE Local 21 President. "San Francisco is currently in a major COVID-19 surge. In just 10 days this month, we have had 5,000 to 6,000 cases of COVID-19. We need more investment in our public workers and public services not less." The Public Employee Committee of the San Francisco Labor Council brings together over 30,000 dedicated public service workers among 26 unions. Healthcare providers, firefighters, infrastructure & trades workers, engineers, planners, educators, social workers and others continue to answer the call to public service each and every day as disaster service workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. SOURCE IFPTE Local 21; SEIU 1021 Unsplash Projects financed in support of hospitals: 3 500 new intensive therapy beds, 4 225 semi-intensive care beds, four mobile units with 300 intensive therapy beds, restructuring of 651 A&E departments, medical supplies and healthcare equipment, medical transportation, 9 600 additional healthcare staff (including temps), home care services and digital systems for remote patient monitoring. The EU banks loan covers around two-thirds of the costs provided for by the Decree for revival of the healthcare system An initial tranche of 1 billion has already been finalised This is one of the EIBs largest ever operations in the whole of Europe The Italian healthcare system is also being reinforced to tackle the emergency situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is being conducted with the backing of the EU bank, the European Investment Bank (EIB), which is providing the Italian government with a 2 billion loan covering around two-thirds of the resources needed for the operations contained in the Decree for revival of the healthcare system. This announcement was made today in Rome at the signing of the operations by the EIB, the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), the Ministry of Health and the governments Special Commissioner to tackle the COVID-19 healthcare emergency. The loan runs to 2 billion in total and an initial 1 billion tranche was already finalised today. Specifically, the framework loan to the Italian Republic will be channelled through the MEF. The Ministry of Health will play an active role in the project and the governments Special Commissioner is in charge of implementing the regional plans, including through delegated officials such as the Presidents of the Regions. This structure is considered to be able to ensure a coordinated and efficient response in terms of planning, implementation and monitoring of the projects. The operation comes under the Italian government's Decree for revival of the healthcare system (enacted by Law 77/2020), which provides for 3.25 billion in support of the health sector. This is one of the biggest loans ever provided for a single operation in the whole European Union since the EIB was created over 60 years ago. The term of the loan is 15 years. The loan will finance the operations included in the emergency plans of the Regions in response to the pandemic, in particular: strengthening of the hospital network with 3 500 new intensive therapy beds, 4 225 semi-intensive care beds, four mobile units with 300 intensive therapy beds, restructuring of 651 A&E departments, medical consumables and healthcare equipment, medical transportation, and 9 600 additional healthcare staff (including temps). support for territorial assistance, with reinforcement of infrastructure and digital systems for home and residential care services and for remote patient monitoring, and activation of regional operational hubs for monitoring of patients. In recent months Italy has come through a very challenging period showing great discipline and an extraordinary sense of responsibility. The operation finalised today will make our healthcare system, which has enabled our country to respond quickly to such a difficult challenge, much stronger. With these substantial resources, which will be deployed as part of the governments response to the crisis, Italy will continue to tackle the COVID-19 healthcare emergency with the same sense of responsibility, consolidating the cooperation between various government authorities in this joint effort that involves the entire country. The EIB must be applauded for its strong commitment, which provides further evidence of the EU institutions ability to respond effectively to this global challenge, said the Minister of Economy and Finance Roberto Gualtieri. The EIB was established with Italy's backing in 1957 by the Treaties of Rome and the tasks entrusted to it included subsidiarity, support for less advanced regions and sectors with critical concerns. We are proud therefore to announce today this operation with Italy, the European country struck first by the pandemic and which responded with great energy. This operation is making the necessary liquidity immediately available on favourable terms for the urgent strengthening of healthcare structures in response to the COVID-19 emergency. The EIB and the European Union have the task and the duty to be close partners of EU citizens, businesses and administrations at times of great difficulty: we strive to do it as best we can through our unprecedented efforts, said EIB Vice-President Dario Scannapieco. The spread of the virus has put both the public health sector and the economy under extreme pressure and there are still difficult months ahead of us. Strengthening our hospitals and healthcare system is part of the response to the crisis to try to create the best possible conditions for living with the virus. The governments Special Commissioner is the person in charge of implementing the plans. We have already started to look at whats needed so that we can begin strengthening the healthcare system of the whole country as soon as possible. We now have the opportunity to do just that and we mustnt squander that opportunity, stated the Special Commissioner for the Healthcare Emergency Domenico Arcuri. 2020 Hyundai Elantra Limited Review By John Heilig Editor's Notes: I just returned from an 11 hour road trip in a Hyundai Elantra and I loved it. Lots of power, lots of comfort, lots of quiet, and lots of tech...you gotta put the Elantra on your test drive and consideration for purchase list...I would. THE AUTO PAGE By John Heilig Senior Editor and Bureau Chief Mid-Atlantic Bureau The Auto Channel REVIEWED MODEL: 2020 Hyundai Elantra Limited ENGINE: 2.0-liter 4 TRANSMISSION: CVT HORSEPOWER/TORQUE: 147 hp @ 6,200 rpm/132 lb.-ft. torque WHEELBASE: 106.3 in. LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT: 181.9 x 70.9 x 56.5 in. TIRES: P225/45R17 CARGO CAPACITY: 14.4 cu. ft. ECONOMY: 30 mpg city/40 mpg highway/31.9 mpg test FUEL TANK CAPACITY: 14.0 gal. CURB WEIGHT: 2,844 lbs. TOWING CAPACITY: Not recommended COMPETITIVE CLASS: Toyota Corolla, Chevrolet Bolt, Nissan Sentra STICKER: $27,215 (includes $930 delivery, $3,485 options) BOTTOM LINE: the Hyundai Elantra is a decent compact car with little not to recommend it. Lets face it, compact cars are compact cars. While they usually offer economy and efficiency, compromises often make the driving experience less than thrilling. The Hyundai Elantra, while not thrilling, is a quite capable compact sedan with its share of pluses and minuses. Among the former is a working 2.0-liter four cylinder engine rated at 147 horsepower, and driving the front wheels through an intelligent CVT transmission that is new to Elantra this year. A unique element to this CVT is its chain drive, rather than belt drive, which is quieter and improves fuel economy, according to Hyundai. Our test economy was 31.9 mpg over urban and suburban roads. Im certain that if you add more highway miles into the mix, overall economy will rise to the EPA estimated highway range of 40mpg. A former Elantra owner once told me her favorite feature of the car was that all the controls were easy to reach and were where they should be. I agree. The first time I drove the Elantra I felt I knew where everything was without looking. Radio controls are simple, but if you want to dig deeper there is an infotainment system to navigate. A simple dual zone HVAC system kept us comfortable in an interesting range of weather. In emergencies, we had heated seats. Audio, phone and cruise control switches are on the wheel as well, along with the telephone. The instrument panel is simple and uncomplicated. Interior storage is aided by a nice cubby at the base of the center stack with 12-volt, USB and AUX outlets plus a Qi wireless charger. Theres also a USB outlet in the small center console/arm rest. Front seats are comfortable and offer a good range of power adjustment. Rear legroom is tight. Thats one of the generic minuses of compact cars. However, theres good outward visibility for rear passengers and a low center hump that might allow for a middle passenger in the back. Theres also a good trunk that survived a couple of trips to Costco without lowering the rear seat backs for extra carrying capacity. Seat back releases are conveniently located in the cargo area. Another shall minus is styling. The Elantra is almost indistinguishable from most other compacts. Overall, the Hyundai Elantra is a nice compact car. Just dont expect too much from it and youll be happy. (c) 2019 The Auto Page Syndicate The Enforcement Directorate has filed a money laundering case in connection with death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, according to officials. An Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) was filed by the agency on Wednesday. The case was filed on the basis of the First Information Report (FIR) filed by the Bihar Police. Alleged financial irregularities have been suspected in the case. A high-level meeting was conducted at the Bihar DGP office in Patna over the investigation carried out by the Bihar Police team in Mumbai. Rajput's father had filed a case of abetment of suicide against actress Rhea Chakraborty. His father stated that there were unexplained transfers from Rajput's account to Chakraborty's. The ED will now probe if there was any mishandling of Rajput's finances and if his income was used for laundering money and creating illegal assets. However, Rajput's chartered accountant said that the actor did not have the kind of money his family claimed he had. The CA also told India Today TV that there were no transactions made towards Chakraborty that were over Rs 1 lakh. The ECIR has been filed after demands for a CBI probe and ED investigation got louder. Former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis had said earlier in the day, "There is a huge public sentiment about handing over Sushant Singh Rajput case to CBI but looking at the reluctance of State Government, atleast ED can register an ECIR since misappropriation and money laundering angle has come out." The ED had sought the FIR registered against actress Rhea Chakraborty and others from Bihar Police in order to conduct a money laundering probe. The case is being investigated by both Bihar Police and Mumbai Police. Mumbai Police has also recorded statements of Bollywood personalities including Sanjay Leela Bhansali, film critic Rajeev Masand and filmmaker Aditya Chopra. Also read: Sushant Singh Rajput case: Bihar Police looks into actor's finances; friend says forced to give false statements The company said in a statement that in addition to 1,500 job losses, some 1,500 temporary contracts will not be renewed and 2,000 jobs will be suppressed via a voluntary departure scheme. The group also expects natural attrition through retirement to help cut an extra 500 jobs. KLM said it does not expect demand to fully recover before 2023 or 2024 and said further staff reductions are possible given the high level of uncertainty. Earlier this month, the European Commission approved a bailout package of 3.4 billion in loans offered by the Dutch government to help the company navigate the crisis. Ghislaine Maxwells controversial deposition from a 2015 lawsuit will remain sealed until at least late September after a federal appeals court agreed late Friday to hear a request to block the release of the deposition by the accused sex trafficker and alleged madam to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The action by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit effectively stops the release, scheduled for Monday, of a deposition given by Maxwell, and another one she wants blocked involving a mysterious person known only as J. Doe 1. Maxwells appeal will be heard Sept. 22. The release of the documents stems from a pleading by the Miami Herald on behalf of its investigative reporter Julie K. Brown, whose Perversion of Justice series in November 2018 spotlighted how Epstein escaped justice in 2008 despite overwhelming evidence that he had sexually abused women and underage girls. Lawyers for the Herald filed a motion Friday opposing any further delay on the document release. The District Court made specific, well-reasoned findings on the record, determining that Ms. Maxwells deposition testimony, among other judicial records, should be unsealed, argued Christine N. Walz, with Holland & Knight. To overturn the District Courts ruling, Ms. Maxwell will need to show that the court abused its discretion. She cannot do so. U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska this week ordered the unsealing and release of dozens of documents from a now-settled defamation suit involving Virginia Giuffre, who claims Maxwell brought her and other underage girls to Epstein, who sexually abused them and trafficked them to powerful men. Preska chided Maxwells lawyers for delays, and shot down two attempts Thursday to slow the release of all documents, which then began trickling out late Thursday night. Now in federal detention in Brooklyn after her July 2 arrest on federal charges, Maxwell appealed the unsealing of a deposition she gave in the 2015 defamation suit because it is the basis for the perjury charges brought against her in the Southern District of New York. Her lawyers argued before Preska, without presenting proof, that lawyers for Giuffre improperly shared the deposition with federal prosecutors. Story continues The broad outlines of the deposition are known. Maxwell is said to have been obstructive, refusing to answer questions about the sexual habits of Epstein or her own personal life. In the transcript of a deposition of Giuffre released Thursday night, the Epstein accuser said under oath that Maxwell lured her from a job at now-President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago club to become a masseuse for Epstein. Giuffre alleged Maxwell groomed her and others to be sexual playthings for Epstein and friends. Maxwell was charged earlier this months with four counts of sex trafficking of a minor for crimes alleged to have occurred between 1994 and 1997 as well as two counts of perjury related to statements she made in the deposition. Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 on sex trafficking charges stemming from her connection with Jeffrey Epstein. Her lawyers in the civil suit suggested that the deposition had been released to the government by Giuffres lawyers in violation of a protective order barring its release to law enforcement, suggesting that Maxwells lawyers might try to challenge the perjury charges she faces in the criminal case. Giuffres lawyers rejected the accusation as completely and utterly false in a filing Friday. Maxwells counsel made no effort to contact us before making these serious charges; nor, as we understand it, did they make any effort to check with the Government, Giuffres lawyers wrote. While Maxwell was successful in at least temporarily blocking the release of the disputed depositions Friday, her legal team in the criminal case was rebuffed earlier Friday in its attempts to negotiate a protective order that would allow them to publicly identify in filings alleged victims of Epstein and Maxwell who were not party to the criminal case if those alleged victims had come forward publicly. Virginia Giuffre, then known as Virginia Roberts, when she was a teen recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell. Deciding to participate in or contribute to a criminal investigation or prosecution is a far different matter than simply making a public statement relating to Ms. Maxwell or Jeffrey Epstein, U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan wrote in denying the request, along with denying a request for greater restrictions on the use of discovery materials by the government and witnesses. In another development late Friday, the Epstein estate released its third-quarter accounting report, from April 1 to June 30. The document reveals how lawyers are receiving large payments from the estate. One firm Hughes, Hubbard & Reed received more than $1 million in the three-month period. Troutman Sanders LLP received almost $800,000 in the period. U.S. Virgin Islands-based Kellerhals Ferguson Kroblin PLLC received more than $312,000. The report highlighted two payments into the newly created Epstein victims compensation fund, together worth more than $2.8 million. The report also shows that Epstein sold for almost $1.1 million a Bell helicopter that was allegedly used by Maxwell, who had a helicopter pilots license, to bring young girls to Epsteins Little St. James island. A university student in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong has lodged a formal complaint over references to homosexuality as a "disease" in a government-approved textbook. While homosexuality officially ceased to be regarded as a mental disorder in China in 2001, a Guangzhou-based student who identified herself only by the nickname Xixi, said she had found a reference to it as a psychosexual disorder in a current university textbook published by the Jinan University Press. "There is one chapter that classifies homosexuality as a 'common psychosexual disorder'; that's the phrase it uses," Xixi told RFA. "This is the main mistake because it hasn't been a mental illness in China since 2001." "The standard diagnostic manual now classifies homosexuality as a sexual orientation," she said, adding that repeated requests to the publisher to correct the wording had been rejected. China lacks anti-discrimination laws covering sexual orientation, so Xixi has filed complaints of "poor quality" with the publishing house and the online platform JD.com which sells the book. She commissioned a professional editor to find more than 70 errors in translation and punctuation, while the discriminatory content has been listed as a factual error relating to the updating of the diagnostic manual. "It's a factual error to classify homosexuality as a psychosexual disorder," she said. "It is also an issue of product quality." "The content that I really want to complain about is only a small part of the evidence," she said. "[But I] also want to take this opportunity to generate public discussion and increase awareness." The publishing house is based in Guangzhou, and has the support of the media regulator, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television. Court allows the suit Xixi had been concerned that courts wouldn't accept her lawsuit if she made the discriminatory content the main point. But one court in Suqian, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, where JD.com has its headquarters, agreed to allow her to file. The initial hearing was held on July 3, with the defendants sending written legal opinions rather than mounting a defense in person. Her lawyer Ge Ang said he had submitted around 30 pieces of evidence backing the view that homosexuality isn't a psychosexual disorder in China. "[Our evidence] included opinions from the Health and Family Planning Commission and international documents," he said. "The hearing went well at first but the judge interrupted us several times because he wanted to save time in the second half," he said. "He said that we had already submitted a written legal opinion anyway, so we could just make a brief statement." He said the lawsuit could serve as a warning to other companies that publish teaching materials. More are coming out Homosexuality was decriminalized in China in 1997, and removed from official psychiatric diagnostic manuals in 2001. More and more highly educated urban Chinese have begun coming out in recent years, and while some find acceptance among their peers, social attitudes still strongly favor heterosexual marriage and children. How many Chinese identify as LGBTQ is unknown. The countrys health and family planning ministry has estimated that there are between five million and 10 million gay men in China, but activists say the actual number is far higher. LGBTQ activists say there have been a growing number of anti-discrimination lawsuits filed by the community in China since around 2010, as well as some rare though unsuccessful bids to register same-sex marriages. Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. A court in Moscow says it will make public next week its decision regarding how to proceed with the trial of two sisters, who along with their younger sister are accused of killing their father in 2018. After holding a preliminary hearing, the Moscow City Court said on July 31 that the court's decision on the extremely high-profile case will be made public on August 3. Lawyers for Krestina and Angelina Khachaturyan have asked the court to send the case back to prosecutors, saying that the two sisters must be tried together with their younger sister Maria. Maria Khachaturyan, who was 17 when the alleged crime took place, is set to be tried separately. A medical evaluation following the killing found her mentally unsound at the time of the crime, and she was recommended for psychological treatment. Prosecutors on July 31 asked a Moscow court to extend by an additional six months pretrial restrictions for Krestina and Angelina Khachaturyan. The restrictions include a ban on Internet use, communication with each other and other participants in the case, and speaking to media. The prosecutors asked the court to also ban the sisters from taking part in public events. The sisters' lawyers asked the court to change the restrictions to just not being able to leave the city. Investigators say that in July 2018 Krestina, Angelina, and Maria Khachaturyan -- then 19, 18, and 17 years old, respectively -- killed their father, Mikhail Khachaturyan, at their home in Moscow's outskirts. Evidence Of Abuse Materials gathered by investigators included substantial evidence of regular sexual and physical abuse by Khachaturyan against his daughters. The case has attracted widespread attention from Russian media and civil society and has pitted defenders of conservative values, backed by the Russian Orthodox Church, with women's rights activists who have been calling for the introduction of legislation on domestic violence as a way of bringing alleged perpetrators like Khachaturyan to justice and enabling their victims to plead self-defense. In early December, investigators finalized their indictment against the three sisters and sent it to the prosecutors office to prepare for trial. Krestina, Angelina, and Maria had acted with premeditation, it concluded, governed by "a strong personal enmity toward their father" due to continued physical and sexual abuse. Later in December, Deputy Prosecutor-General Viktor Grin cited flaws in the investigation and asked officials to reclassify the sisters' actions as self-defense, which would have paved the way for the women to be let free. But earlier in July, according to the defense team, Grin confirmed the original murder charges in an apparent volte-face, meaning the case will almost certainly go to trial. With reporting by TASS and Interfax (Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump plans to announce a decision ordering Chinas ByteDance Ltd. to divest its ownership of the music-video app TikTok, which is popular with U.S. teens, according to people familiar with the matter. The U.S. has been investigating potential national security risks due to the companys control of the app, and Trumps decision could be announced as soon as Friday, the people said. We are looking at TikTok. We may be banning TikTok, Trump told reporters at the White House Friday. We are looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to TikTok. Spokespeople for the White House and Treasury Department didnt immediately respond to requests for comment. A TikTok spokesperson couldnt be reached for comment. QuickTake: TikTok, Hong Kong and More U.S.-China Flashpoints Snap Inc., a TikTok competitor, gained on the report, reflecting speculation that it may benefit from any move that weakens TikTok. Shares of the Santa Monica, California-based company were up 2.7% to $23.02 at 2:37 p.m. in New York. Bytedance bought Musical.ly Inc. in 2017 and merged it with TikTok, creating a popular and fast-growing social media hit in the U.S -- the first Chinese app to make such inroads. As TikTok grew more popular, U.S. officials grew more concerned about the potential for the Chinese government to use the app to gain data on U.S. citizens. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which investigates overseas acquisitions of U.S. businesses, began a review of the purchase in the fall of 2019, according to a person familiar with the investigation. Earlier: ByteDance Is Said to Weigh TikTok Stake Sale Over U.S. Concerns TikTok has become a political pawn between the U.S. and China, and elected officials have criticized the apps security and privacy practices, suggesting that user data collected through the app might be shared with the Chinese government. Trump said earlier this month he was considering banning TikTok as a way to retaliate against China for its handling of the coronavirus. Story continues TikTok critics and competitors have played up that fear, including Facebook Inc., which has criticized the app for alleged censorship. Trumps threat to ban TikTok came just a few weeks after reports that many TikTok users had tried to sabotage a Trump campaign rally by requesting tickets they never planned to use and coordinated a push to flood Trumps 2020 campaign app with negative reviews. TikTok, which has offices in Los Angeles, has been looking for ways to distance itself from its Chinese ownership, seeking to reassure the public that no data is stored on servers in China and that the app operates independently. Bytedance even appointed a CEO formerly of Walt Disney Co, Kevin Mayer, to run its operations in America and the rest of the world. (Updates with Trump comment in third paragraph) For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dyaning Pangestika (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 16:22 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066ab6dc3 1 National djoko-tjandra,mahfud-md,National-Police,Bareskrim,fugitive,bank-bali-case Free The National Police planned the arrest of graft fugitive Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra more than a week before they finally ended his 11 years on the run on Thursday, a senior minister has revealed. Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD said he was first informed on July 20 about the police's plan to capture the convict, who had been staying in Malaysia after filing a case review against his conviction in June. At that time, the National Police's Criminal Investigation Unit (Bareskrim) chief Insp. Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo came to Mahfud's office and told him that the detective unit would cooperate with their Malaysian counterparts to make the arrest. "He told us that the police would begin the operation that evening as they had already located [Djoko's] whereabouts," Mahfud said on Thursday. Besides himself, the minister said only President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and National Police chief Gen. Idham Azis knew about the operation. Read also: Indonesia brings graft fugitive Djoko Tjandra back from Malaysia Handcuffed and wearing an orange shirt, Djoko arrived with police personnel at Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport in East Jakarta on Thursday evening. He was immediately taken to Bareskrims headquarters, where he is currently being detained. Djoko, a convict in the high-profile Bank Bali corruption case, made headlines last month after he managed to return to Indonesia undetected, have his new identity documents issued and file for a case review for his two-year prison sentence with the South Jakarta District Court. He was at large for more than a decade after fleeing to Papua New Guinea a day before the Supreme Court convicted him in 2009. The South Jakarta District Court, however, announced before his arrest on Thursday that Djoko's plea could not be accepted because he had repeatedly failed to show up for his hearings. But Mahfud said Djoko still had the change to file another case review because the court had not officially rejected the plea but had merely dropped the case because it did not fulfill the administrative requirements. "There is a possibility that Djoko will resubmit his case review request to the court. However, once he files his plea, it is no longer under the government's jurisdiction because the judiciary is under the Supreme Court," he said. Read also: Court drops fugitive Djoko Tjandra's case review plea after consecutive no shows The failure to detect Djoko's sudden return to Indonesia in June has implicated three high-ranking police generals who were removed last week for their alleged role in helping the convict travel within the country. Of the three, only Brig. Gen. Prasetyo Utomo has been named a suspect by the police for allegedly assisting and issuing forged travel letters for Djoko in the one-star general's capacity as the head of Bareskrim's Civil Servant Investigator Supervisory and Coordination Bureau. On Thursday evening, the National Police named Djoko's lawyer, Anita Kolopaking, a suspect and brought multiple charges against her for her alleged role in using the forged letters to travel and helping a criminal on the run. Antigraft activists have lauded the police for their efforts in tracking down and arresting Djoko, but watchdog Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) reminded them that they needed to look into the possible involvement of other police generals in the case. The police should examine the possibility that more National Police top brass are involved in covering Djoko Tjandras tracks, the ICW said in a statement received by The Jakarta Post on Friday. The group also urged the police to immediately name Djoko a suspect for allegedly forging a letter for his personal interests as stipulated in Article 263 of the Criminal Code. Farmers have highlighted the importance of the agri-food industry to the NI economy after food and drink sales increased by seven percent in 2018 to over 5 billion. The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has released its annual report on the size and performance of the NI food and drinks processing sector. The report confirms that sales increased by seven percent in 2018 to 5,162 million. Between 2017 and 2018 sales increased within Northern Ireland by 6.9m, to Britain by 240m, to the Republic of Ireland by 82m and to other EU countries by 27.3m. Value added by the sector increased by 1 per cent to 921 million between 2017 and 2018. Responding, the Ulster Farmers Union (UFU) said the report underlined how crucial the agri-food industry was for the local economy. But while UFU president Victor Chestnutt said farmers were 'immensely proud' of the industry, he said the food chain could 'only succeed if producers were profitable'. The agri-food sector is a key future driver for the economic development of Northern Ireland," he said. "DAERA set out a vision of a sustainable, profitable and integrated agri-food supply chain, delivering the needs of the market. It is good that we are seeing scope to grow. He said the food and farming industry was 'critical' to the wider economy: "The government must not overlook its strategic importance and this must not be forgotten in the Brexit discussions. Farming is the bedrock of the local manufacturing sector, supplying traceable and affordable food produced to world-leading animal welfare, environmental and food safety standards, Mr Chestnutt said. Mumbai: A total of 121 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the Maharashtra Police force on Friday (July 31, 2020), taking the total count to 9,217. With two more fatalities, the total deaths in the state police force reached 102 on Friday "121 more Maharashtra Police personnel test positive for COVID-19 while 2 died in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 102," said Maharashtra Police. The total number of police personnel infected with coronavirus is 9,217, out of which 7,176 have recovered and 1,939 are active cases, informed the Maharashtra Police. According to the Union Health Ministry, there are 1,48,454 active COVID cases in Maharashtra as it continues to be the worst-affected state. With a record single-day surge of 55,078 infections, India's COVID-19 caseload raced past 16 lakh on Friday, just two days after it reached the 15-lakh mark, while the number of recoveries rose to 10,57,805, according to Union Health Ministry data. The country has so far registered 16,38,870 instances of the coronavirus infection. The death toll increased to 35,747 with 779 fatalities being reported in 24 hours, the data updated at 8 AM showed. This is the second consecutive day that COVID-19 cases have increased by more than 50,000. The total number of confirmed cases also includes foreigners. There are 5,45,318 active COVID-19 cases in the country. The recovery rate rose to 64.54 per cent while the fatality rate dropped further to 2.18 per cent. Of the 779 deaths reported on Friday, 266 are from Maharashtra, 97 from Tamil Nadu, 83 from Karnataka, 68 from Andhra Pradesh and 57 from Uttar Pradesh. West Bengal registered 46 deaths, Delhi 29, Gujarat 22, Jammu and Kashmir 17, Madhya Pradesh 14 and Rajasthan and Telangana 13 each. Ten fatalities have been reported from Odisha, nine from Punjab, five from Jharkhand, four each from Bihar, Haryana, Manipur and Uttarakhand, three each from Goa and Chhattisgarh, two each from Assam, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Kerala while Ladakh and Puducherry recorded one fatality each. The results of the first phase of safety trials of Indias first domestic vaccine candidate are being analysed, officials said on Friday, and an expert panel will approve the next round once the results are in. The Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) of the vaccine will give nod to embark on the second phase of human trial, which will be to test the vaccines safety and immunogenicity, after analysis of results of 375 people, who were administered the vaccine in the first phase, said sources associated with the trial in New Delhi. The DSMB is an independent panel of experts, constituted by the Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL). The DSMB has been approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO). The ICMR is partnering the BBIL in the trials of Covaxin (BBV152 Covid vaccine). We were advised to close recruitment (enrolment of volunteers for the trial) yesterday after the 12 sites, selected for the trials, achieved the sample size of the first phase of trials. We will wait for DSMB nod before embarking on the second phase of trials, said Dr CM Singh, professor of community and family medicine, also the principal investigator of the trial at AIIMS-Patna. The institute is among 12 other sites the ICMR has approved for the human trial of the vaccine. We administered the vaccine on 46 people, of which nine have been given its second dose on the 14th day after the first shot of the vaccine. Only three volunteers complained of slight pain at the point of injection. There were no side-effects, which is an indication that the vaccine is safe, said Dr Singh. Vaccine is to be given on 0 day and 14. The follow-up sampling to see the level of immunogenicity (ability of a foreign substance, such as an antigen, to provoke an immune response in the body of a human) has to be done on day 14, 28, 42, 104 and 194, he added. The second phase of the trial will be on 750 people that will be to check the vaccines safety and immunogenicity. The ICMR has selected 12 institutes for the trial. They are AIIMS-Delhi, Nizams Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad; PGMIS Rohtak; SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Chennai; AIIMS-Patna, Redkar Hospital, Goa; Gillurkar Multi-specialty Hospital and Research Centre, Nagpur; Sum Hospital, Bhubaneswar; Jeevan Rekha Hospital, Belagavi (Karnataka); King George Hospital, Visakhapatnam; Prakhar Hospital, Kanpur; and Rana Hospital, Gorakhpur. The 12 institutes have been asked by the ICMR to fast track clinical trials of the vaccine as it is being considered as one of the top priority projects which are being monitored at the topmost level of the government. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Mayank Singh By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Ministry of Defence has advised producers of film, documentary and web series to obtain NOC (No Objection Certificate) before putting it into the public domain. The need was felt after complaints of distorted depiction of Indian Army Personnel and Military Uniform were received. Sources said, Ministry of Defence has now formally written to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), MeITY and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to advise production houses to obtain NOC from the Ministry of Defence before the telecast of any film/ documentary/ web series on Army theme in public domain. This has been done to curtail the incidents which distort the image of Defence Forces and hurt the sentiments of Defence personnel and veterans. A letter intimating of the decision was addressed to the Regional Officer, Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) and was released on July 27, 2020. It has been brought to the notice of this Ministry that some production houses making films on Army theme are using contents which are distorting the image of the Indian Army. the letter mentioned Therefore the producers of movie/web series etc based on Army theme may be advised to obtain the NOC from Ministr of Defence before the telecast of any movie/documentary army theme in public domain. They may also be advised to ensure that any incident which distorts the image of Defnce Forces or hurts the sentiments may be prevented. The letter mention particularly that 'XXX Uncensored (season-2)' web series depicted Indian Army Personnel and Military Uniform in distorted manner. FIR against ALT Balaji was also launched seeking legal action against the producer and the OTT platform. George Kent, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, spoke on July 30 with RFE/RL Belarus Service Director Alexander Lukashuk about the situation in Belarus ahead of the August 9 presidential election in the country. In the interview, the senior diplomat discussed the U.S.-Belarus relations, the lack of international observers for the upcoming vote, and the need for free and independent media in the country. Caleb Egbago's life is up in the air just not in the way he planned. The 25-year-old had already secured his private pilot's license in his home country of Nigeria, when he decided to take a chance and pursue his commercial license in Canada. In October 2017 he touched down in B.C. and began what was supposed to be a one-year program at Blue Bird Flight Academy in Chilliwack. Three years and $40,000 later, though, Egbago says he's no closer to piloting a commercial flight. "The last time I flew was November," last year, he told CBC News. "[In January] they told me they were going to let me know when the aircraft is available and when there's an instructor. That went on for a while about a month and I didn't get the call." Christian Amundson/CBC Egbago and three other international students say they want a refund, claiming ongoing delays in their pilot training eventually led them to attend different schools. The students also allege that Blue Bird administrators stopped responding to their communications as recently as early June, that the school didn't have enough aircraft as promised, had an unclear, unscheduled system for instructor holidays, and often repeated student training without explanation. Egbago says if the company doesn't refund his money, he'd like to see it shut down. "They are going to keep getting other students," he said. Students allege instructor shortages All four students allege the delays stem, at least in part, from a shortage of instructors. Moses Ajala, 18, also from Nigeria, says he completed his Private Pilot License (PPL) training with Blue Bird in August of 2019 for roughly $25,000. He could have stayed to pursue his Commercial Pilot License (CPL) but left because he didn't like how the school operated, particularly when it came to instruction. Christian Amundson/CBC He says the school owes him a refund because he was told he could get his PPL and CPL in one year, as outlined in his letter of acceptance, but it took nine months just to complete the former. Story continues "There were times where my instructor went on holidays and I was, like, at home doing nothing," said Ajala. "[Then] he comes back, we do the training all over from the start I realized I was repeating training I've done already." Moazzam Chaudhry, 19, originally from Pakistan, claims he was told he could complete his CPL and PPL in one year, but soon realized the school lacked students, instructors and even sometimes the aircraft needed to train. Egbago, too, says he was left waiting for a plane that could fit him. He stands six feet, three inches tall, and weighs 235 pounds. "Because of my size, I can only fit into the [Cessna] 172," he said. "The school promised there are two [172] aircraft, but when I came there was just one." A contract signed by Egbago and shared with CBC News says the student would use a Cessna 172 for training. The document does not indicate how many Cessna 172s would be available. Jas Sodhi/Facebook School denies allegations The school's director and operations manager Jaspreet Sodhi, 28, denies the allegations. He says the school is currently not offering flight training because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But, prior to that, he says, the company had four aircraft two Cessna 152s, a 172 and a Piper PA-34 Seneca and maintained a ratio of seven students per instructor per aircraft (That's 28 students being taught by four instructors). The school has no planes right now, and all the instructors have been laid off because of the pandemic, Sodhi said via email. He said most of the training delays were because of the students, for various reasons. He did not directly answer questions about whether training was repeated or about how instructors' vacations were communicated to students. Sodhi concedes that Ajala's instructor went on vacation last year, but says Ajala was allowed to fly solo. He denies that Ajala was left with nothing to do. He also says the school won't refund a student's money simply because they didn't complete their training. "If someone did not obtain a pilot's license, that is at their own expense because we provided the service and the training as per our contract and our policies," said Sodhi in an interview. CBC News asked Sodhi for an interview with the school's owners, but was refused. It's not clear who owns the school. Sodhi denies he is the owner. He says it is a family company with shareholders, which seems to be confirmed by B.C. Registry Services documents. The students, meanwhile, had growing concerns. Thaddeus Mutuku, from Nairobi, suspected the school had shut down a few months ago with no notice. "None of the students were communicated to, which is quite unprofessional," said Mutuku, 23, "Not in email and not on call. Nothing." Christian Amundson/CBC Egbago, too, says the school shut its doors in January with no communication. When officials didn't return his calls, he says he went to the site and saw it had been cleared out. Sodhi says the school re-opened on January 9, but that student's couldn't fly because snow hadn't been removed from the airport taxi and runway area. According to B.C. Registry Services documents, Blue Bird Flight Academy changed it's name to Sky Hawk Aviation Inc. in May. The registered office listed on the document matches one listed for Blue Bird Flight Academy. Sodhi, who is named as a director of the new company, acknowledges the change but denies he has abandoned students. He says "the school was never cleared out," but when CBC News was there on Monday, its main floor has been stripped of all decor and appeared empty. "The company remains the same," he said. He claims the school emailed Egbago and Mutuku in June and July, respectively, but neither student responded. Egbago says he attempted to meet Sodhi after that message, but to no avail. CBC News asked Mutuku about this but did not hear back before deadline. Sodhi says Chaudhry met with his instructor in January 2019, collected his training log book and "was never seen after that." Text messages show, however, that Chaudry was texting Sodhi in January this year. Sodhi does not appear to have replied. Ordered to pay refunds Students have sued Blue Bird for refunds in the past three times since 2016 according to B.C. court documents. In a 2018 settlement, the company agreed to refund $9,947 in tuition fees to a Ghana man who said his study permit was declined. That same year, the company was ordered again to pay more than $6,058 to another student who alleged he had been planning to attend the school to get his PPL, but was "issued a termination letter... without any valid reason". In 2019, the company was ordered to pay $5,164 to another international student who withdrew from the school. Documents filed this year in Surrey Civil Court, meanwhile, show Blue Bird Flight Academy sued that student for $6,362.42 in unpaid rent, as well as unpaid exam fees, training equipment, and the unpaid balance on a MacBook Pro the student had purchased from the school. The case is still before the courts. The well-being of hundreds of millions of Americans is at stake, and the scale of this epic catastrophe has been obvious for months, yet weve arrived at the precipice in apparent disarray. The fault here lies with the Republicans. In May, Democrats in the House of Representatives introduced their proposal for another mammoth federal rescue package. Republicans in Majority Leader Mitch McConnells Senate sat on their hands until four days ago, when their fractured caucus introduced an anemic alternative that Democrats, and many in their own party, couldnt stomach. The White House has thrown its own wrenches into the process while proving unable to help Democrats and Republicans resolve their differences. (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The Trump administrations desultory Libya policy has left the U.S. helpless as its friends fight each other, its enemies grab strategic resources and American credibility sinks into the Saharan quicksand. The Libyan civil war is now at a dangerous inflection point: Government and rebel forces are facing off over the port city of Sirte, hometown of the former dictator Muammar Qaddafi and gateway to a coastal stretch of oil export terminals known as the oil crescent. But thanks to President Trumps equivocal positions over the conflict, the U.S. finds itself with little leverage over either side. The latest demonstration of the perils of American ambivalence is the seizure of vital oil facilities in the North African country by Russian mercenaries, undeterred by U.S. warnings to steer clear. The Trump administrations feeble response has been to sanction the Russian businessman who employs the mercenaries. This is no more likely to deter Moscow than the U.S. Africa Command publishing satellite images of Russian military jets in the Jufra airbase in May: Despite being called out, Moscow didnt withdraw the planes. In recent weeks, Trump has himself attempted to intervene in the Libyan civil war, by calling the principal foreign patrons of the two sides, Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who supports the government, and Egypts General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, who supports the rebels, and urging them to support a negotiated settlement. Neither has since shown the slightest intention of reining in their favored belligerents. If anything, Egypt has ratcheted up tensions, with its parliament last week approving a direct military intervention in Libya. Trumps late, limp effort to broker a truce in Libya is doomed to go the way of his administrations other attempts at peacemaking in the Arab world from the disastrous deal of the century for the Israelis and Palestinians, to failed mediation between Egypt and Ethiopia over a giant dam on the Blue Nile, to its inability to end the feud between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Story continues In Libya, the failure is a direct consequence of Trumps refusing to pick a side. Although the U.S. formally recognizes the Government of National Accord in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, it has at various times viewed the rebel Libyan National Army as an ally in the fight against Islamist extremism never mind that the rebels count Islamist extremists among their fastest friends. Trump, with his characteristic fondness for authoritarians, has praised the rebel commander Khalifa Haftar. Trumps vacillation can be explained at least in part by the support that both Sarraj and Haftar receive from American allies; more to the point, both are championed by tough guys the president greatly admires. On Sarrajs side is Turkeys Erdogan, the world leader whose frequent calls to the White House are instantly put through to Trump. Theres also Qatar, which hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East. The rebels are backed principally by Egypts Sisi, Trumps favorite dictator, and the United Arab Emirates, whose de facto leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, enjoys enormous clout in Washington. And then, of course, they have the support of the toughest of tough guys: Russian President Vladimir Putin, who meddles in Libya principally through the mercenary forces of the Wagner Group. (Haftar also has Emmanuel Macron in his camp, although Trump has long since lost his fondness for Frances president.) Unable to choose one side and incapable of mediating between them, Trump can only threaten economic punishment. But sanctions have limited effect in a civil war, especially when the prize control of enormous oil wealth is so valuable. As a result, in Libya as in much of the Arab world, the U.S. is doomed to be a mere spectator. 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 Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Clinical Trials Market Research Report by Design (Observational Study and Treatment Study), by Phase (Phase I, Phase II, Phase III, and Phase IV), by Indication - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19 New York, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Clinical Trials Market Research Report by Design, by Phase, by Indication - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940155/?utm_source=GNW The Global Clinical Trials Market is expected to grow from USD 41,963.49 Million in 2019 to USD 68,854.13 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.60%. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Clinical Trials to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: "The Treatment Study is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Design, the Clinical Trials Market studied across Observational Study and Treatment Study. The Observational Study further studied across Case Control Study, Cohort Study, Cross Sectional Study, and Ecological Study. The Treatment Study further studied across Adaptive Clinical Trial, Non-randomized Control Trial, and Randomized Control Trial. The Observational Study commanded the largest size in the Clinical Trials Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Treatment Study is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Phase II is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Phase, the Clinical Trials Market studied across Phase I, Phase II, Phase III, and Phase IV. The Phase III commanded the largest size in the Clinical Trials Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Phase II is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. "The Oncology is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period" Based on Indication, the Clinical Trials Market studied across Autoimmune/Inflammation, CNS condition, Cardiovascular, Diabetes, Obesity, Oncology, and Pain management. The Autoimmune/Inflammation commanded the largest size in the Clinical Trials Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Oncology is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. Based on Geography, the Clinical Trials Market studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region surveyed across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region surveyed across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region surveyed 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 Clinical Trials Market including Charles River Laboratory, Chiltern International Ltd., Clinipace, Eli Lilly and Company, ICON PLC, IQVIA, Novo Nordisk A/S, PAREXEL International Corporation, Pfizer Inc., Pharmaceutical Product Development, LLC, PRA Health Sciences, SGS SA, Syneos Health, and Wuxi AppTec Inc.. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Clinical Trials Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Clinical Trials Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Clinical Trials Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Clinical Trials Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Clinical Trials Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Clinical Trials Market? 6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Clinical Trials Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940155/?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 Collaboration with Shopify provides merchants in the U.S. and China with access to overseas markets, and support in sourcing, selling and logistics New regulatory framework aims to put all companies who qualify for a listing under the same rules, regardless of their corporate structure and where they sell their shares COVID-19 treatment in private hospitals can be a costly affair, especially for those in critical condition and needs prolonged hospitalisation. Due to the high number of complaints by patients and their relatives that hospitals are overcharging them for the treatment, several states have capped the amount they can charge for COVID-19 treatment. BCCL Despite this, private hospitals have come up with ways to overcharge patients. Karnataka Medical Education Minister Dr. K Sudhakar has said that he would take stringent action against the Apollo hospital in Bengalurus Seshadripuram for breaching the price cap prescribed by the Karnataka government. "I have come to know that the patients are suffering a lot at the Apollo Hospitals. I have warned them several times," he said in a tweet, which also had the bill from the hospital attached. AFP The government has fixed a cap of Rs 5,000-Rs 15,000 a day to charge the COVID-19 patients undergoing treatment in private hospitals. However, according to a copy of the bill tweeted by the minister, the hospital has given an outstanding bill amount to the tune of Rs 4,10,319, with Rs 5000 already deducted as an advance deposit. The hospitals management has gone against the governments order, and charged much more than the prescribed rate. This information has come to my notice today and I will take strict action against the private hospital, the minister said in another tweet. Apollo Hospitals however said that the billing has been done as per the insurance tariff. The 64-year-old patient was admitted to the intensive care unit on July 3 and he continued to remain there. The family of the patient was okay with the bill. In fact, the patient's son is in the medical field and he understands the situation well," a hospital representative told PTI. AFP/ REPRESENTATIONAL IMAGE A statement released by Apollo Hospital said the insurance company's tariff was taken into account and not the government's price cap. "In the said case, the patient has been in the hospital for the last 21 days, which includes 9 days in the ICU, and the billing is as per the tariff agreed with the insurance company. At Apollo Hospitals, we maintain strict transparency and the treatment and cost of care is clearly discussed upfront with the patient and/or family." Almost 15.000 cattle have disappeared from farms across Northern Ireland in the last four years, it has been revealed. The figures, provided in a Departmental answer to a question from UUP MLA Rosemary Barton, show that an astonishing 14,506 cattle have gone missing since 2016. Ms Barton said she was "astounded" that so many cattle had disappeared from the Department's official cattle recording system APHIS, with the total cost to the agricultural industry running into millions of pounds. "The system does not differentiate between the number of cattle recorded as stolen and those that have gone missing from the system," she said. "Newry, Armagh and Dungannon account for 6,813 of the missing cattle alone. "While I am certainly aware that a number of cattle are stolen each year, it would appear that many cattle are disappearing from the system, which may suggest they are being sold, moved and slaughtered illegally. "I intend to establish what follow-up action DAERA takes in relation to these 'disappeared' animals, if they trace any of them and if the PSNI are involved in investigations," she said. A spokesperson for DAERA said that while 3,500 cattle are notified to DAERA as lost or stolen annually, the numbers need to be put into the context of the total cow population of 1.61 million animals. "If an animal is lost or stolen, the keeper must send written notification to the department within seven days of becoming aware of the fact, together with written details of what has occurred," the spokesperson said. "Farmers should report every incident of suspected theft to the PSNI as well as notifying DAERA as soon as they become aware. "DAERA take all incidents very seriously and investigate each one individually. "Missing animals and rural crime, in particular the theft of animals, is a direct threat to the livelihood of our farmers and to the integrity of the traceability system which is vital in providing assurance on the safety, integrity and quality of our food. "The cattle population in Northern Ireland last year was 1.61 million according to DAERA census figures. Stolen cattle will account for a proportion of these figures, there will be some animals which have strayed, some may have died without the keeper being aware and some may be due to administrative inaccuracies where cattle have been incorrectly recorded as moving into and out of herds. "Where stray cattle reappear or an administrative error is discovered, DAERA can re-establish the presence of the cattle in the herd, provided the correct identity of the cattle can be established." Somewhere around the halfway mark of Yaara, Vidyut Jammwal and Shruti Haasan narrowly escape what could have been a fatal encounter and manage to cross over into a Naxal-liberated village. Two minutes after this scene, there is an elaborate song sequence featuring Shruti in flowy designer gowns and a nearly shirtless Vidyut giving an eyeful of his perfectly sculpted abs. Much like this strange transition, Yaara tries to hold too many balls in the air, only to drop them all. If Tigmanshu Dhulias earlier films - Paan Singh Tomar, Haasil and Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster - were to be used as a yardstick, Yaara is a colossal disappointment. The film, a remake of the French film A Gang Story (Les Lyonnais), tells the story of the chaukdi gang - four orphans who rise through the ranks in the world of crime through smuggling, bootlegging and arms trafficking. Despite leaving a trail of bodies as they go about their business, they conveniently slip under the police radar, until they get mixed up with leftist rebels. Of the four men - Phagun (Vidyut Jammwal), Mitwa (Amit Sadh), Rizwan (Vijay Varma) and Bahadur (Kenny Basumatary) - we are briefly told the backstory of how Phagun and Mitwa were orphaned. Rizwan is the Casanova who has an Amitabh Bachchan dialogue for every situation. Bahadur is given the short shrift; the only takeaway from his character is that he is from Nepal. He is neither given any backstory or traits, and his presence feels like tokenism. The same cursory treatment is given to mentions of caste atrocities, the Naxal movement, sexual violence and corruption in the system. With Tigmanshu barely skimming the surface, neither the characters nor the situations leave a lasting impression. Also see | Yaara trailer: Vidyut Jammwal and Amit Sadhs crime drama is a tale of friendship through the ages With the entry of Sukanya (Shruti Haasan), the gang starts gun-running for leftist rebels, which ends with each of them getting jail terms. Phagun, Rizwan and Bahadur give up the life of crime side and become businessmen, while Mitwa disappears, only to return years later and turn his friends lives upside down. The patchy screenplay and wafer-thin characterisation do not give the actors much scope to shine. Top action star in the world Vidyut gets the lions share of the fight sequences and seems to be more at home in these than any scene where he is required to emote. For a film that has friendship at its core, it is strangely devoid of feeling. When characters die, the pain is never visceral. Jumping between the past and present -- the film straddles almost five decades, Yaara leads up to a finale thats all too predictable. It lacks verve and is too sprawling to hold interest and attention till the end. Follow @htshowbiz for more ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty We are in the midst of a massive transition to mail-in voting, one that was accelerated by the coronavirus. In the bellwether state of North Carolina, where Republicans will hold part of this years pandemic-disrupted convention, requests for absentee ballots have soared among registered Democrats from 6,868 in 2016 to 46,856 in 2020 while registered Republicans are seeing a modest jump from 6,736 in 2016 to 9,229 in 2020. Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast Unaffiliated voters, who dont align with either major political party, have also requested an unprecedented number of absentee ballots, leaping from 4,546 in 2016 to 30,912 in 2020. So from roughly even starting numbers in 2016, Democratic and Unaffiliated voters requests are both up about 580 percent, while Republicans are up just 37 percent. Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast For the state, this is really unheard of, says Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba college in Salisbury, North Carolina. Typically, in a presidential year, 5 percent of the vote total is mail-in, and usually Republicans tend to dominate, and it turns into votes. Its very much a Republican advantage while early voting is slightly more Democratic. No Show! Trump Cancels Jacksonville GOP Convention While Democrats have ramped up voter registration, this grassroots surge appears to have been spurred by the virus and widespread discontent over President Trumps failure to curb its spread rather than party efforts. Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast With Trump regularly maligning mail-in voting, the state GOP has tried to insulate local elected officials from his ire. A recent mailing to registered Republicans features Trump tweeting, Absentee Ballots are fine because you have to go through a precise process to get your voting privilege," while blocking out the second half of the tweet where he says, Not so with Mail-ins. Rigged Election!!! 20% fraudulent ballots? North Carolina allows any voter to request a mail-in absentee ballot, with the state Board of Election noting that No special circumstance or reason is needed for doing so. In the last two presidential elections, 2012 and 2016, over half of mail-in ballots were from registered Republicans, says Bitzer, who founded the Old North State Politics blog, which is tracking the number of absentee ballot requests. He told the Daily Beast, The surge of unaffiliated voters is something very new, but just because theyre unaffiliated doesnt mean theyre not partisan. They just dont like the (party) label, which is true of younger voters. Story continues North Carolina sends out mail-in ballots on Sept. 4 to those who requested them. Early voting begins Oct. 15, three weeks before the election. This is all kind of uncharted territory for North Carolina, Bitzer says. Is this voter intensity among Democrats who have their minds made up and dont care what happens in October and November? Or is it another group of voters worried about COVID who wanted the security of public health safety? Also, how quickly will they return their mail-in ballot? Will they wait until the last minute, testing the capacity of local officials to deal with the deluge? Trump is trying to sow seeds of doubt about the election, which is a typical authoritarian tacticeverybody and everything is corrupt all the time, says Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution. But local officials are not paying attention to Trump. Hes not the only one on the ballot, and at the state and local level, theyre good at harvesting mail-in votes. Kamarck told The Daily Beast that the good news is that were in the midst of a massive transformation to mail-in voting, while the bad news is stuff happens, except she used a more graphic word and thats what Trump will highlight. To combat the presidents exaggeration and misinformation, Kamarck urges a massive campaign to educate the public that a deluge of write-in votes means that the election results will not be known by Election Day night, or the morning after. It could take a week or even a month to tally the results in a close election as it has in New York where just 648 in-person votes separate Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a 14-term Democrat, from her challenger, 36-year-old Indian-American Siraj Patel, as of Tuesday, while 65,000 mail-in ballots are still being counted. Patei challenged a rule that mail-in ballots must have been postmarked by election day. Turns out the post office doesnt always postmark third class mail, adding to the confusion. It took weeks for a winner to be declared in other contests in the state. My view if a ballot shows up and its without a postmark, it should be counted, says Kamarck, but rules vary from state to state, adding to the confusion. Some states count ballots received up to 5 days after election day if theyre postmarked by election day. California counts ballots received up to 10 days after election day. The U.S. Constitution gives states the power to conduct elections, and in a weird way you dont want this federalized, says Kamarck. If we had one massive system, it would be easier for the Russians to screw it up. States had a dry run in the primaries, and they know where their choke points are, says Kamarck. In Maryland, for example, a lot of people didnt get the ballots they requested, and they went to in-person sites, which led to long waits. The lesson for election officials, says Kamarck, is that they cant assume a surge in mail-in ballots will mean less in-person voting. That may be true in an upscale suburb, but not in a city like Baltimore. If youre poor, you move a lot. People just didnt get their ballots. There are socio-economic aspects, and then theres the stuff-happens aspect. Oregon has been voting by mail for two decades, so voters there are acclimated. But there is a dirty little secret about voting in general, and mail-in voting in particular, that will get heightened scrutiny in this years election. Not every vote is counted unless a race is close. Once a pattern is established, and one candidate has an insurmountable lead, the counting ends. Trump and his allies might want to challenge every vote if his challenger doesnt have a commanding enough margin to put any questions to rest. After evidence emerged of Russian interference in the 2016 election, 22 states began work to create a paper trail because of the fear that electronic transmission of votes could be easily hacked. What should we expect on Nov. 3 after the polls close? If there is a political landslide, we may still have a provisional winner that evening. If not, Kamarck envisions a great big room under heavy guard in the state capitol (in battleground states) where people are counting actual paper ballots. Its going to take a long time, but its going to give you a pretty secure result. Igor and Boris will have a hard time getting in that room. And Donald too, though it wont stop him from trying to create a scenario where he has weeks to talk about how the system was rigged against him and he actually won even before the peoples votes have actually been counted and no matter what that count shows. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. Prime Minister Xavier Bettel met with MPs at the Chamber of Deputies earlier this Friday. He was unable to give concrete details about Luxembourg's contribution to the major EU recovery plan. According to Bettel, several calculations are still pending and the EU parliament will also have a final say in the matter. The European recovery plan harnesses the full potential of the EU budget, bringing its total financial firepower to 1.85 trillion. MPs debated the recovery plan at the Chamber of Deputies earlier this Friday. Opposition parties ADR and CSV emerged disappointed from the meeting with Prime Minister Xavier Bettel. They explained that Bettel failed to give concrete details about Luxembourg's contribution to the recovery plan and about the plastic waste tax, which is part of the recovery plan. Opposition party MPs said after the meeting that Luxembourg will have to pay an additional 1 billion to the 7-year EU budget, including around 100 million per year because of Brexit. CSV, ADR, and the Pirate Party lamented that the recovery plan will only award 100 million to the Grand Duchy. Prime Minister Xavier Bettel nevertheless defended the agreement. He conceded that the deal is not perfect but stressed that it is the right response to the crisis. Luxembourg benefits from a well-functioning EU, he argued. He also assured MPs that the Chamber of Deputies will be continuously updated in full transparency as new developments unfold. MADISON, Wis. (AP) Federal prosecutors worked Wednesday to dispel concerns that federal agents headed to a number of U.S. cities will be used to break up protests, insisting that the agents will work side-by-side with local and state investigators to solve violent crimes. President Donald Trump recently sent federal agents to Portland, Oregon, to protect federal property during the almost daily protests in the city since the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The move has drawn heavy criticism because the agents have been accused of overstepping that mandate, arresting people without probable cause, whisking them away in unmarked cars and using excessive force. Oregon's governor, Kate Brown, said Wednesday that the agents would begin a phased withdrawal from Portland starting Thursday. Trump announced last week that he was sending agents to more U.S. cities, including Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee, to combat a rise in violent crime as part of an operation that started last year. The operation was dubbed Operation Relentless Pursuit but was renamed Operation Legend after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro was shot and killed in Kansas City, Missouri, last month. That announcement that federal agents would be deployed through Operation Legend raised fears among Democrats that those agents' real mission would be to bust up protests and make liberal-leaning cities look bad as Trump seeks to win re-election. This president is abusing his power and public resources to fuel a twisted campaign strategy, Libby Schaaf, the mayor of Oakland, California, said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday. Matthew Krueger, the U.S. attorney in Milwaukee, told reporters during a news conference earlier Wednesday that the media was confusing agents' missions. Agents being sent to cities other than Portland were part of a U.S. Department of Justice effort to bolster manpower in high-crime cities dubbed Operation Legend, he said. That initiative began in December. It was supposed to have been expanded this spring but the coronavirus pandemic delayed that move until this month, he said. Story continues Krueger said he spent the last week updating local and state authorities in Wisconsin on the agents' mission and stressed that the agents wouldn't be used to go after protesters and instead would work with local authorities, just as federal agents have long done. If you use the words Portland, Oregon, you only sow confusion, he said. You will not see federal agents amassing on the streets of Milwaukee. These aren't beat cops. They're trained investigators." He said a total of 25 to 30 agents from the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alochol, Tobacco and Firearms would be deployed in Milwaukee. Ten who arrived this month are in the city temporarily. The others will be permanently assigned to the city. U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, said that after speaking with Kreiger, she is supportive of the operation in Milwaukee. She said she was pleased that he was clarifying the mission and faulted Trumps administration for not being clear from the outset. Im glad theres been some clarification and we want to be kept apprised, very frequently, about what this operation is about, Baldwin said in a Milwaukee Press Club online event. In Detroit, federal authorities said dozens of agents and deputy marshals were being assigned to the city to combat gun violence and arrest fugitives, among other tasks. They will collaborate with the local police. Matthew Schneider, the U.S. attorney for eastern Michigan, said federal troops would not be patrolling the streets and he dismissed as irresponsible rhetoric any suggestion that the government wants to disrupt lawful protests against racism and the excessive use of force by police. Earlier this week, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said more than 500 guns were seized during a recent four-week period. He welcomed any additional federal help. During a news conference Wednesday, the U.S. attorney for the northern district of Ohio said Operation Legend in Cleveland and surrounding communities will involve 25 agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives assisting local and state law enforcement agencies. U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman said agents will be permanently assigned to existing violent crime task forces to address gang violence, narcotics-related shootings and illegal firearms. It is not an introduction of federal riot police; it is not an introduction of federal uniformed personnel; it is not an introduction of federal agents to protect federal property," Herdman said. Democratic mayors said on their conference call that they were afraid Operation Legend could quickly shift toward breaking up protests. Tim Keller, the mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico, said his city was set to receive agents but had no formal agreement with the Justice Department on their mission. These missions change at the whim of the White House, Keller said. There's no reason to trust words at a press conference any more with this administration. ___ Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Ed White in Detroit and Mark Gillispie in Cleveland contributed to this report. Jeff Pachoud/Getty For the past six decades, Serge Klarsfeld has dedicated his life to hunting down Nazis and bringing them to justice. There was Klaus Barbie, the infamous Butcher of Lyon, whom Klarsfeld and his wife, Beate, tracked down in Peru; Rene Bousquet, who ordered thousands of Jews to their deaths in the Vel dHiv Roundup; and Paul Touvier, who was apprehended at a priory in Nice and became the first Vichy official to be convicted of crimes against humanity for Holocaust collaboration. Now, hes setting his sights on Mark Zuckerberg. Klarsfeld, 84, is one of a number of Holocaust activists and survivors who are speaking out as part of #NoDenyingIt, a campaign against Facebook and its founder for allowing Holocaust denialism on the platform. In addition to Klarsfeld, who lost his father at Auschwitz, the participants include Auschwitz survivor Roman Kent, Anne Franks stepsister Eva Schloss, and many more. The internet causes a lot of people who are gullible or anti-Semitic to want to believe that the Holocaust didnt happen, says Klarsfeld. Its wrong, its against history, and it brings people to be anti-Semitic, because if the Holocaust didnt happen, that means the Jews lied about their parents and grandparents being killed. #NoDenyingIt was launched by the Claims Conference, or the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, an organization seeking reparations for Jewish victims of Nazi oppression, recovering stolen Jewish property, and preserving the memory of the Holocaust. Inside Trump and Farrakhans Strange Ties to Scientology The Disturbing Rise of Anti-Semitism Among Black Celebs This controversy began in 2018, when, during an interview with Recodes Kara Swisher, Zuckerberg brought up Holocaust denialism on his own during a discussion of Facebooks censorship policies. Lets take this whole [issue] closer to home. Im Jewish, and theres a set of people who deny that the Holocaust happened, said Zuckerberg. I find that deeply offensive. But at the end of the day, I dont believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong. I dont think that theyre intentionally getting it wrong. (He later issued a half-hearted apology, while remaining steadfast on in his position: I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didnt intend to defend the intent of people who deny that.) Story continues Later in the chat, Zuckerberg expanded on his companys rather nebulous policy. The principles that we have on what we remove from the service are: If its going to result in real harm, real physical harm, or if youre attacking individuals, then that content shouldnt be on the platform, he said. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies via video conference before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on July 29, 2020. Graeme Jennings/AFP/Getty But Klarsfeld and the #NoDenyingIt campaign argue that Holocaust denialism does result in real physical harm, and is therefore in violation of Facebook policy. He is Jewish, Klarsfeld says of Zuckerberg. And its important that Facebook, which is a big vehicle of ideas, thoughts, and images, does something about hateful speechand not only hateful speech but an incitement to violence. Because if people start to believe that the Jews didnt die in the Holocaust and this was a big hoax, then theyll become angry with the Jews and commit violence. In the United States, there have been shootings of synagogues. In a time of crisis, people are looking for scapegoats, and throughout history, Jews have been scapegoats. Throughout history, if you give people an alibi to commit violence against Jews, they will use it. He adds, If he bans pedophiles from Facebook, people who deny the Holocaust should also be banned. He bans people who bare their breasts on Facebook and wont ban people who say that Jews didnt die during the war. In addition to Facebook, Klarsfeld is deeply troubled by the rise of the far rightmany of whose leaders and followers are anti-Semiticnot only in America but around the globe. One of the leaders who he says is too tolerant of the far right is U.S. President Donald Trump. He didnt condemn the violence that occurred against the Jews by the extreme right, and he should have done that. Hes not responsible and he didnt do what he had to do, which is condemn the extreme rightand the neo-Nazi extreme right, says Klarsfeld, adding, He called some of the [Charlottesville far right] very fine people, which he shouldnt have said and which was a big mistake. Some of his voters are from the extreme right. So he has a tendency to be lenient to some of the extreme-right movement. Weve also seen a disturbing rise of anti-Semitism among prominent Black celebrities in America, from the rappers and actors Ice Cube and Nick Cannon, to pro athletes DeSean Jackson and Stephen Jackson, to Diddy, who took it upon himself to broadcast a speech by one of the nations leading anti-Semites, Louis Farrakhan, to an audience of millions this July 4. Jewish deportees in the Buchenwald concentration camp pose for a Soviet photographer in January 1945. Middle bunk bed, the 6th from left, lies Elie Wiesel, one of the rare camp survivors and 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner. AFP via Getty If Puff Daddy put a speech of Farrakhan, who is a known anti-Semite, on the internet, it means he shares his ideas, and its something that is very easy, explains Klarsfeld. Its easy to explain all the worries of the world and put them on the backs of the Jewsits been happening for many centuries. It means youre not responsible for your worries, or the government is not responsible for your worries, its the Jews who are responsible. We have to remind people that there are 12 million Jews, 2.5 billion Christians, and 2 billion Muslims. So I dont see how the Jews could be running the world based on those numbers. These days, Klarsfeldalong with wife Beate and son Arnoare doing their damnedest to educate generations young and old about anti-Semitism, and the horrors of the Holocaust. We buy pages in newspapers, give lectures, and we try to be active against the extreme right, which until now, we still havent made the moves necessary to condemn these anti-Semitic parties, he says. It has to be done through education, and teaching compassion and tolerance. Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. At least 1 Marine has died and 8 others are missing after an accident involving an amphibious vehicle off the coast of Southern California on July 30, 2020. (Staff Sgt. Kassie McDole/U.S. Marine Corps) 1 Marine Dead, 2 Injured After Accident in California: Officials One Marine was killed and two service members were injured after a mishap late Thursday off the coast of Southern California, officials said. Eight other members remain missing. All of the members involved are assigned to the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is based at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County. They were inside an amphibious assault vehicle. We are deeply saddened by this tragic incident. I ask that you keep our Marines, Sailors, and their families in your prayers as we continue our search, Col. Christopher Bronzi, the units commanding officer, said in a statement. Search and rescue efforts are underway with support from the Navy and Coast Guard. Three Navy MH-60 helicopters are involved, as well as a Coast Guard helicopter and cutter. The Marine who died was pronounced dead at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, according to a statement from the I Marine Expeditionary Force. Of the two who were injured, one is in critical condition and the other is in stable condition. Both are hospitalized. Marines in the vehicle reported taking on water at approximately 5:45 p.m. pacific time. The incident took place during a routine training exercise in the vicinity of San Clemente Island. Not for Dissemination in the United States or to United States Newswire Services TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / July 30, 2020 / Wi2Wi Corporation (TSXV:YTY)(OTC PINK:ISEYF) (Wi2Wi or the Company) announces that it has reached a confidential settlement with Twin Cities Fire Insurance in connection with payments made by the Company to a former executive pursuant to previously disclosed garnishment proceedings. No payment is to be made nor received by the Company in connection with the confidential settlement. For further information, please contact: Dawn Leeder Chief Financial Officer +1-608-203-0234 dawn_l@wi2wi.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. About Wi2Wi Corporation Wi2Wi enables customers to substantially reduce their wireless R&D expenses and time to market. Wi2Wi designs, manufactures and markets deeply integrated, end-to-end wireless connectivity solutions as well as customizable, high- performance timing and frequency control devices. Wi2Wi provides real time technical support throughout the entire product life cycle for customers across the Internet of Things (IoT), Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Avionics, Space, Industrial, Medical and Government sectors. Wi2Wi was founded in 2005 and is strategically headquartered in San Jose, California with satellite offices in Middleton, Wisconsin and Hyderabad, India. Wi2Wi's manufacturing operations, its laboratory for reliability and quality control, together with design and engineering for timing and frequency control devices are located in Middleton, Wisconsin. The branch office, located in Hyderabad, India, focuses on developing end to end wireless connectivity subsystems and solutions. Wi2Wi has partnered with best-in-class global leaders in technology, manufacturing and sales. The company uses a global network of manufacturer's representatives to promote its products and services, and has partnered with world class distributors for the fulfillment of orders along with direct sales. Story continues Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including management's assessment of future plans and operations, and the timing thereof, that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the Company's control. Such risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, risks associated with the ability to access sufficient capital, the impact of general economic conditions in Canada, the United States and overseas, industry conditions, stock market volatility. The Company's actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements and, accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what benefits, including the amount of proceeds, that the Company will derive there from. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. Additional information on these and other factors that could affect the Company's operations and financial results are included in reports on file with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and may be accessed through the SEDAR website (www.sedar.com). Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date the statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements and if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable law. All subsequent forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. Furthermore, the forward- looking statements contained in this news release are made as at the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. 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. SOURCE: Wi2Wi Corporation View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/599530/Wi2Wi-Reaches-Settlement-with-Twin-Cities-Fire-Insurance Senior Economic and Environmental Officer, Vienna, Austria Organization: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Country: Austria City: Vienna, Austria Office: OSCE Vienna Closing date: Monday, 24 August 2020 Issued by: OSCE Secretariat Vacancy number: VNSECP01552 Vacancy type: International Contracted Field of expertise: Economic and Environmental Affairs Grade: P4 Number of posts: 1 Duty station: Vienna Date of issue: 24 July 2020 Deadline for application: 24 August 2020 - 23: 59 Central European Time (CET/CEST) Background The OSCE has a comprehensive approach to security that encompasses politico-military, economic and environmental, and human aspects. It therefore addresses a wide range of security-related concerns, including arms control, confidence- and security-building measures, human rights, combating human trafficking, national minorities, democratization, policing strategies, counter-terrorism and economic and environmental activities. All 57 participating States enjoy equal status, and decisions are taken by consensus on a politically, but not legally binding basis. The OSCE Secretariat in Vienna assists the Chairmanship in its activities, and provides operational and administrative support to the field operations, and, as appropriate, to other institutions. The Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities (OCEEA) deals with economic and environmental issues, operating under the premise that promoting economic prosperity and co-operation on environmental problems can contribute to international security and stability. The OSCEs role is twofold: a) to monitor economic and environmental developments among participating States, and alert them to any threat of conflict, and b) to facilitate the formulation of economic and environmental policies and initiatives among participating States, to promote security. The Office currently comprises 22 staff members. The OSCE is committed to gender equality; therefore, female candidates are encouraged to apply. Tasks and Responsibilities Under the supervision of the Deputy Co-ordinator / Head, Economic Activities, and in order to assist the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities in carrying out their mandate, as Senior Economic and Environmental Officer, you will perform the following: Directing the work and supervising the staff of the Economic and Environmental Forum Unit; Preparing and organizing the annual Economic and Environmental Forum (EEF) process, consisting of Preparatory Conferences and ministerial level Meetings of the Forum; developing, co-ordinating and implementing various follow-up activities, such as projects, seminars, workshops, trainings, handbooks, etc.; Managing the elaboration of agendas and structure of Preparatory Conferences/Meetings of the Forum; including, selection of speakers and rapporteurs, logistical and financial aspects of the Forums events, recording, substantial analysis and assessment of their recommendations; Organizing preparation of various documents and materials, such as background notes, concept and food-for-thought papers, draft speeches, annotated agendas and summaries on varied topics of the Forum process (transport, migration, investment, energy, water and land management, etc.); Establishing and maintaining contacts, at a senior level, with officials of international organizations, sub-regional initiatives, NGOs, business groupings, the OSCE field operations and the delegations in Vienna in the context of preparing the EFF process and organizing its follow-up activities; Providing substantial policy advice to the OSCE Chairmanship, Chairperson of the Economic and Environmental Committee, and the OCEEA senior management with regard to the EEF process as well as other economic and environmental aspects of security; Co-ordinating the OCEEA input to the Economic and Environmental Committee and the Permanent Council, in particular aiming at consensus building, and drafting and negotiating relevant Permanent Council/Ministerial Council decisions; Supporting the efforts of various OSCE field operations in the development and implementation of activities related to the EEF process; Co-ordinating the organization of the annual meeting with the Economic and Environmental Officers (EEO) and other meetings in the OSCEs economic and environmental dimension to review and assess the progress achieved as well as the preparation and publication of the annual OCEEA Activity Report; Performing other related duties as required. For more detailed information on the structure and work of the OSCE Secretariat, please see //www.osce.org/secretariat>https: //www.osce.org/secretariat Necessary Qualifications Second-level university degree in economics, international relations or political science; focus on economic studies, development and/or transition economics, as well as on environmental security issues would be an asset; first-level university degree in combination with two years of additional qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the second-level university degree; A minimum of eight years of professional experience, preferably at the international level; In-depth understanding of and experience in security-related economic and environmental issues; Familiarity with a broad spectrum of global and regional economic and environmental issues allowing to adjust to varied themes and topics of the annual EEF process; Experience in carrying out analysis and conceptualization; Team leadership skills; Drafting and speechwriting skills; Experience in project development would be an important asset; Demonstrated gender awareness and sensitivity, and an ability to integrate a gender perspective into tasks and activities; Professional fluency in English, with excellent written and oral communication skills; knowledge of another OSCE language, especially Russian, would be an asset; Ability to work with people of different nationalities, religions or cultural backgrounds; Tags democratization gender perspective human rights international security land management political science staff rotation trainings Computer literate with practical experience with Microsoft applications. Required competencies Core values Commitment: Actively contributes to achieving organizational goals Diversity: Respects others and values their diverse perspectives and contributions Integrity: Acts in a manner consistent with the Organizations core values and organizational principles Accountability: Takes responsibility for own action and delegated work Core competencies Communication: Actively works to achieve clear and transparent communication with colleagues and with stakeholders of the Organization Collaboration: Works effectively with others on common goals and fosters a positive, trust-based working environment Planning: Works towards the achievement of goals in a structured and measured manner Analysis and decision-making: Analyses available information, draws well-founded conclusions and takes appropriate decisions Initiative-taking: Proposes and initiates new ideas, activities and projects Flexibility: Responds positively and effectively to changing circumstances Managerial competencies (for positions with managerial responsibilities) Leadership: Provides a clear sense of direction, builds trust and creates an enabling environment Strategic thinking: Identifies goals that advance the organizational agenda and develops plans for achieving them Managing performance: Helps to maximize team performance by providing active feedback and skill development opportunities Remuneration Package Monthly remuneration is approximately EUR 7,865, depending on post adjustment and family status. OSCE salaries are exempt from taxation in Austria. Social benefits will include possibility of participation in the Cigna medical insurance scheme and the OSCE Provident Fund. Other allowances and benefits are similar to those offered under the United Nations Common System. Please note that appointments are normally made at step 1 of the applicable OSCE salary scale. How To Apply If you wish to apply for this position, please use the OSCEs online application link found under //jobs.osce.org/vacancies>https: //jobs.osce.org/vacancies. The OSCE retains the discretion to re-advertise/re-post the vacancy, to cancel the recruitment, to offer an appointment at a lower grade or to offer an appointment with a modified job description or for a different duration. Only those applicants who are selected to participate in the subsequent stages of recruitment will be contacted. Please note that vacancies in the OSCE are open for competition only amongst nationals of participating States, please see //www.osce.org/states>http: //www.osce.org/states. The OSCE is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all religious, ethnic and social backgrounds to apply to become a part of the Organization. The OSCE is a non-career organization committed to the principle of staff rotation, therefore the maximum period of service in this post is 7 years. Please be aware that the OSCE does not request payment at any stage of the application and review process. The UN has praised Mustafa al-Kadhimis announcement, saying it would promote greater stability and democracy. Iraq will hold its next parliamentary elections nearly a year early, in June 2021, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has announced. June 6, 2021, has been fixed as the date for the next legislative elections, he said on Friday in a televised speech. Everything will be done to protect and ensure the success of these polls. The United Nations praised al-Kadhimis announcement saying it would promote greater stability and democracy. Al-Kadhimi came to power in May after months of protests forced his predecessor to resign. The next parliamentary elections had originally been due to take place in May 2022. Iraqs parliament must still ratify the election date. A key demand of protesters Elections in Iraq are sometimes marred by violence and often by fraud. Early elections are a key demand of anti-government protesters who staged months of mass demonstrations last year and were killed in their hundreds by security forces and gunmen suspected of links to armed groups. The mass protests that began in October, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets of Baghdad and across the south, demanded the political system be dismantled, pointing to endemic corruption and what many see as the malign influence of sectarian interests. They accuse the political elite, especially legislators, of squandering Iraqs oil wealth to line their own pockets. Al-Kadhimi was nominated in April, months after his predecessor Adel Abdul Mahdi stepped down the first time a prime minister has resigned before the end of his term since the US-led invasion 2003. Abdel Mahdis government proposed to Parliament a new electoral law, which was quickly passed last year. But the section detailing voting procedures and constituency boundaries has not been finalised, according to diplomats and experts. It was not clear what role Iraqs election commission regularly accused of bias would have in organising the polls. Activists have also demanded fairer elections and changes to Iraqs voting process and election committee after widespread accusations of fraud in the last nationwide vote in 2018. Voter turnout in Iraqs last election was 44.5 percent, but especially low in some impoverished southern Shia Muslim areas. Many Iraqis say they have no faith in Iraqs electoral system. Al-Kadhimis government faces a health crisis with a rapid spread of the coronavirus, a fiscal crisis because of low oil revenues and exports and challenges from powerful armed groups which oppose him. AKA Enterprise Solutions, a Gold Microsoft Dynamics Partner and Cloud Consultancy, is honored to announce that it has been presented by Microsoft with the 2020 Eagle Award. The Eagle Award, dedicated to partners who dared to soar and set new standards, recognizes the top three partners with the highest annual attainment and who have exceeded targets for adding new Microsoft Dynamics customers. We are honored to be recognized again for the success of our Microsoft Dynamics business over the past year, said Jack Ades, Co-CEO of AKA Enterprise Solutions. It is gratifying to be included with global integrators Avtex and Accenture. AKA has a long history with the prestigious Eagle Award. The company was recognized as the sole Eagle Award winner in 2001, with the first-ever Eagle award given to a to a company, as a result of significant contributions to Microsoft and the profession, including leadership efforts in exemplifying the full partnership philosophy with other Microsoft partner organizations and promoting an environment of teamwork among employees, Microsoft team members, and other partners. In 2005, Jack Ades and Alan Kahn, the founders and Co-CEOs of AKA Enterprise Solutions, were honored individually with the Eagle Award that recognized their involvement in several Microsoft Partner Advisory Councils, leadership within the Microsoft Partner Channel and industry as a whole. The Eagle Award is meaningful because it represents more than just the achievements of a company, said Alan Kahn, Co-CEO of AKA Enterprise Solutions. It represents everyone who contributedthe bright, hard-working professionals who make it their top priority each and every day to create true customer evangelists by solving problems and delivering results. We share this award with all of our team members. AKA has also been honored this year with membership in the 2020/2021 Inner Circle for Microsoft Business Applications, which recognizes outstanding performance that placed AKA in an elite group of our most strategic Microsoft Business Applications partners from across the globe. About AKA Enterprise Solutions For more than 30 years, AKA Enterprise Solutions has been dedicated to making it easier for organizations to do business and innovate their way to greatness by using technology to simplify processes and reduce risks. Specializing in Microsoft Dynamics 365, Cloud Services Business Process Consulting, and Custom Application Development, AKA combines industry and technical experience, proven methodologies, and world-class consulting to help firms achieve their goals. The company is headquartered in New York, NY. http://www.akaes.com Advertisement Just before he turned 18 Christopher Swann joined the Royal Navy as a diver 'frogmen, brass helmets and lead boots, shipwrecks and the sea, this was the sort of adventure I had been longing for', he said. The first time the Briton went diving was on a 'bitterly cold winter's day at the Royal Navy diving school at HMS Vernon in Portsmouth'. He said: 'It was as tough and as uncomfortable as they could make it. Of the 32 who started, only six made it. But by the time it was over, I had fallen in love with the sea.' Fast forward decades later to the present day and Mr Swann can look back at an amazing career and life, as a Royal Navy diver, oil rig diver, whale-watching excursion operator offering 'unparalleled experiences' and, in the past 15 years, an accomplished marine photographer. He's twice been an awarded finalist in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Christopher Swann has twice been an awarded finalist in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. This eye-popping picture he took is of a magnificent gray whale in the Gulf of California feeding at the surface and proudly showing its 'baleen', brushes in its mouth that filter food A spectacular shot that captured a killer whale leaping high in the air during an attack on a bottlenose dolphin His pictures are remarkable and so is his whale knowledge. In fact, he's known as 'The Whale Whisperer'. As the late radio presenter and producer Tessa McGregor said: 'Christopher Swann is one of the most remarkable people I have had the chance to meet. He is a brilliant photographer and an outstanding cetacean expert. His knowledge of whales, marine mammals and their behaviour is unrivalled. Once at sea with Swanny, you soon realise why people call him The Whale Whisperer. ' And Sean Whyte Co-Founder of The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society - said that his whale and dolphin trips offer 'unparalleled experiences' and that he could think of 'no-one better qualified' to see them with. But even having a profound knowledge of marine life doesn't guarantee brilliant pictures. A gray whale rises to the surface for a look around. Mr Swann said: 'Every cetacean is different, some will not let you close, others go at high speed, some are in murky water, others might stay down for hours' A mobula ray mid-flight in the Gulf of California. Mr Swann said of his photography expeditions that he often goes out hoping to get one thing and comes back with quite another Mr Swann told MailOnline Travel: 'I find that I often go out hoping to get one thing and come back with quite another. The first thing is to find the animals - then they have to be in the mood and you want the weather to cooperate. Every cetacean is different, some will not let you close, others go at high speed, some are in murky water, others might stay down for hours. It's a long slow business.' When asked to reveal the common mistakes amateurs make with photographing marine life, Mr Swann - who lives half the year in La Paz, Mexico, on the shores of the Sea of Cortez, and the other half on the west coast of Scotland - was characteristically humble. He said: 'I suspect I have made most of them. I think perhaps rushing towards animals. I always tell people about to swim with a whale, just tell it you aren't really there, sort of sidle towards them as if you are disinterested.' A spellbinding shot of common dolphins attacking a ball of blue jack mackerel, mid-ocean in the Azores, an area that Mr Swann says is his favourite for 'clear water' A fin whale glides to the surface in the Gulf of California. Mr Swann says that he loves whales for 'their beauty and elegance' Water guy: Mr Swann is known in marine circles as 'The Whale Whisperer' His list of go-to places for photographing whales and dolphins 'is endless', but 'if money was no object', they include 'Tonga, the Azores, the Canary Islands, the Caribbean and the Sea of Cortez'. He added: 'My favourites are the Azores for clear water and the Sea of Cortez for sheer abundance.' It was in the latter that he had a heart-stopping encounter with a shark in murky water. He revealed: 'I once got harried by a shark in very murky water in the north of the Sea of Cortez. Visibility was less than three foot even at the surface and I decided it was pointless to continue. Just then a six-foot shark appeared and swam right at me. This beautiful image by Mr Swann - who began his nautical career in the Royal Navy - shows sea lion pups at play The eye of a gray whale, pictured on Mexico's Pacific coast. Mr Swann's whale-watching trips are said to be incredible Humpback whales in the Mexican Pacific spouting - a process that involves them blowing all the air out of their lungs. The water vapour in the air then condenses above the whale in a spectacular fountain fashion A hypnotically large school of effervescent mobula rays, which are expert acrobats 'I bumped it on the snout with the camera housing and it shot off, only to reappear seconds later. I bumped it again and waved to my girlfriend on the boat to come and get me - she was not good with the boat. She didn't react at first and when she finally did, she came at full speed at went right over the top of me and ended up further away than when she started. Then the shark hit me. I swam as fast as I could - very tricky with heavy housing - and was relieved to get out.' Mr Swann said he loves whales and dolphins for 'their beauty and elegance' and that budding amateurs keen on photographing them should be 'determined and passionate'... and not fussed about making money. To find out more about Christopher Swann and to see more of his photography, visit his website - cswannphotography.com . An incredible encounter with sperm whales off the coast of Dominica By Christopher Swann Four miles offshore to the west of Dominica the water is two thousand feet deep. When the Trade Winds ease a little the height of the island shelters the sea here and stillness pervades. The Caribbean lies silent and silky. The island is shrouded in thin clouds of rain, a silver filigree dripping life onto the fecund land. Here as we rise and fall on the soft breath of the ocean, we can see Martinique far to the south and to the north, Guadeloupe. These are mountain tops of volcanoes, still occasionally troublesome. Beneath the surface they are of course joined. Invisible to us, the subsea world has its own highways and boulevards, along which myriad animals travel, feed, prey, mate, socialise and communicate, among them one of the world's most notorious creatures -Moby Dick, the sperm whale, or cachalot. Here they can be found in large numbers and sometimes, like today, in relaxed good humour. It was just after breakfast as we neared the northern end of the island that we saw the first blow. It was typical, a small forward-slanting mist of white, low and easy to miss if there is lots of white water. But today in this luscious calm we can see for miles, the surface is oily and undulant, like gently flexing silk stretched taut. It ripples and pools. The sun beats down, flattening it with its heat. Sperm whales in the Eastern Caribbean. Mr Swann describes them as 'grey-black submarines... prehistoric, deformed, bizarre' Drawing nearer to the whale we begin, as is so often the case, to see other blows. It is clear there are many whales around. These are mothers and calves, females and juveniles, in pairs, in small groups and the odd wandering youngster seemingly alone. Blows explode in cotton wool silence wherever we look. Backlit by the sun they are bright and golden. Close to the first animals, it is clear they are quite relaxed, not the sometimes common twitchy sperm whale behaviour. Then they are awkward cussed beasts, difficult to approach and soon gone once you cross the boundary they have set, perhaps around 80 yards. But now it is the opposite. We cruise quietly to a halt, easing our speed and then finally turning off one engine. The noise is at a minimum, the whales not more than 30 yards away and showing no sign of nervousness. Slipping into gear, we inch ahead. The whales are cruising slowly, their dark wrinkled backs and asymmetrical blowholes make them seem prehistoric, deformed, bizarre. Now we are travelling with them, side by side at maybe a knot or less, and they are perfectly happy for us to be there. They are mere feet away and it is magnificent. Occasionally two or three passes right under the boat and they are bumping and knocking against us but without the slightest concern or apparent notice. They are clustered under the boat, at the bow, to each side. Everywhere we look are blows, occasionally a tail appears, standing above the horizon like the flower of a fossil plant. Lowering my face back into the sea I can make them out in the distance, coming directly towards me like a row of grey-black submarines Christopher Swann These are truly weird animals. Their heads account for over half their body length and the rest is all tail. They have tiny, mean but not unintelligent eyes and paddle-like flippers. As they shed their skin regularly they appear patchy, even shabby. On their bodies, remora [suckerfish] wriggle and slither with incredible agility and speed, gathering what food drifts by on this fairground ride to the deeps, for this is a creature designed to dive to ridiculous depths, where, in the pitch black of the abyssal deep, they hunt among other things, giant squid, architeuthis. It is astonishing to contemplate that evolution has led to this battle of the deeps, one for which both contestants are well adapted. Maybe five or six thousand feet below the sea's surface this struggle is enacted and there is no audience. But for now, they are intent on travelling slowly south and are almost continually at the surface. We are in the middle of them. Sometimes they stop. Nothing is happening, they just pause. Now is our chance and we slip on masks and snorkels and slide into the water. It is fabulous. A deep inkwell of brilliant indigo, thick with dancing rays of sunlight. It is indescribably blue and the moted shafts of light dance and flicker with mirth. Way down deep they fade and disappear. Swimming gently towards an approaching group I stop and lift my head out of the water to see what they are doing, where exactly they are. They are doing the very same thing just 20 yards away looking at me. Lowering my face back into the sea I can make them out in the distance, coming directly towards me like a row of grey-black submarines. From above, they look strange. In the water, they look incomprehensible. But they are coming directly at me. I see one or two open their jaws and the rows of teeth are clear. I stay floating and still and as they near they swerve slightly and pass maybe 15 feet away. Large, small, a tiny calf that must be very new, all pass like a soft forest of whales. The sea is blotted out as they swarm by. I swim alongside them. The water is warm and clear, everything is sublime and I am lost in an amniotic world. When Richard Santos Raya announced his bid for Oakland City Council, he embodied a fervent moment of protest and generational conflict. On June 28, the 27-year-old led a car caravan to City Councilman Noel Gallos house in the Fruitvale district of East Oakland. As the sun baked down, Raya delivered a speech about how jobs, housing and culture not police keep a community safe. He knelt in the street with other protesters, raised a fist and later posted photos of himself on Instagram. That night, Raya set a plan in motion: He would run to unseat Gallo, a famously law-and-order politician who organizes Friday night safety walks and once pressed for youth curfews. Noel was just going to walk back into his seat, said Raya, who works at Centro Legal de la Raza, a nonprofit that provides legal services to immigrants. And I thought, someone needs to challenge him. Crime and safety have driven many elections in Oakland, where high rates of violence have fueled calls for more police officers. But this year a progressive wave is rolling through the city, which has also been dogged by scandals in a police force operating under federal oversight since 2003. The political energy that now dominates Oakland is fed by a resistance movement that began with the 2016 presidential election and accelerated after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The makeup of the Oakland City Council could change dramatically in November, with five hotly contested races. Several of them could turn on a single topic: defunding the police. This is definitely going to be the defining issue, said Joshua Davis, a resident of Uptown and member of the group East Bay for Everyone, which focuses mostly on housing but has also backed a community-led campaign to shift money away from the police budget. The group has not yet endorsed any council candidates. You cant walk downtown without seeing murals that call for an end to police brutality, Davis continued. Its not going away. The citys marquee race is in West Oakland District Three where community activist Carroll Fife is running against City Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney. Fife is best known for organizing Moms4Housing, a collective that began with an act of civil disobedience, when homeless mothers took over a speculator-owned house on Magnolia Street. Fife said she has grounded her campaign in the idea that public safety means stable housing and access to health care, rather than police patrols. Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle McElhaney, who was elected in 2012, ran on a platform that also emphasized safety, a calling that became more immediate after she lost a son and grandson to gun violence. In 2016, she persuaded colleagues to make Love Life the citys official motto, and the next year she helped form the Department of Violence Prevention, which puts teams of social workers and counselors into high-crime areas, seeking to defuse conflicts before they heat up. Many of Fifes supporters see McElhaney as too moderate. But the councilwoman disagrees. She and Fife both support calls to divert money from the Police Department and toward social services, though McElhaney wants to work incrementally, while Fife urges immediate systemic change. Even so, McElhaney describes her match as a battle between progressives with similar worldviews, who have better ways to spend their time and money. Its absolutely silly that progressives would do anything other than raise money and campaign to defeat Trump, overturn Proposition 209 and fix Proposition 13, she said, expressing support for affirmative action and property tax reforms to fund schools. Paul Kuroda / Special to The Chronicle 2018 In an area where every elected official is a Democrat, political fights often hinge on specific wedge issues. This years races are playing out against a backdrop of intense racial justice demonstrations and occasional acts of destruction. On a recent Monday, vandals covered Mayor Libby Schaafs house and the sidewalk in front of it with graffiti, scrawling messages such as Defund OPD and Blood on Your Hands. The next day, Schaaf cast a tie-breaking City Council vote to reject deeper cuts to the police budget. At the same time, President Trump has threatened to send in federal agents to suppress protests in Oakland, a move that Schaaf criticized, saying it would only provoke civil unrest. So, council races that might otherwise center on homelessness, development or bike infrastructure are suddenly focused on reimagining public safety. In District One, which spreads from the North Oakland hills to the Emeryville border, City Councilman Dan Kalb is defending his seat against Stephanie Dominguez Walton, a longtime organizer and mother of two, and Tri Ngo, an engineer who was born in a Vietnamese refugee camp. Walton, who has many high-profile endorsements, spoke out in favor of a June proposal by Councilwoman Nikki Fortunato-Bas to slash the police budget by $25 million this year. The council rejected Fortunato-Bas item, opting instead to pass a more cautious budget with a $14.3 million cut to law enforcement. The dynamics are slightly different in Oaklands citywide at-large race, where the incumbent has also positioned herself as the most liberal. City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan will face off with restaurateur Derreck Johnson, a gay Black man who is campaigning for job growth, preservation of small businesses and community-centered police officers. He hopes to reform rather than dismantle the department. 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. Raised in the Acorn Projects of West Oakland, Johnson grew up to be a businessman with a social justice bent: He started a car detailing service from the trunk of his own car and hired formerly incarcerated people to operate it. He still recruits former inmates to work at his soul food restaurant, Home of Chicken and Waffles. Kaplan was the first openly lesbian City Council member when she won in 2008, having built a multiracial coalition of activists, clergy and labor groups. Early in her first term, she established a free bus shuttle on Broadway and advocated for marijuana businesses. In recent years, Kaplan earned a reputation for shrewd politics and imaginative ideas last year she caused an uproar by suggesting the city put homeless people on cruise ships as well as unexpected positions. She was the swing vote in June to pass the budget with the more modest $14.3 million police cut, a move that angered her base. In District Seven, the deep East Oakland neighborhoods most affected by crime and heavy police patrols, PG&E public affairs representative Treva Reid is running to succeed her father, City Councilman Larry Reid, who is retiring after nearly 24 years in office. Reid said shes open to the idea of defunding the police, as long as the money is reinvested in community programs to reduce gun violence. People may be challenged with the slogan, she said, but the philosophy seems to have wide appeal. Shes competing in a crowded field that includes Robert Bishop Bob Jackson, a pastor at the Acts Full Gospel Church on 66th Avenue. Hes wary of calls to defund the police altogether but favors proposals to remove police from situations related to mental health and homelessness. These issues cause anguished debate in Fruitvale, another flatland area where street corners and lampposts bear makeshift memorials. The district has seen few changes in leadership. Former City Councilman Ignacio de la Fuente served the area from 1992 until 2013, at which point Gallo won the seat. Gallo remembers Raya from the rallies outside his house. Protesters had picketed there twice as budget and public safety debates escalated in Oakland. Raya was in the second group. They got upset because I was not willing to defund the police by $150 million without a process, Gallo recalled. For years he represented a more conservative ideal of crime prevention, chairing the councils Public Safety Committee, pressing for more enforcement on homeless encampments and illegal dumping, and donning a yellow vest for Friday night safety walks or weekend sidewalk cleanups. Now, Gallo supports a task force to reimagine public safety in Oakland and slash $150 million from the police not right away but in the future. For me to straight off the top say well cut $150 million would be irresponsible, Gallo said. We had already agreed with unions to not do any layoffs or furloughs. Raya sees Gallo as too paternalistic, representing an institution thats starting to wobble. People are waking up, Raya said. They are getting angry. They will come to your house. Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan Six brick row homes were damaged in a fire Thursday afternoon in the 900 block of West Washington Street in Allentown, fire Chief James Wehr said. The American Red Cross Greater PA said the organization was assisting about 30 people from six families with temporary housing as well as clothing and meals. Allentown firefighters battled a blaze July 30, 2020, that resulted in damage to six row homes in the 900 block of West Washington Street.Mike Nester | lehighvalleylive.com contributor No one was injured in the three-alarm fire that was reported just before 2 p.m., Wehr said. Three of the homes sustained fire damage while all six had smoke and water damage, Wehr said. All of the homes -- some of which were divided into apartments -- cant be lived in at the moment because, as is standard practice, the utilities were pulled while firefighters worked, Wehr said. Once electricity is reattached, some of the homes can be occupied again, Wehr said. It took about an hour to get the fire under control and firefighters remained throughout the afternoon and into the evening, Wehr said. Allentown firefighters battled a blaze July 30, 2020, that resulted in damage to six row homes in the 900 block of West Washington Street.Mike Nester | lehighvalleylive.com contributor The cause of the fire and the ignition point are still under investigation, he said. The fire scene was a little more than two blocks away from a double fatal fire on Monday on Fair Street just off the 700 block of West Washington. The investigation into the cause of that fire is continuing as well, Wehr said. Allentown firefighters battled a blaze July 30, 2020, that resulted in damage to six row homes in the 900 block of West Washington Street.Mike Nester | lehighvalleylive.com contributor Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Nigeria could be next Rwanda or Darfur if world doesn't act, advocates warn Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A genocide expert and former Congressman Frank Wolf have warned that violence being committed against Christians in Nigeria and the U.S. governments failed response to it could lead to another genocide like the ones that occurred in Rwanda and Darfur. Wolf, a longtime Republican representative from Virginia who is the namesake of the International Religious Freedom Act passed by Congress in 2016, joined Genocide Watchs Greg Stanton, Nigerian bishops and other religious freedom advocates on a Zoom call with reporters last week hosted by the advocacy group In Defense of Christians. When the world and the U.S. ignored genocide in Rwanda, hundreds of thousands of people died. History, I believe, is repeating itself, Wolf contended. Almost daily reports show increasing violence and death in Nigeria. An implosion of Nigeria will destabilize the surrounding countries and send millions of refugees into Europe and beyond. The conversation comes as estimates show that thousands have been killed and millions displaced since 2015 due to attacks carried out by predominantly Muslim Fulani militias against predominantly Christian farming communities in the Middle Belt of Nigeria as well as Islamic extremist attacks carried out by Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province in northeast Nigeria. Advocates have for years called on the international community to recognize the ongoing violence in Nigeria as a genocide. Genocide Watch, a nonprofit formed in 1999 that seeks to raise awareness and influence public policy regarding acts of genocide, estimates that as many as 27,000 people have been killed by extremists or Fulani jihadis in the last decade. According to Genocide Watch, the violence carried out by Fulani militias and Islamic terrorists in Nigeria combine to make the deadliest genocidal massacres committed by any terrorists since 2010. Boko Haram has committed genocide in Nigeria, has killed over 27,000 Nigerians, more than ISIS killed in Iraq and Syria combined, Wolf stressed during his opening remarks. The Fulani militants are committing genocidal massacres against Nigerian Christians. While some international organizations have in the last year warned the International Criminal Court about the genocidal implications in Nigeria, Stanton, the Genocide Watch founder, told those on the call that Genocide Watch has labeled the pattern of Fulani jihadi violence in Nigeria a genocide since 2012. He said that Genocide Watch raised alarms about the genocidal implications of Boko Haram long before 2012. What is preventing the world from facing this huge problem? Stanton asked. The first problem that we face [with] the Fulani militias is the dominant current narrative, which is denial. Denial is a part of every genocide. It starts in the beginning and it usually goes way after. What we got here [in Nigeria], the traditional narrative is the herder-farmer conflict. That was exactly the narrative, by the way, in Rwanda, before the genocide there. Stanton explained that the U.S. ambassador to Rwanda at the time thought of the violence committed against the Tutsis in the early 1990s as a civil war and conflict. Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were killed by ethnic Hutu extremists in just three months in 1994 as toxic rhetoric spread through the country incited Hutu radicals to attack their Tutsi neighbors. The result was, [the ambassador] was unable to see that this was also a genocide, not facing the fact that actually most genocides occur during civil wars or international wars, Stanton said. So we went along hoping the Arusha Accords would hold and so on in 1993. Finally, the denial ended up in April of 1994 with one of the worst genocides in history. Stanton warned that a similar dynamic is taking place in Nigeria. Our own embassy is still denying that this is genocide, that the Fulani militias are committing genocide, he said. So have human rights groups. Human Rights Watch, for instance, thinks of it that way. The International Crisis Group thinks of it that way. These are very distinguished organizations and I have great respect for them. But they are dominated by what I would call conflict-prevention narrative. In essential terms, the U.S. embassys policies on this violence have been what I call conflict resolution policies. They try to get the groups together and they try to have sort of Kumbaya moments in which people talk to each other and everybody is hunky-dory and they get along. Stanton argued that the problem with those types of policies is that they do not reach the terrorist groups. They also dont reach the army and the police and others who need to be really conscious of this huge problem in their country, he said. I think that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem that comes from this dominant false narrative of the Fulani jihadists. A predominant narrative of the violence in the Middle Belt is that they are farmer-herder clashes resulting from the fact that desertification in northern Nigeria is driving nomadic herding communities south in search of scarce land resources. A report released last week by a group of lawmakers in the United Kingdom suggests that Christian farming communities appear to be the main victims of the violence in the Middle Belt although some reprisals by vigilante groups have targeted Fulani communities. These killings are specifically in Christian villages. So when we say it is genocide against Christians, governments of the world don't want to hear that, including Nigeria's government, Benjamin Kwashi, the Anglican Archbishop of Jos, said on the call. They have always explained it away as farmers-and-herders clashes. There is no doubt that in history, communities have always had their clashes. The Fulani who we know have always had their clashes with local people. They are usually settled. But this is different because these killers are well armed. They shoot, they slaughter and burn down houses and businesses and destoy barns where food storage has been kept. These are calculated systematic, intentional killings of people and driving them away from their land. Kwashi said that there are some lands in the Plateau state and Kaduna state where indigenous people are not able to go back to their farms without being killed by Fulani extremists. The difficulty that I have is that these people have not been brought to justice, Kwashi said. How can we say that this is not intentional in the attempt to wipe out these villages who are majority Christians? Stanton argued that the Fulani militants leave the Muslim village nearby completely alone. Every single person of the 7,600 Christians that have been killed in Nigeria since 2015 by Fulani militias has been Christian, Stanton claimed. Thats genocide. It is the intentional destruction, in whole or in part, of a religious group. Stanton stressed that Christian villagers and farmers have no conflict with Fulanis. The Fulanis now arrive with truckloads, maybe 100 of their fighters. They simply massacre a Christian village, he added. Wolf agreed with Stantons assessment of the U.S. embassys approach. I want to say this clearly, the current policies and actions of the American Embassy in Nigeria have failed, he said. I believe we need a special envoy for Nigeria, in the Lake Chad region, a person who can coordinate the U.S. response to the crisis by various aid agencies of our government, who can work with the allies in France and England and other NATO countries. Stanton said that one way to overcome the dominant narrative is by conducting a full-scale international investigation that would result in an authoritative report. As we did with Darfur, however, we realized that even after an investigation by our own government that it wasnt enough to convince the [United Nations], Stanton said. They put together their own commission of inquiry, which came out with a report that said that there was not enough evidence of intent to say that Sudan was committing genocide against the people of Darfur, which was nonsense. By the time the commission was formed, there were already 50,000 Darfuris who had been murdered with the help of the Sudanese government with bombings and so forth. That, unfortunately, is what is happening in Nigeria today. The central government, the federal government, essentially is acting as a bystander. It is not pursuing actively. Wolf warned that every day there is a delay in appointing a special envoy means more people will die. When the appointment is made, Secretary Pompeo should stand next to the appointee to show that he or she has the support of the secretary and the administration, Wolf said. I believe the failure to act means thousands more will die in Nigeria and there will be serious repercussions in Africa and beyond. A special envoy for Nigeria and the Lake Chad region can essentially overrule the denialism of our ambassador," Stanton stressed. They can really organize an effort to do something about these massacres and genocide, he said. Austria will lift a two-week ban on commercial flights from the majority of Balkan countries as of tomorrow, allowing for the resumption of scheduled operations. A new Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) - an aviation document informing all carriers of important and urgent messages has been issued, noting the air traffic ban will be lifted at midnight on August 1. However, Austria has introduced strict new measures for those entering the country. Flights will now be able to resume from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro to the central European nation. Austria is also lifting bans on flights from the United Kingdom, Sweden, Portugal, China, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Egypt and Iran. Austria is one of the largest travel markets from the former Yugoslavia and Austrian Airlines itself has said it has been severely affected by the governments flight bans, which were introduced to help contain the spread of the coronavirus Covid-19. As of tomorrow, Air Serbia will resume operations from Belgrade to Vienna. Services will run daily, alternating between a morning and evening departure. On August 2, the Serbian carrier will restore operations from Nis to Salzburg and from Kraljevo to Vienna. Budget airline Wizz Air will resume services from Nis to Vienna on August 9, at a reduced frequency of one flight per week until September. The low cost carrier will restore a one weekly service from Pristina and Ohrid to the Austrian capital from August 1, increasing to four weekly and three weekly respectively from September. Furthermore, Wizz Air will go ahead with the launch of its new Vienna - Podgorica service tomorrow, albeit at a reduced one weekly frequency, increasing to two weekly the following month. The budget airline previously announced it would delay the resumption of its Tuzla - Vienna service until mid-September. Montenegro Airlines will resume a one weekly service between Podgorica and Vienna on August 8. Austrian Airlines is also returning to markets in the former Yugoslavia as of tomorrow. Services to Belgrade and Podgorica commence on August 1 and will initially run five and seven times per week, respectively. Operations to Pristina and Skopje also commence this Saturday and will be maintained ten times per week. Services between Vienna and Sarajevo will operate nine times per week as of tomorrow. Foreign nationals are prohibited from entering Austria from the abovementioned Balkan states. All persons arriving in Austria are required to carry proof of a negative result for Covid-19 issued no more than 72 hours prior to departure using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test and self-isolate for ten days. Those unable to produce such proof must undergo testing upon arrival and self-isolate for ten days, regardless whether the result is negative. This service applies to you if your subscription has not yet expired on our old site. You will have continued access until your subscription expires; then you will need to purchase an ongoing subscription through our new system. Please contact the Parsons Sun office at (620) 421-2000 if you have any questions Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir By Natasha Trethewey Ecco. 212 pp. $29.99 - - - We know from the first page of this riveting memoir that poet Natasha Trethewey's mother is dead. "Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir" is a tribute to a life snuffed out by a brutal man, a fractured judicial system and a patriarchy as old as Methuselah. It is also an examination of the Old South colliding with the new, a chronicle of one artist's beginnings, and of a changing America. "Memorial Drive" is metaphorical - memory takes us for a ride - but it is also a road in Atlanta, a major east-west artery that "winds east from downtown ending at Stone Mountain, the nation's largest monument to the Confederacy." Massive statues of Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis are displayed here. Near its base, Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough was shot to death in the parking lot of her apartment complex, "the faded chalk outline of her body on the pavement, the yellow police tape still stuck to the door" when her daughter saw it the next morning. She was 40 years old. Trethewey excavates her mother's life, transforming her from tragic victim to luminous human being. She is a living, breathing dynamo, coming of age in the Jim Crow South, breaking out of the restrictions imposed on her. Born in 1944, she meets her first husband, Canadian Eric Trethewey, in college. They live with her extended family in North Gulfport, Miss. Trethewey describes her "high yellow" relatives in "elegant lace-up shoes . . . and creased trousers," living on the same patch of land for generations. Her great-aunt Sugar teaches her how to fish. Her grandmother sleeps with a pistol under her pillow. The Ku Klux Klan burns a cross in the yard when Trethewey is a toddler because her grandmother gives shelter to white Mennonite missionaries who had come to "repair the dilapidated housing of the very poor." Her parents' interracial marriage is also an issue. "My parents and I met with a great deal of hostility most places we went," Trethewey recalls. "If I was with my father, I measured the polite responses from white people, the way they addressed him as 'Sir' or 'Mister.' Whereas my mother would be called 'Gal,' never 'Miss' or 'Ma'am,' as I had been taught was proper." Her biracial identity becomes disorienting. Things change when the family moves to Atlanta, the city that "epitomized the emergence of the New South" with its embrace of the civil rights movement. But Trethewey's parents divorce and her mother begins her new single life, waitressing in Atlanta's Underground. She meets the brutal Joel Grimmette, or "Big Joe." Their union is a surprise to Trethewey, who, after a summer with her grandmother in Mississippi, returns to find her mother, married, with a new baby in tow. "You are in the fifth grade the first time you hear your mother being beaten. . . . And then your mother's voice, almost a whimper but calm, rational: Please Joel. Please don't hit me again . . . The need in the voice of your powerful, lovely mother is teaching you something about the world of men and women, of dominance and submission." Trethewey is also psychologically abused by Grimmette. Through her childhood diary, a gift from her mother, she finds agency through language, and the will to resist. "I had begun to compose myself she recalls. The quagmire of male entitlement and mental illness make up the second half of the book. There are black eyes, bruised kidneys, a sprained arm, a fractured jaw. Divorce follows, along with restraining orders and some relief. For a brief period, her mother has hope for her own future. "My mother is flying. She is smiling, her slender arms undulating as if they are wings, as if she is a bird. It is high summer, 1984. Morris Day and the Time play on the radio. The song - her new favorite - is "The Bird." She dances as if she is free to soar like one. And finally (Squawk, Hallelujah!) she is. She does not say it, but we are celebrating. Joel is in prison, nearly a year-long sentence ahead of him, and she is, for the first time in ten years, free." But her freedom is short-lived. Grimmette is released. A police detail lets down its guard. More than once, Trethewey wonders if her own voice could have saved her mother; if her silence contributed to her death. She understands the power of words, but also the power of silence. Trethewey points out that her own name, Natasha, is the Greek word for "resurrection," which feels especially poignant, given her mother's fate. This is a political book. It is the story of a woman cut down in her prime, about a sick man who imposed his control and had his way, about the larger story of power in America. The awful postscript to this story is that Grimmette was released from prison in March of last year, and is now a free man. - - - Page is co-editor of "We Wear the Mask: 15 True Stories of Passing in America." She is assistant professor of English at George Washington University. (Newser) President Trump is looking at ordering the sale of the US portion of TikTok, and Microsoft appears ready to step into the void. "We may be banning TikTok," Trump said Friday, the Wall Street Journal reports. A deal with Microsoft would bring Bytedance, the app's Chinese owner, tens of billions and beat at least one alternativeseeing TikTok pulled out of app stores. Users create short videos with the app, combining music and other effects, and post them. TikTok has been a hit during the pandemic as young people, especially, produce videos while stuck at home. It may not seem strategically logical for Microsoft to make the deal, Alex Sherman writes for CNBC, but TikTok is just starting to monetize its audience. At this point, Sherman says, anybody who can afford the acquisition should try to make it. story continues below National security concerns are behind the administration's objections to the app's current ownership. US officials have worried that the data collected from American users could be passed through TikTok to the Chinese government. "We have never provided user data to the Chinese government," a TikTok spokesperson said, per the Washington Post, "nor would we do so if asked." TikTok has tried to head off a divestiture order by pointing out that it has hundreds of employees in the USwith more being added rapidlyand by hiring a former Disney executive as its chief executive. And it's hired more than 35 lobbyists, per the New York Times. The US also has considered less drastic moves against the app. (China represents the greatest long-term threat, FBI director said.) By Ryan Morrison If you voted in the primary, you probably noticed a short slogan printed next to each candidates name. State law allows for these slogans, but they come with an unconstitutional catch. The slogan laws allow candidates to use a six-word slogan on the ballot, but the slogan cannot refer to the name of any person or any New Jersey association without their consent. This violates a candidates free speech rights. In America, we do not have to ask permission to speak. And we do not give the government the power to decide what we can and cannot say. That is why the Institute for Free Speech filed a lawsuit on behalf of Democratic congressional candidates Eugene Mazo and Lisa McCormick to strike down the ballot slogan laws for violating the First Amendment. Mr. Mazo, a political newcomer, wanted to use slogans that mentioned the names of local organizations, but he could not get approval from the groups. Accordingly, he used Essex County Progressive Democratic Committee, Inc., Hudson County Progressive Democratic Organization and Progressive Democratic Organization of Union County. This is typical of how politics works in New Jersey. Political operatives will incorporate certain political phrases to prevent candidates from using them. For instance, Ms. McCormick wanted to use Not Me. Us., as her slogan for the primary election ballot. But state officials informed her that this slogan referred to the name of a New Jersey incorporated association. Subsequently, she tried to use Bernie Sanders Betrayed the NJ Revolution, but did not have authorization from Sanders. Ultimately, she used Democrats United for Progress. But it should not have come to this. Mr. Mazos and Ms. McCormicks slogans were regulated because of the message they wanted to express. The U.S. Supreme Court requires these content-based speech regulations to pass strict scrutiny, the highest level of constitutional scrutiny. And New Jerseys slogan laws, like virtually all other content-based speech regulations, cannot pass the test. Apart from the legal issue, the slogan statutes are foolish. A candidate cannot state that he is a Ronald Reagan Republican or JFK Democrat, because former Presidents Reagan and Kennedy are deceased and cannot provide authorization unless the candidate finds someone else named Ronald Reagan or with the initials JFK who gives permission. Alternatively, someone could create Elizabeth Warren, Inc. and be authorized to list her name in the slogan. The slogan statutes would also allow a candidate to falsely imply she is endorsed by the governor if she knows someone with the governors name who is willing to authorize it. And because the slogan statutes only require the authorization of New Jersey entities, a candidate could farcically, but legally, state she is Endorsed by The New York Times but not by a New Jersey newspaper, regardless of whether either statement is true. New Jerseys slogan statutes violate the First Amendment and do a disservice to both candidates and voters. They should be declared unconstitutional so candidates can communicate freely on the ballot. Ryan Morrison is an attorney at the Institute for Free Speech in Washington, D.C. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Heres how to submit an op-ed or Letter to the Editor. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Senate Bill 793: Whats worsethe tobacco policy or the puff? On July 23, Greater Zion Church Family head pastor, Michael Fisher, hosted a Facebook Live conversation via Zoom which discussed the topic of criminalizing menthol. This Zoom call featured a distinguished panel of guests that had interest and knowledge in discussing Senate Bill 793, which directly affects the flavor menthol. ADVERTISEMENT SB 793 is a bill that would prohibit the sale of flavored tobacco products and/or having the product with the intention of selling it. This bill stems from the Stop Tobacco Access to Kids Enforcement (STAKE) Act, which was made effective Jan. 1, 1995 to stop the selling of tobacco products to persons under 21 years of age. As the Zoom call commenced, a theme that became recurring throughout the conversation was no one is in support of any using tobacco products but there is an argument as to whether legislation can create harm for the Black community. Senior pastor at Weller Street Missionary Baptist Church, K.W. Tulloss, started off the argument by being opposed to the bill since he believes it will increase the criminalization of Black people. A bill that is prohibiting and possibly criminalizing our community is a bill that we cannot support, said Tulloss. Tulloss acknowledges that smoking has been a problem in the community for long time but efforts should be poised toward educating people instead of unwanted attention by authorities. The American Lung Association reports that nearly 17 percent of smokers in this country come from the African-American community, making them the second largest ethnic population of smokers. Out of this ethnic population, roughly 3 in 4 smokers use menthol cigarettes which can make the smoking process easier yet harder to quit. Carson Councilmember, Jawane Hilton, expressed how this ban is targeting menthol and people within the community will be negatively affected by this. I think it has a few consequences in it that we need to rethinkwe have a broad brush and we need to paint the brush back just a little bit to make sure out community is healthy, said Hilton. Pastor William D. Smart Jr. of Christ Liberation Ministries, also added to the argument by making this a civil rights issue. You cannot deny us a cigarette but not deny it to White people and their predominant choiceto me thats racism and discrimination, said Smart. ADVERTISEMENT He argued that White people predominately smoke Newport cigarettes which have no flavor and hookah tobacco retailers are exempt from this bill which took the Mediterranean population into consideration. Others in this discussion felt that this is not a matter of race but instead this bill help save Black lives in the long run. ES Advisors Group President, Edward Sanders, supports the bill getting passed since he believes it will help not only the Black community but all communities. If there is one thing you can do to save Black lives, it is moving menthol off the marketits not a question of racism and special treatment, said Sanders. The CDC reports that tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States with more that 480,000 deaths annually. Sanders argues that 45,000 of those deaths are African-Americans with tobacco being a major contributor to heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. Co-Chairperson of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council, Carol McGruder, also supports SB 793 and argues that racism doesnt play a role in this specific bill. The FDA in two different reports said it would be in the best interest of the public to take menthol off the marketwe want to take off a product that kills 45,000 Black people every year in this country, said McGruder. The African American Tobacco Control Leadership council is suing the FDA since they believe they have not protected Black people and racism can be found on their end. Councilwoman Michelle Chambers of District 1 in the City of Compton, also gave her input on where resources and attention should be directed which is healthcare. Give us some money for cessationhelp us with cancer research and help us with mental therapy, said Chambers. As someone who is against the bill, she argues that if this bill passes another George Floyd or Eric Garner incident could ensue and the criminal justice will be affected. As this bill continues to make its way through the legislature, the debate still remains if this will help reduce tobacco use across the board or marginalize the Black community even more. The California Senate has already passed the bill and it will make its way to the Assembly for consideration. Oprah Winfrey is featuring Grand Rapids native Breonna Taylor on the cover of the September issue of her magazine, the first time someone other than herself has been featured. Taylor, 26, was fatally shot by Louisville police on March 13 following a no-knock warrant at her residence and since has become a national symbol in a movement against police brutality and racism. Winfrey wrote about her decision to feature Taylor, a Black emergency medical technician, who grew up in Grand Rapids but left for Kentucky with family more than a decade ago -- on her Twitter page and other social media. The September issue of O, The Oprah Magazine will focus on issues of anti-racism and white privilege. In her social media post, Winfrey wrote that The September issue honors her life and the life of ever other Black woman whose life has been taken too soon. She wrote that she thinks about Taylor often. Imagine if three unidentified men burst into your home while you were sleeping. And your partner fired a gun to protect you. And then mayhem. What I know for sure: We cant be silent. We have to use whatever megaphone we have to cry for justice, Winfrey wrote. The police warrant was issued as part of a narcotics investigation, but Taylor wasnt the person police were investigating. That suspect and his accomplices were already in custody, according to the Washington Post. No drugs were found in Taylors home. Louisville Police Officer Brett Hankison, one of three officers involved in the shooting, was fired June 23. More from MLive Grand Rapids native Breonna Taylor, victim of police shooting, honored at vigil Breonna Taylor: Protesters march in Grand Rapids calling on people to say her name Louisville police officer fired in death of Breonna Taylor, Grand Rapids native WEX Inc. (NYSE: WEX) reported earnings of $1.21 per share, a 46.9% decline compared to earnings of $2.28 per share a year ago, during the company's earnings call on Thursday. The Portland, Maine-based provider of fuel payment processing for fleet vehicles also reported revenues of $347.08 million for the quarter ended June 2020, compared to year-ago revenues of $441.81 million, a 21.4% decline. "Our second quarter results reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and underscore the resilience of our business, where we saw a few bright spots even in this challenged environment," said Melissa Smith, WEX's chair and chief executive officer. WEX reported net income increased by $58.9 million to $72.7 million during the second quarter, which Smith attributed to "disciplined capital allocation" and adding "new customers." "During the quarter we signed OMV, a European oil company with 2,100 locations across 10 countries that will use us for their private label processing needs," Smith said. "We also signed J.B. Hunt, one of the largest trucking companies in the country." Wex's second quarter 2020 performance metrics include: WEX over-the-road (OTR) fleet solutions decreased 24% to 204,380 compared to the second quarter of 2019 Fuel transactions processed decreased 17% to $127.9 million Payment processing transactions decreased 19% to $103.1 million Travel and Corporate Solutions' purchase volume decreased 68% to $3.2 billion Health and Employee Benefit Solutions' average number of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) accounts in the U.S. grew 15% to 14.5 million Average number of vehicles serviced was 15.1 million, an 8% increase "With the over-the-road business, we are seeing larger over-the-road fleets recovering faster than some of the smaller over-the-road fleet customers around the world," Smith said. "In the North American fleet business, it is actually a little bit less clear. The smaller businesses have held up really well." Story continues Smith added that they are monitoring how the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and federal stimulus programs will affect the business sector. Through June 30, the transportation and warehousing sector had received more than $17 billion in PPP funding. "It is one of the things that we are just watching what happens with stimulus money, and how is that going to impact some of the customer behavior," Smith said. Smith also commented on WEX's ongoing litigation with ENett and Optal. In May, WEX officials announced that due to the global coronavirus pandemic, the company would not continue with plans for the $1.7 billion acquisition of ENett and Optal. Officials and shareholders of ENett and Optal filed a lawsuit in May in England alleging WEX breached the terms of its share purchase agreement when it backed out of the deal. "We continue to remain confident in our position that we cannot predict the outcome of these proceedings," Smith said. "There's a trial of preliminary issues scheduled for the end of September, where certain issues related to the case will be decided. It would be impossible to predict the outcome at this point in time." WEX's second quarter financial results. Click for more FreightWaves articles by Noi Mahoney. More articles Hurricane Hanna disrupts freight lanes in South Texas Protesters end blockade at Pharr port of entry Chinese truck maker making big moves in Mexico See more from Benzinga 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. 3-kg bomb at Delhi flower market: Police yet to zero in on any suspect Unlock 3.0: Lt Governor cancels Delhi govt's decision to open hotels, weekly markets India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, July 31: Delhi LG Anil Baijal on Friday rejected Delhi government's decision to open hotels and weekly markets on a trial basis, as part of Unlock 3. Baijal, who represents the central government and chairs the Delhi Disaster Management Authority, has ruled that these orders cannot be implemented. As the COVID-19 situation continues to be "fragile" and the threat is still "far from over", the lieutenant governor has taken this decision, they said. The Delhi government termed the LG's decision as "incorrect" and stressed that reviving the city's economy while containing COVID-19 is its "topmost priority". Unlock 3: Hotels to open in Delhi, gyms uncertain India extends ban on International flights till August 31st | Oneindia News Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party asked the Centre to stop interfering in decisions of the Delhi government and undermining its authority. The development comes a day after Baijal overturned the Delhi Cabinet's decision to reject the Delhi Police's panel of lawyers for arguing the cases related to the February riots in the city in the Supreme Court and the high court. "The matter was discussed with Hon'ble Chief Minister and it was agreed that while there has been improvement, pandemic situation in the capital continues to be fragile and the threat is still far from over. Therefore a cautious and conservative approach is required," a statement issued by the LG office said. "While the proposal to allow Rehari Patriwallahs to operate for longer hours w.e.f. from 01.08.2020 was approved , the proposals of opening of hotels and hospitality services and opening of weekly bazaars are deferred for the time being and would be reviewed later by the SDMA," it added. In a statement issued late in the evening, the Delhi government said: "Without getting into the details, if the LG is agreeable, we can send the proposal again for reconsideration by the lieutenant governor." "Revival of Delhi's economy, while at the same time containing COVID-19, is the topmost priority of Delhi govt. The chief minister has always been a strong votary of opening economy," the government said in the statement. On Thursday, the Arvind Kejriwal government decided to allow hotels to reopen in the city. It also allowed weekly bazaars (markets) on a trial basis for seven days with social distancing and all necessary COVID 19-appropriate measures in place. Talking to reporters, AAP spokesperson Raghav Chadha said, "The Centre derives sadistic pleasure by inflicting pain and misery on people of Delhi and undermining the democratically elected government of Delhi." "In the last few days, we have seen on several occasions that the Centre interfered in decisions of the Delhi government," he said. The first example is the home isolation module which Centre earlier opposed, but later took back its decision after opposition from the people, Chadha said, adding that the second is the lawyers panel of Delhi government on Delhi riots was changed and then the third example is rejecting the Delhi government's proposal to open hotels. On June 8, 2020, the Centre allowed operation of hotels and weekly markets but on Friday, when the Delhi government wanted to open it, the Union government is not liking it. Delhi recorded 1,195 fresh coronavirus cases on Friday, taking the tally in the city to over 1.35 lakh, while the death toll from the disease mounted to 3,963, authorities said. Twenty-seven fatalities have been recorded in the last 24 hours and the overall death toll in the city stood at 3,963 on Friday, they said. According to the bulletin, 1,20,930 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far. The number of people in home isolation stands at 5,763. As part of Unlock 3.0, the Delhi Government has allowed hotels, hospitality services, street hawkers to operate. The government has also decided to do away with night curfew, which was earlier applicable between 10 pm and 5 am. Officials said that the Delhi government will allow weekly bazaars to operate for a week on a trial basis to check if social distancing norms are adhered to. The Delhi government has also decided to allow normal functioning of hotels and hospitality services as already permitted under the Centre's unlock guidelines. Kristen Bicknell Wins Her Third Bracelet in Event #44: $2,500 NLHE 6-Handed for $356,412 July 31 2020 Kristen Bicknell has won her third bracelet in Event #44: $2,500 NLHE 6-Handed by defeating Belarmino "Iseey0urcard" De Souza heads-up for $356,412 during the 2020 GGPoker WSOP Online Bracelet Events. The one-day event attracted 892 entries to create a total prize pool of $2,118,500 and lasted just over nine hours. Bicknell won her first bracelet back in 2013 when she was victorious in the Ladies Event for a cash of $173,922 by defeating Leanne Haas. She then won her second bracelet and $290,768 in 2016 when she overcame a 2,158-strong field in the $1,500 Bounty event and beat Norbert "ElCabanero" Szecsi heads-up to stop him from winning his second bracelet ( which he still won but had to wait until the 2018 WSOPE). PokerNews spoke to Bicknell after her win: "I'm shaking right now! I'm celebrating with some Uber Eats orders for a buffet lol." Ilya Anatsky and Simon Higgins also reached the final table along with Dong "nuoyani" Jiang, Jerome "gorgiAAs" Finck, Patrick "Pepsi_zero" Semrau, Paul "Doduckduck" Barnes, and Nikita "SanyaRostov" Kalinin. Follow all the latest from the WSOP - LIVE! The cards are in the air in the GGPoker WSOP Online. The PokerNews live reporting team is on top of all things WSOP. Don't miss a beat! FOLLOW HERE 2020 GGPoker WSOP Online Bracelets Event #44: $2,500 NLHE 6-Handed Final Table Results Place Player Country Prize 1 Kristen Bicknell Canada $356,412 2 Belarmino "Iseey0urcard" De Souza Brazil $261,249 3 Ilya Anatsky Belarus $191,494 4 Dong "nuoyani" Jiang China $140,365 5 Simon Higgins United Kingdom $102,887 6 Jerome "gorgiAAs" Finck France $75,416 7 Patrick "Pepsi_zero" Semrau Austria $55,280 8 Paul "Doduckduck" Barnes United Kingdom $40,520 9 Nikita "SanyaRostov" Kalinin Russia $29,701 Race to the Bubble The tournament started at 6 p.m. UTC and had over 200 players in the field when things kicked off. By the time the first break came around, almost 500 entries had been collected already. Martin "FuTimReilly" Zamani came fourth last week in Event #36 for $113,698 and propelled to the top of the counts after scoring a double knock-out. During the third break of the day, four more players entered just before the late registration period closed with 270 players left in the field to bring it up to 271. With the prize pool finalized, the remaining players could race to the bubble. Jake "YogiNelly" Schwartz fell to Sean Winter and Ramiro "OnTheFlow" Petrone was eliminated by Semrau. Ping San "Garfield" Chan and David "Mclovin86" Mzareulov also busted before the bubble. The Bubble and the Aftermath Pete Chen ended up becoming the bubble boy when he three-bet shoved with ace-king into the queens of Dennis "huang1337" Voelz and got no help of the board. Many players lost their final all-ins shortly after, including Julien "Giovanni" Martini, Martijn "visacard" Gerrits, Ben Farrell, Mike McDonald, and Matthias Eibinger. Bracelet winner Brandon "DrOctagon" Adams saw his aces get cracked by the kings of Anatsky, while Winter got felted by Pavlo Veksler. Orhan "yirtil" Ates busted to Finck before Arnaud Enselme's stack was split between Semrau and Finck. Blake "Beast2018!" Bohn and Danny Tang both failed to make the final two tables. But the pace of eliminations didn't let up. Ben Affleck and Szecsi were both kicked out by David "ZONEDin" Jackson who didn't make the final table either. But it was Christopher Kruk who would bubble in tenth place when all the chips went in with queens on the turn. Anatsky had flopped two pair and held to bring the tournament down to the nine-handed final table. GGPoker WSOP Online Recap: Triple Crown Winner, Final Tables Confirmed and More! Short-Stacked Bicknell Turns Things Around Kalinin left the final table in the very first hand with Barnes gone 30 minutes later. Bicknell was at the bottom of the counts but managed to stick around. A few double-ups later, Semrau was taken out by Anatsky, before Finck left the final table stage thanks to De Souza. Bicknell started her road to victory with quad kings to get her to the middle of the pack before eliminating Higgins a bit later. She then also took out Jiang to get her into second place while De Souza still had a commanding chip lead. Bicknell took over the chip lead but then lost it back to De Souza when her queens got hit by a runner-runner flush when he held jacks to take her back to the bottom of the counts. She flopped trips to leave Anatsky short who then lost the rest of his stack to De Souza. Bicknell dived deep into the tank when De Souza put her all-in on the ten-nine-five-seven-trey board with three hearts. "I had to really contemplate what to do here. If it was a normal heads-up, I would have called a lot quicker. But because this is for a lot of money and a bracelet, I really wanted to think about what his ranges were. He shoved so quickly on the river, it was a timing thing." In the end, she made the right call as her pair of jacks were good against his missed straight and flush draw. Bicknell took the lead there and didn't look back. In the final hand of the tournament, she turned trips against the two pair of De Souza and called his shove on the river to take it down for her third bracelet and all the money. 2020 Online WSOP Bracelet Winners on GGPoker Sign Up for a GGPoker Account Through PokerNews If you want to play in the WSOP 2020 Online on GGPoker, you'll need to sign up for an account. By downloading GGPoker via PokerNews entitles you to a welcome bonus worth up to $600. Your first deposit is matched 200% up to a maximum of $600, setting you up nicely in time for the WSOP Online. The bonus releases into your account in $10 increments each time you earn 6,000 Fish Buffet Points, which is the equivalent of $60 in rake or tournament fees. PokerNews will be back on Thursday, July 30 at 6 p.m. UTC for Event #45: $840 Bounty No-Limit Hold'em which Bicknell will be playing to make it a double for 2020. See you then! But on Wednesday night, newly erected floodlights shone down from the second floor of the courthouse onto the crowd. Just after 11 p.m., federal agents declared the gathering still thick with moms and veterans and students and office workers an unlawful assembly. Protesters were soon ducking and dodging tear-gas canisters flying through the air and skittering off the pavement. A federal officer with what appeared to be a fog gun walked up and down the fence line, spraying a caustic chemical at the people standing there. Dolans have today confirmed that David Keenan will be the first live act to perform in front of an audience at the famous Limerick in over 5 months. Keenan will play Dolans Warehouse on Wednesday, September 2 in front of a strictly limited audience with full social distancing measures in place. Audience numbers for this show will be limited to 40 people. 10 socially distanced tables with 4 people per table will go on sale next Monday at 10am. This show is subject to public health guidelines and more tickets may come available as public health guidelines change. The shows will celebrate the release of Keenan's first live album Alchemy & Prose, due out on Record Store Day on August 29. David has also announced that the first track from the album will be 'Big Boys Must Cry', live from The Olympia. Last year David Keenan accompanied Hozier on his European tour and released his first studio album in January. Keenan first came to national attention some years ago when a video was posted online showing him performing in the front seat of a taxi in his native Dundalk. Since then, the storytelling troubadour has completed a US tour and has been praised as the most promising up-and-coming voice in the Irish folk scene. His debut album, 'A Beginner's Guide to Bravery' was released in January to critical acclaim. The album is described by Keenan as "A document of experiences with the human condition from before to present tense. It all happened live over the course of a week in the Dublin Mountains and my intention was to retain all the rawness and vulnerability, madness and unfiltered truths that make me who I am. Keenan is renowned for his poetic style of songwriting and capturing raw emotion alongside his soft spoken and melodic vocals. There's a unique intimacy to his music and his arrival onto the music scene is very much welcome. Glen Hansard has called Keenan one of our besthe is extraordinary, its our duty to support fine talent when we hear it, see it, experience it. Tables of 4 will go on sale next Monday morning at 10am and are expected to sell fast so early booking recommended at www.dolans.ie At just 50 films, the 2020 pandemic version of the Toronto International Film Festival is dramatically smaller than previous editions, but its very existence is something of a victory. In a year that found major festivals such as SXSW, Cannes and Telluride unable to go on, TIFF has charted a path forward despite a funding deficit and missing studio entries that are either unfinished or not ready for primetime. By the standards of a 44-year-old festival that has long prided itself on the intimidating scope of its selection, the lineup may look like a mishmash of international films that happened to be available and willing to subject themselves to an unpredictable market. Most audiences who arent already in Toronto will experience the selection online. But all of that is a microcosm of industrys shifts in 2020. More from IndieWire Yet TIFF co-heads Cameron Bailey and Joana Vicente were adamant about the caliber of the final selection given the limitations at their disposal. The program is comprised of 46 percent women directors, up from 36 percent last year, and more films looking for distribution. I dont think anything is missing here, said Vicente, also the festivals executive director. Were pleased the lineup will allow audiences and journalists to pay more attention to each film. With a more compact list, we hope everybody finds films they love. That means the festival showcasing more discovery titles, giving buyers and local audiences (who will choose among safe drive-in, outdoor screenings and indoor options), and online attendees the chance to sample the films. Out-of-towners are not welcome, the festival emphasized. Talent, even locals in Toronto, will not be walking the red carpet, instead participating in virtual Q&As and press interviews. The border is closed through the end of August, said Vicente. Were asking people to enjoy the experience on our digital platform. Public screenings will be geo-blocked and only available to audiences in the Toronto area, but press and industry will have access beyond that. The festival plans to announce more specific details in the next two weeks. Story continues While an online experience might in some cases mean a wider array of participants, TIFF is actually taking a more exclusive approach to its accreditation process this year. We actually need to accept fewer people, Vicente said. We have less films, less inventory, so need to make sure were operating with the same numbers wed have in the real world. Two years after the festival first announced its pledge to increase the diversity of its media presence by 20 percent, that decision may sound like a setback, but Vicente insisted the accreditation process would still favor a wide array of backgrounds. The media inclusion initiative will continue with an eye towards the same percentage breakdown despite the overall smaller list of press. The festival expects to accredit 30 new media participants from diverse backgrounds and 500 accredited media overall. Its about quality this year, Vicente said. We want to make they get a great experience. But who will actually attend the festival? The festival heads were coy. Virtually, everyone, Vicente said and laughed. Bailey, the festivals artistic director, was more specific. Given the border restrictions and the virus seeing an upswing in some areas of the world, he said, we really want to make sure audiences get to be in the presence of the people who made the films. But it will be on a screen at a drive-in or online in a Q&A situation. Were not expecting talent to travel to Toronto. In another change, the tighter list meant fewer documentaries. Programmer Thom Powers would happily have selected more, but had to settle for 11 slots, less than half his usual number, including opening night, Spike Lees film of David Byrnes stage show American Utopia (HBO), which reflects on race and representation in America, shot by cinematographer Ellen Kuras. (Look for many TIFF leftovers to show up at Powers next fest, DOC NYC in November.) The high-profile titles are specialty films likely heading for the two-month delayed Oscar race, such as Chloe Zhaos American road movie Nomadland, starring Oscar-winner Frances McDormand (presented by Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York), as well as Francis Lees Cannes selection Ammonite (Neon), starring Oscar-winner Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan in a gay romance. Its by far the best performance Ive seen [Winslet] do, said Bailey. Mads Mikkelsen stars in another Cannes selection and possible Denmark Oscar entry Another Round, directed by his The Hunt director Thomas Vinterberg. And two Sundance dramas are in the TIFF lineup, Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman two-hander The Father (Sony Pictures Classics) and sales title Falling, directed by and starring Viggo Mortensen. Two other actors are directing their first features, which are also for sale. Oscar-winner Regina Kings One Night in Miami depicts a 1964 meeting between pals Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, Sam Cooke and Malcolm X. And Oscar-winner Halle Berry stars in Bruised as an MMA fighter trying to get back into the winners circle while mothering a six-year-old son. Of some 15 American titles, proportionally more are for sale than usual, including Ricky Staubs Concrete Cowboy (Endeavor) starring Idris Elba, which was originally in talks to premiere back at Sundance in January but needed more time in post-production. Theres also Hungarian Kornel Mundruczos grief drama Pieces of a Woman (Cinetic), starring Vanessa Kirby, Shia LaBeouf, and Sarah Snook. Its the filmmakers first English-language production following his Cannes-winning White God and competition entry Jupiters Moon. In another notable shift from previous years, the selection has absorbed many titles already singled out by other festivals, rather than competing with them. TIFF has engaged in ongoing discussions with fellow fall gatherings NYFF, Venice, and the now-canceled Telluride. And while Venice chose not to include the films singled in the Cannes 2020 selection announced by that canceled film event, TIFF has programmed a number of them. After years of chasing world premieres, on this one count, the festival heads sounded relieved. We dont care! Bailey said with a laugh. They didnt keep track of which films had already been selected by other festivals. These films need all the love and attention they can get, added Vicente. Nevertheless, it will take time for audience and critics to process the selection in part because the announcements features a long list of titles with no clear distinctions between the different sections that usually make TIFF easier to parse: Those interested in splashy red carpet events usually look to Gala premieres, while cinephiles tend to delight at the Discovery, Platform, and experimental Wavelength sections, among others. Bailey said that when the schedule appears online, those distinctions will come back. We will tag them so you know where they wouldve landed in a normal year, he said. At the same time, the absence of more prominent sections means that other kinds of titles could have an easier time getting noticed. Among these, Bailey singled out The Disciple, Indian filmmaker Chaitanya Tamhanes follow-up to The Court, which is executive-produced by Alfonso Cuaron and also playing Venice. In an ordinary year, it might be the ideal Platform breakout. Critics will pick it out of lineup, said Bailey. Its announcing a new voice in world cinema. Bailey also singled out two films from women filmmakers in Iran, Farnoosh Samadis 180 Degree Rule, and Manijeh Hekmats road movie Bandor Band, which Bailey described as an almost Jarmusch-esque road movie. He was also high on Suzanne Lindons coming of age drama Spring Blossoms, one of the Cannes 2020 titles, which showcases a really strong, very talented young filmmaker, Bailey said of the drama that deals with a young woman coming of age through a relationship with an older man. The film is directed with real precision. Meanwhile, Tracey Deers Canadian drama, Beans is set in the watershed of indigenous relations in the 1990s, during the Oka crisis standoff in Quebec. On the lighter side is Canadian Emma Seligmans Shiva Baby, which was not able to play SXSW during the lockdown. The sharp acerbic comedy set at a shiva is hilarious, said Bailey, who also recommended Cathy Bradys Irish film Wildfire. Arguably, this years hit sales titles will include a number of documentaries. Culled from a long list of possibilities, the films were selected in consultation with the main festival programmers. While Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimers meteor encounter documentary Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds has been picked up by Apple, and 90-year-old Frederick Wiseman usually self-distributes his movies City Hall spends four-and-a half hours in Boston sales titles include Enemies of the State (Submarine), Mayye Zayeds Egyptian weight-lifting story Lift Like a Girl, and transgender saga No Ordinary Man, which uses jazz musician Billy Tipton as a way into the story of trans people today. Tipton was operating at a time when there was little understanding of his way life, said Powers. Bailey called the film one of the best trans films I have ever seen. However, the most timely entry may be 76 Days (CAA), set in Wuhan China as frontline health workers struggle to contain the coronavirus during a lockdown that began on January 23 and ended 76 days later. Its urgent, powerful filmmaking, said Bailey. You feel like you are there in those rooms as coronavirus is breaking out and nobody knows whats going on. Editor-turned-director Sam Pollards MLK/FBI (Cinetic), collaborating with Martin Luther King biographer David Garrow, assembles hundreds of hours of newly disclosed 1960s archive footage of J. Edgar Hoovers FBI surveillance and harassment of the civil rights leader, as they tried to made to break King down. It will be even more potent in this year of Blacks Lives Matter, said Bailey. For Notturno (Submarine), Gianfranco Rossis follow-up to Oscar-nominated Fire at Sea, the filmmaker spent several months immersing himself in a region that had been occupied by Isis, along the borders of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. He has this ability to make these quiet, beautiful observations inside a community, said Powers. TIFFs own community has faced many of the same hardships facing film organizations across North America. Earlier this summer, TIFF laid off 17 percent of its workforce, and the future of the TIFF Bell Lightbox remains uncertain. But the festival has been able to sustain its usual support system. Obviously, were facing a big deficit this year, but were getting the support from members and donors and partners, Vicente said. We feel this is what we have to do. Its important not just for us, but for the industry and the ecosystem as a whole. TIFF runs September 10 19, 2020. Best of IndieWire Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. PARSIPPANY, N.J., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PBF Logistics LP (NYSE:PBFX, the "Partnership") today announced second quarter 2020 net income attributable to the limited partners of $37.5 million, or $0.60 per common unit. During the quarter, the Partnership generated cash from operations of $61.0 million, EBITDA attributable to PBFX of $58.9 million, Adjusted EBITDA of $60.0 million and distributable cash flow of $47.0 million. Included in reported results for the second quarter are $1.1 million, or $0.02 per common unit, of expenses related to pending and non-consummated acquisitions, non-cash unit-based compensation and environmental remediation costs associated with the East Coast Terminals. "Our focus during the second quarter was on the safety of our employees and operations as we implemented many additional safety protocols to ensure business continuity. Our strong contracted minimum volume commitments largely insulated us from the impacts of the pandemic and resulting decrease in volumes. We continued to support our customers during this disruptive time and we expect our revenues to remain well-supported by our long-term contracts in the coming quarters," said PBF Logistics GP LLC Executive Vice President Matt Lucey. "We announced a distribution of $0.30 per unit today and used excess cash to reduce leverage by paying down a portion of our revolving credit facility. Delevering the business and strengthening the balance sheet will position the Partnership to be opportunistic." As of June 30, 2020, the Partnership had approximately $268.7 million of liquidity, including approximately $21.6 million in cash and cash equivalents, and access to approximately $247.1 million under its revolving credit facility. PBF Logistics Declares Quarterly Distribution The board of directors of PBF Logistics GP LLC, the Partnership's general partner, declared a regular quarterly cash distribution of $0.30 per common unit. The distribution is payable on August 26, 2020, to unitholders of record at the close of business on August 13, 2020. This release is intended to be a qualified notice to nominees under Treasury Regulations Section 1.1446-4(b). All of the Partnership's distributions to foreign investors are attributable to income that is effectively connected with a United States trade or business. Accordingly, the Partnership's distributions to foreign investors are subject to federal income tax withholding at the highest effective tax rate. Non-GAAP Financial Measures The Partnership defines EBITDA as net income (loss) before net interest expense (including amortization of loan fees and debt premium and accretion on discounted liabilities), income tax expense, depreciation, amortization and change in contingent consideration. The Partnership defines EBITDA attributable to PBFX as net income (loss) attributable to PBFX before net interest expense (including amortization of loan fees and debt premium and accretion on discounted liabilities), income tax expense, depreciation, amortization and change in contingent consideration attributable to PBFX, which excludes results of acquisitions from affiliates of PBF Energy prior to the effective dates of such transactions and earnings attributable to the CPI earn-out (the portion of earnings associated with an earn-out provision related to the purchase of CPI Operations LLC ("CPI"),(the "Contingent Consideration")). The Partnership defines Adjusted EBITDA as EBITDA attributable to PBFX excluding acquisition and transaction costs, non-cash unit-based compensation expense and items that meet the conditions of unusual, infrequent and/or non-recurring charges. The Partnership defines distributable cash flow as EBITDA attributable to PBFX plus non-cash unit-based compensation expense, less cash interest, maintenance capital expenditures attributable to PBFX and income taxes. Distributable cash flow will not reflect changes in working capital balances. EBITDA, EBITDA attributable to PBFX, Adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow are not presentations made in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"). For additional information on the Partnership's non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations to their most directly comparable financial measures calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP, refer to the supplemental information provided in "Results of Operations" and the Earnings Release Tables included herein. Conference Call Information The Partnership will host a conference call and webcast regarding second quarter results and other business matters on Friday, July 31, 2020, at 11:00 a.m. ET. The call is being webcast and can be accessed at PBF Logistics' website, http://www.pbflogistics.com. The call can also be accessed by dialing (800) 459-5346 or (203) 518-9544, conference ID: PBFXQ220. The audio replay will be available two hours after the end of the call through August 14, 2020, by dialing (800) 753-5207 or (402) 220-2156. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements (as that term is defined under the federal securities laws) made by the Partnership and its management. Such statements are based on current expectations, forecasts and projections, including, but not limited to, anticipated financial and operating results, plans, objectives, expectations and intentions that are not historical in nature. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and may not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by which, such performance or results will be achieved. Forward-looking statements are based on information available at the time, and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including risks relating to the securities markets generally, the impact of adverse market conditions impacting PBFX's logistics and other assets, the possibility that the Partnership may not consummate any potential future acquisitions, the Partnership's plans for financing any potential future acquisitions, the duration and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, and other risks inherent in PBFX's business. For more information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or forecasted, see PBFX's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Forward-looking statements reflect information, facts and circumstances only as of the date they are made. The Partnership assumes no responsibility or obligation to update forward-looking statements except as may be required by law. PBF Logistics LP PBF Logistics LP, headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, is a fee-based, growth-oriented master limited partnership formed by PBF Energy Inc. to own or lease, operate, develop and acquire crude oil and refined petroleum products terminals, pipelines, storage facilities and similar logistics assets. Results of Operations (Unaudited) Business Developments COVID-19 The recent outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 ("COVID-19") pandemic continues to negatively impact worldwide economic and commercial activity and financial markets, as well as global demand for petroleum and petrochemical products. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting governmental and consumer responses have also resulted in significant business and operational disruptions, including business and school closures, supply chain disruptions, travel restrictions, stay-at-home orders and limitations on the availability of workforces. Such impacts have resulted in revenue declines due to lower demand and throughput volumes across certain of our facilities, which may continue to affect our business for the foreseeable future. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are taking steps to mitigate potential adverse impacts on our business and operations by limiting capital expenditures, reducing discretionary activities and third-party services and lowering our quarterly distribution to our minimum quarterly distribution of $0.30 per unit. This distribution reduction, effective with the distribution for the first quarter of 2020 that was paid on June 17, 2020, represents a strategic shift to build our cash flow coverage, de-lever our business and increase our financial resources as we continue to identify potential organic growth projects or strategic acquisitions. In addition, our parent sponsor and largest customer, PBF Energy Inc., has endeavored to take the necessary steps to preserve liquidity and solidify its operations under the adverse market conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The full extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic impacts our business and operations, or that of our parent sponsor, is unknown and will depend on the severity, location and duration of the effects and spread of COVID-19, the actions undertaken by national, regional and local governments and health officials to contain the virus or treat its effects, related consumer responses and how quickly and to what extent economic conditions improve and normal business and operating conditions resume. Factors Affecting Comparability The following tables present our results of operations, related operational information and reconciliations of net income and net cash provided by operating activities to our EBITDA, EBITDA attributable to PBFX, Adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow (each as defined below) for the three and six months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019. On October 1, 2018, we acquired from Crown Point International, LLC, its wholly-owned subsidiary, CPI Operations LLC ("CPI"), whose assets include a storage facility with multi-use storage capacity, an Aframax-capable marine facility, a rail facility, a truck terminal, equipment, contracts and certain other idled assets (the "East Coast Storage Assets") located on the Delaware River near Paulsboro, New Jersey (the "East Coast Storage Assets Acquisition"). In connection with the acquisition, the purchase and sale agreement included an earn-out provision related to an existing commercial agreement with a third party, based on the future results of certain of the acquired idled assets, which recommenced operations in October 2019. On April 24, 2019, we entered into a Contribution Agreement with PBF Energy Company LLC ("PBF LLC"), pursuant to which PBF LLC contributed to us all of the issued and outstanding limited liability company interests of TVP Holding Company LLC ("TVP Holding"), which held the remaining 50% equity interest in Torrance Valley Pipeline Company LLC ("TVPC"), for total consideration of $200.0 million (the "TVPC Acquisition"). Subsequent to the closing of the TVPC Acquisition on May 31, 2019, we own 100% of the equity interest in TVPC. On April 24, 2019, we entered into subscription agreements to sell an aggregate of 6,585,500 common units to certain institutional investors in a registered direct public offering (the "2019 Registered Direct Offering") for gross proceeds of approximately $135.0 million. The 2019 Registered Direct Offering closed on April 29, 2019. In addition, our results in the current year have been negatively affected by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, including lower throughput volumes at our terminals, as the industry reacts to the related economic downturn and volatile commodity markets. As a result of the factors above, the information included in the following tables is not necessarily comparable on a year-over-year basis. Non-GAAP Financial Measures We define EBITDA as net income (loss) before net interest expense (including amortization of loan fees and debt premium and accretion on discounted liabilities), income tax expense, depreciation, amortization and change in contingent consideration. We define EBITDA attributable to PBFX as net income (loss) attributable to PBFX before net interest expense (including amortization of loan fees and debt premium and accretion on discounted liabilities), income tax expense, depreciation, amortization and change in contingent consideration attributable to PBFX, which excludes the results of acquisitions from PBF LLC prior to the effective dates of such transactions and earnings attributable to the CPI earn-out (the portion of earnings associated with an earn-out provision related to the purchase of CPI (the "Contingent Consideration")). We define Adjusted EBITDA as EBITDA attributable to PBFX excluding acquisition and transaction costs, non-cash unit-based compensation expense and items that meet the conditions of unusual, infrequent and/or non-recurring charges. We define distributable cash flow as EBITDA attributable to PBFX plus non-cash unit-based compensation expense, less cash interest, maintenance capital expenditures attributable to PBFX and income taxes. Distributable cash flow will not reflect changes in working capital balances. We use distributable cash flow to calculate a measure we refer to as our coverage ratio. Our coverage ratio is calculated by dividing distributable cash flow by our total distribution declared. EBITDA, EBITDA attributable to PBFX, Adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow are not presentations made in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"). While EBITDA, EBITDA attributable to PBFX, Adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow are not presentations made in accordance with GAAP, they are supplemental financial measures that management and external users of our condensed consolidated financial statements, such as industry analysts, investors, lenders and rating agencies, may use to assess: our operating performance as compared to other publicly traded partnerships in the midstream energy industry, without regard to historical cost basis or, in the case of EBITDA, financing methods; the ability of our assets to generate sufficient cash flow to make distributions to our unitholders; our ability to incur and service debt and fund capital expenditures; and the viability of acquisitions and other capital expenditure projects and the economic returns on various investment opportunities. We believe that the presentation of EBITDA, EBITDA attributable to PBFX and Adjusted EBITDA provides useful information to investors in assessing our financial condition and results of operations and assists in evaluating our ongoing operating performance for current and comparative periods. We believe that the presentation of distributable cash flow provides useful information to investors as it is a widely accepted financial indicator used by investors to compare partnership performance and it provides investors with another perspective of the operating performance of our assets and the cash our business is generating. However, EBITDA, EBITDA attributable to PBFX, Adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow should not be considered alternatives to net income, income from operations, net cash provided by operating activities or any other measure of financial performance or liquidity presented in accordance with GAAP. EBITDA, EBITDA attributable to PBFX, Adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow have important limitations as analytical tools because they exclude some, but not all, items that affect net income and net cash provided by operating activities. EBITDA, EBITDA attributable to PBFX, Adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow are reconciled to their most directly comparable financial measures calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP in the Earnings Release Tables included herein. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. Our definitions of these non-GAAP financial measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other partnerships, because they may be defined differently by other partnerships in our industry, thereby limiting their utility. PBF LOGISTICS LP EARNINGS RELEASE TABLES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (Unaudited, in thousands, except unit and per unit data) Three Months Ended June 30, Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 2020 2019 Revenue (a): Affiliate $ 72,422 $ 74,656 $ 147,965 $ 145,988 Third-party 16,707 8,094 34,193 15,607 Total revenue 89,129 82,750 182,158 161,595 Costs and expenses: Operating and maintenance expenses (a) 23,154 28,553 52,655 58,469 General and administrative expenses 4,299 7,580 8,686 13,590 Depreciation and amortization 11,234 8,854 22,516 17,575 Change in contingent consideration 324 530 Total costs and expenses 39,011 44,987 84,387 89,634 Income from operations 50,118 37,763 97,771 71,961 Other expense: Interest expense, net (11,536) (11,216) (23,385) (22,129) Amortization of loan fees and debt premium (542) (446) (981) (895) Accretion on discounted liabilities (580) (773) (1,132) (1,533) Net income 37,460 25,328 72,273 47,404 Less: Net income attributable to noncontrolling interest (g) 3,162 7,881 Net income attributable to PBF Logistics LP unitholders $ 37,460 $ 22,166 $ 72,273 $ 39,523 Net income per limited partner unit (h): Common units - basic $ 0.60 $ 0.37 $ 1.16 $ 0.72 Common units - diluted 0.60 0.37 1.16 0.72 Weighted-average limited partner units outstanding (h): Common units - basic 62,439,378 60,279,287 62,364,243 54,748,755 Common units - diluted 62,446,419 60,364,347 62,372,554 54,776,257 See Footnotes to Earnings Release Tables PBF LOGISTICS LP EARNINGS RELEASE TABLES KEY OPERATING AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION (Unaudited, amounts in thousands except barrel and per unit data) Three Months Ended June 30, Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 2020 2019 Transportation and Terminaling Segment Terminals Total throughput (barrels per day ("bpd")) (b)(d) 221,396 275,076 260,894 262,772 Lease tank capacity (average lease capacity barrels per month) (d) 2,392,535 2,185,882 2,221,789 2,300,813 Pipelines Total throughput (bpd) (b)(d) 156,043 161,809 159,285 154,520 Lease tank capacity (average lease capacity barrels per month) (d) 1,163,287 1,500,714 1,155,555 1,338,769 Storage Segment Storage capacity reserved (average shell capacity barrels per month) (d) 7,607,643 8,053,983 7,607,643 7,993,338 Total throughput (bpd) (b)(d) 27,054 26,154 Cash Flow Information: Net cash provided by (used in): Operating activities $ 61,041 $ 17,677 $ 79,688 $ 55,886 Investing activities (1,792) (3,932) (7,872) (15,152) Financing activities (153,704) (10,191) (85,214) (40,642) Net change in cash and cash equivalents $ (94,455) $ 3,554 $ (13,398) $ 92 Other Financial Information: EBITDA attributable to PBFX (c) $ 58,867 $ 42,534 $ 115,176 $ 79,356 Adjusted EBITDA (c) $ 60,002 $ 48,336 $ 117,940 $ 91,293 Distributable cash flow (c) $ 46,972 $ 34,123 $ 87,747 $ 59,536 Quarterly distribution declared per unit (e) $ 0.3000 $ 0.5150 $ 0.6000 $ 1.0250 Distributions (e): Common units $ 18,849 $ 32,398 $ 37,693 $ 64,481 Total distributions $ 18,849 $ 32,398 $ 37,693 $ 64,481 Coverage ratio (c) 2.49x 1.05x 2.33x 0.92x Capital expenditures $ 1,792 $ 3,932 $ 7,872 $ 15,152 See Footnotes to Earnings Release Tables PBF LOGISTICS LP EARNINGS RELEASE TABLES KEY OPERATING AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION (continued) (Unaudited, in thousands) June 30, December 31, Balance Sheet Information: 2020 2019 Cash and cash equivalents (f) $ 21,568 $ 34,966 Property, plant and equipment, net 841,475 854,610 Total assets 950,543 973,002 Total debt (f) 768,085 802,104 Total liabilities 823,297 867,919 Partners' equity 127,246 105,083 Total liabilities and equity 950,543 973,002 See Footnotes to Earnings Release Tables PBF LOGISTICS LP EARNINGS RELEASE TABLES RECONCILIATION OF AMOUNTS REPORTED UNDER GAAP TO EBITDA AND DISTRIBUTABLE CASH FLOW (Unaudited, in thousands) Three Months Ended June 30, Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 2020 2019 Reconciliation of net income to EBITDA and distributable cash flow (c): Net income $ 37,460 $ 25,328 $ 72,273 $ 47,404 Interest expense, net 11,536 11,216 23,385 22,129 Amortization of loan fees and debt premium 542 446 981 895 Accretion on discounted liabilities 580 773 1,132 1,533 Change in contingent consideration 324 530 Depreciation and amortization 11,234 8,854 22,516 17,575 EBITDA 61,676 46,617 120,817 89,536 Less: Noncontrolling interest EBITDA (g) 4,083 10,180 Less: Earnings attributable to the CPI earn-out 2,809 5,641 EBITDA attributable to PBFX 58,867 42,534 115,176 79,356 Non-cash unit-based compensation expense 945 3,387 2,247 4,351 Cash interest (11,733) (11,290) (23,721) (22,426) Maintenance capital expenditures attributable to PBFX (1,107) (508) (5,955) (1,745) Distributable cash flow $ 46,972 $ 34,123 $ 87,747 $ 59,536 Reconciliation of net cash provided by operating activities to EBITDA and distributable cash flow (c): Net cash provided by operating activities $ 61,041 $ 17,677 $ 79,688 $ 55,886 Change in operating assets and liabilities (9,956) 21,111 19,991 15,872 Interest expense, net 11,536 11,216 23,385 22,129 Non-cash unit-based compensation expense (945) (3,387) (2,247) (4,351) EBITDA 61,676 46,617 120,817 89,536 Less: Noncontrolling interest EBITDA (g) 4,083 10,180 Less: Earnings attributable to the CPI earn-out 2,809 5,641 EBITDA attributable to PBFX 58,867 42,534 115,176 79,356 Non-cash unit-based compensation expense 945 3,387 2,247 4,351 Cash interest (11,733) (11,290) (23,721) (22,426) Maintenance capital expenditures attributable to PBFX (1,107) (508) (5,955) (1,745) Distributable cash flow $ 46,972 $ 34,123 $ 87,747 $ 59,536 See Footnotes to Earnings Release Tables PBF LOGISTICS LP EARNINGS RELEASE TABLES RECONCILIATION OF AMOUNTS REPORTED UNDER GAAP TO EBITDA AND ADJUSTED EBITDA (Unaudited, in thousands) Three Months Ended June 30, Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 2020 2019 Reconciliation of net income to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA (c): Net income $ 37,460 $ 25,328 $ 72,273 $ 47,404 Interest expense, net 11,536 11,216 23,385 22,129 Amortization of loan fees and debt premium 542 446 981 895 Accretion on discounted liabilities 580 773 1,132 1,533 Change in contingent consideration 324 530 Depreciation and amortization 11,234 8,854 22,516 17,575 EBITDA 61,676 46,617 120,817 89,536 Less: Noncontrolling interest EBITDA (g) 4,083 10,180 Less: Earnings attributable to the CPI earn-out 2,809 5,641 EBITDA attributable to PBFX 58,867 42,534 115,176 79,356 Acquisition and transaction costs 15 955 110 3,108 Non-cash unit-based compensation expense 945 3,387 2,247 4,351 East Coast Terminals environmental remediation costs 175 1,460 407 3,596 PNGPC tariff true-up adjustment 882 Adjusted EBITDA $ 60,002 $ 48,336 $ 117,940 $ 91,293 See Footnotes to Earnings Release Tables PBF LOGISTICS LP EARNINGS RELEASE TABLES SEGMENT FINANCIAL INFORMATION (Unaudited, in thousands) Three Months Ended June 30, 2020 Transportation and Terminaling Storage Corporate Consolidated Total Total revenue (a) $ 66,709 $ 22,420 $ $ 89,129 Depreciation and amortization 7,023 4,211 11,234 Income (loss) from operations 42,912 11,505 (4,299) 50,118 Other expense 12,658 12,658 Capital expenditures 1,405 387 1,792 Three Months Ended June 30, 2019 Transportation and Terminaling Storage Corporate Consolidated Total Total revenue (a) $ 69,656 $ 13,094 $ $ 82,750 Depreciation and amortization 6,879 1,975 8,854 Income (loss) from operations 40,529 4,814 (7,580) 37,763 Other expense 12,435 12,435 Capital expenditures 1,689 2,243 3,932 Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 Transportation and Terminaling Storage Corporate Consolidated Total Total revenue (a) $ 136,952 $ 45,206 $ $ 182,158 Depreciation and amortization 14,095 8,421 22,516 Income (loss) from operations 84,180 22,277 (8,686) 97,771 Other expense 25,498 25,498 Capital expenditures 5,031 2,841 7,872 Six Months Ended June 30, 2019 Transportation and Terminaling Storage Corporate Consolidated Total Total revenue (a) $ 135,615 $ 25,980 $ $ 161,595 Depreciation and amortization 13,780 3,795 17,575 Income (loss) from operations 77,080 8,471 (13,590) 71,961 Other expense 24,557 24,557 Capital expenditures 12,233 2,919 15,152 See Footnotes to Earnings Release Tables PBF LOGISTICS LP EARNINGS RELEASE TABLES SEGMENT FINANCIAL INFORMATION (continued) (Unaudited, in thousands) Balance at June 30, 2020 Transportation and Terminaling Storage Corporate Consolidated Total Total assets $ 710,817 $ 229,595 $ 10,131 $ 950,543 Balance at December 31, 2019 Transportation and Terminaling Storage Corporate Consolidated Total Total assets $ 726,374 $ 228,495 $ 18,133 $ 973,002 PBF LOGISTICS LP EARNINGS RELEASE TABLES FOOTNOTES TO EARNINGS RELEASE TABLES (Unaudited, in thousands, except per unit data) (a) See discussion of the factors affecting comparability noted on page 4. Our results of operations may not be comparable to the historical results of operations for the reasons described below: Revenue - On October 1, 2018, we closed the East Coast Storage Assets Acquisition, which was accounted for as a business combination. In October 2019, we recommenced operations of certain of the acquired idled assets, which began revenue generating activities. As such, there was no revenue associated with the acquired idled assets prior to their recommencement. On May 31, 2019, we closed the TVPC Acquisition in which we acquired the remaining 50% equity interest in TVPC. As such, we now own 100% of the equity interest in TVPC and no longer record a noncontrolling interest related to our ownership of TVPC. Operating and maintenance expenses - As a result of our acquisitions and the completion of certain organic growth projects, our operating expenses are not comparative to prior periods as it pertains to expenses associated with those assets. In addition, our results in the current year have been negatively affected by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, including lower throughput at our terminals, as the industry reacts to the related economic downturn and volatile commodity markets. (b) Calculated as the sum of the average throughput per day for each asset group for the periods presented. (c) See "Non-GAAP Financial Measures" on page 5 for definitions of EBITDA, EBITDA attributable to PBFX, Adjusted EBITDA, distributable cash flow and coverage ratio. (d) Operating information reflects activity subsequent to our acquisitions, the execution of the commercial agreements with PBF Holding and the completion of certain organic growth projects. (e) On July 31, 2020, we announced a quarterly cash distribution of $0.30 per limited partner unit based on the results of the second quarter of 2020. The distribution is payable on August 26, 2020 to PBFX unitholders of record at the close of business on August 13, 2020. The total distribution amount includes the expected distributions to be made related to second quarter earnings. (f) Management also utilizes net debt as a metric in assessing our leverage. Net debt is a non-GAAP measure calculated by subtracting cash and cash equivalents from total debt. We believe this measurement is also useful to investors since we have the ability to, and may decide to, use a portion of our cash and cash equivalents to retire or pay down our debt. This non-GAAP financial measure should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our debt levels as reported under GAAP. Our definition of net debt may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other partnerships, because it may be defined differently by other partnerships in our industry, thereby limiting its utility. Our net debt as of June 30, 2020 and December 31, 2019 was $746,517 and $767,138, respectively. (g) Prior to the TVPC Acquisition, our wholly-owned subsidiary, PBFX Operating Company LLC ("PBFX Op Co"), held a 50% controlling equity interest in TVPC, with the other 50% equity interest in TVPC owned by TVP Holding, a subsidiary of PBF Holding. PBFX Op Co was the sole managing member of TVPC. We, through our ownership of PBFX Op Co, consolidated the financial results of TVPC and recorded a noncontrolling interest for the economic interest in TVPC held by TVP Holding. Noncontrolling interest on the condensed consolidated statements of operations included the portion of net income or loss attributable to the economic interest in TVPC held by TVP Holding. Noncontrolling interest on the condensed consolidated balance sheets included the portion of net assets of TVPC attributable to TVP Holding. . Subsequent to the TVPC Acquisition, we own 100% of the equity interest in TVPC and no longer record a noncontrolling interest related to TVPC. (h) We base our calculation of net income per limited partner unit on the weighted-average number of limited partner units outstanding during the period and the amount of available cash that has been, or will be, distributed to the limited partners. SOURCE PBF Logistics LP Related Links http://www.pbflogistics.com Dr Anthony Fauci is fighting back against questioning from a Republican lawmaker over whether recent protests increased the spread of Rep Jim Jordan of Ohio repeatedly pressed the top health official on whether protests in Portland and other cities against police brutality and racial discrimination should be curbed to stop the virus spread. Jordan complained that government officials are stopping people from going to church, but not shutting down protests. Fauci refused to be drawn into the politically sensitive debate while testifying before House lawmakers on the federal response to the pandemic. Instead, he reiterated, Any crowd, whether it's a protest, any crowd when you have people close together without masks is a risk. (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.) Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Thursday, opened the O-Care Medical Face Mask factory in Odofin Park Estate, Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area of the State, described as the first indigenous medically graded face mask manufacturing company in Lagos State. The factory is a subsidiary of Transgreen Nigeria Limited, a local manufacturer of medical equipment, such as respirator, ventilator, hand gloves and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The O-Care face mask is said to be the first certified medical face mask locally produced in Nigeria in line with World Health Organisation (WHO) standards. The governor said the idea of setting up the factory was necessitated by the shortage of medically treated PPEs experienced in the wake of the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. He said he was elated by the development, in that the first indigenous face mask production factory was built in Lagos. I am personally excited to attend this event, because Lagos is recording another first for a good cause, Mr Sanwo-Olu said. The establishment of the first indigenous factory producing certified medical face masks represents the can-do spirit of Nigerians. As a Government that supports fresh and progressive ideas, we will continue to celebrate and encourage good innovation. Mr. Orakpor deserves commendation because he has not let the pandemic affect his investment drive in bringing about new business and products to fit our own environment. This is part of the narratives we are pushing as government. We can be the enabler for investors to set up businesses. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Thursday, opened the O-Care Medical Face Mask factory in Odofin Park Estate, Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area of the State [PHOTO: @followlasg] If wearing of face masks must be accepted as a new normal, we must be able to strategically domesticate solutions that can provide ready market for our people. The opening of the factory is a confirmation of what we stand for as a Government. We must be the catalyst to nurture ideas and support business. The governor disclosed that the state government had started to work out modalities for the creation of economic zone for healthcare delivery to drive more investments to the sector. He said the government was looking at a long-term loan facility for operators in the health sector to achieve local production of scarce medical equipment and materials. The governor hailed the factory owners audacity and resilience in investing his capital for the production of medical face mask, which he described as the most sought after product in this period of public health crisis. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Thursday, opened the O-Care Medical Face Mask factory in Odofin Park Estate, Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area of the State [PHOTO: @followlasg] To encourage the manufacturer, Mr Sanwo-Olu procured 250,000 pieces of the O-Care face mask from the first production batch. He said the materials would be distributed to medical and emergency workers on the frontline. The Managing Director of Transgreen Nigeria Limited, Cyprian Orakpo, said the idea of setting up the company was born out of the embarrassing situation the nation found itself with the absence of local manufacturers of medical face masks in the country. Mr Orakpo said medical PPEs had become objects of national security, especially in the period when there is not curative vaccine to stop the spread of the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic. He stressed that scarcity of the products could spell doom for the nation if theres no local manufacturer. READ ALSO: In this time when the use of medical face mask is highly recommended, we have risen to the occasion to fill the void in medically certified face mask production to contribute our quota in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic and to promote health security in the country, he said. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Thursday, opened the O-Care Medical Face Mask factory in Odofin Park Estate, Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area of the State [PHOTO: @followlasg] The O-Care face mask is developed with three layers that offer substantial protection against dust, airborne viruses, and bacteria. Its nose clip provides comfort for breathing and gives low respiratory resistance. An official of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Kola Jinadu, who represented the agencys Director-General, Chikwe Ihekweazu, said the company must be commended for the initiative, which he also described as timely. In showing appreciation to the governor for his support, the owner of the factory donated 30,000 medical face masks to the state government. Mr Sanwo-Olu ordered that the face masks be donated to secondary school pupils who will be taking their examination from next week. (Opalesque) British hedge fund manager Man Group recorded an 8% fall in assets in the first six months of 2020 as the new coronavirus pandemic dragged down performance by $5.4 billion. Man Groups total assets under management at the end of June fell to $108.3 billion from $117.7 billion on December 31. Negative investment performance of $5.4 billion (H1 2019: positive $6.8 billion). To read this article: Love Island's Dr Alex George has given an update to his fans in the wake of his younger brother's death. The grieving star, 30, said he is 'still going' and 'will be OK' in time, after the tragic death of Llyr following a mental health battle. In an Instagram story shared on Thursday, Dr Alex said: 'So many of you are checking in on me so I want to say thank you and let you know I am still going. Heartache: Love Island's Dr Alex George has said that he 'will be ok' as he mourns the death of his younger brother Llyr 'In time I will be ok.' Dr Alex announced to Instagram last week that he had lost his 'beautiful little brother to mental health'. Taking to his Stories on Monday, the Love Island star thanked his followers for their support as he candidly discussed his grief. Trying to cope: The Love Islander thanked fans for their well wishes and concerns as he grieves with his family Tragic: Dr Alex announced to Instagram last week that he had lost his 'beautiful little brother to mental health' He wrote: 'These are the hardest times I could ever have imagined. 'The kindness and love our family has received has been incredible and I am so grateful. 'In the darkest times we must pick ourselves up, find strength and be there for our family and friends. That is exactly what I will do.' Emotional: The grieving star, 30, also emotionally revealed that he and his family are going through the 'hardest' and 'darkest' times Distraught: Dr Alex announced to Instagram on Friday that he had lost his 'beautiful little brother to mental health' (posted on Instagram in 2018) Dr Alex also took to his stories on Saturday morning, thanking his followers for their support and said that he needs to time to take in the tragic news. He wrote: 'Thank you for all the messages of kindness here and to my phone. I am incredibly grateful of the support and it means so much. 'I am sorry that I can't reply yet. I need to try and process what has happened somehow.' In the emotional tribute announcing Llyr's death, the A&E doctor wrote: 'I can't believe I am actually writing this post. 'I have lost my beautiful little brother to mental health. I love you so much Llyr. The kindest and most caring soul. 'I was so proud of you starting medical school next month, you would have been the most incredible doctor. We are hurting so bad. No words can explain. 'As a family we are devastated. We love you and miss you so much. Please rest in peace x Our boy.' Moving: In his emotional post on Friday, he said 'I was so proud of you starting medical school next month, you would have been the most incredible doctor' It is believed Dr Alex's brother would have been 19 at the time of his death. MailOnline has contacted his representatives for comment. In 2018, Dr Alex competed on ITV's Love Island, the popular reality dating series which has seen former contestants Sophie Gradon, 32, and Mike Thalassitis, 26, as well as 40-year-old host Caroline Flack kill themselves. Many of Alex's Love Island co-stars rushed to pay tribute to his late brother in the comments of his post, with Rosie Williams writing: 'Oh no Alex! This is so awful. 'I'm so so sorry from the bottom of my heart. Sending you all the love in the world. Thinking of you and your family through this terrible time.' Charlie Brake penned: 'So, so sorry mate. Here if you need anything. Devastating,' Frankie Foster wrote: 'Sending my love to you and family mate.' Samira Mighty wrote: 'Stay strong,' and Wes Nelson added: 'So sorry to hear this Alex! Stay strong I love you mate!' Josh Denzel also commented: 'Brooo here if you need me.' Emotional: It is believed that Dr Alex's brother would have been 19 at the time of his death, which came after he'd been accepted to medical school Sympathies: Many of Alex's Love Island co-stars rushed to pay tribute to his late brother in the comments of his post Dr Alex is currently working on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic at the University Hospital Lewisham in south-east London. Originally from Carmarthen, Wales, he studied medicine at the University of Exeter before he set his heart on finding romance on Love Island. He struggled to find his dream girl in the villa, though he did enjoy a brief fling with Alexandra Cane and started dating Amelia Bath in December 2018. Dr Alex admitted finding his recent split with Amelia Bath 'really tough' after being forced to spend lockdown apart while he worked on the frontline. Challenging: Just two weeks ago, Dr Alex admitted he was finding it 'really tough' in an emotional post after splitting from girlfriend Amelia Bath The reality star said: 'The last few days have been really tough but I am so grateful for the love and support I have received, it means the world to me. 'Life happens. Being able to pick yourself up and move forward with positivity and an appreciation for life is what matters.' Dr Alex said in a statement announcing his split from Amelia: 'Guys just want to let you know, Amelia and I have decided to go our separate ways. 'As you know, we've been apart for most of lockdown which has been hard on us both and we both agree this is for the best. 'We will remain good friends and I have nothing but respect for Amelia. Thank you for the love and support always.' Amelia shared a similar statement to her own social media, as she thanked fans for their messages of support. The former flames had reunited briefly, after spending 102 days apart during lockdown. If you have been affected by this story, you can call the Samaritans on 116 123 or visit www.samaritans.org. A group of U.S. senators representing both parties on the Foreign Relations Committee has prepared legislation on the allocation of $300 million in annual military financing to Ukraine, including the supply of lethal weapons. "This legislation demonstrates to Ukraine, and to Russia, that the United States will stand by its friend throughout its democratic transition and in defense of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. This bill will strengthen Ukraine's defenses through military training and equipment and enhanced U.S. and European diplomatic support," Republican Jim Risch said at a committee meeting. Democrat Jeanne Shaheen said that "the Kremlin's malign behavior against the U.S. and our transatlantic partners continues unabated, which is why ensuring our partners in the region have the ability to counter this aggression on the frontlines is so critical." In addition to financial assistance, the legislation also provides for the administration's report on diplomatic support by the United States of Ukraine over the next five years, as well as Pentagon and the State Department providing a report on the potential and needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a plan for the supply of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine. The document recommends that the State Department form a working group on Ukraine together with the European allies and appoint a special envoy for Ukraine as the U.S. representative in the peace talks in the Normandy format, as well as promote dialogue between the Black Sea countries. The Bihar BJP on Friday questioned the "silence" of Shiv Sena leader Aditya Thackeray in the alleged suicide case of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Bihar BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand wanted to know the reason for Aditya Thackeray's silence over Sushant's mysterious death and asked why Maharashtra's young leaders are silent on the death of "India's young and talented artist". Anand put several questions to Aditya Thackeray, targeting the Maharashtra government. He said, "Sushant Singh Rajput, a young and talented artist of India, dies in suspicious circumstances in Mumbai but why are the youth leaders of Maharashtra silent? Aditya Thackeray is an important member in the Maharashtra government so why does his government not recommend a CBI inquiry in the suspicious death of a young artist?" He said the youth of the country are asking questions on the silence of Aditya Thackeray, so what is the secret of his silence? Aditya Thackeray should say whether he is in favour of justice to Sushant or is he in favour of the conspirators?" Anand said Aditya Thackeray must answer because his father Uddhav Thackeray is the Chief Minister of Maharashtra and he also holds a position in the Maharashtra government. He said, "In the case of Sushant, the people of Bihar are constantly hearing rumours of tampering of evidence and tampering of facts, which has increased our concern. Not only this, the statement of Maharashtra's Minister of State for Home is also objectionable on the investigation of Bihar Police. For all these reasons, the people of Bihar do not trust the government of Maharashtra, Mumbai Police and a CBI investigation is the only hope." Hyundai Motor's cars await shipment at a port in Ulsan in this April photo. / Yonhap By Baek Byung-yeul Hyudai Mobis saw a steep drop in its second quarter operating profit as the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic weakened global demand for auto parts, the Hyundai Motor Group auto parts arm said Friday. The company said its operating profit between April and June fell 73.1 percent to 168.7 billion won ($140.3 million), year-on-year. Its sales also decreased by 20.4 percent to 7.53 trillion won, from a year earlier. "The decline in performance was largely driven by the decrease in car production across the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread shutdown of car dealerships," the company said. Sofia Richie shared a selfie in a car when she headed to local celebrity hotspot Nobu on Thursday to grab a takeout order from the high-priced restaurant. The 21-year-old model was with her longtime friend Tess Kemper, a graduate of Cornell University. The Flip It Like Disick star also shared some images to social media that revealed the two enjoyed the Japanese meal on the deck of a beachside home in Malibu. On the road again: She has been enjoying a beachside summer in Malibu. And Sofia Richie shared a selfie in a car when she headed to local celebrity hotspot Nobu on Thursday to grab a takeout order from the high-priced restaurant With her pal: The 21-year-old model was with her longtime friend Tess Kemper, a graduate of Cornell University. The two were also seen in the front of their car as they wore black face masks In a new selfie shared to Instagram Stories, Sofia showed off her freckles as she wore black sunglasses and had on a nude lip color. She also had several gold chains around her neck as she showed part of her tie-dye hoodie from boyfriend Scott Disick's Talentless line of clothing. Sofia and Tess were also seen in the front of their car as they wore black face masks. Outside Nobu, Tess was seen in a white Nike mini skirt, and a white Fiorucci crewneck sweatshirt, with baby blue writing across the front. For a pop of color she added red lace-up sneakers to her look and a white and red Cornell cap. Nice view: The star also shared some images to social media that revealed the two enjoyed the Japanese meal on the deck of her rental in Malibu Another look at her busy day: Sofia also shared this image of her Wilson racket She was sure to cover her nose and mouth in a black reusable face mask as the coronavirus pandemic continues to require coverings in public spaces. Adding some designer touches she carried a brown Louis Vuitton backpack in hand as she headed inside to get her food. Sofia drove the black Aston Martin Scott Disick gifted her on her 21st birthday last year. Earlier this month, it was reported that Sofia and Scott have gotten back together, after having ended their nearly three-year relationship in May. Nice wheels: Arriving in style, she drove the black Aston Martin Scott Disick gifted her on her 21st birthday last year Back on: There are reports Sofia and Scott are back together after splitting in May A source revealed to People on Wednesday that this time around the 37-year-old Talentless founder and the 21-year-old daughter of Lionel Richie are 'taking things slow.' '[They are] trying to make things work while taking things slow,' explained the insider, as the pair continue to spend quality time together. On Tuesday, a source confirmed to Us Weekly that Scott and Sofia were 'hanging out again romantically' and that their relationship was 'back on.' Scott and Sofia reunited for the first time on Saturday, since ending their nearly three-year relationship in May. Tasty: Tess went to grab a takeout order from the high-priced restaurant; she had a cap on from her alma mater Sporty: She looked sporty, donning a white Nike mini skirt, and a white Fiorucci crewneck sweatshirt, with baby blue writing across the front The pair - who first began dating in 2017 - grabbed lunch at Nobu restaurant in Malibu, before heading to a pal's low key Fourth Of July party at the beach. 'They seemed happy together but more friendly than romantic,' a source told People of their get together. Scott and Sofia's break-up occurred in May, shortly after Scott's brief rehab stint at a Colorado treatment facility in late April. Last month, a source told People that Sofia was 'still processing the breakup' and having a hard time doing so. Back together: Earlier this month, it was reported that Sofia and Scott have gotten back together, after having ended their nearly three-year relationship in May. 'It was a serious relationship, not some fling, and she was there for Scott through some tough times. It hurts to see all the speculation about Scott and Kourtney, but she is so young and gets so much attention. She'll be totally fine,' the insider explained. Sofia and Scott started dating in the fall of 2017 about two years after he split with reality star Kourtney Kardashian, 41. Recently, Scott, Kourtney, and their three children, sons Reign, five, and Mason, 10, and seven-year-old daughter Penelope, have been spending a lot of quality time together, taking a family trip to Utah for Scott's birthday and most recently a trip to Wyoming together. (Natural News) Almost ten years ago now, a fellow pro-life activist told me a horrifying story. A woman in Vancouver, she said, had gone to an abortion facility and aborted her baby because the pregnancy interfered with a planned vacation, and she didnt want to look pregnant in her bathing suit in the vacation pictures. It was one of those anecdotes of such breathtaking selfishness and cruelty that it sticks with you always. Is that a common reason for seeking an abortion? No. But the fact that it happened showed just how corrosive and corrupting an abortion culture truly is. (Article republished from LifeSiteNews.com) I was reminded of that story again this week when I read in The Telegraph that the U.K.-based organization Christian Concern had hired investigators to place calls to Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service the U.K.s two main abortion providers to determine how easy it was to procure abortion pills. One of the activists stated that she didnt want to keep her baby because she was worried about what pregnancy would do to her bikini body. As it turned out, any reason for an abortion was a good reason Christian Concerns CEO, Andrea Williams, noted that its investigation revealed that women could get these pills using any excuse whatsoever. One of them even said that it didnt bode well for her having a bikini body, and that was put down as an emotional reason. Rebecca Reid of The Telegraph noted that the revelation came during a discussion about whether the emergency legislation allowing women to have abortions at home should be scrapped or retained post-lockdown. The debate around access to abortion pills is well known, if ongoing. But the news that anti-choice campaigners are posing as women who need abortions came as something of a surprise. BPAS spokeswoman Clare Murphy responded by pointing out that abortion is available on demand in most countries during the first trimester for any reason and denied that the transcripts provided by Christian Concern prove that the actor seeking the abortion cited only physical appearance as the sole reason for seeking an abortion. Christian Concern provided the following transcript of the investigators conversation on its website: Id be more than happy to have children in the future and stuff like that. And weve discussed that and we want children, but just not at this particular point in time because weve just literally like booked a holiday and we were just quite confined during the lockdown. I mean, were both all right, but its just been a bit emotionally draining, all these restrictions and everything. And we were just so looking forward to this holiday and I just want to We just wanted to really focus on this holiday and have a good time and not I just didnt want to worry about looking pregnant on the beach and all that. I just, its just so bad the timing right now. Not so long ago, that would be considered shocking. But as Ive noted before, todays abortion activists are made of sterner stuff than their queasier (or more strategic) foremothers, and theyve never met an abortion they cant clap for. Reid scoffed at the idea that someone aborting their child for a bikini body is a problem: the blunt truth is, even if a woman did want to have an abortion because she was worried about stretch marks and sagging breasts, that would still be a perfectly valid choice. As it turns out, sometimes you have to kill to get a body to die for. In fact, Reid doubles down in her response to Christian Concerns investigation and interviews several women who had abortions for frivolous reasons just to highlight her belief that theres no such thing as a frivolous reason for feticide: Rachel*, now 29, had an abortion aged 26. I didnt have it for any of the right reasons, she says. I was married, my career was starting to flourish and my partner and I had enough money to support a child. But the moment I saw two pink lines on the test, I googled the Marie Stopes phone number. The career I had been building for the last five years was going to disappear basically overnight if I stopped working, and I couldnt let that happen. But the main reason I had an abortion was that I wanted more time to live my life to drink and smoke, and stay up until 4am with my friends. I just fundamentally was not ready. So, despite not being a gymslip mother, I had an abortion. I didnt have a good reason, or an excuse, I just didnt want to have a baby. But I do still sometimes encounter people who are generally pro-choice, but who cant quite hide their judgement about my reasons. Nadia*, now 37, had an abortion in her early thirties. She tells me: Honestly, I didnt put a lot of thought into it. I wasnt ready to be a mum, I didnt want a baby, my life was about having fun, going out and putting myself first. So I booked an abortion. When they asked me why I wanted to abort, I was a bit lost for words. I just didnt want a baby. I didnt expect to have to explain to a stranger why I wasnt open to being a mum. Surely, I want an abortion should be a good enough explanation of how or why youre not ready to be a parent? Read it and weep. Rachel says that fundamentally, she just didnt want to have a baby. When Nadia was asked why she wanted an abortion, she, too, says she just didnt want a baby. Their words are nearly identical, and they reveal something vicious and ugly about our culture. These young women knew that getting an abortion was about getting rid of their babies. Youll notice that they didnt even bother talking about getting rid of the pregnancy, or eliminating a clump of cells, or exercising their reproductive freedom. They wanted freedom, all right freedom from the baby they knew already existed. After all, if there had been no baby, what would they have been aborting? It is true that most women do not have abortions simply because they want to look good on the beach. It is also true that many have abortions because they feel trapped, or abused, or terrified. But as Rebecca Reid and her vampiric fellow feminists will tell you, none of that matters. The only thing that matters is the unassailable right to be rid of an unwanted child, and choosing to abort a baby because youve suffered a sexual assault is in no way morally superior to seeking an abortion because a little girl might interrupt your partying or exacerbate your hangover. An abortion is an abortion, and an abortion is just someone who just didnt want a baby getting rid of it. Dont take it from me. Take it from them. Read more at: LifeSiteNews.com BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 Trend: On July 31, President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov made a phone call to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov extended his congratulations and wishes for prosperity to the head of state and the people of Azerbaijan on the occasion of Eid al-Adha. President Ilham Aliyev thanked for attention and congratulations, and extended his best wishes to the president and people of Turkmenistan on the occasion of the holiday. The heads of state hailed the successful development of the friendly and brotherly ties between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and expressed confidence that the relations between the two nations, who share common historical roots, would continue to strengthen. During the phone talk, the results of the recent videoconference between the presidents of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan were hailed, and prospects for cooperation in the fields of transport, logistics and telecommunications were discussed. The presidents also noted the importance of linking Lapis-Lazuli transport corridor to Azerbaijan`s transport infrastructure in terms of the expansion of cooperation. We want Mahatma Gandhi's India, people of Kashmir cannot live with Godse's India: Mehbooba Mufti Mehbooba Mufti to be under detention for 3 more months India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, July 31: The Jammu and Kashmir government has extended the detention of PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti by three months. Mehbooba Mufti's detention extended by 3 months under Public Safety Act | Oneindia News The order was issued under the Public Safety Act based on the report by the Advisory Board. Earlier the Jammu and Kashmir administration has released People's Conference leader Sajad Lone from house detention. China has hijacked aggressive 'ghar main ghuske marengay militaristic approach: Mehbooba Mufti He was detained a year back after the Centre abrogated Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. He was lodged at the MLA hostel and later shifted to his government accommodation at Church Lane. "Finally 5 days short of a year I have been officially informed that I am a free man. So much has changed. So have I. Jail was not a new experience. Earlier ones were harsh with usual doses of physical torture. But this was psychologically draining. Much to share hopefully soon," Lone tweeted after being released. Lone, was a minister in the PDP-BJP government in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. It may be recalled that 13 leaders were released from detention in January this year, while give others had been released in December last year. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, July 31, 2020, 16:07 [IST] However, in Central Florida, hospitalizations seem to have reached their peak at least for now after reaching an all-time high. Still, doctors and public health experts caution that COVID-19 hospitalizations are nowhere close to their lowest point two months ago and may go up again if more people are infected. We can readily understand why investors are attracted to unprofitable companies. By way of example, Petratherm (ASX:PTR) has seen its share price rise 289% over the last year, delighting many shareholders. But the harsh reality is that very many loss making companies burn through all their cash and go bankrupt. Given its strong share price performance, we think it's worthwhile for Petratherm shareholders to consider whether its cash burn is concerning. In this report, we will consider the company's annual negative free cash flow, henceforth referring to it as the 'cash burn'. The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'. See our latest analysis for Petratherm How Long Is Petratherm's Cash Runway? You can calculate a company's cash runway by dividing the amount of cash it has by the rate at which it is spending that cash. In December 2019, Petratherm had AU$3.0m in cash, and was debt-free. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through AU$1.1m. Therefore, from December 2019 it had 2.7 years of cash runway. Arguably, that's a prudent and sensible length of runway to have. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years. How Is Petratherm's Cash Burn Changing Over Time? Petratherm didn't record any revenue over the last year, indicating that it's an early stage company still developing its business. Nonetheless, we can still examine its cash burn trajectory as part of our assessment of its cash burn situation. During the last twelve months, its cash burn actually ramped up 62%. While this spending increase is no doubt intended to drive growth, if the trend continues the company's cash runway will shrink very quickly. Petratherm makes us a little nervous due to its lack of substantial operating revenue. We prefer most of the stocks on this list of stocks that analysts expect to grow. Can Petratherm Raise More Cash Easily? Story continues While Petratherm does have a solid cash runway, its cash burn trajectory may have some shareholders thinking ahead to when the company may need to raise more cash. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. One of the main advantages held by publicly listed companies is that they can sell shares to investors to raise cash and fund growth. By looking at a company's cash burn relative to its market capitalisation, we gain insight on how much shareholders would be diluted if the company needed to raise enough cash to cover another year's cash burn. Petratherm's cash burn of AU$1.1m is about 4.0% of its AU$28m market capitalisation. That's a low proportion, so we figure the company would be able to raise more cash to fund growth, with a little dilution, or even to simply borrow some money. So, Should We Worry About Petratherm's Cash Burn? It may already be apparent to you that we're relatively comfortable with the way Petratherm is burning through its cash. For example, we think its cash runway suggests that the company is on a good path. While its increasing cash burn wasn't great, the other factors mentioned in this article more than make up for weakness on that measure. After taking into account the various metrics mentioned in this report, we're pretty comfortable with how the company is spending its cash. Readers need to have a sound understanding of business risks before investing in a stock, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Petratherm that potential shareholders should take into account before putting money into a stock. If you would prefer to check out another company with better fundamentals, then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt or this list of stocks which are all forecast to grow. 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. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has asserted before the House of Commons Finance Committee that there was no conflict of interest involved in granting a nearly billion dollar contract to WE charity which had links to him and his family. Trudeau who appeared via videoconferencing before the committee said, I was not in a position of conflict of interest, as quoted by the outlet CBC News. In fact, he stressed that he had asked the public service, the Canadian bureaucrats dealing with the matter, to exercise due diligence because of the connections he personally had with the organisation WE Charity. Speaking in French, Trudeau told the Committee that he had apologized because of the perception of ties to his family. He said he should have recused himself from the Cabinet meeting where the decision was taken to give the contract to WE Charity. Trudeau appeared for about an hour-and-a-half for questioning by members of the Finance Committee and was followed by his Chief of Staff Katie Telford. The contract given to WE Charity was cancelled after furor erupted citing links between Trudeau, his family and WE Charity. His wife, mother and brother had been paid fees by the organisation several times. Trudeau denied knowledge of these activities. He said, My mother and my brother are professionals in their own right who have engagements and have for many, many years, with many different organizations across the country, and I dont have the details of their work experiences or expenses. Trudeau also said he believed that the Canada Service Corps would be able to deliver the youth volunteership programme but was informed by the public service that it would not be able to scale up to deliver at that time. In fact, they said if we wanted this program to happen, it could only be with WE Charity. The choice was not between providers. It was between going ahead with WE Charity to deliver the program or not going ahead with the program at all, he added. The controversy has roiled Canadian politics in recent weeks and severely dented Trudeaus popularity. He is also being investigated by the countrys Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON MILLBRAE, Calif., July 29, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Stem, Inc. , the global leader in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven energy storage services, and Copec, a leading energy and mobility company and one of the most trusted brands throughout Latin America and with presence in the Southeast United States through Mapco, informed that their joint venture and strategic partnership will bring Stems technology to Chile and Colombia. The agreement follows the $30 million investment made in August 2019 in Stem by WIND Ventures, Copecs corporate venture capital (CVC). Under this agreement, Copec will deploy Stems intelligent storage solutions as part of its development strategy which aims to accelerate the energy transition focused on improving peoples quality of life expanding Stems international presence into South America. Copec will leverage Stems expertise in design, deployment, and project financing of energy storage projects. The companies will collaborate on expansion in the region, working with communities, regulators, utilities and commercial entities to incorporate Stems AthenaTM AI-enabled energy storage software solution in both Chile and Colombia, looking forward to contributing to more resilient, sustainable and consumer centric electricity markets, after the pandemic. The Athena platform has accumulated more than 14.5 million runtime hours, and Stem has more than 1,000 operating projects and 790MWh enrolled in its network. Today we face a critical global scenario as a result of the pandemic and Copec's main efforts are focused on facing the emergency, said Leonardo Ljubetic, chief corporate development and strategy officer of Copec. However, we also have the responsibility to keep our eyes on the future and on the challenges of global warming. Stem connects us to the forefront of smart energy management, which we believe is one of the keys in our goal of accelerating the energy transition and decarbonization of the matrix, he added. Chile has been one of the largest markets for storage in South America over the last three years, said John E. Carrington, CEO of Stem. Since engaging with the Copec leadership and seeing their commitment to a clean energy future, Stem clearly has the right partner to leverage a tremendous opportunity ahead. Moreover, with the addition of Copecs venture team, WIND Ventures , we look forward to unprecedented integration with entrepreneurs and startups driving change in energy, mobility and retail sectors across Latin America. Stem and Copec will focus exclusively on Chile and Colombia in the first phase of the partnership, with the potential to expand in South America. Initial projects include an energy storage installation at a Copec manufacturing facility located in Valparaiso Region, Chile, with several additional sites to be deployed in the coming months. Stems Athena platform will aggregate this stored energy, helping to create the regions first virtual power plant. Chile and Colombia are among the most favorable markets for renewable energy, with Chile having one of the highest potential for solar generation in the world. Chile and Colombia are projected to have a combined opportunity for energy storage nearing 1 GWh over the next decade, based on market estimates from Copec and its subsidiary Terpel. About Copec Copec is one of the leading energy companies in Central and South America. It was founded in Chile in 1934 and today is also present in Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru and the Dominican Republic through Terpel, and in the southeast United States through Mapco. With a robust network of over 3.000 fuel stations and over 1.200 convenience stores in the continent, the company also has leading presence in strategic sectors of the industry including aviation, electric generation, mining, fishing, and transport, among others. Always focused on customer service and innovation, Copec is also working to lead the change for a new era in mobility, energy and convenience, faithful to its promise to facilitate the life in movement. About Stem, Inc. Stem provides solutions that address the challenges of todays dynamic energy market. By combining advanced energy storage solutions with Athena AI, a world-class artificial intelligence (AI)-powered analytics platform, Stem enables customers and partners to optimize energy use by automatically switching between battery power, onsite generation and grid power. Stems solutions help enterprise customers benefit from clean, adaptive energy infrastructure and achieve a wide variety of goals, including expense reduction, resilience, sustainability, environmental and corporate responsibility and innovation. Stem also offers full support for solar partners interested in adding storage to standalone, community or commercial solar projects both behind and in front of the meter. Headquartered in Millbrae, Calif., Stem is directly funded by a consortium of leading investors including Activate Capital, Angeleno Group, BNP Paribas, Constellation Technology Ventures, Iberdrola (Inversiones Financieras Perseo), GE Ventures, Magnesium Capital, Mithril Capital Management, Mitsui & Co. LTD., Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, RWE Supply & Trading, Temasek and Total Energy Ventures. For more information, visit www.stem.com . Media Contacts Laurie Gibson Kickstart Consulting for Stem +1 (650) 815-1438 lgibson@kickstartconsulting.com EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A settlement has been proposed in a class action involving interest payments on physician and healthcare provider invoices for care governed by the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act and arising under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act (the " Settlement "), the terms of which are set forth in full in a settlement agreement (the " Settlement Agreement "). Capitalized terms not defined herein have the same meanings as they do in the Settlement Agreement. What's the case about? The Plaintiff contends that Illinois Physicians and/or Healthcare Providers who render services to patients covered under the provisions of the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act, 820 ILCS 305, et seq., were entitled to simple interest on medical bills containing all necessary data elements that were paid more than 30 days late and that failure to pay interest was a violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. Different insurance companies and third-party claims administrators (" TPAs ") are named as Defendants. What is the settlement? If you are a member of the Class, and if you timely submit a Claim Form including provision of certain data and/or documents, depending on the nature of your claim you may become eligible for a payment. Payments on valid claims will be made in an amount equal to a percentage of the interest you may be owed. The Settlement Agreement describes all the details of how these payments will be made. All payments are subject to caps and other terms and conditions set forth in the Settlement Agreement. Who can participate? You must be a Class Member. The Class is composed of all Illinois Physicians and Healthcare Providers who: (i) submitted an invoice for reimbursement of services in connection with the treatment of an employee covered by the provisions of the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act to a Defendant (or its agent) that was paid from August 19, 2014 through April 3, 2020; (ii) were paid more than 30 days after the invoice was received by the Defendant (or its agent); and (iii) were not paid any interest on that invoice. No Class Member can include claims handled by any Defendant (or its agent) on behalf of the State of Illinois because such claims are excluded from this Settlement. How do you make a Claim? You must obtain a Claim Form from the settlement website. You must fill it out, provide the data and/or documentation required for the claim, sign it, and provide any information and/or documentation requested in a Deficiency Notice. The Claim Form must be postmarked no later than January 21, 2021. Submitting a claim does not guarantee a payment. Claims will be verified and substantiated. You will be bound to all the terms of the Settlement even if your Claim is denied. What are your options if you are a Class Member? You can do nothing, in which case you will be bound by the terms of the Settlement but will receive no payments. You can submit a timely Claim Form and provide any documentation or information requested in a Deficiency Notice, which may result in you receiving a payment. If you wish to make an objection to the Settlement, you must do so in writing filed with the Clerk of the Court and postmarked no later than November 7, 2020. You must also include all the materials and information required for objections that are listed in the Settlement Agreement and Post Notice. By objecting, you remain bound to the Settlement if the Court approves it. If you do not wish to be bound by the Settlement, you must fill out and mail the Exclusion Form (often called "opting out"). The Exclusion form must be postmarked no later than November 7, 2020. Excluding yourself means you are not bound by the Settlement, and also that you will receive no payments. It also means you cannot object to the Settlement. What are the attorneys' fees? Class Counsel may ask the Court to award them up to $3,025,000 in attorneys' fees and costs and up to $20,000 in incentives to the Plaintiff. Class Members will not be responsible for paying these amounts. Where can you get more information? Copies of the Settlement Agreement, notices, Claim Form, and other important information can be found at www.BeattyInterestClassAction.com. A toll-free number has also been set-up at 866-977-1110. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois is overseeing this case, Beatty, et al., v. Accident Fund General Insurance Company, et al., No. 3:17-cv-01001-NJR-DGW. The Court will hold a final hearing on whether to approve the Settlement on December 7, 2020. If you are in the Class, you may appear at this hearing, but you are not required to. Please monitor the settlement website in case the hearing date is changed. SOURCE The United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois A new study from the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering explores how the novel coronavirus travels indoors to help schools and businesses take precautions as they reopen. The study focuses on how the virus travels among different types of ventilation systems. "This insight could inform how classrooms are arranged and disinfected, and also help places like theaters and concert venues reopen with the proper precautions," said the University of Minnesota website. COVID-19 LONG-HAULERS GO ONLINE FOR SUPPORT: COVID-19 'long-haulers' turn to online groups for support during unpredictable battle Not only is the race to find a cure on, but it's also important to find ways for students to safely return to the classroom. Katie O'Connor, of Colorado Springs, posted an emotional video on Facebook that garnered over 4 million views, showing how she is preparing her classroom to be COVID-19 ready, according to Good Morning America. Mechanical engineering associate professor Jiarong Hong and assistant professor Suo Yang did the research showing the transmission of the virus through aerosols that escape from our mouths when we talk, according to the website. "The researchers were able to numerically model the external flow of the virus through the air in three interior spacesan elevator, a classroom, and a supermarket," said the University website. The research assumes that focusing on good ventilation along with the proper spacing could contribute to filtering out some of the virus from the air but could also leave more viral particles on surfaces. Yang said, If you do a good job, if you have good ventilation at the right location, and if you scatter the seating of the audience properly, it could be much safer, with regards to recent work with the Minnesota Orchestra measuring aerosol concentrations. "The task forces goal is to learn how much of the SARS CoV-2 virus it takes to become infected and provide science-driven policy that will help mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic," said the website. STAY INFORMED: Sign up to receive breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. Illinois General Hospital of the Lakes is in need of nurses to care for the sick. The Sisters of Mercy take over operations and rename it Mercy Hospital. The facility becomes the first chartered hospital in Chicago. From February 1851 to December 1851, the hospital cares for 39 marine patients, 119 general ward patients and 62 county patients, according to a September 1923 Tribune story. It accepted furthermore all creeds, all diseases and all classes. Police have seized an estimated 1.5m-worth of cannabis from a Scottish lorry driver at the UK-France border. The 43-year-old man from Motherwell was detained at the Channel Tunnel terminal in Coquelles on Thursday morning, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said. Border Force officers discovered around 150kg of the plant, along with 2,000 in cash, stashed in the lorrys cargo. NCA officers and Police Scotland have since searched properties in Motherwell, Bellshill and Shotts, and the suspect has been released under investigation. This is a significant drug seizure involving NCA teams in Scotland and England working together with partners including Border Force and Police Scotland, said NCA Scotland branch operations manager John McGowan. 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. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. 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 Together we are determined to do all we can to stem the supply of illicit drugs to Scotland, where they can do so much damage to our communities. This is just one example of the crucial work that Border Force officers do every day to help keep the UK safe, added minister for immigration compliance and the courts, Chris Philp. Detections of harmful drugs and illicit cash such as this are testament to their dedication and expertise. While cannabis is categorised as a Class B drug in the UK, its medicinal use was technically legalised in 2018, although it has proven exceptionally difficult to access. This week, 26-year-old chronic pain sufferer, Kayleigh Compston, became the first person to receive a prescription in Scotland, as part of a European trial led by Westminsters former chief drug adviser, David Nutt. Despite its use being largely criminalised or inaccessible in the UK, a UN study in 2018 found Britain to be the worlds largest producer of legal cannabis, with the 2.1 tonnes exported in 2016 accounting for roughly 70 per cent of the worlds total that year. Thursdays seizure, however, puts a meagre dent in the profits of the UKs illicit drugs trade, which was estimated to sit at 9.4bn per year in Dame Carol Blacks landmark review in February. The cost to society is more than double that figure, at 19bn a year 86 per cent of which is inflicted by heroin and crack cocaine, Dame Carol found. The government-commissioned report also concluded that the trade has never caused greater harm to society, with law enforcement efforts not only failing to stem supply but often fuelling increased violence in the market, by creating gaps for competitors to exploit and dangerously fuelling mistrust. It called for police to instead target dealing gangs cash as it is laundered across borders, suggesting that even with optimal funding for all relevant agencies, it is not clear that they would be able to bring about a sustained reduction in drug supply. In August last year, Durhams late police and crime commissioner Ron Hogg, told The Independent: I have lost count on the number of large scale early morning raids that I have participated in. Yet, the simple truth is that these activities which take months, sometimes years in the planning do no more than disrupt the supply market for the very shortest of periods. We recently interviewed two recovering addicts who had been arrested after an undercover policing operation which had lasted six months, cost over 0.5m and we arrested over 30 people involved in the supply of class A drugs. When we asked how long we had strangled the supply of heroin, one estimated four hours, and the other two. However, crackdowns on the drugs trade have been bolstered during the coronavirus lockdown, which former Met superintendent Leroy Logan, told The Independent left county lines dealers stick[ing] out like a sore thumb. And in May, the Home Office touted the first of a series of raids backed by 25m of government funding, which it said led to the seizure of 3m of drugs, the closure of nearly 140 trade lines and more than 650 arrests. This was soon overshadowed by the discovery of top-tier criminals former messaging platform, EncroChat, which led to the arrest of more than 700 suspects in the UK, including previously untouchable kingpins who have evaded justice for decades. Additional reporting by PA If youre like me, you love to fish, Harrington exclaims in the testimonial. Unfortunately, ordinary J-hooks result in gut hooking fish, which critically injures them and often times leads to their death, he explains. Thats why Im excited to tell you about Baitanator fishhooks! Perfect for catch and release fishing, Baitanator is the only J-hook on the market that greatly reduces gut hooking fish. As the inventor of the infomercial and founder of As Seen on TV, Kevin Harrington has launched some of the best-selling DRTV campaigns in history. Since producing his first thirty-minute infomercial in 1984, Harrington has been involved in over 500 product launches that have resulted in over $5 billion in global sales. Great for the whole family, the Baitanator is no ordinary hook, Harrington elaborates in the video. Made in the USA, the patented Baitanator helps save the lives of many fish. It also reloads as bait is taken from the hook - holding 70% more bait than an ordinary hook, Harrington states. And we all know more bait attracts more fish. As the fish steals the bait from the hook, another piece of bait slips into place this makes Baitanator a must have hook for fishing enthusiasts of all ages! Spend less time baiting and more time fishing, Harrington summarizes. But most importantly, Help save and protect our fish for future anglers, he says. Harringtons testimonial video about Baitanator is scheduled for release across cable TV networks, social media platforms, digital channels, and streaming services as well as http://www.baitanator.com and AsSeenOnTV.pro. About AsSeenOnTV.pro Headquartered in South Florida, AsSeenOnTV.pro is a full-service production, branding, and marketing company that specializes in direct response television, short- and long-form commercials, and brand building. Based out of a 25,000+ sq ft, state-of-the-art studio, the companys creative team handles every aspect of production from script to screen to airing. For nearly two decades, AsSeenOnTV.pros veteran staff of writers, producers, videographers, and editors has amassed more than 50 Telly Awards, thousands of prestigious clients, and over $20 million in television placements. About Baitanator Baitanator Fishhooks are the only J-Hooks that will dramatically reduce the chance of gut hooking fish, making this hook perfect for catch and release fishing with family and friends. Because the capsule covers the J-hook, small fish cannot swallow the entire hook causing them to feed near the barb. If a larger fish swallows the Baitanator, the protective capsule keeps the hook from snagging the fishs throat, allowing it to retreat without injury. For more information about Baitanator, visit http://www.baitanator.com Miamis municipal government could close five city service centers in several neighborhoods and eliminate 100 vacant jobs under a $1.1 billion spending plan administrators have proposed during the economic downturn spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. The budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, shows a city already tightening its belt to maintain existing services and pay its 4,000-person workforce, with a grim forecast for the next few years. The city expects the ailing economy to seriously slow property value growth, leading to less tax revenue in 2021 and beyond. This year, Miami commissioners voted to advertise the same property tax rate as last year, setting a ceiling for the rate that will receive final votes in September. Administrators are bracing for the impact while grappling with a shortfall this year that exceeds $20 million, a gap created by millions in losses from dips in sales tax, parking fees and other direct payments to the city after the coronavirus forced the economy to mostly close down in the spring. While the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have not yet entirely been felt, the City of Miami is facing the impact of diminished revenues for the current and coming fiscal year, wrote City Manager Art Noriega in his budget message. Underscoring the budget crunch is a fight between countys municipalities and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, the top decision maker for the countys sprawling government. Gimenezs plan to send the cities $30 million out of the countys $474 million share of federal COVID-19 relief dollars drew a sharp rebuke from several mayors on Thursday, including Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. Im never aware of a time where this has happened before, with cities standing so united, Suarez said at a press conference. The disrespect, the lack of honesty ... has led us to a point where we have no faith and confidence in the [county] government. NET office closing, jobs getting cut Story continues The city has proposed closing six of 13 Neighborhood Enhancement Team (NET) offices, to save funding and to focus NETs energy on the most important services citywide. The NET offices serve as hubs for municipal services where residents could ask questions, get paperwork and file complaints. The NET offices act as mini city halls that can handle neighborhood beautification projects and coordinate with police and other city departments. Neighborhood association presidents often connect with NET administrators to deal with everyday issues. In October, the city could close the following NET offices: Downtown/Brickell Little Haiti Marlins Park Model City Overtown Wynwood/Edgewater Under the budget plan, the following NET offices would remain open: Allapattah Coconut Grove Coral Way Flagami Little Havana NET Administration headquarters, located in Little Havana Upper Eastside Administrators said the remaining NET offices will function as they have in the past. As with several departments across the city, vacant positions would be eliminated. In the fire-rescue, police, parks and several other departments, unfilled jobs would be cut under the budget. Code compliance, which received a boosted budget last year to hire staff and buy equipment for a campaign against illegal dumping, would have six vacant jobs eliminated. In the parks department, the elimination of 11 open jobs will impact services by reducing the frequency of grounds maintenance at city parks, according to the proposed budget. The city also plans to save $548,000 by operating Grapeland Water Park only on weekends in summer 2021. Another personnel shift that has already attracted public scrutiny: The consolidation of the citys resilience staff into the public works department. The chief resilience officer position would be eliminated following the recent departure of Jane Gilbert, the citys first CRO. The budget would move three existing staffers under the current director of the department of resilience and public works, Alan Dodd. Dodd has been given the title of chief resilience officer in addition to his previous duties, a change announced the day after the Miami Herald published an article about the elimination of the stand-alone resilience department. Climate action activists worry the consolidation of duties will hamper the citys ability to prepare for the impacts of climate change. What about my property tax bill? On July 23, commissioners voted to hold the line on the property tax rate in the next budget year, setting a ceiling for a rate that can be lowered before the spending plan receives final approval in September, but it cannot be easily raised. Due to increased property values before the pandemic, a flat property tax rate will still translate into a slightly higher bill for a typical Miami property owner. Under the rate, the owner of a median home valued at about $166,000 would pay about $957 in property taxes. This marks a $30 increase from the last budget year, assuming the owner qualified for the standard homestead exemption and the homes assessed value increased by 2.3%, the maximum allowed by law this year for an owner-occupied home. Even though Miami bureaucrats and commissioners are expected to keep the property tax rate the same, the increase can be attributed to higher property values. That dynamic is expected to change. The city is forecasting property values to slump in 2021 and only begin to stabilize in 2022. City-controlled property taxes are one portion of ones overall tax bill, which also includes taxes for the school board and other local agencies. In August, property owners will receive a letter called a TRIM notice in August giving them their proposed tax rate and hearing dates. Youre no doubt familiar with the saying there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. The less frequently acknowledged irony is that theyre also the two things our society is worst at talking honestly about. We have no real way of discussing them that doesnt ultimately become reduced to saying we want less of both. Thats at least partly the reason were witnessing the unfolding aged-care disaster that defines this moment in our COVID-19 experience. Death and taxes are colliding right now because weve ignored that some deaths can only be prevented (or more accurately, delayed) by taxes. Police and workers at the Epping Gardens Aged Care Facility in Epping in Melbourne's north on Wednesday. Credit:Eddie Jim Its now a matter of record that the infections and deaths were seeing in aged care are overwhelmingly in privately run facilities, rather than government ones. Sure, there is the mitigating factor that government facilities are more often located in areas with less COVID-19, such as regional areas. But the disparity in the numbers and the cracks within the private part of the sector are now becoming too clear to ignore. Private centres have no meaningful regulation of staffing levels, unlike public ones which come under the Safe Patient Care Act in Victoria. So, private centres are more often understaffed, despite union campaigns protesting against this for years. This week we learnt of a survey among aged care workers in which large numbers admit theyre insufficiently trained, especially when it comes to using personal protective equipment. And theres a preponderance of casual staff, moving between multiple facilities and spreading the coronavirus between them. UPDATE: Telly Lee Martin has been located, police said. ORIGINAL POST: Winston-Salem police are asking for the public's help to find a missing man. Telly Lee Martin, 42, was last seen leaving his home about 4 p.m. Wednesday in the 900 block of Gray Avenue, police said. Martin often visits the neighborhood around the Food Lion store on New Walkertown Road and Tranquility Care, an assisted living center at 5100 Lansing Drive, police said. Martin has been diagnosed with a bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and diabetes, police said. The N.C. Center for Missing Persons in Raleigh has issued a Silver Alert for Telly. Telly is a black man who is 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 285 pounds, police said. He has brown eyes with black hair. Kelly was last seen wearing a dark blue T-shirt, blue jogging pants and black sandals, police said. Kelly has a ghost and star tattoo on his left forearm, and a "Telly" tattoo on his upper right arm, the center said in a statement. Baroness Harding promised the technology would be available in time for winter despite an earlier version (seen above) being scrapped last month The NHS tracing app will alert users if someone tests positive for the virus at their local pub or restaurant, the programmes chairman has revealed. Baroness Harding promised the technology would be available in time for winter despite an earlier version being scrapped last month. She said the new app would have a barcode recognition system, enabling users to scan their phones when they entered pubs, restaurants or shops. If someone who visited one of these venues then tested positive for the virus, the app would issue an alert to all who had scanned in and possibly tell them to get tested. Baroness Harding, chairman of the NHS test and trace programme, said it would be very similar to New Zealands app, which was rolled out in the middle of May. But ultimately, she said it would be concerted local action, including lockdowns, that would be most important in beating the virus. She said: The way that we beat Covid is actually a very human thing. A bit of technology in our pocket will help but its not going to be the primary way we beat the disease. She added: Your phone will continually be updated when youve been in locations where there have been outbreaks. The Government was last month forced to ditch its original app after conceding it did not work on Apple iPhones, one of the most widely used smartphones in the UK. Officials are now developing a system provided jointly by Apple and Google which is expected to pick up a much higher number of potential contacts. WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has introduced legislation to provide military assistance and reform support to Ukraine over the next five years, underscoring the widespread congressional backing for the nation despite repeated disappointments as it battles Russia-backed forces. The Ukraine Security Partnership Act submitted on July 30 authorizes up to $300 million per year in foreign military aid to Ukraine, including lethal weapons, subject to meeting reform criteria. The act also calls for the State Department to set up a working group on Ukraine with European allies to prioritize economic and policy reform assistance and to again appoint a special envoy to Kyiv for peace talks. While Ukraine has made progress on many reforms over the years, it has struggled at times due to endemic corruption and pushback by influential oligarchs. The legislation comes a year after President Donald Trump recalled his ambassador to Kyiv and temporarily withheld military support to Ukraine, sparking a partisan impeachment trial that led to the departure of special envoy Kurt Volker and damaged U.S.-Ukrainian relations. The impeachment trial derailed a planned White House meeting between Trump and newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The Ukraine Security Partnership Act gets the U.S.-Ukraine relationship back on track by increasing our security assistance for Kyiv as the United States continues to support their steps towards political reform and helps counter Russian aggression abroad, Chris Murphy (Democrat-Connecticut), one of the bills six co-sponsors, said in a statement. The bill's sponsors describe Ukraine as a bulwark against Russian malign influence and of vital importance to U.S. security interests. Ukraine has demonstrated itself as a valuable security partner that has sent troops to support U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, demonstrating it is not just a recipient of aid. The co-sponsors also include Senator Jim Risch (Republican-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Senator Bob Menendez (Democrat-New Jersey), the committees ranking Democratic member; Rob Portman (Republican-Ohio); John Barrasso (Republican-Wyoming.); and Jeanne Shaheen (Democrat-New Hampshire). The United States has given Ukraine more than $3 billion in aid, including more than $1.6 billion in military assistance, since Russia forcibly annexed its Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and backed separatists fighting in its eastern regions. The war, sparked by the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraines pro-Moscow president, has resulted in the deaths of more than 14,000 Ukrainians and devastated the nations economy. The war continues to the present day, despite calls for cease-fires. This legislation demonstrates to Ukraine, and to Russia, that the United States will stand by its friend throughout its democratic transition and in defense of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. This bill will strengthen Ukraines defenses through military training and equipment and enhanced U.S. and European diplomatic support, the senators said in a news release announcing the bill. The legislation calls for U.S. military aid to help bolster Ukraines navy so it can better defend its Black Sea territory. The Black Sea borders three NATO allies and is of strategic importance to the United States. The legislation authorizes the secretary of state to supply such lethal aid as anti-ship, anti-tank, and anti-aircraft weapons. This legislation demonstrates to Ukraine, and to Russia, that the United States will stand by its friend throughout its democratic transition and in defense of its sovereignty and territorial integrity, Risch said in the statement. Part of the aid is contingent upon progress on defense industry reform, including strengthening civilian control of the military, increasing the transparency of procurement, and enhancing efficiency at state-owned arms manufacturers. Ukraines military-industrial complex has suffered from widespread corruption and mismanagement over the years, industry analysts and civil society groups have said. The government is currently undertaking the reform of Ukroboronprom, the state-owned military holding that consists of more than 100 companies, including manufacturers and design firms. The United States has been advising Ukraine on its reform of the defense industry. Pompeo Says U.S. Will 'Do Everything' To Stop Nord Stream 2 Project By RFE/RL July 30, 2020 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has told lawmakers that the United States intends to impose sanctions on firms that continue to help Russia build a natural-gas pipeline to Europe as he sought to dispel concerns about Washington's commitment to halt the controversial project. "We will do everything we can to make sure that that pipeline doesn't threaten Europe," Pompeo told a senate hearing on July 30, adding: "We want Europe to have real, secure, stable, safe energy resources that cannot be turned off in the event Russia wants to." Pompeo told the panel that the United States has already been in touch with some companies working on Nord Stream 2 about the risks they face if they don't halt their activities. The State Department and Treasury Department "have made very clear in our conversations with those who have equipment there the expressed threat that is posed to them for continuing to work on completion of the pipeline," he said. The United States opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would run under the Baltic Sea and double Russia's direct natural gas exports to Germany while bypassing Ukraine. Washington claims the pipeline would increase Europe's dependence on Russian gas while also hurting Ukraine, which stands to lose billions of dollars in gas-transit fees. 'Frustrations' With Germany Work on the nearly $11 billion project, which is more than 90 percent complete, was halted in December after the United States passed a law that imposed sanctions on vessels laying the pipeline, forcing Swiss-based AllSeas to pull out. Russian vessels are now seeking to finish the project, but they require help from international companies such as insurers and ports, which Pompeo has now threatened to sanction. Pompeo earlier in the month announced that he was removing guidelines from a 2017 Congressional bill that exempted the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from sanctions amid signs that Russia was taking steps to complete the project. During the July 30 hearing, Senator Ted Cruz (Republican-Texas) said he had discussed Nord Stream 2 in "considerable depth" with President Donald Trump a day earlier during their trip to Western Texas, a major energy producing region. Texas potentially benefits from the continued delay of Nord Stream 2 as it opens the possibility of more U.S. liquefied-natural-gas exports to Europe. Russia has accused the United States of using energy sanctions as a "weapon" to open up new markets for its oil and gas industry. Cruz said Trump expressed "frustrations" with the leadership of Germany, which continues to support the Nord Stream 2 project. U.S.-German relations have suffered under Trump, who recently announced he would be pulling about 12,500 troops from the country. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pompeo-u-s-will-do-everything -to-stop-nord-stream-2/30757543.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Belarusian Presidential Campaigner's Sister Briefly Detained For Questioning By RFE/RL's Belarus Service July 30, 2020 MINSK -- A sister of Veranika Tsapkala, the wife of former potential presidential candidate Valer Tsapkala, says she was briefly detained for questioning after she disappeared, raising fears she had been kidnapped. Natallya Leanyuk said on July 30 that she was approached by three men in civilian clothes near Belgazprombank where she works earlier in the day and presented with a subpoena ordering her to come in for questioning. The men then took her to the police where she was questioned regarding a probe launched against Valer Tsapkala after a Turkish businessman, Sedat Igdeci filed a lawsuit against the politician accusing him of bribery and insult. Valer Tsapkala had to flee the country with his children for safety reasons earlier this month. Leanyuk says she was released by the police after the questioning. Leanyuk's employer, Belgazprombank, used to be led by Viktar Babaryka, who was arrested and charged with embezzlement last month after he announced his intention to take part in an August 9 presidential election. Earlier in the day, Veranika Tsapkala, who remained in Belarus to assist an opposition candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya's campaign, said her sister was "kidnapped" by unknown men in civilian clothes. Tsapkala also said that she had been summoned to the Directorate on the Fight Against Organized Crime for what she said was to "testify against my husband." "I consider this as political pressure imposed on me, my husband, and on our election campaign," Tsapkala said. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/belarusian- presidential-campaigner-says-her-sister- has-been-kidnapped-/30756801.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The United States has agreed a $2.1bn (1.6bn) deal with two big pharmaceutical companies to produce 100 million doses of an experimental Covid-19 vaccine. British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and French counterpart Sanofi Pasteur announced the agreement with the US government on Friday. The deal is believed to be the largest such agreement to date, as countries start purchasing vaccine doses in the hope that one will complete trials. The United States will pay up to $2.1bn, according to the companies in a statement, for development including clinical trials, manufacturing, scale-up and delivery of its vaccine. The US government has agreed an option for the supply of an additional 500 million doses longer term as part of its Operation Warp Speed programme, which has seen The Trump administration invest more than $8bn in vaccine projects. The portfolio of vaccines being assembled for Operation Warp Speed increases the odds that we will have at least one safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. Todays investment supports the Sanofi and GSK adjuvanted product all the way through clinical trials and manufacturing, with the potential to bring hundreds of millions of safe and effective doses to the American people. The US agreement comes after the British government signed a deal for 60 million doses of the same coronavirus vaccine earlier this week, with hopes that it could be rolled out in the first half of next year. GSK and Sanofis experimental vaccine is based on the existing DNA-based technology that is used to produce Sanofis seasonal flu vaccine, and is one of several vaccines in development. The global need for a vaccine to help prevent Covid-19 is massive, and no single vaccine or company will be able to meet the global demand alone, said Thomas Triomphe, executive vice president of Sanofi Pasteur. The companies said discussions are ongoing with the European Commission. Chinese government-linked hackers allegedly targeted Moderna Inc, which is developing a Covid-19 vaccine, in a bid to steal data, a US security official tracking Chinese hacking has claimed. Beijing later firmly rejected the accusation. Moderna, which announced its vaccine candidate in January, confirmed it had been in contact with the FBI and was made aware of the suspected information reconnaissance activities by the hacking group. Click here for full Covid-19 coverage In the UK, scientists at Imperial College London said they are immunising hundreds of people with an experimental coronavirus vaccine in an early trial after seeing no worrying safety problems in a small number vaccinated so far. UK halts easing curbs Curbs were reimposed in north England on Friday and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson hit the brakes on further easing of lockdown measures from August 1 after a surge in cases in the UK. But ministers insisted it did not mean a return to lockdown. Criag Whittaker, a Conservative Party MP caused an uproar after blaming Muslims and non-white communities for allegedly not obeying lockdown rules that led to a surge in cases. Tech major HP on Friday said it has appointed Ketan Patel as the managing director of its Greater India operations. In this role, he will be responsible for the company's business in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, a statement said. He replaces Vinay Awasthi who is moving to a new role as head of Print Operations for Supply Chain. Effective August 1, Patel will report to HP Chief Commercial Officer Christoph Schell, the statement added. As one of the world's fastest-growing economies, India is on the cusp of a digital transformation revolution, where technology will play a central role in how we work, live and play, Schell said. "This is an opportunity for HP to deliver innovation and drive growth in the local economies where we operate. As a proven leader with rich experience and a deep understanding of the market, I am confident that Ketan will add immense value to our customer and partner ecosystem in the region," he added. Patel was previously the head of Personal Systems Category for Greater Asia, where he led the computing business that included hardware, services and solutions across Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia and Korea. He joined HP in 2005 and has held various leadership positions across HP's Personal Systems, Print, and Graphics Solutions Businesses. From 2013 to 2017, he was senior director of Personal Systems at HP India. Prior to joining HP, Patel held positions at Wipro Infotech, Wipro Peripherals and TVS Electronics in India. (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.) Another election season is upon Harris County and the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rack up cases and claim more lives. Both candidates for Texas House District 135 have committed to serving their community while attempting to deal with the limitations of social interaction caused by COVID-19. Current House District 135 Representative Jon Rosenthal and Republican candidate Justin Ray, former mayor of Jersey Village, are continuing to campaign as the election date of Nov. 3 comes around the corner. Both candidates are working with community leaders to find solutions for students going back to school in the fall while working on plans for the next legislative session in 2021. Justin Ray won the Republican primary to run for the position held by incumbent Rep. Rosenthal, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary. Back to School Both Rosenthal and Ray agree that students ultimately need to physically be in school for the benefit of their education, addressing the pros and cons of both virtual and in-person education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, the Texas Education Agency made it mandatory for students to have an option to go back to school in-person. Cy-Fair ISD recently delayed the first day of school to Sept. 8 and is allowing parents to choose a virtual or in-person instruction method, per TEA requirements. Cy-Fair delays start of school: Cy-Fair ISD pushes school start date to Sept. 8, clarifies virtual and in-person instruction for 2020-2021 Rosenthal said students and families in low-income areas are most affected by a possible virtual instruction method when school starts in September. Rosenthal has aided local organizations like Cy-Hope in distributing food to low-income families in the Cy-Fair school district during the pandemic. Then on top of that youve got your working families, Rosenthal said. They drop kids off at school and go to work, especially families who have working single parents who work to feed their families to keep their house or keep the roof over their heads. Sometimes its a single parent working two or three jobs. Ray, who took the opportunity to speak on why in-person education is more effective than virtual classes for most students during a recent CFISD meeting, discussed the possible disadvantage for special education students. On HoustonChronicle.com: Gov. Abbott, GOP leaders clarify Texas in-school learning requirements for the fall Of course, you have the American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC and a number of other doctors all agree that its actually important for the health and wellbeing of students to be in a classroom setting, Ray said. We also recognize that this is a very serious virus, its very contagious and it has very detrimental effects. We have to move forward with a balanced approach. Our position during the coronavirus experience is to go with a balanced proposal whether it be with the economy or the schools. Alternatively, Rosenthal said the new virtual instruction methods could possibly lead to better blended learning methods after the COVID-19 pandemic ends for students who function better online. Some students actually have excelled through the distance learning because some like the self-paced learning, he said. To make that work they have to have access to some form of assistance, some form of teaching where when they hit that spot thats difficult to get through, someone can help them. Cy-Fair COVID Resources: Where to find free food, blood drives and bill assistance Campaigning during a pandemic Ray continues to block walk during the pandemic while practicing social distancing, arguing that constituents prefer to see their possible representatives in person. People were very appreciative that they have a campaign out there knocking on their door, asking them what they care about, he said. Weve had to be creative with some of our efforts but at the same time weve been able to continue with some traditional campaigning activities while being health conscious. Rosenthal has opted for calling residents instead, speaking with voters about COVID-19 for the most part. I spend hours every day just calling random residents in the district, checking in, asking them how theyre doing and whats on their mind, and this pandemic just dominates the conversation, he said. I dont know about you, but Im personally am hesitant to open the door for a stranger right now and a lot of people feel that way. Rosenthal has also hosted virtual fundraisers during the pandemic with more on the way and has led Ray in fundraising as of July 16 with $130,000. Rosenthal has also participated in fireside chats hosted on Zoom with other members of the House. Ray has participated in local July 4 parades and community events, speaking at the most recent CFISD special board meeting. The race to November Ray and Rosenthal are working through the pandemic to either flip the HD 135 position or keep the section blue. Rosenthal said his main concern leading into the election is keeping his eye on serving the district first and foremost. Really, if youre seeking the title representative, its your job to represent the people and right now we are literally living a different life than we were even three or four months ago, he said. Its impossible for people not to focus on that. Our culture is changing. Ray said running a campaign during a pandemic was unexpected, but he welcomes the challenge. I wish they would pull out the rulebook on how to run a campaign during a pandemic, but that book does not exist, unfortunately, he said. We understand the importance and the significance and the danger of this virus, but we want to go with a balanced approach because the educational wellbeing and the developmental wellbeing are vital as well. chevall.pryce@chron.com The travel industry has been in a virtual holding pattern for four months. One local travel planner said shes not booking much of anything through at least the end of the year. Diana Deeds, owner of Diana Deeds Travel in Scottsbluff, said coronavirus pandemic concerns have stalled her industry at this point. I am doing domestic travel, rarely, Deeds said. Im doing a few airline tickets domestically, but I am not booking any international travel at all for 2020. As for 2021, Deeds, who has been in the industry for more than 40 years, said travel still remains iffy. Deeds is part of Uniglobe Travel, an organization that keeps travel agents such as herself apprised of the latest situations impacting the industry. Representatives from airlines, cruise lines and tour operators are advising that mid-2021 is likely a best-case scenario for travel to open back up for some sort of normal operation. Hong Kong banned 12 pro-democracy campaigners yesterday from standing in forthcoming elections to the city's parliament as China stoked tensions by reiterating its threat to refuse up to three million residents eligible for British travel documents the right to leave. Carrie Lam's Hong Kong administration, operating under Chinese rule, said the campaigners could not "genuinely" uphold the former UK colony's constitution because they opposed the imposition of Beijing's draconian national security law. Those barred include Joshua Wong, founder of the now-disbanded Demosisto party. It came as Liu Xiaoming, China's ambassador to the UK, said China was considering not recognising the British National (Overseas) passport (BNO). Up to three million Hong Kong residents are eligible for the document, and Dominic Raab, Britain's Foreign Secretary, has promised that holding one would pave the way for residency in the UK. Beijing imposed legislation a month ago to introduce possible life sentences for "secession, subversion, terrorism, and foreign collusion". The move threatens the "one country, two systems" approach agreed when Britain handed control of Hong Kong back to China in 1997. Mr Raab made the residency offer after the new law came into force. He later indefinitely suspended Britain's extradition treaty with Hong Kong, and instituted an arms ban. Ms Lam is suspected of wanting to cancel September's elections to the legislative council. On Wednesday, she raised the prospect of postponing them because of a second wave of coronavirus, which, she said, threatened to overwhelm local hospitals. Pro-democracy candidates, such as Nathan Law, have previously been stopped from taking up their seats in the council. Mr Law is now in exile in London, opening up a new front in the pro-democracy strategy. Mr Wong, a close ally of Mr Law, issued a defiant response. "I'm a bit surprised how they disqualified candidates without any notification. The Hong Kong legislature should not be the place to gather Beijing loyalists, but, right now, the pro-Beijing camp are just trying all their ways and tactics, hoping to kick us out from the election," he said. "But no matter what happens, I still have faith and trust in Hong Kong people." He shared on Twitter a letter from Alice Choi, the electoral officer, who said his resignation from Demosisto "was to avoid being caught under the newly passed national security law". Mr Wong said: "The excuse they use is that I describe the national security law as a 'draconian law', which shows that I do not support this sweeping law." The Hong Kong authorities said in a statement: "There is no question of any political censorship, restriction of the freedom of speech or deprivation of the right to stand for elections as alleged by some members of the community." In London, Mr Liu confirmed Beijing was reviewing whether to allow Hong Kong residents to travel on a BNO passport. He blamed the poor state of China-British relations on Boris Johnson's government. But he suggested the US had orchestrated the British approach, and claimed Donald Trump was electioneering ahead of the presidential poll. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 10:05:20|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese health authority said Friday that it received reports of 127 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland Thursday, 123 of which were domestically transmitted. Of the domestically transmitted cases, 112 were reported in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and 11 were in Liaoning Province, the National Health Commission said in its daily report. No deaths related to the disease were reported Thursday, the commission said. One new suspected case, which was imported from outside the mainland, was reported in Shanghai. On Thursday, 17 COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovery. As of Thursday, the overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 84,292, including 684 patients who were still being treated, with 41 in severe condition. Altogether 78,974 people had been discharged after recovery, and 4,634 had died of the disease, the commission said. Four new imported cases were reported on Thursday, of which three were reported in Guangdong Province, and one in Tianjin. By the end of Thursday, a total of 2,063 imported cases had been reported on the mainland. Of the cases, 1,985 had been discharged from hospitals after recovery, and 78 remained hospitalized with three in severe condition. No deaths from the imported cases had been reported. There were still two suspected COVID-19 cases, the commission said. According to the commission, 18,461 close contacts were still under medical observation after 279 people were discharged from medical observation Thursday. Also on Thursday, 11 new asymptomatic cases, including five from outside the mainland, were reported and 36 asymptomatic cases were re-categorized as confirmed cases. The commission said 246 asymptomatic cases, including 93 from outside the mainland, were still under medical observation. Enditem A hot topic in the upcoming U.S. Presidential election will likely be federal regulation surrounding marijuana. Right now, cannabis remains illegal at the federal level, but over 30 states have various forms of state-level approval for either medical or recreational cannabis. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is pushing aggressively for approval of recreational cannabis, and now, Joe Biden has officially taken a favorable stance on cannabis legislation. Per his 110-page document released back on July 9, his platform outlined three main cannabis-related plans: 1) support federal legislation for medical marijuana, 2) let states decide on recreational cannabis, 3) decriminalize marijuana use and change the drugs schedule classification via executive action. All of the plans bode well for U.S. cannabis growth, especially the new regulations allowing states to make their own decisions on recreational cannabis. The plan reads as if the federal government will approve cannabis via passage of a bill such as the STATES act, which would give cannabis companies access to the banking system. Beyond patchwork state regulations, the biggest issue for cannabis stocks is the lack of access to capital. The companies cant utilize the banking system and can't list on the major stock exchanges like the NYSE and Nasdaq, limiting their ability to raise funds for expansion. Naturally, Biden isnt guaranteed to win the U.S. presidential election, despite a large lead on Donald Trump right now. In addition, any federal approval has unknown implications for license amounts in certain states where limited licenses are beneficial to multi-state operators (MSOs). Not to mention, an approval to sell beyond state lines would provide major benefits to the large MSOs with access to capital to scale operations. Weve delved into 3 stocks to consider as a Joe Biden presidential victory promises a push to approve cannabis in the U.S. Using TipRanks Stock Comparison tool, we lined up the three alongside each other to get the lowdown on what the near-term holds for these cannabis players. Story continues Acreage Holdings (ACRGF) Acreage Holdings would be the biggest beneficiary of federal approval of marijuana. The company has an agreement with Canopy Growth for a premium takeover, assuming a triggering event such as the approval of the STATES act. For shareholders, federal approval of cannabis cant occur fast enough. Recently, the company had to take on high cost debt to survive until Canopy Growth can take over, which led to a restructuring of the deal. As per the terms of the deal, Acreage shareholders will receive a complex mixture of fixed and floating shares in Canopy Growth, valuing the stock at nearly $5.50. Canopy Growth is trading at nearly $16.50 now. Acreage only trades for $3.12, but the risk facing shareholders is that the premium price was cut from the original deal. In the last quarter, Acreage reported Q1 pro-forma revenues of $37.6 million, up 65% from last year. The MSO still posted pro-forma adjusted EBITDA loss of $11.1 million. Acreage has plans to achieve positive EBITDA this year, but the company is in a precarious position. The stock has 100% upside potential on a triggering event and possibly zero potential without Canopy Growth, making Acreage Holdings the most likely to benefit from Biden becoming President. Turning now to Wall Street, opinions are split evenly. 2 Buys and 2 Holds add up to a Moderate Buy consensus rating. The $4.23 average price target brings the upside potential to 36%. (See Acreage stock analysis on TipRanks) Harvest Health & Recreation (HRVSF) Harvest Health is a struggling MSO with access to numerous medical cannabis markets such as Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania. The company stands to benefit from any quick approval of recreational cannabis in those states along with the access to cheaper capital. The company has seen the share price fall to $1 due to failed mergers. The market cap is only $390 million despite 2021 revenue estimates of up to $325 million prior to any approval of recreational cannabis in key markets. Harvest Health is one of the few MSOs tied almost entirely to medical cannabis markets going recreational. The company has less than five dispensaries open in fully legalized states, with 25 retail stores open in the key states of Arizona, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Despite expectations that its key medical markets will eventually approve recreational cannabis with or without Biden as president, the stock has lagged. Similar to Acreage, Harvest Health probably doesnt have the firepower to thrive without better access to capital. For Q1, the company reported $45 million in sales with a $3.9 million EBITDA loss. Harvest Health plans to become adjusted EBITDA positive this year, but shareholders dont have time on their side. Looking at the consensus breakdown, 2 Buys and 2 Holds have been assigned in the last three months, which add up to a Moderate Buy consensus rating. At $2.37, the average price target indicates 143% upside potential. (See Harvest Health's stock-price forecast on TipRanks) Curaleaf (CURLF) Curaleaf is the safest play in this group of stocks. As the largest cannabis company in the world based on revenues, Curaleaf is in the best position to navigate evolving regulations and utilize scale to its advantage. Just last week, the company finally closed the key Grassroots deal. The transaction expanded Curaleafs footprint from 18 states to 23, with 135 dispensary licenses, 88 operational dispensaries, over 30 processing facilities and 22 cultivation sites with 1.6 million square feet of cultivation capacity. The deal provides important access to the Illinois market and builds on its Pennsylvania market position. The company is a leader in the Florida, New York and Arizona markets that promise to approve recreational cannabis over the next few years with or without Biden as President, but his win would probably accelerate the timeframe in a few of the states. The company is set to easily top 2021 revenues of $1 billion, with the market valuation around $4 billion. Analysts already have Q3 revenues jumping to $200 million before any boost from additional states approving recreational sales. The stock trades right above $7 where tough resistance has existed for the last year. To this end, most analysts take a bullish approach. 7 Buys trounce 2 Holds, so the word on the Street is that CURLF is a Strong Buy. The $10.14 average price target puts the upside potential at 18%. (See Curaleaf price targets and analyst ratings on TipRanks) To find good ideas for cannabis stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights. Disclosure: No position. 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: 31 July 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 28,797 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 1,889 pence 24.79 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 1,876 pence 24.62 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 1,883 pence 24.70 USD Ticker: PSHD Date of Purchase: 31 July 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 11,417 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 24.80 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 24.70 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 24.75 USD Trading Venue: Euronext Amsterdam Ticker: PSH Date of Purchase: 31 July 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 24,321 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 24.80 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 24.65 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 24.75 USD PSH will hold these Public Shares in Treasury. The net asset value per Public Share related to this buyback is 36.11 USD 27.92 GBP which was calculated as of 28 July 2020 (the "Relevant NAV"). After giving effect to the above buyback, PSH has 194,284,868 Public Shares outstanding, or 200,259,175 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 16,671,882 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/20200731005456/en/ Contacts: Media Contact Camarco Ed Gascoigne-Pees Hazel Stevenson +44 020 3757 4989, media-pershingsquareholdings@camarco.co.uk The attack on Azerbaijanis in Los Angeles helped to draw the attention of the American society to the real state of affairs in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, where Armenia is the aggressor and Azerbaijan is only trying to defend its territories. Former US Ambassador to Azerbaijan, former Assistant Secretary of State for the South Caucasus Matthew Bryza, spoke about this in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza's correspondent, commenting on the condemnation of violence against peaceful Azerbaijani demonstrators by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. "The reaction of Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti to the violence perpetrated by Armenian Americans against Azerbaijani protesters as well as the Azerbaijani consulate is entirely appropriate. Eric Garcetti needs to be coming out publicly and condemn any such violence and who perpetrates it. Fortunately, he said that he will ensure that the city will continue to protect the safety of the Azerbaijani American community as well as the consulate. And that is exactly the job of the mayor of Los Angeles, his government and his police force. That is nothing surprising there. That is what he is supposed to do", Bryza said. "In terms of overall reaction of the American authorities to the incident in LA, yes, for better or worse, that incident hasnt really resonated very loudly elsewhere outside Los Angeles in the US. This reflects the fact that the whole Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the enduring conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia does not get enough attention in the US. Azerbaijani Embassy in Washington does a very good job with ambassador Suleymanov, as well as its cooperation with the American Jewish community. A lot of people who are now in the US, at least specialists academics, international relations specialists who are saying that a lot of people who condemn Israel for occupying Palestinian territory have a double standard when they do not criticize Armenia for occupying Azerbaijani territory", he emphasised. "What happened in Los Angeles helps to understand that the Azerbaijani embassy in Washington and ambassador Suleymanov have been trying to appraise the American people. That is the main result of what happened. Finally, I would like to say that it is important that American law enforcement authorities remain vigilant everywhere about this violence perpetrated by these people. Because of the history of ASALA targeting, murdering Turkish diplomats, it is important to take this very seriously," the American diplomat paid attention. "I really hope that this reality will become crystal clear because the narrative of the US about the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict has been turned to Azerbaijans disadvantage. Reporters who try to bring the light to the truth are attacked and sued by the Armenian National Committee of America. I mean stories like which we have talked about long before. The former president of ANKA is convicted of illegal possession of explosives. He was accused of going to conduct terrorist attacks on Turkish people en masse in the US. The part of that terrorism was not proven, but the possession of the explosions was and he ended in jail. Yet few American journalists talk about that," Bryza said. "But instead, the Armenian National Committee of America has succeeded in training the people who perpetrate these acts of terror and their supporters as somehow victims of so-called Azerbaijani aggression. I think the more these Armenian nationalists conduct this sort of attack on Azerbaijanis in the US, the worse it is in general. But the more likely it is the American journalists and the general public will be paying attention to the true reality," the diplomat concluded. On the back of new laws coming into effect next year, Vietnams investment climate seems promising for many The European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (EuroCham) has just announced the Business Climate Index (BCI) for the second quarter, showing confidence after COVID-19 among European business leaders in Vietnam. Specifically, the positive sentiment of European business leaders began to bounce back, recording a 7 per cent jump between February and April to reach 34 per cent. Meanwhile, more than half of executives predicted that Vietnams macroeconomic climate would stabilise and improve in the next quarter a significant rise compared to the first quarter, when just 10 per cent anticipated an improvement. The BCI found that more than a quarter of European enterprises had benefitted from the governments postponement of tax, while around one fifth had benefitted from a reduction in rent and a suspension of social insurance contributions. EuroCham chairman Nicolas Audier told VIR, European enterprises have been growing their investment in Vietnam for some time. The countrys strong economic growth, large consumer market, and positive legal reforms have made Vietnam an attractive destination for European investment. Continued legislative modernisation will help to attract greater EU investment in the future. This trend is set to accelerate with the imminent implementation of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) on August 1. The EVFTA will offer new opportunities to European investors in sectors ranging from higher education to environmental services and from telecommunications to maritime transport. So, we anticipate that European investment will continue to rise over the course of the agreements decade-long implementation period, he noted. In a similar trend, some Singaporean investors have moved into Vietnam in recent years, including the Blue Circle SHS Holdings, Sinergy Holdings, Koda Ltd., and Kwan Brothers Pte., among many others. Jeffrey Wandly, vice president of the Singaporean Business Association Vietnam (SBAV) told VIR that, Investment trends are increasingly visible in innovation and technology-based businesses, start-ups, and small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), taking advantage of investment incentives and focusing on the consumer market, manufacturing, infrastructure, and urban solutions. Meanwhile, 15 Japanese firms have registered to move to Vietnam as part of efforts to diversify their supply chains. There is no doubt that recent legal reforms have spurred the trend, and new efforts in rationalising the public-private partnership (PPP) framework, the new laws on investment and enterprises will facilitate further business and investment activities from international financiers. The new Law on Investment is expected to set out regulations to facilitate investors in carrying out administrative procedures, investment, land and construction, thereby attracting foreign investment in Vietnam, Wandly noted. Despite the positive signs, some concerns remain among the international business community. Audier elaborated that some aspects of the new Law on Investment, such as the increased amount of discretionary scrutiny from the administration, in particular on the approval of foreign investment and mergers and acquisitions even in sectors which Vietnam has committed to liberalise and the suspension or termination of foreign investors projects, have the potential to make the business environment less predictable. Meanwhile, SBAV vice president Wandly is worried about the fact that the new Law on Investment for foreign investment focuses on technology, innovation, and research and development. However, the addition of national security as a criterion for investment review creates some uncertainty as to how far this reason could cover and deter foreign investments in sensitive and protected sectors. Regarding the law on PPP investment, he added that the minimum investment capital requirement for PPP projects is very high and only very large-scale foreign direct investments (FDI) can participate in these, excluding those with limited financial capacity. Vietnams new laws are expected to take effect on January 1, 2021. Till then there are several months for the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) to complete draft decrees guiding them. According to statistics from the MPI, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and the EU remained the countrys biggest foreign investors in the first half of 2020, contributing to the countrys $15.67 billion worth of newly-registered FDI and stake acquisitions, equal to 84.9 per cent of the same period last year. Experts projected a new wave of foreign investment inflows into the country in the months to come, with the above-mentioned foreign investors to lead the tide. Im disappointed that Stage 3 reopening for Toronto and Peel is at the beginning of a long weekend. I predict that we will see a rise in cases as a result of this decision. Human nature being what it is, people will rejoice that things will be almost back to normal, and many, especially younger folk, may let their guard down and celebrate this weekend. A wiser decision might have been to move to Stage 3 on the day after the long weekend. The Saudi Health Ministry said there have been no cases of the COVID-19 illness among this years pilgrims. Government precautions included testing pilgrims for the virus, monitoring their movement with electronic wristbands and requiring them to quarantine before and after. Pilgrims were selected after applying through an online portal, and all had to be between 20 and 50 years of age. US President Donald Trump attends meeting in the Oval Office on June 24, 2020. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images President Donald Trump has repeatedly spread false information on mail-in voting, making unsubstantiated assertions that it leads to widespread fraud. On Thursday, he suggested delaying Election Day, which he can't legally do. The push for increased access to mail-in voting among Democrats is linked to concerns over the coronavirus pandemic as the virus continues to surge across the US. Trump botched his response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is a large part of the reason his approval rating is plummeting. The president is now maligning a form of voting that could help mitigate the spread of the virus. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. With over 151,000 people in the US dead from COVID-19, the US GDP down 9.5%, and a plummeting approval rating, President Donald Trump on Thursday continued to push wildly misleading claims about mail-in voting as part of a larger, clear effort to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 election. With his reelection prospects looking increasingly bleak and less than 100 days until Election Day, Trump is trying to convince Americans that Democrats are essentially attempting to rig the election with a push for mail-in voting. That way, if he loses on November 3, Trump can say the results are fake (much like his erroneous assertion that any negative polls are "fake news"). This type of behavior is not typically exhibited by leaders in democratic countries. Dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who have both essentially become president-for-life in their respective countries, fight to undermine free and fair elections. Trump xi Getty "The strongman fears language as a symbol of identity and creator of community bonds," Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University historian and expert on authoritarianism, wrote in a 2017 op-ed about Trump's words. "That's why he attempts to use it instead to sow unease and discord among his people, and to erase from the public record what and whom he rejects from the nation." Story continues Trying to sow distrust with our electoral process is also nothing new from this president. As a candidate, Trump employed the same approach in 2016 when he was behind former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the polls and widely expected to lose. As the GOP presidential nominee, Trump repeatedly said the election was rigged against him. Instead of going after mail-in voting, Trump in 2016 suggested polling places weren't safe. After he won a shocking victory via the Electoral College, Trump made completely unfounded allegations that Clinton only won the popular vote because millions of undocumented immigrants voted. Even after winning, Trump continued to undermine the democratic process in the US. The difference between 2016 and 2020 is that Trump now sits in the White House. As Commander-in-Chief, Trump's words and actions carry significant weight and have implications that extend far beyond his tumultuous tenure. Every president prior to Trump respected the peaceful transfer of power, but he's threatening to derail that trend and cause a constitutional crisis. Despite what Trump has said, voter fraud is rare and not a significant problem in the US in general. And there is virtually no evidence to back up Trump's repetitive assertion that mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraud. A number of states have already had universal mail-in voting for years and it has not caused major problems including in Utah, an overwhelmingly Republican state that Trump won by a landslide in 2016 (the vast majority of Utah's counties voted predominately by mail that year). In 2016 and 2018, there were just 372 cases of potential fraud out of approximately 14.6 million ballots cast by mail (just 0.0025%), according to a recent analysis from The Washington Post. But this has not stopped Trump from spreading baseless claims about mail-in voting and the electoral process more generally. On Thursday, Trump suggested on Twitter that the election should be delayed; he refused to walk that back and instead went on a meandering rant about mail-in voting during a coronavirus press briefing later that day. He has no legal authority to postpone the election, but that's not the point. As Ben-Ghiat tweeted after Trump's assertion, "his tweet about delaying the election is a fine example of his propaganda tactics: float the idea (trial balloon) and have it amplified by allies until it becomes something possible." Whether Trump's strategy is working is yet unclear, but that doesn't make it any less dangerous to the health of democracy in the US. Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the US as Trump denounces a form of voting that could help mitigate the spread of the virus, and it's impossible to divorce the two issues. The reality is that the push for increased access to mail-in voting, while important for enfranchisement, is currently linked to concerns over the spread of COVID-19. The US coronavirus outbreak spiraled out of control months ago, and there have been more than 4.4 million recorded cases across the country more than anywhere else in the world. Public health experts have slammed Trump's handling of the pandemic. The president downplayed the threat for weeks and has consistently treated the virus as someone else's problem. If he'd taken the pandemic seriously from the start, perhaps Trump wouldn't be trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in the polls and there would be less cause for him to try and undermine the legitimacy of the election. Trump's self-destructive style of leadership led him to this point. As he continues to falter, Trump appears determined to drag America's democracy down with him. Read the original article on Business Insider Hyderabad, July 31 : The Andhra Pradesh government finally relented and reinstated N. Ramesh Kumar as the State Election Commissioner (SEC) on Friday, two months after the High Court passed orders to this effect. The state government issued a gazette notification in the name of Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan, reinstating the retired IAS officer as SEC. It, however, added that the notification is subject to the outcome of the Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by the state in the Supreme Court, challenging the HC order. The notification issued by Panchayati Raj and Rural Development Department Principal Secretary Gopal Krishna Dwivedi says that Ramesh Kumar's position as SEC is restored as per the High Court orders. The development came 10 days after Ramesh Kumar called on the Governor and brought to his notice the High Court orders to reinstate him as well as the instructions given by the court in a contempt petition filed by him against certain officials for not implementing the court orders. Following this, the Governor's Secretary had informed Ramesh Kumar through a letter that the governor had directed the government to take necessary action to reinstate him as the SEC. The High Court on July 16 had asked Ramesh Kumar to call on the Governor, saying the latter had the powers to appoint the SEC as per its order. The bench comprising Chief Justice J.K. Maheshwari and M. Satyanarayana Murthy gave the direction on a contempt of court petition filed by Ramesh Kumar, who was reinstated as SEC by the High Court on May 29. He alleged that the state was resorting to contempt of court by not allowing him to resume office as the SEC. He brought to the notice of the court that former High Court Judge, Justice V. Kanagaraj, who was appointed in his place in April, was still being treated as the SEC by the state government. The petitioner also conveyed to the court that the government moved the Supreme Court challenging the High Court but it refused to grant stay. The YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government had issued an ordinance on April 10 to sack Ramesh Kumar as the SEC following a row over the postponement of local body elections. Within hours of sacking him, the government appointed Kanagaraj as the new SEC. On the petitions of Ramesh Kumar and several others, the High Court on May 29 struck down the ordinance, declaring it "unconstitutional". It also set aside the orders appointing Kanagaraj as the new SEC. Ramesh Kumar had issued a circular to all District Collectors, CEOs of zilla praja parishads, District Panchayat Officers, and Municipal Commissioners the same day, stating that pursuant to the High Court orders he stood restored to the office of SEC. However, the next day he withdrew the circular after Advocate General S. Subramanya Sriram stated that Ramesh Kumar's action of issuing a circular is illegal as the High Court had not asked him to take charge. Meanwhile, the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has termed the reinstatement of Ramesh Kumar as SES a "slap on the face of the Jagan government". TDP MLA G. Butchaiah Chowdary said this proved that the government will ultimately have to bow before the court. "Just because it has the power, the government can't go on violating the Constitution. At least now the government should learn the lesson," he said. A "special system of governance" in Donbas could be a compromise in negotiations on settling the situation in that part of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, the newly-appointed head of Kyiv's delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group for Donbas, said in an interview. "I don't embrace this [special status of Donbas], because I can't understand what it is. But I can embrace a special system of governance in those regions, rather than special status. Governance, but not status. This means a compromise, and we are exploring realistic approaches to settling the problem," Kravchuk said in an interview published on the Suspilne website. Special status implies "some separate state, with some special political powers," Kravchuk said. "We might as well end up leaving them with their own police, their own security agencies, or even their own army and border guards. Then this wouldn't be a territory within Ukraine anymore," he said. Victorians are anxiously awaiting news of what new restrictions may be announced tomorrow. A crisis council of decision makers is meeting tonight and we expect to hear some announcements on next steps tomorrow. Loading At this morning's press conference, Premier Daniel Andrews said his government was still "considering options" for a more stringent lockdown, after Australias peak medical body called for everything but essential businesses to close. Outgoing Australian Medical Association President Tony Bartone told ABC radio yesterday that Victoria needed to move to a "stricter" stage four COVID-19 lockdown, with only essential businesses left open, such as supermarkets. He said it was "deeply concerning" to see such high case numbers in Victoria four weeks after postcode lockdowns began. Premier Daniel Andrews said the high levels of community transmission were of "concern", but no announcements would be made on Saturday about harsher COVID-19 restrictions. "There is a lot of work going on because this is not easy," Mr Andrews said. "If you take further steps you need to think it through properly and that changes to the rules will deliver the desired outcomes and that is a circuit breaker to try and pull this up." There were 397 new cases of coronavirus announced across Victoria today, after a record-high of 723 cases on Thursday and 627 new cases announced yesterday. Dr Bartone said on Friday the high case numbers were a reminder that "a lot more needs to be done if were going to get on top of this current outbreak". "There needs to be an engagement with the community about the severity of this virus," he said. "By calling for severe restrictions and calling for a 'stage four' that will then get a message out that this is really serious and reduce the movement in our community." Strategists say there is a potential compromise to be had between Democrats and the White House, most likely in the range of a $2 trillion package, before Congress decamps for its summer recess. They do not understand why Mr. Trump would decline to seize a deal and risk watching Americans lose their homes and businesses as November approaches. The presidents strategy to help the economy is hard to decipher, said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who has urged Congress to provide more aid to people, businesses and hard-hit state and local governments. It seems to me there isnt a clear strategy to support the economy right now coming from the White House. Mr. Trump, he added, is just misreading how bad the economy is, and how hard of a shape workers and families are in right now. Some members of Mr. Trumps inner circle, along with his allies in the Senate, have urged the president to oppose a large new spending bill, including some of the provisions included in the Senate Republican proposal unveiled on Monday. The economists Arthur B. Laffer and Stephen Moore, who informally advise Mr. Trump, have told him to focus on a payroll tax cut for workers and businesses a move that few Republicans support and that economists say would do little to help the 30 million Americans without a job. Democrats in Congress say they are surprised to find themselves in the position of pushing Mr. Trump and his party to agree to a stimulus spending plan, given how central the economy has been to his presidency and the dire straits it is facing. Democrats say the package of proposals they are insisting upon including additional money to test for and prevent the spread of the virus, extensions of supplemental unemployment benefits and more aid to small business, states and local governments could actually help Mr. Trump win a second term, by lifting the economy and helping control the pandemic. But the president has remained steadfast in his belief that the virus will soon abate and continues to portray the economic slowdown as a blip. During remarks at the White House on Thursday, he said that a comeback wont take very long, based on everything that were seeing. Asked this week in North Carolina if he was worried about the state of the recovery, Mr. Trump replied: I dont think so. I think the recovery has been very strong. Weve set record job numbers. BRISTOL, Va. Dharma Pharmaceuticals plans to relocate operations from the Bristol Mall to a rural site on Watauga Road in Abingdon. The company is one of five processors with state approval to grow cannabis, extract the cannabidiol oils to produce medicines and sell those products to state-registered patients. The firm received its state permit from the Virginia Board of Pharmacy in January, after passing its final inspection and began production this past winter in the former J.C. Penney store. However, the vacant mall property in Bristol, Virginia is now planned as the site of the proposed Hard Rock Bristol Resort and Casino, pending a Nov. 3 public referendum vote. Site plans for the proposed casino show the current Dharma space designated as a conference center. In June 2020, we received a notification from our landlord that our lease would be terminated at the Bristol Mall, so we conducted an extensive search around the area and settled on 26864 Watauga Road, Dharma CEO Jack Page said. We anticipate the move, hopefully, before the end of this year or, hopefully, the first quarter of next year. Any move and new site must be approved by the state Board of Pharmacy. The company received a green light Tuesday from the Washington County Board of Supervisors, which unanimously approved a special exception for Dharma to operate a sales and distribution location at the Watauga Road site, which is zoned for manufacturing. Production was already allowed within the existing zoning. The 8.3-acre site is east of Johnston Memorial Hospital between Interstate 81 Exits 19 and 22 and currently houses a Damascus Corp. manufacturing facility. Owner Eric Miller told the board he intends to use proceeds from selling the property to expand operations at his other facility near Exit 22. Dharma expects to employ 30-35 people once the facility is completely operational, according to a document filed with the county. City Manager Randy Eads declined comment on the firms plans. Dharma was the first processor licensed by the state and the only one licensed to serve Virginias health region three, which includes more than 20 counties and the cities of Bristol, Danville, Galax, Martinsville, Norton, Radford, Roanoke and Salem. Under existing state law, pharmaceutical processors must conduct all operations growing, processing and sales at the same location. However, the business is not open to the general public. Only patients who have documentation from a licensed health-care provider, are certified by the Board of Pharmacy to receive the products and have a valid photo ID proving they live in Virginia can gain access, Page said. We expect 75 to 150 patients a day, delivery traffic will be very limited and there are 3,600 patients statewide, Page said. The Board of Pharmacy is currently developing regulations to allow offsite sales. A new bill passed in the last [General Assembly] session will allow us to operate five off-site dispensary locations, Page said. Right now our one facility will serve the entire region we serve, but, in the near future, probably January, we will be opening up to five off-site locations. Those changes are outlined on the boards website. The board may issue or renew a maximum of five permits for cannabis dispensing facilities in each health service area. The cannabis dispensing facility must be owned in part by the pharmaceutical processor permitted in that area. Emergency regulations related to these facilities will tentatively become effective in January 2021. Applications for permitting cannabis dispensing facilities may be accepted in 2021 after the emergency regulations become effective, it states. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Chron.com is following the latest headlines on the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the Houston area. 1 p.m.: Abbott issues letter on school openings Gov. Greg Abbott finally tried to offer clarity on when and how Texas schools may reopen in the fall in a letter released on Friday. In the letter, which was jointly issued by the governor, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and chairs of the legislatures education committees, Abbott said school boards are allowed to push back the 2020-21 start date past September. Theyre also allowed to start the school year with in-person instruction, distance-learning or a combination of both but can only do so for up to eight weeks, Abbott said. This is in line with previous guidance issued by the Texas Education Agency. A school board must obtain case-by-case authorization from the TEA if they want to continue with distance learning or even partial distance learning after eight weeks. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a guidance letter earlier this week stating local health authorities cannot issue blanket orders that close schools to slow the spread of COVID-19. Abbott agreed with this guidance in his letter and said local health authorities do not have the power to shut down schools solely as a preventive measure against the pandemic. Abbott also said school boards can take any local health authoritys order barring school openings into consideration for their start date, but he declared the school boards are not bound by such orders. The TEA has stated any schools that close under unlawful public health orders may risk losing funding. According to the Houston Chronicle, Abbott's guidance does not appear legally binding. 9 a.m.: The latest Houston, Texas numbers The Houston region has surpassed 100,000 COVID-19 cases and is now at 100,786 cases total as of Thursday night, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of state data. From Wednesday to Thursday, Harris County saw a 2.49 percent increase in cases, or 1,724 new cases, and is now at 70,850 cases total. The Houston region reported 27 new deaths, bringing the death count up to 1,597. Texas added 9,249 cases and is now at 425,119 cases total. The Texas Department of State Health Services on Thursday removed 225 fatalities from its public data since COVID-19 was not listed as a direct cause of death. The department reported 89 new deaths for a total of 6,465 statewide. The state's rolling average of new cases increased for the second straight day to 7635.7, while the positive test rate dropped for the fourth straight day to 12.09 percent. As of Thursday evening, there were 9,296 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 across state hospitals. NOTE: The numbers included in this report represent a one-day change in data from Wednesday, July 29 through Thursday, July 30. 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. DSHS is now using death certificate data for its counts of COVID deaths, leading some Texas counties to have dramatically higher counts than others and some counties to have higher numbers than state figures. rebecca.hennes@chron.com Cathaoirleach of Kilkenny County Council Andrew McGuinness has paid tribute to a retired garda sergeant who died in a house fire in Graignamanagh on Monday night. Frank Stafford (senior) was a highly-respected and well-liked retired garda sergeant who was well-known in the community. Cllr McGuinness said that the tragedy in Graignamanagh is devastating for the local community and to Kilkenny as a whole. "It was very sad news for the Stafford family, the community of Graignamanagh and indeed Kilkenny. I work with Frank Junior as he works for Kilkenny County Council. The Stafford family are well respected and liked and this is a very sad time for them. Our thoughts and prayers are with them. Graignamanagh is a very close knit community and Frank would have been a popular character and he will be sadly missed by all. As chairman of Kilkenny County Council, I want to extend my deepest sympathies to Frank (Junior) and his family and to the local community in Graiguenamanagh. In accordance with Government guidelines the Requiem Mass will take place on Thursday at 11am in Duiske Abbey, Graignamanagh followed by burial in Calvary Cemetery. Trade Unions have demanded that bosses do not force up to two million people, who are shielding from Covid-19 back into the office in August when official government guidance changes. At the moment those with very serious health issues - such a cancer or respiratory problems - have been ordered to self-isolate since lockdown began on March 23. Of the two million people currently shielding, 600,000 are able to work and around 200,000 are on the government's furlough scheme. However the Prime Minister has said that employers can decide if workers can return safely to the office. And those shielding will no longer be advised to work from home. Earlier this month Boris Johnson urged businesses operating remotely to 'get back into work' to breathe life back into the cash-starved high street and jump-start the recovery. But the TUC have described the move as 'heartless and reckless' and that employers should continue utilising home working, as reported by The Guardian. It comes as a coalition of charities is urging the Chancellor to protect the jobs of workers who have been shielding, warning they will be put in an 'impossible position' when restrictions ease. A stock photo of a young woman and child wearing masks and shielding during the pandemic Frances O'Grady, the TUC's general secretary, told the Guardian: 'It would be heartless and reckless for employers to demand the immediate return of shielding workers. After self-isolation for a number of months, requiring shielding workers to immediately travel to workplaces may cause anxiety and distress. 'The government must make clear to employers that they cannot give shielding workers unreasonable ultimatums to return to workplaces. The job retention scheme is in place until at least October, so employers must continue using it if home working is not an option. 'And the government should make clear that furlough will still be an option after October for shielding workers who cannot safely travel to workplaces or who may be subject to a local lockdown.' An open letter to Rishi Sunak signed by 15 charities, including Age UK and Macmillan Cancer Support, raises concerns that those who have been shielding will be forced to choose between their health and their job. Meanwhile, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) is to ask ministers to keep using the Government's job retention scheme for shielding workers and not force them to return to work, according to The Guardian. A very quiet Reuters Square in Canary Wharf this week. The Prime Minister is urging people to return back to the office Shielding will be paused in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland from August 1, when extremely clinically vulnerable people who have stayed at home to protect themselves from Covid-19 are allowed to return to work. But the signatories warn these employees are at risk of being made redundant, or could be forced to return to the workplace when they do not feel it is safe to do so. Some 2.2 million people deemed extremely vulnerable to coronavirus are shielding in England, and around 595,000 (28%) of those usually work, according to the charities. The letter to Mr Sunak says: 'Our concern is that, especially as your furlough arrangements start to unwind and the shielding scheme is paused from next week, some of these workers will find themselves in an impossible position. 'This is because if their occupation is one which they cannot carry out from home, and if it is extremely difficult to make their workplace safe for them, they may be forced to choose between putting their health on the line by returning, or staying safe by giving up their job.' The signatories say this is 'desperately unfair' for those who have made 'great sacrifices' by staying at home, and call on the Chancellor to take action and protect their jobs as well as supporting employers. A coalition of charities is urging the Chancellor to protect the jobs of workers who have been shielding, warning they will be put in an 'impossible position' when restrictions ease This could include extending the furlough scheme for those who have been shielding or are at high-risk, the letter adds. The same suggestion has been made by the TUC, with General Secretary Frances O'Grady telling the Guardian: 'It would be heartless and reckless for employers to demand the immediate return of shielding workers. 'After self-isolation for a number of months, requiring shielding workers to immediately travel to workplaces may cause anxiety. 'The job retention scheme is in place until at least October, so employers must continue using it if home working is not an option.' A survey conducted by Macmillan Cancer Support with 2,000 adults found many cancer patients are fearful of returning to workplaces, with 42% saying they feel it is currently unsafe for them to work outside of their home. One in three (36%) people with cancer said the coronavirus crisis has affected their finances, with some saying they have been left struggling to pay their bills. When the shielding programme ends, medics should decide whether patients can reasonably be expected to work, depending on their workplace. According to the Government, employers have been told to make sure the shielded can work from home wherever possible, including moving them to another role if required. If employers cannot provide a Covid-safe working environment, those who are clinically vulnerable will be able to access financial support including statutory sick pay and welfare payments, it has said. Chris Askew, chief executive of Diabetes UK and a signatory of the letter, said: 'No-one should be faced with the impossible task of choosing between their health, by returning to work in an unsafe environment, and their financial security. 'The Government must ensure that employers are supported to take all the necessary measures to keep all employees safe if they are expected to attend work outside their home. 'In addition, the Government should introduce a new support scheme for those clinically vulnerable people who are unable to return to a safe work environment.' A Government spokesperson said: 'We understand how challenging the outbreak pandemic has been for the clinically vulnerable and we have worked tirelessly to support them. 'Employers must ensure the safety of those with such conditions when considering working arrangements, including whether work can be completed remotely. 'Our wide-ranging support package worth an initial 160 billion includes the furlough scheme, which has paid the wages of 9.5 million people and has already been extended until October, loans, grants, and tax cuts and deferrals. 'People will also now benefit from the Job Retention Bonus which will support business and protect jobs. We also announced 750 million for charities so they can continue their important work, ensuring those on the front line are able to reach people who need help.' In Kazakhstan, a systematic renewal of management is taking place entailing personnel changes. Thus, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev appointed Erlan Karin as his assistant. Representatives of the so-called presidential youth personnel reserve received new appointments. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan is discussing the possible resignation of the Cabinet of Ministers, as the head of state is disappointed with its work amid pandemic. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev extended the quarantine introduced due to the coronavirus epidemic for another two weeks until August 2. At an extended government meeting, he expressed dissatisfaction with the work of the current Cabinet of Ministers in connection with the epidemiological and economic situation in the country and gave the government two weeks to correct mistakes. On July 29, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin reported to the head of state that since the introduction of strict quarantine measures on July 5, 2020, the situation has been improving. The number of people infected with coronavirus has stabilized at the level of 1500-1600 per day. The workload of hospitals fell by 43%, including the intensive care wards - by 27%. The number of those who recovered increased to 63%. Thus, Mamin noted, the burden on the healthcare system has been reduced. The head of the Cabinet of Ministers also reported on the daily monitoring of the situation in the regions, where the number of infected was significantly higher, and the provision of medicines was worse than in large cities of the republic. Can we assume that the prime minister has reported the situation if Tokayev instructed the state commission to extend the quarantine measures for two weeks, followed by a gradual softening of the isolation? Dosym Satpayev, a political scientist, director of the Risk Assessment Group, believes that Askar Mamin's report is more a PR action. "The government reported that in two weeks they managed to carry out all necessary measures, thanks to which the situation stabilized. He tried to convince the president that the Cabinet of Ministers followed the instructions of the head of state and there is no need to dissolve it. Kazakhstan understands that the personnel issue is worked out not only by Tokayev. Last fall, the president signed a decree according to which a significant part of personnel changes, and above all the resignation of the Cabinet of Ministers must be coordinated with Nursultan Nazarbayev," Satpayev told Vestnik Kavkaza. However, Tokayev is trying to carry out targeted reshuffles in the government. In particular, changes have recently taken place in the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry. Earlier, the Minister of Health was changed. "The key question is what Tokayev going to do with an ineffective, corrupt and absolutely discrediting bureaucratic machine, which amid the crisis was unable to solve the problem quickly and adequately. The targeted personnel reshuffles will not solve the problem. A systemic modernization of the entire state structure is needed," Satpayev said. But Tokayev, according to the expert, has limited space for maneuver. The existing bureaucratic apparatus remains a big obstacle for him. Mikheil Saakashvili used to say that officials need three things: a big idea, big salary and law enforcement agencies ready to put anyone in jail, regardless of their connections and rank. We have only a big salary at the top of the state apparatus from this list, although many obviously receive not only salary. All attempts to develop a "big idea" in Kazakhstan have failed, since those who developed it did not believe in it, " the expert noted. And for all these three components to work, an upgrade of the entire political system is needed. The Senate elections will take place on August 12, and elections for the lower house of Kazakhstans parliament are to be held early next year. Now the parliamentarians are on vacation and the approval of the new prime minister candidacy will have to wait until autumn, when the MPs return to work. The new assistant to the head of state, Yerlan Karin, wrote in his Telegram channel that President Tokayev is in favor of actively attracting new managers to the civil service, using new approaches in recruiting personnel. In particular, last year, the head of state initiated a new project for the Presidential Youth Personnel Reserve, within the framework of which 300 reservists were selected, 150 of whom have already been employed in the civil service and in the quasi-public sector. "Yesterday, Aibek Sattybayev, a representative of the Presidential Youth Personnel Reserve, was appointed deputy akim of Shymkent. Besides, Shyngys Mukan, a member of the National Council of Public Trust (NCPT), was appointed first deputy akim of Shymkent. Shyngys Mukan is not the first member of the National Council recruited for public service. Prior to this, Bagdat Musin was "mobilized" from the NCPT ranks. First, he became an adviser to the president and is currently the interim minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry. in October 2019, Berik Abdygaliuly was appointed akim of the Ulytau district of the Karaganda region. Maxim Spotkay recently became deputy chief of staff of the Senate of Parliament, there are others as well. Thus, recently, the president has been actively recruiting new people from the public and youth environment, as a result of these actions, there is a systematic renewal of the management level," Karin said. HONG KONG, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sino Agro Food Inc. (OTCMKTS: SIAF), an agricultural holding company, today announced that on June 27, 2020, SIAF entered into a proposed settlement agreement (the "Proposed Settlement Agreement") in the shareholder derivative action previously disclosed in its Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended March 31, 2019. The Stipulation of Settlement calls for SIAF to adopt certain governance changes, independent shareholder representation on its board, cessation of the use of company shares to collateralize loans, and for SIAF's chairman to transfer certain personally held shares of Tri-way, a SIAF subsidiary, to the plaintiff-shareholders who shall supply independent director candidates to the boards of SIAF and Tri-way. These directors shall serve for 2 years. SIAF itself will not be required to make payment of any kind. On July 23, 2020, the U.S. district court for the Southern District of New York entered an Order Preliminarily Approving the Proposed Settlement and the Notice of Proposed Settlement in Heng Ren Silk Road Investments LLC, Heng Ren Investments LP, derivatively on behalf of Sino Agro Food Inc. v. Sino Agro Food Inc., Lee Yip Kun Solomon, Tan Poay Teik, Chen Bor Hann, Lim Chang Soh, and Sino Agro Food Inc. (Case No.: 1:19-cv-02680). A final settlement hearing is scheduled for October 13, 2020, at 3:00 p.m., before the Honorable Jesse M. Furman, Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, Court Room 1105, New York, NY 10007. The full Proposed Settlement Agreement and the full Notice of Proposed Settlement of Derivative Action have been filed with the SEC in an Form 8-K filing dated July 30, 2020, available at: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1488419/000110465920088457/tm2025999d1_8k.htm. Copies of the notice and proposed settlement are also available on SIAF's website at: http://sinoagrofood.investorroom.com/news-releases?item=258 SOURCE AFN Law PLLC Related Links https://www.afnlegal.com On a Facebook page followed by thousands of people, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown falsely claimed Wednesday that the Ontario Ombudsman had cleared former Niagara political figures now working in his city of wrongdoing in the 2016 Niagara Region chief administrative officer hiring scandal. The mayor and former Progressive Conservative party leader also accused the St. Catharines Standard of engaging in a witch hunt through its coverage of the Niagara controversy and was responsible for a smear against a political aide at the heart of the issue now working in a high-level staff job at the City of Brampton. The 2019 Ombudsmans report, which labelled the hiring of Carmen DAngelo as Niagara Regions CAO unjust and wrong, directly implicated former Port Colborne regional councillor David Barrick, former regional communications director Jason Tamming and former senior regional political aide Robert DAmboise in a plot that tainted the hiring process. Brown, however, told the 7,000 members of the Brampton Beats Facebook group the Ombudsman cleared Barrick, now Bramptons CAO, and that DAmboise, Barricks recently hired administrative assistant, was the victim of a smear campaign. Cant blame the CAO for wanting to have an administrative assistant he trusts and has worked with before, Brown wrote, referring to DAmboises hiring. This was an individual cleared of any wrongdoing. He faced a smear in Niagara and overcame it. When a member of the group pointed out the Ombudsman report does not clear anyone, Brown doubled down on his narrative. Clearly you didnt read the Ombudsman report, Brown wrote. It cleared our CAO. I dont care about political capital. The only thing I am focused on his [sic] getting things done. The Facebook posts are the first time Brown has directly addressed the hiring of Barrick, Tamming and now DAmboise and their role in the DAngelo affair. The inside job Following more than a year of investigation by the Standard, Ontario Ombudsman Paul Dube launched a probe into DAngelos hiring. Dubes report, released in November 2019, positions all three men at the heart of a scheme to hire DAngelo that the Ombudsman called an inside job orchestrated from the office of then regional chair Alan Caslin. Before and during the hiring process, DAngelo downloaded a series of confidential reports, secret memos and other documents that gave him an advantage over his competition. These documents, largely written by DAmboise, then Caslins policy director, included interview questions and answers and confidential information on other CAO candidates. DAngelo initially told the Ombudsman he could not recall who gave him the documents and said they could have been planted in his computer at the Niagara Penninsula Conservation Authority where he worked in 2016. When confronted by Ombudsman investigators with forensic evidence proving the documents were authentic, DAngelo fingered DAmboise as the likely source of the documents. In their joint statement of defence in the civil suit filed against them by Niagara Region, Tamming, DAmboise and Caslin deny knowing how DAngelo got the documents. Tamming, meanwhile, was Caslins personal communications director in 2016 and helped DAngelo write a submission for the hiring committee, which Caslin chaired. The Ombudsman report showed Barrick was involved in clearing the way for DAngelo, his boss at Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, before the hiring process started. The report details a conversation between a regional councillor and a senior regional employee, in which the employe is asked to hire DAngelo as the next CAO among other senior staff. The Ombudsman report said the councillor said he did not remember the meeting, but investigators found an email in which the councillor thanked the employee for the meeting. The Standard later obtained that email, which was sent from Barrick to then regional treasurer Jason Burgess. Thanks for taking the time to meet today. I appreciate your insight and ability to discuss strategy, etc., wrote Barrick, who then provided Burgess with talking points that sang DAngelos praises, including the promise of having influence with the new boss. That messaging early on may provide ease as we move forward and regional staff start hearing all kind of rumours, wrote Barrick. At no point in the report does the Ombudsman clear anyone of wrongdoing. Rather, the report lays out in detail a scheme to secure the Niagara Region CAO position for DAngelo and the role each man played in that effort. Niagara Region forwarded the Ombudsman report to police with a request for further investigation. The Ontario Provincial Police anti-racketeering unit decided not to pursue a criminal investigation. In an email obtained by the Standard, a member of the unit noted there are Provincial Offences Act matters police might have pursued, but the statute of limitations for those offences had run out. A councillor by no name Brown did not respond to an interview request from the Standard for this story. On Thursday morning, the Standard posed several questions to Brown on the Brampton Beats Facebook group it can only be joined with the permission of the pages administrators about his false claims about the Ombudsman report. Brown did not reply and shortly after the questions were posted, the Standard was banned from the page. However, in response to questions from the Standards sister weekly paper The Brampton Guardian, Brown accused the Niagara newspaper of conducting witch hunt against Barrick, Tamming and DAmboise. Brown did not explain why he thinks the Ombudsman cleared Tamming and DAmboise but told The Guardian Barrick was not implicated because he is not specifically named in the report. However, the practice of the Ombudsman is not to name specific people except in rare circumstances. In the report, only DAngelo is named as the central figure of the investigation. Everyone else, including Tamming, DAmboise and Barrick are identified by their official title. Our focus is on administrative conduct, and our intent is never to name, blame and shame specific individuals, the report said, adding that when titles are identified it should be understood that the titles refer to the individuals who held them at the relevant times. In Barricks case, the email to Burgess is the same one referred to in the report, further confirming his identity. Brown did not provide any evidence that any of the men were the victims of a smear campaign, although the claim echoes one made by DAngelo and his allies at Niagara Region when the tainted hiring process was uncovered. DAngelo has repeatedly claimed he was the victim of a proxy war between councillors, a claim the Caslin trio repeat in their statement of defence to the Regions lawsuit. The Ombudsmans office declined to comment on Browns mischaracterization of the reports conclusions, saying the report stands on its own merits. Read more about: According the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), the European Union has investigated a total of 14 trade remedy cases against Vietnamese exports, while nearly 200 others have been initiated by other countries and territories. Products under such investigation include leather, steel pipes, screws, bicycles, fibre, steel, forklifts, gas lighters, and some metals. Among that, the steel sector has witnessed a rise in anti-dumping lawsuits. The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), about to enter into force on August 1, will ensure trade between both sides will increase as the majority of import tariff lines are reduced to zero. However, the increase in bilateral import-export turnover may lead to the possibility of more trade defence cases involving the EU and Vietnam, according to the ministry. The implementation of the EVFTA requires businesses to learn and understand commitments, including provisions on trade remedies so that they can prepare for and exploit new benefits. The trade defence measure as used by the EU is an anti-dumping, anti-subsidy, or safeguard measure carried out to protect producers against unfairly-traded or subsidised imports, as well as against any major shifts in flows of trade, in so far as they are harmful to the economy of the bloc. The use of such trade defence instruments worldwide are generally based on rules set by the World Trade Organization. The progressive principles are in line with the legal system of trade defence in Vietnam, creating tools to ensure effectiveness of their participation in the EVFTA. This month, the MoIT expressed concern on the Philippines Department of Trade and Industry initiation of a safeguard investigation of Vietnamese products including galvanised steel, coated steel, and colour-coated steel sheets to this country. The department explained that given the import turnover of Vietnamese steel products to the Philippines accounting for a small proportion of total revenue, the products should be excluded from the safeguard measures. It suggested that the Vietnam Steel Association and local steelmakers should be active and carry out activities necessary to protect their legitimate rights. Experts have said that a rising number of lawsuits are unavoidable as the Vietnamese economy integrates into regional and global economies, and some have warned that it could continue to increase protectionism, which in some areas has increased due to the ongoing pandemic. Nguyen Cam Trang, deputy director of the Import and Export Department under the MoIT, said that the ministry has been taking early action to inform the business community of high-risk origin fraud. It released a list of 13 products which are at risk of being investigated for trade defence measures or origin fraud and illegal conveyance in the United States and EU, including tyres for buses and lorries, wood, mattresses, cabinets and vanities, and quartz surface products (see chart). As one of the larger exporters of steel products to the US, Pham Manh Hung, general director of Nam Kim Steel JSC, said that his company is being active in completing documents and providing co-operation with relevant departments. In order to avoid origin fraud, Nam Kim Steel has diversified its imported resources from India, South Korea, and Japan, said Hung. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 Trend: Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov received German ambassador to Azerbaijan Wolfgang Manig, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told Trend on July 30. During the meeting, the sides exchanged the views on the development of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Germany in several spheres, including the economic, trade, humanitarian and cultural spheres. Bayramov informed Manig about Armenias occupation policy against Azerbaijan, which is a threat to security in the region, recent military provocation committed by the Armenian armed forces on the state border of the two countries, as well as about the current situation in the region. The statement was made that the contradictory statements and actions of the Armenian leadership, as well as the recent planned provocation, are a big blow to the negotiations on the peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Stressing that Azerbaijan supports substantive negotiations aimed at a specific result, the minister stressed that Azerbaijan will never reconcile with the occupation of its territories and the negotiations must serve to eliminate the consequences of the occupation. Manig expressed gratitude for the warm welcome and delivered a congratulatory letter addressed to Bayramov by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. The confidence was expressed during the meeting that the cooperation between the two countries in various fields will develop in the future. The parties also exchanged the views on other issues of mutual interest. An Alabama state lawmaker who delivered an invocation at a birthday celebration for Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general who was the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, has resigned from the church where is a pastor, officials said Thursday. Rep. Will Dismukes, of Prattville, stepped down from Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, where he was a bivocational pastor, according to Mel Johnson, lead mission strategist for the churchs association. Image: Nathan Bedford Forrest (Mark Humphrey / AP file) Dismukes said Thursday on Facebook that he resigned not at the request of the church but by choice because he did not want to see Pleasant Hill voted out of fellowship, NBC affiliate WSFA reported. The post did not appear on Dismukes page Thursday night. Dismukes did not respond to requests for comment. Dismukes has faced withering criticism over his appearance at the annual event Saturday at Fort Dixie, the private home of a Selma woman, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Had a great time at Fort Dixie speaking and giving the invocation for Nathan Bedford Forrest annual birthday celebration, he wrote in a Facebook post that was later removed, according to WFSA. Always a great time and some sure enough good eating!!" Dismukes appearance occurred the day before the body of civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis was carried over Selmas Edmund Pettis Bridge, where he was nearly killed 55 years ago during a march for voting rights. On Monday, Alabama Republican Party Chairman Terry Lathan called Dismukes actions deeply offensive. It is one thing to honor ones Southern heritage, however, it is completely another issue to specifically commemorate the leader of an organization with an indisputable history of unconscionable actions and atrocities toward African-Americans, he said in a statement. The Alabama of today was on full, honorable display as we paid humble tribute this weekend to the life of Congressman John Lewis, Lathan added. That is the Alabama that we are proud of showing the nation and world that we are one in the common goals of equality for all of our citizens. Story continues In an interview with WFSA Monday, Dismukes blamed the backlash on anti-Southern sentiment. It wasnt some kind of shot at the passing of Representative John Lewis, Dismukes said. I mean that didnt even really go through my mind, I literally was really just reflecting on a previous days events and it was taken in a completely different way that I didnt exactly see coming and I take responsibility for that. He told the station that he has no plans to resign from the state Legislature. According to researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the implementation of social distancing policies corresponded with significant reductions in transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and reduced community mobility, both in the U.S. and globally, providing evidence that social distancing is a useful tool in preventing further spread of COVID-19. The study, published today in PLOS ONE, estimates that social distancing policies enacted nationally in 46 countries prevented an estimated 1.57 million cases of COVID-19 over a two-week period, representing a 65% reduction in new cases. The researchers suggest these data emphasize the significant benefits that can be achieved by individuals practicing social distancing measures. "At MD Anderson, we are focused on caring for patients with cancer, and we know that our patients are highly vulnerable to COVID-19," said senior author Raghu Kalluri, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of Cancer Biology. "Therefore, we felt it important to conduct an unbiased analysis of safety measures that could benefit our patients as well as society at large. From our data-driven analysis, it became clear that practicing social distancing can have a huge impact on transmission rates." Impact of social distancing policies in the U.S. To determine the effectiveness of social distancing policies in the U.S., the researchers analyzed COVID-19 spread across each of the 50 states. Recognizing that many factors contribute to disease spread, they analyzed new cases before and after states enacted social distancing policies. Three states did not implement such policies, providing an opportunity for comparisons. These were analyzed over similar time periods relative to other states. We found that states observed significant reductions in transmission rates following the implementation of social distancing policies, compared to states without such policies. In fact, two of the smallest reductions in spread were seen in states without social distancing policies." Daniel McGrail, PhD, Study Lead Author and Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Systems Biology, University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center The 47 states with social distancing policies also saw greater reductions in average community mobility compared to states without policies, which measures the movement trends of residents across residential, workplace, retail and other locations. States without social distancing policies also saw decreased mobility, although the change was significantly smaller than states with distancing policies. Impact of social distancing policies globally Understanding that the U.S. analysis was limited by a small number of states without social distancing policies, the researchers analyzed the effects of social distancing policies globally. They were able to obtain sufficient data for 46 countries with national social distancing policies, 74 nations without such policies and 14 with regional policies. Following a similar analysis, the data indicate that significantly greater reductions in transmission were seen in countries after implementing a national social distancing policy compared to those with regional policies or a matched time frame in countries without policies. No significant difference was observed between countries with regional policies and those without social distancing policies. Countries with any social distancing policies had significantly reduced community mobility relative to nations without policies, and those with national policies saw greater decreases than countries with regional policies. There was a strong correlation between decreased mobility and decreased transmission of the virus, highlighting the importance of individuals practicing social distancing to effectively prevent transmission of the virus. "This is clear evidence that social distancing measures can collectively have tremendous impacts on reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and we encourage individuals to practice social distancing to help control spread of infections," said Kalluri. "We believe these data will provide useful evidence for public health officials and policy makers when considering future measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in their communities." The authors acknowledge the study is limited by a reliance on direct COVID-19 testing, which may underestimate prevalence. Also, the researchers focused on spread rates following implementation of social distancing policies as an internal control for the numerous additional factors likely contributing to spread rates. For the analysis, daily case numbers and population data were gathered from the COVID-19 Data Repository by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Information on social distancing policies was obtained from the Aura Vision Global COVID-19 Lockdown Tracker and mobility data were acquired from Google mobility reports. All data for the study was collected on June 5, 2020. HALIFAXA Nova Scotia man has been charged in the death of an 85-year-old woman who was found in her home earlier this month. Sixty-two-year-old Richard George Willis of Truro was arrested Thursday and is to appear in provincial court in Dartmouth at a later date to face charges of first-degree murder and break-and-enter. The charges by Halifax police are in relation to the death of Eleanor Noreen Harding, whose body was found on July 11 in her Dartmouth home on Lynwood Drive. The medical examiners office completed an autopsy and her death was ruled a homicide. Willis was arrested in Dartmouth and has remained in custody. Investigators are seeking to identify anyone who may have picked up someone hitchhiking between Dartmouth and Truro between 2 a.m. and noon on July 10. Read more about: Two Arctic ice caps have vanished due to human-induced global warming, satellite images show. Images taken by NASA in 2015 and 2020 reveal how they have disappeared in just half a decade. Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center has studied the St. Patrick Bay ice caps in some capacity since the 1980s. He published a scientific paper in 2017 that stated if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed, the ice caps would vanish within five years. He was correct. Scroll down for video Images taken by NASA in 2015 and 2020 reveal how ttwo polar ice caps have vanished in half a decade due to global warming. Pictured, one of the caps in 2015 (left) an the same location on July 14, 2020 (right) Pictured, the St. Patrick Bay ice caps on the Hazen Plateau of northeastern Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada, and have they dwindled over the last 60 years until they have eventually disappeared 'When I first visited those ice caps, they seemed like such a permanent fixture of the landscape,' he said. 'To watch them die in less than 40 years just blows me away.' The 2017 study compared satellite imagery from 2015 with historical images dating back to 1959. This revealed the caps were, in 2015, just five per cent of their size almost 60 years ago. ASTER satellites took images of the same area on July 14, 2020 and the ice caps are nowhere to be found. Pictured: the ASTER satellite image from August 4, 2015, which shows the location where the St. Patrick Bay ice caps (circled in blue). As of July 2020, satellite images show that these ice caps have disappeared The ice caps are at the northern tip of Canada in the Arctic circle (pictured). The loss of these ice caps is a very visual representation of the sweltering planet humans have created and now inhabit Climate change 'could wipe out polar bears in 80 years' Most polar bear populations are at risk of dying out by 2100 as their natural habitat of Arctic sea ice is diminished by global warming, a study warns. A damning piece of research claims the predators will be forced to migrate on to solid land, where hunting will be impossible for them. As a result, the bears will be forced to survive on their fat reserves, an unsustainable option for the world's largest carnivore. The study claims that almost all polar bear cubs face some form of starvation by 2040, with many adults also experiencing reproductive stress in just 20 years' time. Researchers from the University of Toronto in Canada said 'aggressive' cuts to greenhouse gas emissions are now needed to save the animals. Advertisement The loss of these ice caps is a very visual representation of the sweltering planet humans have created and now inhabit. Scientists regularly report hottest temperatures on record all around the world, as climate change manifests itself in a slowly boiling world. It is leading to drought, famine and extreme weather events as well as surging sea levels. A recent study published in Scientific Reports found coastal flooding is set to rise by around 50 per cent globally due to climate change in the next 80 years. UK and Australian researchers conducted climate change scenarios where carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise rapidly. They found the associated flooding, due to the melting of polar ice, would endanger millions of people and cost more than 10 trillion. Land exposed to extreme flooding will increase by more than 96,500 square miles globally up 48 per cent or more than 308,000 square miles from today. This would mean about 77 million more people will be at risk of experiencing flooding a rise of 52 per cent to 225 million at the very least. 'We've long known that as climate change takes hold, the effects would be especially pronounced in the Arctic,' Professor Serreze says. 'But the death of those two little caps that I once knew so well has made climate change very personal. All that's left are some photographs and a lot of memories.' RTHK: Obama takes aim at Trump in eulogy for John Lewis Former US leader Barack Obama launched his sharpest attack to date on President Donald Trump on Thursday, condemning the use of federal agents against protesters and attempts at voter suppression. "Today we witness with our own eyes, police officers kneeling on the necks of black Americans," Obama said in a fiery eulogy at the emotional funeral service in Atlanta of civil rights leader John Lewis. "We can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators," the former president said. Obama did not mention Trump by name but he was clearly referencing moves by the Republican president, who used troops to clear protestors from Lafayette Square outside the White House and sent federal agents to put down demonstrations in Portland, Oregon. Obama also took a jab at alleged Republican attempts to suppress the minority vote and Trump's repeated attacks on mail-in voting less than 100 days ahead of the November contest against Democrat Joe Biden. "Even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the postal service in the run-up to an election that's going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don't get sick," he said. Trump launched another broadside on Thursday against mail-in voting, which is expected to play a prominent role in November's election because of the coronavirus outbreak. "With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history," Trump said. "It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" Paying tribute to Lewis, who died on July 17 at the age of 80, Obama said the congressman's lifelong fight for African-Americans' civil rights had paved the way for him to become America's first black president. Lewis, a 17-term Democratic congressman from Georgia, did "everything he could to preserve this democracy and as long as we have breath in our bodies, we have to continue his cause," Obama said. "As long as young people are protesting in the streets hoping real change takes hold, I'm hopeful," he said. "But we can't casually abandon them at the ballot box. Not when few elections have been as urgent on so many levels as this one." Lewis' funeral service was also attended by former presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush and House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Former president Jimmy Carter, 95, was unable to attend but sent a letter which was read out to the mourners in the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr served as pastor in the 1960s. "His enormous contributions will continue to be an inspiration for generations to come," Carter wrote. Bush, a Republican, said he had his "differences" with Lewis, a Democratic stalwart, but "we live in a better and nobler country today because of John Lewis." "He believed in humanity and he believed in America," Bush said. In his tribute, Clinton referenced a column that Lewis wrote to be published in The New York Times on the day of his funeral service. "Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe," Lewis wrote. "So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide." "It is so fitting that on the day of his service he leaves us our marching orders," Clinton said. "I suggest we salute, suit up and march on." Before Thursday's funeral, Lewis' body lay in state at the US Capitol, a rarely bestowed honour, so Americans could pay their final respects. On Sunday, a lone caisson carried Lewis' body across the Alabama bridge where in 1965 a policeman fractured his skull during a protest that helped forge his reputation as a fearless civil rights leader. Lewis' death came in a year during which "Black Lives Matter" protests against police brutality have brought thousands onto US streets, underscoring the still-raw depths of the country's racial history. Lewis grew up in the Alabama city of Troy. His parents were sharecroppers, and he once worked in a cotton field. While attending segregated schools, Lewis was inspired by the peaceful protests of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King. (AFP) This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. India's third Covid wave likely to peak on Jan 23, daily cases to stay below 4 lakh: IIT Kanpur scientist India logs over 3.17 lakh new Covid cases in last 24 hours; daily positivity rate up at 16.41 per cent Chinese and Australian envoys to India spar over South China Sea India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, July 31: The envoys of China and Australia to India have sparred on social media over the South China Sea and claims made by China on those waters. On Thursday, O'Farrell said Australia remains deeply concerned by Chinese actions in the South China Sea that are "destabilising and could provoke escalation". The resource-rich South China Sea is also an important shipping route. In a tweet later, Sun took objection to the Australian diplomat's remarks and said they were made "disregarding facts". China warns India against review of One China Policy India extends ban on International flights till August 31st | Oneindia News O'Farrell, in his strong response, reminded the Chinese envoy about the verdict by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2016, that rejected China's claim of sovereignty over the South China Sea region. "Thank you @China_Amb_India. I would hope then you follow the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award which is final and binding under international law, and also generally refrain from actions that unilaterally alter the status quo," the Australian high commissioner tweeted. In its verdict, the international tribunal, constituted under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) said that China had violated the sovereign rights of the Philippines by carrying out certain activities in the South China Sea. The Philippines had approached the tribunal arguing that China's territorial claims in the region is unlawful. China claims sovereignty over all of South China Sea, a huge source of hydrocarbons. However, several countries in the region including Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Brunei have competing claims. In the last few weeks, China has increased its military assertiveness in South China Sea when the entire world is battling the coronavirus pandemic. Following Chinese actions, the US sent military ships near the disputed islands, and called Beijing's claim over the region illegal. IOWA CITY, Iowa - One influential pork company has received most of the money from an Iowa program designed to support farmers who euthanized their hogs after the coronavirus devastated their industry, newly released data shows. Christensen Farms, one of the nations largest family-owned pork producers, has received $1.86 million from the Iowa Disposal Assistance Program, or 72% of the $2.6 million the program has paid to date. The Sleepy Eye, Minnesota-based company received payments for disposing of 46,599 euthanized hogs, six times as many as the second highest claimant. The 15 other companies and farmers who received payments reported euthanizing about 18,000 hogs combined. Iowa is the nations largest pork-producing state, and Christensen Farms has more than half of its operations in the state, including partnerships with nearly 200 farms. Coronavirus outbreaks at meatpacking plants resulted in worker absenteeism and temporary closures, dramatically slowing production in April and into May. As a result, some farmers said they had no markets to sell their hogs and no space to keep them. Industry officials say they took steps to find new markets and to slow animals growth but euthanized them as a last resort a practice that can use gunshots, bolt guns, electrocution or heat. Christensen Farms is the largest shareholder in the Triumph Foods plant in St. Joseph, Missouri, and part owner of the Seaboard Triumph Foods plant in Sioux City, Iowa. Between the two plants, at least 611 workers have tested positive for coronavirus and three have died. With disruptions to the supply chain, pork producers have been faced with making unfathomable and heartbreaking, yet critically necessary decisions to sacrifice pigs that processing plants were unable to take, the company said in a statement. Christensen Farms spokeswoman JoDee Haala said it used a variety of methods approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association to euthanize hogs. She said its preferred methods for disposal have been to render carcasses into fats used in products such as animal feed or using them as compost. Christensen Farms said it was grateful for the support from the Iowa program as the sector navigates prolonged and unprecedented uncertainty. The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship released the claims data Wednesday in response to an open records request by The Associated Press. Iowa launched the program in May to reimburse farmers $40 for each euthanized market-ready hog up to 225 pounds (102 kilograms). It is paid for with federal funds provided to the state for coronavirus relief. Participation has been lower than anticipated, agriculture department spokeswoman Keely Coppess said. Its unclear why some filed claims and others did not, she said. Only a tiny fraction of Iowas estimated 6,200 pig farms have sought payments. Christensen Farms reported euthanizing all 46,599 hogs between May 1 and June 5. It received the maximum allowed claim of 30,000 hogs in the first round of funding and 16,599 in the second. Demand for the program dropped in the next two rounds of funding, which covered the bulk of June. Producers making claims must provide proof of proper disposal and an affidavit from a veterinarian. The department expanded eligibility this month to producers who euthanized hens after the price of liquid eggs plummeted as a result of restaurant and school closures. For the first time, this round of funding also will pay $4 per piglet of up to 25 pounds (11 kilograms) euthanized between May 1 and July 20. The number of hogs euthanized dwarfs the number donated during the first phase of Iowas highly touted Pass the Pork program. The state launched the program in April to pay the cost of having pigs processed and packaged for food banks. By early June, 451 pigs had been donated, resulting in 200,000 servings of pork. Some 30 Nigerian ladies trafficked to Lebanon are appealing to Nigerian government to rescue them as they are stranded in that country. They made the appeal in a statement by the President of Journalists International Forum for Migration (JIFORM), Ajibola Abayomi, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday. Mr Abayomi said the message was being relayed based on an encounter with the victims, which necessitated the call for a speedy rescue action from the government. JIFORM has forwarded details of the human trafficking agents involved in this matter to the relevant agencies and shall monitor it to the logical conclusion to ensure proper investigation and prosecution of those involved. He said the ladies were all camped in one room with faulty toilet and other utilities, and were presently housed in a building at Dawra city in Lebanon. Mr Abayomi said one of the victims, Adebisi Comfort-Oluwatoyin with Passport No. number A10597908, disclosed to JIFORM that they had to escape from the inhuman treatment by their mistresses and hosts. He said the 23 years old lady hails from Ondo State, graduated from the Edo State Polytechnic, Ekpoma, and was a resident in Osun State before departing Nigeria in December 2019. Help us plead with the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and others to save us. The Nigerian embassy in Lebanon has tried but we want to go back home. Our belongings and international passports were seized with no payments for the service we have been rendering for months. They loosen and cut our hairs with a razor blade. The police and their immigration are always on their side. We are not getting justice and our lives are in danger, Mr Abayomi quoted the victim as saying. Mr Abayomi said the Executive Director, Rescue Africans In Slavery Organisation (RAIS), Omotola Fawunmi, who spoke from the United States of America, also pleaded with government and other agencies to come to the victims aid. Ms Fawunmi, who claimed she has been responsible for the upkeep of the ladies, stated that the victims are seriously suffering. READ ALSO: The Nigerian government must act fast. Apart from this case, there are over 300 of them trapped in Oman and thousands across other Asian countries, beyond sustaining the ladies, we have facilitated evacuation of thousands of human trafficking victims in the last few years, she said. Also, Clare Henshaw, the County Manager, the Migrant Project Nigeria, also called on the NAPTIP and Nigeria in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) for urgent action. First, we want the ladies to be rescued as soon as possible. Their condition is very critical because they dont have good shelter, food and they need urgent medical attention. My personal conversation with Comfort showed that they were really in a bad state at the moment. After rescuing the ladies, there must be thorough investigation and punishment for the agents and other human traffickers involved in this, Henshaw pleaded. (NAN) Alex Verdugo will start in left field for the Red Sox against Yankees left-handed pitcher Jordan Montgomery on Friday at Yankee Stadium. Andrew Benintendi is sitting. I dont want to say rotate, but Im going to try to mix it up a little bit with that one left-hander who sits when we face a lefty, Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said Friday. Benintendi, Verdugo and Jackie Bradley Jr. all are left-handed hitters. Right-handed hitting outfielder Kevin Pillar always will start over one of the three when Boston faces a left-handed starter. But it sounds like Verdugo could play more against left-handed starters than Benintendi and Bradley. I would imagine Benny would be back in there Sunday against the next lefty, Roenicke said. But Ill keep switching it off. The thing with Verdugo is because of the history of him being able to hit left-handers, it kind of allows me to think of him being in there more often. But I think the other guys, theyll trade off whether its a rotation or whos hot. Verdugo is 4-for-9 (.444) with one walk against left-handed pitchers this year. He has a career .316/.345/.451/.796 line in 143 plate appearances against lefties. Benintendi is 0-for-5 with three walks against lefties. He has a career .244/.328/.365/.693 line in 525 plate appearances vs. lefties. Bradley is 4-for-10 (.400) against left-handers. He has a career .234/.314/.358/.672 line in 904 plate appearances vs. lefties. Roenicke was asked about the timing being off on Benintendis leg kick. He changes that leg lift, Roenicke said. Sometimes its a tiny mechanism that helps him really start to generate some more bat speed. But its also to the point that if youre a little late with it, then youre always trying to catch up. So any time you have a leg kick, the biggest thing is trying to have that same rhythm and timing that when youre going good, it always seems to be there. And when youre going bad, youre always struggling with it. Youre trying to catch up. And the worst thing you can do is try to catch up. If youre a little bit early, its better than being a little bit late. RELATED LINKS: Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees preview: TV schedule, pitching probables, key stories (July 31-August 2) Martin Perez picks up first Boston Red Sox win by utilizing changeup vs. Mets: I just trusted it Boston Red Sox aggressive bullpen use has Brandon Workman pitch in 3 straight games for first time since Aug. 2018: I told him Id be good for an inning tonight Boston Red Soxs Christian Vazquez out to prove offensive breakthrough in 2019 wasnt a fluke: I was tired of hitting ninth United Airlines on Friday said it plans to add certain flights back in September, staying cautious as the coronavirus pandemic continues to depress travel demand. The Chicago-based airline's September capacity will be 37% of year-ago levels and up 4 percentage points from its August 2020 schedule. United has been among the most conservative airlines when it comes to restoring flights. While demand began to recover in the late spring, it stalled after a spike in coronavirus cases in the U.S. and states like New York and New Jersey issued quarantine orders for arriving travelers. "We continue to be realistic in our approach to building back our international and domestic schedules by closely monitoring customer demand and flying where people want to go," Patrick Quayle, United's vice president for international network and alliances, said in a release. United in September plans to fly 30% of its year-ago international schedule. Flights abroad have been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic as airlines grapple with dozens of travel restrictions around the world aimed at stopping the disease from spreading. Routes include Chicago to Tel Aviv, Chicago to Hong Kong and Houston to Amsterdam. It is also going after vacationers with service to Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and to San Jose and Liberia, Costa Rica. Domestic flying will be 40% of its September 2019 schedule. United said Thursday that it will consolidate its Embraer E145 flights used for short routes with just one regional partner, CommutAir, dropping airline ExpressJet. "We have been communicating for several months that we expect to be a smaller airline in response to the unprecedented impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on our business," United said in a statement. "In February, we took our first step to simplify our partner landscape and consolidate our E145 flying. We continue to evaluate further opportunities to improve the United Express product." United's CEO, Scott Kirby, earlier this month told CNBC that he expects revenue to reach no more than half of 2019 levels without a coronavirus vaccine. Maharashtra's new Covid-19 cases breached the 10,000-level for the third time in July on Friday while Pune's total cases shot past the 1 lakh mark. Besides, the number of active cases in the state zoomed above 1.50 lakh of which the lion's share belongs to Pune and Thane, with Mumbai trailing a distant third, health officials said. The state recorded its third highest spike in new cases - at 10,320, down from the July 30 peak of 11,147, besides 265 deaths. The death toll has now gone up to 14,994, while the total cases rose to 422,118 - both highest in the country. According to Friday's figures, there was one death roughly every 5 minutes and a stupendous 430 new cases every hour. The state recovery rate increased for the sixth consecutive day, from 60.37 per cent to 60.68 per cent on Friday, while the current mortality rate stood at 3.55 per cent. The Health Department said that of the total cases till date, 150,662 are active. A total of 7,543 recovered patients returned home on Friday - the highest till date - taking the total number of discharged patients to 256,158. Of the active cases, Pune tops the chart with 49,821, followed by Thane's 31,920 and Mumbai's 20,563. Of the total 265 fatalities, Pune notched 71 deaths to push back both Thane (60) and Mumbai for the second day running. Mumbai remained stable with 53 deaths for the second day, to take up its toll to 6,353 and the number of cases increased by 1,085 to 114,284 now. There were 10 deaths each in Raigad and Kolhapur, eight in Solapur, seven in Nanded, six each in Nashik and Buldhana, five each in Palghar and Sangli, four in Aurangabad, three each in Jalgaon, Latur, and Nagpur, two each in Parbhani and Osmanabad, and one each in Ahmednagar, Dhule, Ratnagiri, Jalna, Beed, Akola, and Amravati. The MMR (Thane division) saw its toll shooting up by 128 to 9,638, while a staggering 3,361 new cases took its tally to 239,783. Thane's cases have reached 93,342 with 2,585 fatalities to make it the state's second worst-hit district after Mumbai. Pune district has 89,231 cases, with the death toll increasing to 2,099 on Friday. With 79 more fatalities, the Pune division's toll has reached 2,741 and the case tally zoomed past the one lakh mark to 102,232. Nashik division has recorded 1,173 fatalities and 34,006 cases, followed by Aurangabad Division with 592 deaths and 17,029 cases, Akola division with 253 fatalities and 7,444 cases, Kolhapur division with 237 deaths and 9,473 cases, Latur division with 229 fatalities and 5,490 cases, and Nagpur division with 83 deaths and 6,263 cases - the only division now in the sub-100 death figure range. All the eight divisions recorded fatalities, while Chandrapur was still a zero Covid death district. Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine stands at 899,557 now, while those in institutional quarantine total 39,535. Epilepsy is a wide-spread neurological disorder that affects around 50 million people worldwide. It is characterized by recurrent epileptic seizures, which are sudden bursts of electrical activity in the brain. There are many different types of seizures, and a person with epilepsy can experience more than one type. Clinicians today use EEG measurements, with electrodes either placed on a patient's scalp or inside the brain, to identify when and where a seizure begins. But these measurements alone do not always provide enough information to understand the type of seizure and make optimal decisions regarding treatment. Now, an international team of researchers led by Aix-Marseille University in France and the University of Michigan has proposed a new classification system of seizures based on a deep understanding and mathematical modelling of brain oscillations. "It represents the first objective and unbiased taxonomy of its kind", says one of the lead authors, HBP-scientist Prof. Viktor Jirsa from Aix-Marseille University. The researchers used "bifurcation theory" - a method commonly used in fields such as physics and engineering - to analyze data from over a hundred patients across the globe. Researchers from the University of Melbourne and Monash University, both in Australia, the University of Freiburg in Germany, and Kyoto University in Japan also contributed to the work. Seizures with similar properties were categorized into groups. They found sixteen types of seizure dynamics - or 'dynamotypes' - with distinct characteristics. "Similar to the periodic table of elements in chemistry, we demonstrated the existence of a clear classification system of seizures", says Jirsa. The system could lead clinicians to a better understanding of seizures and how they should be treated. "Seizure types react differently to treatments. For instance, some seizures can be stopped through electric stimulation, others not, dependent on their dynamotype. The systems scientific basis is theory work developed around the Epileptor, a central epilepsy model we developed in the Human Brain Project that is also at the heart of a large clinical trial running now", the researcher explains. "Classification, however, is not explanation ", Jirsa emphasises. " There is much work ahead of us to better understand epilepsy mechanisms. This is where EBRAINS will play a key role, as it provides the tools connecting cellular, network and brain imaging signals aiding in mechanism discovery. " EBRAINS is a new shared digital brain research infrastructure for the European Union that the Human Brain Project (HBP) is building. Within the HBP, Jirsa and his team had first begun adapting the open network simulator The Virtual Brain towards applications in epilepsy. The work has laid the foundations for project EPINOV ("Improving EPilepsy surgery management and progNOsis using Virtual brain technology") a multi-year project involving more than a dozen French hospitals that is funded by the French state. EPINOV tests whether the use of the personalized HBP modeling technology for epilepsy networks can improve surgery preparation in drug-resistant patients. ### Civil rights attorney slams Obama for political speech at John Lewis' funeral Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Lifelong Democrat voter and civil rights attorney Leo Terrell criticized former President Barack Obamas speech at the funeral of civil rights icon and Congressman John Lewis in an interview with Fox News Sean Hannity on Thursday. Terrell, noticeably frustrated by Obamas speech, claimed there were fallacies in the former presidents remarks on racism and election integrity. The setting of the speech, though, was also egregious to Terrell, a former radio host who recently announced that 2020 will be the first time he ever votes for a Republican. He has often appeared on news talk shows to provide political commentary. Youve got Barack Obama using a house of worship a funeral to raise a Democratic campaign speech, Terrell told Hannity. What amazes me is that he basically lied on television when he said federal troops were used for peaceful protesters. Theres not a peaceful protester whos trying to demolish a federal building. Terrell decried an analogy Obama used to compare President Donald Trump to George Wallace, the former Alabama governor known for racist and segregationist ideas during the 1940s. Terrell said the analogy was an example of using the race card. George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators, Obama said. While federal agents have largely been deployed to cities experiencing violence and riots such as Portland, Oregon, the Trump administration was criticized after federal agents used pepper spray and other irritants to clear demonstrators from Lafayette Square in Washington D.C. in June. A video surfaced from the clearing operation of a U.S. Park Police officer using a riot shield to attack an Australian news cameraman. National Guard commander Adam DeMarco testified before the U.S. House of Representatives this week that tear gas was used in the clearing operation. U.S. Park Police Acting Chief Gregory Monahan told Congress Tuesday that tear gas was not used in the clearing operation but said that officers used other irritants and dispersal agents that include stinger balls, smoke canisters and pepper balls. In his speech at Lewis funeral, Obama also slammed Trumps displeasure with mail-in voting propositions. Obama said that voter suppression laws have targeted students and minorities. Obama admitted that there may be some who might not want him to dwell on political matters at a funeral, but said that he is mentioning these issues because this is a celebration of John's life. John Lewis devoted his time on this Earth fighting the very attacks on democracy and what's best in America that we are seeing circulate right now, the former Illinois senator said. Terrell took issue with not only the speech but also how some responses to tragedy are handled differently than others. According to Terrell, it is a matter of vilifying black Republicans. He mentioned Obamas silence on the deaths of David Dorn, a black retired officer killed in a riot; black Trump supporter Bernell Trammell, who was shot and killed in Milwaukee; as well as Herman Cain, a black Republican and former presidential candidate who died this week. You got a great man in John Lewis buried today and Herman Cain is being vilified. Im sick and tired of black Republicans being vilified, Terrell told Hannity. We are smart enough to realize were off the Democrat plantation and will vote for whats best for the country. Cain was a successful business owner and ran for president in 2000 as well as 2012 after his childhood consisted of difficulty and poverty in the South. His death by coronavirus was touted as a political statement on social media, as he was not in favor of wearing a mask during the pandemic. In wake of Obamas comments, nationwide concern on racial equality and the impact of the Black Live Matter movement, Terrell argued that that the movement does not appear to care about all black lives. Not all black lives matter because theres a lot of black police officers being killed and there is a lot of black-on-black crime, Terrell said. So if youre going to care about black lives, care about all black lives. Terrell said he will vote for Donald Trump in a July 17 interview with Hannity. A vote for Trump would be the first time Terrell has voted Republican in his life, he explained. His reasoning was due to his dislike for presumptive Democrat nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden during the Obama presidency. Terrell said Biden was dishonest, not up-front and has a socialist agenda. He reemphasized his opinion on Thursday. I havent received a penny or dime from anyone and Im voting for Trump because he is the best candidate to win the highest office in the land, Terrell said. Whats in the best interest of this country is electing Donald Trump in November. In a township hit especially hard by the coronavirus, Willingboro Public Schools plans to keep all of its roughly 3,400 students home for the beginning of the 2020-21 school year. When you look at our data, when you look at the number of students and how the community was impacted by confirmed positive testing for COVID-19 the option that was best for our community, thinking of our children and our community, was a virtual learning environment, board President Carlos Worthy told NJ Advance Media. With its more than 70 percent Black population, the township has been especially hard hit by the coronavirus, which data has shown affects Black people disproportionately. Willingboro has seen 712 total cases of the virus, the most in the county. A Philadelphia Inquirer analysis from April found the township outpacing every other municipality in South Jersey. The Enforcement Directorate has moved the apex court against the Delhi High Court decision to grant bail to former Fortis promoter Shivinder Singh. The Delhi HC Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, during a hearing on July 23, said there was no rationale behind keeping Shivinder Singh, the younger brother of Malvinder Singh, in the custody as an undertrial. Both of them have been behind bars in a money laundering case concerning Religare Enterprises Limited (REL). He was granted bail a personal bond of Rs 1 crore and two sureties by family members of Rs 25 lakh each. Shivinder, currently lodged in Tihar jail, was still not able to walk out as he has been booked in another case of cheating, criminal conspiracy and breach of trust by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police. "...criminal investigation is not a metaphorical fishing-rod handed to an investigating agency, to indulge its penchant for 'fishing around' for evidence, at its leisure and in the fullness of time," the sharply worded Delhi HC judgement said, adding that an investigation was a time-bound process, which should be conducted in a proper framework and as per the law. As per the ED, the investigation is on against Singh brothers, and his custody is important to find facts related to the money laundering case. The probe agency, however, has not filed any supplementary chargesheet Since January 10. "...prison is a place for punishment; and no punishment can be legitimate without a trial. There must be compelling basis, grounds and reasons to detain an undertrial in judicial custody, which this court does not discern in the present case," the Delhi HC had ruled last week. The judge also asked the ED investigating officer to request the Bureau of Immigration to open lookout circular (LOC) in Shivinder's name to prevent any unannounced exit from the country. The court, however, rejected the bail pleas 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, along with others, were arrested on October 11, 2019. Also Read: Ex-Fortis promoter Shivinder Singh seeks bail on coronavirus ground; HC rejects plea In a fiery eulogy for longtime U.S. Representative John Lewis on Thursday, former President Barack Obama took a series of thinly veiled shots at the actions of his successor that he said tore at the legacy of the Black civil rights icon being laid to rest. The funeral for Lewis, who played an instrumental role in passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, came on the same day Republican President Donald Trump suggested the Nov. 3 election could be delayed. Trump has also waged a war against mail-in ballots, a tactic critics say is aimed at suppressing votes. "We no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar in order to cast a ballot," Obama said in the eulogy, referring to one way Black people were once disqualified at the ballot box. "But even as we sit here, there are those in power doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities with restrictive ID laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision." Obama also referred to reported moves to undermine "the postal service in the run-up to an election that could be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don't get sick." Obama, joined at the funeral by two fellow former presidents, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, spoke of Lewis's rise from humble beginnings on a Troy, Alabama, farm to become a leader of the 1960s struggle for equal rights for Black Americans. Ultimately, the man known as the "conscience of Congress" never gave up his drive to make "good trouble" in the cause of justice, Obama said. Obama and others spoke or sang in front of his casket draped in the American flag at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. King, who was assassinated in 1968, had been a mentor to Lewis. Lewis, who was first elected in 1986 to represent Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives, died on July 17 at age 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. His death came at a time of reckoning across the United States over racial injustice ignited by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. Obama - a Democrat who was the nation's first black president and who awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 - argued that the man whose sharecropping parents "picked someone else's cotton" now should be counted among the Founding Fathers. "America was built by John Lewis. He as much as anyone in our history brought our country closer to its highest ideals," the Democratic former president said. In his speech, Bush remembered joining Lewis in Selma, Alabama, for the 50th anniversary of the watershed 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. "The story that began in Troy isn't ending here today, nor is the work." The funeral capped a week of memorial services. Lewis's coffin was escorted across the bridge on Sunday, decades after his beating there drew a national spotlight to the struggle for racial equality, including suppression of the Black vote in the South. And on Monday his casket was taken to the U.S. Capitol in Washington where it lay in state through Tuesday. Eric Terrell, 65, of Atlanta, sat outside the church in his wheelchair, in the heat and thick air of an Atlanta summer morning, waiting to get a glimpse of former Presidents Clinton and Bush, but especially Obama. He was camped out before 6:30 a.m. so he could bow his head as Lewis's funeral procession rolled by. And he held his homemade sign until his arms got tired. It read, "Get your ass out and vote." "He put his life on the line in Selma so we could vote," said Terrell, who is Black. "So we better do it," he said before joining the throng of onlookers outside the church watching the services on a Jumbotron. In an essay written shortly before his death and published in the New York Times on Thursday, Lewis called on the younger generation to get into "good trouble," using perhaps his most famous utterance about the importance of challenging inequality. "In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way," he wrote, before invoking a famous line from King: "Now it is your turn to let freedom ring." The total number of coronavirus cases in Wyoming grew by 40 on Friday, with the number of confirmed cases rising by 37 and the number of probable cases rising by three, according to the Wyoming Department of Healths daily update. Fifty-eight new coronavirus recoveries were also announced: 49 confirmed and nine probable. Probable cases are defined by officials as close contacts of lab-confirmed cases with symptoms consistent with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. A patient is considered fully recovered when there is resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and there is improvement in respiratory symptoms (e.g. cough, shortness of breath) for 72 hours AND at least 7 days have passed since symptoms first appeared, according to the Wyoming Department of Health. There are now 2,726 cases 2,254 confirmed and 472 probable and 2,123 recoveries 1,752 confirmed and 371 probable recorded in the state, as well as 26 deaths. As of Thursday, there have been 74,891 tests performed for COVID-19 in Wyoming: 36,850 from the Wyoming Public Health Laboratory and 38,041 reported by other labs. Overall, 52,172 people have been tested. Close to 78% of confirmed patients have fully recovered. Patients have tested positive for coronavirus in all 23 of Wyomings counties. Wyoming has the third-lowest recorded number of coronavirus deaths of any state (Alaska and Hawaii), and its death rate (4 per 100,000 residents) is third-lowest to Alaska and Hawaii, according to the New York Times. The states infection rate (464 in 100,000) is seventh-lowest among states, also according to the Times, which includes probable counts where they exist. Eighteen COVID-19 patients are currently hospitalized in Wyoming. Less than 8% of Wyomings cases required a hospital stay. In 29.2% of the cases, health officials dont know if the patient was hospitalized. The virus has disproportionately affected people of color throughout the United States, a trend that is also reflected in Wyomings data. More than 59% of confirmed cases in Wyoming are white, 17.4% are American Indian, 15.7% are Hispanic, 1.2% are Black, 0.7% are Asian, and 0.4% are Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander The racial identities of 4.4% of confirmed cases in Wyoming are not known, and 5.1% of confirmed cases identified as other races. According to 2019 census estimates, Wyomings population is 83.8% white (not Hispanic/Latino), 10.1% Hispanic/Latino, 2.7% American Indian/Alaska Native, 1.3% Black, 1.1% Asian and 2.2% two or more races. In 49.3% of the cases, the patient came in contact with a known case. Community spread has been attributed to 19.7% of the cases. In another 11.9% of the cases, the patient had traveled either domestically or internationally. The Health Department attributes 3.1% of cases to communal living. In 7.1% of Wyomings cases, health officials dont how the person was exposed to the virus, and 13% of cases are pending investigation. Cases in Wyoming by county (probable in parentheses) Albany: 76 (8) Big Horn: 31 (4) Campbell: 92 (23) Carbon: 54 (21) Converse: 19 (11) Crook: 9 Fremont: 411 (57) Goshen: 12 (2) Hot Springs: 15 (3) Johnson: 18 (4) Laramie: 320 (136) Lincoln: 65 (24) Natrona: 182 (33) Niobrara: 1 (1) Park: 104 (11) Platte: 4 (1) Sheridan: 40 (18) Sublette: 24 (10) Sweetwater: 226 (14) Teton: 296 (39) Uinta: 207 (47) Washakie: 43 (5) Weston: 5 Deaths in Wyoming by county Fremont: 10 Washakie: 5 Laramie: 2 Sweetwater: 2 Carbon: 1 Campbell: 1 Johnson: 1 Natrona: 1 Teton: 1 Uinta: 1 Health Department data(tncms-asset)f0608226-6ece-11ea-bd05-00163ec2aa77[3](/tncms-asset) National cases There have been more than 4.5 million cases nationally, with about 153,000 deaths, according to the New York Times running count. Know the symptoms COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, is a respiratory illness. Its symptoms include cough, fever and shortness of breath. Symptoms appear within two weeks. If you have contact with a person who has COVID-19, you should self-isolate for 14 days. Follow the Wyoming Health Departments tips Stay home when sick and avoid contact with other people unless you need medical attention. Follow advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on what to do if you think you may be sick. Follow current public health orders. Follow commonsense steps such as washing your hands often and well, covering your coughs and sneezes, and cleaning and disinfecting. Nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other healthcare facilities should closely follow guidelines for infection control and prevention. Older people and those with health conditions that mean they have a higher chance of getting seriously ill should avoid close-contact situations. In the immediate aftermath of George Floyd's death in May, Portland Police Chief Jami Resch issued a statement she had hoped would help keep a lid on rising tensions in her city by condemning the fatal police encounter in Minneapolis as running "contrary to our fundamental duty to protect and serve." Two months after making the statement, Resch is no longer the top cop, having resigned in June and replaced by a Black police lieutenant, and Oregon's largest city has become the nation's major flashpoint for protests and violent clashes with law enforcement officers. In addition to being a rallying point for a continued protest movement, Portland has also become for some a symbol, as Seattle's Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone (or CHOP, for short) was before it, of liberal cities out of control, besieged by crime and lawlessness. The images of people in the streets, fires burning and clashes with law enforcement have become wallpaper in some circles and were seized on by the Trump administration as a reason to step in, as the president has threatened to do in Chicago and elsewhere. Some demonstrators say Trump's deployment of federal agents in camouflage and their aggressive tactics, including the use of tear gas and scooping up protesters in unmarked vans, has fueled the unrest and bolstered the resolve of some protesters to take a more militant stance. In any event, a divide has emerged in Portland between those who are looking to peacefully protest police brutality and call for police reform and those looking to foment chaos and violence. And whereas other cities, such as New York, which saw large protests, attacks on police officers, looting and vandalism in the wake of Floyd's death, have managed to stabilize the situation, Portland has not. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said the federal officers have "acted as an occupying force [and] brought violence." PHOTO: Federal officers disperse protesters outside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Tuesday, July 21, 2020, in Portland, Ore. (Noah Berger/AP) In a response on Thursday, Trump tweeted that Brown "isnt doing her job." Story continues "She must clear out, and in some cases arrest, the Anarchists & Agitators in Portland," Trump said in his tweet. "If she cant do it, the Federal Government will do it for her. We will not be leaving until there is safety!" Kate Brown, Governor of Oregon, isnt doing her job. She must clear out, and in some cases arrest, the Anarchists & Agitators in Portland. If she cant do it, the Federal Government will do it for her. We will not be leaving until there is safety! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 Here's what we know about the situation in Portland: Standoff with federal agents On Wednesday night, the 62nd consecutive day of demonstrations in Portland, protesters clashed once again with federal agents guarding the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, which has become a focal point of the civil unrest. Around 11 p.m., federal agents in riot gear fired tear gas and stun grenades at protesters attempting to breach a fence around the courthouse after agents warned them to disperse. Several arrests were made as the standoff continued into Thursday morning. The clashes came hours after Brown, a Democrat, announced on Twitter that she had spoken with Vice President Mike Pence and an agreement to withdrawal federal agents from the city was struck provided that local officials could assure that federal buildings would be protected -- the primary reason agents from Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Protective Service were dispatched. PHOTO: Federal officers advance on retreating demonstrators after an illegal assembly was declared during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse, July 29, 2020, in Portland, Ore. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP) But in a warning to Brown and other local officials, Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said federal agents would remain in the city until it is clear that state troopers and Portland police have gotten a handle on the violence. Federal officials, including Attorney General William Barr, have defended the presence and tactics of the agents saying they were needed to prevent the spread of "violent attacks on federal courts." Brown agreed to deploy state troopers to Portland if federal agents would move out, and troopers were set to take over those duties Thursday afternoon, according to Oregon Live. "We are not removing any law enforcement while our facilities and law enforcement remain under attack," Wolf said. Whether the move to withdraw federal agents will help de-escalate violence in Portland still remains uncertain. Split in approach to protest In recent days as vandalism, attacks on police and fires ignited in the streets have increased, protesters have become split between those bent on destruction and those who believe the peaceful actions of the Black Lives Matter movement are being drowned out by demonstrators and agitators pushing violence as a means to achieving their goals. On Tuesday night, the difference in philosophy played out in the streets of Portland when a white protester dressed in riot gear set a sizable fire in the middle of a street. A Black Lives Matter protester, who identified himself to ABC News as Najee, ran over and put the blaze out in an incident caught on video. The white protester in full riot gear responded by yelling, light the fire again! A frustrated Najee yelled back, trying to explain that inciting violence and destruction was taking away from the BLM message. PHOTO: Two protesters flee through tear gas after federal officers dispersed a crowd of about a thousand at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse on July 21, 2020 in Portland, Ore. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images) The white protester responded, they burned down one police building in Minneapolis and they defunded the police department. E.D. Mondaine, president of the Portland NAACP branch, wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post last week that as the demonstrations have continued daily in Portland since Floyd's death on May 25, "many people with their own agendas are co-opting, and distracting attention from, what should be our central concern: the Black Lives Matter movement." "Unfortunately, 'spectacle' is now the best way to describe Portlands protests," Mondaine wrote. "Vandalizing government buildings and hurling projectiles at law enforcement draw attention -- but how do these actions stop police from killing black people?" Mondaine said even the so-called Wall of Moms, a group of mostly white women who have turned out in large numbers in Portland to protest police brutality and form an arm-to-arm barrier between the protesters and the federal agents, could be hurting the overall goal of the BLM movement. PHOTO: Federal law enforcement officers, deployed under the Trump administration's new executive order to protect federal monuments and buildings, walk toward demonstrators during a protest against racial inequality in Portland, OR., July 18, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Reuters) "This might ease the consciences of white, affluent women who have previously been silent in the face of Black oppression, but its fair to ask: Are they really furthering the cause of justice, or is this another example of white co-optation?" Mondaine wrote. But Bev Barnum, a mother of two teenagers, said she was motivated to organize the "Wall of Moms" on Facebook out of motherly instinct, not a political agenda. "As soon as you become a mom, something is triggered in you. Its primal," Barnum said in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America." "It doesnt matter if its your kid or not, youre going to help them. If you see a kid drowning, youre going to jump into the water. "Im proud of us," she said. "Were not throwing bricks. Were not throwing water bottles. Were not being violent." Governor rejects call for national guard Portland, where Blacks comprise just 6% of the population, erupted in violent protests just three days after video surfaced of a white police officer digging his knee into the back of Floyd's neck as he repeatedly yelled "I can't breathe" and called out for his dead mother before falling unconscious and later dying in a hospital. A May 28 vigil for Floyd in Portland took a destructive turn when a small group splintered off from a protest march, broke into a juvenile detention center and set it on fire. Several businesses, including an Apple Store, were looted, prompting police to declare a riot. The following day, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler declared a state of emergency and announced a citywide 8 p.m. curfew. But as the first night of the curfew approached, more businesses were looted and fires were set. Police deployed tear gas and ended up arresting 51 people for disorderly conduct. Wheeler and Oregon's top federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Billy Williams, asked Gov. Brown on June 1 to deploy the Oregon National Guard to Portland. At the time, Wheeler, also a Democrat, said, "We need help, we need more bodies to stop this senseless violence." MORE: Police declare riots as protests turn violent in cities nationwide; 1 demonstrator dead in Austin But Brown refused to send the National Guard despite Williams informing her that there were "organized efforts" intent on creating chaos. Amidst the turmoil, Resch, the police chief at the time, resigned just days after local activists criticized her for having an all-white command staff. She was replaced in June by Chuck Lovell, a Black veteran lieutenant of the police department whom Resch endorsed as "the exact right person at the exact right moment." A day after Lovell became chief, a U.S. District judge issued a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit filed on behalf of two protesters, barring police from using tear gas unless lives were in danger. A little over a week later, the Portland City Council voted to slash $27 million from the police department's budget. Despite promises of reform from the police department and city officials, protests continue to grow violent and destructive. MORE: Riot declared in Portland, mayor in crowd as feds disperse tear gas A June 30 protest march on the headquarters of the Portland Police Association devolved into violence when demonstrators allegedly threw rocks and other objects at police, who declared a riot and used tear gas to turn back the crowd despite the federal judge's order, which banned the use of tear gas unless lives were at stake. Over the July 4 weekend, Trump and the Department of Homeland Security launched rapid deployment teams to protect federal monuments in cities around the country. The president later expanded the role of federal agents, saying he had "no choice" but to "surge" federal law enforcement into American cities to fight violent crime. Navy vet beaten During one of the confrontations in Portland, Navy veteran Christopher David, 53, was beaten with a baton by a federal agent in a July 18 incident that was caught on cellphone video that went viral. David told ABC News that he went to the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in hopes of speaking to the federal agents after viewing a video of men in combat fatigues with no insignia "abducting citizens off the streets of Portland and stuffing them into unmarked vans. "This is shocking to me. It's completely shocking. I can't believe it's happening actually," David said. "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 is blatantly unconstitutional." PHOTO: Federal officers launch tear gas at a group of demonstrators during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse, July 26, 2020, in Portland, Ore. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP) Instead of seeing David, who at the time of the beating was dressed in a Naval Academy sweatshirt and a Navy ball cap, as a concerned veteran, he said they saw him as "a target." "If they're going to gas pregnant moms, they're going to beat up an old vet. It doesn't matter to them," said David, who suffered a broken hand in the incident. "I wasn't a human being to them. I was just a protester. I wasn't like them. I wasn't a real person." In a statement to ABC News, the U.S. Marshals Service said David "presented a threat to deputy U.S. Marshals" by failing to obey commands to back up and trying to enter the courthouse grounds. "Based upon the circumstances at the time incident, the deputies believed that the force used was necessary to protect themselves and others from physical harm," reads the statement from U.S. Marshals. MORE: Trump admin defends use of federal agents in Portland protest crackdown Even Wheeler, the mayor of Portland, has not been immune to the aggressive tactics of federal agents. During a July 23 protest outside the courthouse, Wheeler was among a crowd of protesters who were tear-gassed by federal officers. "I want to thank the thousands of you who have come out to oppose the Trump administration's occupation of this city," Wheeler told the crowd moments before tear gas was deployed. "The reason this is important is it is not just happening in Portland ... we're on the front line here in Portland." The violence between protesters and federal agents escalated last weekend, prompting Portland police to once again declare a riot early Sunday when protesters breached the reinforced fence around the federal courthouse. Federal agents guarding the building deployed tear gas on the demonstrators, who officials alleged hurled projectiles and fireworks at the agents. Andre Miller, a Black Lives Matter protester who was hit in the head by a tear gas canister during July 21 demonstration, addressed protesters at a rally in Portland on Wednesday night before federal agents deployed tear gas again to disperse the crowd. Miller, with his head bandaged, made a point of putting the focus back on the Black Lives Matter movement. I want yall to make sure that Black Lives Matter is your number one priority, said Miller. This is just the beginning. ABC News' Kayna Whitworth, Annie Pong and Jenna Harrison contributed to this report. How Portland became nation's hotbed for clashes between protesters and federal agents originally appeared on abcnews.go.com One in three NSW public primary schools have signed up to an August trial of the controversial year 1 phonics screening check, in a sign of educators' growing support for a phonics-heavy approach to teaching reading after decades of bitter debate. Some 518 of the state's 1600-odd government schools and 49 Catholic schools will do the check between mid and late August. Teachers will spend five to seven minutes with each student to listen to how they blend sounds to read 40 words. Assistant principal Michelle Looker reads with students Savannah Brock, 6, and Jasper Douglas, 7. Credit:Edwina Pickles "It will give us a lot of information," said Michelle Looker, the k-2 assistant principal at Kingswood South Primary. "I think it's really helpful." It comes as the new K-2 curriculum arising from the NSW Curriculum Review is expected to embed a phonics or sounding out of words approach as the preferred way of teaching children how to read. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 23:18:57|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close The United States failed to recognize the coronavirus threat from Europe in time, Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has said. Since the country's COVID-19 epidemic broke out, the United States has reported over 4.4 million confirmed cases and over 150,000 deaths. "The introduction from Europe happened before we realized what was happening," Redfield said in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday. "By the time we realized (the) Europe threat and shut down travel to Europe, there was probably already two or three weeks of 60,000 people coming back every day from Europe," he said. The U.S. government closed off travel with China on Feb. 2, while flights with Europe were not cut off until March 13, by which time 26 cases had been confirmed in New York City. Sequences of the earliest SARS-CoV-2-positive specimens in New York City resembled those circulating in Europe, according to a CDC report released in mid-July. B ritish Airways owner IAG is to tap shareholders for 2.75 billion as the company tries to sure up its finances amid the coronavirus pandemic. The airline giant has been hit hard by the virus which has grounded planes and restricted travel around the globe. IAG said the raising had been backed by the company's largest shareholder Qatar Airways and is expected to take place in September after the shareholder meeting. The announcement of the placing came alongside the company's half year results IAG swung to a pre-tax loss of 3.8 billion in the first six months of the year, down from a 0.9 billion profit in the same period a year ago. It came on revenue of 4.8 billion, some 56% lower than 2019s levels. The company does not expect the industry to fully recover until 2023. IAG said: "In light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Group, the Board believes that enhancing the Group's financial position is vital to ensuring that IAG has sufficient liquidity throughout a more prolonged downturn in air travel as it seeks to deliver on its strategy." Willie Walsh, chief executive at IAG, added: "Our industry is facing an unprecedented crisis and the outlook remains uncertain. However, we strongly believe that now is the time to look to the future and strengthen IAG's financial and strategic position. "While we have had to make tough decisions on both people and costs, these actions are the right ones to protect as many jobs and serve as many customers as feasible and put IAG in the strongest position possible. The industry will recover from this crisis, though we do not expect this to be before 2023, and there will be opportunities for IAG to capitalise on its strength and leadership positions." The company also put together a worst case scenario which would see passenger numbers drop by 66% this year and reduced revenue from cargo. The firm said it had looked into operating cost savings should this scenerio arise but refused to provide any more detail. The raising has been underwritten by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank. It was a grim moment late on the morning of May 19, when Gov. Ned Lamont and Dalio Philanthropies declared the demise of the partnership they had formed a year earlier with high hopes of helping troubled youths in Connecticuts cities. Months of bickering over the Partnership for Connecticut operating outside the states open-government and ethics laws proved too weighty. Everyone retreated from this innovative concept government and private donors working together on targeted projects to keep young people engaged. Everyone, that is, except Barbara Dalio and the troubled cities and towns of Connecticut. Within minutes after Lamonts news conference at the state Capitol, Joe DeLong, executive director and CEO of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, called a representative of Dalio Philanthropies. Please let Barbara and the other folks at Dalio know that Im sorry this fell apart the way it did, DeLong recalled saying to the representative. Im happy to help any way I can. Inside the hour, a tweet came from the mayor of a Connecticut city: Shame about the partnership. Would love to work with the Dalios, the tweet opened. After some specifics, it concluded, We are way overcrowded and would love to put together a local public-private partnership that actually makes a profound impact for our children. So it was that grieving over dashed dreams by the Dalios Greenwich billionaires Barbara and Ray, he the founder of the worlds largest hedge fund and she the head of Dalio Education within the philanthropy lasted a nanosecond. I was very sad, Barbara Dalio said Thursday three days after she and DeLong rolled out the framework for a city-by-city, town-by-town effort to bring high-speed internet connectivity to all households with students. And of course when youre sad you always doubt yourself. What could I have done? But then, this was what she calls Covid time. No time to waste. People didnt have food and there was not enough child care. And students couldnt do online learning. High speed toward high-speed Formal meetings on Zoom launched within two weeks between DeLong; Barbara Dalio; Dalio Philanthropies staff, chiefly Andrew Ferguson, the education director; and various mayors, first selectmen and other local officials. I am of the belief that if we spend too much time on disappointment, not letting go, said Dalio, the mother of four grown sons, then you cannot use that energy into the next step, something positive. They were off and running, but not with Parnership 2, the sequel. The main goal of connectivity, having suddenly morphed from the 20-year-old digital divide to an acute crisis within coronavirus, was more focused than the broad ideals of the state partnership. Connectivity grew out of the partnerships one accomplishment: buying and distributing 60,000 laptops for high school students in poorly performing high schools, from low-income homes. The Dalios picked up the tab for that coronavirus-era effort. It was underway when the partnership dissolved and is now just about done. This time, there would be no overall dollar figures to replace the partnerships commitments of $100 million from the Dalios and $100 million from the state over five years. That day in May, the Dalios said theyd maintain their commitment but Barbara Dalio isnt putting a number on it now. And the biggest difference: This time, there would be no legal entities formed. Rather, its the philanthropy helping cities and towns with money and organization, working out custom-designed ideas. That means no CEO to be hired and, in a culminating crisis at the partnership, placed on administrative leave under murky circumstances weeks later. Hartfords dramatic plan On Wednesday, the first of what should be many municipalities made its splashy debut under the new arrangement. Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin stood at the steps of a community center in the North End and said the capital city would become one of the first in the nation to offer universal, high-speed internet connection for everyone. That means everyone, at a download speed still not entirely clear, through a network of 800 to 1,000 WiFi-like nodes throughout the city. It will be installed at a cost of $3.8 million over the next year, mostly financed through Dalio Philanthropies and the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. Then of course, the charities may help the city maintain the system. We have known for years that there are so many kids in our community who struggle with the homework gap, who have to set up in a McDonalds after school so they can access the internet to get their homework done, Bronin said. And over the last few months we have seen just how devastating that digital divide can be and just how critical high quality internet access is. Its a basic need. The cost of internet service has come down thanks to the twin miracles of technology development and competition in the same American way that helped the Dalios amass unfathomable wealth through Bridgewater Associates, in Westport. Despite that, universal access has never fulfilled the promises of the 90s, when the Telecom Reform Act was supposed to make it happen and failed. Covid has thrown a spotlight on the different issues that were going on in the country and connectivity was one of those, Barbara Dalio said. The state comes back too. As it happened, the day after the Dalio-CCM announcement, Lamont unveiled the states $43.5 million effort to drum roll please close the digital divide for Connecticut students. So, the other half of the ill-fated partnership is also picking itself up. This may seem a duplication of efforts, but with some exceptions the two should complement each other. In the states plan, Connecticut will contract right now with internet providers for bulk buying of service for the coming year, and will build some hot spots. The state will also buy 50,000 more laptops for students who need them. The Dalio-municipalities efforts will mostly take a longer term view, as in Hartford. Each project will be different, and some may not involve cities and towns at all, but rather ways to help educators a continuation of Dalio Educations 12 years of work in Connecticut, supporting numerous programs. In their separate announcements this week, the state and Dalio Philanthropies barely mentioned each other, if at all. But the governors office speaks well of the Dalios new project and Barbara Dalio makes the point that more effort from more sources is what it will take to close the gap. A Danbury concept looks for help Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton was among the early city leaders to reach out to the Dalios after the partnership meltdown. He hopes his city wins a support for his idea, long in the making: A city-wide deal with an internet service provider to deliver high-speed connections to all 55,000 households at a targeted negotiated price of $15 a month. This will require planning and the setup of a Danbury Internet Fund, along with expertise and some technology upgrades. The Hartford model, with a signal coming through the streets directly, wouldnt work in Danbury, Boughton said. Weve got 44 square miles of rural, suburban and urban terrain. Boughton hopes for a grant of $50,000 from Dalio Philanthropies to plan the fund. Ive been an admirer of what theyre doing, he said. Boughton had approached he charity with an open-ended request that they work together on city problems. They came back and said Were really interested in connectivity. I said Wow, I have a plan. Thats a big part of the concept, Ferguson and Dalio explained to work with towns that have people and ideas ready to go. And, to work with cities in a way that solves multiple problems. The way we operate, is that we try to be holistic, Dalio said. Even though students are our focal point, the students and the parents are connected so if the parents cannot access the jobs and the health information. DeLong, at CCM, describes it as a decidedly decentralized effort, in contrast to the state partnership. What were all trying to do is build a movement, get some good progress going and maybe with that inspire some others, he said. As for Ray and Barbara Dalio, he said, Their heart is into this. Its not just their wallet. Its been Barbaras passion. By now its clear this isnt a second-guessing crowd. Well never know whether what might have been would be better than what we now have. In hindsight, this seems a better fit in a small state that packs in a lot of regional and political squabbling. I have to say its really satisfying to see all the mayors involved, Dalio said. So maybe the work will be faster because its a little bit slower when working with the state....Theres not all of these layers and approvals that have to go on that are time consuming. Not as many, at least. The cities will still prove a challenge. dhaar@hearstmediact.com But it did not move the speaker on testing. Pelosi said they would need more equipment to test everyone in the Capitol and the results would take days to come back, making them almost useless. They would also need personal protective equipment for those administering the tests that she said should go to health care providers and teachers. Howard, who made the firefighter melodrama Backdraft late last century, knows what he has here. He has too many compelling subjects and struggles and narratives for a 10-part documentary, let alone a tightly edited 95-minute project. But its frequently gripping and finally very moving. The directors innate decency and forthright sense of craft does justice to a painful subject one with unexpected connections to the 2020 pandemic moment. In early trailers for the controversial new TV mini-series The Comey Rule, Brendan Gleeson looks uncannily like the 45th US President, swaggering around in enormous suits, his skin a day-glow orange, his hair whisked into a gravity-defying quiff. He's well-cast as Donald Trump, the same height (6ft 2in), and with a similarly imposing physique. But on the basis of a 10-second trailer, there have already been criticisms of his vocal approach: he delivers lines in a muttering growl, which some have complained is insufficiently Trumpian. Gleeson is a wily and intelligent actor and, before taking on this role, will have wrestled with a difficult question: how do you play perhaps the most impersonated man on the planet? It started with Alec Baldwin's clownish turns on Saturday Night Live, and now everyone has a Trump impression. To get beyond the caricature and embody the man himself, Gleeson would have to ditch the well-worn tics and come up with something new. No doubt he has. The drama, based on former FBI chief James Comey's memoir and due to be screened in September, is unlikely to be flattering: Comey (who's played by Jeff Daniels) was fired by Trump in May, 2017 on foot of the investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential election; his distaste for his former boss is well known. Expand Close Brendan Gleeson transforms into Donald Trump in the first teaser for TV drama The Comey Rule / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Brendan Gleeson transforms into Donald Trump in the first teaser for TV drama The Comey Rule Read More Apparently, one of Gleeson's pre-conditions for playing the role was that he wouldn't have to do any press for it, and as America faces into its dirtiest and most divisive election since the mid-19th century, this seems a wise move. That is not a fight you want to get caught in the middle of. Expand Close Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln Gleeson is not the first Irish actor to play an American president: Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar for his compelling portrayal of Honest Abe in Steven Spielberg's 2012 drama Lincoln. But while Day-Lewis got to play arguably the greatest US President, poor Brendan is saddled with one of the very worst. Also, Lincoln is long dead, unfilmed, giving Day-Lewis the licence to invent: everyone knows what Donald looks and sounds like; Gleeson's room for manoeuvre is slight. Expand Close Brendan Gleeson as Michael Collins in The Treaty (RTE) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Brendan Gleeson as Michael Collins in The Treaty (RTE) It can't have been easy, but his track record playing real people - even unsympathetic ones - is impressive. In 1991, five years before Liam Neeson played Michael Collins in Neil Jordan's big-budget movie, Gleeson played the charismatic rebel in a TV drama called The Treaty, brilliantly conveying Collins' ruthlessness and charm. He was terrifying, but also funny and faintly ridiculous playing Dublin outlaw Martin Cahill in John Boorman's The General (1998), cutting a ludicrous swagger as the criminal who thought he could get away with anything until he made the mistake of selling stolen paintings to the UVF. Expand Close Brendan Gleeson as Martin The General Cahill / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Brendan Gleeson as Martin The General Cahill Video of the Day And in 2009, he seemed an unlikely choice to play that cornerstone of the British ruling class, Winston Churchill. An acclaimed mini-series directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan, Into The Storm was set in 1945, as Winston retreats to the South of France with his wife Clemmie to await the results of the general election. Churchill was the lion of Whitehall, who had stood alone against Hitler and led his country through the Blitz, but he was about to be ejected by the pragmatic British electorate. And as he waits, he looks back. Expand Close Brendan Gleeson in his role as Winston Churchill / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Brendan Gleeson in his role as Winston Churchill Gleeson caught the windiness, the pettiness, the grandeur and the brilliance of a man who was impossible to be around, but resolute in the face of tyranny. Gary Oldman won an Oscar for playing Churchill in The Darkest Hour (2017), but by comparison, his performance was cold, bloodless, technical. Gleeson is a character actor in the purest sense, able to immerse himself in parts that might seem wrong for him, and excel. He will bring something unexpected to the role of Donald J. Trump and no doubt the man himself will find some way of being flattered by it. Maybe Donald will enjoy the fact that The Comey Rule is set in 2017: compared to what's happening in America right now, that must seem like a golden age. West Australian university students may have fallen victim to an email bungle that left at least two years of sexual assault reports to WA Police lost or unaccounted for, with Curtin University's website pointing students to an unmonitored email address up until this week. Loading A spokeswoman for Curtin said the university was contacted by WA Police on Tuesday, and as a result updated their website page directing students to report assaults using the incorrect email address. The development comes as WA Police apologised to the sexual assault victim who raised the email issue in 2018, but was at the time dismissed. WAtoday revealed on Tuesday archived web pages showed victims who attempted to report a sexual crime between at least February 2016 and March 2018 via an email listed on the WA Police website were sending highly sensitive reports to an incorrect address not monitored by police. Copyright 2020 Albuquerque Journal The U.S. Attorneys Office is prosecuting what appears to be its first Operation Legend case in Albuquerque charging a defendant with being a felon in possession of a firearm during an incident last month. Carlos Trevon Morris, 44, was arrested by federal officers on Tuesday. But the incident, a homicide, happened more than a month ago and federal agents have been investigating it for weeks. In response to questions about what makes the case part of Operation Legend, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys Office in New Mexico said the main goal is to get guns out of the hands of convicted felons and others who are prohibited from having them. Last week, on July 22, Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump announced more than 25 federal officers are coming to Albuquerque as part of the operation, which is also being conducted in Kansas City, Missouri, and Chicago. We evaluate cases for Operation Legend on a case-by case basis, Scott Howell, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys Office wrote in an email. We look at a defendants actions and criminal history in making the decision to include the case as part of Operation Legend. This particular case was referred for federal prosecution by the (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), following a referral to ATF by the Albuquerque Police Department homicide unit. Although the alleged crime occurred more than one month ago, this defendant was not facing any state charges at the time of his arrest on these federal charges. Meanwhile, local politicians and activists have continued to express concern about the operation and the impact it could have on the community. Although Department of Justice officials have said Operation Legend will combat violent crime and gun violence, many in the community including Mayor Tim Keller have cautioned that it could be a bait-and-switch and protesters could be targeted like they have been in other cities. West of Downtown Albuquerque Thursday morning, nearly 100 protesters, mostly middle-aged, gathered at Kit Carson Park to speak out against the operation. While crime remains high in the city, it does not appear to have spiked in the past couple of years. APD data provided to the FBI shows property crime decreased and violent crime remained steady increasing 1% between 2018 and 2019. There were a record number of homicides 80 in 2019, but so far there have been fewer this year compared to last year. Suspect or victim? The case that led to Morris being charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm began around 9:20 p.m. June 25, when APD officers were called to an apartment complex on the 1200 block of Ortiz SE for reports of a shooting. According to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of New Mexico, when they arrived they saw a man, later identified as Morris, trying to put a body into the front passenger seat of an older model Honda. Teryn Kurtz, 48, was dead. And Morris had been shot in the wrist. He was handcuffed and when officers patted him down they found a handgun in his pocket, according to the complaint. He was arrested and taken to the hospital. An APD spokesman said the homicide investigation is ongoing. Stephen Taylor, Morriss attorney, pointed out that the homicide happened over a month ago and no state charges like murder have been filed. My client was injured, apparently there was a gunshot injury, Taylor said. Its possible that he was a victim in the case. According to the complaint, Kurtz was partially undressed and a trail of blood led from an apartment to the car. Officers said they found a bottle of bleach next to the car and inside the apartment was more bleach, as well as methamphetamine and marijuana on the coffee table. According to the criminal complaint, on July 16 a homicide detective contacted a special agent with the ATF to tell him Morris is a convicted felon. The special agent, who joined the ATF in September after being with APD for 12 years, went to APDs evidence lab five days later to look at the gun. On July 24, he submitted the criminal complaint charging Morris with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Morris had previously pleaded guilty or no contest to four drug trafficking by distribution cases over the past 23 years as well as aggravated assault on a household member with a deadly weapon in a 2009 case, according to online court records. He was on probation until January, when he received an unsatisfactory discharge. Taylor, Morriss attorney, had not known the case was being prosecuted under Operation Legend until he was told by the Journal. Howell said the designation of the case as part the operation will not change the way agents conduct follow-up investigation. He said bringing additional agents to Albuquerque under the operation should be able to increase federal prosecutions, which he said are an effort to reduce gun and dangerous crimes. This case exemplifies the goals and aims of Operation Legend: to make Albuquerque a safer place to live by reducing gun violence, said John Anderson, the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico, according to a news release. Community speaks out Community members, faith leaders, activists and elected officials continue to speak out against the tactics federal officers have deployed against protesters in other cities, warning that the Operation Legend is politically-motivated and contending that it will negatively impact people of color. At the rally at Kit Carson Park, demonstrators held signs saying No Operation Legend and feds go home. One woman held a sign that said Storm-troopers out, good trouble in, an apparent reference to Sen. Martin Heinrichs statements condemning the operation and tactics used in Portland as well as a reference to Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights leader whose funeral was held in Atlanta Thursday. Jim Harvey, executive director of the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice, also referenced Lewis and said the community will continue to resist and engage in nonviolent protest. Were going to educate our government and let them know were not going to lie down and take this, Harvey said. We dont want them here and we know why theyre here. Theyre here because Trump needs a photo op. Theyre here because this is a Democratic-led city. Theyre here because this city is filled with progressive thinkers. Theyre here because were determined to play our role to see to it that Trump isnt reelected. The Rev. Erica Lea-Simka, with the Albuquerque Mennonite Church, said more than 50 local faith leaders from many traditions have signed a letter and sent it to city councilors speaking out against the militarization of police and federal agencies in the streets. We urge elected officials to use communal funds, especially taxpayer money, for wise investments in education, health care, and other public good, rather than funding intimidating groups wielding weapons, or otherwise accommodating such groups, the letter states. Key witness in Boss case dies THAILAND: One of the two witnesses whose testimony reportedly convinced prosecutors to drop all charges against Red Bull scion Vorayuth Boss Yoovidhya died following a motorcycle crash in Chiang Mai province in the early hours of yesterday (July 30). accidentsdeathpolice By Bangkok Post Friday 31 July 2020, 10:49AM One of the motorcycles involved in a crash in Chiang Mai in which Jaruchart Maadthong, 40, was killed. Photo: from Facebook@KUSOLSONGKHORCHIANGMAIRESCUE. Jaruchart Maadthong, 40, was involved in a motorcycle crash at 1am. He died shortly after at Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital. His body was sent for an autopsy and would be brought to Chiang Rai for funeral rites, according to Thai media reports. His family and relatives said they knew nothing about his involvement in the high-profile case. The Chiang Rai native was one of two new key witnesses added to the case two years ago. The other was a retired officer, Air Marshal Jakkrit Thanomkulabutr. Both testified that the Ferrari was travelling at 50-60 km/hour when the crash occurred. The two witnesses also testified that they saw a policeman on a motorcycle abruptly cut in front of Mr Vorayuths Ferrari, causing him to hit the bike. As a result, the dead policeman was named another suspect in the case alongside Mr Vorayuth. Both were due to meet the House panel on justice and laws on Aug 5. Sira Janejaka, chairman of the panel, urged the police chief to give protection to the air marshal as he was the only remaining key to a trial. Deputy attorney-general Nate Naksook, on behalf of the attorney-general, signed the order not to charge Mr Vorayuth in late June but Thai media did not know about it until CNN broke the news last week. After police wrapped up the case and sent it to prosecutors in 2018, Mr Vorayuths lawyer appealed to a justice committee of the National Legislative Assembly, the lawmaking body appointed by the junta after the 2014 military coup. The lawyer sought justice in the case and told the panel he had more witnesses and evidence. Police later claimed they conducted an additional investigation as ordered by prosecutors. They insisted they probed only the points ordered by the prosecutors. We had no authority to expand the investigation or give more opinions at this stage, a senior police officer told Thai media. He insisted the two witnesses had not been in the case prepared by the Thong Lor police station. Mr Vorayuth was accused of driving his black Ferrari when it hit the rear of a policemans motorcycle at high speed, dragging his body along Sukhumvit Road before speeding away in the early morning of Sept 3, 2012. The victim was Pol Sgt Maj Wichian Klanprasert, 47, who was based at the Thong Lor station. A source familiar with the case said Mr Vorayuths lawyer had met a lawyer representing relatives of the dead policeman and they agreed on compensation payments in an out-of-court settlement. The relatives reportedly decided not to file civil and criminal suits against Mr Vorayuth. Patrick, 64, and Brigitte Fourgeaud, 63 were savaged by a lion during a safari trip in Tanzania, Africa. (SWNS) A couple are suing their tour operator after they were mauled by a lion in their tent on a safari holiday. Patrick, 64, and Brigitte Fourgeaud, 63, were on a trip in Tanzania, Africa when they woke up to find the huge animal in their tent. The lion then mauled Patrick, ripping off part of his upper left arm before it was scared away. Patrick has had to undergo extensive reconstructive surgery on his arm and the pair have both been left psychologically traumatised by the incident, which happened in August 2015. The couple, who are French, are now pursuing legal action against Sussex-based Africa Travel Resource Ltd, who organised the package holiday. While tales of holidaymakers being mauled on safari are not common, there have been other incidents in the past, including a suspected poacher who was reportedly eaten by the pride of lions he was trying to hunt in Tanzania in 2018. The couple are now pursuing legal action against their UK tour operator. (SWNS) Brigitte said: Several years on, it remains incredibly difficult to think about what happened that night and it still distresses us so much. I will never forget that moment when I woke up to see the lion there. I thought we were both going to die. The attack will stay with me for the rest of my life. Read more: Disgraced ex-Tory MP's wife ends 25-year marriage after sexual assault conviction Nothing will change what we have been through, but we both believe that more could have been done to prevent what happened and we both want to ensure that this doesnt happen to other holidaymakers again. The pair claim that a range of health and safety failings led to the attack, including a lack of precautions to make sure animals couldnt get to where they were sleeping. The couple were on a safari trip to Tanzania in August 2015 when the attack happened. (Getty) Leane Shanks, an international serious injury expert from law firm Irwin Mitchell, which is representing the couple, said: Four years on from this horrific attack, Patrick and Brigitte are still trying to come to terms with the ordeal they faced that night. Having always been passionate about seeing animals in the wild, and having been on several safaris in Africa in the past, they had booked this holiday to an area of Africa that they particularly loved. Story continues Tour operators and holiday firms have a duty of care to ensure the safety of customers, and in this case we believe this did not happen. Patrick and Brigitte believe that no-one was keeping a constant watch throughout the night over the camp while they were sleeping in their tents. "In addition, they were given no adequate advice by their guide on the particular risks that night of camping in that location. "This is astonishing when the tents were set up at a location which we understand was known to be frequented by lions and other wild animals at night. A spokesman for Africa Travel Resource said: The company can not comment at this time as the matter is still subject to legal proceedings. RENO, Nevada, July 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Election Integrity Project, Nevada (EIPNv) sent notice on July 24 to Nevada's Secretary of State (SOS) regarding possible failures by the state to comply with federal and state voter list maintenance laws. EIPNv's report, based on its analysis of Nevada's official voter registration file of July 18, 2020, alleges the following violations: There are 41,040 registrants in Nevada with no apparent registration updates or voting activity since November 2, 2010 or prior. 3,331 have not voted in 16 or more years and 22,151 have records indicating they have NEVER voted, yet they remain in "Active" status. Though they have likely moved away or died, all 41,040 will be mailed ballots for November should the state decide to mail ballots to all "Active" registrants . with no apparent registration updates or voting activity since or prior. 3,331 have not voted in 16 or more years and 22,151 have records indicating they have NEVER voted, yet they remain in "Active" status. . There are 1,289 registrants who appear to be registered twice. Of these, 1,226 will each be mailed two ballots under an all-mail election scenario. This includes 849 with two Active registrations each plus 377 with two Inactive Clark County registrations, should the county mail ballots to Inactives as it did in the June primary. EIPNv's report documents five duplicated registrants whose data suggests they each voted twice by mail in June after receiving two ballots each in the mail. This includes 849 with two Active registrations each plus 377 with two Inactive Clark County registrations, should the county mail ballots to Inactives as it did in the June primary. EIPNv's report documents after receiving two ballots each in the mail. There are 74 registrants whose birthdates indicate they are 105+ years old and likely deceased. 40 of the likely deceased are Active status and will be mailed ballots under an all-mail plan. Should Clark County mail ballots to Inactive-status registrants, an additional 14,327 Inactive registrants in the county will be mailed ballots, though they have not updated or voted in a decade or more and are likely eligible for cancellation. "Federal law requires the state to maintain voter lists free of those who have died or relocated and to remove duplicated registrations," said EIPNv representative Sharron Angle. "This is especially critical under all-mail voting. Unless ineligible registrations are removed, thousands of unclaimed ballots could go into circulation and increase the risk of unlawful voting. Mailing two or more ballots each to duplicated registrants allows-- even 'invites' --voters to vote twice". SOURCE Election Integrity Project, Nevada LLC Advertisement Oregon police took over protecting a federal courthouse in Portland that's been a target of violent protests as local authorities try to tamp down demonstrations that have wracked the city every night for more than two months. Having state and local officers step up their presence was part of a deal between the Democratic governor and the Trump administration that aimed to draw down the number of U.S. agents on hand during the unrest. Portland police cleared out a park Thursday morning across from the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse that demonstrators have used as a staging ground but reopened the park shortly before dark. By 10:30pm, hundreds of people had gathered and were listening to speeches in front of the Justice Center, a building that is one block over from the courthouse and houses city and county law enforcement offices. There was no sign of state troopers or local police and the crowd remained peaceful. Later on Thursday evening, more than 1,000 people were still on the streets of downtown Portland, without any federal law enforcement in sight. Police said demonstrators put out fires and told others to stop climbing the fence in front of the federal courthouse. As a result, police said they didn't have any interactions with demonstrators downtown. A demonstrator waves a U.S. flag in front of federal officers after tear gas is deployed during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Thursday night A demonstrator waves a U.S. flags in front of federal agents after tear gas is deployed during a Thursday night's protest Crowd members raise their fists as speakers chant 'Black Lives Matter' outside of the Justice Center in Portland on Thursday Protestors rest along the perimeter barricade outside the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse pictured on Thursday night Federal officers began a phased withdrawal from the city Thursday, prompting the first peaceful night in weeks of violent clashes with protesters Gary Floyd speaks to the crowd gathered outside the courthouse during Thursday's protests in Portland, Oregon Under the deal announced by Gov. Kate Brown, federal agents sent by President Donald Trump were to begin a phased withdrawal, with Oregon State Police taking over outside the building. But federal officials insist agents wouldn't leave the city completely but be on standby in case they're needed. Brown lashed out against Trump: 'I think we've had enough political grandstanding from DC,' Brown tweeted. 'The President's plan to 'dominate' the streets of American cities has failed. 'And today, federal troops are preparing to leave downtown Portland. We will protect free speech and the right to protest peacefully,' she added. 'The massive and non-violent protests led by Black Lives Matter activists have inspired the nation. 'Let's get to work and make this vision a reality.' Trump said in a tweet that U.S. officers would stay in Portland until the violence was under control. 'If she can't do it, the Federal Government will do it for her. We will not be leaving until there is safety!' Trump wrote about Brown, saying that she wasn't doing enough to control the 'anarchists & agitators.' Trump doubled down on the need for federal intervention. 'The governor and the mayor, we've been dealing with them, and we think they don't know what they're doing, because this should not have been going on for 60 days,' he told reporters. 'It's not our job to go in and clean out the cities. That's supposed to be done by local law enforcement,' Trump added. A protester carries police caution tape that had cordoned off the parks across from the courthouse on Thursday Paul Clay Jr., of Portland rests on a protest shield prior to a rally against racial injustice and police brutality in front of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse on Thursday Protesters walk through Lownsdale Square during a rally against racial injustice and police brutality on Thursday A crowd of about a hundred people marched past courthouse on Thursday night in Portland, Oregon Police in Portland cleared parks and nearby roads around the city's center in anticipation of a phased pullout by federal forces who have inflamed anti-racism protests in the city. Dozens of officers encircled Chapman Square Park and Lownsdale Square Park on Thursday, ordering everyone in the vicinity to leave immediately. Some 50 people gathered nearby chanting 'Murderers' and 'Quit your jobs.' Others carried signs that read 'This is not a riot, it's a revolution,' and 'We won't let the police stop us.' 'We want change, we want something to happen,' said Emily, 35, adding that the federal forces' withdrawal will not alter the resolve of protesters. 'They are just replacing the feds with police,' she added. 'I don't expect tonight to be any different.' Police said protesters lit small fires along sidewalks and tried to light them inside the fence at the courthouse, but others in the crowd put them out according to KATU. 'At times people lit small fires along sidewalks on surrounding blocks and attempted to light fires inside the fence at the federal courthouse,' Portland police said in a press release after the protests were over. 'Others in the crowd put the fires out. Some people climbed on or near the fence at the federal courthouse, but others admonished them and they got down. People could be heard in the crowd repeating that the protest was to remain peaceful.' United States Navy veteran Jim Longstreth, second from left, talks to another veteran as they line up alongside protestors outside of the Portland Justice Center and federal courthouse on Thursday Wall of Veterans organizer LeShan Terry asks a fellow veteran if he has a helmet as they form a line outside of the Portland Justice Center and federal courthouse on Thursday A far smaller crowd than previous nights appeared for the nightly Black Lives Matter protest in Downtown Portland Thursday A protestor ties a bunch of balloons to the corner of the fence that has been at the center of many clashes with federal officers over the last few weeks in Downtown Portland A protestor who identified himself as Fabian speaks to a small crowd gathered outside of the federal courthouse in Downtown Portland on Thursday. Fabian called for the abolition of police forces, but welcomed others with differing opinions to speak up The mood was far more peaceful during Thursday night's protests in downtown Portland The Black Lives Matter-inspired vigil wound down early Friday morning. There was virtually no sign of the Oregon State Police officers who had taken over protection of the federal buildings at the center of the protests Portland has been rocked by 64 consecutive days of demonstrations. Protestors are pictured on Thursday evening Alicia Goss, who said she had been to 60 consecutive nights of protests, also said late on Thursday she was skeptical of the deal. 'I don't believe anything anymore,' she said. 'I won't believe it until I see it.' Jaleel Oneman waited for speeches to begin as the crowd grew earlier in the evening and said he didn't expect much difference between the federal agents and state police who would be patrolling the protesters Thursday for the first time. 'Stop hiding behind everything that you're saying. Stop hiding behind your badges, stop hiding behind your lies, stop hiding behind the system that's just been beating us up every day,' he said, referencing law enforcement. 'There ain't no difference to me. No, not at all.' In preparation for the handover, state troopers, the local sheriff and Portland police met and agreed not to use tear gas except in cases where there's a danger of serious injury or death, Mayor Ted Wheeler said. Federal agents sent to the city in early July have used it nightly as protesters lob rocks, fireworks and other objects. The police would work with the city's parks and recreation department, the sheriff's office and outreach workers, Wheeler said in a tweet. 'This is at the request of @ORStatePolice as part of the plan for federal officers to leave our community.' Wheeler, who himself was gassed when he joined protesters outside the courthouse last week, added that tear gas 'as a tactic really isn't all that effective' because protesters have donned gas masks and often return to the action after recovering for a few minutes. The Democrat also apologized to peaceful demonstrators exposed to tear gas used by Portland police before federal officials arrived. Calm returned to Portland on Thursday night, as Black Lives Matter demonstrators staged a peaceful vigil downtown, with virtually no sign of law enforcement officers Lownsdale Park is quiet during the nightly Black Lives Matter protest in Downtown Portland on Thursday. The park was cleared of an encampment earlier in the day by police forces as federal agents announced a phasing out of their presence in the city The Wall of Veterans form a line around protestors outside of the Portland Justice Center and federal courthouse on Thursday Protesters noted that without a notable police presence, the crowd had a different atmosphere Demonstrations have at times attracted up to 10,000 people for peaceful marches and rallies around the city. But some violence has been increasingly directed at the courthouse and other federal property The imposing figures of federal officers were notably absent for the first time in weeks during the 64th night of protests in downtown Portland on Thursday An enormous crowd gathered to listen to speakers and chant anti-law enforcement slogans. The mood was celebratory, if subdued A pigs head burns during a protest against racial injustice and police brutality during Thursday night's protests Federal officers were expected to begin leaving the city on Thursday which made the evening's protest far calmer in nature Police Chief Chuck Lovell said he believes the new collaboration between local law enforcement agencies will be seen 'as a victory in many ways.' 'A lot of people came out to express their displeasure of folks from the federal government here and engaging in crowd control with members of our community,' Lovell said. 'So Im hoping that on many levels that people are happy in this development.' Lovell said he is 'very happy and very hopeful' with the collaboration between city and state police and Multnomah County Sheriffs Department. 'We have trained and worked with Oregon State Police and crowd control events extensively, throughout the years,' Lovell said. Jonathan Luczycki paints a scene of speakers outside of the Justice Center in Portland on Thursday People look at a memorial to honor 216 Black people who have been killed by racial violence on Thursday The memorial appeared on Portland's waterfront earlier this week, in the spot where the Wall of Moms and other protest groups have been assembling before walking to the Justice Center The memorial displays pictures and names of men and women who have lost their lives at the hands of the police in the U.S. A demonstrator raises his arms in front of federal officers during a BLM protest at Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse Wednesday A demonstrator kneels and uses a makeshift shield as federal agents launch tear gas during a BLM protest on Wednesday Portland has seen demonstrations since George Floyd died in May after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into the black man's neck for nearly eight minutes. Demonstrations have at times attracted up to 10,000 people for peaceful marches and rallies around the city. But some protesters have turned to violence that's been increasingly directed at the courthouse and other federal property. The Trump administration sent federal agents to guard the courthouse earlier this month and quell the unrest but the deployment had the opposite effect, reinvigorating protesters who found a new rallying point in opposing the federal presence. Many of the federal tactical teams wore combat-like gear, but their deployment inflamed the situation, especially following footage of protesters being snatched off the street by federal agents and put into unmarked cars. The U.S. government had arrested 94 people as of Wednesday. During the past two months of protests, Lovell said the city police department has made more than 400 arrests and undertaken many different strategies in an attempt to deescalate the situation. 'Its been a long two months,' he said. Federal agents arrest a demonstrator during a BLM protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Wednesday A demonstrator tries to shield himself from tear gas deployed by federal agents during a BLM protest on Wednesday A demonstrator is pepper sprayed shortly before being arrested during a Black Lives Matter protest on Wednesday night Tyshawn Ford, a leader of Black Unity, is dragged away by Springfield, Oregon Police on Wednesday at a barricade erected by police during a protest by the racial justice group in the town. Ford was charged with disorderly conduct, interfering with police, and resisting arrest Rating Action: Moody's affirms five and downgrades five classes of GSMS 2012-GCJ7 Global Credit Research - 30 Jul 2020 Approximately $959.4 million of structured securities affected New York, July 30, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service, ("Moody's") has affirmed the ratings on five classes and downgraded the ratings on five classes in GS Mortgage Securities Trust 2012-GCJ7, Commercial Pass-Through Certificates, Series 2012-GCJ7 as follows: Cl. A-4, Affirmed Aaa (sf); previously on Jul 16, 2019 Affirmed Aaa (sf) Cl. A-AB, Affirmed Aaa (sf); previously on Jul 16, 2019 Affirmed Aaa (sf) Cl. A-S, Affirmed Aaa (sf); previously on Jul 16, 2019 Affirmed Aaa (sf) Cl. B, Affirmed Aa3 (sf); previously on Jul 16, 2019 Affirmed Aa3 (sf) Cl. C, Downgraded to Baa1 (sf); previously on Jul 16, 2019 Affirmed A3 (sf) Cl. D, Downgraded to B1 (sf); previously on Apr 17, 2020 Ba1 (sf) Placed Under Review for Possible Downgrade Cl. E, Downgraded to Caa2 (sf); previously on Apr 17, 2020 B2 (sf) Placed Under Review for Possible Downgrade Cl. F, Downgraded to C (sf); previously on Apr 17, 2020 Caa3 (sf) Placed Under Review for Possible Downgrade Cl. X-A*, Affirmed Aaa (sf); previously on Jul 16, 2019 Affirmed Aaa (sf) Cl. X-B*, Downgraded to Caa1 (sf); previously on Apr 17, 2020 B2 (sf) Placed Under Review for Possible Downgrade * Reflects interest-only classes RATINGS RATIONALE The ratings on four of the P&I classes were affirmed due to the pool's share of defeasance and the transaction's key metrics, including Moody's loan-to-value (LTV) ratio, Moody's stressed debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) and the transaction's Herfindahl Index (Herf), being within acceptable ranges. The ratings on four P&I classes were downgraded due to higher realized and anticipated losses from specially serviced and troubled loans. The rating on one IO class, Cl. X-A, was affirmed based on the credit quality of the referenced classes. Story continues The rating on one IO Class, Cl. X-B, was downgraded due to a decline in the credit quality of its referenced classes. Cl. X-B references all P&I classes including Class G, which is not rated by Moody's. The actions conclude the review for downgrade initiated on April 17, 2020. The rapid spread of the coronavirus outbreak, the government measures put in place to contain it and the deteriorating global economic outlook, have created a severe and extensive credit shock across sectors, regions and markets. Our analysis has considered the effect on the performance of commercial real estate from the collapse in US economic activity in the second quarter and a gradual recovery in the second half of the year. However, that outcome depends on whether governments can reopen their economies while also safeguarding public health and avoiding a further surge in infections. As a result, the degree of uncertainty around our forecasts is unusually high. We regard the coronavirus outbreak as a social risk under our ESG framework, given the substantial implications for public health and safety. Stress on commercial real estate properties will be most directly stemming from declines in hotel occupancies (particularly related to conference or other group attendance) and declines in foot traffic and sales for non-essential items at retail properties. Moody's rating action reflects a base expected loss of 7.0% of the current pooled balance, compared to 6.4% at Moody's last review. Moody's base expected loss plus realized losses is now 6.5% of the original pooled balance, compared to 4.7% at the last review. Moody's provides a current list of base expected losses for conduit and fusion CMBS transactions on moodys.com at http://www.moodys.com/viewresearchdoc.aspx?docid=PBS_SF215255. FACTORS THAT WOULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS: The performance expectations for a given variable indicate Moody's forward-looking view of the likely range of performance over the medium term. Performance that falls outside the given range can indicate that the collateral's credit quality is stronger or weaker than Moody's had previously expected. Factors that could lead to an upgrade of the ratings include a significant amount of loan paydowns or amortization, an increase in the pool's share of defeasance or an improvement in pool performance. Factors that could lead to a downgrade of the ratings include a decline in the performance of the pool, loan concentration, an increase in realized and expected losses from specially serviced and troubled loans or interest shortfalls. METHODOLOGY UNDERLYING THE RATING ACTION The methodologies used in rating all classes except interest-only classes were "Approach to Rating US and Canadian Conduit/Fusion CMBS" published in May 2020 and available at https://www.moodys.com/research/Approach-to-Rating-US-and-Canadian-ConduitFusion-CMBS--PBS_1226187 and "Moody's Approach to Rating Large Loan and Single Asset/Single Borrower CMBS" published in May 2020 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBS_1227875. The methodologies used in rating interest-only classes were "Approach to Rating US and Canadian Conduit/Fusion CMBS" published in May 2020 and available at https://www.moodys.com/research/Approach-to-Rating-US-and-Canadian-ConduitFusion-CMBS--PBS_1226187, "Moody's Approach to Rating Large Loan and Single Asset/Single Borrower CMBS" published in May 2020 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBS_1227875, and "Moody's Approach to Rating Structured Finance Interest-Only (IO) Securities" published in February 2019 and available at https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-Approach-to-Rating-Structured-Finance-Interest-Only-IO-Securities--PBS_1111179. Please see the list of ratings at the top of this announcement to identify which classes are interest-only (indicated by the *). Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of these methodologies. DEAL PERFORMANCE As of the July 10, 2020 distribution date, the transaction's aggregate certificate balance has decreased by 40% to $971.6 million from $1.6 billion at securitization. The certificates are collateralized by 58 mortgage loans ranging in size from less than 1% to 12% of the pool, with the top ten loans (excluding defeasance) constituting 61% of the pool. Nineteen loans, constituting 16.9% of the pool, have defeased and are secured by US government securities. Moody's uses a variation of Herf to measure the diversity of loan sizes, where a higher number represents greater diversity. Loan concentration has an important bearing on potential rating volatility, including the risk of multiple notch downgrades under adverse circumstances. The credit neutral Herf score is 40. The pool has a Herf of 15, compared to 19 at Moody's last review. As of the July 2020 remittance report, loans representing 93% were current or within their grace period on their debt service payments, 1% were beyond their grace period but less than 30 days delinquent, 4% were 60 days delinquent and 1% were 90+ days delinquent. Nine loans, constituting 10% of the pool, are on the master servicer's watchlist, of which four loans, representing 2% of the pool, indicate the borrower has requested relief in relation to coronavirus impact on the property. The watchlist includes loans that meet certain portfolio review guidelines established as part of the CRE Finance Council (CREFC) monthly reporting package. As part of Moody's ongoing monitoring of a transaction, the agency reviews the watchlist to assess which loans have material issues that could affect performance. Three loans have been liquidated from the pool, resulting in an aggregate realized loss of $36.5 million (for an average loss severity of 52.6%). Five loans, constituting 5.5% of the pool, are currently in special servicing. The largest specially serviced loan is the Shoppes on Main loan ($32.3 million -- 3.3% of the pool), which is secured by the leasehold interest of a retail property in White Plains, NY. The ground lease for the property expires in July 2051. Additionally, the property is encumbered by $9.0 million of mezzanine debt. At securitization, the property was leased to Walmart (68% of net rentable area (NRA)) and Burlington Coat Factory (31% of NRA) with leases expiring in July 2021 and January 2019, respectively. In August 2018, Walmart vacated the property prior to lease expiration, but continues to pay rent through lease expiration. Burlington Coat Factory vacated in January 2019 and the property has remained fully vacant since. The borrower failed to make the debt service payment for January 2020 and had accrued substantial operating payables, including a ground lease payment and utility expenses. The loan transferred to special servicing in January 2020 due to imminent monetary default and is currently in foreclosure. A default letter was issued in February 2020 and the special servicer is currently evaluating alternatives. The second largest specially serviced loan is the Anchorage Hotel Portfolio loan ($11.7 million -- 1.2% of the pool), which is secured by three cross-collateralized and cross-defaulted limited service hotels comprised of a 65-room Motel 6, a 100-room Comfort Inn and a 79-room Microtel Inn totaling 100-rooms. The hotels are all located in Anchorage, AK. The properties were built between 1997 and 2004 and two of the hotels, the Motel 6 and the Comfort Inn, are subject to ground leases expiring in 2039 (35-year extension option) and 2067, respectively. Property performance has declined since securitization. The loan transferred to special servicing in June 2020 for payment default in relation to the coronavirus outbreak and is 60 days delinquent. The third largest specially serviced loan is the State Street Market loan ($9.0 million -- 0.9% of the pool), which is secured by a 193,657 square foot (SF) anchored neighborhood retail center located in Rockford, IL. The property was built in 1996 and is anchored by Burlington Coat Factory (37.5% of NRA), Dicks Sporting Goods (31% of NRA) and PetSmart (14% of NRA). The loan transferred to special servicing in June 2020 for imminent monetary default in relation to the coronavirus outbreak and is 90+ days delinquent. Moody's has also assumed a high default probability for one poorly performing loan, constituting 1.1% of the pool, and has estimated an aggregate loss of $34.2 million (a 63% expected loss on average) from the specially serviced and troubled loans. As of the July 10, 2020 remittance statement cumulative interest shortfalls were $3.4 million. Moody's anticipates interest shortfalls will continue because of the exposure to specially serviced loans and/or modified loans. Interest shortfalls are caused by special servicing fees, including workout and liquidation fees, appraisal entitlement reductions (ASERs), loan modifications and extraordinary trust expenses. Moody's received full year 2018 operating results for 97% of the pool, and full or partial year 2019 operating results for 96% of the pool (excluding specially serviced and defeased loans). Moody's weighted average conduit LTV is 88%, compared to 84% at Moody's last review. Moody's conduit component excludes loans with structured credit assessments, defeased and CTL loans, and specially serviced and troubled loans. Moody's net cash flow (NCF) reflects a weighted average haircut of 22% to the most recently available net operating income (NOI). Moody's value reflects a weighted average capitalization rate of 9.9%. Moody's actual and stressed conduit DSCRs are 1.56X and 1.35X, respectively, compared to 1.58X and 1.36X at the last review. Moody's actual DSCR is based on Moody's NCF and the loan's actual debt service. Moody's stressed DSCR is based on Moody's NCF and a 9.25% stress rate the agency applied to the loan balance. The top three conduit loans represent 28% of the pool balance. The largest loan is the 1155 F Street Loan ($116.6 million -- 12% of the pool), which is secured by a Class A office property located in downtown Washington, DC. The property is also encumbered with $19.9 million in mezzanine debt. As of March 2020, the property was 88% leased, the same as year-end 2019, compared to 100% leased in 2018. Property performance has deteriorated and the reported 2019 has declined 15% since 2018, primarily due to a decline in revenue as the second largest tenant, Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP, vacated the property at lease expiration in April 2019. The loan has amortized over 10% since securitization. Moody's LTV and stressed DSCR are 102% and 1.01X, respectively, compared to 91% and 1.07X at the last review. The second largest loan is the Bellis Fair Mall Loan ($80.1 million -- 8.2% of the pool), which is secured by a 538,000 SF component of a regional mall located in Bellingham, Washington. The mall anchors are Macy's, Target, Kohl's, JC Penney and Dick's Sporting Goods. Macy's is the only anchor whose space is included in the loan collateral and recently extended their lease term for an additional 10 years in January 2019. The Dick's Sporting Goods lease commenced in 2017 and it occupies a portion of a former vacant anchor space along with Ashley Homestore which opened in late 2018. As of December 2019, the inline space was 79% leased, compared to 77% as of December 2018. The entire mall was 92% leased as of December 2019, compared to 90% as of December 2018. Property performance has deteriorated and the reported 2019 NOI has declined 24% since 2015. In-line sales were up slightly as of March 2020 at $392 PSF compared to $383 PSF in December 2019 and $379 PSF as of December 2018. The loan has amortized nearly 14% since securitization and has an actual NOI DSCR of 1.30X. The loan matures in February 2022. Moody's LTV and stressed DSCR are 120% and 0.97X, respectively, compared to 118% and 0.96X at the last review. The third largest loan is the Columbia Business Center Loan ($76.4 million -- 7.9% of the pool), which is secured by the fee and leasehold interests in an industrial park consisting of 26 buildings and totaling 4.7 million SF. The property is located along the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington. Approximately 9% of the NRA is allocated to office use with the remainder used for warehouse and manufacturing purposes. The property was 98% leased as of March 2020, compared to 99% in December 2019 and 92% at securitization. The loan has amortized approximately 23% since securitization and Moody's LTV and stressed DSCR are 81% and 1.55X, respectively, compared to 85% and 1.47X at the last review. 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. The analysis includes an assessment of collateral characteristics and performance to determine the expected collateral loss or a range of expected collateral losses or cash flows to the rated instruments. As a second step, Moody's estimates expected collateral losses or cash flows using a quantitative tool that takes into account credit enhancement, loss allocation and other structural features, to derive the expected loss for each rated instrument. Moody's did not use any stress scenario simulations in its analysis. 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. Yoni Lobell Associate Lead Analyst Structured Finance Group Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A. 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Much about the coronavirus is putting us in unprecedented political territory, but one thing is becoming evident: Keeping the coronavirus in check, even via strict measures, is so far a political winner. A look at recent polling of nine governors -- five Republicans and four Democrats from states that are polled frequently because they will likely be determinative in the 2020 election -- shows that the governors who instituted face mask requirements, urged social distancing and reopened more slowly than other states have seen a jump in their approval ratings. By contrast, the governors who eschewed public health experts' advice and reopened quickly - as President Donald Trump urged - have seen their approval ratings drop, by double digits in some cases. The polling underscores a pretty simple reality: Most voters want the coronavirus under control above all else. They seem to be willing to be told to wear masks in the summer heat, to avoid large crowds and to avoid going to school or work. In fact, voters have rewarded those politicians who have limited their movement. Polls show that most Americans are still scared they or a family member will get sick. Democratic governors Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Tom Wolf in Pennsylvania and Tony Evers in Wisconsin - all states that will play a role in the 2020 presidential election - have approval ratings in the high 50s to mid 60s this summer, all after taking restrictions that went beyond many of their Republican counterparts to control coronavirus. Before the pandemic, less than half of people in Michigan, 42 percent, approved of the job Whitmer was doing. That jumped to 60 percent this March. And she gets positive marks any way you ask the question on how she's handling the virus. In a separate CNN/SSRS poll, 69 percent of voters said she was "doing everything she could to fight the outbreak." Cooper in North Carolina is up for reelection in what was supposed to be one of Democrats' toughest fights in 2020 for governors' mansions. But according to a recent NBC/Marist poll, he now leads his opponent, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, R, by 20 points among registered voters. Cooper refused Trump's demands to lift coronavirus restrictions so the president could hold the Republican National Convention there. Instead, the governor has tightened restrictions as the summer has gone on, issuing a statewide mask mandate and recently hitting pause on the state's reopening. The same NBC/Marist poll found 58 percent of North Carolinians approving of Cooper and 34 percent disapproving. The governor with one of the highest approval ratings is DeWine, in Ohio. Three-quarters (75 percent) approved of the Republican governor in a Quinnipiac poll this June, up from 44 percent from a year ago. DeWine's approval rating is an all-time high for Ohio governors in Quinnipiac polls dating back to 2007. He was one of the first of any governors to issue a stay-at-home order and to try early on to get people to wear masks. Though there were protests in his state, voters have rewarded DeWine with a 31-point jump in his approval ratings from last year. He's now one of the most popular governors in America. While many states do not have reliable polling and therefore do not have gubernatorial approval ratings, one of the lower numbers from those states that have been polled came from Florida. A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed 38 percent of people in the state approved of the job Gov. Ron DeSantis, R, is doing, while 57 percent disapproved - the inverse of some of the higher performers we noted. DeSantis's approval rating dropped 12 points from 50 percent in April. And there's plenty of evidence that his problems are tied to coronavirus. After Florida's coronavirus cases stayed relatively low this spring, DeSantis opened up the economy aggressively, pushing aside top scientists in the state in favor of making decisions that tracked with Trump's wishes. Now Florida is the nation's epicenter of coronavirus, recently reporting more total cases than New York. And a CNN/SRRS poll found 63 percent in the state thought DeSantis "could be doing more to fight the outbreak." Other governors presiding over hot zones aren't doing well, either. A July CNN/SRRS poll found that 66 percent of people in Arizona thought Gov. Doug Ducey, R, could be doing more to fight the coronavirus. Before the virus really hit the state hard, an OH Predictive Insights poll had his approval rating at 59 percent in June. By mid July, just 35 percent approved of the job he was doing. In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp, R, has been one of the most vocal governors to support reopening and oppose mandating masks. As he urges people to wear them of their own accord, he actually sued Atlanta and its Democratic mayor to stop them from instituting a local mask mandate. A Monmouth University poll out Wednesday found that voters in Georgia largely disagreed with his position: 79 percent wanted masks mandated in indoor spaces, and 63 percent wanted localities to be able to choose their own mask policy. That same poll has Kemp with a 54 percent approval rating on handling the coronavirus, down just a few points from before the pandemic. His disapproval rating jumped up 14 points in that Monmouth poll compared to one by the Atlanta-Journal Constitution in January. Finally, in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, R, issued a mask mandate as coronavirus cases rose precipitously in his state this summer; a July Quinnipiac University poll found that 80 percent of Texas voters agreed with that. That's an unequivocal endorsement of mask requirements in a state that prides itself on individual liberty. Despite that, Abbott's approval ratings lag. Quinnipiac found voters split on how he's handling the coronavirus outbreak: 47 approved, 48 percent disapproved. That's a 21-point swing from June. Trump would do well to watch these numbers. His advisers have repeatedly pressed him to focus his energy on fighting the virus, but his response has been anything but steady. With few exceptions, he's favored optimistic projections over talking realistically about the spread, and conspiracy theories over the advice of health officials. In a lot of these states, Trump's approval has dropped too, making once-Republican presidential strongholds like Georgia and maybe even Texas more competitive. Dear Editor: Just one more reminder of how inadequate our system is: The New York Times July 24 article: FEMA Sends Faulty Protective Gear to Nursing Homes Battling Virus. This article would be high comedy if it appeared in a publication like The Onion. But the lunacy of our broken society eliminates any possibility of satire. With just 4% of the population, the worlds richest country now accounts for 23% of the worlds COVID-19 deaths. Nonexistent planning, cronyism, attacks on public health scientists, and pure ignorance at the top has made us No. 1 in the killing of our own citizens. Neoliberalism isnt just a Trump problem. The concept of a minimalist government has been with us since the Reagan era. The idea of there even being a public good seems incomprehensible to our governmental leaders, awash in corporate money and toasted by their armies of corporate lobbyists. We cant have things that every other developed country has implemented long ago like a public health system, and free college education, day care and nursing home care. The big lobby groups like the weapons makers, pharmaceutical giants, oil companies and insurance firms are so good at sucking up our money that there is simply nothing left. And the people who own these behemoth businesses are riding a wave of wealth that is simply beyond our comprehension. There is another wave, and this one is in the streets. We demand an end to racism, exploitation and the rule of the very rich with their blue-coated minions. Fred Nagel Rhinebeck, N.Y. Syracuse, NY -- The founder of an ill-fated Syracuse startup has been indicted on charges that he failed to pay income taxes on more than $850,000 in revenue that investors say he stole from the company. Glen Zinszer, 50, of Liverpool, is accused of pocketing $852,184 from the startup, Brazzlebox, from 2014 to 2016. The Franklin Square company had created a Facebook-like social media platform for businesses. He used the money to pay for his lifestyle and that of an ex-stripper, with whom he had a relationship, according to Syracuse.coms previous reporting. Feds say the money -- some of which was supposed to be paid in taxes -- went to mortgages on personal properties, stays at hotels and spas, as well as cash for personal use. Hes paid every single thing,' the former exotic dancer told Syracuse.com in 2016. My housing expenses, my vehicle, all my clothes, to get my hair and nails done. RELATED: Investors: CEO of Facebook copycat Brazzlebox stole $1 million for himself, ex-stripper Zinszer convinced investors to fork over large sums of money by making outlandish promises, including creating a company worth $100 million in its first year and internet traffic growth faster than Facebook, according to a previous lawsuit. He was later removed as president by the companys board, and sued by investors and a vendor. That lawsuit, from 2017, fizzled out. But lawyers estimated that Zinszer stole $990,000 from company coffers during his tenure. Thats not far off from what federal authorities say Zinszer took. Of course, the Internal Revenue Service isnt interested in internal corporate disputes. Instead, theyre going after Zinszer by accusing him of not paying taxes on the income he pocketed from Brazzlebox. The feds charged Zinszer with failing to report income of $207,532 in 2014, $372,574 in 2015 and $295,807 in 2016. Brazzlebox closed its offices in 2016 and is no longer in business. But Zinszer was arrested twice on domestic violence related charges, once involving his mistress in 2016 and again involving another woman in December 2017. The outcome of those cases was not immediately available. Now, Zinszer faces three federal tax evasion charges, punishable by up to three years in prison, per charge. He remains free pending trial. Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at ddowty@syracuse.com or 315-470-6070. Quarterly Activities Report Perth, July 31, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Hastings Technology Metals Ltd ( ASX:HAS ) ( FRA:5AM ) announce the Quarterly Activities Report for the period ending June 2020.Significant highlights for the period include:- Hasting's signs long term binding Master Agreement with German Automotive Tier 1 supplier, Schaeffler technologies AG- Hasting's obligation is to supply a substantial volume of MREC over an initial period of 10 years- Schaeffler continues its support for German government's untied loan guarantee (UFK) scheme for Hasting's debt financing- Hasting's to pursue a decoupled processing strategy and relocate Yangibana's Hydrometallurgical plant to the Pilbara region of Western Australia- Total Yangibana Project CAPEX revised to A$449m from A$517m resulting in 13% or $68M reduction in CAPEX based on Hydrometallurgical Plant relocation to the Pilbara:o Removal of gas pipeline and resizing of the powerstation eliminates $79mo Revised site access road re-alignments eliminate $10m- Hasting's commences major drilling program at Yangibana- The Western Australian Government Department of Water and Environmental Regulation has granted a works permit to construct the process plant at the Yangibana Rare Earths Project.To view the quarterly report, please visit:About Hastings Technology Metals Ltd Hastings Technology Metals Ltd (ASX:HAS) (FRA:5AM) is advancing its Yangibana Rare Earths Project in the Upper Gascoyne Region of Western Australia towards production. The proposed beneficiation and hydro metallurgy processing plant will treat rare earths deposits, predominantly monazite, hosting high neodymium and praseodymium contents to produce a mixed rare earths carbonate that will be further refined into individual rare earth oxides at processing plants overseas. Neodymium and praseodymium are vital components in the manufacture of permanent magnets which is used in a wide and expanding range of advanced and high-tech products including electric vehicles, wind turbines, robotics, medical applications and others. Hastings aims to become the next significant producer of neodymium and praseodymium outside of China. Hastings holds 100% interest in the most significant deposits within the overall project, and 70% interest in additional deposits that will be developed at a later date, all held under Mining Leases. Numerous prospects have been identified warranting detailed exploration to further extend the life of the project. Brockman Project The Brockman deposit, near Halls Creek in Western Australia, contains JORC Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources, estimated using the guidelines of JORC Code (2012 Edition). The Company is also progressing a Mining Lease application over the Brockman Rare Earths and Rare Metals Project. Hastings aims to capitalise on the strong demand for critical rare earths created by the expanding demand for new technology products. Pushkar Banakar By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Chinese ambassador to India Sun Weidong on Thursday said that Beijing was committed to peace and was not a strategic threat to India. To move China-India relations forward, I believe that we need to straighten our views on several key issues. First, China is committed to peaceful development, and is not a strategic threat to India, Sun said at a webinar on India-China relations. The Chinese envoy said that it was short-sighted and harmful to deny long history of peace co-existence between China and India and portray a friendly neighbour for thousands of years as an opponent and strategic threat due to temporary differences and difficulties. Our economic and trade exchanges should be positive cycle of mutual accomplishment. It should not become a knockout nor a zero-sum game deliberately suppressing others. We should recognize mutually beneficial and win-win nature and jointly create open, fair, just business environment, Sun said in what could be perceived as a reaction to Indias ban on Chinese apps following the June 15 violent face-off in Galwan Valley along the LAC. Sun said while Beijing upholds its sovereignty, it will never engage in aggression or expansion. China has firmly safeguarded its national sovereignty, security and development interests. We have never been aggressive and pursued our own development at the expense of other countries, he said. Weidong said, At this critical moment, we should handle relations cautiously, calmly and rationally, conform to international trend, always look forward and move forward, resolutely avoid the whirlpool of suspicion and confrontation. Experts say bilateral ties are important and fights cannot be afforded but words must be translated into actions. Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > Pandemic 2020: Toxic Leaders, Selfish Nations And An Orphaned World ! | RK (...) by R.K.MISRA July 25, 2020 Never have so many suffered so much for the sins of so few. As the puny and the petty head nations, a leaderless world hovers on the brink desperately clutching at miracle cures and searching for economic succour . Neither seem at hand. The pandemic crisis is best summed up by free reference website, Worldometers which monitors COVID-19 round the clock. As of July 25, 2020, the outbreak of the coronavirus has been confirmed in around 210 countries or territories. The virus has infected 16,048,238 people worldwide and the number of deaths have totaled 644,679 with 9,808,404 having recovered . The disturbing aspect, says Ian Simple writing in the Irish Times, is that people who have recovered may lose their immunity to the disease within months, with research suggesting the virus could re-infect people year after year like common colds. India, as of July 25, with 1,382,995 cases, 467,124 active infections, 883,793 recoveries and 32,078 deaths is now placed third in the world in terms of number of cases, after the United States and Brazil. In terms of total deaths, India has risen to sixth spot, after the US, Brazil, the UK, Mexico and Italy. This day also saw 45,973 fresh cases and 681 deaths in a single day-coming down below 700 for the first time after a week. Having overtaken the US, India is now locked with Brazil for the dubious distinction of highest deaths worldwide within the last 24 hours. Even when it comes to tests performed per million population, India is a laggard at 140th position with 11,478 tests, behind even countries like Kazakhstan, Costa Rica, Croatia, even Nepal but can take solace that it is ahead of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka . The COVID-19 pandemic is best described as a global human crisis devastating the world. Edith M. Lederer of the AP summed it up when she pointed out that in the last great crisis of 2008 when financial markets collapsed, major powers worked together to restore the global economy. It gave birth to the leaders summit of the Group of 20, the worlds richest countries responsible for 80 per cent of the global economy. The 2020 pandemic throws up a scenario which is striking for the opposite- no leader, no united action to stop the spread. In fact when UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proposed ahead of their summit in late March that G-20 leaders work to a global response plan, there was no response. On April 6, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and 164 other current and former presidents, prime ministers and numerous global figures including scientists urged urgent coordinated action to address the deepening global health and economic crisis but in vain. Director-General of the World Health Organisation(WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is on record stating that the lack of global leadership and unity to fight the coronavirus is a bigger threat than the outbreak itself and that the politicization of the pandemic has made it worse. Said an apparently frustrated Guterres each country for itself will only lead to further fractures, greater spread of the virus and its recurring return. In June Guterres had voiced his dismay at the gridlock in a time of global crisis We see the very dysfunctional relationship that exists today between the United States-China, United States-Russia makes it practically impossible for the Security Council to take any meaningful decision that would be fundamental to fight COVID-19 effectively, he told non-profit media organization, NPR. The Security Council struggled for months before it finally passed a unanimous resolution, the first one, on July 1, 2020 that demanded immediate cessation of hostilities in conflict zones around the world. It called for all parties to armed conflicts to engage immediately in a durable human pause for at least 90 consecutive days to allow for delivery of humanitarian assistance and medical evacuations. It pertains to conflicts including those in Syria, Yemen, Libya, South Sudan and Congo but does not apply to military operations against ISIS and Al-Qaida. The US and China squabbled over reference to the World Health Organisation, which is an agency of the UN. In April President Trump suspended US funding of the WHO and has announced that the US would withdraw its membership effective July 6, 2021. The State Department pushed for any references to the organization to be removed from the ceasefire resolution. The US wanted the resolution instead to speak of transparency. China, meanwhile, wanted to specifically mention the WHO. The final resolution made no reference to either. Pointing to the global inequalities as exposed by the anti-racism protests and the proliferating coronavirus former socialist prime minister of Portugal and present Secretary-General of the UN, Guterras warned we are at breaking point. Delivering the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture on July 18 , he said that the 26 richest people in the world hold as much wealth as half the global population and there are numerous other inequalities alongside pertaining to race, gender, class and place of birth. While we are all floating on the same sea, its clear that some are in superyachts while others are clinging to floating debris, he said stating that COVID-19 was like an X-ray which had revealed the fractures in society as rich countries have failed to deliver the support needed to help the developing world bringing home the tragic disconnect between self-interest and the common interest. The coronavirus has infected more than 15 million people and there have been 644,000 known deaths worldwide, according to a Reuters tally with the figures still mounting by the hour. The UN has appealed for help from the global fraternity of nations but the response remains far short of expectations. Toxic leaders make for poisoned nations and selfish nations make for an orphaned world! (Courtesy: Wordsmiths and Newsplumbers - L.K. Mishras Blog) Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > Lenin 150: Revisiting Lenins Understanding of Democracy in post-revolutionary I The literature on Lenin spanning the Cold War as well as the post-Cold War era has been broadly characterized by two rather opposite viewpoints: deification or demonization of this iconic figure of the twentieth century. The exponents of deification, most of whom are official ideologues of mainstream communist and workers parties, highlight Lenins two seminal contributions to Marxism: i) the theory of the party and strategy of socialist revolution; ii) the theory of imperialism. While the theory of imperialism is viewed in the context of Marxian political economy, the theory of the party and revolution essentially focuses on how he espoused the cause of a centralized and disciplined party, which would be instrumental in the making of the socialist revolution. Historically speaking, this moment was constituted by the victory of the November Revolution under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. Those who have contributed to the demonization of Lenin, predominantly the Cold War historians of the West, harp on precisely the image of Lenin as the theorist of a centralized party, which, they argue, laid the foundation of one-party dictatorship in post-revolutionary Russia. Interestingly, notwithstanding the sharp dividing line that distinguishes the first from the second position, what brings them together is that the standard mainstream interpreters of Lenin somehow underplay the issue of democracy in Lenins thinking except simply referring to his call for giving all power to the Soviets. This in a way lends credence to those who accuse Lenin of authoritarianism, his alleged dictatorial ambitions and love for power. The objective of this presentation is to underscore the point that, while in the pre-revolutionary years Lenin was primarily engaged in theorizing the party, its central text being What is to be Done ? (1902), in the post-revolutionary era his major concern was the building of socialism by energizing the masses, The State and Revolution (1917) being the intervening text. This, however, does not suggest that his agenda of building socialism implied a negation of the role of the Party. What has remained unattended in the standard discussions on Lenin is how he reimagined the role of the Party in the context of building socialism which called for the assertion of the democratic power of the masses. To be more precise, the central theoretical question that Lenin had to address in the post-revolutionary period was how to bring the masses to the forefront in his project of building socialism and rework the concept of the Party accordingly. While the vanguardist notion of the Party was a contributory factor for the victory of the socialist revolution, did it come in conflict with the notion of the masses in post-revolutionary conditions? In other words, did the imperative of building socialism lead to the problem of incompatibility between the Party and the masses, between vanguardism and democracy? II If one carefully goes through Lenins writings on the period between the months preceding and following the November Revolution, two interrelated issues engage our attention. One refers to his focus on centralization, which was associated with his concept of leading the revolution under the guidance of a centralized Party. The other was his project of building socialism in the post-revolutionary phase under conditions over which the Bolsheviks had very little control. This ranged from backwardness to the counterrevolutionary offensive of the White guards as well as intervention of Western imperialist powers. In this highly complex situation, the task of building socialism had to be initiated in conditions of rigid and stringent political control of the Bolshevik Party. Workers democracy as well as Soviet power, that is, the kernel of socialism, the theoretical expression of which was Lenins State and Revolution, was thus given a temporary burial under the slogan of War Communism (1918-20). In this period marked by terror and violence, there was hardly any space left for democracy and freedom. In this era of War Communism, preoccupied as it was with the task of repulsing the forces of counterrevolution, Lenin had very little space left for paying attention to the task of building socialism. But the resultant experience of this period convinced many young members of the Bolshevik Party (i.e. Nikolai Bukharin) that the authoritarian model of War Communism was appropriate enough for taking up the project of building a new revolutionary socialist order. In other words, the success of War Communism in thwarting the threat of counterrevolution, it came to be believed, would be replicated in the making of socialism too. It is on this question that Lenin sharply differed from his colleagues. He was troubled by two problems. First, from the very beginning, he harboured the idea that the survival of socialism would depend on the victory of socialist revolution in the West, notably in Germany, where the working class had a far more advanced level of consciousness in comparison with that of the Russian workers. But the defeat of the German Revolution, the failure of workers uprisings in different parts of Western and Central Europe belied the expectations of Lenin. It is precisely for this reason that Lenin so strongly pinned his faith in the formation of the Communist International (Comintern) and its expansion throughout the world. In other words, the sustenance of the post-revolutionary order in Russia would demand international support and solidarity. Second, in terms of production and economic growth the model of command economy, which was the fallout of War Communism, would be a retrograde step. The model that worked for repelling the enemy would not work for laying the foundations of a socialist economy, the cornerstone of which would be worker-peasant alliance. It is this concern which prompted Lenin to opt for NEP. Although it was a strategy of compromise with the market forces in the given historical situation this was the only alternative for generation of production and winning the confidence of the peasantry, the latter having been largely alienated under the spell of War Communism. Lenin, however, had two other interrelated considerations in mind, while espousing the cause of NEP. One was the imperative of efficiency and management in organizing the new order. The other factor was the reality that the new order that emerged in post-revolutionary Russia was characterized by lack of administrative personnel and, most importantly, the Russian masses severely lacked the kind of culture and consciousness that socialism needed. For alleviation of this problem Lenin had to fall back upon the bureaucracy of the pre-revolutionary era, since administration is a highly technical and skilled job. For Lenin the dilemma was that, while reliance on bureaucracy was a historical compulsion this, in turn, led to bureaucratization which, again, posed a threat to the very project of building socialism. This was Lenins first challenge and his panacea for countering this menace was quite unique, namely, the democratization of the Party by linking it to the masses, a plan which looked quite different from the structure of the Party that had been outlined in What is to be done ? His second challenge was resolution of the nationality question, more specifically, the Georgian question, and his trenchant critique of those who handled this question in the Bolshevik Party was clearly indicative of his choice of a democratic and not an authoritarian path in this regard. The third problem that worried Lenin was that as War Communism had largely alienated the peasant masses because of the Bolshevik policy of forcible collection of grains, they had to be reined in for building up a proper worker-peasant alliance, which would constitute the fulcrum of the new order. For Lenin, again, this had to be a democratic path, a path of tolerance, which he labeled as the strategy of cooperation. Commentators like Moshe Lewin [1] and Christopher Read [2], who have extensively dwelt on Lenins understanding of the building of socialism in post-revolutionary Russia, broadly focus on all these issues. Besides, they have also discussed Lenins treatment of the succession question, his very strong recommendation in his Testament (Letter to the Congress) that Stalin should be removed from the post of General Secretary because of his high-handedness and authoritarian inclinations. [3] In the following section I will elaborate these issues in the light of Lenins texts, except the succession question, since this is not directly connected with his project of building socialism. III The first major problem that Lenin had to confront put him in a dilemma. At one level in order to meet the exigencies of administrative efficiency and management he had to rein in the bureaucrats of the old order, had to provide space to the NEP men, keeping in mind the considerations of market economy the opening up of which was the desperate need of the hour. At another level they had to be controlled, put under surveillance and for this he had to take the Party into confidence. This had the inevitable fall out of the Party itself becoming a huge bureaucratic machine in the name of controlling bureaucracy at the governmental level. This was strongly evident in the writings, letters and notes of Lenin in the period 1921-23. In Purging the Party (20 September, 1921) he warned of two dangers threatening the Party. One referred to those who had attached themselves to the Party for selfish motives, who had become puffed-up commissars and bureaucrats. The other element that Lenin had in mind was constituted by the Mensheviks who had joined the Bolshevik Party after 1918, apparently adapting themselves to the ideology of Bolshevism, but actually who were nothing but turncoats and opportunists. [4] So Lenins blunt conclusion was that the Party must be purged of rascals, of bureaucratic, dishonest or wavering Communists, and of Mensheviks who have repainted their facade but who have remained Mensheviks at heart. [5] Lenin elaborated this problem furthermore in his The New Economic Policy and the Tasks of the Political Education Departments (19 October, 1921) where he unambiguously identified three enemies that had to be overcome in the period of socialist construction. These were communist conceit, illiteracy and bribery. [6] Both Lewin [7] and Read [8] have made a two-fold allegation that Lenin, while addressing the issue of bureaucratism and corruption in the Party, he did not take the masses into confidence rather he pinned his faith in the very Party which was the source of the evils that it had to combat. This, they argue, was an exercise in elitism or in the conflict between construction of socialism and complete creative freedom of the masses he arrested the latter. This position needs to be contested on two grounds. First, for Lenin the masses, of course, constituted the historical subject who would build socialism but what they lacked was appropriate culture, the right kind of consciousness that was needed for building the most advanced order in human history, namely, socialism. So it was a conflict between the objective necessity that the Russian masses were destined to build socialism and their subjective limitations in accomplishing this task. Second, the masses, therefore, had to be equipped and trained in a culture that socialism demanded. For that the Party would have to act as the agency but it would have to reorient and debureaucratize itself and democratize its own functioning, a project that remained unfulfilled and unheeded. This would make the Party look different from the one we come across in What is to be done ? The central concern of Lenin, therefore, was how to rework the concept of the Party in conformity with the task of building the new socialist apparatus, how to effect an appropriate linkage between the functioning of the Party and the functioning of the state in the new situation that post-revolutionary Russia had to confront. This was not elitism but a call for making the functioning of the Party more democratic, more humane. Lenins last writings are reflective of this spirit. Klara Zetkin, for example, remembers, what Lenin told her in a conversation: 9] So that art may come to the people, and the people to art, we must first of all raise the general level of education and culture. And how is our country in that respect? You are amazed at the tremendous cultural work we have accomplished since the seizure of power. Without being boastful we can say that we have done much in this respect, very much. ... Of course we are carrying on a vigorous campaign against illiteracy. We are setting up libraries and reading huts in the small towns and villages. We are organizing educational courses of the most varied nature. We arrange good theatrical production and concerts, we send educational tableaux and traveling exhibitions over the country. But I repeat, what is all that to the many millions who lack the most elementary knowledge, the most primitive culture! While in Moscow to-day ten thousandand perhaps to-morrow another ten thousandare charmed by brilliant theatrical performances, millions are crying out to learn the art of spelling, of writing their names, of counting, are crying for culture, are anxious to learn, for they are beginning to understand that the universe is ruled by natural laws, and not by the Heavenly Father and his witches and wizards. Again, 10] And what are our prospects for the future? We have established splendid institutions and taken really good steps to enable the proletarian and peasant youths to learn to study, to gain culture. But here again the tormenting question arises: What is that among so many? Still worse! We have far too few kindergartens, childrens homes, elementary schools. Millions of children are growing up without instruction without education, they are growing up in the ignorance and lack of culture of their fathers and grandfathers. How much talent will be wasted, how many aspirations crushed. That is a cruel crime against the happiness of the growing generation and a robbery of the wealth of the Soviet State which is to develop into a Communist society. It is a grave danger for the future. In Pages from a Diary (2 January, 1923) Lenin wrote: 11] At a time when we hold forth on proletarian culture and the relation in which it stands to bourgeois culture, facts and figures reveal we are in a very bad way even as far as bourgeois culture is concerned. As might have been expected, it appears that we are still a very long way from attaining universal literacy, and that even compared with tsarist times (1897) our progress has been far too slow. This should serve as a stern warning and reproach to those who have been soaring in the empyreal (sic !) heights of proletarian culture. It shows what a vast amount of urgent spade-work we still have to do reach the standard of an ordinary West-European civilized country. It also shows what a vast amount of work we have to do today to achieve, on the basis of our proletarian gains, anything like a real cultural standard. The same concern for lack of culture was again expressed by Lenin in Our Revolution (16 January, 1923), as he wrote: then, with the aid of the workers and peasants government and the Soviet system, proceed to overtake the other nations ? 12] If a definite level of culture is required for the building of socialism (...), why cannot we begin by first achieving the prerequisites for that definite level of culture in a revolutionary way andwith the aid of the workers and peasants government and the Soviet system, proceed to overtake the other nations ?(Emphasis original) To meet this gap the Party had to be reined in but this required self-purification, debureaucratization and democratization of the Party itself. Lenin realized that it was not an easy job to accomplish since this involved the task of reorienting the Party in a completely new spirit. Lenin very clearly put forward a number of recommendations in this regard in the last writings of his life (1921-23). These involved, according to Lenin, the following steps which touched upon simultaneously the reorganization of the state and the Party. First, he proposed an outreach of the Party meaning thereby expansion of contacts between the Party and the non-Party masses. Here it is evident that Lenin aimed at instituting the sovereignty of not the Party but the masses and stated in unambiguous terms that the Party had to learn from the masses. He pointed out that suggestions coming from the non-Party proletarian masses, non-Party peasant masses were extremely valuable, since the working masses have a fine intuition, which enables them to distinguish honest and devoted Communists from those who arouse the disgust of people earning their bread by the sweat of their brow,... [13] While admitting that it is not necessary to submit to everything the masses say because they too, in time of exceptional weariness and exhaustion resulting from excessive hardship and suffering ---- yield to sentiments that are in no way advanced [14], he said that it was very important to take the suggestions of the non-Party working people into consideration, which would yield good results, would strengthen the Party as vanguard. [15] The Party would thus act as the agency which would learn from the masses and meet their demands and aspirations. Second, his proposal of a Workers and Peasants Inspection (Rabkrin), which would oversee the functioning of the Soviet state apparatus, characterized as it was by many bureaucratic distortions, was adhered to but Lenin, extremely unhappy as he was with its functioning, recommended its complete overhaul. He was already quite frustrated with the performance of the members of the Political Education Department of the Party, as they had very little awareness of the scale of bribery and corruption that had infected the Party. [16] The Workers and Peasants Inspection, which was supposed to act as a surveillance mechanism, itself turned out to be ineffective bureaucratic machinery, serving virtually no purpose. So Lenin prescribed a two-fold reorganization, namely, its amalgamation with the Central Control Commission of the Party and reduction of its own size. So his first proposal was that the Congress (he had in mind the forthcoming Twelfth Party Congress) should elect 75-100 new members to the Central Control Commission of the Party, who should be workers and peasants and would have to be screened as members of the Central Committee, since they would enjoy the same rights as members of the Central Committee. His second proposal was drastic reduction of the Workers and Peasants Inspection to 300-400 persons, who needed to be specially screened for conscientiousness and knowledge of our state apparatus. They must undergo a special test as regards their knowledge of the principles of scientific organization of labour in general, and of administrative work, office work, and so forth, in particular. [17] A quick look at these recommendations at once suggests that Lenin was actually pleading for a Party-state, which perhaps was the need of the hour in the extraordinary situation that post-revolutionary Russia was passing through. In this scenario the revamped Central Control Commission would primarily play a political role in the reorganization of the state apparatus, while the managerial, administrative functions would be overseen by the Rabkrin. But this was not enough. Lenin was quite sceptical of the growing authority of the Central Committee which also needed to be checked and this necessitated the pro-active role of the Central Control Commission. So he proposed the reform that, while the members of the Central Control Commission would have to attend meetings of the Politbureau, they should not allow anybodys authority without exception, neither that of the General Secretary nor of any other member of the Central Committee, to prevent them from putting questions, verifying documents, and, in general, from keeping themselves fully informed of all things and from exercising the strictest control over the proper conduct of affairs. [18] This whole idea of reorganization was rooted in Lenins understanding that the state machinery that the Bolsheviks had at their disposal was useless, a relic of the past. The enormous task of reorganization, the central axis of which could have been the Rabkrin, was severely impeded by Rabkrin itself, as it played entirely into the hands of our Soviet and Party bureaucracy. Let it be said in parentheses that we have bureaucrats in our Party offices as well as in Soviet offices. [19] In this connection Lenin identified two factors in order to combat the problem of reorganization of the state apparatus. First, he focused on the workers who were absorbed in the struggle for socialism, but what they lacked was education and culture. Second, what they further lacked was education and training, that is, the technicalities of administration, and, therefore, they had to learn, learn and learn from the experience of advanced countries. [20] Third, as Lenin became increasingly sceptical of the functioning of Rabkrin, in his Letter to the Congress (1922-23) he made recommendations for democratization of the Central Committee in two ways. First, he suggested induction of new members in the Central Committee, ranging from a few dozen to hundred. [21] Second, those who would be inducted should represent the rank-and-file workers. In the following lines Lenin justified this step in a remarkable manner: In my opinion, the workers admitted to the Central Committee should come preferably not from among those who have had long service in Soviet bodies (in this part of my letter the term workers everywhere includes peasants) , because those workers have already acquired the very traditions and the very prejudices which it is desirable to combat. 22] The working-class members of the C.C. must be mainly workers of a lower stratum than those promoted in the last five years to work in Soviet bodies; they must be people closer to being rank-and-file workers and peasants, who, however, do not fall into the category of direct or indirect exploiters. I think that by attending all sittings of the C.C. and all sittings of the Political Bureau, and by reading all the documents of the C.C., such workers can form a staff of devoted supporters of the Soviet system, able, first, to give stability to the C.C. itself, and second, to work effectively on the renewal and improvement of the state apparatus. This is how Lenin demonstrated his democratic temper, his ultimate faith and confidence in the creative potential and learning capacity of the ordinary workers and peasants, whose induction in the Partys leadership would make it a viable instrument for advancing the cause of socialism. IV Another issue that irked Lenin was the Partys inept handling of the nationality question. He was convinced that the project of building socialism involved the participation of all nationalities of the Russian Federation, notwithstanding the fact that the Russians perhaps were historically destined to play a bigger role. That he uncompromisingly decried Russian chauvinism is evident from the following note of Lenin (6 October, 1922): I declare war to the death on dominant nation chauvinism. I shall eat it with all my healthy teeth as soon as I get rid of my accursed bad tooth. It must be absolutely insisted that the Union Central Executive Committee should be presided over in turn by a Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian, etc. Absolutely ! 23] (Emphasis original) But Lenin was quite aware of the fact that this understanding was not shared by even the closest of his colleagues in the Bolshevik Party, notably Stalin and Orjonikidze, who were in charge of handling the nationality question. In his extremely perceptive note entitled The Question of Nationalities or Autonomisation , which constituted a part of his Letter to the Congress, Lenin made two key observations. First, he warned against the danger of great Russian chauvinism vis-a-vis other nationalities, as this would alienate them. He thereby touched upon the lack of a real safeguard against the truly Russian bully [24], the crux of the argument being the following: 25] It would be unpardonable opportunism if, on the eve of the debut of the East, just as it is awakening, we undermined our prestige with its peoples, even if only by the slightest crudity or injustice towards our own non-Russian nationalities. The need to rally against the imperialists of the West, who are defending the capitalist world, is one thing. There can be no doubt that about that and it would be superfluous for me to speak about my unconditional approval of it. It is another thing when we ourselves lapse, even if only in trifles, into imperialist attitudes towards oppressed nationalities, thus undermining all our principled sincerity, all our principled defence against imperialism. Second, extremely perturbed as Lenin was by the report that he received from Dzerzhinsky on how Stalin and Orjonikidze handled the Georgian question by using violent measures, he squarely blamed both of them for their reckless action. He castigated Stalin for his haste and infatuation with pure administration, together with his spite against the notorious nationalist-socialism 26 [26], the latter being a pejorative expression to identify any kind of nationalist aspiration. He, in fact, recommended that exemplary punishment be inflicted on Orjonikidze and stated unhesitatingly that the political responsibility for all this truly Great-Russian nationalist campaign must, of course, be laid on Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, the latter being responsible for adopting a light-hearted attitude. [27] For Lenin, however, it was not simply a blame game. He reflected on a larger issue that is, why was it that his colleagues were inclined to adopt such punitive measures against non-Russians. The answer lay, in his opinion, in the bureaucratic, alien, useless state apparatus which the Bolsheviks had inherited from the past, which he described as a bourgeois and tsarist hotch-potch, slightly anointed with Soviet oil, his comrades having become part of this structure. In other words, the nationality question too was part of the larger project of democratization of the state apparatus in the post-revolutionary phase. V Apart from the question of combating bureaucracy and building up of the new state apparatus and the nationality question the third problem that Lenin had to confront was that of winning the confidence of the peasantry, which had been alienated in the period of War Communism. Taking lessons from the wrong policy that had been adopted in regard to the peasantry in this period, Lenin warned in Pages from a Diary that the countryside was not prepared for the acceptance of communist ideas, since it was not materially and culturally ready to digest this idea. The theoretical argument was that the peasantry was not yet inclined to part with the idea of considering the produce as its own property and so what was necessary was to establish contacts between the urban workers and rural masses, forging thereby a kind of comradeship. [28] In other words, the focal point of Lenin was that the project of building socialism in the NEP era would have to be worked out by enlisting the support of the peasant masses and that it would have to be ensured by adopting the strategy of cooperation and not coercion, as had been mistakenly done in the period of War Communism. This was elaborated by Lenin in another extremely profound essay On Cooperation (6 January, 1923), where he underscored the necessity of inducting the peasants in the work of cooperative building, a project that had yet to be tested on the Soviet soil but the potentialities of which had not been tapped. But the peasants themselves, Lenin lamented, were not culturally oriented to accept this idea, especially in a set up at the centre of which stood the old, useless state machinery of the past epoch. To cite Lenins words: 29] Two main tasks confront us, which constitute the epoch --- to reorganize our machinery of state, which is utterly useless, and which we took over in its entirety from the preceding epoch; during the past five years of struggle we did not, and could not, drastically reorganize it. Our second task is educational work among the peasants. And the economic object of this educational work among the peasants is to organise the latter in co-operative societies. If the whole of the peasantry had been organised in co-operatives, we would by now standing with both feet on the soil of socialism. But the organization of the entire peasantry in co-operative societies presupposes a standard of culture among the peasants (precisely among the peasants as the overwhelming mass) that cannot, in fact, be achieved without a cultural revolution. VI This image of Lenin that emerges in the context of building socialism in post-revolutionary Russia is thus altogether different from the mainstream perception. Here Lenin is not pleading for centralism but democratization. Considerations of management and efficiency overrule party centralism. He indulges in brutal self-criticism, as he is confronted by three challenges: a revolution that has taken place by default in a country where the cultural backwardness of the masses emerges as a constraining factor; a Party that is infected with bureaucracy and corrupt practices which threatens to jeopardise the gains of the revolution; a state apparatus that is useless, while a new apparatus appropriate for building socialism is yet to be born. It is a desperate situation in which a sick man, a dying man, is engaged in a lone battle to save the revolution, to build socialism, to unfold democratic practices in the period 1921-23. These were the most critical years in Lenins life and the image of Lenin that emerges contests the familiar image of Lenin that mainstream Marxism presents. Till now, this new Lenin has remained almost hidden, undiscovered, unattended. In the hour of crisis which the Left faces today we perhaps require a deep exploration of this new Lenin whereby it might be possible to open up new frontiers in our search for building a brave new world of the future. Author: Former Surendra Nath Banerjee Professor of Political Science, University of Calcutta ANN ARBOR, MI The Ann Arbor Art Center is closing in on a $50,000 fundraising goal to fund up to 10 new murals in highly visible locations downtown. The nonprofit announced Thursday, July 30, it was 82% of the way to meeting its A2AC Murals campaign goal, with one day left and less than $10,000 to raise to qualify for a $50,000 match from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. By late Thursday afternoon, the amount raised was over $43,000, coming from 165 donors. Donate here. Were pairing selected downtown building and business owners with artists who will transform their building walls into something spectacular over the next five months providing the community and visitors the opportunity to experience and enjoy these large works of visual art, the project description on Patronicity.com states. When you donate to support A2AC Murals, in addition to supporting talented artists, youre investing in a vibrant creative community for generations to come. Money from the crowdfunding campaign will pay artists and cover expenses like equipment rental, paint and permits. In the last two years, the Art Center has partnered with artists Pat Perry and Jesse Kassel, who painted two separate murals downtown one behind Grizzly Peak off Ashley Street and one next to Cupcake Station on Liberty Street. Grizzly Peak building showcases new mural in downtown Ann Arbor With the next round of artists and locations identified, the center is making plans to move ahead in August. Confirmed artists include local artists Avery Williamson, Gary Horton, Nina Shahin, Chris Dokebi Sammons and University of Michigan student group Live in Color, as well as Detroit artists Ouizi and WC Bevan, MAS Murals of Dearborn and Taylor White, who is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Mural locations include the Blind Pig, Circ, Potbelly, 200 S. Ashley St., Ann/Ashley parking deck, Spencer, the Art Centers ceramic studio, the Brown Blocks pay boxes, Clinc and the old Vogels building. See the mural locations. If the center hits the $50,000 goal by 8 p.m. Friday, July 31, the project will win a matching grant through the MEDCs Public Spaces Community Places program, meaning every donation will be doubled, according to the center. MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS: Public art, discussion series among Ann Arbor librarys new Black Lives Matter initiatives 30-foot Black Lives Matter mural painted in Ann Arbors Graffiti Alley A lot of things are just different. Heres Ann Arbors plan for socially distant voting Tuesday Heres what Washtenaw County voters will decide in the Aug. 4 primary Biggest flood-mitigation project in Ann Arbor history now complete Mike Flynn was a career Army intelligence officer who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and was still in uniform as a three-star general when he became Barack Obama's head of Defense Intelligence in July 2012. But he fell out badly with the Obama administration, was forced out in July 2014 and moved into private intelligence consulting. 2015 December 10: Flynn is paid to travel to Moscow and sits beside Vladimir Putin at dinner celebrating propaganda outlet RT (right). His consulting business has Russian clients 2016 February: Flynn signs up to provide national security advice to the Trump campaign; in the next few months he is floated as a possible running mate July 20 : Flynn leads 'lock her up' chants at the Republican National Convention and claims Obama concealed the actions of Osama bin Laden July 31: FBI open counter-intelligence investigation Crossfire Hurricane into group of Trump aides, including Flynn, for possible Russian influence. In 2014 an FBI informer had told agents he saw Flynn spending time at a dinner in the UK with a Russian woman with ties to Kremlin intelligence; the information is included in their investigation. Flynn is code-named Crossfire Razor November 4: Trump wins the election, and meets Obama who advises him not to hire Flynn. Trump ignores the advice and makes him national security adviser designate November 30: Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, makes the first of what will be 48 requests by Obama and Obama-eras officials to 'unmask' a redaction from intelligence reports which covers up Flynn's name December 2016 Flynn meets Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak (right) at Trump Tower and exchanges calls and messages throughout the month. December 29: Hours after Obama announces sanctions on Russia for election interference, they speak and Flynn says it will be 'reviewed' when Trump takes power. The call is heard by intelligence agents who monitor Kisylak's calls and details are included in intelligence reports. The next day Putin says Russia won't retaliate for the sanctions 2017 January 4: FBI drafts report saying there is 'no derogatory information on RAZOR [Flynn].' But 20 minutes later FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok tells case agent 'don't close RAZOR,' and '7th floor involved' meaning FBI leadership. He also emails lover Lisa Page, a senior FBI lawyer, about the Logan Act - a never-enforced 1799 law banning private people from interfering in foreign relations. 'Razor still open,' he writes and calls news 'serendipitously good'. 'Phew, but yeah, that's amazing that he is still open. Good I guess,' Page replies. Strzok respond: 'Yeah, our utter incompetence actually helps us. 20% of the time I'm guessing :)' January 5: Obama holds Oval Office briefing on Russian election interference with Joe Biden, CIA director John Brennan, FBI director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and deputy attorney general Sally Yates. He asks Comey and Yates to stay behind and says he has 'learned of the information' about Flynn's call to Kislyak. Comey mentions the Logan Act January 6: Obama's top intel figures - Brennan, Clapper and Comey - give the Trump team including Trump a briefing on Russia at Trump Tower January 10: Joe Biden is most senior Obama official to request an 'unmasking' of an intelligence report which reveals Flynn's name January 12: Bombshell Washington Post report reveals Flynn's call to Kislyak on December 29, 'according to a senior U.S. government official' saying: 'What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions?' It mentions the Logan Act January 14: Flynn tells Pence he did not discuss sanctions; in coming days Trump officials repeat this on television - including Mike Pence the following day January 20: Trump is inaugurated; Flynn becomes national security advisor January 22: The Wall Street Journal reveals Flynn is subject to a counter-intelligence investigation over links to Russia January 23: Strzok and Andrew McCabe the FBI Deputy director exchange messages planning to interview Flynn January 24: Two FBI agents - Peter Strzok and one whose name remains secret - go to the White House and interview Flynn in his West Wing office. Their notes say he denies talking about sanctions with Kislyak and said 'if I did I don't remember' January 26 and 27: Yates tells White House counsel Don McGahn that Flynn has lied to Mike Pence and other officials, is therefore compromised, could be blackmailed by Russia, and other aspects of his conduct are worrying which she can't tell McGahn because they are classified January 28: Flynn sits in the Oval Office to take part in Trump's first call with Putin February 9: Washington Post reveals Flynn did discuss sanctions and publishes interview in which he repeats denial 'categorically.' After the story is published, he tells the newspaper a different version - that he may have discussed sanctions February 10 and 11: Trump says he will 'look into' Flynn but the aide is at Mar-a-Lago dinner with Shinzo Abe February 13: Washington Post reveals that McGahn was warned about Flynn by Yates. Flynn resigns admitting he 'inadvertently' misled Pence, prompting Pence to mislead on Face the Nation in January February 14: Trump meets Comey and says Flynn is 'a good guy' and 'I hope you can see your way to letting this go.' March 30: Flynn offers to testify to Congress - at the time both House and Senate are Republican-controlled - or the FBI on Trump-Russia in exchange for immunity from prosecution; nobody takes up the deal offer May 9: Trump fires Comey, and on May 17 Robert Mueller is appointed special counsel May 10: Senate Intel Committee subpoena Flynn for his contacts with Russia; he cites Fifth Amendment; they later subpoena in more detail, and by early June he turns over documents voluntarily November 5: Mueller's investigators revealed to be ready to indict Flynn and his son Michael Jr. on multiple charges. They are looking at his foreign lobbying and even whether he plotted to kidnap a Turkish cleric from the U.S. and deliver him to Turkey - but are also wiling to strike a deal to let his son off if he flips November 16: Mueller team interview Flynn for first time November 22: Flynn withdraws from 'joint defense deal' with Trump, suggesting a deal is in the works December 1: Flynn signs a plea deal with Mueller; he will plead guilty to lying to the FBI at the White House interview. In exchange his son gets out of charges, and Flynn himself escapes charges of failing to register his lobbying for foreign entities. He appears in court and admits under oath lying to the FBI and affirms that he understands the deal. 'I recognize that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong, and, through my faith in God, I am working to set things right,' he says. The White House says: 'The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year.' December 2: Trump tweets: 'I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI' 2018 January: Flynn is repeatedly interviewed as he cooperates with Mueller and sentencing is repeatedly deferred June 7: Obama deputy national security advisor reveals in book that Obama administration first learned of Flynn's December 2016 communications with Kislyak from Trump transition team members and not from 'unmasking' his name in intelligence reports December 18: Flynn appears in court for sentencing hearing; Mueller's recommendation is little or no jail time. But Judge Emmet Sullivan says 'arguably you sold your country out' and asks why he was not charged with 'treason.' Sentencing is deferred 2019 June 12: Flynn fires Covington & Burling, his white shoe law firm, and hires new lawyer Sidney Powell, who had told him on Fox News to ditch his plea deal August 30: Flynn files motion accusing prosecutors of conning him into a guilty plea by withholding exculpatory material while other parts of the government trying to 'smear' him as a Russian agent December 16: Judge rejects Flynn's motion after reviewing Intel Inspector General report into the FBI and DOJ actions before the 2016 election and sets sentencing date for January 28 2020 January 7: Prosecutors say they want up to six months for Flynn; a week later he files to ask to withdraw his guilty plea 'because of the government's bad faith, vindictiveness, and breach of the plea agreement.' A week later he asks for probation if he can't get out of his deal. Sentencing is deferred until February 20 February 14 Attorney General Bill Barr appoints political appointee Jeffrey Jensen, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, to examine Flynn's prosecution April 29 New notes released by Jensen show Strzok discussing keeping Flynn as a target on January 4 2017. They also show an unnamed FBI official's notes from around the interview with Flynn on January 24 2017, saying: 'What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?' Trump starts a tweet storm which lasts into the next day, saying: 'What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!' May 7 Department of Justice says it is withdrawing support for prosecuting Flynn saying the interview in the West Wing was 'untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn' and that it was 'conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.' But career prosecutors who have led the case quit just before the move is announced May 12 Judge Emmet Sullivan puts a hold on prosecutors dropping the case and the next day appoints a 'friend of the court,' former Mafia prosecutor and retired federal judge John Gleeson to argue against the DOJ's motion to dismiss, causing uproar among Flynn's supporters May 13 A series of senior Obama officials are named as having asked for 'unmaskings' of intelligence reports which resulted in Flynn's name being uncovered, in newly-declassified documents. But it later emerges intelligence report of his call to Kislyak used his full name so people with access to it could understand who the Russian was speaking to, which also means leaking his name is not a crime May 21 Three-judge appeals panel orders Judge Sullivan to explain legal basis for not accepting prosecution request to drop Flynn's conviction May 22 FBI director Christopher Wray launches 'after-action review' of bureau's investigation June 24 Federal appeals judges rule 2-1 that Sullivan has to dismiss the case. Trump takes a victory lap, tweeting 'Great!' July 4 Flynn tweets a video of himself taking 'the oath,' a bizarre ceremony linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory, which ends the Oath of Allegiance by saying 'where we go one, we go all,' a QAnon slogan July 9 Judge Sullivan asks the entire D.C. appeals circuit to hear the case 'en banc' and overturn the order to dismiss. An unnamed member of the appeals circuit made the same request and the judges voted to hear it 'en banc' August 31, legally ignoring Sullivan's request August 31 Entire D.C. appeals circuit rules against Flynn, sending the case back to Sullivan and allowing him to hold an inquiry into DOJ handling of the prosecution September 29 Sullivan holds hearing where Flynn's lawyer reveals she briefed Donald Trump personally on the case and asked him not to pardon her client November 25 President Trump announces the night before Thanksgiving he has granted Flynn a 'Full Pardon,' calling it a 'Great Honor' and wishing him and his family 'Congratulations' December 12 Judge Sullivan formally dismisses the case on the grounds that the pardon renders it moot Officials arrested a man Thursday who fired a stolen gun into the air last weekend, injuring a woman who was in bed in a home near Axtell, McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said. Members of the U.S. Marshals Service's Lone Star Fugitive Task Force and North Texas Fugitive Task Force found Marcus Lee Broomfield, 18, of Seagoville, southeast of Dallas and arrested him there Thursday evening on a felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge, McNamara said. Broomfield is accused of firing multiple rounds into the air after leaving the BSR water park Saturday, he said. Deputies responded to a home near Beaver Lake Road and Old Mexia Road after the woman was shot and four rounds hit the house, Capt. Steve January said earlier this week. She was taken to a local hospital with a superficial wound and was expected to recover, January said at the time. He said witnesses identified two vehicles whose occupants fired weapons after leaving the water park, and deputies collected shell casings. Daily infections surpass 50,000 for first time in India India on Thursday reported more than 50,000 daily coronavirus cases for the first time, driven by a surge in infections in rural areas at a time when the government is further easing curbs on movement and commerce. There were 52,123 new cases in the previous 24 hours, according to federal health data, taking the total number of infections to almost 1.6 million. Some 775 people died of coronavirus-related conditions over the same period, raising total deaths now just under 35,000 - low compared to the total number of cases, but showing little sign of slowing. While major cities like New Delhi and Mumbai have seen their cases ease, infections in rural areas are continuing to rise sharply, alarming experts who fear weak healthcare systems there will be unable to cope. India has the third highest number of infections globally, behind the United States and Brazil. It has nearly 20 times the number of cases as China, which has a similar-sized population and where the virus was first recorded late last year. Separately, New Delhi announced the third phase of easing restrictions that had been aimed at preventing the spread of the virus. An evening curfew will be lifted from 1 August, and gyms will be allowed to open, but schools, cinemas, and bars will remain closed. The restrictions, which included an almost total shutdown of the country for nearly three months, have hurt small businesses in what is still predominantly a low-income country. Consumer demand is showing little sign of picking up ahead of India's festival season, where it usually rises significantly. (Text: Reuters) Alleged IS member Lisa Smith arriving at Dublin District Court. Smith was remanded on bail for one more week and is set to have the book of evidence served on her next week (Brian Lawless/PA) An alleged member of so-called Islamic State from Ireland has been sent forward for trial to the non-jury Special Criminal court. Lisa Smith, 38, from Co Louth has been charged with the membership of an unlawful organisation under 2005 terror legislation and terrorist financing. At Dublin District Court last Friday she was further charged with providing financial assistance to another in the sum of 800 euro under Section 13 of the Terrorist Offences Act. This offence is alleged to have happened within the Irish state in 2015. She is denying the allegations. The state solicitor said the charges were non-scheduled offences and it was the opinion of the Director of Public Prosecution that the ordinary courts were inadequate to secure the effective administration of justice in this trial. The 38-year-old, who is a former member of the Irish Defence Forces, appeared at Dublin District Court on Friday. Co Louth woman Lisa Smith (38), who has been charged with the membership of an unlawful organisation (Isis) under 2005 terror legislation and terrorist financing, has been sent forward for trial to the non-jury Special Criminal Court. pic.twitter.com/m64Jh7xEXr Aine McMahon (@AineMcMahon) July 31, 2020 Smith was in court on Friday to be served the book of evidence which was in a stack of thick volumes of documents. Smith, who wore an Islamic dress and hijab with her face uncovered in court, sat silently throughout her brief appearance. Smith was arrested at Dublin Airport in 2019 on suspicion of terrorist offences after returning from Turkey in November with her young daughter. She had travelled to Syria a number of years ago after she converted to Islam. Smith is charged that under Section Six of the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005 which makes it an offence to join a foreign unlawful organisation. It is alleged that between October 28, 2015 and December 1 2019 at a location outside the State, she was a member of a terrorist group styling itself the Islamic State. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, the court heard. Smiths defence solicitor Peter Corrigan said Smith told the court his client was never a member of an illegal organisation. The current available evidence points to the defendant not being part of any illegal groups, he told the court Judge Marie Quirke told Smith she has 14 days to come up with names and addresses of people who would be able to prove she was not in the areas where the alleged offences occurred. The Special Criminal Court, where Smiths trial will take place, is a three-judge criminal court that deals with terrorist and organised crime cases. The court has no jury in order to avoid any potential intimidation of jury members, which has led to criticism from human rights groups. Mr Corrigan said there would be a challenge in relation to his client being sent for trial at the Special Criminal Court Mr Corrigan previously said the decision to try the case in the Special Criminal Court denies Smith of her fundamental right to a jury trial. A further application of legal aid was granted to Smith. MBABANE - Eswatini Election Support Network (EESN), under CANGO has raised concern over the alleged buying of votes for parliamentary seats. CANGO Stands for Coordinating Assemble for Non-Governmental Organisations. The startling allegations were made by one of the aspiring senators, Ngomyayona Gamedze, who has since pulled out of the Senate seat race. Gamedze had been nominated together with businessman Sifiso Mabuza of Hosea, Jimmy Hlophe, a businessman from the Manzini Region under Mahlangatsha Constituency and Bongani Matsebula, Mhlume-based businessman. The EESN said the allegations were shocking that money became a determinant factor for a candidate to be elected into public office. The organisation felt that the alleged act may perpetuate the inequality gap, especially among women and other vulnerable groups, to participate fairly in the electoral process in the country. Transparency This undermines fair participation and transparency of an election. It also undermines electing people of calibre to perform representation and oversight roles in Parliament, read the statement sent to this publication. As a result, the organisation has called for critical organs of government to conduct intensive investigations into the credibility and fairness of elections and the applicability of electoral laws for reforms where there were needed. The EESN said the Tinkhundla System of Governance was founded on the tenets that it was grassroots-based, home-grown and non-discriminatory. People elected into public office must show effectiveness in representing national interests as well as be critical of the countrys governance structures, further reads the statement. The organisation said it was necessary to institute reforms to prohibit ill elements from a situation where elected officials found themselves beholden to foreign interests. The organisation felt that the allegations affirmed the EESNs observation in its 2018 elections report that the elections were marred with malpractice, especially the use of money to buy favour from the electorate. It is no longer about being known by ones community, having capacity to represent the people and being loyal to serve the people and the country as a whole. If this malpractice is allowed to continue, the country may face serious threats as this might lead to control and pursuit of individual and foreign interests, said the organisation. A Victorian woman allowed just 30 minutes with her dying father during his last 24 hours is pleading with West Australian authorities to modify her quarantine arrangements so she can comfort her grieving mother. Natalia Southern flew into Perth on Tuesday last week to be with her father Manuel Nunes, who was in Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital with a vascular disease. Natalia Southern with her father Manuel Nunes. She received a quarantine exemption to visit him for just half an hour on July 21, but he passed away the next morning. It was only when she got to the hospital and was able to speak to doctors that she found out just how dire her father's situation was. By Trend F-16 aircraft of the Turkish Air Force has arrived in Azerbaijan to participate in the 'TurAz Qartal?-2020' joint exercises, Trend reports citing the press service of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry. At the beginning of the ceremony, the anthems of the two states were performed, a minute of silence was honored in memory of the National Leader Heydar Aliyev and the martyrs who died for the independence and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Speakers at the event noted the importance of conducting military exercises in Azerbaijan and wished the participants good luck in performing combat missions. In Queensland, contract tracers have identified almost 2000 people who might have been exposed by two women who travelled to Melbourne and spent eight days mingling in Brisbane while infectious. Pedestrians wear masks in North Sydney on Friday. Credit:Renee Nowytarger Olivia Muranga, 19, and Diana Lasu, 21 are facing fines of up to $13,345 and a maximum of five years behind bars after allegedly lying to health officials to avoid mandatory quarantine following their trip. Their alleged failure to isolate triggered a massive health response, with authorities bracing for the possibility of an outbreak. Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd said people in Sydney hotspots should also consider wearing masks. "Particularly when people are outside their homes and in areas where physical distancing may be difficult," Professor Kidd said. "That, of course, includes when you go into the supermarket, where there's lots of people moving around and people may come closer to you than the 1.5 metres, that people should be considering wearing masks." NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant also urged the community to wear a mask when unable to socially distance while NSW Health is "putting out spot fires". The federal government's Infection Control Expert Group chair Professor Lyn Gilbert backed moves to introduce mask-wearing in areas of Sydney with signs of community transmission. Masks were no substitute for other precautions higher up the "hierarchy of infection control", namely staying home when sick, social distancing where possible and good hand and respiratory hygiene, she said. Professor Gilbert - also an infectious disease expert at the Marie Bashir Institute of Emerging Infections and Biosecurity - said we were in a relatively enviable position of having "a pretty good handle on where the outbreaks are, and rapidly containing them". "It makes sense to try and limit transmissions even further by asking people to wear masks who could have been exposed and could be asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic in those areas," she said. "I do fear, and I believe it's a plausible fear, that having a mask on can well give people a false sense of security ... but we recognise that sometimes they are not possible and a mask can be a useful supplement, particularly when community transmission is happening." Pedestrians wear face masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus at Town Hall in Sydney's CBD. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Supermarket giant Woolworths announced it would also strongly recommend customers in NSW, ACT and Queensland hotspots wear masks. Surgical masks were "perfectly adequate" and there was no reason to believe homemade cloth masks would not offer some protection, though there was no strong evidence supporting them, Professor Gilbert said. The Darlo Bar has been shut for deep cleaning due to a customer testing positive to coronavirus. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer She warned against buying N95 masks - the high-grade masks used by hospital staff in close contact with COVID-19 patients. The ACT government strongly advised Canberrans not to travel to Sydney except for essential reasons. In a statement, the Australian Club said it had "decided to act with an abundance of caution" and would close until Tuesday for a clean after a staff member who had visited the Apollo restaurant in Potts Point - the epicentre of a COVID cluster - tested positive. The Australian Club has been closed due to the outbreak. Credit:Jacky Ghossein The staff member was at the club on Monday July 27 between 6am and 9.30am, the club said. Founded in 1838, the club counts some of the country's highest-profile men among its members and frequenters. On Wednesday July 22, former prime minister Tony Abbott, Cardinal George Pell and former 2GB host Alan Jones reportedly had dinner at the venue. Dr Chant revealed the two Thai Rock outbreaks in Wetherill Park and Potts Point were genomically linked, and genomic sequencing had so far linked NSW's active cases to strains in Victoria. "We are awaiting further genome sequencing to see how that's further linked to The Apollo, and we'll update the community once that data is in hand," she told 2GB on Friday morning. Of the 21 new cases in NSW on Friday, six were associated with The Apollo restaurant linked to the Potts Point outbreak, which also includes cases from the local Thai Rock restaurant, now includes 19 cases. Loading One of the 21 cases one was a person in Orange, in central-western NSW, who was linked to a known cluster in Sydney and was diagnosed on their return. "There is no need for concern in the Orange community," the local health area service said. The Thai Rock Wetherill Park cluster in Sydney's west swelled to 94 after three new cases were linked to the Our Lady of Lebanon cluster and two are linked to the restaurant. The owners of the Thai Rock restaurants, David and Stephanie Boyd, apologised to the public on A Current Affair but insisted they were not to blame. "It's almost a trial by social media," Mr Boyd said. The funeral gatherings cluster also grew to 21 cases, two cases were linked to the Mounties club in Mount Pritchard, two are in hotel quarantine and one case was acquired in Victoria. Two cases remain under investigation, and one case was linked to another known case that remains under investigation. People who visited businesses across Sydney suburbs including Marrickville, Crows Nest and Surry Hills were being either asked to monitor for symptoms or self isolate for 14 days after people who visited venues were later diagnosed with COVID-19. The Darlo Bar advised a COVID-positive patron attended the venue between noon and 2pm on July 26, and a case linked to the Apollo cluster visited Harpoon and Hotel Harry in Surry Hills between 2.15pm and 11pm on July 26. Yesterday, Apple announced its financial results for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2020. The company defied the COVID-19 pandemic situation and posted strong numbers, thanks to higher sales of iPads and Macs. Hot on the heels of its impressive revenue and profit numbers, Apple has now become the worlds most valuable company, dethroning Saudi Aramco. This morning, Apples stock price jumped over 6 percent to hit an all-time high and helped the company attain a market cap of nearly $2 trillion. It finally surpassed Saudi Aramco to become the worlds most valuable company. At the time of writing this news story, the Cupertino-based tech giants stock price reached $423.14 and its market cap was $1.83 trillion. Apple had announced a 4-1 stock split during its earnings call yesterday. Back in June 2020, the iPhone maker hit a milestone of $1.5 trillion market cap and the company managed to grow even more despite the pandemic and recession-like market conditions all over the world. Its revenue grew 11 percent during Q3 of FY 2020 to reach $59.7 billion. During the pandemic, more people stayed home and worked from the confines of their homes. Even students had to stay and learn from their homes. This led to higher sales of iPads and Macs, tools that are usually used by professionals and students. In China, iPads were hard to get during the pandemic. Moreover, Apple launched the iPhone SE 2020 during the time where Apples revenue is usually weak in the anticipation of new iPhones. All its recent steps meant that Apple experienced higher-than-usual sales. Despite the delayed launch time frame for the iPhone 12 series, the company is doing better than ever. It is expected to launch four new 5G iPhonesiPhone 12, iPhone 12 Max, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Maxand ARM-powered MacBook Pro and iMac later this year. Key CPC meeting to convene in Oct, focusing on new plan on economic, social development amid global uncertainties Global Times By Liu Xin and Ma Jingjing Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/30 22:33:21 The fifth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will be held in Beijing in October, it was announced Thursday. One main item on the agenda is to draw up the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) for national economic and social development. Experts said China is currently facing a more complicated international environment and a slumping global economy. The decision was made at a meeting of Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on Thursday. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting, the Xinhua News Agency reported. The main agenda of the fifth plenary session in October would be making up the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) for national economic and social development and development goal for 2035, Xinhua reported. The drafting of the 14th Five-Year Plan has attracted domestic and international attention as it is the first five-year plan after China is expected to build a moderately well-off society in an all-round way, and would set the tone for future development, given the increasingly complicated external challenges and uncertainties, analysts said. China's 14th Five-Year Plan is very likely to focus on three aspects - striving for economic growth driven by stabilized domestic consumption, bolstering areas of weakness, and deepening comprehensive reforms, Cong Yi, a professor at Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, told the Global Times Thursday. "The two-year trade war the US initiated against China has made China realize that it couldn't rely on imports of key equipment and core technologies any more. Hence, the country will surely ramp up its efforts to make key breakthroughs in bottleneck technologies such as semiconductors and high-end manufacturing," he said, noting that this is also crucial for the country to achieve the goal of becoming a global leader in innovation by 2035. Echoing Cong, Mei Xinyu, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said that one focus for the next five-year plan would also be to improve China's economic resilience to external impact. Considering the impact of the raging COVID-19 pandemic to the world economy and increasing uncertainties in the international environment, a guideline for economic development in the 14th Five-Year Plan may be developing the economy mainly based on the domestic cycle and coordinating with the external cycle, Wang Jun, deputy director of the department of information at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, told the Global Times on Thursday. As the international community would care more about China's economic growth target for the next five years, Wang said that like what happened at this year's two sessions held in May, the country may not set specific GDP growth targets, but would focus more on improving the quality of the economy, people's incomes, living environment and livelihood. In the Government Work Report Premier Li Keqiang delivered at the 3rd session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) held in May, no specific GDP growth target was set for the year 2020. Instead, Li focused on stabilizing employment and safeguarding people's livelihood. This is generally regarded as a pragmatic tactic in response to the uncertainty caused by the novel coronavirus epidemic. Dismissing Western speculation in recent years that the Chinese economy faces heavy downward pressure, Cong said that the country's 13th Five-Year Plan has been carried out within expectations, with technological development, industrial structural adjustment, poverty alleviation and people's lives all improving. "As these targets have been achieved, GDP growth doesn't matter anymore. In addition, China's economy has become the first among major economies to step out of contraction in the second quarter," he noted. Meanwhile, the Chinese central government has positioned "new infrastructure" construction as a key policy of its post-global pandemic economic recovery, which lays the foundation for future development, Cong said. The new infrastructure focuses on 5G networks, industrial internet and artificial intelligence. Mei said that China began to make its five-year plans in 1953, and as the strategy evolved during the past decades, it effectively led the direction of economic development, and mobilized social resources. "In terms of consistent policy layout and strategic planning, even administrations in developed countries like the US and the EU cannot compare with the CPC," Cong said. "No matter what new economic roads China takes, there is one theme that will never change - striving for continuous development so as to improve people's livelihood." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Jair Bolsonaro (1st L) and his wife Michelle Bolsonaro attend the inauguration ceremony in Brasilia, capital of Brazil, on Jan. 1, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Ming) President Bolsonaro said on Saturday a new test showed he no longer had the virus after initially testing positive on July 7. BRASILIA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Michelle Bolsonaro, wife of Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, and Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Marcos Pontes are the latest high-profile Brazilians to have tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), it was announced on Thursday. The first lady, 38, "is in good health and will follow all of the established protocols," the president's office said. President Bolsonaro tested positive earlier, as did some members of his cabinet. Pontes said via Twitter he had several symptoms of the disease and begun treatment, and would work remotely from his home. "I am fine, just a few symptoms of a cold and headache. Now in isolation. Everything is going to be fine," wrote Pontes, adding he would participate in trials of the antiparasitic, anti-viral drug nitazoxanide, which has been approved in Brazil for treating mild cases of COVID-19. Clinical trials of the drug are being spearheaded by his ministry, which coordinates the work of laboratories and specialists on the novel coronavirus. On Saturday, President Bolsonaro said a new test showed he no longer had the virus after initially testing positive on July 7. Three of his close aides are now quarantined at home after testing positive, including Citizenship Minister Onyx Lorenzoni, Education Minister Milton Ribeiro and now Pontes. Two other ministers, Bento Albuquerque, who is in charge of mines and energy, and Augusto Heleno, who heads the institutional security cabinet, tested positive in March, but quickly recovered. Brazil has the world's second-largest outbreak, after the United States, with more than 2.5 million cases of infection and over 90,000 dead from the disease. Following public safety concerns over planned demonstrations similar to the one in Grant Park two weeks ago, the city has temporarily relocated the Christopher Columbus statue at Drake Fountain in the South Chicago neighborhood until further notice, Lightfoots office said in a statement. This temporary relocation is part of an effort to prevent individuals from pulling down statues in an extremely dangerous manner, which has created unsafe situations for protesters and police, as well as residents of the surrounding community. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas speaks to the media with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian (not in picture) in Berlin on June 19, 2020. (Bernd von Jutrczenka/Pool/Getty Images) Germany Suspends Extradition Pact With Hong Kong Germany has suspended its extradition agreement with Hong Kong after the territorys pro-Beijing government disqualified 12 pro-democracy candidates and postponed the legislative elections. The decision by the Hong Kong Government to disqualify 12 opposition candidates and to postpone the elections to the Legislative Council represents a further infringement of the rights of Hong Kongs citizens, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Friday. We expect #China to ensure the freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Basic Law. This includes the right to free and fair elections. We have therefore decided to suspend the extradition agreement with #HongKong. Foreign Minister @HeikoMaas pic.twitter.com/KCal6enj4D Auswartiges Amt (@AuswaertigesAmt) July 31, 2020 This move comes after the detention of four activists by the newly established National Security Department, which fills us with concern. In view of these latest developments, we have decided to suspend our extradition agreement with Hong Kong, he said in a statement. Agnes Chow, Anthony Wong Yiu Ming, Tiffany Yuen Ka-wai, Denise Ho Wan See, Lester Shum, Eddie Chu, Joshua Wong, and Gregory Wong pose for a photo at a campaign event during primary elections for selecting democracy candidates, in Hong Kong, on July 11, 2020. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters) In an unprecedented move, Hong Kongs Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, announced earlier on Friday that the 2020 Hong Kong Legislative Council election has been postponed for a year, citing a local surge in CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus cases as the reason. The postponement trails a mass disqualification on Thursday of key pro-democracy candidates, who were deemed unfit to uphold Hong Kong Basic Law or loyalty to Hong Kongs government under the Chinese regime. A riot police officer (R) detains a man (C) during a protest by district councilors at a mall in Yuen Long in Hong Kong on July 19, 2020, against a mob attack by suspected triad gang members inside the Yuen Long train station on July 21, 2019. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images) On Wednesday, Hong Kong police arrested four studentsthree males and one female between the ages of 16 and 21connected to a group that advocated for Hong Kongs independence. These were the first known arrests made by a new Hong Kong police unit tasked with enforcing a sweeping new national security law, which punishes actions deemed as secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with maximum life imprisonment. We have repeatedly made clear our expectation that China abide by its obligations under international law. This includes ensuring the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Basic Law of Hong Kong. In particular, it includes the right to free and fair elections, which the people of Hong Kong must enjoy, said the German foreign minister. Riot police try to clear away people gathered in the Central district of downtown Hong Kong on May 27, 2020, (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images) Germany announced on Tuesday it was ceasing exports of military equipment and dualuse goods to Hong Kong, and will treat the territory in the same way as the rest of the Peoples Republic of China. The European Union will also review its member states extradition arrangements with Hong Kong, according to a statement (pdf) by EU foreign ministers on Tuesday. Canada, Australia, the United States, the UK, and New Zealand have already suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong in response to the national security legislation. Yinyin Liao and Eva Fu contributed to this report. Noida-based IT company HCL Technologies has bagged an over-$600 million deal from Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson. HCL under this agreement will provide infrastructure management, cloud and application services to Ericsson. The contract is for five years. The deal, which was earlier split and executed by several vendors, has been fused by Ericsson under HCL. TCS was the other strong contender in the running for the deal, sources told the Times of India. UK research firm Omdia recently said that 56 deals worth $13.9 billion in the telecom space will come up for renewal between now and December (2020). Also Read: HCL Technologies to hire 15,000 freshers this year Hansa Iyengar, principal analyst at Omdia told the publication that "most of the deals are concentrated in the EMEA and APAC regions" adding that IBM is the "major incumbent in these deals, followed by Nokia Networks". She further added that "most of these are infrastructure deals" signed 7-10 years ago and "will likely involve a complete infrastructure refresh and a significant apps portion as well". Also Read: HCL Tech, TCS, Wipro make India proud! Rank in top 10 global engineering service companies Tech Mahindra, in 2019, had won an over $1 billion deal from AT&T Communications. It was Tech Mahindra's largest-ever deal, bigger than that with British Telecom, with which it had a long association. The telecom space is getting a lot of attention as early 5G adopters will benefit from time efficiency and speed to provide a host of services to their clients. According to the latest forecast by US-based research firm Gartner, revenue from 5G infrastructure is expected to almost double worldwide in 2020 to hit $8.1 billion, from what was spent over the course of 2019. The firm added that this would open up several newer opportunities for IT service providers. Gartner also stated that 5G will account for around 21 per cent of total infrastructure revenue in 2020, up from 10.4 per cent in 2019. Authorities are investigating after a 70-year-old Black woman says she was assaulted and called a racial slur by a white motorist over a parking spot in Linden last week. A 40-second video shot by someone nearby the incident shows part of the dispute that took place on July 22 along East Henry Street. The man is seen in the video at the womans driver-side window repeatedly screaming expletives at her. In an important development on Friday, the questioning of Kerala gold smuggling accused KT Rameez by the NIA is underway to prove the terror angle. As per sources, the NIA is likely to interrogate 4 more suspects who were taken into custody by the Customs. The investigative agency is trying to find where the smuggled gold was taken, to whom it was sold and whether the money from it was used for terror funding. A special NIA court has asked the NIA to submit the case diary on August 4. Meanwhile, the Customs department has summoned the UAE attache's gunman Jayaghosh for questioning. He is yet to be interrogated in the gold smuggling case. Read: Kerala Gold Smuggling Case: Customs Seeks Permission From MEA To Question UAE Attache Read: Kerala Gold Smuggling: ED Files Money Laundering Case; Customs To Interrogate Key Accused What is the Kerala gold smuggling case? On July 5, Customs officials seized 30 kg of gold worth Rs.15 crore at the Thiruvananthapuram Airport from a diplomatic cargo addressed to a person in the UAE Consulate. Sarith Kumar, who worked at the UAE Consulate was arrested in this regard. Reportedly, he told the Customs about the role of Swapna Suresh, an ex-Consulate employee now working as the manager of the Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure Limited. The case took a political turn after photos with Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan surfaced. It has been alleged that Suresh has links with the CM and has been seen with him at parties when she was working at the UAE Consulate. Following the backlash over her appointment, she was sacked by the state government. On July 16, Vijayan announced that the suspension of his former Principal Secretary M Sivasankar pending the departmental inquiry. It was reportedly found that he had violated the All-India Services Conduct rules due to his connections with the Thiruvananthapuram gold smuggling accused. A day later, a special NIA court remanded Sarith Kumar, the prime accused in the Kerala gold smuggling case to NIA custody for 7 days. After the NIA took over the case, it registered an FIR against Sarith Kumar, Swapna Suresh, Fazil Fareed, Sandeep Nair, and others. Various sections of the UAPA were slapped against the aforesaid individuals. The NIA has alleged that the smuggled gold was not used for jewellery purpose but for funding terror activities. Meanwhile, the Congress party not only decided to move a no-confidence motion against the Left Front government but also demanded the resignation of the Kerala CM. Read: Kerala Gold Smuggling Case: Swapna Suresh, Sarith PS, Sandeep Nair Remanded Till Aug 21 Read: Kerala Gold Smuggling Case: Customs Joint Commissioner Aniesh Rajan Transferred To Nagpur The coronavirus pandemic has been affecting businesses nationwide, including one local Spring restaurant, which recently had to shut its doors after just four years in business. Brazilian Joes, 19640 Kuykendahl Road, had its last day open for business Thursday before closing. The restaurants owner, Aline Fowell, said they had to shut down due to a slowdown in business from the pandemic. Whats new in Springwoods Village?: New bakery, bistro opens in CityPlace We had to cut all of our staff, Fowell said. We had five people on staff and (paycheck protection program) loans wouldnt work for us, because why would I hire people to look at the wall? The demand was not there. Fowell said they had tried to stay open by offering delivery options, but orders dwindled as the pandemic continued through the months. I guess more people also lost their jobs so there were more people concerned about spending money, Fowell said. They had been operating both the food truck and the restaurant since 2018, but Fowell said they opted to only work out of the restaurant following the pandemic when they lost the staff to keep both open. The restaurant started in 2016 as a food truck, she said, operated just by herself and her husband without any investors. Initially, the project was started as a continuation of her friends dream, Joseph DuFault. On HoustonChronicle.com: More than 200 area restaurants band together for fundraiser for Houston Food Bank DuFault had a dream for a rooftop lounge, but died after a car accident, she said. She and her husband decided to start their own restaurant, a fusion of Brazilian and American food, and name it after their friend. It was also a reference to other businesses with Joe in their name, like Joes Crab Shack and Trader Joes. Fowell said they dont have any future plans yet. They do have an online store at https://brazilianjoes.com/brazilian-store where they sell Brazilian products, and she said they may continue to keep that open, but they are still settling down from the closure. We are breaking contracts, so we need to deal with that and see whats left, she said. Right now, everything is still up in the air with the uncertainty of the pandemic. Its difficult to have a specific plan right now, we just need to sit down and rethink. paul.wedding@hcnonline.com WASHINGTON, D.C. - After facing criticism for accepting a $333,876 forgivable loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, the Ohio Democratic Party on Thursday announced it will be converted to a private loan from its financial institution on Aug. 1 under repayment terms both parties agreed to. The loan served as a critical funding bridge, enabling us to keep all of our employees on payroll, with health care, during a perilous economic time for our nation, said a statement from Ohio Democratic Party communications director Kirstin Alvanitakis. Ohio Republicans have targeted their Democratic counterparts with regular criticism since the loan came to light when the federal government released loan data earlier this month. They argued the forgivable loans from the federal government were meant to help businesses save jobs during the coronavirus pandemic, not to finance political campaigns. Floridas Democratic Party returned a loan of at least $780,000 at the request of several prominent Democrats in the state, including U.S. Rep. Donna Shalala, a Cleveland native who served as Health and Human Services secretary during the Clinton administration. Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez subsequently said the Florida party did the right thing giving it back. Until Thursday, the Ohio Democratic Party had resisted calls to refund the money, saying the organization was guided by attorneys, the private financial institution who provided the loan to us and the Small Business Administration, which approved it with full transparency throughout the loan application process. The Ohio Democratic Partys announcement occurred as Holmes County GOP Rep. Bob Gibbs introduced legislation that would require political organizations who accepted federal Paycheck Protection Program money to return it by Dec. 31. He called the legislation Stop Pilfering Everyones Paycheck Protection for Election Results (PEPPER) Act in a swipe at Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper. Gibbs argues that federal regulations bar businesses primarily engaged in political or lobbying activities from getting loans from the Small Business Administration, which administered the Paycheck Protection Program. At a time when millions of American workers were being laid off, businesses were struggling to stay open, and families suddenly lost income, the Ohio Democrat Party decided it was more important to violate federal regulations and bail out David Pepper, said a statement from Gibbs. It is clear the ODP was not eligible for this loan program, but they refuse to return the money. Every PPP dollar they illegally took is a dollar that could have gone to a struggling small business in Ohio. Alvanitakis said it was astonishing that Gibbs was trying to manufacture a story with a petty stunt, when one of the most powerful REpublican politicians in the state - House Speaker Larry Householder - was indicted for racketeering along with four co-conspirators. The real story here is this -- while we followed all proper procedures and legal guidance at the time, Bob Gibbs is desperate to distract from his own partys deep entanglement in one of the biggest corruption scandals in the history of Ohio, Alvanitakis said. More coverage: Ohios U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown introduces legislation to boost domestic personal protective equipment production Rep. Jim Jordan attacks tech CEOs, saying they discriminate against conservatives Want to launder money? Buy art, says report by Ohio U.S. Sen. Rob Portman Ohio libraries to get coronavirus relief money President Donald Trump, Justice Department say Cleveland will see surge of federal agents to combat crime Sen. Sherrod Brown introduces resolution to declare racism a public health crisis Rep. Bob Gibbs asks President Trump to restrict TikTok app House passes Rep. Dave Joyces bill to ensure federal death and disability benefits for first responders afflicted by coronavirus Gov. Mike DeWine and other Ohio political leaders remember the late civil rights pioneer John Lewis Coronavirus recession will challenge the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, ex-head Rich Cordray and Sen. Elizabeth Warren predict Joe Bidens presidential campaign names Toni Webb its Ohio state director Rep. Marcia Fudge calls for a Poverty Bill of Rights Federal immigration processors in Cleveland to be furloughed unless Congress acts DNC Chair applauds Florida Democratic Party for returning PPP loan, said he thought Ohios would return theirs Ohio Congress members propose quarantining coronavirus patients in hotels Rep. Tim Ryan makes up lost fundraising ground while Rep. Jim Jordan takes in nearly $3.5 million Millions lost health insurance during coronavirus pandemic, report says Rep. Anthony Gonzalez seeks Confucius Institute crackdown Lucknow, July 31 : The report of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), set up to probe the Bikru massacre in which eight policemen were ambushed and killed on July 3, is likely to be delayed. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had asked the SIT to submit the report by July 31. According to official sources, the SIT has not been able to get certain documents needed for the probe. These documents are related to the 2001 case in which Vikas Dubey was acquitted in the murder of the then state minister Santosh Shukla inside the Shivli police station in Kanpur. Documents related to the bail granted to him in other cases have also been sought but not yet received. The SIT has been asked to probe the role of the police, his relations with police personnel and the factors which led Vikas's emergence as a gangster. A member of the SIT said that documents related to the gangster's call records had also not been provided as yet. "We will need another month to compile the report. We will ask the government for time," the member said. Amid work to address systemic racism under a national spotlight, Portland Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty says she has been receiving a high volume of racist messages. Hardesty, a former state legislator and the first Black woman elected to the Portland City Council, said while racist messages directed toward her arent uncommon, she has been shocked at the high level of racist, white supremacist rhetoric that shes received in recent months. The racists have come out in full force, she said. She said shes been getting letters sent to her home, texts to her phone as well as emails and messages on social media. Hardesty said shes had to block more people on social media in the last 60 days than ever before. Hardesty, who was elected to the council in 2018, has been a key architect in recent months of Portlands latest police reform plans. Many of her proposals led the City Council to agree to redirect $15 million previously budgeted for police to other city programs and initiatives in June. The council unanimously voted Wednesday to put a ballot measure before voters in November to decide whether the city should create a new civilian-led police oversight system. Its a proposal Hardestys office crafted and sponsors. Quite frankly, Ive been outspoken the same way for 30 years, Hardesty said Thursday during a news conference announcing a public campaign to promote the police oversight measure. The only difference is people are listening now and were changing policy now. Hardestys office shared copies of about a dozen emails and instant messages she received in July with The Oregonian/OregonLive. All of them contained some combination of racist slurs, epithets and sexist comments. Some of the email addresses trace back to Florida and Ohio and at least two to Portland. One of them, dated July 22, called Hardesty a racist slur and said, Get the [expletive] outta my city! The messages led Mayor Ted Wheeler to issue a public rebuke Thursday, demanding people in the community who are involved to stop immediately. People are welcome to disagree with anyone on the City Council, he said, but the racist and threatening messages hes seen directed at Hardesty were way over the line and unacceptable. If you ever wonder whether racism is alive and well in the city of Portland, I can confirm that it is and that she has been subjected to it, Wheeler said. Hardesty said she believes the messages show that public dialog is shifting from a police-driven narrative to a community justice-focused one. It is never without risk that you take on policing. Ive been doing it for 30 years, she said. First they laugh at you, then they try to discredit you and then you win. -- Everton Bailey Jr; ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 | @EvertonBailey Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. Apart from Kozak's letter about Russia's withdrawal from the Donbas settlement negotiations leaked yesterday, Ukraine has received no specific signals from the Kremlin in this regard. Ukraine is interested in preserving the entire Normandy-Minsk infrastructure of talks on Donbas settlement, says Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. "In 2014, a whole infrastructure of the peace process emerged, consisting of Normandy summits, the Normandy quartet of foreign ministers, the Normandy quartet of advisors to the leaders of the four states, and the Trilateral Contact Group," Kuleba told a briefing on Friday, an UNIAN correspondent reports. Read alsoRussia hints at scrapping talks on Donbas: Ukrainian President's Office reacts "Ukraine is interested in preserving this infrastructure, which has proved that it's capable of playing an effective and constructive role if Russia is determined to search for solutions, not create new problems," Kuleba said. Apart from the letter by Deputy Head of the Russian Presidential Administration Dmitry Kozak on plans to withdraw from the negotiations on Donbas, leaked yesterday, Ukraine has received no specific signals from the Kremlin in this regard. "That is why we're in no rush to draw conclusions. We're waiting for Russia's further steps to this end. At the same time, we will approach the issue from the position that I've voiced. We're interested in preserving the entire Normandy-Minsk infrastructure," Kuleba said. A 33-year-old man has been arrested after cocaine with a street value of more than 7,000 was seized by police investigating paramilitary activity. It follows a search in the Andersonstown area of west Belfast on Thursday. The man remains in police custody on Friday morning. Detective Inspector Hamilton said the searches are further evidence that the Paramilitary Crime Task Force are proactively investigating drugs criminality linked to paramilitaries. "Drugs cause misery to users and their families and the proceeds of their sale go to fund paramilitary activity," he said. "We continue to target those criminals who are involved in the sale and supply of illegal drugs and will aim to disrupt their activities at every opportunity. I would encourage members of the community who may have information that could assist our efforts to tackle the blight of drugs, to please get in touch. You can call 101, or you can submit a report online using our non-emergency reporting form via http://www.psni.police.uk/makeareport/. "The independent charity Crimestoppers can also be contacted anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at http://crimestoppers-uk.org/." (Natural News) Oh, are they ever complicit in promoting terrorist acts and providing a coordination hub for those terrorists to plot destruction, murder, rape and arson in metropolitan cities across America. Yes, were talking about the Sharia Law Social Media Gurus, the CEOs, the kings of the twisted, communist, Leftist online fronts. All this while outright banning conservatives from broadcasting their own rallies, their own political viewpoints, and even more importantly, their cures for all these seemingly incurable viruses, bacteria, diseases and disorders. Big Tech is complicit in treason. Black Lives Matter isnt a group fighting for equal rights; they want to burn the whole country down and start over. They want chaos everywhere. They want to take over everyones home and land and send everyone packing or to their grave. Its that simple, or maybe you havent heard every Democrat in America screaming for no more police, no more borders, and no more prisons. Follow the bouncing ball. Facebook and Crowds on Demand are the planning stations for left-wing terrorists plotting murder, arson, destruction and mayhem for US cities Did you say on Facebook that you like law and order? Youre banned for life. Did you post recently something positive about your country, that you actually like America? Thats hate speech. Youre now censored. Are you plotting to blow up a police station or murder some people at a rally that are wearing MAGA hats? Your posts may continue as you meet all community guidelines and social justice correctness. Head to Google Ads and Craigs list now to find out how you can be paid to destroy buildings and peoples lives too. Did you know that over 90 percent of the people who attend Leftist protests (riots) are PAID and hired by radical communist companies like Crowds on Demand? These people dont even have a cause, besides getting paid to be violent. They dont support equal rights, or socialism, or Black lives, all they care about it getting paid to be violent. Yes, Crowds on Demand, or COD, organizes domestic terrorists and literally advertises to recruit rioters for up to $75 per hour. If they were peaceful protests, nobody would get paid, and they would all stop showing up. Get it? CEO of COD, Adam Swart, is responsible for every murder, rape, assault and burned building/store that results from his hired thugs There should be warrants out for the arrest of Adam Swart. If he did this when Obama was President to protest the Left, you could bet your last pre-dawn raid that Adam Swart would either be serving hard time or would have been suicided with two bullets to the back of the head, like Seth Rich. Is your name on the Clinton Hit List? You better check. By the way, there really is no group called BLM or Antifa. Its just hired mercenaries sent into busy cities to create chaos before the Presidential election, and blame it all on Trump. Want to hire a crowd to murder people or burn down federal buildings? Just contact Crowds on Demand here and put in your request. There are no laws for Democrats and no censoring on social media, so have at it. Plus, when you protest peacefully (riot and murder) youre immune to covid, so dont worry about wearing a mask or social distancing! How great is that? Now the mainstream press has millions of white kids thinking theyre helping Blacks fight for rights, when essentially, the Left will kill all the Blacks first, with dirty vaccines and inner-city violence when the police are all disbanded and the prisons are shut down. Reparations are underway folks, and all you have to do is vote all your rights away to the communist Democrats. So when it looks like every American metropolitan city is up in flames and bombarded by thousands of Neanderthals with torches, think again. Thats just the stage where the Democrats set up for their play for television. Its all smoke and mirrors folks, except for the people that the rioters rape, burn, beat and kill. Truth is the new hate speech Did you say its not fair for all illegal immigrants who sneak into America to get free healthcare, free food, free college, and voting rights? According to the Tech Giants, youre a racist. Youre now banned from YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Fakebook. Have you shared a video of an anarchist autonomous zone that proves violence and murder are happening there? Artificial intelligence (AI) has now banned you from posting videos ever again on YouTube. These are all peaceful protests and your videos have been deemed offensive, edited and fake news by fact checkers who get paid to censor all conservative viewpoints and anything that exposes BLM or Antifa as the domestic terrorist network that they really are right now. Tune your internet dial to Pandemic.news and find out why Bill Gates wants to inject all Black people first with his cannibal-covid-vaccine thats loaded with human abortion cells and genetically mutated versions of the deadly coronavirus. Sources for this article include: NaturalNews.com FreedomOutpost.com Pandemic.news One officer remains remained in a critical condition on Friday morning: CBS News A carjacking suspect who had already been arrested shot three Chicago police officers as they attempted to escort him into custody on Thursday morning, authorities said. The gunman was being taken out of a patrol van and walked into Northwest Side police station at around 9.30am when he opened fire, hitting the officers. Police returned rounds and the suspect was shot. All four were taken to hospital for treatment. One of the officers remains in a critical condition in hospital, CBS reported. His two colleagues and the suspect have been released, the network said. It was not immediately clear whether the suspect used his own gun or took a weapon from one of the police officers. The Independent has contacted Chicago Police Department (CPD) for comment. I want to strongly emphasise the inherent dangers that these and all Chicago police officers experience every, every day protecting the residents of Chicago, Supt David Brown told reporters on Thursday afternoon. When they leave home, they leave their loved ones, and put their stars on, and risk everything. They risk everything protecting all of us. In a post on Twitter, Mayor Lori Lightfoot asked for prayers for the wounded officers. I ask everyone in our city to join me in praying for the Chicago Police officers shot and injured this morning in the line of duty, she said. Were continuing to monitor the situation and will provide updates as they become available. There has been a surge in violent crime in Chicago in recent weeks, although overall crime has gone down, CPD said. Shootings and murders rose significantly in June compared to the same month last year, according to figures released the force earlier this month. Some 329 people were killed in Chicago in June, an increase of about 34 per cent from the 246 homicides during the same period last year, the figures state. Shootings in that period rose by about 42 per cent, from 978 in 2019 to 1,384 in 2020. President Donald Trump has in recent weeks sent federal agents to major cities across the US in an attempt to quell unrest amid ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. Story continues He has also floated plans to send the federal personnel to Chicago as part of an urban crime fighting strategy. Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, who frequently blasts Trump on Twitter, said she would do everything in her power to ensure that did not happen. If there was anything that happened like that, we would be making sure that we did everything possible to stop that in its tracks, Ms Lightfoot told reporters earlier this week. These are not troops. Troops are people who come from the military. Thats not whats coming to Chicago, and Ive drawn a very firm line against that. Read more Trump blames protesters for Covid-19 spike Kalsang Droma, a staff member at the agricultural industry park in Nyingchi, Tibet, looks for ripe tomatoes to pick in the greenhouse. [For China Daily/Palden Nyima] Villagers learn modern farming skills and earn money by working in an agricultural industry park in Gengtsang Township of Nyingchi City in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The park was established in April last year as a poverty alleviation project. It employs more than 30 local agro-technicians and many residents. A Tibetan villager in the agricultural industry park in Nyingchi, Tibet, pulls weeds in the greenhouse. [For China Daily/Palden Nyima] An agro-technician receives an average salary of 4,500 yuan ($642) monthly, while ordinary staff members receive more because their work is heavier a monthly salary of 6,000 yuan. "We plant 13 kinds of fruits and vegetables," said Jiang Dewen, who is in charge of the park. We teach residents how to plant vegetables and fruit in the greenhouse, but the most important thing is to give them skills that they can share with others in the future." More than 334 households in six nearby villages benefit from the project. A Tibetan villager works in the agriculture park in Nyingchi, Tibet. [For China Daily/Palden Nyima] Lhamo Droma, 42, a resident of Tsachu in Gengtsang Township, said she has been working for a year in the park, and now works as an agro-technician. "In the first few months, I received a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan working as a staff member, and now my salary has increased to 4,500 yuan working as an agro-technician. In two years, I plan to grow things at my home. I already know how to plant tomatoes, watermelons and other fruits in a greenhouse." A staff member of the park displays a selection of fruit. [For China Daily/Palden Nyima] Kalsang Drolma, a resident of Pemadan in Gentsang Township, said she was happy with her current job, as it's not far from her home. It's stable, and she can acquire skills. "It is a good job. And after I have learned all the skills, I plan to share my knowledge of planting with other villagers." (Source: chinadaily.com.cn) Cell Culture Market Research Report by Product (Consumables and Equipment), by End User (Cell Banks, Hospitals & Diagnostic Laboratories, Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Companies, and Research Institutes), by Application - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19 New York, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Cell Culture Market Research Report by Product, by End User, by Application - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940079/?utm_source=GNW The Global Cell Culture Market is expected to grow from USD 16,371.34 Million in 2019 to USD 33,826.78 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.85%. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Cell Culture to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Product, the Cell Culture Market studied across Consumables and Equipment. The Consumables further studied across Bioreactor Accessories, Sera, Media, and Reagents, and Vessels. The Equipment further studied across Bioreactors, Storage Equipment, and Supporting Equipment. Based on End User , the Cell Culture Market studied across Cell Banks, Hospitals & Diagnostic Laboratories, Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Companies, and Research Institutes. Based on Application , the Cell Culture Market studied across Biopharmaceutical Production, Diagnostics, Drug Screening & Development, Stem Cell Research, and Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine. Based on Geography, the Cell Culture Market studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region surveyed across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region surveyed across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region surveyed 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 Cell Culture Market including CellGenix GmbH, Corning Incorporated, Danaher Corporation, Eppendorf AG, Fujifilm Irvine Scientific, GE Healthcare, Hi-Media Laboratories, Invivogen, Lonza Group AG, Merck KGaA, Miltenyi Biotec, Promocell, Sartorius AG, and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Cell Culture Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Cell Culture Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Cell Culture Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Cell Culture Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Cell Culture Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Cell Culture Market? 6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Cell Culture Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940079/?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 (Natural News) Back in 2009, Nancy Pelosi infamously declared the best way to revive the economy was to dole out ever more generous food stamps and unemployment benefits. The more people collecting welfare the better. At the time, this notion seemed laughable. Now this economic illiteracy seems to have become a conventional wisdom. (Article by Stephen Moore republished from RealClearPolitics.com) This was a headline in the New York Times recently: End of $600 Unemployment Bonus Could Push Millions Past the Brink. Here was the lead on the news piece: When millions of Americans began losing their jobs in March, the federal government stepped in with a life preserver: $600 a week in extra unemployment benefits to allow workers to pay rent and buy groceries, and to cushion the economy. With economic conditions again deteriorating, that life preserver will disappear within days if Congress doesnt act to extend it. That could prompt a wave of evictions and inflict more financial harm on millions of Americans while further damaging the economy. These benefits are not a life preserver, but a job-killer. A study for the Committee to Unleash Prosperity by University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan estimated 10 million fewer Americans working by the end of the year, thus killing any chance of a V-shaped recovery. Perhaps thats why Pelosi is so adamant about the policy remaining in place. This would mean a high unemployment rate in November when voters go to the polls. How convenient for Pelosi and Joe Biden. Incidentally, there are now some 5 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. today near an all-time high. This is a weird predicament we are in. Even with some 25 million unemployed Americans, employers are hanging Help Wanted signs in the windows. Heres why. Under the Pelosi policy, 5 out of 6 unemployed workers are getting paid more NOT to work than to return to the job, according to the Congressional Budget Office. We estimate that most workers who earn $30 or less are financially better off staying off the job even as the economy improves. Many workers can get twice as much for staying unemployed. Workers are supposed to lose unemployment benefits if they are offered a job and dont take it. But workers know how to game the system. They can pretend to be sick, and employers are loath to bring a contagious worker back in the office or factory. Employers are now telling me that to get workers back on a construction crew, on a factory line or in a restaurant, they wont work unless they get paid cash of, say, $100 or $200 a shift so they can still collect the unemployment benefits. The Economist magazine recently wrote that the extra unemployment benefits are doing more harm than good. Liberal groups are marching in the streets for another six months of these payments. This policy is what I have long-called economic bimboism. Somehow, magically, if I pay my kid who gets up, mows lawns and works hard 40 hours a week, and I pay my other son even more money for staying home and playing computer games, this strategy is going to lead to more work effort in the Moore household. I assure you it wont. Paying people not to work is no way to expand economic output, more jobs and more prosperity. By this warped logic, we should start paying unemployed workers $5,000 a week, and we will really have a rip-roaring recovery. This is not just lousy economics; it also violates basic principles of fairness. Think of a construction company with 100 employees laid off. They are all offered their jobs back a month later, but only 50 come back to work. Under the Pelosi scheme, the 50 that work hard get less money than the ones who stay home and watch TV. The suckers here are the ones who return to the job. The only way politicians can stimulate the economy and lower unemployment is by incentivizing more economic production. This is why a payroll tax cut makes a lot of sense, and let us hope President Donald Trump, who favors the idea, doesnt give up on it. Every worker the heroes of our economy, including nurses, technicians, sanitation workers, truckers and nursing home care givers would get a 7.5% pay raise starting on or around Aug. 1. Every small business would see their payroll costs shrink by 7.5%. By a 2-to-1 margin, workers love the payroll tax cut. Skeptics complain that the payroll tax cut only helps people with a job, not the unemployed. Wrong. The best way to help the unemployed, Nancy Pelosi, is not by passing out food stamps and unemployment benefits. It is getting people a job, a paycheck and a step on the economic ladder. And there is one other thing that liberals seem to have forgotten: there is dignity and educational value in working rather than getting a welfare check paid for by someone else. Read more at: RealClearPolitics.com Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of National Bank of Uzbekistan Global Credit Research - 31 Jul 2020 London, 31 July 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of National Bank of Uzbekistan 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. National Bank of Uzbekistan's (NBU's) B1 long-term local currency deposit rating incorporates its b3 Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA) and Moody's assessment of a very high probability of government support, which results in a two-notch rating uplift of the B1 local currency deposit rating from the BCA. NBU's long-term foreign currency deposit rating of B2 is capped by Uzbekistan's foreign currency deposit ceiling, also B2. NBU's BCA reflects the bank's relatively weak solvency metrics, with a substantial exposure to low-yielding foreign currency-denominated loans issued to government-related projects. The risks are partially mitigated by the government guarantees covering such loans. Factors supporting NBU's BCA are (1) the bank's improved capital adequacy following substantial capital injections from the government last year, and (2) stable funding and liquidity profiles. The bank's performance will be affected by the slow economic growth in Uzbekistan this year worsened by the global spread of the coronavirus which will continue to exert pressure on the bank's profitability and asset quality of all Uzbek banks. Story continues 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 Banks Methodology published in November 2019. 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. 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Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimis government said today that it would be considering the nearly 560 demonstrators and security personnel killed during mass protests as martyrs and that their families would be eligible to receive 10 million dinars ($8,380) in compensation. The widespread protests, which erupted in October and called for an end to growing Iranian influence, government corruption and a lack of basic services, forced the resignation of then-Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi. Human rights groups accused security forces of using violent tactics to suppress the unrest, including firing live ammunition at peaceful protesters. Our brave security forces protect Iraqi lives, and wrongdoers dont represent them. Our people are our strength, Kadhimi said on Twitter today. Kadhimi, who assumed the role of prime minister after five months of political deadlock, has vowed justice for those killed or wounded by security forces. His governments official death count isnt far off from what the United Nations and rights groups have counted. The United Nations mission in Iraq documented the deaths of 490 demonstrators and the injury of 7,783 others between October and March. Iraqis have increasingly taken to the streets demanding an end to electricity cuts amid the scorching summer weather. At 125.2 degrees Fahrenheit (51.8 Celsius), Baghdad on Tuesday registered its highest temperature ever recorded. Today, the Interior Ministry released the findings into an investigation of two protester deaths overnight Sunday in central Baghdad, where protests have been taking place at Tayaran and Tahrir squares. During a press conference, Interior Minister Othman al-Ghanimi said three members of the security forces had been arrested after witness and forensic reports showed they used hunting rifles to fire on the protesters. The UN mission in Iraq welcomed efforts to investigate while condemning the latest round of violence. Iraqis are in a difficult place facing many challenges. Their right to peaceful protest must be protected unconditionally, the mission said Monday on Twitter. The beginning of the school season may look different this year, but shoppers can still experience the best savings Tanger has to offer, no matter where their classroom might be. When visiting Tanger's open-air centers, shoppers will be greeted with amenities and support - from social distancing guidelines to regular cleaning protocols - to ensure that the shopping experience is as enjoyable as it has always been. All of Tanger properties require facial coverings for the wellbeing of our shoppers and team members. Tanger is also offering greater flexibility, with additional shopping options like curbside pickup and Tanger Virtual Shopper, Tanger's concierge service. "At Tanger Outlets, our shoppers can trust that they are shopping the best deals on the best brands for fall," said Steven B. Tanger, CEO of Tanger Outlets. "Whether at our open-air centers or through our Virtual Shopper program, shoppers don't have to compromise on safety or price to be fashion-forward this or any season." This year's TangerSTYLE sale has something for everyone, from must-have back-to-school styles for kids to workwear and athleisure for parents. Tanger is the best value destination, not only for unbeatable fall deals, but for styles that will carry the family through the changing seasons. Tanger makes shopping fun and has designed the centers to include stores that not only offer great value but include an assortment of fashion, accessories, cosmetics and home decor to meet all shoppers' needs. TangerSTYLE's exclusive stylists bring shoppers this season's top trends, including tips on how to shop, no matter the budget: A+ Styles & Savings: Play it cool on the first day of school with playful shades of denim. Play it cool on the first day of school with playful shades of denim. Staycation or Virtual Learning Staples: Cable knits, candles and coffee: shop Tanger's designer brands for home worthy must-haves and cozy leisure wear. Cable knits, candles and coffee: shop Tanger's designer brands for home worthy must-haves and cozy leisure wear. Effortless Essentials: From the living room to the classroom or boardroom, find balance where fashion meets function. From the living room to the classroom or boardroom, find balance where fashion meets function. Finishing Touches: Elevate everyone's attire this season with a touch of WOW from bold jewels, fun textures and statement shoes. For more style tips, tricks and fashionable savings, please visit tangeroutlet.com. Shoppers can access the deals before they shop at www.tangeroutlet.com/tangerstyle or through the Tanger mobile app. About Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc.: Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (NYSE: SKT), is a publicly-traded REIT headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina that presently operates and owns, or has an ownership interest in, a portfolio of 39 upscale outlet shopping centers. Tanger's operating properties are located in 20 states and in Canada, totaling approximately 14.3 million square feet, leased to over 2,800 stores which are operated by more than 510 different brand name companies. The Company has more than 39 years of experience in the outlet industry. Tanger Outlet Centers continue to attract more than 181 million visitors annually. For more information on Tanger Outlet Centers, call 1-800-4TANGER or visit the Company's website at www.tangeroutlets.com. CONTACT: Quentin Pell [email protected] SOURCE Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. Related Links www.tangeroutlet.com Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Holly Rose Rolfe should never have been homeless. It just didn't make sense. At 20, the Perth woman's future looked bright. She had a loving family, good friends, a part-time job and plenty of career goals. She was going to be a nurse. As she waved goodbye to her mother who was jetting off to the United States for a six-week holiday, there was no clue Ms Rolfe's world was about to be turned upside down. But an email from her mother four days later changed everything. "I'm not going back to Australia. It's time for me to do me and for you to put your big girl pants on and look after your sister," the email read. Attached to the email was a photograph of Ms Rolfe's mother and an unknown man on horseback in the Smoky Mountains, near the Tennessee-North Carolina border. The man was Ms Rolfe's mother's new husband. Advertisement She was never coming home and, just like that, Ms Rolfe's world collapsed. Shortly after receiving the email, her mother's rent payments stopped coming in. Ms Rolfe dropped out of university to pick up extra shifts but the bills continued to pile up. Then came an eviction notice. She begged Centrelink for support but was told crisis accommodation was full and payments couldn't be arranged on the spot. Homelessness just doesn't happen overnight, there is always a build-up, she remembers being told by the clerk. "You should have told us earlier." Desperate for a safe place to stay she slept on friends' couches, but after almost six months of calling in favours her options ran out. Defeated, she packed her belongings into her tiny 1980s Suzuki and slept in the study booths at Curtin University's 24-hour library. The people that are considered homeless or at risk of becoming homeless can be people that you sit next to on the train. Holly Rose Rolfe, 24 "It was the lowest point of my life and it was shocking because it happened out of nowhere," Ms Rolfe said. "It was so shameful because I lived this life of a normal 20-year-old that was going to the gym all the time, had friends, was going to the pub and studying, and all of a sudden it was like I dropped off the radar." Advertisement But just as she thought she had hit rock bottom, a small act of kindness gave Ms Rolfe the push she needed to get back on her feet. A university tutor who had become aware of her situation offered to let her stay at her investment property for free, no strings attached. "Having a safe place, four walls and a roof, to recover and heal literally changed my life and after that, I was able to move into transitional crisis accommodation," Ms Rolfe said. Four years after losing her home, Ms Rolfe has turned her life around. She is living in a shared house in Orelia with her pet dog Douglas and finishing a Bachelor's degree in social work at Curtin University. A fierce advocate for safe and secure accommodation, she works as a co-ordinator at the Youth Affairs Council of WA and as an ambassador for Homes for Good, an initiative launched in 2019 that connects landlords looking for tenants and people in need of long-term housing. Ms Rolfe is a fierce advocate for secure accommodation and a passionate social worker. Credit:Marta Pascual Juanola The idea behind the initiative is simple. Data collected by HomeHub, the not-for-profit behind Homes for Good, shows there are currently 60,000 West Australians in need of affordable housing and 800 sleeping rough in Perth. Advertisement Meanwhile, there are 200,000 vacant properties across the state and hundreds of landlords looking for tenants. Loading Homes for Good aims to link the empty homes with those who need them most, while providing wrap-around support for the tenants to ensure they can meet their rent payments, retain employment and care for the home. For Ms Rolfe, the program is the reflection of her own story and how a landlord's act of goodwill can effectively save a person's life and change their course forever. Through her advocacy work, the now-24-year-old has made it her life mission to ensure no one else slips through the cracks and there is no wrong door to knock on to get a helping hand. "I never want another person to feel the heartbreak and the helplessness that I felt when I was going through that situation I did not have a single family member that I could get a hug from," she said. "I'm an intelligent person, I've gone to university and I pride myself on learning new things, for me to go through that ... it can happen to anybody. Advertisement Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 23:39:05|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, July 31 (Xinhua) -- One Marine was killed and two others were injured after an amphibious assault vehicle had an accident off the California coast, leaving eight others missing, the U.S. military said on Friday. The "mishap" happened about 5:45 p.m. local time on Thursday when the amphibious assault vehicle carrying 15 Marines and one Navy sailor began to take on water during a training exercise near San Clemente Island, according to the U.S. Marine Corps. All are assigned to the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU). Search and rescue efforts are still underway with support from the Navy and Coast Guard, said the I Marine Expeditionary Force in a tweet. "We are deeply saddened by this tragic incident. I ask that you keep our Marines, Sailors, and their families in your prayers as we continue our search," Christopher Bronzi, 15th MEU Commanding Officer, tweeted. The I Marine Expeditionary Force said on its official website that the force is "a globally responsive, expeditionary, and fully scalable Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF), capable of generating, deploying, and employing ready forces and formations for crisis response, forward presence, major combat operations, and campaigns." Enditem Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The body of Rep. John Lewis is lying in state this week at the US Capitol in Washington, DC as lawmakers and the public pay their respects. According to congressional historians, he is the first Black lawmaker to lie in state at the US Capitol Rotunda. As I noted following Rep. Lewiss death, his original intention was to become a preacher. As a boy, he was responsible for taking care of the chickens on the family farm. He fed them and read to them from the Bible, baptized them when they were born, and staged funerals for them when they died. As he noted in his memoir, I could imagine that they were my congregation. And me, I was the preacher. Rep. Lewis dedicated his life to civil rights as an expression of his faith and call to ministry. He was by no means alone. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said of himself, In the quiet recesses of my heart, I am fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher. It has been noted that the Black church served as the center for the civil rights movement in the South in both logistical and symbolic ways. Catholic activists were prominently involved in the Selma demonstrations of March 1965 that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. One writer describes the civil rights movements leaders this way: They were pastors who rose up to confront a powerful segregationist establishment and face down violent mobs. Their steel will, backed by thousands of followers inspired by their faith [in] nonviolent resistance, broke the back of unjust segregation laws and set in motion the transformation of America into a more racially tolerant nation. Two ways evangelicals need to change Historians will look back on 2020 as another pivotal year in the struggle for racial equality. This time, however, we are also battling the worst pandemic in a century and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, all during a presidential election year. In the midst of crisis, however, there is opportunity for the gospel. Viktor E. Frankl, a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, noted: In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it. In these days, I am convinced that God is calling his people to step into cultural leadership that speaks courageous truth in the character of Christ. To answer this moment, however, many evangelicals need to revise our worldview in two ways. One: The gospel is about more than a salvation experience. While Jesus clearly declared, You must be born again (John 3:7), he also came to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed (Luke 4:18, quoted in fulfillment of Isaiah 61:1). As the faith leaders who helped lead the civil rights movement knew, God cares about every dimension of our lives. His word speaks to every need of our day. It is vital that we use our influence to call people to salvation in Christ. But it is also vital that we speak biblically and act redemptively with regard to racial injustice, poverty, sex trafficking, and every other issue we face. Two: We must not be discouraged from our calling. As our society degenerates morally, its easy to give up in the assumption that theres nothing we can do. Street riots, economic crisis, and a pandemic disease are each overwhelming, not to mention when they are combined. But discouragement is not of the Lord. It is always too soon to give up on God (cf. Galatians 6:9). Three statements that should not be controversial Every Christian has a kingdom assignment, a way to use our influence to lead in this moment for Gods glory and our good. Because many will disagree with us, we will need the courage of our convictions and the compassion of our Lord. Since writing this Daily Article is part of my kingdom assignment, Ill use it as an example by making three cultural statements. The fact that all three are controversial is a sign of our times. One: Mask wearing is not a conspiracy. In a recent article, I responded to four claims against mask-wearing by citing scientific evidence and objective medical facts. Wearing a mask not only benefits you in ways we are just discovering, it is a clear way to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39). Two: Public worship services during the pandemic can be dangerous. A small church in Alabama held a week-long revival recently. Now more than forty people, around half their regular attendance, have COVID-19. Singing is known to spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus in ways that other group activities do not, which means public worship services can be even more dangerous than many other group activities. Again, we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. Scripture is clear: Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others (Philippians 2:4). Three: We should use our influence only to spread truth. Conspiracy theories always run rampant in times of social upheaval. These days are no exception. For excellent responses to conspiracies about coronavirus, governmental leaders, and other issues, go here, here, and here. Christians are commanded to reject dishonesty and slander (cf. Proverbs 20:19; Ephesians 4:29). Before you post anything to social media or share it in other ways, examine it carefully. Use your influence for good and guard your witness. Imagine the difference in our culture if everyone obeyed this biblical command: Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Philippians 4:8). Let it begin with me. And with you. Originally posted at denisonforum.org July 30, 2020 OTTAWA National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces The Department of National Defence announced today two contribution agreements with Canadian companies as part of the Government of Canadas coordinated response to COVID-19. The contribution agreements, totaling $2 million, focus on diagnostics and testing and are being awarded to: Diagnostics Biochem Canada Inc. (London, ON): $1,014,000 for the development of kits for the detection of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 that can be used separately or in combination to diagnose current or previous COVID-19 infection Custom Biologics, (Toronto, ON): $1,000,000 for the development and qualification of a rapid Point-of-Care diagnostic test for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 The project funding resulted from technology pitch sessions that were hosted by the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP), in collaboration with DND and other government partners to seek out near-to-market solutions from small and medium-sized businesses to meet different COVID-19-related needs. DND also announced the recent release of an additional call for proposals under the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program. This call is looking to innovators for state-of-the-art research on moral injury and cutting edge prevention models and treatment strategies in support of DND/CAF personnel, healthcare workers and First Responders at the front lines of the current pandemic. Funding for these calls was previously announced for up to $15M. Innovators are encouraged to consult the IDEaS program website for more information on the challenges and how to apply to the program. Definition of Moral Injury [T]he lasting psychological, biological, spiritual, behavioral, and social impact of perpetrating, failing to prevent, or bearing witness to acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations, that is, moral injury. As quoted from Litz, Brett T., et al. Moral Injury and Moral Repair in War Veterans: A Preliminary Model and Intervention Strategy. Clinical Psychology Review, vol. 29, no. 8, 2009, pp. 695706., doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2009.07.003. Since 2017, Germany's leadership style under longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel has earned it higher approval ratings around the world than those for the U.S., China and Russia. In 2019, the median approval rating for Germany's leadership across 135 countries and areas was 44%, while the median approval ratings for the leadership of the U.S., China and Russia all clustered in the lower 30s. Germany pulled firmly into the lead in 2017 following the precipitous drop in approval of U.S. leadership that coincided with the inauguration of President Donald Trump. While China, along with Russia, appears to have made modest inroads toward greater influence in some countries, a widespread substitution in preference for global leadership from either Eastern power is not evident. Line graph. Median approval of the leadership of the US Germany China and Russia around the globe from 2007 through 2019. A current median of 44% approves of German leadership, 33% of U.S. leadership, 32% of Chinese leadership and 30% of that in Russia. In terms of which leadership -- German, U.S., Russian or Chinese -- receives the highest approval in the most countries, Germany is also No. 1. Of the 135 countries and areas polled in 2019, Germany has or is tied for the highest approval rating in 54 countries, compared with 40 for the U.S. and China and 12 for Russia. Heat map. Approval of Germany's leadership varied across the globe in 2019. It ranged from a low of 7% to a high of 87%. What Will 2020 Hold? Early indications in 2020 suggest that Germany's leadership standing is at the very least secure, if not in more demand. In the 10 countries polled so far this year -- all Western countries -- approval ratings continue to be headed in a positive direction. In contrast, approval of U.S. leadership in 2020 has increased in only two of these countries and fails to exceed 30% in any of them. Changes in Approval of German Leadership Around the Globe Do you approve or disapprove of the job performance of the leadership of Germany? 2019 2020 Change % % pct. pts. Sweden 57 78 +21 Netherlands 76 87 +11 Finland 75 84 +9 United States 50 56 +6 Australia 55 61 +6 Norway 76 81 +5 New Zealand 52 57 +5 Portugal 52 56 +4 Slovenia 59 62 +3 Malta 55 58 +3 Gallup World Poll German Leadership Well-Positioned in Europe While current data suggest approval of Germany's leadership is likely to remain relatively strong in 2020, particularly in Europe, there is a potential hazard in 2021 and beyond. Merkel has indicated she will not seek another term as the country's chancellor. Merkel's leadership has been steady and predictable, helping Germany and Europe navigate the choppy waters that have been the continent's security environment over the past decade. Between 2014 and 2016, the political and security landscape in Europe was fundamentally altered by the migration crisis that peaked in 2015 and the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union in 2016. The effect of these destabilizing events was still reverberating as the newly elected U.S. president's approach to the trans-Atlantic security relationship injected further uncertainty from 2017 onward. Just this week, the Trump administration moved ahead with its plan to withdraw 12,000 troops from Germany -- which some allies see as a further blow to these relations. In 24 out of 38 European countries surveyed, more than half the population expressed approval of German leadership between 2017 and 2019. Approval appears weakest in countries located in the South and East. In particular, residents of Greece expressed the lowest level of approval (25%), which is likely tied to lingering frustration over Germany's handling of the European debt crisis in 2010. From 2014-2016 to 2017-2019, average approval of German leadership increased in 20 European countries, decreased in 12 and showed no change in six others. The largest increases occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina (+12 percentage points), Belarus (+11 points) and Portugal (+10 points), while the largest decreases happened in Hungary (-25 points), Czech Republic (-17 points) and Estonia (-10 points). Implications While robust support for the liberal international order was never the most politically expedient path for Merkel, it seems to have paid off at least in terms of leadership approval globally. Merkel is expected to soon be passing off the leadership of Germany to a new generation of the country's politicians. For these new leaders, the pressures to reject the style and substance of her approach to global leadership in favor of more insular thinking will remain significant. Yet, much of the world -- and Europe -- still appears to approve of a more cooperative approach. Read Gallup's 2020 Rating World Leaders report and check out our new Global Leadership Approval Center. On Thursday, some quarterly figures from the oil majors started coming in and they are mostly negative. Royal Dutch Shell reported a staggering $18 billion quarterly loss, made worse by a $16.8 billion write-down on a range of its assets. The huge loss came after earning $3 billion in the second quarter of 2019 and reporting a profit of $2.7 billion in the first quarter of this year. When excluding the write-down and other one-off items, Shell eked out a net profit of $638 million. The $16.8 billion write-down was expected, and even came in at the lower end of the range it offered in June. Even so, the number is stunning, with impairments related to LNG, lower crude oil prices and lower refining margins. The companys gearing ratio a ratio of net debt-to-capital rose to 32.7 percent, up from 28.9 percent at the end of the first quarter. Shell warned that it may have to curtail production in the third quarter because of concerns about demand, which will likely have a variety of impacts on our operational and financial metrics. Meanwhile, some other companies also reported poor figures as well. Eni reported a net loss of 4.41 billion euros in the second quarter, taking its half-year results to a loss of 7.34 billion euros. The figure included an impairment of 3.5 billion euros, largely the result of lowered oil price assumptions going forward. The Italian oil company also cut capex deeper, and notably, overhauled its dividend policy to track oil prices, rather than a fixed shareholder payout. That amounts to a cut in payouts for this year at least. Related: The World Is Facing A Solar Panel Waste Problem ConocoPhillips reported a $1 billion loss in the second quarter, with roughly a quarter of its production shut in during the second quarter. The company said that it was bringing production back online and expects to fully restore output by September. On Wednesday, Total announced an $8 billion impairment on the value of its assets, largely related to Canadas oil sands. The French oil giant will report quarterly results on August 4. But there was a silver lining for Shell and some of the other European majors. Several of them were able to take advantage of extreme price volatility to profit from trading, and their trading units cushioned the blow to other parts of their companies. For instance, Shells $1.5 billion in earnings from trading was 30 times higher than the same period a year earlier, and after excluding one-off items such as the massive impairment, earnings from trading allowed adjusted results to come out in positive territory. But that is not something that the majors can bank on going forward. Trading wont be able to offset the declining prospects of their core business producing and refining oil and gas. It is against that backdrop that the companies nervously eye long-term demand trends. Demand will take a long time to recover if it recovers at all, van Beurden told reporters. Behind Totals large write-down was a downward revision in assumed long-term oil prices. The company assumes Brent will average $56.80 per barrel between 2020 and 2050, which seems to be an admission that prices likely wont spike in the future, or at least, wont spike for any lengthy duration. Total expects what sounds like one last upcycle: Total maintains its analysis that the weakness of investments in the hydrocarbon sector since 2015 accentuated by the health and economic crisis of 2020 will result by 2025 in insufficient worldwide production capacities and a rebound in prices, the company said in a statement. But beyond 2030, oil demand will have peaked and will converge towards $50 in the long-term, the company said. Related: Why Iran And China Are Pushing Iraq To Boost Oil Production Total undertook a review of the risk of stranded assets, which would refer to reserves beyond 20 years and with high production costs. Canadas oil sands are the most likely victim of such an analysis; of Totals $8 billion write-down, $7 billion of that figure was concentrated in Canadas oil sands. Totals holdings in Fort Hills and Surmont bore the brunt of the write-down. The French company said that it would no longer invest in Canadas oil sands and would even leave the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), an industry trade group, due to the misalignment between their public positions and Totals, which would appear to be a reference to climate change. Total is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050. The two American oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron report on Friday. To date, they have charted a different course than their European counterparts, resisting efforts to transition to low-carbon energy sources. Exxon is also pursuing a different strategy on its spending priorities. Reuters reports that Exxon will cut staff and capex even deeper in a last ditch effort to preserve its dividend. The company has already had to take on $18 billion in debt this year in order to cover spending and its shareholder payouts. More debt will be needed to keep those payments going, but its not clear that it can stick to that strategy forever. There is only so much Exxon can continue to lean on its balance sheet before they start to jeopardize Jennifer Rowland, an analyst with Edward Jones told Reuters. By Nick Cunningham for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: It was obvious this time last week, but even more so a week later: Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg are taking both the continuing threat from the coronavirus and the need to restore the economy far too cheaply. Figuratively and literally. One thing another week of struggle by Victoria and NSW to contain the viruss second wave has shown more clearly plus the realisation of how vulnerable the neglect and misregulation of our aged care sector have left us is the unreality of the governments expectations about the effects of the pandemic. Last weeks economic and budget update assumed Victoria would be back on track in six weeks and NSWs struggles were too minor to matter. And also that well start opening to international travel in January. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Prime Minister Scott Morrison will need to spend more for longer. Credit:Matt Davidson A more realistic assumption would be that the larger, virus-prone half of the economy (NSW and Victoria) will need to stay sealed off from the healthier, smaller half (the other states and the Northern Territory) indefinitely. Half a healthy economy is far from ideal, but it beats none. Braden Reardon, who was executive chef for Saratoga Springs Adelphi Hospitality Group since fall 2016, overseeing the steakhouse Salt & Char and, later, food for The Blue Hen restaurant and Morrisseys Lounge in the renovated Adelphi Hotel, is no longer with the company after this week. Reardon said last week that he would finish out the month before relocating to Hong Kong, but a spokeswoman for AHG confirmed earlier this week that his tenure is complete this week. Food service at the Adelphi is managed by chef de cuisine Marc Plessis; for Salt & Char, chef de cuisine Tim Brockman. The spokeswoman said AHG had no comment on Reardons departure or recent turnover in senior Adelphi positions including director of event sales and chief operating officer. The company also would not discuss whether Reardons corporate-executive-chef position will be filled. Its stock price is up, for starters. Shares in the photography pioneer have soared in recent days, following the news that it won a federal loan on Tuesday to produce ingredients for coronavirus treatments. The timing of the trading has aroused suspicion. Some have cried foul, pointing to heavy trading volumes ahead of the official announcement about the government loan. The Wall Street Journal reports that there is an explanation: Kodak had briefed news outlets in its hometown, Rochester, N.Y., but neglected to say that the information was not for public reporting at the time. Some of those tweets and stories were deleted shortly after posting, but not before eagle-eyed traders saw the news. The 'report card' of China's economy in the first half of the year is not bad, said Justin Yifu Lin, Dean of the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University and Counselor of State Council, adding that the Chinese economy is able to cope with uncertainty. Justin Yifu Lin gives an interview to People's Daily Online "It can be said that it is even better than we have originally expected. There is a special premise here, that is, the COVID-19 epidemic has had a great impact on the global economy, and the economies of most countries are in the doldrums," said Lin during a recent interview. Lin noted that China's GDP fell 6.8 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period last year; however, China's GDP jumped by 3.2 percent in the second quarter of the year. "It can be said that China is the only country in the world with such an achievement. In my opinion, it is not easy for us," he added. Warning that the uncertainty of the external environment still exists, Lin shared that the continuous outbreak and repetition of the pandemic around the world will have a negative impact on economic growth. In addition, trade policies of the U.S. and other countries, along with the malicious crackdown on China's related industries, will also bring uncertainty to economic development. "As far as we are concerned, as long as we continue to do a good job in the prevention and control of the epidemic, make full use of the conditions conducive to economic growth, maintain our strength, and concentrate our efforts on doing our own things, I believe we can still become the main driving force for global economic growth," Lin pointed out. Lin also believes that China still has broad room for growth, especially for technological innovation and industrial upgrading. "We are on the same starting line with developed countries in intelligent manufacturing, 5G, artificial intelligence and so on. China has a large domestic market, and after a breakthrough in technological innovation, we can achieve economies of scale," said Lin, believing that no matter how precarious the external environment is, China will still be able to "skip over the waves." Today Muslims around the world are celebrating the Festival of the Sacrifice, Eid al-Adha, one of the most important holidays in the Muslim calendar. On this day Muslims gather at a mosque for a common prayer and sacrifice an animal to honor the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his only son. The holiday is marked on the 10th day of the Zul Hijjah month and marks the end of the fifth pillar of Islam. According to a tradition, every Muslim is obligated to sacrifice a lamb or a cow, or other livestock animal. Eid al-Adha is celebrated for three days. Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated the Muslims of Russia on the Eid al-Adha Islamic holiday. "This religious holiday is important for all Muslims and is a symbol of the loyalty to the high spiritual ideals of virtue, justice, mercy and love for ones neighbour that are the bedrock of the Holy Quran. Supporting the centuries-old Muslim traditions, Muslims make an important contribution to the preservation of our countrys cultural diversity and promote interethnic accord in society", the Kremlin press service reported. Eid al-Adha 2020 in Azerbaijan will begin in the evening of July 30 and ends on August 1. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has congratulated the people of Azerbaijan on the occasion of Eid al-Adha. "Dear compatriots! I sincerely congratulate you and all our compatriots living in different parts of the world on the occasion of Eid al-Adha and wish you all the best," Azerbaijani president said. "Eid al-Adha, a symbol of solidarity and brotherhood, humanism and compassion amongst people, is one of the main holidays of Islam. On this auspicious day, Muslims experience the joy of closeness to God through sacrifices in the name of the Almighty and demonstrate their readiness to display heroism for the sake of benevolent deeds," the head of state said. "For hundreds of years, Islam has played an exceptional role in the formation of an exemplary environment of coexistence based on mutual respect, trust and the preservation of ethnic and cultural diversity in Azerbaijan, where people of different nations and religions live as a loving family. The religious holidays held in our country every year become a celebration of progressive national and spiritual values, social assistance and display of kindness. Although this year's Eid al-Adha occurs at a difficult time facing the world, our devout citizens are fulfilling their moral duties in the way of God and religion and strengthening the spirit of unity and equality in our society by their noble deeds," Azerbaijani president said. "Dear sisters and brothers! During these holidays, I remember with gratitude the immortal memory of our martyrs who died for the independence and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and wish patience to their relatives and all our people. I do hope that your prayers and wishes for the prosperity and well-being of our people, the prosperity and progress of our Motherland will be materialized," the head of state said. "I once again convey my sincere holiday congratulations to each of you, wish your families good health, happiness and abundance to your homes. Happy Eid al-Adha!" Azerbaijani president said. The festival of the sacrifice is related to the pilgrimage to Mecca. It honors the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ismail, as an act of submission to God's command. This act showed his true piety, and Allah sent Ibrahim two black bulls to sacrifice instead of his son. So during Eid al-Adha Muslims sacrifice an animal and gift meat to the poor. Jessamyn Stanley, a yoga instructor in North Carolina, encourages students in her yoga classes to ask "How do I feel?" rather than "How do I look?" When Jessamyn Stanley started doing yoga, she felt completely out of place. "I was almost always the only fat person, the only Black person, like I'm very physically different from everyone else in the room," said Stanley, 33. "It was very alienating." Despite wanting to quit, Stanley stuck with yoga for the emotional benefits. Nearly a decade later, Durham, North Carolina-based Stanley is a yoga teacher, author of "Every Body Yoga," and a renowned body-positive wellness influencer who uses her hard-won visibility to flip existing narratives about who belongs in the yoga and wellness world. Wellness, however, still hasn't come far in terms of inclusion. "To this day, especially if I go to a random class with people that I don't know, there's still a lot of prejudice," Stanley said. "It's like, there's a fat, Black, queer woman, what is she doing here?" The 'whitewashing' of wellness The reported $4.5 trillion wellness industry is all about self-care, but with $100 yoga pants, studio classes, imagery of long-torsoed, slender mostly white women and "positive vibes only" platitudes, self-care seems like it's only for a select few. Those who are left out are often the people who could most use the benefits of practices like yoga, which has been shown to improve mental health and stress. Black people need self-care more than ever. Morgan Fykes Washington, D.C.-based yoga teacher Black women in particular deal with a variety of stressors from higher maternal mortality rates to racist microaggressions and police violence, and also receive less mental health care than their white counterparts. All of this chronic stress can lead to physical problems like hypertension and diabetes. Wellness practices like yoga can make a difference but if only they actually seem like viable options. "Black people need self-care more than ever. It's something that we really struggle with, because it does feel like we have to be constantly plugged in, especially as this fight for change is happening," said Morgan Fykes, a Washington, D.C.-based yoga teacher and practitioner who is Black. Despite the need, Black and brown communities are largely ignored by the wellness industry. "Mainstream wellness is still very white and very elitist," said Chrissy King, a Black Brooklyn-based fitness expert who runs an anti-racism workshop for wellness practitioners. "By and large, they still only market to white, thin women." Chrissy King is a fitness coach who aims to create a diverse and inclusive space in the wellness industry. (Chrissy King) That particular coupling of wellness with weight loss in the U.S. is something that alienates people and cultures who aren't in pursuit of being thin, added King, who points out that movement and healthy living has numerous benefits that have nothing to do with reaching an idealized weight. "I think when we start looking at yoga and the brands around yoga and who gets pushed to the front, it's continuously this image of a petite, super flexible white woman. It's the Lululemon woman," said Fykes. "It's also about the people studios hire, how they welcome guests, the questions that they ask," she added. "And if you are the owner of a space and you look around, you can't tell me that you don't notice that everyone who comes in looks exactly the same, especially in a city that doesn't match that." The irony is that the dominant forms of yoga practiced in the U.S. come from India, where yoga requires no fancy clothing and is often taught and practiced by potbellied old men the antithesis to American yoga imagery. There's no data specifically about race and yoga in the U.S. In fact, a 2016 Yoga in America report included myriad demographic data about practitioners and studio owners, but notably made no mention of race. Toxic positivity In addition to whitewashed imagery, the wellness world embraces certain mantras that can do more harm than good. Fitness instructors everywhere espouse generic platitudes, telling people to "find gratitude" or "exhale love." While the "positive vibes only" affirmations can feel like a welcome escape for some, it's the spiritual equivalent of "I don't see color." Black women explained that it can often feel like glossing over their experiences and they can't bring their whole selves to the practice. "With all of these shootings, police brutality, when you're telling me to clear my mind, I can't do that. I feel like that's not taken into consideration when I've been in white yoga and meditation spaces," said Sevon Blake, a Black 29-year-old baker in Queens, New York. "And then it's just bam bam bam do this pose, do that pose. There's no real connection or acknowledgement." "There's a level of toxic positivity that we never really talk about," Fykes added. "We would all love to be positive all the time, but when your positivity comes as a response to real trauma or pain that people are having, then you're trying to use your positivity to erase instead of empower." Jesal Parikh (left) and Tejal Patel (right) created a podcast called "Yoga Is Dead" where they discuss privilege, race, cultural appropriation and more issues in the yoga and wellness worlds. (Tejal Patel and Jesal Parikh) It's part of what Tejal Patel and Jesal Parikh call "spiritual bypassing." The two Indian-American yoga instructors expose the yoga industry's exclusionary practices in their podcast "Yoga Is Dead" and also teach classes in New York City specifically addressing the needs of BIPOC participants. Yoga is particularly rooted in spiritual wellbeing, they say, as opposed to, say, an aerobic class. Without that, said Parikh, "you're just doing stretches." "Yoga is literally the opposite of escapism; it's a trauma-informed practice," said Patel. "What yoga tells you is to be present, to work through the emotional discomfort. So if you're buying into a studio culture that only makes you feel good, that only tells you you're OK, even when you're not feeling well, you're not actually gaining the real long-term benefit of yoga." Changing the narrative The women interviewed for this story are trying to make yoga and wellness more inclusive by calling out the industry, creating safe spaces for people of all cultures and increasing their own visibility so people know that wellness is for any and every body. Industries from tech to media have been grappling with their role in benefitting from and promoting systematic racism, but now the corporate gatekeepers in the wellness industry are having these conversations, too. Jessamyn Stanley, a yoga instructor in North Carolina, encourages students in her yoga classes to ask "How do I feel?" rather than "How do I look?" (Jessamyn Stanley) Oscar Wilde's witty answers to a questionnaire while still a student at Oxford are set to go under the hammer for 60,000. The writer claimed his aim in life was 'success: fame or even notoriety' among many other witticisms in Robert Saxon's Mental Photographs - an album for confessions of tastes, habits and convictions. It makes up part of a collection being sold by Steven Berkoff, the actor and director known for his work in Salome, Rambo: First Blood Part II and the James Bond film Octopussy. Oscar Wilde claimed his aim in life was 'success: fame or even notoriety' among many other witticisms in Robert Saxon's Mental Photographs - an album for confessions of tastes, habits and convictions The witty answers of Oscar Wilde, pictured let, make up part of a collection being sold by Steven Berkoff, pictured right, the actor and director known for his work in Salome, Rambo: First Blood Part II and the James Bond film Octopussy 'I have nothing to declare but my genius': The wit of Oscar Wilde Irish playwright Oscar Wilde Famous for his razor sharp wit, flamboyant dress sense and enormously succesful plays, Oscar Wilde was one of the Victorian era's best known characters. The son of two Anglo-Irish intellectuals, Wilde studied at Oxford before moving to London where he mixed with the capital's most fashionable circles and began a career as a writer. He is perhaps best known for his play The Importance of Being Ernest, which was still being staged in London's West End when he was arrested on charges of sodomy and gross indecency. He wrote only one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray published in 1891. In prison, he wrote De Profundis, a long letter discussing his trial and subsequent jail sentence. When Wilde was released he had undergone a transformation, and was no longer the pleasure seeking socialite. He went into exile in France and died destitute in Paris at the age of 46. Today he is fondly remembered for his razor sharp wit and brilliant quotes. On arrival in the USA he is once said to have breezed through customs announcing: 'I have nothing to declare but my genius'. Other memorable quotes include: 'There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and 'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars'. Even on his deathbed he was said to have quipped: 'Either those curtains go, or I do.' Advertisement The two-page questionnaire, dated 1877, when the writer was in his early twenties and yet to publish a book, sees him posit his thoughts on 39 topics, and is signed at the top 'Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde'. The idea behind Mental Photographs was, as noted in the 'Preface', to provide 'a record for the tastes and characteristics of friends; in short, for their mental photographs' Auction company Sotheby's says his responses 'sparkle with the author's characteristic ebullience and many are perfect Wildean epigrams'. His idea of happiness was written as: 'Absolute power over men's minds, even if accompanied by chronic toothache' and his idea of misery was 'Living a poor and respectable life in an obscure village'. Although at the time unmarried, Wilde chooses to respond to the question 'If married, what do you believe to be the distinguishing characteristics of your better-half?' with 'Devotion to her husband'. Previously exhibited at The British Library and at the Petit Palais, the auctioneer describes the item as 'a revealing insight into Wilde's early presentation of himself'. Other highlights from Mr Berkoff's collection include a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well as the first English edition of Salome, one of 500 copies, with the first appearance of Aubrey Beardsley's famous illustrations. The sale also features a highly important 16 page autograph letter signed to George Alexander, the manager of St James's Theatre, in which Wilde outlines the plot of The Importance of Being Earnest. This letter comprises the first scenario for the play and provides a remarkable insight into the early development of Wilde's final comic masterpiece. It clearly shows how the core plot and structure were already formed before Wilde began the first draft and provides a remarkable early view of the play. Wilde describes a first act, for example, in which Bertram Ashton (Jack/Earnest Worthing) admits his double life to his friend Lord Alfred Rufford (Algernon Moncrieff): 'he has a ward etc., very young and pretty. That in the country he has to be serious etc. 'That he comes to town to enjoy himself, and has invented a fictitious younger brother of the name of George - to whom all his misdeeds are set down.' Lot 160, Oscar Wilde, 'Confessions of tastes, habits and convictions', authorial manuscript, 1877, is estimated to fetch between 40,000 and 60,000. Beyonce releases a new project and, of course, the world stops. On Friday, the pop icon's new visual album, Black Is King, launched on Disney's new streaming service Disney+ with all the frenzied speculation that's become her pre-release specialty since 2013's Beyonce. Beyonce in her new visual album, Black Is King. Credit:Disney Unlike 2016's surprise Lemonade, this one had a month's notice. And a trailer. And a cast list that featured prominent names including Lupita Nyong'o, Pharrell Williams and Naomi Campbell as well as South Sudanese-Australian models Adut Akech Bior and Aweng Ade-Chuol. A visual companion to last year's Grammy-nominated The Lion King: The Gift, a tie-in album for Disney's CGI remake in which she voiced Nala, Beyonce described Black Is King on Instagram as a "celebration of the breadth and beauty of Black ancestry". Were not worried about someone who they passed on the street, Zamor said. Were worried about someone who came within six feet of them if they were not wearing a mask. We contact those people, and tell them to get tested. We tell them to stay at home for two weeks even if the test is negative. Athens, GA (30605) Today Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers in the afternoon. High 51F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.. Tonight Cloudy skies. Low 34F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. This content is expired! Unfortunely this content is expired and cannot be viewed anymore; if You are the owner of this content please login to our Website, go to our access panel and enable this content again. Tear gas is fired at protestors who previously gathered on the Vine Street Expressway blocking traffic in Philadelphia, June 01, 2020. Monday is the third day of protests about the police involved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Read more City Controller Rebecca Rhynharts review of Phillys calamitous response to several days of protests and civil unrest sparked by the police killing of George Floyd has barely begun. But the controllers announcement this week that a Community Advisory Accountability Council will participate in the process is a promising start. The savvy choice of Rev. Mark Tyler, who pastors the Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, and Jeff Brown, the owner of two city supermarkets, to co-chair the council also sends a clear signal. Communities profoundly impacted by City Halls mistakes will get a chance to help figure out what happened and what solutions are needed. Rhynhart announced the review, to be undertaken by the law firm Ballard Spahr and the AT-RISK International consulting company, on June 4. Five days later, Mayor Jim Kenney issued a statement that promised policing and policy reforms of the sort that have been promised for generations. And on June 15, the mayor and police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw announced the city would launch an independent after-action investigation of itself. The Kenney administration says it has hired outside experts to perform the actual work. But how independent can a consultant paid by the administration to investigate the administration be? Will the process of this independent after-action investigation be off-limits to public participation and scrutiny? And finally, getting answers to the pressing questions of how the city failed to plan and why police acted so aggressively shouldnt require an investigation; it just requires the administration to be transparent about what it already knows. READ MORE: Sir, its chaos! Critical mistakes doomed the police response to Phillys George Floyd demonstrations. The controllers office has the statutory independence, the wherewithal, and the will to conduct an impartial review of the Kenney administrations decisions and actions. As the Inquirer reported, despite widespread rage over Floyds brutal death at the hands of a Minneapolis cop, a Philly police plan to scale up resources and deploy the sort of peacekeeping response that served the city well during previous mass demonstrations was mysteriously shelved. So on Saturday, May 30 in Center City, too-few officers were deployed or available as peaceful demonstrations turned violent around City Hall. Witnesses said they spotted few police in the shopping areas east and west of Broad Street as looting erupted and continued for hours. The following day, as looters struck 52nd Street, police fired teargas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets at neighborhood residents, bystanders as well as protesters. Monday, June 1 brought the debacle to I-676, when cops wantonly teargassed demonstrators who had been herded onto an embankment. Three federal lawsuits have been filed against the police for those actions. READ MORE: Philly Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, Mayor Jim Kenney apologize for teargassing of protesters on 676 If the end result is to have more enduring impact than whatever emerges from the Kenney administrations self-examination, the community advisory accountability council will be key. The controllers office is accepting applications through Aug. 9 and will unveil the full membership of the council on Aug. 19. Recommendations are expected before the end of the year, as are results from the administrations investigation. If the controllers report is truly informed and shaped by community leaders, business people, and residents, its the one were betting on for raising the questions needed to bring long-overdue reforms to Philadelphia policing. Dombrowski, 57, is one of thousands of teachers throughout the Chicago area who are at higher risk from COVID-19 due to age or chronic health conditions. For many of them, this is an anxious time; while the Americans with Disabilities Act provides protections for those with the most serious health conditions, its still unclear exactly how schools will respond to a wide range of potential risk levels. Hundreds of thousands of civil servants are still working from home two weeks after Boris Johnson urged workers to get back to the office to help save the economy. Ministerial departments in Whitehall are said to be 'ghost towns' with some seeing just 2 per cent of staff arriving at work this week, according to an audit by the Daily Mail. Just a few dozen staff were seen entering the offices of the Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions each day. The once bustling offices can hold a total of 3,500 employees. Meanwhile just 140 arrived at a 100-year-old Whitehall building that houses five departments including the Treasury where a source claimed there was 'basically no one in apart from Rishi'. Ministerial departments in Whitehall are said to be 'ghost towns' with some seeing just 2 per cent of staff arriving at work this week. Pictured: A woman arrives at HM Treasury Last night former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith called on civil servants to 'lead by example' and return to offices to save the country from 'economic Armageddon'. On July 17, the Prime Minister announced an end to the Government's work from home guidance which comes into effect today. He called for employees to return to their desks and pressed on with this yesterday despite delaying other lockdown easing measures. There are growing fears that city centre shops and eateries which rely on office workers face ruin if more employees do not return. Yet the majority of the Government's own 430,000-strong Whitehall workforce is still working from home. Although departments have space for 30 per cent of staff to return, the Cabinet Office admitted that only one in five civil servants are at the offices. Just a few dozen staff were seen entering the offices of the Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions each day. The once bustling offices can hold a total of 3,500 employees The Daily Mail monitored Whitehall departments between 7.15am and 11am this week and found that even this low estimate appeared generous. Only 34 people were seen turning up to the Department for Education offices which could hold up to 2,000 staff pre-pandemic on Thursday morning. This would equate to under 2 per cent of its London staff. The Mail also observed just 50 people entering the headquarters of the Department for Work and Pensions at Caxton House in London on Wednesday. Even fewer arrived on Thursday a total of 31 which is fewer than 2 per cent of the 1,700 staff members who usually worked there. A DWP spokesman said some may have arrived by bike at the side entrance and that many were keen to return to their desks. Meanwhile, at the 800,000-square-foot Home Office, just 145 people were observed entering the main entrance which the majority of its staff are understood to use on Wednesday morning. Just a few dozen staff were seen entering the offices of the Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions each day. The once bustling offices can hold a total of 3,500 employees Tory MP Andrew Bridgen who visited the office, which also houses the Department for Environment, recently said: 'It was deserted. My flat in Westminster is a stone's throw from the Home Office. The shops, the streets and all the pubs are open but it's a ghost town. They're all empty.' Meanwhile, a civil servant at the Treasury told the Mail there was 'basically no one in apart from Rishi' at the vast building that once held over 1,200 of its staff. The Treasury's offices also house 880 employees from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and hundreds more from three other departments. But the Mail observed just 144 people including visitors and workmen going through the entrance on Wednesday and 137 on Thursday. It is understood Treasury staff are limited by the fact that there are only enough toilets for a quarter of them to socially distance. A Cabinet Office source said there had been 'reinvigorated efforts to get people back in'. But a Whitehall source last night said: 'Westminster is a ghost town. Most departments have been almost empty for months. There does not appear to be a rush of people wanting to come back.' Last night Mr Duncan Smith said that workers are receiving mixed messages about returning to the office. He added: 'We need to have a settled message and the key people that can start that is civil servants. We need them to lead the way.' The PCS union, which represents civil servants, has threatened industrial action if workers are ordered back to their desks to clear backlogs in public services. General secretary Mark Serwotka said ministers will face 'serious industrial unrest' if they tell their staff to return. A Cabinet Office spokesman said: 'Civil servants have worked throughout the pandemic and have made significant, valuable contributions towards the national effort. We are ensuring workplaces are Covid-secure so civil servants can return safely.' The Department for Culture said that the majority of its workers plan to return to the London office from September. Additional reporting: Glen Keogh, Kamal Sultan, Neil Sears and Claudia Joseph Iran Agrees to Pay Compensation for Ukranian Plane Downed in January, Foreign Ministry Says Sputnik News 20:28 GMT 30.07.2020(updated 21:35 GMT 30.07.2020) In January, the crash of a Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 killed all of the 176 people on board. Commenting on the tragedy, Tehran later said that the plane was mistakenly downed after the military confused it with a hostile target. Tehran has agreed to pay compensation for the January downing of a Ukrainian plane, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Thursday. "Iran agreed to pay compensation for the plane, but the implementation of this issue will take time and has various aspects from a technical and legal point of view", Mousavi said, according to state-run news agency IRNA. Reiterating that Tehran has accepted accountability for the tragedy, he noted that "many passengers" on the downed plane were Iranian citizens, adding that talks on Ukrainian citizens will continue. Earlier, reports emerged suggesting that Ukraine and the Iranian delegation in Kiev were negotiating on compensations for the crash of the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800. The aircraft was shot down on 8 January shortly after takeoff from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport, resulting in the deaths of all 176 people on board. Iran later claimed responsibility for the tragedy, saying that the plane was shot down by mistake after military personnel confused it with a hostile target amid fears of US strikes. Since the crash took place shortly after Iran conducted airstrikes against American bases in Iraq, following the US killing of Iran's top general Qasem Soleimani, Tehran was anticipating a retaliatory attack. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address CLEAN INVEST AFRICA PLC ("CIA" or the "Company") Total Voting Rights and Share Capital Correction In accordance with the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure and Transparency Rules, the Board of CIA confirms that the Company has 1,179,755,301 ordinary shares of 0.25 pence each in issue, each share carrying the right to one vote. The Company does not hold any Ordinary Shares in treasury. The figure of 1,179,755,301 may be used by shareholders in the Company as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure and Transparency Rules. Shareholders should note that in the announcement of 20 July 2020, the total voting rights was overstated by 1,500,000 Ordinary Shares. The Directors of the Company accept responsibility for the content of this announcement. ENQUIRIES: Clean Invest Africa PLC Filippo Fantechi - Chief Executive Officer Telephone: +973 3 9696273 Noel Lyons - Executive Director Telephone: +44 7912 514 809 Corporate Adviser Peterhouse Capital Limited Guy Miller / Mark Anwyl Telephone: 020 7220 9795 Due to the strong rise in the number of coronavirus infections in Spain, the Foreign office now warns against tourist travel in the three regions of the most popular vacation lands of the Germans. From the formal travel warning are affected, according to a communication of the foreign office by the Friday of Catalonia with the tourist metropolis of Barcelona and the beaches of the Costa Brava, as well as the West in the inland regions of Aragon and Navarra, but not Mallorca and the Canary Islands. Before the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) had arranged regions, the regions as a risk. This was highlighted in an updating of the corresponding RKI-list from Friday. In the three areas in Spain has been exceeded, according to the Federal Ministry of health, the threshold of more than 50 new infections are among per 100,000 population in the past seven days. In the EU, Luxembourg is already on the list, which is for German tourists is important. For travellers returning from officially classified high-risk areas to Corona in the next week, a test of duty, and to come-through voluntary Tests, which are intended to be for all Entering the country from abroad free of charge. Updated Date: 31 July 2020, 13:19 This is the first ever attempt by any Indian University towards a cloud based AI enabled faster & low-cost solution to the problem based on Multiple Hypothesis Inference Criterion Kolkata based Adamas University has signed a project based Memorandum of Understanding, with Elmax Systems & Solutions ( ISO 9001:2015 Certified company and enlisted with MSME. Govt. of India) in Kolkata to develop a cloud based automated diagnostic tool to detect coronavirus disease using radiographs. This is the first ever attempt by any Indian University towards a cloud based AI enabled faster & low-cost solution to the problem based on Multiple Hypothesis Inference Criterion. The novelty is in a single point multi-hypothesis based faster detection of COVID-19 from Radiography images & other medical vital conditions with severity score tag for early detection of nCOVID-19 patients and necessary measures. The Automated Detection Tool developed by Adamas University and ESS aims to offer a valuable second opinion to the doctors and assist them in the screening process. This type of mechanism will provide results to the doctors quickly and in an efficient and accurate manner. Mr. Debashis Chakrabarti, CEO of ESS and alumni of IIT-Kharagpur said that, In this software, we have developed an Artificial Intelligence based Technique for detecting COVID-19 on Chest Radiographs(X-Ray or CT Scans) ,other medical vitals like temperature , saturation percentage of Oxygen and even pathological data from Blood Routine Examination like Leukocyte, Lymphocyte & Neutrophil. The technique would also act as an aid to the conventional RT-PCR based method to isolate the contracted individuals. The project will see utilization of the techniques of data science and machine learning on radiograph images along with other parameters to successfully detect the COVID-19. Syracuse, N.Y. -- Today we close out the hottest month ever recorded in Syracuse. Not just the hottest July, but the hottest month, period, since records began 118 years ago. July 2020 will end up about 6 degrees warmer than normal, beating by nearly a degree the hottest-July record in 1955. We can thank a massive heat bubble that has developed and persisted across more than half the country, said New York state climatologist Mark Wysocki. Were being protected by a pretty good heat bubble that extends from the West Coast to the Mississippi River Valley, and its preventing any of the cooler drier air from Canada from getting down here, Wysocki said. Heres what that bubble has brought to Syracuse this month: -- Every day this month has been warmer than normal -- by as much as 12 degrees. -- The average high temperature has been nearly 88 degrees. Normal is 81.6. -- We tied the record for the most 90-degree days in a row: Seven, from July 4 to 10. It was 89 on July 11, so we missed breaking the record, set in 1973, by just one degree. -- We also missed by just one degree setting a record for the most consecutive days of at least 80 degrees. That 43-day run started June 16 and ended Tuesday. On Wednesday, the high was only 79, thanks to some afternoon thunderstorms that cooled the air. That was the only day all month when Syracuse didnt reach 80. While not record-breaking or record-tying, rainfall was above normal his month at 5.22 inches. A typical July has 3.78 inches of rain. The heat bubble is likely to burst only by a strong tropical storms, Wysocki said, and those that have already developed havent been strong enough. The only thing that would break it is a tropical storm or a hurricane -- a really good one -- coming in, but it has to get into Texas and Louisiana to break down this ridge, Wysocki said. Thats not in the cards right now. Hurricane Isaias is headed for Florida and is likely to sweep the East Coast. It could drop heavy rain next week in Upstate New York, particularly the Hudson Valley. Wysocki said we can expect warmer-than-normal temperatures for much of August, but with a lower sun angle and the earth losing more stored heat during longer nights, were unlikely to see a month as hot as this one. Were looking at temperatures above normal, but were not going to start getting into the upper 80s and lower 90s right now, he said. Just five years ago, Syracuse had its coldest month ever recorded. During the brutal polar vortex winter, the temperature never went above freezing in February 2015, the only time thats happened. And we had 5 feet of snow. But lets not think about winter right now. Instead, enjoy this day-by-day retrospective on our toasty warmest month ever. Departure is the difference in the average temperature compared to normal. A coronavirus outbreak has been reported at the University of Southern California's (USC) fraternity row after around 40 people have tested positive of the virus, school officials confirmed Thursday. USC Student Health's chief Dr. Sarah Van Orman, told Los Angeles Times that the coronavirus outbreak took root at the 28th Street fraternity row. CBS Los Angeles quoted Van Orman saying there was a "significant number of cases" linked to the fraternity row. New York Post reported around 150 USC students and workers who have been infected with the virus. But the coronavirus outbreak can be curbed with the help of community members off-campus, USC officials said. About 40 people living on a street near some of the school's frat houses have tested positive for COVID-19, said Van Orman. Van Orman also said USC did not control the off-campus houses, and it was not clear if the outbreak just involved frat members who often leased out rooms during the summer break. This means it is not clear if all of those infected are only frat members. She added that unless people know the right tools like social distancing and wearing masks, the virus's spread is likely to go on. There is a change of drastic effects on the economy, learning, academics, jobs, and people drying, said Van Orman. "Each of us has to decide what we stand for. Frats need to do that as well," she said. According to school officials, the outbreak among USC frats is over, for the most part. Van Orman gave credit to continued testing and contact tracing. Los Angeles County Department of Public Health also has a required quarantine order that USC adheres to. The school first had 15 reported positive cases on fraternity row earlier this month. "We haven't seen any more cases for the last week or so," Van Orman said. Virus Outbreaks in Colleges USC is not the only U.S. university to have seen a virus outbreak. As of late July, the University of Texas (U.T.) is on the top of the list for universities with the most COVID-19 cases. There are also about 6,300 cases tied to about 270 colleges since the start of the pandemic. Since the pandemic began, U.T. has the highest number of cases at 449 cases, said a report from local news channel KVUE. There were also outbreaks at universities in Washington, California, and Mississippi. What do the outbreaks mean for U.S. colleges? Experts say the outbreaks could be an example of what may happen to U.S. colleges and universities when in-person classes begin this fall. University of Washington's chair for the Advisory Committee on Communicable Diseases said the outbreaks serve as "lessons" for students to keep in mind when they return to campus. In a Time report, Professor David Hamer of Boston University, who is also a specialist in infectious diseases, expressed concern over a "substantial risk" that the outbreaks pose. He noted that while universities are planning to have a multi-layered strategy to limit or prevent outbreaks, "whether they'll be successful is another story." Some universities have changed their mind and are looking at an online approach to the coming fall semester. This is something that even the students are aware of since even their spring plans were cut short by the spread of the virus. Want to read more? Check these out! New Study Links Spring School Closures to Decline in COVID-19 Cases and Deaths Are There Medications to Treat COVID-19? Here's What We Know Brazil's First Lady Tests Positive for COVID-19 KANDAHAR, Afghanistan Some of the most intense border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent years left at least 15 civilians dead on the Afghan side on Thursday, officials said. Afghanistan accused Pakistani forces of firing heavy artillery into civilian areas after protests by communities on both sides who were demanding the reopening of a nearby border crossing that Pakistan had closed to try to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Hayatullah Hayat, the governor of Kandahar Province, where the clashes occurred, said the worst barrage of Pakistani artillery started around 7 p.m. and struck the Spin Boldak area. In addition to the deaths, at least 80 other civilians were wounded, he said. Afghan security officials said they had retaliated with rockets. Social media videos apparently filmed from the Pakistani side showed the dark sky lit up by intense crossfire. A delegation from the local Pakistani government in Baluchistan Province had arrived at the border to assess the situation, officials in Pakistan said. First Minister Arlene Foster has said she is not threatened by a new shared island unit established by Taoiseach Micheal Martin. If a border poll was called, people in Northern Ireland would vote to remain in the UK, the DUP leader added. Mr Martin has said a referendum on a united Ireland would be too divisive but favours development of a stronger north-south relationship. On Friday, he said progress had been made in discussions on better rail links between Belfast, Dublin and Cork, and the building of a greenway cycle route between Sligo and Enniskillen in Co Fermanagh. Just finished a very constructive briefing with the PM @BorisJohnson relating to covid-19 challenges across the UK. Welsh & Scottish counterparts also part of the call. Key sectors in our economy still need support and we all must stay alert to curb any second waves. Arlene Foster #ProudofNI. (@ArleneFosterUK) July 31, 2020 Mrs Foster said: We do share an island and there are two jurisdictions on the island and I will never shy away from speaking about my unionism and why I believe in the union. She added: There is nothing to fear from having these discussions about the island. She said it does not change what she believes in but it is always good to talk and share information, as they have done throughout the pandemic. It does not threaten our constitutional position or what we believe in so I dont feel threatened at all by the shared island unit. I have to say everyone knows my position in relation to a border poll. If it was called today, of course people would vote to remain in the United Kingdom, although Im sure Michelle (Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill) would take a different view, therefore I have nothing to fear from that. Very positive and open discussions at todays North South Ministerial Council. Im looking forward to an ongoing focus and continuing engagement so that together we can address the challenges facing people on our island pic.twitter.com/GoQNyImaaT Micheal Martin (@MichealMartinTD) July 31, 2020 Mr Martin previously said an all-island unit to be established in his department would be focused on how to develop a shared future. Januarys New Decade, New Approach deal to restore Stormont powersharing pledged to turbo-charge connections between Dublin and Belfast. The Government also promised to jointly fund cross-border investment on bridges, roads and canals. The 24th plenary meeting of the North South Ministerial Council (NSMC) was held at Dublin Castle on Friday the first since before the collapse of Stormont powersharing. Quarterly Activities Report Sydney, July 31, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - At the close of Q2 2020, Empire Energy Group Limited ( ASX:EEG ) ( OTCMKTS:EEGUF ) is on the eve of exciting advances with the Company in readiness for the drilling of its first well in the highly-prospective and increasingly-active Beetaloo Sub-basin of the Northern Territory, Carpentaria-1. The upcoming drilling program represents a key milestone in the development of Empire's 100%-owned 14.5-million-acre shale petroleum project areas in the Beetaloo-McArthur Basins.Highlights of Q2 2020 include:- Locking in the well pad location and initiating site preparation for the drilling of the Carpentaria-1 well in EP187 for commencement of drilling operations late Q3 2020- Long-lead items such as the wellhead and drill pipe for the Carpentaria-1 well ordered after the end of the Quarter- Leading oil and gas industry professional, Mr Peter Cleary appointed as a Non-Executive Director- Netherland Sewell & Associates independent resource report assesses that Empire holds a total best estimate Prospective Resource of 13.46Tcf across its Northern Territory properties, including over 2.3Tcf in the Velkerri Shale and 14 million barrels of oil equivalent in the liquids rich Kyalla Shale- The Territory Economic Reconstruction Commission interim report stated strong support for the development of the onshore gas industry in the Northern Territory- Further Empire Director share buying during the QuarterEmpire has on issue 36,218,754 unlisted options at A$0.30 per share expiring on 26 SeptemberComments from Managing Director Alex Underwood: Having demonstrated that the shales of the Beetaloo Sub-basin extend into EP187 following the 2019 2D seismic program, our team has had a busy quarter preparing for the upcoming drilling campaign. Our well to be drilled in EP187, Carpentaria-1, will be only the second well drilled in the Beetaloo Sub-basin since the lifting of the fracking moratorium.The first well, Kyalla-117, was a horizontal well drilled by Origin Energy which is expected to be fracture stimulated and flow tested later this year. We have commenced the preparatory works for the upcoming drilling program including selection of a preferred drilling contractor and ordering of long-lead items including casing and a well head. Civil construction will commence shortly and we expect to mobilise the rig to site within weeks. The drilling of Carpentaria-1 is a defining moment for our Company.It represents the culmination of over 2 years' work building our financial capacity and Board and management capabilities. We look forward to commencing the drilling program and sharing the results with shareholders soon.To view the quarterly report, please visit:About Empire Energy Group Ltd Empire Energy (ASX:EEG) (OTCMKTS:EEGUF) holds over 14.5 million acres of highly prospective exploration tenements in the McArthur and Beetaloo Basins, Northern Territory. Work undertaken by the Company since 2010 demonstrates that the Eastern depositional Trough of the McArthur Basin, of which the Company holds 80% has very considerable conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon potential. The Beetaloo sub-Basin, in which Empire holds a substantial position, has independently assessed world class hydrocarbon volumes in place with a major ramp up in industry activity underway to appraise substantial discoveries already made by major Australian oil and gas operators. Empire Energy is an experienced conventional oil and gas producer with operations in the Appalachia region (New York and Pennsylvania). Empire has been successfully developing and producing oil and gas since 2006. New Delhi : In order to prevent any rise in price of commodities after GST implementation, the Centre has proposed an anti-profiteering measure to ensure that trade and industry pass the benefits of reduction in tax rates to consumers. The draft model GST law, which is to be finalised by the GST Council on December 2-3, has also specified that the highest tax slab will not exceed 28 per cent in the GST regime, thus accepting the key demand of Congress. ALSO READ: (Centre to compensate states every quarter for GST revenue loss) As per the draft, the central government will constitute an authority or entrust the task to an existing authority to examine that the input tax credits or reduction in tax rates are passed by registered tax payers to consumers. The Centre today released 3 draftsmodel GST law, IGST law and Compensation lawwhich have to approved by the Centre and state legislatures for roll out of GST. Under the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, which is likely to kick in from April 1, all traders and industries have to be registered with the GST Network to pay taxes, file return and claim refunds. Enabling provisions have been made for introduction of anti-profiteering measure, wherein a mechanism may be established to monitor whether the benefit arising to industry on account of GST is passed on to the consumers, said Pratik Jain, Partner and leader Indirect Tax at PwC. The draft Integrated GST (IGST) law which has to be adopted by Centre as well as the states, says that Centre will notify the GST rate on the recommendations of the GST Council but it would not exceed 28 per cent. ALSO READ: (GST rates have scope of improvement says former FM P Chidambaram) The GST Council, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and having state representatives, has already decided on a 4-tier GST tax structure of 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent. Luxury items and demerit goods would be taxed at the highest rate and would also attract a cess to create a Rs 50,000 crore corpus for compensating states for loss of revenue. Parliament will have to approve all these legislations in the ongoing Winter Session to meet the April deadline. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Amid the pandemic, a national medical governing body is being criticized for forcing Canadian medical students studying abroad to choose between health and pursuing a residency spot in Canada. In an online petition, Canadians attending medical schools overseas asked the Medical Council of Canada to suspend an in-person exam scheduled to be conducted here in September. The knowledge and skill test is mandatory for those studying medicine abroad to gain admission to postgraduate training here. The petition states that in addition to exposing themselves and Canadians to COVID-19 as a result of the international travel, the in-person test means mandatory self-quarantine for students upon arrival in Canada, and again after returning to their overseas school. As a result, they will lose at least four weeks of studies or clinical training toward their graduation just to take Canadas National Assessment Collaboration exam. If students choose to disregard their university policies and miss four weeks of programming, they will not meet program requirements needed for graduation, said the petition, which has collected almost 1,100 signatures. International medical students may be travelling from any region of the world in order to write this exam in a select few Canadian cities. Although students may take every precaution they can in preventing transmission of COVID-19, there is no way to guarantee this. The medical council said it is mindful of the candidates concerns and will continue to monitor the situation to ensure public health safety. Our priority during the COVID-19 pandemic is to ensure the safety of our candidates and all involved in our exams, Kathryn Keyes, the councils spokesperson, told the Star in an email. The intent in proceeding with the NAC examination, despite the ongoing pandemic, is to allow candidates to complete this mandatory qualifying exam in a safe environment and in a timely manner to support their educational and career progression. Keyes said the council has made the necessary accommodation to ensure public-health recommendations are heeded. To date, some 1,500 people have already applied for the test Keyes said in past years a significant portion of candidates typically were already in Canada prior to the exam. Attempts are made to ensure everyone has a spot, she added. Zeeshan Ahmad, who studied medicine at the University of Queensland and now works as a resident doctor in Australia, said he has reservations about travelling to Canada during the pandemic. To sit the exam in Canada, I must travel to Canada, exposing myself and others to the risk of coronavirus, quarantine for 14 days in Canada then come back and quarantine in Australia. Not to mention the added cost of flights and mandatory quarantine, said the 31-year-old from Mississauga. Canadians who are residing in Australia without permanent residency on temporary work visas will not be allowed to re-enter Australia once they leave. Thus, they are not able to take the exam during the pandemic given the fear of losing their job and everything else they have worked so hard for. In response to the pandemic, U.S. authorities have suspended a similar clinical exam and offered alternative ways to assess and verify applicants skills if they are licensed in another country or through the medical schools they attend abroad for proof of clinical competency. A Canadian medical student now in Ireland said many of the candidates are still abroad undergoing their final year in medical schools and those already in Canada are likely new immigrants trying to qualify to practise again. She cant fathom why the council refused to move the test online. This year, there is no hands-on component. The exam will consist of a history and explaining verbally how you would examine a patient, followed by a question-and-answer period. So, what is the need to be there in person? asked the woman from Stouffville, one of eight students interviewed by the Star. All but one asked for anonymity for fear of reprisals. MCC is happy to put all of us at risk of infection and exclude those of us with travel restrictions for their bottom line. They are making over three million dollars with this exam and although I am speculating here, money talks. The Canadian exam score has been used by residency programs to evaluate applicants but this year it is simply pass/fail, so the programs gain no insight into the candidates relative levels of competency, said another student. We do not have many options. We take the exam and get to apply to the 2021 (residence) cycle, or we dont take it and we cant apply, said the young woman from Southern Ontario, who has registered for the exam. So in addition to poor health, we would have our medical degrees and our future all put at risk for one exam we are being forced to attend during a global pandemic. The students asked for the exam to be suspended until self-quarantine is not required or that it be cancelled and struck from being a requirement this year. If not, a new online format should be offered, they said. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 12:27:48|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith speaks during a symposium held during his inspection at the Vientiane station of China-Laos railway in Laos, July 30, 2020. Thongloun Sisoulith spoke highly of China-Laos railway construction achievements when inspecting the construction of the railway's Vientiane station on Thursday. (Photo by Li Huan/Xinhua) VIENTIANE, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith spoke highly of China-Laos railway construction achievements when inspecting the construction of the railway's Vientiane station on Thursday. "This is the sixth time I have come to the Laos-China railway construction sites," Prime Minister Thongloun said at a symposium held during his inspection, saying that from the very beginning, the construction of the Laos-China railway has brought positive changes in the appearance of the cities and towns, promoted social and economic development and increased the employment of the people along the railway. He expressed his appreciation for the railway's design scheme and well-organized construction work, and satisfaction over every achievement since the commencement of the railway construction. The China-Laos Railway will run some 422 km from Boten border gate in northern Laos, bordering China, to Vientiane with an operating speed of 160 km per hour. It is seen as a strategic docking project between the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and Laos' strategy to convert from a landlocked country to a land-linked hub. Xiao Qianwen, the general manager of the Laos-China Railway Co., Ltd (LCRC), a joint venture based in Lao capital Vientiane in charge of the railway's construction and operation, briefed the Lao primie minister on the railway's contruction work, noting that the engineering companies have completed 91 percent work of building the tunnels, bridges and roadbed. With the COVID-19 pandemic lingering around, and the pressure from the tight timetable and heavy workload, the LCRC will continue to push forward the construction with high quality and efficiency, and thoroughly prepare for the future operation and management, Xiao said. The Lao prime minister praised all the participating firms' efforts made to overcome the impact of the pandemic and ensure the construction schedule, encouraging the LCRC to apply its advanced experiences to the Laos-China railway project to build the railway into a modernized one as to serve the development in the Laos and Southeastern Asia. Thongloun also instructed the relevant departments of the Lao government to go all out to create favorable conditions for the construction of the project and to ensure its timely opening to traffic. The construction of the railway started in December 2016 and is scheduled to be completed in December 2021. Enditem Many leaders of Chinas internet giants have offered their insights into how to accelerate new infrastructure construction and digital transformation during the just concluded annual sessions of the national legislature and political advisory body, known as the two sessions. A staff member operates a drone to disinfect an area in Tashan township, Ganyu district, Lianyungang, east Chinas Jiangsu province, during the COVID-19 epidemic. (Si Wei/Peoples Daily Online) Deputies of the National People's Congress (NPC) and members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, submitted bills and proposals on the topic. This years government work report said China will step up the construction of new types of infrastructure, develop next-generation information networks, expand 5G applications, build more charging facilities and promote wider use of new-energy automobiles. New infrastructure with artificial intelligence as its core will fuel economic development, said Li Yanhong, Baidu chairman and a CPPCC member. Accelerating new infrastructure construction will help the real economy cushion the negative impact of the epidemic in the short term, according to an NPC deputy in the internet sector, adding that it is also essential that China embrace the new round of technological and industrial revolutions taking place in the world, and to transform its growth model and realize high-quality development. Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO of Lenovo Group, and an NPC deputy, suggested that greater support be given to new infrastructure construction and the training of versatile professionals to improve the capability to integrate 5G with the industrial internet and promote the sustained, innovative development of the manufacturing industry. The suggestion was in line with the government work reports call to encourage the upgrading of manufacturing and the growth of emerging industries, and to promote the industrial internet and boost smart manufacturing. In terms of digital transformation, Li said China is in an important period in which there is opportunity for the development of transportation, and emerging technologies such as AI and 5G are acting as new engines driving the development of intelligent transportation. He proposed stepping up the construction of smart transportation infrastructure to build up Chinas transportation strength. Li also suggested that intelligent transformation of transportation networks and the building of a new-generation smart transportation platform be accelerated. Ding Lei, director and CEO of NetEase, and a CPPCC member, said digital technologies should be leveraged to improve Chinas capability to monitor major epidemics. Ding proposed the building of a national epidemic-related big data analysis center to establish an early warning and early intervention mechanism. In addition, the CEO of Lenovo also called for accelerated development of a new-generation Internet Plus Healthcare platform covering households, communities and scientific research institutions based on the internet, big data, AI and other new-generation information technologies. China will cultivate technology and data markets, thus unleashing potential in all types of production factors, as stated in the government work report. With this in mind, lawmakers and political advisors called for data sharing among different sectors and data security. The country will advance Internet Plus initiatives across the board and create new competitive strengths in the digital economy, the report said. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- New York Citys public schools will only be able to reopen as planned this fall if the citys coronavirus infection rate stays below 3%, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday as he outlined rigorous plans for the return of schools during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. One positive COVID-19 test in a classroom would be enough to quarantine an entire classroom for two weeks under the mayor and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranzas plan, and two cases confirmed within a school would shut the entire school for two weeks. De Blasio said students would be required to stay in pods together throughout the day as much as possible and limit contact with other classrooms to contain any potential spread of the virus to other parts of the school. The mayor, however, expressed confidence that the country would soon get a COVID-19 vaccine and the citys new set up for schools would not remain for long. It is very different than what were used to and weve gotta get our kids and families ready for that, he told reporters during a press conference Friday. It will feel different, its not forever, its for a few months, we hope, until theres a vaccine. De Blasio said he was optimistic the citys seven day testing threshold would remain below 3% moving forward, pointing out that the city has been under a 3% threshold over a seven day rolling average since June 10. But if new cases surpass the 3% threshold, de Blasio said schools would have to switch back to full remote learning or close altogether. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said that in order for schools to reopen the daily infection rate would need to stay below 5% over a 14-day average. De Blasio vowed to be fully transparent when COVID-19 cases are confirmed and quickly inform parents and teachers if anyone at a school tests positive. If a student or teacher is feeling sick, the city will require them to stay home or get tested if they experience any symptoms. If students or staff are sick at school, they will be isolated immediately and monitored by staff. The city will prioritize free rapid COVID-19 testing for school staff and students and will encourage them to get tested on a monthly basis and also provide free face coverings to them and disinfect schools throughout the day. Following the press conference, United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew sent out a statement slamming the citys safety plan. The standards the city proposed for protection, testing, and closing of schools and classrooms are not enough, Mulgrew said. We need randomized testing of school communities throughout the year and a vigorous contact tracing system that gives schools test results and a course of action with a 24-hour turnaround. Whats more, the statement continued, even if there are stronger safety standards in place, we still have grave concerns about the citys ability to enforce them effectively in every school. Right now, this is not enough to protect students and staff. " GIVING PARENTS CONSISTENCY We want to give some consistency to parents, weve said before, were really choosing from a portfolio of imperfect solutions, Carranza told reporters. The perfect solution would be a vaccine, or back to where we were before, but absent that, parents need to have some semblance of security -- when are the days of the week that my child will be in-person? When are the days of the week that they will be in remote learning, so that they can plan what their work schedules will look like or childcare will look like, Carranza continued. Carranza said that any school could submit exceptions or proposals for other learning models in line with the citys guidelines and the DOE would consider those requests. The mayor and Carranza laid out a plan earlier this month for staggered and remote learning for students returning to classrooms in the fall. Come September, parents will have the option to allow their children to fully work remotely, but if they choose to send their kids back to the classroom, students will only be allowed to return for in-person learning two or three days of the week and work remotely the rest of the time. Donald Trump has threatened to send the National Guard into Portland if the governor and mayor fail to clear out what he says is a beehive of terrorists. Speaking at a White House press conference, the president said Portland was a disaster filled with professional agitators and anarchists, and that the National Guard would be sent if local officials didnt get the city under control in the next two days. The governor and the mayor, weve been dealing with them, and we think they dont know what theyre doing because this should not have been going on for 60 days, Mr Trump said. Its not our job to go clean out the cities, its supposed to be done by local law enforcement. He said that federal police officers would stay in Portland to see how local law enforcement does, and if they dont wrest control of the city then the federal government will take care of it. And were telling these protestors, and many should be arrested because these are professional agitators, these are professional anarchists, these are people that hate our country, Mr Trump said. Theyre working today and probably tomorrow to clean out this beehive of terrorists, and if they do it Im going to be very happy. And then slowly well be able to leave the city. If they dont do it well send in the National Guard. Protester says federal troops were escalating the violence in Portland The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Chad Wolf and Oregon Governor Kate Brown yesterday announced a joint plan to end the violence directed at federal law enforcement officers. Under the plan, Oregon State Police will keep the peace in downtown Portland while DHS will keep federal agents in the city on standby to protect the Hatfield Federal Courthouse if the violence continues unchecked. We will continue to keep law enforcement officers in the area to make sure that that courthouse is secure at the end of the day, Mr Wolf said in an interview with Fox News. Over time, if the Oregon State Police and the plan that has been put in place is successful, and we can responsibly draw down law enforcement assets there, then we will. Mr Trumps threat of sending in the National Guard comes after more than 60 consecutive nights of both protests and riots. In a statement, Oregon State Police (OSP) said special operation teams and uniformed troopers would begin a two-week rotation within Portland on Thursday. OSP hopes to develop an atmosphere that affords the removal of the protective fence and restore a semblance of normalcy, while meeting community expectations and our obligations to protect the federal property, the statement said. PORTLAND, Ore. Portland had its first night in weeks without tear gas after state police took over from federal agents guarding a courthouse that has been the focal point of violence between protesters and tactical officers. Agents withdrew under a deal between Oregons Democratic governor and U.S. officials to end a deployment that sparked a clash between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic mayors over the use of federal police in U.S. cities. A few hundred people demonstrated outside the federal courthouse until around 2 a.m. on Friday, when they left of their own accord. On previous nights they were dispersed by agents firing tear gas and other munitions at pure-on anarchists" setting fires, shooting fireworks and hurling chemicals, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott said. Things went a lot better last night. Last night was the first night in about two months that our officers and agents inside the federal court building there in Portland didnt come under a direct and immediate threat of being burned alive, Scott said in an interview. Trump sent federal forces to confront what he called a beehive of terrorists" in Portland who had set fires and broke windows at the courthouse since late May, when protests against police violence began after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Democratic mayors said the deployment escalated tensions at largely peaceful anti-racism protests and was political theater for Trumps law and order" campaign ahead of the Nov.3 election. After a protester was nearly killed by a rubber bullet and several agents eyesight permanently damaged by lasers, Governor Kate Brown agreed to send state police to the courthouse and local police cleared a park used as a protest staging ground. Last night the world was watching Portland. Heres what they saw: Federal troops left downtown. Local officials protected free speech. And Oregonians spoke out for Black Lives Matter, racial justice, and police accountability through peaceful, non-violent protest," Brown tweeted. Police chief Chuck Lovell tweeted his thanks to protesters who stopped attempts to light fires and throw projectiles on the 63rd night of demonstrations, when there were no arrests. Protesters hoped they could return to their initial goals now that federal agents are gone. We need police reform, we need economic opportunities in the Afican-American community," an unnamed Black protester told local CBS affiliate KOIN 6. DHS agents remained on standby and National Guard troops could be sent in should state police be overrun, DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf told Fox News. A DHS spokesman said Wolf also ordered his agency to stop collecting information on journalists covering the protests after the Washington Post reported the practice. Scott said his agents had faced chaos" in which a mother would be peacefully protesting and then try to pull down a barrier with a rope, and someone with Press" written on their chest would be videotaping and then fire a slingshot in an agents face. We would not, nor would we ever try to systematically track or monitor legitimate journalists or protesters, he said. Its a very, very grayer area when that same person starts attacking you. 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 Some 60,000 people joined an opposition rally in Belarus, where presidential candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya said she was "tired of being afraid" and wanted to bring about peaceful change in the country. Tsikhanouskaya also dismissed the suggestions by investigators that her husband was connected to an alleged plot involving Russian mercenaries to destabilize Belarus ahead of the country's August 9 presidential election. Expressing shock and outrage over the killing of an American citizen inside Pakistani courtroom, US on Thursday (local time) asked Pakistan to "immediately reform its often abused blasphemy laws and its court system, which allow such abuses to occur." "We are shocked, saddened, and outraged that American citizen Tahir Naseem was killed yesterday inside a Pakistani courtroom. Naseem had been lured to Pakistan from his home in Illinois by individuals who then used Pakistan's blasphemy laws to entrap him," Cale Brown, Deputy Spokesperson, US State Department said in a release. Brown stated that the US government has been providing consular assistance to Naseem and his family since his detention in 2018 and has called the attention of senior Pakistani officials to his case to prevent the type of "shameful tragedy that eventually occurred." "We grieve with the family of Naseem. We urge Pakistan to immediately reform its often abused blasphemy laws and its court system, which allow such abuses to occur, and to ensure that the suspect is prosecuted to the full extent of the law," said Brown. Tahir Ahmad Naseem, from the minority Ahmadi community, was shot dead in a courtroom in Peshawar on Wednesday. He was on trial for blasphemy. The young assailant, identified as Khalid Khan who managed to get into the court amid tight security was arrested later. Naseem was arrested two years ago on blasphemy charges. Ahmadis, a four million-strong minority group in Pakistan, have faced death, threats, intimidation and a sustained hate campaign for decades. Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law carries an automatic death penalty for anyone convicted of insulting God, Islam, or other religious figures. Many members of the minority communities in Pakistan - the Ahmadis, Hindus, Christians and Sikhs were charged with blasphemy law. This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!! Topics Syracuse, N.Y. Mayor Ben Walsh said he is pursuing state legislation that would let the city require all new police officers to live in the city of Syracuse. It is my intention to seek change in state law that would allow us to enforce a residency requirement on the Syracuse Police Department, Walsh said during a briefing Friday afternoon. Walsh said the rule change would likely be applied only to incoming officers, not those already on the job. Walsh said hes talking to Central New Yorks state delegation about introducing a bill. The law would require approval from both chambers of the state legislature and a signature from the governor. The proposal resembles a piece of legislation introduced by lawmakers from Buffalo earlier this month. Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes and state Sen. Tim Kennedy proposed legislation that would let the Buffalo Common Council established a law requiring all new cops to live in the city. Syracuse officials have sought some sort of residency requirement from police officers for years. Many lawmakers argue it would improve police-community relations and lead to a police force that more closely resembles the community it serves. About 95% of police officers live outside the city. In a public forum with the mayor and police chief, New York Civil Liberties Union Director Yusuf Abdul-Qadir made a now-viral argument that allowing police to live outside the city means city taxpayers are subsidizing the suburbs. They take their money, on (Interstate) 81, go to outside the city, pay taxes in those communities that have some of the best schools, where we have an underfunded school district, Abdul-Qadir said. We are funding for other peoples communities to have the promise of the American dream while we are denying it in our community ... We are actually funding the suburbs. Walsh and the police union agreed to a five-year residency clause for new officers in a contract deal reached last year. But the Common Council rejected the proposal. Councilors argued Walsh gave away too much in exchange for residency, including bonuses for longtime officers and incentive pay for things like education or military service. The contract would have added $19.5 million to the police budget over four-and-a-half years. This is the second piece of police reform that Walsh has taken to state lawmakers. He also asked for a state law that would remove officer discipline from contractual negotiations, giving the chief more authority in disciplining officers. Its a fight the city tried to win in court, but a judge ruled in favor of the police union, which wants to keep the system the way it is. City lawyers are appealing that ruling. Canadian Heritage will be presenting its classic summer sound and light show online! OTTAWA, ON, July 31, 2020 /CNW/ - The sound and light show that usually runs on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in the summer is coming to you a bit differently this year. Starting today, Canadian Heritage is making the Northern Lights show available for Canadians to access online for free. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Government of Canada's priority of ensuring the health and safety of Canadians, Canadian Heritage has had to rethink its popular summer show. Production company TKNL, which designed the show, has recreated the emblematic Parliament Buildings on screen to offer a new experience for online viewers. This colourful 35-minute show is a unique opportunity for Canadians across the country to come together with loved ones and celebrate their culture and history. A variety of fun educational activities, which let visitors learn and test their knowledge of Canada, are new to the website this year. It's fun for all ages! Quotes "Northern Lights is a one-of-a-kind experience. The images, narration and soundtrack brilliantly depict the pivotal moments that have defined our history and culture. This summer, the sound and light show is going virtual! Why not plan a fun summer activity and watch the show at home with your loved ones? Being proud to be Canadian is what unites us, even when we have to stay two metres apart!" The Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage Quick Facts Over a million people have watched the Northern Lights show since it launched in 2015. For 2020, the show has been expanded to recognize the contribution of women in the Second World War, the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands and the contribution of the Metis Nation to Manitoba's entry into Confederation 150 years ago. Summer 2020 is the sixth edition of the sound and light show. Manulife is the exclusive sponsor of Northern Lights. Associated Links Northern Lights Sound and light show on Parliament Hill Northern Lights on Twitter Northern Lights on Instagram Northern Lights on Facebook SOURCE Canadian Heritage For further information: (media only), please contact: Camille Gagne-Raynauld, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Canadian Heritage, [email protected]; Media Relations, Canadian Heritage, 819-994-9101, 1-866-569-6155, [email protected] Related Links www.pch.gc.ca Three Toronto lawyers who were found guilty of professional misconduct in handling Roma refugees asylum claims have settled a class-action lawsuit by their former clients. According to a recently released settlement agreement, the insurers representing the lawyers Viktor Hohots, Joseph Farkas and Erzsebet Jaszi will pay approximately $500,000 in total damages to the eligible class members. The settlement, if approved by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice at a scheduled hearing on Sept. 11, will conclude another chapter of a decade-old campaign by advocates and Roma refugees, who have complained about being shortchanged by Canadas asylum system due to poor legal representation and discriminatory government policies. We are pleased that our clients will get some compensation after all this time, the Romas lawyer, Sean Brown, said in a statement. It is unfortunate these vulnerable people were let down by the very lawyers they relied upon for advice and skilled representation. The settlement of this matter will give our clients much-needed closure. As part of the settlement, the lawyers denied all the claims, as well as any wrongdoing and liability of any kind, made by the litigants in the lawsuit. In return, the failed Hungarian Roma refugees agreed the resolution was fair, reasonable and in the best interests of the class. The litigation began in 2017 as three individual lawsuits by five Hungarian Roma refugees, which were merged into one due to the similar nature of the accusations. It was alleged that the lawyers exhibited a systemic pattern of conduct, which resulted in many of the defendants clients receiving inadequate and negligent service, such that they lost the opportunity to have their claims decided on their merits. All three lawyers had previously been found guilty by the Ontario Law Society Tribunal of failing to properly serve their clients. The seeds of the legal action were sown back in 2011 when community groups and refugees advocates began investigating after hearing stories from Hungarian refugee claimants about inadequate legal representation they said they were receiving. The claimants alleged the lawyers abdicated their responsibilities and inappropriately passed their professional tasks to others; failed to complete and file the narrative of the clients claim with supporting evidence; filed manifestly inadequate and incorrect information in the clients claim; and failed to appear at asylum hearings. The lawsuit covers all refugee claimants from Hungary who retained Hohots, Farkas and Jaszi (now deceased) between Jan. 1, 2009 and Dec. 31, 2013, and had their claims refused or abandoned while under their legal representation. The class action covers about 900 eligible members. Those who would like to opt out of the settlement and continue to pursue their own claims have until Aug. 20 to do so. Now the legal battle is over, the Roma community is setting its eyes on an official apology from the federal government, which it says fuelled overt institutionalized discrimination against Hungarian and Czech Roma under then Conservative immigration minister Jason Kenney. Gina Csanyi-Robah, executive director of the Canadian Romani Alliance, said Kenney, now Albertas premier, then characterized Roma as bogus refugees who were here to exploit Canadian health-care and welfare. Kenney introduced new laws in 2012 to stream asylum claims and fast-track those who came from the so-called safe countries of origin, including Hungary and the Czech Republic. Those policy changes were ultimately declared unconstitutional by court. The success of this class action lawsuit is a massive victory for the Roma community. Jason Kenneys discriminatory comments resulted in many Roma being treated differently by some Canadians, who began to look at us as cheaters, swindlers and liars, Csanyi-Robah said. An apology is very important, because its an acknowledgment of wrongdoing that hurt our Canadian Roma community and made thousands of Roma refugees feel unwelcomed. Discrimination needs to be acknowledged so we can move toward a society that will not tolerate it. New Delhi: Under constant attack from BJP top brass that BSP has been the biggest loser post demonetisation, party supremo Mayawati on Saturday hit back alleging the ruling party at the Centre settled its black money days before the note ban was announced and said the half baked and immature move will hurt it in the Uttar Pradesh elections. She also claimed the Modi government took the decision in a hurry with hundred per cent political interests of BJP in mind. Addressing a press conference here, she said hers is the only party in the country which has no ill-gotten money. While agreeing that she accepts money from ticket seekers, she said it is used to strengthen the party organisation and fight elections. Money is taken from ticket seekers like it is received from party workers, MPs and MLAs. It is kept in bank accounts to strengthen the organisation and contest polls, she said. She said if she would be accepting money for herself, then she would rather take Rs 200 crore offered by the rich to get one Rajya Sabha ticket. Then I would not take it from 100 people...they claim I take Rs one crore for ticket, she said. She also said that while BJP managed to settle its do number ka paisa (black money) in the past ten months when the demonetisation move was conceived, the decision was so ill conceived, half baked and immature that it will lead the party to a permanent political exile in Uttar Pradesh in the coming assembly polls. The former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister said while BSP will emerge as the clear winner in UP polls, BJP and SP will fight for the number two and number three slot. Congress in UP is already on ventilator, she said. FULL COVERAGE: BLACK MONEY CRACKDOWN For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. The charge against a man accused last week of beating his 2-year-old son hours before the boy's death has been upgraded to murder, according to the Harris County District Attorney's Office. Antonio Hicks Sr., 21, remains in Harris County Jail. He was initially charged last Saturday with injury to a child. Hicks told Harris County Sheriffs Office investigators that he snapped and punched the 2-year-old in the chest last Saturday after walking in on the child, also named Antonio, smearing feces on the bathroom floor, according to court records. The childs mother, Ariauna Washington, was in another room at their 100 Holly Tree Lane apartment and heard Hicks yelling at the child and what she believed sounded like slaps. But then they turned into harder, more solid strikes, she said, according to court records. She checked on the child around 11 a.m. Saturday and found him unresponsive. She started performing CPR on the toddler and asked Hicks to call for an ambulance. He instead walked the child to the Houston Northwest Emergency Room, where doctors found signs of recent and healing injuries, investigators said. Dane Schiller, a spokesman for the DA's Office, said the man's charge was upgraded after prosecutors reviewed additional evidence from the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. The case is being handled by specialized prosecutors in the DA's Office Child Fatality Unit, he said. Nicole Hensley and Samantha Ketterer contributed to this report. julian.gill@chron.com Peel Regional Police have recovered more than $4.2 million in stolen vehicles following the take-down of a car theft ring in which 21 people are charged. Peel police said 194 charges were laid, throughout June and July, against a number of people accused of being behind the ring, which stole at least 36 vehicles across the province. This is an excellent example of investigators working hard to prevent the continued victimization of our residents in our local community and the GTA, stated deputy chief Nick Milinovich. The accused were part of an organized auto theft ring originating from across Ontario. The investigation dubbed Project GTA-fordable, which started in February, targeted the group police say is responsible for stealing numerous vehicles, attaching new vehicle identification numbers (VIN), then fraudulently registering the vehicles with Service Ontario. The accused are said to have targeted car dealerships within the Region of Peel and several cities across Ontario, police said. As a result of the investigation a number of high-end vehicles were seized, including Ford, GMC, Chevrolet and Dodge, along with luxury brands including Cadillac, Lincoln, Porsche, and a Lamborghini were also recovered. The investigation is ongoing and further arrests are anticipated. The following is a list of people charged: William Bray, 48, of Burlington, was charged with one count of possession of property obtained by crime. Paramjit Nirwan, 55, of Brampton, is charged with one count of possession of property obtained by crime and one count of public mischief. Michele Iamundo, 68, of Brampton, is charged with one count of possession of property obtained by crime. Caledons Luigi Beltrano, 43, stands charged with three counts of theft of a motor vehicle and five counts of possession of property obtained by crime. Scott Wilson, a 35-year-old man from Rama Township, was charged with one count of possession of property obtained by crime. Janvier Sidhu, a 33-year-old man from Brampton, is charged with six counts of possession of property obtained by crime, five counts of possession of automobile master key, three counts of uttering a forged document, one count of possession of property for the purpose of trafficking, one count of possession break-in instruments and one count of obliterating a vehicle identification number. Sazzad Ali, 40, of Toronto, who is facing several charges, including nine counts of theft of a motor vehicle, five counts of possession of property obtained by crime, five counts of possession of automobile master key, one count of possession of break-in instruments. Juvaraj Panneerchelvam, a 34-year-old man from Toronto, was charged with two counts of failing to comply with undertaking. Carlos Munoz, a 33-year-old man from Toronto, faces charges including five counts of possession of automobile master key, five counts of possession of property obtained by crime, three counts of theft of a motor vehicle, one count of possession of break-in instruments. Karanjot Parhar, 32, of Brampton, is charged with 13 counts of theft of a motor vehicle, eight counts of mischief over $5000, eight counts of possession of property obtained by crime, five counts of possession of automobile master key, one count of theft under $5000 and one count of uttering A forged document. Bramptons Jacob Nogueria Aviles, 22, was charged with five counts of theft of a motor vehicle and one count of possession of property obtained by crime. Anthoney Pols, a 22-year-old man from Brampton, was charged with five counts of theft of a motor vehicle and nine counts of possession of property obtained by crime. Shane Persad, 32, of Etobicoke, was charged with 15 counts of possession of property obtained by crime, five counts of theft of a motor vehicle, one count of possession of break-in instruments and one count of trafficking in property obtained by crime. Avin Ramkhalawan, a 36-year-old man from Toronto, was charged with nine counts of theft of a motor vehicle, five counts of possession of property obtained by crime and two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon. Nicholas Hosein, 22, of Etobicoke, was charged with one count of possession of property obtained by crime. Giglio Fusaro, a 39-year-old man from Caledon, was charged with seven counts of possession of property obtained by crime, three counts of trafficking in stolen goods over $5,000, four counts of careless storage of a firearm. Laura Snider, 33, of Kitchener, was charged with three counts of use, trafficking or possession of a forged document. Arber Dakaj, 18, of Woodbridge, was charged with one count of possession of property obtained by crime. Simarjit Nirwan, a 25-year-old man from Brampton, was charged with four counts of possession of property obtained by crime. Kevin Michael Gauci, a 28-year-old from Lefroy, was charged with one count of possession of property obtained by crime and one count of trafficking in stolen property over $5,000. Anyone who may have information on the case is asked to call investigators at the Commercial Auto Crime Bureau at (905) 4532121, ext. 3322. Information may also be left anonymously by calling Peel Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), or by visiting peelcrimestoppers.ca. Jason Miller is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering crime and justice in the Peel Region. His reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. Reach him on email: jasonmiller@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @millermotionpic One of the Queens bodyguards was arrested on suspicion of drugs possession after white powder was found in a bathroom at St Jamess Palace. The private was said to have nine bags of cocaine and ketamine among his possessions after police searched his room and car at Wellington Barracks by Buckingham Palace. The Coldstream Guardsman was arrested on Tuesday by the Royal Military Police and has been removed from ceremonial duties pending the outcome of the investigation. Officers launched an investigation after white powder was found in the guardroom toilets where the soldier had been on duty, reported The Sun. They then uncovered five bags of what was suspected to be cocaine and four of ketamine, a horse sedative that is also a Class A drug. An Army spokesman told MailOnline: We can confirm that a soldier from the Coldstream Guards has been arrested for a suspected drug offence by the Royal Military Police. It would be inappropriate to comment further. Follow Us on Facebook @LadunLiadi; Instagram @LadunLiadi; Twitter @LadunLiadi; Youtube @LadunLiadiTV for updates Virgos daughter now 7 years old and identified in court papers only as Z because she is a minor was attending classes at the school after the courts delivered an injunction against the Ministry of Education, allowing her to go to school with her dreadlocks intact. Russian armed formations violated previous ceasefire in Donbas 4,226 times. During the previous ceasefire regime that started on July 21, 2019 and lasted till July 26, 2020, we registered 4,266 ceasefire violations by the armed formations of the Russian Federation, Yevhenii Tsymbaliuk, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna, said at the OSCE Permanent Council meeting, an Ukrinform correspondent reported. The diplomat noted that weapons banned under the Minsk agreements had been used 1,310 times during that period. The enemy shelled populated areas 60 times, killing three civilians and wounding six more. Tsymbaliuk pointed out that the current agreement on additional measures to strengthen the ceasefire, which entered into force on July 27, should also be assessed against the background of events that preceded it. Last week, the Russian aggression in Donbas claimed the lives of three Ukrainian servicepersons and six more were wounded. The Russian armed formations continued to violate the security provisions of the Minsk agreements. At the same time, the OSCE SMM recorded unwithdrawn heavy weapons in the areas not controlled by the Government of Ukraine, the arrival of Russian convoys in Donbas, and also faced obstacles to monitoring in these areas. Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna stated that the current ceasefire was largely maintained as of July 30. The Russian armed formations have already violated it five times, while Ukrainian troops demonstrated their utmost restraint and did not fire back. In accordance with the additional measures to strengthen the ceasefire agreed within the TCG, we urge the Russian delegation to provide explanations on those cases of violation of the ceasefire and information on the disciplinary actions undertaken in their regard, Tsymbaliuk said. ol Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego and Philadelphia are among the large public school districts that have announced in recent weeks they are starting the school year with remote learning plans because in-person classes would be too dangerous as COVID-19 cases rise. In New Jersey, where coronavirus infection numbers have dropped dramatically since last spring, the state is moving ahead with plans to have all 2,500 public schools reopen with at least some in-person classes. But pressure is mounting on state officials to reconsider. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 17:18 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066ab8184 1 Entertainment Luca,Pixar,Disney,Animated-films,animation Free Pixar Animation Studios announced on Thursday that its next original animated film, Luca, would be released in the United States in June 2021. The studio tweeted that the film would be directed by Enrico Casarosa, who previously directed the Oscar-nominated short film La Luna (2012), and produced by Andrea Warren, who is known for producing the short film Lava (2014). Meet Luca. Directed by Enrico Casarosa & produced by Andrea Warren, our all-new film will introduce a boy named Luca as he experiences an unforgettable summer in a seaside town on the Italian Riviera. Luca opens in theaters summer 2021. pic.twitter.com/orlIxzqXnB Pixar (@Pixar) July 30, 2020 Luca tells the story of an eponymous boy who experiences an unforgettable summer on the Italian Riviera. Casarosa said that Luca was a personal project for him because it was set where he grew up and told the story of a friendship. So, in addition to the beauty and charm of the Italian seaside, our film will feature an unforgettable summer adventure that will fundamentally change Luca, Casarosa told variety.com. Pixar, which is a subsidiary of Disney, is scheduled to release the animated film Soul in November. The film is about a music teacher named Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx) whose soul is transported out of his body and who tries to return to the corporeal world. Soul also features actors Tina Fey and Angela Bassett. (wir/wng) If ever there were a time to go back to school, this is that time, with this trend line, in this province. For all the temptation to panic in mid-pandemic, the midpoint may in fact be far off: COVID-19 could endure for years, and so we cannot allow a perennial suspension of the education of our children. Today, Ontario like most of Canada and much of Western Europe is blessed with a declining infection rate that is both a respite and an opportunity. It makes the governments choice to reopen easier, but also harder. For the decision to release our children from continued isolation imposes an obligation to spare them and teachers, too from any increased risk of transmission. Ontario must make the best of bad times, without making matters worse. The back-to-school plan unveiled Thursday by Education Minister Stephen Lecce is not despite efforts to demonize him the devils work. It is merely a work in progress, a sensible start in the long road to recovery, albeit short on key details notably its financial underpinnings. The good news is that it goes beyond the benchmarks of other provinces by mandating masks for the vast majority of Ontarios 2 million students. Given Doug Fords reluctance to impose a mask requirement province-wide for adults, it is a relief to see the premier mandating it for all but the youngest students, in kindergarten to grade 3. Whatever shortcomings it may have, the back-to-school protocol is not political, which is why criticisms need not be partisan nor polemical. Pointing fingers at the Progressive Conservative government, or reviving old grudge matches, will not advance student education nor enhance teacher safety. In this pandemic, the perfect is the enemy of the good. We must admit that the science is imperfect, that epidemiology means unpredictability, that there are no certainties with COVID-19, that there will always be risks foreseeable but unavoidable. Inevitably, children will come down with infections and teachers will be exposed to transmission. Predictably, the press and the politicians, parents and teachers, will all cry foul. The test will be whether the government did what it could and should to protect children in a pandemic, recognizing that keeping them captive at home would harm them more. There are gaps in the plan, but they are not gaping holes that cannot be plugged with political will, a little goodwill, and financial wherewithal. The governments initial blueprint lowballs the ultimate costs. It skirts the question of teacher absences (by the oldest or most vulnerable), and the need to shore up staffing as high school classes are kept small and scheduling challenges loom large. Opposition critics pounced Thursday on the lack of cash for students, on the same day they also demanded dramatically more money for seniors. The financial question mark is surely concerning but not catastrophic. The premier has pledged to do (and therefore spend) whatever it takes to keep students safe dont forget teachers so he cant duck when the bills come due. Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario president Sam Hammond quite rightly argued this week that masks should be mandatory something that other provinces, including B.C.s NDP government, have largely resisted. Fords Tories have gone a long way toward meeting that objective with most students, but they also heeded associate chief medical officer of health Barbara Yaffes advice that it should merely be recommended, not obligatory, in the lower grades where compliance is variable and the benefits questionable. To succeed in its mission and ambition, the plan requires the willing co-operation of 140,000 teachers who must like other essential front-line workers before them go above and beyond the call of duty amid the spectre of COVID-19. This is not what teachers signed up for, but it is unavoidably where they will find themselves until further notice just like other front-line workers, be they dentists, cashiers or bus drivers. The government owes it to teachers to give them the protection they need (some can redeploy to online learning). Teachers, in turn, owe it to students to give them the education they need. And all sides need to turn the page on past conflicts. (One option: a new minister of education to reset relations, liberating Lecce for another portfolio.) Teachers and their unions won unprecedented public sympathy (and supportive columns) during last years contract negotiations, after Fords government chose the path of gratuitous confrontation. They squandered some of that goodwill by resisting video conferencing during a difficult experiment in online learning last spring (which could have served as a dry run if classes were cancelled this fall), while Ford disrespected the relationship. Now, the challenge is for both sides to avoid escalation and reduce COVID-19 transmission for this is not a labour negotiation but a reinvention of our education system. The learning curve for everyone students, parents, teachers, politicians will be steep and the stakes will be high. We cannot afford to fail, for the costs will be incalculably higher. Read more about: Egypt may hold an early election for the House of Representatives in October instead of November as previously scheduled, parliamentary sources told Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper on Friday. The five-year parliamentary term ends in January 2021. The new parliament must be elected in the sixty days preceding that date, in accordance with the Article 106 of the constitution. Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel-Aal said previously that the elections would be held in November 2020. "There is a proposal being considered currently to bring the date of next House of Representatives elections forward to October instead of the previous announced date in November," Akhbar Al-Youm reported on Friday. At its next session on 16 August, the house is set to discuss the recent amendments to the electoral districts law for the coming parliament elections, according to the sources. The election of the House of Representatives will be preceded by elections for the newly established Senate, which was created as part of the 2019 constitutional amendments. Egypts previous upper house, the Shura Council, was abolished in 2014. Its role was largely advisory. The country is set to hold Senate elections on 11-12 August, with Egyptians living abroad scheduled to vote two days earlier, on 8 and 9 August. The results of the first round of voting will be announced on 19 August. Second round votes will be on 8-9 September. The results will be announced on 16 September. According to Egypts National Election Authority (NEA), up to 787 candidates have registered to stand in the Senate elections. One third of the 300 seats will be elected via the individual candidacy system, another third through the closed party list system, and the final third will be appointed by the president. The terms will last five years. Search Keywords: Short link: South Africa: Deputy Minister monitors COVID-19 regulations Deputy Minister in the Presidency Thembi Siweya today witnessed first-hand the implementation of COVID-19 plans at a sexual offences court in Limpopo. The Deputy Minister was pleased with the level of compliance at the Nebo Magistrate Court. Siweya, who visited the court on Friday, said it is necessary that dedicated sexual offences courts continue to function optimally as they are among the critical government interventions introduced to fight gender-based violence and femicide. Since the declaration of the national lockdown, the court has recorded 47 sexual offences cases and finalized 23 cases. This court services over 300 villages in and around the Makhuduthamaga local municipality. During the engagement with the Executive Mayor and Court Management, Siweya noted a concern that was raised with regard to the intermittent supply of water to the court. Access to water is important for the dignity of our people and its key in the fight against the Coronavirus. The court will not be able to function without water and this will have a bearing on other human rights such as access to justice. We must find a lasting solution, she said. She further called solutions to the courts water challenge. As a result, the municipality has committed to work with court management to develop a standard water supply schedule. We welcome the Executive Mayors commitment. We will send a team from the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation to monitor the implementation of the schedule in the municipality. At the same time, we will liaise with the Department of Water and Sanitation, Department of Justice and Constitutional Development provincial stakeholders and municipality to find a lasting solution, said the Deputy Minister. The visit to the court was a response to the Presidents pronouncement that all Ministers and Deputy Ministers will be deployed to various districts in the country to monitor compliance with COVID-19 regulations. Siweya has been allocated the Sekhukhune District as a site of monitoring and will target various service delivery centres to ensure compliance with the regulations. The programme is also part of the ongoing frontline monitoring of government services by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME). She urged all officials, to serve as ambassadors in the fight against COVID-19. Let us all comply to the health protocol and COVID-19 regulations. Our centres must be decontaminated on a regular basis to ensure that they are virus free and remain operational. This dedicated Sexual Offence Court in particular must remain functional to assist in dealing with the scourge of gender-based violence, the Deputy Minister said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. An announcement was made by management in May that the cafe was set to permanently close, citing the impact of the pandemic on trading and its 1.5 million annual rent. In a turn of events, it was announced last night that the cafe will reopen on a phased basis by August 27th. Chairman of the National Conservation and Heritage Group Damien Cassidy has called for the State to step in: Its time for the Government to step in and do what the North of Ireland have done for the Crown Bar. I mean the Crown Bar is not an archaeological gem Bewleys building is. It simply... carries with it all of Irish history. Bewley's is arguably Dublins most famous coffee shop, dating back to 1927. The cafe has been shut since March 16th when restrictions were imposed to contain the spread of coronavirus. Employees Advertisement Over 100 jobs came under threat following the cafes initial closure, however, it is not clear how many people will be employed when it does reopen. In a statement, the company said original staff would be used when they welcome back customers. Mr Cassidy says the Government should have stepped in to protect the cafe long ago: I cant understand how the Government have not yet done that. I mean they had two warnings in the past, the Governments failed to move. They failed to move when the Bewley family, to which we owe the heritage of Bewleys, had to sell out - they ran into trading debts. The online event is open to all doctors across India and the entire prize money will be donated to PM CARES fund in the name of the winners In a bid to appreciate the efforts of doctors and medical professionals, OncoStem Diagnostics, an oncology focused company that enables personalised cancer treatment, will host a Doctors Day online quiz from 1st to 5th July 2020. This online event is open to all doctors across India and it will be hosted on the website www.canassistbreast.com. The entire prize money of 2.5 Lakhs will be donated to PM CARES Fund for COVID-19 relief in the name of the winners. The participation window for the quiz will be from 1st of July 9 am onwards to 5th July till 9 pm where any doctor in India can visit the URL http://canassistbreast.com/thank-you-quiz/ and attempt a short quiz.The results of the quiz will be declared on the 7th of July in the afternoon. National Doctors Day is celebrated on the 1st of July every year in honour of the legendary physician and the second Chief Minister of West Bengal, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy. Doctors Day is celebrated to recognise the efforts and service rendered by medical professionals across the country. By CorpGov Editorial Staff The COVID-19 pandemic is both a health and economic crisis for countries around the world. Communities are experiencing loss of lives, businesses, and lifestyles, challenging biopharmaceutical companies to urgently develop therapeutics and vaccines that address this crisis while remaining profitable. Companies are employing diverse strategies to cope with the economic challenges and deliver public health solutions. Listed here are seven biopharmaceutical companies working to navigate this pandemic in 2020. Gilead Sciences, Inc. United States Gilead, a biopharmaceutical giant focused on research and discovery of innovative drugs, has been given the spotlight in this crisis. This is primarily due to Remdesivir, an antiviral recognized as the most promising COVID-19 therapeutic, which was recently granted Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA. The drug was granted orphan drug status in March, but Gilead requested for that status be removed following heavy criticism that it would result in massive tax benefits and a long patent period keeping genericscheaper and more accessible alternativesfrom becoming available. Gilead is building a consortium of manufacturing partners to ensure supply meets global demand through 2022. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. United States Regeneron is a biopharmaceutical company that researches and develops drugs and has produced seven FDA-approved treatments. The company focuses on eye diseases, allergic and inflammatory diseases, cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, infectious diseases, pain and rare diseases. Regenerons first quarter earnings reflected a rise in net income to $624.6 million from last years $461.1 million, revenue rose 33% to $1.83 billion, and shares surged 44% for the year making it the best performing stock in the S&P 500 index for the period. Testing and scale up manufacturing of its REGN-COV2 antibody cocktail treatment for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 is planned to start in June, with the goal of having hundreds of thousands of doses available by the end of August 2020. Story continues Samsung Biologics Co., Ltd South Korea Samsung Biologics a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) provides end-to-end product development services to biopharmaceutical companies. The company recently became South Koreas third-most-valuable company (first: Samsung Electronics and second: SK Hynix) following a lucrative partnership with Vir Biotechnology to develop a coronavirus antibody therapeutic. Samsung Biologics reported $169 million in revenue 65 percent on-year increase and posted an operating profit of $51 million in the first quarter of 2020. The companys growth in profits has accelerated the plan to build a fourth plant, which will add an estimated 200,000+ liters of cell culture capacity, totaling the CDMOs capacity to over 500,000 liters, which is forecasted to exceed that of Lonza Group and Boehringer Ingelheim. Drug developers across the globe are seeking Asian contract manufacturers for the production of therapeutics, opportunistically positioning Samsung Biologics to capitalize on its massive production capacity. Eli Lilly and Company United States Eli Lilly has responded to the crisis by supporting its community and patient population and by partnering with fellow biopharmaceutical companies to develop therapeutics for the coronavirus. For example, through its Lilly Foundation, it pledged $500,000 to the United Way of Central Indianas $16.5 million economic relief fund to help organizations that serve families and individuals affected by COVID-19. The company has supported its insulin-dependent diabetic population and those who have lost jobs or insurance plans detailing how they can switch to the appropriate generic medication or limit monthly prescription costs to avoid interruption to their supply of diabetes medication and to navigate this financially unstable time. Additionally, Eli Lilly has signed an agreement with Junshi Biosciences, a China-based biopharmaceutical firm, to jointly develop therapeutic antibodies to prevent and treat COVID-19. They expect to enter into clinical testing by July 2020. Novartis AG Switzerland Novartis is focused on testing drugs for alternative uses as COVID-19 treatments and giving back to the public in this time of crisis. It committed to donating 130 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to aid the global pandemic and donated $20 million in grants to support public health initiatives. The company is currently investigating, or planning to investigate, five drugs as a COVID-19 therapeutic: Hydroxychloroquine, Jakafi, Gleevec, Cosentyx, and Diovan. In partnership with Incyte, Novartis will test Jakafi (ruxolitinib) in a second phase 3 trial for COVID-19 patients on ventilators. Additionally, Novartis plans to launch a phase 3 trial assessing hydroxychloroquine previously championed by President Trump as a treatment for hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Celltrion, Inc. South Korea Celltrion is a global biopharmaceutical company known for developing the worlds first biosimilar monoclonal antibody: Remsima. The company anticipates reaching sales of $288.45 million in the first quarter, up 59.7 percent from the previous year, and expanding its operating profit to $111 million. Remsima, used for treating rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis and a series of other diseases, elevated Celltrions first-quarter earnings. Celltrion also debuted a subcutaneous version of Remsima in Europe earlier this year, which has increased availability of hospital space by enabling treatment outside the hospital setting. Currently, the company is developing an antibody test and two antiviral treatments for the novel coronavirus, with clinical trials planned to begin in July. Pfizer Inc. United States Pfizer has responded to the COVID-19 virus by collaborating with other biopharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines and financially supporting medical and community initiatives. Additional company success is, unfortunately, a result of patients with severe symptoms of COVID-19 experiencing pneumonia, leading to an increase in sales of Pfizers pneumonia vaccine Prevnar 13. Revenue will increase depending on the success of the companys collaboration with BioNTech for a COVID-19 vaccine, but the return on investment will not be seen in the near future due to lengthy development and approval pathways. Pfizer will also face competition from other biopharmaceutical giants with COVID-19 vaccines in the pipeline, such as Johnson and Johnson. Pfizer announced $40 million in financial aid for global medical and community needs. Additionally, Pfizer, along with Eli Lilly and Merck, allowed employees with medical and lab expertise to give by back volunteering with local healthcare systems. Biopharmaceutical companies are under pressure to show compassion and demonstrate transparency and innovation regarding drug development, patient challenges, and public health initiatives. The reputations of pharmaceutical companies are at risk and their response to the COVID-19 crisis will be scrutinized and not easily forgotten. Contact: www.CorpGov.com Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > Hagia Sophia: Heritage of Entire Humanity | Irfan Engineer by Irfan Engineer The re-conversion of Hagia Sophia from a patriarchal cathedral built by Justinian I in 537 CE to Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque in 1453 after the conquest of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmet II and into a museum of the same name by Kemal Ataturk in 1934 and again into a mosque of the same name on 24th July 2020 has thrown up quite a controversy. The reconversion of the Christian-Muslim monument in 21st Century that was a museum for nearly a century signifies the global rise and growing strength of the right wing politicians from all religions that misuse religion for their political ends and stoke religio-cultural wars. The conversion should be condemned in the strongest possible words. The Museum was a great tourist attraction. I was pained at the sight of the first Juma namaz on the streets surrounding the museum converted into a mosque and the khutba delivered by the Imam with the Ottomon era sword in his hand. Muslims pray to one universal God to guide them to the righteous path and pray for piety. My thoughts on seeing the video of the prayers on the streets if those who were praying were doing so to express their triumph were they praying to Allah or to the bricks and mortars of the structure? Blue Mosque is just a few hundred feets away from the Hagia Sophia, and those who wanted to pray to Allah could have gone there to pray. Reconversion of Hagia Sophia Museum to Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque is not triumph of Islam, it is, I dare say, triumph of politics which is alien to Islam. It is the triumph of a right wing politician accused of corruption the President of Turkey Erdogan, whose popularity is sagging due to poor performance of his government on the economic front and whose authoritarian rule represses the opposition. Erdogan re-configured the Kemalist state which imposed secularism from top to an authoritarian state by misusing Islam to consolidate and perpetuate his rule. President Trump is manipulating Christian sentiments to rally right wing Christian evangelists for his second term, George Bush stoked religious sentiment by calling his invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq as a Crusade, Islamists like ISIS, Taliban and Al Qaeda misuse Islam to achieve their political objective of an intolerant state, Bodhu Bala Sena in Sri Lanka and Myanmarese military misuse Buddhism to mobilize faithful followers for their version of Buddhist Nationalism and an authoritarian state, and in India BJP Government misuses Hindu religion to weaken all democratic institutions and push for centralization of power. The reconversion of Hagia Sophia will fuel Islamophobia and immensely strengthen the right wing politicians across the board. Erdogan, rapidly losing his popularity at home on all fronts, is misusing Islam for another political objective as well to expand the boundaries of Turkey and re-conquer the Ottoman territories and become the leader of the Muslim world. However, Muslim countries were never united as they all had their national goals to pursue. Erdogans military interfered into the Syrian conflict with the objective of annexing Kurdish inhabited territory of Syria. He failed miserably. Then he interfered into the Lybian conflict without making much headway. Islam fully respects freedom of conscience. There are several verses in the holy Quran in support of freedom of religion. Quran explicitly states that there is no compulsion in religion. For you your religion; and for me mine. Jews and Christians are considered people of the book. Sufi saints in India considered even Hindus as people of the book. Allah has sent prophets in all regions of the world to guide the people and Quran reveals the same truth that has been revealed through earlier prophets. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in his commentary on Quran has stated that a Muslim must believe all religions to be true. Non-Muslims in Muslim majority countries must enjoy equal rights. The Quranic righteous path is to strive for justice, struggle against inequalities in society, serve the neediest, deliver them from oppression and respect for diversity. Diversity is God ordained so that we know each other. Quran 2:148 lays down, For each [religious following] is a direction toward which it faces. So race to [all that is] good. Wherever you may be, Allah will bring you forth [for judgement] all together. The centre of all religions is Him, even though their ways may be different. We are ordained not to fight with each other but compete in doing good deeds. The political Islamists have emerged as hypocrites. They are supporting Erdogans conversion of the Hagia Sophia Museum. Their support is not only to a mosque, as in Islam no mosque is more auspicious or holier than another as you do not pray to the mosque but in a mosque as a congregational prayer is recommended. Political Islamists and Islamic evangelists feel triumphant at the conversion as they think that Islam is superior over other religions and Sharia, which has considerable human element and interpretation, must be established in Muslim majority countries and imposed on non-Muslims or they should live as second class citizens under the subjugation of Muslims. However, wherever they are in the minority, they claim the right to practice their religion and follow their Sharia. If the Islamists are celebrating the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque, would they accept similar conversions of mosques into religious structures of other religions where Muslims are in a minority? They wily nily justify the treatment meted out to the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the Uighur Muslims in China. However, majority of Muslims in their everyday life desire to live peacefully with non-Muslims in their neighbourhood and have an attitude of cultural dialogue which leads to rich diversity within Islam. Islam is matter of faith for them and they have learnt to live peacefully with their non-Muslim neighbours. They know the place of religion in their life. Conversion of Hagia Sophia is not a conflict between Islam and Christians. It is conflict between a minority of Political Isamists like Erdogan who and Islam of ordinary faithful. Religion should be a source of knowledge and values. All religions have common values that teach spirituality, teach us not to be vulgar consumerists and individualistic but socially conscious about our duties to the society, sharing space with others and living in solidarity, coming to the aid of the needy. Imposing structures like Hagia Sophia have been monuments of power and authority to over awe and mesmerize ordinary suffering people who need livelihoods, housing, education, access to health services and fair opportunities for those with talents and desire for hard work to develop. Imperial religious structures mesmerize ordinary people into submissions to the will and desires of the elite. Hindu nationalists too are busy constructing such monuments the Grand statue of Sardar Patel in Narmada Dist., Statue of Shivaji in Arabia Sea in Mumbai. I am afraid the Ramjanmabhoomi temple is also being constructed as an imposing structure, a statement of power of those who constructed it rather than temple of piety where faithful feel presence of God, feel liberated and inspired to pursue truth and true meanings of life, and a space where faithful feel inspired by the religious values of service to humanity, rather than be mesmerized into a submissive follower ready to be subjugated by the elite of the community. There should be an end to conversion of religious structures in the 21st century. The monuments like Hagia Sophia should be a heritage of humanity accessible to people of all faith and restored as a Museum. Those in possession of Hagia Sophia and such monuments should hold it in trust as a heritage for all. Here I am reminded of the Prophet of Islam inviting the Christians who came to meet him in Medina to pray in their tradition inside the Mosque. When I was taking lectures for an Honours Course on Islam in St. Xaviers College, Mumbai and one day when no classroom was available, the College opened its Chapel for lecture on Islam! I wonder if Muslims would open their Mosques for people of other faith to pray. In India we have Lotus Temple in Delhi, built and maintained by the Bahai community but for people of all faith to pray in their tradition. Witnessing temple rituals through live streaming cannot be a substitute for physical visit of places of worship, the Supreme Court said on Friday, advocating opening of temples, churches and mosques to the general public during the current unlock phase, on special occasions. A three-judge bench headed by justice Arun Mishra suggested that a limited number of devotes could be permitted in temples during the unlock phase provided adequate safety measures and social distancing guidelines are adhered to. E-darshan is no darshan. Cant you permit darshan by adhering to social distancing? During a total lock down things are different. But during unlock period, when other things are functioning, why cant states manage temples? Temples, churches, mosques should be opened at least on special occasions, justice Mishra remarked. India was under a total lockdown till May 31. Since then it has been through two phases called Unlock 1.0 and Unlock 2.0 and will, from August 1, enter the third unlock phase. The bench was hearing a plea by Member of Parliament, Nishikant Dubey seeking a direction to the state of Jharkhand and the central government to open Baba Baidhyanath Jyotirlinga Temple at Deoghar and Baba Basukinath Temple at Basukinath to the public and to further allow the Shravani Mela devotees to offer prayers during the holy months of Shravan and Bhado (late July to late August and late August to late September respectively). The Jharkhand government opposed the plea citing the threat of the coronavirus disease and the fact that it would be streaming the temple rituals online. The apex court eventually did not pass any direction and instead asked the Jharkhand government to explore the possibility of allowing at least a few devotees to visit the temple every day. While we are not issuing any direction, we request the state government to find out the possibility and work out a mechanism for allowing darshan (of the temple deity) to the general public. This shall apply to churches and mosques as well. Let efforts be made by the state government in this direction, the court said. The Baidyanath temple assumes special significance during the festival of Shravani Mela when devotees throng the temple carrying water from the river Ganga to offer it to the deity. Dubey, who represents the Godda constituency of Jharkhand in the Lok Sabha, initially approached the Jharkhand high court seeking permission to open the two temples to the devotees citing similar intervention by the Supreme Court in the Puri Jagannath Ratha Yatra in June. The high court, however, dismissed his plea on July 3 stating that allowing public to congregate for the festival could seriously impact the Covid-19 situation in the state. No such direction for Shravani Mela will be appropriate to be passed taking into consideration the spread of threat of COVID-19 virus which according to us, if allowed, may cause great danger of wide spread of infection of COVID-19 virus, the high court said. Dubey then approached the Supreme Court on July 8. During the hearing on Friday, senior counsel Salman Khurshid and additional advocate general Tapesh Kumar Singh, appearing for Jharkhand, told the court that the state has arranged for online darshan of the temple rituals and argued against opening the temple to general public. The state is going through Covid crisis. Serum testing is happening now and depending on the results, lockdown might be imposed,, Khurshid said. Tapesh Kumar Singh said that the lanes leading up to the temple are very narrow and it might not be possible to ensure social distancing between people if the temple is thrown open to devotees. The bench, however, said that the state should have made an effort to allow at least a few hundred devotees on a daily basis. Is it the same for churches, mosques? It is Eid; are mosques open? Why cant it be permitted adhering to social distancing? justice Mishra asked Khurshid. No, it will become difficult with overcrowding, Khurshid replied. The petitioners counsel, Samir Malik pointed out that though the Baidyanath temple is not open to the public around 30,000 priests on pilgrimage are allowed inside the temple. The state government said that only a limited number of such priests (pandas) are allowed inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temple though there is no restriction on them in the temple premises. We are alarmed by this, the court noted while ordering the state to make arrangements to avoid entry of large number of pandas so as to avert any spurt in Covid-19 cases in the state. FONDA A Johnstown man was arrested and charged with criminally negligent homicide and reckless driving Friday in the 2018 death of State Police Trooper Jeremy VanNostrand. State Police arrested 34-year-old Aaron M. Munise roughly 20 months after the truck he was driving collided with VanNostrands vehicle on Route 5S, causing the troopers Nissan Altima to slide into the path of an oncoming truck. The trooper had been waiting to turn into the parking lot of the barracks where he worked in Fultonville when he was rear-ended. He died of his injuries later that day at Albany Medical Center Hospital at the age of 36. Police announced the arrest Friday evening, and said it was done in coordination with Montgomery County District Attorney Kelli P. McCoski. The charges are the result of a sealed indictment passed up in Montgomery County Court, police said. The homicide charge against Munise is a class E felony. Reckless driving is a misdemeanor. Munise was arraigned in county court and sent to Montgomery County Jail in lieu of $5,000 bail. State Police have not said why it took so long to bring charges. They oversaw the investigation into the crash, which occurred at 7:45 a.m. on Nov. 27, 2018. State Police Superintendent George Beach stated early on that he did not believe road conditions at the time of the accident were to blame. Two to four inches of wet, dense snow had fallen in the area by the time of the crash. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. State Police Trooper Kerra Burns, a spokeswoman for the agency, said drugs and alcohol were not a factor, but referred further comment to the DA's office, which could not be reached Friday evening. Munise himself was not injured, police said. The driver of the other truck, Robert E. Crews, of Fort Plain, was taken to St. Marys Hospital in Amsterdam for non-life threatening injuries. VanNostrand became a state trooper in 2012 after working as a state correction officer for eight years. He was posthumously promoted to sergeant. Hundreds of state troopers and other law enforcement officers turned out to his funeral at Saint Gabriel the Archangel Roman Catholic Church in Rotterdam. He was survived by his wife, 6-year-old daughter and two siblings. Fast facts An international team of researchers, hosted and supported by NYU Abu Dhabi, have found that small, bottom-dwelling reef fishes on the world's hottest coral reefs in the southern Arabian Gulf are much less diverse and abundant than on nearby reefs with less extreme temperatures The paper, published in Nature Communications, examines 'cryptobenthic' fishes in the Arabian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, linking the reduced diversity and productivity of communities in the Arabian Gulf to energetic deficits that preclude the existence of many species Abu Dhabi, UAE, July 31, 2020: As global warming continues to escalate, there are lasting implications to consider, including the changes to biological communities in vital habitats such as coral reefs. A team of researchers, led by Simon Brandl (currently at the Centre de Recherches Insulaires et Observatoire de l'Environnement, CRIOBE, France) and Jacob Johansen, an Assistant Research Professor at Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology (and previously a research scientist at NYU Abu Dhabi's Marine Biology Lab), recently studied cryptobenthic reef fishes (small, bottom-dwelling fish that are at the base of coral reef food webs) in the Arabian Gulf and the Sea of Oman and found that the more thermally extreme coral reef habitat in the Arabian Gulf adversely impacted the diversity and productivity of these important fishes. In the paper, Extreme environmental conditions reduce coral reef fish biodiversity and productivity, published in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers use a variety of techniques to compare organismal traits, diversity, and productivity of cryptobenthic reef fish in the environmentally extreme Arabian Gulf with those in the Sea of Oman. "The Arabian Gulf is the world's hottest sea each summer with temperatures well beyond those experienced by fishes elsewhere in the tropics, while the adjacent Sea of Oman is considerably more benign. This makes this region a useful natural laboratory for understanding how climate extremes affect fish function and diversity", said senior author Associate Professor of Biology at NYU Abu Dhabi John Burt. Fish communities in the Arabian Gulf were found to be half as diverse and less than 25 percent as abundant as those in the Gulf of Oman, despite broad similarities in the amount of live coral. Surprisingly, this does not seem to be related to absolute temperature tolerances of cryptobenthic fishes. "We expected to see much lower temperature tolerances in species that occur in the Sea of Oman, but not in the southern Arabian Gulf," said Johansen. "Yet, the critical thermal tolerances of all species found in the Sea of Oman were, in theory, sufficient to survive even the maximum summer temperatures of 36C in the southern Arabian Gulf." Instead, differences in prey eaten and body condition in the species present at both locations suggest that the thermal extremes of the Arabian Gulf are an energetically challenging environment for these smallest marine vertebrates. While hotter waters require more energy, a distinct, less diverse set of prey items in the Arabian Gulf may make it difficult for these small-bodied fishes to satisfy their energetic demands. Importantly, the reduced diversity and abundance of cryptobenthic fishes greatly impairs the unique functional role of these animals. "These tiny fishes normally feed a lot of the larger, predatory animals on coral reefs by growing and dying rapidly, while constantly replenishing their populations," explains Brandl, "But on reefs in the southern Arabian Gulf, cryptobenthic fish communities provide only a fraction of the fish flesh that they can produce in more benign environments." "Our findings highlight an imminent threat to cryptobenthic reef fishes and their essential role for coral reef functioning. These smallest marine ectotherms may struggle to compensate for increasing costs of growth and maintenance as they adapt to more extreme temperatures," said Johansen. "Extreme environmental conditions, as predicted for the end of the 21st century, could, therefore, disrupt the community structure and productivity of coral reefs in the Arabian Gulf and beyond." ### About NYU Abu Dhabi NYU Abu Dhabi is the first comprehensive liberal arts and science campus in the Middle East to be operated abroad by a major American research university. NYU Abu Dhabi has integrated a highly-selective liberal arts, engineering and science curriculum with a world center for advanced research and scholarship enabling its students to succeed in an increasingly interdependent world and advance cooperation and progress on humanity's shared challenges. NYU Abu Dhabi's high-achieving students have come from more than 115 nations and speak over 115 languages. Together, NYU's campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai form the backbone of a unique global university, giving faculty and students opportunities to experience varied learning environments and immersion in other cultures at one or more of the numerous study-abroad sites NYU maintains on six continents. Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) plans to launch its compact SUV, based on Maruti Suzuki's Vitara Brezza, in the upcoming festive season, according to a senior company official. In March 2018, Toyota Motor Corp and Suzuki Motor Corp (SMC) had concluded a basic agreement for supplying hybrid and other vehicles to each other in the Indian market. As part of the arrangement, TKM already sources Baleno from MSI and sells it as Glanza after making certain changes in the design and features. The automaker is now ready to bring in the second product under this arrangement during the early part of the upcoming festive season. "India loves the sub-four meter compact SUV category. And this segment alone is now 10-11 per cent of the total passenger vehicle sales," TKM Senior Vice President sales and marketing Naveen Soni told PTI. In fact, compact SUV is the only segment which has shown growth in the last year, he added. "So we have been evaluating this segment for a long time and now the time has come that we are announcing that this festive season we will have our own compact SUV in the market," Soni noted. He said SUV sales have been growing in the country and in that too sales of the entry-level or sub-four meter SUVs have been witnessing a steady growth in the domestic market. It may be due to road conditions or other factors, but the fact remains that the compact SUV segment has been growing, Soni said. "New products bring excitement into the market. Irrespective of the market conditions, new products have helped the market to grow for different manufacturers. For us it is important because we were not present in this growing segment," Soni said. He expressed hope that by the time the product is launched things may become better in terms of COVID-19 scenario in the country. TKM has already sold over 25,000 Glanza units in the last one year and its share in TKM overall sales has been increasing. Also Watch: Soni noted that around 40-50 per cent Glanza customers were first time buyers for a Toyota product and that he expected a similar kind of response for the upcoming model as well. He said the company was looking at more and more differentiation in terms of look and feel of the upcoming model as compared with Vitara Brezza. "We want to give Toyota experience to our customers," he added. PTI MSS SHW . It is the job of many television news reporters to give important information to people watching them. But recently, that responsibility was reversed. Someone watching the news gave helpful possibly lifesaving information to the reporter. Victoria Price is a news reporter for the television station WFLA in Tampa, Florida. While giving a news report recently, a viewer saw a lump, or raised area, on Prices neck. The viewer emailed Price and advised her to see a doctor. Price followed the advice. A doctor looked at the lump and told her she had cancer. The news reporter tweeted that she was having an operation on Monday, July 27. She had the cancerous tumor removed along with parts of her neck. Doctor said its spreading, but not too much, she said. Price added that she is hopeful this will be her first and last procedure. The viewer emailed Price last month. In the email, she told Price that the lump reminded her of one she had had. Twenty-eight-year-old Price is an investigative reporter. She often reports on issues that help her viewers. The catchphrase of her television station on channel 8 in Tampa is 8 On Your Side. But the roles recently reversed when I found a viewer on MY side, Price told the Associated Press. She said that she will always be thankful to the woman who went out of her way to email me, a total stranger. She had zero obligation to, said Price, but she did anyway. Then she joked about her television stations catchphrase. She said the viewers action is great of example of someone being on your side. Im Anna Matteo. The Associated Press reported this story. Anna Matteo adapted it for VOA Learning English. The editor was Mario Ritter, Jr. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story reversed v. to switch, to change to the opposite or back to how it once was viewer n. a person who watches a program tumor n. a mass of tissue made up of cells that are not normal procedure n. an operation catchphrase n. a group of words used to represent a group or idea role n. the part that someone plays in an activity, cause or situation obligation n. something that must be done because of a law, rule or promise Spanish health authorities warned on Thursday that some young people are being admitted into intensive care with acute cases of Covid-19, and not just older patients as seen during the peak of the crisis in March and April. The warning was issued by Fernando Simon, the director of the Health Ministrys Coordination Center for Health Alerts, who called on Spains youth to take care and properly assess the risks they are facing. Social interaction by young people, who are seen as less careful about protecting themselves, has become one of the sources of the new surge in coronavirus cases, and some regional governments have closed nightlife venues in a bid to curb contagion. MORE TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS Germany has now included Catalonia, Aragon and Navarre on its list of risk zones, and Slovenia is imposing a quarantine on travelers from Valencia, Catalonia, Basque Country, Aragon and Navarre. The average age of the coronavirus cases detected in Spain has fallen to 45 for men and 41 for women. But if only the data from the last three weeks is taken into account, the figure is even lower: 36 and 38, respectively, explained Simon at a government press conference. In March and April, the average age of coronavirus patients was more than 60. Widespread screening, which was not available earlier this year, has been partly credited for the change. The news comes as Spain reported another increase in daily Covid-19 infections. According to the latest data presented on Friday, 1,525 new coronavirus cases were detected in the previous 24 hours. This is more than the 1,229 reported on Thursday and the highest figure since the end of the coronavirus lockdown in Spain. But there is little in common between the current situation in Spain and the confinement period. Spains diagnostic capacity has greatly improved since then, and many more cases are being detected through early screening and contact tracing. According to Simon, 60% of infections are asymptomatic at the moment of detection. Some may experience symptoms later, but at that point they are isolated and cannot spread the infection, he said. Aragon, Madrid and Catalonia continue to record the highest number of new Covid-19 cases, with 352, 225 and 121 infections, respectively. Despite the rise in cases, Simon denied that Spain was seeing a second wave of the virus, which is defined as uncontrolled community transmission in a wide area. Neither in Spain nor in most of Europe is this situation happening, he said. Lower fatality rate The case fatality rate of the coronavirus in Spain has fallen to below 2%, down from the 11-12% recorded in March and April. This is due to the fact that more cases are being detected, and that most infections are among young people with no prior health problems. The case fatality rate which represents the number of deaths per diagnosed cases fell to 0.6% between June 18 and July 1, and to 0.4% between July 2 and July 15. Young people out at night in Magaluf on the Balearic island of Mallorca on July 16 Joan Mateu (AP) Groups are much less vulnerable, but we are detecting a lot more cases, explained Simon. In the last week, 209 health workers were diagnosed with Covid-19. Of this figure, 57 had begun to experience symptoms, meaning 75% were asymptomatic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of 53,186 coronavirus cases have been recorded among health workers, 2,766 since May 11. More active outbreaks According to Simon, a total of 483 coronavirus outbreaks are active in Spain, with 5,700 associated cases. This is 71 more than the figure stated by Health Minister Salvador Illa at a congressional appearance on Thursday morning. Simon explained that 75% of the outbreaks involve fewer than 10 cases. The rest are those which have a high risk of leading to community transmission, he said. Most of the outbreaks are occurring in social settings. This covers contagion among family members, which has led to 90 outbreaks with 770 cases, as well as transmission at bars and other social venues, which are connected to 30 outbreaks and 1,100 cases. Health Minister Illa explained that seasonal workers, family reunions and nighttime activities, especially among young people who are less careful with the preventive measures, had caused the largest Covid-19 outbreaks. Simon added that the arrival of tourists to Spain presented a risk to the spread of the Covid-19, but also apologised for the statements he made last Monday with respect to the restrictions placed on travel to Spain. On Saturday, the United Kingdom reintroduced a 14-day quarantine for travelers from Spain, and on Monday night, the British government advised against all non-essential travel to Spain, including the Balearic and Canary islands. Norway has taken similar measures. In response to questions on the issue, Simon said: From a health point of view, these decisions help us, and it is a risk that we are spared. English version by Melissa Kitson. BEIJING For weeks, as Beijing quickly drafted and imposed a stringent new national security law for Hong Kong, many in the territory feared the rules would be used to intimidate the opposition, but hoped they would not presage a broad crackdown. Now those hopes have been dashed. Brushing aside international criticism and sanctions, the Chinese government has used the letter and spirit of the law to crush Hong Kongs pro-democracy opposition with surprising ferocity. In the last week alone, the authorities have ousted a tenured law professor at the University of Hong Kong who has been a key figure in the citys democracy movement, and arrested four young activists on suspicion that they expressed support online for independence. They have also barred a dozen candidates from running for the legislature, using opposition to the security law as new ground for disqualification. On Friday, the authorities postponed for a year the election itself, which had been scheduled for Sept. 6. While they cited the coronavirus pandemic as justification for the move, it underscored Beijings fears that pro-democracy candidates could triumph. More than 1,000 new coronavirus cases every day. Almost one in five tests coming back positive. Physically, psychologically and emotionally exhausted hospital workers. Intensive Care Units nearly 90 percent filled with COVID patients. Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, gave that summary of the states pandemic situation today adding, The next couple of weeks are absolutely critical. Marrazzo, director of UABs Infectious Disease Division, spoke on a Facebook Live press conference with incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Doug Jones. Jones said he and other senators have been pushing for another federal relief package since May. Getting the Republican proposal from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells office this week is unconscionable, he said. Theres not enough funding for healthcare assistance, for hospitals, for testing, Jones said. It does include tax write-offs for the three-martini lunches we used to hear so much about, but it has no money at all for our city and county and state governments. Jones said the McConnell bill does budget a lot for schools - $105 billion - but it is tied too closely to physically reopening. Teachers in Alabama are telling him they are afraid to go back, Jones said. Alabama has 83,495 cases of COVID-19 today, Jones said. The first case was March 13. May 1, the total was 7,000. June 1 saw 18,000. July 1 had 38,000, and more than 45,000 of Alabamas cases have been this month. We really have to take care of each other, Mazzarro said, and taking care of one another means really, really trying not to let this thing get any worse. This virus is apolitical. It doesnt understand borders It loves it when we cannot agree on a coordinated approach because it just creates niches in the armor for it to get to us. Infection rates may be stabilizing in the heavily infected states of Arizona, Florida and Texas, she said. This is not because the virus is changing , she said. Its because people have gotten scared and started to follow the three key recommendations. Wash your hands, wear your mask and watch your distance, she said. Motorists take part in a caravan protest in front the Hale Boggs Federal Building in New Orleans asking for an extension of the $600 in unemployment benefits. (Associated Press) To the editor: It is disheartening that policymakers are suggesting the $600 supplemental unemployment benefit should be drastically cut because it supposedly provides a disincentive to work. The facts simply do not support this, as shown in recent studies from Yale University and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Our experience at Chrysalis, a nonprofit that helps poor and homeless people find jobs, supports the view that people want to get back to work, regardless of the availability of these benefits. We surveyed our case managers this week to ask them what they are hearing from the 3,700 clients they have spoken to since the pandemic began. Of those clients who are receiving unemployment, only a handful say they would prefer to stay on unemployment rather than returning to work and those clients are either in a high-risk category and afraid for their health, or have other challenging family situations that would make it difficult to return to work. The vast majority say they want to work. They enjoy the security and dignity that come with a steady job, need the income and benefits, and miss their colleagues. Let's get real: These benefits feed families, pay rent and are keeping our economy (barely) afloat. Congress must do its job and extend this crucial benefit immediately. Mark Loranger, Los Angeles The writer is president and chief executive of Chrysalis. .. To the editor: While I agree that aid for idled workers should be extended, it should be less than the current extra $600 per week in federal benefits. It is completely unfair that people working in lower-paying jobs are receiving less money than those who are sitting at home. There are still a large number of jobs available, but the current benefit structure does not incentivize the unemployed to look for work. Obviously, older workers and those with underlying health issues should not be encouraged to work in high-contact areas, but younger people should be employed. Story continues Allen Wisniewski, Redondo Beach .. To the editor: Cutting the federal unemployment benefit from the flat rate of $600 a week to 70% of a person's previous earnings just maintains the inequalities that low-wage workers experience. What is the justification for this as we see the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black and Latinx people and on low-wage workers? If employers want people to go back to work, pay them a living wage; don't lower their unemployment benefit. Unemployed workers need this $600 a week to survive, to feed their kids, to pay the rent. There are few jobs for them to return to. Cutting unemployment is just a way to keep low wage workers poor. It is a way to force people to go back to dangerous jobs instead of making employers change workplaces so they are safer and pay an adequate wage. Barbara Berney, Los Angeles This article is part of the Free Speech Project , a collaboration between Future Tense and the Tech, Law, & Security Program at American University Washington College of Law that examines the ways technology is influencing how we think about speech. Earlier this month, a meme was shared in the Facebook group Save Southern Heritage that featured the portraits of two men: the Prophet Mohammed on the left and Robert E. Lee on the right, their chins tilting toward each other. [Mohammed] owned many slaves. Robert E. Lee was against slavery, the caption reads. So why are we tearing down statues instead of mosques? That post, which received 248 likes, is still up, despite the suggestion of real-world violence. But a comment, rambling about Arabs and Jews running this mess as a little joke, was removed within hours. Whether it was Facebooks algorithms, or content moderators, or one of the groups eight admins, a decision was made that one had to go while the other could stay. One slipped through the porous free speech filter; the other did not. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, demands for Facebook to address hate speech have escalated, coinciding with a nationwide movement to remove Confederate statues and flags from cities, states, and institutions long imbued with Confederate symbolism. More than 1,100 companies and organizations have pulled ads from Facebook for at least the month of July as part of the #StopHateforProfit advertiser boycott. At the same time, Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia has ordered the removal of the statue of Lee that famously towers over Monument Avenue in Richmond, Mississippi decided to drop the cross of the Confederate battle flag from its state flag, and NASCAR banned the flag from its races. These movements, intertwined and mutually reinforcing, pose a particular threat to those who consider themselves present-day Confederates. From their perspective, Facebook has become more essential than ever to amplifying their message at a critical moment in historyjust as Facebook has shown a new willingness to police their speech. Advertisement Advertisement Facebook has recently deplatformed hundreds of groups that express overtly violent, white supremacist beliefs, such as those associated with the Boogaloo movement. But the platform has yet to settle on a consistent approach to a more difficultand more commonquestion: how far to go in policing groups that the platform doesnt consider hate groups, but that nonetheless often attract hateful content. This gray area contains hundreds, perhaps thousands, of neo-Confederate groups that are thriving on the platform. Individual posts containing hate speech are sometimes flagged and removed, but as a whole, these groups have so far remained relatively unscathed amid Facebooks heightened moderation, continuing to churn out thousands of posts a day in support of the Lost Cause. By insisting they promote heritage not hate, theyre able to skirt the boundaries of content moderation, even as their ideology rests on a reverence for the Confederacy and the antebellum South. Their complicated position on Facebook gets to the heart of the problems inherent to content moderation itself. It is a slow, often arbitrary process, driven not by clear understandings of what hate speech and hate groups are, but by haphazard flagging, a reliance on self-policing, and confusion over the kind of space Facebook or its critics want to create. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since Facebook users exist in echo chambers, its easy to miss how widespread Confederate heritage communities are if your Facebook friends arent sympathetic to their cause. Many such groups, both public and private, have existed since the mid-2010s, but a spate of new groups appeared this summer. Some local varieties have just hundreds of members, while other national groups, such as Confederate Citizens, have nearly 100,000 members. Not only are these groups extensive, but they also serve as content factories. Groups such as In Defense of the Confederacy, Dixie Cotton Confederates, and Save Southern Heritage see hundreds of posts each day, which circulate rapidly around other groups, pages, and news feeds. At heart, these groups share some common features: the casting of Lee as a benevolent, misunderstood figure despite his documented defense of slavery in the U.S.; the efforts to preserve and build Confederate iconography; the indignation at the toppling of statues; and therhetorical?call to arms. Advertisement Advertisement Many of these groups spend a lot of time thinking about hateful speech. Just take a look at their self-policing and content policies: Its not uncommon for a group to explicitly forbid hate speech, racist content, and bullying. Nor is it rare for moderators to post and repost these rules in a groups main discussion. Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University known for her work on extremist communities on Facebook, told me that this dynamic is particular to Confederate groups. A public-facing Facebook presence is important to the Confederate agenda of, for instance, getting the Lost Cause narrative in childrens textbooks. At the same time, they also attract this sort of hateful element, and so they know they need to clamp down on that or it will look bad, Squire said. I guess my question is always: If people didnt talk like that on your page, you probably wouldnt have to write that rule, right? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Moderators and group members are vigilant in part because theyre aware some of the content they attract (and many would like to espouse) wont fall within Facebooks policies. I fully respect the First Amendment. But the Wizard of Facebook doesnt. I dont want to get kicked off Facebook or have my growing page taken down because of racist words, posted a moderator of Confederate Defenders, a public group, a few years ago. That same moderator wrote earlier this month, with greater urgency, With all the censorship going around, I dont want to lose my page. PLEASE BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR LANGUAGE. For many Confederates, that censorship is a worthwhile trade-off. If Im willing to self-censor myself and my organization, I can reach a reasonable number of people with my message and I can do it every day, Kirk Lyons, an admin of Save Southern Heritage, told me. He also runs the Facebook page for the Southern Legal Resource Center, an organization he co-founded that has been called the legal arm of the neo-Confederate movement. Lyons identifies as an unreconstructed Southerner, but the Southern Poverty Law Center considers him a white supremacist lawyer. (Lyons denies this and maintains that the SPLCs article on him contains many inaccuracies.) Lyons sees Facebook as a sort of necessary evil to getting his message out. Its worth putting up with all of Mark [Zuckerberg]s nonsense because its so much easier than it was in the email age or the letter and postage stamp age, he said. If hes careful, he explained, his individual posts can reach hundreds of thousands of people, such as a recent image of a Confederate flaghis Confederate flagflown over NASCARs race at Talladega. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement How sincere the language opposing hate speech comes across varies from group to group, user to user, which is fitting for a movement known for its broad ideological spectrum. Some say that their beliefs are compatible with an outright rejection of racism or even disrespectful content; they may believe they can revere Dixie on their own terms, irrespective of the racial violence its rooted in. Along these lines, the least incendiaryand the most moderatedgroups tend to focus on Confederate soldiers and their descendants, as well as historical documents. On the more extreme end of the spectrum, groups affiliated with the League of the South are known for openly discussing white supremacist beliefs. (For this reason, Facebook actually deplatforms them: A few weeks ago, for instance, Facebook took down one such group based in North Carolina, though a new group replaced it within a day.) Group discussions often bear out the disparities among Confederates approach to hate speech. In screenshots Squire sent me from a private Confederate monument protection group in her county, a number of members expressed anger at seeing a fellow Confederate hold up a sign at a rally on July 11 that read, NO FREE COLORED TVS TODAYpresumably a racist dog whistle. I dont care how you look at this, but to me this is racist period, said one user. People state over and over we are for history and heritage yet make signs like this. Some reiterated this isnt what they stand for, some didnt understand what the big fuss was about, and others were more focused on the signs potential to give fuel to detractors and the liberal media. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But that sort of pushback is dwarfed at times by the amount of hateful speech that persists. Group members often post about landing themselves in Facebook jail for a reason. Even in the public groups, its not unusual to see racial slurs, some of which arent later removed. Last month, for example, a member of Save Southern Heritage used the N-word to refer to people destroying and looting. Im impressed you werent banned for that word on FB, another member replied. I agree with every word though. More common than racial slurs, however, are calls to violencesometimes specific, sometimes more vague. In a group called Save the Confederacy and restore our Confederate heritage flags up, a post on a Black Lives Matter demonstration prompted a few users to say that drivers should run protesters over and take out as many as possible. In Dales Confederate Group, which is now private, a user commented this month that the best thing to do with Democratic cities is to bomb them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement All the examples mentioned here, aside from Squires, come from public groups. Private groups are strict about admittance: Virtually all require you to answer questions about your commitment to the Confederacy, your opinion on the real cause of the Civil War, and what the Confederate flag means to you upon your request to join. Given the content thats visible in public groups, its safe to assume that more borderline-to-outright-hateful speech thrives in these self-contained spaces. One of the eternal problems with Facebook is that if this stuff goes on in a private group, the only way to report the content is to join the group, find the content, and report it. Each report takes 10 clicks. Its putting a lot of work on a user, said Squire. And in private Confederacy groups, those users may not be inclined to do any of that work. Advertisement A recent civil rights audit of Facebook, carried out by independent civil rights experts and lawyers over the course of two years, criticized the platform for prioritizing free speech over nondiscrimination. The auditors concluded, among other things, that Facebook needs to be more proactive about identifying and removing extremist and white nationalist content. I dont know if Mark appreciates that hateful speech has harmful results, and that Facebook groups have real-world consequences, Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, told the New York Times after the civil rights report was released. Those real-world consequences are worth considering. Before Facebook restricted public access to its application programming interface, or API, in 2018, Squire used Facebooks data to systematically study about 700,000 users across 2,000 hate groups and 10 different ideologies. Of these groups, the Confederates were the least likely to cross over with other ideologies: About 85 percent of them belonged only to Confederate groups. There are two stories here. The first is that Confederate groups are relatively contained and self-sustaining, and that their members dont dabble much in other, more violent ideologies. From that perspective, their threat consists mostly of the speech within their groups. The second story is about the other 15 percent of Confederates who cross over into militia, white nationalist, alt-right, and anti-immigrant groups. The prime example of the dangers of that crossover is the Unite the Right rally in 2017. Although the rally was ostensibly held to protect the Lee monument in Charlottesville, Virginia, it became a gathering for hate groups across the far-right, including neo-Nazis and Klansmen, that left at least 33 injured and one counterprotester dead. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its not controversial to say that neo-Nazi or Boogaloo groups should go, but its less clear what a mainstream platform should do with heritage not hate groupsgroups that, as the SPLC puts it, in their effort to gloss over the legacy of slavery in the South strengthen the appeal of Lost Cause mythology, opening the door for violent incidents. Even the SPLC, which refers to neo-Confederacy as a whole as a revisionist branch of American white nationalism, doesnt consider a number of Confederate heritage groups, such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans, to be hate groups. When I asked Squiresomeone whos outspoken about her activism and who provides data on far-right extremists to the SPLC and antifa activistswhether she believes Facebook should allow these groups to operate on its platform, she pointed to the fact that their speech isnt illegal. And more than that, she said, their beliefs are not fringe down here in the South. She mentioned that state representatives in her state of North Carolina have ties to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill gave $2.5 million last year to that organization after protesters toppled a statue of a Confederate soldier on campus in 2018. Were fighting it, obviously, but its a very long and uphill battle, Squire continued. And I think Facebook has to bridge both of those realities. Advertisement Advertisement As people continue to call for more robust definitions of hate speech online, it may be helpful to remember that sometimes what we want from Facebook is misaligned with how the platform operates. Facebook can be dangerous not just for its content, but for its lack of public data; for how its (private) algorithms work; for the ways it amplifies certain voices and can lead to deeper polarization and, in some cases, radicalization. Theres a reason researchers are always going on about the dire need for transparency. Outside of calling for Facebook to police its most extreme content, its worth asking what we can reasonably expect from a private company that operates in its own interest. Advertisement Sometimes what we want from Facebook is misaligned with how the platform operates. After Facebook released the findings of the civil rights audit, the Verges Casey Newton succinctly summed up the problem in his newsletter: The company could implement all of the auditors suggestions and nearly every dilemma would still come down to the decision of one person overseeing the communications of 1.73 billion people each day. The same could be said of the majority of #StopHateforProfits 10 recommendations for Facebook, which demand changes such as further audits, a C-suite civil rights executive, and heightened content and group moderation. This campaign is not calling for Facebook to adopt a new business model, spin off its acquisitions, or end all algorithmic promotion of groups, wrote Newton. Nor is it calling for an overhaul of Facebooks approach to transparency. Yet these sorts of changes may in fact be necessary to addressing the root of Facebooks speech and radicalization problems. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The complexities of Confederate discourse on the platform ultimately show that singling out hate speech as the primary target of public outrage at Facebook is, in part, a distractiona Sisyphean endeavor that has a tendency to obscure more serious issues. Such a focus leaves us with the classic censorship vs. free speech dichotomy, which inevitably leads to some people demanding a return to the First Amendment, and others retorting that the Constitution doesnt pertain to private sites, ad infinitum. What borderline speech can force us to do is to move beyond the terms of that debate, to update the conversation (and call to action) to reflect the platform as it operates today. But what a better conversationlet alone moderation frameworkwould actually look like is unclear. Newton writes that the best hope for addressing Facebooks role in accelerating and promoting hate speech, misinformation, and extremist views comes not from the campaign or the audit, but from Congress, which has the potential to question the companys underlying dynamics and staggering size. And thats certainly one avenue for change, especially with Zuckerberg testifying before the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee on Wednesday. But informed government regulation often relies on citizen engagement, and in the case of Facebooks speech problems, users must grapple not only with the flashiest and most extreme bits of Facebooks content, but also with the shades of speech that exist just below that, and the mechanisms that allow that speech to flourish. Update, Aug. 3, 2020: The description of the meme shared in the Save Southern Heritage group has been updated. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. QUITO, July 30 (Reuters) - Ecuador will extend the deadline for creditors to vote on its $17.4 billion debt restructuring plan to Monday following a lawsuit by a small group of bondholders, the finance ministry said on Thursday. The South American nation originally said the vote would end on Friday, but pushed the deadline back at the request of the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York following a suit by investment funds Contrarian Capital Management and GMO. "In an act of good faith, Ecuador agreed to extend by 24 business hours, the closing of the vote," the ministry said in a statement. "The voting process is ongoing and continues positively, with a high probability of reaching the necessary consent, according to preliminary reports." Contrarian and GMO said the government's offer to swap 10 sovereign notes for three new bonds maturing in 2030, 2035 and 2040 was "coercive." Ecuador's government says the investors who object to the proposal hold a minor fraction of total outstanding bonds. "We will defend the interests of Ecuadorians and we will not allow an isolated group of holders, with a small position, to try to economically and socially harm the country," Economy Minister Richard Martinez said in the statement. Ecuador's plan has the support of its largest creditor group, which holds over 53% of outstanding sovereign bonds and includes asset managers such as AllianceBernstein, BlackRock and Ashmore. Other creditors in recent weeks have pushed for better terms. They include Contrarian, Amundi, and T Rowe Price Associates, and represent more than 25 institutional investors. They have not said how much of the total outstanding bonds they hold. For the proposal to go forward, Ecuador needs approval from investors holding 66% of the outstanding issues and 75% of the notes that mature in 2024. The International Monetary Fund and other multilateral organizations have described the debt restructuring plan for Ecuador, which is experiencing serious liquidity problems, as positive. (Reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Brian Ellsworth; editing by Richard Pullin) Another chief executive officer set to testify, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, has grown $US10.7 billion richer this year, placing his fortune within reach of the centibillionaire status already held by Bezos and Bill Gates. As Bezos and three other technology magnates defended their businesses at a congressional hearing on antitrust worries Wednesday, their fast-growing wealth provides a breathtaking measure of their companies' economic might. The Amazon.com founder has seen his net worth soar by $US66.3 billion ($92 billion) this year. On one day this month, it leaped an unprecedented $US13 billion. The world's richest man is now on the cusp of another record: a fortune exceeding $US200 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The message from his personal fortune: Oh yes it is. The mind-boggling accumulation of money underway in technology is unrivalled in speed and scale. No other group of executives has prospered to such a degree. Indeed, the world's richest people are growing even richer, even faster, as the coronavirus pandemic upends the global economy and drives ever more activity online. "We moved the brick-and-mortar economy to an online economy dramatically," said Luigi Zingales, a finance professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. "Probably the same thing would have happened in a longer period of time. Now it's happening in weeks instead of years." The collective wealth of tech billionaires in Bloomberg's index, a ranking of the world's 500 richest people, has nearly doubled since 2016, from $US751 billion to around $US1.5 trillion today. That's faster than in every other sector. Seven of the world's 10 richest people derive the bulk of their fortune from technology holdings. Big winners so far in 2020 include Elon Musk, whose net worth has more than doubled to $US70.1 billion on the back of surging Tesla shares. Microsoft co-founder Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer have also soared, long after they left the company. Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, whose fortune is tied up in the world's largest oil refinery - has also profited from the shift online. Shares of Reliance Industries, the conglomerate he controls, have risen 45 per cent this year as the company has expanded into digital and retail businesses, making him the fifth richest person in the world. Hong Kongs leader Carrie Lam has announced the postponement of the citys key assembly elections, citing an ongoing spike in coronavirus cases. The election was due to take place on 6 September, and had been seen as an opportunity for pro-democracy parties to win a historic majority amid public dissatisfaction at a new security law imposed by Beijing. Ms Lams government said the vote would be delayed for a year, and that the Chinese national parliament would need to decide on how to fill the resulting gap in the legislative programme. The chief executive called it the most difficult decision she had had to make since the start of the pandemic, which has seen her government invoke colonial-era emergency rule. The decision, she said, was a necessary one to protect public health, peoples lives and guarantee fairness of the election. We have 3 million voters going out in one day across Hong Kong, such flow of people would cause high risk of infection, she said. Once held up as an example for its success in controlling the Covid-19 outbreak that began in mainland China, Hong Kongs daily reported cases have risen from single digits a month ago to more than 100 in each of the past 10 days. It has introduced new measures this week including the mandatory use of face coverings in public places, but its outbreak still ranks far below that of many similarly sized cities around the world fewer than 3,300 cases and just 27 deaths. Even before the postponement of the election was confirmed, opposition figures had cautioned that any such move would be treated with suspicion. On Thursday, the Hong Kong government had already barred 12 influential opposition figures from running for seats on the citys Legislative Council. The 12 included the prominent young activist Joshua Wong, who said that he would doubt the veracity of any coronavirus delay to the September vote. Using pandemic as an excuse to postpone the election is definitely a lie because thats the tactics for Beijing to prevent their landside [loss] during the voting day, Wong wrote on Twitter. Opposition politician Tanya Chan told BBC News she suspected pro-government politicians were more concerned about their own election prospects rather than the severity of the pandemic. Ms Lam pre-empted such criticisms on Friday, saying that this postponement is entirely made based on public safety reasons, there were no political considerations. The vote would have been the first official test of public opinion since the introduction of the new security law, which bans secession and subversion of Chinese rule and which critics say will stifle the relative autonomy Hong Kong has enjoyed from Beijing in the 23 years since it was returned from British rule. The law, enacted after months of political protests against the encroachment of that autonomy, has seen at least one influential pro-democracy party disbanded and some activists have fled abroad. Much of the law is considered to be tailor-made to target and criminalise those leading the protests. Chinas Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said the law would be a sharp sword hanging over the heads of a tiny number of people endangering national security. New venues in Crows Nest, Cabramatta and Surry Hills have been linked to COVID-19 clusters as six mysterious cases remain under investigation in NSW. The state confirmed 18 new cases on Thursday morning, with a third of those not yet linked to known clusters. Two of Queensland's three new cases have links to Sydney's Potts Point cluster. Fitness First in St Leonards underwent deep cleaning after a COVID-19 case linked to The Apollo restaurant attended the gym. Credit:Louie Douvis Victoria and the country recorded its worst day of the pandemic on Thursday, with 744 new cases nationally. Victoria Health confirmed on Thursday night a man in his 50s had died, taking the national death toll to 190. Victoria on Thursday morning reported 723 new cases and 13 deaths. Acting Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly said Thursday's numbers were "a new unfortunate record". Hyderabad: Covid-19 patients may soon be able to have an attendant with them in the hospital. The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has written to the chief secretaries of all state governments that a willing attendant of the patient can be cleared to remain in an area earmarked by the hospital. Union health secretary Preeti Sudan said in the letter (dated July 26) that Covid-designated hospitals should create a help desk accessible physically as well as by telephone from where the well-being of patients admitted in hospital can be enquired. Following receipt of the letter, the Telangana health department on Wednesday issued a note to the Director of Health Services, Commissioner Family Health, and Director of Medical Education to implement the instructions from the Centre. In addition, the Centre also directed the states that all Covid-19 hospitals should install CCTV cameras to facilitate patient management and for screening of footage by designated authorities or bodies when remedial action is required. CCTV cameras should also be installed in areas handling the bodies of Covid-19 patients who have succumbed to the pandemic. Further, the states have also been instructed to set up a team of doctors and other experts for inspecting hospitals treating Covid-19 patients. The team will make its recommendations to the state governments. The respective chief secretaries have been told to set up these committees in a week. The Centre said the directions follow a Supreme Court order dated June 19 in a case on proper treatment of Covid-19 patients and a dignified handling of dead bodies, among other issues. An attendee cries at a vigil for Garrett Foster in downtown Austin, Texas on July 26, 2020. (Sergio Flores/Getty Images) Man Who Shot Protester Reveals Identity, Claims Self-Defense Driver says protester pointed a gun at him The man who fatally shot another man during a protest in Texas over the weekend said he did so in self-defense. In a statement issued through his lawyer, Daniel Perry, an active-duty sergeant with the U.S. Army who served a tour in Afghanistan, said he was driving for a rideshare company on Saturday night in Austin to earn extra money. After dropping a client off, Perry piloted his vehicle onto Congress Avenue and encountered the protest, which was blocking the road. Perry was unaware of the demonstration before encountering the group, his lawyer, Clint Broden with Broden & Mickelsen, said. When Sgt. Perry turned on the Congress Avenue, several people started beating on his vehicle, the statement said. An individual carrying an assault rifle, now known to be Garrett Foster, quickly approached the car and then motioned with the assault rifle for Mr. Perry to lower his window. Because Perry thought Foster was with law enforcement, he complied. But it soon became apparent to Perry that he was wrong. It has now been confirmed by several witnesses that this individual with the assault rifle then began to raise the assault rifle toward Sgt. Perry, his lawyer said. It was only then that Sgt. Perry, who carried a handgun in his car for his own protection while driving strangers in the ride share program, fired on the person to protect his own life. Right after Perry shot Foster, another person in the crowd began firing on Perrys vehicle. Perry sped away before calling the police after reaching a safe place. Perry is devastated by what happened but correctly responded to what he reasonably perceived as a threat to his life, his lawyer said. We simply ask that anybody who might want to criticize Sgt. Perrys actions picture themselves trapped in a car as a masked stranger raises an assault rifle in their direction and reflect upon what they might have done if faced with the split second decision faced by Sgt. Perry that evening. Daniel Perry in an undated photograph. (Broden & Mickelsen) Police Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told reporters after the shooting that Foster may have pointed his gun at Perry. People on the scene gave several different versions of the incident, Manley said. Both the driver and the man who shot at him from the crowd were detained and questioned before being released. Their guns, as well as Fosters rifle, were seized as evidence, as was Perrys vehicle. Several witnesses blamed the driver for the shooting. I want to be very clear that the driver incited the violence. He accelerated into the crowd of people and he shot first, James Sasinowski told CNN. On Thursday, the Austin Police Department said its homicide unit is still probing the case. Detectives are working to gather as many witness statements, videos, and photographs as possible in order to understand what happened. Anyone in the immediate area with material or accounts is being asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers. Detectives are still canvassing businesses in the area, seeking surveillance camera footage. In addition, there are rumors circulating about the identity of those involved. What we can definitively say is that no one involved in this case has any connection to law enforcement agencies, the department said in a statement, declining to confirm Perrys name because of potential legal ramifications. Police and protesters gather around a demonstrator who got shot after several shots were fired during a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Austin, Texas, on July 25, 2020 in this screen grab obtained from a social media video. (ImHiram/Hiram Gilberto/www.imhiram.com via Reuters) Foster According to social media accounts reviewed by JJ MacNab, a fellow at George Washington Universitys Program on Extremism, Foster sympathized with the Boogaloo movement, which is described by some as anti-government and others as pro-freedom. Fosters activity included posts in favor of blinding police officers and he was a member of some private Boogaloo groups on Facebook. Contrary to the perception of some, it is possible to support the movement and Black Lives Matter, McNab said, referring to a recent rally in Virginia that featured activists from both groups. Foster told independent reporter Hiram Gilberto before he was shot that he was carrying a weapon because they dont let us march in the streets anymore, so I gotta practice some of our rights. He said he wouldnt use his gun against the police before adding: I think all the people that hate us and wanna say [expletive] to us are too big of [expletive] to stop and actually do anything about it, he added. Austin Police Association President Ken Casady shared video of the interview and told people to watch it. He was looking for confrontation and he found it, he wrote on social media. Casady issued an apology this week to Fosters fiance and family for what he called an insensitive post. I apologize for my offensive choice of words. I should have known better. I have responded to dozens of shootings in my law enforcement career and they are all tragic. I ask that Garrets [sic] family and friends accept my apology, he wrote in a statement. Charges Experts arent sure whether Perry will be charged, referring to state law. Under Texas law about the only thing you have to do is show you had a right to be present at a particular place with your gun, and then that you felt reasonably threatened, attorney Milo Colton, a criminal law professor at St. Marys University in San Antonio, told Spectrum News. If hes frightened, youre going to have a guy pulling a gun and shooting. Weve had people shoot for a lot less here in the state of Texas. Jennifer Laurin, a professor of criminal law and procedure at the University of Texas, said Perry driving his vehicle into the crowd might open him up to charges. A person forfeits their right to use deadly force justifiably if they are the provoker of the situation, she told the Statesman, adding: If its a situation in which the driver of a vehicle turned their vehicle into a deadly weapon, that itself might have justified someone actually threatening deadly force against that driver. Two new confirmed cases after first day of mobile testing indicates transmission is significantly lower than thought This article is old - Published: Friday, Jul 31st, 2020 Just two new cases of Coronavirus have been identified so far at easy-access community testing centres in Wrexham, that Public Health Wales says suggests that transmission of the virus in the community is lower than previously thought. Health officials say they have been delighted by the response from the community in Wrexham, with over 800 people having been tested in the first two days at two mobile testing centres in Hightown and Caia Park Testing is continuing until Saturday, but the results from the first day, when around 400 people were tested, have resulted in the identification of just two new cases. The media release from Public Health Wales did not specifically mention how many of the 400 first day tests had been returned to give context to the two confirmed cases figure. We requested that extra key piece of information and were told the good news that all the test results from the first day are in, so its two out of around 400 results. Dr Chris Johnson, Consultant in Health Protection for Public Health Wales, and Chair of the multi-agency Outbreak Control Team, said: A big thank you to the community in Wrexham for their enthusiastic response to this opportunity to be tested for Coronavirus. We are very reassured by the emerging picture from these sessions, which appears to indicate that transmission is significantly lower than thought. Just two new cases was identified on the first day of testing. We will be contacting individuals with their test results over the next few days. Testing is continuing, so please take advantage of the opportunity to get tested and help prevent the potential spread of COVID-19 in the Wrexham area even if your symptoms are mild. The more cases we find, the more people can then be referred into the Test, Trace, Protect programme, allowing contact tracers to take action to put a stop to the spread of Coronavirus in the area. We remind the public and business-owners not to become complacent in light of these results. We all have a vital role in preventing the spread of Coronavirus by sticking to social distancing guidelines thats staying two metres away from others, and washing hands regularly. Symptoms to look out for include a new continuous cough, high temperature, and a lost or change in your normal sense of taste or smell. The mobile testing centres are at Caia Park Health Centre on Prince Charles Road, and at Hightown Community Resource Centre, Fusilier Way, off Bryn Y Cabanau Road. Sessions are currently scheduled until Saturday, and anybody who wants a test is invited to turn up between 9am and 6pm. The work is being co-ordinated by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, Public Health Wales, Wrexham Council, and other partners, with support from local voluntary sector organisation AVOW and community groups. As in other parts of the country, the army have helped to set up the mobile testing units. LOUISVILLE, Ky. LeBron James wants them charged. So does Beyonce. And so do 10 million other people who have signed a petition at change.org demanding justice for Breonna Taylor and that Louisville Metro Police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, Officer Myles Cosgrove and ex-Officer Brett Hankison be charged with killing her. But in interviews and emails, seven experienced Louisville defense lawyers who are not involved in the case and who have an average of 37 years each in practice say the officers should not be charged with murder or manslaughter because they had a legal right to defend themselves once her boyfriend shot at them. Three of the attorneys are Black. It is unfortunate that this young lady was killed, said Aubrey Williams, a former president of Louisvilles NAACP chapter who has spent much of his 40-year career fighting police in court. But for the life of me I dont see them indicting or convicting. Jan Waddell, another defense lawyer who is Black and has likewise frequently tangled with police, also said Mattingly and Cosgrove are likely immune from prosecution. Waddell said Kentucky law allowed them to return fire in self-defense when Mattingly was hit in the leg with a bullet fired by Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who said he didn't know the intruders were police and thought the couple was being robbed. The seemingly unending list of unarmed Black men who have been and continue to be gunned down by white police officers ... does not and cannot justify the return of an indictment based on revenge rather than the facts of the case and the law, Waddell said. The three Louisville Metro Police Department officers who fired their guns at Breonna Taylor's apartment: Brett Hankison, Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove. In an interview, Sam Aguiar, a civil lawyer for Taylors family, acknowledged Louisville police had a right to return fire immediately after they were fired upon shortly after midnight March 13. But he said evidence shows they continued to shoot after they were no longer in danger. He cites a 911 call from a neighbor who reported hearing gunfire, then 68 seconds later in the same call said she heard more. Story continues The latest on Breonna Taylor's case: Autopsy, police radio files shouldn't be released yet, Attorney General says Most of the lawyers, who include three former prosecutors, said Hankison should be charged with wanton endangerment. Acting LMPD Chief Robert Schroeder fired him for showing "extreme indifference to the value of human life" when he "blindly fired 10 rounds into the back of Taylor's apartment and the one next door without verifying they were directed against someone who posed an immediate threat." Hankisons attorney, David Leightty, said in appealing his client's termination in June that the officer fired his gun in quick response to the gunfire directed at himself and other officers and did not fire blindly into Taylors apartment. Leightty said he is not a criminal attorney and declined to comment on whether his client should or will be charged with a crime. Waddell and two other lawyers, Ted Shouse and Guthrie True of Frankfort, said they think Mattingly and Cosgrove will be charged in Taylors death only if Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron believes his office can prove the warrant to search her apartment was obtained fraudulently by another detective and Mattingly and Cosgrove knew that. Thats a big if, Shouse said. Detective Joshua Jaynes said in an application for the search warrant that a U.S. postal inspector verified that an alleged drug dealer was receiving packages at Taylors home, but the inspector later told WDRB that no suspicious packages were being sent to Taylor. The FBI is investigating the circumstances surrounding the March 13 warrant, and Jaynes has been placed on administrative reassignment. He did not respond to an email seeking comment and has not responded to a request for comment left with LMPD. Jaynes could be charged with false swearing, at a minimum, Shouse said, if he knowingly included false information in the warrant application. If Mattingly and Cosgrove knew the warrant was obtained improperly, Waddell and the other two lawyers said, the search may have been unlawful, which would mean they could lose their right to self-defense. But other attorneys including the former prosecutors say that argument is far-fetched and it is unlikely Cameron would pursue a prosecution based on that theory. Cameron, who has been investigating the shooting since May 13, when Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Wine requested a special prosecutor, has declined to comment on when or whether he will present the case to a grand jury. Under state law, the use of deadly force is justified by anyone civilian or police if that person believes such force is necessary to protect them against death or physical injury. Louisville Metro Police policy also says officers may use deadly force when the officer reasonably believes based on the facts and circumstances that the person against whom the force is used poses an immediate threat of death or serious injury. Mattingly has told investigators that even though police had a "no-knock" warrant, he knocked repeatedly on the door of Taylors apartment and announced he was an officer before he and Cosgrove used a battering ram to knock the door down when nobody answered. More: Breonna Taylor was alive after police shot her, but no one tried to treat her Mattingly said when they entered, a man who turned out to be Taylors boyfriend Walker fired one shot that struck him in the leg. Mattingly, Cosgrove and Hankison returned fire, Hankison from the back of the apartment. Taylor, 26, was shot five times and died in her hallway. Walker has said he fired what he described as a warning shot, to stop what he thought might be a robbery. Where a shot is fired by someone in the house, it is logical and pursuant to training that the officer or officers would return fire, said Frankfort attorney William E. Johnson, who was admitted to practice in 1957 and is considered the dean of Kentucky criminal defense lawyers. Breonna Taylor Other lawyers said if police are not allowed to return fire when they are shot at, nobody would be willing to work as an officer. All the attorneys contacted by The Courier Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, described Taylors death as a tragedy and several said her family deserves to be compensated by the city for their loss. This case is an unmitigated disaster, Shouse said. It stinks to high heaven. We can either acknowledge this and make much needed reforms, or we can do what appears to be happening: using the same old playbook and hoping this mess will blow over. It won't. Three months after the Taylor shooting, the city banned no-knock warrants. However, Shouse suggested two other reforms: assigning warrant applications to judges at random, rather than letting police officers shop for one they think will be accommodating, and recording the conversations between judges and officers. Every other interaction between a judge and a player in the criminal justice system is recorded," he said. Why not this? Fact check: Debunking 7 widely shared rumors in the Breonna Taylor police shooting The attorneys for Taylors estate, Aguiar and Lonita Baker of Louisville and Benjamin Crump of Tallahassee, Florida, have called for criminal charges against the three officers. Aguiar said Hankison should be charged with attempted murder. Mattingly and Cosgrove were placed on administrative assignment. Attorney Marc Murphy declined to say if he thinks they should be charged in Taylors death. But he said prosecutors will have to look at their individual conduct and Hankisons and their conduct together, because under Kentucky law, if a person is murdered through the collective efforts of three people, all can be charged with murder regardless of whose bullets actually caused the death. Taylors death has prompted an international outcry and more than 60 days of protests throughout Louisville. Williams said he understands the anger of LeBron and Beyonce and other protesters and applauds them for expressing their pain. But just because we have had these brutal things that have happened to our people down through the ages doesnt mean these cops should be charged, he said. Waddell, who has won exonerations for Black people convicted as a result of police incompetence and misconduct, said: If we, as Black people, are willing to condone the return of an indictment for murder when the facts ... clearly do not justify the return of such an indictment, then we will lose our moral authority. If we want equal justice, he said, we must we willing to accept that the police are also entitled to equal justice when the facts and circumstances demand it. Follow Louisville Courier Journal reporter Andrew Wolfson on Twitter: @adwolfson This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Breonna Taylor case: Should Louisville police be charged in her death? Flowers and tributes at the family home of Nadia Zofia Kalinowska in Newtownabbey A pregnant woman accused of murdering her five-year-old daughter must remain in custody due to fears she may flee to keep the new baby, a High Court judge ruled today. Aleksandra Wahab, 26, was refused bail on charges she faces over the death of Nadia Kalinowska at their home in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim. The youngster was discovered at the Fernagh Drive address on December 15 last year. She had head and abdominal injuries, including multiple fractures at various stages of healing. Mrs Wahab and her 32-year-old husband Abdul Wahab, Nadia's stepfather, are jointly charged with her murder, causing or allowing the death of a child, and grievous bodily harm with intent over a year-long period. The couple, from Poland and Pakistan respectively, deny all allegations against them and insist Nadia sustained the fatal injuries falling down stairs in the middle of the night. But prosecutors claim further evidence of neglect has emerged. In June 2018 a health visitor referred the girl for treatment to black and decaying teeth, the court heard. Ten months later the referral ended when Nadia failed to attend appointments. Mr Justice O'Hara was also told police investigating the circumstances surrounding her death found no toys, dolls or teddy bears at the family home. A pink bicycle was located at the property, although investigations allegedly revealed it was a present from a family member in Poland rather than Nadia's parents. School records revealed a 64% attendance rate in the months prior to her death. Abdul Wahab remains in custody following failed attempts to secure release. Opposing his wife's latest application for bail, prosecution counsel claimed she may abscond and not turn up for trial. She is due to give birth to her third child within weeks, and Social Services have confirmed they intend to try to have the baby taken into care. Fostering arrangements are already in place for Mrs Wahab's young son. Defence counsel argued that she would not break her strong bond with the boy by leaving Northern Ireland, but would instead remain to prove her innocence. However, Mr Justice O'Hara ruled that for now she must stay in prison, where the level of medical care will at least match that available to her on the outside. He said: "At this time I accept there's a significant risk of Mrs Wahab absconding from this jurisdiction, not least to keep her new baby out of the care of Social Services, and I therefore refuse bail." Just the sight of the box made my 14-year-old erupt in giggles, so theres that. Hey mom, he called out. Guess what weve got? Baby Yoda-Os! There we go. Half the fun of any discussion related to the Disney+ series The Mandalorian is referring to a certain character as Baby Yoda knowing full well that (barring some truly execrable time travel plot twist) the character is not Yoda, and that referring to him as such is intensely aggravating to literalists. Season One of The Mandalorian became a hit upon release in late 2019. In it, a bounty hunter struggling to measure up to his tribes code of honor becomes caretaker to a small, green, big-eared, telekinetic ward whose main power is weapons-grade cuteness. Well see more of The Child in Season Two this October, so its the perfect time to release a few marketing tie-ins. Such as a fruity flavored sweetened cereal with marshmallows and other natural flavors. Like The Child, it doesnt seem to have an actual name: Press releases refer to it as The Mandalorian'-inspired cereal. Theres not a lot of inspiration on display. You get yellow sweetened corn puffs and green marshmallows shaped like The Child. Which is to say, like lumps. Lumps with big ears, if youre being charitable. The aroma is akin to Fruity Pebbles. Pulling one of the bags out of the big Sams Club two-pack, my first thought was that they kind of skimped on the marshmallows. My second thought was that I never expected to hear myself, as an adult, level that criticism at a breakfast cereal. My third thought was that well, The Child was extremely rare, so packing the box with marshmallows would have been off-brand. Thats a lot of thoughts, considering the topic. Heres another: I think you could probably repackage these as Jimmy Buffetts Margaritaville Crunch, a tropical sponge-cake cereal with marshmallow Key limes, and nobody would be the wiser. Buffetts audience demographics suggests a very limited demand for marshmallow cereal, though, so its probably not worth the effort. Where does this cereal rate on the Star Wars movie scale? Its exactly as half-assed as you would expect such a thing to be, no more, no less. Its blatantly derivative, but in a way clearly meant to pander to audience expectations, which it does successfully enough. Id say its the The Force Awakens of breakfast cereals, but that movie killed Han Solo and this cereal hasnt killed anybody yet, that I know of. Youll be able to find this part of your complete breakfast first at Sams Clubs. By mid-August itll be hitting Walmart shelves and by early September it should be everywhere. If you want to be rocking a big sugar buzz when you sit down to watch Season Two, this is the way. The state reported 734 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Friday, along with eight deaths. Friday is the third consecutive day that the number of cases has exceeded 700, which has not happened since early May. Michigan now has 81,621 confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Sorry, but your browser does not support frames. There are currently 6,199 deaths attributed to COVID-19, in which patients tested positive for the virus. There also are 251 probable deaths, based on symptoms. Health officials recommend looking at seven-day moving averages to evaluate data trends during the pandemic. The state now averaging 726 new cases, and six new deaths per day. Browser does not support frames. Based on Fridays hospitalizations data, there are 438 in-patients and 153 patients on ventilators. On Thursday, 1,093 -- or 3.5% -- of 31,588 diagnostic tests conducted came back positive for the virus. Sorry, but your browser does not support frames. Thirty-two of Michigans 83 counties reported no new cases on Friday. Wayne County topped Fridays report with 147 new cases. Other counties in the top 10: Macomb (130) Oakland (115), Kent (50), Genesee (44), Kalamazoo (27), Washtenaw (20), Ingham (19), Muskegon (18) and Saginaw (14). Heres a look at the five Michigan counties with the most confirmed cases to date. 1. Wayne County: 25,524 cases (2,677 deaths) 2. Oakland County: 11,357 cases (1,084 deaths) 3. Macomb County: 9,107 cases (899 deaths) 4. Kent County: 6,426 cases (151 deaths) 5. Genesee County: 2,775 cases (269 deaths) Wayne County reported four deaths; Kalamazoo reported two and there was one each in Oakland, Monroe and Huron counties. There was one death removed from the Ingham County total. Michigans county-level trends for coronavirus on Friday, July 31 For more statewide data, visit MLives coronavirus data page, here. To find a testing site near you, check out the states online test finder, here, send an email to COVID19@michigan.gov, or call 888-535-6136 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays. 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 executive orders requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nosewhile in public indoor and crowded outdoor spaces. See an explanation of what that means here. 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/. Read more on MLive: A partial shutdown now could result in a safe reopening of Michigan schools this fall, experts say Are masks bad for your health?, plus 8 other coronavirus myths and truths Latest on coronavirus antibodies and immunity: What we know and what we dont at this point Why Michigan public health departments publicize some coronavirus exposure sites but not others Moving Michigan back to phase 3 is probably inevitable if behaviors dont change, head of advisory group says San Francisco, July 31 : Facing ad boycott over its inaction to remove hate speech, Facebook shares surged over 7 per cent after the social network reported net income of $5.18 billion as revenue jumped 11 per cent to $18.69 billion from $16.89 billion a year ago. "We're glad to be able to provide small businesses the tools they need to grow and be successful online during these challenging times," said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "We're proud that people can rely on our services to stay connected when they can't always be together in person". The monthly active users (MAUs) hit 2.7 billion while daily active users (DAUs) rose 12 per cent to 1.79 billion (as of June 30). Facebook said it counts 3.14 billion monthly users across its family of apps (Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp), compared to 2.99 billion in the first quarter. "Our business has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and, like all companies, we are facing a period of unprecedented uncertainty in our business outlook," Facebook said in a statement. "We expect our business performance will be impacted by issues beyond our control, including the duration and efficacy of shelter-in-place orders, the effectiveness of economic stimuli around the world, and the fluctuations of currencies relative to the U.S. dollar". Looking forward, said the company, as shelter-in-place restrictions continue to ease, "we expect the number of Facebook DAUs and MAUs to be flat or slightly down in most regions in the third quarter of 2020 compared to the second quarter of 2020". Facebook expects total expenses in 2020 to be in the range of $52-55 billion, narrowed slightly from the prior range of $52-56 billion. "We do not profit from misinformation or hate," Zuckerberg said on the conference call. Earlier on Wednesday, four big tech CEOs -- Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai of Google and Tim Cook of Apple -- pushed back against accusations during a US Congress panel hearing capping a yearlong investigation into these companies' market domination online. NEW HAVEN Theyre in the mail. Gabe Rosenberg, spokesman for the secretary of the states office, said Thursday the estimated 250,000 absentee ballots for the Aug. 11 primaries should be in voters hands by this weekend, or Monday at the latest. Rosenberg, who has been fielding questions on this from concerned officials, said given the new process in place for absentee ballots, the secretary of the states office took a few extra days to make certain the more than 40 different ballots needed for the primaries were matched with the right voters. Concerns about timely mail deliveries around the country arose this week, the Associated Press reported, a month after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy took over the service. DeJoy imposed new cost-cutting measures, including eliminating overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers, and ending late trips, the AP reported. The Washington Post reported that the changes are alarming postal workers who warn that the policies could undermine their ability to deliver ballots on time for the November election. Rosenberg, however, said he does not think this would make an impact on the Connecticut primary ballots. None of the changes that have happened already, as opposed to those proposed, should effect the ballots that are right now in the mail, Rosenberg said. These ballots are in the mail. About the November election, Rosenberg said he is always worried about everything, but officials in Connecticut are aware of concerns about mail delivery as well as what President Trump has tweeted about postponing the election. Weve taken that into account, Rosenberg said, noting plans to ensure a smooth, timely process would including use of the ballot drop boxes sent to each town, getting ballots out in a timely way and a robust public information campaign. In addition to the presidential candidates, Connecticut towns are voting Aug. 11 in contested state representative and state senate primaries, while some others also have local offices on the ballot. Secretary of the State Denise Merrill sent registered voters absentee ballot applications, giving them the option of using an AB in the Democratic and Republican primaries, rather than going to the polls in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. This was approved by an executive order of Gov. Ned Lamont. The state legislature this week added fear of contracting the coronavirus as a reason for using an absentee ballot on Election Day, Nov. 3. Lydia Bornick, a nonprofit consultant in New Haven who always helps out with elections, said she was worried about whether those voters who want to mail their ballots to the city clerks office will have time to do so. Bornick said personally she will use one of the dropboxes in front of the Hall of Records in New Haven to deposit her ballot. She would like to see more of a city effort to draw attention to this option. Every town has been sent an absentee ballot dropbox, almost all of which are placed curbside for easy reach. Liz Saylor of New Haven, who works at the polls on Election Day, was frustrated by the delay in receiving an absentee ballot, but thinksultimately the process will be fine. She sees the primaries as a dry run for the presidential contest. We have a couple of months to kind of sharpen it up ... to catch the problems. Saylor does, however, worry about the mail system. As a personal example she said she was expecting documents from a family member last Friday. They didnt show up until Wednesday. May Gardiner-Reed, deputy city town clerk in New Haven, said some 6,000 residents filed absentee ballot applications. If there is any doubt at all, that you are worried that the mail will not get your ballot in in time, then you can drop it in the dropbox. The moment it hits the dropbox, it is delivered, Rosenberg said. That can shave a significant amount of time off the process. Rosenberg advised voters using an AB to either mail it or put it in the dropbox early. Also, voters can help a neighbor by putting their ballot, which are sealed, into the dropbox for them, Rosenberg said. The spokesman said some voters may have sent back their absentee ballot application three weeks ago when they first got it and are now confused by the delay. He said, by statute, the state could not send out any absentee ballots before July 21, but this year, given the more than 40 ballot designs and the volume of ballots, it took extra time to sort them. Consequently the mail house contracted to send them to the U.S. Postal Service did so a few days later, Rosenberg said. To accommodate the volume of absentee ballots, Rosenberg said the new law gave town clerks 48 hours, rather than 24 hours, to vet the application for an absentee ballot and send the file to the state. The mail house then has three days to get it in the mail. The spokesman said a little more than one-third of the ballots are processed by the Postal Service in White Plains, N.Y., with the rest processed in Hartford. He said it cant be predicted how long the mail will take, particularly since the closing of the processing center in Wallingford. Mailing out the ballots was the job of the local town clerk offices, but with 60 percent of voters in these primaries expected to use an absentee ballot, rather than the usual 8 percent, the responsibility of mailing was taken up by the state. That (60 percent) is in the order of magnitude bigger than any other election. We are not talking about a little bit more. We are talking about a huge amount more, Rosenberg said of the the volume. Rosenberg said he heard that some people in the state got their ballots Thursday and he expected the bulk of the rest to arrive by the weekend. Because of the pandemic, Rosenberg said Connecticut on the fly started to create an absentee ballot process in March that other states have been using for years. He said it also was undertaken at the time when all the city clerk offices were closed, as was Merrills office, with everyone working remotely. Some of the costs of the operation have switched, with the state paying for the mailing of ballots rather than the towns. While the primaries for the presidential race appear sewn up, it still serves a useful purpose, Bornick said. For all of us who care, practice makes perfect, she said. mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577 Looking to buy sunflower oil and export it to Turkey. Let us know your final prices, the payments terms, delivery terms. By Erwin Seba HOUSTON, July 31 (Reuters) - The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which has only one board member instead of the usual five, was to meet on Friday despite efforts by President Donald Trump to wind down the federal watchdog agency responsible for probing major industrial accidents. Chairperson Katherine Lemos, the sole member of the historically five-person board, scheduled a public meeting to discuss investigations and her plans to "carry out its important safety mission, said CSB spokeswoman Hillary Cohen. The new business portion of the meeting will include the possible release of the investigation report on a 2018 explosion at a Pasadena, Texas, ethylene plant, as well as a discussion on future plans of the board and "how it will move forward with a quorum of one, the CSB said. Lemos plan to keep operating as a board of one would allow it to issue final reports, which lay out the root causes of fires and explosions at chemical plants and refineries. It would also allow her to change the status of recommendations the CSB makes to industry and agencies. Labor and industry groups have protested the administration's efforts to cut funding and leave positions unfilled. The CSB has no regulatory or enforcement powers, but its final reports and recommendations often shine a spotlight on industry and regulatory agency failures leading to changes in operations and new rules. The CSB is one of the best deals in Washington, said Michael Wright, a safety official with the United Steelworkers union which has advocated full funding for the agency. Three of Donald Trumps trips to Mar-a-Lago are equal to the CSBs entire budget. Which is a better deal for the American people? asked Wright, citing government spending records. The American Chemistry Council, which lobbies on behalf of U.S. chemical makers, also would like to see the boards five spots filled, said a spokesman. We support the CSB having all its members and the board being adequately funded, said spokesman Scott Jensen. Weve not said that to the White House, weve said that to Congress." Trump previously sought to eliminate funding for the CSB and proposed to cut its $12 million budget in the next fiscal year. Lemos was Trump's first nomination and was confirmed for her 5-year term by the Senate in March 2020, after the terms of other board members expired in December and January. The agency has a staff of 47 people. (Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Dan Grebler) Current Print Subscribers will be prompted to either login to their current site user account or to create a new one. A confirmation email will be sent when a new user account is created, which must be confirmed within three days in order to provide uninterrupted online access through your Print Subscription. Once the email address is confirmed please provide your Account Number to activate your Print Subscription Service. A rapid, cheap, and reliable pooling strategy for screening of SARS-CoV-2 for maximization of available RT-PCR testing kits and resources in the COVID-19 pandemic, reports The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics Philadelphia, July 30, 2020 - In a report in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier, researchers at Augusta University and PerkinElmer Genomics describe a cheaper, rapid, and accurate pooling strategy for the RT-PCR-based detection of SARS-CoV-2 in clinical samples. This assay has a significant impact on large-scale population screening in the wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a massive strain on global healthcare systems, governance, and economies. Testing for SARS-CoV-2 has lagged in many countries due to various bottlenecks including but not limited to the failure of the reagent supply chain, lack of adequate test kits, and hindrances in the analytical and regulatory processes. "We have proposed a mass population screening approach based on sample pooling strategy for rapid and wide-scale population screening that may be adopted by laboratories currently using RT-PCR-based methods to test for SARS-CoV-2," explained Ravindra Kolhe, MD, PhD, Vice-Chair for Translational Research in the Department of Pathology, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA. According to Dr. Kolhe, this strategy would lead to an approximately 5- to 10-fold reduction in the cost of testing of SARS-CoV-2. PerkinElmer's FDA-EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) RT-PCR kit for SARS-CoV-2 detection (with a limit of detection of 5-20 copies/mL) has been implemented in the laboratory by Dr. Kolhe since March 2020. The investigators analyzed approximately 1,000 samples using this pooled sampling approach and achieved 91.6 percent PPA (positive percent agreement) and 100 percent NPA (negative percent agreement) compared to the routine screening approach. The study demonstrates the clinical utility and accuracy of sample pooling strategy and presents a carefully planned layout for mass population testing that can be executed by laboratories using RT-PCR-based methods for detecting SARS-CoV-2. The proposed methodology has the potential to allow institutions to ramp up their testing needs in a cost-efficient manner with minimal turnaround times. This testing allows for the timely isolation and treatment of COVID-19-positive patients, specifically in populations with a lower prevalence of the disease, for example, screening large numbers of students returning to college campuses. "In terms of cost analysis, one million individuals can be tested for around US$9.1 million with the proposed mass population screening approach compared to approximately US$58 million with current routine diagnostic methods. These cost projections highlight significant savings of healthcare dollars that could be achieved in both high- and low/middle-income countries," said Amyn Rojiani, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Pathology, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA. The global impact of these enormous savings has the potential to enhance laboratory operations throughout the pandemic and can be deployed to laboratories that are facing dire constraints in supplies. ### Housing plans for former Wrexham scrapyard approved amid fiery exchange between council leader and planning chairman This article is old - Published: Friday, Jul 31st, 2020 Housing plans for a former scrapyard site in Wrexham have received the green light amid a fiery exchange between the council leader and planning committee chair. An application to build 15 homes on the former Legacy Car Dismantlers and Scrap Yard, near Rhosllanerchrugog, was recommended for refusal by officers from Wrexham Council because of the countryside location. However, it was given the go ahead by councillors after Cllr Mark Pritchard, who heads up the ruling administration, gave the scheme his backing. A row broke out during the virtual meeting after chair Mike Morris refused to allow the leader to speak more than once because he is not a member of the committee. Cllr Pritchard, who represents the neighbouring area of Esclusham, tried to interject shortly after an officer outlined his reasons for suggesting the rejection of the scheme. His request to make a further comment was abruptly cut off by Cllr Morris, who said: You cant come back in Im sorry Mark. Look Mark, when you chair the executive board you dont let people go to and fro, you stick to procedures. All Im doing is sticking to procedures. You had your chance to say what you wanted, the local members come in and Ive got other committee members wishing to come in, so please bear with us on that. Cllr Pritchard could then be heard describing the decision as disgusting. Earlier in the debate, the independent leader spoke strongly in favour of the proposals, despite the advice of officers that it would fundamentally undermine the local authoritys planning policies. He said the application to redevelop the site had the support of community councillors and residents after becoming a target for crime. He said: For years theyve had issues with anti-social behaviour, fires and everything else that comes with a scrapyard like smells, odours, noise, deliveries and crushers breaking vehicles. I always think you should take the opportunity when theres a planning application in front of you, if you can improve a site why wouldnt you want to? At the moment we have a brownfield site and its got a license for a scrapyard so he can carry on as he wants to and continue to scrap and break up vehicles. We dont want that; weve had enough of that and its where its located. We have a fantastic opportunity now for yourselves now as planning committee members to support this application and we will move away from the issues of a scrapyard to residential. Planning officer David Williams said the reuse of the site for housing was against both local and national policies. He said the existing state of the land and the problems of anti-social behaviour were not valid planning reasons to justify the development. The proposals put forward by Gino Paletta from Trailwalk Ltd received the support of a number of local representatives ahead of the meeting. Committee members also heard from Cllr Paul Pemberton, who represents the area the scrapyard falls under, who said neighbours had been put through hell because of fires and break ins at the site. He said: At one time my ward was crime capital of the Wrexham borough because of the scrapyard. My figures were through the roof on it. All Im asking is for you to be sympathetic and remember the word betterment. This application would better the are and give something back to the long suffering residents of Llwyneinion. His comments were backed by Cllr I David Bithell, who said he had attended the scrapyard numerous times in his role as a firefighter. The committee chose by a majority of 14 to approve the application with Cllr Morris voting against and two abstaining. The Welsh Government has a statutory period of 21 days after the decision to decide whether to call the proposals in or not. By Liam Randall BBC Local Democracy Reporter A resolution denouncing bigotry, antisemitism and hate speech espoused by extremists who target Chinese Americans on claims China caused the COVID-19 pandemic and conspiracy theorists who say Jews are using COVID-19 to make money drew both praise and harsh criticism from the public during Tuesdays Fort Bend County Commissioners Court meeting. During public comments, Sugar Land resident Ian Scharfman was among those who came to voice support for the measure. Sadly, this pandemic has given rise to hate directed at our neighbors, such as hateful ethnic slurs and other egregious actions directed at Asians and the proliferation of conspiracy theories tied to this pandemic that are founded in antisemitic tropes, to name a few examples, Scharfman said and urged commissioners to approve the measure. We must stand together to condemn such hate, bigotry, racism and antisemitism in all its forms. The resolution put forward by County Judge KP George, denounces antisemitism, anti-Asian bigotry, racism and all hateful speech, violent action and the spread of misinformation related to COVID-19 that casts blame, promotes racism or discrimination or harms Fort Bend County Asian Pacific, Black, Latinx, Jewish, immigrant or other ethnic and religious communities. The measure also drew criticism from a number of residents such as Christine Longwood, who objected to the resolution because it wasnt inclusive of every ethnic group. I noticed on the resolution that nowhere does it have Caucasians or white listed, Longwood said. Because a particular demographic is excluded from the resolution, it seems like a pretty racist document to me. The resolution states the Jewish community has been the target of blame, hate, antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories that claim they profit from COVID-19 and goes on to condemn terms like Chinese Virus or Kung Flu virus as language that encourages hate crimes and against Asians and Pacific Islander individuals and spreads misinformation. Related: Fort Bend County Commissioners voice concerns about COVID-19 mask order Deborah Chen from OCA Greater Houston, a national civil rights organization that advocates for Asian Pacific Americans, said many Asian American residents contacted her organization for support because they were afraid to go to the grocery store or venture out in the community for fear they would become targets of hate speech or violence. The Midland incident is where a family was shopping at Sams Club and was stabbed and thats generated a lot of fear among many members of the Asians community, she said, referring to reports that an Asian family became victims to an alleged hate crime incident while shopping earlier this year. According to police officials, Jose Gomez, 19, allegedly stabbed three family members including two children under the age of 10 and later reportedly told officers he tried to kill the family because he believed they were infecting people with coronavirus because they were Chinese. Unfortunately, whether its antisemitic tropes that rely on conspiracy theories that blame Jews for (COVID-19) or geography that has been the source of anti-Asian hate and violence, particularly what happened in Midland a few months ago, extremists and other people have stoked fear for their own agendas, Anti Defamation League Southwest Regional Director Mark Toubin said. We do know that public officials can make people feel more secure by publicly and officially stating that hate and this pandemic should not be related and thats what this resolutions does. The resolution also encourages people to report any antisemitic, discriminatory or racist incidents to the proper authorities for investigation, which drew criticism from Simonton resident Andrew Perry who said although he didnt condone racism he opposed the resolution because it limited his constitutional rights. Youre trying to limit our freedom of speech, Perry told the court. You make words prosecutable or investigable. This is a slippery slope. Where does it end? During court discussions, the resolution drew criticism from Commissioner Andy Meyers who also voiced concerns related to free speech. There are problems with potential first amendment questions. There are problems with potential HIPPA violations, he said. But I think most importantly, there are problems with potential violations of state and federal law in relation to how this resolution is worded to establish county policy. On HoustonChronicle.com: China poisoned our people, says campaign ad from Houston candidate Kathaleen Wall Commissioner Vincent Morales also voiced opposition to the resolution. This resolution condemns hate but it creates division. It does not show unity. I could see us coming together supporting a resolution that is not so divisive, Morales said, without pointing to any specific part of the resolution as divisive. When contacted later for clarification, Morales issued a statement via email: Fort Bend is internationally known as a diverse county, and I believe were a fine example of how so many different cultures, people, and beliefs can successfully thrive and peacefully coexist. The reason that we continue to grow so quickly is because we live up to that reputation. This Commissioners Court has stood time and again for equality, justice, and civility, and despite our different backgrounds and cultures weve worked hard together to keep our community thriving, Morales wrote. My major concerns were the policy changes, and especially after Judge Georges recent media appearances about unkind and racist social media comments against him the vague language about citizens being asked to report on their fellow citizens speech was not the direction I expected him to go. Normally, our court takes policy decisions through a more deliberative approach. We were initially brought the first Anti-Defamation League Resolution and I had been working for days on being ready to vote in favor of it, to condemn hate and promote the peaceful unity of our community. Ive still not learned why the ADL resolution was changed and picked apart to its final extent. As has been the case before with Judge George, I (and Commissioner Meyers) find ourselves occasionally on the outside looking in when it comes to input or discussion. As an elected member of the court, its regretful when I have been deprived of any deliberative or creative process, Morales wrote. I liked the initial resolution and was ready to support much of the language in even the second version if there had been any discussion at all from the other members. But they stayed silent, so my only choice was an up or down vote. I honestly believe that if this was an inclusive court that relished a diversity of perspectives, we would have taken the time to proofread these documents against embarrassing errors, involve more deliberation from all our members, and solicit at least some input from the departments impacted by the new policies. These are basic steps towards unanimous support and resolutions that we all can agree upon, and use to show love to all our neighbors as ourselves. The resolution was approved 3-2 vote with Meyers and Morales voting against the measure at a Fort Bend County Commissioners Court meeting held Tuesday, July 28. knix@hcnonline.com (Newser) California on Wednesday charged the leader of a Mexican megachurch with child rape and human trafficking, months after a court dismissed the previous allegations because of prosecution errors, the AP reports. Naason Joaquin Garcia, the self-proclaimed apostle of La Luz del Mundo, was charged with three dozen felony counts. Also charged were Susana Medina Oaxaca and Alondra Ocampo. Prosecutors contend the three committed sex crimes and also produced child pornography involving five women and girls who were church group members. The crimes took place between 2015 and 2018 in Los Angeles County, authorities said. Garcia is the spiritual leader of La Luz del Mundo, which is Spanish for The Light Of The World. The evangelical Christian church based in Guadalajara was founded by his grandfather and claims 5 million followers worldwide. story continues below Garcia and Ocampo already were being held in custody in Los Angeles County while prosecutors decided whether to refile charges; Oaxaca is free on bail. The refiled charges accuse Garcia, who has previously denied wrongdoing, and Ocampo of committing a lewd act on a 15-year-old girl. Garcia fondled the girl in his office, authorities said. The two also are accused of raping and committing forced oral copulation with a second girl. All three defendants are accused of committing forced oral copulation with a third girl. Garcia was charged with raping two others. Ocampo took part in one rape, authorities said. Oaxaca is charged with two counts of committing forced and illegal copulation on a minor. Among other allegations, Ocampo is accused of having some church group members send explicit photos or pose for explicit photos that were intended for Garcia. A fourth defendant, Azalea Rangel Melendez, previously was charged with rape and forcible oral copulation and is a fugitive. (Read more megachurches stories.) New Delhi The Supreme Court on Friday ordered a freeze on registration of all BS-IV vehicles sold before March 31 after it saw abnormally high sale of vehicles in the days leading up to March 31 when business across the country came to a standstill on account of a national lockdown announced in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Federation of Automobile Dealers (FADA) informed the Court that bulk of purchases was through online sale. Suspecting manipulation of figures, the bench of Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai, and Krishna Murari said: Sales during lockdown is abnormally high. It appears under the guise of our March 27 order (permitting sale of BS-IV vehicles beyond March 31 to compensate for the lockdown) some fraudulent action has been adopted. The bench ordered FADA to supply full details of vehicles sold online as well as through showrooms. The matter will now be taken up on August 13. An affidavit filed by the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) added to the Courts suspicion. The Court asked the Centre to verify on its E-Vaahan portal, the number of BS-IV vehicles that were sold and registered in the period from March 12-31, 2020. Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati informed the Court that as per the figures provided by FADA, a total of 2,25,257 vehicles were sold. On verification it was found, 1,45,152 were granted permanent registration while 29,834 vehicles are still awaiting registration. Following the Courts order, vehicles falling in this category will have to await registration till the next date of Court hearing. Interestingly, data concerning 50,261 vehicles could not be located on the e-Vaahan portal. The Centre contacted the states which are yet to connect on e-Vaahan. These states/UTs include Andhra Pradesh, and few regional transport offices (RTO) in Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andaman Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep. Out of the missing data of 50,261, the Centre located the data of 10,324 vehicles in these states/UTs, but there is still no clue about 39,937 vehicles which have been shown as sold by FADA. FADA counsel senior advocate KV Vishwanathan said, We have received the Government affidavit late Thursday evening. We are still in the process of reconciling figures for which we need time. The members and non-members of FADA had complained that they were unable to log in the data on e-Vaahan at the relevant dates. The Court was surprised to find huge volume of BS-IV vehicles sale and registration as recorded in the Centres affidavit. According to MoRTH, between March 12 and March 31, the Vaahan portal recorded sale of 9,56,015 vehicles which included two-wheelers, three-wheelers, commercial and passenger vehicles. The maximum sale occurred on March 29 (78,525), March 30 (94,054) and March 31 (55,334). The bench observed, We are worried how sales could be so high during lockdown. How could this be.It appears they have manipulated the data. How could showrooms be open during lockdown? FADA will have to answer these queries posed by the court before August 13. The court has already recalled that part of its March 27 order which allowed sale of BS-IV vehicles beyond March 31. A pedestrian wears a protective face mask as she walks past the London Stock Exchange in London, U.K., on Monday, Mar. 2, 2020. The London Stock Exchange on Friday said it may consider selling part or all of its Italian stock exchange group to help get its planned $27 billion takeover of data and analytics group Refinitiv approved. The company said that it had begun "exploratory discussions" which could result in MTS, Borsa Italiana's bond trading platform, or its entire Italian arm being sold. "There can be no certainty that LSEG will decide to proceed with a transaction relating to either of these businesses," the LSE said in a statement. LSE said that it expects to complete the Refinitiv deal by early 2021, suggesting a potentially longer timeline than previously indicated as it tries to win approval from European competition regulators. In reporting half-yearly earnings, LSE said it was seeing good progress with foreign investment, antitrust and other regulatory approvals for the Refinitiv transaction, and that integration planning is well developed. "We expect to close the transaction by the end of the year or in early 2021," LSE Chief Executive David Schwimmer said in a statement. Rival exchanges Euronext and Deutsche Boerse have previously expressed an interest in the LSE's Italian operations. Neither immediately responded to requests for comment early on Friday. The London exchange said the United States Department of Justice has closed its antitrust investigation into the Refinitiv deal without seeking changes. Refinitiv is 45%-owned by Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Reuters News. The marriage of Ruby Sattar and Frank Romeu on July 24, at City Hall in Quincy, Mass., with just three friends attending, was a far cry from the 150-guest bash the two had planned for February 2021 in their hometown of Miami. But for the two of them, it was just right. Were both very unconventional people, so it was a relief to not have the pressure of the big event, not have to worry about everyone elses expectations, he said. Mr. Romeu was performing in a rap concert in Miami in 2013 when he and Ms. Sattar were first introduced through a mutual friend. They had both grown up in Florida, both in immigrant families (hers from Pakistan, his from Cuba), and it turned out they had lots of friends in common. Miami, it feels like a small town, said Ms. Sattar, who will take her husbands name. But it wasnt until 2017, after they had separately moved to the Boston area, when what had been mainly a Facebook friendship took a romantic turn. Visiting Professor Thembela Kepe [Photo credit: Snow Harris] Rhodes University Visiting Professor Thembela Kepe, a Professor of Geography at the University of Toronto, Canada, was awarded a Fellowship of the Society of South African Geographers (SSAG) in June 2020. Not only has Prof Kepe made a significant contribution to the discipline of Geography (and Human Geography, in particular), he has made a substantial contribution to Rhodes University over the past few years. Professor Kepe is always deeply engaged in research. He is currently supervising three Rhodes University PhD candidates, who are nearing submission of their theses, and he is continuing to teach his political ecology course to Honours students this year, explained Jaine Roberts, Director at Rhodes Universitys Research Office. The Fellowship entails lifelong membership to the SSAG in recognition of a remarkable contribution to the discipline. This award would have been presented in person at the biennial conference of the SSAG, which was originally scheduled to take place at Rhodes University in early July 2020, said Roberts. This important conference will not be held virtually, but is in the process of being rescheduled. This fellowship is notably a senior honorary award and a major achievement in academia. We extend our heartfelt congratulations to Professor Kepe, and look forward to the resumption of his regular visits to Rhodes University and the Eastern Cape, Roberts concluded. Source: Communications Please help us to raise funds so that we can give all our students a chance to access online teaching and learning. Covid-19 has disrupted our students' education. Don't let the digital divide put their future at risk. Visit www.ru.ac.za/rucoronavirusgateway to donate New Delhi, July 31 : Air India employees have protested the delay in disbursement of retirement dues and benefits in violation of the violation of the Gratuity Act and the PF Act. Aviation Industry Employees Guild in a letter to Rajiv Bansal, Chairman and Managing Director, Air India said, "Even basic entitlements like provident Fund and Gratuity which are statutory social security schemes are delayed for no justifiable reasons and in violation of the Gratuity Act and the PF Act". Pointing to an office order of 2015 in this regard, the Guild said, "In this connection, we would like to point out that the provisions of the office Order have been violated in respect of employees of the company who have retired from the month of March-2020 onwards. Whilst we understand that some delay is possible due to the pandemic, total disregard to the commitments made in the Office Order is causing severe hardships for our recent retirees." The letter pointed out that Air India employees who have served the company sincerely and dedicatedly for more than three decades are made to run from pillar to post thereby putting them to considerable embarrassment and humiliation. "The situation is all the more grave as far as Air India employees who have retired from subsidiary Companies are concerned," it added. The employees have asked the Air India CMD to intervene in the matter urgently and ensure that retirees are given their final settlements in terms of the Office Order. South Africa: SA works on locally developed reagents, testing kits for COVID-19 A local supply of reagents and kits for COVID-19 testing is being developed to ensure security of supply, local manufacturing, and the creation and preservation of jobs. Addressing a virtual National COVID-19 Conference on Friday, Higher Education, Science and Innovation (DSI) Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, said the supply of reagents and kits for COVID-19 testing is being developed through DSI-funded spin-out companies, centres of excellence and various other programmes and initiatives. Nzimande said South Africa currently imports testing kits, and local manufacturing will boost supplies for the continent. This work is at the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) accreditation stage and, in some cases, approval has already been granted. Some of the products were ready for use in May 2020, Nzimande said. The initiative in bio-manufacturing, which involves molecular biology enzymes, reagents and testing kits, is among the six specific initiatives that the department have been mobilising across the National System of Innovation, especially among its entities and the entities of sister departments, which are currently being fast-tracked to support government's response to the COVID-19 crisis. Another initiative includes the deployment of DSI-funded infrastructure to expand testing for COVID-19. Nzimande said the department has funded technology platforms, and laboratories possess capabilities and have conducted the preparatory work necessary to become part of the national testing network. This includes: The Centre for Proteomic and Genomic Research has validated various testing protocols and undertaken risk assessments, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. It will install a laboratory information management system, as required by the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS). Testing started in April 2020. The KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP), in partnership with Centre of AIDS Programme for Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and the Africa Health Research Institute, have validated the quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and sequencing protocols from two manufacturers for COVID-19 testing. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) labs were repurposed to do testing in support of government's drive for a massive roll-out of testing. Development of Personal Protective Equipment Nzimande reported that the Product Development Technology Station at the Central University of Technology has been developing personal protective equipment (PPE), specifically an airway protection device for healthcare workers. The Minister said that the technology station has applied to South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) for an amended licence to accommodate the new products under its existing ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) 13485 certification supported through the Technology Innovation Agency. The work will continue post-COVID-19. The eNtsa innovation hub at Nelson Mandela University is using additive manufacturing (3D printing) for face shield frame design and printing modifications to enable clinicians to easily replace standard A4 transparent sheets without the need for holes and adhesives. The designs are now available through open source networks. eNtsa also positioned itself to provide engineering support in the Eastern Cape and around the country during the lockdown, so as to enable critical projects pertaining to maintenance for the power generation industry to continue, Nzimande said. Support to good hygiene practice Nzimande said the Technology Station in Chemicals has started with the production of the first batch of 5 000 containers of hand sanitiser to be distributed to staff and placed at strategic points on campuses for students and on-campus communities to stay safe. He said the production of hand sanitisers will be an ongoing project until the crisis is over, with the technology station also investigating ways to assist vulnerable communities including old age homes. Coordinating efforts for local vaccine manufacturing plant The Minister said that the department has put together a COVID-19 Vaccine Production Task Team, which includes the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC), the South African Medical Research Council, academia, local vaccine and adjuvant manufacturers Biovac (which is 47.5% government-owned) and Afrigen, which has Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) investment. The aim is to get South Africa into a state of readiness to manufacture an approved COVID-19 vaccine locally. In anticipation of the huge demand, should a candidate vaccine be identified, manufacturing facilities will need to be established in different regions, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Africa will also need to be ready, Nzimande said. Support for National Ventilator Project Nzimande said the National Ventilator Project (NVP) was conceptualised by the DTIC in conjunction with the Manufacturing Circle in order to coordinate and secure a supply of locally manufactured ventilators. He said the systems engineering skills and experience in specifying and acquiring complex systems at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) was critical in ensuring that a national user requirement and technical specification was developed for publication in the request for proposals for the NVP. The NVP team received approximately 100 proposals. Four potential suppliers were selected, and production orders were placed with them for an initial batch of 20 000 ventilators. One of the selected suppliers was the CSIR, which was contracted to manufacture 2 000 non-invasive ventilators, the Minister said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KY3) - An afternoon protest in Missouri's capital city ends with several arrests and the use of pepper spray. Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the Governor's Mansion on Thursday to protest a crime bill that Gov. Parson signed into action earlier this month. By PTI LAHORE: Pakistan's security forces on Friday shot dead five militants of the outlawed Balochistan Republican Army and claimed to have thwarted a terrorist attack in the country's Punjab province. The terrorists were also involved in the killing of five personnel of the law enforcement agencies. The intelligence-based operation, jointly conducted by the counter-terrorism department of Punjab and intelligence agency ISI in Rajanpur, some 400 kms from Lahore, led to the killing of five terrorists of the Balochistan Republican Army, counter-terrorism officials said in a statement. The security forces received a tip-off that eight heavily-armed terrorists were present at Arbi Tibba road in Rajanpur and were planning to attack government installations and law enforcement agencies in the province. Five terrorists were killed in the shootout while three managed to escape, they said. One improvised explosive device, three submachine guns, two pistols, four kgs explosives, four detonators and ammunition have been recovered from their possession. According to initial investigation, the terrorists had been involved in the last year's attacks on the security personnel in which five officials were killed. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 22:44:01|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close DAMASCUS, July 31 (Xinhua) -- With the concerns of the COVID-19, many Syrians choose no gathering in celebration of this year's Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, over visiting friends and relatives or going out for meals. "It's not a joke. We cannot just ignore the facts and act as if nothing matters," Roushdy Nader, a 30-year-old accountant, told Xinhua, saying he remains indoors during the Islamic festival amid the news of daily new COVID-19 cases in Syria. Maher Hanan, a 32-year-old teacher in the capital Damascus, has cancelled his trip to the beach. "Unlike many people who are heading to the beach during Eid al-Adha, I just couldn't take that decision," he said. "I'm afraid that I could catch an infection here and there." Amal Makdessi, another Syrian resident, turned to a safe option to rent a villa in the suburbs of Damascus. Makdessi said she enjoys her time with her family without mixing with people in places such as crowded hotels and beaches. Munhed Zaroura, a 46-year-old man, said he is enjoying solitude in his house in a village in central Syria. "I used to go to the beach during Eid al-Adha and I used to enjoy the crowded areas, but going there is no longer an option for me with the COVID-19 spread," he explained. Since March, the Syrian Health Ministry has reported a total of 738 COVID-19 cases in the country. This year, people are advised against visiting each other over the pandemic while the soaring prices and tough economic situation discourage them from big meals. The Syrian televisions also broadcast programs about raising awareness of COVID-19 instead of interesting plays during this Eid al-Adha holiday. "Personal responsibility and awareness is the essence of the protection against COVID-19," reads one of the slogans repeatedly aired by the Syrian national TV. The Syrian government also banned the early-morning Eid al-Adha prayers in mosques in Damascus and its countryside to prevent congregation. In addition, the Syrian Interior Ministry designated a hotline for reporting illegal entry into the country over the COVID-19 fears, while the health ministry set up another for reporting suspected coronavirus cases. Enditem One Houston doctor didn't hold back when expressing his frustration and annoyance toward the spike in Texas. Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joseph Varon, who works at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, told KTRK-TV he's fighting two COVID-19 wars, and one is especially hard to treat. "My motto has been, you know, at the present time, I'm pretty much fighting two wars: a war against COVID and a war against stupidity. And the problem is that the first one I have some hope about winning. But the second one is becoming more and more difficult to treat. Why do I say that? Because people are not listening. Whether it's backed up by science or just plain old common sense, people are not listening throughout the country," Varon told the TV station. Varon oversees UMMC's COVID-19 unit, and said people choosing to completely disobey the guidance put forth by health officials you know, like wearing a mask and social distancing makes the fight that much harder. COVID KILLER: UH researchers create filter to 'catch and kill' virus instantly Chron.com reported Friday that the Houston region is at 100,786 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of state data. The death count is at 1,597. The entire state of Texas currently sits at 425,119 cases and 6,465 deaths. The Department of State Health Services recently began reporting deaths based on death certificates instead of reports from individual counties, which further confirmed that the virus is deadlier for people of color. The Jammu and Kashmir administration released Peoples Conference leader Sajad Lone from house detention on Friday. He was detained after Centre abrogated Article 370 last year and was lodged at MLA Hostel for six months. Lone was later shifted to his government accommodation at Church Lane in February last year. Finally 5 days short of a year I have been officially informed that I am a free man. So much has changed. So have I. Jail was not a new experience. Earlier ones were harsh with usual doses of physical torture. But this was psychologically draining. Much to share hopefully soon, he tweeted after being released. Finally 5 days short of a year I have been officially informed that I am a free man. So much has changed. So have I. Jail was not a new experience. Earlier ones were harsh with usual doses of physical torture. But this was psychologically draining. Much to share hopefully soon. Sajad Lone (@sajadlone) July 31, 2020 Lone was released from custody on February 5 but was put under house arrest. Lone was a minister in the PDP-BJP coalition government - under the BJP quota - in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir; however, once he opposed the revocation of Article 370, he was also held along with some other senior leaders of Peoples Conference. A total of 13 leaders were released from detention in January this year, while five leaders had been released in December last year. Covid-19, which is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus first detected in Wuhan, China, in November 2019, has killed at least 44,868 people in Spain since February 13, when the first death from the disease was recorded. That is much higher than the official death toll of 28,432 reported by the Spanish Health Ministry based on cases that were tested and came back positive. To arrive at this figure, EL PAIS has included all the people who died either from confirmed or suspected Covid-19, using records from the 17 autonomous regions of Spain as well as excess death studies by two state-funded agencies and a trade association. The figure, which makes Spains death toll second only to the UKs in Europe, includes 16,436 additional deaths to those recorded by the Health Ministry, which currently still counts only people who test positive for the virus. During the first month of the epidemic, between March 14 and April 14, hospitals were overwhelmed by the numbers being admitted, which led all too often to the neglect of the sick in nursing homes The higher number of 44,868 is closer to the figures in studies carried out by the Carlos III Institute of Health (44,418), the National Statistics Institute (44,395) and the Spanish Association of Funeral Professionals and Services (43,985). As part of the Ministry of Science and Innovation, the Carlos III Health Institute monitors the mortality rate daily with data provided by 3,800 civil registries. This monitoring is part of a year-round alert system that will flag up any circumstance relevant to public health, such as a heatwave or a pandemic. As a benchmark for its analyses, the institute uses the average number of deaths in the last 10 years and compares that figure with the current situation. The results for the period between March 14, when Spain entered a state of alarm, to May 22, when hospital deaths began to fall dramatically, show that deaths were up by 44,118 on the previous 10 year-average. Meanwhile, the National Statistics Institute (INE), which is part of the Ministry of Economy, has launched a pilot study that shows an excess of 44,395 deaths between January 1 and May 24 of this year compared to the same period last year. The role of Covid-19 in this vertiginous rise becomes even more dramatic after observing that until March 14, there were almost 3,000 fewer deaths in Spain compared to the same period in 2019, according to INE data. Both the INE and the Carlos III Institute of Health base their studies on data provided by the Directorate General of Registries, which answers to the Justice Ministry, via the Inforeg service, which includes data from 3,800 civil registries across Spain, covering 93.4% of the population. The INE explains that, unlike the Carlos III Health Institute, its own data covers 100% of the population due to the application of a higher coefficient to the deaths recorded in Inforeg to compensate for data on the missing 6.4%. The coefficient is calculated on the basis of a historical comparison between Inforeg data and the number of deaths finally recorded by INE, which is invariably higher. The difference between the data recorded by the 17 autonomous regions and the data from the Health Ministry is most glaring in the four most severely affected regions Although no expert doubts that the excess mortality recorded by the two public bodies is mainly attributable to Covid-19, the Carlos III Institute stresses that it will be impossible to confirm whether all the deaths were due to the pandemic until the cause of death that appears in the medical certificates becomes available. The difference between the data recorded by the 17 autonomous regions and the data from the Health Ministry is most glaring in the four most severely affected regions Madrid, Catalonia, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y Leon which account for 75% of mortality from Covid-19. Thousands of deaths recorded in these regions occurred in nursing homes and, to a lesser extent, at home. The public health services in these regions believe that, in the vast majority of cases, Covid-19 was responsible, though the victims were never tested. During the first month of the epidemic, between March 14 and April 14, hospitals were overwhelmed by the numbers being admitted, which led all too often to the neglect of the sick in nursing homes. This alone complicates estimates of actual mortality from the pandemic. The Ministry of Health argued from the outset that its death count followed World Health Organization (WHO) criteria, which stipulated that only those who tested positive should be recorded as Covid deaths. But on June 6, the WHO changed its criteria to include those who are strongly suspected to be Covid-19 victims. Statistics in Europe Fernando Simon, director of Spains Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, said more than a month ago that the Health Ministry should adjust the death count according to the new WHO criteria, although he did not specify when this would be done. This puts us in a situation where every country is going to have to make adjustments to their data at some point so that we can compare it, he said. France, however, began to officially record those who died in nursing homes and residences on April 6, boosting the number of deaths on one single day by 1,000. The UK did likewise on April 29 and increased its total death count by 4,000. Questionable death-free days On June 1 and 2, Fernando Simon said that no Covid-19 deaths had been recorded for the first time since the beginning of the health crisis, according to the health statistics itemized as Deaths reported in the last seven days. However on June 1, seven regional governments reported 24 deaths in their hospitals; and on June 2, nine regions confirmed 34 further deaths from the virus. The Health Ministry added these figures to its lists of deaths many days later. On June 2, the ministry stated that Madrid had not reported any deaths occurring in the last seven days. But, in fact, the Madrid region had reported 80 deaths in that period. Over the last week, the ministry has reported two deaths in Catalonia while the regional governments department of health has reported 32 deaths in its hospitals in the same period. Controversial data management Since the beginning of the pandemic, Catalonia has generated data that does not coincide with that of the Health Ministry. According to officials in charge of the regions data, the ministry asks for certain data published daily by the region and interprets it, but only the Catalan government knows Catalonias epidemiological reality. This epidemiological reality has resulted in some impossible figures. On May 18, the Catalan health department counted 6,614 deaths in hospitals due to Covid-19. A day later, the number had fallen to 6,385 deaths. On May 23, Catalonia added 18 deaths, but the Health Ministry only noted seven, with the following explanation: Catalonia has reported more deaths from previous days that are pending assignment by date of demise. The series is being reviewed. As recently as July 23, Catalonia had still recorded nine deaths for that day in May. However, when the number of deaths was counted according to location, it appeared that 13 more people had died that day in the regions hospitals. English version by Heather Galloway. Anne Signoracci was born in Amsterdam on July 26, 1920. She moved to Cohoes when she married Ralph Signoracci and they raised their three sons there. She relocated to Apollo Beach, Fla., for a time but returned to New York after being widowed to be closer to family. She lives at Eddy Village Green in Cohoes, where the staff decorated the house for the occasion and the family offered her birthday wishes via Zoom on a large screen. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Small groups of people performed one of the final rites of the Islamic hajj on Friday as Muslims worldwide marked the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday amid a global pandemic that has impacted nearly every aspect of this years pilgrimage and celebrations. The last days of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia coincide with the four-day Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, in which Muslims slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor. The pandemic has pushed millions of people around the world closer to the brink of poverty, making it harder for many to fulfill the religious tradition of purchasing livestock. In Somalia, the price of meat has slightly increased. Abdishakur Dahir, a civil servant in Mogadishu, said that for the first time he wont be able to afford goat for Eid because of the impact of the virus on work. I could hardly buy food for my family, Dahir said. We are just surviving for now. Life is getting tougher by the day. In some parts of West Africa, the price for a ram has doubled. Livestock sellers, used to doing brisk business in the days before the holiday, say sales have dwindled. The situation is really complicated by the coronavirus, its a tough market, Oumar Maiga, a livestock trader in Ivory Coast said. We are in a situation weve never seen in other years. The hajj pilgrimage has also been drastically impacted by the virus. Last year, some 2.5 million pilgrims took part, but this year it was limited to as few as 1,000 already residing in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Health Ministry said there have been no cases of the COVID-19 illness among this years pilgrims. Government precautions included testing pilgrims for the virus, monitoring their movement with electronic wristbands and requiring them to quarantine before and after. Pilgrims were selected after applying through an online portal, and all had to be between 20 and 50 years of age. Just after dawn Friday, small groups masked and physically distancing made their way toward the massive, multistory Jamarat Complex in the Saudi valley area of Mina. There the pilgrims cast pebbles at three large columns. It is here where Muslims believe the devil tried to talk the Prophet Ibrahim, or Abraham, out of submitting to Gods will. Muslims commemorate Ibrahims test of faith by slaughtering livestock and animals and distributing the meat to the poor. During the last days of hajj, male pilgrims shave their heads and remove the terrycloth white garments worn during the pilgrimage. Women cut off a small lock of hair in a sign of spiritual rebirth and renewal. The hajj, both physically and spiritually demanding, intends to bring about greater humility and unity and is required of all Muslims to perform once in a lifetime. Sheikh Abdullah al-Manea, member of the Supreme Council of Senior Scholars of Saudi Arabia, used the hajj sermon Friday to praise the kingdom for limiting the number of pilgrims and protect human life. We thank the positive role of Muslims around the world that have complied with the regulations of the country to protect them from the spread of this virus, which leads to the protection of Mecca and Medina, the sheikh said. Around the world, Muslims gathered with relatives or remained at home to mark the start of Eid. In Baghdad, streets were largely empty due to a 10-day coronavirus lockdown imposed by authorities. Eid prayers in mosques were canceled. We had hoped that the curfew would be lifted during the Eid period. We were surprised that the lockdown period included the Eid holiday and more, cafe owner Marwan Madhat said. This will cause losses. Kosovo and the United Arab Emirates have also closed mosques to limit the spread of the virus. In Lebanon, worshippers prayed in mosques under tight security, despite a partial lockdown imposed Thursday that will continue through Aug. 10. Worshippers at the Mohammad al-Amin Mosque in Beirut, spilled outside onto the street to maintain social distancing. In Indonesia, home to the worlds largest population of Muslims, people attended Eid prayers in mosques under strict guidelines, including that they bring their own prayer mats and pray several feet apart from one another. Worshippers had to wear masks and were not allowed to shake hands or hug. Authorities also ordered that meat be delivered door-to-door to the poor to avoid long lines. This outbreak has not only changed our tradition entirely, but has also made more and more people fall into poverty, said Agus Supriatna, an Indonesian factory worker laid off this year because of the pandemic. In the United States, some attended prayers under similar distancing and safety rules, while others prayed at home. At the Muslim Education Center in Morton Grove, Illinois, about 100 worshippers had their temperatures taken before entering and spacing themselves out on the floor. The imams voice was slightly muffled as he preached through a mask about sacrifice and its relevance to the holiday. And in Los Angeles, Arfa Faiz and a small group of friends were planning to take part in a socially distanced picnic at a park a far cry from previous Eids when large groups would congregate on the beach or at a hall. Usually in L.A. the Eid things are really big. They are very social, theres a lot of stuff going on, Faiz said. Eid is a time to celebrate and be with the community, she continued. It does feel a little sad. Ahead of the holiday, Alioune Ndong, a tailor in Mbour, Senegal, said he did not know how hed afford an Eid feast and urged the government to help struggling families. COVID-19 has drained my money, Ndong said. ___ Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia; Fay Abuelgasim in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Llazar Semini in Tirana, Albania; Abdi Guled in Nairobi, Kenya; Lekan Oyekanmi in Lagos, Nigeria; Abdoulie John in Mbour, Senegal; Hilaire Zon in Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Babacar Dione and Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal; Ali Abdul-Hassan in Baghdad; Hassan Ammar in Beirut; Mariam Fam in Winter Park, Florida; and Noreen Nasir in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report. On the Passing of Former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui Press Statement Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State July 30, 2020 On behalf of the American people, I would like to offer my sincere condolences on the passing of former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui. As Taiwan's first democratically elected president, Lee helped put an end to decades of authoritarianism and ushered in a new era of economic prosperity, openness, and rule of law. During his 12-year tenure, Lee's bold reforms played a crucial role in transforming Taiwan into the beacon of democracy we see today. He cemented the deep friendship between the United States and Taiwan. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people on Taiwan, and we will honor President Lee's legacy by continuing to strengthen our bond with Taiwan and its vibrant democracy through shared political and economic values. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address A Ugandan court on Thursday sentenced a man to 11 years in prison for offences including the killing of a beloved mountain gorilla in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. The Silverback gorilla, named Rafiki -- which means "friend" in Swahili -- was believed to be around 25 years old. He was found dead last month from a spear wound. Felix Byamukama, a resident of a nearby village, was arrested and admitted to killing the gorilla, saying it was in self-defence, according to the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). The authority said Byamukama was given an 11-year jail term for killing Rafiki "and other wildlife" in the park. Byamukama had pleaded guilty on three charges including illegally entering the protected area and killing a duiker and a bush pig. UWA executive director Sam Mwandha said: "We are relieved that Rafiki has received justice and this should serve as an example to other people who kill wildlife." Rafiki headed a family of 17 gorillas, the first to become habituated to humans in the national park, allowing tourists to hike through the forest to see them. Their life expectancy in the wild is about 35 years. The wildlife authority described the killing of Rafiki as a "great blow" after intensive conservation efforts saw the mountain gorilla's Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) category upgraded from "critically endangered" to "endangered" in 2018. The population of the gorillas grew from around 680 individuals in 2008 to over 1,000. The mountain gorilla's habitat is restricted to protected areas covering nearly 800 square kilometres (300 square miles) in two locations -- the Virunga Massif and Bwindi-Sarambwe -- which stretch across the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. Rafiki's murder came as poaching incidents were on the rise in Uganda, which had imposed a strict lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic, and with tourists yet to return. "We have noticed a rise in incidents of poaching in our national parks following the closure of our tourism hubs because of COVID-19," the UWA's Mwandha told AFP. "What we are investigating is who is behind the cases of poaching. Due to lockdown have the communities near the parks turned against the wildlife as a source of livelihood? Is it a criminal network behind the rise in poaching? Is the absence of tourism in parks facilitating poaching? "Wherever the answer lies, incidents of poaching are a cause for worry and we have intensified patrols in parks," he added. Dickens Olewe BBC News Stella Immanuel, a doctor at the centre of a controversy over unproven and potentially dangerous claims that an anti-malaria drug can treat Covid-19, is no stranger to conspiracy theories. Facebook and Twitter have taken down the viral video in which she appears, saying it violates their policies about misinformation but not before it was retweeted by Donald Trump and one of his sons. The US president defended himself, saying he found Dr Immanuel, who was born in Cameroon and is based in the Texan city of Houston, very impressive. She said that she had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients, I thought her voice was an important voice but I know nothing about her, he said on Tuesday. Dr Immanuel, who is also a Christian pastor, gave a speech on the steps of the US Supreme Court in Washington, captured in a video first published by right-wing website Breitbart on Monday. Along with other medics from a group called Americas Frontline Doctors, she said that Americans were being denied a potential cure for Covid-19. Nobody needs to get sick. This virus has a cure it is called hydroxychloroquine, I have treated over 350 patients and not had one death, said Dr Immanuel. Despite some early studies raising hopes that the drug could be used to cure coronavirus, one subsequent larger scale trial has shown it is not effective as a treatment. More about hydroxychloroquine: The World Health Organization (WHO) has halted its trials, saying it doesnt reduce death rates in patients with coronavirus. Last month, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cautioned against using the drug to treat coronavirus patients, following reports of serious heart rhythm problems and other health issues. And Dr Anthony Fauci, a leading member of the White House coronavirus task force, has reiterated these views. We know that every single good study and by good study I mean randomised control study in which the data are firm and believable has shown that hydroxychloroquine is not effective in the treatment of Covid-19, he told the BBC on Wednesday. But Dr Immanuel has insisted taking hydroxychloroquine is not harmful because it is widely taken in her home country of Cameroon, where malaria is endemic. Witches and demons Born in 1965, Dr Immanuel graduated with a medical degree from the University of Calabar in neighbouring Nigeria and has a valid doctors licence, according to the website of the Texas Medical Board. Hydroxychloroquine has long been used as a treatment for malaria She is also a pastor and the founder of Fire Power Ministries in Houston, a platform she has used to promote other conspiracies about the medical profession. Her sermons are available on a YouTube account set up in 2009. Five years ago, she alleged that alien DNA was being used in medical treatments, and that scientists were cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. Some of her other claims include blaming medical conditions on witches and demons a common enough belief among some evangelical Christians though she says they have sex with people in a dream world. They turn into a woman and then they sleep with the man and collect his sperm then they turn into the man and they sleep with a man and deposit the sperm and reproduce more of themselves, she said during a sermon in 2013. Another issue that Dr Immanuel targets is gay marriage, saying it can result in adults marrying children, according to the Daily Beast . She also offers a prayer to remove a generational curse, originally received from an ancestor, but transmitted through placenta, the news websites profile of her says. Jesus will shut Facebook In her latest video posted on Twitter on Tuesday, she asks patients she says she has cured of Covid-19 to come forward. If you dont speak up we are getting trashed, she says, encouraging them to use a hashtag when they post their video messages. Her tweet has had more than 27,000 retweets. After Facebook took down the Americas Frontline Doctors video on Tuesday, she declared that Jesus Christ would destroy the social media giants servers if her videos were not restored to the platform. Facebook has not reported an interruption on its services. Who are Americas Frontline Doctors? It is a collection of physicians critical of the scientific consensus around the Covid-19 pandemic. The event on Monday was backed by the Tea Party Patriots, a conservative organisation seeking to re-elect President Trump. The doctors believe neither masks nor shutdowns are necessary to fight the spread of coronavirus. The groups founder, Simone Gold, organised a letter to Mr Trump calling for an end to lockdown measures in May. Participants were encouraged to seek out interviews with social media influencers, as this was determined to be the best way to reach Americans. Ralph Norman, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, was standing alongside the doctors when they delivered their news conference. The debate has been increasingly dividing Americans along political lines, with proponents of hydroxychloroquine pointing to President Trumps support of it while accusing critics of covering up its potential effectiveness.BBC The United States says it has imposed sanctions on a Chinese government entity and two current or former officials for their alleged involvement in "serious rights abuses" against Uyghurs and other mainly Muslim ethnic groups in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. These designations include the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), the Treasury Department said on July 31, describing the entity as "a paramilitary organizationthat is subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party" and "enhances internal control over the region by advancing Chinas vision of economic development." The two newly sanctioned individuals include Peng Jiarui, the deputy party secretary and commander of the XPCC, and Sun Jinlong, a former political commissar of the XPCC. The action freezes any U.S. assets of the company and officials, and prohibits Americans from doing business with them. "As previously stated, the United States is committed to using the full breadth of its financial powers to hold human rights abusers accountable in Xinjiang and across the world," Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said in a statement. The move comes amid a deterioration of relations between the United States and China, and an intensifying U.S. effort to pressure Beijing over gross human rights abuses reported in the Xinjiang region. Beijing is accused of placing more than 1 million Uyghurs and members of other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in internment camps and prisons where, since early 2017, they have been physically abused, subjected to ideological discipline, and forced to denounce their religion and language. China says the camps are reeducation and training centers needed to combat separatist terrorism and extremism. Peter Harrell, a sanctions expert at the Center for a New American Security, said that, from an economic perspective, the sanctions announced on July 31 are a "substantial escalation" of U.S. pressure and sends a warning to companies engaged in activity in China. The administration of President Donald Trump "finally took a meaningful sanctions...action on Xinjiang, as opposed to ones that were primarily symbolic," Harrell told the Reuters news agency. Founded in the 1950s, the XPCC initially settled demobilized soldiers on work farms in Xinjiang, and gradually came to run a vast amount of farmland, as well as businesses in areas including real estate, insurance, and cement. Experts say the organization, which is said to number more than 3 million people, has administrative authority over several cities and is almost entirely made up of Han Chinese. Chen Quanguo, the current first political commissar of the XPCC and Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, was sanctioned by Washington earlier this month. With reporting by AFP and Reuters The owner of British Airways has announced a 3.8 billion loss and warned that passenger numbers will not recover until 2023 after plummeting by 93 per cent during the pandemic. Parent company IAG said this is down from a 0.9 billion profit in the same six month period a year ago. Revenue was 4.8 billion some 56 per cent lower than 2019's levels. They added it will take until at least 2023 for passenger demand to recover to pre-coronavirus levels. In April it announced that 12,000 British Airways jobs could be cut and currently half of BA's 45,000 employees are currently on furlough. Chief executive Willie Walsh said: "All IAG airlines made substantial losses. As a result of Government travel restrictions, quarter two passenger traffic fell by 98.4% on a capacity reduction in the quarter of 95.3%. FA British Airways passenger plane comes in to land at London Heathrow airport in mid-May "We have seen evidence that demand recovers when Government restrictions are lifted. "Our airlines have put in place measures to provide additional reassurance to their customers and employees on board and at the airport. "We continue to expect that it will take until at least 2023 for passenger demand to recover to 2019 levels." IAG announced a plan to strengthen its balance sheet by raising 2.49 billion through a proposed capital increase. The firm said it is "restructuring its cost base to reduce each airline's size". Mr Walsh said customers with pre-existing bookings are continuing to fly to and from Spain despite the UK Government's decision to advise against non-essential travel to the country and re-impose quarantine requirements for people returning. He told reporters: "People who have had bookings, they appear to continue to be travelling to and from Spain." Passengers arrive at Heathrow Airport on July 30. The government has implemented a number of recent travel restrictions, including for Spain He went on: "Our bookings are being suppressed by Government restrictions. When the restrictions of removed we see a significant increase in bookings." Mr Walsh said the scale of the challenge faced by the airline industry after 9/11 in 2001 and the global financial crisis in 2009 is "much smaller" than what it faces due to the pandemic. "Anyone who believes that this is just a temporary downturn and therefore can be fixed with temporary measures, I'm afraid seriously misjudges what the industry is going through. "This will represent a structurally changed industry and that's why we've taken the action that we've taken and that's why we believe now the the right time to raise additional capital." In a report in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier, researchers at Augusta University and PerkinElmer Genomics describe a cheaper, rapid, and accurate pooling strategy for the RT-PCR-based detection of SARS-CoV-2 in clinical samples. This assay has a significant impact on large-scale population screening in the wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a massive strain on global healthcare systems, governance, and economies. Testing for SARS-CoV-2 has lagged in many countries due to various bottlenecks including but not limited to the failure of the reagent supply chain, lack of adequate test kits, and hindrances in the analytical and regulatory processes. We have proposed a mass population screening approach based on sample pooling strategy for rapid and wide-scale population screening that may be adopted by laboratories currently using RT-PCR-based methods to test for SARS-CoV-2." Ravindra Kolhe, MD, PhD, Vice-Chair for Translational Research, Department of Pathology, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University According to Dr. Kolhe, this strategy would lead to an approximately 5- to 10-fold reduction in the cost of testing of SARS-CoV-2. PerkinElmer's FDA-EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) RT-PCR kit for SARS-CoV-2 detection (with a limit of detection of 5-20 copies/mL) has been implemented in the laboratory by Dr. Kolhe since March 2020. The investigators analyzed approximately 1,000 samples using this pooled sampling approach and achieved 91.6 percent PPA (positive percent agreement) and 100 percent NPA (negative percent agreement) compared to the routine screening approach. The study demonstrates the clinical utility and accuracy of sample pooling strategy and presents a carefully planned layout for mass population testing that can be executed by laboratories using RT-PCR-based methods for detecting SARS-CoV-2. The proposed methodology has the potential to allow institutions to ramp up their testing needs in a cost-efficient manner with minimal turnaround times. This testing allows for the timely isolation and treatment of COVID-19-positive patients, specifically in populations with a lower prevalence of the disease, for example, screening large numbers of students returning to college campuses. "In terms of cost analysis, one million individuals can be tested for around US$9.1 million with the proposed mass population screening approach compared to approximately US$58 million with current routine diagnostic methods. These cost projections highlight significant savings of healthcare dollars that could be achieved in both high- and low/middle-income countries," said Amyn Rojiani, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Pathology, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA. The global impact of these enormous savings has the potential to enhance laboratory operations throughout the pandemic and can be deployed to laboratories that are facing dire constraints in supplies. Students who had appeared for the class 12 examination for Arts and Commerce stream can check the TBSE HS results at the official website of the Tripura Board i.e tripuraresults.nic.in/ Those who appeared for TBSE 10th exam (old syllabus) can also check their result from the official website. Though the Class 10 ( new syllabus) examinations were over prior to the coronavirus-induced lockdown, examinations of some papers of the rest Class 10 ... Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor A second nurse has been charged in connection with the death of an inmate at the Midland County jail in July 2019. Timothy Gene Forbush, Jr. was arrested on Friday and charged with criminally negligent homicide, manslaughter and tampering with a government record, according to the Midland County Sheriffs Office list of current detainees. Another nurse, Flor Estrada, was indicted Thursday on the same charges, according to a copy of her indictment. Both Estrada and Forbush were contracted nurses and not county employees, according to Midland County District Attorney Laura Nodolf. RELATED: Nurse indicted in inmates death at Midland County jail The inmate, 30-year-old Savion Hall, was arrested on June 21, 2019 for an alcohol or drug offense, according to a custodial death report filed with the Texas Attorney Generals Office. He died on July 19, 2019, a week after he was transferred to the hospital because of low oxygen levels. Hall had a known medical condition that affected his breathing and was receiving breathing treatments, according to the custodial death report. Estrada allegedly failed to maintain proper medical records pertaining to Halls treatment, resulting in his death, her indictment states. She also allegedly made a false entry on Halls treatment flo-sheet, which would detail the date and time of any drugs administered. Hall was receiving a nebulizer treatment, according to Estradas indictment, but it does not specify what drug he was receiving or provide information about his illness. A copy of Forbushs indictment was not yet available Friday afternoon. Forbush and Estrada are being held in the county jail on $250,000 bond. in the face of rising Corona of infection, pay a result in Amsterdam and Rotterdam is the first Dutch cities, a mask of duty. This applies particularly lively squares, streets and shops, shared with the cities on Thursday. The mask duty is to the 5. August, apply to all persons over the age of 13. In Amsterdam around the red light district, the Kalverstraat main shopping street and popular markets you will not be allowed without a mask visited. The requirement does not replace but, as a rule, a safety distance of 1.5 meters apart, stressed the authorities. Amsterdam had already been taken for the red light district and the downtown area of strict measures. Thus, tourists were encouraged to visit the city on the weekends. Especially due to the influx of tourists, the safety distance can not be met often. The Dutch government rejects a General mask of duty so far, it has allowed regional bids. So far, in the Netherlands only in public transport, and a face mask this also includes the ferries belong to. more Stringent mask duty to intensify in Parts of France in France, several cities because of the sharp rise in cases of infection and their Corona pads. In Belgium, adjacent to the Departement of Nord, the authorities announced on Friday stricter restrictions. Probably a mask obligation should also be introduced in the Free. The French government had imposed a country-wide mask compulsory for all publicly accessible spaces. in the port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany, which attracts this summer, tens of thousands of domestic tourists, the Corona pads tightened. According to the city administration every eleven years, the walls in the old town and on the town of a mouth have to wear nose protection. In Central France, Orleans will have to be covered from Friday and also on markets for the mouth and nose. In addition, a mask is mandatory in the evening from 21.00 o'clock on the Banks of the Loire. There were bustling around in the past few weeks a number of people. In the inner cities of the southern French cities of Bayonne and Biarritz, a mouth-nose protection is starting next week, according to the authorities, is also required. Biarritz will also lock the beaches at night to prevent beach parties. Updated Date: 31 July 2020, 10:20 The United Nations World Food Program is appealing for an additional $250 million in emergency aid to help millions of Zimbabweans at risk of starvation. The WFP says the COVID-19 pandemic is worsening an already severe hunger crisis in the southern African nation. Hopely farm about 20 kilometers north of Harares central business district is one of the poorest residential areas in Zimbabwes capital. People here largely depend on informal employment, which has dried up since the Zimbabwe government imposed a lockdown in late March to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The situation was made worse by the dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed earlier this month, according to the World Food Program. One of those affected is 52-year-old Aleck Mugopa, who looks after his six children. Since the beginning of the lockdown, he said, there are times when the family has gone without a decent meal. He said its now really difficult, especially here in Harare, as we are not working. We have no source of livelihood. So my children are starving, he said. Asked what the government is providing, he said, There is nothing. Asked what he wants from the government, Mugopa said, We just want food aid so that we can survive and when the lockdown is over, I can get back to vegetable vending. At the moment, he said, police are chasing people from the fields so there is no way he can grow plants. Claire Nevill, the WFP spokeswoman in Zimbabwe, said people like Mugopa are the reason why the U.N. agency is asking for an additional $250 million to reach more than 8 million food insecure people -- in both urban and rural areas - in this southern African nation, which was plagued by recurring droughts and a struggling economy even before the coronavirus pandemic came. The already dire situation is set to worsen and if the international community does not step up, the risk of a humanitarian catastrophe is very real. COVID 19 is threatened to deepen and widen Zimbabwes climate and recession induced hunger crisis," she said. "We know that in urban areas where lockdowns have triggered massive joblessness the number of food insecure people forecasts is set to rise as the social-economic consequences of the pandemic become more pronounced, in rural areas the number is set to increase as the stocks from the recent drought hit harvest are run down and now the return of now migrant workers and the absence of their remittances they provided are keenly felt. Minister of Social Welfare Paul Mavima told VOA that the government has assisted 260,000 urban dwellers like Mugopa, who were left without income because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The total amount that the government of Zimbabwe has committed to this relief which is a combination of COVID-19 and the drought that we have faced for the past two seasons -- we are going to use something line $300 to 350 million for feeding the vulnerable in Zimbabwe. He said President Emmerson Mnangagwas government was happy and appreciates efforts by the WFP to help millions of food insecure Zimbabweans. The WFPs Nevill said the lockdown, coupled with the drought, has made Zimbabwes food situation more precarious than ever before. So severe is the countrys food crisis that for the first time ever is that one WFP lean season assistance programme has been immediately succeeded by another. The previous one ended in June and a month later, our lean season assistance program began on the first of July, three months earlier than it usually would, said Nevill. She said the WFP cannot maintain the program long-term unless funding from the U.S., European Union and other donors comes in a timely fashion. He looked for one. But Mark Saunders says he simply couldnt find an easy moment to step down there arent many when you are the chief of the largest municipal police service in Canada. And so it was that the citys first Black chief held a surprise news conference in June to announce his resignation eight months early, mid-pandemic and at the height of a local and international reckoning over anti-Black racism and policing. Mounting calls to defund the police and protests decrying the deaths of Black and Indigenous people including Regis Korchinski-Paquet, who died in the presence of Toronto police in May played no part in his decision, Saunders said in a wide-ranging interview with the Star ahead of his exit Friday. There was nothing he wanted to avoid, and the ongoing discussions about policing have always existed, he said. Theres no one running out of the octagon, and Ive never not had a decent fight when I needed to have it, Saunders said, comparing himself to a mixed-martial-arts fighter. Hard discussions are something that were not naive to, and were still going to have hard discussions. His departure after five years as chief and nearly 38 with the Toronto police was hastened by personal reasons, including a desire to spend more time with his family, Saunders said the job was 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and not just in the theoretical way it had been when he was an officer. When Saunders first started the job as top cop, he thought he knew what the jump from deputy chief to chief would entail. That was completely naive, he said. The change was massive. As the face of the organization, his every word was now transcribed, and there suddenly wasnt much to lean on, he said. You have to own it and do your best. Saunders resignation has set off a search for his replacement by the seven-member Toronto police board. Facing calls to address racism within policing, for a nonpolice form of emergency response to mental health calls and for dramatic cuts to the police budget, the board is under pressure to find a real agent of change. Saunders was hired to be one, too and hes faced fierce criticism that he fell far short. He cites the Way Forward, the Toronto police modernization plan, as one of his successes, even as the full plan still has to manifest. The police budget remains above $1 billion and public trust has been stretched by deaths and high-profile cases of police brutality, including the recent conviction of off-duty Toronto Const. Michael Theriault for assaulting Black Whitby man Dafonte Miller. As chief, I cant deny that this matter will have an increased strain on the relationship between police and the community, specifically the Black community, Saunders said following Theriaults June conviction. The Star spoke with Saunders during his final week as chief about the reckoning over policing, his personal experiences of racism both in uniform and out his early support for carding (the controversial police practice that disproportionately impacted Black and brown men), and whats next. The interview has been edited for clarity and length: In recent weeks we have been confronting anti-Black racism in society and within policing. Can you talk about your experience of discrimination on and off the job, and how you think that influenced the way you did your job as chief? Its about the lived experience, which obviously becomes a tool in your decision-making factors and so that was one of the unique things that I was able to bring to this office. Im not saying that everyone is going to deal with things the way that Ive dealt with things, but I was always head-on. So, I mean, at the start, when I first got on (with the service), whenever any stupid comment was made, I would deal with it right there. And people would know that it was unwelcome and I had no shame in doing that because you know my parents always taught me to be proud of who I am and not to ever be ashamed. And so once you set the cadence of who you are, what youll tolerate and what you wont tolerate, the word gets out. And people behave accordingly when youre in the room and, really, that explains the dynamics of my career. Theres some things that I asked for and some things that I demanded. When we talk about my personal life so when Im followed around by store security, usually around Christmas time, and I use my wife as a witness and shes in awe to watch it happen. When Im walking down the hall at an international conference and my friend who was white was beside me, and as were walking up, one of the people from the group goes: Theres my boss from homicide. And the other person reaches out their hand to my white friend. Awkward moment for them and I make it very slow to pull my hand out of my pocket to shake their hand and look them in the eye and watch the shades of purple and red exist. Or being asked for ID when Im coming into the building as a homicide investigator with my white partner. But again, those types of moments, I dealt with. Does (discrimination) exist? Yeah, it absolutely exists. And its: What do we need to do as an organization to teach people to get it right, not because they have to ideally, you want them to get it right because its the right thing to do. Does it worry you that theres ongoing discrimination within the police service whether thats anti-Black racism or sexism or sexual harassment? In the case of Const. Heather McWilliam, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal recently ruled that she was sexually harassed for years by her supervisors and that sexual comments are commonplace within the Toronto police service. Do you feel that the service is doing enough to combat this? I think the answer is, yes, were moving in the right direction. Listen, racism is in the world, so for me to say that the police are going to be excluded would be naive on my part, and Ive publicly said that it does exist. What I like about this organization is the fact that were leaning into it now and its not just a matter of OK, well, weve got the right procedures. Weve got the right governance, weve got the right policy. We have to get into the cultural aspects of things. And you hear, over and over again, (theres a) fear of reprisal. And were right in the middle of changing all of that and so, we have workplace harassment issues on the go. Weve got (external partners) that are doing the research for us to help identify what best practices are. But, you know, as a culture in law enforcement, were so I want to say transactional when it comes to any type of investigation. And so, when someone comes in, in my opinion, and wants to complain about any type of harassment, what we do is we default right away to investigating for misconduct, or good conduct. What were not doing is were not listening to the person thats coming in. And that person is coming in because they dont feel comfortable or they feel pain. And so instead of looking at the transactional what needs to be done? we need to create a system where it can be a matter of: Ive been heard, my bosses recognize it, and it gets resolved relatively quickly. Within days of taking over as chief in 2015, you expressed support for intelligence-based carding, calling it very important in the context of gathering information to eliminate Torontos street gang culture. Have your views changed in that time? I was very clear that if carding was defined as random stopping and gathering of information, that is unlawful policing and I never, ever subscribed to that. And when we move to the fast forward, that is exactly how it was defined by Justice Michael Tulloch (the Ontario Court of Appeal judge who conducted a provincial review of carding, also known as street checks). When I said intelligence-led, that means an officer knows why that person has been stopped and knows what the lawful authorities are to have that conversation. Its different. Ill tell you where (carding) had an effect on street-gang activity working in homicide. You have a victim that is dead, and you show up to the scene and you find out who that person is. First off, you get a witness account of what happened, and theyd say: This person was standing here with two other people, then all of a sudden a group of three people came, fired shots, the other two took off and that is very common in this city. And so when we start doing a deeper dive on that person thats laying on the asphalt, and you see that this person was with two other people over here on one day, and then over here on one day, and then in a car on another day, the starting point for an investigation would be different. We would know right away who those two other people likely were ... And so, it enhanced a storyline. Where it was wrong was when it was used as a measuring tool for performance, and when people thought that more was better. And, you know, if (police patrol) Car A got 10 and Car B got 20, that represented Car B was working harder. This was where it got not good. This is where we started to lose our legitimacy. And so, as an organization, weve done a lot of things by putting in the (the Police and Community Engagement Review), having the PACER advisory committee work with us, look at our training with a racialized lens, look at our procedures with a racialized lens. On the go-forward, youve seen that we have switched over to a much more intelligence-led entity. There are far fewer complaints in the community as a whole. Theres still a lot more work to be done. It really does speak to: We need to get it right, because if we lose public trust then weve lost everything. Should Toronto police apologize for carding that saw people who werent suspected of a crime stopped, questioned and documented? I thought that I had done that, and that it was OK, now how do we move forward? And the most important thing is creating relationships and most of our crimes are solved with community, not without community. Right now were in a space where, again, weve got to figure out how we can get back to the table and figure things out. At the press conference where you announced you were resigning, you said you wanted to help find a cure for the disease that sees young Black boys getting killed by young Black boys. How will you be able to help them outside of the office of the chief? I leave the seat but I keep my wisdom. After you do a multitude of street-gang homicides where youre looking at both ends of the spectrum A, from the victims and B, from the accused a lot of things are learned. Ive been able to be put into spaces that most people would never, ever be able to see. So its about using the right resources and the right people. Its not necessarily a dollars-and-cents issue. I think there are certain formulas that can address at-risk and high-risk Im looking forward to the high-risk end because I think the resources and programs in that field are next to nothing. There are mounting calls for police to be defunded. Youve said that isnt feasible with the level of gun violence. But at what point is the city simply spending too much on policing? If people read The Way Forward, the modernization plan, we speak to the importance of enhancing partnerships to create community safety and so we readily admit that if others step up to the plate with a sustainable plan and system, then that means that there is less for us to do, more for us to focus on what we really are trained to do, with the equipment that we wear and the comprehensive training and understanding of law. But right now, at two oclock in the morning were it. Once the right thing is built, lets have a discussion. But you know you cant put the cart in front of the horse. It has to be thoughtful, it has to be tested and it has to have successful outcomes. And so, our knowledge well impart on whichever community entity may take it, because the talk is we want to create an arms-length entity to do those two oclock knocks. And were not concerned about it being done by someone else. In fact, well embrace it. But you gotta deliver it first. Wendy Gillis is a Toronto-based reporter covering crime and policing for the Star. Reach her by email at wgillis@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @wendygillis Read more about: Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong poses for the press while holding a candidate nomination form as he announces his intention to run for the Legislative Council general election in Hong Kong on July 20, 2020. The United Kingdom has condemned Hong Kong's decision to disqualify pro-democracy candidates from the upcoming legislative council election. Other critics around the world have also raised concerns over the upcoming polls. It comes as authorities announced Thursday that at least 12 pro-democracy nominees, including high profile activist Joshua Wong, have been disqualified from running in Hong Kong's upcoming elections. The Hong Kong government does "not rule out the possibility" that more nominees will be disqualified, it said. Incumbent lawmakers Dennis Kwok and Alvin Yeung, as well as Lester Shum, a student leader in the so-called Umbrella Movement, were also barred from standing as candidates in the legislative council elections. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China and a former British colony that has a separate legal and economic system from mainland China. The Hong Kong government said the 12 potential candidates were disqualified because their nominations were "not in compliance with the requirement under the Legislative Council Ordinance." British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab slammed the move. "I condemn the decision to disqualify opposition candidates from standing in Hong Kong's Legislative Council elections," Raab said in a statement on Thursday. "It is clear they have been disqualified because of their political views, undermining the integrity of 'One Country, Two Systems' and the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Joint Declaration and Hong Kong's Basic Law." Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997, is ruled under the "one country, two systems" policy. That framework grants allows those living there limited election rights. The upcoming election will be Hong Kong's first since the national security law came into effect. Chinese officials said the law is meant to prohibit secession, subversion of state power, terrorism activities and foreign interference. But critics worry it could undermine the principle of "one country, two systems" that was guaranteed under a treaty signed by the U.K. and China before Hong Kong's sovereignty transfer, and meant to remain in place until 2047. In the immediate future, the amount of rain fallen so far in 2020 means that its very likely that waster levels will stay high because theyre high right now and because the basin is saturated, Gronewold said. "It would take a long time for all that water to drain out of the system. BA owner IAG is planning a rights issue. Photo: PA The owner of British Airways has announced plans for a rights issue of up to 2.75bn (2.5bn, $3.6bn), as it warned the airline industry will take years to recover from the coronavirus crisis. International Airlines Group (IAG.L), which also owns Iberia and Aer Lingus, revealed the fundraising measures as it also posted losses in both the second quarter and first half of the year. With the pandemic hammering air travel, the company said operating losses came in at 1.365bn (1.24bn, $1.63bn) in the three months to the end of the June. The figures were only slightly lower than analyst forecasts reported by Reuters of 1.395bn, but marked a stark reversal of the 960m profits in the same period last year. It recorded a further 812m in exceptional costs. The airline said on Friday the capital increase, giving existing shareholders the right to buy additional shares, would reduce leverage and increase liquidity, and had the backing of its biggest shareholder Qatar Airways. READ MORE: BA pilots urged to accept pay cuts to limit job losses Willie Walsh, CEO of IAG, said: "Our industry is facing an unprecedented crisis and the outlook remains uncertain. However, we strongly believe that now is the time to look to the future and strengthen IAG's financial and strategic position. While we have had to make tough decisions on both people and costs, these actions are the right ones to protect as many jobs and serve as many customers as feasible and put IAG in the strongest position possible. It comes a week after a union representing BA pilots urged members to accept drastic cuts to pay and hours to limit mass job losses, under a deal agreed with airline chiefs. Thousands of pilots have voted over the past week on a deal negotiated between the UKs flag carrier and the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) over the past three months. READ MORE: UK airports predict 4bn in lost revenue this year IAG 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. Story continues The deal could see compulsory pilot job losses limited to around 270 staff, according to the union. The company also announced this month it would retire its entire fleet of 747 jumbo jets earlier than planned. The pandemic has taken an unprecedented toll on BA and the rest of the aviation industry. 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 Passing the baton Virtual global reunion connects Witsies across the globe. The first global alumni reunion which saw Vice-Chancellor, Professor Adam Habib introduce Vice-Chancellor designate, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi to the global alumni community was a huge success. Although it was held as a virtual event as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it nevertheless gave more than 800 alumni from over 20 countries an opportunity to connect and engage over two sessions to accommodate time zone differences. Many alumni had the chance to share their well wishes and posed challenging questions to the professors. Recordings of the sessions are available on the Wits Alumni YouTube channel here and here. Left to right: Professor Adam Habib, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, Dr Stanley Bergman and Professor Colin Bundy Both Professor Colin Bundy, trustee of the Wits Foundation UK, and Dr Stanley Bergman, Chairman of the Wits Fund, paid tribute to the sterling leadership shown by Professor Habib over the past few years. They highlighted his success at not only enhancing Wits academic output but also raising its stature and providing innovative clarity on the Universitys role during a time of transformation. They noted how Professor Vilakazi was best suited to take over the role as VC in 2021: Zeblon possesses a powerful vision, an in-depth experience and the ability to cultivate relationships with key internal and external stakeholders which will enable him to lead the university through a difficult period both from an economic and institutional point of view, said Dr Bergman. Congratulations Prof Vilakazi. Wishing you all the best for the future. You have our support to make Wits a success. Rendani Neluvhalani, London, UK Vice-Chancellor Habib spoke about Wits efforts to address the challenges inequality posed to continuing access to teaching during the pandemic. He also highlighted the Universitys successful transition online; the contributions made by academics to advise and critique government on health and economic policy; the groundbreaking drug therapies and vaccine developments on the medical front; as well as Wits scientists assisting to model and map the pandemic. Wits has been responding comprehensively and ensuring that South Africa addresses the pandemic in an appropriate way. He urged support for the plans to celebrate the Universitys centenary in 2022, and the associated campaign which hopes to draw resources into a student endowment fund to subsidise capable students who do not have the means to study at Wits. Thank you for all you have done for Wits, Prof Habib. You have a worthy successor in Prof Vilakazi. Rob Fryer, Connecticut, USA Professor Vilakazi said he looked forward to the next period of growth at the University, which will be driven by innovations in technology. Wits must be central to that. Our graduates must be leaders in spawning new technologies that speak to the realities of being located on the African continent, yet being globally connected to the world community. Professor Habib closed by urging alumni to back the VC designate: Ive had an incredible seven years. There have been some difficult years. I would not have managed that without the incredible support of alumni, from many parts of the world. I want to thank each one of you for that, but I want to urge you to provide that same support to Zeblon Vilakazi because he will be leading this institution of ours under very difficult conditions. He can only succeed through the support he gets from every one of us. These were some of the comments made during the reunion chat: New Delhi : It has been eight years since the gruesome 26/11 Mumbai terror attack that left many dead, inflicting heavy casualties in Mumbai. Post 26/11 attacks, defence forces and intelligence agencies have made an untiring effort to beef up the intel and security of our nation on the maritime borders of the country which stood exposed and vulnerable to attacks from the sea route. The up-gradation and modernization of the defence forces, a complete overhauling of the combat doctrine and setting up of specialized forces and agencies like Force One and National Intelligence Grid have been path breaking steps by the government to keep any potential attack of the nature of Mumbai attack at bay. While the forces are on the constant vigil to keep a close eye on any potential terror threat, coordination among security forces and intel agencies and absence of a central decision making authority in internal security matters have been the chinks in the armour which certainly got exposed in countering the recent terror attacks at Pathankot and Gurdaspur. News Nation spoke to defence expert, Atul Kulkarni, Maharashtra ATS chief, to have his views on how well are our security forces prepared to combat terror attacks of the nature of 26/11 Mumbai attack. Excerpts from the Interview: What are the challenges before Maharashtra Police after 26/11 attacks? 26/11 changed the perspective itself. We have modified a lot of our procedures, though thereafter also we have had terrorist attacks but they were of different kinds. Do the internal securities in tandem to keep a strong vigil with police? There is a mechanism involved, as you see after 26/11 NIA was established by an act of Parliament. Similarly we have had the Force 1, the elite commando force in Maharashtra. The National Security Guard has now got its own hub in Mumbai. So all these having the institutional changes and also similarly there have been changes in the ways and means of sharing intelligence reports and ensuring coordination. There are also multi intelligence agencies center which has come up which deals with prompt and real time sharing of the information and ensuring coordination and thats done on a regular basis. These are the ways in which coordination is ensured. What are the challenges before Mumbai Police when it comes to weaponry, equipments? a) Mumbai will have to live with threats every now and then because that being the commercial capital so its going to face challenges in future. b)Terrorist would like to target such place so we are prepared and we are taking all kinds of steps, including improving ur fibre and technical capabilities to monitor the activities. Now with the advent of ISIS we have a different kind of challenge which has been thrown at us. #Challenges in the form of radicalisation through internet #Lone wolf attack will be a major challenge because who among these radicalised fellows takes the issue and joins the issue as a lone wolf is a matter to be seen. #I of course would not want to sound pessimistic, but its going to increase our work load tremendously. #the other challenge will be to ensure to bring back those already on path of so called radicalisation. What is the role of Cyber security? They have a major role to play. And I can tell that government of Maharashtra unveiled a very ambitious plan of cyber activities in the state worth crores with sufficient expertise in tackling the cyber threat. Cyber will be the major challenge because things are happening on P2P encrypted service so when it is a person to person encrypted network, no agency has got any way, so, there is no penetration possible. 2nd Interview Insights on Defence preparedness post the 2008 Mumbai attacks Excerpts from Maj Gen Kr Vijay Singh Lalotra AVSM, YSM, SM (Retd) conversation - Q 1. What are the important lessons to be learnt by the Intelligence Agencies and Security Forces from the Mumbai terrorist attacks? Ans 1. Requirement of an effective intelligence system, a set up for crisis management, suitably positioned specialized troops across the country for timely intervention and need to strengthen the civil defence set up. Q 2. What measures have been taken by the Security Forces to counter terrorist attacks similar to the 2008 Mumbai attacks? Ans 2. Terrorists will continue to attack vulnerable targets. All states have strengthened their intelligence system. There has been a notable increase in the signing of major defence deals over the past five years to upgrade and modernise the defence as well as strike capabilities of our forces. The security forces are better trained and equipped with modern weapons and equipment. Q 3. How does the Army work in conjunction with the State Police and Intelligence Agencies to thwart such attacks? Ans 3. A mechanism of Civil - Military liaison exists at State level to tackle such situations. Where there is ongoing threat from terrorism / insurgency a Joint Headquarters is established by the Civil Govt. with Military - Police - Civil Defence elements etc. However there is certainly a requirement for the defence forces to be given more autonomy to deal with the situation on ground for conducting the counter terrorism operations in a more efficient manner. Q 4. What is your take on the security preparedness of the Indian Navy to guard the high seas and coastline of our country? Ans 4. There has been considerable enhancement in the Navys strike capabilities by procuring and inducting the much awaited aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya and leasing nuclear submarines from Russia. The governments Make in India initiative has also contributed immensely by way of giving the Navy its first indigenously designed missile destroyer warship, INS Chennai. However, there is much more which needs to be done for our Navy to be in a state of full combat readiness. Equipping and upgrading sea watch and fighting is costly and time consuming. It needs to be attended to constantly and not intermittently as a reaction. READ FOR FULL COVERAGE: 26/11 ATTACKS For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Stepien is also looking at personnel allocation and whether it makes sense to have the campaign organized the way Parscale did, officials said. He has told colleagues he is determined to bring a new focus to the campaign, with daily staff meetings, check-ins with field staff and more accountability for officials. Stepien recently polled staff members and learned most had never worked on a presidential election before, according to an official. By Aas Mohammad Kaif, TwoCircles.net Malerkotla: The news about Muslims donating 33 tonns of grain to Golden Temple Langar was widely reported. This initiative of Malerkotla Muslim was highly appreciated by the Sikh Community around the world. The Muslim group reached Golden Temple and did Kar Seva while handing over grains trucks to the Golden Temple authorities. Support TwoCircles Malerkotla is one of the Muslim majority areas of Punjab. This good Samaritan group was led by Dr Nasir Akhtar who has been working for the Sikh Muslim Unity for the last 15 years. Dr Nasir Akhtar is running a foundation for Sikh Muslim cooperation in Punjab and is well known for his devotion to Sikh Muslim Unity. TwoCircles.nets senior correspondent Aas Mohammad Kaif spoke to Nasir Akhtar of Malerkotla. These are excerpts from the interview. TCN: How did the idea to collect grains and send them to the Golden Temple come to your mind? Nasir Akhtar: During the coronavirus lockdown, Golden Temple had issued an appeal for grains. Sikhs were running a campaign to collect food grains for Golden Temple Langar. Golden Temple runs a huge Langar (Free Kitchen) where food is being served to everyone irrespective of their religion. I felt that we should also contribute to this charitable work. I consulted the people around me. Everyone readily agreed to cooperate in this noble task. Though we could collect huge donations from a few wealthy people of the area, I thought we must collect 5 kgs of grains from every household in the Muslim majority villages. Such an initiative will give a positive message to further Sikh Muslim fraternity. We worked for 35 days and got a tremendous response. People cooperated eagerly which became the talk of the town in the surrounding areas. The word spread amongst the Sikh community that Muslims are also collecting grains for the Golden Temple Langar which increased brotherly spirit between these two communities. TCN: How was your experience meeting the Sikh community? Nasir Akhtar: It was wonderful. Whenever we reached a village where Sikhs and Muslims live together, Sikh women cried as they couldnt control their emotions and prayed for us. They offered us cold water and requested us to have meals in their households. The male Sikh elders were honouring us wherever we went. This noble task had an overreach beyond a mere collection of grains. This initiative has become a symbol of Sikh Muslim amity. Quite often we and our Sikh brothers team reached a village simultaneously to collect the grains. They were collecting food grains in their community and we were doing the same in ours. If four or five wealthy people have contributed to arranging grains, this spirit of brotherhood would not have been created. Through this initiative, everyone is participating in this good Samaritan cause. TCN: What kind of response did you get from Gold Temple authorities when you arrived there? Nasir Akhtar: Before arriving at Golden Temple, we were felicitated by the eminent Sikhs of Sangrur (District Malerkotla). When they came to know that we have collected 35 tonns of grains, they had requested local Gurudwara authorities to help us in delivering the grains to Golden Temple Langer. The local Sikhs and Muslims were highly impressed with this initiative. When our group of about 8-10 reached Golden Temple, we were received warmly by Sardar Harpreet Singhji, Incharge of Akal Takht. Such a warm welcome in itself was a great honour for us. Though Muslims of Punjab do Kar Seva in Langar of Golden Temple, this act of going village to village to collect grains had made a huge impact and created a lot of goodwill. The Langar authorities served us food with great hospitality and we too participated in their Langar service. TCN: You have been working for the Sikh Muslim unity in Punjab since long. Can you talk about this experience? Nasir Akhtar: 15 years ago I used to run my clinic. I realized that there are many misconceptions between Sikhs and Muslims. Among them, there are things like enclosing children of Guru Gobind Singh Ji within a narrow chamber. My heart was not accepting it. I first researched myself, left the clinic, did my major in Punjabi, and studied Punjabi books. When I read the books written by Sikhs 300 years ago, I realized that Sikhism is very close to Islam. I understood that they both have the same message. I started speaking about the closeness of both religions in many aspects and for this I referred to Punjabi books. The verses of the Quran were explained in Punjabi and told that the beliefs of the two are quite similar. For this, I wrote books in Punjabi. TCN: What was the response to your initiative of working for Muslim-Sikh unity? Nasir Akhtar: There are too many misconceptions. The wounds of 1947 are very deep. After the riots, Sikhs and Muslims came closer. But even today some people keep harping about past mistakes. Malerkotla is a Muslim populated area in Punjab. The local MLA Razia Sultana is a minister in the Punjab cabinet. The Muslims of Malerkotla are quite well off in comparison to other places. Muslims here work with Sikhs shoulder to shoulder and Sikhs do the same with Muslims where they are in the minority. This is a fine example of brotherhood between two communities. Good work always has good results. People on both sides understand the value of peaceful co-existence. Nowadays, since the news spreads fast, people here expressed appreciation when Muslims gave Mosque land in Saharanpur for Gurudwara. Langar running in Shaheen Bagh by Sikhs was also highly appreciated in Malerkotla. TCN: What is the goal of your Sikh Muslim affinity Foundation? Nasir Akhtar: This is an organization under whose banner we are doing this work. I formed this organization 15 years ago. We do all the programs of Sikh Muslim unity under the banner of this institution. The grain collection campaign was also run under the banner of this institution. Promoting brotherhood between Sikhs and Muslims is the only goal of my life and for this reason, I did not marry and left my clinic too. I want to work for this noble cause till my last breath. TCN: Do you feel in the last few years, there is a growing misunderstanding between Hindus and Muslims in the country. Do you think there is a need to run such a campaign among these two communities? Nasir Akhtar: I told you that to explain my point of view to Sikhs, I searched and read their 300 years old books, did my Major in Punjabi, and spoke to Sikhs in Punjabi. I refer to their books. I freely quote the inspirational words of their gurus and then talk about my religion in their tongue. It makes a good impact on them. Hindu and Muslims of India have diminished their understanding of each other. They do not conduct healthy discussions. The idle debates between them have created a lot of misunderstanding between them. Brotherly talk between these two communities should be encouraged. TV can play a big role to promote affinity in these communities. We are first humans, then Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or others afterwards. (Translated from Hindi by Mohammed Hussain) Rosem Morton, a nurse for eight years, works full-time at a Baltimore hospital. When she isnt assisting airway surgeries and distributing personal protective equipment to coworkers, she works as a freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer, focusing on healthcare, trauma, and resilience. Since the onset of the pandemic, much of her work concerns covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Morton has a penchant for first-person storytelling. In 2019, CNN published Mortons first-person photo-essay about her experiences as a rape survivor. If there was not enough proof, it did not happen, Morton wrote in that essay. I kept photographing my proof. The proof of my struggle, of my survival. I learned to process through the lens of a camera. Since then, Morton, who is the recipient of a National Geographic Explorer grant, has been published in the New York Times, NPR, the Washington Post, Reuters, and ProPublica, among other news outlets. Her most recent contribution to National Geographic documents her work as a nurse during the pandemic, and the emotional toll it takes. That work, as with many of Mortons images, reveals the photographers life and perspective by locating tensions in quiet, everyday moments. She eschews shock value; still, the emotions in her photographs are palpable. Her self-portraits convey a sense of exhaustion as she looks at the camera; there are lines on her face from hours spent in an N95 mask. She does not directly portray her patients; rather, she offers symbols that conjure a world of treatment: a thermometer; shoes wrapped in plastic; her own hands, cracked from washing. The National Geographic series includes a screenshot of a conversation with her husband (Hi love, just a heads up. Its a covid day for me. I did not have eye protection outside my glasses), as well as photos taken at her home, during moments of respitea tea ceremony, or taking in the sun outside. Eight days on the front: A nurse recounts fighting to get protective gear and arguing about changing work rules while operating to save stricken patients. "Something is brewing," she writes, "but I dont have time to investigate." https://t.co/QXw41r7g3A #COVID2019 #coronavirus David Beard (@dabeard) April 3, 2020 Morton spoke with CJR about the intersections of healthcare and photojournalism, and what practitioners of each might learn from the other. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. As a nurse, in a caring profession, you always care about what the other person is feeling and thinking. What constraints did you face when producing the National Geographic photo-essay? I was very careful about hipaa laws. And I think that really hindered the work a lot. At the same time, the workflow: I wanted to capture that as it was happening, like day-to-day, but you cant really stop somebody and photograph their day when youre also working [as a nurse]. I think, in a way, it just worked out that the story was [focused] on me and what I was seeing. It really ended up being a much quieter take on what hospital life looks like than other images that people have seen. How have people responded? People have reached out to check in, to see how Im doing and to see how my fellow coworkers are doing, and I really am so grateful about that kind of response. Ive also had people send in PPE, donations, gifts, things like thatwhich I think shows how much connection people develop in reading and in digesting these stories. What challenges come with being both the photographer and the subject? There are things that you cant physically capture as a photographer and as the subject at the same time. I cant photograph myself decontaminating when I get home because that will interfere with the whole process and cause it to break down. But at the same time, you can experiment: you do know your story the best, and youre able to explore other emotions creatively. For example, I photographed how dry my hands are from the constant hand washing and use of hand sanitizer. I am drawn to this image because it also reminds me of stress lines in peoples faces. In this moment, my working hands carry the stress. For my survivor work, I photographed my internal emotionsone of which, early on, was feeling broken. I saw these emotional representations in many instancesfor example, when I took walks, and with my choice of meals. How has first-person storytelling informed your craft? As a young woman, I lived in the Philippines, where you have to always listen to the elders and to your male counterpart. And I just didnt put a lot of value in what I had to say and what I had to contribute. Telling my story, in many ways, empowered me. I learned what it means to be a subject of a story, what it means to put your life in the open. How does your work as a nurse shape your work as a photojournalist, and vice versa? I think both roles offer you a lot of exercises in empathy. As a nurse, in a caring profession, you always care about what the other person is feeling and thinking. Documenting the pandemic, the health workers are my community, and I know how theyre feeling and what its like. So its a different kind of empathy, because its a true understanding of what theyre going through. Im also a person who understands what it feels like to put something traumatic out there. I understand the repercussions of their lives being publicized. And I feel like that offers me this insight and this understanding, this carefulness in documenting things. What does your photography show that mainstream photojournalism during the pandemic might not? I am able to show the intimacy behind the lives of people who work on the front lines. I take images of how I keep my masks in paper bags to prolong [their] usage. I am also able to take images of how I am affected by exposures: taking my temperature, taking other precautions, communicating openly with my partner. All of these are small details that may not make it in the mainstream coverage but are important aspects of life on the front lines. I think the stories weve seen right now are like, What its like in the covid unit? A hospital is a really big place. There are more stories in there. Everybody is affected in a different way. And there are so many stories you can do aside from the covid unit. But, unfortunately, we just dont have access to that. I dont think anybody really does. The nature of covid-19 is that its universal, and it could affect anyone, which I think opens up storytelling in different ways. You can still cover the stories youre passionate about through the lens of covid-19. If youre a person who cares about farming, how is covid-19 affecting farming? If you care about the LGBTQ community, how are they faring? Do you think the images published so far are enough to show the damaging effects of covid? Theres just too much misinformation out there. And I dont think its necessarily going to be solved by more dramatic images of people suffering. Im one of those people who always wonder whether theres another way to get people to care without having an extremely horrifying or extremely graphic image. I dont know the answer to that. I think weve just been so programmed that thats what we need to care. How important is lived experience in your work? I think our lived experiences shape a lot of our storytelling. It provides a different kind of connection with your subjectsand possibly a deeper connection. I dont want to limit people to just photographing experiences that relate to them. Id like to think that we have a lot more empathy to go out of that box and still pursue other stories. But, given that we are going outside of our own boxes to pursue stories that we may not always have a full understanding of, I think its also important to be careful about how people are portrayed. One of the stereotypes for covid-19 that we saw early on were Asians wearing masks, which can enable anti-Asian racism. Another stereotype is having just the healthcare staff be extremely exhausted, which is also true. But that is not our single truth. There are moments of happiness, and moments that we are also touched by our patients. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Pat Nabong is a visual journalist at the Chicago Sun-Times and an assistant editor at Reading the Pictures, a site dedicated to the analysis of news photography. Prior to joining the Sun-Times, she was supported by fellowships from City Bureau, the International Women's Media Foundation, the Pulitzer Center and The Medill Justice Project, and her work has been published on The Intercept, ProPublica, Buzzfeed News and Chicago Magazine, among others. She earned her master's in journalism at Northwestern University and is a member of Authority Collective, Women Photograph, Diversify Photo, and The Video Consortium. Washington (AFP) - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a darling of the US left and an increasingly frail octogenarian, is taking center stage ahead of this year's presidential election, with the Supreme Court's balance hanging on her seemingly faltering health. Ginsburg's liver cancer -- and recent repeat trips to the hospital due to bile duct infection -- has Washington's political class on tenterhooks, with her every medical procedure causing major hand-wringing, not to mention a variety of contingency plans. Ginsburg was hospitalized yet again on Wednesday to "revise a bile duct stent," as her doctors assured the public that such things were "common occurrences." Should the 87-year-old, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy, leave the bench, President Donald Trump would move quickly to name a successor, with the Republican-led Senate likely to confirm the nomination in equally record speed as the November 3 election draws near. This would cement a conservative majority on the court, which has final say on a number of the touchiest subjects dividing America -- from abortion to fire arms, civil rights to the death penalty. Although five of the court's nine justices are conservative, it is not uncommon for at least one of them to vote with the progressive bloc, resulting in several recent decisions favorable to liberals. Just a few examples: The court recently struck down a restrictive abortion law, and extended rights to gay and transgender workers. Such decisions, Trump tweeted in June, meant one thing to the president: "we need NEW JUSTICES of the Supreme Court." He has promised to publish a list by September 1 of conservative candidates from which he would chose if elected to a second term -- but also, no doubt, should Ginsburg leave her post in the meantime. Hugely popular with Democrats, Ginsburg has become a feminist hero and an unintentional social media icon fondly known as "The Notorious RBG," a riff on slain rapper The Notorious B.I.G. Story continues Despite assurances from the court that the justice is "resting comfortably and expects to be released from the hospital by the end of the week," the left's anxiety is palpable. Prayers and warm wishes have flooded social media, with fans crossing their fingers that Ginsburg will be able to hold on at least until November, when Democrats hope to elect former vice president Joe Biden to the White House. - 'Wrongly decided' - The right is pushing for Trump's list to include candidates even more conservative than those he suggested during his 2016 campaign. Republican Senator Josh Hawley told The Washington Post that he would "vote only for those Supreme Court nominees who have explicitly acknowledged that Roe v. Wade is wrongly decided," referring to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case legalizing the right to an abortion. A series of rare leaks from the Supreme Court to CNN revealed some of the justices' recent deliberations. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by Trump in 2018, for example, did not immediately support his conservative colleagues in two big recent cases. He even went so far as to try to convince them to avoid making a decision altogether. Chief Justice John Roberts, another conservative, meanwhile made it clear the he would not support further extension of the right to carry firearms. The leaks made some observers believe they were meant to push the right into calling for even further conservative justices. "What's the purpose of these leaks?" Houston lawyer Raffi Melkonian asked on Twitter, speculating that they were meant to scare conservatives into supporting stauncher candidates, part of a quest he said was meant to bring in justices "who-have-committed-on-abortion." Not to be outdone, Biden has indicated that he will also make available a shortlist of candidates for the Supreme Court. His criteria? Diversity. "We are putting together a list of a group of African American women who are qualified and have the experience to be on the court," he said. The Enforcement Directorate has filed a money laundering case in connection with the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. The case was filed on the basis of a First Information Report filed by the Bihar police, say officials. Sushant Singhs father had alleged that there were unexplained transfers from his sons bank account involving actor Rhea Chakraborty and others. The late actors father has accused Chakraborty, a budding TV and film actress, of having befriended his son in May 2019 with the intention of furthering her own career. The ED will probe allegations of alleged mishandling of Rajputs money and his bank accounts. The agency will probe if anyone used Rajputs income for money laundering and creating illegal assets, the officials said. Officials said Rhea Chakraborty and others named in the ED case are likely to be summoned next week. Legal experts said that an ED probe is different from the one conducted by the local police as according to normal criminal law, a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, but under PMLA (prevention of money laundering act), a person is presumed guilty until he proves his innocence. Dr Sujay Kantawala, senior lawyer who specialises in PMLA cases, said: When the Bihar police lodged the FIR, the provisions were of Indian Penal Code. Here you are presumed innocent and the burden of proof is on prosecution to prove the charge. However, when the ED comes into the picture, there is a reverse burden of proof. The ED has powers to trace the monies and confiscate properties wherever they want by way of issuing provisional attachment orders. The statements recorded by witnesses under the PMLA, said Kantawala, are admissible in the court unlike statements recorded by police under section 161 of the CrPC (criminal procedure code). Kantawala further explained that the accused person is entitled to get a copy of the FIR registered by police or CBI, but the EDs ECIR (equivalent to FIR) is not given to the accused. The 34-year-old actor, who had starred in films such as Chichhore, Kai Po Che and Kedarnath, was found dead at his Mumbai home on June 14. Ghislaine Maxwell appears via video link during her arraignment hearing in Manhattan Federal Court in New York - Reuters Ghislaine Maxwell lied in court when she claimed she had not been in contact with associate Jeffrey Epstein for over a decade before his death, according to explosive newly unsealed documents. In a failed bid to win bail, Ms Maxwell had claimed in a Manhattan court earlier this month that the media sought to blame her for Epsteins crimes after his suicide - even though she had not been in contact with him for years. However, documents filed in an old civil lawsuit that the British heiress has been battling to keep private appear to reveal she was in contact as recently as 2015 with the disgraced financier, who advised her to hold her "head high" as she has "done nothing wrong". US District Judge Loretta Preska last week ordered the release of large portions of more than 80 documents from the civil suit against Ms Maxwell by Virginia Giuffre, who accused Epstein of having kept her as a sex slave with the socialites assistance. In January 2015, using the email account GMax1@ellmax.corn Ms Maxwell - who was once romantically linked to Epstein - writes to him saying she would appreciate it if shelley would come out and say she was your gfriend I think she was from end 99 to 2002. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell - Getty It is not clear who "Shelley" is but a Shelley Lewis appears in Epstein's private jet flight logs during this time. British-born Ms Lewis, 43, had been working at Christies auction house in New York. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing. Epstein replies "ok with me". He appears to try coach her on how to respond the allegations swirling the pair at the time, writing: Since JE was charged in 2007 for solicitation of a prostitute I have been the target of outright lies, innuendo, slander, defamation and salacious gossip and harassment; headlines made up of quotes I have never given, statements l have never made, trips with people to places I have never been, holidays with people I have never met, false allegations of impropriety and offensive behavior that l abhor and have never ever been party to, witness to events that l have never seen, living off trust funds that l have never ever had, party to stories that have changed materially both in time place and event depending on what paper you read, and the list goes on. Story continues It is thought the correspondence between the longtime confidants, which was unearthed by lawyers for Ms Giuffre, was spurred by the announcement of new lawsuits. You have done nothing wrong and i woudl [sic] urge you to start acting like it. go outside, head high, not as an esacping [sic] convict, Epstein responds, using the email address jeevacation@gmail.com. Lawyers for Ms Maxwell, 58, claimed in a court filing earlier this month that she had not been in contact with Epstein for more than decade prior to his 2019 suicide in a Manhattan jail cell. Ms Maxwells lawyers made the claim while arguing she should be released on $5 million bond while awaiting trial on a six-count indictment for allegedly procuring girls for Epstein to abuse and then lying about it under oath. "On August 10, 2019, Epstein died in federal custody, and the media focus quickly shifted to our client wrongly trying to substitute her for Epstein even though she'd had no contact with Epstein for more than a decade," claimed lawyers Mark Cohen and Jeffrey Pagliuca. In the newly released trove of old court documents, it also emerged that lawyers for Ms Giuffre, 36, asked that Ms Maxwell identify to them all email addresses, phone numbers, social media accounts and instant messaging accounts used between 1998 and when the lawsuit was brought in 2015. Her lawyers supplied a single email address and three telephone numbers. Ms Giuffres lawyers claim they later discovered at least three further email accounts that had not been disclosed. They also allege that the CV she supplied was fabricated and replete with lies. At least three of the employers included on the resume were jobs she never held she researched the internet to find places where she might have worked, listed them as actual jobs, and then fictionalized her job description, they claim. Ms Maxwells attorneys had argued to keep these records under seal, maintaining previously that this series of pleadings concerns [attempts] to compel Ms Maxwell to answer intrusive questions. The documents, they argued, are extremely personal, confidential and subject to considerable abuse by the media. Ghislane Maxwell had sex with girls as young as 15, court documents claim Ghislaine Maxwell was accused of having sex with girls as young as 15, according to newly released court documents. The claim was made by Virgina Giuffre in a 2015 defamation case she brought against Ms Maxwell. Ms Giuffre claims she was trafficked to famous men by Ms Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced late financier, when she was a teenager. In a deposition for the 2015 case, released by a judge on Thursday, she was asked to describe girls she had seen "with your own two eyes" having sexual contact with Ms Maxwell. Ms Giuffre said: "There's so many I don't know where you want me to start. There were blondes, there were brunettes, there were red heads. They were all beautiful girls. I would say the ages ranged between 15 and 21. Some of them looked really young." She added: "Some of them looked younger than me and some of them looked older than me." Ms Giuffre, pictured below, said it was "100 per cent" that Ms Maxwell had sexual contact with girls at "Jeffrey's island" in the US Virgin Islands "in cabanas, in Jeffrey's room." Virginia Roberts holds a photo of herself at age 16, when she says Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein began abusing her sexually. - Getty "This happened on so many occasions. The island was a place where orgies were a constant thing that took place. And again it's impossible to know how many," she said. Asked if she had seen Ms Maxwell have sex with a "woman" outside on the island, she said: "I would say a female. I wouldn't define them as a woman. A woman is someone who is older. "But yes outside by the pool, down by the beach there's these - they're little - I wouldn't call it a hut. Little tiny room that only could fit a bed in it." She described having sexual contact with Ms Maxwell herself during an orgy by the pool. "We're still by the pool with lots of girls. They didn't even speak English,"she said. "It could have been Russian. It could have been Czechoslovakian." She claimed to have participated in sexual contact with Ms Maxwell in other locations including New Mexico, Florida, France and England. The defamation case was brought by Ms Giuffre against Ms Maxwell and was settled privately in 2017. The release of documents from the case showed that Ms Giuffre had been seeking over $30 million. In the documents Ms Giuffre alleged that Ms Maxwell abused her, and that Ms Maxwell and Epstein were "joined at the hip". She said: "Jeffrey was just as a part of it as she was. [Ms Maxwell] was just as a part of it as he was. "Shes the one who abused me on a regular basis. Shes the one that procured me, told me what to do, trained me as a sex slave, abused me physically, abused me mentally. "Shes the one who I believe, in my heart of hearts, deserves to come forward and have justice happen to her more than anybody. Being a woman, its disgusting." Ms Maxwell is currently being held without bail in prison in New York. She has pleaded not guilty to six charges including facilitating Epstein's abuse of minor girls. Ethan Saylor was a 26-year-old with Down syndrome who loved music, movies and animals. His mother describes him as "quite the flirt," a young man bursting with personality who wanted to be seen as cool, like anyone else his age. And he idolized the police. So when he died after sheriff's deputies dragged him out of a Maryland movie theater, his family was shocked and called to action. With their help, people with disabilities are now training police officers to better respond in situations like the one that involved Saylor. "It was an unspeakable tragedy and preventable," his mother, Patti Saylor, told TODAY. "I do believe if the law enforcement officers had a better understanding of people with Down syndrome, absolutely he would still be alive." Her son died in 2013, after three sheriff's deputies who were working as mall security officers approached him at a movie theater in Frederick County, where he had watched "Zero Dark Thirty" and then returned, without a ticket, to watch the movie again. The deputies dragged him out of the theater in handcuffs and he was later pronounced dead at a hospital. His death was ruled a homicide as a result of asphyxia. Across the country people with developmental disabilities have suffered at the hands of police officers who are not adequately trained to interact with them, according to Lisa Schoenbrodt, a professor of speech language pathology at Loyola University Maryland. A 2016 report even showed that almost half the people who die at the hands of police have some form of disability. In 2018, Schoenbrodt and a colleague started the Learning to LEAD program with the Ethan Saylor Alliance, which was formed to help train members of law enforcement to understand the needs of people with disabilities. Under their latest grant, the program will be called Leading Forward. So far the program, which hires people with disabilities to role-play various scenarios with first responders in its trainings, has worked with a handful of police and EMS departments throughout Maryland. Their latest series of trainings now being done virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic is with the Baltimore City Police Department. Story continues First responders learn how to interact with people who have disabilities during a recent Learning to LEAD training in Maryland. (Loyola University Maryland) The program provides guidance and teaches skills for working with people who have disabilities, including the importance of avoiding bright lights and noise when approaching someone who may be sensitive to those things, how to address the person with a disability directly instead of those around him or her, and how to use calm and effective language and allow for processing time when asking questions, for example. It also provides meaningful, paid work for people with disabilities, who serve as self-advocate educators and act out potential scenarios involving police. "Improv is really the only way to do it," Schoenbrodt said. One of those educators is Patrick Chaney, who is 23 years old and has autism. "I was offered the opportunity to help out because of my experience with theater in high school," he said. "I figured that acting is kind of a vital communication skill." He said working with the police officers and showing them how to interact with people like him is "eye-opening" on many levels. "It's a fascinating, two-sided experience because not only do police officers get to reach out to the community they're protecting, it's also an opportunity for individuals with IDDs (intellectual and developmental disabilities) to be a part of the change we want to see in the world," he said. The trainings have shifted to Zoom during the coronavirus pandemic. Here Patrick Chaney, who has autism, participates in a role-play scenario with EMS personnel. (Loyola University Maryland) So far the program is only in Maryland but there are similar trainings elsewhere, although not necessarily employing people with disabilities. Both Schoenbrodt and Saylor, who has attended many of the trainings and knows all of the self-advocate educators, stress the need for expansion. This is a drop in the bucket, Saylor said. If we really want to do this right, we need to see something that is consistent state to state, and a much more comprehensive approach on a national level. With police killings at the forefront, many police departments have been considering alternative trainings. Some have started working with therapists to better respond to mental health-related calls, for example. Schoenbrodt knows a program like theirs can change the way authorities view people with disabilities. "I think when people mention defunding the police, what they're meaning is to look at other ways to provide training," she said. "This is really important: understanding people with disabilities and also people who have mental health crises. We have data that shows that officers have benefited from this type of training." Saylor is also painfully aware of the parallels between her son's story and what is happening with police today, although she's careful not to detract from the issue as it pertains to Black Americans, including George Floyd, who was killed by an officer in Minneapolis in May. "I relived it immediately," she said, referring to seeing the video of the officer kneeling on Floyd's neck. "There was no video of Ethan being killed, but there were similar circumstances in the actual way he died. Ethans last words were calling for me as well, and so yeah, it brought it right back up." "I am acutely aware of being a white, middle-class person and the privilege that has brought to me," she said. "But certainly the way Ethan died and the way many Black Americans die at the hands of law enforcement are similar. It's enraging. But we also love and support law enforcement." Despite the tragic irony, that is exactly why she thinks her son would love the program if he were alive today. "I think Ethan would just be tickled," she sad. "He could care less about the advocacy, he could care less about the laws, but he would love to be in the room with those police officers. That would be his goal in life. So I feel good." The divestment process of Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) is likely to face resistance from the Government of Kerala and employees of the oil and gas company examining legal options. A few employee unions have already approached the Bombay High Court with two writ petitions, in which they argue that if BPCL is allowed to be sold by stock market share value, the loss to the government exchequer will be to the tune of Rs 4.5 trillion. On July 22, the unions further moved court with a plea for immediate admission and hearing of the writ petition. On the other hand, the Kerala ... Over the past week, you may have noticed that your Instagram feed has been flooded with glamorous black and white photos of your friends, colleagues, celebrities and acquaintances, with a simple caption: #ChallengeAccepted, and a more telling #WomenSupportingWomen hashtag following it. At first, you may have brushed it off, thinking its just one of those many challenges and trends that take up space and time on your feed, maybe one of those lets confuse men challenges. But the hashtag that has over 4.5 million posts on Instagram, with celebrities like Sara Ali Khan, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Paris Hilton, Kerry Washington, and many others is a lot more than just another social media trend. And while its great that everyone is participating, it would have a more powerful impact if we know what it is truly about than just post our best pictures and tag our friends to do the same. While most social media users assumed that the challenge was started to support feminism and show solidarity with other women, the cause is much deeper than that. The hashtag #ChallengeAccepted has been used several times in the past to fuel social media movements like back in 2016 when it was used to spread cancer awareness, and since then it has been used on and off to promote positivity. Cristine Abram, a public relations and influencer marketing manager for a social media marketing firm, said to the New York Times, Its all to do with female empowerment. There was this hashtag that already existed to raise awareness around other large issues. Tapping into that allowed participants to gain traction a lot faster because the algorithm was already familiar with the hashtag. #ChallengeAccepted in Turkey So unlike what your social media feeds may be telling you, the challenge did not originate in Turkey. However, this time around the social media movement is to raise awareness about femicide and domestic violence in Turkey. New York Times journalist Tariro Mzezewa in a now deleted tweet wrote that she spoke to women in Turkey who said it began there as a response to them being frustrated over always seeing black and white photos of women who have been killed. Turkish Twitter user, Imaan Patel, shared the real reason behind why the movement was started and her post has been a point of reference for many looking for clarity. She wrote, I see many of my non-Turkish friends sharing black and white photos of themselves as a challenge but not knowing the reason or origin of the challenge. So here is my attempt to educate the little following I have. Please share this information if you want to support this movement so the message does not get lost in translation and so that the challenge wont lose its meaning. All lives matter? Heres why Sara Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Tamannaah Bhatias posts are tone deaf She went on to add how Turkey is one of the top countries when it comes to femicide. According to the We Will Stop Femicide online platform, in 2020 alone, over 27 women were murdered by their jealous spouses, partners or in honour killings, while a further 23 suspected femicides have been recorded as well. In fact, it was the recent killing of 27-year-old student Pinar Gultekin by a jealous ex-boyfriend - who strangled and beat her before killing her, then dumped her in a bin and filled it with concrete when he was unable to burn her body - which sent shock waves through Turkey. Women from Turkey, especially the countrys west, took to the streets to protest and express their anger about Pinars killing, calling for protection of women. Imaans post went on to explain, Turkey is one of the top countries when it comes to femicides. Just on 2019 we have had almost 500 RECORDED femicides. Sadly many of them remain unrecorded and we have no real number as to how many women are murdered here every year. Just this week, we have had several women murdered. The government and our justice system does nothing to stop these crimes. Most often the murderers barely get a slap on the wrist or no charges at all. just thought all of you posting these "black and white" challenges should see how tone deaf they actually are xx pic.twitter.com/WdQzQqMlza (@imaann_patel) July 28, 2020 She went on to explain the Istanbul Convention and how abolishing certain parts of it would hamper womens safety in Turkey, As if this is not enough, our government is trying to abolish certain aspects of Istanbul Convention which is a human rights treaty that protects women against domestic violence. So not only are they not trying to stop it, theyre literally trying to make it legal for them to not stop it. Imaan then explained how the social media trend that has gone globally viral began in Turkey, Turkish people wake up every day to see a black and white photo of a woman who has been murdered on their Instagram feed, on their newspapers, on their TV screens. The black and white photo challenge started as a way for women to raise their voice. To stand in solidarity with the women we have lost. To show that one day, it could be their picture that is plastered across news outlets with a black and white filter on top. I have seen many of my international friends participate in this challenge without knowing the meaning. While I am aware that there is no ill will, it is important to remind ourselves why posting a picture with a black and white filter is a challenge to begin with. Several people are a little skeptical about how posting glamour shots will help the movement at all. Writer Caroline Moss tweeted, I literally cannot get over challenge accepted. Heres a hot photo of myself because I support women. Taylor Lorenz, a culture reporter for The New York Times received a lot of flak for her article, and thoughts, on the #ChallengeAccepted with several tweets calling her anti women. Btw this BF article and many others are saying #ChallengeAccepted originated in Turkey. That is false. IG confirmed the resurgence there was unrelated to the version of the challenge in the US. This challenge has been spreading online since at least 2016 https://t.co/HXCQ11K9P1 Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) July 28, 2020 Taylor tweeted, People love these types of challenges because they dont require any actual advocacy. You can self promote in the name of a cause, but the cause in these #ChallengeAccepted posts is so vague they basically dont support anything at all. Dark and Lovely: Padma Lakshmi posts about colourism, demands ban on Fair and Lovely In an interview with NPR, Taylor eloquently put forth why she thought the challenge was just modern-day chain mail (remember those forwards, send to 12 people or you will get ten years of bad luck) when she was asked by the host if mutual appreciation among women needs to take a specific stance on a specific issue in order to be valid. Taylor responded, No. But its - I mean, in this instance, it was framed as taking a stance on an issue. You know, a lot of people were posting about feminism and womens empowerment and sort of feminist stuff in these - you know, in the captions of these posts. But they werent doing anything. I think if the whole challenge was framed a little bit more neutrally it wouldnt have been an issue. She went on to explain how for some women the challenge was just more social pressure than empowering, And by the way, youre saying a lot of women felt great about this. You know, a lot of women felt left out. A lot of women felt social pressure to kind of post. A lot of people dont like to post photos of themselves on their Instagram or feel that pressure. But, you know, these types of campaigns sort of make them. Its basically modern-day chainmail. #ChallengeAccepted in Egypt However, there are some who are taking the challenge a step further and fuelling the conversation about similar conversations in their countries. Sarah Magdy, a former BBC Arabic reporter from Egypt wrote about the challenge at length on her Instagram page and spoke of how she has decided to take the challenge to express her desperation after an anti-harassment page that exposed rapists and harassers was forced shut. She wrote, Today, Im taking this B&W challenge to Egypt to express my desperation after anti-harassment Egyptian Instagram account @assaultpolice was forced into silence after exposing rapists and harassers like #ABZ and after opening the bone-chilling gang-rape #Fairmontincident, in which its reported that 5 affluent Egyptian men drugged a girl, gang-raped her and proudly signed their names on her private parts after they were done with her!!! You can silence one account, but trust me the era of fear and silence is over..I promise we will keep making noise until this issue is properly visited and investigated! She went on to add, And instead of sentencing young women, @mawada_eladhm and @_haneenhossamofficial__ , for two bloody years just for posting dance videos on #TikTok accusing them of violating the values and principles of the Egyptian family, show some justice and punish those who shamelessly violated all the values and principles of humanity! #womensupportingwomen. So while on the one hand some women have been using the #WomenSupportingWomen to mostly share glamour shots, others have been trying to use the momentum from the movement to draw attention to important and pressing issues. So whether the challenge is helping or not truly depends on how people are using it. After all, context is king. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alfea Jamal 'Ask no questions, hear no lies.' Alfea Jamal is a fashion, culture, travel and food writer. She also dabbles in video journalism, multimedia production, the culinary arts, design and is modestly decent with canvas. ...view detail Its perhaps the perfect Wawa for the coronavirus age: a store you never enter, loading up on hoagies and coffee at the drive-thru, instead. Wawa, the eastern rival in the Keystone State convenience store wars to Sheetz, announced plans to build the chains first-ever drive-thru only stores in Falls Township, Pa. and Westhampton, N.J. According to 6ABC in Philly, the Pennsylvania location is at the intersection of West Trenton and Pine Grove Roads in Bucks County. Construction is set to being in late August and a targeted opening date is set for December 2020, the news station reports. A statement from Wawas Director of Construction Terri Micklin read as follows: "Wawa continues to test new store concepts with this latest drive thru format, providing an opportunity for our customers to still experience and enjoy their favorite Wawa products while remaining inside their vehicle. It is critical to provide new ways to access Wawa, increase convenience and provide new options for service." Customers will be able to order all of Wawa's most popular items without ever leaving their cars, with curbside delivery offered, as well, the company said. So Wawa lovers, start your engines and now youll never need to stop them. READ MORE: Pa. man, 22, accused of raping teen girl after bike ride: cops 3rd man accused of forcing kidnapped woman to perform sex acts to pay off debts: Pa. cops Mike Pence tends to 2 injured Pa. cops after his motorcade is hit by dump truck Released killer accused of raping guest at Pa. hotel where he worked: cops Communist! Pa. shopper with 6 kids in tow berates cashiers for asking her to wear face mask: report Floating body pulled from Susquehanna River Sonar needed to finally find missing boaters body in Pa. state park lake Pro strippers stage clothing-optional strike at Pa. park, angering residents: There are babies there! Accused stalker leaves candlelit shrine at Pa. womans home: cops Search parties fan out for Pa. woman missing in hazardous area of mining lands 3-sport star killed in Pa. motorcycle crash: 1 of the best all-round players Pa. man shoots, kills wife and mother law over his missing gun magazine: cops 1-year-old found with meth, fentanyl in system multiple times; couple charged: Pa. cops Overturned boat triggers water search for 3 people at state park lake Pa. newborn who died after 26 days was COVID-19 positive: coroner Ad sales, which make up the bulk of sales at the Google parent, were $29.9 billion in the second quarter, down 8.1% from the same period last year. Alphabet Inc.s revenue growth machine ground to a halt for the first time in the companys two-decade history, stopped by the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing economic fallout that forced advertisers to pull back spending. Ad sales, which make up the bulk of sales at the Google parent, were $29.9 billion in the second quarter, down 8.1% from the same period last year. Thats the lowest theyve been since the third quarter of 2018 and the first-ever decline. The slide was a stark contrast to digital advertising rival Facebook Inc., which saw overall revenue grow 11% in the quarter. But Googles ad sales were picking back up again by the end of the quarter, Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said on a conference call. And growth at YouTube and Googles cloud business continued to be relatively strong. Shares inched higher in extended trading. We are cautiously encouraged by our results, Porat said, adding that its premature to say that were out of the woods. Googles giant advertising business had already begun to slow well before the pandemic. Investors are increasingly interested in the prospects of smaller but faster-growing units. Cloud revenue rose 43% from a year earlier to $3 billion, while YouTube grew 6% to $3.8 billion, partly thanks to more people staying home due to lockdowns, Porat said. Overall, revenue fell 2% and was $31.6 billion excluding fees paid to partners, the Mountain View, California-based company said in a statement. The pandemic has boosted the case for cloud services, which help people work remotely, but the looming recession also means companies are hesitant to spend freely on new software and infrastructure. Overall I felt the momentum was strong in cloud, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said. Rival Amazon.com Inc.s cloud unit, which is much bigger than Googles, grew 29% to $10.8 billion in the quarter. Google shares, which have gained 15% this year, rose about 0.5% in extended trading following the report. They closed at $1,538.37 in New York. Spending and hiring will continue for the cloud business, Porat said. Google brought on around 4,000 new workers during the quarter, about the same as it did in the same period a year ago, despite saying earlier this year it would slow hiring. Google ended the quarter with 127,498 employees, up 18% from the quarter a year earlier. When it comes to new real estate, though, Google did cut back. Porat said the company would reimagine what their future workspaces would look like while most employees continue to work remotely. On Monday, Google said workers could stay home until July 2021 if they wanted to. The spending cuts werent enough to stop net income from falling 30% to $6.96 billion. Earnings per share were $10.13, compared with $14.21 last year. T he London Stock Exchange is looking to offload the Milan Exchange as the company hones in on its deal for data giant Refinitiv. The Group announced it would buy Refinitiv off Reuters for $27 billion (22.4 billion) last year but the European Union has expressed concerns on competition grounds. LSE - which bought the Milan Exchange in 2007 for $2.2 billion - said it had begun exploratory discussions which could result in the Italian arm being sold. Rival exchanges Euronext and Deutsche Boerse are both expected to be interested in the Italian operations. If LSE secures the deal, the company will become a major player in financial and market data and make the Group a direct rival to Bloomberg. LSE expects the deal to go through by early next year. LSE also recorded a solid first half results performance as profits rose 8% to 575 million and revenues jumped 4% to 1.06 billion. There was a 16% hike in the interim dividend to 23.3p per share. Richard Ayoade and guest presenters including Normal People stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal have arrived for the Bafta TV Awards. The ceremony is being broadcast as live on BBC One from behind closed doors due to the coronavirus pandemic, with nominees accepting their awards virtually. Actors Himesh Patel and Adrian Lester, presenter Stacey Dooley and comedian Aisling Bea were also among the arrivals at the BBCs studio in London. Expand Close Host Richard Ayoade (Dominic Lipinski/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Host Richard Ayoade (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Edgar-Jones and Mescal, who starred as Marianne and Connell in the BBC Three drama, posed with a tape measure marking out one metre of social distancing. Guest presenters such as comedian Greg Davies, actresses Nina Toussaint-White and Jessica Hynes, Peaky Blinders actor Joe Cole, and reality TV star Emily Atack also stopped for pictures. Tom Allen, who is presenting the pre-show across Baftas social media platforms from 6pm, struck a dramatic pose for the cameras. Expand Close Pre-show host Tom Allen (Dominic Lipinski/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Pre-show host Tom Allen (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Most wore more relaxed attire than would have been expected at the usual awards ceremony. Ayoade will host the show for the first time, while actor Idris Elba will receive the special award, one of Baftas highest accolades, presented by a surprise guest. Video of the Day They will be joined virtually by Billy Porter, Chris ODowd, David Tennant, Jeff Goldblum, Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Michael Sheen and Ruth Madeley, all guest presenting via video-link. Expand Close Stacey Dooley (Dominic Lipinski/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Stacey Dooley (Dominic Lipinski/PA) The show will also feature two performances from Australian comedian and musician Tim Minchin, including an original song composed for the event. The Bafta TV awards were due to take place on May 17, while the craft awards, which celebrate technical achievements, were to be held on April 26, but were postponed because of the coronavirus crisis. The craft awards were streamed online on July 17, hosted by Stephen Mangan. Sky drama Chernobyl and Netflixs royal saga The Crown lead the way at the main awards, securing three nominations each. The Virgin Media Baftas will be broadcast on BBC One at 7pm. CLAYTON, Mo. - St. Louis Countys prosecutor announced Thursday that he will not charge the former police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a dramatic decision that could reopen old wounds amid a renewed and intense national conversation about racial injustice and the police treatment of people of colour. Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bells decision marked the third time prosecutors investigated and opted not to charge Darren Wilson, the white officer who fatally shot Brown, a Black 18-year-old, on Aug. 9, 2014. A St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict Wilson in November 2014, and the U.S. Department of Justice also declined to charge him in March 2015. Civil rights leaders and Browns parents had hoped that Bell, the countys first Black prosecutor who took office in January 2019, would see things differently. My heart breaks for Browns parents, a sombre Bell said during a news conference. I know this is not the result they were looking for and that their pain will continue forever. Describing the announcement as one of the most difficult things Ive had to do, Bell said that his office conducted a five-month, unannounced, review of witness statements, forensic reports and other evidence. The question for this office was a simple one: Could we prove beyond a reasonable doubt that when Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown he committed murder or manslaughter under Missouri law? After an independent and in-depth review of the evidence, we cannot prove that he did, Bell said. But, he said, our investigation does not exonerate Darren Wilson. Wilsons attorney, Jim Towey, said it was clear after three investigations that Wilson did nothing wrong. We all had the same conclusion: There was no crime, Towey said. I am just hoping that everybody gets to have some closure, particularly the Brown family, he said. The shooting touched off months of unrest in Ferguson and made the St. Louis suburb synonymous with a national debate about police treatment of minority people. The Ferguson unrest helped solidify the national Black Lives Matter movement that began after Trayvon Martin, a Black 17-year-old, was shot to death by a neighbourhood watch volunteer in Florida in 2012. The issue has taken on new life since George Floyds death in Minneapolis in May after a white police officer pressed his knee into the handcuffed Black mans neck for nearly eight minutes. Ferguson is among the cities around the world that has seen protests since Floyds death. This is a time for us to reflect on Michaels life, to support Michaels family and to honour a transformative movement that will forever be linked to his name, Bell said. Brittany Packnett Cunningham, a Ferguson protester and educator who has become a national voice in the Black Lives Matter movement, said she is pained that there is still a gaping wound for Browns family. She said she knows that the system must change. Im not disappointed Im fed up and ever more committed, truth be told, Cunningham said. The Rev. Darryl Gray, a leading St. Louis activist, agreed that the system is at fault, not Bells investigation. What came out of this is a recognition that the system is set up to protect police officers. We now need to begin to address the legislation the police hide behind, Gray said. Scott Roberts, senior director of criminal justice campaigns at Color Of Change, a national racial justice organization, said in a statement that Bells announcement perpetuates a criminal justice system that fails Black communities by allowing police to operate with impunity. Bell who ran as a reform-minded prosecutor promising to eliminate cash bail for nonviolent offenders and to increase the use of programs that allow defendants to avoid jail time faced no restrictions in re-examining Browns death. Wilson was never charged and tried, so double jeopardy was not an issue. There is no statute of limitations on filing murder charges. As the news conference drew to a close, an activist who said he is a friend of Browns father erupted in anger. Its over! One term! Tory Russell, 36, of St. Louis, screamed at the prosecuting attorney. Police officers gently led him from the room. Russell later told The Associated Press that he had just spoken with Michael Brown Sr. He is hurting, and hes not accepting of this. The shooting happened after Wilson told Brown and a friend to get out of the street as they walked down the middle of Canfield Drive. A scuffle between Wilson and Brown ensued, ending with the fatal shot. Wilson said Brown, who was not armed, came at him menacingly, forcing him to fire his gun in self-defence. Browns body remained in the street for four hours, angering his family and nearby residents. Bells predecessor, longtime prosecutor Bob McCulloch, was accused by critics of swaying the grand jury to its decision not to indict Wilson an accusation he emphatically denied. Wilson resigned days after McCullochs Nov. 24, 2014, announcement that the grand jury would not indict the officer. The Justice Department also declined to charge Wilson, but issued a scathing report citing racial bias in Fergusons police and courts. A consent agreement calls for sweeping reforms that are still being implemented. Bell, a former Ferguson councilman, upset McCulloch, a staunch law-and-order prosecutor, in the 2018 Democratic primary and ran unopposed that November. Bell, who, like McCulloch, is the son of a police officer, formed a special unit to look into officer-involved shootings like the one in Ferguson, as well as cases of potential wrongful convictions. Browns mother, Lesley McSpadden, asked Republican Gov. Mike Parson to reopen the investigation of Wilson in 2018, but Parsons office said it had no legal authority to appoint a special prosecutor. ___ Associated Press reporter Aaron Morrison in New York City and Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, contributed to this report. ___ Explaining AP style on Black and white: https://apnews.com/afs:Content:9105661462 ___ This story has been corrected to show that Trayvon Martin was not killed by a white officer. Even during the dog days of summer and a global pandemic, children can still have fun and learn business and financial skills through joining Lemonade Day. Lemonade Day is a nonprofit organization that provides kids their first opportunity to start, run and own their own business, and we use the lemonade stand as the vehicle for them to get this experience, said National President Steven Gordon. Mental check-in: Experts talk mental health as start of school draws near The organization started in Houston in 2007 and has grown to a free, year-round program for kindergartners through 12th graders, with a focus around third through fifth graders. Over the years, approximately 1 million children across the nation have participated. This years event, Lemonade Day My Way, encourages children to think beyond lemons, if they want. Houston City Director Gaye Jackson says around 5,000 children are signed up to take part across the Houston area from Thursday, Aug. 20, to Sunday, Aug. 23. Usually, Lemonade Day takes place in the spring. With all that was going on, it was moved back to give children more time to prepare. Texas House Bill 234 that forbids local governments from banning lemonade stands became effective in September 2019 and gave backing to Lemonade Day. This summer though, Jackson has met with children coming up with other ideas. One 11 year-old girl created a product to sell, which resembles a key, to carry. It allows people to punch elevator buttons and surfaces and open doors without touching them. She has been shipping them across the country. Jacksons 13-year-old son has participated in Lemonade Day in the past and is now power-washing peoples driveways, porches and decks. Jackson said many of the startups are born this summer out of a little bit of boredom, but some clever ideas have emerged. Katy ISD: Principals at Katy ISDs new schools discuss plans amid virtual start to year From start to finish, participants build confidence in themselves and their abilities. Jackson said many are realizing that they can turn a poor situation like a pandemic into something fruitful. Lemonade Day moved their programming online last year, so it was ahead of the curve when other organizations were scrambling to go virtual for COVID-19. Schools, churches and the Boys & Girls Clubs have reached out for activities for their children. Also, Scout troops have gotten involved to work toward their merit badges. Ten-year-old Katy resident Charlie Lerette has held a few lemonade stands since his pitch day presentation last year, when he had the opportunity to talk about his idea in front of a panel of judges. He won third place. It was fun and memorable but also, like, fun, too. I was also nervous on the stage whenever I was giving the pitch, he said. Several weeks back, he and a few friends set up a stand together, along with a few garage sale-type items they had gathered to sell. Together, they took in around $40. His mom, Leia Yin, said she has seen him learn a lot from the program and be able to apply the knowledge in other areas of his life. Lasting love: Former Houston residents to celebrate 70th anniversary Lemonade Day participants work with their parents and other children that have participated before as mentors. Houston-area families can go to www.lemonadeday.org/houston to find out about virtual contests that are going on. In some communities across the country right now, a lemonade stand is tricky because of social distancing. Through setting up a side table that holds a payment or tip jar and a place to deliver and pick up the drinks, participants have worked around that problem. Jackson said the program teaches financial literacy. The young entrepreneurs are asked to share some of their earnings with the community, to spend some on something they have wanted and to save some for future business ventures. Some parents that lack the knowledge learn the principles alongside their children, Jackson said. She urges parents to register their children for the Lemonade Day program because it is no longer one event but activities to keep children engaged throughout the year. She said entrepreneurship doesnt begin and end in a day. When you have an entrepreneurial mindset, it continues on, which is why weve got so many success stories of people taking our program and then going in as a child or teenager or whatever and creating their own businesses, she explained. Back to school: Compassion Katy to help 3,000 children get ready for school Gordon said many participants come from low- and moderate-income families that need help during the pandemic, so Lemonade Day found a way to make the program work rather than cancel. Theyre scared, theyre isolated, and theyre lonely, Gordon said. And were giving them an opportunity to make some decisions for themselves, have some fun, build something for a lifetime and give them a true opportunity, a feeling and a sense and a reality of some independence. For more information about the free program, visit www.lemonadeday.org. tracy.maness@hcnonline.com What can history teach us about who we are today? Its a question of enormous scope, but one that the authors of this months best books tackle with honesty and care. In her highly anticipated book Caste, journalist Isabel Wilkerson outlines a new framework to understand social hierarchy in the United States. In their twisty novels, Daisy Johnson and Charlotte McConaghy examine what makes people run away from the lives they once led. And in a sweeping collection of Native poetry, the voices of more than 160 poets demonstrate the evolution of Native literature. These books, among several others, pose crucial questions about how the past shapes the present. Here, the 12 new books to read in August. The Death of Vivek Oji, Akwaeke Emezi (Aug. 4) The first chapter of Akwaeke Emezis latest novel contains just one sentence: They burned down the market on the day Vivek Oji died. From there, the story moves forward and backward in time, unveiling the titular characters coming-of-age in Nigeria, where his family struggled to accept who he wanted to be. In chapters that flip between various voices in Viveks life, including Viveks own, Emezi dissects how a community can grieve a person they never truly understood. Buy Now: The Death of Vivek Oji on Bookshop | Amazon The Disaster Tourist, Yun Ko-Eun (Aug. 4) After being sexually assaulted by her colleague, Yona Ko wants to leave Jungle, the travel agency where they both work. But when she tries to resign, shes presented with an intriguing offer: a paid trip to one of Jungles destinations. But Jungle isnt a normal travel agencythey specialize in disaster tourism, building itineraries in areas once hit by tsunamis, hurricanes and more. The Disaster Tourist follows Yona as she embarks on an increasingly strange and thrilling trip to the island of Mui, where she discovers the very dark sides of the tourism industry. Story continues Buy Now: The Disaster Tourist on Bookshop | Amazon Migrations, Charlotte McConaghy (Aug. 4) Franny Stone has just arrived in Greenland, and shes on a mission: to track the last migration of the Arctic tern. The 30-something from Galway talks her way onto a fishing boat and begins a dangerous journey at sea. Set in a world eerily similar to our own, Migrations is a bleak look into a future where wildlife is disappearing at a rapid rate, leaving Franny desperate to chase the terns before theyre gone for good. But why that bird? In uncovering the answer, McConaghy paints a gutting portrait of a woman worn down by a world she never quite fit into. Buy Now: Migrations on Bookshop | Amazon Love After Love, Ingrid Persaud (Aug. 4) In the years that follow the death of her abusive husband, Betty Ramdin opens up her home to her colleague Mr. Chetan. The two live together platonically and raise Bettys son Solo, rebuilding a family unit that was once shattered. But this new unit falls apart when Solo discovers a secret from his mothers pastone that drives him to flee their home in Trinidad for New York. Written in Trinidadian dialect, Ingrid Persauds bruising debut delves into the heartbreaks that accompany everyday life, culminating in a powerful examination of what it means to be part of a family. Buy Now: Love After Love on Bookshop | Amazon Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson (Aug. 4) The latest book from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson focuses on the formation of social hierarchy in the United States by exploring the countrys unspoken caste system. Wilkerson provides a masterful framework for understanding American inequality, building on more than a decade of research, to illuminate the divisions that occur in the United States, widening the scope beyond race and class. In highlighting the ways the caste systems of America, India and Nazi Germany are all connected, Wilkerson forces her readers to reevaluate the systems into which people are born. Buy Now: Caste on Bookshop | Amazon Belabored: A Vindication of the Rights of Pregnant Women, Lyz Lenz (Aug. 11) Writer and editor Lyz Lenz wants us to start treating pregnant women differently. In her searing new book, she analyzes why its so difficult to be pregnant in America, blending together historical research, feminist theory and her own experiences as an expectant parent. She asks us to consider our definitions of pregnancy and motherhood, the imagery that they conjure and the myths that need debunking. In a voice full of humor, passion and urgency, Lenz asks that women be the ones making decisions about their bodies. Buy Now: Belabored on Bookshop | Amazon A House Is a Body: Stories, Shruti Swamy (Aug. 11) In her debut collection, Shruti Swami explores lust, loss and loneliness through 12 short stories set in the United States and India. The characters in A House Is a Body navigate disasters on small and large scales: in one story a man wrestles with grief over his wifes death as he continues to raise their child, in another a woman is trapped in her home as a nearby wildfire picks up speed. Throughout, Swamy connects the narratives through her clean prose, punctuating moments both surreal and eerily realistic. Buy Now: A House Is a Body on Bookshop | Amazon When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, Joy Harjo (editor)(Aug. 25) More than 160 poets from almost 100 Indigenous nations comprise this comprehensive anthology, which showcases poetry that span centuries. The five sections of the collection represent the different geographical regions of the United States, and include a range of voices, from Eleazar, a 17th-century student at Harvard, to contemporary poets like Tommy Pico and Layli Long Soldier. The anthology, edited by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, celebrates the power of Native literature and underlines the impact it has had on American poetry. Buy Now: When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through on Bookshop | Amazon Sisters, Daisy Johnson (Aug. 25) Can sisters ever be too close? Its the question at the core of Daisy Johnsons unsettling new novel, which traces the plight of teenage sisters July and September. The girls recently moved with their mother to a remote cottage on the coast after fleeing their home in Oxford. In unraveling exactly what the sisters are running away from, Johnson crafts an aching thriller about the dangers of loving too intensely. Buy Now: Sisters on Bookshop | Amazon Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald (Aug. 25) In her 2015 memoir H is for Hawk, naturalist Helen Macdonald reflected on how her relationship with a goshawk helped her grieve her fathers death. In her new collection Vesper Flights, Macdonald again grapples with feelings of loss and love and relates them to wildlife. In essays both new and old, Macdonald makes stunning observations about the animals that surround us, from cranes in Hungary to songbirds in New York City, revealing what these creatures can teach us about ourselves. Buy Now: Vesper Flights on Bookshop | Amazon Summer, Ali Smith (Aug. 25) Like its predecessors, the fourth and final installment of Ali Smiths beloved Seasonal Quartet series is anchored in the very real tensions of our present moment. Set against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, Summer dives into our current sociopolitical landscape through the story of siblings Sacha and Robert. As the duo attempts to understand their place in the world, Smith weaves in characters from past books and tackles issues like immigration and Brexit. Buy Now: Summer on Bookshop | Amazon Winter Counts, David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Aug. 25) At the center of David Heska Wanbli Weidens crime thriller is Virgil Wounded Horse, the local enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Though hes used to doling out punishments in his community, things get personal when his nephew overdoses on heroin. In Winter Counts, Virgil becomes obsessed with figuring out how the drugs got into the reservation, leading him on a gripping journey to Denver with his ex-girlfriend. Buy Now: Winter Counts on Bookshop | Amazon Google is celebrating a momentous day in the history of the Philippines, with a Doodle of artist and activist Pacita Abad. On this day (31 July) in 1984, Abad made history as the first woman to receive the countrys prestigious Ten Outstanding Young Men art award. To mark the anniversary of the occasion, Google created a colourful piece of art representing the renowned feminist artist, who was lauded for her bright and colourful style. Born in 1946 in Batanes, Abad studied in San Francisco in 1970 before travelling from Bangladesh to Sudan with her art supplies, where she found influence for what would become her signature style. Her work tended to be abstract she created a technique that she called trapunto, from the Italian word for "quilt", which involved stuffing canvases to create a sculptural effect. She was also known for integrating culturally significant materials discovered during her travels, such as shells and fabrics, into her projects and she used pieces like her 1979 series Portraits of Cambodia to raise awareness of societal issues. Abads acceptance of the Ten Outstanding Young Men award in 1984 prompted uproar in the Philippines art community, with a number of newspapers publishing letters from male artists who believed they deserved the top prize. Abad ignored them and wore the award as a badge of honour, telling onlookers that it was long overdue that Filipina women were recognised, as the Philippines was full of outstanding women". Just a few months before her death of lung cancer in 2004, one of Abads largest public displays, the 2003 project Painted Bridge, was created. She covered Singapores 55-metre long Alkaff Bridge with 2,350 vibrantly coloured circles. Throughout her 30-year art career, Abad had 75 solo shows. Her work was exhibited in over 200 museums and galleries across the world. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images Three months ago, Joe Biden predicted that President Trump would eventually try to delay the November election. Mark my words, he told a fundraiser, I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow. Conservatives exploded in outrage at the suggestion. Bidens unfounded accusation Thursday that President Trump wants to delay Novembers election was not only clearly over the line but also unmasks how low the supposedly moderate Biden will go to win, complained Henry Olsen. It is just the type of thing that a crazed guy in a tightly buttoned raincoat whispers to you on the subway, said law professor and Trump impeachment witness Jonathan Turley. Theres a lot of projection, sneered Mollie Hemingway. Ari Fleischer called Bidens warning an extreme, dangerous conspiracy theory. Now Trump has done just what Biden predicted, floating a call for a delay in the November election until people can properly, securely and safely vote: With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 How scared should we be? At the most literal level, not very scared. Trump does not have the power to change the date of the election, which is set by Congress. But the broader truth is that Trump is an authoritarian whose powers, while waning, pose a serious threat to the sanctity of the election and American democracy. Like most Republicans, Trump believes in erecting bureaucratic hurdles to complicate voting, in the belief that weeding out voters unable or unwilling to undergo the hassle will benefit both their party and the country. Trumps version of this belief goes much farther than the standard Republican version, and includes the claim that he actually would have won the 2016 popular vote but for millions of illegal ballots in California, an absurd lie few members of his party would vouch for publicly. What gives these beliefs unusual force at the moment is the coronavirus pandemic, which makes in-person voting a dangerous prospect for many Americans. An obvious solution is to expand the use of voting by mail. But since voting by mail makes voting easier, and Trumps goal is to make it harder, he opposes it as inherently fraudulent. It is not. Several states employ universal voting by mail without any significant fraud. However, expanding mail voting across the country requires new training and resources. Since states are starved for resources and need Congress to appropriate them, and since Trump can veto any new federal spending, he can starve states of the resources they require. Voting by mail will be slower and messier, leaving many voters to choose between risking their health and forfeiting their franchise. Trumps reelection strategy seems to rely on using the pandemic to functionally disenfranchise a large segment of the Democratic base. Delaying the election is obviously a nonstarter it would mean holding off the vote until a vaccine has been distributed universally, which would mean extending the election by months. More realistically, Trump can sow doubt over the election results and seed political and legal challenges to the result, creating a Florida 2000like conflict that he might resolve through his control of the levers of federal power. For all his buffoonery and laziness, Trump is a committed authoritarian. He has a long and unwavering admiration for the strength of dictators, a consistent refusal to accept the legitimacy of any outcome in which he loses, and a habit of characterizing criticism or political opposition as illegal. And he possesses an instinct for overwhelming the publics ability to process reality and maintain boundaries. I never even thought of changing the date of the election. Why would I do that? he said in April. Now he has broached an election delay in the form of a question. He hasnt explicitly endorsed the idea, but it can waft in the air. If he decides to endorse it later, without the question mark attached, it will feel like old news. The presidents haplessness is mostly a blessing, but it can distract to his credit from the corrosiveness of his rhetoric and worldview. Trump is a clown of a very sinister kind. The republic simply is not safe until he has left office. A 17-year-old in Tampa, Florida, is accused of taking over the Twitter accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama and numerous other celebrities to scam people into sending the teen bitcoin. The teen, whose name and photo CNBC is not publishing because the teen is a minor, was arrested and charged, the office of Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren announced on Friday. Warren's office described the teen as the "mastermind" behind the attack. "These crimes were perpetrated using the names of famous people and celebrities, but they're not the primary victims here," Warren said in a statement. "This 'Bit-Con' was designed to steal money from regular Americans from all over the country, including here in Florida. This massive fraud was orchestrated right here in our backyard, and we will not stand for that." Warren's office has filed 30 felony charges against the 17-year-old. The charges include organized fraud, communications fraud, fraudulent use of personal information and access of computer or electronic device without authority. Two adults were also charged, the Department of Justice said Friday. Mason Sheppard, aka "Chaewon," 19, of Bognor Regis, in the United Kingdom, was charged in a criminal complaint in the Northern District of California with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and the intentional access of a protected computer. Nima Fazeli, aka "Rolex," 22, of Orlando, Florida, was charged in a criminal complaint in the Northern District of California with aiding and abetting the intentional access of a protected computer. The teen's scam reaped more than $100,000 worth of bitcoin on July 15, according to Warren's office. Twitter provided its most recent update into the attack on Thursday evening. "The social engineering that occurred on July 15, 2020, targeted a small number of employees through a phone spear phishing attack," Twitter said in a blog post. "A successful attack required the attackers to obtain access to both our internal network as well as specific employee credentials that granted them access to our internal support tools. Not all of the employees that were initially targeted had permissions to use account management tools, but the attackers used their credentials to access our internal systems and gain information about our processes." Twitter acknowledged the charges and arrest on Friday. "We appreciate the swift actions of law enforcement in this investigation and will continue to cooperate as the case progresses," Twitter said in a tweet. "For our part, we are focused on being transparent and providing updates regularly." tweet Lucknow: Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of shying away from Parliament, Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Saturday said desh ka chowkidar was taking a peaceful nap while the poor were having sleepless nights. The Prime minister who had made an entrance to the Parliament by bowing his head in respect to it, is today shying away from speaking there ...the chowkidar of the country has closed his eyes and is sleeping peacefully while the poor are spending sleepless nights, he told reporters in Lucknow. Currency is never black...those who think it is, have their thinking flawed... actually it is the transaction which is black...The Prime Minister does not have the right understanding of economic situation, Sibal said. He alleged that a note in the hands of a poor has also been rendered as black money. The actual reason behind demonetisation is political and not economic...it is only for winning the UP polls ...to spring a surprise and help Modi emerge as the messiah of the poor, the Congress spokesperson said. Sibal further said the Prime Minister does not know how to follow up demonetisation. Modi could not think as to how the labourers, farmers and others will run their livelihood...he could not think how the wholesale and retail market will manage...vegetable vendors will not take the payment in cheque. Citing statistics, he claimed that of the 125 crore population, only 60 crores have bank accounts whereas no transaction has taken place in the accounts of 32 crore people for years and asked whether they all have black money. Demanding that the names of those having foreign accounts be made public, Sibal asked when the government has the list why it is not being made public? For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Dr Anthony Fauci testified says 250,000 people have registered on a National Institutes of Health website to take part in experimental vaccine trials. The study of the first vaccine involving 30,000 people began this week. The US government plans to launch studies of additional vaccines every month through the fall. Trials are pivotal for establishing the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines. Not all patients who volunteer for clinical trials are eligible to participate. Fauci is testifying before House lawmakers on the federal response to the pandemic, alongside the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the government's testing czar. With hospitalizations and deaths on the rise, Fauci says Americans most again embrace public health basics such as social distancing and mask wearing. Jacksonville Police ARRESTS, CITATIONS Holly L. Goers, 46, of 1100 N. Clay Ave. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 5:50 p.m. Wednesday on a retail theft charge. ACCIDENTS Gregory W. Wainman, 62, of Griggsville was cited on a charge of improper lane use after the car he was driving hit a parked car at 6:47 p.m. Wednesday in the 300 block of Westgate Avenue. Wainman told police his vision had been momentarily obscured by another vehicle. Calhoun County Sheriff ARRESTS, CITATIONS Benjamin R. Blair, 32, of Edinburg was booked into Greene County Jail at 10:29 p.m. July 24 on a charge of aggravated battery involving a transit employee. Greene County Sheriff ARRESTS, CITATIONS Stephen C. Baker, 20, of Cahokia was booked into Greene County Jail at 11 p.m. Monday on a charge of driving under the influence. Roger G. Cox, 37, of Hillview was booked into Greene County Jail at 6:53 a.m. July 20 on an assault charge. Nicholas J. Coates, 36, of Medora was booked into Greene County Jail at 9:48 a.m. July 19 on charges of resisting a peace officer and unlawful use of a license or permit. Shawntel S. Wade, 34, of Katy, Texas, was booked into Greene County Jail at 9:55 p.m. July 17 on charges of theft and forgery. James T. Dean, 34, of Dewey, Oklahoma, was booked into Greene County Jail at 8:50 p.m. July 17 on charges of theft and forgery. Carrollton Police ARRESTS, CITATIONS Owen J. Dilks, 30, of Carrollton was booked into Greene County Jail at 5:20 a.m. Sunday on a charge of aggravated assault. Greenfield Police ARRESTS, CITATIONS Monte S. Schollmeyer, 26, of Brighton was booked into Greene County Jail at 9:42 p.m. July 19 on a charge of driving while license is revoked or suspended. Kristopher L. Luckett, 29, of Meredosia was booked into Greene County Jail at 7:46 p.m. July 18 on charges of driving while license is revoked or suspended and operating an uninsured motor vehicle. Roodhouse Police ARRESTS, CITATIONS Roger K. Forsting, 60, of Roodhouse was booked into Greene County Jail at 10:30 p.m. Sunday on a charge of driving under the influence. Charlie A. Treadway, 28, of Jacksonville was booked into Greene County Jail at 11:14 p.m. July 21 on a disorderly conduct charge. Heather Ann Gunnin, 39, of Jacksonville was booked into Greene County Jail at 2:36 a.m. July 18 on a charge of driving while license is revoked or suspended. White Hall Police ARRESTS, CITATIONS Blake A. Dunning, 31, of Cottage Hills was booked into Greene County Jail at 12:43 a.m. Tuesday on a charge of driving under the influence. Sean A. Groves, 24, of White Hall was booked into Greene County Jail at 11:29 p.m. July 18 on a charge of driving while license is revoked or suspended. Elizabeth D. Herder, 28, of White Hall was booked into Greene County Jail at 1:57 a.m. July 17 on a disorderly conduct charge. Joey Lee Farris, 36, of Hannibal, Missouri, was booked into Greene County Jail at 11:08 p.m. July 16 on a charge of possession of drug paraphernalia. Scott County Winchester Police ARRESTS, CITATIONS Gregory A. Lash, 30, of Pittsfield was booked into Greene County Jail at 1:44 a.m. Monday on a violation of an order of protection. Compiled by David C.L. Bauer Green TD Neasa Hourigan says she wants to remain part of the government and Green Party despite voting against the government last night. Ms Hourigan, who was the Green Party whip until yesterday, voted against the government's new legislation for renters, which would see the current Covid-related eviction ban ended in January 2021. The Dublin Central TD confirmed she took the decision to abdicate her position as her partys whip before the vote, informing her partys executive council in writing. "I hope people didn't mean (that it was an easy choice) because this is a very serious bill," Ms Hourigan told RTE One's Today programme. "This will affect families who need a home and permanent tenancies, and so I do not think that this was an easy one and to hear it described as such is very worrying. I would hope the same proposal wouldn't be pushed. I have no intention of making a habit of this, I think this was a very specific bill and that there was good amendments tabled that should have been accepted. "Every piece of legislation, we have to work on it. But what I guess my point is, is that I'm hoping in the autumn there's more time. "We're in a very specific situation now where the bill was about to lapse and we did need an extension and did need legislation in fairness to the government, but I'm hoping in the autumn that there won't be quite the same time pressure." Breaking Rank Green Party junior minister Joe OBrien abstained on the final vote of the Residential Tenancies Bill which was being debated in the Dail after his party colleague Ms Hourigan voted against it. A source has confirmed that the TDs did not plan on breaking rank together, and their actions were coincidental. Both representatives have had their speaking rights removed for two months as a sanction for their actions on the vote following a Green parliamentary party meeting. "I was elected as whip I think the first week after the election, and before any decisions about whether we were in government or not," Ms Hourigan said. "I also didn't enter into government with the party, intending to vote against the government, that's not my intention into the future and that wasn't my intention after the vote happened. "So I have no intention of leaving. I want to continue to be a Green parliamentarian. "I've been very involved in developing policy with the Green Party for years and I'm chair of the policy council and it's something that is very important to me, and I'm hoping that there's still a place for me in the Green Party." Syracuse, N.Y. Tiffany Gratiens three kids will be going to two different schools, often on different days, likely at different times. Quinn will go to kindergarten every day. Reagan will go to fourth grade in the elementary school two days a week. Ailyn will go to sixth grade at the middle school two days a week. Somehow, Gratien, who lives in the Jamesville-DeWitt school district, must manage that schedule while shes back at her job teaching kindergarten in the Syracuse City School District. Her husband works in IT and must be onsite, too. A lot of people I know are quitting their jobs to be home with their kids. How is that possible, she said. I cant do that and I dont want to. After months of waiting to hear if kids were going back to school at all, then weeks more to find out how often, Gratien and tens of thousands of other parents are scrambling to deal with the hybrid schedule most districts in Central New York are offering. Instead of bringing every kid back every day, districts are largely offering a mix of in-person learning for a day or two at school and the rest of the days online, at home. Some smaller districts and private schools have been able to offer daily schooling for all, and a few larger districts are bringing the youngest back for full days. But most dont have the space to have all of the kids there every day while maintaining the required 6 feet between students. Related article: How is your school reopening? See Central New York school district coronavirus plans Parents and educators agree that no choice for pandemic schooling is good. Hybrid schedules are simply the best of the bad: Everyone gets some in-person school. But hybrids also leave parents with an even more difficult juggling act than they had in the spring: Instead of trying to do it all from home while the economy was shut down, many now have to figure out how to be on the job with patched-together childcare. Some are planning to leave their kids home alone. Others are deciding that the chaos of a couple days on, the rest off, isnt worth it and are opting to keep their kids home all week. Larger districts really dont have much choice but to go hybrid they are just too large to meet the social distancing guidelines with every kid at school, said Kevin Casey, executive director of the New York State School Administrators Association. There are just no good answers, he said. In districts with spare resources, hybrid schedules lay bare the problems of poverty, raising questions that have few answers: How can kids learn online when they have no computer or internet access? This is true for rural districts and the city of Syracuse. The city has told 10,000 high school students they will learn from home; 10,000 more K-8 students will be online three days week. In the spring, parents scraped together money through Gofundme campaigns to get computers into some of the homes that had none. But there are still plenty of homes without. And then there is the extra cost of childcare for low-wage parents with inflexible jobs, if they can find any to pay for. Im definitely worried that our students are going to be really far behind where they should be, said Beth Myers, an education professor and director of the Taishoff Center for Inclusive Education at Syracuse University. Myers said that even if every student could get online, learning on a screen simply cant provide what sitting in a room with a teacher does. She knows that from her job and she knows it from her life: Myers and her husband have four children ages 4, 8, 10 and 12. They all go to public school in the city of Syracuse. The grown-ups juggled their jobs and the kids schoolwork all spring from their home. Now it seems theyll have to figure out how to have three kids at school some of the time and one 4-year-old home all of the time. The citys universal pre-K program they had planned to send their daughter to likely will not have enough space. Were still trying to figure it out, Myers said. The chaos of doing everything at once can be overwhelming. She may have to cut back on her research for now, but thats nothing compared with the choices other families are grappling with, she said. In the spring, Emily Costello and her husband cobbled together childcare for their twins using vacation time, flex-time, neighbors and family. Both parents have jobs that have to be done onsite: She is an occupational therapist and he services medical equipment. But now that the economy is getting back into full-swing, many of their helpers are back to work. The grandparents who could help live in a state that has high infection rates right now. The twins, who are in the Jamesville-DeWitt district, will likely go to school two days a week. Costello is happy theyll get some school. They need face-to-face time with their teachers and to play with friends. But right now she has no idea what theyll do for the other three days. Its too long for kids their age to be home alone. But its hard to even look for care: At this point, Costello is not sure which days the kids will be home. I hope theres a vaccine soon, she said. Bob Clarys three kids go to three different schools in the North Syracuse school district, which is offering a hybrid plan that could put all of his kids at school on different days of the week. The child who is in elementary school will go two days a week. Clarys other kids, who are in middle school and high school, will each go to school one day a week. Clary can work from home on the days the kids are not at school. But that doesnt solve his main concern. The fundamental thing is Im not a teacherso I am relearning everything all over, he said. Clary was trying to help his daughter, Stella, with her algebra in the spring. Like so many parents, he ended up watching the videos and tutorials right along with her. Algebra is hard enough. But Clary was trying to do it while he was doing his work for his marketing job. Its very challenging to do my work at home while helping teach my kids, Clary said. Jennifer Czarniewicz has three children still in school in eighth, 10th and 11th grades in the North Syracuse district. Theyll be going to school one day a week; the rest will be online. Although her kids are old enough to stay home alone, Czarniewicz said they were frustrated with online learning in the spring. She worries theyll just give up. Getting some in-school instruction is better than nothing, but Id like five days if they could make it safe,' she said. Parents and kids will both struggle and sacrifice in the fall, regardless of the school district. But poor families, often in inner city districts, are at great risk of losing learning and more in a hybrid school model. Youre seeing as you have throughout this crisis the exaggeration of the inequities that exist throughout society already, said Paul Reville, the former Secretary of Education for Massachusetts and a professor at Harvard Universitys Graduate School of Education. A very real problem is getting enough technology into the hands of kids in poor districts. In Boston, the city was able to get funding for 30,000 Chrome books and it set up WiFi hotspots around the city. The city of Syracuse has a plan to provide WiFi access from light poles on city streets, but that project is nowhere near done. Both computer and internet access problems remain. Someone, Reville said, will have to step up to make sure kids have access to the technology the need. It doesnt have to be the school district. It could be the city, the state or private business, he suggested. Its a much bigger problem than just schools. Communities need to come together, he said. Megan Thomas, whos a lawyer at Mackenzie Hughes whose son had been in pre-k in the city, is now struggling to figure out where he can go to school. Her husband is delaying his PhD to take care of the kids at this point but they still arent sure about whether the pre-k will be open or not at all. Megan Thomas with son Bailey Thomas Barton, husband Richard Barton and baby Madeleine Thomas Barton. Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com The city of Syracuse is also losing at least some of its robust pre-kindergarten program to the pandemic. Pre-K parents will have an option to go two days a week. Joann Taylor worries that her granddaughter, Amora, will fall behind. Amora is 3 and had been attending the citys Montessori pre-K program at LeMoyne Elementary School. Amora has learned her letters and to write her name. Her grandmother credits the pre-K program. It was awesome, she said. And it was free, enabling Amoras mom, Hillary, to work her call center job during the day. Hillary has been working from home, but the job is not one that allows for multitasking. Taylor and her husband, who are both disabled, have been watching Amora since the pre-K shut down. Megan Thomas son and Amora are playmates at the school. Bailey Thomas-Barton would play and learn with Amora Taylor while his mom went to work as a lawyer. If the pre-K does not open, Baileys dad will continue to care for him and his baby sister, Madeleine, while Thomas is at work. Richard Barton decided to take a year off from his Ph.D. studies at Cornell University, but he still has teaching obligations that hell have to work around the kids and his wifes schedule. Thomas knows they will be OK. But worries about what her sons playmates are losing. Before she was a lawyer, she taught in cities with the Teach for America program. Kids make the most progress when you get them early. So getting these kids in school at a young age, its pivotal, Thomas said. Most districts, including Syracuse, are offering a completely online option for students this fall. Some parents have decided that school is too risky. Others have decided its not worth the hassle for two days a week. Jessica Rogala (right center) is a home nurse with seven children that will most likely have to school from home this fall. Her husband, Ashley MIlls (left) is prepared to stay home and take care of the children (left to right) Jaya, 9; Quinton, 6; Brianna, 22; Ashton, 4; Kameron, 1 and Katie, 17. Devonn, 15, is not pictured) N. Scott Trimble | strimble@syracuse.comN. Scott Trimble | strimble@syra For Jessica Rogala, the risk does not seem worth it. She plans to keep her four school-aged children home. Three attend Roberts School in Syracuse and one is supposed to go to Corcoran High School. She works as a home-care nurse and worries that her kids will get exposed to the novel coronavirus and shell end up infecting one of her patients. Her husband is able to watch the kids and help them with their online learning, she said. Id rather have my kids alive and behind a bit, academically, she said. April McCaslin, one of many parents at East Syracuse Minoa who are choosing distance learning, said her daughter is immunocompromised. She is going into second grade and her other daughter is going into seventh grade. I feel like there are too many unknowns,' she said. We have been so careful since this all started. Though her younger daughter struggled with distance learning, McCaslin said the risks outweigh the benefits in her mind. Lemir Teron, a professor at SUNY-ESF, has spent the past months studying the destructive path Covid-19 has cut through communities of color downstate. Syracuse has not been as hard-hit, but Teron worries fall will bring a surge. And he worries about the teachers and staff who have to go back to work, despite the risk. I hate the thought of lunch lady, lunch guy, taking the chances, Teron said. He and his wife, both former public school teachers, have decided to keep their boys home in the fall. He realizes everyone cannot afford to make that choice. As parents try to figure out how to manage patched together schedules, teachers have been puzzling over how to make back-to-school as comfortable as possible in a pandemic, said Myers, the city school parent and Syracuse University education expert. A teacher shared her plan with Myers: She was worried about not being able to hug the kids or hold their hands, especially in this time of fear and uncertainty. So she decided she would get a bear for each child and make a point of hugging the bears. Then, when a child is sad or scared, the bear will be there snuggle, full of the teachers love. Elizabeth Doran covers education, suburban government and development, breaking news and more. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact her anytime 315-470-3012 or email edoran@syracuse.com Marnie Eisenstadt is a reporter who writes about people and public affairs in Central New York. Have an idea or question? Contact her anytime: email | Twitter| Facebook | 315-470-2246 Farrell joined Dominion Energy in 1995, was promoted to president and CEO in 2006 and added the role of chairman in 2007. "One of my goals as CEO was to build a strong leadership team and a long-term succession plan," said Farrell. "Today's announcement is the next step in that process." "There is no established timeframe for my role as executive chair, and I look forward to continuing to serve the company on behalf of our shareholders, customers and communities," Farrell continued. "I will be particularly focused on continuing to develop our strategic plan and Dominion's leadership in the new clean energy economy." Blue joined Dominion Energy in 2005 and has held a succession of services and operational executive roles since his promotion to officer in 2007, including vice president-State and Federal Affairs; senior vice president-Public Policy and Corporate Communications; senior vice president-Regulation, Law, Energy Solutions, & Policy; president-Dominion Virginia Power; and his current role as executive vice president and co-chief operating officer. Prior to joining Dominion Energy, Blue served as counselor to the Governor and director of policy for Virginia Governor Mark Warner, as an attorney and partner at then-Hogan & Hartson, and as a law clerk for the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia. Blue has been a board member of a wide range of community organizations and is currently a member of the Virginia Health Care Foundation and Communities in Schools of Virginia as well as the University of Virginia's Board of Visitors. Blue is a graduate of the University of Virginia, Yale Law School and the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Leopold joined Dominion Energy in 1995 and became an officer in 2004. She held a wide range of executive roles in both the electric and natural gas businesses of the company prior to her current role as executive vice president and co-chief operating officer. These include senior vice president-Business Development & Generation Construction; senior vice president-Dominion Transmission; and executive vice president and CEO-Gas Infrastructure Group. Leopold currently serves as chair of the American Gas Association. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Virginia Union University and is on the board of directors of Markel Corporation and of the Growth and Opportunity Virginia Foundation. Leopold is a graduate of the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom and has a master's degree in engineering from George Washington University. She earned her MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Baine joined the company in 1995 as an associate engineer after earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech, and since has held numerous engineering, operational and management positions. He was promoted to vice president-Shared Services in 2009, and became vice presidentPower Generation System Operations in 2013 and senior vice presidentTransmission & Customer Service in 2015. In 2016, he was named senior vice president-Distribution, Power Delivery Group, and assumed his current role as senior vice president-Power Delivery for Dominion Energy Virginia in 2019. Baine is a member of Virginia Tech's Board of Visitors. He is active in the industry as a member of the Southeastern Electric Exchange Board of Directors and the Association of Edison Illuminating Companies' Power Delivery Executive committees. He is a board member of the Dominion Energy Credit Union, ChamberRVA, Venture Richmond, CJW Medical Center, the Valentine and MEGA Mentors. Succeeding Baine as senior vice president-Power Delivery will be Charlene Whitfield, who, effective Oct. 1, 2020, is being promoted from her current role as vice president-Distribution Operations. Whitfield will oversee Dominion Energy Virginia's electric transmission, distribution and customer solutions business and will report to Baine. Whitfield joined Dominion in 1982 and has held a wide range of leadership roles within Dominion Energy Virginia. She has a bachelor's degree in accounting from Virginia Union University and is a board member of the Dominion Energy Credit Union and the Greater Richmond Partnership. More than 7 million customers in 20 states energize their homes and businesses with electricity or natural gas from Dominion Energy (NYSE: D), headquartered in Richmond, Va. The company is committed to sustainable, reliable, affordable and safe energy and to achieving net zero carbon dioxide and methane emissions from its power generation and gas infrastructure operations by 2050. Please visit DominionEnergy.com to learn more. SOURCE Dominion Energy Related Links http://www.dominionenergy.com KCMO digital equity effort aimst to boost remote learning, work access for families, entrepreneurs Economically distressed neighborhoods in Kansas City are at a bigger disadvantage than ever before, Rick Usher said, urging residents to combat digital inclusion as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to upend the way Kansas Citians learn and work. Another look at the local effort to bridge thethat must not include all of the 1K iPhones I've been seeing all over town.Take a look: The council, one of the bodies set up under the Belfast Agreement, is meeting in Dublin for the first time since 2016 and will involve ministers from both sides of the Irish Border. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald had accused Mr Martin of maintaining a passive stance in highlighting the need for an all-island approach when it comes to health. She said: We do it for animal health, why do we not do it for human health? Can I say to you, Taoiseach, that is your opportunity to bring your critique of the Northern position in terms of international travel and to debate that with your colleagues. Sinn Fein will support you in that. We need a single island system of protection as that is the only way we can get ahead of this virus. Advertisement Mr Martin said the Republic of Ireland has stricter travel restrictions in place, with people advised to only visit an approved list of 15 countries, while Northern Ireland allows 58. He said while the issue of travel restrictions will be discussed, there are challenges when it comes to adopting an all island approach. Brexit Mr Martin said Brexit will also feature highly on the meetings agenda. He said: Were having the meeting for the first time in three-and-a-half years and I hope it will help us to create a structure that will help us deal with the undoubted difficulties that Brexit has brought about. We do need to navigate and manage the island in a post-Brexit situation. Meanwhile, Arlene Foster is expected to appear alongside Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle ONeill in public today following the meeting. Bobby Storeys funeral is still under police investigation over potential breaches by mourners of social distancing rules. Mrs Foster said: I have always made it clear that we need to have the Executive working and need to continue to deal with Covid. We need to continue to focus on recovery, dealing with EU exit meetings. Mrs Foster had said her powersharing partners apology after attending the republican funeral falls short. Trust between members of the Stormont coalition and Ms ONeills credibility in delivering Covid-19 health messaging was damaged by the controversy over large crowds as the cortege passed through west Belfast, the DUP leader said. Ms ONeill has stood by her decision to go to the west Belfast service for the senior republican but did say sorry to families bereaved during lockdown for any hurt caused by scenes of hundreds of people lining the route. Mrs Foster said the Covid-19 tracker phone app launched in Northern Ireland on Thursday would work in an inter-operable way with the Republic of Ireland and any brought forward by other UK administrations. Self-isolation with Covid-19 symptoms or a positive test result has been increased from seven days to ten in the North. Less than 24 hours after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers announced a statewide mask order for Wisconsin, Republicans in the state Senate have signaled they have the votes to begin the process of striking it down. In a statement Friday, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said Senate Republicans stand ready to convene the body to end the Governors order, which includes the mask mandate. The Governor has caved to the pressure of liberal groups on this, Fitzgerald said. How can we trust that he wont cave again and stop schools that choose in-person instruction this fall? There are bigger issues at play here, and my caucus members stand ready to fight back. Fitzgerald did not indicate when the Senate might take up the matter. The GOP-led Assembly also would have to vote to strike down the order for it to take effect. Rep. Adam Neylon, R-Pewaukee, called on Assembly leadership to convene in extraordinary session to eliminate the order. A one-size-fits-all policy is not the right approach, he said in a statement. It also infringes upon our liberty as citizens. This type of executive order to extend an emergency order that has expired is a dangerous abuse of power. The office of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The GOP-led Legislature has not met since April, despite calls by Democratic members to take up legislation related to COVID-19, police procedures and unemployment benefits. State law gives the Legislature the power to revoke a governors emergency order at any time. On Thursday, Evers said it would be a sad commentary for all of us if Republicans convened to strike down the mask order. The Republicans could have come into session at any time, Evers said. This has been a long pandemic, folks. Election impact Reversing the mask order and the public health emergency could have other far-reaching consequences. According to the governors office, the National Guard would likely not be able to assist at the polls during the Aug. 11 primary if the Legislature or a court were to rescind the public health emergency, because a public health emergency is one of the only justifications a governor can use to call the National Guard into active duty. The assistance of the National Guard was crucial to keeping polling sites operating during the statewide presidential primary and Supreme Court election in April. More than 2,400 Wisconsin National Guard members served as poll workers in 71 of Wisconsins 72 counties under the public health emergency Evers declared this spring. The governors office said nearly 1,000 National Guard members may be needed to assist in the statewide Aug. 11 primary. Likely the only other way for the National Guard to assist at the polls under Wisconsin law is for the thousands of municipalities across the state to request assistance from the National Guard themselves. Using the National Guard at community testing sites for COVID-19 across the state could also be placed in jeopardy. National Guard members are under separate federal orders to assist with testing and other COVID-19 response efforts. If President Donald Trump doesnt renew the National Guards federal mission in Wisconsin, which ends Aug. 7, the governors office said the state could lose federal funding for its testing efforts, which could close down entirely if the state public health emergency is revoked. Still, if federal assistance expires and the state needs to foot the bill for testing, it could cost the state $3 million to $4 million per month, which could be partially reimbursed later by the federal government. Governors can usually only call the National Guard into active duty to respond to war, civil unrest, natural disaster or a public health emergency. Its critical that President Trump extends the Guards federal mission and Republicans leave our public health emergency in place so the Guard can continue these testing efforts, which are essential to responding to this pandemic and keep our communities safe, Evers tweeted Friday. Order details Announced Thursday, the state mask order goes into effect Saturday. Under the new order, which expires Sept. 28, everyone age 5 and older must wear a face covering when indoors or in any enclosed space open to the public including outdoor bars and restaurants, public transit and outdoor park structures. The order does not apply to people in their private residences. Face coverings are strongly recommended in all other settings where people may come in contact with others, including outdoors when maintaining physical distance is not possible. A violation of the order would not bring any criminal penalties but could result in a $200 fine. The order provides some exceptions to the face mask mandate, allowing them to be removed when eating or drinking or when communicating with an individual who is deaf or hard of hearing. People who have trouble breathing or have medical conditions that prevent them from wearing masks are also exempt. The state order supersedes any less-restrictive local mask order but allows local entities to enforce more restrictive rules. Other reaction On Thursday, Wisconsin Bankers Association president Rose Oswald said a statewide mask order creates a consistent statewide rule for banks and businesses to follow. American Family Insurance CEO Jack Salzwedel said on Friday that his organization strongly supports the Wisconsin statewide mask order. As a company, we support healthy individuals and communities in many ways, Salzwedel said. This includes our agency owners, our employees, our customers and potential customers. We believe in the strength of our communities and this is another way to keep our communities healthy and safe during this time. Stephanie Bloomingdale, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, issued a Friday statement in support of Evers mask order. The order eliminates a regulatory patchwork and brings all Wisconsin communities in line with common sense and science, Bloomingdale said. Actions that promote a safer workplace are in everyones interest. ... This is an order we literally can all live with. However, law enforcement agencies in multiple cities and counties have said they do not plan to enforce the order, leaving some organizations to believe the mask mandate creates more confusion than clarity. Brandon Scholz, president of the Wisconsin Grocers Association, said the organization prefers local mask orders as opposed to a statewide mandate. Some store owners plan to put up signage indicating that the statewide mask order is in effect, but grocers are not being asked to openly enforce the rule, he said. Theres nothing in this order that says who enforces this, Scholz said. The order does not say you have to be the mask police. Nick Novak, spokesman for Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the states chamber of commerce and largest business organization, said the Wisconsin Safety Council a division of WMC has been encouraging people to voluntarily wear masks. While WMC has encouraged social distancing and the use of face masks to protect employee and customer health, we do not support government mandates that have questionable legal authority and put businesses in the difficult position of enforcing such an order, Novak said in an email. COVID-19 in photos: How Wisconsin is managing the pandemic An Accra Circuit Court presided over by H.H Mrs Christiana Cannhasr has sentenced Joseph Kodua, a 31-year-old security man to 20years imprisonment for defiling his 12-year-old daughter and threatening her with death. The facts of the case as presented in court was that, Joseph Kodua, on the 15th of June, 2019 went to pick up his daughter who was by then living with her auntie at Agbogba in Accra to his duty post without the consent of the woman. Joseph Kodua, with the excuse that it was late for him to return his daughter to the auntie's house, kept her overnight. That night, Joseph Kodua made several sexual advances at his daughter. He further threatened to kill her with a hacksaw blade and a knife if she resisted him or refused to comply with his sexual demands. After succeeding with the threats, he forcibly had sexual intercourse with her. The convict the next morning returned his daughter to the auntie. On the 17th of July, 2019, Joseph Kodua went to his daughter's school to pick her up again, but the school denied him access and reported the abuse to the victims auntie. The Madina DOVVSU was subsequently informed leading to his arrest. During interrogation, the victim revealed her ordeal to the police. Joseph Kodua later admitted to having raped his daughter and was convicted on his own plea. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. ---citinewsroom Trump names former White House staffer Sebastian Gorka to defense education body By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA) President Donald Trump named Sebastian Gorka to a committee that promotes national security through the education system. A onetime White House staffer, Gorka had come under fire for his associations with the Hungarian far right. On Tuesday, Trump named Gorka to the National Security Education Board, which oversees the National Security Education Program, a congressionally mandated program that dispenses grants and scholarships to promote study in areas of critical national s... China has ordered officials to regularly conduct COVID-19 tests on all workers in wholesale markets across the country to tackle the spread of the coronavirus. Local health workers must collect swab samples from wholesale markets monthly, the authorities said in a notice on Thursday. Those selling meats and seafood will be tested for the coronavirus once every week. Market vendors at these food trading hubs must receive throat swabs, or have samples taken from their clothing surfaces and hands. China has ordered officials to regularly conduct COVID-19 tests on all workers in wholesale markets across the country to tackle the spread of the coronavirus. In this file photo taken on April 24, a female meat vendor tends to her stall at a wholesale food market in Beijing The national health authorities issued a notice on Thursday, urging local governments to strengthen monitoring the nation's food trading hubs for the contagion. In this file photo, a worker of Nanming district's Center for Disease Control and Prevention collects a swab from frozen fish for nucleic acid testing at Wandong market in Guiyang, Guizhou province on July 1 The announcement comes as China has been battling a fresh wave of COVID-19 infections after detecting multiple sporadic regional outbreaks since June. China's National Health Commission yesterday released a set of guidelines for wholesale markets as part of the country's latest efforts to stamp out the virus spread. The authorities urged local governments to strengthen monitoring the nation's food trading hubs for the contagion. Local health workers must collect swab samples from wholesale markets monthly. Those selling meats and seafood are required to receive the tests once every week, the authorities said. Market vendors working at 'key stalls' must receive throat swabs, as well as sample-collecting from their clothing surfaces and hands. Others will have testing samples taken from their hands. Areas and objects that also need to be tested include freezers, meats and seafood, lifts, stairs, toilets, cleaning tools and offices, according to the notice. Major wholesale markets that sell frozen and refrigerated meats and seafood, or contain moist and closed spaces, are considered as 'key monitoring points'. Market vendors working at 'key stalls' must receive throat swabs, as well as sample-collecting from their clothing surfaces and hands. This file photo taken on June 16 shows people receiving tests after an outbreak linked to the Xinfadi wholesale market erupted Beijing Local health workers must collect swab samples from wholesale markets monthly. This file picture take on June 17 shows a customer shopping at a wholesale market in Beijing The order comes as China's top disease-control expert has claimed that the coronavirus could be associated with the trading of seafood after identifying similarities in the country's first and second waves of COVID-19 outbreaks. Wu Zunyou, a chief epidemiologist at the Chinese CDC, told state broadcaster CCTV this week that the coronavirus crises in Wuhan, Beijing and Dalian were all linked to seafood markets or processing plants in the regions. He noted that places dealing with seafood sales could be more susceptible to the virus spread because of their wet and cold environment. The country where the global outbreak first emerged had largely brought domestic transmission under control through targeted lockdowns, travel restrictions and testing. But sporadic regional outbreaks have illustrated the difficulty of keeping the virus at bay. China's top disease-control expert has claimed that the coronavirus could be associated with the trading of seafood. This picture shows health workers wearing protective gear as they clean and disinfect a wet market at Sham Shui Po, one of the oldest districts in Hong Kong Areas and objects that also need to be tested include freezers, meats and seafood, lifts, stairs, toilets, cleaning tools and offices, according to the notice. This picture shows a woman removing flies from the meat at a meat stall in a wholesale market in Guangzhou on June 22 Chinese authorities Friday reported 127 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total of confirmed infections to 84,292. Most of the new patients were native infections found in Xinjiang and Liaoning, two regions that are grappling with escalating local outbreaks. Last week, a new outbreak emerged at Dalian Kaiyang Seafood, a seafood processing plant in Dalian, a major port city in China's north-eastern Liaoning province. The local contagion has since spread to nine cities across the country and infected more than 60 people. The western Chinese region Xinjiang, home to the country's most Uighur ethnic minority, detected a local cluster in its regional capital, Urumqi, in mid-July. The contagion link has claimed at least 523 people. One person was killed and two others injured in an overnight shooting in New Orleans, police say. EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to reflect new information released by NOPD. Click here for the full update. Around 11:40 p.m. Thursday, a man arrived at University Medical Center and sought treatment for a gunshot wound, NOPD said. Officers said they believe he was shot on Interstate 10, in the westbound lanes near the Jefferson Davis overpass. They didn't say when they believe the shooting happened. Around 3:30 a.m. Friday, two people with gunshot wounds arrived at Ochsner Baptist Medical Center. One person died from their injuries, NOPD said. No more details were available about the shooting, including the person's age or gender. NOPD spokesperson Paris Holmes said all three people were shot at the same location near the Jefferson Davis overpass. When the pandemic prompted companies to furlough or lay off thousands of employees, some chief executives decided to show solidarity by forgoing some of their pay. But it turns out that their sacrifice was minimal. A survey of some 3,000 public companies shows that the cuts which, so far, have come in the form of salary reductions were tiny compared with their total pay last year. Total pay includes things like bonuses and stock awards that typically make up the bulk of what corporate bosses take home. Only a small percentage of the companies cut salaries for their senior executives at all, which is surprising given that the pandemic has crushed profits and sales for many companies, forcing large layoffs. But even among businesses that did cut the bosss pay, two-thirds of the chief executives took reductions that were equivalent to only 10 per cent or less of their 2019 compensation, according to an analysis by CGLytics, a compensation analysis firm. Companies in this group include The Walt Disney Co., Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Marriott International. All of those businesses have laid off or furloughed employees or pressed workers to take pay cuts. This compensation analysis offers another example of how the coronavirus pandemic has walloped the working and middle classes while mostly sparing the people at the very top of the economic hierarchy. These salary cuts were more window dressing than anything else, said Liz Shuler, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. The labour federation Wednesday released a report showing that companies in the S&P 500 stock index last year paid chief executives on average 264 times as much as median employees, down from 287 times in 2018. Of course, this analysis is incomplete because the year is not over. In the coming months, corporate boards could decide to significantly reduce the bonuses and stock options they hand out to top executives for 2020. That would represent a big break from recent years when boards, which are primarily made up of corporate executives and investors, approved ever higher pay packages. A few chief executives have already taken a sizable hit. The survey showed that Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, a Seattle-based real estate brokerage, took a pay cut that was equivalent to the $284,000 he got in 2019. The reason we did it is because we had to furlough or lay off more than a thousand people, Kelman said when asked what motivated the decision to withhold his salary. Its not just about the pay cut; its about the general sense that capitalism is not working for everyone. CGLytics surveyed the companies in the Russell 3000 index, which comprises most of the publicly traded businesses in the United States, and found that 419 companies had disclosed details of salary cuts. Only about 10 per cent of those companies cut salaries by more than 25 per cent of the executives 2019 total realized compensation, a figure that CGLytics came up with by adding up all the money and stock each boss received last year. The firm values the stock at the price at which trading ended Dec. 31. The price of many stocks fell sharply this spring when the pandemic took hold. But stocks can recover over time, and many have soared since March. As it became clear that the pandemic was going to devastate the economy and their businesses, many boards and chief executives appeared to sense a need to tell workers and investors that they were sharing in the pain. United Airlines said the executives salary cuts were a recognition of the effects of the pandemic and to lead by example. United, which has been hit hard by a plunge in demand for air travel, is expected to start furloughing up to 36,000 workers Oct. 1. Oscar Munoz, who in May became Uniteds executive chair after serving as chief executive, did not get salary from March 10 through June 30, which amounted to a $610,000 (U.S.) pay cut on the $2 million salary he is being paid this year. But the reduction was a little less than three per cent of the $22.2 million that Munoz took home in 2019. Uniteds new chief executive, J. Scott Kirby, will give up around $790,000 of salary this year. That is equivalent to nine per cent of the $8.7 million that CGLytics estimates he received last year. United said that it was extremely unlikely that it would make 2020 bonus payments, which it planned to set at 250 per cent of salary, to its top executives. Deltas chief executive, Ed Bastian, took a salary cut of around $714,000, or 5.35 per cent of the total compensation he received in 2019, according to CGLytics. A Delta representative said the decline in Deltas stock price and difficulties ahead for the airline would weigh heavily on the value of Bastians pay. The spokesperson, Trebor Banstetter, said the value of Bastians total compensation this year was likely to be down 58 per cent from pre-pandemic projections, but he did not provide details of how the company arrived at that figure. Delta is asking its pilots to take pay cuts in order to keep their jobs. Disney awarded Robert A. Iger, its former chief executive who stepped down in February, large compensation packages over the nearly 15 years that he led the company. Iger, who is now executive chair, gave up his salary from the end of March through the end of the year. The $2.25 million in forgone pay is equivalent to 3.3 per cent of Igers total realized compensation in 2019, according to CGLytics. Disney furloughed tens of thousands of workers in March. The hotel industry has also been hit hard by the pandemic, and companies like Marriott International have been furloughing and laying off workers. The companys chief executive, Arne M. Sorenson, took a salary cut that was equivalent to less than two per cent of the $66 million in total compensation that CGLytics says he was paid in 2019. Connie Kim, a Marriott spokesperson, said nearly $50 million of the compensation for last year was related to stock appreciation rights granted nine to 10 years earlier. Some companies merely deferred salary payments for senior executives, rather than make outright cuts. General Motors deferred 30 per cent of the salary of its chief executive, Mary T. Barra, and other top leaders, and 20 per cent of other white-collar employees. The deferrals, which began April 1, were going to last for as long as six months, but Tuesday, General Motors told employees that it was ending the 20 per cent deferrals Aug. 1. Barra and the other senior executives will continue to defer 10 per cent of their salaries. She made $30 million in total realized compensation last year, according to CGLytics. When asked why the deferrals were ending sooner than expected, James R. Cain, a company spokesperson, said, The business demanded that we conserve cash, and it is recovering faster than we expected. As the worlds attention was captured by the news of Israel planning to annex yet a bit more of Palestine and add it to what they have already stolen, I received an email from Nizar Hassan, the pre-eminent Palestinian documentary filmmaker. He wrote to me about his latest film, My Grandfathers Path, and included a link to the directors cut. It was a blessing. They say choose your enemies carefully for you would end up like them. The same goes for those opposing Zionist settler colonialists. If you are too incensed and angered by their daily dose of claptrap, the vulgarity of their armed robbery of Palestine, you would soon become like them and forget yourself and what beautiful ideas, ideals, and aspirations once animated your highest dreams. Never fall into that trap. For decades, aspects of Palestinian and world cinema, art, poetry, fiction, and drama have done for me precisely that: saved me from that trap. They have constantly reminded me what all our politics are about a moment of poetic salvation from it all. Nizar Hassans new documentary is one such work in a moment of dejection over Israels encroachment on Palestinian rights and the worlds complicity, it has put Palestine in perspective. The film is mercifully long, beautifully paced and patient, a masterfully crafted work of art a Palestinians epic ode to his homeland. A shorter version of My Grandfathers Path has been broadcast on Al Jazeera Arabic in three parts, but it must be seen in its entirety, in one go. It is a pilgrimage that must not be interrupted. A patient filmmaker Nizar Hassan was born in 1960 and raised in the village of Mashad, near Nazareth, where he has lived with his family. He studied anthropology at Haifa University and after graduating worked in TV. Starting in 1990, he turned to cinema. In 1994, he produced Independence, in which he pokes his Palestinian interlocutors about what they think of the bizarre Israeli notion of their independence. They have stolen another peoples homeland and call the act independence! Hassan dwells on that absurdity. In his next film, Jasmine (1996), Hassan engaged Palestinians on the question of gender relations in Palestinian society in the aftermath of a murder of a Palestinian girl by her brother. Seven years later, Hassan directed the powerful film Invasion (also known as 13 Days in Jenin Camp, 2003) shot soon after the Jenin massacre of 2002, in which the Israeli army bulldozed through a refugee camp, killing scores of Palestinians. The film goes beyond simply documenting the horror of the events in Jenin to confront its perpetrators. It follows the narrative of an Israeli bulldozer driver who took part in the carnage and his reactions as he watches footage of the destruction and suffering of Palestinians he caused. Apart from these films, Hassans body of work spans a number of other films documenting aspects of Palestinians lives under Israeli occupation: Myth (1998), Cut (2000), Challenge (2002), Abu Khalil Grove (2006), South (2008). Hassan has been featured in film festivals in the Arab world, Europe, and North America. I have included his works in film festivals I have helped organise in the US, Argentina and Palestine. In the rich and diversified archive of Palestinian cinema, Hassan is a major figure with a serious body of work. Remembering a Palestinian grandfather So I knew Hassans documentary filmmaking quite well when I sat to watch his most recent work. But the power of the new film is something entirely different. It is not provocative, combative, or argumentative quite the contrary. My Grandfathers Path comes from such a deep and rooted confidence in a mans sense of his own homeland, it is as if the whole world, not just Israel, disappears, as the middle-aged director walking with a backpack becomes the epicentre of the films universe. With a determined stride along his grandfathers path, his reassuring voiceover, and his two-person crew following him, Hassan reclaims the magnificent landscape of Palestine as if there were no Zionist project interrupting that peaceful dream his film interprets. Watching the film, I was reminded of the poetic peace and confidence of Iranian poet Sohrab Sepehri in one of his signature poems, Mosafer (Traveller), where he alludes to his journey in Palestine: Oh, all you olive trees of Palestine: Address all the abundance of your shades to me: To this lonesome traveller Having just returned From the vicinity of Mount Sinai Feverish with The heat of the Divine Word To be sure, Hassan has told this story in a different way before. In his Abou Khalil Grove, he follows the fate of a Palestinian family from the Ottoman period to the emergence of Israel. In the same vein, in My Grandfathers Path, the palpable story is tracing the filmmakers own roots in his homeland way before the arrival of Zionism on the colonial map of the region. But what we see in this film is much more than just this objective history. We are in the presence of a master filmmaker in full command of his craft. In a masterstroke, which in the directors own bold and brilliant cut runs for more than three and a half hours, he undoes Zionism with poise, patience, a backpack, and a saintly solace. My Grandfathers Path is a walk through the physical and temporal landscape of Palestine by one solitary Palestinian in the company of a sound engineer and a cinematographer. He crosses paths with a few friends, but constant remain the voice and vista of Nizar Hassan himself and his backpack, walking his homeland inch by inch while telling us the story of his grandfather. The film is an epic narrative, quietly more eloquent than the proudest of Mahmoud Darwishs epic poetry. Hassan here no longer feels compelled to prove anything. He has bypassed Israel and delivered to the world an ode to the rooted beauty and proud longevity of his homeland. The self-defeating project of Zionism Watching Hassans film as the Palestinians continued dispossession unfolds apace, a peculiar truth comes forward. Palestinians do not have the military might to fight for every inch of their homeland, but they have something more powerful than machine guns, tanks and fighter jets or the occupied territories of US politics. They have something far stronger than all those nefarious forces put together: They thrive in the power of their storytelling, and they are full of stories humane, real, worldly, truthful, enduring, awe-inspiring. In effect, we have two parallel tracks that have historically unfolded for the world to see: one the continued colonisation of the entirety of Palestine by a European settler colony, and the other Palestinian artists, poets, novelists, and filmmakers like Hassan overriding and dismantling that project of colonial thievery. Israelis have thrived on stealing inch after inch of Palestine and incorporating it into their settler-colonial garrison state. But inside their garrisons and their captured imagination, they have Palestinians telling themselves and the world their stories. Israelis have no stories to tell, except the abuse of the Biblical texts to justify their exclusive domination over Palestine; they are left with the naked brutality of the Zionist project. Against that brutal history of disposition, all a Palestinian has to do is to pack a backpack, grab hold of a camera and a sound recorder and start walking and talking about his or her grandfather or grandmother. That is all. In the face of these stories, Zionism, with all its military might and massive propaganda machinery, disappears into oblivion as if it never happened, as if it is not happening. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. A San Francisco restaurant in the North Beach neighborhood has sparked controversy with a series of signs featuring provocative messages and rants in a mix of English and Italian. The messages posted in the windows of Trattoria Pinocchio call San Francisco a cesspool, suggest a race war is inevitable and question the gender of former first lady Michelle Obama. "Is Michel (sic) Obama a women or a man???" it reads. Another sign attacks the media and refers to many outlets, including CNN, MSNBC and CBS, as fake. The Italian restaurant that opened at 401 Columbus in 2001 is closing its doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to KRON 4. The restaurant's phone number and website are both no longer working. SFGATE was unable to reach the owner and confirm that he created the signs, but he told KRON the messages are an expression of freedom of speech. Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE The owner of a neighboring business called the signs a "disgrace" and "repulsive." "A lot of it is hate speech," said Vince, who asked that his last name not be used. "I had nothing to do with him." Dan Macchiarini, president of the North Beach Business Association called the owner of Trattoria Pinnochi an "extreme individualist." "He's anti-social and anti-community in everything he has done," Macchiarini said. "He hasn't been a part of the community in any way." Macchiarini called the signs "racist" and "bigoted" and said they do not represent the neighborhood "in any way." A San Francisco resident commented on the signs in a posting on Yelp. "This is just a review of the owner and all of his racist propaganda that is spewed incoherently all over the building, it is truly disheartening," wrote Brye L. "There is no way that we will ever step foot in this building while this owner occupies this space. Move along." District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin told KRON the owner of the establishment is known by local residents "to be unhinged." Nobody in the neighborhood is sad to see him go, Peskin said. According to the Trattoria Pinocchio Facebook page, the restaurant "is owned and run by Giovanni Zocca and his wife Maria." Zocca immigrated from Sicily to New York when he was 17 years old before moving to Monterey, where he was a fisherman and worked in restaurants. Amy Graff is the news editor at SFGATE. Email her: agraff@sfgate.com. Iraqis are contending with record-breaking temperatures and a poorly functioning electricity system as a heat wave sweeps across the country. I felt a burn on the street when I walked home, Erbil resident Ali Abdulwahid told Al-Monitor. On Tuesday, the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, recorded an all-time high temperature of 125 degrees Fahrenheit (51.7 Celsius), according to the weather forecasting service AccuWeather. Though no records were broken Thursday, there was not much relief from the scorching temperatures. The high in Baghdad was 120 degrees Fahrenheit (48.9 Celsius) Thursday. The high in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region farther north, was also 120. The high in the southern city of Basra was 125, according to Accuweather. One video circulating among Iraqis on WhatsApp showed smoke rising from the dirt on the side of a road in Baghdad due to the heat. Iraq is not the only country in the region to reach such temperatures. Many Gulf states are similarly hot. However, the Iraqi summer is particularly unbearable due to the poorly functioning government-run electrical grid. Frequent power cuts mean people must rely on generators, but these often cannot power cooling systems. This means that many Iraqis must brave the heat without air conditioning, fans and water-based coolers for much of the day. Nibras Khalil lives in the northern city of Bashiqa. He said they usually have power around 16 hours a day, but sometimes it is less than 12. "To stay cool, I had to take shower and sleep on ground to make my body cool, Khalil told Al-Monitor. Its the hottest year Ive seen. Abdulwahid said if there is no electricity, he simply looks for shadows and then stays in the shade. Temperatures in Iraq drop significantly after sundown. The electrical system's failings is fueling ongoing anti-government protests in the country. There was a protest against electricity shortages in Baghdad this week. There were similar protests against poor services Thursday in Basra and Dhi Qar in the south, according to the pro-protest #Save_The_Iraqi_People channel on Telegram. Many Iraqis criticize the government for failing to provide adequate electricity, especially given Iraqs oil wealth. Last week, it was officially okay to go on holiday to Spain. This week, as holidaymakers return from Spanish resorts, all sun-bronzed and sandy, they'll be sent straight into self-isolation, with no sick pay. Nice homecoming. Meanwhile, if people cancel a planned trip to Spain, they risk losing the entire cost of their holiday, since many travel insurers won't cover the expense. Why? Because cases of coronavirus have begun to rise in certain parts of Spain, causing the UK government - and our own little rickety parliament on the hill - to slap a sudden, panicked quarantine order on the whole country, including the Canary and Balearic islands, even though these popular holiday destinations have seen no rise at all in Covid cases, and disease levels remain low. In vain did Spanish ministers point out that Spain was safe for Spaniards and for tourists; that the outbreaks, mostly restricted to a few specific regions, were to be expected following the lifting of lockdown, and were "perfectly controlled". In vain did they protest that the Canary and Balearic islands actually had a lower infection rate than Britain, and that in the majority of the country, the cumulative incidence of the virus is lower than both the European average and the UK average. No use. Down came the portcullis on Fortress Britain with an ominous clang - also sounding the imminent death-knell for the airline and foreign tourism industries, not to mention our individual freedoms to live and travel as we wish. Now anyone who goes on holiday abroad, after what has been a dreadful, draining, disorienting few months, is routinely shamed as selfish and irresponsible. Caring only for their own heedless pleasures while putting untold thousands at risk of their lives. Is a jug of sangria at a beachfront bar in Benidorm worth killing your grandmother for? That's the general tenor of the morally outraged response, mostly from smug middle-class lockdown zealots who are virtuously "staycationing" somewhere wet and cold, nearer home, and are perhaps feeling a little jealous. What such doom-mongers forget, however, is that the reason that travel is beginning to become possible again is because the incidence of Covid across Europe has dropped substantially. Yes, authorities in countries across the continent are imposing localised lockdowns and curfews, where Covid has raised its ugly head again, but so far these clusters have not coalesced into a dreaded "second wave" of widespread death and destruction. Crucially, while cases have risen in specific parts of Spain, including around Barcelona, Spain has recorded only 26 deaths in the past fortnight. This is a reminder that even if you are unlucky enough to catch Covid, whether abroad or at home, the risk of dying from it is low, unless you're elderly, frail or already unwell with an underlying health condition. Point any of these scientifically verifiable facts out, however, and you'll be publicly accused - as I was, on air, this week - of being a Donald Trump figure. In other words, a confused, dangerously deluded Right-wing megalomaniac who thinks injecting bleach could be a cure for coronavirus. (Further verifiable fact: it isn't). Many on the Left now seem to regard any criticism of the severity of Tory-imposed coronavirus restrictions, the long-term economic impact of which will hit the poorest hardest, and drastically widen inequality, as evidence of loopy Trumpian fanaticism. In the same way, "liberals" are now among the most illiberal people on the planet. The world really has turned upside down. Is it any wonder we need a holiday? Hard-working people should not be shamed and ritually demeaned for wanting a few well-earned days in the sun. Of course, caution is required, whether at home or abroad. Public health measures, especially social distancing, should continue to be observed as far as possible. In the end, the decision whether to travel or not belongs to the individual. Each of us must weigh up our own acceptable level of risk - which includes the risk that the government might suddenly slap our chosen holiday destination on a quarantine list. Those whose age or health puts them in increased danger if they develop Covid will make their own choices. Personally, I can't wait to begin travelling again. The only thing stopping me is that the places I love in Europe are still burdened by coronavirus restrictions. When these places return to something resembling their familiar, free and wonderful selves, I'll be straight back. In the absence of a vaccine, we are going to have to learn to exist alongside this virus. We cannot hide from it forever. Do we embrace fear, or hope? Only you can decide. YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues is determined to make efforts for achieving a solution to Nagorno Karabakh conflict that will grant it an international status and keep it Armenian, ARMENPRESS reports Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues Rep. Frank Pallone said during a video confernce between the Armenia-USA parliamentary friendship group and the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues. ''The Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues will continue making efforts for the establishment of lasting peace in the region. I know that now is a tense period and Azerbaijan is launching aggression. But we know that it's necessary to achieve a solution that will grant Nagorno Karabakh an international status, keeping it Armenian'', Pallone said. Reporting by Anna Grigoryan, Editing and Translating by Tigran Sirekanyan The United States called on Belarus on July 30 to conduct its upcoming presidential election in a free and fair manner as it expressed disappointment over the lack of Western observers to monitor the vote. Belarus will hold a presidential election on August 9 in what is shaping up to be a tough race for incumbent Alyaksandr Lukashenka, an authoritarian leader who has been in power since 1994. Belarus, whose elections consistently have been deemed neither free nor fair by Western observers since the late 1990s, did not invite the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in time to monitor the vote. We deeply regret that the OSCE will not have the opportunity to send observers to see this election, George Kent, who serves as deputy assistant secretary overseeing policy toward Belarus, told RFE/RL in an interview on July 30. The senior State Department official said the United States has raised the issue of having observers, as well as our desire to see the elections conducted freely and fairly. Lukashenka has cracked down on the opposition during the campaign, with the arrest of hundreds of people, including activists and bloggers as well as some candidates. Nonetheless, opposition candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya still attracted tens of thousands of supporters at a rally in Minsk on July 30 as her campaign gathers steam. Tsikhanouskaya joined the race after her husband, a candidate, was arrested. Kent said the United States has expressed concern over the detainment and harassment of journalists and has raised the topic with Belarusian officials. We do raise these issues because I think they are at the core of any successful society, he said. Freedom of the press is critical, he said. Citizens need information so they can make decisions about their society. The conduct and the outcome of the elections could have a profound impact on Minsks relationship with foreign countries, including the United States. Washington imposed sanctions on Belarus in the 2000s over human rights abuses, including a crackdown on political opponents. While some of the sanctions were eased after Belarus released political prisoners, their full removal requires additional steps in opening and democratizing to give Belarusians the chance to express their opinions, Kent said. The easing of sanctions enabled the United States to ship earlier this year its first tanker of oil to Belarus. A second tanker is currently on its way. Another step forward in warming relations will come next month when the countries are expected to exchange ambassadors for the first time in 12 years. The new Belarusian ambassador to the United States will arrive in the middle of August, while the U.S. Senate is expected to confirm Julie Fisher, a top State Department official for Europe, as the new U.S. ambassador to Belarus after her hearing on August 5. Belarus, wedged largely between NATO nations and Russia, has historically had close ties to its large neighbor to the east. Russia has propped up the economy of Belarus with cheap oil and gas exports. However, the bilateral relationship has been strained ever since Russia forcibly annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, raising concerns in Belarus about its own sovereignty. Minsk has since rebuffed efforts by Moscow to consummate a planned union state that was first conceived more than 20 years ago. Kent said the United States wants Belarus to remain a sovereign nation and that Minsk should have the right to choose its own geopolitical trajectory. Warmer ties with the United States and its allies should not preclude a friendly relationship with Russia, he said. Even as the U.S. has looked to normalize our relationship, we do not expect nor do we pressure Belarus to make a choice between East and West. That would be a false choice, Kent said. Introduction Chairman Clyburn, Ranking Member Scalise and distinguished members of this select subcommittee. It is an honor to appear before you today to discuss the Department of Health and Human Services' ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are grateful for this opportunity to address how each of our agencies and offices are harnessing innovation to prevent, diagnose, and treat the novel coronavirus SARs-CoV-2. COVID-19 is a new disease, caused by a novel (or new) coronavirus that has not previously been seen in humans. This new disease, officially named Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) by the World Health Organization (WHO), is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. There are many types of human coronaviruses including some that commonly cause mild upper- respiratory tract illnesses. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses. Some cause illness in people, and others, such as canine and feline coronaviruses, only infect animals. Rarely, coronaviruses that infect animals have emerged to infect people and can spread between people. This is suspected to have occurred for the virus that causes COVID-19. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) are two other examples of coronaviruses that originated in animals and then spread to people. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is working closely with all of our government partners in this response. We thank Congress for supporting our efforts through the passage of the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020; the Families First Coronavirus Response Act; the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act; and the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act. These laws have provided additional resources, authorities, and flexibility. Within HHS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the Assistant Secretary for Health, along with additional components not represented today, play critical roles in the response to this public health emergency as discussed below. CDC is America's health protection agency, and works 24/7 to prevent illness, save lives and protect America from health, safety and security threats, both abroad and in the United States. CDC has a key role in preparedness and response, and addressing infectious diseases like COVID-19 is central to our mission. CDC is building upon decades of experience and leadership in responding to prior infectious disease emergencies, including SARS, MERS, Ebola, Zika, and the H1N1 pandemic influenza, to meet new challenges presented by COVID-19. These challenges are many, and they are historic. Every single American is affected by this pandemic, and CDC is combatting this public health crisis with every applicable asset we have. CDC is drawing on its emergency response capacity and its relationships with state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT), global, and private sector partners; and is leveraging our workforce's strengths in public health surveillance, prevention, and laboratory capacity, to develop and provide the nation with the science-backed information and analysis needed to address this public health emergency. CDC has developed and continues to update guidance for healthcare professionals and the public to encourage safer practices, improve health outcomes, and save lives. CDC is also working with partners to develop guidance and decision tools to assist state and local officials and other stakeholders in adjusting mitigation strategies. CDC has been recommending that people wear cloth face coverings in public settings around others outside of their households; there is increasing evidence that these masks help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus to others. Importantly, CDC is collaborating to prepare the nation's public health system and the private sector to disseminate rapidly a vaccine to the American people when one is available. Abroad, CDC is leveraging investments in global health security, pandemic influenza preparedness and public health infrastructures and capacities built through assets like CDC's Field Epidemiology Training Program and National Public Health Institutes program to support countries in mitigating and containing COVID-19. CDC's experts in over 60 countries work hand-in-hand with host governments in responding to COVID-19. Since the beginning of the outbreak, they have been providing technical assistance, and now programmatic funding, to help countries mitigate the effects of COVID-19 and stop the disease from spreading. The emergence and rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, confirms that an infectious disease threat anywhere is a threat to Americans everywhere, including here at home. When, in late December 2019, Chinese authorities announced a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown etiology centered in Wuhan, China, CDC began monitoring the outbreak. At the beginning of January, CDC began developing regular situation reports, including input from our respiratory disease experts in the CDC Country Office in China, which were shared with HHS, and reached out to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention to offer CDC support. By January 7, 2020, CDC began expanding its incident management (IM) and response structure to facilitate staffing and communications. On January 21, 2020, CDC officially activated its Emergency Operations Center for COVID-19. Using the IM structure, CDC immediately set up task forces to address key needs, reach out to our state and local partners, and deploy staff where needed to support state and local screening and investigation efforts. CDC is an integral part of the COVID-19 response and coordinates with other agencies through the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) led by Secretary Azar. Addressing COVID-19 is an all-of- government effort. As of July 29, 2020, in the U.S., there have been 4,339,997 COVID-19 cases, 148,866 deaths. The latest data can be found on CDC's website: https://www.cdc.gov/covid-data- tracker/index.html. Congress has addressed the urgent need to respond to this pandemic at home and abroad and has allocated substantial resources for CDC's COVID-19 activities through the statutes mentioned above. This funding supports a federally guided, state managed, and locally implemented response to COVID-19 in the United States. Throughout the United States, CDC is working with STLT partners to focus use of these resources to establish and enhance case identification; conduct contact tracing; implement appropriate containment and community mitigation measures; improve public health surveillance; enhance testing capacity; control COVID-19 in high-risk settings; protect vulnerable and high-risk populations; and work with healthcare systems to manage and monitor capacity. Contact tracing is a core disease control strategy that involves timely contact investigation followed by the implementation of an intervention (for example, isolation and quarantine) that interrupts disease transmission. Case investigation and contact tracer staff have been employed as local and state health department personnel for decades to address other infectious diseases, and contact tracing is a key strategy for preventing further spread of SARS- CoV-2 as well as a key component of state plans to reopen. Prior to COVID-19, there were about 2,000 contact tracers in the U.S. Various studies estimate that about 100,000 contact tracers may be needed for COVID-19 (https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/pubs_archive/pubs-pdfs/2020/200410- national-plan-to-contact-tracing.pdf). To support health department needs, as of July 23, 2020, CDC has announced or obligated $12.1 billion in direct awards to jurisdictions across America from the funds provided by Congress, including $10.25 billion from the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enactment Act. In addition, to support STLT surge staffing needs, CDC is working with a variety of partners across the public and private sectors as well as collaborating with other federal agencies to explore innovative solutions to help states fill workforce gaps. For example, CDC is partnering with the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees the AmeriCorps program, to facilitate conversations with state public health agencies. This effort can spur new partnerships and help states supplement their workforce by identifying new, potential workers that they can access within their own state. Many of CDC's over 300 field staff that are already embedded into local health departments are contact tracers and have been reassigned to help meet local COVID-19 contact tracing needs. In addition, CDC has launched a multifaceted approach to enhance and complement STLT efforts and expand support to communities during the current public health emergency. As a public health agency and the nation's primary resource for STLT health departments on managing disease outbreaks, CDC provides guidance and support to health departments in the development and implementation of effective containment and community mitigation strategies. STLT jurisdictions are best positioned to understand the unique situation of each community, including the current status of their existing public health infrastructure and workforce and any needs for enhancement. The goal is for state, tribal, local, and territorial jurisdictions to have robust public health systems which include a contact tracing infrastructure that meets the unique needs of each jurisdiction. As of July 2020, CDC has posted over a dozen contact tracing guidance documents, including case investigation guidelines, checklists for developing a case investigation and contact tracing plan, digital contact tracing tools, and a Contact Tracing Communications Toolkit for Health Departments. Beginning in April, the White House, and Federal partners including CDC, convened calls with all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia to identify testing capacities and needs. Through these calls and other outreach efforts, CDC has worked with individual jurisdictions to identify needs, develop plans, and offer technical assistance to enhance testing capacity, state surveillance, contact tracing, and surge staffing. Through CDC funding, CDC, the HHS Office of Assistant Secretary for Health, and the Association of Public Health Laboratories are currently reviewing individual state testing plans with a focus on achieving increased monthly testing targets. These discussions and plans for action emphasize the need to serve vulnerable populations and include focused efforts for long-term care facilities, federally qualified health centers, and Tribal Nations, among others. CDC is working with state and local health departments to support forward-looking testing strategies that ensure that vulnerable or high-risk populations, such as persons of color, have adequate access to testing. CDC is working with the HHS Health Resources and Services Administration and Federally Qualified Health Centers to develop and implement a strategy to increase testing in these clinics and to provide the clinics with the tools and resources to diagnose, treat, and monitor COVID-19 illness in the populations they serve. CDC has developed a new serologic laboratory test to assist with efforts to determine how much of the U.S. population has been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The serology test looks for the presence of antibodies, which are specific proteins made in response to infections. It typically takes one to three weeks after someone becomes sick with COVID-19 for their body to make antibodies; some people may take longer to develop antibodies. The antibodies detected by this test indicate that a person has had an immune response to SARS-CoV-2, regardless of whether symptoms developed from infection or the infection was asymptomatic. However, it is important to point out that, at this point, we do not know whether the presence of antibodies provides immunity to the virus. Currently, CDC's serologic test is designed and validated exclusively for broad-based surveillance and research that is giving us information needed to guide the response to the pandemic and protect the public's health. Given the uncertainty of when an individual may develop antibodies and how long the antibodies may be present, the test is currently not designed to test individuals who want to know if they have been previously infected with SARS-CoV-2. It is only intended for population-based, surveillance and research use. In March 2020, CDC and public health partners began seroprevalence surveys of community transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. These studies use serum samples collected across the nation, including household studies in some states. Seroprevalence surveys help track how infections progress through the population over time and identify infections that might have been missed due to lack of symptoms or testing not being performed. CDC is conducting many seroprevalence studies and has recently published the results from a study that used remnants of samples collected during routine clinical care. This was done in conjunction with two commercial companies and results indicated that it is likely that greater than 10 times more SARS-CoV-2 infections occurred than the number of reported COVID-19 cases. On April 27, 2020, CDC updated testing prioritization and focused testing guidelines for those who may have or who are at risk for active SARS-CoV-2 infection. Clinicians considering testing of persons with possible COVID-19 should use a diagnostic laboratory test that has been properly validated for the detection of SARS-CoV-2. Healthcare providers should coordinate testing through clinical or public health laboratories that are certified to perform diagnostic testing. Increasing testing capacity will allow clinicians to consider the medical necessity of COVID-19 testing for a wider group of symptomatic patients and persons without symptoms in certain situations. CDC recommends that clinicians should use their judgment to determine if a patient has signs and symptoms compatible with COVID-19 and whether the patient should be tested. Other considerations that may guide testing are epidemiologic factors such as known exposure to an individual who has tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and the occurrence of local community transmission or transmission within a specific setting/facility (e.g., nursing homes) of COVID-19. CDC has also developed a new multiplex laboratory test that checks for three viruses at the same time, two types of influenza viruses (A and B) and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, using a single sample collected from an individual. Testing for all three viruses simultaneously will allow public health laboratories to continue surveillance for influenza while testing for COVID-19. This will save public health laboratories both time and resources, including testing materials that are in short supply. Another benefit of the new test is that laboratories will be better able to find co-infections of influenza and SARS-COV-2, which is important for doctors to diagnose and treat people properly. The FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization at CDC's request for this combined laboratory test on July 2, 2020. The multiplex assay is accessible to the public health laboratory community and technical information is publicly available on CDC's website so that commercial developers can use this information in developing proprietary tests if they wish. CDC expects that private sector laboratory test developers may be creating similar multiplex assays to meet clinician needs during influenza season. Accurate data are critical as we continue to assess the burden placed on the American healthcare system to inform reopening. CDC is leveraging all available surveillance systems to monitor COVID-19 and protect vulnerable communities, including influenza and viral respiratory disease systems. In collaboration with STLT public health partners, CDC is committed to making data available to the public, while protecting individual privacy. CDC is using diverse systems to define a more complete picture of the outbreak, including race/ethnicity data and is working with communities of color to protect communities at risk. CDC has recently updated the COVID-19 Case Report Form to allow for better collection of data on populations that have previously been under-represented in reporting. The initial Case Report Form included questions for sex, age, race and ethnicity and whether the case is part of a recognized outbreak. The revised form includes additional variables for populations, such as tribal nations, that may be at higher risk for severe illness and risk factors such as homelessness and disabilities. States have improved the completeness of their reporting in the past three months. In particular, the percentage of reports that include race data has increased from 21 percent in April to 59 percent in late July, while the percentage of reports that include ethnicity data increased from 18 percent to 50 percent during the same time period. While progress has been made, CDC will continue to work with states to improve completeness of the data. New reporting requirements require states to report race, ethnicity and other important demographic information with test results providing information on those impacted. CDC's population-based COVID-NET system monitors COVID-19 associated hospitalizations that have a confirmed positive test in greater than 250 acute care hospitals in 99 counties in 14 states. Data gathered are used to estimate age-specific hospitalization rates on a weekly basis and describe characteristics of persons hospitalized with COVID-19 illness. CDC staff also have access to HHS Protect, a platform for sharing healthcare information that allows the U.S. government to harness the full power of data for the COVID-19 response. CDC's existing National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) continues to collect COVID-19 data from nursing homes and long-term care facilities. The NHSN also collects data from hospitals across the U.S. to address healthcare-associated infections and fight against antibiotic resistance. The American people, communities, public health professionals, medical providers, businesses, and schools look to CDC for trusted guidance on responding to COVID-19. CDC develops and disseminates guidance for a range of audiences, individuals and communities, including business, schools, and healthcare professionals. These recommendations include actions that every American should take, such as following good personal hygiene practices, staying at home when sick, and practicing social distancing to lower the risk of disease spread. Last week, CDC released new science-based resources and tools to support opening schools this fall. These resources provide students, school administrators, and parents the information they need to guide their decision-making on attending in-person curriculum and how to adapt to local conditions. Working in collaboration with their local health departments, schools can implement mitigation strategies - such as use of cloth face coverings, social distancing, hand washing, cohorting, and cleaning and disinfection - to help protect the health and safety of students, teachers, staff, and their community. CDC's school resources can be found here: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/index.html.CDC guidance is available here: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting- sick/index.html Mitigation and containment of COVID-19 are the key to public health strategies, and CDC is committed to using our expertise and partnering with others on the frontlines. While surveillance, testing, contact tracing, and community mitigation interventions are the best tools we have right now, looking to the future, CDC continues to work to prepare our nation's public and private health systems to deliver effectively a COVID-19 vaccine once it is available. This includes working with CDC's 64 immunization grant recipients to help ensure that the U.S. immunization system can mount an effective vaccine delivery program, including vaccine distribution and tracking. While it remains unclear how long the pandemic will last, COVID-19 activity will likely continue for some time. It is also unclear what impact the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will have on health care and public health systems during the upcoming influenza season. If there is COVID-19 and flu activity at the same time, this could place a tremendous burden on the health care system related to bed occupancy, laboratory testing needs, personal protective equipment and health care worker safety. In the context of likely ongoing COVID-19 activity, getting a flu vaccine is more important now that ever. Getting a flu vaccine will help keep you and your loved ones out of a doctor's offices and hospitals and help conserve scarce medical resources to care for COVID-19 patients. CDC works with public health and clinical partners each year to increase the number of people who get the flu vaccine and eliminate barriers to vaccination. Ongoing COVID-19 activity may affect where and how flu vaccines are given. CDC is working with manufacturers to maximize flu vaccine supply and with providers and health departments to develop contingency plans so that people can be vaccinated in a safe environment. In addition, on June 4, CDC awarded $140 million to 64 jurisdictions through CDC's existing immunization cooperative agreement to enable state health departments to launch an initial scale up for influenza season, given the increased risk of COVID-19. Funds will, among other activities, begin to support staffing and preparedness this summer and focus on ensuring flu vaccine coverage for these vulnerable populations. Due to the risk of COVID-19, the goal is to significantly increase flu coverage for vulnerable populations during the 2020-21 flu season, ensure Americans are aware of the importance of getting vaccinated this flu season, and significantly increase access to flu vaccines for uninsured, high-risk adults. CDC relies on timely and accurate public health surveillance data to guide public health action and inform the nationwide response to COVID-19. This crisis has highlighted the need to continue efforts to modernize the public health data systems that CDC and states rely on for accurate data. Public health data surveillance and analytical infrastructure modernization efforts started in FY 2020 using funds provided by Congress, which have been augmented by $500 million provided for these efforts under the CARES Act. Timely and accurate data are essential as CDC and the nation work to understand the impact of COVID-19 on all Americans, particularly for populations at greater risk for severe illness, such as older Americans, those with chronic medical conditions, and some racial and ethnic minorities. Modernization efforts include support for the surveillance and data workforce, a key asset of the public health system. The vision is a real-time, interoperable networked health data system capable of moving faster than the health threats we combat, and we are moving toward that goal. COVID-19 is the most significant public health challenge to face our nation in more than a century. CDC is providing the American public with the information and assistance it needs to address COVID-19 head on. As we work together to fight COVID-19 and end this pandemic, CDC is committed to its mission to protect all Americans from disease threats and to save lives. NIH is the HHS agency leading the research response to COVID-19 and the novel coronavirus that causes the disease, SARS-CoV-2. Within NIH, NIAID is responsible for conducting and supporting research on emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, including COVID-19. NIAID responds rapidly to threats of emerging infectious diseases, by accelerating fundamental basic research efforts, engaging a domestic and international basic and clinical research infrastructure that can be quickly mobilized, and leveraging collaborative and highly productive partnerships with industry. NIAID also provides preclinical research resources to scientists in academia and private industry throughout the world to advance translational research on emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. These research resources help bridge gaps in the product development pipeline, thereby lowering the scientific, technical, and financial risks incurred by product developers and incentivizing companies to partner with us in developing safe and effective countermeasures including vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. NIAID has a longstanding commitment to coronavirus research, including extensive efforts to combat two other serious diseases caused by coronaviruses: SARS and MERS. This research has enhanced our fundamental understanding of coronaviruses in general and provides a strong foundation for our accelerated efforts to address the specific challenge of COVID-19 by developing vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. Developing Vaccines to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection A safe and effective vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 will be essential to stopping the spread of infection, reducing rates of morbidity and mortality, and preventing future outbreaks. NIAID recently established the COVID-19 Prevention Network (CoVPN) by leveraging four existing NIAID-funded clinical trials networks: the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN), the Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium (IDCRC), and the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), in partnership with the DOD. The CoVPN aims to enroll thousands of volunteers in large-scale clinical trials testing a variety of investigational vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and drugs intended to treat and protect people from COVID-19. The CoVPN is a functional unit of 'Operation Warp Speed' (OWS), a public-private partnership led by HHS to invest in and coordinate the development, manufacture, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. The CoVPN will participate in harmonized protocols, developed in collaboration with the Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) public-private partnership. The network is expected to participate in numerous trials at more than 100 clinical trial sites across the United States and internationally. The CoVPN has developed an extensive community engagement framework to reach out to the diverse communities most affected by COVID-19; understand interest in, and concerns about, research participation in these communities; and partner with them to ensure their input is reflected in study implementation. As part of a longstanding collaboration, the NIAID Vaccine Research Center worked with the biotechnology company Moderna, Inc., to develop a vaccine candidate using a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine platform expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. On March 16, 2020, NIAID initiated a Phase 1 clinical trial of this experimental vaccine at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, and later added clinical sites at Emory University and the NIH Clinical Center. This trial was recently expanded to enroll older adults to better define the safety of and immune response to the vaccine across various age groups. On July 14, 2020, interim findings from the Phase 1 clinical trial were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The investigational mRNA-1273 vaccine was generally well tolerated and induced robust neutralizing antibody responses in healthy adults in this interim analysis of data from the ongoing trial. On May 29, 2020, a Phase 2 clinical trial, sponsored by Moderna, was initiated to further study the safety and immune response to the experimental mRNA vaccine. On July 8, 2020, Moderna announced that the Phase 2 trial was fully enrolled, with one cohort of healthy younger adults and a separate cohort of older adults. NIAID and BARDA are working with Moderna on a Phase 3 clinical trial with the CoVPN that launched on July 27, 2020. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) funded the manufacture of the vaccine candidate for the Phase 1 trial, and BARDA is supporting advanced development of the candidate. Scientists at NIAID's Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, Montana, are collaborating with University of Oxford researchers to develop a SARS-CoV-2 chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored vaccine candidate AZD1222, formerly known as ChAdOx1, now in a Phase 2/3 clinical trial supported by the University of Oxford. The University of Oxford has partnered with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca on this vaccine candidate, now in a Phase 2/3 clinical trial supported by the University. BARDA recently announced plans to support advanced development and production of AZD1222. RML investigators also have partnered with University of Washington scientists to investigate another mRNA vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2. NIAID is working with additional academic and industry partners to develop several other vaccine concepts. The rigorous clinical testing required to establish vaccine safety and efficacy means that it might take some time for a licensed SARS-CoV-2 vaccine to be available to the general public, but there is growing optimism that one or more of these vaccine candidates will prove safe and effective by late 2020 or early 2021. In addition to vaccine candidates, the CoVPN plans to evaluate monoclonal antibodies directed against SARS-CoV-2 as tools to prevent transmission and spread. One clinical study will evaluate the use of these monoclonal antibodies for prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection in households in which there is a confirmed case of COVID-19. A second clinical study will examine monoclonal antibodies for prevention among staff and residents in senior living facilities. Identifying Therapeutics to Treat COVID-19 Effective therapeutics for COVID-19 are critically needed to treat patients who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2. On February 21, 2020, NIAID launched a multicenter, randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial, the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial (ACTT), to evaluate the safety and efficacy of therapeutics for COVID-19, initially examining the antiviral drug remdesivir for treatment of severe COVID-19 in hospitalized adults (ACTT-1). An analysis of preliminary data from CTt-1 indicated that those who received remdesivir had a 32 percent faster time to recovery, a medium of 11 days compared with 15 days for those who received placebo. The adaptive design of this trial will enable the evaluation over time of additional promising therapies, such as the anti-inflammatory drug baricitinib. Additionally, the analysis found that remdesivir may benefit survival, although the mortality data did not reach statistical significance. A mortality rate of 7.1 percent was observed for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.9 percent for placebo. These initial findings were published on May 22, 2020, in the New England Journal of Medicine. The adaptive design of this trial will enable the evaluation over time of additional promising therapies, such as the anti-inflammatory drug baricitinib. This drug was added to the second iteration of the study (ACTT-2); enrollment for ACTT-2 is now complete. NIAID plans to evaluate the use of interferon beta-1a, which is used to treat individuals with multiple sclerosis, in the third iteration of the study (ACTT-3). Monoclonal antibodies are another promising approach for the treatment of COVID-19. At least 21 companies are developing monoclonal antibodies that target SARS-CoV-2 and several of them have started early clinical trials. Monoclonal antibodies that target over- exuberant immune responses also are being studied. As part of the ACTIV partnership, and in collaboration with other NIH Institutes, NIAID plans to launch a series of OWS-supported studies to evaluate monoclonal antibodies in both outpatient and hospitalized settings. Outpatient studies of direct-acting antivirals also are scheduled to begin in August. NIAID also is planning separate clinical trials to assess hyperimmune intravenous immunoglobulin for treatment of COVID-19 in both outpatients and hospitalized adults. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has established the Collaborating Network of Networks for Evaluating COVID-19 and Therapeutic Strategies (CONNECTS) to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on the heart, lungs, blood, and blood vessels, and to identify therapies that will slow or halt disease progression and speed recovery. CONNECTS will leverage existing NIH-funded clinical trial networks to conduct adaptive trials, in which researchers can test a variety of interventions simultaneously, easily share their data, and quickly identify the most promising treatments. CONNECTS also will bring together ongoing NIH- funded epidemiological cohort studies to examine the characteristics of individuals who do and do not develop SARS-CoV-2 infection and to help shed light on who is at risk for developing severe illness due to COVID-19. This knowledge will identify risk factors, inform strategies for primary and secondary prevention, and suggest biomarkers of infection and adverse outcomes. It will also tell us about the natural history and long-term consequences of the disease. Among the first trials launched through CONNECTS, and in alignment with the ACTIV initiative, NHLBI will soon begin a series of clinical trials on the use of anticoagulants, hoping to stem the life- threatening blood clots that occur in many COVID-19 patients. Additionally, CONNECTS will leverage the NIH-funded Strategies to Innovate Emergency Care Clinical Trials Network (SIREN) to study whether convalescent plasma, or blood plasma from individuals who have recovered from COVID-19, can help reduce the progression of COVID-19 in patients with mild symptoms. NHLBI also sponsored the addition of U.S. sites for a Canada-funded trial of colchicinean anti-inflammatory drug commonly used to treat goutfor treating COVID-19 in the outpatient setting. The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is leveraging the NCATS Pharmaceutical Collection, a compilation of every drug approved for human use by major regulatory agencies worldwide, and other collections of small molecules and compounds to identify potential SARS-CoV-2 therapeutics for further investigation. Other Institutes and Centers across NIH also are working concurrently with partners in academia and industry to pursue the development and testing of mAbs, antiviral, and anti-thrombotic drugs for potential treatment of COVID-19. NIAID, NCI, NHLBI, NCATS, the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) are all engaged in this critical effort. NIH, in collaboration with the Foundation for the NIH, recently launched an innovative public-private partnership to speed the development of COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines. The ACTIV public-private partnership brings together stakeholders from across the U.S. government, industry, and the European Medicines Agency to develop an international strategy for a coordinated research response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Other federal partners include BARDA, DOD, the Department of Veterans Affairs, CDC, and FDA. NIAID has been asked to lead the effort of U.S. government-supported clinical trials for certain vaccine candidates using the CoVPN and some therapeutic interventions that have been considered by ACTIV. NIH also has convened the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel, comprised of representatives of NIH and five other federal agencies along with representatives of eight professional organizations, academic experts, and treating physicians including providers from high COVID-19 incidence areas. On April 21, 2020, the panel issued the first release of COVID-19 treatment guidelines for clinicians. The guidelines provide recommendations regarding specific treatments currently available and address considerations for special populations, including pregnant women and children. On May 12, 2020, in response to the preliminary analysis of ACTT-1, the Panel updated these treatment guidelines to recommend remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients with severe disease requiring supplemental oxygen, mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. On June 25, 2020, based on a preliminary analysis of the data from the Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy (RECOVERY) study sponsored by the University of Oxford, the treatment guidelines were updated again to recommend the glucocorticoid dexamethasone for the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients with severe disease requiring supplemental oxygen or mechanical ventilation. The guidelines are updated regularly as new evidence-based information emerges. Enhancing Diagnosis and Understanding the Pathogenesis of COVID-19 NIH is supporting an HHS-wide effort to promote the development and commercialization of diagnostic tests to detect current SARS-CoV-2 infection. On April 29, 2020, NIH announced the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative, which is working to identify, support, and make innovative strategies for COVID-19 testing widely accessible, in collaboration with FDA, CDC, and BARDA. RADx is leveraging the Point-of- Care Technologies Research Network established by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) to allow for the potential roll out of new products by fall 2020. This initiative expects to award up to $500 million to support development of point-of- care and home-based diagnostic devices, as well as innovations that make current laboratory tests faster, more efficient, and more widely accessible. Innovators will be matched with technical, clinical, regulatory, business, and manufacturing experts to increase the odds of success. In addition, NIAID is using CARES Act funds to support diverse SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic platforms including RT-PCR and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and facilitating development of sensitive, specific, and rapid diagnostic tests by providing critical SARS-CoV-2 isolates and reagents to the developers of tests. The RADx Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) initiative will augment the reach and power of technologies developed and enhanced through RADx by identifying and addressing implementation factors that present barriers to testing and follow-up in vulnerable populations. On June 12, 2020, NIH announced four new funding opportunities for community-engaged projects within RADx-UP. The goal of this is to understand factors that have led to disproportionate burden of the pandemic on vulnerable populations so that interventions can be implemented to decrease these disparities. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is coordinating with FDA and NIAID to assess the sensitivity and specificity of certain SARS-CoV-2 serological tests, which can detect antibodies indicative of a prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2. NCI and NIAID also are working to establish a collaborative national network to increase national capacity for high-quality serological testing with return-of-results to subjects. In addition, they will conduct research to increase the understanding and application of those results and support related clinical efforts, including clinical trials of convalescent serum and the creation of registries of tested subjects for seroprotection studies. NIAID, NCI, and NHLBI, along with scientists from CDC, BARDA, FDA and DOD, recently convened the COVID-19 Serology Studies workshop to bring together over 300 scientists and clinicians from the federal government, industry, and academia to discuss the role of serology testing in understanding and responding to the COVID-19 public health crisis and to explore strategies to address key scientific opportunities and knowledge gaps in this emerging field. Last month, a report of the conclusions and recommendations from the workshop was published in the journal Immunity. The group recommended that additional research is needed to determine whether, and to what extent, a positive antibody test means a person may be protected from reinfection with SARS-CoV-2. Additional research also is needed to determine the duration of protection. They also emphasized that serology tests should not be used as a stand- alone tool to make decisions about personal safety related to SARS-CoV-2 exposure until additional information about SARS-CoV-2 immunity is available. NIAID, NCI, NCATS, and NIBIB also are partnering on a new study to investigate whether adults in the United States without a confirmed history of infection with SARS-CoV-2 have antibodies to the virus, indicating prior infection. In addition, NIH is supporting COVID- 19 natural history studies to understand the incidence of infection in specific populations, including children and their household contacts, and aspects of the clinical course of infection, including incidents of thrombosis, strokes, heart attacks, and other sequelae of infection. Some of these studies will examine the quality and durability of the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 and evaluate whether unique immune responses may be associated with clinical disease trajectories; this information may be leveraged to develop SARS-CoV-2 therapeutics or vaccines. Natural history studies also will inform our understanding of COVID-19 pathogenesis, including factors that may predict disease progression and help to identify individuals or groups at high risk. In order to improve understanding of neurological consequences of SARS-CoV-2 and inform potential treatment strategies, NINDS is supporting development of a database that would collect data on the prevalence and spectrum of neurological symptoms observed in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. NHLBI and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development are leading a trans-NIH effort, with participation from NIAID, to coordinate research into the multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), an extremely serious inflammatory condition that has been associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in children and adolescents. NIH continues to expand efforts to elucidate the viral biology and pathogenesis of SARS- CoV-2 and employ this knowledge to develop the tools needed to diagnose, treat, and prevent disease caused by this virus. NIH is focused on developing and evaluating safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, and sensitive, specific, and rapid point-of-care molecular diagnostic and serological tests. These efforts will improve our response to the current pandemic and bolster our preparedness for the next, inevitable emerging disease outbreak. Diagnostics and Testing Testing for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 is an essential component of our nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic; its importance is now further magnified as states continue in their various stages of reopening. The indications for viral testing depend heavily on the stage of the pandemic and the extent of mitigation employed. In general, testing may be indicated for diagnosis of those who are symptomatic or asymptomatic, tracing of those in contact with those who are infected, and surveillance testing of those who are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic to achieve infection control and/or other public health objectives. The Administration has produced numerous documents that establish the strategy and specific tactics for testing in America. These include: In addition, the Administration is now reviewing testing plans from each state, territory, and major city public health unit, as a requirement of $10.25 billion in cooperative agreement funding distributed by the CDC. The State Testing Plans serve as a roadmap for each state's testing strategy for SARS-CoV-2. The overall goals for each state were determined in collaboration with the state and Federal experts considering multiple factors, including the rate of new cases, plans for mitigation, percent positivity. The plans submitted by the states will be continually improved through the ongoing collaboration of states with federal experts to meet the evolving circumstances in each jurisdiction. State Testing Plans for May through June for the 64 jurisdictions who received funding for COVID testing from the Paycheck Protection and Health Care Enhancement Act can be found here. Plans for July through December are currently under review. It is useful to understand the overall testing strategy in terms of its chronology and sequential objectives, and to understand that this virus was a new human pathogen for which no diagnostic tests had previously been developed. In addition, the predominant type of test relies on sophisticated RNA amplification technology that can only be done in a laboratory certified to perform moderate or high complexity testing. Point-of-care (POC) tests are an exception in that they are low complexity; however, this class of test still represents a minority of available testing capability and has a defined role because of its low throughput and relatively limited sensitivity especially early or late in the infection. Finally, the pandemic caused an unprecedented demand for all supplies and materials, such that overall demand in a single month approximated total annual demand of some essential supplies and materials. This reality represented substantial challenges, but federal leadership has guided efforts to combat these challenges in close collaboration with states, local jurisdictions, and the private sector. Our overall strategic framework for testing is built on the principals outlined in the original Testing Blueprint Opening Up America Again and the Addendum to the Testing Blueprint. The immediate objectives of the strategy are to: Stage 1: Launch: Engaging the Emerging Crisis In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC was engaged in building the foundation for diagnostic testing in the United States. Additionally, understanding the importance of increased testing, FDA engaged test developers from the beginning of the pandemic. With a desire to ensure high quality diagnostic testing but also ensure rapid development and dissemination of COVID-19 tests, FDA has provided voluntary EUA templates for laboratories and commercial manufacturers in an effort to streamline the entire process, and works with developers who wish to use alternate approaches to the templates. FDA has issued a record number of EUAs for COVID-19 tests. The amount and expediency in which EUAs were issued for COVID-19 tests far exceed past viral outbreaks. For example, in response to the 2016 Zika Virus outbreak, FDA issued 20 test EUAs; in response to the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, FDA issued 17 test EUAs. As of July 23, 2020, FDA has issued more than 180 COVID-19 test EUAs. The timeliness and number of EUAs issued by FDA for COVID-19 tests is unprecedented and has been critical to improving the testing scale and capacity in our country, while providing enough oversight to assure patients can depend on the results of these tests. Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, the Administration has encouraged and worked collaboratively with diagnostic test commercial manufacturers, commercial laboratories, public health laboratories, and professional societies to expand capacity and scale for existing nucleic acid testing platforms. Administration efforts have led the United States to develop a multilayered, multifaceted approach to testing that can provide the right test, at the right time, to the right people, with actionable results. This approach includes contributions from state public health labs, high-throughput commercial laboratories, academic and hospital laboratories, laboratories at CDC, the Indian Health Service, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. In addition, the ecosystem now includes POC testing that can be done in rural areas at high risk without sophisticated supporting infrastructure, or as a tool to investigate outbreaks in nursing homes or other confined settings. As of July 23rd, our nation has performed over 51 million tests. We are now conducting approximately 770,000 tests per day; and this number will continue to increase. Commercial laboratories are working more efficiently, processing tests in rapid succession, which ensures patients receive their results, on average, within three days. Hospital and academic laboratories typically provide results within 2 days, and often much sooner. POC tests provide results within 15 minutes. To expand capacity and scale without impinging on the traditional health care system like emergency rooms and urgent care clinics, HHS worked closely with FEMA, interagency, and state and local partners to establish Community Based Testing Sites (CBTS). At the inception of this effort, the 41 federally supported sites were developed and established by the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (Corps), in CDC-prioritized locations across the country. The Corps had unique expertise in COVID-19 testing, since many officers had deployed to Japan and elsewhere to assist in infection control, diagnosis, and eventual repatriation of American citizens. The initial objectives of CBTS were to screen and test healthcare facility workers and first responders, as prioritized by local jurisdiction. The CBTS model has been a success, having tested over 390,000 individuals, with an overall SARS-CoV-2 test positivity rate of approximately 15 percent, and serving as a model for all future iterations of community based testing. This positivity rate means that the CBTS are testing the right individuals at the right time. This effort has also supported and co-evolved with technological advances such as the validation of nasal self-swabbing, which minimizes the need for trained health professionals and personal protective equipment. The CBTS initiative was an early example to states and localities on how to conduct community based COVID-19 testing, and this model has been replicated throughout the country to screen and test hundreds of thousands more Americans. Since early January, the Administration has maintained constant contact with state and local governments and tribal nations to expand testing throughout the country. The constant communication between the Administration and state leadership has helped provide guidance to states on how to best utilize testing capacity in their own states. Another product that was produced by the Administration to assist the states to leverage the full testing capacity at their disposal was a database of nationwide lab locations and capacity, including the specific testing platforms at each laboratory. Stage 2: Scaling and Technological Innovation The identification and expansion of public and private sector testing infrastructure has been, and continues to be, a priority. One example of expanding testing infrastructure through public-private partnerships is the engagement of the Administration with well-known retailers that have a regional or nationwide footprint. As of July 24, and with the assistance of the Federal Government, U.S. retailers have opened and are operating 706 testing sites and they have tested over 1,156,000 individuals. The Federal Government built public-private partnerships to increase the number of testing sites offered at commercial locations across the country. The public-private partnerships with these retailers are being expanded to support many more testing sites that will be opened and operating in the coming weeks. These commercial testing locations are uniquely situated to meet the testing needs of communities with moderate to high social vulnerability, which was the focus of the original sites. Going forward, retailers have indicated their intent to open at least one thousand more of these sites depending on local needs. Another effort of the Administration to further support and expand the testing infrastructure in the United States has been strengthening the testing supply chain. The Administration has massively increased the availability of laboratory and testing supplies by engaging directly with distributers and manufacturers to increase production capacity through direct procurement, application of the Defense Production Act, formation of various public- private partnerships, and improved allocation criteria that ultimately help ensure that supplies meet the state's needs and reach the locations where the supplies are needed most. In addition, validation of additional supply types has led to a dramatic broadening of available supplies and reagents. In May and through July 23, working collaboratively with FEMA and utilizing their logistics, the Federal Government has procured and began to distribute to states according to their needs and plans over 41 million specimen collection swabs and more than 32 million tubes of transport media. To meet state needs, this procurement and distribution will continue at least December 2020, and will be necessary if it needs to continue past that point. In order to capture feedback and foster communication between federal officials and the private sector, HHS created the National Testing Implementation Forum. The Forum will bring together representatives from key stakeholder groups to share information and provide input to federal leaders about SARS-CoV-2 testing. The members of the Forum will provide their perspectives on how HHS can best identify and address end-to-end testing supply chain issues across commercial, public health, academic, and other sectors and define optimal testing in various settings (diagnostic, screening, surveillance, others). The Forum will seek new techniques and technologies, and identify any barriers to a streamlined national laboratory testing reporting system and defined reporting standards. The Forum will also provide input to improve technical assistance across the nation to target testing among the vulnerable and underserved and create a sustainable diagnostics ecosystem that is sustainable and fully capable for future public health challenges. Stage 3: Support Opening Up America Again Current efforts are focused on further scaling up testing capabilities to guarantee that each state has the testing supplies and capabilities they need to reopen according to their own individual state plans. For example, the Federal Government will continue to procure and distribute collection swabs and tubes of transport media at least through December 2020 allowing the states to test at least 2 percent of their population each month. The Administration will continue to work hand in hand with governors to support testing plans and rapid response programs. The Opening Up America Again guidelines, provided by the Administration, describe roles and responsibilities as well as elements of the robust testing plans and rapid response programs. On May 24th, HHS delivered a COVID-19 strategic testing plan to Congress. This Plan is a direct outgrowth of the work done by the Laboratory Testing Task Force and Community Based Testing Task Force, both under the leadership of HHS and supported by FEMA personnel within the NRCC. It outlines how HHS increased domestic testing capacity across the United States and provides additional guidance and information about diagnostic technologies, platforms and inventory that states, territories and tribes can utilize to develop flexible, adaptable, and robust COVID-19 testing plans. This report fulfills a requirement of the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, signed into law on April 24th. Furthermore, HHS recently distributed $11 billion in support to states, territories, and tribes to support implementation of jurisdictional testing goals as well as a broad array of activities associated with testing, as indicated in the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act. In early July, HHS announced surge testing efforts in prioritized communities across the country. These free COVID-19 testing sites temporarily increase federal support to communities where there has been a recent and intense level of new cases and hospitalizations related to the ongoing outbreak. HHS, in partnership with each of the local communities and private partners, will perform surge testing by offering 5,000 tests per-city per-day at no charge to those tested. These sites will be live anywhere from five to 12 days. Because of the Administration's success in rapidly scaling up of the testing ecosystem, states will be fully equipped to conduct more COVID-19 tests per capita each month than most countries have tested cumulatively to this date. The Federal Government will continue to support Americans by providing expedited regulatory approvals for tests and equipment as necessary and appropriate, updating guidance for administering diagnostic testing, and catalyzing technological and scientific innovation. The process of reopening the United States will be one that is federally supported, state-led and locally executed. Protecting the Vulnerable We recognize that vulnerable populations in many underserved communities are among the highest risk of suffering devastating health and economic impacts of COVID-19. The Office of Minority Health issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity on May 1. On June 23rd, the HHS Office of Minority Health (OMH) announced the selection of the Morehouse School of Medicine as the awardee for a new $40 million initiative to fight COVID-19 in racial and ethnic minority, rural and socially vulnerable communities. The Morehouse School of Medicine will enter into cooperative agreement with OMH to lead the initiative to coordinate a strategic network of national, state, territorial, tribal and local organizations to deliver COVID-19-related information to communities hardest hit by the pandemic. The three-year initiative will include the development and coordination of a strategic and structured network of national, state, territorial, and local public and community based organizations that will help mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on racial and ethnic minorities as well as rural and socially vulnerable communities across the nation. The initiative also includes a national multi-media outreach and education effort that is comprised of culturally and linguistically diverse information. One of the primary goals of these information dissemination efforts is to provide additional education and community-level information on resources to help fight the pandemic to those who need it most. On June 4th, using authorities provided to the Secretary under the CARES Act, HHS released new mandatory laboratory data reporting guidance for COVID-19 testing. This guidance standardizes reporting to ensure that public health officials have access to comprehensive and nearly real-time data to inform COVID-19 response efforts, including data on demographic information such as race, ethnicity, age and gender. This will help ensure that all groups have equitable access to testing, and will equip public health professionals with the data to determine accurately the burden of infection on vulnerable groups. To further support testing efforts in underserved communities, in May the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) awarded $583 million to 1,385 health centers to support COVID-19 testing efforts. Health centers serve over 28 million patients in 12,000 service delivery sites across the nation and in the territories. They provide care to 1 in 5 of those uninsured, 1 in 5 rural Americans, 1 in 3 individuals below the poverty line, more than 1.4 million homeless individuals, and nearly 1 million migrant agricultural workers. Health centers are uniquely situated in communities to serve those that are most vulnerable and 93 percent of these centers offer COVID-19 testing. As of July 17, Health Centers have reported testing nearly 2.1 million individuals in total and racial and/or ethnic minority patients represent 54 percent of those tested. To promote and protect the health and safety of vulnerable older adults, HHS has undertaken a large-scale procurement of FDA-authorized rapid point-of-care diagnostic test instruments and tests to be distributed to every nursing home in the United States. This bold action to facilitate on-site testing among nursing home residents and staff will provide nursing homes the ability to augment their current capacity for SARS-CoV-2 testing, bolstering their response and helping to prevent the spread of this virus. Distribution has already begun with nursing homes prioritized by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps Since the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Corps has been an indispensable asset leveraged to address the public health needs of the nation in response to this crisis. The Corps is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States and the only uniformed service committed to protecting, promoting, and advancing the health and safety of the nation. Corps officers serve throughout the nation in communities that are most in need by providing essential healthcare services to underserved and vulnerable populations. In January, the Corps deployed officers to provide expert outbreak response in direct support of CDC. Deployment expanded rapidly from 38 officers on February 1, 2020 to more than 5,600 deployments as of July 23, 2020. Corps officers provided critical assistance to community-based testing sites throughout the nation and their contributions to this effort are immeasurable. In response to the escalating crisis, the Corps established COVID-19 Clinical Strike Teams, which include officers from the variety of disciplines needed on the frontlines. This kind of ready-made unit allows the Corps to deploy a 'cavalry' to support healthcare systems under stress in states across the country. COVID-19 Clinical Strike Teams have deployed to a long-term care facility in Kirkland, Washington, to the Javits Center in New York City, and to the TCF Center in Detroit. At the end of March, the Navajo Nation requested CD assistance to provide care amidst a surge of COVID-19 cases. Since that time, the Corps has deployed teams to support the response. The Corps has also deployed two teams, totaling more than 70 officers, to the Pennsylvania and the Florida State Health Departments to provide infection control, personal protective equipment (PPE) training, and consultation to long term care facilities. The United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps stands ready and willing to respond to the public health needs of our country and to provide essential healthcare services. From the beginning of this public health emergency, FDA has taken an active leadership role in the all-of-government response to the COVID-19 pandemic, inspired by the resiliency of the American people and our great innovators. FDA stood up an internal cross-agency group that continues to ensure we are doing everything possible to protect the American public, helps ensure the safety and quality of FDA-regulated products, and provides the industries we regulate with the tools and flexibility to do the same. Work has focused on facilitating the development and availability of medical countermeasures to diagnose, treat, and prevent COVID-19, surveilling the medical product and food supply chains for potential shortages or disruptions and helping to mitigate such impacts, as necessary to protect the public health. This work is a key component of the federal government's efforts to address this pandemic and reopen the economy so Americans can get back to work and school. Diagnostic Testing FDA has been proactive and supportive of test development by all interested parties including laboratories, and large and small commercial manufacturers to speed development and to quickly authorize tests that the science supports. The Agency has worked with over 500 developers since January, and has been working around the clock to issue over 180 Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for tests, including molecular, antigen, serology and tests with at- home specimen collection indications. This pandemic has created a demand for new tests that is unprecedented in both volume and urgency. FDA's important role in testing includes determining whether the tests developed for use in the U.S. provide sufficiently accurate and reliable results and helping to provide timely access to such tests. In a public health emergency, obtaining an accurate test result is important not only for the individual patient, but for the public at large. False positive or false negative results can contribute to the spread of SARS-CoV-2, so all tests used for COVID-19 should be validated before use. Similarly, timely access to diagnostic tests is critically important. To best address these dual, and sometimes competing, needs, FDA has used its EUA authorities. EUAs permit the emergency use of a product, in this case a test, when FDA determines that certain criteria are met based on the totality of the scientific evidence available. The EUA process made it possible for molecular diagnostic tests to be developed, validated, and offered for clinical use within weeks rather than months or longer. Even prior to any diagnosed U.S. cases of COVID-19, FDA proactively reached out to developers to encourage the development of tests and to offer assistance from the Agency to help facilitate development. To balance the urgent need to increase diagnostic testing capacity in the U.S. with the need to provide adequate oversight to help ensure that patients can depend on the results of these tests, FDA announced several policies to facilitate oversight. These included engaging in rolling reviews of EUA submissions, and authorizing tests that had the necessary data to support that the criteria for issuance are met. FDA has developed several EUA templates, including those for diagnostic, serological, and testing with at-home specimen collection. These templates help to streamline the EUA submission process as well as provide helpful information to developers that can speed validation and authorization of new tests. And, states that have the capacity and expertise to do so have been authorizing tests for use within a laboratory in that state. FDA is also monitoring imported test kit products and where appropriate detaining and examining these at ports and border. We are also engaging in outreach when we become aware that test developers are making false or misleading claims about their tests. We are monitoring the market for unapproved, un-cleared, or unauthorized tests and have issued Warning Letters. FDA has and will continue to take appropriate action against firms and individuals that place the public health at risk. Importantly, FDA continues to update its website to make clear which tests have been authorized by the Agency, and which tests have not. FDA also announced our participation in the COVID-19 Diagnostics Evidence Accelerator, a multi-stakeholder collaborative project to advance the development of diagnostics through the generation of real-world evidence. Organized by the Reagan-Udall Foundation for FDA in collaboration with Friends of Cancer Research, this initiative is designed to allow the community to analyze both diagnostic and clinical data in real time, which has the potential to contribute to the scientific evaluation of diagnostic tools and medical interventions for COVID- 19. Evidence generated by the Accelerator project is intended to be complementary to other studies that have been conducted or are underway as well as to provide actionable information about the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in specific populations and highlight individual risk factors for patients. This helps improve our understanding of the disease, allows us to tailor public health interventions and strategies to mitigate risks for individuals and communities, and will help to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2. FDA has worked around the clock to 1) support test development by laboratories and commercial manufacturers; 2) research and mitigate shortages of test components, including identifying and sharing scientifically acceptable alternatives for components on FDA's website; 3) arrange with the Department of Defense weekly airlifts of swabs to the United States; 4) engage nontraditional device manufacturers to support the manufacture of new swabs and other supplies that are needed in the United States; 5) offer support to developers through key resources, including FAQs that are updated regularly, serve as a clearinghouse for scientific information that the community may leverage to increase testing capacity; and 6) operate a hotline and provide other resources for industry to contact the FDA directly. Serology Testing Serology tests detect antibodies or proteins present in the blood when the body is responding to a specific infection, like the virus that causes COVID-19. Such a test detects t hebody's immune response to an infection. These tests do not diagnose a current COVID-19 infection; however, they can play a critical role in the fight against COVID-19 by helping healthcare professionals identify individuals who may have overcome an infection in the past and may have developed an immune response. These tests may also aid in identifying individuals with antibodies to the virus that causes COVID-19 so they may donate convalescent plasma as a possible treatment for severely ill COVID-19 patients, which is a potential treatment currently being researched. In March, FDA issued a policy providing regulatory flexibility for developers of certain serology tests to market or use their tests once they have performed the appropriate validation to determine that their tests are accurate and reliable, without FDA authorization and as further recommended in the policy. The policy led to early patient access with appropriate transparency regarding the limitations of these tests. At the time FDA issued this policy, flexibility was important as early use of antibody tests allowed us to begin to answer some of the critical population-level questions about the prevalence of COVID-19 infections in different communities, whether the presence of antibodies might convey immunity and, if so, for how long, while also encouraging test developers to seek an EUA, as many did. Failure to answer these questions could lead to inappropriate decisions by Federal, State, and local governments, businesses, and other entities. Early availability of serology tests has helped generate important information that can inform the future use of serology tests. To help mitigate the trade-off of helping to ensure early availability and having time to obtain a good understanding of test performance, FDA's March 16 policy was intended to limit antibody testing to laboratories certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to perform testing in high-complexity and point-of-care settings when covered by such certificates that is, labs with special clinical and technical expertise as long as the tests were properly validated and labeled as outlined in our policy, and the developer notified FDA. Notably, use of antibody tests in other settings, including at home, prior to issuance of an EUA authorizing such use is not permitted under CLIA, and our March 16 policy did not change that. Once FDA had authorized more serology tests, we built on this policy by updating it on May 4th and again on May 11th to outline key expectations for antibody test developers, including that commercial manufacturers would submit EUA requests, with their validation data, within 10 business days from the date they notified FDA of their validation testing or from the publication date of the policy, whichever was later. FDA also provided specific performance recommendations for serology tests. FDA is constantly reassessing the evolving situation and updates its policies as needed. The policy for laboratories certified under CLIA to perform high-complexity testing regarding their developing and performing their own serology tests has not changed. Such laboratories perform their own validation and provided notification to FDA while following other recommendations with respect to labeling as described in the policy. FDA is focusing its EUA review and authorization efforts on serology tests of commercial manufacturers, which have the potential to be distributed more broadly because they can be used at a number of laboratories, compared to laboratory developed tests, which can be performed only at the one CLIA-certified high-complexity lab that validated the test in-house. FDA has also introduced a more streamlined process to support EUA submissions and review. Two voluntary EUA templates for antibody tests have been made available one for commercial manufacturers and one for CLIA certified high-complexity labs that decide to seek FDA authorization. These templates can help facilitate the preparation and submission of an EUA request and can be used by interested developers. Also, as we do for diagnostic tests, we are happy to work with developers of serology tests on other approaches if they do not want to use one of the templates. In addition to reviewing data submitted in the form of EUA requests, FDA also continues working with the NIH , the CDC, and BARDA regarding the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) independently validating certain antibody tests for the U.S. Government, including antibody tests that are not the subject of an EUA or pre-EUA, as well as those that are under FDA review. FDA is using NCI data to inform future decision making, such as whether to authorize the test, guide us in engaging the test developer for additional information to support its test remaining on the market, or take other action regarding tests that do not perform adequately, including removing them from our notification list and stopping their distribution in the U.S. We are continuing to provide updated information and educational materials to states and health care partners. When commercial manufacturers that are currently marketing serology tests under the policy fail to submit an EUA within 10 business days of notification, we have been removing those tests from our website notification list and are sharing this information publicly. FDA will continue to appropriately balance assurances that an antibody test is accurate and reliable with timely access to such tests as the continually evolving circumstances and public health needs warrant. Importantly, we continue to work with developers of serological tests and are reviewing submitted EUA requests to authorize even more of these tests. FDA continues to work closely with Coronavirus Task Force members in examining the role testing will play as we look to reopen our country's schools, businesses, and public services. Vaccine Development At this time, there is no FDA-approved vaccine to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection and/or COVID-19, and FDA intends to use regulatory flexibility to help ensure the most efficient and timely development of safe and effective vaccines to prevent COVID-19. In this crisis, in which there is so much at stake, we are facilitating expedited vaccine development without sacrificing our standards for quality, safety, and effectiveness. FDA is working closely with federal partners, vaccine developers, researchers, manufacturers, and experts across the globe to help expedite the development and availability of vaccines to prevent infection with COVID-19 infections. Knowledge sharing is considered a key part of the scientific process and it could efficiently advance these efforts. We are utilizing all appropriate regulatory authorities and are providing rapid feedback and scientific and technical advice to sponsors and researchers to help expedite the development and availability of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines. On June 30, FDA took additional action to facilitate the development of safe and effective vaccines to prevent COVID-19 by providing guidance that includes recommendations for those developing COVID-19 vaccines for the ultimate purpose of licensure. The guidance, entitled Development and Licensure of Vaccines to Prevent COVID-19, reflects the recommendations and assistance FDA has been providing over the past several months to companies, researchers and others, and describes the Agency's current recommendations regarding the data needed to facilitate the manufacturing, nonclinical and clinical development, and approval of COVID-19 vaccines. The guidance provides an overview of key considerations to help manufacturers satisfy requirements for chemistry, manufacturing and controls, and nonclinical and clinical data needed for development and licensure, and for post-licensure safety evaluation of vaccines. The guidance explains that, given our current understanding of SARS-CoV-2 immunology, the goal of development programs at this time should be to support traditional FDA approval by conducting studies to directly evaluate the ability of the vaccine to protect humans from SARS- CoV-2 infection and/or disease. In its interactions with vaccine developers, FDA provides sponsors with advice regarding the data needed to support the manufacturing, clinical development, and approval of vaccines, including such advice to those sponsors pursuing development of vaccines to prevent COVID- 19. The size of clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines will depend on a number of factors including the criteria for demonstrating safety, efficacy and the incidence of COVID-19 in the population and areas where the trials are conducted. The guidance document conveys that FDA would expect that a COVID-19 vaccine would be at least 50 percent more effective than placebo in preventing COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 infection among the clinical trial participants. FDA anticipates that clinical trials to demonstrate vaccine efficacy would also be of sufficient size to provide an acceptable safety database. However, further pre-licensure safety evaluation may be needed if safety concerns arise during clinical development. While FDA is committed to expediting this work, we will not cut corners in our decisions and are making clear through this guidance what data should be submitted to meet our regulatory standards. This is particularly important, as we know that some people are skeptical of efforts to develop a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. It is clear that manufacturing and fill finish capacity will need to be scaled up on U.S. soil in order to have a safe and effective vaccine widely available in a timely manner. FDA is committed to working with sponsors by providing timely regulatory advice and technical assistance regarding manufacturing to help support such scale-up activities, including sponsors who may be proceeding at risk to scale-up manufacturing while clinical trials are being completed. We have not lost sight of our responsibility to the American people to maintain our regulatory independence and ensure our decisions related to all medical products, including COVID-19 vaccines, are based on science and the available data. This is a commitment that the American public can have confidence in and one that FDA will continue to uphold. Therapeutic Development Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, FDA has been working tirelessly to facilitate the development and availability of therapeutics for use by patients, physicians, and health systems as expeditiously and safely as possible. FDA announced on March 31, 2020, the creation of an emergency review and development program for possible therapies for COVID- 19: the Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program, or 'CTAP'. The Agency is supporting the program by reassigning staff and working continuously to review requests from companies, scientists, and doctors who are working to develop therapies. Under CTAP, FDA is using every available authority and regulatory flexibility to facilitate the development of safe and effective products to treat patients with COVID-19. Further, FDA is partnering with the NIH in its efforts to develop a national strategy for a coordinated research response to the pandemic. The ACTIV partnership developed a framework for prioritizing vaccine and drug candidates, streamlining related clinical trials, coordinating regulatory processes, and leveraging assets among all partners to rapidly respond to COVID-19 and future pandemics. There are a variety of therapeutic products being evaluated, including antiviral drugs and immunotherapies, that may be helpful in reducing lung inflammation and improving lung function in COVID-19 patients. All this work is beginning to pay off, and we announced the positive results of the NIAID trial of remdesivir in patients with severe COVID-19. On May 1, FDA issued an EUA for remdesivir for the treatment of suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalized with severe disease. Another potential approach for treatment is the use of antibody-rich products such as convalescent plasma and hyperimmune globulin. These blood products are manufactured from plasma donated by people who have recovered from the virus and such products are being studied to determine if they could shorten the length, or lessen the severity, of the illness. We are evaluating convalescent plasma in the context of traditional clinical trials and are helping to facilitate a national expanded access program and emergency access for individual patients, as appropriate. A key to ensuring the availability of convalescent plasma to those in greatest need, as well as to supporting clinical development of convalescent plasma and hyperimmune globulin, has been by persuading fully recovered COVID-19 patients to donate plasma if they meet FDA's donor eligibility criteria. To that end, FDA continues to work with blood collection entities to facilitate the collection of convalescent plasma, and to work with developers of such therapies to move forward with clinical evaluations. Thousands of COVID-19 patients have received investigational COVID-19 convalescent plasma under FDA's pathways for use of investigational products, including expanded access and clinical trials. Medical Product Supply FDA monitors and proactively adjusts to the worldwide demand and supply chain disruptions for medical products caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We are working closely with manufacturers to help ensure they continue to notify the Agency of any permanent discontinuance or interruption of drug (human and animal), biological product, and device manufacturing in a timely manner. In addition to our usual communication with drug manufacturers, we work closely with healthcare and pharmacy systems, hospitals, providers, and others on the frontlines of COVID-19 patient care to identify current or emerging regional shortages of critical care drugs used to treat COVID-19. FDA understands the significant impact shortages can have on patient care and is doing everything within our authorities to help prevent and alleviate this impact. For example, we issued temporary policies for outsourcing facilities registered with FDA and pharmacists in state- licensed pharmacies or federal facilities, regarding the compounding of certain drugs used to treat hospitalized patients with COVID-19. In addition, when we identify a shortage, we react swiftly to mitigate the impact to U.S. patients and health care professionals, and quickly share that information with the public. For example, the Agency quickly identified the need for making hand sanitizers available as demand spiked. FDA has published and updated three guidances to facilitate the production of alcohol- based hand sanitizer in non-traditional settings such as pharmacies or distilleries. As another example, the Agency granted an EUA to authorize use of propofol approved in the European Union, thus alleviating a shortage of this critical drug for COVID-19 patients who need to be on a ventilator. We are working to increase the supply of PPE, and continue doing everything in our authority to increase the availability of PPE and other critical devices that patients and those on the front lines of the U.S. response rely upon. FDA has reached out to over 1,000 manufacturers since January and has helped facilitate an increase of the availability of PPE while taking steps to ensure that patients and our health care workers on the front lines can depend upon these products to protect them. FDA has issued several EUAs to help make more respirators available to health care personnel and ease burdens on the health care system. These allow for the emergency use of NIOSH-approved respirators in health care settings for healthcare personnel and the importation of non-NIOSH approved respirators that meet certain specified criteria, as set forth in the various EUAs. FDA has also issued several guidances to provide flexibility for those manufacturing PPE for the COVID-19 response, and we have published conservation strategies for gloves and masks and gowns. To support these efforts further, FDA has issued several EUAs for devices used to decontaminate respirators for reuse by health care workers in hospital settings, where appropriate. FDA has also issued guidances for many other critical devices including ventilators, clinical electronic thermometers, and imaging systems, as well as remote digital pathology and remote monitoring devices intended to help facilitate remote care that puts patients and health care providers at less risk for exposure to COVID-19. FDA has worked steadily to support those manufacturing PPE, as well as those who are dealing with limited supplies and shortages, to provide alternatives when there are no other options available. This includes initiating biweekly webinars or virtual town hall meetings for those seeking and manufacturing respirators to hear about the most recent efforts, ask questions, and discuss challenges they are facing. FDA's policies and active engagement with the medical product and healthcare community have helped to accelerate patient access to critical devices. FDA appreciates Congress including provisions in the CARES Act for additional device shortages authority during or in advance of a declared public health emergency and looks forward to continuing to work with members of Congress to expand further these authorities, consistent with the FY 2021 Budget so that we can address shortages in other situations as well. Food Supply FDA is working with our federal, state, and local partners as well as industry to help ensure a safe and adequate food supply for both people and animals. We want to reassure you there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with transmission of COVID-19. Although food production and manufacturing in the United States remains strong, resilient, and is for the most part dispersed throughout the United States, some components are under stress.We are monitoring these situations closely and identifying mitigation strategies. There has been a significant shift in where consumers are buying food because of the pandemic. We have taken steps to provide temporary guidance to provide flexibility in packaging and labeling requirements to help industry divert products manufactured for food service and institutional use to retail grocery stores. FDA recognizes that the food supply chain is dependent on the safety of the nation's food and agricultural workforce. Along with our federal partners, we have provided best practices for food and agricultural workers, industry, and consumers on how to stay safe, and help ensure the continuity of operations in the food and agriculture critical infrastructure sector during the pandemic and as retail establishments begin to reopen. FDA's Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation team has been working throughout the pandemic, is fully staffed, and on-the-job looking for signs of foodborne illness outbreaks. FDA continues to monitor closely the overall safety of the nation's food supply. Importantly, we continue to work with CDC, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and our state and local partners to protect consumers from foods contaminated with pathogens. For example, in March, FDA found and detained Salmonella- contaminated tahini products at the port of entry; products that were already in U.S. distribution were recalled. In June, FDA started investigating a multistate outbreak of Cyclospora illnesses potentially linked to store brand garden salads, and products were recalled. In July, FDA announced the New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint outlining the Agency's plans over the next decade to create a more digital, traceable, and safer food system. The challenges that have arisen during the pandemic have made it clear that the actions called for in the blueprint will strengthen how we approach the safety and security of the food supply, not just in the normal course of events but especially in times of crisis. Fraudulent Products FDA exercises its regulatory authority to protect consumers from firms and individuals selling unapproved products with false or misleading claims that the products prevent, treat, mitigate, diagnose, or cure COVID-19, including by issuing warning letters and pursuing civil and criminal enforcement actions, where appropriate. For example, FDA has sent hundreds of abuse complaints to domain name registrars and internet marketplaces, which in most instances resulted in those registrars on marketplaces voluntarily removing websites or listings selling products that fraudulently claim to diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent COVID-19. The Agency also has sent more than 90 warning letters to sellers of such fraudulent products. Working with the Department of Justice, FDA has sought and obtained preliminary injunctions that require defendants to halt the sale of fraudulent products claiming to treat or prevent COVID-19, including one product that, when used as directed, is equivalent to industrial bleach. In addition, FDA investigators remain on the front lines at ports of entry, quickly examining, reviewing, and sampling import entries, and refusing admission where appropriate. We protect the supply chain in two equally critical ways: first, we help ensure safe products are coming in and second, that illegal, dangerous and fraudulent products do not get into the country. For example, in March, at the border, FDA intercepted fraudulent COVID-19 'treatment kits' that were falsely declared as 'water treatment.' Import examination of these shipments found misbranded 'kits' intended to treat SARS-CoV-2. This joint investigation, which included FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations, led to an arrest in the UK by law enforcement partners there. In addition, in April, FDA intercepted a bulk shipment of hydroxychloroquine coming from China going to a physician in California. The physician was thereafter charged with mail fraud stemming from the allegations that he smuggled hydroxychloroquine from China to make his own pills and concealed the shipment from the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) by mis-declaring it as yam extract. In May, FDA worked with CBP to intercept several shipments of counterfeit facemasks, with the result that they were refused and destroyed before getting into U.S. commerce. We are in close communication with our partners at U.S. CBP to proactively identify and mitigate any potential backlogs of lawfully marketed medical products for COVID-19. FDA participates in FEMA Supply Chain Task Force meetings, providing regulatory support and subject matter expertise to respond to questions concerning medical products identified by FEMA, to facilitate the lawful entry and use of imported medical products coordinated through FEMA, and to inform medical product supply chain discussions. HHS appreciates the support and interest of Congress in our work related to COVID-19. We look forward to continuing to work together as the country continues to open safely again. Thank you for the invitation to testify today and we look forward to answering your questions. This is the horrific moment the owner of an animal refuge found 24 dogs had been killed after three men tortured and force-fed puppies bleach in Tunisia. Photographs and videos taken by Tiziana Gamannossi show dogs lying in pools of blood after they were beaten to death with sticks on the island of Djerba on Thursday, July 23. One dog, who was recovering from a car accident, had a nail pushed into its eye during the night of torture. Italian-born Tiziana encouraged stray dogs to a beach near her rented home on the island - a popular tourist destination - where they were given food and looked after. She had 120 dogs before the attack but most ran away when an angry mob armed with 'axes and sticks and weaponry' descended on the sanctuary. Italian-born Tiziana Gamannossi encouraged stray dogs to a beach near her rented home on the island of Djerba - a popular tourist destination - where they were given food One dog (pictured) was recovering from a car accident when it had a nail pushed into its eye during the night of torture. It is still alive but is being treated in intensive care Photographs taken by volunteers show dogs lying in pools of blood after they were beaten to death with sticks on the island of Djerba on Thursday, July 23. Puppies were force fed bleach and lay dead next to their mother who refused to leave them People in the crowd threatened to kill or rape volunteers if they didn't leave, according to campaigners. The group of more than 100 people wanted to 'finish the job' of the three men who carried out the overnight attack, Florence Heath, co-founder of Rescue Animal North Africa (RANA), told MailOnline. Twenty puppies and four dogs were killed. Around 100 survivors were scattered around the shelter and some escaped through an open gate. Ms Heath said: 'Volunteers came down from Tunis to help the remaining dogs so the villagers thought hey were going to show them we mean business. 'The men got arrested the afternoon after the attack but then everyone got up in arms. It brought back a wave of energy.' The local police station was 'stormed' by protesters and overwhelmed officers were forced to release the suspects - who had boasted about killing the animals online, according to Ms Heath. Tiziana is pictured in the sea near her beach-side shelter with three of her rescue dogs before the massacre One of the volunteers holds up one of the dead dogs after the brutal attack to show the extent of its injuries She said stray dogs were a 'pest' to some Tunisians and videos of the torture of dogs were often posted online. 'On the flip side we work with amazing Tunisians who are overwhelmed,' she added. One angry Tunisian who lived near the dogs told MailOnline the animals were not sterilized and had been left to their own devices on the beach. She did not want to be named, but said: 'The problems with the dogs has been around for at least two years. '[Tiziana] takes dogs but she has no shelter, no associations. They do not sterilize or vaccinate. The dogs are left to their own devices. She condemned the locals by putting the dogs on the beach.' Tiziana denied the allegations and said all her dogs had been vaccinated. The owner of another refuge on the island, who did not want to be named, claimed Tiziana 'hoarded' dogs and accused her of breeding puppies for sale. He wrote: 'I saw a woman there who is a monster in my eyes. When we arrived, I noticed T yelling at people and even insulting the police. Footage taken by Tiziana showed dead dogs lying on the ground outside the shelter after it was ransacked overnight 'She was taken out of the house with police protection and was taken to Houmt Souk, including the van with the dogs.' He said Tunisians were angry with Tiziana, who he called T, for letting hundreds of dogs roam around the streets without vaccinations, something she denies. 'Tunisians are angry. One can only hope that they realize that not all are like T,' he wrote. 'This is about the dogs, about our work. We have to defend this and give the dogs a voice.' He told MailOnline: 'It was a massacre, and it was terrible. But this case has a lot of layers, and now we hope the truth can be told. Puppies lay next to their mother following the vicious attack in the middle of the night 'She left Djerba with most of her dogs yesterday, but people have found dogs she has left in 3 places here. 4 in Ghizen, 12 in Houmt Souk and at least 6 in Terrabella. Poor dogs. 'She did rescue a lot of dogs, but seldom let anyone adopt a dog. She is a hoarder. 'Today we got proof that she was breeding puppies for sale. She left a rottweiler that just had puppies. I am trying to find a solution for them.' He claimed Tiziana also kept cats in a nearby empty hotel - but has now left them behind. Tiziana fed and looked after hundreds of dogs at her rented home by the beach on the island. Pictured, water is left out for dogs living in one of the rooms in the house Tiziana told MailOnline: 'We rescued many dogs, of many races and some were pregnant. 'Our priority is always food, water and vaccinations so sometimes we did not make it on time to sterilize them. One rottweiler made two babies which are mixed.' She said she 'refuses any accusation around vaccinations', adding: 'I have all the vaccination and I wrote the name and date. The dogs are free for sure. 'You cant treat them like dogs in a closed area. They are free and always in the sea and the sand. They may look dirty but they are happy. My dogs are my family so I refuse any accusations.' Tiziana said she is currently working to make sure she is reunited with the dogs left behind in Djerba. 'My priority is my dogs. I didnt forget any dogs ever,' she said. Protesters hold placard reading in Arabic 'betrayed, tortured and killed' during rally for the protection of animals and condemning the Djerba dog shelter massacre on July 26 On the morning of July 23 Tiziana and her boyfriend arrived at the shelter to find it had been ransacked. The building where sick and nursing dogs were kept was broken into overnight. There were dead dogs laying across the floor and video taken at the shelter show some lying in pools of blood. Ms Heath said: 'Some have been beaten with sticks. Thats not unusual for them. 'Others have another level of horror. Most of the puppies fed with bleach died. Their mothers stayed behind because they didnt want to leave them and got caught too. 'There were 12 puppies and a few disabled ones. All the puppies and mums and the dog that was ill were kept inside the building. 'The ones inside couldnt get away and were targeted and done for. Some of the others managed to escape.' Volunteers soon arrived from Tunis to try to take the dogs to safety at a shelter in the capital. But as the van tried to take 40 dogs away from danger, an angry mob waited outside and threatened the volunteers, Ms Heath said. Tiziana had 120 dogs before the attack but most ran away when an angry mob armed with 'axes and sticks and weaponry' descended on the sanctuary The driver had to wait until the next morning, when police could help, to get the dogs away from the shelter and safely to Tunis. Tiziana then gathered as many of the remaining dogs as she could and brought them to another property she had temporarily rented. 'Thats 40 dogs taken to safety in Tunis. The remaining 60 dogs are still in Djerba,' said Ms Heath. 'The dogs ran away when they saw this mob because theyre used to surviving. The lady from the shelter moved out of the shelter because they threatened to kill her too. 'She collected the dogs where she could find them and took them to a safe house she rented temporarily.' After last night's attack two dogs are in intensive care. One of the dogs (pictured) was inside the shelter recovering from being 'rammed' by a car and had a nail impaled in its eye Last night locals launched another attack on the shelter after finding out where Tiziana had moved, she said. 'Another dog is dying and a whole bunch were beaten and tortured,' Ms Heath added. 'Its really heavy. Thats how horrendous it has been. The local police have been completely overrun. They arrested three men and then released them hours later when it turned into a whole village mob.' A crowd outside the shelter were shouting 'death to dogs and death to foreigners', she said. Tiziana said the locals were angry because her home's owner had returned and wanted access. She said police agreed she shouldn't be allowed inside while Tiziana was still living there. 'She went to the neighbors and said I want to go to my house. These people are naive and they came in mass,' she told MailOnline. 'We had some boys to protect the dogs. We went to the police. These people are throwing stones and injured one of my smallest dogs.' Ms Heath's charity RANA helps take dogs from shelters in Tunisia to be rehomed with Brits who sign up to adopt a stray. One anonymous dog shelter owner in the area said Tunisians were angry with Tiziana for letting hundreds of dogs roam around the streets without vaccinations, something she strongly denied. Pictured, one of her street dogs She said RANA usually works with a shelter in Tunis but had to help when they saw Tiziana's social media plea for help. 'Theres several ideas for why the attack happened,' she said. 'On the whole its a mix of a huge lack of understanding about animals and culturally about dogs. 'They are seen as vermin. Ive got a photo of a van that goes around saying well get rid of your rats and your dogs. Theyre thought of as a pest.' Municipality and Police Officers shoot stray dogs to stop overpopulation in the country - where Ms Heath says trap, sterilize, release schemes are non-existent. After last night's attack two dogs are in intensive care. One of the dogs, which was inside the shelter recovering from being 'rammed' by a car, had a nail impaled in its eye. 'She was found very recently after being rammed by a car and saved by one of the few nice policemen,' according to Ms Heath. 'She couldnt move very quickly so they managed to get to her during the first attack. 'Shes got a nail in her eyes, drag marks and a fractured skull from a beating. Shes in a pretty bad condition. Shes in intensive care and were doing everything we can.' She said the attack was 'shocking but not surprising' because 'its not considered a big problem'. 'Theres a lot of videos of young men torturing animals on Facebook,' she said. Ms Heath hopes some of the dogs at the shelter in Tunis will be rehomed in Britain to make room for the victims of the attack. She said: 'We come across people saying why should you help animals abroad when weve got animals here. 'Thats fair but its one of those things where theres no finite number of adoptions. 'People see these stories and then adopt even if they werent thinking of it. Its not taking away from a British dog.' MailOnline has contacted Police Djerba for comment. Republican senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas called slavery "necessary evil upon which the union was built." Cotton is seen as a Republican presidential candidate in 2024. Cotton's insensitive remark Sen. Cotton made the comment about slavery in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that was published on July 19. He was interviewed regarding the legislation that he introduced on July 23 that aims to prevent the use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project. The 1619 Project is an initiative from the New York Times that reframes US history around August 1619, and it also includes information about the arrival of slave ships on American shores, as reported by The Guardian. Meanwhile, Sen. Cotton introduced the Saving American History Act of 2020 and it would prevent the use of federal funds to teach The 1619 Project by schools districts or K-12 schools, according to the statement released from the office of the senator. Also Read: Stimulus Check: Differences from First Round of $1200 Relief, Expanded Dependent Eligibility Cotton told the Democrat-Gazette that the whole premise of the New York Times project, which he said was historically flawed, is that America is a systemically racist country and that it is irredeemable. Cotton added that he rejects that the project will give the idea that America is the root and branch of slavery and that America is a "great and noble" country that is founded on the proposition that all mankind is created equal. He also said that even though America struggled to live up to the proposition, there is no other country that had done more to make the proposition come true. Sen. Cotton stated that the history of slavery needs to be studied and that its impact and its role on the development of America needs to be researched because otherwise America will be misunderstood. Cotton also quoted America's Founding Fathers who said that "it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built." Pulitzer Prize winner, Nikole Hannah-Jones, who did an introductory essay to the 1619 Project said on July 24 that Sen. Cotton's bill speaks to the power of journalism more than anything they have ever done in their career. On July 26, Hannah-Jones tweeted that if the whole premise of slavery, which were rape, torture and selling human beings for profit, were necessary evil, it is difficult to imagine what cannot be justified if it is a means to an end. Hannah-Jones added that black children should not be taught that the buying and selling of their ancestors, the torture, forced labor and rape that their ancestors had gone through was "necessary evil" for the creation of the "great and noble" country. Sen. Cotton then responded that what Hannah-Jones tweeted were "lies" from the debunked 1619 Project. He said that describing the views of the Founders and how they put the institution on a path to extinction is not endorsing or justifying slavery, and it was a point made by Abraham Lincoln. In June, the Times was forced to issue a mea culpa after publishing an op-ed written by Cotton and entitled "Send in the troops". The article, which drew widespread criticism, advocated for the deployment of the military to protests against police brutality toward black Americans. Send in the troops In June, Times published an article written by Sen. Cotton titled "Send in the troops." The article drew criticism as it advocated for the deployment of US military to protests in the country against systemic racism and police brutality. The publisher AG Sulzberger from Times defended Time's decision and said that the paper was committed to represent views from both sides. However, they released another statement saying that the article fell short of their editorial stands, and it lead to the resignation of James Bennet, the editorial page director. Related Article: Donald Trump Suggests Delaying Presidential Election Due to Possible Fraudulent Results in Mail-In Voting @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. BOZEMAN, Mont., July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alercell today announced that it has reached an agreement for distribution of COVID-19 rapid antibody serology tests with manufacturer Medigen Biotechnology Corp, (TPEX 3176 MEDIGEN) a publicly traded company-controlling shareholder of TBG Biotechnology Corp. ALERCELL is a biotechnology company based in Montana, USA with offices in New York City. Alercell has run internal validation studies of a number of rapid antibody tests notified to the US Food and Drug Administration under Emergency Use Authority (EUA) and has retained just three for distribution. Alercell research supports that these tests are efficient, valid and have superior accuracy. "We are confident that the TBG Rapid Antibody Test is among the most accurate serology tests and we are pleased to work with Medigen," said Dr Alexandre Scheer, Chief Medical Officer of Alercell. FDA has listed as notified almost 200 tests under EUA authority and is in the process of reviewing and terminating some notifications based on failure to validate through independent NCI review. It is therefore extremely important for medical companies to buy from a source that internally validates the tests presented, as some of the products made available on the market may be questionable and may become obsolete quickly if the FDA is not satisfied by the NCI review. Medigen/TBG has received full EUA authorization from FDA for its PCR test and TBG is expecting EUA authorization for its rapid serology test, which can now be marketed in notified status pending full EUA review, within days/weeks. In addition, Alercell has researched the production capacity of various manufacturers and found that some manufacturers have limited industrial capacity, whereas Alercell has the capacity to deliver tests in very large quantity. With this $280,000,000 distribution agreement, Alercell is positioning itself at the forefront of the fight against Covid-19 in North America. Story continues About Alercell Alercell is a Biotechnology company based in Bozeman, Montana. Created in 2020 by a group of veterans of medical research, Alercell's principle business is in the discovery, development, manufacture, and sale of an efficient treatment to the Covid-19 pandemic and Alercell is currently actively seeking a Covid 19 advanced treatment plan using stem cells. Alercell intends to expand its operations to a broad and diversified line of health care solutions to infectious diseases. For more information, please visit: www.alercell.com Media Contact Mr. Frederic Scheer, CEO Email: fscheer@alercell.com Dr. Alexandre Scheer, Chief Medical Officer Email: ascheer@alercell.com Tel: (406) 233-6434 Leftists think there is only one legitimate opinion on the issues, that being theirs, and demonize those who do not share it as intolerant, exclusionary, and divisive. They believe there is a constitutional right to abort one's "fetus," but not to free speech if they deem it "hate speech." They believe that "the science is settled" when it comes to an unimaginably complex topic such as climate change, but certainly not when it comes to the plainly obvious existence of two sexes. They believe that secondhand cigarette smoke is uniformly deadly but that the firsthand smoking of marijuana has numerous remarkable health benefits. They believe that religion is the "opiate of the masses," despite its obvious benefits to people's mental and spiritual health over the millennia, yet they cling to an irrational, fanatical belief that socialism will somehow make things better for us all, despite its long, sad and abundantly clear bloody history. They believe that forcibly disarming law-abiding citizens will magically result in criminals being less likely to shoot them, not the reverse. They believe that dramatically raising taxes on those who work and paying more to those who don't will somehow lead to a more just and prosperous society. They believe that doing away with prisons and reducing the number of police will make them safer. They believe that the phrases "All Lives Matter" and "Make America Great Again" are racist dog whistles (and a form of actual violence) but that statements comparing President Trump to Adolf Hitler are simply accurate analogies. They believe that Antifa members are essentially freedom fighters but that the Founders were naught but colonial occupiers of the worst kind. They believe that capitalism is evil and that Cuba and Venezuela deserve credit for trying to equalize incomes and achieving high rates of literacy. They believe that the United States is a racist, sexist, bigoted, patriarchal nation and that we have no right to criticize other cultures, despite the prevalence of wife-beating, female genital mutilation, or their propensity to kill gays and lesbians. They hold that sexual deviance is the highest form of righteousness and conscience but that males who are openly attracted to females are likely "pervs" and are exhibiting "toxic masculinity." They believe that the death penalty even for mass murderers is cruel and barbaric but that abortion is simply "women's health care." To those on the left, the belief that anything other than morality itself could be immoral...is immoral. Morality is a white male patriarchal construct, you see. And that is beyond the pale. Who are we to disagree? Image credit: Portrait of Jonathan Edwards via Wikimedia Commons, public domain, United States public domain. SARATOGA SPRINGS A Back the Blue rally in the city Thursday evening sparked a counterprotest that continued into the late evening and was followed by a heavy police presence. City Commissioner of Public Safety Robin Dalton said that it started after pro-police marchers in Congress Park were met with a smaller group of counterprotesters. A fist fight broke out, said Black Lives Matter leader Lexis Figuereo, after one of the pro-police marchers punched one of the Black Lives Matter protesters in the face. He said police, on horses, kept pushing back his group and not stopping the pro-police marchers. "They were just laughing and smiling," Figuereo said. "No one there was to protect us whatsoever. After that, we were angry and we went in the street." Dalton said that the city police warned the protesters to move off of Broadway in front of Congress Park. When they didn't, the Saratoga County Sheriff's armored tank was rolled out. Figuereo said that they were sprayed with pepper bullets by officers in tactical gear. Dalton said in addition to the city and county officers, the State Police were present. City police late Thursday issued a statement that said the Back the Blue rally started at 6 p.m. and in the early stages, a group supporting Black Lives Matter and All of Us held a counterprotest. Ultimately both groups converged in Congress Park near the Canfield Casino. "Although at times tensions were high, words were exchanged, and both groups advanced toward each other, no violence occurred," police said. The Back the Blue rally ended at 7:45 p.m. and those participants left the area, police said. Counterprotesters continued their rally in the intersection of Broadway and Congress Street for a period of time, police said, and they moved north on Broadway by walking in the road, "disrupting traffic and closing down streets." These actions continued up and down Broadway for about 45 minutes and at about 8:30 p.m., city Police Lt. Jason Mitchell approached leaders of the group and asked them to leave the road. The group leaders were advised they could continue their protest on the sidewalks but not in the road, according to the police account. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Mitchell and police command staff members were concerned that someone would get hit by a car in the darkness as it was difficult to see the people laying in the roadway. Protesters refused to leave the road after numerous warnings, police said, so officers moved in and made arrests. The remaining protesters moved back to the sidewalk to continue their protest, the police statement said. Three people were arrested, one a youth. The arrest information for the two adults will be released Friday, police said. (Instagram video by Drew Checks) (Natural News) Just a few days after Big Tech systematically removed all traces of the Americas Frontline Doctors (AFD) White Coat Summit event from their platforms, Google CEO Sundar Pichai appeared before Congress, where he was grilled over his companys censorship of this powerful video. Pichai was seen on a video livestream testifying before the House Judiciary Committees antitrust panel about these and other malfeasances, during which time he was pressed about what went in to the decision-making process that ultimately led to the AFD videos removal. Rep. Greg Steube, a Republican from Florida, questioned Pichai about why Google is allowing plenty of violent and hateful content from the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa riots to appear in its search results or on YouTube, but not allowing the AFD video, which contains helpful information about treating the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) with hydroxychloroquine and zinc, to even show up at all. Mr. Pichai, there are rioting groups that are going unchecked with the posting of what I would contend is very violent video, yet yesterday a video about doctors discussing hydroxychloroquine and discussing the non dangers of children returning to school, and when I clicked on the link it was taken down and then I was sent a different link on YouTube and it was taken down, and I just checked again to make sure and it says this video has been removed for violating YouTubes community guidelines,' Rep. Steube is quoted as stating. How can doctors giving their opinion on a drug that they think is effective for the treatment of COVID-19 and doctors who think its appropriate for children to return back to school violate YouTubes community guidelines when all these videos of violence are posted on YouTube? Sundar Pichai claims that Google, YouTube value freedom of expression In response, Pichai claimed that Google believes in freedom of expression, adding that there is a lot of debate on YouTube about effective ways to deal with COVID and we allow robust debate. But according to Pichai, the AFD video cannot be allowed because it goes against what the CDC and other local health authorities claim is real and true about the plandemic, which means it cannot be tolerated. Pichai contended that the AFD video could cause harm in the real world, including parts of the video that state something could be a proven cure and that doesnt meet CDC guidelines, referring, of course, to hydroxychloroquine. When someone says something on YouTube that contradicts the CDC, in other words, Pichai indicated that we would take that down. Rep. Steube was not satisfied with this answer, challenging Pichai on his false claim that Google and YouTube support freedom of expression, even as they censor doctors who are giving their opinion, and providing real-world examples of cases where their protocols worked and were effective. I dont understand why YouTube and therefore Google thinks its appropriate to silence physicians and their opinion of what can help and cure people with COVID-19, Rep. Steube added. Pichai had very little to say after this and what would he say, considering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a privately-run corporation that does not exist or operate in the public interest? The CDC has also repeatedly been exposed for colluding with Big Pharma to skew the facts and ultimately defraud Americans, which makes it wholly untrustworthy as any type of authority on anything, let alone the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). Your community standards are not my community standards, and are certainly not American standards, wrote one Breitbart News commenter, speaking directly to Google and YouTube. More news stories about Google and YouTube censorship are available at Censorship.news. Sources for this article include: Breitbart.com NaturalNews.com NaturalNews.com Wanda DeSelle was among the thousands in California who died of COVID-19. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) Alex Bernard dedicated his life to ministering to people who were suffering. As a pastor at Desert Reign Church in Downey, he organized food delivery programs, mentored young people and worked as a substance abuse counselor. He also volunteered as a chaplain at the same hospital where he would eventually die of COVID-19. His whole life was serving other people, said his wife, Blanca. Bernard is one of more than 9,000 people who have died of COVID-19 in California. In documenting their stories for The Pandemics Toll, an ongoing tribute to Californias coronavirus victims, The Times has spoken with hundreds of people about their loved ones lives. Through those difficult conversations, a pattern of human kindness has emerged: Story after story touches on small acts of generosity and great acts of charity fundraisers, volunteer work, reliable helping hands. As a whole, the tributes tell the stories of ordinary people with ordinary lives who are remembered most for the extraordinary things, large and small, they did for others. He did so many things for so many people, said Diane Akrie of her husband, Costelle Akrie , who dedicated much of his life to community service. Akrie procured millions of dollars in grants for veterans, started a program that provided bicycles for children and spearheaded a fundraiser to build playgrounds in East Oakland. When he died of COVID-19 on April 4, he was remembered as a person whose door was always open to someone in need. John Pope, an obituaries writer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune for more than 40 years, said that its not uncommon for people to reflect on their loved ones good deeds while memorializing them, but that they are often surprised by the comments and notes they receive from others about the extent of that persons impact. You do more good than you know, he said. Pope also explained that historically, the obituary pages of newspapers were reserved for boldfaced names, or people of notoriety (a directive he never agreed with), but that the pandemic has created a new imperative for telling a different kind of story. Story continues There are steady news reports every day of numbers, he said. Numbers aint people. You have to put a human face on the suffering. To scroll through the stories is to experience a cross section of the state. Many of the victims were older Californians living in nursing homes and rehabilitation centers where the virus boiled, passing from patient to patient. Others were front-line workers, those without the luxury of working from home. Some had huddled with extended family members as jobs vanished and resources quickly dwindled. From grocery store clerks to music teachers to mail carriers, they are remembered not so much for what they accomplished for themselves but for what they did for others. People like Herbert Segall, 91, who dedicated more than 20 years of his retirement to weekly volunteer guitar shows at the Jewish Home for the Aging, or Pedro Zuniga, 52, who took in foster kids even though it broke his heart each time a permanent home was found for them. Their stories are powerful reminders not only of the virus rising death toll but also of the many, many ways a single life can touch so many others. Its a record of how, often, many people we know did something good for somebody, said David Sloane, a professor at USCs Sol Price School of Public Policy and an expert on death and mourning. And thats a really important thing. Like the AIDS epidemic before it, the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the way we see the outside world and instilled a fear of the people around us, Sloan said. It may take years for Americans to unlearn social distancing or simply not flinch when a stranger gets too close. But reflecting on the generosity of those lost to the virus can act as a reminder of whats actually at stake. Were in a moment where everything has become politicized, Sloane said. When you get to the point where were having fights about masks, this is one way to remind people that were losing good people who are doing good things for our community. People like Dulce Aguilo, 55, who worked as a caregiver for seniors with dementia, or Larry Robertson, 72, who spent more than 30 years raising funds for his high school, despite the fact that he never had kids. Yet Pope was careful to emphasize that the purpose of an obituary is not to canonize (after all, who among us are saints?) but to uncover what makes a person unique. And that's when true humanity most often emerges. When youre doing an obituary, you ask, How is this person different from all other persons? he said. The power of their stories is undeniable, especially when taken as a whole. Either the virus is stealing exceptionally good people, or, more likely, almost every person has done some exceptionally good things. Its something the Rev. Najuma Smith-Pollard, pastor of Word of Encouragement Community Church in Los Angeles, is wrestling with as she leads her congregation across a changed landscape. Part of whats been the tragedy of this is the notion of bad things happening to good people, she said. At the start of the pandemic, few people knew anyone who had been affected by COVID-19. Now, months on, nearly everyone has been touched in some way by the disease, and that ripple of loss has left people struggling to make sense of it all. Its the everyday person down the street, or my mailman, or the young lady I see all the time at the grocery store, Smith-Pollard said of the virus' victims. Its proximity, but its also common ground. Its people like Garry Bowie, who led a nonprofit that provided health and mental health services in West Hollywood. Bowie frequently counseled people who were newly diagnosed with HIV and didnt know where to turn, and he often invited them to stay in his home. He was 59 when he died April 7. For Susan McClellan, whose sister, Karen Hemm , died May 17, the story was a chance to reflect on the lessons of a life well lived: Hemm was a fierce advocate for people with disabilities, and she fought for legislation such as wheelchair ramps and accessible restrooms. She adopted a son with cerebral palsy and raised him as a single mother, and was remembered as a person who always went out of her way to include others. She," McClellan said, "was a role model for all of us to follow." But the stories arent just about good deeds or happy memories. As much as they celebrate the beauty of life the high school graduation, the trip to Hawaii, the romance rekindled they are about pain and loss, heartbreak and missed connections, and what many have described as a frightening and lonely death. It is in those darker moments that the families often grow reflective. Many said their grief is compounded by their inability to mourn for their loved ones in person, or even lean on a family member or friend when they need that support most. And, like so many of the death notices that now fill the obituary pages, many of the tributes end with the same bleak reality a canceled funeral, a memorial postponed to some uncertain future time. Often, the digital tributes offer the only forum where people can gather and grieve. Its a way of creating a community without being communal, Smith-Pollard said. Although grief is a profoundly personal thing, she said, the ability to tell a loved one's story and to reflect on his or her acts of kindness, goodness or charity can be incredibly meaningful. Theyre part of the greater story of the lives lost in this pandemic, and thats important. It is cathartic. And its healing, its very healing. Chris Frantz and an acquaintance were sitting on a small green at his college campus when they saw a girl on a bicycle. It was September 1971. All of a sudden, like in a French movie, a beautiful blonde girl wearing a striped French sailors shirt and very short pants rides by on a yellow bicycle, he recalled. I thought, Who is that? The acquaintance told him it was his friend, Martina. He knew he had to meet her and, as fate would have it, she was in his new figure painting class the next day at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Their introduction was awkward. A friend of Frantzs insulted her painting and Frantz apologized for his friends behavior. Thus began the friendship of Frantz and Tina Weymouth, who would both become members of the Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club new wave rock bands as well as husband and wife. They will celebrate their 43rd wedding anniversary this year. Frantz, 69, of Fairfield has written a memoir about his life, Remain in Love, to be released on July 23 by St. Martins Press. The books title primarily refers to his commitment to Weymouth but also to his bands and music. During a recent interview, Frantz offered some advice on how to make a marriage including between successful musicians work. Give love, accept love and maintain your sense of humor, he said. Every once in a while, coax a smile out of your spouse. Frantz, a drummer, said he thought about writing a book for a decade before beginning the process two years ago. There really havent been any good books written about Talking Heads, he said. It was a very unique and wonderful band. Our legacy is that together, we created some very unforgettable music. Talking Heads was active from 1975 to 1991, attaining much commercial success in the 1980s, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Other members were frontman David Byrne and Jerry Harrison. Frantz said the bands end came when Byrne left without telling other members, who learned of his plans through media reports. Byrne hasnt had a good relationship with Frantz and Weymouth in decades. Frantzs book details the journey from deep friendship and musical kinship during their early years together as struggling performers, when all three shared a New York City loft, to their current estrangement. Gradually, David became more and more detached from everyone in the band, he said. Now our relationship is strictly business, which is a shame. I asked our manager what happened and he told me, You were the best friend David ever had. Even when things were going very well, artistically and commercially, David was never really happy with the situation even though he was in the spotlight, Frantz said. One surprise for readers in the book is who actually wrote Psycho Killer, perhaps the Talking Heads best-known song. Theyll learn how our first song Psycho Killer was written by three people, Frantz said. Byrne was credited as the songs sole author but the book offers a different version of what happened. The great majority of our songs, particularly the early ones, were always a collaborative effort, Frantz writes. Frantz and Weymouth founded another successful band in 1981, the Tom Tom Club. Hits included Wordy Rappinghood and Genius of Love, a song thats been covered by musicians from Grandmaster Flash to Mariah Carey. The Tom Tom Club was formed to deliberately create something that was different than Talking Heads, Frantz said. We werent exactly following a template that existed but were trying to create a new sound, which turned out to be quite influential with hip-hop and R&B. Frantz and Weymouth also have produced albums for prominent musicians such as Ziggy Marley and were associated with the Compass Point All Stars, a reggae-based pop/rock music movement in the Bahamas. The book covers Frantzs upbringing. He was born in Kentucky, his father a military officer who became a private attorney. The self-described suburban kid went to boarding school, bought his first record at age 10 and joined a band at 13. Talking Heads signed their first record contract in 1976 and went from performing at pizza parlors to appearing on Saturday Night Live and American Bandstand. Their initial base was the legendary CBGB, New Yorks birthplace of punk rock. Readers will learn Frantz loves sailing, was robbed at gunpoint in Hawaii, went to rehab for cocaine and had to contend with a widespread rumor hed committed suicide. He provides insights into encounters with Lou Reed, The Ramones, B-52s, David Bowie, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, James Brown, Andy Warhol and many other fascinating people. Frantz compares playing the drums to making love, with advice to not be frantic, a show-off or aim to impress. What you should be is sensitive to the song, the tempo, and the melody, he writes. In the late 1980s, Frantz moved to Connecticut after an accountant suggested buying a house. Their home is surrounded by nature with a large room where he can set up his drums and play music. Neighbors have never complained, he said. Locally, he hosts a monthly music show on WPKN-FM, assists the Fairfield Theatre Company with its Emerging Artists Series, and serves on the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County board. Frantz said Weymouth, a bass player, also is working on publishing a book. The couple has two adult sons. As for the future, Frantz said he and his wife might do something with electronic music. What we like is electro-techno with a funky edge and rhythm bed, he said. Another possibility is getting back to the visual arts, like when enrolled at RISD. I havent done painting or drawing in a long time and really should, he said. Director Sir Alan Parker, whose work included Bugsy Malone and Midnight Express, has died aged 76. A statement from a spokeswoman, sent on behalf of the family, said Sir Alan died on Friday morning. His career included films such as Fame, Evita and The Commitments and his works won a total of 19 Baftas, 10 Golden Globes and 10 Oscars. Sir Alan was born in Islington, London, on February 14 1944, and began his career in advertising as a copywriter. He graduated to writing and directing commercials, and in 1974 moved into long form drama when he directed the BBC film, The Evacuees, written by Jack Rosenthal. Sir Alan wrote and directed his first feature film, Bugsy Malone, in 1975 a musical pastiche of Hollywood gangster films of the 1930s with a cast of children. Sir Alans second film, 1977s Midnight Express, won two Oscars, six Golden Globes and four Baftas. Expand Close Sir Alan Parker and his wife Lisa (Dominic Lipinski/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sir Alan Parker and his wife Lisa (Dominic Lipinski/PA) In 1981, he directed Pink Floyd The Wall, the feature film adaptation of the bands successful rock album, which became a cult classic among music fans. Video of the Day In November 1995, he was made a CBE for services to the British film industry and he received his knighthood in 2002. Sir Alan received the Bafta Academy Fellowship Award, the bodys highest honour, in 2013. Sir Sean Connery, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Vanessa Redgrave, Sir Christopher Lee, Martin Scorsese and Mike Leigh have been awarded the fellowship. In 2018, Sir Alan donated his significant private collection of scripts and working papers to the BFI National Archive. Expand Close Sir Alan Parker (Jonathan Glynn-Smith/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sir Alan Parker (Jonathan Glynn-Smith/PA) He is survived by his wife Lisa Moran-Parker, his children Lucy, Alexander, Jake, Nathan and Henry, and seven grandchildren. Film director David Puttnam, who produced some of Sir Alans films, was among those paying tribute. He said: Alan was my oldest and closest friend, I was always in awe of his talent. My life and those of many others who loved and respected him will never be the same again. James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli said: I am heartbroken at the news of Sir Alan Parkers passing. It is an enormous loss to the world of cinema and a huge personal loss to his devoted family and friends who loved and admired him. His work always exhibited the elements of his personality that we so cherished; integrity, humanity, humour and irreverence and rebellion, and most certainly entertainment. He exhibited a curiosity that enabled his versatility from musicals such as Bugsy Malone, Fame and Pink Floyd The Wall and to films about social justice such as Midnight Express, Mississippi Burning and The Life Of David Gale. He never made the same film twice. His love of cinema as an art form began in his early childhood at the Carlton House cinema in Islington where he would escape and dream and remained with him throughout his career. Director Nick Murphy described Sir Alan as a huge talent in a tweet, writing: Alan Parker made so many wonderful movies. Just wonderful. A huge talent. As Im sure you know. RIP Alan Parker. We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of BAFTA Fellow Alan Parker. As BAFTA-winning filmmaker, he brought us joy with Bugsy Malone, The Commitments, Midnight Express and many more. pic.twitter.com/fVOcXARgKM BAFTA (@BAFTA) July 31, 2020 Bafta wrote on Twitter: We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Bafta Fellow Alan Parker. As Bafta-winning filmmaker, he brought us joy with Bugsy Malone, The Commitments, Midnight Express and many more. From "Fame" to "Midnight Express," two-time Oscar nominee Alan Parker was a chameleon. His work entertained us, connected us, and gave us such a strong sense of time and place. An extraordinary talent, he will be greatly missed. pic.twitter.com/OxZPBxTE8F The Academy (@TheAcademy) July 31, 2020 And the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, which hands out the Oscars, added: From Fame to Midnight Express, two-time Oscar nominee Alan Parker was a chameleon. His work entertained us, connected us, and gave us such a strong sense of time and place. An extraordinary talent, he will be greatly missed. New Delhi, July 31 : After the government targeted China with a new import restrictions on colour television, mobile and electronics industry body India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) on Friday demanded that these import restrictions should only apply for future imports after the clearance of goods in transits. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), an arm of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, on Thursday issued a notification changing the import policy of colour television (TV) from free to restricted category. The move that comes amid India's border tensions with China follows the decision to ban 59 Chinese apps last month. ICEA Chairman Pankaj Mohindroo said that the government should issue a stock and sales licensing model for goods already in transit. As per the current estimations, approximately Rs 500-600 crore worth of goods may be stuck in various ports and consignments currently in high seas which can lead to piling up of goods in transit, ICEA said. "ICEA is duty-bound to replicate the mammoth success witnessed in the mobile handset and its components manufacturing sector in various electronics hardware verticals including colour TVs," Mohindroo added. The industry body said that though the move to put restrictions on colour TV import is considered to be an important step towards encouraging the domestic colour TV manufacturing industry to grow, the government also needs to consider and adopt industry-focussed and manufacturing focussed policies as key strategic elements as part of this important objective. The corresponding support to the market development and manufacturing activity relating to colour TV requires a major revamp including a cut in goods and services tax (GST) rate, ICEA said. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 20:05:03|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- China stands ready to work with other countries on the basis of mutual respect, openness and inclusiveness, equality and mutual benefit to carry out international cooperation in space and share the fruit of aerospace development, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Friday. Spokesperson Wang Wenbin made the remarks after the official commissioning of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS-3) Friday. "Beidou not only serves China, but also serves the world," Wang said. After the completion of the Beidou system, it will provide global users with a range of services, including global short-message communication, basic navigation and international search-and-rescue services, Wang said. He added that more than 200 countries and regions are covered by the system's services, with more than 100 million users and 200 million cases of service provision per day, while more than half of the countries in the world have begun to use the system. "China's space endeavor forms an important part of mankind's peaceful exploration and use of the outer space, and it is entirely intended for peaceful purposes," Wang said. The universe is vast enough to permit the joint exploration and cooperation of all countries, Wang said, adding that China is willing to make contributions to promoting human civilization and social progress, and building a community with a shared future for mankind. Enditem BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend: The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) wants deeper engagement with Turkmenistan in trade, energy connectivity, and transboundary water resources management areas, a representative of USAID told Trend. The representative stressed that the agency supports Turkmenistans efforts to strengthen and diversify the Turkmen economy, build citizen-responsive institutions, increase good governance, empower youth, further integrate digital technology initiatives, and expand access to health care services. USAID also aims to increase regional connections between the economies and people of Central and South Asia. For this purpose, the organization works through its platforms including C5+1 format for dialogue and joint efforts to address common challenges faced by the United States and the five Central Asian states. Referring to the USAID activity in Central Asian countries, the agency noted its intention to build a sustainable energy market between Turkmenistan and other Central Asian countries. "USAID strives to build regional cooperation on shared energy resources, including building a sustainable energy market and connectivity within the region and with Afghanistan through our energy programs," said the representative. In addition, USAID is implementing its Future Growth Initiative and Competitiveness project in Central Asian countries. The first project was designed to spur productive economic activity across the region, including Turkmenistan, while the second one facilitates trade and employment in horticulture, tourism, transport and logistics across the five Central Asian economies. The agency also supports the domestic enterprises of Central Asian countries to create jobs and improve incomes, leveraging the expertise and technology of American firms whenever possible, said the representative. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva NAIROBI, Kenya, July 30, 2020 (Morning Star News) Christians in eastern Uganda had what seemed to be an effective strategy for bringing the gospel to Muslims on the banks of Lake Nakuwa, part of Lake Kyoga. The Christians from Namuseru village, Gadumire Sub-County in Kaliro District would cross the lake to go fishing and, as they interacted with Muslims near Lugonyola village, become fishers of men, inviting them to evangelistic meetings there. In time hard-line Muslims began warning the Christians to stop evangelizing in the area, sources said. The last warning came on June 21, a day before radical Muslims from Lugonyola village beat and drowned 25-year-old pastor Peter Kyakulaga and 22-year-old church member Tuule Mumbya in the lake, one of the pastors relatives said. We have discovered that your mission is not to fish but to hold Christian meetings and then convert Muslims to Christianity, one of the Muslims told the Christians on June 21, according to the relative. We are not going to take this mission of yours lightly. This is our last warning to you. David Nabyoma, chairperson of the local council from Namuseru village, said Christian friends knocked on his door at 10 p.m. the night of June 22. They were requesting help, saying Muslims from Lugonyola had invaded the area around the lakeside, and several Christians were reported to have been injured, including my son, Nabyoma, a member of the Church of Uganda, told Morning Star News. Immediately we rushed to the scene of the incident with several Christians. We hired four boats and drove to the lake and found out that two of the Christians had been badly beaten and drowned in the lake and died instantly. Pastor Kyakulaga, who led the area Church of Christ congregation, leaves behind his wife and two children, ages 2 and 4. Church member Mumbya is survived by his wife and 2-year-old child. Christians gathered in Namuseru village early the morning of June 23 to plan retaliation, but local officials spoke to them, called police and cooled tensions, sources said. Police from Gadumire, Namwiwa and Kaliro stations arrived at the lake area and arrested three suspects. Officers identified them as Sharifu Ngugo, Hassan Mwidu Gulumaire and Jafari Kadisi of Lugonyola village and took them to the Kaliro central police station, a source said. Police and fishermen searched the lake and found the bodies that day, June 23, he said. Several government officials, including the district police commander, resident district commissioner and other local leaders condemned the killings, the source said. Church leaders pleaded with Christians to refrain from retaliating and pray. Hundreds of Christians, including many church leaders from Anglican, Pentecostal, Catholic and other denominations, attended a funeral for the two slain Christians on June 24 in Namuseru village. The killings were the latest of many instances of persecution of Christians in Uganda that Morning Star News has documented. Ugandas constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate ones faith and convert from one faith to another. Muslims make up no more than 12 percent of Ugandas population, with high concentrations in eastern areas of the country. If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit http://morningstarnews.org/resources/aid-agencies/ for a list of organizations that can orient you on how to get involved. If you or your organization would like to help enable Morning Star News to continue raising awareness of persecuted Christians worldwide with original-content reporting, please consider collaborating at https://morningstarnews.org/donate/? Article originally published by Morning Star News. Used with permission. Photo courtesy: Pixabay The following is adapted from Graham Allens new book America 3:16 and was published by CNSNews.com on July 27, 2020 People who dont want Christiansspecifically, conservativesspeaking out about political or social issues will try to use the argument Jesus loved everyone and didnt judge, so you shouldnt judge people, either. I have no doubt that Jesus was compassionate, but heres the thing: I also believe that Jesus never cared about anybodys feelings. In fact, Jesus was all about politics. He was the number-one politician of his day. Lets dig into why using Jesus as an argument to muzzle conservatives falls flat and the reasons you can be both a compassionate Christian and opinionated in todays political climate. Jesus the Politician Like I said, Jesus was all about politics; he was the number one politician of his day. He lobbied for the truth, instead of going with whatever was trending politically, culturally, and societally. Jesus was never afraid to address issues in his society. He was compassionate, but he wasnt afraid to speak the truth on every matter. He punched people in the mouth with his compassion all the time. Todays society lacks this crucial element of truth-telling. Now, churches have become too afraid to offend anybody. To avoid offense, and to avoid offending the government, they stay silent. When President Donald Trump visited a Virginia church to pray for victims of a mass shooting in the state, the pastor prayed for him at the service. The next day, that pastor felt compelled to send a letter to his congregation, practically apologizing that he prayed for the president. The prayer was seen as a political act. Excuse me? As a Christian, Im pretty confident Jesus taught that were supposed to pray for everybody, which includes the worst people in the world. Even if you dont agree with Donald Trump at all, even if you think hes a bigoted racist, hes still the president and the head of state for our country. Shouldnt that be something we pray about? Story continues Anyone who says they are Christian but who refuses to pray for Donald Trump is not living Christian values. Speaking Truth Without Hate The church is not, and has never been, about sticks and stones. You can talk truth without being hateful or judgmental. Christians have no place to judge because they dont have that kind of power or authority. Only God has that authority. However, as Christians, we have a responsibility to talk about what we know to be true. If you claim to be a Christian, that means you have certain beliefs. The Bible is at the core of these beliefs; the Bible is the ultimate living document of truth. If you believe the teachings of the Bible, you categorically cannot support abortion, which includes supporting politicians who are pro-late term and up-to-birth abortions. However, if someone has an abortion, that doesnt automatically mean the church doesnt accept or love that person. It means the church prays that they get saved and are able to go to heaven. I dont hate people. I disagree with what some people do, but I dont hate the person, and I believe Jesus did the same. I will speak my beliefs even if they hurt peoples feelings because truths need to be said. Think You Know the Bible? Think Again. So this is what it all comes down to: many people on the left who think they know the Bible and know the church are convinced that conservatives cant be Christians. Their argument is that Christians would never stand for Trump. Since I came out vocally as a Christian, I have often heard it said to me that conservatives cant be Christians. Apparently, theres no way I can be Christian and support Donald Trump. I cant be Christian and tell a woman what she can do with her body. I cant be Christian and not want immigrants to be able to come and go as they please. I cant be Christian and not be a socialist. Trust me, the list goes on. In 2020, I hear these things said to me all the time. Their argument is that these are un-Christian behaviors or positions. I say they are exactly Christian behaviors and causes, but our churches arent speaking about them the way they should. If the church felt it could speak openly about these subjects, you would see that these are, indeed, Christian behaviors and positions. Ask yourself, whos really following Jesuss example? Whos really rejecting public opinion in favor of Gods? In my eyes, its the conservatives, not the people saying conservatives cant be Christians. For more advice on Christianity and conservative ideals, you can find America 3:16 here. Graham Allen is an Army veteran and successful entrepreneur hailing from rural Mississippi. During his twelve years of military service, Graham deployed twice to Iraq, and discovered through social media that he could be a voice for the silent majority. In just three years, he built his combined platform to achieve two billion worldwide views. Graham hosts "Dear America," one of the fastest-growing podcasts in the country. With his wife, Elissa, he founded the Dear America Foundation, and in 2017, HuffPost identified him as one of 22 Veterans to Watch. Contact Details Jason Smartt +1 360-292-3246 jason@smarttmanagement.com Company Website https://america316.com/ ALTON Authorities on Wednesday requested a search warrant for the airbag control module of a stolen 2019 Nissan Sentra that crashed on April 17, killing a 17-year-old girl in Alton. The document states the accident killed Reggie L. Allen, 17, of Cahokia, who was a passenger in the Sentra that rammed a telephone pole at Washington Avenue and Greenwood Street, rolled over and ejected three of the four occupants. Bloomberg | Getty Images President Donald Trump plans to employ the Council on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to force Chinas ByteDance Ltd. to divest its ownership of TikTok, Bloomberg reports. The announcement could come as early as Friday, and it follows a CFIUS security review of TikTok and its parent company last fall. ByteDance bought Musical.ly Inc., a lip-sync app, for $1 billion in 2017 and merged it with TikTok to create the social media phenomenon it has become in the U.S. However, select politicians and some members of the public have found issues with the companys privacy practices and ByteDance's alleged relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. (Natural News) No doubt the headline sounds like a massive conspiracy theory of the tinfoil hat kind, but if we had not seen the reports ourselves and the documentation, we wouldnt have believed it, either. That said, if you really wondered why President Donald Trump has no tolerance anymore for the globalist organizations his predecessors tolerated and funded while their friends and associates among the world elite relied on them to move their socialist agenda, this should answer it. In June, to little fanfare, a report in Foreign Policy noted that after United Nations officials initially told their staffers not to participate in any of the demonstrations in the U.S. following the unfortunate death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reversed course. He informed UN personnel in an email that theres no ban on personal expressions of solidarity or acts of peaceful civic engagement, provided they are carried out in an entirely private capacity. FP added: Speaking to U.N. staffers at a virtual town hall meeting last week, Guterres had acknowledged that many U.N. colleagues would like to be more vocal and active in response to the popular protests against racism and police brutality in New York and beyond, according to a video recording of the event obtained by Foreign Policy. But he said they would have to restrain themselves. We are all shocked by the brutality of the murder of George Floyd. Its important to recognize that at the center of [this crisis] there is a serious question of racism, he said. But he cautioned that U.N. staffers status as international civil servants placed limitations on their freedom to speak out or act. The UN chief reminded staffers that anyone who wanted to express their support for the protests had to limit their activities to reposting tweets and social media messages by him and other senior UN officials. There is one thing we can all do, which is to retweet, to spread the U.N. messages that have been issued already in relation to [the protests], and this can be done by everybody and multiply and amplify those messages that are messages against racism, that are messages against police brutality, that are message against inequalities and discrimination, Guterres said. However, that decision got a lot of pushback from several staffers at the UN, some of whom claimed that the organizations charter specifically recognized staffers rights to free speech and expression (and lets never forget that those universal human rights were first enshrined in the U.S. Constitution). While I understand the need to ensure the impartiality of its international civil service, it is clear that internal UN rules cannot override broad international human rights norms applied in every nation, Clement Voule, the UNs special rapporteur on rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. (Related: United Nations now targeting free speech on a global scale, under the banner of fighting hate speech.) The issues at the heart of the protests that have unfolded since the killing of George Floyd are the same fundamental issues that the UN has been fighting for since its establishment, said Voule, a Tongolese lawyer. The UN has been at the forefront of the fight against racism and discrimination. This is the reason why people have taken to the streets and why UN staff should be able to join them. (Yes, well, try exerting that right in China, Mr. Voule.) Within two days, the UN put out a press release condemning the alleged mistreatment of journalists covering the protests, which were becoming increasingly violent. We have received numerous reports of journalists attacked, harassed, arrested and detained in the course of their work covering protests in the United States against systemic racism and police brutality in the United States, said David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur. The targeting of media workers with lethal or less-lethal force for doing their work is prohibited under international human rights law and contrary to best policing standards. Those violating such rules must be subject to accountability and disciplinary processes, he added. Rioters even if they claim to be reporters are still rioters. But this brazen attempt by a globalist body to interfere in American domestic affairs is outrageous. The Trump administration should make it crystal clear the UN has no jurisdiction on American soil and should never attempt to exert any. Sources include: news.UN.org ForeignPolicy.com NaturalNews.com In a recent survey, Canadians were asked about the management of their health before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, including their self-care activities and viewpoints. Self-care is the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a healthcare provider. Approximately half of survey respondents have missed an in-person appointment with a doctor due to the COVID-19 pandemic response measures. Of those, more than 2/3 practiced a range of self-care activities-- 12% of respondents took care of the problem themselves, another 53% used virtual care services, and 7% sought a pharmacist's advice. Further, more than half of those who managed their health conditions themselves during the pandemic were satisfied with the results, and more than half of those who used virtual care would do so again even after the pandemic is over. As a result, more than 50% of Canadians are now more interested in finding ways to practice self-care at home. The survey conducted by Redfern Research and commissioned by Consumer Health Products Canada in May 2020, asked more than 2000 Canadians about how they were getting informed and treating their health since COVID-19 measures began across Canada in mid-March. This research found that 96% of respondents find life different since mid-March. These differences include both positive and negative lifestyle impacts. Following public health advice, 90% of Canadians now wash their hands more. At the same time, while spending more time at home, 34% of Canadians say that their mental health is worse than before the pandemic began, 37% have been exercising less, 34% are eating more, and, of those who smoke or drink alcohol, more than 25% said they were doing so more since COVID-19 measures began. Additionally, Canadians are seeking more information about their health, with approximately 40% saying they have looked for more information on how to protect themselves from COVID-19 as well as treat common ailments they experienced since the pandemic response began. The main sources of that information included TV or radio news, provincial governments, family members, the federal government, and friends, with around 1 in 4 Canadians seeking information from health professionals, and 12% using Telehealth or other call-in services. Finally, on government information about the pandemic, an average of more than 90% of respondents find information from all levels of government federal, provincial, and municipal - on the outbreak useful. At the same time, 64% say that, in general, information about COVID-19 has been inconsistent or confusing. On the survey, Karen Proud, President of CHP Canada, notes: "Supporting Canadians in their efforts to care for themselves and their loved ones at home has never been more important." Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic increased the interest of Canadians in their health and motivated them to practice a range of self-care activities, including virtual care and consultation with pharmacists, to replace in-person visits to the doctor and treat health issues. The pandemic has reinforced the importance of responding to the needs of Canadians caring for themselves and those they love. Consumer Health Products Canada/CHP Canada AB It seems likely that schools in Western New York will get the green light to reopen this fall, based on current Covid-19 infection rates. But many local schools say that if that happens, they will not be able to fit all their students in the schools, given the requirements for social distancing. That means many schools likely will adopt a hybrid model that combines some remote instruction with some in-person instruction. School districts across New York just posted their plans on how they would reopen if they get the go-ahead. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he'll announce in the next few days whether schools can resume instruction in person. The district plans, which were due Friday, address how they would handle different scenarios: 100% in person learning, 100% remote learning and a hybrid of the two. Here are the districts in Erie and Niagara counties that have posted their plans so far, along with a brief description of what their hybrid model would look like: Exploration of Ornamental Rocks in Angola This is an article contributed by the Embassy of Angola in Korea ED. Map of Angola T ui has revealed it's extending its cancellation of Spanish holidays today, cancelling all trips to mainland Spain until at least August 17, while flights to Spains Balearic Islands and Canary Islands are on hold until August 10. Encouraging Brits to go elsewhere instead, Tui is adding more flights and using larger aircraft for trips to Greece and Turkey to enable affected customers to change their holiday destinations. On Sunday the Government reintroduced the quarantine requirement for people arriving from Spain and advised against non-essential travel to the country due to the coronavirus pandemic. There have been calls for restrictions to be eased for the Spanish islands. Tui UK and Ireland managing director Andrew Flintham said: The summer holiday period is the most important time of year for travel operators and we are therefore doing everything we can to help customers get their well-deserved holiday. The health and safety of our customers and colleagues is always our highest priority. Importantly, we also call upon the UK Government to work closely with the travel industry and remove the blunt-tool approach to quarantine and consider the rapid introduction of regional travel corridors. The level of uncertainty and confusion created this week is damaging for business and customer confidence in travel. Tui announced on Thursday that it plans to close nearly a third of its high street stores in the UK and the Republic of Ireland to cut costs and respond to changes in customer behaviour. Hungarian airline Wizz Air is offering cut-price rescue fares for Jet2 customers whose flights to and from the Spanish islands have been cancelled amid low outbound demand following the change in the Governments policy. Jet2 customers have had flights back to the UK cancelled and been asked to return sooner than planned, with the airline telling them it has flights available until August 3. Meanwhile, Europes major airline and airport associations have written to leaders in the UK and European Union, setting out their deepest concerns over the reintroduction of travel restrictions. The joint letter from ACI Europe, Airlines for Europe and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said: Coming at the height of the peak summer season for tourism and travel industries, these restrictions are slowing down the recovery in air traffic and the restoration of air connectivity. They are badly hurting the European economy and threatening livelihoods. Additional reporting by PA. The U.S. rig count remained unchanged from last week in a sign that perhaps the sharp plunge in drilling activity is finally bottoming out after 20 straight weeks of losses. Energy companies are operating 251 oil and gas rigs nationally, the same as last week and a record low for the industry, according to Baker Hughes, a Houston oil-field services company that has been tracking the rig count since the 1940s. There are 180 oil rigs, down one from last week, and 69 gas rigs, up one from last week, and two maintenance rigs. The rig count, a leading indicator of U.S. oil and gas production, has plunged more than 60 percent since mid-March after the coronavirus pandemic decimated crude demand and prices, forcing drillers to pause production and halt drilling. The count is well below the bottom of the last oil bust in May 2016, when there were 404 operating rigs nationally. Texas gained one rig last week, raising the states total to 104 from 455 a year ago. Texas, home to most of the Permian Basin, hosts about half of the nations oil and gas rigs. The Permian Basin, the nations most productive shale play that stretched from West Texas into New Mexico, has 124 rigs in operation, down two rigs from last week. The Eagle Ford in South Texas has 12 rigs in operation; no change from last week. Some energy companies are restarting production as crude prices have climbed above $40 a barrel. Diamondback Energy, a Midland shale driller, has restarted oil production on nearly all of its wells in June, and ConocoPhillips, a Houston oil major, is expected to restore its curtailed production by September. Karr Ingham, a petroleum economist with the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, said he expects the rig count to bottom out in the coming weeks, but that recovery will take time. Prices and permitting activity have to rebound first, before drilling companies start adding more rigs. Ingham said its unclear if the rig count will fully recover from this downturn. With growing financial pressure, many energy companies are turning to new technologies to produce more crude with fewer rigs and workers, he said. Who knows when well have a rig count of 300? Ingham said. It seems like quite a ways off to me. DOYLESTOWN >> A man and woman will face decades in state prison for the repeated sexual assault of three children under the age of 13, abuse that they also filmed in more than 40 videos of child pornography. Leonard F. Hewitt Sr. 51, and Krystyn Anne Smock, 40, both of Bristol Township, committed the acts for more than four years... Hazleton, PA (18201) Today On and off snow showers this morning. Peeks of sunshine later. Morning high of 34F with temps falling to near 15. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 30%.. Tonight Partly cloudy. Low 6F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Advertisement Forecasters declared a hurricane watch for parts of the Florida coastline on Friday as Hurricane Isaias drenched the Bahamas on a track for the U.S. East Coast. Officials in Florida said they were closing beaches, marinas and parks in Miami-Dade County beginning Friday night. Mayor Carlos Gimenez said the county has 20 evacuation centers on standby that could be set up with COVID-19 safety measures. 'We still don't think there is a need to open shelters for this storm but they are ready,' he said. Isaias had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph) Friday morning and it was expected to remain a hurricane for the next few days, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was centered about 295 miles (470 kilometers) southeast of Nassau in the Bahamas and was moving northwest at 16 mph (26 kph). The Hurricane Center said heavy rains associated with the storm 'may begin to affect South and east-Central Florida beginning late Friday night, and the eastern Carolinas by early next week, potentially resulting in isolated flash and urban flooding, especially in low-lying and poorly drained areas.' And the 'cone of concern' which shows areas where the storm may have an impact includes the tri-state area and New York City NBC4 reported. Winds could begin to pick up in the city on Tuesday, but it is still too early to predict the severity of the weather or whether the storm will track away. The Hurricane Center said heavy rains associated with the storm 'may begin to affect South and east-Central Florida beginning late Friday night By next week, the storm is expected to bring heavy winds to the east coast United States. Intensity of the storm is currently unknown A man tries to repair his home damaged by Hurricane Isaias in Hato Mayor, Dominican Republic on Friday, July 31 A woman remains next to her home affected by Hurricane Isaias in Hato Mayor, Dominican Republic, on Friday A man cleans an evangelical temple affected by the floods left by Hurricane Isaias in Hato Mayor, Dominican Republic, Friday People wash their belongings in a stream after the passage of tropical storm Isaias, with which heavy rains caused the overflowing of the Magua River in Hato Mayor, Dominican Republic on Friday A boy stands next to his teddy bears at home affected by Hurricane Isaias in Hato Mayor, Dominican Republic on Friday Max Hall (on ladder) makes repairs to a roof before Hurricane Isaias arrives in Freeport, Grand Bahama, Bahamas, Friday Home Depot aisles are stocked with hurricane supplies as Hurricane Isaias approaches South Florida on Friday, July 31, Residents fill and collect sand bags before the expected arrival of Hurricane Isaias in Doral, Florida Kai Cocca, 16, of Palm City, Florida, helps fill sandbags with sand provided by Martin County at East Ridge Park on Friday Cocca is seen making sand bags in preparation for Hurricane Isaias as its forecasted to move north through the Bahamas and offshore along Florida's east coast this weekend Florida Governor Ron DeSantis encouraged citizens to plan ahead for the storm. 'While we can't be certain of the exact track of the storm and we certainly cant be sure about the intensity it will ultimately reach, we do expect to see impacts to the state of Florida even if the storm remains off our shore, which is the current forecast, but this is an evolving situation so please keep up with official updates and make sure you have a plan and have seven days' worth of food water and medicine,' said DeSantis, the Sun Sentinel reports. Late Friday morning, hurricane watches went up from Boca Raton through Brevard County. It's not expected to reach Category 2 strength by the time it reaches the state. The National Weather Service said that the strongest wins will be felt in Boynton Beach to Titusville, the Miami Herald reports. Potential hurricane-force winds could reach between 74mph to 110mph. Slightly weaker conditions are expected from Pompano Beach to Palm Bay, where winds could be from 58mph to 73mph. Shoppers stock up on groceries to prepare for Hurricane Isaias at a Costco store in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, om Friday Lines formed well outside of the store as shoppers waited to get inside the Costco People are seen stocking up on storm supplies in Florida's Martin County Friday as they prepare for Hurricane Isaias The Bermuda high and an upper-level trough over the Mississippi Valley may help guide the system in the Southeast U.S., if the storm lasts that long A woman rushes to stock up at at Boynton Beach Home Depot in Florida as Isaias approaches 'Due to the close approach of Isaias to the coast, a reasonable worst-case scenario at this time is for portions of coastal Palm Beach County to be impacted by sustained hurricane force wind late Saturday and Saturday night,' the weather service said in a statement issued late Friday morning. 'There is also a reasonable worst case scenario for sustained high-end tropical storm force wind (58 mph or greater) elsewhere over metro and inland Palm Beach County, coastal and metro Broward County, and northeastern Miami-Dade County.' However, the Weather Channel reports that it is still too early to determine the system's future track and intensity regarding potential impact of weather to other parts of the United States. It is also unclear how fast Isaias will move to the East Coast. It is expected to move northward and then head northeastward as the weekend goes into next week. The exact time and sharpness of the turn will influence how Isaias impacts Florida and the East Coast. A man collects rubble in an area affected by Hurricane Isaias in Hato Mayor, Dominican Republic, on Friday Two men remove a sofa from their home affected by Hurricane Isaias in Hato Mayor, Dominican Republic, on Friday Isaias could hits parts of Florida by late Friday night but will hit mostly over the weekend Military and residents on the street amidst affected houses, ruins and rubble after Hurricane Isaias hit the area, in Hato Mayor, Dominican Republic on Friday Residents clear up the debris of affected houses after Hurricane Isaias hit Hato Mayor on Friday In this GOES-16 satellite image taken Friday, July 31, 2020, at 8:40 a.m. EDT., and provided by NOAA, Hurricane Isaias churns in the Caribbean To help better understand the atmospheric steering and better get an understanding of the storm, the National Weather Service will release extra weather balloons. Gimenez said that social-distancing measures prompted by COVID-19 mean each person needs to have 40 square feet and no more cafeteria-style dining will be allowed. People who are infected with the new coronavirus and need to evacuate will be isolated. 'If you are positive, we have worked with the school system so we can put them in classrooms and separate them from the general population,' he said. 'It's a challenge, but these are some of the things you have to think about in the age of COVID-19 and now a hurricane.' Gimenez also said he was concerned many people wont have access to coronavirus testing in the coming days. 'A lot of these testing sites are outdoors. They have tents and will cause damage. We had to put safety first,' he said. 'We will have thousands of tests that will not be conducted until we get these test sites up and running again.' Residents of Miami, Florida, shop for supplies at a hardware store as they prepare for Hurricane Isaias on Friday Shoppers in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, stock up on groceries at a Costco in preparation for Hurricane Isaias on Friday Miami residents shopped for supplies ahead of Isaias, as storm warnings are in effect for parts of the Florida Peninsula People are seen waiting in line to fill containers with gasoline before the arrival of Hurricane Isaias in Freeport, Grand Bahama, Bahamas on Friday A large tree toppled by tropical storm winds is seen in Alto Trujillo, Puerto Rico, Thursday People look at level of Canovanas river following heavy rain caused by the storm in Alto Trujillo, Puerto Rico, Thursday, July 30, A moto-taxi driver moves through a street flooded by rain brought by the outer bands of Hurricane Isaias, in the Tabarre district of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, early Friday. Isaias is headed from the Caribbean to the Southeast U.S. In Daytona Beach and Polk County, authorities began distributing sandbags and other officials advised people to prepare three days to a week of emergency provisions at home.t A hurricane watch was in effect from north of Deerfield Beach northward to the Volusia-Brevard County Line. On Thursday, while still a tropical storm, Isaias toppled trees, destroyed crops and caused widespread flooding and small landslides in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where hundreds of thousands of people were left without power and water. Officials reported that a man died in the Dominican Republic when he was electrocuted by a fallen electrical cable. The Puerto Rico National Guard rescued at least 35 people from floodwaters, which swept away one woman who remains missing. Pedestrians venture out into the rain brought by the outer bands of Hurricane Isaias in the Petionville district of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, early Friday Cars drive through high water on a road in Canovanas, Puerto Rico, Thursday, July 30, 2020. Tropical Storm Isaias knocked out power and caused flooding and small landslides across Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic A man walks in the rain brought by the outer bands of Hurricane Isaias in the Petionville district of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday, July 31 A hurricane warning was in effect for the northwestern Bahamas, including Andros Island, New Providence, Eleuthera, Abacos Islands, Berry Islands, Grand Bahamas Island, and Bimini. Two of those islands, Abaco and Grand Bahama, were battered by Dorian, a Category 5 storm that hovered over the area for two days and killed at least 70 people, with more than 280 reported missing. People are still living in tents on both islands, and officials said crews were trying to remove leftover debris ahead of Isaias. Prime Minister Hubert Minnis announced late Thursday that he was relaxing a coronavirus lockdown as a result of the impending storm, but said a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew would be implemented starting Friday. He said supermarkets, pharmacies, gas stations and hardware stores would be allowed to be open as long as weather permitted. Stephen Russell, director of the Bahamas Emergency Management Agency, said there were no plans to evacuate people, but he urged those living in low-lying areas to seek shelter. The Bahamas has reported more than 500 confirmed COVID-19 cases and at least 14 deaths. It recently barred travelers from the U.S. following a surge in cases after it reopened to international tourism. Given the pandemic, the prime minister urged young people to stay safe from the approaching storm to respect social distancing measures. 'Please do not engage in hurricane or COVID(-19) parties,' he said. 'It can be devastating.' Isaias was expected to produce 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain in the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. - Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum will pay for the hospital expenses of a Nigerian mother and her quadruplets - Suliyat Adulkareem gave birth to the babies, two boys and two girls, at the Latifa Hospital for Women and Children on July 1, 2020 - The mother and newborn were stranded in the country with mounting medical bills after she underwent cesarian section -The family had no medical insurance and racked up more than KSh 11 million in medical expenses since the quadruplets were born - The Nigerian community and other nationals in Dubai rallied around them to help raise over KSh 1.4 million to pay part of the bill - The Crown Prince stepped in to pay the bills after he came across a report highlighting the family's story The parents of preterm quadruplets receiving special care at Latifa Hospital have been thrown a lifeline by the Crown Prince of Dubai after he pledged to cover their accumulated medical bill. Tijani Abdulkareem and his wife Suliyat were facing costs of more than AED 400,000 (over KSh 11,734,276) after she gave birth to quadruplets on July 1, 2020. READ ALSO: Bungoma politician dies after testing positive for COVID-19 The Crown Prince stepped in to pay the bills after he came across a report highlighting the family's story. Photo: CNN. Source: UGC READ ALSO: Stranded Rwandese woman narrates how Kenyan husband eloped with househelp, 2 children A report by CNN showed the bill accumulated following a cesarian section but the 29-year-old new mom had no health insurance after her hospital cleaning contract ended. The couple, who expressed their gratitude in a statement, could not hide their joy after Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed promised to cover their bill. We would like to express our gratitude on behalf of the family to the UAE leaders, Sheikh Hamdan and the Latifa Women and Children's Hospital," they said. READ ALSO: Nairobi woman affected by Kariobangi demolitions names newborn after activist who helped her "...for the love and compassion they have shown to our family during this challenging and beautiful experience, the couple added. The babies were born a month early and placed in round-the-clock specialist care where they are likely to remain for at least another month. We are immensely grateful and we can't thank you all enough. It is only Allah that can repay you all for all the good deeds. We will never forget you," said the couple. READ ALSO: Woman separated from husband by COVID-19 pandemic gets dishwashing job at nursing home to see him The couple's plans to return home to Oyo, north of Lagos, to look after their soon-to-be expanded family were dashed after flights were grounded because of the COVID-19 pandemic. While Abdulkareem continued to work as a chef at a restaurant in Al Quoz, his basic insurance did not cover the care of any dependents. The Nigerian community and other UAE residents rallied to support them by donating to the hospital, but substantial costs still remained. READ ALSO: Fejo na Rafa: Nyandarua kids seen in video fighting over rubber, pencil receive help That, has now been secured allowing the family to return home to Nigeria as soon as the babies are well enough to fly. As a token of their appreciation, the couple decided to name three of the babies in honour of those who offered a helping hand. One of the boys has been named Hamdan Alexi Tijani and one of the girls Latifah Marichell Tijani after the late mother of the Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid. READ ALSO: Security guard left unemployed by COVID-19 pandemic wins KSh 484M lotto Another son has been named Mohammed Pride Tijani in honour of Sheikh Mohammed. The family hopes that this very little gesture demonstrates the families gratitude and appreciation to the leadership and the love we have for this country, the couple said. We hope if given the chance, to personally thank Sheikh Hamdan for his unconditional love and benevolence. If that opportunity does not arise we would hope that our message somehow gets to him," they added. READ ALSO: Woman suffering from rare mental disorder believes she is a chicken, crows like rooster The couple also thanked the Nigerian community in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Nigerian Consulate UAE, the Portuguese and other residents that came to their aid Muna Tahlak, chief executive of Latifa Women and Children's Hospital, praised Sheikh Hamdan's kind gesture while noting the four babies were doing well and did not have complications As the babies were born prematurely, they were admitted to the hospitals Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where they received ventilation and respiratory support and other medical care to help them thrive," she said. "Two of them are now ready to be discharged as they now weigh 1.8kgs and the other two will be discharged once they reach the same weight," she added. Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly Source: TUKO.co.ke I believe people who serve the public interest, people who get elected to public office, have a duty to be transparent and to live up to the integrity thats demanded by the public for their public service, Pritzker said. He needs to stand up and answer these questions because people have serious questions about those things and any public servant who isnt willing to do that. And Ive made that clear. As of July 28, throughout the US incarceration system, including all federal and state-run prisons and jails, at least 735 inmates have died from COVID-19 and there have been over 82,000 confirmed cases. On any day in the US, there are estimated to be 2.3 million incarcerated individuals. Approximately 12,000 cases were added in the last week alone, a 16 percent increase from the total on July 21. This is nearly double the worst week during the April peak of the virus and an increase of nearly 10,000 compared to the week of June 16. The exponential growth of the infection and death-rates in prisons is intimately tied to COVID-19s spread in the wider community. The states which have experienced the deadliest resurgences following deadly economic reopening overseen by Republican and Democratic governors have seen the highest number of deaths and infections in their prisons and jails. In the last three days alone, as the state passed 450,000 infections overall, 10 inmates in Florida prisons died from COVID-19, bringing the states total to 46 prisoner deaths. At the Columbia Correctional Institute in Lake City at least three men have died. The Florida Department of Corrections refused to publicly recognize any inmate deaths before a local medical examiner leaked them to the News Service of Florida. Cynthia Cooper, whose husband is incarcerated at the facility, told the Tampa Bay Times, I never thought Id see the day when I was afraid of something more than him just being in prison. But its come to that. The accelerating crisis in the state is a product of the criminal response of state authorities to the virus. Despite a population of over 96,000 inmates, statewide only 43,272 COVID-19 tests have been administered since the beginning of the pandemic. Furthermore, health and prison experts recommendation that all non-violent and at-risk criminals be immediately released has been ignored. On April 2, Republican Governor and Trump acolyte Ron DeSantis responded to desperate pleas to reduce the prison population to slow the virus spread, stating, I dont see how in a time of pandemic, where people are on edge already, [that] releasing felons in society would make a whole lot of sense. The reluctance is undoubtedly tied to the profitability of Floridas prison labor. Every year, 3,500 inmates in the state perform unpaid work, logging 17.7 million hours in the last five years and generating around $450 million in value according to the Florida Times-Union. This does not take into account the states thousands-strong share of the USs paid prison workers who typically earn between $0.14 and $1.50 an hour. In California, where there have now been over 475,000 confirmed coronavirus infections, prisons have also seen an intensifying death rate. The California Institute for Men in Chino has 1,047 confirmed cases and 19 deaths. While at the infamous San Quentin prison, at least 19 inmates have died from the virus, including 10 who were on death row. Despite Democratic Governor Gavin Newsoms March 2019 moratorium on executions, the state has allowed the virus to do its dirty work. In response to the outbreak at the prison, the state has converted a building at the prison into a 110-bed alternative care site. An external vendor has also been hired to give the prison a one-time deep clean. This is too little, too late. Of the prisons 3,800 inmates, 2,185 have tested positive for the virus. The hardest hit section of the prison system in the country is in Texas, which has seen over 100 deaths at just state-run facilities. The state now has over 400,000 confirmed cases, and in recent days revised its death count up 12 percent after changing its reporting. The federal prison at Fort Worth has also seen 12 deaths. State authorities continue to refuse to release more specific data on the numbers of deaths and infections at individual facilities. Ohio, which now has at least 88,000 cases, is home to the Pickaway Correctional Institute, where 36 inmates have died from the virus. Also in the state, Marion Correction Institute has seen 13 deaths. Two other prisons in the state, Belmont Correctional Institute and Franklin Medical Center, have had over 10 deaths each. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP)-run Elkton Correction Institute, has also had 10 deaths. These deaths mostly occurred during the April/May peak. With the virus again surging in the state and daily cases now exceeding their April peak, a second spike in Ohio prison deaths is on the horizon. Although the information coming out of prisons is often sparse due to heightened restrictions on visitation and phone access nationwide, it is clear that prisoners are beginning to fight back. On July 23, prisoners at the Whetstone Unit in Tucson, Arizona, staged a walkout following the spread of COVID-19 in the facility. At the Tucson facility, over 100 inmates have tested positive for the virus. Cases in the state surpassed 168,000 on Thursday. In the past week, BOP facilities passed the grim milestone of 100 deaths. The federal prison system had over 129,000 inmates before the pandemic. Despite an order from Attorney General William Barr for the mass release of federal prisoners, the BOP has released just 7,000 inmates since the beginning of the pandemic. Similarly, well-publicized executive orders for prison releases from both Democratic and Republican governors have not resulted in necessary releases. There are many reasons to believe the current figures are a huge underestimate of the actual toll of the virus. In one recorded incidence, a prison staff member died from COVID-related symptoms but was only tested post-mortem. Despite the positive result the death was not classified as a COVID-19 death. Across all facilities in the US, at least 59 prison staff have died from the virus. There also seem to be huge statistical anomalies when states prison death-rates are compared. It remains unclear how, for example, the gulf between the death rates of New York and New Jersey is so large. These two adjacent states were among the hardest hit during the April/May peak, and while New Jersey has a death rate of 27 per 10,000 inmates, New York has just four per 10,000. This came despite Rikers Island Jail in New York City having the highest rate of infection for any defined population worldwide during April. Other states that were hit hard during the same period have death rates comparable to New Jersey; for example, Ohio and Michigan both have 18 deaths per 10,000 inmates. The unabated spread of the virus in prisons is a violation of inmates basic rights to quality medical care and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. The vast majority of those incarcerated are non-violent and should never have seen the inside of a prison cell. Nonetheless, they now face a death sentence. The failure to take basic measures to fight against the virus in prisons has also allowed them to become vectors for the diseases spread, leading to an incalculable acceleration and expansion of community transmission throughout the US. These deaths have no innocent explanation. They are a product of the ruling class conscious subordination of human life to the profit system. In the case of prisons, the need for the continued incarceration of prison laborers, the use of prisons as a deterrent to keep the working class in check, and the deliberate decision to not provide adequate resources to combat the virus in prisonsas in the country at largehas led to otherwise preventable deaths. Without immediate emergency measures, thousands more lives both in and outside of prisons will be lost. WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump's call for delaying the U.S. presidential election met with stiff resistence from Republican party's top brass as well as Democrats. Trump made the suggestion on Twitter Thursday, saying that postal voting could lead to fraud and inaccurate results. At a White House news conference in the afternoon, Trump tried to dilute the intensity of his statement. 'I don't want to delay, I want to have the election. But I also don't want to have to wait for three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing and the election doesn't mean anything,' he told reporters. Trump warned that 'This election will be the most rigged election in history,' and it is to avoid a 'crooked election' that he put forward the suggestion. Trump had previously opposed mail-in voting but he could not substantiate his claims. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy both dismissed Trump's idea. 'Never in the history of this country, through wars, depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time. We will find a way to do that again this November third,' McConnel told Kentucky television station WNKY. 'Never in the history of the federal elections have we ever not held an election and we should go forward with our election,' said McCarthy. A delayed election was 'not a good idea,' according to Trump confidante Sen Lindsay Graham. The Washington Post quoted a constitutional expert as saying that the president has no power to postpone the election date, but could legally claim emergency powers to prevent people from voting. Any delay in presidential election would have to be approved by both houses of U.S. Congress, which should also pass a constitutional amendment to that effect. 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. YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. Eminent Estonian journalist Ainar Ruussaar, in his editorial in one of the largest newspapers in the country - Eesti Paevaleht, tells the story of his visit to Aghdam in 1990, where he met with the "gray wolves", Colonel Surat Huseynov /who became Prime Minister of Azerbaijan later/. Below is the translation of the article. The battles that have started to rumble again in the Southern Caucasus are not the number one topic of daily news. Yet Armenia and Azerbaijan are aiming weapons at each other again, and it has claimed tens of lives on both sides this week, more in recent decades than any viral infection in either country (before COVID). The still-unsolved bloody quarrel between the neighbours in the Caucasus is one of the many examples that history has known in various parts of the world for millennia. Baku-Agdam, 1990 30 years ago, on a late evening in the Azeri capital of Baku, a train with four carriages was waiting to leave the city on the edge of Nagorno-Karabakh. The windows of the train were shredded by bullet holes, and the four wagons were carrying six wagons worth of people travelling from the capital to the frontline city, among them nursing mothers, elderly men and military personnel. As I walked into the night passenger train, I knew five things. First of all, I only knew the destination, Agdam, by the name of a cheap spirit wine with a horrible taste. It was bought by students in Tartu during the week before the scholarship payday. Second, I had previously reflected the battles between the Caucasians, and I considered myself quite able to defend myself mentally against the emotions Northerners were unaccustomed to. Third, I knew where to hide and distribute all the cash I had. The fourth thing I knew was that the greatest danger might come from strangers suddenly becoming friends with you. Fifth, I knew who and in what amount to bribe in today's terms if great trouble arose. This knowledge did not serve me well in the Azerbaijani-Armenian war 30 years ago. On the contrary, everything went completely differently. The four wagons chock full of people rattled along all night, the numerous bullet holes in their windows did not give enough fresh air to the passengers, and neither could they extricate the nicotine of men who were constantly smoking. In the morning, the train arrived at Agdam. Right behind the station building, two houses that had apparently been hit by a missile were flaming; a tank was burning a little further away. The place crawled with azer (Azerbaijani edit.) military personnel, and battle sounds were intermittently heard from some distance away. Fortunately, three men in military camo uniforms came immediately to check my documents, one of them carrying two Kalashnikov automatic rifles on his right shoulder, a grenade launcher on his left shoulder, and six hand grenades on his belt. The Western journalist was obviously an interesting find for them, and that's how I ended up with them for a few days. The man armed to the teeth showed a vicious wolf-face emblem with exposed fangs, sewn on his uniforms sleeve. It marked their troops. The grey wolves For the men with wolf emblems, hosting a journalist was clearly a nice break in the warfare. For starters, they offered me local wine (military men!) from a dirty plastic bottle, which was not at all as horrible as the scary awful Agdam sold in Tartu stores. Then they drove me to the edge of town, where there were three charred bodies lying next to a burnt tank hit by Armenians, around whom dozens of women were crying loudly. It was an appalling sight, and I confessed to myself that I still had to improve my emotional protection a lot. Then the wolves took me to see their commander. In the partially shattered suburb of Agdam, a man made a loud speech in front of a line of soldiers. My request for an interview was answered by a contemptuous look, and so ended my brief meeting with the legendary colonel, Surat Huseynov. The troops he led defended the Agdam region, but left it to the Armenians in the summer of 1993 (Agdam fell on 23 July 1993). Huseynov was one of the leaders of Azerbaijan's market mafia during the disintegration of the Soviet Union and, among other things, financed the emerging peoples militia there. After the defeat in Karabakh and its outskirts, Huseynov deployed his troops towards the capital Baku with the aim of taking down Azerbaijan's first freely elected President, Abulfaz Elchibey, by means of automatic weapons. The President who anticipated the military coup fled the capital. A clever Caucasian fox and former local communist leader Heidar Aliyev stepped into his shoes, ending the putsch and appointing Huseynov as prime minister. The career of Huseynov, a man with the characteristics of a mob leader, did not last long; a temporary escape to Russia to evade an expected punishment did not save him either, and in 1999 he was sentenced to life in prison by a court in Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Ilham Aliyev, the son of the countrys President, while filling in for the latter, pardoned Colonel Huseynov, and he now lives modestly in a three-storey villa near Baku in his ripe old age of 60. And possibly earns a pension supplement from keeping the local markets in check. Lost the money and the watch The grey wolves drove me to their base. They occasionally went to fight battles in the surrounding mountainous forest, and they would not allow me to go along with them. There was a wave of weapon rattle and explosions in the distance, and sometimes some ragged and bloody soldiers arrived at the wolf base, but otherwise soup and grilled meat were cooked. On the third day, I got sick of it and asked to be taken back to the railway station at Agdam. The same two friendly guys I'd met a few days earlier offered me a ride. In a lonely mountain valley, they stopped the SUV, ordered me out of the car, pulled a bullet in the chambers of their automatics, and took the money from my pocket and the watch from my wrist. They didnt think to look for money in my underpants. They then took me amicably to the Agdam railway station, to the bullet-ridden four-wagon train heading into the capital. I didn't have to buy a ticket; the men cleared everything with the conductor in their own language. This confirmed my earlier experience that new friends may also be robbers, and that you must hide some of your money in your underwear. At Baku Airport, I could see from the tellers face that there were tickets for the Donetsk-Tallinn flight available, even though the airport information indicated that everything had been sold out. I paid double the amount in cash and landed in Tallinn, thus completing the fifth point of my acquired knowledge. I believed that riding a train straight to the frontline would be the only such experience in my life. Unfortunately, it wasnt. A year later, a passenger train took me from the Croatian capital Zagreb straight to Karlovac, which was on fire and was eagerly held under fire by Serbian forces when the train arrived at the station. War or communication? All historical ethnic, religious and territorial disputes are finally tested by war, threats, or communication skills. When being at war, everyone states that there is a need to negotiate, and then they set out their own conditions that the other party cannot fulfil. At present, Azerbaijan claims that it may interrupt oil and gas supplies to Europe because of the war that broke out again; Armenia is alarming Europe with the risk that the Azeris could shoot up Metsamor nuclear power plant. The battered Mi-24 helicopters from 30 years ago have been replaced by drones. The war in the Southern Caucasus has now spilled out of Nagorno-Karabakh. The battered Mi-24 helicopters from 30 years ago have been replaced by drones, and hostile hackers are conducting numerous cyber-attacks from both sides. The US, the European Union and Russia are inviting the historical opponents to exercise restraint and to come to a round table. It is true, however, that the dozens of victims of the rekindled war include 76-year-old azer Aziz Azizov who was living in Agdam and 20-year-old junior sergeant Sos Elbakyan of the Armenian Army. Who holds the key to this centuries-long feud? Ainar Ruussaar has been a journalist for BNS, ERR and Postimees; he is now a teacher at Kohtla-Jarve Gymnasium. Twice a month in the LP, he compares the current events with similar events from the past. Chengdu is also a jumping-off point for visits to Tibet, access to which has long been restricted for foreigners, particularly since an uprising against Beijings rule in 2008. China says Tibet has been its territory for seven centuries, but many Tibetans say they were effectively independent for most of that time. Pictured: Victoria Breeden, 39, in an undated image from Cambridgeshire Constabulary A mother, 39, who asked three different men to murder her ex-husband after he won custody of a child has been jailed for nearly 10 years. Victoria Breeden, 39, tried to persuade the three men to murder Rob Parkes between 2014 and 2019. She was convicted at an earlier trial at Chelmsford Crown Court of three counts of soliciting his murder and was jailed for nine years and six months today at the same court. Breeden met Mr Parkes at university in 1999 and they married in 2004. But the couple separated in 2008 and Mr Parkes was granted custody of a child in 2014 following proceedings in the family courts. Mr Justice Chamberlain, sentencing Breeden, said: 'The evidence demonstrates that your main motivation in trying to persuade others to kill Rob Parkes was to regain custody of (a child). 'It must be obvious to you now that that can't happen.' The defendant from near Littleport, Cambridgeshire, appeared by video-link from Peterborough Prison and bowed her head as the judge sentenced her. She was convicted at trial of endeavouring to persuade then-neighbour Hamish Lowry-Martin to murder Mr Parkes between January 1 2014 and December 31 2014. She was also found guilty of endeavouring to persuade former boyfriend Graham Wall to murder Mr Parkes between October 19, 2018 and October 3, 2019. Breeden was also convicted of trying to persuade friend Earl Gernon to murder Mr Parkes on October 1 2019. Rob Parkes with his current wife while on their way to hear the verdict of the case against his former wife Breeden this afternoon at Chelmsford Crown Court in Essex A recording of Breeden's conversation with Mr Gernon was made on Mr Wall's mobile phone, as Mr Wall had suspected that Breeden was being unfaithful and left the device hidden on the record setting. Mr Justice Chamberlain said of the recording of Breeden's conversation with Mr Gernon: 'The discussion you (Breeden) had was detailed, it included the way in which the murder could be done and costs of different methods. 'You handed Earl Gernon Rob's address and you had a large sum of money you could have used for the killing.' Graham Wall, pictured, who was asked to murder Mr Parkes, leaving the court in Essex He told Breeden: 'You were only thwarted because Gernon did not do what you wanted, or at least had not done so by the time police got involved.' Daniel Taylor, prosecuting, said: 'The crown say that this offending was persistent, planned and ultimately motivated by a desire to gain custody (of a child).' He said that Mr Lowry-Martin and Mr Gernon were offered a 'financial incentive to carry out those instructions' and that Breeden had 18,000 in cash. 'The point the crown say is important here is someone offering... money and she had the means to pay it,' said Mr Taylor. Matthew Jewell QC, mitigating, said that two of the men 'made it pretty clear they were going to have nothing to do with it'. He said Breeden's conversation with the third man, Mr Gernon, 'doesn't reach a conclusion on the topic one way or the other and there was no evidence of any follow-up'. Mr Jewell said Breeden has mental health issues but no conclusive diagnosis. Mr Parkes, reading his victim impact statement to the court, said that the trial was 'harrowing' for him as he heard 'just how my ex-wife wanted to kill me'. 'I've never felt as unsafe as I have in the last year,' he said. Mr Parkes thanked Mr Wall for going to the police, which he said 'prevented (Breeden) from being successful'. An Idaho woman who is awaiting trial for allegedly poisoning her husband with a lethal dose of Benadryl and then throwing his body over the side of their boat is suspected of making a prior attempt on his life during a trip to Florida. Court documents that were filed earlier this month in the case of Lori Isenberg contend that the 66-year-old woman, who is currently serving a sentence on an unrelated embezzlement conviction, had previously tried to poison her husband with the same drug that ultimately killed him. She also allegedly researched 'Florida water depths, currents, tides, drowning, boat accidents and boat rentals.' Isenberg was indicted in March on murder charges in the death of her husband, retired forester Larry Isenberg, 68, who was reported missing and presumed drowned in Lake Coeur d'Alene in February 2018. Scroll down for video New documents have revealed that accused killer Lori Isenberg, pictured in court earlier this year, had tried to poison her husband, Larry, once before Lori, 66 (left), is awaiting trial in Idaho on a charge of first-degree murder in the poisoning death of her husband, Larry Isenberg (pictured together, right), in February 2018 His wife told officers he had fallen off the boat while trying to fix the motor. But when Larry's body was recovered from the lake 16 days later, an autopsy showed that he had not died by drowning, but had been poisoned with Benadryl. According to the newly filed court records obtained by the station KHQ, Lori began to take steps to kill her husband so he would not find out that she had been stealing large sums of money from the non-profit organization helping low-income families where she worked. Lori feared that Larry would have divorced her and kept some, if not all, of their jointly-owned property worth about $1.5million, according to the documents. Before heading to Lake Coeur d'Alene for what was supposed to be a romantic boat ride on February 13, 2018, prosecutors said that Lori had looked into conditions on Lake Pend Oreille, including overnight boating. In the immediate aftermath of her husband's death, Lori liquidated all of their joint accounts and transferred other community property to herself, her daughters and her sister, evidence presented by the prosecution alleged. Isenberg has pleaded not guilty to a count of first-degree murder and is being held in the Kootenai County jail on $2million bond. On Tuesday, a judge ruled that her trial will be delayed again due to the coronavirus outbreak, reported Coeur d'Alene Post Falls. Prosecutors alleged that during a trip to Florida, Lori (left) researched water depths, currents and tides in the state Lori claimed that her husband fell over the side of their boat while fixing the motor. An autopsy later revealed his cause of death was Benadryl overdose The state Supreme Court previously ordered that all criminal jury trials will be delayed until August 3, but later pushed back the date to September 14. The bizarre case began unfolding when the Isenbergs set off on their boat on Lake Coeur d'Alene on the morning of February 13 2018. Lori called police a few hours later claiming her husband had accidentally fallen overboard while fixing the boat's motor. She made the call two hours after the alleged incident, saying she had left her phone onshore. Isenberg is serving a five-year sentence after pleading guilty to embezzling more than $570,000 from the non-profit organization where she worked She told officers her husband wasn't feeling well and likely had a medical episode, causing him to fall into the water on that fateful day. Detectives later said Lori's account of her husband's health didn't match up to that of his friends and questions were also raised over messages sent from Larry's phone in the hours leading up to his disappearance and death. One friend said they had received a text message from Larry's phone that morning saying he felt better following his bout with the flu where he thought he might have suffered a 'mini-stroke'. That friend said Lori had told him the same thing during a conversation but that Larry himself had made no mention of illness before. A message from Larry that day also included a 'thumbs-up' emoji something that seemed unusual as Larry never used emojis but Lori regularly did. On February 18, five days after he went missing, the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office received two reports of suspicious behavior at the Isenberg's home where callers said people were moving things out of the home and overheard Lori saying she needed to sell the home as fast as possible. Then, just days before her husband's body was discovered, the suspected killer was arrested for embezzling more than $570,000 from her workplace, the non-profit North Idaho Housing Coalition (NIHC), after an accountant found checks with board members' names forged on them. One of her adult daughters, Amber Hosking, also worked for the organization. They were both later fired from their roles. Hosking and Lori's other adult daughter from a previous marriage - Jessica Barnes then also became suspects in their stepfather's death after Larry's will was found doctored with handwritten changes that altered the percentages his children would receive. The victim's friends said this seemed strange, amid tensions between the married couple over giving her daughters money. Immediately after Larry's death, Lori transferred the couple's assets to herself and her daughters, Amber Hosking (left) and Jessica Barnes (right) The plot thickened further when the coroner's report listed the 68-year-old's cause of death as diphenhydramine toxicity, a fatal overdose of over-the-counter medicine Benadryl. Larry had 7,100 nanograms of diphenhydramine in his system, while 100 nanograms to 1,000 nanograms is considered normal. In May 2019, while still under investigation for Larry's death, Lori was found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to five years in prison. She pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud and was sentenced to five years in prison. Her two daughters were also sentenced for assisting their mother in the crimes. Officers arrested Lori on February 24 for murder while she is serving time on the embezzlement charges. Agricultural production is highly sensitive to weather and climate, which affect when farmers and land managers plant seeds or harvest crops. These conditions also factor into decision-making, when people decide to make capital investments or plant trees in an agroforestry system. A new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture focuses on how agricultural systems are impacted by climate change and offers a list of 20 indicators that provide a broad look at what's happening across the country. The report, "Climate Indicators for Agriculture," is co-authored by Colorado State University's Peter Backlund, associate director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability. Backlund said the research team started with the scientific fact that climate change is underway. "We looked at the U.S. agricultural system and examined the climate stresses," he said. "This report outlines data that farmers and land managers can use to understand how climate change is affecting their operations, and, hopefully, guide the development of effective adaptation." In the report, the authors outline how the changes taking place in agriculture affect the system that many people make their livelihoods from. advertisement "We want to help farmers, ranchers and land managers adapt better under climate change, which requires understanding what is actually happening on the ground. These indicators offer ways to measure the impacts of change," said Backlund. 20 climate indicators, based on robust data The climate indicators described in the report are arranged in five categories, including physical (extreme precipitation and nighttime air temperature), crop and livestock (animal heat stress and leaf wetness duration), biological (insect infestation in crops, crop pathogens), phenological (timing of budbreak in fruit trees, disease vectors in livestock) and socioeconomic (crop insurance payments, heat-related mortality of agricultural workers). Backlund said the research team chose these indicators based on the strength of their connection to climate change and availability of long-term data, which is needed to identify how impacts are changing over time and whether adaptive actions are having the desired effect. "There had to be a measurement of a variable strongly coupled with climate," he said. "As we go forward, we will better understand the impact of climate change by using these indicators." Researchers opted to include nighttime air temperatures as opposed to general temperature because nighttime temperatures have a big effect on the way plants develop. advertisement Some of the indicators have national data, while others are more regional. Heat stress on livestock, a huge issue for feedlot operators, will be of interest to farmers and ranchers in states including Colorado. "Heat interferes with the rate of reproduction and rate of weight gain," Backlund said. "This presses on the whole operation; it's not just that a few more animals will die from getting too hot." The crop insurance payment indicator offers insight on the repercussions of climate events. "You can see if you have a big climate event, like drought, one region will be much more affected than another," he said. "If farmers have good irrigation, they'll be much more capable in dealing with periods of low rainfall." Backlund said the indicator covering weed range and intensity was also notable. As carbon dioxide concentrations increase, researchers are seeing extreme northern migrations and expanded ranges for weeds. The Red Cross has drawn up a report of their activities over the last year, with a focus on the organisation's role during the pandemic crisis and the development of their services. The Red Cross rehabilitation centre in Colpach was repurposed to take on coronavirus patients, thus alleviating pressure on hospitals. The Red Cross praised the solidarity of those who responded to their appeals for help, as well as those who donated money and blood during the crisis. 1,400 new blood donors registered following a campaign in the early days of the pandemic. Although further financial aid is required on an international basis, the Luxembourg branch of the Red Cross saw plenty of donations through the crisis. Michel Simonis, the director, said the coronavirus crisis had spurred the organisation to examine their services and how best to keep them going to meet requirements throughout the pandemic. Although it was not possible to run certain activities at full capacity, such as the at-home care services, they were able to maintain most essential services so the vulnerable were not left adrift in the wake of the crisis. The Red Cross also gave assistance to those who had tested positive for the virus, providing those with accommodation where required if they could not isolate of their own devices. In the next phase of the pandemic, the Red Cross will use the Colpach centre to help rehabilitate patients, rather than housing those with the virus. In spite of this, they have prepared their other services for the second wave. The government of India has announced a new import policy for televisions which is restricting the imports of multiple television types into the country. The new guidelines announced by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) is an attempt to boost local manufacturing and assembling of televisions in India. The curbs mean that importers will now need to apply for a license to import certain categories of TVs. This follows the governments recent decisions to promote Make in India, or Atmanirbhar Bharat, and reduce the reliance on imports from other countries, particularly China. The DGFT notification says that the import policy of colour television sets is now amended from free to restricted. Mind you, TV importers can still apply for the necessary license to continue importing TVs, as long as they have a valid reason for applying for the license. In India, data suggests that as much as $781 million worth of TVs were imported in 2019-20. Of this, $428 million was from Vietnam and $293 million was from China. A lot of this includes the relatively unknown brandsa simple search for LED TV or TV on Amazon.in will show you some completely unknown brands selling TVs imported from China or Vietnam or other marketsinterspersed with well-known brands including Xiaomis Mi TV range, Samsungs LED TVs and more. You must be wondering how this move may impact your decision to buy a new TV. In a way, it doesnt change anything for you, in most likelihood. Most of the popular TV brands in India are already manufacturing or assembling TVs in India. Therefore, there will be absolutely no impact on the prices of the TVs they sell in India, or the availability of these TVs. For instance, Xiaomi says more than 85% of the Mi TVs they sell in India are Made in India. Xiaomis Mi TVs are priced Rs 12,499 onwards. In India, the television manufacturing market can be largely segmented into two broad categoriespremium TV brands such as Sony, Samsung, Sony and LG, and brands that have their focus on the more affordable price points including the likes of Xiaomi, Vu, TCL, Realme and Nokia. There are brands such as OnePlus which try to play their part in both price segments. The likes of Sony, Samsung, LG and Xiaomi have been making TVs in India for a while now, which make for a large chunk of their inventory. In January this year, Samsung announced their partnership with Noida based Dixon Technologies to manufacture LED TVs in India, including at their manufacturing facility at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. Dixon Technologies also makes TVs for Panasonic, Xiaomi and Skyworth, to name a few other brands. Samsung as well as OnePlus announced in June that they intend to rely on Skyworth to manufacture TVs at their Hyderabad facility. OnePlus recently expanded their TV lineup in India, to include the ultra-affordable Y-series TVs which are available in 32-inch and 43-inch screen sizes and prices start at Rs 12,999. OnePlus still imports some TVs from China. Skyworth also manufacturers TVs under the Metz brand, a German TV company it acquired a few years ago. In fact, it is interesting to note that Samsung had stopped manufacturing TVs in Indian in 2018 after the government then imposed duties on open cell TV panels, and instead imported TVs from Vietnam. That was reversed last year when the government removed all duties on these panels. This decision however will impact high-end televisions, the more expensive ones that brands still import. But whether there is a restriction on the volume of imports for those TVs when licensing approvals are sought, or whether addition duties are levied, remains unclear. AAP spokesperson Raghav Chadha, in a presser, said that the central govt derives sadistic pleasure by inflicting pain and misery on the people of Delhi and the elected govt of Delhi Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal stoked a fresh controversy over recent guidelines issued by the Arvind Kejriwal government on Friday, as he rejected the state Cabinet's decision to allow hotels and weekly markets to open under Unlock 3 guidelines. The Arvind Kejriwal government had decided to allow hotels to reopen in the city on the Thursday. It also allowed weekly bazaars (markets) on a trial basis for seven days with social distancing and all necessary COVID 19-appropriate measures in place. The move had come after the Central government had issued fresh guidelines for Unlock 3.0, the third phase of the gradual lifting of curbs imposed in the wake of coronavirus. However, senior officials in the L-Gs office said the situation in Delhi continues to be "fragile" and the threat is still "far from over". Therefore such relaxations cannot be allowed. The Print quoted sources in the L-G's office as saying, "We dont think Delhi is in a position to get back to a normal life this soon. Corona(virus) hasnt vanished and we cannot resume activity at this pace Hence, keeping the safety of everyone in mind, the decision has been taken." The Aam Aadmi Party has, meanwhile, reacted strongly to the L-G's move. AAP spokesperson Raghav Chadha, in a presser, said, "It appears that the central govt derives sadistic pleasure by inflicting pain and misery on the people of Delhi and the elected govt of Delhi. We would like to tell the Centre to stop interfering in areas that come under the domain of the elected government. On 8 June, Centre allowed weekly markets and hotels to open. Even though in Gujarat and UP, the corona situation is bad , both hotels and weekly markets are open. But when it comes to Delhi, the central govt has problems." This is the second time in two days that there have been conflicts between the Delhi L-G and the AAP government. On Thursday, the two had clashed when Baijal overruled the Delhi cabinets decision to reject a panel of lawyers chosen by the Delhi Police to represent it in cases related to the communal riots in northeast Delhi after the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests. The Delhi cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Kejriwal on Tuesday, had rejected the panel of lawyers proposed by the city police, saying it would not help a "free-and-fair" trial of the cases related to the northeast Delhi riots. But Baijal, on Thursday, overruled this, directing the home department to grant approval to the Delhi Police's proposed panel of lawyers. With inputs from PTI The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on July 31 registered a money laundering charges in the Sushant Singh Rajput case, sources told Moneycontrol. The development came a day after an FIR was filed by the late actor's father against actor Rhea Chakraborty over the siphoning off of Rs 15 crore. The central probe agency has taken cognisance of a Bihar Police first investigation report (FIR) registered against Chakraborty and some others and slapped criminal charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). An Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) has been filed in the case, alleging financial irregularities being committed against the deceased, news agency PTI reported. The late actor's father K Singh had, on July 28, lodged an FIR against Chakraborty and six others, including her family members, under various sections of the IPC, including abetment to suicide, wrongful confinement, theft, criminal breach of trust, etc. The former head of the Aids control programme of the United Nations (UN-Aids), Peter Piot, was right. 16 years ago, he said in an interview with F. A. Z., he was sure that there would be micro-biocides, used to be on the market as an Aids vaccine. Microbicides are antimicrobial substances that can be used by women is vaginal as a protection against HIV, without their sexual knowledge partners. Already 16 years ago, was also experimented with vaginal rings, four years ago, it was shown by two studies that vaginal rings that release the virus-inhibiting active ingredient Dapivirin, the overall risk of becoming infected with HIV, 35 percent lower. A few days ago, these rings have now from the European medicines Agency (Ema), a positive scientific opinion. Ema recommends their application in developing countries among women of 18 years of age. Peter-Philipp Schmitt editor in the Department "Germany and the world". F. A. Z. the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) has taken an important hurdle. Founded in 2002, the Non-Profit organization can begin now, together with the world health organisation in southern Africa, the market introduction of your Dapivirin ring, to prepare. Many African countries recognise the opinion of the Ema, which can help to speed up the Checks. IPM is also an application to the American Food and drug authority. Next year women in Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda could be an additional HIV protection available. the importance of such a protection, is shown also with a view to the Corona pandemic. Among other things, in South Africa, a second pandemic in progress, which had scourged among others, also the President of the country, Cyril Ramaphosa, already in June, the public is now: The number of violent Attacks on women and girls, which is already much higher than in Europe, has achieved in Corona-times new all-time highs. The police statistics recorded in 2019, five rapes per hour in South Africa, every three hours is murdered, a girl or a woman. According to preliminary Figures of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union in Johannesburg, the number of sexual Assaults, especially in the family and circle of friends during the Corona-lock downs to a 500% increase. Encouraging study results the girls and women in Africa often have little opportunity to protect themselves from infection with a venereal disease. Many men reject condoms as a protection, since they are considered to be unmanly and less joy promised, in addition, many men do not want to be under the General suspicion of being infected with HIV. Therefore, your partner can take inside also not easy to anti-retro viral drugs (ARV) as a precaution, so with a Prep against the Virus guard, a pre-exposure prophylaxis, which would be quite possible. Just because of the vaginal comes in the ring, the it enables the male sexual partner unnoticed the controlled release of a drug over longer periods of time. The IPM-Ring with an outer diameter of 56 millimeters and a cross-sectional diameter of 7.7 millimetres, consists of a novel, flexible silicone. In his Matrix of 25 mm are distributed grams of ARV Dapivirin evenly. The Ring releases the drug slowly over a month away and the directly to the site of a potential infection. Since the ARV is otherwise hardly absorbed from the body, you experience little side effects. Dapivirin has long been used successfully in the fight against HIV and Aids, to prevent mother-to-child Transmission of the Virus at birth. Updated Date: 31 July 2020, 19:19 By PTI CHANDIGARH:Thirty-eight people have died in Punjab's three districts allegedly after drinking spurious liquor, prompting Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to order a magisterial probe, officials said on Friday. According to them, while 19 people died in Tarn Taran, spurious liquor claimed 10 lives in Amritsar and nine in Batala since Wednesday night. Police have arrested eight bootleggers, including a woman, in this regard. The SHO of the Tarsikka police station, Bikramjit Singh, has been suspended, Amritsar's SSP (Rural) Vikramjit Singh Duggal said. Reacting to the incidents, the Opposition AAP demanded Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's resignation. The Shiromani Akali Dal too sought a judicial probe by a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. In a crackdown on Friday, the Punjab Police arrested seven bootleggers in over 40 raids in Amritsar, Batala and Tarn Taran. A woman was held on Thursday night from Muchhal village in Amritsar's Tarsikka, DGP Dinkar Gupta said. The DGP said the death toll could rise further as the spurious liquor network was spread across many areas. He said the questioning of the arrested was expected to lead to further arrests in the case. Gupta said a huge quantity of spurious liquor, drums and storage cans were recovered from the accused and these have been sent for a chemical analysis. More arrests are likely, he said, adding that the raids are being conducted to nab those involved in the case. According to police, while Balwinder Kaur and Mithu were arrested from Amritsar, two people, identified as Darshan Rani and Rajan, were nabbed from Batala district. Four others--Kashmir Singh, Angrez Singh, Amarjit and Baljit--were arrested from Tarn Taran. The DGP said those arrested from Tarn Taran had admitted to supplying spurious liquor in Norangabad village. Mithu, who was arrested from Jasso Nangal village of Khilchian, has also admitted to his role in supplying spurious liquor, said the DGP. Earlier in the day, an official statement said Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the deaths by the Divisional Commissioner, Jalandhar. The inquiry will look into the facts and circumstances leading to the incidents, it said. It will be conducted by the Divisional Commissioner, Jalandhar, along with the Punjab Joint Excise and Taxation Commissioner and the SP (Investigation) in districts concerned. The CM has given the Divisional Commissioner the liberty to co-opt any civil/police officer or any expert to facilitate the expeditious conduct of the probe. The Shiromani Akali Dal rejected the Divisional Commissioner-level inquiry and demanded a judicial probe by a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. SAD leader Daljit Cheema said preliminary reports indicated that the supply of spurious liquor was widespread and required a thorough investigation by an independent agency. Cheema alleged that there was the sale of illegal liquor directly from distilleries, which are 'patronised by Congress leaders'. In a tweet, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal said, "My heart goes out to the families who lost members in perhaps the worst #hooch tragedy in the state. Congress has blood of these Punjabis on its hand & @capt amarinder is too busy in publicity video shoots to act against his party colleagues responsible for this human tragedy." Aam Aadmi Party said the magisterial inquiry won't work, with party's senior leader and MLA Aman Arora saying the party demands the resignation of the chief minister. "Being the Minister for Excise and Taxation and Home Minister, Amarinder Singh cannot escape from the responsibility of these deaths," the AAP leader said. Congress MP Pratap Singh Bajwa also demanded a time-bound inquiry by a sitting high court judge, saying it was needed "to unearth the truth behind the deaths due to spurious liquor. Meanwhile, Sheela Devi, mother of deceased Bhupinder Singh, told reporters in Batala that his 24-year-old son had consumed liquor from a shop located near the Hathi Gate area. He fell unconscious after a few hours, she said. "He complained of discomfort and nausea and a few minutes later, he was no more," she said. Many locals in Batala alleged that illegal illicit liquor was being openly sold in the Hathi Gate locality but no action was taken by the authorities. Rahul, a nephew of another victim Buta Ram, said his 40-year-old uncle consumed liquor Thursday evening. "He was lying on the floor outside our residence while froth came out from his mouth," he said, adding that he was taken to the Batala Civil Hospital, where he was declared dead by doctors. Batala Senior Medical Officer Sanjiv Bhalla said the reason of the death will be clear only after a post-mortem. SEVEN HILLS, Ohio -- Flooding related to storm and sanitary sewers continues to be an issue for many Northeast Ohio communities, including Seven Hills, where the city tackles numerous projects each year. Mayor Anthony D. Biasiotta is getting proactive with a new approach. Shortly after taking office earlier this year, the mayor convened a water management task force with marching orders to eschew the citys previous reactive and piecemeal approach to solutions for a more comprehensive plan based around solving ongoing issues. Speaking with numerous residents during my campaign for mayor, and additional phone calls from residents and studying the data collected by our service department, I felt that it was time that we bring relevant people in one room to perform our due diligence, identify root causes and come up with short-, medium- and long-term solutions for whats been a decades-old problem in our community, Biasiotta said. Convened in April, the water management task force committee members include Biasiotta, Councilman John Kulju, Chief of Staff Kristin Saban, Service Director Jack Johnson, City Engineer Daniel Collins, Assistant City Engineer Mark Schmitzer, consultant Scott Belz and Sewer Department representatives Sue Oyster and Mike Vano. West Creek Conservancys Pete Bode served as a technical adviser. The task forces mission was to develop plans to remediate water-related issues and prioritize specific projects that will lead to the rehabilitation of the sewer systems and other control measures to minimize flooding. Last week, the groups efforts were presented to City Councils Public Works Committee. I look at this as a blueprint for ongoing water management, so we identified what the major components of any water maintenance plan would be, Biasiotta said. Thats preventative maintenance, address I/I (cross connection issues), rehabilitation of the stormwater control measures and to improve and repair the citys sanitary sewers. Many of these sewers are more than 55 years old. Where we can identify target improvements, we will address them. Biasiotta said the city anticipates nearly $1 million in short-term water management improvements to be started this year. This includes engineering on the Calvin Park/Sommerset Lane basin and Cheryl Ann Drive culvert, as well as the Skyview Drive storm sewer outfall improvements and Alla Drive catch basins. The task force also recommended planning public education platforms, identifying potential partnerships and research funding, and looking for economic assistance programs essential in carrying out this mission. I understand water issues are a regional problem, Biasiotta said. Its also my understanding working with county and regional officials that Seven Hills is to be commended for taking a proactive, wider approach to help remediate this issue. This is a comprehensive blueprint touching on all of the major components and how they are interrelated. These are a number of projects working together. This includes the current Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer Districts (NEORSD) Hemlock Creek Bank Stabilization Project. The ongoing $4 million effort is modifying the alignment of two culverts to improve stream function and create floodplain access to control out-of-bank flows during larger storm events. After working with the Seven Hills water management task force, NEORSD Watershed Team Leader Donna Friedman offered her perspective. Flooding in Seven Hills has been an issue for many years, Friedman said. Under the new administration, the task force has laid out a plan to address this problem. NEORSD has reviewed their most recent presentation and has given input. In partnership with the Cuyahoga County Department of Public Works, the city plans to increase the amount of maintenance on local sewers, she said. The task force is also looking to address stormwater infrastructure in their plan, with a focus on local basins. Its good to see the community taking proactive steps to address the complex problem of flooding. Seven Hills is also working in conjunction with West Creek Conservancy for additional maintenance. Its really about bringing all of the decision makers and their expertise into one room to produce a cohesive result we hope our residents will be happy with, Biasiotta said. Everything weve identified so far we can handle within our current budget. The short-term tasks we hope to have under way very quickly and wrap up by the end of the year. Read more from the Parma Sun Post. Antony Catalano's regional publishing business Australian Community Media will shut three print centres permanently after securing a new deal with News Corp Australia that will reshape newspaper partnerships across the country. Major newspaper publishers News Corp, Nine Entertainment Co (owner of this masthead) and ACM have been in talks for months about redrawing print partnerships through amalgamation of print centres in an attempt to reduce costs without cutting editorial jobs. ACM boss Antony Catalano will permanently shut three print centres. Credit:Jesse Marlow ACM, which is run by real estate entrepreneur Antony Catalano and owned by billionaire investor Alex Waislitz, told staff it was considering closures at four of its sites in early July, but was set to inform them on Friday morning that it would permanently shut the Canberra, Murray Bridge and Ballarat sites. It is still considering whether to close the Albury/Wodonga print centre. As a result of the closures, Nine and ACM have terminated a multi-year print deal and newspapers including The Age and The Australian Financial Review will be printed by News Corp's site in Melbourne. News Corp will continue to print Nine publications across NSW, Queensland and South Australia, while ACM will continue to print the newspapers in Tasmania and Western Australia. ACM publications in Victoria will be printed by News Corp. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed in May that Nine and Australian Community Media had been in talks about the future of its Victorian printing deal. The Age and The Australian Financial Review were both printed by Mr Catalano under a deal signed when he bought Nine's regional publishing business last July. The deal had two years left to run. The closures will result in hundreds of jobs losses but is expected to save ACM tens of millions of dollars. One industry source previously told The Herald and The Age that ACM's print operation costs between $50 million to $70 million to run. ACM was under pressure before the coronavirus pandemic, but a weak advertising market tied to the crisis put further financial strain on the company. ACM temporarily suspended the print edition of non-daily newspapers and shut four print centres in mid-April, but most titles have since returned. "Even before we saw the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, many of our printing presses had more capacity than demand," an ACM statement said. "As a result we have determined that the overheads of running expensive manufacturing operations are an unsustainable drain on our business and that there are alternatives available to us which provide better commercial outcomes while allowing us to focus on our core publishing business. Flash China is ready to forge greater synergy between its new infrastructure initiative and "Fast Italy" to unlock more cooperation potential in digital technologies, ICT, infrastructure, port construction and third-market cooperation, which has the potential to serve as a model of mutually beneficial cooperation for others. Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the remarks while holding talks with Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi Di Maio via video link on Wednesday. Wang said that since the start of COVID-19, China and Italy have supported each other and worked together to fight the virus. Such cooperation has deepened the relations and traditional friendship between the two countries and set a good example of solidarity and partnership for the international community. Wang commended Italy's political decision to support and participate in Belt and Road cooperation, which has opened up new prospects and injected fresh impetus into bilateral cooperation across the board. New cooperation opportunities will continue to emerge in the post-COVID-19 era, Wang said. Under the current circumstances, the two sides should send out a positive message of China and the EU standing together against global challenges and advancing multilateralization to instill more stability and positive energy into the UN-centered international system, Wang said. Hailing China's support for the global anti-epidemic fight, Di Maio said Italy stands ready to serve as a bridge between the two sides for deepening strategic cooperation and strengthening coordination on international affairs. Travelers entering and staying in Belgium for more than two days will need to fill out an online form as of 1 August. Belgium's Ministry for Foreign Affairs announced that this online form has to be completed by : all persons traveling to Belgium by airplane or boat, and all other persons traveling to Belgium, unless they stay for less than 48 hours in Belgium, or they return following a stay no longer than 48 hours abroad. The form includes name, address, phone number, arrival and departure date. You will also need to give details about how you travel within Belgium. If you travel by car, you will need to provide your registration number. The form can be found here. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday suggested that the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) create an army of contact tracers to identify people who have come in contact with Covid-19 patients and contain the viral spread. In a virtual meeting with senior AMC officials, chief scientist of the WHO Dr Soumya Swaminathan stressed on the need to create a big army of contact tracers consisting of students and graduates, and training them as it had been done in United Kingdom and Germany. According to a release issued here, the briefing, which revolved around showcasing Ahmedabad Model of fighting coronavirus, was attended by Ahmedabad municipal commissioner Mukesh Kumar and officer on special duty Rajiv Kumar Gupta. Dr Swaminathan showed interest in the AMCs Covid-19 management model, which comprises screening and testing vans, 104 fever helpline service and PPP model of roping in private hospitals for treating patients, the release stated. These interventions were very useful and encouraging experiences, which could be adopted by other cities, she reportedly said. The WHO will soon be providing a platform for sharing the Ahmedabad model with other cities in India and across the world as part of its ongoing exercise of sharing and learning from best practices of Covid-19 management, the release said. Dr Swaminathan also appreciated the AMCs strategy of using Aarogya Setu Data Intelligence for focussed surveillance and testing, it was stated. India's third Covid wave likely to peak on Jan 23, daily cases to stay below 4 lakh: IIT Kanpur scientist India logs over 3.17 lakh new Covid cases in last 24 hours; daily positivity rate up at 16.41 per cent COVID-19 fatalities may be much more than what is being reported Coronavirus: Students should prepare for exams, says UGC in Supreme Court India oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P New Delhi, July 31: The UGC on Friday said that students appearing for final-year exams in colleges and higher education institutions, which have been pending since March because of the coronavirus lockdown, must not think the exams will be postponed again because of the Supreme Court hearing. Declining to pass any final order on a clutch of petitions challenging the UGC's decision to hold final-year exams in September, the top court has adjourned the hearing till August 10. "Students should continue to prepare for the examinations. Students should not be under the impression that examinations will be stayed because of the Supreme Court hearing," the UGC (University Grants Commission) said in court. Amid COVID-19 pandemic, Muslims in Kerala celebrate a low-key Bakrid Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News Among the petitions heard today was one by Maharashtra cabinet minister Aaditya Thackeray via the youth wing of the Shiv Sena. The petition claimed the UGC was "ignoring the physical and mental health and safety of students". The court asked the Maharashtra government to submit decisions it had taken regarding the holding of exams under the Disaster Management Act; the state has cancelled final-year exams for state-run institutions. 7-year-old Buddy, 1st dog to test positive for COVID-19 dies in New York The court also asked the Home Ministry to make its stand clear. Earlier, the ministry said final-year exams could take place. The centre said it would reply by August 3 but stressed that all students should continue to prepare for their exams. The UGC issued a similar warning to all students, saying they should not think that exams will be deferred or stayed because the Supreme Court is hearing the case. The High Court Friday questioned the Special Commissioner of Police for issuing an order to its teams probing the northeast riots asking them to exercise due care and precaution while making any arrests. The court's questioning came on a plea by the families of two victims who were killed during the February here, alleging that the senior officer's order to the chiefs of teams probing the riot matters was sending a wrong message. Justice Suresh Kumar Kait asked Special Commissioner of Police (Crime and Economic Offences Wing) Praveer Ranjan, who joined the hearing through video conferencing, as to what was the need to issue such a letter on July 8 to his subordinate officials and queried if the police issues such orders in other cases also. To this, the IPS officer replied that this is a normal practice adopted by them to sensitise the officials to exercise due care and precaution. He said whenever any complaint or input comes to his knowledge, such a communication is issued, as was done on July 8. An input was received by the agency and whenever such input is received, we sensitise our officers so that they shall exercise due care and precaution during the investigation, he said, adding that besides the riots matter, they have passed several such orders in other cases in the past. He said all the cases of the riots had been registered before the July 8 letter, so no prejudice is caused to the members of any community. The high court directed Ranjan to place within two days five such orders or letters, in a sealed cover, which he or his predecessor has issued on receiving a complaint or representation and listed the matter for further hearing on August 7. As per a news report, on the basis of which the petition was filed, the Special CP passed an order on July 8 stating that the arrest of some Hindu youth from riot-hit area in northeast Delhi had led to a degree of resentment among the Indu community and due care and precaution must be taken while making arrests. It claimed that the senior police officer's order said, community representatives are alleging that these arrests are made without any evidence and are even insinuating that such arrests are being made for some personal reasons. It also claimed that the police officer's order stated: Due care and precaution be taken while arresting any person. All evidences including direct and technical evidences be properly analysed and that all the arrests are backed by sufficient evidence be ensured. No arbitrary arrest should be made in any case and all evidences must be discussed with Special PPs (public prosecutors) assigned for each case. The order purportedly added: Supervisory officers ACPs/DCPs SIT & Additional CP/Crime (Headquarters) may guide the IOs (investigating officers) suitably. During the hearing, the high court said there is no dispute that senior officers have to guide the juniors as per the current ground situation. The court made it clear that whether notice is to be issued on the petition or not will be decided after pursuing the letters to be placed by the police. When advocate Amit Mahajan, representing the Delhi Police, contended that the petition was highly mischievous, the judge shot back this letter (of special CP) is also mischievous. Tell me what was the need to issue this letter. The high court was hearing a petition filed by Sahil Parvez, whose father was shot dead allegedly by communal rioters near his home, and Mohd Saeed Salmani, whose elderly mother was allegedly lynched in her house by rioters, seeking quashing of a July 8 order issued by Special Commissioner of Delhi Police (Crime and Economic Offences Wing). Advocate Mehmood Pracha, representing the petitioners, claimed that the July 8 order amounts to an unlawful and illegal interference in the performance of investigative functions by police officers. He argued that the police order was against the law and there was no provision in the law to pass such an order. They (police) are sending this message that the riot was between two communities, which is shocking, he contended. The high court had earlier asked the police to place on record the order passed by the special CP and had observed that no action can be taken based on a news report, on which the petition was filed, unless some authenticity to the claims is provided. The petition claimed, Clearly under pressure from these efforts, respondent no.4 (Special CP) issued an order dated July 8 observing that there was a degree of resentment in the Hindu community against the arrest of certain Hindu persons, and directing investigating officers that they should be careful in the future when making arrests, and that arrests of persons should be made only after discussion of the evidence with special public prosecutors who have been illegally appointed to represent the police in these cases. The petition has arrayed Centre, Delhi government, Delhi Police Commissioner, its Special CP, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North East) and Station House Officers of Police Stations Jafrabad and Bhajanpura in North East Delhi. Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control, leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured. (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.) With crimson walls and violet, yellow and red awnings, it's a building that few people in Cotonou, the tranquil economic capital of Benin, are likely to miss. And that's the point. The bright colours of the Seme-One centre, designed to be a cradle for researchers and tech entrepreneurs, "arouse the senses and stimulate innovation", said Abdoul Halim Asouma, in charge of construction work. Masons and painters are putting the finishing touches to the 4,250-square-metre (45,750-square-foot) building -- an area roughly equivalent to a hypermarket -- that seeks to be flexible in use, low in energy consumption and nurturing of ideas, talent and networking. The site is part of Seme-City, a project that President Patrice Talon hopes will help turn his small West African country into a regional tech hotspot like Kenya or Rwanda, on the other side of the continent. The centre has for the last two years been housed in premises adjoining the presidential residence -- as a hub for students, researchers, developers, the heads of companies large and small, and others who can work there and attend conferences. For its director Claude Borna, Seme-City is "a unique place that supports and trains the talent of tomorrow, and which promotes innovation made in Africa". Masons and painters have been putting the finishing touches on the building, which is roughly the size of a hypermarket / AFP Borna studied in Los Angeles and Montreal, and for many years worked for international companies as a consultant on innovation and commercial strategy before returning to Benin in 2016. "People come to Seme-City seeking potential colleagues, training and backing," said Borna, who is in her 40s. "Young people are often full of ideas but lack the framework and the backup." - Coronavirus work - The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic to Benin makes fresh ideas even more welcome -- and above all, their rapid implementation. Entrepreneurs at Seme-One have developed X-over, a mobile phone app that makes it possible to trace the chain of contacts made by a person infected with coronavirus / AFP With financial support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Benin, 15 national and international organisations have created a task force to find ways of fighting the virus, in line with West African resources and needs. Donald Tchaou, 29, and five of his friends developed X-over, an app that encourages social distancing and makes it possible to trace the chain of contacts made by an infected person. While it is not the only program of its kind, developing the app in Benin saves money and strengthens local control over data. Habib Meme, an architect, has been working with engineers and computer scientists to develop a project called COM-Finement, to make mobile medical facilities that can be swiftly erected or dismantled in an epidemic. The facilities are interconnected and linked remotely to doctors who can provide expertise from afar. In Seme-City, "they pointed us in the direction of potential financial donors and gave us highly relevant technical feedback," Meme said. His innovation has won over several governments in West Africa and a number of prototypes are in an experimental phase, he said. Habib Meme has been working to develop mobile medical facilities that can be swiftly erected or dismantled in an epidemic / AFP Developing new projects and launching start-ups require not just funding, but partnerships and knowledge of marketing, laws and regulation. Armelle Dossa, 25, a specialist in agri-tech, is working on a marketing project for organic vegetables. "If this framework had existed in Benin 10 years ago, we would have many young entrepreneurs and a lower rate of unemployment," she said. np23 BHPian Join Date: May 2010 Location: New Delhi Posts: 250 Thanked: 718 Times An unexpected and surprising visit to Pakistan Disclaimer:- To begin with there will be some things, which I loved from a visit last year to our neighbor Pakistan, so if some of you easily get offended this might not be for you, as I truly believe in what Gandhi Ji used to say, "Even if you are in a minority of one, truth is truth". I am a very proud and patriotic person, and my family has given servicemen and sportsmen to this country, so I do not need to prove it to any one, however I also believe that if there's anything we can learn from Pakistan we must. April 2019, I finally get an opportunity to visit this country for a university (London) friend's wedding, for anyone not from Delhi or north India, it's difficult to imagine but most for most of us, our parents or grandparents were born in Pakistan and we've grown up hearing stories of what we had, how it was and what we left behind, so it's always been a fascination for me and many more to visit it, however because of the situation, its seldom possible for people to visit it. Just after the horrific martyrdom of our brave hearts in Pulwama and the strong but well deserved reply by our warriors, was the worst time I could have chosen, but nonetheless I still proceeded to apply with the visa. Coming further and formalities completed, I book a flight to Amritsar, cab to Wagah/Attari, clear immigration (Have Polio drops , yes they still haven;t eradicated it and voila I am across, it feels familiar but is different, I can see the Indian tri colour , but my Indian Phone isn't working, the Turbans of Amritsar have made way for a sea of skull caps, but the faces feem familiar, reality strikes in, I am in Lahore. As the Veer Zara Dialogue "Wo Kehte Hai Ye Mera Desh Nhi, Fir kyun mere Desh jaisa lagta hain" My friend who was getting married sends her brother to pick me up at the immigration and drives me to the beautiful Lahore Gymkhana, first impressions on the approach road on GT road (Yes the same one), it's not like the one on our side, this feels like I am entering Dubai. The Hotel where the wedding was Lahore Gymkhana I have driven extensively across the globe, in the UK, Autobahns in Germany, on the american freeways, Great Ocean Drive in Australia, even Srilanka is beautiful but boy this is different, more so because I least expected it. The approach road is beautifully paved, its 8 lanes, and more so everyone is driving in lanes. No, I tell myself, this is just a fluke. But no I get to the inner city, the roads are spic and span, everyone again driving in lanes, trucks on the left. I tell myself, I am in the better part, lets go to old Town (Equivalent to our Chandni Chowk) and guess what people still following rules, it was something to see and learn. After a few days in Lahore, it's time to go north towards POK to Islamabad, well the highway is pretty to begin with, no it's pretty, beautifully paved, fast and laned all the way, further more people are following the lanes, and there's no honking, heck this must a Chinese gift, I tell myself, but I am told it's over 30 years old, doesn't feel like one though one bit. Or Maybe it's American, but whatever it was or whosoever made, they didn't teach the locals to drive sanely, to drive in lanes, to not honk and to not blink. We reach Islamabad in good time but its well dark. My Grandmother's from Gujranwala and Grandfather from Sialkot respectively, so it was nostalgic to see these baords of names we've grown up listening, unfortunately my visa was only for Lahore and Islamabad so I could not visit my roots. Gujranwala Exit Sialkot Exit The next morning I open my hotel window, and voilla there a lanes below, the Car Parking is very organised in a very European manner and its clean and green, it reminded me of my hometown Chandigarh. A long awaited journey, unexpected but for the right reasons.Disclaimer:- To begin with there will be some things, which I loved from a visit last year to our neighbor Pakistan, so if some of you easily get offended this might not be for you, as I truly believe in what Gandhi Ji used to say, "Even if you are in a minority of one, truth is truth".I am a very proud and patriotic person, and my family has given servicemen and sportsmen to this country, so I do not need to prove it to any one, however I also believe that if there's anything we can learn from Pakistan we must.April 2019, I finally get an opportunity to visit this country for a university (London) friend's wedding, for anyone not from Delhi or north India, it's difficult to imagine but most for most of us, our parents or grandparents were born in Pakistan and we've grown up hearing stories of what we had, how it was and what we left behind, so it's always been a fascination for me and many more to visit it, however because of the situation, its seldom possible for people to visit it.Just after the horrific martyrdom of our brave hearts in Pulwama and the strong but well deserved reply by our warriors, was the worst time I could have chosen, but nonetheless I still proceeded to apply with the visa.Coming further and formalities completed, I book a flight to Amritsar, cab to Wagah/Attari, clear immigration (Have Polio drops, yes they still haven;t eradicated it and voila I am across, it feels familiar but is different, I can see the Indian tri colour , but my Indian Phone isn't working, the Turbans of Amritsar have made way for a sea of skull caps, but the faces feem familiar, reality strikes in, I am in Lahore.As the Veer Zara Dialogue "Wo Kehte Hai Ye Mera Desh Nhi, Fir kyun mere Desh jaisa lagta hain"My friend who was getting married sends her brother to pick me up at the immigration and drives me to the beautiful Lahore Gymkhana, first impressions on the approach road on GT road (Yes the same one), it's not like the one on our side, this feels like I am entering Dubai.The Hotel where the wedding wasLahore GymkhanaI have driven extensively across the globe, in the UK, Autobahns in Germany, on the american freeways, Great Ocean Drive in Australia, even Srilanka is beautiful but boy this is different, more so because I least expected it.The approach road is beautifully paved, its 8 lanes, and more so everyone is driving in lanes. No, I tell myself, this is just a fluke.But no I get to the inner city, the roads are spic and span, everyone again driving in lanes, trucks on the left.I tell myself, I am in the better part, lets go to old Town (Equivalent to our Chandni Chowk) and guess what people still following rules, it was something to see and learn.After a few days in Lahore, it's time to go north towards POK to Islamabad, well the highway is pretty to begin with, no it's pretty, beautifully paved, fast and laned all the way, further more people are following the lanes, and there's no honking, heck this must a Chinese gift, I tell myself, but I am told it's over 30 years old, doesn't feel like one though one bit. Or Maybe it's American, but whatever it was or whosoever made, they didn't teach the locals to drive sanely, to drive in lanes, to not honk and to not blink.We reach Islamabad in good time but its well dark.My Grandmother's from Gujranwala and Grandfather from Sialkot respectively, so it was nostalgic to see these baords of names we've grown up listening, unfortunately my visa was only for Lahore and Islamabad so I could not visit my roots.Gujranwala ExitSialkot ExitThe next morning I open my hotel window, and voilla there a lanes below, the Car Parking is very organised in a very European manner and its clean and green, it reminded me of my hometown Chandigarh. Last edited by np23 : 30th July 2020 at 18:43 . San Francisco: Twitter, whose internal systems were breached about two weeks ago, said on Thursday the incident targeted a small number of employees through a phone "spear-phishing" attack. The US microblogging site said the hackers targeted about 130 accounts, tweeted from 45, accessed the inboxes of 36, and were able to download Twitter data from seven. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Credit:AP Attackers also targeted specific employees who had access to account support tools, Twitter said, adding that it restricted access to its internal tools and systems ever since the incident occurred. Hackers had accessed Twitter's internal systems on July 15 to hijack some of the platform's top voices including US presidential candidate Joe Biden, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, former US President Barack Obama and billionaire Elon Musk and used them to solicit digital currency. LOS ANGELES, July 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Waskowski Johnson Yohalem LLP and Rosenfeld, Meyer & Susman LLP announce entry and final approval of a class action settlement concerning AutoZone's Rewards program. Under the settlement, AutoZone will reinstate and/or issue more than $48.9 million in AutoZone Rewards to approximately 4.8 million customers who were members of AutoZone's Rewards program in California before AutoZone's National Plan Conversion, which took place over late 2014 and early 2015. The class action lawsuit, filed in August of 2016 in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleged that AutoZone improperly changed the terms of its Rewards program to cause program members to lose both Rewards and Credits which could be used to earn Rewards. The Court approved the settlement and entered final judgment on July 29, 2020. "We are very proud of this result," said Waskowski Johnson Yohalem LLP partner Seth Yohalem, who served as lead class counsel. "Under the settlement, every class member who lost a Reward will receive a Reward of equal value. Every class member who lost a Credit will receive a Reward which can be used immediately without making additional purchases." "It is a great result for the class of California consumers we have had the honor to serve," echoed Rosenfeld, Meyer & Susman LLP's litigation chair Todd Bonder. AutoZone must reinstate or issue the Rewards by August 29, 2020. The Rewards will be valid for 12 months after they are reinstated/issued. Subject to a small number of exceptions, the Rewards that AutoZone must reinstate and/or issue can be used in place of cash at AutoZone, including to purchase a wide variety of items priced at equal or lesser value without any obligation to pay money out of pocket. Class members will be able to use their Rewards either in person or online. Members of the public can see if they are part of the class and what they will receive from the settlement by visiting the settlement website, https://www.azrewardslitigation.com/, and entering either their AutoZone Rewards account number or the telephone number they used to create the account. The settlement website contains additional information about the case. The case is Hughes et al. v. AutoZone Parts, Inc. et al., Case No. BC 631080. Waskowski Johnson Yohalem LLP is a law firm based in Chicago, Illinois. Rosenfeld, Meyer & Susman LLP is a law firm based in Beverly Hills, California. Contact: Seth Yohalem Partner / Waskowski Johnson Yohalem LLP Tel: 312-278-3153 [email protected] SOURCE Waskowski Johnson Yohalem LLP One good thing, amid the few good things in this pandemic, has been the meme game of several police forces. The top among them is Pune and Mumbai. They have used their social media creatively to make people aware about coronavirus and staying at home. On Harry Potter's birthday, Pune Police shared some deleted scenes from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on Twitter to make people aware of cyber security. The scene shows Professor McGonagall expressing shock at a student named Neville Longbottom who wrote down all the passwords on a page and lost it. In the clip, McGonagall can be seen pulling up the student as others stand there listening to her. The tweet by Pune Police reads, The most magical way to keep cyber threat at bay - keep your passwords to yourself. Always. The most magical way to keep cyber threat at bay - keep your passwords to yourself. Always.#CyberSafety #HarryPotter #HappyBirthdayHarry pic.twitter.com/dqQXIdKTpE PUNE POLICE (@PuneCityPolice) July 31, 2020 The clip has garnered over 1.5K views. On the other hand, Mumbai Police have also taken a similar approach to urge people to stay at home. They put out a clip from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in which Harry pays visit to the Weasley at his home for the first time. The caption of the clip reads, Magically Safe. The clip has got more than 5.5K views. Pune Police in June used a puzzle to draw netizens attention towards the importance of wearing face masks amid the coronavirus pandemic. Posting a photo on Twitter, they asked people to point out one of the precautions against coronavirus in it. The police tweeted, Tough to spot? Hint - Will be tough for #Corona to put him in a spot too! Hes masked himself well after all! China and the UK enjoy broad prospects for science and technology cooperation in a range of fields from scientific research to talent training, a Chinese expert said on Wednesday. Zhu Yan (Photo/Yu Kai) Zhu Yan, dean of the Institute of Internet Industry under Tsinghua University, made the remarks at the Jintai Roundtable seminar on China-UK economic cooperation and innovation development held by Peoples Daily Online. While the novel coronavirus pandemic has impacted economic development, it has also brought an opportunity to turn to digital relations of production that are appropriate to productivity, according to Zhu. By focusing on digital relations of production, the two countries can cooperate in two areas, Zhu said. First, China and the UK can complement each other with their respective strengths in science and technology. China has made more and more scientific and technological breakthroughs. Both countries can carry out in-depth cooperation in the future to expand the boundaries of human cognition, according to the expert. The Institute of Internet Industry has worked together with BT Group Plc for more than a decade, mainly on how information technology can improve peoples lives and production, Zhu noted, calling for in-depth research into digital consumption that has become a new consumption model around the world, and the ubiquitous digital transformation of traditional industries. Secondly, two countries can also further their cooperation in the training of talents. According to Zhu, the foundation of cooperation in scientific research lies in personnel exchanges. Based on the current personnel exchanges between Chinese and British universities and colleges, the two countries should intensify cooperation in this field to cultivate talents in the digital era. Science knows no borders. We should continue to learn from each other and enhance cooperation in this field, Zhu said. Valtteri Bottas says talks to extend his contract with Mercedes have already begun. While there was speculation the Finn could be replaced by Sebastian Vettel or George Russell, Mercedes bosses have been saying for several days now that they are more than happy with Bottas alongside Lewis Hamilton. Six-time world champion Hamilton said at Silverstone that the corona crisis shutdown gave him "a renewed bit of energy" to extend his career for at least "two or three years". "We're also in a period where there's not another driver from my background coming up at the moment, so my goal is to continue to deliver for as long as I can," he said. "I do see myself going for at least another three years," Hamilton added. As for Bottas, he denied that he is nervous about 2021, even though it is almost August and he is yet to put pen to paper. "We all know this year is different to previous ones, so I don't have the feeling that the negotiations are delayed," he is quoted by Finnish reporters. "It is clear that everything is moving in the right direction - we started discussing this topic a week or two ago," Bottas revealed. "There is no rush, but there is no reason to panic and I feel that we all trust each other, so I hope we will come to an agreement soon." (GMM) This is the shocking moment two men rushed a mother at her home's driveway in Argentina and stole her minivan while her six-year-old son was inside. Surveillance video showed the moment Claudia Crespo was about to depart her home in the Buenos Aires city of Almirante Brown with her six-year-old son Mateo on Thursday afternoon. Crespo had been heading to her mother's home to drop off her child and meet her husband at the couple's newly opened hair salon. She had got out of her car to lock the gate to her driveway when the carjackers ran towards her car while the engine was still running, and got in through the driver's side door. The terrified mother grabbed the chain that she uses to lock the driveway door and opened the car's door to beat the getaway driver while begging them to release her child. She was left screaming as the criminal put the vehicle in reverse and sent Crespo crashing to the ground, almost running her over as they sped away. The carjackers stopped about 650 feet down the street and kicked the boy out of the vehicle. Carla Crespo (front left) confronts two carjackers Thursday outside her home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, before the men stormed off in her car while her son was in the backseat. Carla Crespo crashed to the ground and broke her left arm while she was trying to stop the carjackers from taking off with her six-year-old inside the car in the Buenos Aires town of Almirante Brown on Thursday. Crespo said she was on her way to drop of her son at her mother's home before going to work when two men rushed her car Crespo, who fractured her left arm, told reporters outside her home Thursday morning that her family's residence had been burglarized on two prior occasions. She was accustomed to surveying her surroundings each time she locked the front gate before driving off. 'When I closed the gate I saw them coming,' she said.' 'I just wanted to get him out. I felt like I was dying, I didn't care about the car, I just wanted my baby. I was despaired. I didn't care that they had weapons, only [cared about] my son.' Carla Crespo (left) suffered a broken left arm while trying to save her son from the carjackers Police in Buenos Aires arrested the two carjacking suspects on Friday morning. Both men had been arrested 10 times in the past The suspects, whose names have not been made public, were arrested Friday. One of the arrests took place in the town of Florencia Varela and the other in Almirante Brown, according to Sergio Bruni, who heads Bueno Aires' Ministry of Security. Both suspects had been arrested 10 times in the past. 'I would have done exactly the same thing as the mother, and any father or mother would have reacted in the same way when they see the madness that they are going through,' Bruni told reporters Friday. ' You know that I am the standard bearer of disarmament and not against resistance in an event like this, but I am also a father and I know that I would have reacted the same or worse way.' Kravchuk said the compromises do not concern Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine's new representative to the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) at the Minsk talks on Donbas Leonid Kravchuk has named possible compromises with Russia on Donbas. "Well, let's say, the special status of Donbas. I do not accept this, because I do not understand what it is. But I can accept not a 'special status,' but a 'special management system' in those regions. This is a compromise. Management, but not status. Well, this is already a compromise, we are now looking for real approaches to resolve this issue," he told Suspilne Media in an interview. "Next. When I was president, I enacted the law on a free economic zone in those areas. This could be one of the steps so that people start acting and solve complex issues, raising investments there to rather quickly recover and give people a chance to work, earn money and live a normal life," the official said. Read alsoKravchuk says ready for compromises with Russia on Donbas Kravchuk clarified such compromises do not concern Ukrainian sovereignty. "As for the special status, it would then be some kind of separate state, with some special political powers. We might agree they could have their own police, their own internal power structures, it might even go as far as to [their own] troops, border guards. In this case, it would no longer be a territory within Ukraine," he said. As for the elections in the occupied territories, according to Kravchuk, they may be held after Ukraine retakes the border and reinstates its authorities there. "Russia disagrees, but we must write down what is the 'special status of the management of regions.' How I see it: they need to have no less rights and freedoms than other regions of Ukraine. Because it is no longer so easy to return them in such a state as it was before. Therefore, we need to offer more rights, more opportunities, but within the framework of the Constitution of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine. It is about the system of local self-government," he added. As UNIAN reported earlier, on July 30, Zelensky officially appointed Kravchuk as Ukraine's representative to the Trilateral Contact Group at the Minsk talks on Donbas. The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in Cross River State has been advised to urgently begin the process of training its members on how to guard themselves against contracting COVID-19. There are 45 confirmed cases of Coronavirus in Cross River as of July 30, the second state that is least infected by the novel virus. Asuquo Simon, a private medical doctor in Calabar, the state capital, gave the advice to the doctors association in a statement he issued on Friday. Mr Simon said the situation in Cross River requires the NMA in the state to equip doctors with the knowledge of COVID-19 protocols and management, instead of the association behaving as an opposition to the Cross River State Government. Cross River State started the no mask no movement, since March 2020 and is well known. It is disheartening to know that this is not adhered to by some health workers, worst still some doctors, Mr Simon said. NMA, Cross River Chapter, should begin sensitisation of its members on the compulsory use of face mask at all times. Continuing, Mr Simon said, From one of NMA frequent letters released to the press, it was stated that the Government of Cross River State has trained over 400 health workers on Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) for COVID-19 and some of the persons trained at least 50 were doctors, including the State Chapter Chairman Dr Agam Ayuk. Rather than always seek who to blame or spend precious time writing long press releases, this time should have been used to cascade the IPC training down to all the members of your association so the know exactly how to protect themselves and will not have any doctors die from COVID-19 or or infected in Cross River state. This would not need to put any financial strain on the resources of NMA as this training can be done virtually. It is sad to note that some doctors in public and private hospitals do not use face mask always at their work places. Some do not know the IPC protocols, some do not have access to the SOP for management and referral of suspected cases of COVID-19. These are the types of engagement and sensitisation drive that a committed association should have if the welfare of its people are topmost on its mind. Dont keep quiet, rather take the right action and end the blame game! Mr Simon said the NMA chairmans allegation that the under-reporting of COVID-19 cases in the state was responsible for doctors contracting the virus is without proof and illogical. Will reporting of 1000 non-existent cases stop doctors from getting infected? Are there proofs that cases are under reported in Cross River state? If there are, present the evidence to the public for proper scrutiny and action. He said information on COVID-19 in the state is available on the website of Cross River State Ministry of Health for NMA and other interested persons to access. He said the Cross River State Government is doing well in its management of the coronavirus, even though it might not be at the speed expected. It is necessary for NMA and other organisations to support the state government in its fight against COVID-19 in order to save lives, Mr Simon said. In one of Governor Ben Ayades speeches, he rightly stated that with the beginning of Phase 2 of the COVID-19 pandemic and the easing of lock down and opening of airspace, several cases of COVID-19 will come into the state, as such whatever numbers seen is expected. Ben Ayade wearing cloth masks [PHOTO: Youtube] If we need to see more numbers then we should join the state to convince more people to go for voluntary testing. Presently, four flights come into Calabar daily from Lagos and Abuja which are epi-centres (of the Coronavirus in Nigeria), so you should expect cases. This is not the fault of the state government, he said. The doctor said the state government should not be blamed for the non-expansion of the facilities in the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) which is owned and managed by the federal government. He called on the NMA in Cross River to join the state government in putting pressure on the federal government to expand the UCTH, especially because of COVID-19. With the sharp GDP decline in Q2, there have been several comparisons of US numbers to other regions of the world. First, it is important to understand: The US reports GDP on a quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) annualized basis. The EU reports GDP on a QoQ basis (not annualized). China reports GDP on a year-over-year (YoY) basis. So the US reported that GDP declined 32.9% in Q2 annualized, the EU reported GDP declined 11.9% in Q2, and China reported GDP increased 3.2% YoY in Q2 (China's big hit was in Q1). This is just how the data is reported. There is no conspiracy to make the US look bad in Q2, or look good in Q3. If we want to compare the US to the EU, we need to convert one of the numbers. For example, a 32.9% annualized decline is a 9.5% decline QoQ (not annualized). So we would compare a -9.5% in the US to -11.9% in the EU. Both were terrible, but also necessary to "bend the curve" and suppress the virus, and the EU decline in GDP was worse. However, the EU did a much better job of suppressing the virus, and the economic recovery in the EU will probably be better. As Dr. Fauci noted today (from CNN): "If you look at what happened in Europe, when they shut down or locked down or went to shelter in place however you want to describe it they really did it to the tune of about 95% plus of the country did that," Fauci said. However, "when you actually look at what we did, even though we shut down, even though it created a great deal of difficulty, we really functionally shut down only about 50% in the sense of the totality of the country," Fauci added. Click on graph for larger image. It will be interesting in Q3 to compare the bounce back. My guess is the EU will do better in Q3 since they did a better job of controlling the virus.There will be a sharp increase in GDP in Q3 in both the US and the EU.This graph shows monthly real personal consumption expenditures (PCE) in the US (not GDP), and the dashed red lines are the quarterly levels for real PCE. PCE collapsed at a 6.9% annual rate in Q1, and at a 34.6% annual rate in Q2.Note the red line for Q2 (the quarterly level of PCE). Even if PCE stayed at the June level in Q3, there would be 27% increase in Q3! Please register or log in to keep reading. No credit card required! Stay logged in to skip the surveys. Despite fears that Wisconsins April election would serve to spread the coronavirus, a new report by the Centers for Disease Control confirms that it didnt. Symptoms of COVID-19 typically develop 2 to 14 days after an infection. Yet the CDC notes that only 14 people out of nearly 19,000 who voted in person in Milwaukee on April 7 are known to have tested positive for the virus between April 9 and April 21, with the caveat that in about half of the new cases reported in Milwaukee during that time period, whether the person voted is unknown. Although the CDC report focuses on Milwaukee, there do not appear to have been spikes in cases anywhere else in the state due to the election, either. According to Elizabeth Goodstitt, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, 71 people who tested COVID-19 positive throughout the state between April 9 and April 21 reported that they voted in person or worked the polls on election day. However, several of those people reported other possible exposures as well. Thus, she says, it is not accurate to say that the 71 cases were the result of in-person voting, because some infections could have come from other sources. A total of 413,000 people voted statewide in Wisconsin on April 7. Although a much smaller number of Wisconsinites participated in protest marches following the killing of George Floyd in late May, Wisconsin officials are aware of 28 confirmed cases reported attending a protest or rally during early June, during the 2 weeks before getting COVID-19, Goodstitt said in an email. In the days leading up to Wisconsins April 7 election, which featured a state-supreme-court race and the Democratic presidential primary, there was panic that the city of Milwaukee would experience a huge increase in COVID-19 cases following the election, because only five polling centers would be open down from the citys typical 180 polling places. Some voters waited two hours in long lines to cast ballots, and the citys chief elections official later faced criticism for failing to open more polling places with the resources the city had. Story continues But voters in Milwaukee maintained their distance, waited to vote almost entirely outdoors, and wore masks, and their efforts appear to have been effective. No clear increase in cases, hospitalizations, or deaths was observed after the election, suggesting possible benefit of the mitigation strategies, which limited in-person voting and aimed to ensure safety of the polling sites open on election day, the CDC reports. While fear surrounding the Wisconsin elections was understandable at the time, the decision to hold them has proved to be important to the entire country for two reasons: Wisconsin demonstrated that in-person voting could be conducted safely despite the coronavirus pandemic, and avoided setting a dangerous precedent of allowing a chief executive to unilaterally and illegally move the election date. The latter concern may not have seemed very pressing back in early April, but it looms larger now, a day after President Trump touched off a firestorm by hinting that he might seek to postpone Novembers general election. For three weeks after Trump declared a national emergency on March 13, Wisconsins Democratic governor, Tony Evers, said he wanted to hold the election as scheduled on April 7 and resisted Democratic calls to unilaterally postpone it, insisting that he didnt have the power to do so. But the weekend before the election, Evers did an about-face and asked the Republican legislature to postpone it. When the legislature rejected Everss request, he issued an order moving the election to June, taking the very action he had previously said would be illegal. Legislative leaders challenged Everss order, and the state supreme court ruled 42 against the governor. Of course, while it is clear in hindsight that Wisconsin performed a valuable service to the country by holding its election as scheduled, the states experience does not mean we can rule out the possibility that other elections could significantly increase the spread of the virus. Its just one state, and the average number of new daily cases in Wisconsin was below 200 in the run-up to its election. In-person voting in a state where thousands of new infections are being reported each day could be much more dangerous. More from National Review New Delhi: In a new revelation is late actor Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide case, it has been found that the actor used to bear expenses of flights and hotels of Rhea Chakraborty and his brother Shovik Chakraborty. The revelation comes after a team of Bihar Police reached Mumbai to investigate the matter. The police also contacted Sushant Singh's doctor Kesri Chavda who was treating Sushant since November 2019. The doctor informed police about Sushant's irregularity in taking medicine from the past few months and said that he was neither eating properly nor taking medicine from the last week of February. Chavda further revealed that he had also started ignoring his medicinal advice. At the same time, Bihar Police has also gathered information about Sushant Singh's bank account details. In the bank detail it was found that Sushant's sister Priyanka Singh was the nominee of his bank account and some transactions revealed that Sushant Singh also used to bear the expenses of flights and hotels of Rhea Chakraborty and his brother Shovik Chakraborty. The development comes after Sushant's father KK Singh has lodged an FIR against his actress girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty alleging that Sushant's money was being used by her. He claimed that 15 crore rupees were transferred from Sushant's account to other bank accounts which had no connection with the late Bollywood actor in any way. He demanded that Rhea's bank account should be checked and the details of were the money were sent should be bought to notice. Moreover, they also believe that Rhea had completely cut-off Sushant from his family. The FIR was lodged in Patna's Rajiv Nagar police station under IPC Sections 341, 342, 380, 406, 420 and 306. A four-member police team has been constituted to probe the case. The team flew to Mumbai to carry out an investigation along with the Mumbai Police. 31.07.2020 LISTEN A form two Gold Track student of the Oyoko Methodist Senior High School (OMESS) has passed away after reporting sick on her last day of the just ended term. The Gold track students, who joined the final years to school amidst the coronavirus pandemic, as directed by the President ended their end of term examinations yesterday, Thursday and were expected to return home today, Friday. A statement from the Ghana Education Service (GES) however states that the girl [name withheld], after writing the last paper of the semester exams on Thursday, 30th July 2020, reported sick to the school nurse. According to the statement, the General Arts 5 student, who was then rushed to the St. Joseph Hospital passed away upon arrival at the emergency ward. The GES says the cause of death is yet to be ascertained. Management of GES is waiting for the hospital authorities for the cause of death. Further details on the cause of death will be provided as soon as the report is received from the hospital, the statement added. The GES further sent its commiserations to the bereaved family. citinewsroom Raksha Bandhan or Rakhi celebrates the purity of the bond that connects brothers and sisters since the day theyre born. The word Raksha Bandhan translates to safety and bond and is a promise to always be there, protect, and guide each other. The festival of Rakhi is a time-honoured ritual with its roots in mythology. It symbolises the greatest gift that siblings can give each other - love and care. Each year, Rakhi falls on a full moon night in the Hindu month of Shraavan. This year its being celebrated on Monday, August 3. Rakhi is usually tied on the wrists of brothers after a small ritual (arti) in the evening hours. This year, the puja muhurat begins at 9.28 AM till 9.17 PM. Legend dictates that when Lord Krishna accidentally cut his finger during the Mahabharata, Draupadi had promptly torn a piece of her saree and tied it to his finger to stop the bleeding. Lord Krishna was so touched by this kind gesture that he vowed to always protect the princess from harm. Mehndi symbolises an auspicious occasion and is worn on most festivals in the country. Mehndi or henna, in various designs adds beauty to the entire essence of the celebrations. Mehndi is said to have been an integral part of our culture and traditions for centuries. Henna, when applied on the hands, helps the body to cool down and relax, in turn preventing stress. Mehndi leaves have antiseptic properties and so, theyre highly effective in treating skin infections naturally. Social media is abuzz with beautiful designs shared by artists through photos or application videos. Take a look and get inspired right here! Amid the coronavirus pandemic, when it may not be possible for several people to meet and celebrate in person, initiatives like Rakhi Post, Rakhi Mailbox and various options on e-commerce sites are available so sisters can send their rakhis, sweets and love virtually. In Delhi-NCR, many women also took the initiative of sending rakhis to doctors in hospitals and to policemen to thank them for their incessant efforts towards keeping us safe amid the deadly virus outbreak. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Pune: Three months of restrictions imposed due to Covid situation have left many sellers who run shops on rent to return to their hometowns leaving the commercial property owners to put on rent boards again. Many of those who run ice-creams parlours, sweet marts and small hotels in Pimpri-Chinchwad hail from Rajasthan. I had rented out two shops to run a hotel, but the lockdowns have left my tenants to keep it closed for three months. They left for their hometown in Rajasthan and have not given rent since the past two months. After they informed me of not reopening the hotel, I placed a on rent notice at the shop last week, said Dattaray Chinchwade, owner of two shops in Tanajinagar in Chinchwad. Profit has gone down by 50 per cent as only parcel service is allowed. I am finding it difficult to pay the rent and have decided to return to my native place in Rajasthan, said Omprakash Jangid who runs Om Sai Snacks centre at Kalewadi Phata. Cloth shop merchants have also not seen many customers. The recent 10-day lockdown left me with no choice but to shut shop as my business was badly hit by four months of restrictions. I could only be able to pay rent to my owner till July, said the owner of Shivam Collection, Thergaon, on condition of anonymity. Pratik Pol, who had given his shop to run an ice cream parlour, has not found a tenant in the last 15 days. It was my source of income. I am unable to get a tenant after the previous one left, said Pol, who owns a shop at Link Road, Chinchwad. Federation of Traders Association, Pune, secretary, Mahendra Pitaliya, said that closing shops and returning to hometowns will affect the business and earnings of both owners and tenants. Khloe Kardashian has given her fans a peek behind the scenes of her latest sizzling bikini photo-shoot. The 36-year-old uploaded some Insta Stories footage that showed her prepping for some pictures advertising her Good American clothing line. She modeled a leopard-print two-piece from the brand and lay on a deck chair in her backyard, slightly changing her pose from photo to photo. Making it happen: Khloe Kardashian has given her fans a peek behind the scenes of her latest sizzling bikini photo-shoot Her trusty make-up artist Ash Kholm could be seen studiously spraying Khloe between takes to make her that extra bit photogenic. Over a video of herself getting spritized for work, Khloe wrote: 'This is @ash_kholm favorite part of her job. CLEARLY'. The result of her efforts was that the sunlight glared off Khloe as she writhed around on the deck chair for the photographer. Her own best advert: The 36-year-old uploaded some Insta Stories footage that showed her prepping for some pictures advertising her Good American clothing line Smoldering: She modeled a leopard-print two-piece from the brand and lay on a deck chair in her backyard, slightly changing her pose from photo to photo Helping hand: Her trusty make-up artist Ash Kholm could be seen studiously spraying Khloe between takes to make her that extra bit photogenic 'CLEARLY': Over a video of herself getting spritized for work, Khloe wrote: 'This is @ash_kholm favorite part of her job' Sensation: The result of her efforts was that the sunlight glared off Khloe as she writhed around on the deck chair for the photographer Meanwhile Khloe's drenched-looking hairdo, which was perfect for a backyard poolside photo-shoot, was the work of Andrew Fitzimons. She dished in a caption over some of the footage: 'I love when @ash_kholm and @andrewfitzimons hype me up.' Ukrainian-born fashion photographer Sasha Samsonova, who is pals with Khloe's half-sister Kylie Jenner, was the shutterbug behind the shoot. Meanwhile: Khloe's drenched-looking hairdo, which was perfect for a backyard poolside photo-shoot, was the work of Andrew Fitzimons Feeling fab: She dished in a caption over some of the footage: 'I love when @ash_kholm and @andrewfitzimons hype me up' Connections: Ukrainian-born fashion photographer Sasha Samsonova, who is pals with Khloe's half-sister Kylie Jenner, was the shutterbug behind the shoot Khloe's deck chair was positioned beneath an umbrella to ward off some of the sunshine but her legs still shone. She had posted the finished product to her Instagram page this Thursday, writing in the caption: 'Today was 96. Its hot outside.' Khloe originally started Good American as a denim brand in 2016 with Emma Grede, a fashion designer who hails from East London. A place in the sun: Khloe's deck chair was positioned beneath an umbrella to ward off some of the sunshine but her legs still shone Origin story: Khloe originally started Good American as a denim brand in 2016 with Emma Grede, a fashion designer who hails from East London (Natural News) A study published in the FASEB Journal found that cilantro activates certain potassium channels in the brain which helps prevent seizures. Also known as coriander, cilantro is an herb that is commonly used in traditional medicine. It has anticonvulsant, anti-depressant and anti-inflammatory properties that make it suitable for treating a host of medical conditions, including epileptic seizures. But while its health benefits have been extensively studied, the precise mechanism behind cilantros powerful effects on the body remains obscure. The present study provides a molecular basis for the therapeutic actions of cilantro. Cilantro activates neuronal potassium channels to alleviate seizures The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 3.4 million Americans are living with epilepsy. Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by abnormal brain activity that causes seizures or periods of unusual behavior, sensations and loss of awareness. In the study, researchers at the University of California, Irvine looked at cilantro leaf metabolites to find the source of its antiepileptic activity. Metabolites are the intermediate products of cellular metabolism. The researchers found that one particular metabolite, the long-chain fatty aldehyde (E)-2-dodecenal, activates several potassium channels in the brain. These channels are part of the voltage-gated potassium channel subfamily Q (KCNQ), which can be found in neurons. According to previous studies, KCNQ dysfunction can lead to severe, treatment-resistant epileptic seizures. The researchers also found that (E)-2-dodecenal could delay chemically-induced seizures, suggesting its involvement in cilantros anti-convulsant activity. Geoffrey Abbott, one of the study authors, explained that by binding to a specific part of the potassium channels to open them, (E)-2-dodecenal was able to reduce cellular excitability. Given these findings, the researchers are optimistic that more effective strategies involving cilantro can be developed for the treatment of epilepsy. Medicinal uses of cilantro and coriander seeds Cilantro and its seeds often referred to as coriander seeds offer several other benefits besides controlling seizures. In addition to [its] anticonvulsant properties, cilantro also has reported anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, [anti-fungal], antibacterial, cardioprotective, gastric health and analgesic effects, said Abbott. In a test tube study, researchers found that cilantro leaf extract can reduce the expression of certain cancer-related genes, which resulted in prostate cancer cells becoming less invasive. Extracts from the stem, root and leaves of cilantro were also found to have anti-cancer effects against human breast cancer cells. Coriander seeds, on the other hand, can help alleviate pain and inflammation. Coriander seed extract has been found to exert significant analgesic effects on mice and help relieve migraines in humans. In one study, participants suffering from migraine took 15 mL of coriander fruit syrup plus their usual medication three times a day for a month. Results showed that compared to another group that took only migraine medication, the coriander group experienced a reduction in the severity, duration and frequency of their migraines. (Related: Reasons to eat cilantro, a superfood rich in immune-boosting antioxidants.) Cilantro also has antimicrobial properties that can help treat infections. In fact, the same anticonvulsant metabolite, dodecenal, is said to be effective against Salmonella. Meanwhile, coriander seeds can help fight the bacteria responsible for urinary tract infections. Furthermore, coriander seed extract can be used in conjunction with other soothing compounds as an alternative treatment for diaper rashes. The antioxidants in coriander seed extract can also help prevent cellular damage that leads to faster skin aging, as well as skin damage from ultraviolet B radiation. For more info about the health benefits of cilantro, visit FoodCures.news. Sources include: MedicalNewsToday.com 1 CDC.gov Mayoclinic.org BYJUS.com FASEB.OnlineLibrary.Wiley.com News-Medical.net MedicalNewsToday.com 2 Healthline.com The missing remains of 35-year-old Crystal Rogers was discovered in Nelson county. Further investigation is still ongoing to determine if the recovered body is indeed that of Rogers. Hence, the Nelson County authorities have not given extra information on the specifics yet. The remains were found in a remote place which they not expected to see the body of Rogers, reported WTQV. The WHAS11 News has gotten hold of information that the family of the victim was told that human remains were found in "difficult to reach location" in the Nelson County. Police said that the findings is assumed to be what is left of the victim since 2015. The human remains of the victim were uncovered only by accident at the border of Nelson and Washington county. One of the sources privy to the case made the remark that it was the last location where the victim was seen and disappeared without a trace in 2015. A report from the police mentioned that remains were found on Thursday. But since the location is not easy to access, the FBI's Evidence Response Team was called in Friday to help retrieve the remains that might be Rogers. The body was transferred to the Quantico Lab of the FBI, Virginia to confirm the identity of the human remains from Nelson County. Crystal Rogers who is she One of the last instances that she was seen alive was when she saw her boyfriend Brooks Houck at their family farm, mentioned Daily Mail. Also read: Man Hides Decomposing Body Under Floor Board, Tries to Escape Authorities By Disguising as His Sister Houck informed the police that when they went to bed, she was still at his place. When he woke up, Rogers was no longer by his side and he doesn't have any idea about where she went. With Rogers missing for some time, Nelson County Sheriff's Department considered her boyfriend as a person of interest in the investigation. Despite the lingering suspicion, the police have never questioned or charged him at all. Months after the disappearance, Houck was named as the main suspect in the case, but still, he has never been charged. Regarding the test results from Quantico, Nelson County Sheriff Department has kept mum about it. The detectives of Nelson County were busy looking over the site, where the remains were found to look for signs or evidence for foul play. Authorities reveal that no announcement will be aired for the privacy of the family that suffered the loss. Crystal Roger is one of the publicized missing person cases, since this Kentucky woman has been gone from 2015. Her being missing has been a source of stories that was never solved. But this is not the only case of a missing person which took years before finding the body. Other cases have no closure and are still ongoing investigation, cited Oxygen. Related article: Jennifer Dulos Murder: American Writer Died of Violent Assault As Blood Were Found in Zip Ties, Garage @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Rhea Chakraborty Was Living In With Sushant Singh Rajput Due To His Health, Says The Latter's Father Is Using Influence To Frame Her Selena Gomez uploaded a charming Instagram picture of herself strumming a guitar while sitting at home this Tuesday. The 28-year-old was sitting comfortably in an armchair that was tucked away in a sunlit corner of her new $4.9 million Encino mansion. Her six-bedroom home was originally designed by the late Tom Petty and his then-wife Jane Benyo back in the late 1980s. Relaxation: Selena Gomez uploaded a charming Instagram picture of herself strumming a guitar while sitting at home this Tuesday 'Things Ive been doing in quarantine- settling into my new house and guitar lessons,' Selena wrote in the caption of her new Instagram post. The Come And Get It took a week-long hiatus from social media after her latest birthday but returned on Wednesday with a selfie video taken at the same home. Tom and Jane initially lived in another mansion on the same property until 1987, when it was burned down by an arsonist. After the harrowing fire they had a new mansion built according to their own design, and Selena is now its proud owner. Comforts of home: The Come And Get It took a week-long hiatus from social media after her latest birthday but returned on Wednesday with a selfie video taken at the same home Tom lost the house in his divorce from Jane in 1996 and he himself died of an accidental overdose in 2017, when he was 66. Jane stayed in the house until its foreclosure in 2015, and it went through two owners since then before Selena scooped it up, Variety reported this April. Selena, who bought the 10-bathroom home from top-flight music exec Randy Spendlove, will be able to make use of an in-house recording studio on the property. Throwback: Her six-bedroom home was originally designed by the late Tom Petty and his then-wife Jane Benyo back in the late 1980s; Tom is pictured onstage in 2008 Amenities also include a massage room, a gym and a wine cellar, plus a swimming pool that comes with a hot tub. The backyard patio features a pillared stone canopy and a built-in grill, with room to entertain plenty of guests once the lockdowns end. One of the bathrooms is equipped with high floor-to-ceiling wall-to-wall windows that allow for a view of the lush foliage outside. The man's barrister, Sean Guerin SC, had argued before the Court of Appeal that the trial judge had erred in refusing to permit the defence to cross-examine the complainant in respect of the contents of a diary found in her room, in which the words "Hate Dad" were written, in order to show "pre-existing malice". The defence contended that these words authored by the complainant herself contained evidence of ill-will towards the appellant. It was submitted that they were relevant to her potential motive in making the complaint of sexual assault and contradicted her evidence that she and her father had a good relationship. The man, who cannot be named to protect his daughters identity, went on trial at Cork Circuit Court in May last year. His daughter gave evidence that she had woken in the early hours to find him sexually assaulting her. The man, who had no previous convictions or allegations against him for sexual assault, testified that he had been asleep in his own room. Advertisement On May 24th, 2019 a jury found the man guilty and Judge Brian OCallaghan subsequently jailed him for two years. Appealing his conviction to the Court of Appeal in June, Mr Guerin submitted that the trial judge should have permitted the defence to cross-examine the complainant in respect of the content of a diary, which the defence contended was authored by her. He said that it contained evidence of ill-will towards her father and was relevant to her potential motive in making the complaint of sexual assault. He drew the courts attention to the words, "Hate Dad". The diary would be proof of pre-existing malice, he said. Counsel said that such "a strong dislike" of the accused predating the complaint could be a possible explanation for making a false allegation. Mr Guerin further submitted that the judge had erred in his treatment of corroboration. The trial judge adopted the reasoning that because there was evidence capable of amounting to corroboration, there was therefore no place for a corroboration warning, he said. He argued that this was an error, suggesting that there would never be a corroboration warning if this were the case. Mr Guerin submitted that the judge had erred in particular, by "failing to warn the jury of the weakness" of the potential corroboration of demeanour. He referred to the complainants upset when she made a complaint to her friend that morning. Advertisement He noted that the complainant had drunk three bottles of wine the evening before. This could be an explanation for her upset demeanour, he said, along with the hour of the night and the history of discord between the complainant and her father. The barrister also noted that the presence of wet socks in her bedroom was used as corroboration of the complainants account that she had run out of the house in wet weather after the alleged incident. However, he said, there was also evidence that she had done so before the alleged assault too. Imelda Kelly BL argued on behalf of the DPP that the judges ruling in relation to the diaries was preliminary and that it had been open to the defence to raise the issue again. On the issue of corroboration, Ms Kelly said that she thought it was "curious" that it had not been raised with the trial judge. She accepted that there were two potential explanations for the socks, but noted that there had been no requisition to the trial judge after the charge. We say that because the experience of the members of the Court has been that while cases involving a pattern of inter familial sexual abuse are by no means uncommon, the cases involving a single allegation without any background are rare," Advertisement In a written judgement delivered electronically on Friday, the Court of Appeal President Mr Justice George Birmingham called this an "unusual case". "We say that because the experience of the members of the Court has been that while cases involving a pattern of inter familial sexual abuse are by no means uncommon, the cases involving a single allegation without any background are rare," he said. The judge said the Court found themselves "feeling a degree of disquiet", both as to the manner in which the issue as to the diary was dealt with and as to the treatment of corroboration in the trial judge's charge. Mr Justice Birmingham said that neither issue on its own would have been sufficient to cause the Court to have any doubts as to the fairness of the trial or the safety of the verdict. However, he said the combination had given rise to unease, to a degree that the Court could not confidently say that the trial was fair and satisfactory and that the verdict was safe. Mr Justice Birmingham, sitting with Mr Justice John Edwards and Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy, said the court would quash the sexual assault conviction and would list the matter in the coming days to deal with any application there may be in relation to whether a retrial should be ordered. Security forces searching for the gunman in the city of Sange, close to the Burundi border, provincial governor says. A soldier in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has shot dead at least 12 people and wounded nine others in a drunken rampage, regional authorities have said. Security services are conducting a search for the gunman in the city of Sange, 24km (15 miles) from the Burundi border, where the shooting took place, the governor of South Kivu province, Theo Kasi, said in a statement on Friday. The person responsible is a drunken member of the FARDC (DR Congo armed forces) who opened fire on at least 20 civilians who crossed his path, a prosecutor in Uvira said. Captain Dieudonne Kasereka, the armys spokesman in Uvira, said the gunman was on the run and is still armed. An army delegation and a UN team is in the area to calm the population, which is demonstrating against the army, he said. Angry residents blocked Highway 5 which runs through the area, using branches and burning tyres. They also displayed the 12 bodies, wrapped in funeral shrouds, at a busy crossroads, blocking traffic, several witnesses told AFP news agency. Ndaburwa Rukalisa, a local leader in Sange, said the soldier was a member of the 122nd Battalion of the FARDC, based locally, and was in a state of drunkenness at the time. Nine people were hospitalised in critical condition, he added. The provisional toll of 12 dead was confirmed by witnesses, while a judicial source said a two-year-old girl was among those who died in the rampage. President Felix Tshisekedi called the attack a heinous crime and offered his condolences to the victims families. The DRCs vast army is widely seen as poorly trained and unprofessional, and its personnel are frequently accused of committing crimes against civilians. Senior generals are under US and EU sanctions for alleged abuses, and are accused by the United Nations of having supplied weapons to rebels and criminal gangs. KYODO NEWS - Jul 31, 2020 - 22:32 | All, World, Japan, Coronavirus Japan said Friday it has agreed to receive a supply of 120 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine for 60 million people by the end of June next year from U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. and its German partner BioNTech SE., if they succeed in developing the vaccine. It is the first time the Japanese government has struck a deal over the supply of a vaccine against the virus that causes the COVID-19 respiratory illness. Related coverage: U.S. firms in final stages of coronavirus vaccine trials 8 coronavirus vaccine candidates in clinical trial: WHO Japan drugmaker Shionogi aims to launch coronavirus vaccine in 2021 "We're advancing talks with other companies too," health minister Katsunobu Kato told reporters. "We'll strive to supply a safe and effective vaccine at the earliest opportunity." Kato said Japan will speed up talks with the two companies toward the signing of a final contract. Neither Kato nor the companies disclosed any financial details of the basic agreement. The vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech requires two doses for every patient. On Monday, Pfizer and BioNTech said they are conducting a late-stage clinical trial of a potential vaccine involving up to 30,000 participants. The study, started in the United States, is expected to include approximately 120 clinical investigational sites around the world, such as in Argentina, Brazil and Germany. If the trial is successful, and regulatory authorization or approval is obtained, Pfizer and BioNTech aim to supply up to 100 million doses globally by the end of this year and approximately 1.3 billion doses by the end of next year. British drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc, meanwhile, said in late June it had agreed with the Japanese government to promote talks on the supply of an experimental coronavirus vaccine it is jointly developing with the University of Oxford. Sanctions pretext to violate Syria's sovereignty, support terrorism: Ja'afari Iran Press TV Thursday, 30 July 2020 8:20 AM Syria's Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari has denounced the Western economic sanctions against his country, saying the coercive measures are used as a pretext to keep up violations of Syrian sovereignty and support the terrorist groups wreaking havoc on the Arab country. Addressing a Security Council session via video link on Wednesday, Jafari said the financial restrictions by Western states against his country and their attempts to hinder efforts to deliver aid to Syria expose their fake humanitarian claims. "The motive behind all that is to find pretexts to continue violation of Syria's sovereignty, threaten its territorial integrity, supporting the terrorist organizations," Ja'afari said. This month, he said, the Security Council has witnessed "feverish Western endeavors" to extend a 2014 resolution on aid delivery to Syria. "The motive behind that is not to bring in aid to needy people, but to continue violation of Syria's sovereignty, threaten its territorial integrity which contradict with the General Assembly Resolution No. 46/182," he said. After three attempts, the UNSC voted finally voted to extend aid deliveries to Syria for a year through a single border crossing from Turkey within the framework of a 2014 mechanism. Russia and China abstained from voting. Two of the earlier attempts were blocked by veto-wielders Russia and China, which argued the measures would violate Syrian sovereignty and any aid should be channeled through the Damascus government. The UNSC had also rejected relevant a Russian-drafted resolution. Ja'afari said that sanctions against Syria have hampered the entry of medical supplies amid the country's battle against a coronavirus outbreak. He said that Syria had repeatedly informed the United Nations that its health sector was suffering from a major shortage in medicine, yarns, surgical materials and medical equipment due to the illegal financial sanctions imposed on the Arab country. He stressed that the center to coordinate humanitarian work is in Damascus, not in Gaziantep in Turkey, Belgium's Brussels, Germany's Berlin, France's Paris or any other place "The main burden in providing humanitarian aid, services and support for the Syrians are assumed by the institutions of Syria, its allies and partners in the humanitarian work," he said, criticizing the UN human rights office for politicizing humanitarian aid. Ja'afari further noted that countries hostile to Syria have not stopped their documented grave violations of the UN Charter and international law, nor have they stopped perpetrating crimes against the Syrian people, plundering the country's resources and besieging and starving its people. Besides all those crime, they also launch acts of aggression on civil passenger planes that cross the Syrian airspace in a flagrant violation of international law and international civil aviation rules, he added. He was referring to the US harassment of an Iranian civilian flight in Syrian skies last Thursday, when two US F-15 warplanes conducted a dangerous maneuvering close to Mahan Air's Flight 1152 that had taken off from Tehran and was heading to Beirut. The incident took place over Syria's al-Tanf region, where the US maintains an illegal military presence. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Outside their cell doors, three Georgia convicted inmates have been lauded for saving the life of a guard who fell unconscious due to a cardiac attack. They were namely Terry Loveless, Mitchell Smalls, and Walter Whitehead who immediately came to the aid of Deputy Warren Hobbs when he collapsed on his desk. The deputy also suffered a head injury while overseeing a jail housing unit. The deputy from Gwinnett County Jail was supervising the unit when the aforementioned inmates noticed that he seemingly was not feeling well, according to the sheriff's office posted on social media, reported Wral. The trio phoned for help for Deputy Warren Hobbs as well as asked for assistance from the deputy's radio. Aid soon arrived and Hobbs was provided medical help, indicated News Voice. The inmates were filmed speeding to rescue the deputy upon him managing to previously electronically unlatch their cells. Smalls first warned the remainder of his co-inmates to the incident through knocking loudly on his door, reported Digital Tariq. Whitehead and Lovelace immediately ran to Hobbs' call when the guard unbolted their cell door. According to Whitehead, "It scared me. I don't care if it's a police officer or whoever it was. I will do whatever I can to save a man. I don't want anyone to die." Records indicated the charges against the inmates who helped save the life of the said guard. Smalls was charged for drug and battery charges, while Loveless and Whitehead were taken into custody for drug charges. Also Read: Ghislaine Maxwell's Attorneys Ask Judge to Stop Accusers From Posting Evidence Online The noise of door banging appeared to have prompted Hobbs to be conscious again then he unlatched Loveless and Whitehead's cell who were filmed running from their room to help him. According to Smalls, he hollered, shouted, and pounded on the door to prompt everybody to wake up. Deputy Hobbs said that he can only recall a drum-like sound and sounds of people screaming his name as he recovered at his residence. He split his head open upon the fall to the concrete floor. The whole unit was filled with noise, the statement from the office indicated. The sheriff's office stated that they acknowledge the 3 inmates for not hesitating and for their courage, kindness, and determination when they came to the rescue of the guard. "The inmates whose rooms were close enough to see what was happening began pounding on their doors," the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Office took to Facebook. "Soon the entire unit was thundering with noise as many inmates pounded on the doors shouting for our deputy who lay unconscious and heavily bleeding on the floor." They continued regarding the inmates who saved the guard's life that their deputy later stated that while he was not aware that he had been unconscious, he became aware of the said pounding with the inmates screaming his name repeatedly. According to inmate Loveless, the deputy seized hold of his desk and pulled himself up. Related Article: Ghislaine Maxwell Case Evidences Includes X-Rated Photographs and Videos of Underage Girls @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Herman Cain dies at 74 after battling COVID-19: 'He has gone to be with the Lord' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Herman Cain has died at 74 after being hospitalized with the coronavirus. Cains death was announced Thursday on his website by editor Dan Calabrese who said the conservative businessman and 2012 Republican presidential candidate had gone to be with the Lord. Herman Cain our boss, our friend, like a father to so many of us has passed away, Calabrese said in the blog post. We all prayed so hard every day. We knew the time would come when the Lord would call him home, but we really liked having him here with us, and we held out hope hed have a full recovery. Survivors include his wife, Gloria Etchison, and his two children, Melanie and Vincent, Calabrese said. Cains death was also confirmed on his official Twitter account. You're never ready for the kind of news we are grappling with this morning. But we have no choice but to seek and find God's strength and comfort to deal, the tweet reads. You're never ready for the kind of news we are grappling with this morning. But we have no choice but to seek and find God's strength and comfort to deal... #HermanCainhttps://t.co/BtOgoLVqKz Herman Cain (@THEHermanCain) July 30, 2020 Cain, who was co-chair of Black Voices for Trump and survivor of stage 4 colon cancer, announced his COVID-19 infection on July 2, just over a week after attending a rally for President Donald Trump in Tulsa, Oklahoma. According to a statement posted to his social media accounts at the time, he did not require a respirator and was awake and alert when he checked in to the hospital. Please join with us in praying for Mr. Cain, and for everyone who has contracted the coronavirus as well as their families, it said. Cains social media accounts occasionally provided updates on his condition. A message on July 5 said he was making progress and that more encouraging news was expected to come soon. On July 10, another tweet said Cain himself described his status as cruise control, because the progress is slow but his breathing is getting stronger every day. Make no mistake: He is improving! This is a tough virus, but we serve a tougher God. Herman wants to get back in action soon, so please continue praying, another tweet said. Before moving into Republican politics and eventually becoming a presidential candidate, Cain had been a business executive and board chairman of a branch of Kansas Citys Federal Reserve Bank. Last year, Trump briefly considered picking Cain as his nominee to join the Federal Reserve Board. Throughout his career, Cain was open about his Christian faith and how it defined his life. "Faith has been a big part of my life, all of my life. I joined the Baptist Church at the age of 10. It's the same church my parents joined in the mid-1940s, he said, according to Deseret News. "Our parents took us to church," he said. "They were involved in the church. We got involved in the church. As I got older, my faith grew. You have to develop your own level of faith as you get older. It has always been a big part of my life." Cain said his faith "was really tested in 2006 when I was diagnosed with stage-four cancer, but my faith helped me get through that experience. It has always been a big part of our lives and it always will. It shapes my values." Several high-profile figures mourned Cain's death on social media. Herman Cain embodied the American Dream and represented the very best of the American spirit, tweeted White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Our hearts grieve for his loved ones, and they will remain in our prayers at this time. We will never forget his legacy of grace, patriotism, and faith. Herman Cain embodied the American Dream and represented the very best of the American spirit. Our hearts grieve for his loved ones, and they will remain in our prayers at this time. We will never forget his legacy of grace, patriotism, and faith. Kayleigh McEnany (@PressSec) July 30, 2020 Fox News correspondent Sara Carter tweeted, "Im going to really miss him. Praying for his family in their time of sorrow. He was a great American." Mumbai/New Delhi, July 31 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday arrested two employees of HDFC Bank in a Rs 2 lakh graft case, officials said. A CBI spokesperson in Delhi said that the agency has arrested Nitin Nikam, who worked as a Relationship Manager, and Ganesh Dhaiygude, a Rural Sales Executive, both working with HDFC Bank's Baramati branch in Pune district, in connection with the graft case. The agency official said that the arrest was made after it registered a case on receiving a complaint. The official said that in the complaint, it was alleged that the Nikam demanded a bribe of Rs 2,70,000 from the complainant for the sanction and disbursement of a loan of Rs 99 lakh from the bank. In the FIR, it was further alleged that the bribe amount was later negotiated to Rs 2.25 lakh and Nikam sent his junior Dhaiygude to collect the sum from the complainant. "The CBI laid a tap and caught Dhaiygude red-handed while accepting the bribe of Rs 2 lakh from the complainant. Nikam has also been arrested," the official said. The official said that it also carried out searches at the office and residential premises of the accused in Baramati. Both the arrested accused will be produced before a court in Pune. Commenting on the arrest, an HDFC spokesperson said, "The matter has been brought to our notice. As a responsible corporate entity, we have zero-tolerance towards any such deviations or act by our employees. Appropriate action will be initiated and we will also support the police in their investigation." The future HMCS Harry DeWolf, the navy's first Arctic and offshore patrol ship, built at the Irving-owned Halifax Shipyard, heads from the harbour in Halifax for sea trials on Jan. 31, 2020. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press) Canadas Navy Enters New Era With New Arctic Warship OTTAWAThe Royal Canadian Navy is poised to enter a new era by taking possession of the first armed warship under the federal governments multibillion-dollar shipbuilding plan, and the first built for Arctic military operations in decades. HMCS Harry deWolf will be welcomed in a ceremony at Canadian Forces Base Halifax on Friday, five years after Irving Shipbuilding first started cutting steel on the Arctic offshore patrol shipand two years later than originally scheduled. Top navy commanders will be on hand to mark the occasion along with representatives from Irving, which is slated to build five more such vessels for the navy and two for the Canadian Coast Guard in the next few years. While the deWolfs delivery is a major milestone for the federal governments shipbuilding planthrough which Ottawa is replacing nearly all of the large ships in the navy and coast guardit wasnt easy coming. Then-prime minister Stephen Harper first announced plans to build up to eight armed Arctic patrol vessels in July 2007 and Irving was selected in October 2011 to produce them before building replacements for the navys frigates and destroyers. But the following years saw several cost overruns and delays in the program. After work started on the deWolf in 2015, Irving said it would only be able to build five ships with the $3.1 billion budgeted for the project. The government ended up increasing the budget to $4.1 billion for six. That money does not include the two ships for the coast guard, which are expected to cost about $400 million each. Technical problems were also blamed for pushing the delivery date back several times. Then Irving closed its Halifax shipyard in March for several months because of COVID-19. Despite those setbacks, University of Calgary professor Rob Huebert described the deWolfs arrival as an amazing step forward for the Royal Canadian Navy. Its the first vessel specially built for military operations in the Arctic since the 1950s. And the timing couldnt come at a better time as more and more countries are starting to increase their interestand military footprintsin the Far North as it becomes easier to access due to climate change, said Huebert, who is an expert on Arctic policy. Even the most profound Arctic exceptionalist who says the Arctic is just peace, love and Kumbaya will recognize there is a growing need to have at least a presence in the Arctic as it opens up and becomes a greater part of the geopolitical environment, he said. But once again, this is going to now give us a capability to operate that we havent had since a short little period between 1956 to 57 with [HMCS] Labrador. The Labrador was an icebreaker built for the navy but was in the fleet just a few years before being transferred to non-military use. The navy was actually disdainful when Harper announced the new Arctic ships in 2007. Part of it was their slow speed and light armament, as the ships have only one small cannon. But mostly it was because the navy saw the Arctic as coast guard territory. Because they had not done this since 57, there was a little bit of: OK, what the hell do we do with these ships? We know what we need to do with NATO and in the Pacific. But this is going to sort of require us to scratch our head, Huebert said. Once the navy got comfortable and started realizing what it could do with it, that has subsequently changed. The Royal Canadian Navy is only the latest naval force to join the fray in the Far North. Russia, the U.S., China, and some European countries have been increasing their maritime capabilities in the region in recent years as part of a seemingly slow military buildup. By Lee Berthiaume FORMER soldier Lisa Smith has been sent for trial accused of being a member of ISIS and financing terrorism. The Co Louth mother-of-one had a book of evidence served on her when she appeared in Dublin District Court today. Judge Marie Quirke sent her forward to the non-jury Special Criminal Court. Ms Smith (38), who left Ireland and married after converting to Islam, was returned here from Turkey last December after spending time in a Syrian refugee camp. An ex-member of the Irish defence forces, she is charged with being a member of terrorist group ISIS outside the state between October 28, 2015 and December 1 last year. She is also charged with providing financial assistance of 800 to a man alleged to have been involved in the terror group, via Western Money Transfer on May 6, 2015. She is denying the allegations. Today, a state solicitor said a book of evidence was ready and had been served on the accused. The DPP had certified for trial at the Special Criminal Court and the Attorney General had signed a certificate and letter of consent in relation to the trial venue. The judge said a copy of this should be furnished to the defence. The state solicitor said the charges were non-scheduled offences and the DPP's opinion was that the ordinary courts were inadequate to secure the effective administration of justice. He applied for the accused to be sent forward to a sitting of a Special Criminal Court. The state solicitor said exhibits had been placed on a USB key and this had been provided to the defence. Ms Smith stepped forward when her case was called and was handed the book of evidence, in a large stack of thick, printed volumes. She handed the book to her solicitor Peter Corrigan and stood as the judge gave her the formal warning that she must provide any alibi details to the prosecution within 14 days. The judge granted legal aid, assigning Mr Corrigan of Phoenix Law and covering both junior and senior counsel at trial. Mr Corrigan said there would be a challenge in relation to reasons for sending his client for trial to the Special Criminal Court. "The current available evidence points to the defendant not being part of any illegal groups" and that it was solely "for religious purposes," he said. Judge Quirke noted his position, and said the Attorney General had provided a certificate and his opinion and "that is a matter for you to consider." She said she was satisfied to make the order sending the accused for trial, remanding her on bail under existing conditions already agreed. A man who had stood as independent surety for bail was present in court and Judge Quirke ordered that his name cannot be published, following a submission by the defence. Ms Smith nodded to indicate that she understood the alibi warning and that she was willing to continue to comply with her bail conditions The terrorist group membership charge alleges the accused was "a member of a terrorist group styling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) also known as Dawlat al-Iraq al-Islamiyya, Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Dawlat al Islamiya fi Iraq wa al Sham, otherwise known as 'Daesh' and the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham. Last week, Mr Corrigan said Ms Smith would be seeking to challenge the decision on the trial venue. Ms Smith "has been denied now her fundamental right to a jury trial" and would be challenging "the validity of the certificate that has been issued," he said last week. The prosecution argued on that date that the district court had no jurisdiction to hear the argument on a trial venue. The book could be served and the accused returned for trial and this did not prejudice Judicial Review proceedings, a state solicitor said. Her defence has also previously asked for the case against her to be reviewed and for the original charge to be discontinued, but a judge has said this was a matter for the DPP and not the courts. Ms Smith was arrested at Dublin Airport on December 1 last year, charged on December 4 and denied bail at the district court before being granted it later in the High Court. She remained in custody before taking up bail on December 31. PATNA, India Monsoon floods have swamped large parts of Indias densely populated Bihar state and displaced more than 300,000 people as of Friday, officials said, exacerbating the risk of the coronavirus and stymieing the states response to the pandemic. The floods have killed at least 24 people in the state, where heavy rain has submerged thousands of villages in 14 districts and threatened the already feeble health care system. More than 300,000 villagers have been evacuated to relief camps and officials warned of more heavy rain in the next two days. Indias National Disaster Response Force said it has deployed 28 teams to help with rescue and relief work. Every year the state faces flooding by rivers originating in neighboring Nepal that affects millions, but doctors and experts said the bigger worry this year is the rapidly spreading coronavirus. So far, Bihar has recorded 48,197 cases including 282 deaths. Thats a far lower death toll than other densely populated states that are witnessing a sharp rise in cases, but with experts warning of multiple peaks in India, Bihar could be facing an uphill task to halt the virus. Unless the state government acts on the lines of the Delhi government where hotels were turned into extended hospitals and emphasis was laid on testing, the situation would go beyond control, said Dr. Sunil Kumar, a senior health expert in Bihar. Kumar said the situation could turn critical because social distancing isnt possible in flooded districts. How can you expect flood-ravaged people taking shelter on highways and embankments to wear masks and maintain social distancing? said Kumar, adding that the state did not have the human resources to deal with a pandemic. Bihar is one of the poorest Indian states. Its primary health care system suffers from decades of neglect. The World Health Organization recommends one doctor for at least 1,000 people, but in Bihar, the ratio is about one for every 17,000. Referring to official data from 2019, Kumar said the state has only 43% of the doctors, 29% of the nurses and 28% of the lab technicians the government has recommended for its population of nearly 125 million people. The state is also falling short at testing and has only recently increased daily testing capacity from 10,000 to over 14,000. On Thursday, state Health Minister Mangal Pandey said arrangements were being made to expedite testing and at least 20,000 tests would be conducted daily. Overall, Bihar has tested a little more than 500,000 samples so far. In comparison, densely populated states Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have tested more than 2.4 million and 1.9 million samples, respectively. The state entered a new two-week lockdown in mid-July as virus cases spiked. The lockdown was further extended until Aug. 16. KALAMAZOO, MI -- The nine counties within the Kalamazoo region have been deemed medium-high risk for coronavirus spread. But, nearby, two counties along the Michigan-Indiana border are labeled as higher risk for new cases, according to state data. St. Joseph, Cass and Van Buren counties have daily new case rates higher that fall into higher risk categories than the other counties. Kalamazoo County epidemiologist Mary Franks has pointed to population mobility as a risk factor for spreading the virus across county, region or state lines. Its always a concern when we are such a fluid population that is highly mobile and we interact with lots of different people across lots of different county lines, she said. For example, I drive through two counties and countless zip codes. Our advice is the same, just being vigilant, wearing your mask, washing your hands frequently, avoiding higher risk places. St. Joseph Countys coronavirus case rate has been labeled as uncontrolled growth, according to state data. The MI Safe Start map lists the county in the very high risk category for new cases, which is defined at 70 or more daily new cases per million. As of July 28, data showed that St. Joseph County was at 98.5 daily new cases per million. The number of daily cases per million is the number of new cases divided by the number of people in that county. It is adjusted to a per million people scale so that counties and regions can be easily compared. One of that countys southernmost ZIP codes, 49091, accounts for 55% of the countys overall coronavirus cases. This ZIP code includes the city of Sturgis. Related: Michigans county-level coronavirus data for Friday, July 31; Macomb, Saginaw among hot spots The county of 60,964 people was among six hot spots in the state along with Macomb, Menominee, Saginaw, Huron and Gogebic counties. Hot spots are determined based on per-capita case numbers over the seven-day period ending July 30. Those six Michigan counties all are averaging more than 10 cases per day per 100,000 residents over the past week, a level that puts them at accelerated spread based on a metric used by the Harvard Global Health Institute. The two Indiana counties touching St. Joseph County Elkhart and La Grange are also in the same category. In Michigan, Cass County bordering Indiana has also landed in the high risk category for new cases. The MI Safe Start map categorizes high risk as 40-70 daily new cases per million. The latest data put Cass County at 44.4 daily new cases per million. Nearby, Van Buren County is also in the high risk category, at 55 daily new cases per million. Despite having 111,000 fewer residents than Kalamazoo County, Berrien Countys case numbers have closely followed Kalamazoo Countys with both counties reporting more than 1,000 cases as of Friday. July 31. Both counties are now in the medium-high risk category for new cases, with Berrien at 31.4 daily new cases per million and Kalamazoo at 33.9 daily new cases per million. Officials from the Berrien County Health Department and Spectrum Health Lakeland released a joint statement noting accelerating trends of increased COVID-19 activity over the past several weeks. Health officials pointed to exposures stemming from large gatherings over the holiday weekend, family parties and church events. There has been an increase in new cases as well as an increase in the percent of COVID-19 test results that are positive, indicating that the recent uptick in cases likely represents an increase of viral activity, rather than increases in testing, according to the release. Hospitalizations and deaths have not had similar increases to date. Similar to trends across the country, both counties are seeing an uptick in cases among younger residents. In both counties, coronavirus patients younger than 40 make up half of the total cases. Berrien County Health Officer Nicki Britten said these trends were an example of collective action. She echoed sentiments also expressed by Kalamazoo County Health Officer Jim Rutherford, who told MLive at the beginning of July that the younger generations actions in the summer could limit their activities in the fall. Bearing in mind the start of the new school year is rapidly approaching, we need to make a conscious shift in the way we live our lives to avoid reaching transmission levels that would prohibit in-person instruction for students, Britten said. That means staying at home as much as possible, especially if youre feeling sick, reducing how many people we see in person, continuing to wear face coverings and keep physical distance in public. More on MLive: Reopening schools depends on how people behave, Michigans Dr. Khaldun says Kalamazoo teacher unions demand schools remain online only, warn of looming disaster A partial shutdown now could result in a safe reopening of Michigan schools this fall, experts say Moving Michigan back to phase 3 is probably inevitable if behaviors dont change, head of advisory group says Wind whistling amidst the pines, moose splashing through a nearby lake, waves pounding a rocky shoreline This is idyllic Maine, home to the beloved Maine Cabin Masters and the dilapidated cabins and deteriorating camps they restore. No wonder it has avoided being listed as one of the most hated renovation shows. Viewers love this unique renovation show! This popular show will hopefully transfer to the Magnolia Network when it replaces the former DIY Network. However, Chip and Joanna Gaines havent confirmed yet that this show will be a part of the Magnolia Network lineup. Fans are undoubtedly awaiting that confirmation with bated breath. Maine Cabin Masters | DIY Network Introducing the Maine Cabin Masters RELATED: 5 Renovation Shows to Watch When You Run Out of Episodes of Fixer Upper According to The Cinemaholic, the rugged crew of Maine Cabin Masters has been delighting viewers since the pilot episode aired on the DIY Network on February 23, 2016. After that successful showing, the series itself debuted on January 9th, 2017. Team leader and show creator Chase Morrill is joined by his sister Ashley and her husband Ryan Eldridge, Matt Dix (Dixie), and Jared Baker (Jedi) as they restore rundown Maine retreats. This close-knit and somewhat quirky team of Maine natives always gets the job done, but they arent afraid to have a little fun while theyre at it. That, along with their down to earth attitudes and rustic authenticity, are probably why viewers find them so appealing. From the deepest woods to the remotest islands The Cabin Masters have tackled a wide variety of projects. Some of them have proven themselves logistical nightmares for cast and crew because they are so inaccessible. Remember the island renovations? Besides remote locations and supply challenges, the intrepid crew often face equally dismal weather. In order to stay on time and within budget, the show tries to cluster four projects reasonably close together. According to an article in the Conway Daily Sun, the show hires additional workers so that there are four-man crews working on each of the four projects. This allows them to film 16 complete projects during just a six to eight-week period. Cleaning up rustic cabins and restoring old camps is a dirty and sometimes dangerous job. There are often years worth of animal droppings to deal with, along with the occasional animal carcass. Rotted floors and falling ceiling beams are some other hazards these intrepid builders deal with on a regular basis. Fortunately, they have the skills and experience needed to restore even seriously neglected cabins. Not to mention the fortitude! The Maine Cabin Masters take pride in their work Despite the challenges, the team has managed to transform an astounding array of treasured, yet often neglected, old buildings. Visit their DIY Network portfolio to see how theyve restored dilapidated cabins, summer camps, island retreats, off-the-grid camps, seafood shacks, rustic hunting cabins, old army barracks, horse barns, A-frames, yurts, farmhouses, historic structures, and more. Lest you think they only work on cabins, the Cabin Masters have also successfully tackled a brewery, pet sanctuary, ADA-compliant veterans event center, YMCA playground, and caboose. Their criteria for choosing a project includes a compelling backstory along with the need for a fairly major transformation. However, the building must also be salvageable within their limited time and budget constraints. With more than fifty transformations finished so far, this industrious team of builders is slowly transforming Maine, one project at a time. We can hardly wait to see what future episodes may hold in store for them! Will Maine Cabin Masters be part of Magnolia Network? Theres no official word yet on what projects the team will be working on if there is a Season 6, however it doesnt seem likely. DIY Network will be rebranded as Magnolia Network, and Deadline did not report Maine Cabin Masters as part of the lineup. It has yet to be confirmed if the series will be moving over to Magnolia Network. However, if the show does return, viewers can expect an eclectic mix of the most rundown cabins and camps (plus a few surprises) that Vacationland has to offer! Keep an eye on the new Magnolia Network for details. Joe Biden accused President Donald Trump of trying to steal attention away from Rep. John Lewis' funeral by tweeting that the November presidential election should be delayed. 'He doesn't want to focus on what's going on today with our buddy and your close friend Jim, who you just buried,' Biden said during a Thursday night Zoom fundraiser, which he appeared on alongside Rep. Jim Clyburn, the House's No. 3 Democrat. Trump started his Thursday by rage-tweeting about how 2020 'will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history' and then posed the question, 'Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???' Former Vice President Joe Biden said on a fundraising call Thursday night that he believed President Donald Trump sent out a tweet about delaying the election to steal attention away from civil rights icon John Lewis' funeral, which the president didn't attend Thursday morning, President Trump tweeted that 2020 will be the most 'INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history' and suggesting delaying it. The tweet prompted widespread criticism from both sides of the aisle Prseident Donald Trump said at his Thursday afternoon briefing that he didn't want to delay the election. 'But I don't want to see a crooked election. This election will be the most rigged election in history,' the president said Rep. John Lewis was laid to rest Thursday in Atlanta, Georgia. His funeral attracted three ex-presidents and promises from lawmakers to get the revised Voting Rights Act passed in his honor Meanwhile, President Donald Trump's nemesis former President Barack Obama was one of three ex-presidents to attend the funeral services for Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia congressman who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Former Republican President George W. Bush (left) and ex-Democratic President Bill Clinton also gave tributes to Rep. John Lewis during the Thursday service. President Donald Trump remained in Washington, D.C. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the House's No. 3 Democrat who endorsed Joe Biden before his state's pivotal primary, was on the Biden fundraising call Thursday night and the former vice president acknowledged that the two lawmakers were close friends The tweet set off an hours long firestorm with even members of Trump's Republican Party suggesting the president had gone too far. Congress would be the branch of government to have a say in an election delay scenario and no American election has ever been postponed even during major wars and pandemics. Later Thursday, Trump suggested it was a gimmick. 'Glad I was able to get the very dishonest LameStream Media to finally start talking about the RISKS to our Democracy from dangerous Universal Mail-In-Voting (not Absentee Voting, which I totally support!),' he wrote. 'Must know Election results on the night of the Election, not days, months, or even years later!' Trump added. He also said he would 'WIN' the election 'BIG.' And at his 5:30 p.m. press briefing, Trump said he made the threat because he was concerned about all mail-in voting. 'We're asking for a lot of trouble,' the president said. 'Do I want to see a date change? No. But I don't want to see a crooked election. This election will be the most rigged election in history.' During the interim hours, every able-bodied former president joined Lewis' family and friends in Atlanta to pay tribute to the civil rights icon who died Friday of pancreatic cancer. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all eulogized the Georgia congressman. On Biden's Zoom call, the former vice president and the Democrats' presumptive presidential nominee shared that he had been in touch with Lewis until almost the very end. 'I spoke to John for the last time a few days before he passed away. I ... was telling him how I was thinking about him, he was in my prayers, I said a rosary for him, etc., and he laughed, he was joking and he was still full of joy,' Biden told the 300 or so supporters who were on the call, which raised $2.1 million toward his presidential campaign. 'Instead of answering my concerns about him, he asked about me. He asked about Jill, he asked about the family. He wanted to know if I was still focused on working to heal the nation. Isn't that classic John, Karen?' he asked Rep. Karen Bass, another prominent black lawmaker, who was on the Thursday night Zoom. Bass is among the women reportedly being vetted to be Biden's running mate. Biden also had Rep. Cedric Richmond on the fundraising call, which was hosted by 'Orange is the New Black' actress Uzo Aduba. 'It was never about him,' Biden said of Lewis. Biden echoed his former boss, President Obama, who at the funeral had called on the Senate to pass the updated and newly renamed 'John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.' But if the current Republican-led Senate doesn't pass the bill, which already moved through the House, Biden told supporters he'd deal with it on day No. 1. 'First thing I'm going to do as president of the United States is extend the Voting Rights Act,' Biden pledged. 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. TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / July 31, 2020 / Novamind Ventures Inc. ("Novamind") a mental health and wellness company specialized in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, is pleased to announce its sponsorship of TheraPsil (the "TheraPsil Coalition"), a British Columbia based non-profit, composed of healthcare professionals, patients and advocates that are dedicated to obtaining legal, compassionate access to psilocybin therapy for terminally-ill Canadians suffering from end-of-life distress. The TheraPsil Coalition supports Canadians seeking compassionate use of psilocybin by assisting individuals that apply for an exemption of subsection 56(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) (the "Applications"). Canadians were first granted legal access to medical cannabis in 1999 through this same exemption. On August 4, 2020, Canada's Minister of Health, Patty Hajdu, is expected to respond to the Applications of four Canadians battling cancer who have been assisted by the TheraPsil Coalition. Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of end-of-life distress is supported by a growing body of clinical research. A long-term follow-up study of the NYU (New York University) 2016 Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Study documented significant reductions in anxiety, depression, hopelessness, demoralization, and death-related anxiety nearly five years after participants were treated with psilocybin. Over 70% of study participants attributed positive life changes to the psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy experience and rated it among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their lives.1 "Novamind proudly supports TheraPsil's efforts to provide compassionate access to psilocybin therapy for Canadians suffering from end-of-life distress" commented Yaron Conforti, Chief Executive Officer of Novamind. About TheraPsil TheraPsil is a non-profit coalition of healthcare professionals, patients and advocates that was formed in 2019, in order to change the laws regarding the use of medical psilocybin for terminally-ill patients who are experiencing end-of-life distress. TheraPsil's mission is based on four pillars: Compassionate Access, Public Education, Professional Training, and Research. For more information visit www.therapsil.ca. About Novamind Novamind is building a global network of clinics and retreats that are required for a regulated psychedelics industry. We provide access to safe, legal psychedelic experiences, while advancing research for psychedelic medicine. For more information visit www.novamind.ca. 1: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269881119897615 Contact Information: Novamind Yaron Conforti, CEO and Director T: +1 (647) 953 9512 E: contact@novamind.ca SOURCE: Novamind View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/599878/Novamind-Sponsors-TheraPsil-an-Advocate-for-the-Compassionate-Use-of-Psilocybin-in-Canada PITTSBURGH, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- "I wanted to provide a sense of security for people and help to prevent crime," said an inventor, from Phillipsburg, N.J., "so I invented the SHOFAR-HELP." The patent-pending invention provides an effective way to alert nearby individuals that help is needed. In doing so, it could help to prevent successful attacks, thefts and violence. As a result, it could enhance safety and security and it provides added protection and peace of mind. The invention features a lightweight and accessible design that is convenient and easy to use so it is ideal for women, the elderly, patients in a medical facility, college students, commuters, etc. Additionally, it is producible in design variations. The inventor described the invention design. "My design is easily accessible and it offers an alternative to traditional personal security devices." The original design was submitted to the Lancaster sales office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 19-LCC-4525, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp's Invention Submission Services at http://www.InventHelp.com. SOURCE InventHelp Related Links http://www.inventhelp.com Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe Our news is free on LAist. To make sure you get our coverage: Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter. To support our nonprofit public service journalism: Donate now. California lawmakers grilled the director of the state's unemployment office in a hearing on Thursday, saying too many Californians have been unable to access unemployment benefits due to a confusing and unresponsive bureaucracy. "Because of [the Employment Development Department's] failures, our constituents are depleting their life savings, going into extreme debt, having trouble paying rent and putting food on the table," David Chiu (D-San Francisco) told EDD director Sharon Hilliard. Unemployed Californians have had trouble applying for benefits online. And when they need help, many can't get through to anyone on the phone. Some have now been waiting months. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS HAVE YET TO RECEIVE PAYMENTS Hilliard said EDD has been swamped, processing an unprecedented 9.3 million claims since the coronavirus pandemic began. For reference, she said EDD processed 3.8 million claims during the worst year of the Great Recession. icon DON'T MISS ANY L.A. CORONAVIRUS NEWS Get our daily newsletters for the latest on COVID-19 and other top local headlines. Terms of Use and Privacy Policy The department reports that close to 890,000 applicants who may be eligible for payments still have not been paid. Hilliard said most applicants in that group have not completed the steps necessary to certify for benefits, but she said EDD is aware of 239,000 claims still needing department resolution. She said those claims would be completed by September. Applicants are facing long wait times to get their claims processed. During normal economic times, EDD delivers payments to 80% of applicants within three weeks, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office. But during the pandemic, only 62% of Californians have been paid within three weeks of applying, compared to the nationwide average of 69%. APPLICANTS STRUGGLE TO REACH EDD BY PHONE To meet the increased demand, the department has expanded call center hours for technical support to 12 hours per day, seven days a week. But EDD's core call center -- staffed by 100 caseworkers -- is only open four hours per day on weekday mornings. Applicants on the department's callback list are waiting four to eight weeks to be contacted, on average. "We realize that the current call center operations are not currently serving all of our customers in a timely manner," Hilliard said. She said the department plans to expand the hours of its core call center, but she did not say when. This week, the Governor's office announced the formation of a "strike team" to reform EDD. Hilliard said the department will contract out a complete overhaul of the state's outdated technology infrastructure starting in October. Lawmakers said these actions aren't happening quickly enough for the millions of unemployed Californians who desperately need financial help. Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Laguna Beach) said, "All of these timelines seem totally out of step with the urgency of the moment we're in." Meanwhile, Congress is currently negotiating a potential extension of federal unemployment benefits, now that the extra $600 per week provided by the CARES Act has expired. Democrats want to renew the weekly $600 federal payments, but Republicans are pushing to cap total benefits at 70% of workers' past wages. Hilliard said making those calculations for each Californian would be challenging, and could take the department up to 20 weeks to program into its computer system. At the end of the Angelus, the Pope speaks about the ceasefire in Donbass At the Angelus on Sunday, 26 July, Pope Francis focused on the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value, explaining that those treasured items represent Jesus himself, who cannot but inspire joy, all the joy of the world: the joy of discovering a meaning for ones life, the joy of feeling committed to the adventure of holiness. After reciting the Marian prayer with the faithful gathered in Saint Peters Square, he prayed that the ceasefire agreed upon for the Donbass area would include an effective process of disarmament and mine clearance, which is the only way to rebuild confidence and lay the foundations for the reconciliation that is so necessary and so awaited by the people. The following is a translation of the Holy Fathers reflection, which he shared in Italian. Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning! This Sundays Gospel Reading (cf. Mt 13:44-52) consists of the final verses of the chapter Matthew devotes to the parable of the Kingdom of Heaven. The passage includes three parables that are very briefly outlined: that of the hidden treasure, that of the precious pearl, and that of the net cast into the sea. I will look at the first two in which the Kingdom of Heaven is compared to two different precious items, namely, the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great value. The reaction of the one who finds the pearl or the treasure is practically the same: the man and the merchant sell everything to buy what is now most dear to them. With these two similes, Jesus proposes to involve us in the building of the Kingdom of Heaven, presenting an essential characteristic of Christian life, of the life of the Kingdom of heaven: those who fully pledge themselves to the Kingdom are those who are willing to stake everything, who are courageous. Indeed, both the man and the merchant in the two parables sell everything they have, thus renouncing their material security. From this it can be understood that the building of the Kingdom requires not only the grace of God, but also the active willingness of humanity. Everything is done by grace, everything! We need only have the willingness to receive it, not to resist grace: grace does everything but it takes my responsibility, my willingness. The gestures of that man and the merchant who go searching, depriving themselves of their goods in order to buy more precious treasures, are decisive gestures; they are radical gestures; I would say that they are only one way gestures, not a round trip: they are one way gestures. Moreover, they are made with joy because both of them have found a treasure. We are called upon to assume the attitude of these two Gospel figures, so that we too may become healthily restless seekers of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a matter of abandoning the heavy burden of our worldly certainties that prevent us from seeking and building up the Kingdom: the desire for possession, the thirst for profit and power, and thinking only about ourselves. In our times, as we are all aware, the lives of some people can end up mediocre and dull because they probably do not go in search of a true treasure: they are content with attractive but fleeting things, glittering flashes that prove illusory as they give way to darkness. Instead the light of the Kingdom is not like fireworks, it is light: fireworks last only an instant, whereas the light of the Kingdom accompanies us all our life. The Kingdom of Heaven is the opposite of the superfluous things that the world offers; it is the opposite of a dull life: it is a treasure that renews life every day and leads it to expand towards wider horizons. Indeed, those who have found this treasure have a creative and inquisitive heart, which does not repeat but rather invents, tracing and setting out on new paths which lead us to love God, to love others, and to truly love ourselves. The sign of those who walk this path of the Kingdom is creativity, always seeking more. And creativity is what takes life and gives life, and gives, and gives, and gives.... It always looks for many different ways to give life. Jesus, who is the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value, cannot but inspire joy, all the joy of the world: the joy of discovering a meaning for ones life, the joy of feeling committed to the adventure of holiness. May the Blessed Virgin help us to search every day for the treasure of the Kingdom of Heaven, so that the love God has given us through Jesus may be manifested in our words and gestures. After the Angelus the Holy Father continued: Dear brothers and sisters, on the memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, Jesus grandparents, I would like to invite the young to perform a gesture of tenderness towards the elderly, especially the loneliest, in their homes and in residences, those who have not seen their loved ones for many months. Dear young people, each one of these elderly people is your grandparent! Do not leave them by themselves. Use the inventiveness of love, make telephone calls, video calls, send messages, listen to them and, where possible, in compliance with healthcare regulations, go to visit them too. Send them a hug. They are your roots. An uprooted tree cannot grow; it does not blossom or bear fruit. This is why the bond and connection with your roots is important. The blossom of a tree comes from what it has underground, says a poet from my homeland. Therefore I invite you to give a big round of applause for our grandparents, everyone! I understand that a new ceasefire concerning the Donbass area was recently decided in Minsk by members of the Trilateral Contact Group. While I thank them for this sign of goodwill aimed at bringing much-desired peace to that tormented region, I pray that what has been agreed will finally be put into practice, also through effective processes of disarmament and mine clearance. This is the only way to rebuild confidence and lay the foundations for the reconciliation that is so necessary and so awaited by the people. I greet you all from my heart, people of Rome and pilgrims from various countries. In particular, I greet the faithful from Franca, Brazil; there is the flag over there, the young people from the Archdiocese of Modena-Nonantola, and those from the parish of Santi Fabiano e Venanzio of Rome. They are loud; they make themselves heard! I wish you all a happy Sunday. Please, do not forget to pray for me. Enjoy your lunch. Arrivederci! The family of Joleen Corr at her graveside yesterday It was another day filled with emotion for a Belfast family as they gathered to say a final farewell to murder victim Joleen Corr. Tearful mum Carol Corr joined with other relatives at the graveside of the 27-year-old, who died two years ago after being brutally assaulted in her Co Down home in December 2016. The family decided to hold the service after the final remains of Joleen, which had been retained by police investigating the murder, were returned to them earlier this week. After the graveside ceremony Carol said she was certain that her daughter's journey was now complete and she had finally found peace. The short service for the mum-of-one, whose family made the hearbreaking decision to switch off her life support in April 2018, brought to an end almost four years of anguish after they'd been left to care for Joleen following the attack in Downpatrick. The authorities had retained her brain and some tissue material as evidence in their investigation. "It was hard and emotional, but beautiful at the same time," said Carol. "We kept her final remains with us overnight and family and friends gathered for a small wake at the house. It was lovely to have so many who loved her around her again. "The priest came for a blessing before we gathered together at the cemetery for the final time. "It had always been hard going to visit Joleen and knowing she was not all there. Now, though, she can rest in paradise. "I was delighted to have everyone together one last time and we now know she is whole and at peace. Her journey is complete, and as a family we can also move on and try to find our own peace. "We all know in our hearts we did everything we could to make her proud. "To have everyone there who loved her was a beautiful feeling for me, and a beautiful way for Joleen to complete her journey." Throughout that journey Carol has maintained a rainbow theme, and it was the same again yesterday. "We wanted to dress in bright colours for her. "I still cherish the moments when I sang Somewhere Over The Rainbow to her in her final moments," she said. "Rainbows have followed my family all the way through this, at all the big moments. "We had a lovely lunch to remember her, a cake with the words 'Rest in paradise' on it. She will always be part of this family and we will never forget her." The beauty therapist suffered horrendous brain injuries and was left in a coma after her former partner Michael O'Connor assaulted her in December 2016. After six weeks in intensive care doctors told her family there was no hope of recovery. Joleen was cared for by her family until her death. O'Connor (34) admitted the murder, and following sentencing at the start of this month, will spend at least 16 years in jail. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Home Regional News East ALBANY Two Capital Region health insurers were hit with $1.6 million in fines after a state investigation revealed they overcharged thousands of college students for insurance premiums in 2018 and 2019. CDPHP Universal Benefits Inc. and MVP Health Services Corp. were ordered to reimburse the students for excess charges in the amounts of $394,594 and $88,436, respectively, the state Department of Financial Services announced this week. The department said it was conducting its annual review of student health insurers in the state when it found both insurers had charged unapproved premium rates to students covered under student blanket health insurance contracts, which are taken out by their schools. Insurers are required to follow New York law and charge premium rates that have been approved by the department, said DFS Superintendent Linda Lacewell. Theseorders protect the integrity of the New York insurance market, and ensure that consumers in this case students, who are already struggling with the cost of education and the burden of student loans do not overpay for health insurance. CDPHP and MVP signed consent orders agreeing to pay back the money, as well as civil penalties charged by the department. CDPHP will pay an $800,000 penalty and MVP will pay a $350,000 penalty. The excess charges were administered in the 2018-19 academic year. The department did not specify which colleges the impacted students attended. Under state law, insurers must get approval from the department for any rates they plan to charge in the upcoming year. The rates must be calculated using a state-approved methodology. The department said the insurers deviated from this methodology and used premium rating factors that are not on file with the department. They may have gained an unfair competitive advantage in the student health insurance market as a result, it said. CDPHP overcharged 4,525 students at seven different colleges and MVP overcharged 365 students at one college, the department said. CDPHP said the excess charges were the result of an administrative error that has since been corrected. The company is in the process of issuing refunds to the affected students, according to Brian OGrady, CDPHP chief marketing officer. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. As a physician-founded health plan, CDPHP takes great pride in being a trusted health care partner, he said. Unfortunately, an administrative error in 2018-19 academic year led to some students paying more for their health plan policy. In some instances, the error resulted in some members being undercharged, O'Grady said. Those people will be held harmless and therefore not responsible for refunding the plan, he said. MVP spokeswoman Michelle Golden said the overpayments were the result of an error in the rating methodology the company used when pricing premiums. The insurer has issued refund checks to the affected students, she said. "We have made the adjustments necessary to ensure that this error does not occur again," she said. TOKYO, July 31, 2020 - (JCN Newswire) - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) are pleased to announce a joint venture regarding the development of offshore wind projects in Hokkaido, Japan.The joint venture is jointly owned by MHI (50%) and CIP (50%), and a team with experts from both owners will be established.The partners have high ambitions to be significant parties in the Japan offshore wind market which is expected to experience significant growth. The partnership will jointly develop projects in Hokkaido, where conditions are attractive for offshore wind.MHI has established a significant presence within offshore wind via the joint venture MHI Vestas Offshore Wind, which has successfully delivered turbines in Europe and expanding its business to emerging markets in the Asia Pacific. As part of its growth strategy, focusing on the entire value chain of the offshore wind power business, MHI has agreed with CIP to participate in the Japan offshore wind market.CIP is a leading global fund management company within renewable infrastructure investments established in 2012, having seven funds with approximately EUR 10 billion under management, investing in offshore wind, onshore wind, power transmission, biomass, "waste to energy" and solar projects. CIP entered the Japanese market in 2018, with the ambition to contribute to Japan's delivery on the renewable energy target."MHI's partnership with CIP, a company with extensive experience in offshore wind projects in the world, is a very meaningful starting point for MHI's offshore wind generation business, which is one of our growth strategies. MHI is excited to develop the offshore wind generation business through a partnership with CIP and by leveraging MHI's long experience in the wind turbine OEM business and onshore wind generation business in Japan and overseas", says Kentaro Hosomi, President and CEO, Energy Systems, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries."We are excited to announce the partnership with MHI for the joint development in the Hokkaido area. This is an ideal partnership combining the expertise of the partners. MHI brings innovative technical solutions and extensive local knowledge where CIP brings global state of the art offshore wind development and investment experience to the partnership", says Michael Hannibal, Partner in Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.About Copenhagen Infrastructure PartnersCopenhagen Infrastructure Partners P/S is a Danish fund management company specialized in investing in the renewable energy infrastructure sector. The company was established in 2012 and is today a global leader, market pioneer and the largest financial sponsor with a dedicated energy infrastructure focus. CIP has approximately 110 employees and offices in Copenhagen, New York, London, Utrecht and Tokyo.CIP has seven funds with around EUR 10bn in commitment under management. The funds have currently made 20 investments in large scale energy infrastructure assets totaling almost 8GW in capacity across the US, the UK, Germany, Spain, and Taiwan. In addition, more than 15 greenfield energy infrastructure projects are in process to reach final investment decision and start of construction within the next 2-3 years. Investors in the funds include several blue-chip institutional investors from the Nordics, Continental Europe, the UK, Israel, Taiwan, Korea, Australia, and multi-lateral organizations e.g. EIB. The investors in CIP's funds comprise mainly pension and life companies and large family offices.Source: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.Copyright 2020 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved. The iRobot Corp. (NASDAQ:IRBT) made a name for itself in the early and mid-2000s with a consumer product we had never seen before: a robotic vacuum cleaner. It fit an obvious need in the marketplace, vacuuming hard-surface floors without effort. Or did it? I remember many hours spent getting the two Roombas I owned maintained and operating. But, then again, I also wasted a lot of time watching the machine make seemingly random trips around the rooms and eventually vacuuming the whole floor (remember the sugar test?) Since those early days, iRobot has sold 30 million Roombas and grown to become a small-cap corporation. Its success has also generated competition, and therein lies a tale. IRobot got caught up in the import tariffs imposed on products from China last year, tariffs that had the effect of pushing up its costs. It tried to pass those increases along to customers, but customers weren't having it. They switched to other brands. The company regained some market share when it rolled back its prices to pre-tariff levels. In April, it received some relief when the U.S. Trade Representative gave it a temporary exemption from the tariffs. And, on Aug. 7, it will find out if that exemption will be extended; that's obviously a very important decision. All of that is also responsible for a major selloff of its stock in 2019, before making a partial recovery this year: iRobot share price chart We ask, then, if this is still a company worth consideration, especially if we a have holding horizon of at least five years. For starters, it is a Buffett-Munger Screener stock. Since it made it through this screener, it should be a wonderful company at a fair price, the sort of stock that Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) and Charlie Munger (Trades, Portfolio) might buy for Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B) if they bought small caps. Story continues It also boasts excellent ratings for financial strength and profitability, so we can assume it is well managed, and good managers should be able to guide it through this tariff difficulty and take it profitably into the future. Financial strength IBRT financial strength The usual culprit for a less-than-perfect rating is debt, particularly long-term debt. However, as this GuruFocus graphic illustrates, debt is not an issue: iRobot cash and debt The Piotroski F-Score helps us zero in on the weak spots in iRobot's financial condition. It has a score of only 6 because it failed on three of the tests: changes in return on assets, changes in the gross margin and changes in asset turnover. Needless to say, these three changes were negative. Further down the table, we see the weighted average cost of capital is higher than the return on invested capital--a bad sign indicating the company needs debt or curtailment of some operations to provide operating capital. In this case, the ROIC is 7.08% versus the WACC of 12.54%. These are the reasons why iRobot did not receive a perfect rating, but we will remember that 8 out of 10 is still a very good score. Profitability IRBT profitability Both the operating and net margins are in the high single-digits, which is acceptable. Over the past 10 years, the median operating margin was 8.53%, so the current margin of 9.18% is better than average. Presumably, if iRobot can escape the tariff problem, its margins could go up again. Proactively, it is moving some of its manufacturing to Malaysia in a bid to get around the tariffs on Chinese-manufactured products. In its 10-K for 2019, it reported: "Commenced Roomba production in Malaysia in late 2019, which was ahead of schedule, and balanced production across multiple manufactures in China." Both return on equity and return on assets are strong, in the double-digits. But we really begin to see the strength of the company's growth and profitability by looking at the last three lines in the table: Three-year revenue growth rate: 21.9% Three-year Ebitda growth rate: 19.6% Three-year earnings per share without non-recurring items growth rate: 26.1%. Despite a bad year last year, over the past three years it has notched excellent growth rates for revenue and two measures of earnings. Results such of these can drive capital gains, assuming the company can shelter itself from other headwinds (such as tariffs). Valuation iRobot valuation This middling score indicates that iRobot is no bargain, but probably not too overpriced either. We'll check that by looking in detail at a couple of pricing metrics. First, the price-earnings ratio of 21.36 is reasonable for a pseudo-tech company (over the past three years, its research and development budget has been a point or two over 10%). According to the green bar under the history column, it is currently trading for less than it has in the past. The median price-earnings ratio over the past decade is 29.91, making the current ratio look more like a bargain. The hardware industry median is 20.91, so iRobot is competitive on that front, as suggested by the yellow bar. Turning to the other metric, discounted cash flow, we're in for a surprise if we based our expectations on the valuation rating. The company is significantly undervalued, according to the DCF calculator: IRBT discounted cash flow Share buybacks IRobot does not pay a dividend, meaning it continues to put its free cash flow into development and growth Nor has it repurchased its own shares in the recent past: iRobot shares outstanding That's consistent with a company that aims to keep growing. The strategy for growth includes further development and sales of the Braava family of robot mops and Terra t7 robot lawnmowers. Gurus Although iRobot is a small-cap company, there is serious interest among the gurus, with eight of them holding positions at the end of the first quarter. PRIMECAP Management (Trades, Portfolio) is the most committed to iRobot with 3,783,650 shares, representing 13.57% of the company's outstanding shares (after a reduction of 5.12% in the first quarter). Lee Ainslie (Trades, Portfolio) of Maverick Capital held 178,045 shares, and was also committed, in his own way; he increased his holding by 200.42% in the quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley held 73,440 shares. Conclusion With excellent ratings for financial strength and profitability, as well as a margin of safety of nearly 25%, iRobot looks like a Buffett-Munger Screener company, a wonderful company at a fair price. Its current share price reflects its current difficulty and uncertainty with tariffs, but once those are resolved, the company may provide strong capital gains. Thus, iRobot may be suitable for value investors looking for growth, but not for income investors because there is no dividend now and no sign of one ahead. Disclosure: I do not own shares in any companies named in this article. Read more here: Jim Simons' Firm Loaded Up on Extra Space Storage Strength in Diversity for Texas Instruments T Rowe Price: A Dividend Aristocrat on Sale Not a Premium Member of GuruFocus? Sign up for a free 7-day trial here. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Mukesh Ranjan By Express News Service RANCHI: A man admitted to COVID-19 hospital in Dhanbad after being tested positive on Thursday, was killed in oxygen cylinder nozzle blast on Friday evening, while one hospital staff also suffered injuries in the accident. According to hospital sources, the oxygen cylinder exploded while being replaced by an untrained hospital staff. The deceased, Shaym Kumar Sahu, a resident of Jharia in Dhanbad, was brought to the hospital after being tested positive on Thursday and was put on oxygen after he complained of breathing problem, sources said. When the oxygen cylinder got empty, he (the patient) asked to replace it. But since no trained technician was around, an untrained staffer tried to change it but the nozzle smashed out in between, killing the patient, said an eyewitness requesting anonymity. Medical experts say that if the nozzle is not opened with utmost care, it may cause sudden decompression of the cylinder or the nozzle, causing injury to the people around. Hospital administration however denied the claims and said that the patient succumbed to the virus after his condition deteriorated on Friday. Sahus family members were later informed about the incident by hospital administration. The 100-bedded COVID-19 hospital in Dhanbad is currently occupied by 80 patients suffering coronavirus. Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner or any other hospital officials were not available for comments at the time of filing this report. WHEN scholars eventually chronicle the legacy of the Donald Trump presidency, they will undoubtedly single out the 2020 pandemic as his most disastrous set of policy choices. Not only has Trump largely abdicated federal or national responsibility for fighting the lethal novel coronavirus pathogen, but his narrow economic and electoral rationale for doing so has had dire life-and-death consequences. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion WHEN scholars eventually chronicle the legacy of the Donald Trump presidency, they will undoubtedly single out the 2020 pandemic as his most disastrous set of policy choices. Not only has Trump largely abdicated federal or national responsibility for fighting the lethal novel coronavirus pathogen, but his narrow economic and electoral rationale for doing so has had dire life-and-death consequences. By effectively turning things over to state and local governments, Trump was hoping to distance himself from any political fallout from the anticipated increase in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and eventual deaths. To be sure, the whole idea of pushing so hard to open up the U.S. economy even when the epidemiological data was saying otherwise was the centrepiece of his re-election strategy. Simply put, a buoyant economy was his ticket to retaining the keys to the White House in November. With little or no leadership at the top, especially on the critical issue of widespread testing and meticulous contact tracing, frantic state governors have been left to their own devices. This calamitous situation today in the United States with runaway new coronavirus cases and the lag in spiking mortality rates has been the deadly outcome of an ill-conceived White House pandemic strategy. Given the wealth, expertise and advanced medical infrastructure in the U.S., why did this human catastrophe happen? How could advisers in the Trump administration get the response to the coronavirus so wrong? A recent New York Times piece titled "Inside Trumps Failure: The Rush to Abandon Leadership Role on the Virus" was particularly illuminating and useful from a group psychology perspective. In fact, the incredibly risky and dangerous Trump approach has all the hallmarks of what intellectual Irving Janis once dubbed "groupthink." As the work of Janis highlights, there are clearly identified "symptoms" of groupthink, such as a very cohesive in-group of decision-makers, "concurrence-seeking" tendencies, a strong feeling of group solidarity and an absence of critical thinking. Other symptoms include an overconfidence in the groups intellectual prowess, a sense of invulnerability and an automatic assumption that what they were doing was correct. Add to that mix a disregard for the views of outside experts, a fierce sense of unanimity amongst the group and the groups inevitable tunnel vision in assessing a problem. There is also pressure applied to dissenters to fall into line with the prevailing group consensus. Furthermore, Janis talked about the presence of so-called "mindguards," who essentially protect the president from meeting with "outsiders" with contrary points of view. Does "groupthink" theory offer any explanatory insights into this administrations failed set of policy decisions? With respect to the current pandemic, we know that Trumps chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been meeting every morning at 8 a.m. since April with a small group of key officials to plot the course for the administrations coronavirus response. The Times article describes them as a group of "practical problem solvers" working together on such issues as personal protective equipment, diagnostic testing and mechanical ventilators. Stay informed The latest updates on the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 delivered to your inbox every weeknight. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. By early spring, members of the cohesive group came to the consensus that the respiratory virus was disappearing, that state governments had all the medical resources that they needed and that it was time to gradually open things up. As far as they were concerned, it was the individual states that were best placed to contain whatever viral "embers" would pop up periodically. One of the critical members of the presidents team was Dr. Deborah L. Birx, an experienced infectious disease specialist and the special representative for global health diplomacy for the U.S. State Department. Rather than offer alternative arguments about the inherent risks of their strategy, warnings about bias and uncritical thinking or even a possible contingency plan, she retained her influential position (and the ear of President Trump) within the group by not challenging the consensus view that the pandemic was waning. Conversely, it seems obvious that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the renowned physician and immunologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who has espoused a far different view of the coronavirus has been mostly ostracized by the Meadows group. Indeed, his views dont correspond with the consensus of the in-group, and thus he has found himself the target of a vicious smear campaign by White House insiders the likes of Peter Navarro (top trade adviser) and Dan Scavino (deputy chief of staff for communications) would be the main instigators, or what Janis characterized as the presidents "mindguards." Of course, theoretical models such as groupthink are not always a perfect explanatory fit; one should be mindful about trying to force square pegs into round holes. Poor decision-making, then, may not necessarily be the result of groupthink. But the key assumptions underscoring the model do offer us some important insights into the "why" of Trumps tragic pandemic policy blunder. Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown. India has recorded more than 16.3 lakh cases of the novel coronavirus and 35,747 deaths, according to the Union Health Ministry's latest update. Of these, 5.4 lakh are active cases while 10.5 lakh have recovered. With more than 4.1 lakh COVID-19 cases, Maharashtra has reported the highest number of infections, followed by Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Across the country, over 6 lakh samples were tested for the novel coronavirus on July 30, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said. Globally, there have been over 1.72 crore confirmed cases of COVID-19. More than 6.69 lakh people have died so far. Here are all the latest updates: COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show >> Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal rejected the AAP government's decision to allow hotels and weekly markets under Unlock 3. >> Total lockdown was extended in Kohima, Nagaland till August 7. >> Young workers, aged below 30 years, were the ones to face the most job losses during the lockdown starting from April, with their share in total employed in the country declining from to 18.8 percent during April-June 2020 from 20.9 percent in 2019-20, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said in its weekly data. >> Britain reported its highest number of new COVID-19 infections in more than a month yesterday and imposed a tougher lockdown in swathes of northern England after a rise in the rate of novel coronavirus transmission, raising concerns that a second wave of the deadly virus could sow yet more turmoil. >> The Bombay HC refused to pass any order directing for disclosure of names of persons who test positive for COVID-19, noting there is a central government advisory prohibiting such disclosure. >> The next round of sero-prevalence survey in the national capital is slated to begin on Saturday, with authorities gearing up for the five-day exercise to comprehensively analyse the COVID-19 situation in Delhi. >> Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston said that he has recovered from COVID-19 and reportedly also donated plasma. South Africa: Bronkhorstspruit Labour Centre temporarily closed The Bronkhorstspruit Labour Centre in Gauteng has been temporarily closed for decontamination after registering its first case of COVID-19. Gauteng Provincial Operations Chief Director, Tshepo Mokomatsidi, said the office will reopen next week Monday, and will operate with a skeleton staff, as some of the employees will be on self-quarantine. The well-being and safety of our officials and clients is our top priority. We are closely monitoring the evolving impact on our offices and implementing ongoing measures to ensure their health and safety, while also maintaining the highest level of service to our clients. We will continue to tailor our approach to meet our clients specific needs, and will adjust and continue communicating with them as circumstances change, Mokomatsidi said. Mokomatsidi has assured clients that services will continue uninterrupted at the nearby offices, and officials will communicate regularly with them throughout this time. The departments Director-General, Thobile Lamati, said although the department is concerned about the backlog in service delivery as a result of temporary office closures, of paramount importance is the health and safety of clients and employees. Our officials are an important cog of the working of the South African economy and as such, we will also ensure that they are as safe as possible, Lamati said. Clients are encouraged to use the departments online services found on www.labour.gov.za and toll free number 0800 030 007 for UIF enquiries. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. New Delhi: Concerned over the jailbreak in Punjab, the Centre today sought a report from the state government asking it provide details of the incident. Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi also spoke to the Punjab DGP and asked him to ensure adequate security in all jails in the state. Armed men in police uniform today stormed the high-security Nabha Jail in Patiala district, opening indiscriminate fire and fleeing with five prisoners including Khalistan Liberation Front chief Harminder Mintoo. The Home Ministry asked the Punjab government to send the report about the jailbreak as early as possible and the steps taken to ensure security in the jails. Also read | Punjab jailbreak: Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal calls for an emergency meeting (Live updates) The incident came two days after Home Minister Rajnath Singh asked security forces to guard against attempts to disturb peace through vicious political campaign or by external extremist forces during the election process in Punjab and four other states. We have to keep strict vigil against external extremist elements who may try to create disturbance in Punjab. There have been increased activities of Sikh terrorists in recent months. Similarly in Manipur, we have to ensure peace keeping in mind the ethnic divide. In Uttar Pradesh too, there may be attempts to disturb law and order through vicious political campaigning. We have to keep strict vigil and take proper steps to ensure peace during election, the Home Minister said at the conference of Director Generals of Police (DGPs) in Hyderabad on Friday. Also read | Nabha jailbreak: Woman killed as cops fire at car for jumping barrier For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. 'The world and India likely won't have a vaccine that is widely administered till the end of 2021.' 'In the meantime, clear communication would help,' observes Rahul Jacob. IMAGE: A girl waits to be tested for coronavirus in New Delhi July 28, 2020. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters With both the US and India hitting daily records in the number of new Covid cases, we are, in effect, back at the start of this runaway pandemic. 'Mid-July looks as bleak as March. Businesses are closing. Hospitals are running short of beds. Economists sound less and less certain of a rebound,' The New York Times declared on July 16 in words that apply to India. And it is not just the world's largest majoritarian democracies that are reeling, role model cities for dealing with the pandemic such as Hong Kong and Melbourne have suffered increases, albeit tiny by American or Indian standards, in the past several weeks as well. Getting economies and societies back to even the new (sub) normal of restricted activity and social distancing is proving harder than predicted. The publication this month of an open letter from 239 scientists urging the World Health Organisation to accept that Sars-CoV-2 transmits from one person to another in tiny droplets (that stay around in enclosed indoor spaces for as long as three hours) and travel further than six feet seemed like the confirmation of something we have known all along. But it is a death blow for restaurants, movie theatres, large wedding celebrations and religious congregations for the foreseeable future. IMAGE: People throng a vegetable market in Kolkata, July 28, 2020. Photograph: Utpal Sarkar/ANI Photo The contrast of a virus as agile as something out of a myth and government edicts that seem slow-footed is a worldwide phenomenon. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak announced the UK government would expect employers to foot the bill for 20 per cent funding of salaries for 8.4 million furloughed workers by October. One million firms have availed of the scheme, which cost the UK government 14 billion a month. It was a breathtakingly audacious scheme to prevent mass layoffs, but this boldness has not been matched by the government's prescriptions to slow the spread of the virus. The UK government moved only last fortnight to make masks mandatory in shops and supermarkets. Many US states are still arguing about decreeing mask-wearing in public settings. The move to open bars, meanwhile, has been directly responsible for outbreaks in places as far apart as Los Angeles and Seoul. Bars, crowded vegetable markets or religious congregations create super-spreader events -- places where people gather in large numbers and often raise their voices, propelling more virus out in droplets from their breath and saliva. In early May, an asymptomatic virus-carrying night club reveller went from one bar to another in Seoul's nightclub district. Within a fortnight, the city government had used data from smartphones to trace almost 50,000 people who had been out in those bars or nearby that night; 160 tested positive. Research shows super-spreaders, where one or two individuals in large groups spread the infection to large numbers of people, are responsible for 80 per cent of infections. Contact tracing of the Seoul kind may sound straightforward enough but given the huge number of tracers and the high tech investigative work needed, the reality is only governments as tech-savvy and well-funded as East Asia's are going to be able to carry this out consistently. IMAGE: An ambulance rides on a deserted road in Bengaluru, July 26, 2020. Photograph: Shashidhar Byrappa/ANI Photo Karnataka started out well, but in recent weeks appears to have struggled to keep up, which might explain the escalation in infections. My yoga teacher, who moved back from Chennai last month and dutifully self-quarantined for a fortnight, recounted how he had not received a single call from a government body to follow up. One would think the information technology back office to the world could be a Seoul-styled role model, but instead Bengaluru is in the midst of a lockdown, stricter in some ways than the surgical strike lockdown of late March by the Modi government. I don't understand the logic of allowing shopping for essentials only between 5 am and 12 noon, given that such narrow timings typically lead to crowds at, say, vegetable markets, but I confess my attention wanders reading government directives that begin with 'Whereas, the State Government vide Order No. Rd 158 TNR2020...' and continue 'Whereas, the Experts have examined the matter in detail and have suggested further stringent measures...' IMAGE: A couple with their faces covered looks at the world outside in Surat. Photograph: Ashok Munjani/ANI Photo Perhaps government communications on a public health crisis could have less Latin 'vides' and penalties recited from the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and more useful advice that reflects current research on how this virus spreads. A paper in Science magazine recently detailed how we need to protect ourselves against the transmission of the virus indoors -- by sitting further apart than 6 feet, opening windows to allow a free flow of air or massively upgrading air-conditioning systems. Aerosol spread of a virus is almost as mystifying as Latin, but not when explained thus: 'The distance from a smoker at which one smells cigarette smoke indicates the distance in those surroundings at which one could inhale infectious aerosols. In an enclosed room with asymptomatic individuals, infectious aerosol concentrations can increase over time.' Covid's worst, including a second wave, is yet to come. The world and India likely won't have a vaccine that is widely administered till the end of 2021. In the meantime, clear communication would help. Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com Three teenagers have been sentenced for the death of PC Andrew Harper. Henry Long, 19, was given 16 years behind bars, having served as the getaway driver when the officer got caught in a tow rope and was dragged behind a car while responding to a theft. Passengers Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, both 18, were each handed 13-year sentences on Friday. The three were cleared of the Thames Valley Police officers murder by an Old Bailey jury earlier this monthinstead convicted of manslaughter, to the despair of his 28-year-old widow Lissie Harper, who has called on the government to intervene in the case. (LtR) Henry Long, 19, Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, both 18, were sentenced for the death of Andrew Harper (inset). (PA Images/Thames Valley Police) His wife Lissie, who he married four weeks before he was killed, said in court: They took more than one life away that day, they stole the person I used to be. Every ounce of beautiful peace gone. In answer to the question: how has Andrews death impacted me? You can be satisfied I am now a shadow of the person I once was. Broken, distraught, beaten, a void, an empty shell. He gave everything. Andrew will never grace us with his smile his compassion and selfless generosity. I will spend every day for the rest of my life with a hole that will never be filled. The verdicts of manslaughter have been met with anguish from the 28-year-old victims widow, who has said she is utterly shocked and appalled at the decision not to convict the teenagers of murder. PC Harper was killed after responding to a quadbike theft in Berkshire last year. (PA Images/Thames Valley Police) The original trial was abandoned the day the country went into lockdown in March, while extra security measures were ordered for the retrial, which started on June 23, amid fears of potential juror intimidation by supporters of the defendants. And a female juror was discharged just a day before the remaining 11 started deliberating on their verdicts after she was seen by a prison officer to mouth Bye boys to the teenagers in the dock Justice Edis, sentencing, said: Nothing which I can do, or could have done - if there had been a conviction for murder - can restore Andrew Harper to his loving wife and family or to the public he served so well. Story continues His devastating loss in these terrible circumstances will follow his family forever. He said the three had killed a talented and brave young police officer who was going above and beyond his duty in order to provide a public service. You did so because you have deliberately decided to expose any police officer that got in your way to a risk of death, he told the teenagers. PCs Harper and Andrew Shaw responded to a report of a stolen quad bike from a property in Stanford Dingley, Berkshire, late on 15 August 2019. They found their car face to face with the thieves Seat Toledo, towing a 10,000 Honda quadbike while driving up a lane. PC Harper left the police car to chase Cole, who had unhooked the rope between the thieves car and the quadbike. Police officers pay their respects at the scene in Sulhamstead, Berkshire. (PA Images) The Seat Toledo with tow rope and the police car in a similar position at the site of the meeting of the vehicles during the jury site visit to scene. (PA Images) Cole dived into the Seat and Long drove off at more than 40mph, dragging along PC Harper, who was caught in the rope. He was dragged for more than a mile before he was dislodged and suffered catastrophic injuries as his uniform was stripped away. Officers found him unconscious and barely alive near the A4 shortly after. He died at the scene. The Seat was found at the nearby Four Houses Corner caravan site. The teenagers admitted plotting the quadbike theft and Long pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but all three denied knowing that PC Harper was attached to the rope. The scene at Ufton Lane, near Sulhamstead, Berkshire, where PC Andrew Harper was killed. (PA Images) The defence claimed the incident was an unforeseeable freak event and Long said he did not see or hear the officer, nor was he alerted by passengers Cole and Bowers that he was there. The prosecution argued that PC Harpers 6ft frame and 14 stone weight meant the trio must have known they were dragging him to his death. Justice Edis said: Manslaughter cases range greatly in seriousness. Sometimes death may be caused by an act of gross carelessness, sometimes it is very close to a case of murder in its seriousness. That is so, here. PC Harper was in Thames Valley Polices Roads Policing Unit, and had been due to clock off four hours before the incident took place. On Friday, his mother Deborah Adlam said: He died because these defendants chose to steal a quad bike. My family and I feel broken can you imagine a loved one dying with such indignity? Deborah Adlam, the mother of PC Andrew Harper, and stepfather Phil arrive at the Old Bailey in London. (Yui Mok/PA Wire) He was our first-born child and he has been ripped from me. I havent been able to work for fear of breaking down, my mind just isnt in the right place, my anxiety is overpowering. I hardly sleep I have no motivation or even daily routine chores or cooking a meal, it just feels pointless now. His wife said previously PC Harper was a a gentle giant with a heart of gold... our superman, our bodyguard, our light in the dark. Reacting to the jurys decision to clear the three of murder, Lissie Harper said she was utterly shocked and appalled at the decision. Lissie Harper criticised the jury's decision to clear the trio of murder. (PA Images) I now have my own life sentence to bear and believe me when I say it will be a lot more painful, soul destroying and painful journey than anyone facing a meagre number of years in prison will experience. She wrote to Boris Johnson, home secretary Priti Patel and former Labour home secretary Lord David Blunkett urging them and others to right such a despicable wrong for our country. Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay told the Old Bailey that Long has previous convictions for battery and being drunk in a public place, while Bowers has three convictions for five offences, including sexual assault and causing intentional harm or distress which was racially aggravated. The judge described the three as young, unintelligent but professional criminals and none had any real education, and said they had been taken out of school far too young. He added: I reject the contention that any of you has shown remorse. Longs barrister said he had genuine remorse for killing PC Harper. The five drug gangs operated independently of each other. They were active in regions across Luxembourg and traded cocaine, heroin, and cannabis. 14 drug dealers were arrested in July. Police then searched several apartments as well as cars and seized drugs, money, and vehicles. Luxembourg police joined effort with their French and Belgian counterparts. The cooperation between the authorities allowed police to search apartments outside of Luxembourg. The head of one of the gangs was arrested in Belgium. The man was no stranger to the authorities as he had already led a large-scale drug operation in his native country. Belgium's police extradited the head of the gang to Luxembourg. He was placed in custody alongside the other suspects. Special units of the police lent a helping hand during the crackdown. Iranian Satellite Once Derided as 'Tumbling Webcam in Space' Snaps Pics of US's Largest Mideast Base Sputnik News Ilya Tsukanov. Sputnik International 11:53 GMT 30.07.2020(updated 12:08 GMT 30.07.2020) The images were reportedly obtained amid the ongoing massive war games in southern Iran involving multiple branches of the armed forces, including elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) formations. The IRGC has released detailed images of Al-Udeid Air Base the Qatar-based home of the US military's Central Command, with the snaps taken by Iran's new domestically-developed 'Noor' (Light) military satellite. The images include several detailed snaps of the airbase itself, with the pictures apparently taken during various intervals, based on the changing positions of aircraft on runways. One of the images appears to be an infrared view showing heat signatures emitted by aircraft and the nearby facilities. Al-Udeid is the US's largest military base in the Middle East, with as many as 11,000 personnel permanently stationed at the facility at any one time, and the base used to direct US military operations across the region. The images are featured in a video showing off Iran's drone, air power and missile might, with drones, planes and missiles shown to be targeting a range of objects, including a mock-up aircraft carrier. The images were released amid the ongoing 'Great Prophet 14' military drills in Hormozgan province, southern Iran, with the territory bordering on the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. The massive drills kicked off on Tuesday. In addition to its intelligence-gathering activities, the Noor satellite has reportedly been used to monitor the exercises from space. The Noor satellite was launched into orbit in April. US Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond derided the launch at the time, calling the satellite a "tumbling webcam in space" and suggesting it would be "unlikely" to provide Iran with any usable intelligence. US troops at the Al-Udeid Air Base and the nearby Al-Dhafra Air Base in Abu Dhabi, UAE were reportedly temporarily put on alert this week after missile fire was detected in the area where the drills are taking place. "The incident lasted for a matter of minutes and an all clear was declared after the threathad passed," US Army Maj. Beth Riordan was quoted as saying. The US Navy slammed Iran's 'Great Prophet 14' drills on Wednesday, taking special issue with the use of a mock-up of a US aircraft carrier. "We are always watchful of this type of irresponsible and reckless behaviour by Iran in the vicinity of busy international waterways," a spokesperson for the US Fifth Fleet was quoted as saying. In addition to the satellite, Iran showed off the capabilities of its underground missile units during the drills. Drone units, aircraft, and a variety of sea-to-sea and coastal defence missiles were fired during the wargames. On Wednesday, IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Brig. Gen Amir Ali Hajizadeh revealed that the drills also included defeating a simulated US Theater High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD)-style system by targeting it with radar-evading missiles. "With the facilities in our possession, we can hit any hostile target at any location in the Persian Gulf region, the Sea of Oman, and the Indian Ocean," Hajizadeh said. The drills come in the wake of the latest escalation in tensions in the already strained Iranian-US relationship last week, after an Iranian passenger airliner was forced to take evasive maneuvers following an interception by two US fighter jets over Syrian airspace. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the incident an act of "aerial terrorism" by the US, and urged the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the United Nations Security Council, Syria and Lebanon to take appropriate action to hold Washington accountable for its alleged violation of international law. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address A Washington County Sheriffs deputy has pleaded not guilty to three charges related to a 2018 attack on an inmate. Rian Alden entered a plea of not guilty Wednesday on two counts of second-degree assault, one of unlawful use of a weapon and one of first-degree official misconduct. KATU News first reported the plea. Alden was captured on video slamming an inmate, Albert Molina, into a brick wall during a booking in 2018. The sheriffs office investigated the incident at the time, and referred the case to two outside agencies for review. After reviewing the case, the Washington County District Attorneys Office initially declined to prosecute Alden, stating that the charges couldnt be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Alden was initially placed on paid administrative leave in late May, after someone alerted the sheriffs office to the existence of an email Alden had sent in 2003, which contained several slurs against various ethnic and racial groups. During that investigation, the Washington County District Attorneys office reopened an investigation into the assault case. A grand jury charged Alden with felony assault in late June. Aldens attorney, Dan Thenell, could not immediately be reached for comment. But in June, he told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he was disappointed in the way the sheriffs office had handled the case so far, and that he looked forward to clearing Aldens name. In late June, Washington County awarded a $625,000 settlement to Molina, who had suffered major head trauma as a result of the incident. Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. Health Minister Park Neung-hoo, right, speaks during a meeting of the National Pension Service fund management committee at The Plaza Hotel in Seoul, Friday. Yonhap By Lee Min-hyung The National Pension Service (NPS) will increase its focus on overseas investments, raising its spending on overseas assets to 50 percent of its total investments, Health and Welfare Minister Park Neung-hoo said Friday. "We need to (improve) the fund's long-term stability by expanding foreign investment because it provides higher returns than domestic investment," Park told reporters after holding a meeting of the NPS fund management committee. The NPS has long been asked to diversify its investment portfolio beyond its heavy exposure in local assets amid the decrease in the working-age population and the growing number of pension beneficiaries. While stocks and other "alternative assets" are viewed as riskier assets, the NPS was pressured to invest in them as they may bring better returns. "We need to maximize revenue from the upcoming investments, and contribute to stabilizing the fund," he said. The share of its investments overseas reached 35 percent in 2019, but the NPS stated that the figure will rise to 50 percent by the end of 2024. This will also top 55 percent in 2025, according to the NPS. It is estimated that by 2024, the pension fund of the NPS will be worth 1,000 trillion won. "With the scale of the fund expanding, it is inevitable for us to expand overseas investments to overcome the shortcomings of domestic investment and disperse potential risks," Park said. The minister expects the pension to reap more in insurance income than it will pay in expenditures for the next decade, so he underlined the need to engage in aggressive investment to ensure the fund's longer-term stability. In accordance with the adjusted portfolio management, the NPS shared a plan to divide foreign bonds into two categories of investment stable assets and profitable assets. For the stable investments, it will focus on purchasing national bonds from developed countries, while at the same time ensure profits by investing in bonds in emerging markets. The committee also said it plans to secure optimal investment opportunities in alternative investment by forming strategic alliances with global asset management firms and major pension funds from other countries. The NPS will continue developing investment strategies amid virus-induced financial market uncertainties here and abroad, according to Park. India's Rafale fighter jets have no chance against China's J-20: experts Global Times By Li Qiang and Liu Xuanzun Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/30 23:31:08 India has recently received delivery of five Rafale fighter jets, with a former Indian air chief marshal boasting that the French-made warplanes' capability is superior to China's J-20 stealth fighter jet. Chinese experts said that the Rafale is only a third-plus generation fighter jet, and does not stand much of a chance against a stealth, fourth generation one like the J-20. In some combat performance areas, the Rafale is superior to the Su-30 MKI fighter jets, which are in service in the Indian air force in large batches, but it is only about one-fourth of a generation more advanced and does not yield a significant qualitative change, Zhang Xuefeng, a Chinese military expert, told the Global Times. Thanks to its AESA radar, advanced weapons and limited stealth technologies, the Rafale is comparable to other third-plus generation fighter jets used by other countries, but it will find it very difficult to confront a stealth-capable fourth generation fighter jet, Zhang said. Zhang's statement came after the five Rafale fighter jets took off from France on Monday and arrived in India on Wednesday, Indian media reported on Wednesday. In a report by the Hindustan Times on Wednesday, India's former air chief marshal B.S. Dhanoa claimed that the Rafale "is a game changer, and the Chinese J-20 does not even come close." It is common knowledge that a generational gap in fighter jets represents a huge difference that cannot be made up by tactics and numbers in combat, military observers said. China's J-20 is far superior to the Rafale, they said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address James Murdoch has resigned from the board of News Corp over a disagreement with its editorial coverage of politics and environmental issues in a move that severs his ties to his family's global media empire. Mr Murdoch, the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, said he would step down as a director of the owner of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Australian and the right-wing Fox News cable television network immediately. His decision is not completely unexpected - Mr Murdoch has previously expressed unease with News Corps editorial direction - but it does confirm a professional rift in the multibillion-dollar business. James Murdoch has resigned from the News Corp board. Credit:Bloomberg "My resignation is due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company's news outlets and certain other strategic decisions," Mr Murdoch said in a letter to the board on July 31. News Corp confirmed the resignation to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and said that the board would reduce to 10 directors. Mr Murdoch had been on the board of directors since 2013. What were gonna be announcing is a process by which we take stock of murals and monuments and other memorials to our past, but also that we talk about the past that hasnt been highlighted or lifted up, Lightfoot told reporters last week. Theres a lot of richness to our history as Chicagoans as a city that doesnt appear in any way, shape or form of memorialization. Much Ado About Nothing (BBC iPlayer) Rating: Verdict: Gorgeously cosy nostalgia Treasure (BBC iPlayer) Rating: Verdict: Crafty tale of the unexpected First Things (Scenes For Survival, nationaltheatrescotland.com) Rating: Verdict: Sweetly sentimental elegy We were supposed to have news this week of Andrew Scott in Stephen Beresfords one-man play Three Kings, live-streamed from Londons Old Vic. Unfortunately, Scott was taken ill and is unable to perform although it was not thought to be serious, or Covid related. We wish him a speedy recovery. But the Old Vics misfortune offered me a golden opportunity to sneak another look at what, to my mind, remains the RSCs finest show of the past decade: Christopher Luscombes gorgeously nostalgic 2014 staging of Shakespeares Much Ado About Nothing, available now through the BBCs Culture in Quarantine programme. Feud: Edward Bennett and Michelle Terry in Much Ado. We were supposed to have news this week of Andrew Scott in Stephen Beresfords one-man play Three Kings, live-streamed from Londons Old Vic It starred the indomitable Michelle Terry and the inimitable Edward Bennett. Would that I could watch them every week! Terry and Bennett play feuding lovers Beatrice and Benedick, who are brought together in a pact for revenge after Beatrices friend Hero is falsely accused of infidelity. The play was cunningly paired, when it ran in Stratford-upon-Avon, with Loves Labours Lost (as a prologue); with Much Ado assuming its lesser known subtitle Loves Labours Won and set after World War I. I recommend seeing both. Terry is a potently emotional Beatrice, still fuming over her lost love of Benedick; and Bennett is no less sore as her disgruntled former beau. But Terry is also deliciously snippy the Bards finest quips trip effortlessly off her tongue while Bennett makes his plaited verbal conceits wryly approachable.Where she goes on to prove a furious firebrand in defence of her slandered friend, he rises to her challenge of revenge with deadly seriousness. Its a show jam-packed with juicy performances, including a deliciously sinister turn from Sam Alexander as the muck-raking scoundrel Don John. The Hanson-Bond clan at home. In Treasure, a family are caught up in an interactive parlour game no one wants to play I found myself chuckling again at Nick Haversons dim-witted policeman Dogberry. Its a role that can be toe-curling to watch; but Haverson is resplendent in his characters gibberish, and gives a Norman Wisdom masterclass in physical comedy. While youre on iPlayer, look out for a couple of nice lockdown shorts. Treasure features Samantha Bond and husband Alexander Hanson in a crafty tale of the unexpected. And Elaine C. Smith, Scotlands first lady of comedy, can be seen in First Things, a new short by Val McDermid for the National Theatre of Scotlands Scenes For Survival series available on BBC iPlayer from Monday. In Treasure, a family are caught up in an interactive parlour game no one wants to play. Their London house looks so immaculate I wondered if they had put it on the market. But its good to see these theatrical stalwarts keeping busy. Hanson looks rakish with his goatee and silk dressing gown. I was amused to spot a sly piece of product placement in the sweetly sentimental Smith-McDermid effort about a radio DJ broadcasting from home and keeping a secret. One of Vals books has been cunningly exposed on Elaines inevitable lockdown bookshelf background. As Ive discovered during the pandemic, theres sometimes as much pleasure to be had scanning peoples libraries as listening to what they are saying. Meet the the Beavis and Butt-Head of OAPs Oh, Hello On Broadway (Netflix, 15) Rating: Verdict: Nice and sleazy does it Digging around in the basement of Netflix, I discovered this brilliantly seedy Broadway spoof recorded live at New Yorks Lyceum Theatre. Imagine if cartoon wastrels Beavis and Butt-Head reinvented themselves as miserable old Muppets Statler and Waldorf and then became flesh Comedians John Mulaney and Nick Kroll are disreputable double act George and Gil (right), a couple of geriatric, theatre-going bachelors living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan the coffee breath of neighbourhoods. They send up myriad theatrical conventions, including shouting to wake up dozing members of the audience and dancing like walking swastikas. Its tasteless but appealed to my childish sense of humour. As a 90-minute sketch its a tad too long, and best enjoyed in half-hour chunks once the kids are tucked up in bed. LOS ANGELESAVN Media Network is pleased to announce plans to launch of the Quarantine Moments Contest on AVN Stars. Get creative with a personal photo that shows what the quarantine means to youjust be sure that you are in the image that you submit. This three-day, 72-hour, fan-voting contest started at midnight PDT today, July 31, and goes until 11:59 p.m. PDT on Aug. 2. All AVN Stars are eligible to enter and the Top 10 vote-getters will each receive cash prizes with the winner taking home $750! To enter, simply go into your Settings and click on the Contests tab. You may upload your image from there.Under contest rules, all uploaded images must feature the content creator; in addition, creators are required to post a tweet about their participation in the contest. To join AVN Stars for free, visit stars.avn.com. Designed specifically for the needs of adult entertainers, AVN Stars is a subscription-based community where creators can monetize their content without the fear of censorship, discrimination, suspensions or shadow-bans. Creators may charge a subscription fee or make their posts available free of charge. By Brendan J. Lyons | Times Union, Albany Albany, N.Y. In early April, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo warned that the state may need 40,000 ventilators and up to 150,000 hospital beds projections that would prove to be far beyond the states actual needs. In response to those initial concerns, his administration began spending hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase thousands of ventilators, mobile X-ray machines and "BiPAP" breathing-assistance devices, most of which were never used. Although the inventory of the state's medical stockpiles is arguably a matter of public record, the governor's office declined to provide details on how much medical and personal protective equipment are now in its reserves much of it stored at large industrial warehouses in Guilderland, at Oriskany, Oneida County, and a facility in the New York City region. The office did, however, promptly provide a breakdown of its expenditures during the pandemic, including listing $278 million to purchase more than 8,800 ventilators; $94.4 million to buy 1,179 mobile X-ray machines; and $60.7 million for more than 17,000 "oxygen concentrators" a category the administration said encompasses the BiPAP devices. On April 7, as the governor appeared on MSNBC to report that New York had logged a pandemic-high 800 deaths during the previous 24 hours, he said that hospitals were "over capacity" and facing a critical shortage of the ventilators used to treat critically ill coronavirus patients. "We have been scrambling with ventilators. We move them all over the state like pieces on a chess board, literally whatever hospital has the greatest inflow (of patients) that night, we move ventilators around the state," he said. "We have also used other machines that have a ventilating capacity, something called the BiPAP machine." BiPAPs are bi-level airway pressure machines that push air into a person's lungs. Under the state's plan, Cuomo had said, they were to be fitted with a special part that could make them function like a ventilator. The state scrambled to acquire those machines as Cuomo cited health experts' worst-case scenarios for hospitalizations and patients who may need to be intubated. On April 2, he announced the state had 750 BiPAPs in reserve and had purchased another 3,000 from a Pittsburgh medical supply company. Six days later, Cuomo said a Florida company, Mercury Medical, had donated another 2,400 BiPAP machines that were being flown to New York for free by JetBlue. But despite the governor's assertions in April that the BiPAP machines were being "used" to treat patients, they were never put into operation. "BiPAPs, luckily, were not needed," Richard Azzopardi, an adviser and spokesman for Cuomo, acknowledged this week. He added: "As a matter of policy we do not comment on our stockpiled supplies." Azzopardi said the purchases were necessary at a time when the state facing a $6.1 billion deficit before the pandemic struck was planning for the worst, despite pushback from the White House that the governor was overstating his needs. That discrepancy emerged in mid-April, when Cuomo and President Donald J. Trump repeatedly sparred over the levels of response as the governor cited earlier Centers for Disease Control estimates indicating there could be up to 2 million U.S. fatalities, and that New York's 56,000 available hospital beds would fall far short of its needs. But those estimates apparently did not factor in the reduction of infection rates due to economic shutdowns, social distancing mandates and the wearing of masks by millions of people. The president retorted that New York would not need the number of hospital beds and ventilators that Cuomo had called for, and he also criticized the state for failing to keep an adequate stockpile of ventilators. "Cuomo ridiculously wanted '40 thousand Ventilators.' We gave him a small fraction of that number, and it was plenty," Trump tweeted on April 17, as the two government leaders clashed. "State should have had them in stockpile! ... We built you thousands of hospital beds that you didn't need or use, gave large numbers of ventilators that you should have had, and helped you with testing that you should be doing." Cuomo, who countered that the federal stockpile had just 10,000 ventilators, insisted that his estimates were based on scientific projections offered by federal and other medical experts and, if they were wrong, Trump should blame them. The president's remark about New York's hospital beds referred, in part, to a 4,000-bed field hospital the federal government swiftly built at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, which never had more than 10 percent capacity and on most days was virtually empty. It was one of several field hospitals that Cuomo's administration had scrambled to assemble in April that saw little use. Azzopardi, the governor's spokesman, said it was those field hospitals and potentially many more that were never built that had prompted the state to purchase more than 1,000 X-ray machines. "These were procured at a time when the state was preparing for an apex projected to require 150,000 hospital beds and we planned on building several field hospitals which needed to be fully equipped," he said. "As we now know, New Yorkers crushed the curve of the virus and, thankfully, we never had to build the hospitals." Cuomo continued to push for more ventilators and increased hospital capacity after New York and nearly all other states implemented stay-at-home orders including closing businesses and schools that sharply flattened the rate of infections and deaths in New York. It was during that period that Cuomo's administration scrambled to purchase personal protective equipment, ventilators and the mobile X-ray machines, which cost an estimated $125,000 or more apiece, according to medical industry equipment suppliers. Other expenditures included $35 million for gloves, $168 million for respirators and $4 million worth of soap. The governor's office did not provide an exact dollar figure or quantity of the unused BiPAP machines. "While New York was climbing the apex and projections showed we would need upwards of 150,000 hospital beds and 40,000 ventilators, Northwell Health developed a way to add a readily available part to the BiPAP that would effectively convert it into an emergency use ventilator," Azzopardi said. "This type of conversion would only be necessary in an emergency situation and if hospitals and the state ran out of ventilators." He added "for context" that the number of people hospitalized in New York for COVID-19 symptoms only reached a little more than 18,0o0 at the height of the pandemic here, and that the state "never ran out of ventilators." With a now-ample supply of medical and protective equipment, the nation's hardest-hit state from the coronavirus is now, in Cuomo's words, returning favors to states that he said had helped New York, including sending "volunteer" health care workers here. But those volunteers were compensated, including many at pay rates far above what New York nurses and other front-line workers here were paid. So far, Cuomo has authorized a multitude of donations from New York's stockpiles of personal protective equipment to Houston, Atlanta, Savannah, Ga., and St. Petersburg, Fla. Those gifts include 22,500 face shields, 26,500 gloves, 22,500 N95 masks, 3,750 gallons of sanitizer, 124,000 surgical masks and 22,500 test kits. "I know I speak for all New Yorkers when I say we will always be grateful for that help that came to us, and we are paying back the favor today by sending PPE to St. Petersburg, where we've worked together to establish a community testing site," Cuomo said Wednesday, adding that New York would equip a testing site in Pinellas County, Fla. "We will continue to return the favor and lend help to whoever needs it." Azzopardi said New York's purchases and stockpiling of medical equipment came as the pandemic's grip on the world was peaking and it was unclear how many people may die or need hospitalization, including in intensive care units. Many states sent ventilators and workers to New York as its cases soared. New York was hit the hardest and had to contend with a worldwide shortage of protective equipment, but when we needed it the most 30,000 front-line workers from other states stepped up and volunteered to help us through one of our darkest moments, he said. We never forgot that and are proud to return the favor in any way we can, while also making sure we have the resources and the PPE available to brace for a second wave. Assembly Minority Leader William A. Barclay, a Republican from Oswego, said New York lawmakers should receive more information about how much equipment is in the state's stockpiles, and why some of it is being shipped to other states. "If taxpayer dollars are paying for equipment that is now collecting dust or being shipped to other states, then we have questions that demand answers," Barclay said, adding that upcoming legislative hearings regarding New York's response to the pandemic "may just be the right forum." The assemblyman also challenged the administration's position that it will not comment on or disclose information on its medical stockpiles. The Assembly's Republican conference had pressed unsuccessfully in March for the administration to report monthly how much and on what it was spending what was then a $40 million emergency appropriations bill. That unprecedented legislation also gave Cuomo sweeping emergency powers to respond to the pandemic, including changing state laws at will. Given all that weve gone through with COVID and what were facing with the states dire economic conditions, New Yorkers have every right to know this kind of basic public health and fiscal information, he said. Emergency response and preparedness are obviously critical, but so is a full accounting of where taxpayer resources are directed and how much of the publics money is being spent. A Fianna Fail TD alleged State employees were using the pandemic as an excuse to lie on the couch and watch box sets (PA) Taoiseach Micheal Martin has said he does not agree with one of his party colleagues comments about lazy public servants. Fianna Fail TD Marc MacSharry alleged State employees were using the pandemic as an excuse to lie on the couch and watch box sets. Mr MacSharry doubled down on his comments during a radio interview on Thursday, and said people should not have to put up with mediocrity dressed up as efficiency. Irelands largest trade union Siptu called on Mr MacSharry to apologise and withdraw his remarks. The union said its members have expressed anger, disappointment and hurt at his comments, which they have described as outrageous. Mr Martin was asked on Friday about Mr MacSharrys remarks but stopped short of calling for him to withdraw them. He said: My longstanding political philosophy has always been around the need to have a strong public service and to invest in a strong public service. I dont agree with Marcs position on this at all. Our members are demanding Deputy MacSharry withdraws his comments and puts an end to this kind of misleading rhetoric that only serves to divide public and private sector workers at a time when the recovery of the country requires unity and solidarity. #FrontLineHeroes pic.twitter.com/gyrwoF4GHN SIPTU (@SIPTU) July 31, 2020 Sometimes I would have been criticised in the past through various partnership agreements we had as a party and policy around the public service. But never did the concept of a strong, independent public service emerge so tellingly than in this crisis, be it in health or right across the board. Public servants have been flat-out since the beginning of the crisis dealing with every latest iteration of it and I think that is the strength of our public service and that it is something that we should celebrate. On Thursday, the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants (AHCPS) called for the remarks to be withdrawn, stating that they were ill-informed and ill-considered. Sinn Fein housing TD Eoin O Broin said he has written to Mr Martin about the comments, which he described as wrong, offensive and divisive. Teachers are writing their own obituaries in protest of Iowa's plan not to mandate masks when it reopens schools this fall, despite 44,285 cases of COVID-19 and 865 deaths so far. The initiative was kicked off by Sioux City art teacher Jeremy Dumkrieger, 43, who published his own obit that described his death from complications of COVID-19 on the Iowa Starting Line website on July 16. He went on to encourage other teachers to follow suit, and send their obituaries to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds to demand she declare a statewide school mask mandate ahead of the upcoming school year. Trend: Iowa art teacher Jeremy Dumkrieger, 43, wrote his own mock obituary that described his death from complications of COVID-19 to protest the lack of safety measures in schools Scary: Dumkrieger, whose mocked-up obituary says that he 'died alone, isolated from the family who meant the world to him', inspired other teachers in the state to write their own Iowa schools will reopen in August and September, but Gov. Reynolds has not declared a mask mandate for returning students and teachers. 'The governor issued no guidance,' Dumkrieger told Good Morning America. 'That means every district in Iowa will have completely different plans. Some will wear masks, some will not.' That is concerning to many teachers and parents including the 16,000 who have joined Iowa Educators for a Safe Return to School, a group Dumkrieger founded with a colleague. In an effort to change the governor's mind, he wrote up his own obituary, leaving only his date of death blank, to send to Gov. Reynolds to express concern. In publishing it this month, he asked other teachers to do the same and sent their obituaries to the governor's Chief of Staff Sara Craig and Deputy Chief of Staff Paige Thorson, as well as post on social media to spread the word. Public health crisis: The teachers are sending their obits to Gov. Kim Richards demanding she mandate masks in schools 'I would like to see masks on everyone,' he added to GMA. 'We want a safe return to school, which means safe plans. 'Writing your own obituary reflects on who you are, what you've been and who you want to become. It's sobering for sure,' he added. Dumkrieger's mocked-up obituary says that he 'died alone, isolated from the family who meant the world to him.' It recounts that he was born in Onawa, IA to Marcia, a medical transcriptionist, and Fred, a retired farmer and machinist. He graduated from the East Monona Community School District and Morningside College. It was a dream job for Jeremy; it fulfilled him Jeremy Dumkrieger's obituary, on being a teacher 'He was married to Tisha, whom if her feet had been warmer would have been perfect to him,' it read. 'He met her at Perkins Restaurant and later asked her to marry him with a ring in his hand surrounded by the glow of dozens of lighting bugs. 'They shared a love of John Mayer and sitting close at the movies. He adored her hamburger soup. His only regret in life was not meeting her sooner, frozen feet and all.' He wrote lovingly of Tisha's children Bernadette and Tristan, who 'soon became his own'. 'Jeremy worked as an art teacher for 6 years. His students called him Mr. D because they thought saying it out loud was a bad word,' it went on. 'He loved getting drawings as gifts; especially if they were portraits of Mr. D. Pleading: Dumkrieger's obituary has inspired others, including 7th grade teacher Kerry Finley of Iowa City 'The science, for anyone who was even casually educated, could not be seriously challenged,' Finley said (pictured: a school in Wylie, Texas on July 14) 'It wasnt a job to Jeremy; he often joked he was the smartest teacher in the building because he got paid the same as the math teacher and they had to do Algebra all day while he got to play with clay. It was a dream job for Jeremy; it fulfilled him.' Dumkrieger's obituary has inspired others, including 7th grade teacher Kerry Finley of Iowa City. Formerly a lawyer, Finley changed careers and has only been a teacher for one year. She is particularly worried about her health as a breast cancer survivor with a compromised immune system. I will fight with every fiber of my being as a mother, a teacher, a lawyer, an Iowan, and an American to make our current leadership understand and act with reason Kerry Finley 'I'm very scared,' she told GMA. 'Are we going to wear scrubs? Are they going to amend the dress code? If we are going to do this, we are going to have to do this the way the hospitals did. We need training. We can't just say, 'OK, go back.'" In her own obituary, she wrote: 'As much as Kerry was looking forward to learning with her students in her own classroom at John Adams Middle School in Mason City in the fall of 2020, she knew that prematurely returning staff and students to brick and mortar schools especially in the absence of effective safety guidelines, such as a mask order would cause unnecessary sickness and death. 'The science, for anyone who was even casually educated, could not be seriously challenged. 'You know what?' she added, 'I'm not dying for this I won't even pretend to. I will fight with every fiber of my being as a mother, a teacher, a lawyer, an Iowan, and an American to make our current leadership understand and act with reason. Governor's Office spokesperson Pat Garrett insisted getting schools reopened safely is important to the governor, and her proclamation supports a statue passed by the legislature this summer. Four men who worked as corrections officers in Alabama have been charged by the Justice Department with crimes including civil rights violations and obstruction of justice in the beating of an inmate in 2018, according to a newly unsealed indictment. The criminal case was announced less than a week after federal investigators released a highly critical report on the use of excessive force in the states troubled prison system, a practice that the report said was routine and violated the constitutional rights of prisoners. The men charged former Sgt. Keith Finch, former Officer Jordan Thomas, Officer Kevin Blaylock and Sgt. Orlanda Walker had been working at the Bibb Correctional Facility in Brent, Ala., when the assault took place in September 2018, prosecutors and prison officials said. The prison is about 35 miles southeast of Tuscaloosa, Ala. A spokeswoman for the Alabama Department of Corrections said in an email on Thursday that Mr. Finch had been fired and that Mr. Thomas had resigned earlier this year, while Officer Blaylock had been suspended and then placed in a post in which he has no contact with prisoners. Sergeant Walker is on mandatory leave, she said. HARARE, Zimbabwe When Robert Mugabe was ousted as president of Zimbabwe in a coup in 2017, many in the country hoped for an end to the repression and mismanagement that had characterized his 37 years in office. But when protesters tried to gather on Friday in the capital, Harare, the security services reacted in a manner reminiscent of the Mugabe era. They shut down most of the city, arrested several government critics and forced more than a dozen others into hiding highlighting how the country has, in the eyes of the opposition, slipped from bad to worse under Mr. Mugabes successor, President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Mr. Mnangagwa took power on a promise of renewal, but his critics associate him with the same excesses that defined Mr. Mugabes legacy: authoritarian rule, financial missteps, rampant graft, plummeting living standards and a teetering economy. In reality, there is nothing new, said Obey Sithole, a leading opposition campaigner who went into hiding days before the planned protests. Instead, we have seen the perfection of the art of repression. BJP ally Lok Janshakti Party has written to the Election Commission against holding the Bihar assembly polls in October-November, when they are due, saying it will otherwise amount to deliberately pushing people towards death. The party has said resources should now be focussed on curbing the Covid-19 crisis and tackling floods in the state and not holding the polls. The LJP has said that the coronavirus pandemic has already acquired dangerous proportions and experts believe that it is likely to be more severe by October-November, as it argued that the priority now should be saving peoples lives and not holding the elections. The LJPs stand on the elections is opposite to that of the JD(U), which also is a BJP ally, as the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led party has spoken in favour of holding them on time and has been holding organisational meetings in preparation. The BJP has maintained that any decision on the poll schedule is the ECs prerogative, while the main opposition RJD has in past called for postponing the elections, citing the coronavirus threat. The EC has sought views of all parties on the elections. The LJP said endangering lives of a big population would be absolutely improper for holding the elections and noted that over 35, 000 people in the country, including 280 in Bihar, have died of Covid-19 so far. Holding the polls in such circumstances will amount to deliberately pushing people towards death, it told the EC. A big part of Bihar is also severely affected by floods, it added. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed an order to provide funding for the construction of Garamaryam-Ismayilli-Shaki (134 km)-Shirinbulag highway. Under the presidential Order, the Azerbaijan Highway State Agency is allocated 12 million manats for the construction of the road connecting 5 residential areas with a total population of 3,000 people. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz What just happened? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's attempt to ban the US military from recruiting on Twitch has failed. The US Representative's proposed amendment to the House Appropriations bill would have prevented the military from using funds to "maintain a presence on Twitch.com or any video game, esports, or live-streaming platform." Speaking on the House Floor before yesterday's vote, AOC said: "Children should not be targeted in general for many marketing purposes in addition to military service. Right now, currently, children on platforms such as Twitch are bombarded with banner ads linked to recruitment signup forms that can be submitted by children as young as 12 years old. These are not education outreach programs for the military." The amendment failed after 292 voted against it, with 126 in favor. The majority of those opposing the bill were Republicans (188), though 103 Democrats and one Independent also voted against the changes. Posing on Twitter after the vote, AOC wrote: "It's totally fine if you don't know what Twitch is," she wrote. "But tech literary is becoming a growing need in Congress so we can legislate to protect people's privacy." Imagine trying to explain to your colleagues who are members of Congress what Twitch is ? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 30, 2020 The US Army's Twitch activities have been plagued with controversy recently. The streaming site was forced to step in when the channel ran a fake competition to win an Xbox Elite Series 2 controller that was just a link to a recruitment form. It's also been accused of violating viewers' First Amendment rights by banning users who asked about the Army's favorite war crimes. While the Army, Navy, and Air Force all have their own esports teams and Twitch channels, the Marines haven't been as eager to join in. "This is due in part to the belief that the brand and issues associated with combat are too serious to be "gamified" in a responsible manner." The Army had already paused its social activity, streaming on Twitch, and official activations with Twitch following the recent criticism. The military branch told Gamespot it would "review internal policies and procedures, as well as all platform-specific policies, to ensure those participating in the space are clear before streaming resumes." Some expect the Army will not resume its esports/streaming activities until spring 2021. NASA Rover En Route to Mars to Look for Signs of Life By Wayne Lee July 30, 2020 The U.S. has launched its next-generation Mars rover in search of potential signs of life on the red planet. NASA's latest rover, Perseverance, launched at 11:50 GMT Thursday from Cape Canaveral in the southeastern state of Florida. The robotic explorer was propelled into space by an Atlas 5 rocket operated by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between private aerospace companies Boeing and Lockheed. The rover is scheduled to land on Mars in February at the bottom of a 250-meter crater that was a lake some 3.5 billion years ago. Scientists believe the site could hold evidence of possible past microbial life. Scientists have debated for decades whether there was once life on Mars, which was more hospitable to life billions of years ago. Perseverance's landing on the solar system's second smallest planet will involve a complex set of maneuvers that NASA engineers call the "seven minutes of terror." During that period, the rover descends through the atmosphere in extremely hot and high-speed conditions and deploys a set of supersonic parachutes before mini rockets ignite, allowing for a soft landing. The car-sized Perseverance will also deploy a mini helicopter named Ingenuity and test equipment for future human missions to the planet. Thursday's launch from Earth to Mars is the third in July. China and the United Arab Emirates launched probes earlier in the month. Perseverance is the latest U.S. lander headed to Mars. NASA's Sojourner landed in 1997 and Spirit and Opportunity have found signs of ancient water formations. NASA also landed Pathfinder, Phoenix and InSight on Earth's planetary neighbor. The U.S. plans to send astronauts to Mars sometime in the 2030s. To help pave the way, Perseverance will try to convert elements of the carbon dioxide-rich Martian atmosphere to produce oxygen for future astronauts or to produce fuel for rockets that could be launched from the surface of Mars. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address FLINT TWP, MI Two men are facing criminal charges stemming from a quadruple shooting at a Flint Township diner that left one man dead. The Genesee County Prosecutors Office on Tuesday, July 28, charged Taj A. Jackson II, 25, of Flint, with single counts of open murder and carrying a concealed weapon, four counts of felony firearm, and three counts of assault with intent to murder. Prosecutors also Tuesday charged Dequan A. Sisson, 30, of Mount Morris, with one count of careless discharge of a firearm. The two defendants were arraigned in Genesee County District Court on Thursday. The charges relate to an incident that occurred shortly after 4 a.m. on Sunday, July 26, at Mega Classic Diner at 4462 Corunna Road. Police arrived to find a 26-year-old woman, a 31-year-old man, a 25-year-old man, and a 26-year-old man had been shot inside the restaurant. The 26-year-old man, identified by police as Flint resident Roshawn A. Terrell, died at an area hospital. Terrell would have turned 27 three days after the shooting. It began at the restaurant and then spilled toward Foutchs and the surrounding area and Speedway area, Flint Township Police Lt. Brad Wangler previously told MLive-The Flint Journal. He noted it appears it was not a random incident. An initial investigation revealed there was an altercation prior to the shooting, but the reasoning behind the encounter has yet to be established. Police did not provide additional information in their announcement of Jackson and Sisson facing charges. Read more: Man dies after shooting at Flint Township restaurant 4 injured, 1 in custody after shooting at Flint Township restaurant 17-year-old girl dies after she is shot in the back in Flint Lord Mayor of Dublin, Hazel Chu said that she and her family have suffered racial abuse in Dublin. Speaking on the Jennifer Zamparelli show on 2FM, the Green Party politician said that since taking up the role of Lord Mayor last month, the level of abuse she sustains has increased. "When I was in school but more so recently especially in this role," she said. "This is why I think what can we do about increasing diversity. I would say I dont why, but I actually got some research given to me that apparently if you are female and you are a politician and you are of a different skin colour you tend to get a fair bit more abuse." Read More "I don't know what the mindset is, maybe people don't like women in politics or people of colour." Ms Chu who became the first person of colour to ever be elected into the role said that people need to start calling racism out. An example oh her own daughter suffering abuse, she said, is why parents need to monitor what they say in front of children. "How can we tackle this issue? We need to start by calling it out, we need to start having honest conversations about these kinds of issues but we need to start encouraging people," she said. We need to start understanding that racism does exist but at the same time, its there, it is quite prevalent but it is something that we can tackle. In a way, it doesnt surprise me but it also completely shocked me when my kid got called a mongrel by older teenagers." Ms Chu, whose parents emigrated from China to Dublin in the 1970s, said that growing up she could never dream of the position she is now in. Working two jobs, her mother saved enough money to buy a chip van which she then used to afford a restaurant and then three more. "I love that I'm the first but I hope I'm not the last person of colour in the role. I think the generations to come, it's good to see more diversity in these roles, it's good to see women in the role. There has been 352 mayors, nine of which have been women so if we could have a good few more women that would be amazing," she said on this morning's Jennifer Zamparelli show. "It feels like a bubble. I never dreamed of becoming lord mayor. The gravity of the situation has not escaped me. "When there are nine people in your three bedroom house and you have to think about putting food on the table politics is the last thing on your mind. "My mother came over here to look for a better life and get a job. Not unlike what a lot of our young people go through. I just don't think she thought that 40 years later that she'd be sitting in the round room in the mansion house and someone would be making her daughter the lord mayor." A surfer's board was bitten in half by a four-metre great white shark at a popular surfing beach in Western Australia. Emergency services were called to the Farm Break surfing spot at Bunker Bay in the state's south-west around 2.15pm on Friday. The shark bit the local man in the leg before he reportedly hit the great white with his surfboard and other surfers rushed to his aid, The West Australian reported. A man in his twenties had his board bitten in half (pictured) by a four-metre great white shark at popular surfing spot on Bunker Bay beach in south-west WA around 2.15pm on Friday Three surfers at Bunker Bay (pictured) paddled to the man's aid and helped pull him ashore Several other surfers were in the water during the attack and paddled straight towards the man to help him to shore. Locals who witnessed the attack believed the victim was a 28-year-old man named Phil. 'Someone yelled out that it was a shark, I turned around and I seen a fella being attacked. 'Three guys that were close to him they started to paddle towards him he was already off his board trying to push the board into the shark. 'Those three guys got him onto the beach everyone came together, there were guys off calling triple-0 on their phones straight away,' one man explained. A helicopter was sent to the popular beach and the surfer was airlifted to Royal Perth Hospital. The extent of the man's injuries are not yet known. 'He's just sitting on his board and the next thing you know we just heard someone go 'shark'. The man was bitten in the leg and was airlifted to Royal Perth Hospital (pictured) 'I turned around and I've just seen this white (shark) kind of breach. It just obliterated his board,' one of the man's rescuers told Nine News. A Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development statement said they were investigating the attack. 'Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development is working with local authorities to coordinate responses. 'DPIRD Fisheries officers are onsite conducting beach patrols and the RAC helicopter is conducting aerial surveillance in the area. 'City of Busselton rangers have closed off the beach,' the statement read. There has been a spate of shark attacks on the east coast in recent months including five fatalities this year. She reportedly split with her boyfriend of a year and Riverdale co-star Charles Melton in December. And on Friday, Camila Mendes was spotted with her new beau, fashion photographer Grayson Vaughan. The 26-year-old actress kept it casual in jeans and a tucked in T-shirt while running errands with her boyfriend in Los Angeles. Productive day: Camila Mendes was spotted with her new beau, fashion photographer Grayson Vaughan while running errands in Los Angeles on Friday Camila and Grayson first stopped at Petco to pick up dog food before grabbing coffee and then heading to the grocery store. The brunette beauty sported cropped black jeans with distressed hems, adding a matching tee tucked in, featuring white text in the center. Camila added a yellow, black and white plaid face mask while rocking black and gold buckle sandals with a small structured handbag under one shoulder. She styled her brunette tresses loose around her while opting to go makeup free for her outing. Chic: The 26-year-old actress kept it casual in jeans and a tucked in T-shirt while running errands with her boyfriend in Los Angeles Grayson wore a sleeveless shirt with cropped bottoms, sneakers, a face mask and sunglasses. Camila stars as Veronica Lodge on the CW hit series Riverdale, alongside KJ Apa, Lili Reinhart, Cole Sprouse, Vanessa Morgan and her now ex Charles Melton. After she broke up with boyfriend Victor Houston in August 2018, Camila was seen spending Labor Day weekend the following month with her Riverdale cast on a boat, including Charles, 29. Weeks later, Camila and Charles were seen sharing a kiss at a movie theater outing in Vancouver. Former loves: She reportedly split with her boyfriend of a year and Riverdale co-star Charles Melton in December, after dating for over a year; pictured May 13, 2019 in LA at The Sun Is Also A Star premiere In October 2018, the duo confirmed their romance by sharing a loved up snap on Instagram. However, over a year later - in December 2019 - the couple reportedly decided to take a break after being 'separated for a few months,' according to E! News. In May 2020, Camila was seen walking with Grayson in LA, sparking romance rumors. The duo confirmed their romantic status the following month as they held hands during a stroll in LA. With the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) striking down the Privacy Shield agreement, the UK faces the double whammy of preparing for Brexit and dealing with the possibility of limited legal options for sending and receiving data to and from the EU and US. The CJEUs decision could signal further issues for the EU granting the UK adequacy and ensuring seamless data flows between the two, which could be compounded further if the UK tries to strike a data agreement with the US. UK-US data flows post-Brexit, sans Privacy Shield Prior to the CJEU decision, UK-US data flows were due to be relatively uncomplicated post-Brexit. The UK was to continue to be part of Privacy Shield and allow data flows from the UK to participating companies in the US, with participating companies needed only to updating the wording of their agreement to include the UK. This was due to be separate and unrelated to any adequacy decision from the EU. Data transfers from the US into the UK remain unaffected and unrestricted due to the fall of Privacy Shield or Brexit. Given the likely scenario of a no-deal Brexit without any adequacy decision, organisations looking to send data from the UK to the US will have to rely on standard contractual clauses (SCCs) to send personal data from EU or UK citizens to the US. The CJEUs ruling requires that Data Protection Authorities take a closer look at SCCs where data goes to countries with strict surveillance regimes and block those flows where necessary. UK companies may find limited options for receiving data from the EU. This judgment signals that reliance on the SCCs will be subject to much greater levels of scrutiny, and that additional safeguards may need to be implemented to supplement the SCCs, says Bridget Treacy, data privacy partner at law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth. EU data protection authorities will be expected to be more proactive in enforcing these requirements, suspending transfers if necessary. US companies that have their European bases in the UK might consider new lead locations within the EU to handle processing and sending of EU-related data. UK data protection law post-Brexit will provide for the same protections for personal data relating to EU citizens as it does for UK citizens, and the courts ruling will apply in the UK post-Brexit, says Treacy. As such, EU-based organisations will not be able to skirt the ruling by first transferring personal data to the UK prior to its transfer to the US. Binding corporate rules (BCRs) are also an option but will only be realistic for large enterprises due to their cost, complexity and time needed to implement. The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) recently updated its guidance on BCRs and Brexit, saying companies with BCRs that have the ICO as its lead authority will have to appoint a new lead authority within the European Economic Area (EEA) and may need to update them if they contain references to UK law. A new version of Privacy Shield/Safe Harbor is a possible option. European Commission Vice President for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova and Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said they are in talks with the US about what happens next, and that they will not be starting from scratch, and an updated tool will be fully in line with the Schrems II ruling. While staying in line with or directly adopting Privacy Shield 3 would ensure smooth relations with the US and EU, it may still face similar legal challenges from privacy activists to the ones that brought down the previous agreements. Whether a new agreement could be implemented before the UK leaves the EU is unclear. According to a survey by law firm Fieldfisher, the majority of organisations say they will continue to use US-based or non-EEA/non-UK data processors in the light of the Shrems II case, 12% of organisations plant to reduce data transfers, while 30% are undecided. The CJEU expects organisations to conduct case-by-case risk assessments for each non-EEA data transfer in which they engage, yet according to the survey 40% do so or will do so for large for sensitive transfers out of the EEA. As to next steps, just over half of organisations that relied on Privacy Shield plan to proactively contact processors and ask them to move to SCCs, while a little over a third are waiting for more regulatory guidance before acting. EUs view of US surveillance jeopardizes UK adequacy Post-Brexit, the UK is hoping to gain adequacy status. This would guarantee uninterrupted data flows between the UK and EEA and show the EU believes the UKs data protection regime is on par with its expectations. However, adequacy is far from guaranteed given the UKs membership in Five Eyes, its agreement with the US around law enforcement data sharing under the CLOUD Act, and its own surveillance environment under the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA). Recent SNAFUs around its handling of shared databases dont help, either. The IPA was amended recently, however, to require more authorisation steps for law enforcement to intercept data. Privacy Shield was toppled due to the surveillance regime within the US, so adequacy ambitions will be likely be dented further by the CJEUs decision. Though it was unlikely to be either sides preference, it also dents any hopes for a partial agreement in the vein of Privacy Shield between the UK and EU. The ruling on data privacy in Europes highest court has significant implications for Brexit, says Ben Rapp, founder and principal of data privacy consultancy Securys. The UK, like the US, conducts mass surveillance, under the Investigatory Powers Act or Snoopers Charter. He believes EU authorities might feel pressured to restrict data transfers to the UK when the UK fully leaves the EU in December 2020. As Herwig Hoffman, one of the lawyers who presented the case to the European Court of Justice, says, There can be no transfer of data to a country with forms of mass surveillance. Without adequacy, the UK will be reliant on SCCs to receive data from the EU. If SCCs are subject to closer inspection from EU DPAs and shut down where they believe there is a risk to EU citizen data, the same surveillance regime that prevented adequacy may cause issue for some companies. The ruling on the Privacy Shield is likely to have implications for the UKs hopes for a post-Brexit data protection adequacy ruling from the European Commission, says Treacy. The UK can expect its surveillance laws to be subject to similar scrutiny to those of the US, to assess whether they respect the privacy rights of EU citizens. As Brexit day approaches, the likelihood of a deal or adequacy decision looks increasingly slim. In October the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that the UK, French, and Belgian bulk data collection or retention regimes even those being conducted in the name of national security must comply with EU law and subject to its privacy safeguards after a legal challenge to mass data collection was brought around by Privacy International. This ruling may be a further blow to the UKs hopes of adequacy, especially if the Government decides not to change its data collection policies after leaving the EU. Johnny Ryan, a senior fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, recently warned the EU Commission that the UK lacks an effective independent supervisory authority that is capable of enforcing compliance with data protection law and vindicating data subjects rights and that the personal data of data subjects in the Union do not at present have an adequate level of protection in the UK. Meanwhile, the House of Lords has published a report warning the UK risks not gaining an adequacy decision and urged the UK Government to act quickly to give businesses in the UK and EU legal certainty and time to prepare. UK-US relations might hurt UK-EU relations Current UK and US agreements around data have caused concern in the EU. Any further attempts at ensuring smooth data flows with the US without proper controls in place could impact UK-EU data flows further. In making an adequacy ruling for the UK, the European Commission would consider, among other things, the ability for organisations to transfer personal data from the UK to countries that do not provide an adequate level of protection in the eyes of the EU, such as the US says David Dumont, data privacy partner at Hunton Andrews Kurth. As such, the ability for UK organisations to continue to transfer personal data to the US without appropriate safeguards in place that are satisfactory to the EU would likely have implications for any UK adequacy decision. The UK agreeing to send data for law enforcement purposes under the CLOUD Act was cited as a concern by the EDPB. In an open letter to MEPs, it said the EDPB had doubts as to whether safeguards around personal data in the UK would be applied. When it comes to a possible adequacy decision for the UK, the EDPB considers that the agreement concluded between the UK and the US will have to be taken into account by the European Commission, the letter read. The US Department of Commerce has said it will continue to administer the Privacy Shield program, including maintaining the Privacy Shield list and processing submissions for self-certification and re-certification. This potentially provides an avenue for the UK to re-adopt Privacy Shield post-Brexit and ensure at least some continuity around data flows after December 31. Such a move would require a change in law and inevitably impact UK-EU relations. Given that the full EU exit is just around the corner, the UK could continue to use Privacy Shield for transfers to the US, says Rapp, but that would pretty much kill off any hope of the UK being able to have a free flow of data with the EEA under an adequacy agreement. How to prepare for Brexit without Privacy Shield or adequacy The UK ICO says it is reviewing guidance and advises that if you are currently using Privacy Shield, continue to do so until new guidance becomes available, but do not start to use Privacy Shield during this period. Dumont recommends that UK organisations that were reliant on Privacy Shield should implement new data transfer mechanisms now: SCCs, BCRS or derogations under the GDPR such as where the transfer is necessary to perform a contract. Where standard contractual clauses are chosen as the new mechanism, UK companies will need to assess the data transfer and determine whether, in light of the nature of the data transferred and the recipients exposure to the US surveillance regime, whether there is in fact an adequate level of protection for the personal data transferred, says Dumont. US organisations receiving data from the UK should also be quickly looking at replacement mechanisms such as SCCs but be ready to answers more questions from UK and EU partners. US companies should be prepared to respond to questions from UK exporters as to their exposure to the US surveillance regime and consider any technical safeguards (such as encryption) that could be implemented to ensure an adequate level of protection, says Dumont. Many freshwater fish species have declined by 76 percent in less than 50 years: study by STEFAN LOVGREN July 31,2020 | Source: Nat Geo Migratory freshwater fish are among the most threatened animals on the planet, a new report by a coalition of environmental organizations shows. The global assessment, described as the first of its kind, found that populations of migratory freshwater fish have declined by 76 percent between 1970 and 2016a higher rate of decline than both marine and terrestrial migratory species. We think migratory freshwater fish might be in even greater peril than the dramatic drop the report indicates, says the reports lead author, Stefanie Deinet of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). Adding currently missing information from tropical regions where threats of habitat loss and degradation, overexploitation, and climate change have been increasing, will surely bend the curve of loss downwards. Published Tuesday on the website of the World Fish Migration Foundation, a nonprofit conservation organization, the study draws upon The Living Planet Index, a database of global biodiversity managed by the ZSL and the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. It finds that Europe has seen the greatest decline in migratory freshwater fishwith populations there plummeting a staggering 93 percent in the past five decadesfollowed by Latin America and the Caribbean with an 84 percent decline. (Its not just fishread about how all freshwater animals face steep declines.) Nearly half of the worlds more than 30,000 fish species live in fresh water, and many of themperhaps mostmigrate between habitats for breeding and feeding. Some, such as salmon, move from the sea into rivers to spawn; others, such as the European eel, mature in freshwater but spawn in the ocean. There are also many species of so-called potamodromous fish that migrate strictly within freshwater habitats. They include the dorado catfish which makes an epic journey from the Andes to the mouth of the Amazon and back, a distance of 7,200 miles. Fish migrations serve a wide range of functions within the ecosystem, including the transportation of essential nutrients and larvae from one place to another. Many human populations depend on predictable migrations of fish for their subsistence and livelihoods. Migratory fish are extremely important to both economies and ecosystems, yet theyre often overlooked, says Herman Wanningen, an aquatic ecologist and creative director of the World Fish Migration Foundation in Groningen, Holland. The report points to habitat degradation, alteration, and loss as the largest threat to all migratory fish. Increasingly, dams and other river barriers block fish from reaching their mating or feeding grounds, thereby disrupting their life cycles. A study last year showed that only a third of the worlds large rivers remain free-flowing. This may explain why Europe, which has few undammed major rivers, has seen such a large drop. One group of highly migratory fish found in Europe, sturgeon, declined by more than 90 percent since 1970the biggest decline among the almost 250 species monitored for the report. Of the six sturgeon species historically swimming in the Danube River, at least one is believed to have gone extinct and most of the others are listed as critically endangered. (Read about another migratory fish, a close relative of the sturgeon called the Chinese paddlefish, that was declared extinct in early 2020.) Invasive species, disease, pollution, and overfishing also are major threats to migratory fish. Researchers also warn that climate change will inflict a heavy toll. In Australia, the wildfires of 2019-2020 led to ash washing into rivers, killing large numbers of fish. And last year, up to three million fish may have died when a severe drought caused the Darling River to dry up. 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Theme(s): Fisheries Resources. NEW YORK, NY (July 31, 2020) -- U.S. Google searches for information about financial difficulties and disaster relief increased sharply in March and April compared to pre-pandemic times, while googling related to suicide decreased, researchers at Columbia University Irving Medical Center have found. Because previous research has shown that financial distress is strongly linked to suicide mortality, the researchers fear that the increase may predict a future increase in deaths from suicide. The findings were published online in PLOS One. "The scale of the increase in Google searches related to financial distress and disaster relief during the early months of the pandemic was remarkable, so this finding is concerning," says Madelyn Gould, PhD, MPH, Irving Philips Professor of Epidemiology in Psychiatry at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and senior author of the study. Pandemics and suicide Researchers in the United States and elsewhere have begun studying the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, but the impact on suicidal behavior and deaths is difficult to assess due to lag time in the availability of mortality data. Previous studies suggest that suicide rates often decrease in the immediate aftermath of national disasters, such as 9/11, but may increase several months later, as seen after the 1918 flu pandemic and the 2003 SARS outbreak in Hong Kong. Studies in the U.S. and internationally have linked Google search behavior with suicidal behavior, so in the current study, the researchers evaluated online searches about suicide and suicide risk factors during the early part of the pandemic and potential long-term impact on suicide. The researchers used an algorithm to analyze Google trends data from March 3, 2019, to April 18, 2020, and identify proportional changes over time in searches for 18 terms related to suicide and known suicide risk factors. "We didn't have a clear hypothesis about whether there would be an increase in suicide-related queries during this period of time, but we anticipated a national sense of community during the pandemic that might mitigate suicidal behavior in the short term," says Emily Halford, MPH, data analyst and the study's first author. Unemployment, panic attacks, and loneliness may predict future suicide The researchers found dramatic relative increases (in the thousands of percentages, in some cases) in Googling search terms related to financial distress -- e.g., "I lost my job," "unemployment," and "furlough" -- and for the national Disaster Distress Helpline. The proportion of queries related to depression was slightly higher than the pre-pandemic period, and moderately higher for panic attack. "It seems as though individuals are grappling with the immediate stresses of job loss and isolation and are reaching out to crisis services for help, but the impact on suicidal behavior hasn't yet manifested," says Gould. "Generally, depression can take longer to develop, whereas panic attacks may be a more immediate reaction to job loss and having to deal with emotionally charged events amidst the social isolation of the pandemic." Searches for terms related to loneliness were also meaningfully higher during the early pandemic period versus the prior year. Gould adds that social distancing is one of the primary measures implemented to slow the spread of the coronavirus, "but this approach may have detrimental secondary effects, such as loneliness and exacerbation of preexisting mental illnesses, which are known suicide risk factors." Meeting the anticipated need for crisis services The researchers say that in light of an anticipated increase in suicidal crises, it will be important to ensure continued availability and accessibility of crisis services and other mental health services during the later stages of the pandemic. "The current findings give us insight into how people have been dealing with the immediate emotional and financial effects of the pandemic," says Gould. "Encouragingly, individuals who Google terms related to suicide are directed to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. We are hoping that accessing this crisis service may ameliorate suicide risk among the individuals who have Googled suicide-related terms." More Information If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24/7 for free, confidential support by calling 1-800-273-8255 (1-800-273-TALK) and through online chats. ### The paper is titled, "Google searches for suicide and suicide risk factors in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic," and was published online in PLOS One on July 24, 2020. Alison M. Lake (NYSPI) is a co-author. The study was supported by institutional funds provided by the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute. There was no additional external funding received for this study. The authors report no financial or other conflicts of interest. Columbia University Irving Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, preclinical, and clinical research; medical and health sciences education; and patient care. The medical center trains future leaders and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, public health professionals, dentists, and nurses at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. Columbia University Irving Medical Center is home to the largest medical research enterprise in New York City and State and one of the largest faculty medical practices in the Northeast. For more information, visit cuimc.columbia.edu or columbiadoctors.org. 12 nominees for HKSAR LegCo General Election invalidated - Xinhua | English.news.cn Twelve nominees for the seventh-term Legislative Council (LegCo) General Election in China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) were invalidated by Returning Officers of the Registration and Electoral Office of the HKSAR government on Thursday. The HKSAR government agreed with and supported the decisions of the Returning Officers on Thursday. The HKSAR government reiterated that upholding the HKSAR Basic Law is a fundamental constitutional duty of every LegCo member. People having the following behaviors could not genuinely uphold the HKSAR Basic Law and could not therefore perform the duties of a LegCo member: advocating or promoting "Hong Kong independence", "self-determination" or handling the system of the HKSAR by supporting "Hong Kong independence" as an option for "self-determination"; soliciting intervention by foreign governments or political groups in relation to the HKSAR's affairs; expressing an objection in principle to the enactment of the national security law in HKSAR by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and its subsequent promulgation as a national law listed in Annex III to the HKSAR Basic Law; expressing an intention to exercise the functions of a LegCo member by indiscriminately voting down any legislative proposals, appointments, funding applications and budgets introduced by the HKSAR government after securing a majority in the LegCo so as to force the HKSAR government to accede to certain political demands; and refusal to recognize China's exercise of sovereignty over the HKSAR and the HKSAR's constitutional status as a local administrative region of the PRC. The HKSAR government said the 12 nominees, including Joshua Wong Chi-fung and Dennis Kwok Wing-hang, have been invalidated by Returning Officers since their nominations are not in compliance with the requirement under the Legislative Council Ordinance. Returning Officers are still reviewing the validity of other nominations according to the laws and the possibility that more nominations would be invalidated shall not be ruled out. The HKSAR government said that the decisions of Returning Officers aim to ensure that the election is held in strict accordance with the HKSAR Basic Law and other applicable laws in an open, honest and fair manner. There is no question of any political censorship, restriction of the freedom of speech or deprivation of the right to stand for elections as alleged by some members of the community. The HKSAR government respects and safeguards the lawful rights of Hong Kong people, including the right to vote and the right to stand for elections. It also has a duty to implement and uphold the HKSAR Basic Law and ensure that all elections would be conducted in accordance with the HKSAR Basic Law and relevant electoral laws. Young recruits in Anqing, East China's Anhui Province undergo a medical examination on Wednesday. Physical examinations for military recruits have been carried out across China as many young people apply to join in the People's Liberation Army. Photo: VCG China's Ministry of National Defense on Thursday released a military recruitment video for 2020, showcasing the country's military capability and its armed forces, domestically developed weapons and aircraft, which has already racked up millions of views on social media. China's Army Day is marked on August 1 every year, the founding day of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Ahead of the anniversary on Saturday, authorities in several cities and provinces also released recruitment videos featuring local characteristics to motivate young people to join the army. The video released by Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, home to the oldest ancient capital city in China, starts with the Terracotta Warriors depicting the armies of China's first empire, and is run through with a speech that a male performer of Qinqiang Opera gives to a group of young men, reminding them of the heroic spirit of ancient warriors and the revolutionary spirit of soldiers in modern history. "Please prepare a few dried buns and a handful of loess [local soil] for me, mom, as your son is about to set out on a journey on the horse!" the young men shout with determination and passion in the video. Shanghai adopted a more straightforward style for its army recruitment advertisement. Titled The Choice, the video shows two different lives outside and inside a military camp - music, beach and family union outside, while fire, dirt and sweat lie inside. It highlighted at the end of the video the meaning of choosing a life in the military, which is to protect the peace and stability of the country and to ensure the wellbeing of people outside. The theme is also echoed by the publicity videos of many other provinces, where a classic line is used to make the point- "the peaceful time you are enjoying now is earned by those who have been carrying the burden and fighting for the country." The videos have got many netizens in various moods. Some saw excitement and pride from the videos, while others shed tears when seeing the footage of soldiers fighting day and night on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic and floods, which have severely hit the country this year. "This country wouldn't be what it is today without the safeguarding of the army. Once a soldier, lifelong glorious," wrote a veteran on China's social media Weibo. Chen Hongyu, a 20-year-old junior college student from East China's Anhui Province, registered online for the army recruitment on Sunday. He told the Global Times on Thursday that it was a big decision he made with his whole family. "I have always been eager to become a soldier since childhood, and the country's preferential policies for joining the army is what drove me to finally make the decision," he said. According to the preferential policies for college student army recruitment, junior college students who join the army will be directly admitted to full-time university without taking an exam when they retire. The recruitment drive ends on August 15. Though the total number of people who have registered so far across the country has not been published, authorities in Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region revealed that 5,800 people in the region had already signed up as of Wednesday. In 2019, a total of 1.2 million college students in China registered online to join the army. The team led by Manuel Serrano, ICREA researcher and Head of the Cellular Plasticity and Disease Lab at IRB Barcelona, has been awarded the Proof of Concept grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This grant, created to support ideas that could benefit society, will provide the IRB Barcelona team with 150,000 euros to develop the SENFIB project over the next 18 months. The goal of this project is to develop new medication for the treatment of fibrotic diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and chronic kidney disease. To do this, the research project aims to target senescent cells. These are cells which have permanently exited the cell cycle after suffering damage or stress, and cause persistent inflammation which can give rise to ageing-related diseases. In animal models, the selective elimination of senescent cells has proven to have therapeutic effects on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, chronic kidney disease and ageing. Manuel Serrano's laboratory, which also has the backing of the "La Caixa" Foundation, is proposing to launch a programme to discover senolytics, molecules which cause the preferential death of senescent cells whilst leaving the healthy cells intact. As Manuel Serrano explains: "senescent cells are damaged cells which remain in the organism and lead to the functional deterioration of tissue and organs. Senolytics allow us to selectively eliminate these cells when the immune system is unable to do so, thus preventing the appearance of ageing-related diseases". In fact, senolytics have become a promising focal point to combat ageing-related diseases, and the MIT recently mentioned them as one of the "Top 10 breakthrough technologies" for 2020 in the MIT Technology Review. The project could have a considerable impact, as it is calculated that a fourth of the global population will be over the age of 65 by 2050 and will therefore be more likely to suffer from degenerative diseases such as fibrosis, which cause up to 45% of deaths in this segment of the population. The new senolytics will be aimed at targets previously discovered by Marta Kovatcheva, a postdoctoral researcher and member of the research team. As Marta explains, "It is a very interesting example of how basic research can open the doors to clinical translation. The ERC's Proof of Concept project allows us to make the leap and engage with the concerns of society." ### This is the sixth Proof of Concept grant that IRB Barcelona has been awarded to date. The previous grants went to the ICREA researchers, Modesto Orozco, Eduard Batlle (2) and Angel R. Nebreda (2). Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 14:08:09|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close NEW DELHI, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese ambassador in India Sun Weidong said on Thursday China's basic policy towards India remains unchanged, urging the two sides to work together to bring bilateral relations back on the track of sound and steady development. At a webinar on "China-India Relations: The Way Forward " held by the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS) based in New Delhi, Sun noted that in the current era, the basic national conditions of China and India as the two largest developing neighbors remain unchanged. "The orientation of China and India being partners, friendly cooperation and common development remains unchanged," he added. "The general structure that China and India cannot live without each other remains unchanged." "These three 'unchanged' are our basic judgment of the current China-India relations," he said. "It is based on this judgment that China's basic policy towards India remains unchanged." Both sides should grasp the fundamental interests of the two countries and their peoples, stick to friendly cooperation and properly handle differences to bring the bilateral relations back to the normal track, said the Chinese envoy. Elaborating on several key issues on bilateral relations, Sun said firstly, China is committed to peaceful development, and it is not a "strategic threat" to India. Secondly, China firmly upholds its sovereignty and will never engage in aggression or expansion, he said. Thirdly, China advocates win-win cooperation and opposes "zero-sum game," he added. Sun said China-India relations today are hard-earned and should be cherished all the more. Describing the bilateral relationship as "an exquisite craft glass," the ambassador said "so much effort and wisdom by a lot of people are needed to make this glass, but it will only take a few seconds to break it." "China-India relation has reached a critical juncture now," he said. "A little carelessness may risk breaking the glass." "At this moment, the two sides should handle the relations cautiously, calmly and rationally, conform to the international trend, always look forward and move forward, and resolutely avoid the whirlpool of suspicion and confrontation caused by miscalculation of the situation," he said. The webinar, chaired by Ashok K. Kantha, ICS director and former Indian ambassador to China, was attended by about 200 senior diplomats, scholars and media representatives. Enditem WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. A Purdue University startup is turning game play into serious learning for elementary students away from classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Explore Interactive markets an augmented reality platform to help students learn about science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Our newest product, MindLabs, extends the foundational Explore platform to allow kids to collaborate remotely on engineering and design of circuits, said Amanda Thompson, CEO of Explore Interactive. Explore Interactive has worked with educators and elementary students from across the U.S. in the development of the MindLabs platform, which lets children work together to solve hands-on STEM challenges and conduct open-ended design and play. Now, the founders of the startup have partnered with the Museum of Science, Boston; and Homewood Science Center, located near Chicago, to host a virtual STEM camp. There is no better time to empower racially and ethnically diverse children to see themselves as scientists, said Heather Gunsallus, vice president of STEM education at the Museum of Science, Boston. The team at the Museum of Science, Boston, is thrilled to support the vital work of Purdue, Explore Interactive and Homewood Science Center with the students in Chicagos Southland. The virtual camp will take place the first week of August for students 8-12 years of age. Thompson will lead virtual sessions, and then the students will complete projects on their own. In spite of these challenging times, we are able to fulfil our mission of inspiring scientific wonder, learning and pursuit, said Edie Dobrez, executive director of the Homewood Science Center. We are honored to work with esteemed colleagues at Purdue and the Museum of Science, Boston, to offer Augmented Reality: Northern Lights for our racially and ethnically diverse student population in Chicago's Southland. Thompson said the MindLabs platform unlocks the potential of augmented reality to deliver analytics of soft skills like collaboration and hard skills like systems thinking through applied, hands-on design and troubleshooting, a far more effective approach, it says, compared with worksheets and multiple-choice tests. In the current remote learning environment, MindLabs is a solution for teachers who have very limited options for students to engage collaboratively on STEM projects, Thompson said. Thompson and her team conducted educational research with researchers at the INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering at Purdue under SBIR funding from National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and Elevate Ventures. Explore has received support and guidance from the Purdue Foundry, an entrepreneurship and commercialization hub housed in the Convergence Center for Innovation and Collaboration in Purdues Discovery Park District, adjacent to the Purdue campus. About Purdue Research Foundation The Purdue Research Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Established in 1930, the foundation accepts gifts; administers trusts; funds scholarships and grants; acquires property; protects Purdue's intellectual property; and promotes entrepreneurial activities on behalf of Purdue. The foundation manages the Purdue Foundry, Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization, Purdue Research Park, Purdue Technology Centers and University Development Office. In 2020, the IPWatchdog Institute ranked Purdue third nationally in startup creation and in the top 20 for patents. The foundation received the 2019 Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Award for Place from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. For more information about involvement and investment opportunities in startups based on a Purdue innovation, contact the Purdue Foundry at foundry@prf.org. Writer: Chris Adam, 765-588-3341, cladam@prf.org Source: Amanda Thompson, athompson@exploresupport.com Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 15:35:45|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close SEOUL, July 31 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's issuance of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) nearly tripled in the first half of this year as the government increased the supply of low-rate loans for ordinary people, financial watchdog data showed Friday. The sale of MBS, issued by the state-run Korea Housing Finance Corp. to securitize home-backed debts owed by households, reached 28.7 trillion won (24.1 billion U.S. dollars) in the January-June period, up from 10.4 trillion won (8.7 billion U.S. dollars) in the same period of last year, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). The MBS issuance rose sharply as the government offered more low-rate mortgage loans for ordinary people from the third quarter of last year. The country's central bank slashed its target rate by 25 basis points to an all-time low of 0.50 percent in May, after cutting the rate by 50 basis points in March. The rate cut lowered debt-servicing burden for households. The issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS), including MBS, amounted to 43.6 trillion won (36.6 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half, almost doubling 22 trillion won (18.5 billion U.S. dollars) in the same period of last year. The ABS issuance by industrial companies was 5.9 trillion won (5 billion U.S. dollars), while the ABS sale by financial firms amounted to 9 trillion won (7.6 billion U.S. dollars). The primary collateralized bond obligations (P-CBO), issued by securities firms to securitize corporate bonds, came to 2.9 trillion won (2.4 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half, more than doubling compared to a year earlier. Enditem Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, left and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Vice Chairman Chung Euisun By Baek Byung-yeul Samsung Group leader Lee Jae-yong had a second meeting with Hyundai Motor Group Executive Vice Chairman Chung Euisun, Tuesday, this time at Hyundai's Namyang R&D Center in Gyeonggi Province. The two discussed further cooperation in the electric vehicles (EVs), self-driving technology and urban air mobility (UAM) sectors, according to officials from the two companies. The meeting following Chung's visit to the Cheonan plant of Samsung SDI, the Samsung Group's battery-making arm, in May, which is where the two discussed business together for the first time. Given that this meeting was held at the same time as U.S. EV giant Tesla is pushing for a new sales record for its EVs here, it has drawn keen attention among Korean media as Samsung has indicated that the EV battery business will be one of its next growth engines. Samsung said Lee visited the Namyang R&D Center with ranking officials of the group and had a ride in Hyundai Motor's self-driving car and test drove a fuel-cell-powered car before having lunch with Chung. "Members of Samsung's management visited the research center and talked about cooperation in the future cars and mobility sectors with Hyundai Motor executives," a Samsung official said. Established in 1995, Hyundai Motor Group's Namyang R&D Center is the country's largest automotive research center, developing future driving technologies and testing Hyundai's new cars. Samsung leader Lee was accompanied by Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Kim Ki-nam, Samsung SDI CEO Jun Young-hyun and Kang In-yup, president of the System LSI Business at Samsung Electronics. "During the meeting, the Samsung executives listened to explanations about Hyundai Motor's future business areas such as UAM, robotics and other technologies," the Samsung official added. Though they didn't elaborate on the details, industry officials said the two leaders' series of meetings have major implications in the automotive and related industries given Samsung and Hyundai used to be archrivals in the business landscape. For Hyundai Motor Group, which aims to launch 23 EV models and sell 1 million EVs by 2025, expanding its partnerships with EV battery makers has become a top priority as it needs to establish a stable supply chain ahead of mass production of the EVs. Chung has already held a series of meetings with the heads of local battery makers including LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won over the past two months. While Tesla is aiming to corner the future car market by producing EV battery cells by itself and further refining its Autopilot driver-assist technology, industry analysts expect the Samsung-Hyundai partnership could become a strong competitor for the U.S. giant as Samsung holds a leading position in chips, displays and EV battery cells while Hyundai has its edge in the fuel-cell and EV sectors. Samsung Group has been speeding up efforts to join the lucrative future car business since it acquired U.S. automotive electronics company Harman in 2017. Samsung Electronics sells Exynos Auto semiconductors used for in-vehicle infotainment systems and self-driving technologies. Despite the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy, Samsung SDI has weathered the outbreak well, seeing a growth in its battery sales globally. Industry analysts estimated the second quarter operating profit for Samsung SDI will come to 72.1 billion won ($60 million), which is slightly higher than the market consensus of 70 billion won. "Despite stagnant demand for its EV batteries, the company has been weathering the pandemic reasonably well thanks to its European buyers who are making plug-in-hybrid electric vehicles. After falling into a contraction in the European market in April due to massive shutdown measures, the firm started to see growth in May," said Kim Ji-san, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities. By Online Desk With the highest single-day spike of 55,079 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, India's coronavirus tally breached the 16 lakh mark on Friday, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. With this latest spike, the total cases in the country stand at 16,38,871. Among these cases 5,45,318 are active. A total of 10,57,806 patients have been cured/discharged/migrated. 779 deaths due to COVID-19 have been reported in the country in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 35,747. As per the Union Health Ministry, Maharashtra has a total of 1,48,454 active cases and recorded 14,729 deaths due to COVID-19. Tamil Nadu has a total of 57,962 active cases and 3,838 deaths in the state. Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka and Tripura are yet to follow directives on timely payment of salaries to healthcare workers engaged in COVID-19, the Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court, which said it cannot be "helpless" in implementing the directions. She has jetted off on holiday with her boyfriend Biggs Chris. And Rebecca Gormley showcased her toned figure as she hit the beach in Spain on Friday. The Love Island star, 22, slipped into a gold and green snakeskin print bikini for the solo outing. Bikini babe: Rebecca Gormley showcased her toned figure as she hit the beach in Spain on Friday Rebecca showed off her ample cleavage in the two-tone halterneck bikini top while the tie-side bottoms highlighted her peachy derriere. The reality star wore her long brunette hair in braids and shielded her eyes from the sun with oversized shades. Rebecca accentuated her bronzed tan with a minimal make-up look. Turning heads: The Love Island star, 22, slipped into a gold and green snakeskin print bikini for the solo outing Busty: Rebecca showed off her ample cleavage in the two-tone halterneck bikini top The Newcastle beauty looked thoroughly relaxed as she strolled along the beach before sitting down in the sand. Rebecca then headed into the sea and splashed herself with water to cool down from the balmy temperatures. After lounging around in the sun, Rebecca showered herself down before heading back to her hotel to reunite with her beau. Stepping out: The Newcastle beauty looked thoroughly relaxed as she strolled along the beach Sun-worshiper: Rebecca played with the sand as she topped up her tan Reflection: The reality star looked deep in thought as she let the waves tickle her feet The reality star appeared to be nonplussed by the potential imposition of a two-week quarantine upon her return to the UK - part of new measures implemented following a spike in coronavirus cases across mainland Spain. Rebecca has flown to Marbella with her boyfriend Biggs, whom she met on Love Island. Their relationship seemed to be on the rocks last month when Biggs was accused of messaging another woman just days after he and Rebecca reunited following 10 weeks apart in lockdown. Making a splash: Rebecca then headed into the sea and splashed herself with water to cool down from the balmy temperatures Sunshine: The reality star wore her long brunette hair in braids and shielded her eyes from the sun with oversized shades Cooling down: After lounging around in the sun, Rebecca showered herself down The Glaswegian car repair specialist is said to have exchanged a series of messages with healthcare assistant Caitlin Fulton, who claims she learned of his blossoming romance with Rebecca when she saw pictures of them kissing. 'We'd been messaging back and forth after he followed me on Instagram and we'd talked about going away when lockdown ended, to a holiday cottage or a lodge somewhere in the UK,' she told The Sun. 'He even left me a voice note saying that coming down to see me "sounded good". We were making plans as recently as Saturday.' Sun-kissed: Rebecca accentuated her bronzed tan with a minimal make-up look Unbothered: The reality star appeared to be nonplussed by the potential imposition of a two-week quarantine upon her return to the UK Health scare: The quarantine is part of new measures implemented following a spike in coronavirus cases across mainland Spain Chilling out: Rebecca took off her sunglasses as she strolled along the beach Romantic trip: Rebecca has flown to Marbella with her boyfriend Biggs Chris, whom she met on Love Island Caitlin told the publication that she learned of Biggs' relationship with Rebecca when she saw photographs of them kissing in Newcastle. 'I was a bit shocked that he had a girlfriend,' she said. 'And obviously I would be shocked if that was my boyfriend messaging someone.' The pair first sparked relationship rumours after they left the Cape Town villa in February, following Rebecca's fling with administrator Jordan Waobikeze. Turbulent: Their relationship seemed to be on the rocks last month when Biggs was accused of messaging another woman just days after he and Rebecca reunited following 10 weeks apart Cheating allegations: The Glaswegian car repair specialist is said to have exchanged a series of messages with healthcare assistant Caitlin Fulton, but the couple have since moved on Smitten: Rebecca and Biggs are enjoying their romantic holiday (pictured earlier this week) The couple split up briefly before lockdown after Rebecca had a drunken sleepover with Love Island 2019 contestant Michael Griffiths. The pair have since reconciled, with the model admitting: 'If the shoe was on the other foot, I would get how he feels.' Speaking on FUBAR Radio, Rebecca happily reported things are better than ever between the couple and that they talked everyday during the COVID-19 lockdown. She continued: 'You know what, I love it! There's literally not a day that goes by that we don't chat.' Kuwaitis and Kuwait residents will be able to enter and exit the country again starting Saturday, but travelers from some countries will still be barred. Kuwaits Center for Government Communication said today that citizens and residents of Kuwait will be able to travel to and from the country starting Saturday. People coming from India, the Philippines, Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal will still not be allowed to enter, the center said in a tweet. Kuwait closed its airport in March to regularly scheduled passenger flights, like many other countries in the region. Some repatriation flights have continued operating. The countries from which people cannot arrive are struggling to contain COVID-19. Iran has been perhaps the hardest hit by the virus in the Middle East and now has a shortage of medical workers. In India, the virus has become so widespread that some communities in impoverished, urban areas may be developing herd immunity. Bangladesh recently made headlines when a man was arrested for allegedly issuing thousands of fake COVID-19 tests. Foreigners are the majority of the population in Kuwait. People come from across the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere to work in the oil-rich kingdom. The Kuwaiti government has signaled a desire to reduce the number of non-Kuwaitis in the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Center for Government Communication also said that people entering Kuwait will be subject to unspecified health requirements starting Saturday. Kuwait is in the process of reopening the country despite the continued spread of COVID-19. Kuwait eased its curfew this week and allowed prayers in mosques for the ongoing Eid al-Adha holiday. The Gulf country has registered several hundred COVID-19 cases a day for several weeks. The Kuwaiti Minister of Health reported 626 new cases of the coronavirus today, according to the state-run Kuwait News Agency. BRUSSELS - The European Commission has given its go-ahead to the acquisition of the rail business of Canadian engineering firm Bombardier by French train maker Alstom. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The European Commission has given its go-ahead to the acquisition of the rail business of Canadian engineering firm Bombardier by French train maker Alstom. The company logo of Alstom is seen at their headquarters in Levallois-Perret, outside Paris, France, Wednesday, April 30, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Christophe Ena BRUSSELS - The European Commission has given its go-ahead to the acquisition of the rail business of Canadian engineering firm Bombardier by French train maker Alstom. Alstom, which makes the French TGV high-speed trains, said this year it had signed an agreement with a view to buy full control of Bombardier Transportation, for a price 5.8-6.2 billion euros ($6.3-6.7 billion) paid via a mix of cash and new Alstom shares. The Commission launched an investigation and initially found that the transaction raised serious competition issues. The blocs competition authorities cleared the acquisition on Friday after Alstom offered "significantly improved" commitments. "Alstom and Bombardier are leading providers of state-of-the-art trains used every day by millions of passengers across the European Union," said Margrethe Vestager, the EU commission vice-president in charge of competition. "Thanks to the comprehensive remedies offered to solve the competition concerns in the areas of very high-speed, mainline trains and mainline signalling, the Commission has been able to speedily review and approve this transaction." The commission's approval is conditional on several requirements, including the transfer of Bombardier's contribution to the Zefiro very high-speed train and an offer of intellectual property licence to Hitachi for the train co-developed by Hitachi and Bombardier Transportation for use in future very high-speed tenders in Britain, sale of two Alstom production sites in France, and sale of the Bombardier Talent 3 train platform and German production facilities. The EU approval was welcomed by the chairman of Bombardier's rail division, which last year made almost US$8.5 billion in sales. "Todays decision marks a positive step for the growth opportunities of the European rail sector, which is a world leader thanks to strong domestic competition and commitment to the next generation of green and digital mobility solutions," Daniel Desjardins said in an email. Bombardier says the required sales of its components will be done in consultation with employee representative groups. The Alstom transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals in other jurisdictions and is expected to close in the first half of 2021. Buying Bombardier Transportation will help Alstom compete with Chinas CRRC, which has been growing its business outside of its home country. The move will also give more heft to Alstom after its bid to merge with Germanys Siemens was blocked by European Union regulators worried that it would make it a dominant presence in the region. 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. The decision to nix that deal was criticized by some European governments who want to create large European companies in various sectors that are capable of competing with state-backed companies in China and as well as U.S. multinationals. Meanwhile, Bombardier said Friday it plans to move the slimmed-down corporate office from downtown Montreal to its administrative centre near the city's airport. "Co-locating with Bombardier Aviations leadership and administrative staff already in the administrative centre building will help us build a more cohesive Bombardier team as we prepare for our future as a business aviation focused company," said spokeswoman Jessica McDonald in an email. "Moreover, utilizing available space within the building supports our efforts to lower our cost structure, drive efficiency and create a more positive and collaborative work environment." With files from The Canadian Press. Companies in this story: (TSX:BBD.B) On Tuesday, July 28, Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced a new round of attacks on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. He declared the agency would not accept new applications and would only grant one-year extensions to the current recipients on a case-by-case basis. Some 66,000 children and young people who would have been eligible to apply this year are now facing deportation. Wolf said the program presents serious policy concerns that warrants its full rescission (i.e., its complete destruction), a step that requires additional careful consideration. Wolf went on to absurdly frame the vicious attacks as a cautious move while the DHS considers its next steps. In reality, the DHS is only postponing mass deportations of tens of thousands of young people, most of whom have lived nearly their entire lives in the United States, until after the November 3 election. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf speaks with the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security regarding the FY21 budget. (Credit: DHS/Tara A. Molle) Instituted through an executive order by Barack Obama at the end of his first term in 2012, the DACA program offered limited rights to around 700,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children. In order to qualify, immigrants must have been under 16 at the time of arrival, have lived in the US for the previous five years, have been enrolled in or graduated from high school or served in the military, and not have committed any serious crimes. The program provides eligible youth a temporary immigration status that protects them from deportation and gives them the right to hold a job or go to college. Depending on the state they live in, DACA recipients could be eligible for drivers licenses, pay tuition rates charged to in-state residents, and receive state-funded educational grants and loans, as well as state-subsidized health insurance. Once obtained, DACA status has to be renewed every two years. At its inception in 2012, the program was cynically conceived as a vote-catching device for the Obama re-election campaign, giving a pro-immigrant veneer to a reactionary Democratic administration that had accelerated anti-immigrant policies, as Obama deported more undocumented immigrants than any previous president. Significantly, DACA offered no pathway to citizenship and meant that the 700,000 youth who registered with the federal government were at the mercy of the capitalist state. Under the impression they were forging themselves a future in the US, the recipients of DACA status had to supply the government with their address, employment status, and other basic information, to be used against them when a new administration took office. After initially declaring support for the program in early 2017, President Trump sought to use DACA as a bargaining chip in his wrangling with the Democrats over funding for the border wall and other attacks on immigrants and refugees. In September 2017 he rescinded Obamas executive order, but immigrant rights groups filed suit, claiming, among other things, that the DHS had violated federal administrative procedures in its haste to put DACA recipients in jeopardy. Currently 450,000, or 2 percent, of students in the US are undocumented, and around half of those are eligible for DACA. Without these protections, many students might be deported before they finish their studies. It is also estimated that around 15,000 educators in the country are able to work on account of their DACA status. During the pandemic many undocumented students and workers, including applicants and previous recipients of DACA status, have been illegible for government relief. The latest coronavirus relief package proposal unveiled by Senate Republicans on Monday will continue to exclude undocumented students from aid. The administrations latest move against DACA also leaves many immigrants fearing separation from their families. Many of those who are currently on the DACA program have children or partners who are citizens, and without a renewal of their status they face the prospect of being forcefully stripped away from their loved ones. The latest attack comes little over a month after a Supreme Court ruling nominally protected DACA from the administrations attacks. In June, the Supreme Court blocked the DHSs plan to immediately end DACA in a 5-4 majority opinion. However, the majority opinion, authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, despite describing the DHSs plan as arbitrary and capricious, rejected the move primarily on the basis of administrative mishandling. This meant that the Trump administration could revisit the issue and make a new attack on DACA as long as it followed the proper procedures. At that time the WSWS warned: Far from using these cases as an opportunity to expand the struggle for democratic rights, the majority opinions are framed in such a way as to block the most reactionary aspects of the Trump administrations policies in the narrowest possible fashion. With the Supreme Courts limited administrative ruling opening the door for the fascistic Trump administration to ramp up its attacks, the DHS has wasted little time. Despite the fact that the ruling should have compelled a return to running the program as it had been in early 2017, the Los Angeles Times reported the government continued to reject applications in the days immediately following the decision. Since July 22, nearly a week before Wolfs announcement, the DACA website declared that the program is not accepting requests from individuals who have never before been granted deferred action under DACA. Under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic and with the crucial support of the Democratic Party and US legal system, the Trump administration continues its unrelenting assault on immigrants rights in the US. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Trump administration attempted to deport international students who were unable to attend in-person classes this fall, suspended applications for H1B work visas and Green Cards, a Supreme Court ruling that left asylum seekers with no right to habeas corpus or due process, and continued attacks on Chinese students. The right of all immigrants regardless of the circumstance of their birth to full citizenship in any country, including full rights to education and work, must be defended. DACA recipients should not only have their status protected but should be given full citizenship rights immediately. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 22:38:10|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close WINDHOEK, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Namibia will open its doors to tourists from August 3 in a bid to stimulate the tourism sector, President Hage Geingob said Friday. Addressing the media, Geingob said the initiative is meant to save the tourism sector. "Tourism sector employs over 100,000 people this is high season starting from July to November. We want to take due care to save livelihoods," Geingob said. According to Geingob, international tourists arriving in Namibia will be required to present a 72-hour negative Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test result. He said tourists will not be subjected to a mandatory quarantine but will however be required to remain at their first initial destination in the country, for a period of 7 days. He added that a test will be conducted during this period and the tourist will be permitted to proceed with their holiday on day 7, provided the test result is negative. Namibia has so far recorded 2,129 positive cases and 10 COVID-19 related deaths. Enditem Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on essential Texas news. Austin police are investigating the fatal shooting of an armed 28-year-old man who was killed during an encounter with an armed motorist while protesting against police brutality. But whether the unnamed driver faces criminal charges in Garrett Fosters death could hinge on which man police, prosecutors or a grand jury believes first provoked the other. Foster was visibly carrying an AK-47 rifle which is legal in Texas as he pushed his fiancee in her wheelchair across an intersection in downtown Austin during Saturdays protest, according to The New York Times. A motorist was attempting to turn his vehicle onto Congress Avenue and honked at protesters, who were in the crosswalk, according to a video of the incident filmed by independent journalist Hiram Gilberto. Michael Capochiano, a demonstrator at the scene, told The Texas Tribune that protesters including Foster surrounded the car after it hit a traffic cone and the driver stopped. What [the driver] did was he intentionally, aggressively accelerated into a crowd of people. ... He threw his turn into a bunch of people and almost ran a bunch of people over, said James Sasinowski, another protester who was at the scene. There are conflicting accounts about whether Foster raised his gun at the motorist, who was also legally armed. Police said the driver shot at Foster, fled the scene, called 911 and told police he opened fire because Foster pointed his rifle at the car first. Texas so-called stand-your-ground law allows people to use deadly force against someone else if they feel they are in danger. Conversely, it prohibits an individual from arguing self-defense if they provoked a threat from someone else, said Sam Bassett, an attorney and the president of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. Detectives need to consider whether Foster could have perceived the motorists actions as a threat, Bassett told The Texas Tribune. I would consider them to not be doing a good investigation if they did not consider that, he said. I do think the self-defense claim could be negated if, for instance, if the driver was there to provoke a reaction or to argue or attempt to harm the pedestrians, he added. Sasinowski said he could not see if Foster pointed his gun toward the car. Capochiano, though, does not think Foster did. My recollection was that [Foster] had the gun in his hands, with the muzzle pointing toward the ground and not pointing to the side, not even pointing toward the car, Capochiano said. Both witnesses interviewed by The Texas Tribune said they believed the drivers behavior to be threatening and intentional. He incited the violence, it was intentional, he knew what he was doing, Sasinowski said. He was driving into a crowd of protesters. No way that that was just like a traffic thing. Theres 100 people in front of you, you dont drive into them. Austin police said earlier this year that a police officers killing of an unarmed Black and Latino man was justified because his attempt at driving away from police who had just shot him with a lead pellet-filled bag constituted using the car as a deadly weapon against law enforcement. The death of Mike Ramos, the driver in that April case, along with the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, prompted weeks of anti-police brutality protests in Austin and across the state. In early June, four City Council members said they had lost faith in Austin Police Chief Brian Manley after his handling of those protests. At least one member called on him to resign. In a video about Fosters death, Manley said Sunday that he was grateful to the officers who responded to the drivers 911 call. Regardless of the topic of the protest whether the protest is geared at these officers, whether they were earlier in the evening taking insults from these protesters these officers put all of that aside, as they do every single day, and ran toward the danger and helped this individual but were unfortunately unable to save his life, Manley said. Natasha Harper-Madison, an Austin City Council member, wrote in a Facebook post Monday that she was in utter disbelief while listening to Manleys comments, which she called tone-deaf. There's no protest thats against the Austin Police Department, the protest is against the culture of police departments across the country, Harper-Madison told The Texas Tribune. She said it is absolutely possible that the police department is biased against Foster in its investigation because he was an anti-police brutality protester. Austin police spokesperson Tara Long told The Texas Tribune that the ongoing investigation into Mr. Fosters death is being conducted with the same amount of commitment as other deaths. To say otherwise is a disservice to his family, Long said. Austin Police Association President Ken Casaday shared a video clip Sunday of Foster explaining why he brought his gun to protests, which included explicit language about all the people that hate us and are too cowardly to stop and actually do anything about it. This is the guy that lost his life last night. He was looking for confrontation and he found it, Casaday wrote in his tweet of the video, which has since been deleted. Casaday also told FOX 7 News on Monday that Foster was already on the police departments radar because he brought firearms to protests. "Garrett Foster was on the radar because he would commonly come to the rallies with the AK-47. Our individuals who were responsible to monitor people with firearms, he was on the radar already, he said. Texas is an open-carry state. That notion drew ire from Chas Moore, the founder and executive director of the Austin Justice Coalition. The fact that the only reason that Foster was was on their lists or whatever because he was carrying a gun doesnt make any sense because we live in Texas and he wasnt violating any laws or anything like that, and he wasnt ever really physically aggressive towards any police officers or anybody, to my knowledge, Moore said. On Wednesday, Casaday said via Twitter that he was sorry for his initial tweet about Foster looking for a confrontation and asked the mans family to accept his apology. I apologize for my offensive choice of words, he tweeted. I should have known better. I have responded to dozens of shootings in my law enforcement career and they are all tragic. Casaday could not be reached for comment this week. Long, the police spokesperson, said the department does not maintain a watchlist of protesters. Moore said he remains concerned about the integrity of the departments investigation, and he questioned why police released the driver. I think we all need to keep an eye on this case or this investigation as things come forward, he told The Texas Tribune. Sheila Foster, Garrett Fosters mother, and Whitney Mitchell, his fiancee, could not be reached for comment this week. Austin police continue to investigate the incident to develop the most complete picture before moving forward, according to a statement from the departments homicide unit. Facebook and The New York Times have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribunes journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Chandigarh, July 31 : Even as at least 21 persons died due to alleged consumption of spurious liquor in Amritsar, Batala and Tarn Taran districts of Punjab, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday ordered a magisterial inquiry led by the Jalandhar Divisional Commissioner into the matter. Five more deaths were reported on Friday in Batala. One person was admitted in hospital in a critical condition. Four more deaths have also been reported from Tarn Taran. The inquiry panel will look into the facts and circumstances leading to the tragedy as well as into any other connected issue(s) or relevant to the incident(s) and the circumstances leading to it, an official statement said. The Divisional Commissioner of Jalandhar will inquire into the tragedy along with the Joint Excise and Taxation Commissioner and SPs (Investigation) of the districts concerned, an official spokesperson said. The Chief Minister has given Commission the liberty to co-opt any civil or police officer or any expert to facilitate the expeditious conduct of the inquiry. He promised strict action against anyone found guilty in the case. Taking serious note, Amarinder Singh also directed the police to launch a search operation to crack down on spurious liquor manufacturing units operating in the state. Police has arrested Balwinder Kaur in Tarsikka village in Amritsar district with regard to the hooch tragedy. Further investigations are in progress under the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by SSP Amritsar-Rural, from where the first cases were reported. The post-mortems of four victims -- Jaswinder Singh, Kashmir Singh, Kirpal Singh and Jaswant Singh -- will be conducted to ascertain the exact cause of the deaths. Giving details of the case, Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta said the first five deaths were reported from Mucchal and Tangra villages in Amritsar Rural area on the night of June 29. On July 30 evening, two more persons died in suspicious circumstances in Muchhal, while one person was hospitalised in a critical condition but later succumbed at Sri Guru Ramdas Hospital, from where he was referred by Dr Sarabjit Kaur Hospital in Tangra. Later, two more deaths were from reported from Mucchal, while another two persons reportedly died in Batala city, also due to spurious liquor consumption. With five more persons succumbing in Batala on Friday, the toll in the city climbed to seven. One person has been referred to the Civil Hospital in Batala in a critical condition. WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court declined by a 5-4 vote Friday to halt the Trump administrations construction of portions of the border wall with Mexico following a recent lower court ruling that the administration improperly diverted money to the project. The courts four liberal justices dissented, saying they would have prohibited construction while a court challenge continues, after a federal appeals court ruled in June that the administration had illegally sidestepped Congress in transferring the Defence Department funds. The Courts decision to let construction continue nevertheless I fear, may operate, in effect, as a final judgment, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in a brief dissent for the four liberals. Fridays order means the court is not likely even to consider the substance of the issue until after the November election, while work on the wall continues. Last summer, at an earlier stage in the case, the justices also split 5-4 along ideological lines to allow the administration to begin construction using $2.5 billion in Defence Department funds. That allowed President Donald Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term. The administration wanted to use the money to replace a total of 129 miles (208 kilometres) of rundown or outdated fencing in New Mexico, Arizona and California. As of mid-July, 92 miles (148 kilometres) have been completed according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Following the latest appeals court ruling, the walls challengers returned to the high court to ask that construction be halted. The Trump administration opposed the request and said it would file paperwork in August asking the Supreme Court to hear arguments in the case. The case has its origins in the 35-day partial government shutdown that started in December of 2018. Trump ended the shutdown after Congress gave him approximately $1.4 billion in border wall funding, but that was far less than the $5.7 billion he was seeking. Trump then declared a national emergency to take cash from other government accounts to use to construct sections of wall. At the time, the money Trump identified included $2.5 billion in Defence Department money, $3.6 billion from military construction funds and $600 million from the Treasury Departments asset forfeiture fund. The case before the Supreme Court involved just the $2.5 billion in Defence Department funds. The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the Trump administration on behalf of Sierra Club and Southern Border Communities Coalition, has said it will seek to tear down sections of the wall that were built with the money. Every lower court to consider the question has ruled President Trumps border wall illegal, and the Supreme Courts temporary order does not decide the case. Well be back before the Supreme Court soon to put a stop to Trumps xenophobic border wall once and for all, Dror Ladin, staff attorney with the ACLUs National Security Project, said in a statement following the courts order Friday. The Supreme Court is on break for the summer but does act on certain pressing items. It will begin hearing cases again in October. Alyssa Pointer/Getty The late congressman John Lewis famously encouraged Americans to stir up good trouble, and former President Barack Obama did just that in his eulogy for the late civil rights pioneer on Thursday. Obama earned multiple standing ovations during a speech littered with political barbs aimed at the Trump administrations crackdown on Black Lives Matter protesters and stymied efforts to address voter suppression. Recounting Lewis relentless activism, Obama said the country hasnt yet reached that blessed destination where we are judged by the content of our character. I Never Became Bitter or Hostile: How John Lewis Fought Until the End Bull Connor may be gone but today we witness with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks of Black Americans, he said. George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators. Obama said Lewis spilled blood for the Voting Rights Act, which was now under threat. He called for filibustersanother Jim Crow relicto be scrapped so voting rights legislation can be passed. He called for Election Day to be a national holiday, for former inmates to be given voting rights, and for partisan gerrymandering to be done away with. Even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the postal service in the run up to an election thats going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people dont get sick, he said. Speaking directly to the elected representatives in Ebenezer Baptist Church, Obama continued, You want to honor John? Lets honor John by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for. Perhaps foreseeing criticism that he made the eulogy political, Obama said, I know this is a celebration of Johns life, there are some who might say we shouldnt dwell on such things but... John Lewis devoted his time on this earth fighting the very attacks on democracy... that were seeing circulate right now. Story continues In response to Obamas call for the end of the filibuster, Andrew Bates, director of rapid response for Joe Bidens presidential campaign, told The Daily Beast, Congressional Republicans should turn their praise of Rep. Lewis into action and pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act today by voice vote. No filibuster, no delay. Lewis died on July 17, aged 80, from cancer. Declared a living saint by Time magazine, he spent his life campaigning for racial equality and voting rights after being savagely beaten in a civil rights protest while crossing the Edmund Pettus bridge at Selma, Alabama, on a march to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965. Every living president except Donald Trump played a role in Thursdays memorial, one of several events honoring Lewis life. George W. Bush and Bill Clinton gave a speech while Jimmy Carter sent a letter that was read aloud. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. The Andhra Pradesh government late on Thursday issued orders reinstating retired IAS officer Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar as the state election commissioner (SEC), a week after the Supreme Court pulled it up for defying the state high court directions in this regard. A government order reinstating Ramesh Kumar as SEC was issued around midnight by Principal Secretary for Panchayat and Rural Development department Gopala Krishna Dwivedi. A gazette notification was issued subsequently restoring the position of SEC to Ramesh Kumar. The notification, which was signed by Governor Biswabhusan Harichandan, said the reinstatement would be subject to the outcome of the case in the Supreme Court, which is hearing a petition filed by the state government challenging the high court ruling on reinstatement of Ramesh Kumar. On April 10, the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government removed Ramesh Kumar from the post of SEC through an ordinance, which sought to reduce the term of the SEC from five years to three years and appoint a judicial officer of the high court judge rank in the post. Accordingly, orders were issued ending the term of Ramesh Kumar who had just completed four years and retired Madras high court judge V Kanagaraj was appointed in his place. Subsequently, Ramesh Kumar challenged the ordinance in the state high court. After prolonged hearings, the high court bench, comprising chief justice J K Maheshwari and Justice Satyanarayana Murthy, on May 29 struck down the ordinance and ordered that Ramesh Kumar be reinstated as the SEC with immediate effect. On June 1, the Jagan government filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court challenging the high court verdict and seeking a stay on reinstatement of Ramesh Kumar. But the Supreme Court refused to grant any stay on the high court order but continued to take up the hearing in the case. Since there was no stay on the high court order, Ramesh Kumar argued that he be reinstated as the SEC. When the Jagan government refused to yield to his demand, he filed a contempt petition in the high court. Following the high court directions, he approached Governor Biswabhushan Harichandan and the Governor on July 22 wrote to the state government to follow the high court orders. The Jagan government again moved the Supreme Court challenging the contempt case. The top court on July 24 strongly reprimanded the government for not following the high court orders. Having no other option, the Jagan government was forced to restore Ramesh Kumar as SEC on Thursday. He is expected to resume office on Monday. Stunning space butterfly captured by ESO telescope Resembling a butterfly with its symmetrical structure, beautiful colours, and intricate patterns, this striking bubble of gas -- known as NGC 2899 -- appears to float and flutter across the sky in this new picture from ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT). This object has never before been imaged in such striking detail, with even the faint outer edges of the planetary nebula glowing over the background stars. NGC 2899's vast swathes of gas extend up to a maximum of two light-years from its centre, glowing brightly in front of the stars of the Milky Way as the gas reaches temperatures upwards of ten thousand degrees. The high temperatures are due to the large amount of radiation from the nebula's parent star, which causes the hydrogen gas in the nebula to glow in a reddish halo around the oxygen gas, in blue. This object, located between 3000 and 6500 light-years away in the Southern constellation of Vela (The Sails), has two central stars, which are believed to give it its nearly symmetric appearance. After one star reached the end of its life and cast off its outer layers, the other star now interferes with the flow of gas, forming the two-lobed shape seen here. Only about 10-20% of planetary nebulae [1] display this type of bipolar shape. Astronomers were able to capture this highly detailed image of NGC 2899 using the FORS instrument installed on UT1 (Antu), one of the four 8.2-metre telescopes that make up ESO's VLT in Chile. Standing for FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph, this high-resolution instrument was one of the first to be installed on ESO's VLT and is behind numerous beautiful images and discoveries from ESO. FORS has contributed to observations of light from a gravitational wave source, has researched the first known interstellar asteroid, and has been used to study in depth the physics behind the formation of complex planetary nebulae. This image was created under the ESO Cosmic Gems programme, an outreach initiative to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes, for the purposes of education and public outreach. The programme makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations. All data collected may also be suitable for scientific purposes, and are made available to astronomers through ESO's science archive. ### Notes [1] Unlike what their common name suggests, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. The first astronomers to observe them merely described them as planet-like in appearance. They are instead formed when ancient stars with up to 6 times the mass of our Sun reach the end of their lives, collapse, and blow off expanding shells of gas, rich in heavy elements. Intense ultraviolet radiation energises and lights up these moving shells, causing them to shine brightly for thousands of years until they ultimately disperse slowly through space, making planetary nebulae relatively short-lived phenomena on astronomical timescales. More information ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 16 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world's largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky". Links Contacts Barbara Ferreira ESO Public Information Officer Garching bei Munchen, Germany Tel: +49 89 3200 6670 Cell: +49 151 241 664 00 Email: pio@eso.org Connect with ESO on social media This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-01 01:07:55|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The government of Tanzania has set aside 35.3 million U.S. dollars to fight aflatoxin contamination of crops, a statement by the Ministry of Agriculture said on Friday. Gerald Kusaya, the permanent secretary in the ministry, said the money will be allocated to the Tanzania Initiative for Preventing Aflatoxin Contamination, a project aimed at minimizing aflatoxin contamination, especially of maize and groundnuts, said the statement. "The money will be used, among others, to build 14 food storage facilities in mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar for protecting maize and groundnuts from getting contaminated by aflatoxin," said Kusaya. The statement said Kusaya revealed the budget when he visited a site for the construction of one of the food storage facilities in Simiyu region. He said the money will also be used for the construction of laboratories and research centers of aflatoxin contamination in various parts of the east African nation. Tanzania is a leading producer of maize and groundnuts in East Africa. Enditem Attorney General William P. Barr Joins President Donald J. Trump to Announce Expansion of Operation Legend Today, Attorney General William P. Barr joined President Donald J. Trump to announce the expansion of Operation Legend to Chicago and Albuquerque. Operation Legend is a sustained, systematic and coordinated law enforcement initiative in which federal law enforcement agencies work in conjunction with state and local law enforcement officials to fight violent crime. The Operation was first launched on July 8 in Kansas City, Missouri, as a result of President Trumps promise to assist Americas cities that are plagued by recent violence. Operation Legend is named after four-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed while he slept early in the morning of June 29 in Kansas City. The first federal arrest under Operation Legend was announced on July 20. The most basic responsibility of government is to protect the safety of our citizens, said Attorney General Barr. 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. For decades, the Department of Justice has achieved significant success when utilizing our anti-violent crime task forces and federal law enforcement agents to enforce federal law and assist American cities which are experiencing upticks in violent crime. The Department of Justices assets will supplement local law enforcement efforts, as we work together to take the shooters and chronic violent criminals off of our streets. As part of Operation Legend, Attorney General Barr directed the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, DEA, and ATF to significantly increase resources into Chicago and Albuquerque in the coming weeks to help state and local officials fight high levels of violent crime, particularly gun violence. Chicago is currently experiencing a significant increase in violent crime, with homicides currently up 51 percent over 2019. Over the weekend of July 17, more than 60 people were shot in the city of Chicago, with 14 fatalities. Similarly, Albuquerque is currently on pace to break 2019s record for homicides in the city. On the weekend of July 10, there were four murders in Albuquerque within a 24-hour period. In Chicago, the Department of Justice will supplement state and local law enforcement agencies by sending over 100 federal investigators from the FBI, DEA, and ATF to the city. Under the leadership of John R. Lausch Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, these investigators will complement the work already underway by existing joint federal, state and local task forces focused on combating Chicagos violent gangs, gun crime, and drug trafficking organizations. The investigatory efforts will be advanced by more than 100 members of the U.S. Marshals Service Great Lakes Task Force, which will direct violent fugitive apprehension operations within Chicago to identify wanted gang members, violent criminals, and firearms violators. The Department of Homeland Securitys Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) are also committing at least 100 agents, already stationed in Chicago, to Operation Legend. HSI agents will conduct investigations into gangs, narcotics traffickers, violent offenders, and firearms traffickers. To further support the Chicago Police Department in reducing violent crime, ATF has deployed its national Crime Gun Intelligence Mobile Command Vehicle to assist local law enforcement with analysis of crime scenes and spent shell casings through the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN). ATF will also make available additional resources to assist the City of Chicago in providing timely, efficient analysis of ballistic evidence from shootings in order to quickly disrupt violent criminals and prosecute those prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law. The Bureau of Justice Assistance will make available $3.5 million in funding to reimburse the Chicago Police Department and City of Chicago for the work of local law enforcement on the federal task forces supporting Operation Legends violent crime reduction efforts. The COPS Office has also made $9.375 million available to the Chicago Police Department to fund the hiring of 75 officers. In Albuquerque, the Department of Justice will supplement state and local law enforcement agencies by sending more than 25 federal investigators from the FBI, DEA, and ATF to the city. Under the leadership of John C. Anderson, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico, these federal investigators will work closely with the Albuquerque Police Department and the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Department, along with other local partners, through pre-existing task forces directed at combatting violent crimes. Up to ten HSI agents will assist with the efforts in Albuquerque, as well. The Department of Justice has also made available over $1.5 million in COPS Hiring Grants to the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Department to onboard five deputies and to support additional federal task force officers committed to violent crime reduction efforts. Additionally, the COPS Office has made $9.74 million available to the Albuquerque Police Department to fund the hiring of 40 officers. Separately, the Bureau of Justice Assistance has made available $1.4 million to reimburse the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office and Albuquerque Police Department for the work of local law enforcement on the federal task forces supporting Operation Legends violent crime reduction efforts. The Department has also provided assistance through the Joint Law Enforcement Operations (JLEO) fund to assist reimbursement of local law enforcement serving as federal task force officers with FBI, ATF, DEA, and the U.S. Marshals Service. These JLEO funds also will be used to assist the City of Albuquerque in acquiring technology used for detection of gunshots and development of an integrated response plan to gunshots by local law enforcement. This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The three-person commission Doug Ford has created to investigate Ontarios pandemic-ravaged nursing homes may be good enough for him. Its not good enough for the people of Ontario. And the sooner the premier replaces it with a full public inquiry, the better it will be for everyone. Whatever Ontarians still dont understand about COVID-19, theyre all too painfully aware that most of the people it has sickened and killed in this province have been the vulnerable, elderly residents of its long-term care facilities. More than 1,900 of them have died so far the vast majority of Ontarios COVID-19-related fatalities. To make the situation even more disturbing, the reason they perished in such staggering numbers wasnt only because seniors are more at risk from this illness but because the conditions in which they were living were often deplorable. The nursing homes where they were supposed to be safe had instead become death traps. Thats disgraceful. A systemic failure of this magnitude a failure for which the Ontario government must be held at least partially accountable because it funds and regulates the nursing homes demands the most rigorous public investigation possible. And after that, a list of corrective actions that will be taken. But while a full public inquiry would be the most effective and transparent vehicle for meeting these objectives and while many Ontarians demanded one, Ford said no to it on Wednesday. Instead he appointed a commission to do the job. The problem is not with the people leading this commission, which include Ontario Superior Court Associate Chief Justice Frank Marrocco, former Ottawa Hospital president Jack Kitts and Angela Coke, a former provincial government deputy minister. Their credentials are impeccable and they would wield considerable powers. The problem is that Fords commission as currently designed would keep these guard dogs on a leash thats too short for them to properly protect the public interest. Because a disproportionately high number of long-term care pandemic deaths occurred in for-profit homes, we need to know if theyre inferior to homes run on a non-profit basis or by municipalities. Yet the commission wont be allowed to examine this issue. That seemingly contradicts the governments insistence the commission is independent. How can it be when the three- person panel cant even decide what goes under its microscope? But this is just the start of the commissions serious structural flaws. Although it has the authority to call witnesses, the commission cant compel them to testify. It could keep any of the documents it obtains secret, too. In addition, not only can this commission hold private meetings, theres no guarantee the substance of those meetings would come before the public. If nursing homeowners and operators can testify behind closed doors, the public may end up only with carefully vetted versions of what they said. When the pandemic was just starting, Premier Ford vowed hed put an iron ring of protection around Ontarios nursing homes to keep them safe. His ring turned out to be a sieve. And before that, after taking office in 2018, his government drastically cut back on nursing home inspections. To be sure, a full-scale inquiry into the provinces nursing homes now might prove embarrassing to Fords government. But its the only way the public can be confident that long-term care will get the overhaul it so desperately needs. Fords commission is a second-best option that would deliver second-rate results. We hope that justifiably outraged Ontarians wont let him rest until he backs down and delivers the public inquiry they deserve. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Quoc Dung, head of Vietnams SOM ASEAN, speaks at the dialogue. (Photo: VNA) Hanoi - Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Quoc Dung, head of Vietnams SOM ASEAN, attended an online high-level dialogue on ASEANs recovery post-COVID-19 on July 30. Held by the ASEAN Secretariat, the dialogue aimed to collect opinions on the building of the blocs master plan on pandemic response and post-pandemic recovery, as requested by ASEAN leaders at the 36th ASEAN Summit in June. It brought together hundreds of delegates from ASEAN member countries and regional and international organisations. Dung, who is also Chairman of the ASEAN Coordinating Council Working Group on Public Health Emergencies (ACCWG-PHE), suggested economic recovery work should be done in steps with clear focuses, concentrating on production, tourism, and transport, with more attention to be paid to disadvantaged groups. He stressed the need to ensure the dual goals of containing the pandemic while rapidly recovering economic activities. As ACCWG-PHE Chairman, Dung called for the involvement from the private sector, international organisations, and ASEAN partners in the building of the plan, first of all the draft plan framework. The master plan, which will be constantly updated, is scheduled to be submitted to the 37th ASEAN Summit in November. At the dialogue, experts from the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and the World Economic Forum (WEF) pointed to a gloomy economic outlook for the region and the world. Given this, they stressed the significance of coordination between countries and sectors in pandemic response as well as economic recovery. They proposed prioritising such areas as healthcare, social welfare, education, food security, and high-quality infrastructure, adding that digital technology and the application of Industry 4.0 play an important role. Iraqs prime minister said today that he would be calling early parliamentary elections, carrying out a key pledge he made to protesters. We will do our best to make the election happen and protect it, Mustafa al-Kadhimi said in announcing June 6, 2021, as the date. Ending months of political deadlock, Kadhimi took office in May and promised to organize early elections. The countrys former intelligence chief replaced Adel Abdul Mahdi, who resigned in late November during widespread anti-government protests. Hussein al-Hindawi, the prime ministers election adviser, told Al-Monitor on Wednesday that there was technically a possibility to organize elections before the next regularly scheduled elections in 2022. The Iraqi parliament still needs to ratify the new voting date. The United Nations Mission in Iraq said Friday it would lend support to credible, free, fair and inclusive elections. We are confident that all political forces wish to see Iraq emerge from its crises and thrive. As always, these elections will be Iraqi-led and Iraqi-owned, the mission said in a statement. Iraq has been gripped by protests since October, when scores of young people demanded an end to government corruption and high youth unemployment. Early elections were among their top demands. In recent weeks, record-shattering temperatures and frequent power cuts have brought an increasing number of demonstrators to the streets. Three members of Iraq's security forces were arrested this week after Kadhimi, who has promised accountability as prime minister, ordered an investigation into two recent protester deaths in central Baghdad. Shakuntala Devi's writers seem awkward about homosexuality and conflicted in their approach to a woman who was not made for domesticity. Shakuntala Devi is perhaps the most famous Indian about whom most Indians know so little. I remember her well from my childhood, but only as a near-fixture in classified ads in the papers and because Dad said the sassy-looking woman in the picture was known as a "human computer". Since watching writer-director Anu Menon's eponymous film on the late mathematical genius, I have pored over the Internet and discovered considerable material on her, ironically far more from abroad than her home country, India. Shakuntala Devi the film, however, relies on detailed conversations Menon and her co-writer Nayanika Mahtani had with the subject's daughter. As with most Hindi films drawn from real life these days, the opening disclaimer states that it is "inspired by true events but does not claim to be a documentary/biography on any character depicted", with later text on screen adding that it is "based on a true story as seen through the eyes of a daughter, Anupama Banerji". This may be where the problem lies. Because Banerji and her mother, by the film's own admission, did not get along, and though the narrative portrays them repairing that troubled relationship at some point, it comes across as an interpretation of Shakuntala Devi's journey by someone who did not fully understand her and is loathe to admit that the bitterness and confusion still last. The result is a biography that, while intriguing and amusing in its opening half, skims over the mind of a complex but clearly great lady. Vidya Balan looks the part of Shakuntala Devi, but Menon (who earlier made London, Paris, New York and Waiting) and Mahtani come off as observers who never manage to enter her head. Shakuntala Devi the film transports us to 1930s Bangalore where the 5-year-old, unschooled Shakuntala's ability to casually calculate complicated mathematical problems draws the attention of her father. Soon she is on tour, 'performing' these calculations for audiences, at first in India and later across the world. So far so good. Her brilliance, her nonchalance about her brilliance, the manner in which she wowed crowds including academics and her sense of humour are entertaining. Her resentment towards a father she considered exploitative and a mother who never questioned him is believable. Even her equation with the man who becomes her husband (Jisshu Sengupta) has a natural progression at first. When their ties are strained, the film does not judge him it allows the anger to come entirely from her and the proceedings flow in a convincing fashion. It is when Shakuntala Devi becomes about the daughter rather than the protagonist herself that it flounders. First, because it then shifts too far away from Shakuntala. Second, because it is unwilling to acknowledge that what it is showing on screen is a selfish careerist with a sense of entitlement over her child an unromanticised version of the mother extracting "doodh ka karz" from her son in 1970s Bollywood films although, unlike in those films, this mother is not placed on a pedestal. The writers of Shakuntala Devi seem conflicted in their approach towards a woman who was not made for domesticity, and try as they might, they cannot balance their feminist aims with the information conveyed to them by a daughter who recalls her mother's failure to balance maths and motherhood. Was the real Shakuntala Devi a jerk as a Mom? Maybe she was, maybe she was not. The problem is the film itself is in two minds and is weighed down by what is perhaps its own subconscious conservatism. There is nothing non-feminist about depicting a flawed woman as a flawed woman, but it is certainly worth noting that in a country where the achievements of women are rarely chronicled, this one defines the late Guinness-record-holding, world-renowned mathematical phenomenon largely by her motherhood. This innate traditionalism leads to the superficial treatment of the protagonist in the second half and, in the first half, of her relationship and break-up with the man who trained her for the stage in her early days in Europe. It also possibly explains the film's strange approach to her stand on homosexuality. Long before gay pride parades became the order of the day in India, Shakuntala Devi a woman who was born in the 1920s and never went to school authored a book titled The World of Homosexuals in which she argued for gay rights. According to media reports, her interest in the subject stemmed from her marriage to a man who turned out to be gay. Irrespective of what her motivations for writing it may have been, the very fact that she did back then and the arguments she made for equality, indicate that she was a special person. The film is not willing to grant her that. Instead what it gives us is a problematic passage that is awkward to the point of being bizarre and even offensive. I can't say more for fear of giving away spoilers, but let us just say this episode made me wonder about all the other 'facts' as presented by Shakuntala Devi's daughter to the writers and whether a reliance on multiple sources would not have been better. If Shakuntala Devi remains significant despite this, it is because it is so unusual for a Hindi film to question prevalent notions that all women are naturally inclined to subsume themselves in maternity. Balan slips into Shakuntala Devi's skin best when she is sober and thoughtful. She also manages to look beautiful and remarkably like the person she is playing despite looking completely unlike her. Her portrayal of the character's OTT mannerisms and behaviour feels somewhat studied but she more than compensates for that in her ruminative moments. The supporting cast is solid. Jisshu Sengupta as the husband the character with whom the script has most empathy is particularly effective with his unfailingly understated tone. Shakuntala Devi's visuals are determinedly bright and cheery despite its difficult subject. The director injects that same cheer into the narrative with an intentionally farcical, comical tone while showing the heroine in her uncharacteristic, house-bound avatar at one point, thus effectively underlining the ridiculousness of tying a person down to play roles they are not made for. (That farcical tone seems stretched elsewhere, when Shakuntala and her husband are trying to impress a couple of strangers with how "normal" they are.) The film is intelligent in the way it fits Hindi into settings in Karnataka and abroad where Hindi would not have been the naturally spoken language. This is done without characters 'doing accents' in a caricaturish fashion (Balan does acquire an accent for her role, but it is smoothly done) and by slipping in an occasional line here and there in English, but mostly by asking for a suspension of disbelief. What is especially remarkable is that scenes of mathematical problem-solving are handled so cleverly by Menon, that far from being off-putting for those who don't care for numbers, they end up being lots of fun. Like the woman whose story it tells, Shakuntala Devi the film is complicated. That it has been made at all is important. That it is often amusing bodes well for an industry that still tends to hold the view that films revolving around women must perforce be weepies. That it is troubling despite its feminist goals is a matter of introspection for all of us. Shakuntala Devi is streaming on Amazon Prime Video India. Rating: **1/2 All images from YouTube. PRESS RELEASE Paris, 31 July 2020 Bogart Group (Euronext Paris - Compartment B - FR0012872141 - JBOG), which specializes in the creation, manufacture and sale of luxury fragrances and cosmetics, has published its turnover for the first half of 2020. Revenues in million (unaudited) 2019 2020 Change % Q1 turnover 66.2 53.8 -18.7% Q2 turnover 72.7 41.5 -42.9% Fragrance/Cosmetic brands 12.9 5.1 -60.5% Own-brand boutiques 59.8 36.4 -39.1% H1 turnover 138.9 95.3 -31.4% Fragrance/Cosmetic brands 22.8 13.8 -39.5% Own-brand boutiques 116.1 81.5 -29.8% Breakdown by business The Group reported Q2 2020 consolidated turnover of 41.5 million, down 42.9% from 72.7 million in Q2 2019 due to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. Meanwhile, the Group reported H1 consolidated turnover of 95.3 million, down 31.4%. At constant consolidation scope and exchange rates, turnover came in at 91.7 million, while the recent acquisitions (Pascal, Milady and Gottman fragrance boutiques) made a positive contribution of 3.6 million to H1 turnover. The Fragrance/Cosmetic brands business posted turnover of 13.8 million, down 39.5%. The healthcare crisis affected all regions with the closure of many of partners' sales outlets around the world. Amid this context, the Group closed its manufacturing plants (SFFP and SFFC) and suspended deliveries for two months. The own-brand boutiques business posted H1 turnover of 81.5 million, down 29.8%, which reflects the closure of all stores for two months (one month in Germany). 2020 outlook Manufacturing and deliveries were gradually resumed from mid-May 2020. While uncertainty persists, the Group is refocusing distribution in its Fragrance/Cosmetic brands business on Western Europe and France, while the Middle East and Latin America are still experiencing a slowdown. The Group will continue to draw upon the strength of its model thanks to the distribution of its products across its own European retail network. Bogart Group decided on a proactive launch policy in order to support its brands and continue to grow its market share. Accordingly, Carven recently successfully launched its new perfume, Dans ma Bulle de Fleurs, for Mother's Day through its own network and via its Western European partners. April also launched 80 new products in its bathroom range via its boutiques. The Company notes that sales of cosmetics products are rather well oriented since the resumption of operations. Bogart Group is expecting a positive reception for the Stendhal brand, which is currently being redesigned before the release of new cosmetic ranges in September. By continuing this proactive launch strategy, the Group aims to turn all of the odds in its favour in order to benefit fully from the signs of recovery on all markets as soon as they appear. In terms of the Boutiques business, the Group has gradually reopened store chains in Europe since mid-May 2020. Sales volumes have generally been encouraging over the past two months. On the basis of these indicators, the Group nonetheless remains cautious and expects to see a very gradual recovery on its various global markets. Although the Company predicts a fall in full-year turnover, it is worth noting that store chain profit margins tend to be higher during the second half of the year. Bogart Group continues to keep a sharp eye on costs in order to limit the impact on its financial statements, by adapting its cost structure to developments in the market (short-time working arrangements during the lockdown; renegotiation of rents) while retaining strict control over cash flow. Otherwise, the Company still keeps an eye on acquisition opportunities. Next publication: H1 results, 29 September 2020 Group website www.groupe-bogart.com CONTACTS BOGART GROUP ACTUS finance & communication contact@jbogart.com Tel: +33 (0)1 53 77 55 55 Anne-Pauline Petureaux Analyst/Investor Relations Tel: +33 (0)1 53 67 36 72 apetureaux@actus.fr Manon Clairet Press Relations Tel: +33 (0)1 53 67 36 73 mclairet@actus.fr ------------------------ This publication embed "Actusnews SECURITY MASTER ". - SECURITY MASTER Key: nZhqYshqlmyUlpxtYptuapOUZ5djlWaVmGrGl2hwY5/KbHJjypljaciYZm9lmmxm - Check this key: https://www.security-master-key.com. ------------------------ Copyright Actusnews Wire Receive by email the next press releases of the company by registering on www.actusnews.com, it's free Full and original release in PDF format:https://www.actusnews.com/documents_communiques/ACTUS-0-64570-pr_bogart_h1-2020-revenue.pdf Hong Kong has delayed its highly-anticipated legislative elections by a year as fury grows among local activists over the sweeping security law imposed by Beijing. Carrie Lam, leader of the pro-Beijing government, announced the decision today, citing a worsening coronavirus outbreak in the Chinese-ruled city. China also backed the postponement, claiming it was 'very necessary, reasonable and legal'. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said that the government has the support of the Chinese government in making the decision. She is pictured speaking at a briefing today Hong Kong's pro-Beijing government has delayed the upcoming elections for a year 'due to coronavirus' amid fury over Chinas new security law. The file picture taken on June 29 shows women walking past a government-sponsored advert promoting the new national security law The news comes a day after a dozen democracy activists have been barred from standing in the elections, a move slammed by activists as the most pressing assault yet on Beijing's critics in the city. 'The announcement I have to make today is the most difficult decision I've had to make in the past seven months,' Ms Lam said at a news conference. 'We want to ensure fairness and public safety and health, and need to make sure the election is held in an open, fair and impartial manner. This decision is therefore essential,' she said. China said today that it supported Hong Kong's decision to delay legislative elections for a year because of a surge in coronavirus cases. 'It is very necessary, reasonable and legal,' the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the State Council said in a short statement. 'The central government fully understands and supports it.' Hong Kong today has postponed its highly-anticipated legislative elections by a year, citing a worsening coronavirus outbreak in the Chinese-ruled city. Residents are seen being given free COVID-19 coronavirus test kits by workers at a government clinic in Hong Kong on June 29 The postponement will be felt as a setback for the pro-democracy opposition, which was hoping to capitalise on disenchantment with the current pro-Beijing majority to make gains. The file picture shows protesters marching in defiance of police ban despite security law The postponement will be felt as a setback for the pro-democracy opposition, which was hoping to capitalise on disenchantment with the current pro-Beijing majority to make gains. A group of 22 legislators issued a statement accusing the government of using the outbreak as an excuse to delay the vote. 'Incumbent pro-democracy legislators, who represent 60% of the public's opinion, collectively oppose the postponement and emphasise the responsibility of the SAR government to make every effort to arrange adequate anti-epidemic measures to hold elections in September as scheduled,' the statement said, referring to the territory's official name, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. 'Otherwise, it is tantamount to uprooting the foundation of the establishment of the SAR.' A dozen Hong Kong democracy activists were disqualified on Thursday from standing in September's legislative elections, a move decried by candidates as the most pressing assault yet on Beijing's critics in the city. The picture taken on July 15 shows the activist Joshua Wong (left), along with 15 other winners of the democratic primaries, speaks to reporters Many of those disqualified took to social media to post the letters confirming they had been barred - including Joshua Wong, one of the city's best known activists. Pictured, Mr Wong with the nomination papers on Monday as he files his candidacy for the official body on July 20 The city of 7.5 million people has seen a surge in coronavirus infections since the beginning of July. Hong Kong had recorded more than 3,100 cases as of Thursday, more than double the tally on July 1. The government has tightened social distancing restrictions, limiting public gatherings to two people, and banned dining-in at restaurants after 6pm. The lead-up to the election, originally scheduled for September 6, has been closely watched after a national security law that took effect in late June stipulated that candidates who violated the law would be barred from running. The new law is seen as Beijing's attempt to curb dissent in the city, after months of pro-democracy and anti-government protests in Hong Kong last year. On Thursday, 12 pro-democracy candidates including prominent pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong were disqualified from running for not complying with the city's constitution or pledging allegiance to the local and national governments. At a news conference on Friday, Mr Wong said: 'Beyond any doubt, this is the most scandalous election ever in Hong Kong history. I wish to emphasise that no reasonable man would think that this election ban is not politically driven.' 'Beijing has staged multiple acts to prevent the opposition bloc from taking the majority in the Hong Kong legislature,' he said. The elections could be deferred for up to a year, according to the South China Morning Post newspaper, which cited unnamed sources. Syracuse, N.Y. The 911 call was disturbing. A Syracuse home was on fire, a neighbor told dispatchers, and a woman was standing at a window inside the burning home, said Syracuse Fire Chief Michael Monds. The burning home was notable: The house at 749 W. Onondaga St. was built in 1885 and designed by Archimedes Russel, a famous Syracuse architect. And the fire was threatening to destroy the 135-year-old home. Syracuse firefighters rushed to historic West Onondaga Street home around 10:40 p.m. Tuesday. When they arrived, flames were billowing from the second story of the home. The home was considered vacant, Monds said, but was being used by squatters as a place to stay. So firefighters found a way inside and started to search the large, 4,793-square-foot building for victims. It was hot inside, Monds said, with no visibility. Luckily, the home was empty. With no civilians in peril, firefighters worked to put out the fire and do what they could to save the 135-year-old building. They succeeded, Monds said praising his firefighters. We saved the building, the chief said. We did a great job protecting the integrity of the house. It was hot, humid night to fight a fire. Three firefighters were evaluated for heat exhaustion after the blaze, Monds said. The West Onondaga Street fire was the second of three major fires in Syracuse within 48 hours. The first was called in around 3:15 a.m. Tuesday. It was a challenge, Monds said. Firefighters spent hours putting out a fire at 929 S. Salina St., which housed a clothing store and a grocery store. It was a hot night, and over 50 firefighters responded to the scene to help fight the fire fueled by burning clothes, sneakers and hundreds of tires, Monds said. The third fire happened around 5:15 p.m. Wednesday at 330 Hatch St. When firefighters arrived, a man was outside trying to put out the fire and a woman was trapped inside the home, Monds said. Firefighters rushed into the hot, smoky, burning home and quickly rescued an unconscious woman from the second floor, he said. We give our 120 percent at all times just to ensure all lives are protected, the chief said. The woman was rushed to Upstate University Hospital. Her condition was not immediately available. Investigators are working to determine the cause of all three fires. The chief reminded residents to ensure their homes have working smoke detectors. And if your home catches fire, he said dont worry about trying to put it out: Just call 911. The number one priority is to get you and your family out of the house, Monds said. 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 Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy will hold his final July coronavirus press conference, at 1 p.m. Friday in the George Washington Ballroom at the Trenton War Memorial. This will be his first daily briefing since Wednesday and it will be streamed live on the governors YouTube channel. As of Thursday, New Jersey had a total of 180,970 cases and 13,934 deaths from the coronavirus, when 16 new deaths and 261 additional cases were reported. The rate of transmission reported Thursday remained steady at 1.14, above the key benchmark of 1, meaning that each new case is leading to more than one additional infection and the virus is spreading. The rate of transmission had been below 1 for weeks during the strictest parts of New Jerseys coronavirus lockdowns, but has wavered above and below 1 in July as more reopening steps have occurred. Murphy has said the increase above 1 is cause for concern. State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli and State Police Superintendent Colonel Patrick Callahan are expected to join Murphy at Fridays briefing. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Lou Monaco may be reached at lmonaco@njadvancemedia.com. Today marks the 50th anniversary of a remarkable achievement by a well-known adopted Derry man. On July 31, 1970, Ray Cossum set off from France to swim across the English Channel. He completed the journey non-stop in a time of 13 hours 41 minutes. In doing so, he became the first Irishman to officially swim across the channel. It had been a long-held ambition for Ray. Born in Folkestone on the south coast of England in 1931, he grew up hearing stories of people who had swam across the channel. It was an ambition he would come back to later in his adventurous life. Ray served in the Royal Nay for eight years, five of which were in the submarine service as an escape instructor. While he was in the Navy, he was based in Derry where he met and married Bridie Loughrey, before the couple set up home and raised a family in Creggan. His love of long-distance swimming was developed and honed in the waters of Lough Swilly in Donegal where he regularly swam between Buncrana and Rathmullan. After much preparation, he decided to take his efforts to another level by attempting the channel swim he had heard so much about when growing up. However, it was not an easy thing to achieve. He tried unsuccessfully twice to complete the swim. However, he finally realised his dream in the summer of 1970. Almost 14 hours after leaving France, on July 31, 1970, Ray made it back on to land near his home town of Folkstone. I had tried to so the swim a couple of times before and on one of those times I was just a couple of miles from finishing it when I had to stop because of gale force winds, he said. So it was great to finally manage to swim across the channel and it was a big relief after all the training I had put in. As a result of his success in 1970, the local man became involved in the Channel Swimming Association which is the official body which regulates channel swims. He later went on to become vice president of the association. He remains proud of his achievement 50 years ago and the special relationship he has with the Englisn Channel. I can say that I have worked as a diver on the bottom of the English Channel, I have swum the channel, I was vice president of the Channel Swimming Association, I have passed through the channel in submarines, I have been through the Channel Tunnel, I have flown over the channel and passed over the channel on ships, he said. So I can say that I have see the channel from every angle possible. Ray is also well-known locally for his deep-sea diving exploits. In 1969, he bought the rights to the wreck of the SS Laurentic which sank on January 25, 1917 after striking a mine at the mouth of Lough Swilly. There were 475 passengers on-board the ship. Of these, 354 people died and only 121 survived. After the Laurentic sank, the Royal Navy organised a huge amount of dives over subsequent decades to recover a large number of gold bars which were worth an estimated 5m in 1917. Since buying the rights to the wreck, Ray has organised a large number of dives to what remains of the vessel and had also been heavily in preserving artefacts which have been salvaged from it. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With Hurricane Isaias churning in the Bahamas and some charts forecasting a landfall in the Northeast, the Red Cross is recruiting up to 1,000 volunteers to serve the community on its Hurricane Season Reserve Corps. The volunteers will be trained in providing assistance to the public to ensure proper safety measures are taken before storms hit. The volunteers will only be activated if a major disaster was to hit the area. According to the Red Cross, there is an enhanced need for those volunteers who would be able to support sheltering efforts. The volunteers would help shelter staff with reception, registration and feeding and would collect information as well as other vital tasks. There are both associate and supervisory level opportunities available. Volunteers are also needed to support the Red Cross medical team. Anyone interested who holds medical accreditation as a nurse, EMT, physician, paramedic or physician assistant is urged to apply. Volunteers are needed in shelters to help assess peoples health. Daily observation and health screening for COVID-19-like illness among shelter residents may also be required. All training will be provided virtually for those who volunteer. In case of mobilization in response to a disaster, volunteers will work 12 hour shifts. The coronavirus has added increased hardships on preparing for this hurricane season, according to Red Cross Interim CEO Susan Rounds. The coronavirus pandemic will make it challenging to deploy trained disaster volunteers from other parts of the country should an emergency occur. In light of this, the Red Cross is asking you to be ready to help your community, said Rounds. Those who are interested in volunteering can visit the Red Cross website to learn more. Hurricane season is considered the time between June 1 and Nov. 30. Experts believe that the 2020 hurricane season will be busier than the average season, with 19 named storms being forecasted to form. The Bengaluru police have busted a well-trained gang from Colombia which carried out a spate of house burglaries and recovered six kilos of gold jewels worth Rs 2.50 crore, pistol and other high-tech equipment. The arrested are William Padilla Martinez (48), Stephanie Munoz Monsalve (23) and Christian Inez Olarto (34) all Colombian nationals. The arrests were made in March but announced on Thursday due to lockdowns. Police officials said they even learnt Spanish with the help of a Spanish translator to interrogate the accused. The gang members are currently lodged in Parappana Agrahara central prison. The gang committed 31 House Burglary Thefts (HBT) under various police station limits in the city. Apart from gold, police also recovered a 9mm browning pistol with 23 live rounds, two bikes, one fake passport, one fake international driving licence, said city police commissioner Bhaskar Rao. Rao said the accused entered the city via Nepal under a tourist visa. Efforts are on to nab three more accused including the kingpins Gustavo alias Mustafa and Kibarli, who are absconding. The gang came under the police scanner in October 2019 when they tried to burgle the house situated next to Sandalwood actor Shivaraj Kumar at Manyata Residency inside the Manyata Tech Park. They broke open the grill and tried to enter the house but Sampigehalli Police got an alert and rushed to the spot. The gang fled leaving their Indica car behind. When the police reviewed the CCTV footage, they were in for a surprise. The accused were trained in parkour (jumping compound walls) as they jumped 15-feet high compound wall effortlessly and escaped. The police later found walkie-talkie and other equipment from their car. This led the police to review similar break-ins elsewhere in the city. While reviewing CCTV footage, the police recognised Mustafa during a break-in. The gang members were nabbed in March 2020 near Thanisandra when they were moving suspiciously on motorbikes. He [Mustafa] was arrested for burgling the house of retired chief secretary Koushik Mukherjees house in 2018 and released on bail, Rao added. Investigation revealed that Mustaf had come to the city via Nepal. Later, he invited three of his associates, who stayed in a rented apartment in Kothanur police station limits. Modus operandi The gang would go on bicycles to identify a house. Once they had zeroed in on the house, the gang used to arrive in their bikes and car. First, gang member Stephanie armed with pepper spray and knives for emergencies would ring the bell. On confirming that the house was empty, the gang used to break the grills and enter the house. To avoid tower tracking, they used walkie-talkies for communication. All of them wore a suite similar to the PPE kit, gloves, mask and cap to avoid leaving prints at the scene. They also had mobile jammer, drill bit machine, laser cutting machine, flame gun and other tools to commit the burglary. Joanne Kathleen Rowling, better known as J.K. Rowling was born on July 31, 1965, in Yale, Gloucestershire, England. She shares her birthday with perhaps the most popular fictional character of our time and also her own creation, Harry Potter. As J.K. Rowling turns 55, her creation Harry is all set to celebrate his 40th birthday. In spite of recent misgivings, none can deny the genius of J.K. Rowling when it comes to writing. The fantasy wizarding world that she has created, has become an intricate part of many of our lives. The name J.K. Rowling is synonymous with that of Harry Potter and there is nowhere in the world where you can go that children do not know of her or of a certain chosen young wizard, usually drawn to where the trouble is. J.K. Rowling, in her lifetime, has managed to create one of the biggest fandoms of all time which has expanded to such an extent that Pottermore, the website that has been made for the wizarding world was the first website to gain mass popularity. Nowadays, it provides all the information you could possibly need about the world of magic. ALSO READ: Happy birthday J.K. Rowling: 15 quotes by the magical author on life, friendship and hope Rowlings contribution as the author of the Harry Potter books, her short stories, non-fiction works, and her work under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, have given her the mantle of one of the greatest writers of our generation. Aside from being a best-selling author, Rowling is also a producer and a philanthropist, having donated to various charities such as the UK anti-poverty fundraiser, the International Fund for Children and Young People in Crisis. Now more than ever, we can see the importance of fictional worlds such as that of Harry Potter. As more and more people are looking to take a break from their realities, her books offer the perfect nostalgia to delve into, forgetting about troubles of the world, at least for a bit. Whether or not you agree with the whole Twitter debacle, we can all universally agree that her contributions to literature have brought joy to the lives of many. 1408856778, 1510202250 We are often faced with the dilemma about choosing to separate a person, what they say and do from their work, especially nowadays when cancelled culture has gained immense popularity. But we often forget Rowlings own words written through Professor Dumbledore, Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light. And that there is no power in the universe that can take away the specialness of something that we ourselves assign meaning to. During the pandemic, J.K. Rowling has released yet another book for children titles The Ickabog, which is available to read online for free, and the Kindle and paperback editions are expected to release in the Fall. Though she initially meant for it to only be for her children, the author realised that because the lockdown was a difficult time, everyone could benefit from a fantastical tale. She is also quite insistent on the fact that this is not a Harry Potter spin-off. ALSO READ: Not a Harry Potter spin-off: JK Rowling releases first chapters of new story, The Ickabog, online for free On the occasion of her 55th birthday, we celebrate an iconic writer, a smart, intelligent person with a kind heart but most importantly, a human being who has taught us how struggle truly makes us who we strive to be. As Ginny Weasley said, anything is possible if you have the nerve for it. B077454Z99 The wizarding world created by JK Rowling has also given us some spells and objects that we wish we could use in the muggle world. Heres a look at a few: Accio: The summoning charm, how often have we pointed our makeshift wands at something, willing it to come to us, only to be disappointed about being a muggle! Alohamora: The unlocking charm. Handy for getting into all the places that you arent normally allowed to go into. Scourgify: A cleaning charm that works on most objects, imagine never having to do any dishes again! Invisibility Cloak: A garment that renders you completely invisible. Perfect for getting you out of tight spots, or when you want to do some snooping around. Animagus: A person who can turn into a particular animal of their choosing, at will. Imagine being able to fly free as bird in your animagus form while still being able to come back to your human body when you so choose. Obliviate: A charm that erases memories. What wouldnt we give to have everyone in the world forget about the one instance when we absolutely embarrassed ourselves. Muffliato: A charm that fills the intended targets ear with white noise, rendering them incapable of hearing what you are taking about. Perfect for when you need to plan something super confidential and then some. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter At Hindustan Times, we help you stay up-to-date with latest trends and products. Hindustan Times has affiliate partnership, so we may get a part of the revenue when you make a purchase. The Council Bluffs Community School District appears likely to start the 2020-21 school year in a hybrid mode that includes both in-person and online instruction. Meeting in person for the first time since March 10, the districts board of education approved a Return to Learn plan that encompasses on-site, hybrid and remote learning phases and authorized Superintendent Vickie Murillo to implement the phase she believes is in the best interest of the students and staff of the district. Our intent is to start in hybrid phase, Murillo said. She said she didnt think the district was ready to fully return to on-site learning and she doubted the state would allow the district to go into a district-wide remote learning phase. Even if Ive got an outbreak, I have to get approval not only from the board but from the (Iowa) Department of Education and the health departments (both state and county) in order to switch to a remote learning phase, Murillo said. And then when we close, theyre only going to grant us permission to close for two weeks at a time. However, she does have the authority to close an individual classroom where someone has tested positive for COVID-19, according to board President David Coziahr. In the hybrid mode, about half of the students will attend on Tuesdays, Thursdays and alternating Mondays, and the other half will attend on Wednesdays, Fridays and alternating Mondays, according to Corey Vorthmann, chief academic officer. On the schooldays they do not attend school, students will be required to participate virtually and complete all class work, which will be graded just as it would be if they attended every day in person. Teachers and staff will report to school in person every school day, he said. Students and staff will be expected to wear facial coverings, according to the plan. A few board members questioned that wording. Murillo chose to state that staff and students would be expected to wear facial coverings in situations where social distancing was difficult or impossible. She said she wanted to build up support for masks by emphasizing safety. Jill Shudak said if face coverings were not mandatory, some students would not use them. I re-watched the graduations, and half the people did not wear masks, she said. Said Coziahr, in my opinion, it would be nice to have that mandate, with exceptions where appropriate for health reasons. Murillo said she did not want the language to sound punitive. If we say mandatory, there has to be a consequence for not complying, she said. If we build this up, we do it because its the right thing to do. In small classes where there is room for social distancing, Murillo doesnt want students to automatically have to wear masks all day, she said. Teachers can set expectations in their own classrooms, said Tim Hamilton, chief of student and family services. Students and staff will be educated on proper care of masks, said Garry Milbourn, chief of human resources. Murillo does not see checking everyones temperature before they enter the building as being practical. Each school building will have an isolation room for students who are showing symptoms or not feeling well, she said. We are going to remove them from the classroom as soon as we find out theyre not feeling well, she said. Board member John Minshall said where he works staff members come out and check workers temperatures while they are still in their vehicles. Murillo said schools would have observers posted who watch students as they arrive to see if they are showing signs of illness. We just felt like it would eliminate a lot of instructional time if we (took temperatures), she said. Individual buildings are formulating plans on how to screen students, said Mark Schuldt, chief of elementary schools. Employees will be encouraged to stay home when they are sick, Milbourn said. Social distancing will be practiced as much as possible. Unauthorized visitors will be prohibited. Only essential vendors will have access to buildings. Routine functions will be arranged to provide opportunities for social distancing, Murillo said. Were running six lunches at our secondary schools to be able to have no more than two at our tables, she said. Outside of the school districts phase, the district will also offer a Virtual Academy that parents can choose for individual students or families both inside and outside the districts boundaries. The academy will offer teacher-delivered, high-quality instruction, Vorthmann said. Regardless of the phase were in on-site, hybrid or remote learning the Virtual Academy is always available for families, he said. The district was one of six in the state accredited by the state to offer a virtual school, Vorthmann said. Requests were submitted by 29 families to open-enroll students to the Virtual Academy. About 100 teachers have expressed an interest in having their instruction used by the academy, he said. There will be a $3,000 stipend offered for teachers who volunteer to be part of the Virtual Academy during its first year. Hybrid and virtual classes will be parallel, not separate, Vorthmann said. Participating teachers classes will be simulcast for the Virtual Academy. Students will be able to interact with the teacher and their peers through the internet. Families are encouraged to make a commitment of at least one semester to the Virtual Academy, although exceptions can be made. We dont have a specific building attached to the Virtual Academy, Vorthmann said. Kids are tied to the schools they would attend, assuming teachers from that building are participating in the academy. A total of almost 900 students have registered for the Virtual Academy, Murillo said. Resident students can sign up through Aug. 7. We have 400 out of elementary and 500 out of secondary, she said. Given the number of students in the Virtual Academy, some classrooms may only have five or six students on site, Murillo said. If a student starts out in the hybrid mode and gets sick, he or she can stay home for 10 days, then return to hybrid or do remote learning for the rest of the semester, she said. One of the main reasons the district sought state accreditation for a Virtual Academy was to give families choices, Vorthmann said. Teachers will receive training on teaching in a virtual environment during professional development this summer and during the school year, Vorthmann said. They will also have an opportunity to do online tutorials on virtual instruction, Google Classroom and Google Meet. Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Coastal NSW faces the possibility of a third bout of wild weather in less than a month as insurance advisers warn the risks from multiple storms are being underestimated. Authorities are continuing to assess the damage from back-to-back big low-pressure systems that forced the evacuation from homes at Wamberal to Sydney's north and stripped sand away from many beaches. Central Coast Council alone estimates it has spent more than $100,000 on emergency repairs, and is rushing to import 600 storm-proof bags from Japan that are capable of containing four tonnes of material each. But Risk Frontiers, a natural hazards research centre, said the risks from the storms on assets such as coastal roads and property are being underestimated because they are typically treated as single events. Since east coast lows come in clusters, the impacts are magnified. The first of the two recent storms packed total wave energy hitting the coast with a ferocity expected about once every four years, or some 54.8 gigajoules per metre. The second was less extreme, but still packed a severity expected once each year at an estimated total energy of 11.8 GJ/metre, according to research by Thomas Mortlock, senior risk scientist. Advertisement "If treated as a single storm, the total energy was around 66.6 GJ/m, which is equivalent to the amount of erosive potential that could be expected of a single east coast low of a return period of approximately seven years," Ryan Crompton, managing director of Risk Frontiers, said. Loading Data going back to the 1850s shows east coast lows, particularly the high-impact ones, tend to come in clusters. Since beaches typically don't have time to recover lost sand in time for the following storm - or storms - the resulting cumulative risk needs greater attention by planners, Risk Frontiers said. The recent combination "demonstrates how there can be an underestimation of coastal risk by assuming all [lows] drive independent erosion responses", the consultancy said in a briefing note. "If the cumulative erosion potential that exists with clustered ... events is not incorporated into coastal hazard planning, then we may continue to under-appreciate the importance of event clustering," it said. Dr Crompton said that, while programs in NSW today were guided by the Coastal Management Manual that refers to storm clustering as an important facet of erosion risk, it was still "down to the individual plans as to the extent which this is considered in design criteria". "Addressing this problem is of particular importance given future sea level rise projections which will exacerbate the risk," he said. Advertisement Mitchell Harley, a coastal researcher at the University of NSW said the clustering was relevant to understand the present erosion issues at Wamberal, Collaroy and Stockton, near Newcastle. Dr Harley, though, said coastal planning has had to take into account the possibility of big storms in close succession. He noted the largest and fourth-biggest storms of the past 50 years hit within a fortnight of each other in 1974, and planners had to take into account the erosion risks of a repeat. However, the so-called set backlines established in the wake of those tempests run through the middle of houses at Wamberal, implying that those threats remain serious if such events recurred. For next week, though, weather models are uncertain about which way several possible lows might travel. The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting one low is more likely to be further south than the two recent ones, and have more impact on the Victorian coast. A second low, forming late next week will most likely bring rain to inland regions rather than batter NSW beaches. Advertisement Coastal engineer Angus Gordon (seated) and UNSW researcher Mitchell Harley assess the impacts of the recent storms on Narrabeen on Sydney's northern beaches. Credit:Nick Moir Ben Domensino, a senior forecaster with Weatherzone, said if the second of those two lows formed in the Tasman Sea, "you can expect coastal erosion impacts". With a large pool of cool air moving across from the west, there is the potential for "a dynamic set-up" once it reaches the warmer air over the Tasman Sea. "We just won't know for a few more days," he said. Eric Belzer, a Wamberal resident stands at the beach-side end of his home. The Central Coast Council approved his redevelopment plan only if he move his house closer to the sea than his existing one, he says. Credit:Nick Moir Eric Belzer, a Wamberal resident of 30 years, said residents were increasingly frustrated by delays on getting approval to build a seawall. While acknowledging the main obstacle remains determining who pays for the wall - that the council expects will cost $20,000 per metre - Mr Belzer said planning rules were inconsistent. The council approved an application to rebuild his 1950s cottage even though it assumed a wall was in place. They also rejected his plans to shift his new house several metres towards the back of his property, pressing him instead to shift it forward. The compromise approved will bring his house one metre closer to the beach. The government on Friday announced it would set up a taskforce to settle on "a long-term solution to the coastal erosion issues" at Wamberal. The Tour de France of pigeon racing has been struck by scandal after 11 birds were discovered dead with suspected poisoning - forcing the withdrawal of 2,000 French entries to the competition. The Barcelona 2020 pigeon race will take place tomorrow without a strong French contingent after the death of the birds this week. A further seven pigeons were found unwell in housing they were kept in in northern region of Chereng, prompting Club des Internationaux Francais (CIF) to withdraw its birds from the major annual event. An autopsy has already revealed one of the dead pigeons had a motoring fluid known as AdBlue in its guts, according to the Belgian organisers of the race. It is feared a watering can was poisoned with the substance and then water was poured from it into the pigeons' drinking trough. An autopsy has already revealed one of the dead pigeons had a motoring fluid known as AdBlue in its gut. Club des Internationaux Francais has now withdrawn all its 2,000 entries from the Barcelona 2020 race (stock image) 'Nobody wanted this, everyone is devastated,' said race organiser Luc de Geest, from the Cureghem Center group, according to the France24. The Barcelona race is the endurance event of the year for European pigeon racers. Almost 15,000 pigeons race 660 miles across the Pyrenees for a 225,000 prize. The French pigeons had gathered in Chereng this year ahead of the race, instead of in Belgium, to minimise movements due to coronavirus. Some within the racing community have reacted with glee to the news - and have been branded 'vultures' and parasites' by the president of the French pigeon fanciers' club, Philippe Odent, who described the poisoning as a 'fatal mistake'. The French pigeons had gathered in Chereng this year ahead of the race, instead of in Belgium, to minimise movements due to coronavirus (stock image) In a letter to organisation members, he said: 'Their words are indifferent to me and it would be do them too much honour to comment on them but I think that fortunately many have identified the kind of sad characters they are.' The race in Barcelona will go ahead tomorrow. De Geest said: 'This is the worst thing that has happened to us in more than half a century of Barcelona.' 'And in a year in which [the coronavirus] was already so restrictive for the pigeon sport. Barcelona was supposed to be a party, but it makes the disaster year even worse.' Some investors rely on dividends for growing their wealth, and if you're one of those dividend sleuths, you might be intrigued to know that KB Home (NYSE:KBH) is about to go ex-dividend in just 4 days. This means that investors who purchase shares on or after the 5th of August will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 20th of August. KB Home's next dividend payment will be US$0.09 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed US$0.36 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, KB Home has a trailing yield of 1.1% on the current stock price of $33.9. Dividends are a major contributor to investment returns for long term holders, but only if the dividend continues to be paid. That's why we should always check whether the dividend payments appear sustainable, and if the company is growing. Check out our latest analysis for KB Home If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. KB Home paid out just 11% of its profit last year, which we think is conservatively low and leaves plenty of margin for unexpected circumstances. Yet cash flows are even more important than profits for assessing a dividend, so we need to see if the company generated enough cash to pay its distribution. It paid out 5.8% of its free cash flow as dividends last year, which is conservatively low. It's positive to see that KB Home's dividend is covered by both profits and cash flow, since this is generally a sign that the dividend is sustainable, and a lower payout ratio usually suggests a greater margin of safety before the dividend gets cut. Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends. Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing? Businesses with shrinking earnings are tricky from a dividend perspective. If earnings decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. With that in mind, we're discomforted by KB Home's 20% per annum decline in earnings in the past five years. Ultimately, when earnings per share decline, the size of the pie from which dividends can be paid, shrinks. Story continues Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. In the last 10 years, KB Home has lifted its dividend by approximately 3.7% a year on average. Final Takeaway Is KB Home worth buying for its dividend? KB Home has comfortably low cash and profit payout ratios, which may mean the dividend is sustainable even in the face of a sharp decline in earnings per share. Still, we consider declining earnings to be a warning sign. All things considered, we are not particularly enthused about KB Home from a dividend perspective. On that note, you'll want to research what risks KB Home is facing. For example, we've found 4 warning signs for KB Home that we recommend you consider before investing in the business. If you're in the market for dividend stocks, we recommend checking our list of top dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend. 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. Despite an order of the Federal High Court in Abuja, mandating the Nigerian Army to allow a detained soldier, Idakpini Martins, see his lawyer and family, the Force on Wednesday, refused to obey. Mr Martins, a lance corporal, was arrested over a viral video on social media criticising the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, for failing to provide adequate resources to soldiers combating Boko Haram. He also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to be serious in its fight against insurgency. He has since been detained and has remained incommunicado for over a month without access to his lawyer nor family. Following a rights violation lawsuit, on July 22, Justice A. I. Chikere of the Federal High Court, Abuja granted the soldier access to his lawyer and relative. The judge held that it was a contravention of the fundamental human rights of the soldier not to be allowed to see his family and lawyer. But on Wednesday when the soldiers lawyer, Tope Akinyode, visited the Nigerian Army headquarters, he was not permitted to see his client, despite being served copies of the court processes. Weve written to notify the Chief of Army Staff of the court order. We served a copy of CTC of the court order on the Army. Theyre aware of the order of (the) court but have decided to treat it with astonishing disrepute, Mr Akinyode told PREMIUM TIMES. The lawyer said he was turned back alongside the wife and elder sister of Mr Martins. We got to the Army headquarters at exactly 2:45p.m. today and met officers Aura AA and Suleiman AA and 2 other military personnel at the front desk who disallowed me from entering to see Lance Corporal Martins as ordered by Court, Mr Akinyode said. I find that very insulting. Were talking about a court order. A valid order of court and who is the Army by the way to disobey court decisions? The AGF is also a defendant in the suit and I sent him a letter notifying him of the court order. So, after the Army denied me entrance yesterday, I called the AGF on (the) phone to inform him of the development. The AGF told me that he has seen my letter and has minuted on it for action. PREMIUM TIMES on Thursday reached out to spokesperson of the Army, Sagir Musa, but he was yet to respond to our enquiries as of the time of filing this report. Chantelle Mashego, a senior manager responsible for delivering the locally produced Nissan Navara has been at Nissan for 11 years and understands the complexities of building a vehicle. Chantelle Mashego, NSA Senior Manager: New Model Engineering at Nissan South Africa How is Nissan encouraging diversity in the automotive industry? Are South African women getting enough of a chance to shine in the automotive industry? The industry can fix this problem by opening the doors wide to women who already want to enter the field, and encouraging women who haven't yet considered it. Does Nissan have any women empowerment programmes? If so, what are they? I always try to learn from both male and female colleagues that I work with, and Im also mentoring a few female colleagues just to try to guide them in their career path at Nissan South Africa and in the wider motoring industry. How can women break into the automotive industry? What was the best advice anyone ever gave you? My dreams are valid and that I am the only person that can limit my dreams Who or what is your biggest motivation? Could you list a few, if any, specific challenges females face in this industry? How do women overcome these challenges? What advice do you have for the future generation of women wanting to get into the automotive space? Ive worked hard to grow through the ranks from a contracted engineer to holding roles in vehicle quality, parts quality and more. In that time, Ive also held international roles including a stint at Nissan Spain, returning to South Africa with new skills and experience, says Mashego.This women of steel shares her journey with us...Nissan South Africa focuses on increasing female representation in all levels of management and providing training to ensure that top candidates will be ready to take on greater responsibility. Support is provided for womens career development.When I joined the company in 2008, there were not more than four women in engineering and now we have more about 35% but there is still some room to grow especially in Monozukuri where now women are earmarked for key positions.Yes, they are but I do believe that we still have a long way to go and there is much that still needs to be done.Yes we do. Activities are organised that are geared toward female employees, including skill-development training courses and networking events. Examples of career development initiatives include mentoring programs and roundtables led by Nissan executives. Activities focusing on young female engineers are conducted as well.Women can break into the automotive industry through hard work, confidence, assertiveness and by being motivated. With more and more women graduating from top universities all across the country, there is no reason why this gender imbalance should continue to exist in the automotive industry.Success is what motivates me to do a good job, to always keep learning. Knowing the fact that my hard work and perseverance will help me achieve greater professional success is what keeps me going. And also knowledge sharing on things I have achieved or had challenges on.We are a minority, have to work twice as hard to be noticed. Our assertiveness can be mistaken for being emotional, our confidence mistaken for being cheeky. We overcome these challenges by acting ethically and doing our best at all times.I would say its a great space for people looking for a challenge, growth in both their careers and personal lives. It is also a great area to learn as it is very dynamic and adapts to the latest technology and global management systems. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 21:06:37|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BANGKOK, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Friday instructed military commanders to step up security measures along the country's borderlines to keep out any suspected trespassers from neighboring countries, an army general said. Prayut, who concurrently acts as defense minister, chaired a monthly meeting with high-ranking military commanders at the Ministry of Defense during which he ordered the stepped-up security measures in the Thai territory, according to the ministry's spokesman Lt. Gen. Kongcheep Tantrawanich. In particular, Prayut advised to step up security measures along the country's natural borderlines through which any unwelcome persons may trespass across from a neighboring country, Lt. Gen. Kongcheep said. His directive followed reports of a number of Myanmar and Cambodian nationals who have been arrested by Thai authorities on illegal entry charges after they had evidently trespassed into the Thai territory through natural borderlines over the last several weeks. The authorities have feared those suspected invaders might be infected with the coronavirus, Kongcheep said. Enditem To observe August 5 as Black Day in J&K, Pak Army, ISI put out detailed flow chart India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, July 31: The number of terrorists getting killed in the Valley is up and the infiltration bids have been foiled several times. There is also a major decrease in the number of violent protests on the streets of Jammu and Kashmir, ever since the Parliament of India abrogated Article 370. However, Pakistan has planned a series of propaganda events ahead of August 5, the first anniversary of the abrogation of Article 370. Pakistan sets agenda for August 5 with outreach to Malaysia, Turkey The Pakistan Army has set out a flow chart titled Black Day-August 5. The programme begins with the visit by the foreign media from Kashmir. Pakistan also has planned a release of a package one by the Public Relations Division and termed this programme as 'Indian brutalities and resilience of Kashmiris. On August 5, a statement would be issued by the DG ISPR on how the Pakistan Army stands by the Kashmiris in their struggle. Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News Several special supplements have been planned in all major newspapers by the Ministry of Information and Broadcast, Pakistan. Further, Pakistan also plans on putting out tweets of the OIC and International Human Rights Organisations. A statement from the President of Turkey, PM of Malaysia and the Chinese foreign office is also on the anvil. The final package would involve criticism of the Indian Government by Indian political leaders on the Kashmir issue. Luca revolves around a young boy living on the Italian Riviera, who shares adventures with his newfound best friend. American animation studio Pixar's next project will be Luca a coming-of-age adventure set in Italy. The forthcoming animated feature will be directed by Enrico Casarosa and will hit the US theatres on 18 June, 2021. "This is a deeply personal story for me, not only because it's set on the Italian Riviera where I grew up, but because at the core of this film is a celebration of friendship," Variety quoted Casarosa's statement. "Childhood friendships often set the course of who we want to become and it is those bonds that are at the heart of our story in Luca. So in addition to the beauty and charm of the Italian seaside, our film will feature an unforgettable summer adventure that will fundamentally change Luca," the La Luna director added. Read the official statement below Meet Luca. Directed by Enrico Casarosa & produced by Andrea Warren, our all-new film will introduce a boy named Luca as he experiences an unforgettable summer in a seaside town on the Italian Riviera. Luca opens in theaters summer 2021. pic.twitter.com/orlIxzqXnB Pixar (@Pixar) July 30, 2020 As cited by Variety, the coming animated movie revolves around a young boy living on the Italian Riviera, who shares adventures with his newfound best friend. But a dark secret about his true identity (he is a sea monster from another world just below the water's surface) seeks to threaten that bond. However, the voice cast for the movie is yet to be officially announced. (With inputs from Asian News International) The Bombay high court (HC) on Friday directed Maharashtra government to file an affidavit disclosing the precise categories of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) warriors, whose family members will be entitled to insurance coverage of Rs 50 lakh and ex-gratia of Rs 50 lakh, if they die in their line of duty while battling the pathogen. The HC division bench, comprising Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sarang Kotwal, has asked the government to file the affidavit by Tuesday (August 4). The bench was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL), filed by former journalist Ketan Tirodkar, seeking the status of the compensation to be paid to the next of kin of those who have been martyred while battling the contagion, including doctors, healthcare workers, police personnel, etc. Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, advocate-general (A-G), Maharashtra, responded to the PIL and pointed out that the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has clarified that martyrdom is not conferred on any defence, paramilitary or police personnel for laying down their lives in the line of duty. He stated that the state government is complying with the norms of the Central insurance coverage under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana for all categories of people, who are in direct contact with Covid-19 patients. The family members of such warriors would get an additional amount of Rs 50 lakh as ex-gratia from the state government, if the Covid-19 warriors die in the line of duty, the A-G said. He said such a family would also be entitled to retain the service quarters allotted to them until the superannuation date of the deceased employee. Kumbhakoni said that not only other government employees such as police personnel, but even staff of private hospitals, who are working in Covid Care Centres, would be entitled to the Central governments insurance scheme. The bench, however, found that the government resolutions issued by Maharashtra public health department authorities did not clearly spell out the benefits for healthcare and other workers. The bench directed the state government to file an affidavit by August 4, explicitly explaining the insurance coverage plan for Covid-19 warriors. It added that the family members of Covid-19 warriors should not be made to run from pillar to post and their entitlement must be spelled out in black and white. The bench will hear the PIL next on Wednesday (August 5). In a train accident in the centre of Portugal, at least two people died, seven people will be seriously injured. The Portuguese media and the news Agency Lusa reported, citing the a spokesman for the local civil protection, Carlos Tavares, on Friday afternoon. The Express train of the type Alfa Pendular with 282 people on Board crashed into according to the authorities with a maintenance truck and derailed as a result. Why is the repair car on the Track, was not immediately known. rescue workers and police were, according to the media, with a large contingent on site to rescue the injured. Updated Date: 31 July 2020, 14:20 Patrick "Muddington" Kennedy Wins First WSOP Bracelet in Event #45: $840 Bounty NLHE July 31, 2020 After eleven hours, Event #45: $840 Bounty NLHE has come to an end with Patrick "Muddington" Kennedy claiming his first WSOP gold bracelet for $245,448 which includes $104,680 in bounties. He beat Joshua "kaledak" Pollock heads-up in a field of 2,382 participants who created a prize pool of $1,906,500 in total. Kennedy seems to be a relatively unknown player in the live scene and has collected just over $5,000 in cashes on GGPoker but crushed the final table with aggressive play at the right times. He got the field down to the final table bubble when he eliminated both Blaaz "Sc4rm4k3r" Azerjav and Jie "MTT0516" Wu with jacks. He lost the chip lead for about a minute when Pollock had him covered by almost 7,000 in chips but took it back immediately to cruise towards the win in the end. 2020 GGPoker WSOP Online Bracelets Event #45: $840 Bounty NLHE Final Table Results Place Player Country Prize Bounties Total 1 Patrick "Muddington" Kennedy United Kingdom $140,768 $104,680 $245,448 2 Joshua "kaledak" Pollock United States $101,212 $11,964 $113,176 3 Bernardo "GGeKKo" Dias Brazil $72,772 $7,530 $80,303 4 Franco "pelaguacha" Spitale Argentina $52,324 $10,694 $63,078 5 Chi Chung "chipuker" Ho Taiwan $37,621 $3,169 $40,790 6 Arie "abush" Kliper Israel $27,050 $18,089 $45,139 7 Ho Yin "hoyintai" Tai Hong Kong $19,449 $15,469 $34,918 8 Francesco "Pachamama" Favia Italy $13,984 $15,366 $29,350 9 Jose "robertoduran" Severino Panama $10,055 $3,988 $14,042 Pollock was the only one on the final who had won a bracelet before and he came close to making it three. He would also be the only one to win one in Las Vegas at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, one on WSOP.com, and one during the 2020 GGPoker WSOP Online Bracelet Events but it wasn't to be. Bernardo "GGeKKo" Dias, Jose "robertoduran" Severino, Franco "pelaguacha" Spitale were the more familiar players at the final table and were joined by Chi Chung "chipuker" Ho, Arie "abush" Kliper, Ho Yin "hoyintai" Tai, and Francesco "Pachamama" Favia. Follow all the latest from the WSOP - LIVE! The cards are in the air in the GGPoker WSOP Online. The PokerNews live reporting team is on top of all things WSOP. Don't miss a beat! FOLLOW HERE Bubble Protection in Action During the first three hours of the tournament, players could register late or reenter up to two times but once the dust had settled, the prize pool details were determined and 332 players would be in the money from the 900 who were still in it at that time. It would take ninety minutes before it was time for the bubble. Andrei "[email protected]" Popugaev three-bet shoved with aces but saw them get cracked by the kings of "dodi papa" in a hand that was a rollercoaster. The king on the flop gave "dodi papa" a set, Popugaev then turned the higher set, but the river gave his opponent a flush. As Popugaev had registered before the start of the tournament, he was protected during the bubble and got his buy-in back on top of the $950 in bounties that he had earned. Everything You Need to Know to Compete for a 2020 GGPoker Online WSOP Bracelet From the Bubble to the Final Table Many players tried to battle their way to the final table but failed. Players like Artur Martirosyan, Simon Higgins, Mike Leah, Simon Lofberg, Fedor Kruse, Danny Tang, Lev Gottlieb, Ana Marquez, Harry Lodge, Dario Sammartino, and Michael Clacher all busted before they could get there. Kazuki Ikeuchi came second twice in the WSOP events, in 2018, he and his Tag Team finished behind Nikita Luther and Giuseppe Pantaleo and last year he fell short in the Millionaire Maker when John Gorsuch was victorious. Ikeuchi was aiming to finally grab that bracelet but was eliminated in 13th place this time with Alessandro Giannelli bubbling the final table in the first hand after the break. The Final Table Severino was first to go with Favia following in his footsteps. A few minutes later, Tai took off with Kliper kicked out next for four players to bust in a space of 30 minutes. Kennedy had over 40% of all the chips in play and he maintained that stack while the shorter stacks battled each other. Half an hour later, Ho fell to Pollock. Dias then closed the gap with Kennedy but it was widened again when the latter took out Spitale in fourth place. Pollock doubled up through Kennedy once before a hand where Dias turned two pair and raised the bet of Pollock. He then called the shove of Kennedy once Pollock got out of the way. Kennedy had turned the straight so Dias was hoping the river would bring another ten or seven but instead he bricked. Dias finished in second place in Event #27: $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em 6-Handed for $308,166 back in 2017 and will be disappointed to not take it down this time either. Heads-up went back and forth for a bit before Pollock called the four-bet shove of Kennedy for almost 50 big blinds with tens. Kennedy had the higher pocket pair of jacks which held to deliver him the victory while Pollock's cash today will take him closer to the $1,000,000 mark in WSOP winnings. 2020 Online WSOP Bracelet Winners on GGPoker Sign Up for a GGPoker Account Through PokerNews If you want to play in the WSOP 2020 Online on GGPoker, you'll need to sign up for an account. By downloading GGPoker via PokerNews entitles you to a welcome bonus worth up to $600. Your first deposit is matched 200% up to a maximum of $600, setting you up nicely in time for the WSOP Online. The bonus releases into your account in $10 increments each time you earn 6,000 Fish Buffet Points, which is the equivalent of $60 in rake or tournament fees. This concludes the PokerNews coverage of this event but we'll be back on Saturday with Event #46: $500 Deepstack No Limit Hold'em and the final tables of Event #41: $400 COLOSSUS & Event #42: $400 PLOSSUS so make sure to come back! Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Friday said that more than one million recoveries from the coronavirus COVID-19 has taken the recovery rate in India to 64.54 per cent. Vardhan chaired the 19th meeting of the High-level Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 by a video-conference. He stated, India has achieved the milestone of more than 1 million recoveries which has taken the recovery rate to 64.54 per cent. This shows that the active cases under medical supervision are only 33.27 per cent or approximately one-third of the total positive cases. Indias case fatality rate is also progressively reducing and currently stands at 2.18 per cent, one of the lowest globally. While speaking on the severity of cases found in India, the Health Minister said, Out of the total active cases, only .28 per cent patients are on ventilators, 1.61 per cent patients needed ICU support and 2.32 per cent are on oxygen support. On the rapidly expanding testing capacity of India, he highlighted that as on date, through a network of 1331 labs (with 911- Government labs and 420 private labs), India has conducted a record 6,42,588 tests in the last 24 hours. This has taken the cumulative tests to more than 1.88 crore. National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Director Sujeet K Singh, presented the global comparison on daily cases, deaths and growth rate in the top ten countries with the highest caseload. The Centre was briefed that the overall recovery rate for India is 64.54 per cent with the highest recovery rate being recorded by Delhi at 89.08 per cent, followed by Haryana at 79.82 per cent. Karnataka has the lowest recovery rate of 39.36 per cent. Singh highlighted that efforts are being made to reduce mortality in high caseload districts/cities and cities showing recent upsurge like Pune, Thane, Bengaluru, Hyderabad etc. The measures to be taken include revamping the strategy for effective management of containment zones through stricter perimeter control; widespread Rapid Antigen Tests; intensive and rapid door-to-door search; more isolation facilities for suspects/cases; standard case management protocols along with an increase in oxygen supported beds & ventilators and assessing true burden through planned serosurveys. Jan Chetana through targeted IEC campaigns and Jan Bhagidari (community involvement) were suggested as the way forward. In moderate caseload districts/cities, the efforts would focus on preventing spill-over from the high burden areas; limiting local spread; early identification of cases; strengthening contact tracing with the use of technology; and community involvement. As for the low burden districts, the efforts aimed at preventing infection among the population from other areas; strengthening Influenza-Like Illness (ILI)/ Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) surveillance and targeted testing; rigorous contact tracing with targets to be set by the local administration (>15-20 contacts/case); and prior identification of high-risk population. Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep S Puri, Minister of State, Shipping (Independent Charge), Chemicals and Fertilizers Mansukh Lal Mandaviya, Minister of State, Health & Family Welfare Ashwini Kumar Choubey, and Minister of State, Home Affairs Nityanand Rai were present during the meeting. Getty Images Ashley Judds sexual harassment lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein will move forward after the actress won a crucial appeal Wednesday. Judd first sued Weinstein for harassment, retaliation, and defamation in 2018, over an incident in which Weinstein invited her to his hotel room in the mid-1990s, asked her to watch him shower, and tried to give her a massage. Judd brought her suit after news broke that Weinstein had told director Peter Jackson that she and Mira Sorvino could be a nightmare to work with. A lower court allowed Judd to move forward with her defamation and retaliation claims, but threw out Judds harassment claim because Weinstein was not her employer at the time, Variety reports. But on Wednesday the 9th Circuit of Appeals held that Weinstein did hold power over Judd, in the same way that a teacher might hold power over a student, or a landlord over a tenant. On behalf of the three-judge panel, Judge Mary H. Murguia wrote, [B]y virtue of his professional position and influence as a top producer in Hollywood, Weinstein was uniquely situated to exercise coercive power or leverage over Judd, who was a young actor at the beginning of her career at the time of the alleged harassment, Variety reports. Moreover, Murguia added, given Weinsteins highly influential and unavoidable presence in the film industry, the relationship was one that would have been difficult to terminate without tangible hardship to Judd, whose livelihood as an actor depended on being cast for roles. Judds attorney Theodore Boutrous cheered the decision in a statement to Variety: This is an important victory not only for Ms. Judd but for all victims of sexual harassment in professional relationships, he said. The court correctly holds that California law forbids sexual harassment and retaliation by film producers and others in powerful positions, even outside the employment context, and we look forward to pursuing this claim against Mr Weinstein at trial. Story continues Phyllis Kupferstein, who is representing Weinstein in the case, told Variety that as the case moves back to court, we expect the truth will come to light. The most minimal investigation of the events will show that Mr. Weinstein neither defamed Ms. Judd, nor hindered or interfered with her career, and certainly never retaliated against her, Kupferstein told Variety. Instead, Mr. Weinstein championed her work and approved her casting for two of his movies. Kupferstein told Variety that Weinstein advocated for Judd as his first choice for the lead in Good Will Hunting and flew her to New York to be considered for the roleafter which Judd appeared in two Weinstein-produced movies, Frida and Crossing Over. In addition, the record on Lord of the Rings will finally be made absolutely clearthat Mr. Weinstein had no authority over the project as it belonged to a different production company that had full staffing control of the film, Kupferstein added. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. The mystery of the unmarked graves always bothered my mother. When I was 12, the two of us walked up the steep hill to the cemetery, where we searched among the broken and half-buried marble stones in the overgrown, older portion. Most of the inscriptions were illegible, worn down by weather and time. She couldnt answer when I wondered why Nellie wasnt buried near Grandpa and the great-grandparents. Their markers stood upright and undiminished in a newer part of the graveyard. Grandpa died in 1963, when I was in second grade, so I never had the opportunity to ask about Nellie, although my mother said he never discussed his first wife. That year the big problems - defective punch-card ballots, a controversial recount and a Supreme Court battle - were limited to one state. And the loser, Al Gore, accepted the legitimacy of the result. Neither of those factors can be guaranteed this time around. Real and perceived electoral malfunctions could cast doubt on the accuracy of the results in a bunch of competitive states. Trump has already said that he may not accept the outcome if it's one he doesn't like. Cages loaded with ballots in United Postal Service bins rest behind a worker at a Board of Elections facility in New York. Credit:AP One of the most demoralising aspects of American democracy is that the voting process itself - not just the competing policy ideas of the rival parties - is so partisan and contested. Voting rules differ wildly from state to state, and elections are run by politicians with blatant conflicts of interest. As a general rule, Democrats favour relaxed rules, believing they benefit from big voter turnout. Republicans are more likely to enact strict voter ID laws, the theory being they will deter young and minority voters, who may vote Democrat, from showing up. Huge purges of the electoral rolls and lengthy waiting times are common each election cycle. The coronavirus pandemic - coupled with Trump's willingness to shatter democratic norms - threaten to turbocharge the existing flaws in America's electoral system. "If Congress and states dont act immediately, our country could face an electoral Chernobyl this fall," Democratic congressman Ron Wyden warned in June. Four Republican election officials wrote in Politico this week: "Without necessary additional funding from Congress, we run the risk of delayed or contested election results, long lines and crowding that threaten the safety of voters and poll workers, and limited voting access to rural voters, seniors and veterans." These worries are not just theoretical. We've already seen stark evidence of the chaos that could be coming in November. In the April primaries in Wisconsin, there was a huge drop in the number of poll workers willing to show up to administer the elections because of COVID-19 concerns. This led to a massive reduction in the number of polling places and, in turn, longer than usual lines. From 180 to just five polling places in Milwaukee during Wisconsin's primary election on April 7. Credit:AP In Milwaukee, the state's biggest city, the number of polling places dropped from 180 to just five. Election officials in New York this week released the final results for their state's primary - five weeks after election day. The huge delay was caused by a surge in postal ballots, a trend that is expected to be replicated in November as people opt to stay away from crowded places. Loading There is no evidence to support Trump's claim that mail-in voting is susceptible to widespread fraud. There's not even compelling evidence suggesting it benefits Democrats over Republicans. Voting by mail has been commonplace and uncontroversial for years in many US states. Yet the issue has become polarised: 50 per cent of Democrats say they intend to vote by mail in November compared to just 20 per cent of Republicans, a stark divide that could have dramatic consequences. A man had his case struck out after Judge Catherine Staines said she had a doubt at last week's sitting of Tullamore District Court. Giving evidence, Garda Patrick McGee said that on September 7, 2019, a Vauxhall car was parked on the Arden Road, in Tullamore and was obstructing the road when there was a large GAA match on at the time. The owner was not in the car on the day in question, Garda McGee said, and the insurance disc had expired. Oisin Virieux Gormley, 11, Ballyduff Park, Lifford, Co. Donegal was identified as the owner of the vehicle. However, Mr Gormley disputed that the illegally parked car was his and said he was not in Tullamore on that day, but was attending a music show in Belfast. He said his two friends had signed an affidavit to say he was there. He said he was unable to print out the tickets. Mr Gormley said he had never been in Tullamore before last Wednesday's court sitting. He said his car was a silver Vauxhall but was distinctive as the wing mirror was missing. He said he was now worried that his registration had been stolen. And put on another Vauxhall? questioned Judge Staines. Saying she had a doubt about the case, she struck it out and added that the defendant should get the matter checked out telling him he had better go to the gardai in Donegal in case another car was masquerading as his. With COVID-19 rampaging its way across the globe, it is timely to look back at the Spanish flu of 1918-20. In Pale Rider (2017), a compelling history of that earlier pandemic, Laura Spinney writes: Between the first case recorded on March 4, 1918, and the last sometime in March 1920, it killed 50-100 million, or between 2.5 and 5 per cent of the global population a range that reflects the uncertainty that still surrounds it. Harold Gilman's Tea in the Bedsitter (1916). In trying to prevent a repeat of such horrors, we have resigned ourselves to an extended public health crisis and an economic black hole. The alternative, as shown by the outbreak of 1918-20, is so unthinkable that even those who lived through this period seem to have struggled to accept the scale of the disaster. In October 1918, Australia showed great prescience in introducing quarantine measures that forestalled the second lethal wave of the virus, allowing us to celebrate the November armistice without risk of infection. Pleased with this success, authorities lifted the protections too soon, allowing in a third wave which cost 12,000 lives. Could history be repeating itself? To forget the past is to risk making the same mistakes, but for one of the greatest human tragedies of all time, the Spanish flu has left a remarkably small cultural imprint. One obvious reason is that it overlapped the collective trauma of World War I. We are urged to never forget that man-made bloodbath, but the flu became unthinkable almost as soon as it was over. By Donald Kirk WASHINGTON The mayhem on the streets of some American cities may be more shocking to foreign TV watchers than to Americans. No other nation would permit such nonsense to go on for days on end. Where else would duly elected metropolitan mayors defend the trouble-makers as merely exercising their constitutional rights? Oh sure, the right to protest, as enshrined in the American constitution, may be more highly prized in the U.S. than in many other countries. Urban protest American-style, though, turns to violence that goes on and on with the blessing of significant, maybe predominant, sectors of the ruling elite, meaning members of Congress, state governors and lesser lights, all to the delight of prestigious news organizations. President Donald Trump and his henchmen, they say, are to blame for sending in "storm troopers" and "the gestapo," for bullying poor people as they exercise their right to free speech. The way federal forces from the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies have sought to defend federal buildings in Portland, Seattle and elsewhere invites comparisons to Korea. During the Candlelit Revolution of 2016 that brought about the downfall of Park Geun-hye's presidency, tens of thousands of police swarmed all over central Seoul and other cities. The hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who turned out almost nightly were loud and boisterous but proud to be peaceful. They posed no threat to stores and shops, many of which stayed open. Similarly, the same police made sure that the rightists waving American and South Korean flags, protesting the presidency of Moon Jae-in after the "snap election" of May 2017, stayed in line. No, Korean protesters were not always so disciplined. I remember very well the demonstrations during the late 1980s. The death of a student leader after having been arrested and tortured was critical in precipitating the movement that reached a crescendo in June 1987. Huge crowds engulfed central Seoul, forcing President Chun Doo-hwan to agree to a "democracy Constitution" and presidential elections every five years. Even so, another student died after being hit in the head by a tear-gas grenade. Nor did the protests stop with the election of Chun's military sidekick, Roh Tae-woo, as president in December 1987. I saw students throwing Molotov cocktails at rows of armored policemen before the Seoul Summer Olympics in September 1988. Tear gas hung heavy in the air, forcing demonstrators and onlookers like me to look for cover. I however did not see protesters in Korea engage in looting. There were no instances of mobs of vandals breaking into stores, hammering open ATM machines, ripping off everything in sight, notably drugs and liquor. Nor do I recall any assaults on courthouses. Certain political figures, whatever their sympathies and aspirations, were not seen nodding approvingly as demonstrators declared entire areas as "free zones." The violence in American cities was fueled initially by a single incident, the killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd by a rogue policeman who clamped a knee on his neck for more than eight minutes as he said, "I can't breathe," and then, dying, pleaded for his mother. Now, as more episodes of police killings have surfaced, the words "Defund the police" are a battle cry. Rising crime rates in cities torn apart by violence underscore the need for disciplined, highly trained police men and women everywhere. Cops have become targets in a movement that will have been a success only if it results in police reforms. Some commentators, though, are saying that Trump loves the protests, that they will garner him votes in the presidential election in November. Trump is sure to profit, so they say, while millions of Americans recoil at the violence they see on TV and computer screens and the assaults against law officers, whether from local police departments or federal agencies. That's a pretty facile conspiracy theory that doesn't have that much truth in it. Like it or not, the federal government has to take charge if politicians, eager to enhance their popularity and dead set against Trump, cynically support protests that turn violent and destructive. Not just hundreds but thousands of police reinforcements will need to be deployed. As in Korea, the job of the police should be to stop violence, vandalism, mindless attacks on property and institutions. Maybe Americans should look to the Korean example for lessons in the ability of an overwhelming police presence to keep the peace without repressing the right of people to gather by the thousands in often quite loud political protest. ) writes from Seoul as well as Washington. Donald Kirk ( www.donaldkirk.com Former Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa on Friday dismissed claims that the Rafale fighter jets inducted by the Indian Air Force this week had no chance against Chinas J-20 stealth fighter. The claims, made by an expert in Chinese Communist Partys tabloid Global Times, said that the Rafale was only superior to the IAFs Sukhoi-30 MKI jets but a generation below Chinese PLAs J-20 fighter. It is only about one-fourth of a generation more advanced and does not yield a significant qualitative change, Zhang Xuefeng, who was described by the communist partys propaganda website as a Chinese military expert, said. Also Read: Indian Air Force with Rafale has plan to take the fight to China The website, quoting unnamed experts claimed, that Rafale is only a third-plus generation fighter jet, and does not stand much of a chance against a stealth, fourth generation one like the J-20. Ex-IAF chief Dhanoa, who has described the 4.5 generation Rafale fighter jets as a game changer for the IAF, responded to the Chinese claim with two simple questions. Former Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa had pushed for the purchase of the Rafale 4.5 generation fighter jets (Twitter/@IAF_MCC) If the J-20, also called the Mighty Dragon, is indeed a fifth generation stealth fighter, then why does it have canards while genuine 5th generation fighters such as the US F 22, F 35 and Russian fifth generation Su 57 dont, Dhanoa asked. Also Watch | Rafale boost for Air Force: How it helps Indias air power amid China tension Also Read: Rafale is a game changer, Chinese J 20 does not even come close, says former air chief Dhanoa Canards are fuselage-mounted small, forward wings located forward of the main wing to improve aircraft control and contribute to lift. They are considered to present large angular surfaces that tend to reflect radar signals. I dont think J-20 is stealthy enough to be called a fifth generation fighter as the canard increases the radar signature of the fighter and gives away its position to a long-range meteor missile that the Rafale has, he said. The other question the former IAF chief has for the Chinese is: Why cant the J-20 supercruise if it is really a 5th generation fighter as its manufacturer Chengdu Aerospace Corporation calls it. Supercruise is the ability of a fighter jet to fly at speeds above Mach 1 - the speed of sound - without the use of afterburners, the additional combustion component used on some jet engines to increase thrust. Also Read: Twin naval exercises with US supercarriers signal QUAD has arrived The Rafale has the supercruiseaility and its radar signature is comparable to the best of the fighters in the world, Dhanoa told Hindustan Times. Dhanoa has flown top of the line Indian fighter aircraft including Sukhoi 30 MKI. He was the man responsible for targeting the Pakistani intruders on Drass, Kargil, Battalik heights and spearheaded the Balakot air strikes along with National Security Adviser Ajit Doval. The retired top air force officer had earlier this week shredded the Chinese propaganda of superior air capability, wondering that if the Chinese equipment was so good, Pakistan would have used its Chinese JF-17 and not the F-16 aircraft to attack Nangi Tekri brigade in Rajouri sector on 27 February 2019. But Pakistan used the Chinese JF-17 to merely give air defence cover to its Mirage 3/5 bombers. Or why Chinas iron brother uses Swedish early air warning platforms up north and the keep Chinese AWACS in the south. Incidentally, India is expected to get 12 more Sukhoi 30 MKI and 21 MiG 29s next year from Russia. According to diplomats based in Moscow, the Su-30 MKI will look better, shoot better, and fight better. The MiG 29 will be used for setting up a new squadron in Jamnagar in Gujarat and will have the same capability as the MiG 29 that India currently has. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The NFU is backing a 'much-needed' campaign calling for British wool to be mandatory for insulating in the governments new home insulation scheme. The petition aims to deliver a new, long-term market for the fibre as wool prices have fallen substantially below the price of shearing for many producers. It also calls for British wool products to be mandatory for insulation and carpeting in any public financed building projects. It comes as increasing reports show that many farmers are incorporating wool fleeces into the manure heap rather than selling to British Wool. NFU livestock board chairman and North Yorkshire sheep farmer, Richard Findlay said the campaign was 'much-needed' given the current climate. "It is a natural, sustainable product and is suitable for a range of uses from carpets, textiles and clothing as well as housing insulation," he said. At a time when were all concerned about our own impact on the environment, it makes sense that the government does all it can to encourage the building trade to use a natural product like wool rather than using man-made products. The online petition, which has now received over 18,000 signatures as of Friday (31 July), says wool is 'sustainable, fire-retardant, bio-degradable, and the most efficient form of insulation'. The petition's campaigners say sheep farmers receive less for their wool than the cost of shearing the sheep. "Last year David Jones received 28p a fleece and paid the shearer 1. This year the value it set to drop by at least half. "He and many other farmer's across the country, decision to plough their wool into the fields as fertiliser," they say. Farmers have also raised concerns that following the Brexit transition period, producers may be further affected by possible new tariffs on sheep meat of at least 40%. Currently over half of the UK's sheep exports go to the EU, but producers fear they will never be substituted by trade deals with the USA or Japan, for example. "Sheep farmers' incomes are being squeezed at every point," campaigners explained. The signatures will eventually be delivered by hand to the Chancellor at Downing Street and Defra Secretary George Eustice. Quarterly Activities Report and 5B Cashflow - June 2020 Brisbane, July 31, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Alligator Energy Limited ( ASX:AGE ) is pleased to release the 30 June 2020 Quarterly Report.Uranium- Alligator acquiring 47Mlb U3O8 resource in South Australia from Samphire Uranium (Refer ASX announcement 11 June 2020)- SA Government Accelerated Development Initiative co-funding awarded for Big Lake Uranium (BLU) project up to $152,400- Native title access agreement drafts being progressed for BLU- Exploration strategy and target development underway for the Nabarlek North tenements- Easing restrictions and tenement access anticipated soon for both NT and SA projectsEnergy Minerals- Piedmont drill permits granted with renewal of Alpe Laghetto licence and Castilo Di Gavala licence confirmedCorporate- JMEI Credits totalling $336,958 distributed to eligible shareholders who participated in the 2018-2019 capital raisings- 30 June cash of $0.9 mill with planned injection of approx $0.7 mill at the conclusion of the Samphire project transaction - late Sept / early Oct- The SA Govt advised a deferral of exploration tenement fees until 31 December 2020, and a 12-month waiver of expenditure commitments- The NT Govt has allowed payment plans for ongoing tenements fees and reductions in exploration commitmentsPlans for the forthcoming quarter- Finalise Samphire project acquisition- Progress and finalise BLU native title agreements- Develop BLU geophysics plan and contractor engagement- ARUP work program meetings and planning- Continue to pursue future opportunities and external project evaluations in Alligator's areas of commodity focus- Re-start strategic investor discussions for Piedmont project- Continue to minimise expenditure while retaining asset integrity and forward planningTo view the quarterly report, please visit:About Alligator Energy Ltd Alligator Energy Ltd (ASX:AGE) is an Australian, ASX-listed, exploration company focused on uranium and energy related minerals, principally cobalt-nickel. Alligator's Directors have significant experience in the exploration, development and operations of both uranium and nickel projects (both laterites and sulphides). A Florida woman was arrested after she attacked her husband, gave him a black eye, and smashed his guitar after finding him cheating with another woman. Nicole Denison, a 29-year-old flight attendant for Allegiant Air, was shocked when she returned to her home in Safety Harbor, near Tampa, and found her husband 'engaged in sexual intercourse' with another woman on July 22. Denison allegedly punched her 34-year-old husband 'in his left eye causing a "black eye"', according to police records seen by The Smoking Gun. Florida woman Nicole Denison, 29, was arrested Wednesday for attacking her husband last week after finding him cheating with another woman Denison is a flight attendant for Allegiant Airlines She and her husband, a bartender and fitness instructor, have been married for nearly three years. She also scratched his forehead and left him with a bruise on his right arm. In her rage Denison took her husbands acoustic guitar and smashed it against the wall, 'leaving a gaping hole in the wall.' According to social media Denison's husband is Mike Denison, who posted multiple posts praising his wife, including one in March According to social media Denison's husband shared this post in 2019 to his wife The arrest affidavit noted Denison had 'indications of alcohol influence.' The arresting officers claim they witnessed the damage Denison inflicted to the home and to her husband. She was arrested Wednesday morning for domestic battery, a misdemeanor, and booked into the county jail. She was later released Thursday on her own recognizance. A judge has allowed Denison to continue having contact with the victim. According to social media Denison's husband is Mike Denison, who posted multiple posts praising his wife, including one in March. 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The NSW government on Friday released a draft strategy to reshape the suburb over the next two decades, which includes allowing buildings of up to 180 metres on the site of The Star, and almost 170 metres in the area where the Harbourside shopping centre is located. Planning and Public Spaces Minister Rob Stokes released a draft strategy for Pyrmont on Friday. Credit:Peter Braig Cr Moore said the government's proposed strategy for Pyrmont must not become an exercise in retro-fitting controls to justify The Star's "inappropriate tower". "It is deeply disappointing to see The Stars zombie tower rise from the dead," she said. "Future development in the precinct should prioritise jobs and industries of the future, not gambling." ETRI develops eco-friendly color thin-film solar cells Research on solar cells to secure renewable energy sources are ongoing around the world. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) in South Korea succeeded in developing eco-friendly color Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) thin-film solar cells. CIGS thin-film solar cells are used to convert sunlight into electrical energy and are made by coating multiple thin films on a glass substrate. They have a relatively higher absorption coefficient among non-silicon based cells, resulting in high conversion efficiency and long stability. Also, they require less raw materials compared to silicon-based cells; hence less process and material costs. One downside has been the difficulty in commercialization as they use the buffer layer which contains toxic heavy metal, cadmium. Thus, the ETRI team replaced the cadmium sulfide (CdS) buffer layer with zinc (Zn) based materials-- which is not harmful -- and managed to achieve approximately 18% conversion efficiency; thus eliminating the obstacle to commercialization. Likewise, the availability of more than 7 colors including purple, green, and blue -- without the need for additional process or cost -- means one step closer to full-on commercialization. Moreover, the researchers succeeded in identifying a new analysis method using photo-pumping terahertz spectroscopy and a mechanism for improving the conversion efficiency of solar cells with Zn-based buffer layers. The solar cells are only 3? thick and can be coated on a flexible substrate as well as a glass substrate. This means that they could be bent or folded, expanding applications as a next-generation eco-friendly energy source. "This technology will contribute to the solar power system development through the production of high value-added color photovoltaic modules," said Yong-Duck Chung, the ETRI principal researcher. The excellence of the research was proven by its publication in 'Nano Energy' and 'Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications' as the cover article, globally esteemed international journals in the energy sector. ### About Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) ETRI is a non-profit government-funded research institute. Since its foundation in 1976, ETRI, a global ICT research institute, has been making its immense effort to provide Korea a remarkable growth in the field of ICT industry. ETRI delivers Korea as one of the top ICT nations in the World, by unceasingly developing world's first and best technologies. This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. A bomb explosion in Maiduguri the capital of Borno State has killed at least five people, injured several others few hours to the Sallah celebrations. Reports say the explosion occurred around Custom area, along Tashan Bama road on Thursday evening while the residents prepared for their Sallah celebrations . The Commissioner of Police in the state, Mohammed Ndatsu, while confirming the attack and the casualty figure said it was not clear what explosive was used for the attack, only a bomb specialist could explain that. He said, We have dispatched our explosive ordinance detection (EOD) team to investigate the incidents and to determine whether improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were used. The attack was carried out by insurgents, he added. The first bomb was said to have landed at a shop in the commercial area, killing a furniture maker and his son. Anothe also landed in a house at Gwange area while a child and a goat were killed. Two other people were struck in a blast at the third location, bringing the number of those killed to five. Officials of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, have evacuated the bodies of the victims from the scenes of the blasts. In Korea there are rumors that the USFK's Apache helicopter battalion could pull out, despite recent denials from the Defense Ministry here about any discussion over USFK reduction. Trump harped on his favorite theme on Wednesday amid plummeting approval ratings. "We spend a lot of money on Germany, they take advantage of us on trade and they take advantage on the military, so we're reducing the force," he told reporters. "We don't want to be responsible any more." There is speculation that the USFK will be another reduction target if U.S. President Donald Trump stays in office long enough to push it through since he is demanding more money for their upkeep than Seoul is willing to pay. Worries are mounting here over the threat of a reduction of the U.S. Forces Korea after Washington on Wednesday announced the pullout of about 12,000 troops from Germany. On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department announced that James DeHart, who had been leading the stalled defense cost-sharing talks with Korea, has moved to coordinator for the Arctic region. No successor has been announced. "It would not be surprising at all if Trump made the same decision on Korea as long as did in Germany," a diplomatic source said. Through a separate diplomatic channel, Washington has demanded a 13 percent increase in USFK upkeep costs each year under a three-year deal, but Seoul is unlikely to bite. A source in Washington said Wednesday, "I understand that Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun offered a 13.6 percent increase for the first year under a three-year deal," when he was on a visit in Seoul on July 7-9. In late April, Seoul made a final offer of a five-year deal, including a 13 percent hike in the first year and a seven to eight percent each year thereafter. "Trump hasn't approved this plan yet," the source added. It appears Korea is more and more minded to sit out Trump and negotiate with his successor on the assumption that he loses the November presidential election. The rumors about the Apache battalion, meanwhile, seem to stem from its comparative inactivity here recently. According to data from military authorities, the battalion has trained only for 40 days this year although it needs training for at least 64 days a year. The USFK had to stop helicopter live-fire training at Rodriguez live fire range in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province in the face of protest from locals and then encountered another round of protest from locals in a different shooting range in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province. "Apache helicopter pilots will have serious difficulties including reduced paychecks and disadvantages in promotions unless they train themselves for a certain amount of time," a military source said. "For this reason, their commander must try to provide them with an appropriate training environment," if necessary somewhere else. When the battalion was redeployed here in 2017, the USFK included a guaranteed proper training environment as a condition for its redeployment, another military source said. On camels, horses and motorbikes, dozens of Arab militiamen stormed into the remote village in Darfur, in western Sudan, firing wildly, witnesses said. Houses were pillaged, animals stolen and water tanks smashed. Villagers ran for their lives. United Nations peacekeepers scrambled to the scene but said they found the road blocked by obstacles placed in their way, and continued on foot. When they arrived after 2 1/2 hours, it was too late. At least nine people lay dead, including a 15-year-old boy, and another 20 were seriously wounded, according to the United Nations. The attack in Fata Bornu, a remote hamlet of 4,000 people, echoes the grimmest days of the Darfur conflict in the 2000s. But it happened just this month over a year since euphoric protests toppled Omar al-Bashir, the detested dictator whose alleged atrocities in Darfur earned him an indictment on genocide charges in an international court. Now al-Bashir languishes in jail and Sudan is run by a joint civilian-military government that has promised to usher in a new era of democracy, and finally after 17 years of suffering bring peace to Darfur. But while the revolution brought some change to Sudans cities, that is not the case in Darfur, where the notorious janjaweed nomadic Arab militias still ride free. Heavily armed gangs continue to massacre, plunder and rape in scorched-earth tactics that recall the worst days of al-Bashirs rule. And the Sudanese military has faced accusations of negligence, as in Fata Bornu, or even being complicit. They stand silent in front of the janjaweed attacks, said Adam Mohamed, a senior leader of Darfurs displaced community, in a telephone interview. They do nothing. The tempo of violence quickened in recent days with another 60 civilians massacred on Saturday in an assault by about 500 Arab militiamen, according to the United Nations the deadliest attack in months. Two days earlier, 15 people were killed in a different part of Darfur, local news media reported. After Saturdays massacre, in Masteri village in West Darfur state, Sudans civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, promised to send the police and army reinforcements to protect citizens and the farming season. But distrust of the security forces runs high in Darfur, where the military has an ignominious history of manipulating, and frequently directing, ethnic violence, according to human rights groups. When you see attacks like this one, and its just another Tuesday in Darfur, you realize that not much has changed since the revolution, said Cameron Hudson, a former State department official and Sudan expert at the Atlantic Councils Africa Center, a research group, speaking of the attack on Fata Bornu. While Sudans dictator has been vanquished, his legacy has proved harder to dismantle, and the transition to democracy has stalled perilously in key areas. A transitional legislature, announced last year, has yet to be formed. The youthful democracy campaigners who helped to oust al-Bashir have split into factions. A campaign to get the United States to lift its designation of Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, which perpetuates Sudans pariah status and blocks foreign investment, has run into sand. And the countrys transitional government, which is supposed to pave the way for a general election in 2022, is troubled by tensions between military and civilian leaders, Western diplomats say, as well as periodic rumors of a military coup. Young Darfuris were at the forefront of last years uprising, when some were arrested and tortured by al-Bashirs security forces. Their high profile fueled their expectations that the revolution might bring radical change to Darfur. But the dynamic of the conflict remains the same. The war in Darfur erupted in 2003 when Darfuri rebels, angered by long-standing discrimination against the regions non-Arab population, rose up against the government. Al-Bashir hit back by arming the janjaweed, who killed thousands of civilians monthly at the height of the war, in attacks that the International Criminal Court has classified as genocide. The United Nations estimates that at least 300,000 people have died in a conflict that decreased in recent years, but never stopped. Since the ouster of al-Bashir in April 2019, one of the most powerful figures in the new government, to the dismay of many Darfuris, has been Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, a commander whose Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries have been linked to atrocities in Darfur. Hamdan is now part of a government-led effort to negotiate peace with two Darfuri rebel groups. But many Darfuris see the talks as little more than window-dressing because the largest rebel group, led by a former lawyer, Abdul Wahid al Nur, has spurned them. The escalating crisis comes just as the international community is shifting attention away from Sudan. The United Nations peacekeeping mission to Darfur, formed in 2007, is expected to shut down by the end of the year. And Western governments have slashed their aid budgets for Sudan, even as the pandemic plunges the country deeper into poverty. Some 9.6 million people urgently need food aid, the most ever for Sudan, according to the United Nations. Foreign officials, eager to prop up Sudans shaky transition to democracy, appear to be reluctant to point blame at its fledgling government when trouble erupts in Darfur. After the attack on Fata Bornu on July 13, the U.N. peacekeeping mission, which is run jointly with the African Union, framed the violence as a seasonal dispute between herders and pastoralists. The farming seasons in Darfur have witnessed such occurrences in the past, it said in a statement. The top U.S. State Department official for Africa, Tibor Nagy, reinforced that narrative a day later with praise on Twitter for cooperation between Sudanese security forces and U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur. But internal U.N. reports reviewed by The New York Times, as well as interviews with Darfuri tribal leaders and U.N. officials, paint a different picture. The villagers, mostly people displaced by earlier fighting, had been protesting for two weeks before the attack. They demanded the resignation of the local governor, Maj. Gen. Malik Al-Tayeb Khojaly, accusing him of siding with the local Arab community. On July 12, Khojaly responded to the villagers demands by withdrawing security from the area, villagers told U.N. officials. The Arab militiamen, who were at least 100 strong, attacked the next morning. The U.N. peacekeepers, mostly from Senegal, heard gunfire and saw plumes of smoke as they approached the camp. When a contingent of at least 130 peacekeepers finally arrived, they found terrified villagers huddled outside a school or hiding in the bushes. It was unclear if Sudanese troops had stood aside to allow the attack to take place, but an internal U.N. report pointedly noted their absence. None of the GoS security forces were on the ground to defend the IDPs, it said, using shorthand for the Sudanese government and internally displaced people. A spokesman for the Khartoum government did not respond to requests for comment. An official delegation visited Fata Bornu and promised to investigate the attack. Ashraf Eissa, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeepers, said the mission was doing its best to protect civilians in the parts of Darfur where it still deployed. Since 2018, the mission has closed bases across Darfur and reduced its strength to 6,500 peacekeepers, down from 19,500. This is a mission in exit mode, he said. Beyond Darfur, last years revolution has brought some significant changes to Sudan. Al-Bashirs once-powerful Islamist party has been dissolved and Hamdok, a mild-mannered technocrat, has introduced a raft of modernizing legal reforms. Female genital cutting has been outlawed. Women can no longer be arrested for wearing clothing deemed insufficiently modest, and flogging has been abolished for all lawbreakers. The apostasy laws have been scrapped, Christians are allowed to consume alcohol, and any citizen can leave Sudan without an exit visa. Gay sex is no longer punishable by the death penalty, though it is still subject to a seven-year jail sentence. And al-Bashir, 76, is behind bars. Sentenced to two years imprisonment for corruption in December, the deposed autocrat reappeared in court last week to face separate charges over the 1989 military coup that catapulted him to power. If convicted, he faces the death penalty. On June 30, frustration with the slow pace of change prompted giant street protests across Sudan, the first since last year. Freedom, peace and justice, chanted the crowds, echoing a slogan of the anti-Bashir movement. One of the protests took place in Fata Bornu. But many other Darfuris, abandoning their dreams of change, have fled to Libya to try the perilous sea crossing to Europe, or have ended up in refugee camps in neighboring Chad. The Khartoum government is telling them to be patient, said Jerome Tubiana, co-author of a recent report on the exodus for the Small Arms Survey, a research institute in Switzerland. But they dont trust them. For many, the enemy is no longer Bashir its the center of Sudan. Civil society leaders in Darfur say it is crucial that some form of peacekeeping mission step in when the U.N. mission leaves Darfur. We need to protect the lives of the people, said El Sadig Hassan, secretary-general of the Darfur Bar Association. Otherwise, the crisis will continue. Mayor Ron Nirenbergs and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolffs effort to delay the start of in-school instruction this fall in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus was shot down Friday. Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republican leaders affirmed what Attorney General Ken Paxton said earlier this week: Local health officials cant order schools closed in advance because students, teachers and staff might get infected. Such orders can be valid only after an outbreak, they said. Nirenberg and Wolff strongly disagreed with the states stance, saying it misinterprets the Texas health and safety code. Still, Nirenberg acknowledged it rendered unenforceable a San Antonio Metropolitan Health District order that had prohibited in-person instruction in Bexar County schools until after Sept. 7, Labor Day. Nirenberg and Wolff said they hoped districts would honor the local order anyway and use remote instruction until the rapidly spreading coronavirus is under control. Abbotts statement, though not binding, has not changed what the guidance from our public health authority says, which is that its not wise to open up right now in person, Nirenberg said. Next week, Metro Health will alter its order of July 17, making it a recommendation only, a change that could lead to others. Parents who thought they knew what to expect about the start of school now will have to watch their districts for possible adjustments in policies and schedules next week. Already, the Boerne and Comal ISDs, relying on Paxtons opinion, with backing from the Texas Education Agency, sidestepped Metro Healths order and decided to open their schools in Bexar County seven in all for in-person instruction in August. That matches the schedule for their other schools, which are not subject to a health order from their respective counties. Southwest ISD Superintendent Lloyd Verstuyft said that in light of the changes Friday, his district might allow a small fraction of students into classrooms before Labor Day. Southwest, one of the larger districts in Bexar County, had tentatively planned to start all-virtual learning Aug. 18 for three weeks, through Sept. 11. Verstuyft is concerned about the students who face technological challenges, language barriers or learning disabilities that prevent them from learning remotely. On the other hand, he said, Theres virtue in remote learning right now because the health and safety of students is our first priority, so theres no do-overs if something would happen. He hopes to give families more concrete answers next week. Its going to be based on what the COVID landscape looks like as we get closer to (the start of school), and I would encourage all parents to make decisions that put their child in the best possible position to be safe, he said. Judson ISD still plans to begin the school year with four weeks of virtual learning, spokesman Steve Linscomb said, but the district is surveying employees on possible delays to the Aug. 18 start date. The citys largest districts Northside, North East and San Antonio have already announced theyd start the year remotely, thanks to a transition period of up to eight weeks the TEA is allowing districts. To clear up confusion among parents, teachers and staff about school safety, Metro Healths recommendation next week will be based on the latest COVID data. Schools will have to provide infection data to Metro Health so the agency can closely monitor them for outbreaks. The city will have a virtual town hall meeting about the reopening of schools from 7 to 8 p.m. Wednesday on Facebook live. While Abbott stopped short of revoking Metro Healths order, which he had the power to do, he made it clear he does not agree it. Local health authorities do not have the power to issue pre-emptive, blanket closures of schools weeks or months in advance of when a school may open its doors to students, he said. Local health authorities may order schools closed in response to a campus outbreak. If one happens, the school could be closed for five days for sanitizing. In that case, the district would continue receiving full funding, he said. Additionally, districts may be able to continue teaching remotely after the allotted eight-week transition period but only on a case-by-case basis, with the decision left to the TEA, he said. He did not give details about the requirements school districts must meet to suspend in-school instruction. Even if districts reopen campuses, children can opt to remain at home, continue online-only classes and still receive course credit. Republican state Sen. Pete Flores, whose district covers much of Southwest and South San Antonio ISDs and about half of South Side ISD, lauded Abbotts move. In a state as large and diverse as ours, blanket orders often do more harm than good, he said in a statement. Local school district leaders know their community best. They will make the right decision for their students. San Antonio ISD Superintendent Pedro Martinez said Abbotts statement didnt change his approach to reopening and, if necessary, seeking help from Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath. Were going to do whats right for our community and we will continue advocating with the commissioner. If cases remain high, I feel very comfortable in talking directly to the commissioner and saying, Commissioner, we just do not feel safe in either increasing the number of children or we just feel we need to stay remote for a much longer period. And I am confident that at least that will be taken into consideration. Maybe Im being overly naive or optimistic, Martinez said. Required Reading: Get San Antonio education news sent directly to your inbox Northeast ISD Superintendent Sean Maika said in a statement: I am pleased they have decided to grant more flexibility to individual districts so that we can use our local context to make the best decisions for our students and staff, and that there is the potential to not lose funding. Wolff, a Democrat, acknowledged that at least Abbott had appeared to clear up some confusion about the authority of health officials, but still he disagreed with taking decisions about the safety of schools out of their hands. Local leaders had hoped to use the month of August to contain the spread of the virus and bring the infection rate down to around 5 percent. Now, the percentage of those who test positive for COVID-19 is about 18 percent, and the daily case count continues to climb by the hundreds, if not more than 1,000. We just have to live with what it is and hope that weve got this thing under better control than what weve got now, Wolff said. Krista Torralva covers several school districts and public universities in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Krista, become a subscriber. Krista.Torralva@express-news.net | Twitter: @KMTorralva | 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 Occurred on July 10, 2020 / Pueblo, Colorado, USA Info from Licensor: "I was staying in a hotel in Pueblo, Colorado while visiting from Indiana. While I was getting ready to check out of the motel I walked outside the side door where I noticed the shadow of a kitten dive under my car. I got down on my knees to look under the car, where I saw the hind legs of the kitten jump up into the engine. At that point, I knew I couldn't leave because there was what I presumed to be a kitten in my engine. I spent the morning trying to get the kitten out, but I could not reach it. So, I walked over to Captain D's and bought a fish sandwich. I used tiny pieces of fish to lure the kitten out of the engine. When the kitten was within reach, I grabbed it and put it in the car." Nurses David Yamada, left, and Emily Carrera hold signs at a protest over working conditions due to the COVID-19 pandemic outside the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif., on July 29, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) UCLA Nurses Protest, Demand Better Protection Against COVID-19 Several hundred nurses gathered in protest outside the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, on July 29, calling for better protection in their front-line fight against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The nurses say staffing in the medical center has been decreased and protective supplies are insufficient, creating unsafe conditions for both the staff and patients of the hospital. The rally took place shortly after noon within a hundred yards of the entrance to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center near the University of Californias Westwood campus. Many health care workers wore red T-shirts and held signs printed by the California Nurses Association and the National Nurses United union, citing the need for safer working conditions and improved staffing measures. Nurse Emily Carrera told The Epoch Times that the protesters want administrators at the medical center to do their part and work together with them to ensure safe working conditions at the facility. If staff rates get cut, things get unsafe. We put our lives on the line, Carrera said. We want to work with them as a team. Testing for COVID-19 has become a significant issue for nurses and workers at UCLA Medical Center, according to Carrera. You have to have symptoms of the virus to get tested at our hospital, she said. If an employee is asymptomatic, they have to get tested elsewhere, Carrera said. We have to go to L.A. County health care facilities and ask for a test, she said. We have had nurses here who tested positive with COVID-19, and once they are back at work it gets really unnerving. A nurse holds a sign at a protest over staffing and safety due to the COVID-19 pandemic at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif., on July 29, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Participants hold signs at a protest by nurses over working conditions due to COVID-19 at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif., on July 29, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Nurses and other health care workers gather to protest working conditions due to COVID-19 near the entrance of the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif., on July 29, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Jason Rabinowitz, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 2010, told The Epoch Times that his union, which represents state employees in higher education, supported the gathering to call attention to recent layoffs. The UC [University of California] system has billions of dollars in resources and should use that before laying people off, Rabinowitz said. The UCLA Westwood Medical Center had not replied to requests for comment by The Epoch Times prior to publication. Nurse David Yamada spoke at the event. He called on the UCLA Medical Center to put patient needs before profits. Providing high quality care is not accomplished by cutting back on staffing at the hospital, he said. Yamada told The Epoch Times that he is concerned for his teams safetyespecially regarding the hospitals policy on the reuse of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)and said the staff is seeing unsafe and unhealthy practices with our PPE. UCLA [Medical Center] currently decontaminates our N95 Respirator masks and expects nurses to reuse these masks to care for COVID-19 patients. To date there is no conclusive evidence that this practice is safe, and nurses should not be expected to reuse their masks until we have conclusive scientific data which shows this is a healthy option for nurses and patients, Yamada said. The lunchtime protest lasted about an hour, and took place amid growing frustration by health care workers across Southern California as COVID-19 cases surge throughout the state. An earlier protest by registered nurses was scheduled to take place across town at the PIH Health-Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, also calling attention to inadequate staffing, poor nurse-to-patient ratios, and lack of protective equipment. Despite his concerns, Yamada acknowledges that the UCLA Medical Center is one of the best hospital facilities in the nation. UCLA is number four in the nation, according to U.S. News and World [Reports] best hospitals ranking, Yamada said. I am proud to be working at UCLA. The sum of Irans compensation for the downing of UIAs flight PS752 is still unknown, but Iran has agreed to fulfill all its obligations under the conventions to which it is a party. There is no answer to the question of what the sum of compensation will be, because it is calculated on the basis of a number of factors, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said at a briefing, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. He noted that the talks with the Iranian delegation, which arrived in Ukraine, had ended late at night, lasted 11 hours and were "constructive." "We should point out the problem-solving attitude of the Iranian delegation. There is an agreement and an understanding that Iran should carry out the most transparent and impartial technical investigation, Kuleba said. According to him, the delegations touched upon the whole range of issues yesterday, discussed everything in detail, and achieved three main results. The first result, according to Kuleba, is that Iran joined the talks to establish all the circumstances of the tragedy, bring all responsible liable, and pay all necessary compensation. The Ukrainian minister added that "Iran has agreed to fulfill all its obligations under international conventions in the field of aviation, to which it is a party." In addition, an agreement with the Iranian side was reached to divide the further negotiation process into several levels. "Investigators, technical experts, and lawyers will work in order to determine all the circumstances, all the legal and technical nuances of this situation. It will be possible to calculate the sum of compensation on the basis of this information," Kuleba added. Ukraine acts "as a driving force" in the talks with Iran and negotiates on behalf of all countries, whose citizens died in the plane crash, he reminded. "We are ready for constructive cooperation with the Iranian side if they share this attitude. If we see that the process is artificially delayed, we are ready for alternative scenarios. I assure you that we will make every effort and we are ready to gain justice and compensation for all damages in every possible way, the Ukrainian minister stressed. As reported, Irans delegation arrived in Kyiv to participate in talks on compensation for downing UIAs flight PS752. The Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) plane (flight PS752) heading from Tehran to Kyiv crashed shortly after it took off from the Imam Khomeini International Airport at about 06:00 Tehran time (04:30 Kyiv time) on January 8. There were 176 people on board nine crew members (all Ukrainians) and 167 passengers (citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, Germany, and the UK). All passengers and crew were killed in the crash. On July 18, France's Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authority (BEA) received Flight PS752s recorders from Iran. On July 24, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Yevhenii Yenin informed that the transcript from Flight PS752s recorders had confirmed illegal interference with the plane. ol The Lunt family from Bath, in western England, had planned to visit Spain this summer, but like so many British holidaymakers have had their plans upended by the coronavirus pandemic. The family-of-five, who had booked two weeks on the Balearic island of Majorca next month, have now decided to swap the azure waters of the Mediterranean for the cooler currents of the North Atlantic and a holiday in the southwest English county Cornwall. The family were worried they might test positive for the virus on arrival in Spain and have to spend their holiday in self-isolation. "We were worried about having our temperature taken at the airport and potentially having to quarantine for two weeks," Rosie Lunt, mother to a boy and two girls aged between five and nine, told AFP. But their change of plans proved to be a good decision, since they would have faced quarantine anyway when they returned to Britain, thanks to new rules imposed this weekend by the UK government. - Quarantine spat - The hastily-imposed new regulations, announced Saturday, followed a spike in virus cases in mainland Spain but drew criticism from the travel sector and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez who insisted his country was safe for travellers. In addition to the minor diplomatic fallout, the decision has again exposed the fragility of the tourist market and the plight of people and places who rely on it. Spain is particularly hard-hit with the Exceltur tourism association estimating it could wipe out almost 9 billion euros of revenue in August and September alone. The damage goes both ways. British tour operators, who organise millions of summer visits to Spain each year, face "major financial implications", said travel trade association ABTA. The UK tourists who throng Spanish resorts each year -- partying in Ibiza, sunbathing on the Costa Brava and eating full English breakfasts in the Costa del Sol -- have all but vanished. Spain is the most popular destination for British tourists, ahead of France and the US. More than 18 million of them visited Spain in each of the last three years, almost a quarter of the country's total visitors, according to market researchers Euromonitor. Within days of the quarantine rollout, Britain's biggest tour operator TUI said it was scrapping flights to Spain until early August, and on Thursday announced it was cutting 166 shops in Britain and Ireland. On Friday, low-cost airline Jet2 announced it was cancelling flights to islands including Gran Canaria and Menorca until August 9 and asked some tourists to end their Spanish holidays early, saying it was "responding to a very fast-moving situation". - Travel trade disaster - It seems unlikely that Spain will remain the only destination to be affected by the new quarantine rules. UK ministers are said to be watching other countries closely, including Croatia and Belgium. The TSSA union, which represents staff in UK travel agencies, told AFP that any decision to expand the quarantine "would be a disaster for the travel trade, a real body blow for the industry". "Nobody wants a repeat of the collapse of Thomas Cook which cost the taxpayer over 158 million," said TSSA leader, Manuel Cortes. British travel group Thomas Cook went bust in 2019, leaving hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers stranded abroad. So far, UK government ministers have urged people to continue booking holidays but to be "aware of the risk". The British government on Saturday said anyone returning from Spain will have to self-isolate for 14 days As UK joined the ranks of major countries that have openly rejected the SFJs Referendum 2020, chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday called upon SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal to open his eyes to the secessionist threat of anti-Indian forces instead of indulging in political theatrics over the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA, which their own government had used extensively during their tenure. Welcoming UKs statement on Referendum 2020, Amarinder expressed surprise that Sukhbir continues to turn a blind eye to the threat posed by Pakistan-backed Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), and other terrorist and radical forces working to destabilise India, particularly Punjab. Cant he (Sukhbir) see that the arrests under the UAPA, which he is opposing, are part of the state governments strategy to combat this threat? he questioned. After Canada, the UK has now come out with a categorical statement that it is not involved in any way in this unofficial and non-binding referendumand considers Indian Punjab as part of India, according to a state government release. Amarinder reminded the SAD chief of his earlier offer to look into any case of misuse of the UAPA and wrongful arrest under the same. Why dont you send me the list of cases which you claim the police have registered wrongfully? he asked SAD chief, while seeking a list of the names of those arrested under UAPA during the SAD-BJP rule. The CM said the Badal government had registered more than 60 cases under the UAPA during their term. Of the 225 persons arrested in these cases, 120 were either acquitted or discharged. Should the large number of acquittals/discharges not be construed to mean you had applied the Act indiscriminately? Captain Amarinder asked Sukhbir, questioning his motives in giving a communal twist to some of the recent arrests made by the Punjab Police under UAPA. Amarinder said that if the Akalis believed the UAPA to be anti-people and divisive, then Sukhbir, as deputy CM and home minister in the erstwhile SAD-BJP government, should not have applied it in so many cases. The Congress, which was in opposition then, had assumed that the UAPA was being used to keep terror in check in the state, he added. He also accused the Akali leader of trying to create a divide between communities with his senseless attack on the state governments attempts to check the anti-Punjab forces from succeeding in their game plan. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 30 Trend: The taxes worth up to 16 million manat ($9.4 million) from notarial activities were transferred to the Azerbaijani state budget, Trend reports on July 30 referring to the statement made at a meeting of the collegium of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Justice, held in the format of a video conference and dedicated to the work carried out this year and the tasks ahead. About 1.8 million notarial actions were registered, as well as more than 133,000 operations were carried out in connection with the state registration of acts of civil status in the first half of the year. In connection with these operations, the taxes worth about 3.5 million manat ($2.05 million) were transferred to the state budget and up to 16 million manat ($9.4 million) upon real estate contracts. The Prime Minister raised a chubby paw aloft like an overzealous lollipop lady and announced in that peculiarly elastic voice he was calling things to a halt. His easing of lockdown, which hed moved along at a lickety-split pace these past few weeks, was being stopped dead in its tracks. We should squeeze that brake pedal, he announced. His spoke in long, decompressed tones, the way a jockey might soothe a wayward horse or an adult try to get a giddy toddler to cool it. So, back we were again in the Downing Street briefing room, that dreary oak-panelled space which for some reason always reminds me of the boring cocktail parties I used to cover as a young reporter. The Prime Minister raised a chubby paw aloft like an overzealous lollipop lady and announced in that peculiarly elastic voice he was calling things to a halt Id rather hoped we were done with these coronavirus briefings. But with infections spiking back to over 4,000 a day it was time for another a Prime Ministerial pep talk. That dreaded second wave we so feared is rapping its knuckles at the door. Plans to open a final raft of businesses today are now postponed. That means ice rinks, bowling alleys and casinos remain shut for another two weeks. No great dent in my own social life, I admit, but what a body blow for all those poor business owners. Dreadful news too for those hoping to hold wedding parties. They remain on the black list. There will be no big Eid celebrations for Britains Muslims, either. Accompanying Boris was Chris Whitty, Englands Chief Medical Officer, the one who looks like an even more gormless version of Chris Grayling Im really, really sorry about that, said Boris. But we simply cant take the risk. There was a bashfulness about him as he uttered these remarks, his eyes suddenly finding something interesting to stare at on the floor. No PM likes to be a party pooper, least of all this one. Sorrowful he might have been at times, but, goodness, how much better he looks, even from the last time he was here. Those brisk walks with Dilyn the dog appear to have done him a world of good. No longer does his shirt collar appear to be asphyxiating him. His chalky face appears to have felt the suns rays. Accompanying Boris was Chris Whitty, Englands Chief Medical Officer, the one who looks like an even more gormless version of Chris Grayling. We havent seen old Whitty for a while. Last time he looked fed up, desperate to return to his laboratory and twiddle with his microscopes. There will be no big Eid celebrations for Britains Muslims. Pictured: Worshippers observe social distancing as they arrive at the Bradford Grand Mosque in Bradford, West Yorkshire Yesterday, though, there was rather strident air about him right from the get go as he came bounding in ahead of the PM. It was almost as if there was a faint touch of the I told you sos about him. Whitty, in case you missed it, has been Captain Cautious about easing the lockdown. Im no body linguist, but there seemed a palpable froideur between the pair. Boris certainly wouldnt have been thrilled when Whitty told reporters we have probably reached the limit of what we can do in terms of easing the lockdown. What this could mean for schools reopening after the summer, I dread to think. Two other notable moments from the (mercifully) brief session. Firstly, Boris has new catchphrase. Hands, face, space, he kept repeating, a reference to people washing their hands, wearing a mask and keeping their social distance to stop the virus from spreading. Dreadful news too for those hoping to hold wedding parties. They remain on the black list. Pictured: David D'Arcy and his wife Hayley Collins at their socially distanced wedding in July Pretty punchy, I think, he said proudly. Secondly, we heard how he might have a brief staycation somewhere if possible when not working flat out to defeat the virus. Lets hope he gets the chance. With 1pm approaching, the PM was getting fidgety. Hands, face, space. Get a test, he repeated one last time. Possibly not realising the microphones were still on, he turned to Whitty and asked: I think I repeated that often enough, didnt I? Indeed he had though how he must long for the day when he no longer has to. BERLIN - Another 22 children with medical needs who have been living in migrant camps in Greece arrived in Germany on Friday along with their close relatives, the German government said. In all, 90 people were on board a flight that landed at Berlins Schoenefeld airport, the interior ministry said. It added that 46 of them were from Afghanistan and 18 from Syria, while the rest were Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Congolese and Cameroonians. They will be shared out among several German states. Fridays transfer is part of a wider effort to get hundreds of vulnerable children out of camps on the Greek islands, and comes a week after 18 children and their families 83 people in all were flown to Kassel, in central Germany. Germany says it has agreed to take in a total of 243 children who need medical treatment from Greece, as well their closest relatives, 928 people in all. In April, a group of 47 unaccompanied children evacuated from the overcrowded Greek camps landed in Germany. Luxembourg and Portugal also have taken in minors from Greece, and other European Union countries have agreed to, as well, in principle. Read more about: Two bikes were stolen at Raheny at around 7:20pm yesterday evening. Five young people were detained before released. Files are to be prepared for the Garda Juvenile Liaison Officer. The National External Information Service Awards 2019 held recently in Hanoi attracted the participation not only of Vietnamese journalists but also of foreigners interested in the country. browser not support iframe. While Vietnam was in the middle of its social distancing measures, Wayne Worrell, a British teacher, and his friends in Vietnam kicked off a project called Vietnam We Thank You - Viet Nam co len. The project aimed at not only lifting the mood of those at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19 but also to introduce images to the world of Vietnams strong will in fighting the disease. Waynes project touched domestic and foreign audiences so deeply that it received first prize in the Initiatives category at the 6th National External Information Service Awards, which saw the largest number of foreign entries. Given that information on Vietnam is still limited around the world, articles and research by foreign scholars and journalists have delivered diverse, subjective, and reliable news on the domestic situation to foreigners and overseas Vietnamese. The entries include an article by Indian journalist Rudroneel Ghosh published in the Times of India discussing the central role of ASEAN and Vietnam in settling the East Sea issue. Despite growing in number, there could still be more foreign journalists competing at the awards. In order to encourage their participation, the Organising Board plans to target more foreign journalists in Vietnam, overseas Vietnamese, and foreigners with a special interest in Vietnam./.VNA Australian MPs from across the political spectrum have labelled Hong Kong's decision to disqualify a dozen pro-democracy candidates from local elections and a delay in the local poll as an unacceptable obstruction to democracy. Hong Kong's government announced on Friday night the September elections would be delayed by a year, as the city attempts to suppress a second surge of COVID-19 and the popularity of opposition candidates surges. The Hong Kong government triggered an emergency order to postpone the elections. Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the government had the backing of Beijing after warning the city could see a large-scale community coronavirus outbreak. Hong Kong has recorded consecutive days of more than 100 infections. The announcement I have to make today is the most difficult decision Ive had to make in the past seven months, Lam said on Friday. While the head of Hamiltons sexual assault centre commends McMaster University for its transparency in the suspension and barring of two more faculty members in its psychology department, she believes more work needs to be done. Jessica Bonilla-Damptey, the director of SACHA, said its good to know that the school is pursuing allegations and investigating, but she remains concerned about the culture of sexual violence on the entire campus. I think a departmental review is important, but what is also important is a university-wide review, she said. The measures that are being taken right now are reactive measures. McMaster president David Farrar announced new suspensions in a letter Tuesday, after the school expanded its original investigation into Scott Watter, who runs the cognitive science lab at McMaster. Watter, an associate professor, has been suspended by the school since February. The two other suspended faculty members were not named in Tuesdays letter. In February, McMaster told police about complaints against Watter. In June, Hamilton police charged Watter with sexual assault and sexual assault causing bodily harm. McMaster launched its own internal investigation, which Farrar said encouraged anyone with concerns or information to reach out for assistance and to help McMaster better understand any incidents that may have occurred. In his letter this week, Farrar said that the university received additional complaints from within the department of psychology, neuroscience and behaviour that violated the schools sexual violence policy. Given the number of allegations and the scope of the complaints, Farrar said the school will also be expanding its inquiry to identify any potential systemic or cultural issues within the department that need to be surfaced and addressed. The Spectator reached out to Watters lawyer for reaction to Farrars letter, but did not get a reply. Bonilla-Damptey said the new allegations once again show the importance of building consent culture on campus. But, it must go beyond students and include those who have power over them, she said. Up until September 2019, SACHA had been a part of the schools welcome week festivities, offering workshops on consent for first-year students since 2014. That partnership came to an end when the university expanded its own equity and inclusion team to lead the training. SACHA continues to do work on campus, but in an unofficial capacity through student groups. Their training never extended to faculty, Bonilla-Damptey said. To create a culture of consent on campus and to eradicate the culture of rape, the whole community has to participate in fostering environments where women and people who are non-binary feel safe and blameless when coming forward to report incidents of sexual assault, she said. McMasters sexual violence policy defines sexual violence as any sexual act or act targeting a persons sexuality, gender identity or gender expression whether the act is physical or psychological in nature, that is committed, threatened or attempted against a person without a persons consent, and includes sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, indecent exposure, voyeurism and sexual exploitation. The policy applies to all staff, students, faculty, medical residents, visitors, volunteers and administrators. Bonilla-Damptey said as the review into the department begins, she hopes McMaster will continue to do the work so that survivors feel that they can go forward. There is no official timeline for the expanded inquiry. Hamilton police are currently reviewing new information they received from the university on Tuesday, police spokesperson Jackie Penman said. In an email to The Spectator, Penman said there is nothing additional (to) share. The universitys ongoing investigation is being led by an investigator from Toronto-based law firm Rubin Thomlinson LLP. Bonilla-Damptey said those coming forward are encouraged to reach out to SACHAs 24-hour support line at 905-525-4162. Several west-central Illinois municipalities will receive grants as part of the second round of Rebuild Illinois infrastructure package awards. Morgan County will receive $224,255 and Jacksonville will get $213,594. South Jacksonville will receive $36,587. The money is part of $1.5 billion being distributed over three years to advance projects statewide, including road and bridge improvements, traffic signal upgrades, new storm sewers and bike paths, sidewalk replacement and other long-term maintenance needs. Projects will be selected and managed locally with Illinois Department of Transportation oversight. Other municipalities in Morgan County being given grants are: Chapin, $5,623; Concord, $1,834; Franklin, $6,700; Lynnville, $1,285; Meredosia, $11,467; Murrayville, $6,447; Waverly, $14,356; and Woodson. $5,623. The countys 13 road districts will share $408,726, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzkers office. In Illinois, we dont have just state or local roads and bridges, but one system of transportation that stretches across all modes and involves multiple partners working together, acting Transportation Secretary Omer Osman said. This funding through Rebuild Illinois means our cities, neighborhoods and rural areas have the resources they need during this uncertain time, but also enhances quality of life, encourages additional investment and improves safety for years to come. Cass County will receive $94,290 and Beardstown will get $67,254. Virginia will receive $17,695, Arenzville will get $4,492, Ashland will receive $14,641 and Chandlerville will get $6,074. The countys townships will share $215,401. Scott County will see $37,764 and municipalities all together will receive $34,742. The countys road districts will share in $157,895. The local component of the Rebuild Illinois grant program is distributed through the state motor fuel tax formula, which resulted in an additional $860 million for counties, municipalities and townships in the past fiscal year. Other grants in the region include: Brown County will receive $64,345 and its townships will share in $212,223. Its four municipalities will split $29,777.. Greene County will get $102,610. Townships will share in $342,420 and municipalities will split $99,207. Jersey County will get $140,669. Townships will receive $157,895 and municipalities will share $113,036. Pike County will receive $130,256. Townships will receive $$574,247 and municipalities will share $119,121. OTTAWA The Royal Canadian Navy is poised to enter a new era by taking possession of the first armed warship under the federal governments multibillion-dollar shipbuilding plan, and the first built for Arctic military operations in decades. HMCS Harry DeWolf was welcomed in a ceremony at Canadian Forces Base Halifax on Friday, five years after Irving Shipbuilding first started cutting steel on the Arctic offshore patrol ship and two years later than originally scheduled. Top navy officers marked the occasion along with representatives from Irving, which is slated to build five more such vessels for the navy and two for the Canadian Coast Guard in the next few years. These ships will be at the core of an enhanced Canadian Arctic presence, effectively complementing the capabilities of our other current and future warships through critical reconnaissance and surveillance operations, said Vice-Admiral Art McDonald, the commander of the navy, in a statement. Harry DeWolf was a career navy officer who retired as chief of the naval staff in 1960. He rose to prominence as commander of HMCS Haida during the Second World War, known for daring tactical manoeuvres and sinking numerous enemy vessels, especially in the English Channel. While the DeWolfs delivery is a major milestone for the federal governments shipbuilding plan through which Ottawa is replacing nearly all of the large ships in the navy and coast guard it wasnt easy coming. Then-prime minister Stephen Harper first announced plans to build up to eight armed Arctic patrol vessels in July 2007 and Irving was selected in October 2011 to produce them before building replacements for the navys frigates and destroyers. But the following years saw several cost overruns and delays in the program. After work started on the DeWolf in 2015, Irving said it would only be able to build five ships with the $3.1 billion budgeted for the project. The government ended up increasing the budget to $4.1 billion for six. That money does not include the two ships for the coast guard, which are expected to cost about $400 million each. Technical problems were also blamed for pushing the delivery date back several times. Then Irving closed its Halifax shipyard in March for several months because of COVID-19. Despite those setbacks, University of Calgary professor Rob Huebert described the DeWolfs arrival as an amazing step forward for the Royal Canadian Navy. Its the first vessel specially built for military operations in the Arctic since the 1950s. And it couldnt come at a better time, as more and more countries are starting to increase their interest and military footprints in the Far North, which is becoming easier to access due to climate change, said Huebert, who is an expert on Arctic policy. Even the most profound Arctic exceptionalist who says the Arctic is just peace, love and Kumbaya will recognize there is a growing need to have at least a presence in the Arctic as it opens up and becomes a greater part of the geopolitical environment, he said. But once again, this is going to now give us a capability to operate that we havent had since a short little period between 1956 to 57 with (HMCS) Labrador. The Labrador was an icebreaker built for the navy but was in the fleet just a few years before being transferred to non-military use. The navy was actually disdainful when Harper announced the new Arctic ships in 2007. Part of it was their slow speed and light armament, as the ships have only one small cannon. But mostly it was because the navy saw the Arctic as coast guard territory. Because they had not done this since 57, there was a little bit of: OK, what the hell do we do with these ships? We know what we need to do with NATO and in the Pacific. But this is going to sort of require us to scratch our head, Huebert said. Once the navy got comfortable and started realizing what it could do with it, that has subsequently changed. The Royal Canadian Navy is only the latest naval force to join the fray in the Far North. Russia, the U.S., China and some European countries have been increasing their maritime capabilities in the region in recent years as part of a seemingly slow military buildup. Read more about: On Thursday Teresa Giudice shared a rare photo with all four of her daughters that she had with estranged husband Joe Giudice, who has been deported to Italy. The girls are Gia, 19, Gabriella, 16, Milania, 15 and Audriana 11. 'My four hearts,' the 48-year-old Real Housewives Of New Jersey star said in her caption while adding four heart emojis. Her pride and joy: Teresa Giudice, 48, shared rare photo with all four of her daughters. The girls are Gia, 19, Gabriella, 16, Milania, 15 and Audriana 11 The ladies looked to be near the Jersey Shore where Teresa's brother Joe Gorga owns a home with his wife Melissa. Teresa looked elegant in a low-cut black romper with neon yellow heels and her long brunette hair worn down. Her kids were dressed casually in shorts and tank tops with sandals for the afternoon outing. Daddy Joe: She had the girls with estranged husband Joe Giudice, who has been deported to Italy; a flashback photo It is likely that they were shooting an episode of RHONJ as the series is resuming production with safety measures in place due to the pandemic. Interestingly, her girls are almost as tall as she is. Earlier this month Teresa attempted to make the most of the scholarly achievement in lockdown for daughters Milania and Audriana by presenting each of them with a custom cake. The star looked all the proud parent as she posed by Milania's side in one snapshot shared with her 1.9million followers on Instagram. Congrats: Teresa attempted to make the most of graduation in lockdown for daughters Milania and Audriana by presenting each of them with a custom cake earlier this month 'Happy 8th Graduation @milania_giudice356 so proud of you keep shining and being you and shine bright like a diamond that you are,' wrote Teresa in her post's caption. Teresa donned a bright orange off-the-shoulder romper and had her lengthy brunette hair parted down the middle as she crouched beside Milania. Milania's cake had 'Congratulations Milania' written on it in royal blue frosting, while the rest of the cake was decorated in light blue and white icing. For Audriana's Instagram post, Teresa allowed her daughter to pose solo with her decadent cake that was dressed in hot pink icing. Spotlight: For Audriana's Instagram post, Teresa allowed her daughter to pose solo with her decadent cake that was dressed in hot pink icing Resting behind her was an array of colorful graduation balloons and her home's gorgeous credenza and granite counter top. 'Congratulation my beautiful blue eyed baby Audriana for graduating 5th grade. Keep being you youre beautiful inside and out. Im so proud of you, you make me smile every time I look at you keep shining my beautiful baby doll,' wrote the reality star to her youngest daughter. In the state of New Jersey, when a child graduates the fifth grade they move onto middle school. Whereas in some other states, middle school begins after the sixth grade. Middle schooler: In the state of New Jersey, when a child graduates the fifth grade they move onto middle school Though Teresa shared the photos of her girls with their cakes on Thursday, the quarantined celebration actually occurred on June 23. Specifically, the reality star hosted a a drive-thru ceremony for her girls and conjured up a delicious homemade dinner. That same day, Teresa uploaded a sweet snapshot of Audriana donning a bright red graduation cap to her Instagram. Teresa shares Audriana and Milania, as well as daughters Gia, 19, and Gabriella, 16, with ex husband Joe Giudice, 48, who is currently residing in his native Italy after being deported from the United States last year. Throwback: Though Teresa shared the photos of her girls with their cakes on Thursday, her Instagram Story suggests that the quarantine celebration occurred on June 23 Scholarly: That same day, Teresa uploaded a sweet snapshot of Audriana donning a bright red graduation cap Shortly after sharing her daughters' darling portraits with her followers, Teresa took a moment to show off her enviably toned and tanned bod as she enjoyed a 'Beach Day.' She slipped her frame into a plunging black one piece swimsuit and shielded herself from the sun with Louis Vuitton cap and a pair of aviator shades. Teresa resided in a beach chair and held onto a drink in her hand as her American Express themed purse rested in the sand next to her. The sultry snap even received a 'like' by ex husband Joe. Iran Dismisses Leaked Details of Proposed China Deal By Ayaz Gul July 30, 2020 Talks between Iran and China aimed at finalizing a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement are continuing despite what Tehran dismissed as "baseless rumors" about the deal that leaked earlier this month. The draft partnership proposal leaked online to the press calls for China to invest $400 billion in Iran's energy, telecommunications, infrastructure, ports, railways and other sectors in exchange for Tehran's supplying Beijing with a heavily discounted supply of oil over the next 25 years. Iran's ambassador to neighboring Pakistan, Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini, has rebutted the reports as Western media propaganda. "Given that no modalities have been agreed on the details of the cooperation so far, these rumors are baseless and mere political and media speculations," Hosseini said. The Iranian envoy's written remarks were read out at an online forum organized this week by the Islamabad Policy Institute (IPI), a nongovernmental Pakistani think tank, to discuss the prospective China-Iran partnership. Hosseini said that Tehran and Beijing were still consulting on the "generalities" to develop their bilateral cooperation "in a 25-year horizon." He noted that discussions on what he referred to as the comprehensive document on strategic cooperation started during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Iran in 2016. "This document is a comprehensive framework of long-term and strategic cooperation in all political and economic fields and in an equal and fair approach," he said. Hosseini went on to stress that "the dimensions of this document for cooperation have not so far reached the final conclusion." China remains Iran's main trading partner and largest importer of Iranian oil. However, that cooperation has been undermined by U.S. economic sanctions imposed in 2018 after Washington withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal with Tehran. The prospect of a strategic partnership between Iran and China comes at a time when U.S. sanctions and the outbreak of the coronavirus are deepening Iran's economic woes, bringing President Hassan Rouhani's government under domestic pressure. Politicians in Iran, including former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have assailed Rouhani for trying to secretly conclude a deal with China that they said would undermine the country's sovereignty. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif rejected those concerns and told lawmakers earlier this month that "there is nothing to hide about the deal" and the details would be made public once they were finalized. Beijing acknowledges the existence of the joint statement on the "comprehensive strategic partnership" issued during Xi's visit but it has not publicly commented on details leaked to media by unnamed Iranian officials. Jin Liangxiang, a senior fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, a government-affiliated think tank in China, told Wednesday's online forum in Islamabad that Beijing's relations with Tehran have matured in recent years. However, he noted that internal Iranian politics pose a challenge to the proposed 25-year cooperation plan. "The biggest challenge for Iran is whether Iran can form a national consensus about its cooperation with China," Jin said. He insisted that the long-term cooperation document was still a draft "even if it exists," but he said it was not a good idea to leak details of such a document. "In China, we have a very famous saying that if you want to do something, if you really want to achieve something, just do it. If you do not want to do it, you just bring out the plan for discussions, for debates," Jin said. Pakistan's former ambassador to Iran, Asif Durrani, said Iranian officials might have intentionally leaked details of the draft to "create a hype" to try to gather international reaction. He suggested the statement by Iran's Hosseini could be a damage-control attempt made under pressure from China. "I think China will be very cautious while dealing with Iran at a time when they have to grapple with American criticism," he said. "They would not want to open another front at this stage. But at the same time, Chinese are not going to annoy regional countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with which they have close to $70 billion trade." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address KANAZAWA, Japan, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Research at Kanazawa University as reported in Scientific Reports demonstrates atomic force microscopy imaging that gets around the challenges of exciting very small cantilevers at their high megahertz resonance frequencies. The approach accommodates wide frequency bandwidths and is applicable for photosensitive materials in a wide range of liquids. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) brought the atomic scale imaging resolution of scanning tunneling microscopy, a technique that won the Nobel Prize in Physics, to non-conducting surfaces. However, limitations remain when trying to use the technique at its most sensitive with photosensitive samples in liquids. Now researchers at Kanazawa University show how to overcome these constraints, by driving a cantilever a few micrometers in size at megahertz frequencies with stability and control in liquid and without potentially exposing the sample to light. Atomic force microscopes monitor the forces at play between a surface and a tip attached to a cantilever to extract information about the surface topography and composition. By oscillating the cantilever over the surface instead of dragging it the strength of interactions with the cantilever and tip can be inferred from changes in the oscillation amplitude or resonant frequency without damaging the surface. Usually a piezo actuator generates an acoustic wave that drives the cantilever to oscillate at its resonance frequency. However, this approach is prone to spurious contributions to the resonance from the components of the device linking the actuator to the cantilever. The impact of these effects is greater for the most sensitive cantilevers, which are small and have high megahertz resonance frequencies. Alternatives are photothermal, electrostatic or electrostrictive cantilever excitation, but if the material under study is photosensitive or kept in an electrochemically active liquid, these too have drawbacks. Instead Takeshi Fukuma and colleagues at Kanazawa University followed up with a magnetic excitation approach. They investigated how to implement their approach with three makes of cantilever, which they customized by adding a magnetic bead decorated with a carbon nanoscale tip. They then applied an alternating magnetic field by feeding an a.c. current into a tiny solenoid made from a 0.2 mm diameter wire wound around a 3 mm diameter cylinder. Although other groups have previously demonstrated dynamic AFM driven by magnetic excitation, the approach once again runs into problems for small cantilevers. The feedback loop to handle the circuit latency and compensate for the frequency-dependent impedance so that the device covers a wide frequency bandwidth does not work so well at high frequencies. Instead the researchers designed an open loop differential circuit that feeds in a complex coil voltage proportional to the frequency and input voltage. To demonstrate the applicability of their approach they measured cantilever resonance curves and the atomic scale topography of a mica surface in phosphate buffered saline solution with various customized cantilevers including those with a megahertz-order resonance frequency. Background Atomic force microscopy The first image using AFM was reported by Gerd Binnig, Calvin Quate and Christoph Gerber in 1986, five years after the scanning tunneling microscope. The technique is capable of atomic scale resolution and generates images by measuring the sum strength of a number of forces at play between tip and sample, including van der Waals and electrostatic. AFM uses a cantilever with a tiny tip attached at the end. For static AFM the tip is dragged over the surface and the cantilever deflection is measured or, the cantilever height is adjusted to maintain a constant deflection. In dynamic AFM, where the cantilever oscillates at its resonance frequency and taps the surface with the tip, contact between the tip and surface is causing less damage to the sample. It is capable of high sensitivity imaging without making contact with the surface at all in non-contact mode, by monitoring the impact of interactions with the surface on the amplitude and frequency of the cantilever oscillations. Besides piezo actuated and photothermal cantilever excitation electrostatic and electrostrictive interactions can be used by applying a bias voltage between tip and surface or both sides of a cantilever. However, in many of the liquids used to house samples, this can cause uncontrolled chemical reactions. Closed loop versus open loop with differentiation circuits When using magnetic fields to excite oscillations in the cantilever, the circuit supplying current to the solenoid coil needs to maintain a constant current amplitude. However, the impedance of the circuit increases with frequency, so that a higher voltage signal is needed to maintain a constant current amplitude. This is usually achieved with a feedback loop, which converts the coil current to a voltage and compares it with the input voltage. However, this feedback loop becomes unstable at megahertz frequencies. In the open-loop circuit used instead, the input voltage is fed into a differentiation circuit that returns a complex coil voltage that is proportional to the input voltage and the frequency (V coil = iV in , where V coil is the coil voltage, V in is the input voltage and is the frequency.) This way the coil voltage automatically scales with the frequency, compensating for the frequency-dependent impedance changes. Reference Kaito Hirata, Takumi Igarashi, Keita Suzuki, Keisuke Miyazawa and Takeshi Fukuma. Wideband magnetic excitation system for atomic force microscopy cantilevers with megahertz-Order resonance frequency, Scientific Reports 10, Article number: 9133 (2020) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65980-4. About Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI) https://nanolsi.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/en/ Nano Life Science Institute (NanoLSI), Kanazawa University is a research center established in 2017 as part of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The objective of this initiative is to form world-tier research centers. NanoLSI combines the foremost knowledge of bio-scanning probe microscopy to establish 'nano-endoscopic techniques' to directly image, analyze, and manipulate biomolecules for insights into mechanisms governing life phenomena such as diseases. About Kanazawa University http://www.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/e/ As the leading comprehensive university on the Sea of Japan coast, Kanazawa University has contributed greatly to higher education and academic research in Japan since it was founded in 1949. The University has three colleges and 17 schools offering courses in subjects that include medicine, computer engineering, and humanities. The University is located on the coast of the Sea of Japan in Kanazawa a city rich in history and culture. The city of Kanazawa has a highly respected intellectual profile since the time of the fiefdom (1598-1867). Kanazawa University is divided into two main campuses: Kakuma and Takaramachi for its approximately 10,200 students including 600 from overseas. Further information About WPI NanoLSI Kanazawa University Hiroe Yoneda Vice Director of Public Affairs WPI Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI) Kanazawa University Kakuma-machi, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan Email: [email protected] Tel: +81(76)234-4550 SOURCE Kanazawa University Every year on the first Sunday of August, National Friendship Day is celebrated in India. This year it will be celebrated on August 2, 2020. It celebrates the importance of platonic relationships and how it shapes us as people. Friendships could be the purest form of human relationships, friends being considered the family you choose since theyre not strung together by bonds of blood, but one of love. Friendship Day is celebrated around the world where friends usually tie a friendship band on each others wrists and promise to be BFFs (Best Friends Forever). Friendship Day was first proposed in Paraguay in 1958 as International Friendship Day and this year it was celebrated on July 30. The day is known to have first originated from Hallmark cards, by Joyce Hall, in 1930. The United Nations declared July 30 as the official International Friendship Day. In India, the day is marked on the first Sunday of August. In 1998, Nane Annan, wife of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, declared the lovable Disney character Winnie the Pooh as the global Ambassador of Friendship at the UN. ALSO READ: Friendship Day 2020: Wishes, images, quotes and greetings to share with your friends History National Friendship Day emerged as a marketing strategy for Hallmark Cards in the 1930s. Joyce Hall, the founder, designated the day as one to celebrate the people closest to you, who matter to you the most, and in the process, send them a card to show them youre thinking about them. The marketing strategy shaped an official holiday, announced by the US Congress in 1935, to be celebrated on the first Sunday of August every year. In 1998, the United Nations named the honey-loving tubby bear Winnie the Pooh as the worlds Ambassador of Friendship. In 2011, at the UNs 65th session, July 30 was designated as International Friendship Day. With the advancement in technology, its become a lot easier to stay in touch and reach out through the several social media accounts but meeting in person has a charm that will never grow old. Understanding friendships through Maslows Hierarchy of Needs Maslows hierarchy of needs, proposed by Abraham Maslow in A Theory of Human Motivation, a 1943 paper he wrote in Psychological Review, talks about belonging and love as a core human need. Maslows hierarchy of needs is used to understand human behaviour and motivation. He used terms such as physiological, safety, belonging and love, social needs and self-actualisation to describe a pattern in which human motivations usually move, depicted via a pyramid diagram. ALSO READ: Heres how to be a good friend, spend time together and more this Friendship Day Social belonging and the need for interpersonal relationships make the third level of human needs as per the theory. According to Maslow, humans possess an effective need for a sense of belonging and acceptance among social groups, regardless of whether these groups are large or small. Humans need to love and be loved, both sexually and non-sexually, by others in order to stay motivated and perform their duties. The absence of this element may hamper basic functioning, in turn making people susceptible to loneliness, anxiety, and even, depression. This need for feel a sense of belonging may overcome the physiological and security needs, while for some individuals, the need for self-esteem/self-actualisation is more important than the need for belonging, and for some the need for feeling fulfilled creatively may supersede even the most basic needs. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Gwyneth Paltrow took to Instagram on Thursday to promote a ready-to-drink brand of organic cocktails. The 47-year-old actress wore a bright red jumpsuit in several photos that she posted in a paid partnership with Miami Cocktail Company. 'Mama needs a refreshing organic spritz to take the edge off (without the added sugar and artificial ingredients). Submitting a request to make @miamicocktailcompany in a 40oz, thanks,' Gwyneth wrote in the caption for her roughly 7.1 million followers on Instagram. Paid partnership: Gwyneth Paltrow took to Instagram on Thursday to promote a ready-to-drink brand of organic cocktails The Oscar-winning actress was shown in the photos smiling and laughing while holding up a pastel orange can of Bellini Spritz with some poured into a glass. Gwyneth had her blonde hair pulled back into a low knot and accessorized with a gold necklace and black watch. She let her natural beauty shine without makeup. Miami Cocktail Company also is featured on Gwyneth's lifestyle site Goop in a paid partnership. Bright red: The 47-year-old wore a bright red jumpsuit in several photos that she posted in a paid partnership with Miami Cocktail Company Edge off: 'Mama needs a refreshing organic spritz to take the edge off (without the added sugar and artificial ingredients). Submitting a request to make @miamicocktailcompany in a 40oz, thanks,' Gwyneth wrote in the caption for her roughly 7.1 million followers on Instagram The alcoholic beverage company was launched in 2013 by spirits and hospitality industry veterans Ross Graham and Simon Benstead in Wynwood, Miami. Miami Cocktail Company's ready-to-drink wine-based Spritz line includes organic Bellini, Mimosa, Paloma and Sangria and come in a four-pack of 8.4 ounce cans. Forbes reported last month that online sales for Miami Cocktail Company have skyrocketed to 2,900 percent over the same time period last year. Lifestyle site: Gwyneth is shown in June promoting her latest scented candle on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Miami Cocktail Company also is featured on Gwyneth's lifestyle site Goop in a paid partnership 'Our significantly ramped up marketing efforts and the increase in online retail sales during COVID more generally have had a huge impact on Miami Cocktail Companys online business,' CEO Ross told Forbes. Gwyneth has been married since 2018 to TV writer Brad Falchuk, 49. She has 16-year-old daughter Apple and 14-year-old son Moses with ex-husband Chris Martin, 43. Despite a recent video showing large crowds in the Niagara Falls tourist core with few people physically distancing or wearing masks, an online ad campaign by a Niagara tourism agency maintains the industry is going above and beyond to keep employees and visitors safe. As we move forward, the Niagara community is committed to putting public safety first; for our guests, our businesses, our employees and our communities, reads part of whats called a Niagara Visitor Pledge, from Tourism Partnership of Niagara, a non-profit industry-led organization funded by the province. We want to ensure you are as comfortable discovering Niagara as you would be in your own backyard, it says. We will go above and beyond to protect the health and wellbeing of our business owners, community members and cherished guests as we continue to provide the same world-class hospitality that our region is known for. But is this pledge, which is also available on the agencys website, indicative of whats being seen on the ground? Niagara Falls has more COVID-19 cases (221) than any other Niagara municipality because of a recent, rapid growth of positive tests among younger people (of five new cases reported in Niagara Friday, two are from Niagara Falls). As well, the Niagara Speedway go-kart track at Clifton Hill recently closed after an employee tested positive for the coronavirus. It was one of several attractions featured in a recent video widely shared on social media that showed massive crowds on Clifton Hill. The video prompted the business community to step up prevention measures. Mayor Jim Diodati announced the city would be proactive in the wake of negative reaction to the video, implementing an on-street campaign with what he called Crush the Curve ambassadors in bright yellow shirts offering hand sanitizer and masks, while encouraging people to maintain safe physical distancing. Tourism Partnership of Niagara president Anthony Annunziata said part of the visitor pledge will continue to involve promoting safe distancing, frequent hand washing, and face coverings when proper distancing is not possible. We have to continue to say it, we have to continue to propagate it, we have to continue to support it, he said. Not everybody is doing it as well, but theyre all trying. I think here in Niagara were all trying, and I think that these videos are not bad things to basically say, Hey, listen, some people, we need to do better. Its simply the fact that some places arent doing as well, we just need to do better, and were committed to it. Annunziata said Niagara residents and businesses made a tremendous sacrifice at the beginning of the pandemic that led to dramatic layoffs and difficult economic times, in the name of health and safety. He said due to those early sacrifices, Niagara is doing much better than other areas around the world, including the United States. The virus is still active, and youve seen in different areas around the world where things have blown up. In Ontario, Niagara, were very fortunate, he said. If you look at our numbers, other than the individual daily spikes on occasion, for the better part of two months weve been under five cases a day and weve done that because weve been diligent. Annunziata said his agencys pledge is part of the culture Niagaras tourism and hospitality leadership is trying to establish. I know people are working very hard, including the mayors of all the cities in Niagara. They have different ways of doing it, but theyre all committed to putting people first. Dr. Andrea Feller, Niagara's associate medical officer of health, said Friday that she could not comment on the industry marketing materials or whether the claim of "above and beyond" is accurate. Rather, public health will be keeping a close on what the business community and the city is doing to mitigate the spread of the virus, including managing the size of crowds in the tourist district. "We believe that every municipality in Niagara is working hard to get better at this," said Feller. "Obviously that video (of Clifton Hill crowds) was disturbing and if it happens again, we will absolutely speak up." Feller said whatever the marketing materials are claiming, there is no "magic bullet" to limiting the spread of COVID-19. She said physical distancing of two meters, hand washing and masks are the bundle of tools that have to followed to combat the virus. Those are the measures she said public health expects every city and sector, including Niagara Falls and its tourism industry, to use. with files from Grant LaFleche TAMPA, Fla., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Tampa, Florida auction house Vandenbrook Galleries will liquidate a historic gun collection that includes firearms attributed to Bonnie and Clyde and Machine Gun Kelly, as well as multiple German Lugers obtained from the Norwegian Armed Forces Museum after Norway acquired these weapons in WWII. Over 100 other historically important and collectible military and other firearms from a billionaire's personal collection will be on the auction block online and in-person on Saturday, Aug. 8th. Bonnie and Clyde, the Depression-era bank robbers, reportedly used this Winchester shotgun at a deadly police shootout. The firearm will be auctioned in Tampa on August 8, Reports surrounding the original sale to the collector state that Missouri police seized the Model 1897 Winchester 12-gauge shotgun attributed to Bonnie and Clyde on April 13, 1933, after a deadly shootout with the couple in Joplin. Bonnie and Clyde escaped, but two officers died in the shootout. Police found the shotgun upon raiding an apartment where the couple was hiding out. Paperwork accompanying the shotgun reports that a police officer later gave the shotgun to Mark Lairmore, who was a Tulsa, Oklahoma, police officer, and that it remained in the Lairmore family. A police museum in Springfield, Missouri, displayed the gun from 1973 until late 2011, and it was auctioned in January of 2012. To read press coverage related to the 2012 auction offering the Bonnie & Clyde Winchester, visit The Joplin Globe. Other records attribute a John Price single-shot, 12-gauge shotgun to 1930s American gangster Machine Gun Kelly, used by Kelly during a kidnapping. This gun to be auctioned carries the marking "Boss Shannon," Machine Gun Kelly's relative by marriage. Machine Gun Kelly's mother-in-law Ora Shannon gave the shotgun to Benny Binion, owner of the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. Ora owned the Wise County ranch house "where Boss Shannon and Machine Gun Kelly kept Charles Urschel (the hostage) when they kidnapped him." The shotgun was kept in Benny Binion's vault until 1985 when Binion gave it to Billy Bob Barnett of Billy Bob's Texas, the "biggest honky tonk in Texas." The collection up for auction in August acquired the shotgun in 1994 from Billy Bob Barnett with a historic letter of authenticity from Tex Whitson, former Binion's Horseshoe Casino public relations director, Grammy Award-winning songwriter, and music manager for Merle Haggard and George Jones. The estate also includes acquisition records kept by the collector, including the provenance related to three German Lugers reportedly surrendered by the Germans to Norwegian authorities during World War II. These pistols were imported into Canada upon acquisition from the Norwegian Armed Forces Museum in Oslo. Bidders can already visit the Vandenbrook Galleries auction and place bids at liveauctioneers.com, invaluable.com or hibid.com to register and bid online, and to receive other auction-related news and updates. Direct press inquiries to Alexandra Funk at [email protected] or 813-690-4306. Related Images model-1897-winchester-12-gauge.jpg Model 1897 Winchester 12-gauge shotgun attributed to Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie and Clyde, the Depression-era bank robbers, reportedly used this Winchester shotgun at a deadly police shootout. The firearm will be auctioned in Tampa on August 8, SOURCE Vandenbrook Galleries Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - July 31, 2020) - Psyched Wellness Ltd. (formerly, Duncan Park Holdings Corporation) (OTC Pink: DCNPF) (the "Company") wishes to announce in connection with its press release dated June 1st, 2020, the Company has completed a third and final tranche of a non-brokered private placement for gross proceeds of $187,595 through the issuance of 1,875,595 common shares (each, a "Common Share") at a price of $0.10 per Common Share (the "Offering"). The proceeds of the Offering will be used to develop the Company's business and for general working capital purposes. The Common Shares issued in connection with the Offering are subject to a hold period of four months plus a day from the date of issuance and the resale rules of applicable securities legislation. The Company has made an application to list its Common Shares on the Canadian Securities Exchange but at this time it is not possible to confirm if or when such listing will occur. The Company will provide further updates with respect to the potential listing as they become available. For further information, please contact: Jeffrey Stevens Chief Executive Officer Psyched Wellness Ltd. Tel: 647-400-8494 This press 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 the Company's control. Generally, such forward-looking information or forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or 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". Story continues By identifying such information and statements in this manner, the Company is alerting the reader that such information and statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such information and statements. In addition, in connection with the forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release, the Company has made certain assumptions. Although the Company 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. The forward-looking information and forward- looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and the Company 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. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking information and statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf is expressly qualified in its entirety by this notice. [NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES] To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60907 AirIQ Inc.'s (CVE:IQ) price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 11.7x might make it look like a buy right now compared to the market in Canada, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios above 15x and even P/E's above 38x are quite common. However, the P/E might be low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified. Recent times have been quite advantageous for AirIQ as its earnings have been rising very briskly. It might be that many expect the strong earnings performance to degrade substantially, which has repressed the P/E. If that doesn't eventuate, then existing shareholders have reason to be quite optimistic about the future direction of the share price. Check out our latest analysis for AirIQ pe Want the full picture on earnings, revenue and cash flow for the company? Then our free report on AirIQ will help you shine a light on its historical performance. What Are Growth Metrics Telling Us About The Low P/E? There's an inherent assumption that a company should underperform the market for P/E ratios like AirIQ's to be considered reasonable. Retrospectively, the last year delivered an exceptional 203% gain to the company's bottom line. Pleasingly, EPS has also lifted 95% in aggregate from three years ago, thanks to the last 12 months of growth. Accordingly, shareholders would have probably welcomed those medium-term rates of earnings growth. In contrast to the company, the rest of the market is expected to decline by 2.5% over the next year, which puts the company's recent medium-term positive growth rates in a good light for now. With this information, we find it very odd that AirIQ is trading at a P/E lower than the market. It looks like most investors are not convinced at all that the company can maintain its recent positive growth rate in the face of a shrinking broader market. The Final Word Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-earnings ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company. Story continues We've established that AirIQ currently trades on a much lower than expected P/E since its recent three-year earnings growth is beating forecasts for a struggling market. We think potential risks might be placing significant pressure on the P/E ratio and share price. One major risk is whether its earnings trajectory can keep outperforming under these tough market conditions. At least the risk of a price drop looks to be subdued, but investors think future earnings could see a lot of volatility. You need to take note of risks, for example - AirIQ has 3 warning signs (and 1 which is potentially serious) we think you should know about. If P/E ratios interest you, you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have grown earnings strongly and trade on P/E's below 20x. 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. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell told one of their victims that the girls they wanted for sex 'couldn't be black', newly released court documents claim. The late billionaire pedophile and his alleged madam told Virginia Giuffre they didn't want black girls for their sex massages, according to a 2011 taped conversation between Giuffre and her lawyers. A transcript of the three-way phone call was released last night amid a slew of newly-unsealed court documents from Giuffre's 2015 lawsuit against Maxwell after a failed 'eleventh hour' attempt by the alleged madam to keep the files secret. The transcript shows Giuffre speaking to her lawyer Brad Edwards and a third attorney Jack Scarola, detailing her allegations of how Maxwell and Epstein had her recruit other girls to pimp out to rich and powerful men. 'What instructions were you given about what to look for?' Scarola asked Giuffre in the 2011 conversation. 'Young, pretty, you know, a fun personality. They couldn't be black,' Giuffre replied. 'If they were any other descent other than white, they had to be exotically beautiful. That was just about it.' Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell told victim Virginia Giuffre that the girls they wanted for sex 'couldn't be black', newly released court documents claim The trove of court documents were unsealed Thursday and include a transcript of a three-way call between Virginia Roberts and her lawyers When asked who gave her those criteria, the alleged former sex slave said 'They both gave us the instructions, and it wasn't just me, Jeffrey asked most girls to bring a friend and make extra money.' Though many of the documents released Thursday night contain claims that have already been reported in the shocking, years-long case, the 2011 transcript has never been published before. Giuffre described to her attorney Edwards and Scarola, who has been involved in the cases of seven alleged victims of the billionaire pedophile, the disturbing detail of her first sexual encounter with Epstein and Maxwell at his Florida mansion, after the alleged madam recruited her while she worked at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club nearby. 'I was introduced to Jeffrey, he was laying naked on top of the massage table, and obviously for one, I'm a 15 year old girl and seeing him on the table was weird but, also learning about anatomy and massage, I thought this would be part of it,' Giuffre claimed in the phone call. She said that after 40 minutes Epstein rolled over exposing himself, and Maxwell instructed her to take off her Mar-a-Lago uniform. 'I was there with just my undies on, and she was completely bare, and made some kind of little flake about the underwear that I was wearing,' Giuffre told the attorneys. 'I was expected to lick his nipples, instructed on how to do so by J.E. and give him oral sex while he wanted to fondle me, and then at the end, I was told by Ghislaine to get on top and straddle Jeffrey sexually.' Giuffre told the lawyers that she was pimped out to at least eight of Epstein's male friends. Though she refused to name them in the 2011 phone call, she famously later claimed they included the Queen's son Prince Andrew, Next Top Model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, and Epstein's lawyer, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz. All the men have denied any sex abuse or wrongdoing. Epstein victims who appeared in court last August all appear to be white. Sarah Ransome (right) a South African native who says she was abused by Epstein in her early 20s, and Annie Farmer (left) could get million's from the late pedophile's estate Jennifer Araoz (pictured) says Epstein's recruiters lured her when she was a teenager by approaching her outside her school Chauntae Davies is another one of Epstein's victims, who fits in with Epstein and Maxwell's criteria alleged by Virginia Roberts Giuffre did however name several celebrities in the phone call who she claimed traveled on Epstein's private jet, including former president Bill Clinton and vice president Al Gore, models Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, Simpsons cartoon creator Matt Groening and the granddaughter of documentarian and explorer Jack Cousteau. In the documents, Giuffre made six references to Clinton, claiming he also visited Epstein's private Caribbean island an allegation that Clinton has previously denied. 'You know, I remember asking Jeffrey what's Bill Clinton doing here kind of thing, and he laughed it off and said well he owes me a favor. He never told me what favors they were. I never knew. I didn't know if he was serious. It was just a joke,' she said. 'He told me a long time ago that everyone owes him favors. They're all in each other's pockets.' When asked where Clinton was, Giuffre told the attorneys: 'On the island.' She claimed that Maxwell and two 'young girls' from New York were also on the island when Clinton visited with Epstein. When lawyers asked if all of them were staying on the island 'including Bill Clinton', Giuffre replied: 'That's correct. He had about 4 or 5 different villas on his island separate from the main house and we all stayed in the villas.' Also among the victims is Maria Farmer who alleges that Epstein sexually assaulted her in 1996 at his ranch in Ohio In the documents, Giuffre made six references to Clinton, claiming he also visited Epstein's private Caribbean island an allegation that Clinton has previously denied The former president has repeatedly denied ever visiting Epstein's island in the Caribbean. He has also always maintained he knew nothing of Epstein's abuse of young girls. His spokesman said on Friday that Clinton has 'never been to Little St. James Island'. He added: 'He'd not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade. Well before his terrible crimes came to light. Roberts said sexual orgies were a regular occurrence on the island at Epstein's house. In addition to Clinton, Roberts claimed in the unsealed testimony that she also recalled seeing former Vice President Al Gore, Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum on Epstein's private jet named 'Lolita Express'. 'Just about anybody would fly on his plane. There was never any set routine who would come and would go. It was an influx of people on Jeffrey's airplane,' she said. Roberts claimed that orgies were a 'constant' feature of life on the pedophile's island and they also took place on the plane. 'There would be sexual conduct, there would be foreplay, there was a bed in there, so we could basically reenact exactly what was happening in the house,' she said. 'It would start off with massaging or we would start off with foreplay, sometimes it would lead to, you know, orgies.' A former employee on Epstein's island told a Netflix documentary earlier this year that he also saw Clinton around during trips with the pedophile. Clinton has denied ever visiting Epstein's Caribbean island but has admitted flying in Epstein's private jet on four occasions. Steve Scully, a 70-year-old former worker on the island, claims he saw Clinton sitting with the pedophile in the porch of the island's villa. 'This was a lie the first time it was told, and it isn't true today, no matter how many times it's repeated,' Clinton's spokesman said at the time. Following Epstein's arrest in 2019, the spokesman also said the former president had only taken four trips on the jet. 'He's not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein's ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida,' the spokesman said. Also contained within the documents is a deposition that Roberts gave to investigators in which she accused Maxwell of having orgies with 15-year-old girls. Roberts told investigators that girls were routinely flown in via private jet to participate in sex sessions that happened all over the island. Bill Clinton and Ghislaine Maxwell were once pictured together on billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's private plane back in the early 2000s. The former president has repeatedly denied ever visiting Epstein's island in the Caribbean Asked to describe women she personally saw Maxwell have sexual contact with, she responded: 'There's so many, I don't know where you want me to start.' 'There were blondes, there were brunettes, there were redheads. They were all beautiful girls. I would say the ages ranged between 15 and 21,' she added. She alleged she saw Maxwell participating in sex sessions with them by a pool, near the beachfront, in small huts and in Epstein's cabana. At one point, Roberts was asked to describe a specific time she saw Maxwell engage in sex acts, or orgies, with girls by the pool. 'There was quite a few girls and it was, excuse me if I'm saying this in an in explicit way, but I don't know how else to say it... girl on girl action. So there was a lot of - what's the word for it? Licking, licking vaginas, breasts. Fingers being used. She was involved with that. 'I remember specifically... I had to go down on Ghislaine. Jeffrey was there as well. We're still by the pool with lots of girls.' She said the girls, who she described as 'beautiful, tall, some were blonde, some were sandy brown', did not speak English and spoke in a European language that Roberts guessed was Russian or Czech. Roberts also described one occasion that she said 'stands out' in which 'models were - I think they were models - were flown in. There were orgies held outside by the pool.' It is not clear if this is a separate time to when she claimed to have performed a sex act on Maxwell. Maxwell's lawyers have long fought to keep the documents under seal, claiming they could harm the reputations of high-profile people. The seal was partially lifted by a judge on Thursday following Maxwell's arrest on sex crimes charges and perjury earlier this month. A ruling by the US Court of Appeals last year led to the release of over 2,000 previously sealed documents in Giuffre's defamation lawsuit against Maxwell. A New York federal judge is now deciding which further documents to release in the case, amid bitter opposition from Maxwell and her legal team. Following the cache published Thursday night, a 2016 deposition of the British former socialite is also due to be released on Monday and is believed to contain new, sordid details of the alleged madam's sex life. Carl A. Neff, of Streetsboro, died last November at age 97 and left $525,000 to three Portage County non-profit organizations. With him is his dog Spencer. (Submitted photo) KENT, Ohio A quiet man, the late Carl A. Neff lived a frugal life, which enabled him to split $525,000 evenly among three nonprofits after his death. Each organization Hattie Larlham, Coleman Professional Services and Family and Community Services Inc. has received $175,000 from Neffs estate. As an employee with Republic Steel and the Akron Public Water System, Neff lived for decades in an Ohio home he and his family built, according to his neighbor, friend and eventual caretaker, Jack Smith. He was just a good neighbor, said Smith, who helped him grocery shop and take care of his house in recent years. He worked, and they saved their money. I think he only had five cars in his lifetime. He built his own house, which Im sure he paid for as he went. He was a real quiet guy. Jeremy Baynes, who was Neffs longtime financial adviser, said it was in Neffs character to make large donations to causes he believed in. Other than these three charities, Carl was very generous with his money, said Baynes. He had given tens of thousands of dollars to other organizations, as well. What I loved about Carl was, he was so polite, always a gentleman. From left, Hattie Larlham Chief Executive Officer Stephen Colecchi, Coleman Professional Services Chief Executive Officer Nelson Burns, Family and Community Services Executive Director Mark Frisone, Kent attorney John Flynn, Carl A. Neff's friend Jack Smith of Streetsboro and Neff's financial adviser Jeremy Baynes celebrate Neff's posthumous gift of $525,000 to be split evenly among the three non-profit organizations. Neff was born Jan. 5, 1922 and died Nov. 20, 2019, living 97 years, which included service in World War II, according to attorney John Flynn, who is executor of Neffs estate and also helped him with his will. Without any sons and daughters, Flynn said Neff whose wife, Marjorie, preceded him in death didnt immediately know what he would do with any money that would be left over after his own death. Flynn said he outlined what some of the non-profit organizations in Ohio's Portage County, Neff's home county, do and left it to Neff to choose among them where he donated his money. I typically wouldnt include a charity where his donation would be a drop in the bucket, said Flynn, who added the situation was an unusual one for him. That left out large, national charities that raise millions in donations every year. You dont see gifts like that from people who live a very frugal life, and you dont see that many gifts like that from people who are wealthy. Story continues Hattie Larlham Chief Executive Officer Stephen Colecchi said he is very grateful for Neffs bequest. Financial support is very important to the Hattie Larlham, and its key to allowing us to continue our mission, he said. A gift in this amount is certainly not the norm. Hattie provides support to 1,700 individuals with developmental disabilities in Northeast Ohio by providing medical, residential, recreational and work training services. Colecchi also thanked Flynn for helping Neff decide how to dispose of his estate. I think its important that we also thank attorney Flynn for providing counsel to Mr. Neff and suggesting that he include Portage County-based non-profit organizations in his estate. Mark Frisone, executive director of Family and Community Services, said he was astounded. Family & Community Services Inc. enjoys a significant number of donors who typically designate their gifts to one of our 80-plus programs, he said. However, in my 27 years at FCS, this private estate donation is in the top three in size. Nelson Burns, chief executive officer of Coleman Professional Services, said he was also shocked when he heard about Neffs donation. Tentatively, at this point wed like to spend it on residential support in Portage County since hes from Portage County, said Burns, adding the decision how to spend the money isnt finalized. Our clients are constantly being threatened with eviction because they cant pay rent or theyre laid off. With COVID-19 handicapping non-profit organizations fundraising efforts, a hefty bequest like this is well-timed, he added. Its a lifesaver right now, said Burns. A lot of our fundraising efforts are canceled or delayed. If he could, Frisone said he would tell Neff how greatly his money would benefit Portage County. God bless you, sir, he said. Your generosity will leave a lasting legacy in this community. Follow Bob Gaetjens on Twitter @bobgaetjens_rc. This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Frugal man leaves $525,000 legacy to three Ohio non-profits, charities The State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) did not dispute the issue of granting Ukraine a Tomos of autocephaly, said the acting Director of SBI Oleksandr Sokolov, reported the press service of the department. "As the head of SBI explained, the criminal proceedings, which the former president of Ukraine referred to in his public statements, in fact did not concern the Tomos, but the cancellation of registration of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP). It was registered on the basis of a court decision during the leadership of Roman Truba, and is now closed," the message says. "The said proceedings were opened at the request of the believers of this community and raised the question that they are deprived of the opportunity to freely use the temples of this community. After conducting a pretrial investigation, assessing all possible facts and carrying out all the necessary search actions, this case is closed for now. Investigators have not established signs of a criminal offense, falling under Article 161 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, namely the violation of the equality of citizens depending on their religious beliefs," Sokolov said. According to him, the cancellation of the registration of the UOC-KP should be considered in the framework of administrative or civil proceedings. The head of SBI also warned public figures against politicizing the work of the department and speculating on religious topics. "The SBI acts exclusively within the framework of current legislation and does not interfere in matters of religion. On this occasion, we have held consultations with representatives of various religious communities, to which the position of the State Bureau of Investigation was reported," Sokolov said. The Shivaji Nagar police arrested Yasmin Khan, 35 for conspiring to kill her husband, Ahadullah Khan, 37, with the help of her friend and his associate. They allegedly killed Khan in an accident a month ago in Navi Mumbai. According to police, Naushad and his associates kidnapped Ahadullah on June 17 from Govandi area in a vehicle and they hit him with iron rods on his head and killed him. The main accused in the case, Naushad then placed his body on the highway near Turbhe and drove over his head, to make it look like an accident, said senior inspector Kishor Gayke of Shivaji Nagar police station. The deceased Ahadullah was a painter and the Turbhe police found his body on the highway and they registered a first information report (FIR) against an unknown person, for causing death due to rash and negligent driving. On July 17, the police had arrested four persons including Khans friend, Naushad Khan, 50, Ramkumar Nirmal alias Devraj, 28; Noor Alam Munir Khan, 38, and Mohammed Taki Ahmed Shaikh, 28. On June 18, Abdullahs wife approached Shivaji Nagar police station and registered a missing person complaint so that no one could suspect her, said a police officer. During an inquiry, Sajid, Abdullahs brother, told police that Naushad had threatened the victim and had refused to return 1.5 lakh that he had borrowed, said police officials. Naushad and his friends were called for questioning, and Mohammed informed during an inquiry to police officers about the murder and accident set-up in Turbhe. Naushad, later confessed to the crime during interrogation. We then contacted the Turbhe police and learnt that a body was found and the postmortem was pending. Yasmin was then taken to the hospital to identify Ahadullah. During Naushads questioning, police learnt that he had an affair with Yasmin and had also borrowed money from Ahadullah and was not returning him. Yasmin did not want to live with Ahadullah so she plotted to murder her husband with Naushad, said Gayke. On the Border by Marie Mc Cartan, which is just published, is perhaps the great novel of South Armagh. Set in the Forkhill area in the tempestuous times of 1921-22 when against earlier expectations and hopes people from the district found themselves behind a new border, it is the story of the reaction of a family to the events of those times. On Cashel mountain near the Armagh-Louth border, Bryan and Catherine Grant try to maintain a normal life for their four daughters. Meanwhile their son Hughie joins the escalating conflict between the 4th Northern Division of the IRA and the B Specials. When fierce gun battles break out across the border, deadly reprisals follow each atrocity. Civilians are murdered in cold blood, women are violated and houses are burned to the ground leaving families homeless. As the 4th Northern division is pushed south, the division becomes embroiled in the Civil warfighting the forces of the Irish Free State, brother against brother. On the border brings to life the tragedy, terror and heroism of one of the most significant periods in Irish history by drawing heavily on actual events and the lived experience of a South Armagh mountain community that unexpectedly found itself on the front line of the Irish Civil War. Author Marie McCartan is already a well-known writer in the district and this is her masterpiece. She has all the gifts of the outstanding novelist- meticulous research, the setting of a story, the presentation of the characters and above all a facility with language to make all come fully alive as a single drama. A hundred years after these events, at the opening of the pages of On the Border, the past is risen up again. The familiar names and places of this border area are alive again out of the forgotten years. Some of Irelands most traumatic times appear again. This work immediately steps onto the pedestal of the great literary output of South Armagh from across the ages, and seems destined to achieve national fame and beyond. The book is available on Kindle and Amazon The Civil Rights Office for the city of Seattle has developed a curriculum on institutionalized racial superiority that appears designed to train white people only, according to documents obtained by independent journalist Christopher Rufo. The documents include powerpoint slides for a course on Institutionalized Racial Superiority for white people. One slide asks What do we do in white people space? and takes students through Processing white feelings: working through emotions that often come up for white people like sadness, shame, paralysis, confusion, denial, etc. Participants are then asked to explain how they benefit from white supremacy, how their white fragility shows up at work, or if theyre aware of their white silence. Another document lists certain traits deemed to be indicative of internalized racial superiority, including perfectionism, individualism, objectivity, and anti-blackness. That list is contrasted with traits deemed indicative of internalized racial inferiority, which include ethnocentrism and addiction, as well as anti-blackness. Seattles Civil Rights Office is not the only government agency that has developed curriculum for employees on concepts such as white privilege. The Office of Civil Rights for the Los Angeles public transportation system has encouraged employees to take part in discussions on their purported unconscious bias, and to learn about concepts including white privilege, non-racism vs. anti-racism, and racial microaggressions. Various private and public institutions throughout the U.S. have proclaimed their commitment to anti-racism initiatives following the death of George Floyd, an African American man killed during his arrest by Minneapolis police officers. Floyds death sparked massive demonstrations in major American cities as well as rioting and looting during the last weekend of May. More from National Review The US government is investing a cumulative $248.7 million in seven biotech companies making next-generation coronavirus tests, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced Friday. Contracts are being awarded through the RADx program, announced in April, after the Trump administration and US health agencies were panned for shortages of and flawed tests. The US is now testing more than 800,000 people a day - but concerns over accuracy remain, including revelations that the widely distributed Abbott test, which was used by the White House may return false-negatives. As cases now surge in the South and West and new hotspots emerge, labs are buckling under high demand for diagnostics, and experts say the US needs o be running as many as 10 million tests a day to adequately keep up with the pandemic. The NIH promised that tests authorized or in development from Mesa Biotech, Quidel, Ginkgo Bioworks, Talis Biomedical, Helix OpCo, Fluidigm and Mammoth Biosciences would help expand and speed testing in the US to deliver accurate test results inexpensively. Each of the seven tests has been through a 'Shark Tank' style development and review process and the investment will go toward scaling up the new tests. In a Friday press call, the NIH said that, in addition to the tests from Mesa and Quidel, the funding will go to scaling up the other new diagnostics so that they can run up to 'millions of tests per week as early as September 2020,' collectively said director Dr Francis Collins. By September, Dr Collins said the companies that are furthest along in their development processes should be able to run 50,000 tests a day each, reaching 100,000 tests a day by 2021. The NIH is investing nearly $250 million in seven new coronavirus tests, including the Sofia platform by Quidel, a point-of-care diagnostic Currently, the vast majority of coronavirus tests being used in the US are molecular tests that isolate and amplify bits of genetic material or enzymes specific to SARS-CoV-2. These types of tests are the 'gold standard' of diagnostics, but they're not perfect and most have to be sent out to labs for analysis, creating longer wait-times for results or backlogs. NIH's RADx (Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics) program was launched in April to encourage and accelerate companies to innovate new tests for COVID-19. It's one of several White House initiatives geared toward harnessing the private sector to address the coronavirus pandemic. More than 600 companies have applied to take part and 100 were selected to go through a one-week 'shark tank' process, 31 moved forward into a month-long second iteration, and seven have now been chosen to be scaled up. Three of the tests are point-of-care diagnostics, meaning they can be deliver results at the same clinic where a patient was swabbed, rather than being sent out to a lab for analysis. The other four are lab diagnostics, but use different technologies - called platforms in the diagnostics world - to test for coronavirus. THE NEW NIH-FUNDED TESTS THAT WILL DELIVER ON-SITE RESULTS MESA BIOTECH Like most diagnostics already in use, Mesa's tests for traces of viral DNA in a sample swabbed from a patient's nose or throat. But Mesa's advantage is in it's immediacy and portability. The entire test is contained in a hand-held device with single-use cartridges. It delivers results in 30 minutes. Mesa's test was given emergency use authorization by the FDA in March, but will be able to scale up its tests with the NIH investment. Mesa's Accula test uses a disposable cartridge and promises on-site results in 30 minutes QUIDEL The San Diego-based company has also already received FDA approval for its point-of-care test. Rather than looking for bits of viral RNA, Quidel's is an antigen test, which looks for SARS-CoV-2 via elements of the virus that reside on its surface. These are easier to find, chemically speaking. That make the test comparatively faster, but antigen tests have a higher probability of false-negatives. The NIH noted that tests that are slightly less accurate may be more useful in settings like business reopenings where the issue is less identifying a patient in immediate need of treatment, but more about detecting a possible outbreak. Already, Quidel has thousands of its Sofia Analyzers distributed across the US. Specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has specified that Quidel's test is a good one for nursing homes, where cheap, regular testing and fast detection of outbreaks are matters of life and death. The test delivers results in just 15 minutes. TALIS BIOMEDICAL Similar to Mesa's, Talis's test is a cartridge-based test that identifies viral RNA on the spot, but using a different technology. The company says its test delivers results in under 30 minutes. US labs are overwhelmed as both coronavirus cases and demand for tests surges in places like Florida, where hundreds of cars lined up for drive-thru testing earlier this month NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR LABS RUNNING THOUSANDS OF TESTS AT A TIME GINKGO BIOWORKS The Boston-based company is making a lab based test, but one that uses automation to speed of the process. Ginkgo's machine can run thousands of samples at a time, thanks to the way that it sequences genes from the virus. It can turn around results within one to two days. It anticipates being able to run 50,000 tests a day by September, ramping up to 100,000 a day by year-end. HELIX OPCO Similar to GinkGo, Helix can process thousands of samples at a time on its machines. Its test will specifically be sent to public health departments, large companies and health care systems that are in dire need of high-capacity testing. FLUIDIGM Fluidigm's test uses 'microfluid' technology that makes the analysis process simpler and faster than that of a standard PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test. It's not yet clear how many tests a day, exactly, Fluidigm's technology will be capable of running, but the NIH estimates it could do tens to hundreds of thousands daily by the fall. MAMMOTH BIOSCIENCES Although it too makes a lab test, Mammoth's is unique among the group. The relatively young company was the first and remains the only test to get FDA approval for using CRISPR - the biochemical tool that allows scientists to edit genes - to detect coronavirus. The CRISPR tool was designed to 'find and replace' faulty genes, but Mammoth has retooled it find coronavirus genes in samples from patients. CRISPR does this with remarkable speed and accuracy, outpacing the CDC's test. Mammoth promises that, once its production is ramped up, its technology will lead to a 'multi-fold' increase in the amount of testing that can be done at labs. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 13:16:09|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng held a phone conversation Friday with Singaporean Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat on bilateral ties and the fight against COVID-19. Han, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that Chinese President Xi Jinping has recently held a telephone conversation with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and the two leaders reached new consensus on bilateral ties, anti-epidemic cooperation and important issues of common concern. Noting that this year marks the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Singapore, Han said that cooperation in the fight against COVID-19 has become a new highlight of bilateral relations and set a good example at both regional and international levels. The two sides have helped each other, overcome difficulties, and ensured that supply chains of the two countries and the region remain stable, he said. China is ready to work with Singapore to adequately implement the consensus reached by leaders of the two countries, enhance mutual learning, and make good use of their cooperation mechanisms, Han said. China welcomes Singapore's continued active participation in China's regional development strategies, so as to better achieve common development, he added. For his part, Heng said that a friend in need is a friend indeed, and that the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Singapore and China presents a new opportunity. Singapore is willing to work closely with China to fully leverage the role of bilateral cooperation mechanisms, accelerate economic transformation and jointly deal with challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Heng said. Enditem Bob Owen, Staff-photographer / San Antonio Express-News San Antonio's COVID-19 hospitalizations may have dropped below 1,000 patients for the first time in a month, but Mayor Ron Nirenberg is warning residents that there is still work to be done. On Thursday, 965 people were hospitalized locally, a decrease of 42 from the day before. Intensive care units and patients on ventilators also decreased by 9 and 19 patients, respectively. Though in-patient care is trending downward after weeks of having more than 1,000 people hospitalized, local healthcare systems remain under "severe" stress. On Thursday, the city added 1,323 new COVID-19 cases. Five new deaths were also reported. The month of July has seen over 500 meals served to frontline workers in Grand Rapids and Detroit, thanks to a partnership between Founders Brewing Company and MLive. We are so glad to have the opportunity to support our frontline workers who are doing so much for the Grand Rapids and Detroit communities, said Dave Engbers, co-founder and president of Founders Brewing Company. We wanted to give back to them any way we could, and we hope our food donations can provide a small bit of relief and positivity in their day. Of course, the best way to support the efforts of these individuals is to stay safe and socially distance. The second best is to give a little comfort and care back to those who care so much for all of us. The meals donated through Founders support were delivered directly to essential workers in a variety of places throughout Detroit and Grand Rapids each Friday this July. The deliveries involved not just vital hospital employees, but other essential workers like bus drivers and postal employees. Just a small gesture, but one that all involved hoped would bring a little light - and a lot of delicious food - to those doing the hard work during this time. One location that received meals was Forest View Hospital in Grand Rapids. Forest View Hospital is proud of the valuable, supportive partnerships we have throughout the West Michigan community, said Jill Krause, CEO of Forest View Hospital. Our team of dedicated employees have worked tirelessly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic serving individuals experiencing mental health challenges. We are grateful to Founders Brewing for recognizing these Healthcare Heroes and the contributions they make daily in the care of our patients. It is our privilege to continue serving our community as a leader in behavioral health care treatment. A welcome food hug, delivered one meal at a time by Founders Brewing Company, helping essential frontline workers across Michigan receive both nourishment and recognition for their hard work during this time. Founders Brewing Company co-founder and CEO Dave Engbers helped to deliver meals to frontline workers this July.Courtesy Photo, used with permission. Founders Brewing Company is helping to feed the frontlines every Friday in July. One drop off point in Grand Rapids was The Rapid.Courtesy Photo, used with permission. The staff at Forest View Hospital in Grand Rapids got a welcome meal this July from Founders Brewing Company.Courtesy Photo, used with permission. Founders Brewing Company tap rooms in both Grand Rapids and Detroit are reopened, and will be providing meals for frontline workers every Friday in July.Courtesy Photo, used with permission. The staff at Forest View Hospital received lunch from Founders this July.Courtesy Photo, used with permission. Founders Brewing Company will be Feeding the Frontlines every Friday in July.Courtesy Photo, used with permission. The staff at Forest View Hospital enjoyed lunch from Founders this July.Courtesy Photo, used with permission. Want more stories about great things happening in Michigan right now? So do we. Delicious deliveries: See how feeding the frontlines spread cheer across Michigan Michigan comes together to support hospitality workers during week long event. Fredi the Pizzaman continues to support autism through pandemic. That Guys BBQ brings meals, hope to Bay City. Pink-haired dynamo chef makes a difference in West Michigan. See a full list of great helper stories here. The National Education Policy (NEP), unveiled by the government on Wednesday, is generating a lot of buzz. While many in the government and otherwise are welcoming the change in the education sector, others, including teachers, have varied views. Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday expressed happiness over NEP 2020 and called it a major step forward to enhance access to quality education for children and youth. Diversity and respect for the local context as well as a recognition of the importance of Indias classical languages will undoubtedly give learners a holistic world view. The focus of NEP 2020 on ethics and human and Constitutional values would go a long way in the creation of enlightened citizenship essential for deepening our democratic roots, Naidu said. Calling the NEP-2020s vision as truly global and essentially Indian, Naidu said that it exemplifies Indias timeless quest for welcoming noble thoughts from all over the world. Also Read: Youngsters elated, but worry about Boards The man who headed the panel which drafted the NEP 2020, said no language is being imposed on anyone. Former Isro chief K Kasturirangan said that a flexible approach has been proposed with a three-langauge formula. Adopting local languages as the medium of instruction till Class 5 is important in the early phase of education because the childs strengths in understanding the principles and in displaying creativity manifests better in the mother tongue as well in the local language, said Kasturirangan. The policy was approved by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday. Children have a great ability to pick up multiple languages in early age. The policy talks about a flexible approach in three-language formula. How it will be implemented in states its their decision. No language is being imposed in the policy, said Kasturirangan. However, some school principals believe students who will be taught in the mother tongue or regional language up to class 5 may face difficulties in coping with the syllabus in upper classes where medium of instruction is English. We first have to distinguish between language and literacy. Language is speaking and is natural for our brains. Literacy is reading and writing which is to be learnt by our brains, said Vishnu Karthik, Director, Heritage Schools. He said that childrens brains are designed to learn multiple languages and the more they are exposed to many languages, the more they can absorb them at an early age. Thus, teaching in only one language is not the best use of the critical learning windows nature has given for learning languages. Teaching only in English or only in the mother tongue is not a good practice. Rather a healthy mix of 2-3 languages is good for children in primary school, he said. Alka Kapur, Principal of Modern School in New Delhis Shalimar Bagh, said that English is a universal language and in the guidelines it is written that it can be used wherever possible. It is not clearly stated if wherever possible means subject or place. English should be one common language as everyone wants their child to know the language and I think if it is taught at the foundation state it would be very nice, she said. Regional language along with English language would be a good idea as the English language is a window to the world and every child from the foundation should be focused to learn English, she added. Replacing the 10+2 structure of school curricula with a 5+3+3+4 curricular structure corresponding to age groups 3-8, 8-11, 11-14 and 14-18 years respectively, scrapping MPhil programmes and implementing common norms for private and public higher education institutions are among other salient features of the new policy. (Newser) A former California police captain says he was fired for raising concerns about misconduct, including officers bending tips of their seven-point badge to indicate the number of people they'd killed. John Whitney, formerly of Vallejo Police, says he learned of the practice last February after officers fatally shot Willie McCoy in a drive-thru. The 19-year veteran informed Mayor Bob Sampayan, City Manager Greg Nyhoff and then-City Attorney Claudia Quintana, but was soon after fired, his lawyer tells the San Francisco Chronicle. Whitney filed a Feb. 21 claim stating he was released "for expressing his professional opinions on a variety of misconduct issues," including former Police Chief Andrew Bidou telling a subordinate to "burn that b----" in reference to kidnapping victim Denise Huskins, who police wrongly accused of orchestrating a hoax. As the city did not respond within 45 days, Whitney can now file a lawsuit. story continues below Whitney further claims Bidou told him to delete text messages so they could not be used "during the litigation involving the Huskins' kidnapping." Bidou is also accused of intervening in an investigation into the badge practice. Open Vallejo reports at least 14 of 51 officers involved in fatal shootings since 2000 had bent badges. A 2019 investigation found the department had the highest number of people shot by police officers, per capita, in Northern California, per CNN. Sampayan informed Nyhoff of badge-bending allegations last year, at which point Bidou indicated the claim "had not been substantiated," Assistant City Manager Anne Cardwell says, per the Chronicle. Bidou retired last year, while Sampayan went on to claim Whitney's "reputation was soiled by those that did not want any 'dirty laundry' aired." Current Police Chief Shawny Williams says an inquiry has been launched. (Read more police officers stories.) S Jaishankars call for independence is at one level a careful attempt not to alienate Russia even more in a relationship that is clearly drifting. At a recent webinar organised by the Observer Research Foundation on the trajectory of India-US ties, scholars from both nations reiterated the consensus that the relationship has come a long way since the estrangement of Cold War days and despite some persistent irritants, the trend points towards greater military-strategic synergy and maybe even cooperation on crucial emerging global issues like climate change, underwritten by bipartisan political support in both democracies. From terrorism to Kashmir, the Donald Trump administration has been in Indias corner and has backed New Delhi on its recent moves be it Balakot air strikes or Article 370 while US popularity among Indian public has seen a concomitant rise. Nobody can dispute that India-US ties boosted by overlapping strategic interests, deepening trade and overwhelming people-to-people synergy have undergone a tectonic shift starting with the civil nuclear deal. However, whats interesting to note is the language of temperance and moderation that still defines mutual expectations. It gives an impression that the relationship, despite all the recent progress as well as the commonality, scale and urgency of Chinese threat, is still struggling with the tyranny of low expectations. This caginess is not to be confused with the trade ties, where considerable differences exist, or deepening of military and diplomatic cooperation, where the embrace has been tightest. India conducts more regular and increasingly complex military exercises with US than any other nation. Notable among these are the recently introduced amphibious tri-services exercise Tiger Triumph, Yudh Abhyas, the annual high-profile Malabar exercises also involving Japan; both countries have signed four of the five major defence-enabling agreements with a possibility that the remaining one, BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement) could be inked this year; in terms of maritime security, India conducted group sail with the US, Japan, and the Philippines in South China Sea last year projecting power deep into the area that China considers as its backyard while USS Nimitz, the worlds largest nuclear-powered supercarrier, recently undertook PASSEX with the Indian Navy in Bay of Bengal signaling Indo-US solidarity amid rising tension with China. The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group is transiting through IOR. During the passage, #IndianNavy units undertook Passage Exercise (PASSEX) with #USNavy. Indian Navy had also conducted similar PASSEXs with #JMSDF and #FrenchNavy in recent past.@USNavy@SpokespersonMoD @MEAIndia pic.twitter.com/ntj5gFFNqC SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) July 20, 2020 Thanks to the defence enabling agreements, US designation of India as a Major Defence Partner and the elevation of India to Strategic Trade Authorization-1 (STA-1) status effectively bracketing India with NATO allies Washington has opened the door for India to access advanced defence equipment and enjoy greater interoperability and information-sharing with US military. Thanks to US-India success in finalizing defense enabling agreements, these six new aircraft are much more advanced and secure than commercial counterparts outstanding for maritime patrolling in sensitive Indo-Pacific space. #USIndia https://t.co/6ZHRXfB4Ed Alice G Wells (@AliceGWells) July 27, 2020 On the diplomatic front, the progress has been at both bilateral and multilateral planes. The 2+2 mechanism has been elevated to ministerial-level, the quadrilateral security platform (also involving Japan and Australia) has received greater commitment and is inching towards a functional cooperative framework. Also, speculation is rife that India may finally invite Australia to join the Malabar exercise. During a recent event organized by the US India Business Council, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo called India a trusted partner and announced that the quad dialogue among the like-minded democracies in the Indo-Pacific has been reinvigorated and he is looking forward to (his) meetings in Delhi next week. The US, which backs Indias aim of getting a seat at UN Security Council, and which blocked Chinas move at the UN on Jammu and Kashmir in January, is a facilitator for Indian membership in nuclear export control groups and also a conduit for Indias betterment of ties with partners in Indo-Pacific. As author and Brookings Institution scholar Tanvi Madan wrote in India Today, Multiple Indian prime ministers have, over the years, strengthened the countrys partnership with the US The fruits of this cooperation are evident in the current China-India crisis, in American rhetorical support, diplomatic cooperation, the use of military equipment acquired from the US, and, reportedly, intelligence-sharing And yet, despite the logic, there remains a reticence in India that has slowed the pace of the partnership. While Chinas strategic opportunism and post-pandemic aggression has hastened the tempo of Indo-US strategic partnership, New Delhi still retains a fair bit of hesitancy in joining a US-led coalition against China. India has been at pains to point out that its Indo-Pacific construct is not aimed at containing China, and New Delhi remains pointedly averse to publicising such a pro-US tilt even though an informal rationalisation of the security and geostrategic bond is evident. This duality in Indias approach resists logical explanation. India would like the US to act as its bulwark against Chinese belligerence, just as Washington cultivates India to be the democratic counterweight to China, and yet New Delhi seems too constricted within the ideological straitjacket of strategic autonomy, the baggage of Cold War and a fear of provoking China to talk openly about such an alignment. It is one of those rare cases in bilateral relationship where rhetoric not only fails to match up to actions, even seeks to downplay the growing closeness. This raises questions about Indias intent, and emits confusing signals about its motives and aspirations. Worth noting that while quad nations have shown no inclination towards developing the platform into an Asian NATO, the US has been talking up an alliance of free world against China. Washington has been quite forthcoming and vocal about its support to India on the ongoing Sino-Indian military standoff in Ladakh while pushing back against Beijings maximalist efforts to turn South China Sea into a Chinese lake. It is evident that US policy towards China is turning decidedly hawkish and the Trump administration may even be laying the roadmap for an era of economic, strategic and ideological confrontation but this repositioning also carries consequences for India. As the stand-off in Ladakh continues with China showing no signs of vacating the Line of Actual Control spots it had occupied, high-ranking US officials in the Trump administration from Pompeo to secretary of defence Mark Esper have offered a steady stream of support a departure from US stance during the 2017 Doka La stand-off when backing for India was muted and subtler, possibly in line with Indian requirements. We extend our deepest condolences to the people of India for the lives lost as a result of the recent confrontation with China. We will remember the soldiers' families, loved ones, and communities as they grieve. Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) June 19, 2020 Moreover, US support for India on this issue has been bipartisan, wide-ranging also covering Indias economic countermeasures against China such as banning Chinese apps and sustained. On Wednesday, a top Trump administration official said the US is willing to accept more risk and build alliances in Asia to check Chinese aggression in a keynote address where India was mentioned several times. At a webinar organized by Brookings Institution, Lisa Curtis, US national security councils senior director for South and Central Asia, said India demonstrated that it has the will and the capabilities to stand up to China it played the economic card by banning the Chinese apps and putting a hold on Chinese investment contracts. And I think the rest of the Indo-Pacific region is watching this very carefully and the region would be encouraged by Indias resolve. Additionally, the US-Australia joint statement following their 2+2 dialogue in Washington on Tuesday mentioned India as a key partner alongside the Five Eyes Partners to strengthen the networked structure of alliances and partnerships to maintain a region that is secure, prosperous, inclusive, and rules-based. These signals indicate that the US wants to create an atmosphere of trust so that New Delhi can shed some of that reticence. Indias coyness and graduated approach, however, arises at least partially from its status as a middle power that seeks to manage the relationship with a revanchist neighbour that also happens to be the worlds presumptive superpower. Along with internal and external balancing strategies, India also spends considerable effort in engaging, competing and cooperating with China to de-incentivise Beijings coercive behavior. However, as should be evident by now, this policy needs a revision. It has been evident for long, most certainly since Doka La, that India-China ties are in need of a complete reset to reflect Chinas growing might and the changing power dynamic in Asia. Yet India had carried on with the old modus vivendi, hoping to manage Chinas territorial revanchism with quiet diplomacy unless we reach a point of no return. Galwan was expected to be that inflection point. When the PLA ambushed Indian soldiers and killed 20 of our jawans, a rare congruence was evident in the reaction of public and policymakers that a return to normalcy after this watershed moment is impossible. In a telephone call with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, external affairs minister S Jaishankar warned that this unprecedented development will have a serious impact on the bilateral relationship. While economic nationalism was on the rise with a call for boycott of Chinese goods, the foreign policy establishment called it a a very hostile and violently assertive face of China and Beijing has effectively destroyed the edifice of bilateral relations so painstakingly built post the Chinese aggression of 1962. Gautam Bambawale, former ambassador to China, wrote that it is time to give a military angle to quad. Among strategic commentators, a hardening of views was equally palpable. Nitin Pai, director of Takshashila Institution, called for deploying naval power to acquire leverage over China, JNU professor Rajesh Rajagopalan argued that India cannot afford to be defensive and risk-averse this time, ORF distinguished fellow Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan saw it as a game-changer for New Delhi while Yusuf Unjhawala, editor of Defence Forum India, called for an open alignment with the US in Indias economic and strategic interests. The US is one among Indias many partners for external balancing of China, but the most consequential. The call for a formal deepening of the relationship, if not within an alliance structure, has gathered pace. The latest to air such a view has been Lt Generael (Retired) DS Hooda, the former Northern Commander of Indian Army who has argued strongly in his News18 column in favour of an open alliance with the US aimed at checking Chinas hegemonic ambitions. According to Lt Gen Hooda, In countering Chinas ambitions, the US faces the difficulties of traversing the Pacific Ocean and therefore needs Asian partners like India. For India, US support could be crucial to prevent us from reaching a position where we are forced to deal with events on Chinas terms. Thus, there is mutual benefit for both India and the US to align more closely. This clear-eyed assessment challenges Indias axiomatic notions about alliance and partnerships and seeks to allay its post-colonial historical experience. If Indias internal balancing options are limited and engagement with China hasnt brought deterrence, a multilateral external balancing through an amorphous coalition of democracies is an idea worth exploring. If nothing else, the old rhetoric of strategic autonomy, that has failed to achieve strategic gains or autonomy in decision-making, must go. Independence cannot be an end in itself. It is only the means to an end. If Indias aim is to secure national interest as it should be then India must ask itself whether national interest is best secured in accepting restrictions imposed by so-called strategic autonomy, or will it be best served by aligning in letter and spirit with a major power where interests overlap. Recent comments by Indias external affairs minister, however, signal a return to the tired old strategy of risk-averse, careful hedging. Speaking at a recent virtual conference, Jaishankar said non-alignment was a term of a particular era and geopolitical landscape that no longer exists, and in an increasingly multipolar world India must take risks and more proactive stance on the big issues of the day such as connectivity, maritime security, terrorism, climate change and terrorism. But he was equally clear that one element of non-alignment, independence, is a factor of continuity for India and India was never part of an alliance system and we will never be. The EAM expanded on this at another forum where he observed that the US really has to learn to work ...with a more multipolar world, with more plurilateral arrangements, go beyond alliances with which really it has grown up over the last two generations. It is easy to see where Jaishankar is coming from. In a speech at Council on Foreign Relations last year, Indias external affairs minister a career diplomat explained Indias objective of multi-alignment, which is you keep your relationships well-oiled with all the major power centers, and the country which does that best actually has political positioning in the world which may be superior to its actual structural strengths. Jaishankars recent comments can be interpreted in two ways. First, Russia remains a crucial factor in Indias diversification strategy, an important cog in Indias wheel in balancing China and a provider of advanced defence equipment as well as a facilitator of Indias defense capabilities. Jaishankars call for independence is at one level a careful attempt not to alienate Russia even more in a relationship that is clearly drifting. As Tanvi Madan observed in The Asan Forum, Strategically, Delhi has seen Moscow as a key part of its strategy to balance China, both as a supplier of military equipment and potentially as a counterweight. A Russia that perceives and treats China as a rival helps shape the regional balance of power in a way that benefits Indiait means one more power that could prevent a unipolar Beijing-dominated Asia. Russias importance in the India-China dynamic was evident in defence minister Rajnath Singhs recent visit to Moscow where he finalised an emergency purchase of 33 fighter aircraft at a cost of Rs 38,990 crore and urged Moscow to quicken up the delivery of S-400 air defence missile system at the risk of triggering US sanctions. Worth noting also that India has reportedly invited Russia to join the Indo-Pacific framework to allay notions that it is a US-centric grouping aimed at containing China. Second, India retains the Cold War era-distrust of alliance systems fearing that such an alignment will happen at the cost of restricting policy options. Here, India and the US, despite their security and defence cooperation, are essentially pulling in different directions. While the US works best within the normative framework of an alliance structure, India wants to avoid the trappings of commitment at all costs. We can see this in Pompeos recent speech at the Nixon Library in California an address that generated much debate where he admitted that the US cannot face the challenge of China alone and called for a new grouping of like-minded nations, a new alliance of democracies because if the free world doesnt change, communist China will surely change us As Singapore-based academic C Raja Mohan has noted in Indian Express, Delhi will certainly demur at Pompeo calling the group an alliance. It would rather have it described as a coalition of democracies. And yet Indias touchiness over joining an alliance system or a coalition is illogical. Japan, an American ally, has been far more cautious about antagonising China than the US, initially even failing to join the US, Australia, Canada and UK in criticising Beijings draconian national security law. Australia, the five eyes partner of the US, released a joint statement after the AUSMIN consultations criticising Chinese aggression over South China Sea, announced a scaling up of their joint military efforts and vowed to carry out more regular joint exercises in the South China Sea to counter Beijings increasing militarisation. However, Australian foreign minister Marise Payne also clarified that Australia would seek to promote its own national interests and declined to echo Pompeos strident rhetoric against the Chinese Communist Party. She added that though Australia and the US were close allies, they dont agree on everything. This punctures the contention that greater alignment with a major power restricts strategic independence. As Lt General Hooda pointed out in his column international politics is also not a zero-sum game, and an alliance with the US does not mean abandoning all ties with China or a reset in relations with countries like Russia. India would have noted that despite its elaborate efforts to distance itself from an alliance system as much a post-colonial insecurity as a signaling mechanism aimed at Russia and China, Beijing already believes that India is little more than a US lackey. As its State-controlled media noted, India says one thing, but does another. Even though India claims not to part of any alliance, its practice shows that it is inclined to the US. When the net result of a carefully calibrated policy is negative, it makes little sense to show dogmatic adherence to it to pass an ideological purity test. The task is not difficult. If a closer alignment with the US in a multilateral framework achieves deterrence, India should be open to the possibility instead of peremptorily closing its mind. Imagine that millions of people of one faith, one heritage, and one community are being targeted by their government. Imagine that these people are being rounded up by the hundreds of thousands and forced into so-called re-education camps, where they face brainwashing, torture, neglect, and in some cases death. Imagine that they are slowly being eradicated -- culturally, religiously, and ethnically -- through methods that literally meet the criteria for genocide. Now imagine the public outcry that would ring out from all corners of the globe in the face of such extreme human rights abuses. The only imaginary part of this scenario is the chorus of disapproval. The rest is the terrifying reality for the Uighur community of Xinjiang Province in China. Recent weeks have seen a flurry of investigative reports about the heinous abuses that Beijing has perpetrated against Chinese Uighurs. Fully 10% of the Uighur population in Xinjiang Province is reportedly imprisoned in re-education camps -- the largest detention of a civilian population since the Nazi roundups of the 1940s. Reports confirm that the Chinese government is taking extreme measures to ensure the cultural genocide of the Uighurs, along with efforts to prevent ethnic Uighur births. Attention has been paid in some quarters: Witness the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act passed by the U.S. Congress. But a depressing level of complacency continues, particularly within one crucial bloc: the worlds most powerful Muslim-majority countries. They have been either conspicuously silent or, worse, vocal in their support for China amid its all-out assault on their co-religionists. When Donald Trumps administration banned travelers from some Muslim-majority countries in 2017, those same nations led the protest. Yet now, in the face of an incomparably greater threat to fellow Muslims, staunch U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- along with Iran, Pakistan, and others -- stand by as their brothers and sisters in faith are detained, tortured, brainwashed, sterilized, and erased. Not only have they failed to condemn China; many Muslim-majority countries have openly commended its Islamophobic policy, as did 37 member states in a letter to the United Nations a year ago. Its worth noting that the Muslim signatories identify with the same Muslim sect as the Uighurs: Sunni Islam. Why all the kow-towing to China on its anti-Uighur policy? Some speculate that Muslim-majority states, wanting minorities within their own borders to behave, see Chinese treatment of the Uighurs as a useful example. But considering how long these states have already been cracking down on internal dissidents, they hardly need the Uighurs to hammer home that message. More likely, their complicity can be explained by increasing trade and investment with China. Far from prostrating themselves to Allah, these Muslim-majority countries appear to be bowing to the almighty yuan. All the while, they rack up piety points by recasting Chinas assault on the Uighurs as counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must -- at that moment -- become the center of the universe, wrote Elie Wiesel, who experienced one of the most devastating genocides in history. America is living through a center-of-the-universe moment right now, due to its ongoing struggles with race. But China should have one, too: Beijing must account for its intensifying human rights abuses. Beijing might feel more pressed to do so if the global community raised a louder voice. By shirking their responsibility to speak out on behalf of the Uighurs, Muslim-majority countries are dishonoring themselves. Katrina Lantos Swett is President of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice. Irshad Manji, a Lantos Human Rights Prize Laureate and reformist Muslim, is founder of Moral Courage College. The views expressed are the author's own. All week I've been haunted by a brief few seconds of video posted on Twitter late Sunday night by a student journalist in Eugene, Oregon. Two men face off at a protest the one standing on the left is demonstrating for Black Lives Matter; the one on the right, sitting in a pickup truck, is a counter-protester. Each is pointing a handgun at the other's face at point blank range. Truck guy pulled his gun again, BLM protester ran up with their own gun and said drop it. (I usually avoid posting faces, but I would be negligent in my journalistic duty to modify this) pic.twitter.com/gqUBxe7Ba8 C. Francis O'Leary (@CFrancisOLeary) July 26, 2020 That's us. That's America during the long, hot summer of 2020. I often catch myself pondering exactly what it is that keeps our country together. What do we hold in common? What do we share? The word "republic" comes from the Latin res publica literally "public thing." What is the single "thing" that is our public, political self? What binds us? Our national motto is E pluribus unum out of many, one. What is this "one"? Is it just the totality of the clashing, conflicted individuals and groups? Or is the collectivity something substantial in its own right that orders the parts and unites them? I see so much anger around me at the grocery store, while driving, on television, online. I feel so much of it myself: Rage that a congressman from Texas caught COVID-19 after discouraging his staff on Capitol Hill from wearing masks during the worst pandemic in a century. Rage that our reality-show-conman president would rather publicize absurd conspiracy theories, spread civic poison throughout the nation, and undermine confidence in our capacity to hold free and fair elections than fulfill the most elemental duties of his office. Rage that, although this president is down in the polls, two out of every five Americans continue to approve of how he's doing his job. Story continues Who are these people? What do I share with them? Aristotle suggests that at its best, citizenship can be a form of friendship. But America is nowhere near its best right now. These people may be my fellow citizens, but they aren't my friends. Sometimes they feel like my enemies. How has it come to this? The right feels like it's fighting for its very life against a left that's waging a scorched-earth campaign against it. As far as the right is concerned, progressives don't just want to win. They want to grind conservatives into the dust, humiliate them, force them to jump through public hoops, and confess their sins before the world. And the list of sins grows ever longer on race, on religion, on sex, on gender. The goalposts always shift further. Each triumph for the left is followed by the opening of another front in a rolling cultural revolution. The right feels desperate and understands every one of its own moves as an equal and opposite reaction to a prior offensive on the part of its political and cultural antagonists. The left, meanwhile, views things exactly in reverse. The story of the country is one characterized by unjust domination by a narrow class of white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered oppressors, and then a slow, grinding fight toward greater liberty and equality for every identity. Yet instead of giving up its exclusive privileges and conceding the justice of continuing with progress toward ever-greater democracy, the right has mounted a counter-assault that aims to reverse the progress America has made, with the ultimate goal of propping up its remaining power and then actively narrowing the circle of citizenship in the hopes of turning back the clock to a time when white, heterosexual, cisgendered men were in charge of everything. That poses an existential threat to all that's worthwhile about the country and fully justifies uncompromising acts to thwart its realization. There is more to each side of the story with social, economic, regional, and class-based concerns intertwining with and amplifying each faction's list of grievances and providing ample material for endless rounds of self-justification and excuse-making. But the culture war is the motor driving it all, with high-octane fuel supplied by legions of cheerleading rabble-rousers and activists who enrich themselves, advance their careers, and derive spiritual satisfaction from revving up the outrage. So what's the answer? Can a culture war be won decisively enough that the vanquished slink away, humbled and contrite in their defeat? Or is the fight the point? And if the fight is the point as it increasingly seems to be can the conflict remain contained indefinitely? Six months ago, I was largely persuaded by Ross Douthat's argument in his recent book The Decadent Society, according to which most of the animus and rancor of our political moment is a kind of pantomime enacted virtually. On Twitter and other social media platforms, on cable news, and on talk radio, Americans do battle with one another, fighting a digital civil war, like participants in a civic shooter-game. But in the real world, nothing much happens or changes, with most people too lethargic to rouse themselves from their couches and risk picking up a weapon. Instead, they blow off steam online, with our furious battles ending up as "sound and fury signifying relatively little." As I said, this seemed right to me last winter. But now, with a pandemic raging, the economy in freefall, schools poised to remain closed into the fall, the worlds of business and media undergoing cultural convulsions, civil unrest roiling cities suddenly wracked by spikes of violent crime, and a president lobbing rhetorical incendiary bombs onto the pile of kindling every day of the week well, now I'm not so sure. So how does it play out? What if the next time opposing protesters point guns at each other's faces, one of them pulls the trigger? What if militias of the right and left step into the vacuum left by police officers no longer willing to keep the peace? What if our hapless president decides to repeat his Portland provocations elsewhere, sparking much greater violence? What if the election in November ends up being close enough that Trump can raise uncertainty about the results in half a dozen states, prompting 40 percent of the country to reject any outcome other than a Republican victory? What then? Part of me gravitates to a fantasy of divorce. Maybe both sides would be happier if we just separated and went our separate ways, like unhappy spouses who call it quits after a few too many wounding arguments and rounds of couples therapy. But of course that's delusional. A nation isn't like a marriage certainly not companionate marriage based on individual choice. But it's not even a more traditional arranged marriage where there is a period of youthful independence before the union is announced and formalized. Unless you're an immigrant, your country is where you find yourself at birth. It's a given like a family in which you are born and raised before you even come to complete self-awareness. It shapes your outlook on the world in more ways than you can ever fully grasp. Families can break up, tear themselves asunder, but it usually isn't pretty. Neither are divorces. But at least a divorce takes places within a legal and moral frame that persists outside the marriage. Certain rules abide and apply to both parties, guiding the division of marital assets and looking out for the welfare of any children, with an impartial judge overseeing and enforcing it all. There is no such external structure when an extended family breaks apart into feuding factions. When I try to wrap my mind around what it would look like for political violence to break out and start spreading like brushfire through the country, I come up short. The historical Civil War was waged as a traditional military conflict over territory, with discrete battles, campaigns, victories, and surrenders. That's because the dispute mapped precisely onto the physical world. The North could have allowed the Confederacy to walk away, but it didn't, and so the two sides fought it out, with the South eventually losing, bringing the war to a decisive end. But today? We talk of red states and blue states, but that's obviously simplistic. It's not even possible to speak of an archipelago of progressive coastal cities arrayed against a much less densely populated inland empire of conservatism. The fact is that even small cities in America are significantly more liberal than the small towns and countryside that surround them. I live in an inner-ring suburb of Philadelphia that is heavily Democratic, but just a few miles from my house there are neighborhoods and towns filled with loyal Republicans. We are politically intertwined. That's the way a country is supposed to be at least when those on different sides of political disputes don't hate each other. Do we hate each other? And if we do, what are our viable options as a polity? I don't know how to answer those questions. What I do know is that it is long past time to begin posing them. More stories from theweek.com 5 brutally funny cartoons about Bill Barrs brand of justice The housing crisis is here What we know about schoolkids and coronavirus While equity market had a roller-coaster ride in 2020 so far, there was one asset class that glittered the most, and that is Gold. Gold in rupee terms rose by nearly 30 percent compared to over 8 percent fall seen in Nifty year-to-date. Gold has been consistent in delivering returns, especially in the last 2 years. If expert commentary is anything to go by, the momentum in the yellow metal could last for another 4-6 months. It might hit Rs 55,000 per 10 gm by Diwali, say experts. India Gold surpassed Rs 52,000 per 10 gm mark during the week while International spot prices came closer to $2,000/ounce. The large part of the rally in 2020 could be attributed to the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2019, the US-China trade war worries fuelled the precious metal. Internationally, gold has rallied 22% in 2020 till date, while, domestically, it has rallied over 27% in 2020 till date. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic saw global economies slump due to the lockdowns imposed to curb the virus, Sriram Iyer, Senior Research Analyst at Reliance Securities told Moneycontrol. Close Gold & Silver Rates Gold Rate in Mumbai 10g of 24K gold in Mumbai 10g of 22K gold in Mumbai View more Silver Rate in Mumbai 10g silver in Mumbai 1kg silver in Mumbai View more Show Related stories Gold Prices Today: Geopolitical tensions push yellow metal in over-bought zone; resistance at Rs 48,... Oil prices ease from 2014 high, supply concerns limit losses Catch Gamechangers Masterstroke with T Gnanasekar Episode 4 So to support their respective economies all the major central banks launched a stimulus package not seen since the U.S. financial crisis in 2008. Additionally, renewed tensions between the largest economies of the world also supported the safe-haven appeal of the commodity, he said. Iyer further added that the economic activity globally will take its time to recover due to the second wave of COVID -19. We see a U-shaped recovery rather than a V-shaped one. So prices could continue to move higher in the next 4-6 months time frame, he said. How can one play the theme? Gold is an inherent part of life for Indian households and the pandemic has caused large destruction and devastation in the global economy, making investments in the safe haven more appealing. Gold Finance companies: One way to play the gold theme is by investing in Gold Finance companies. Muthoot Finance is up over 70 percent so far in 2020 while Manappuram Finance outperformed the benchmark index and is up over 1 percent in the same period. In todays environment where there is stress in the economy, many micro businessmen and households would resort to gold finance to tide over the difficult times. This coupled with higher prices benefits gold finance companies like Muthoot Finance and Malappuram Finance, Rusmik Oza, Executive Vice President, Head of Fundamental Research at Kotak Securities told Moneycontrol. Overall, gold imports in the country have contracted sharply which means jewellers are also not importing in a big way. After the sharp run-up in gold prices people would also postpone their buying thereby impacting demand for gold jewellery, he said. Investing in gold ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) (not so popular in India): A citywide task force broke up encampments near the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue and made at least two arrests Thursday morning, signaling a shift in how Richmond officials are dealing with occupants there. Authorities confiscated or destroyed the tents, chairs, clothes, grills and bottles of water people have accumulated as they occupied the grassy medians on the north and west sides of the monument 24 hours a day. Earth-moving equipment was used to crush and move tent structures, which were loaded into a dump truck and taken away, witnesses said. The day before, police delivered a summons, informing the occupants they were in violation of a camping ordinance. City ordinance 8-273 bars anyone from camping, setting a tent or quartering on public grounds maintained by the city. On Thursday at 8 a.m., police arrived to enforce the summons. Multiple demonstrators described a scene in which police descended on the camp with assault rifles at the ready, waking up those who were asleep there and approaching the grounds with aggression. But a Monument Avenue resident who was walking his dog at the time said that police did not cross a line in their handling of the situation. Singapore Changi Airport. (PHOTO: Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images) SINGAPORE Authorities in Singapore said that it is unlikely that a traveller from New Zealand was infected with COVID-19 during his stopover transit at Changi Airport en route to South Korea. In a joint media statement released on Friday (31 July), the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said their initial investigations found that the traveller, who is asymptomatic, left New Zealand on 21 July and arrived in South Korea on 22 July. A polymerase chain reaction test done four hours after the persons arrival was positive for the coronavirus. According to World Health Organisation, the average incubation period for COVID-19 is five to six days, up to a maximum of 14 days. Our initial investigations found that it is unlikely that the individual was infected during transit in Changi Airport, as that would mean an incubation period of less than 24 hours, MOH and CAAS said in their joint statement. Singapore is in contact with the New Zealand and South Korea authorities for further information. The source of infection remains unknown and investigations by the various authorities are ongoing. As an added precaution, contact tracing in Singapore is also underway. Stringent measures to segregate passengers New Zealands health ministry had said on Tuesday that the traveller spent 14 hours and 20 minutes in a transit lounge at Changi Airport. Before departing from New Zealand, the individual was also on a domestic flight from Auckland to Christchurch. The ministry added on Thursday that close contact tracing of passengers on the domestic flight has been completed. MOH and CAAS said that there are stringent measures undertaken at Changi Airport to ensure that transiting passengers are segregated from other passengers at all stages of their journey both in flight and at the airport. Safe distancing and temperature taking for passengers and staff are also enforced. All passengers travelling through Changi Airport are required to wear masks at all times, while airport staff wear personal protective equipment when interacting with passengers. Safe distancing, temperature taking for passengers and staff are also enforced, the authorities added. Story continues All transit passengers, including those who had arrived on the same flight as the individual, adhered to these precautionary measures. Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore Related story: Traveller from NZ who flew to S Korea possibly infected with COVID-19 during transit in Singapore Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) Police Minister Bheki Cele on Friday revealed that South Africas murder rate is the highest it has been in 10 years, with an average of 58 murders per day across the country over the past year The Delhi High Court Friday dismissed a plea by former Congress municipal councillor Ishrat Jahan, booked under anti-terror law UAPA in a case related to communal violence in northeast Delhi in February, challenging an order that extended by 60 days the time for completing the investigation. Justice Suresh Kumar Kait said there is no illegality or perversity in the trial court's order. "Finding no merit in the present petition, the same is accordingly dismissed with no order as to costs," the high court said. Jahan, who was arrested on February 26, has challenged the trial court order extending, beyond the 90 days mandated under UAPA, the time for completing the investigation by two more months. Delhi Police has opposed the plea saying that the high court should not intervene in the matter as far as the order of the additional sessions judge, extending the time to probe the case, is concerned as there was no infirmity in it. The high court said the trial court judge had passed the June 15 order after going through the mandate of the provisions of the law and after recording his satisfaction. "In view of the facts recorded above and the settled legal position of law, I am of the view that the public prosecutor had moved an application, for extension of time to file charge sheet, after going through the whole matrix of the case and after satisfying himself as per the law as enumerated in the second limb of Section 43(D)(2)(b) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. "Learned judge also after going through the facts and circumstances and mandate of provisions of law of the Act mentioned above and after recording his satisfaction had passed impugned order. Therefore, I am of the view that there is no illegality or perversity in the said order," Justice Kait said in a 19-page judgement. The high court said the trial court judge has in unequivocal terms held that that there exist sufficient reasons to extend the period of investigation, detention of the accused beyond the period of 90 days as contemplated under the UAPA. "The satisfaction of the court for extension of the period of investigation is clearly recorded in the impugned order dated June 15. This satisfies the requirement of section 43-D of UAPA," it said. The high court added that it was apparent that the trial court formed an opinion on the basis of submissions, perusal of case diary and report of the prosecutor, which was duly examined to satisfy the requirements of law that what the progress of investigation was and the specific reasons for detention of the accused beyond the period of 90 days. It added that the trial court has considered all relevant circumstances for passing the order granting extension of period of investigation. It noted that the similar issue came before the coordinate bench of the high court in JNU student Sharjeel Imam's UAPA case and his plea was dismissed while upholding the trial court order by which time for investigation was extended. Imam was arrested in relation to his alleged instigating speeches during the anti Citizenship (Amendment) Act and National Register of Citizens protests. The high court on July 20, had reserved order on Jahan's plea challenging the trial court's June 15 order granting a 60-day extension to police to complete its investigation against her and activist Khalid Saifi. Jahan had sought setting aside the trial court's order, saying it was "erroneous, bad in law and wrong on facts" and against the democratic and fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Her counsel had contended that the prosecutor had not applied his mind while filing the application in the trial court. The trial court, in its June 15 order, had said the prosecution had set out a case for extension of the statutory time period to conclude the investigation but the investigating officer was not divested of his obligation of concluding the probe expeditiously. The trial court was informed that Saifi had allegedly travelled outside India and met persons including fugitive Zakir Naik, controversial Islamic preacher, to get funds for spreading his agenda and the investigation regarding this required more time. The trial court, which granted time till August 14 to conclude the pending investigation, had noted the police contention that Saifi got suspicious funds through an NRI account of a person, who is serving in Singapore, in the account of an NGO which he is running in partnership with his friend. The police had sought extension of time till September 17 for concluding investigation against Jahan and Saifi, under section 43D (2) (b) of the anti-terror law. Section 43-D (2) of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) provides that if it is not possible to complete the investigation within the 90 days period, then upon the report of the public prosecutor indicating the progress of the probe and the specific reasons for the detention of the accused beyond the 90 days period, after satisfaction, the court can extend the period of probe to 180 days. 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 scores injured. Industrial Gasket Market Research Report by Type (Formed-in-Place Foam Gasket, Liquid Gasket, Polyurethane Foam Gasket, and Silicone Foam Gasket), by Product (Compressed Asbestos Fiber, Corrugated Gaskets, Jacketed Gaskets, Kammprofile Gaskets, and O-ring Gaskets), by End User - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19 New York, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Industrial Gasket Market Research Report by Type, by Product, by End User - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940980/?utm_source=GNW The Global Industrial Gasket Market is expected to grow from USD 9,114.19 Million in 2019 to USD 13,586.90 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.88%. Market Segmentation & Coverage: This research report categorizes the Industrial Gasket to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets: Based on Type, the Industrial Gasket Market studied across Formed-in-Place Foam Gasket, Liquid Gasket, Polyurethane Foam Gasket, and Silicone Foam Gasket. Based on Product, the Industrial Gasket Market studied across Compressed Asbestos Fiber, Corrugated Gaskets, Jacketed Gaskets, Kammprofile Gaskets, O-ring Gaskets, Ring Joint Gaskets, Soft Gaskets, and Spiral Wound Gaskets. Based on End User, the Industrial Gasket Market studied across Chemical Processing, Food & Pharmaceuticals, Industrial Machinery, Power Generation, Pulp & Paper, Refineries, Textiles, and Water Treatment. Based on Geography, the Industrial Gasket Market studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region surveyed across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region surveyed across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region surveyed 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 Industrial Gasket Market including AMG Sealing Limited, Centauro S.R.L., Denver Rubber Company, Donit Tesnit d.o.o, Flexitallic Group, Garlock Sealing Technologies, Goodrich Gasket Private Limited, Hennig Gasket & Seals Inc., James Walker, KLINGER Ltd, Lamons, Oman Gasket Factory L.L.C, Spira Power Gasket Manufacturing LLC, Spitmaan Group, TEADIT Group, and W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc.. FPNV Positioning Matrix: The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Industrial Gasket Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape. Competitive Strategic Window: The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19: COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market. The report provides insights on the following pointers: 1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players 2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets 3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments 4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players 5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments The report answers questions such as: 1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Industrial Gasket Market? 2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Industrial Gasket Market during the forecast period? 3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Industrial Gasket Market? 4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Industrial Gasket Market? 5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Industrial Gasket Market? 6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Industrial Gasket Market? Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940980/?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 3 1 of 3 Courtesy photo Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Courtesy photo Show More Show Less 3 of 3 Conroe Noon Kiwanis received 21 applications for the Michael J. DeGeorge Memorial Scholarships, this was down from 32 received in 2019 due to students not being in classes since March. Even with the physical absence of the students, the counselors did a fantastic job of keeping the students connected with all available scholarships for their students. The high school seniors attended nine local high schools in the Greater Conroe area. Fortunately, the Conroe Noon Kiwanis Club has seven students receiving scholarships in the amount of $1,000 each. The scholarships are payable in increments of $500 for the fall semester upon presentation of enrollment with a minimum of 12 semester hours, and $500 is payable in the Spring semester upon receipt of passing grades for the Fall and enrollment in the Spring of a minimum of 12 semester hours. Checks are disbursed directly to the college students are attending. The Springfield Museums will salute Heroes in Healthcare: Celebrating Springfields Medical Community at the Wood Museum of Springfield History, beginning Monday, Aug. 3, and continuing through Jan. 24, 2021. Heroes in Healthcare is intended as a complementary exhibit to the fantasy Hall of Heroes, which is located on the first floor of the Museum of Springfield History, When we brought the Hall of Heroes to the Museums, we knew how important it would be to celebrate real-life heroes with a complementary exhibit, said Kay Simpson, president and CEO of the Springfield Museums. Our healthcare heroes are helping us all face these unprecedented times with endless examples of heroic service and compassionate care. As stewards of the Baystate Medical Center Archives, including materials from their Training School for Nurses, the museum staff was able to gather a rich history of healthcare in Springfield, said Maggie Humberston, curator of Library and Archives for the Springfield Museums. We drew on that collection with its assortment of photographs and institutional history to recount a story of outreach and care, she said, and a long history of striving to meet the public need, she said. Mercy Hospital and the Archives of the Sisters of Providence were used in documenting the history of their organization. The Visiting Nurses Association Archives is also held at the Wood Museum. Humberston delved into that collection to share remarkable stories of how visiting nurses traveled to the homes of people of all economic backgrounds. As she researched the local response to the influenza of 1918, Humberston discovered efforts similar to today to stem the spread of COVID-19 by wearing masks and keeping at social distance. Gauze masks and open air were deemed very important in combating the Spanish Influenza, Humberston said. Social distancing was practiced, and people were encouraged to walk to reduce crowding in railroad and streetcars, while streetcars were disinfected every night. The clergy decided to close the churches, and the Board of Health closed just about everything else. One of Britain's highest profile hedge fund managers Crispin Odey has been charged with indecently assaulting a woman more than 20 years ago. The Tory donor was charged on May 14 over an alleged incident in 1998, a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said. But the 61-year-old has denied the alleged assault, which was claimed to have taken place in Chelsea, west London. Tory donor Crispin Odey, 61, has denied indecently assaulting a woman more than 20 years ago, after being charged over the alleged incident from 1998 The high-profile investor is alleged to have indecently assaulted 'a woman over 16 years of age' on or around July 13, 1998, at an address in Swan Walk, Chelsea, the Metropolitan Police said. Prosecutors said Odey is set to appear at Westminster Magistrates's Court on September 28, following a complaint by a woman. In a statement on Friday, Odey said: 'The allegation is denied and I will strongly contest this matter.' Odey is one of the UK's richest hedge fund managers and has an estimated 846million fortune with wife and fellow fund boss Nichola Pease, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. Odey has an estimated 846million fortune with wife and fellow fund boss Nichola Pease (above), according to the Sunday Times Rich List A prominent figure in the financial sector, Odey donated more than 870,000 pounds to the successful campaign to leave the European Union. The Conservative party donor also contributed to Prime Minister Boris Johnson's leadership campaign. The influential financier owns a home in Swan Walk, Chelsea, a Thames riverside street in Chelsea. He founded Mayfair-based investment firm Odey Asset Management in 1991, after graduating from Christ Church, Oxford, studying History and Economics. Odey made headlines when he spent about 150,000 pounds on a Palladian-style stone temple to shelter chickens at his Gloucestershire mansion. New Jersey lawmakers passed bills Thursday that would change how residents are policed, sentenced and treated after theyre released from prison, part of a wave of reforms gaining traction as protests against police brutality and systemic racism continue nationwide. The votes took place the same day as the funeral for civil rights icon John Lewis, and state legislators invoked his name when discussing why some of the bills are needed. After a bill was introduced criminalizing calling 911 to threaten somebody because of their race, state Sen. Ronald Rice, D-Essex, referenced Lewis last essay and said, we have a right, an obligation, to move this type of legislation. That proposal (A1906) passed unanimously, 40-0, and now heads to Gov. Phil Murphy for final approval. The stakes are too high to wait any longer and the sustained protests around the country have made it clear that the time for change is now, state Sen. Shirley Turner, D-Lawrence, said in a statement. Other bills focused on police hiring and training. Departments must develop a minority recruitment and selection program if one bill (A2394) becomes law. The proposal says departments must make a good faith effort to hire more women and people of color, but it doesnt set specific goals beyond saying agencies should reflect the diversity of the population around them. It passed the state Senate 38-1 and now heads to the governor. Another proposal (A4366) beefs up mental health training for officers, particularly to help cops deal with residents having psychiatric episodes. It passed the state Assembly 75-0, and now heads to the Senate. At the same time, the state Senate voted for a bill (S419) that expands cops diversity training. Although lawmakers delayed voting on a first-in-the-nation bill that would potentially release thousands of inmates early because of the coronavirus, they moved on other proposals affecting state prisons. Significantly, one bill (A4369) could dramatically lower prison populations by eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for some nonviolent crimes. It was approved in the Assembly 52-19 with three abstaining. Another (A4372) creates a pathway for some people sentenced to decades behind bars for crimes committed as juveniles to be re-sentenced. It was approved by the Assembly 47-24, with three abstaining. One proposal (S415) would offer housing help and other services to people who finished their full sentences, services currently not available to former inmates who max out of the system. A resolution (SJR79) would study sexual abuse within the states only womens prison, after a scathing report from the U.S. Department of Justice found widespread abuse. It passed the Assembly 75-0, and now heads to the governors desk. 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. Have a tip? Tell us: nj.com/tips. Officials, including Xinjiang Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo (C) and former XPCC Political Commissar Sun Jinlong (first on R), attend a meeting of the Xinjiang delegation on the sidelines of the National People's Congress, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 12, 2019. UPDATED at 6:40 P.M. ET on 2020-07-31 The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday sanctioned a key paramilitary group in Chinas Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and two of its current and former officials, in the latest bid by the Trump administration to end rights violations in the region. The Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corp (XPCC), as well as Sun Jinlong, the XPCCs former political commissar, and Peng Jiarui, its current deputy party secretary and commander, for their connection to serious human rights abuse against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, the agency said in a statement. The sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act block the XPCC, which employs some 12 percent of the regions population and produces nearly one-third of Chinas cotton, and the two current and former officials from access to the U.S. financial system. They also restrict Sun and Peng from traveling to the U.S. Among the abuses cited by the Treasury Department are reports of mass arbitrary detention in the region, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a vast network of internment camps since April 2017. As previously stated, the United States is committed to using the full breadth of its financial powers to hold human rights abusers accountable in Xinjiang and across the world, said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The new sanctions are the latest in a series of measures the Trump administration has rolled out in recent weeks against China. Washington and Beijing have been embroiled in a tit-for-tat exchange over issues including trade, the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the autonomy of Hong Kong, territorial claims in the South China Sea, and ethnic rights that has seen bilateral relations reach their lowest point in four decades. Washington responds In a statement addressing Fridays sanctions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Chinas rights violations in the XUAR rank as the stain of the century, and slammed the XPCC as directly involved in implementing measures that include the surveillance, detention, and indoctrination of Muslims in the region. Todays designations are the latest U.S. government action in an ongoing effort to deter human rights abuse in the Xinjiang region, Pompeo said. We call on all countries to join us in condemning the CCPs (Chinese Communist Partys) heinous abuse of the human rights of its own citizens, affecting countless families across the world. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)a bipartisan, federal entity that makes policy recommendations to the president, Secretary of State, and Congresswelcomed the Treasurys designation of the XPCC. For years, we have advocated for sanctioning the XPCC," USCIRF Commissioner Nury Turkel said in a statement, calling the announcement a significant step" even beyond sanctions announced earlier this month against senior CCP officials deemed responsible for abuses in the XUAR. The XPCC is essentially a parallel government in Xinjiang and has been directly involved in implementing the surveillance, mass detention, and forced labor of Uyghurs. USCIRF Commissioner Gary Bauer said the latest round of sanctions show that the U.S. government is increasingly able to identify and target those Chinese entities most responsible for religious freedom abuses against Uyghur and other Muslims. Communist China can no longer hide its religious freedom abuses from the world, he added. Earlier measures Earlier this month, the Trump administration leveled sanctions against several top Chinese officials deemed responsible for rights violations in Xinjiang, including regional party secretary Chen Quanguo, who is also the current first political commissar of the XPCC. 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. Chinas Foreign Ministry responded with 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. In the latest back-and-forth, the U.S. last week ordered China to shutter its consulate in Houston citing concerns over espionage, prompting China to demand that the U.S. close its consulate in Chengdu over similar allegations. 'Symbol of colonialism' Speaking to RFA's Uyghur Service, Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), applauded the sanctions as being of historical significance. The [XPCC] is a symbol of Chinese colonialism [that] has violently wrested away the most fertile lands and water resources from the people of East Turkestan, said Isa, using the name Uyghurs prefer for their homeland. It has also exploited the Uyghur people and used them as forced labor, resulting in their abject poverty. The XPCC, or bingtuan, is a quasi-military organization comprised of 14 divisions made up of dozens of regiments that furthers the CCPs policies of economic development in the XUAR through resource extraction and an emphasis on subordination to central planning. It controls interests that comprise nearly 17 percent of Xinjiangs economy. The Treasury Department said Friday that the XPCC had been designated for being controlled by, or for having acted on behalf of, Chen Quanguo, and for helping to implement his policies in the region. Isa called the XPCC a criminal organization that the central government has used to crush the political, economic, and cultural rights of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. Chinas Foreign Ministry had yet to comment on the latest sanctions at the time of publishing, but the move is likely to lead to retaliatory measures from Beijing. Reported and translated by Alim Seytoff for RFAs Uyghur Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 08:55:23|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. - - - - ADDIS ABABA -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the African continent reached 891,199 on Thursday, the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said. The Africa CDC, a specialized healthcare agency of the 55-member African Union (AU) Commission in its latest situation update issued on Thursday, said that the number of deaths related to the COVID-19 pandemic rose to 18, 884 as of Thursday, up from 18,507 on Wednesday. - - - - ADDIS ABABA -- Ethiopia's confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 16,615 after 805 new COVID-19 positive cases were confirmed on Thursday, the Ethiopian Ministry of Health said. This is so far the highest daily increase in the Horn of Africa country. - - - - JERUSALEM -- Israeli researchers have found that a viral infection in a pregnant woman's body can harm the fetal brain cells, even if the fetus is not infected with the virus, Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) said Thursday. This may be caused by the mother's immune system response to a virus, affecting the fetal brain cells, according to a WIS research, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. - - - - COPENHAGEN -- Denmark can expect to be hit by a second COVID-19 wave this September, according to findings presented in a press release by the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) on Thursday. Based on simulations using a scientific method of calculation rooted in the methods of particle physics and developed in association with colleagues from the University of Lyons in France, the SDU projected that around the 35th to 37th weeks of this year, Denmark risks being hit by a new wave of COVID-19 infections as strong as the first that hit the country in the spring. - - - - LONDON -- British car production plunged by 42.8 percent in the first half (H1) of 2020 year on year, recording the weakest six months since 1954, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said Thursday. Data revealed that British car production was 381,357 units in H1 amid the hard hit caused by the coronavirus pandemic. - - - - VIENTIANE -- Lao Prime Minister's Office on Wednesday has released a notice urging everyone to continue to take precautions against the COVID-19 pandemic, even as many lockdown measures were lifted. Under the notice, which will be in effect from Saturday to August 31, authorities and people countrywide must remain vigilant and continue to abide by measures determined by the National Taskforce Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control. - - - - NEW DELHI -- Federal health ministry Thursday said India cannot count on herd immunity to stop the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic given its demography and scale, instead, it will have to rely on a vaccine. "In a country with the size of the population like India, herd immunity cannot be a strategic choice or option. It can only be an outcome, and that too at a very high cost as it means millions of people would have to be infected, get hospitalised and many would die in the process," said Rajesh Bhushan, secretary in the ministry of health at a press briefing. - - - - BEIJING -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday called on China and Indonesia to focus on cooperation in fighting the COVID-19 epidemic and promoting development. During a video meeting with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, Wang said currently COVID-19 was spreading globally, which endangered human health, impacted the world economy and threatened global stability. - - - - KUWAIT CITY -- Kuwait on Thursday reported 626 new COVID-19 cases and one more death, raising the tally of infections to 66,529 and the death toll to 445, the Health Ministry said in a statement. Currently, 8,754 patients are receiving treatment, including 134 in ICU, the statement added. The ministry also announced the recovery of 863 more patients, raising the total recoveries in the country to 57,330. - - - - BEIJING -- Beijing has been inspecting storehouses of refrigerated meat and aquatic products as part of its efforts to guard against COVID-19 "importation" through cold-chain foods. At a press conference on COVID-19 prevention and control on Thursday, the city's market regulation administration said authorities had inspected 4,719 such storehouses. Seafood products from three companies were removed from the shelves during the inspection. - - - - WARSAW -- The Polish Health Ministry announced on Thursday that 615 COVID-19 cases were confirmed over the past 24 hours, which is a new daily record in the country since the start of the pandemic. The country officially had a total of 45,013 confirmed cases, with 1,709 deaths since March, when the first patient was diagnosed. Enditem There were varying views on Thursday from political parties on the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 with the Congress and Left parties accusing the Centre of "bypassing" Parliament by not discussing it before announcing it, while the TDP welcoming it and asserting that emphasis on mother tongue as the medium of instruction will help children develop critical thinking and literacy skills. Tamil Nadu School Education Minister KA Sengottaiyan said the state government will respond to the NEP after a detailed discussion with Chief Minister K Palaniswami on August 3. However, the PMK, an NDA ally, sought revision of the policy, claiming that there were some "dangerous" aspects in it. The Central government on Wednesday announced sweeping reforms under its new education policy that included teaching in mother tongue or regional language up to class 5, lowering the stakes of board exams, allowing foreign universities to set up campuses in India, a single regulator for higher education institutions except for law and medical colleges and common entrance tests for universities. Former HRD minister and senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor welcomed it, but feared it may make education unaffordable for the poor as it showcases a tendency towards "centralisation, high aspiration and low feasibility" with an assumption that the challenge will be met by the private sector. The Left parties criticised the new policy, saying that it strayed away from the concept of universalisation of education and focused on creating "education markets". In a series of tweets, Tharoor said, "There is much to welcome in what we have seen of the NEP 2020 announced by Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank. A number of suggestions made by some of us seem to have been taken into account. However, the question remains why this was not brought before Parliament first for discussion. I like the fact that vocational training will be introduced for all kids in school from 6th Grade." Tharoor said,"I look forward to a constructive discussion in Parliament, in which these concerns can be addressed & clarifications given. I commend Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and his team for their efforts. A better-educated India is vital for all." "Overall, my worry is the NEP showcases a strong tendency towards centralisation, high aspiration w/low feasibility, and an unspoken assumption that much of the challenge will be met by the private sector, which will drive up costs & make many opportunities unaffordable for the poor," he tweeted. Tharoor said the NEP also glosses over the desperate need for qualified and trained teachers in schools, of whom there is a critical shortage. Placing the burden of pre-primary education on over-stretched, under-funded and under-equipped anganwadis is "disastrous", he said and added that instead of strengthening woeful school infrastructure, NEP suggests school complexes as a solution to this problem, sharing resources spread over a large geographical area. "Total investment on research and innovation in India declined from 0.84% of GDP in 2008 to 0.6% in 2018. There are currently only 15 researchers in India per 100,000 of population, compared with 111 in China," he tweeted. "For instance, the goal of 6 percent of GDP to be spent on education was first articulated in 1948! Every government articulates this target and then comes up against its own Finance Ministry. In the last 6 years, Modi Government expenditure in education has declined in real terms. How will it reach 6 per cent," he asked. TDP leader and former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh N Chandrababu Naidu said, "I welcome the approval of NEP 2020 by the Union Cabinet chaired by Narendra Modi Ji. I am sure that this reform will boost the education sector and pave the way for our youth to compete with the best from across the world." He said the policy emphasises mother tongue/local language/regional language as the medium of instruction until Grade 5 which is certainly a welcome move. "This is crucial for children to develop critical thinking and literacy skills leading to better academic performance,"he said. However, the CPI alleged that the NEP has strayed away from the concept of universalisation of education and focused on creating "education markets". In a statement, the CPI said,"The RSS-led NDA government has approved the NEP." The policy brings with it a fundamental change in the system towards creating education markets and away from ensuring universalisation of education through government schools and rejecting quality education to poor and socially disadvantaged sections of the society, the statement said. It also alleged that the government bypassed Parliament and undermined federalism in formulating the policy and accused the central government of taking "unilateral decisions to aggressively push through its neo-liberal agenda including in the system of education". "CPI urges upon the government to have proper discussion on the policy in Parliament and also with the state governments which have the highest stake since education is on the Concurrent List," the statement added. Opposing the NEP, the CPI (M) alleged that it is a "unilateral drive to destroy Indian education". The party alleged that Parliament has been completely bypassed in the process of forming the policy. "The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) strongly denounces the Union Cabinet decision to unilaterally impose a NEP and rename the Ministry of Human Resource Development," the CPI(M) said in a statement. "Education is in the Concurrent List in our Constitution. It is a gross violation by the Central government to impose the NEP unilaterally bypassing all the objections and opposition recorded by various state governments," it said. It also said that any new policy of such nature needs to be discussed in Parliament. According to Sengottaiyan, the Tamil Nadu goverment will respond to the NEP after a detailed discussion. The PMK contended there were many positive aspects in the NEP, and numerous negative aspects as well. PMK youth wing leader Anbumani Ramadoss said the proposal of students in classes 3, 5 and 8 taking school examinations to be conducted by the appropriate authority was unwarranted. "Conducting exams for students in Class 3, will cause mental stress and specifically affect students coming from rural areas and lead to drop-outs. There should not be any board exams till class 8," the Rajya Sabha member said. He also pointed out that the proposal on adopting a three-language policy was unacceptable and said though it was stated that the third language would be based on the student's choice, it appeared that only Sanskrit was given priority and it would lead to imposition of the language. Meanwhile, actor and Makkal Needhi Maiam founder Kamal Haasan tweeted, "Glad that Education is getting 6 per cent share of GDP in the new education policy." "The immediate focus and reforms needed are in the healthcare sector now, which gets only 1 per cent of GDP on an average. This share has to be increased to 7-8 per cent if we want to grow as a healthy nation too," he said. MDMK founder and Rajya Sabha member Vaiko called for review of the policy, alleging that it was "against pluralism and federal principles". The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration on its plan for border wall money. (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) The Supreme Court has allowed President Trump to defy Congress and continue to spend more than $6 billion diverted from military funds to pay for the construction of a border wall in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California. By 5-4 vote, the justices on Friday rebuffed lawyers for the Sierra Club and House Democrats who sued to challenge Trump's diversion of funds as illegal and unconstitutional. They won rulings before judges in California and Texas, but in a brief order last summer, the court allowed Trump to continue spending the disputed funds while the litigation continues. But over the dissents of the four liberal justices, who said the decision would likely "operate in effect as a final judgment," the court kept that order in place. Last week, lawyers for the ACLU and the Sierra Club filed an emergency appeal arguing that the court's order would permit the border wall projects to be completed before the high court ever gets a chance to rule on whether the spending was legal. House Democrats filed a brief in support of the appeal. Keeping the stay in place offers Trump "a complete victory without having prevailed in any court," they told the justices. The case offers a stark example of how the president can defy the Constitution and its separation of powers with an assistance from the high court. Early last year, Trump demanded $5.7 billion for the border wall, but the House of Representatives, under Democratic control, refused, triggering a partial government shutdown that lasted 35 days. The impasse ended when Trump signed a new spending bill that did not include the border wall funding he sought. But a day later, he declared a national emergency and ordered the Pentagon to transfer $2.5 billion to pay for border wall projects. The administration said the new barriers, extending up to 130 miles, were designed to prevent "drug smuggling." Later, Trump ordered the transfer of another $3.6 billion for new border barriers in Texas. Story continues The Constitution says, "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by law." In Trump's defense, administration lawyers cited a provision in law that authorized the transfer of military funds in emergencies. However, as lower-court judges pointed out, the law says these transfers must be "based on unforeseen military requirements ... and in no case where the item for which funds are requested has been denied by the Congress." They said Trump's transfers failed on both counts. The need to stop drug smuggling or immigrants from crossing the border was not "unforeseen," and Congress did indeed deny the requested funds for the border wall. But the high court has handcuffed Congress and others who seek to block the executive branch from taking allegedly illegal actions. Lawmakers, as well as ordinary citizens, do not have standing to sue to challenge unconstitutional spending. The Sierra Club sued on behalf of environmentalists and Native Americans who claimed the border wall would damage or destroy sensitive habitats near the border. They were granted standing in the lower courts, but that alone was not enough to obtain a court ruling, at least according to the justices. Last year, the five more conservative justices issued a one-line, unsigned explanation of their decision to give Trump a green light to proceed despite the lower courts' orders. "Among the reasons is that the Government has made a sufficient showing at this stage that the plaintiffs have no cause of action to obtain review of the Acting Secretarys compliance with" the provision that authorizes the transfer of military funds, they said by a 5-4 vote in Trump vs. Sierra Club. This suggests that because Congress did not specifically authorize lawsuits over this part of the military spending law, no one may go to court to contest an allegedly illegal transfer. The result is to shield the president and his administration from legal claims that he is diverting government funds to be spent for other purposes. After the stay was granted last summer, the case went back before U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Oakland. He ruled the transfers were illegal, and he issued another order that would bar further spending of the military funds for building border walls. The 9th Court of Appeals agreed June 26, in a 2-1 decision. This set the stage for the administration to file a formal appeal with the Supreme Court seeking review of the ruling. But that would take months and would not yield a ruling until sometime in the first half of next year. That prospect of delay prompted last week's effort to have the justices lift the stay and block further construction of the wall. "This case concerns a protracted and public appropriations debate, irreparable damage to a protected landscape, substantial separation of powers concerns, and the diversion of billions of taxpayer dollars to a project that Congress refused to fund," attorneys for the Sierra Club and ACLU told the court. But their appeal was denied. Dror Ladin, a staff attorney with the ACLUs National Security Project, said opponents of the wall would not give up the legal battle. Every lower court to consider the question has ruled President Trump's border wall illegal, and the Supreme Courts temporary order does not decide the case," he said. "The administration has admitted that the wall can be taken down if we ultimately prevail, and we will hold them to their word and seek the removal of every mile of unlawful wall built. Frustrated Bay Area families already know classes will be online when school starts in the coming weeks, but many still have no idea when their K-12 students will have to log on for lessons or how many hours of live instruction they would get. Thats because districts are still hammering out those details with teachers unions and, in many cases, those negotiations are tense if not near an impasse, even though school starts for some in 10 days. These agreements will dictate what teachers are expected to do when it comes to distance learning, how many hours they will be expected to work each day and how much time will be spent on live instructions, among many other working conditions. The details are of huge interest to parents, many of whom work at least eight-hour days, but saw teachers in some districts required to work four- or five-hour days in the spring, although many worked far more. A typical day pre-pandemic was 7 hours. That meant teachers technically had less time for planning, live instruction, small group classes and homework grading. Photos by Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle In many districts, these negotiations are behind closed doors, with details secret until an agreement is reached. It means parents and educators will have to wait until the deal is done before they know what to expect from a typical school day. With no mandates in California setting specific distance learning standards, each district is on its own to decide. In some, unions are calling for five-hour work days. In others, districts are calling for the previously agreed upon 7 hours. In Oakland, where the union proposal is public, labor leaders want to set a maximum two-hour daily time limits on live instruction, while district officials are pushing for more. Such disparities among districts could push disadvantaged students further behind, experts say, with wealthier parents able to supplement any deficiencies in a remote education with tutors or in-person instruction in small pandemic pods. It definitely worries me, said Elisha Smith Arrillaga, executive director of the Education Trust-West, an Oakland nonprofit in education advocacy. Right now, I think theres a lot of inconsistency across the state. California schools already saw inconsistency in the spring. San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland were among districts reducing teacher workdays officially to four hours in labor agreements amended after schools closed in March. Union officials cited personal issues for many teachers in advocating for the shortened work day. Mill Valleys distance learning labor deal banned the requirement of live video instruction with students, although many teachers did it anyway. Tracy Unified decided to go with paper packets for the most part rather than online resources. Santa Clara Unified adopted an online class schedule with students logging in for regularly scheduled live interaction with teachers. Experts fear the fall wont be all that different without more specific state standards to guide instruction. The state Department of Education has provided extensive guidance on distance learning, but cannot dictate how districts decide to implement the practice. Unless we want some really large civil rights issues, we need to be really specific about what our floor is so we dont leave a whole generation of students behind, Arrillaga said. In the spring, a lot of teachers had to wing it in the emergency switch to remote learning. Oakland fourth-grade teacher Nikita Gibbs did two days of live instruction each week, though only 60% of her students participated, many lacking internet access or devices. Others didnt have paper and pencils. It was a rough transition, she said, especially watching other schools that were able to hit the ground running with digital learning and regular online class sessions. One of Gibbs students at Markham Elementary had to care for her younger sibling. Little brother had to come to class in the morning, Gibbs said. We all said good morning to little brother. We tried to keep him occupied while she did some work. Such outside factors need to be part of the conversation when determining how long students are online each day, she said. The 12-year veteran teacher is now waiting on what shell be expected to do in the fall, which will likely include live classes every day, but whether shell have to do four hours online with students or maybe two is still on the table in negotiations, which have stretched into week three. She thinks two hours are about right for fourth-graders. A typical day doesnt exist anymore, she said. This is all new. The debate over the amount of live instruction is one of the bigger holdups in the negotiations. Spurred on by parents, many districts are looking for more live time than what their unions want. Parent Angie Miller, who has two middle school students, was disheartened in the spring when the Mill Valley School District agreed to eliminate any live instruction in the labor agreement. Some teachers did extensive online teaching while others did none or held office hours only. She wants that fixed in the districts new labor agreement, which is also pending. You need to have specific language making sure all students are getting live instruction in those core classes, she said. They need that interaction, they need that teaching. They need that live connection with the teacher and each other. Mill Valley labor officials declined to provide specifics on ongoing negotiations. Some fear, however, that too much live instruction will result in Zoom gloom, with students and teachers overwhelmed by tons of screen time and the ineffectiveness of traditional teaching in a video environment, said Alix Gallagher, a researcher at Policy Analysis for California Education at Stanford University. Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle If you are sitting there with a group of 30 other people listening to one person talk, you can imagine how long you can pay attention, she said. I do not want my children to be asked to pay attention on Zoom for five hours with a break for lunch. That just means live instruction should be interactive, with students breaking out into small groups, talking to each other, with time included for socializing and the teacher there guiding activities, she said. Educators need more training to do distance learning well and engage students each day in live interactions, Gallagher said. COVID Resources Coronavirus Map Tracking COVID-19 cases across the Bay Area and California. But training is also part of the negotiations. In Oakland, for example, the union representing the districts 2,800 teachers initially proposed limiting live interaction with students to 30 minutes a day for the first two weeks of school to allow teachers time to get up to speed. They upped that to one hour for the first week, although district officials say thats still not enough. Increasing the time we spend delivering synchronous instruction will dramatically improve crisis distance learning for students, said Chaz Garcia, a vice president with the Oakland Education Association. But we dont believe you can just jump into that on the first day without providing time for teachers to plan and time for students to adjust. In Manteca, a different dispute is disrupting talks. District officials want teachers to report to schools to do distance learning. Unlike other districts, both sides in the San Joaquin County district do agree on maintaining a 7-hour work day, said Jenni Tyson, senior director of elementary education. I would just be curious how shortening the work day is going to ensure were meeting the instructional needs of each student, she said. We actually need more time in order to meet individual student needs, not less time. Education experts say current state law leaves too much open to interpretation as districts try to navigate a new world of public education. Recent state mandates offer some direction for districts, including a requirement that teachers have daily live interaction with students, although that could include phone calls or office hours. The state also reduced the required instructional minutes to a total of four hours of schooling a day for grades 1-12, which can include self-study and homework. Prior to the pandemic, that ranged from about 3 hours for kindergarten to six hours in high school. Those laws are sorely lacking in specifics in terms of actual instruction, said Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, a research and advocacy organization. Far too many kids in this state were receiving virtually nothing in the spring and clearly need a strong education this fall, said Lempert, a former state legislator. The state really does have a responsibility here to set some minimums. Children Now has advocated at least one hour of live instruction daily for grades K-2; two hours for grades 3-5; and three hours for 6-12. So far, the Legislature is leaving such details to the districts. This pandemic is exposing the inequities that were already there, and are being exacerbated, Lempert said. Its concerning that some districts are doing so much more and others are limiting. All negotiations are a balancing act of protecting the health and safety of teachers and students, while figuring out how to best educate children in completely unprecedented times, said Angelica Jongco, deputy managing attorney at Public Advocates, a nonprofit law firm focused on poverty and racial discrimination. Figuring that out will take the experience of teachers, students, parents and administrators. Its extremely hard on everyone, Jongco said. If the plan is solely made between teachers and district staff without families being consulted, or in the older grades, students being consulted, were probably not going to get to the best solution. Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker With hundreds of acres of land and art collections dating back centuries, it is perhaps difficult to imagine Britain's grand country homes - and their well-heeled inhabitants - ever facing financial pressure. But the reality is that these stately piles have been hard hit by the coronavirus crisis and the government measures introduced to try and stop the spread. Historic Houses, an organisation that represents 1,500 such privately-owned properties across the UK, estimates 50 per cent of them will have to make redundancies as a result of Covid-19. Even those owned by the National Trust, which allows residents to continue living on site as long as the property is open to the public, is struggling. It estimates it will lose out on 200million this year. Speaking to The Times, the blue-blooded owners of a handful of properties, including Knowsley Hall, in Merseyside, which dates back to 1500, and Inverary Castle, in Argyll, explained that three months of enforced closures had taken its toll. Stately piles have been hard hit by the coronavirus crisis and the government measures introduced to try and stop the spread. Pictured, the Duchess of Rutland and Lady Alice Manners of Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, which was forced to adapt during the crisis The Duke of Rutland of Belvoir Castle, pictured, which is famous as a filming location for Netflix's The Crown, revealed cancellations up until June had cost them 2.5million Matt Smith and Claire Foy filming season two of The Crown in one of the opulent rooms at Belvoir Castle, which stood in for Windsor Castle. It faced months of closure due to Covid-19 Even now that some sites are up and running, reduced visitor numbers and one-way system means they are not bringing in as much money as usual. The Duke of Rutland of Belvoir Castle, Lincolnshire, which is famous as a filming location for Netflix's The Crown, revealed cancellations up until June had cost them 2.5million. Weddings are also a big money maker for many properties. But with 30-people receptions only allowed in England from tomorrow and still some way off in other parts of the UK, this revenue stream has also been crippled by the crisis. Part of the issue is that while many of these families have assets worth millions, they are cash poor and are unable to sell of either their valuable homes or artwork, in fear of being the generation that depleted their once great standing. The Duke of Argyll, pictured, and his wife the Duchess of Argyll admitted things 'haven't been great'. Visitor numbers are down 90% Eleanor Cadbury, of the chocolate dynasty, is married to Torquhil, Duke of Argyll, a Scottish peer, whose family have lived at Inverary Castle, on the shore of Loch Fyne, since the 18th century. She admitted the situation 'hasn't been great', with visitor numbers down 90 per cent. 'We had a grant turned down because they said, "Youre really rich",' the Duchess of Argyll continued. 'Yes, we have a lovely house, and beautiful possessions, but its not real money. The perception is that hes a duke, he lives in a big house, and hes got a Rembrandt on the wall. But you cant sell the house, and you cant sell the Rembrandt.' The experience was echoed by Charlie Courtenay, the 19th Earl of Devon, whose family lives at Powderham Castle in Devon, who said: 'The government has thrown money into heritage grants, but theyre typically only accessible to charities, not to private owners.' Wealthy landowners have gotten creative in recent months, finding novel revenue streams and cutting down on costs by furloughing staff. The result has been tales of ladies of the manor picking up their vacuum cleaners and corralling their children into action. Eleanor Cadbury, of the chocolate dynasty, is married to Torquhil, Duke of Argyll, a Scottish peer, whose family have lived at Inverary Castle, pictured, on the shore of Loch Fyne, since the 18th century. She explained that although they have valuable assets, they are cash poor The Duchess of Rutland explained she was relying on the help of her five children - Lady Violet, 26, Lady Alice, 24 and Lady Eliza, 22, Charles, Marquess of Granby, 20, and Lord Hugo, 16 - to do everything from cut the grass to man helplines. 'We have a Whatsapp group going, its called the Corona Clan and in the mornings I share a to-do list,' Emma revealed in an interview in April. 'I dont have staff anymore but I do have kids so I tell them where they need to be and what they need to be doing. I feel a little like the Sergeant Major.' It was a similar story for Lady Carnarvon and her husband Geordie, the 8th Earl of Carnarvon, who divided chores between them and three part-time members of staff. The entrepreneurial Manners family came up with the idea of charging visitors for virtual tours of the property and Lord Devon has pivoted to outdoor events like drive-in movies. Lord Derby of Knowsley Hall among those taking advantage of the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS). Pictured, Lord Derby and Lady Derby in an Instagram snap Knowsley Hall, pictured, was closed for three months due to the coronavirus crisis Some owners have been able to seek government support, with Lord Derby of Knowsley Hall among those taking advantage of the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS). Although this and other programmes such as the VAT holiday and continuity business loan schemes have been 'hugely helpful', he already has an eye on the bills that will come in next year - and how they will be paid. Despite the cards being stacked against some of these stately homes, some remain optimistic. John Hoy, a former chief executive of Blenheim Palace, telling The Times: 'Country houses will survive this because it is in their nature to do so. No stately-home owner wants to be the generation of the house that folds.' PHILADELPHIA In 2005, U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow returned from work to find her husband and mother shot dead in the basement of her Chicago home. Investigators initially focused on a White Supremacist who had put out a hit on Lefkow. But the killer turned out to be someone theyd never suspected: a homeless electrician who had lost a medical malpractice suit in her courtroom. He killed himself when police pulled him over a week later and found a list of enemy judges, including Lefkow, in his van. Lefkow was forced to relive her family tragedy this month when a struggling lawyer armed with a gun and a grudge opened fire at the home of another female judge U.S. District Judge Esther Salas in suburban New Jersey killing her 20-year-old son and critically wounding her husband. It seems to me its almost always men, with these obsessions. They act on on them in violent ways. And it ends up in (these) tragedies, Lefkow, 76, told The Associated Press. Both attacks, like others against judges, were carried out by men with a weapon and a vendetta. And in both, the assailants were not on law enforcements radar. But the latest case adds a dangerous new twist that authorities nationwide have struggled to thwart until its too late: the vast misogyny that proliferates online. Investigators have concluded that a Manhattan lawyer who seethed about women in obsessive online posts targeted Salas on July 19 and killed a rival lawyer in the mens rights movement in California a week earlier before killing himself in rural New York. Roy Den Hollander had a lengthy dossier on about a dozen female judges from across the country half, including Salas, Latina with him when he was found dead, two people with knowledge of the investigation told the AP. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case. Den Hollanders anti-feminist screeds go back at least 20 years, when his divorce from a Russian woman he met during a work stint in the country led to years of court filings against her, her lawyer, her workplace and others. It was rage against women and it was palpable, said lawyer Nicholas J. Mundy, who represented Den Hollanders ex-wife. If they were successful or had any power over him, he just had a hatred for them, a deep hatred. He would seethe. In the years since, the 72-year-old spewed vitriol and sometimes violent imagery about women on his website deriding his late mother, his ex-wife, friends from childhood and feminazi judges in a nearly 2,000-page rant. The obsessive, unfiltered posts, discovered only after his shooting rampage, alarm those who believe law enforcement must do more to flag the dangerous combination of misogyny, guns and online abuse. Ive been very rattled, said New York lawyer Carrie Goldberg, who represented some of Harvey Weinsteins alleged sex assault victims, and has been the subject of frequent online harassment. There was so much public indication by this man of his hatred toward women, his love of guns, and his particularized angst toward Judge Salas. Yet the U.S. Marshals Service, which protects the nations approximately 2,700 federal judges, said they were not tracking Den Hollander. Marshals typically keep watch over judges in their courthouses. At home, where many have worked during COVID-19 quarantines, judges mostly rely on training and alarm systems installed after the Lefkow attack. Many judges are good at being security minded. But its not for everybody. And its tough to stay in that condition all the time. Guards go down, said John Muffler, a former U.S. Marshal who led the agencys National Center for Judicial Security. In the wake of the Salas attack, some federal judges and legal scholars interviewed by the AP called for the U.S. Marshals Service to spend more time monitoring such online hate speech. Thats complicated by both the expanse of the internet and the thorny question of when criticism protected by the First Amendment becomes a threat. The Marshals Service said it reviewed more than 1 million derogatory social media posts aimed at people it protects during the last fiscal year. However, feminist scholars and activists believe that misogynistic threats are overlooked and under-prosecuted because there are so many of them. This is a person whos been fantasizing about killing women for years, said Mary Anne Franks, a University of Miami law professor. If you have left a paper trail like this, you shouldnt be allowed to get a weapon. Den Hollanders dossier also included a female oncologist thought to have treated him for what he described in his posts as terminal cancer. The illness apparently led him to step down last year from a gender bias case he had pending before Salas, in which he challenged the U.S. militarys male-only draft registration requirement. Salas let the case proceed to trial _ but Den Hollander thought shed moved it along too slowly. Muffler believes the cancer diagnosis, if true, was likely the trigger for Den Hollander to act on his revenge fantasies. As with the assailant in the Lefkow case _ who had lost his home _ it was the final straw. Attacking a judge is their way of shifting control back to themselves, said Muffler, now a security consultant. While threats against federal judges are increasing, and number some 4,400 a year, physical attacks remain rare, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. But when it happens, Muffler said, its usually deadly. Lefkow thought of resigning after losing her loved ones, but she had a family to support, including two daughters still living at home. And the law, she realized, was her calling. It ripped the family apart, but you go forward. And do what you have to do, said Lefkow, who says she sent a letter expressing her condolences to Salas last week. I mean, its tragic for this family, she said. Losing your only child, thats the worst thing that can happen. About the photo: This July 11, 2020 surveillance photo provided by the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department shows a man who they believe is Roy Den Hollander walking through Union Station in Los Angeles. On July 19, 2020, he shot and killed U.S. District Judge Esther Salas son and wounded her husband in New Jersey, and was found dead the next day. (Courtesy of San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department via AP) Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Now the project is back on Mondays agenda. Whitney said he expects the board will set a hearing for Aug. 13 at Town Hall and the public will be able to participate in person and virtually. Critics of the project, and some Town Board members, have sought a return to in-person public meetings before the board acts on the plan. Rayhill, for her part, is frustrated by the three-minute limit for public speakers that does not apply to the developers representatives. Once the Town Board closes the public hearing, it could vote on the projects environmental effects and the requested rezoning as soon as its Aug. 17 meeting. Its not clear how the vote will go. Whitney, Digati, Councilman Peter Marston and Councilwoman Jennifer Baney all said in recent interviews that they havent made up their minds and they want to hear more from the developer and residents. The fifth member of the all-Republican board, Councilman Michael Madigan, has not responded to messages seeking comment. Im really trying to go down every rabbit hole to come up with facts, and well make a factual decision, Marston said. Advisory boards weigh in The biggest increases were from the US, Brazil, India and South Africa. Deaths rose by 6,812. Vietnam recorded its second coronavirus death as the country battles a new outbreak of the virus, which emerged in the city of Danang. Spain reported a second day of 1,000-plus coronavirus infections, the highest since the nation lifted its lockdown in June. Libyas United Nations-recognised government in Tripoli announced it would impose a full lockdown in areas of the country it controls, after a rise in COVID-19 cases. More than 17.2 million people around the world have been diagnosed with the new coronavirus. More than 10 million patients have recovered, and at least 673,000 have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Here are the latest updates: Friday, July 31 23:33 GMT US to pay $2.1bn to Sanofi, GSK, in vaccine deal The US government will pay $2.1bn to Sanofi SA and GlaxoSmithKline Plc for COVID-19 vaccines to cover 50 million people and to underwrite the drugmakers testing and manufacturing, the companies said on Friday. The deal works out at a cost of around $42 per person inoculated. That is almost identical to the $40 per patient the US agreed to pay Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE when it inked a nearly $2bn deal for 50 million courses of that potential vaccine last week. The Sanofi-GSK deal is for 100 million doses, at two per person, and gives the US government an option to purchase an additional 500 million doses at an unspecified price. Sanofi and GSK plan to start clinical trials for the vaccine in September. 22:55 GMT Libya reinstates total lockdown for five days The internationally recognized Libyan government based in Tripoli has reinstated a total lockdown for at least five days to curb the growing coronavirus outbreak in the war-torn country. The tight restrictions imposed on Friday dampened the festive spirit of the Eid-al-Adha holiday. With Libyas health system and infrastructure devastated by nine years of conflict, the United Nations-supported government ordered people in western Libya to stay inside unless they have to purchase essentials. Libya is divided between rival administrations in the west and east. It has reported 3,621 confirmed coronavirus infections and 74 fatalities due to COVID-19, but testing nationwide remains extremely limited. 20:55 GMT EU in talks to secure Sanofi deal for virus vaccine Sanofi SA and GlaxoSmithKline Plc said they are in advanced discussions to supply up to 300 million doses of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine for the 27-country European Union. Armed with an emergency fund of more than two billion euros ($2.4bn), the European Commission wants to strike deals with up to six drugmakers for their vaccines for their 450 million citizens against the coronavirus that has killed 674,000 people worldwide. The Commission said the aim of the talks with Sanofi was to clinch an advance purchase deal. Sanofi is working on two vaccine projects, including one in partnership with GlaxoSmithKline. 20:10 GMT Child care closures disproportionally affect women The pandemic upended child care plans for many parents in the US, forcing them, particularly mothers, to grapple with tough choices that are only becoming more difficult as states push return-to-work policies to try to revive the battered economy. Read more here 19:20 GMT US COVID-19 vaccine trials will exclude pregnant women for now The first two COVID-19 vaccines to enter large-scale US trials will not be tested in pregnant women this year, raising questions about how this vulnerable population will be protected from the coronavirus, researchers told Reuters. Moderna and Pfizer, which has partnered with Germanys BioNTech, this week separately launched clinical trials that use a new and unproven gene-based technology. Both companies are requiring proof of a negative pregnancy test and a commitment to using birth control from women of childbearing age who enrol. Drugmakers said they first need to make sure the vaccines are safe and effective more generally. In addition, US regulators require that drugmakers conduct safety studies in pregnant animals before the vaccines are tested in pregnant women to ensure they dont harm the fetus or lead to miscarriage. 19:10 GMT Fauci cautiously optimistic 2021 will see COVID-19 vaccine Appearing before a House panel investigating the United States response to the pandemic, Dr Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH), expressed cautious optimism that once a coronavirus vaccine is approved as safe and effective, Americans should have widespread access within a reasonable time. Read more here 18:20 GMT Coronavirus infected hundreds of children at US summer camp Hundreds of children contracted the coronavirus at a summer camp in the US state of Georgia last month, health authorities said, adding to a growing body of evidence that minors are both susceptible to infection and vectors of transmission. The virus infected at least 260 of the 597 attendees, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, adding that the true number was probably higher since test results were only available for 58 percent of the group. The camp ignored the CDCs advice that all participants in summer camps wear cloth masks requiring them only for staff. It did, however, adhere to a state executive order requiring all participants to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken 12 days or less before their arrival. Other precautionary measures included physical distancing, frequent disinfection of surfaces, keeping children among the same small group, also known as cohorting, and staggering the use of communal spaces. 18:05 GMT Number of new French infections above 1,300 for third day in a row French health authorities reported 1,346 new confirmed coronavirus infections, which took the total to 187,919 as new cases are above 1,300 a day for the third day in a row, the highest since late April. In a statement, the health ministry also said that the number of people in intensive care units due to the disease fell by a further 10 to 371. On Thursday, that figure had increased by just one, which was the first daily increase after falling every day since April 9. In the past 24 hours, 11 people died from the virus infection, taking the total to 30,265. In the past three days, the number of dead per day was 16, 15 and 14. 18:00 GMT WHO reports record daily increase in global cases, up over 292,000 The World Health Organization reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases, with the total rising by 292,527. The biggest increases were from the United States, Brazil, India and South Africa, according to a daily report. Deaths rose by 6,812. The four countries have dominated global headlines with large outbreaks. The previous WHO record for new cases was 284,196 on July 24. Deaths rose by 9,753 on July 24, the second-largest one-day increase ever. Deaths have been averaging 5,200 a day in July, up from an average of 4,600 a day in June. 17:50 GMT Florida, Mississippi report record increases in deaths Florida reported a record increase in new COVID-19 deaths for a fourth day in a row, with 257 fatalities, according to the state health department. Mississippi also reported a record increase in deaths, with fatalities rising by 52. That was a record rise for the state for the second day in a row. Overall in the United States, deaths have increased by nearly 25,000 in July to 153,000 total lives lost since the pandemic started. Florida also reported 9,007 new cases, bringing its total infections to over 470,000, the second-highest in the country behind California. Floridas total death toll rose to nearly 7,000, the eighth highest in the nation, according to a Reuters tally. Florida is among at least 18 states that saw cases more than double in July. Florida reported record one-day increases in cases three times during the month, with the highest on July 12, at 15,300 new cases in a single day. 17:30 GMT Greece extends mask-wearing requirement as infections flare-up Greece will make mask-wearing compulsory in all indoor public spaces and also in outdoor spaces where proper social distancing cannot be observed, its deputy civil protection minister said on Friday, following a further rise in COVID-19 infections. Greece reported 78 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections, its highest tally in about two months. Overall, it has so far confirmed 4,447 COVID-19 cases with 202 deaths, a relatively low number compared to many European countries, after imposing an early lockdown in the spring. Health authorities made mask-wearing compulsory for consumers at supermarkets 10 days ago and on Tuesday moved to extend the measure to more indoor public spaces to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. 16:40 GMT Namibia to close schools, limit public gatherings as cases surge Namibian schools will be suspended for the second time in four months next week, while limits on public gatherings will be tightened further to 100 from 250 amid surging cases, President Hage Geingob said. In a televised speech, Geingob said the decision to suspend schools from August 4 for 28 days came after considering the risks associated with the spread of the virus. 200401081427251 The measure affects early childhood development, pre-primary, primary and the first two grades of high school. Namibia has 2,129 confirmed cases and 10 deaths with the countrys rate of daily new cases now the fourth highest on the continent following South Africa, Eswatini and Gabon, according to Geingob. 16:30 GMT Deep Washington divide on coronavirus aid as jobless benefit to expire US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said talks with the White House on a new coronavirus aid bill were not yet on a path toward reaching a deal, hours before the expiration of a federal unemployment benefit that has been an essential lifeline for millions of Americans. 200317202843984 Asked why she rejected a proposal from Republican President Donald Trumps administration for a one-week extension of the $600 enhanced weekly jobless payment, Pelosi told reporters that such a move would occur if you are on a path toward a deal. Were not, Pelosi told a news conference. However, negotiations were to continue on Friday between White House officials and congressional Democrats. Pelosi, the nations top elected Democrat, said she thought Congress and the White House eventually would come together on legislation, although she gave no timetable. 16:15 GMT Vietnam ministry reports second COVID-19 death The 61-year-old man died at a hospital in Danang city, where Vietnam last week detected its first domestically transmitted coronavirus infections in more than three months, the ministry said in a statement. The country, which has recorded 546 coronavirus infections since its first cases were detected in January, reported its first coronavirus death earlier on Friday. 15:20 GMT Impact of coronavirus will be felt for decades to come, WHO says The global coronavirus outbreak is the sort of disaster whose effects will last far into the future, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. The pandemic is a once-in-a-century health crisis, the effects of which will be felt for decades to come, Tedros told a meeting of the WHOs emergency committee, according to remarks released by the agency. The pandemic has killed more than 670,000 people since emerging in Wuhan, China, with more than 17 million cases diagnosed. The United States, Brazil, Mexico and the UK have been particularly hard hit in recent weeks by the disease COVID-19, as their governments have struggled to come up with an effective response. Economies have been hit by lockdown restrictions introduced to restrict its spread, while many regions are fearful of a second wave. 15:15 GMT Three crew members on Norway cruise ship hospitalised with COVID-19 Three members of the crew of Norwegian cruise vessel Roald Amundsen have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the University Hospital of North Norway told Reuters. All 160 crew members have been quarantined, while passengers who have travelled with the ship would be told to self-isolate, ship operator Hurtigruten said. The vessel had close to 200 passengers on board when it arrived at the Arctic port of Tromsoe early on Friday, all of whom had disembarked, public broadcaster NRK reported. 15:10 GMT Indias Tata motors posts major loss as lockdowns hit sales Indias Tata Motors reported a major quarterly loss as coronavirus lockdowns hit sales in domestic and international markets including Europe and China. Mumbai-headquartered Tata Motors, the parent of British luxury marque Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), announced a consolidated net loss of 84.39bn rupees ($1.13bn) for the quarter ended June 30 against a loss of 36.98bn rupees a year earlier. A survey of analysts by Bloomberg had predicted the quarterly loss to come in at $1.28bn. Tatas luxury car unit JLR faced sales challenges in its key markets China and Europe, worsened by the virus spread and supply chain disruptions. 14:55 GMT Spain diagnosis 1,525 new cases in new post-lockdown record Spains health ministry reported 1,525 new coronavirus cases, marking the biggest jump since a national lockdown was lifted in June and beating the previous days record rise. It is third day in a row Spain has diagnosed more than 1,000 infections. Cumulative cases, which also include results from antibody tests on people who may have recovered increased to 288,522 from 285,430, the ministry said. 14:10 GMT Italy travel linked to 1 in 4 first virus cases outside China People who had visited Italy accounted for more than a quarter of the first reported cases of the new coronavirus outside China, according to a new study that found most initial infections were linked to just three countries. Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used publicly available data to trace the early spread of COVID-19 to dozens of affected countries in the 11 weeks before the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic. In Italy, 85.6 percent of those who have died were over 70 [Luca Bruno/AP] They found that 27 percent of all the first reported cases were people with travel links to Italy, while 22 percent had been to China and 11 percent had travelled from Iran. The study, which was published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases this week, found that overall three-quarters of the first cases in affected countries were linked to recent travel. 13:45 GMT Philips says it did not profiteer on ventilators amid coronavirus Dutch healthcare equipment company Philips said it had not sought to profit by raising the price of the ventilators it manufactures during the coronavirus crisis. In a statement, Chief Executive Officer Frans van Houten said the company was responding to a report issued by the US Congresss House Subcommitte on Economic and Consumer policy. I would like to make clear that at no occasion, Philips has raised prices to benefit from the crisis situation, he said. 13:35 GMT Fauci testifies before coronavirus panel Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, will testify before a coronavirus subcommittee in Congress, weeks after President Donald Trumps administration first refused to let him address the panel. Faucis testimony comes at the end of a week when the pandemics tragic toll on the country has become far clearer. The United States on Wednesday experienced its 150,000th death from the disease more than any other country and data on Thursday showing a deep economic plunge. Democrats said the Trump administration initially prevented Fauci from testifying to the panel by saying he was unavailable for the entire month of July and relented only after House Majority Whip James Clyburn wrote to Vice President Mike Pence. 12:32 GMT Germany adds three virus-hit Spanish regions to quarantine list Germany has added three northern Spanish regions to its list of high-risk destinations, meaning anyone arriving from those areas will have to produce a negative coronavirus test or go into quarantine for 14 days. Germanys foreign ministry said it had issued a travel warning for the regions of Catalonia, Navarre and Aragon following a spike in COVID-19 cases there. The move comes after Germanys Robert Koch Institute for disease control added the three regions to its high-risk list. 11:55 GMT England to require face coverings in cinema and worship places People in England will be required to wear face masks or other face coverings in cinemas, places of worship, museums and art galleries from August 8, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. We will also extend the requirement to wear a face covering to other indoor settings where youre likely to come into contact with people you do not normally meet, such as museums, galleries, cinemas and places of worship, Johnson said. Face coverings are already required on public transport and, more recently, in shops. 11:32 GMT UKs Johnson postpones next stage of lockdown lifting as infections rise British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would postpone the next stage of lockdown easing for at least two weeks due to a pick-up in COVID-19 infection rates. On Saturday 1 August we had hoped to reopen in England a number of the higher-risk settings that had remained closed Today, I am afraid we are postponing those changes for at least a fortnight, Johnson said at a news conference. I know that the steps we are taking will be a real blow to many people I am really, really sorry about that, but we simply cannot take the risk. A group of National Health Service (NHS) staff and campaigners held a vigil with lanterns for 65,000 people who died due to the novel coronavirus pandemic in the UK [Ilyas Tayfun Salci/Anadolu] 11:05 GMT Scotland warns against travel to COVID-hit areas of northern England Scotlands government has advised against non-essential travel to Greater Manchester and other parts of northern England which face new lockdown restrictions due to an upsurge in cases. I strongly advise anyone planning to travel to areas affected in the north of England, or anyone planning to travel to Scotland from those same areas, to cancel their plans, Scotlands First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said. 10:12 GMT COVID infections on the rise in England, survey shows There has likely been a slight increase in the number of people in England testing positive for coronavirus in recent weeks, the UKs Office for National Statistics said. The weekly infection survey said an estimated one in 1,500 individuals had COVID-19 in the most recent week from July 20-26, compared with one in 2,000 the previous week. 09:32 GMT There is no zero risk in easing travel restrictions, WHO says There is no zero risk strategy for countries easing international travel restrictions during the pandemic, and essential travel for emergencies should remain the priority, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. In a long-awaited update to its guidance on travel, the United Nations global health agency said cross-border trips for emergencies, humanitarian work, the transfer of essential personnel and repatriation would constitute essential travel. A surge in new infections in many parts of the world has prompted some countries to reintroduce some travel restrictions, including testing and quarantining incoming passengers. A passenger, wearing a protective mask, and her baby pass on a passenger checkpoint at the almost empty Benito Juarez international airport, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in Mexico City, Mexico [File: Edgard Garrido/Reuters] 08:58 GMT Poland reports record high virus cases for second day Poland has reported its highest number of new daily cases since the pandemic started for the second day in a row, with 657 new cases, according to the health ministry. The ministry reported seven new deaths, with a total of 45,688 reported coronavirus cases and 1,716 deaths. Of the new cases, 227 were in the Silesia region, which has been grappling with an outbreak amongst miners. 08:55 GMT Philippines records 4,063 new cases The Philippine health ministry has confirmed 4,063 infections, reporting the highest daily case increase in Southeast Asia for a second straight day. In a bulletin, the ministry said total confirmed infections have risen to 93,354, while deaths increased by 40 to 2,023. 08:53 GMT Germany puts three virus-hit Spanish regions on high-risk list Germanys Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases has put three Spanish regions, including Catalonia, home to Barcelona, on its list of countries designated as high-risk for the coronavirus. The three regions are Catalonia, Aragon and Navarre in northern Spain, RKI said. The summer holiday season has prompted fears that tourists returning from destinations experiencing a surge in new cases like Spain could sow the seeds of a second wave. On Monday, Germany said it would make coronavirus tests mandatory at airports for all returning holidaymakers from high-risk areas. 08:52 GMT Hong Kong reports 121 new cases as local transmissions stay high Hong Kong has reported 121 new cases, including 118 that were locally transmitted, as authorities say the global financial hub faces a critical period to battle a third wave of the virus which has seen a resurgence this month. The Chinese territory reported a daily record of 149 new cases on Thursday. Since late January, over 3,100 people have been infected in Hong Kong, 27 of whom have died. 08:27 GMT Indonesia reports 2,040 new cases, 73 deaths Indonesia has reported 2,040 new infections and 73 additional deaths, according to data published on the countrys COVID-19 task force website. This brought Indonesias total number of confirmed infections to 108,376 and deaths to 5,131. People attend Eid al-Adha prayer by implementing social distancing and health protocol during coronavirus outbreak at Al Akbar Mosque in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia [Suryanto/Anadolu] 08:26 GMT Italys GDP plunges 12.4 percent in second quarter Italys gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 12.4 percent in the second quarter, Italys national statistics bureau Istat said, plunging the country into recession. GDP fell by 17.3 percent compared with the year-ago second quarter, Istat said, as the coronavirus lockdown took a dramatic toll on the eurozones third-largest economy. 07:49 GMT Vietnam records first COVID-19 death after virus re-emerges Vietnam has confirmed its first coronavirus death, state media reported, after the death of an elderly man who had tested positive in Danang, the city where the virus re-emerged in the country last week after 100 days. Vietnam is battling a new outbreak of the virus following months of successful countermeasures which saw the country keep its coronavirus tally to just a few hundred cases. The man, 70, died early on Friday, state media said. Authorities on Friday reported 45 new coronavirus cases, marking the biggest daily jump in the country, bringing the total cases in the country to 509. Medical specialists in protective suits collect blood samples for a COVID-19 rapid test from people who recently returned from Da Nang City on July 31, 2020 in Hanoi, Vietnam [Linh Pham/Getty Images] 07:43 GMT Russias case tally nears 840,000 Russia has reported 5,482 new cases, pushing its national tally to 839,981, the worlds fourth-largest caseload. Officials said 161 people had died in the last 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 13,963. 07:12 GMT France sees record 13.8 percent GDP plunge in second quarter Frances economy has contracted by a record 13.8 percent in the second quarter under the effect of coronavirus lockdowns, the national statistics institute INSEE said. The seasonally-adjusted quarter-on-quarter drop in gross domestic product (GDP) was better than forecast but worse than the performance of most of its eurozone peers. GDPs negative developments in first half of 2020 is linked to the shut-down of non-essential activities in the context of the implementation of the lockdown between mid-March and the beginning of May, INSEE said in a statement. INSEE also updated the figure for the first quarter to a 5.9 percent contraction, from the 5.3 percent it had previously estimated. The second quarter figure means the French economy has been shrinking for three consecutive quarters and continues to be in recession. People, wearing protective face masks, walk in a street in Paris as France enforces mask-wearing in enclosed public spaces as part of efforts to curb a resurgence of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) across the country [Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters] 07:03 GMT Germany reports 870 new cases Germany has reported 870 new cases, according to a tally from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases. That brought the total number to 208,698 while 9,141 deaths have been recorded. 06:55 GMT Fiji records first COVID-19 death Fiji has announced its first coronavirus death but health officials assured people in the Pacific island nation that it is not the precursor to a major outbreak. Health Minister Ifereimi Waqainabete said the victim was a 66-year-old man who tested positive after returning from India, where he had undergone surgery for a long-standing heart condition. Sadly, despite the best efforts of our health-care professionals, this gentleman passed away yesterday in the isolation ward at Lautoka hospital due to complications from COVID-19, Waqainabete told reporters. He said the man was one of nine active cases who had been held in quarantine since they were repatriated from India on July 1. Before then, Fiji had enjoyed a spell of four weeks virus-free, after the 18 cases it had previously recorded all recovered. In Africa, fashion designers are injecting style into face masks. pic.twitter.com/kSgJgbky4E Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) July 31, 2020 06:40 GMT UK tightens lockdown in northern England The UK has imposed a tougher lockdown in swaths of northern England after a rise in the rate of coronavirus transmission, raising concerns that a second wave of the deadly virus could sow yet more turmoil. About four million people were ordered not to mix with other households in Greater Manchester, the biggest city in northern England, parts of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire, though they can still go to the pub and to work. The measures come after the UK reported its highest number of new infections in more than a month. 06:15 GMT KLM says 1,500 new job cuts will bring total reduction to 20 percent KLM, the Dutch arm of Air France-KLM, says it will cut 1,500 additional jobs as part of restructuring in which it needs to cut emissions by 50 percent by 2030 as well as prepare for recovering traffic after the coronavirus outbreak. Parent company Air France-KLM on Thursday reported a 1.55 billion euro ($1.8bn) operating loss for the second quarter, with traffic down 95 percent from a year earlier. KLM said the new cuts would mean its workforce, 33,000 before the pandemic, would be reduced by 20 percent in all by 2022. It did not rule out further cuts. 06:04 GMT Indias cases rise by a daily record of 55,078 India has reported another record surge in daily infections, taking the total to 1.64 million, as the government further eases virus curbs in a bid to resuscitate the economy, while also trying to increase testing. Infections jumped by 55,078 in the past 24 hours, while the death toll rose by 779 to 35,747, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on its website. The ministry also said it aimed to raise the countrys capacity to one million coronavirus tests a day in the medium term, from a record 600,000 on Friday. The federal government this week announced the reopening of yoga institutes and gymnasiums, and removed restrictions on the movement of people and goods. Hello, this is Farah Najjar taking over from my colleague Zaheena Rasheed. 04:51 GMT Southeast Asia poverty to surge in socio-economic crisis Southeast Asia is on the brink of a socio-economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that could reverse decades of poverty reduction, the United Nations has warned. The crisis threatens to destroy the livelihoods of Southeast Asias 218 million informal workers, a UN policy brief released on Thursday said. Without alternative income, formal social protection systems or savings to buffer these shocks, workers and their families will be pushed into poverty, reversing decades of poverty reduction. The region-wide economy was expected to contract by 0.4 per cent in 2020, it said, while remittances from Southeast Asians working abroad were likely to fall by 13 per cent or $10bn. The paper urged nations to fix fiscal termites: budget-sapping problems like tax evasion, transfer pricing and fossil fuel subsidies so they can deliver large stimulus packages to help vulnerable populations and boost their economies. Current low oil prices provided an ideal opportunity to reverse fossil fuel subsidies, it added. 04:46 GMT Bali welcomes visitors after four-month lockdown Indonesias resort island of Bali has reopened to domestic tourists after an almost four-month lockdown for the coronavirus pandemic. Under the easing that took effect on Friday, Indonesians visiting Bali will face stringent rules at hotels, restaurants and beaches. Foreign tourists will be allowed on the island beginning September 11. 04:35 GMT Philippines extends restrictions Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has extended quarantine restrictions in the capital Manila, limiting movements of the elderly and children, and the operations of businesses from restaurants to gyms, until mid-August. My plea is to endure some more. Many have been infected, Duterte said in a televised address. Duterte promised free vaccines if they became available by late this year, prioritising first the poor and then the middle class, police and military personnel. The Philippines will be given precedence by China in vaccine distribution, he said. People wearing face masks wait to have their coronavirus rapid tests at a stadium in Manila, Philippines [Aaron Favila/AP Photo] 04:03 GMT Australias Victoria flags new steps to control surge in cases Australias Victoria state has recorded its second-highest day of new coronavirus infections, as the states Premier Daniel Andrews flagged the prospect of more rigorous steps to contain the spread of the disease. Victoria reported 627 new infections on Friday, down from a record of 723 new infections on Thursday. It is clear to all of us that these numbers are still far too high, Andrews told reporters. It may well be the case that we need to take further steps. The data will tell us, the experts will tell us, what and if any next steps need to be. 03:20 GMT Hong Kong logs new high of 149 cases Hong Kong has reported a new daily record of coronavirus cases, logging 149 more infections by Thursday end. Amid the rise in cases, authorities reversed a ban on indoor dining, along restaurants to operate under limited hours and with limited capacity. Businesses such as bars, karaoke bars and amusement parks remain temporarily closed, and public gatherings are restricted to two people. Around 3,800 people have been infected in Hong Kong since late January [Tyrone Siu/Reuters] 03:01 GMT China tightens travel rules for Xinjiang capital China has tightened travel restrictions in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, requiring people arriving in the city from regions deemed to have high infection risks to undergo a two-week quarantine. Others arriving from less risky areas must show proof of good health. Locals in principle must stay in the city or show proof of health to be allowed to leave. Since mid-July, the Xinjiang outbreak centred in Urumqi has seen more than 600 cases of illness, including 112 new ones reported on Friday. 2:49 GMT Brazil first lady tests positive Brazils first lady Michelle Bolsonaro has tested positive for the new coronavirus, the government announced on Thursday, five days after her husband Jair Bolsonaro said he had recovered from his COVID-19 infection. The 38-year-old first lady is in good health and will follow all established protocols, the presidents office said. Brazils President Jair Bolsonaro with his wife Michelle Bolsonaro in Brasilia, on March 6, 2020 [File: Adriano Machado/Reuters] 2:42 GMT Chinas factory recovery accelerates in July Chinas factory activity expanded in July for the fifth month in a row and at a faster pace, beating analyst expectations despite disruptions from floods and a resurgence in coronavirus cases around the world. The official manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rose to 51.1 in July from Junes 50.9, official data showed on Friday, marking the highest reading since March. Analysts had expected it to slow to 50.7. The 50-point mark separates growth from contraction on a monthly basis. 02:14 GMT More than three million Chileans seek to withdraw pensions Long lines formed outside Pension Fund Administrators offices in Chiles capital, Santiago, and the websites of several fund managers collapsed as Chileans sought to take advantage of a new law allowing citizens to tap into retirement savings amid the coronavirus pandemic. The emergency measure, which came into effect on Thursday, allows those with savings to withdraw up to 10 percent of their pensions. In a statement, Chiles superintendent of pensions said 3,024,347 people had asked to withdraw their share by 5pm local time. Opinion polls indicate nearly nine out of every 10 Chileans planned to tap their funds, with most saying they would use the money to pay for basic goods and services. People wear face masks while queueing to enter a branch of the pension funds office to start the procedure to withdraw up to 10 percent of their deposits in Santiago, on July 30, 2020 [Martin Bernetti/AFP] 01:53 GMT US epicentre of pandemic shifts towards Midwest Coronavirus infections appear to be picking up in the Midwestern United States, the coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force said, as the state of Ohio reported a record day of cases and Wisconsins governor mandated the use of masks. The coronavirus outbreak is moving up into Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska from the south because of vacations and other reasons of travel, Deborah Birx told Fox News. 01:19 GMT Iran prison officials pleas for virus help ignored Irans government ignored repeated requests from senior prison officials for help in containing coronavirus in the countrys overcrowded jails, according to Amnesty International. The rights group said it reviewed copies of four letters to the health ministry signed by officials at Irans Prisons Organization, raising the alarm over serious shortages of protective equipment, disinfectant products, and essential medical devices. The ministry failed to respond, and Irans prisons remain catastrophically unequipped for outbreaks, Amnesty said. Leaked official documents obtained by Amnesty International reveal the Iranian government ignored repeated pleas by senior officials responsible for managing Irans prisons for additional resources to control #COVID19 spread & treat infected prisoners. https://t.co/7GF6ajrfT7 Amnesty Iran (@AmnestyIran) July 30, 2020 00:50 GMT Vietnam reports 45 new cases Vietnams health ministry reported 45 new coronavirus infections linked to a recent outbreak in the central city of Da Nang, marking the highest daily increase since the first cases emerged in the country in late January. The new patients, with ages ranging from 27 to 87, are linked to four hospitals and a hotel in Da Nang. Total infections since the virus resurfaced have reached 93, the ministry said in a statement. Vietnam has registered 509 cases of the virus in total, with no deaths. The country had recorded 100 days without a locally transmitted case before the re-emergence of the virus. 00:42 GMT Brazils Bolsonaro says he has mould in lungs Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said he was taking antibiotics for an infection that left him feeling weak, chuckling in an online video about mould in his lungs, having spent weeks in isolation after catching the new coronavirus. I just did a blood test. I was feeling kind of weak yesterday. They found a bit of infection also. Now Im on antibiotics, Bolsonaro said in a livestream video, without elaborating on the infection. After 20 days indoors, I have other problems. I have mould in my lungs, he said, referring to nearly three weeks he spent at the official presidential residence. He tested positive for the coronavirus on July 7 and then negative last Saturday. 00:05 GMT Botswana reinstates lockdown in capital Botswanas capital city Gaborone has returned to a two-week lockdown to stem its latest surge in coronavirus infections. Under new rules for the capital and surrounding areas, only essential workers would be able to leave home for work, with others only able to leave the house to buy groceries. All gatherings will be banned and hotels, restaurants, gyms and schools will close. During the course of the week, the disease has taken an unprecedented turn, which now required we place the greater Gaborone region under lockdown to enable our containment measures to take hold, Kereng Masupu, coordinator of the COVID-19 task force team, said in a televised briefing. Hello and welcome to Al Jazeeras continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Im Zaheena Rasheed in Male, Maldives. You can find all the key developments from yesterday, July 30, here. Muslims across Southeast Asia put on face masks and were instructed to observe social distancing to guard against the coronavirus, as they gathered at local mosques Friday to celebrate Eid-ul-Adha, one of two major holidays on the Islamic calendar. In a year overshadowed by an unprecedented global pandemic, followers of Islam largely kept a safe distance while attending prayer services, as others participated in online markets to purchase cattle and other sacrificial animals. Eid-ul-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, honors Ibrahims willingness to sacrifice his son to God. The pandemic has infected more than 17.3 million and killed more than 674,000 worldwide, according to disease experts at U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University. In Thailand, people converged on the central mosque in Pattani province and other worship sites in the Muslim-dominant Deep South to pray for safety and prosperity. Fahad Sai, who sells fried chicken in Pattani, said the pandemic had hurt his sales. I prayed that I will be relieved from poverty and that COVID-19 will subside. If it subsides, I can sell and make money as usual to feed my family, he told BenarNews. I believe Allah will bless me and fulfill my wishes. In Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim-majority nation, the national ulema council and the Ministry of Religious Affairs advised those living in areas at high risk of COVID-19 transmission to pray at home, while those in safer areas could join mass prayers as long as worshipers wore masks and maintained social distance. Mosques are to limit the number of attendees to half capacity. Local media reported that as travel restrictions have eased, many Muslims who could not visit their families in May for Eid al-Fitr were able to travel for this holiday. In Bangladesh, where Eid-ul-Adha falls on Saturday, many Muslims have gone to online markets to purchase cattle, buffalo, goats, sheep and even camels after the government announced it would crack down on makeshift markets that sprang up in past years. A ritual around the holiday calls for meat of the sacrificed animal to distributed three ways for yourself, for your friends and for the poor. The number of available animals was expected to be slightly less than the 10.6 million sacrificed in 2019, according to Imran Hossain, president of the Bangladesh Dairy Farm Association. This year, middle-income and lower-middle-income families are not in a situation to perform the ritual, even the affluent families are struggling, Hossain told BenarNews recently, adding, sales are expected to be 20 percent to 25 percent less than previous years. Sharif Khiam in Dhaka, Mariyam Ahmad in Pattani, Thailand, Jojo Rinoza in Calasiao, Philippines, and Ronna Nirmala in Jakarta contributed to this report. Its Friday and you must know what that means by now, it can only be The Nightcap! Sometimes you see something wonderful and it restores your faith in the world. This week we had probably the best thing thats ever been featured on our humble collection of boozy stories. Its a story all about distillery pets. Do you want to see the cats and dogs (and a surprise animal) that reside at your favourite flavour factories? Of course, you do. Its just the second feature from our new guest writer Lucy Britner and honestly, I dont know how she tops it. Once you see those loveable animals youll feel ready to enjoy the weekend in all its glory. Grab a drink, settle down and kick it off with The Nightcap. In another tip-top week on the MoM blog, Johnnie Walker kicked things off by announcing it releases four celebratory 200th-anniversary whiskies, while Henry had the pleasure of picking the brain of Elwyn Gladstone, the marketing guru behind such brands as Sailor Jerry rum, Hendricks, Malfy Gin and Hotel Starlino. Annie then did some trademark myth-busting on the role of water in spirits before Adam spoke to Michael Kain about 10 years of 6 OClock Gin. Fans of our regular posts will have noted that our Cocktail of the Week was the terrifically tasty Grasshopper, while our New Arrival of the Week was a delightful Japanese single malt whisky that was part-aged in an apple brandy cask. First Donegal whiskey launched When we spoke to James Doherty of Sliabh Liag Distillers back in 2019, he told us about his desire to distil peated whiskey and make Donegal to Ireland what Islay is to Scotland. Well, this week the brand has taken its first big step forward to fulfilling this ambition by filling its first cask with a peated single malt new-make. Marking the first time that legal whiskey distillation has taken place in Donegal since the closure of Burt Distillery in 1841, the small-batch production took place at Sliabh Liag Distillers Carrick facility while the businesss new whiskey distillery at Ardara is under construction and on Wednesday the brand launched a new crowdfunding campaign to help raise 1.5m of capital for the project. The new make was distilled twice in SLDs copper pot still, known as Meabh, from peated Irish Craft Malts barley grown in Meath, mirroring the profile of the spirit that was being distilled in Ulster 200 years ago, before it was filled into a first-fill bourbon oak cask. While Burt Distillery ceased production in 1841, we know illegal distilling continued during the intermittent years, not least by my grandfather who was creating a smoky, double-distilled spirit under the authorities radar on the hills up the glen in Kilcar. I think my grandfather would approve that we are now distilling the first legal whiskey in Donegal for nearly 200 years, and theres a lovely sense of coming full circle, commented Doherty. There has been a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears to get to this point especially last week in hand-mashing 500L of wort for brewing but its given us a huge lift as we embark on the next stage in both our and Donegals history. Once we are up and running there, the future of Donegal Irish Whiskey will be even brighter. Plans unveiled for Benbecula distillery New whisky distillery alert! Well, potential distillery. This week, The Uist Distilling Company revealed plans for a 6.5 million site at Gramsdale on the tiny Hebridean island of Benbecula! If it gets the green light, the distillery will make rum and gin alongside single malt, and will also feature a visitor centre and food outlet, where visitors can snap up all manner of freshly made local products. Whats especially exciting is that low-carbon tech will be used from design and build all the way through to distillation. Green(er) whisky incoming! 25 jobs will be created, alongside another 60-70 indirect jobs in the supply chain. Good stuff all round. The new distillery aims to be a champion of all things Hebridean and Scottish and will provide a huge boost to tourism in the area, said Angus A McMillan, Uist Distilling Company chairman and chief executive. We want to produce whisky, rum and gin that will put Benbecula and the Hebrides firmly on the whisky tourist trail, while introducing the products we make to a national and international clientele. The planning application is due for submission imminently, and, if all goes to plan, production will kick off in early 2022. Godspeed, folks! Bruichladdich continues transparent drive with No Hidden Measures campaign Islay-based distillery Bruichladdich has long committed itself to transparency. Back in 2016, it stood with whisky blender Compass Box in its drive for clearer labelling rules when it comes to the constituent parts of whisky expressions. Now Bruichladdich is honing in on accountability, with a focus on the prevalence of raw materials in whisky-making. Through its No Hidden Measures initiatives, it hopes to bring a new level of transparency to single malt Scotch by publishing the provenance of and recipes for its flagship Classic Laddie and Laddie Eight bottlings on its website. Details include where the barley was grown (on the island of Islay or near Inverness), its maturation details of first- or second-fill casks, and the age of its youngest component part. Interestingly, the distillery also states how EU law restricts its transparency (the subject of the first campaign with Compass Box). Never before have businesses been in such a privileged position to share the detail in all they do, said Bruichladdich CEO Douglas Taylor. Our customers are engaged with us across our big picture thinking down to the granular detail of how our whisky is made. Our aim has always been to make the most thought-provoking spirit possible, and we couldnt do that without nurturing the same sense of curiosity in our consumers, as we allow ourselves. He continued: Were determined to highlight the complexity behind every batch of The Classic Laddie and The Laddie Eight. There are no shortcuts taken in their creation, therefore we have no secrets thats whats meant by No Hidden Measures. Some may dismiss this level of detail as unnecessary, but its important for us to make whisky accessible AND allow a more sophisticated conversation to take place. To discover how their bottle was made, customers can pop a code found on the back of the bottles into Bruichladdichs website. Happy tracking! Smeatons Gin to boost Hospitality Action funds with new cocktail We all know were living in challenging times, and that despite lockdowns largely easing, the hospitality industry continues to struggle. Loads of brands and retailers alike have pulled together to support the on-trade, the latest being Smeatons Gin. The Bristol-based producer ran a cocktail competition to find a fabulous new serve. The winning concoction will be sold in bars and restaurants across the UK, with Smeatons making a donation to Hospitality Action for every cocktail sold. The winner? Gin blogger and judge Meme Toor with her serve The Hospitality. The pineapple-based drink tastes delicious, shines in the glass, and will offer bars an easily-replicable, relatable, value-added cocktail to offer their patrons returning from lockdown, according to brand ambassador Alex Williams. Smeatons owner Michael Palij MW added: Bars and restaurants embraced Smeatons Gin when we launched. Now its our turn to help and at this immensely challenging time for the On-Trade, we are committed to supporting Hospitality Action a charity which supports hospitality workers in times of hardship. Good work all round! William Grant & Sons Celebrates 10 Years of Tully Can you believe weve had 10 whole years of Tullamore D.E.W. deliciousness? This month marks an entire decade since it joined William Grant & Sons portfolio! Over that time its become the worlds second-largest triple blend Irish whiskey, which is pretty groundbreaking stuff. If you want to mark the occasion with more than just a dram (though that will certainly do), then youll be thrilled to know that Tullamore D.E.W. visitor centre reopened its doors to the public this month! We love a celebration. Anyway, well leave you with a fact, the kind thats going to come in handy at dinner parties. Here goes: across the world, 10 shots of Tullamore D.E.W. are consumed every second. Yes, really! Now, go and get yourself a glass of Tully and spread the word. Oldest Japanese whisky ever distilled goes to auction in August If you want to see a little piece of whisky history made next month then mark the 21 August (Friday) in your calendar as its the day the Bonhams Hong Kong auction of Fine and Rare Wine & Whisky will take place. The highlight of this sale? A bottle of Yamazaki-55 Year Old, the oldest expression ever produced by the prestigious brand and the oldest Japanese whisky in history. The blockbuster of a single-malt was only released in June this year by Suntory, via a customer lottery system applicable only to residents from within Japan. The expression was distilled in the 1960s and matured in both Japanese Mizunara oak cask from 1960 and white oak cask from 1964 before it was bottled at 46% ABV. The whisky, which had an exceedingly-limited outturn of 100 bottles, is said to have a complex agarwood and sandalwood nose, rich in fruity scents with a sweet aftertaste. Excitingly, its even older than the coveted Yamazaki-50 Year Old, which on several occasions over the years has set the world auction record for a single bottle of Japanese whisky. Other wine and spirits highlights of the sale include a bottle of Saburomaru 1960 55-year-old, which means the auction will feature the two oldest Japanese whiskies currently available to the market, as well as Macallan Lalique 55-Year-Old, Karuizawa 1974 (40-year-old) Blue Geisha and Karuizawa 1974 (40-year-old) Gold Geisha and Bowmore 1955 (40-year-old). We are thrilled to be the first international auction house to offer this historic and extremely popular bottle to the worldwide audience, which already has a strong appetite for the finest Japanese whisky, Daniel Lam, Bonhams director of wine & spirits, Asia, commented. One of only 100 that were produced, this amber joy by one of the most prestigious whisky distilleries is as rare as its quality is unmatched. And finally need some soothing colouring? Tobermorys got your back Remember a couple of years ago when colouring-in books for grown-ups were the thing? Well, Mull-based Tobermory Distillery reckons its time for a come-back. After all, lockdowns around the world have inspired many of us to get in touch with our artistic sides, so why not? As such it has launched a Tobermory colouring book, featuring 10 hand-drawn designs by artist Lydia Bourhill depicting the charm of the island, from its technicolour harbour to dramatic landscapes. Our colourful home on the island of Mull is ample inspiration for those looking to keep up the enriching, artistic hobbies many have started in lockdown, said Amy Burns, Tobermory Distillerys global marketing manager. Its thanks to this nourishing artistic community and the islands stunning natural beauty that Tobermory Distillery is expressive by nature, and this is reflected in the spirits we craft. She continued: It is this expressive creativity which formed the inspiration for our colouring-in books, designed to let you relax, unwind and unlock your artistic passions over a gin and tonic or dram of whisky. The colouring books are available from Tobermorydistillery.com soothing weekend plans sorted! Panaji, July 31 : Three proposed central government projects, including expansion of a national highway and doubling of South Western railway tracks will cause ecological devastation in Goa, as well as deeply impact the coastal state's tourism industry, Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat has said in a letter to the Central Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court on Friday. In his letter, Kamat also said that the projects would degrade the habitats of several endangered wildlife species, which are found in the two wildlife reserves -- where the proposed projects are partly envisioned -- including that of the national animal, the Royal Bengal tiger. "As a member of the Goa Legislative Assembly and Leader of Opposition, I believe in standing up for the interests of Goa and I am not at all in favour of these dubious forest clearances given for these three linear environmentally destructive, infrastructure projects in Bhagwan Mahaveer Wildlife Sanctuary and Mollem national park," Kamat said. Both the wildlife reserves are located in South Goa and are contiguous with forested areas in Karnataka. "If Goa is envisioned to be a prime tourism destination and if the Centre and state wish to make revenue from it, its protected areas and the heritage villages should be undisturbed. Goa's vibrant villages cannot be greyed by plans for a coal hub. Goa's economy depends on these forests during off-season," Kamat also said in his letter addressed to the Committee. "There are numerous endangered species such as Tiger (our national animal), dhole, mouse deer, Indian pangolin and Gaur (Goa's state animal) will be threatened apart from the many endemic species found only in Western Ghats. The National Board for Wildlife is supposed to be protecting biodiversity -- not giving a freehand to disturbing and destroying our beautiful state," the former Chief Minister also said. Nearly 50,000 trees located in the Western Ghat region of Goa are slotted for felling for multiple central government projects which include expansion of railway lines and highways and drawing of a new high tension power, spread across the two wildlife reserves, which are two of the biggest protected forests in the state. The projects have already been cleared by the National Wildlife Board for Wildlife in April this year. Tourism industry stakeholders as well as activists and opposition political parties have opposed the three projections claiming it would not only have adverse environmental impact on the state, but would also affect eco-tourism activities in Goa. Earlier this month, the Bombay High Court bench in Goa also issued notices to state and central government agencies, after a petition filed by a local NGO alleged that several green norms had been flouted by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and other associated wildlife bodies in granting permissions to the three projects. Jaipur/ Barmer: The Congress shifted legislators loyal to Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot to a luxury hotel near Jaisalmer on Friday, alleging that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was attempting to poach its MLAs. The legislators had been camping in a hotel on the outskirts of Jaipur since July 13 in the aftermath of a rebellion by now-dismissed deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot, who is believed to have the backing of 18 Congress MLAs in the 200-member House. The government needs to be saved as you can see the way Centre and its departments are after us. The pressure will be less there [Jaisalmer]. I and the most of the ministers will stay here and the rest will keep coming. There will be no compromise on governance, chief minister Gehlot said before boarding his flight to Jaisalmer. Gehlot said since the governor announced the date for the assembly session beginning August 14, MLAs and their family members have been receiving calls. Even threatening calls are being made, mentally harassing them. What will happen to the country where horse-trading is being done at such a level? he questioned. While Gehlot alleges that the Centres ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to dislodge his government, the states opposition party denies the charge. Gehlot also says the horse-trading rate has increased after the assembly session was announced by the governor on Wednesday night. In the aftermath of the rebellion, the Gehlot camp thinks a trust vote in the upcoming assembly session is its best bet. The Gehlot camp is believed to have the support of 101 MLAs (this does not include speaker CP Joshi, but factors in allies), while the Pilot camp has the backing of three independents who take the tally to 22. The BJP and its ally Rashtriya Loktrantrik Party have 75 MLAs in the House. The chief minister also alleges that the BJP is misusing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the income tax department to threaten all. His stand comes at a time when ED has summoned his brother, Agrasain Gehlot, to appear before it in Delhi in connection with its probe into alleged money laundering in the export of fertilizers. On Friday, about 100 MLAs in the Gehlot camp arrived at the Jaipur airport on four buses from the Fairmont Hotel on the Jaipur-Delhi highway. The first batch had 54 MLAs, who left in three chartered planes around 1pm. The second batch of around 35-37 MLAs went around 5pm in another flight. A third flight carrying the CM left around 5pm. After landing at Jaisamler airport, the MLAs were taken to Hotel Suryagarh, about 20 km from the city. Heavy security has been deployed in and around the hotel on the Jaisalmer-Sam highway. BJP state president Satish Poonia wondered if the Congress MLAs will next cross over to Pakistan. The CM talks of democracy and Constitution, but if there is unity, why are the MLAs shifted? The CM should run the government from secretariat, and not from hotels, he said. BJP spokesperson Mukesh Pareek said the CM should clarify the horse trading charges. Transport minister Pratap Singh, who is in the Gehlot camp, said in Jaipur the MLAs are being shifted to Jaisalmer so that they can remain united. The chief ministers strategy is that not a single MLA can be poached, he said. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The Santa Clara County Department of Public Health is investigating a cluster of coronavirus outbreaks at four Costco stores. The county confirmed the Gilroy location reported six cases between July 24 and July 30, the store in Mountain View four cases between July 15 and July 29, the San Jose store at Senter Road eight cases between July 17 and July 22 and the Sunnyvale store 13 cases between July 23 and July 26. On 60 Minutes this Sunday, Johnny Depp & Amber Heards dirty laundry, COVID security breaches and more on an abuse case. Security Breach Its been a hell of a year for everyone. But for Victorians, and in particular people living in Melbourne, the resurgence of COVID-19 and the return to lockdown has been especially tough. Up until a few weeks ago things had looked so different and there was even cautious optimism that the virus was being beaten. But by escaping containment it has now proved how devious it really is. What remains both galling and inexcusable though is how the state government of Victoria lost control of the disease. Sarah Abo reports on an appalling breach of security thats causing a catastrophe. Reporter: Sarah Abo Producers: Darren Ally, Tracey Hannaford Till Depp Do Us Part Its a Hollywood drama like the world has never seen. With an A-list cast, its full of intrigue and fiery dialogue, and topped off with lashings of sex and drugs. There is even a pivotal scene set right here in Australia, starring politician Barnaby Joyce. But this production isnt playing at any theatre. Centre stage is a London court where actor Johnny Depp is suing an English tabloid for calling him a wife beater. As Tom Steinfort reveals, no one is going to win an Oscar, but Depp and his one-time bride, actress Amber Heard, have been putting on the performance of their lives, airing every sordid detail of their bizarre and doomed marriage. Reporter: Tom Steinfort Producer: Naomi Shivaraman Order of the Court For three decades, Karen Simmons kept a terrible secret. As a young girl she was a victim of traumatic sexual abuse. In 2017, she bravely decided it was time to speak about her ordeal. She went to the police, and last year also told her harrowing story on 60 Minutes. Now there has been a significant development in the case: Karens alleged attacker has been charged with eleven counts of historic child sex abuse. But while this courageous woman feels relief, she is furious because a court has ordered the mans identity to be kept secret. Reporter: Tara Brown Producer: Laura Sparkes 8:50pm Sunday on Nine. President Donald Trump met with the family of murdered US Army specialist Vanessa Guillen at the White House on Thursday and promised an investigation into her death. Meeting with Ms Guillens family in the Oval Office, the president said Its an incredible story. Its a terrible story. Were going to look into it very powerfully. We already have started, as you know, and well get to the bottom of it. Maybe things can come out that will help other people in a situation like Vanessa. Well be in touch with you constantly, he continued. The Department of Justice, Department of Defence and FBI are investigating, according to Mr Trump. He also offered to help the family with funeral costs. Ms Guillens remains were found on 2 July. She disappeared from Fort Hood, Texas, on 22 April. Her family claims she was sexually harassed by another soldier who is suspected of her murder. They are calling for justice and reform of the way that claims of sexual harassment are handled by the military. The army disputes the claim and says there is no evidence of sexual harassment, but concedes that Ms Guillen may have experience other harassment. Ms Guillens family are angry about the denial, and her mother, Gloria, says that she spoke with her daughter regarding her harassment. On 10 July, a review of the case was ordered by Ryan McCarthy, secretary of the army. A five member civilian task force is examining the command climate and culture at Fort Hood. The familys lawyer, Natalie Khawam, has helped write a bill that would reform procedures for reporting sexual harassment in the military. It is sponsored by US representatives Tulsi Gabbard and Markwayne Mullin. The president is said to support the bill. Ms Guillen was bludgeoned to death in the armoury room at the base, shortly before she was due to file a harassment complaint against Aaron David Robinson. He died by suicide when police tried to communicate with him. Agent Damon Phelps told a news conference that while law enforcement agencies attempted to make contact with the suspect in Killeen, Texas, Specialist Robinson displayed a weapon and took his own life. A second suspect, Cecily Aguiliar, is said to have been told by Robinson that he had killed another soldier. Mr Phelps added that Ms Aguilar, a civilian and the estranged wife of a former Fort Hood soldier, is accused of being enlisted in transporting Guillens body from the base. She is in custody on three counts of conspiracy to destroy evidence for helping Mr Robinson hide Ms Guillens remains. Meker Africa, the leading kitchen furniture and fittings company is wishing all Muslims a happy Eid-al-Adha celebration. Muslims around the world are today, July 31, 2020, celebrating Eid al-Adha which is also called Festival of the Sacrifice. Eid al-Adha is one of two Eids, or days of celebration for Muslims worldwide, in a year. It is observed worldwide by all Muslims. In Ghana, the celebrations usually begin with a special early morning prayer in mosques and open-air spaces and a grand prayer section at Independence Square but that has been disrupted by COVID-19 and that means this rite will not be performed. As a company with their clients at heart, Meker Africa joins the numerous to wish all Muslims a happy Eid-al-Adha celebration. A post on their social media page reads, We wish a Happy Eid to all our clients and friends. Meker celebrates this special occasion with you. Gods blessings always. Have a lovely long weekend! About Meker Africa Merker Africa is a Lebanese company dealing in the manufacturing of kitchen furniture and fittings. The company works with processed wood and could offer a wide range of designs of quality and long-lasting products to suit the customers demands and can boast of experienced experts who design the products, fix the kitchen, and offer five years guarantee which had made it attractive to Ghanaians. Materials used were imported from their 13,000 square metres factory in Lebanon where almost everything was produced with modern machine technology. It completes its works with raw and processed materials from Ghana such as stones, artistry, taps, and sinks. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh has continued to be the largest contributor of Coronavirus infections in the country, by registering 10,093 new cases on Wednesday. This is the highest-ever single-day spike in the state. The state witnessed 65 deaths in the last 24 hours. The state government has carried out 34,083 tests per million population and has registered Covid-19 positive rate at 6.61 against the national average of 8.63. Maharashtra has tested 15,791 samples for one million population and has registered Covid-19 positive rate at 19.85 while Telangana has tested 9,646 samples for million population and has registered Covid-19 positive rate at 15.08. Health authorities say the state has ramped up its testing capacity and even conducted over 70,584 samples in a day. On an average, the state has been conducting 50,447.7 tests per day as since July 20 onwards, 5,04,477 tests have been conducted for Covid-19 covering 10 days. AP has recorded Covid-19 recovery rate at 46.02 and mortality rate at 1.01 against national average of morality at 2.23. The state has been spending Rs 350 crore per month to provide healthcare to the Covid-19 suspected and infected patients. In its Covid-19 bulletin released here on Wednesday, the state health department said, out of 70,584 samples tested, 10,093 individuals have been found infected with Coronavirus, rising overall tally to 1,20,390. Out of 18,20,009 samples tested for Covid-19 so far in the state, 63,771 infected patients are in hospital while 55,406 have been discharged after recovery from various hospitals. Among new infections, East Godavari has topped the list by registering the highest ever 1,676 new cases followed by 1,371 in Anantapur, 1,124 in Guntur, 1,091 in Kurnool, 841 in Visakhapatnam, 819 in Chittoor, 779 in West Godavari, 734 in Kadapa, 608 in Nellore, 496 in Srikakulam, 259 in Krishna, 242 in Prakasam and 53 in Vizianagaram. In terms of cumulative number of cases, Kurnool leads the list with 14,471 cases, followed by Guntur with 12,816 cases, Anantapur with 12,358, East Godavari with 11,896, West Godavari with 10,356, Chittoor 9,080, Visakhapatnam 8,559, Kadapa 6,477, Krishna 6,259, Nellore 5,753, Srikakulam 5,582 Prakasam 4,443 and Vizianagaram 3,602. The state also recorded the highest number of 65 deaths, rising toll to 1,213. East Godavari registered 14 followed by eight from Anantapur, seven from Vizianagaram, six from Chittoor, five each from Kurnool and Nellore, four each from Krishna and Prakasam, three each from Guntur and Kadapa, two each from Srikakulam,Visakhapatnam and West Godavari. Death toll also has been high in Kurnool with the district reporting 179 fatalities. Krishna district, which reported a considerably lesser number of cases, stood second with 157 deaths. East Godavari reported the third largest death toll in the state with 148 fatalities, followed by Guntur 112, Anantapur 97, Chittoor 95, Vizag 92, West Godavari 91, Srikakulam 65, Prakasam 53, Vizianagaram 51, Nellore 37 and Kadapa 36. In Tirupati urban police district, a 46 year old woman head constable attached to Alipiri police station was infected with Covid-19 and succumbed to the virus while undergoing treatment at state Covid-19 hospital at Tirupati late Tuesday night. Satrvadi Selvi, joined the police department in 1991 and had been working at Alipiri police station in the last six years as a head constable. Her body was cremated by following Covid-19 protocol on Wednesday evening. She was the third police personnel succumbing to the Coronavirus in TUPD. West Godavari district administration has announced 26 new containment zones and has advised people to stay put at their homes assuring to supply essential commodities at their doorsteps. However, it has closed 14 containment zones with no case of Coronavirus infection reported in the last 28 days. In Krishna district, transport minister Perni Venkata Ramaiah has announced total lockdown in Machilipatnam municipal corporation and several villages falling in the mandal from August 3 to 9 for seven days given the rise in Covid-19 cases. The minister said the lockdown will be relaxed from 6 am to 9 am every day to allow people to buy essential commodities. With the day between August 5 and 8 being auspicious when several marriages are scheduled, the minister asked people to approach Machilipatnam tahsildar to get red-zone wedding passes for 25 persons to attend the marriage. Ghana on Friday joined the international community to mark the Pan African Womens Day, which recognises the foremothers for their fight towards the Liberation of the African Continent. It is on the theme: Unity in Diversity - Fight against Racism and COVID 19 towards Women Empowerment. Ms Cynthia Mamle Morrision, the Minister of Gender, Children, and Social Protection, in a message to mark the Day in Accra, acknowledged that Ghana had made many strides in women empowerment and gender equality. She expressed concern that the effects of COVID-19 had disproportionately affected women and girls and put Ghana at a risk of eroding gains already made. She said a large number of women worked in the informal sectors; hospitality, service and retail industries, which had been the hardest hit by the restrictions due to COVID-19, leading to loss of income and its adverse effects on the wellbeing of families. Ms Morrision said the care giving role played by women in the society also meant that during the partial lockdown they were saddled with more unpaid care work. This together with the gender digital divide make working from home challenging for women in the formal sector. The closure of schools also has a differential impact on women who take up additional care work of home-schooling the children, she said. The Gender Minister said persons who had recovered from COVID-19 may be stigmatised, however, a lot of sensitisation was on-going to disabuse the minds of the public against it. As we celebrate Pan African Womens Day I wish to join calls for all African Union Member States to unite, support each other and share experiences on best practices in dealing with the pandemic, she said. We are promoting equal care giving responsibilities of all parents, as well as flexible working arrangements. The economic stimulus packages being provided by government are gender sensitive. The Government, through the Ministry of Gender, continued to ensure timely cash transfers to various poor and vulnerable people under its Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, she said. Ms Morrision said a Social Protection Single Window Citizens Service was operational, adding; Under this initiative, a single window call centre (Help Line of Hope) has been created to receive complaints through a toll-free number 0800 800 800/ 0800 900 900 and SMS on a short code 8020, for referral and resolution of complaints. She called on all women on the Continent to unite and galvanise resources to advocate for gender equality and women empowerment as a means of achieving equitable and sustainable development. Women should be seen as supporting one another and mentoring the young ones for continuity of the gender agenda. No more must women lead in the stigmatisation, discrimination, maltreatment, trafficking and marginalisation of fellow women and girls. United we stand, divided we fall, she said. July 31 was dedicated for commemorating the Day after the Pan African Women Organisation (PAWO) Congress in Dakar in 1974 to recognise womens efforts in the struggle for the emancipation and liberation of Africa from colonial rule. 2020 marks the 58th Anniversary of PAWO. It was founded in 1962 in Tanzania, a year before the founding of the Organisation of African Unity, now the African Union (AU), where the women decided to unite to know each other better, share experiences and combine efforts for their own emancipation and that of the of Continent. 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 msnarain BHPian Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: Chennai Posts: 63 Thanked: 140 Times Kia Seltos vs Hyundai Creta But since the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown happened, we have been stuck indoors. And with a 2 year old who needs to be out looking at real things instead of in a book, we are sorely missing having a car handy. My wife and I had made a promise to ourselves to not take the kid on the motorcycle till he was old enough to wear a helmet. But we had to break that promise because he badly needs that fresh air. We have been literally doing <20kmph around the building on a 900CC parallel twin every evening for 30 minutes. In short, we are in a position where we really need a car. Here's a mini-flashback. I got my Honda Brio VMT back in 2012. It was my first car, a decision that Team-bhp helped me make. That's also when I started driving - I have been driving for around 8 years now. My wife has been driving for around 12 years now. (In case you are wondering, she was the better driver when we met by a large margin. I think I have considerably narrowed the margin down since though.) We both loved the car to bits that we fought over who got to drive the car to work everyday. The car had absolutely zero features, and we were okay with it. There were no gimmicks, gadgets or distractions between me and the machine, as I floored the car and the iVTEC showed its magic. We were looking at buying a second car in 2018 as though the Brio was a darling to chuck around in the city, we were doing occasional road trips and it was falling short. We still love the Brio, and it is safe in Chennai at my in-law's place - we can't wait to drive the Brio again. But, I digress. So, we test drove a few cars - the Verna, Creta, Compass, the new Ecosport and Vento. The Verna and Creta were great. The Vento was out because of terrible showroom experience. The Ford though seemed like a driver's car, felt claustrophobic. And we fell in love with the Compass. It felt like the Brio's elder brother. Beautiful engine that loved to be driven and again, not many gimmicks. But before we could make the decision, we moved to Bangalore and here we are now in Mumbai. Back to the present, with the lockdown in progress, we are feeling the need for a car to not just get the kid outside, but due to the fact that my wife and I have been getting cabin fever, and would do anything to just get out of the house occasionally, even if it's just a 2-4 hour drive on weekends with the kid plonked in the carseat. And so we are back in the which-car-to-buy dilemma. Here are our requirements. We want it to feel like a proper upgrade We need those extra airbags since the kid is going to be spending the next 4 years in the carseat in the back. The first car we saw was the Hyundai Creta. I know a lot of folks loathe the new design, but I like it. I find it minimal and think it has character. I hated the way the old Creta looks (sorry!). I think it looked too skinny to be an SUV. But hey, looks are subjective. We have never been keen on all the gadgetry that modern cars come with, but we have reached a point in life (also called getting older) where I think the extra features would be useful and actually add to a comfortable life. And Creta is loaded, no doubt. I was then nudged towards the Seltos by my colleague and fellow TeamBHPian Nimish. I had heard of Kia setting sales charts on fire in this segment, but never really gave that direction a second look because of unknown network, service history etc. But as I read more, I realized Kia was on to something with the Indian market. I called up a couple of showrooms and enquired about the Seltos GTX+ 1.4 manual. Both showrooms said they had the top variant in stock and can deliver in less than 10 days. And both denied any discounts as the Seltos was literally flying off the shelf. Fair enough. My bank's relationship manager got another Kia showroom to call me and they offered me discounts of up to 30K - they said they had some inventory of the older version (MY19) that came without the all black interiors or a few connected car features that were ready to be delivered in less than 10 days. The MY20 cars had to be dispatched from the factory and would take 4-8 weeks. I called the other two showrooms to get this clarified and they owned up to having told me about the MY19 cars. I was furious about having almost misled by the other two showrooms. Imagine if I had booked the GTX+ thinking I was getting MY20 and on the day of delivery realized I was getting an MY19. I was planning to do almost everything remotely since I did not want to put anyone at any risk. Why do the sales tactic have to be so aggressive and opaque? I lost interest in Kia post this incident. The Creta now looked good, but the SX(O) did not come with a manual turbo petrol. And the DCT seems to be a hit or a miss. I would absolutely love those paddle shifters, but I am just not getting the confidence. Nor am I keen on the 1.5 CVT. On a side note, the wife thinks automatics are for kids. I would prefer them any day in traffic these days! I have managed to convince her to get an auto though. We have been looking at a few other cars that I have looked at in the meantime - the new City for example. Honestly, I am not sure if I will ever want another Honda in the house. Great cars, make no mistake. We just need some variety. Plus I am not a big fan of the new design language that Honda is adopting across its line. We are also not sure if we want a sedan now. We really want our next big upgrade to be a BMW 3 or a Merc A. The sedan can wait a few years. We discussed the Compass the other day, and the wife started grinning ear to ear. The Compass still has got a special place in our hearts. But the 6 airbags come in Limited Plus and the AT costs close to 26L on-road. I am not sure if I can really justify the premium. The other tangent we have been discussing is the fact that we won't be in Mumbai permanently and might want to move back to base in the long term. Is it really worth getting am SUV here or do we just get a small car? The Venue came into the picture - but again the DCT is not inspiring confidence. We are not too keen on going after the older cars in the sub-compact segment - the XUV300, Duster or the Ecosport. We are even looking at renting/leasing a car from Revv or Zoom. But it's working out to be an expensive affair - The Creta AT costs around 35k a month for 6 months and the Swift AT is going to cost us 25k per month for the same period! That's ridiculous and daylight robbery! I did some quick math and realized it makes no sense whatsoever. Am I missing something here? So that's where we are at. With a budget for an SUV that can be stretched to 20L on-road, our options now include.. Hyundai Creta 1.4 DCT (really hoping you guys give me the confidence to get the DCT) Kia Seltos (I will have to ignore the shady sales guys and tactics. Talk to the guy my banker introduced and get a 1.4 turbo manual) Hyundai Venue 1.4 turbo manual Rent a car on Revv (assuming I am missing something and you guys show me the real math) Any other car that you guys feel I have missed out. Help a brother out! We moved to Mumbai from Bangalore last year. We were lucky to find a house near work, which meant we never really needed a car. The chaotic Mumbai traffic ensured we never ever discussed buying a car. We were happy with Uber and the ubiquitous auto rickshaws which were also surprisingly dirt cheap. (Did I tell you I am originally from Chennai where you had to pawn your household jewellery each time you hailed an auto rickshaw?). In fact recently, I went ahead and took care of my long overdue itch and acquired a motorcycle, a Triumph Street Twin that I use(d?) for my everyday commute, something that doubles up as the occasional weekend companion.But since the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown happened, we have been stuck indoors. And with a 2 year old who needs to be out looking at real things instead of in a book, we are sorely missing having a car handy. My wife and I had made a promise to ourselves to not take the kid on the motorcycle till he was old enough to wear a helmet. But we had to break that promise because he badly needs that fresh air. We have been literally doing <20kmph around the building on a 900CC parallel twin every evening for 30 minutes.In short, we are in a position where we really need a car.Here's a mini-flashback.I got my Honda Brio VMT back in 2012. It was my first car, a decision that Team-bhp helped me make. That's also when I started driving - I have been driving for around 8 years now. My wife has been driving for around 12 years now. (In case you are wondering, she was the better driver when we met by a large margin. I think I have considerably narrowed the margin down since though.) We both loved the car to bits that we fought over who got to drive the car to work everyday. The car had absolutely zero features, and we were okay with it. There were no gimmicks, gadgets or distractions between me and the machine, as I floored the car and the iVTEC showed its magic.We were looking at buying a second car in 2018 as though the Brio was a darling to chuck around in the city, we were doing occasional road trips and it was falling short. We still love the Brio, and it is safe in Chennai at my in-law's place - we can't wait to drive the Brio again.But, I digress. So, we test drove a few cars - the Verna, Creta, Compass, the new Ecosport and Vento. The Verna and Creta were great. The Vento was out because of terrible showroom experience. The Ford though seemed like a driver's car, felt claustrophobic. And we fell in love with the Compass. It felt like the Brio's elder brother. Beautiful engine that loved to be driven and again, not many gimmicks. But before we could make the decision, we moved to Bangalore and here we are now in Mumbai.Back to the present, with the lockdown in progress, we are feeling the need for a car to not just get the kid outside, but due to the fact that my wife and I have been getting cabin fever, and would do anything to just get out of the house occasionally, even if it's just a 2-4 hour drive on weekends with the kid plonked in the carseat. And so we are back in the which-car-to-buy dilemma.Here are our requirements.The first car we saw was the Hyundai Creta. I know a lot of folks loathe the new design, but I like it. I find it minimal and think it has character. I hated the way the old Creta looks (sorry!). I think it looked too skinny to be an SUV. But hey, looks are subjective. We have never been keen on all the gadgetry that modern cars come with, but we have reached a point in life (also called getting older) where I think the extra features would be useful and actually add to a comfortable life. And Creta is loaded, no doubt.I was then nudged towards the Seltos by my colleague and fellow TeamBHPian Nimish. I had heard of Kia setting sales charts on fire in this segment, but never really gave that direction a second look because of unknown network, service history etc. But as I read more, I realized Kia was on to something with the Indian market. I called up a couple of showrooms and enquired about the Seltos GTX+ 1.4 manual. Both showrooms said they had the top variant in stock and can deliver in less than 10 days. And both denied any discounts as the Seltos was literally flying off the shelf. Fair enough.My bank's relationship manager got another Kia showroom to call me and they offered me discounts of up to 30K - they said they had some inventory of the older version (MY19) that came without the all black interiors or a few connected car features that were ready to be delivered in less than 10 days. The MY20 cars had to be dispatched from the factory and would take 4-8 weeks. I called the other two showrooms to get this clarified and they owned up to having told me about the MY19 cars. I was furious about having almost misled by the other two showrooms. Imagine if I had booked the GTX+ thinking I was getting MY20 and on the day of delivery realized I was getting an MY19. I was planning to do almost everything remotely since I did not want to put anyone at any risk. Why do the sales tactic have to be so aggressive and opaque?I lost interest in Kia post this incident.The Creta now looked good, but the SX(O) did not come with a manual turbo petrol. And the DCT seems to be a hit or a miss. I would absolutely love those paddle shifters, but I am just not getting the confidence. Nor am I keen on the 1.5 CVT. On a side note, the wife thinks automatics are for kids. I would prefer them any day in traffic these days! I have managed to convince her to get an auto though.We have been looking at a few other cars that I have looked at in the meantime - the new City for example. Honestly, I am not sure if I will ever want another Honda in the house. Great cars, make no mistake. We just need some variety. Plus I am not a big fan of the new design language that Honda is adopting across its line. We are also not sure if we want a sedan now. We really want our next big upgrade to be a BMW 3 or a Merc A. The sedan can wait a few years.We discussed the Compass the other day, and the wife started grinning ear to ear. The Compass still has got a special place in our hearts. But the 6 airbags come in Limited Plus and the AT costs close to 26L on-road. I am not sure if I can really justify the premium.The other tangent we have been discussing is the fact that we won't be in Mumbai permanently and might want to move back to base in the long term. Is it really worth getting am SUV here or do we just get a small car? The Venue came into the picture - but again the DCT is not inspiring confidence. We are not too keen on going after the older cars in the sub-compact segment - the XUV300, Duster or the Ecosport.We are even looking at renting/leasing a car from Revv or Zoom. But it's working out to be an expensive affair - The Creta AT costs around 35k a month for 6 months and the Swift AT is going to cost us 25k per month for the same period! That's ridiculous and daylight robbery! I did some quick math and realized it makes no sense whatsoever. Am I missing something here?So that's where we are at. With a budget for an SUV that can be stretched to 20L on-road, our options now include..Help a brother out! Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard assets are searching for eight missing troops following a deadly Marine amphibious vehicle accident that took place Thursday afternoon off the coast of southern California. The Marines, assigned to the San Diego-based 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, had been conducting a routine training exercise near San Clemente Island in coordination with the three-ship Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group and other assets assigned to the MEU. Around 5:45 p.m. local time, the amphibious assault vehicle reported taking on water, according to a news release from I Marine Expeditionary Force. Read next: Navy Officer's Years-Long Murder Case Gets Another Twist with Court Ruling Of the 15 Marines and one sailor aboard the AAV, eight were able to make it out of the vehicle. One was evacuated to Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla near San Diego, where the Marine was pronounced dead. Two more Marines were sent to local hospitals, where they remain. One is in critical condition, and one is stable, according to officials. Eight service members who were aboard the AAV remain missing. According to the release, the Navy destroyer John Finn, three Navy MH-60 Seahawk helicopters and small boats from the amphibious ships Makin Island, Somerset and San Diego are participating in the search. The Coast Guard cutter Forrest Rednour and an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Coast Guard Sector San Diego are also assisting. Marine Corps officials declined to identify the Marine who died, citing a 24-hour notification period for family members. "We are deeply saddened by this tragic incident. I ask that you keep our Marines, Sailors, and their families in your prayers as we continue our search," Col. Christopher Bronzi, 15th MEU commanding officer, said in a statement. Amphibious assault vehicles, which move on tank-like tracks and can operate on land and swim in water, are used to transport Marines from ship to shore. They've been in use by the Marines since the early 1970s and are currently set to be replaced by the amphibious combat vehicle, now in development. In January 2011, one Marine died when an AAV sank off the coast of Camp Pendleton during a training operation. The other five Marines aboard were able to escape. -- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck. Related: Five Marines in Critical Condition After AAV Catches Fire The NASA Perseverance Rover, after its launch on its mission to Mars, is currently in 'safe mode.' The space agency's engineers are now tackling a glitch which caused the spacecraft to go into protective mode. The rover and its rocket Atlas V launched last Thursday at 7:50 AM EDT from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Shortly after its launch, it had a minor temperature and communications glitches. These issues do not compromise the mission, according to NASA officials. According to Jim Bridenstine, NASA Administrator, the launch was amazing and was on time. To get live updates on the status of the rover, you can visit this site. READ: NASA Successfully Launched the Perseverance Rover on Its Mars Mission Safe Mode Glitch The "safe mode" was initiated by an unexpected difference in temperature and communications problems. According to NASA officials, the temperature change was likely due to a portion of the spacecraft being in Earth's shadow. Now, however, all temperature readings are normal, as it is now out of the shadow of the Earth. READ ALSO: The United Arab Emirates Launches First Mars Mission The Communications Issue Another issue is the lingering communications problem. The signal that the spacecraft was transmitting was not correctly being processed. According to Mars 2020 deputy project manager with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA in California Matt Wallace, this was nothing to be concerned about. This miscommunication was due to NASA's reliance on the Deep Space Network to contact the spacecraft, even as it is not yet into deep space. This Network is composed of huge antennae with receivers that are super sensitive so that a spacecraft that is very close to it can blast the system. Engineers have to adjust the network's settings to be able to process the transmission. Wallace said the Curiosity rover had the same issue when it launched last 2011, and that it is not unusual. The Temperature Issue Perseverance got colder than NASA expected when it passed through the shadow of our planet, automatically initiating safe mode. Its temperature, however, returned to normal right away. Wallace says that everything so far looks good. He shared that the issue was in the system, which uses freon as a refrigerant to cool Perseverance's nuclear battery. Curiosity had the same battery but did not have the issue because it was always situated in daylight, with no eclipse in its trajectory, unlike what Perseverance experienced. Wallace said that they will check on the problem. He adds that Perseverance is expected to fly steadily for at least the next two weeks so that the team has a little time to get it back to normal conditions before its first needed trajectory adjustment. A Successful Launch Perseverance had a three-week launch window as such launches depend on orbital trajectories. Bridenstine explained that if they missed that window, which was likely due to the delays caused by the current pandemic, another launch opportunity would only be available in 2022, which would have led to an additional cost of 500 million dollars. Delays pushed the schedule of the launch over a week within this window. It was good that the launch was successful. The spacecraft will take a journey of seven months, after which it will make the critical process of entering, descending, and landing on Mars. This will take place on February 18, 2021. READ NEXT: Mars Mud Volcano Theory Points to Source of Life from Water Reservoir from Ancient Times michael barbaro From The New York Times, Im Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. [music] Today: The United States is preparing to hold its first socially distant presidential election in history. Will it actually work? My colleague, Reid Epstein, on what weve learned from the very different experience of two states. Its Tuesday, August 4. So Reid, it is precisely three months to the day until Election Day. And from what you can tell, given the state of the pandemic, will voting on November 3 at all resemble the way we have cast ballots in the past? reid epstein For a lot of us, no. You know, the idea that people have that they wake up the morning of Election Day and go to the middle school or a church or something nearby and wait in line for a few minutes and vote, for a lot of us thats going to be replaced with opening your mailbox and seeing a ballot that comes from your local board of elections. And sitting down at the kitchen table and figuring out sort of whos running for what and looking for what they stand for, and filling in the ovals as you see fit. And then when youre done with that, youll either put it back in the mailbox or youll drop it off in a ballot collection box. And that will be how people vote. And it will take place over a matter of weeks, and not just crammed in on Election Day. michael barbaro And just to be clear, what youre describing is mail-in voting. And I want to make sure I understand exactly what that is, because I think for a lot of people there is a familiarity with absentee voting. And is that different? reid epstein I mean, its basically the same. A lot of us have received an absentee ballot if were traveling for work or at school and not at home. But mail-in voting is on a mass scale of absentee voting that were going to see for this election. michael barbaro Right. And so what has been our experience in the United States with mail-in voting up to this point? reid epstein Its very different depending on where you live. There are five states that have been conducting their elections entirely by mail Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, Utah and Colorado, where they send ballots to every registered voter and people return them either through the mail or in drop boxes. And so if you live in one of those places, this years election will look pretty normal to you. Youll get your ballot. If you live in a Washington state youll get a little booklet, which will be 80 to 100 pages with testimonials from everyone whos running for every office on the ballot dogcatcher to president of the United States that you have a chance to read and study. And youll fill it out at your leisure, and as long as you have it returned by whatever the local deadline is, your vote will count. michael barbaro And by all accounts, how well does mail-in voting work in those five states? reid epstein It works great by almost all accounts from anybody you talk to in those states, from both parties. It has increased turnout, particularly among demographics of people who are least likely to vote otherwise. I had a conversation last week with the Republican state party chairman in Utah, who said that Utahns have been voting by mail for over a decade, and that they have effective safeguards and procedures in place to keep the voting on the up and up. And that they dont expect any problems there with mail voting this fall, because they havent had any in the past. michael barbaro So mail-in voting is smooth in the states that have it. And of course, many other states have some level of experience with absentee ballots, which would seem to suggest theres a pretty straightforward path to taking mail-in voting nationwide for the entire country in 2020. reid epstein You might think that, but its been proven to not be that simple. And the best example of where things have gotten messy was in Georgia. Georgias presidential primary was supposed to be back in March. And a couple weeks before it was held, the secretary of state, a Republican named Brad Raffensperger, postponed it to May. And then a couple of weeks before the May primary, everything was postponed to June, because they didnt quite know what to do with the pandemic. And after the second postponement, it was clear that they needed to do something to alleviate what they expected to be a crush of people voting on their primary day. And so they sent absentee ballot application forms to nearly 7 million active registered voters in Georgia in an effort to get people to vote by mail and not come into either early voting centers or Election Day voting sites. michael barbaro So 7 million people got applications for ballots, but not ballots themselves? reid epstein Thats right. michael barbaro So how many people ultimately sought a ballot with these applications in Georgia? reid epstein About a million and a half people returned the ballot applications from the state to their county board of elections. And almost all of those people received a ballot, but there were still tens of thousands of people who requested ballots and didnt receive them. Either it didnt show up, or it showed up after the election. Or it showed up a malfunctioning ballot or a bad return envelope, or some way that it couldnt be returned properly. One example of that is Stacey Abrams, who was the Democratic party nominee for governor in 2018. archived recording (stacey abrams) I applied for my absentee ballot in May when there was some delay in receiving it. But when it finally arrived reid epstein Received a ballot. archived recording (stacey abrams) I filled out the ballot, completed it and got ready to put it in the return envelope. reid epstein And the return envelope was sealed shut. And she talked about using an iron to try to unseal it. archived recording (stacey abrams) And I attempted to steam it open, because Ive watched lots of mystery shows. It did not work. michael barbaro Wow. reid epstein But was unsuccessful, and so she went and stood in line at an early voting site that Georgia had kept open for people to vote and was able to cast her ballot. archived recording (stacey abrams) Luckily for me, I live in an area where the lines were not terribly long. But all I can think about are the people who did not receive their ballots, who were forced instead into hours-long lines. reid epstein Jon Ossoff, who is the Democratic nominee for Senate from Georgia archived recording (jon ossoff) My wife Alisha and I applied for our absentee ballots a month ago. We wrote the county. We sent letters to the county. We sounded the alarm publicly. We never got our ballots, and Im on the ballot. reid epstein waited five hours in line at a community swimming pool. archived recording (jon ossoff) We waited five hours to do so. reid epstein Because he never received his absentee ballot. archived recording (jon ossoff) And we are strong, so we can do that. But think of the seniors. reid epstein And so after he waits in line for five hours and votes, he gets home. And whats come in the mail after a month? Is his absentee ballot. And then once Election Day came in Georgia archived recording Now to the Primary Day chaos hundreds of voters waiting in hours-long lines. reid epstein You had limits of how many people could be inside those rooms at churches and schools, because of the pandemic. archived recording Voters told us they waited for as long as four hours to get inside to vote. reid epstein So you had images of people waiting five, six hours in line outside the buildings in the summer Georgia heat. archived recording We saw two voters turn around and drive off because the line was so long. reid epstein And not indoors waiting to vote inside. archived recording (voter) Once I got inside, I think the most frustrating part was that several of the machines were broken. It seemed like maybe half of the machines were down. archived recording (poll worker) Equipment was delivered late. Some of its not charged up. The check-in folks arent really clear about what to do. michael barbaro Why do you think things went so badly in Georgia? Both the mail-in and the in-person voting? reid epstein The bottom line, really, is that its really hard to run either a mail election or an in-person election. And doing them both at the same time, without really the resources to do either, is a recipe for disaster. The elections administrator for Fulton County, which includes Atlanta in Georgia, the night of the primary, said during a Zoom press conference archived recording (election administrator) The absentee-by-mail process, it was an election in and of itself. reid epstein He was asked to run two elections at once. archived recording (election administrator) We became an absentee-by-mail state. We still had to do our full complement of Election Day infrastructure. And it stretched us. reid epstein And that he didnt have the resources or the capacity to do that. And that was precisely what led to all of the problems that people experienced on their primary day. archived recording (election administrator) We ran into a lot of challenges this time. So I think we are going to learn from this and move forward. michael barbaro So Georgia seems almost like a case study of how not to hold an election in the middle of a pandemic. reid epstein Yeah. I mean, they kind of did all elements of what you would think of an election, plus the mail-in voting, but didnt really do any of them well. And didnt really devote adequate resources to any part of it. And in the end, the result was about as bad an experience as you can get. [music] michael barbaro Well be right back. Reid, did any state get a pandemic primary right over the past couple of weeks and months? Were there any anti-Georgias? reid epstein I mean, the best example is probably Montana. The governor there, Steve Bullock, by executive order gave the states 56 counties the authority to mail ballots to all of their registered voters. And every registered voter in the state got a ballot in the mail. michael barbaro And just to be clear, they got a ballot, not a ballot application? reid epstein They got a ballot, and not the application. So they skipped the step that Georgia and other states required. And so voters there got the ballots in the mail. They filled them out. And as long as they were returned before the deadline, the ballots counted. And in the end, Montana had the highest voter turnout of any state in this years presidential primary. michael barbaro So what happened with in-person voting in Montana? reid epstein They kept some of it, but not in a form that would be really recognizable in a pre-pandemic world. There were boards of elections offices that were open for people who needed to change their registration or cast a ballot, but for the vast majority of voters in Montana the election took place through the mail. michael barbaro Reid, Im mindful that as smooth as this all seemed to go in Montana, Montana is not necessarily representative of the whole country, right? It has a pretty small population. reid epstein Thats right. Theres about the same amount of people in the state of Montana as there are in Fulton County in Georgia, in the states biggest county. And so it is a much more challenging situation to run an election with a lot more people than it is in a small state. michael barbaro So how useful is Montana as a model? reid epstein I mean, what Montana shows is that if you give people ballots and dont make them jump through hoops to get to them, youre more likely to have more of them return them and vote. michael barbaro Meaning just mailing them the actual ballots, and not making them apply and then get the ballots the way Georgia did? reid epstein Thats right. michael barbaro So kind of in summary, mail-in voting is complicated, especially complicated in big states. But it can work when local authorities get ballots into peoples hands. In other words, this can work under ideal circumstances around the country? reid epstein It can work when there is a concerted effort by local elections officials to make it work. archived recording (donald trump) If we went to mail-in balloting, our election all over the world would look as a total joke. It would be a total joke. reid epstein Whats going on in this country now is you have the president who is making a concerted effort to make it not work. archived recording (donald trump) And theyre in all the mailboxes. And kids go and they raid the mailboxes, and they hand them to people that are signing the ballots down the end of the street, which is happening. They grab the ballots. You dont think that happens? reid epstein He regularly tweets and speaks about how mail voting is sort of fraud filled, and a recipe for disaster, and a reason Republicans wont win. archived recording (donald trump) In some cases, they wont sell them, like, to a Republican community, a conservative community. They dont happen to send the ballots to those communities. And theres no way of checking. No. You have to go and you have to vote. reid epstein And so it hasnt taken long for this idea to take hold among Republican voters, particularly base Republican voters, that there is something inherently wrong with voting by mail. michael barbaro And is there any documented evidence of that? That mail-in voting is somehow more open to fraud? reid epstein No, theres not. There have been a couple of isolated instances of whats called ballot harvesting. We saw it in a congressional race in North Carolina a couple of years ago from the Republican side. But most of what you hear when people describe fraud in the vote-by-mail system are either old wives tales or fantastic stories of an apartment building with 30 ballots in the mailbox. Things that have been chain letters or Facebook memes that arent necessarily grounded in any real evidence. michael barbaro So how do you explain why the president is claiming that this is a problematic mode of voting? What accounts for that? reid epstein I mean, there is a widespread belief among Republican voters and some Republican elected officials that allowing more people to vote will be advantageous to Democrats. And so taken in that context, it makes sense that he would resist some of the push toward mail-in voting, because it does make it easier for a lot more people to vote. michael barbaro Reid, is there a version of this where the president seems to be discouraging mail-in voting, but mail-in voting becomes the predominant way that voting occurs in this falls election? And therefore, wouldnt that mean that the president was telling his own voters, dont trust the most important way of voting for my re-election, for his re-election? reid epstein Theres a lot of concern about that happening already. You know, you see in states that arent entirely vote-by-mail, but where its a predominant way of voting like Florida and Arizona, that have large populations of older Republican voters that Republican officials in those states have been trying to push a message thats expressly counter to what the president has been saying about voting by mail. That weve seen in Utah, where the Republican state chairman told me that their system is not like what happens in other states, and that President Trump, in describing fraud elsewhere, must be talking about somewhere else other than Utah. michael barbaro So in other words, these officials are trying to tell their voters trust the system, even if the president doesnt tell you to trust it. reid epstein Trust the system here, because the system where you live is functional, and the president is talking about other places. But that sort of nuance is lost on a lot of voters who, you know, hear what the president says and are generally disinclined to believe people who disagree with him, particularly within their own party, because of the way that the party and the president have functioned over the last four years. michael barbaro So couldnt the president be actually hurting his own re-election chances by doing this? reid epstein Hes certainly hurting the enthusiasm for voting by mail among his Republican supporters. michael barbaro So Reid, back to this moment three months to the day that we will have the presidential election. Where would you say the whole country is? Are most states looking like Georgia? You know, this is going to be a mess? Or are a lot of states looking like Montana in terms of their preparations for this election? Which is to say, they can pull it off. reid epstein I think we have more states that at the moment are looking like Georgia than Montana. Of the 45 states that have some sort of in-person voting, almost all of them are going to open polling places for people to show up at. But as weve seen, its really hard to do two elections at once. And its complex. It involves a lot of resources. And most of these states havent done a big general election where most of their voters cast ballots in the mail. Its going to be new for the voters. Its going to be new for the elections administrators. And its going to be new for the people that count the ballots on election night. michael barbaro And Reid, what are the likely consequences of so many states trying this for the first time? reid epstein I mean, the first obvious consequence is on November 3, in the evening when were used to turning on television and the internet and seeing the results of the elections come in, we may not have them. And what President Trump and Joe Biden do about declaring victory or not. Trump has said the election should be called on election night, no matter what. But we know that there will be millions and millions of ballots that arent counted on election night, whether its because states have voting rules that say your ballot counts as long as its postmarked by Election Day, or because it takes some of these states longer to count an absentee ballot that came in the mail than it would have taken them to count a ballot that was marked and delivered into a machine at a polling place. And all of that is going to have a real significant impact on what we know about the presidential contest, the Senate races and races all down the ballot. michael barbaro And of course, thats just when we know the results. If this election is as messy and complicated as everything youre saying suggests it might be, I wonder if that raises a much bigger question? Which is how much do you think the country will trust the outcome of the elections on November 3 if voting ends up feeling kind of haphazard? reid epstein I mean, a lot of that will depend on peoples experiences heading into the election. Whether a lot of people have problems voting by mail, or dont even try to vote by mail, or have to wait in line for hours at either early voting centers or on Election Day. You know, a lot of the feelings about this was going to be dictated frankly by what the president says and does. You know, if the president wakes up on the morning of November 4 and says, I dont care that there are more votes left to be counted, I won. Then you can sort of imagine how thats going to play out. Or if theres a state, like take Arizona, where it appears that President Trump has won on election night, but four days later theyve received more votes and it flips to Joe Biden and thats the deciding state, theres innumerable chaos that could happen from that. And so it doesnt take much to make this system look like its chaotic, even though in a lot of times its either sort of how the system is designed to work, because mail-in-voting just does take longer. Even though its a more efficient way of getting more people to vote, it can take longer to tabulate the results from that. michael barbaro So youre basically telling us to be patient. And Americans are not patient. reid epstein Theyre not. You know, I mean if you want to not stress out about the results of the election, buy a plane ticket to some place without internet access or cell signal on November 2 and come back a week and a half later. michael barbaro Or three weeks or four weeks. reid epstein Go to the Galapagos Islands or somewhere, and come back in a couple of weeks. And by then, youll probably know who won. michael barbaro [LAUGHS] Well, Reid, thank you very much. reid epstein Thank you, Michael. michael barbaro On Monday, the Democratic governor of Nevada, Steve Sisolak, signed a law that would require sending ballots to every registered voter in the state, saying that it would ensure, quote, the safest, most accessible election possible under these unprecedented circumstances. In response, President Trump threatened legal action to try to block the measure. archived recording (donald trump) Well, theres never been a push like this for mail-in ballots, and if you look at michael barbaro During a news conference at the White House, Trump was asked whether he would consider restricting mail-in voting nationwide through an executive order. archived recording (donald trump) Universal mail-in ballots is going to be a great embarrassment to our country. I have the right to do it. We havent gotten there yet, but well see what happens. We will be suing in Nevada. michael barbaro Well be right back. [music] A natural gas pipeline erupted in flames near Houston after it was accidentally cut Wednesday afternoon by a contractor, officials said. The accident happened about 4:45 p.m. in the town of Mont Belvieu, about 30 miles east of Houston. No injuries or secondary damage was reported in the rupture and fire on the line owned by Lone Star NGL, company officials said. The fire and efforts to bring it under control closed Texas 146, however, a Mont Belvieu spokesman said. Firefighters have the leak contained and are monitoring while flames burn themselves out, spokesman Brian Ligon said. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Texas Contractors U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the BOK Center, June 20, 2020 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. President Donald Trump's campaign has virtually disappeared from the airwaves as it undertakes "a review and fine-tuning of the campaign's strategy" as an official put it after the replacement of campaign manager Brad Parscale. With less than 100 days until Election Day, the Trump campaign spent virtually nothing on television or radio ads on Wednesday and Thursday, according to data from Advertising Analytics. And it has effectively nothing booked through August. More from NBC News: Meanwhile, Joe Biden's campaign has spent $3.9 million over those two days and has another almost $6 million booked through the end of August. When asked about the lack of spending, a Trump campaign official pointed to the decision earlier this month to demote Parscale and elevate deputy campaign manager Bill Stepien to fill that role. "With the leadership change in the campaign, there's understandably a review and fine-tuning of the campaign's strategy. We'll be back on the air shortly, even more forcefully exposing Joe Biden as a puppet of the radical left-wing," the official told NBC News. As part of a broader strategy to shift the public's focus from to coronavirus to fears over crime and anarchy, the campaign has so far put most of its money behind a spot that attacks Biden over Democratic calls to "defund the police." Advertising Analytics data shows the campaign has spent almost $17 million to run the spot on broadcast and national cable since the beginning of July. The spot imagines a police department slashed by budget cuts that asks victims of serious violent crimes to leave a message and hear back from officers in five days. But the spot says that Biden's "supporters are fighting to defund police departments." Biden himself has said he doesn't support blanket cuts to departments, but agrees with activists calling to reallocate police funding toward other public programs and to condition at least some federal funding on reforms. Even before the pause, there were signs that the Trump campaign was shifting its advertising strategy amid the president's lag in recent polls. After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a week running ads in Michigan through June and half of July, the campaign dropped that to just $78,000 for the week of July 14 and to less than $10,000 the week of July 21. Recent polling from Fox News and CNN have found Trump trailing Biden by margins of 9 points and 12 points among registered voters in Michigan in recent days. The campaign also had made other ad spending changes in the weeks before this pause, ramping up spending in Iowa, Georgia, Florida and Ohio since the middle of June. While the Trump campaign has been off the airwaves, its allies haven't gone dark. America First Action, the campaign's top aligned super PAC, spent $1 million over the past two days, while Restoration PAC, another super PAC, has spent $360,000. And the campaign still has the $146.6 million in general-election television and radio spending booked from Labor Day through Election Day. But America First Action has been getting heavily outspent by other Democratic PACs in recent months, causing growing anxiety among Republicans. Democratic super PACs have spent almost four times as much on television and radio as America First, and the trend is set to continue, according to ad spending figures through the end of last week NEW YORK, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ALTR Created Diamonds, the world's leading lab-grown diamond company, secured first prize in the 2020 INSTORE Design Awards for Laboratory-Created Diamond and/or Gemstone Jewelry. ALTR's piece, a 35-carat necklace called 'Indra's Net', is thought to be the first high-carriage jewelry piece ever to be created in the lab-grown diamond category. It is estimated in value at approximately $240,000. Indra's Net was designed by ALTR designer Lloyd Pasach to evoke a celestial net or a spider web covered in morning dew. The complex design consists of 205 certified VVS lab-grown diamonds totaling 35.40 carats on an intricate web of 18 carat white gold; each stone is set in a three-prong parabolic reflector. At each vertex is a multifaceted diamond, which is reflected in all of the other diamonds. All of the diamonds are Type IIA, the purest diamonds on earth. The design was created in CAD (computer-aided design) software, entirely virtualized to optimize its beauty and appeal to the eye. Its elements were then replicated by 3D printing. The final setting assembly and polishing involved hundreds of hours of hand labor. The 2020 INSTORE Design Awards received a record 191 entries in 26 categories. The winners were determined by a panel of judges through a blind voting process. "We could not be more proud to accept this award. It is the summation of the advanced technology and innovation ALTR is known for, along with the craft and artistry we pride ourselves in," said Amish Shah, president and founder of ALTR Created Diamonds. "This is emblematic of what consumers are seeking as the lab-grown diamond industry gives them a greater range of choice in the jewelry that they select to commemorate the important moments in their lives, now and in the future. We look forward to continuing to bring them these choices as we invest in technology and cultivate creativity and beautiful design in the jewelry we create." ALTR holds 48 patents on the unique cuts of its diamonds. Every diamond it produces are Type IIA. "It was truly an honor to bring 'Indra's Net' to life," said Pasach. "As a designer, I am thrilled to work with increasingly advanced technologies that catapult creativity farther than ever before possible with my team at ALTR. As the first high-carriage piece in the lab-grown space and made of rare TYPE IIA diamonds, the most brilliant known - 'Indra's Net' is a singular trophy in and of itself, heralding what is to come when the creative mind is enabled by elegant innovation." ALTR Created Diamonds ALTR Created Diamonds is the world's leading lab-grown diamond company, offering unparalleled quality, innovative technology, and brilliant created diamonds and created diamond jewelry. Owned by R.A. Riam Group with its 85 years of experience in the diamond and fine jewellery industry, ALTR combines a legacy of expertise with cutting-edge, proprietary technology to create the purest form of diamonds Type IIA known to man. The company holds 48 patents on its unique, award-winning cuts. For more information, visit altr.nyc. SOURCE ALTR Created Diamonds Related Links http://www.altr.nyc Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York for New Managers: FACT Capital, a new long/short hedge fund with an all woman investment team is trying to change the industry. FACT stands for fairness, alignment, compounding, and transparency - values that govern the fund's approach to investing. According to founder Joyce Meng, FACT is designed to be an investor friendly hedge fund, offering an easy to understand strategy at a low cost. "Our ethos is to have deeply-researched, fully-transparent portfolios at low fees and to treat our LPs the way we would want to be treated ourselves," Meng tells Opalesque New Managers. The strategy - which launched in September 2019 - invests in China, India, and the US with a limited investment universe of approximately 215 names based on the subsector expertise of the investment team. Meng notes that she and partner Gretchen Guo are focused on what they view as high-growth areas including Chinese healthcare services, private sector financials in India or US consumer staples. The long book is made up of a mix of established companies that have a proven track record of positive compounding alongside companies that may be newer but have a positive growth story. On the short side, the fund invests in single name shorts that the investment team believes are on a secular decline or have factors that will eventually lead to a downturn. Meng refers to the seco...................... To view our full article Click here EBRD provides EUR 51.85 mln loan to Ukrgazvydobuvannia for gas production, energy efficiency The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will provide a EUR 51.85 million loan for maintaining gas production in Ukraine and boosting energy efficiency. The EBRD signed the loan agreement with the Naftogaz Group and the Finance Ministry of Ukraine, Naftogaz Ukrainy said in a press release. Sinn Fein MEP, Chris MacManus, has accused the government of a having a lack of basic decency and empathy by hiding behind EU regulations as a reason for not aiding cross-border workers with the Pandemic Unemployment Payment. The European Commission recently confirmed to MEP MacManus that who could receive such payments was at the discretion of the Dublin Government. The Midlands Northwest MEP was speaking following comments in last Wednesday evenings Dail proceedings made by the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection Heather Humphreys. MacManus said: Minister Humphreys has stated that EU regulations govern our treatment of frontier workers, however we have recently received confirmation from the EU Commission that the decision to block 6-county residents working on the southern side of the border from accessing the Covid payment was made solely by the Fine Gael caretaker government and not as a result of any EU restriction. The minister and her government are not bound by any restrictions on this matter. Its a matter of political will and minister Humphreys is yet again showing her partys lack of basic decency and empathy for our citizens. MacManus said he will write to the Minister to help clarify the matter and urge her department to reverse the decision, I will be raising this issue with the minister in writing and appeal to her to do the right thing. Residents from the six counties who work in the 26 counties should not be financially disadvantaged and should have been taking home the equivalent of 350 between payments in both jurisdiction. Is it wrong to demand equity for all Irish citizens? Manitoba's ever-growing tourism industry is facing an unprecedented year. Though located over 1,700 km apart at opposite ends of the province, both The Forks Renewal Corporation and Churchill Chamber of Commerce are feeling the major impact that COVID-19 has had on travel and tourism. That's why the Government of Canada has implemented significant measures to help tourism businesses keep their employees, pay rent, get access to capital, and help Canadians discover their country this summer. Federal support to ensure safety of visitors to Manitoba destinations and help local tourism come back strong Today, Terry Duguid, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages, on behalf of The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages, and Minister responsible for Western Economic Diversification Canada, announced $600,000 in federal support for two of Manitoba's top tourist destinations: The Forks in Winnipeg and the town of Churchill. This investment will support the tourism industry and the many Manitobans who work in it. In Winnipeg, the Forks Renewal Corporation will receive $500,000 to help maintain 1,500 jobs, stabilize operations, and assist with safety measures as they continue a phased reopening. In Churchill, the Churchill Chamber of Commerce will receive $100,000, which will ensure that 80 staff from 50 businesses receive support to help comply with physical distancing guidelines, apply for recovery programs, and welcome back visitors to Northern Manitoba. On July 28, 2020, the Government of Canada announced over $95 million in funding for Western businesses affected by the pandemic. This support has already assisted over 1,760 businesses, including several in Manitoba's tourism industry. The Government of Canada continues to take action to ensure that Manitoba's tourism industry can support good, local jobs and remains an up-and-coming tourist destination at the heart of the continent. Quotes "From polar bears in Churchill to delicious food and vibrant culture at The Forks, Manitoba has something for everyone. Manitoba's tourism businesses and those whose livelihoods depend on them have been hit hard by COVID-19. Our message is clear: we've been here for you with immediate measures, we're here for you now as our economy reopens, and we'll get through this, together. We're working with you to support good, local jobs and help Manitoba tourism come back strong." - The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages, and Minister responsible for Western Economic Diversification Canada "Manitoba is full of vibrant cities, towns and villages, beautiful natural attractions, diverse cultures and a proud history. For years, both The Forks and Churchill have helped to not only attract visitors to our province, but have also served as important economic drivers for our tourism industry. Our government recognizes that the tourism industry has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and federal support measures will ensure this sector remains strong and resilient, while supporting the jobs that depend on it. This summer, we are encouraging Manitobans to experience what their own regions and communities have to offer and to "visit local" by discovering our province." - The Honourable Daniel Vandal, MP for Saint Boniface-Saint Vital and Minister of Northern Affairs "The tourism and travel sector have taken a severe hit and are in acute need. This support to The Forks and the Churchill Chamber of Commerce demonstrates the importance the Government of Canada places on helping businesses and entrepreneurs continue their operations, pay their employees, and safely welcome visitors to Manitoba. We are committed to assisting small businesses as they strive to recover and flourish through this pandemic." - Terry Duguid, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages (Western Economic Diversification Canada) and to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change (Canada Water Agency) Quick facts In 2017, Tourism contributed 3% to Manitoba's GDP. The industry export revenue was $686.2 million and the total tourism jobs within the province totaled 20,618. GDP. The industry export revenue was and the total tourism jobs within the province totaled 20,618. The Forks attracts over 4 million visitors annually and generates approximately $190 million in direct and indirect economic benefits. in direct and indirect economic benefits. Churchill is Manitoba's most popular northern destination for attracting visitors. Every year, 530,000 people travel to Northern Manitoba . In 2017, Churchill generated approximately $36.9 million in direct annual expenditures due to tourism. Related links Associated links Stay Connected Twitter: @WD_Canada WD Toll-Free Number: 1-888-338-WEST (9378) TTY (telecommunications device for the hearing impaired): 1-877-303-3388 SOURCE Western Economic Diversification Canada For further information: Alexander Cohen, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages, [email protected]; Nathalie Leroux, Director of Policy, Planning and External Relations, Western Economic Diversification, [email protected] Related Links http://www.wd.gc.ca/ Over the past two years, I have been traveling to Latin America, visiting countries such as Colombia and Ecuador where I have come to learn and experience sacred healing practices and traditions. During these trips, I had the opportunity to participate in traditional Master plant healing ceremonies and learn about these medicines and traditions directly from the elders. I have come to be familiar with sacred plants from the Amazon and the Andes such as yage (ayahuasca), agucolla (San Pedro), hayo (coca), ambil (tobacco-derived substance), rape and yopo. On my first trip to Ecuador, in May 2018, I experienced my first encounter with San Pedro cactus, my second trip to Ecuador, in May 2019, was to Malchingui for the vision quest, and finally, I had the rare opportunity to participate in the inauguration of a maloka (ceremonial house) in Santa Elena, Colombia, in August of 2019. The following stories recount these lived experiences in Ecuador and Colombia with traditional sacred plant medicines and ceremonies in my exploration of ethnographic writing. They are accompanied by photographs to draw you into the experience. The following texts are written from my perspective and my personal experiences in these events, however, there is no dialogue included in the stories. These explorative ethnographic accounts have mainly been written while thinking along with Anna Tsing (2015) on the art of noticing (first, second and third nature) and assemblages in the world of the Matsutake mushroom, as well as with Marisol De La Cadena (2015) in her exploration of life in-ayllu and earth-beings, but not only, in the Andean world. Knowing Aguacolla in the Ecuadorian Andes Our eyes meet from across the room, and we smile. You are passed the guitar and begin strumming. The walls are glowing from the fire at the center of the space, where we are but sitting shadowy figures with glimmering eyes and teeth. I close my eyes, listening to the song; I focus on the sounds of the rhythmic guitar as I beat out the tempo on my thighs and sing some words I recognize. This is my first time here, in this place and in a ceremony like this one. At that moment I found myself in the middle of the world, in the Ecuadorian Andes, at an elevation of 10450ft, on Mount Ilalo (Summit Post 2019). I felt perfectly at home, and although I didnt completely understand the meaning of these songs, I knew that I was and that we are, here with a purpose. Looking back now, this ceremony was an assemblage of humans and plants, with the purpose of uniting as a family for the healing of humanity. This blending of human-plant spaces could be considered third-nature, as Anna Tsing coined the term in her book The Mushroom at the End of the World (2015). Story continues The music begins awakening the bitter concoction I had drunk what seemed to be hours ago. I focus on my breath, remembering my purpose and the prayer that was made with the first tobacco, the tobacco of purpose which was smoked to open the ceremony. This was what I now knew to be a two tobacco ceremony; it is unique to this Elders spiritual path and follows the design of the half-moon from the Lakota Peyote ceremony with chants from the Chachi people of Ecuador, as well as originals from the musically talented Elder. As I open my eyes, the sun is beginning to peek over the horizon, and in this coldest moment of the night, the indigo tones in the trees outside are flushed out by pale yellow light. I see Kiliku, the local llama and mascot, grazing by the window behind the Elder. The rays of the sun reach the skylight above our heads and soak into every cell of my body now vibrating with life. This is what it must feel like to feed off sunlight, to be photosynthesizing, I thought to myself at that moment. I now ask myself, was I becoming a plant? This was definitely the energy of the plant harmonizing, vibrating and awakening from the inside out. I am suddenly grounded by the sound of children waking up, laughing and running around the room. I found it so beautiful that in this space, children were welcome and allowed to be present with the parents. This ceremony was nothing to be ashamed, as it might be considered in the West, but rather an open, honest and sacred healing space welcoming of all people. The music stops and for a moment I realize we made it through the night, singing, praying and fasting water. At that moment the Fireman, who had been taking care of the fire throughout the night, prepares the second sacred tobacco with which he will pray the water of life. That first sip of water refreshes every inch of my being, further deepening my experience with the elements. After everyone had taken a sip of the water, the Elder takes the tobacco and moves to the center of the room, to the fire, where with a few words, he closes the energy channels between the earth and the sky, marking the end of my first San Pedro ceremony. Vision Seeking amongst the Earth-Beings El buscador looks over the horizon to the Cotopaxi, one of the three snowy peaks surrounding Malchingui. I walk over to the Teocalli (ceremonial house), to the sacred fire, to roll a tabaquito and pray for the life of the buscadores and buscadoras. I had returned to Ecuador, and the Andes, this time in the company of my Colombian partner, and friends, who were going to the mountain in their third year of the vision quest. This vision quest was led by the same elder with which I first drank San Pedro, less than a year ago. This busqueda de vision follows a syncretic design from the Lakota and the Mayan, a design that came to Aurelio Tekpankalli through a vision. Unlike in the traditional Lakota vision quest design (4 days/nights for four years), La busqueda that was taking place in Malchingui is done in 4, 7, 9 and 13 days/nights over four years. The first year represents humbleness, the second willingness, the third honesty and the fourth year, integrity. La busqueda de vision, as I understood it, was a pagamento and rezo to Mother Earth. The buscador lays his life on the sacred-mountain, praying for a vision, an instruction for his life. He prays for the healing of all his relations and opens himself to encounters with the entity of the mountain, the giant beings or earth-beings (De La Cadena 2015: 5). The mountains are sacred giant beings; it is said that the mountain will call the vision seeker when (s)he is ready to go to the mountain. Nazario, in Marisol De La Cadenas book, understands the apus and tells her that the apus would decide what [she] could or could not do.(ibid.: 28) You could say then that I am only writing here what the mountain allows me to share my experience. As Marisol De La Cadena mentions in her book Earth Beings, the runukana or in this case the seeker must first be able to identify the request and earth-being makes or imposes to establish a relationship with it (ibid.: 18). In the context of the visions quest, this would be done through the practice of pagamento, or pago, to the apus which the seeker makes through fasting of water, food, and word (ibid.: 30). She also mentions how this relationship between the runukana and the earth-beings is constantly cultivated and will accompany the practitioner even when they travel faraway (ibid.: 18). In the same way, the alliance with the earth-being or sacred-mountain, but not only, will accompany el buscador throughout his life. The baston which the seeker carries with him/her all four years to the mountain is a symbol, but not only, of that strength and alliance with the mountain, but not only. Being on the mountain as a vision seeker or at the support camp moves things; energy can be felt moving throughout the space, the presence of the earth-beings is powerful. They call the seekers los valientes, for what they are doing is very brave. The vision quest is not a game; it is done with extreme care and in all seriousness because the life of the seekers is at stake. With the support of the sacred fire, which is kept burning for 14 days and nights, the seekers can feel its warmth and support, knowing that we are praying for them. Not unlike in alliances humano-vegetales (Laplante 2019), the seeker must tune in and open themselves to the serendipitous possibilities of forging alliances with the earth-beings as they vegetalize their senses through fasting and immobility, they find strength in becoming-with the mountain. Traditional knowledge and ontological divergenc e I spent my final days of summer in Colombia, in Santa Elena, on the outskirts of Medellin, at the inauguration of a maloka (ceremonial house, but not only). The day before the dance of fruits, we prepared the ceremonial food; chicha de chontaduro, caguana (yucca and pineapple based beverages) and casaba de yucca (cassava bread) which we would feast on throughout the night until daybreak. During these preparations, the elder shared a few words on the myths of creation and the procedures of consecrating the territory through the dances. With the use of mambe (pulverized coca leaves) and ambil (tobacco-derived substance), he explained that the maloka was the center of the cosmos and permission had to be asked to the spirits or earth-beings, for the inauguration of this new healing site. He described this ceremony as a dance to harmonize the territory and the relations with these earth-beings. Now, thinking with De La Cadena in the second interlude of her book, I recognized that these moments of sharing of traditional knowledge traverse and exceed history and representations, as they maintain memories alive through words. Such events, or in-ayllu practices, invite ontological disagreements and conversations in modern politics, a perpetually homogenous space (De La Cadena 2011: 282). They awaken in the younger generations and us, this awareness of cosmovivir with the munayniuq, enablers of life, both human and other-than-human beings (ibid.:168, 246, 284). Marisol De La Cadena invites us to see differently and consider mountains, land, and rivers as not only such but as earth-beings alive and in-ayllu relations with runakuna. It is through practices and relations such as these (the inauguration of the maloka, despachos, etc.) that runakuna establish the reality of earth-beings (ibid.:165). The runakuna live with the landscape as a nurturer or Pachamama, however, such runakuna-tirakuna ontologies are seen as excessive in the world of modern politics, unless they existed through cultural practices (ibid.: 275 277). Thinking with Marisol De La Cadena on the topics of colonized science, economics and politics regarding the environment, in a moment where rethinking the landscape becomes crucial, nation-states and their extractives practices see mountains, rivers and land as only such whereas runakuna forge relations with these landscapes, becoming with the land. The concepts De La Cadena presents on traditional knowledge and practices, or in-ayllu life can be applied and integrated into the discussion concerning reconciliations between Indigenous peoples and nation-states. De La Cadena proposes the concept of cosmopolitics or alter-politics, Relations among the divergent world as a decolonial practice of politics with no other guarantee than the absence of ontological sameness (ibid.: 279-281). Applying these concepts to present-day requests made by Indigenous peoples of Canada in regard to the Truth and Reconciliation Act, Indigenous peoples require the fundamental acceptance of ontological divergence in the process of reconciliation. In other words, in order to remedy the nature-human division as well as nation-state and Indigenous peoples relations, we must adapt to these ontological differences or as Isabelle Stengers describes in De La Cadenas book, The coming together of heterogenous practices that will become other than what they are while continuing to be the same (ibid.: 280). Bibliography Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World. On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Behar, Ruth. 2003. Ethnography and the Book That Was Lost. Ethnography 4 (1): 15-39. Benedict, Ruth 1934. Patterns of Culture, Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, p.21-44 (Diversity of Culture) Castaneda, Carlos 1968. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. California: University of California Press. p.1-21. De La Cadena, Marisol. 2015. Earth Beings. Ecologies of Practice Across Andean Worlds. Durham: Duke University Press. Laplante, Julie. 2019. Talk on humano-vegetale alliances, FSS, University of Ottawa, November 8, 2019. Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1922. Introduction: The Subject, Method, and Scope of this Inquiry. in Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveband Press, Inc. 1-20. Volcan Ilalo, Summit post, https://www.summitpost.org/volc-n-ilal/624798, October 2019 Image credit: Brokentaco via flickr A major element of Ajay Devgn's 2016 action-thriller flick titled Shivaay is the breathtaking locations the movie was shot at. Released in the year 2016, Shivaay starring Ajay Devgn, Erika Kaar, Abigail Eames, and Sayyeshaa was much loved by the viewers for the surreal locations it was filmed, both in India and abroad. In fact, a major schedule of Shivaay movie shooting location is none other than Uttarakhand. To know more about Shivaay shooting location in Uttarakhand keep reading further. Also Read:Ajay Devgn's 'Shivaay' Title Track BTS Video Showcases How Devotion Was Fused With Trance Shivaay Shooting Location In Uttarakhand Shivaay, as a film, anchored multiple locations across Uttarakhand, Hyderabad in India and Bulgaria in Europe. The story revolves around the life of a skilled mountaineer named Shivaay. In the first half of the film, one can witness some picturesque visuals from Uttarakhand. A majority of scenes where the Shivaay movie is filmed is a tiny containment town named Landour which shares its border with the popular hill station of Mussoorie. Also Read: Ajay Devgn's 'Darkhaast' Song From 'Shivaay': Here's What Went Into The Making Of The Song The snow-clad mountains, stunning locales, and unrealistic beautiful visuals from Landour in Shivaay is nothing short of visual delight. Some scenes are filmed in during day time and some are during the night, and both have their own beauty attached to it. The freezing cold weather in Landour is quite evident in the film as well. Apart from this, some shots are taken from the helicopter angles which features the white snow-clad mountains of Uttarakhand. Also Read:'Mirzapur 2' Release Date Question Dodged By Richa Chadha; Forwards It To 'Guddu Bhaiya' Some parts of Shivaay were also shot in Mussoorie itself as per reports. As the very availability of Dehradun airport has now made it possible for filmmakers to explore the hill station for shooting purposes as well. Excluding the gorgeous locales of Uttarakhand, a significant portion of Shivaay movie's shooting location is Bulgaria too. Ajay Devgn and his team of Shivaay shot in -19 degree celsius at Balkan peak in Bulgaria for a sequence which was extremely challenging. Also Read:'Avrodh' Cast: Details About All Significant Actors And Characters From Sony LIV Show The story of Shivaay is about a father and daughter. Wherein Shivaay (Ajay Devgn) in order to make his daughter meet her mother travels to Bulgaria. But, as soon as the duo reach Bulgaria, Gaura (Abigail Eames) is abducted. Shivaay leaves no stone unturned in finding his only child, revealing about the child trafficking racket in Bulgaria in the process. If you haven't seen this movie with unrealistically beautiful visuals and thinking where to watch Shivaay, then the answer is OTT platform. As Shivaay is currently streaming on popular OTT platform Amazon Prime Video. Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment. Kanyes in la-la land: Rapper Kanye West has announced hes running for president and wants to legalize pot for everyone and it should be free. And (he says the government should pay) $1 million for each baby born. Is he smoking his own pot? Where is he going to get a $1 million for each baby? From his own pocket? Hes a millionaire and his wife is a millionaire. Its a nice thought. You wont have any abortions. But its not realistic. You know it, I know it. I think hes a super guy. Hes a religious guy, but hes living in la-la land. WATERLOO The University of Waterloos associate vice-president for human rights, equity and inclusion resigned Friday, in the wake of criticisms raised by Equity4who, a campaign led by university students, staff and faculty. Diana Parry will resume her work as a professor in the universitys department of recreation and leisure studies, said James Rush, UWs vice-president for academic affairs, in a news release. Jean Becker, senior director of Indigenous initiatives, will serve as interim associate vice-president of the equity unit starting Aug. 4, Rush said. Equity4who called for Parrys resignation in an open letter to university administrators on July 7, saying equity and anti-racism efforts on campus didnt address the needs of Black and Indigenous students, staff and faculty. Victoria Rodney, founder of Equity4who and associate vice president of the Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association, said she felt victorious at the announcement. Students now know: yeah, we have power, she said. Yes, we can be heard. Students have the power to shape their realities. Rodney said she and her fellow organizers feel emboldened and will continue advocating for equity initiatives at the university to be community-oriented, and Black- and Indigenous-led. Parry did not respond to an email requesting comment. Fitsum Areguys reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows him to report on stories about community development and data. Email fareguy@therecord.com Federal authorities have accused Shawn Christy (shown in a YouTube video), a self-described survivalist from Pennsylvania, of making threats on Facebook against President Trump (AP Photo / Hans Pennink) and Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli. Read more SCRANTON A Northeastern Pennsylvania man who was convicted of threatening President Donald Trump and a district attorney has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Authorities charged Shawn Christy, 28, of McAdoo, with threatening to put a bullet in Trump and then-Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, and threatening lethal force against police. He led police on a three-month manhunt through several states before his September 2018 capture in Ohio. READ MORE: This Pa. survivalist threatened to kill Trump. Now theres a $20K reward for his arrest. In November, a federal jury convicted Christy on a dozen counts of threatening the president, making threatening communications, and taking stolen firearms and vehicles across state lines. U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani sentenced Christy on Thursday. MONTREAL - Quebec's public health director has filed a complaint with provincial police after personal information, including an address, was shared on social media. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Quebec's Public Health Director Horacio Arruda responds to a question during a news conference in Gatineau, Que., Friday, July 10, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld MONTREAL - Quebec's public health director has filed a complaint with provincial police after personal information, including an address, was shared on social media. Dr. Horacio Arruda submitted information to the police, who will investigate the situation, Quebec's Health Department said in an email on Friday. The department did not elaborate on the content of the offending social media message but said it deplores such publications, regardless of who they are about. Quebec provincial police did not confirm or deny that a complaint had been received. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, some social media users have insulted Arruda online when they disagree with measures taken by the Quebec government to stop the potential spread of the novel coronavirus. In particular, Arruda has been targeted this month over a directive mandating mask-wearing in indoor public spaces across the province. Hundreds of Quebecers have protested in Quebec City and Montreal, among other places, against that new rule. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2020. The U.S. assured to support Japan in a dispute over Chinese ships in the East China Sea as the "Sleeping Giant" tries to steal the islands from the Japanese. Japan has been a longtime ally of the Americans pledging support if the Chinese attempts force to claims. This was affirmed by the Commander of US Forces Japan last Wednesday. The East China Sea is one of the flashpoints like the South China Sea, and recently the Indian Ocean as well. As China tries to get away with its modus operandi that worked in the SCS, they are dealing with the Japanese, reported New York Post. Lt. Gen. Kevin Schneider, said that the United States is fully committed to assisting the Japanese in the heated situation in the Senkakus. The CCP is intent on ramrodding Japan for ownership if it can be done like Vietnam and the Philippines. He stressed that it will be each day of the year, twenty-hours each day, and seven-days each week. The Commander affirmed that vow to bolster Japan, seeing the US as its only ally. When the Chinese fishing will be suspended in August, they will be massing close to the Senkakus, cited Japan Times. U.S. Forces of Japan went ahead and accused both the PLA and the Chinese Military of getting aggressive and overtly threatening countries in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are willing to use force to get what they want in the SCS and the ECS. They've consistently used their military to bully those legitimate claimants whose territories they've grabbed very unlawfully. Also read: South Korea Beefing Up With Aircraft Carrier to Counter Threats in the Region The CCP says they have the right to 90-percent of the South China Sea, which is false as other nations like Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines have more legal rights to the area. Beijing says its peaceful, but its belligerence is evident as it hold bases house military hardware used to threaten their neighbors. By definition, the CCP has enacted a silent conquest starting when it lied to President Obama in 2015. China used the falsely informed nine-dash line to claim about 1.3 million square miles of the South China Sea. An international tribunal has rejected their claims but the CCP has gone ahead to claim it anyway. The U.S. rejected and called the alleged claims of China a sham that include areas with potential natural resources the communists want to control. It drew vitriol from Beijing that blistered from continual attacks on its SCS claims. Mike Pompeo stoked the fire in several statements that call the CCP-led mainland government as having the worst basis for any claims in the region. His attention was called to the intimidation and bullying that has left Filipino and Vietnamese fishermen drowning because their militia rammed these boats intentionally, confirmed New York Times. He said that China resources are not solely Beijing claim and other nations have a stake, citing their bullying tactics instead of peaceful settlement of disputes. Related article: Ukrainian-American Sea Breeze' Joint Naval Exercises Held in the Black Sea @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Cassie McKay (pictured) has revealed how she feeds her family for just $1.22 per serve after spending five hours preparing 95 meals for the week A super organised mother-of-two has revealed how she feeds her family of four for just $1.22 per serve after spending five hours preparing 95 meals for the week. Cassie McKay, from Victoria, credits her incredible body transformation to meal prepping a huge selection of healthy foods so she doesn't have to eat the same lunch or dinner twice in a row. Her most recent weekly grocery bill came to a total of $116, which included 44 main meals such as Moroccan chickpea stew, risotto and shepherds pie, and 51 snacks like banana bread, pumpkin hummus, and cheesy broccoli bites. 'I love nothing more than heading into the kitchen and creating delicious, healthy meals for the family,' Cassie told The Healthy Mummy. The mother-of-two credits her incredible body transformation to meal prepping. She managed to lose 10 kilos from following a healthy meal plan Her most recent cook included 44 main meals such as Moroccan chickpea stew, risotto and shepherds pie, and 51 snacks like banana bread, pumpkin hummus, and cheesy broccoli bites Cassie's tips on meal prepping on a budget Cassie spent a total of $116 at Aldi, which included 95 meals Write a shopping list: Check your fridge and pantry, write a list of items you can use without spending any extra money Find recipes your family will love: There isn't much point cooking food that nobody wants to eat Look for meals with similar ingredients: I used a lot of carrots, zucchini, pumpkin, peas and sweet potato across the recipes I chose. Prepare containers: Check your drawer to make sure you've got enough containers to store the food once you've prepped it Make freezer friendly meals: If you're planning on doing a big prep, think about which meals will freeze well. I cook a few meals to eat in the following days and the rest gets frozen to be defrosted and eaten later in the week or following weeks. Advertisement Before her body transformation, Cassie whose weight fluctuated over the years had gained 26 kilos during her second pregnancy but managed to work hard to shed 14 kilos on her own. But after struggling to lose the stubborn fat, Cassie turned to meal prepping in January 2017 after she signed up to The Healthy Mummy 28-day weight loss challenge. 'I was sick of cooking the same small selection of meals... But through following the meal plans and walking I was able to lose 10 kilos, and it felt easy,' she revealed. The mother said meal prepping has helped her get through difficult times in her life after her four-year-old son was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition. 'Having pre-prepared meals helps when I'm too busy or stressed to cook, or I can get someone to bring them to me if my son is unexpectedly admitted to hospital,' she said. Cassie - who also has an eight-year-old daughter - said during her last meal prep, she made 95 serves, costing just $1.22 each, after spending a total of $116 at Aldi The super organised mother spent five hours preparing delicious meals, including this slow cooked Chinese spiced chicken with vegetables and rice Cassie - who also has an eight-year-old daughter - said during her last meal prep, she made 95 serves, costing just $1.22 each, after spending a total of $116 at Aldi. 'I was really happy with the cost of this prep, as I previously thought I'd have to do a mostly vegetarian prep to keep costs down,' she said. 'I wish I could say it took no time at all, but prep like this takes time. This took me five hours all up, it ended up taking a little bit longer. If I had a bigger cooktop and more muffin trays it would have been a bit quicker.' The mother said she used a few ingredients such as garlic, ginger, soy sauce, chia seeds and dried chickpeas, in which she already had at home in her recent cook. Following her long cook, Cassie had a 'decent amount' of milk, yoghurt, rice, quinoa and honey leftover so she will use for her next meal prep. For snacks, she prepared carrot and zucchini cake, mocha banana bread, beetroot and walnut dip, pumpkin hummus, mini ham, cheese and quinoa muffins, cheese broccoli bites, and choc chip muffins The 95 meals she prepared from scratched included six servings of beef chow mein (pictured) All up, she made lentil shepherds pie, beef chow mein, fried rice, Moroccan chickpea stew, slow cooked Chinese spiced chicken with vegetables and rice, zucchini and bacon slice, peanut butter chicken curry, pasta salad and risotto. For snacks, she prepared carrot and zucchini cake, mocha banana bread, beetroot and walnut dip, pumpkin hummus, mini ham, cheese and quinoa muffins, cheese broccoli bites, and choc chip muffins. Anyone keen to meal prep, Cassie suggested labelling every food you've cooked with a date so you know how long it's been sitting in the freezer for. Before starting the cook, she said it was best to chop and grate the vegetables that you use for all of the recipes. 'There is nothing worse than having to chop onions five times,' she said. She added: 'Plan your day so that you have all of your appliances cooking something at all times - I had three pots, a full oven, the slow cooker, NutriBullet and my Thermomix busy all-day.' Former President, John Dramani Mahama has embarked on a journey to expose what he says is the litany of lies and deceit of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his government. Speaking on behalf of Mr. Mahama, the former President's Campaign Spokesperson, James Agyenim Boateng raised questions about the 2020 mid-year budget review presented by Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, saying it is a proof of the woeful economic performance of the Akufo-Addo government. ''The people of Ghana want to know how the Akufo-Addo government spent over 11 billion Ghana Cedis on COVID-19 without any meaningful improvement in the fight against the spread of the virus. For example, medical doctors, nurses and other health professionals consistently lament the inadequacy of Personal Protective Equipment, leading to some of them needlessly being infected and dying of COVID-19. Ghanaians want to know how the government spent 54.3 million Ghana Cedis on food packages in less than 3 weeks of lockdown in selected parts of the country, especially when many vulnerable people say that they did not benefit. ''The government has failed to explain to Ghanaians how it provided parallel fiscal numbers to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank; in December 2019 (as part of the Article IV consultations), which differed from what the Minister of Finance was requesting Parliament to approve at the time; and in March and May 2020 when the government presented the same parallel fiscal numbers simultaneously to Parliament and the IMF negotiating team at the time the government applied for the US$1 billion COVID-19 Rapid Credit Facility (RCF), which represents 100% of Ghanas allowable quota for borrowing from the Fund. 4. It is important to point out that borrowing to the limit of Ghanas 100% quota from the IMF implies that Ghana has hit its borrowing limit with the Fund, at least for the time being, the statement read. Mr. Agyenim Boateng further stated that ''the 2020 Mid-Year Budget Review shows that the increase in the projected budget deficit from 4.7% to an estimated 14% includes only 2.5% of COVID-19 expenditure. Therefore the substantial increase relates to non-COVID expenditure, which the government has failed to explain. By not making the distinction between COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 expenditure in the Mid-Year Budget Review, the Akufo-Addo government is simply deceiving Ghanaians that all the exponential budget deficit, loans and expenditure for 2020 are attributable to COVID-19. This is most unfortunate because the government is simply using COVID-19 to cover up its reckless management of the huge taxes and loans.'' To further prove the bad governance of President Akufo-Addo, Mr. Agyenim Boateng also took a swipe at Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Chairman of the Governments Economic Management Team (EMT), saying instead of him assisting the President to salvage the crippling economy, he is always on social media shading the NDC flagbearer and former President, John Mahama. ''It is even more shocking to observe that at a time when the nation is confronted by such serious economic issues, which have forced the government to borrow to its very quota limit from the IMF, Dr Bawumia would still have some spare time to take to social media to engage in his trade mark comical, frivolous, ludicrous, outrageous and diversionary antics. Finally, the point must be emphasised that when the story of the Akufo-Addo government is told, it will be a litany of lies, falsehood, deceit, dishonesty and manipulation of figures under the auspices of Dr Bawumia as Chairman of the EMT.'' Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A man was handed down a six month suspended sentence at the Midlands Prison when he appeared at Tullamore District Court last week. On September 2, 2019, Richard McBride, Fr Paul Murphy, Street, Edenderry, rear-ended a car at St Mary's Road, Edenderry. He left the scene. On September 24, Garda Enda Kenny made a lawful demand for Mr McBride to provide information as to who was driving the car. Mr McBride said he knew nothing about it. The defendant also had no driving licence or insurance. He had six previous convictions. His solicitor Donal Farrelly said he hadn't come to garda attention since then. He is trying to put his life in order and has a child in hospital. Mr Farrelly handed Judge Staines a letter outlining the difficulties his child was having. He said the defendant was extremely concerned and his life has changed considerably. Judge Staines suspended the sentence for one year. She disqualified him from driving for six years and told him he cannot drive until he gets his licence back. She said she had read the letter and hoped his child will be alright. A fresh application alleged 'fraud of high magnitude' practised by all stakeholders responsible for appointing Justice BS Chauhan on the judicial commission. New Delhi: A fresh plea was Thursday filed in the Supreme Court seeking re-constitution of the inquiry commission set up to probe into the killing of gangster Vikas Dubey in police encounter by removing former apex court judge Justice BS Chauhan as the Chairman along with two other members. A bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde had on 28 July dismissed an earlier application seeking removal of two other members of the inquiry commission and had said that it would not allow the petitioner to cast aspersions. In the fresh application, advocate Ghanshyam Upadhyay has sought re-constitution of the inquiry commission and substituting its members - Justice (retd) Chauhan, former high court judge Justice (retd) Shashi Kant Agarwal and retired Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police KL Gupta with other former judges of the apex court and retired DGPs. Besides this, the plea has also sought re-constitution of the special investigating team (SIT), set up by the Uttar Pradesh government to look into the crimes committed by the gangster and alleged collusion between Dubey, police and politicians. The inquiry commission will also probe the killing of eight policemen allegedly by the Dubey gang and the subsequent encounter of the gangster and five of his purported associates. The apex court had on 22 July approved the Uttar Pradesh government's draft notification for appointing Justice (retd) Chauhan as the chairman of the three-member inquiry commission. Eight policemen, including DSP Devendra Mishra, who were ambushed in Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur when they were going to arrest Dubey and fell to bullets fired from rooftops shortly after midnight on 3 July. Dubey was killed in an encounter in the morning of 10 July when a police vehicle carrying him from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh to Kanpur met with an accident and he tried to escape from the spot in Bhauti area, the police had said. Prior to Dubey's encounter, five of his alleged associates were killed in separate encounters. On 22 July, the apex court had directed that the inquiry commission should start functioning within a week and the probe be concluded within two months. The apex court had passed the order last week while hearing a batch of petitions which have sought court-monitored probe into encounters of Dubey and five of his alleged associates. Some of the pleas have also sought probe into the killing of eight policemen on 3 July 3. The Uttar Pradesh government, in an affidavit filed earlier in the apex court in the matter, had said that the police party escorting Dubey from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh to Kanpur had to "fire back in self-defence" as he had tried to escape and was killed. A man wielding an axe entered a synagogue in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Tuesday, July 28, and attacked a security guard, who wrested the weapon from the assailant, according to local reports. Security-camera footage captured the moment the security guard fought off the attacker and took the axe from him, prompting the suspect to flee. The security guard sustained a minor head injury during the attack, according to Jewish community leaders. Donetsk Regional Police are now looking for the suspect, named as 28-year-old Caesar Julius-Galarirogailalirozr Ilyich, to charge him with attempted murder. He was last seen on Wednesday, walking between villages on the eastern edge of the city, police said. Michael Tzach, the head of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, lauded the heroism of the security guard, Richard Golomazov, in a message on Facebook. Credit: Mariupol Jewish Community via Storyful By Express News Service BENGALURU: Following assurances from the state government, Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) withdrew their statewide strike on Thursday, after protesting for 20 days. On Wednesday, the protesters were met by Health Minister B Sriramulu, Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey and state nodal officers for ASHA workers, Prabhu Gowda, who assured them that their demands will be resolved as soon as possible by holding talks with the government. A day prior to their protest in the city, talks were held between Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan and the Health Minister, and two days time was sought to address their demands. The workers had been protesting since July 10, demanding a fixed monthly honorarium of Rs 12,000 a month. They were also seeking adequate supply of PPE kits as they are frontline Covid warriors, involved in house-to-house surveys to trace those with Severe Acute Respiratory Infection, Influenza-like illness, cold, cough, fever, comorbidities and travel history. They also identify people for quarantine, take swab tests, conduct health screenings at inter-state borders among others. [July 31, 2020] TCL Electronics' AI x IoT Strategy Enters New Era as Acquisition of TCL Communication Wins Strong Support from Shareholders TCL Electronics Holdings Limited ("TCL Electronics" or "the Company", stock code: 01070.HK) held an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on 28 July to cast votes on the acquisition of TCL Communication and the disposal of Moka International and other related matters. According to the announcement, an overwhelming majority of the shareholders casting votes at the EGM supported for the Company's business transformation moves. Share price of TCL Electronics had surged from the next day after the Company issued an announcement in relation to its business transformation on 29 June, rising 36.6% cumulatively by the close of trading on 28 July. Its share price rallied to HK$4.88 on 21 July, a record high in the past five years, with its market cap rising to HK$11.573 billion; the highest daily gain reached 13.8%. Obviously, the Company's acquisition of high-quality asset TCL Communication is long anticipated, which was further proved by the majority vote approving the proposal by the Company's shareholders. Kevin Wang, CEO of TCL Electronics, said that after the EGM, the business transformation is expected to be completed by the end of August and consolidation into financial statements will begin in September. After the completion of the transactions, TCL Electronics will add new business segments including TCL smart phones, smart tablets, smart wearables and smart connectivity, to further develop the Internet service business, and spin off the ODM business for TVs. TCL Electronics will focus on TV and mobile communication business, and enter the market segments of smart home, Internet services and smart commercial displays with a market size of more than RMB 1 trillion. Essence Securities recently issued an updated report and remained a Buy rating on TCL Electronics, saying that after the full integration of TCL Communication, TCL Electronics is able to fully leverage on the synergies of its communication business and traditional TV business in market coverage, distribution channels, customers, products and technologies, and financial performance. It will focus on the global promotion of the TCL brand, thereby further enhancing the growth potential of TCL brand TVs and mobile communication devices in the global market. TCL Electronics has stepped out of the traditional manufacturing positioning and will gradually grow into a consumer electronics company with the "TCL brand" as its core in the future. The Company has the potential to benchmark with Xiaomi Corporation, which has a complete Internet product ecosystem. TCL Communication merged into TCL Electronics, accelerating the implementation of smart home strategy in 5G era AI IoT is undoubtedly a strategic opportunity for the industry. The trillion-level market is like a big apple pie. Home appliance manufacturers, mobile phone manufacturers, Internet giants are all competing for deployment in this field. Ultimately, they will be competing with products and services and suitability of products and excellence of services are the key to success. The integration of TCL communication business will further enhance TCL Electronics' deployment of AI IoT strategy in offering all-scenario smart living experiences for its users. TCL Communication has established multiple research and development centers and an extensive sales network worldwide, with existing business covering three major business segments: smart phones, smart tablets and smart connectivity. As one of the leading communications companies in the global market, TCL Communication has always been dedicated to developing smart phone and 5G technology. As early as 2015, TCL Communication has been fully engaged in 5G R&D, and actively participated in standard setting. It is one of the very few communications companes in the world that possesses core patented technologies ranging from 2G to 5G. In 2019, TCL Communication became the first company to implement 5G end-to-end solution demonstration at MWC ( Mobile World Congress (News - Alert) ), and became one of the first manufacturers to launch 5G smart terminals. TCL Communication has extensive experience and robust technological capability in providing customized services for carriers. It leverages CSOT's technical advantages in display technology and with the integration of vertical supply chains, it is able to satisfy carriers by providing display customization services. In 2020, TCL Communication's 5G products have been awarded tenders by various carriers in North America and Europe. Meanwhile, it is also expanding to other Tier 2 carriers and open channels with carrier-customized models. Demand for its smart phones in the mid-to-high price range is increasing year on year. TCL Communication will seize the opportunity of the carrier-centered market at the initial stage of 5G activation to enter the mid-to-high-end market through TCL brand 5G mobile phones, so as to build up advantages and make breakthroughs. Back in 2008, TCL Communication started the smart connectivity business, which mainly includes mobile MIFI, indoor CPE, Mesh, WIFI routers, as well as smart wearables and trackers. It is currently engaged in mobile device business under two major brands Alcatel and TCL, in the worldwide. In September 2018, TCL Communication officially set up the Smart Connectivity Division (SCD) as a strategic move with AI IoT in top priority. At the beginning of 2019, TCL Electronics formulated its new AI IoT and set up a Eagle Lab at the end of September in that year, focusing on R&D and product innovation applications of AI, IoT and cloud services. However, the Company's strategic deployment of AI IoT used to have TV only as the main screen with mobile phone absent in the picture. TCL Electronics had filled this gap with the acquisition of TCL Communication and TCL mobilephones will become an indispensable core part in the TCL smart home ecosystem. With the support of its mobile phone and TV businesses, it will continue to increase customer loyalty and bring better experience to its users. The merger of TCL Electronics and TCL Communication will strengthen the synergies of all-scenario smart display ecosystem among different smart terminals, including large-screen products, small-screen gadgets, and wearable sub-screens, and further deepen the Company's ecosystem deployment. Business transformation comes at the right time; integration of high-quality asset to improve Company's operational efficiency and revenue scale expectations TCL Electronics' acquisition of TCL Communication took place at the right time. TCL Communication has completed its internal business transformation from 2017 to 2019. Over the past three years, TCL Communication has shown year-over-year gross profit margin improvement and continuous increase in net profit after its downscale of business. TCL Communication turned loss to profit in 2019. The acquisition of TCL Communication, which is a high-quality asset at the time, is conducive to improving the gross profit margin of TCL Electronics. TCL Communication and TCL Electronics can share and supplement in supply chain and global sales distribution of each other, and therefore the business transformation is conducive to the optimization of the logistics structure, capital flow and information flow, further enhancing the Company's profit growth potential. A series of positive news of the Company, such as a growth in sales of core products the second quarter against the background of the sluggish market, the continuous increase in global market share, and the investment of its industrial chain ecosystem, are also helpful to the resolutions with regards to the business transformation being duly passed at the EGM. Under the COVID-19 pandemic, TCL Electronics still maintained a continuous growth trend in the second quarter, with its rankings in terms of sales volume in Europe, America and emerging markets rising. On 20 July, TCL Electronics announced the acquisition of Danbay Technology, which will further strengthen the Company's core capabilities in AI IoT smart home software and hardware integrated solution services, improve the layout of the smart software platform, and help explore large-scale 2B customers such as apartments, real estate, and accommodation. At the same time, the Danbay intelligent software platform and TCL Eagle Lab cloud platform technology will be collaboratively built to integrate TCL's all-category smart home appliances and smart home products and to enhance TCL Electronics' "all-scenario smart living solutions service capabilities of AI IoT". This business transformation is not only a major move of the Company's "AI x IoT" strategy, but also will push forward its business globalization and diversification, in order to build a significant layout on all-scenario smart products + services. Besides taking a leading position in large screens, picture quality, and sound-quality in globewide, the Company is going all out to develop "AI x IoT", smart cameras, connections between 5G and edge intelligence, proprietary smart TV OS and smart interaction capabilities, striving to become a global leading intelligent technology enterprise. About TCL Electronics Headquartered in China, TCL Electronics Holdings Limited (stock code: 01070.HK, incorporated in the Cayman Islands with limited liability) is one of the leading players in the global TV industry, and is engaged in the research and development, manufacturing and distribution of consumer electronic products. The Company proactively promoted intelligentisation, globalisation, R&D innovation and "AI x IoT" strategic transformation, focused on developing smart TV, Internet services, smart home and commercial display systems. The Company will continuously increase its investment in R&D to develop advanced display technologies such as QD, Mini LED and 8K, so as to further enhance its product competitiveness. At the same time, in order to become a fast-growing intelligent technology enterprise with constant revenue generated from user operation, the Company endeavours to develop its business in the field of IoT by establishing a household TV-centred IoT ecosystem. According to the latest Sigmaintell report, the market share of the Company in terms of sales volume ranked No.2 in the global TV markets in 2019. TCL Electronics is included in the eligible shares list of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect Scheme, Hang Seng Stock Connect Hong Kong Index, Hang Seng Composite MidCap & SmallCap Index and Hang Seng Corporate Sustainability Benchmark Index. For more information, please visit its website: http://electronics.tcl.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200731005223/en/ [ Back to the Next Generation Communications Community's Homepage ] A Muslim pilgrim attending prayers at at Namira Mosque, on Arafat Day, the climax of the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca. (AFP) Khobar: Faridah Bakti Yahra travelled alone to Mecca when she won the lottery of a lifetime to join this year's hajj, the smallest in living memory, but her family is relishing the experience virtually. Thanks to her smartphone, and the 5G towers that loom over the holy city, the Indonesian housewife is sharing every step of the pilgrimage with her husband and three daughters back home in the Saudi coastal city of Khobar. "I am so happy he joined me virtually, spiritually, with my daughters also. May my dear husband come here together with me again for hajj -- inshallah (God willing)," the 39-year-old told AFP. In the first days of the pilgrimage, many of the faithful were seen holding their phones aloft to snap selfies and livestream their progress to friends and family back home. Super high-speed 5G technology was rolled out in Mecca last year, allowing pilgrims to transfer data at breakneck speeds, and the network is now prevalent across much of Saudi Arabia. But this year the shared religious experience has even greater resonance, with the gathering scaled down from more than two million people to just a few thousand, and at a time when many prayers are being offered for a world gripped by the novel coronavirus pandemic. Tears of joy Yahra opened a video call on the first day of the hajj at Mecca's Grand Mosque when she approached the Kaaba, a large cubic structure draped in gold-embroidered black cloth, towards which Muslims around the world pray. "When my wife entered the Kaaba area and she showed me the Kaaba, I felt very, very cheerful, joyful, with tears," her husband Hendra Samosir said. "It was very truly a holy journey I would say, even though I wasn't there, but looking at my wife attending this hajj, it feels like I was there." Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians usually take part in the hajj, many waiting and saving for years before their turn comes up. This year, there are believed to be hardly more than a dozen in Mecca. Yahra was selected in a process that for the first time excluded pilgrims from outside the kingdom. Muslims worldwide were disappointed, even though most accepted that a hajj on the usual scale was out of the question. Foreign residents make up 70 percent of the group and Saudi citizens make up the remainder, drawn from medical professionals and security personnel who have recovered from the virus. There were grumbles over what was seen as an opaque system, and those who missed out swamped the hajj ministry's Twitter account with anguished queries. But for Samosir, who opted to stay at home and look after the couple's children, his wife's selection was "very good news" after months of bad news due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The virus crisis triggered months of lockdown in Saudi Arabia and a slump that saw the 44-year-old lose his job in the oil industry. But he said the virtual pilgrimage left him feeling "like an empty bowl filled up with water". Digital worship In recent years, the hajj has been at the centre of an acceleration in the growth of digital worship, with a slew of religious apps and tablet Korans. Some pilgrims now prefer reading Koranic verses from their smartphones -- rapidly replacing traditional printed holy books. But the tech is not limited to reading on screens and sharing stories. It has rapidly evolved to offer pilgrims the possibility of performing religious duties from their homes. Online platforms have emerged allowing worshippers to virtually perform the year-round umrah, or minor pilgrimage, which usually takes only a few hours. The service is based on the concept of outsourcing the pilgrimage -- asking someone in Saudi Arabia to perform umrah on their behalf, and experiencing it through a live virtual reality tool. Some Islamic clerics support the idea, while others say only the sick are entitled to such an option. And the situation is different with the hajj, a journey made over several days that requires walking for kilometres, praying for hours, and sleeping outdoors. Some of this year's pilgrims have reported that performing the pilgrimage on such a small scale has been an intensely spiritual experience. "I am praying for my husband to get back to work again," Yahra said. "And I pray for the situation to get back to normal again, for the pandemic to stop, and for coronavirus to be gone." Although not tying the increase to prom attendees, county health officials noted that the region that includes Will and Kankakee counties had, as of Thursday, showed a seven-day run of increases in positive virus cases. They pointed out that all regions statewide had showed increases for at least six days. The pandemic has reinforced the advantages held by the big tech companies. As consumers stay home, demand for Amazons shopping site surged, while companies are turning to its cloud computing products to keep their services up and running. Apple said the shift to working and learning from home had led more people to splurge on Apples devices and use its services. Our products and services are very relevant to our customers lives, and in some cases, even more during the pandemic than ever before, Luca Maestri, Apples finance chief, said in an interview. He noted, however, that Apple could have made several billion dollars more if not for the pandemic. Facebook and Google continue to be important to marketers and they are weathering the downturn in advertising better than rivals. Facebook shrugged off a spending slowdown, hailing record levels of engagement with its products. Alphabet said revenue from Google search ads fell 10 percent pushing the companys overall revenue lower for the first time in the companys history but that still was better than rivals. Last week, Microsoft reported an 18 percent slide in search advertising revenue. Since the beginning of March, the companies stock prices have risen by an average of 35 percent, compared with a 10 percent rise in the S.&P. 500. Amazon Buoyed by a pandemic-induced surge in online shopping, Amazon had $88.9 billion in quarterly sales, up 40 percent from a year earlier. Profit doubled, to $5.2 billion, even though the company invested in expanding warehouses and other ways to increase capacity. Simply put, Covid-19, in our view, has injected Amazon with a growth hormone, Tom Forte, an analyst at the investment bank D.A. Davidson & Company, wrote in a recent note to investors. BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - U.K. stocks opened higher on Friday after U.S. technology giants Amazon, Apple, Alphabet and Facebook posted stellar earnings, defying one of the worst economic downturns on record. Markets, however, came off their day's highs after Eurostat said the euro area economy contracted at the fastest pace on record in the second quarter amid the coronavirus pandemic. According to preliminary flash estimate, GDP fell 12.1 percent on a quarterly basis, bigger than the 3.6 percent drop in the first quarter. This was bigger than the economists' forecast of 11.2 percent and was the sharpest decline seen since the series began in 1995. Closer home, U.K. house prices rose in July, defying expectations for further decline, survey data from the Nationwide Building Society showed today. The house price index rose 1.5 percent year-on-year after a 0.1 percent fall in June. Economists had forecast a 0.3 percent drop. Meanwhile, fears of a second wave of the coronavirus were rising in the U.K. after the government imposed fresh lockdown restrictions in northern swaths of the country late Thursday. The benchmark FTSE 100 was up 0.2 percent at 5,999 after hitting as high as 6,046 earlier in the day. The benchmark plummeted 2.3 percent on Thursday. British American Tobacco rose 0.6 percent after the cigarette maker reported a rise in first-half profits and said it remains committed to its 65 percent dividend pay-out ratio. BT Group shares tumbled 3.1 percent. The telecoms group has warned of a sharp drop in revenue and earnings for the year. LSE advanced 1.6 percent. The London exchange operator said it has commenced exploratory discussions which may result in a sale of LSEG's interest in MTS or potentially the Borsa Italiana group as a whole. Commodity trading and mining company Glencore edged up slightly after raising its FY EBIT guidance range. International Consolidated Airlines Group shares slumped 7.2 percent after the owner of British Airways swung to a loss of 4.21 billion and announced plans to raise 2.75 billion in a capital. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. Former Director of the National Security Service of Armenia, president of the Fatherland party Artur Vanetsyan has been invited to the NSS for questioning. On July 30 member of the Fatherland party Arsen Babayan has posted the photo of the NSS notification sheet which said that the NSS Investigation Department is preparing materials over the case of an appointment in the NSS with the violation of the requirements of the Law on National Security Bodies. Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan Fighter Jet Scrambled to Intercept US Spy Planes Flying Near Russia's Black Sea Borders Sputnik News Ilya Tsukanov. Sputnik International 16:37 GMT 30.07.2020(updated 19:11 GMT 30.07.2020) The incident follows last week's string of interceptions of NATO spy planes and reconnaissance drones operating near Russia's maritime borders off the Black and Baltic seas, as well as in the Mediterranean Sea near the Russian naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus. A Russian Aerospace Forces Su-27 fighter jet intercepted a pair of US reconnaissance aircraft in the Black Sea as they approached Russia's maritime borders, the Ministry of Defence has announced. "The crew of the Russian fighter jet gradually approached the air targets to within a safe distance and identified them as a US Air Force RC-135 strategic reconnaissance aircraft and a US Navy P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft," the MoD said in a statement. "After the US reconnaissance aircraft turned away from the state borders of the Russian Federation, the Russian fighter jet safely returned home to its home airfield," the military added. "A violation of the state border...by the American reconnaissance aircraft was not allowed to take place." The US is known to operate reconnaissance aircraft and drones in tandem, and regularly flies RC-135 and P-8A Poseidon planes and RQ-4 Global Hawk drones in combination with one another to collect more detailed information. Thursday's incident comes amid a major uptick in intercepts along Russia's maritime borders, particularly over the Black Sea, in recent days and weeks. The MoD had previously reported on incidents over the strategic body of water on July 23, 24 and 27, with all of them similarly involving at least one Su-27 and the corresponding US aircraft. US and NATO planes have also engaged in similar surveillance activities along Russia's maritime borders in the Barents and Baltic Seas, as well as the Seas of Japan and Okhotsk, over the past two weeks. Russian officials have repeatedly warned that the frequency of such flights poses the risk of accidental escalation, while US officials have accused Russian fighter pilots of engaging in 'unsafe and unprofessional' interceptions by flying by the spy planes at high speeds or approaching to within a few meters of their wings or fuselage during flight. The Russian military maintains that all of its flights are carried out in accordance with international law. Earlier this week, Duma Defence Committee deputy chairman Andrei Krasnov told Russian media that Moscow has picked up on the increased frequency of US and NATO flights near its borders, and asked "what American reconnaissance aircraft are doing so far from" America's own borders. Krasnov promised that US actions "will not be left without a response," but did not specify what such a response might be. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iranian Delegation Arrives In Kiev To Discuss Compensation For Downed Ukrainian Flight Radio Farda July 30, 2020 Iranian news agencies on Thursday reported that a delegation headed by Deputy Foreign Minister for International and Legal Affairs Mohsen Baharvand has arrived in Kiev for talks with the Ukrainian authorities over the downing of Flight PS752 over Tehran on January 8. Last week Ukrainian authorities said Iran had promised to send a delegation to Ukraine to negotiate compensation. This was earlier confirmed by Baharvand who said the delegation accompanying him to Kiev would consist of several organizations including the Civil Aviation Organization (CAO), the Legal Affairs Bureau of the Presidential Office, and the Judiciary. Baharvand commented that the amount of the compensation had not been proposed by any of the parties yet and would be determined on the basis of international laws regarding such incidents. Iranian authorities and government and semi-government news agencies have downplayed "compensation" as the main subject of the talks. Mehr News Agency has reported that the delegation will discuss "various technical and legal aspects of the incident". "The flight was unintentionally shot down by an Iranian air defense unit," the Mehr report claims and repeats the official line that the operator of the missile system that downed the flight shortly after taking off from Tehran on January 8 "had mistaken the Boeing jetliner for a cruise missile". Ukraine, however, has rejected attribution of the incident to "human error". On July 22, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuelba said Iran must admit its international legal responsibility for shooting down the Ukrainian plane, apologize and provide assurance that such events will never happen again, conduct a technical investigation in accordance with the requirements of the Chicago Convention, conduct an impartial and independent criminal investigation, and bring all the guilty to justice. "I emphasize, all the guilty," he said and added that Iran must pay proper compensation. Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iranian-delegation- arrives-in-kiev-to-discuss-compensation-for- downed-ukrainian-flight/30756685.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address HDBank remained on a straight course despite the COVID-19 crisis HDBank announced pre-tax profit of VND2.9 trillion ($126 million) in the first six months of 2020. The bank also posted the lowest bad debt ratio in the domestic banking system with 1.1 per cent. HDBank mobilised more than VND213.93 trillion ($9.3 billion), including VND178.52 trillion ($7.76 billion) from business organisations and individuals, up 18.2 per cent against 2019. Its outstanding loans amounted to VND168.77 trilion ($7.34 billion), a 10.3 per cent increase. Meanwhile, its consolidated revenue reached over VND6.35 trillion ($276 million), up 22.7 per cent, and net profit was nearly VND5.7 trillion ($247.83 million), surging 30.1 per cent. The bank achieved positive results in both financial service provision and investment in securities. In addition, its operation expenditures were managed effectively to stand at VND2.7 trillion ($117.4 million). As a result, its cost-to-income ratio fell from 47 per cent in the first six months of 2019 to 43.1 per cent in 2020. HDBank also raised risk provisions to VND700 billion ($30.43 million), up VND168 billion ($7.3 million), to cover debts sold to Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) and reduce possible credit risks. HDBank generated VND2.9 trillion ($126 million) in pre-tax profit, up 31.5 per cent on-year, fulfilling 51.4 per cent of the full-year target. Its return on equity and return on assets were 21.6 and 1.97 per cent, respectively, increasing drastically compared to the first half of the year prior. The asset quality of HDBank was among the best in the banking sector, with all VAMC bonds settled earlier than expected. Moreover, the bank has enhanced its financial health with the capital adequacy ratio rising from 10.6 to 11.5 per cent pursuant to Basel II. The proportion of short-term capital used for medium- and long-term loans was 21 per cent, putting HDBank among the banks with the highest liquidity. HDBank also opened eight new branches and transaction offices in the period, bringing the total to 294. Meanwhile, HD Saison Finance, a joint venture between HDBank and Japanese finance corporation Credit Saison, increased the number of transaction points to more than 18,000, affirming its leading position in the market. In the tough time of the COVID-19 crisis, HDBanks high and sustainable growth speaks of solid foundations and flexibility in coping with challenges. The bank has executed several risk management programmes, launched preferential credit packages, and offered fee reductions and exemptions to help customers find their footing amidst the COVID-19 crisis. It has disbursed VND24 trillion ($1 billion) supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises and VND10 trillion ($434.8 million) helping micro-enterprises, business households, and individuals expand production and business, invest in high-tech agriculture, clean agriculture, and renewable energy. Besides credit products, the bank has introduced many services applying modern technology to improve its mobile banking and internet banking services and digitalise its internal and transaction processes to develop itself into a digital bank. HDBank has pioneer opening accounts for enterprises with digital signatures and was the first bank in Vietnam to participate in the TradeAssets trade finance e-marketplace to connect and process trade finance transactions on a blockchain application platform. The bank has also deployed a Swift GPI Global payment query service to allow its customers to quickly and accurately check the status of international money transfers. In addition, the bank has accompanied the community in the fight against COVID-19 and salinity intrusion, contributing to ensuring social welfare. HDBank was also voted one of the Best Companies to Work for in Asia for three consecutive years. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 23:09:39|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the African continent reached 908,931 on Friday, the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said. The Africa CDC, a specialized healthcare agency of the 55-member African Union (AU) Commission in its latest situation update issued on Friday, said that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the continent rose from 891,199 on Thursday to 908,931 as of Friday registering 17, 732 new positive cases during the stated period. The Africa CDC report also said that the number of deaths related to the COVID-19 pandemic rose to 19,310 as of Friday, up from 18,884 on Thursday. The continental disease control and prevention agency also stressed that some 556, 695 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 have recovered across the continent so far. South Africa, which has so far reported 482, 169 confirmed COVID-19 positive cases, is Africa's highest affected country in terms of positive cases, followed by Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria and Morocco, it was noted. The Southern Africa region is the most affected area in terms of confirmed cases, followed by Northern Africa and Western Africa regions, respectively, the Africa CDC said. Amid the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic across the African continent, the Africa CDC on Tuesday said 34 African countries are under "full border closure "in an effort to halt the spread of the infectious virus. Enditem Chennai, July 31 : Actor and Tamil Nadu Congress spokesperson Khushbu Sundar has categorically refuted all speculation about her joining the BJP after she welcomed the New Education Policy 2020. Her view was contrary to the party's official stance on the policy. Khushbu had tweeted: "#NewEducationPolicy2020 A welcome move." In a tweet she had said: "Sanghis can relax, pls do not rejoice. I am not moving to BJP. My opinion might be different from my party but I am an individual with a thinking mind of my own. Yes, #NEP2020 is flayed n flawed at some places, but I still feel we can look at the change with a positivity." "There are positives and negatives. The new policy to impact reservation, minorities and adivasis. The negative points can be sorted out," Khushbu told IANS. "There is no need for me to put out the negatives and positives in detail," she added. Questioned about the party's stand on the NEP and her views Khushbu said: "I had expressed my personal views. I am like that. When I oppose, do that strongly." "I prefer to see the positive aspects n sit n work on the negative ones. We have to offer a solution to the problems n not just raise voices. Opposition also means to work for the country's future. I would like to take a leaf out of #Atal ji's life n #UPA where we have worked. "Politics is not only about making noises, its also about working together. And @BJP4India @PMOIndia has to understand this. We as opposition, will look into it in detail n point out the flaws, its the GOI who has to take everyone in confidence n work on the flaws. #NEP2020," Khushbu had tweeted. "My stand on #NEP2020 differs from my party n I apologize to @RahulGandhi ji for that, but I rather speak the fact than be a head nodding robot or a puppet. Everything cannot be about agreeing to ur leader, but about being courages to voice ur opinion bravely as a citizen. "Any bill or draft, you will have different opinions, n me someone who fiercely believes in democracy, think it is fine to have differences of opinions. My country is built by all kinds of people, all religious beliefs, non believers, every party, each of those divided by reservation," Khushbu said. According to Khushbu, as a patriotic citizen she prefers to see and look at every challenge thrown as an opportunity to do better. "Being in opposition, it is our duty to point out the goof ups, but it is also equally important to learn to accept the good in the bad and give solutions to down side paras," Khushbu said. Pointing out the sad state of affairs in village schools Khushbu said why is there no protest against that and the long distances that village kids have to walk to attend school. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) The Integrated Chemists of the Philippines warned the public that gasoline cannot be used as disinfectant, contrary President Rodrigo Dutertes remarks. The group posted on its Facebook page about the harmful effects of gasoline when inhaled and used as disinfectant for face masks in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pinapaalalahanan ng ICP ang lahat na hindi ginagamit ang gasolina upang gawing panlinis o disinfectant ng mga bagay bagay. Makasasama ito sa tao lalo na kapag nalanghap ang singaw nito, it said. [Translation: The ICP is reminding everyone that gasoline cannot be used as a disinfectant. It has harmful effects especially when inhaled.] The chemists were responding to Duterte's advise to people to use alcohol or gasoline to clean their masks. It's okay if you reuse it as long as you spray alcohol. If you don't have a disinfecting spray, you can disinfect it with gasoline or diesel. The coronavirus will die, Duterte said a recorded address televised on Friday. It was the second time that he called for the use of gasoline to disinfect masks. Officials dismissed his first remark as a joke, but Duterte clarified Friday that he was not joking. This island is full of pretty much only two things: snakes and rats, Hawk said. And in the end of Mother Nature, we have Richard the snake, who knowingly went after prey; and Kelly, who turned into the rat that ran around like rats do on this island, trying to run from the snake. I believe we owe it to the island spirits we have come to know to let it end in the way that Mother Nature intended: for the snake to eat the rat. As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on governments around the world are looking for ways to keep economies afloat. In Australia, even as it predicted the unemployment rate would average about 9 per cent this year, the federal government last week announced it was extending the duration but scaling back the size of its stimulus measures such as JobKeeper and JobSeeker. The NSW government is playing its part and has announced some stimulus measures of its own, including many targeting the construction sector. While house prices have held up reasonably well so far, new building activity fell to an eight-year low in June, having dropped 20 per cent in the past two months. Some of the NSW measures are innovative but the proposals carry risks. In some cases they short-circuit existing planning rules, raising concerns for residents about the possible negative effects on their environment. NSW is also relying heavily on stimulating private investment by offering relief on tax and planning controls but there are serious doubts about whether this will be enough to convince them to invest in the depths of a recession. The makeup of the Winnipeg Police Board wont be known for months, when its chairperson expects a new member will replace Coun. Vivian Santos. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The makeup of the Winnipeg Police Board wont be known for months, when its chairperson expects a new member will replace Coun. Vivian Santos. The boards membership triggered headlines recently, after Santos (Point Douglas) was denied a required Winnipeg Police Service security clearance. Coun. Markus Chambers (St. Norbert-Seine River), the boards chairperson, said that disqualifies her from sitting on the board. "What she has is a nomination to the police board but that does not make one a board member. They have to pass the background check," he said, adding he doesnt expect a replacement will be selected before September. He said Santos is not included in board emails and wouldnt be included in any meetings before her replacement is named. The boards next public meeting is scheduled for Sept. 11. In a text message Friday, Santos said that because council unanimously voted to appoint her to the board before her security check, she believes she will remain a member until a new one is selected. "My situation is different," she wrote, but could not be reached for further comment. Global News has reported that the reason the security clearance was denied is linked to the councillors friend, who was accused of trafficking cocaine. Global reports that on two separate occasions, vehicles owned by Santos and her husband were lent to someone who was allegedly involved in the drug trade. Global reported the couple was under surveillance at one point, as part of a police investigation. Santos previously told the Free Press that her husband loaned the vehicles as a favour to a friend, with whom the couple has since cut ties. She said she and her husband didnt know about any alleged illegal activity at the time. None of the allegations have been proven in court. Chambers said the failed security check shouldnt affect Santoss other council duties. "The only concern it proposed was a vulnerability and a risk for her to sit at the table where sensitive information provided by the Winnipeg Police Service is shared," he said. The Winnipeg Police Board is required to include one or two city councillors among its seven to nine members. Five to seven of the members are appointed by city council, while two are chosen by the provincial government. The current confirmed members include Chambers, Mohamed El Tassi, Damon Johnston, Edna Nabess, Brian Scharfstein and Alicja Szarkiewicz. Chambers said hed like to see a city councillor fill the remaining spot. He expects that person would be vetted before their nomination is announced publicly. "Last time, we did it as a walk-on motion at council and that is where the process broke down," he said. "I will take responsibility for that, as the person who raised the motion." Council also recently ordered a public service report on how to ensure background checks for the police board are neutral and transparent, which will explore best practices from other jurisdictions. Santos and others have questioned whether theres a conflict of interest in having WPS officials conduct background checks on those nominated to the board that oversees its operations. The board will likely select a new member before that background check report is completed, said Chambers. 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. The chairperson said the current police board will have a quorum and can run smoothly, even if Santoss seat isnt filled in time for its September meeting. Joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga The former Seneca Army Depot in upstate New York is home to a rare herd of white-tailed deer, all of which carry a recessive gene for all-white coats. The Seneca white deer are not albinos, they are a natural variation of the white-tailed deer, which are usually a brown color. These rare deer are leucistic, meaning they lack pigmentation in the fur, but their eyes are the normal brown color. In the wild, the very visible white coat makes these rare creatures easy targets for both human hunters and predators like coyotes, but this particular herd was protected by a 24-mile (39 km) fence erected around the Seneca Army Depot in 1941. They were isolated inside the depot perimeter and since the military commander there forbade soldiers from shooting the white deer, their number grew into the hundreds. Photo: BrianAdler/Wikimedia Commons The white deer was under the Armys protection until the Seneca depot closed in the 1990s, after which the deer fell into the the care of local volunteers and kind donors. The Seneca County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) took ownership of the land after the army base formally closed, and in 2006, the first tours of the Seneca White Deer sanctuary were organized. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Seneca White Deer, Inc (@senecawhitedeer) on Jan 24, 2020 at 6:02am PST In 2016, IDA sold 7,000 acres of the depot to Seneca Falls businessman Earl Martin for $900,000, on condition that the herd of white deer be taken care of. In a 2018 interview, Martin said that he had bought the property with the intention of using it for his metalworking and fabrication plant, but changed his mind after spending time with the rare deer. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Seneca White Deer, Inc (@senecawhitedeer) on Dec 21, 2018 at 7:03am PST The white deer have turned out to be a very integral part of what were doing, Martin said. Its taken on a new life that people cant understand unless theyre out there with us. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Seneca White Deer, Inc (@senecawhitedeer) on Oct 16, 2018 at 5:21pm PDT Martin eventually rented the property to Seneca White Deer Inc., the same group of volunteers that had taken care of the white deer herd and organized the first tours of the former Army depot. They tried reopening tours, but despite their best efforts the project proved unsuccessful, and at the end of last year, the group announced that they were no longer conducting tours. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Bob Vishneski (@bvishneski) on Oct 2, 2019 at 2:43pm PDT Our efforts to build a tour program that could survive on revenues from tours and donations from our supporters were ultimately unsuccessful. We simply are unable to continue a program that could not meet its expenses, Seneca White Deer Inc. announced. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hiten Yadav (@phantom_clicks) on Sep 20, 2019 at 11:53am PDT All is not lost, though, as the property already has new owners, and theyve already started conducting tours of the reserve again late last month. They were planning on doing bus tours, but then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, so theyve had to change plans and offer drive-thru auto tours, instead. The cost of the tour is $25 per vehicle. At its peak, the white deer herd numbered around 300 specimens, of which about 75 remain today. Hopefully, more people learn about this unique herd and former Seneca Army Depot becomes popular enough to at least cover all the expenses. That would at least ensure the survival of the white deer. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 07:32:02|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BUENOS AIRES, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Argentine President Alberto Fernandez on Thursday said he was "very concerned" about the exponential rise in novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infections around the country, and pledged to firmly enforce social distancing measures in place since March. "We have a problem and we can't let this problem keep going by leaving things as it is. If by doing that, it (the outbreak) has gotten bigger, then we have to think of something else," Fernandez said in a radio interview in Buenos Aires. Argentina's current lockdown phase is set to expire on Sunday, but Fernandez declined to say whether measures would be relaxed under the circumstances. "I am very concerned about the situation. We have made a great effort, we have done relatively well, in the sense that we don't have more victims to grieve, but we have to be a little more firm because this isn't working, frankly," said the president. While his aides reported that fewer cases were registered on Wednesday than the previous week, the number of new infections was only lower by 300 cases, said Fernandez. Carla Vizzotti, the Health Ministry's health access secretary, told reporters earlier in the day that COVID-19 outbreaks were registered in several parts of the country. A significant number of provinces had outbreaks with an important number of cases that were being investigated, and they had yet to find the source, which led to the speculation of community transmission, said Vizzotti. Since detecting its first COVID-19 case on March 3, Argentina has reported 178,996 cases, of which 80,596 have recovered, and 3,311 deaths. Enditem Uber and its fellow gig companies have placed a measure on the California ballot this year, but don't expect to learn anything from the millions they'll spend trying to get it passed. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) You can lay the hand-wringing about the failing condition of the American economy aside for a moment, because one sector is blazingly fat and likely to become even more so between now and election day. We're talking about spending on California ballot measure campaigns. Twelve measures will be on the state's November ballot. Some of them concern issues unrelated to any particular business' pocketbook. Those include measures devoted to voting rights (two measures would expand the franchise to parolees and 17-year-olds), affirmative action (repealing a 1996 Republican-sponsored measure that ended it in California), and a tough-on-crime stance that would reclassify some misdemeanor drug and property crimes as felonies. But others will either make certain businesses more profitable or reduce or eliminate regulations on them. That's where the monetary rubber meets the road. The initiative, the referendum, and the recall...place in the hands of the people the means by which they may protect themselves. Gov. Hiram Johnson, 1911 The big players thus far this year are the ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft and the dialysis companies DaVita and Fresenius. Proposals to raise property taxes on commercial real estate, to expand rent control laws and to renew the state's stem cell program have already attracted millions of dollars and are likely to fill ever-bigger moneybags in the next three months. Thus far, contributions for and against the big-money initiatives are totaling more than $185 million. Almost certainly that's an undercount, for some donations are hard to track. Initiative campaigns are conducted by political action committees and other entities whose role may not become clear until closer to the election. Some have been collecting from donors for several years as their initiatives make their way through the legal qualification process, and those donations aren't always applied reliably to current disclosures. So the figures at hand are provisional, at best. Story continues It's fair to predict, however, that spending on at least one or two of the dozen 2020 ballot measures could challenge the previous record of $172.7 million spent in 2008 on four California ballot propositions aimed at expanding Indian gaming in the state. Almost two-thirds of that money was spent in favor of the initiatives, which passed. The runner-up in spending was Proposition 87 of 2006, which would have imposed a state severance tax on oil and gas extracted from California lands and attracted more than $150 million in spending pro and con. Of that, the petroleum industry spent more than $94 million, almost all of it contributed by petroleum companies, and killed the measure. In third place was the battle over Proposition 8 in 2018, which would have placed limits on dialysis revenues. DaVita, Fresenius and a third dialysis firm managed to kill the measure by spending some $111 million against it. The Service Employees International Union, which has been trying to unionize the companies, mustered a mere $19 million and lost. Two other battles over measures aimed at reducing drug prices, in 2016 and 2005, filled out the top-five list on spending. The California campaigns, incidentally, also established nationwide records. That partially reflects the state's size and the consequent necessity of conducting political campaigns through expensive advertising. But it also underscores a dirty reality of California politics, which is that business and industry often finds it more expedient to get what they want by resorting to the ballot box rather than the toilsome and less-rewarding effort of lobbying the Legislature. The initiative process established by Gov. Hiram Johnson in 1911 has thus been perverted beyond recognition. Johnson was a combative progressive Republican he ran for vice president on Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive, or "Bull Moose," ticket in 1912 who aimed to undermine the political influence exercised in California by the Southern Pacific Railroad, which was known as "the Octopus." Johnson told the Legislature that "the initiative, the referendum, and the recall ... place in the hands of the people the means by which they may protect themselves." Times have changed. To see how Johnson's innovation may play out in November, let's look briefly at some of the key proposals. Uber, Lyft, et al: The ride-hailing companies have joined with gig companies DoorDash, Postmates and Instacart in funding Proposition 22 with $111 million (as of March 31). Their goal is to overturn AB 5, the state law that would require them to designate their drivers as employees rather than "independent contractors." The change would require them to provide drivers with a host of workplace protections, including a guarantee of minimum wages and overtime, company-paid expenses such as fuel, insurance and wear-and-tear on their vehicles and the right to form a union. The measure would not only effectively designate app-based drivers permanently as independent contractors, but forbid the state or localities to enact ordinances to treat them as employees. The companies' spending on Proposition 22 thus far has swamped that of the measure's opponents, who have disclosed only about $700,000 in contributions, mostly from organized labor. The dialysis industry: DaVita and Fresenius on the one hand and the SEIU on the other are replaying their 2018 ballot-box battle with Proposition 23. The measure doesn't go nearly as far as the 2018 version; it merely sets minimum standards for physician staffing at dialysis clinics and requires expanded disclosures to state health authorities. As a result, the measure hasn't yet generated the spending that the previous initiative did. DaVita and Fresenius have each contributed about $1 million as of May, with SEIU ponying up about $6 million. It's doubtful this campaign will have the financial heft of its predecessor, but if SEIU wins this time, it may be emboldened to return to the ballot box in the future with more stringent measures. DaVita and Fresenius collect billions of dollars in fees for dialysis every year, and their determination to protect that revenue with aggressive defenses at the ballot box has been proven. Bail bonds: As we've reported, the cash bail system is a big, global business that masquerades behind a facade of mom-and-pop storefronts. The real powers behind the industry are international insurance companies for whom a system of charging exorbitant fees to families who can barely afford them has been worth billions a year. Insurers have contributed the lion's share of the roughly $3.9 million collected to defeat Proposition 25, which would allow a 2018 law banning cash bail for criminal defendants to finally go into effect. That would effectively eradicate the bail industry in California, which would be a good thing. Supporters of the measure, mostly activist groups, have raised about $1.3 million. Cash bail exacerbates racial and socioeconomic inequities already present in the criminal justice system by tying pretrial detention to a defendant's ability to pay bail: Wealthy defendants are set free to work on their defense, while less-affluent defendants have to cool their heels behind bars. The 2018 law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown would give judges far more latitude to decide whether to hold defendants before trial by making considered judgments on the likelihood they'll show up. The vast majority of defendants, whether out on bail or released on their own recognizance, show up for court dates. Nor do they go on crime sprees once theyre out on the street. But the law has been held in abeyance by the bail industry's success in placing Proposition 25 on the ballot. The split roll and rent control: Real estate being California's official state obsession, two ballot measures devoted to the issue have the potential to be financial barn-burners. Proposition 15 would create a so-called split roll requiring commercial properties to be regularly reassessed. This perennial idea is a way around Proposition 13, the property-tax limitation that was enacted in 1978 purportedly as a protection for residential homeowners, but which has turned out to be a boon for commercial property owners. Advocates of the split roll have noted that Proposition 13 has allowed some commercial properties Disneyland, for example to still be taxed at 1970s valuations. Changing that system could produce as much as an additional $12 billion in tax revenues in its initial years, according to a 2018 estimate by a team from USC. So far the supporters of Proposition 15, including teacher unions, have raised more than $14 million, according to Ballotpedia, which says business interests have contributed about $3 million. But the battle is in its early stages. The initiative has attracted a relatively new participant in California electoral politicsthe Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which is funded by Facebook Chair Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. The Initiative announced Friday that it will add $4.5 million to the $1.8 million it has already contributed to the Proposition 15 campaign. (The Initiative is also contributing $1.25 million to the effort to defeat Proposition 20, the so-called tough-on-crime measure.) Proposition 21 would modify the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, a pro-landlord measure signed by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson in 1995 that has hamstrung local authorities from expanding rent control for certain properties ever since. When the issue last appeared on the ballot in 2018, apartment developers and other real estate interests raised more than $70 million to defeat it. The initiative's sponsor, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, headed by persistent government gadfly Michael Weinstein, countered with more than $25 million in a losing battle. They'll be facing off again. So far, the "Yes" camp has raised more than $15 million, mostly from Weinstein's foundation. Real estate interests have raised more than $6 million, a figure destined to grow. What's demoralizing about the inflow of millions of dollars into these campaigns isn't simply the scale of the resources, but the uses to which the money is put. Advertising for ballot measures is an especially malodorous corner of political speech, often tendentious and deceptive. It's true that in campaign season everyone is addicted to this exploitative process the promoters and opponents of ballot measures, the campaign consultants who design the campaigns, and the broadcasters and publishers who get paid to run them. But let's not overlook how the public interest gets buried. When the proponents or opponents are commercial entities, their true interests are almost invariably cloaked. Nor are proponents of measures that arguably serve the public interest necessarily innocent of shading the truth, because shoehorning the facts about a law or constitutional amendment into the confines of a 30-second spot is a hopeless task. If any voters have ever learned anything truly useful or pertinent about a ballot measure from a campaign ad, whether on television, radio or online, I'd be fascinated to hear from them. Millions of dollars will be spent on California's ballot measures this year, and all of it might as well go up in smoke. In normal times, Imran Khans Friday would begin with the sacrificing of a lamb. But these are not normal times. That much is evident each day Khan arrives at his job at a local COVID-19 testing facility, or as he worries about his moms safety as she flies to Bangladesh to care for her own, ailing mother. I see the unfortunate people that come in, the poor families who need these tests and cant go back to work, the 29-year-old said. I see people getting sick every day. So much of it feels poignant on the eve of Eid al-Adha. The Muslim holiday, which began at sunset on Thursday and ends Friday evening, commemorates the story of Ibrahim, a central character in Islam, Judaism and Christianity. In Scripture, God demanded that Ibrahim sacrifice his son to show his commitment and obedience but at the last minute allowed for a lamb to be offered instead. Muslims honor that act by sacrificing animals each year and sharing the meat with their communities and those less fortunate. The story goes back to trials and tribulations, Khan said. Some people are blessed with amounts of money, wealth, riches, education, and some people arent. But we have to remember that everyone started from the bottom and those at the bottom need help. But this year is different: Most Islamic centers remain closed because of the novel coronavirus, as they were throughout the holy month of Ramadan that began a few weeks after local officials began issuing stay-at-home orders. Not even Islams holiest site was spared. Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia announced new restrictions that significantly curtailed the number of pilgrims visiting Mecca this week. Roughly 2.5 million Muslims usually trek to the holy site this time each year, while millions more tune into live broadcasts at communal celebrations across the world. Many will still watch livestreams, but will do so in small groups rather than at gatherings that can sometimes draw thousands of Muslims to nearby Islamic centers across the region, home to 70,000 faithful. These celebrations used to be something to really look forward to, a break from everyday life, said Kabir Mohammed, an engineer for a small oil and gas company. You pretty much see everybody that you havent seen since the last Eid. At the same time, he said, months of quarantine have added to the ruminations on sacrifice and gratitude that are central to the holiday. There will be no large parties or amusement park trips with his kids this year, but Mohammed is grateful that he was spared the layoffs or furloughs faced by some of his other Muslim friends in the beleaguered energy sector. That alone makes it hard to feel anything less than gratitude. Its even more difficult when he thinks about the trials faced by Ibrahim. We still have food every day, in a secure place, with climate-controlled homes, he said. It puts that sacrifice in perspective, and I think in some respects makes us more grateful for the people around us. Many continue to feel the effects of a nosediving economy. At Hamza Farm in Rosharon, Eid usually begins with long lines of people waiting to pick up the lamb or goats slaughtered there. Owner Mohammed Aziz says he usually sells a few hundred animals in the lead-up to the holy day. Hes expecting a significant drop-off in customers this year, while also paying more to get the animals and, because of the risks posed by coronavirus, higher wages for laborers. Aziz said he has accepted the financial hit, and feels for the many who will go without because of their own economic hardships. They cannot afford it and I feel really bad because theres nothing I can do about it, he said. Its sad. On Tuesday, amid flash downpours and lightning, 12-year-old Taha Ashraf stared quietly over the herd of lambs and goats still available at Hamza farm. His family would typically celebrate Eid with family in Pakistan, but couldnt this year because of the pandemic. And so his focus was on the hundreds of choices before him. Not really sure, he said when asked how hed make his decision. Just looking for a healthy goat thats not too young or too old. Abul Azad wouldnt have been so composed. As a child, he said he would spend time with the animal bought by his family, never naming it but inevitably growing close to it ahead of its death. I was very fond of my pet, if you could call it that, he said at the farm. We had a nice sort of relationship. I could not stand this, he said, motioning to the nearby rooms from which the sounds echoed. But his views have changed over time. Now, Azad considers the slaughters an important part of the food cycle that, in an age of grocery stores and UberEats, is rarely considered by consumers. He now volunteers at Hamza during Eid and jokes that hes an expert at the sacrifice, meaning he understands how to keep the animals calm in their final moments. It really makes you humble because every animal is a creation of God, just as me, he said. God asked me to raise them, and God asked me to slaughter them. The whole scenario still makes me very emotional. Others are taking slightly different approaches to Eid and the reflection it demands. Though most will be without their friends and family, the distance reminds them what really matters, and what others before them sacrificed and overcame. Its why Yasmin Saleh and her daughter have been brainstorming ideas that would put a smile on someones face in the coming days. Theyre having breakfast delivered to some of their friends, and have other things planned as well. More focus is on charity and how we can help others, said Saleh, who lives in The Woodlands. This pandemic has taught us how uncertain life is. I have heard of so many people who are gone. So how can I be beneficial to others with the time I have been given on this earth? Khan pondered that same question long before he began his work at a COVID-19 facility a few months ago. It feels even more relevant now, he said, with his mother overseas and a grandmother sick from what he fears may be COVID-19. He lives in Sugar Land, but cant help but empathize with the many people in the world who have not been afforded the same opportunities that hes had including those in his familys home country of Bangladesh. This year, he and others pooled together about $900 to donate a cow to the needy there rather than slaughter an animal themselves, as theyd do in normal times. He hopes that act of charity will bring blessings to them and, God-permitting, his ailing grandmothers health. And if not? At least we did a good thing in her name, he said. But were all struggling. You just have to put your trust in God. robert.downen@chron.com Ammon Bundy, an anti-government activist who lead the 41-day armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge back in 2016, expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement and for defunding the police in a recent Facebook video. He said in the video that he had considered attending, near his home in Boise, Idaho, a rally with the Black Lives Matter in support of defunding the police because yes the police need to be defunded. He decided not to attend the rally, citing concerns about potential violence from fellow Patriots who have criticized his stance on the issue. Anyone who doesnt understand his support for the movement must have a problem, he said. You must have a problem in your mind if you think that somehow the Black Lives Matter is more dangerous than the police, he said. You must have a problem in your mind if you think that Antifa is the one going to take your freedom. Four years ago Bundy led a group of Patriots who tore down fences and bulldozed over federal land considered sacred to Native Americans, causing close to a million dollars in damage to the bird refuge property and buildings, according to the Obama administration. The occupation began as a protest of the federal governments treatment of ranchers Steven and Dwight Hammond, but turned into a weeks-long confrontation with local and federal authorities. Bundy was later acquitted for leading the occupation. Bundy went on to blame Conservative talk show hosts for adding a negative connotation to certain key phrases like defund the police, which he called the right thing to do as police have become a huge authoritarian bureaucracy that will take way our liberty. He criticized his followers for supporting law enforcement and the military even when theyre doing terrible things across the world. Im not saying that everything theyre doing and every person in it dont get me wrong are doing that, but there needs to be a defunding of government in general, and especially the police forces because theyre the ones who are actually going to seek and destroy us. More from National Review Its often said that about half of all missions to Mars have failed. But getting a more precise figure for successful and unsuccessful Mars shots is more complicated than it sounds. If it was all just down to basic maths, working out the percentages of successful and unsuccessful Mars missions would be simple. But its complicated by how we define success and failure. For instance: a few years ago we learned that the British-built Beagle 2 probe - which failed to phone home after plunging through the Martian atmosphere on 25 December 2003 - had actually reached the surface intact. Images from Nasas Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter suggested that one of the four spacecraft petals, on which the solar panels were mounted, failed to open. This prevented the deployment of its antenna - and the possibility of communication with Earth. Given that other lander missions have ended up as wreckage and scorch marks on the surface, should Beagle 2 get some recognition for getting down in one piece? Could the lander, after all these years, be considered a partial success? Or, lets take the USSRs Mars-3 lander. On 2 December 1971, it became the first spacecraft to land softly on Mars. The plucky Soviet probe then started to transmit an image to jubilant ground controllers. But after about two minutes on the Martian surface, its systems went dead. The nasty dust storm raging at the time might have been the culprit. Some scientists think the dust may have caused an electrical discharge that damaged the landers communications equipment. Despite the name Mars-3, the Soviet Union had launched Mars-1M, 2MV, 2M, 2 and 3MS before they struck lucky. Mars-3: success or failure? Theres no universal agreement. Then theres another factor: what exactly do we mean by a Mars mission? In 1988, the Soviet Union launched two probes with the primary objectives of studying Marss two moons, Phobos and Deimos (though it was also intended that they would carry out observations of the planet). After a command error caused Phobos-1 to fail en route to Mars, then, a few months later, Phobos-2 was lost. Should these two probes - along with 2011s similarly ill-fated Phobos-Grunt launch - be considered solely as missions to the moons, or should they be included on the Mars list as well? You decide. In addition, some missions, such as Nasas Dawn and the European Space Agencys Rosetta probe, made flybys of Mars en route to their real destinations. Should those be counted too? Its not difficult to see why some space-watchers have settled on saying about half of all missions have succeeded while half have failed - without going into more detail than that. The poor hit rate has led to jokes about a Mars ghoul that swallows unfortunate planetary probes. But the reality is more mundane. The causes of mission failures generally trace back to engineering oversights, software errors and, sometimes, sheer bad luck. But Nasas Mars Climate Orbiter mission, launched in 1998, became the ultimate metric martyr when calculations in metric and Imperial standards got mixed up, putting it on the wrong trajectory as it was due to enter Mars orbit. The spacecraft is thought either to have burned up in the Martian atmosphere or to have bounced off, causing it to re-enter an orbit around the Sun. There was a view that the mission was trying to do too much on its modest budget. And, at the time, Nasa was operating under a philosophy dubbed Faster, Better, Cheaper. Scientists jokingly came up with an addendum: ...you can only pick two. In other words, the system can make the best of only two parameters, at the expense of the third. Despite this - and a handful of other losses - the US has by far the best record of success. All Nasa spacecraft launched to Mars since 1999 - from the Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, to orbiting craft such as Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter - have not only succeeded but have operated long past their prime missions. So it is that we bid good luck to Perseverance. Heres hoping it becomes part of that vague half of all missions that find success. Dr. Sallie Permar, a physician-scientist who investigates the prevention and treatment of neonatal viral infections, and Dr. Stephen Patrick, a neonatologist focused on the impact of the opioid epidemic on pregnant women and infants, have been jointly awarded the fifth annual Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children's Health Research, Weill Cornell Medicine announced today. The Drukier Prize honors early-career pediatricians whose research has made important contributions toward improving the health of children and adolescents. Dr. Permar, associate dean of physician scientist development, professor of pediatrics, immunology, molecular genetics and microbiology, and founding director of the Children's Health and Discovery Institute at Duke University School of Medicine, is being honored for her research into the development of vaccines to prevent mother-to-child transmission of neonatal viral pathogens. Dr. Patrick, an associate professor of pediatrics and health policy and director of the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, is being recognized for his research on improving outcomes for infants born to opioid-dependent pregnant women using a public health framework. "Drs. Permar and Patrick are skilled physician-scientists whose commitment to pediatric research and care exemplifies the spirit of the Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children's Health Research," said Dr. Augustine M.K. Choi, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine. "Dr. Permar's innovative work investigating the prevention and treatment of neonatal viral infections has advanced this vital field of research, while Dr. Patrick's examination of the impact of the opioid epidemic on pregnant women and infants has informed national policy in this area. Their respective research offers the promise of a healthy future for countless children, and we're delighted to recognize them this year." "We are thrilled to be honoring two exceptional winners with this year's award," said Dr. Gale Drukier and Weill Cornell Medicine Overseer Ira Drukier, who together in 2014 established the prize. "The dedication Dr. Permar and Dr. Patrick have displayed to improving the lives of children is inspiring, as they work to ensure the health of newborns through pioneering research and compassionate care. It brings us great joy to recognize those who are affecting real change in pediatric research, like these physician-scientists, and to highlight their important work." "By focusing on one of the most vulnerable populations, the discoveries made by these investigators have the opportunity to improve outcomes for newborns and offer hope to untold expectant mothers," said Dr. Virginia Pascual, the Drukier Director of the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children's Health. "Dr. Permar's research on developing vaccines to prevent mother-to-child viral transmission of disease and Dr. Patrick's work to improve outcomes for infants born to opioid-dependent women have furthered our knowledge of these areas of pediatric research. The Drukier Institute is pleased to honor them for their important contributions to children's health." Dr. Patrick's research focuses on how to improve outcomes for pregnant women and infants affected by the opioid epidemic, including newborn babies who have drug withdrawal symptoms, known as neonatal abstinence syndrome. When Dr. Patrick began his research, the link between opioid prescriptions and overdose deaths was clear, but the relationship between opioid exposure and newborn health was not. His findings have shown that the number of infants diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome grew nearly sevenfold between 2000 and 2016 nationwide. Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) can occur when babies are chronically exposed to opioids before birth, whether to an illegal drug or a prescribed medication like methadone, which can help an expecting woman treat her addiction and increase the likelihood of a full-term pregnancy. In studying the health outcomes for babies with NAS, it became clear to Dr. Patrick that doctors needed to consider more than simply whether pregnant women were using opioids at the time of delivery. Length of use, and social and economic factors also play a role in whether a fetus develops NAS. His research found a link between higher rates of the syndrome and long-term unemployment, especially in rural areas, and his findings have had a direct impact on policy changes that benefit children. For instance, the Protecting Our Infants Act, which was signed into law in 2015 and aims to help prevent and treat babies exposed to opioids in utero, cited Dr. Patrick's research in the bill. And his research on prescription drug monitoring programs was included in the Surgeon General's "Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General's Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health," which addresses the prevalence of addictive substances in the United States and makes recommendations for prevention, treatment and recovery. "Just looking at past Drukier Prize awardees, it's an extreme honor to be included with that esteemed group," said Dr. Patrick. "Research is a team sport and taking care of patients is a team sport. This is an individual award but it's reflective of great mentorship I've had along the way and the support I've had from others, including my family, to get the work done." Dr. Permar is a physician-scientist focused on the prevention and treatment of viral infections in newborns. She leads a research lab that is working towards the development of vaccines to prevent mother-to-child transmission of viruses such as HIV, Zika and cytomegalovirus (CMV). Recently, Dr. Permar and her research team have focused their efforts on CMV, the most common congenital infection and leading cause of birth defects in the world, affecting one in 150 newborns. While scientists have long been frustrated in their attempts to develop a vaccine to protect infants against CMV, Dr. Permar's work has led to a more thorough understanding of what is required of a vaccine to protect against transmission of the virus from mother to infant. Not only must it prevent congenital infections, but vaccine strategies must also address breast milk-associated CMV transmission to very premature infants. Drawing on her experience using animal models shown to be effective in HIV/AIDS research, Dr. Permar developed the first nonhuman primate model of congenital CMV infection to demonstrate that a vaccine targeting antibody responses could protect against the transmission of CMV. There are now two CMV vaccines that are nearing phase 3 trials, which her work is helping to inform. "The Drukier awardees are a highly recognized group of pediatricians and one I'm proud to be a part of," said Dr. Permar. "If you can solve diseases in the pediatric window, then you're giving that person the gift of a healthy lifetime. It's wonderful that this award recognizes and promotes this critical concept." The Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children's Health Research was established in 2014 as part of a $25 million gift to Weill Cornell Medicine. The gift also created the Drukier Institute for Children's Health, a premiere, inter-disciplinary institute dedicated to understanding the underlying causes of diseases that are devastating to children. As part of its mission, the institute awards the annual prize, which carries a $10,000 unrestricted honorarium, to recognize the innovative work done by young investigators in pediatric research. Dr. Patrick is board certified in pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine. He is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Substance Use and Prevention and the Society for Pediatric Research, which awarded him its prestigious Young Investigator Award in 2019. He is also a research fellow with the RAND Opioid Policy Tools and Information Center. Dr. Patrick received a Bachelor of Science in microbiology and cell science from the University of Florida in 2002. He went on to earn a medical degree from Florida State University College of Medicine and a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University School of Public Health in 2007. He also earned a Master of Science in Health and Health Care Research from the University of Michigan in 2011. For his postdoctoral training, Dr. Patrick served as house officer in the department of pediatrics and communicable diseases at the University of Michigan Health System, where he was also a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar. While at the University of Michigan, he completed a neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship in the department of pediatrics and communicable diseases. He has served as senior science policy adviser to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and has testified before Congress on the rising number of newborns diagnosed with opioid withdrawal. Dr. Permar is an institutional and national leader in physician-scientist training, serving as the associate dean of physician-scientist development at Duke University Medical School. She is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Pediatrics Society, the American Academy of Microbiology, and the Society for Pediatric Research, which awarded her its 2014 Young Investigator Award and 2020 E. Mead Johnson Award. She is also the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering. Dr. Permar received a Bachelor of Science from Davidson College in 1997. She went on to earn a doctorate in microbiology/immunology from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and a medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 2004. She completed her clinical training in pediatric infectious diseases at Children's Hospital in Boston. ### Weill Cornell Medicine Weill Cornell Medicine is committed to excellence in patient care, scientific discovery and the education of future physicians in New York City and around the world. The doctors and scientists of Weill Cornell Medicine -- faculty from Weill Cornell Medical College, Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and Weill Cornell Physician Organization -- are engaged in world-class clinical care and cutting-edge research that connect patients to the latest treatment innovations and prevention strategies. Located in the heart of the Upper East Side's scientific corridor, Weill Cornell Medicine's powerful network of collaborators extends to its parent university Cornell University; to Qatar, where Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar offers a Cornell University medical degree; and to programs in Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Austria and Turkey. Weill Cornell Medicine faculty provide comprehensive patient care at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital and NewYork-Presbyterian/Queens. Weill Cornell Medicine is also affiliated with Houston Methodist. For more information, visit weill.cornell.edu. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 19:32:46|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close URUMQI, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, have tried to ensure adequate supply of livestock and vegetables as Muslims celebrate the Corban Festival. Also known as Eid al-Adha or the feast of the sacrifice, the festival is being celebrated on Friday this year. It is one of Islam's most important holidays. During the festival, the municipal authorities will slaughter over 1,700 cattle and sheep daily, more than half the usual number, as well as more than 33,000 poultry, which is 30 percent higher, according to Song Yajun, vice mayor of Urumqi. It is customary to sacrifice livestock to share with family members and visit relatives and friends during the Corban Festival. Municipal authorities also moved to ensure a daily supply of about 1,000 tonnes of vegetables, 260 tonnes of milk and 120 tonnes of eggs. The efforts came as Xinjiang saw an uptick in COVID-19 infections since the middle of July. By Thursday, Xinjiang had 523 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 108 asymptomatic cases, and 12,416 people were still under medical observation, according to the regional health commission. Amid the epidemic, many residents in Urumqi have cancelled family gatherings and chosen to stay home to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus. On Wednesday, authorities began a program of providing moderately-priced meat to the city's residents, planning to offer 200 tonnes of mutton and 150 tonnes of beef by Aug. 12. "The meat is 10 to 20 yuan (1.43 to 2.86 U.S. dollars) cheaper than usual," said Yarkinjan Yasinjan, a resident of Urumqi, after receiving 3 kg of mutton and 2 kg of beef Thursday. "The mutton looks very tender and fresh," said Yarkinjan, who plans to cook several dishes for his children to celebrate the festival. Enditem (All references to dollars herein are in Canadian dollars ("$") unless otherwise specified) TORONTO, July 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Battle North Gold Corporation (TSX: BNAU) (OTCQX: BNAUF) ("Battle North" or the "Company") announces that it has filed its interim Financial Statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis ("MD&A") for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 ("Q2/2020"). Copies of these filings can be obtained at www.battlenorthgold.com or under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. Financial Highlights from Q2/2020 Cash position: As of June 30, 2020 , the Company had cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments of approximately $12.2 million . As of , the Company had cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments of approximately . Exploration and evaluation expenditures: For Q2/2020, the Company spent approximately $3.3 million in expenditures related to drilling, maintenance and technical consulting fees, including work on the feasibility study for the Bateman Gold Project (the " Project "). Expenditures were lower by $0.4 million compared to the same period in 2019 as the Company did not incur expenditures on underground development as part of its 2020 drilling campaign, which was focused on infill and exploratory drilling and delivering an updated mineral resource estimate for the Project 1 to support the ongoing feasibility study. For Q2/2020, the Company spent approximately in expenditures related to drilling, maintenance and technical consulting fees, including work on the feasibility study for the Bateman Gold Project (the " "). Expenditures were lower by compared to the same period in 2019 as the Company did not incur expenditures on underground development as part of its 2020 drilling campaign, which was focused on infill and exploratory drilling and delivering an updated mineral resource estimate for the Project to support the ongoing feasibility study. General and administrative expenses (including salaries and benefits, and consulting and professional fees): The Company spent approximately $1.0 million on expenditures related to general and administrative, salaries and benefits, and consulting and professional fees in Q2/2020, lower by $0.3 million due to less salary and benefit costs than Q2/2019. Outlook As of July 30, 2020, the Company had cash and cash equivalents of approximately $11.5 million. The Company has sufficient financial resources to carry out the Company's planned activities in 2020: Feasibility study for the Project remains on track for the second half of 2020 ("H2/2020") completion Ongoing exploration at McFinley and Pen Zones: Battle North is on track to complete more than 5,000 m of underground confirmatory diamond drilling to determine the mineral resource potential of the historic McFinley Zone ("McFinley")(approximately 420 m west of the F2 Gold Zone) and the Pen Zone (approximately 500 m northwest of the F2 Gold Zone). The drill program is designed to follow-up on the historic high-grade drill intercepts that were intersected in these two targets. Battle North plans to deliver mineral resource estimates for both the McFinley Zone and the Pen Zone in the 2020 and early 2021, respectively. Due to the proximity of these targets to the existing underground and surface infrastructure of the Bateman Gold Project, mineralized material at McFinley and the Pen Zone areas have the potential to augment the conceptual production profile of the Bateman Gold Project. On July 27, 2020 , Battle North announced encouraging initial drilling results at the Pen Zone2. _____________________________ 1 On July 8, 2020, the Company announced an updated mineral resource estimate for the Project (the "Updated 2020 Mineral Resource Estimate"). For further details, see the Company's news release dated July 8, 2020 and the Technical Report described under "Other Items" in this news release, both of which are available under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com and on its website at www.battlenorthgold.com. 2 For further details see the Company's news release dated July 27, 2020 which is available under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com and on its website at www.battlenorthgold.com. Other Items Exercise of 800,000 warrants: The Company has confirmed that the 800,000 warrants outstanding owned by Sprott Private Resource Lending (Collector), L.P. (" Sprott "), with a strike price of $1.35 per Battle North common share, were fully exercised in two equal tranches, one in late June and the other in early July, 2020, which resulted in the receipt of $1.08 million of cash. The Company has confirmed that the 800,000 warrants outstanding owned by Sprott Private Resource Lending (Collector), L.P. (" "), with a strike price of per Battle North common share, were fully exercised in two equal tranches, one in late June and the other in early July, 2020, which resulted in the receipt of of cash. "BNAUF" ticker symbol on theOTCQX: Battle North has confirmed that it has commenced trading under its new ticker symbol of BNAUF on the OTCQX markets. Battle North has confirmed that it has commenced trading under its new ticker symbol of BNAUF on the OTCQX markets. An updated technical report for the Project reflecting the Updated 2020 Mineral Resource Estimate was filed on July 27, 2020 in accordance with the requirements of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. A copy is available under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com and on its website at www.battlenorth.com. About Battle North Gold Corporation Battle North Gold is a Canadian gold mine developer led by an accomplished management team with successful underground gold mine operations, finance, and capital markets experience. Battle North owns the significantly de-risked and shovel-ready Bateman Gold Project, located in the renowned Red Lake gold district in Ontario, Canada and controls the second largest and strategic exploration ground in the district. Battle North also owns a large gold exploration land package on the Long Canyon gold trend near the Nevada-Utah border in the United States. Battle North's shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (BNAU) and the OTCQX (BNAUF) markets. For more information, please visit our website at www.battlenorthgold.com. BATTLE NORTH GOLD CORPORATION George Ogilvie, P.Eng. President, CEO, and Director Cautionary Statement regarding Forward-Looking Statements All statements, other than statements of historical fact, contained or incorporated by reference in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" and "forward looking information" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipates", "assumption", "confidence", "conceptual", "contingencies", "development", "estimate", "expect", "exploration", "factors", "feasibility", "focus", "forward", "future", "intended", "may", "ongoing", "on track", "outlook", "plan", "possible", "potential", "profile", "program", "project", "risk", "shovel-ready", "strategic", "study", "target" and "uncertainties", or variations of such words, and similar such words, expressions or statements that certain actions, events or results can, could, may, should, will (or not) be achieved, occur or result in the future. In some cases, forward-looking information may be stated in the present tense, such as in respect of current matters that may be continuing, or that may have a future impact or effect. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding mineral resource estimates including the Updated 2020 Mineral Resource Estimate the ongoing Feasibility Study for the Project (including timing of delivery and potential results); the results of the Pen Zone drilling program; ongoing, future or other exploration drilling of Pen and McFinley zones (including any mineral resource potential of the Pen and McFinley zones, any planned mineral resource estimates therefor and potential to use mineralized material therefrom); the ongoing Feasibility Study for the Project including percentage and timing of completion, planning and other details of underlying work, impact of ongoing and planned exploration on included mineral resource estimates and contemplated mine plan or otherwise; and feasibility and potential commercial viability of the Bateman Gold Project. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, estimates, expectations and opinions, which are considered reasonable and represent best judgment based on available facts, as of the date such statements are made. If such assumptions, estimates, expectations and opinions prove to be incorrect, actual and future results may be materially different than expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. The assumptions, estimates, expectations and opinions referenced, contained or incorporated by reference in this news release which may prove to be incorrect include those set forth herein, and in the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 (the "Q2, 2020 MD&A") and the accompanying financial statements, and the technical report for the Project filed on July 27, 2020 (the "Updated 2020 Technical Report"), all available under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com and on its website at www.battlenorthgold.com. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Battle North to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors include, among others: gold price fluctuations; possible variations in mineralization, grade or recovery or throughput rates; uncertainty of mineral resource estimates; inability to realize exploration potential, mineral grades and mineral recovery estimates; actual results of exploration activities including their impact; delays in completion of exploration and other drilling or plans, and any studies, including the ongoing Feasibility Study for the Project, for any reason including insufficient capital and other risks, uncertainties, contingencies and factors identified herein; labour issues at the Company or third parties, such as government and regulatory agencies, suppliers and service providers, including labour shortages and/or work curtailments or stoppages as may result from COVID-19; conclusions of economic, geological or structural evaluations and models including those reflected in mineral resource estimates, or included in the Updated 2020 Technical Report and the ongoing Feasibility Study for the Project, and any other studies for the Project; changes in Project parameters as plans continue to be refined; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents and other risks of the mining industry; delays and other risks related to operations; the ability to obtain and maintain permits and other regulatory approvals (as well as the timing and terms thereof) and to comply with such permits, approvals and other applicable regulatory requirements; the ability of Battle North to comply with its obligations under material agreements including its current loan facility and other financing agreements; the availability of financing for proposed programs and working capital requirements on reasonable terms and in a timely manner; the ability to meet, repay, or refinance, or replace, or renegotiate current and future debt obligations on reasonable terms and in a timely manner including the current loan facility and closure and reclamation surety bond; the ability of third-party service providers and other suppliers to deliver on reasonable terms and in a timely manner (including those working on the ongoing Feasibility Study for the Project); risks associated with the ability to retain key executives and key operating personnel; cost of environmental expenditures and potential environmental liabilities; relations with local communities including First Nations; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; cost of supplies; market conditions and general business, economic, competitive, political and social conditions; our ability to generate sufficient cash flow from operations or obtain adequate financing to fund our capital expenditures and working capital needs and meet our other obligations; the volatility of our stock price, and the ability of our common stock to remain listed and traded on the TSX; epidemics, pandemics and other public health crises, including COVID-19 or similar such viruses; and the "Risk Factors" in the Company's annual information form dated March 27, 2020 ("2020 AIF") as well as the risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors identified in the Updated 2020 Technical Report and the Q2, 2020 MD&A and accompanying financial statements, all of which are available under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com and on its website at www.battlenorthgold.com. The foregoing list of risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors is not exhaustive; readers should consult the more complete discussion of the Company's business, financial condition and prospects that is provided in the 2020 AIF. The forward-looking statements referenced or contained herein are expressly qualified by these Cautionary Statements as well as the Cautionary Statements in the Q2, 2020 MD&A, the 2020 AIF and Updated 2020 Technical Report. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release (or as otherwise expressly specified) and Battle North disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws. SOURCE Battle North Gold Corporation Related Links http://www.battlenorthgold.com/ 12 Hong Kong Opposition Candidates Disqualified from September Elections By VOA News July 30, 2020 Hong Kong authorities have disqualified 12 pro-democracy candidates from running in September's legislative elections. The government said Thursday the candidates were barred because they opposed the new national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the central government in Beijing, as well as advocating for the financial hub's independence. The announcement did not specify which candidates have been expelled from the ballot for the Legislative Council elections, but prominent pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong confirmed on social media that he was among the 12 disqualified. Wong was one of many pro-democracy activists who were nominated in an unofficial primary held earlier this month. More than 600,000 voters cast ballots in the primary that authorities warned was possibly illegal. Other candidates who have been barred from the September elections include three members of the pro-democracy Civic Party. The government said more candidates could be disqualified from the election. The disqualifications are the latest actions by authorities to stamp out Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement since the new national security law took effect on July 1. Four young activists between the ages of 16 and 21 who belonged to a disbanded pro-independence group were arrested Wednesday on secessionist charges. Police refused to identify the students, but the group Studentlocalism announced on social media that its former convenor, Tony Chung, 19, was arrested Wednesday night for "inciting secession." Activists said at least two other former group members also were arrested about the same time. Under the new security law, anyone in Hong Kong believed to be carrying out terrorism, separatism, subversion of state power or collusion with foreign forces could be tried and face life in prison if convicted. The new law was a response to the massive and often violent pro-democracy demonstrations that engulfed the financial hub in the last half of last year. Western governments and human rights advocates say the measure effectively ends the self-autonomy guaranteed under the pact that switched control of Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address As the United States accelerates its war drive against China, the government of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is similarly ramping up its own confrontation against Beijing. On July 22, Tokyo denounced Beijing for sending vessels near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea for 100 straight days, longer than any time in the past. The islands claimed by China, but administered and controlled by Japan are located in strategic sea lanes. Chinese ships actually entered waters claimed by Japan for a total of eleven days. Tokyo also announced on July 18 that it would immediately scramble fighter jets to respond to any launch of Chinese planes from the latters airbase in Fujian Province. Previously, Japan only scrambled fighters when Chinese planes approached airspace claimed by Tokyo. However, Chinese war planes operating in the region had previously flown out of Zhejiang Province, a greater distance from the disputed islands. From Fujian to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, it is a 20 minute flight, while it takes approximately 25 minutes for Japans Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) planes to reach the islands from their base in Naha, Okinawa. Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (Credit: Destroyer Squadron 15) Japan will also now send four fighter jets for every Chinese fighter rather than two. In addition, ASDF planes are flying daily patrols over the East China Sea. All of this raises the risk of a military encounter occurring that could escalate into a larger conflict. Tokyo is attempting to portray its measures as defensive. The repeated activities are extremely serious. Japan Coast Guard patrol ships have issued warnings and we have protested to the Chinese side through diplomatic channels over and over again, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga stated at a news conference last week. Tokyo also claimed that in the 2018 fiscal year, Japan scrambled jets against Chinese military planes 638 times and 675 times over the same period ending this past March. In another sign of rising tensions, Defense Minister Taro Kono on June 23 took the rare step of announcing the nationality of a Chinese submarine supposedly detected near waters off Japans Amami-Oshima Island, which is home to missile batteries. The submarine did not enter Japanese waters and Kono described it as moving in the direction of China. In deciding to announce the submarines nationality, Kono stated, In addition to conditions in the East and South China seas, weve seen various events (regarding China), including its rapid military budget increase, rising tensions with India and pressure on Hong Kongs one country, two systems, so we need to infer clearly the intention of the Chinese Communist Party amid these situations. Japans annual defense white paper released on July 14 accused China of continuing to attempt to alter the status quo in the East China Sea and the South China Sea and for the first time describing Chinas actions as relentless. An anonymous expert on China in the Japanese government told the South China Morning Post, It is easy to see a strong determination on the part of the Chinese to change the status quo surrounding the Senkaku islands. This is a long-term strategy, but the present situation is an opportunity for Beijing because the United States, Japan and other countries in the region are focused on dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. The US and Japan, however, bear primary responsibility for upending the status quo in the East China Sea. Under US President Obama, longstanding, but minor territorial disputes between China and various other countries in the region were inflamed and turned into pressure points on Beijing. In 2012, while the Democratic Party of Japan was in office, Tokyo nationalized the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands by purchasing them from their private owner, which sharply raised tensions with Beijing. Furthermore, Tokyo has militarized the region in the past five years, dispatching a radar station to Yonaguni Island and constructing bases with missile batteries on Ishigaki, Miyako, and Amami-Oshima, all of which surround the Senkakus/Diaoyus. The statements from Tokyo and Washington are dripping with hypocrisy. China is regularly denounced for supposedly attempting to prevent freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, with the US conducting operations in waters claimed by China since 2015 under the Obama administration. When Chinese vessels or aircraft sail near Japanese waters, however, it is deemed a threat. Last week, warships from the US, Japan, Australia, and India (the QuadQuadrilateral Security Dialogue) held co-ordinated naval war games in the region. The US conducted exercises in the Philippine Sea with Japan and Australia, which neighbors the South China Sea, while also holding joint exercises with India near the Malacca Strait, a key sea lane and choke point for shipping. Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, stated: The international naval exercises underway in the Indo-Pacific are just the latest demonstration of India, Australia, and Japan shedding prior inhibitions about multilateral military maneuvers. In other words, the three countries are more and more falling into line with the US war drive in the region against China. Washington has also perpetuated the lie that Beijing is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic by releasing the virus from a Wuhan laboratory; provocatively ordered the closure of Chinas Houston consulate with unproven claims of Chinese spying; backed India in its recent border dispute with China; and drawn closer to Taiwan, threatening to overturn the One China policy that formally recognizes the island as a part of China. The danger of conflict breaking out is growing. Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the case for war with China, stating we can never go back to the status quo. The old paradigm of blind engagement with China had to be replaced with a new strategy in which the free world ends Chinas new tyranny, he declared. Washington and Tokyo mix their condemnations of Beijing with professions of concern for regions like Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Their aim has nothing to do with human rights, but is to isolate Beijing and prepare for war as a means of subordinating and undermining a potential rival and deflecting from the immense social and economic crises they face at home. Former President Barack Obama addresses the service during the funeral for the late Rep. John Lewis. Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool President Donald Trump did not attend the late Rep. John Lewis' funeral in Atlanta on Thursday. Trump also did not attend memorial services held for the civil rights icon earlier this week in Washington, DC. Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton each delivered eulogies for Lewis at his funeral. Other prominent funerals Trump has not attended include the late Rep. Elijah Cummings, Rep. John Dingell, Sen. John McCain and former First Lady Barbara Bush. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Former President Barack Obama appeared to take a jab at President Donald Trump at the funeral service of the late Rep. John Lewis in Atlanta on Thursday. "Even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting," Obama said during his eulogy, seemingly alluding to Trump's recent unsubstantiated claims that vote-by-mail leads to widespread fraud. "Even undermining the postal service in the run-up to an election, that's going to be dependent on mail-in ballots, so people don't get sick." Though he did not mention Trump by name, Obama emphasized that his pointed remarks were not off-script: "I know this is a celebration of John's life. There are some who might say, 'We shouldn't dwell on such things.' But that's why I'm talking about it. John Lewis devoted his time on this earth fighting the very attacks on democracy." He received a standing ovation from the crowd, which was filled with several notable officials including former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton who also delivered eulogies but not Trump. The president earlier this week also skipped Lewis' memorial service in Washington, DC. It's not the first time Trump has missed a funeral, though he has attended a couple as president, including services for the late Rev. Billy Graham and former President George H.W. Bush. Story continues Here are four prominent funerals Trump did not attend: Rep. Elijah Cummings A military honor guard lays the U.S. flag on the casket of Rep. Elijah Cummings during his funeral service on October 25, 2019 in Baltimore, Maryland. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings' funeral service took place last October in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, part of the district he represented since 1996. The former chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Reform Committee, who helped lead the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump that was taking place at the time, died at age 68. In the months leading up to his death, Trump engaged in an escalating public feud with the congressman, calling him a "racist," launching attacks at Baltimore, and appearing to mock a reported burglary at his home. Trump skipped the funeral. A copy of the president's schedule that day showed he had nothing on his agenda at the time. Former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and former First Ladies Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton were all in attendance, among many other key lawmakers and high-ranked officials, including now Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows, who delivered a tearful speech in honor of his "dear friend." Rep. John Dingell Rep. Debbie Dingell bows her head with former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during funeral services for her husband, former Rep. John Dingell. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Getty Images Rep. John Dingell, the longest-serving member in Congress ever at more than 59 years, died at age 92 last February. A funeral service in Washington, DC, was attended by former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as former Republican House Speaker John Boehner, among others. Former Vice President Joe Biden attended another funeral held in Michigan, Dingell's home state. Trump was not at either funeral, but he ordered American flags to be flown at half-mast after Dingell's death to honor him. Months later, Trump suggested the Democratic congressman might be in hell aftter his wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), voted to support impeachment. "Maybe he's looking up, I don't know," Trump said during a campaign rally in Michigan. "But let's assume he's looking down." Rep. Debbie Dingell called his comment a gut punch. Sen. John McCain Cindy McCain arrives at a memorial service for her husband, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in Washington, Sept. 1, 2018. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo In perhaps the most controversial of Trump's missed funerals, the president did not attend the late Arizona Sen. John McCain's ceremony in September 2018 because he was not invited. Cindy McCain, the senator's wife, explained that she wanted the service to remain "with dignity." "Even though it was a very public funeral, we are still family. For all of us and for the sake of my own children, I didn't want any disruption. This was about John, not about anything else at all," she said at the time. Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, and other members of his administration attended the funeral. The president had been in a longtime dispute with the late senator, hurling insults at the revered naval officer who died aged 81 after a battle with cancer. McCain, who was much admired by politicians from both sides of the aisle, had not shied away from speaking out against Trump, unlike many from within his party. Trump continued to spew repeated attacks against McCain even after his death. Former First Lady Barbara Bush Former Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush arrive for the funeral for former first lady Barbara Bush on April 21, 2018. David J. Phillip/AP Photo Former First Lady Barbara Bush's funeral held in Houston, Texas, was attended by more than 1,000 people. Trump was not one of them. She died in April 2018 at the age of 92 and was remembered as a beloved public figure of the World War II generation. Her husband, the late former President George H.W. Bush was at the service with his sons, former President George W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Among the people gathered also included the Obamas and Clintons, as well as First Lady Melania Trump. White House officials noted in advance that President Donald Trump would not attend "to avoid disruptions due to added security, and out of respect for the Bush family and friends attending the service." Read the original article on Business Insider Karnataka Minister BC Patil on Friday said he has tested positive for the coronavirus and is currently in quarantine at his home in Bengaluru. "The report that has just come confirms me to be corona positive. I am in home quarantine at my residence in Bangalore," he said in a tweet. "During a recent visit to Koppal district, five of the staff members who accompanied me were reported to be coronavirus positive." Patil added that those people who had come in contact with him at a recent meeting at Hirekere and Koppal were immediately checked for symptoms. The minister's diagnosis came on the day Karnataka reported over 5,000 cases for the eighth consecutive day, with 5,843 infections and also recorded 84 fatalities, taking the death toll to 2,314. The additions to confirmed cases took the total number of infected to 1,24,115,the health department said in a bulletin. The day also saw 3,130 patients getting discharged after recovery. Out of the 5,483 fresh cases reported on Friday, 2,220 were from Bengaluru urban alone. Patricia Marsteller, who retires Aug. 1, has been a fierce and early advocate of programs to encourage undergraduate science research and study, especially for students who are underrepresented in STEM fields. Patricia Marsteller didnt have much time after spring semester to reflect on her 30-year Emory College of Arts and Sciences career devoted to developing ways to attract and support underrepresented students in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. She was already busy with a three-day workshop on creating the case-based courses that have proven fundamental to attracting students to the sciences. After all, she reasoned, she doesnt officially retire as professor of practice in the biology department and associate dean of undergraduate research and scholarship until Aug. 1. Im not planning to go away, Marsteller says. The only big thing I wanted to do differently is to travel more, but the whole world is shut down. So, I might as well keep going. Making a space for all students in the sciences Twenty-three members of the Emory College faculty retired in 2020, a cohort of extraordinary scholars and teachers who were pivotal in Emory Universitys transition to a world-renowned research institution. Marstellers legacy, as a fierce and early advocate in various programs to encourage undergraduate science research and study, is felt at Emory and in the broader scientific community. As chair of the Section on Education of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Marsteller helped establish the general policies of the worlds largest science organization. She is also a fellow with the prestigious organization. She served as director of the former Emory College Center for Science Education from 1997 until 2016, where she was especially influential in developing and promoting the student research and mentoring programs that have become a hallmark of an Emory education. Hired in 1990 as the first director of the Emory Howard Hughes Medical Institute Initiative (HHMI), Marstellers specific role officially centered on drawing more underrepresented minorities to the natural sciences. As Emory rose to national prominence, in part by developing more undergraduate research opportunities and a research-rich curriculum, Marsteller was reaching her goals to encourage students to use time in the science lab to hone the problem-solving skills critical to liberal arts excellence. Part of that included working to train faculty in the novel teaching methods that supported the overall goals to increase recruitment of underrepresented students to the sciences. Her initiatives supported not only students from underrepresented groups but other Emory students who now thrive as pharmacists, lawyers, teachers and public health workers. Emory made a commitment as an education destination for everyone, says Daniel Danny Shoy, 95C, who has served as president and CEO of Atlantas East Lake Foundation for 10 years. Pat brings that commitment to life, with great intention for people like me who might question whether they belong, Shoy adds. I know scores of Black alumni who benefitted from the support she readily gave to our dreams. As a senior program officer with the Arthur Blank Foundation in 2007, Shoy worked with Marsteller and recommended approval of a $900,000 grant from the foundations Pathway to Success program to Emorys Center for Science Education, to provide college-prep support for Atlanta-area high school students considering health and science careers. Showcasing the liberal arts-research connection Marstellers work feels personal because it is. The oldest of 11 children who grew up on a farm, she got an early view of the value of the hands-on, unscripted learning she would later champion at Emory. She, too, had been in the minority as a woman majoring in biology at the University of Maryland. As a first-generation college graduate, she also took note of the untapped potential in adult co-workers in her work-study job at the dining hall. She carried those experiences with her through her masters degree and PhD studying evolution and genetics. At Emory, she was ready to test her theory that getting people into research settings would lead to success in science and in life. Her first creation out of the HHMI grant was Hughes Undergraduates Excelling in Sciences (HUES). The weeklong orientation for underrepresented first-year students interested in science and health included sessions on creating a personalized academic action plan and study strategies. Most critically, it also connected the incoming students with faculty and existing students who would continue to mentor and support them throughout the year. The program was so influential that Marsteller successfully sought funding from the National Science Foundation to broaden it into a summer bridge program. That initiative, Getting a Leg Up at Emory (GLUE), allowed invited students from the Atlanta and Oxford campuses to delve into subjects such as chemistry, public health and ethics through case studies. This fall, more than 70 incoming first-year students will participate in STEM Pathways, the continuation of HUES and GLUE after their grant funding ended in 2015. Marsteller retires having helped bring an incredible seven HHMI grants to Emory. Emory has had committed people, she says. Im grateful for that. That support for Marstellers plans also boosts Emorys connection with the community. With a National Science Foundation grant, she broadened a mentorship effort for K-12 students in Atlanta-area schools to dive deep into new ways of teaching and mentoring all students. For about eight years, the program paired graduate students in math and science with middle and high school teachers to create problem-based and case-based learning materials. Gillian Hue aligned herself with Marsteller shortly after arriving at Emory for graduate study in neuroscience. Marsteller helped cement her love for teaching science as much as learning it. Hue went on to teach biology to talented high schoolers in the Pipeline program (now the Emory Pipeline Collaborative, or EPiC in the Emory University School of Medicine) with the Blank Foundation and as an assistant professor at Georgia Gwinnett College for three years. She has been a lecturer in Emorys neuroscience and behavioral biology department since fall 2017. Pat had a deep impact in a lot of ways, but more importantly she created a space where you felt like you could have an impact, Hue says. The number of people who came up through Pats vision, that Emory is not a privileged space for a certain kind of learner, makes me actively think abut how I am teaching so I can capture the people who came up with different tools. Looking to the future With all Marsteller has accomplished across Emorys schools, in the Atlanta community and beyond, its hard for her to decide what comes next. In addition to exploring partnerships with other Atlanta universities to develop research opportunities, she is looking forward to taking on issues like voter suppression. Beyond planning voter registration drives, she also is considering taking up the keyboard. First, I have to learn how to read music, she says. Far easier, it seems, will be finishing up an annotated bibliography for underrepresented people in science. Likewise, she will continue to serve as adviser to the African Research Academies for Women (ARA-W). Kwadwo Kojo Sarpong started the nonprofit in 2014, which provides a growing number of African women in STEM fields with opportunities for hands-on research. That was a year after Marsteller met him as a student at Georgia Perimeter College and convinced him to transfer to Emory. Two years later, President Barack Obama bestowed the Presidents Volunteer Service Award on Sarpong, now studying at Georgetown University School of Medicine. All I wanted to do was take all of the students we were missing and show them how thinking like a science researcher can help you in political science, writing poetry or becoming a lawyer, not just becoming a doctor, Marsteller says. Research is a great way to figure out how you can make a difference in the world, she adds. At Emory, thats always been part of the mission. Thats why what I do works here. Your browser does not support the audio element. Thousands of potential holidaymakers in Ho Chi Minh City have called off their vacations amid the recent rapid development of COVID-19 outbreaks in Vietnam, according to the municipal tourism department. On July 26 and 27 alone, around 20,970 customers canceled tour bookings with Vietravel and over 10,000 made cancelations with Saigontourist two of the citys leading tour operators. Each of other smaller travel companies such as BenThanh Tourist, Fiditour, Hoa Binh, TST, and Dat Viet also reported at least 5,000 customers who scrapped tour bookings over the two days. Vietnam recorded its first community-based COVID-19 infection since April on July 25. Customers mostly dropped tours to the central city of Da Nang, which has become a new epicenter in Vietnam after recording at least 80 COVID-19 cases since Saturday, with 45 new infections added on Friday morning alone. Likewise, tours to Phu Quoc Island off Kien Giang Province and other famous tourist destinations such as Nha Trang City in Khanh Hoa Province, Hanoi and Da Lat City in Lam Dong Province in August and September have also been canceled en masse, according to the travel agencies. Almost all tours to localities in the central [Vietnamese] region have been called off, director of a travel agency in Ho Chi Minh City told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper. Nguyen Huu Tho, chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association, said he is afraid that the situation will damage many tourism companies. [Tourism] firms are facing several difficulties. Employees of some companies have only resumed work for only one month and now they have to continue staying at home. Meanwhile, the budget reserves of many businesses have almost dried out, Tho said. Bui Ta Vu Hoang, director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, said that in the coming time, apart from preventing and controlling COVID-19, the department will continue supporting local tourism businesses to overcome difficulties caused by the pandemic and preparing policies to promote recovery immediately after the crisis ends. We will continue to review and assess the impacts of the pandemic on tourism businesses and propose solutions to the municipal Peoples Committee to remove difficulties and support the firms to maintain their business, Hoang said, adding that the department will focus on tax issues and proposals for support from the State Bank of Vietnam. Vietnams tally of COVID-19 cases stood at 509, with 373 recoveries and one death a 70-year-old man in the central province of Quang Nam as of Friday afternoon. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! By Lee Hyo-sik Thirty-one out of 72 workers arriving from Iraq, Friday, showed possible coronavirus symptoms, according to the government's COVID-10 response headquarters. "Seventy-two people coming from Iraq arrived at Incheon International Airport Friday morning via a chartered flight," a quarantine official at the headquarters said. "Of these, 31 showed a fever or other symptoms of the virus." Quarantine officials in Iraq checked workers' health before they boarded the plane in the Middle East nation. The officials then separated people showing symptoms from those who did not on the plane. The two groups then entered Incheon International Airport through separate arrival gates. On arrival, the 31 underwent coronavirus tests. The remaining passengers will undergo two weeks of self-quarantine. "People who test positive will be quarantined and treated for the virus at treatment centers," the official said. "Those who test negative will be housed at isolated facilities for the next two weeks." On July 24, 293 Koreans were flown from Iraq on two military planes. Seventy-seven of these people tested positive for the coronavirus. WATERLOO An increased police presence was seen in a Waterloo neighbourhood on Friday after Waterloo Regional Police received a medical distress call. Officers were called to Forsyth Drive on Friday morning. When they arrived, police said they found a mother and child in medical distress and began CPR until paramedics arrived and rushed them to hospital. Investigators are still looking into how the pair came to be in medical distress. At 12:30 p.m. police Chief Bryan Larkin tweeted he was proud of officers for their decisive, emergent and life-saving measures this morning while awaiting support from paramedics on Forsyth Drive. Although officers remained on scene for hours after the call, police said there was no risk to public safety. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 19:29:19|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close NUR-SULTAN, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Friday greeted his fellow citizens on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, urging solidarity and discipline amid COVID-19. Tokayev said Eid al-Adha, which calls for peace, mutual respect and unity, has become an integral part of the spiritual life of Kazakhstanis. Noting that unbreakable solidarity is necessary in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic that is affecting humankind worldwide, the president said during such a difficult period, it is very important to support and show responsibility for each other. "I am sure that we will overcome all the challenges as strong-minded people," the president said. This year's Eid al-Adha, or the Festival of Sacrifice, falls on July 31 in Kazakhstan. Due to the pandemic, those who are not allowed to gather in mosques have turned to the internet to take part in Eid ceremonies. Kazakhstan has reported 89,078 confirmed cases so far, with 793 deaths. Enditem To tighten noose around government employees and officials involved in alleged anti-national activities in Jammu and Kashmir, the government on Thursday constituted a six-member committee for scrutinizing and recommending cases under Article 311 (2)(c) of the Constitution of India. Sanction is hereby accorded to the constitution of a Committee for scrutinizing and recommending cases under Article 311(2)(c) of the Constitution of India, read an order issued by the General Administration Department late Thursday. The panel includes chief secretary, administrative secretary, home department, director general of police, administrative secretary, general administration department, additional director general of police, CID and administrative secretary, department of law, justice & PA. Also Read: Pakistan indulging in activities to deflect attention from support to terror: India The procedure shall be followed for invoking the provision of Article 311 (2)(c) of the Constitution of India viz The cases shall be referred by the Administrative Departments or Police Organization to the Home Department. On receipt of such a report, the Home Department shall examine the case and upon satisfaction that the case meets the requirement of Article 311(2) (c), it shall place the case before the Committee, it stated. The recommendations in respect of such cases shall be supported by relevant records which may include a copy of the interrogation report and other collateral evidence to justify dispensing with the holding of an inquiry in the interest of security of the State, it added. The Home Department shall place each case along with the recommendations of ADG, CID, J&K before the Committee and recommendations of the Committee shall be processed by the Administrative Secretary, Home Department for orders of the Competent Authority in terms of Article 311(2)(c) of the Constitution of India, it further stated. Also Read: 7 Pakistani migrants granted Indian citizenship in Rajasthans Jaipur Orders of dismissal shall be issued by the general administration department after the approval of the competent authority, the order added. It is further ordered that all pending cases be decided in the manner/procedure laid down above and all departments shall seek the advice of the home department before deciding the period of suspension of government employee whose dismissal orders are either quashed by the courts or who resume duty after detention besides the home department shall offer advice to the departments. It may be stated here that several government employees have been found involved in the violent protests in Kashmir in the past. However, such employees were never booked by police because the governments of the day used to pardon them with mere warnings. The order issued late Thursday is being seen as an attempt to cleanse the system of such employees and officials against whom substantial evidence was found. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON (The Straits Times) Singapore hopes the United States is able to stabilize its relationship with China because Asia depends on stable ties between the two countries to have a secure and predictable environment to prosper, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday. He made the point in an online interview when American businessman David Rubenstein asked him what he would say to an incoming U.S. president asking for advice on how to strengthen the countrys relationship with Asia. Lee said he would also encourage the next president, be it Republican President Donald Trump, who is running for re-election, or his Democratic rival Joe Biden, to develop a bipartisan consensus on U.S.-Asian relations so that American foreign policy would last beyond the presidents administration. He cited how the previous Obama administrations rebalance towards Asia had been supported by many Asian countries, but the Trump administration had a different take on the issue, wanting Japan and South Korea to pay more for the U.S. troops stationed on their soil. If you can establish a stable, predictable policy with bipartisan consensus, I think it would be a great help to all your friends and partners who want to be able to depend on you and to rely on you, without the risk that one day, the big power may suddenly decide its interests lie elsewhere, he said. Lee also urged Washington to find a way to return to the Trans-Pacific Partnership mega trade pact it had withdrawn from at the start of the Trump administration. Worries about the direction of U.S.-China relations featured heavily in the interview on Asias response to tensions between the two major powers and Covid-19, hosted by the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think-tank. Lee described the U.S.-China tensions as very unfortunate, saying: Actions have been taken which have provoked counter-actions, and the issues have metastasized and spread into all fields of the relationship ... The way things have developed over the last several years, you have very many areas where there is not only contradiction, but also deep distrust, and this is corrosive and it is making a very difficult relationship very dangerous. He noted the relationship historically tends to get tangled with presidential campaigns in election years, but that things settle down after the new administration settles in. But this years election due on Nov. 3 and its aftermath may be different, he said. I am not sure whether it will happen this time because the feel is quite different, and the degree of animus and... bipartisan consensus on treating China as a threat is quite extraordinary. I fear that it may carry on past the election and if it does, I think that bodes ill for the world. Lee set out two outcomes, both of which worry Singapore. The first is that the U.S. will collide with China, and the other is the U.S. will decide it has no stake in the region and leave Asian countries to their own defenses. Singapore and other countries in the region want good relations with China while keeping their deep relations with the U.S. at the same time, he added. Maintaining that balance and for the U.S. to be able to play that role, and tend to your many interests and your many friends and your influence in the region, I think that requires a significant amount of attention from the United States policy establishment, he said. Otherwise, a part of the world which has been crucial to you since the Second World War may become a problem rather than an asset to you. The dialogue was moderated by Rubenstein, who heads the American private equity firm The Carlyle Group and is chairman of the U.S. nonprofit think-tank Council on Foreign Relations. Rubenstein asked if Lee was worried that Chinas tech companies would become so dominant that Singapore would be dependent on them for technology, noting that the U.S. government had expressed concerns that telecommunications equipment from Chinese tech giant Huawei could pose threats to national security. Lee said Singapore did business with Huawei and did not exclude it from its 5G network bidding process, although Huawei was not chosen this time round. Noting that no system was 100% secure, he said: It is a balance of the risks and the purposes to which it is going to be put, and how you can minimize the risks and operate in a way which does not lead you to conclude that you must do everything yourself. He added: If the supply chain bifurcates, it will be painful. It may still happen, but we hope there will be trust between the two sides and it will be possible for cooperation to continue. It does require a significant degree of trust and a willingness to want to work together, rather than to have a one up, one down outcome. And I am not sure that is the way things are going now. This article was originally published by The Straits Times Contact editor Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com) President Donald Trump had insisted that US officers would stay in Portland until the violence got under control. Oregon police prepared Thursday to take over protecting a federal courthouse in Portland thats been a target of violent protests, in a deal between the Democratic governor and the administration of US President Donald Trump that aimed to draw down the federal presence and offered hope for a much-needed detente in a city roiled by two months of unrest. Portland police cleared out a park across from the Mark O Hatfield Federal Courthouse that demonstrators have used as a staging ground, while state troopers headed into downtown Portland in preparation for their first night policing the protests against racial injustice. It is not clear if the move will ease tensions in the liberal city, where people are decrying brutality by law enforcement. Under the deal announced by Governor Kate Brown, federal agents sent by Trump were to begin a phased withdrawal Thursday, with Oregon State Police taking over outside the building. But federal officials have pushed back, saying agents would not leave the city completely but be on standby in case they are needed. Trump insisted in a tweet that US officers would stay in Portland until the violence was under control. Kate Brown, Governor of Oregon, isnt doing her job. She must clear out, and in some cases arrest, the Anarchists & Agitators in Portland. If she cant do it, the Federal Government will do it for her. We will not be leaving until there is safety! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 If she cant do it, the Federal Government will do it for her. We will not be leaving until there is safety! Trump wrote about Brown, saying that she wasnt doing enough to control the anarchists & agitators. In preparation for the handover, state troopers, the local sheriff and Portland police met and agreed not to use tear gas except in cases where theres a danger of serious injury or death, Mayor Ted Wheeler said. Federal agents sent to the city in early July have used it nightly as protesters lob rocks, fireworks and other objects. The federal officers are using CS gas broadly, indiscriminately and nightly, said Wheeler, using another term for the chemical irritant in tear gas. And that is why it is escalating the behaviour were seeing on the streets rather than de-escalating it and thats why this must come to an end. Wheeler, who himself was gassed when he joined protesters outside the courthouse last week, added that tear gas as a tactic really isnt all that effective because protesters have donned gas masks and often return to the action after recovering for a few minutes. The Democrat also apologised to peaceful demonstrators exposed to tear gas used by Portland police before federal officials arrived. It should never have happened. I take personal responsibility for it, and Im sorry, said Wheeler, who is also the police commissioner and earned the nickname Tear Gas Teddy during the earlier protests. Police Chief Chuck Lovell said he believes the new collaboration between local law enforcement agencies will be seen as a victory in many ways. A lot of people came out to express their displeasure of folks from the federal government here and engaging in crowd control with members of our community, Lovell said. So Im hoping that on many levels that people are happy in this development. Portland has seen nightly demonstrations since George Floyd died on May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into the Black mans neck for nearly nine minutes. Demonstrations have at times attracted up to 10,000 people for peaceful marches and rallies around the city. But some protesters have turned to violence that has been increasingly directed at the courthouse and other federal property. The Trump administration sent federal agents to guard the courthouse earlier this month and quell the unrest, but the deployment had the opposite effect, reinvigorating protesters who found a new rallying point in opposing the federal presence. Nightly demonstrations at the courthouse now begin peacefully but end with demonstrators hurling fireworks, flares, rocks and ball bearings at federal agents, who respond with tear gas, stun grenades and pepper spray. Federal law enforcement officers close a street downtown as they move towards protesters during a demonstration against police violence and racial inequality in Portland, Oregon, US [Caitlin Ochs/Reuters] The US government had arrested 94 people as of Wednesday, and 400 people have been arrested by Portland police. An AP analysis of more than 200 arrest records shows that even those accused of breaking the law during the nightly rallies do not fit neatly into Trumps depiction of protesters as anarchists and agitators. The AP found that 95 percent of those arrested by police and federal agents were local. The vast majority have no criminal record in Oregon. Many appear to be college students and their average age was 28, court records show. MONTREAL - A Quebec coroner says the death of a young man who waited 21 minutes for an ambulance could have possibly been avoided had help arrived sooner. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. MONTREAL - A Quebec coroner says the death of a young man who waited 21 minutes for an ambulance could have possibly been avoided had help arrived sooner. Hugo St-Onge, a 24-year-old paramedic, died in December 2017 after developing convulsions at his girlfriend's house in Levis, just south of Quebec City. His girlfriend called 911, but St-Onge had to wait 17 minutes for fire trucks to arrive and 21 minutes for an ambulance, even though the call was classified a top priority. In her report published today, Coroner Julie Langlois said although the death was natural and due to a heart problem, it could have possibly been avoided. She notes all three of Levis' ambulances were occupied when the 911 call was made, forcing paramedics to be summoned from another territory. She recommends regional and provincial health authorities work together to review their emergency response resources to help avoid the problem in the future. In her report, she says it was possible the lack of ambulance service played "an important role in the fate of Mr. St-Onge." "For each minute of delay in starting resuscitation manoeuvres, survival is reduced by 7-to-10 per cent," she wrote. North American standards recommend a delay of no more than eight-to-10 minutes in cases of cardiorespiratory arrest, the corner notes, adding chances of survival are slim after 15 minutes. She says St-Onge had signed a letter criticizing the lack of ambulance resources one month before his death. Langlois also recommends the 911 call centre be better integrated with ambulance dispatch. In the meantime, she says, emergency vehicle drivers should be equipped with GPS-enabled cellphones so they can be tracked more quickly. St-Onge's doctors should also review their actions to ensure they provided him with adequate tests and treatment for his heart problem, she says. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2020. US Appeals Court in Washington, DC Agrees to Rehear Flynn Case Sputnik News 23:16 GMT 30.07.2020 WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated it earlier ruling from last month and agreed to rehear the case in which the court's three-judge panel ordered a lower court to dismiss the criminal case against former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, according to a filing on Thursday. "Upon consideration of the petition for rehearing en blanc it is ordered that the case be reheard by the court sitting en blanc. It is further ordered that the court's order filed June 24, 2020, to be vacated," the Appellate Court said. The Appellate Court scheduled oral arguments on the case 12 August. The decision came in response to lower court Judge Emmet Sullivan's rejection of the earlier order to dismiss the case and Sullivan's request for a new hearing by the all Appellate Court's eleven judges. Flynn pleaded guilty two years ago to making false statements during an interview with the FBI over contacts between Russian officials and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and subsequent transition. Flynn's lawyers claim that the former Army general was unfairly targeted by the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of an alleged conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign - allegations that Muller's investigation failed to confirm. The Flynn defence team said evidence showed the FBI made up a case to prosecute Flynn upon which the Justice Department dropped all charges in the case. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address COHOES Essex County District Attorney Kristy Sprague told reporters Thursday she presumed that a State Police investigation into an off-duty Cohoes police officers use of his service pistol in Elizabethtown was ongoing and that a follow-up would be made in the near future. In a news release, the district attorney said she was unable to comment on the facts of the investigation as I have not read the final report or final statements secured. But according to people with knowledge of the investigation, it was Sprague who in early June informed State Police that not enough evidence existed to prosecute Officer Sean T. McKown for his conduct outside his summer home on June 6. Sprague and her top assistant, Michael Langey, met with State Police to discuss the case on June 10 and, in turn, decided her office would not bring a case against McKown, 46, a 19-year member of the Cohoes police force, for alleged menacing or for allegedly making a false report, the sources said. On Friday, State Police spokesman Beau Duffy said: The State Police conducted an investigation into this incident, including collection of physical evidence, review of security camera video and interviews with 18 potential witnesses. All of the information was presented to the Essex County district attorneys office, and no charges were filed. If new information on this case is brought forward, we will consult with the district attorneys office and re-open the investigation, if warranted. The Times Union first reported late Monday that McKown, who is white, called 911 and told State Police that, following confrontations with Black youths outside his home, a Black male youth displayed a gun and fired at him outside his home on Lincoln Pond Road. McKown said it prompted him to fire his weapon four times while retreating toward a hill. He said he ditched the gun, sources with knowledge of the case said. Troopers who responded to his 911 call said McKown appeared highly intoxicated and was asleep when they arrived. Off-duty Cohoes cop allegedly fired shots after confronting youths McKown later called State Police back and admitted his story was false. He told them the Black male youth had not displayed a gun or fired at him, and said he had fired his department-issued gun into a tree stump, sources said. Troopers said they did not believe McKown's second account was truthful about his decision to ditch the gun and believed he had neatly placed the weapon down. State Police described McKowns various statements as extremely inconsistent. Sprague did not want to bring a case against McKown for falsely reporting an incident because without the witnesses cooperation, the crime could not be proven, sources said. They said Sprague did want to pursue the charge of menacing, related to McKowns use of his weapon against the youths, for lack of corroborating evidence. The group, who had been walking around trying to find cell service when McKown approached them multiple times, did not want to press charges. They said they did not see McKowns weapon or feel threatened, but did feel harassed, sources said. On Monday, State Police told the Times Union the investigation had been closed with no charges filed. That same day, when asked via email by the Times Union for comment, the district attorney said she could not comment on a matter that is not or was not pending in my office. The investigating agency would be the best source for questions on an investigation they conducted and what appears to be information that they relayed to another agency. Sprague also stated, The State Police /police agency investigate the cases and if an arrest is made it comes to my office for prosecution. We are separate entities. I do not have an investigative unit we rely on police agencies. My office was never given a case that resulted in an arrest and being handled by my office. I have no further comment. I hope this helps clear up the confusion. On Wednesday, the Times Union emailed Sprague, asking if she had met with State Police on the matter, been aware of the incident or made a decision not to bring charges against McKown. She did not respond. On Thursday, Sprague issued a news release referencing the Times Union report, saying she believed it was necessary to respond to inquiries. Sprague said she and her top assistant met with State Police on June 10, and that her office made suggestions to State Police for steps they could take to substantiate any charge. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Generally speaking, this suggestion is the same suggestion given in any case, which is to interview potential witnesses, ascertain their information, have them sign a sworn statement and confirm that they would be willing to testify at any future hearings or trials if needed, Sprague said. The officers agreed and I assumed went to follow up and continue the investigation. A short while later, I believe via a phone call, I was informed that the suggestion we made was completed, that the witnesses had no direct knowledge of a weapon and did not want to come back to testify. This was the last conversation that I personally had with the State Police about the investigation. I presumed that the investigation was ongoing and a follow-up would be made in the near future. Sprague said State Police later informed her of the pending Times Union story. I was informed that the investigation had already been closed without arrest, she stated. A final draft of the police report was never forwarded to my office and was never reviewed by any member of my office. To date, I have never read or seen this final New York State Police report. Sprague, a graduate of Albany Law School who has been district attorney since 2009, said all media inquiries should go to State Police. She did not respond to a request for comment Friday. Cohoes Mayor Bill Keeler has said Cohoes police have also investigated McKowns conduct. In 2018, McKown was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence in rural Illinois. The officer pleaded guilty to reckless driving and was suspended without pay; McKown was sentenced to a month of court supervision. The mayor, a former State Police officer for more than 30 years, has said if proven to be true, McKown's actions would constitute behavior unbecoming of a police officer. I make no excuses for Officer McKowns alleged behavior and am far from coddling him," Keeler told the Times Union on Friday. "Regardless of what action is or isnt taken by the State Police or district attorney in Essex County, my fundamental feeling is that, if the allegations are true, he should not be a Cohoes Police Officer. I am taking the only avenue that ensures that outcome." By law, he said, McKown can only be suspended for 30 days. McKown is expected to retire in August. He has declined comment. Keeler has said McKown's retirement is a better option than suspending the officer, which could lead to a lengthy arbitration process. "That arbitration process is also costly and the outcome is anything but certain meaning the arbitrator could well decide the behavior, while unbecoming, did not warrant termination," Keeler said. "Then what? Ive seen it happen elsewhere, and it has previously happened in Cohoes. For the sake of the people of Cohoes, thats a gamble I wont take." Orange County Register editor Eugene Harbrecht was killed in a street racing crash on Thursday afternoon. (Santa Ana Police Department) A longtime editor for the Orange County Register was killed Thursday in what authorities believe was a street racing crash, according to the Register and Santa Ana police. Police responded to the crash at about 11:45 a.m. at Bristol Street and Santa Clara Avenue, where a BMW slammed into Eugene Harbrecht's Ford pickup as he was making a left turn. The driver of the BMW and another vehicle were allegedly street racing on Bristol Street, police said. Witnesses said the pickup burst into flames and they tried helping Harbrecht, who was unconscious, out of the car. "We knew it was intense after the first bang," witness Guillermo Velazquez told KTLA News. "That's when we were able to tell there was a vehicle rolling, because we heard the consistent impact." Harbrecht, 67, was pronounced dead at a hospital and the driver of the BMW was hospitalized. The second driver in the alleged street race fled the scene, but was later found in the neighborhood and taken into custody, Santa Ana police said. According to the Orange County Register, Harbrecht was a Santa Ana resident who had worked for the newspaper since 1984. Most recently, he was the national and international news editor for the greater Southern California News Group. "Gene was one of our best and wisest editors, a friend and colleague whose fierce intelligence and rigorous attention to detail made us all better, Southern California News Group executive editor Frank Pine said in the Orange County Register. He was passionate about journalism and carried out his work in service to our readers. We were lucky to have him among us and will miss him dearly. #Update Major Injury Traffic Collision involving live wires & fire. Stay clear of the area. Streets will remain close until further notice #SAPDTraffic #SAPDPIO #onscene pic.twitter.com/B8Kyc3hHUq SantaAnaPD (@SantaAnaPD) July 30, 2020 City News Service contributed to this report. Morgan County saw 18 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, bringing its total to 200. Of the 18 cases, 13 are related to an outbreak at Jacksonville Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Those cases include a woman in her 60s, a woman in her 70s, a man in his 70s, two women in their 80s, a man in his 80s, four men in their 90s, two women in their 90s and a woman in her 100s, according to a daily briefing by the Morgan County Department of Public Health, Jacksonville/Morgan County Emergency Management, Memorial Health System, Morgan County commissioners and the city of Jacksonville. Of cases related to the facility outbreak, 21 involve residents and one involves a staff member. The other new cases in Morgan County included a boy in his teens, a woman in her 20s, a man in his 30s, a woman in her 50s and a man in his 20s. All are isolated at home. For the third straight day, health officials on Thursday confirmed a COVID-19 outbreak linked to a Jacksonville establishment this time at Walmart Supercenter on West Morton Avenue. Two employees have tested positive for coronavirus disease and health officials are urging anyone who was at the store on July 21, July 23, July 25 or July 26 and is experiencing any symptoms to seek testing immediately. Common symptoms experienced by those testing positive include, but are not limited to, body aches, a cough, diarrhea, fatigue, shortness of breath, a sore throat and a sudden loss of taste or smell. Testing is available in Morgan County regardless of the ability to pay by calling the Morgan County COVID-19 Testing Hotline at 217-479-1817 to schedule an appointment. The call center is available from 9 a.m. to noon Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Buffalo Wild Wings in Jacksonville has closed until 11 a.m. today after two employees tested positive for COVID-19 and three cases this week were linked to West Morgan Depot in Jacksonville. Morgan County Health Department said anyone who visited Buffalo Wild Wings for in-person dining on July 20 or between July 24 and July 26 and are showing any symptoms should seek testing immediately. Anyone who visited the Depot the night of July 18 and is showing symptoms also should seek testing. Cass County added five new cases Thursday. The new cases include two women in their 20s, a man and a woman in their 40s and a man in his 60s. All are isolated at home. Cass County has a total of 195 cases, with 144 recovered. Scott County increased by one case, bringing its total to seven. The new case involves a man in his 30s who is isolated at home. Total cases in other west-central Illinois counties as of Thursday were: 12 in Brown County; 17 in Greene County; 61 in Jersey County; 12 in Pike County; 15 in Schuyler County; and 906 in Sangamon County. The Illinois Department of Public Health on Thursday reported 1,772 new cases and 18 deaths. Statewide, there have been 176,896 cases and 7,478 deaths. STANARDSVILLE A group of residents has partnered with the Greene County Sheriffs Office to locate a property on which to build a firing range. There is no gun range in Greene County, even for the sheriffs office to utilize. This fall will be five years since a different gun range project in Ruckersville was voted down by the county supervisors. There are no hearings scheduled for the new project yet. We used to use Oranges [range] until they said they were going to start charging us, said Greene Sheriff Steve Smith. So, we started using Madisons, but they could also say you cant come here anymore and our only option is to travel all the way to Harrisonburg, where the academy has an indoor range. The last range we had was at the landfill and when they put the park in, they did away with it. Madison range is only for law enforcement to use, but the organizers of the Greene County Range Project say theyre planning to open it to the public and hope it will be located in Greene. There is a parcel they are looking at in Greene, but there are others in Madison, too. At this time, theyre not releasing the locations so surrounding owners will hear from them first when theyve made an offer on a location. As a defense professional, I transferred here with the Navy in 2017, said Walter Key, the real estate agent working with Smith to find the right property. The first words out of my mouth after I bought my house were, wheres the range? I live in Stanardsville and I drive to Charlottesville to shoot; its silly. Ive been pondering the idea of a range for years when Sheriff Smith posted on social media they needed a range, I had no idea they did not have their own range. Thats when I said, tell me what you need, were going to make it happen. Key is a National Rifle Association-certified instructor and teaches at the Rivanna Rifle and Pistol Club off Old Lynchburg Road, which is south of the city of Charlottesville in Albemarle County. I drive 50 minutes to teach there, Key said. I have experience running ranges in the military and Ive been a [range safety officer]. Im also a real estate investor and a licensed Realtor, so I have access to everything thats on the market. Key said that as the county approved the defense production zoning recently to attract defense professional jobs, supervisors should also know most defense professionals shoot. Even the ones that dont have to shoot like to shoot, but a lot of them need to shoot, Key said. We deploy our intelligence guys to Iraq, Afghanistan, to Somalia, and they need to carry guns when they go there. Chuck Covington, first vice chairman of the Greene County Republican Committee, said that where he lives, he can hear neighbors shooting on their property. If we wanted to, we could buy this piece of property and not charge anybody to come out there and shoot and [the county] couldnt do anything, Smith said. We could have people shooting every day all day long and if we dont collect a fee, thats all by-right. Covington said hed like to see a range in Greene. When we had that Visitor Center [vote] going on, everybody was saying anything but that and rattling off things, Covington said. The one thing they all had in common was they wanted something for the community to do, and this is something that the community can get behind. I taught my kids how to shoot at a young age and now dads can do the same. Scouts can be involved. Aside from the sheriffs protection, its a huge community thing. Where else can the community come together in Greene? Steve Kruskamp, chairman of the Greene County Republican Committee, said its the community aspect of the project that hes excited about. The part that I miss from being down in Albemarle and being a member of the Rivanna [club] is how many events we had and how many people I got to meet, Kruskamp said. When I first got here 11 years ago, I didnt know anybody and how I met people was through the range. We had people who were national champions in shooting offering free instruction there just to help our community members, so Im excited over that prospect. Smith said he appreciates everything that Key is doing, and hopes to have a finished product sooner rather than later. My ultimate goal is the sheriffs office. Ive got to have something for this office, Smith said. If you call for help and you want law enforcement in this county to help, do you want us to be as proficient with those weapons as we can be? Or do you only want us to shoot once a year? Key said hes been asked why hes hosting a GoFundMe for a for-profit project. I dont intend to make a million dollars on the range. My goal is to build a range that benefits our county, he said. There will be fees because there are hundreds of thousands of dollars in investment and upkeep and to mitigate lead. Supervisors heard about the process for such requests at their June 23 meeting. We do know that there is a private group working with the sheriff to see potential sites for a gun range and the agenda calls this an update on gun range regulations, but if you notice the title on the screen, its about the special-use permit approval process, said Jim Frydl, Greenes planning director and zoning administrator. Gun ranges, much like a concert hall, are considered special uses and they are reviewed under our ordinance with some careful criteria. Special uses are activities that can impact things such as noise, traffic, safety or other items beyond whats by-right under the current zoning of a parcel. The special-use permit process allows the board and the public to review a particular parcel and then allows the board to approve that use on a specific parcel, Frydl said. We also have the ability to place conditions or limitations on those uses. To follow the process, search #greenecountyrangeproject on social media or the fundraising page at gofundme.com/f/greene-county-range-project. Questions may be emailed to greenecounty rangeproject@gmail.com. Fans of Vikings were recently treated to a panel of epic proportions. On Friday, July 24, 2020, many of the big names in the series over the years took part in an at-home panel for San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020. Travis Fimmel, who played Ragnar Lothbrok, participated as well and provided some insight into his character. Who participated in the Comic-Con@Home 2020 panel? Travis Fimmel | Vincent Sandoval/Getty Images A number of familiar faces joined Fimmel for the panel, including Michael Hirst, the creator of the hit series. Fimmel was also among friends that include Katheryn Winnick, who played Lagertha, Alexander Ludwig, who plays Bjorn Ironside, Clive Standen, who plays Rollo, and Jordan Patrick Smith, who plays Ubbe. Rollo makes a choice that changes his and Ragnars lives forever RELATED: Vikings: Fans Weigh in on Ragnar Lothbroks Transformation Over Time Ragnar goes through a lot throughout the series, but one moment in particular signals the end of his drive, according to Fimmel. In the first raid on Paris, which is successful, Ragnar is wounded and unable to make the decision on who will stay in the winter camp near Paris, since the Vikings intend to raid there again. His ambitious brother, Rollo (Standen) offers to stay, and he in turn makes a deal with the Emperor to fight for Paris against the Vikings. He has everyone in the Viking camp killed, and he carves a new life out for himself as the husband of the Emperors daughter, Princess Gisla (Morgane Polanski). When Ragnar recovers and its finally time to return to Paris, Ragnar faces a mighty obstacle in his brother. They meet in their boats, and Ragnar and Rollo have an epic fight that can stand the test of time. Its the final defeat for Ragnar, who seems to lose his drive after this. Neither of them kills the other, and they both suffer a beating during the altercation. Ragnar soon learns he wont be able to enter the gates of Paris again. Travis Fimmel reveals the beginning of the end for Ragnar Lothbroks drive When Fimmel is asked about the moment Ragnar fights with his brother to get access to Paris, he explains that it changes everything for Ragnar. Not long after his defeat in Paris, he returns to Kattegat, just to up and leave for many years. After all his successes, nothing can compare to this failure at the hands of his own brother. I think for the character, I think even til that very moment, he was hoping that [Rollo] wouldnt fight him back, Fimmel tells the moderator. That maybe he had a glimmer of hope that his brother wouldnt betray him and as soon as that happens, I think it just devastated his world and it was really the beginning of the end for his drive. I think he really regretted his life Wishing hed never gone against Earl Haraldson or any of that stuff. Its a devastating moment, and it signals the beginning of the end for Ragnar Lothbrok. His brother betrays him for the final time, and it breaks him completely. He is never the same man after this defeat, and its something hell carry with him for the rest of his life. Although Ragnar does return years later just to die, the consequences of his choice to leave Kattegat and his family leave a stain on his legacy forever. Kanu Sarda By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Thursday told the Supreme Court that all universities and educational institutions are obligated to conduct final year examinations by September end as per its July 6 guidelines. The UGC filed a 50-page affidavit on a batch of petitions challenging its July 6 directive. It is submitted that the UGC has issued such guidelines to protect the academic future of students across the country which will be irreparably damaged if their final year/terminal examinations are not held, while also keeping in mind their health and safety, the affidavit stated, adding that the final year/terminal semester examinations are important because the learning process is a dynamic interaction where the only way to figure out what students know is to seek evidence of their knowledge and to evaluate it. The UGC contended that the July 6 guidelines adequately account for the evolving situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, as they provide sufficient time till the end of September to conduct the exams and give sufficient flexibility to institutions to conduct exams through online, offline or blended route. It also added that those students who are unable to appear this year would be given a chance at a later date. The affidavit also criticised certain state governments (Maharashtra and Delhi) for cancelling the final year exams and deciding to graduate students and confer degrees without appearing for the exams. Subscriber content preview Photo by Brian Miller [enlarge] The triangular block has five buildings on it, including the Masins Furniture Building. Essentially vacant on the east ground level, the block has become a de facto campground for the homeless. During 2018 and 2019, Alexandria Real Estate Equities paid about $33.7 million to assemble a triangular block in Pioneer Square. It comprises five buildings with multiple addresses. . . . 31.07.2020 LISTEN Former President John Dramanin Mahama has wished the Muslim community well as it celebrates the Eid-Ul-Adha today. May Allah continue to pour his blessings upon our land and prosper every Ghanaian, he said in a tweet. The Muslim Community in Ghana is expected to join their colleagues across the world to celebrate the Eid-Ul-Adha albeit with major changes. The usual national congregational prayers led by the National Chief Imam have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Eid-Ul-Adha is an annual celebration of sacrifice meant to commemorate the Quran's version of Allah's revelation to Abraham instructing him to sacrifice his son Ishmael. In light of this, Many Muslims are expected to make merry as they slaughter animals in fulfilment of the festival of Sacrifice. But at a certain point, as the virus threatened to spread uncontrollably, Italian officials decided to put lives ahead of the economy. The health of the Italian people comes and will always come first, Mr. Conte said at the time. Italian officials now hope that the worst of the cure came in one large dose the painful lockdown and that the country is now safe to resume normal life, albeit with limits. They argue that the only way to start up the economy is to keep tamping down the virus, even now. The strategy of closing down completely invited criticism that the governments excessive caution was paralyzing the economy. But it may prove to be more advantageous than trying to reopen the economy while the virus still rages, as is happening in countries like the United States, Brazil and Mexico. That does not mean that calls for continued vigilance, as elsewhere in the world, have been immune to mockery, resistance and exasperation. In that, Italy is no different. Masks often are missing or lowered in trains or buses, where they are mandatory. Young people are going out and doing the things young people do and risk in that way spreading the virus to more susceptible parts of the population. Adults started gathering at the beach and for birthday barbecues. There is still no clear plan for a return to school in September. There is also a burgeoning, and politically motivated, anti-mask contingent led by nationalist Matteo Salvini, who on July 27 declared that replacing handshakes and hugs with elbow bumps was the end of the human species. The rest of the crew members on the Roald Amundsen have been quarantined on the ship. Four crew members on a Norwegian cruise vessel were diagnosed with COVID-19 after it arrived at the Arctic port of Tromsoe on Friday, said the University Hospital of North Norway, where they are being treated. All 160 crew members on the Roald Amundsen have been quarantined on the ship, while the 177 passengers all of whom have already disembarked are being contacted by telephone and are being told to self-isolate, operator Hurtigruten said. By the time we were notified, the passengers had left the ship, Tromsoe municipality chief doctor Kathrine Kristoffersen told a news conference. All passengers will, for the time being, be asked to quarantine. The four patients were all foreign citizens, the hospital said, while declining to elaborate on their state of health or nationality. During the cruise, passengers were frequently instructed to socially distance in order to reduce the risk of disease, said one passenger, Line Miriam Haugan, a former junior minister at Norways Ministry of Health. The crew observed us washing our hands and also took our temperatures, Haugan told the Reuters news agency. When I learned of the outbreak, I immediately went for a test and will quarantine at least until I get the result, she added. The vessel was due to head to Spitzbergen on Friday afternoon but this trip has now been cancelled. The ships operator and owner, Hurtigruten, which in March suspended most operations due to the pandemic, announced on July 7 it would gradually return all but two of its 16 vessels to service by the end of September, albeit with reduced capacity. The Roald Amundsen had been on a week-long journey from Tromsoe to the Svalbard archipelago, half-way between Europe and the North Pole, and is scheduled to sail around the British Isles in September, docking at ports in England and Scotland. In the early phase of the pandemic, thousands of passengers were stranded on cruise vessels in the waters of Asia, the United States and elsewhere, leading operators to cancel journeys and triggering mass layoffs by the industry. Because when youre tired of talking, just let them talk to your Moutza. Most of you know how this works. My Greek ancestors who invented everything from theater to democracy and probably Windex too also invented the finest hand signal of contempt in the history of humankind. Readers find me on social media, nominate worthy idiots and the Golden Moutza of the month is awarded. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 17:24:32|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close TEHRAN, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday strongly condemned U.S. sanctions on the Iranian nation as "a grave crime." "The sanctions the Americans have exerted against the Iranian nation are for sure a grave crime," Khamenei said in a televised speech on the occasion of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha. "Although the sanctions seem to be against the (Islamic) establishment, it is indeed against the entire nation," he noted. In the short term, their pressure aims to exhaust and disturb the Iranian nation and to make the nation stand against the Islamic establishment, he said. Their next major goal is to prevent Iran's development through sanctions, the Iranian top leader added. The United States seeks to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear industry, reduce its defensive capability and give up its regional influence, Khamenei concluded. Enditem A convicted terrorist and follower of 'Blind Sheikh' Omar Abdel-Rahman has been released from jail after serving his 30-year sentence. Victor Alvarez, 54, was jailed in 1996 for his part in a plot to blow up the UN headquarters, New York FBI office, as well as bridges and tunnels in the city. But prosecutors, who described Alvarez as 'borderline retarded' at his trial, fear he will become violent again after he vowed to stop taking his psychiatric medication. Victor Alvarez, a follower of 'Blind Sheikh' Omar Abdel-Rahman (left and right) was jailed in 1996 for his part in a plot to bomb New York, and has been released from jail this week Alvarez insisted on attending his parole hearing in-person on Thursday, specifically because he wanted to tell the judge of his intention to refuse treatment. 'I want to be free from mental health treatment. I want to be free now,' he told his attorney at the hearing, according to the New York Post. In 1993, Alvarez was one of nine followers of Abdel-Rahman - an associate of the group who bombed the World Trade Center the same year - to attack various high-profile targets around the city. He was convicted of supplying a rifle for the group, of stealing cars to carry explosives, and of mixing together diesel and fertilizer into a home-made bomb. The explosives were uncovered during a raid on the group's Queens bomb factory. After a nine-month trial, the group were convicted of seditious conspiracy and given lengthy jail terms. Abdel-Rahman, who was given a life term, died in jail in 2017. During his sentencing, Alvarez's lawyer said his mental illnesses meant he was 'predisposed to join anything that made him feel important'. The plan involved attacks on the UN headquarters, as well as bridges and tunnels around Manhattan. Officials fear Alvarez will reoffend after vowing to come off his meds While in jail, Alvarez quickly became a problem prisoner receiving a total of 155 sanctions for violent and abusive behavior. The violations included 'assaulting, spitting on, and threatening officers, possessing a weapon, flooding his cell, and keeping containers of urine and rotten milk.' His behavior improved after he was forcibly medicated in 2013, leading to fears that he will lapse back into offending if he stops taking the medicine. Now on supervised release, Alvarez must wear an ankle monitor, participate in a 'deradicalization program', avoid terrorist propaganda and stay in frequent communication with a probation officer. While there is no order currently in place to force Alvarez to continue taking his medication, Judge Vernon Broderick said he is expected to keep up treatment. If he does not, Broderick warned, the courts will begin the lengthy legal process of obtaining an order to forcibly medicate him. Alvarez must live in the shelter during his first year of freedom, the court ruled. If Alvarez is kicked out of the shelter, then he will be moved into a halfway house, and only allowed out on ground approved by his probation officer. New York will resume prison visitations in early August, ending a 20-week span that kept families from visiting inmates in an effort to combat the coronavirus. Visitations will resume Wednesday, Aug. 5 in maximum security prisons, according to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. Visits at all other facilities will resume Saturday, Aug. 8. As of Wednesday, the prison system confirmed 604 coronavirus cases among inmates. Seventeen inmates have died. The department has issued statewide guidance, which includes wearing masks, limits hugs and keeps childrens areas closed. Additionally, each prison may issue more specific guidance as soon as Monday. The guidelines could change -- or visitations could be suspended again -- if Covid-19 transmissions rise. For now, here are the states guidelines: Visiting rooms and areas These areas will operate at half capacity, and prisons will use outdoor visiting areas, when possible. All movement in the visiting area will be controlled by staff to ensure social distancing. At least one worker will be assigned to disinfect each table after each visit. That worker will also disinfect the vending and other areas. The childrens area will be off-limits during the initial reopening time frame. This will be evaluated after 30 days. Masks Visitors, incarcerated people and staff must all wear masks, during processing and during the visit. People may remove masks temporarily if eating. Masks must be plain: no pictures, writings or sayings on them. If the visitor doesnt bring a mask, the visit may be denied. Screenings Visitors must answer questions and have their temperature checked before the visit. Hugs Visitors and incarcerated people may engage in a short embrace at the beginning and ending of each visit. Frequency of visits The state will allow each inmate two weekend visits a month. Weekday visiting at maximum security facilities will remain in place. Number of visitors The state will allow up to three adult visitors at one time, though individual prisons may set that number lower. Theres a limit of one child younger than 5; that child must sit on an adults lap. Travel quarantine Anyone who has come to New York from a state that qualifies for the 14-day quarantine will be denied a visit if the quarantine has not been completed. Inmates in quarantine Any incarcerated person who is in quarantine or isolation because of suspected exposure cannot have a visit until the quarantine is passed or they are recovered. Family Reunion Program This remains closed. Circumstances will be periodically reevaluated, with the goal of gradually reopening. MORE ON CORONAVIRUS Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources How is your school reopening? See Central New York school district coronavirus plans Coronavirus under control in CNY, but vacation travel, college reopenings pose a threat Theyve waited months. Now 3 popular CNY diners face challenges in reopening amid pandemic Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com Got a story idea or news tip youd like to share? Please contact me through email, Twitter, Facebook or at 315-470-2274. Eric Zurrin became the CEO of Shanta Gold Limited (LON:SHG) in 2017, and we think it's a good time to look at the executive's compensation against the backdrop of overall company performance. This analysis will also evaluate the appropriateness of CEO compensation when taking into account the earnings and shareholder returns of the company. Check out our latest analysis for Shanta Gold How Does Total Compensation For Eric Zurrin Compare With Other Companies In The Industry? Our data indicates that Shanta Gold Limited has a market capitalization of UK121m, and total annual CEO compensation was reported as US$1.0m for the year to December 2019. That's a notable increase of 35% on last year. While this analysis focuses on total compensation, it's worth acknowledging that the salary portion is lower, valued at US$384k. On comparing similar companies from the same industry with market caps ranging from UK77m to UK307m, we found that the median CEO total compensation was US$817k. From this we gather that Eric Zurrin is paid around the median for CEOs in the industry. Component 2019 2018 Proportion (2019) Salary US$384k US$290k 37% Other US$653k US$478k 63% Total Compensation US$1.0m US$768k 100% Talking in terms of the industry, salary represented approximately 64% of total compensation out of all the companies we analyzed, while other remuneration made up 36% of the pie. Shanta Gold sets aside a smaller share of compensation for salary, in comparison to the overall industry. It's important to note that a slant towards non-salary compensation suggests that total pay is tied to the company's performance. A Look at Shanta Gold Limited's Growth Numbers Shanta Gold Limited has seen its earnings per share (EPS) increase by 14% a year over the past three years. Its revenue is up 8.7% over the last year. Shareholders would be glad to know that the company has improved itself over the last few years. It's good to see a bit of revenue growth, as this suggests the business is able to grow sustainably. Looking ahead, you might want to check this free visual report on analyst forecasts for the company's future earnings.. Story continues Has Shanta Gold Limited Been A Good Investment? Most shareholders would probably be pleased with Shanta Gold Limited for providing a total return of 310% over three years. As a result, some may believe the CEO should be paid more than is normal for companies of similar size. To Conclude... As we touched on above, Shanta Gold Limited is currently paying a compensation that's close to the median pay for CEOs of companies belonging to the same industry and with similar market capitalizations. Few would be critical of the leadership, since returns have been juicy and earnings are moving in the right direction. So one could argue that CEO compensation is quite modest, if you consider company performance! Also, such solid returns might lead to shareholders warming to the idea of a bump in pay. While CEO pay is an important factor to be aware of, there are other areas that investors should be mindful of as well. We did our research and spotted 1 warning sign for Shanta Gold that investors should look into moving forward. Arguably, business quality is much more important than CEO compensation levels. So check out this free list of interesting companies that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. 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. Immune functions traded in for reproductive success Deep-sea anglerfishes employ an incredible reproductive strategy. Tiny dwarfed males become permanently attached to relatively gigantic females, fuse their tissues and then establish a common blood circulation. In this way, the male becomes entirely dependent on the female for nutrient supply, like a developing fetus in the womb of her mother or a donor organ in a transplant patient. In anglerfishes, this unusual phenomenon is referred to as sexual parasitism and contributes to the reproductive success for these animals living in the vast space of the deep sea, where females and males otherwise rarely meet. The permanent attachment of males to females represents a form of anatomical joining, which is otherwise unknown in nature except for the rare occurrence in genetically identical twins. The immune system represents an estraordinary obstacle here. It attacks foreign tissue as it would destroy cells infected by pathogens. Just witness the difficulties surrounding organ transplantation in humans, which requires the careful cross-matching of donor and recipient tissue characters, together with immunosuppressive drugs, to ensure the long-term survival of the organ graft. But how is it possible then that, in case of anglerfishes, that individuals of the same species accept each other so readily when tissue-rejection is the usual and expected result of any such union? The phenomenon of sexual parasitism has posed an enigma that has existed for 100 years, ever since the first attached couple was discovered by an Icelandic fisheries biologist in 1920. Now, scientists from Germany and the USA have solved this century-old conundrum and report their findings in the scientific journal Science. Key functions of the immune system eliminated A few years ago, Thomas Boehm, a medical doctor and immunologist working at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Germany, and Theodore W. Pietsch, an ichthyologist and a internationally renowned expert on anglerfishes working at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, set out to study the genomes of different anglerfish species. They began by looking at the structure of major histocompatibility (MHC) antigens. These molecules are found at the surface of the body's cells and signal alarm to the immune system, when the cells are infected by a virus or a bacterium. To make sure that all pathogens are efficiently recognized, the MHC molecules are extremely variable, so much so that it is hard to find identical or near-identical forms in any two individuals of a species. This feature is at the root of the tissue-matching problem that plagues human organ and bone marrow transplantation. Interestingly, the researchers found that anglerfishes that utilize permanent attachment are largely depauperate in genes that encode these MHC molecules, as if they had done away with immune recognition in favor of tissue fusion. "Apart from this unusual constellation of MHC genes, we discovered that the function of killer T cells, which normally actively eliminate infected cells or attack foreign tissues during the organ rejection process, was also severely blunted if not lost entirely. These findings hinted at the possibility that the immune system of anglerfishes was very unusual among the tens of thousands of vertebrate species", says Jeremy Swann from the MPI of Immunobiology and Epigenetics and first author of the study. Survival without acquired immune facilities After these unexpected discoveries, the scientists suspected that the re-organization of the immune system of anglerfishes might be even more extensive than expected. And indeed, further research indicated that antibodies, which are the second powerful weapon in the arsenal of immune defence are also missing in some of the anglerfish species. "For humans, the combined loss of important immune facilities observed in anglerfishes would result in fatal immunodeficiency", says Thomas Boehm, Director at the MPI of Immunobiology and Epigenetics and lead scientist of the project. However, anglerfishes are obviously able to survive without essential adaptive immune functions. Thus, the researchers concluded that the animals use much improved innate facilities to defend themselves against infections, a most unexpected solution to a problem that is faced by all living things. Indeed, until now it was thought that a partnership of acquired and innate immunity, once it was formed in evolution, cannot be disentangled with severe consequences. Immune system affects the reproductive strategy The study thus shows that despite several hundred million years of co-evolutionary partnership of innate and adaptive functions, vertebrates can survive without the adaptive immune facilities previously considered to be irreplaceable. We assume that as yet unknown evolutionary forces first drive changes in the immune system, which are then exploited for the evolution of sexual parasitism", says Thomas Boehm. Interestingly, the scientists believe that, among their collection of fishes, they have even captured one species en route to developing sexual parasitism. "We find it remarkable that the unusual mode of reproduction was invented several times independently in this group of fishes", says Ted Pietsch from the University of Washington. Although the details of the improved innate immune facilities in anglerfishes remain to be discovered, the results of this study point at potential strategies that enhance innate immune facilities in human patients who suffer the consequences of inborn or acquired impairment of immune facilities. Hence, the scientific journey that began with an obscure observation on board a fishing vessel out in the mid-Atlantic unexpectedly opens up new avenues for the treatment of immune disorders in humans. ### This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled the vast majority of confidential cabinet documents in two provinces should remain secret, in cases dealing with how judges are paid. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Supreme Court of Canada is shown in Ottawa on Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled the vast majority of confidential cabinet documents in two provinces that justified giving smaller than recommended salary increases to judges should remain secret. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled the vast majority of confidential cabinet documents in two provinces should remain secret, in cases dealing with how judges are paid. However, the ruling does order parts of a cabinet document in Nova Scotia to be disclosed. The decision deals with two separate cases in Nova Scotia and British Columbia where lower courts had ordered the production of cabinet documents that are traditionally kept highly confidential. In both provinces, independent commissions set up to review salaries for provincial court judges in 2016 had proposed significant pay hikes, but the cabinets in both provinces rejected those recommendations and decided on smaller pay increases. In B.C., the judicial compensation commission recommended an 8.2 per cent salary increase for 2017-18 and 1.5 per cent increases for each of the next two years. The B.C. government disagreed with the first raise, going instead with a 3.8 per cent increase for 2017-18, but agreed with the subsequent two raises. In Nova Scotia, that province's independent commission recommended a 5.5 per cent pay hike with an additional 1.2 per cent increase the following year and 2.2 per cent more the year after. Nova Scotia responded by freezing judges salaries for two years and only allowing a one per cent increase in 2019-20, saying at the time it was to bring judges' salaries in line with what provincial civil servants were receiving at the time. The judges' associations in both provinces applied for judicial reviews and wanted to see cabinet submissions that justified altering the recommended salary hikes. In its unanimous decision Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada quashed the B.C. Court of Appeal's decision ordering the B.C. government to produce the cabinet documents. Supreme Court Justice Andromache Karakatsanis wrote that the judicial commission failed to establish there any reason to believe the cabinet documents in that province may contain evidence to show the government failed to meet a three-part test that must be applied in decisions related to judges' salaries. However, in the Nova Scotia case, Canada's top court ruled most of the cabinet submission should remain confidential, except two components: a paragraph in one document labelled "government-wide implications" and an appendix to the report called the "communications plan." The Nova Scotia case differed from the B.C. case because of public statements made by government at the time comparing the salaries of judges to those of civil servants. Also, the Nova Scotia salary freeze that was eventually imposed was exactly what the government had proposed in its submissions to the independent commission before it had formulated its recommendations. These circumstances called into question whether the Nova Scotia government properly showed respect for the commission's process, which is a requirement under the law, the ruling states. Karakatsanis writes that excluding the two portions of the Nova Scotia cabinet documents from being disclosed would undermine the lower courts' ability to determine whether the three-part test for judges' salaries was appropriately applied by the Nova Scotia cabinet. The ruling is not expected to be widely precedent-setting when it comes to the protection of cabinet confidentiality for provincial governments, as the decisions are based on the specific facts and circumstances of these particular cases involving judicial remuneration. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2020. The number of traffic fatalities in Pennsylvania and across the nation dropped this year as the COVID-19 pandemic forced many motorists home but that doesnt necessarily mean roads were any safer. A National Safety Council report shows that when stay-at-home orders forced motorists off the road in many states, including Pennsylvania, the number of fatal crashes dropped. But the number of miles people were traveling dropped by more. Nationally, in May the number of vehicle deaths dropped by 8 percent. But the rate of death -- the number of deaths per 100 million miles driven -- increased about 25 percent, to 1.47, according to the report. Motor vehicle deaths were down in the first five months of 2020, totaling 13,890 deaths compared to 14,780 deaths during the same period last year. But the rate of motor vehicle miles deaths per miles driven is on the rise, jumping 23.5% in May 2020 compared to May 2019, according to the report. Its the third month this year the fatality rate per miles driven has increased, the report found. Put another way, there was one death for every 84 million miles driven in May 2019, but one death for every 68 million miles driven in May 2020, according to Ken Kolosh, the manager of statistics for the NSC. Traffic experts interviewed by the website Route Fifty speculated that the sparse traffic on roads encouraged speeding, and the report showed speeding citations for drivers traveling at more than 100 mph doubled in Ohio. In New York City, automated speed cameras issued twice as many tickets in March as they did in February, according to the New York Times. Pennsylvania was among nine states where traffic fatalities decreased significantly, according to the National Safety Council. At the top of that list were Tennessee and Wyoming, with 58 and 52 percent drops in fatalities, respectively. Rounding out the list was Mississippi (21%), Maryland (18%), Michigan (13%), South Carolina (13%), Arizona (10%) and Florida (4%). Speeding citations in Pennsylvania also were slashed in March, April and May of this year compared with the same period in 2019, Ryan Tarkowski, state police spokesman. But as the state has reopened for business, those numbers are returning to normal levels, say some central Pennsylvania police departments. The decrease during the coronavirus shutdown was truly staggering, however. There were 3,912 speeding citations issued across Pennsylvania this past May, compared with more than 25,000 in May 2019, according to state police. (The numbers don't include Philadelphia, since the city has its own data collection system.) Additional data shows a clear impact by the pandemic on traffic enforcement. Total citations were up this past January and February compared with the same period in 2019, but those months were followed by four months in which traffic citations dropped precipitously. For example, Tarkowski said the baseline for the number of car crashes in one week across Pennsylvania was 1,235 before the pandemic. Between March 14 and June 25, the average number of crashes per week was 475. That same trend is seen in other categories, such as DUI arrests, and property crimes. Tarkowski cited the statewide stay-home-order issued by Gov. Tom Wolf as the biggest factor for the declines. As traffic levels begin to climb again, (remember) the importance of slowing down, buckling up, and never driving while impaired or distracted, Tarkowski said. Troopers and our local law enforcement partners are essential personnel working throughout the pandemic and beyond to encourage safe driving behavior and keep Pennsylvanias roads safe. But now that the state has reopened its bars and restaurants to limited capacity after all 67 counties enter the green phase, some municipalities are seeing numbers begin to normalize. Sgt. Dave Miller of the Carlisle Police Department said car crashes are back up to pre-pandemic levels along with citations. DUIs are still down, however, which Miller attributed to the difficulty that remains in drinking alcohol outside of the home. And he said Carlisle officers remain selective with their traffic enforcement out of an abundance of caution for themselves and the community. Susquehanna Township is reporting similar increases in road incidents in recent weeks. During the red and yellow phase of the pandemic, we experienced an appreciable reduction in calls and we did reduce our traffic enforcement posture, said Robert Martin, the chief of the Susquehanna Township Police. Since transitioning to the green phase, our calls have returned to normal numbers, and we are issuing a large amount of written warnings through our traffic safety efforts as a means of increasing our Community Policing and Education outreach. Jana Tidwell, the manager of public and government affairs for AAAs mid-Atlantic division, said she is urging motorists to obey the rules of the road and to allow time to return to their normal driving habits. She said in a news release that just like anything else, it will take time to regain confidence behind the wheel after having not engaged in an activity for potentially several months. AAAs tips to avoid distracted driving include putting your phone away, never driving after consuming alcohol, and pulling over to figure out directions or to use technological devices. Former Vice President Joe Biden seems to have announced Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. There was an inquisitive photographer's shot of his notes suggesting just that. But there's also some question about whether she's really qualified. The media has already seeded the ground with quotes from some of the dumbest lawyers in America to state she is a natural born citizen under Article II of the U.S. Constitution, and is therefore, eligible to be vice president or president. Is that really true? Kamala Harris mother was Shyamala Gopalan, born in British India (present-day Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu). Ms. Gopalan never became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Donald Harris, Senator Harris father, is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Jamaica. There are no provisions in the U.S. Constitution that qualifies a child born of a foreign national as a natural-born citizen and Senator Harris is not eligible to hold the office of the vice president. It's possible the Trump campaign will not allow this nomination to go forward without a court challenge. There will be a full court press by the media to claim Senator Harris is eligible to the office of the vice president. The media and the Democrats will call President Trump every name in the book to get him to back off his call for legal action. The media did a bang-up job keeping Barack Obama, a child born of a foreign national, out of the courts and into the White House. The Democrat Party believes they can do it again. Lets review the primaries of the 2008 election. Hillary Clinton and John McCain couldnt afford politically to take Obama with his questionable eligibility to court. A court win would have been the classic pyrrhic victory. Whichever candidate had standing at the time of the lawsuit would have won the argument (the law and the facts were not on Obamas side) and disqualified Obama to be eligible to be president, but they would have lost the election (war). A U.S. Supreme Court decision (either Clinton vs Obama, or McCain vs Obama) would have been viewed as a racist attack on a black man and the African-American community would have responded by throwing their support to the other candidate (an Obama replacement) or not voting at all. Virtually everything written on the topic of natural born citizen since the Founding documents were drafted and signed, falls into one of three categories: (1) As Alexander Hamilton explained, the natural born citizen requirement was expressly placed into the Constitution to ward off the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union. Some doubters questioned the supremacy of U.S. law over the laws of other nations, that being born abroad meant that person was a citizen or subject of that country. However, the Naturalization Act of 1790 reaffirmed a person born abroad of American citizens is also a natural born citizen. (2) The vast preponderance of law review articles focused on the natural born citizen requirement. Authors challenged the Framers logic, decision, and promulgation (and subsequent Naturalization Laws) that foreign-born children of American citizens are inherently natural-born citizens. One paper which is referenced extensively by other law school students and researchers has been Who Can Be President of the United States: the Unresolved Enigma. Gordons article was written at a time when Governor George Romney ran for president. George Romney was born to American citizens in a Mormon colony in Colonia Dublan in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. Gordon argued that Romney should not be considered eligible to run for president. He tried to revive the legal concept of jus soli (Latin: right of the soil), commonly referred to as birthright citizenship, as the right of a person born in the territory of a state to nationality or citizenship. Gordon and other legal scholars rejected Romneys claim of Constitutional presidential eligibility as a natural born citizen based on jus sanguinis ( Latin : right of blood), the principle of nationality law by which citizenship is not determined by place of birth but by having one or both parents who are citizens of the state. (3) The remaining percentage of law review articles which focused on the question of natural born citizen took a different tack entirely. They challenged the Framers logic, that the natural born citizen clause was discriminatory, that it embodied striking unfairness and dangerous ambiguity. In What Is the Constitutions Worst Provision? Robert C. Post argued that the Clause is highly objectionable because it unmistakably and clearly prohibits naturalized citizens from becoming president. And in Unnatural Born Citizens and Acting Presidents, James C. Ho argued that No matter who wins the White House this November [2000], I and millions of other Americans like me once again will have suffered a certain measure of exclusion from the selection process. We have the right to vote, to be sure. But we cannot serve as president. Article after article, it is hard to come to any other conclusion what these legal scholars had in mind and it wasnt that the U.S. Constitution was ambiguous, the favorite trope of the left, but that Democrat lawyers tried to disqualify Republican presidential candidates (Governor Romney wasnt the only one) on the basis that they were born abroad, that they were not native-born and thus should not have been qualified as a natural born citizen. In every article the authors argued the natural born citizen clause should mean something other than a person born of American citizens; that potential presidential candidates should either be born in the United States (native born) or not have been born in the United States (a naturalized citizen). Alexander Hamilton asserted that a persons birthplace is immaterial. If they are born to American parents, then they can be born abroad, on the sea, in the air, and maybe one day, in space. When it pleased them, leftist lawyers wished to exclude candidates they did not like on the basis of where they were born or that the Constitution is discriminatory. Alexander Hamiltons concern wasnt where a potential candidate for president was born but rather how he would govern the new United States. The allegiance of a child of a foreign national could rest with another country over the interests of America. In her 1988 article in the Yale Law Journal, The Natural-Born Citizen Clause and Presidential Eligibility: An Approach for Resolving Two Hundred Years of Uncertainty, Jill Pryor wrote, It is well settled that native-born citizens, those born in the United States, qualify as natural born. It is also clear that persons born abroad of alien parents, who later become citizens by naturalization, do not. But whether a person born abroad of American parents, or of one American and one alien parent qualifies as natural born has never been resolved. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) brought to the floor Senate Resolution S.Res.511 and resolved and reaffirmed Senator John McCain (R)born in Panama of American citizenswas a natural born citizen. There are no circumstances in U.S. law that qualifies a person born of a foreign national to be considered a natural born citizen of the United States. Senator Harris mother was born in British India and never became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Senator Harris is unambiguously ineligible to be vice president of the United States. In lieu of a court challenge and media malfeasance, I submit the Senate could consider a Senate Resolution to affirm Senator Harris constitutional eligibility for the office of the vice president. Mark writes thrillers and an occasional childrens book, and is a long-time contributor to American Thinker. Image credit: Screen shot from MSNBC via shareable YouTube, enhanced with FotoSketcher. For the last couple months, Tarsha Jackson has organized north Houston neighborhoods around criminal justice reform, helping to release a Justice Cant Wait policy platform she said the city could enact immediately. Cynthia Bailey has been working in the same communities, solving what she calls neighborhood issues and distributing masks and food amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected underserved communities like those in north Houston. Renee Jefferson-Smith said she has helped ensure seniors there have hot meals and groceries. They are familiar roles for candidates running for local office, but lately frustrating ones. Other candidates who ran on the same ballot last fall have been in office for seven months now, working within City Hall to enact policies they favor and helping to deploy city services to constituents that need them. The election Jackson, Bailey and Jefferson-Smith ran in the District B seat on city council has been on hold since December amid an ongoing legal battle over the ballot. District B, a majority Black and Latino area between just northeast of downtown to George Bush Intercontinental Airport, has been particularly challenged by the coronavirus pandemic. Incumbent Jerry Davis, who ran unsuccessfully for a spot in the Texas House, has remained in the seat to ensure district residents have representation. Still, many residents and community leaders there feel left behind. They have gone from being upset about it, to trying to understand, to now theyre mad as hell, said Angeanette Thibodeaux, president of the Acres Homes Super Neighborhood Council. How ironic is this? How terrible is this? That in a time when we need representation and leadership and support, the one district that needs it more than any is disenfranchised once again. That hurts. In the pit of my stomach, that hurts. Jackson was the top finisher in Novembers District B council race. She was set for a runoff with Bailey, who finished second, before it was derailed by lawsuits filed by Jefferson-Smith, who came in third. The candidates lawyers expect an appellate ruling in early August, perhaps as soon as next week, that they hope will settle the matter. Mayor Sylvester Turner has said the city will call an election as soon as the courts decide it can. At the heart of the lawsuits is the question of whether Bailey is eligible to run for and hold office because she has a felony conviction. In 2007, she pleaded guilty to stealing more than $200,000 along with three people from the now-defunct North Forest Independent School District. She served 18 months of a 10-year sentence before getting out on probation. Bailey was direct about her conviction while campaigning, and she has asked voters to judge me by present, not my past. Texas law forbids people from running for office if they have been convicted of a felony from which they have not been pardoned or released from its resulting disabilities. The law does not define what that means, leaving it open to interpretation. Bailey has contended that she has been released because she completed her sentence. The ambiguity of the laws language has created an open question in Texas, where candidates with convictions have reached the ballot unchallenged in many cities. In others, candidates with a conviction have been arrested or jailed for filing to run. When candidates in Houston file applications to run for office, they check a box swearing they have not been finally convicted of a felony, but the city does not vet the answer. Jefferson-Smiths team argued the law is clear, and pointed to at least one candidate, in Galveston, who won office only to be removed immediately due to his conviction. Judges in district and appellate courts, however, have denied Jefferson-Smiths requests to remove Bailey from the ballot or find the city should have disqualified her. None of those judges has ruled on the question of Baileys eligibility. A visiting state district judge found the city did not receive conclusive evidence to remove Bailey from the ballot, and ordered a runoff between Jackson and Bailey for May 2. That was delayed again when Jefferson-Smith appealed the ruling. Harris County which administers elections for the city has said the state Election Code mandates that it cannot hold the election until the litigation has been settled. Its disappointing, its hurtful, Jackson said of the delay. I cant move forward with my life because I have this race I need to finish. Let me finish my race so I can move forward. Jackson brought her campaigns phone bankers in for a week to make calls during the primary election in March, but otherwise her campaign has been on hold. She has been a criminal justice advocate for more than a decade, spurred by the experience of her son in the juvenile justice system. In recent months, Jackson said she has been organizing weekly calls with civic leaders to share information and ideas for reform. She also has spoken with freshman council members, an effort to keep tabs on what is happening at City Hall. She campaigned on a justice-minded platform, pledging to end the citys reliance on and enforcement of municipal court fees, which Jackson calls a debtors prison. She penned an Op-Ed in the Chronicle when Turner formed his police reform task force after George Floyds death. Jackson, who served on the criminal justice committee for Turners transition team, said the answers already were available. This was an opportunity to realize my vision of ending debtors prison and other things I campaigned on. At the same time, I was free to organize and pull groups together, said Jackson. This is a moment, and Im not in there. But Im still a part of it. Bailey said her approach has not changed since December. She still is knocking on doors and making phone calls. Ive never stopped campaigning, she said. Bailey also is out on the streets when she can be, she said, seeking out residents who need help securing food amid the pandemic or want to clear an illegal dumping site. Im doing basically what I would be doing on council, Bailey said. My main focus is neighborhood issues, solving neighborhood issues. We have a lot of neighborhood issues that we can address. Like Jackson, Bailey said it has been difficult to watch from the sidelines as the nation and Houston reckons with racial discrimination. Its been frustrating because the African-American areas are the ones that are targeted the most, she said. This is not a problem that started yesterday. With (George) Floyds murder, it became an eye-opener. These are issues weve been dealing with, and its just time do something about it. Jefferson-Smith did not respond to requests for an interview, but in a statement she said she has been helping distribute food and masks to residents that need them, especially seniors. As far as the election is concerned, District B deserves to have someone that can truly represent them, she said. I am certain that the courts will do whatever they feel is necessary so that we can all move forward in life. dylan.mcguinness@chron.com GREENWICH The leadership at the Greenwich Boys Club in the late 1970s and early 80s knew a counselor was sexually abusing boys as young as 6 and did nothing to stop it, court documents say. The counselor, accused of molesting and raping multiple boys hundreds of times, was allowed to continue to work alone with children in the clubs locker room after a child told an administrator there about the abuse, according to documents filed in state Superior Court in Stamford. Five men now in their late 40s and early 50s have come forward in a lawsuit to say that Andrew Atkinson, who was affiliated with the Boys Club from 1975 through 1984, permanently damaged their lives through repeated sexual abuse when they were children. The men say Atkinson began abusing them as a Boys Club member, and once he gained a leadership role as a counselor, used his status to isolate them and assault them frequently at the Boys Club facility on Horseneck Lane and at off-site club gatherings at Camp Simmons, Island Beach and the Greenwich Polo Field. Jeffrey Starcher, then-assistant director of the Boys Club under his father, club Director Jim Starcher, had direct knowledge of Atkinsons conduct in 1981, according to the lawsuit, and didnt take any serious measures to end it. Even if (Boys Club administration) including Starcher, did not have direct knowledge of the abuse, they still failed to discover the sexual abuse or seek to prevent it, despite having reasonable opportunity to do so during the protracted period of time in which Boys Club members were being abused by Atkinson while in the care and custody of (the Boys Club), the lawsuit says. Each of the now-grown victims says in affidavits that Atkinsons abuse permanently impacted his life, and each still struggles with processing his trauma. They all say they suffer from depression, embarrassment, humiliation, fear and shame as well as permanent physical injury from the abuse. Several of the victims have struggled with drug and alcohol dependency, according to the lawsuit, and led troubled lives. One man said he is claustrophobic because of the way Atkinson tried to smother him when he assaulted him; others say they have panic attacks and fear authority figures. Most of the men said they still havent told their families about the abuse. Attorney Phillip Russell, who brought the lawsuit, said there are at least two more victims in addition to the five listed in the court documents, but their claims are barred by the state statute of limitations. Jeffrey Starcher did not respond to several attempts to reach him, nor did representatives of Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Attempts to reach Atkinson for comment were not successful; Jim Starcher is deceased. The lawsuit names the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich as defendant. Current administrators at the club have not publicly denied the allegations. They say they are not able to comment yet on the case. Attempts to reach the attorneys representing the nonprofit were not successful. But those attorneys have argued in a memorandum filed with the court that the plaintiffs claims that negligent supervision resulted in their alleged abuse are unfounded according to Connecticut case law. Connecticut requires more than that to prove negligent supervision, the memorandum reads. Connecticut law requires that the Plaintiff plead and prove that the Club knew or should have known of Atkinsons propensity to abuse before the Club could be held liable for negligent supervision. Time out One of the plaintiffs, using the pseudonym John Clark, said in an affidavit that he told Jeff Starcher that Atkinson was abusing him at the time, but the only punishment the counselor received from the administrator was a time out. Clark, now 48, said Atkinsons abuse began with smacks on the head, escalated to punches in the upper chest and shoulders for no apparent reason, and eventually became sexual assault. I remember feeling pain from the strikes, and remember not knowing why I was being hit, but thought it was because I was Asian and was more similar to the bullying I was experiencing from my fellow Boys Club members, said Clark. I believe that I never reported this to anyone because I thought I was just being picked on for being different. Atkinson began molesting him when he was about 10, Clark said. More than a dozen times, Clark said Atkinson isolated him in the locker room, where he would corner him, smother him and forcefully grab his penis and testicles, causing severe and lasting pain. The abuse began when the two were alone, Clark said, but began happening in front of other boys, which made him feel like he was never safe. Something changed in me, he said. I remember feeling shocked that I was not safe from Atkinson no matter where I was or who I was with. One day when Atkinson hit him on the chest in front of others, Clark said he snapped. I chased after Atkinson and began kicking him and screaming at him in front of staff and other Boys Club members, said Clark, adding the fight lasted a few moments before the two were separated by staff. I am almost certain that the staff member who pulled me away was Jeff Starcher, though there is a possibility it could have been Jim Starcher, said Clark. When Jeff asked me to explain what happened, I remember crying and telling him that Atkinson was hurting me. I remember now that I could not find the words to explain what was happening, but just kept repeating that Atkinson was hurting me, and that he was hurting me in the locker room. Clark told Starcher that Atkinson was touching his private parts, according to the complaint. Starcher put Atkinson on a time out where he was forced to sit on a stool specifically used for this purpose, in response to Clarks allegation of abuse, the complaint says. Jeffrey Starcher moved up the ranks within the local club until 2002, when he became executive director of Boys & Girls Club of Southeastern Connecticut, according to his LinkedIn account. In 2014, Starcher was named director of organizational development for Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Starchers social media suggests he still holds the position, but attempts to confirm whether he still works for the nonprofit werent immediately successful. Hundreds of times A 49-year-old man identified in the lawsuit as John Doe said Atkinson sexually assaulted and raped him hundreds of times at the Boys Club starting when he was 6 up until he turned 14. The first time, Atkinson anally raped Doe and forced him to receive oral sex, according to Does affidavit. During the eight years in which Atkinson abused me, I came to believe these incidents of abuse were normal, came to expect them, accepted them, and did not protest them, Does affidavit says. Another victim, now 49 and identified as John Roe, said his sexual abuse began in the Boys Clubs pool when he was 6. At that time, it was custom that younger Boys Club members swam naked while in the pool, on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the summertime after outings to Island Beach or Tods Point Beach, the lawsuit alleges. It was also common for older boys to swim clothed with the younger boys, according to the lawsuits, and they regularly horse-played during these swims. (According to multiple sources, it used to be in the Boys Club national rulebook that kids swim naked.) During these summertime naked swimming experiences Roe regularly came into contact with Atkinson, who, as an older boy, was wearing a bathing suit, the complaint reads. Roe, while naked and in the pool, was molested, fondled and groped by Atkinson. These incidents of sexual assault were masked by the horseplay. When Roe turned 11, he said in an affidavit, Atkinson performed nonconsensual oral sex on him. Roe said he was in shock and could not move or cry for help during the assault. Atkinson abused Roe dozens if not hundreds of times during a two-year period at the Boys Club, Roe said. A 50-year-old man identified in the lawsuit as John Smith said in an affidavit that Atkinson sexually abused him at least eight times when he was 9, including forced oral sex. A 49-year-old man identified as John White said Atkinson began abusing him in the locker room when he was 10 by ripping off his towel and whipping him with it in front of other boys. Atkinson would then grab the childs genitals, the lawsuit alleges. It was humiliating, White said in an affidavit. I remember that I was scared and ashamed, but I also remember feeling like I was not his main target. I did not tell anyone at the time because I thought it was harassment or hazing, and did not realize this was sexual abuse. About the time White was 10 or 11, he said he overheard Atkinson sexually abusing another boy in the locker room. Though White didnt see the abuse, he said he remembers seeing the other boy come out of the locker room. The boy had tears in his eyes, and looked broken and his head was hanging down, said White. At the time, I remember the feeling that I knew Atkinson was doing bad stuff to boys that were not normal and shouldnt be happening. When Atkinson turned 18, he was no longer eligible to be a member of any program offered by the Boys Club, according to the complaint, yet he was allowed to remain actively involved in a new capacity as an employee or volunteer. Another incident The events described in the lawsuits are not the only claims of sexual abuse alleged to have occurred at what is now the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich. In 2014, Andrew Knapp, a former Greenwich High School teaching aide, was convicted of trying to molest a 10-year-old boy in the clubs locker room showers in 2010. Knapp was convicted of risk of injury to a child and fourth-degree sexual assault after a three-day jury trial. The victim testified that Knapp appeared in his shower stall naked while the two were alone and touched him inappropriately. Prosecutors said Knapp had been previously accused of grooming a child he oversaw for inappropriate an relationship at another school before the incident at the Boys & Girls Club. Greenwich Boys & Girls Club Chairman George Fox this week would not confirm or deny whether the allegations against the club are true. He also said he couldnt comment on what the nonprofit has done to investigate the claims. Were leaving it up to legal counsel to handle this as it proceeds through discovery, he said. We are not taking this lightly. Were taking it very seriously, Fox said. Until it works its way through the system, I cant comment on the substance of the case. Fox said he had no knowledge about whether or not the Boys & Girls Clubs of America has investigated the allegations against Jeff Starcher, and that he had no comment on whether or not the organization has a responsibility to do so. Fox also declined to comment on the abuse committed by Knapp in the same facility in 2010. All I can say about that is we have a very thorough process and protocol at the club and Im very comfortable knowing our children are very safe, Fox said. When asked for specifics about safety protocols and procedures that have changed since the alleged abuse occurred, Fox said the club has installed more security cameras, implemented more staff training and hired a dedicated director of safety who walks the halls making sure everything is in good order. A trial conference for the lawsuit is scheduled for March 15 in Stamford Superior Court. A jury trial is tentatively scheduled for June 2020. The Ohio Harness Horsemens Association will provide live coverage of racing from the Pike County Fairgrounds in Piketon, Ohio on Friday, July 31, and Saturday August 1. The Ohio Harness Horsemens Association will provide live coverage of racing from the Pike County Fairgrounds in Piketon, Ohio on Friday, July 31, and Saturday August 1. Post time for Fridays nine race card is 5:00 p.m. with a noon post time for the 11-race card on Saturday. The races will be streamed live on the Ohio Harness Horsemens Associations Facebook page and YouTube channel. Replays of the races will be available on the Trot and Pace Marketing website, trotandpacemarketing.com, following the completion of racing. The race programs for Pike County are available on the OHHA website. The Ohio Horsemens Association will continue its live fair racing coverage on Sunday, August 2 from the Preble County Fairgrounds in Easton, Ohio. Monday, the OHHA travels to Bowling Green, Ohio for coverage from the Wood County Fairgrounds. Tuesdays coverage will be from Lisbon, Ohio, and the Columbiana County Fairgrounds. The Ohio Harness Horsemens Association will be live streaming Ohio fair races throughout the summer. For a complete schedule go to OHHA.com. (Ohio Harness Horsemens Association) The French drug maker Sanofi said on Friday that it had secured an agreement of up to $2.1 billion to supply the U.S. federal government with 100 million doses of its experimental coronavirus vaccine, the largest such deal announced to date. The arrangement brings the Trump administrations investment in coronavirus vaccine projects to more than $8 billion. This sprawling, multiagency effort, known as Operation Warp Speed, is placing bets on multiple vaccines and is paying companies to manufacture millions of doses before clinical trials have been completed. The global need for a vaccine to help prevent Covid-19 is massive, and no single vaccine or company will be able to meet the global demand alone, Thomas Triomphe, executive vice president and global head of Sanofi Pasteur, the companys vaccine division, said in a statement. Also on Friday, the European Union said it was working on a deal with Sanofi to buy up to 300 million doses of potential vaccines to distribute to citizens in its 27 member countries. The announcements came two days after a deal with the British government to supply up to 60 million doses of the vaccine. Financial details of those deals were not disclosed. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Rosebank will soon give an hola to Bubbakoos Burritos, a Mexican-style, fast food concept that originated at the Jersey Shore. Loaded nachos, salad bowls and tacos are headed to the East Shore come fall. In the storefront of a former Subway at 1145 Bay Street, Castleton Corners resident Armond Pocesta will land his second Bubbakoos in the borough. His new place will see its grand opening around the one-year anniversary of his first establishment in Bulls Head, the Bubbakoos that debuted in November 2019. The government was 'unprepared' for Covid-19 and its impact on hospitality business closures and empty shelves in retailers, MPs have said in a new report. Disruptions to food supply and unprecedented consumer demand at the start of the outbreak was seen in other countries before reaching the UK. Given this, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee (EFRA) new Covid-19 and Food Supply report raises questions over the UK's response. Although the report concludes that in many areas Defras response to food supply disruptions was commendable, it lays out a series of lessons that should be learnt. Proving guidance for key workers in the food supply sector was too slow, including in relation to the use of PPE and social distancing measures, MPs say. While they commend the industry for rapidly developing guidance in the 'vacuum left by government', they say guidance should be issued more rapidly in any future disruption. Detailing the knock-on effect of hospitality sector closures on the entire food supply chain, the report calls on the government to closely monitor food and drink suppliers over the next 18 months. Noting that the industry may struggle well into next year, MPs also urge government to ensure previously thriving hospitality and foodservice businesses remain economically viable. EFRA chair, Neil Parish MP noted that despite warnings from other countries, government was 'constantly playing catch-up' in trying to support the food industry. "The governments actions to lock-down the country and close businesses were necessary, but they had huge impacts on the food supply chain. Once the pandemic set in, Defra responded well. However, there were misunderstandings in government about where - and how - people were going to get their food just before and during lockdown. "Rather than panic, it was entirely reasonable that many people would be buying much more food in shops and online," he said. "Excluding convenience stores and discount retailers from the national voucher scheme for free school meals also showed a significant misunderstanding of where families need to shop." The government has also been urged to continue to fund the 5m a year FareShare project to redistribute otherwise wasted food from farmgate to frontline community groups. With use of UK foodbanks almost doubling during lockdown, the report recognises food insecurity and food waste as significant problems, widespread throughout the UK even before the crisis. The Committee demands that the government appoints a new cross-departmental Minister for Food Security who would collect robust data and implement sustainable change. Mr Parish said: "Shockingly, millions of tonnes of food are wasted every year in this country. The government must continue to fund efforts to redistribute surplus food at the farmgate to those who need it. Elsewhere, the report warns that future crises affecting food, such as a disorderly end to the transition period or climate change effects, will pose 'potentially greater challenges'. It calls for more resilience plans for the food sector, assessing the extent to which the UK's dependence on multi-national, just-in-time supply chains affects resilience. Tips to help businesses enforce mask mandates and reduce customers tensions Denver, Colorado, July 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- To mask? Or not to mask? That is the question. Or is it? Its a discussion our M&C Communications team recently had on a Facebook Live not too long ago Now, many businesses, cities and states have their own policies. Between heated discussions to supermarket dust-ups posted on social media, the issue and emotion behind wearing or not wearing a mask has already had a tremendous impact on us as a society. Because these conflicts occur most often at places of business, the burden will fall on a manager or owner to de-escalate an inflammatory situation. Fortunately, there are ways to use effective communication to pro-actively and thoughtfully resolve mask related conflicts before they arise and protect your business or brand from negatively appearing on social media or worse yet, the nightly news. How did we get here in the first place? Remember when masks didnt matter and then they did! What changed? There are people who believe this is a health issue and others who believe it is a control issue. As former journalists, we are here to bring you the facts to help your business and brand...not debate the effectiveness of masks. Early in the pandemic the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) both stated masks would not help prevent the spread or contraction of COVID-19. This tweet by the U.S. Surgeon General, Jerome Adams Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers cant get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk! And as late as late March, the WHO recommended people not wear masks unless they had COVID-19 or were caring for someone with COVID-19. Source: CNN. In late March., Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program said, There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there's some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly. He also said, There also is the issue that we have a massive global shortage," Ryan said about masks and other medical supplies. Story continues We heard the latter explanation before and here in the U.S., there was certainly a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE). When did we get the official notice to start wearing masks? According to this NPR article, it was April 3rd when CDC reversed course stating, cloth face coverings fashioned from household items or made at home from common materials at low cost can be used as an additional, voluntary public health measure. On July 14th, the CDC issued another press release asking Americans to continue wearing face masks in public. They cited two separate case studies, one from a hair salon in Missouri and another from a hospital in Boston, where face masks were believed to have helped prevent a significant spread of COVID-19. President Trump only encouraged the American people to wear masks last week. Prior to that, his stand had been one of wearing a mask being voluntary. So what happened between late March to just last week? Towns, Cities, Counties, States and corporations all moved ahead with their own messaging on masks, which was challenging for them because there is a large enough portion of our population who still believe masks do not help and that this is a way to institute control over our freedom. However, recent data has shown that 3 out of 4 Americans would comply in wearing a mask, up from 6 in 10 in early April. If that is the case, why is this issue so polarizing? And how as a business owner can you keep tempers from boiling over? HOW DO YOU ENFORCE FACE MASK RULES? Here are 5 steps for you, based on research, on how to enforce a mask mandate. Everyone in your business must wear a mask and you must show that your staff are complying. This seems logical. If you want people to comply then you too must show your compliance. You have to talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk.. Clearly post signs and train employees with messaging about your expectations of enforcing the mask mandate. The messaging must go farther than, We enforce the mask mandate. Messaging should be written to include why you are enforcing the mandate. A great example might be, We are doing this to protect you, to protect us and following all mandated health and safety guidelines. The why in your message is very important. There are people who feel this is an over-step on their civil liberties. You must stay out of that conversation and stick to the facts. Research shows that people are in different stages of accepting this mandate and changing behavior. One way to help with the acceptance of a new behavior is providing solutions that are easy and effective. Having a box of disposable masks on hand to give to customers lacking one is one way to handle and diffuse a potential mask conflict before it begins. Its an easy and inexpensive effort on your businesss part to solve a mask issue for your clients or customers. Taking this one step further, you can also position a pleasant person at the front door to greet and gently remind people to wear their masks (if they are not already) or hand out a mask to those without one. Train your personnel to compliment client and guest masks. Hearing positive comments both directly and indirectly will help in not only normalizing the wearing of masks in your business but also create positive reinforcement. Every client-facing employee should be doing this in your company. If someone is walking around your business without a mask, you want your employees to intervene before other customers intervene. We suggest the three-time rule: Your employees should request that the person put on their mask, if necessary provide a mask and a supervisor should be alerted The second request should be from the supervisor The third request should be an intervention by the manager or owner and if necessary, ask the person to leave If you have a city or state mask mandate, relying on your original messaging about WHY you are enforcing the mask mandate (citing health, safety and legal issues) should absolutely be part of the discussion. Your customers seeing you being proactive can help reduce potential conflict and keep your business or brand from becoming the next disappointing viral sensation. WHAT CAN YOU DO TO REDUCE MASK MANDATE TENSIONS? It starts with proper education. What is your business or brands messaging? How do you clearly communicate your stance? Do you use a sandwich board set up on the sidewalk outside your front door? What about floor stickers asking for social distancing and reminding customers to wear their mask? Do you hang signage on the front door or windows of your business clearly stating that masks are required? Maybe your employees are wearing company-branded masks? Is there a sponsorship opportunity with your branded masks? what about the use of social media? All of these are visual cues that will help move your message. It boils down to the 4 Cs...clear, consistent, compassionate, and conversational communication. Clear: Remember that old adage: Keep it simple, stupid? It still holds! Keep your sentences short. Stick to one thought per sentence. Look for the most straightforward and direct way to explain things. Dont promise things you cant deliver and be honest when the requirements youre sharing might have changed due to new information. Compassionate: A key component of good communication is empathy. Put yourself in someone elses shoes and think about how he or she might receive the message you are sending. People are much more likely to listen to your request when you acknowledge their thoughts and feelings first. As communications surrounding COVID-19 become more politicized, compassionate communication might look like this: We know that many people are genuinely concerned about their health or the health of their loved ones they live with due to COVID-19. At the same time, we know many people are bothered by wearing a mask or may not be able to due to a medical condition. If you have a special need or request around wearing a mask, please reach out to management so we can discuss your situation. Consistent: Remember how 70-93% of communication is non-verbal? Here is where consistency is key! If you are asking employees and clients to wear a mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19, you also need to wear a mask at all times and to wear it correctly. We know from research that modeling the desired behavior is a key component of achieving the desired result. Conversational: Think about the difference between a great conversation with a friend where you learned something useful, maybe a new recipe or how to fix a challenging problem. Now think about the last time you were sitting in a classroom, trying to digest a complicated new concept like algebra. The Mayo Clinic website explains learning something new is easier with simple, direct language free of jargon that feels friendly, open, and non-threatening. The 4 Cs are useful tools whether you are communicating in person, through email, websites, or social media. No matter what your message, be clear, compassionate, consistent, and conversational and you will supercharge your impact! As a business owner, it is incumbent on you to provide a safe and inviting location where your customers and clients can feel safe and happy. A great experience is so important. Think ahead, have a plan, and use our tips to help you navigate the mask mandate mania. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ At M&C Communications, we don't do PR. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. We do Brand Protection: helping companies and non-profits build active communities, deflect negative public relations, and build trust to stand head-and-shoulders above their competitors. We do Insider Media Relations: using our experience as local and network journalists to help you navigate the shifting sands of traditional and social media so your message makes an impact. We do Crisis Communications: using our unique Brand Protection Tool process to help create durable crisis communications plans and deftly handle life's curveballs. At M&C Communications, we do results, not excuses. We do substance, not style. We do strategy, not PR. So, what can we do for you? CONTACT: Diane Mulligan M&C Communications 720-273-0927 dmulligan@mandccommunications.com We had been side by side long enough that I trusted he understood I was not asking how he would be approaching his argument for Bolton. I wanted to know how hed respond to Trumps attempt (by proxy) at derailing the integrity of the court. How do you handle a situation where its not just the president who has lied but his counsel, in the course of a trial over the presidents own prevarications? How can you have a trial if the combatants wont abide by a shared understanding of what is and is not in bounds? PM says new national policies will promote Indian languages first, but the opposition says it could jeopardise its 'edge over other countries in employability', The Independent writes in the article India moves to end primary teaching in English as Modi unveils major education reforms. India will for the first time since independence stop offering primary schools where the main language for teaching is English, the government announced, part of the first major overhaul of national education policy in the country for 34 years. Prime minister Narendra Modis cabinet approved the new National Education Policy on Wednesday afternoon, and the government said it would pave the way for transformational reforms in schools and higher education. Parents and teachers speaking to The Independent largely hailed the measures, which include a commitment to increase spending on education to 6 per cent of GDP and reforms designed to reduce the pressure on children around all-important board exams at 16 and 18. But the most controversial announcement is that primary schools, both private and government-run, will where possible be required to conduct lessons in either the childrens mother tongue or regional language - in other words, not English. English-medium schools are traditionally favoured by the more wealthy and middle class Indian families, with proficiency in the language seen as opening up gateways to greater international opportunities for higher education and beyond. By contrast, Mr Modi said the new policy would promote Indian languages, a move which is likely to be welcomed by the prime ministers nationalist base. Indian media reported that the RSS, the far-right youth wing of the ruling BJP party, was heavily involved in drafting the policy and that many of its suggestions were adopted. But the plan stops short of naming Hindi as a recommended language for schools to teach in, something that had featured in a draft version published in June last year. While Hindi is spoken by an estimated 43 per cent of Indians, only a little over half of those identify it as their mother tongue and many southern states are vociferously resistant to what they see as the imposition of the language by the north. Dr Shama Mohamed, a spokesperson for the opposition Congress party, said on Thursday that India has an edge over other countries in employability due to our better English. The decision to enforce mother tongue as the medium of instruction till class 5 (age 11) in the new education policy may undo this advantage and might hurt the poor who can't afford private tutors for English, she said. Shivani Gandhi, a Bangalore-based teacher and expert in curriculum design, agreed that the new policy would effectively amount to a ban on English-medium primary schools and that the government wants to highlight [this] for the people who are more right wing. [They] are going to say 'Hey, they're going to promote [Hindi]!' And there are more than enough people who care about that. But she questioned how much practical impact this would have on standards of English in the country, saying such schools would probably rebrand as multi-language while maintaining the levels of English tuition demanded by parents. From my experience, the one language that school leaders take most seriously and want to improve is English, Ms Gandhi told The Independent. From the perspective of a teacher and a parent, they would still want their child to learn English and therefore I don't think the school is going to risk being ostracised because they aren't keeping up to date. I don't think English is going anywhere. Delhi-based parents Balaji and Roshni said they were cautiously optimistic about the new education policy, and welcomed the move on languages having already chosen a Hindi-medium school for their son Tavish when he enters the first grade in September. The evidence is that children at ages three to eight can process as many as six languages simultaneously, and this ability is lost as we age, said Balaji. So there will be no loss of proficiency in any language as long as all are taught. English must certainly be taught. It just need not be the medium of instruction. Our view on this is an unpopular one in our peer group, said Roshni. Indians are obsessed with English and I know that most parents prefer sending their kids to schools that have English as a medium of instruction. [But] we consciously chose [a Hindi-medium school] because we wanted Tavish to be proficient in Indian languages and not grow up speaking like Peppa Pig. Other policies announced under the education plan include the promise of a new national curriculum drafted by a single central body, and new national commissions to oversee university standards and research. There will also be a greater focus on vocational training and life skills, both at a school and higher education level, with universities encouraged to establish new multi-disciplinary degrees with a creative combinations of subjects closer to the US system of graduating with majors and minors. Ms Gandhi said that while she had concerns about some elements of the plan, overall she would rate it at a 7.5/10 for intent. Even if only 10 per cent of it is implemented successfully, if we have a more robust early childhood curriculum, if we have an integration of 20 per cent new skills, and if there is more flexibility in higher education formats, I think that would be a radical change for India, she said. President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a law on improving the conditions for supporting the production of electricity from alternative energy sources. "The President signed bill No.3658, which enshrines the key provisions of the Government memorandum with "green" energy producers. The law will reduce tariff rates for solar power plants by 15% and for wind power plants by 7.5%," Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote on his Facebook page. According to the PM, the law means that the state and all Ukrainians will save almost UAH 7 billion annually. Shmyhal expects that by 2030 the memorandum will reduce the amount of payments for "green generation" by about EUR 2 billion. "The signed law will help balance the electricity market, protect the rights of investors, and avoid an increase in electricity tariffs for people," the PM added. As Ukrinform reported, on July 21, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law "On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine Concerning Improving the Conditions for Supporting the Production of Electric Power from Alternative Energy Sources." ish Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu are centred on chief ministerial candidates of rival parties. When Sasikala cannot contest even a panchayat election for six years after her release, even if she were to have sympathetic backers even among apolitical voters, she does not have any transferrable vote-bank even otherwise for a chief minister candidate of her choice, says N Sathiya Moorthy. IMAGE: V K Sasikala Natarajan, O Panneerselvam and Edappadi K Palaniswami in happier times. Photograph: PTI Photo. With the countdown beginning for the release of V K Sasikala Natarajan, jailed live-in confidante of Tamil Nadus AIADMK chief minister, the late Jayalalithaa, speculation is rife if she would have a place in state politics, which she had controlled in her mentors days. Especially, the question is if she will be able to influence politics in and for the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which has since sacked her along with her nephew T T V Dhinakaran, in the state assembly polls, due by May next year. Sasikala is due for normal release at the end of her four-year jail-term in February 2021 after four years in prison in the infamous wealth case against Jayalalithaa and others. The long-pending Supreme Court verdict came weeks after her death and did not pronounce any order on her. But it upheld the Karnataka high court confirming the trial court verdict only against Sasikala and her relatives, Illavarasi and V N Sudhakaran. While the trial court had ordered Jayalalithaa, as A-1 in the case, to spend similar term in prison and also pay up Rs 100 crore as fine, it ordered the other three to pay a fine of Rs 10 crore each. The Supreme Court upheld the order against the three surviving convicts. This means, for freedom from prison, Sasikala and others will have to pay up the fine, or spend one more year in prison. There is no knowing their attitude and availability of accounted funds at their disposal to pay up the fine. Even with all this, there is no way Sasikala can contest the assembly polls, as under the law, she cannot do so for an additional six years after release. Then there are pending cases from Jayalalithaas first term as chief minister (1991-96), and also new ones that the IT department has slapped against her. The charge is that she had purchased property worth Rs 1600-plus crore, using demonetised currency. There was also a pending case from Sasikalas alleged forays outside the prison, which was supposedly caught on CCTV. It is unclear if the Karnataka prison department has disposed of the case -- and if so, how. Any punishment in the case can entail longer jail term on a separate count and her losing the remission-option. Incidentally, speculation about normal remission for good behaviour began doing the rounds after a Tamil Nadu BJP leader, Aseervatham Achary, based in Delhi, tweeted a message to the effect some time ago. He said that Sasikala may come out of prison before August 14. Experts have since clarified that those imprisoned for corruption of the kind are not entitled to remission. Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu are centred on chief ministerial candidates of rival parties. When Sasikala cannot contest even a panchayat election for six years after her release, even if she were to have sympathetic backers even among apolitical voters, she does not have any transferrable vote-bank even otherwise for a chief minister candidate of her choice. This means that despite all speculation her traditional underlings in the AIADMK from her working days with Jayalalithaa will have no use for her. Sasikala is a diabetic and the state of her health is unclear. It is also not known if she will have the grit and determination of her mentor and master, whose long hospitalisation was caused by years-long neglect of health. There is also continued media speculation outside the state that with the death of Jayalalithaa and her bete noire and rival DMK boss, M Karunanidhi, between the 2016 assembly polls and now, there no charismatic personalities of the kind. The fact is that Tamil Nadu has already adjusted itself to politics and elections without the Big Two. Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami in AIADMK and party president M K Stalin in the DMK have since filled the vacuum caused by the departed two. In each other they found a readily foil and an equal challenger, too. Independent of the DMK-led combine sweeping the parliamentary polls last year, the event turned out to be the launch pad for both -- and their acceptance, as such, by their respective cadres and the larger electorate. If the parliamentary polls, of all things, proved anything, it was that the charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that had captivated the rest of the nation, did not work in the state, even without the Big Two charismatic leaders. For his part, EPS, as Palaniswami is called, has been carefully consolidating his own hold, first over the government and now over the party, too. His deputy chief minister and party coordinator -- EPS is only the joint coordinator -- O Panneerselvam, or OPS, is now just a shade of his earlier self. EPS has thoroughly side-lined OPS in party and government affairs, by buying over the loyalties of the camp followers of the other, one after the other. The recent reorganisation of district-level AIADMK office-bearers showed that OPS has lost out, with the result that his remaining loyalists too may migrate towards the EPS camp. EPS is said to have stabbed Sasikala in the back after she had identified him as chief minister before going to prison. The former used the disgruntled and defeated OPS to settle joint scores with Sasikala, and once that purpose had been served, he is busy targeting OPS -- but with a little more care and caution. EPS does not seem to have time for Sasikala, and his camp also does not seem to fear her return from prison, as is being speculated in certain circles. Nothing explains EPSs self-confidence ahead of the assembly polls than his strong condemnation of those that had desecrated a statue of AIADMK founder M G Ramachandran in the Union territory of Puducherry recently. He described as a barbaric act, the act of draping the statue with a saffron shawl, identified with the BJP and its Hindutva allies. His administration and the party also separately moved the Supreme Court, and later the Madras high court, on the issue of reservations in all-India quota seats in medical admissions in state government colleges. Along with other political parties, including the rival DMK, the petitions challenged the Centres decision in the matter. This has given rise to more speculation if the AIADMK is ready to part company with the BJP in the assembly polls. Through the long history of Dravidian rule in the state, whether it was Karunanidhi, who took over the reins of party and government after the early death of Annadurai, or the breakaway AIADMK leaders MGR and Jayalalithaa, they had been overly friendly to the ruling party at the Centre, until they had settled down in the job of chief minister. Their arrival statement, if it can be called so, is made when they start asserting themselves and their party position on issues of concern to the state, over their political positions and personal predicament. Considering that EPS, too, has started sending out signals, if any of the kind, it will be interesting to watch the AIADMK-BJP relations in particular, during the long run-up to the assembly elections. This is also because of an increasing internal feeling in the AIADMK that their total rout in the Lok Sabha polls owed to electoral association with the BJP and excessive identification with PM Modi. Those that want the AIADMK to associate with both Sasikala and the BJP in the assembly elections, feel that despite the poor showing in the LS polls, the AIADMK can do with the five per cent vote-share polled by the Dhinakaran-led AMMK, and also an exaggerated 7-10 per cent Modi votes. This is more important for the BJP as there is no knowing if superstar Rajinikanth will at all enter the poll fray, as promised in end-2017, or if Covid-centric public mood and personal isolation have dampened his mood further. The BJP and even some in the AIADMK may want to rope in PMK, which continued to poll five per cent votes, contesting alone even in the LS polls. Under the circumstances, the AIADMK may not oblige Sasikala even that much, as both EPS and OPS are bound to feel insecure if she returns to the party -- with or without any post or portfolio. Despite TTVs hard work and outreach after launching AMMK, the partys vote-share in the LS polls is not inspiring enough for the aunt-nephew combine to go it alone in the assembly polls, and make a success of it. This will be an added factor why the EPS-OPS combine, to whatever limited extent they may work together otherwise, will have no use for Sasikala. Yet, it will be interesting to watch how the OPS group, or whatever remains of it, feels about carrying the BJP with them in the assembly polls, if EPS had other ideas. N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and political analyst, is Distinguished Fellow and Head-Chennai Initiative, Observer Research Foundation. Kathleen Bogle, an associate professor of sociology and criminal justice at La Salle University, said that current dating behaviors remind her of how people had to navigate decision-making during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Read more As the COVID-19 pandemic continues into late summer, social distancing and quarantining behaviors have brought challenges to relationships for people of all ages. Couples in the beginning stages of their relationship have had to choose between sudden cohabitation or long distance, while married parents have found themselves juggling their jobs, housekeeping and around-the-clock child care. For those in unhealthy relationships, the situation has created serious consequences: Domestic violence has risen due to victims trapped with their abusers. The sudden life changes brought on by the pandemic can affect any healthy relationship, experts say, but there are ways to productively navigate conflicts and problems. What people are experiencing in their relationships also varies by age, said Leslie Kantor, a professor at Rutgers Universitys School of Public Health who specializes in womens sexual and reproductive health. If we think about high school students or young adults who may have come back to their parents homes because of COVID, there may be challenges with even having the opportunity to see a partner in person, Kantor said. For some younger people, there can be a little bit more of an overreliance on the physical aspect of a relationship as a way of being connected. So one positive might be that they develop more of an emotional vocabulary and intimacy thats not physical as a result of social distancing. Kathleen Bogle, an associate professor of sociology and criminal justice at La Salle University, said that current dating behaviors remind her of how people had to navigate decision-making during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The questions people are grappling with are remarkably similar, she said. People are asking themselves, Who am I taking a risk for? Do I trust what this person is saying about how many other people theyve seen? How locked down is their quarantine are they breaking it just to meet up with me, or have they been seeing a bunch of people and are therefore higher risk? Those conversations can be difficult because if one person is willing to risk more for the person theyre seeing, that can put a strain on the relationship, Bogle said. If you have to quarantine apart, there are virtual ways to stay connected like FaceTime and Zoom, Bogle said. But thats easier to do when theres an endgame in mind, like just for March and April. Kantor said that for married or cohabitating couples, having too much time together may create problems. It can lead to some bad habits like being over-involved in someones business or not carving out special time together, she said. But the good news is that there are still things people can do to try to keep their relationship fresh, like having a creative date night. READ MORE: What will sex, dating, and marriage look like on the other side of the pandemic? Farida Boyer, a marriage and family therapist based in West Philadelphia, also stressed the importance of spending quality time together as a couple. That can help people listen to each other, she said, which can defuse tension from conflicts. You want to make sure the time youre spending together is fruitful, not just passing it by, Boyer said. Its important to make space for each person to express what theyre feeling. I can assume what youre going through, but that doesnt necessarily mean I have a clear understanding of how you feel. Bogle said she thinks overall, conflicts have increased, especially for married couples grappling with how to handle child care. Parents are used to schools taking care of that for most of the day, and now theres a battle of who does what at home, all day every day, she said. ASK US: Do you have a question about the coronavirus and how it affects your health, work and life? Ask our reporters. Differing opinions on whats safe and whats not may be another source of conflict. Maybe one person never wants to go to the grocery store, but the other person doesnt like what the delivery person brings, Bogle said. If youre just operating by yourself, you know what level of risk youre willing to take. But maybe now youre sleeping in the same bed with someone who is fine taking greater risks. A lot of couples have gotten into debates on all that. When it comes to conflict, Kantor said that one of the most important things you can do is to keep the focus on yourself. Letting the other person worry about their own behavior and patterns can help decrease the number of disagreements, she said. I always tell my friends and family that your partner is not your project, Kantor said. Right now is not the time to work on another person. If you want a project, you can work on yourself. If things get too tense, Boyer recommended taking a break, such as going for a walk. She also said now is a great time to seek professional help. Dont just give up on your relationship, Boyer said. There are therapists out there who are trained to help people understand whats going on in their relationship. And during such a difficult time, a little kindness can go a long way, Kantor said. Everybody should remember were living in an incredibly stressful time and context, Kantor said. It can be really helpful to remember that everyone is doing the best they can. We have to give each other a break. Haiti - Diaspora : Goodbye message from the Ambassador of Haiti to Canada Following the recall to Port-au-Prince of several diplomats, as part of the staff rotation https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31370-haiti-politic-a-younger-haitian-diplomacy-speech-by-jovenel-moise.html , Ambassador of Haiti to Canada Frantz Liautaud concerned by this recall, sent a goodbye message to the large Haitian community living in Canada Message from Ambassador Frantz Liautaud : "To the Haitian community in Canada To my Canadian friend (s) Dear friends, Distinguished compatriots of Canada, It was a real pleasure to be by your side as Ambassador of Haiti to Canada. Together, we have been able to establish solid links that have enabled us on the one hand to make our culture shine through festivals, concerts, painting exhibitions or charity evenings, and on the other hand, to support Haitian organizations in the context of promising projects. Special attention was given to our entrepreneurs in the Ottawa/Gatineau region and elsewhere in this vast and beautiful country. More recently, in the exceptional circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic, we intervened to help compatriots in difficulty. Through our many meetings at the Embassy and elsewhere, I liked : to exchange, sing, laugh and pray with you. These past years of representing my country and serving a community as vibrant as ours will certainly remain one of the most defining moments in my career and in my personal life. I leave my functions with the feeling of accomplished duty, full of unforgettable memories and strong of the friendship of indulgent compatriots who have pampered me a lot. I would like you to extend this same welcome to my successor. Continue, dear friends, to dream big, to shine on every stage. Nothing is impossible for those who believe and who work. To the federal, Quebec and provincial governments, with which I have had the honor to work, to all Canadians who have accompanied, helped and advised me over the past eight years, I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude. A special nod to Quebec : Haiti, the first country, for which it renewed the protocol on the exemption of tuition fees for its academics in La Belle Province, by increasing it by ten percent. My wife, Mrs. Florence Saint-Leger joins me in sending you our warm thanks, formulated from the bottom of my heart. Frantz Liautaud Ambassador." HL/ HaitiLibre By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Police in Portland on Thursday took over security at a courthouse from federal agents as President Donald Trump threatened to send in National Guard to end weeks of clashes between police and anti-racist protesters. By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Police in Portland on Thursday took over security at a courthouse from federal agents as President Donald Trump threatened to send in National Guard to end weeks of clashes between police and anti-racist protesters. Oregon State Police on Thursday night moved ahead with plans to guard the courthouse that has been the focus of nightly battles between activists and federal agents, a day after Oregon's governor and U.S. officials announced a withdrawal deal. Trump said Governor Kate Brown was not doing enough to rein in the demonstrators protesting racial inequality and police violence, who he labeled "Anarchists & Agitators." Trump said federal forces would remain on standby to see if state police could protect the federal courthouse. "If they don't do it we will send in the National Guard and we'll take care of it," Trump told a White House news briefing. "They're working today and probably tomorrow to clean out this beehive of terrorists." Brown responded that Trump's call to "dominate" protesters in American cities had failed in Portland, referring to an announcement the president made in a June 1 speech as police used gas and batons on a Washington, D.C., demonstration. "Today, federal troops are preparing to leave downtown Portland," she tweeted on Thursday. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security deployed tactical agents to patrol the city's courthouse in early July after people set fires inside the building, broke windows and graffitied its walls. Their presence drew national attention after agents were videoed snatching a protester off the street and whisking him away in an unmarked minivan. Democrats and civil rights groups said officers were acting as an unconstitutional force and committing civil rights violations. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported the Department of Homeland Security compiled "intelligence reports" on journalists covering the Portland protests. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler on Thursday told reporters that state and local police had agreed not to use tear gas against protesters, unless there was a risk of injury or death, after its near-nightly use by federal agents. (Reporting by Susan Heavey, Andrew Hay and Doina Chiacu ; Editing by Chris Reese, Jonathan Oatis and Aurora Ellis) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By PTI LUCKNOW: BSP president Mayawati on Friday favoured that an invitation be extended to Dalit Mahamandelshwar Kanhaiya Prabhunandan Giri for the 'bhoomi pujan' ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, saying it would have some impact on the Constitutional intention of setting a casteless society. This comes after reports in the media that Giri was unhappy over not being invited to the event. The groundbreaking ceremony for the temple is slated for August 5. In a tweet, the BSP supremo said, "In view of the complaint of Dalit Mahamandelshwar Swami Kanhaiya Prabhunanadan Giri, it would have been better if he was also invited to the bhoomi pujan ceremony in Ayodhya on August 5 along with 200 other saints. "This could have had some impact on the Constitutional intention of establishing a casteless society in the country." However, she went on the say that, "Instead of getting into all this, the Dalit samaj, which has been suffering neglect, contempt and injustice, should focus more on their labour and deeds for their salvation and in this case too they need to follow the path shown by Bhimrao Ambedkar." After a protracted legal tussle, the Supreme Court had on November 9 last year paved the way for the construction of a Ram temple by a Trust at the disputed site in Ayodhya, and directed the Centre to allot an alternative 5-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a new mosque at a "prominent" place in the holy town in Uttar Pradesh. Jaipur: The MLAs of the Ashok Gehlot camp, who have been staying at a hotel on the Jaipur- Delhi Highway amid the ongoing political crisis in Rajasthan, will be shifted to Jaisalmer on Friday, Congress sources said. The MLAs will be shifted after the Congress Legislature Party meeting in the hotel, the sources said, adding, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot will address the MLAs. The MLAs have been staying in the hotel since July 13 after Sachin Pilot and 18 other Congress MLAs rebelled against the government triggering the political crisis. The sources did not elaborate on the reasons for shifting the MLAs. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday indicated that he will seek a confidence vote when the assembly convenes next fortnight and claimed that the money offered to the MLAs to switch sides had increased sharply ahead of the session. The chief minister said the rebels who have not accepted money should return to the party fold. CHICAGO - A convicted felon on parole has been charged with attempted murder in the shooting of three Chicago police officers outside a station, authorities said Friday. Lovelle Jordan was taken to the station on the citys northwest side after officers arrested him Thursday in connection with a June 26 carjacking in downtown Chicago, police said. Jordan began firing when an officer opened the door of the squad car they had driven him to the station in, Deputy Chief Brendan Deenihan said. Officers returned fire and wounded Jordan, who faces six counts of attempted murder as well as charges of possession of a stolen vehicle and possession of a weapon as a felon. Jordan was still hospitalized Friday and did not appear in court. Prosecutors said he has been paralyzed from the chest down. Jordans attorney, Assistant Public Defender Scott Finger, objected to the bond hearing since Jordan could not appear, the Chicago Tribune reported. A judge ordered him held without bail. Two of the wounded officers were treated and released from the hospital. The third officer was shot in the chin and remains hospitalized but is doing well, Deenihan said. Hes not out of the woods by any means ... but it appears hes going to make it, he said. Cook County Assistant States Attorney Kevin DeBoni said during Fridays court hearing that the officer had been placed in a medically induced coma to prevent damage to his spine. Police handcuffed Jordans hands behind his back when he was arrested, but he apparently was able to move his hands to the front while being transported to the station, Deenihan said. He said Jordan, 26, was searched before being transported, but police believe he had a gun extremely secreted, probably very close to his private area and was able to retrieve the weapon during the ride to the station. They didnt do anything wrong, Deenihan said of officers who made the arrest. I will defend them. Theyre out there working, they are wrestling with this guy and once again its the offenders action thats whos responsible for shooting the officer in the face. ___ This story has been updated to correct that the suspects name is Lovelle Jordan, not Jordan Lovelle, based on updated information from the police department. A bill has been prefiled in the Alabama legislature that would overturn the 2017 monuments law while conversations are ongoing among lawmakers that could result in other proposals to loosen restrictions on historical structures that have been a source of friction throughout the state in recent months. The bill already introduced is sponsored by state Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, with House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, as a co-sponsor. House Speaker Mac McCutcheon, R-Capshaw, said the bill has some Republican support while acknowledging other bipartisan conversations are continuing. Whether Givans bill is eventually passed by the legislature or another bill gets approval, it appears that the monuments law that allows virtually no option for moving historical structures that have been in place for more than 40 years has momentum to be overturned in some form or fashion. The Alabama League of Municipalities last week also passed a resolution calling for a change in the law in asking the legislature to allow for local authority to relocate monuments covered be the Act to other areas, such as cemeteries or historical parks as local needs require. There are a lot of legislators on both sides of the aisle that are discussing this issue and some are even discussing it together, McCutcheon said in an interview Thursday with AL.com. Ive found over the years when you get that kind of discussion going on and a debate happening, usually theres a good chance something can be passed. Givans bill, prefiled on July 17, is a straightforward proposal thats little more than 500 words altogether. It would allow local governments to remove or relocate historical structures over which it has jurisdiction, turn ownership of the structure over to the Department of Archives and History or the Alabama Historical Commission for maintenance and repeal the 2017 law. Read Givans bill at bottom of story. Givan did not respond to a phone message seeking comment on the bill. The bills introduction comes amid a time of social unrest throughout the country with a present-day reckoning with some of the nations history of racial inequality. Its a movement sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man pinned to the ground with a knee to his neck from a Minneapolis police officer. Since then, there have been protests shining a spotlight on racial inequality and police behavior throughout the nation and a confronting of historical statues and monuments memorializing the Confederacys fight in the Civil War. Due to the protests and the demonstrations that are going on all over the country, I think it has gotten some peoples attention and theres been a lot of attention placed on these issues of equality, McCutcheon said. The monuments issue, the slavery issue, all of these things are a part of what were hearing all over the country and through all of the voices out there bringing up this issue, this became an issue we had to deal with locally in the state. Specific to the monuments, the cities of Birmingham and Mobile -- after numerous protests that included clashes with police -- have taken down monuments and statues memorializing the Confederacy. That violated the 2017 monuments law in removing structures that have been in place for more than 40 years and each city paid the $25,000 fine thats called for in the law. In Huntsville, a Confederate monument on the grounds of the Madison County Courthouse still stands despite repeated protests and calls for its removal. The county commission attempted to receive a waiver to relocate the monument to city-owned Maple Hill Cemetery with the blessing of the city of Huntsville but the monument review committee said it had no grounds to hear the argument based on the 2017 law. Both the county commission and Huntsville city council have unanimously passed resolutions calling for the monuments relocation to Maple Hill. Protests are also ongoing in Florence where a Confederate statue stands outside the Lauderdale County Courthouse. Clearly, weve got some very important parts of our community, our business district, downtown and they want to see the monument moved, state Rep. Rex Reynolds, R-Huntsville, told AL.com. I support that. I think theyve got a good plan working with the city of Huntsville to move that monument. There was even some conversation about restoration of it during the move. But the law does need to be changed. The Madison County monument is in Reynolds north Alabama district and he has been in talks with Commission Chair Dale Strong and Mayor Tommy Battle. For now, though, there is no foreseeable option to relocating the monument without paying the fine, both McCutcheon and Reynolds said. We need to give more local control in these matters, Reynolds said. Every town, every county has a different situation. There may be legitimate reasons to move it. Weve got to be cautious, as described in the law, this is not just statues. This covers buildings and parks and institutes. Weve just got to be careful here. The historical society should be involved in the definitions moving forward. Weve got time. If repealing the 2017 law is good news for local governments regaining control over the historical structures, the bad news is that the law wont be considered until the legislature goes back into session in February 2021. Unless local governments are willing to violate the law and pay the fine, that could lead to months of community tension and protests. With the community input into this, with the groups pushing so hard to have it removed, do they want to wait until February? McCutcheon said. Thats part of this decision process as well. BAY CITY, MI - Increased concerns about COVID-19 transmission have prompted the City of Bay City to venture back into the world of virtual meetings. The City of Bay City announced on Thursday, July 30, that next weeks Finance Policy and City Commission meetings will take place via Zoom at 6 p.m. on Monday, Aug 3. The commission had met in person in July in the Commission Chambers in City Hall. Click here to view the Aug. 3 agenda. In an official statement, the City of Bay City cited health concerns surrounding COVID-19 under Gov. Gretchen Whitmers Executive Order 2020-129, which allows for the temporary authorization of remote participation in local government public meeting and hearings. The meetings can be accessed multiple ways depending on if a viewer wants to engage in public input sessions or not. For those who wish to just simply listen to the meeting without giving a public comment, the meeting will be live streamed on the Citys website here. Those who want to participate are asked to utilize Zoom by either joining the meeting from a computer/tablet or from a phone. Computer or tablet access: 1. Visit https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86182659653 to join the meeting directly, or go to join.zoom.us . Enter the Webinar ID number 861 8265 9653 (do not enter spaces) when prompted and click join. 2. You may continue joining by following the prompts to use your browser, or you may download the Zoom App. 3. To participate during Public Hearing and Public Input click on the Raise Hand Icon at the bottom of your screen. Phone access: 1. On your phone, dial (877) 853-5247 or (888) 788-0099 (Toll Free). 2. Enter the Webinar ID number 861 8265 9653 when prompted using your keypad. 3. To participate during Public Hearing or Public Input you will press *9 to raise your hand. 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 executive orders requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while in public indoor and crowded outdoor spaces. See an explanation of what that means here . 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/ . More local news: Two girls attacked by dog in Bay Citys Roosevelt Park Bay County residents can get rid of old electronics at upcoming recycling event Bay Metro requiring masks and social distancing as most bus routes return to operation Bay City Public Schools approves tentative plan for return to fall classes Construction begins on new Bay City fitness park R Peters,one of Australia's leading pioneers of the East Kimberley art movement, has died at the age of 85. The senior Gija elder and co-founder of the Warmun Art Centre died at the Kununurra Hospital in Western Australia on Thursday from pneumonia. Luke Scholes, curator of Aboriginal art and material culture at the Museum and Art Gallery of Northern Territory, in front of Peters' artwork Garnkiny. Credit:Helen Orr Before his death, he had been working with the Kimberley Land Council to oppose large-scale granite mining on Springvale Station, his birthplace in the Kimberley. Dominic Kavanagh, gallery co-ordinator of the Warmun Art Centre, said Peters strove to create work that bridged the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge. "He called his painting 'two ways' and he wanted there to be a communal understanding about his practice and his culture as depicted in his artwork." According to the poll of 838 adults, conducted via phone from July 11-19, 14% of Virginians think the monuments should be removed altogether. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.19 percentage points for all adults and 6.40 percentage points for likely voters. While VMI wont be taking action on its Confederate statues, Peay said it will implement other changes. Every cadet will take a second-year course called the American Civic Experience that will emphasize American history and civics within the context historically of national and world events, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and slavery. Peay said the course has been under development for three years and will be piloted this fall. VMI will also review two Virginia history classes, one on the state before 1865 and one after the Civil War, to ensure that they are taught with the proper context and from multiple perspectives. Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Cho Yong-byoung speaks during a general shareholders' meeting at the group headquarters in Seoul in this March file photo. / Courtesy of Shinhan Financial Group By Park Jae-hyuk Shinhan Financial Group's strong ties with ethnic Koreans living in Japan have come under the spotlight again, since one of its Korean Japanese non-executive directors acquired a large stake in the financial group recently. According to a regulatory filing by Shinhan, Thursday, CYS CEO Choi Kyong-rok saw his stake in the financial firm increase to 0.27 percent roughly worth 40 billion won ($33 million) from 0.19 percent, July 16, after he inherited shares from his father, Choi Young-seok, the former CYS CEO who died in October last year. The late Choi was a non-executive director of the financial group and its banking unit. Given that the Commercial Law prohibits non-executive directors from holding more than a 1 percent stake in the company. Choi is considered to have a significant stake. Furthermore, it is unusual for a son to take over his father's position as a non-executive director, according to industry officials. Choi took the position in 2018, when Shinhan recommended him for his expertise and knowledge in digitization. He had also served as a non-executive director of Shinhan Life Insurance from 2010 to 2015. Industry officials forecast Korean Japanese will continue to exercise their influence over Shinhan, handing over their shares to their descendants as the Choi family did. In addition to Choi, three more are serving as non-executive directors at Shinhan Fedora CEO Jin Hyun-duk, Taisei Group Chairman Park An-soon and Primer Korea CEO Yuki Hirakawa. Shinhan has offered four non-executive seats among 10 to Korean Japanese over the past decade, although the company denied any impropriety. When it was criticized for its shareholder structure during the "Boycott Japan" movement last year, following the Korea-Japan trade dispute, the group emphasized it is a Korean company as the successor to Hanseong Bank, the nation's first commercial bank established in 1897. However, Shinhan Bank was established in 1982 by Korean Japanese Lee Hee-gun, based on investments from ethnic Korean shareholders living in Japan. They have invested 25 billion won since the bank's launch. The reason Shinhan calls itself as the successor to Hanseong Bank is because of its merger with Chohung Bank in 2006. Hanseong changed its name to Chohung in 1943. Sources said Shinhan still seeks approval from its Korean Japanese shareholders when making important decisions. Its management has frequently visited Japan to meet elderly Korean Japanese shareholders, who are known to collectively have a 17 percent stake. The governance has caused a series of controversies, as Korean Japanese have held many non-executive seats, relative to their stake. In September 2017, the Financial Supervisory Service sent a warning to Shinhan, pointing out its Korean Japanese directors were unsuitable for their positions. The Center for Good Corporate Governance also disagreed with the appointment of Choi as a non-executive director in 2018, raising a suspicion about his relationship with Shinhan management. Punjab Youth Congress president Brinder Singh Dhillon accused the Badals of being directly involved in saving Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the case of alleged blasphemy by personifying himself as tenth Sikh master Guru Gobind Singh in 2007. Addressing mediapersons in Mohali, Dhillon said if the 2007 case was enquired properly, the desecration incidents of 2015 could have been avoided. The Badals backstabbed the Sikh panth (community) for their political gains. As the 2009 Lok Sabha elections approached, the then Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) government started weakening the case to get the dera votes for Harsimrat Kaur Badal. The collusion between the Badals and the dera chief led to delaying submission of challan in the case for four years, he claimed, Then just three days before the Vidhan Sabha elections in 2012, the then Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) government filed a cancellation report in the case for electoral gains. The government did not even bother to file an appeal in the case, he added. What forced the Badals-led government to take a stand in favour of the dera chief in court despite having evidences? Despite the Punjab governor issued sanction orders in the case, why did not the government challenge the cancellation report in the court? he questioned. Witnessing temple rituals through live streaming cannot be a substitute for a physical visit to places of worship, the Supreme Court said on Friday, advocating opening of temples, churches and mosques for the public during the Unlock period on special occasions. A three-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra said that a limited number of devotees can be permitted in temples during the Unlock period provided adequate safety measures and social distancing guidelines are adhered to. E-darshan is no darshan. Cant you permit darshan by adhering to social distancing? During a total lockdown things are different. But during Unlock period, when other things are functioning, why cant states manage temples. Temples, churches, mosques should be opened at least on special occasions, Justice Mishra remarked. The bench was hearing a plea by Member of Parliament, Nishikant Dubey seeking a direction to the state of Jharkhand and the central government to open Baba Baidhyanath Jyotirlinga Temple at Deoghar and Baba Basukinath Temple at Basukinath to the public and to further allow the Shravani Mela devotees to offer prayers during Hindi months of Shravan and Bhado. The Jharkhand government had opposed the plea citing the Covid-19 threat and the fact that it would be streaming the temple rituals online. The apex court eventually did not pass any direction instead asking the Jharkhand government to explore the possibility of allowing at least a few devotees to visit the temple every day. While we are not issuing any direction, we request the state government to find out the possibility and work out a mechanism for allowing darshan (of the temple deity) to the public. This shall apply to churches and mosques as well. Let efforts be made by the state government in this direction, the court said. The Baidyanath temple assumes special significance during the festival of Shravani Mela which falls during July- August when devotees throng the temple carrying water from the river Ganga to offer it to the deity at Baidyanath temple. Dubey, who represents the Godda constituency of Jharkhand in the Lok Sabha, had initially approached the Jharkhand high court seeking permission to open the two temples for devotees citing similar intervention by the Supreme Court in the Puri Jagannath Rath Yatra in June. The high court, however, dismissed his plea on July 3 stating that allowing public to congregate for the festival could seriously impact the Covid-19 situation in the state. No such direction for Shravani Mela will be appropriate to be passed taking into consideration the spread of threat of Covid-19 virus which according to us, if allowed, may cause great danger of widespread of infection of the virus, the high court said. Dubey then approached the Supreme Court on July 8. During the hearing on Friday, senior counsel Salman Khurshid and additional advocate general Tapesh Kumar Singh, appearing for Jharkhand, told the court that the state has arranged for online darshan of the temple and argued against opening the temple to for the people. The state is going through the Covid-19 crisis. Serum testing is happening now and depending on the results, lockdown might be imposed, Khurshid said. Tapesh Kumar Singh said that the lanes leading up to the temple are very narrow and it might not be possible to ensure social distancing between people if the temple is thrown open to devotees. The bench, however, said that the state should have made an effort to allow at least a few hundred devotees on a daily basis. Is it the same for churches, mosques. It is Eid, are mosques open? Why cant it be permitted adhering to social distancing, Justice Mishra asked Khurshid. No, it will become difficult with overcrowding, Khurshid replied. The petitioners counsel, Samir Malik pointed out that though the Baidyanath temple is not open to public around 30,000 pandas (pilgrimage priests) are allowed inside the temple. The state government said that only a limited number of pandas are allowed inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temple though there is no restriction on them in the temple premises. We are alarmed by this, the court noted while ordering the state to make arrangements to avoid entry of large number of pandas so as to avert a spurt in Covid-19 cases. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-01 06:00:30|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close CAIRO, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday that Egypt supports political solution to Libya crisis away from external interventions seeking to control Libya. During a phone conversation, Shoukry reviewed with Guterres Egypt's stance in supporting a Libyan-Libyan political solution, the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement. Shoukry also affirmed Egypt's keenness to maintain regular coordination with the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) to push for a political solution based on the recently issued Cairo Declaration and the principles and conclusions adopted by the Berlin Summit. The Egyptian minister highlighted the important role played by the United Nations in the Libyan crisis, calling on all countries to cooperate with the UN to "achieve the Libyan people's legitimate objectives and aspirations." Libya has been locked in a civil war since the ouster and killing of its former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The situation escalated in 2014, splitting power between two rival governments with warring forces, namely the UN-backed Government of National Accord based in the capital Tripoli and a government in the northeastern city of Tobruk allied with the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar. Enditem US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that the deaths of "300 Russians" in Syria sent a warning to Moscow, as he defended the administration as tough on President Vladimir Putin. Pompeo came under fire at a Senate hearing over President Donald Trump's statement that he had not raised with Putin accusations that Moscow paid the Taliban bounties to kill US troops in Afghanistan. "I don't think there's any doubt in the mind of every Russian leader, including Vladimir Putin, about the expectations of the United States of America not to kill Americans," Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "I can promise you that the 300 Russians who were in Syria and who took action that threatened America who are no longer on this planet understand that, too," he said. Pompeo did not specify an incident but there have been multiple reports that US airstrikes killed Russians in February 2018 near the Syrian town of Khasham. The New York Times, which first reported the alleged Russian bounties in Afghanistan, said Moscow may have been retaliating for the strike in which hundreds of pro-Damascus fighters were believed to have been killed, including numerous Russian mercenaries. Russia intervened in Syria in 2015 to defend President Bashar al-Assad and had largely avoided direct clashes with the United States, which sent troops and launched airstrikes aimed at destroying the Islamic State group. Trump, in an interview this week with Axios, said that US intelligence did not think the account of Russian bounties in Afghanistan was real and that he never raised the issue with Putin. Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the committee, told Pompeo that Trump's remarks were "astonishing" and that the bounties marked an "outrageous escalation" by Russia. Menendez asked Pompeo, a former Republican congressman known for his blistering attacks on Democrats, how he would have acted if a Democratic president acted similarly to Trump. "If you were sitting in your old House seat, would you be okay with a president who abandoned our troops but not even raising this with the Kremlin?" Menendez said. Pompeo said he had raised Afghanistan with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov but declined to discuss Trump's discussions. Texas CPS dismisses case after taking 4-year-old boy away from homeschool parents Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Child Protective Services in Texas has dropped its five-months long case against homeschooling parents who say their son was unfairly removed by the state on allegations of child medical abuse. On Tuesday, Kaufman County Judge Tracy Gray signed an order that ended the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services' cases against the Pardo family. On June 20, Daniel and Ashley Pardos 4-year-old son, Drake, was taken from their home on the authority of a court order after the family missed a CPS-facilitated meeting at Dallas Childrens Medical Center that they were not informed of and was hours away from their home. The familys lawyers at the Texas Home School Coalition argued throughout the case that CPS failed to meet the legal requirements needed for an emergency removal and failed to notify the parents about a meeting they were ordered to attend with a child abuse pediatrician and were subsequently faulted with not attending. A concerned doctor had reached out to CPS initially with concerns that the family was seeking medical treatment for their son even though she had never met personally with the family. The familys lawyers also pointed out that the child was removed from the home before CPS consulted with the familys attending physicians. In October, the Texas Supreme Court ordered that Drake Pardo be returned to his parents. Although the child was reunited with his parents, CPS continued to demand that the family participate in invasive therapies based on claims that they suffer from mental health issues. But the Pardo familys attorney refused the CPS demand, which led the agency to drop its case. CPS and the familys attorney both agreed that the best thing to do, at this point, was to close the case, Jeremy Newman, director of public policy for the Texas Home School Coalition, said after the judge signed the agreement. In a video, Ashley and Daniel Pardo thanked all those who supported them with donations, prayers and advocacy efforts. God has made sure we were special and God has made sure that we had the love and support that we needed to get through this, Ashley Pardo said. We just want to thank everybody for everything youve done. Please keep us in your prayers in the future. We are thankful to have our son home and we are thankful we are reunited. Earlier this year, The Houston Chronicle/NBC News published a series of investigative articles highlighting a Texas legal and medical system that sometimes struggles to differentiate accidental injuries from abuse. Physicians intent on protecting the most vulnerable in some instances have overstated the reliability of their findings, using terms such as 100 percent and certain to describe conclusions that usually cannot be proven with absolute confidence, a report in the series reads. Child welfare workers, overworked and untrained in complex medical issues, are not always sure how to proceed when the primary evidence against a caregiver comes in the form of a doctors note. Reporters from the news outlets spent nine months examining 40 cases in Texas and interviewed over 75 attorneys and doctors as well as two dozen current and former CPS employees and union officials. Under this system, children are sometimes taken from seemingly caring parents, while others are left in situations that, in rare cases, turn out to be deadly, the report reads. Parents managed to regain custody in most of the cases reviewed by reporters, in some instances after additional medical findings or reports from outside experts raised doubts about the initial abuse determination. Although the Pardo family has been reunited, Newman argued that CPS workers get to walk away from the court agreement without any psychological damage while families are left to deal with the emotional aftermath of such removals. This is the end of the Pardo case officially but this is not the end of it for the family, Newman said. CPS kind of gets to walk away from this, right? Its a little bit easier for them. But for the families in these situations, the trauma and the effect of that last. The boy's return home doesnt negate the fact that it took $120,000 and a team of legal experts to defend the family against the CPSs baseless accusations, a press release noted. As much as we are celebrating the victory, we have to also kind of stop and pause and consider the cost and realize that a team of advocates and the whole state that responded to support Ashley and Daniel in this, not every family has that, Newman said. You have to wonder about all the families you never hear from, the families whose stories dont make the news. You dont hear from them and you kind of have to wonder: Do they just get eaten by the system? As a result of The Houston Chronicle/NBC News investigative reporting, a Texas legislative committee that oversees the states child welfare system called a daylong hearing in Austin last month to address the issue of mistaken child abuse allegations. Committee Chairman Republican state Rep. James Frank remarked that the investigative reporting exposed serious problems in the system. According to NBC News, Frank vowed that the hearing was the first step toward solving the problems. One mother who lost custody of her 2-year-old daughter after she was accused by doctors of child abuse testified during the hearing. In this process, you are guilty until [proven] innocent, the mother, Ajshay James, told the lawmakers. Frank said from the outset of the hearing: Were here to learn from past mistakes. Bengaluru, July 31 : Karnataka will implement the new National Education Policy (NEP) from August after merging a draft state policy with it, a minister said on Friday. "In two weeks' time, the NEP and a state policy would be merged to bring out a separate policy for Karnataka," said Primary and Secondary Education Minister S. Suresh Kumar. Kumar revealed these plans in a video conference he had with NEP draft committee chairman Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan. He said the state will be at the forefront in implementing the policy systematically and observed that NEP is a complete policy. The Karnataka government has already passed a resolution accepting the Central government's National Education Policy and held a meeting on how to implement it. "A resolution was passed accepting the NEP," said Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Higher Education, C.N. Ashwath Narayan. He held a meeting with the members of the 'Task Force on the Implementation of NEP 2020'. According to the minister, the task force will present a plan of action on August 16 and a detailed plan of action on August 20. The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday approved the NEP 2020, making way for large-scale, transformational reforms in school and higher education sectors. As the first education policy of the millennium, it will replace the 34-year-old National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986. On Friday, Karnataka Chief Minister B. S. Yediyurappa and Narayan met Kasturirangan and honoured him. "Visited and congratulated Kasturirangan, chairman of the committee on NEP 2020, in the presence of Yediyurappa. NEP is set to transform our nation's education sector for which all of us are grateful to Kasturirangan and his team," said Narayan. Kasturirangan was former chairman of the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and also a former Rajya Sabha member and held several other important positions across the country. Team Kangana Ranaut is at it again as they launch fresh attacks on Rhea Chakraborty after late actor Sushant Singh Rajput's family lawyer Vikas Singh refused to indulge much into nepotism debate, started by the Queen actress. He told Zoom TV, "In my legal mind, it really does not require the police to go into this matter. Maybe an actors' association or producers' association can take up this matter but I don't think that this case has anything to do with what Kangana has suggested or anybody else is talking about." Apparently, team Kangana Ranaut is not very pleased with Vikas Singh's statement. They tweeted, "Let's not reduce a legend like Sushant into a gullible majnu, lets not ignore his own complains about Nepotism & his posts begging people to watch his films, his fears of movie mafia bans that he expressed in his fan interactions on social media." Kangana's team further tweeted, "Yes Rhea is a small time gold digger, she should be punished she took advantage of his situation, But CBI must find out what was that situation? Why was he so fragile and needy ? What was that chakraveyu?" Sushant Singh Rajput's Friend Says Rhea Chakraborty Never Let The Actor Connect With His Family Kangana's team also wrote that Sushant walked out on all his ex-girlfriends hence, women were never his weakness. They tweeted, "Sushant dated many women before Rhea and it's a known fact he walked out on all of them, a woman has never been his weakness, he was a very confident man, suddenly last year in May he gives his every thing to Rhea, Why? Because of Kala jadoo? Come on!!!It's unfortunate a science legend and space enthusiast's murder is being converted in to love sex dhoka prime time gossip." Meanwhile, those who were upset with Kangana's remarks on B-town celebrities like Karan Johar, Taapsee Pannu, Alia Bhatt, etc., are slamming the Panga actress for seeing Sushant's death as an opportunity to settle her own personal score with her naysayers from the industry. Worried about your mental well-being or of someone you know? Help is just a call away. Reach out to the nearest mental health specialist at COOJ Mental Health Foundation (COOJ)- 0832-2252525, Parivarthan- +91 7676 602 602, Connecting Trust- +91 992 200 1122/+91-992 200 4305 or Sahai- 080-25497777/ SAHAIHELPLINE@GMAIL.COM AER Lingus has warned the future of its base at Shannon Airport is under threat and the firm may seek compulsory redundancies. In what is described as having huge ramifications for the Mid-West, Aer Lingus chief executive Sean Doyle told staff members of the options in an internal video to staff members today. We have no line of sight on any meaningful resumption of operations out of either Cork or Shannon Airports. As such we are reviewing the scale of our flying programme from these airports and the ongoing viability of our regional bases there, Mr Doyle told staff, in comments reported nationally. Staff were told the airline recorded an operating loss of 98m in the three months to the end of June, its biggest ever quarterly loss, when it operated at less than 5pc of capacity compared with 2019. Local Labour councillor Conor Sheehan has urged the Minister responsible for aviation Hildegarde Naughton to intervene. What needs to happen as well is government needs to tell Aer Lingus that it will not tolerate them leaving Shannon Airport behind. Shannon needs to be able to access additional regional airport funding. The State is spending a fortune subventing airports in Kerry, Knock and the worst example is Waterford which has not had a flight commercially in years. Its crazy stuff, Cllr Sheehan said. If Aer Lingus did quit Limericks local airport, it would leave behind the treasured connection to Londons Heathrow Airport, as well as a variety of other services including to regional British cities, and Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Cllr Sheehan said: We need this Heathrow connectivity. If we do not have this connectivity, I cannot see how else Shannon can be viable. All efforts need to be put in place to actually try and safeguard the viability of this route. Its the single most important route out of the airport. Fellow councillor Daniel Butler of Fine Gael said: "It's now clear government must offer financial support. Ryanair and EasyJet have received loans worth 670m each from the UK Government. Lufthansa has received 9 billion from the German Government. Aer Lingus is owned by International Airlines Group (IAG). IAG is also the owner of airlines such as British Airways, Iberia, Vueling and Level. Of those airlines, BA has received over 340 million from the UK Government, Iberia and Vueling have received over 1 billion from the Spanish Government. We need to now step up before IAG decide to take more permanent actions to protect its priority airlines in BA and Iberia and protects the 1000s of jobs at stake and indeed our national airline that shares our national brand with the world." Mr Doyle said job losses will be implemented on a voluntary basis if possible, but on a compulsory basis if necessary, he said. This is seriously worrying. Government needs to intervene to protect our national airline, our airports and most importantly it's employees! @Nick468official @Live95fmNews https://t.co/UgiCrezr8s Cllr Daniel Butler (@DanielButlerFG) July 31, 2020 The airline has 350 staff based in Cork and Shannon. Aer Lingus is seeking 500 redundancies across the airline. In a statement the airline said the impact of Covid-19 on the aviation sector has been compounded in Ireland by what it called the most restrictive travel policies in Europe and the failure to implement supports for the sector. Aer Lingus has also not made the required progress on the implementation of industry standard work practices with key cohorts of employees. In this context and given the Aer Lingus quarterly results today, significant redundancies are required across the business. "The redundancies will be on voluntary basis if possible but may be implemented compulsorily if required. Consultations are ongoing with the relevant representative bodies in this regard. Aer Lingus is also reviewing the scale of our flying programme from Cork and Shannon Airports and the ongoing viability of our regional bases there. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 Trend: The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense has commented on the information spread by the Armenian media that the positions of the Armenian armed forces were allegedly shot at from the direction of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan, Trend reports citing the press service of the Ministry. The news disseminated by the Armenian media is a lie. On the contrary, in response to the shelling of Azerbaijani positions by the Armenian army, the units of the Nakhchivan Separate Combined Arms Army took adequate measures, the ministry stressed. 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. Justice Department officials had argued that Cohen was combative throughout the probation meeting. The Federal Bureau of Prisons alleged that he refused to wear an ankle monitor, which was one of the requirements for his release to home confinement. Cohens lawyers disputed that, though they argued he shouldnt have to wear one because he is not a violent convict. The Marine Corps is in the process of getting rid of its tanks in preparation for possible island-hopping missions in the Pacific, but the move could lead to a bitter inter-service divide if the Army is tasked with filling the gap, defense experts warned this week. Some Marine Corps tank companies have cased their colors, winding up decades-long missions as part of a service-wide redesign. Charlie Company, 2nd Tank Battalion, was the latest armor unit to shut down this week in a ceremony at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The company's M1A1 Abrams tanks were hauled away Monday. A few weeks prior, members of 1st Tank Battalion saw their tanks off at Twentynine Palms in California. Read next: 'They're Delinquent:' Trump Says Germany Will Have to Pay More to Stop US Troop Withdrawal The move has left many with mixed feelings, including a pair of retired Marines who sounded off on the decision during a virtual event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank billed as "Re-Designing the Marine Corps for Future War: Necessity or Madness?" "The Marine Corps likes to think of itself as kind of a Swiss Army knife," said retired Marine Col. Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "But this will be a Swiss Army knife whose owner has ripped out a couple of blades because he doesn't think he's going to need them anymore." Cancian and retired Lt. Col. Frank Hoffman, distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University, both said there are things they like about Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger's plan to reshape the force in preparation for future conflicts with more skilled adversaries. Many of the changes tie into the National Defense Strategy, Hoffman said. And investments in long-range precision fires and smaller amphibious ships would be necessary should conflict with China break out, Cancian added. But both say they're concerned about the decision to fully cut tanks from the Marine Corps' arsenal. "I've heard the Marine Corps argue that they can get these missing capabilities from other services, particularly from the Army. But I think that's unlikely," Cancian said. "I think, if the Marine Corps wanted those assets, that a combatant commander would have to take them away from the Army, which would engender a bitter inter-service fight." Lt. Gen. Eric Smith, the head of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, told Military.com earlier this year that, as the nation's "fight tonight" force, Marines have to travel as lightly as possible. "There are other forces within the Department of Defense, because we're part of a joint force, who can bring ... the big, heavy fist," Smith said. "For example, the Army, I believe, has 37 tank battalions, so we're pretty well covered on tanks." Hoffman said it remains to be seen whether the Marine Corps' plans fit into a larger strategy for the joint force. If Army units are going to be tasked with complementing Marine Corps missions, he said, it would require new training and doctrine. Cancian agreed, adding that the Marine Corps' plans could place new burdens on the Army. Both retired officers advocated for the Marine Corps Reserve to keep some of its tanks. "[That's] a very appropriate strategy to manage some of the risks," Hoffman said. Both he and Cancian served in the Marine Corps Reserve. At least one Reserve unit -- Alpha Company, 4th Tank Battalion -- has already been deactivated. All of 4th Tanks' six companies, along with its battalion headquarters, are expected to deactivate by the end of 2021, said Maj. Roger Hollenbeck, a spokesman for Marine Forces Reserve. As Marines with Charlie Company, 2nd Tank Battalion, said goodbye to their tanks this week, Capt. John Fergerson, the commanding officer, called it a somber day for many. "Not only for tankers, but for many of my fellow warfighters as well," he said, according to a Marine Corps news release on the company's deactivation. -- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins. Related: Marine Corps Begins Shutdown of All Tank Battalions Exxon is planning to cut jobs and spending, in a hail mary to preserve its dividend, according to anonymous Reuters sources. Exxon spokesman Casey Norton, however, has denied that the oil company has plans to cut jobs or furlough employees through its annual employee reviews, although Norton did say that Exxon was continually monitoring market conditions and our deep portfolio has flexibility to adjust our plans. Exxon this week is expected to join many other players in the oil industry in reporting a loss for the quarter. Refinitiv Eikon data is estimating a loss of $2.63 billion. Already, Exxon has cut a third of its spending budget for this year as the pandemic took hold in April, complete with lockdowns that severely restricted movements in the worlds top oil-consuming nation. The dividend that Exxon is so desperately trying to maintain will cost it $15 billion this year, Exxon sources said, at a time when belts are tightening everywhere. But Exxon is looking to cut costs elsewhere, according to the sources. Reuters sources did not elaborate on how deep the cuts to either the spending or to the jobs would be, but analysts have predicted that as is, Exxon will not generate enough cash from operations to support that $15 billion dividend, and it has already borrowed $18 billion this year. Brent prices have fallen sharply this year, from nearly $69 per barrel at the beginning of January to $20 in April and $43 per barrel now. Most analysts have said for months that Exxons plans to maintain its dividends in the face of the demand destruction and supply glut are unrealistic, and that changes will need to be made, either this year or next, with its market cap falling by half this year. Exxon was recently bumped out of its second-most valuable energy company in the world by Reliance Industries. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Read this article on OilPrice.com It was a shame to see the Prime Minister split hairs on this point by shifting the onus back onto the Victorians for letting the virus into the community. The challenges of dealing with aged care are not unique to Australia, he told reporters on Wednesday. Indeed, in every country in the world where there is sustained community transmission, it is inevitable that this will find its way into aged care facilities. When it rains, everyone gets wet. And that is what we're seeing with broad-based community transmission in Victoria. Loading Morrison wont need to run a focus group of older voters to know that he sounded a little callous. He would remember, also, how quickly the public mood turned against him during the black summer of fires when he played pass-the-hose with the states. Every death in this pandemic is preventable if we are humble enough to learn from our own mistakes and be inspired by our neighbours. Taiwan, an island nation with a population comparable to ours, remains the gold standard. It has lost seven people in total to COVID-19, which translates to a death rate of 0.3 per million. Australia lost its first 100 people to the virus between March and June, with almost half coming from NSW. Victoria will have added 100 more to that toll by the time the final count for July is confirmed. Almost half that number will have come from nursing homes. By any measure, this is a scandal and the Royal Commission into Aged Care didnt pull any punches this week when it reminded both the federal and Victorian governments that every aspect of their responses to COVID-19 deserves to be investigated. But commission chairman Tony Pagone QC said his inquiry did not have the resources to do this at the moment. Our inquiries may reveal, as seems likely, that there needs to be a fuller and more forensic inquiry into the impact of COVID-19 in aged care, he said. Such an inquiry would need adequate time and resources extending beyond the time frame available to us. It will be for government to determine if such an inquiry is to be undertaken. Loading It is hard to imagine Morrison stonewalling this request. The question is whether he wants to use a broader inquiry to restore the role of government in aged care. The Commonwealth runs aged care on the Howard model of privatisation. It is the same model that applies in childcare, and it carries a certain political logic. The conservatives believe the private sector is more efficient at delivering services than government. But it cant trust the market to set a fair price for young families and older Australians, so it subsidises consumption of these privately run services through direct handouts to the voter, sorry customer. The great irony of the Victorian outbreak is that a Labor state adapted the Howard model by placing its faith in private contractors to manage the hotel quarantine of Australians returning from overseas. No other state, conservative or Labor, pulled this lever. The Victorian outbreak contains a further ideological twist. Victoria assumed it was the state most likely to protect multicultural communities from the virus, whether they were vulnerable workers or residents of public housing. Yet the best intentions of this socially progressive government were undermined by a curious lack of connection with the very people it champions. Loading The problem started with the public health message: it was too centred on Andrews and his chief medical officer, Brett Sutton. There is no doubt that the two are popular. Andrews and Sutton are the most earnest, most compassionate double team in the country. But what value are their briefings if the government doesnt back them up in each community, with messages tailored for each community? This isnt just about language. Health campaigns have to be delivered by ones peers, not betters, if they are to change behaviour. They need to be bottom-up, not top-down. Victoria has been slow to appreciate this simple rule of public health. Young Victorians are not fixated on their screens, soaking up every nuance of the Dan and Brett show. They are sharing conspiracy theories, and testing the boundaries of stage three lockdown. They are not alone in this, but they are one of the main carriers of the second wave. The phrase, "Do you think you own this country? is being bandied about on the Internet to criticize the government's failed attempts to tame real-estate prices with punitive taxes. But that question does not seem to be restricted to the realm of real estate but reflects broader discontent over the high-handed conduct of the Moon Jae-in administration. The president has only a single, five-year term to run the country. That may or may not be too short, but it means that there are things he can do and things he cannot. Moon only has a year and 10 months left in office, and almost 60 percent of voters did not vote for him in the first place. Even the gap in the general election between the ruling party and the disorganized opposition was just 8.5 percent. That did result in a vast majority of parliamentary seats for the ruling Minjoo Party, but a considerable proportion of Koreans did not vote for this government. Yet Moon behaves as if everybody had and all that remains for him is to be crowned king. The ruling party immediately set to work bulldozing through some of the most stupid laws in the history of the country that have a huge impact on the lives of ordinary citizens. Late last year, the ruling party and its proxies waved through a new budget without even showing the opposition what was inside. Such practices have now become routine. Minjoo lawmakers have hogged every single parliamentary committee, and opposition lawmakers were only allocated to them at the whim of the ruling party. Meanwhile the president has far appointed 25 minister-level officials against the express vote of the opposition, more than double the number of ex-President Park Geun-hye, who is rightly in jail for running an authoritarian operetta court. Parliamentary confirmation hearings have become pointless. When residential property values soared due to the government's failed real-estate policies, it suddenly raised the old specter of moving the administrative capital again to divert public attention from its failures. What government in its right mind would consider moving the administrative capital just to tame real estate prices? No thought whatsoever went into the huge cost of the relocation project, and no reason was given why it is suddenly necessary again. The government has made a habit of massive pump-priming projects as a cure-all. The Constitutional Court ruled back in 2004 that the capital cannot be moved, but the head of the Minjoo Party said it can simply revise the Constitution, while the party's floor leader said, "We can change the decision of the court" now many judges were picked by the current administration. Perhaps they own the Constitutional Court as well. In 2018, Cheong Wa Dae was behind the politically motivated probe of the former mayor of Ulsan so a crony of Moon's could replace him. Moon then appointed Cho Kook as justice minister despite an ongoing corruption probe and massive street protests, and the clown lasted barely a month in office. The authority to appoint public officials is not in the personal gift of the president in a democratic country. When Moon appointed a new prosecutor-general, he told him to be "strict" with those in authority. But as soon as an actual scandal involving Cheong Wa Dae officials erupted, Moon stymied the probe by dismantling the prosecutor-general's investigation team and looking to set up an even more compliant new body. Not even past dictators resorted to such blatant rigging. Key positions in the Justice Ministry are now occupied by cronies to Moon, and investigations into government officials aligned with the ruling party suddenly lost steam. The courts released a key aide of the president's who had been accused of taking bribes, while making up excuses to issue arrest warrants for people who could help Moon drive out the prosecutor-general. Moon also thinks he owns the country's power supply. At a whim and without any concrete plans for their replacement, he decided to shut down Korea's world-class nuclear power plants, damaging its burgeoning nuclear power industry beyond repair in the eyes of global clients. Energy supply is essential for the country's economic development and the lives of ordinary citizens, yet Moon, who has just this single, five-year term at his disposal, is determined to wreak as much irreversible damage as he can. A quarter of universities across the country are expected to close down within the next five years due to a decrease in the number of students, but the president intends to spend trillions in taxpayers' money to build a KEPCO tech university, as a little monument to himself. All the while he has ordered state-run companies to give all temporary workers permanent positions. Incheon International Airport Corporation, which is suffering from massive losses, has just led the way by making subcontracted security guards permanent employees of an airport without passengers, with all the regular pay rises and essentially lifelong job guarantees that entails. There are many more such cases and violations of democratic practice. All these catastrophic mistakes were only possible because the government thinks it owns the country. The potentially catastrophic repercussions, of course, will bite the next government in the backside, while Moon will be living out his days in a stately grace-and-favor home financed by the taxpayer. Who will hold him to account? (JNS) A group of 10 Jewish organizations has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a discrimination case from the 1970s that involved a Jewish employee who couldnt work on Saturdays, which is the the Jewish Shabbat. The amicus curiae was filed by the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs. It was joined by Orthodox Jews groups, including Agudath Israel of America, Agudas Harabbonim, the Coalition for Jewish Values, the National Council of Young Israel, the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, the Rabbinical Alliance of America, the Rabbinical Council of America,... The government of Namibia is reportedly undertaking an assessment of the environmental impact of 5G before introducing the technology to the market. Local outlet The Namibian reports that the countrys Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism was ordered to conduct the review just weeks after the Windhoek municipality revealed that it was upgrading the citys mobile network to prepare it for 5G. TeleGeography notes that the city received Class Comprehensive Electronic Communication Network Services and Electronic Communications Services licences from regulator CRAN (Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia) in March 2020. The environmental assessment was likely announced as a follow-up to the government instructing CRAN to prepare a 5G strategy for Namibia and submit it to the countrys cabinet. Information minister Peya Mushelenga has stated that environmental considerations should be accounted for before the introduction of 5G. Alibaba Founder Jack Ma Sued by Former Indian Employee An Indian former employee filed a civil suit against Alibaba and its founder, Jack Ma, for being fired over opposition to censorship and fake news being promoted on company apps. The Indian court has summoned Alibaba and Jack Ma. According to the court filing obtained by Reuters on July 20, civil Judge Sonia Sheokand of a district court in Gurugram has issued a summons for Alibaba, Jack Ma, and about a dozen individuals or company units, asking them to appear in court or through a lawyer on July 29. Individuals summoned are required to respond to a complaint from a former employee of Alibabas UC Web. This Indian employee believed that he was wrongfully terminated for opposing Alibabas censorship and objecting to fake news on the apps. D isgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein told his ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell she had done nothing wrong despite claims that underage girls were flown to his private island for sex parties, newly released court papers reveal. Maxwell is facing trial in separate criminal proceedings for allegedly helping to find victims for the late paedophile billionaire Epstein, and is accused of grooming girls for sex before passing them on to rich and powerful men. She claimed earlier this month to have not seen Epstein for a decade but emails newly-released by a US court show him apparently giving her advice on tackling the growing media storm in 2015. You have done nothing wrong and i woudl [sic] urge you to start acting like it, Epstein wrote. Go outside, head high, not as an esacping [sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it. The court papers from a 2015 defamation claim, settled in 2017, also give new insight into Maxwell and Epsteins world in testimony by Virginia Giuffre, who claims she was trafficked as a teenager and told to have sex with men including Prince Andrew, which he denies. In her evidence in her libel claim, Ms Giuffre talks of seeing countless women, girls and models being flown in to Epsteins private Caribbean retreat, claiming there were continuous orgies involving girls as young as 15. Ghislaine Maxwell / via REUTERS US District Judge Loretta Preska last night ordered that the documents were made public for the first time, saying the publics right to see them outweighed Maxwells interests in keeping them sealed. Maxwell had fought a battle to stop the information from a civil lawsuit brought against her by Ms Giuffre being released, arguing it could prejudice her upcoming criminal trial. The criminal proceedings relate to 1994-1997. Dozens of papers from the civil lawsuit against British socialite Maxwell, 58, were released by the judge in New York overnight. The documents were sealed after Maxwell agreed to settle the case out of court but have been made public following her arrest this month. Maxwell, who is in custody awaiting trial on alleged child sex trafficking charges, had fought to keep the messages private but the district judge rejected her arguments. Epstein, who was accused of a series of child sex offences but died in prison while awaiting trial, had messaged Maxwell in January 2015 when she was sued by Ms Giuffre. As she sought bail this month, Maxwell insisted she had not seen Epstein for more than a decade. However, the cache of documents appear to show that in 2015 Epstein emailed Maxwell with what looked like a statement written from her perspective. Since JE was charged in 2007 for solicitation of a prostitute I have been the target of outright lies, innuendo, slander, defamation and salacious gossip and harassment; headlines made up of quotes I have never given, statement I have never made, it reads. I have never been a party in any criminal action pertaining to JE. The messages also reveal a claim that Maxwell has been in a long-term relationship with another man, and saying she is on friendly terms with Epstein but had had limited contact. In one of the exchanges, Maxwell told Epstein she would appreciate it if shelley would come out and say she was your gfriend I think she was from end 99 to 2002. Ok with me, Epstein replied. Disclosure of the documents came after Judge Preska, sitting in New York, ordered that they could be made public as part of the civil lawsuit brought by Ms Giuffre. She claims she was made a sex slave by Epstein as a teenager, and insists she was told to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17. The Duke of York denies the allegations, and has rejected claims that he was deliberately avoiding speaking to US prosecutors. In written testimony before the court, Ms Giuffre claimed to have witnessed continuous orgies involving Maxwell and Epstein on his Caribbean island, Little St James. She said young women, including Eastern European models were flown in to participate in the sex sessions, saying: Theres so many, I dont know where you want me to start. There were blondes, there were brunettes, there were redheads. They were all beautiful girls. I would say the ages ranged between 15 and 21. Maxwell has also made a last-minute bid to keep secret two additional documents, said to include details of her sex life and allegations from another Epstein accuser. Those papers could be made public next week, but she argues release of them would make a fair criminal trial difficult, if not impossible and is mounting an appeal against them being released. Judge Preskas ruling has made public flight logs from Epsteins jets, police reports from Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home and is accused of abusing victims. She said the publics right to see the documents outweighed Maxwells interests in keeping them under seal. Maxwell, the daughter of former press baron Robert, was charged on July 2 with sex trafficking offences. Prosecutors also allege that abuse occurred at her home in London. She has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls from 1994 to 1997, and committing perjury by denying her involvement under oath. A trial has been scheduled for July next year. Ex-journalist Safronov charged with treason tests negative for COVID-19 ombudsman Moskva city news agency 11:03 31/07/2020 MOSCOW, July 31 (RAPSI) Two coronavirus tests ex-journalist Ivan Safronov charged with treason had passed gave negative results, Russias High Commissioner for Human Rights announced Friday citing a chief of Moscows Lefortovo detention center. According to the ombudsman, Safronov feels fine. He was to be transferred back to a common cell from a quarantine unit, she added. Safronov was arrested on July 8. The same day Moscows Lefortovsky District Court detained him until September 6. According to the Roscosmos press service, Safronovs arrest is not connected with his work in the company. On July 13, he was charged with treason. Investigators claim Safronov has transmitted secret military information to the Czech intelligence services which, as it known, are linked to the U.S. security agencies. The defendant pleads not guilty. The former reporter of Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers was appointed as advisor of Dmitry Rogozin in May 2020 after a scandal related to the publication of an explosive article about possible resignation of the Federation Council head Valentina Matviyenko. She jetted off on her first holiday abroad with husband Hugo Taylor and baby Sienna earlier this week. And Millie Mackintosh showcased her post-baby body in a plunging white swimsuit as she enjoyed breakfast with a view from her five-star hotel Andronis Luxury Suites in Santorini, Greece, on Friday. Documenting their adventures on Instagram, the former Made In Chelsea star, 31, who gave birth on May 1, also shared a sweet mother-daughter sunset snap as she doted on little Sienna. Hot mama! on Friday, Millie Mackintosh, 31, showcased her sensational post-baby body in a plunging white swimsuit as she enjoyed breakfast with a view in Santorini, Greece The the first-time mum put on a busty display as she posed for a gorgeous shot while enjoying breakfast of coffee and croissants in her swimsuit. Millie looked as radiant as ever in her swimwear, which boasted a coordinating belt with a gold buckle, which served to highlight her trim waist. She wrote alongside: 'Kalimera', which means 'Good Morning' in Greek. A day earlier, Millie captioned the adorable photograph of herself and Sienna wearing pretty frocks: 'First family holiday making lifelong memories. 'This magical mother and daughter moment captured by @hugotaylorlondon in our favourite outfits.' Cute! The Made In Chelsea star, 31, who welcomed her daughter two months ago, also shared a cute seaside snap of herself doting on little Sienna, on Thursday Glorious: Millie also took to her Instagram Stories where she showed off her billowing white midi dress in all its glory, while holding Sienna to her chest Millie also took to her Instagram Stories where she showed off her billowing white midi dress in all its glory, while holding Sienna to her chest. After posting her jaw-dropping swimsuit snap, the reality star then layered up with a gorgeous blue maxi dress to take Sienna for a stroll in her pushchair. She also poked fun at her husband Hugo Taylor, as he jokingly posed while they ate lunch, for a photograph she captioned: 'Insta dad @hugotaylorlondon.' Sunshine strolls: After posting her jaw-dropping swimsuit snap, the reality star then layered up with a gorgeous blue maxi dress to take Sienna for a stroll in her pushchair Insta dad: She also poked fun at her husband Hugo Taylor, as he jokingly posed while they ate lunch, for a photograph she captioned: 'Insta dad @hugotaylorlondon' On Tuesday, Millie uploaded a sweet snap of herself breastfeeding her daughter Sienna during her baby's first flight. Proving safety comes first, she sported a protective face mask as she thanked British Airways staff for their help during their 'smooth' journey. The media personality, who has been vocal about urging others to 'normalise breastfeeding', appeared in great spirits as she nursed her little one. Sharing her delight at her relaxing trip from London Heathrow Airport, the TV star said: 'Our first experience @heathrow_airport with Sienna went really smoothly, everyone had masks on and kept their distance. 'Planning on feeding at take off and landing to help with her ears.' (sic) At peace: On Tuesday, Millie uploaded a sweet snap of herself breastfeeding her daughter Sienna during her baby's first flight On 4 July, travel advice in the UK changed, with exemptions for going on holiday to certain countries and territories that no longer pose a high risk for British travellers. Earlier this month, the socialite said she is coming to terms with the physical changes to her body since giving birth. Speaking to Glamour, she insisted the contrast between her pre and post pregnancy appearance is akin to looking at two completely different people. 'I've started walking every day, I've started doing a bit of strength training again and it's nice to feel like I'm just getting stronger,' Millie said of her post-partum exercise routine. 'I just don't like the term, 'getting my body back,' because I think it's a new body, it's different, you've given birth. So, it's not your old body anymore.' LAS VEGAS, NV, July 31, 2020 - (ACN Newswire) - In the deposition of OSHA expert Kurt Stranne, a professional engineer, an OSHA safety instructor, a former USAF Flight chief, a former Boeing Flight test engineering analyst, and a Certified Safety Professional, the Washington Companies attorney line of questioning sought clarification from Mr. Stranne, in his opinion, who was at fault in an ongoing Federal lawsuit in the United States Federal Court of the Western District of Washington at Tacoma.The ongoing case involves ETON of North Las Vegas, NV and one of the Washington Companies facilities based in Rochester, WA. The Federal lawsuit is about an unfortunate accident involving Komatsu equipment loaded by a Washington Companies employee and then transported by ETON. Due to the Komatsu equipment being loaded incorrectly, the Komatsu equipment struck a major interstate bridge in the State of Washington causing damage to the bridge. The rebuilding of the bridge caused a major disruption to people in the area who had relied on the bridge for decades to get from one side of the interstate to the other.During the deposition of expert witness Mr. Stranne, Washington Companies attorney, Mr. Steve Stocker of Stocker Smith Luciani & Staub of Spokane, WA, repeatedly asked about the duties of the controlling work site employer Washington Companies and the duties of the carrier ETON. Mr. Stranne outlined the following scene in an effort to clarify the respective exposure for culpability within the OSHA realm of work place safety and jurisdictional control to better help Washington Companies attorney Mr. Stocker understand who was at fault based on OSHA statues.The scene that Mr. Stranne outlined was had the ETON driver been sent to a hospital with injuries as a result of the bridge strike, the accident would have been deemed a workplace injury. The injures and the hospitalization of the driver would have triggered a State of Washington OSHA investigation into what caused the accident that put the driver in the hospital. Mr. Stranne, as the OSHA expert, explained that in his opinion the Washington Companies would have been cited as the "causing party" of the accidental bridge strike.Mr. Stranne's informed conclusions were based on fact that the Komatsu equipment was loaded at a Washington Companies controlled work site and a Washington Companies employee performed the loading of said equipment. The reason for his opinion finding fault against Washington Companies was three-fold according to Mr. Stranne. First, the loading of the equipment went against the manufactures recommendations, which Washington Companies has a duty to follow. Second, it was against the industry standard, and third, it varied from Washington Companies customary manner in which this type of Komatsu equipment was loaded. Mr. Stranne explained Washington Companies had an OSHA mandated duty to follow all three methods in the loading of the Komatsu equipment on the flatbed trailer, which the Washington Companies employee failed to do. In that Washington Companies deviated from these three standards, OSHA would have determined Washington Companies to be the root cause of the accident.Mr. Stranne declined to speculate about what the parties' duties might have been according to other federal or state agencies but testified about what he saw as the causing factors from his expertise with OSHA and determined the loader loading the Komatsu equipment loaded it wrong. Washington Companies loader, Mr. Tyler Piles violated the manufacture loading steps, the industry standards on how the equipment should be loaded, and Washington Companies own customary manner of loading this type of equipment. As an employee of Washington Companies, this would make Washington Companies the "causing employer" of the bridge strike.Modern Machinery a part of a large consortium of privately held companies collectively known as the Washington Companies, owned by billionaire Dennis R. Washington. Modern Machinery sells and rents high quality heavy equipment and provides product support to the construction, mining, and forestry industries. The Modern Machinery terminal in Rochester, WA is a home to a large staging area for a variety of Komatsu product brought from overseas awaiting shipment to other Komatsu dealers.ETON is a Las Vegas-based premier transportation company serving the Western United States with equipment, professional drivers and superior on-time service.Komatsu America Corp. is a U.S. subsidiary of Komatsu Ltd., (OTCMKTS: KMTUY) the world's second largest manufacturer and supplier of earth-moving equipment, consisting of construction, mining and compact construction equipment.CONTACT:Mitchell Truman, ETON.mehttp://www.ETON.me, +(702) 348 6370Environmental Transportation of Nevada, LLCSource: ETON TransportationCopyright 2020 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. World hunger Regarding U.N.: Pandemic increasing child hunger deaths, (A12, July 28): Carrying a child, giving birth and nursing the baby are some of the most joyful experiences of a womans life. But worldwide famine brought on by COVID-19 is turning that joy into agony. Tuesdays picture of a malnourished infant girl in Burkina Faso portrays only one of millions of young victims of starvation. After seeing that picture, I urge Congress to include famine relief in their deliberations for future stimulus. Too much of our world will suffer permanent harm to our most precious resource our children without swift, compassionate action. Nancy Perich Daly, Houston Ugly reminders of hatred Regarding Vandals strike Buffalo Soldiers Museum, (A1, July 30): The Center for the Healing of Racism stands in solidarity with the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum which was vandalized sometime on July 27 or 28. The museum, located in Midtown Houston, honors the contributions of African American members of the U.S. military who fought and died for this nation and those who continue to serve their country at home and abroad. African Americans have fought for the United States since the Revolutionary War, even as the country denied them their basic rights as citizens. This museum and the history it preserves is vital to our local community and to our nations struggle to overcome its centuries-long history of systemic racism. Cherry Steinwender, executive director, Houston Renaming Baytown Lee Regarding It is time to rename this Baytown school, (A19, June 24): I am a 1971 graduate of Robert E. Lee High School, and theres nothing I would like better than to go to my 50-year high school reunion with a name change of my high school. The legacy of racism has damaged all of us and we wont be healed as a nation until we deal with the damaging effects that racism has played in all our lives. Changing RELs name would be another step to promote long overdue healing that would benefit us all. For over 20 years, Ive lived in the community of Uptown in Chicago, one of the most diverse communities in the U.S. with 92 different languages spoken here. Its that rich diversity that has served to unite us. Baytown is held back from doing the same when it has a high school named for a general who fought to keep a group of people enslaved. Its time for Baytown to take the step to become more inclusive by changing its name to something that signifies it is welcoming to all people from all different backgrounds. Ald. James Cappleman, 46th Ward Chicago City Council member YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. At the initiative of the Armenian delegation the issue headlined ''Turkey's aggressive policy and bellicose behavior as a destabilizing factor in South Caucasus'' was included in the agenda of the OSCE Permanent Council's session on July 30. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the MFA Armenia, Armenia's Permanent Representative, Ambassador Armen Papikyan informed the OSCE member states about the cases of ceasefire violation by Azerbaijan in the recent days, as a result of which an Armenian soldier was killed by sniper shoot, another was injured. The Ambassador also informed about Azerbaijani announcements over the Azerbaijan-Turkey joint military exercises, emphasizing that all those acts were carried out a few days after the announcements of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs, where the Co-chairs had emphasized the necessity to strongly preserve the ceasefire regime and urged to refrain from any provocative measure. Therefore, the Armenian side assesses the joint military exercises as joint provocation aimed at further escalation of the regional situation. Ambassador Papikyan emphasized that Azerbaijan bears the entire responsibility for the destabilization. Referring to the role of Turkey, the Ambassador noted that without the unconditional support of Turkey Azerbaijan will be unable to keep the situation destabilized for a long-term period. Based on this, Armenia draws the attention of the OSCE member states on Turkey's aggressive policy and bellicose behavior against Armenia and the South Caucasus in general. Afterwards, Ambassador Papikyan presented the announcements of Turkish president, foreign and defense ministers, which were drastically different from the announcements of other members of the international community. The Permanent Representative of Armenia to the OSCE Permanent Council added that Turkey has territorial aspirations in South Caucasus, which the Turkish leadership tries to justify as a ''historical mission''. Such approaches remind Armenia and the Armenian people about the Armenian Genocide and rise concerns among the public and authorities. Ambassador Papikyan also referred to Turkey's behavior in relation to Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. He particularly mentioned that Turkey, being an OSCE Minsk Group member, has always had unconstructive policy. Turkey's overt support to Azerbaijan's maximalist approaches over Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement harm the peace process and show that Turkey cannot be involved in any process dealing with the settlement of the conflict. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan Paraguayan Ambassador to Korea Raul Silvero, third from left in the front row, poses with members of Paraguayan community here during a celebration for Friendship Day, July 31. / Courtesy of Embassy of Paraguay By Raul Silvero In this special moment of the year 2020, in which all the countries are facing the difficult circumstance of fighting against the spread of COVID-19, and the experience of the Republic of Korea in facing this disease in its territory, is one of the emblematic examples in the international community, It would be positive to mention one of the most important principles in the relationship among people and nations, which is Friendship, one of the most relevant human feelings in the search for development, well-being and peace in the world./ Raul Silvero The Republic of Korea and the Republic of Paraguay have a long history of friendship relations. Paraguay has shown its sincere and deep friendship to the Korean people, being by their side during difficult moments of history, such as the inter-Korean war, with medicines and financial cooperation, as a gesture that values the principles of peace and friendship, in order to have a better and fairer world. Likewise, Paraguay, located in the heart of South America, was one of the first Latin American countries to receive groups of Korean immigrants into the country. Friendship's Day or Friend's Day is a very important date for many countries, including Paraguay. On May 3, 2011, thanks to the Paraguay's proposal and supported by many other countries, the United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 65/275 decides to designate July 30 as International Day of Friendship. In that occasion the Paraguayan representative stated that "we wish to make a further declaration in support of peace and a decisive contribution to the noble aim of the United Nations and its Members by achieving broad and deep understanding among the various cultures. More than 50 years ago (1958), in a small town in Paraguay called Puerto Pinasco, situated far from the capital, a group of residents, headed by Dr. Artemio Bracho, developed the idea of celebrating a day devoted to friendship and decided to make 30 July that day. / A poster of Paraguayan culture Our world faces many challenges, crises and divisive forces poverty, violence, human rights violations that threaten peace, security, development and social harmony among the peoples of the world and within themselves. To tackle these problems, it is necessary to tackle the causes that provoke them, fostering and defending solidarity, which can manifest itself in many ways, such as friendship." During this COVID-19 outbreak and spreading, the entire world is facing many challenges in the health system, the economic recovery and many other issues that need to be tackled in a cooperative scheme in the international community. Indeed, through friendship, cultivating the bonds of camaraderie and strengthening trust, we can contribute to the fundamental and necessary changes to achieve lasting stability, weave a social support network that protects us all and generate passion for a better world, all united for the common good. The relationship between the Republic of Korea and the Republic of Paraguay is an example of this strong and lasting friendship. Although both countries are geographically distant and historically different, Paraguay and Korea share various commonalities. Solidarity has been a strong element in our relationship. In 1965, Paraguay opened its doors to thousands of Korean immigrants, who, in search of a new beginning, left from the Port of Busan towards the Land without Evil, Paraguay. The Koreans departed on Feb. 27 of the same year from the port of Busan, Korea, on a Dutch ship called "Boissevain." The first Koreans when arriving in Paraguay had many difficulties due to the cultural and language differences, but they managed to overcome them with diligence and responsibility until they became consolidated in Paraguayan society. In addition, this year, 55 years since the arrival of the first group of Korean migrants to Paraguay, the Korean community, composed of approximately six thousand people, is an active part of Paraguayan society. As a tribute to that fact, every April 22, we commemorate the Day of Korea in my country. In Paraguay, more than 6,000 Koreans live and are active in our society, and many of these families are made up of Paraguayan-Korean couples, who enrich and develop our country. The Korean school started in 1972, with some teachers who decided to teach the Korean language as well as culture and history to the children of immigrants. The Education and Culture Center that administers the Korean school offers scholarships collected by Korean residents each year to low-income Paraguayan students. In this way, almost 50 years ago, it Korean schools were established, not only for Korean origin persons, but to Paraguayan as well. K-Pop, K-drama, halyu have strong followers in Paraguay, where you can taste, as well, not only kimchi (made in Paraguay), but also many dishes of Korean cuisine, such as bibimbab, and other delicious food in many Korean restaurants. It is good to mention, also, that in Korea, many Paraguayans are residing, including students, workers, people married to Koreans, and others. Although the history of the Korean diaspora in Latin America is traced from the beginning of the 20th century, it was not until the 1990s when its presence in several countries in Central and South America became more evident. Currently, the Korean community in Paraguay is made up of around 6,000 people residing in the cities of Asuncion (capital city), Ciudad del Este, Encarnacion and Pedro Juan Caballero. Its members are dedicated to primary production, manufacturing, trade and the provision of services. In the area of primary activities, among other items, Korean farmers satisfy 30 percent of the egg consumption market in Paraguay. In the manufacturing sector, clothing, towels, school supplies, food and non-alcoholic beverages stand out; also in the manufacture of plastics and in the paper industry (napkins, toilet paper). Likewise, they are the owners of pantries, bazaars and shops; various items explode: household appliances, footwear and clothing, to name a few. In addition, Korean professionals excel in the fields of medicine, law, journalism, and university teaching. In 1992, a Korean college and high school was established in the country, the first in South and Central America. Its students are examples of a dynamic and successful process of assimilation of a double cultural identity: that of Korea and that of Paraguay. Currently, young people are educated and prepared for this advantageous insertion in the international market. The empowerment and maintenance of this educational center is the result of the joint and coordinated work between the Korean government and the eastern community based in Paraguay. The Republic of Korea, for the past 58 years (of diplomatic relations) has been a nation close to the affections of the Paraguayan people and a strategic ally to achieve the desired development. The relations of friendship with the Republic of Korea have not only been strengthened over the past five decades, but have reached a point of maturity in its various manifestations. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the permanent support that Paraguay has shown and demonstrated to the Republic of Korea in the different international forums, as a natural way of expression between two nations that share common values and interests and, very particularly, to be one of the most important strategic allies for Paraguay. The Paraguayan government encourages the Korean companies, known for their passion in work ethics, to aggressively explore the Paraguayan market and invest in my country. The Korean companies have a great advantage when it comes to Paraguayan market because of the following: First, the Korean firms were involved in the Paraguayan market and have operational offices in Paraguay. Secondly, the Korean companies have a good reputation in Paraguay because they undertook infrastructure projects and other investments. Thirdly, Paraguay has a good image of Korean products since they are more advanced technologically. There are many Korean investments in Paraguay like Samsung Electronics, THN Group, M View Global, Born Star de Donghwa Company, Shopping Paris, Las Tacuaras Group, Kim's Towels, FAOH Group and others. It can be mentioned that business cooperation between Korea and Paraguay is like a gold mine, and the sectors of infrastructure, building, food industry, logistics and services, textiles, clothing and garment production, auto parts and car accessories, and tourism as the main ways that both countries can work together. And there is a friendly business environment in Paraguay, an investor-friendly legal framework and efforts to improve infrastructure are key to Paraguay's objectives to diversify its economy and within this context, the Korean companies will find a suitable environment for their business opportunities. Paraguay sees Korea as strategic ally in the building of its own development. KOICA's cooperation to Paraguay is one of the best in the field of education, health, agriculture, air industry, vocational training of human resources, rural development, technology transfer, environment issues, e-government, planning and construction of infrastructures. Today, Paraguayan companies offer Korean consumers products of the rich Guarani land, such as stevia, a natural sweetener, mate tea, chia, sesame, beef, meat products, rice, corn, fruit juices, fruits, natural tea, soybeans and derivatives, leather, among other products. Paraguay, as a country member of MERCOSUR, is negotiating a trade agreement with Korea. Paraguay is a bilingual country, unique in the world where a native language, the Guarani, is recognized as an official national language together with Spanish. This cultural blend is seen in Paraguay's forms of arts, crafts, music, festivals, literature, cinema, fashion and languages. And with the Korean presence in Paraguayan soil, this culture is even more enriched. For these reasons, and many more, long live to the Friendship between the Republic of Korea and the Republic of Paraguay. Raul Silvero is the ambassador of Paraguay to Korea. Texas CPS refuses to remove homeschool parents from abuse registry after dismissing case Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Homeschool parents in Texas are still fighting to get their names removed from the states child abuse registry seven months after the states child protective services agency dismissed their case and returned their 4-year-old son. Daniel and Ashley Pardo are appealing a decision last month by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to refuse their request for the agency to ensure that their names are removed from the Child Abuse and Neglect Registry. The Pardos son, Drake, was removed from their home in June 2019 after the family missed a DFPS-facilitated meeting at Dallas Childrens Medical Center that the parents were not informed of and subsequently accused of child medical abuse. The case against them began after a doctor reached out to DFPS with concerns that the parents were seeking unnecessary medical treatment for their son even though the doctor had never met the family in person. The familys advocacy team at the Texas Home School Coalition argued that the DFPS failed to meet the legal requirements needed for an emergency removal and failed to inform the parents about the meeting in which they were punished for not attending. Last December, the agency dropped its five-months long case against the family and a Kaufman County Judge signed an order ending the agencys case against the family. But over half-a-year since the cases dismissal, Ashley and Daniel Pardo still find themselves listed on the states child abuse registry. According to THSC Public Policy Director Jeremy Newman, the DFPS agency in late June denied a request from the family to change a determination they made in the familys case file that is causing the parents to be named on the list. According to Newman, being placed on the child abuse list can make it more difficult to find jobs, secure housing, and can prevent them from being able to do certain types of volunteer work. The way that it normally works is the CPS conducts their investigation in the original case. When they are finished with their investigation, they put in what is called an official CPS finding in the familys file, which is basically to say, This is CPS opinion on what they found, Newman explained. There are a couple of different ones they could put in there. The one that gets you on the registry is if they put in reason to believe. It means that there is reason to believe that abuse or neglect took place. If they put that in your file, it automatically places you on the child abuse registry. According to DFPS, an individual might be included in the registry when an investigation results in dispositions of either reason to believe or confirmed. An individual will not clear the central registry check if that individual is an alleged perpetrator in an open child abuse or neglect investigation being conducted by DFPS, reads an article in a background-check handbook produced by DFPS. Newman said it's common for DFPS to make such a determination against families and for families to challenge the determination once their case is over. Its also pretty common for CPS to overturn that for families, he said. The interesting thing here is that cases end a lot of different ways. Very few cases ended the way that the Pardos' case ended, where parties mutually agreed that the case should be over and CPS argued to the court that the case should be dismissed because they now felt comfortable with Drake being left at home with his parents and with them making joint medical decisions. But after that, the family still finds themselves on the abuse registry. According to THSC, DFPS has the sole authority to place families on the registry and does not need consent from a judge. The agency can do so regardless of whether a parent has been found guilty of abuse or neglect. Newman explained that after cases like these end, family attorneys will ask for the investigative files DFPS has built against their clients, which can take some time to receive. Once you receive that, you know the status of what their finding is against you and you can file an internal appeal within CPS asking them to overturn it, he said. However, the advocate said that the familys formal challenge last month asking DFPS to overturn their reason to believe determination has been denied. That first challenge is with an internal reviewer who works at CPS, Newman said. They basically said, Yep, we think our original decision was reasonable and so we are going to leave it how it is. The family lost that. That was no huge surprise because it was such a high profile case that we expected that if they were to ever deny a family it was going to be this one. The family appealed this week to the Office of Consumer Affairs, which is a supposedly independent office that also works within the DFPS and is tasked with reviewing these types of complaints the second time around. That is what the family is appealing to right now, Newman said. From everybody he has talked to, he gathers that most families tend to win at that first level of appeal to get their name off the list. It is such a high profile case that they would basically have to admit error to take them off the list at this point, the homeschooling advocate suggests. We raised this throughout the original case that it seemed like they [DFPS] were all about saving face all the way through. My sense is we are going right back to that same place. If they take the family off the list, what they are saying is, We never had reason to believe abuse or neglect occurred in the first place. Newman warned that many families might not even know they are on the list until it comes back to bite them. It can be on a background check. It can prevent you from lots of types of employment, especially anything that would require any type of security clearance or working with children, he said. Its a black mark on your record. What it basically says is that if you are on this list, you are a child abuser. Should DFPS deny the Pardo familys second appeal, Newman says that the family can file a lawsuit against the agency. We are plowing ground that has not been plowed very many times before, he said. The demographic of people that go into a CPS case usually cannot afford to defend themselves in the first place and can almost never afford to get this far in the process and go to court afterward if this doesnt work out. I am actually waiting on a dataset from CPS to tell me how often this happens. Newman warns that part of the problem is that the way the system is set up eats a family who is guilty or a family who is innocent. You dont have to be guilty, he said. [The Pardos] werent guilty and at the end of the day, they got their child back. But they still had to go through this six-month nightmare and cost over $100,000 and took the entire state of Texas, it seems like, to defend them. Last year, The Houston Chronicle/NBC News published a series of investigative articles highlighting a Texas legal and medical system that sometimes struggles to differentiate accidental injuries from abuse. The news outlets analyzed 40 cases in Texas and interviewed 75 attorneys, doctors as well as two dozen current and former CPS employees. Under this system, children are sometimes taken from seemingly caring parents, while others are left in situations that, in rare cases, turn out to be deadly, an NBC News report from September 2019 reads. Parents managed to regain custody in most of the cases reviewed by reporters, in some instances after additional medical findings or reports from outside experts raised doubts about the initial abuse determination. Quarterly Report 30 June 2020 Adelaide, July 31, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Resolution Minerals Ltd ( ASX:RML ) focused drilling efforts on the Aurora Prospect and completed diamond drilling Holes 20AU03 and 20AU04, with assays pending at the 64North Project, Alaska.The compelling Aurora Prospect is adjacent to Northern Star's high grade Pogo Gold Mine and Goodpaster Discovery. Michael Mulroney, Chief Geological Officer Northern Star Resources Ltd; "At Pogo- a significant investment will be made into the first stage of resource definition drilling into the core of the Goodpaster Area, where initial exploration drilling has outlined a 2.5km long mineralised corridor" (NST Conference call 23/7/20) (Figure 3*).Drilling at the Echo Prospect along strike from the Goodpaster Prospect to commence in August (Figure 3*).The Company completed an extensive full project review and identified 4 high priority prospects to be drill tested: Aurora, Echo, Boundary and E1 - each prospect with significant large scale discovery potential.Assays were received from the first two holes drilled earlier in the year confirmed the exploration model and presence of a Pogo-style mineral system on RML tenure and will be valuable in future drill targeting.Airborne ZTEM and magnetics geophysical surveys have been completed over RML's Aurora and Echo Prospects and Northern Star's Goodpaster Prospect for comparison analysis and refining of drill targets.Other exploration includes magnetic surveys over E1 Prospect and LMSX block in preparation for drilling later in 2020 and other early stage activities to progress other prospects in the pipeline towards drill ready."Palisades Goldcorp's strategic investment is a strong endorsement of the upside value they currently see in relation to Resolution's 64North Project located in the well-endowed Tintina Gold Province, home to Alaska's giant size gold deposits such as Fort Knox, Donlin, Pogo and Livengood", said Duncan Chessell, Managing Director Resolution Minerals Ltd.Summary Corporate- Completion of a successful share placement to raise $3.6 million at 7 cents per share with 1:1 Option with a strategic investment by Palisades Goldcorp, a North American gold fund with experience in Alaskan projects.- An SPP targeting $1.0 million on the same terms as the placement is open and well supported.- The Company now has sufficient funds to complete the first year earn-in expenditure of US$5M to lock in a 30% interest in the 64North Project, Alaska.- Fully funded exploration on multiple drilling targets with news flow for the remainder of 2020.To view the quarterly report, please visit:About Resolution Minerals Ltd Resolution Minerals Ltd (ASX:RML) is a mining company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of precious and battery metals - such as gold, copper, cobalt, and vanadium. The company is led by Managing Director Duncan Chessell and an experienced team with proven success in corporate finance, marketing, metallurgy and geoscience. This equips Resolution Minerals with the tools to meet the changing demands of the mining markets. Resolution Minerals Ltd Listed on the ASX in 2017 with a focus on the exploration of the Wollogorang Copper Cobalt Project. It has since aquired the Snettisham Vanadium Project and more entered into a binding agreement witth Millrock Resources to earn up to 80% of the highly prospective 64North Gold Project. Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe Our news is free on LAist. To make sure you get our coverage: Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter. To support our nonprofit public service journalism: Donate now. It's hard to miss the pop-up canopy outside the AltaMed clinic in East L.A. It's an outdoor waiting space where patients often line up. With a large banner reminding folks to get counted in the 2020 Census, it doubles as an active place for civic engagement. Since March, AltaMed has been active in efforts to inform Angelenos about the census. In fact, responding to the census is even given as a "prescription" to patients before they leave. AltaMed is also the only clinic organization to have its own census kiosks in L.A., with few other groups having the resources to fill that technology gap safely. AltaMed's outdoor waiting area in Commerce on July 10, 2020. (Caitlin Hernandez/LAist) "One of the things that I've been telling our legislators is that, if we did have access to fund someone here for an entire day, for seven days a week -- because that's when we're open -- we'd be able to be really, really successful," said Jennie Carreon, the associate vice president of civic engagement for AltaMed. But funding for their kiosks is set to expire again at the end of July, which is a concern for Carreon, considering the county self-response rates is still under 60% and that there's a lot at stake in the census for community clinics. "We are in the middle of a pandemic and financial economic downturn, resources all around will be scarce, and that includes funding for [federally qualified health centers] and hospitals," Carreon said. "This is why it is so important that underserved communities fill out the census so that we don't have additional social structural barriers to add to an already challenging environment." CENSUS IMPACTS ON COMMUNITY CLINICS There are concerns that the combination of layoffs, low census turnout and increased Medicaid eligibility for people who've lost work could create a strain on resources for the clinics in years to come. Among other factors, census data helps determine how much federal funding these clinics get. Federally qualified health centers, or FQHCs, such as AltaMed, are facilities that receive funds from the Health Resources and Services Administration to offer primary care in medically underserved areas. AltaMed is among the dozens of clinics operating in L.A with this designation. The Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County is a coalition of private nonprofit community clinics and health centers whose 65 members, including AltaMed, serve 1.7 million patients each year at more than 350 sites. Many of the association's member clinics are FQHCs. As many Angelenos have lost work this year amid the pandemic, this opens the door for increased Medicaid enrollment. Louise McCarthy, president and CEO of the clinic association, said that while an anticipated increase in demand has yet to hit, analysts are watching the numbers. "By standard California mass, Los Angeles [is] usually a third of the state. That means you'd be looking at potentially a million new Medicaid enrollees here," McCarthy said. McCarthy said that currently 63% of their patients rely on Medicaid, and many clinics have already lost a lot of their funding because of the coronavirus, despite the CARES Act and state protections. Low census response could make things much worse. "If we get under-counted, the funding that comes to the states to support our Medicaid program could potentially force the state to cut back," McCarthy said. "If any cuts come to programs for some health centers, it will be a more immediate impact than for others just based on how much cash they've got in the bank." It could also hurt the recruiting of staff, McCarthy added. Community health centers are placed in identified areas that lack medical resources. But these communities compete for funding through a ranking system -- with L.A. County having an overall higher need than its neighbors. If you're higher up the list, you have more access to funds, including a program that community clinics use to attract new providers by paying down student loans. WHAT'S NEXT FOR CLINICS The financial stability of the federally qualified health centers is more precarious than ever, which is why Carreon and McCarthy see census work as necessary. And while the 2020 Census doesn't ask about income, it works to further inform data gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau in other surveys in combination with patient income data. "One of the struggles of Los Angeles is we've got the Malibu skew," McCarthy explained. "Our data is skewed by incredibly wealthy folks living not too far away from folks who are in either extreme poverty, or are generally low income. We have to always make sure that the folks who are hardest to count get counted. Otherwise, our more affluent neighbors are going to make L.A. look a lot more resourced than we really are." More affluent residents tend to complete the census in higher numbers. This frequently leaves undercounted folks -- many in non-white communities -- out of the equation because they're not represented in the data. To help alleviate this issue, community clinics are ramping up their outreach. The Community Clinic Association of L.A. County hopes to boost responses to the census by working with the bureau and its members to host mobile kiosks at clinic sites in early August. These will be outdoors to reach patients getting COVID-19 tests or picking up donated food. Some clinics are distributing flyers at food drives and adding information to text and phone call appointment reminders. AltaMed is working on extending its kiosk to October, but its sites will still do census engagement though its staff and materials. "We've been here for 50 years," said Carreon, "and we're going to be here for another 50 years -- God willing." TORONTO, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Thrive Cannabis (Thrive, Company), a licensed producer of premium craft cannabis concentrates and dried flower, based in Simcoe, Ontario, is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with one of Israels largest cannabis producers to supply it with products for the Israeli medical market. Under the terms of the agreement, Thrive Cannabis has initially committed to supplying orders of over 500 kg of premium dried flower, generating approximately $1.5 million CDN in revenue. Moving forward it is Thrives intention to build out a strong, long-term relationship with the Israeli firm, supplying up to 500 kg of premium dried flower each month. At the time of this release, the initial orders have already shipped from Canada. Thrive estimates that its cannabis shipments will be used to service almost half of Israels medical cannabis patients through this leading producer. Canadian Export License and Israeli Import Permit Granted Thrive Cannabis has received both the Health Canada Export License and the Import Permit from the Israeli Ministry of Health necessary for the fulfillment of its agreement. The Company looks forward to supplying flower and other cannabis-based products to the Israeli medical market in compliance with the standards and regulations set by Health Canada and The Pharmaceutical Division of The Israeli Ministry of Health. This relationship provides Thrive with an excellent, high-volume global supply opportunity for a long-term wholesale agreement on not just our premium dried flower in bulk, but also the potential to move to other formats and introduce our brands in Israel going forward. Only a handful of Canadian producers have so far successfully exported cannabis to International markets such as Israel and it is with great pride that we can now count Thrive among them. We expect this to provide an immediate boost to our corporate volume and revenues, said Geoff Hoover, Thrive CEO. Story continues About Thrive Cannabis: Thrive Cannabis is a privately held, vertically integrated cultivator and processor of premium and ultra-premium craft cannabis and cannabis concentrates, founded in 2018, with production facilities in Simcoe, Ontario. Thrive holds production, sales and outdoor cultivation licenses from Health Canada. Thrive Cannabis is currently developing premium products for the Canadian recreational market that will commence distribution in 2020. To learn more, visit us at thrivecannabis.ca CAUTIONARY STATEMENT AND FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION Thrive Cannabis is not a reporting issuer (or the equivalent thereof) in any jurisdiction, is not listed on any stock exchange, and may never become a reporting issuer or listed on any stock exchange, therefore, any securities issued by Thrive Cannabis will be subject to an indefinite hold period which may never expire. This News Release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful. This News Release includes certain information and statements about management's view of future events, expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward-looking information, including, without limitation, statements relating to Thrive Cannabis': (i) business strategy, objectives, and expected growth; (ii) ability to secure and/or maintain all appropriate cannabis licenses in its jurisdiction(s) of operation; (iii) continued growth of the cannabis market; (iv) the effectiveness and popularity of Thrive Cannabis business strategy and its ability to bring its products to commercial production; and (v) the ability to reduce production and energy costs through economies of scale. Forward-looking information is based on a number of assumptions and is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements of Thrive Cannabis be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including without limitation: (i) business strategy, objectives, and expected growth; (ii) ability to secure and/or maintain all appropriate cannabis licenses in its jurisdiction(s) of operation; (iii) continued growth of the cannabis market; (iv) the effectiveness and popularity of Thrive Cannabis. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the above forward-looking information, or any statements related thereto, which should not be construed as exhaustive and speak only as of the date of this News Release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. All forward-looking information is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. CONTACT: For Thrive Investor Relations Inquiries, please contact: Geoff Hoover, CEO - Thrive Cannabis Email: ghoover@thrivecannabis.ca Waylon Iserhoff, SVP Finance - Thrive Cannabis Email: wiserhoff@thrivecannabis.ca For Thrive Media & PR Inquiries, please contact: Media Relations Email: PR@thrivecannabis.ca Manning & Napier (MN) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.08 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.03 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.03 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of 166.67%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this investment management firm would post earnings of $0.04 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.02, delivering a surprise of -50%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. Manning & Napier, which belongs to the Zacks Financial - Investment Management industry, posted revenues of $30.35 million for the quarter ended June 2020, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.90%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $34.29 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates two times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Manning & Napier shares have added about 96% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 0.9%. What's Next for Manning & Napier? While Manning & Napier has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Story continues Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Manning & Napier was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.06 on $29.83 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $0.12 on $119.67 million in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Financial - Investment Management is currently in the top 15% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Manning Napier, Inc. (MN) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research This is getting scarier by the day. They want to get everybody back to work. Its like sending cattle to the slaughterhouses, a veteran school bus driver, Laura, told the World Socialist Web Site. Ive been a school bus driver since 1994. Im 60 years old, and I am very worried about going back before this virus is contained. COVID-19 cases are spiking in Pennsylvania, and so are hospitalizations, she continued. Educators and school workers across the United States are horrified at the demand that they be guinea pigs in an experiment on the reopening of schools, in the words of Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday. School bus driver wearing a face mask (Credit: Phil Roeder, Flickr) The science continues to point to the homicidal character of a return to school. The pandemic rages out of control without a vaccine or adequate treatment in sight. This week a study from JAMA Pediatrics further undermined the notion promoted by the Trump administration that children will not transmit the virus. The study showed that children under five with mild to moderate symptoms of COVID were found to contain higher concentrations of the virus than older children or adults. The first study of its kind, another JAMA report, demonstrated that school closures in the US between March and May were associated with a significant decline in COVID-19 and fewer deaths. School transportation may be the single most daunting obstacle to even the most minimal infection control, although every scenario for a return to school risks widespread community transmission. The existing school bus system, serving up to one half of the nations schoolchildren, is not in any way designed to impede COVID. The National Council on School Facilities and Cooperative Strategies says that a 56-person bus should only hold seven children without masks; that number only goes up to 28 if everyone wears masks. Replying to this idea that all the students will sit calmly with masks on, Peter, a veteran of the 2013 New York City school bus drivers strike, told the WSWS: The kids inside the bus arent going to sit with distance. They will take off the mask and ignore the bus driver. It doesnt work that way. If they dont want to do it, they dont do it. They already dispute everything you say. Its usual stuff. They are children, not soldiers. Moreover, the costs associated with social distancing and bus transportation are out of reach for many, if not most, districts. The New York Times reports that Marietta, Ga., plans to spend $640,000 to hire 55 monitors to check students symptoms before they board, and Dundee, Mich., expects to spend over $300,000 to add routes. In Odessa, Texas, there are plans for buses to run on continuous routes, like city transit, with students arriving and leaving school at staggered times. With most school bus drivers over the age of 55, those who opt to stay home this fall will be substantial, calling into question the ability to staff even the standard routes necessary for districts. All over the nation there was a shortage of bus drivers, pre-COVID, Laura said. Now a lot of us are retiring. Its going to be chaotic. Theres a lot of older drivers with health issues and compromised immune systems. I am worried. I saw that an 8-year-old child with no preconditions, entirely healthy, contracted COVID and died. She went on to detail how buses will inevitably become sites for disease spread. My district has a list of safety protocols. We are supposed to have the cabin fan on all the time, facing towards the back of the bus with the windows open. Of course, that doesnt make sense, facing backwards pushing the virus onto the kids or facing forward. Neither one. What about inclement weather? If its snowing or raining, were to keep the windows open? Then well need the fan facing forward to defrost windows. I am positive they have not retrofitted these buses so that the heating or air conditioning could handle the virus. The district is not allowing for social distancing on buses. They say there must be two people per seat. The CDC said there should be six feet spacing between students, but theyre not doing that. Our larger buses hold 84 or 72 passengers, three to a seat. The kids, in rows, are about a foot apart and right behind me, too. Parents are asking about social distancing on buses, suggesting kids could be in every other row. But that would mean increasing the routes to pick up the excess kids. It seems like the district scrapped that idea. I am going to be asking questions about all this. Not that I think it will do anything. I think they hoped that the summer heat would diminish COVID, and now theyre suddenly scrambling to get ready as the virus gets worse. Speaking to the recent AFT convention, Dr. Fauci noted that students will be closer to the driver than six feet, and should be wearing masks. We would hope that theres a policy in your district that gives out masks and has the child have a mask on before they get onto the bus, he said in words conveying little more than a hope and prayer. He concluded, I would encourage you to get the authorities in your district to do that because you dont want to be having a child come in and be exposing others if the child is infected without any symptoms. This amounts to no policy whatsoever. In point of fact, there are fifty states with fifty reopening plans interpreted by thousands upon thousands of superintendents and principals, all being driven by Wall Streets demand that the entire workforce needs to get back on the job ASAP. The chaotic and underfunded state and local policies mean districts will require drivers and teachers to perform numerous cleaning tasks and coronavirus screening. For example, Massachusetts recently announced that, in addition to driving and supervising social distancing among students, drivers and/or monitors should be trained to observe students for potential coronavirus symptoms as they enter the bus. We are supposed to clean the buses after every use, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day, added Laura. The district will provide PPE, gloves, cleaning agents, cleansing cloths, etc. We do not know how much time will be allotted for each cleaning or whether we will get full pay rate or lot mans rate, which is $7 less than the half-rate of our pay. Before the schools closed, we were given a choice to opt out of cleaning, which I did! Now when we go back, I am assuming we will have to do it ourselves. Personally, I think they should keep a professional cleaning crew on staff. But we all know how that will work out. In 2012, our school district outsourced transportation to Students First because of the cost of retirement. Now, drivers dont get into the Pennsylvania State Employee Retirement System. For those already in PSERS, whatever time we had is static now until retirement. Also, the benefits now are bad, and health insurance is expensive. Our union, the Teamsters, let it happen. They wouldnt let us fight. Instead of working for us, the district and the union were all in it together to outsource our jobs. The unions arent doing anything now about COVID. Youd think theyd contact us about the situation. All it is, is dues. Peter concurred with these thoughts: I have to go to work. I need the money, even with unemployment. They cut our medical insurance, so I have to take the risk. All of us are losing money. I came to the US in 1975. If had a wife or children, theres no way I could provide them with a home. Im in the ATU 1181. They are with the company. They tell us theyll fight but do nothing. After the strike in 2013, we went back for less than the previous contract. The Labor Department told the company they must pay us for 40 hours/week. But the truth is we work 45+ hours per week; they ignore the 5 or 6 or 7 extra hours. There is no way to do the route in that time. We sometimes sweep the floor, but thats not cleaning. They need to disinfect the bus to kill the coronavirus. How are they going to do that? What will that cost? I dont think theyll do it. Theyll say the driver is going to clean it. But there is no way for us to fumigate it. Someone comes on with coronavirus and then everybody gets it. Although there is no comprehensive list by occupation kept in the US, Education Week has posted notices of educator deaths from COVID. During the spring, this included a number of school bus drivers. These include Eugenia Higgins Weathers, Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington KY (April 4); Marlon Alston, Holy Family School in Chicago (April 7); Bryson Kent Bowman of the Greenwich School District, Connecticut (April 7). Frank Massey, of Belleville High School in Illinois (April 17); Gerry Genuino, 58, the Fair Lawn Public Schools in NJ (April 21); and David Akridge, 69, Taylor County School District in Campbellsville, KY (May 30). Lelonee Gibbs drove for the Camden County Schools in Georgia for 20 years. When he died April 2, Gibbs, 44, was not driving, but the district honored his long service to the children by staging a parade of school buses past the home of his mother. Laura pointed out the underlying political calculations behind reopening schools, stating: It doesnt surprise me that Trump labeled school workers as essential. Its runaway capitalism. They have enough money to budget for the Pentagon, but nothing for the people. Look at our health care. Its a sham. Big Pharma and the health care insurance industry run it. They are starting school because they need parents back to work. They need to make money for the rich. We shut down from March to June. All the Republicans, some Democrats too, were pushing to get us all back to work. The CARES Act went to help those who didnt need it, instead of those who need it. Yesterday on the news, I saw Pennsylvanians still trying to get on unemployment, trying since March! Now the moratorium on mortgages [defaults and evictions] is going to end. My husband had to go back in the middle of April, deemed essential for grounds maintenance, but he has diabetes and sarcoidosis, and has to worry about that. We are in a situation between a rock and a hard place. A lot of people will lose homes, and its not our fault. Capitalism is being exposed for what it is more and more. Now we see in these protests, Trump sending border patrol people after citizens. He did the same thing in Washington, DC, violently getting rid of protesters to go across the street and hold up the Bible. I dont think Trump will leave office. You see, hes going after the postal service. People wont be able to mail in their ballots, on top of that, theyre cutting the number of polling places. I never thought 2020 would be like this. It really is scary. Its past time [to change the system], should have been done a while ago. How do you do it short of restructuring Congress or a revolution? When the teachers struck in 2018, the unions worked with the administrations. I am disappointed with the Democratic Party; I always voted Democratic. But they are all working for the man, not the people. Look at the situation with healthcare and the Obama administration. They are all puppets for the capitalist state. Thats who we need to fight, the elite that has the power and money. I am very interested in how to form a rank-and-file committee and join the Socialist Equality Party. Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili. San Francisco, 31 July 2020: The Report Nonwoven Geotextiles Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Application (Road Construction, Erosion Prevention, Drainage), By Material, By Region (EMEA, APAC), And Segment Forecasts, 2019 - 2025 The nonwoven geotextiles market size in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific Region is expected to reach USD 6.91 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 6.7% during the forecast period. Favorable government policies for the use and development of geotextiles is expected to boost product demand. China is anticipated to contribute majorly to the demand for geotextiles owing to its increasing penetration in the construction of new roads and drainage systems. In addition, the Chinese government has invested a large number of resources in infrastructure development, wherein major investments were made in the construction of highways and railways. Geotextiles are used to control erosion owing to their reinforcement characteristics. In addition, the product aids in holding the soil particles together and also promotes vegetation growth, which reduces erosion in the long run. The use of geotextiles in drainage systems helps create a solution for consistent flow of water, thereby complementing the market growth. Market participants are actively involved in forming joint ventures and licensing agreements with manufacturers and distributors to gain competitive edge. However, the lack of defined standards in Asia Pacific is anticipated to hamper the product demand over the forecast period. Access Research Report of Nonwoven Geotextiles Market @ https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/nonwoven-geotextiles-market Nonwoven Geotextiles Market Report Highlights Polypropylene accounted for 53.9% of the global market share in 2017 owing to excellent chemical resistance of the product to aqueous and alkaline environments coupled with favorable climatic conditions in Europe Product consumption in road construction is expected to expand at a CAGR of 7.3% from 2018 to 2025 on account of increased product penetration in ongoing repair and maintenance of old roads in Europe Middle East and Africa is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period owing to application of NBR powder for enhancing groundwater level and reducing the risk of road damage Asia Pacific accounted for 65.7% of the global market share in 2017 owing to the massive investments by most governments for railway, highway, and road infrastructure expansion and residential construction Major players in the Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific nonwoven geotextiles market are focusing on increasing their sales through the development of new products and increased production through capacity additions, thereby obtaining a significant market share Browse more reports of this category by Grand View Research at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry/specialty-glass-ceramic-and-fiber Grand View Research has segmented the Europe, Middle East, and Africa and Asia Pacific nonwoven geotextiles market on the basis of material, application, and region: Nonwoven Geotextiles Material Outlook (Volume, Million Square Meters; Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Polypropylene Polyester Polyethylene Others Nonwoven Geotextiles Application Outlook (Volume, Million Square Meters; Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Road Construction Erosion Prevention Drainage Others Nonwoven Geotextiles Regional Outlook (Volume, Million Square Meters; Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Europe Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa Access Press Release of Nonwoven Geotextiles Market @ https://www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/nonwoven-geotextiles-market-analysis About Grand View Research Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare. For More Information:www.grandviewresearch.com From: Association of Professional Futurists For Immediate Release: Dateline: Austin , TX Friday, July 31, 2020 THE ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL FUTURISTS is a global community of futurists advancing professional foresight. Our credentialed members help their clients anticipate and influence the future. https://www.apf.org lt;link rel="canonical" href="https://www.apf.org/blogpost/1763106/353081/Eurasia-s-Heartland-2050-How-Might-a-Collapse-Scenario-Play-Out"gt; lt;meta property="og:title" content="Eurasia's Heartland 2050: How Might a Collapse Scenario Play Out?"gt; lt;meta property="og:url" content="https://www.apf.org/blogpost/1763106/353081/Eurasia-s-Heartland-2050-How-Might-a-Collapse-Scenario-Play-Out"gt; lt;meta property="og:image" content="https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.apf.org/resource/resmgr/images/members/ef_2020/Kimberly-Daniels.jpg"gt; lt;meta property="og:image:url" content="https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.apf.org/resource/resmgr/images/members/ef_2020/Kimberly-Daniels.jpg"gt; lt;meta property="og:image:width" content="120"gt; lt;meta property="og:image:height" content="120"gt; lt;meta property="og:image:type" content="image/jpg"gt; lt;meta property="og:image:alt" content="APF"gt; lt;meta property="og:description" content="Kimberly Daniels, a member of our Emerging Fellows program envisions a collapse scenario within Eurasia's Heartland alternative futures through her seventh blog post."gt; lt;meta property="og:site_name" content="Association of Professional Futurists"gt; lt;meta property="og:type" content="article"gt; lt;meta property="article:published_time" content="2020-07-30 T 11:19:00 PM"gt; lt;meta property="article:tag" content="China"gt; lt;meta property="article:tag" content="Eurasia"gt; lt;meta property="article:tag" content="Heartland"gt; lt;meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image"gt; lt;meta name="twitter:description" content="Kimberly Daniels, a member of our Emerging Fellows program envisions a collapse scenario within Eurasia's Heartland alternative futures through her seventh blog post."gt; lt;meta name="twitter:title" content="Eurasia's Heartland 2050: How Might a Collapse Scenario Play Out?"gt; lt;meta property="fb:app_id" content="168118196684185"gt; lt;pgt;lt;img border="0" src="https://www.apf.org/resource/resmgr/images/members/ef_2020/Kimberly_Daniels.jpg" height="120" align="left" hspace="5" vspace="5"gt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;a href="https://www.apf.org/members/?id=57892130"gt;lt;igt;lt;spangt;Kimberly Danielslt;/spangt;lt;/igt;lt;/agt;lt;igt;lt;spangt;, a member of our lt;/spangt;lt;/igt;lt;a href="https://www.apf.org/page/EmergingFellows"gt;lt;igt;lt;spangt;Emerging Fellowslt;/spangt;lt;/igt;lt;/agt;lt;igt;lt;spangt; program envisions a collapse scenario within Eurasia's Heartland alternative futures through her seventh blog post. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the APF or its other members.lt;/spangt;lt;/igt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;amp;nbsp;lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;A collapse scenario with respect to Eurasia's Heartland in the year 2050 could play out as a future in which opposing forces break down the geopolitical positioning by which the U.S. and Russia have historically situated themselves. Reflective of disruptive changes that derail expectations of the future, it is a scenario largely driven by geo-economic commerce. Characterized by China's commercialized approach to Heartland power and a unipolar world order, it is one alternative future that could unfold. lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;amp;nbsp;lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;By 2050 in this scenario, China has successfully rolled out the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and dominates the commercial space in Eurasia's Heartland and much of Afro-Eurasia. The owner of most BRI infrastructure and the regional leader along the BRI corridors, China fulfilled her dream of becoming the world's economic superpower. Her path to victory stems from a geopolitical strategy of geo-economic commerce. As China rose in power, a domino effect of disruptive changes brought about the decline of the U.S. and Russia. They are no longer positioned to influence the Heartland, now under China's control.lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;amp;nbsp;lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;A weakened U.S., confronted by dysfunction and strong oppositional forces, has lost her superpower status and influence relative to the world order and the Heartland. Whether it involved failed policies against multiple pandemics, domestic social change, and an economic Cold War with China, or unvaried foreign policy towards the Middle East and terrorism, she remained resolute in her course. However, crippling retaliatory policies and sanctions imposed on the U.S. by Britain, the European Union, Japan, and India in response to an "America First" stance that adversely impacted them has left the U.S. floundering and lacking their support. lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;amp;nbsp;lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;Drawn into costly military conflicts in the Persian Gulf over Iran's nuclear activities, and in the Mediterranean over Russia and China's endless pursuit of Israel's energy resources, the U.S. and her strength are divided. Widespread American public opinion is that she prioritize recovery from a brutal economic depression. Accordingly, the U.S. has abandoned efforts to contain China's commercialized dominance in the Heartland and throughout Afro-Eurasia.lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;amp;nbsp;lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;Russia struggles against devastating instability and an oppositional force in the form of Chinese Eurasianism that has undermined her power and influence in the Heartland. Whether due to a longstanding closed economic system or the over-extension of aid to former Soviet States, Russia sought a Chinese bailout. She accepted lender/borrower terms more like those China imposed on Central Asian countries for BRI infrastructure development than Euro zone bailouts. lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;amp;nbsp;lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;Russia's inability to repay the debt resulted in China's ownership of state-owned Russian enterprises in the telecommunications, media, energy, aerospace and defense, and engineering sectors. These industries employ significant numbers of Chinese workers. Substantial revenue outflows support China's unbounded growth and have contributed to Russia's economic destabilization. Russia remains a Chinese ally. Yet, she begrudges China for usurping her geopolitical influence in former Soviet states. Russia has surrendered regional control of the Heartland and Afro-Eurasia to China. lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;amp;nbsp;lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;BRI success for China, leader of a new unipolar world order, has evolved as commercial colonialism in the Heartland. While Central Asia initially welcomed the growth spurred by connected trade, later the region protested against this New Silk Road. Having defaulted on BRI loans, Central Asian countries lost all hope of self-governance. China's ownership of BRI infrastructure in Central Asia ensured her economic dominance and rule over the region. A larger percentage of trade revenues flow out to China. lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;amp;nbsp;lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;The overwhelming point of contention for Central Asia has involved sharing their lands with countless numbers of Chinese workers. Not only do these workers hold the best-paying jobs in the region, but they also brought with them a diversity of religious practices. Their values threaten the religio-cultural identity of Central Asian Muslims, many of whom are part of a resistance movement against China's BRI.lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;amp;nbsp;lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;This 2050 future in terms of Eurasia's Heartland could play out as a collapse scenario in which the U.S. and Russia, suppressed by disruptive oppositional forces, concede their geopolitical power in the region to China. Although geo-economic commerce is the driving force by which China has become the world's superpower, her commercialized approach to Heartland power, while successful, is not without some regional opposition to the BRI. Distinct from this scenario alternative is a future that reflects a new equilibrium in U.S., Russian, and Chinese geopolitics.lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;pgt;lt;spangt;amp;nbsp;lt;/spangt;lt;/pgt; lt;spangt; Kimberly "Kay" Daniels 2020lt;/spangt; The Foreign Ministry on Sunday dispatched the special ambassador for overseas Koreans and consular affairs, Moon Ha-yong, to Australia after reports that there are more than 1,000 Korean sex workers there. The Korean Embassy in Canberra and Consulate General in Sydney asked Seoul to act based on the reports that foreigners account recently for about 25 percent of the 23,000 sex workers in Australia and some 16.9 percent of them are Koreans. The ministry believes that some are working illegally in the sex industry while on working holiday visas. Some 35,000 young Koreans are staying in Australia under the working holiday visa program between Australia and Korea which allows travelers to work a cerain number of hours while studying or traveling. "The local press has continuously raised the problem of Korean prostitutes in Australia, and now there are more than 1,000 of them," a senior Korean government official said. "It seems likely that criminal organizations are systematically sending young women to Australia or recruiting them locally by taking advantage of the working holiday visas." Moon is expected to meet a senior Australian Foreign Ministry official and high-ranking police officers to discuss ways to prevent human trafficking and prostitution involving Korean women. He will make sure that the government takes tough measures, including canceling the passports of women involved in prostitution there. Similar cases are being reported from Canada, Japan and New Zealand, with which Korea also has work-holiday visa agreements. Some 7,200 young Koreans are staying in Japan, 4,020 in Canada, and 1,800 in New Zealand on these programs. The government believes some women apply for the visa but then work in massage parlors and other sex businesses. The government official said since Korea enacted a special law to eradicate prostitution in 2004, an increasing number of prostitutes have gone abroad. One report said as many as 5,000 Korean women are working as prostitutes in the U.S. alone. The Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has extended the suspension of international flights to and from India until the end of August due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with the country having signed agreements with the USA, France and Germany to allow "bubble transport" in a bid to bring back passenger traffic gradually. However, this order will not be applied to cargo flight operations approved by DGCA. "This restriction shall not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by DGCA," an official statement said. Follow all the latest coronavirus-related news in Africa via our dedicated live blog Despite the suspension of international aviation following the Covid-19 outbreak, the government announced in a statement that a total of more than 2,500 repatriation flights have been approved and conducted by foreign air carriers in order to transport stranded people to and from India. Air India and Air Indian Express have transported 2,67,436 stranded passengers under the Vande Bharat Mission, while other carriers managed to move 4,86,811 stranded passengers back to their homes between 6 May and 30 July. Transport bubble agreements Stranded passengers walk past a departure information board at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata. DIBYANGSHU SARKAR (AFP) India has also revealed that agreements regarding "transport bubbles" have been signed with the USA, France and Germany to send stranded citizens back to their homelands: an agreement signed with UAE came in effect between 12 July and 26 July with people moving in both directions. Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced that a transport bubble agreement is to be signed with the UK soon to allow stranded citizens of both countries to travel between Delhi and London on two daily flights. India recently signed a similar agreement with Kuwait to serve the same purpose. Grant had just made a smashing film debut in William Wylers 1951 drama Detective Story when she spoke at the funeral of the actor J. Edward Bromberg, noting that the stress of being called before the House Un-American Activities Committee most likely led to his early death. For the next 10 years, she was blacklisted as a suspected communist, even though she wasnt ideological. I married a communist writer, she explained, adding that it was the intellectual engagement of her first husband, Arnold Manoff, and his friends that attracted her. I hadnt become a communist because I didnt understand it. The autonomous government of northeast Syria has signed a deal for the marketing of crude oil with a U.S. company, Al-Monitor reports, citing unnamed sources in the know. Whats more, the report says the deal had the blessing of Washington. Most of Syrias oil is in the northeast of the country, which is under the control of a Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of opposition formation Syrian Democratic Forces, which has enjoyed U.S. support through the prolonged conflict. A representative of the Syrian Democratic Council to the United States confirmed that the deal was made by Delta Crescent Energy LLC, Al-Monitor said, although she did not provide any further details. The unnamed sources also told Al-Monitor that the United States was going to supply two modular refineries to northeastern Syria, which will satisfy a fifth of the oil-rich regions needs. At the moment, most of the oil still produced in Syriaaround 60,000 bpdis refined in makeshift facilities. Before the war, the country produced 380,000 bpd. Separately, Kurdistan 24 reported that Senator Lindsay Graham had revealed a deal between the Syrian Democratic Forces and a U.S. oil company to modernize the oil fields under the control of the opposition group. According to the Al-Monitor sources, this is the same deal closed with Delta Crescent Energy. I talked to General Mazloum yesterday, with the SDF, Graham told Foreign Secretary Pompeo during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee session. Apparently, theyve signed a deal with an American oil company to modernize the oil fields in northeastern Syria. Are you supportive of that? In response, Pompeo noted that The deal took a little longer than we had hoped, revealing that the State Department was involved in closing the deal. He added, we are now in implementation, and it can be very powerful. The deal comes on the heels of new sanctions announced by Washington against the Syrian government, under the so-called Caesar Act. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday successfully launched its first mission to Mars, in what is also the first-ever mission to the Red Planet by a country from the Arab world. The spacecraft, named as Amal or Hope, aims at studying the weather on Mars, where it is expected to land seven months from now, in February 2021. UAE launches its first mission to Mars, the Hope Mars Mission from Japans Tanegashima Space Center, the UAE Space Agency said in a statement. The spacecraft is expected to reach Mars orbit in about 200 days from now and then begin its mission to study the Red Planet`s atmosphere, WAM news agency reported. PITTSBURGH, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- "I am employed as a cabinet installer and desired a means to assist in lifting cabinets," said an inventor from Lakeland, Florida. "This inspired me to develop a motorized means to complete this task to save time and energy while possibly reducing injuries." He developed the LITTLE JOE LIFTER to effectively lift a cabinet to installation height. This portable invention could provide enhanced safety by reducing physical strain. Additionally, it would save valuable time and energy. The original design was submitted to the Lakeland sales office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 18-LLF-319, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp's Invention Submission Services at http://www.InventHelp.com. SOURCE InventHelp Related Links http://www.inventhelp.com A demonstrator is pepper sprayed shortly before being arrested during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse Wednesday, July 29, 2020, in Portland, Ore. Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP The Department of Homeland Security reportedly compiled "intelligence reports" on journalists covering the ongoing protests in Portland, a practice traditionally reserved for collecting information on suspected terrorists and violent actors, The Washington Post reported on Thursday. The department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis distributed three Open Source Intelligence Reports, which included tweets from Mike Baker, a reporter for The New York Times, and Benjamin Wittes, the editor-in-chief of the blog Lawfare. The reports, obtained by The Post, detailed the number of likes and retweets each post received and listed that both reporters had "published leaked, unclassified documents about DHS operations in Portland," The Post reported. Former general counsels of the department said creating dossiers on unclassified internal leaks was "bizarre," so far as calling the decision "incredibly dumb." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. The Department of Homeland Security reportedly created and disseminated "intelligence reports" on journalists covering the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, Oregon, The Washington Post reported Thursday. The practice is traditionally reserved for compiling information on suspected terrorists and violent actors, according to The Post report. The DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis compiled and distributed three Open Source Intelligence Reports, which included tweets from Mike Baker, a reporter for The New York Times, and Benjamin Wittes, the editor-in-chief of the blog Lawfare. The reports, obtained by The Post, also detailed the number of likes and retweets each post received and listed that both reporters had "published leaked, unclassified documents about DHS operations in Portland," The Post reported. On July 26, Wittes tweeted a photo of an internal memo from the head of the department's Intelligence and Analysis office citing the reason behind escalating violence in Portland from "Violent Opportunists" (VO) to Antifa." Story continues Wittes also posted screenshots of another internal memo condemning department information leaks to journalists. "The ongoing leaks related to our work in Portland remain of great concern as it distracts from our mission and creates opportunities for others to exploit this information for their own benefit," according to the memo, for which Wittes did not disclose the author. Baker, the other journalist, co-authored an article earlier this week reporting that the federal agents sent to Portland had a shaky understanding as to why there were deployed in the first place, citing an internal DHS memo. He tweeted an image of the unclassified memo that said the department had "low confidence in our assessment" of the roots of the protests. Wittes tweeted Thursday that "it does not trouble" him that his tweets were shared internally, as they were "innocuous enough." "What is troubling about this story is that I&A shared my tweets *as intelligence reporting,* that is, an intelligence arm of the government filed a report on a citizen for activity at the heart of journalism: revealing newsworthy information about government to the public," Wittes wrote in a follow-up post. John Sandweg, who formerly served as the acting general counsel at the DHS, said compiling intelligence reports on journalists "has no operational value whatsoever," calling the decision "incredibly dumb." "This will just damage the intelligence office's reputation," Sandweg told The Post. Steve Bunnell, who served as the department's general counsel under the Obama administration, echoed the sentiment, noting that the intelligence reports on internal leaks have "nothing to do with DHS's original mission." "To broadly disseminate an intelligence report, including to numerous state and local law enforcement agencies, about a DHS leak to a reporter strikes me as bizarre," Bunnell told The Post. The DHS told The Post in a statement that the intelligence reports were "produced under pre-established classified intelligence reporting requirements that are developed through a rigorous process to include legal and Intelligence oversight guidelines." Read the original article on Business Insider Eid al-Adha the festival of sacrifice follows the completion of the annual Hajj pilgrimage. It is the second major celebration of the Islamic calendar after Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the month of fasting called Ramadan. Curtailed celebrations are taking place in the UK and Ireland. FREDERIC J. BROWN/Getty Images Several Midwestern states saw a surge in new coronavirus cases Thursday, including Ohio, which saw its highest single-day increase in cases since the start of the pandemic. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said the spike was "certainly not good news" during a press conference. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, attributed the recent outbreak in states like Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska to "vacations and other reasons of travel," she recently told Fox News. RELATED: U.S. Records Nearly 1 Coronavirus Death per Minute on Wednesday as Overall Toll Passes 150,000 With cases continuing to spike, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers mandated that all residents wear face coverings in public. "While I know emotions are high when it comes to wearing face coverings in public, my job as governor is to put people first and to do whats best for the people of our state, so thats what I am going to do, he said in a statement, per Reuters. Dr. Anthony Fauci urged the governors of midwest states to get ahead of the curve. According to a Reuters tally, Florida reported a record one-day increase in deaths for its third consecutive day on Thursday and Arizona also reported a record surge in fatalities. With regards to new cases, however, the numbers in these states are starting to slow. Apu GOMES / AFP Californians wearing face masks On Wednesday, the U.S. recorded 1,420 new deaths due to COVID-19, the most since May representing nearly one death for every minute of the day. As of Friday morning, the United States has recorded more than 4.5 million cases of the virus, and at least 152, 431 people have died, according to The New York Times database. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, confirmed Wednesday that the cases of the virus in the Midwest states are on the rise. RELATED: Georgia News Anchor Becomes First Person to Receive COVID-19 Vaccine Shot in Phase 3 Trial Story continues What were focusing on now is that there are a bunch of other states for example Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana which are starting to show that very subtle increase in percent positives among the total tested [for coronavirus], he said in an interview with ABC News. Which is a surefire hint that you may be getting into the same sort of trouble with those states that the Southern states got into trouble with. "Before you know it, two to three weeks down the pike, you're in trouble," he told MSNBC. Fauci urged the governors of those states to get ahead of the curve and step up their public health precautions before their infections get out of hand. He advised universal mask requirements, closing bars and encouraging social distancing and hand washing. If we do that, hopefully well prevent multiple other states from becoming just like the Southern states, Fauci said to ABC News. As information about the coronavirus pandemic rapidly changes, PEOPLE is committed to providing the most recent data in our coverage. Some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For the latest on COVID-19, readers are encouraged to use online resources from CDC, WHO, and local public health departments. PEOPLE has partnered with GoFundMe to raise money for the COVID-19 Relief Fund, a GoFundMe.org fundraiser to support everything from frontline responders to families in need, as well as organizations helping communities. For more information or to donate, click here. Harris County has agreed to pay nearly $200,000 to settle a lawsuit by a Houston woman subjected to a controversial roadside cavity search in 2015 by sheriff's deputies, according to federal court records. The settlement comes after Charnesia Corley, 24, filed a federal lawsuit against Harris County, contending her constitutional rights were violated during the late-night search in the driveway of a busy convenience store. The mid-2015 invasive search, caught on dashcam video, sparked a social media maelstrom as well as withering criticism from government watchdogs and civil rights advocates, as well as apologies from Harris County elected officials. Two deputies were charged with official oppression after the incident, but the charges were later dismissed. Robert Soard, the first assistant county attorney, said the settlement came after a lengthy negotiation. "Certainly, the county is not admitting any liability by paying that amount," Soard said. "But it seemed to be a reasonable thing to do based on what we knew at the time and what we still know." Documents from Soard's office show county commissioners agreed to pay Corley $185,000 to settle the case, ending the multiyear saga. While the settlement brought the case to a close, Corley's attorney, Samuel Cammack, said Wednesday that the sum is "an injustice" to his client. He said she deserved far more for her ordeal, but he'd felt backed into a corner during settlement negotiations. "We felt like it was best thing to do for Ms. Corley. We felt we were about to end up with zero," he said. "We're disgusted with the process and how it all turned out." The Corley settlement is the second the county approved in recent years related to the conduct of sheriff's employees. In June 2015, the commissioners court awarded $400,000 to Terry Goodwin, a mentally ill inmate who spent weeks in an isolation cell in the Harris County jail filled with his bodily waste, insects and trays of food. After an investigation, six employees were fired and nearly two dozen jailers and deputies were disciplined for not taking action to address the filthy conditions in Goodwin's cell. Pct. 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said he would have voted for a larger settlement over Corley's treatment. "This was an appalling case and I apologize to Ms. Corley for the atrocious treatment she endured, right here in Harris County," said Ellis, who is an attorney. "I do believe that this settlement sends a message that in cases where law enforcement officers are accused of misconduct, the allegations are going to be closely examined and addressed. That kind of behavior is unacceptable and the victims deserve justice." However, local civil rights activists excoriated the settlement, which they said failed to meaningfully deter future abuses by county law enforcement. "That settlement did not send a message," said Quanell X, a prominent local civil rights activist. "Why would anyone ever be afraid of a lawsuit when they know they're only going to pay pennies in restitution for such egregious behavior?" Kandice Webber, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Houston, said county law enforcement officials need to reach out to the county's residents of color and assure them that similar incidents would not happen in the future. "No amount of money can give Charnesia Corley what those officers took from her, and that was her dignity and respect as a human being," Webber said. "I'm glad she's gotten some justice, even if its just in the form of monetary justice, but (the incident) never should have happened." ORIGINAL STORY: Two HCSO deputies indicted for roadside cavity search Corley was pulled over by Harris County sheriff's deputies for allegedly running a stop sign around 10:30 p.m. June 20, 2015, according to her lawsuit. She pulled into a convenience store parking lot off Ella Road in North Houston and began speaking with the deputies. The deputies believed they smelled marijuana as they were talking to Corley and subsequently searched her car. When they found none in the car, they started to search Corley herself in the parking lot in plain view and in a "non-sterile environment," according to the lawsuit. Corley was initially ordered to take off her pants for a strip search, but the deputies later tried to cavity search her. She protested at first but was thrown to the ground and searched anyway, according to the suit. Corley claimed the deputies searched inside her genitalia and allegedly found 0.2 ounces of marijuana, although the deputies' attorney later said the deputy searching Corley never penetrated her privates. Corley was arrested and charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana and resisting arrest. Charges against Corley were later dismissed. Two of the three deputies involved in the search were indicted by a Harris County grand jury on charges of official oppression. That led to an unusually public fight between the sheriff's office and the district attorney's office, with then-Sheriff Ron Hickman criticizing the decision to charge the deputies as "not based on a review of evidence, but rather ... upon a local news report." Charges against the two deputies, Ronaldine Pierre and William Strong, were dismissed in August 2017, when Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg presented the case to a second grand jury after new evidence emerged. The dismissal of their charges and the subsequent release of the video of the search reinvigorated the public's interest in the case. As the story gained visibility, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez weighed in on the case, saying his administration was "fully committed to ensuring that every resident of our community is treated with dignity and respect," and acknowledging that department policies prohibit deputies from conducting strip searches without a warrant issued by a judge. St. John Barned-Smith covers public safety and major breaking news for the Houston Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Send tips to st.john.smith@chron.com. Jay R. Jordan is a breaking news reporter at Chron.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan. The owners of two Thai restaurants linked to more than 100 COVID-19 cases say they are afraid to go outside after receiving hateful messages from the public. Stephanie and David Boyd own both Thai Rock restaurants in Potts Point and Wetherill Park which are linked 104 coronavirus cases in New South Wales. The Potts Point restaurant is linked to seven COVID-19 cases while Wetherill Park has had 94 cases traced back to it. The couple have finally broken their silence saying they don't know how so many people were infected despite implementing a COVID-19 safety plan. Stephanie and David Boyd own both Thai Rock restaurants in Potts Point and Wetherill park which are linked 104 coronavirus cases in New South Wales (pictured during a trip to Thailand) Thai Rock in Wetherill Park (pictured) is linked to 94 cases of COVID-19 'We don't know. NSW Health don't know. We're still trying to investigate that,' Mr Boyd told A Current Affair. The couple were made aware of the positive case when one of their workers tested positive for COVID-19 after suffering from a runny nose. All workers were then ordered to get tested and both restaurants were deep cleaned to ensure customer and diner safety when they reopened. Mr Boyd said their staff checked their temperature at the beginning of the shifts, had hand sanitiser available, ensured a safe 1.5metre distance was observed, as well as a sign-in book for patron details. However, they remain stumped at how the virus got to their restaurants despite all the safety measures in place. 'There's a lot of mistruth out there, a lot of accusation,' Ms Boyd said. The devastated couple have been targeted by online trolls as cases continue to rise, saying they understand people's frustration. 'It is unfair, we understand that people are panicking because of the virus, we understand people want to blame something. 'All we're trying to say is we're not to blame, we're victims in it as well.' The devastated couple have been targeted by online trolls as cases continue to rise, saying they understand people's frustration The Thai Rock restaurant in Potts Point (pictured) has been linked to seven COVID-19 cases The restaurant's Facebook page has since been filled with false accusations that the venue did not practice social distancing and that staff are not self-isolating. 'Can I be honest? Were scared to go out. Seriously, we are. Theres a certain fear,' Mr Boyd said. The Boyds called for unity and understanding on the Thai Rock Facebook page as the abuse became too much to handle. 'We recognise there is fear and misunderstanding however we believe that sense and truth will prevail,' the couple wrote. 'We need to remain TOGETHER with everyone at this time to overcome the impact of this pandemic on our society. Stay safe and well.' NSW Health ordered everyone who visited the Wetherill Park restaurant on 9, 10, 11, 12 and 14 July to immediately be tested and self-isolate for 14 days, regardless of symptoms. Anyone who visited the Potts Point restaurant Potts two hours or more between on July 15 July and July 25 were also ordered to get tested and self-isolate. The Boyds called for unity and understanding on the Thai Rock Facebook page as the abuse became too much to handle NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has said she is 'extremely concerned' over the clusters. She urged Sydneysiders to 'reduce their mobility' to stop the spread of the disease. 'We're asking people to modify their activity, to reduce their mobility. That will reduce and allow us to control the spread,' she said. 'It will allow us to make sure we're not having any undetected cases which can very quickly get out of control. 'We're asking everybody, especially those in those identified areas where there are a number of cases, whether it's southwestern Sydney, western Sydney and now Potts Point.' SHENZHEN-HONG KONG BORDER The bridge was only 20 yards long, but it was the longest journey of my fathers life. Holding a flimsy piece of paper with a Swiss watermark and Chinese characters, he crossed the bridge from the British colony of Hong Kong into Maos China, one of the first foreign correspondents to report on a country largely unknown to the rest of the world in 1954. The paper was his golden ticket. Some six decades later, I found myself staring out at the same footbridge from the other side. In mainland China on my own coveted journalism visa, I peeked out through the metal bars separating me from Hong Kong, now a semiautonomous territory of China. The closest my father had previously come to China was approaching this bridge to meet missionaries who, he wrote, stumbled out of the Chinese Revolution with tragic tales fully confirmed by their emaciated bodies and haggard eyes. As the bamboo gate swung closed behind him, my father put one foot down on Chinese soil and looked up to see a simple mud village at the precipice of a new era. Decades later, I looked back to see a different view altogether: a towering skyline of glass and metal with one of the worlds tallest buildings in a city going through its own dramatic transformation. It was almost impossible to get to China from the West at the start of Maos rule. The country had declared itself the Peoples Republic of China five years earlier, and it was the early days of the Cold War that divided Communist countries from Western democracies. My father at a newsstand in Hong Kong, where he was stationed for much of the 1950s. Richard Harrington, via Stephen Bulger Gallery My father had carved out an unusual beat, reporting for The Toronto Star and The Star Weekly from one newly Communist country to another, chronicling the path of each. On his travels he searched for a Chinese diplomatic office where he could get a visa to visit. If he could find a friendly Chinese official in Moscow or another capital in Eastern Europe, he might have a chance to talk that person into giving him a visa. Yet in his early travels behind the Iron Curtain, China remained elusive. He persisted, propelled by an urgency to understand this huge nation. Eventually, during a trip to Poland, his determination paid off. In July 1954, he traveled to Bern, Switzerland, where he was told to pick up his visa. My father left behind written notes and newspaper clippings, stacks of passports with visas, photos and transcripts from his first and subsequent trips to China. They have allowed me to imagine conversations that we might have had in the six years since he died. Conversations about how the country he saw back then brimming with hope and enthusiasm yet also tightly controlled is in some ways the same today. One of my fathers canceled passports, with immigration stamps for his trips to Poland and Switzerland. His first trip to China spanned two months and thousands of miles. He met Mao Zedong (whom he tapped on the shoulder from behind his camera, mistaking the chairman for a humble courtier blocking his shot) and Zhou Enlai, the premier and foreign minister at the time. But he also talked with factory workers, actors, newspaper editors and shop owners. He described being filled with hope for the human spirit he witnessed. But he also felt despair because a government-provided handler was never too far away, ready to silence anyone who veered too far from the Communist Party line. China defied any broad-brush statement. And yet, he wrote in one notebook, under the current leadership, the way in which the government silences alternative points of view makes it hard not to. A picture of Shenzhen's skyline taken from one of its many high rises. Alexandra Stevenson/The New York Times A version of this exists today. I have a long list of names of people who wouldnt talk to me because I work for The New York Times, portrayed in Chinese state media as the source of smears and lies. Sources Ive interviewed privately are later threatened by the local police, while stridently nationalist rhetoric dominates the state media. Several months after I returned to Hong Kong, the Chinese government in March expelled my American colleagues as part of a diplomatic dispute with the United States. In the past month, Beijing has tightened its grip over Hong Kong with a new national security law, threatening free speech and other civil liberties in the city. During his trip, my father traveled from Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Chongqing in the south, to cities farther north like Shenyang, Shanghai, Wuhan and Beijing. Some of the datelines in his dispatches were different from today Canton, Hankow, Mukden, Peiping yet much of his observations still ring true. In Beijing, he found more than just a city but also a way of life that defied the strictures of Communism. No rubber stamp yet dictates the passions and peculiarities of its people, he wrote. You are filled with indignation in one moment and moved to admiration in the next. Excerpt from a 1950s notebook A selection from one of my fathers reporting notebooks, as well as a photo he took of a man in Beijing. It is the same today. In the summer heat, men roll up their shirts to expose their bellies, even though the government calls the act uncivilized and has tried to crack down. The unsuspecting bicycle rider is never too far from crashing into a manic delivery man zipping down narrow bike paths on the wrong side of the road. Smokers stub out their cigarettes on the No Smoking signs plastered everywhere. In one of his notebooks, my father noted a seriousness to the people he met and interviewed. But, he added, it was hard to resist a smile, and everyone seems to smile; surely not all by government order? The people my father met shared their aspirations, both personal and professional. A selection of images from my fathers reporting trips, including one of a Chinese peasant in the Tibetan foothills and another of families of Chinese fisherman who, my father wrote, "crowd into Hong Kong to escape harsh attempts to make them join Peoples Communes. William Stevenson One young factory worker told him she had no time to think about getting married. Knitting, cooking and doing domestic chores were a waste of time, she said. And anyway, once she did get around to having a baby she would keep working. After 14 months a baby has to look out for itself, she told him. So she would leave the baby at the factory nursery, taking the child home only once the workweek was over. I have interviewed women who felt that the Communist Party today had failed them when it comes to the family, leaving them with no support. Mao told them they were equal to men in work and life. Yet policymakers have intervened again and again to dictate how women should govern their bodies. First, they could have only one child. Now, they are being told they should have two children if they want to be patriotic. For many women, motherhood is a losing proposition. They need to keep their jobs but risk getting demoted or fired when they get pregnant. Li Xiaoping in her apartment in the Shandong Province last year. Giulia Marchi for The New York Times Should a woman just go back to fulfilling her traditional role as a wife and be shut out of society after giving birth? Li Xiaoping asked me. The 33-year-old said she was fired for being pregnant. After she left, the electronics company she worked for sent her a bill equivalent to five years of salary for the hassle. During his first trip, my father was pushed around by unfriendly officials. While visiting the Great Wall, he left his guide to chase two men over the other side of the wall with his camera. Two Peoples Liberation Army soldiers were launched into action, he wrote, before you could say Chiang Kai-shek, referring to the Chinese Nationalist leader, who had fled to Taiwan after his defeat by the Communists in 1949. He waved cheerily, and they retreated. It was over, he thought, until his guide told him that he had taken unauthorized photographs and that the military was waiting for him in Beijing where he would be forced to give up his camera. But the developed film was eventually returned, with thanks by a grinning official who agreed the only military secret it recorded was this breathtaking and ageless barrier the Great Wall of China. A group of men my father captured crossing a passageway. William Stevenson Today officials frequently demand journalists delete photos from their smartphones. Last summer, my colleague and I found ourselves in a small town in the heart of Chinas coal country looking for empty stadiums and half-built government vanity projects. As we were preparing to leave, we were suddenly circled by more than a dozen police officers and government officials. The female police officer as she approached me and my colleague. Alexandra Stevenson/The New York Times They scanned our IDs. They questioned our motives. They threatened our driver. They pleaded with us to write a positive story. They asked to see our phones, to delete our photos. We got a Beijing official on speakerphone to tell the police we were allowed to be there, to no avail. The charade went on for two hours before another female cop inexplicably walked up to us, shook my colleagues hand and said, Youre welcome here, thanks for your cooperation. These interactions are not new. I experienced similar acts of intimidation when I was working in China a decade ago. But there is an undercurrent now that feels different, one that I recognize in some of my fathers writing. He struggled to reconcile what he saw with what he believed to be true. The sinister regime where jails and punishment cells awaited the unfaithful was mostly invisible on his first trip. Yet, he later wondered, what had happened to those acquaintances who disappeared and then later reappeared with confessions in hand? You start such a ride with mixed feelings. You are apprehensive, or maybe elated. You feel intrepid or inadequate to the challenges ahead. But whatever you feel, you certainly suffer a sense of foolishness. A draft from one of my fathers stories describing the start of his China trip A collection of my fathers work, including a transcript for a Canadian television broadcast and an article for Look Magazine published on March 8, 1955. The governments heavy handedness would inevitably emerge. In Shanghai, he visited a theater, elated because for the first time in weeks there appeared to be no political subtext to the visit. But when he sneaked backstage he bumped into a big blackboard. An excerpt from an article about the actor that ran in The Boston Globe. On it was an essay written by one of the actors, he was told. It is called: Who are my friends and who are my enemies? It turned out, in fact, to be a confession written by someone who had complained, this government gives me a pain. As my six-month assignment in China came to an end, the country was preparing to celebrate 70 years of Chinese Communist Party rule. Every corner of the country was whipped up into celebratory fervor. Huge billboards of a smiling Xi Jinping with proclamations about China lined the highways. When my husband and I traveled through the mountains on a rickety bus in the southwest, we started a new game to pass the time: Spot President Xi. The day before the parade I found myself sharing a cab to the airport in Shenzhen with Walter Liu, a 37-year-old Beijing native who now lives in California. Mr. Liu and his high school had participated in the 50th anniversary parade in 1999 when he was 17. He and his classmates were given pink and yellow blocks of paper to hold in a formation on Tiananmen Square. From above the sign read 50. It was the culmination of two months of rehearsals, first at his high school and then later during midnight rehearsals on Tiananmen Square. What Mr. Liu remembered most vividly was the excitement of being able to see his girlfriend during those midnight sessions. It is rare that you could see your girlfriend at night, he said, smiling as he recalled it. We could just look at each other from the crowd and wink wink. We couldnt even talk. On the day of the parade, his parents squinted, trying to find him on their television. I dont think they could see me because I was so tiny, said Mr. Liu, laughing. I was one color pixel on TV. My ticket to the anniversary parade. On the day of the 70th anniversary parade I, too, was a pixel. I had managed to persuade the government to give me a highly prized ticket to watch the parade from the stands, just as my father had done at the end of his first China tour. It was an unusually hot day and the air was heavy with smog. Everyone had an identifier. Blue uniformed sanitation workers. Green soldiers. Dark blue naval officers. Blue-and-white track-suited volunteers. A thousand government workers from one Beijing district with white shirts and a red bird logo. I felt out of place, even though I was given a bright red flag to wave. My father had stood in the same place for the fifth anniversary parade. He noted similar columns of troops, guns and tanks, with soldiers marching in unison and such terrifying rhythm that it was as though they were pouring straight off the production line of some human factory. From the stands, my father focused his binoculars on Mao, who stood beneath 10 huge lanterns waving and laughing. His gold-colored helmet had tipped to one side and his hands were hidden behind a thick cloak. The crowd from the bleachers, with Mr. Xi projected in the background. Alexandra Stevenson/The New York Times I did not need binoculars to find Xi Jinping. He was projected, standing stiff, on huge screens at every angle. Just as Mao had done long before him, he came rolling out onto Changan Avenue in a special retro-styled black car to greet and inspect the troops. The two-hour parade ended with towering portraits of the Communist Partys top leaders over the decades since 1949. As they rolled out on huge floats, loud cheers erupted from the bleachers. Maos portrait came first. The biggest cheer was reserved for the last portrait, of Xi. There is much discussion today among intellectuals in China about how the state looks much more like it did under Mao than at any other time since the country opened itself up to the world four decades ago. I wish I could ask my father about that. But I have a pretty good idea what he would say. United Ventures, a Milan, Italy-based venture capital firm, launched a new fund called UV T-Growth. The new vehicle, which has a target of 150m, will support highly innovative growth-stage businesses in order to develop technological projects in Italy and abroad, with a particular focus on 5G technology. TIM, through its arm dedicated to Corporate Venture Capital TIM Ventures, signed an agreement with United Ventures, will commit 60m. The new fund will also be open to other Italian and foreign institutional investors. TIM Ventures will make its resources and strategic assets available to the fund. Founded by Paolo Gesess and Massimiliano Magrini, United Ventures is a venture capital firm supporting visionary entrepreneurs to reinvent industries through technology. The firm has a long-standing track record of both startup and scaleup technological companies, also offering industry expertise, mentorship and business networking to support portfolio companies. Backed companies include Datrix, brumbrum, exein, Credimi, Fiscozen, and many others. FinSMEs 31/07/2020 NASAs next-generation Mars rover Perseverance blasted off from Floridas Cape Canaveral on Thursday atop an Atlas 5 rocket on a $2.4 billion mission to search for traces of potential past life on Earths planetary neighbor. The next-generation robotic rover - a car-sized six-wheeled scientific vehicle - also is scheduled to deploy a mini helicopter on Mars and test out equipment for future human missions to the fourth planet from the sun. It is expected to reach Mars next February. It soared into the sky under clear, sunny and warm conditions carried by an Atlas 5 rocket from the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance. The launch took place after the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California where its mission engineers were located was rattled by an earthquake. This marked NASAs ninth journey to the Martian surface. Perseverance is due to land at the base of an 820-foot-deep (250 meters) crater called Jezero, a former lake from 3.5 billion years ago that scientists suspect could bear evidence of potential past microbial life on Mars. Scientists have long debated whether Mars - once a much more hospitable place than it is today - ever harbored life. Water is considered a key ingredient for life, and the Mars billions of years ago had lots of it on the surface before the planet became a harsh and desolate outpost. One of the most complex maneuvers in Perseverances journey will be what mission engineers call the seven minutes of terror," when the robot endures extreme heat and speeds during its descent through the Martian atmosphere, deploying a set of supersonic parachutes before igniting mini rocket engines to gently touch down on the planets surface. This was scheduled as the third launch from Earth to Mars during a busy month of July, following probes sent by the United Arab Emirates and China. The state from which the rover was launched, Florida, is currently one of the hot spots in the United States for the coronavirus pandemic. Aboard Perseverance is a four-pound (1.8 kg) autonomous helicopter named Ingenuity that is due to test powered flight on Mars for the first time. Since NASAs first Mars rover Sojourner landed in 1997, the agency has sent two others - Spirit and Opportunity - that have explored the geology of expansive Martian plains and detected signs of past water formations, among other discoveries. NASA also has successfully sent three landers - Pathfinder, Phoenix, InSight. The United States has plans to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s under a program that envisions using a return to the moon as a testing platform for human missions before making the more ambitious crewed journey to Mars. Perseverance will conduct an experiment to convert elements of the carbon dioxide-rich Martian atmosphere into propellant for future rockets launching off the planets surface, or to produce breathable oxygen for future astronauts. The rover also is intended to help bring Martian rock samples back to Earth, collecting materials in cigar-sized capsules and leaving them in various spots on the surface for retrieval by a future fetch" rover. That planned rover is expected to launch the samples back into space to link up with other spacecraft for an eventual Earth homecoming around 2031. 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 Hong Kong says candidates cannot run in September election because they do not agree with controversial security law. Joshua Wong, one of Hong Kongs most prominent democracy campaigners, on Friday said the pro-democracy camp would continue their fight for freedom after officials disqualified some pro-democracy candidates from running in Septembers legislative elections and local media reported the poll could be postponed. Elections for Hong Kongs Legislative Council, known as LegCo, are due to take place on September 6. Only half of the 70 seats are directly elected by Hong Kong people, with 30 chosen by special interest groups who are mostly pro-Beijing and the remaining five seats occupied by popularly-elected district councillors. Hong Kong on Thursday disqualified a dozen candidates from the contest, including 23-year-old Wong. Advocating for independence, soliciting intervention by foreign governments, or expressing an objection in principle to a national security law that China imposed on the territory earlier this month were behaviours that could not genuinely uphold the Basic Law, the government said in a statement. Wong, who was dressed in a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words You cant kill us all, told the media that Hong Kongs new national security was a legal weapon used against dissidents and the disqualification of pro-democracy candidates the most scandalous election fraud in Hong Kong history. Our resistance will continue, he added. Doubts about whether the election will even go ahead have grown over the past week with multiple local media outlets reporting that the government will postpone the poll because of the jump in coronavirus cases. Cable TV on Friday reported that the territorys Chief Executive Carrie Lam would hold a news conference at 6pm (10:00 GMT) where she would announce the election would be postponed. China imposed the new legislation, seeking to punish what it termed secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. The law, which bypassed Hong Kongs legislature, followed months of pro-democracy protests that began in June last year and at times descended into violence. Supporters of the law say it will bring stability after a year of anti-China unrest. Critics describe it as an assault on Hong Kongs autonomy and freedoms, which were promised under the one country, two systems framework agreed when the city was returned to Chinese rule by the British in 1997. On Thursday, four students, the youngest just 16 years old, were arrested over social media posts that were deemed in breach of the law, the first to be made by a new dedicated police unit. S pain has recorded 3,092 more cases of coronavirus in the biggest jump since lifting their national lockdown in June. The country's health ministry said cumulative cases, which also include results from antibody tests on people who may have recovered from the disease, increased from 285,430 to 288,522. The ministry added that 1,525 of the infections had been confirmed within the past 24 hours - the highest daily increase since the end of April. It is third day in a row Spain has diagnosed more than 1,000 infections. It is third day in a row Spain has diagnosed more than 1,000 infections / AP But the government's most senior coronavirus expert, Fernando Simon, denied that the country was facing a second wave. Mr Simon told a news conference on Friday: "A second wave would be when we have uncontrolled, widespread community transmission." Many were on holiday when the Government scrapped the air bridge with Spain, requiring UK arrivals to quarantine for two weeks on returning / REUTERS He claimed that most of Spain had the outbreak under control but that it was spreading freely in some northeastern communities of Catalonia and Aragon. The health ministry is monitoring 483 active clusters of the virus. Around three quarters of the clusters include less than 10 people, Mr Simon said. The rising rates of virus transmission has British left travellers to the popular holiday destination stranded. Many were on holiday when the Government scrapped the air bridge with Spain, requiring UK arrivals to quarantine for two weeks on returning. (Natural News) You may recall that, in early June, a large group of spoiled brats and would-be Che Guevaras took over several city blocks in Seattle, an area of the city that included the police departments East Precinct building. The CHOP zone, as it was called was supposed to become an area where residents enjoyed a summer of love, according to Seattles lunatic mayor, Jenny Durkan. She eventually had to walk back that comment when, after just a few short weeks, the CHOP became a den of crime and murder, as shootings spiked in a police-free environment. Seattle Mayor says, about the anarchists takeover of her city, it is a Summer of Love. These Liberal Dems dont have a clue. The terrorists burn and pillage our cities, and they think it is just wonderful, even the death. Must end this Seattle takeover now! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2020 I clearly said that in jest, it probably was not the smart thing to do, Durkan said. Yeah, right. If President Trump doesnt get to (correctly) claim he was joking when he asked Russia to find Hillarys emails, Durkan doesnt get by with this. In any event, that wasnt the last patently false and ridiculous thing she has said this summer (of love). In an interview with the partisan hack Erin Burnett at CNN this week, Durkan laid the blame at Trumps feet for weeks of lawlessness and rioting in her city that culminated with mass destruction of private property and wounding of scores of Seattle police officers during protests July 26. She said the presidents actions to bring order to Portlands federal property that is under siege and attack were responsible for what happened in Seattle, adding conspiratorially,We are seeing the dry run for martial law. What the? A former federal prosecutor should know better, but when youve sold your soul to Marxism, insanity and irresponsibility go hand-in-hand. We dont need the help that the presidents offering, and, in fact, I think the presidents actions have directly escalated and were responsible for what happened this weekend, Durkan said in rejecting the White Houses offer of federal assistance since she seems incapable of quelling the unrest and violence. Many people who were interviewed by media said they came to the protest because of whats happening in Portland. The protest itself was billed as something in solidarity with Portland. And so, we are today, I requested the Department of Homeland Security since there was no actions directed against the federal properties here to ask them to remove the standby team that they have, she continued. (Related: I need to buy a firearm: Seattle radio host who mocked Trump has apartment building ransacked by rioters.) By the way, destroying private property, looting businesses, spraying graffiti, and starting fires is not peaceful or protesting. Its lawlessness and, since there is a political element to the violence, a strong case can be made that said actions are domestic terrorism. Burnett, to her credit, responded, Let me ask you, mayor, because some of these images, theyre ugly. I mean, a Starbucks destroyed in the protests, a construction site for a juvenile detention facility set on fire, Seattle police say officers were burned when protesters threw explosive devices at them, and look, a lot of whats happening here, this is not peaceful. This is just violent and destructive, and the president says he thinks mayors like you are refusing his help and those standby forces because hes the one offering it. Does he have a point? No. Again, the presidents actions clearly have escalated things in Seattle, and across the country, she continued. I was just talking to a number of mayors throughout the country who saw a similar thing that people wanting to act out against the president and his administration coming to the streets. I believe, if you look at what happened yesterday and Sunday, again, it was peaceful. We had a number of peaceful protests, she said. I hate to say it, Erin, but I really believe that we are seeing the dry run for martial law. This is a president that is using law enforcement and federal forces for political purposes, and that should be chilling to every American. Unreal. Does this look peaceful to you? Heres the fire rioters set in Seattle during this past weekends riot while Padma lounged in her secure, multi-million dollar home. https://t.co/eGZh90NgHK pic.twitter.com/HALLoRoJkb (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) July 29, 2020 Lincoln Project leaves out that these are police officers (nothing to do with @realDonaldTrump) and that they were dispersing a riot after the group burned down 5 construction trailers, destroyed a Starbucks, and ignited a munition against a police precinct. https://t.co/RvnOHQSKls (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) July 28, 2020 The peaceful protesters destroyed a Starbucks and a fire was supposedly set. Its attached to an apartment complex. pic.twitter.com/TOHf7tQNsq (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) July 26, 2020 Sources include: Q13Fox.com Breitbart.com NaturalNews.com CHICAGO, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. (NYSE: TDS) and United States Cellular Corporation (NYSE: USM) will be webcasting their second quarter operating results conference call on August 7, 2020, at 9:00 a.m. central time. The companies will release their financial results on August 6, 2020 after market close. To listen to the webcast, please visit the events & presentations pages of investors.tdsinc.com or investors.uscellular.com . The presentations will be webcast both live and on-demand. It is recommended that you register at least 15 minutes before the beginning of the presentation to register, download and install any necessary multimedia streaming software. About TDS Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. (TDS), a Fortune 1000 company, provides wireless; cable and wireline broadband, video and voice; and hosted and managed services to approximately 6 million connections nationwide through its businesses, U.S. Cellular, TDS Telecom, BendBroadband and OneNeck IT Solutions. Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Chicago, TDS employed 9,400 people as of March 31, 2020. For more information about TDS and its subsidiaries, visit: TDS: www.tdsinc.com U.S. Cellular: www.uscellular.com TDS Telecom: www.tdstelecom.com OneNeck IT Solutions: www.oneneck.com SOURCE Telephone and Data Systems and U.S. Cellular On Thursday former United States President Barack Obama stated it was time to end the Senate's filibuster rules requiring a majority vote to pass legislation. The decision has also been supported by current President Donald Trump previously. Filibuster rules According to the New York Post, the rules of the Senate require at least 60 votes for legislation to be approved to proceed which gives the minority the power to block the passing of the bill or severely modify its contents. During a speech at the funeral of Georgia Representative John Lewis which was held in Atlanta, Obama urged officials to lower the required number of votes to block legislation from passing. The former black president of the US suggested making Election Day a federal holiday to increase the number of voters that can attend the event. The move would enable prisoners the chance to vote which Obama stated would result in the equal representation of DC and Puerto Rico and avoids the manipulation of congressional districts that lean to support one particular party. In conclusion, Obama stated that if his suggestion required the removal of the filibuster rules, which is considered to be a relic from the Jim Crow laws, then that was what officials should do to ensure that every American gets to use their right to vote. During his presidency, the filibuster rules stopped Obama from passing a more sweeping national healthcare overhaul as former Senators Max Baucus and Ben Nelson, rebel Democratic centrists, empowered to extract concessions. Also Read: Donald Trump Suggests Delaying Presidential Election Due to Possible Fraudulent Results in Mail-In Voting Recently, Trump has continuously called for an end to the filibuster rules claiming that Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Minority Leader, would immediately take advantage if or when the Republicans lose hold of the Majority. Senator Bernie Sanders supported Obama's announcement and stated the filibuster rules allow Democrats to provide legislation that supports the rights and dignity of every American in the country. Worry of opposition power However, several top Democrats have been reluctant to support the removal of the filibuster rules due to fears that it would backfire if or when Republicans gained back their power, as reported by the New York Times. In 2013, after Republicans successfully blocked Obama's judicial nominees, Democrats lowered the threshold that was required for advancing presidential nominees to a majority. The change had enabled Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to push forward through 200 new federal judges. Despite the many doubts surrounding the proposal, presidential candidate Joe Biden has shown his support of the idea of reducing the filibuster rules' power. Schumer, on the other hand, said a decision of whether to remove the rules or not would have to wait until "nothing's off the table" and states Democrats could see it as a chance to rise in power. According to CNN, after Obama's speech, some Democrats are still reluctant of the decision. Senator Dick Durbin, when asked on Thursday of his replies to the remarks, said several Democrats were still contemplating the possibility and said it was not something they were prepared to commit to. Related Article: Trump Urges US Congress to Stop Evictions, Pass Stimulus Checks, Protect Citizens @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Washington: US president-elect Donald Trump has termed the Green party-initiated move to recount votes in the state of Wisconsin as a scam, asserting that the people have spoken and the election is over. The push to recount the votes was spearheaded by Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein, who is also seeking recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump won unexpected and narrow victories against Hillary Clinton in the November 8 presidential elections in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with Michigan still too close to call. The billionaire from New York, who continually claimed that the election was rigged before his victory, insisted in a statement that the results should be respected, instead of being challenged and abused. The president-elect alleged it was a way for Steinwho has raised USD 5.9 million toward a USD 7 million target for the recount pushto fill her coffers with money. The people have spoken and the election is over, as Hillary Clinton herself said on election night in addition to her conceding, Trump said, a day after the Green Party candidate moved a petition for the recounting of votes in Wisconsin which was accepted by the State Election Commission. On Friday morning, the Hillary Clinton Campaign said that it is joining the Green Party in the recounting move. It said it will also support the recounting of votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump said: This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what Jill Stein is doing. While Trump has convincingly won the electoral college votes, the counting of votes has indicated that Clinton leads by more than two million popular votes. This recount is just a way for Jill Stein, who received less than one percent of the vote overall and wasnt even on the ballot in many states, to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount. All three states were won by large numbers of voters, especially Pennsylvania, which was won by more than 70,000 votes, said the US president-elect. The Green Party meanwhile dismissed Trumps allegations that it will not use the money raised for the purpose recounting of votes. For his information, this is all going into a dedicated and segregated account so that it can only be spent on the recount, Stein told CNN in an interview. He may be creating his own facts here as hes been known to do some times in the past. He himself said it was a rigged election unless he won it, she said. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Hurricane Isaias is going to come really close to Floridas east coast soon. Isaias is still on a path that will take it through the Bahamas tonight and then very close to -- or right over -- a large part of the east coast of Florida, still as a hurricane and still possibly gaining some strength. Hurricane watches have been upgraded to warnings and extended for part of the Sunshine State as of Friday night after some of the computer models again shifted Isaias path a bit west and right on top of the coast. Hurricane conditions are expected to affect part of the Floridas east coast late Saturday and Saturday night. Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion, the hurricane center said Friday night. Isaias could bring deadly storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rain to Florida and then up the southeast coast through the weekend. The long-range path shows Isaias tracking uncomfortably close to the East Coast, with a possible landfall in Florida and then again possibly in the Carolinas by late Monday or Tuesday. Forecasters think Isaias will weaken to a tropical storm as it nears the Carolinas. Isaias could also cause trouble along the mid-Atlantic coast and come very close to or over parts of Massachusetts on Tuesday or Wednesday. There is a risk of impacts from winds, heavy rainfall, and storm surge spreading along much of the the U.S. east coast through early next week, and interests there should monitor the progress of Isaias and updates to the forecast, the hurricane center said Friday night. The Bahamas will have to deal with Isaias tonight, with damaging winds, storm surge and torrential rainfall all possible through Sunday in the islands. The hurricane center said strong winds and heavy squalls continued to spread across the central Bahamas as of Friday night. As of 10 p.m. CDT Friday, Hurricane Isaias was located about 135 miles south-southeast of Nassau in the Bahamas and was moving northwest at 15 mph. Isaias winds were at 80 mph after holding at 75 mph for part of the day, making it a Category 1 hurricane. The hurricane center said Isaias was encountering some wind shear, and this is likely to limit intensification. However, some strengthening is still possible on Saturday. Isaias is expected to be a hurricane for several days as it makes its way up the southeast U.S. coast. Hurricane winds extend out about 35 miles from the center of Isaias, and tropical storm force winds 175 miles. More of Floridas east coast was put under a hurricane warning late Friday. The warning area now stretches farther north to the Flagler/Volusia county line. A hurricane warning is in effect for: * Boca Raton to the Flagler/Volusia county line in Florida * Northwestern Bahamas * Central Bahamas A hurricane watch is in effect for: * Hallendale Beach to south of Boca Raton in Florida * Volusia-Brevard county line to the Flagler/Volusia county line A storm surge watch is in effect along the Florida coast from Jupiter Inlet to Ponte Vedra Beach A tropical storm warning is in effect for: * Floridas east coast from north of Ocean Reef to south of Boca Raton * Lake Okeechobee A tropical storm watch is in effect for.: * Flagler/Volusia county line to Ponte Vedra Beach Florida The hurricane center said more watches or warnings may be coming for parts of the Southeast U.S. Atlantic coast on Saturday. The hurricane center said Isaias will continue to move near or over the central Bahamas tonight. It will move near or over the northwestern Bahamas on Saturday and near or east of Florida on Saturday afternoon and into Sunday. Hurricane conditions will spread into the central and northwestern Bahamas tonight and Saturday, forecasters said. Hurricane conditions could reach the Florida east coast by late Saturday and Saturday night, with tropical storm conditions possible earlier on Saturday. The hurricane center said 2 to 4 feet of storm surge will be possible along Floridas east coast from Jupiter Inlet to Ponte Vedra Beach, with 1 to 3 feet possible from North Miami Beach to Jupiter Inlet. Isaias could bring 4-8 inches of rain to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, with isolated areas getting up to 12 inches. South Florida could get 2-4 inches, with some areas getting up to 6 inches, from Friday through Monday, the hurricane center said. Isaias is the second hurricane of 2020 in the Atlantic. The first was Hanna, which made landfall in Texas as a Category 1 storm with 90 mph winds on July 25. The hurricane center was also watching a tropical depression near the west coast of Africa that is expected to be short-lived and a tropical wave in the central Atlantic. YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. At the initiative of the Armenian delegation the issue of encouraging hate crimes by Azerbaijan was included in the agenda of OSCE Permanent Council session in Vienna. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the MFA Armenia, Permanent representative of Armenia, Ambassador Armen Papikyan, presenting the cases of violence against Armenians in different countries, including OSCE member states, as well as the cases of interruption of the normal operation of Armenian diplomatic missions and the deliberate destruction of their properties in some countries, noted that the incidents were carried out by some Azerbaijani groups and are acts of ethnicity-based hate crimes aimed at terrifying members of Armenian communities. Afterwards, Ambassador Papikyan informed the representatives the OSCE member states that the aggressive acts of those Azerbaijani groups were organized by the embassies of Azerbaijan. Moreover, the Armenian side has proofs that at least in one case the Turkish embassy also participated in the organization of the attacks. Ambassador Papikyan emphasized that though the cases of violence against Armenians in 3rd countries seem to be a new phenomenon, they are the logical continuation of the decades of anti-Armenian hate propaganda, adding that the promotion of hate and intolerance towards Armenians is carried out at the highest state level. Ambassador Papikyan noted that Armenia regularly drew the attention of its international partners on the anti-Armenian policy and propaganda carried out by the Azerbaijani leadership, warning that such a high level of Armenophobia can lead to acts of violence in the territories of other countries, which we can witness right now. ''We are confident that the absence of adequate reaction by the international community, which can be assessed as a green light for the behavior of Azerbaijan and its dictatorial leadership, further encourages the ruling regime of that country to go on with anti-Armenian propaganda''. Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan I was told to hurry up (and) change, she said. I was asked who would be making my medical decisions for me. Thats when I told them it would be my mother and eldest sister who all live in North Carolina. I only had a couple minutes to contact them to let them know what was going on before I was intubated. Amaravati, July 31 : Unable to get liquor due to the Covid induced lockdown in place, nine people died after consuming sanitizer in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh, police said on Friday. While three people died on Thursday, six succumbed on Friday. The incident occurred in Kurichedu mandal headquarters in Prakasam district. As the liquor shops in town and surrounding villages were closed for the last 10 days due to lockdown, the habitual drinkers had started consuming sanitizer used for hand hygiene. The deceased include three beggars. Two of them who used to beg at a local temple complained of severe burning sensation in their stomachs on Thursday night. While a man died instantaneously, another was shifted to a hospital at Darsi where he succumbed while undergoing treatment. Another 28-year-old man, who had consumed country made liquor mixed with sanitizer, also fell unconscious at his home. He died while being shifted to hospital. Six more were rushed to hospital in the early hours of Friday and they all succumbed. Police were trying to find out if more people were brought to hospital with similar complaints. Superintendent of Police Siddharth Kaushal ordered a probe into the incident. He said sanitizers were seized from shops in the area and sent for chemical analysis. Police were trying to ascertain if the victims were using only sanitizers or mixing it with some other chemicals. Due to lockdown in Kurichedu and surrounding villages in view of the spike in COVID-19 cases, liquor shops were closed for the last 10 days. The deceased were identified as A. Srinu, 25, B. Tirupataiah, 37, G. Ramireddy, 60, Kadiam Ramnaiah, 29, Ramanaiah, 65, Rajireddy, 65, Babu, 40, Charles, 45, Augustine, 47. Russia arrests suspected Ukraine spy in Black Sea Fleet Iran Press TV Thursday, 30 July 2020 9:57 AM The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) says it has arrested a serviceman from the country's Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean city of Sevastopol over suspected espionage for Ukraine. "The Russian Federation's FSB detained in Sevastopol a serviceman of the Black Sea Fleet who provided the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Chief Directorate of Intelligence with information constituting state secret, which he collected," the FSB said in a statement on Thursday. The intelligence agency added that it had initiated a criminal case under the article of "high treason," which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. It did not disclose the suspect's name or rank in the fleet. Relations between Moscow and Kiev have severely strained since 2014, when Crimea, a peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea, joined Russia following a referendum where more than 90 percent of participants voted in favor of the move. Crimea's population is largely ethnically Russian. The United States and the European Union (EU) have since imposed several round of harsh sanctions on Russia. Also since 2014, an armed conflict has been underway between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russia forces in eastern Ukraine, which has so far claimed some 13,000 lives. The clashes began when a wave of protests in Ukraine overthrew a democratically-elected Russia-friendly government and replaced it with a pro-West administration. The majority of people in eastern Ukraine refused to endorse the new administration, and have turned the two regions of Donetsk and Lugansk collectively known as the Donbass into self-proclaimed republics. Kiev and its Western allies accuse Moscow of having a hand in the crisis. Moscow denies the allegations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UPDATED Tuesday, Sept. 22: Infant Isaiah Moore was found Monday after being missing for nearly two months, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services. The agency did not say whether his mother and her partner are still missing. *** A newborn baby and his mother are missing, and authorities think theyre in danger. The Oregon Department of Human Services said Thursday that Isaiah Moore, his mother and her partner went missing from Oregon City after his birth Saturday. The agency believes the infant and his mother, April Moore, are at risk. Authorities did not elaborate or provide information about Moores partner, Aaron Elkin. Authorities are looking for the mother and child to assess their safety, the agency said. The Department of Human Services said theyre thought to be in the Clackamas or Multnomah county areas, though they may be traveling elsewhere. The agency urges anyone who thinks they have information about the whereabouts of Isaiah or his mother to call 911 or the Oregon Child Abuse Hotline, 1-855-503-7233. -- Jim Ryan; jryan@oregonian.com; 503-221-8005; @Jimryan015 Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. Photo 1 Taat CEO Setti Coscarella holding a Beyond Tobacco Original cigarette pack Taat CEO Setti Coscarella holding a Beyond Tobacco Original cigarette pack After resigning as a lead strategist at Philip Morris International, the worlds largest tobacco company, Setti Coscarella has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Taat as it approaches the planned launch of Beyond Tobacco cigarettes. At Philip Morris, Coscarella led a commercialization team for its Reduced Risk Products (RRP) portfolio and launched a new business unit as well as several initiatives that transformed how RRPs are marketed in Canada. The Company believes that Coscarellas experience with RRPs is especially relevant to Beyond Tobacco given their substantially similar target markets. Over the course of this summer, Taat has announced many developments relating to Beyond Tobacco including positive results from initial retail market testing, a successful test production run, and agreements with two U.S. distributors. Taat anticipates that Mr. Coscarellas leadership can maximize the early-stage and long-term performance of Beyond Tobacco following its planned launch. LAS VEGAS and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TAAT LIFESTYLE & WELLNESS LTD. (CSE: TAAT) (OTC: TOBAF) (FRANKFURT: 2TP2) (the Company or Taat) is delighted to announce that it has appointed Setti Coscarella, who recently resigned as a lead strategist at Philip Morris International (Philip Morris), to lead Taat as its Chief Executive Officer as the Company prepares for the planned Q4 2020 launch of Beyond Tobacco cigarettes. Holding an MBA from the Schulich School of Business, Mr. Coscarellas professional experience includes analyst and investment banking roles at three of Canadas Big Five financial institutions, as well as positions in private equity and management consulting. Coscarella also co-founded The Gentlemens Expo (TGE), an annual consumer show in Toronto that attracts more than 25,000 attendees each year. During his tenure at Philip Morris, Coscarella led a commercialization team and was a lead strategist for Reduced Risk Products (RRP), an emerging category in the tobacco industry to provide alternatives for smokers to reduce their exposure to contents of traditional nicotine-based products that are known to be harmful. The Company believes that Mr. Coscarella is uniquely suited to the CEO role given his proven track record in finance, management, and entrepreneurship, as well as his familiarity with the tobacco industry from the perspective of its biggest player. Story continues In its June 22, 2020 press release, the Company announced it was planning on launching Beyond Tobacco cigarettes as a better-for-you alternative to tobacco cigarettes that contains no nicotine or tobacco. The intended value proposition of Beyond Tobacco cigarettes is to offer a user experience that closely resembles the experience of smoking a traditional cigarette, which the Company has sought to achieve with a traditional stick format and cigarette-style packaging that it expects to be familiar to smokers. A proprietary blend of tobacco flavouring and an enhanced volume of smoke exhaled are designed to make the experience of smoking a Beyond Tobacco cigarette substantially similar to that of smoking a tobacco cigarette. Each stick of Beyond Tobacco contains at least 50mg of cannabidiol (CBD, a non-psychoactive derivative of hemp), which has been shown to mitigate tobacco withdrawals and reduce dependency upon tobacco. Beyond Tobacco is to be offered in an Original variety as well as a Menthol variety. Mr. Coscarellas professional career began at Scotiabank, where he was a risk management analyst for commercial credit. In subsequent years, Coscarella pivoted to a financial analyst role at CIBC, and then to investment banking at TD Securities where he conducted research and built financial models relating to company valuations for M&A, IPOs, and secondary public offerings. Coscarella then founded the Toronto-based boutique advisory firm Severus where he provided management consulting services to mid-sized companies to assist with growth, structuring, and financing. Building upon his M&A experience, Coscarella was appointed director of corporate development for GL Capital Corp. (GLCC) where he administered the development of its investment portfolio consisting of assets to include real estate, operating companies, and equity in newly-launched startups. Coscarella centralized the back office functions of GLCCs companies to improve overall efficiency of operations. Coscarella also developed innovative commercialization efforts resulting in 30% year-over-year revenue growth. In 2012 Coscarella co-founded TGE, which quickly became regarded as a high-profile mens lifestyle consumer show in Toronto. Prior to the show being acquired by a large expo producer in 2016, Coscarella built a roster of more than 200 vendors and sponsors (including LOreal, Loblaws, Diageo, InBev, and OLG), and grew TGEs attendance from 3,000 in 2012 to 25,000 in 2016. In 2017, Coscarella joined Philip Morris in its Toronto office to lead a commercialization team for its RRP portfolio. In this capacity at Philip Morris, Coscarella rapidly ascended the ranks and began advising the senior executive team on innovative strategies for navigating the route into the Canadian market for the RRP category, which is one of Philip Morris fastest-growing categories globally. His leadership and execution led to the launch of numerous successful initiatives that collectively yielded a fivefold increase in leads and purchases for RRP. Between these initiatives and a new business unit created by Coscarella dedicated to the commercialization of RRP in Canadas challenging regulatory environment, Mr. Coscarella played a significant role in revolutionizing how RRP is marketed in Canada. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0690a593-2440-4a2e-8b93-a7efb861cc78 The history of the Philip Morris global tobacco conglomerate dates back to 1847, when its founder opened a tobacco shop in London, England. Over time, Philip Morris expanded into numerous markets internationally. As of 2020 it is the worlds largest tobacco company with USD $79.82 billion annual revenue (20181) and the largest or second-largest market share position in several of more than 180 total markets served by Philip Morris. Well-known cigarette brands of Philip Morris include Marlboro (the #1 cigarette brand since 1972), L&M (4th best-selling cigarette outside of U.S. and China), Chesterfield, and its eponymous Philip Morris brand of cigarettes. Alongside competitors Altria, British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands, and Japan Tobacco International, Philip Morris is one of the five tobacco firms that comprise what is known as Big Tobacco. In the Companys June 29, 2020 press release, it detailed the results of its first phase of retail market testing in which test versions of Beyond Tobacco cigarettes were sold in more than 50 retail stores in Nevada and California. The sentiments of users consistently reflected the impression that the experience of smoking a Beyond Tobacco cigarette was comparable to that of a traditional cigarette with no significant experiential differences. During this research phase, more than 75% of participating retailers re-ordered Beyond Tobacco after their initial inventory sold out. The Company later announced that an intensive series of focus groups conducted by Nevadas largest consumer product testing firm will be conducted to obtain further insights prior to the planned launch of Beyond Tobacco. Additionally, in its July 20, 2020 press release the Company unveiled live-action footage of a full-scale test production run of Beyond Tobacco in its cigarette production facility. This test run confirmed initial production capacity estimations of one million sticks per day which, on an annualized basis, equates to 0.168% of the total amount of individual cigarettes sold domestically in 2018 according to data from the Federal Trade Commission2. With very few hurdles preceding the official launch of Beyond Tobacco, the Company believes the induction of Mr. Coscarella as its CEO is a timely development that can potentially maximize the performance of the anticipated product launch. Becoming CEO of Taat is an incredible opportunity for me, said Mr. Coscarella. For a matter of decades, public attitudes towards tobacco have consistently called for a less-risky alternative to traditional cigarettes. This is something that Philip Morris recognized with its attention to the RRP category, as well as its Unsmoke campaign. What appealed to me about Taat is how they have developed Beyond Tobacco to be a cigarette alternative that is designed to emulate a tobacco cigarette, but without any tobacco or nicotine. Other consumer product categories have had their legacy incumbents disrupted by innovations in delivering desirable alternatives for meat, dairy, sugar, and even beer and wine. Consumers seem to be embracing this approach to positive changes in which they keep their habits such as eating meat or drinking milk while quietly cutting out the things they wish to avoid, and I believe this trend can carry over to tobacco as well. Over one billion tobacco users worldwide3 have one thing in common; they are consuming nicotine, a drug that is effectively useless. The molecule in our tobacco-free and nicotine-free cigarettes is delivered in a near-identical format to legacy tobacco products, and I strongly believe that smokers would be eager to make the switch if presented with the option. The early-stage market research results for Beyond Tobacco reflect an extraordinary reception of the product among smokers, and I am very eager to be in the drivers seat of Taat as we approach the planned launch of Beyond Tobacco in Q4 2020. References 1 - http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/IROL/14/146476/PMI-FINALFILES/pdf/PMI_2018_CompleteForm10K.pdf (Page 14) 2 - Table 1B (Page 13) of the FTCs Cigarette Report for 2018 indicates that 216.9 billion cigarette units were sold domestically in 2018. Based on a projected production capacity of one million Beyond Tobacco sticks per day (365 million sticks per year), it is concluded that this annualized capacity equates to 0.168% of cigarette units sold domestically in the year 2018. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/federal-trade-commission-cigarette-report-2018-smokeless-tobacco-report-2018/p114508cigarettereport2018.pdf 3 - https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Company, TAAT LIFESTYLE & WELLNESS LTD. Joel Dumaresq Joel Dumaresq, CEO and Director For further information, please contact: Jamie Frawley 1-833-TAAT-USA (1-833-822-8872) investor@taatusa.com About Taat Lifestyle & Wellness Ltd. Taat Herb Co., the flagship brand of Taat Lifestyle & Wellness, is an early-stage life sciences company based in Las Vegas, Nevada innovating nicotine-free and tobacco-free alternatives to traditional cigarettes. With a unique proprietary blend of all-natural ingredients and meticulous engineering of the user experience, Taat Beyond Tobacco cigarettes are designed to emulate every aspect of legacy tobacco products with no significant difference to the user. Taat Beyond Tobacco cigarettes provide benefits that include mitigation of tobacco withdrawals, and reduction of tobacco dependency. With an expert-led go-to-market strategy, the Company's objective is to position itself in the US $814 billion (2018)1 global tobacco industry to capitalize on the growing worldwide demand for better-for-you alternatives to traditional cigarettes. For more information, please visit http://taatusa.com . References 1 British American Tobacco - The Global Market Statement Regarding Effects of CBD on Smoking Cessation The Beckley/Exeter research program (University of Exeter) carried out a pilot study that found after several weeks following cannabidiol ("CBD") treatment, CBD helped tobacco smokers to reduce the amount of cigarettes smoked by as much as 40%. A follow-on study is planned, which will include a brain imaging component to examine the brain activity patterns underlying the probable therapeutic effects of CBD. Source: https://beckleyfoundation.org/cbd-for-smoking-cessation/ Link to Study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030646031300083X Forward Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Often, but not always, forward-looking information and information 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 information in this news release includes statements regarding the potential launch of Taat hemp cigarettes, in addition to the following: Potential outcomes from the appointment of Setti Coscarella as the Companys Chief Executive Officer. The forward-looking information reflects managements current expectations based on information currently available and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed timeframes or at all. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include: (i) adverse market conditions; (ii) changes to the growth and size of the tobacco and CBD markets; and (iii) other factors beyond the control of the Company. The Company operates in a rapidly evolving environment. New risk factors emerge from time to time, and it is impossible for the Companys management to predict all risk factors, nor can the Company assess the impact of all factors on Companys business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ from those contained in any forward-looking information. The forward-looking information included in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. The statements in this news release have not been evaluated by Health Canada or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. As each individual is different, the benefits, if any, of taking the Companys products will vary from person to person. No claims or guarantees can be made as to the effects of the Companys products on an individuals health and well-being. The Companys products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This news release may contain trademarked names of third-party entities (or their respective offerings with trademarked names) typically in reference to (i) relationships had by the Company with such third-party entities as referred to in this release and/or (ii) client/vendor/service provider parties whose relationship with the Company is/are referred to in this release. All rights to such trademarks are reserved by their respective owners or licensees. Statement Regarding Third-Party Investor Relations Firms Disclosures relating to investor relations firms retained by Taat Lifestyle & Wellness Ltd. can be found under the Company's profile on http://sedar.com . By Fransiska Nangoy JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia, the world's top exporter of thermal coal, is stepping up efforts to diversify sales of the fuel as shipments to top buyer India slump and with exports to China poised to slow. Indonesia is using diplomatic channels to promote sales around the region, from Vietnam to Pakistan and Bangladesh, a government spokesman said, as it seeks to offset a fall in annual exports and a global shift towards cleaner energy. While Vietnam's growing appetite for thermal coal is unlikely to match that of sizeable markets like China and India, the country is emerging as a key market and experts say it is important to get in early. Thermal coal is used by power plants to generate electricity. "In this current condition, we need to secure non-traditional markets for our future growth," said Hendra Sinadia, executive director of the Indonesian Coal Miners Association (ICMA). As part of such efforts, he said the government recently organised virtual meetings between Indonesian miners and Vietnamese buyers. "We are geographically advantaged and our coal quality matched Vietnam's needs," he said. Indonesia's coal exports fell 8% in the first five months of 2020 compared with a year ago, according to data from Statistics Indonesia, led by a mammoth 35% drop to India as lockdown restrictions hit demand for power in the Asian giant. Thermal coal exports to China rose by 31% to 29 million tonnes in the January-May period from the year prior, while exports to Vietnam jumped 44% to 8.9 million tonnes over that period. With China's plans to boost domestic coal production likely to curb its coal imports in coming months, Indonesia is looking to Vietnam, where coal demand is growing, to offset some of those losses. Vietnam, which became the seventh-largest buyer of Indonesian coal in the first five months of the year, saw a huge jump in coal imports in the first half of 2020 from the year prior of more than 50% as it fed the country's growing number of coal-fired power plants. Story continues After India, Vietnam has the largest coal-fired power plant projects in terms of capacity among countries in Southeast Asia and South Asia, according to Fitch Solutions analyst Daine Loh, even as it expands renewable power sources. There are currently more than 17-gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power-plant capacity under construction in Vietnam while nearly 29 GWs of coal-fired plants are also in the pre-construction stage, Fitch data showed. Indonesia's second-largest coal miner PT Adaro Energy told Reuters last week that Vietnam had the strongest demand growth in Asia in 2020. Despite this, Indonesian miners are planning to curb output due to falling demand for the fuel owing to the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. ICMA said earlier this month its members would cut 2020 production by between 15%-20% from an earlier target to support prices. (Reporting by Fransiska Nangoy in Jakarta; Additional reporting by Khanh Vu in Hanoi; Editing by Florence Tan and Ana Nicolaci da Costa) During his address, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani highlighted four important milestones in the journey of Indian mobile telephony. Reliance Industries Limited chairman Mukesh Ambani shared a special message on Thursday as India celebrated its 25th anniversary of mobile telephony. At the webinar, which saw many dignitaries and industry experts such as Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman Bharti Enterprises, Lt Gen Dr SP Kocchar, DG COAI and Dr RS Sharma, Chairman TRAI, in attendance Ambani congratulated everyone on the silvery jubilee of mobility in India. During his address, he also highlighted four important milestones in the journey of Indian mobile telephony. There are rare moments in history when fiction becomes facts, constraints make way for freedom and necessity becomes the proverbial mother of invention. The birth of fixed-line telephony was one of them. However, it provided only partial freedom. It did not completely remove the constraint of distance. People needed to communicate from anywhere to anywhere 24x7. It was both their need and their dream, RIL chairman said during his address. So, here the top five things he said about the journey of Indias mobile telephony so far and about the future of telecommunications in India: Mukesh Ambani (RIL) -- Ambani said that affordability has been one of the major achievements of the Indian mobile telephony. First mobility has become affordable beyond all expectations. In 1995, the cost of a per-minute call from one cell phone was 24 rupees. 16 rupees for the caller and eight rupees for the called. Now, voice calls are free, without any time limit, he said. ALSO READ: 25 years of Mobility in India: The first mobile phone call was made on this day -- He also said affordability also paved the way for ceasing a rich mans monopoly over it. Second, because mobility became affordable it also became democratic it ceased to be a rich man's monopoly, long ago. Indeed, no other technological tool in human history has erased the rich, poor, divide the way mobile telephony has. RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani (RIL) -- In addition to this, the RIL chairman also talked about the multifunctional aspect of mobile internet. Third, from uni-functional, cell phones have become multifunctional because of the mobile internet. The combination of the connectivity revolution and the computation revolution has opened the floodgates of human creativity, he added. -- Highlighting the fourth important development in the field of Indian mobile telephony, Ambani said that mobile telephony was empowering lives of people at large. Fourth, and most important with data becoming both abundant and affordable, mobile telephony has become a catalyst for enrichment, and empowerment of common Indians in ways that was unthinkable 25 years ago, he said. ALSO READ: COAI 25 Years of Mobility in India - Desh Ki Digital Udaan webinar: Heres what PM Modi said -- Lastly, the RIL Chairman talked about the future of telecommunication services in India. This is also an occasion for us to look at the obstacles that have prevented Indian consumers and Indian society from fully benefiting from the digital revolution. Here I specifically referred to the fact that India still has 300 million mobile subscribers trapped in the 2G era, he said adding, I think necessary policy steps should be taken with utmost urgency to make 2G a part of history. US President Donald Trump on Thursday (local time) said he doesnt want to delay the November election but expressed doubts about mail-in voting. I dont want a delay, I want to have the election. But I also dont want to have wait for three months and then find out that the ballots were all missing and election doesnt mean anything, said the US President at a press conference. Do I want to see a date change? No. But I dont want to see a crooked election. This election will be the most rigged election in history if that happens, Trump was quoted as saying by The Hill, referencing widespread mail-in voting. With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? Trump had earlier said in a tweet. The US President, speaking of Covid-19 pandemic said this could have been stopped in China. We can never ever forget the people whom we have lost. We will never forget what happened. This could have been stopped in China, they should have stopped it and they didnt, he said. The US President said the scientific path forward is to protect those at highest risk while allowing those at lower risk to carefully return to work and to school with appropriate precautions. Trump while expressing grief over the passing away of Herman Cain, said: Let me begin by expressing sadness at the passing of a wonderful man and a dear friend of mine, Herman Cain. He was a very special person. Unfortunately, he passed away from the thing called the China virus. Supreme court held a hearing on the case of a batch of pleas filed against UGC's guidelines mandating universities to conduct final year exams by September end. Next hearing on the matter has been scheduled for August 10, UGC remained adamant on its decision of conducting the final year exams by September end. The Supreme Court on Friday heard a batch of pleas challenging UGC guidelines that mandate universities and institutions to conduct final year exams by September-end. A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan heard the matter and adjourned the case till August 10 for further hearing. In todays hearing, senior advocate Dr Singhvi stated that many universities in Maharashtra and West Bengal have been converted into Covid-19 centres. He added that bar council has cancelled the exams as well. Dr Singhvi told the court that the guidelines of UGC ignore the MHA guidelines as they state that schools and colleges should remain closed till August 31. In a rebuttal to the above claim of Dr Singhvi, the top court said that the purpose of MHA guidelines does not relate to the exams. UGC guidelines were issued before the MHA, hence UGC could not take MHA guidelines into account. Justice Ashok Bhushan has asked the Maharashtra government to place State Disaster Management committees decision. When a lawyer cited that Assam is currently facing floods and pointed out how students will commute, the bench said that the matter will be heard on August 10. Also read: JEE Mains 2020: Preparation tips for JEE Mains Also read: St Stephens College asks hostellers to vacate rooms or pay fine After the hearing, UGC said that nobody should be under the impression that final exams due by September-end will be cancelled because SC is hearing the case. Students should continue to prepare for their exams. UGC has been adamant on its decision to conduct final year exams by September 30. Supporting its stand, UGC has said that July 6 guidelines have been designed to protect the higher education standards in India. The petitioners, on the other hand, have demanded UGC to adopt CBSEs pattern which passes the students on the basis of past academic performances. As per CBSEs method, students who are not satisfied with marks can re-appear for the exams once normalcy is ensured. The batch of petitions that stand against UGCs guidelines states that conducting the exams during the ongoing coronavirus crisis shall put the health of students at risk. Senior advocate Shyam Divan appeared for the chief of Yuva Sena, Aaditya Thackeray. Yuva Sena is the youth wing of Shiv Sena. Senior Advocate, Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi appeared for final year law student Yash Dubey. And the lead petition (petition by 31 students from various states) filed by Anubha was argued by Advocate Alakh. Also read: Arvind Kejriwal launches portal for job-seekers in Delhi remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Statewide, however, positivity rates are increasing because younger people are getting sick people in their 20s and people between 18 and 49, he said. I worry about the absence of universal testing. More kids are back in day care, people are becoming more mobile. Many people over 65 are staying at home, but younger people are not, and theyre more susceptible, he said. Priority testing only The TestNebraska system requires people to sign up online to get tested, but it authorizes testing only for certain people. The TestNebraska website indicates, We cant test everyone, but we will prioritize testing for those who have visited places with a wide outbreak, those who have interacted with people who tested positive, and those who have symptoms. Menon said: TestNebraska is a good website, but test accessibility is not as high as it was in May. As an epidemiologist, it frustrates me. We need to test more. Other countries are testing much more than we are. Shainu Mohan By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Sunitha, a 23-year-old antenatal patient, approached a private hospital in the city, where she has been consulting since the start of the pregnancy, following high blood pressure and diabetes. But the moment she tested positive for Covid-19, she was mercilessly thrown out. Sadly, hers isnt an isolated case. According to sources, many private hospitals are disowning antenatal patients, instead referring them to SAT Hospital or Fort Hospital - two government hospitals in the district that deal with Covid-19-positive antenatal cases. It was shocking. We pleaded with the hospital authorities to admit me. Unfortunately, our requests fell on deaf ears. They referred me to SAT Hospital. I was admitted to a payward with 20 others. The toilet facility was common for all and some of the patients had bystanders too. The ward was congested and it was impossible for me to continue there. So, we contacted many hospitals and after our continued effort, one of them agreed to take me in, says Sunitha. An official of the District Medical Office agreed that such incidents are increasingly being reported, prompting authorities to ramp up Covid-19 care infrastructure for pregnant women. It is high time that private hospitals came forward and joined the fight against the pandemic. The government healthcare institutions have been working tirelessly ever since the outbreak of the pandemic and now the time has come for private healthcare institutions to join us. Unfortunately, the majority of these private hospitals are not ready to take in Covid-19 cases. They keep referring the patients to the government hospitals, said the official. Though the authorities have given directions to private hospitals to earmark dedicated wards and beds for Covid-19 patients, the majority of them are not ready yet. We spoke to every private hospital in the district on the number of beds each can dedicate for Covid patients. But they say only in-house Covid patients can be treated, the official said. A meeting would be held with the Indian Medical Association (IMA) authorities to bring more clarity to the issue. Currently, the authorities have earmarked 20 beds at Fort Hospital for admitting asymptomatic and mild symptomatic antenatal patients. There is no doubt we require more facilities. The antenatal patients require more care and time to recover and we have to keep them for a longer period at the hospital, said an official of Fort Hospital. Meanwhile, efforts are on to make available more beds at General Hospital for antenatal patients. Sources said the state government has decided to declare General Hospital as Covid centre and stop all non-Covid admissions and OP consultations. Once the declaration comes, all 750 beds would be dedicated to Covid-19 treatment. We will be earmarking around 200 beds for antenatal patients, said the official. Meanwhile, the district is all set to start home treatment for asymptomatic and mild symptomatic Covid patients. ESI Hospital at Peroorkada is currently being used as a Covid-19 First-Line Treatment Centre (CFLTC). We will be rolling out home treatment soon and all male patients would be moved to their homes and the CFLTC would be used for accommodating suspected pregnant women, the official added. Not ready yet An official of the DMO agreed that such incidents are increasingly being reported, prompting authorities to ramp up Covid care infrastructure for pregnant women Though the authorities have given directions to private hospitals to earmark dedicated wards for Covid-19 patients, the majority of them are not ready Chennai, July 31 : Women power will be steering forward two of the three beleaguered government owned non-life insurers, said industry officials. The central government has decided to appoint S.N. Rajeswari, General Manager, New India Assurance Company Limited as Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) of Oriental Insurance Company Ltd. The formal orders are expected to be issued soon. Once Rajeswari, a qualified Chartered Accountant, takes charge at the Delhi-based Oriental Insurance then she will be the second woman to head a public sector general insurance company. The first woman to head a government owned general insurer was Tajinder Mukherjee, CMD, National Insurance Company Ltd. "The National Insurance and Oriental Insurance will be headed by two women during a crucial time. The companies have to beef up their solvency norms, increase their business and also the profitability," a senior industry official not wanting to be quoted told IANS. The central government had recently scrapped its decision to merge United India Insurance Company Ltd, National Insurance and Oriental Insurance into one company much to the disappointment of the employees. The government has announced the infusion of Rs 12,450 crore capital, which included Rs 2,500 crore given in FY20, in the three insurers. Of this, Rs 3,475 crore is to be infused immediately and the rest Rs 6,475 crore later. "Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, new business for the industry has gone down. To that extent there will not be pressure on the three government companies for capital to meet the solvency norms. The capital that will be infused will enable the companies to meet the solvency norms," an industry official said. To ensure optimum use of the new capital, it issued guidelines in the form of KPIs (key performance indicators) for raising business efficiency and profitable growth. "In National Insurance, the CMD is focusing on cutting down the loss making business. The company is getting back on track. It will also be good if she clears fast the appointments under compassionate grounds like the other three companies," K. Govindan, General Secretary, General Insurance Employees All India Association, told IANS. Be that as it may, women power is coming to the fore in the government owned insurance sector as there were three women contenders apart from men for the top post in Oriental Insurance. Cross-border work on improving the monitoring of quarantining international visitors is moving forward, Taoiseach Micheal Martin has said. Harmonising travel regimes across Britain and Ireland will be "challenging" but the threat posed by the pandemic means politicians also have to act quickly, he said. He hosted a "constructive and warm" North-South Ministerial Council meeting at Dublin Castle with the North's First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill. Mr Martin said: "This is a vicious virus, it spreads like wildfire in certain settings. That is not just a phenomena on the island of Ireland but throughout the world." The North's Health Minister Robin Swann held talks with his opposite number here, Stephen Donnelly. Mr Swann has raised major flaws surrounding enforcement and monitoring of quarantine after international passengers arrive at Dublin Airport snd then cross the border into the North. Mr Martin added: "There are different jurisdictions with different chief medical officers who come forward with maybe nuanced advice. These are realities but both chief medical officers will be engaging on these issues. We have seen what is happening in France, Germany, and Spain. These numbers are moving on very significantly at a rapid pace. At present, visitors from Britain can travel through the North and across the open land border into the Republic without quarantining. Visitors from the UK and other countries not on Ireland's green list of low coronavirus risk are required to quarantine for two weeks on entering the Republic. A meeting of administrations in the UK and Ireland to discuss travel restrictions has been sought. North-South co-operation Key The Taoiseach added: "Relatively speaking North and South are managing this relatively well so far but it will take vigilance." Ms Foster referenced recent outbreaks in England. She said: "In relation to international travel, there is a need for a discussion on the location of international travellers as they come through Dublin so as there is good sharing of information." She said the meeting was "worthwhile and productive". Ms O'Neill said members of eight parties in both administrations had met. She added: "Our co-operation is more important than ever as we continue to respond to the biggest health emergency we have ever faced and when we reflect on the previous months, we must reflect on the fact that 2,320 people have died from Covid on this island alone." Mr Martin added: "It was a warm meeting, it was a meeting in which a wide array of views were expressed. North-South co-operation is a key priority for our Government. "It was extensive and constructive and we had a particularly good conversation about Covid-19." BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Export of chemical products from Turkey to Turkmenistan dropped by 13.48 percent from January 2020 through June 2020, making up $52.5 million, Trend reports with reference to the Turkish Trade Ministry. In June 2020, Turkeys export of chemical products to Turkmenistan increased by 15.65 percent compared to June 2019 and exceeded $10.5 million, noted the ministry. Turkey's export of chemical products to the world markets decreased by 13.9 percent from January through June 2020 compared to the same period of last year and stood at slightly over $8.6 billion. Turkey's export of chemical products abroad amounted to 11.5 percent of the countrys total export for the reporting period. In June 2020, Turkey's export of chemical products to the world markets exceeded $1.4 billion, which is 10.2 percent more compared to the same month of 2019, the ministry said. Turkey's export of chemical products in June this year made up 10.6 percent of the countrys total export. During the last 12 months (from June 2019 through June 2020), Turkey's export of chemical products to the world markets made up $19.2 billion. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu BEIJING, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Leju Holdings Limited ("Leju" or the "Company") (NYSE: LEJU), a leading e-commerce and online media platform for real estate and home furnishing industries in China, today announced that it has become aware that E-House (China) Enterprise Holdings Limited ("E-House") (Stock Code: 2048), listed on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (the "Hong Kong Stock Exchange"), has entered into definitive agreements with Mr. Xin Zhou, Leju's executive chairman, and certain of his affiliated entities ("Zhou Parties"), and SINA Corporation and its affiliated entity ("SINA Parties"), to acquire an aggregate of 56.19% interest in the issued share capital of Leju. To Leju's knowledge, pursuant to the agreements, E-House has conditionally agreed to purchase (i) 49,686,192 ordinary shares and 2,239,804 ADSs (each representing one ordinary share) of Leju from the Zhou Parties by issuing to the Zhou Parties 166,918,440 of its ordinary shares ("E-House Shares"), and (ii) 24,438,564 ordinary shares and 36,687 ADSs (each representing one ordinary share) of Leju from the SINA Parties by issuing to the SINA Parties 78,676,790 E-House Shares. The completion of these transactions is subject to certain closing conditions, including the approval by the requisite majority of shareholders or independent shareholders of E-House and the granting of the approval for the listing of, and permission to deal in, the E-House Shares by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Upon completion of these transactions, Leju will become a subsidiary of E-House and its financial results will be consolidated into the accounts of E-House. In addition, E-House announced the establishment of strategic cooperation with Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE, BABA, 09988.HK) ("Alibaba"). According to a business cooperation agreement entered into between E-House and a subsidiary of Alibaba, the two parties will cooperate in areas including online-offline real estate transaction, digital marketing and after-sale services with the goal of enhancing the digital and intellectual capabilities of the real estate service industry. Alibaba will closely collaborate with E-House and Leju to build an online real estate marketing platform and digital transaction network, with E-House being the operator of online transaction services on the platform and Leju being the operator of digital marketing services. Also to Leju's knowledge, Alibaba has agreed to (i) subscribe for E-House Shares to be issued by E-House, which will increase Alibaba's stake in E-House to approximately 8.32%, and (ii) subscribe for a convertible note to be issued by E-House that is convertible into E-House Shares. Assuming full conversion of the convertible note, Alibaba will own a total 13.26% of the issued share capital of E-House, making it the second largest shareholder of E-House. "The cooperation between E-House and Alibaba is not only a key milestone in E-House's and Leju's development, but also a significant event in China's real estate service industry," said Mr. Xin Zhou, Leju's executive chairman. "In the process of collaborating with E-House and Alibaba to build an online real estate marketing and transaction platform, Leju will leverage its experience in online marketing and transaction service and become the service provider for digital marketing and operation on the platform. This will greatly enhance Leju's core value and competitiveness." About Leju Leju Holdings Limited ("Leju") (NYSE: LEJU) is a leading e-commerce and online media platform for real estate and home furnishing industries in China, offering real estate e-commerce, online advertising and online listing services. Leju's integrated online platform comprises various mobile applications along with local websites covering more than 380 cities, enhanced by complementary offline services to facilitate residential property transactions. In addition to the Company's own websites, Leju operates the real estate and home furnishing websites of SINA Corporation, and maintains a strategic partnership with Tencent Holdings Limited. For more information about Leju, please visit http://ir.leju.com. Safe Harbor Statement This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about Leju's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and Leju does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law. For more information, please contact: Ms. Christina Wu Leju Holdings Limited Phone: +86 (10) 5895-1062 E-mail: [email protected] Philip Lisio Foote Group Phone: +86 135-0116-6560 E-mail: [email protected] SOURCE Leju Holdings Limited It was clear when President Trump woke up on Thursday morning, with no pollster left to lie to him, and not enough Fox News sycophancy to fill his cereal bowl, that he would have to play one of the last tricks in the dictators handbook. He floated the idea of breaching the Constitution by illegally delaying the national election. It follows his logic on a pandemic that has taken more than 150,000 American lives. If there were less testing for the coronavirus, cases would go down. Ergo, if there were no election on Nov. 3, he couldnt be booted from office in a wipeout. The stable genius strikes again! Heres a better suggestion: As a mortal threat to those looking for life-or-death guidance from the White House, he should do humanity a favor and surrender now. He can quit while hes only behind by 10 points or so. More important, by walking away today, he can save many lives of supporters who have listened to the lethal quackery from the presidential podium. He gave up in the war on Covid-19 from Day 1, when he declared that there was nothing to worry about, it would all soon disappear like magic. And his throw-in-the-towel tactics continue to this day, as he promotes the harmful and bizarre suggestions of a woman who also believes in demon sperm transmitted through dreams. The United States is eyeing the possibility of building nuclear power plants that will be suitable on the moon and Mars. It released a request for ideas from the private sector on how to do that. This was done through the U.S. Department of Energy. The Energy Department sent out a formal request to build what is a fission surface power system that would allow humans to live for long periods in harsh space environments, according to a Time report. The target date for completion of the fission reactor, safe launch, and landing system is in 2026. A nuclear research facility in eastern Idaho, the Idaho National Laboratory is cooperating with the Energy Department and NASA to brainstorm ideas for developing the nuclear energy power plant. The lab has been leading the way on advanced reactors in the U.S. "Small nuclear reactors can provide the power capability necessary for space exploration missions of interest to the Federal government," the Energy Department was quoted in a Time report. Challenges of Nuclear Energy Plant on The Moon A Popular Mechanics report said designing this special reactor is kind of like adapting terrestrial technology. The fundamentals might be the same, but there can be limitations as it is in a different environment. In addition, a power plant on the moon must be close to being self-sufficient and operate without the influence of gravity or Earth's atmosphere. This should also be light and small enough that everything can be brought into space. Experts have cited concerns regarding the parameters, design, and timeline of the project. Director of Nuclear Power Safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, Edwin Lyman, said that he is concerned that the creation will most likely use highly enriched uranium. Highly enriched uranium can be made into weapons. Nations have generally been trying to decrease the amount of enriched uranium being produced for that reason. "This may drive or start an international space race to build and deploy new types of reactors requiring highly enriched uranium," Lyman was quoted in a Time report. The Plan The Energy department, NASA, and Idaho National Laboratory through its U.S. contractor Battelle Energy Alliance are planning to hold a government-industry webcast technical meeting in August over the program. The plan is composed of two phases, with the first one developing a reactor design. The second phase will focus on building a test reactor. It also includes developing a flight system and lander that can move the reactor to the moon. The reactor should be able to generate continuous electricity of at least 10 kilowatts. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said an average U.S. residential home uses about 11,000 kilowatt-hour per year. To meet that kind of power requirement, the Energy Department said it would have to be multiple linked reactors. However, the reactor should be not more than 7, 700 pounds to be able to operate in space, mostly self-sufficient for at least 10 years. The Energy Department said the reactor will be used for support exploration in the south polar region of the moon. However, a specific area of exploration has not yet been identified. Check these out: NASA News and Update: NASA propose to send Lander on Europa in 2020 to Confirm that the Moon can Support Life NASA's Partnership with Private Companies Yields Opportunities Anonymous Claims NASA Has Proof of Alien Life Local journalism is important and producing it costs time and money. To continue viewing content on tucson.com, please sign in with your existing account or subscribe. (CNN) -- A man has been jailed for 11 years in Uganda after he confessed to killing a rare silverback gorilla last month. The gorilla -- known as Rafiki, which means "friend" in Swahili -- was part of the famed Nkuringo gorilla group that lives in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and is hugely popular with tourists. Rafiki was reported missing on June 1 and his mutilated body was found the next day inside the park. A postmortem report revealed that Rafiki was injured by a sharp device to his abdomen and internal organs. Byamukama Felix was arrested a few days later with bush pig meat and several hunting devices in his possession, authorities said. Byamukama pleaded guilty to several charges, including killing a gorilla, entering a protected area and being in possession of illegal meat. He told authorities he killed Rafiki in self-defense when he went with a group to hunt in the park and they came across the group of gorillas. The silverback charged and he speared it, he said. Three other men who were arrested with Felix remain in custody awaiting trial as they have pleaded not guilty. Sam Mwandha, executive director of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, welcomed the court's decision, saying, "Rafiki has received justice." "We are relieved that Rafiki has received justice and this should serve as an example to other people who kill wildlife. "If one person kills wildlife, we all lose, therefore we request every person to support our efforts of conserving wildlife for the present and future generations," he added. At the time Rafiki died, the Nkuringo group had 17 gorillas, according to the Uganda Wildlife Authority. The silverback was the dominant male in the group that also included three blackbacks or younger mature males, eight adult females, two juveniles and three infants. The group was the first to reside in the southern section of the park that is home to about half of the world's mountain gorilla population. This story was first published on CNN.com, "The poacher who killed the rare silverback gorilla Rafiki is jailed for 11 years" B arack Obama paid tribute to John Lewis as a "man of pure joy" at the civil rights campaigner's funeral in Atlanta. The Georgia congressman was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, a group led by Martin Luther King Jr. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed Mr Lewiss death on July 17, calling him one of the greatest heroes of American history. Mr Lewis was mourned, revered and celebrated as an American hero at Atlantas Ebenezer Baptist Church, a sacred place for many of those who helped to shape civil rights history. Three former presidents including Mr Obama joined in the eulogies after nearly a week of mourning that took him from his birthplace in Alabama to the nations capital of Washington to his final resting place in his home of Atlanta. Family members place flowers on the casket during the burial of the John Lewis at South-View Cemetery on July 30 / Getty Images Mr Lewis was a man of pure joy and unbreakable perseverance, said Mr Obama during a fiery speech in which he hearkened back to Mr Lewis legacy and connected it to the ongoing fight against those who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting. He as much as anyone in our history brought this country a little bit closer to our highest ideals, Mr Obama said. And some day when we do finish that long journey towards freedom, when we do form a more perfect union, whether its years from now or decades or even if it takes another two centuries, John Lewis will be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America. Members of the joint services military honor guard carry the casket of John Lewis / Getty Images Former president George W Bush said Mr Lewis preached the Gospel and lived its ideals, insisting that hate and fear had to be answered with love and hope. Mr Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama for the last time on July 26. The Speaker of the House, Ms Pelosi recalled how Mr Lewis body was lying in state at the US Capitol earlier this week, and a double rainbow appeared. There was this double rainbow over the casket, she said. He was telling us, Im home in heaven, Im home in heaven. We always knew he worked on the side of angels, and now he is with them. The arc of Mr Lewis legacy of activism was once again tied to Ebenezers former pastor Martin Luther King Jr, whose sermons Mr Lewis discovered while scanning the radio dial as a 15-year-old boy growing up in then-segregated Alabama. Mr King continued to inspire Mr Lewis civil rights work for the next 65 years as he fought segregation during sometimes bloody marches, Greyhound bus Freedom Rides across the South and later during his long tenure in the US Congress. Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America, Mr Lewis said of his run-ins with the law. The phrase was repeated several times during the funeral. We will continue to get into good trouble as long as you grant us the breath to do so, one of Mr Kings daughters, the Rev Bernice King, said as she led the congregation in prayer. Additional reporting by PA Media. By Trend Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 49 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. San Francisco: Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions, as President Donald Trump said he was considering taking steps that would effectively ban the app from the United States. It's unclear how advanced the talks between Microsoft and TikTok are, but any deal could help alter TikTok's ownership, said the person with knowledge of the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We may be banning TikTok," President Donald Trump said on Friday, Credit:Bloomberg TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese internet company that is valued at $US100 billion ($140 billion). That has raised scrutiny of the app, with Trump administration officials saying they have been concerned that TikTok poses a threat to national security. The Trump administration has been weighing whether to order ByteDance to divest from US assets it acquired in 2017, which were later merged into TikTok. Bloomberg reported on Friday that the President was poised to announce an order that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok's US operations. Plot The film begins with Anupama Banerji (Sanya Malhotra), dressed in a pristine white shirt and hair tied in a bun, gearing up to file a criminal case against her mother, the 'great' Shakuntala Devi (Vidya Balan). In a montage-of-sorts, we are introduced to a young Shakuntala Devi (Araina Nand) solving complex equations for a block of Mysore pak. When her father (Prakash Belawade) realizes that his daughter is 'not an ordinary girl but a genius', he starts taking her out to do math shows. Even at a young age, Shakuntala is a fierce feminist who aspires to become a 'badi aurat' in life. At the same time, she grows up to despise both her parents, especially her mother for being docile to her husband. In the next chapter, a sari-clad Shakuntala Devi with two dangling plaits returns back to her first love- maths in London, when her love interest tries to fool her. There, she bumps into a Spanish man named Jamier who gives her a makeover and teaches her English. Our 'Rani Hindustani' soon finds fame as the 'human computer', and eventually makes her way into the Guinness Book of World Records for her astonishing math skills. But ouch, hearts are broken one more time when Jamier decides to return back to Spain. While parting, when he tells Shakuntala that she doesn't need him anymore, the lady shoots back, "Why do men always want women to need them?" With numbers as her constant companion, Shakuntala continues her journey. She finally finds her 'Dushyant' in the form of an IAS officer named Paritosh (Jishhu Sengupta) and marries him. But soon, Shakuntala Devi finds herself struggling to strike a balance between maths and motherhood. This time, will the number-crunching genius succeed in solving the equation of life? Direction Since Shakuntala Devi's life as a celebrated mathematician is out there in public domain, director Anu Menon chooses to focus her lens on Devi's flawed relationships with her loved ones instead. The first half of the film is breezy, while emotions run half in the latter portion. Menon explores the messy mother-daughter equation in a heartfelt way. Talking about the hiccups, the writing wobbles at a few places. Also, the non-linear narrative is a big turn-off, before you get slowly accustomed to it. Performances Vidya Balan pulls off an electrifying act as Shakuntala Devi. One can see that the actress had a ball of time while playing a woman who lived and loved unapologetically, and that fluidity translates on the screen as well. Vidya is an absolute cracker each time she slips into the witty side of Shakuntala Devi. Similarly, she also moves you to tears in the emotional scenes. Sanya Malhotra is compelling, and her chemistry with Vidya makes for an interesting watch. The young girl portrays her character's anguish and helplessness effectively. Amit Sadh and Jisshu Sengupta play their parts with sincerity. Technical Aspects Keiko Nakahara's visual palette is vibrant and celebratory. It adapts well with mood and tone of the story-telling. Antara Lahiri's editing scissors could have been a little more sharper to define a few few rough edges. Music Benny Dayal and Monali Thakur's 'Jhilmil Piya' is the only track which manages to impress. The rest of the songs are passable. Verdict Shakuntala Devi is a film which inspires you to embrace your imperfections and celebrate them. It also makes you realize that there's a lot more to a woman than being just a mother. Take a closer look; there's a 'genius' as well! In one of the scenes, Vidya Balan's Shakuntala Devi tells her daughter, "Jab amazing ban sakti hoon toh normal kyun banungi?" The actress and the film stay true to these words! Vidya-kasam. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 22:05:42|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close YAOUNDE, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Cameroon army said Friday its troops have killed at least three armed separatists who launched coordinated attacks on a military patrol team in the country's restive Anglophone region of Northwest. Weapons used by the separatists were also seized during the attacks that took place early Friday in Santa, a locality in the region. "The terrorists (armed separatists) who were well-armed ambushed and attacked the team that was securing the area. Our soldiers were so brave and professional and succeeded in killing three of them in a gun battle that followed. The rest escaped with bullet wounds," a senior military officer who asked not to be named told Xinhua. There have been no reports on casualties on the side of government forces. Clashes between government forces and armed separatists have recently intensified in the region, despite repeated calls for a ceasefire amid COVID-19 by the United Nations. On Thursday, three civilians were killed in the region's chief town of Bamenda during a "fierce" battle, according to security reports. Since 2017, government forces have been clashing with separatists who want to secede from largely French-speaking Cameroon and create an independent nation in the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest. Enditem As federal pandemic unemployment benefits officially expire on Friday, Congress and the Trump administration are no closer to a deal that would salvage any portion of a $600-per-week check that, as of last weekend, would affect some 30 million Americans. A last-ditch effort was mounted by Senate Republicans Thursday evening, with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pulling back members -- many had already left for home for the weekend -- to vote on a plan that would cut the weekly federal benefit to $200, or two-thirds of lost wages. Democrats unanimously opposed the measure, authored by GOP Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Indiana's Mike Braun, saying the effort was merely a cynical political stunt after the majority dithered for months. Democrats also refused to accept a seven-day extension of jobless benefits, saying any such extension would be pointless given that no deal is in the offing. "What is a one-week extension good for? A one-week extension is good if you have a bill and you're working it out -- the details, the writing of it, legislative counsel ... that's what a one-week extension is about. That is, it's worthless. It's worthless unless you are using it for this purpose," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters after a late-night meeting between herself, Senate counterpart Chuck Schumer of New York, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. PHOTO: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speak to reporters on the eve of the expiration of the CARES Act on July 30, 2020, in Washington, DC (Samuel Corum/Getty Images) House Democrats passed a bill more than two months ago that would keep the jobless benefits at the current rate through the end of the year, part of a $3 trillion bill that would provide funding to front-line workers, the health care industry, schools and state and local governments. Republicans have argued that businesses haven't been able to rehire workers who now may be taking in more from unemployment benefits than they would from returning to jobs. MORE: Trump in trouble as nearly two-thirds of Americans disapprove of his handling of COVID-19, protests, Russia: POLL Story continues Senate Republicans introduced a $1 trillion package this week that contains a liability shield to protect businesses, schools and other institutions from coronavirus-related lawsuits; gives $105 billion to schools, with two-thirds going to those that reopen; distributes another round of $1,200 stimulus checks to lower-income Americans; provides money for COVID-19 testing and to health care agencies at the center of the pandemic fight; and provides tax credits to hard-hit businesses. PHOTO: People wait in a socially distanced line to enter a bookkeeping shop to fill out unemployment forms on July 24, 2020, in Calexico, Calif. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) But a number of Republicans rejected that proposal, leaving GOP leadership in the difficult position of needing a sizable number of Democrats to pass that. Republicans also have had to contend with bipartisan blowback from a number of extraneous, White House-requested spending measures unrelated to the pandemic -- $1.8 billion for a new FBI headquarters and $377 million for long-sought West Wing renovations. The stalemate on a single issue -- jobless benefits -- foreshadowed a steep climb to any overall coronavirus relief bill as the sides remain far apart on many issues. Republicans and the White House also are not in agreement on how to move forward, creating a difficult environment in which to form a compromise. MORE: Coronavirus updates: Florida reports 4th day of record deaths Meadows on Friday sought to blame Democrats for the impasse. "The Democrats have made zero offers -- zero," Meadows said. "We're going in the wrong direction." But Thursday night, Schumer said it was the White House and Republicans who were out of touch. PHOTO: In this June 18, 2020, file photo, people line up outside a Kentucky Career Center hoping to find assistance with their unemployment claim in Frankfort, Ken. (Bryan Woolston/Reuters, FILE) "We just don't think they understand the gravity of the problem," the senator told reporters. "The bottom line is, this is the most serious health problem and economic problem we've had in a century and 75 years, and it takes really, good, strong bold action. And they don't quite get that." Both administration officials and the two top congressional Democrats are expected to resume negotiations Friday by phone with a possible in-person meeting over the weekend. All of this comes as House Democrats allow members to leave on a month-long recess, with their leadership warning them to be ready to return should a potential compromise emerge. It's a sign of what many on both sides already know: That no deal is likely to emerge for weeks, if at all. 30 million Americans set to lose $600 weekly benefit amid COVID-19 pandemic originally appeared on abcnews.go.com The Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi, has recovered and tested negative for COVID-19. The governor confirmed this in a statement he personally signed on Friday. Mr Umahi also revealed that his daughter and three of his close aides who also contracted the virus have now tested negative. The governor thanked God for his recovery and the people of the state for their prayers and support. The recovery comes four weeks after the officials were infected by COVID-19. Governor Umahi had on July 4 announced that he, his daughter and some aides tested positive for the virus. Although he said they were not showing any symptoms, he said they went into isolation in line with protocols laid down by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). He, therefore, directed the Deputy Governor, Kelechi Igwe, to take over the coordination of the states fight against the pandemic. The virus, however, did not stop the governor from working from home as he continued to direct affairs of state from isolation Within the period of isolation, Mr Umahi sacked over 1000 junior aides, suspended five special assistants, coordinator of FADAMA in the state and two auditor-generals. He also appointed some new aides and temporary heads of some local governments. He also signed into law the revised 2020 budget of the state during the period. Ebonyi has recorded 785 cases of COVID-19 since the outbreak began in the country. New Delhi, July 31 : The tussle for one-upmanship between the veterans and the younger leaders within the Congress was quite evident during a meeting of the party's Rajya Sabha MPs here even though the party dismissed talks of such tussle as rumours. While the young turks close to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi maintained that there should be introspection on why a party with 200 plus MPs in 2009 was reduced to a mere 44 in the 2014 elections, the party seniors asserted that in that case, there should be introspection on the 2019 Lok Sabha poll debacle too, party sources said. All the leaders however were unanimous during the meeting that the party should appoint a permanent President, which is "need of the hour". The Rajya Sabha MPs demanded that Rahul Gandhi be brought back as Congress President. The issue of 2014 election debacle was raised by Rajeev Satav, the sources said, adding that he was countered by party senior and former Union Minister Anand Sharma and others even as Sonia Gandhi listened intently to the whole discussion. Former Union Minister Manish Tewari said: "Was the United Progressive Alliance responsible for the decline in the Congress fortunes in 2014 is a valid question. It must be gone into. Equally valid is the point that the UPA was sabotaged from within. The 2019 election defeat must also be analysed." The former Minister said that any charge against the UPA for the Congress decline had not been proved. Though the chorus to bring back Rahul Gandhi as the party chief got louder in the meeting on Thursday, senior Congress leaders said that the party can't be run in a manner wherein newcomers hinted at the growing clout of some leaders close to him. However, the Congress chose to play the issue down by terming all reports as "rumours". Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said that he can only clarify facts and not fiction and rumours. "It's a BJP propaganda and the Congress is united in its fight against the BJP," he asserted. The sources said that senior Congress leaders had also objected to bringing party leaders from south India to the Rajya Sabha and asked if leaders from north India could be accommodated from the seats in southern states. The meeting of the Rajya Sabha MPs was presided over by interim party President Sonia Gandhi, who will complete one year on the post in August. The sources said that Rajiv Satav, PL Punia and Digvijaya Singh were prominent among those who demanded that Rahul be again made the Congress President. Earlier this month, similar demands were made in a meeting of the Congress Lok Sabha MPs in the presence of Rahul Gandhi. Another month passes. The coronavirus pandemic marches on. And Americans struggling amid the economic fallout once again have to worry as their next rent checks come due Aug. 1. Many left jobless by the crisis are already behind on payments. And the arrival of August brings new anxieties. A supplemental $600 in weekly federal unemployment benefits that helped many pay their bills is set to expire as July ends, with Congress bogged down in disagreement over a new round of aid. Also set to end, unless lawmakers intervene, is a federal moratorium on evictions that has shielded millions of renters though some Americans remain protected by similar state and local actions. The Associated Press reconnected with renters first interviewed ahead of their April payments. Four months later, some have returned to work. One saw her church step in to cover her rent. Some found landlords willing to negotiate, while others are still looking for relief. ___ Sakai Harrison moved to New York to try to make it as a personal trainer and designer but his gym shuttered early in the pandemic, and after weeks of struggling to both pay the rent and put food in his fridge, he knew what he had to do. He moved back to Georgia for greater stability. In May, he left his Brooklyn apartment and its $1,595 monthly rent for Atlanta. When the first of the month rolls around, his new place costs about $400 less and its larger. This is the biggest silver lining Ive ever seen, he said. Hes training with a few one-on-one clients, and hes launched a boot camp with a dozen more. This week, he met four of them at a park, where they did lunging squats, pull-ups, and a military-like crawl. Harrison then led them into a gym for dumbbell exercises. They didnt wear masks for virus protection Harrison says they take precautions, but pointed out that the state doesnt mandate face coverings. Harrison modeled the proper form and pace, corrected the men when needed, and gently teased when they tired or slowed down. Some shot barbs back, and Harrison smiled. Hes charging clients slightly less than he got at Blink Fitness in New York, but that amounts helping him develop an apparel brand. Hes taking orders for a line of shoes, T-shirts and hats. Barring another shutdown, Harrison said, Ill be fine. Aaron Morrison, New York, and Ron Harris, Atlanta ___ Financial challenges keep piling up for Roushaunda Williams months after she lost her job of nearly 20 years tending bar at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel in downtown Chicago. Potential reopening dates for the hotel have been pushed back, Williams said, and hospitality jobs remain scarce. She anticipates being unable to pay her $1,900 rent by September especially if Congress doesnt reauthorize the weekly $600 in additional unemployment aid as part of a new relief package. Williams, 52, said she asked the management company that owns her apartment for a rent reduction or other help. So far, shes been told her rent will just accrue if she cant pay. The Illinois governor recently extended a moratorium on evictions into August. Still, Williams worries about debt piling up while shes unemployed. Ive exhausted my savings, she said. So I dont have a safety net at all now. Kathleen Foody, Chicago ___ Jas Wheeler once hoped to ride out the pandemic and return to work at a Vermont bakery. Not anymore. Wheeler, 30, is immunocompromised and fears going back to the bakery would increase risk of infection. The former social worker started working at a small grocery store that pays less but allows more room for social distancing. Wheeler took the gig in anticipation of losing the $600 weekly unemployment aid. That money ensured Wheeler and their wife, Lucy, could afford their $850 monthly mortgage payment. The couple closed on their house in Vergennes the same day Wheeler was laid off in March. Wheelers wife kept her jobs, but money remains tight. Theyve sold a car and are growing some food. The unemployment without the enhanced benefit is not enough to live on at all, Wheeler said. Were broke. Michael Casey, Boston ___ Though the pandemic took away Itza Sanchezs two incomes, it has strengthened her faith. The mother of two says the generosity of her Richmond, Virginia, church has saved them from hunger and eviction. Sanchez fell behind on rent when she stopped selling homemade tamales and collecting scrap metal over fears of contracting the virus. By mid-July, she owed about $950 in unpaid rent. Thats when Sanchez got a notice to vacate the mobile home where her family lives. She was spared when her church sent $800 directly to the landlord. Now shes trying to scrape together $460 for Augusts rent. She gets food donations from church. The school system delivers lunches for her children, 11 and 7. An immigrant from Honduras, Sanchez isnt eligible for unemployment benefits. In this crisis we have moments of anguish, and one feels desperate, Sanchez said. But I have been blessed so far. Regina Garcia Cano, Washington ___ For Andrea Larson, life took an unexpectedly good turn. She lost her sommelier job in mid-March, when restaurants closed in Nashville, Tennessee. She was just getting by on unemployment, but worried about choosing between losing benefits or going back to an unsafe restaurant job. Then a former boss offered her a spot at a new restaurant the White Limozeen, named in tribute to a Dolly Parton song and decorated in over-the-top kitsch. While Larson still fears the virus, she appreciates that her employer spent a lot of money to make sure people are extremely safe. At her duplex, a plumbing disaster forced her to live in a construction zone for a couple of months. But she counts that as luck: She didnt have to pay rent. Travis Loller, Nashville, Tennessee ___ Jade Brooks and her family have counted on an eviction moratorium in Massachusetts to get them through the pandemic. Still, 22-year-old Brooks worries: How long will it last? Brooks mother hasnt found find full-time work since losing her insurance-company job. And Brooks doesnt get paid enough as a hospital switchboard operator to cover rent recently raised to $2,075 monthly for their two-bedroom Boston apartment. Her family had an August eviction hearing scheduled in court after they refused to pay the $265 increase. Then the governor extended the eviction ban until mid-October, giving temporary relief. It kind of gave me extra hope to figure things out, instead of jumping into the fire, said Brooks, who lives with her mother and an 8-year-old cousin. Brooks hopes the extra time gives her mom a chance to find work, and perhaps theyll negotiate a new lease rather than go to court. Michael Casey, Boston ___ After two months of missing payments as part of a rent strike, Neal Miller and his housemates heard from their landlord. To their surprise, he agreed to reduce the monthly $1,500 rent for their home on Chicagos West Side. Millers share is now $150, down from $400. Miller, 38, said his landlord gave the impression that hed prefer some income from the house over nothing at all. Millers last stable job was as an adjunct professor at Loyola University. During the pandemic, hes patched together odd jobs dissertation editing, bookkeeping for a psychiatrists office. He said lower rent cuts the pressure: We are definitely in a unique situation by the response we got. Kathleen Foody, Chicago ___ Tnia Morgans family has grown by one since the pandemic upended their lives. The birth of a grandson, her youngest daughters first child, June 25 was a rare blessing during a spring and summer otherwise filled with stress. I love his smell. I love his smile. I love everything about him, said Morgan, who shares a townhouse in Baltimore County, Maryland, with her newborn grandson, her daughter and a nephew. She needed something to celebrate. Her income plummeted after she lost her hotel banquet-hall job in March. Bills pile up monthly. Four rent checks have come due since then. Morgans landlord lets her pay what she can. She estimates thats been nearly half what shes owed since April. Food stamps help feed her family. She says shes tried in vain to sign up for unemployment benefits. Her only income comes from working for a food delivery service. Its not much, she said, but its better than not having anything. Michael Kunzelman, Silver Spring, Maryland ___ Ruqayyah Bailey has lost much of her independence and wants to get her life back on track. Bailey, 31, has autism. Until March, she lived in her own apartment, worked part time as a cashier at a St. Louis cafe, and attended college. The coronavirus tossed all that structure out the window. Bailey could no longer get the one-on-one tutoring that helped her thrive in college. The cafe closed. With no money coming in, she moved back in with her mother. The cafe reopened in June, but Bailey now works just four hours a week. Shes signed up for seven hours of college classes but isnt sure shell get tutoring. She uses savings to pay bills and worries about losing her weekly $600 in extra aid. I am completely stressed, Bailey said. I dont know how to pay my bills. Im not sure how Im going to able to get back into my apartment. Jim Salter, St. Louis ___ Jason W. Still spent nearly three months without work before he went back to cooking at a high-end restaurant in Spokane, Washington. Still, 30, returned to the kitchen at Clover when it reopened in early June. Before then, his wifes job in Washingtons legal marijuana industry and Stills unemployment checks helped assure they never missed a rent payment. Still is back to working 40 hours a week. But he wonders whether thatll last, as COVID-19 infections surge in the U.S. Its terrifying to me to be in a service industry that can just shut down again at any time, he said. Anita Snow, Phoenix ___ Tinisha Dixon scraped money together to cover her $1,115 monthly rent for April and May. Since then, shes been unable to pay. Dixon, 26, shares a downtown Atlanta apartment with her partner and their five children. Before that, Dixon was homeless. Now she worries daily about her family ending up on the street. Dixons partner works as a security guard, but reduced hours have shrunk his earnings to about $800 a month. Dixon said she worked briefly at a coronavirus testing site outside the city, but relying on her partner for rides interfered with his job. Before the pandemic, Dixon says, her landlord had begun taking legal steps to evict them. Im pretty overwhelmed trying to get everything situated, not knowing how long I can hold out here, she said. Sudhin Thanawala, Atlanta ___ Eli Oderberg of Denver remains out of work. He lost his job at a Colorado energy company in a wave of mid-April layoffs sparked by the pandemics economic fallout. Oderberg, 36, once worked on apps to track spills and leaks. Now he receives unemployment benefits as he sends out resumes and interviews for new jobs. He said hes been a runner-up for several positions but hasnt been hired. Oderberg and his wife, Katie, have been making their mortgage payments. Shes on unemployment after losing her retail job. Shes also pregnant, and the couple fears running out of money after the baby arrives. They also have a 5-year-old daughter. Im trying to get a good balance so I can enjoy my family, he said. And I keep reminding myself there are a lot of people in a much worse situation. Anita Snow, Phoenix Sun Pharmaceutical Industries on Friday reported a net loss at Rs 1,655.6 crore in the first quarter of fiscal 2020-21 compared to a profit of Rs 1,387.4 crore in the corresponding period of last year. The profit was negatively impacted due to exceptional items of Rs 3,633.33 crore. Revenue from operations stood at Rs 7,585.25 crore as against Rs 8,374.36 crore in Q1FY20, Sun Pharma said in an exchange filing. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell 7.6 percent on-year to Rs 1,843.6 crore and margin expanded 50 bps to 24.3 percent in June quarter compared to year-ago period. The board of directors also approved the scheme of amalgamation and merger between the company and Sun Pharma Global FZE (wholly owned subsidiary of the company). It envisages merger of Sun Pharma Global FZE into the company. "The scheme shall be effective post receipt of required approvals and accordingly, the above results do not reflect the impact on account of the scheme," Sun Pharma said. "The Company continues to monitor the impact of Covid-19 on its business, including its impact on customers, supply-chain, employees and logistics. Due care has been exercised, in concluding on significant accounting judgements and estimates, including in relation to recoverability of receivables, assessment of impairment of goodwill and intangibles, investments and inventory, based on the information available to date, while preparing the Company's financial results as of and for the quarter ended June 30, 2020," it added.Also read: Reliance Industries share falls over 2% post Q1 earnings: Time to buy, sell or hold the stock? Also read: BT BUZZ: How Indian consumers are going the extra mile to build immunity Thiruvananthapuram: A Crime Branch probe was ordered into the encounter killing of two Maoists at Nilambur forests in Malappuram district in Kerala. The crime branch probe was ordered on Saturday night by DGP Loknath Behara as Supreme Court had in September, 2014, laid down guidelines as per which in all cases of encounter deaths a mandatory registration of FIR and investigation by CID or any other independent agency was necessary. A bench headed by then Chief Justice R M Lodha had issued the guidelines in this regard. Two Maoists Kuppuswamy Devaraj (65), a central committee member of the outlawed outfit, and Ajitha (45), had been killed in an encounter with police in Nilambur forests on November 24. Malappuram Superintendent of Police Debesh Kumar Behara said the case will be handed over to crime branch on Sunday. According to police, the Maoists had opened fire at a patrolling party following which police retaliated, killing the two Maoists. Maoist leader Vikram Gowda, wanted in various cases since the past 20 years, was among those who had escaped, police said. The attack had taken place in a 500-acre forest area in the Western Ghats. Improvised explosive devices, materials used in making explosives and explosive materials, solar panels, some battery chargers, a set of pen drives, a modem, an electronic tab, a pistol and 40 sacks of rice were also recovered from the hideout of the Maoists. According to police, Maoists fired at a police party on a combing operation in Nilambur area and two of the ultras were killed in retaliatory firing. The search operations were undertaken by a 60-member elite team of the Thunderbolt Force, based on a tip-off that Maoists were camping in the area. Alabama Baptists 'grieved' after pastor posts photo celebrating birthday of KKK leader Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Alabama Baptist leaders said they were grieved after learning that Pastor Will Dismukes of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Prattville had offered prayers at an event celebrating the 199th birthday of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a leader in the Confederate Army and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Dismukes, who's also a Republican state representative, was subsequently forced to resign from his role as pastor. The statement comes as Dismukes, 30, is also being urged to resign from political office. Dismukes sparked the national controversy when he shared a post on Facebook from the July 25 event along with a photo of him surrounded by confederate flags. The event was held at Fort Dixie in Selma and coincided with ceremonies honoring the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, an Alabama native who is an icon in the civil rights movement, The Alabama Baptist reported. Had a great time at Fort Dixie speaking and giving the invocation for Nathan Bedford Forrest annual birthday celebration. Always a great time and some sure enough good eating!! he wrote. As outcry grew over the post which was removed by Dismukes but not before several people took screenshots of it. Leaders of the Alabama Baptist Convention State Board of Missions also spoke out. We are saddened and grieved to learn of the recent Facebook post by State Representative Will Dismukes who also serves as a bivocational pastor. In the wake of tremendous controversy, we reaffirm our opposition to any kind of racism. On July 27, each of us affirmed a June 4 blog article A Personal Credo Concerning Racism written and posted by Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist Convention State Board of Missions, the Alabama Baptist Convention leaders wrote. Keith Hinson, associate for public relations at the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, which is associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, explained to The Christian Post on Friday that SBC churches are "entirely autonomous in decision making, including about the choice of who may or may not serve as a minister," which leaves the door open for Dismukes to be rehired as a church leader. "Southern Baptists are somewhat unique in that there is no denominational credentialing of ministers," Hinson noted. Pastors within the conventions are not licensed to preach through the state or national organizations. The Pleasant Hill Baptist Church did not immediately respond to a request from CP for further comment. Mel Johnson, lead mission strategist for Autauga Baptist Association, of which Pleasant Hill is a member, told The Alabama Baptist that he attended a deacons meeting at the church on Wednesday, a day after they decided to part company with Dismukes. I am grateful for the opportunity to have met with the churchs leadership for prayer and encouragement as many, through no fault of their own, have found themselves caught in the midst of this issue that has drawn national attention, Johnson said. Scripture is clear that all people are created in Gods image and therefore equal in every way before Christ and our personal need of Him as Savior and Lord. Immediate effort was made to connect with Will on behalf of our leadership with commitment toward a biblically based process to mitigate controversy surrounding this issue, Johnson noted. He was open and receptive to our call and subsequent in-person meeting on Tuesday afternoon (July 28). On Monday, the College Republican Federation of Alabama called on Dismukes to resign from political office. Hard to believe that Rep. Will Dismukes will be able to equally represent all of his constituents when he attends KKK Grand Wizard Birthday Parties that feature PICKANNINY Freeze Watermelon Stands. He shouldnt have a place in the Alabama Legislature. #alpolitics#resignpic.twitter.com/VSf49Lr0Cj Chris England (@RepEngland70) July 29, 2020 The College Republican Federation of Alabama calls for the resignation of State Representative Will Dismukes. Representative Dismukess Facebook post of him at an event that celebrated former KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest is unacceptable and has no place in the State Legislature or the Republican Party, the group said in a statement. Chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party Chris England echoed those sentiments in a statement on Twitter Wednesday, along with damaging copies of documents advertising the controversial birthday celebration. Hard to believe that Rep. Will Dismukes will be able to equally represent all of his constituents when he attends KKK Grand Wizard Birthday Parties that feature PICKANNINY Freeze Watermelon Stands. He shouldnt have a place in the Alabama Legislature. #alpolitics#resign, England wrote. Advertisement As support groups gift 5-year endowment to UNIZIK, COOU In the spirit of the 60th birthday celebration of the former governor of the central bank of Nigeria, CBN, Prof. Charles Soludo, friends of the former apex bank governor, under the aegis of Soludo Solution Movement, SSM, Tuesday, July 28, 2020, marked the birthday with the inmates of the Anambra State Ministry of Women Affairs Orphanage, Ifite Awka. Speaking during the visit, the national coordinator, Hon. Jude Umunnakwe, said the group was celebrating with the inmates, in line with the demand of Soludo, that his friends should not spend money throwing expensive parties; but should spend such money on the less privileged. He said: We are here to celebrate with children in this orphanage, in line with the desire of our friend and principal, Prof. Charles Soludo, who demands that his friends should not throw expensive parties, but should spend on the less privileged. Soludos 60th birthday is special to us, because, we are celebrating with special people. Prayers of children come to God very quickly, and it is our belief that God, through the prayers of these children and other men and women of goodwill, will bless Soludo in his endeavours. While handing over gift items to the orphanage on behalf of the group, Umunnakwe urged the children to strive to emulate the virtue of the ex apex bank governor, Prof. Soludo, who he said, led a life of excellence. Meanwhile, as part of activities marking the birthday celebration of Prof. Soludo, and in line with the request of the celebrant, heads of pro Soludo groups in Anambra, led by Chief Jude Emecheta, have come together to gift a 5 year endowment to the departments of Economics of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, and Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam. The endowment, Emecheta said, is targeted at celebrating best graduating students of Economics in both schools. The endowment is an affirmation of the core principles of Prof. Charles Soludo, whose life typifies hard work and excellence, Emecheta said. The logo of SenseTime is seen during a government-organised media tour at SenseTime office, in Shanghai By Yingzhi Yang, Kane Wu and Cheng Leng BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese start-up SenseTime is considering an initial public offering (IPO) on China's tech-focused STAR market after its latest fundraising that will value the company at $10 billion, three people with knowledge of the matter said. The artificial intelligence company, which Washington put on a trade blacklist in October last year, is expected to raise $1.5 billion from the funding round which is due to be completed soon, two of the people said. SenseTime, which provides technology-based applications including facial recognitionvideo analysing and autonomous driving, has been in talks with Chinese securities regulators for the Shanghai listing in recent weeks, one of the people said. The plan for listing on China's year-old STAR market for start-ups is still preliminary with size and timetable undecided, said the sources, who did not want to be named as the information is confidential. Hong Kong-headquartered SenseTime declined to comment. The China Securities Regulatory Commission did not immediately respond to a request to comment. One of the people said that SenseTime's STAR listing process would take a while, and that there was no obvious valuation benchmark for investors as its main homegrown rival Megvii has not listed yet. SenseTime's founder Tang Xiaoou had told Reuters in 2017 that the start-up was considering a listing in U.S, Hong Kong, or China https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sensetime-ipo-exclusive/exclusive-chinas-sensetime-plans-ipo-u-s-rd-center-as-early-as-2018-idUSKBN1DN0FY. The U.S. ban has made an overseas listing difficult, if not impossible, as global investors and investment banks are likely to shy away from companies being targeted by the United States, two of the people said. The company was among eight Chinese tech companies placed on the U.S. entity list in October amid trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. The U.S. alleges the companies have played a role in human rights abuses against Muslim minority groups in China. SenseTime said at the time that it strongly opposed the U.S. ban and would work with relevant authorities to resolve the situation. Story continues Reuters reported in December that the five-year-old start-up had told investors it expected its 2019 revenue to increase by more than 200% year-on-year to around $750 million despite China-U.S. tensions. The company counts Qualcomm Ventures, part of U.S. semiconductor group Qualcomm, as one of its strategic investors. Other existing investors include SoftBank Vision Fund, HOPU Investment Management Company, Silver Lake Partners and Alibaba . (Reporting by Yingzhi Yang and Cheng Leng in Beijing and Kane Wu in Hong Kong; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Jane Merriman) By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 31, 2020 | 08:27 AM | FRANKFORT The Kentucky Department of Agriculture has received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails since Monday about unsolicited packages of seeds from foreign countries, Commissioner Quarles said. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture has not received any indication that this could be anything more than a marketing scam, they continue to investigate this matter and provide guidance on what steps Kentuckians should take should they receive unsolicited seeds. The Kentucky Department of Agriculture is dedicated to sharing the best information with the public when we have it, and we encourage Kentuckians to visit kyagr.com/foreignseeds to stay current with the latest on this unusual situation. Over the weekend, KDA was notified of several Kentucky residents who had received unsolicited seed packets that appear to have originated from China. The types of seeds are unknown and may be harmful. The packages were sent by mail. Individuals who have received unsolicited foreign seeds should bag them in an airtight bag and send it to the United States Department of Agricultures Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) at: USDA-APHIS PPQ P.O. Box 475 Hebron, Kentucky 41048. The message is the same: Do not plant unsolicited seeds, Commissioner Quarles said. If you have planted these seeds already, we are awaiting guidance from USDA about how to proceed. Once we have an update, we will be sure to let the public know. Agriculture Commissioner Dr. Ryan Quarles announced today the Kentucky Department of Agriculture (KDA) has created a webpage dedicated to sharing updated information about steps Kentuckians should take if they have received unsolicited seeds from foreign countries. The internet has a new home in Perth, looming large over the entrance to the Graham Farmer Freeway tunnel on the corner of Lord and Newcastle streets. ASX-listed NextDC officially opened its newest data centre on Thursday night, an eight-storey building called 'P2' that will house thousands of servers and other computer equipment essential for the smooth operation of the 'net. NextDC's P2 data centre sits on the site of the old Golf Box on Newcastle Street. In layman's terms, data centres are halls rented by customers who set up their IT equipment in them, instead of on their own premises. The equipment is managed by the customer but it is up to NextDC to ensure the connection to the rest of the world is fast and secure; nothing is tampered with; the power stays on; and the equipment is kept cool. Istanbul: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday warned the European Union that Turkey could extend a state of emergency, for at least another three months. The emergency has been in place since the failed July coup. In a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan launched another stinging attack on the EU after the European Parliament voted on Thursday to back a freeze in accession talks with Ankara. He again threatened to bring back the death penalty a decision that would effectively end Ankara's longstanding bid -- and said that on this he would listen to the Turkish people and not "Hans" and "George", picking out two common European names. The state of emergency imposed after the July 15 failed coup bid has seen at least 37,000 people arrested, causing alarm in Brussels over the scale of the crackdown. "Maybe the state of emergency will be extended by three months and then maybe another three months," he said. "This is a decision for the government and the parliament." "What's it to you?" he told the European Parliament. "Is the European Parliament in charge of this country or is the government in charge of this country?" "Know your place!" he added, in an angry tirade. He noted that France had also put in place a state of emergency after it was hit by a string of Islamist attacks in 2015 and accused the European Parliament of hypocrisy. "Are you not aware that you are aiding and abetting terrorism?" he told the European Parliament. Turkey has once renewed the three-month state of emergency put in place in the wake of the July 15 coup. It would need to be renewed again in January. Erdogan had on Friday rattled the European Union by threatening to tear up an agreement that has substantially reduced the flow of illegal migrants to Europe in year 2016. In his latest speech, he again threatened to sign into law any bill voted by parliament to bring back capital punishment, whose abolition is a key condition of EU membership. "I am not going to take a decision based on what Hans says, or what George says," he said. "I answer to the people." "If the people want capital punishment, it goes to parliament. If parliament says yes, I will sign it. Isn't democracy the national will?" For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. After several days of meetings and some contentious moments, Montgomery County commissioners agreed Friday on a proposed 2021 budget ensuring key departments were a priority during what officials called a tough budget season. The county is proposing a $348 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year, a 3.59 percent increase from the current years adopted budget of $336.5 million. While the budget increased slightly, the county is proposing a 1.4 percent decrease in the tax rate from 44.75 cents per $100 property valuation to 44.12 cents per $100 property valuation. Commissioners had differing opinions on many expenditures, but all were in agreement on making sure law enforcement, specifically the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office, had the funds needed for the upcoming year. With no new personnel in the budget, commissioners supported several line items including new vehicles and professional service contracts, such as maintenance for the Precinct 1 Constables Office boats that patrol Lake Conroe. According to the preliminary budget, MCSO officials are proposing an $88.5 million budget for the upcoming year. That is a decrease from the 2020 adopted budget of $93.06 million. Sheriff Rand Henderson did ask the court to fund a new indoor shooting range. He said the $1.3 million project would not only benefit his office but other agencies in the county including the constables offices and other municipalities. There is an immediate need for (the range), Henderson said, noting the facility would allow for pistol qualifications and the ability to simulate night to allow for deputies and officers to practice during the day at the flip of switch. Commissioners James Noack, Charlie Riley and Mike Meador all agreed to provide $250,000 each to help fund the facility. I dont see any reason we cant get this started, Noack said. While Hendersons budget didnt include any new personnel, he did put commissioners on notice that he would be back at midyear to request a data base expunction coordinator. The courts, he explained, have a large volume of records that need to be partially deleted. Its not a push button removal, it is line by line, he said adding the position would need to be filled within the next year. Forcing some debate was how the county will fund a proposed new forensics center and crime lab in its five-year capital improvement plan. In the 2021 budget, county officials earmarked $4 million to go to the forensics center giving a total of about $6 million toward the total project. The new 22,000-square-foot center will include the medical examiners office and morgue, the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office Crime Lab and forensic lab at Carl Pickering Boulevard and Airport Road. PGAL will be responsible for the medical examiner and morgue portion along with parking, site development and detention pond. The facility will also include a lobby, waiting area, two meeting rooms, staff offices and conference rooms and a full autopsy complex and storage. Several commissioners questioned if funds from the federal CARES Act could be reclassified to help fund the facility since the increased workload has been related to COVID-19. But County Attorney B.D. Griffin cautioned the court on that action. It could put the county a very serious risk of an audit and claw back (of those funds), Griffin said. According to Griffin, while the CARES Act funds extend through December before those funds can be reclassified, the federal official may extend that date due to the continued spread of COVID-19 and the need for governmental entities to fund expenditures related to the pandemic. Its a timing issue, said Assistant County Attorney Amy Dunham, adding once the declaration of disaster has expired, locally and nationally, and the remaining CARES Act funds have been audited, the funds can then be reclassified for entities to use for other expenditures. Riley moved to have an additional $4 million, for a total of $10 million, moved from the county fund balance to the CIP budget for the center to cover the construction of the forensics portion of the project. The court will host a public meeting at 9:30 a.m. Aug. 21 on the fourth floor of the Alan B. Sadler Commissioners Court Building, 501 N. Thompson to consider the 2021 fiscal year budget and the tax rate. cdominguez@hcnonline.com The Jammu and Kashmir administration extended the detention of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti by three months even as it released Peoples Conference chief Sajjad Gani Lone in Srinagar on Friday, a week ahead of the one-year anniversary of the revocation of the troubled regions special status and its bifurcation. Mufti, who has been held under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) since the early hours of August 5, 2019, is among 20-odd political leaders in the Valley who continue to remain under detention. Two other former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar were released on March 13 and March 24. Muftis party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), ran a coalition government in the undivided state with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) until the alliance collapsed in June 2018 that prompted the imposition of Governors Rule. Principal secretary to J&K home department, Shaleen Kabra, issued an order announcing the extension of Muftis detention. In exercise of powers conferred by section 8 (1) a read with clause a of sub section (1) of section 18 of JKPSA 1978, the government hereby directs that the period of detention of Mehbooba Mufti, D/O Mufti Mohammad Sayeed R/O Bijbhera A/P Nowgam Srinagar be extended for further period of three months and she may be lodged in subsidiary jail Fairview Gupkar Road Srinagar, read the order issued on Friday. This is the second time that PSA has been extended in Muftis case. Under the PSA, a person can be kept under detention for up to two years. The former CM was arrested on August 5 from her official residence and lodged at Chesmashahi huts. She was moved to a government building close to the MLA hostel, where other detainees were held, in November. In April this year, Mufti was shifted to her official residence at Fairview on Gupkar Road. The PDP condemned the extension of Muftis detention. Its high time the BJP realizes that we as Kashmiris refuse to be trivialized, the party said. Lone, who was a minister in the PDP-BJP government, was also arrested hours before the Centre stripped J&K of its special status on August 5, 2019 and held at the government house in Church Lane, Sonwar. Finally 5 days short of a year I have been officially informed that I am a free man. So much has changed. So have I, Lone tweeted shortly after his release. Jail was not a new experience. Earlier ones were harsh with usual doses of physical torture. But this was psychologically draining. Much to share hopefully soon, he added. The developments came a week after Apni Party chief Altaf Bukhari said he was told by lieutenant governor GC Murmu that the political detainees would be released soon. Nearly all of Kashmirs mainstream political leaders were detained hours before the central government nullified Article 370 of the Constitution, which accorded special status to the region, and bifurcated the state into two union territories Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature and Ladakh without one. Lone was initially kept at a makeshift jail at Centaur hotel on the banks of the Dal Lake along with several other mainstream leaders before they all were moved to MLA hostel in Srinagar. In February, Lone and PDP leader Waheed Parra were moved to their residences and put under house arrest. Omar Abdullah welcomed Lones release. Good to hear that Sajjad Lone has been released from illegal house arrest. I hope others under similar illegal detention will also be released without any delay, Omar Abdullah tweeted. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON As the Congress belatedly claims former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao as its own during his birth centenary, it might be served well to recall Raos fierce loyalty to the party and his obstinate refusal to split it even though he was being humiliated and treated badly by the party leadership. In an era where Congressmen are falling like ninepins to the lure of power, and alleged financial inducements by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Rao nipped in the bud efforts to draw him into leading a rebellion against his party. His admonishment to the young Turks who had approached him during the crises in the multiple governments between 1996 and 1999 is relevant even today. He advocated patience to those who were in a hurry to acquire office and, when asked about him being ill-treated in the Congress, he remarked that I have been in the Congress for 50 years. Forty-eight of those 50 years were good. If things have not gone as I would have liked in the past two years, that does not mean that I should be ungrateful or attempt to destroy the party that made me what I am today. Raos statement silenced the group Congress MPs from Maharashtra, who had lost their patience with Congress President Sitaram Kesari after the party pulled support to the Deve Gowda government. They had first approached Sharad Pawar to break the Congress to support Gowda, but when the Maratha leader refused, they turned to Rao. Rao told them that life is never made to order, and that one has to learn to take the bad with the good, and balance it. These young MPs from Maharashtra, many who continue to be loyal to the party despite the odds, acknowledge sotto voce that interactions with Rao had been a great learning curve in their lives. This is also partially because Rao has a deeper connection with Maharashtra. Way before he became Prime Minister, Rao contested two general elections from Ramtek in Maharashtra, in 1984 and 1989. It is interesting to recollect how Rao ended up representing Ramtek. Before Ramtek, Rao represented the Hanamkonda constituency in Andhra Pradesh, winning it twice, in 1977 and 1980. However, in the 1984 Lok Sabha polls, held after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, when the Congress swept the polls, the BJP won two seats one of those seats was Hanamkonda. This also throws light on a lesser known political history between Pawar and Rao. For the 1991 general elections, Rajiv Gandhi wanted Rao to rerun from Ramtek, but Pawar had other ideas. Pawar misled Rajiv into believing he would ensure Rao's victory from Ramtek however, when the final decision on ticket distribution was being done at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi, Pawar backed out, giving the impression that it would be an uphill task for Rao to retain his seat if the contest was tough. Rao voluntarily bowed out of the race, and was preparing to return to Andhra Pradesh when Rajiv Gandhi appointed him as the Congress working president. Indian politics took an unexpected turn in the following weeks with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. In the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress emerged as the single-largest party, but the post of the Prime Minister was open, and the battle was between Pawar and Rao. Legend has it that Pawar refused to offer Rao a lift on the state aircraft as both leaders were heading to New Delhi to attend Rajiv Gandhis funeral. Congress leaders in the know have also mentioned to this author that Pawar in Marathi referred to Rao as a senile old man. Of course, someone who heard that indiscretion promptly conveyed it to Rao, who, fluent in Marathi, knew exactly what Pawar had meant. Many Maharashtra Congress leaders believe the fight between Rao and Pawar was all the more bitter for that indiscretion, and Rao saw to it that Pawars political relevance was steadily reduced: from a PM candidate he was reduced to just another Cabinet minister, and from there Rao sent Pawar back to Maharashtra as Chief Minister. Finally the Congress lost the state in 1995, and this led to a further downslide of Pawar, and it took him 10 years to claw back up not before splitting the Congress and later becoming its ally. Raos political acumen and Machiavellianism was second to none, even down to how he politically dealt with the demolition of the Babri masjid and robbed the BJP of some of its momentum thereafter. When criticised for undertaking a siesta while the mosque was under attack, his infamous retort has now become the stuff of legend: not taking a decision is itself a decision. When he hired a former RBI Governor to resurrect Indias economy, he stood firmly by Manmohan Singh. Rao is said to have told Singh that he is the one (1) which will firmly stand with Singh who can add as many zeroes as he can to the economy. Rao also cautioned Singh saying that if he failed, Rao would not be there and the zeroes would be worthless. It clear that no one can accuse Rao of shying away from brutal honesty or failing to understand realpolitik. Bengaluru continues to be worst affected by the pandemic. On Friday, out of the 5,483 cases that the state reported, 2,220 were from the capital. 84 new Covid deaths were also registered. Since the first week of July Karnataka has been witnessing a spike in the number of Covid positive cases with the numbers breaching 5,000 mark The health experts have sounded warning bells saying that the cases are expected to rise in the coming days. "As the city and the country is opening up under Unlock 3.0, there has been a spike in the number of cases and yes, the cases are expected to rise. Though one can say that the recovery rate has improved over the months, the rise in cases can also be attributed to the improper social distancing etiquette of the public at large and not wearing masks properly," Dr Suriraju. V, MD Regal hospital. Since the first week of July Karnataka has been witnessing a spike in the number of Covid positive cases with the numbers breaching 5,000 mark nearly everyday. The recovery rate of the state that was at 33% a few days ago is reported to have improved and reached 40% on July 31. In order to manage Covid suspect maternity hospital patients, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has started hiring gynecologist, pediatrician, anesthetist, general physician, MBBS doctors and staff nurse for 6 months. Meanwhile, there have been reports coming in from Ambedkar Medical College, Shampur about the lack of electricity, unclean ward and bathrooms. Some patients have alleged that the bed sheets are not changed. Responding to complaints on the wards and bathrooms being unclean, a staff at the hospital said that the cleaning is done four times a day. "It is not like cleaning is done after every few minutes. The cleaning staff comes four times a day," a staff said. With a spike in the number of Covid cases, the public health officials want the government to give attention to the spike in the number of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) violations. It has come to light that other than the police and health departments the government bodies such as Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), urban local bodies, education and district collectorate have not uploaded the statistics on the website that was meant to track COPTA violations. There are several departments (KSRTC, Police Department, Urban Local Bodies, RDPR, Education, District Collectorate etc) implementing COTPA violations in their respective jurisdictions and all the violation reports are scattered leaving the state with no proper data for policy formulation. According to statistics by the police department, the state registered 7,231,381 cases of violation of COPTA from January to May 2020. Bengaluru reported 2,063,350 cases followed by Mysore with more than twenty thousand Meng Wanzhou, Huaweis CFO and daughter of its founder, was arrested in December 2018 on a warrant from the US. Canadas attorney general says the requirements for extraditing Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou to the United States on charges of bank fraud have been met, documents submitted in a British Columbia court show. Meng, 48, was arrested in December 2018, on a warrant from the US, which alleges she misled HSBC bank about Huaweis business dealings in Iran. Meng has been on house arrest in Vancouver since then, fighting extradition, and has said she is innocent. Her case has caused a diplomatic dispute between Canada and China, which has demanded that Meng be released. China arrested two Canadians after Mengs arrest. The documents, which were filed last week and released to media on Friday, are a precursor to the formal hearing on committal, or whether Meng should be extradited to the US. Those hearings will take place in April 2021. The documents outline the evidence in support of Mengs custody and conclude that the test for committal has been met. The extradition hearings are not a full trial on the charges laid by the US, the documents state, only whether there is the potential for those charges to be found valid. The evidence demonstrates that Ms. Meng deliberately made dishonest representations to HSBC in an attempt to preserve Huaweis relationship with the bank, lawyers for the Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General David Lametti wrote. Since Ms. Meng concedes that she is the person sought for prosecution for the conduct set out in the extradition request, all of the formal requirements for committal are established. Huawei declined to comment and pointed instead to its past legal submissions on its arguments. In May, a judge in British Columbias Superior Court found that the legal standard of double criminality meaning Mengs actions could be considered a crime in both Canada and the US had been met, dealing a blow to hopes for a quick end to the trial. The next hearings, scheduled for August 17-21 in Vancouver, will discuss whether the attorney generals assertion of privilege in declining to release some documents requested by Huawei relating to Mengs initial arrest is valid. Hearings for the trial are scheduled to wrap up in April 2021, although the potential for appeals of the decision from either side means the case could drag out over several years. Michele Roberts, national co-coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance, was among those consulted about climate by the Biden campaign this spring. She remains cautiously optimistic, both that Biden wins the election and that he actually follows through on his new promises. But she is also thankful that his campaign sought a wide range of voices that have been overlooked in the past. A Chicago woman who last month became the country's first COVID-19 patient to undergo a double lung transplant said she woke up days later, unaware about the surgery and unable to 'recognize my body.' Mayra Ramirez, 28, spoke to the media on Thursday alongside Brian Kuhns, 62, of Lake Zurich, Illinois, who followed her as the second U.S. coronavirus patient to undergo the procedure. Ramirez went into surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago on June 5 and didn't wake up until weeks later. 'I looked at myself and couldn't recognize my body,' she told reporters. 'I didn't have the cognitive ability to process what was going on. All I knew was that I wanted water.' Scroll down for video Mayra Ramirez, a COVID-19 survivor due to a double-lung transplant, spoke about her journey through the pandemic during her first news conference at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago on Thursday Before contracting coronavirus, Ramirez, who has an autoimmune condition, said she was otherwise independent and relatively healthy Ramirez said she couldn't recognize her family members in pictures that the hospital nurses had placed around her room. 'I was actually upset because I thought it was a different family,' she added. Ramirez, who has an autoimmune condition, had been intubated shortly after she became ill with coronavirus in April. She had gone on a three-mile run shortly before becoming ill and heading for the hospital. 'I was told to hurry up (and) change,' she said. 'I was asked who would be making my medical decisions for me. That's when I told them it would be my mother and eldest sister who all live in North Carolina. 'I only had a couple minutes to contact them to let them know what was going on before I was intubated.' Ramirez, who moved to Chicago from North Carolina to become a paralegal in 2014, says she is now slowly regaining her strength Ramirez's family launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for her medical expenses Dr Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of the Northwestern Medicine Lung Transplant Program, said Ramirez, who was on a ventilator, fought for her life for six weeks, with the virus completely destroying her lungs. Doctors would call Nohemi Romero, her mother in North Carolina, with updates. Ramirez, sitting next to her mother during a news conference at the hospital, said her family made the trip to Chicago with the intention of saying goodbye. 'Luckily, once they arrived, my mother and my two sisters, the medical team was able to stabilize me,' Ramirez said. 'They were explained the option of lung transplantation and my mother agreed to it. And then within 48 hours, I received the 10-hour lung transplant.' Bharat is calling Ramirez's surgery a 'milestone' in care for patients with severe COVID-19. Brian Kuhns (pictured left on Thursday) 62, of Lake Zurich, Illinois, followed Ramirez as the second U.S. coronavirus patient to undergo the procedure 'Lung transplant isn't for every patient with COVID-19, but it does offer some of the critically ill patients another option for survival,' Bharat said. 'Mayra and Brian are living proof of that.' Ramirez said she is slowly regaining her strength, but says the ordeal has taken a physical and mental toll. 'It's hard to deal with mentally,' she said. 'The entire time I was on the [ventilator] I had a lot of nightmares and it's hard to distinguish reality versus those nightmares sometimes. ' Thoracic surgeon Dr Rafael Garza Castillon said Northwestern is now considering performing the procedure on other patients who have eliminated the virus and have no other significant organ failure. 'We are all learning together and sharing best practices, and now lung transplant is part of COVID-19 care,' Bharat said. Ramirez who is now at home, said she's feeling much better, though she's still working to rebuild her strength and endurance. She said she knows there's a family grieving their loved one. 'It wasn't until weeks later that I had the ability to, you know, think to myself there's a family out there that's grieving their loved one,' Ramirez said. 'I have that person's lungs and how lucky I was to have received it.' Kuhns said he thought the virus was a hoax until he contracted it. 'This disease is not a joke,' he said. 'It hit me like a lead slammer on my head. I was perfectly healthy. This thing took me down hard.' TOPEKA, Kan. - Officials in a college town in conservative western Kansas are embracing a mask ordinance in hopes of making residents and incoming students feel safe, even as surrounding communities have balked at such efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus. City officials in Hays, home to Fort Hays State University, voted last week to require people to wear masks in public. The response in the community has been mixed since the ordinance took effect Monday, with some businesses offering masks and refusing to serve customers who wont wear them and others letting customers come in without them. In Hays we brag about how safe and clean we are all the time and I want to make darn sure I can do anything I can to keep that reputation, said Mayor Shaun Musil, who voted for the ordinance and also owns a wine bar in the city of 20,800 people some 270 miles west of Kansas City. Hays is in an area of the state where Republican lawmakers pushed back against the Democratic governors springtime stay-at-home orders and more recent efforts to mandate masks statewide to combat the coronavirus. Ellis County, where Hays is located, opted out of Gov. Laura Kellys executing order requiring residents to wear masks, something communities can do as a result of a compromise between Kelly and the Republican-led Legislature. Musil said that since the ordinance, almost everyone who has entered his bar, The Paisley Pear, has worn a face mask. I know a lot of people say we are taking their rights away, and I can see where they see it that way, but I dont believe were taking their rights away, Musil said, noting that many businesses refuse service to customers not wearing shoes or a shirt. The Hays City Commission voted 4-1 on July 23 to approve the mask requirement. The ordinance includes exemptions for people with medical conditions that might make it hard to breathe in a mask. Fort Hays State, where students are scheduled to return on Aug. 17, also plans to require masks on campus. For now, Hays law enforcement is trying to educate people about the new rule instead of imposing fines. First-time violations could bring fines and fees of up to $125, Deputy Chief of Police Brian Dawson said. Some people in the community say masks are a small price to pay to protect the health of those most vulnerable. Fort Hays State senior Anniston Weber told city commissioners that she felt like she was begging for my life for them to approve the mask ordinance. Weber said in an interview that she learned this month she had a rare blood vessel disorder and is immunocompromised. I would rather be uncomfortable for the hour that I am out shopping or supporting local businesses than I would if I couldve saved someone by wearing a mask, Weber told commissioners. Hays resident Elizabeth Schmiedler opposes the ordinance and is avoiding stores that require masks. She said she worries about freedoms being eroded. Ellis County has seen 130 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus, according to the state health department, with one death. On Friday, Kansas had seen 27,812 confirmed cases, up 942 from Wednesday, when case totals were last reported, and 358 deaths, up nine. 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. Kellys executive order issued on July 2 calls for people to wear masks in indoor public places and outdoors where social distancing isnt possible. As of Friday, the Kansas Association of Counties said 15 of 105 counties have mask mandates. Several larger communities, including Wichita and Shawnee County, home to the state capital Topeka, have them. ___ Andy Tsubasa Field is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro's wife has been tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), according to an official statement on Thursday. This was just after Bolsonaro himself had overcome COVID-19 with a negative test result after weeks of being in quarantine. "First lady Michelle Bolsonaro tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. She is in good health and will follow all established protocols," the official statement was quoted in a report. Bolsonaro Tested Positive Brazil's president announced on July 7 that he had been diagnosed with the coronavirus. He then spent his confinement in the presidential palace for more than two weeks. He announced that he tested negative on Saturday. Bolsonaro said during the time he was sick; he took hydroxychloroquine. He was known to promote the use of the said drug to treat COVID-19 despite the lack of studies. Hydroxychloroquine is an anti-malarial drug that was dropped by health organizations after studies found it was ineffective in treating the virus alongside dangerous side effects. Bolsonaro believed the drug had stopped his high temperature, one of the COVID-19 symptoms he experienced. "Today I'm a lot better, so certainly it's working," Bolsonaro was quoted in a Forbes report. In April, Brazil's president dismissed former health minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta due to reported disagreements on using the drug as a COVID-19 treatment. Reports said that Mandetta's successor Nelson Teich had said the former health minister resigned less than a month after Bolsonaro pushed him to promote the drug. Cabinet Members Tested Positive Brazil's science and technology minister, Marcos Pontes, announced on Thursday that his test had come back positive. This makes him the fifth minister in Bolsonaro's administration to be diagnosed with the disease. Pontes said he was quarantining and working remotely. He added that he is well, but he is experiencing a few flu symptoms and a headache. Citizenship Minister Onyx Lorenzoni announced in Jul. 20 that he has also got the virus. He was also promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. Brazil and COVID-19 On Jul. 10, reports said that local officials across Brazil are loosening isolation orders even as confirmed cases surge due to pressure from Bolsonaro. With its three million residents, Brasilia reported its first COVID-19 case in March, a 52-year-old who came back from Britain and Switzerland. Brasilia's death toll climbed slowly. On May 27, malls reopened, causing a significant increase in the number of cases and deaths. A nurse working in the emergency wing at Ceilandia's main hospital said that it is a chaos and a living hell. Brazil reopened in Jul. 29 international travel to foreign tourists, according to reports. International travel had been banned since March. This despite the ever-increasing number of COVID-19 cases, which deemed the country as the world's second-worst. Travelers from all countries are welcome in Brazil as long as they have health insurance during the duration of their trip. The country is reopening its air borders faster than any country in the region with fewer outbreaks, such as Colombia, Argentina, Panama, and Peru. Brazil has a total number of 2.61 million confirmed cases, with 1.82 million recoveries, and 91, 377 deaths. Check these out: President of Brazil Dismisses the Threat of COVID-19, Says "God Is Brazilian" Brazil's President Refuses to Reveal COVID-19 Test Results, Many Believe He Tested Positive Brazil President Continues to Flout Protective Protocols Even After Testing Positive for COVID-19 Fayaz Wani By Express News Service SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir government on Friday extended PDP chief Mehbooba Muftis detention under the stringent Public Safety Act by another three months but released Peoples Conference chairman Sajjad Gani Lone ahead of Eid-ul-Adha. Mehbooba, who is detained since the scrapping of Article 370 on August 5 last year, was initially lodged at Cheshma Shahi hut and then shifted to a government accommodation at Maulana Azad Road. On April 7, she was shifted to her residence at Gupkar Road, Srinagar. Mehboobas PSA detention was to expire on August 5. The former chief minister is the only mainstream leader still under PSA detention. Former CMs Farooq and Omar Abdullah were also booked under the Act, but their detention was revoked over the months. The petition challenging her unlawful detention has been pending in SC since 26th February. Where does one seek justice? Mehboobas daughter Iltija Mufti tweeted. Under the PSA, an accused can be detained without trial for six months and the detention can be extended up to two years. Senior PDP leader Firdous Tak said the detention order speaks a lot about the situation on the ground as well as the approach of the Centre towards Jammu and Kashmir. People who claim themselves to be champions of democracy and talk about political process actually want parroting of their nefarious plans. No measures of suppression and oppression will curb the genuine aspiration but instead will strengthen our stand and commitment, the former MLC claimed. On the other hand, the government lifted restrictions on Lone and set him free. The separatist-turned-mainstream politician was under house detention at his government accommodation at Church Lane, Srinagar since February 5. Finally 5 days short of a year I have been officially informed that I am a free man. So much has changed. So have I. Jail was not a new experience. Earlier ones were harsh with usual doses of physical torture. But this was psychologically draining. Much to share hopefully soon (sic), he tweeted, after his release Former President Goodluck Jonathan has congratulated all Muslim faithfuls in Nigeria as they celebrate this years Eid-el-Kabir. Jonathan in a Sallah message on his twitter handle urged Muslims to imbibe the virtues of sacrifice, faith and love. He said, I congratulate the Muslim Umah as they celebrate this years Eid el Kabir. I urge all to imbibe the virtues of sacrifice, faith & love which this season represents, especially now that the world and our nation are going through challenges occasioned by the COVID 19 pandemic. As citizens, let us continue to work towards unity, peace, and progress during this period and beyond. I celebrate with all Muslim faithful on this joyous occasion of Ed el Kabir . Barka Da Sallah. Eid-el-Kabir is the second of two Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide each year, and considered the holier of the two. It honors the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ismael as an act of obedience to Gods command. Hence every year in Nigeria the Federal Government sets aside two days to allow Muslims celebrate this occasion. This year they declared Thursday and Friday as public holiday to allow them time to bond and merry with family members. President Donald Trump denied Herman Cain caught COVID-19 at his disastrous Tulsa rally telling reporters 'I don't think he did,' as he left the White House Friday. Cain, at age 74, was pronounced dead Thursday after spending nearly a month in an Atlanta-area hospital fighting the coronavirus. The former GOP presidential candidate tested positive for COVID-19 nine days after appearing at Trump's June 20 Tulsa, Oklahoma rally, where he was photographed sitting in tight confines, without wearing a mask. President Donald Trump answered outside the White House Friday 'I don't think he did,' when asked if former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, who died Thursday, had contracted the coronavirus that killed him at Trump's June 20 Tulsa rally President Donald Trump (left) shared this photo with Herman Cain (right) on Twitter Thursday, calling him a 'great friend.' Cain's website and employer announced Thursday morning that Cain had died of COVID-19. He tested positive nine days after going to Trump's Tulsa rally Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt was seated near Hermain Cain at the June 20 rally in Tulsa. Stitt announced he had tested positive for COVID-19 in mid-July, so was less likely to have been infected directly from the rally, but Cain's positive test came back nine days later HERMAN CAIN'S FINAL DAYS June 20: Herman Cain attend's President Donald Trump's Tulsa rally and posts a photo of himself not wearing a mask June 29: Cain tests positive for COVID-19 July 1: Cain is taken to the hospital by ambulance for COVID-19 July 1: Cain tweets in appreciation that South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem isn't forcing mask-wearing at Trump's Mt. Rushmore speech July 27: Aides tweet that he is being treated with 'oxygen for his lungs' but 'his other organs and systems are strong' July 30: Cain dies of COVID-19 Advertisement Cain was seated near Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt who later tested positive for the coronavirus. Stitt said he didn't believe he contracted COVID-19 at the rally because he tested positive in mid-July. 'I don't think there was any way it was at the president's rally. It's too long ago,' Stitt said. Cain tested positive within the timeframe that made it more likely he was infected at the rally. His staff said in a statement there is 'no way to know for sure how or where Mr. Cain contracted the coronavirus.' Cain traveled to several states throughout June, staff said. As well as announcing his death, Cain's staff deleted a tweet sent on the day he entered the hospital praising South Dakota for not mandating masks at Trump's Mt. Rushmore address before July 4 saying: 'PEOPLE ARE FED UP!' He was hospitalized on July 1. At 74, Cain was in the high-risk group for the virus because of his age. He's also a cancer survivor - in 2006, Cain had a diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer, which also had spread to his liver. Trump talked about Cain at the top of his Thursday press briefing, blaming the 'China virus' for taking his friend. He did now acknowledge how Cain might have caught the virus. He also tweeted a tribute to Cain, including a picture of the two Republicans inside the Situation Room. Cain made a White House visit in spring 2019 during the time period Trump wanted to nominate him to the Federal Reserve's board of governors. Cain ultimately pulled out of the nomination process. The former Godfather's Pizza CEO became a household name in the run-up to the 2012 Republican primary, though his bid was derailed by past accusations of sexual harassment. An ex-mistress also came forward. He pulled out of the race before voters ever went to the ballots. Herman Cain died of COVID-19. He attended President Trump's June 20th rally in Tulsa, where he tweeted the above photo On July 1, the same day Herman Cain was taken by ambulance to the hospital as his breathing worsened, he put out a tweet complimenting South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for not making social distancing and mask-wearing mandatory at Trump's July 3 appearance in her state His death triggered a number of politicized reactions because he had attended Trump's disastrous rally, which was ill-attended likely due to COVID concerns. At a hearing with Dr. Anthony Fauci and other top government health experts Friday, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters wished her condolences to Cain's family before chastising the GOP pol's behavior. 'This virus is not Democrat or Republican,' Waters said at the hearing. 'I'm going to send my condolences to the family of Herman Cain who was a presidential candidate, who was a good friend of the president, who happened to have been at the rally in Tulsa June 20th, with no mask on, with a group of people around him with no masks on, and he's dead. He died.' Waters assumed, with no definitive proof, that Trump's rally is where Cain was infected. 'I'm told that he was in good health and that he, of course, contacted the virus as a result of his attendance without a mask there,' she said. 'So my condolences to his family,' the California Democrat added. Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton will speak with his state and federal counterparts on the AHPPC on Saturday. Credit:Justin McManus Five months after COVID-19 took hold in Australia, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton and Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton have been appointed to be part of the State Control Centre meetings, which will now be chaired by Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp. The Department of Health and Human Services secretary, Kym Peake, has been appointed to the role of State Controller for Health. Professor Allen Cheng, from The Alfred hospital, Professor Rhonda Stuart, from Monash Health, and Professor Paul Johnson, from Austin Health, have joined the DHHS as Professor Suttons deputies, after Deputy Chief Health Officer Annaliese van Diemen decided to return to her former role of managing other communicable diseases, including the avian flu. Loading Professor Tony Blakely, an epidemiologist from Melbourne University, said authorities would be considering elements of a New Zealand-style stage four lockdown including closing department stores, banning takeaway and delivery food, blocking construction and closing schools. "We're halfway through the proposed six-week lockdown - it is almost certainly going to be tighter and longer," Professor Blakely said. Victoria's aged care and healthcare concerns continued on Friday, with aged care residents comprising more than half of 928 active cases linked to nursing homes on Friday while there were 614 healthcare workers infected with the virus and thousands more colleagues in self-isolation. Victoria had 349 people with coronavirus cases in hospital, including 36 in intensive care, while Friday's eight deaths included two men in their 50s and four aged care residents. Geelong has recorded its first COVID-19 death, with a patient who was receiving palliative care passing away overnight on Thursday. Mr Andrews said Victoria was fighting to overcome a bind where the majority of cases were occurring in essential industries such as aged care, healthcare, meatworks and distribution, which would not normally be shut down in a widespread stage four lockdown. "We could not open up with these numbers. We could not open up even with significantly less numbers," Mr Andrews said on Friday. "So it may well be the case ... that we need to take further steps, that the steps we've taken are not enough to pull ths up." Loading The Premier revealed that one in four people who had tested positive to coronavirus were not home when Australian Defence Force members knocked on their door to conduct contact tracing on Thursday. He said those 130 people were referred to Victoria Police to locate them as soon as possible. About 400 of a total 1300 positive cases visited by the ADF since their doorknocking began eight days ago have not been at home. It is just not acceptable, said Mr Andrews. No element of this strategy will be successful if, when we door knock you, we are finding one in four people are not home. Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly (left), who chairs the AHPPC, alongside Prime Minister Scott Morrison earlier this month. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The AHPPC, chaired by Australia's acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly and comprising chief health officers from each state and territory, met on Thursday but could not reach a decision on what extra measures should be introduced in Victoria That prompted Mr Andrews and Prime Minister Scott Morrison to agree the AHPPC should spend 48 hours starting on Friday examining Victorias coronavirus data. Professor Sutton said as well as outbreaks in high-risk settings such as aged care and healthcare, he was concerned by Victorias levels of community transmission with an unknown source, which increased by 94 on Friday. He said Victoria would not necessarily replicate New Zealands lockdown, in place for a month, which closed schools and all businesses except for essential services such as supermarkets, pharmacies, banks and medical services. After the Prime Minister reiterated on Friday that Victorias level of community transmission remained unacceptably high, Mr Andrews said Victorians should take comfort that he and the Prime Minister were in lock-step in canvassing a stricter lockdown. There is a complete acknowledgement that there can be no economic recovery until we deal with this public health challenge, the Premier said on Friday. It is incredibly difficult, in fact its almost impossible for us to see businesses recover unless and until we get these numbers down. That will mean there is a significant imposte. It may be that there will be further support that is needed for businesses and workers. Mr Andrews called the figures rather disturbing but said he did not yet have plans to increase punishments for positive cases who leave home without good reason. Professor Sutton added that nine days after masks became compulsory, their effect appeared promising but was not yet fully clear. Fifty-three people were fined for not wearing a mask on Thursday. Meanwhile, the first witnesses to give evidence at the inquiry into Victoria's hotel quarantine program were confirmed on Friday. Director of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at Austin Health Professor Lindsay Grayson, Director of the Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory at The Doherty Institute Professor Ben Howden and Dr Charles Alpren, epidemiolost from the Department of Health and Human Services, will all give evidence on Thursday. UL Hospitals group say that while they are exploring ways to allow visitors to its hospitals, for now it remains necessary to keep the ban in place to ensure the safety of everyone in our care and our staff. At the moment there is a visitor ban for all hospitals, barring exceptional circumstances. The statement came after a Limerick mother, currently expecting twins strongly criticised the ban imposed in the Maternity Hospital, Limerick compared to other facilities around the county. Over the last few weeks certain maternity hospitals have eased restrictions due to the decreasing reproduction rate of the virus. Many pregnant women had voiced their concerns in the last number of weeks regarding the restrictions and how they were still the same as they were in April, says Laura Walsh, a post primary teacher, from Ballyneety. Pregnant women and their partners were frustrated that the rest of the country was slowly starting to ease restrictions but maternity hospitals showed no sign of doing so. Fortunately for many pregnant women in Dublin and elsewhere certain maternity hospitals have looked at the current situation over the last few weeks and have made adjustments or lifted restrictions that were in place at the height of the pandemic., she added. She said that the Rotunda now allow a designated visitor to visit inpatients for two hours a day, fathers are allowed visit their child if they are in NICU, and now expectant women are allowed to bring their partners to their 20 week anomaly scan. This, she maintains is in stark contrast to the University Maternity Hospital Limerick which has eased none of the restrictions that were initially implemented. If you are a pregnant woman attending the maternity hospital in Limerick you are allowed no visitors if you are an inpatient (obviously the majority of women don't want a barrage of visitors but to have your husband or partner visit is important). It is also heartbreaking for partners that they can't visit their newborn babies. If a woman has a cesarean section then she could potentially spend five nights in hospital and that means the father doesn't get to see his wife or child for five days in what is such a special and monumental time . In Limerick Maternity Hospital women don't even get the 20 week anomaly scan that all women in the Rotunda and in many other maternity hospitals get (and as of now their partners can attend). This is shocking and as Vicky Phelan mentioned on the Late Late Show it's another massive flaw in our health system and it means all pregnant women who access public maternity care are not afforded the same care or treated the same. However that's another matter for another day, she claimed. If the restrictions were the same across the board in all maternity hospitals I and many other pregnant women would be much more accepting of them but there is a blatant difference. I can't comprehend how there is such a significant difference between Limerick maternity and the Rotunda especially if you consider the significantly lower amount of Covid cases in Limerick in comparison to Dublin. A spokesperson for UL Hospitals Group said they acknowledge the impact that the visiting ban has on women attending University Maternity Hospital Limerick (UMHL) and their partners, and the inconvenience and anxiety that it has caused for them at what should be the most joyous and celebratory time in their lives. In common with most other maternity units in the country, our initial decision to introduce the visitor ban at UMHL and subsequent decisions to retain it have not been taken lightly. While we respect the needs of each and every mother, mum-to-be and infant in our care, and their loved ones, we must prioritise the safety of all our patients and staff, and do everything we can to ensure our hospitals are protected from the ever-present threat of the coronavirus and COVID-19, the statement read. It went on: We understand the difficulties that mothers and their partners have experienced since the visiting ban was introduced in early March. We have listened carefully to their feedback on all aspects of our service, and we look forward to eventually relaxing the current visiting restrictions in line with the recommendations of the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET), our HSE colleagues and our own expert staff. The spokesperson said that at Group level they have commenced work on exploring how visiting at all its hospitals can be safely resumed, and this is kept under constant review, but for now, it remains necessary to keep the ban in place to ensure the safety of everyone in our care and our staff. The move marks yet another escalation of tensions between Washington and Beijing. The United States Treasury Department on Friday imposed sanctions on a Chinese government entity and two officials related to it for alleged human rights abuses against Uighurs and other ethnic minority people in Chinas Xinjiang province. The move marks yet another escalation of tensions between Washington and Beijing and came a week after US President Donald Trump closed the Chinese consulate in Houston, prompting China to shutter the US consulate in Chengdu. Fridays move saw the US Treasury blacklist the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, also known as XPCC, along with Sun Jinlong, former party secretary of the XPCC, and Peng Jiarui, deputy party secretary and commander of the XPCC. The entity and officials are being designated for their connection to serious human rights abuse against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, which reportedly include mass arbitrary detention and severe physical abuse, among other serious abuses targeting Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim population indigenous to Xinjiang, and other ethnic minorities in the region, said a statement on the Treasury website. The XPCC is a paramilitary organization in the XUAR that is subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Treasury statement continued. The XPCC enhances internal control over the region by advancing Chinas vision of economic development in XUAR that emphasizes subordination to central planning and resource extraction. Washingtons action freezes any US assets of the company and officials and generally prohibits Americans from dealing with them. The Treasury also issued a license on Friday, authorising certain wind-down and divestment transactions and activities related to blocked subsidiaries of the XPCC until September 30. The Trump administrations latest salvo against Beijing is happening three weeks after Washington imposed sanctions on the autonomous region of Xinjiangs Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, a member of Chinas powerful Politburo, and three other officials. Chen was described as the highest-ranking Chinese official the US has sanctioned. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps is a quasi-military group. Created in 1954, it was initially made up of demobilised soldiers who spent part of their time in military training and the rest turning the regions arid land into farms. Civilian members from eastern China later joined the corps, and it now numbers 3.11 million people, or more than 12 percent of the regions population. It is almost entirely made up of Han Chinese in a region that is home to the Muslim Uighur people. Experts have said the group is like a state within a state and has established new cities in the region with schools and universities and jurisdiction over police and courts. China denies that Uighurs are unfairly marginalised, and says it is addressing underdevelopment and lack of jobs in Uighur areas. Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that employees would not be returning to office work until 2021, joining other large tech companies' plans for a work-from-home future. Weve kicked the time period that U.S. employees would come back until early next year. To go beyond that, it would depend on the success with a vaccine, success with therapeutics, Cook told Bloomberg TV. Sad news ... As I've said before, I write this column almost two weeks in advance of publication so I just learned of the death of Congressman John Lewis yesterday. What a great loss! I had so much respect for him, starting back in the days when he and Martin Luther King marched together. He was always a well-spoken, likeable young man fighting for a good cause. Rest in peace, Congressman Lewis. You will never be forgotten. Things you need to know ... I'm referring to Israel, 10 things you need to know about Israel. The Jewish people are indigenous to Israel - the birthplace of their la... Advertisement Bill Clinton strolled into the darkness with two girls while staying on pedophile Jeffrey Epsteins private Caribbean island, according to papers released by a judge. The accusation comes from Virginia Roberts, one of Epsteins prime accusers and was hidden in a book proposal she had written, that was among the huge number of documents released late Thursday night. Roberts had previously said the 42nd president had been on Little St. James, the island where much of Epsteins debauchery took place. Clinton denies ever being there. Despite the notorious womanizers friendship with Epstein, no-one has ever before publicly accused Clinton of misbehaving with any of the young women that surrounded Epstein. Robertss claim comes in just two single lines in her proposal for a book to be called The Billionaires Playboy Club, when she describes how she was on the island with Epstein and his alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell. Jeffrey wanted his evening massage [...] leaving our guest of honor to find company elsewhere, Roberts writes. Strolling into the darkness with two beautiful girls around either arm, Bill seemed content to retire for the evening. Roberts says the women were two lovely girls who were visiting from New York, but does not identify them. She said they sat next to the former president at dinner. Bills wife, Hillarys absence from the night made it easy for his apparent provocative cheeky side to come out, Roberts wrote. Teasing the girls on either side of him with playful pokes and brassy comments, there was no modesty between any of them. Clinton stayed in a villa on the billionaire pedophile's private Caribbean island because he owed him 'a favor', Roberts told investigators in the newly unsealed documents. In nine-year-old testimony that was only made public for the first time on Thursday, Roberts said Clinton visited the private Caribbean island of Little Saint James some time after his presidency ended in 2001. Roberts told investigators that she, Epstein's ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell and two other 'young girls' from New York were also on the island at the time. When Roberts, who now goes by the name Guiffre, asked Epstein what Clinton was doing on the island, she claims he laughed and said: 'He owes me a favor.' 'He never told me what favors they were. I never knew. I didn't know if he was serious. It was just a joke,' she said. The former president has repeatedly denied ever visiting Epstein's island in the Caribbean. He has also always maintained he knew nothing of Epstein's abuse of young girls. His spokesman said on Friday that Clinton has 'never been to Little St. James Island'. He added: 'He'd not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade. Well before his terrible crimes came to light. Bill Clinton visited Jeffrey Epstein's private island with 'two young girls from New York' and stayed in the billionaire's private villa, Virginia Roberts claimed in newly-unsealed testimony Roberts gave the testimony to lawyers back in 2011, which was used as evidence during a 2015 defamation case that she brought against Epstein's alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell, who gave hours of her own testimony to investigators, eventually settled the case out of court in 2017. Roberts had claimed in the lawsuit and other litigation that Maxwell recruited her in 2000 to be a sexual servant to Epstein. She said the couple subsequently pressured her into having sex with numerous rich or notable men, including Prince Andrew, US politicians, wealthy entrepreneurs, a famous scientist and fashion designer. Roberts (pictured during an interview last year) said Epstein told her that Clinton was visiting because 'he owes me a favor' Maxwell, and all of the accused men, have denied those allegations for years. Maxwell's lawyers have long fought to keep the documents under seal, claiming they could harm the reputations of high-profile people. The seal was partially lifted by a judge on Thursday following Maxwell's arrest on sex crimes charges and perjury earlier this month. In the documents, Roberts made six references to Clinton when she was being interviewed by investigators in April 2011. She recalled asking Epstein at the time what the former president was doing there on his private island. 'You know, I remember asking Jeffrey what's Bill Clinton doing here king of thing, and he laughed it off and said well he owes me a favor. He never told me what favors they were. I never knew. I didn't know if he was serious. It was just a joke,' she said. 'He told me a long time ago that everyone owes him favors. They're all in each other's pockets.' When asked where Clinton was, Roberts told the investigators: 'On the island.' She claimed that Maxwell and two 'young girls' from New York were also on the island when Clinton visited with Epstein. When investigators asked if all of them were staying on the island 'including Bill Clinton', Roberts replied: 'That's correct. He had about 4 or 5 different villas on his island separate from the main house and we all stayed in the villas. Bill Clinton and Ghislaine Maxwell were once pictured together on billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's private plane back in the early 2000s. The former president has repeatedly denied ever visiting Epstein's island in the Caribbean The nine-year-old testimony was revealed in a tranche of court documents that were unsealed today after Epstein's alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell (pictured together) was arrested In the documents, Roberts made six references to Clinton when she was being interviewed by investigators in April 2011 In addition to Clinton, Roberts claimed in the unsealed testimony that she also recalled seeing former Vice President Al Gore, Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum on Epstein's private jet named 'Lolita Express' Roberts said sexual orgies were a regular occurrence on the island at Epstein's house. In addition to Clinton, Roberts claimed in the unsealed testimony that she also recalled seeing former Vice President Al Gore, Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum on Epstein's private jet named 'Lolita Express'. 'Just about anybody would fly on his plane. There was never any set routine who would come and would go. It was an influx of people on Jeffrey's airplane,' she said. Roberts claimed that orgies were a 'constant' feature of life on the pedophile's island and they also took place on the plane. 'There would be sexual conduct, there would be foreplay, there was a bed in there, so we could basically reenact exactly what was happening in the house,' she said. 'It would start off with massaging or we would start off with foreplay, sometimes it would lead to, you know, orgies.' A former employee on Epstein's island told a Netflix documentary earlier this year that he also saw Clinton around during trips with the pedophile. Clinton has denied ever visiting Epstein's Caribbean island but has admitted flying in Epstein's private jet on four occasions. Steve Scully, a 70-year-old former worker on the island, claims he saw Clinton sitting with the pedophile in the porch of the island's villa. 'This was a lie the first time it was told, and it isn't true today, no matter how many times it's repeated,' Clinton's spokesman said at the time. Following Epstein's arrest in 2019, the spokesman also said the former president had only taken four trips on the jet. 'He's not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein's ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida,' the spokesman said. Roberts claimed orgies were a 'constant' feature of life on Little St James Island, but also took place on Epstein's plane - which had a bed fitted into it Maxwell was among the guests at former first daughter Chelsea Clinton's wedding in July 2010 in upstate New York Naomi Campbell (left), Heidi Klum (right) and Vice President Al Gore were also guests on Epstein's plane, the Lolita Express, Roberts alleges Did Ghislaine lie about ending relationship with Epstein? Photo shows Maxwell receiving package with pedophile's name in 2015 By Martin Gould for DailyMail.com DailyMail.com has uncovered a never-before-seen photo that could prove Ghislaine Maxwell is lying about ending her friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Lawyers for the socialite-turned-alleged-madam insist that Maxwell had nothing to do with Epstein for at least the last 11 years of his life. But DailyMail.com has exclusively uncovered a photograph of a mysterious box labeled 'Mr. Jeffrey Epstein' being delivered to her apartment just over five years ago. DailyMail.com has exclusively uncovered a photograph of a mysterious box labeled 'Mr. Jeffrey Epstein' being delivered to her apartment in January 2015 The picture, unseen until now, was taken on January 6, 2015 as a DHL delivery truck was unloading parcels at Maxwell's Manhattan townhouse, just seven city blocks from the huge home where Epstein lived and abused dozens of young girls. In court earlier this month, lawyers for Maxwell insisted she had no contact with the convicted child molester 'for more than a decade' after he was released from his initial prison sentence in 2008. They filed papers that unsuccessfully said she should be allowed $5 million bail while she awaits trial on charges relating to the procurement of young girls for Epstein and perjury. They wanted her to stay in a luxury hotel, be subject to GPS monitoring and said she would surrender her three passports, one British, one American and one French. 'On August 10, 2019, Epstein died in federal custody, and the media focus quickly shifted to our client wrongly trying to substitute her for Epstein even though she'd had no contact with Epstein for more than a decade,' her attorneys, Mark Cohen and Jeffrey Pagliuca, wrote to the court. The attorneys did not respond to questions about the photo. Advertisement 'You have done nothing wrong and I'd urge you to start acting like it': Newly unsealed court documents reveal Ghislaine Maxwell emailed Jeffrey Epstein five years after she claimed they last spoke Also included in the newly unsealed court documents were email exchanges in which Epstein told Maxwell she had 'done nothing wrong' and to 'start acting like it' after she was sued by Roberts in 2015. The email exchange between the pair was from January 2015, in which Epstein advised her to carry on normally and insisted she had nothing to worry about. 'You have done nothing wrong and i woudl [sic] urge you to start acting like it,' the billionaire pedophile wrote. 'go outside, head high, not as an esacping [sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it', he added. The email was in response to a message Maxwell had sent the previous day saying she 'would appreciate it if shelley would come out and say she was your g'friend.' 'I think she was from end 99 to 2002,' she wrote. Shelley's identity is unclear, however the time frame mentioned by Maxwell appears to correspond with abuse allegations made by one of Epstein's accusers. 'Ok with me,' Epstein replied. The email exchange also appears to confirm Maxwell lied in her bid for bail, during which she claimed she hadn't spoken to Epstein in over a decade. Days earlier, Epstein had emailed Maxwell what appeared to be a court statement proclaiming her innocence, which read as if it was written by her. 'Since JE was charged in 2007 for solicitation of a prostitute I have been the target of outright lies, innuendo, slander, defamation and salacious gossip and harrassment; headlines made up of quotes I have never given, statement I have never made,' it reads. 'I have never been a party in any criminal action pertaining to JE.' The statement also claimed Maxwell had been in a 'very long-term committed relationship to another man' at the time of Epstein's conviction. 'Whilst I remained on friendly terms with him up until his plea, I have had limited contact since,' it continues. Ghislaine Maxwell had 'continuous' orgies with girls as young as 15 on pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's Caribbean island, newly-unsealed documents claim Also contained within the documents is a deposition that Roberts gave to investigators in which she accused Maxwell of having orgies with 15-year-old girls. Roberts told investigators that girls were routinely flown in via private jet to participate in sex sessions that happened all over the island. Asked to describe women she personally saw Maxwell have sexual contact with, she responded: 'There's so many, I don't know where you want me to start.' 'There were blondes, there were brunettes, there were redheads. They were all beautiful girls. I would say the ages ranged between 15 and 21,' she added. She alleged she saw Maxwell participating in sex sessions with them by a pool, near the beachfront, in small huts and in Epstein's cabana. At one point, Roberts was asked to describe a specific time she saw Maxwell engage in sex acts, or orgies, with girls by the pool. 'There was quite a few girls and it was, excuse me if I'm saying this in an in explicit way, but I don't know how else to say it... girl on girl action. So there was a lot of - what's the word for it? Licking, licking vaginas, breasts. Fingers being used. She was involved with that. 'I remember specifically... I had to go down on Ghislaine. Jeffrey was there as well. We're still by the pool with lots of girls.' She said the girls, who she described as 'beautiful, tall, some were blonde, some were sandy brown', did not speak English and spoke in a European language that Roberts guessed was Russian or Czech. Roberts also described one occasion that she said 'stands out' in which 'models were - I think they were models - were flown in. There were orgies held outside by the pool.' It is not clear if this is a separate time to when she claimed to have performed a sex act on Maxwell. Roberts named two women in the deposition that she allegedly saw Maxwell have sex with in front of her. When asked if she knew the names of any other girl that she personally saw Maxwell having sex with, Roberts said: 'There's just a blur of so many girls... A lot of these girls would come and go and you'd never see them again.' Court papers pertaining to a 2015 deposition civil defamation case against Maxwell included a January 2015 email Epstein sent to Maxwell insisting she had 'done nothing wrong' A separate email exchange from days earlier showed Epstein emailed Maxwell what appeared to be a court statement proclaiming her innocence, but was written from her point of view Describing the sex session, she added: 'Ghislaine, myself, Jeffrey, another girl in this blue, outdoor I don't know what you want to call it. Cabana, that just a bed could fit in.' Roberts also alleges that during the deposition that she was trafficked to Europe to have sex with powerful men, including Britain's Prince Andrew and attorney Alan Dershowitz. She said Maxwell and Epstein constantly reminded her of how powerful their friends were, so that she wouldn't betray them. 'Jeffrey did a lot more of that than she did. But she definitely made it aware that we shouldn't cross boundaries with them,' she said. Describing her first meeting with Epstein, she said: 'For the first hour, it was actually a real massage, maybe not an hour, maybe like 40 minutes or something. 'That's when he turned over on the other side to expose himself fully. 'So then Ghislaine told me that she wanted me to undress and began to take off my shirt and skirt, my white uniform from Mar-A-Lago, she also took off her shirt and got undressed, and so I was there with just my undies on, and she was completely bare... 'During all of this I'm like: 'What's going on, how do I act, what do I say.' I was so afraid of, not afraid or fearful for my life, but unsure of how all this started and wanting to obtain a profession, I was so afraid thinking about upsetting and disappointing them... 'I was expected to lick [Epstein's] nipples, instructed on how to do so by [Epstein] and give him oral sex while he wanted to fondle me, and then at the end, I was told by Ghislaine to get on top and straddle Jeffrey sexually... 'When we were done, we went and had a shower in the room and Jeffrey told me to wash him up and down...' Also included in the newly unsealed court documents were email exchanges in which Epstein told Maxwell she had 'done nothing wrong' and to 'start acting like it' after she was sued by Roberts in 2015. Roberts is pictured above in August 2019 during an Epstein hearing in New York Virginia Roberts Giuffre shared a photo of her new brunette locks on Monday and revealed that she is about to undergo surgery on her neck. She tweeted on Thursday: 'Today is the day I find out if I get a steel rod down my spine or they do a 3D version of a new spine' Alan Dershowitz says his 'greatest hope' is that he was caught on Epstein's secret cameras to prove he did NOT have any sexual relationships with minors, as unsealed docs allege By Ben Ashford for DailyMail.com Attorney Alan Dershowitz says his 'greatest hope' is that he was caught on Epstein's secret cameras because the footage will confirm he had no sexual encounter with minors or 'erotic' massages at the warped financier's mansion, he told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview Friday. The newly released tranche of documents in the Virginia Roberts defamation case against Maxwell allege that Epstein forced a minor - 'Jane Doe 3', believed to be Roberts, - to have sexual relations with Dershowitz. Epstein is believed to have rigged up clandestine devices to film prominent figures receiving sex acts at his various homes to use as 'insurance policies' against anyone who tried to take down his teen trafficking empire. Celebrity attorney and professor Alan Dershowitz was accused by Virginia Roberts in unsealed documents of having sexual relationships with minors DailyMail.com revealed last month that the tapes were allegedly squirreled away by the dead billionaire's alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, and could feature in evidence when she goes to trial next year accused of pimping underage girls. But while the prospect of having intimate footage aired in public has horrified both victims and alleged accomplices alike, Dershowitz has told DailyMail.com he will be thrilled to see himself in the secret clips. 'My greatest hope is that is that Maxwell has videotapes of every sexual encounter that ever took place because it would show I was not involved in any of them,' he said in an exclusive interview Friday. 'I've said from day one that there were no photographs of me because I never did anything wrong. I never did anything that would be worthy of being videoed - but I hope there are videos. 'It would show my wife and me getting massages from middle-aged professional massage therapists.' The Harvard law professor was back in the Epstein crosshairs Friday after his name appeared in a tranche of newly unsealed documents revisiting accusations that he had sex with 'Jane Doe 3', who is identified elsewhere as his longtime accuser Virginia Giuffre, formerly Roberts. The documents allege that Epstein required 'Jane Doe 3' to have sex with Dershowitz 'on numerous occasions when she was a minor, not only in Florida but on private planes, in New York, New Mexico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The docs also claim that Dershowitz was an eyewitness to the sexual abuse of many other minors by Epstein. Dershowitz told DailyMail.com the allegations that date back to 2014 were 'old news' and he has denied them numerous times. Dershowitz said he had previously admitted having a perfectly innocent massage at Epstein's Palm Beach mansion, where the dead predator attacked many of his underage victims and took secret photos of the abuse. 'We were guests and everybody got massages,' insisted the famed 81-year-old lawyer, who was on President Trumps defense team in his Senate impeachment trial. 'When you went into Epstein's house, the first thing they offered you was to have a massage therapist come to your room and give you a massage. 'I did it once. And my massage therapist was a middle aged woman from Eastern Europe. I had never had a quote erotic massage in my life, period.' Dershowitz, one of the attorneys who secured a much-criticized plea deal more than a decade ago in Florida, has called Roberts a 'complete, total liar' in her allegations against Epstein Prince Andrew put pressure on the US government to give Jeffrey Epstein a plea deal which saw the pedophile jailed for only 18 months in 2008, unsealed documents claim Elsewhere in the unsealed documents are claims Prince Andrew lobbied the US government to help get a sweetheart plea-deal for his pedophile friend Epstein that saw him jailed for just 18 months in 2008. The allegation is contained within a motion by lawyers for two anonymous Epstein accusers who were trying to get hold of documents which they claim showed Andrew's lobbying efforts. The trove of documents were publicly released hours after a district judge denied her last ditch attempt to keep them sealed. Maxwell is currently in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges as well as perjury, relating a deposition she gave under oath in the 2015 defamation suit Lawyers for the pair, Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, wrote: '(They are) seeking documents regarding Epsteins lobbying efforts to persuade the government to give him a favorable plea arrangement, including efforts on his behalf by Prince Andrew and former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. 'They have alleged these materials are needed to prove their allegations that, after Epstein signed the non-prosecution agreement his performance was delayed while he used his significant social and political connections to lobby the justice department to obtain a more favorable plea deal.' The newly-released documents also contain a transcript of a deposition given by Roberts, Epstein's main accuser, where she also speaks about the prince's involvement in Epstein's activities. Asked by lawyers in 2011 and 2016 whether Andrew would have 'relevant information' in the case, she answered: 'Yes, he would know a lot of the truth. 'I don't know how much he'd be able to help you with, but seeing as he's in a lot of trouble himself these days I think he might, so I think he might be valuable.' Roberts separately claims she had sex with Prince Andrew on three occasions, including once in a Caribbean jurisdiction where she was underage, after being trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell. She was pictured alongside Andrew in Maxwell's London townhouse in 2001, hours after she claims she first met Andrew in Tramp nightclub in Mayfair. Roberts claims the pair also had sex that evening - an act that made her feel so dirty and ashamed that she showered straight afterwards. Prince Andrew lobbied the US government to get a favorable plea deal for pedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein which saw him jailed for just 13 months in 2009, the new documents allege. Roberts was pictured alongside Andrew in Maxwell's London townhouse in 2001, hours after she claims she first met Andrew in Tramp nightclub in Mayfair Prince Andrew drives himself out of Windsor Castle in his Bentley on Thursday, just hours before the first trove of documents were released Andrew, a close friend of both Epstein and Maxwell, has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. Prince Andrew is also facing pressure to speak to the FBI to aid their investigation into Epstein and his inner circle, including Maxwell. US Attorney General Bill Barr said earlier this year that Andrew must speak to the FBI and his team 'definitely' want to interview him. He said: 'The department wants to talk to Prince Andrew. That's why the Southern District has been making efforts to communicate with him. We've made it clear that we'd like to communicate with him'. A source close to Prince Andrew previously told DailyMail.com that he was 'bewildered' by the ongoing claims that he wasn't cooperating, and says his team tried to reach prosecutors several times. Andrew's legal team claim they have been 'ghosted' by US prosecutors, despite repeated offers of help in the case. Maxwell is currently in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges as well as perjury, relating a deposition she gave under oath in the 2015 defamation suit. On Thursday, Maxwell filed an emergency motion with the federal appeals court in Manhattan to block the release of that deposition, along with one other document. Lawyers for Maxwell said making her deposition public could make it 'difficult if not impossible' to find an impartial jury for her criminal trial. The two depositions and materials that quote from or disclose information contained in them were expected to remain sealed at least until Monday, depending on how the appeals court rules. Materials covered by the July 23 order included flight logs from Epstein's private jets; and police reports from Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home, among other documents. Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls from 1994 to 1997, and committing perjury by denying her involvement under oath. She was arrested on July 2, and has been housed in a Brooklyn jail after a judge called her a flight risk. Maxwell's trial is scheduled for next July. Epstein was found hanged at age 66 last August in a Manhattan jail, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges for abusing women and girls in Manhattan and Florida from 2002 to 2005. He had also pleaded not guilty. Viral: This Animated video released in 2020 looks exactly the sequence of PM security breach MHA showcauses Bathinda SSP, 5 other officers over 'major lapses in security' during PM's visit NIA nominates IGF to assist RG of HC in PMs security breach case As polls near, ISI-Khalistan combo looks to worsen situation in Punjab 21 die after drinking spurious liquor in Punjab, CM orders magisterial probe India pti-PTI Chandigarh, July 31: Twenty-one people have died in Punjab's three districts allegedly after drinking spurious liquor, prompting Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to order a magisterial probe, officials said on Friday. The deaths took place in Punjabs Amritsar, Batala and Tarn Taran districts since Wednesday night, an official statement said. Nine died in Andhra Pradesh after consuming sanitiser as liquor shops remained closed India extends ban on International flights till August 31st | Oneindia News Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta said the first five fatalities were reported from Mucchal and Tangra villages in Amritsars Tarsikka on July 29 night. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has ordered a magisterial inquiry by the Divisional Commissioner, Jalandhar, into the deaths of 21 people allegedly due to the consumption of spurious liquor, the official statement said. Beijing says US stoking new Cold War on China ahead of presidential election Iran Press TV Thursday, 30 July 2020 3:15 PM China says the United States is triggering a new Cold War as a number of American politicians are looking for a scapegoat to rally further support for President Donald Trump ahead of the US presidential election in November. China and the US are at loggerheads over a host of issues, including a new security law introduced in Hong Kong, the origins and handling of the COVID-19 contagious disease, Taiwan and the disputed South China Sea. Washington and Beijing have also been engaged in an unprecedented trade war resulting in sanctions and counter-sanctions. They have also exchanged harsh words for the past several months. Trump considers China as the West's main rival, accusing Chinese President Xi Jinping of taking over trade and not telling the truth about the COVID-19 pandemic, which apparently originated in a Chinese city late last year. The American president has even called the new respiratory disease the "China plague", angering the Chinese government. Beijing, in response, has fiercely defended its handling of the new coronavirus, repeatedly saying it "has been nothing but open, transparent and responsible" about the pandemic. On Thursday, China's ambassador to London, Liu Xiaoming, said Washington had commenced a trade war with China, which it would not win. "It is not China that has become assertive. It's the other side of the Pacific Ocean who want to start new Cold War on China, so we have to make response to that," he said in a press conference, stressing that Beijing was not interested in any kind of war, let alone a cold one. "We have all seen what is happening in the United States, they tried to scapegoat China, they want to blame China for their problems," Liu said, adding, "We all know this is an election year." The Chinese ambassador to London did not mention the incumbent US president or Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden by name, but he noted that some American politicians were doing and saying anything to become the winner of the upcoming elections. "They want to do anything including treating China as an enemy," Liu further said. "Probably they think they need an enemy, they think they want a Cold War but we have no interest, we keep telling America, China is not your enemy, China is your friend, your partner," the envoy added. Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Washington sought to build a global coalition to counter China as he claimed that Beijing was exploiting the current pandemic to further its own interests. However, when Liu was asked whether Sino-US ties had deteriorated beyond repair, he said he did not think that the two sides had "passed the point of no return." China warns US against stoking troubles in South China Sea Also on Thursday, Ren Guoqiang, spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, said at a press conference in Beijing that the United States must stop stirring up troubles in the South China Sea. According to Reuters, the Chinese defense ministry official said the country will resolutely safeguard its sovereignty and security and maintain stability in the South China Sea. Ren slammed a statement issued by the U.S. Department of State earlier in July, which accused China of seeking "maritime empire" in the South China Sea and "destabilizing the region" with its drills on the Xisha Islands. "We firmly oppose this statement of the United States. The US side disregards the historical context and objective facts of the South China Sea issue, flagrantly violating its commitment of not taking a position on the sovereignty issue of the South China Sea, making groundless accusations against China, sowing discord among countries in the region and dispatching two aircraft carriers for military exercise in the South China Sea." Ren added that the US behavior has fully exposed the hegemonic mindset and double standards of Washington, adding, "The U.S. regards itself as the so-called 'arbiter' of the South China Sea issue, but actually it is a trouble-maker to disturb peace in the South China Sea, a saboteur of regional cooperation and a provocateur of country-to-country relations." "China has indisputable sovereignty over the islands and reefs in the South China Sea and their adjacent waters, which is based on sufficient historical and jurisprudential evidence... We urge the United States to stop making erroneous remarks, taking provocative military actions in the South China Sea and sowing discord among countries in the region." Ren further noted, "The US move to stir up troubles in the South China Sea will only make China be all the more determined to ride the waves, safeguard its sovereignty and security more resolutely, and safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea more firmly." London has poisoned China-UK relations: Beijing Elsewhere in his comments on Thursday, the Chinese ambassador to Britain blamed London for worsening bilateral relations after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed a 5G ban on the Chinese tech giant Huawei. Washington accuses Huawei of helping Beijing spy on communications from the countries that use its products and services - a charge both the company and the Chinese government reject. Earlier this month, however, the British premier announced the UK government's decision to ban Huawei's 5G network in Britain. Shortly afterwards, Trump claimed he was responsible for the decision. The Chinese envoy also said the provocative actions of the British government, including questions over alleged rights abuses in China's Xinjiang region and interfering in Hong Kong's affairs, had "poisoned" Beijing-London ties. Lieu also warned the UK of "decoupling from the future" if it tried to distance itself from China. Without mentioning by name, the Chinese envoy denounced some British politicians for "clinging" to the idea of a Cold War with China. Lieu also blamed those politicians for characterizing Beijing as a hostile threat, suggesting that London was being coerced by Washington. Earlier, the Chinese government warned the UK of "consequences" after it suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in protest at the new security legislation in the city. China has repeatedly told Western powers to stop meddling in Hong Kong's affairs. Last month, Hong Kong's legislature debated and passed a Beijing-proposed bill, criminalizing sedition, secession and subversion against the mainland. Critics from some Western governments, particularly the US and the UK, claim that the law threatens the semi-autonomous region's autonomy and civil liberties. Beijing, however, insists that the new law does not pose a threat to Hong Kong's autonomy and the interests of foreign investors, noting that it is merely meant to prevent terrorism and foreign interference following violent riots last year. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address San Clemente Island, viewed from a shuttle aircraft that regularly flies military and civilian personnel to the U.S. Navy-owned land mass. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) The search continued late Friday for eight service members who went missing following a deadly accident during a training exercise off San Clemente Island, officials said. But the amphibious assault vehicle is under hundreds of feet of water, putting it beyond the reach of divers and complicating rescue efforts for eight missing troops. Lt. Gen. Joseph L. Osterman, the commanding general of the Marine Expeditionary Force, said during an afternoon media briefing that the vehicle, which weighs 26 tons, "sank completely" more than 3,200 feet offshore and "the assumption is it went all the way to the bottom." "The AAV is actually in several hundred feet of water it's really below the depth that a diver can go to," he said. The incident occurred when the vehicle carrying 15 Marines and one Navy sailor began taking on water about 5:45 p.m. Thursday, according to the Marine Corps. One Marine was taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and later died. Two others were injured and remain hospitalized but are no longer in intensive care. Five other service members were rescued. The Marines, with support from the Navy and Coast Guard, were still searching for the missing service members late Friday afternoon. "We have not moved into recovery operations," Osterman said. "Were still looking for them." The Marine Corps commandant, Gen. David H. Berger, said that even though the search was continuing, the focus now should be on the troops and their families. He added that he was suspending waterborne operations of all of the more than 800 amphibious assault vehicles across the Marines until the cause of the accident is determined. He said the move was out of an abundance of caution. The name of the Marine who died will be withheld until 24 hours after notification of next of kin, officials said, and "all family members who are affected will be contacted directly by their Marines chain of command." Story continues 1 Marine has died, 8 service members remain missing and 2 were injured after an AAV mishap July 30 off the coast of Southern California. All are assigned to the 15th MEU. Search and rescue efforts are still underway with support from the Navy and Coast Guard. I MEF (@1stMEF) July 31, 2020 All the Marines involved were assigned to the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is based out of Camp Pendleton. We are deeply saddened by this tragic incident. I ask that you keep our Marines, sailors and their families in your prayers as we continue our search, Col. Christopher J. Bronzi, 15th MEU Commanding Officer, said in a statement. The incident is under investigation, according to the Marines. It occurred during what officials called a "15th MEU and Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group routine training exercise in the vicinity of San Clemente Island" a Navy-owned land mass about 70 miles off the San Diego County coast. They had just completed a routine training exercise and were heading back to the Navy ship with a dozen other amphibious assault vehicles, Osterman said. Troops on board two other amphibious assault vehicles responded quickly but could not stop the vehicle from sinking, Osterman said. It's a very tragic situation, Osterman said. The vessels John Finn, Somerset and San Diego, three Navy MH-60 helicopters, the Coast Guard Cutter Forrest Rednour and a Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter are all assisting in the search, according to the Marines. The Navy and Coast Guard were discussing ways to reach the sunken vehicle to get a view inside it, Osterman said. This isn't the first time Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton have been wounded or killed while training with amphibious assault vehicles, which are armored troop transports that carry small units from ship to shore. In 2017, 15 Marines were injured when an amphibious assault vehicle caught fire during a training exercise. Another Marine, Sgt. Wesley Rice, drowned inside an amphibious assault vehicle in 2011 after it sank in a boat basin on base. Known as Amtracs or hogs, the vehicles weigh at least 48,000 pounds. Upon leaving a ship, the vehicle, which resembles a tank, will drop below the surface of the water before popping back up. They can move about 8 mph at sea and up to 46 mph on land. The current version of the vehicle is almost 50 years old, though it has been modernized through the years. A replacement, the $15-billion Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, was canceled in 2011 due to budget constraints. San Diego Union-Tribune staff writers Andrew Dyer and Phil Diehl and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Siemens Gamesa, a global leader in the wind power industry, has announced three key appointments to its leadership team, with Beatriz Puente joining as Chief Financial Officer, while Lars Bondo Krogsgaard and Juan Gutierrez are appointed as CEOs of the Onshore and Service business units respectively. Puente will join Siemens Gamesa on December 1 from NH Hotels where she has served as Executive Managing Director Finance & Administration since 2015. Prior to that Puente spent more than two years as CFO of Aena, the airport group which she prepared for a successful IPO in 2015. A Spanish national, she will be based in Madrid. Thomas Spannring will continue as interim CFO until Puente joins Siemens Gamesa. Krogsgaard has enjoyed a distinguished 18-year career in the wind industry, during which he spent periods as CEO of Nordex Acciona and co-CEO of MHI Vestas. Earlier in his career, Krogsgaard spent more than four years with Siemens Wind Power, where he served as CEO for the EMEA region. Krogsgaard, who is Danish, will join Siemens Gamesa on November 1 and will be based in the companys Bilbao headquarters. Alfonso Faubel, the current CEO of Onshore is to leave Siemens Gamesa, and Andreas Nauen will take direct control of the Business Unit until November. Gutierrez is to take over as CEO of the Service Business Unit, replacing Mark Albenze who will be retiring after almost 28 years with Siemens Gamesa and Siemens AG. Gutierrez has been working in the energy industry with Siemens companies since 2005, with the last 12 years in the wind sector. He has experienced many roles in the Americas region including Senior Vice President of Latin America at Siemens Wind Power and most recently CEO of Service for the Americas region in Siemens Gamesa. A Colombian national, Gutierrez, will be based in Orlando, Florida and will assume his new role from August 15. Welcoming the appointments, CEO Andreas Nauen said: "I am very pleased that we have been able to appoint three very talented and experienced executives into the team, and also that with these appointments we can diversify the leadership of the company." We are currently engaged in a turnaround process that aims to deliver long-term sustainable growth and profitability to Siemens Gamesa and we need a strong management team to drive that. Each of these individuals brings a different skillset and expertise that will not only help them to manage their functions but also lead the company, stated Nauen. "Id like to thank Thomas for his continued important work in his interim roles and Mark and Alfonso for their substantial contributions to the company. Mark has played a critical role in building a very successful and profitable Service business unit and has been a great colleague over the years," he noted. I thank him for everything he has done for Siemens Gamesa and wish him a happy and healthy retirement, said Nauen. Alfonso joined Onshore at a very difficult time for the business and I thank him for the energy and commitment he has brought to his role. He has begun a turnaround which we are committed to completing and I wish him well for the future, he added.-TradeArabia News Service VANCOUVERTarah Samuels was setting up camp on the northern lip of the large B.C. archipelago known as the edge of the world when a nurse came to deliver the news that brought her efforts to a crashing halt. She and other Haida matriarchs had been setting up to protest travel to the islands a fight they believed would keep the coronavirus at bay. But the virus had already arrived. Days later, the province would announce the news they had been hoping for: Travel to Haida Gwaii was banned. Were a collectivist society, Haida people. We survive by being together, Samuels said. Unfortunately, COVID-19 safety flips who we are upside down. Last weekend, Samuels and a group of Haida matriarchs had been camping at Naden Harbour in a demonstration to visitors at nearby fishing lodges, one of the many tourist attractions that bring hundreds of people to Haida Gwaii each summer, that the locals did not want visitors during the pandemic. It was one in a series of efforts by the Council of Haida Nation and local residents that began in March to implore the public not to come to Haida Gwaii, since the province refused to officially ban travel there. The efforts to keep visitors out, which the council maintained were in the best interests of protecting the region even though they went beyond what was required by public health orders, created tension with local tourism operators who wanted to resume their businesses. The outbreak identified last Friday has resulted in 20 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Haida Gwaii, with 13 active as of Thursday, and all of them isolating at home. Public health officials said all the cases identified on Haida Gwaii could be connected to local residents who travelled off the island. Due to the closeness of the communities on Haida Gwaii, and the fact that its separated from mainland B.C. by a ferry ride, the fear since the pandemic began has been that, if the virus arrived on Haida Gwaii, it would be impossible to contain. Everybody knew that if it gets to Haida Gwaii, it will spread fast, said Kyle Marshall, volunteer fire chief who works for the archipelagos Emergency Operations Centre. The goal was to keep it from having landfall in Haida Gwaii. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has said shes encouraged by the fact that none of the cases in the region so far have an unexplained origin so its still possible to contain the outbreak through contact tracing and isolation. As part of the containment strategy, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth on Thursday announced a ban on non-resident travel to Haida Gwaii, except for the transport of essential supplies, which he is able to order under the provinces state of emergency. The Council of the Haida Nation welcomed the order, which it said aligns B.C. with the local efforts already underway on Haida Gwaii to protect residents from the virus. Haida Gwaii is an island archipelago north of Vancouver island, which has been home to the Haida people for thousands of years. Now, Haida people make up about half the regions population, and its diverse rainforest-dwelling creatures, rugged landscapes, centuries-old First Nations cultural sites and meandering coastlines draw thousands of visitors each year. Though the initial goal was to keep the virus away entirely, now Haida leaders say theyre focusing efforts on wiping it out. The order will be a reset button for our local governments on Haida Gwaii to commit to working together to free us from this virus as soon as possible, Billy Yovanovich, chief councillor of the Skidegate Band, said in a statement. Jean-Paul Soucy, a University of Toronto researcher who has been tracking the spread of the coronavirus in Canada, said that although remote regions such as Haida Gwaii may have a natural advantage at containing the virus because of a limited population size, they also have unique challenges when it comes to contact tracing. The fact is people need to know how to talk to whoever theyre trying to contact trace and that means they need to have local support, Soucy said. In remote, Indigenous communities, the capacity to scale up contact tracing may be lower. Its all the more critical to shut those trains of transmission down quickly, because if it takes too long, you end up with more people infected, he said. Samuels, who has joined the islands coronavirus response to help with communications, said the top priority has been communicating the importance of socializing only within small family bubbles even though that goes against the Haida culture to celebrate, grieve and be together. Samuels, who lives in Old Masset in the northern area of Haida Gwaii, said public meetings bringing four generations of people together are a mainstay of her community and its especially hard for the elders who have done this for decades to wrap their heads around meeting over Zoom instead of in person. Covid-19 isnt stopping us; it definitely threw a curve ball, but I feel like we can adapt from it, she said. Being Haida, were asked to think outside ourselves. Its really hard to think about just my family. Even though Samuels felt shocked and sad when she found out about the outbreak and dismantled camp at Naden Harbour to return home, she said she now feels hopeful again. The silver lining in my family is that we can connect more, she said, thinking about how shes spending more time with her son, and teaching her mom how to use Zoom. For me its not a loss having COVID here. The win is going to be how we respond to it. Read more about: It is important to note that [Bollings show] America This Week is a political talk show that aims to bring together a diverse set of viewpoints and that the views of the guests and the host are their own, and not Sinclairs, said Michael Padovano, a company spokesman. We are always looking for interesting topics and guests, and some guests come with views that are not popular. As it relates to the segment featuring Dr. Mikovits we reviewed it further and determined it to be inappropriate to air. Following the arrest of the Chief of Kafaba, five more suspects on the police wanted list have been arrested in connection with the lynching of the 90-year-old woman at Kafaba in the East Gonja municipality of the Savannah Region on the accusation that she was a witch. The police have charged the suspects Haruna Aness, 34, Issufa Tanko 35, Shaibu Muntala 29, Sulemana Ali, 35, and Issifa Zakyibo, 32 with conspiracy to commit murder and were currently being processed for court. According to the Director of the Police Public Affairs, Superintendent Mrs Shiela Abayie-Buckman, the five voluntarily turned themselves in to the Regional Police Command at Damongo Wednesday. Suspects detained She said they were then arrested and detained after their statements had been taken, adding that they would be put before court after investigations were completed. Mrs Abayie-Buckman reiterated the appeal by the police to members of the public, especially those who lived in Kafaba and its environs, to provide any information that would lead to the arrest of all suspects in the murder of the 90-year-old woman. Buy a Pick Up Madam Akua Denteh was pounded mercilessly by her attackers at Kafaba on Thursday, July 23, this year on the accusation that she was witch. First arrest The Chief of Kafaba, Kafabawura Seidu Yahaya, was arrested last Tuesday by the Savannah Regional Police Command in connection with the lynching of the woman. The police said although the chief was to be arraigned Wednesday, they now preferred to merge the charges of all the six suspects and put them before court together. The police said they were hotly pursuing the remaining suspects, including the traditional priest, Hajia Filina, who declared the deceased old lady a witch, and one Sanjo, the man who hosted Hajia. Thirteen people were declared wanted in connection with the murder. The suspects are believed to have fled the town soon after the incident and have since not returned. Homicide. The arrest of the chief and the five others follows the sending of homicide experts from the Police Headquarters in Accra to the Savannah Region on the orders of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr James Oppong- Boanuh, to arrest the perpetrators of the heinous crime. The IGP also announced a GH2,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest of any of the suspects. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo last Monday condemned the lynching of Madam Denteh, describing it as barbaric and unfortunate. The President called on the police to look for the perpetrators and bring them to book, adding that never again should such a dastardly act happen in the country. Foundation The Savannah Regional Minister, Mr Salifu Adam Braimah, has also announced that the Regional Coordinating Council (SRCC) had set up a foundation in memory of the late Madam Denteh. This is to say clearly to the world that never again should such a thing happen in the history of the newly created Savannah Region, he stated. "It is comforting that this unfortunate situation has attracted the attention of the First Lady, Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, who has already sent a delegation to Kafaba to comfort the family of the late Madam Denteh, he said. Source: Graphic.com.gh 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 Actor and Tamil Nadu Congress spokesperson Khushbu Sundar has categorically refuted all speculation about her joining the BJP after she welcomed the New Education Policy 2020. Her view was contrary to the party's official stance on the policy. Khushbu had tweeted: "#NewEducationPolicy2020 A welcome move." Congress' state unit had hit out at her for airing her views in the open, saying it was "indiscipline" and that the grand old party was ready to discuss "any controversial" matters in its forums. In a tweet she had said: "Sanghis can relax, pls do not rejoice. I am not moving to BJP. My opinion might be different from my party but I am an individual with a thinking mind of my own. Yes, #NEP2020 is flayed n flawed at some places, but I still feel we can look at the change with a positivity." "There are positives and negatives. The new policy to impact reservation, minorities and adivasis. The negative points can be sorted out," Khushbu said. "There is no need for me to put out the negatives and positives in detail," she added. Questioned about the party's stand on the NEP and her views Khushbu said: "I had expressed my personal views. I am like that. When I oppose, do that strongly." "I prefer to see the positive aspects n sit n work on the negative ones. We have to offer a solution to the problems n not just raise voices. Opposition also means to work for the country's future. I would like to take a leaf out of #Atal ji's life n #UPA where we have worked. "Politics is not only about making noises, its also about working together. And @BJP4India @PMOIndia has to understand this. We as opposition, will look into it in detail n point out the flaws, its the GOI who has to take everyone in confidence n work on the flaws. #NEP2020," Khushbu had tweeted. "My stand on #NEP2020 differs from my party n I apologize to @RahulGandhi ji for that, but I rather speak the fact than be a head nodding robot or a puppet. Everything cannot be about agreeing to ur leader, but about being courages to voice ur opinion bravely as a citizen. "Any bill or draft, you will have different opinions, n me someone who fiercely believes in democracy, think it is fine to have differences of opinions. My country is built by all kinds of people, all religious beliefs, non believers, every party, each of those divided by reservation," Khushbu said. According to Khushbu, as a patriotic citizen she prefers to see and look at every challenge thrown as an opportunity to do better. "Being in opposition, it is our duty to point out the goof ups, but it is also equally important to learn to accept the good in the bad and give solutions to down side paras," Khushbu said. Pointing out the sad state of affairs in village schools Khushbu said why is there no protest against that and the long distances that village kids have to walk to attend school. Former HRD minister and senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor had welcomed the NEP, but feared it may make education unaffordable for the poor as it showcases a tendency towards "centralisation, high aspiration and low feasibility" with an assumption that the challenge will be met by the private sector. Tharoor had also said that the NEP glosses over the desperate need for qualified and trained teachers in schools, of whom there is a critical shortage. Placing the burden of pre-primary education on over- stretched, under-funded and under-equipped anganwadis is "disastrous", he had said. Potentially thousands of emails sent to a sexual assault reporting unit over at least two years may never be able to be retrieved, with WA Police now pleading for anyone affected by their tech bungle to come forward again. Loading This week WAToday revealed victims who attempted to report a sexual crime to police between at least February 2016 and March 2018 via email were sending highly sensitive reports to an incorrect address not monitored by police. After the reports, WA Police apologised to the sexual assault victim who raised the email issue in 2018, but was at the time dismissed although the email address was quietly corrected. During an interview on 6PR's Perth Live on Friday, Assistant Commissioner Brad Royce revealed the number of legitimate sexual assault cases that came via email was in the order of dozens. Long Lake, N.Y. A 36,000-acre tract of lakes and forest in the Adirondacks is on the market for $180 million. The tract known as Whitney Park was owned by Saratoga Springs philanthropist and thoroughbred racing owner Marylou Whitney, who died last year. Her widower, John Hendrickson, told the Wall Street Journal he plans to sell the estate, which includes the great camp Deerlands on Little Forked Lake near Long Lake. Environmental groups have urged the state to acquire the land and add it to the permanently protected Forest Preserve. Whitney Park has been at the top of the land protection priority list of New York state for the last 50 years, said Peter Bauer, executive director of Protect the Adirondacks. The intact forests and beauty and sheer number of lakes and ponds set this property apart from all others. In 1997, the state purchased another 14,700 acres of Whitney family holdings for $17.1 million to create the William C. Whitney Wilderness Area, which is popular with canoe campers. A Department of Environmental Conservation spokesperson said Thursday that the agency will work with the family if they reach out with any interest of selling to the state. Nokia Corporation Half year report July 31, 2020 at 08:00 (CET +1) Nokia Corporation Financial Report for Q2 and Half Year 2020 Continued improved execution drives strong margin and cash performance Strong margin expansion, primarily driven by Mobile Access Clear roadmap progress, particularly related to our 5G mid-band portfolio Confidence in resilient customer base and strong liquidity position 11% decrease in net sales, largely driven by COVID-19 and China Strong growth in Nokia Enterprise Positive operating profit, on a reported basis, in both Q2 and half year 2020 Within previously provided Outlook ranges for full year 2020, adjusted the non-IFRS mid-points for EPS to EUR 0.25 and operating margin to 9.5% Delivered strong free cash flow year-to-date and raised 2020 recurring free cash flow guidance to be clearly positive This is a summary of the Nokia Corporation financial report for Q2 and half year 2020 published today. The complete financial report for Q2 and half year 2020 with tables is available at www.nokia.com/financials . Investors should not rely on summaries of our financial reports only, but should review the complete financial reports with tables. RAJEEV SURI, PRESIDENT AND CEO, ON Q2 2020 RESULTS Nokia delivered a strong improvement in Q2, with better-than-expected profitability, significant improvement in cash generation, clear indications of a return to strength in mobile radio, and a year-on-year increase in earnings-per-share, despite the challenges of COVID-19. These results show that our execution has improved as planned and that we are well positioned to end the year with a significantly stronger financial position. As a result, we are adjusting upward both the midpoint of our full-year 2020 non-IFRS EPS and operating margin guidance within our previously disclosed outlook ranges. Profitability gains in the quarter were supported by a 4.5 percentage point year-on-year improvement in Networks gross margin, building on a 3.5 percentage point gain in the first quarter, and driving Nokia non-IFRS gross margin to 39.6%. Nokia Enterprise also grew year-on-year constant currency sales by 18% compared to one year ago and expanded margins. Story continues Nokia-level revenue was down in the quarter, with the majority of that the result of COVID-19 as well as a sharp decline in China based on the prudent approach we have taken in that market. We also saw a reduction driven by our proactive steps to reduce the volume of low margin services business. We expect that the majority of sales missed in the quarter due to COVID-19 will shift to future periods. At the start of the year, we said we would have a sharp focus on our Mobile Access business and improving cash generation. In both areas we continue to make good progress. Free cash flow in the quarter was positive 265 million, versus negative 1.0 billion one year ago, and Nokia ended Q2 with 1.6 billion of net cash, and 7.5 billion in total cash. Given our strong first-half improvement, we now expect free cash flow for full-year 2020 to be clearly positive compared to our earlier guidance of positive. In Mobile Access, we saw healthy improvements in our radio portfolio, where roadmaps are strengthening, costs are coming down, and product performance is rising. We have a particularly powerful portfolio in mid-band mobile radio, with proven products deployed with 55 customers, and the first live C-Band network demonstrated in the U.S. during the quarter. Pleasingly, our 5G Powered by ReefShark shipments continue to increase and we believe we remain on track to reach 35% or better by year end. And, we now have 83 5G deals. Our continued momentum was demonstrated by the progress we announced after the quarter ended. These included the availability of a software upgrade that allows millions of Nokia 4G/LTE radios deployed to more than 350 customers to be migrated seamlessly to 5G; and plans to accelerate leadership in Open RAN. Nokia is the only global supplier fully committed to O-RAN with commercial 5G Cloud-RAN networks. We also announced an expansion of our IP routing business into the data center market and highlighted that Apple was deploying our technology at its data centers. This is my last quarterly announcement as CEO of Nokia and I want to close with a note of thanks: thanks to our shareholders, thanks to our customers, thanks to our many other stakeholders, and a particular thanks to the great employees of Nokia. You have constantly made me proud and I expect that you will continue to do so in the many years to come. Thank you all. It has been a pleasure and an honor. NOKIA FINANCIAL RESULTS EUR million (except for EPS in EUR) Q2'20 Q2'19 YoY change Constant currency YoY change Q1-Q2'20 Q1-Q2'19 YoY change Constant currency YoY change Net sales 5 092 5 694 (11)% (11)% 10 005 10 726 (7)% (7)% Networks 3 955 4 393 (10)% (10)% 7 713 8 336 (7)% (8)% Nokia Software 597 678 (12)% (12)% 1 210 1 221 (1)% (1)% Nokia Technologies 341 383 (11)% (11)% 689 753 (8)% (9)% Group Common and Other 210 263 (20)% (21)% 415 484 (14)% (15)% Non-IFRS exclusions (1) (2) (1) (27) Eliminations (11) (21) (20) (41) Gross profit 2 006 2 065 (3)% 3 784 3 646 4% Operating profit/(loss) 170 (57) 94 (581) Networks 249 119 109% 169 (135) Nokia Software 88 137 (36)% 159 130 22% Nokia Technologies 282 324 (13)% 572 626 (9)% Group Common and Other (197) (129) (361) (230) Non-IFRS exclusions (253) (508) (445) (972) Operating margin % 3.3% (1.0)% 430bps 0.9% (5.4)% 630bps Net sales (non-IFRS) 5 093 5 696 (11)% (11)% 10 007 10 753 (7)% (7)% Gross profit (non-IFRS) 2 017 2 117 (5)% 3 804 3 758 1% Operating profit/(loss) (non-IFRS) 423 451 (6)% 539 391 38% Operating margin % (non-IFRS) 8.3% 7.9% 40bps 5.4% 3.6% 180bps Financial income and expenses (11) (173) (94)% (61) (228) (73)% Income taxes (80) 46 (51) 188 Profit/(loss) for the period 85 (191) (16) (632) EPS, diluted 0.01 (0.03) 0.00 (0.11) Financial income and expenses (non-IFRS) (27) (86) (69)% (93) (178) (48)% Income taxes (non-IFRS) (87) (101) (14)% (100) (60) 67% Profit/(loss) for the period (non-IFRS) 316 258 22% 348 142 145% EPS, diluted (non-IFRS) 0.06 0.05 20% 0.06 0.02 200% The financial information in this report is unaudited. Non-IFRS results exclude costs related to the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent and related integration, goodwill impairment charges, intangible asset amortization and other purchase price fair value adjustments, restructuring and associated charges and certain other items that may not be indicative of Nokia's underlying business performance. For details, please refer to note 2, "Non-IFRS to reported reconciliation", in the notes to the Financial statement information included in Nokia Corporation interim report for Q2 and Half Year 2020. Change in net sales at constant currency excludes the effect of changes in exchange rates in comparison to euro, our reporting currency. For more information on currency exposures, please refer to note 1, Basis of Preparation, in the "Financial statement information" section included in Nokia Corporation interim report for Q2 and Half Year 2020. Both non-IFRS and reported net sales in Q2 2020 were EUR 5.1bn, compared to EUR 5.7bn in Q2 2019. On a constant currency basis, both non-IFRS and reported net sales decreased 11%. Excluding one-time licensing net sales in Q2 2020 and Q2 2019, net sales decreased 10% on both a non-IFRS and reported basis. Q2 2020 net sales were impacted by COVID-19 and unique dynamics in China. In Q2 2020, we estimate that COVID-19 had an approximately EUR 300 million negative net impact on our net sales; with the majority of these net sales expected to be shifted to future periods, rather than being lost. In Q2 2020, Nokias gross and operating margin both expanded year-on-year, primarily driven by broad based strength in Networks, particularly in Mobile Access, with IP Routing and Fixed Access also contributing positively. In addition, reported operating margin benefitted significantly from lower amortization of acquired intangible assets, as well as lower restructuring and associated charges. Non-IFRS gross margin was 39.6% (reported 39.4%) and non-IFRS operating margin was 8.3% (reported 3.3%). Non-IFRS diluted EPS in Q2 2020 was EUR 0.06, compared to EUR 0.05 in Q2 2019, primarily driven by higher gross profit in Mobile Access within Networks, continued progress related to our cost savings program and a net positive fluctuation in financial income and expenses. This was partially offset by higher investments in 5G R&D to accelerate our product roadmaps and cost competitiveness in Mobile Access and a net negative fluctuation in Nokias venture fund investments. Reported diluted EPS in the first six months of 2020 was EUR 0.00, compared to negative EUR 0.11 in the first six months of 2019. The change was primarily driven by lower amortization of acquired intangible assets, lower restructuring and associated charges, continued progress related to our cost savings program, a net positive fluctuation in financial income and expenses and higher gross profit, partially offset by higher investments in 5G R&D to accelerate our product roadmaps and cost competitiveness in Mobile Access and a net negative fluctuation in Nokias venture fund investments. Q2 2020 was the fourth quarter in a row of solid cash performance. Since establishing a program in 2019 to focus on free cash flow, we have made great progress driving sustainable operational improvements, particularly in net working capital management. During Q2 2020, net cash increased by approximately EUR 0.2 billion, resulting in an end-of-quarter net cash balance of approximately EUR 1.6 billion. During Q2 2020, total cash increased by approximately EUR 1.2 billion, primarily driven by the successful issuance of EUR 1.0 billion of debt, resulting in an end-of-quarter total cash balance of approximately EUR 7.5 billion. COVID-19 The COVID-19 crisis has made vividly clear the critical importance of connectivity to keep society functioning. We believe we have a resilient customer base, and we feel a sense of duty to our customers and the communities they serve. We believe the impact of COVID-19 on Nokias financial performance and financial position was primarily related to a net sales impact of approximately EUR 500 million in the first half of 2020, with the majority of these net sales expected to be shifted to future periods, rather than being lost. In Q1 2020, the estimated COVID-19 impact was approximately EUR 200 million, and related primarily to supply chain disruptions. In Q2 2020, the estimated COVID-19 net impact was approximately EUR 300 million, composed of a negative impact of approximately EUR 400 million related to delivery and implementation challenges, partially offset by a positive impact of approximately EUR 100 million related to capturing a part of the negative net sales impact from Q1 2020. To a much lesser extent, COVID-19 also affected our operational costs (for example, lower travel), capital expenditures (temporary delays), cash outflows related to taxes (tax relief), and net working capital (for example, lower inventories due to temporary disruptions). In addition, and in accordance with our prudent management of our capital structure, we took further proactive steps to strengthen our liquidity position by raising EUR 1.0 billion of debt in Q2 2020, on a net basis. As a result, we ended Q2 2020 with approximately EUR 7.5 billion of total cash. Potential risks and uncertainties continue to exist related to the scope and duration of the COVID-19 impact and the pace and shape of the economic recovery following the pandemic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have continued to advance our 5G roadmap and product evolution, as planned, and our COVID-19 mitigation actions in R&D have been very successful. We believe we remain on track with our plans to drive progressive improvement over the course of 2020. Health and safety Naturally, Nokias first focus during the COVID-19 crisis is to our employees. We have in place strict protocols for Nokia facilities and provided clear advice to our employees about how they can mitigate the risks of COVID-19 in situations where they have to go about critical work. We took already early on a range of steps, including banning international travel for Nokia employees, except for strictly-defined critical reasons; closing all our facilities to all visitors, with the exception of people engaged in essential maintenance and services, and asking our staff to work from home wherever possible. We started implementing these measures in some regions in January already and have updated guidance as the situation has developed. As the overwhelming majority of Nokia employees continue working remotely, we are providing guidance on how staff can maintain a healthy work-life balance and look after their physical and mental well-being. Supporting the essential services our customers provide The products and services that we provide have never been more critical in enabling the world to continue to function in an orderly way. We continue to work closely with all our customers, to ensure that the changing needs and requirements at this time are well understood and that we respond appropriately to them. In Q2 2020, connectivity continued to bring together people isolated from each other by the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote working and schooling, robust delivery of basic services and smart deliveries are just some examples that have been enabled by connectivity solutions. We announced new deals that bring connectivity to the most rural areas of, for example, California and Ireland, making sure small businesses, farms and schools are connected. Nokia has a global manufacturing footprint designed for optimized global supply, and to mitigate against risks such as local disruptive events, transportation capacity problems, and political risks. Our supply network consists of 25 factories around the globe and six hubs for customer fulfillment. As a result, we are not dependent on one location or entity. We have also established a global command center to manage the supply chain challenges arising from the outbreak; and we are ready to activate relevant business continuity plans should the situation in any part of our organization require this. Impact on asset valuations COVID-19 has affected the valuations of certain assets, including investments in non-publicly quoted assets through Nokias venture fund investments and pension plans, the valuation of which is inherently challenging in fast-moving market conditions (for details, please refer to note 5, Pensions and other post-employment benefits and note 8, Fair value of financial instruments in the "Financial statement information" section included in Nokia Corporation interim report for Q2 and Half Year 2020). In relation to its financial statements as of June 30, 2020, Nokia has considered also the indicators of impairment of goodwill and other intangible assets, recoverability of deferred tax assets, valuation of inventories, and collectability of trade receivables and contract assets. Based on these assessments, COVID-19 is currently not expected to have such long-term effects on Nokias financial performance that it would require adjustments to the carrying amounts of goodwill and other intangible assets or deferred tax assets. Also, Nokia has not identified any significant increase in the amount of bad debt or need to adjust the valuation of inventories. Doing our part to fight the pandemic We also feel another sense of duty to the societies where Nokia operates. As a global company, we have a duty to be part of the global fight against this pandemic. Therefore, Nokia has launched a Coronavirus Global Donation Fund. In Q2 2020, we engaged with local organizations such as hospitals, community groups and NGOs in nearly 50 countries, helping them fight the pandemic and mitigate its impacts. These actions demonstrate our strong commitment to supporting global efforts to end the pandemic and overcoming the disruption and challenges we currently face. OUTLOOK Full Year 2020 Non-IFRS diluted earnings per share EUR 0.25 ( adjusted from EUR 0.23) plus or minus 5 cents Non-IFRS operating margin 9.5% ( adjusted from 9.0%) plus or minus 1.5 percentage points Recurring free cash flow1 Clearly positive ( This is an update from positive) Long term (3 to 5 years) Non-IFRS operating margin 12 14% Annual distribution to shareholders An earnings-based growing dividend of approximately 40% to 70% of non-IFRS diluted EPS, taking into account Nokias cash position and expected cash flow generation. The annual distribution would be paid as quarterly dividends. 1 Free cash flow = net cash from/(used in) operating activities - capital expenditures + proceeds from sale of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets purchase of non-current financial investments + proceeds from sale of non-current financial investments. KEY DRIVERS OF NOKIAS OUTLOOK Networks and Nokia Software are expected to be influenced by factors including: Our expectation that we will slightly underperform our primary addressable market, which is expected to be flattish on a constant currency basis in full year 2020, excluding China ( This is an update to our earlier commentary to perform in-line with our primary addressable market, which is expected to decline on a constant currency basis in full year 2020, excluding China). Our updated expectation is primarily due to lower network deployment services within Mobile Access and a slightly improved market outlook, given the lower than expected market impact from COVID-19 in Q2 2020; Our expectation for operating profit seasonality in 2020 to be similar to 2019, with the majority of operating profit to be generated in the fourth quarter. Due to our strong free cash flow performance in the first six months of 2020, we no longer expect our free cash flow seasonality in 2020 to be similar to 2019. ( This is an update to earlier commentary for both operating profit and free cash flow seasonality in 2020 to be similar to 2019); Potential risks and uncertainties related to the scope and duration of the COVID-19 impact and the pace and shape of the economic recovery following the pandemic; Competitive intensity, which is particularly impacting Mobile Access and is expected to continue at a high level in full year 2020, as some competitors seek to take share in the early stage of 5G; Our expectation that we will accelerate our product roadmaps and cost competitiveness through additional 5G investments in 2020, thereby enabling us to drive product cost reductions and maintain the necessary scale to be competitive; Our expectation that we will drive improvements in automation and productivity through additional digitalization investments in 2020; Customer demand could weaken and risk could increase further in India, after the countrys Supreme Court upheld a ruling that telecoms companies must pay retroactive license and spectrum fees; Opportunities and risks in North America following the completion of a merger, and, more broadly, the potential for temporary capital expenditure constraints due to potential mergers or acquisitions by our customers; The timing of completions and acceptances of certain projects; Some customers are reassessing their vendors in light of security concerns, creating near-term pressure to invest in order to secure long-term benefits; Our expectation that we will improve our R&D productivity and reduce support function costs through the successful execution of our cost savings program, which is explained in more detail in the Cost savings program section of Nokia Corporation interim report for Q2 and half year 2020; Our product and regional mix, including the impact of the high cost level associated with our first generation 5G products; and Macroeconomic, industry and competitive dynamics. Nokia Technologies is expected to be influenced by factors including: The timing and value of new and existing patent licensing agreements with smartphone vendors, automotive companies and consumer electronics companies; Results in brand and technology licensing; Costs to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights; and The regulatory landscape. Additionally, our outlook is based on the following assumptions: Nokias outlook for recurring free cash flow is expected to be supported by an improvement in net working capital performance and improved operational results, partially offset by a more substantial difference in 2020 between profit and free cash flow in Nokia Technologies; Non-IFRS financial income and expenses are expected to be an expense of approximately EUR 300 million in full year 2020 and over the longer-term. ( This is an update to earlier commentary for an expense of EUR 350 million in full year 2020 and per annum over the longer-term). Our updated commentary is primarily due to our expectation for lower costs related to the sale of receivables and improved FX results; Non-IFRS income taxes are expected at a rate of approximately 26% in full year 2020 and approximately 25% over the longer-term, subject to the absolute level of profits, regional profit mix and changes to our operating model; Cash outflows related to income taxes are expected to be approximately EUR 400 million in full year 2020 and approximately EUR 450 million per annum over the longer term until our US or Finnish deferred tax assets are fully utilized ( This is an update to earlier commentary for EUR 450 million in full year 2020.) Our updated commentary is primarily due to our expectation for lower cash taxes in 2020, driven by COVID-19-related tax relief; and Capital expenditures are expected to be approximately EUR 550 million in full year 2020 and approximately EUR 600 million per annum over the longer-term. ( This is an update to earlier commentary for EUR 600 million in full year 2020.) Our updated commentary is primarily due to temporary delays related to COVID-19. ANALYST CONFERENCE CALL Nokia's analyst conference call will begin on July 31, 2020 at 3 p.m. Finnish time. A link to the webcast of the conference call will be available at www.nokia.com/financials . Media representatives can listen in via the link, or call +1-412-717-9224. Media Inquiries: Nokia Communications Tel. +358 10 448 4900 Email: press.services@nokia.com Katja Antila, Head of Media Relations Investor Inquiries: Nokia Investor Relations Tel. +358 40 803 4080 Email: investor.relations@nokia.com About Nokia We create the technology to connect the world. Only Nokia offers a comprehensive portfolio of network equipment, software, services and licensing opportunities across the globe. With our commitment to innovation, driven by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs, we are a leader in the development and deployment of 5G networks. Our communications service provider customers support more than 6.4 billion subscriptions with our radio networks, and our enterprise customers have deployed over 1,300 industrial networks worldwide. Adhering to the highest ethical standards, we transform how people live, work and communicate. For our latest updates, please visit us online www.nokia.com and follow us on Twitter @nokia. RISKS AND FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS It should be noted that Nokia and its businesses are exposed to various risks and uncertainties and certain statements herein that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect Nokia's current expectations and views of future developments and include statements regarding: A) expectations, plans or benefits related to our strategies, growth management and operational key performance indicators; B) expectations, plans or benefits related to future performance of our businesses (including the expected impact and timing of that impact of COVID-19 on our businesses and our customers businesses) and any expected future dividends including timing and qualitative and quantitative thresholds associated therewith; C) expectations and targets regarding financial performance, cash generation, results, the timing of receivables, operating expenses, taxes, currency exchange rates, hedging, cost savings, product cost reductions and competitiveness, as well as results of operations including targeted synergies, better commercial management and those results related to market share, prices, net sales, income and margins; D) expectations, plans or benefits related to changes in organizational and operational structure; E) expectations regarding competition within our market, market developments, general economic conditions and structural and legal change globally and in national and regional markets, such as China; F) our ability to integrate acquired businesses into our operations and achieve the targeted business plans and benefits, including targeted benefits, synergies, cost savings and efficiencies; G) expectations, plans or benefits related to any future collaboration or to business collaboration agreements or patent license agreements or arbitration awards, including income to be received under any collaboration or partnership, agreement or award; H) timing of the deliveries of our products and services, including our short term and longer term expectations around the rollout of 5G, investment requirements with such rollout, and our ability to capitalize on such rollout; as well as the overall readiness of the 5G ecosystem; I) expectations and targets regarding collaboration and partnering arrangements, joint ventures or the creation of joint ventures, and the related administrative, legal, regulatory and other conditions, as well as our expected customer reach; J) outcome of pending and threatened litigation, arbitration, disputes, regulatory proceedings or investigations by authorities; K) expectations regarding restructurings, investments, capital structure optimization efforts, uses of proceeds from transactions, acquisitions and divestments and our ability to achieve the financial and operational targets set in connection with any such restructurings, investments, capital structure optimization efforts, divestments and acquisitions, including our current cost savings program; L) expectations, plans or benefits related to future capital expenditures, reduction of support function costs, temporary incremental expenditures or other R&D expenditures to develop or rollout software and other new products, including 5G and increased digitalization; M) expectations regarding our customers' future actions, including our customers capital expenditure constraints and our ability to satisfy customers needs and retain their business; and N) statements preceded by or including believe, expect, expectations, consistent, deliver, maintain, strengthen, target, estimate, plan, intend, assumption, focus, continue, should", "will or similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, which could cause our actual results to differ materially from such statements. These statements are based on managements best assumptions and beliefs in light of the information currently available to them. These forward-looking statements are only predictions based upon our current expectations and views of future events and developments and are subject to risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. Factors, including risks and uncertainties that could cause these differences include, but are not limited to: 1) our strategy is subject to various risks and uncertainties and we may be unable to successfully implement our strategic plans, sustain or improve the operational and financial performance of our business groups, correctly identify or successfully pursue business opportunities or otherwise grow our business; 2) general economic and market conditions, general public health conditions (including its impact on our supply chains) and other developments in the economies where we operate, including the timeline for the deployment of 5G and our ability to successfully capitalize on that deployment ; 3) competition and our ability to effectively and profitably invest in existing and new high-quality products, services, upgrades and technologies and bring them to market in a timely manner; 4) our dependence on the development of the industries in which we operate, including the cyclicality and variability of the information technology and telecommunications industries and our own R&D capabilities and investments; 5) our dependence on a limited number of customers and large multi-year agreements, as well as external events impacting our customers including mergers and acquisitions and the possibility of our customers awarding business to our competitors; 6) our ability to maintain our existing sources of intellectual property-related revenue through our intellectual property, including through licensing, establishing new sources of revenue and protecting our intellectual property from infringement; 7) our ability to manage and improve our financial and operating performance, cost savings, competitiveness and synergies generally, expectations and timing around our ability to recognize any net sales and our ability to implement changes to our organizational and operational structure efficiently; 8) our global business and exposure to regulatory, political or other developments in various countries or regions, including emerging markets and the associated risks in relation to tax matters and exchange controls, among others; 9) our ability to achieve the anticipated benefits, synergies, cost savings and efficiencies of acquisitions; 10) exchange rate fluctuations, as well as hedging activities; 11) our ability to successfully realize the expectations, plans or benefits related to any future collaboration or business collaboration agreements and patent license agreements or arbitration awards, including income to be received under any collaboration, partnership, agreement or arbitration award; 12) Nokia Technologies' ability to protect its IPR and to maintain and establish new sources of patent, brand and technology licensing income and IPR-related revenues, particularly in the smartphone market, which may not materialize as planned, 13) our dependence on IPR technologies, including those that we have developed and those that are licensed to us, and the risk of associated IPR-related legal claims, licensing costs and restrictions on use; 14) our exposure to direct and indirect regulation, including economic or trade policies, and the reliability of our governance, internal controls and compliance processes to prevent regulatory penalties in our business or in our joint ventures; 15) our reliance on third-party solutions for data storage and service distribution, which expose us to risks relating to security, regulation and cybersecurity breaches; 16) inefficiencies, breaches, malfunctions or disruptions of information technology systems, or our customers security concerns; 17) our exposure to various legal frameworks regulating corruption, fraud, trade policies, and other risk areas, and the possibility of proceedings or investigations that result in fines, penalties or sanctions; 18) adverse developments with respect to customer financing or extended payment terms we provide to customers; 19) the potential complex tax issues, tax disputes and tax obligations we may face in various jurisdictions, including the risk of obligations to pay additional taxes; 20) our actual or anticipated performance, among other factors, which could reduce our ability to utilize deferred tax assets; 21) our ability to retain, motivate, develop and recruit appropriately skilled employees; 22) disruptions to our manufacturing, service creation, delivery, logistics and supply chain processes, and the risks related to our geographically-concentrated production sites; 23) the impact of litigation, arbitration, agreement-related disputes or product liability allegations associated with our business; 24) our ability to re-establish investment grade rating or maintain our credit ratings; 25) our ability to achieve targeted benefits from, or successfully implement planned transactions, as well as the liabilities related thereto; 26) our involvement in joint ventures and jointly-managed companies; 27) the carrying amount of our goodwill may not be recoverable; 28) uncertainty related to the amount of dividends and equity return we are able to distribute to shareholders for each financial period; 29) pension costs, employee fund-related costs, and healthcare costs; 30) our ability to successfully complete and capitalize on our order backlogs and continue converting our sales pipeline into net sales; 31) risks related to undersea infrastructure; and 32) the impact of the COVID-19 virus on the global economy and financial markets as well as our customers, supply chain, product development, service delivery, other operations and our financial, tax, pension and other assets, as well as the risk factors specified in our 2019 annual report on Form 20-F published on March 5, 2020 under "Operating and financial review and prospects-Risk factors" as supplemented by the form 6-K published on April 30, 2020 under the header Risk Factors and in our other filings or documents furnished with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Other unknown or unpredictable factors or underlying assumptions subsequently proven to be incorrect could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. We do not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent legally required. Attachment President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the 2020 presidential election should be delayed. Earlier, the president said the "biggest risk" to his re-election prospects in November is increased mail-in voting and whether he can win lawsuits to stop its expansion. Now, Trump rows back on the idea of postponing the election, as per USA Today. However, the president still raises doubts on the expansion of mail-in voting systems in some states as another way to respond to the coronavirus. The president tweeted that he does not want to see a date change, but he pointed that what he doesn't want to happen is to see a crooked election. On Thursday, Trump told reporters at the White House that he wanted to have an election, but he does not want to wait for three months to find out that the ballots are missing and the election will be worthless. Trump reiterated the possible problems with mail-in ballots. He noted that such problems with they system are arriving late for mail-in ballots and could take weeks, months, or even years to sort the results. "Do I want to see a date change? No, but I don't want to see a crooked election," the president said. Trump garnered different feedback from his tweet regarding the idea of delaying the presidential election. The bipartisan ridiculed the idea of the postponement over the concerns about voting during the pandemic, including the unproven assumption that mail-in ballots would result in election fraud. With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 Meanwhile, the Congressional Republicans rejected the idea and the Democrats accused Trump of attempting to sow doubts on the election because it doesn't go the way he wants it to go. Though Trump rows back, he did not foreclose if he will continue pushing for a delay in voting. However, the idea given by the president still needs approval from Congress. Trump has simultaneously slammed the effort to expand mail-in voting. "What will happen in November - it's a mess," the president said. "I want a result much, much more than you...I don't want to be waiting around for weeks and months." Meanwhile, Trump called on lawmakers to approve the extension of unemployment benefits. The Republicans embraced the idea on Capitol Hill, but it met resistance from Democrats. The two parties are struggling negotiating another round of stimulus to address the harmful effects the pandemic caused in the economy. "We want a temporary extension of expanded unemployment benefits," Trump said. "This will provide a critical bridge for Americans who lost their jobs to the pandemic through no fault of their own," he added. Check these out: New Study Claims The Taller You Are, The Higher Risk of Getting COVID-19 Vanessa Guillen's Family to Meet With Trump Over Sex Misconduct Bill Second Stimulus Qualification: Will You Qualify for the HEALS Act? Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 12:07:40|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close SHANGHAI, July 31 (Xinhua) -- China plans to launch a real-name authentication system for online games before September to prevent gaming addiction among teenagers. Feng Shixin, an official with the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, told a forum of the ChinaJoy Expo Thursday in Shanghai that gaming companies will be asked to join the system after its launch. China has been working to build a national real-name authentication system in a response to growing concerns about teenagers' addiction and overconsumption in online games, the official said. China is the world's largest online game market. Statistics show that the market size hit 231 billion yuan (about 32.6 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018, and is expected to reach 300 billion yuan in 2020, and 321.7 billion yuan in 2021. Enditem Bhubaneswar, July 31 : The tally of Covid-19 positive cases has gone up to 31,877 in Odisha with the detection of as many as 1,499 cases in the last 24 hours, informed the health department on Friday. The number of Covid deaths rose to 177 with eight more fatalities in the last 24 hours. While four deaths were reported from Ganjam, one each was reported from Khordha, Nayagarh, Sundargarh and Gajapati. Out of the fresh cases, while 914 cases were reported from quarantine, remaining 585 are local contacts. Contact tracing and followup action is underway, said the department. The highest 368 cases are from the hotspot Ganjam district, followed by 214 in Khordha, 97 in Gajapati and 92 in Dhenkanal. With this, the number of active cases in the state rose to 11,918 while 19,745 patients have recovered so far. The University of Pennsylvania has announced an extensive coronavirus testing plan for the fall. Students will be tested before they arrive on campus and after. Read more More than 4,000 undergraduate students from around the country will return to the University of Pennsylvania in late August. But first, they will have to pass a test for the coronavirus. Using a kit mailed to them, each student will send back a saliva sample that will be analyzed to rule out infection. And when the students arrive on Penns West Philadelphia campus, they will all be tested again. There will be still more testing after that plus a 35-member in-house team of contact tracers who will find those who had contact with people known to have the virus and advise them to isolate. Penn is going above and beyond local and national recommendations for testing, a decision it made to protect both the campus and its community, officials said. Our conclusion was, we definitely will be faulted if we dont do enough, said Benoit Dube, Penn associate provost and chief wellness officer. We may annoy people if we do more, but we will not be faulted for taking extra steps. READ MORE: Nearly three-quarters of Pa. state university faculty would not feel safe teaching students face-to-face this fall, survey shows The testing protocols are part of plans being developed by universities nationwide to prevent virus outbreaks on campuses or in communities. The plans also include mask-wearing, social distancing, and on-campus space for quarantining those who test positive or had contact with someone who did. Its a herculean and costly task for colleges, and it holds no guarantee of protection. Schools must do the work themselves or contract with a vendor at an average cost that can range from $25 to $35 per test to as much as $100. Plans vary considerably by campus, in terms of who will be tested, how often, under what circumstances, and when. Pennsylvania State University will administer saliva tests to 30,000 students and staff coming to campus from places where infection rates are high. After that, the almost 100,000-student university, with 24 campuses, will test 1% of asymptomatic students and staff daily. READ MORE: Thousands of students back in Happy Valley? Penn State is planning for it. At Swarthmore College, a smaller campus in Delaware County, all 900 students expected to live there this fall will be tested when they arrive, then again the following week and the week after that. If enough positives are found, the weekly testing will likely continue, the college said. Some schools, including Villanova and Drexel Universities, will require on-campus faculty and staff to be tested before they return, in addition to students. Others are not planning a blanket testing approach. Rutgers, in New Jersey, will test students living in university housing and others at higher risk of contracting and spreading the virus. We have the ability to conduct as many as 10,000 tests per day, said Dory Devlin, a Rutgers spokesperson. Other colleges, including La Salle University in Philadelphia and Widener University in Chester, will focus testing on those who show symptoms. Theres no simple answer to just how much testing is needed. I dont want to say theres one best approach, because I dont think we know, said Sarah Fortune, chair of the department of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvards school of public health. But there are some basic principles. One is that some form of ongoing testing is going to be important. Entry testing, she said, only provides a snapshot. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not recommended it, saying the method hasnt been studied or proven to reduce transmission. Neither has the Philadelphia Public Health Department. Testing should be offered to people who are displaying symptoms or have been exposed to a confirmed case, said James Garrow, a department spokesperson. Some students want more. ASK US: Do you have a question about the coronavirus and how it affects your health, work and life? Ask our reporters. Matthew Rantz, a Drexel junior, said that in addition to testing all students before arrival, tests should be conducted later in the semester, especially because the school is located in an urban area. Id want to be extra sure the transmission of the virus hasnt significantly increased among the student population, he said. He said he has no problem being tested. Neither does Arielle Gedeon, a senior and the student government president at Rowan University in Glassboro. Gedeon said her peers understand that following safety protocols means being able to have an on-campus experience. We know thats what we have to do, she said. The issue has been much discussed among faculty concerned about the safety of resuming in-person classes. At Penn State, a faculty group, Coalition for a Just University, has written to Gov Tom Wolf about its concerns. After hearing the universitys testing plan this week, the group said its not enough. All students should be tested shortly before or upon arrival, faculty said, and testing 1% of students and staff daily is insufficient. Some schools, including Harvard, will test all undergraduates every few days. During a one-hour virtual town hall meeting Thursday, Penn State administrators also said they will employ a team of 36 contact tracers and have designated dorms for quarantine. The school also will test samples from residents wastewater. It even plans to use scratch and sniff cards to check whether students have lost their sense of smell, a symptom of the coronavirus. Temple University hasnt yet released a testing plan. What definitely would not make me comfortable is if we were only testing people who have symptoms when there is clearly asymptomatic transmission, said Nancy Pleshko, a Temple bioengineering professor. Some faculty have noted that testing alone isnt enough and that wait times for test results can be a week or more, likely too long to stop significant spread. Several campuses in the region, including Lafayette College in Easton and Dickinson College in Carlisle, scrapped plans for in-person classes earlier this month in part because of testing lags. Its reasonable to include testing in a return-to-campus plan, but the effectiveness of testing, sadly, is currently limited, said Brian DeHaven, a virologist and assistant professor at La Salle. In my classrooms, Im more concerned with low-tech approaches that we know make a big difference. Things like assigned seating for contact tracing, and making sure every student is wearing a face covering and has access to hand sanitizer, are my top priorities. A university like Penn, which has a large health system, doesnt have to worry as much about testing lags. With the exception of the initial mail-home test, it will do its own testing, said Dube, the wellness officer. After entry testing, students, faculty, and staff will be asked to check in daily online and report if they have symptoms or have been in contact with someone who is sick, he said. If they have, they will be blocked from entering Penn buildings and asked to take additional steps, including possibly getting tested. Since March, 176 students have tested as confirmed or probable cases, five of them since July 15, said Ashlee Halbritter, director of campus health. Most of the recent positives were traced to travel or eating with friends, she said. Theyve occurred while the campus has largely been shut, with most students at home. This fall, 4,095 undergraduates will live in campus housing, about three-quarters of the norm. They all will be in single rooms. Initially, Penn was expecting 4,500, but almost 400 opted out in the last week, as Penn has emphasized that campus life will be dramatically altered. The university announced Friday that the vast majority of instruction will be online, given rising case counts. Its not going to be a normal college experience this year, Halbritter said. Dube expects even more students to opt out before the arrival date. We want to be as honest as possible with our students so they dont have buyers remorse, Dube said. 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 India logs over 3.17 lakh new Covid cases in last 24 hours; daily positivity rate up at 16.41 per cent COVID-19 fatalities may be much more than what is being reported Ban on passenger flights to Kolkata from 6 cities extended till Augut 15 India pti-PTI Kolkata, July 30: The ban on passenger flights to Kolkata from six cities -- all COVID-19 hotspots -- has been extended till August 15 amid a spurt in coronavirus cases in the state, airport authorities sources here said on Thursday. "The restriction on arriving flights to #KolkataAirport from 6 cities viz Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Nagpur & Ahmedabad has been extended up to August 15 2020," the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) Airport tweeted. Restrictions on domestic flights to continue till November 24: Aviation Ministry Priyanka Gandhi moves out of Lodhi estate bungalow before Centre's deadline | Oneindia News "Civil Aviation Ministry GOI has been advised by GOWB to continue with the embargo on flights to Kolkata from the high COVID prevalence cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Chennai and Ahmedabad till August 15 2020," the West Bengal government said in a statement this evening. The airport authorities also announced that flight operations at the NSCBI airport will remain suspended for seven days in August as part of the lockdown strategy adopted by the West Bengal government to stem the spread of COVID-19 in the state. "Flight operations at #KolkataAirport will remain suspended on following lockdown days as announced by West Bengal Govt: 5th, 8th, 16th, 17th, 23rd, 24th & 31st August 2020. Passengers are requested to contact concerned Airline for changes in flight schedule," the NSCBI tweeted. State chief secretary Rajiva Sinha had written to union civil aviation secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola requesting suspension of flights from the six cities which were witnessing maximum the COVID-19 infections to Kolkata till July 31. Before that the airport authorities had announced that no passenger flight will arrive in Kolkata from the six cities from July 6 to July 19. This was later extended till July 31. The decision was taken following a request by the state government to the civil aviation ministry. West Bengal reported 46 COVID-19 fatalities on Thursday, the highest on a single day so far. This has puhed the toll in the state due to the contagion to 1,536, the health department said. The state''s caseload shot up to 67,692 with a record 2,434 new cases, it said in a bulletin. BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - At 2.00 am ET Friday, Destatis releases Germany's retail sales and import price figures for June. Economists forecast sales to rise 3 percent on year, following a 3.8 percent increase in May. Ahead of these data, the euro held steady against its major counterparts. The euro was worth 124.07 against the yen, 1.0784 against the franc, 0.9059 against the pound and 1.1888 against the greenback at 1.55 am ET. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Cross-border work on improving the monitoring of quarantining international visitors is moving forward, Irelands Taoiseach Micheal Martin said (Julien Behal/PA). Cross-border work on improving the monitoring of quarantining international visitors is moving forward, Taoiseach Micheal Martin has said. Harmonising travel regimes across the UK and Ireland will be challenging but the threat posed by the pandemic means politicians also have to act quickly, the Taoiseach said. He hosted a constructive and warm North South Ministerial Council meeting at Dublin Castle on Friday with Stormont First Minister Arlene Foster and deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill. Expand Close The Taoiseach hosted a constructive and warm North South Ministerial Council meeting at Dublin Castle on Friday with Stormont First Minister Arlene Foster and deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill (Damien Eagers/PA). PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Taoiseach hosted a constructive and warm North South Ministerial Council meeting at Dublin Castle on Friday with Stormont First Minister Arlene Foster and deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill (Damien Eagers/PA). Mr Martin said: This is a vicious virus, it spreads like wildfire in certain settings. That is not just a phenomena on the island of Ireland but throughout the world. International arrivals in Dublin airport can cross the border into Northern Ireland despite impediments to how visitors from Covid-19 high-risk countries are monitored for self-isolation compliance once they do so. Stormont health minister Robin Swann held talks on Friday afternoon with his opposite number in the Republic, Stephen Donnelly. Mr Swann has raised major flaws surrounding enforcement and monitoring of quarantine after international passengers arrive at Dublin airport then cross the border into Northern Ireland. Mr Martin added: There are different jurisdictions with different chief medical officers who come forward with maybe nuanced advice. These are realities but both chief medical officers will be engaging on these issues. It is moving because we have seen what is happening in France, Germany and Spain. These numbers are moving on very significantly at a rapid pace. Expand Close At present visitors from Great Britain can travel through Northern Ireland and across the open land border into the Republic without quarantining (Brian Lawless/PA) PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp At present visitors from Great Britain can travel through Northern Ireland and across the open land border into the Republic without quarantining (Brian Lawless/PA) At present visitors from Great Britain can travel through Northern Ireland and across the open land border into the Republic without quarantining. Visitors from the UK and other countries not of a green list of low coronavirus risk are required to quarantine for two weeks on entering the Republic. A meeting of administrations in the UK and Ireland to discuss travel restrictions has been sought. Northern Ireland and the Republic have driven down the rate of transmission of the virus over recent months. On Thursday the Republic reported 85 new cases. The Taoiseach added: Relatively speaking North and South are managing this relatively well so far but it will take vigilance. Stormont First Minister Ms Foster referenced recent outbreaks in England. She said: In relation to international travel, there is a need for a discussion on the location of international travellers as they come through Dublin so as there is good sharing of information. She said the meeting was worthwhile and productive. Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill said members of eight parties in both administrations had met on Friday. She added: Our co-operation is more important than ever as we continue to respond to the biggest health emergency we have ever faced and when we reflect on the previous months, we must reflect on the fact that 2,320 people have died from Covid on this island alone. Mr Martin added: It was a warm meeting, it was a meeting in which a wide array of views were expressed. North-south co-operation is a key priority for our Government. It was extensive and constructive and we had a particularly good conversation about Covid-19, he added. STUTTGART, Germany -- The U.S. and Poland have agreed to a defense deal that will lead to more American troops deployed in the central European nation, a top U.S. diplomat said Friday. The two countries have completed negotiations on a new Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which "will implement the joint vision of our two presidents to enhance the U.S. military presence in Poland," Washington's ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher wrote in a Twitter post. Washington and Warsaw have been involved in lengthy talks over the plan to add U.S. troops and one of the key decisions was how much Poland would spend. President Donald Trump has insisted that Warsaw pick up the bulk of the tab, but it wasn't clear Friday how the financial burden would be shared. The agreement came two days after Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced plans to reduce forces in Germany and said the U.S. is ready to take action in Poland "once Warsaw signs a defense cooperation agreement and burden-sharing deal, as previously pledged." The concept agreed to last year by Trump and Polish President Andrzej Duda calls for adding 1,000 troops in the country. The U.S. already has several thousand troops in Poland on a rotational basis, including a tank brigade. Forces live in austere conditions but there have been discussions about upgrading facilities. In June, Trump said some of the troops withdrawn from Germany could be sent to Poland. The new initiative is expected to involve a range of rotational units and will build upon a mission that has steadily grown over the last five years. Its focus will be on areas such as a larger special operations presence, setting up a drone squadron and logistics. Esper said Wednesday the Army has decided that the newly established V Corps headquarters at Fort Knox, Ky., will send a forward unit of about 200 soldiers to Poland to help U.S. Army Europe coordinate how forces maneuver around the Continent. Weve done a lot of filmed self-tests. Even when COVID isnt happening, self-tests are a way to audition, and weve been able to get feedback from many theatre teachers so that transferred quite well. But obviously the spark you get from live theatre and having people in the room is something you cant replace. In a normal year, the third-year students would be rehearsing their final productions before flying to Sydney to stage a showcase and meet potential agents. So thats not happening, but it could still happen in Melbourne. Its up in the air because everything changes day by day, Edwards says. Final-year students might be entitled to feel ripped off as the pandemic robs them of the time-honoured big productions every other group experiences. As Edwards says: My brother is in year 12, so were both trying to graduate in the wrong year. Yet theres something uplifting in Edwards positive attitude. Im quite privileged, living at home, she says. There are people who dont have good internet connections or those who had to fly back home to save money or who live in homes where somebody is sick. It could be crushing, but Im trying to be optimistic. The year below me did a whole Shakespeare production through Zoom, which was really fun to watch. Drama classes share all the issues endured by thousands of Australians studying and working from home sharing spaces, technological mishaps, the intrusions of pets and parents so how is it possible to get into character? Actors have to be ready to work wherever, Edwards says. When youre on a set there are so many distractions, and in theatre there are people coughing and sneezing and you have to find that place regardless. At home you do have to pick your moments to do the loud emotional work! I learn lines while going for walks and I listen to acting podcasts when going for a bike ride. Shed hoped to return to VCA on August 3 for rehearsals with renowned director Sarah Goodes, the MTCs associate artistic director, but at time of writing this had been pushed back to late August. She admits shed had her hopes up for returning to campus and this second lockdown is hitting her harder. Whats apparent during quarantine is there is so much work we can create ourselves. Theres so much social change happening right now and so many new young voices that can and should be heard in future when it all opens back up. Malthouse Theatres artistic director, Matthew Lutton, believes independent theatre, with its low overheads, will provide the first green shoots when that happens. We have to be realistic as there are fewer opportunities due to COVID-19, but one of the great things in Melbourne is its independent theatre community. I think that part will be reactivated first because those theatres are smaller and can operate more affordably Thats going to be the really exciting path for many of the graduates. It will be intense and exciting because there is such an urgency and need. Every story you tell on stage now feels so much more loaded. Tyran Parke, VCAs head of music theatre, is similarly looking at the opportunities rather than the downsides. The year doesnt look just like the students expected, but our first semester looked even better than planned. After just three weeks on campus at the beginning of the year, staff and students went home. Parke immediately began planning for students to go online without missing a class. In all the craziness and disruption, I just wanted the students to get out of bed, do warm-up at 8am and show up for ballet at nine. It was a structure I wanted rigorously to uphold. I thought, well if Im sitting at home teaching them, why dont we have the best people from Broadway and the West End teaching them. We got funding to do a program which involved people of colour teaching things like Argentinian tango and rap and hip-hop and August Wilsons American plays. That would never have happened [without studying at home] because we wouldnt have thought it was possible. He also introduced conversations from quarantine for the undergraduates, with prominent artists such as Philip Quast, Simon Gleeson and Alinta Chidzey speaking about resilience. Thats the word that keeps coming up, but surely talented young people deserve at least a first crack at a career? Says Parke: Artists always have one foot in the unknown, and were in it together. They trust me; Im not putting them into an industry if theyre not ready. We have a plan to do our two shows in repertory and there are extreme health measures around that. We cant be in a Zoom forever: I do need to be in the room with them eventually. ''Even though Ive done everything at home Ive still learnt a lot,'' says music student Sydney Miller. Credit:Simon Schluter Sydney Miller, 21, chose a choir subject in her third year of the interactive composition course at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and has found the new realities challenging. The live aspect of Zoom voices dont match up so the teacher would teach us a song, wed be on mute and shed handpick us to do solos, Miller says. That was a bit terrifying. Miller also worked with the VCA music theatre students on Mongrel, an annual show directed by Maude Davey thats meant to be on stage but this year went online. We decided to make an online competition through a social media platform and called it Alien Idol. The audience was liking it and voting on and watching all our stories. It was very different than if wed done it in person. People are saying the arts sector is falling apart ... the best thing I can do is build the skills I have and give everything a go. Sydney Miller She says it was harder at the start, back in March. You cant really get stuck on it, theres not really any point. I realised there is still value in this year. Even though Ive done everything at home, Ive still learnt a lot. She misses what comes with campus life. In breaks from class we could meet and use so many facilities, like a studio we could book or a tech room, so many things that are useful on campus. She knows the outlook in her chosen field is uncertain. Going into third year is scary enough and people are saying the arts sector is falling apart and we see people in our cohort losing their jobs. The best thing I can do is build the skills I have and give everything a go. NHS Email Leak Reveals 'DIY' Abortions Killing And Harming Pregnant Women NEWS PROVIDED BY Christian Concern July 31, 2020 LONDON, July 31, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- A leaked email has revealed the NHS raising urgent concerns to its staff on the 'escalating risks' of pregnant women experiencing serious harm, and even death, because of 'DIY' home abortions. The email, sent by NHS England and NHS Improvement, discusses concerns raised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) with regional Chief Medical Officers and reveals serious incidents in the Midlands and the North West. Sent on 21 May 2020, the email states that there are 13 incidents under investigation. These include a murder investigation into the death of a baby aborted alive, two maternal deaths, and abortion pills being delivered to a woman 22 weeks over the legal limit for home abortion. Responding in today's Sun newspaper, Nigel Acheson, the CQC's Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals, did not deny the contents of the email and said: "We are aware of a small number of serious incidents." Service supposed to protect women The telemedicine service, run by abortion providers Marie Stopes UK and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), was allowed to take place during UK lockdown after an extraordinary double u-turn from the government on 30 March 2020. Tragically and ironically, civil servants were told by abortion providers that 'DIY' pills in the post service was urgently needed during the pandemic to protect pregnant women's lives from coronavirus by taking away the need to attend a clinic. Christian Concern are urgently calling on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to analyse abortion provider data in order to fully understand and investigate how many more women across the UK have been damaged by this service since it was introduced. A judicial review, brought by Christian Concern on the government's decision to allow women to have medical abortions at home with only a phone or video consultation, was heard at the Court of Appeal this week and judgment has been reserved. The email The email was marked as urgent and begins by stating that the CQC have been made 'aware of an escalating risk around the 'Pills by Post' process'. It continues: 'In the North West we are aware that there have been 2 maternal deaths linked to this issue also. One case where a woman was found at home the morning after starting the process and the second where a woman presented with sepsis and died very quickly in the A&E dept. Neither of these women were known to our maternity or gynae services as far as we are aware.' In relation to issues in the Midlands, it says: "The incidents in the midlands range between women attending ED with significant pain and bleeding related to the process through to ruptured ectopics, major resuscitation for major haemorrhage and the delivery of infants who are up to 30 weeks gestation. There was also a near miss where a woman had received the pills by post and then wished for a scan so attended a trust and was found to be 32 weeks. There are 3 police investigations in the Midlands linked to these incidents and one of those is currently a murder investigation as there is a concern that the baby was live born. The PM is being undertaken by a home office pathologist. "Despite the clear harm the service is having on pregnant women in these regions, the email raises the concern that if changes are made this could have 'a greater impact on women and girls choices." This statement is contrary to the fact that Abortion law isn't framed as a choice. Abortions are only legal if there is a greater risk to the mother if the pregnancy continues than if it's aborted, not just because the mother wants an abortion. The email concludes: "There is therefore a real need for us to better understand the outcomes for the women who are presenting to NHS services. The balance of risk both physically, mentally and for safeguarding is challenging especially without data." Dangerous royal college guidance The cases that emerge in the leaked email are even more concerning in light of new guidelines released in June by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG). The measures for healthcare professionals providing abortions during the coronavirus crisis include guidelines on performing 'feticide', which involves actively killing a healthy baby in the womb by lethal injection, and then removing the body later. The RCOG's guidance include measures that pose serious risks to pregnant women. For example it states that if a pregnant woman has coronavirus and her "clinical condition prevents abortion, and she risks exceeding the gestation limit, feticide should be performed in collaboration with local fetal medicine services if necessary, to enable delay in the procedure to evacuate / empty the uterus." Disturbingly, this could mean ending the life of the unborn baby in the sixth month of pregnancy, and then leaving the dead body inside the woman for an indeterminate amount of time. Individuals are suffering Kevin Duffy, former Marie Stopes International global clinics director and expert witness in Christian Concern's judicial review against the government, said: "Despite Nigel Acheson, the CQC's Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals, saying "We are aware of a small number of serious incidents", we have to remember in every case an individual is suffering. Abortion providers and the government must not lose sight of the individual amongst the numbers, whether that be a mother, wife, a daughter or girlfriend who is suffering at this already highly vulnerable time. "We know these cases are higher and are escalating due to self-referral, self-assessment and self-administration, whereas before lockdown there was face-to-face consultation and clinical assessment which would provide pregnant women with safe, comprehensive care. "The cases exposed in this NHS email leak are just the cases in which women have presented at hospital. How many more cases are there across the country where women have suffered more pain, bleeding and emotional harm than expected, but these have not been reported to the regulator by the abortion service providers?" Service a dangerous lottery Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, said: "This leaked email is a shocking admission that those running abortion services in England have elevated ideology over women's safety. "Tragically, vulnerable pregnant women who have used the telemedicine service during UK lockdown to avoid coronavirus have died or experienced serious life-changing complications. "The Abortion Act allows abortions where there is an increased risk to the mother's physical or mental health if the pregnancy is continued. In each of these tragic cases, two lives have been unnecessarily lost mother and baby. "This further confirms the inherent danger of DIY abortions that we've been showing through our judicial review case and shows how ideologues who show little concern for women and no concern for babies - have captured NHS England as well as the providers and professional bodies. "The 'DIY' abortion service is a dangerous lottery. We call on the Care Quality Commission to urgently analyse its data in order to fully understand and investigate how many more women across the UK have been damaged by this service since it was introduced by the government on March 30." Notes to editors: The regions of the incidents have been redacted to protect individual's privacy. Further information is available upon request. SOURCE Christian Concern CONTACT: Andrea Williams, 07712-591-164 Tom Allen, 07974-304-620, tom.allen@christianconcern.com Related Links www.christianconcern.com Leaked email: https://christianconcern.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/CC-Resource-Misc-Judicial-Review-Abortion-200729-NHS-email-2.pdf Mr Kevin Duffy's witness statement: https://christianconcern.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/CC-Resource-Misc-Judicial-Review-Abortion-200728-3b-duffy-witness-statement-2.pdf Court bundle: https://christianconcern.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/CC-Resource-Misc-Judicial-Review-Abortion-200728-1-core-bundle.pdf Montgomery County election officials are seeking approval of two locations for in-person early voting this year a measure that would be unprecedented for the locality. Montgomery Registrar Connie Viar highlighted the proposal Thursday evening during a meeting of the League of Women Voters of Montgomery County. Viar, along with a few New River Valley registrars, took part in the meeting via Zoom and spoke on various measures and conditions that will affect balloting for the upcoming Nov. 3 election. The plan that Viars office is proposing is to use space at the mall in Christiansburg now called Uptown Christiansburg and a spacious room in her own department for whats referred to as no excuse absentee voting. Viar said the county attorney was just granted permission to run notices of the proposal in the newspaper. The plan requires approval from the board of supervisors, which she said plans to vote on the matter Aug. 24. Hopefully, that night the board approves both locations, Viar said. Our office is small, so theres no way we can handle the crowd. The proposal would be a way to benefit voters looking to take advantage of a new law that allows early voting as soon as 45 days before the election without the provision of an application or a reason to vote early. The Montgomery registrars plan also comes as she and her peers, both locally and statewide, anticipate surges in absentee balloting this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. If approved, Montgomery Countys satellite spaces will be open from Sept. 18 to Oct. 31, Viar said. The mall space will specifically be located at Wonder Universe: A Childrens Museum, a venue that provides interactive exhibits geared toward early childhood development. Radford Registrar Tracy Howard said during Thursdays meeting that he anticipates up to 60% of balloting will be done via mail or early voting. The registrars were also asked to explain some of the absentee voting process, including how someone requests such a mail-in ballot. Howard said the easiest route is to visit the Virginia Department of Elections website. He said voters can also stop by the registrars office to fill out a vote-by-mail application. As far as casting the absentee vote, its simply a matter of following instructions after the ballot arrives in the mail, he said. There was another question about the safest way to vote this year, in light of the pandemic. Howard said the best way to ensure a vote is counted is to vote in person. He said voters can also be confident in mailing their ballots. Theyre treated just the same as a ballot cast on election day, Howard said. So depending on what kind of safety were talking about, it can be either way. Another issue Howard discussed: The measures that will be put in place for in-person voting itself. Howard said the state has provided localities with supplies of personal protective equipment such as face shields and masks. He said door handles and voting stations will be routinely cleaned. Howard said one-time use ink pens will also be provided so our voters can have as safe an experience as possible. There was another question concerning the possibility that Virginia Tech and Radford University students could get sent home midway through the fall semester due to increases on COVID-19 cases. They can request that absentee ballots be mailed to their home, or they can vote on their way out of town, Viar said. Jes Davis, the assistant director for leadership and civic engagement at Virginia Tech, said the university is looking to put together election-related marketing before the students return. Howard said he hasnt been in contact with Radford University yet, but plans to work with them to put out an email blast that will provide information on voter registration. Elizabeth Obenshain, president of Montgomery Countys League of Women Voters, said her organization, even with the limitations imposed by the pandemic, has worked on goals such as trying to register 90% of Techs student body. She said the organization has also employed social media to reach high school seniors and their parents about registering to vote. Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. ST. JOSEPH, MI -- A 44-year-old father drowned Thursday evening attempting to rescue his two children. At 8:08 p.m. Thursday, July 30, officers from the St. Joseph Public Safety Department responded to a report of a water rescue in Lake Michigan at Lions Park Beach. The man from Lakeview, Indiana, drowned while attempting to save his children, ages 17 and 12, according to a release from the public safety department. The pair were struggling in the water off Lions Park Beach in Lake Michigan after getting caught in an undertow. The siblings were rescued by St. Joseph Reserve Officer Everett Gaston, the release said. Their father was pulled out of the water, but was pronounced dead at Spectrum Health Lakeland, according to the news release. His name has was not immediately released, police said, as authorities notify his relatives. A man on a surfboard, Fabian Weber, was able to rescue two other people struggling in the water. They were identified as Meghan Lynch and Vincent Ball. The Berrien County Sheriff Department, U.S. Coast Guard, St. Joseph Township Police Department and Medic 1 were also involved and at the scene. More on MLive: Winning Michigans Best Burger instills community pride, Albion Malleable Brewing Co. says 4 reasons why Michigans low coronavirus death rate isnt cause for complacency Two injured in separate overnight shootings in Grand Rapids The logos of mobile apps Facebook and Google on a tablet in Lille, France, on Oct. 1, 2019. (Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty Images) Australia Releases Ground-Breaking New Mandatory Code Forcing Google, Facebook to Pay Media The Australian treasurer has unveiled a world-first mandatory code, or bargaining model, that will force Google and Facebook to enter negotiations with media publishers to pay for news content. If discussions break down, negotiations can go to arbitration where a deal will be mandated. The announcement is the latest stage in an 18-month process which has seen the Australian government push the digital giants to finalize an agreement with media companies. The code also compels the tech giants to provide more data transparency and control to media companies using their services. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said in a press conference on July 31, As the technology has developed and as the power, the wealth, the influence of these digital platforms, namely Google and Facebook, has grown, our regulatory framework has not kept up. Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg during a press conference in the Mural Hall at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on June 11, 2020( Sam Mooy/Getty Images) And as a result, there is a very unequal bargaining position between Australian news media businesses that produce original content and the digital platforms, he added, saying the media landscape was at stake if changes were not made. It became apparent to us a number of months ago that we werent making progress on that critical issue of payment for content, he said. Hence we are moving down the path of a mandatory code. In December 2018, the consumer watchdog, the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) released a report about the market influence of Google and Facebook on the Australian mediascape. The report found a fundamental bargaining power imbalance between the digital giants and media. This picture taken in Nantes, shows the logo of the US online social media and social networking service, Facebook on July 4, 2019. (Loic Venance/AFP via Getty Images) People walk past Googles UK headquarters in London on Nov. 1, 2018. (Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images) In December 2019, the federal government tasked the ACCC to work with Google, Facebook, and media companies on creating a voluntary code. However in April this year, the ACCC reported to the government that negotiations were fruitless. On April 20, the treasurer along with the communications minister announced that the ACCC would be developing the mandatory code, which was released today. This code will go through a round of public consultation before being finalized. The code currently covers Facebook and Google, but other digital platforms may be added if they attain a bargaining power imbalance with Australian news businesses in the future. Further, public broadcasters ABC and SBS will miss out. How the Code Works? News media organizations can notify Google and Facebook that they intend to enter a formal bargaining process over how the digital giants will pay for news content. The code requires both parties to negotiate in good faith and allows for a three-month period to negotiate and mediate. Smaller media organizations can also band together and collectively bargain with the digital giants. ACCC Chairman Rod Sims noted that the bargaining power imbalance between the tech companies and small or rural news companies was particularly acute. In fact, the code even allows media companies with relatively low annual turnovers of $150,000 per year to negotiate payment deals. If no agreement is reached between the parties, the matter can be taken to an arbitrator. The arbitration process must be completed in 45 days. Both parties will be allowed to submit one offer to the arbitrator and can respond once to the opposing partys offer. A newspaper headline about the coronavirus outbreak is seen on a near-deserted street in Sydney on March 30, 2020. (PETER PARKS/AFP via Getty Images) The arbitrator must choose one proposal before the 45 days expires. Both parties still have the flexibility to negotiate during the arbitration period and reach their own agreement. Rod Sims said the development of the draft code took into consideration the models and approaches of regulators and policymakers internationally. We wanted a model that would address this bargaining power imbalance and result in fair payment for content, which avoided unproductive and drawn-out negotiations, and wouldnt reduce the availability of Australian news on Google and Facebook, he added. We believe our proposed draft code achieves these purposes, he said. Code Gives Media Transparency and Control Over Their Social Media Accounts The code goes beyond compensating media publishers for content and addresses issues related to data and transparency. The tech giants must notify publishers of changes to its algorithms which may affect web traffic to news, the ranking of news behind paywalls, and any changes to how news and advertising are presented. Publishers will also be given access to information on what data the tech giants collect including how many articles a user reads, and how long a user spends reading an article. A woman looks at her smartphone as she walks past Google Building 8510 at 85 10th Ave., New York City, N.Y., on June 3, 2019. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Google and Facebook will also be required to publish proposals on how they will recognize original news content and must give publishers the authority to moderate or turn off comments on individual stories. The treasurer earmarked hefty penalties if the tech giants breach the code including $10 million per breach or three times the benefit obtained or 10 percent of annual turnover, whichever is greater. We want it to be on our terms. We want it to be in accordance with our law. And we want it to be fair. And that is what has motivated us with this mandatory code, Frydenberg said. The bhumi pujan to begin the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya will be held on 5 August Nagpur: Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) general secretary Milind Parande on Thursday alleged that those opposing the Ram temple and subjects linked to it are doing so to achieve their political goals as they have no other option but to counter the interests of Hindus. He said this while addressing a press conference. Replying to a query about the recent statements made by NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi related to Ram temple, he said, "Some people have made it their business to oppose any subject related with Ram temple. Everybody should understand Ram temple is a symbol of national pride." "Some people are opposing it. It is part of their politics and their politics is only achieved by opposing the interests of Hindus. All such people don't have any other option but to oppose...," he said, adding that Ram temple will become a centre of communal harmony in the country. According to the members of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra trust, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to visit Ayodhya on 5 August for the bhoomi pujan to begin the construction of the Ram temple. The total number of COVID-19 cases around the world has now topped 17 million, with nearly 670,000 deaths -- and the United States is leading the world in both categories. With more than 4.4 million total confirmed cases, the U.S. reached another milestone in the coronavirus pandemic Wednesday when it passed 150,000 deaths, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. Some states, such as California, Florida and Texas are breaking their own records weekly or even daily. California reported a record 197 COVID-19 related deaths on Wednesday, according to state health records, far surpassing the previous high of 159 recorded just last week. Florida posted a record 216 deaths, while Texas reported at least 313 deaths. U.S. health experts say many states reopened businesses and public attractions too soon. They also say a lack of clear guidance and enforcement on the federal level means governors must develop their own public health directives to contain the spread of the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19. The result is restrictions and directives that vary from state to state, including travel limitations for returning residents and nonresidents. Other countries are experiencing a surge of new coronavirus cases, chief among them Australia. The southern state of Victoria posted 723 new COVID-19 cases and 13 deaths on Wednesday, a new one-day record for the hardest-hit state from the sudden spike of the disease. A furious farmer has used his tractor to dig a rude message into a paddock in protest against huge power lines. Peter Muir from Myrniong, 72km northwest of Melbourne, said the 85-metre-tall AusNet towers would ruin his property and pose a danger to the local community. Mr Muir showed his contempt for the 500-kilovolt transmission lines by carving the very blunt message 'P**s off AusNet' into a large green field, 3AW reported. Rural Victorian farmer Peter Muir used his tractor to carve a blunt message into a paddock (pictured) in protest of 85-metre-tall powerlines being built on his property Energy company AusNet is planning to build almost 200 kilometres of powerlines through properties from far western Melbourne to a wind farm in Bulgana. Mr Muir said the high voltage powerlines could be built on properties without the consent of the owners. 'They can when they say it is an essential service, so they just push through regardless of whether you want them there or not,' he explained. The farmer said the powerlines could potentially intersect on his 800 acre property and cause him to cease farming for 18 months. Mr Muir also voiced his concern over the powerlines reaching the Wombat State Forest and posing a fire hazard. 'It's very hard for firefighters to get there to put it out, no Country Fire Association crew is going to put their crew underneath one of the power lines too because they're an ignition point. 'It's not just the cost to me, it's the cost to the whole community, these ignition points will stop people from getting out of the bush or stop people getting in the bush during a fire,' he explained. Mr Muir was protesting against energy company AusNet's proposed high voltage powerlines that will stretch through almost 200km worth of properties in western Victoria (pictured) The farmer was told AusNet would turn the powerlines off in the event of a fire but was concerned they may not be shut off in time. Mr Muir claimed AusNet refused to consider underground powerlines because the venture was 'too costly'. 'The whole idea is so ridiculous that you can't believe anybody would think of it,' he said. An AusNet spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the company was still investigating a broad area and no exact route for the transmission lines had been decided. 'We absolutely understand that people in this area are concerned. We want to hear from local people about the potential impact on their land and their businesses. 'We've contacted many local landholders directly, including the Muir family, so that we can hear their point of view and we encourage all landholders to talk to us directly about their concerns. 'We're right at the start of this five year project and we will be consulting with the community at every stage,' the spokesperson said. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 17:26:15|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close QINGDAO, July 31 (Xinhua) -- A China-Europe freight train loaded with anti-epidemic materials Friday departed the port in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao for Madrid to assist Spain in its fight against COVID-19. The train carrying 82 TEUs of cargo, including more than 58 million medical masks, will arrive in Madrid in 21 days, covering a total distance of 14,133 km, said Zhang Xiao, assistant manager of DSV Air & Sea Co., Ltd., Qingdao, which operates the train. The number of China-Europe freight trains rose significantly during the first half of this year, with a total of 5,122 trains being put into operation, up 36 percent year on year, according to the China State Railway Group. The cargo train services have also become an important logistics channel to ensure smooth trade as air and sea transportation have been disrupted by the epidemic. Enditem Ukraine's state arms exporter Ukrspecexport, part of the state defense company Ukroboronprom, has completed the fulfillment of contracts within the state defense order and supplied military products to a law enforcement agency and the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Ukroboronprom's press service has reported, with reference to Ukrspecexport Director General Vadym Nozdria. "Recently, as part of the state defense order, Ukrspecexport delivered important military products from a NATO member state to a Ukrainian law enforcement agency. We also supplied our troops with high-precision guided munitions from Europe and continue to supply products to a Ukrainian special service. Therefore, contracts as part of the state defense order are being fulfilled on time and in full, although the economic conditions for this are not the best at the moment," the press service quoted Nozdria as saying. According to the report, products are supplied amid difficult conditions during the global coronavirus pandemic and lockdown restrictions, and the closure of borders has significantly complicated foreign economic relations and affected the export of Ukrainian weapons and military hardware, Ukrspecexport said. At the same time, Ukroboronprom's exporters continue to fulfill their obligations under foreign contracts on time, and the coronavirus has not become an obstacle to the fulfillment of the state defense order by Ukroboronprom's enterprises. Nozdria said that in these new circumstances the company has found opportunities and tools to work successfully with international partners to strengthen the country's defense capabilities, just as it did before the pandemic. op UK this month reversed the decision in January to allow Chinas controversial technology leader to roll out Britains fast new data network. The UK government banned new Huawei 5G equipment purchases from January and told operators to strip out existing gear plugged into the nascent system by the end of 2027. (Photo | AFP) London: Top UK broadband and mobile operator BT said Friday its coverage would remain unaffected by the governments decision to phase out Chinas Huawei from Britains 5G network. Prime Minister Boris Johnson this month reversed his decision in January to allow Chinas controversial technology leader to roll out Britains fast new data network. He banned new 5G equipment purchases from January and told operators to strip out existing gear plugged into the nascent system by the end of 2027. Johnson said the step was a response to new US sanctions on Huawei and not a consequence of diplomatic pressure put by Washington in its standoff with Beijing. Johnson also did not require companies to remove Huawei equipment from 4G and older networkssomething BT had warned would take a decade and billions of pounds to do. And he gave full-fibre broadband providers until 2029 to remove the Chinese tech. BT said in a trading update that the cost of Johnsons reversal to the company fell within previously reported estimate of 500 million ($660 million, 555 million euros). Further work required to comply with additional restrictions on the use of Huawei equipment but no anticipated impact on coverage or rollout of 5G and full fibre, BT said in a report to the London Stock Exchange. BTs mobile operator EE used Huawei equipment at the core of its main 4G network. Some of that equipment was used to switch consumers with new phones from 4G to 5G when the speedier version began being introduced in Britain last year. But BT has also signed a deal with Swedens Ericsson for a new core network that could replace Huaweis in the coming years. The new policy of removing Huawei from the network will mean more work for BT, Hargreaves Lansdown analyst William Ryder said. Whatever the geopolitical merits of the case, investors will be hoping costs dont rise any further. Mumbai, July 31 : Actor Amit Sadh feels blessed to be a part of the film, Shakuntala Devi, and is in complete awe of the project's lead actress Vidya Balan. "She is absolutely wonderful and I am thrilled to have been given a chance to work with her. You made this experience truly special @balanvidya. I have learned so much from you and continue to do so... Thank you for being you! You are amazing," Amit wrote on Instagram. Helmed and co-written by Anu Menon, the film is based on the life of the late Shakuntala Devi, who is widely revered as the human computer for her innate ability to make incredibly complex calculations within seconds. Vidya essays the role of Shakuntala in the movie. Not only this, Amit also thanked audience for giving him love for his other recently released projects, including "Breathe: Into the Shadows" and "Avrodh". "I feel blessed and really grateful to be a part of so many wonderful projects this month! Thank you to each and every one of you, for all the love that you have been showering on me. I hope you will continue to keep pushing me to do my best," he added. Why has the world been so slow to respond to Chinas persecution and cultural genocide of more than a million of its Uighur Muslim minority population? Is it a fear of Chinas growing economic might and a reluctance to offend? Or the dread of a ruthless backlash from Chinas increasingly aggressive Communist Party? Or is it the inevitable result of an imploding 21st century in which Donald Trumps amoral America First has quietly signalled to the world and to China that this type of criminality can happen? Regardless of the reason and it is probably a combination of the three it is a stain on the international community that will not disappear soon. And one thing is certain we wont be able to plead that we didnt know. From satellite pictures of detention camps, from leaked internal Chinese documents and from the desperate testimony of relatives and former inmates, a picture is being formed of what has been described as the worst human-rights crisis in the world. Mass sterilizations, forced abortions, reports of rape and torture, lengthy prison terms and brutal efforts to eliminate the traditional language and religion these are some of the horrifying details of what life has become for many of Chinas Muslim minority in the countrys northwest Xinjiang province. Between one and two million Muslims have been reportedly detained in hundreds of detention centres, which some human-rights observers have compared to concentration camps. Most of those detained are Uighurs but some are ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks, and all are Muslim. Beyond the camps, the 11 million Uighurs living in Xinjiang province have suffered from more than a decade of anti-Muslim repression from Chinese authorities. Uighur parents cannot name their sons Muhammad, their children cannot enter mosques and Uighur women are not allowed to wear a veil in public. China claims that these camps, which it calls vocational training centres, are intended to prevent the spread of terrorism in the region. But it has refused to provide information about these detention centres and have prevented journalists and foreign governments from examining them. There have been protests from international groups and some political figures, but they have been largely ineffective. As it flexes its expanding economic muscle, an emboldened China seems confident that it can count on global hypocrisy to keep its Uighur issue contained. The United States is a case study of that. Even though Trump has recently signed a law calling for sanctions against Chinese officials, China knows that this is largely for show, as part of Trumps beleaguered re-election campaign. In his new memoir, John Bolton Trumps former national security adviser recalls that Chinas President Xi Jinping explained to Trump in 2019 why detention camps for the Uighurs were created. According to the book, Trump told Xi that China should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do. The worlds Muslim states have been similarly hypocritical. Arab countries, in particular, which have benefited from Chinese investment and foreign aid, have remained silent about Chinas handling of its Muslim minority. For his part, Turkeys authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has apparently pushed his hypocrisy to a new level. Uighur Muslims have accused Turkey of deporting their relatives who had been living in Turkey back to China in exchange for Chinese aid. Even Pope Francis seems to have become strikingly conflicted about Chinas rights violations particularly the Uighurs plight. Uncharacteristically for him, the pontiff has been silent on the issue. His critics accuse Francis of doing a deal with Xis regime in an attempt to protect the rights of Catholics in China. In spite of the deafening silence and hypocrisy of some leaders, there are efforts emerging on behalf of Chinas Uighurs. A Canadian parliamentary committee just recently concluded hearings into the Uighur issue, and that triggered new momentum for Canadas assistance. This was outlined in an excellent column by Amira Elghawaby in last Wednesdays Star headlined Uighur genocide must end and Canada can help. As this century takes shape, it is clear that the rivalry between the worlds two economic superpowers China and the U.S. will largely define it. How constructive or dangerous this relationship will become cannot be known yet, although the current bitterness in the debate is ominous. This may ease once Trump is driven from the White House next January, but it may not. Regardless, this fractured world of ours needs to learn or relearn that the issue of universal human rights should supersede everything. It shouldnt be undermined by the grubby interactions of trade agreements, or the corruption of desperate political leaders serving their own selfish interests. That is just one reason among many why Chinas Uighurs deserve our attention and support. Tony Burman, formerly head of CBC News and Al Jazeera English, is a freelance contributing foreign affairs columnist for the Star. He is based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: , formerly head of CBC News and Al Jazeera English, is a freelance contributing foreign affairs columnist for the Star. He is based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyBurman Read more about: Yves here. If you arent keen about Kamala Harris or Susan Rice, theres always Condi Rice. Remember Biden said he might consider a Republican and Team Biden seems fixated on wooing suburban Republican women voters. In all seriousness, as a woman, I dont see how picking a vile female candidate helps women. And I cannot fathom why Biden tied his hands by limiting himself to candidates that had to be both female and black. Tactically, he would have been better served by pcking, say, Julian Castro, since Biden isnt doing as well with Hispanics as his team would like. But Biden may be so convinced that he has the election in the bag that he doesnt care much. He is likely right right, but Dukakis had a 17 point lead over Bush at this time in 1988. And our greybeard, political scientist Tom Ferguson, similarly thinks its too early for Team Biden to be pulling out the champagne corks. By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at DownWithTyranny! Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, reportedly one of the last of Joe Bidens finalists for Vice President Events on the VP selection front are moving quickly, and so far, it appears from all I can gather (private conversations, news stories, tea leaves left in news stories), that the choice is between Kamala Harris and Susan Rice. These are two terrible choices, to be clear, neither of them like the Elizabeth Warren of some peoples dreams or the Tammy Baldwin of some others. But if we must have a terrible VP choice, these are among the very worst pick from. Both are women and people of color, so each checks those high priority boxes. Beyond that, though, each brings a different set of highly undesirable qualities to the table. Lets take a brief look. Two Bad Choices Kamala Harris, former San Francisco District Attorney and CA Attorney General, was by the account of a number of lawyers in my acquaintance, one of the worst DAs in the country. In addition to all the bad deeds that have been made public recently prosecuting parents for their childrens school truancies; jailing marijuana users, then laughing about using the drug herself when it became to her advantage to do so; and the fact that she repeatedly and openly defied U.S. Supreme Court orders to reduce overcrowding in California prisons while serving as the states attorney general theres the little-known 2010 evidence-tampering scandal that resulted in the dismissal of over 1,000 of her DA offices prior court cases due to tainted chain of evidence, and the fact that Harris and her office failed to reveal this problem until the story came out. Because of this case mismanagement, was forced to dismiss a great many cases in which convictions had been obtained and sentences were being served. In what was called a scathing decision, Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo wrote in May 2010 that Harris failed to disclose information that clearly should have been disclosed. Lawyers will say its a lawyers job to know the validity of her chain of evidence and also to disclose any problems with with that evidence to defendants. Harris did none of those things, leaving those already convicted and serving sentences to languish in jail rather than reveal a politically damaging failing of her office. Another Harris negative: She failed to win California, her home state, and in fact was forced to drop out before a truly embarrassing showing in the primary. (If I recall correctly, she was polling close to 3% nationally as the primary approached.) Even though California isnt a must-compete state for Biden, since hell most likely win it comfortably, Harriss lack of pull is national. Less is known about Susan Rice, and that may be points in her favor. But if shes the VP pick, people will get to know her quickly and learn to not like her just as fast. To summarize the reports Ive seen, she has no political background or instincts, a chilly and aloof I know better than you personal manner, absolutely no domestic policy experience or identifiable positions, and a love of war foreign policy stance. In other words, Rice is the exact opposite of an excellent choice a person of without political skill, possessed of Obamas hauteur with none of his charm, and views the outside world through a Hillarist neocon lens. Shes also, from as much as I can gather, the most likely pick. Not only do rumors favor her, but there are now reports that people in Bidens circle are strongly opposed to Harris, in part because shes too ambitious and will be solely focused on eventually becoming president. Those who argue this would be right. Ambition is the only only star Kamala Harris sails by. Which leaves us with Rice, unless a surprise is in the offing. And An Opportunity I want to close with a personal note. Given that a) No good VP choice will be made by the current deciders, and that b) This race may not be winnable by the Republicans under any circumstance save a midnight visit to the White House by the Ghost of Donalds Future I think the very worst choice for VP may harbor the very best outcome for progressives. More on that later, but if so, it looks like we may have quite a promising opportunity ahead of us. Carrier says it expects coronavirus-hit demand to recover only by 2023 or 2024, at the earliest. KLM, the Dutch arm of Air France-KLM, said on Friday it would cut 1,500 additional jobs as part of a restructuring in which it needs to cut emissions by 50 percent by 2030 as well as prepare for recovering traffic after the coronavirus crisis. Parent company Air France-KLM on Thursday reported 1.55 billion euros ($1.8bn) operating loss for the second quarter, with traffic down 95 percent from a year earlier. KLM said the new cuts would mean its workforce, which was 33,000 before the pandemic, would be reduced by 20 percent in all by 2022. It did not rule out further cuts. In all scenarios, demand is only expected to recover by 2023 or 2024 at the earliest, Chief Executive Pieter Elbers said in a statement. The restructuring was aimed at retaining as many jobs as we can in a responsible manner and repaying loans as quickly as possible, he said. By comparison, Air France SA plans to cut 6,500 jobs, or 16 percent of its workforce, through 2022. The Dutch and French governments have given the two national carriers, which merged in 2004, a combined 10.4 billion euros ($12.4bn) in bailout money, in a mix of loans and loan guarantees. Conditions imposed by the Dutch government include pay cuts for executives and pilots, and a ban on bonuses and dividends. KLM, while smaller than Air France, contributed more to group profits in the years before 2020, leading at times to friction between the French and Dutch governments. Traffic is gradually resuming at KLM, although Elbers said the latest uptick in cases in many countries could threaten that. While most of KLMs routes have been restored, it said last week it planned to operate about 13,000 flights in August, still down 60 percent from the same month a year ago. We do not need bipartisan politics if were going to celebrate the life of John Lewis, he told the mourners in a rousing voice. We need the Constitution to come alive. We hold these truths to be self-evident. We need the president and the Congress to work unfalteringly for every boy and every girl so that every baby born on these shores will have access to the tree of life. Thats the only way to honor John Robert Lewis. Thats the only way. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) Despite continued rise in COVID-19 cases in the region, Metro Manila will remain under general community quarantine from August 1 to 15. Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Friday said Metro Manila was allowed to stay in GCQ under several "conditionalities." He said local government units need to declare strict localized lockdown in areas with 80 percent increase in recorded cases. During these lockdowns, there will be "massive targeted testing and intensified tracing." Local officials were also tasked to submit concrete plans on how they will enforce minimum health standards, which now includes wearing of face shields. The decision by President Rodrigo Duterte came amid the governments earlier warning of a possible return to a stricter modified enhanced community quarantine in the National Capital Region, should the countrys COVID-19 cases reach 85,000. The national case tally currently stands at 89,374. He earlier mentioned that while the numbers are soaring, they are also looking into other factors in deciding on the quarantine status, such as the case doubling rate and health care capacity. Roque said the situation in Metro Manila has "improved" with a longer case doubling rate. It now takes about 8.9 days for the number of infections to double, which he said fell under GCQ. He did note that critical care capacity of hospitals is at "critical" level. However, he added that this was due to a limited number of beds allotted for COVID-19 patients. Metro Manila mayors recommended keeping the NCR under GCQ, but said that they would like to retain the power to place select areas experiencing a surge in cases under localized lockdowns. The move to ease restrictions also came after the region logged some 10,300 more infected residents over the past two weeks, by date of onset of illness, according to data from the Department of Health (DOH). Malacanang earlier warned of imposing stricter rules if the numbers continue to climb. The Department of Health also said the regions COVID-19 bed occupancy rate has hit the "danger zone level" as of July 26, with 82.2 percent of beds already occupied by patients. A number of major hospitals in the capital region, meanwhile, reported they have reached full capacity for infected patients. READ: Govt mulls tapping regional hospitals for COVID-19 patients as bed capacity warning hounds Metro Manila Researchers from the University of the Philippines earlier urged Duterte to place Metro Manila under tighter restrictions, but the President opted to keep the more relaxed quarantine status to help revive the economy. Meanwhile, Cebu City will be easing into a more relaxed GCQ, the government said. In June, Duterte appointed Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu as the COVID-19 response chief for Visayas, who brought in hundreds of security troops to enforce the strict stay-at-home measures. The DOH also ordered the deployment of doctors to Cebu City to help aid its fight against the contagion. Cimatu recommended relaxing the citys quarantine status to GCQ after weeks of tight lockdowns. The President also approved IATFs recommendation to place the following areas under GCQ: Bulacan, Batangas, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal for Luzon; Lapu-Lapu City, Mandaue City, Talisay City, Minglanilla and Consolacion for the Visayas; and Zamboanga City for Mindanao. Other parts of the country will be under a modified GCQ. To date, the coronavirus disease has hit more than 89,000 people in the country. Of this number, some 22,000 are active cases or currently ill patients, after around 65,000 recovered and nearly 2,000 died. FSD Pharma is listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange, while its executives are based in Philadelphia. The company scuttled its plans in July 2020 to become one of the world's largest medical marijuana suppliers. Read more FSD Pharma is getting out of marijuana. The Philadelphia-based biopharmaceutical company once had designs on becoming one of the planets biggest cannabis producers. Early last year, it announced it was refurbishing a 600,000-square-foot warehouse in Ontario, Canada, to become the largest indoor cannabis cultivation facility in the world. It intended to serve not only the nascent Canadian market but Europe, as well. The companys cannabis aspirations were neatly summed up in its stock ticker symbol: HUGE. On Thursday, CEO Raza Bokhari said FSD was pulling out of the marijuana trade altogether. We are officially out of the cannabis business, said the physician-turned-entrepreneur, citing a supply glut of marijuana in Canada, and the recognition that other marijuana companies were doing a much better job. Bokhari said the company was sitting on $2 million worth of cannabis that it couldnt sell. We were just not able to find a buyer. FSD announced that it will forfeit the marijuana cultivation licenses back to the Canadian government. The licenses currently are held by a wholly owned FSD subsidiary. The company plans to sell its production facility in Cobourg, Ontario, a former Kraft foods plant about 80 minutes east of Toronto. Bokhari said FSD bought the buildings for about $4 million in U.S. dollars. Since they have been outfitted to grow marijuana, Bokhari believes the facility will fetch about $15 million in U.S. dollars. Maybe Amazon can buy it, he said. FV Pharma will shut down operations within 30 days, but at least 10 employees will remain at work for FSD in Ontario, he said. The company will remain listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange. Bokhari said FSD now will double down on pharmaceutical research and development. As CEO, you should always recognize your job is to increase shareholder value, Bokhari said. And the best bang for your money right now is in R&D. FSD has high hopes for a synthetic anti-inflammatory drug that it has in development. The drug, known as micro PEA, is sold in Italy by Epitech as a prescription nutraceutical, or medicinal food, dispensed to treat chronic inflammation. Micro PEA is a naturally occurring fatty acid similar to an endocannabinoid, one of a suite of molecules found in cannabis that targets CB2 receptors, Bokhari said. CB2 receptors are thought to modulate both inflammation and pain throughout the human body. New Delhi: Supreme Court on Friday ordered the ban on registration of BS-IV vehicles till further orders. Expressing displeasure on the sale of large number of vehicles in March during Covid-19 lockdown, the SC said that an unusual number of BS-IV vehicles were sold during the time. SC has posted the matter for next hearing on August 13. In its last hearing on July 24, the SC gave more time to centre to file affidavit of Vaahan data on registration of Bharat Stage (BS)-IV vehicles. The top court had also rejected FADA's request to allow exports to African countries. Auto dealer association FADA had knocked SC doors urging the court to reconsider decision on disallowing sale and registration of BS-4 vehicles with effect from April 1, 2020. The apex court in its hearing observed that manufacturers were aware about BS VI deadline, hence they should take the vehicles back. The SC on July 8 had recalled its March 27 order by which it had allowed sale of BS-IV vehicles for 10 days across India, except in Delhi-NCR, after lifting of COVID-19 induced lockdown, a directive which will impact registration of many of these vehicles. The top court had on March 27 said it was permitting sale of 10 percent of unsold BS-IV vehicles to make up for six days lost due to the nationwide lockdown which was imposed on March 25. The SC bench had said Bharat Stage (BS)-IV vehicles sold after March 31 this year and those whose details have not been uploaded on the e-Vahan portal of the government will not be registered. In October 2018, the court had said no BS-IV vehicle would be sold or registered in India from April 1, 2020. In its July 8 hearing the court had observed that details of more than 17,000 vehicles have not been uploaded on the government's e-Vahan portal. The bench said it would ask the government to check the e-Vahan data and would allow registration of those BS-IV vehicles, whose details are uploaded on the portal till March 31. It also asked the government to place before it the data of vehicles which were uploaded on the e-Vahan portal after 31 March. The court asked the automobile dealers association to furnish details of vehicles sold by them to the government. Bharat Stage (BS) emission norms are standards instituted by the government to regulate output of air pollutants from motor vehicles. The BS-IV norms have been enforced across the country since April, 2017. In 2016, the Centre had announced that India would skip the BS-V norms altogether and adopt BS-VI norms by 2020. Google's Pixel 4a, initially rumored to become official at the Google I/O conference in May - which didn't happen because of the coronavirus - is finally close to launch, it seems. A few days ago a new rumor gave what seems like the umpteenth presumptive unveiling date, namely August 3. And now Google has confirmed this, though in the most convoluted way possible. If you head to a new special page on the Google Store website, you'll get a puzzle based on 'lorem ipsum', a famous describer of placeholder web pages. If you solve the puzzle, you'll get the August 3 date, as well as a tagline - "The Google Just What You've Been Waiting For Phone". Obviously the tagline had to be convoluted too, to go with the entire project. The 'lorem ipsum' text itself contains some fake Latin purportedly talking about cameras and a "longlastingis batterum", which would definitely be a surprise for the Pixel lineup. Source | Via HKSAR govt supports disqualifying 12 nominees to LegCo election Global Times Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/30 16:29:23 HKSAR government voiced support to the decision by the electoral affairs commission to disqualify 12 candidates from the opposition camp in the LegCo election: HKSAR govt. The 12 candidates do not satisfy the requirements of the LegCo election, and therefore have been disqualified. The electoral officers' decision has nothing to do with so-called political censorship, restriction of the freedom of speech or deprivation of candidacy as alleged by some people: HKSAR govt. The 12 disqualified opposition camp candidates include 4 from the Civic Party: Kwok Wing-hang, Alvin Yeung, Kwok Ka-ki and Tat Cheng. The list also includes notorious separatist Joshua Wong: HK media. The possibility that more candidates would be disqualified is not ruled out. The latest decision aims to ensure that the LegCo election is held in strict accordance with the Basic Law and other applicable laws in an open, honest and fair manner: HKSAR govt. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The brave crew of an RAF Chinook helicopter are lucky to be alive after hitting countryside power lines on a war games exercise. Dramatic pictures show the damage to the giant chopper after it hit power cables in a sleepy country village in Wales - and crash landed in a field. The front of the CH47 helicopter was wrecked and three windscreens smashed when it hit the electricity pylon while low-flying over a village. Dramatic picture inside the cabin shows the damage to the helicopter's windscreen after it hit power cables and crashed Two RAF crew members were injured after their Chinook helicopter struck power lines and crash landed in a field near the sleepy village of Llangynin, Carmarthenshire in Wales Experts say the chopper could have been destroyed if it was a few inches lower and the rotor blades had hit the lines. The huge troop-carrier chopper normally seen in action on the frontline stunned the quiet village when it cut off power to nearby houses. A suspected 'wire strike' is thought to be responsible for the heavy-lifting helicopter coming down in a field on the edge of the Welsh village. John Davies, 81, said: 'This is not a warzone - it's a very quiet village, nothing exciting usually happens and there's not a lot going on. 'But all hell broke loose, the electricity went off and we heard a loud noise. 'We all heard it before seeing anything. It was really loud and blaring. 'The power went off at around 8.30pm and we had an alert saying that they were trying to get it back on. 'It was only off for around an hour but everyone was on their doorsteps wondering what was going on.'. The Ministry of Defence said the twin-engine aircraft crew suffered 'minor injuries' in the accident at Llangynin, Carmarthenshire. Neighbour Elfyd Lewis, was also at home when he heard the helicopter. He said: 'Everyone could hear it, it was very loud but it sounded as if the engine was failing, it didn't sound right at all.' 'Lucky that no-one was hurt because it could have been a lot worse. 'We asked the crew members if they needed anything or if we could get them some food or some fish and chips and went down later on and had tea and biscuits with them,' added Mr Lewis. Pam Windsor, a community councillor in Llangynin, said her electricity supply cut off suddenly after her family heard a 'loud sort of droning noise of a helicopter very close by'. She said: 'We went outside and we could see the Chinook very low, just passing over the village heading towards fields in the distance. 'My son and I jumped into his vehicle and headed down there in case of any injuries or anything. 'Luckily they had landed very safely in a field just a few minutes from the village but unfortunate as they had come down they had hit some sort of electric overhead cables. 'We were first on the scene and we spoke to one of the crew members. 'They were very shaken and shocked but all okay as far as we can see.' Villagers said it was like 'all hell broke loose' when the helicopter came down nearby Chinook landed in a field near the village of Llangynin after reportedly hitting power lines Eleven-year-old Josh Palmer who saw the Chinook come down only 500 yards from his home. 'I was having food and watching TV when we looked outside and saw that the helicopter looked like it was flying too low and we could hear that there was something wrong with the propellers,' said Josh. 'It sounded like the engine was failing and the propellers were wafting - I was a bit nervous that people were going to be hurt.' A MoD spokesperson said: 'The Chinook was on a training exercise at the time. The crew suffered minor injuries.' The helicopter's crew stayed with the aircraft to maintain security until it could be recovered by military transport teams. An RAF mountain rescue team was called in to support the crew who were put up in hotels overnight. The Chinook is described as an extremely capable and highly versatile support helicopter that can be operated from land or sea bases into a range of diverse environments, from the Arctic to the desert or jungle. The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of the Philippines of Scout, Assault, and Light Support Boats with armaments and related equipment for an estimated cost of $126 million. The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of the Philippines of Scout, Assault, and Light Support Boats with armaments and related equipment for an estimated cost of $126 million. Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link 10M Assault Boats (Picture source: Willard Marine Inc.) The Government of the Philippines has requested to buy 36 9M Scout Boats (SB); 36 10M Assault Boats (AB); 18 16M Light Support Boats (LSB) along with the following armaments- 156 M240B 7.62x51mm machine guns, 24 M2A1 .50 caliber machine guns and 36 M134D-M, 7.62x51mm, 6-barrel rotary Gatling guns. Also included are sensors and radios to be mounted on the boats including 36 units of Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) 280HD; 399 NFS-NVG/IR Lasers (AN/PVS-14 and AN/PEQ-15); 102 Thermal Imager Scope (handheld); 210 Heavy Thermal Weapon Sights (AN/PAS-13); 90 Harris Falcon III RF-7850M radios; 270 Harris Falcon III RF-7850S radios; boat spare parts; spare engines and engine components; safety and rescue equipment and others. The estimated cost is $126 million. This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a strategic partner that continues to be an important force for political stability, peace, and economic progress in South-East Asia. The proposed sale will improve the Philippines capability to meet current and future threats by force-multiplying the Armys present ability to operate and control both inland and coastal waterways of southern Philippines. The Philippines will have no difficulty absorbing this equipment and support into its armed forces. The principal contractor for the Scout and Assault Boats will be Willard Marine Inc., Anaheim, CA. The principal contractor for the Light Support Boat will be determined through an open competition contract. There are no known offset agreements proposed in connection with this potential sale. Any offset agreement required by Philippines will be defined in negotiations between the purchaser and the contractor(s). Nepal: Pastor imprisoned for saying prayer can heal COVID-19 released Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A pastor imprisoned for over three months in Nepal for saying prayers can heal the novel coronavirus was released after paying a hefty bail this month. Pastor Keshab Raj Acharya was first arrested on March 23 on charges of spreading false information for saying prayers can heal COVID-19. The pastor was taken into custody from his home in Pokhara, Gandaki Pradesh Province, after a video appeared on social media of him rebuking the coronavirus as he preached at his church. Though he was released on April 8, he was rearrested moments later on charges of outraging religious feelings and proselytizing. After more than three months in prison, he was released on July 3 after paying bail equal to about $2,500, Morning Star News reports. It was very difficult for me, Pastor Acharya said. I would think of my little children and my wife, and I would cry out to the Lord in prayer. I would look up at Him in hope that if it is in His will that I should be put through this, He would get me out of this. Acharya told the outlet he believes government officials and police worked together against him. They were laying a thorough plan to make sure I would stay in the jail for a longer period. The Nepal police website states that Kaski police officers arrested Acharya for misleading the public by posting false information on social media about the novel coronavirus. Police cited a YouTube video showing him calling the coronavirus an evil spirit and rebuking it in the name of Christ. According to the Himalayan Times, the pastor allegedly said in the video that COVID-19 could do nothing to followers of Jesus Christ and told them the virus could not even touch the followers of Jesus. The Himalayan Times said the pastor preached in a highly-populated squatters area, but the police report only cites his comments on social media, according to Morning Star News. Christian leaders in the predominantly Hindu Himalayan country told the outlet that the charges against the father of two young children violate a freedom of religion agreement to which Nepal is a signatory. Nepal has been a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council since 2018 and is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Senior Counsel Govinda Bandi, who is defending the pastor, told CSW that his repeated arrest was a very worrying sign of the trajectory of religious freedom in this country. The police are clearly acting outside the scope of the constitution and without any regard to the rules of criminal procedure, Bandi said. There seems to be a concerted effort to use the draconian provisions in the Penal Code to target him that will also threaten the wider minority community with penal sanctions for practicing their religion or belief. Furthermore, the whole allegation against him, is forged on unfounded and prejudiced allegations. This is without a doubt a targeted persecution and a travesty of our justice system. Persecution watchdog Open Doors USA ranks Nepal 32nd on its World Watch List of 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. Persecution against Christians worsened in 2017 when the Nepalese parliament passed legislation banning religious conversions and the hurting of religious feelings. Last year, four Christians were arrested Nepal, including a United States citizen, months after the law criminalizing religious conversion went into effect. A Christian society leader, an Indian national, a citizen of Colorado and a Nepali interpreter were arrested at their hotel for their alleged involvement in religious conversion by "allurement. In 2016, seven Christians were arrested in the Dolakha district for handing out Bibles. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 30, 2020 / ZincX Resources Corp. ("ZincX Resources" or the "Company") (TSXV:ZNX) announces that due to concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, it has decided to defer the 2020 field exploration program at the Akie property and instead focus its resources on preparing for the more significant 2021 Akie drill program. Due to access constraints and logistical limitations imposed on contractors and the local communities as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Company has determined it could not safely execute its planned exploration program. The Company continues to be in regular dialogue with strategic partner, Tongling Nonferrous Metals (Tongling), about the successful execution of next season's drill program and looks forward to working closely with them. The Company will continue to focus on a number of key aspects to ensure a successful 2021 exploration season including; ongoing planning in support of the 2021 drilling program, extension of all pertinent exploration permits, and the continuation of advance targeting efforts on the extensive Kechika Trough tenure holdings. 2021 Drilling Program The planned 2021 drill program will consist of three holes totalling approximately 2,000 metres of drilling with a primary objective of acquiring mineralised drill core sample material for advanced metallurgical testing. The holes will target specific areas of the deposit to provide sample material representative of the deposit across its strike and width. This material will be used to further investigate the metallurgical response of the mineralisation with a focus on enhancing the recoveries for both zinc and lead into high-grade concentrates; using state-of-the-art metallurgical testing facility at Tongling's laboratories in China. Representative intervals from the 2020 drill program will be selected from the 3 drill holes. Individual drill hole composites will be generated using half of the diamond drill core. Hanging wall and footwall dilution will be included in each composite in order to simulate mined material. From these individual composites a global composite will be constructed. The other half of the drill core will be submitted for conventional assay as per standard procedure for Akie drilling. Peeyush Varshney, CEO of the Company, stated: "We remain fully funded and intend to execute our exploration programs at the first opportunity. Our funding partner, Tongling remains committed to completion of the intended drill program on the Akie Property in 2021. The drill program is intended to provide new drill core for advanced metallurgical testing that Tongling plans to conduct at their own testing facility. It is anticipated that senior representatives from Tongling will be on site at the Akie Project during the drill program." Advanced Targeting As plans develop for the 2021 exploration season, the Company will continue its ongoing geological interpretation of the Akie Property andwill continue to develop and enhance the Cardiac Creek deposit model. This work will generate additional expansion targets both along strike and at depth of the deposit as well as evaluate other new and key target areas across the Akie property; including the NW Extension, North Lead Zone, the recently discovered extensive Ag-rich Sitka Zone and the historical South Zinc Anomaly. Another core objective of the Company has been to maximize and unlock the value of its extensive Kechika Trough tenure holdings which stretch 140 strike-kilometres north of the Akie property. Geological modelling, interpretation and advanced targeting will continue on several key properties such as Mt. Alcock, Yuen North, Bear/Spa, Driftpile South, and Saint utilizing the Company's massive and growing regional geological database in order to refine existing drill targets and identify new target areas. Thisdatabase represents a wealth of data comprised of over 40 years of exploration activity within the Kechika Trough. Properties such as Mt. Alcock and Bear/Spa are host to significant mineralisation identified in very limited and shallow historical drilling and are prime targets for future exploration programs with the potential for additional discovery. Properties such as the Thro, Weiss and Kwad are vastly underexplored with little to no exploration activity being conducted despite the presence of prospective stratigraphy. With the exception of the company's recent VTEM surveys in 2012 and 2013, and structural satellite interpretation completed in 2017 and 2018, the Company's Kechika Trough tenure holdings have not had systematic, modern exploration techniques applied to them. So the potential opportunity to continue to advance these highly prospective claims is compelling. About Tongling Non-Ferrous Metals Group Co. Ltd.: Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Holdings Company Limitedis a state-owned enterprise involved in mining and smelting copper and other non-ferrous metals. It was founded in 1949 in Tongling, Anhui, China and the first mine was put into production in 1952.Over the past 60 years Tongling has grown to a large-scale, diverse, fully integrated mining and smelting enterprise engaged in mining, mineral processing, smelting and refining of copper, lead, zinc, gold, silver and other nonferrous metals. The subsidiary and listed company, Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Company Limited, was established in 1992 and listed on the main board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 1996. Tongling has established an extensive economic, technical, and trade network with more than 30 countries and regions around the world. Their products are exported to over 10 countries including Japan, Germany, United States, and Singapore. Tongling's main products include cathode copper, gold, silver, copper wire, copper strip and copper foil, among others. The high purity cathode copper with the brand name of "Tongguan" is registered with the London Metal Exchange (LME) while the silver ingot with the same brand is registered with the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). Tongling n also investsin resource exploration and development in many countries such as Canada, Ecuador and Chile. ZincX Resources previously reported that Mr. Hu Xinfu, Vice-President, Deputy General Manager of Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Holding Company was appointed to the Board of Directors and sits as an independent director.Mr. Hu Xinfu is in charge of acquisition and exploitation of mineral resources both in domestic China and abroad, and is also responsible for production safety and environmental protection for Tongling. Tongling has other mining interests outside China; including the Mirador copper project in Ecuador which was acquired in 2010 by the CAN $678 million buyout of TSX listed Corriente Resources. The Tongling-led Chinese consortium put the US$1.4 billion Mirador copper mine into production in 2019. The Akie Zn-Pb-Ag Project The 100% owned Akie property is situated within the Kechika Trough, the southernmost area of the regionally extensive Paleozoic Selwyn Basin and one of the most prolific sedimentary basins in the world for the occurrence of SEDEX zinc-lead-silver and stratiform barite deposits. Drilling on the Akie property by ZincX Resources since 2005 has identified a significant body of baritic-zinc-lead SEDEX mineralization known as the Cardiac Creek deposit. The deposit is hosted by siliceous, carbonaceous, fine-grained clastic rocks of the Middle to Late Devonian Gunsteel Formation. The Company updated the estimate of mineral resources at Cardiac Creek in 2018, as follows: 5% Zinc Cut-Off Grade Contained Metal: Category Tonnes (million) Zn (%) Pb (%) Ag (g/t) Zn (Blbs) Pb (Blbs) Ag (Moz) Indicated 22.7 8.32 1.61 14.1 4.162 0.804 10.3 Inferred 7.5 7.04 1.24 12.0 1.169 0.205 2.9 The Company announced robust positive results from the 2018 Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA). The PEA envisages a conventional underground mine and concentrator operation with an average production rate of 4,000 tonnes per day. The mine will have an 18-year life with potential to extend the life-of-mine (LOM) through resource expansion at depth. Key parameters for the PEA are as follows: Parameter Base Case1 Tonnes Mined 25.8 Mt Mined Head Grades 7.6% Zn; 1.5% Pb; 13.08 g/t Ag Tonnes Milled 19.7 Mt Milled Head Grades (after DMS2 upgrade) 10.0% Zn; 1.9% Pb; 17.17 g/t Ag Total Payable Metal (LOM) $3,960M3 Initial CAPEX $302.3M including $45.7M contingency LOM Total CAPEX $617.9M including $58.5M contingency All-in Total OPEX $102.4 per tonne milled Pre-Tax NPV7% $649M Pre-Tax IRR 35% Pre-Tax Payback 2.6 years After-Tax NPV7% $401M After-Tax IRR 27% After-Tax Payback 3.2 years 1. The base case used metal prices are calculated from the 3 year trailing average coupled with two year forward projection of the average price; and are: US$1.21/lb for zinc, US$1.00/lb for lead and US$16.95 for silver. A CDN$/US$ exchange rate of 0.77 was used. The NPV discount rate is 7%. 2. DMS = dense media separation. 3. All dollar amounts expressed in Canadian dollars. The PEA is considered preliminary in nature and includes mineral resources, including inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves have not yet demonstrated economic viability. Due to the uncertainty that may be attached to mineral resources, it cannot be assumed that all or any part of a mineral resource will be upgraded to mineral reserves. Therefore, there is no certainty that the results concluded in the PEA will be realized. Kechika Regional Project In addition to the Akie Project, the Company owns 100% of eight of eleven large, contiguous property blocks that comprise the Kechika Regional Project including the advanced Mt. Alcock prospect. The Kechika Regional Project also includes the Pie, Yuen and Cirque East properties which the Company maintains a significant 49% interest with partners Teck Resources Limited (TSX: TECK.B) and Korea Zinc Co. Ltd holding 51%. These properties collectively extend northwest from the Akie property for approximately 140 kilometres covering the highly prospective Gunsteel Formation shale; the main host rock for known SEDEX zinc-lead-silver deposits in the Kechika Trough of northeastern British Columbia. These projects are located approximately 260 kilometres north northwest of the town of Mackenzie, British Columbia, Canada. Ken MacDonald P.Geo., Vice President of Exploration for the Company, is the designated Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and is responsible for the technical information contained in this release.Mike Makarenko P.Eng, JDS Energy and Mining, is the designated Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and is responsible for the PEA technical information contained in this release. The TSX Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS ZINCX RESOURCES CORP. "PEEYUSH VARSHNEY" PEEYUSH VARSHNEY, LL.B CEO & CHAIRMAN SOURCE: ZincX Resources Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/599729/ZincX-Resources-Provides-an-Update-on-the-2020-Akie-Exploration-Program Eight of TUIs 10 stores in Ireland are listed as closed temporarily due to Covid-19 risks. Photo: PA Travel company TUI says it is shutting a third of shops across the UK and Ireland - including as many as four Irish outlets. Spokespeople for the package holiday giant in Dublin, London and its headquarters in Hanover, Germany, said no holiday bookings would be affected by the closure of physical stores, given that most sales already happen online. Eight of TUI's 10 stores in Ireland are listed as closed temporarily due to Covid-19 risks. Two shops, in Kilkenny and on Talbot Street, Dublin, are listed as open. One TUI official said four of the 10 Irish branches were likely to close. A second said at least some Irish outlets would remain open. "I can confirm none of the stores that are currently open are at risk of closure," the London-based spokeswoman said. An agent who answered the phone at the Talbot Street branch said it was open for business, but TUI was not highlighting this fact "because we'd be inundated". The agent said staff there had not been informed about its future. Jobs In a statement, TUI said it was consulting with staff on the closure of 166 stores in the UK and Ireland and, until those talks finished, no list of affected branches would be published. About 350 outlets would survive the cuts, it said. TUI said it planned to move 70pc of about 900 staff in the closing outlets to work-from-home roles and others to surviving branches. But potentially 250 to 300 job losses could be expected. In May, TUI - the world's biggest provider of package holidays - said it would slash costs globally by 30pc and cut more than 8,000 of its 70,000 employees worldwide. It had already received a 1.8bn German government-backed loan in March to keep it afloat. Andrew Flintham, managing director of TUI for the UK and Ireland, said TUI needed a smaller footprint because 70pc of sales occur online. "We believe Covid-19 has only accelerated this change in purchasing habits, with people looking to buy online or wishing to speak with travel experts from the comfort of their own home," he said. TUI's shares fell by more than 5pc yesterday on the London and Frankfurt exchanges. The company is now worth under 2bn, a third of its value before the crisis. By Bahk Eun-ji Concerns are growing over police having too much power in the nation's criminal justice system, according to legal analysts Friday, as the government introduced a plan to shift more investigative powers to the police force from the prosecution and the intelligence agency. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and the presidential office discussed reforms of the law enforcement authorities, Thursday. As a part of pushing ahead of the long overhaul plan to reform the country's institutions of power, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) will be renamed the "Foreign Security Intelligence Agency" to strictly block the NIS' involvement in domestic politics. Accordingly, the spy agency's counter-espionage operations will also be shut down. National Police Agency headquarters /Korea Times file In addition, the DPK leaders and other participants agreed on a plan to limit the scope of direct investigative authority by the prosecution, and police will be given more powers to conduct investigations in most cases. The NIS' investigative authority will also be handed over to the police in a bid to reform the powerful agency, while critics say there will be no means to keep police power in check. In particular, controversy is expected over the wide range of activities carried out by the National Police Agency's intelligence unit, including potential political interference and domestic surveillance, but no precautions have been prepared to prevent these occurrences. According to the reform plan, prosecutors will be allowed to investigate directly only six types of crimes related to corruption, the economy, public officials, elections, the defense industry and large-scale disasters. The relationship between the prosecution and police will be changed from a command structure to "investigation cooperative." If opinions differ over important investigation procedures, prior consultation will be mandatory, and regular investigation councils will be held between the Supreme Prosecutors' Office and the National Police Agency. Cheong Wa Dae has been entirely relying on the police intelligence unit after the NIS was banned from collecting domestic information. The DPK says it will limit the role of the police intelligence unit to "prevent and respond to the dangers of public well-being," but critics point out that concerns remain, such as political interference by the police, when the prosecution's power is limited. "There is no need for the intelligence police to collect extensive information. The reason the government can't keep the intelligence police from collecting information which has nothing to do with national security is that it wants to keep their authority," said Oh Chang-ik, secretary-general of the Citizen's Solidarity for Human Rights. "It will be much more appropriate to divert the workforce to areas that the public needs, such as living safety." The prosecution reform to weaken its powers has been promoted consistently since President Moon Jae-in took office in 2017. However, the DPK has faced fierce resistance whenever it tried to change the laws governing the prosecution, police and the NIS. Wilkes-Barre, PA (18701) Today Snow showers this morning. Peeks of sunshine later. Morning high of 35F with temps falling to near 20. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 60%.. Tonight Mainly cloudy. Low 9F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Manama Bahraini citizens convict- ed in financial cases will have their fines and dues paid by Feena Khair campaign to help them share the Eid joy with their families, said His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa. The move benefits those fea- tured on the Interior Ministrys Fael Khair (Person of Good- will) campaign, launched to help citizens sentenced in financial cases. This is also the second time HH Shaikh Nasser is directing donations to Fael Khair to help citizens, who are unable to pay their fines and dues amid the pandemic. In June, Shaikh Nasser do- nated BD 330,000 from Feena Khair campaign to the Fael Khair project to help those suf- fering from financial hardships and who received court verdicts. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 15:43:47|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close SHANGHAI, July 31 (Xinhua) -- An asteroid has been named after renowned Chinese scientist, educator and outstanding social activist Qian Weichang, according to a statement by the Shanghai University. A ceremony was held at the university on Thursday to mark the 10th anniversary of his death and to officially announce the naming of Asteroid Qianweichang, which was approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in February. According to an IAU communique, the asteroid, coded 283279, was discovered on May 16, 2007, by astronomers with the NEO Survey Program at the Purple Mountain Observatory in east China. Qian Weichang, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was born in 1912 and died in 2010. The founder of mechanics in China, he discovered the Qian Weichang equation and systematically developed the theory of large deflection of circular thin plates. The scientist taught at universities in Beijing and Shanghai for decades, and once served as the president of Shanghai University. Asteroids are the only celestial bodies that can be named by their discoverers. The naming is recognized as an international and permanent honor. Enditem WINNERS AND LOSERS Is anyone winning the lottery anymore? Is anyone even playing the lottery anymore? What happened to all those senior citizen programs it supported? UP IN SMOKE Why is Portland, Ore., such a mess? Lootings, killing, burning buildings, tearing down statues. Wait a minute. Aint that one of the first states where they legalized drugs? Maybe their brains are too fried from all the use of pot. CITIZEN WHOA IS US I would say that people like Woe is Us are brainwashed. But you have to have a brain to be brainwashed. That was one of the most ridiculous things Ive ever heard in my entire life. They actually dont think that Donald Trump is incompetent, inept and corrupt, which he has shown every day of his presidency. His total mishandling of the coronavirus was shameful and disgraceful. Face it, he is not up to the job of president. DEMS THE BREAKS Notice that your car registration renewal has gone up? Well, way back in 2013 a state ordinance was passed to add a tax on each registration called the Fee for Local Use Fund. Other counties adopted it, but Delaware County did not accept this tax, until 6/1/2020. What changed? Oh, thats right, Democrats took over. Democrats never saw a tax they didnt like. TIME TO MOVE CHEAT SHEET Trump is at it already, with trying to postpone election day. Good for the GOP for taking bunker boy to the woodshed over that one. Trump doesnt even know that Congress decides election date changes and they are not about to. But dont worry Trumpers, your boy will find another way to cheat. Its what he has done all his life. TRUE WORDS Antisemitism is un-American. On Aug. 18, 1790, George Washington wrote: May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy. EASY ANSWERS First of all, I hate Trump. But I believe that federal property should be protected . If the mayor of Portland and the governor of Oregon dont want federal agencies to come in to protect federal property then they should protect these properties with their city and state police .But then agree that the cost of any damages that occur under their protection will be withheld by the federal government from those cities and states . I wonder how many mayors and governors would rethink their opposition to federal protective support? See? Problem solved! BILL MAKE YOUR CHOICE All of you GOPpers who continue to support President Anti-Science! Who do you believe? His latest doctor. Yeah, the one who believes in alien DNA, demon sperm, instantaneous pregnancy, that masks do not help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and that hydroxychloroquine can be used to treat the virus? Or Dr. Fauci, who has served as the head of NIAID (the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases) since 1984, won numerous medical awards, and has served under six presidents? He claims the results of clinical trials have proven hydroxychloroquine is ineffective in the treatment of COVID-19. Who to believe? The demon sperm, alien DNA lady, or the renowned immunologist? Nov. 3, 2020, cant get here soon enough! BILL FROM BROOMALL NO SWEAT PennDOT has extended the grace period for drivers license renewal from March 16 to Aug. 31. Last week I arrived at the office at 8:30; had my temperature checked at the door, sat at a socially distanced chair, waited my turn (#5), answered some questions, had my picture taken, got my card and left before 9. Why a grace period for something so safe and easy? On the other hand, the Real ID process (needed for airline travel) is cancelled completely with no start date at any time soon. MIKE FROM GARNET VALLEY NVice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday expressed happiness over the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and called it a major step forward to enhance access to quality education for children and youth. Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishak called on the Vice President at Upa-Rashtrapati Niwas today to brief him on the NEP announced by the Government yesterday. The minister also handed over a copy of the policy and note highlighting the salient features of NEP-2020 to the Vice President. Welcoming the emphasis on a holistic, learner-centred, flexible system that seeks to transform India into a vibrant knowledge society, Naidu said it rightfully balances the rootedness and pride in India as well as acceptance of the best ideas and practices in the world of learning from across the globe. He expressed happiness over the importance given to the mother tongue at the primary level in the Policy. Diversity and respect for the local context as well as a recognition of the importance of Indias classical languages will undoubtedly give learners a holistic world view. The focus of NEP-2020 on ethics and human and Constitutional values would go a long way in the creation of enlightened citizenship essential for deepening our democratic roots, Naidu said. Calling the NEP-2020s vision as truly global and essentially Indian, Naidu said that it exemplifies Indias timeless quest for welcoming noble thoughts from all over the world. The Vice President also expressed his satisfaction that the new policy reflected his conviction that there should be no imposition and no opposition to any language. (ANI) Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Friday became the latest political leader to call for an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Several political parties in Bihar, including Paswans Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), have called for and supported demands for a CBI inquiry into the 34-year-old actors death last month. The demand for a CBI probe has been mounting even as police departments of Maharashtra and Bihar are investigating the case. Anil Deshmukh, Maharashtra home minister and Congress leader, has rejected demands for a CBI probe into the actors death more than once, saying Mumbai Police are doing their job. Theres a confrontation between two states and no FIR has been registered yet in Maharashtra. Chirag had spoken to CM Thackeray that there should be CBI probe, the Union consumer affairs minister was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. Paswan was referring to the allegations and counter-allegations over the probe being carried out by police teams from Patna and Mumbai. Chirag Paswan is his son and the president of the LJP. All political leaders are demanding for it. It should be handed over to CBI, Ram Vilas Paswan said. According to ANI, a letter petition has been filed in Patna High Court seeking the transfer of investigation into Rajputs death from Bihar police to CBI. The petition came days after a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, dismissed a petition seeking a CBI inquiry into Rajputs death. The actors father, Krishna Kumar Singh, filed a complaint with Bihar police last week accusing his sons girlfriend and actor Rhea Chakraborty, and six others, for the death. Rajput was found dead in his Bandra flat on June 14. Rajputs father has levelled several allegations, including abetment to suicide and withdrawing crores of rupees from his sons bank account and mental harassment, against Rhea Chakraborty and six others, including her family members. EDMONTON, AB, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - edatanetworks Inc. announced today the approval of additional patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). edatanetworks' intellectual property rights and portfolio continue to increase with U.S. Patents 14/315,641, 14/672,756, 14/612,823 and 14/879,328 with allowability agreements in place at the USPTO. These additional patents relate to: directing merchant donations, incentive recommendations, proximity/location-based incentive triggering, interchange fees, and directing donations benefitting worthwhile causes. Together, these transform local small and medium businesses through digital commerce. "From the beginning, we recognized the importance of developing our intellectual capital and protecting our patent portfolio including more than 65 patents filed, dating back to 2004, over 95 trademarks and a registered copyright with the USPTO," said Terry Tietzen, edata's Founder and Chief Executive Officer. "As innovators in online to offline digital commerce benefiting local communities, these latest USPTO patents not only demonstrate our ongoing commitment to innovation as a philanthropic fintech, it makes clear our ability to secure patent protection for our intellectual property in a way that strengthens our competitive advantage." These forthcoming new U.S. patents are of particular note in that they demonstrate the successful acquisition of patents for innovations in the area of financial transactions following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2014 decision in a landmark patent eligibility case, Alice Corp. vs. CLS Bank International. About edatanetworks edatanetworks Inc. (edata), edatanetworks.com, a privately held intellectual property company established In 2001, has worked with many organizations and conducted multiple live markets tests creating patented philanthropic fintech innovations utilizing existing technological and financial infrastructures connecting consumers, local merchants, charitable and community organizations, digital media groups, communications companies, search providers, social networks, banks, payment networks and other financial services organizations. edata continues to refine its Software-as-a-Service platform by enhancing the delivered functionality, transaction processes, microservices / API technology while increasing value to participating merchants, consumers, community and charitable organizations. Through its evolution and successful market tests, edata has built an extensive intellectual property portfolio of patents and trademarks at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Media Contact: Catherine Keill, KEILL&Co. Inc., 780-690-5283 SOURCE edatanetworks Inc. Delta College is going to the polls in the Nov. 3 general election with a millage ballot proposal that asks voters to override the Headlee Amendment and approve a millage renewal that originally gained voter approval in 1990. Delta Board of Trustees unanimously approved a millage renewal and restoration proposal that asks the colleges taxing district of Bay, Saginaw and Midland counties to restore the 0.0136 mill that was reduced by the Headlee Amendment. Delta is asking voters to restore the original voter-approved rate of .5000 mills, which was decreased to .4864 mills by the Headlee Amendment, said Leanne Govitz, Deltas director of marketing and public information. Delta can combine the additional millage and the millage renewal into a single ballot question because the amount its seeking to restore is less than 0.50 mill. If successful, Delta would gain an estimated $150,000 annually, said Sarah Du Fresne, vice president of business and finance. Homeowners would see a nominal increase on their property tax bill. If the taxable value of a house is $110,000, the fractional increase (for homeowners) would be $1.50 more annually, Du Fresne said. Deltas current millage does not expire until 2023, but the college has historically fared well with millage renewals during a fall presidential election when voter turnout is higher. President Jean Goodnow told trustees that going to the polls on Nov. 3, would allow the college to mount another millage renewal campaign should this one fail. Since its beginning in 1961, Delta College has always been responsive the needs of local employers and students, Govitz said. Deltas educational classes will be needed to help the region rebound and rebuild its economy following the economic downturn. The Headlee Amendment, a 1978 revision to the Michigan Constitution, limits property tax revenue resulting from property tax assessment increases. Delta estimates it has lost about $3.9 million in revenue over the past 27 years since the Headlee Amendment rollback that could have been collected from the 0.5 general operations millage. A successful Delta millage and restoration proposal in November would lock in the millage rate for eight years, beginning in 2024. Community colleges in Michigan rely on three main sources of revenue: tuition, state aid and property taxes. My sense is that Headlee override requests are pretty common historically among colleges across the state, said Michael Hansen, president of the Michigan Community College Association. I dont have specific data on the success of these overrides, but my sense is that they are clearly more successful than campaigns asking for millage increases. The United States has expanded its economic sanctions on metals trade with Iran, publishing a list of 22 materials that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said could potentially be used to supply Tehrans ballistic missile, nuclear and military programs. On the newly released list is refined aluminum powder, a key ingredient in solid rocket fuel. In a press release Thursday, Pompeo cited the influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Irans construction sector as a reason for the latest sanctions. The IRGCs construction firm and many of its subsidiaries remain sanctioned by the United Nations because they were directly involved in the construction of the uranium enrichment site at Fordow, Pompeo said in the press release. As a result of this IRGC determination, any knowing transfer of certain materials, including graphite or raw or semi-finished metals, to or from Iran to be used in connection with the construction sector of Iran remains sanctionable, he said. In June, the US Treasury targeted Irans largest steel manufacturer, Mobarakeh Steel Co., as well as three other firms, South Aluminum Co., Sirjan Jahan Steel Complex, and Iran Central Iron Ore. The US first sanctioned Mobarakeh in 2018 for its alleged financial links to the IRGC. The Trump administration has targeted alleged IRGC funding streams throughout Irans private sector as part of the Trump administrations so-called maximum pressure campaign against Tehran, launched after the US pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement in 2018. The Trump administration has accused Iran of exploiting the deal to exporting missile technology and support militias in conflict zones in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The White House has said it remains open to future negotiations with Iran under certain conditions. Irans supreme leader today publicly ruled out talks with the United States, saying President Donald Trump would use any such negotiations for propaganda like negotiations with North Korea. OAKLAND, Calif. One by one, the celebrity Twitter accounts posted the same strange message: Send Bitcoin and they would send back double your money. Elon Musk. Bill Gates. Kanye West. Joseph R. Biden Jr. Former President Barack Obama. They, and dozens of others, were being hacked, and Twitter appeared powerless to stop it. While some initially thought the hack was the work of professionals, it turns out the mastermind of one of the most high-profile hacks in recent years was a 17-year-old recent high school graduate from Florida, the authorities said on Friday. Graham Ivan Clark was arrested in his Tampa apartment, where he lived by himself, early Friday, state officials said. He faces 30 felony charges in the hack, including fraud, and is being charged as an adult. Two other people, Mason John Sheppard, 19, of the United Kingdom, and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, Fla., were accused of helping Mr. Clark during the takeover. Prosecutors said the two appeared to have aided the central figure in the attack, who went by the name Kirk. Documents released on Friday do not provide the real identity of Kirk, but they suggest that it was Mr. Clark. (HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged former Georgia state legislator and former member of the Georgia Board of Regents Clarence Dean Alford with defrauding at least 100 investors in his now-bankrupt energy development company, Allied Energy Services LLC. According to the SECs complaint, from 2017 to 2019, Alford fraudulently raised at least $23 million by selling promissory notes to investors primarily Indian-American professionals that he guaranteed would provide high annual rates of return. According to the complaint, Alford presented Allied as a successful business when in fact it was struggling, and claimed that investors funds would finance energy projects while using most of the funds to make interest payments to earlier investors and for personal expenses, including building a multmillion-dollar home. In 2019, Alfords alleged scheme collapsed when he failed to make promised interest payments to several investors and then failed to repay the investors principal. As alleged in our complaint, Alford was a prominent member of the community who misled retail investors for personal gain, said Justin Jeffries, Associate Regional Director for the SECs Atlanta Regional Office. Investors should be wary whenever they are promised guaranteed, lucrative investment opportunities. Without admitting or denying the allegations, Alford consented to entry of a judgment finding that he violated the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and ordering permanent and conduct-based injunctions. Alford also agreed that the amounts of civil penalties, disgorgement, and prejudgment interest would be determined by the court at a later date upon motion by the SEC. The proposed judgment is subject to court approval. Just one start into his tenure with the Reds, southpaw Wade Miley is headed to the 10-day injured list with a left groin strain, John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. Miley joins righty Anthony DeSclafani (strained teres major) as the second member of the Reds rotation to go on the IL since last week. The 33-year-old Miley, who put forth a solid 2019 effort as a member of the Astros, was one of the Reds many notable offseason pickups. The Reds signed him to a two-year, $15MM contract in free agency, but his Cincinnati stint has gotten off to an inauspicious start in the early going. The Cubs tuned up Miley for six runs (five earned) on four hits over 1 2/3 innings in his 2020 debut Monday. In fairness to Miley, though, manager David Bell revealed he didnt feel 100 percent and didnt feel great in that game. Now, the Reds are hopeful that Miley will return in short order. Without Miley and DeSclafani, who Fay notes is doing better, the Reds will keep Tyler Mahle in their rotation behind Luis Castillo, Sonny Gray and Trevor Bauer. Castillo, Gray and Bauer have been excellent thus far, but the playoff-hopeful Reds have only mustered a 2-4 start. Taliban say will free Afghan government inmates before Eid al-Adha Iran Press TV Thursday, 30 July 2020 9:03 AM The Taliban militant group says it will release the remaining Afghan government prisoners before Eid al-Adha (the Feast of Sacrifice) as a "goodwill gesture." Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Taliban's office in Qatar, said in a statement on Twitter on Thursday that the militant group had decided to release the 1,000 prisoners before Eid al-Adha, which marks the culmination of the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Shaheen called on the Afghan government to complete the release of the 5,000 Taliban prisoners that has been underway in a gradual format as part of a prisoner swap between the two sides. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Tuesday that his government would soon complete the release of the 5,000 Taliban prisoners in order to demonstrate its commitment to peace. He also said negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban militant group were expected to begin "in a week's time," following the completion of the prisoner exchange. The prisoner swap has been an Afghan government obligation under a deal between the United States and the Taliban that was struck in February. The Afghan government, which was not a signatory to the accord, was required to release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners. The militants, for their part, were obliged to free 1,000 government captives. The exchange has been regarded as a first step toward broader talks between the government and the militants. Its implementation had faced hurdles since the deal was signed. The deal envisages a complete withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, and the Taliban pledged not to attack American and other foreign forces. They made no such pledge in relation to the Afghan government and people. The Taliban on Tuesday declared a three-day ceasefire for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, starting Friday. Kabul welcomed the announcement with a note of caution. The truce announcement has been welcomed by the public and officials in Afghanistan and they have called for a lasting ceasefire in the war-ravaged country. The militants declared a similar three-day ceasefire at the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan in May. That truce prompted widespread relief across Afghanistan, but it was short-lived, with the militants resuming deadly attacks straight afterwards. Official data shows that bombings and other assaults by the Taliban have surged 70 percent since the militant group signed the deal with the United States. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address OTTAWAThe proposal for WE Charity to run a massive government program didnt sit well with Justin Trudeau. But despite misgivings that included his familys ties to the Toronto-based organization, the prime minister ultimately took part in his governments decision to approve the plan that exploded into a conflict-of-interest controversy and ended up killing the program. In a rare, high-stakes appearance at a parliamentary committee on Thursday, Trudeau faced an onslaught of questions over how his Liberal minority government decided to award a $544-million grant program for student volunteers to the charity that has paid tens of thousands of dollars to members of the prime ministers family. That was one reason Trudeau said he pushed back against the recommendation from the public service to outsource the program to WE when he was first briefed about the plan shortly before a cabinet meeting on May 8 three days after the charity started working on the program. Trudeau was concerned enough to pull the recommendation from the cabinet agenda that day, he said, and asked for further due diligence before his government approved the plan to outsource the program to WE, which it did on May 22. But when he first heard of the proposal, Trudeau said he still hoped a government agency would deliver the program and knew the selection of WE Charity would be closely scrutinized because of his familys ties to the organization. I knew there would be questions asked because of the links to my family, he told the committee by video Thursday. Trudeaus admission that he expected questions around perceptions over awarding the program to WE comes after Ian Shugart, the top public servant in the federal government, told the same committee on July 21 that the issue of a potential conflict of interest in this case was not raised during the process. Trudeau has appeared at several WE events; his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, is a WE ambassador and has been paid thousands of dollars for expenses to appear at the organizations events. The prime ministers mother and brother also received a combined $282,000 between 2016 and 2020 for their work with WE. The prime minister said Thursday that the ethics commissioner cleared his wife to volunteer with WE and receive payments for her expenses when working with the organization. He added that he knew of the work his mother and brother did for WE, but was not aware of how much they had been paid. He also said he didnt know Finance Minister Bill Morneau travelled with WE in 2017 with the organization covering some expenses. The ethics commissioners office declined to confirm whether it cleared Gregoire Trudeaus arrangement with WE, stating by email that discussions with office holders about the conflict of interest law are confidential. But in the end, Trudeau said he understood the recommendation because of the need for urgency in the context of the pandemic as well as the limited capacity of the civil service branch he envisioned delivering the program, the Canada Service Corps meant that WE Charity was the only entity that could pull off the grant initiative this summer. He also said he concluded there is no way his family would directly benefit from awarding the grant program to WE. I did not intervene to make this recommendation happen, he added. WE Charity received no preferential treatment not from me, not from anyone else. Katie Telford, Trudeaus chief of staff, also testified on Thursday that she shared some misgivings about how the public would perceive the WE Charity deal, and agreed that they should punt it from the May 8 agenda. Like Trudeau, she said that was the first time she heard the recommendation to outsource the program to WE Charity. But she acknowledged one staff member of the Prime Ministers Office had discussed the proposal with the organization on May 5, the same day the governments COVID-19 cabinet committee endorsed the plan. By May 22, Telford said the choice was clear: the civil service had concluded if they did not outsource the grant program to WE, there would have been no program at all for student volunteers this summer. This was not a choice between different organizations to deliver the program, she said. This was a choice between going forward with the program or not. Opposition members on the committee challenged the prime ministers account and questioned how he could have approved the outsourcing plan even if he had concerns about how his familys connections to WE would be perceived. How could you possibly have believed that it was appropriate for you to approve a nearly half-billion (dollar) grant to a group that only 60 days earlier was paying for sumptuous travels for immediate members of your family? asked Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre. NDP MP Charlie Angus charged that Trudeau overlooked an obvious conflict of interest and has tarnished the governments efforts to help Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Do you recognize what youve done here, and the damage that has been done to all of us trying to reassure Canadians? he said. In questioning Telford, Conservative MP Michael Cooper asked, since Trudeau and his chief of staff were concerned about a perceived conflict of interest by awarding the program to WE, whether the prime minister approached the ethics commissioner to discuss it. Telford did not answer the question, but said her office already had a very complete description of Gregoire Trudeaus work with WE, which was already cleared by the commissioner. You were concerned about peoples perceptions, Cooper said. Its inexplicable why you would not advise, or why (Trudeau) would not have taken it upon himself to go to the ethics commissioner. The controversy over the program grew over the past month, as new information about ties between WE and the families of Trudeau and Morneau trickled out in extensive and relentless media coverage. WE told the Star in late June that Gregoire Trudeau was never paid an honorarium for her involvement with the charity. But WE co-founders Marc and Craig Kielburger have since confirmed the organization paid more than $25,000 to cover her expenses for appearing at WE events. It was also revealed that Morneaus daughter works for WE, and the finance minister admitted during his own testimony this month that he had to repay $41,366 to the organization for trips that he and his family took with the organization to Ecuador and Kenya in 2017. The confession led to an expansion of the ethics commissioners investigation into Morneau which will, as of Wednesday, include additional sections of the federal conflict of interest act. Trudeau and Morneau have also apologized for participating in the May 22 cabinet decision to award the student grant contract to WE, instead of sitting out to avoid any potential conflict of interest. Mario Dion, the House of Commons ethics commissioner, has opened separate investigations into whether the Liberal politicians broke the Commons conflict of interest law. Trudeau has already been found guilty of breaking that law twice as prime minister, and is now being investigated for a third time. In her testimony, Telford said the Liberal government tried to properly scrutinize the WE proposal from the public service in the rapid-fire environment of its COVID-19 crisis response. But she admitted more could have been done to avoid the subsequent controversy. While we did ask many questions to make this program a success, we could have done better, we could have done more, we could have added another layer of scrutiny to avoid any perception of favouritism, she said. Audrey Strauss, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York speaks at a news conference announcing charges against Ghislaine Maxwell for her role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein in New York City, New York, U.S., July 2, 2020. A trove of court documents unsealed Thursday night appear to show that the late, accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was in contact with his now-charged confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2015. Attorneys for Maxwell, who was arrested July 2, have argued that she hadn't had any contact with Epstein for more than a decade, and is the target of overzealous prosecutors. In one email between Epstein and Maxwell in 2015, Epstein appears to be composing a draft statement for Maxwell to release publicly. The date in January 2015 is a few weeks after one of Epstein's alleged victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, first shared her story with a British newspaper. In another typo-filled email a few days later, dated Jan. 25, 2015, "jeffrey E." writes: "You have done nothing wrong and i woudl urge you to start acting like it. go outside, head high, not as an esacping convict. go to parties. deal with it." The emails refer to "Gmax" either in the recipient section or the email address. That's the name the FBI and federal prosecutors say Maxwell used when trying to set up a cell phone this past year in another person's name. Prosecutors have contended this was one of the ways Maxwell sought to avoid detection and possible arrest. The documents released Thursday night have been under seal for years, but Judge Loretta Preska last week ruled that a batch of documents from the case, including a deposition of Maxwell and correspondence between Maxwell and Epstein, could be released. The documents are from a defamation case filed against Maxwell in 2015 by Giuffre, who has alleged that Epstein sexually abused her and that Maxwell and Epstein directed her to have sex with other men between 2000 and 2002. The case, which Giuffre brought after Maxwell accused her of lying when she said Maxwell and Epstein had exploited and abused her, was settled privately. The unsealed documents released Thursday also contain allegations that Jane Doe 3 whose allegations match those of Giuffre was "forced" to have sexual relations with Prince Andrew on Epstein's private island in what was described as "an orgy" with numerous other under-aged girls. It does not specify the year. The woman was allegedly instructed by Epstein to "give the Prince whatever he demanded" and "report back to him on the details of the sexual abuse." Similar allegations against Andrew were ordered by a federal judge to be struck from court records in 2015 after being lodged as part of a lawsuit involving Epstein but the judge did not rule on the veracity of the claims. NBC News has reached out to Andrew's representatives for further comment. Some of Andrew's supporters have long maintained that the royal had done nothing wrong, and pointed out that just because allegations are included in court papers it does not mean they are true. Requests for comment from Maxwell's attorneys were not immediately returned Thursday night. Andrew has denied allegations he had sex with Giuffre, who says she was trafficked by Epstein when she was 17. The prince said that he had no recollection of ever meeting her or having any sort of sexual contact with her at any point. A representative for Giuffre said Thursday night that she has no comment and is unable to comment because it is an ongoing legal case. Maxwell, 58, was arrested at a remote New Hampshire mansion. She had not been seen in public since Epstein, her longtime associate, was arrested on sex trafficking charges last year. She was charged in a six-count indictment that alleges she recruited and groomed underage girls, some as young as 14, who were sexually abused by Epstein in the mid-1990s. Prosecutors also said that in some cases she "participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims." The charges against Maxwell cover a time period before Giuffre met Maxwell and Epstein. Maxwell pleaded not guilty at her arraignment and has previously denied all allegations of any improper sexual contact. Epstein died by suicide in jail last summer while awaiting trial. Following his death, federal prosecutors vowed to continue the investigation and prosecute his enablers. Maxwell had petitioned a judge for home confinement in a luxury Manhattan hotel, pending trial, according to court filings, but that request was denied. Prosecutors have described Maxwell as an extreme flight risk, saying she has access to millions of dollars, extensive international contacts and citizenship in France, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. The documents released Thursday were just part of the group the judge ruled on. Additional documents could be released as early as Monday. Maxwell has appealed the release of documents that quote from or disclose information from her own deposition or that of a "John Doe 1" in the case to the Court of Appeals. If that court does not rule by Monday, those documents will also be unsealed and released then. The disclosures Thursday night followed a day of high stakes legal drama as Maxwell's attorneys tried multiple last-minute interventions to prevent the release of documents that had remained under seal for years. Maxwell's attorneys sought to submit materials under seal that had been ordered to be made public by a judge last week and when that did not work, requested an emergency conference with the judge, which was also denied Thursday evening. In Preska's order for the release of the documents to go on as planned, the judge wrote: "The Court is troubled but not surprised that Ms. Maxwell has yet again sought to muddy the waters as the clock ticks closer to midnight." Thursday afternoon, Maxwell's attorneys pleaded with a federal appeals court to keep the documents sealed, saying in part that Maxwell said things in her deposition including "regarding her consensual adult sexual activity" only because she was promised confidentiality. They wrote that in light of her federal prosecution, any revelations from the unsealed documents "will forever let the cat out of the bag." Read more from NBC News: One Marine dead, 8 missing after training 'mishap' off California coast Hurricane Isaias bringing heavy winds, rain to Bahamas as it takes aim at Florida Fauci 'cautiously optimistic' coronavirus vaccine could prove effective by 'late fall or early winter' Byron closed sites on March 18 and was forced to halt refurbishment programme The Byron burger chain will shut 31 restaurants and make 650 staff redundant in yet another blow to the high street economy. The company has been sold in a pre-pack administration to Calveton and will cut over half of its 1200-strong workforce, leaving 20 of its sites open. An employee at Byron also revealed to MailOnline the redundancies would be made 'effective immediately'. The burger company has reportedly been sold in a pre-pack administration to Calveton and will cut over half of its 1200-strong workforce Former Chancellor George Osborne once tweeted a picture of him eating a Byron burger in June 2013, on the evening before he launched his spending review The member of staff said: 'They sold it to investors and then 31 restaurants have not been included in the sale, and everyone working at those restaurants have been made redundant, effective immediately. 'I knew it was coming to be fair but it's not great to be left out at the last minute, I think a lot of people feel like that. 'They said they've been trying to do everything they could but I think people just feel very betrayed. They have no income now or jobs.' The employee added: 'Most have been working there for about a year so they won't be given redundancy pay as you have to work two years, so it's ridiculous. 'They said the Government is going to pay for it and suggested that we sign a job seekers allowance today.' The upmarket chain, which was launched in 2007 and has 51 UK restaurants, has played host to a number of notable figures, with George Osborne once tweeting a picture of himself eating a Byron burger in June 2013. Prince Harry also took his ex-girlfriend Cressida Bonas out for a burger at the chain's branch in Kensington High Street in 2014. It follows Byron filing a notice of intention to appoint administrators last month as it held talks with three potential buyers. In May, KPMG was instructed to help Byron explore the Government's Covid support initiatives and then to look at securing new investment for the business. Covid hit at a frustrating time for Byron, with the company entering the ninth month of a turnaround plan - and it was forced to halt a refurbishment programme. An employee at Byron told MailOnline the redundancies would be made 'effective immediately'. The member of staff also said many people feel 'betrayed' The business also placed all hourly employees on minimum-hour payment terms in an attempt to ensure they were protected during the lockdown. Byron closed all of its sites from March 18, two days before it was forced to by the Government and five days before the full lockdown was brought in. The chain delivered a gross profit of nearly 32million in the 2019 financial year, having made a loss of more than 42million in the previous year. Will Wright, partner at KPMG and joint administrator, told MailOnline: 'In common with so many other companies across the leisure and casual dining industries, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Byron has been profound. 'After exploring a number of options to safeguard the future of the business and following a competitive sales process, this transaction ensures Byron will continue to have a presence on our high streets.' Steve Absolom, partner at KPMG and joint administrator, added: 'It is always a regrettable outcome when hard working people lose their jobs and so our focus now will be on providing those employees affected by redundancy with the support they need at this difficult time.' Sandeep Vyas of Calveton commented: 'Byron is a pioneering brand much loved by customers across the UK. We are backing Byron because we believe it has great opportunity ahead of it, and it is well placed to adapt to the new consumer environment and dining trends. 'We will continue to bring Byron's great tasting food to customers in restaurants and via digital on-demand platforms, whether they are at work, home or on the high street and we look forward to working with the team.' MailOnline has reached out to Byron for comment. WASHINGTON - The entire Washington-based federal appeals court is stepping into the legal dispute over former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn as it weighs whether a judge can be forced to dismiss a case that the Justice Department no longer wants to pursue. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. FILE - In this Dec. 18, 2018, file photo, President Donald Trump's former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn arrives at federal court in Washington. A former federal judge appointed to review the Justice Department's motion to dismiss criminal charges against ex-national security Michael Flynn has found that the government's request should be denied because there is Auclear evidence of a gross abuse of prosecutorial power.Au Former U.S. District Judge John Gleeson says in a filing Wednesday that the government Auhas engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President.Au (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File) WASHINGTON - The entire Washington-based federal appeals court is stepping into the legal dispute over former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn as it weighs whether a judge can be forced to dismiss a case that the Justice Department no longer wants to pursue. The action Thursday by the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacates a decision from a three-judge panel last month that ordered the case dropped. The move also prolongs the fight over Flynns fate and represents one more dramatic development in a case that has taken unexpected twists and turns over the past year and turned Flynn into something of a cause celebre for Trump and his supporters. The court set arguments for Aug. 11. It did not offer an explanation for its decision in a brief order posted online, but did say "the parties should be prepared to address whether there are no other adequate means to attain the relief' desired." Sidney Powell, a lawyer for Flynn, did not immediately return an email seeking comment, but tweeted the news and wrote, "WOW!" A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 last month that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan had overstepped his bounds by not immediately granting the Justice Departments request in May to dismiss the case against Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition period. The panel ordered Sullivan to grant the department's motion and to dismiss the case, but Sullivan asked for the dispute to be reviewed by the full court instead of just three judges. The unusual dismissal motion by the Justice Department, in one of the signature prosecutions of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference, followed a review by a U.S. attorney who was assigned by Attorney General William Barr to scrutinize the Flynn case. That prosecutor, Jeff Jensen of Missouri, recommended that the department dismiss the case. In its motion, the department said it had determined that the FBI had insufficient grounds to question Flynn about his contacts with the diplomat, Sergey Kislyak, and that any statements Flynn made during the interview were not material to the broader counterintelligence investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. The FBI was alarmed by the December 2016 conversations because, on the calls, Flynn had encouraged Kislyak to refrain from escalating tensions over sanctions imposed by the Obama administration for Moscow's interference in the election that Trump had just won against Democrat Hillary Clinton. White House officials, meanwhile, had adamantly denied that Flynn and Kislyak had discussed sanctions. 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. Sullivan was prepared to sentence Flynn in December 2018, but after upbraiding him at the sentencing hearing, he agreed to postpone the proceedings so that Flynn could continue co-operating in hopes of receiving a more lenient punishment. Flynn subsequently replaced his lawyers with a new trial team that has taken a far more adversarial approach toward the case, and he moved earlier this year to withdraw the guilty plea. He was still awaiting sentencing at the time the department sought to dismiss the case. Rather than immediately dismiss the case, Sullivan appointed a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Departments position and to consider whether Flynn could be held in criminal contempt for perjury because he had previously pleaded guilty. Flynns lawyers asked the appeals court to step in and order Sullivan to grant the departments request. ___ Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan resigned as party whip before she voted against the Government on legislation that extended the rent freeze and eviction ban only for those affected by Covid-19. Ms Hourigan voted in favour of a Labour Party amendment that would have extended the legislation to all tenants. Green Minister Joe O'Brien also abstained during the vote on the same legislation, raising serious concerns about his position in the party. However, he is not expected to resign his ministry. The Green Party is understood to be considering suspending both Mr O'Brien and Ms Hourigan for not voting with the Government. Ms Hourigan confirmed to the Irish Independent she resigned as whip before the vote and wrote to her executive council to tell them of her decision. She plans to stay in the party but said it was up to the parliamentary party to decide the next step. Speaking to the Irish Independent, Ms Hourigan said: "I have significant concerns as to the impact of this legislation on levels of homelessness across the State. "I do not believe it takes into account the scale of the coronavirus pandemic and the need to keep people safe in their homes. Eviction due to sale is directly in conflict with Green Party policy and so I am unable to support this bill." Mr O'Brien did not respond to requests for comment on his decision to abstain on legislation brought before the Dail by his constituency colleague, Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael TDs were furious over the lack of support from their Green colleagues. A Cabinet minister said: "Not good, particularly not a minister of State refusing to support government legislation." Junior Minister Mr O'Brien yesterday evening explained his decision on Twitter saying: "The issue of homelessness is an extremely important one for me. I've worked in the area, I've been a whistleblower in the area, I have friends who work in the NGOs and I feel we need to do everything we can to tackle it. "I'm elected in part to be a legislator. "I wasn't convinced that this piece of legislation was the best we could have done in what are, to be fair, unusual circumstances. "This was mainly due to its extremely rushed nature. "I had read enough and heard enough to make it clear to me that it could have been stronger in terms of preventing and reducing homelessness. "The issue here was not dedicating sufficient time to a piece of legislation that could have profound consequences on people's lives," he said. The Dublin Fingal TD added: "I knew my vote was not going to defeat the bill but I felt I also had to give a signal that how it was done was not good enough." Meanwhile, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar ordered a security review for a State car and Garda driver for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney in his final days as Taoiseach. In one of his last acts as Taoiseach, Mr Varadkar ensured Mr Coveney retained his taxpayer-funded security detail before the new Government was formed. Mr Coveney was due to lose his car and driver after he stepped down as Tanaiste. In the days before Mr Varadkar was succeeded by Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin, the then-taoiseach contacted his department's secretary general Martin Fraser to ask for the security review. But Mr Fraser did not officially ask his counterpart in the Department of Justice, Aidan O'Driscoll, for the review until the day after Mr Martin was appointed Taoiseach. Mr Martin was not alerted to Mr Fraser's decision to obtain security advice that ensured Mr Coveney retained his 200,000-a-year State car and driver. Officially known as the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), the country's military is deeply rooted in the people and has maintained close bonds with them since its establishment 93 years ago. "The PLA should always be part of the people, work for their interests, and maintain close ties and share good and bad times with them," Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a speech at a ceremony marking the 90th anniversary of the founding of the PLA on August 1, 2017. "The people's army goes wherever there are enemies, and wherever there is danger," he stressed. That is exactly what the military is doing this year standing together with civilians in the "people's wars" against COVID-19 and the flooding. 'Never retreat' After the novel coronavirus outbreak started in Wuhan, China's epicenter, around 4,000 military medics were dispatched to three hospitals there. They treated over 7,000 patients and saved numerous lives from January to April. "We, the Chinese People's Liberation Army, swear that we will never retreat in face of the epidemic and will safeguard peace and health of the people," said Ma Ling, a military medic serving in an ICU at Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan. After completing their mission, the military personnel were honored by Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission. In an order of commendation, Xi said the epidemic was a "war and test" to the army, and that the troops won the war with strong faith, high scientific and research capacities and great sacrifice. Safeguarding the people In summer, thousands of PLA men embarked on a new mission to combat another dangerous enemy the flooding in a number of provinces along the Yangtze River caused by almost non-stop heavy rain. Water levels in the river and adjacent lakes have been compared with the disastrous flooding in 1998. President Xi urged the PLA and the People's Armed Police (PAP) Force to actively participate in rescue and relief efforts. "We are the people's army and should fight on the frontline at this moment," said Xiao Shuai, a soldier of the PAP in southwest China's Sichuan Province. Zhang Hongbing, a local government official in the eastern province of Anhui, hailed soldiers and officers fighting the flooding as a "real people's army." "Once the troop arrives, the people feel safe and sound," Zhang said. As China strives to build strong armed forces, Xi has called for a commitment to the PLA's basic principle "serving the people heart and soul." The PLA must "go through thick and thin" with the people and always be a military "trusted, supported and loved by the people," he said. SOURCE CGTN Stephen Power would never have been prosecuted if he had owned up to Revenue as soon as they started investigating him, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard on Friday. Instead, he made no admissions and was found to have avoided paying taxes to the value of 47,700 between 2010 and 2013. Power, with an address at Turvey Avenue, Donabate, Co Dublin pleaded guilty to four counts of knowingly filing incorrect end-of-year tax returns to Revenue between January 2011 and December 2013. He also pleaded guilty to four counts of failing to pay income tax on dates between January 2010 and December 2013. As director of his computer consultancy company, SM Logistics, Power also pleaded guilty on the company's behalf to the same charges. I'm afraid I'm guilty, he told the court. He has no previous convictions. Revenue officer Patrick Cosgrove told the court that Power created bogus invoices purporting to be from a French consultancy company. However, this company confirmed to Revenue it had never done any work for SM Logistics. Advertisement Instead, Power had transferred the money to his own accounts in order to pay a number of mortgages he had on French property, the court heard. The amount of tax that Power should have paid to Revenue amounted to 47,700, Mr Cosgrove told the court. This included corporate and income tax. The matters came to light when SM Logistics was randomly audited in 2012 and Power was then personally audited. Judge Martin Nolan said Power could have cooperated with Revenue and avoided prosecution. With Revenue, if you come clean at the start of the process, you will not be criminally prosecuted, he said. For his own reasons, this defendant ignored that chance. The judge said it was a sizeable sum of money and merited a custodial sentence. He handed down an 18-month sentence and suspended the final year. Remy Farrell SC, defending, said at the time of the offending, his client was under extraordinary stress. The country was in recession, he was having financial difficulties with investment properties in France and one of his children had serious medical problems. That child has since made a full recovery, the court heard. Power repaid the amount owed to Revenue and is prepared to pay a civil penalty if necessary. Judge Nolan also fined the company 500. Huawei Corporate Senior Vice President and Director of the Board Catherine Chen delivers a keynote speech at the online Better World Summit 2020, on July 29. / Courtesy of Huawei By Kim Jae-heun Huawei Corporate Senior Vice President and Director of the Board Catherine Chen urged telecom regulators across many nations and industries to work together to address the shared challenges that have emerged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. "We need to create a more inclusive future for all," Chen said during her keynote speech on Thursday at the online Better World Summit 2020 held by Huawei from Shenzhen, China. The Better World Summit was held for four days from July 27 to 30, gathering mobile carriers, analysts, industry partners and press from around the world. They included representatives from the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R), Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA), the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA), the South African Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, Thailand's Office of the National Digital Economy and Society Commission, China's Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) and the Germany Association of the Internet Industry (ECO). These speakers were joined by several thousand online attendees from more than 80 countries to explore how industry policy can promote development of the digital economy, facilitate economic recovery and build a better future. Information technology has advanced rapidly over the past 30 years, making people's lives and work much easier. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed though that digital infrastructure has not kept pace with technological developments, said Chen. According to the ITU, over half of the world's population still does not have internet access nor access to other digital technologies. As economies across countries slow, governments grow increasingly concerned with economic recovery strategies. "We envision a more connected, intelligent and innovative future. Above all else, we must ensure this is an inclusive, sustainable and better future by all, for all," Chen said. As more countries and regions successfully implement infection control measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, economic activity in certain countries has begun to return to normal. Multiple governments have launched a variety of stimulus plans, and ICT invariably has held a key place in these plans. In China, the New Infrastructure plan has set aside over $140 billion to be invested in 5G alone over the next five years. This is expected to grow China's digital economy by more than $2 trillion and boost domestic economic recovery. The EU has also announced a 1.1-trillion-euro package to enhance economic recovery. "To revive the economy, we need top-down designs, as well as bottom-up creativity and vitality," Chen said. "Supporting government policies coupled with active digital transformation across the industry will bring the benefits of digital technology to all industries, boost their efficiency and restore growth." Referencing a recent World Bank report on the widening gap between the fast-growing global digital economy and a lack of digital skills, Chen went on to say, "Huawei is continuing with its flagship Seeds for the Future program. This program was launched in 2008, and is designed to develop local ICT talent. So far, this program has benefited more than 30,000 students from over 400 universities in 108 countries and regions." She added, "Due to the pandemic, Huawei is moving the program online and opening it up to more outstanding students than ever before. As more industries adopt digital technologies, they will drive the United Nation's 2030 Strategic Development Goals, especially those related to climate change." Grime artist Solo 45 has been jailed for 24 years for raping four women and holding them against their will. The 33-year-old, whose real name is Andy Anokye, was found guilty at Bristol Crown Court of 30 charges relating to a two-year period. These were 21 rapes, five counts of false imprisonment, two counts of assault by penetration and two of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The musician, who was part of the grime collective Boy Better Know, derived sexual pleasure from torturing the women by water-boarding, interrogating, assaulting and raping them. He claimed the acts were part of consensual role play, or a game he played called Catch me, Rape me, and said he told women he would terrorise them. Police began investigating Anokye, who is from London but had a harbourside apartment in Bristol, in 2017 after a woman complained she had been raped by him. After his arrest, officers discovered harrowing footage filmed by Anokye on his mobile phone that revealed he had abused multiple women. Judge William Hart imposed an extended sentence, meaning Anokye will serve 24 years in prison and five on licence, and ordered he must sign the sex offenders register for life. The judge told Anokye, who appeared by video link from HMP Long Lartin, he had no sexual boundaries or empathy for those concerned. He said Anokye had become addicted to the perverted pleasure he took from abusing the women in the case. The judge added: You have a background that includes gang associations and criminal violence. Im entirely satisfied that your career as a music artist was flourishing at the time of this offending and that you would have gone to great heights. You were part of a well-known collective Boy Better Know. The fellow artists from that collective have achieved great success. The judge said none of those fellow artists were aware of Anokyes behaviour, or dark side. They are in no way tarnished by your misdeeds which you carried out in a private way, the judge told Anokye. Your convictions have deprived you of that career but the fault is yours alone. During the trial, the graphic video clips filmed by Anokye were played to the jury. They showed Anokye interrogating the women about previous sexual partners, slapping them, insulting them and raping them. One clip showed a woman crying and saying I hate you, with the musician laughing and making a thumbs-up sign to the camera. Anokye, who was signed to Island Records and had collaborated with Stormzy, JME and Wiley, was described as a violent, controlling narcissist and a bully by prosecutors during the case. The trial heard he forced one woman to lie in a bath of freezing cold water, held a shotgun to the head of another woman. and made one sit with a bottle of water tied to her finger with a shoelace. His abuse included holding a cloth covered in bleach to womens faces, with one woman telling jurors he had forced a mobile phone down her throat. Giving evidence, Anokye told the court he had dacryphilia sexual arousal from tears. Christopher Quinlan QC, prosecuting, said Anokye is dangerous to the public and poses a risk of physical and sexual violence. He is a calculating, highly manipulative man, Mr Quinlan said. He has no concept at all of what right-minded people consider to be proper behavioural values. Following Anokyes arrest, police examined videos and images on three mobile phones, an external hard drive and a laptop found at his apartment in Bristol. They contacted further women and three came forward with complaints of abuse at his hands. A fifth woman also gave evidence against Anokye during the trial, but jurors heard he could not be charged with alleged offences against her as they took place abroad. Sally ONeill QC, representing Anokye, said he is willing to undergo treatment programmes for his behaviour. She told the court he has an ongoing anxiety disorder and is a different person since his arrest in 2017. Police and soldiers mounted checkpoints on empty streets in Harare on Friday after the Zimbabwean authorities warned of a crackdown on the eve of planned protests. Opposition politician Jacob Ngarivhume of a small party called Transform Zimbabwe had called for demonstrations against alleged state corruption and the country's slumping economy on the second anniversary of President Emmerson Mnangagwa's disputed election. But people stayed home after police on Thursday banned the protests. "All security arms of government are on full alert and will deal decisively with any individuals or groups fomenting violence," they warned. There were more checkpoints and roadblocks than usual on roads leading to the centre of the capital, with police and soldiers stopping cars to request identification and exemption documents allowing them to enter the city. In the central business district, there was a heavy presence of police at most intersections, carrying batons and some with anti-riot shields, an AFP journalist said. A police truck drove around an open space on the outskirts of the city -- a traditional assembly point that the opposition have named Freedom Square. A truckload of police was parked next to the Parliament building. Shops, banks and petrol stations were shut. Police spokesman Paul Nyathi told AFP they had received no reports of any incident. "it's peaceful. Everything is certainly under control," he said. Ngarivhume was arrested last week along with a prominent international journalist, Hopewell Chin'ono, and charged with inciting public violence. State prosecutors accuse the pair of recklessness for organising a protest in the midst of a coronavirus outbreak. The UN's high commission for human rights has warned Zimbabwe against using the coronavirus pandemic as a pretext for restricting freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly and association. The government has denounced the planned protests, calling them "a violent uprising". Ruling ZANU-PF spokesman Patrick Chinamasa earlier this week claimed that US ambassador Brian Nicholls was sponsoring the protests and called him "a thug". There has been widespread disillusionment with Mnangagwa, who took over from longtime ruler Robert Mugabe after a coup in November 2017. He promised to revive the moribund economy, but many Zimbabweans say they are worse off than they were under Mugabe. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) says some 8.6 million Zimbabweans, or 60 percent of the population, will require food aid as a result of a drought, economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The country has recorded 3,092 virus cases including 53 deaths. Commerce and Industry Minister Shri Piyush Goyal said that the Government is committed to policy simplification and asked for industry's feedback and cooperation. Inaugurating CII National Digital conference on Ease of Doing Business for Atmanirbhar Bharat, the Minister emphasized that a single window system for industrial approvals will soon be in place. He urged both industry and government to work as partners and urged the industry to play a proactive role in helping the government identify the tax evaders and violators. The Minister said that economy is bouncing back in the country and restrictions were temporary and are now being eased. He highlighted that during Covid crisis, the country's services sector continued to serve global clients. He said that India's exports are almost 88% of the last year's level while imports are almost 75% of the same period last year. Business is bouncing back, he said and added that the export restrictions on ventilators will soon be done away with. He said that Centre is working with States for easier labour law, soft launch of land bank portal, single window clearance for investments. On the incentive scheme for exports- Merchandise Export from India Scheme (MEIS), Goyal said that the Government is looking for an early solution and the government will find a way that does not impact exports. We are in dialogue with the requisite authorities. MEIS is not going anywhere. It is a cash flow issue. We are trying for an early solution which is a win-win for everyone he added. The minister also said the finance ministry is looking at ways to promote finance for investments in the country and the government has been assured by the banks that there is ample liquidity in the system. The Minister said that his Ministry has already identified 20 industrial sectors for giving focused push. The Minister said that the government is working on decriminalising laws and removing redundant laws. On the need for flexible labour laws to help the industry, Goyal said that the Centre is in touch with 16 States and UTs and had received proposals from them. We are trying to commonalise their ideas. We are looking at how States can offer easy to implement the labour law ecosystem..., he said. The Minister said that the worries on availability of land for industry in India are unfounded, as thousands of hectares of land has already been identified. He said that the Centre is planning a soft launch of the land bank available with States and will create a land bank porta. Six States have already shared the data for this. On the proposed single window system for investments, the Minister said that the government's effort is to try and bring all good practices on one platform and the single window will be a genuine one. He said his team is in constant touch with State departments to ensure that the single window gets expedited. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With the COVID-19 pandemic, Kathy Roum said the Nebraska Humane Society has been serving 11% more clients than normal with its Pet Food Pantry. Our biggest goal is to keep families together, and that means people and pets, said Roum, vice president of development for NHS. So if somebody has lost their job due to COVID, theyre no longer getting a paycheck, we want to make sure that they have the food and supplies they need to be able to keep their pets at home with them. RTG Medical of Fremont, who has been a partner of NHS since 2016, made the shelters job a little easier with a donation through its community partnership program, also established in 2016. Just last year in 2019, RTG donated more than $80,000 to our community partners, RTG Marketing Coordinator Lianna Austin said. So were always striving to make our community stronger and better in any way that we can. With its June donations, NHS was able to provide 3,579 pounds of dry dog food and 586 pounds of dry cat food to give to the public through its pantry, which provides mainly food and kitty litter. RTGs community partnership program is an employee-driven effort to support local nonprofits in the Fremont and greater Omaha area. Its other members include the Special Olympics of Nebraska and Fremont, Folds of Honor, Wreaths Across America and the Fremont Family YMCA. Since its partnership with NHS began, RTG has provided more than $27,000 to help care for homeless animals in our communities. As many of its employees have pets themselves, Austin said the partnership was a perfect fit. Throughout the year, any way that we can help and contribute and volunteer during events that are actually on when COVID isnt so prevalent, we are always there to help wherever there is a need, she said. So this was just another natural fit for us to help in any way that we could. Along with the companys donations, RTG employees also take part in the shelters Walk for the Animals and Dining with Dogs, its dinner event. In addition to that, they also do a very large medical supply drive for us, and they bring in many totes of surgical and medical supplies for us each year to help care for our animals, which is fantastic, because our medical portion of our budget is about $2 million, Roum said. So we care for more than 24,000 animals a year, and the supplies that they provide are vital to helping us keep our costs down and care for our animals. Austin said RTG is always looking for ways to help and get involved with its community partners, which led to the pantry donation. We always get emails from the Nebraska Humane Society on different needs and different ways to help, and this just seemed like a great opportunity to have a direct impact in something in our community and to help not only pets but also people in our community that have that need, she said. Although NHS doesnt have its full numbers for the month of July, Roum said the shelter is continuing to see an uptick in demand for supplies and that she was appreciative of its partnerships. About $3.6 million of our $12 million operating budget comes from philanthropy and the generosity of businesses like RTG, from individuals, corporations, foundations, she said. Without that support, we simply would not be able to care for the magnitude of animals that we see come through our doors every single year. TROY The boom of the shotgun blast an off-duty police officer fired to stop another man from stabbing the man's estranged wife was heard across the north end of the Beman Park neighborhood Thursday night. The shot killed Colin E. Davis, but it might have saved the woman. Though repeatedly stabbed, she was in stable condition Friday at Albany Medical Center. As a human being, I can say that he saved her life. As the district attorney, I'm waiting for the investigation to play out, Rensselaer County District Attorney Mary Pat Donnelly said Friday. Police said Officer Adam Harbour fired the shot that killed the 25-year-old Davis. Harbour intervened Thursday when he heard screaming coming from the second-floor apartment above his first-floor unit on 17th Street, police said. Police released the identities of Harbour and Davis on Friday. Police have not released the the 25-year-old woman's name. Harbour longed to be a police officer and was groomed by the department through an innovative program aimed at identifying potential officers when they are in their teens and 20s. Harbour was one of the first two members of the Troy Police Cadet Post 4102 to join the force. He was sworn in as an officer in January 2017. The cadet program exposes young men and women from ages 14 to 21 to the operation of local law enforcement. At his swearing in, Harbour said the cadet program encouraged him to pursue his goal of joining the city police department. He graduated from Troy High School and attended Hudson Valley Community College. A next-door neighbor said when she came home Thursday she saw Davis body on the front porch. She covered her 2-year-olds eyes so the girl would not see the scene. The shotgun was nearby, she said. The woman described Harbour as polite and friendly and a person who always says hello. The blast startled others near the Hoosick Street end of the block. Deputy Chief Dan DeWolf said Thursday night that Harbour fired the single round after telling the man several times to drop the knife and stop. DeWolf said he believed the shotgun may belong to the officer, but that is being investigated. Police radio calls starting at about 6:10 p.m. Thursday when responding squad cars first arrived outside the two-story residence. Several 911 calls were reported to have been made reporting the shotgun blast. The reports said that everyone was on the first floor of the building. "I'm being told that one of the males that fired the weapon is on the porch," one officer said. That was followed by a second officer saying that a man was on the porch with his hands up. The woman was described as having stab wounds in her side. That would have been Harbour standing waiting for the arriving officers. Harbour was not identified in the radio transmissions. Then came another broadcast saying, "He allegedly shot the other guy with a shotgun." The woman was sent to Albany Medical Center, while Harbour went to Samaritan Hospital, which is just a few blocks away from the 17th Street shooting. Officer Harbour works the midnight shift, so he is sleeping when most of us are awake. Yesterday evening he had to spring into action out of a sound sleep without hesitation, said Officer Nick Laviano, president of the Troy Police Benevolent Association, which represents the department's patrol officers, detectives and sergeants. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Well, Adam Harbour is a hero and saved that womans life. The entire department tips their cap to him, Laviano said. Were going slow, Donnelly said about the investigation. The district attorney said her office has briefed the state Attorney Generals Office, which had agents at the scene Thursday night. Donnelly said she is waiting to hear if the attorney general will take over the investigation. Donnelly and Chief Assistant District Matt Hauf went to the shooting scene. The district attorney's office requested the state Attorney General to respond under Gov. Andrew Cuomo's executive order to determine if the it would take over the case as special prosecutor. The order calls for the review in a situation where a police officer causes the death of a civilian. Earlier this year, Cuomo signed legislation that empowers the state attorney general's office to investigate police misconduct and probe police-involved deaths. The legislation expands on a previous executive order that allowed the attorney general to investigate fatal encounters between unarmed civilians and New York police agencies. Both the Rensselaer County District Attorneys Office and the Troy Police Department have and will continue to coordinate with the Attorney General as they process the incident to determine the applicability of the Executive Order. This is a tragedy that is best handled with transparency and cooperation," Donnelly said in a statement later Friday. A thorough investigation will continue as we await the Attorney Generals determination. Donnelly said she was glad to see the Troy evidence technicians meticulously collecting evidence Thursday night at the scene. Well let Troy do a thorough investigation. I want to step back and let the investigation take place, Donnelly said. This is the third fatal police shooting in the city since 2015. Mayor Patrick Madden through a spokesman declined to comment on the investigation, referring calls to the city police while the investigation is ongoing. The New York Times When NASAs Perseverance rover arrives at Mars, mission managers will be watching, helpless to do anything. The $2.4 billion spacecraft will hit the top of the Martian atmosphere at more than 12,000 mph (19,312 kph) and then come to a complete stop seven minutes later. That the one-ton (907 kg)rover will end up on Mars on the afternoon of 18 February is nearly certain (presuming it is able to launch before the middle of August, when the planet moves too far away from Earth). The spacecraft navigators will have put the robotic explorer on a collision course with the planet. The only question is whether Perseverance will be on the ground in one piece or smashed to bits. Spacecraft from Europe and the Soviet Union have made it all the way to the red planet, only to end up as expensive scorch marks on its dusty surface. But NASA has a good track record with Mars. It is the only space agency so far to pull off a successful mission on the surface of the red planet. Perseverance is largely the same design as the Curiosity rover, which set down in 2012 and will have the same convoluted but now tried-and-true sky crane landing choreography. When people look at it, it looks crazy, Adam Steltzner, a NASA engineer, said in a video that NASA produced leading up to Curiositys landing that described the components: heat shield, parachute, rocket engines and, finally, a hovering crane that lowered the rover to the surface. Thats a very natural thing, Stelzner said. Sometimes when we look at it, it looks crazy. It is the result of reasoned, engineering thought. But it still looks crazy. While everything worked, the engineers got a chance to take a look at what could be improved this time around. We dont usually get a chance to kind of redo or fix the mistakes we made last time, Allen Chen, who leads the Perseverance entry, descent and landing team for NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in an interview. For example, Curiosity actually landed too slowly, hitting the ground at 1.4 mph instead of the 1.7 mph that had been expected. That, by itself, was not a problem. A softer landing is gentler on the spacecraft. But the engineers wanted to understand what had happened in order to make sure that the next landing that of Perseverance did not come down faster than intended. It turns out that their calculation of the gravity of Mars was slightly wrong. In areas of the planet that possess less mass like the 96-mile-wide crater that Curiosity landed in the pull of gravity is a bit weaker. We didnt have sufficient fidelity in our gravity modelling to understand that the gravity there was actually different than elsewhere on the planet, Chen said. So that was one thing that we fixed. Another component that was tweaked was the parachute that is unfurled when the spacecraft is hurtling down at supersonic speeds. A parachute failure in a prototype test of a future Mars landing system led Chens team to make sure they had not just gotten lucky with Curiosity. That gave us pause, he said. The engineers are now confident of Perseverances parachute after supersonic tests of a strengthened design. One major addition to Perseverance is what NASA calls terrain-relative navigation. A camera on the spacecraft will take pictures of the landscape and match them with its stored maps. It would then steer to what looks like the safest landing spot it can. I dont need the whole place to be flat and boring, Chen said. I just need parts of it that I can reach to be flat and boring. Without this system, there would be more than a 1-in-5 chance that Perseverance would end up somewhere unfortunate damaged by a boulder, tipped over on a steep slope or surrounded by sand traps. That would be an unacceptably high risk for such a high-profile, expensive mission. If it works, the same technology will be used when NASA sends a mission to pick up the rock samples that Perseverance will be collecting, part of the so-called Mars sample return. That spacecraft will carry enough fuel that it is able not only to avoid obstacles but also to fly to a specific location, landing within tens of yards of the target. Still, next Feb. 18, the control room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is expected to be full of nervous engineers watching the telemetry coming back from Perseverance. That data will take minutes to travel millions of miles far too far and too slow for anyone at NASA to make last-second corrections. Mars is not for the faint of heart, Chen said. Kenneth Chang c.2020 The New York Times Company Also Read: NASAs fifth and finest Mars rover Perseverance lifts off successfully in spite of tremors, delays, COVID-19 lockdown NASAs Perseverance rover on its way to become fifth rover on Mars its science objectives, instruments, the Ingenuity helicopter NASA's Perseverance rover will bring Mars rocks to Earth: Our greatest interplanetary circus act GREENWICH Another man has come forward in a lawsuit alleging he was repeatedly sexually abused as a child at the Greenwich Boys Club in the 1970s. The man was sexually abused around 10 times between 1975 and 1976 by Andrew Atkinson, a teenage counselor there at the time, according to a lawsuit filed July 2 in Stamford Superior Court. I was angry, scared and confused, the man, identified with the pseudonym John James in the complaint, said of the abuse in an affidavit. I was in constant fear of him. This is the fourth sexual abuse lawsuit seeking damages for negligence from the now-Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich. In the previously filed lawsuits, six men say they were severely sexually abused by Atkinson from 1976 to 1984 at the club and that at least three adult employees including the director ignored it. Another six men have spoken out about being abused at the club, but their claims could not been pursued due to Connecticuts statute of limitations, according to their attorney, Philip Russell. In the three pending lawsuits, Russell is seeking a $15.5 million settlement from the club. We respect those who have come forward with these serious allegations, the Greenwich club said in a statement Thursday. We remain committed to protecting the health and well-being of our kids and serving the needs of our community. Atkinson was not immediately available for comment Friday, but has in a past interview denied he abused children. Atkinson is not named as a defendant in any of the four lawsuits. A six-month Hearst Connecticut Media investigation into allegations of child sex abuse connected to Boys & Girls Clubs of America affiliates across the country last year found 280 people in 31 states who say they were sexually abused as children by employees, volunteers and other members of Boys & Girls Clubs. A Boys & Girls Clubs of America spokeswoman said the organization is aware of the new civil lawsuit involving allegations from more than 30 years ago at the Greenwich club and that it takes such allegations very seriously. We are deeply heartbroken for any child who has been harmed, and we understand that time does not take away any pain inflicted on victims and their families, the national organization said in a statement. Crimes of abuse run counter to everything our organization stands for, and it is completely unacceptable that even one child was hurt at a Club. In the new complaint, James said Atkinson began abusing him at 13. Atkinson was younger than me, although I did not know this at the time, but he was much larger than me, said James in the affidavit. The counselor saw James taking shoes out of another boys locker and used it as leverage to threaten the him into keeping quiet about the assaults and rape, according to the affidavit. I was frightened of getting in trouble, said James. James was also worried he wouldnt win the clubs Boy of the Year award if anyone found out about the abuse, he said in the affidavit. My mom always emphasized how important that award was, said James. She said it was my ticket out. Thats why he never told anyone what was happening to him, James said. The abuse occurred in the clubs locker room, James said, and once on a field trip to a theme park in Rye, New York. I recall screaming while it was happening, James said of when he was raped. There were no Boys Club Supervisors around at the time. The lawsuit claims the club was negligent in preventing the abuse, either because staff knew about it and did nothing to stop it, or it failed to prevent it with its policies. The abuse has had a lasting negative impact on James life, the man said in the affidavit. He still struggles with deep shame, humiliation and depression, he said. Since thirteen, I have suffered emotional trauma, said James. I was confused about my sexuality and had trouble processing what happened to me. I also felt a lot of self-hatred. The club has not yet filed an answer to the complaint in court. A status conference in the previously filed lawsuits is scheduled to be held remotely on Aug. 8. Former president Barack Obama, addresses the service during the funeral for John Lewis (Alyssa Pointer/AP) Former president Barack Obama used civil rights leader John Lewis funeral to issue a stark warning that the voting rights and equal opportunity the late civil rights leader championed are threatened heading into the 2020 election. Speaking from the pulpit of the church that Martin Luther King Jr once led, Mr Obama did not mention President Donald Trump. But the first black president drew unmistakable contrasts with his successor, and he implicitly lambasted how Mr Trump has handled voting procedures and ongoing civil unrest amid a national reckoning over systemic racism. Mr Obama called on Congress to renew the Voting Rights Act, which Mr Trump and Republican congressional leaders have left unchanged since the Supreme Court diminished the landmark law in 2012. You want to honour John? Lets honour him by revitalising the law that he was willing to die for, Mr Obama said, arguing that the bipartisan praise for the Georgia congressman since his death is not enough. Expand Close Mourners stand outside Ebenezer Baptist Church during the funeral for John Lewis (Brynn Anderson/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mourners stand outside Ebenezer Baptist Church during the funeral for John Lewis (Brynn Anderson/AP) Mr Obama endorsed ending the Senate filibuster if that is what is needed to pass an overhauled voting law. He called the procedural hurdle that effectively requires 60 votes to pass major legislation a Jim Crow relic, referring to the segregation era. The Democratic-led House has adopted a sweeping rewrite of the Voting Rights Act, now named after Mr Lewis. It faces opposition in the Republican-led Senate and likely could not get 60 votes even if Democrats reclaim a narrow majority after the November elections. Specifically, Mr Obama called for all Americans being registered to vote automatically, restoring voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences, expanding early voting, ending partisan gerrymandering of districts and making election day a national holiday. Expand Close President Donald Trump (Evan Vucci/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp President Donald Trump (Evan Vucci/AP) Mr Obama noted that the original Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its renewals drew Republican and Democratic votes in Congress and were signed by presidents from both parties. Mr Obama singled out former president George W. Bush, a Republican, who also spoke Thursday at Ebenezer Baptist Church near central Atlanta. Still, Mr Obama said: There are those in power doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws even undermining the Postal Service in an election thats going to be dependent on mail-in ballots. Hours before Mr Lewis funeral, Mr Trump suggested delaying the November election, something he doesnt have the authority to do. Mr Trump has falsely claimed that a surge of mail ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic will threaten the elections legitimacy. Mr Trump has opposed moves in Congress to help the financially struggling US Postal Service handle the sharp upsurge in mail voting. Mr Obama compared current national circumstances to the earlier civil rights era when Mr Lewis helped lead the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and became an understudy to Mr King. Bull Connor may be gone, but today we witness with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks of black Americans Barack Obama Bull Connor may be gone, but today we witness with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks of black Americans, Mr Obama said, alluding to the May 25 killing of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer. George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators. Mr Connor was the Birmingham, Alabama, police commissioner who ordered the use of police dogs and fire hoses against civil rights demonstrators. Mr Wallace, the four-term governor of Mr Lewis native Alabama, built his political career on a defence of segregation and overt appeals to white grievances, and it was his state highway patrol who beat Mr Lewis and others as they marched for voting rights in 1965. Mr Trump, like Mr Wallace in his multiple presidential bids, is campaigning as a law and order figure. The president frames protesters who have gathered across the country since Mr Floyds killing as anarchists who threaten the nations stability, especially in suburbs, and he has dispatched federal authorities to some cities over the objections of local authorities. Mr Lewis, who died July 17 at the age of 80, was one of the original Freedom Riders, activists who challenged segregation on commercial bus lines in the Deep South during the early 1960s. He was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, where Mr King delivered his I Have A Dream speech. Bloody Sunday and the voting rights marches occurred two years later, months before president Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act. Expand Close Then president Barack Obama presenting a Presidential Medal of Freedom to John Lewis (Carolyn Kaster/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Then president Barack Obama presenting a Presidential Medal of Freedom to John Lewis (Carolyn Kaster/AP) Mr Obama awarded Mr Lewis the Medal of Freedom in 2011. Mr Trump was the only living president who played no official role in a week of public remembrances for Mr Lewis. Besides Mr Obama and Mr Bush, former president Bill Clinton spoke at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Former president Jimmy Carter, who is 95, sent a statement read by the churchs senior pastor, the Reverend Raphael Warnock. Mr Lewis had called Mr Trump an illegitimate president ahead of his 2017 inauguration and chided him for stoking racial divisions. Mr Trump answered by calling Mr Lewis all talk, talk, talk (and) no action and describing his Atlanta congressional district as crime infested. Mr Obama exalted Mr Lewis as a founding father of a better America. Someday, when we do finish that long journey towards freedom, when we do form a more perfect union whether its years from now or decades or even if it takes another two centuries, he said. John Lewis will be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America. Another Yellowstone County resident has died due to COVID-19, with Big Horn County reporting four deaths in 24 hours. RiverStone Health, Yellowstone Countys public health department, confirmed that a woman in her 80s died at a Yellowstone County hospital on July 26. As of Friday morning in the county, there were 39 new cases, 605 active cases, and 26 deaths recorded. Sixteen residents of senior care facilities in the county, including 15 residents of Canyon Creek Memory Care, have added to the significant case growth in July. Big Horn County reported its ninth death due to COVID-19 Thursday evening. The woman in her 70s who was hospitalized prior to her death represents the fourth death in the county in a day, according to county public information officer, Rhonda Johnson. Eight new cases were reported in the county Thursday and 11 new cases were reported Friday morning. There are 196 active cases. This is the first time Big Horn County has experienced four deaths in 24 hours, Johnson said. The four deaths are two men in their 60s and two women in their 70s. Two of the patients were hospitalized at the time of death, while the other two were not, Johnson said. The four deaths were very shocking, Johnson said. The Big Horn County Public Health Department has been partnering with multiple organizations in the county and on the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations to combat and monitor the spread of the virus, Johnson said. Parts of both tribal nations reside in Big Horn County. The health department brought on four retired nurses in June to assist with contact tracing, but keeping up with the cases has been overwhelming, she said. Public health nurses employed by the county health department and Indian Health Services have been working together to test symptomatic individuals. This isnt a reservation problem. Its not a Hardin problem. Its everywhere, Johnson said. Of the eight new cases in Big Horn County reported Thursday night, six patients were tested due to contact with previously confirmed positive patients and were asymptomatic when tested. Two contracted the virus through community spread. A detention officer at the Big Horn County jail also tested positive for COVID-19 last week. The officer is one of four county employees who have tested positive. The county instituted its own mask mandate in late June, before Gov. Steve Bullock issued the statewide mask mandate on July 15. Johnson said that its important to take the preventative measures. If the county had to, public health could roll back phased reopening guidelines and return to essential business operations or a shelter-in-place order. Everyone is working a lot of overtime, she said. The Northern Cheyenne and Crow tribes have implemented stay-at-home orders that were still in effect Friday, however the order issued by the Northern Cheyenne was set to expire Friday unless a new order extends it. The Crow Tribe stay-at-home order was extended to Aug. 31. The order was first issued on March 28. Crow tribal leadership implemented a mask requirement for the reservation on June 26 and canceled the annual Crow Fair on the Crow Indian Reservation, which lies mostly in Big Horn County. The order allows only essential services and businesses to remain open and requires that they follow social distancing guidelines. It also prohibits all public and private gatherings of any number of people occurring outside a household or place of residence. On Wednesday, the tribe closed the Edison Real Bird Rodeo Complex to the public to prevent future Indian Relay races from occurring and to prevent large social gatherings in the best interest of the community at-large, according to a post on the Crow Incident Response Center Facebook page. On July 28, the tribe reported another death of a Crow tribal member, bringing the total to six, according to a post on the Incident Response Facebook page. In late June, an epidemiological analysis found that 15% of the cases in Montana are among Native Americans, a demographic that makes up about 7% of the states population. The Northern Cheyenne Tribe first issued a stay-at-home order on March 28 as well. The order that is set to expire today discontinued the mandatory curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. for adults on the reservation, however it remains in effect for those under the age of 18. The order restricts travel to COVID-19 hot spots in Montana, requested only absolutely necessary visits with Northern Cheyenne elders, and restricts gathering sizes. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On July 28, GAC Group offered the first glimpse of its first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle model, the Aion LX Fuel Cell, at the GAC Tech Day 2020. Built on the GEP (GAC Electric Platform) 2.0, the newly-unveiled fuel cell vehicle shares a similar look to that of the Aion LX. With respect to its powertrain solution, the FCV gets a maximum output of over 150kW through the combined effort of the fuel cell system and the power battery system. The permanent magnet motor it adopts is able to deliver a peak torque of 350 Nm. Filled up with hydrogen, the vehicle will have a NEDC-rated range of over 650km. (Aion LX Fuel Cell) According to Feng Xingya, president of GAC Group, the automaker will kick off this year the pilot operation of its hydrogen vehicles. Meanwhile, GAC Group also introduced the GPMA (GAC global platform modular architecture) and the GEP platforms, which respectively take aim at traditional fuel-burning and pure electric vehicles. The GPMA fits the development of sedan, SUV, MPV, PHEV and HEV models and is compatible with powertrains like conventional engines, PHEV and HEV power systems. The BEV-focused GEP 2.0 uses the high-energy-density cells, the highly integrated module-free architecture and the high-precision BMS to create a battery system with high range and low electricity consumption, said GAC Group. Besides, the high-voltage platform and high-power charging technology are applied to solve consumer's pain point over charging issue. GAC Group also showcased 3D structural graphene (3DG) production technology at the Tech Day. The company noted that it started researching the scale production of graphene as early as 2014, and has to-day obtained the 3DG manufacturing technology with independent intellectual property rights. By virtue of graphene's outstanding electric conductivity and the special 3D structure, GAC has developed a super-fast-charging battery which can be charged to 80% of its capacity within 8 minutes and achieve 200-300km range on a 10-minute charge, said the company (photo source: GAC Group's WeChat account). A woman allegedly hid in the back of a truck so she could enter South Australia from Victoria without quarantining. The 65-year-old woman allegedly hid in the truck some time between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. She was returning from Victoria, where she had spent several weeks. A woman allegedly hid in the back of a truck so she could enter South Australia from Victoria without quarantining. Pictured: Border patrol in South Australia during first outbreak Police discovered on Thursday that the woman had allegedly re-entered the state and returned to Mount Gambier South Australia closed its borders with Victoria on July 8. Police discovered on Thursday that the woman had allegedly re-entered the state and returned to Mount Gambier. She was charged with failing to comply with a direction. The woman was denied bail. She will appear in Mount Gambier Magistrates Court on Friday. Officers are still trying to locate the driver of the truck and determine if they had knowledge of the woman allegedly hiding in their vehicle. WASHINGTON The Senate on Thursday dissolved into partisan bickering over a sweeping economic stabilization package, clashing over dueling proposals but failing to reach an agreement to prevent the expiration on Friday of jobless aid that tens of millions of Americans have depended on for months. Senate Republicans, on largely party lines, ultimately forced the chamber to begin moving forward with a continuation of the unemployment benefits at a much lower rate, but it was mainly a tactic to compel Democrats, who support maintaining the payments at $600 per week, to go on the record opposing an extension. The bitter impasse over any form of coronavirus relief persisted despite news that the United States economy wiped away nearly five years of growth in the second quarter of 2020, with the tally of new claims for state unemployment benefits exceeding one million for the 19th consecutive week. With several programs that have staved off a wave of evictions, foreclosures and layoffs either expired or set to end in days, economists warn that a lapse could wreak further havoc on an already shuddering economy. The proposals we made were not received warmly, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, said after a meeting on Thursday evening on Capitol Hill with top Democratic leaders and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. He added as he left the building, I wouldnt say that optimism is the word I would characterize the negotiations. To the Editor: The Covid-19 crisis has had a detrimental effect on just about every aspect of our society. Its insidious and prevalent nature has changed how we interact with each other in every facet of life. This is especially true in our most basic tenet of our democracy, the right to vote. Election boards, inspectors and campaigns are trying to ensure we can still exercise the franchise while providing a safe environment for voters and poll workers. The voice from Boards of Elections throughout New York state and the country is clear: We need help and financial support. The current crisis has had unique and unforeseen costs to our current operations. The publics rightful demand for safe and accessible absentee voting does not come without a cost. Participation in absentee voting increased dramatically for the June primary. Typically Onondaga County could expect an average of 3,000 to 5,000 absentee ballots; for the June primary we received over 24,000 absentee ballots. There is no reason to believe the fall general election wont see a similar increase demand; however, instead of 26,000 absentees, we could see well over 100,000 absentees. This comes with increase costs for the boards. Increases in printing and postage are a given. However, providing funds to allow for voters to participate in this process with prepaid postage for ballots and even applications for absentees will drive up the cost further. In addition, the purchase of PPE equipment and need for extra personnel to sanitize polling places and monitor social distancing has also strained our budgets. Finally, there needs to be a robust voter outreach effort to educate people who may be voting by absentee for the first time and risk disenfranchisement if not ballots are not properly returned. The $400 million Congress passed in the CARES Act was barely adequate to cover increased costs during our recent primaries and in many areas of the country fell well short. As we face a presidential election that is predicted to break all turnout records in November, we need immediate and robust funding to serve voters while keeping them safe. The $3.6 billion in election spending in the HEROES Act would go a long way to helping local boards meet this challenging moment. Congress, and specifically the U.S. Senate, must meet this moment by providing the resources we need to serve the citizens of our great nation. Failing to do so is putting the unique experiment of our American democracy at risk not just now, but perhaps permanently. Finally, elections do not operate in a vacuum. Most election boards are hosted and funded by county and city governments. Covid-19 has had a disastrous effect on their budgets as falling sales tax revenue, as well large amounts of unemployment, have emptied their coffers. Funding for state and local governments is just as large of a priority. Election boards cannot operate effectively if the government structure around them is in constant turmoil. Only the federal government has the resources and legal authorities to be able to provide this vital assistance. It should be done as soon as possible, and be as generous as possible, to allow our country the resources needed to live with and eventually defeat this epidemic. Dustin Czarny Democratic Caucus Chair, Elections Commissioners Association of the State of New York Commissioner, Onondaga County Board of Elections (D) Syracuse How to submit letters and commentary to Syracuse.com Police and fire crews conducted grid searches to see if anyone was in the lake, Langford said. The search was suspended about 1 p.m. after helicopter and boat crews didnt find anyone, according to police. MoneyTV with Donald Baillargeon television program, Copyright MMXX, all rights reserved. MoneyTV does not provide an analysis of companies' financial positions and is not soliciting to purchase or sell securities of the companies, nor are we offering a recommendation of featured companies or their stocks. Information discussed herein has been provided by the companies and should be verified independently with the companies and a securities analyst. MoneyTV provides companies a 3 to 4 month corporate profile with multiple appearances for a cash fee of $6,950.00 to $11,995.00, does not accept company stock as payment for services, does not hold any positions, options or warrants in featured companies. The information herein is not an endorsement by Donald Baillargeon, the producer, publisher or parent company of MoneyTV. 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. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Alya Nurbaiti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, August 1 2020 Indonesia must continue to closely engage with the United States regardless of who wins the US presidential election in November, diplomats and foreign policy experts have said, as Indonesia seeks to rekindle its partnership with a superpower largely preoccupied with its rivalry with China. With the race to the White House picking up, Indonesia is facing two distinct possibilities: preparing for a change in US leadership or bracing for more of the same. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login The cyber crime cell of Mumbai Police has arrested two more men, who allegedly abused and issued rape threats to the city-based stand-up artiste, Agrima Joshua, via an offensive video. Joshua had courted controversy after a video of her stand-up act performed last year went viral, where she had purportedly insulted Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, an icon in Maharashtra. Later, she apologised on social media and deleted the video. The arrested persons have been identified as Ashraf Shaikh and Virat Sharma. Both are Virar residents and class X drop-outs, who drive auto-rickshaws to make a living. Also read | Unfunny task of female comedians: Yet to crack up They are friends of Umesh Dada alias Imtiyaz Shaikh, who was arrested by Mumbai Police from Nalasopara on July 13, for a similar charge. Investigations have revealed that Umesh Dada and the other two arrested accused are influenced by Hindustani Bhau, a popular YouTuber and a former contestant of Big Boss, a reality TV game show. Influenced by the style of Hindustani Bhau about how he abuses and roasts people in his videos, the three had made similar clips to gain popularity in a short span of time. They had made videos on Joshua for cheap thrills, said a police official, requesting anonymity. Their videos, too, had gone viral. Umesh Dada is a friend of another YouTuber, Shubham Mishra, who was arrested on July 12 from Vadodara by Gujarat Police on similar charges of threatening and abusing Joshua. Mishra is also a friend of Hindustani Bhau. The arrested accused had switched off their mobile phones and had gone underground after Umesh Dada was held. They were arrested on Thursday from Virar after a search operation lasted over 15 days, said Rashmi Karandikar, deputy commissioner of police (DCP) (cyber), Mumbai Police. Mumbai Police on Thursday night shared a video on Twitter in which the two accused could be seen seeking an apology for their actions. The families of the two arrested accused had no knowledge about their crime and only came to know after the Mumbai Police booked them. The two have been arrested under Sections 294 (obscenity), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354-A (sexual harassment and punishment for sexual harassment), 354-D (stalking), 504 (intentional insult to break public peace), 505 (statements leading to public mischief), 506 (criminal intimidation), 509 (intending to insult the modesty of a woman), 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 67-A (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act) of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000. They will be produced in a Mumbai court on Friday. Initially, a Shiv Sena leader had complained about Joshuas viral video to Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh. Later, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) activists vandalised Habitat Cafe, a stand-up comedy studio in Khar in suburban Mumbai, where Joshua had performed last year. The video of MNSs stunt was shared on social media following which social media influencer Shubham Mishra and Umesh Dada also jumped on the bandwagon. They uploaded their videos on social media, threatening to rape her for disrespecting Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. They also abused her mother and sister. Several prominent personalities, such as stand-up artistes Mallika Dua and Kunal Kamra and actor Swara Bhaskar, criticised the offensive videos and sought the intervention of the National Commission for Women (NCW). Minister Deshmukh took cognisance of the threat to Joshua and asked the Mumbai Police to take legal action against the offenders and also to ascertain if she is liable to be prosecuted for disrespecting Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Six months after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus to be a global health emergency on 31 January, the situation is out of control. More than 17.2 million people have been infected by the virus worldwide, while over 670,000 have died. Hundreds of people are dying every day in the countries with the highest number of new cases, including the United States, Brazil, India, Colombia and Mexico. According to Johns Hopkins University, 1,592 deaths were registered in the United States on Tuesday alone. This was the highest number in the past two-and-a-half months. Brazil set an all-time record on Wednesday with 69,074 new infections and 1,595 deaths. The total number of registered corona deaths in that country is now more than 90,000. Italian military transports coffins with infected bodies to a cemetery in Bergamo (Massimo Paolone/LaPresse via AP) In Europe, one of the first epicentres of the pandemic, the virus is spreading at a dangerous pace. We are in the midst of a rapidly escalating pandemic, warned the president of Germanys Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler, at a press conference on Tuesday. Over the preceding seven days, 3,611 new infections in Germany were reported to his institute, which is Germanys official public health agency. The reproduction rate, or R rate, is currently 1.25, meaning that the virus is spreading exponentially. Yesterday the RKI reported 902 new infections. This is the biggest increase since May. Other countries are also seeing a dramatic rise in new infections. It could be the case that we are already in a second wave, said Maria Jose Sierra, spokesperson for Spains agency for health care emergencies (CCAES). Since mid-July, the number of new infections in Spain has trebled. The hardest hit region is Catalonia. Over the past week alone, 4,846 cases were registered there. A series of local outbreaks have occurred in Madrid, resulting in a total of 1,200 new infections over the past week. Other countries in southern and western Europe are also recording increases. In France, new infections have risen for the third week in a row, while the number of COVID-19 patients in Austrias hospitals has risen to more than 100 for the first time since May. Over the past seven days, Belgium recorded an average of 311 cases per day, with the figure still rising. As in Spain, the Belgian government felt compelled earlier in the week to reintroduce limited restrictions on public life. Developments in Eastern Europe are especially dramatic. Russia is recording close to 6,000 cases daily, while both Ukraine and Romania are registering around 1,000 infections per day. On Wednesday, Poland reported 512 new infections, with outbreaks at three coal mines in Silesia, several businesses, and an elderly care home in the southern district of Malopolska. The number of new infections has steadily increased since 17 July. Many of those infected in Eastern Europe are workers being exploited under conditions akin to slave labour. At a farm in Maming, Bavaria, 174 infections among migrant workers were recorded a few days ago, and hundreds more have been infected at slaughterhouses across Germany and the Netherlands. As in the United States, the European ruling classes bear full responsibility for the coronavirus catastrophe. The resurgence of the virus is the direct product of their reckless and premature policy of reopening the economy, which was aimed at sending workers back to their jobs as soon as possible, reopening schools and childcare facilities, and reviving tourism. After the lockdowns and social distancing measures produced an initial decline in cases, they have created a situation similar to that earlier this year, when health care systems in Italy and Spain collapsed and tens of thousands died under terrible conditions. Even though the pandemic now threatens thousands of additional lives, the European governments have agreed that there will be no serious or coordinated measures to contain the disease. We will not impose a lockdown like last March, because we have learned that the economic and human costs of a total lockdown are catastrophic, stated French Prime Minister Jean Castex in an 8 July television interview. He thus summed up the view of the entire European ruling class, which is prepared to sacrifice millions of human lives to protect corporate profits. According to a study by researchers from Imperial College London, the lockdowns in Europe prevented the deaths of 3 million people. We find that, across 11 countries, since the beginning of the epidemic, 3,100,000 [2,800,000- 3,500,000] deaths have been averted, wrote the researchers. This included 690,000 lives in France, 630,000 in Italy, 560,000 in Germany, 470,000 in Britain, 450,000 in Spain, 110,000 in Belgium, and tens of thousands in all of the other five countries investigated. The financial elite is now openly stating that it would have been better if these people had died. The lockdown was from an economic standpoint not worth the lives saved, stated a study released Wednesday by former Bank of England economist David Miles. A perverse calculation model, which converted each human life into a value in British pounds, allegedly proved that the years of lifetime saved were worth less than the debt accumulated by the British state. On this basis, Miles and his banker colleagues demand that all comprehensive measures to combat the pandemic be ended. This strategy of herd immunity, which in reality amounts to a policy of mass murder, was the policy pursued by the European ruling elite from the outset. With breathtaking indifference to the fate of millions of people, German Chancellor Angela Merkel bluntly declared at a March 11 press conference that the German government expected between 60 and 70 percent of the population to get infected by coronavirus. The WSWS wrote at the time, What such statements reveal is not incompetence, but political criminality. Seventy-five years after the downfall of the Nazi Third Reich, a fascistic attitude towards the working class prevails in the financial aristocracy, mirroring that of Ancient Rome to its galley slaves: work until you die. We continued, No doubt, significant sections of the ruling class consider the coronavirus to be a gift from God. The deaths of millions of the old and sick would allow new cuts to social spending, flushing billions more into their pockets. (See: On coronavirus, Merkel tells Europe: Drop dead!) This is precisely what happened. After the horrifying pictures from northern Italy spread around the world, Europes governments felt compelled, under pressure from the public and mass strikes, to order measures to enforce social distancing and lockdowns. But these measures were then exploited to organise the largest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top of society in history. So-called coronavirus emergency bailouts were used to transfer trillions of euros to the banks, major corporations and super-rich virtually overnight. As soon as the transfer of funds was complete, an essentially fascistic campaign to restart the economy was unleashed. Politicians and media outlets orchestrated a discussion about how many lives should be sacrificed to the interests of big business and corporate profit. In Germany, the back-to-work campaign was spearheaded by federal parliament president Wolfgang Schauble (Christian Democrats), who made the outrageous claim that human dignity does not include the right to life and is thus not absolutely guaranteed by Germanys Basic Law. All parties represented in parliament then backed right-wing extremist demonstrations, which, in contrast to the vast majority of the population, demanded an end to all restrictions and the abandonment of social distancing measures. The reactionary goals pursued by the ruling elite with its back-to-work policy are plain for all to see. First and foremost, they want to squeeze the massive sums of money handed over to the financial oligarchy out of the working class. A second important factor is the efforts of German and European imperialism to secure a favourable position in the intensifying rivalries between the major powers. Additionally, there are geostrategic interests, noted an article in Der Spiegel in April in the restart of the auto industry. The article observed, The company heads want to strengthen the European market to act as a counterweight to the economic power of China and the United States. The WSWS has characterised the pandemic as a trigger event, which dramatically accelerated the already far advanced social, economic, and geopolitical crises of world capitalism. The same applies to their policy of war. The US has not only accused China of being responsible for the pandemic, but is also making ever more aggressive preparations for military conflict with that country, one of the worlds largest nuclear-armed powers. The European powers are also exploiting the crisis to press ahead with their rearmament plans. In late May, the German, French, Italian, and Spanish governments addressed a joint letter to Josep Borrell, the European Unions high representative for foreign and security policy, in which they advocated a vast strengthening of EU military capabilities in response to the pandemic. While the European powers are united in all fundamentals on the issues of austerity, militarism and war, they are utterly incapable of developing a joint strategy to combat the pandemic. As the virus began spreading rapidly in early March, the German government imposed an export ban on protective medical equipment. At the last EU summit, the European powers agreed on filling the coffers of the banks and major corporations with another 750 billion; they cut the budget of EU for Health to a pathetic 1.67 billion. Opposition to these criminal policies among workers and young people is on the rise around the globe. In the United States, Trump has mobilised fascist paramilitary units against peaceful demonstrators because he fears a powerful movement of the working class against his policies of back-to-work and war, which the Democrats fully support. Workers have begun organising themselves in independent rank-and-file committees to oppose the miserable working conditions imposed upon them by corporate management and the trade unions. Anger is also brewing in Europe. The same major corporations that have been handed tens of billions of public moneyincluding automakers and airlinesare seizing the opportunity to collaborate with the trade unions to enforce plans long held in reserve for sweeping wage cuts and mass layoffs. Earlier this week, thousands of retail workers in France went on strike to protest attacks on their bonuses and wages. Strong opposition exists among teachers and students to a return to normal conditions in schools. Last month, hundreds of thousands demonstrated across Europe as mass protests triggered by the murder of George Floyd in the US spread around the world. The protests not only expressed widespread anger over the actions of the police, but deep-seated opposition to the reactionary policies of the ruling class. These policies are backed by pseudo-left parties like Podemos in Spain, Unsubmissive France, Syriza in Greece, and Germanys Left Party, who all support their own governments drive to reopen the economy, prepare for war, and strengthen the repressive state apparatus. The International Committee of the Fourth International and its European sections are fighting to arm the mounting opposition of workers and young people with a socialist and internationalist programme. The threat posed to the lives of millions by the pandemic and wars can be prevented only by an independent political movement of the working class against capitalism and for workers governments. The wealth of the super-rich, major banks, and large corporations must be expropriated and society must be reorganised along rational, scientific lines to meet the needs of the vast majority. It is high time to take up this struggle. Contact us today to join the Socialist Equality Party. Bengaluru, July 31 : Karnataka Haj and Wakf board has appealed to the Muslim community to stay at home and celebrate Eid-Ul-Azha (Bakrid), considering the Covid pandemic, an official said on Friday. "Appeal to the entire community to celebrate Eid-Ul-Azha prayers at home only," said A.B. Ibrahim, Secretary to Karnataka government. He reminded the community that Haj itself in Saudi Arabia is being performed in a symbolic way with precautions and physical distancing. "In Karnataka, about 1.25 lakh Covid positive cases are being and daily more than 5,000 positive cases with 80 - 100 deaths," highlighted Ibrahim. The Secretary has also reminded that many people within the community have been infected and are under treatment. "In solidarity with those families and in the interest of individual safety, community and in the interest of public health at large, it is hereby appealed to pray Eid Namaz at home itself," he said. According to Ibrahim, the government has already issued orders prohibiting Eid namaz in Idgahs and open spaces. "Wherever prayers are offered in Masjid, guidelines issued by Karnataka State Wakf Board and safety norms should be strictly followed and the Eid Namaz should be concluded before 8 a.m.," he said. The Wakf Board has also permitted the devout to offer prayers inside mosques for Bakrid on Saturday following Covid guidelines and with restrictions. He also called on the community to offer special dua for the wellbeing of mankind and a Covid-free world. On Thursday, Karnataka has registered a record number of 6,128 new Covid positive cases, raising the state's tally to 1.18 lakh. He thrilled fans earlier this year when he announced that he was returning to Home and Away. And now a new trailer of Luke Jacobz reprising his role as police officer Angelo Rosetta and arriving into Summer Bay has dropped. The 39-year-old actor is seen getting out of a car as he meets Ray Meagher's character Alf Stewart at the beach, ahead of investigating a murder. He's back! Luke Jacobz reprises his role as police officer Angelo Rosetta and returns to Summer Bay in a dramatic new teaser for Home and Away Detective Angelo is set to look into the murder of Ross Nixon, Bella's father. 'I never thought my homecoming would be to investigate a murder,' Angelo says in the clip. A voice over also teases Luke's return to this long-running soap, saying: 'A ghost from the past arrives.' Back in the bay! The 39-year-old actor is seen getting out of a car as he meets Ray Meagher's character Alf Stewart at the beach, ahead of investigating a murder Earlier this year, Luke announced his return to Home and Away, almost a decade after leaving the show in June 2011. He told The Sunday Telegraph that that Channel Seven producers contacted him in January asking him to reprise his role. '[Channel Seven executives] called me in and said, "how do you feel about Angelo coming back to the bay?'' said the actor. 'I said ''very good'' - and almost straight away it was, ''okay, let's get a haircut, a wardrobe fitting and look at some scripts,'' he enthused. Thrilling fans: Earlier this year, Luke announced his return to the show, almost a decade after leaving the show in June 2011 (pictured in character on the soap) While it's not know how long he will star on the show this time round, Luke revealed that Angelo will stick around the Bay for 'a good few months.' '[Channel Seven producers] haven't said to me I'm coming in to die,' he said. Luke starred on Home And Away for three years before leaving the show. A spokesperson from Channel Seven told What's On TV: 'It's been almost a decade since his character Angelo Rosetta left the Bay, and now he's back on the police force with everything to prove.' Familiar face: Luke starred on Home and Away for three years before leaving the show Since leaving Summer Bay, the Logie award-winning actor has stayed busy with a number of high-profile hosting gigs, including The X-Factor and Instant Hotel. He also danced his way into Australia's hearts as the winner of the 2008 season of Dancing With The Stars and did a stint in the jungle on I'm a Celebrity... in 2019. Most recently he hosted The Proposal, but the show failed to win over audiences. The retail turnover (including VAT) of Apranga Group was EUR 86.7 million in 1st half 2020 or by 20.2% less than in 2019. The unaudited consolidated loss before income tax of Apranga Group amounted to EUR 0.5 million in the six months of 2020, while the Group has made the profit of EUR 3.7 million in the same period of 2019. Based on the Government of the Republic of Lithuania act regarding quarantine declaration, from 16th March 2020 until 18th April 2020 all Apranga Group stores in Lithuania were closed due to epidemic coronavirus (COVID-19) infection (stores in supermarkets were closed until 25th April 2020). Also, according to the resolution of the Government of the Republic of Estonia, all Group stores operating in shopping malls in Estonia were closed from 27th March 2020 until 11th May 2020. From 28th March 2020 until 16th May 2020, stores in Latvia operating in shopping malls could not work on weekends. These temporary store closures had a significant impact on the Group's generated turnover, earned profit and, accordingly, financial ratios for the first half of 2020. Management estimates that due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the temporary closure of stores, the Group lost about EUR 30-32 million of turnover (including VAT), did not receive about EUR 13-14 million of gross profit and did not earn about 4-5 million of profit before income tax in March-May 2020. EBITDA of Apranga Group totalled EUR 10.2 million in the six months 2020 and decreased by 22.8% comparing to corresponding the year 2019 period. The unaudited interim consolidated financial statements and consolidated interim report of Apranga Group for six months of 2020, as well as managers confirmation letter are ready for acquaintance in the attachment. The interim information is also available at: http://aprangagroup.lt/en/investors . Rimantas Perveneckas Apranga Group General Manager +370 5 2390801 Attachments In a long political journey, political parties may win and lose elections, face ups and downs, but the crisis which the Congress Party is facing at the moment is much deeper than merely dissatisfaction, defection, dissertation and factional infighting. The way political events that have unfolded within the Congress during the last few years are clear signals of a grave crisis that the party may find it extremely hard to overcome. The Congress has not only lost two Lok Sabha and many state Assembly elections one after another, it has also not been able to hold on to power even in the states where it managed to form a government or emerged as the single largest party in the Assembly. It remains in power only in a handful of states either on its own or in alliance with regional parties. The Congress has been extremely marginalised in states where it has not been in power for some time, and its voteshare declined to single digits. In states where the Congress lost power in recent Assembly elections, it trailed behind the winner by a big margin of votes. What has added to the problems of the Congress is defections and desertions by some important leaders. Given these circumstances, a revival of the Congress is going to be extremely difficult as the problems are manifold. The Congress is out of power at the Centre and will remain out of power at least till 2024. It has lost elections in many states and is currently in power only in three states -- Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Rajasthan, and is a coalition partner in the governments of Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Puducherry. While that count might suggest that the Congress is sharing power in at least six states, some of them count for very little in national politics in terms of the number of members they send to Parliament. Not only has the Congress lost many elections, it has even failed to hold on to power in the states where it formed the government. Defections have posed a huge challenge for the Congress in recent times. After it had formed the government in Karnataka in association with the JD(U), it lost power in the state due to defections, and recently lost power in Madhya Pradesh, could not form the government in Goa even after winning more seats than the BJP, and lost power in Arunachal Pradesh due to the large-scale defection of Congress MLAs to the BJP. In Manipur, the defection of Congress MLAs enabled the BJP to form government in the state. The Congress should have been in power in these states in an ideal situation, if the party had not faced defections. The Congress also suffered a setback as many leaders either defected to other parties or left the party. While Bhubaneswar Kalita, Sanjay Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia left the Congress and joined the BJP, Priyanka Chaturvedi, having left the Congress, joined the Shiv Sena, and Ajay Alok joined the AAP. The young leader from Haryana, Ashok Tanwar, left the party before the Assembly election, while spokesperson Sanjay Jha was recently suspended from the party. The recent defections and desertion from the Congress is mainly in the states where Congress has some stakes, but that does not indicate that all is well with the party in the remaining states. The party is lying very low in many states and it would be a herculean task for it to revive again. In Bihar, the Congress has been completely marginalised and its voteshare has fallen below 10 per cent in several elections during the last couple of decades: it was 6.7 per cent during the 2015 Assembly elections. The party which ruled Delhi for 15 long years polled only 4.2 per cent votes during the 2020 Assembly election. The electoral contest in West Bengal remains restricted mainly between the BJP and the Trinamul Congress, and the Congress is completely marginalised, with only 12.2 per cent of the vote during the 2016 Assembly election. In Uttar Pradesh, the state which sends the largest number of MPs to the Lok Sabha, the Congress has been pushed to fourth position, with just 6.2 per cent votes during the 2017 election. In Jharkhand, though it is a coalition partner in the Hemant Soren-led UPA government, its voteshare is a low 13.8 per cent. When the India Gandhi-led Congress was decisively defeated in the 1977 Lok Sabha polls, the southern states had remained with the party, but now the Congress seems to have completely collapsed in the South. The Congress has been completely marginalised in Tamil Nadu for decades in the 2016 Assembly election it polled only 6.4 per cent votes. Ever since Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy broke away from the Congress, the party has been completely wiped out in Andhra Pradesh, polling only 1.1 per cent votes in the 2019 Assembly elections. Though the Congress remains the single largest party in terms of voteshare in Karnataka, the BJP has made heavy inroads. In Kerala, in the sea-saw change of government, the Congress-led UDF has been alternating with the CPI(M)-led LDF every five years, but the Congress is heavily dependent on the Muslim League in the state. There are other states where the Congress still has a sizeable support base Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Odisha -- but it is far behind the winner. The story of the Congress remains the same in the Northeast. The party was wiped out in Nagaland, where it polled 2.1 per cent votes in the last Assembly elections; in Sikkim its voteshare was less than one per cent in the 2019 Assembly elections and in Tripura it polled 1.7 per cent votes in the 2018 elections. In Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram, the Congress may have a decent voteshare, but not enough to hold power. The mass defections in Arunachal Pradesh led to it losing power to the BJP, while in Manipur the defection of one Congress MLA enabled the BJP to form the government. In Mizoram, the Congress got 29.9 per cent votes but the MNF is in power in the state. In Meghalaya, similarly, despite getting 28.5 per cent votes in the 2018 election, the Congress failed to form the government, but the NDA did. In short, any revival of the Congress seems a herculean task at this juncture. David Scott, Commerce Townships supervisor, is being investigated by the Michigan State Police for statements on an election affidavit filed earlier this year in his bid for re-election. According to Joe Rozell, Oakland County elections director, Scott is running as a write-in candidate for re-election. He is accused of signing an affidavit confirming that statements, reports, late filing fees, and fines due from the candidate or committee organized to support the candidate have been filed or paid. According to the Michigan campaign finance laws, false claims are considered perjury, a felony punishable by a fine up to $1,000.00 or imprisonment for up to 5 years, or both and may result in disqualification from the ballot. Scott had $3,000 in outstanding county fines for not filing his quarterly and annual campaign finance reports since his 2016 election. To be eligible to run, Scott needed to pay the fines and submit the reports. Rozell said on April 8, that Scott paid the $3,000 in campaign fines before filing his affidavit of identity with the Commerce Township clerks office to run as a Republican for re-election. But he did not submit his outstanding campaign finance reports. Scott then signed and filed the affidavit, which was then faxed to the county. Shortly thereafter, Rozell said the county informed Scott of his situation. On Friday, State Police Lt. Mike Shaw, confirmed to The Oakland Press that an investigation into the affidavit began last week. The county filed a complaint with the sheriffs office, which turned it over to the state police, according to Undersheriff Michael McCabe. He had ignored our office for three years, not filing any of his campaign finance reports and not paying any fines associated with the lack of filings of those reports, Rozell told The Oakland Press. Under state law, any officeholder that owes the county or state reports or fines cannot be placed on the ballot for re-election. According to county election records, Scott was given 11 late filing fee notices July 2016 through February 2020 for not submitting various campaign statements and reports to the county on time. Before being fined, Scott was given 11 failure to file notices, each of which were sent to the Michigan Attorney Generals Office after nine days had passed and the required filings were still not submitted. When contacted by The Oakland Press on Friday, Scott said he knew nothing about the investigation and did not offer any further comment. In an earlier interview, Scott told The Oakland Press that he contacted the county clerks office before the April 21 filing deadline, but that the office ignored his attempts to assist him in filing outstanding documents and paying late fees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rozell says those statements are simply not true, in noting the clerks office was open by appointment only during the pandemic and that the county had made repeated attempts, over the years, to notify Scott of his situation. On April 15, after the late filing fees were paid, Rozell said the county reached out to Scott to advise him that the $3,000 payment was received but that the campaign reports were still due to the county. At this time, Scott was given the option of either being disqualified from the ballot and fling as a write-in or withdrawing his candidacy and filing as a write-in. He chose the later and on April 29, the outstanding statements and reports were officially filed with county. Rather than accepting personal responsibility for ignoring our office for three years, hes saying this is some kind of partisan thing that we refused to help him, said Rozell. These things are frankly not true. Scott, a former Oakland County Sheriffs deputy, is currently serving as a Republican but running as a write-in candidate for re-election. He has three opponents, also all write-in candidates. Tropical storm Isaias that formed in the south of Puerto Rico may be upgraded to a Hurricane on Friday and may near Florida on the weekend, weather forecasters predict. Tropical storm Isaias is the ninth storm of 2020. According to the National Hurricane Center, Isaias will strengthen over the next 24 to 36 hours and become a hurricane on Friday or Friday night. As of Thursday evening, the storm was spotted about 45 miles west-northwest of the Dominican Republic at 20 mph. The storm will travel in the vicinity of Southern Bahamas on Thursday night, then near the central Bahamas, and he is expected to be near South Florida on Saturday. READ: Global Warming Is Causing Stronger Tropical Cyclones, Says New Study Hurricane Warning, Tropical Storm Warning, and Tropical Storm Watch The Bahamas issued a hurricane warning for the northwestern Bahamas. Areas in Northwestern Bahamas with hurricane warning include Andros Island, New Providence, Eleuthera, Abacos Islands, Berry Islands, Grand Bahamas Island, and Bimini. The hurricane warning indicates that hurricane conditions are expected in the areas mentioned above. Advice such as this is issued 36 hours before the anticipated tropical strong force winds make preparations difficult or dangerous. Preparations to protect life and property in anticipation of the Hurricane's coming should be completed. A tropical storm warning is in effect in Dominican Republic entire southern and northern coastlines; North coast of Haiti from Le Mole St Nicholas eastward to the northern border with the Dominican Republic; Turks and Caicos Islands; Southeastern Bahamas including the Acklins, Crooked Island, Long Cay, the Inaguas, Mayaguana, and the Ragged Islands; Central Bahamas, including Cat Island, the Exumas, Long Island, Rum Cay, and San Salvador. Tropical storm warnings are issued to alarm people that tropical storm conditions are expected within the warning area in the next 36 hours. Meanwhile, a Tropical Storm Watch, which means tropical storm conditions should be expected within the watch area within 48 hours, was issued on the east coast of Florida from Ocean Reef to Sebastian Inlet. READ ALSO: Storm-Proofing Miami Could Cost 4.6 Billion Dollars A Disaster Within a COVID-19 Pandemic Hotspot As of July 30, Florida's Department of Health has reported 461,370 cases and 6,709 deaths. The state has a fatality rate of 1.45 percent. Dr. Aileen M. Marty, professor of infectious diseases at Florida International University in Miami, admitted that the state is really bad. The state reports an average of 154 deaths per day or 1,077 total in the last seven days. Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez articulated his concern about maintaining social distancing among evacuees to curb the spread of COVID-19 should a major hurricane hit the state. "Look, if we have a major hurricane here, then we're going to have to evacuate a number of people and then we're going to have to ... try to keep them separated as much as possible," he said. "That's a concern." In preparation for the storm, Florida closed some COVID-19 testing sites on Thursday. According to the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM), drive-thru and walk-up testing sites will be closed starting Wednesday, 5 p.m., "to keep individuals operating and attending the sites safe." It will remain closed until it is safe to reopen.FDEM anticipates that all sites will be opened by 8 a.m. on August 5. FDEM added that the testing sites would remain open in 11 counties, mostly located on the west coast or the Panhandle. READ NEXT: NOAA says Expect 6 Major Hurricanes from 19 Named Storms Madonna joined President Trump in sharing the viral video of Houston doctor Stella Immanuel on Instagram. Immanuel, member of America's Frontline Doctors, believes that hydroxychloroquine is a cure to coronavirus, despite the FDA and WHO condemning the use of the drug to treat COVID-19. RELATED: Hydroxychloroquine tied to deaths, heart risk in COVID study In a viral video, Immanuel made claims that there's no need for another shutdown and citizens don't need to wear masks. Immanuel has been widely criticized for spreading coronavirus conspiracies, and, as reported by The Daily Beast, believes in sex demons and that alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments. According to The Washington Post, Madonna posted a clip of of the video with the caption, "without evidence, that a vaccine for the disease has been found and proven and has been available for months. They would rather let fear control the people and let the rich get richer and get the poor get poorer and sick get sicker." Madonna also falsely claimed that a vaccine for coronavirus "has been available for months," but "people in power who stand to make money from this long, drawn-out search for a vaccine" don't want to make it available, reported Rolling Stone. The caption ended with the pop star calling Immanuel her "hero." Before the pop star deleted the clip from her Instagram page, Instagram flagged her account and blurred the video, labeling it "false information." Since the viral video's release, it has been flagged and removed from multiple social media platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube. China-sponsored hackers target Vatican, Hong Kong Mission group: report Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A Communist Chinese government-sponsored group targeted the Vatican and the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong, according to a report by a team of cybersecurity experts. The Insikt Group released a report earlier this week which found that in early May multiple Catholic organizations were targeted by RedDelta, a Chinese state-sponsored group. These network intrusions occurred ahead of the anticipated September 2020 renewal of the landmark 2018 China-Vatican provisional agreement, a deal which reportedly resulted in the Chinese Communist Party gaining more control and oversight over the countrys historically persecuted underground Catholic community, read the executive summary. In addition to the Holy See itself, another likely target of the campaign includes the current head of the Hong Kong Study Mission to China, whose predecessor was considered to have played a vital role in the 2018 agreement. The summary explained that the suspected targeting by RedDelta would offer RedDelta insight into the negotiating position of the Holy See ahead of the deals September 2020 renewal. Targeting the Hong Kong diocese, continued the report, could also provide a valuable intelligence source for both monitoring the dioceses relations with the Vatican and its position on Hong Kongs pro-democracy movement amidst widespread protests and the recent sweeping Hong Kong national security law. The targeting of entities related to the Catholic church is likely indicative of CCP objectives in consolidating control over the underground Catholic church, sinicizing religions in China, and diminishing the perceived influence of the Vatican within Chinas Catholic community, noted Insikt. Due to RedDeltas targeting of organizations that heavily align to Chinese strategic interests, use of shared tooling traditionally used by China-based groups, and overlaps with a suspected Chinese state-sponsored threat activity group, Insikt Group believes that the group likely operates on behalf of the Peoples Republic of China government. In 2018, the Vatican and Beijing approved a provisional deal in which the Vatican would recognize as legitimate bishops appointed by the communist regime. The agreement has been a controversial one, with many criticizing it as conceding too much power to the Peoples Republic and coming at the expense of freedom of religion. Last September, Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong criticized the Catholic Church for not doing more to speak out on behalf of those persecuted under the communist regime. In an interview with the French Roman Catholic magazine La Vie last year, Zen lamented the Vatican's silence on the democracy protests in Hong Kong. In early July, Pope Francis reportedly omitted comments expressing concern over China's recently passed national security law for Hong Kong in a speech. Chris Altieri, Rome Bureau Chief with The Catholic Herald, wrote in an analysis that the pope's recent omission led many to question the deal made between the Vatican and China. The critics of the Vaticans deal with China say it puts the Vatican in a supine position: it gives away the store. A more cautious view of the business would have it that the Vaticans objectives are not to usher in a golden age of religious liberty on the mainland, but to stave off full-fledged, Diocletian-level persecution, The Catholic Herald reported. The unexplained omission makes it harder to defend the deal, and measurably more difficult to defend the Vatican as this journalist has done against accusations theyve bent the knee to Beijing. Activists with Youth Climate Strike Los Angeles take to the streets Nov. 1 for a march. (Los Angeles Times) For as long as young people have played a role in the American imagination, they have been cast as figures of apathy and self-indulgence. As an actual young person, I am here to tell you that everything you think you know about young voters is wrong. Consider, for instance, the age-old question, why dont young people vote? Its the one everyone wants answers to, especially as the 2020 presidential election approaches. Heres a hint: Its not apathy, its voter suppression. That includes not just the active efforts by some Republican officials to reduce turnout by closing polling places, limiting hours and kicking people prematurely off the voter rolls, but also the specific challenges that the voting system poses for young people. Like many societal ills, the COVID-19 pandemic will significantly worsen this problem and at the worst possible time. Democrats (and Joe Biden in particular) could benefit significantly if young people turned out to vote in 2020 they will make up 37% of eligible voters in November, in a moment when a progressive and diverse Gen Z is beginning to fully age into the electorate. Theres also strong evidence that young people want to turn out at the ballot box this November. Abby Kiesa, director of impact at the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, explained that the 2020 presidential election could mirror the high youth turnout of the 2018 midterm. That year, in the wake of the gun violence prevention protests and the rise of the March for Our Lives movement, there was a huge increase in voter registration that rivaled that of 2016. At the ballot box, that translated into the highest level of youth turnout in any midterm over the last 25 years . Young people who were involved in the gun violence prevention movement were more likely to cast ballots, Kiesa told me, noting that the George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter movement could lead to a similar surge in the 2020 election. Story continues Theres already evidence that this will happen. The Voter Participation Center, a nonprofit organization that focuses on turning out young people, people of color, and unmarried women , saw a 250% increase in online voter registration applications in the days following the George Floyd protests. Their research also shows that Gen Z is much more interested in voting than millennials were at their age. However, its possible that none of this momentum ever makes it to the ballot box. We all know that the American electoral system is unnecessarily confusing. Young people dont vote at lower rates than older people because they care less about the issues; they simply have less experience with our byzantine process. The problems that typically plague young people as a result lack of information about how and where to vote, high levels of mobility, and lack of outreach from campaigns will only worsen amid the pandemic. Take, for instance, something as fundamental as voter registration. A recent survey by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement found that while a strong majority of young people ages 18-24 are paying attention to the 2020 election, a third of them didnt know if they could register to vote online in their state. As the pandemic keeps high school and college students away from campus, voter-focused organizations are scrambling to shift the voter registration help they'd been providing in person to the internet. The loss of in-person services is likely to depress Gen Z registration rates, Maya Patel, a recent University of Texas at Austin graduate who now works as Texas State Coordinator for the Campus Vote Project, said in an interview. At her alma mater, students serving as volunteer deputy registrars would register around 10,000 to 20,000 new student voters in any given election cycle through folding tables out on the quad, in-person visits to classrooms, and a voter registration party until midnight on the last day to register. Very little of that will be possible this semester as UT Austin moves many classes online to try to limit infection rates. Its going to have a huge impact on voter registration, especially in states like Texas where theres no online voter registration," Patel said. "Students really rely on in-person guidance to help navigate the system. Preventing problems like these from derailing the youth vote in November will require focusing on barriers to voting as a whole and how to overcome them. Among other things, that means enabling people to track their mail-in ballots as easily as they can track their packages, using push notifications to keep people informed on last-minute changes to polling locations, and shifting voter registration help online. However, these shortcomings also highlight the lack of infrastructure our country has to educate and sustain civic engagement among young voters. A consistent failure to engage young voters in my generation has led us to become increasingly disillusioned with voting and the electoral system we were born in an era of gridlock and biting partisanship, and have seen protest and community-based efforts such as mutual aid networks be more effective than elections and politicians. It's likely that the 2020 election will be a tipping point for many young people who are about to lose hope in the system entirely. Many are, frankly, tired of young people's ideas not being heard, while being simultaneously asked by older adults to be "useful" and be wholly responsible for fixing problems we didn't create, such as by "remov[ing] Donald J. Trump from office." If campaigns and politicians want young people to turn out and vote, they cant just ask us to show up at the ballot box they need to make sure that we can get there in the first place. As Kiesa put it, election administrators, campaigns, nonprofits and even the media shouldnt wait until the last few months before an election to engage young people. We want our voices to be heard, but we cant do it alone. The central probe agency has taken cognizance of the FIR registered against actress Rhea Chakraborty and some others to slap criminal charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in its complaint. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money laundering case in connection with the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, officials said on Friday. The central probe agency has taken cognizance of a Bihar Police first investigation report (FIR) registered against actress Rhea Chakraborty and some others to slap criminal charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in its complaint, they said. The officials said an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) has been filed in the case related to the death of the actor and alleged financial irregularities being suspected to have been done against the deceased. Officials said Chakraborty and others named in the ED case are likely to be summoned next week, according to a Hindustan Times report. The ED had recently sought the FIR copy from the Bihar Police. Rajput's father Krishna Kumar Singh (74) had on Tuesday lodged a police complaint against Chakraborty, her family members, and six others on charges of alleged abetment to suicide of his son. Singh has accused Chakraborty, a budding TV and film actress, of having befriended his son in May 2019 with the intention of furthering her own career. The ED will probe allegations of alleged mishandling of Rajput's money and his bank accounts. The agency will probe if anyone used Rajput's income for money laundering and creating illegal assets, the officials said. The Mumbai Police is already probing Rajput's death. Rajput (34), who had starred in films such as Chhichhore, Kai Po Che, and Kedarnath, was found hanging in his apartment in Mumbai's Bandra area on 14 June. (With inputs from Press Trust of India) * 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 The Supreme Court ruling meant any crime occurring within the 11-county footprint of the tribes historic reservation boundaries would have to be tried in either federal or tribal court, depending on the severity of the crime. Since the ruling, federal officials have begun filing cases in U.S. District Court when at least one of the parties involved is American Indian and it was a major crime that occurred within the Muscogee (Creek) Nation reservation, which includes much of the city of Tulsa. But McGirt and Murphy, the latter of whom is being held on death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, may be the first instances in which a state conviction has been refiled in federal court based on the McGirt decision. An affidavit filed in Muskogee federal court by an FBI agent alleges Murphy, 51, told others he beat and sexually dismembered Jacobs on Aug. 28, 1999, leaving his bleeding body in a ditch on the side of a road. Murphy was riding in a car with two other individuals, Kevin King and Billy Jack Long, just prior to the trio encountering Jacobs in another vehicle on a McIntosh County road, according to the affidavit. "That is simply not an option under the law," Boyd told the judge during the hearing. "The potential harm here is irreparable." "The highest risk activities are large in-person gatherings where it is difficult for individuals to remain spaced at least 6 feet apart and attendees travel from outside the local area," Brad Hutton, the deputy commissioner of the Office of Public Health at the New York, wrote in an affidavit. Even with the state's progress in limiting infections, "this is not a time for complacency," Boyd said. As for public health concerns, Grottanelli pointed to steps that will be taken to protect those attending the festival. Social distancing measures will be followed, he said. "For 65 acres, you can do a lot of social distancing," he said. People will be kept 12 feet from the stage, which will be under a large "well-ventilated tent," he said. Nearby picnic tables will be spaced 6 feet apart. A 20-foot-by-11-foot screen will be set up outside the tent showing the performances. "It's not a typical concert where everybody's shoulder to shoulder and jumping up and down," he said. "We cherish our friendship with Bangladesh and are privileged to support the school," said Riva Ganguly. Dhaka, July 31 (IANS) The Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Riva Ganguly Das, has handed over two school buses to the Nalanda Uchcha Vidyalaya, a school run by Chhayanaut, in a virtual ceremony. Speaking on the occasion, the High Commissioner said that by practicing, promoting and training generations of artistes, Chhayanaut has deeply impacted Bangladeshi society and its value system. The school buses will facilitate the school management and Chhayanaut to ease the travel routine of the students, said Ganguly. Nalanda Uchcha Vidyalaya and Chhayanaut authorities thanked the High Commission of India for the gift and said that it will be of great assistance to them in their activities. Sarwar Ali, Executive President of Chhayanaut , Vice President Khairul Anam Shakil, General Secretary of Chhayanaut, and the Headmistress of Nalanda Uchcha Vidyalaya, Shumona Biswas, participated in the online ceremony. --IANS sumi/arm SPRINGFIELD Two city councilors on Friday asked Attorney General Maura Healey to investigate whether a court ruling in favor of a proposed recreational marijuana business involved conflicts of interest. Council President Justin Hurst and Ward 1 Councilor Adam Gomez, both opponents of Insa Inc.s proposed marijuana business at the former Luxe Burger Bar, 1200 West Columbus Ave., objected to a ruling by Hampden Superior Court Judge Michael Callan, on May 29, in favor of the company. Hurst and Gomez said attorney Steven Reilly Jr., identified by the councilors as one of the principal owners of Insa, and lawyer Jeffrey Poindexter, who represented the company in its lawsuit against the council, both served on the state Judicial Nominating Commission at the time Callan was nominated for judgeship in 2016. Gov. Charlie Baker nominated Callan as a judge is August of that year, and he was confirmed by the Governors Commission after the application was screened by the 21-member commission, the councilors said. As a result, we think a full investigation by your office is warranted not only into the questionable ruling by Judge Callan amidst a myriad of undisclosed conflicts, but also into all INSAs dealings with the City of Springfield, the councilors wrote to Healey. Their letter also notes Reilly was an assistant city solicitor in Mayor Domenic Sarnos administration from 2009-12. Poindexter called the two councilors action underhanded and disgraceful. I am dismayed that two elected officials entrusted to act in the citys best Interest have taken to underhanded attacks on ethical peoples reputations over what appears to be a personal grudge for political gain, Poindexter said. It is disgraceful, and I feel it is the result of being sore losers over a position the elected officials took in what was a perilously flawed argument in the first place. They had an opportunity to appeal the decision to a higher court but they declined to take that route because it was legally sound. Instead they have resorted to petty tactics. Callan, in the ruling May 29, overrode the City Council, saying it must allow Insa to open the marijuana shop. Callan ruled that the councils denial of a special permit for the shop last year was arbitrary and capricious and had no rational basis. The council in September 2019 voted 8-3 to grant Insa a permit, but the measure needed one more vote to pass. Those voting against the permit were Hurst, Gomez, and Councilor Orlando Ramos. The council approved three other special permits for marijuana businesses last year, which are all on hold pending approval from the state Cannabis Control Commission. A review committee assembled by Sarno recommended Insa and the three other businesses from among 27 applicants. Hurst and Gomez said it is "common knowledge that overturning a Special Permit denied by the Springfield City Council is extremely rare, further questions were raised when Judge Collins based his decision solely on the motions submitted by both parties without any further arguments from our City Solicitor or additional testimony from members of the City Council, especially those who voted against the special permit." While it is well documented that the Covid 19 pandemic made it impossible for our Court System to operate its business as usual, the councilors wrote, the decision by Judge Callan only reignited concerns that INSAs ability to operate in Springfield has been more a product of who they know and less about what they have to offer. The twp councilors said that given the lawyers involvement in the judge screening process, they believe Callan should have recused himself from hearing the case. The councilors said a reasonable person can conclude that he (Callan) would have a tough time ruling against them not just in this proceeding involving the Springfield City Council, but in any proceeding. They raided my house, found me absent and they gave my sister an ultimatum: get Mduduzi here, or we will take you. They took her. She has no journalistic or political bone in her, he said. Professor Kwamena Ahwoi, a leading member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has maintained that criticisms that the 1992 Constitution was written to protect the interests of former President Jerry Rawlings are largely erroneous. According to him, only an aspect of the constitution provides such protections, not only do they provide immunity to the former President but also those that worked with him during the era of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC). Prof. Ahwoi, who was a Minister of Local Government and Rural Development in the PNDC regime, explained that the indemnity clause was necessary to ensure power was transitioned peacefully from military regime to civilian regime. When soldiers stage coup detat, they know they have committed the crime of treason for which punishment is death, if you want those people to hand over smoothly, youd have to give them guarantees theyll not be molested, vilified, not even tried and maybe sentenced to death. If they should hand over, because they will not accept to commit suicide, which is what theyd be doing if they simply say okay were handing over so anytime a coup has taken place in any country, negotiations take place for guarantees of indemnity and immunity provided coup makers, that is the only way they will feel comfortable enough to agree to hand over. What most critics of indemnity clause do not understand is, not only does indemnity clause serve as surety to former President Rawlings; it protects all those who worked with him during those regimes, including former President Agyekum Kufuor who was once a PNDC Secretary for Local Government. Per the constitution, all those who had held public office during the military regime were guilty of treason, thus the need to insert indemnity clause in the constitution, but when they criticise it [ indemnity clause], their target is former President Rawlings; he is only one, however, treason charge extends to those of us who also worked with him. If the indemnity clauses are removed, not only former President Rawlings will be tried, I will be tried, former President Kufuor will be tried because he was appointed PNDC secretary for local government before I was appointed PNDC secretary, if we go in line to be tried, he will come before me, Prof Ahwoi explained. 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. Featured Video A young man, identified as Daniel Mwantiri, has been reportedly killed in a fresh attack by gunmen in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area... A young man, identified as Daniel Mwantiri, has been reportedly killed in a fresh attack by gunmen in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State. It was learnt that his mother, Mrs Ladi Mwantiri, was also injured during the attack and was rushed to the Jos University Teaching Hospital for treatment. The victims were said to be relaxing in their house at Exland community when the gunmen attacked them on Thursday night. A relative of the victims, Dalyop Mwantiri, confirmed the incident. Mwantiri said, Some gunmen suspected to be Fulani militia have again attacked a family in Exland (Gindin Akwati) of Gashish District, Barkin Ladi LGA of Plateau State last night (Thursday), July 30, 2020. The victims were a mother and her son. As a result, a mother (Ladi), and her son (Daniel) were severely injured at the time of the attack. They were immediately rushed to Jos University Teaching Hospital. Sadly, Daniel gave up the ghost while his mother is currently receiving medical treatment at the hospital. As I talk with you, the late Daniel is being taken to his village for burial. A spokesman for the State Police Command, Ubah Ogaba, could not be reached immediately but security sources at the commands headquarters in Jos said they are aware of the incident. In India, many players are in the throes of chaos and pain but at least one partnership -- Air Asia India -- that was fraying even before the pandemic now finds itself at breaking point, says Anjuli Bhargava. Image: An AirAsia Airbus A320. Photograph: Kind courtesy Wikimedia commons As Covid-19 tightens its grip on the world's aviation industry, fault lines are beginning to appear. In India, many players are in the throes of chaos and pain but at least one partnership -- Air Asia India -- that was fraying even before the pandemic now finds itself at breaking point. In the last few weeks, conflicting news reports have appeared across media on how the Tatas want to sell their stake and exit, followed closely by reports that the Malaysian partner Air Asia Berhard wants to bow out. The truth of the matter is that Air Asia India today is a failure -- although neither side is openly acknowledging the fact -- and is a bit like an unwanted child, with neither parent keen to take full responsibility. In 2014, Air Asia Berhard chairman Tony Fernandes might have sold a dream to then Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata but over six years, the dream has effectively unravelled. More recently, this newspaper carried a report claiming a valuation of Rs 550 crore for Air Asia Berhard's 49 per cent stake, a figure almost everyone in the industry laughed off. Most argued that they would pay nothing -- not even Rs 2, as Ajay Singh famously did for Kalanithi Maran's stake in SpiceJet back in 2014 -- because the joint venture has accumulated losses, many liabilities and requires large doses of capital injection to stay relevant. All this when aviation is at one of its lowest points in history and airline economics is likely to be grimmer than ever. If someone is willing to pay Fernandes Rs 550 crore for his 49 per cent in today's scenario, he should simply grab it, said one industry player. He says finding adoptive parents for this child in today's environment seems close to impossible and he wouldn't take it on even if it were handed to him free on a platter. A point worth reflecting is why Air Asia Berhard -- with its wealth of experience and expertise -- failed to replicate its success in Malaysia and Thailand, in India. Barring these two countries, none of Air Asia India's forays in the region can be called unequivocal successes. One, comparisons with Malaysia don't hold much water since that was home territory for Fernandes and he was able to manage government policy and the environment -- a bit like Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal in India -- to his advantage, besides being an early entrant. When Air Asia Berhard got going, serious competition was virtually non-existent in Malaysia and Fernandes, who famously bought the loss-making airline from its Malaysian owner for a token one ringitt in 2001, was able to offer a new product at the right price point to capture a chunk of the market. It was young and nimble. Moreover, Malaysian Airlines -- the national carrier -- was beset with all the usual problems flag carriers suffer and far stodgier and relatively unsteady. It was a bit like Jet Airways taking on Indian Airlines in the early days, says an industry analyst. Image: Tony Fernandes Photograph: Reuters In Thailand, a very early entry (2004) was one of the major factors that helped Air Asia succeed. It was able to quickly occupy an empty space (the country's first low-cost airline) and a strong partner (then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra) helped. Competition was virtually non-existent with only the State-owned Thai Airways and a very small, boutique although well-managed Bangkok Airways in the fray. Thai Air Asia was able to find its niche, and is now one of the dominant players in the country. It has contributed significantly to its parent's profitability over the years. But in Indonesia (where Lion Air is the largest player) and in Philippines (CEBU Pacific is dominant), Air Asia Berhard remains relatively insignificant. Lion Air, in fact, has taken on Air Asia Berhard in its home country with its subsidiary Malindo and more recently in Thailand with Thai Lion. In Indonesia, Air Asia Indonesia is in a position similar to what Air Asia India is to IndiGo in India -- more an annoying fly to swat at than something to take notice of. Similar attempts to replicate its success in Malaysia and Thailand in China and Japan have not worked either for a variety of reasons. Other than its own home base, it's only Thailand where it had a first mover advantage that Air Asia Berhard has been successful. In all other markets, its performance has been lacklustre, says an industry source familiar with the region. In India too, Air Asia India entered in 2014 when competition was already intense and the opportunity to manage the environment limited despite a powerful partner. This combined with a series of poor decisions, from choice of CEOs to routes that failed to deliver, landed the airline in the abyss it finds itself today. Controversies also dogged the venture from the word go. Aviation industry analysts and observers are divided on how this unhappy saga will play out but almost everyone is convinced that we are seeing the beginning of the end. Tony Fernandes and Ratan Tata are faced with the sad prospect of watching their joint dream unravel. Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com. At a time when restaurants in the Bay Area are struggling to generate revenue, some of San Franciscos most celebrated chefs and restaurant owners are doing what previously might have been unthinkable: telling diners to stay away. Some restaurants are limiting outdoor seating further than required by shelter-in-place orders and turning away countless patio customers as a result. Others are opting to take less money by running as nonprofits. Its a complicated stance to take as the restaurant industry crumbles, yet in their eyes, its a necessary one as coronavirus cases spike across the state. But turning away dollars, be it through choosing not to expand takeout options or venture into outdoor dining, isnt without consequences. Some of San Franciscos best restaurants say they are inching closer to the prospect of permanently closing. Mourad Lahlou has kept his Michelin-starred Mourad closed during the pandemic and has offered only limited takeout service at his other restaurant, Aziza. All the while, bills are piling up for both locations, investor money has run dry, and rent still needs to be paid, he said. Im broke as f, said Lahlou, who canceled his honeymoon this year because of the steep drop in revenue at his restaurants. People think I can do this because I have investors or something, or like money in reserve for this, but do you think investors are giving me money right now? I just dont want to die, and I dont want other people to die simply to make some money. Over the past month or so, several restaurants in the Bay Area, including the Buckeye Roadhouse in Mill Valley and San Franciscos Square Pie Guys, have closed temporarily after employees tested positive for the coronavirus. Both restaurants, which were open for takeout and for outdoor dining in the case of Buckeye, have substantial customer bases in their respective cities. But even those without known coronavirus outbreaks are choosing to close their doors. Tadich Grill, the 171-year-old institution, recently announced it would stop offering even takeout until its safe to offer indoor dining. Sharon Ardiana, the chef-owner of local Italian restaurants Gialina, Ardiana and Ragazza, is selling pizzas and salads to go but declined to offer outdoor dining at Ragazza, even though it has a gazebo in back. Ardiana said people call daily to ask her if the gazebo space is available for service, and opening it would be a boon to business, which is down by about 80% since the start of the pandemic. But to do so would mean diners would have to walk through the restaurant to get to it, and her rule since the start of the pandemic has been to limit access to the interior of the restaurant to staff. A more significant reason for keeping the outdoor area of Ragazza off limits, though, is the thought of her staff having to be what she calls mask police, Ardiana said. I dont want to have to argue with someone over their need to point out that theyre sitting outside so theyre allowed to not have a mask on. There are other diners around, and my employees, that I have to worry about, she said. People are funny because right now, they really dont want to be told what to do. I dont want to have be anyones mother. But I cant help but worry about people. Carl Nolte / The Chronicle San Franciscos only Guamanian restaurant, Prubechu, moved its Mission District dining room outdoors in June when the city approved such operations. But its choosing to serve half the number of diners its technically allowed to serve, even while following social distancing protocols. Couple that with average checks for outdoor diners at Prubechu being nearly half of the normal $55 to $60 per diner indoors, the choice to place high priority on customer health is costly. Is it worth it, that extra $100, to have those people come, and for us to slip on our standard protocols? Its not while these cases are spiking, said co-founder Shawn Camacho. Doubling our capacity would financially bring us where we need to be, but we dont want to be a catalyst for the spread of the virus. ... We have to protect our diners from themselves, in some ways. Most San Francisco owners rejoiced when the city permitted outdoor dining in June, after months of delivery and takeout service, because it was a chance for many to generate more revenue. Then in July, after a spike in coronavirus cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered restaurants, wineries and tasting rooms across the state, along with other businesses such as zoos, museums and movie theaters, to cease indoor service. San Francisco officials followed suit by indefinitely delaying the restart of indoor dining in the city, which was initially set for July 13. Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. The changing dates didnt matter as much to Kim Alter, whose fine dining restaurant Nightbird in Hayes Valley has been closed to diners the whole time. Shes using her kitchen these days to cook for nonprofits feeding needy populations in the city. The transition has led her to being more active, raising her total meal count to 32,000 so far this year when last year she made about 8,000 meals, but it doesnt mean shes earning the same amount of money. Alter said shes picking up side hustles such as virtual cooking classes, among several other opportunities, to make ends meet. And while outdoor dining could be an option for her business, she chose not to pursue it. The financial sacrifice, in my opinion, is worth it, she said. Im just going to do what I can, for as long as I can, until I have no other option. As routes to financial success during the pandemic remain limited for local restaurants, many chefs and owners continue to think that keeping service limited is worth it for safety reasons. I find myself trying to convince people not to come to my restaurants. Some of our favorite customers from Mourad, Im talking about the really high rollers, have asked me to do a dinner with 20 to 30 people, and Im like, No fing way. ... It doesnt make sense right now, Lahlou said. If its about health or financial survival, then Im choosing health. For all of us. Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JustMrPhillips The COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly spreading across Africa and a lack of adequate testing is preventing health care professionals from being able to assess and fight the spread of the disease, according to the International Rescue Commitee (IRC). The IRC is a global, nongovernmental organization dedicated to responding to humanitarian crises. The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa more than doubled in July, and over the past two months it rose by 500%. Every country in which the IRC is involved, however, has completed less than 8,000 tests per million people. This is in stark contrast to countries like Britain, where there are 205,782 tests per million. The IRC believes that because testing levels in Africa are so low, the actual levels of COVID-19 in the continent are probably much higher than the reported numbers show. The lack of adequate testing is believed to be a result of low testing capacity, poor health infrastructure, and social stigma. Additionally, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends at least one test per 1,000 people per week, and it says countries should be striving for a test positivity rate of 5% or under for at least 14 days. Few African countries where the IRC is involved have accomplished this Somalia, for example, has a 32% test positivity rate. The IRC is calling for increased resources and funds from the international community so it can increase testing in Africa and fight the virus. Stacey Mearns, senior technical adviser of Emergency Health at the IRC, said that where testing is insufficient, we are fighting this disease in the dark and we are worried this could be the tip of the iceberg. She added that without increased financial assistance, we risk an undetected and uncontrolled spread and a response fighting with a hand tied behind its back. Advertisement Europe is facing a summer heatwave with river beds drying up in France and 14 cities on red alert in Italy while Germany suffers a month-long drought. Paris is set to reach 104F (40C) temperatures in the shade after several French cities hit record highs on Thursday ahead of a heavy holiday travel weekend. A dramatic wildfire in the French Atlantic resort of Anglet destroyed nearly a dozen homes and forced around 100 people to evacuate before it was finally brought under control today, while rivers ran dry in eastern France. Spain is also roasting in the heatwave caused by hot air coming in from Africa, just as Madrid tightens its rules on mask-wearing to combat a second wave of coronavirus cases. Large swathes of Germany are also under a heat warning this weekend after the country saw just 65 per cent of its expected rainfall over the month of July. NETHERLANDS: A crowd of beachgoers enjoy the summer weather at the seaside near the Brouwersdam in Holland, where temperatures were expected to reach nearly 90F (32C) today FRANCE: Houses next to the dried-up Doubs river in Maisons-du-Bois-Lievremont in eastern France today as numerous French cities saw record temperatures during a summer heatwave SWITZERLAND: Two children, Mohamed and Hatim, cool off with water jets in the fountain at the Place des Nations during a hot summer day in Geneva on Friday Large parts of western Europe are suffering heatwave temperatures this weekend caused by hot air coming from Africa The website Severe Weather Europe says today is expected to be the hottest day of the year so far in Western Europe, warning of 'extreme heat'. Authorities in Paris imposed driving restrictions to limit ozone pollution as tens of thousands of people prepared to flee to cooler climes, according to the nation's traffic surveillance agency. 'The heatwave requires the state to be vigilant, and everyone to be cautious,' Prime Minister Jean Castex said while visiting firefighters in Bourg-en-Bresse, southeast France. The blaze in Anglet erupted late Thursday in the Chiberta forest park in southwestern France, where the beaches just north of Biarritz draw surfers from around the world. It was the latest of several fires that erupted in southern and central France this week, kicking off the annual fire season which officials warn could be worsened by the drought and dry heat. 'Ninety per cent of these fires are caused by humans,' Environment Minister Barbara Pompili told BFM television, asking people to use 'common sense.' Officials also urged families and neighbours to check in on the elderly, and retirement homes are on high alert since air-conditioners are being discouraged over fears they could foster coronavirus contagions. In the Netherlands, beachgoers were told to avoid the coastal resort of Zandvoort near Amsterdam, with public safety authorities saying it was too crowded to maintain coronavirus social distancing. Long queues of cyclists also formed to take the ferry to Schiermonnikoog, one of the West Frisian islands near the German border, as temperatures in the southern Netherlands jumped to 35 Celsius after a spell of cooler weather. FRANCE: Firefighters work at a building on an ornithological reserve in Izadia, near the Chiberta forest in Anglet, where a wildfire burned nearly 250 acres of forest early today FRANCE: A dead fish in the Doubs river in eastern France which has dried up because of the heatwave hitting western Europe FRANCE: A fire in the Chiberta forest in Anglet destroyed nearly a dozen homes and forced around 100 people to evacuate before it was finally brought under control today FRANCE: A firefighter works in the Chiberta forest in Anglet where several houses were destroyed by the wildfires NETHERLANDS: An aerial view of summer crowds on the beach near the Brouwersdam in the Netherlands on Friday NETHERLANDS: Beachgoers enjoy the sunshine as they sunbathe and play in the sea on a beach in Ouddorp today ITALY: A woman takes her friend's picture as the paddle in the water at Mondello beach in Palermo today amid the heatwave From Britain to Italy, temperatures nearing 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) or more made face masks almost unbearable for many, as more cities begin requiring them outdoors to prevent surges in COVID-19 cases. Daniela Iannelli, a 55-year-old municipal employee in Rome, said: 'Even in this stifling heat, it's better to put up with 38 degrees than catch the coronavirus.' Fourteen Italian cities were placed on high alert, while France issued warnings for around one-third of the country's 101 departments. An increase in Covid-19 cases prompted French officials to tighten face mask requirements in several cities this week, with many making them mandatory outdoors despite the heat. The Meteo France weather agency said storms could bring relief late Friday in central France. Night temperatures elsewhere are likely to stay high, falling to just 77F (25C) in cities like Lyon or Grenoble. Last year was France's hottest on record, and Meteo France has warned that global warming could double the number of heatwaves by 2050. Meanwhile in Spain, a heatwave hit on Thursday just as Madrid made mask-wearing compulsory to prevent a surge in coronavirus infections. 'Your breath gets very warm - your glasses, there are lots of problems,' said Madrid resident Ana Gonzalez. 'But you put it all aside when you think that it's protection and there's no choice about wearing it. 'You forget about the face mask and that's it. It's the only way. At least, that's what I do.' Spain's meteorological agency said the hot air was coming from Africa and would last until Saturday, as holidays are scaled back in some parts of the country because of the virus pandemic. As the traditional August holidays approach, swimming pools were in high demand despite face mask requirements, while Spanish beaches could see smaller crowds as the coronavirus crisis bites into tourism. In Italy (left), 10 cities (marked in red) are at the highest alert level today while 14 are in the same category for Saturday, while in Germany (right) a large swathe of the country close to the French border (in purple) has been put on a heat warning SWITZERLAND: A woman cools off in the Place des Nations fountain in Geneva today as weather agency MeteoSwiss issued a heatwave alert for parts of the country ITALY: A man cools off in a fountain during a hot day in Turin, one of the cities which has been put on the highest alert level In Rome, where the temperature hit 100F (38C) on Thursday and was set to go to 102F (39C) on Friday, authorities told the elderly and children not to go out in the hottest part of the day. Italy's health ministry has put 10 cities on a red-alert warning for Friday and 14 cities for Saturday, including Rome, Turin and Bologna. The Swiss weather agency advised people to drink plenty of water, eat cool dishes and avoid physical exertion. On Cyprus, the heatwave hit earlier this week, with temperatures already up in the 100s Fahrenheit since Monday. Germany's weather service has also issued a heat warning for much of the south and west of the country near the French border where temperatures are expected to reach 95F (35C) at the weekend. Officials say July saw only 65 per cent of the expected rainfall in Germany, with some areas in the south-west seeing only 10 litres of rain per square metre compared to the national level of 50. Britain's national weather service said it was the hottest day of the year so far, with thermometers climbing to 35 degrees at London's Heathrow Airport. Many in the capital packed onto trains heading for Brighton on the southern coast, while the Met Office said lower temperatures would return this weekend. Austria and Bulgaria also reported their hottest day yet this year, with Vienna topping 37 degrees before a summer storm brought some relief. Jihadi bride Shamima Begum will not be allowed to return to the UK to challenge being stripped of her citizenship until the Supreme Court has made a ruling on a decision to let her back into the country. Lawyers for the Government were granted leave to appeal to the highest court in the land and challenge an earlier ruling that allowed Begum to appear in person and argue against being stripped of her citizenship. Three Appeal Court judges agreed there should be a stay on any movement until after the Supreme Court had made their ruling which is expected later this year. Lady Justice King, sitting remotely with Lord Justice Singh and Lord Justice Flaux, ruled that the appeal against her return should be heard by the Supreme Court. The three judges had earlier this month ruled that Begun, who fled to Syria when she was 15 years old permission to return from the refugee camp where she is held to appear in person before an immigration appeals board. Lawyers for the Government had insisted that she posed a risk to national security and should not be allowed back into the UK. In the remote hearing today Sir James Eadie for the Government said while there was some sympathy for Begun due to her age she had chosen to align herself with terrorists. She did leave with intent and did align herself with violent extremists in Syria with Isis, he said. Appeal: Begum challenged the decision made by then Home Secretary Sajid Javid saying she now feared for her life. Her third child Jarrah, pictured in her arms, died at three weeks old There is a big issue at stake here. What principals should govern a case where a person can get a fair hearing because they have placed themselves, not as a result of any Secretary of State action but where that is the result of going abroad and aligning with terrorists groups. It is the assessment of the Government that they pose a risk to national security n the UK were they to return. 'There may be some sympathy of her age, but she did leave with intent and did align with violent extremists in Syria with ISIS.' Government investigated after Begum court judgement details leaked to The Sun The court heard this morning that the apparent leaking of the Court of Appeal's draft judgment 'or the essential contents of that judgment' to The Sun ahead of its formal publication would be referred to the Attorney General. At the outset of Friday's hearing, Lady Justice King said: 'There was a breach of the embargo which preserved the confidentiality of the judgment until hand down, the judgment having been circulated to the parties on July 9. 'Either a copy of that judgment, or the essential contents of that judgment, were disclosed or passed on to The Sun national newspaper in advance of the judgment being handed down on July 16.' The judge added that 'the article was removed during the course of the night' before the Court of Appeal gave its ruling. Lady Justice King also said that the article 'rightly or wrongly referred to 'senior Government sources' as having been the source of the information'. She said: 'We intend to report that matter to the Attorney General.' Advertisement Begum was one of three east London schoolgirls who travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State group in February 2015. She was 15 years old and about to sit her GCSE exams when having claimed to have been groomed by watching videos of people being executed she decided to flee to Syria and join terror organistion. She lived under IS rule for more than three years before she was found, nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp in February last year. The then-home secretary Sajid Javid, revoked her British citizenship on national security grounds after she was discovered nine months pregnant in a refugee camp. A Special Immigration Appeals Commission upheld the Home Offices decision and ruled that she should not be allowed to return and said she could claim Bangladeshi citizenship through her father. Begum, now 20, took legal action against the Home Office, claiming the decision was unlawful because it rendered her stateless and exposed her to a real risk of death or inhuman and degrading treatment. Her lawyers claimed she faced execution if returned to Bangladesh or Iraq. Lord Justice Flaux, Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Singh ruled that Begum should be allowed to return to the UK to pursue her appeal sparking outrage and concern that other Jihadis who left Britain would also be able to return. The Government said it was "bitterly disappointed" by the ruling, while Mr Javid said he was "deeply concerned" by the judgment. Human rights groups have backed Beguns return to appear before the Special Immigration Appeals Commisiom/ Katie Lines from Liberty said: "The right to a fair trial is not something the government can take away on a whim." Earlier in the hearing this morning the three appeal court judges said the Attorney General would be asked to look at a ' potentially very serious contempt' after their earlier ruling on Begun was leaked to a newspaper. Sir James Eadie QC, for the Home Office, earlier said there was 'a big issue at stake', namely 'what principles and approach should govern a case in which someone at present cannot have a fair and effective hearing in a deprivation appeal, but they cannot do so because they have placed themselves, not as a result of any of the Secretary of State's actions, (but) where that is the result of going abroad and aligning with terrorist groups'. Jihadi bride Shamima Begum has been pictured today wearing jeans, a shirt and a blue hat as she walked through a Syrian refugee camp earlier this month Sir James said it was 'an issue of real pressing public importance' which was 'perhaps the central democratic issue of our times'. He added: 'This cannot be assumed to be unique or even, given the number of people who have aligned in this way, to be a highly unusual case.' Sir James said Ms Begum was 'in precisely the category that causes real concern'. He submitted that, while there may be 'some potential for sympathy in light of the age she was when she left the jurisdiction ... she did leave the jurisdiction with the intention of, and then did align with violent extremists in Syria'. The court also heard that the apparent leaking of the Court of Appeal's draft judgment 'or the essential contents of that judgment' to The Sun ahead of its formal publication would be referred to the Attorney General. At the outset of Friday's hearing, Lady Justice King said: 'There was a breach of the embargo which preserved the confidentiality of the judgment until hand down, the judgment having been circulated to the parties on July 9. 'Either a copy of that judgment, or the essential contents of that judgment, were disclosed or passed on to The Sun national newspaper in advance of the judgment being handed down on July 16.' The judge added that 'the article was removed during the course of the night' before the Court of Appeal gave its ruling. Lady Justice King also said that the article 'rightly or wrongly referred to 'senior Government sources' as having been the source of the information'. She said: 'We intend to report that matter to the Attorney General.' Jihadi bride Shamima Begum, 20, is desperate to return to Britain five years after she voluntarily left to join ISIS in Syria - her British citizenship was revoked when she was found in a refugee camp after the caliphate fell last year In February this year, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) - a specialist tribunal which hears challenges to decisions to remove someone's British citizenship on national security grounds - found Ms Begum 'cannot play any meaningful part in her appeal and that, to that extent, the appeal will not be fair and effective'. But SIAC ruled that 'it does not follow that her appeal succeeds' and Ms Begum's challenge to the Home Office's decision to refuse to allow her to enter the UK to effectively pursue her appeal was also rejected. However, earlier this month, the Court of Appeal ruled that 'the only way in which she can have a fair and effective appeal is to be permitted to come into the United Kingdom to pursue her appeal'. Lord Justice Flaux - sitting with Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Singh - said: 'Fairness and justice must, on the facts of this case, outweigh the national security concerns, so that the leave to enter appeals should be allowed.' The judge found that 'the national security concerns about her could be addressed and managed if she returns to the United Kingdom'. Lord Justice Flaux also said: 'With due respect to SIAC, it is unthinkable that, having concluded that Ms Begum could not take any meaningful part in her appeal so that it could not be fair and effective, she should have to continue with her appeal nonetheless.' He added: 'It is difficult to conceive of any case where a court or tribunal has said we cannot hold a fair trial, but we are going to go on anyway.' Earlier this month MPs and victims of Islamic State atrocities reacted furiously to the decision. Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said it risked a flood of jihadis returning. He told MailOnline: 'It opens the door for all her fellow jihadi brides to return to Britain and potentially their terrorist partners too. 'Most Brits will rightly think that when you swear allegiance to another country that declares war on Britain, that you have given up all the rights and protections and privileges of your British citizenship. After today's ruling it appears you have not'. Gale & Ira Drukier Prize in Children's Health Research awarded to two leading pediatricians Dr. Sallie Permar, a physician-scientist who investigates the prevention and treatment of neonatal viral infections, and Dr. Stephen Patrick, a neonatologist focused on the impact of the opioid epidemic on pregnant women and infants, have been jointly awarded the fifth annual Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children's Health Research, Weill Cornell Medicine announced today. The Drukier Prize honors early-career pediatricians whose research has made important contributions toward improving the health of children and adolescents. Dr. Permar, associate dean of physician scientist development, professor of pediatrics, immunology, molecular genetics and microbiology, and founding director of the Children's Health and Discovery Institute at Duke University School of Medicine, is being honored for her research into the development of vaccines to prevent mother-to-child transmission of neonatal viral pathogens. Dr. Patrick, an associate professor of pediatrics and health policy and director of the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, is being recognized for his research on improving outcomes for infants born to opioid-dependent pregnant women using a public health framework. "Drs. Permar and Patrick are skilled physician-scientists whose commitment to pediatric research and care exemplifies the spirit of the Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children's Health Research," said Dr. Augustine M.K. Choi, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine. "Dr. Permar's innovative work investigating the prevention and treatment of neonatal viral infections has advanced this vital field of research, while Dr. Patrick's examination of the impact of the opioid epidemic on pregnant women and infants has informed national policy in this area. Their respective research offers the promise of a healthy future for countless children, and we're delighted to recognize them this year." "We are thrilled to be honoring two exceptional winners with this year's award," said Dr. Gale Drukier and Weill Cornell Medicine Overseer Ira Drukier, who together in 2014 established the prize. "The dedication Dr. Permar and Dr. Patrick have displayed to improving the lives of children is inspiring, as they work to ensure the health of newborns through pioneering research and compassionate care. It brings us great joy to recognize those who are affecting real change in pediatric research, like these physician-scientists, and to highlight their important work." "By focusing on one of the most vulnerable populations, the discoveries made by these investigators have the opportunity to improve outcomes for newborns and offer hope to untold expectant mothers," said Dr. Virginia Pascual, the Drukier Director of the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children's Health. "Dr. Permar's research on developing vaccines to prevent mother-to-child viral transmission of disease and Dr. Patrick's work to improve outcomes for infants born to opioid-dependent women have furthered our knowledge of these areas of pediatric research. The Drukier Institute is pleased to honor them for their important contributions to children's health." Dr. Patrick's research focuses on how to improve outcomes for pregnant women and infants affected by the opioid epidemic, including newborn babies who have drug withdrawal symptoms, known as neonatal abstinence syndrome. When Dr. Patrick began his research, the link between opioid prescriptions and overdose deaths was clear, but the relationship between opioid exposure and newborn health was not. His findings have shown that the number of infants diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome grew nearly sevenfold between 2000 and 2016 nationwide. Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) can occur when babies are chronically exposed to opioids before birth, whether to an illegal drug or a prescribed medication like methadone, which can help an expecting woman treat her addiction and increase the likelihood of a full-term pregnancy. In studying the health outcomes for babies with NAS, it became clear to Dr. Patrick that doctors needed to consider more than simply whether pregnant women were using opioids at the time of delivery. Length of use, and social and economic factors also play a role in whether a fetus develops NAS. His research found a link between higher rates of the syndrome and long-term unemployment, especially in rural areas, and his findings have had a direct impact on policy changes that benefit children. For instance, the Protecting Our Infants Act, which was signed into law in 2015 and aims to help prevent and treat babies exposed to opioids in utero, cited Dr. Patrick's research in the bill. And his research on prescription drug monitoring programs was included in the Surgeon General's "Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General's Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health," which addresses the prevalence of addictive substances in the United States and makes recommendations for prevention, treatment and recovery. "Just looking at past Drukier Prize awardees, it's an extreme honor to be included with that esteemed group," said Dr. Patrick. "Research is a team sport and taking care of patients is a team sport. This is an individual award but it's reflective of great mentorship I've had along the way and the support I've had from others, including my family, to get the work done." Dr. Permar is a physician-scientist focused on the prevention and treatment of viral infections in newborns. She leads a research lab that is working towards the development of vaccines to prevent mother-to-child transmission of viruses such as HIV, Zika and cytomegalovirus (CMV). Recently, Dr. Permar and her research team have focused their efforts on CMV, the most common congenital infection and leading cause of birth defects in the world, affecting one in 150 newborns. While scientists have long been frustrated in their attempts to develop a vaccine to protect infants against CMV, Dr. Permar's work has led to a more thorough understanding of what is required of a vaccine to protect against transmission of the virus from mother to infant. Not only must it prevent congenital infections, but vaccine strategies must also address breast milk-associated CMV transmission to very premature infants. Drawing on her experience using animal models shown to be effective in HIV/AIDS research, Dr. Permar developed the first nonhuman primate model of congenital CMV infection to demonstrate that a vaccine targeting antibody responses could protect against the transmission of CMV. There are now two CMV vaccines that are nearing phase 3 trials, which her work is helping to inform. "The Drukier awardees are a highly recognized group of pediatricians and one I'm proud to be a part of," said Dr. Permar. "If you can solve diseases in the pediatric window, then you're giving that person the gift of a healthy lifetime. It's wonderful that this award recognizes and promotes this critical concept." The Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children's Health Research was established in 2014 as part of a $25 million gift to Weill Cornell Medicine. The gift also created the Drukier Institute for Children's Health, a premiere, inter-disciplinary institute dedicated to understanding the underlying causes of diseases that are devastating to children. As part of its mission, the institute awards the annual prize, which carries a $10,000 unrestricted honorarium, to recognize the innovative work done by young investigators in pediatric research. Dr. Patrick is board certified in pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine. He is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Substance Use and Prevention and the Society for Pediatric Research, which awarded him its prestigious Young Investigator Award in 2019. He is also a research fellow with the RAND Opioid Policy Tools and Information Center. Dr. Patrick received a Bachelor of Science in microbiology and cell science from the University of Florida in 2002. He went on to earn a medical degree from Florida State University College of Medicine and a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University School of Public Health in 2007. He also earned a Master of Science in Health and Health Care Research from the University of Michigan in 2011. For his postdoctoral training, Dr. Patrick served as house officer in the department of pediatrics and communicable diseases at the University of Michigan Health System, where he was also a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar. While at the University of Michigan, he completed a neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship in the department of pediatrics and communicable diseases. He has served as senior science policy adviser to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and has testified before Congress on the rising number of newborns diagnosed with opioid withdrawal. Dr. Permar is an institutional and national leader in physician-scientist training, serving as the associate dean of physician-scientist development at Duke University Medical School. She is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Pediatrics Society, the American Academy of Microbiology, and the Society for Pediatric Research, which awarded her its 2014 Young Investigator Award and 2020 E. Mead Johnson Award. She is also the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering. Dr. Permar received a Bachelor of Science from Davidson College in 1997. She went on to earn a doctorate in microbiology/immunology from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and a medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 2004. She completed her clinical training in pediatric infectious diseases at Children's Hospital in Boston. ### Weill Cornell Medicine Weill Cornell Medicine is committed to excellence in patient care, scientific discovery and the education of future physicians in New York City and around the world. The doctors and scientists of Weill Cornell Medicine -- faculty from Weill Cornell Medical College, Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and Weill Cornell Physician Organization -- are engaged in world-class clinical care and cutting-edge research that connect patients to the latest treatment innovations and prevention strategies. Located in the heart of the Upper East Side's scientific corridor, Weill Cornell Medicine's powerful network of collaborators extends to its parent university Cornell University; to Qatar, where Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar offers a Cornell University medical degree; and to programs in Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Austria and Turkey. Weill Cornell Medicine faculty provide comprehensive patient care at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital and NewYork-Presbyterian/Queens. Weill Cornell Medicine is also affiliated with Houston Methodist. For more information, visit weill.cornell.edu. This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. She's been enjoying a sun-soaked break in Ibiza with her new beau Brandon Myers, who she went public with earlier this week after initially denying romance rumours. And Gabby Allen was spotted in the throes of a passionate smooch with her boyfriend on Thursday, as they packed on the PDA during a trip to the beach. The former Love Island star, 28, wowed in a mismatched bikini, which consisted of a patterned white top and yellow bottoms, as she kissed her 23-year-old beau. Smooch: Gabby Allen was spotted in the throes of a passionate smooch with her new beau Brandon Myers on Thursday, as they packed on the PDA during a trip to the beach in Ibiza Wearing just striped swimming trunks and sandals, hunky Brandon proudly displayed his sizeable collection of tattoos as he strolled with his new girlfriend. And, as they wandered away from the shore together, cheeky Brandon carried his bag in one hand while he touched Gabby's pert posterior with the other. The couple face a 14-day quarantine when they returns to the UK as the government pulled its air bridge with the holiday hot spot following a spike in COVID-19 cases. Sensational; The former Love Island star, 28, wowed in a mismatched bikini, which consisted of a patterned white top and yellow bottoms Tatt's the way to do it: Wearing just striped swimming trunks and sandals, hunky Brandon proudly displayed his sizeable collection of tattoos as he strolled with his new girlfriend Cheeky! As they wandered away from the shore together, cheeky Brandon carried his bag in one hand while he touched Gabby's pert posterior with the other Last month, Gabby insisted her fellow reality star was a 'really good friend' but nothing more following relationship speculation. They were first reported to be dating in May, when the Ex On The Beach hunk posted a flirty comment under one of her scantily-clad bikini snaps. She told OK!: 'No. We've known each other for a long time. He's the loveliest person and a really good friend of mine, but that's all it is. 'Someone must have seen him comment on a picture on my social media, and automatically assumed he's my boyfriend.' Closer than ever: The couple confirmed their romance when they enjoyed a cosy swim earlier this week after denying initial romance rumours In awe: Ex On The Beach hunk Brandon, 23, who branded the blonde beauty an 'absolute weapon' on one of her more recent Instagram posts Their romantic holiday comes after her ex Marcel Somerville revealed that he is expecting his first child with influencer girlfriend Rebecca Vieira. Marcel and Gabby appeared on the 2017 season of the ITV2 dating show Love Island, in which they placed fourth. Gabby was previously dating Rak-Su star Myles Stephenson until August 2019, when she accused him of cheating on her. She also dumped her Love Island beau Marcel in February 2018 when she discovered he'd been unfaithful. Moving on: Their romantic holiday comes after her ex Marcel Somerville revealed that he is expecting his first child with influencer girlfriend Rebecca Vieira In the past: The TV star previously dated Rak-Su's Myles Stephenson until August 2019 when she accused him of cheating on her (pictured in September 2018) Oyo State Reopens Praying Grounds For Eid-el-Kabir Prayers The Oyo state governor, Seyi Makinde on Thursday ordered reopening of praying grounds for Muslims in the state for the 2020 Eid-el-Kabir prayers. Makinde in a statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, however, warned that Muslim faithful must ensure strict compliance with COVID-19 protocols in the state. Makinde said that it has become imperative for the sake of public health and well being of all worshippers that the Eid prayers are conducted in strict compliance with the guidelines on prevention of COVID-19. He urged the leadership of each praying ground in the state to ensure the availability of handwashing points and compulsory use of nose masks. As the Muslim Ummah prepare to undertake this years Eid-el-Kabir prayers, the Government of Oyo State wishes to advert Islamic clerics and leaders to the need to maintain strict compliance with COVID-19 protocols, especially the social distancing rule. The Eid Praying Grounds across the state have, upon the directive of the Governor of Oyo State, Engr. Seyi Makinde, been opened to Muslims for the purpose of the 2020 Eid-el-Kabir prayers. His Excellency reckons that prayers are important to overcome the challenges that presently assail us, especially the COVID-19 pandemic. However, just like many aspects of our lives that have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be an adjustment to Eid prayer gatherings. There is the need to ensure that not more than 25 percent of worshippers are allowed at every instance in order to ensure compliance with the social distancing rule. Similarly, let it also be noted that no worshipper should be allowed into the praying ground without face masks and readiness to wash hands with soap and water in compliance with COVID-19 protocols. To further ensure safety and ownership of the Covid-19 preventive measures, the Emergency Operations Centre, EOC, of the Oyo State Covid-19 Task Force, has sent advisories to major markets and shopping malls, on the need for strict compliance with Covid-19 preventive protocols during this festive period and beyond. The EOC has also contacted all the health educators in the 33 LGAs in the state with a mandate to reach out to possible places of gathering and advise on the need for responsible behaviour, just as the centre has revved up risk communication advisories on radio. In addition to these measures, however, all clerics and leaders are expected to take on the responsibility of guiding our people to pay attention to even the minutest detail on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during this festivity. The need to follow all laid down guidelines on COVID-19 prevention must be emphasized to every resident of the state at this period, in accordance with the Own Your Action initiative of the States COVID-19 Task Force, which emphasizes that our wellbeing and safety are individual responsibilities. The Oyo State government wishes the Muslim Ummah a peaceful Eid-el-Kabir, filled with the blessings and benevolence of Almighty Allah. The CEOs of the major 4 major tech companies all testified before the House Judiciary's Antitrust committee. Each company was questioned over various issues. The hearing was conducted virtually On July 29, CEOs of the 'big four' - Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon - testified before the House Judiciary's Antitrust committee at a historic hearing in the US. It was the first time when Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Jeff Bezos testified at the house at the same time. The tech giants were accused of distinct allegations. Amazon was questioned for its dominance over e-commerce, Facebook for controlling Instagram and WhatsApp, among other apps, Apple for its dominance over its App Store and Google for owning a humongous share of internet searches. The hearing was conducted virtually over a video call, and it lasted close to six hours where the committee scrutinized all the CEOs one by one. The influential figures were served with brutal bashing and tough questions with documents that raised serious concerns about killing competition using unfair tactics and power. It was intense. So intense that world's wealthiest man forgot to unmute his mic before speaking. The grilling session was not just long, intense and historical but also an eye-opener for the company's and its consumers alike. Although the US and India have different antitrust policies and consumer data protection laws, the session still gives us a glimpse of the issue that might arise in future. The committee gathered over 1 million documents from Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon in its probe against them. Representative David N. Cicilline kicked off the hearing saying the panel had conducted a year-long investigation and found that these companies have wielded their power in disruptive, harmful ways", which isn't fair for the competition and country's democracy. The purpose was to examine the dominance of these companies who own 70% of all online market sale in the US. In their defence, each of the tech executives stressed on their contributions to the US economy. Facebook for free speech and expression, Google for ease of access to useful information, Amazon for making people's life easy with its services and Apple for providing an ecosystem of apps and its high products to support them. Let's take a look at the most controversial questions asked each company representative during the hearing. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Google was explicitly accused of weaponizing its search engine to put rivals at a disadvantage and promote what makes them the most profit. Cicilline asked Pichai, "why does Google steal content from honest businesses?" He also accused that Google had stolen content to build your own business, referring its practice of culling and with search results displaying that information on top. Cicilline also accused Google of monitoring web traffic to identify competitive threats. Pichai, in Google's defence, opposed the accusation of Google stealing content and putting rivals at a disadvantage. Today, we support 1.4 million small businesses supporting over $385 billion in their core economic activity, he said. We see many businesses thrive, particularly even during the pandemic. In response to mulling search results for company profits, Pichai said, "Weve always focused on providing users with the most relevant information." He claimed that the majority of queries in Google dont show ads at all. "We show ads only for a small subset of queries, where the intent from users is highly commercial", he added. Cicilline followed up by asking the value of Google's ads business, to which Pichai responded that it's around a hundred billion USD. Pichai, in the end, tried to explain how Google also has competition by giving an example where he claimed 55% users come looking to shop online search for products on Amazon. The last question to Google was if it ever used its surveillance over web traffic to identify competitive threats. To which, Pichai replied, "just like other businesses, we try to understand trends from data, which we can see, and we use it to improve our products for our users." Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook The wave questions to Mark Zuckerberg started with Facebook's political censorship and went on to the Instagram controversy where the social media giant is accused of killing the competition by acquiring it. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the top lawmaker on the House Judiciary Committee, mentioned of a 2012 message in which Zuckerberg has apparently stated that he sought to acquire Instagram, which was a rising threat to Facebook, considering it could "meaningfully hurt us". In addition to this, he also highlighted other Facebook communications that referred company's acquisition strategy as "land grab". Mergers and acquisitions that buy off potential competitive threats violate the antitrust laws, Nadler accused. In your own words, you purchased Instagram to neutralize a competitive threat. "I think with hindsight, it probably looks like obvious that Instagram would have reached the scale that it has today. But at the time it was far from obvious, Zuckerberg said in his response. He gave Path's example, which was also a popular camera app when Facebook acquired Instagram and said, "it was not a guarantee that Instagram was going to succeed". He tries to explain if Facebook didn't acquire Instagram, it could either be a hit or could have been vanished by now. He claims it's successful because of their investment into infrastructure, security and promotion of the platform after its acquisition. The acquisition has done wildly well, largely because not just of the founder's talent, but because we invested heavily in building up the infrastructure and promoting it and working on security and working on a lot of things around this." To conclude his part, Nadler closed the charge saying, "This is exactly the type of anti-competitive acquisition that the antitrust laws were designed to prevent. This should never have happened in the first place. It should never have been permitted to happen, and it cannot happen again." Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Apple's hearing was relatively calmer compared to the other three. The company was cornered majorly for its level of control over the App Store and inequality among developers. Some lawmakers accused the company of taking up 30% commission on in-app sales and subscriptions, that has also troubled big companies like Spotify. These companies have to pay a significant part of their revenue to Apple to "fund the entire app ecosystem". Cook said that Apple has not raised its commission since the launch of the App Store in 2008. We do not retaliate or bully people, he said. It is strongly against our company culture. In similar regard, Apple was accused of concerns that "the governing the App Store review process are not available to the app developers". Also, for changes its policies as per its benefit and not treating all developers equally. To which, Cook replied, "we treat every developer the same. We have open and transparent rules. Its a rigorous process because we care so deeply about privacy and security and quality." Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon It was the first time for Jeff Bezos in front of the house, and it was intense scrutiny with tons of questions thrown at him. The key allegations were around, misleading the committee about its practices in controlling data from third-party sellers not treating its "partners" (small sellers) in the right manner and having a monopoly over them. Jeff Bezos denied the allegations of using third party seller data for their benefit. In response, Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal revealed public reports that indicated to the contrary, prompting Bezos to offer an admission of potential fault. Bezos said, what I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private label business, but I cant guarantee you that policy has never been violated. For the majority of the hearing, Bezos either said he couldn't answer the question or couldn't recall or identify the incident he was being asked about. In July 2020 Odintsovo, the fifth of the new Russian Karakurt corvettes, began sea trials. The navy is uneasy about this because the Odintsovo is the first of four Karakurts that will be armed with a Pantsir M air defense system rather than the cheaper and less capable 57E6 Sosna-R. The one advantage of the Sosna-R is that it cannot be jammed. Sosna-R is basically an enlarged shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile that uses an electro-optical sensor to track the target and a secure control signal plus a proximity fuze to get it close enough to destroy or disable the target. Systems like Sosna-R have been around for decades and are known to work. On paper the naval Pantsir is a superior system with a longer-range (30 kilometers) Hermes K missile backed by twin-multi-barrel 30mm autocannon (range five kilometers) to deal with anti-ship targets that get past the missiles. Pantsir M replaced two systems; the Sosna-R missiles and the two AK-630 CIWS autocannon. Pantsir M was deliberately designed to eliminate a design flaw in the land-based Pantsir-S1 that made it easy for some electronic and weapon systems to destroy or disable it. Aside from the potential Pantsir problem the Karakurts have been a success. At the end of 2018 the Russian Navy put into service the first of 22 Karakurt (Project 22800) corvettes. The first ship was assigned to the Baltic Sea. Three are now in service with one in sea trials and eight more are in various states of construction in three shipyards. This is a new type of coastal corvette that is more capable on the open seas. Some of them are being built in the Crimean shipyards Russia acquired in 2014 when they basically took Crimea from Ukraine. Russia has been building smaller corvettes since the 1990s for several reasons. First, the Russian shipyards have proved more effective in building these small (under 1,000 tons) ships than larger ones. Then there is the urgent need for heavily armed corvettes to serve as a low-cost patrol vessel that can handle just about anything it runs into during coastal patrols or even wartime operations. Finally, there is a growing export market for this type of ship. The Karakurts are 800-ton ships that are 65 meters (213 feet) long and have a top speed of 56 kilometers an hour. They are armed with one 76mm cannon, eight launch tubes holding 1.2 ton 3K14 Kalibr anti-ship missiles (range 300 kilometers) or P800 anti-ship missiles (range 600 kilometers), two 14.5mm machine-guns, two AK-630 multi-barrel 30mm autocannon for close range defense against missiles and aircraft and 32 57E6 anti-aircraft missiles (range 20 kilometers). There is also a launching pad for large helicopter type UAVs. The crew of 30 can stay at sea for 15 days at a time before needing to refuel and resupply. Each of the first four Karakurts cost approximately $30 million. The Russian navy, because of budget cuts, has suspended or canceled construction plans for many larger ships and subs, leaving the Navy to apply all its procurement efforts to obtaining smaller ships on budget and on time. Not only are the smaller ships cheaper but they can be built quickly and are easier to monitor for quality control. The shipyards producing these smaller ships know they are fortunate because so many other yards have had construction contracts canceled or suspended. The Russian defense industry is still riddled with firms that cannot do it right, on time and on budget. The Pantsir is an example of that. The reports that the original Pantsir S1 was often destroyed by missiles in Syria and Libya was unwelcome news for the Russian Navy. Russia is giving the land-based Pantsir S1 (SA-22) anti-aircraft system one more chance to be useful in land combat. A new version, Pantsir S1M, which was first made public over a year at the Dubai (UAE) IDEX 2019 trade show but 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 S1s had been blinded by Turkish Koral jammers. Israel used similar tactics in Syria. Russia admitted that Pantsir S1 had difficulty tracking and destroying targets that were flying at high speed at very low or at very high altitudes. In contrast Pantsir M was specifically designed to deal with low altitude (sea skimming) fast moving anti-ship missiles. There were also problems with the jamming of Pantsir S1 which is supposed to be solved in Pantsir M and Pantsir S1M with the use of an electro-optical fire control system for close range targets. Pantsir S1 was not supposed to have vulnerabilities like the ones that showed up combat and led to so many Pantsir S1 systems destroyed. For the navy that is not enough. If Pantsir M has similar problems a ship will be lost while during land combat the loss of one or more Pantsir systems does not have such a catastrophic effect. The new, improved and reliable 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 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. Pantsir-S1 is a mobile, truck-mounted system. Each vehicle carries a radar, two 30mm cannon and twelve Tunguska missiles. The original 90 kg (198 pound) missiles 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 and the S1M costs about a third more. Typically, four to six Pantsir vehicles are organized as a battalion along with a command post and support vehicles. Larger numbers of Pantsir vehicles are organized into a regiment of two or three battalions and more support vehicles. These consist of electronic and mechanical repair vehicles as well as other vehicles carrying spare parts and missile reloads and 30mm ammunition. There is also a system simulator that is carried in a truck or trailer. Russia has made a tremendous investment in Pantsir and does not want to scrap the system. If S1M doesnt work in combat, Pantsir will have to go if only because its survival depends so much on export customers. Millions more Afghans are being pushed into poverty by the coronavirus pandemic, which has overwhelmed the war-wracked country's basic health-care system and exacerbated food insecurity, a U.S. watchdog said on July 30. The pandemic's devastating effect, combined with the continued high levels of violence, has brought one of the world's poorest countries to the brink, the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said in its quarterly report, warning that the country "is headed for a humanitarian disaster." The virus entered Afghanistan in February as thousands of migrants returned from neighboring Iran, which at the time was the region's worst-hit nation for the virus. Since then, Afghanistan has been ravaged by COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. "The economic shock of the pandemic -- including increased unemployment, food-supply disruptions due to border closures, and rising food prices -- has exacerbated Afghans' food insecurity, already impacted by the ongoing conflict and high poverty levels," said SIGAR, which collates expert and media reports and conducts its own analysis. About one-third of Afghanistan's estimated 32.2 million people were either in a crisis or an emergency state of food insecurity, the report warned. Prices of essential commodities like wheat flour, cooking oil, sugar, and pulses have steadily risen over the past few months. "At the same time, the purchasing power of casual labor has dropped significantly," the report noted. SIGAR said Afghanistan had likely entered a recession because of the pandemic, with the economy projected to shrink by up to 10 percent in 2020. "Experts predict that an additional 8 million people will fall into poverty, pushing the poverty rate from 55 percent to 80 percent," the report says. Afghanistan has almost 36,500 confirmed infections, with nearly 1,300 deaths. SIGAR said that number may "vastly undercount" the true toll of the virus and pointed to research showing up to 90 percent of possible cases are not being tested. "Testing remains limited, but nearly 43 percent of samples test positive, one of the highest rates in the world," the report warns. Most of the detected cases are in urban areas, with Kabul becoming the epicenter of the virus. Virus-related border closures have seen customs revenues plunge, with sustainable domestic revenues down 23.4 percent in the first two quarters of 2020, compared to the same period last year, SIGAR said. The report acknowledged that Taliban violence has remained above "historic norms" for most of the second quarter of this year and the security situation had not improved following the signing of a landmark peace deal between the Taliban and the United States in late February. "Violence levels stayed well above historic norms for the majority of the reporting period," SIGAR said, citing NATO's Resolute Support mission. The militants continued attacks on government security checkpoints and bombings, pausing online for a three-day cease-fire over the Eid al-Fitr holiday in late May and a current cease-fire for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on July 28 said more than 10,000 government forces had been killed or wounded since the U.S.-Taliban deal was signed. With reporting by AFP and dpa Formula 1 should not be involved "in racism or politics in general", according to the sport's former chief executive Bernie Ecclestone. Since the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-racism demonstrations the world over gained steam in the wake of George Floyd's death, the issue spread even to the F1 paddock. It has been championed in F1 by six-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who on Thursday received an apology from Grand Prix Drivers' Association director Romain Grosjean for advocating that the 'take a knee' gesture before races be axed. "Seven or eight drivers were not happy to carry on the ceremony," the Haas driver explained. "I was speaking for those drivers as a director of the GPDA. "Now thinking about it, it was probably the wrong thing to do," said Grosjean. "It was a good chat with Lewis. I said sorry and Lewis put some good arguments, and I did too." The apology followed a spate of abuse he received on social media, including accusations that the Frenchman is racist. "I wasn't very happy about being treated like that," said Grosjean, who was not among the drivers who elected to stand rather kneel. One of the drivers who stands, however, is Carlos Sainz, who said at Silverstone: "Freedom allows me to express my position in a way that suits me, my culture and my principles. "And I expect everyone in the paddock to respect my opinion." It is an awkward situation for Formula 1, whose former position was to separate politics from the sport. Kevin Magnussen also says the last few races have been awkward for him. "I am obviously against racism, and it is good that we are drawing attention to it," he is quoted by BT newspaper. "Of course I want to be part of that, but I do not want to be political. "But it is difficult as an athlete and a public figure to know how what you do like that is received. It is obvious that we are all in favour of stopping racism. "But on the other hand, I do not want to support political organisations that I do not agree with," the Haas driver added. It has also been awkward for Ecclestone's successor, Chase Carey, whose wife Wendy reportedly deleted her Twitter account recently. The deletion was hot on the heels of reports that she openly supported Donald Trump on the platform. When asked if he thinks it was necessary for Mrs Carey to delete her account, Ecclestone told GMM: "Maybe it was done under Chase's instruction. "I think the US president has done a good job for the world," the 89-year-old added. Indeed, one possibility is that Carey wants to avoid a political clash with Hamilton, who is F1's top star, especially as American Carey was also reportedly at the centre of the founding of the politically right-wing Fox News. "I thought it was Rupert Murdoch," Ecclestone told us. "In any case I am not following Fox News so I cannot comment on their politics, but I follow Formula 1's long standing position of not being involved in racism or politics in general." As for racism in F1 more generally, and whether Carey and Hamilton are aligned politically, Ecclestone continued: "The race promoters want to organise a race, the teams want to race, the drivers want to win and really no one is trying to stop this because of people's racism and colour. "I have not seen where Chase has aligned with what Lewis is doing, whatever it is. Time will tell," he added. (GMM) Bangladeshi photojournalist Shahidul Alam reacts upon his release on bail from the Dhaka Central Jail after 107 days in custody, Nov. 20, 2018. The coronavirus pandemic is taking a toll on journalism in Bangladesh, where the government has used it as another justification for restricting media freedom, prominent photojournalist and press freedom advocate Shahidul Alam told BenarNews in an interview this week. Journalists have died, the pandemic has plunged the news industry into financial crisis, and the sheer volume of health news has buried other important coverage, he said. This, combined with the license that the government has given itself to put curbs on freedom using the virus for justification, means that basic fundamental rights have been lost, the first being media freedom, said Alam, 65. Although he has received many international awards, Alam faces prosecution at home and is treated as toxic in his own words by many of his countrymen since he was jailed two years ago. He spoke to BenarNews on the second-year anniversary of Bangladeshs road safety movement, when thousands of students blocked streets in Dhaka and other parts of the country after a speeding bus killed two students on July 29, 2018. His coverage of crackdowns on those protests led to his arrest and 107-day detention without charges. Earlier this month Alam was named by the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as one of four winners of its 2020 International Press Freedom Awards. All four faced arrest or criminal prosecution in reprisal for their reporting, CPJ said. Now, the global pandemic has made their jobs more difficult and dangerous, and fueled a ferocious press freedom crackdown as autocratic leaders around the world suppress unwelcome news under the guise of protecting public health, it said in a statement announcing the awards. BenarNews itself has been blocked inside Bangladesh since early April, days after it reported on an internal U.N. memo projecting that Bangladesh could see as many as 2 million deaths from COVID-19. Bangladesh authorities confirmed more than 237,600 cases of COVID-19 and 3,111 deaths on Friday. Seventeen journalists have died thus far from COVID-19 and another 10 who were not tested have succumbed to its symptoms, according to Our Media, Our Rights, a local journalism group. Hundreds have tested positive for the disease. Meanwhile, at least 40 journalists have been arrested and charged under the countrys Digital Security Act since Bangladesh detected its first coronavirus case on March 8, according to an association of local newspaper editors. This law has been framed to protect the citizens from online defamation activities, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told BenarNews on July 1. It is not true that the act is being misused. The persons who have been arrested under the law were involved in posting defamatory remarks on social sites. The aggrieved persons sued them under the law, he added. BenarNews approached two senior Bangladeshi officials to give them an opportunity to respond to critical comments Alam made about the government, but they declined. Information Minister Hasan Mahmud said he would need more information first. I have to first see what he [Alam] actually said. Unless I see it printed or reported by the media, I would not comment. Md. Murad Hasan, the state minister for information, said it does not matter what Shahidul Alam is talking about. I do not think the government has any headache regarding what Shahidul Alam is talking about. Let him [say] whatever he likes, Hasan told BenarNews. Excerpts from the English interview with Alam are below. BenarNews: Given the COVID-19 pandemic, how do you see the state of press freedom in Bangladesh? Shahidul Alam: Press freedom in Bangladesh has always been under threat ... Sadly, today, as a result of increased coercion, threats, and opportunism with important exceptions private radio and television channels have also largely become vehicles of government propaganda and misinformation. As a result of the introduction of repressive laws like the Digital Security Act and the arrest and persecution of numerous journalists, whistle blowers and freedom defenders, coupled with the partisan role played by journalists in the government camp, press freedom today exists only in political rhetoric. Earlier, people in power would wait for opportune moments for wrongdoings, relying on other news to block out unwanted publicity for misdeeds. Since COVID-19 today takes up so much bandwidth, a lot of other news can be easily buried. News that does make it to the surface, soon gets forgotten. This, combined with the license that the government has given itself to put curbs on freedom using the virus for justification, means that basic fundamental rights have been lost, the first being media freedom. BN: Why have so many journalists in Bangladesh been getting infected with COVID-19 and dying? SA: The high number of deaths of journalists, health workers, police and other people in contact with potential carriers of COVID-19, has to do with a combination of faulty communication, a failure to take precautionary measures and the complete collapse of a health system which was already in dire straits. Neither media houses, nor medical centers provided protective gear to its frontline workers. Health centers continue to be woefully lacking, and quality treatment is reserved for VIPs and people closely linked to the government. As such the average person has no way of getting effective treatment. Frontline workers have paid the maximum penalty. The media houses do not have a coherent COVID-19 policy. Some provide PPE [personal protective equipment], some dont. Some provide insurance, some dont. Some pay medical expenses, some dont. I am not aware of a single media house providing COVID-19 training to its journalists. Such training could be the starting point of both the safety and reporting skills of journalists. BN: Many newspapers and TV stations have been in a financial crisis caused by the ongoing pandemic. How will this hamper press freedom in Bangladesh? SA: Newspapers and TV stations which did not toe the government line were in trouble even before COVID-19, as the major multinationals had been given instructions not to advertise in them. Several of the leading editors have multiple cases against them. With the advent of COVID-19, the cost of reporting has also escalated, insurance policies have become more costly and advertising revenue has plummeted. Journalists, generally working on reduced salaries, are having to find other work to sustain themselves. What has suffered most is investigative journalism, which is expensive to do, and generally involves speaking truth to power. Several journalists have been beaten up and jailed for reporting on corruption related to COVID-19 relief operations. This of course adversely affects press freedom. On the other hand, media houses still operate in a very traditional way. COVID-19 has led to shifts in work practice that would make sense even under normal conditions. Data journalism, computer-assisted reporting and digital security are all skills that the journalist of today must master. Creating a core content engine around which multiple media products can be developed has made business sense for some time, but the gatekeepers in media houses are often old school and reluctant to embrace change. This could be a wake-up call that will transform the industry. Students gather in Dhaka to join protests over road safety, Aug. 1, 2018. [BenarNews] BN: The protest movement for road safety in Bangladesh started on July 29, 2018. You played a role in it, for which you had to go to jail. Has anything changed in terms of peoples demand for safe roads? SA: There has been no attempt to arrest or charge the attackers of the students and journalists in August 2018. The cases against the protesting students are also ongoing. Shahjahan Khan, the minister of shipping in 2018, who was at the center of the incident, is still the vice-president of the Jatiya Sramik League [a national trade union federation] and executive president of the Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation. Currently there is no pressure on the government to change its ways. There is no political opposition, and no effective leadership to unite the public. Intelligence units are constantly on the alert, removing any threat to organized resistance. Several attempts to organize have been crushed. But people have not given up hope. Recent separate protests by students and teachers and artists, writers and journalists have gathered momentum, though COVID-19 makes physical mobilization more difficult. The students had wanted me to speak at the anniversary of the event, but backed out due to government pressure. BN: You embraced imprisonment for upholding press freedom and freedom of expression. To you, what are the biggest challenges that stand in the way of press freedom and freedom of expression? SA: What I did was something any journalist should normally be doing. It was the arrest that was against the norm. As a result of the arrest however, I can no longer work the way I used to. Firstly, the case still hangs over me and I potentially face 14 years in prison if convicted. I have to constantly keep my bail documents with me. I am often harassed at the airport. For security reasons, I cannot be without an escort at any time. Weve lost virtually all Bangladeshi clients, as they dont want to be seen as being Shahidul-friendly. Many people are scared of being seen with me, as that may endanger them. ... I used to be regularly invited to television programs, but since my release nearly two years ago, I have not been asked once. Essentially, I am considered toxic and associating with me in any shape or form is dangerous as it will evoke the wrath of the government, hence, except for the few who continue to resist, others observe a distance. At a practical level, I do not go round on a bicycle like I used to. I never go anywhere alone. I dont use a SIM card, to avoid being tracked, and I have to constantly be in contact with the home or office, to let them know where I am and who I am with. That obviously affects my work practice. The type of reportage work I used to do, is no longer doable. I have however, insisted on speaking out when I have to, regardless of these conditions. (Natural News) A new survey by the Pew Research Center shows that more than three-quarters of Americans blame the Chinese government for the global spread of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). In addition, the survey also found that unfavorable views of China in the U.S. have reached historic highs. When asked about the coronavirus spread in a July poll, 78 percent of respondents said that they placed a great deal or fair amount of the blame for it on Beijings initial handling of the outbreak in Wuhan. In addition, half of Americans think that the U.S. should hold China responsible for the spread of the pandemic. Americans blame China for the pandemic The results, which come from a survey of 1,003 Americans conducted between June 16 to July 14, show that the global pandemic has given Americans an even dimmer view of China. 73 percent of respondents now said that they had an unfavorable opinion of the Chinese regime, up by seven percent from the previous survey in March and 26 percent since 2018. Beijings handling of the coronavirus outbreak, especially during its early days, has played a big part in this trend. Back in January, the regime seemed more focused on saving face and hiding the outbreak than actually stopping it. At the same time, a number of whistleblowers looking to share the truth about the disease were silenced. (Related: Desperate to rewrite coronavirus narrative, Beijing goes on a warpath against whistleblowers and science.) On top of this, the regime still underreports the countrys coronavirus caseload, with asymptomatic carriers excluded from official counts while outbreaks among healthcare workers and medical staff are covered up. With this in mind, it shouldnt come as a surprise that 63 percent nearly two-thirds of all respondents believed that China has done a bad job in dealing with the virus. In addition, half of all respondents thought that Washington should hold Beijing responsible for the pandemic even it if means worsening relations with the latter. Chinas poor human rights record also an issue with Americans Chinas handling of the pandemic isnt the only thing that has soured Americans view of the country. Its human rights record has come under scrutiny as well. Nearly three-quarters 73 percent of respondents have said that the U.S. should try to promote human rights in China, even if it negatively affects economic ties. The numbers come as more reports of the Chinese regimes abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority in the countrys northwestern Xinjiang region. This has been made worse by the ongoing pandemic, with reports now coming out that Chinese companies have been using Uyghur forced labor to produce face masks and other personal protective equipment necessary to protect healthcare workers against the coronavirus. This is on top of reports of human rights abuses as Beijing attempts to gain more control of Hong Kong. Americans poor perception of China reflected in their view of Xi Jinping Americans negative perception of China is also reflected in their perception of the countrys leader, Xi Jinping. When asked about how much confidence they had in Xi to do the right thing regarding world affairs, 77 percent of Americans said that they had not too much or no confidence. More importantly, for the first time since Pew had started asking the question in 2014, 55 percent of respondents said that they had no confidence at all in the Chinese president. This represents a 10 percent increase from the previous survey in March and more than double what it was last year. The lack of confidence in Xi is tied to how his government has handled the pandemic. Respondents who say that China has done a bad job at handling the pandemic are more likely to have no confidence in Xi (64 percent) compared to those who say it has done a good job (39 percent). This is also true for those who say that China is to blame for the pandemics global spread. The numbers are important as Xi and President Donald Trump discuss the execution of the Phase 1 trade agreement they signed back in January. In general, Americans views of the bilateral economic relations are tied to their opinion on the Chinese leader. The deal itself has hit more than a few snags. The most recent of these Beijing telling Chinese companies to stop purchasing U.S. soybeans, one of the major U.S. agricultural exports to China and a pillar of the deals promised $200 billion in extra exports. For its part, China has said that it still wishes to continue the trade deal; however, the dimming perception of the country and its leader by Americans could put an end to an already troubled agreement. Sources include: PewResearch.org TheEpochTimes.com VOANews.com AlJazeera.com Reuters.com 1 Bloomberg.com Reuters.com 2 Taking a firm geopolitical stand, the European Union imposed sanctions on targeted individuals and entities from Russia, China and North Korea in a sign that it was tackling cyber warfare head on. As part of the measures, the six individuals and assets of the three institutions will be frozen and the people involved wont be allowed entry into the bloc, the EU said in a statement on Thursday, adding that EU companies and individuals are forbidden from sending funds to those on the list. The EU targeted the individuals and entities over their involvement in the attempted attack against the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in 2018 as well as the 2017 Not Petya cyber attacks, a virus that first infected computers in Ukraine demanding $300 in cryptocurrency to unlock systems before spreading to Europe and the U.S. Both events were attributed to Russian actors by government officials. EU officials also hit groups with penalties over their involvement in the 2017 Wannacry ransomware assault that affected hundreds of thousands of computers in more than 150 countries, which U.S. officials have attributed to North Korea. In addition, sanctions were also imposed on those involved in hacking operations tied to Chinese spies that targeted the worlds biggest IT service providers. New Toolbox While the EU statement did not explicitly name the people involved or their countries of origin, people familiar with the matter said the individuals and entities were based in Russia, China and North Korea. The sanctions represent the first application of the EUs so-called cyber sanctions regime a toolbox including travel bans and asset freezes intended to deter cyber attacks. Experts say attribution of such actions is still a murky exercise given tricks bad actors deploy to give the appearance that other groups are behind an attack. That in turn makes imposing sanctions on specific actors equally challenging. Sanctions require unanimity among the EUs 27 members, which has frequently paralyzed EU foreign policy decisions. China, in particular, is a touchy subject among countries, with some wary of endangering relations with the blocs second biggest trading partner and a major foreign investor. Others are seeking a progressive normalization of relations with Russia, on which the EU depends for much of its energy supplies. With assistance from Jonathan Stearns. Copyright 2022 Bloomberg. Topics Cyber Europe China This is an opinion column. As a columnist, maybe its inevitable that your work is going to sort itself into recurring themes. Some of mine, Ive given Onion-like headlines for names. Like Public official surprised thing shared on internet was seen by others. And You dont have to break the law when you make the law. Also These bastards are hiding something again. Or State officials taken off guard by thing everyone saw coming. But theres one cabinet I never like to open. Because if I go in there, it means Im going out on a lonely limb for a while. I call it This ship is going to sink. The way this one works is you find something that is predictable, imminent or inevitable but also a thing lots of people dont want to believe is true. Hey, theres an iceberg over there, and if we dont change course, were going to hit it, and then this ship is going to sink. The reactions that follow are often the same. Youre just trying to scare people. This ship cant sink, fool! Thats not an iceberg. I think its a cloud! From there, theres little to do but find a comfortable seat in a lifeboat and wait. Ive written that column often. And it gets old, even for me. But something new and unexpected happened this week. A public official sounded the alarm, instead. Mark Wilson is the Jefferson County Health Officer. On Monday, he wrote a memo to Jefferson County school superintendents advising them how to safely reopen schools. He told them things a lot of people dont want to hear. Wilson advised schools to limit in-person instruction to students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Beyond fifth grade, he encouraged virtual learning, at least for the first nine weeks of the school year. A lot of people are not happy with his recommendations, but theres a reasonable basis for what he says. What we know about the coronavirus changes as we learn more about it, but at the moment theres evidence that children 10 years old and under are less likely to get seriously ill when they contract the disease and less likely to spread it to others. At the same time, younger students are most likely to struggle with online learning, and its crucial that students in those age groups learn to read. Its important they be in classrooms, even if the risks of the disease are not zero. But for older students, that might not be the case. A study involving 65,000 students in South Korea found its easier for older children to spread the disease and those in high school were just as likely to spread the disease as adults. Nevertheless, most school systems in Alabama are still planning to offer in-person instruction for all age groups, and its not hard to imagine what might happen when they do. Theres a really big iceberg ahead. Wilson shouldnt have had to be the one to sound the alarm, but he did. And rather than being concerned that the countys top health officer thinks were about to throw gas on fire, some parents and local officials are angry he spoke up. One Vestavia Hills City Council member, Kimberly Cook, has turned her Facebook page into a rallying point for angry parents who want desperately to send their children to school. There, she has criticized Wilson for making the cure worse than the disease. In comments, Facebook friends and followers have questioned Wilsons credentials and some have called for him to be fired. Just for doing his job. Honestly, Mark Wilsons letter has screwed everything up so bad that nothing else matters, Cook wrote there. His letter rules because of insurance liability. So, none of these conversations even matter, even though they should. But what has Wilson screwed up exactly? Unlike a lot of school administrators and other public officials, hes outlined a plan based on whats known about the disease a plan that balances the needs of children with their safety, the safety of teachers, the safety of their families and the safety of the community. He wrote that memo knowing all hell would break loose when it became public. He wrote that memo even as officials with similar concerns sat back and waited for someone else to do it including State Health Officer Scott Harris who has since endorsed Wilsons plan. He sounded an alarm no one wanted to hear. That took guts. And if public officials follow his lead, it will mean in a few weeks I wont have to reach for my least favorite column trope of all This didnt have to happen. Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group. You can follow his work on his Facebook page, The War on Dumb. And on Twitter. And on Instagram. More columns by Kyle Whitmire Meet Alabamas latest Lost Cause: Will Dismukes Alabama AG cries ambush over totally predictable DOJ prison report How do we honor John Lewis legacy in a police state? There is no plan Adios, Jeff Sessions Alabama Senate leaders coronavirus plan: Get sick, try not to die Do your job, Kay Ivey Trump ignored facts so he could blame the Black guy. Good luck, America! Alabamas given up. Alabamafication unmasked NASCAR and the GOP have the same problem. Only one is trying to do something about it. Kay Ivey is not your Mee-Maw: What the governor needs to tell Alabama about COVID-19 Alabama monuments law affects more than Confederate monuments Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 arent competing stories. Theyre the same story. Dont be fooled. Huntsvilles Confederate monument isnt going anywhere. Alabama monument law turns AG into stone If Alabama has a coronavirus plan for nursing homes, its hiding it Chain restaurants across the country have signed up to Rishi Sunak's Eat Out to Help Out scheme, meaning from Monday diners can bag a bargain meal by getting 50 per cent off their dinner up to 10 at the likes of Nando's, Pizza Express and McDonald's. Other restaurants, including vegan mecca byChloe, pie master Dominic Ansell's bakery and The Lebanese Bakery have vowed to offer 50 per cent off Monday-Wednesday throughout September too. But thousands of independent and high end eateries have also signed up, meaning those hankering after Michelin-starred fare can bag a meal for as little as 6 per course, per head. While at least 40 Michelin starred venues have signed up nationwide, some deals are much better than others, and those that have a good value set menu already in place offer the best deals. For instance, Mayfair's Social Eating House, run by celebrity chef Jason Atherton, is offering two courses for 12, while Gymkhana, London's top Indian restaurant, is offering a lunch deal of two courses for 17.50 on Wednesdays. Here FEMAIL brings you the restaurants with the best deals across the UK. SOCIAL EATING HOUSE: TWO COURSES FOR 12 Jason Atherton, a Michelin starred chef and regular on Saturday Kitchen and Great British Menu, is offering guests lunch at a bargain price of 12 for two courses at his relaxed central London bistro, Social Eating House (pictured) Before lockdown, Jason offered a 22 set lunch menu for two courses and 28 for three courses. But food fans can now enjoy his world class dishes at 6 per course, after getting 10 per head off the bill Jason Atherton, a Michelin starred chef and regular on Saturday Kitchen and Great British Menu, is offering guests lunch at a bargain price of 12 for two courses at his relaxed central London bistro, Social Eating House. Before lockdown, Jason offered a 22 set lunch menu for two courses and 28 for three courses - but food fans can now enjoy his world class dishes at 6 per course. The menu features the likes of roast mackerel, apple vinegar pickle, fresh green apple and golden raisins to start. Mains courses include aged Cumbrian Angus rump with charcoal grilled triple cooked chips, bearnaise sauce and a large leaf salad. Diners opting for dessert, under three courses for 18, can treat themselves to a seasonal Kentish cherry and yoghurt parfait or basil sorbet. The price goes up to 26 for those who want a cocktail. Jason Atherton's flagship restaurant, Pollen Street Social, will also be taking part in Eat Out to Help Out - meaning diners can take advantage of eating at one of London's most exclusive restaurants for a fraction of the price. Pollen Street, alongside its usual menu, will also be offering three courses for 29.50 or three courses with half a bottle of wine for 48.50 - chosen by their expert Sommelier. AQUAVIT: THREE COURSES FOR 22 Aquavit London, a Michelin starred Nordic diner in Soho, usually offers a two-course lunch menu priced at just 29 with three courses available for 32, which is now down to 19 and 22 respectively. Pictured is the inside of the restaurant Led by head chef Jorjon Colazo, the menu at Aquavit is full of fresh, locally sourced ingredients and Nordic-inspired dishes. Pictured is a strawberry and meringue dish for the Nordic celebration of Midsommar Aquavit London, a Michelin starred Nordic diner in Soho usually offers a two-course lunch menu priced at just 29, with three courses available for 32. This means under the new scheme it will be at bargain price of 19 for two courses, or 22 for three. Led by head chef Jorjon Colazo, the menu at Aquavit is full of fresh, locally sourced ingredients and Nordic-inspired dishes. Michelin starred restaurants signed up to Eat Out to Help Out LONDON Aquavit, St James's (reopening August 24) Gymkhana, Mayfair Hakkasan, Hanway Place Hakkasan, Mayfair Ikoyi, St James's Kai Mayfair Lyle's (reopening August 5) Murano, Mayfair (reopening August 4) Pollen Street Social, Mayfair Portland, Fitzrovia Quilon, Westminster Sabor, Mayfair Social Eating House, Mayfair St John, Farringdon The Five Fields, Chelsea Trishna, Marylebone Veeraswamy, Mayfair Amaya, Belgravia OUTSIDE LONDON Allium at Askham Hall, Penrith EIPIC, Belfast HRiSHi, Windmere Interlude, Horsham L'Ortolan, Reading Number One at the Balmoral, Edinburgh Outlaw's New Road, Port Isaac Paul Ainsworth at the No 6, Padstow Persons Restaurant, Tenbury Wells Red Lion Firehouse, Pewsey Restaurant at Coworth Park, Ascot Two One Five Kitchen and Drinks, Oxford Winteringham Fields, Scunthorpe Simpsons, Birmingham The Angel at Hetton, Skitpton The Bybrook at the Manor House Hotel, Chippenham The Cottage in the Wood, Braithwaite The Cross at Kenilworth, Kenilworth The Dining Room at Whatley Manor, Malmesbury The Elephant Restaurant, Torquay The Kitchin, Edinburgh The Nut Tree Inn, Murlott The Tudor Room at Great Fosters, Egham The Walnut Tree, Abergavenny The White Swan, Burnley The Woodspeen, Newbury Advertisement Focusing on clean flavours, simple presentation and quality ingredients, the menu features an array of tempting choices inspired by Scandinavian cuisine. Stand out dishes include the likes of scallops with seabuckthorn and dill; and lamb with fermented turnip and persimmon. The restaurant has been closed since the start of lockdown, and is set to reopen on 24th August - meaning diners will have two weeks to take part in the promotion. LEROY: THREE COURSES AND A SNACK FOR 35 The trendy Shoreditch Parisian diner and wine bar Leroy (pictured), which earned a Michelin star last year shortly after opening, is currently offering a reduced menu due to Covid-19. Its set menu of three courses and a snack for 45 is 35 under the scheme The trendy Shoreditch Parisian diner and wine bar Leroy, which earned a Michelin star last year shortly after opening, is currently offering a reduced menu due to Covid-19. Its set menu of three courses and a snack for 45 changes daily as they use fresh produce but often includes the likes of olives, dusty knuckle sourdough, steamed plaice with mussels, white wine sauce and samphire, and buttermilk panna cotta with poached white peach. With the Eat Out To Help Out scheme, the restaurant's offer is reduced to 35 per head - or 8.75 a course. ST JOHN: TWO COURSES FOR 19.10 North London's St John restaurant is completely unassuming from the outside (pictured), but is highly rated by food experts, and earned a Michelin star last year North London's St John restaurant is completely unassuming from the outside, but is highly rated by food experts and earned a Michelin star last year. The simple traditional British diner that focuses on cooking whole animals and is one of the capital's most affordable Michelin starred diners, costing an average of 29.10 for two courses on the a la carte menu. Under Eat Out to Help Out, diners can get the two courses for less than 20; their meals include brown shrimps with white cabbage, lamb sweetbreads with peas and a mint and Eccles cake with Lancashire cheese. GYMKHANA: TWO COURSES FOR 17.50 Mayfair's Michelin-starred Indian restaurant Gymkhana (pictured) offers the very reasonable deal of two courses for 27.50 or three courses for 32.50. Under Eat out to Help Out, diners can enjoy the set menu for 17.50 at lunchtime on Wednesdays Mayfair's Michelin-starred Indian restaurant Gymkhana offers the very reasonable deal of two courses for 27.50 or three courses for 32.50. Under Eat out to Help Out, diners can enjoy the set menu for 17.50 at lunchtime on Wednesdays. Menu options include duck egg bhurji, lobster, malabar paratha - a kind of Indian bread and scrambled eggs - as well as and kid goat methi keema, salli, pao - a minced meat curry with bread. The mains include gucchi, khumb and truffle pilau - a type of spicy rice - as well as Goan prawn curry, while the desserts include anjeer kheer - an Indian rice pudding - as well as honey kulfi apricot and rasmalai trifle. SIMPSONS: TWO COURSES AND A GLASS OF WINE FOR 30 One of Birmingham's five Michelin starred restaurants, and led by chef director Luke Tipping, Simpsons (pictured) has earned a reputation for offering one of the best dining experiences in the UK's second city One of Birmingham's five Michelin starred restaurants, and led by chef director Luke Tipping, Simpsons has earned a reputation for offering one of the best dining experiences in the UK's second city. The modern British restaurant set in a Georgian dining room offers a set two-course lunch for 40 - which is only 30 under Eat Out to Help Out. The menu includes cured salmon, Cotswold's white chicken and custard tart with strawberry sorbet. MURANO: TWO COURSES FOR 20 Angela Hartnett's one-starred Italian diner Murano in Mayfair (pictured) offers a 30 two-course menu Angela Hartnett's one-starred Italian diner Murano in Mayfair offers a 30 two-course menu which includes the likes of lamb rump, caponata, basil, and buttermilk panna cotta with English strawberries as well as Swiss chard and ricotta ravioli, with broad beans, peas, marjoram. As it's taking part in the scheme, the offer is now just 20 per head, meaning diners can get a Mayfair meal for 10 per course between Monday and Wednesday. AMAYA: SIX TASTING COURSES FOR 17 Amaya, a top end Indian diner in Knightsbridge (pictured), offers a lunchtime platter for those after a quick bite. Offering the equivalent of three courses, six tasting portions are served at the same time on a platter, which includes a dessert, for 27 per person. Under Eat Out to Help Out, the six course indulgence is just 17 per head Amaya, a top end Indian diner in Knightsbridge, offers a lunchtime platter for those after a quick bite. Offering the equivalent of three courses, six tasting portions are served at the same time on a platter - which includes a dessert - for 27 per person. Under Eat Out to Help Out, the six course indulgence is just 17 per head. Amaya is part of the MW Eat group, which also owns Veeraswamy, another Michelin starred diner taking part in the deal, as well as Chutney Mary, which is in the Michelin guide, and the Masala Zone chain. He had an injury scare earlier this month when a shard of metal got stuck in his eye. And KJ Apa seems to have continued his bad luck streak after he revealed Thursday that he split his head open while filming stunts for his upcoming film Songbird. The 23-year-old Riverdale star seemed to find the situation comical as he smiled and laughed while showing off his injury. Ouch! KJ Apa, 23, seemed to be in high spirits on Thursday despite revealing that he split his head open while filming his upcoming film Songbird KJ was shirtless in his post as an on-set medic appeared to be stitching up his scalp. He was shirtless and only wearing a green pair of jeans, and he didn't appear to be in too much pain based on his laughter. His wound may not have hurt too much, but it bled considerably based on a snap of him beaming and showing off the crimson drops of blood staining the collar of his wardrobe T-shirt. 'stunts..' he captioned the photos, alluding to an accident during filming. Bloody sight: KJ's wound may not have hurt too much, but it bled considerably in a snap of him beaming and showing off the crimson drops of blood staining the collar of his wardrobe T-shirt Closeup: Later, the New Zealander show his 18.2 million followers a close-up of his now-treated injuries Major headache: 'I split my head open yesterday. I don't know if you guys can see that, but i have two stiches in there, metal stitches,' he said, while moving the camera in closer Later, the New Zealander show his 18.2 million followers a close-up of his now-treated injuries. But first, he joked about how good he looked thanks to his Instagram filter while focusing on his closely trimmed beard and shaggy hair. Then he parted his hair to give a closeup view of his scalp, which appeared to have to thick stitches or staples over a small wound. 'I split my head open yesterday. I don't know if you guys can see that, but i have two stiches in there, metal stitches,' he said, while moving the camera in closer. Scary injury: The Riverdale star got a 'shard of metal' stuck in his left eye last week Helping hand: Apa documented his stylist pal Jason Schneidman trying to extract the metal from his eye The new injury follows a similarly serious one from last week, in which a small shard of metal got lodged in the Riverdale heartthrob's eye. In graphic video, he showed himself tearing up but surprisingly high-spirited as his stylist friend Jason Schneidman attempted to remove the metal object from his eye with a cotton swab. 'Bro, its stuck in there, bro, its really stuck,' Apa said. 'I have to work tomorrow.' The actor said the metal 'actually like punctured my eye,' and Schneidman confirmed that it was successfully taken out. KJ calmed his fans down by confirming that he had a doctor's appointment scheduled for the following morning. His post didn't confirm if the eye injury also occurred while filming Songbird. WICHITA, Kan., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Spirit AeroSystems (NYSE: SPR) announced today it will further reduce employment at its facility in Wichita, Kan., as a result of the most recent rate reduction on the 737 MAX and the ongoing global pandemic, which continue to impact the demand for new commercial aircraft and the airline industry as a whole. "Our production rates for commercial aircraft have fallen from historic highs to significantly lower volumes in a matter of months," said Tom Gentile, President and CEO, Spirit AeroSystems. "We are taking this action to better calibrate our employment level to the reduced demand we see from our customers. This action, along with previous actions, is intended to reduce costs, increase liquidity and position Spirit to remain financially healthy while we move through a period of recovery in the commercial aviation market." The 737 MAX production rate reduction is the third this year, lowering Spirit's production from 125 units to 72 units for 2020, a reduction of more than 80 percent from its 2019 production rates. To support the alignment of workforce levels with the customer demand for aircraft, Spirit will reduce headcount on commercial programs by 1,100 employees. This announcement represents 450 new layoffs at the Wichita site when taking into account prior layoff notifications and employees transitioning to defense programs, moving to the temporary special project to build ventilators or electing to participate in the voluntary layoff opportunity. "Although this extraordinary time has required us to make difficult decisions, we remain focused on fulfilling requirements to our customers, including the important work we provide for defense and space programs," Gentile said. "I continue to remain confident in the future of the aviation industry, and in our ability to navigate through these challenges to emerge a stronger company." On the web: www.spiritaero.com On Twitter: @SpiritAero About Spirit AeroSystems Inc. Spirit AeroSystems designs and builds aerostructures for both commercial and defense customers. With headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, Spirit operates sites in the U.S., U.K., France and Malaysia. The company's core products include fuselages, pylons, nacelles and wing components for the world's premier aircraft. Spirit AeroSystems focuses on affordable, innovative composite and aluminum manufacturing solutions to support customers around the globe. More information is available at www.SpiritAero.com. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" that may involve many risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "aim," "anticipate," "believe," "could," "continue," "estimate," "expect," "goal," "forecast," "intend," "may," "might," "objective," "outlook," "plan," "predict," "project," "should," "target," "will," "would," and other similar words, or phrases, or the negative thereof, unless the context requires otherwise. These statements reflect management's current views with respect to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties, both known and unknown. Our actual results may vary materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements. We caution investors not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in such forward-looking statements and that should be considered in evaluating our outlook include, without limitation, the timing and conditions surrounding the return to service of the 737 MAX and any related impacts on our production rate; our reliance on Boeing for a significant portion of our revenues; our ability to execute our growth strategy, including our ability to timely complete and integrate our announced Asco and Bombardier acquisitions; our ability to accurately estimate and manage performance, cost, and revenue under our contracts; demand for our products and services and the effect of economic or geopolitical conditions in the industries and markets in which we operate in the U.S. and globally; our ability to manage our liquidity, borrow additional funds or refinance debt; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business and operations, including on the demand for our and our customers' products and services, on trade and transport restrictions, on the global aerospace supply chain, on our ability to retain the skilled work force necessary for production and development and generally on our ability to effectively manage the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business operations; and other factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These factors are not exhaustive and it is not possible for us to predict all factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in our forward-looking statements. These factors speak only as of the date hereof, and new factors may emerge or changes to the foregoing factors may occur that could impact our business. Except to the extent required by law, we undertake no obligation to, and expressly disclaim any obligation to, publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. SOURCE Spirit AeroSystems Related Links www.spiritaero.com They shared the screen together as father and son in the 1980s sitcom Home to Roost. And Emmerdale star Reece Dinsdale believes that legendary actor John Thaw - who died in 2002- is still contacting him on set from beyond the grave. Soap star Reece, 60, claims he can feel John's presence in the same studios where they shot their sitcom. Paranormal? Emmerdale star Reece Dinsdale believes that legendary actor John Thaw is still contacting him on set from beyond the grave He told the Daily Star: 'Sometimes I walk down the corridors at the Emmerdale studios and I just remember these were the same hallways where John and I walked 30 years ago while filming every episode of Home to Roost. 'There are definitely ghosts. It feels like another lifetime. I'm losing so many fine friends and colleagues these days. So sad.' John, who was married to Sheila Hancock, shot to fame in 1970s in police drama The Sweeney. Legend: Soap star Reece, 60, claims he can feel John's presence in the same studios where they shot their sitcom (pictured in Inspector Morse) Old friends: The actors shared the screen together as father and son in the 1980s sitcom Home to Roost He also starred as the eponymous Inspector Morse in the long-running ITV series from 1987 to 2000. John died of cancer shortly after his 60th birthday in 2002. Reece's set revelations come after news that Emmerdale will return to six episodes per week from mid-September. ITV has confirmed the channel's soaps, including Coronation Street, will be back at their 'normal pattern' after reducing output when the coronavirus pandemic first began. Back to normal! Coronation Street and Emmerdale will return to six episodes per week from mid-September (pictured Coronation Street set) Both soaps suspended filming on March 22nd as a result of lockdown measures enforced in the UK amid the coronavirus pandemic, but by early June, filming had resumed, with new safety measures in place. ITV said in a statement: 'We're very pleased to announce that Coronation Street and Emmerdale will resume airing the normal pattern of six episodes each week from mid-September.' Planning ahead: ITV has confirmed the channel's soaps will be back at their 'normal pattern' after reducing output when the coronavirus pandemic first began (pictured Emmerdale set) The channel also praised the soaps' bosses as well as cast and crew members for their 'incredible work'. ITV said: 'This is testament to the incredible work that has been achieved in Manchester and Leeds by John Whiston, Managing Director of Continuing Drama and Head of ITV in the North for ITV Studios, and his dedicated and hard-working production teams, crews, writers and actors. 'Both shows continue to film safely whilst adhering to the health and safety guidelines issued by the film and TV industry.' Eight candidates who filed papers to run in the Nov. 3 election in New Orleans have drawn ballot challenges seeking to disqualify them. The outcome of those challenges which can be filed by anyone eligible to vote in the races will shape the final list of candidates appearing on the ballot this year. Municipal and Traffic Court Div. A Judge Paul Sens filed a challenge to the candidacy of Kenneth Plaisance, one of his two declared opponents. Sens alleges that Plaisance failed to file state income tax returns in some or all of the last five years. Plaisance ran for Orleans Parish Civil District Court in 2018 and finished fourth in the primary. Sens also faces Orleans Public Defenders staff attorney Meghan Garvey. In a press release, Plaisance said Sens has decided to use every trick in the book to avoid fairly competing against this seasoned attorney with 30 years of service to the community. Separately, Diedre Pierce Kelly, whos running for the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court judgeship vacated by Arthur Hunter when he retired to run for district attorney, drew two challenges on Friday. This well-connected Orleans judicial candidate could face ballot challenge on a 'close call' question Diedre Pierce Kelly has the backing of prominent defense attorneys, a slew of local politicians and influential political consultant Ike Spear Gary Wainwright, a criminal defense attorney who's running for the same spot on the bench, filed a challenge alleging that she doesn't have the full eight years as a lawyer required for a judgeship. Her 19-month suspension from 2015 to 2016 should count against that requirement, Wainwright said. Meanwhile, James Ryan Newhart also filed a challenge against Kelly that adds claims she didn't file the necessary campaign paperwork or her 2019 state tax return. Newhart's challenge is being handled by attorney Scott Sternberg, who separately represents the Times-Picayune and the Advocate. An attorney for Kelly has said that she was still admitted to the practice of law while she was serving the suspension, so she does meet the eight-year minimum. The campaign form was "discretionary," lawyer Gray Sexton said. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Angel Harris, a former Orleans Public Defenders and American Civil Liberties Union attorney who hopes to unseat Criminal District Court Judge Franz Zibilich, also faces a challenge. The suit from Lisa Rosevally, Kyra Lewis and James Cobb claims she hasn't lived in New Orleans for at least a year before the election as required by law. A onetime Zibilich campaign donor, Leonard Levenson, is handling the challenge on their behalf. Harris campaign didnt immediately return a request for comment. Meanwhile, court records show educator Aldine Lockett, who hopes to represent Orleans Parish School Board District 2, has a challenge from Wilbert Clementin. Lockett didnt immediately return a request for comment. He and three other candidates hope to claim the seat of incumbent Board Member Ethan Ashley. School Board District 4 Member Leslie Ellison has filed a challenge against the two men who hope to unseat her, Jancarlo "J.C." Romero and Winston "Boom" Whitten Jr., claiming they've failed to file their tax returns as required to qualify for the ballot. But in a statement, Whitten said he had filed all required tax forms and intended to fight the challenge. Romero said the challenge against him was likewise "frivolous" and would defend himself in court. Kevin Griffin, a candidate for School Board District 3, faces a ballot challenge from Melissa Carollo claiming that he hasn't filed all of the required tax returns. He didn't immediately return a request for comment. Orleans Parish Juvenile Court, Section A judicial candidate Marie Williams faces a similar challenge from Tamika McDonald. Two other candidates are running in the same race, but Geraldine "Geri" Broussard Baloney has withdrawn. In response to a request for comment, Williams provided documents she said showed she had filed her taxes. "I look forward to this being resolved in court," she said in an email. A number of candidates have withdrawn from other races. Robbins Graham is no longer seeking the Orleans Parish Civil District Court, Div. F judgeship, leaving two candidates in the field. Incumbent Juvenile Court Judge Mark Doherty has withdrawn from the Section F judgeship race, as has challenger Amy Kern, leaving three candidates. Charlene Larche-Mason has been elected without opposition as the Municipal and Traffic Court Div. C judge after her lone opponent, Alexandre Bonin, withdrew. Previously, she was the chief deputy city attorney. Even worse: The president and his son tweet out this disinformation video to everyone who still listens to their sorry accounts. You would think that the virus is doing its damage effectively right now, without needing the help of the Trump family to further increase the suffering and death of people across this country. But I guess that things can always be made worse. Thomas Amatruda Edina, Minn. The writer is an oncologist. To the Editor: The Republicans want to, above all else, reopen business. They must know it is too soon to do that because the virus is not under control. So they also want to indemnify employers against claims of employees and their families that they were made ill or died because they were forced to go back to work because they couldnt survive without a paycheck until the pandemic was brought under control. Were it not for this kind of stupidity, we would have had this virus under control already as most of the rest of the industrialized world has done. We would be back at work and at school. Instead, Americans are still falling ill and dying at alarming rates while a president who is thrilled that he can pass a basic mental capacity test waged war with federal storm troopers in Portland and has just now decided to wear a mask. Sometimes. We need to pass lifesaving and economy-saving financial aid to families, lock this country down until this virus is under control, make everybody wear masks and stop fooling around. Our country is at stake. And whatever you do, get a mail-in ballot and vote this reckless toddler out of office before he breaks the greatest democracy in the world. Robert Voelte and Ian Rose call themselves an intergenerational, intercultural, interracial gay couple standing in the center of a blue dot in the middle of a red state. That state is Nebraska, where they met in August 2008 on Mr. Roses first day as a vocal music teacher at the Omaha elementary school where Mr. Voelte teaches kindergarten. Mr. Voelte (left), 54, saw Mr. Rose, 32, near the faculty mailboxes and was intrigued. I work at a school where the staff is predominantly younger to middle-aged white women, so Ian stood out, he said. I immediately went over to introduce myself. If Mr. Rose, 32, who is from Jamaica, felt uneasy in the new setting, Mr. Voeltes warmth put him at ease. I remember he said I could come to his classroom to ask him anything, and how kind his eyes were, Mr. Rose said. At first, neither wanted to acknowledge an attraction. It was 12 years ago and a different world for gay people, Mr. Voelte said. I didnt want to cross an inappropriate line by asking him out. Instead, he asked, casually, if Mr. Rose would like to have a drink. New Delhi, July 31 : The Congress has welcomed the construction of the Ram temple and said that there should be no controversy on the guest list for the 'bhumi pujan' and the trust has the right to invite whoever they want to. Responding to a question, party spokesman Jaiveer Shergill said that "The Indian National Congress welcomes the Supreme Court decision which has paved way for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya." "The right to invite people for the foundation laying ceremony depends on the trust," he added With only five days left for the 'Bhumi pujan' of the Ram temple, the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust has decided to invite more Ayodhya saints for the event. The trust had initially decided to invite only 200 people for the ceremony due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but now the proposal to put up an exhibition at Ram Janmabhoomi detailing the life journey of Lord Ram has been shelved and that space will be used to make seating arrangements for around 600 more saints. Chairs will be placed at the venue in compliance with social distancing norms. Various akharas and mutts of Ayodhya had expressed their resentment over the issue to Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, Chairman of the trust. Mahant Kamal Nayan Das, successor designate to Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, said: "Bhumi pujan for Ram temple is a historic moment. Saints have requested to attend the ceremony. There is a possibility that more saints will be allowed to attend the ceremony." Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 16:14:17|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close A Palestinian young woman sews fabric bags inside a workshop in Gaza City, on July 26, 2020. Baraa al-Madhoun and Ghadeer al-Saqa, two young Palestinian women from the blockaded Gaza Strip, spend long hours sewing fabric bags, dedicated to their initiative of reducing the use of plastic bags in the coastal enclave. Together with five other natives of Gaza, they launched an initiative called My Bag that distributes fabric bags among shop owners and customers with the idea of changing the mindset of the Palestinian society. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) by Sanaa Kamal GAZA, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Baraa al-Madhoun and Ghadeer al-Saqa, two young Palestinian women from the blockaded Gaza Strip, spend long hours sewing fabric bags, dedicated to their initiative of reducing the use of plastic bags in the coastal enclave. Together with five other natives of Gaza, they launched an initiative called My Bag that distributes fabric bags among shop owners and customers with the idea of changing the mindset of the Palestinian society. In order to avoid "grey and boring" bags, they decorate the bags, made of old clothes or their remains they get from local factories, with drawings or traditional Palestinian embroidery. "We want to institute a new culture here and encourage people to use our bags instead of those environmentally harmful plastic products that are being consumed and would lie underground for decades before starting to decompose," al-Madhoun told Xinhua. According to a 2018 report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the average household waste in the Gaza Strip amounts to 716 tonnes, about 12 percent of which is plastic. The storage of waste is not the only problem in the Palestinian enclave. Another one is the way the authorities dispose of waste, usually by burning or throwing it into the sea, both "devastating for the environment." "We are facing an environmental catastrophe here, especially since we live in the besieged Gaza Strip that has no factories, nor facilities that recycle waste. So what has left for us to do is to try and spread the culture of using cloth bags in an attempt to curb the spread of plastic in the area," al-Madhoun said. Determined to achieve that goal and willing to inspire her peers, the young Palestinian woman carries her fabric bags to multiple local markets and malls, offering them to customers there. "When anyone asks me about it, I answer that it is a modern bag that would help us reduce the use of plastic," she said, noting her concept was nothing new but could potentially help Gazans overcome many of the health challenges that have been hitting the enclave in recent years. "Over the years, dozens of epidemics and diseases have spread in the Gaza Strip partially because of the pollution accumulated here ... It altered the environmental landscape and worsened our overall well-being, especially given that Gaza lacks means that would discharge the waste," al-Madhoun explained. Al-Saqa, the other leader in the My Bag initiative, believes that the new generation is able to change old bad habits that harm human health. "Right now, we are a small group of people, but I hope that our initiative will grow to embrace all the Gazan society," said the young woman. Ahmed Al-Madhoun, coordinator of the initiative from Gaza city, told Xinhua that they aim to encourage people, especially the young generation, to use cloth bags instead of plastic. "The industrial revolution has harmed our environmental life and human health because we live in an integrated circle," the young man said, as he was checking the page of their initiative on Facebook. "The plastic bags need a lot of years to decompose and burning or throwing them into the sea doesn't solve the problem. It only makes the situation worse," Al-Madhoun explained. Enditem YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. The ministry of emergency situations informs that the roads across Armenia are passable. The Georgian side reported that the Stepantsminda-Lars highway is open only for trucks as the ban on entry to Georgia for foreigners is still in force. Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan President Donald Trump wears a face mask as he walks down a hallway during a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., last week. Read more To mask or not to mask? That question is a reliable indicator of political beliefs almost five months into the pandemic, with partisanship as contagious as the coronavirus itself. Two in three 64% of the registered voters in a new Franklin and Marshall College poll of Pennsylvania said it is extremely important to wear a mask when they leave home. The other third? No so much. Liberals (88%) and moderates (84%) see masks as important, but just 42% of conservatives agree. This comes as the political messaging emitted from Harrisburg and Washington has been consistently inconsistent. Conservatives in the Assembly are still railing against efforts to quell the virus, while President Donald Trump equivocates between supporting and attacking medical advice and advisers. Pollster G. Terry Madonna delved into the partisan split, finding that most conservatives (78%) and moderates (63%) dont expect to contract COVID-19, while 45% of liberals see it as possible. Overall, Madonna found that 26% of voters said it is very or somewhat likely they will catch the virus in the next three months, sentiment he attributes to a surge of infections across the country. READ MORE: Pennsylvania voters think Trump is bungling the coronavirus pandemic, new poll says Just 1% of the 667 registered voters in the poll 324 Democrats, 271 Republicans and 72 independents said they had been diagnosed with the coronavirus, while 22% said an intimate family member or close friend had contracted the virus. Seven percent said a family member or friend had died from it. About two in five (43%) said it was extremely important to stay home to avoid the virus. Gov. Tom Wolf, cast as a tyrant by those elected officials and residents who dont like wearing masks or avoiding large gatherings, received high marks for his job performance from liberals (90%) and moderates (65%), but flunked with conservatives at 13%. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, leads Trump 50% to 41% in the poll, in which the pandemic ranked as the most pressing issue in the state. Voters were not impressed with Trumps handling of the crisis 49% said he was failing, and 8% ranked him as below average. Just 29% said he was doing an excellent or very good job. The NAACP wants to talk about anti-Semitism in Philly The NAACP says its national president, Derrick Johnson, is coming to Philadelphia to meet with community leaders and faith leaders to open a dialogue and continue the educational conversations needed to strengthen our communities. Minister Rodney Muhammad, leader of the NAACP in Philadelphia, will participate, since he caused those conversations. Muhammad sparked a controversy last Friday by posting an anti-Semitic image on his Facebook page. He later deleted it and claimed not to have noticed the incredibly difficult-to-miss caricature of a hook-nosed, yarmulke-wearing figure on the sleeve of an unseen person who is crushing a mass of people with a ring-bedecked hand. READ MORE: Black and Jewish leaders blast the NAACPs Philly president for an anti-Semitic Facebook post The national organization is buying Muhammads claim that the image unbeknownst to him has a history of anti-Semitic propaganda, according to an unsigned statement the group issued Thursday. That statement said national leaders were saddened and deeply disappointed in Muhammad, but also incorrectly claimed he apologized for his error in judgment. Muhammad did issue a statement Monday that it was never my intention to offend anyone or cause any hurt. Thats not an apology. Elected officials and community leaders have called on Muhammad to apologize. Some want him to resign or be removed from his post. Critics also note the Facebook page for Muhammad Mosque No. 12, which he leads, has a continuing history of anti-Semitic posts. Sounds like theyll have plenty to talk about when Johnson comes to town. Finello declines radio debate with Fitzpatrick in PA-01 Political cycles have a usual rhythm. Challengers, needing a platform to build name recognition, demand debates with incumbents, who engage as little as possible. That beat has been disrupted this year, as the Washington Post recently noted in a story about Republican senators seeking to debate Democratic challengers early and often. Were hearing the same music in the 1st Congressional District, where U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Bucks County Republican, is complaining that Democratic nominee Christina Finello will not participate in a radio debate in September. WBCB-1490, in a story Monday, reported that it tried to set up the debate for August. Fitzpatrick agreed. Finello wanted to wait until October. The station tried to meet in the middle, offering dates in September. Finello declined. READ MORE: National groups come to the aid of Democrat challenging U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in Bucks County A poll commissioned by Finello in June found 71% of voters in the district didnt know enough about her to offer an opinion. A poll by the Democratic group House Majority PAC that month found the race essentially a tie, with 8% undecided, Politico reported. Fitzpatrick is using all this to raise money, telling supporters Finello is afraid to debate. Finellos camp says she cant wait to hold Brian Fitzpatrick accountable for his record. She has committed to two other debates in October. Quotable: The 2020 General Election in Philadelphia will be held on November 3rd, 2020. Whether in person or by mail, it will be accurate and fair. Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, a Republican, responding to a tweet Thursday from President Donald Trump, complaining again about mail ballots and asking if the election should be postponed. Flash NASA launched its Mars rover Perseverance Thursday morning in a bid to search for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. The rover lifted off at 7:50 a.m. EDT (1150 GMT) on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the U.S. state of Florida. NASA confirmed the separation of the rover from the rocket about one hour following the launch. "The @NASAPersevere rover just sent its first signal back to us on Earth. The spacecraft is in good health and on its way to Mars," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted. "We had a good launch this morning, we're right on course for Mars and signal from @NASAPersevere is strong. We are working to configure the ground stations to match the strength of the spacecraft signal. This scenario is one we've worked through in the past with other missions," Bridenstine tweeted. Following a seven-month journey, the rover is expected to land at Jezero Crater on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021. The 45-kilometer-wide crater was a possible oasis in its distant past, a place with high potential for finding signs of past microbial life, according to NASA. Perseverance is the fifth Mars rover sent by NASA to Mars, after Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity. It is also the largest and heaviest robotic Mars rover NASA has built. The rover will search for signs of ancient microbial life, characterize the planet's geology and climate, collect carefully selected and documented rock and sediment samples for a possible return to Earth, and pave the way for human exploration beyond the Moon, according to NASA. Perseverance is the first rover to bring a sample caching system to Mars that will package promising samples for return to Earth by a future mission. Perseverance's drill will cut intact rock cores that are about the size of a piece of chalk and will place them in sample tubes that it will store until the rover reaches an appropriate drop-off location. The Mars sample return campaign is being planned by NASA and the European Space Agency to investigate the samples with instruments too large and complex to send to Mars. Examining those samples on Earth will provide far more information about them than even the most sophisticated rover could provide, said NASA. "In 2026, we're going to launch a mission from Earth to Mars to go pick up those samples and bring them back to Earth," Bridenstine said. "For the first time in history, we're doing a Mars sample return mission." Perseverance will also be collecting important data about Mars' geology and climate. Studying the Red Planet's geology and climate could also offer a sense of why Earth and Mars -- which formed from the same primordial stuff -- ended up so different, said NASA. Perseverance also ferries a 1.8-kg helicopter to the surface of Mars, and the helicopter would be the first aircraft to fly in a controlled way on another planet. The twin-rotor, solar-powered helicopter, Ingenuity, is intended to demonstrate technologies needed for flying in the Martian atmosphere. If successful, these technologies could enable other advanced robotic flying vehicles that might be included in the future robotic and human missions to Mars, said NASA. In a spirit of bringing the public along, the Perseverance rover carries an anodized plate with the words "Explore as one" in Morse code and three silicon chips with the names of approximately 10.9 million people who signed up to ride along on Perseverance's journey to Mars. The Perseverance mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans. Every 26 months, Mars reaches the closest point to Earth in its orbit, and this summer is the latest launch window to the Red Planet, when launching a spacecraft uses the least amount of fuel. The liftoff of Perseverance is the third Mars exploration of the international community this year following China's first Mars mission, Tianwen-1, and the first Mars orbiter of the United Arab Emirates earlier this month. CENTREVILLE, MI St. Joseph County commissioners held a meeting Wednesday, July 29, to consider a proposal from a group of residents to demand the resignation of County Prosecutor John McDonough, who has been out of the office on medical leave since May. The meeting, conducted virtually through the Zoom meeting platform, came following a letter sent last week to commissioners from nearly two dozen residents, including 59th District state Rep. Aaron Miller, asking the board to seek McDonoughs resignation. Related: State representative, other constituents call for resignation of St. Joseph County prosecutor McDonough, who attended the meeting virtually on Wednesday, has been the subject of criticism in recent months after a crash on May 11 near Three Rivers. In June, McDonough was charged by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessels office with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol and having open intoxicants inside a motor vehicle in connection with the May crash. The letter from Miller and others was sent to commissioners on July 20, just two weeks before the Aug. 4 primary election, in which the prosecutor faces a challenge from fellow Republican David Marvin. The letter calls on the board to force McDonoughs resignation as prosecutor. In the letter, the group claims its call for McDonoughs resignation does not stem from just one isolated incident, but the continual lack of leadership, lack of worth ethic, and mismanagement of the entire office of the prosecuting attorney of this county. It went under the radar for years and now its being discussed in response to the May 11 incident, Rep. Miller told MLive on Friday, July 31. What the commissioners decided Wednesday is to take no further action, I understand Mr. McDonough came in and talked to them, but that leaves the only course of action belonging to the voters thats a separate matter of course the voters cant make a decision and make a job change tomorrow. But I think there are still a lot of remaining questions. Miller said there are still unanswered questions regarding the work performance of the prosecutors office. The county commission has shared many times they cant remove an elected official, thats not what were calling on them to do, Miller said. McDonough could not be reached for comment following Wednesdays meeting. County board Chairman Dennis Allen, who represents the countys 3rd District, said while the letter was taken under consideration, the commission does not have the ability to immediately remove an elected official. Allen said that, during the meeting, McDonough updated the commissioners on the status of how his office has been operating amid his absence. He answered all the questions we asked him Whos handling the cases? Whos in the office? How does the public get ahold of him? Allen said in an interview with MLive after Wednesdays meeting. Hes made it clear hes on a medical leave and has every intention of being released back by his doctors. As far as were proceeding, theres nothing further that we plan on doing right now. He said that Chief Assistant Prosecutor Josh Robarre, who has been leading the office during McDonoughs absence, assured county officials the office has remained on track since McDonough has been out. McDonough also informed commissioners that he expects to return to the office by Sept. 1. While commissioners reviewed the letter from county residents demanding the prosecutors resignation, the county officials made clear the limits of their authority. Commissioners also pointed out that Michigan voters cannot recall an elected official during the last six months of their term, which is the case for McDonough since he current term expires at the end of the year. The letter was taken into consideration, we reviewed what the options were and weve followed those steps, St. Joseph County Administrator Teresa Doehring said. Officials dont report to commissioners, there is nothing more that the commissioners have authority to do. Owing to McDonoughs position in St. Joseph County, the case is being prosecuted by the Attorney Generals office. Kalamazoo County District Judge Vincent Westra will serve as visiting judge and be presiding over the case. McDonoughs next court date has not yet been set. Also on MLive: St. Joseph County prosecutor officially charged with drunken driving Prosecutor left crash scene before returning, according to police reports Republican David Marvin challenges St. Joseph County Prosecutor in August primary 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 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Erdene Resource Development Corporation (TSX:ERD | MSE:ERDN) (Erdene or the Company) is providing an update on its previously announced non-brokered private placement of approximately C$20 million (Private Placement). As announced on July 23, 2020, 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 (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 Unit will consist of one common share of the Company (Common Share) and one Common Share purchase warrant (Warrant), with each Warrant exercisable into one Common Share within two years of the closing date, at a price of $0.60 per Common Share. Each Subscription Receipt will convert into a Unit immediately and for no additional consideration upon certain release conditions being satisfied. The directors and officers of the Company and its subsidiaries are expected to subscribe for up to 1,111,111 Units in the Private Placement resulting in up to an aggregate of 2,222,222 Common Shares being issued and issuable, representing 1.2% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares as of the date hereof. In addition, up to 555,555 Warrants may be issued to certain finders in connection with the offering of Units ("Finder Warrants"). The terms of the Private Placement were negotiated at arms length and the price of the Units and the Subscription Receipts represents a discount of approximately 12.4% to the volume-weighted average trading price of the Common Shares on the TSX for the five trading days ended July 23, 2020. Story continues As of the date of this press release, there are 192,937,702 Common Shares issued and outstanding on a non-diluted basis. Up to an aggregate of 89,444,443 Common Shares will be issued and issuable pursuant to the Private Placement (including Common Shares issuable upon the exercise of Warrants and Finder Warrants), representing 46.4% of the currently issued and outstanding Common Shares. Sprott currently holds no Common Shares. After the closing of the Private Placement and the conversion of all Subscription Receipts into Units, Sprott will own 33,333,333 Common Shares, representing 14.0% of 237,382,146 Common Shares issued on a non-diluted basis. If the Warrants issued upon conversion of the Subscription Receipts were exercised in full, Sprott would own 66,666,666 Common Shares, representing 24.6% of 270,715,479 Common Shares issued on a non-diluted basis. Sections 604(a) and 607(g)(i) of the TSX Company Manual provide that shareholder approval must be obtained for transactions involving the issuance or potential issuance of any securities that will materially affect control of the Company, and for private placements for an aggregate number of Common Shares issuable greater than 25% of the number of Common Shares outstanding, on a non-diluted basis, prior to the date of closing of the transaction if the price per security is less than the market price. Erdene is seeking the required shareholder approval by way of written consent of holders of more than 50% of the Common Shares in reliance on the exemption in Section 604(d) of the TSX Company Manual. 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 . 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 SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) Michelle Lujan Grisham has not received the attention of many higher-profile candidates under consideration to be Joe Biden's running mate. But she has a resume that few of them can match. The New Mexico governor has executive experience and served in the U.S. House and as her state's health secretary. Tested by the coronavirus pandemic, she has taken strong steps including a mandatory face mask order and invoking the states riot act to isolate one city that have been credited with saving lives. She's taking an increasingly tough stand against President Donald Trump, who has sent federal agents to Albuquerque to combat violent crime despite local skepticism about the timing and intentions. And shes one of the nations highest-ranking Latina officials as Latinos emerge as the fastest-growing demographic for eligible voters. But as Biden prepares to make a vice presidential pick as soon as next week, Lujan Grisham is at risk of being shadowed by more prominent contenders, including Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Lujan Grisham is undeterred, pledging to help Biden in any way and making the case that Latinos could decide the election. The Latino and Hispanic vote will be essential, Lujan Grisham said last week at a fundraiser for Biden. You know it. I know it. The occupant in the White House knows it. Biden can't afford to ignore that sentiment. The Pew Research Center estimates that the number of eligible Latino voters is expected to reach 32 million on Election Day. Crucially, Latinos account for 20% of eligible voters in the swing state of Florida and 24% in Arizona. During the Democratic primary, Latinos overwhelmingly sided with Biden's progressive rival Bernie Sanders, exposing a potential weakness for the eventual nominee. But Biden is also facing pressure to choose a Black running mate as the country confronts a reckoning over institutionalized racism and police brutality. Story continues Choosing a Latina for vice president would be the smartest electoral strategy move he could make, said Chuck Rocha, a Washington-based Democratic strategist and Texas native. It may not be the best political move. The best political move would be to pick a Black woman. New Mexicos third consecutive Hispanic governor, Lujan Grisham succeeded a termed-out Republican in 2019 on promises to improve the states faltering public education system, root out entrenched poverty and broaden an economy tethered closely to oil production initiatives now upended by COVID-19. The pandemic has thrust governors into fraught conversations about public health and the economy a challenge Lujan Grisham has seized at hourslong remote news conferences streamed over social media. My North Star is to be unequivocally focused on saving lives and protecting New Mexicans all ages, all locations, all persuasions, Lujan Grisham said, announcing a decision to roll back indoor dining at restaurants and enforce a two-week self-quarantine for visitors from out of state. Coronavirus infections and hospitalizations are surging in New Mexico, but the state is faring better than neighboring Arizona among the highest in the U.S. for new per capita cases over the past month. New Mexico ranks among the five states with the most testing per capita, as health officials emphasize rapid responses to outbreaks at businesses including nursing homes and child care centers. About 1 in 4 residents has been tested. Lujan Grishams approach to restricting the economy has outraged many Republicans and business owners. The state Supreme Court is weighing a GOP-backed legal challenge of the governors authority to ban indoor restaurant service or levy hefty fines against businesses that flout public health orders. Her style of leadership has been, Do what I say or else, said GOP state Rep. Alonzo Baldonado of Los Lunas, a board member at the campaign support group Latinos for Trump. New Mexico Republican Party Chair Steve Pearce, who lost his bid for governor in 2018, says Lujan Grishams approach has infringed upon basic rights and freedoms while crippling the local economy as big-box retailers flourish under light restrictions. The governor has seized on the pandemic and recent civil rights protests in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in ways that may bolster her appeal among Democrats, seeking to expand the use of mail-in balloting and signing off in June on policing reforms from the Democrat-led Legislature that mandate police body cameras. In February, she signed a red-flag bill that allows judges to remove firearms based on signs of danger a response to the 2019 mass shooting at a Walmart in nearby El Paso, Texas. Despite precautions, COVID-19 rampaged across northwestern New Mexico and the Navajo Nation in April and May. Lujan Grisham cordoned off for 10 days the trading post town of Gallup, where infections raced through a detox center, retirement homes and the staff at Rehoboth McKinley Hospital. New Mexico went into triage mode, evacuating virus patients from overwhelmed rural hospitals. Christine Sierra, a political science professor affiliated with the University of New Mexico, says the bottom line for the Biden campaign is whether Lujan Grisham can expand the tickets voter base. She noted the governors ethnic heritage does not automatically resonate with all U.S. Latinos a melting pot in their own right that includes exiled Cuban families, waves of laborers from Mexico and recent refugees from a natural disaster in Puerto Rico, an economic collapse in Venezuela or gang violence in Central America. Lujan Grisham campaigned for governor as a 12th-generation Latina. Her maiden name ties her to a grandfather on the state Supreme Court and a distant cousin, Manuel Lujan, who served as a Republican congressman and U.S. interior secretary. I have no doubt that a Black woman from the South would mobilize the African American vote, Sierra said. The Latino angle on that is a lot more complicated and a little more ambiguous. ___ Associated Press writer Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report. (Newser) Grand Theft Auto: Wewahitchka isn't a real thing, though a Florida man allegedly tried to make it one. Per the Northwest Florida Daily News, authorities in Walton County say Casey William Kelley purchased a Porsche 911 Turbo from a dealership in Destin on Monday for nearly $140,000. "Purchased," however, may have been too loose a word to describe the transaction, as the $139,203.05 cashier's check that the 42-year-old Wewahitchka man presented bounced, and the car was reported stolen, investigators say. Kelley was arrested Wednesday, and he told authorities that the check hadn't actually come from a bank, but was simply printed off of his home computer. story continues below Before he was nabbed, Kelley made one other stop, on Tuesday, his arrest report noted: to a Miramar Beach jewelry store, where he ponied up another phony check, in the amount of $61,521, to pay for three Rolex watches. This time, however, the jeweler held onto the watches to make sure the check cleared first; it didn't. Kelley now faces charges of grand theft of a motor vehicle and uttering a false banknote. (Read more weird crimes stories.) SenseTime, a Chinese developer of facial recognition technologies, is wrapping up a $1.5 billion funding round at a $10 billion valuation and is in talks to list on Chinas STAR market, per Reuters. Why it matters: This is the companys first fundraise since being placed on a U.S. blacklist for alleged involvement in human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in China. It previously raised nearly $3 billion, including from U.S.-based firms like Fidelity, Glade Brook, Qualcomm Ventures, and Silver Lake Partners. The bottom line: "SenseTime's founder Tang Xiaoou [said] in 2017 that the startup was considering a listing in U.S, Hong Kong, or China. The U.S. ban has made an overseas listing difficult, if not impossible," Reuters reports. The envoys of Australia and China to India took a dig at each other on Twitter on Friday. A day after Australian High Commissioner to India, Barry OFarrell, tacitly asked China to refrain from unilaterally altering status quo along its disputed boundary with India as well as in South China Sea, Beijings envoy to New Delhi, Sun Weidong, took to Twitter to protest. Sun accused OFarrell of disregarding facts as he protested his comment on the South China Sea. He claimed Chinas territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests were in conformity with the international laws including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Noted remarks by Australian HC to India on #SouthChinaSea disregarding facts. #China's territorial sovereignty & maritime rights & interests are in conformity w/ int'l law incl UNCLOS, Sun posted on Twitter. It's clear who safeguard peace & (and) stability & (and) who destabilize & (and) provoke escalation in the region. OFarrell replied to Sun, expressing hope that China would abide by the 2016 award of the Arbitration Tribunal constituted under the UNCLOS on South China Sea. The tribunal had rejected most of Beijings territorial claims in the South China Sea. China, however, did not accept the award and continued its expansionist moves rejecting the claims by Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam. Thank you @China_Amb_India. I would hope then you follow the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award, which is final and binding under international law, tweeted Australian High Commissioner to India. He also called upon China to generally refrain from actions that unilaterally alter the status quo. Sun did not relent. He tweeted again late in the evening, stating that the award of the arbitral tribunal was illegal. So-called arbitral tribunal of #SouthChinaSea violated principle of state consent. The award is illegal, null & (and) void & (and) has no binding force. China neither accepts nor recognizes it. We hope those non-claimant countries could contribute to regional peace & (and) stability rather than contrary, tweeted Chinas ambassador to India. OFarrell had a meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday. Australia opposes any attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo (along India-China border), which only serve to increase tension and the risk of instability, he said after the meeting. He also said that Australia urged restraint along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) the de facto boundary between India and China and supported continued moves towards de-escalation. It is important that the bilaterally agreed principles and norms that have helped prevent escalation or miscalculation in the border areas over many decades continue to be observed, he said, tacitly asking Beijing to go by the pacts it inked with New Delhi since 1993 for maintenance of peace and tranquillity along the boundary between the two neighbours, pending the settlement of the dispute. Sun earlier protested against a comment by British High Commissioner in New Delhi, Philip Barton, on the India-China stand-off. Barton on July 23 indicated that Chinese Governments move to impose its national security law in Hong Kong as well as its Peoples Liberation Armys aggression along the LAC with India were among the actions by the communist country that had posed challenges to the world. Sun took to Twitter and strongly protested against the remark by the United Kingdoms High Commissioner to India. Noted remarks regarding #China by British High Commissioner to India, rife with mistakes & false allegations. Boundary question falls within bilateral scope of #China & #India. We have wisdom & capability to properly handle differences. No need for third party interference, he tweeted on July 24. And, in turn, help 1,000 Indian artisans earn Rs 5,000 at a time when they are struggling to cope with financial hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic. Girls tie rakhis on the wrists of Border Security Force jawans at the Attari-Wagah border post, August 26, 2018. Photograph: PTI Photo Habba, a non-profit organisation, and a sister company of Rang De, which provides interest free loans to small and marginal farmers, is running a campaign to celebrate this Raksha Bandhan with 'gratitude and empathy' (external link to habba.org). Here's your chance to express your unconditional gratitude towards India's soldiers defending the nation and our borders by buying rakhis from Habba.org, which will ensure these rakhis reach Indian soldiers for Raksha Bandhan, and empathy for the artisans, who you can help, by buying their hand-made rakhis, earn Rs 5,000. Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com speaks with Ram N K, co-founder and director, Rang De, to know how the arrangement will work out and how they plan to sustain this initiative of providing income to artisans after Raksha Bandhan. Who came with the idea for the Jai Jawan. Jai Artisan initiative? What exactly are you trying to achieve through this initiative? We have been doing loans at Rang De. We did the farmers loans initially. And we did interest-free loans in the last two months, close to Rs 8 crore of interest free loans for small and marginal farmers. This capital of Rs 8 crore came from about 5,000 people from around the country in partnership with NDTV; we did a national campaign, we did a telethon with them that really helped us get the support. We also wanted to do the same with artisans; give them loans as well. But we realised that it's not the right thing to do. For the last five months, they have not had even one single order. And, in fact, the orders which they had earlier, they also did not get picked up, and they did not get paid for that too. They were in really dire straits. So offering them loans would have put them into more misery, even at zero percent, because they had no idea about when the markets will open up. What we got from on the ground was very saddening. Highly talented artisans and weavers were now looking out for daily wage work under the NREGA scheme, and many good district collectors were creating lot of work orders so that these artisans can do some work and earn money. All the relief operations (for the poor and the needy) came to a grinding halt by end of June. And these artisans were now looking out for hard labour. We found the larger issue was access to markets and there was absolutely no uptake as there was no demand. Nothing was getting sold despite giving discounts. But this is not about discounts; people just didn't want to buy. We wanted to revive Habba in August because we have this unique B2B2C model with corporates and divert their employee engagement budgets towards buying products from these artisans. We were building up for that, but three weeks ago something happened. We got this call from a group of artisans in Uttarakhand. They told us that like last year, this year also they have made rakhis, 10,000 rakhis from ringal (dwarf) bamboo. It is very special bamboo which grows on the Himalayan highlands and very abundantly available. Somebody had taught them how to make absolutely eco-friendly ringal rakhis last year. Last year they had a bumper sale and this year too they were prepping up for that. Except for this year there was no market; no trader came and bought from them. These rakhis were ready three-four weeks ago and now they had no buyers. These artisans reached out to us when they came to know from somebody about the Habba marketplace. They had one simple request: They asked us if we could buy these 10,000 ringal rakhis. We realised how tough it would be to sell these rakhis in these tough COVID-19 times. At the first instance, we apologised to them and expressed our inability to do so. This conversation got over there. A week later, which is around two weeks back, on a Sunday night, we got this idea to look at this problem differently. What if we were to make an appeal to the citizens of our country to buy these rakhis and send it to our soldiers as a mark of respect with a letter of gratitude to them for what they are doing for us. We knew that this way we could solve multiple problems at the same time. One, be able to give the livelihood to the artisans; two, be able to express our gratitude to our jawans doing their duties especially in these tough times. And also it (the amount generated from selling rakhis) will take care of the cost of shipment because we will be sending it in a sanitised way to the army. So, it came together. We spoke to our team members, our mentors and they all loved the idea. And then we quickly got into action. It took us a while, a few days to build the page, design it we executed this idea in just about nine days, to be honest. We launched it the previous Sunday (July 19). We started reaching out to people and people have been, very, very generous. Somebody in Singapore bought 1,000 rakhis. Each rakhi costs about Rs 100 and when we sell all 100,000 rakhis we would have generated Rs 1 crore. There is no GST on rakhi because it is exempted from GST. 50 per cent of this amount, that is Rs 50 lakh, will be the income for 1,000 artisans who will benefit from this initiative. That's Rs 5,000 per artisan in just ten days, who currently are struggling to make ends meet financially. What happens to the Rs 50 lakh you would still have after paying Rs 50 lakh to the artisans? All the information about how the money would be used and spent will be on the Habba page. All the expenditure is accounted for. In case if there is still a surplus after providing for all the expenses and contingencies, that money too would go to the artisans. All the people who participate in the campaign will get an account statement of how we have spent or we will put it up on the Web site as well. We believe in absolute transparency and every penny will be accounted for publicly. How do you plan to send these one lakh rakhis to the jawans? We have reached out to the Indian Army headquarters. We are in touch with a very senior army officer, a brigadier there and the Indian Army is giving us complete support. When we told them about this concept, they were initially very curious to know about it, and when they heard about the whole programme, they loved it. They said, this kind of initiative is happening for the first time in India. As of 11 am, India time, July 31, Indians in India and abroad have purchased 19,291 rakhis generating Rs 964,550 for Indian artisans. Which means, there are 80,709 rakhis still to be sold with two days to go. Central Military Commission urges study of third volume of "Xi Jinping: The Governance of China" The general office of the Central Military Commission has issued a circular requiring the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the People's Armed Police Force (PAP) to earnestly study the newly published third volume of "Xi Jinping: The Governance of China." It is a long-term political task to thoroughly study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, read the circular. Stressing that the study should be carried out in a target-oriented, problem-oriented and result-oriented manner, the circular said the PLA and PAP, while implementing COVID-19 prevention and control measures on a regular basis, should deliver a solid performance in all areas of work, promote troop training and battle readiness, and resolutely accomplish all tasks assigned by the Party and the people. KITCHENER The 33-year-old man accused of killing fellow migrant worker Luis Gabriel Cahuec Moran is expected back in court next week. Alex Lopez Noriega attended court on Friday afternoon. He stands charged with first-degree murder in the death of 35-year-old Cahuec Moran. Speaking through a Spanish interpreter, Noriega addressed the court from Maplehurst jail in Milton. The Record was able to hear the proceedings through audio. His case was adjourned until Aug. 6 at 2:30 p.m. by video and Noriega is to remain in custody. Cahuec Moran, a father of three, came from a small town in Guatemala, the same town as Noriega. Both men were working as migrant workers. On Thursday morning, Waterloo Regional Police were called to a field at 2043 Erbs Rd., just outside of St. Agatha in Wilmot Township. Thats where Cahuec Morans body was found. Noriega was arrested on Charles Street in downtown Kitchener shortly after 9 a.m. later that day. Yaze stares at forlornly at the empty space around her. Barely even 20m wide, the single room rooftop apartment where she lives, used to be used as a storeroom by her landlord until she offered just 40 dinar a month to take it off his hands. The one notable object in the room, a worn-out mattress lies in the corner, the only thing she brought from Syria. With no electricity, no fridge and no source of cold water to quench her thirst in the 40-degree heat, Yaze is among the most vulnerable refugees in Jordan. Living alone, tears come to her eyes as she recalls the circumstances in which she left Syria. She hasnt been in contact with her son, her only living relative, since. I think he went to Turkey, but I dont know. From rural Raqqa, Yaze spent her life working on farms. Growing cotton, tomatoes and aubergines she says she feels at home in the countryside and that fleeing Syria to now living in Amman, a sprawling city of over 4 million people, has just felt like an alternate reality. Her mother died when she was only 10 years old and so along with her two older brothers they had to look after themselves. Life hasnt been easy but in 2011, just as the Syria conflict started, she finally realized one of her dreams and took the Hajj to Mecca, her first time leaving the country. When she returned, however, everything in Raqqa quickly changed with the arrival of ISIS. It was like a dream. In one night, everything changed. The world which I knew changed. Women werent allowed out their houses by themselves. We had to wear the Niqab and there were so many rules. I had been living alone since my husband died over 20 years ago, but suddenly I couldnt do anything by myself anymore. We tried to stay to resist. But soon the planes and bombs came, we had to find a way to escape. Piling onto a truck with a collection of friends and neighbors, Yaze headed to the Jordanian border. It was mid-2014, and after staying a couple of months at Rukban they were admitted to Azraq Refugee Camp. Since then Yaze explains that she hasnt seen any of her neighbors again, or indeed, met anyone from Raqqa. She was admitted to hospital in Amman for heart surgery, three months after being in Azraq Camp and subsequently remained in the city due to the ease of access to the hospitals. Despite the continued hardship, Yaze has many stories to tell. She reals off the nationalities of the friends she has made since living in Amman, Jordanian, Palestinian, Iraqi, Filipino among others. My laugh makes them laugh, she jokes. She used to regularly visit her neighbors and friends living nearby. Her picture on WhatsApp, which she has half learned how to use over the last year despite not knowing how to read, is that of her neighbor Basmas children, who often come over to check on her, bring plates of food, or collect medicine from the pharmacy on her behalf. Over the last couple of months due to the coronavirus pandemic, though, life has become increasingly difficult. I wake up, make breakfast, take my medicine, pray and then sit here for the day, she explains. With no TV or books, Yaze says that she has been incredibly lonely. I sleep in the afternoon because there is nothing else to do, but then that means I cant sleep at night, she complains. Although curfews have now started to lift in Jordan, Yaze explains that she very rarely goes out even once a week. She is worried about what would happen if she got the virus and the five flights of stairs are not easy to navigate for a sixty-year-old woman who is trying to get on a waiting list for an operation on her knees. But once a month she goes to collect her monthly cash assistance, provided by UNHCR. 80 dinars may not seem like much but is all she has. Half goes on rent and the other half she spends on medicine and food. Its a simple life, but what can I do, she sighs. Asked what she prays for, Yaze says: Two olive trees. Two chickens. And some space to plant vegetables would be enough. And to see my son again. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter PLA Navy's new bomber debuts in South China Sea drills Global Times By Guo Yuandan and Liu Xuanzun Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/30 22:34:03 New warplanes affiliated with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, including H-6G and H-6J bombers, recently conducted intensive round-the-clock drills in the South China Sea, China's Ministry of National Defense announced on Thursday. This is the first time the Chinese military has officially revealed the H-6J bomber, the Global Times learned. During the drills, the warplanes under the PLA Southern Theater Command Navy Aviation Force successfully completed training exercises including takeoff and landing in daytime and nighttime, long-distance strike and attacks on surface targets, said Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang, a Defense Ministry spokesperson, at a routine press conference on Thursday. The drills were a routine arrangement in the annual schedule and contributed to the pilots' technique and tactical ability, as well as the troops' all-weather combat capabilities, Ren said. Military experts told the Global Times that the training subjects are very combat-oriented, and showed that the H-6J, which made its first public appearance, already has the capability to conduct all-weather combat missions and is also capable of accurately attacking moving maritime targets. Citing commercial satellite images, the Chinese media reported that four H-6Js were first spotted in a PLA Naval base in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in September 2018. It said that the H-6J can carry seven YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, with six under the wings and one in the weapon bay. The H-6J's weapon capacity is about twice that of the H-6G, with 50 percent farther combat radius to about 3,500 kilometers, the report said. Wang Ya'nan, a Chinese aviation industry expert and chief editor of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told the Global Times on Thursday that the Defense Ministry introduced the H-6 bombers' exercises in detail and demonstrated China's capabilities in safeguarding its national sovereignty and rights. It also showed that China's different variants in the H-6 series bombers have achieved all-weather combat capabilities, Wang said. The recent PLA warplanes' exercises in the South China Sea came at a time when the US military has been stirring up trouble in the region with dual aircraft carrier exercises and frequent close-up reconnaissance with large reconnaissance aircraft on South China's coastal regions from the South China Sea. China did not hold the drills at the same time as the US aircraft carrier exercises, which showed restraint, but revealing the details of the drills showed the PLA's determination to safeguard China's core interests, Wang said, noting that the determination must be demonstrated by actual deeds. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Amnesty International says it has obtained several leaked documents signed by officials at Irans Prisons Organization that reveal that the Iranian government has ignored repeated pleas by senior prison officials for additional resources to control the spread of the coronavirus in the countrys overcrowded correctional facilities. The letters raise an alarm over serious shortages of protective equipment, disinfectant products, and essential medical devices, the London-based rights group said in a statement released on July 31. Amnesty said the letters "stand in stark contrast" to public statements by the adviser to the head of the judiciary, Asghar Jahangir, who has lauded Iran's "exemplary" initiatives to protect prisoners from the pandemic. "Overcrowding, poor ventilation, lack of basic sanitation and medical equipment, and deliberate neglect of prisoners health problems are making Iranian prisons a perfect breeding ground for COVID-19," Amnesty warned. Iran has been struggling to contain the coronavirus pandemic since February when the first cases were officially confirmed. According to official figures, over 16,500 Iranians have died of COVID-19, while the number of infections has surpassed 300,000. Real numbers are believed to be much higher. In recent weeks, Iran has reported a surge in COVID-19 fatalities and infections. The head of the health-care office of the Prisons Organization first submitted a letter to Irans Ministry of Health on February 29. Four follow-up letters were submitted in March, May, June, and early in July, and these have been seen by Amnesty International. "These official letters provide damning evidence of the governments appalling failure to protect prisoners. Requests for urgently needed disinfectant products, protective equipment, and medical devices have been ignored for months," said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty Internationals deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. The rights group said it had "received distressing reports of prisoners displaying COVID-19 symptoms being neglected for days, even when they have preexisting heart and lung problems, diabetes, or asthma." Earlier this month, imprisoned human rights activist Narges Mohammadi said she and her cellmates in prison in Zajan, some 330 kilometers west of the capital, Tehran, have been suffering from symptoms similar to those of COVID-19. In March, Irans judiciary announced that it had ordered the temporary release of tens of thousands of prisoners to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in crowded jails. In mid-July, the judiciary issued new guidelines to facilitate a second round of leaves. However, Amnesty International says hundreds of prisoners of conscience have been excluded from these measures, including human rights defenders, environmentalists, and foreign and dual nationals. We once again call on Iranian authorities to urgently address overcrowding in prisons, including by immediately and unconditionally releasing all those detained for the peaceful exercise of their rights, Eltahawy said. The rights group also called on Iran to ensure access to adequate food, water, health care, and hygiene for all prisoners. Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-01 00:11:13|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- China's supreme court has released a 42-article regulation to facilitate collective proceedings for securities disputes, and protect individual investors' interests. The regulation, enacted on Friday, specified the litigation rules and procedures for the trial of a case where an ordinary or special representative action is applicable, according to Liu Guixiang, a member of the judicial committee of the Supreme People's Court. Investors are deemed in the class by default unless they make an affirmative request of exclusion, according to the regulation on the court's website. This is expected to lower the threshold for individual investors to bring collective redress. The document also tries to shorten the traditionally prolonged litigation process, and boost the efficiency of class actions, said Liu. It stipulates that a representative action adopts the mode of special authorization, which means representatives are entitled to exercise a series of rights on behalf of class members, including the right to revise or forgo their litigation requests, to reach a mediation agreement with defendants, and to bring or drop their appeals to a higher court. Individual investors' procedural rights and interests are also emphasized in the document. Every investor holds one ballot in voting for his or her representatives, according to the document. They could also opt out if they disapprove of the performance of their representatives, it added. Enditem Pentagon training materials on operational security that referred to journalists and protesters as "adversaries" will be changed to "avoid confusion," Defense Department spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Thursday. A new mandatory DoD training course built on materials developed in 2010 referred to journalists and protesters as "adversaries" in a module designed to teach employees to protect sensitive information. Read Next: 'The Jet Doesn't Care:' 1st Female F-35 Demo Pilot Says She's Focused on Excellence The training, first reported by Politico, has raised concerns among press organizations and free speech advocates. Former Pentagon press secretary George Little told Politico that the characterization was "appalling and dangerous." "The Pentagon and the press have a long history of working alongside each other in service of the American people. Even when they don't see eye to eye on the issues, there's been a long history of respect for their common mission, and it's unfortunate that the current Pentagon leadership has largely abandoned it," he said. But Hoffman said the training has been around since 2010 and was most recently updated in 2015. He added that it gained widespread attention only after Defense Secretary Mark Esper published a memo last week on operational security. Hoffman said in a press briefing Thursday that the term "adversaries" is a "common generic term for a person or group that opposes one's goal," but clearly has "different implications when used by the military or the Department of Defense." "To avoid confusion moving forward and to address the concerns presented, the secretary has directed we adjust the training materials to identify individuals or groups trying to obtain information simply as "unauthorized recipients," Hoffman told reporters at the end of a press briefing at the Pentagon. He took no further questions on the issue following the announcement. Esper released two memos last week to address operational security and clamp down on leaks to the media. In one memo, "Reinforcing Operations Security and the Importance of Preventing Unauthorized Disclosures," he said the DoD is committed to transparency but "unauthorized disclosures jeopardize our DoD personnel, operations, strategies and policies to the benefit of our adversaries." The second memo establishes guidelines for service members and employees to use when interacting with the media -- namely, that they are required to go through public affairs. Members of the media have become concerned over rhetoric from President Donald Trump that some news outlets are "the enemy of the people" and that journalists frequently publish "fake news" -- a term he often slings at reports critical of his administration. Press organizations also have raised concerns over police handling of journalists covering social unrest and the Black Lives Matter movement. Since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, news equipment has been damaged by police, 155 journalists have been assaulted and 51 arrested, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. -- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime. Related: Hearing Canceled for Controversial Pentagon Nominee Tata; Future in Doubt A police officer has been injured after he was hit by a car while attending a suspected burglary in west London. The Metropolitan Police was called to Park Road in Uxbridge at 9.45pm on Wednesday after suspects were reportedly spotted breaking into a house. A local officer who was in plain clothes responded to the call and was struck by a car while at the scene, police said. The officer, who is in his mid-20s, suffered a broken ankle. He was taken to hospital where is currently receiving treatment. Police said the driver of the car, a "passing member of the public", was arrested at the scene on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm. The Met added that at this stage of the investigation they do not believe the officer was injured because he is a police officer. It comes after another officer, in his late twenties, was taken to hospital with a "serious injury" after being knifed in the arm during a routine stop and search operation in Maida Vale on Tuesday. Despite his injury the officer is said to have managed to chase and detain the suspect. Scotland Yard said a man had been charged over the incident. Mohim Hussain, 40, of Ashmore Road, faces charges of grievous bodily harm with intent, and possession of a knife or blade in a public place. He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday. Mishmash of restrictions and quarantines globally obscure outlook for those whose livelihoods are tied to tourism. With no American visitors to show around the D-Day beaches or the Loire Valleys chateaux, and no work on the immediate horizon, Paris tour guide Linda Zenou frets about how she will pay off a loan and continue to care for her ailing mother in the achingly lean months ahead. My situation is going to become completely inextricable, she said. We have nothing to live on. For growing numbers of businesses and individuals who depend on the global tourism industry, the question is not so much when the coronavirus pandemic will end but how and if they will survive until business picks up. In trying to fend off the virus, countries that put up entry barriers to tourists have done so at a mounting cost to themselves and others. Its now survival of the fittest, said Johann Krige, CEO of the Kanonkop wine estate in South Africa, where the drying up of wine-tasting tourists threatens dozens of wine farms around the historic town of Stellenbosch, near Cape Town. It's an extremely difficult time for us. Frederick Laurie, tour operator, Oxford, England A lot of them are going to go under because they just dont have sufficient cash flow, Krige said. Around the world, travel amid the pandemic is becoming a story of tentative steps forward in some places, but punishing steps back elsewhere, of yes to letting back visitors from places faring somewhat better against COVID-19 but not from others where outbreaks are flaring. French tourist guides stage a protest regarding the impact on their sector due to the coronavirus outbreak, outside the Opera Garnier in Paris, France [File: Rafael Yaghobzadeh/AP Photo] The result is an ever-evolving global mishmash of restrictions and quarantines, all of which are providing zero long-term visibility for businesses trying to make payrolls and for everyone in the industry from trinket sellers to luxury hotels. In Australia, the government of Queensland, home to the Great Barrier Reef, barred visitors from Sydney starting Saturday because of a growing outbreak in the countrys largest city. Queensland tourism official Brett Kapernick predicted that could cost some businesses a 40 percent plunge in revenue. With this pandemic, the situation becomes fluid and therefore evolves weekly, Kapernick said. A week ago, we didnt think wed be facing a border closed to Sydney. While the Indonesian resort island of Bali tentatively opened up to domestic visitors on Friday, the beaches of Da Nang in Vietnam were deserted. The city locked down Tuesday to contain a cluster of nearly 100 cases. Shorn of tourisms lifeblood, some businesses already look doomed. Many of the luxury hotels in Romes historic centre did not reopen in the late spring when Italy started allowing arrivals from elsewhere in the European Union and other select nations. Early in the pandemic, Italians who for years worked as dining room staff, cooks or maids at hotels instead sought farm work, picking fruits and vegetables. On Portugals Algarve coast, individual catastrophes also loom for the staffs of empty hotels, bars and restaurants which are losing hope that tourists will return quickly enough to keep them afloat. In a region almost entirely reliant on tourism, the unemployment rate has already jumped 230 percent. And in Oxford, England, tour operator Frederick Laurie is clinging to British staycationers, optimistically describing them as green shoots in an otherwise bleak year. He concedes that their numbers will never make up for the ruinous plunge in foreign visitors who once thronged the university town before the coronavirus chased them away. Visitors to Cape Towns popular V&A Waterfront are photographed against a backdrop of the citys Table Mountain [File: Nardus Engelbrecht/Reuters] Its an extremely difficult time for us, he says. His decade-old company, Footprints Tours, has seen revenues collapse by 70 percent. Losses globally are counted in the billions. Percentage drops in visitor numbers are often double-digits. Tourism income in South Africa was down 98 percent in May compared with the same month last year, the Tourism Business Council says, and more than half a million jobs in its sector are at risk. Governments in countries heavily reliant on tourism are trying to use bailouts to keep businesses afloat. Thailands cabinet this week approved projects worth more than $700m for the tourism industry. Bulgaria is offering tax breaks and job subsidies to shore up its tourism sector bracing for huge cuts in its workforce of 290,000. Hotel owners lament that they have more employees than patrons at Bulgarias biggest sea resort, Sunny Beach. It's now survival of the fittest. Johann Krige, CEO, Kanonkop wine estate, South Africa The bright spots are few and far between. Among them: Locals who are unable or reluctant to travel are rediscovering attractions where foreign tourists used to jostle for elbow space. Animals have South Africas world-famous wildlife parks largely to themselves because of lockdown rules that barred international tourists and made it illegal for South Africans to travel between provinces for vacations. At the Kruger National Park, lions sleep undisturbed in the roads and roam around empty lodges. At the Louvre Museum in Paris, it is now possible to calmly contemplate the works. That is a rare treat for Parisians but a nightmare for tour guides, who gathered in protest again this week, dressed in black and wearing masks, to demand more financial help. Among them was Janice Baneux, who was decidedly pessimistic for their future. Some people had to sell their homes, returning to their parents and waiting until next year when tourism will probably be back again, she said. But this year there is no hope. On 31 July 1588 what became known as the Spanish 'Invincible Armada' encountered the English Navy off the coast of Plymouth. In May that year, during the undeclared Anglo-Spanish war (1585-1604), as Spain's King Felipe II wanted to remove the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I from the English throne and restore Catholicism in England, the Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon under the command of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia. When the fleet was sighted off the English coast in July, Sir Francis Drake ordered 100 English vessels to prepare to confront it. Over the following days, English ships continued to pursue the Spanish Armada as it headed eastwards along the English Channel, according to the website History.com. There were two duels, one near Portland Bill and another off the coast of the Isle of Wight, but both battles ended in stalemate. The Armada continued eastwards and then strong winds pushed the fleet northwards up the east coast of England. The San Martin, Medina-Sidonias flagship. / SUR The Spanish ships sailed around Scotland before making it to the west coast of Ireland in autumn 1588, where they were anchored. According to the diary of Francisco de Cuellar, a captain aboard one of the Spanish ships, after five days the fleet was ravaged by severe storms. Approximately one third of the Spanish fleet was destroyed in the Atlantic ocean; three of the ships were moored off the coast of Streedagh Strand, in what is now County Sligo. De Cuellar kept a detailed account of the shipwreck and the time he spent in Ireland. The accounts suggest a mixed reception by the Irish when he and his fellow Spanish sailors came ashore. The captain wrote in his accounts that some Irish clans helped the stranded sailors and even managed to secretly stow some of them back to Spain, while others were said to have been butchered to death by the locals. South Africa: Automotive industry moves into PPE space The South African automotive sector has stepped up to produce personal protective equipment (PPE), which is high in demand as the country deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Association of Automotive Component and Allied Manufacturers (NAACAM) identified an area of opportunity for a number of their manufacturers to produce one of the items that the COVID-19 pandemic demands in order to keep us safe and protected from the virus, namely face shields and visors, Proudly South African said on Thursday. Together with Business for South Africa, NAACAM did their research and will use existing capacity, machinery, raw materials and the sectors engineering skills to mass produce face shields, which could compete in terms of price and quality with imported versions. The sector is manufacturing face shields that strictly adhere to the recommended guidelines drafted by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, Department of Health and the South African Bureau of Standards. Of the 14 companies that were initially identified as being able to respond immediately to the production switch, many are 51% or more black-owned, putting the economic benefits of this new production line back into communities, Proudly South African said noting that the demand for visors is expected to rise significantly, as face shields are seen as a secondary barrier to infection in the health sector and in non-health care spaces. The manufactures of the PPE will be listed on the Proudly South African portal. Listing manufacturers on this new portal allows buyers to source locally made face shields and visors. The site is non-transactional and so no one but the manufacturer benefits. All sales are made directly - we are simply the host for the information, which includes prices, technical specification and contact details of the suppliers. We urge anyone looking to purchase these items to use the portal to ensure they are supporting local, and are getting high quality and competitively priced items, Proudly South African CEO, Eustace Mashimbye, said. NAACAM's Shivani Singh said it has been interesting to see the quick turnaround by some manufacturers, who seamlessly moved from the manufacture of automotive components to the manufacture of essential protective wear for South Africans. This pivot has allowed these manufacturers to keep their doors open and bring most of their staff back to work. We are proud of how the sector has responded to this demand and of what we are managing to produce at a fraction of imported prices, and to a very high standard, Singh said. More information on this project can be found on the COVID-19 portal on www.proudlysa.co.za. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES REGINA, SK / ACCESSWIRE / July 31, 2020 / ROK Resources Inc. ("ROK" or the "Company") (TSXV:ROK) is pleased to announce that it has closed its previously announced financing consisting of units of the Company (each a "Unit") at a price of $0.065 per Unit for total gross proceeds of $500,000.02 (the "Offering"). Each Unit consisted of a common share in the capital of the Company (each, a "Common Share") and included one common share purchase warrant (each, a "Warrant"), with each Warrant exercisable at a price of CDN$0.15 to purchase one Common Share for a period of twenty four (24) months from the date of issuance, such that the Warrants will expire on July 31, 2022. A total of 7,692,308 Units were issued pursuant to the Offering. The Common Shares and Warrants issued pursuant to the Offering are subject to a hold period of four months and a day from the closing date, expiring on December 1, 2020. While the Offering was non-brokered, approximately $13,000 was paid in finders fees and commissions to various brokers who assisted with finding subscribers to the Offering. The Offering remains subject to the final approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The Offering was made to a small group of strategic investors who are expected to bring future growth to the Company. The Company expects to use the proceeds from the Offering for general corporate purposes as well as the operation and development of the assets recently acquired in the Glen Ewen area of Southern Saskatchewan pursuant to the Company's June 30, 2020 press release. About ROK ROK (previously Petrodorado Energy Ltd.) was previously engaged in petroleum and natural gas exploration and development activities in Colombia and is currently engaged in exploring for petroleum and natural gas development activities in Saskatchewan. Its head office is located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada and ROK's common shares are traded on the TSX Venture Exchange under the trading symbol "ROK". For further information, please contact: Cameron Taylor, President and CEO Lynn Chapman, VP Finance and CFO Phone: (306) 522-0011 Email: info@rokresources.ca Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" under applicable Canadian securities legislation that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results, performance, prospects, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the Company's objectives, goals or future plans with respect to use of proceeds from the Offering and the expectations regarding the receipt of final regulatory approval for the Offering. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: general business, economic and social uncertainties; litigation, legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; delay or failure to receive board, shareholder or regulatory approvals; those additional risks set out in ROK's public documents filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com; and other matters discussed in this news release. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements, which only apply as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. Except where required by law, the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Neither the Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility of the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE: ROK Resources Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/599876/ROK-Resources-Announces-Closing-of-Private-Placement-Financing Bihar CM Nitish Kumar on Thursday said that his government tried to establish rule of law in the state and never compromised on three Cs crime, corruption and communalism. He gave the statement while inaugurating 124 police buildings in Bihar through video conference. My government never compromised on crime, corruption and communalism. The scenario earlier was completely different. There used to be massacres in the state before 2005 but the scenario has changed now, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar said. His statement has come at a time when the opposition especially the RJD has been targeting Nitish Kumar on various issues including the COVID-19 crisis, flood and deteriorating law and order scenario in the state. RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and the congress has also been hinting at using these issues as their main agenda during the assembly elections scheduled to be held in October November this year. Our police have played a crucial role in establishing the rule of law in Bihar. There has been a zero-tolerance on crime and communalism and our police have worked hard in maintaining peace in the state, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said. During the event, Nitish Kumar said that his government worked hard for the development of the state in the last fourteen years. He also used the occasion to appreciate the medical fraternity and the police for their efforts to control the coronavirus crisis in the state. Many of our administrative and police officials have been found infected with the deadly coronavirus. Its important to do antigen test of all officials who have been working to control the crisis in the state. Arrangements have also been made in other districts also to test people, Nitish Kumar said during the event. As per an assessment, the total number of COVID cases has gone up to 48 thousand in the state. Patna with 8229 positive cases and 41 deaths have been the worst hit followed by Bhagalpur where 2488 cases have been reported and 26 persons have died due to the deadly virus. In a recent speech held in the state of Iowa on religious freedom, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called religious freedom, our first freedom - according to the Constitution, and said, A high respect for this unalienable right guides our administration. Religious freedom remains under threat in many countries. Secretary Pompeo pointed out that four out of five people around the world dont enjoy full religious freedom. In order to improve conditions for people seeking to exercise their freedom of conscience, the United States is using all the tools it has at its disposal, including naming countries that violate this fundamental right: "Weve called out Chinas war on faith. Its mass detention of Uyghurs, its godless decisions to replace church displays of the Ten Commandments with words from General Secretary Xi have not gone without being called out. Over the past two years, the State Department has hosted two Ministerials to Advance Religious Freedom, where nations and religious leaders from around the world gather with the aim of protecting the fundamental right of religious freedom. America is deeply committed to protecting the fundamental freedoms of people around the world. This is a proud legacy of the nations founders, who built the United States on a commitment to guarantee the American people certain unalienable rights that are laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, said Secretary Pompeo. Our nations foreign policy must be grounded in [that] central understanding, declared Secretary Pompeo. Thats the commitment thats made us a shining star of liberty in the world. . . .Our house of foreign policy is built on solid rock, on these bedrock principles that were made at our founding. A team of Rajasthan police's Anti-Corruption Bureau was on Friday not allowed to enter three hotels in Haryana's Gurgaon and Manesar when they went there to serve notices to two Rajasthan Congress MLAs in a corruption case, a senior official said. The ACB had issued notices to MLAs Bhanwarlal Sharma and Vishvendra Singh, who have been suspended from the party for alleged involvement in a conspiracy to topple the Ashok Gehlot-led government, to appear for investigation, but they failed to do so. An ACB team, headed by Deputy SP Saleh Mohammad, then went to deliver them the notices at the three hotels in Gurgaon and Manesar where they are said to be staying along with other dissidents including former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot. "We reached the hotels in search of the MLAs so that the notices issued by the investigating officer be delivered. Authorities in two hotels gave us in writing that they were not staying there, while authorities at another hotel said it is closed," Mohammad said. The ACB team was not allowed to go inside the hotels, he said. The ACB had registered a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act on complaint by chief whip Mahesh Joshi on July 17 after three audio clips containing conversation with regards to the alleged conspiracy to topple the Gehlot government surfaced. The ACB had issued the notices to the MLAs in the case. Along with the ACB, the Special Operations Group of the Rajasthan police has also registered two cases in connection with the audio tapes. The SOG is also trying to locate the MLAs. Former RBI Deputy Governor Viral V Acharya on Friday cautioned against fire sale of state-owned lenders, saying that disinvestment should be undertaken in a graceful manner at the right price and also made a case for privatisation of some healthy public sector banks. Divestment beyond majority stake is the first step because it will help relax the fiscal constraint in terms of dependence of public sector banks on the government for capital, he said at a virtual event to release his book titled 'Quest for Restoring Financial Stability in India'. "Perhaps reprivatisation of some of the healthiest public sector banks should also be on the table," he said. Citing the example of the South Asian crisis in 1997, he said that a large number of public sector banks in the region had to be privatised post the crisis and in many cases were sold at fire sale prices to private equity investors from abroad. "I am visualising that we should not end up in this scenario. In my view, it would be better to actually divest stakes in a graceful manner at right prices...," he said. Besides relaxation of the fiscal constraint, Acharya said privatisation would bring with them modern technology, fintech capacity, modern credit scoring capacity, risk management capacity and the ability to attract human capital with the right incentive compensation structures. In May, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that there will be a maximum of four public sector companies in strategic sectors while state-owned firms in other segments will eventually be privatised. This will be part of a new coherent Public Sector Enterprises Policy to be formulated to push reforms in central public sector enterprises, she had said. At the virtual event for the book release, Acharya was asked about question marks on governance in the private sector banking space and he replied that there will be failures. "There have been failures of governance in the private sector banks. But I think one should separate what is a systemic problem in a part of the banking sector, notably in the public sector banking... with what are idiosyncratic issues in a few banks in the private sector banking," he said. Acharya also said that because RBI does not distinguish in its rules between public sector banks and private sector banks, other than what the law requires, it is forced to actually adopt weaker standards for the system as a whole. "If we reduce the stakes of the government in the banking sector besides the back door privatisation, that was mentioned, I think we will actually lift the quality of regulation for the system as a whole," he added. Acharya, who reportedly had differences with the government, quit as RBI Deputy Governor in July 2019, six months ahead of his three-year term. A Delhi court granted bail to a man accused in two cases related to the north-east Delhi riots, while stating that the complainants have been made to identify the accused persons as per their own convenience by the police and he was not seen in the video footage. Additional sessions judge Vinod Yadav granted bail to Deepak (single name), arrested in connection with the violence that happened under the Shastri Park police station, on a personal bond of 20,000. Multiple statements of complainants were recorded in the matter from time to time. It was only on June 2 --i.e at the time of arrest of the applicant (Deepak) -- that the complainants were called by the police to the spot and for the first time that they identified him. Whether that identification is enough to connect the accused in the matter is a matter for trial as the complainants have been made to identify the accused persons as per their own convenience by the police, the judge said in his order on July 29. Deepak was arrested on June 2 for allegedly being a part of unlawful assembly, rioting and arson. Appearing for the accused, his counsel had contended that in both cases, the charge sheet had been filed but his client has not been named as an accused. He also contended that there was a delay in lodging the FIR. On the contrary, the special public prosecutor contended that the call detail records location of the accused has been found to be of the scene of crime. He has been identified by complainant on June 2 --at the time of his arrest -- and he was also identified by constable Amit the same day. The court also said the identification of the accused by beat constable Amit (single name) is also a weak kind of evidence. It noted that the other three accused in the case, who have been released on bail, are from the same locality and till date, no complaint against them has been recorded in any police station regarding them threatening witnesses. Ottawa: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has denied at a hearing that a charity picked by the government to manage a major student grant program received preferential treatment, although it had ties to his family. Trudeau's testimony comes after he was put under investigation for possible conflict-of-interest violations. It is the third ethics probe he has faced in three years. "WE Charity received no preferential treatment, not from me, not from anyone else," Trudeau said in an opening statement. "The public service recommended WE Charity. I did absolutely nothing to influence that recommendation." Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is seen on a mobile device speaking by video conference before the House of Commons standing committee in Ottawa, Ontario. Credit:Bloomberg That is in line with the testimony from the civil service to the same committee. Amid the frantic effort to push programs out the door to help Canadians during the pandemic, the civil service recommended WE Charity as the only organisation able to deliver the C$500 million ($526 million) program quickly. A dozen terminally ill New Jersey residents used the states new medical aid in dying law to end their lives last year, according to a state Department of Health report released Friday. From August 1 to Dec. 31, 2019, six men and six women ages 50 to 93 took their own lives, according to the report compiled by the Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner. The report does not include data from 2020. All but three had been diagnosed with cancer, three had a neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimers or Parkinsons disease, one had a pulmonary disease and one had a gastrointestinal disorder. Ten died at home, one died at a nursing home and one died in another home, the report said. Eleven of the patients were white and one was Asian, the report said. Six were married, three were widowed, two were divorced and one was single. This report provides public health information to help inform residents of their rights under the states law, Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said in a statement released with the report. New Jerseys law empowers terminally ill residents to make their own end-of-life choices humanely and with respect and dignity. The law, signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in April 2019, went into effect a year ago Saturday. It permits New Jersey residents with a terminal diagnosis defined as an incurable, irreversible and medically confirmed disease that is expected to end the persons life within six months to seek permission from two doctors to end their lives with a prescription. The patients must make two oral requests and one written request over a minimum of 15 days, submit a request in writing stating they had been fully informed of palliative care, pain control and other alternatives. A second physician would need to verify the diagnosis. A mental health professional may be called in to consult. The written declaration must be witnessed by two people who attest that the patient is acting voluntarily. One of the two witnesses cannot be a person who stands to financially gain from the patients death or the patients doctor or nursing home employee. The law allows doctors and pharmacists to refuse to cooperate with a terminally ill patients request to die. But the law, upheld by a state court ruling in April, requires doctors to turn over the medical file to the patient so another physician may be found. A physician and a pharmacist in north Jersey unsuccessfully challenged the law, saying that even by turning over a file, they would still be complicit in murder, a violation of their religious beliefs and oaths as healers. Finding a physician willing to help a patient die has proven challenging in every state that has adopted a medical aid in dying law, and New Jersey was no exception. The family of 80-year-old Zeporah Zebbie Geller told NJ Advance Media last fall they had helped her end her suffering from cancer but had trouble finding a physician. They called 40 doctors with no success before the physician, Josef Glassman, filed the challenge to overturn the law in August. When the law was reinstated on August, they resumed their search. Zebbie Geller died Sept. 30 in her son, Paul and his wife Joannes home in West Orange. Having the law made the final portion of her life much more tenable and dignified, and for that we are happy, Paul Geller said. We were able to fulfil her wishes. We miss her tremendously. Compassion & Choices, a nonprofit that has helped states enact aid in dying laws, said 42 medical centers, hospitals, and hospices across the state have adopted policies that help their doctors offer aid in dying services. The organization also has trained more than 500 New Jersey healthcare providers and answered hundreds of questions about the new law. Since the law took effect, I have felt free to enjoy the rest of my life without worrying about needlessly suffering in agony when it ends, said Rumson resident Susan Boyce, who has a progressive, terminal genetic disease called Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, that requires her to use an oxygen tank because her lung function is below 30 percent. For the last year up until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I have been traveling with my family and enjoying outdoor activities like camping. Before the law passed, I didnt have the peace of mind to do that, said Boyce, who testified in support of the legislation before it became law. Despite the COVID-19 crisis, weve made significant progress in implementing the law, so eligible terminally ill patients can use medical aid in dying and avoid needless suffering at the end of life if they want, said Kim Callinan, a Bergen County native and president and CEO of Compassion & Choices. We know from experience implementing medical aid-in-dying laws in other states that our work to help educate healthcare providers and patients has only just begun. It will take a sustained effort over the next few years to fully implement this law. Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter. Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. New Delhi, July 31 : The Delhi High Court on Friday granted anticipatory bail to former Delhi Minorities Commission chief Zafar-ul-Islam Khan in an alleged sedition case. A single judge bench of the court presided by Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri granted anticipatory bail to Khan while directing him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and a surety of like amount in the event he is arrested by the police. Khan has been booked by Delhi Police on the charges of sedition over a statement on social media. Islam had on April 28 posted controversial comments on his Facebook page. "Mind you, bigots, Indian Muslims have opted until now not to complain to the Arab and Muslim world about your hate campaigns and lynchings and riots. The day they are pushed to do that, bigots will face an avalanche," Khan had written on Facebook. Speaking to IANS, advocate Vrinda Grover while reacting to the verdict said, "Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan, former Chairman of Delhi Minorities Commission, has been granted anticipatory bail today by the Delhi High Court in a petition filed by advocates Vrinda Grover, Soutik Banerjee and Ratna Appnender, in the FIR registered against him for his social media posts." "Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri noted the submissions of Ms Vrinda Grover that Dr Khan has participated in the investigation, and has answered all questions. Accordingly, anticipatory bail was granted and the petition was allowed," she added. Delhi Police Special Cell registered the FIR on the complaint of a Vasant Kunj resident. According to the FIR, the copy of which is with IANS, Khan has been booked under several sections of the Indian Penal Code -- 124 A (sedition) and 153 A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc). The Cyber Cell of the Delhi Police on May 6 conducted raids on Khan, the ex-chariman of the Delhi Minorities Commission in connection with a case registered against him over his alleged seditious remarks on social media. "The team was looking for the mobile handset used by him to post content on social media platforms," sources in the enforcement agency said. Ulster Bank has extended repayment breaks for the majority of the 12,000 mortgage customers who sought an initial three-month break due to the COVID-19 crisis, the chief executive of NatWest Group's Irish unit said on Friday. Ireland's banks offered the three-month breaks in March and agreed to extend them to six months for customers in need of further temporary relief as the Irish economy emerges from lockdown at a slower pace than most of Europe. Ulster Bank had extended 4,000 repayment breaks for mortgage customers by the end of June and CEO Jane Howard said that became a majority in July. "What we're seeing at the end of three months is that some customers are going back to paying and then we have got some customers who are knocking it on, that's a majority, for six months because they are not fully back at work yet," Howard said. "We're probably where we thought we'd be." Ireland's central bank has estimated that at the end of May there were almost 200,000 active breaks across Ireland's five main domestic retail banks, including business customers. Ulster Bank, the country's third-largest mortgage lender, was the first Irish bank to provide details of how many repayment breaks have been extended. Its four rivals report first half results next week. Ulster, which said it had also provided payment breaks for around 3,000 commercial customers, reported a 276 million euro operating loss in the first half year, contributing to NatWest Group's 770 million pound pretax loss. That was primarily due to a net impairment charge of 278 million euros, part of 2.1 billion pounds in provisions at the recently rebranded NatWest. (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie Fearing 'horse-trading' ahead of the assembly session, the Rajasthan Congress on Friday shifted the party MLAs to Jaisalmer from Jaipur where they had been staying at a hotel for over a fortnight. IMAGE: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and senior Congress leader Shanti Dhariwal flash victory sign at Jaipur Airport while shifting party MLAs to Jaisalmer amid state political crisis, in Jaipur, on Friday. Photograph: PTI Photo Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and other senior party leaders, including All India Congress Committee general secretary Avinash Pande and spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, also moved to Jaisalmer along with the MLAs in five chartered flights. Gehlot alleged that the MLAs, their family members and acquaintances were getting threat calls and pressure was being build on them after the announcement of the assembly session from August 14. He said the 'rate for horse-trading has increased after the governor announced the assembly session date'. Gehlot said his party has undertaken a campaign to save the democracy in the country. Targeting Home Minister Amit Shah, the chief minister said he took the Bharatiya Janata Party leader's name as he comes (on the forefront) 'where the government is toppled'. "What has happened to you...you day and night think how to topple elected governments. How the democracy in the country will be saved if elected governments are toppled," he asked. Talking to reporters at the Jaipur airport before leaving for Jaisalmer, the chief minister said there will be no compromise with the governance as he and his ministers will remain in Jaipur most of the time. "The state government has performed well in the coronavirus management. Our efforts have been appreciated all over. We have maintained law and order situation as well but saving the government is also important. "When the Government of India and home ministry is (running) after, public is supporting us," he said. AICC general secretary Avinash Pande said it is the 'effort to protect the democracy'. "The victory will be of the Constitution and democracy," he said. State Transport Minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas said the MLAs were shifted to Jaisalmer so that they can be kept united. He said the chief minister's strategy is that not a single MLA should be poached. Party leaders claimed over 100 people, including party leaders, Congress MLAs and allies, have gone to Jaisalmer in five flights. IMAGE: Rajasthan Congress MLAs arrive at Jaipur Airport as they shift to Jaisalmer. Photograph: PTI Photo Three flights took off in the first round and two in the second. The chief minister and other senior leaders went to Jaisalmer in the second round. On reaching Jaisalmer, the MLAs were shifted to hotel Suryagarh amid tight security arrangements. "We are going to Jaisalmer for a change," Congress MLA Prashant Bairwa said at the Jaipur airport. Targeting the Congress and the chief minister, the BJP asked why the party has no trust in its MLAs. "Gehlot took the MLAs to Jaisalmer. What after it? Pakistan lies ahead," state BJP chief Satish Poonia said. 'When the party's MLAs are united and all is well, then why there is a need to keep them together? Disclose the name who is saleable,' he said in a statement. The decision to move the MLAs came a day after Gehlot indicated he will seek a confidence vote when the assembly convenes on August 14 and claimed the money offered to the MLAs to switch sides had increased sharply ahead of the session. The Congress and other supporting MLAs of the Ashok Gehlot camp had been staying at the Jaipur hotel since July 13 after Sachin Pilot and 18 other Congress legislators rebelled against the government, triggering a political crisis. Gehlot questions BJP's criticism over defection of 6 BSP MLAs to Cong Accusing the BJP of adopting double standards over the merger of six Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs with the Congress in Rajasthan, Gehlot on Friday reminded it about the induction of four Telugu Desam Party Rajya Sabha MPs into the saffron party last year. Six BSP MLAs defected to the Congress in September last year which was initially challenged by BJP MLA Madan Dilawar before the assembly speaker in March this year and now he and the BSP have filed separate writ petitions in the Rajasthan high court against the merger. 'The BJP got four MPs of TDP merged with it overnight in Rajya Sabha. That merger is right and the merger of six MLAs with the Congress in Rajasthan is wrong,' Gehlot tweeted in Hindi. He asked what had happened to the BJP's 'Chaal-Charitra-Chehra' (conduct and character) at that time? In Andhra Pradesh, four of the six Telugu Desam Party members of Rajya Sabha had joined the BJP last year. "The merger can take place with 2/3 majority. Here, all the six MLAs had merged so therefore (BSP supremo) Mayawati's complaint is not justified because it was not about two MLAs, it was about all the MLAs," Gehlot had said on Thursday. "This is the game of BJP which the entire country is watching. Some of our colleagues are involved in this," he had said. The high court has issued notices to the speaker, secretary of the assembly and the six MLAs. The merger of six MLAs -- Sandeep Yadav, Wajib Ali, Deepchand Kheria, Lakhan Meena, Jogendra Awana and Rajendra Gudha to Congress in September 2019 -- was a boost to the Ashok Gehlot-led government as the tally of the Congress increased to 107 in the house of 200. Many have seen the OceanaGold Waihi mine from above its hard to miss the 265m deep Martha pit in the middle of Waihi town. Fewer have witnessed the pits deeper side: the underground mine that spirals down 400m from the surface. Sun Media got the chance to slip into a pair of steel cap boots, fasten a head torch and take a look at the lesser-seen side of Martha on July 23. We invite people underground as often as possible, says OceanaGold senior communications advisor Kit Wilson. Our doors are especially open to people whore against mining, not to change their minds, but so they can see what we do and then decide how they feel about it. Being a former chair of an anti-mining group himself, Kit is probably the perfect person for the job. When working as a Katikati College media teacher, the previous mine owners asked me if Id film a video for them. After I refused, they said: tell you what, come and do the video and if you still think were really bad, you can use the footage for your purposes. If you leave thinking were alright, well pay you for the footage. Kit has now been working for the mine in various communications roles since 1995. It was nothing like I had believed it was. Its not perfect but it contributes an incredible amount to the community. OceanaGold employ 350 staff, 85 per cent of whom are Waihi locals. A large number employees are from surrounding areas, including Katikati, Tauranga and Paeroa. Going underground It didnt take long for our own image of the mine to be proven wrong. Instead of abseiling into a dark hole or taking a rickety lift with an unnerving flickering light, we got to ride in a van. Driving down the mine. The freezing, claustrophobia-inducing cave we expected was actually a 5m by 5m concreted tunnel with island-like climate. Our guide, OceanaGold underground mining engineer Jimmy Lu says the lower you go, the warmer it gets. Were 300m deep. Once you reach 400m, its like a steam bath. The explosives guy Jimmys responsible for managing the amount of explosives used each time rock needs blasting. OceanaGold compensates for any shakes felt by locals, says Kit. Our free-phone is attended 24/7 and locals are advised in advanced if were undertaking work with the potential to cause shakes, which usually just feel like a truck passing your house. OceanaGold senior communications advisor Kit Wilson and underground mining engineer Jimmy Lu. Continually seeking community consult sets the Waihi operation apart, says Jimmy. Australia mines are usually fly-in fly-out operations out in the desert, so they dont have to worry about this sort of thing. But, being in the middle of town, its important we do. Working safe Four years on, the death of miner Tipiwai Stainton is still painful for those who worked with him. His photo still hangs in the office. The 29-year-old died after his front loader tipped into a void below. It was the worst day of our lives, says Kit. Underground, Kit points out how easily the accident couldve happened. Everyone who goes underground wears a cap lamp, pictured, and a self-rescuer. We block the brow of mined areas underground with rock piles before theyre backfilled. This stops machinery going over the edge into the void. But, someone has to put down that first load, and that day it was Tipiwai. His machine didnt stop at the edge. Now, reflective roadblock poles are installed at every underground tunnel, stopping vehicles from driving too far forward. Pre-COVID, we planned to show mines in Australia how the poles have improved safety, but obviously we couldnt get over there. Tragically, the same incident happened in Australia after we were due to go over. Were working on sending them a video instead. Paying back Kit says OceanaGold are always looking to give back, and do so through a variety of schemes. The Top Up scheme allows nearby homeowners to have the difference between a purchase offer and market value paid by OceanaGold, to avoid market distortions due to the perception of mining effects. The Community Investment Programme has donated more than $1.6 million locally since 2014 and has included education scholarships in any subject. Topping extracted rock with topsoil and grass has created farmland that OceanaGold use to graze cattle. Birdlife have also found a home onsite. We stopped using one of our tailings storage areas in 2006. The water is clean and is discharged into the Ohinemuri River. Its home to lots of ducks and swans and we have New Zealand Dotterel nesting around the edges we used to employ someone to count and protect them. Project Quattro OceanaGold Waihi confirmed this month that a new project, called Project Quattro, will extend the mines life until at least 2036. The project includes an expansion of the Martha Pit, a new smaller pit, increased tailings storage and a new rock storage facility. Its predicted that Project Quattro will increase New Zealand exports by $122m a year and directly create 150 new jobs, as well as 550 jobs in other New Zealand industries. Before, we had the attitude of: oh were closing, so we wont upgrade that. Now weve started improving a lot of infrastructure and machinery. Its an exciting time for us and the wider community. Underground mining engineer Jimmy Lu. Callon Petroleum Company CPE is scheduled to report second-quarter 2020 results on Aug 4, after the closing bell. In the last reported quarter, the exploration and production companys adjusted earnings of 12 cents per share missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 15 cents due to lower natural gas and oil price realizations, coupled with higher operating expenses. This was, however, partially offset by expanded production volumes. The firm beat earnings estimates thrice and missed once in the trailing four quarters, delivering an average positive surprise of 14.3%. Callon Petroleum Company Price and EPS Surprise Callon Petroleum Company Price and EPS Surprise Callon Petroleum Company price-eps-surprise | Callon Petroleum Company Quote Lets see how things have shaped up for this announcement. Trend in Estimate Revision The Zacks Consensus Estimate for second-quarter loss per share of 1 cent has witnessed one upward movement and four downward revisions in the past 30 days. This estimate is indicative of a 104.4% decrease from the year-ago reported figure. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for second-quarter revenues is pegged at $201.5 million, suggesting an increase of 20.6% from the year-ago reported figure. Factors to Note Its focus on exploration and production of oil and gas resources in the Permian Basin is expected to reflect on Callon Petroleums second-quarter results. Permian has three major sub basins Midland Basin, Delaware Basin and Central Basin Platform. Of these, the company has strong footprint in the Midland and Delaware Basins, which are likely to have supported second-quarter production. Moreover, the acquisition of Carrizo which was closed last December is expected to have led to a year-over-year surge in production. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for average daily production volumes is pegged at 104,842 barrels of oil equivalent per day (Boe/d), indicating a significant rise from the year ago periods 40,516 Boe/d. The same for natural gas output is pegged at 10,622 million cubic feet (MMcf), pointing to a rise from the year-ago quarters 5,031 MMcf. Moreover, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for crude oil production volumes is pegged at 6,004 thousand barrels (MBbls), implying an increase from the year-ago periods 2,848 MBbls. Story continues The Zacks Consensus Estimate for average sales price for oil (before hedging) is pegged at $35.94 per barrel, which indicates a decrease from the year-ago periods $56.44. Also, the consensus estimate for average natural gas sales price of $1.02 cents per Mcf suggests a decrease from the second-quarter 2019 level of $1.26. These lower commodity price realizations are expected to have offset the gains from higher production. Earnings Whispers Our proven model does not conclusively predict an earnings beat for Callon Petroleum this time around. 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. That is not the case here as you will see below. Earnings ESP: Earnings ESP for the company is -140.00%. This is because the Most Accurate Estimate of a loss of 2 cents is wider than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of a penny. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Zacks Rank: Callon Petroleum currently carries a Zacks Rank #3. Stocks That Warrant a Look Here are some companies from the Energy space that you may want to consider, as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat in the upcoming quarterly reports: Canadian Natural Resources Limited CNQ has an Earnings ESP of +6.48% and is a Zacks #3 Ranked player. The company is scheduled to release second-quarter results on Aug 6. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Range Resources Corporation RRC has an Earnings ESP of +2.61% and a Zacks Rank of 3. It is scheduled to report second-quarter results on Aug 3. Bonanza Creek Energy, Inc. BCEI has an Earnings ESP of +13.66% and holds a Zacks Rank #1. It is set to report second-quarter results on Aug 6. Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Range Resources Corporation (RRC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNQ) : Free Stock Analysis Report Callon Petroleum Company (CPE) : Free Stock Analysis Report Bonanza Creek Energy, Inc. (BCEI) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research 4D pharma plc's (LON:DDDD): 4D pharma plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the research, development, and production of live biotherapeutic products. On 31 December 2019, the UK64m market-cap posted a loss of UK24.1m for its most recent financial year. Many investors are wondering the rate at which DDDD will turn a profit, with the big question being when will the company breakeven? Below I will provide a high-level summary of the industry analysts expectations for DDDD. View our latest analysis for 4D pharma Expectation from Pharmaceuticals analysts is DDDD is on the verge of breakeven. They expect the company to post a final loss in 2021, before turning a profit of UK5.5m in 2022. So, DDDD is predicted to breakeven approximately 2 years from today. How fast will DDDD have to grow each year in order to reach the breakeven point by 2022? Working backwards from analyst estimates, it turns out that they expect the company to grow 30% year-on-year, on average, which signals high confidence from analysts. If this rate turns out to be too aggressive, DDDD may become profitable much later than analysts predict. Underlying developments driving DDDDs growth isnt the focus of this broad overview, but, keep in mind that generally a pharma company has lumpy cash flows which are contingent on the drug and stage of product development the business is in. So, a high growth rate is not out of the ordinary, particularly when a company is in a period of investment. One thing Id like to point out is that DDDD has no debt on its balance sheet, which is quite unusual for a cash-burning pharma, which typically has high debt relative to its equity. This means that DDDD has been operating purely on its equity investment and has no debt burden. This aspect reduces the risk around investing in the loss-making company. Next Steps: There are key fundamentals of DDDD which are not covered in this article, but I must stress again that this is merely a basic overview. For a more comprehensive look at DDDD, take a look at DDDDs company page on Simply Wall St. Ive also compiled a list of relevant aspects you should further examine: Historical Track Record: What has DDDD's performance been like over the past? Go into more detail in the past track record analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of our analysis for more clarity. Management Team: An experienced management team on the helm increases our confidence in the business take a look at who sits on 4D pharmas board and the CEOs back ground. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks 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. This service applies to you if your subscription has not yet expired on our old site. You will have continued access until your subscription expires; then you will need to purchase an ongoing subscription through our new system. Please contact The Chanute Tribune office at 620-431-4100 if you have any questions Clive Palmer has been labelled 'the enemy' of Western Australia as his federal government-aided challenge to the state's tough border stance wrapped up in the Federal Court. The Queensland billionaire argues WA's border closure is unconstitutional and damaging trade, while Premier Mark McGowan says it is necessary to protect citizens and is based on expert health advice. The four-day hearing concluded on Friday, with WA's Solicitor-General Joshua Thomson saying in his closing submissions that no community transmission in the state since mid-April showed the closure was working. Clive Palmer has been labelled 'the enemy' of Western Australia as his federal government-aided challenge to the state's tough border stance wrapped up in the Federal Court Mr Thomson took aim at the quality of evidence by infectious diseases expert Peter Collignon, who was engaged by the Commonwealth and argued in favour of 'targeted quarantine' for people from states with high levels of community transmission such as Victoria and NSW. Mr Palmer's barrister Peter Dunning said the 'attack' on the professor was completely without basis, noting WA had experienced community transmission that didn't lead to an outbreak amid high levels of contract tracing and compliance with COVID-19 rules. Justice Darryl Rangiah reserved his findings and the matter will ultimately be decided by the High Court, with the judgment expected around October Mr Palmer launched the action in May after he was denied an exemption to enter WA and Mr McGowan says the action shows he is only focused on himself. 'He is not focused on the health or the wellbeing of the people of this state,' the premier said. 'Mr Palmer is an enemy of the state.' Premier Mark McGowan says the border restrictions are necessary to protect citizens The businessman labelled Mr McGowan a liar, citing WA's chief health officer Andy Robertson's testimony that he had advised the state government that travel bubbles with low-risk jurisdictions could work, but had received no response. 'Now that's a lot different to the lies that Mark McGowan has told the people of Western Australia, that he's acted on advice of the chief medical officer,' Mr Palmer said. The United Australia Party leader said WA should keep its border closed to hotspots 'but not lie to the Western Australian people about threats that don't exist'. 'There is no threat to Western Australia certainly here in Queensland, in South Australia, the Northern Territory, the ACT and Tasmania.' Prime Minister Scott Morrison has repeatedly tipped WA will lose the case and Attorney-General Christian Porter suggests the same. 'There is a real risk that the High Court may find that the present zero compromise, total border closure is not constitutional,' Mr Porter said. He insisted the Commonwealth was not taking sides but said 'we don't want to see an all or nothing approach' and urged the state government to consider a compromised arrangement ahead of the judgment. But Mr McGowan dug in. 'It pains me that this is going on and I'm not enjoying it but we're not going to cave in,' he said. The Labor leader has repeatedly said the state government's legal advice was that it could not 'pick and choose' jurisdictions it would allow travel from. I dris Elba has said he is proud of his first on-screen role in Crimewatch unlike many other actors who do not like to admit they appeared in the show. The Luther actor will receive a Bafta special award at tonight's TV event, where winners will accept their gongs virtually. The 47-year-old said he was thankful for the job when he landed the role of a murderer in a Crimewatch reconstruction scene in the 1990s. It sounds weird but, at the time, getting a job on Crimewatch was the first rung on the ladder, The Wire star said. Elba as Mandela with Riaad Moosa as Ahmed Kathrada / AP A lot of actors dont like to admit they did Crimewatch but Im not embarrassed by it. Elba revealed that his favourite role was playing Nelson Mandela in 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom. That brings a lump to my throat. It was an honour to portray him, he said. I dedicated that role to my dad. He reminded me of Mandela, with his big white hair and infectious smile. Elba with Ruth Wilson in the BBC crime drama Luther / BBC Tonight's special award will be Elba's first Bafta. He was previously nominated for a film prize, for his star turn in the 2015 film Beasts of No Nation. Elba recently recovered from coronavirus and said suffering from the virus had a traumatic effect on him psychologically. The Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards air on BBC One at 7pm tonight. Additional reporting by Press Association YEREVAN. Friday morning, Armenias Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited the Ministry of Environment, where he introduced the newly appointed minister, Romanos Petrosyan, to the staff of the ministry. "I want to congratulate Romanos Petrosyan on his appointment to this accountable position. He has carried out a quite effective job in the position of provincial governor of Kotayk. I want to express a conviction that his activity as a minister will be more effective. Our task is to find that balanced, correct approach that will try to find a solution to the existing contradiction between civilization and nature. The concept of 'green Armenia' is placed at the heart of the Armenian government's program; that is, we imagine Armenia as a country that meets the highest modern environmental standards, and we have huge challenges in this domain. And we need to be able to make our livelihoods and our mining industry reach the standards I'm talking about. To say that we should give up the use of natural resources altogether is unreasonable, its not possible. On the other hand, we cannot follow the path of natural disasters," Pashinyan said, in particular. The US House antitrust subcommittee has revealed that Apple offered a lower 15 per cent subscription fee to Amazon for bringing its Prime Video app on the Apple TV set-top box. Apple normally charges 30 per cent fee for most in-app purchases but in the case of Amazon, it allegedly offered 15 per cent fee on subscriptions that signed up through the Prime Video app, according to an email exchange released by the US Congress panel during the testimony on Wednesday. The US Congressional hearing over anti-competition practices of the global tech giants was also attended via video conference by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai of Google and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. "Apple executive Eddy Cue emailed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 2016 suggesting Apple would take a 15% fee on subscriptions that signed up through the app, which is lower than Apple's customary 30% fee for most in-app purchases," reports CNBC. The approach showed that "big players can negotiate for better business terms" on Apple's App Store. Cook, however, testified on Wednesday that "We apply the rules to all developers evenly". In 2017, Cook announced that Amazon's Prime Video service would be launching on the Apple TV set-top box. Apple generally takes 30 per cent of the initial purchase price, including 30 per cent from the first year of subscription services that customers buy through the app, then drops the fee to 15% in the second year of a subscription. Swedish music streaming service last year lodged an antitrust complaint with the EU regulators, saying iOS App Store rules are unfair. Spotify said that Apple requires it and other digital services to pay a 30 per cent tax on purchases made through Apple's payment system, including upgrading from a free to a premium subscription. Apple slammed Spotify for wanting "all the benefits of a free app without being free". The men are believed to have fought against Ukraine government forces in the Donbas warzone. The Office of the Prosecutor General has notified Belarus about its intentions to demand extradition of participants in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, recently detained on Belarusian territory as part of the Russian PMC Wagner group. That's according to the OPG press service. "The Office of the Prosecutor General, based on the 1993 Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Cases, addressed the Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Belarus with requests for the temporary arrest of persons who were detained on July 29 by this country's law enforcement," the statement says. It is noted that 28 persons, of which nine are citizens of Ukraine, have been charged with participation in a terrorist organization (Art. 258-3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). "Thus, the Ukrainian side expressed intention to demand extradition of the said persons to Ukraine in order to bring them to justice for crimes related to illegal participation in the armed conflict in Donbas," the statement reads. Read also"Little green men" in Belarus: Dozens of militants detained near Minsk part of Russia's PMC Wagner media (Video) Currently, documents are being drafted, required to request extradition of the persons in question. The issue of extradition will be decided by Belarus' competent authorities. As UNIAN reported earlier, on July 29, Belarus' law enforcement agencies detained 32 members of the Russian PMC Wagner just outside Minsk and another individual in the south of the country. Media reports said the group included those who had fought against Ukrainian government forces in Donbas. According to the law enforcers, they had been tipped about the arrival of more than 200 militants to destabilize the country during the ongoing presidential election campaign. A criminal case has been launched on terrorism charges. Delhi Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Anil Baijal on Thursday referred the issue pertaining to the appointment of a panel of lawyers to argue cases regarding the February riots in the city to the President. The L-G also issued an interim order, saying till the matter is resolved by the President the panel of lawyers appointed by the Delhi Police and approved by his office will continue to argue cases. The Delhi government in a statement said Baijal invoked Article 239AA(4) of the Indian Constitution and referred the dispute to the President, citing differences of opinion with the elected government. On Tuesday, the Delhi Cabinet, in its meeting chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, had rejected the panel of lawyers proposed by the Delhi Police, saying it would not help a free and fair trial of the cases related to the riots in north-east Delhi. Following this, Kejriwal on Wednesday evening went to meet the L-G to discuss the issue. The L-G invoked special powers granted to him under the Constitution. The home department of the Delhi government has been ordered to approve the panel chosen by the Delhi Police. The Delhi government will now have to implement the order at any cost as it is mandated by the Constitution, the government statement read. The L-Gs office refused to comment on the matter. On July 10, the Delhi police had proposed the names of six special public prosecutors to argue 85 cases related to riots and the anti-CAA protests. But, the Delhi government had rejected the panel. China's independently-developed ARJ21 regional jetliner has been verified capable of operating in all high-plateau airports, its developer announced Thursday after due testings. An ARJ21 airplane returned to Shanghai on Thursday after completing a half-month flight test, which thoroughly examined the aircraft's operation capacity in a high-plateau airport environment, said the Shanghai-based Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC). The ARJ21 aircraft completed the expanded tests on its performance on the maximum take-off and landing altitude at Daocheng Yading Airport located in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Sichuan Province. Located 4,411 meters above sea level, it is the world's highest-altitude civilian airport. The tests verified that ARJ21 is capable of operating in all high-plateau airports, and paved the way for airlines to use the aircraft to open more high-altitude routes, said the COMAC. The ARJ21 is China's first turbo-fan regional passenger jetliner model and is designed with 78 to 90 seats and a range of 3,700 km. It can fly in alpine and plateau regions and is adaptive to various airport conditions. Plateau airports refer to those airports with an altitude of more than 1,500 meters above sea level. They include high plateau airports that are more than 2,438 meters above sea level. China has the world's largest number of plateau airports, of which 19 are high plateau airports. Most of these airports are located in the western regions. According to the Chinese commercial aircraft maker, the COMAC values high demands from the Chinese civil aviation market, especially those in the western regions. The plateau operation attaches high requirements on the aircraft to maintain safety in high-altitude environment with thin air, complex terrains and changeable weather. The ARJ21 development team took the high-altitude performance and operation capacity as key design targets of the regional jetliner model, said the COMAC. In 2013 and 2017, the ARJ21 aircraft carried out flight tests at two Chinese airports, respectively, at altitudes of 2,842 meters and 2,905 meters. The latest test flights in Daocheng expanded the aircraft's maximum take-off and landing altitude, and further verified its reliability and plateau performance, the COMAC added. As a pioneer of Chinese commercial airplanes, the ARJ21 aircraft was put into commercial service in June 2016 by Chengdu Airlines. As of July 22, the COMAC delivered a total of 33 ARJ21 airplanes to its customers. They are serving on air routes linking 56 cities, according to the COMAC. Despite the White House's intention to save more jobs for the American people by temporarily banning work visas, some experts argue the ban could do more harm than good for the economy, citing a positive correlation between immigration and economic growth. Immigrants pay more than $90 billion in taxes while receiving only $5 billion in welfare funds annually, according to the ACLU. Experts also believe that blocking immigration could allow other countries to gain a competitive edge in the global market. "At all the disciplines, the very best come here. And if we don't attract them and bring them here, then we're going to suffer as a result of that," warned Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. Neeraj Kaushal of the National Bureau of Economic Research said: "If immigrants are not allowed to work here or if temporary workers are not allowed to come to the U.S., companies will move to Canada so that they can bring these temporary workers to Canada. So America's loss would be Canada's gain in the short term. In the long term, these companies might move to China, and America's loss would then be China's gain." Although foreign-born workers account for less than a fifth of the total workforce, they play a vital role in the U.S. economy, working in jobs that Americans are not willing to do or just aren't capable of performing, according to immigration advocates. Bans on some visa types are also expected to impact certain sectors more than others. For instance, the ban on H-1B will likely have a detrimental impact on the big companies in the tech sector including Amazon, Facebook and Google that rely heavily on foreign talent. "They are critical in certain industries," said Kaushal. "And then these workers themselves also create a lot of jobs." Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, disagrees. "There is no such thing as a job Americans won't do ... particularly in this pandemic shutdown, where we have tens of millions of Americans who have either temporarily or permanently lost their jobs and we're looking at something like at least 10% unemployment. You really can't make the case that there aren't Americans available to do these jobs at this particular time." President Donald Trump's ban on work visas will reduce the number of immigrants receiving green cards by nearly a third, compared with 2019, according to the Economic Policy Institute. By Catarina Demony and Miguel Pereira LISBON (Reuters) - Hundreds of anti-racism protesters took over one of Lisbon's main squares on Friday to demand justice for Bruno Cande, a Black actor shot dead in a busy street last weekend. Cande, 39 and of Guinean origin, was shot several times by a white man in his eighties at Avenida de Moscavide, around 10 km from Lisbon's city centre, according to police. A suspect was detained and is awaiting trial. Portugal's criminal investigation police agency, the PJ, has not confirmed what motivated the attack. Cande's family said in a statement on Saturday the suspect had threatened to kill him three days before the shooting and used racist slurs. "Why are we here and unable to live in peace? We are working, paying our taxes. Why are they always killing black people?" 32-year-old protester Sofia Rodrigues asked among the crowd. During the peaceful demonstration, protesters wearing masks due to the coronavirus outbreak held signs saying "Justice!" and "Racism kills!" In Guinea-Bissau, lawmakers passed a motion saying the murder was racially motivated and said they would send a delegation to discover what happened to Cande. The case has put a spotlight on racism in Portugal, including frictions with police. "From authorities to day-to-day life, Portugal remains a racist country," said 65-year-old Eduardo Henriques who also at the protest. Europe's main rights forum, the Council of Europe, said in a 2018 report there were numerous serious accusations of racist violence by Portuguese police. Last year, a court found eight officers guilty of kidnapping and beating up six young people from Cova da Moura, a predominantly black neighbourhood in the outskirts of Lisbon. There are several poor neighbourhoods around the capital where migrants mostly from Portugal's African ex-colonies live. (Reporting by Catarina Demony and Miguel Pereira; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne) In the midst of the pandemic we are experiencing, with all your sincerity, joy and simplicity, you succeeded in setting into motion the hope of many people. These words are more priceless than the Compostela, the document that certifies pilgrimages to the Tomb of the Apostle Saint James, because they came directly from the Pope. Francis wrote them in Spanish in a handwritten letter addressed to Alvaro Calvente, a 15-year-old boy with an intellectual disability from Malaga, Spain. In fact, despite his difficulties the youth recently followed the Camino de Santiago, departing from Sarria accompanied by his father, Ildefonso, and a family friend, Paco. A witness of lived faith, which proved to be contagious, the pilgrimage offered a positive example to be imitated in these times in which there is a tendency to isolate due to Covid-19. Published on the website www.diocesismalaga.es, the Popes signed letter is a declaration of gratitude and encouragement. Dear Alvaro, the Pope wrote from the Casa Santa Marta on 20 July, I received a letter from your father in which he told me that you finished the Camino de Santiago and that you carried in your backpack not only your intentions, but also those of many people who joined you in your pilgrimage, asking you to pray. For the 15-year old boy, it was a spiritual union that unfolded through encounters with people both along the way and through social networks, given that the journey was documented by his father on Twitter with the account @CaminodeAlvaro. At the same time, so as not to forget the poor, the pilgrimage served to launch a fundraising campaign in support of the Cottolengo (House of the Sacred Heart) of Malaga. The seventh of ten siblings, the youth lives in the district of Huelin and along with his family belongs to the neocatechumenal community of San Patricio parish. Thank you for encouraging us to walk and for inviting so many others to walk with you, Francis continued, underscoring that in completing the pilgrimage Alvaro had moved many other people to set out on the path, by urging them not to be afraid and to rediscover the joy of being together. After all, the Pope noted, along the way we never go it alone, because the Lord always walks beside us. The Bishop of Rome concluded by thanking the Spanish youth for his witness and his prayers, and offering his blessing, an invocation to Our Lady of Carmel and his familiar request that Alvaro also pray for him. The Camino de Santiago, or the Way of Saint James, is a large network of ancient pilgrimage routes which stretch across Europe and come together at the tomb of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela, the capital of northwest Spains Galicia region. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - The World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF) are calling on governments to protect and promote womens access to skilled breastfeeding counselling as a critical component of breastfeeding support HOBOKEN, N.J., July 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Tomorrow is National Avocado Day, and that means huge savings at Avocado Green Mattress makers of organic and eco-luxury sleep products. Their one-day flash sale includes exclusive savings on mattresses, 100% reclaimed wood bed frames, adjustable bed frames, and pillows. As part of Avocado's Giving initiative, they'll plant one tree for every order on National Avocado Day in partnership with the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. The international nonprofit will plant the trees in El Salvador at low-income, rural homes, farms, and schools. On July 31 only, customers can take advantage of $200 savings on any Avocado Green Mattress, Avocado Vegan Mattress, and Luxury Organic Crib Mattress using the code AVOCADODAY20 at AvocadoMattress.com. Verified front-line workers, like nurses, doctors, and emergency medical technicians, as well as military, educators, law enforcement, and firefighters, are all eligible to receive an additional discount of $50 on any mattress. As an alternative to this offer, shoppers have the option to instead receive two free pillows including Green Pillows, Molded Latex Pillows, or Yoga Meditation Pillows with their mattress (a $238 value) using the code 2FREEPILLOWS. Shoppers can also save $400 on Avocado's new luxury Adjustable Bed Frame Base using code ELEVATE400. Its innovative design is a first: a two-piece model that places the bed with automatic customizable positions inside an elegantly upholstered frame with GOTS organic certified cotton and wool atop FSC-certified wooden legs. Savings are also available on their two 100% reclaimed wood bed frames with $150 off the Natural Wood and Eco Wood models with any mattress purchase using the code BED150. Avocado is redefining what it means to be a sustainable, ethical brand. As a Certified B-Corp, their vision is as urgent as it is aspirational a world united by sustainability and social responsibility. They practice radical transparency and a "farm-to-bedroom" approach; they co-own a latex farm, factory, and wool collective in India from where they source and process raw materials. Mattresses are handcrafted in a Los Angeles factory that they also own. Their materials, factory, and finished products are GOTS/GOLS organic certified. Their mattresses are also GREENGUARD Gold certified for low emissions, MADE SAFE certified, and have achieved STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX for both human and ecological safety. As a Climate Neutral Certified business, Avocado is the world's first mattress brand to achieve net-negative carbon emissions across its entire business scope. As long-standing members of 1% for the Planet and recipients of their inaugural Pinnacle Award, one percent of all revenue is donated to environmental nonprofits on an annual basis. Learn more at AvocadoGreenMattress.com. If you would like more information, please contact Jessica Hann at [email protected]. SOURCE Avocado Green Mattress Related Links http://AvocadoMattress.com TEHRAN, Iran, July 31 Trend: An official with the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran Davoud Shahraki visited the Mirjaveh customs and border market during a trip to Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Trend reports via ILNA. In 2019, goods worth more than $528 million were exported from Sistan and Baluchestan Province to Pakistan, and goods worth $162 million were imported into the country, which shows the province's positive trade balance with Pakistan, Shahraki said. Out of the total exports of the province to Pakistan in 2019, $338.8 million worth of goods were exported fromthe Mirjavah border checkpoint, which shows the importance of this border in developing non-oil exports and increasing trade with Pakistan, he said. He also referred to the exports of the first 3 months of the current Iranian year (started on March 20) from the province to Pakistan. The total exports of the province from customs and border markets to Pakistan during the first three months of this year reached $131.4 million, which is 26 percent higher than the same period last year, he said. Shahraki added that $78 million worth of goods were exported to Pakistan through the Mirjavah border in the first quarter of this Iranian year (started on March 20), which shows an increase of 18 percent compared to the same period of last year. Health chiefs in the Republic said that the 85 new Covid-19 cases reported on Thursday are a worrying escalation (Niall Carson/PA) Taoiseach Micheal Martin has said that any spike in coronavirus cases is of concern. He said the Government will watch and monitor very carefully what happens with the number of Covid-19 cases in the coming days. It came as health chiefs in the Republic said that 85 new cases reported on Thursday were a worrying escalation. A factory in Kildare and at least two direct provision centres in the Midlands, where some of the workers live, have created a cluster of infection. Construction sites are also linked to the sudden increase, health officials said. On Friday, another 38 cases were confirmed by the National Public Health Emergency Team, bringing the total to 26,065. However no further deaths had been notified as of midnight on Thursday, leaving the national total at 1,763. Speaking at Dublin Castle before the start of the North South Ministerial Council (NSMC), Mr Martin said: Obviously any spike at all we are concerned about. We have to watch and monitor very carefully what happens now over the next number of days in terms of whether that is a pattern or whether its relating to specific clusters that have emerged in recent days. What is heartening is the response of the testing and contact tracing apparatus now within the Republic. If you have these symptoms call your doctor immediately and ask about a coronavirus test: fever cough difficulty breathing loss or change in taste or smell#ProtectEachOther #StaySafe pic.twitter.com/N9NZzIrwhj HSE Ireland (@HSELive) July 31, 2020 He said he spoke to Dr Ronan Glynn on Thursday evening and that the acting chief medical officer is quite intensive in getting on top of testing and contact tracing. A total of 18 of Thursdays tally were associated with the factory. Meanwhile, Mr Martin said the Cabinet will meet on Tuesday to decide whether the country can move to phase four of the road map and allow pubs that do not serve food to reopen. He said it will depend on whether the number of cases decreases. We will see what the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) have to say, he said. We wont draw too much inferences from the 85 new cases yesterday we have to see if a pattern has emerged or if it was a cluster. Dr Glynn later confirmed mass testing had now taken place in relation to a number of known outbreaks. We may be beginning to see more cases which we cannot link to outbreaks or close contacts, he said. The National Public Health Emergency Team will continue to monitor this situation closely over the coming days. The importance of isolating as soon as you have any flu-like symptoms cannot be overstated. Without this individual action we simply will not break the chains of transmission and we will put many people at risk of infection. It is important that people know that there is no charge for GP or testing services relating to Covid-19. Please do not hesitate to contact your GP if you have any concerns. This weekend, the six key things people need to do are limit the size of your network & time you spend with them, keep your distance, meet up outside if possible, wash your hands, wear a face covering and download the Covid tracker app. Although I disagree pretty much with most of what she espouses, I think Saoirse McHugh has generally added to the level of political debate in the country. It is easy to dismiss her as a failed candidate, but speaking as a failed candidate myself, who got a mere fraction of the votes she got, I'd hope electoral defeat doesn't banish one to opinion exile forever. She does tend to be a bit vague about what she is espousing, but at times she descends almost into philosophy on the meaning of Irish democracy itself. This is not a bad thing, especially when you consider what sometimes passes for political differences between some parties today. Take this week, where the big divide between our two major governing parties is over which one has the more ripped silver foxes capable of giving heart palpitations to the desperate housewives of Howth. Having someone ask about the nature of our democratic system is always a debate worth having. Where I part company is when you dismiss electoral politics as not working but don't propose a detailed alternative, because that act in itself creates a dangerous vacuum. You can't demolish an existing establishment unless you have a clear idea what to replace it with, and I'm not sure Saoirse does. We should also never forget that one of the primary purposes of democratic government is not to guarantee us good government. God knows we've missed that particular turn-off many a time. The primary purpose of democracy, primarily through the form of elections, is to act as a bulwark against tyranny. To watch our leaders start designing their own uniforms or naming the days of the week after their horse and decide "right, we've had enough of this lad" and turf him out on his electoral ear. It's not without flaws but it beats having to storm a presidential palace, drag the fecker out and put him up against a wall. As PJ Mara once apparently said when watching Ceausescu and his wife suffer that very fate in Romania on the telly: "Jaysus, weren't we terribly kind to Garrett and Joan." The false golden calf at the heart of the 'elections don't work' argument is that there is somewhere an authentic 'Voice of the People', which if only we listened to it would bring us to a land of lavender, honey, high social welfare payments and low taxes. Is there a voice of the people? Is there a body of opinion that represents the majority mainstream opinion of the populace? There may well be, but it becomes less unified and collected the more you look for detail on how to deliver it. Yes, then people do want a world-class health service, but get them to agree on where the limited number of world-class regional hospitals should be located and it descends into a cacophony of chaos and county. Some have suggested that Citizens' Assemblies have a role, as the pure voice of the people uncontaminated by the prism of elections and dirty politicians. That's all well and good until you have to draft the criteria as to who should be on them and how do you make them representative? Based on county, or population, or urban and rural, or gender, or colour, or religion, or sexual orientation? Every additional criteria will cause a row, with some of the people even seeing the fact that other people are on it as a sign that it's a liberal elite and not the voice of the "real people". What happens when an assembly decides to propose something you don't like, such as joining Nato or buying 40 Eurofighters or building a nuclear reactor? How do you stop it without elections? Does it have the power to legislate itself? There are referendums, of course, and they're grand on the big picture. But how did you vote on the children's rights referendum? Because two-thirds of us didn't even bother, and that was on a subject most people have opinions on. How do you think Sean and Mary Citizen will react to being asked to vote on food additive regulations or whether we open a consulate in Sao Paulo? You know what will happen: what happens in California. Turnout will plummet and the process will be hijacked by vested interests setting up fake citizens' campaigns to push through stuff they want on a 7pc turnout. Or hyper-local demands for stadiums and children's hospitals funded by the taxpayer in every parish in the country, where only the people in county X bother to vote for the Michael Healy-Rae International Air and Spaceport. The fact is that electoral politics is not just the voice of the people, but also the restraining hand on the shoulder, the constitutional "Careful, now!" If you don't like what's on the ballot, put yourself on it, and go out and convince your fellow citizens. To her credit, Saoirse McHugh has done that and never disgraced herself either in terms of votes won. She was eliminated in Mayo with more than 6,000 votes, and more than 60,000 in the European elections. By any reasonable standards, those are very respectable vote hauls. In fact, whisper it: Saoirse McHugh is, by metric of votes won, not actually too bad at this electoral thing. Perhaps she should reconsider under a new political label. Pupils' achievements at school are often shaped by the way that they 'act out' specific gender roles, according to a new study which warns against over-generalising the gender gap in education Pupils' achievements at school are often shaped by the way that they 'act out' specific gender roles, according to a new study which warns against over-generalising the gender gap in education. The study, by researchers at the University of Cambridge, suggests that young people's attainment is linked to their ideas about what it means to be male or female. Those who defy traditional gender stereotypes appear to do better in the classroom. Annual GCSE results in the UK, in common with many western countries, typically show that boys lag behind girls academically, but the research argues that this broad pattern masks a more nuanced picture. In particular, the researchers warn that a large sub-group of girls, who conform fairly rigidly to some traditional 'feminine' norms, could be academically at-risk. They point out that these girls are often 'invisible' in broad surveys of attainment by gender that show girls performing well as a group. The researchers examined the English and Maths results of almost 600 GCSE candidates at four schools in England. On average, the girls did significantly better in English, while boys were slightly better at Maths. Girls outperformed boys overall. But the study then went a step further, analysing sub-groups of boys and girls according to how they expressed their gender identity. This revealed that around half of the girls displayed 'maladaptive patterns of motivation, engagement and achievement'. By contrast, around two-thirds of boys were motivated, engaged and did well in exams. The pupils' academic performance corresponded closely to their sense of gender. Dr Junlin Yu, a researcher at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, said: "There has been a lot of justifiable concern about low attainment among boys, but we really need to move on from looking at averages, and ask which specific groups of boys and girls are falling behind. These findings suggest that part of the answer is linked to how pupils 'do' gender at school." The study asked pupils to complete questionnaires which measured their motivation and engagement, and also examined how far they conformed to certain gender 'norms'. These norms were drawn from two widely-used scales that identify the characteristics which people in western countries consider 'typically' masculine or feminine. The supposedly 'masculine' traits were emotional control, competitiveness, aggression, self-reliance, and risk-taking. The 'feminine' traits were thinness, an interest in appearance, concern with relationships, and an inclination towards domesticity. In reality, most people exhibit a combination of masculine and feminine traits and the researchers found that pupils typically belonged to one of seven gender profiles that blended these characteristics. They classified these as: 'Resister boys' (69% of boys): typically resist traditional ideas about masculinity. 'Cool guys' (21%): competitive risk-takers, but concerned with appearance and romantic success. 'Tough guys' (10%): have an emotionally 'hard' image, self-reliant. 'Relational girls' (32% of girls): shun appearance norms, comfortable connecting with others emotionally. 'Modern girls' (49%): concerned with appearance, but also self-reliant and emotionally distant. 'Tomboys' (12%): uninterested in feminine qualities, often regarded as 'one of the lads.' 'Wild girls' (7%): embrace masculine behaviours, but also display an exaggeratedly 'feminine' appearance. These profiles were then cross-referred with the pupils' GCSE results. On average, the sample group performed as international trends predict. Girls had an average grade of 6.0 (out of 9) in English, compared with the boys' average of 5.3. In Maths boys averaged 5.9; slightly higher than the girls' 5.5. But the researchers also found strong correlations between the specific gender profiles and patterns of engagement, motivation, and attainment. The two groups who resisted conventional gender norms - resister boys and relational girls - were found to be 'better academically adjusted' and typically did well in exams. The lowest overall performers were the 'cool guys' and 'tough guys'. This significantly affected the average patterns of attainment by gender. In English, for example, relational girls far outperformed all other pupils in the cohort (averaging 6.3), almost single-handedly raising the girls' average. The 'modern' and 'wild' girls typically had more mediocre GCSE results. More worryingly, these groups also displayed signs of low engagement and motivation: they gave up easily when faced with difficult tasks, and generally put less effort into their work. Collectively, these girls represented 56% of the total, but their underachievement was partially obscured by the high attainment average for girls. The study suggests that one reason for the close correspondence between gender profile and academic achievement is that adolescents tend to express strong and inflexible ideas about gender, which influences their attitude towards school. For example, 'cool guys', who prize risk-taking and winning, consistently admitted to not trying hard at school - probably because doing so maintained the illusion that they would succeed if they put in more effort. Attitudes towards gender probably also influence pupils' engagement with certain subjects. Previous studies have, for example, shown that Maths is often perceived as 'male'. Tellingly, within the sample, tomboys - girls who rejected 'feminine' traits - earned higher grades than the other girls in Maths. The study's main recommendation is that efforts to close the gender gap in attainment need to focus less on 'girls versus boys' and more on these nuanced profiles. However, the researchers also suggest that schools could support pupils by encouraging them to think beyond traditional gender stereotypes. "Among boys in particular, we found that those who resist gender norms were in the majority, but at school it often doesn't feel that way," Yu said. "Teachers and parents can help by encouraging pupils to feel that they won't be ridiculed or marginalised if they don't conform to traditional gender roles. Our findings certainly suggest that resistance to stereotypes is fast becoming less the exception, and more the rule." ### The research appears in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 04:15:01|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close WASHINGTON, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Bipartisan lawmakers pushed back at U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday after he raised the possibility of delaying the election in November. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell threw cold water on the idea directly. "Never in the history of the country, through wars, depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time," McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, told a local TV station in response. "We'll find a way to do that again this Nov. 3," he said. "We'll cope with whatever the situation is and have the election on Nov. 3 as already scheduled." In a tweet on Thursday morning, Trump claimed that 2020, with mail-in voting, will be "the most inaccurate & fraudulent election in history." "It will be a great embarrassment to the USA," he continued. "Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" Legal experts have made clear that Trump has no authority to delay the presidential election as the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to set the date. "Trump's tweet is wrong and dangerous," said Elie Honig, a CNN legal analyst and former federal and state prosecutor. "The President has no legal power to delay the election. The Constitution gives the power to set election date to *Congress,* which has done so through legislation," Honig tweeted. "Only Congress -- majority votes of both Senate and House -- can change it." In addition to McConnell, a growing number of Republicans also spoke against Trump's suggestion, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, a close ally of the president. A South Carolina Republican, Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill that he believes it wouldn't be a good idea to postpone the election. "I have concerns about mail-in ballots being the exclusive way to cast votes but I don't believe we should delay the elections," he said. "In South Carolina, we had a very large primary in June and were able to do it in person. I think we can be able to safely vote in person in November." Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives and the top congressional Democrat, expressed her opposition by tweeting out a section of the Constitution. "The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day of which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States," the section reads. On the Senate floor, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of trying to divert attention from the administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic that has led to nearly 4.5 million infections and more than 151,000 deaths in the United States amid an economic recession. "President Trump, the election will be in November, on November 3rd, and you will not change it," the New York Democrat said. "Stop diverting attention." Trump has frequently alleged that mail-in voting would lead to widespread fraud, as most states have expanded access to the practice due to the pandemic. In another tweet on Thursday, Trump called mail-in voting "a catastrophic disaster," while claiming that "there's no accurate count!" The latest allegation against mail-in voting from Trump came as national polls have showed him falling behind his Democratic opponent, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in the 2020 race. Biden led Trump 49.9 percent to 41.6 percent as of Thursday afternoon in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. Meanwhile, polls in key battleground states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Arizona, also showed that Biden is ahead of Trump by at least several points. Trump, however, has repeatedly called polls showing him trailing Biden "fake" and touted what has been called "silent majority" supporting his presidency and re-election. In April, Biden warned that Trump would be thinking of delaying the election. "Mark my words: I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow; come up with some rationale why it can't be held," Biden said. At that time, the Trump campaign dismissed Biden's accusation as "the incoherent, conspiracy theory ramblings of a lost candidate who is out of touch with reality." Enditem In 2015, a devastating earthquake in Nepal resulted in the loss of 9,000 lives, 3.5 million people left homeless and entire neighbourhoods flattened. To prevent destruction on the same scale again, the multidisciplinary team behind The SAFER Nepal Project has been working with local partners to improve the seismic safety and resilience of school and community buildings in Nepal. We cannot prevent earthquakes from happening, but we can devise smart, low cost solutions to mitigate seismic risk and enhance community resilience," said Anastasios Sextos, Professor of Earthquake Engineering at the University of Bristol and Principal Investigator of the SAFER Nepal project. The landmark SAFER Nepal project, funded by EPSRC as part of UKRIs Global Challenges Research Fund, draws on knowledge and experience from Nepal and around the world, incorporating earthquake, structural and geotechnical engineers, seismologists, earth scientists, computer scientists, social scientists, stakeholders, decision-makers and more. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, the aim is to build a better understanding of the seismic threat, identify existing vulnerabilities of the buildings, understand the needs and response of the communities affected, build databases and technology - all with the goal of developing real solutions that can be used in the local context. Collapsing buildings greatly increased the fatalities in 2015 and caused severe, long-term social and economic consequences. One challenge for Nepal, and other low-to-middle income countries, is finding affordable ways to make buildings more secure. One proven method of protecting new buildings in earthquake zones in developed countries is to rest them on sliding surfaces. This can be prohibitively expensive for many regions, but in Nepal, were using that principle to investigate low-cost, culturally acceptable and locally-sourced ways of co-producing a similar system, said Professor Sextos. In order to create a low-cost seismic isolation platform, a team led by Dr Nicholas Alexander, Associate Professor of Structural Dynamics, is using the seismic shaking table at the University of Bristol to investigate how replicas of Nepalese classrooms, strengthened with cost-effective techniques, perform under seismic excitation. Essentially the idea is if we can decouple the ground from the building, then if an earthquake happens, the ground will move but the building will remain unaffected, said Dr Alexander. The team is developing a simple, state-of-the-art phone app so that local engineers can identify at-risk schools and enhance their safety. In partnership with National Society for Earthquake Technology (NSET), Nepal, and Kathmandu University and Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University the team has also been testing the engineering properties of locally-used building materials. We need to understand the engineering properties of local building materials, particularly stone. Working with local partners including NSET, we have been testing different types of mortar and design. What we learn will allow our partners to assess existing buildings and build safer structures in the future, said Professor Sextos. All the research has been supported by workshops and on-site training so, with the aid of local and international partners, the team leaves behind the skills and expertise for communities to rebuild Nepal safely. Following this training from the project team (including Save the Children), local partners in Nepal are about to embark on a large campaign of field testing across the country. Another important outcome of the project is the assembly of an open-access database of geotechnical properties of the soils of the Kathmandu Valley. The effort, led by Dr Paul Vardanega, Senior Lecturer in Civil Engineering, involved collecting data from new ground investigations as well as compiling and harmonising existing data. "The geotechnical database is a major step forward. Various datasets have been combined, harmonised and made publicly available. The database can now be used for activities such as planning of new infrastructure or assessing liquefaction potential and seismic hazards in the area," said Dr Vardanega. In collaboration with seismologists in Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, the team is now creating a state-of-the-art probabilistic seismic hazard assessment for Kathmandu and Nepal. Seismic hazard maps provide vital information for designing earthquake-resistant buildings and for prioritising the retrofitting of school buildings. "The densely-populated Kathmandu Valley is located only 10 km above a major tectonic plate boundary, and its basin structure can trap and amplify the seismic waves of earthquakes even more. The new geo-database is critical for an accurate re-assessment of the seismic hazard in the region," said Dr. Max Werner, Senior Lecturer in the School of Earth Sciences. In Nepal, SAFER is also working with government, academic institutions and NGOs, including Arup International Development, to strengthen resilience and post-quake structural health. Working with Save the Children, Nepal, there have been surveys of 160 school buildings and consultation with communities, focusing on school management committees, teachers and students. The aim is to understand the factors affecting resilience in order to tailor and target interventions to help children get safely back to school. "It has to be something useful, tangible, applicable and low cost. The value of all these community engagements we have at all levels of the educational pyramid, means we can produce something meaningful for the people of Nepal, said Professor Sextos. SAFERs guidelines for constructing schools in a novel, low-cost way, are due to be delivered in September 2020. Were essentially creating a framework that allows local decision-makers to plan for and react to another major earthquake and our collaboration will improve local design culture through new, safer, construction techniques and responses that can be easily replicated by other countries. Our focus has been to create tangible outcomes and influence how policy-makers approach building new schools in Nepal. Most importantly of all, were helping protect lives, especially the lives of the young learners who will shape Nepals future, said Professor Sextos. Dr. Prachand Man Pradhan, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Civil Engineering at Kathmandu University, said: Collaboration between Kathmandu University and the University of Bristol has been highly productive and memorable for me. Particularly, I would like to thank Professor Anastasios Sextos for trusting me in the specific jobs to test various construction materials that are used in Nepal. In this regard, I also thank my team at Kathmandu University for helping me complete the job successfully. The SAFER project has been a wonderful and unforgettable experience to me. This project has not only been able to identify the mechanical properties and strengths of various construction materials, but also helped me learn the technological heights acquired by the University of Bristol. The results obtained should be ultimately useful for the earthquake resistant design and construction for new School Buildings to be constructed in Nepal. Professor Prem Nath Maskey, from the Institute of Engineering at Tribhuvan University, said: The collaboration among the universities and organizations of Nepal, UK and other countries coming together for the research project of SAFER (Seismic Resilience of Schools in Nepal) has been exemplary. The Impact of the project lies in the importance of research and collaboration on the seismic resilience of schools. The impact of the project will be reflected in the necessary strengthening and reconstruction of the schools for the future earthquakes and other disasters. 31.07.2020 LISTEN The ongoing exhibition of intransigent resistance by Auditor-General Daniel Yaw Domelevo to proceed on leave to exhaust his accrued but accumulated annual paid holiday leave raises an eyebrow. However, difficult situations give cause to wise and intelligent people to seek solutions to problems. Subsequently, I shall in the coming days or weeks be writing to His Excellency the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Ghana Parliament via my local Member of Parliament Philip Basoah (Honourable), and the Minister for Labour to add a sub-section to the Ghana Labour Act 2003 (Act 651), Section 31. This Section is about " Agreement to forgo leave to be void". It states, "Any agreement to relinquish the entitlement to annual leave or to forgo such leave is void" I have been taking keen interest in the never ending but unfolding accusations and counter-accusations surrounding the president's directive to Auditor-General Daniel Yaw Domelevo to start his accumulated annual paid holiday leave. His insistence not to go on leave aroused my suspicion. Luckily, I have had two former Ghanaian accountants, one is my senior brother residing in Canada and the other a friend in London, revealing to me what could possibly be the motive behind Mr Domelevo's obstinacy to go on leave. Both of them are saying one and the same thing. He could have committed some illegal acts which he does not want them to come to light. Any malfeasances he may have committed can only come to light if another person takes over his job even temporarily as a replacement for him while he is on his annual leave, they say. According to them, many people in such higher positions may commit malpractices and the only way to cover their tracks is never to go on leave. They have come across such occasions in their professional working life in Ghana. According to my friend in London, when he was working as an accountant in Ghana, his Manager never went on leave for fifteen years until he, my friend, left for London about twenty years ago. He said, the Manager could be doing some dodgy things and the only way to save himself from being exposed for committing say, fraud or malfeasance, is to be on post always. Could this be the case with Mr Daniel Yaw Domelevo? No one knows but he. Anyway, I shall be petitioning the President, the Minister for Labour and the Ghana Parliament to add through amendment of the Labour law on annual leave, a clause saying that no public officer is allowed to accumulate their paid annual leave. They should take them as they come within the calendar or fiscal year depending on how Ghana operates her annual paid holiday leave. Going on leave should still remain mandatory as stipulated in Section 31 of the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651). Some Ghanaians are so corrupt that any little chance they get, they want to steal from the government or their company and one of the chances to do that is to refuse to proceed on annual leave but to keep on accumulating them. So far, I have not come across any law authorising Ghana public officers to needlessly continue to accumulate their leave yet, it is happening. In the United Kingdom and some other western countries, one loses their paid annual holiday if they don't take them within the earned year. However, in Ghana, it is obligatory to go on leave and the law states it clearly that you can't forgo your annual leave. That is excellent! Subsequently, for the avoidance of some managers trying to cover their evil tracks in workplaces by never going on leave through accumulation of earned annual holidays leave, there must be a law to compel them not to accumulate their leave. Here in Western world, one is eager to go on leave to have a break from work to enjoy some decent rest. Nonetheless, in Ghana, one wants to stay in their job for several years without wanting to take their accrued paid annual holidays. Why is that? Is it because they never get tired working? No! Could it be because they never get tired because they don't do much at work but laze around all day and enjoy several free from work paid days throughout the year attending family events? In Ghana, a public officer is allowed time to attend the funeral of friends, family members, a member of the townsfolk, go to hospital, attend local festivals, etc. Nevertheless, in the Whiteman's land, a worker is limited to about three paid days when you lose your parents, children or partner. It does not even cover your siblings. After three days, you have to be back at work. In the unlikely event of requiring a few more days, and if you are lucky to be granted the requested days, they will be unpaid. Again, you have to earn your wages or salary by actively working your contracted number of hours per day. You cannot laze away at work. To calm the negative public perception about the President allegedly hypocritically picking and choosing who should go on their accumulated paid holiday and who should not, whereas it is an ongoing practice in Ghana for people to accumulate their leave for their own undisclosed reasons, the authority must come out with a law to clarify the situation as I have suggested and will officially be writing to the three authorities mentioned above. That is the only way to stop the dirty politicking about, and politicisation of, Auditor-General Domelove's leave directive. What documents was he going to his office to collect only to find the locks on his office replaced? Are they his personal, or official, documents? What does he need official documents for when he is on leave? If they are his personal documents, he can be escorted to retrieve them. He must bear in mind that he is on leave but not sacked so why the problems he is causing to woo the public to his side by being seen as the most incorruptible person in Ghana with wherewithal to fight the alleged NPP government corruption? Ghanaians, please let us be critical thinkers, giving issues thoughtful analyses before reacting without being emotional. Many people see Mr Domelevo as the saint but could there not be other saints in Ghana? What happens if tomorrow he is no more, taken away by God as it is appointed unto man to die one day, will the office of the Auditor-General cease to function? Anyway, necessity is the mother of invention. Planning to write to the mentioned authorities to address the leave issue is the culmination of the necessity I have come to be faced with. Kwame and Paa, thank you for alerting me to the possible corruptions that go on within the Ghana public service as perpetrated by the managers or big bosses. All their malpractices come about as a result of their failure to go on leave. However, their unwillingness to go on leave will end by the action to be taken by Rockson Adofo, the son of Kumawu/Asiampa soil. The writer loves giving suggestions and sharing views with his public readers. Until I officially convey my views on the accumulated paid holiday leave to the authorities as aforementioned, I entreat the authorities to have a look at this publication as giving them a heads-up. Rockson Adofo Friday, 31 July 2020 Vowing to bring "peace and security to cities across America," Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday carried the Trump campaign's message of law and order to exurban Pennsylvania, a battleground state where Pence warned of a descent into chaos in big cities should presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden be elected. At a "cops for Trump" rally outside in Greensburg, Pence warned of rising violence in cities, castigated Democrats' calls to defund police and framed November's election as being about safety and security. The theme is emerging as a key Trump campaign message that plays on the violence that has cropped up alongside demonstrations and unrest after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. "When Democrats call for defunding police, remember what's at stake: law and order, safety and the peace of mind that you and your family and your children have every right to enjoy as citizens of the greatest nation on Earth," Pence told the crowd in southwestern Pennsylvania, about 24 miles (15 km) southeast of Pittsburgh. Pence lauded President Donald Trump's "leadership" in sending federal law enforcement officers to cities, repeatedly touted the Trump administration's commitment to "back the blue" and ticked off figures of shootings and murders in cities from Philadelphia to Tulsa. "Men and women of Pennsylvania, this has got to stop," Pence said. "We must restore law and order to the streets of our communities for every American of every race and creed and color. But the truth is those heartwrenching numbers are just a preview of Joe Biden's agenda. The truth is you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America." Biden, he said, would "double down on the very policies that are leading to violence on the streets of America's cities." But sending federal officers to cities "is going to bring peace and security to cities across America," Pence said. Democrats responding to Pence's visit to Pennsylvania a premier battleground that Trump narrowly flipped after six straight Democratic victories there in presidential elections focused on what they called the Trump administration's botched coronavirus response and lack of leadership. "Right now, as southwestern Pennsylvania struggles to contain the coronavirus pandemic and countless Pennsylvanian families and communities deal with grief and anxiety the very last thing the hard-working men and women in the region need is another Mike Pence photo-op," Biden's campaign said in a statement. Recent polls in Pennsylvania, like polls nationally, show Biden ahead of Trump. Still, most polls in the state in 2016 also showed Democrat Hillary Clinton with an advantage over Trump before his base came together in the final weeks of the campaign, cementing a win of 44,000 votes, or less than 1 percentage point. Biden, in any case, has not joined the cal l of protesters who demanded "defund the police" after Floyd's killing. Rather, he has proposed more money for police, conditioned to improvements in their practices. Specifically, he is calling for a $300 million infusion into existing federal community policing grant programs, adding up to more money for police. In addition, Pence's claim of "years of plummeting crime rates under President Trump" also isn't quite right. It is true that FBI statistics show the violent crime rate was slightly higher in 2015 than in 2018, the most recent year recorded. But it was also lower in 2014 than it was in 2018. Police departments reported 368.9 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2018, compared with 361.6 in 2014 and 373.7 in 2015. The murder rate was 5 people per 100,000 in 2018. That rate was lower every year from 2010 to 2015, although higher in 2016 and 2017. ___ Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report. ___ Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/timelywriter The Marines said the equipment needed to recover the service members remains and to raise the vehicle from the seafloor would be in place at the end of this week. A dignified transfer of our Marines and sailor will occur as soon as possible after the conclusion of recovery operations, the corps said in the statement. Lance Cpl. Guillermo S. Perez, 20, a rifleman, was pronounced dead at the scene, the Marines said in a statement. On Sunday, the corps identified the seven Marines presumed dead, who were also riflemen, as Pfc. Bryan J. Baltierra, 18; Lance Cpl. Marco A. Barranco, 21; Pfc. Evan A. Bath, 19; Pfc. Jack Ryan Ostrovsky, 21; Cpl. Wesley A. Rodd, 23; Lance Cpl. Chase D. Sweetwood, 19; and Cpl. Cesar A. Villanueva, 21. Hospitalman Christopher Gnem, 22, a sailor, was also presumed dead, the statement said. All 16 service members aboard the assault vehicle were assigned to the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit at Camp Pendleton, in the San Diego area. It is with a heavy heart that I decided to conclude the search-and-rescue effort, Col. Christopher Bronzi, a commanding officer, said in a statement on Saturday. The steadfast dedication of the Marines, sailors and Coast Guardsmen to the persistent rescue effort was tremendous. At the time of the accident the vehicle was traveling from San Clemente Island back to a ship that was more than 1,000 meters off shore, Gen. David H. Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps, said on Friday. The Secretary of the Sligo/Leitrim Council of Trade Unions, Ciaran Campbell, has severely criticised Fianna Fail backbench TD Marc MacSharry for his recent comments about public servants using the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to lie on the couch and watch box sets. Mr. Campbell forcefully condemned Mr. Mac Sharrys comments stating that the comments are both distasteful and unnecessary, and as some of our highest-paid public servants, politicians should not use the safe and secure confines of the Dail to launch the most reprehensible attacks on workers who have no lee-way to respond and thus defend themselves against such scurrilous comments. Speaking on behalf of Sligo/Leitrim Council of Trade Unions Executive, Campbell added that Mr. MacSharrys unfortunate and unforgivable Dail performance failed to deliver any evidence of what he was alleging other than some sort of personal anecdote, and he had the gall to suggest that one set of workers productivity was not only different to others but further boasted of his and his fellow politicians productivity levels. All of this at a time when his party and the government, for which it is a part of, is bouncing from one policy u-turn to another not to mention his lack of support for the improvement in conditions for workers. Pat Fallon, Chairperson of the Sligo-Leitrim Council of Trade Unions added that politicians must understand that this pandemic should not be used as justification to berate workers, no matter what sector they are operating in. In the past number of months, workers from both the public and private sectors have kept this country functioning, and such attacks should not be used as an attempt to cause division amongst workers in different sectors. "This pandemic has affected us all in so many different ways, and theres no doubt will continue to negatively impact for some considerable time. It remains a fact that those workers, who are in the main low paid, are on precarious and very insecure contracts and poor terms and conditions, are the very workers that have kept this country afloat and operating. "In the early days of this pandemic, we saw politicians applaud frontline workers, in both the public and private sectors. Was this simply publicity-seeking? We believe politicians should lead by example and show respect for all workers, with clear actions by increasing the minimum wage rate to the living wage, improve access to representation and create a space for real industrial relations mechanisms to protect workers from all sectors. We hope at election time, that voters, who are also workers, remember those who really supported them during this difficult period for everyone. Such comments, like those of Mr. MacSharry, are wholly unacceptable to workers and should be seen for what they are, an attack on working people, who ultimately are voters. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 20:00:04|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close TEHRAN, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday strongly condemned U.S. sanctions on the Iranian nation as "a grave crime." "The sanctions the Americans have exerted against the Iranian nation are for sure a grave crime," Khamenei said in a televised speech on the occasion of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha. "Although the sanctions seem to be against the (Islamic) establishment, it is indeed against the entire nation," he noted. The immediate goal of their pressure is to exhaust and disturb the Iranian nation and to make the nation stand against the Islamic establishment, he said. Their next major goal is to prevent Iran's development through sanctions, the Iranian top leader added. The United States seeks to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear industry, reduce its defensive capability and give up its regional influence, said Khamenei. "One of the other goals they pursue is to dismantle the country's economy," he pointed out. The Iranian leader noted that nuclear electricity is indisputable need for Iran which needs at least 30,000 megawatts of nuclear power in the future. Khamenei also said Iran's enemies seek to cut the country's ties with the resistance forces in the region. "We have a strategic depth in the region, on the basis of which many nations and governments are our supporters, interested in Iran, and ready to strive in the service of our goals," he said on the state TV. The Iranian leader also dismissed the U.S. calls for negotiations as "no use," saying negotiations with Washington means "making yourself defenseless" and "giving to their demands." "They (the Americans) say you should abandon your defensive equipment, your regional power and national might," Khamenei said. "Moreover, we are in talks with the entire world, except for the U.S. and the fake Zionist regime," he added. The Iranian top leader noted that his country will resist all pressures by the United States, as "one of the benefits of U.S. sanctions for Iran has been a decrease in our reliance on selling crude oil and moving toward a non-oil economy." Enditem A week-long field market research demonstration of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), more commonly known as drones, concluded on July 31 at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) in support of the United States Armys unmanned ground vehicle program. The demonstration was organized by the National Advanced Mobility Consortium and hosted by the institute. Data collected during the event will be presented to the Army to assist the federal government in evaluating the current state of the industrial base and inform future investments to mature and accelerate UAS to unmanned ground vehicle integration technology applications. Accordingly, the event focused on specific system criteria and data collection efforts as defined by the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, Ground Vehicle Systems Center, Ground Vehicle Robotics. The National Advance Mobility Consortium would like to thank all the personnel from VTTI that helped with this event. VTTI was great to work with. They stepped up and did a lot of the labor behind the scenes to make this event a success. NAMC picked this site due to the large area that we could use for the demonstration, and they bent over backwards to make sure they could accommodate what we were asking for, said Jon St John, senior program manager for NAMC. Six technology providers were invited by NAMC to demonstrate the maturity and technology readiness of their systems, which fell under one of the following categories: 1. Early Stage Integrated Systems: Complete and fully integrated early prototype systems currently capable of autonomously launching, landing, and securing a tethered or tether-capable multicopter, housed in an independent enclosure, from a surrogate ground combat vehicle on the move in a straight path over level terrain or in a nonlinear fashion over nonlevel terrain. 2. Early Stage Subsystems: Prototype subsystems relevant to autonomously deploying, launching, landing, and securing a tethered or tether-capable multicopter, housed in an independent enclosure, from a surrogate ground combat vehicle. Over the course of the demonstration, each UAS navigated four courses on the Virginia Smart Roads: a gravel road, a paved road, a dirt road/trail, and an off-road trail. These tracks, which varied by terrain and complexity, reflected the breadth of advanced vehicle testing capabilities on the Smart Roads for every road type (highway, surface, and rural) found in the United States. This demonstration project will allow the U.S. Army to see the latest and greatest in UAS technology and could help support further development of the technology that could be used in future combat operations, said Martin Walker, senior research associate for VTTIs Center for Truck and Bus Safety. Throughout the event, several precautionary measures were implemented for the safety of visitors and employees, including: Oreofeoluwa Lawal-Babalola, a little boy who inspired the viral mummy calm down video, says he wants to be a police officer in the fut... Oreofeoluwa Lawal-Babalola, a little boy who inspired the viral mummy calm down video, says he wants to be a police officer in the future so as to fight corruption. The 4-year-old boy spoke of his dream career when he featured on an Instagram Live chat with City People TV on Friday. I want to be a police officer to fight corruption, he said while fielding questions from Seyi Kehinde, the host. The little boy said his comment in the video was to plead with Toluige Olokobi Babalola, his mother, not to administer disciplinary action on him. He expressed excitement about the attendant popularity the video has brought to his family, while also lauding his mother. On her part, Toluige, who also featured on the live session, said she never envisaged that the video clip which was done out of sheer fun could become an internet sensation in the blink of an eye. It was God that destined it this way, I never envisaged it would fetch us such popularity, she said. She said the development had turned her from the usual everyday person with nothing special and his boy to a celebrity, whom many people now crave to speak with. The mother of two, however, dismissed claims that she was abusing the little boy in the video, noting that her action was borne out of her desire to correct him from further wrongdoings. On how the video found its way online, Toluige said she had shared it with her sister in America to catch a glimpse of Ores trademark theatrics whenever she wants to spank him for wrongdoing. She said unknown to her, her sister, who could also not contain her laughter after watching the video, shared it to a group she belonged to and consequently hit the internet. She also revealed that Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos state who earlier requested to meet Ore had already reached out to inform them he is working something out for him. Toluige enjoined Nigerian parents to always dissipate attention into discovering the inherent potentials in their children, adding that such could be their ticket to stardom. WASHINGTON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Red Cross has elected to its National Board of Governors Dave Clark, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Operations for Amazon.com. The Red Cross is led by a Board of Governors with all of the powers of governing and directing, as well as overseeing the management of the business and affairs of the organization. At the Annual Meeting of the Red Cross held on July 29, 2020, delegates from local Red Cross units elected Clark to a three-year term. "It's my pleasure to welcome Dave Clark to the Red Cross Board of Governors," said Chairman Bonnie McElveen-Hunter. "His knowledge of complex operations and logistics will be of great value as we work to improve processes to carry out our humanitarian mission in communities around the country." Dave Clark serves as Senior Vice President of Amazon.com's Worldwide Operations, overseeing Amazon's global supply chain, delivery, and customer service, as well as the physical stores, Prime, and marketing teams. He joined the company in 1999 and prior to his current role, Dave held a number of other key positions at Amazon, including Vice President of Global Customer Fulfillment, Vice President of North America Operations, and General Manager of a Fulfillment Center. 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 redcross.org or cruzrojaamericana.org, or visit us on Twitter at @RedCross. SOURCE American Red Cross Related Links https://www.redcross.org Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin I Wayan Juniarta (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar Sun, August 2, 2020 15:11 536 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066aab65b 1 National #Bali,#tourism,#tourism-industry,#COVID19,#coronavirus,bali-island,Tourism-Ministry,COVID-19,coronavirus,coronavirus-effect Free After a five-month hiatus imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bali was officially reopened for tourism in a modest ceremony in Bali's tourism enclave of Nusa Dua on Thursday evening. Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan, Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Wishnutama and Bali Governor I Wayan Koster were joined by scores of dignitaries as they struck a kulkul (bamboo slit drum) to mark the reopening. Toward the end of the ceremony, they raised their hands in a joint toast featuring the island's locally produced palm spirit of arak. "This is a historical day, and the decision to reopen the island was not made hastily. It was made after taking into consideration the number of people who have been discharged and recovered, the mortality rate as well as the fact that the island, with regard to the pandemic, now comprises green and yellow zones, no red zones," Luhut said in his speech. He stressed that the implementation of health protocol was a non-negotiable requirement for the reopening of the island for tourism and warned that the government might close down the sector again should one of the island's regions be declared a red zone. The reopening means that Bali reopened its doors to domestic tourists on July 31. In 2018, the number of domestic tourists exceeded 9.7 million, or 61.6 percent of the total number of visitors. It is the second phase of the multistage reopening policy introduced by the Bali governor. The first phase started on July 9 with the reopening of the island's tourist attractions and facilities solely for the island's own residents. The third and most crucial phase, in which the island will be reopened for international tourists, is to kick off on Sept. 11. "We urge the government to repeal Ministry of Law and Human Rights Regulation No 11/2020 to facilitate the implementation of the third phase of reopening," Koster said. The regulation prohibits the entrance of foreigners into Indonesian territory in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Koster said he was convinced that Bali would be ready for the full reopening of tourism, an industry that accounts for more than 52 percent of the island's economic. "As of today, the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases has reached 3,360, [which includes] 2,788 recoveries, 48 deaths and 524 active cases. Bali scores a recovery rate of 82.98 percent, the second-highest in Indonesia, after West Sumatra. We are experiencing a positive development in dealing with the pandemic," he said. Koster stressed that tourist attractions and facilities across the island had implemented the required health protocols to ensure the safety of their patrons. "The world is watching closely, and the success of Bali in reopening its tourism will greatly influence our efforts to resurrect Indonesian tourism," Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Wishnutama said. At least two people were killed on Friday when an under-construction building collapsed in Uttar Pradesh's Noida. Five people who got trapped under the debris were rescued but two of them succumbed to their injuries. The police said that the three other people are out of critical condition and under treatment. The two people were rescued in a critical condition. Gautam Buddh Nagar District Magistrate Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj said that they were shifted to a hospital for treatment. "Two people have succumbed to their injuries. Three people are stable and are undergoing treatment," said the Noida Police of Sector 24 on building collapse. The building is located in Sector 11 and the incident took place around 7.30 pm. Police personnel in large number along with senior officers and teams of the Fire Department and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were present at spot for the rescue operation. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also took cognisance of the incident, according to an official statement released in Lucknow. The chief minister has asked Gautam Buddh Nagar Police Commissioner Alok Singh to reach the incident site and ensure the rescue of the victims and proper treatment to them, it stated. This is a developing story. Further details, including the cause of the collapse, are awaited. August has often been a month of nasties for financial markets, and the portents for this year are not great. The headline 32.9 per cent collapse in American output in the three months to the end of June, the worst such number since the first quarter of 1946, is truly horrendous. It was enough to frighten President Trump into musing on Twitter that Covid-19 and the surge in postal voting could lead to a fraudulent presidential election in November. Going in the wrong direction: Any hope that the normally resilient US economy would achieve the dreamed of 'V' shaped recovery has faded The US economy is in terrible shape and that should be a worry in Whitehall since America is our single biggest trading partner. Forging a trade deal with the US is critical to the vision of global Britain. The only grain of comfort to be drawn from the US data is that it is measured on an annualised basis. On the simpler standard used by the UK, the decline is actually 9 per cent which is relatively modest when compared to the 19.1 per cent fall in GDP in Britain in the three months to May. The jobless picture in the US is also alarming. Another 1.4m-plus workers made claims for benefits in the period to July 18, bringing the total on the dole up to over 17m. Any hope that the normally resilient US economy would achieve the dreamed of 'V' shaped recovery has faded as Covid-19 hotspots have sprung up. For the moment, the White House is faced with a reverse 'L' a plunge in output followed by a period of flat lining. Wall Street, which has been mesmerised by the earnings heft of big tech during lockdown and has tended to ignore miserable economic data, plummeted more than one per cent and the concern must be this is the start of something worse. Why should one fear August? Traditionally, it is the month when the top traders are on their yachts or in the Hamptons, and it is lesser mortals who lead the market charge. Here in the UK it was the month in 1992 when sterling began its journey out of the exchange rate mechanism (the precursor of the euro). It was also the month when the run on Northern Rock began in 2007 and when the fate of Lehman was sealed a year later. Have courage. Final curtain The pandemic is proving the ultimate stress test for global banking. Changes in the way the banks set aside funds for future losses are catching the market by surprise, with provisions at Lloyds Bank in the first half of the year 60 per cent higher than predicted. The best case scenario is that super-cautious chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio wants to go out on a high and has front-loaded the potential damage, resulting in a 3.8billion provision in the first half leading to a cash loss of 560m. Certainly, Santander earlier this week took the chance to kitchen-sink the goodwill in its accounts, which dates back more than a decade. My suspicion is that the outlook is every bit as gloomy as the Lloyds provisions would suggest. The strain on the household finances of millions of ordinary citizens in the pandemic is huge. Even though Covid-19 loans might have a government indemnity, pre-pandemic credit of all kinds from mortgages to credit cards and motor loans could go badly wrong. In previous downturns in Britain the biggest problem has been the property sector turning sour. History is likely to repeat itself. The fashion for home and flexible working will take a toll on office values. Even more seriously, Covid-19 has been a killer for city centre and secondary shopping mall stores and eateries. Loans to retail groups will have to be rescheduled or written off and the bloodbath could be every bit as great as after the financial crisis. The markets are taking a dim view of bank shares and Lloyds stock, widely held by private investors, plunged 7.6 per cent to the lowest level in eight years. That is not the legacy of which Horta-Osorio has been dreaming. Snap back Kodak has long been considered a bombed-out photographic company with a dominant brand, a sinking business and desperate for a deal. This week it joined the pharma frenzy after the Trump administration lent it 600m to turn over its factories to making ingredients for Covid-19 medicines. The stock soared 16 times from $2 to more than $30. Say cheese. Soya sauce is a traditional dish of the Vietnamese people. The dish can be found in many localities, but the most delicious one is made by locals in Ban Yen Nhan Town, My Hao District, Hung Yen Province. Visiting Ban village to explore the traditional craft of soya sauce making. Located 30km from Hanoi, the town impresses visitors from the first look due to the many earthen jars in different sizes and shapes in the grounds of local houses as well as the sweet smell of soya sauce in the air. The making of a bowl of yellow, sweet and tasty soya sauce requires a lot of time, specific techniques and experience. First, the craftsmen soak sticky rice in water and boil it. The boiled rice is then left for two days until it turns yellow due to fungus. The rice is then mixed with soybeans, salt and water. The mixture is poured into earthen or ceramic jars, which are covered tightly and dried in the sun for two to three months. During the drying period, makers must stir the mixture every morning and noon, but only for a minute. Sunlight heats up the jars, contributing to advancing the speed of the process. The sunnier it is, the quicker the process is completed. Photo credit: Dang Anh - Vinh Pham The craft creates jobs for four or five workers in each household. During peak season from March to August, each soya sauce making facility can attract 10 to 15 local employees with an income ranging from VND4 million to VND5 million. Nhan Dan Soya sauce a delicacy of Hung Yen Tuong Ban (Ban soya sauce) has been a delicacy of northern Vietnam since the end of the 19th century. It is a delicacy found in Ban Yen Nhan Ward in My Hao Town, Hung Yen province. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 Trend: On July 31, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Mohammad Ashraf Ghani telephoned President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. Ghani congratulated and wished peace to President Ilham Aliyev and the people of Azerbaijan on the occasion of Eid al-Adha. The head of state thanked for attention and congratulations, and extended his congratulations and best wishes for peace and tranquility to his counterpart and friendly people of Afghanistan on the occasion of the holiday. The president of Afghanistan extended his condolences over the death of Azerbaijani servicemen and civilians in the clashes that happened after Armenia`s provocation on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, adding that Afghanistan stood by Azerbaijan on this issue. Ghani reaffirmed his country`s support for Azerbaijan`s territorial integrity. President Ilham Aliyev thanked for this brotherly position, praising Afghanistan`s support for Azerbaijan during the border clashes both directly and as part of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. During the phone talk, the heads of state hailed the development of the bilateral relations, and expressed confidence that the decisions adopted at the recent videoconference between the presidents of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan would be implemented. JetClosing, a Seattle, WA-based digital home closing service for resales and refinances, closed a $9m Series B funding round. The round, which brought the fundraising total to $35m, was led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., with participation from Pioneer Square Labs and Trilogy Equity. The company intends to use the funds to expand into new markets while continuing to add features and bolster our platforms overall user experience. Led by Dan Greenshields, CEO, JetClosing is digital title and escrow company for real estate transactions. The company utilizes fully encrypted workflows for secure document transfers, wire transactions, remote online notarizations (RON), and e-signatures. To prevent fraud commonly associated with home buying scams, the company has instituted a number of security measures, including a recent partnership with CertifID, a real-time identity and account verification platform for protecting money transfers. JetClosing is currently available in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. FinSMEs 31/07/2020 Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Guangdong provincial government stated earlier this month that it will encourage foreign investors to plow capital into new energy vehicle (NEV) businesses and relax foreign ownership restrictions on commercial vehicle (CV) manufacturers, as part of efforts to open wider to the world. (Xpeng G3, photo source: Xpeng Motors) Besides, the foreign parent of a Sino-foreign PV joint venture will be supported in transferring its average fuel consumption and NEV credits as required, according to the document Guangdong Government issued on July 25. The local policy issuance came after China's state planner said on June 24 it will remove foreign ownership caps for companies making commercial vehicles (CVs) from July 23, 2020, which might have a significant effect on the reform of China's CV industry. According to the 2020 version of two negative lists issued by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), the equity stake held by Chinese parent company in a complete vehicle manufacturing joint venture should be not less than 50%, and a foreign investor is allowed to build up to two joint ventures that produce same automobile products. However, the makers of special vehicles, new energy vehicles (NEVs) and CVs are ruled out. In April 2018, the NDRC announced in a statement that China will scrap foreign ownership limits on new energy vehicle manufacturers in 2018, followed by commercial vehicle makers in 2020 and passenger vehicle companies in 2022. In principle, this means that foreign investors will be permitted to own more than 50% of equity stake in a joint venture or even form a wholly-owned subsidiary in China to produce CVs from 2020 and PVs from 2022 respectively. (Photo source: Hyundai Truck & Bus (China) Co., Ltd.) The updated Market Access Negative List reassures the removal of the restrictions for NEV and CV makers. Hyundai took the first step in CV area. The South Korean automaker has obtained 100% stake in Sichuan Hyundai Motor Co., Ltd. which is currently named Hyundai Truck & Bus (China) Co., Ltd.), making the latter the firstCV manufacturer in China that is wholly owned by a foreigner company. In January 2019, the EV manufacturer Tesla started the construction of the Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, which is China's first vehicle manufacturing plant entirely possessed by a foreign firm. By Chris Campos Bay City News Foundation The Antioch City Council cleared the way for the building of 1,177 new homes along their southeastern border Tuesday night. Originally submitted for approval in 2015 with 1,600 houses proposed, the Ranch Project has been the subject of controversy and initiative and legal challenges. The final city approval came with a unanimous vote by the council for a development called "a gem" by Mayor Sean Wright. The environmental study describes a master planned community within the Sand Creek Focus Area to be constructed in three separate phases. The proposed project comprises a multi-generational plan, including age-restricted housing, of up to 1,177 dwelling units, as well as a 5-acre Village Center, including a 2-acre future fire station site, 22 acres of parks, a trail staging area, and 229 acres of open space. Richland Communities, based in Irvine, is the developer behind the project. The company has built a number of major projects throughout Northern California. Juan Pablo Galvan of local environmental group Save Mount Diablo expressed his approval of the project Wednesday. "We did a lot of work with them to expand their open space and fine work their plans." A number of local union members spoke in support of the project during the public comment session. Craig Cristina, senior vice president of Richland Communities, said Tuesday during the meeting that his company had worked hard to "engage the community" on environmental issues and fire district needs. The project is planned just west of the Kaiser Permanente Antioch Medical Center along Deer Valley Road. The project will be built in three phases with the first to include approximately 362 units consisting of low-density and medium-density housing. Phase 2 would include approximately 201 units of low-density housing, and Phase 3 would include around 614 units consisting of low-density and age-restricted housing. Project manager Kyle Masters told the council Tuesday night that his firm expects the first construction to begin within three years with the first home occupation within five years. "This has been a long time coming," said Councilwoman Lori Ogorochock "It looks like a fantastic project," Vice Mayor Joy Motts added. 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. Currently Reading Is it safe to go to the gym during the coronavirus pandemic? LANGLEY, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 31, 2020 / Adastra Labs Holdings Ltd. (CSE:XTRX)(FRANKFURT:D2EP) ("Adastra") a Health Canada Licensed cannabis processing and analytical testing services Company, is pleased to announce a tolling agreement with Muskoka Grown Ltd. ("Muskoka Grown"). "We are pleased to have received two shipments from Muskoka Grown, a small batch, high quality cannabis cultivator. We are fortunate to be able to leverage Muskoka Grown's quality growing with over 900 KG of quality cannabis flower and trim received to date under a split tolling agreement. Muskoka Grown's cannabis has been producing high-quality distillate and we look forward to continuing this tolling agreement." - Andy Hale, CEO Adastra. Under the terms of the tolling agreement, Muskoka Grown provides cannabis biomass for toll processing by Adastra into cannabis distillate. The two Companies share the high-grade cannabis distillate produced. "While Muskoka Grown remains focused on producing freshly packaged dried products, we are thrilled to provide our high grade cannabis as biomass for processing. We value this strategic partnership that has allowed us an opportunity to expand our revenue streams." David Grand, CEO & Founder, Muskoka Grown. About Adastra Labs Holdings Ltd. Adastra Labs Holdings Ltd. is a Langley, BC-based cannabis company with a co-located Health Canada Licensed Standard Processing Facility and Analytical Testing Laboratory. Adastra can produce cannabis extract through supercritical CO2 extraction and secondary distillation as well as conduct in-process quality testing. Such extracts can easily be incorporated into edibles, beverages, topicals, tinctures, vape cartridges and other products that will serve the Canadian medical and adult-use cannabis markets. www.adastralabs.ca About Muskoka Grown Limited Muskoka Grown is a community-focused cannabis company committed to providing high-quality craft cannabis products, building meaningful connections with surrounding communities and positively contributing to the conservation of our natural surroundings. Muskoka Grown operates a purposely-built 65,000 sq. ft. cannabis cultivation and processing facility in Ontario. The company is passionate about cultivating in small-batch grow rooms and bringing freshly packaged cannabis to legal recreational adult-use markets. For more information about Muskoka Grown, please visit our website, www.muskokagrown.com For investor inquiries please contact: Broidy Rondelet Corporate Development and Investor Relations roidyrondelet@muskokagrown.com Andrew Hale Chief Executive Officer Adastra Labs Holdings Ltd. Phone: (778) 715-5011 Email: andy@adastralabs.ca Stephen Brohman Chief Financial Officer Adastra Labs Holdings Ltd. Phone: (778) 715-5011 Email: steve@adastralabs.ca Address: 5451 275th Street, Langley, BC V4W 3X8 Telephone: 778-715-5011 Fax: 844-874-9893 CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. In this news release, forward-looking statements relate, among other things, to: Adastra's expectations concerning fulfilling its obligations under its agreements, purchase orders and receiving the economic benefits of such agreements or purchase orders. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties. 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 the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. Except as required by law, Adastra assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. SOURCE: Adastra Labs Holdings Ltd. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/599529/Adastra-Announces-Muskoka-Grown-Split-Tolling-Agreement Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi has accused Mumbai police of obstructing a fair probe in actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death being conducted by Bihar police. Modis questioning of Mumbai police comes amid growing calls for a CBI probe in the case and follows allegations by the actors family that the Mumbai police was more interested in framing big names in Bollywood. Mumbai police is putting obstruction in the way of a fair investigation by Bihar police in #Sushant death case. BJP feels that CBI should take over this case, Bihar deputy chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi tweeted on Friday. The differences over the ongoing probe in Sushants death is snowballing into a faceoff between the two states as Maharashtra government continues to back investigations by Mumbai police and has again rejected calls for a CBI probe. Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajput death: ED files money laundering case Mumbai police are investigating the matter. Police will investigate on the basis of evidence, we expect that the probe will be completed as soon as possible and the police will reach a conclusion, said state water resources minister Jayant Patil on demand of CBI inquiry in the case. The Bihar police team, which has alleged non-cooperation from Mumbai police in their parallel investigation into a case of abetment to suicide filed against actor Rhea Chakraborty, held a high-level meeting at Bihar DGPs office in Patna on Friday. Rhea was Sushants live-in partner and has been accused along with six of her kin of abetment to suicide, withdrawing crores from Sushants bank account and harassing him mentally, by Sushants family. Sushants family had filed an FIR against Chakraborty in a Bihar police station a few days ago and has legally opposed attempts to transfer the case to Mumbai accusing the metropolis police of inaction and waylaying the probe into the 34-year old actors death by questioning film personalities and production houses, focusing on alleged nepotism as a possible cause of Sushant ending his own life in frustration. They have also pointed out that the Mumbai police have not registered even an FIR in the matter since June 14, when Sushant was found dead in his Bandra flat in Mumbai. Several Bihar politicians including Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan, his son Chirag Paswan, have expressed apprehensions about the probe being conducted by Mumbai police and demanded a CBI probe into Sushants death. Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajputs death must be probed by CBI: Ram Vilas Paswan joins chorus According to ANI, a letter petition has been filed in Patna High Court seeking the transfer of investigation into Rajputs death from Bihar police to CBI. The petition came days after a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, dismissed a petition seeking a CBI inquiry into Rajputs death. At least 21 people have died after allegedly consuming illegally-brewed poisonous alcohol in India's northern state of Punjab, prompting authorities to order an investigation, officials said Friday. The villagers, mostly poor farmers and workers, fell ill after drinking the alcohol on Wednesday. The first deaths were reported later on Wednesday night, domestic media reported. The Punjab government said the state Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had ordered a high-level inquiry into the suspicious deaths across the Amritsar, Batala and Tarn Taran districts. One person was reported to be in critical condition, it added. Singh, who has promised strong action against those found guilty, also directed the police to launch a crackdown on spurious liquor manufacturing units in the state, reports said. Police had detained some suspects and were waiting for autopsy reports to determine the exact causes of death. The illegal liquor trade thrives in India because it is much cheaper than commercially produced alcohol. Methanol, a chemical used in antifreeze and wood spirits, is often found in these self-made drinks. Last year, 151 people, mostly tea-plantation workers, died after drinking toxic alcohol in one of the country's worst liquor poisonings in recent years. An average of 1,000 people, most of them poor, die in India each year after consuming illegally brewed alcohol, government data shows. 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 In 1988, a group of South Fork naturalists formed a membership organization called the South Fork Natural History Society, better known as SOFO. The objective of this organization was to increase public awareness about the past, present, and future of eastern Long Islands natural history and to share their joyful experiences of exploring and learning with others in the community. SOFO used to operate out of a small building referred to as the Nature Clubhouse where children gathered to examine different species, research for school projects, and just hang out. The Clubhouse served as a prototype... Douglas Ross is likely to be a candidate in the contest to be leader of the Scottish Conservatives following Jackson Carlaws sudden resignation, a fellow party MP backing his bid has said. After less than six months in the job, Mr Carlaw on Thursday said he made the painful decision after realising he is not the best person to lead the party in the run-up to next Mays Holyrood election. Ruth Davidson stood down from the leadership role in August last year, with Mr Carlaw serving as acting leader until being fully appointed in February. John Lamont, the Tory MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, also confirmed on Friday that Ms Davidson will return to frontline politics and play a part in the team if Mr Ross is elected. Telling Times Radio he would be campaign manager of Moray MP Mr Rosss bid to lead the party, Mr Lamont said Ms Davidson will be taking on Nicola Sturgeon in the Scottish Parliament up until the election where they hope Mr Ross will swap Westminster for Holyrood. He said: I think he has not only the skills to unite the Conservative Party in Scotland, but also more importantly the skills to unite the unionists vote within Scotlands which is currently fragmented between a number of different parties. One of the strengths of the SNP is theyre able to consolidate most of the nationalist vote behind them which clearly poses a threat not just from the Scottish Parliament elections next year but in terms of the possibility or another referendum. I was (Ruths) campaign manager back in 2011 when she was elected Scottish leader and she has grown from strength to strength since since that point and shes going to be playing a part and Douglass team if Douglas is elected. Ruth will be taking on Nicola Sturgeon in the Scottish Parliament between the point of Douglass election until next years election to the Scottish Parliament when we hope that Douglas is going to be returned as an MSP. Story continues Ruth will be returning to frontline politics and I think thats a very welcome move because, as you say, Ruth is a formidable performer and a great advocate for Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom, which is clearly a very important part of political dynamic in Scotland with opinion polls showing renewed support for nationalists. Edinburgh MSP Ruth Davidson campaigning outside Edinburgh Zoo for its safe reopening last month (Jane Barlow/PA) Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid tribute to Mr Carlaw saying he has been a tremendous servant to the Scottish Conservative Party for more than four decades. Michelle Ballantyne, the Tory MSP for the South Scotland region who stood against Mr Carlaw in the leadership contest, said the party did make a bad choice in appointing him as leader and she suggested he had been removed in a stitch up. But fellow party MSP Adam Tomkins, who is to quit Holyrood at the 2021 election, told the BBCs Good Morning Scotland radio programme: Michelle doesnt know what shes talking about. The only thing that we need to remember about Michelle is that she was beaten 75/25 in a two-horse race by Jackson Carlaw only a few months ago and Im afraid that Michelle doesnt speak for the party. I think the reason why were worried about the polls is because we think that they might be right for the first time in Scottish history. Independence now looks like it might not be the minority pursuit that its always been but the position of a majority of Scots and we need to do something about that. I think Douglas is exactly that kind of combination of formidable and robust and determined that we do need I think he will be an outstanding candidate and an outstanding leader if he does announce his candidacy. Mr Ross had been a Scotland Office minister but resigned from the role in May over Dominic Cummingss efforts to defend his trip from London to Durham during the coronavirus lockdown. He was elected to Westminster in the 2017 general election, taking the seat of then SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson. He was a regional MSP for the Highlands and Islands in the year prior to that. Ellen DeGeneres attends the premiere of Netflix's "Green Eggs and Ham," on Nov. 3, 2019, in Los Angeles. / AP-Yonhap By Kim Yoo-chul Global content giant Netflix may pay for KT's network in return for providing customized content to KT users, although KT says it has no official comment for the time being. On Friday, KT confirmed it struck a content partnership deal with Netflix recently. The partnership means KT's internet protocol TV (IPTV) subscribers will have wider access to Netflix content on the Olleh TV platform starting Aug. 3. The key point is whether or not Netflix agreed with KT to pay for using KT's network. Regarding the specifics of the agreement, KT officials declined to comment because of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). The KT-Netflix partnership came after LG Uplus ended its two-year exclusive contract with Netflix recently. Critics argued that Netflix and other foreign internet platform operators should be subject to the same network usage fees as local content providers. COLUMBIA Charleston County School District's back-to-school plans are among 36 approved Friday by state Superintendent Molly Spearman, who extended her face mask order to anyone stepping foot in a school building. The third round of approvals means 67 school districts statewide more than 80 percent have been given the official go-ahead to proceed with their reopening plans. Under Charleston County's plans, amended Monday, all students will begin either fully virtual or in a weekly mix of online and in-classroom learning, depending on what their parents choose. While it's not the five-days-a-week of in-person instruction district officials initially thought could be offered in half of the county's schools on opening day, it still meets Spearman's requirement that students come in at least one day a week, said her spokesman, Ryan Brown. At Monday's board meeting, Charleston County Superintendent Gerrita Postlewait indicated classes may start online for all students, unless the spread of COVID-19 declines for two consecutive weeks before the day-after-Labor Day opening. Whether or not we offer any in-person on Sept. 8, even to very small groups of students, is subject to sustained downward trends in the COVID-19 rates that we've begun to see in our area," she said. But the state's approval is based on an opening-day model of at least one day weekly in the classroom, Brown said. "If any changes are made to whats approved, they're supposed to let us know as soon as possible," he said, adding that's the message given to every local superintendent. Switching to all-virtual is supposed to happen only if disease spread gets progressively worse over the next month, and if it does, "we'll be re-evaluating everyone's plans," he said. Charleston County schools spokeswoman Erica Taylor clarified the district's plan still calls for some schools starting with a full-day week of in-person instruction if at all possible. "We are not defaulting to the one-day-per-week model unless we absolutely have no other option based on COVID-19 rates," she said. Georgetown County and Dorchester County's two districts are among plans to receive conditional approval. Their proposals, which start all students virtually Sept. 8, gave no timetable for launching their in-person option of two days weekly in the classroom. So Spearman set a deadline for them no later than the Monday after Labor Day, Sept. 14 meaning they'll be online-only for just four days. Nine other districts to receive approval with the Sept. 14 caveat include Richland One, which includes downtown Columbia schools. Their students will learn fully online for two weeks past that district's Aug. 31 start. So far, 22 school districts are offering parents the ability to send their children to school for a full week of in-person instruction, though five of those limit that option to the elementary grades. Thirty-two districts are starting all students on a hybrid model, and two of those plan to switch to five days a week face-to-face sometime in September. And one district, Orangeburg County, plans to start fully online but transition directly to a full-week in-person option starting Sept. 14. Five of South Carolina's 81 school districts have yet to submit a plan to Spearman's agency. They were supposed to be due July 17. On Monday, Spearman announced masks must be worn on school buses so they can transport more students. Wearing masks allows increasing capacity to 67 percent of normal ridership, up from half, according to the state Education Department. On Friday, Spearman went further in requiring everyone older than 2 to wear face coverings inside school buildings. The state agency is helping by providing districts enough cloth masks for every teacher, bus driver, custodian and cafeteria worker to have five. "As we prepare to welcome students and teachers back to South Carolina classrooms for face-to-face instruction, it is imperative that we implement measures that are proven to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus," Spearman said. Prior to this week, she'd recommended mask-wearing but stopped short of any statewide mandate, saying her agency lacks the ability to enforce it. In making the switch, her hope is that adults and students abide by the rule as what's in their best interests, without needing to be reprimanded, Brown said. "We're really hoping every parent, student, teacher and staff views this as a personal responsibility and carries it out that way," he said. "Obviously, we dont want to see this negatively impact a childs academics by getting them in disciplinary trouble, but in this day and age, riding a school bus and coming to school face-to-face is an option. If you refuse to wear a face mask, stay at home." Cambodia and the Republic of Korea (RoK) launch the first round of free trade negotiation on July 3. (Photo: Yonhap News) Hanoi Cambodia and the Republic of Korea (RoK) on July 30 launched the first round of free trade negotiations, according to the RoKs Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. During the two-day virtual negotiations, the two sides will discuss details on the envisioned FTA, including expanding the bilateral economic cooperation and opening up the commodity market. The talks come more than a year after Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen proposed making preparations for the trade deal during his summit with RoK President Moon Jae-in in Phnom Penh in March last year. The two countries have carried out a joint feasibility study over the first five months of this year. RoK Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee said in a statement on July 9 that amid the spread of COVID-19, it has become more important for his country to expand cooperation with Southeast Asian countries. She noted the RoK is pleased to launch FTA negotiations with Cambodia, which can potentially rise as the new hub of production and trade in ASEAN, adding that the two countries will make efforts to come up with a meaningful result within this year. The two-way trade volume reached an all-time high of 1 billion USD in 2019, up 6 percent from a year earlier. That included 697 million USD of the RoKs shipments, up 5.5 percent on-year, according to the data released by the Korea International Trade Association. The increase was significant as the Northeast Asian countrys annual exports fell more than 10 percent year-on-year in 2019 amid the trade row between the US and China. "In the 40 years I've been doing bugs (infectious disease), we've never had this level of epidemiology being done in public," Katz said. "It's all been in real time." As we've learned and witnessed more over the months about the spread of the virus, medicine and science have tried to keep up. Nobody likes it, but the latest evidence shows we're in real trouble. "I think we should shut down again just start all over," Katz said Friday. "Three times as many people have died in these months than on the battlefield in Vietnam. It's astounding to me." Also astounding is the latent, stubborn response by public leaders, including the president and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, he said. "In early June, Scott County was having four cases a day. We've had spikes as high as 76 this month," he said. "If people would say how many deaths are acceptable, I could calibrate my approach." Even as Iowa rises in the ranks of high-infection rate states, Reynolds demands that even higher COVID cases must be proven before she permits schools to delay reopening. Her loyalty to President Donald Trump is her chief concern, Katz said. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in fine form at a community meeting with Covid-19 responders. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images) Most people fear speaking in front of a large group of people. Public speaking triggers nervousness and anxiety, so much so that the US organisation National Institute of Mental Health reported it is feared by 73 per cent of people more than death. Yes, many would rather die than talk in front of a crowd. It may not be surprising that the minority of people who have mastered public speaking have a big advantage in their careers. So who are the best public speakers in the world? UK professional training body Development Academy recently analysed more than 100 hours of public speaking in the past year to rank the best speakers among world leaders. Here are the top five: Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand prime minister Angela Merkel, Germany chancellor Narendra Modi, India prime minister Justin Trudeau, Canada prime minister Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland first minister Development Academy reported that Ardern's strength is her "empathetic leadership style". "She challenges the common perception that emotional communication shows weakness, instead choosing to approach the public with [a] softer touch," a spokesperson wrote. "She has a measured and authoritative sincerity about her she is kind and compassionate, without shying away from tough issues." Australia's prime minister Scott Morrison came in at 10th, boosted by his leadership during the bushfires last summer and during the Covid-19 crisis. "Mr Morrison has been open, emotional and even vulnerable during his addresses to the Australian people, demonstrating to voters that he shares in their pain." Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are terrible public speakers On the other end of the spectrum, Development Academy named two national leaders who had much room to improve in their public speaking. UK prime minister Boris Johnson used to mutter or waffle without pause in his previous roles as foreign secretary and mayor of London. Although his communication has improved this year during very challenging times, he and his party seems to have recognised his own shortcomings. Story continues "The Conservative Party recently announced that it is looking to build upon the public interest of Boris Johnsons daily briefings by hiring a spokesperson to communicate with the nation on behalf of the prime minister," stated Development Academy. "This is an interesting decision by Boris Johnson, perhaps signalling that the PM has identified the need for a dedicated Communications Director in light of his shortcomings." US president Donald Trump has always had a "thinking out loud" tendency that detracts from his eloquence. "He reacts to questions before he has given himself time to think and offer appropriate answers," Development Academy reported. "He will often jump to a new topic before concluding the previous one, causing his audience to lose interest or become frustrated. His overuse of metaphors and analogies is confusing for many, and he occasionally slurs on words." Follow Yahoo Finance Australia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. BSP president Mayawati on Friday favoured that an invitation be extended to Dalit Mahamandelshwar Kanhaiya Prabhunandan Giri for the 'bhoomi pujan' ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, saying it would have some impact on the Constitutional intention of setting a casteless society. This comes after reports in the media that Giri was unhappy over not being invited to the event. The groundbreaking ceremony for the temple is slated for August 5. In a tweet, the BSP supremo said, "In view of the complaint of Dalit Mahamandelshwar Swami Kanhaiya Prabhunanadan Giri, it would have been better if he was also invited to the bhoomi pujan ceremony in Ayodhya on August 5 along with 200 other saints. This could have had some impact on the Constitutional intention of establishing a casteless society in the country." However, she went on the say that, "Instead of getting into all this, the Dalit samaj, which has been suffering neglect, contempt and injustice, should focus more on their labour and deeds for their salvation and in this case too they need to follow the path shown by Bhimrao Ambedkar." After a protracted legal tussle, the Supreme Court had on November 9 last year paved the way for the construction of a Ram temple by a Trust at the disputed site in Ayodhya, and directed the Centre to allot an alternative 5-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a new mosque at a "prominent" place in the holy town in Uttar Pradesh. File photo of Congress Party workers shouting slogans against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a protest in Amritsar on Feb. 26, 2020, following clashes between people supporting and opposing a contentious amendment to India's citizenship law in New Delhi. (Narinder Nanu/AFP via Getty Images) Regarding If disaster is what youre looking for, Trump and Parson have a plan (July 20): This editorial asks, On what planet are these two politicians living? as they demand schools reopen despite the clear danger to the health of students, teachers and parents. The answer: Planet Money. President Donald Trumps wealth was immediately threatened by the coronavirus. His real estate developments are dependent on people traveling and spending freely. His financial losses from the economic downturn must be driving him nuts. Hence his persistent self-serving attempts to deny science, minimize the virus and demand the reopening of the economy. For Trump, schools must reopen so parents can return to work to feed the economy that profits him. For Gov. Mike Parson and other Republican officeholders, reopening schools is also about energizing the economy their economy, the one that has enriched them and their wealthy donors and corporate contributors. Their economy was built through union busting, deregulation and tax breaks for the rich. Their economy has radically diverted wealth from the middle class to the top 1%, and theyre not about to let a pandemic slow down their gravy train. But despite Trumps and the Republicans denials, the pandemic is real and getting worse. How much damage it inflicts will depend on whether we allow them to dictate the nations response to it for their benefit, or whether we instead insist that sacrifices be shared, with the great resources in this country used wisely and equitably to see us safely through this perilous time. Dan Sherburne Bel-Nor Travel expenses for sending the Secretary of State to celebrate St Patrick's Day in Washington have been revealed. Brandon Lewis represented Northern Ireland at the annual White House celebrations this year in place of Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill, who cancelled their planned trip to focus on the coronavirus outbreak. Figures from the NIO said the visit from March 10-14 cost taxpayers 6,531.57, covering travel, visas, accommodation and meals. Mr Lewis made the trip shortly after taking over from Julian Smith. The NIO sees the annual visit as a critical opportunity to engage with a range of key stakeholders in Washington DC. Almost 15,000 of travel expenses for other senior civil servants in 2020 was also revealed, including those of former NIO permanent secretary Sir Jonathan Stephens. After announcing his upcoming retirement at the start of the year, he took four working trips to Belfast in January and February costing 2,657 for his travel, accommodation and meals, as well as 195 spend on use of an official secure car. His replacement Madeline Allesandri took seven trips to Belfast in February and March, costing a total of 2,343. Expenses for NIO director Mark Larmour for trips to London and Dublin between January and February came to 3,218. Fellow NIO director Colin Perry had the same expenses for four trips to Belfast between January and February. Lindy Cameron, who had served as Sir Jonathan's deputy before being named as head of the National Security Cyber Centre, had expenses of 1,304 for travel to Wiltshire, Belfast and Dublin. Last week Mr Lewis defended accepting donations from wealthy Russian individuals with links to President Vladimir Putin, insisting they were British citizens. The Times listed Mr Lewis as having received 25,000 from Lubov Chernukhin, a banker and the wife of Mr Putin's former deputy finance minister, and 23,000 from Alexander Temerko, a former chief of a Russian arms company. Mr Lewis said the donations had been properly declared. COLONIE United Airlines said it plans to end its code-share relationship with ExpressJet and shift all of its United Express flights that use Embraer ERJ-145 regional jets to CommutAir, which has its maintenance base at the Albany International Airport. CommutAir operates a fleet of 40 of the 50-seat aircraft and has about 150 people at Albany, although some of those may have been furloughed during the pandemic, which has reduced flying. Many of CommutAir's jets have been temporarily parked at Albany. "We have been communicating for several months that we expect to be a smaller airline in response to the unprecedented impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on our business," United spokesman Charles Hobart told the Times Union Friday. "In February, we took our first step to simplify our partner landscape and consolidate our E145 flying. "Yesterday took additional steps to further simplify our operation and right size our capacity for the future," Hobart added. "We continue to evaluate further opportunities to improve the United Express product. "Beginning later this year we will consolidate all of our E145 operations into CommutAir, which will then become Uniteds sole operator of this aircraft type. This transition will take a number of months," Hobart said. "We expect CommutAir will be positioned to meet demand in the current operating environment." CommutAir, which started flying 31 years ago Saturday, has its roots in northern New York state. While the carrier's predecessors -- Air North, Brockway Air, Clinton Aero -- stretch back as much as five decades, it was on Aug. 1, 1989 that Commutair first flew, when a 19-seat Beechcraft took off from the Plattsburgh airport. CommutAir, which early on flew as a Continental Express partner, joined United when the Chicago-based airline merged with Continental. "The professional men and women at CommutAir pride themselves in providing reliable service to United and its customers through our core4 values of being safe, caring, dependable and efficient," a CommutAir spokeswoman said when asked to comment. "We look forward to our continued partnership with United." Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. ExpressJet told Reuters it would "explore all options" but that it expected to continue to operate through the rest of this year. The airline industry has been particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, as a combination of fears of contagion, and the closing of most international borders to American citizens, has reduced demand by 80 percent or more. EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier online version of this story incorrectly identified one of the carriers in the headline. A new ceasefire appeared to be holding across Afghanistan on Friday as the Kabul government released more Taliban insurgents in a bid to accelerate the start of delayed peace talks. The three-day truce, slated for the duration of the Eid al-Adha festival, is only the third official pause in nearly 19 years of war. While there were no immediate reports of major fighting, an unclaimed car bomb that killed at least 17 people late Thursday highlighted Afghanistan's underlying volatility. Afghans took advantage of the calm to flock to mosques to offer Eid prayers. In Kabul, armed guards patted down worshippers heading into neighbourhood mosques. "We want a permanent ceasefire from the Taliban as they are the ones who paved the way for other terrorist groups to operate in Afghanistan," Mohammad Tahir, a taxi driver, told AFP after praying. Worshippers also offered Eid prayers in the eastern city of Jalalabad, which has seen many deadly attacks over the years. "Previously, we were not attending Eid prayers in large numbers for fear of suicide attacks," Jalalabad resident Wala Jan told AFP. - 500 prisoners to be freed - President Ashraf Ghani and the Taliban have both signalled that peace talks could begin straight after Eid, and there are widespread calls to extend the ceasefire. Under a deal signed by the Taliban and the US in February, "intra-Afghan" talks were slated to start in March, but were delayed amid political infighting in Kabul and as a contentious prisoner swap dragged on. That swap will see Kabul free 5,000 Taliban fighters, while the insurgents say they have already fulfilled their pledge to release 1,000 government forces. In an Eid speech, Ghani said a final 500 prisoners will be released during the festival in a bid to "accelerate the peace talks". Late Friday, officials began releasing the inmates, including from Pul e-Charkhi prison near Kabul. "There were some issues in our country and that is why we joined the Taliban," said one inmate, Nasir, as authorities prepared to release him. "After my release I will not rejoin the Taliban. I joined once and made a mistake," he told AFP. Another prisoner, Khodaidad, 25, hoped peace talks would succeed. "I'm happy about the peace talks ... We want peace, so our people can enjoy peaceful lives," he said as officials processed his release documents. While Kabul says the release of the 500 Taliban inmates will fulfil its part of the prisoner exchange, the insurgents have said some of those prisoners are not on the original list of 5,000 they demanded. Ghani said he did "not have the right" to take a decision on the release of those who are accused of "serious crimes" -- including sexual violence, robbery and stoning women to death -- adding that a gathering of Afghan elders would decide their fate. - 'Taliban can't be trusted' - Since signing the US deal in February, the Taliban have largely refrained from attacking cities and have not hit US troops. But they have conducted near-daily attacks on Afghan forces and civilians. Highlighting the recent toll, Ghani this week said more than 3,500 Afghan troops and nearly 800 civilians had been killed since the deal was signed. Many Afghans are leery about what comes next. After two previous truces -- in 2018 and May this year -- the Taliban immediately returned to the battlefield. "The Taliban can't be trusted because they announce ceasefire for Eid and after Eid they step up attacks," said Anwaruddin, 40, a resident from the southern province of Kandahar. "If the Taliban were serious, they should have entered talks with Afghan government months ago." Thursday's car bomb exploded as crowds shopped ahead of Eid in the city of Puli Alam in Logar province. The Taliban said they had "nothing to do" with the blast. By Express News Service MUMBAI: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that the opposition should not politicise the death of bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. In an interaction with a Marathi news channel, Thackeray also urged the late actor's fans to not give in to the opposition's political tactics over Rajput's demise. "Mumbai Police are investigating the case in the right direction. They should be given adequate time for the investigation. If after giving enough time, the police does not conduct the probe, then anyone can demand anything," Thackeray said. WATCH | Truth shall prevail: Rhea Chakraborty on allegations against her in Sushant Singh Rajput's death case He also said that the in last five years the BJP did not give the police department its due. "Police are working hard and doing good job... Opposition even did not provide houses to police when they were in power. Now, they (BJP) has given them houses on the occasion of my birthday. We are resolving all these issues," Thackeray said. Thackeray added that due to a negative social media campaign against the police force, their will is getting affected. "This kind of politics should be avoided," he said. Thackeray's statement comes at a time when the opposition and people close to the BJP are demanding a CBI investigation over the Sushant Singh Rajput death case and the chief minister has repeatedly reiterated that the Mumbai Police, which is probing the case at the moment, will continue to do so. Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in his flat in Mumbai's Bandra on June 14. Technavio has been monitoring the power tool accessories market and it is poised to grow by 373.87 mn during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of almost 5% 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/20200731005032/en/ Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Power Tool Accessories 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. Atlas Copco AB, Baker Hughes Co., Bellwether Resources International Inc., Bit Brokers International Ltd., Caterpillar Inc., Drill King International LP, Drilling Products Inc., Halliburton Co., National Oilwell Varco Inc., and Sandvik AB are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments. Rise in construction activities in emerging nations has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, high cost of power tools might hamper market growth. Power Tool Accessories Market 2020-2024: Segmentation Power Tool Accessories Market is segmented as below: End-user Professional Consumer 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=IRTNTR43176 Power Tool Accessories 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 power tool accessories market report covers the following areas: Power Tool Accessories Market size Power Tool Accessories Market trends Power Tool Accessories Market industry analysis This study identifies growth of fabricated metal products as one of the prime reasons driving the power tool accessories market growth during the next few years. Power Tool Accessories Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the power tool accessories market, including some of the vendors such as Atlas Copco AB, Baker Hughes Co., Bellwether Resources International Inc., Bit Brokers International Ltd., Caterpillar Inc., Drill King International LP, Drilling Products Inc., Halliburton Co., National Oilwell Varco Inc., and Sandvik AB. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the Power Tool Accessories Market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support. Register for a free trial today and gain instant access to 17,000+ market research reports. Technavio's SUBSCRIPTION platform Power Tool Accessories Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024 Detailed information on factors that will assist power tool accessories market growth during the next five years Estimation of the power tool accessories market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the power tool accessories market Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of power tool accessories market vendors Table Of Contents : Executive Summary Market Overview Market Landscape Market ecosystem Value chain analysis Market Sizing Market definition Market segment analysis Market size 2019 Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024 Five Forces Analysis Bargaining power of buyers Bargaining power of suppliers Threat of new entrants Threat of substitutes Threat of rivalry Market condition Market Segmentation by End-user Market segments Comparison by End user Professional Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Consumer Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Market opportunity by End user Customer landscape Overview Geographic Landscape Geographic segmentation Geographic comparison North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024 APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024 South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024 MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Key leading countries Market opportunity by geography Drivers, Challenges, and Trends Market drivers Market challenges Market trends Vendor Landscape Overview Landscape disruption Vendor Analysis Vendors covered Market positioning of vendors Atlas Copco AB Baker Hughes Co. Bellwether Resources International Inc. Bit Brokers International Ltd. Caterpillar Inc. Drill King International LP Drilling Products Inc. Halliburton Co. National Oilwell Varco Inc. Sandvik AB Appendix Scope of the report Currency conversion rates for US$ Research methodology List of abbreviations About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis 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/20200731005032/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: media@technavio.com Website: www.technavio.com/ (Natural News) Twitter is under fire for its supposed double standards as it continues to flag posts by President Donald Trump while letting even more incendiary tweets from Irans Ayatollah Khamenei slide. The social media giant stated that the Iranian leaders anti-Semitic tweet, which referred to Israel as a cancerous growth and called for genocide against the Israeli people, passed as commentary on political issues of the day, while Trumps tweets could inspire harm. Twitters bias questioned in the Israeli legislature On Wednesday, July 29, During a hearing of the Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs of the Knesset Israels national legislature regarding antisemitism in social media, human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky questioned Twitters double standards when it came to tweets by world leaders. Specifically, Ostrovsky asked Ylwa Pettersson, Twitters public policy head for the Nordics and Israel, why Trumps tweets were flagged, but not those of Khamenei. You have recently started flagging the tweets of President Trump, Ostrovsky asked. Why have you not flagged the tweets of Irans Ayatollah Khamenei, who has literally called for the genocide of Israel and the Jewish people? One of the tweets Ostrovsky was referring to was one made by Trump on June 23 where he declared that there would never be an Autonomous Zone in Washington, D.C. in response to such a zone being set up in Seattle. The tweet was given a public interest notice by Twitter with the company saying that it violated their policies. Weve placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our policy against abusive behavior, specifically, the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group, read the notice. Pettersson defended the decision, stating that Trumps tweet could inspire harm. Khameneis tweet, on the other hand, was simply considered to be saber-rattling. In response to Petterssons explanation Knesset member Michal Cotler-Wunsh asked: So, calling for genocide is okay, but commenting on politics is not? To this, Petterson explained that, if a world leader violated their rules, but there was a clear interest in keeping their tweet on the servers, then they would place it behind a notice providing more context, allowing people to click through should they choose to see the tweet. And that is what happened for the Trump tweet, she explained. That tweet was violating our policies regarding the glorification of violence based on the historical context of the last line of that tweet and the risk that it could possibly inspire harm and similar actions. Colter-Wunsh, however, was not impressed by the argument. I think that whats come up again and again through different examples is actually a sense of double standards, and I would implore Twitter and other online platforms to ensure that there is no double standard in the application [of rules], she said. Trump and Twitter have been butting heads Twitter and Trump have been at odds for a while now. This came to a head in May when the company announced that it would be adding fact check labels to certain tweets if they were deemed to have made misleading or disputed claims about the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. However, the fact-checking soon turned political with Twitter adding the labels to two of Trumps tweets about mail-in ballots, rebutting their accuracy. More recently, Twitter has gone after Trumps son, Donald Trump Jr., banning his account for 12 hours after he tweeted a video promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine as a cure for the coronavirus. The seeming bias of Twitter (and other social media companies) against Trump and other conservatives has prompted him to instruct government agencies to look into the protections that these companies currently enjoy. More recently, the White House has directed the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to file a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asked it to require more transparency from social media companies. Whether or not the petition will result in any meaningful change, however, is still to be seen. Any new rules that the FCC could introduce would still take a year or more to actually finalize. Learn more about how Twitter and other social media companies are silencing conservative voices over at Censorship.news. Sources include: DailyMail.co.uk JNS.org NYTimes.com IMEE: PROBE TUITION-PADDING IN TOP UNIVERSITIES Senator Imee Marcos has responded to a growing number of complaints from concerned parents and students enrolling in Metro Manila's top universities over educational expenses that should no longer be applicable. Marcos explained that learning from home through online classes and modular lessons should be less costly than the face-to-face education before the Covid-19 pandemic. "The inclusion of many miscellaneous fees for school facilities and services that would no longer be used is unnecessary and unconscionable," Marcos said. "A Senate investigation is in order, if the Commission on Higher Education cannot settle this controversy before classes resume in late August," Marcos added, filing Senate Resolution 480 to conduct the inquiry. Complaints reaching Senator Marcos's office said that schools in the University Belt were still charging various miscellaneous fees for the use of classroom-based internet, electricity, laboratories, libraries, and medical and dental clinics. Marcos said it was unlikely that most students who are below 21 years old would avail of school facilities, since guidelines set in early June by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) have directed them to remain indoors during all community quarantine levels. "Schools should not be playing blind and profiting on what they would no longer provide. Parents and students should definitely be paying less," Marcos said. Libyan rebels overhaul, operationalize old S-200 systems: Report Iran Press TV Thursday, 30 July 2020 7:15 AM Rebel forces in Libya have purportedly overhauled and operationalized old Russian-built S-200 air defense systems to use them against government forces and Turkey. The Arabic-language Libya News said on Wednesday that the systems were deployed in the vicinity of the eastern cities of Benghazi, Sirte, and Zelten to help monitor "any hostile aerial activity" by Libyan government forces and their main ally, Turkey. The website added that the S-200 air defense systems had been purchased under former Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi and that most of their parts had been lost and destroyed or had been in poor condition due to a lack of maintenance after the NATO intervention in Libya in 2011. The missile systems were properly maintained and overhauled by the rebel forces and were ready to "repel airstrikes from Ankara or Tripoli," the report said. The S-200 is a long range, medium-to-high altitude surface-to-air missile system designed in the 1960s to target enemy aircraft. Ahmed al-Mismari, a spokesman for the rebel forces, had earlier said that the strategic city of Sirte on the Mediterranean coastline which the Libyan government has over the past months been pushing to recapture had been "reinforced." Sirte fell into the rebels' hands in January. Libya has been beset by chaos since the overthrow and killing of Gaddafi and the NATO intervention in 2011. Since 2014, two rival seats of power have emerged, namely the internationally-recognized Libyan government, headed by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, in Tripoli, and another group, which is based in the eastern city of Tobruk and which is supported militarily by the rebels under the command of a military strongman named Khalifa Haftar. The rebels who are backed by the UAE, Russia, and Egypt launched an offensive to seize the capital and unseat Sarraj's government in April 2019. But the government launched a counter-offensive and has recently managed to reverse many of their gains both around the capital and elsewhere in the country with crucial help from Turkey. The Turkish military has been providing air cover, weapons, and proxy militia from Syria to help the Libyan government. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address In a petition filed in the Supreme Court, actor Rhea Chakraborty has pleaded her innocence in connection with Sushant Singh Rajput alleged suicide, claimed the two were in a live-in relationship, and has also demanded a transfer of probe from Bihar to Mumbai after Rajput's father KK Singh slams her with an FIR. Claiming her innocence in Sushant Singh Rajputs alleged suicide case before the Supreme Court in her petition, Bollywood actor Rhea Chakraborty said she has been falsely implicated in the case. The petition also claimed that she was in a live-in relationship with the deceased actor. I am falsely implicated in the case, Chakraborty stated in her petition. She alleged that there cannot be an impartial investigation in Bihar for the case and hence, she sought transfer of probe in the FIR to Mumbai. In Bihar, there cannot be an impartial investigation and thereby she seeks transfer of probe in the FIR registered in Bihar to Mumbai, she stated in her petition. Also read: Sushant Case: SC rejects plea demanding CBI probe, ED demands details of 15-cr transaction Also read: Sonu Soods gift to migrants on his bday: announces 3-lakh job offers via Pravasi Rojgar Portal Bihar Police started the investigation after an FIR was registered by Rajputs father KK Singh in Patna against Chakraborty under several sections including abetment of suicide. The Bihar government and Rajputs family have filed caveats before the Supreme Court on Thursday seeking to challenge Chakrabortys petition. It would be just expedient if the transfer of the case is directed from Patna to Mumbai, Chakraborty stated. In her petition, she claimed that Rajput was suffering from depression from some time and was also on anti-depressants. He committed suicide on the morning of June 14, 2020, at his Bandra residence by hanging himself, read the petition. She had received various death and rape threats and she is in deep trauma due to Rajputs demise which has multiplied further due to the media sensitivity regarding the case, read the petition. The actor further claimed that she had also filed a complaint at Mumbais Santa Cruz police station against the death and rape threats. Earlier, Chakraborty had demanded a CBI probe in the case. In another development, the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to hear a petition filed by one Alka Priya seeking to transfer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Rajput was found dead in his Mumbai residence on June 14. According to the Mumbai Police, statements of 41 people, including filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, film critic Rajeev Masand, director-producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and filmmaker Aditya Chopra have been recorded in the investigation so far. Also read: Sushant Singh Rajput case: Mayawati joins chorus to demand CBI investigation By Trend Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov received German ambassador to Azerbaijan Wolfgang Manig, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told Trend on July 30. During the meeting, the sides exchanged the views on the development of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Germany in several spheres, including the economic, trade, humanitarian and cultural spheres. Bayramov informed Manig about Armenias occupation policy against Azerbaijan, which is a threat to security in the region, recent military provocation committed by the Armenian armed forces on the state border of the two countries, as well as about the current situation in the region. The statement was made that the contradictory statements and actions of the Armenian leadership, as well as the recent planned provocation, are a big blow to the negotiations on the peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Stressing that Azerbaijan supports substantive negotiations aimed at a specific result, the minister stressed that Azerbaijan will never reconcile with the occupation of its territories and the negotiations must serve to eliminate the consequences of the occupation. Manig expressed gratitude for the warm welcome and delivered a congratulatory letter addressed to Bayramov by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. The confidence was expressed during the meeting that the cooperation between the two countries in various fields will develop in the future. The parties also exchanged the views on other issues of mutual interest. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Peel Region police chief Nishan Duraiappah is lashing out at what he calls a complete failure of our justice system after a Brampton man was charged with second degree murder in a domestic homicide this week. The man had already been arrested four times for violating his bail terms by contacting the victim following a domestic incident, Peel Region police said in a news release Friday. He had also been arrested two months earlier for possession of an illegal gun, police added. Police were investigating a shooting at about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at Fairglen Avenue and Deerpark Crescent, near Williams Parkway and McLaughlin Road in Brampton. They found Darian Hailey Henderson-Bellman, 25, of Halton Hills, and Darnell Reid, 27, of Brampton, suffering from gunshot wounds. Henderson-Bellman was pronounced dead at the scene. Reid remains in critical condition. Henderson-Bellman and Reid had been in a relationship for approximately three years, police said. This represents a tragic outcome for a young person who carried a bright future, Duraiappah said in a statement. I extend my sincerest condolences to the loved ones who have been left behind. In this incident, the sadness I feel for the victim and her family is mixed with frustration for a complete failure of our justice system to protect her . . . The family and police struggled to keep her safe. In May, Reid was arrested for possession of an illegal firearm for an unrelated matter, police said. After only six days in custody, this accused who regularly ignored his conditions of release, and continued to offend by possessing illegal firearms was released back into the community with a GPS monitoring device, Duraiappah said. This was despite clear concerns regarding his risk to the victim, the community and the potential to continue to reoffend. Duraiappah said this resulted in another life being taken by a violent offender with another illegal firearm. This unacceptable failure is becoming entirely too familiar in our communities, Duraiappah said. Collectively we need to do better. Reid has been charged with second degree murder, possession of a loaded firearm and two counts of failure to comply with release order. Of the 31 homicides in Peel last year, 13 were considered to be the result of domestic violence, the Mississauga News reported. David Venn is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @davidvenn_ The Trump administration mismanaged ventilator negotiations with a major medical device manufacturer, overpaying by roughly $500 million for tens of thousands of breathing machines earlier this year, House Democrats said Friday in a new report. Citing thousands of pages of emails and documents obtained by the House Oversight Committee, the report concluded that "inept contract management" and negotiating led the Trump administration to mismanage funds in the arrangement with Dutch company Philips a nearly $650 million contract announced by the Department of Health and Human Services in April -- that could have been used to secure protective equipment for front line medical workers early in the coronavirus pandemic. MORE: The coronavirus dilemma: Are we using ventilators too much? While President Donald Trump and his administration have since touted the production of ventilators, the delays early in the process backed up the delivery of machines that were in short supply last spring and in high demand in states first hit by the pandemic. "This should be something that everyone is very concerned about," Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., told ABC News. "We're very concerned that the same incompetence and gross negligence that characterize the contract negotiations here are happening elsewhere." The White House and Republicans, in similar responses to Democrats' report, accused the committee of trying to politicize the pandemic, and did not address the specific concerns about the agreement negotiated by the administration. "This partisan report is nothing more than a stunt that is only meant to politicize the coronavirus," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an email. "We needed ventilators and we needed them quickly. Thanks to President Trump, no person who needed a ventilator went without one. The strength of our SNS continues to grow each day," Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., and Michael Cloud, R-Texas, said of the report. Story continues PHOTO: Philips Healthcare headquarters in Best, Netherlands, Aug. 30, 2018. (Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters, File) The Obama administration first inked a contract with Philips in 2014 for 10,000 ventilators by June of 2019 and granted the company a five-month extension when it fell behind in production, teeing up the final delivery of the last batch of ventilators by November 2019. The Trump administration granted Philips three additional extensions to complete the contract, which ended up ended up pushing back deliveries of ventilators to the federal government, a move that "deprived the country of any ventilators from Philips before the pandemic hit," Democrats wrote. On Jan. 21, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disclosed the first coronavirus death in the United States, Philips emailed the Department of Health and Human Services and offered to move up the delivery of ventilators -- a message the administration ignored for six weeks, according to emails cited by Democrats. MORE: 'We'll take them all': Demand for ventilators spikes as coronavirus looms In March, the administration agreed to modify the terms of its arrangement with Philips to order more ventilators, but did not require the expedited delivery of the machines to the federal government, according to the report, citing emails between the Trump administration and Philips. Instead, top administration officials, including White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, trade adviser Peter Navarro and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation CEO Adam Boehler, a Kushner associate, inked the new deal for ventilators, paying nearly five times the price for machines that were "functionally identical" to the units sold to the Obama administration, Democrats said in the report. In a statement, Philips disputed Democrats' charges and denied overcharging the Trump administration for ventilators and profiteering in the arrangement. PHOTO: A ventilator is seen at a hospital in California. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) "Philips is on track with the production and delivery of the 43,000 EV300 hospital ventilators according to the April 2020 contract with HHS. The list price of the specific bundle of the EV300 ventilator plus roll-stand and accessories, as selected by HHS, is over $21,000 and is being provided to the U.S. government for $15,000," the company said. "The agreed price [per unit] reflects a discount, while taking into account part of the higher costs for the expedited delivery schedule." Krishnamoorthi, whose panel has also investigated the accuracy of coronavirus antibody tests, said Democrats are worried the administration will take a similar approach to its agreements with pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines for the virus and has called for the administration to operate a "transparent" development process. While ventilators were in short supply and high demand earlier this year, many doctors have tried to lessen patients' dependence on the machines, armed with new knowledge of treatments and alternative therapies that don't involve intubation. "People were put on mechanical ventilation because they needed help breathing [and] doctors found it very difficult to get those patients off of the ventilators or to wean them off. And the fatality rates of people who had been put on mechanical ventilation with quite high," Dr. Ronald Waldman, a global health expert at George Washington University, told ABC News. Trump administration mismanaged ventilator contract, costing taxpayers millions, Democrats claim originally appeared on abcnews.go.com The company has implemented role-based learning paths, among other innovations, to train for the most in-demand ICT professions SEVILLE, Spain, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MeasureUp, a world leader in practice tests and assessments for ICT sector certifications and official provider of large multinationals such as Microsoft, Cisco or VMWare, achieved a 16% growth in the first half of 2020 despite the COVID-19 crisis and has improved its forecasts for the second part of the year. This good performance by the company, which belongs to the Andalusian multinational Media Interactiva, is due, among other factors, to the improvements made in recent months. Among these, it is worth mentioning that MeasureUp has not only included the identification of technology skills according to manufacturers, but also according to the professions in which a person wishes to train for, technology screening and levels of certification, in an era in which technology-related jobs are increasingly in demand. Any user can in this way gain access from the company's website to the path with the necessary skills, organized by levels, to train as a Data Analyst, Data Engineer, Developer, DevOps Engineer, Functional Consultant, Security Engineer, Solution Architect, Network Engineer, Network Analyst, System Administrator, Linux Administrator, Cybersecurity Analyst or Project Manager, among others. With these learning paths, MeasureUp has responded to user demand and the trends of large manufacturers, such as Microsoft, which are increasingly looking for role-based paths. Other improvements also implemented during the first half of the year include the opening of new markets, especially in European countries; the optimization of user website experience and improved conversion supported by marketing automation technologies and analysis solutions. Media Interactiva CEO, Sam Brocal, points out, "The coronavirus has been a surprise for everyone, which must be overcome, from a business point of view, with new actions aimed at our customers." He thus suggests the need for companies to be able to react, as Media Interactiva has done, because waiting for the situation to change can be a fundamental mistake. Companies need to adjust what they do, and how they do it. Jesus Sierra, Media Interactiva Chief Marketing Officer, points out, "The COVID-19 crisis has had a negative impact at all levels, but the Media Interactiva group has a great advantage in this respect in that all its lines of business are perfectly adapted to the digital environment." Half a million visitors Thanks to this capacity to react, MeasureUp had over 500,000 visitors to its website in the first half of the year, slightly more than the figure recorded for the same period in 2019, and it has marketed its products in over 100 countries (102) on all five continents. The top ten countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Finland, Spain, Germany, France and Sweden. As for the age groups of its users, the most numerous group is made up of young people between 25 and 34 years of age, being almost 35% of the total; followed by people between 35 and 44 years of age (32%) and young men and women between 18 and 24 years of age, who make up the profile preparing for their first incursion into the world of work and who make up more than 16% of the total. One striking detail from the data is that 4% of people over 65 are interested in digital skills. As for gender, 77% of users in the first half of the year were men and 23% women. One of the greatest efforts made by MeasureUp is the constant updating of content to adapt to technology changes at large companies such as Microsoft - where it is the exclusive provider of practice tests, Amazon Web Services (AWS); Cisco, CompTIA, Oracle, PMI or VMWare, among others. 41 titles have thus been added to the training offer in the first half of this year, including new features and updates. Thanks to this effort and its cutting-edge learning methodologies, MeasureUp can offer guaranteed success in the official certification exam as one of its benefits to customers. The most in demand technologies in the first half of this year featured those related to Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Teams, technologies that have been widely used during this boom period of teleworking caused by the COVID-19. Along with these, the trends continue to be Azure technologies (Cloud-related), Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence. New features for the second half of the year: Pedagoo and Bundles Looking ahead to the second half of the year, the company's prospects look good, in line with the performance of recent months, and it plans to introduce several new items. One of the most important milestones will be the marketing of Pedagoo, the technology platform focused on training assessment from the Media Interactiva Group that supports MeasureUp practice tests, in the B2B market. Companies interested in developing their own training solutions will therefore be able to use Pedagoo to do so with the guaranteed quality and success offered by this platform. Pedagoo currently provides services to companies, educational establishments or human resources areas, among others, that benefit from its own training assessment methodology. Other new features in the second half of the year will focus on improving user experience from a technological point of view and others will focus on making it as easy as possible to choose training titles. Learning paths or bundles will therefore be marketed; packages in which users can acquire all the training they need to qualify for a certain position. This is another step in the role-based profiles already offered through the website. Practice tests MeasureUp titles are practice tests, i.e. training assessment tools in which students learn while assessing their skills. They can in addition be used in two ways: in certification mode, with very similar conditions to those in the exam, or in practice mode, with the possibility of gathering explanations of the correct and incorrect answer choices and focusing on those aspects that need reinforcement. In addition to the tests, MeasureUp included assessments in 2020, a new tool that includes the main fundamentals of the exam, allowing the student to measure their level of knowledge about the certification in question and, if they are not sufficiently prepared, to proceed to purchase a practice test. In addition to these training methods, MeasureUp has begun to market two other solutions from its website this year: on the one hand, virtual laboratories - thanks to the alliance with the company Learn On Demand Systems - which provide a virtual recreation of the technological environment a person will face at work and, on the other hand, Video Training from the company ITProTV, which allow you to learn ICT skills as if you were in a classroom, with 4,000 hours of training video content. About Media Interactiva Media Interactiva, owner of MeasureUp, is a leading business group in technology and educational content, with headquarters in Tomares (Seville), training more than 400,000 people around the world every year in digital skills, from digital literacy at school to training in the latest software developments demanded by ICT professionals. The importance of Media Interactiva has been recognized with its inclusion in the Financial Times FT 1000 ranking, which includes the 1,000 fastest growing companies in Europe, considering those that have achieved the highest percentage of revenue growth between 2013 and 2016. In 2019, it was also distinguished with the Global Healthy Workplace Awards, granted by the Human Resources Health Observatory (WHO), and finalist for the CEAJE award in the internationalization category. It has in addition achieved ISO-20000 certification, which proves the quality of its information technology (IT) service management. More information: www.measureup.com www.mediainteractiva.com https://twitter.com/Med_Interactiva https://www.facebook.com/mediainteractiva https://www.linkedin.com/company/media-interactiva/ https://www.instagram.com/media_interactiva/ Media Contact: Grayling Spain Vita Lirola - Javier Monteagudo vita.lirola@grayling.com Tel.: 954 933 100 Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1222338/MeasureUp_Growth_2020.jpg Friday, July 31st, 2020 (8:42 am) - Score 1,846 Online shopping giant Amazon has confirmed that they plan to invest over $10 billion (7.60bn) in order to build their own mega constellation of 3,236 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites to rival SpaceX and OneWeb, which will aim to deliver ultrafast broadband to some of the poorest connected communities across the world. As weve said before with SpaceX (Starlink) and OneWeb, the idea of LEOs is that they orbit significantly closer to earth (in Amazons case, around 600km, versus 35,000km for a large GSO Satellite) and are comparatively small (smaller than an adult person, with solar panels folded-in). Sadly, this means you need a lot more of them for good coverage, but that quantity also delivers lots of data capacity and relatively low latency (often c.20-40ms). The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the USA has now granted Amazon approval to deploy and operate their own constellation of 3,236 LEO satellites as part of Project Kuiper. The company currently plans to launch half of its constellation no later than mid-2026 and the rest should be completed by the middle of 2029, which puts them well behind their rivals. Not unlike SpaceX and OneWeb, Amazon expects to need at least 578 satellites to be launched before it can begin to offer a limited commercial service to a number of initial regions. Amazons CEO, Jeff Bezos, also owns his own rocket company (Blue Origin) and that will no doubt come in handy for helping to loft some of the constellation (Elon Musk is similarly responsible for SpaceX and Starlink, among other companies). The Kuiper satellites will use advanced phased array antennas with multiple user beams. The antennas and software-defined network (SDN) functionality should allow flexible frequency and capacity allocation, depending on the needs of customers within a given region. Rajeev Badyal, VP of Technology for Project Kuiper, said: We are doing an incredible amount of invention to deliver fast, reliable broadband at a price that makes sense for customers. LEO-based broadband systems like Project Kuiper present a huge number of challenges, and we have assembled a world-class team of engineers and scientists who are committed to delivering on our vision for Project Kuiper and keeping space a safe, sustainable environment for everyone. Combine that with Amazons deep expertise in networking and infrastructure and its ability to finance such a huge undertaking, and I am optimistic about the impact we can have for these unserved and underserved communities. In addition to providing ground station service directly to customers, Project Kuiper will also provide backhaul solutions for wireless carriers extending 4G (LTE) and 5G mobile service to new regions. Together, its hoped these projects will expand broadband access to more households in the USA and around the world. However, in order to avoid the risk of space junk, each LEO will only stay up for a few years before being de-orbited (this process will take less than 1 year when planned or under 10 years passive de-orbit if a satellite fails). But astronomers will no doubt be concerned at any increase in the number of LEOs, particularly with SpaceXs early fleet causing more than a few problems for observational science (mitigation efforts are underway). Otherwise one big problem that all of these mega constellations have is that theyre yet prove they can deliver a viable and affordable commercial broadband service, particularly on the consumer front. SpaceX should be the first to cross that line next year, but it will take time before we know what sort of take-up and performance they can truly achieve in the real-world. The huge investment being made by Amazon and SpaceX also help to highlight the challenge for rival OneWeb, which was recently rescued by the UK government and Bharti Global for 800m ($1bn). But in order to stay competitive theyll need to invest significantly more to launch at least a few hundred extra satellites. Like it or not, space is a very expensive and risky business. After being sanctioned by the Green Party and stepping back as party chief whip for voting against government, Neasa Hourigan said that the whip system in Ireland is outdated. The Green Party TD, along with colleague Joe O'Brien, will lose her right to speak in the Dail as a party sanction after failing to support Government votes. Ms Hourigan also resigned as Green Party chief whip after voting five times against the Government in a vote on the Residential Tenancies and Valuation Bill 2020. The Dublin TD said that while she accepts her sanction, a reform is needed on the whip system in Ireland. A less stringent following of government would be preferable, she said, and the current system, in which the chief whip's job is to ensure all members of government vote together, is outdated. She said a system whereby TDs do not have to follow the whip on issues not written into the programme for government would be beneficial. "I was well aware that I would be subject to sanction. I do think that we need to start a conversation about how we use the whip system now that we're dealing with smaller parties coming together in a multi-party system," she said. "In the case where you have smaller parties coming together and you don't have one larger party and one smaller party, (a situation where TDs can vote independently) is a good way of coming to consensus around issues. "The version of the whip that we have in Ireland is quite archaic and onerous." Ms Hourigan voted against four opposition amendments to legislation extending a rent freeze and eviction ban to only tenants impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and then voted against the Bill in its entirety. Speaking on Today with Sarah McInerney, Ms Hourigan said that she accepts two month sanction of no Dail speaking rights. A six-week break from the Dail will mean that she only actually has to abstain from speaking for two weeks in the chamber. She said that because of the intensive debating over legislation since the historic government was formed, her party did not have adequate time to discuss the bill for which she voted against government. "We had a meeting quite late last night after the debate in the chamber and what I said at that meeting was that I fully expected to be sanctioned and whatever they decided on I would accept them," she said. "I knew what I was doing and therefore what ever they decided was right. I'm not going to comment on what the parliamentary party decided. I hope that this simply won't arise again. "We've had an extraordinary few months where out of necessity we've had to debate and agree on and incredible amount of very detailed legislation and I think part of what has happened here is that we didn't have enough time to scrutanise this legislation. "I'm hoping that in the Autumn there won't be quite the same pressure there and it won't arise and we'll have a bit more time to develop legislation that reflects our policy priorities." Ms Hourigan said that she "can imagine that for our partners in Government this is very frustrating" but insisted that politics is not black and white and in some instances issues have to be weighed up and sometimes an individual vote is needed. "I have no intention of making a habit of this," she concluded. Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, second from right, walks with executives during his visit to the company's Onyang semiconductor plant in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, Thursday. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics By Baek Byung-yeul Samsung Electronics said it is expecting to show better performance in the second half of this year as it is betting big on recovering demand for its smartphones and memory chips despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the tech giant said Thursday. By PTI NOIDA: The Excise Department officials on Thursday seized 33,000 cans of beer, imported illegally without the payment of Excise duty of around Rs 1.50 crore, an official said. The beverage was seized in a raid at the warehouse of a liquor trader at Kasna in Greater Noida area, he added. Following the seizure, a man was also arrested from the warehouse, while two others managed to escape, he said. The Department has begun proceeding to cancel the license of the dealer involved in the illegal storage of the beverage, he added. "A raid was carried out at a warehouse of a liquor dealer in Greater Noida's Kasna area on Tuesday and 1,375 cartons of imported beer were recovered from there. The dealer had not paid the excise duty, which amounted to Rs 1.5 crore, and had illegally stored the liquor," an Excise Department official said. There were altogether 33,000 cans of premium brands of beer which were seized during the raid, the official said, adding the dealer had permission for procurement and sale of lesser quantity of liquor. There will be no auction or resale of the confiscated liquor and all the cans would be destroyed after legal proceedings are completed in the court of law, the official said. An FIR has been lodged in the case at the Kasna Police Station under the Excise Act provisions. Copyright 2020 Albuquerque Journal The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the New Mexico Department of Public Safety and a State Police officer on behalf of a 23-year-old Black man, who says he was arrested after filming a police raid in his Albuquerque neighborhood. According to the lawsuit, DAndre Ravenel was arrested and handcuffed April 12, 2019, after filming what appeared to be a raid on his neighbors house with his cellphone from the sidewalk. The suit was filed Thursday in 1st Judicial District Court. Ravenel alleges he was told he was interfering with the police investigation when taken into custody by State Police officer Tony Fetty, and was later charged with resisting an officer. The charges were dropped, but Ravenal spent four days at the Metropolitan Detention Center. Officer Fetty immediately approached Mr. Ravenel with suspicion because he is a Black man, said Leon Howard, legal director at the ACLU of New Mexico, in a news release. Our client should have been able to stand on his own street corner and exercise his constitutional right to film police from a safe distance, but instead he wound up cuffed and jailed for days. Sadly, his experience mirrors the experiences of countless other Black men in this country who are illegally arrested, or worse, brutalized and killed by police. The suit states that Ravenel was filming the police activity from a public sidewalk when he was asked for his identification, but he did not have his drivers license. Ravenel alleges he was also threatened by an FBI agent. Ravenel said he repeatedly asked to speak to an attorney, but was denied the right by the law enforcement officers. I am always fearful when interacting with law enforcement because I know that the color of my skin makes me a target, Ravenel said in the release. I asserted my rights anyway because its more important than ever in this moment to hold officers who abuse their power accountable. The suit states that his cellphone was seized during his arrest and not returned until 34 days later when he agreed to delete the footage. It also alleges he was denied medication he had been taking while in custody at MDC. The release said Ravenel brings the lawsuit to vindicate his constitutional and statutory rights and to push back against the gross abuse of power that pervades law enforcement agencies in New Mexico and throughout this country. State Police spokesman Ray Wilson told the Journal the law enforcement agency does not comment on pending litigation. Ravenels suit seeks actual, compensatory and punitive damages and any further relief the court deems just and proper. According to court documents, Ravenel was sentenced to probation in the stabbing death of his brother Dezmond in 2017 after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Fetty served six years as a member of former Gov. Susana Martinezs security detail. He filed a lawsuit against the Department of Public Safety in 2019, alleging the department retaliated against him in violation of the whistleblower protection act because he raised questions about actions by other members of the detail. Samsung has announced the launch of a new UV Steriliser in India that will enable users to both sanitise their devices as well in less than 10 minutes. The device also comes with a wireless charger to charge various gadgets. The device looks like a white plastic box with a lid and can hold smartphones, smartwatches, earbuds, and other devices. Furthermore, the box can charge 10W compatible gadgets while they are being sanitised. As far as the usage of the UV Steriliser is concerned, users can simply drop anything inside the sterilising box, close the lid and press the start button. The UV Steriliser also comes with dual-LED indicator lights to help users understand when it's working and when the sanitisation process is complete. According to Samsung, the UV Steriliser uses UV-C light to kill 99% of the bacteria and germs on both sides of whatever is placed inside the box. Interestingly, this is not the first time Samsung has come up with UV sterilisation devices. At the height of Covid-19 crisis in March, Samsung launched a new initiative called Galaxy Sanitising Service in select countries including India. Under the initiative, Samsung offered to sanitise its smartphones and other gadgets for free at its service centres. Furthermore, as part of its hygiene initiative, Samsung also recently released a handwashing app for Galaxy smartwatches as well. So, it's not surprising to see Samsung joining the fray in finally introducing an affordable UV Steriliser in India, in fact, there are aplenty due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis. As for pricing, the Samsung UV Steriliser will cost Rs 3,599 in the Indian market and the device will go on sale from August at all retail channels, including Samsung's own online store. A wave of violence in Sudan's Darfur region has forced Save the Children to close facilities providing health services and food for 14,000 children, the charity said Friday. The move came after hundreds of armed men attacked Masteri, a town largely inhabited by farmers from non-Arab minority groups, killing more than 60 people and wounding dozens. Save the Children, which said five children were among the dead, announced the temporary closure of two health facilities and its field office in Masteri, cutting off "more than 14,000 children from life-saving health services". "The health facilities were the only two centres which provided health and nutrition services for children in the area," it said. The attack sparked panic in Masteri and nearby villages. The United Nations humanitarian coordination office OCHA said around 10,000 people had fled towards the town of El-Geneina and another 1,000 had crossed the border into Chad. Conflict struck Darfur in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against then-president Omar al-Bashir, citing marginalisation and discrimination. Khartoum responded with a scorched-earth campaign that left 300,000 people dead and displaced 2.5 million. Violence in Darfur had eased since Bashir's ouster by the army amid mass protests against his rule last year, and after an interim deal between the transitional government and rebel groups. But recent weeks had seen a surge as long-displaced farmers returned to their land. On Sunday, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said security forces would be deployed to the arid western region to protect residents and allow the farming season to go ahead. Arshad Malik, Save the Children's Sudan director, called on Khartoum to investigate the killings and bring those responsible to justice. "It is indefensible that children have been killed and wounded in the violence, and our thoughts go out to their families," he said. "If the centres are not reopened soon, children's lives will be put at further risk. With already 1.1 million children facing hunger in Sudan, this conflict can only increase the number of children in need." Search Keywords: Short link: Riona Sheahan was one of the musicians on the Harps for Hope Concert Ireland's leading harpers were invited to participate in the virtual 'Harps for Hope' concert series which began in April. Ten gifted musicians from Duhallow were among the legion of performers who shared their music to express togetherness and promote the message of hope in the fight against Covid-19. The harp is our national emblem and with its soothing and unique sound it is no wonder that this series brought a sense of comfort to everyone during lockdown. The series finale, which took place on June 19th, consisted of a harp ensemble with 200 harp students from all over Ireland who were invited to record the tune 'Fanny Power', a Turlough O'Carolan composition. Each musician recorded the tune at home and submitted it to Harp Ireland who then took the 200 recordings and developed them into an ensemble. This is a well-known piece which was specially arranged for the occasion by Harper aileen Kennedy. The piece was dedicated to front-line workers and everyone who has suffered loss during these challenging times. The ten harpers from Duhallow who participated shared some thoughts about their experience of 'Harps for Hope' with the Corkman: Ciara Hartnett, Glash, Kiskeam "This was an amazing achievement and I was delighted to take part" Isobel Hynes, Kanturk I think that 'Harps for Hope' was an extremely positive event that took place during the lockdown as it brought harpers from all over Ireland together. It was an amazing opportunity to play alongside so many other great musicians from all over the country and the final result was lovely". Ava Hynes, Kanturk "Harps for Hope was a great way to bring everyone together during lockdown as concerts had been cancelled everywhere. Each person recorded themselves individually playing the same tune and it was then arranged to allow a group performance of harpers from all over the country". Siobhan Buckley, Rathcoole "I'm delighted to be part of such an incredible initiative, both as a soloist and as director of the Music Generation Laois Harp Ensemble. While the series features some of Ireland's leading Harpers, it's great that the younger generation got the opportunity to be included in a harp ensemble performance with such a large group of young musicians from across the country". Laura O'Connor, Kanturk "I'm really glad that I got the chance to be in this group. I loved the experience and got to play music with my friends. I liked learning new tunes and enjoyed listening to other Harpers from different areas". Jack Quirke, Kanturk "It was a fantastic opportunity. We got to learn new tunes and listen to famous Harpers perform. Playing in the ensemble group was definitely the highlight.". Sarah O'Keeffe, Kanturk "I was delighted when my teacher Damhnait Sweeney asked me to take part in this group, especially during these strange times it was really nice to be involved in a project that kept me connected in some way with my friends. It gave me great motivation to keep practicing. Damhnait put a lot of effort in to ensure that everyone could continue their weekly lessons online and while it was strange at the beginning it soon became normal and the end result was a big success. I really enjoyed the whole experience". Yasmine O'Sullivan, Kanturk "I really enjoyed the experience, I got to learn some new tunes with my friends, it was challenging at times but also really fun and well worth it". Riona Sheehan, Kanturk "I really enjoyed taking part in the Cruit Eireann event. It was incredible to see so many Harpers get together for a virtual performance during the Pandemic. I was delighted to be part of it as the Harp is a brilliant instrument which I love playing". Aoife Buckley, Rathcoole "Being a part of the Harp Ireland initiative 'Harps for Hope' was a great pleasure. Not being able to play music with other musicians during lockdown was one of the hardest things for me, and to get the opportunity to participate in this video with such talented musicians was amazing". Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of ATF Bank Global Credit Research - 30 Jul 2020 London, 30 July 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of ATF Bank 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. ATF Bank's B2 local and foreign currency deposit ratings are based on its Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA) of caa1 and Moody's assessment of a high probability of support from the government of Kazakhstan (Baa3), which results in a two-notch uplift from the bank's BCA. ATF Bank's BCA is constrained by its poor asset quality, low capital cushion and weak earnings quality. At the same time, the BCA is underpinned by the bank's participation in the government support program and its sizeable liquidity cushion. 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. Story continues The principal methodology used for this review was Banks Methodology published in November 2019. 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. Svetlana Pavlova, CFA Asst Vice President - Analyst Financial Institutions Group Moody's Investors Service Limited, Russian Branch 7th floor, Four Winds Plaza 21 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya St. Moscow 125047 Russia JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Yaroslav Sovgyra, CFA Associate Managing Director Financial Institutions Group JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service Ltd. 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Google Maps A Texas attorney found himself on a different side of the justice system after he was accused of trying to smuggle methamphetamine into a north Texas jail last year. Bryan Simmons, 49, was accused of conspiring with others to distribute the drugs inside the Cass County Jail between July and August 2019, according to the Department of Justice. Simmons graduated from Houstons South Texas College of Law in 2001, according to the State Bar of Texas. HOUSTON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- National Salmonella Lawyer Jory Lange is investigating the Red Onions Salmonella Outbreak. 326 people in the United States and Canada have contracted Salmonella Newport. 47 people have been hospitalized with Salmonella infections. Salmonella Lawsuits are likely to follow, says The Lange Law Firm, PLLC. "The scary thing about this outbreak is, as a consumer, there's nothing you can do to tell whether the red onions that you are buying is safe. You can't taste, smell, or see Salmonella. Red onions that are contaminated with Salmonella may look, smell, and taste just like any other onions.This is why it's critical that companies who make and sell our food, especially ready-to-eat foods like red onions, ensure the food is safe before they sell it," said national Salmonella food poisoning lawyer Jory Lange. Sysco Recalls Red Onions In Canada, food industry giant Sysco is recalling Red Onions imported from the United States. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency's findings in its investigation of this Salmonella outbreak triggered Sysco's Red Onions Recall. Sysco's Imperial Fresh brand jumbo onions are among the products affected in the recall. More products may also be included in this outbreak. The investigation is ongoing. Compensation for Salmonella Those who contracted Salmonella infections after eating food tainted with Salmonella may be entitled to compensation. To learn more about making a claim for Salmonella compensation, please visit the Lange Law Firm's website, www.MakeFoodSafe.com or call 833.330.3663. How Many Are Ill? In the US, here's the case count by state: Arizona (13 cases), California (10 cases), Florida (1), Idaho (5), Illinois (9), Iowa (10), Maine (2), Michigan (15), Minnesota (3), Missouri (3), Montana (11), Nebraska (5), North Carolina (3), North Dakota (3), Ohio (5), Oregon (51), South Dakota (6), Tennessee (2), Utah (40), Virginia (3), Washington (1), Wisconsin (2), and Wyoming (9). In Canada, here's the case count by province: British Columbia (43), Alberta (55), Manitoba (13), Ontario (2), and Prince Edward Island (1). About the legal team: Jory Lange with The Lange Law Firm, PLLC is one of the United States' leading Salmonella lawyers. Mr. Lange has helped families from Arizona, California, Illinois, Michigan, Montana, Oregon, Utah, and in states across the nation. Contacts The Lange Law Firm, PLLC Jory D. Lange Jr. www.MakeFoodSafe.com Candess Zona-Mendola 833.330.3663 [email protected] SOURCE The Lange Law Firm Related Links http://www.makefoodsafe.com/ Leaders in the House and the Senate have repeatedly declined to put in place a campuswide testing program for lawmakers and their aides. In May, Republican aides with the House Administration Committee met with Will Roper, the assistant secretary of the Air Force, who offered to connect lawmakers to a Washington-based laboratory that could process up to 6,000 tests a week at no cost to the House. The White House, too, has offered to send rapid testing machines. Ms. Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, demurred, arguing publicly that members of Congress should not receive special access to testing when supplies were still scarce for the public. Privately, they questioned the feasibility of testing thousands of people a day. But the news of Mr. Gohmerts diagnosis and that he had returned to the Capitol to tell his aides in person of his test results unleashed a firestorm of terror and indignation across the House as everyone from interns to lawmakers scrambled to try to retrace Mr. Gohmerts steps. Representative Rodney Davis of Illinois, the top Republican on the Administration Committee, urged his colleagues on Thursday to follow the House physicians recommendations. Failure to adhere to this guidance is at your own risk, he wrote in a corresponding memo. But without any uniform mandates, a patchwork of policies and practices has emerged on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are exempt from workplace safety laws and their employees and interns do not have the benefit of a traditional human resources department. Congressional offices are exceedingly hierarchical, making raising concerns about safety or discomfort exceedingly difficult. The real issue here is that Congress is mandating laws for us to all live by and theyre still not taking care of their own people, said Audrey Henson, the founder of College to Congress, a nonprofit that provides low-income students with the resources to take congressional internships. China has accused the United States of stoking a new Cold War because certain politicians were searching for a scapegoat to bolster support ahead of the US presidential election in November. US President Donald Trump identifies China as the West's main rival and has accused Chinese President Xi Jinping of taking advantage over trade and not telling the truth over the coronavirus outbreak, which Mr Trump calls the "China plague". Asked if he saw a new Cold War, China's ambassador to London, Liu Xiaoming, said the United States had started a trade war with China and that there would be no winner from such an approach. "It is not China that has become assertive. It's the other side of the Pacific Ocean who want to start new Cold War on China, so we have to make response to that," said Mr Liu. "We have no interest in any Cold War, we have no interest in any war. "We have all seen what is happening in the United States - they tried to scapegoat China, they want to blame China for their problems," he said. "We all know this is an election year." The envoy did not mention Mr Trump or Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden by name, but he said some US politicians were doing and saying anything to get elected. "They want to do anything, including treating China as an enemy," Mr Liu said. "Probably they think they need an enemy, they think they want a Cold War but we have no interest, we keep telling America, China is not your enemy, China is your friend, your partner." US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this month that the United States wanted to build a global coalition to counter China as he accused Beijing of exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to further its own interests. Asked if relations with the United States had deteriorated beyond repair, Mr Liu said: "I don't think we have passed the point of no return." After British Prime Minister Boris Johnson slapped a ban on Huawei's participation in 5G networks, Mr Liu bluntly warned that the United Kingdom had no future if it tried to decouple from the communist state. "It is hard to image a 'Global Britain' that bypasses or excludes China, decoupling from China means decoupling from opportunities, decoupling from growth and decoupling from the future," Mr Liu said. He said London had poisoned relations by meddling in its former colony of Hong Kong and cautioned that the UK would "pay the price" if it wanted to treat China as a hostile state. GRAND RAPIDS, MI Lacks Enterprises, a global manufacturer that specializes in decorative trim for the automotive and appliance markets, is hosting a job fair on Tuesday, Aug. 4. The company is looking to fill more than 150 openings, ranging from general laborers and forklift operators to skilled trades positions such as maintenance electricians, maintenance mechanics and plastic mold die-setters. The openings are for all shifts at several Lacks plants in the Kentwood area. The job fair will take place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lacks Employment Center, located at 4949 Broadmoor Ave. SE, in Kentwood. All attendees are required to wear masks. Resumes are welcome but not required. Wages start at $12 to $13 an hour for general labor positions and go up from there, depending on the job, the company said. The company says its provides 401(K) matching, profit sharing, healthcare, tuition reimbursement and professional development opportunities. Read more: Van Andel Institute donor names, phone numbers accessed during data breach Michigans Adventure to close its water park once again, following state order Michigans extended forecast takes a cool turn WASHINGTON -- Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is calling for Diane Auer Jones, the head of higher education policy at the Education Department, to resign over her controversial efforts to help for-profit college operator Dream Center Education Holdings as the company spiraled into insolvency. The Washington Post first reported this week on a trove of documents released by the House Education Committee and through a related lawsuit that show Jones pressuring an accreditor to retroactively give its full seal of approval to two of Dream Center's schools. Top officials at the company, owner of the Art Institutes, South University and Argosy University, traded more than 100 text messages with Jones as she worked behind the scenes to their benefit. Now, her relationship with Dream Center and tactics to assist the company are placing Jones, the principal deputy undersecretary, in the hot seat. "Jones' and the department's responses to me and other members of Congress about the extent of her involvement in Dream Center's accreditation misrepresentation were false," Durbin said in a statement Friday. "She must resign immediately." The Education Department said Jones "has no plans to resign." The agency has fiercely defended Jones's actions, saying she was trying to ensure that students could transfer and complete their degrees as Dream Center prepared to wind down its colleges. Accreditation of those schools was key to making that happen. "Perhaps someone should look into the extraordinary lengths the senator went to in order to pressure [the Higher Learning Commission] into making sure these two schools lost accreditation," said Eli Mansour, a spokesman for the Education Department. "Remember every other school involved in this transaction, and every other accreditor involved in this transaction, got this right for students. The only two issues were with schools accredited by HLC in Senator Durbin's home state." Durbin's office said the senator never asked the accreditor to take a specific action other than to look into the concerns he raised about Dream Center's acquisition of the schools. Joe LaPaille, a spokesman for Durbin, said: "Compare that to Diane Jones's multiple private text messages and phone calls pressuring HLC on behalf of a for-profit company lying to students about their accreditation - interactions which she misrepresented to Congress - and I think it's clear who 'got this right for students.' " Durbin, a longtime critic of predatory for-profit colleges, was among the first members of Congress to sound alarms about Dream Center's 2017 purchase of the chain of for-profit schools. The Los Angeles company, an arm of a Christian nonprofit, had no higher education experience but won the support of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Dream Center needed the blessing of the department and several accrediting agencies, including the Higher Learning Commission. As a condition of its approval, the commission downgraded the accreditation of two Art Institute campuses until they could improve the quality of instruction. The presidents of those schools signed off on the arrangement, which the department was aware of, according to documents obtained by the House committee. The commission instructed Dream Center in January 2018 to inform its students that the two Art Institutes were no longer accredited, but the company waited until June 2018 to do so, according to documents. Students kept enrolling, earning credits and degrees that were rendered worthless by the loss of accreditation. The Education Department continued to provide students nearly $11 million in loans, even though for-profit colleges must be fully accredited to participate in federal student aid programs. To rectify the problem, the department in May 2018 retroactively designated the schools as nonprofits effective Jan. 20, 2018, the date they lost their accreditation, according to letters obtained by the House committee. But Dream Center still needed the blessing of the commission for the credits and degrees it conferred to students during the lapse in accreditation to have value. Without that seal of approval, those degrees and credits would be worthless. "Under Secretary Jones . . . went to extraordinary lengths to try to rescue this now-defunct company at the expense of students and taxpayers," Durbin said. In June 2018, Jones, a former lobbyist for for-profit colleges, reached out to the commission to discuss the possibility of backdating accreditation for the two schools to January 2018, according to documents. The commission had a policy that prohibited retroactive accreditation beyond 30 days - six months had passed since the two Art Institute campuses were last accredited. It also thought that such a reversal would violate Education Department rules, which career staff members at the agency confirmed before Jones began her campaign. The principal deputy undersecretary told commission officials that the department was updating its policy and assured them that she would provide cover if they reversed their position on the two schools, according to documents. The accreditor refused. In response, the Education Department accused the commission of failing to clearly explain to Dream Center the consequences of the downgrade. Earlier this month, the department recommended that an independent advisory board within the federal agency ban the commission from accrediting new schools for a year. That advisory board voted down the recommendation this week, though Deputy Secretary Mitchell Zais can overrule the panel. Dream Center struggled to turn the for-profit colleges around and spent months trying to close and sell campuses to meet financial obligations. When it fell short, the company in January 2019 entered into a form of bankruptcy. By March 2019, the entire chain folded after millions of dollars in federal financial aid owed to Argosy students disappeared and the department cut off the school's access to grants and loans. BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Estonia's industrial production declined at a softer pace in June, data from Statistics Estonia showed on Friday. Industrial production declined a working-day adjusted 5.5 percent year-on-year in June, following a 17.6 percent fall in May. 'Among the activities with larger shares, production increased in the manufacture of food products, computers and electronic products but decreased in the manufacture of metal products, electrical equipment and wood and products of wood,' Helle Bunder, analyst at Statistics Estonia, said. Manufacturing output decreased 6.0 percent annually in June. Among the other sub sectors, production in mining declined 3.7 percent, while energy production rose 8.1 percent. On a monthly basis, industrial production rose a seasonally and working-day adjusted 7.7 percent in June, after a 0.1 percent fall in the preceding month. 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. B yron has been saved from administration in a rescue deal but 651 jobs will be lost as the burger chain permanently shuts 31 restaurants. The company, which employs around 1,200 staff, filed a notice to appoint administrators from KPMG on Monday. Bryon, which runs 51 sites, started a sale process with KPMG earlier this year after being forced to shut its sites in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Administrators at KPMG said that the brand and certain assets have been sold to newly-formed company Calveton, in a move which will protect its 20 remaining sites and 551 employees. In common with so many other companies across the leisure and casual dining industries, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Byron has been profound," said Will Wright, partner at KPMG and joint administrator. General view of a Byron restaurant in Islington, north London / PA After exploring a number of options to safeguard the future of the business and following a competitive sales process, this transaction ensures Byron will continue to have a presence on our high streets. Byron was founded by Tom Byng in 2007 but was purchased by current private equity owners Three Hills Capital in 2017. Sandeep Vyas of Calveton added: Byron is a pioneering brand much loved by customers across the UK. We are backing Byron because we believe it has great opportunity ahead of it, and it is well placed to adapt to the new consumer environment and dining trends. The best Eat Out to Help Out deals happening at London restaurants 1 /24 The best Eat Out to Help Out deals happening at London restaurants Manteca David Carters collaboration restaurant with Chris Leach is also offering a four-dish deal on the Eat Out to Help Out days. Each diner at the Italian restaurant can get house-baked focaccia, two pasta dishes, and a scoop of either gelato or sorbet for just 20, 10 with the discount. Aqua Shard Not only will the Aqua Restaurant Group be taking part in the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, but itll be adding on a little gift. Tables booked on the designated days at Aqua Shard, Hutong or Aqua Kyoto will also be offered 10 off any bottle of wine priced at more than 40. Paul Winch-Furness Bala Baya Chef Eran Tibi has created a special Taste of Tel Aviv menu, available to diners at the London Bridge restaurant on the designated days for 20, 10 after the discount has been applied. Guests can choose two of their favourite Bala Baya dishes, and also receive the restaurants pita and a dip on the side. Pick & Cheese Both The Cheese Bar and its sibling restaurant Pick & Cheese will offer all-you-can-eat deals in conjunction with Eat Out to Help Out. The Camden restaurant will serve bottomless raclette on Wednesdays for 18 (9 to diners), while Pick & Cheese will reopen on August 7 inside Seven Dials Market, and will allow diners to choose as many British cheese dishes as they like from their conveyor belt for just 20 per person (10 to diners) on Monday nights. Murger Han The Xian restaurants in Euston and Mayfair are offering diners a four-course meal deal for just 20 on the Eat Out to Help Out days (10 to the customer). This means customers can get a starter, any noodle dish, an ice cream mochi dessert and a soft drink for a tenner. D&D London All open restaurants run by the D&D group are offering special set menus on Eat Out to Help Out days, priced at either 25, 30 or 40, with diners then able to take off another 10. Restaurants involved include Francesco Mazzeis Radici (25 menu), First Dates restaurant Paternoster Chop House (30 menu) and Le Pont de la Tour (40 menu), which comes with a spectacular view of Tower Bridge. Hutong Not only will the Aqua Restaurant Group be taking part in the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, but itll be adding on a little gift. Tables booked on the designated days at Aqua Shard, Hutong or Aqua Kyoto will also be offered 10 off any bottle of wine priced at more than 40. The Cheese Bar Both The Cheese Bar and its sibling restaurant Pick & Cheese will offer all-you-can-eat deals in conjunction with Eat Out to Help Out. The Camden restaurant will serve bottomless raclette on Wednesdays for 18 (9 to diners), while Pick & Cheese will reopen on August 7 inside Seven Dials Market, and will allow diners to choose as many British cheese dishes as they like from their conveyor belt for just 20 per person (10 to diners) on Monday nights. Smokestak David Carters barbecue restaurant is serving a 4For10 menu on Eat Out to Help Out days, offering diners four dishes for 20 (10 to the customer). Diners can enjoy a starter, a signature meat dish or a bun, a side and a scoop of gelato, with dishes including Smokestaks signature beef brisket with pickled chillies. Hawksmoor A 300g rump steak, a portion of beef dripping chips and a sauce of your choice would usually set you back 30 at the superlative steak restaurants. Hawksmoor are offering such a combination for 20 on the Eat Out to Help Out days at its open restaurants in Borough, Spitalfields, Seven Dials and Air Street, meaning itll cost 10 to diners. Social Eating House Jason Athertons Soho restaurant Social Eating House is offering two prix fixe menus on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, available at lunchtime or from 6-6.30pm. Two courses will cost 22, while three will cost 28 this means diners can enjoy a Michelin-starred meal this month for as little as 12. Aqua Kyoto Not only will the Aqua Restaurant Group be taking part in the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, but itll be adding on a little gift. Tables booked on the designated days at Aqua Shard, Hutong or Aqua Kyoto will also be offered 10 off any bottle of wine priced at more than 40. The Quality Chop House For every day of August, the longstanding Clerkenwell restaurant will run a special 20 lunch menu of signature dishes: a pork chop with confit potatoes for your main, followed by olive oil ice cream for dessert. Those dining on Tuesday or Wednesday can get it for 10 with the Eat Out to Help Out discount. Boxpark The governments Eat Out to Help Out discount only applies to soft drinks, but street food market group Boxpark is also offering 50 per cent off alcoholic drinks on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays in August. More than 40 food across its Shoreditch, Croydon and Wembley locations will also be applying the discount to food. Yum Bun The street food hotspot specialising in filled rice buns will reopen at Kerbs Seven Dials Market on August 7, and will allow diners to purchase a yum cha picnic set for 20 per person (10 to the customer). The menu will include a selection of the restaurants signature dishes, designed to share at the table. Nando's The peri-peri chicken chain hit headlines this week, when it became clear that a conjunction of dropping VAT and adding the Eat Out to Help Out discount meant fans could get some big discounts this month a quarter chicken, for example, is on offer on the designated days for just 1.85. Nandos has, however, only reopened four London restaurants for dine-in so far: Westfield London, Bromley, Beckton and Park Royal. Boparan Restaurant Group The restaurant group that owns Carluccios, Slim Chickens, FishWorks, Giraffe and Eds Diner will be doing away with the Chancellors 10 cap at any of the aforementioned chains, meaning diners will get 50 per cent off their entire order of food and soft drinks. Carluccios, FishWorks and Giraffe will also offer 10 off a bottle of wine. Bill's The all-day dining chain will be putting on set menus for the Eat Out to Help Out days, and will also throw in a free glass of wine when you order one of them. Choose from either the All Day Set Menu (two courses for 15.50 or three courses for 19.95) or the Incredible Menu (two courses for 19.95 or three courses for 24.95) and get a complimentary glass of red or white wine included. With the discount applied, that means you can enjoy a meal with wine for as little as 7.75. We will continue to bring Byrons great tasting food to customers in restaurants and via digital on-demand platforms, whether they are at work, home or on the high street and we look forward to working with the team. Byron is not the only restaurant chain to have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. This month the owner of Zizzi and Ask Italian revealed plans to permanently close 75 restaurants. The Azzurri Group is being taken over in a rescue deal by investment firm TowerBrook Capital Partners, which plans to keep open 225 restaurants and shops, protecting 5,000 jobs. Casual dining group Pizza Express is working on proposals for a restructure that could see around 75 of its branches close. Additional reporting by PA Media. Hong Kong lawmaker Dennis Kwok of the local Civic Party speaks at a press conference after being disqualified for the upcoming legislative elections on July 30, 2020. (Song Bilung/The Epoch Times) US Expresses Concerns Over Candidate Disqualification, Recent Arrests in Hong Kong U.S. officials condemned Beijing over the Hong Kong governments decision to disqualify 12 pro-democracy candidates for the upcoming legislative elections currently scheduled in September. These actions are further evidence of Beijings ongoing evisceration of Hong Kongs autonomy, as well as of its failure to abide by international obligations under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a UN-registered treaty, and the rights guaranteed under the Basic Law, a State Department spokesperson said. Under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, an agreement signed in 1984 paving the way for Hong Kongs 1997 handover from Britain to China, the citys mini-constitution or Basic Law was drafted. The Basic Law is meant to guarantee Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy for at least 50 years after 1997 under the one country, two systems model. However, Beijings encroachment in Hong Kongs affairs in recent years has driven locals to the streets in protest, including the ongoing pro-democracy movement in the city that started in June last year. Among the 12 candidates disqualified on Thursday were Joshua Wong, the iconic figure from the 2014 Umbrella Movement, and three incumbent lawmakers of the pro-democracy Civic Party, Alvin Yeung, Dennis Kwok, and Kwok Ka-ki. Also disqualified were well-known local activists Lester Shum and Ventus Lau. The Chairs call on the #HongKong govt to rescind the disqualification of #Legco candidates given it clearly violates basic human rights as protected in the #ICCPR & Sino-British Joint Decl., e.g., the rights of self-determination, expression, & participation in public affairs. pic.twitter.com/zgko3Xt4wr China Commission (@CECCgov) July 30, 2020 Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee and co-chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), issued a statement condemning the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the mass disqualification. The Chinese Communist Partys determination to remake the city in its image is an outrage and a tragedy for those who support the cause of freedom, Rubio stated. He said the Hong Kong governments action strips the Hong Kong people of their voice and secures Beijings control of the city. The U.S. and the international community must respond to these assaults by the CCP and assist Hong Kongers who will need protection from political persecution, the Senator concluded. Since the Hong Kong governments announcement of the mass disqualification, people have taken to the official Facebook account of pro-Beijing Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, commenting on her last post on July 25 to express their anger. One Facebook user wrote: Today you DQ our liberal candidates, tomorrow the whole western world will DQ your whole government. DQ stands for disqualification and it is commonly used in Cantonese conversation. Another Facebook user asked that Lam to disqualify herself from her position as the citys chief executive, given her low support rating of 28 percent. Hong Kongs Liaison Office, the top representative of Beijing in the city, in a statement issued Thursday night, voiced support for the Hong Kong government over its action to disqualify the 12 candidates. It then accused these candidates of carrying out actions that crossed the bottom line of the law, such as asking foreign governments to sanction Hong Kong. Chinas hawkish state-run media Global Times warned on its Twitter account: The possibility that more candidates would be disqualified is not ruled out. Washington-based group HKDC, in a statement, said The political purge continues in Hong Kong today. We stand with the 12 brave pro-democracy candidates who got disqualified and banned from LegCo [Legislative Council] elections. They are the true leaders for the real Hong Kong. The State Department spokesperson also expressed concerns about the arrests of four students in Hong Kong on secession charges under the newly-implemented national security law on July 29. This is a worrying precedent and demonstrates the chilling effect of the new law on the rights and freedoms of people in Hong Kong, the spokesperson said. The spokesperson added: It also highlights Beijings dystopian vision of an invasive information security state, where even private conversations are subject to government scrutiny. There are a lot of laughs to be had in Tijuana Jackson: Purpose Over Prison, the new mockumentary written by, directed by, produced by and starring Romany Malco, whos been perfecting the titular character for nearly 20 years, from early videos for friends to MySpace to Funny or Die to YouTube. The chain-smoking, motor-mouthed neer-do-well from Hollywood (Florida) has been in and out of the prison system his entire adult life, yet he remains irrevocably optimistic and plans to launch a career as a motivational speaker, if only he could stop sabotaging himself at every turn. Yet Malco, the actor best known for projects like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Weeds and A Million Little Things, is clearly using comedy as a platform to comment on the cycle of mass incarceration that plagues the United States and particularly the African-American community. Youve got these people being cycled into prison, like we call it gladiator school, and then put back into the community. And unfortunately this process creates a lot of trauma, Malco tells Yahoo Entertainment during a recent video chat interview (watch above). As a result of that, I wanted to show the person whos dealing with that emotional disorder or potentially that learning disorder. Having to navigate his way through this world and show how hes misunderstood and how he consistently gets in his own way. Malco likens his character TJ, as hes known, to George Floyd, who was arrested several times between 1997 and 2005, spending months in jail. Floyd was killed by a white police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on his neck for over eight minutes after Floyd allegedly tried to pass a counterfeit bill in Minneapolis. I wanted to show that that brother is in your family, in your family I know you got an uncle or a cousin or somebody that yall consider a knucklehead, thats just like this dude. And I wanted to highlight that to everyone so that they would be more sensitive to the George Floyds of the world all these young men that these politicians have labeled as predators or deplorables. They grow up to be Tijuana Jackson, if they even survive. Story continues Romany Malco in Tijuana Jackson: Purpose Over Prison. (Garlin Pictures) The murder of Floyd sparked off months of Black Lives Matter protests and has forced Americans to confront just how deep systemic racism in the U.S. cuts. The racial reckoning has been especially pronounced in Hollywood, where several Black actors have shared stories of the biases theyve faced over the years. Malco, a rapper turned actor who arrived in Los Angeles upon signing a deal with Virgin Records in 1991, says his industrys discrimination was evident from his earliest experiences. Ive definitely found that there is a Black fee and a white fee. Very, very early in my business, when I first started, I remember negotiating my first show and they literally were trying to pay me about $8,000 less than the other cast members. (Malco declined to name the television show, but its pretty evident from a look at his IMDb filmography.) Their reason was, Well, Romany doesnt have as much experience and blah blah blah. And Im like, As much experience as who? Whos got the most experience on this cast? Show me your top billing talent, because I knew what the other people were making. Me and my agent got on the phone and she was like, Rom, its your first job. You need this job. Its going to help you get other jobs. And I was like, Yeah, but I aint taking it for that s***. I aint taking it for that s*** ever. I talked to them, and they end up coming up a couple grand, and she was like, You are one lucky MF. They actually came up so congratulations. I was like, I aint taking that job. I told you, either pay me as much as or more [than] the other cast members, or just find another brother. And I literally stuck to my guns. She hung up the phone on me, and then she had to tell them that I wasnt doing the job. Then they had to tell her that they were willing to pay me equally. And I pretty much navigated through Hollywood in the same way. Tijuana Jackson: Purpose Over Prison is now streaming. Watch the trailer: Read more on Yahoo Entertainment: Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 20:55:27|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close WASHINGTON, July 30 (Xinhua) -- One police officer and two others were injured when a Florida man went on a 40-minute shooting spree on a Tampa highway and city streets on Thursday evening, according to media reports. Enditem David Nevin posed as an Etihad Airways pilot as part of his schemes A "Walter Mitty" character who is a serial fraud offender and convicted stalker pretended to be an airline pilot to obtain a bank loan of over 40,000. Our exclusive photo shows David Nevin (46) who was busted after a major investigation by detectives from the gardai's Stolen Motor Vehicle Investigation Unit (SMVIU). Yesterday Nevin, who had lived in a high-end apartment in the Malahide area of the capital, pleaded guilty to a number of theft and fraud-related offences at Dublin Circuit Court. Bogus In a scene straight out of the Hollywood blockbuster Catch Me If You Can, the crook managed to secure tens of thousands of euro in loans after posing as a pilot. In the film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio playing the real life fraudster Frank Abagnale, the protagonist makes millions through bogus cheques posing as a pilot, doctor and lawyer. While Nevin's scam did not manage to net him millions, he did secure major loans after posing as a pilot for Etihad Airways. At yesterday's sentencing hearing, Detective Garda Mark O' Riordan outlined the facts of the case, including an incident in 2017 when he secured a loan from Bank Of Ireland by providing a false AIB bank statement which claimed he was being paid over 8,000 a month working as a pilot for Etihad. At the time, the convicted swindler was actually unemployed and as soon as obtaining the funds, the loan immediately went into arrears and the current balance on it is 43,472, the court heard. Det Gda O' Riordan outlined a number of other offences which Nevin pleaded guilty to, including when he secured a 181reg high-end Audi car from Leaseplan by providing it with a false AIB Bank statement and agreeing to pay 1,000 a month for the vehicle. His false statement showed monthly income of over 3,900 but his actual wage was far less than that as he was being paid 12.50 an hour at the time while working for a security company. He failed to meet the security downpayment of 2,500 and both cheques he issued for this amount bounced due to lack of funds in his account. The company got its car back from Nevin after a number of weeks, but because he had driven it for "thousands of kilometres", the company was left 3,796 out of pocket on the value of the car. Dublin Circuit Court also heard he used "false instruments" in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a KBC bank personal credit card with a limit of 7,000 in June 2017, but the bank contacted gardai, made a formal complaint and a major investigation began. The court heard Nevin made two separate representations to a car dealership in Athlone, Co Westmeath, when he attempted to use falsified bank accounts and utility bills to buy high-end Audi cars, but he was unsuccessful on both occasions. Det Gda O'Riordan agreed that Nevin was fully co-operative and admitted the offences when interviewed by gardai on three occasions when the SMVIU arrested him after building a case against him. The garda agreed that Nevin gave officers access to the computer he used to scan the fake documents he used for his crimes, which was located in his Marina Village apartment in Malahide. Nevin's defence counsel told Judge Elma Sheahan her client committed the crimes when he was suffering from "desperate economic circumstances" and that he had a "Walter Mitty" type of personality. "He was attempting to live a life that was not his," the lawyer said, before stating that a psychological report said that he had nominated himself as a "person of interest" in another garda case in which he had no involvement and was living a "fantasy life". The lawyer asked the judge to read Nevin's interviews with gardai and pointed out that he had used his own legitimate passport with the false documentation when he committed the various crimes. Judge Sheahan decided to adjourn sentencing in the case until September 21, after agreeing to read Nevin's interviews with detectives, and he was further remanded in custody, where he has been since March. While the court heard Nevin had 20 previous criminal convictions, the details of a suspended sentence he received at Dublin Circuit Court in June 2015 were not outlined. On that occasion he stalked and harassed his former girlfriend for over six months in an attempt to rekindle their relationship. Nevin sent text messages to Patricia Dardis, phoned her, emailed her, sent faxes to her office, handwritten notes to her home, turned up at her place of work and home and at one point tried to contact the chief executive of the firm where she worked. Nevin, who is originally from Terryglass, Nenagh, Co Tipperary, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on that occasion to harassment of Ms Dardis from August 2012 to February 2013 at locations in Dublin. He had contacted Ms Dardis on a daily basis and had also tried to communicate with her 40 times in one day. Ms Dardis was in a relationship with Nevin from March 2010 until January 2011 and she had helped him secure finance for a car during that time. When the relationship ended, loan repayments were being deducted from her account and she contacted Nevin in order to get the money repaid. Nevin has a previous conviction for harassment of another former partner from Cork Circuit Criminal Court in May 2011, for which he was bound to the peace. Luke Schneider joined the Navy just to have a better shot at getting his dream job: firefighter. His plan worked, but it wasn't a direct route from the aircraft carrier Enterprise to the fire stations of Rockford, Illinois, where he's been a firefighter and paramedic for the past 11 years. He entered the Navy in 2004 as undesignated and was originally assigned to the machinist's mate shop. Were it not for the senior chief petty officer in charge that day, he might have ended up there for his entire career. But Schneider asked to be sent to damage control -- where the firefighters train -- and the senior chief agreed. Schneider ended his Navy career in 2008 as a damage control supervisor aboard the Enterprise; then, he went back to Illinois to achieve his lifelong dream. Four years ago, he took the passion he and his wife had for roasting coffee and turned it into a way to raise money for wounded first responders and the organizations that support them. Luke Schneider joined the Navy just to increase his chances of being a firefighter. (Courtesy of Luke Schneider) Fire Dept. Coffee was Schneider''s answer. He started it as a means of getting better coffee to firehouses and military units while helping out his fellow firefighters; 10% of all net proceeds go to this purpose. Since separating veterans are often looking for ways to get a job as a firefighter, the former sailor, firefighter and Fire Dept. Coffee founder talked to Military.com about how to do just that. 1. Find Out Where You're Testing When Schneider was looking for a job in Rockford, he was living in nearby St. Charles. The rules for joining the fire department in those municipalities could be different, so it is important to know the rules and regulations for the city where you are testing. Also, fire departments have different criteria for passing those tests, different prerequisites and different means of gathering preference points. Most municipal fire departments will give preference to military veterans, but how much varies. 2. Know the Requirements Before applying to the Rockford Fire Department, Schneider took classes in fire science at the local community college and became an EMT basic. He didn't know it at the time, but he didn't actually need a degree or the EMT training. He did earn a vocational certificate for fire science, but Rockford would send him to become a paramedic. "It definitely looks good on the resume," he said. "And some departments require you to be a paramedic. Other departments will require an associate's or bachelor's degree. Others will just give you preference points for the degree. Again, it's very important to know where you're testing."" 3. Find Out What Gives You Preference ... and what doesn't. Schneider joined the Navy to become a firefighter, but he almost spent his career as a machinist's mate instead of in damage control, fighting fires. If he had, it wouldn't have been the end of the world because he still got preference points at the Rockford Fire Department just for being an honorably discharged veteran. The same goes for a degree. Even though Schneider's vocation is fire science, if he had a bachelor's degree in education, he might have tested at a fire department that gave preference points just for having any kind of degree. 4. Test as Much as Possible Schneider says to test as much as possible. "Study your core skills, like math -- especially algebra -- and English," he said. "Make sure your core strength is in those basic skills, then brush up on the test with a study book you can get at any bookstore. Then, test wherever you can. Once you get past the test, you can get an interview." 5. Pass the Physical Test Don't just let yourself go when you get out of the military. You'll still need to be in fighting shape when you're fighting fires instead of terrorists. You'll need to pass the physical test after the written test to get to the interview portion. But don't worry. If you can pass a military PT test, you can pass the fire department's, Schneider said. If you can't pass a military PT test, well, it's time to start training. 6. Practice for the Oral Exam Written and oral tests are often a combined score, and the oral exam can really rescue your result if taking written tests isn't your thing. One of the things you can do is prepare heavily for this exam. Schneider said he took it one step further and pretended he was going in front of a Navy promotion board. "I greeted them in the order of their rank. I waited to be seated and then everything was, 'Yes, commissioner, no commissioner,'" he said. "Keep your answers short, to the point. Be confident in what you say. They're judging you for a very short period of time. So you need to have your boots shined, your gig line fixed and you need to look presentable -- clean, shaved, haircut, nails trimmed, all those things that you would do in the military." 7. Know About the Department You're Applying To "You can almost expect certain questions," Schneider said. "Things like, 'Why do you want to be a firefighter?' and 'What do you know about our department?' If you do a little research on that department, you can be prepared for that question." Schneider learned about the station's call volume, along with how many stations are in the Rockford area. Each are things you can easily find out in any municipality, and that's something that can make the difference between getting the job and taking another test elsewhere. 8. Mention Teamwork The overall decision falls on the fire commissioners, but there are times where the fire chief will weigh in on who to hire. In Schneider's case, the chief told his class that everyone who was hired in the Rockford department mentioned "teamwork" in their job interview. That's how important the concept is to firefighters. "If you don't work as a team, you fall apart," Schneider said. "It's super critical to have that mindset of when you're coming on a fire department, to be slow to talk and fast to listen. That's how you support your team members in the best way possible at first." The Fire Dept. Coffee crew from Rockford, Illinois' Station 6. (Fire Dept. Coffee) Fire Dept. Coffee has graduated from a five-kilogram roaster at Schneider's house in Rockford to having multiple roasts, decaf roasts and spirit-infused coffees. A portion of every sale goes toward helping wounded first responders as they recover. You can find Fire Dept. Coffee on its website. -- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook. Want to Know More About Veteran Jobs? Be sure to get the latest news about post-military careers, as well as critical info about veteran jobs and all the benefits of service. Subscribe to Military.com and receive customized updates delivered straight to your inbox. 31.07.2020 LISTEN Kaywa, a multiple award winning producer and CEO of Highly Spiritual Music has made a very bold declaration concerning his prophetic ministry. The hitmaking producer made this declaration on the weekly Instagram Live Sessions with Nana Adwoa Sarkodie. "All my prophecies come to pass, and that's what draws me closer to God. Because I've prophesied to so many people and I've seen them all come to pass. The spirit of the Lord does not operate in a place of pain but a place of free spirit. When you're a true prophet, you dwell in the spirit." he said. Kaywa is well known for being outspoken about his faith in Christ regardless of his active participation in the circular music industry. He has worked with top artists including Daddy Lumba, Samini, Stonebwoy, Reggie Rockstone, Sarkodie, R2Bees and more. In the 2-hour long interview with Nana Adwoa, Kaywa discussed the dicey topic of combining Christianity with Showbiz. He categorically stated that he doesn't care or bother about what people think of him as most Ghanaians are only judgemental and act self-righteous. "Once we call ourselves Christians, we are followers of Christ. We have the mantle to draw people to the saving grace of Jesus. What encourages me is that we always have the support of Christ himself in this task. Once Jesus did it, I too can do it, he is my help. We have been given a mantle. The assignment is to go into the world and preach the gospel. The world isn't the church building. Our assignment goes beyond the four corners of the church." "Paul said, I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means win some. Jesus sat with tax collectors and prostitutes. There are few times you'll see him in the synagogues. He was always on the move. Why then don't we believers follow the same assignment" he quizzed. Responding to a question about the impact showbiz is having on his faith, Kaywa mentioned "I've been doing this for 21years. I don't see how I will be swayed into the world. I'm not saying I don't make mistakes. But the beautiful thing about Christ is he prepares you before he moves you. When you fall, it doesn't surprise God. Provision has been made on the cross for you to rise again. It is important to look up to Jesus. When you fall you have to rise up and move to your next level." However he revealed that one challenge he is continually battling with is the choice of lyrics artists use when recording with him. "One thing I struggle with is the lyrics some artists use when I'm recording them. I always wish to have clean lyrics without the sensual terms. But I still find myself recording songs that express sensual lyrics." He also made this powerful revelation "In the early days, sometimes I didn't understand why circular artists were thronging my studio whereas I wanted gospel artists. But now with the benefit of hindsight, I can say it was all part of God's plan. There are many who have been saved just because I chose that path. One of those is Blakk Rasta; he was a Muslim then went into Hare Krishna and always argued with me until he finally had an encounter with Jesus and everything changed." The Dw3 hitmaker admonished young people to obey their parents at all times even when they don't agree on the same ideas. "When your parents don't support what you want to do, obey them. Parents have the ability to see far in the future. For instance, you want to do circular music and your father is against it, you have to obey him. Just pray about it and ask for God's will to be done. Once it's a God given purpose, it will surely come to pass. But do not go ahead of your parents in the name of hearing from the Lord." Finally Kaywa shared some nuggets of wisdom, explaining that, "Grace is not freedom to sin. It's freedom from sin. When you're covered by the blood, you don't take advantage of it to sin, but you walk in righteousness. A lot of Christians are struggling with addictions but we rather look at other people who haven't met Christ and we condemn them. The purpose for which we are saved is to go out there and save others. It's a bigger task than sitting in church and being hypocrites." You can rewatch the entire interview on Youtube or Instagram via Nana Adwoa Sarkodie. Mumbai, July 31 : Veteran bureaucrat and former Governor of Arunachal Pradesh R.D. Pradhan passed away here on Friday. He was 92. An IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre who served in Gujarat, Maharashtra, at the Centre and global positions, Pradhan was one of the architects of drafting the peace accords in Punjab, Assam and Mizoram. A close confidante of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, he had served as Union Home Secretary during his tenure and later became the Chief Secretary of Maharashtra. During his long tenure, he served as India's Resident Representative to UNCTAD and GATT and other international assignments for over a decade, besides working in different capacities with then Union Ministers S.B. Chavan, Buta Singh and Arun Nehru. He later headed a probe panel that examined various aspects of the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attack by Pakistani terrorists. Post-retirement, when Pradhan was appointed the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, he was the first to resign when the new government headed by Prime Minister V.P. Singh came to power at the Centre. CHESTER Police are seeking the publics assistance in a fatal shooting outside the Candlewood Suites on the 300 block of Welsh Street Tuesday night. Officers were dispatched to the hotel about 10:52 p.m. for what was originally reported as a stabbing, but was upgraded to a shooting as police were en route, according to information provided by city Detective Joseph McFate. Upon arrival, officers found 36-year-old Charles Bryant of Chester Township laying unresponsive in the lobby area of the hotel. Reports indicated that Bryant was shot outside of the hotel and stumbled inside. He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics from Crozer-Chester Medical Center. Bryants body was transported to the Delaware County Medical Examiners Office to determine the cause and manner of the death, but the incident is being investigated as a homicide. Witnesses at the scene have described a verbal confrontation in the parking lot immediately outside the front entrance of the hotel between the victim and the driver of a newer black Dodge pickup truck with tinted windows and a Tonneau bed cover, according to information released by District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer Thursday. The shooter is described as a black male around 40 years of age, medium build, balding with a long goatee, according to a release. A female passenger of the pickup truck was also described as approximately 40 years of age with a thick build, wearing a light brown and pink tank top and light brown or black braids in a bun. The release states that the woman tried to intercede in the confrontation. After the shooting, the driver and his female passenger got back into the truck and fled the scene. Police have provided a composite sketch of the shooter based on a witness description, as well as video surveillance obtained from several sources that showed the suspect vehicle fleeing north on Welsh Street, crossing over 7th Street and onto the Avenue of the States. Both the shooter and the passenger are being actively sought by police. Anyone with information is urged to contact Chester Detective Benjamin Thomas at 610-447-8426 or bthomas306@chesterpolice.org, or Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division Detective Vincent Ficchi at 610-891-4681 or ficchiv@co.delaware.pa.us. Alyaukhovo (Russia) (AFP) - Wearing a blue woollen uniform topped with a black fur hat, Snezhana Golubeva's son pursed his lips as he slowly turned a curved sword in a leafy village outside Moscow. In a meadow nearby, Golubeva was wandering through tall grass picking wildflowers for herbal remedies. She didn't expect to spend the holidays in a village outside Moscow. But border closures caused by the coronavirus pandemic left her and many other Russians scrambling for alternatives -- and fuelling a revival of old Russian pastimes. "Usually, I go with my son to Greece or Italy for a week or two or even a month," said Golubeva, a 40-year-old beautician. "This summer we've come here for religious services and to join all the activities here." Instead of lazing on European beaches, Muscovites who fled to summer homes are watching Soviet-era films and learning about the healing properties of wild plants. Golubeva and her 14-year-old son go twice a week to workshops led by Cossacks, who once guarded the southern frontiers of tsarist Russia in Alyaukhovo, east of Moscow. One recent weekend, 69-year-old army officer Nikolai Dolgopol was teaching Cossack songs and sword fighting. "With no Thailand or Turkey, quite a few young people are coming here to learn the traditional values they've been missing," he said. While Golubeva's son learnt to wield a Cossack sabre, she headed to the meadows for a guided nature walk with a group of women. - Moscow exodus - Marina Vasilyeva, who worked in the Soviet Union's broadcasting governing body, was sharing tips on plant-based remedies to boost the immune system. "It's no big deal," said Ksenia Akimova, a 14-year-old student holding a huge bunch of plants. "Instead of going to Montenegro, I'm learning about the traditions of our forefathers." A strict coronavirus lockdown in March prompted an exodus from the capital to country cottages. Almost half of Russians own second homes known as dachas, allocated to them during the Soviet era. Story continues Those without rushed to rent, with searches for summer homes near Moscow surging more than five-fold in April, according to property search site to Cian.ru. The residences have served as a refuge before. During the economic crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union, many families grew food in dacha vegetable patches. In the current crisis, more than half of respondents to an April survey by travel site Tutu.ru said dachas were "the best way" to escape the pandemic. Families this year were also much less likely to send their children away to summer camps, with 83 percent of Muscovites saying children would stay at home, according to the government's virus information website. This mass move from the city drove a three-fold surge in sales of hanging chairs, while sales of inflatable paddling pools, hammocks and recliners doubled, according to Avito.ru classified ad site. - 'Another way to travel' - One recent Saturday evening, dacha dwellers in Yermolino, a village 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Moscow, sat in traditional cinema seats arranged on grass in front of a large outdoor screen. Projectionist Alexander Mamayev, who salvaged 1,500 film reels from the local council, uses vintage projectors to stage outdoor screenings. In spite of the mosquitos, the screenings are a hit, said Mamayev, a 32-year-old lawyer. Since no one has gone on holiday, "our audiences have doubled", he said. "Cinema is another way to travel." Open-air shows are a Soviet-era tradition, he said, when projectionists would bring the latest releases to remote collective farms. Mathematician Nikolai Moshchevitin and his daughter were among the audience watching Soviet cult classic The Mystery of the Third Planet -- a 1981 animation telling the story of a space expedition to find new animals for the Moscow zoo. Since conferences in Europe and China on are hold, the 53-year-old told AFP the screenings were "a good way of travelling to my childhood". Plymouth, Massachusetts--(Newsfile Corp. - July 31, 2020) - Plymouth Rock Technologies Inc. (CSE: PRT) (OTCQB: PLRTF) (FSE: 4XA) (WKN# A2N8RH) ("Plymouth Rock", "PRT", or the "Company") a leader in the development of cutting edge threat detection technologies, announced today that Thomas W. Nash, has joined the board of directors. Thomas W. Nash is the Chairman and CEO of Xalles Holdings Inc., a Fintech holding company. Mr. Nash has provided strategic business advice to more than 200 firms worldwide from small firms to large organizations such as U.S. Bank, MasterCard, and Citibank. He also led the implementation of financial systems within the U.S. Government's Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security as well as helped launch successful startup ventures in the payment, eCommerce and IT fields. "On behalf of Plymouth Rock, we are thrilled to have Thomas join the board. His expertise in financial markets in both the United States and Canada, along with his highly successful technology background, will be a fantastic addition to our team as Plymouth Rock continues to grow," added Douglas Smith, Chairman & Director of Plymouth Rock Technologies. George Stubos has resigned as a director to pursue other business ventures. The Board of Plymouth Rock on behalf of the shareholders wishes to thank Mr. Stubos for his service and contribution as board member. About Plymouth Rock Technologies Inc. We are on a mission to bring engineering-driven answers to the most critical problems that threaten our safety. We work with government, law enforcement and military to innovate solutions for national security, defense and space systems. The Company is developing the next generation of threat detection solutions, The PRT X1 is a purpose built multirotor Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). The unit contains an integrated sensor package that combines Thermal detection with 4K HD real-time air-to-ground streaming. Our advanced threat detection methods fuse artificial intelligence with augmented reality interfaces to eliminate human operating error. Plymouth Rock products, both airborne and land-based, will scan for threat items at greater "stand-off" distances than current existing technologies. Our unique radar imaging and signal processing technology creates new opportunities for remotely operated, none intrusive screening of crowds in real time. Plymouth Rock's other core technologies include: (1) A Millimeter Remote Imaging from Airborne Drone ("MIRIAD"); (2) A compact microwave radar system for scanning shoe's ("Shoe-Scanner"). Story continues www.plyrotech.com ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Dana Wheeler President and CEO +1-603-300-7933 info@plyrotech.com Investor Information: Tasso Baras +1-778-477-6990 Forward Looking Statements Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding future financial position, business strategy, use of proceeds, corporate vision, proposed acquisitions, partnerships, joint-ventures and strategic alliances and co-operations, budgets, cost and plans and objectives of or involving the Company. Such forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to management. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "predicts", "intends", "targets", "aims", "anticipates" or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. A number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause the actual results or performance to materially differ from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company including, but not limited to, the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions and dependence upon regulatory approvals. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by securities laws. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60925 India on Thursday said it was committed to protecting the life of Indian death row convict Kulbhushan Jadhav amid reports that the Islamabad High Court has constituted a two-member bench to hear a review petition in his case. "We stand committed to protect the life of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav," external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said at an online media briefing. He was replying to a batch of questions relating to the case including reports that Islamabad High Court has constituted a bench to hear a review petition filed by the Pakistan government in the case. "We reserve our position in the matter which includes the right to avail of further remedies," Srivastava added. India has been attacking Pakistan for failing to provide it unhindered and unimpeded consular access to Jadhav as mandated in a judgment by the International Court of Justice. Srivastava said Pakistan has blocked all the avenues for an effective remedy available for India in the case. In a unilateral move, Pakistan filed the petition in the Islamabad High Court on July 22, seeking appointment of a "legal representative" for Jadhav. However, the main parties, including the Government of India, were not consulted ahead of the filing of the application by the Ministry of Law and Justice under an ordinance which was enacted on May 20. Jadhav, a 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 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. According to Pakistani media reports, Islamabad High Court on Thursday constituted a two-member bench to hear the review petition filed by the Pakistan government in Jadhav's case. Bazaar Corporate Radar | Feb 22, 2021, 12:00 AM IST Bazaar Corporate Radar Bazaar Corporate Radar is your window into the minds of top CEOs, Boardrooms, global economists, fund managers and sector analysts. If it?s making news, you?ll find it on Bazaar Corporate Radar. New rules banning indoor bar service and additional limits on social gatherings in the Upper Peninsula and Northwest Michigan are officially in effect as of Friday morning. Up until this point, Northern Michigan residents had reeopened a little more quickly than the rest of the state due to the relatively small number of COVID-19 cases. Regions 6 and 8, the Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula, are in Phase 5 of the states economic reopening plan, while the rest of the state is in Phase 4. The northernmost regions previously had looser restrictions than the rest of the state on indoor social gatherings, allowing up to 50 people. Late Wednesday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer brought Northern Michigan in line with the rest of the state, limiting indoor gatherings to 10 people statewide. Related: Whitmer order tightens restrictions on northern Michigan parties, bars The limits on outdoor gatherings are still 100 people in most of the state and 250 people in regions 6 and 8. Northern Michigan now also joins the rest of the state in closing indoor service at bars that earn more than 70 percent of gross receipts from alcohol sales. That rule has been in place in the southern part of the state since July 1. As we see COVID-19 cases continue to rise, Michiganders cannot afford to drop our guard. We must take every step possible to save lives, protect the brave men and women on the front lines, and avoid overwhelming our healthcare system while we continue to combat COVID-19, Whitmer said in a press release. After seeing a resurgence in cases connected to social gatherings across the state, we must further limit gatherings for the health of our community and economy. By taking these strong actions, we will be better positioned to get our children back into classrooms and avoid a potentially devastating second wave. The governors office in a press release cited recent super-spreader events tied to Harpers bar, the Saline house party and a 4th of July gathering at Torch Lake. The governors order also allowed Detroit casinos to reopen at 15 percent capacity. House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, panned the move as political science on social media, criticizing her decision to tighten restrictions in Northern Michigan while reopening casinos. Science? Data? Sorry, but this seems more like political science, he quipped on Twitter. Same day Governor allows Detroit casinos to reopen, she orders Northern Michigan and UP to go backwards. All this while still putting COVID patients in nursing homes, exposing our most vulnerable and costing lives. Science? Data? Sorry, but this seems more like political science. Lee Chatfield (@LeeChatfield) July 30, 2020 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 executive orders requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nosewhile in public indoor and crowded outdoor spaces. See an explanation of what that means here. 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/. Read more on MLive: Are masks bad for your health?, plus 8 other coronavirus myths and truths Latest on coronavirus antibodies and immunity: What we know and what we dont at this point Why Michigan public health departments publicize some coronavirus exposure sites but not others Ice cream shop owner wants customers to stop yelling at staff over mask requirement Moving Michigan back to phase 3 is probably inevitable if behaviors dont change, head of advisory group says Tripura High Court on Thursday ordered for a test parade to identify the person accused of spitting and gurgling water on a woman doctor at a Covid-19 care centre in Agartala. The HC also asked the investigating officer to record the doctors statement and identify the accused in the next 24 hours. The doctor had gone to the centre to admit some patients, including a mother and her newborn baby. ....to record confessional statements of the victim Dr. Sangita Chakraborty and her supporting staff under Section 154(5) of the CrPC within 24 hours, however, at the convenience of the said doctor and her other associates. The investigating officer is further directed to arrange for TI parade, if necessary, to identify the real offenders, the court said in its order. A complaint was lodged at New Capital Complex (NCC) police station on July 27 by the Tripura health department about the alleged harassment of the doctor by some patients at the Covid-19 care centre. The accused were charged with Section 3 of Tripura Medical Service and Protection of Property Damage Act, Section 353 and 323 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 03 of the Epidemic Diseases Act. Subimal Barman, the officer-in-charge of the NCC police station, said when contacted that four Covid-19 patients suspected to be involved in the incident were shifted to a separate institutional quarantine at Indranagar, few kilometres away from the state capital. No one has been arrested yet, he said. A Covid-19 patient, who is an additional government advocate, on Thursday sought anticipatory bail in the high court apprehending arrest in connection with the case. A single bench of justice Arindam Lodh asked the prosecution to submit an updated case diary during the next hearing. Learned Addl. P.P. is requested to produce the case diary on 05.08.2020 to find out the reasonable apprehension and accusations, if any, against the petitioner, judge noted in the order. Justice Lodh said in his order that any offence to hurt sentiments, safety and security of doctors would not be tolerated, saying doctors, paramedics, police personnel are the first line of defence in the countrys fight against the coronavirus pandemic. The judge further noted that obstacles were created to treat the Covid-19 patients and the woman doctor and her staff were prevented from performing their duties smoothly and freely. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar faces additional federal charges in an indictment announced Thursday by prosecutors. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar, who was arrested and charged with racketeering last month in an ongoing pay-to-play probe, now faces additional charges including bribery and money laundering, federal prosecutors announced Thursday. The new charges were included in a 34-count grand jury indictment expanding on earlier allegations that Huizar headed up a criminal enterprise that leveraged his power at City Hall for financial gain, aiding real estate developers who handed over bribes including cash, free flights, casino chips and other perks. The 113-page indictment also includes claims that others conspired with Huizar in the scheme, including a former deputy mayor who previously headed the Department of Building and Safety. Federal prosecutors allege that Huizar agreed to accept at least $1.5 million in illicit financial benefits. He is the fifth person to be charged in the ongoing investigation, which has netted guilty pleas from former Huizar aide George Esparza, real estate consultant George Chiang, political fundraiser Justin Jangwoo Kim and former Councilman Mitchell Englander. The indictment alleges that Huizar tried to cover up the illicit money in several ways, including guiding his aide on how to avoid bank reporting requirements and using family members to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. It also alleges that he made false statements to federal prosecutors and the FBI. Huizar, 51, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday. Attorneys for the councilman have previously stated that Huizar intends to respond to the governments allegations in court." He is now being represented by attorneys from the federal public defender's office, one of whom declined to comment Thursday. Many of the allegations in the indictment were revealed last month in a criminal complaint against the councilman, including that a Chinese billionaire planning a new skyscraper in his downtown district provided $600,000 in collateral to help Huizar quietly settle a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former aide. Story continues But the document lays out additional details about the alleged crimes. For instance, the criminal complaint alleged that a businessman who wanted Huizar to introduce him to developers paid for gifts including expensive suits, meals and hotel stays for the councilman to meet with a woman with whom he was having an affair. The indictment, in turn, lays out an itemized list of those alleged gifts with dates and dollar amounts, such as a "suit and shirts" worth $6,000 on June 13, 2016, and "hotel accommodation" worth $1,513.49 on June 19, 2017. In another instance, the criminal complaint filed in June included allegations that a real estate developer provided political donations as part of a bribery scheme to win approval for an Arts District project. The indictment adds another allegation: that an executive with that development company talked to Huizar about hiring the councilman after he left office. Federal prosecutors have not named the former deputy mayor allegedly involved in the criminal enterprise, but biographical details included in the indictment and criminal complaint make clear it is Raymond Chan, who has not been arrested or publicly charged in the case. His attorney, Harland Braun, did not immediately provide comment Thursday but has previously stated that Chan did nothing wrong. The charges that Huizar faces carry maximum sentences that could stretch for decades, according to a statement released by the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. Money laundering, for instance, can be punished by up to 20 years in federal prison, while making false statements to a financial institution carries a maximum sentence of 30 years. The final resting place for all of NIPSCOs coal ash from Michigan City and Chesterton is in Jasper County at the R.M. Schahfer Generating Station located in the town of Wheatfield. NIPSCOs plan is to dispose of the excavated and transported ash into a lined landfill. How long will this liner actually last? We do not know. Nor do we know if the residents of Wheatfield have been adequately notified, or what the contents of the fugitive dust control plans from NIPSCO will entail to ensure the safety and health of workers and residents along the transport routes. We also dont know if there will be onsite air monitoring or water monitoring to evaluate potential off site contamination. Lastly, what are the realistic statistical odds that out of thousands of truckloads of toxic ash, not a single mishap or accident will occur? Is there any plan for that if tragedy strikes? NORWALK One person is still in the hospital after a four-car crash that knocked down three utility poles and caused one vehicle to burst into flames Thursday afternoon, according to police. Deputy Police Chief James Walsh said one of the two people seriously injured in the crash was released from the hospital Thursday. The condition of the person still in the hospital is unknown, Walsh said. The crash happened around noon Thursday near the entrance to Shop Rite at 360 Connecticut Ave. The accident closed Connecticut Avenue between Scribner Avenue and Rampart Road, officials said. The crash, Walsh said, is believed to have been caused either by a mechanical malfunction or a mistake by one of the drivers. Deputy Fire Chief Stephen Shay said one car took down three utility poles. He said the high-tension wires surrounded the car and it burst into flames. The two occupants managed to get out with the help of bystanders. Since the wires were still charged, the fire department had to wait until the power was shut off to extinguish the flames. Shay said four people were taken to the hospital, two of them with serious injuries. All four lanes of travel in the area of the crash were shut down to vehicles, Shay said. He said the accident knocked out power in the area for hours Thursday afternoon. Reporter Tara ONeill contributed to this story. The Taoiseach has slapped down his party backbencher Marc MacSharry, who claimed some public servants were taking advantage of Covid to do the "maximum of the minimum," and probably lying on the couch and "watching box-sets." "I don't agree with Marc's position on this at all," Micheal Martin said at Dublin Castle after a meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council. "Never did the concept of a strong, independent, objective public service so tellingly as in this crisis," he said. Read More The civil service had done "extraordinary work," Mr Martin added, singling out the Garda Siochana and the Health Care workers. In giving such advice as that for the wearing of masks of public transport, "the back-up to that is the Garda Siochana," he said, while healthcare workers had been on the frontline of the pandemic. "In my own department, public servants have been flat out," Mr Martin declared. The selfless work of so many was "something we can celebrate, if that is not the right word in the context, but something we should acknowledge and recognise." He pointed out that people had responded to what was an unprecedented, once-in a-hundred-years event, and the public service had been a key part of the "impulse to democracy and a steady society." He added: "We can never let that go." Mr Martin did not, however, call on Mr MacSharry to withdraw his remarks or to apologise, as called for by members of Opposition parties. Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF), says the demand for apology by his predecessor, Mohammed Bello Adoke, over ... Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF), says the demand for apology by his predecessor, Mohammed Bello Adoke, over the P&ID case is misconceived. false evidence against him at the court in the P&ID case. Adoke had written to Malami demanding apology for allegedly givingfalse evidence against him at the court in the P&ID case. The Nigerian government is trying to get a $9.6 billion arbitration award upturned by proving corruption and conspiracy on the part of P&ID and past Nigerian government officials. In a statement on Thursday, Malami said investigation is ongoing on Adokes alleged involvement in the OPL 245 Malabu scandal and the P&ID deal. In the letter, Mr Adoke has demanded an apology and appropriate monetary compensation which the Attorney Generals office considers is entirely misconceived, he said. Mr Adoke is, of course, the subject of criminal proceedings in relation to the OPL 245 debacle. Investigations continue into Mr Adokes involvement in the OPL 245 deal, and also in relation to the disastrous and fraudulent gas supply agreement made with the BVI shell company P&ID. Mr Adoke seeks to wash his hands off any involvement in settlement negotiations with P&ID, falsely stating that all settlement negotiations with P&ID took place after he had left office as the-then Attorney General of the Federation. This is simply untrue, as settlement negotiations took place in 2012, 2014, and during Spring 2015 when Mr Adoke was the-then Attorney General of the Federation. It is noteworthy that Mr Adoke is being represented by Paul Erokoro SAN. Mr Erokoro SAN has in fact recently provided a sworn witness statement concerning certain factual matters on behalf of P&ID in the proceedings in London (in which he made no mention of the matters which he has raised in his letter). Mr Erokoro is also the lawyer representing Mr James Nolan of P&ID in the criminal proceedings on foot against Mr Nolan in the FRN. It remains to be seen how Mr Erokore SAN could be seen as impartial and not conflicted, given his various roles closely connecting him with P&ID. This photo, taken Monday, shows a drain that runs under barbed wire fences in the northern part of Ganghwa Island, west of Seoul, which may have been used by a North Korean defector to return home. The military said a bag belonging to the 24-year-old man, only identified by his family name Kim, was found near the drain. Authorities speculated that the defector swam to North Korea. Yonhap The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) decided to relieve a two-star Marine Corps general of his command over a border security failure in connection with a North Korean defector's recent return to his communist homeland, officials said Friday. The border crossing near the western island of Ganghwa by the 24-year-old man, surnamed Kim, became known after North Korea reported Sunday that a "runaway" returned home in the border city of Kaesong with coronavirus symptoms and that the entire city was blocked off to prevent the spread of the virus. South Korean officials said Kim had been under investigation over allegations he raped a female defector. According to the JCS' probe results, Kim was caught on the military's surveillance equipment seven times five on its monitoring cameras, twice on thermal observation devices (TODs) including his arrival in the North, but troops failed to identify him as a person trying to cross the border. The defector passed through a drainage tunnel running underneath barbed wire fences to evade South Korean border guards before reaching the shore and swimming a few kilometers to North Korea. The fences set up inside the drainage tunnel were in poor condition, allowing the defector to pass through them easily, they said. It took just around 10 minutes for Kim to pass through the channel and reach the river separating the two Koreas. The JCS will seek disciplinary measures against those accountable, including the dismissal of Maj. Gen. Baek Gyeong-sun as commander of the Marine Corps' 2nd Division in charge of border security at the area, officials said. Kim entered the water at 2:46 a.m. on July 18 and reached the North's territory in about 75 minutes using the tide. A guard on duty some 200 meters away saw a taxi carrying Kim arrive near the border at 2:18 a.m. but did not take any action as he thought of the passenger as a nearby resident, officials said. Near the water tunnel, police later found a backpack with Kim's bankbook, a Bible and first aid supplies. South Korean authorities were not aware of the incident until North Korea's report on it. Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo earlier said he learned of the case after receiving a phone call from Suh Hoon, director of national security at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, about an hour after the North's report. Jeong apologized for the security failure. Amid growing criticism over the military's security breaches indicating lax discipline, the officials said they will inspect all such tunnels near the border and set up additional structures to prevent similar cases from recurring. They also vowed to strengthen cooperation with the police, such as by sharing more information, to improve their readiness posture. "The military takes this situation very gravely," a JCS official said. "We will intensively carry out follow-up measures as soon as possible and make sure we can handle any unexpected situations down the road." (Yonhap) California's leaders were deadlocked and on the verge of financial catastrophe in 2008. Five negotiators, including Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, couldn't agree on a budget that would guide the nation's most populous state through the Great Recession. Enter Karen Bass, who became Assembly speaker that May, the first Black woman to hold the role. She shifted the tone of the talks, helping the group find common ground. 'When Karen came into the Big 5, everything changed,' said Mike Villines, then the Republican Assembly leader. 'We started to make little progress on little things, and it led to bigger progress.' A dozen years later, the bridge-building, unassuming style that colleagues say made Bass an effective leader in Sacramento is among the reasons the current California congresswoman has emerged as a leading contender to become Joe Biden's running mate. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee appeared with Bass for the first time at a fundraiser on Thursday. He plans to make a pick as early as next week. Raising speculation: Karen Bass was seen walking alongside Joe Biden after they both paid respects - with Biden's wife Jill - to John Lewis as the Civil Rights icon and Democratic congressman lay in state in the Capitol this week Bond: Among the personal points of connection for Bass and Biden are loss: Bass' daughter and son-in-law died in a car crash in 2006, while Biden lost both his first wife and one-year-old daughter in a car crash, then his son Beau from cancer Could it be Karen Bass? The chair of the Congressional Black Caucus is now being seen as a frontrunner in Joe Biden's search for a running mate A former physician's assistant and community organizer, Bass said she brings experience to tackle the nation's economic, racial and health care crises. 'I have historically, for the last four or five decades, focused on building coalitions and building bridges between ethnic groups, between political ideologies,' she told The Associated Press this week. 'I'm a very goal-driven person; I am focused on getting stuff done. And I am willing to work with whoever, whenever, however.' Her low-key approach was evident as early as 1990, when she launched a nonprofit in Los Angeles. One of the organization's tenets was 'no celebrity-style leadership.' Unlike some of her competitors for vice president, including California Sen. Kamala Harris, Bass hasn't sought national office and has no stated presidential aspirations. But that means she is lesser known to voters, lacks a major donor base and hasn't faced the scrutiny of a national campaign. A past comment about former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro could be troublesome to Hispanic voters in the key swing state of Florida. Still, she brings plenty of political cachet. She left Sacramento for Congress in 2010 and now chairs the Congressional Black Caucus. After George Floyd's killing by police, she led Democratic efforts on legislation to overhaul law enforcement, a push that prompted Biden's team to take her more seriously as a potential running mate. 'She got high marks for managing that deal, but she's managed similar bills in the past,' said Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, a former CBC chair and Biden ally. 'She has a resume that I think is good to be considered.' Bass, 66, wouldn't discuss her vetting. But Fabian Nunez, a former state Assembly speaker and close friend of Bass', said she's been 'properly vetted.' He supported Bass as his successor in the Legislature because the difficult budget talks required a 'less ideological' leader who could bring people together, qualities the country needs today. 'The country needs healers,' he said. Both Biden and Bass learned to heal through personal tragedy. Biden lost his wife and young daughter in a car accident in 1972. In 2006, Bass' 23-year-old daughter and son-in-law died in a car accident. Before entering politics, Bass worked in a Los Angeles emergency room, where she saw the havoc brought by the crack cocaine epidemic and police crackdown that fueled the arrests of young men of color. She created the Community Coalition, a nonprofit aimed at treating gang violence and the drug trade as public health issues. After surveying 30,000 residents, the organizers learned that liquor stores were a surprising source of the problem, providing a haven for drug deals and other illicit behavior. They helped shut down 150 stores. When Los Angeles City Council member Marqueece Harris-Dawson started working at the coalition in 1995 at age 25, he didn't know Bass. But he knew the liquor stores he'd been told to avoid his whole life were closed. 'It was very meaningful for me because you hear a lot of political talk, particularly post-1992,' he said, referring to the year of the Los Angeles riots that followed the beating of Rodney King by white police officers. 'Those things never get done. Here was Karen, quietly setting up goals (and) knocking them down.' Taking a knee: Karen Bass (front) led Democratic members of both the House and the Senate in taking a knee in June to honor George Floyd and other black men and women killing by police Warning from Florida Democrats: Bass could alienate Cuban voters because of a 2016 statement she made when Castro died saying: 'The passing of Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba.' Meanwhile, Biden was passing the 1994 bill that furthered the era's tough-on-crime policies. He'd also supported stricter sentences for crack cocaine compared to powder, which disproportionately hurt minorities. Bass said she was opposed to the 1994 bill but did not criticize Biden. 'People in the community were demanding legislation like that. They wanted to see three strikes, they wanted to see the crime bill,' she said. 'People like me were fighting to get the community to see things differently.' In the state Legislature, she prioritized child welfare and foster care legislation before winning the speakership. As the only woman in leadership, she changed the male-dominated culture. Schwarzenegger often invited lawmakers to negotiate in a cigar tent, but Bass told the men there would be no smoking with her inside. Among the Republicans she was close with in Sacramento: Kevin McCarthy, who is now the top Republican in the U.S. House. Dolores Huerta, the California civil rights leader and farm worker activist, said Bass is someone who can repair the nation's damaged institutions. She'd be a vice president who can adeptly handle the work at home as Biden works on repairing international relationships, Huerta said. 'He's going to need somebody at his side that can really help him with things here at the domestic level,' said Huerta, who endorsed Harris in the Democratic presidential primary. Bass' allies say she has no baggage, but she will face fresh scrutiny if Biden chooses her. Fernand Amandi, a Democratic consultant and Florida pollster who specializes in the Hispanic vote, said Bass could alienate Cuban voters because of a 2016 statement she made when Castro died. She said: 'The passing of Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba.' Critics say the remarks were too deferential to a brutal dictator, and Amandi said it will allow Republicans to paint Bass as a radical socialist. She traveled to Cuba on three expense-paid trips in Congress, including trips to learn about the Cuban health care system and cultural exchanges, all approved by the House Ethics Committee. She first traveled to Cuba in the 1970s as a young activist. 'Let's say you have a wavering Cuban American Trump supporter now who may be on the fence, who's just looking for a reason to stick with Trump,' Amandi said. 'With Karen Bass' comments about Fidel Castro, it will be served up on a silver platter.' Bass has since said she better understands the sensitivity of her comment after speaking with Florida colleagues, and she believes she can still reach out to Cuban voters in the state, where the coronavirus is a top issue. 'I absolutely feel that there is a pathway that I would not be a liability in whatever role I play on the campaign,' she said. 'And, you know, Florida is also a very big state.' (Courtesy of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration) By Jung Da-min South Korea's first military communications satellite ANASIS-II entered geostationary orbit 10 days after launch, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) announced Friday. The ANASIS-II, launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket manufactured by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on July 21 (local time), reached the target orbit at an altitude of 3,600 kilometers at around 7:11 a.m. Friday, according to the arms procurement agency. DAPA said the satellite's functions and operability would be tested in orbit by its manufacturer Airbus Defense and Space for about four weeks before the South Korean military finally takes over in October. The arms procurement agency also plans to conduct a final operability evaluation of the satellite, focusing on its compatibility with eight kinds of ground station terminals it has developed, including those that can be used on vehicles. "The South Korean military will not only replace the old satellite system through securing its first independent communications satellite but will also establish a communication system whose survivability and security have been improved significantly through its improved transmission capacity and anti-jamming capabilities," DAPA said in a statement. DAPA said the ANANSIS-II's frequency-hopping technology could offer the military a stable communication network even during anti-electronic warfare in which there is an electronic jamming threat from the enemy. It said the evasion performance of the ANASIS-II had also been enhanced considerably from the old system. The satellite's communication transmission capacity has also been more than doubled, greatly improving the speed of information processing and thus providing broad communication networks across the Korean Peninsula and remote areas including where South Korean military troops are stationed, according to DAPA. Through the successful launch of ANASIS-II, South Korea has become the 10th country to have a dedicated military communications satellite. But military watchers said South Korea's space military power is still behind the U.S., China, Russia and Japan among others. As an effort to strengthen its military power in space, South Korea is promoting a three-stage space development program dubbed "Space Odyssey," which aims to build satellite and surveillance systems and deterrence power by 2050, to protect the military's space forces. South Korea is also seeking to develop solid-propellant boosters for its space rockets, after Cheong Wa Dae said Tuesday that it struck a deal on new missile guidelines with the United States, which lifted a decades-long restriction on South Korea's use of solid fuels for its space launch vehicles. Announcing the lift of the ban, Kim Hyun-chong, the second deputy director of the National Security Office, said it would help advance the Korean military's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities because the country would be able to launch low-Earth orbit military spy satellites, flying at altitudes of 500 kilometers to 2,000 kilometers, with no restrictions on time and place, which would place the entire Korean Peninsula under around-the-clock military surveillance. By Brandon McKoy The year 2020 has presented several moments of reckoning and reflection for the nation, as the simultaneous crises of COVID-19, a disparate recession, and the fight against systemic racism roil our streets from coast to coast. These moments have laid bare, with great clarity, the wounds of racial injustice and white supremacy foisted upon Black Americans since before the dawning of the country. New Jersey is no different. We need an anti-racist budget that invests in communities of color that have been ignored and harmed for far too long, especially during economic downturns like what we are currently experiencing. For a state with vast riches and access to the most consequential and beneficial resources in the United States, these incredible advantages are not equitably shared or enjoyed. As evidenced by the recently passed short-term state budget, lawmakers are not doing nearly enough to address these disparities. No matter how outcomes are measured, whether it be household wealth, educational attainment, homeownership, or personal health, Black New Jerseyans lag far behind their white neighbors due to centuries of discriminatory policy choices. Over the past several months, lawmakers and elected officials at every governmental level have offered words of unity and solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and the fight for racial justice. These statements were reaffirmed following the recent passing of Civil Rights icon Congressman John Lewis. The renewed interest and expressions of solidarity have been so great that many consider this moment to be truly different one where priorities, investments, and policies will finally be changed, securing the nations original promise of freedom and justice for all. Unfortunately, it appears these words of support are just as hollow as ever, failing to translate into real change. While many elected officials are guilty of this disappointing turn, the disappointment is felt most profoundly with Gov. Phil Murphy. Unlike so many others who have demonstrated a willingness to support racist policies, he and his administration came in committing to more and promising to do better. Rather than fight for a budget that maintained investments in public services and programs that families rely on, the administration worked with the legislature to pass one rife with spending cuts, while also leaving in place Christie-era tax breaks for wealthy families and big corporations. When Governor Murphy recently addressed the parishioners of Friendship Baptist Church in Trenton, he said, I did not decide that Black Lives Matter last week this has been a lifelong commitment We cannot escape the fact that systemic racism not the outward racism of hate groups, but the silent racism of complacency has bled into nearly facet of our society. Yet, he has worked with the legislature to pass a budget that relies entirely on cuts without any effort to protect let alone support our most vulnerable communities. Systemic racism continues to bleed Black people in silence, and it will wreak havoc on the lives and welfare of Black New Jerseyans. In the midst of a recession and pandemic that is disproportionately killing Black people, this short-term budget cuts more than $3 billion from critical services and programs, which will largely harm New Jerseyans of color. Cuts to property tax relief, higher education, transportation and more will worsen poverty and exacerbate racial inequality in dramatic ways, undoing the gains Black New Jerseyans made in the wake of the Great Recession. Cuts to public education alone will be devastating more than half a million dollars in funding has been taken from critical programs like the Amistad Commission and Restorative Justice in Education pilot program, initiatives meant to reduce racial disparities and dismantle structural racism. Budget decisions that prioritize austerity over constructive investments are proven to fail; and history has shown Black people are routinely the biggest victims of such tactics. We do not make these points lightly. We are intimately familiar with the states budget and how it is constructed. As they do every year, lawmakers decided against ending tax breaks given to the top 1% of earners, the very families who have benefited from recent changes to the federal tax code enacted by the Trump administration. This is unacceptable. In order to make up for the failures of this short-term budget, lawmakers must equitably raise revenue and marshal resources in next years budget, which must be approved by Oct. 1. We are dealing with the most challenging crisis in modern history, and we need our elected representatives to do better. Reversing all Christie-era tax cuts that benefit mostly wealthy and white homeowners and corporate leaders is necessary for the state to start providing the relief and support to struggling families and small businesses that are truly in need. Anything less is offensive. We dont need to hear any more words of support for Black lives at the altar of a church. We need to see Governor Murphy and legislative leaders denounce the ugliness of racism and white supremacy in New Jersey by implementing an equitable and anti-racist budget. Brandon McKoy is the president of New Jersey Policy Perspective. This op-ed was also signed by: Elise Boddie is the founder and director of The Inclusion Project. Richard Smith is president of the NAACP New Jersey State Conference Eric Dobson is the deputy director of the Fair Share Housing Center Charles Boyer is the founding director of Salvation and Social Justice New Jersey Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Heres how to submit an op-ed or Letter to the Editor. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. The leader of a megachurch in Mexico has been charged with child rape and human trafficking in California, almost four months after an appeals court tossed out previous allegations due to prosecution errors. Naason Joaquin Garcia, who bills himself as the apostle of La Luz del Mundo, was charged with three dozen felony counts. Also charged were Susana Medina Oaxaca and Alondra Ocampo. Prosecutors argue the three committed sex crimes and produced child pornography involving five women and girls who were members of the church, which is based in Guadalajara, Mexico. The alleged crimes took place in Los Angeles County between 2015 and 2018. Garcia, 50, and Oaxaca were arrested in June 3, 2019 after stepping out of a plane at Los Angeles International Airport. Ocampo was apprehended in Los Angeles the same day. Naason Joaquin Garcia (pictured June 5, 2019) was charged Wednesday with 36 felony counts of child rape and human trafficking by a Los Angeles court. The new charges comes after an appeals court in April dismissed the previous allegations because of prosecution errors. Garcia bill himself as the apostle of La Luz del Mundo, a church based out of Mexico Naason Joaquin Garcia is one of three people charged by a Los Angeles court of committing sex crimes and produced child pornography involving five women and girls who were members of a church based out of Guadalajara, Mexico. The alleged crimes took place in Los Angeles County between 2015 and 2018 Garcia and Ocampo were already being held in custody in Los Angeles County while prosecutors decided whether to refile charges. He was rebooked on $50 million bail and Ocampo was booked on $25 million bail, while Oaxaca remained free on bail, according to the California attorney general's office. Garcia is the spiritual leader of La Luz del Mundo, which is Spanish for 'The Light Of The World.' The evangelical Christian church was founded by his grandfather in 1926 and claims 5 million followers worldwide. Messages to their attorneys seeking comment weren't immediately returned but Garcia has previously denied wrongdoing. Naason Joaquin Garcia is the spiritual leader of La Luz del Mundo, which is Spanish for 'The Light Of The World.' The evangelical Christian church was founded by his grandfather in 1926 and claims 5 million followers worldwide. Naason Joaquin Garcia greets his followers during an August 2018 mass at the Luz Del Mundo in Guadalajara, Mexico In April, an appeals court ordered Los Angeles Superior Court to dismiss charges against Garcia, ruling that his preliminary hearing was not held in a timely manner and he did not waive his right to one. In June 2019, Garcia was arraigned on 26 counts and waived his right to a speedy preliminary hearing - a common move. Garcia was arraigned in July 2019 on an amended complaint that included three additional charges of possession of child pornography. That time, he did not waive the time limits for a preliminary hearing. WHAT IS LA LUZ DEL MUNDO CHURCH? La Luz Del Mundo was founded in 1926 in Mexico by Naason Joaquin Garcia's grandfather, Eusebio Joaquin Gonzalez, who said he had received a 'divine revelation.' The church is headquartered in Guadalajara, Mexico, and claims five million followers worldwide. The congregation adheres to nontrinitarianism, rejecting a mainstream Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity. It says it adheres to the earliest beliefs of the Christian church teachings. Naason, his father, Samuel, and his grandfather are regarded as modern-day apostles of Jesus. The church does not use crosses or religious images in its worship services. Female members follow a dress code that includes long skirts and use head coverings during services. More than half a million followers gathered in Guadalajara for six days in August 2018 to perform their 80th 'holy supper,' one of the largest religious ceremonies in the world -- with mass baptisms, 600,000 loaves of bread, 20,000 liters of wine and attendants dressed in white straining to touch Garcia as he arrived at the church's headquarters escorted by his 'royal guard.' Advertisement His hearing was postponed several times, in some instances because prosecutors had not turned over evidence to the defense. The refiled charges accuse Garcia and Ocampo of committing a lewd act on a 15-year-old girl. Garcia fondled the girl in his office, authorities said. The two also are accused of raping and committing forced oral copulation with a second girl. All three defendants are accused of committing forced oral copulation with a third girl. Garcia was charged with raping two others. Ocampo took part in one rape, authorities said. Oaxaca is charged with two counts of committing forced and illegal copulation on a minor. Among other allegations, Ocampo is accused of having some church group members send explicit photos or pose for explicit photos that were intended for Garcia. In one case, prosecutors allege Ocampo told a group of underage girls to take off their clothes and touch each other sexually in order to send photographs to Garcia. The girls were told that if they 'if they went against any desires or wishes of the Apostle ... that they were going against' God, according to the indictment. The charges also include human trafficking by procuring a child to engage in a lewd act, conspiracy to commit human trafficking for production of child pornography, production of child pornography, extortion of the victims and unlawful sexual intercourse. A fourth defendant, Azalea Rangel Melendez, previously was charged with rape and forcible oral copulation and is a fugitive. In February, a Southern California woman filed a federal lawsuit against the church and Garcia. In it, she said Garcia and his father sexually abused her for 18 years starting when she was 12, manipulating Bible passages to convince her the mistreatment actually was a gift from God. The French state will continue its support for Air France "without ambiguity" even if more capital is required to save the national carrier from collapse, according to junior minister for industry Agnes Pannier-Runacher. Friday's statement comes just a day after the airline posted massive losses from April to June. "There is nothing ambiguous," said Ms Pannier-Runacher on the LCI political news channel, "the State will be there to assist, because we believe having a national carrier is an essential part of our sovereignty." Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire concurred with the announcement in a separate interview saying "yes, we must maintain a national airline." 4.4billion in losses in 6 months The announcements came as the Air France-KLM posted a loss of 2.6 billion for the second quarter of 2020, massively impacted by the collapse of air travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and follows a loss of 1.8billion over the first three months of this year. When asked about the possible nationalisation of the carrier, the junior minsiter Pannier-Runacher repolied that that issue "was not on the table." "What's at stake is finding out how to make Air France bounce back, and we will be there for [the company] and if we need to raise the capital, we will do so.. We're not leaving [that option] out, but it's not being tabled for now," she asserted. Le Maire, for his part, has said that "the state will do everything necessary for the preservation of the national airline, the jobs that go with it and the independence that that represents. "I believe that with the 7billion already agreed, Air France can make a come-back before the end of the year. But if at one monent or another, if air traffic doesn't resume as normal and the economic situation remains challenging, Air France can still count on the support of the State," assured the Finance Minister. Story continues KLM says it can stay the course France and the Netherlands own a 14% stake each in the Air France-KLM group. This spring, Paris granted a 7billion bail-out for Air France in the guise of guarnteed loans, while the Netherlands also accorded a 3.4billion line of credit for KLM. Conversely, in an announcement this Friday, the chief executive of Air France-KLM's Dutch arm said that the company would repay the 3.4 billion euros rather than seek fresh equity. CEO Pieter Elbers said, "I read all the suggestions and the speculations about this, but we've agreed a loan with the government and banks. We are going to make a plan to make sure we pay off those loans." However, despite the financial assistance, Air France is to cut some 7,580 jobs between now and the end of 2022, while upto 5,000 job losses are expected at KLM. HOUSTON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As a parent, access to quality education is a paramount concern. Let's face it - a patchwork of online education tools are not ideal - but very little this year has gone to plan. We must not ignore the public health experts and place our children, teachers and education professionals at unnecessary risk. Rashad Lewis Social distancing protocols will be nearly impossible to practice if Governor Abbott allows schools to reopen next month. While it does appear that children are, in general, less affected by coronavirus - this must not be interpreted as immunity. Children have contracted coronavirus, and children have died. Children can also act as carriers for the virus - without demonstrating symptoms. Some of our teachers and education professionals are considered to be at a greater risk of contracting coronavirus. This could be due to age, preexisting conditions, or pregnancy. Furthermore, the State has not provided any guidance on the use of masks or PPE for educators or children. Governor Abbott is sadly placing his political preferences over public health. Today I stand with teachers, education professionals, parents, and students to signal my outrage and concern with the State of Texas' plan to reopen schools next month. I am calling on the Governor to require school districts across Texas to cancel in-person classes while the coronavirus still poses a threat to our communities. I am also calling on the Governor to increase the funding for school districts so that teachers, parents, and children receive the resources they need to participate in online education and so that meals can continue to be distributed to our children in need. For our children, we must lead by example and keep schools safe. And for now, that means keeping them closed. Rashad Lewis is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives, Texas District 36. He is a former council member in the City of Jasper. Rashad is the son of a pastor and is committed to upholding the values of faith and family while speaking out for marginalized communities and those in need. Visit: https://www.lewis4congress.com/ Contact: Jamie Fullerton 888-224-7374 [email protected] SOURCE Lewis For Congress The families of New Mexicos 330,000 students have suddenly found themselves in an untenable position with the 2020-21 school year beginning in as few as two weeks. With a ticking clock, families are deciding how their children will experience the upcoming school year. Will they return to their school building or opt for a 100% online semester? Perhaps they will scrape together savings for private school or pool funds with neighbors to create a learning pod. Or, maybe they will withdraw their children from school altogether and opt to homeschool. This past academic year, New Mexico schools closed March 16 due to COVID-19, creating an unprecedented challenge that found our communities unprepared. The repercussions for our students were severe. A report from the Center for Reinventing Public Education found that of 100 districts surveyed nationwide, only 22% provided live instruction to some students during the spring shutdown. According to the continuous learning plans submitted to the New Mexico Public Education Department, only 30% of New Mexico districts had a plan to support students who fell behind. A poll from EducationNext found 40% of parents nationwide reported their children had zero one-on-one interactions with their teacher during the school closure. Are we prepared to do better this fall? We have to ask ourselves if we have done everything we can to ensure that regardless of how students return to school, the quality will be better than what families experienced this past spring. We can no longer fall back on our claim that we are not ready for the impact of COVID-19 because weve had five months to get it right. Though we hoped the fall semester would begin with the triumphant reopening of schools, we knew there was a chance it would not. We knew there was a high likelihood that parts of the upcoming school year would require intervals of online instruction. Knowing that, it was our duty to do everything we could to prepare. Did we? The risks have never been higher. Recent studies from both the Legislative Finance Committee and the Legislative Education Study Committee indicate New Mexico students could experience three to 12 months of learning loss. The impact on low-income, Hispanic and Black students, who make up over 70% of New Mexico students, will be 15-20% worse. As we look ahead to a new school year, one that will be different than any school year we have ever experienced, we need to bring every community resource together to ensure: Every student has their own learning device and access to high-speed internet; Where internet solutions are not available, a plan is in place to transmit daily student work and feedback; Students are receiving one-on-one academic check-ins with a teacher at least once a week; Parents receive a call to discuss the academic year ahead from a teacher or administrator at their childs school, before the year begins; and Students have access to daily live instruction, with opportunities to watch later if family work schedules or circumstances prevent live attendance. Most importantly, as a community we need to do our part to reduce community spread so we can get our students back into classrooms as soon as it is safe. We all have a role to play. Even the best virtual instruction struggles to compete with in-person learning, and we have to be honest about where we stand. As of today, we are not prepared to deliver anywhere near the best to our students in two weeks. We have work to do. Delhi High Court The Centre on Friday told the Delhi High Court that it does not discriminate between those public servants having their own accommodation at place of duty and those who do not while allotting government residences or while permitting them to retain the same for a period of time after retirement. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs told a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan that under the Central Government General Pool Residential Accommodation (CGGPRA) Rules 2017 every public servant seeking government housing needs to disclose whether they or any of their family members own a home at the place of duty. "..if an allottee owns a house at the place of duty and he is getting a rental income upto Rs 12,000 per month, he is liable to pay normal licence fee in respect of the allotted accommodation. "If the rental income is between Rs 12,001 to Rs 20,000 per month, he is liable to pay twice of the licence fee and for the rental income of Rs 20,001 and above the allottee is required to pay thrice the licence fee," the ministry said in its affidavit filed through central government standing counsel Ajay Digpaul. The affidavit was filed in response to a PIL which seeks that government accommodation be not allotted to public servants who have their own personal residence at place of duty. The plea by a society -- Chennai Financial Markets and Accountability -- has also sought that post retirement, public servants having their own accommodation ought not to be allowed to retain their government housing for more than the stipulated period of six months. It had also cited the example of the former chairman of the Forward Market Commission who continued to retain the government bungalow allotted to him for months after his retirement. Responding to the claims of the society, the ministry has said that the official in question had retired in July 2019 and was allowed to retain the government bungalow allotted to him in 2015 for another six months in accordance with the CGGPRA Rules. When he failed to vacate the premises after the retention period got over, eviction proceedings were initiated against him and a show cause notice was issued to him in February this year, it said. The retired official had deposited Rs 4.25 lakh towards "telescopic damages" as he intended to retain the house for three months after expiry of retention period, the affidavit said. However, in view of COVID-19 outbreak the Directorate of Estates gave an extension of 75 days, from March 17 to May 31, to retain accommodation to those who were to vacate or shift residence during the said period and even to those who were unauthorised occupants, it said. It also said that the directorate decided to charge normal license fee from all of them for this period. The permission to retain accommodation was later further extended upto June 30 and then to July 15 in view of the prevailing pandemic, the ministry said and added that the retired official in question vacated the premises on July 30 and also paid all the damages accrued till that date. Taking note of the averments in the affidavit, the bench listed the matter for further hearing on September 2 along with another PIL by a trust which has raised the issue of illegal occupation of government accommodation by public servants and ministers even after they are no longer in power or office. CAIRO Archaeologists and visitors of Cairos Mamluk Qarafa area known as the City of the Dead along Salah Salem Street took to social media July 20, calling on the government to stop the demolition of tombs to make way for a bridge-building project. A picture of the decision approved by the Ministry of Housing, which funded and executed the Paradise Axis project, began circulating on social media, before it was deleted. According to the decision, the road, as per the report, passes through al-Ghafir cemetery, Mansheya Nasir and Duwaika area in Cairo. This project is part of a wider plan adopted by the Ministry of Housing's Central Construction Agency for the years 2020-21, and it includes 17 more road projects. The removal of parts of the Mamluk Qarafa area was first proposed in 2009 as part of the Cairo 2050 project put forth in 2007-08, but was repeatedly rejected by Al-Azhar and experts, who believe the removal of the graves constitute a profanation of the dead and of the architectural heritage of Egypt. The project was suspended, but the recent action has surprised many. Nada Ezzeddine, a doctoral student in archaeological environmental changes and restoration of monuments at Osaka University in Japan, told Al-Monitor, The Tombs of the Mamluks area includes a number of graves with a distinct historical and architectural value. This area is within the scope of Historic Cairo, registered at UNESCO. UNESCO included Islamic Historic Cairo on the World Heritage List in 1979. The Tombs of the Mamluks are also considered a protected cultural zone according to Egyptian Law No. 119 of 2008, and by virtue of the National Authority for Civil Coordination. The area is also subject to Law No. 144 of 2006, because it contains graves of a number of historical figures, in addition to having a distinctive architectural character that is part of Egypts heritage, and represents various historical eras. Building the bridge will distort the visual image of the area that has a great historical and heritage value, Ezzeddine said. Salah Adel, administrator of the Historic Cairo Facebook page, told Al-Monitor, Cairo has about 537 Islamic monuments, 38 of which are in the Tombs of the Mamluks that were built in the era of the Circassian Mamluks in the eighth century A.H. [of the Muslim era, following the Prophet Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D.]. Although no monument was destroyed during the road project, the graves of a number of famous figures that influenced Egyptian history in the 20th century were demolished, including the graves of Ahmed Lutfi El-Sayed, Ihsan Abdel Quddous, Mohamed El-Tabii, Abbud Pasha, Zaki al-Mohandes and Nazli Hanim Halim. Meanwhile, the government has denied the destruction of the tombs. The Cairo governorate said in a July 22 statement that no tomb was destroyed or will be destroyed. It stressed that the outer structure of some tombs only were removed, but no historical monument was destroyed. The head of the Islamic, Coptic and Judaic Antiquities Sector, Osama Talaat, said in a statement published by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities on Facebook July 20, The Paradise Axis steers clear from the registered Islamic monuments in the Mamluk Qarafa area. The graves shown in pictures are unregistered buildings and they are modern individual graves. Ezzeddine commented on this saying, The [government] statements are proof that all historical and heritage buildings are subject to demolition, despite the fact that they are over 100 years old, simply because they are not registered in archaeological records rather than preserving them and registering them. She added, Islamic Cairo has an integrated urban fabric that expresses the architectural identity of every era, constituting the citys visual identity, which is at risk of being taken off the World Heritage List, unless we stop the demolitions. In an attempt to learn about how the Paradise Axis affects the Tombs of the Mamluks in terms of architectural character and urban fabric, Al-Monitor reached out to Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mustafa Waziri, but he refused to comment on the issue. Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abdel Basset, director of the Historic Cairo Development Project, told Al-Monitor that he is not authorized to speak to the media about the Paradise Axis project. Although the graves that were demolished belonged to people who have been dead for over 50 years, Waziri said in a July 20 interview with Al-Hayah TV network, The demolished [graves] were barely 30 years old, stressing that a technical committee had been formed to examine the evidence, murals and inscriptions in these structures, and look into the possibility of displaying them in museums. In this context, professor of Islamic Antiquities at Cairo University Mokhtar el-Kasabany told Al-Monitor, Only modern graves that belong to individuals have been demolished. Archaeological buildings and domes such as the dome of Sultan Qansuh Abu Said will not be touched. Kasabany added, The Paradise Axis will help develop the area so it can become a tourist attraction in Cairo. However, archaeological researcher Moaz Lafi told Al-Monitor, We must distinguish between heritage and archaeology, and the Tombs of the Mamluks is a heritage for its unique architectural models that reflect the development of the Egyptians through the Islamic ages, as well as that it inspired the architectural shape of some of the tombs in France. He added, Once the Paradise Axis is completed, monumental buildings there will eventually collapse as the soil is weak. The National Authority for Civil Coordination which is the authority responsible for any restoration, construction or demolition work within the scope of Historic Cairo has not been mentioned anywhere, which proves that the project was not submitted to the authority for studying and approval. Lafi noted, The change that will take place in the Tombs of the Mamluks will alter its architectural homogeneity, which could result in striking it off the World Heritage List, as happened to the Pyramid of Djoser, which lost its spot due to a mistake in restoration [in 2014]. Al-Monitor tried to contact officials at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, but they refused to comment to the media about the project and the destruction of graves. Large-cap stocks like Infosys and HCL Tech are our top picks. In mid-caps, we continue to like MindTree, Naveen Kulkarni, Chief Investment Officer, Axis Securities, said in an interview with Moneycontrols Kshitij Anand. Edited excerpt: Q) What will be the biggest risk for investors in the second half of 2020? A) The biggest risk for the investors in the second half of 2020 is further lockdowns and challenges to economic recovery. The market is factoring in normalization as the stock prices have moved up and valuations are breaching the long-term average levels. However, localized lockdowns have continued which is preventing the economy from coming back to normal levels. Also, the market is factoring in that vaccination will be available soon but it is difficult to figure the timelines and delays are likely. So, the second half has significant risks posed from an operational perspective for economic activity. A) The IT sector was expected to normalize faster because of the export nature of its business, dollar appreciation tailwinds, and work from home advantages. However, the IT sector performance has exceeded even these expectations with Infosys reporting brilliant performance across the board. We see value across the sector at this point. Large-cap stocks like Infosys and HCL Tech are our top picks. In mid-caps, we continue to like Mindtree A) This is a very difficult phenomenon to judge as restrictions imposed by the lockdown are temporary in nature and as the situation stabilizes, there could be further changes. The new age of investors is aggressive but the sustainability of such a trend depends on multiple factors. Some traders will remain in the market, but as the volatility subsides, normalization is more likely. A) Agri and the rural sector have had a very limited impact of lockdown and even the stocks are reflecting that. However, the valuations have also moved up in the sector quite significantly. We continue to like Dhanuka Agritech, Coromandel, Escorts, Hero motors, and Dabur which will see a significant positive impact on account of robust rural demand. A) Retail and Automobiles are high beta sectors that are likely to see a significant turnaround as the situation normalizes. Retail should see improvement in traction as pent up demand will help while there could be an increase in demand in the auto sector as a preference for personal vehicles versus public transportation could be an interesting trend. A) The outlook on financials continues to remain constructive. The HDFC Bank results indicated that the stress in the sector could be much lesser than expected and the sector could see a faster turnaround in the future. Quality as a theme will continue to dominate. Auto as we indicated above will take time, but even in an automobile the two-wheeler and tractors continue to perform very well. PVs are likely to pick up in the forthcoming quarters. So, financials are likely to gain traction and even in PVs, Maruti is likely to be a dark horse. CVs will take longer to revive and we maintain underweight outlook on CVs at this juncture. Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not those of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare reported the highest single-day surge of 55,079 cases in 24 hours, taking the national Covid-19 tally across the 16 lakh mark. Meanwhile, testing has also hit the record with over 6 lakh samples taken up by the ICMR on Thursday. With the highest single-day spike of 55,079 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, Indias coronavirus tally breached the 16 lakh mark on Friday, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. With this latest spike, the total cases in the country stand at 16,38,871. Among these cases 5,45,318 are active. A total of 10,57,806 patients have been cured/discharged/migrated. 779 deaths due to COVID-19 have been reported in the country in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 35,747. As per the Union Health Ministry, Maharashtra has a total of 1,48,454 active cases and recorded 14,729 deaths due to COVID-19. Tamil Nadu has a total of 57,962 active cases and 3,838 deaths in the state. Delhi has a total of 10,743 active cases and 3,936 deaths. Also read: Rajasthan crisis: Gehlot urges rebel MLAs to attend assembly session Also read: 2.20 lakh new beneficiaries to receive pension tomorrow by door delivery in Andhra Pradesh Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research on Friday informed that a total number of COVID-19 samples tested up to 30th July is 1,88,32,970 including 6,42,588 samples tested yesterday. India has achieved another milestone in its fight against COVID-19 by conducting over six lakh tests in the last 24 hours, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday (MoHFW). India achieves another landmark. More than 6 lakh tests done in 24 hours, the Ministry tweeted. Stressing on its strategy to contain COVID-19 spread in the country, it said that it will continue to implement the strategy of comprehensive testing, tracking and treatment to effectively tackle the coronavirus pandemic in the country. The objective is to raise the testing capacity to 10 lakhs tests per day in the medium term, the MoHFW said in a subsequent tweet. Also read: After Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu extends lockdown till August 31 Awaiting judgment, circa 1900s. Robert Neff Collection By Robert Neff For the foreign residents of Seoul, particularly in the Jeongdong area, a good night's sleep was a rare commodity in 1901. Throughout the night, residents were incessantly attacked by ravenous bedbugs. This was not the first time, according to legend, that the city had been plagued with these insidious pests. During the Imjin War (1592-1598), the royal palaces in Seoul were all destroyed, so the residence of a prince located in Jeongdong was converted and named Gyeongun Palace (now known as Deoksu Palace). It was with the arrival of the royal family that a great host of bedbugs were awakened and infested the city until the monarchy took up residence at the newly rebuilt Changdeok Palace in 1618. Afterwards, according to Homer Hulbert, Jeongdong was known as "the den of bedbugs." Gyeongun became a royal palace again when King Gojong moved into it in February 1897 and Hulbert insinuates this may have been the reason for the latest bedbug infestation. Hulbert had a flair for mixing legend with contemporary events. But it wasn't just bedbugs robbing the residents of Seoul of their sleep it was the crime wave. Prisoners in cangues, circa 1900s. Robert Neff Collection As darkness fell, the streets of Seoul became a mugger's paradise. The Whang-sung Sin-mun reported that "there are many parts of the city where Koreans do not care to go at night, notably the cut near the Imperial Altar." These muggers, often armed with knives or guns, deprived their victims of their cash sometimes their clothing and, occasionally, their lives. Measures were taken by the government. Night watchmen armed with bells to announce their approach were dispatched throughout the city and surrounding area but instead of becoming a deterrent, some became victims. In Dduksom, a band of robbers "caught the watchman and bound him and left him very scantily clad." Bands of highwaymen also roamed outside the gates. South of Seoul, a group of robbers disguised themselves by covering their faces with pun, a white paste that women use as a cosmetic. Because they were unidentifiable, they probably spared their victims. Apparently, it wasn't uncommon for thieves to dress up as women. In October, "three thieves dressed in women's clothes" entered a residence and, after finding only women in the house, looted it. Others, however, did not care who saw their faces because their victims were likely to end up dead. Near Mapo, a band of robbers looted and then torched some 30 houses. In September, a large "band of 100 robbers, more or less, armed with rifles and swords raided the market at Suwon and seized large quantities of goods." Criminals executed by hanging, circa 1900s. Robert Neff Collection Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images For millions of unemployed Americans dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression a $600 payment each week from the government has been a vital lifeline, allowing them to keep their homes and put food on the table despite losing their jobs. Related: US economy suffers worst quarter since the second world war as GDP shrinks by 32.9% But now many of those hit hard by the economic disaster caused by the coronavirus pandemic are bracing for a steep drop in income this week as Republican party infighting delays a replacement for an expansion to weekly unemployment benefits, meaning many could have that vital lifeline cut or taken away. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Wednesday that the Democrats proposal to continue the program, which expires on Friday, through the end of the year was completely unhinged, while members of his own party criticized its proposed replacement. Hanging in the balance of these 11th-hour negotiations are the financial livelihoods of 30 million unemployed Americans and their families, many of whom have struggled to get timely, accurate payments because of the countrys archaic unemployment infrastructure. Jamie, a 68-year-old pilates instructor in Florida, immediately filed for unemployment when she lost her job in the first week of March. For six weeks, the unemployment office didnt acknowledge her application so she sought the help of Coast to Coast Legal Aid of South Florida, an advocacy group. I hadnt had any benefits for three months, she said. So, I was with zero, zero, zero, zero, zero until Legal Aid stepped in to help. Jamie, who did not want her last name to be used, moved out of her apartment because she couldnt pay rent, and has been living with a relative. In late May, she received the benefits she was entitled to, but on Wednesday her check was inexplicably less than it should have been. We live in a rich country that has all the resources. I think we should not have to live this way because of the pandemic, she said. There are other countries that are not having this problem. Story continues Debates about whether to renew the $600 expansion have been muddled by Republicans, and also by anecdotal news stories which claim, without data, that the money is disincentivizing people from going back to work. An estimated 40% to 68% of workers make more from the expansion, which is paid on top of state benefits, than they did in their jobs, but economists have found this has not deterred people from seeking work. Those benefiting the most from the expansion are low-wage workers the expanded benefit is equivalent to $15 an hour and the people of color and women overrepresented in sectors with the highest unemployment rates. The Congressional Budget Office said of the 19 million workers receiving unemployment insurance in July, 47% are people of color and 53% are women. No one has said the $600 boost is the perfect solution, but experts say a replacement must be manageable for overwhelmed state unemployment offices. On Monday, Republicans proposed scaling back the payments to $200 a week until October. Then, states would be expected to implement a system which gives individuals 70% wage replacement, capped at $500, until the end of the year. It could take state agencies eight to 20 weeks to implement the wage replacement scheme, according to a memo from the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, obtained by Bloomberg. Rebecca Dixon, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, said nothing could be more ill-conceived than slashing the $600 benefit. They are asking these already underresourced and vastly overworked agencies to engage in truly extreme amounts of reprogramming of computers, taking away from current benefit delivery, for a program that lapses on December 31, 2020, Dixon said. Democrats, who want to extend the program until economic conditions improve, said the proposal was totally inadequate. At least two Republican senators have also denounced the scheme. Republicans in Congress are also at odds with the White House about other elements of the $1tn stimulus proposal, including Donald Trumps wish to include funding for the FBI building. Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images Trump said at the White House on Tuesday that he was still negotiating with Republicans over parts of the bill he opposed. Its sort of semi-irrelevant because the Democrats come with their needs and asks and the Republicans go with theirs, Trump said. Some Republicans have suggested that because of the divisions, they might have to pass more narrow legislation to address disagreements piece by piece. In the background of these disagreements is the ongoing crisis in overwhelmed state unemployment agencies. The legal aid attorney who helped Jamie collect unemployment, Laurie Yadoff, said though Floridas unemployment system is working better than it did when the pandemic began, there are still many unresolved problems. Yadoff represents about 150 people in Floridas Broward county, just north of Miami. Her clients include people in their 80s working through the pandemic because social security doesnt cover all their needs and people collecting as little as $54 a week in state unemployment. She said the problems her clients face include waiting hours to speak with a representative at the unemployment office, not receiving the full payments they qualify for and simply not having their claims processed. As of Monday, 82,000 Florida residents claims were under review, according to its unemployment office. Related: Trump suggests delaying presidential election as dire economic data released Yadoff said most of her clients just received their money either sometime at the end of May, perhaps in June, some are still getting money in July for the first time and I think some people havent received it yet. Those who have received their checks are paying back overdue rent and utility bills, paying off credit card debt and stocking up on food after going months without income. This, said her client Jamie, is whats missing from the discussions in Washington. Were not the primary priority, were secondary, Jamie said. First comes the business, first comes this, first comes that. Other places said: take care of the people first, well figure the rest out. Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan dismissed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyevs latest warnings to Armenia as he visited Nagorno-Karabakh and inspected military facilities there on Friday. According to the Armenian Defense Ministry, during the two-day visit Tonoyan toured military bases of Karabakhs Armenian-backed Defense Army and paid special attention to new weapons delivered to it recently. A ministry statement said Tonoyan also discussed with the Defense Army commander, Major-General Jalal Harutiunian, and other local officers current and possible regional developments. The visit came two weeks after unusually heavy fighting that broke out at a section of Armenias border with Azerbaijan located hundreds of kilometers west of the Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact around Karabakh. The situation along the Karabakh frontlines has remained relatively calm in recent weeks. Aliyev on Thursday again claimed that his troops deal a crushing blow to the Armenians during the border clashes which left at least 12 Azerbaijani servicemen, including a general, and five Armenian soldiers dead. The Armenian armed forces must leave our lands before its too late, he said. Tonoyan scoffed at this warning in video remarks circulated by his press office. As defense minister, I would just like to understand before its too late means when, he said. Tonoyan also shrugged off Azerbaijani military officials fresh statements to the effect that they are ready to carry out Aliyevs order to restart war at any moment. First of all, its not that we dont wait for such orders, he said. Secondly, the hostilities in Tavush [province bordering Azerbaijan] were vivid proof of the fact that although the enemy intensively used state-of-the-art equipment it did not achieve success and suffered many losses instead. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has also repeatedly said that Baku cannot force the Armenian side to make unilateral concessions with threats to resolve the Karabakh conflict by force. Earlier on Friday, the Defense Ministry in Yerevan announced that frontline and other units of the Armenian army have been put on high alert as part of a sudden check of their combat readiness ordered by the chief of the armys General Staff, Lieutenant-General Onik Gasparian. The ministry released several photographs of ballistic missile and long-range artillery systems deployed in various locations. The check came amid joint Azerbaijani-Turkish military exercises which began in various parts of Azerbaijan on Wednesday. The Armenian military said earlier this week that it will be closely monitoring the exercises widely linked to the recent hostilities on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Turkey has blamed Armenia for the fighting and vowed boost military aid to Azerbaijan. Yerevan has responded by accusing the Turkish government of trying to destabilize the region. Aliyev reportedly thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for Ankaras resolute support to Baku during a phone conversation on Friday. The following comment article was submitted to the WSWS by a British postal worker. Talks between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) mark a new stage in their joint offensive against pay, working conditions and health. The track record of the CWU is proof of this. In 2014, the union signed off on the Agenda for Growth agreement. The current general secretary of the CWU, Dave Ward, was part of the negotiating team that accepted what was tantamount to a no-strike deal, agreeing to the clause: The employer shall be entitled to notify the CWU at any time that any of the Protections will no longer continue, ifthere is national-scale industrial action (in the form of a strike or action short of a strike) which has been authorised at the national level by the CWU [which] will have, or is reasonably likely to have, a...disruptive effect. Royal Mail van, outside the Axminster post office (Image Credit: Wikipedia/Felix O) Ward, portrayed as a left by groups such as the Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party, is a champion of a partnership approach. The pseudo-left groups made much of Wards campaign for general secretary, especially his no blind loyalty to Labour stance. But blind or not, Ward is certainly loyal to the Labour Party bureaucracy. Throughout negotiations, Ward has bragged about bringing Royal Mail to the table and demanding adherence to the 2017 Four Pillars Agreement. The CWU claims this heralded a new way of working, enshrining postal workers pay and condition in law. Four Pillars was a sellout and included an inferior pension scheme, reduction in working hours in return for productivity boosts through alterations to delivery routes, new duty patterns, new working practices, and greater use of technology to monitor performance. The CWU said that Four Pillars would see a reduction of part-time work and increase full-time jobs. The opposite has happened. There has been a growth of 20-hour and 25-hour contracts, both on worse pensions than full-time workers, which have led to the creation of a two-tier workforce. Calling for the retention of the 2017 Four Pillars Agreement, which included a range of cost efficiencies to the detriment of workers, has only guaranteed the CWU a seat at the table. Royal Mail Chairman Keith Williams and UK Operations CEO Stuart Simpson have paid lip service to the Four Pillars Agreement, while seeking to impose former CEO Rico Backs plan for further attacks. The CWU has accepted the accelerated attacks on postal workers conditions, saying, We know things have to change. Behind the backs of workers, the CWU is agreeing fundamental changes in working practices that will be to the detriment of most postal workers. To clear the path for these changes, the union has cleared 600 disagreements off the table so that Royal Mail will be given free rein to impose revisions or job cuts without the threat of strike action. Dave Ward and his deputy, Terry Pullinger, spoke of the need to accept the revisions because Royal Mail had backed down over its move to separate off Parcelforce from letters. They insisted, We cannot always be in dispute mode, we have to move things forward. If nothing moves, we end up with no industry and no job. The CWU has echoed Royal Mails mantra, saying that post-workers must ask themselves, How can we make some savings? The CWU even had the nerve to say that some revisions can go the members way in some places. Working with the CWU has necessitated Royal Mail bosses changing tactics but not their long-term plans. It has been mooted that a new deal will undermine the Universal Service Obligation, and will involve postal workers working Sundays, delivering parcels to offset job losses with a five-day USO possibly excluding Saturday deliveries. The union has admitted that 20,000 jobs will eventually go, saying that at least they will not be mandatory redundancies but voluntary. But what happens if Royal Mail does not get 20,000 voluntary redundancies? The CWU will not fight this, given its long record of reneging on votes for strike action. The CWUs London Division has warned that these negotiations are going to be possibly the biggest since the ending of the second delivery and will mean major change[s]. This means postal workers accepting minimising letter decline, diversifying deliveries and job losses. Parcel volumes are up 64 percent according to Royal Mails financial results, increasing the already heavy workload faced by postal workers. Royal Mail has given massive amounts of money to shareholders. In the last seven years since privatisation, the hedge funds and other significant shareholders controlling Royal Mail have extracted over 1 billion in dividends and other remunerations. Royal Mail announced in its financial result that it was losing 1 million a day due to the coronavirus crisis. It threatened that change would have to accelerate. Shortly after the release of the financial results, it announced that 2,000 managers would lose their jobs as part of 130 million savings. While the CWU has boasted about its newfound love affair with Royal Mail, it has been extraordinarily silent on Royal Mails plans to increase profits for its shareholders. Despite a temporary reduction of dividends, Royal Mail has said the opportunity remains to create more value for shareholders. One such opportunity is to sell off its very profitable parcels company, GLS. This would create an enormous dividend for shareholders. Royal Mail has continued with the selling of its prime infrastructure. In 2017, the company sold part of its land at Mount Pleasant in London to property developers Taylor Wimpey for 193 million. Just recently, a large logistics warehouse used by Royal Mail has been purchased by an investment company at the cost of 13 million. The selling of what is the largest and busiest Parcelforce depot in the UK, handling around 20,000 parcels per day, is one indicator that far from safeguarding jobs, CWU talks with Royal Mail are a cover for attacks escalating behind the backs of postal workers. At the start of the coronavirus crisis, the union called off a strike voted for by 94.5 percent of members on a 63.4 percent turnout. Without any consultation of its membership, Ward and Pullinger proposed a gentlemens agreement with Royal Mail and Boris Johnsons Conservative government. In a proposal to the company based on putting the interests of the nation first, the CWU offered up Royal Mail workers as an additional emergency service. The CWU claimed this would end attacks on jobs and conditions and see the necessary safety measures implemented. Already, four postal workers have died of COVID-19, with many more sick at home or in hospital. The fast pace of change means that it is later than postal workers think. They must reject the CWUs mantra that they have the best interests of postal workers and are working for a better future. To take forward the struggle in defence of postal workers health and to oppose the onslaught on jobs and pay demands the formation of rank-and-file committees. These committees must begin to coordinate a company-wide counter-offensive, rejecting the CWUs call for collaboration with management, and taking the international class struggle as their starting point. Against plans to carve up and hive off the company, the demand must be for Royal Mail to be nationalised without compensation and placed under workers control. 1. The coronavirus pandemic dealt a record blow to the nations economy. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services, fell 9.5 percent in the second quarter of the year, the most devastating three-month collapse on record. That translates to a 32.9 percent annual rate of decline. The drop would have been even steeper had it not been for trillions of dollars in government aid to households and businesses. For context, the G.D.P. fell 4 percent during the entirety of the Great Recession and took 18 months to get there. In essence, the U.S. wiped out five years of economic growth in a matter of months. Heres a breakdown of the numbers. New Delhi : Mumbai terror attacks were an infliction point in the military history of India. It brought to light the gaping holes which existed in the maritime defences of our country. Terrorism has been a major threat to world peace. According to Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2016, there was a 650% increase in fatal terror attacks on people living in the world's biggest economies in 2015. Terror spread a cause of serious concern Five countries which experienced the worst attacks, accounting for 72% of all deaths from terrorism in 2015 are: - Iraq, -Nigeria, -Afghanistan, -Syria -Pakistan Rising terror powers namely ISIS, Boko Haram have actually wreaked havoc when it comes to attack on multiculturalism and lone wolf attacks. ALSO READ: (Controversies involving Bollywood celebrities after 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks) Here is a list of the attacks that took place in and around the world after 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Whats so striking about these terror attacks is the fact that somewhere, these world attacks drew a line of similarity with 2008 Mumbai attacks in terms of hatred ideology, lone wolf attacks, homophobia, anti-pluralistic thoughts. #Kunming massacre in China, March 2014 5 separatists ran amok with kinves at Kunming railway station in south-west China, killing 31 and wounding 141 members of the public. #Public school attack in Peshawar, Pakistan in December 2014 Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in Peshawar, killing at least 141 people. #Charlie Hebdo attack, January 2015 At least 17 people were killed in Paris during the three-day siege by extremists who stormed the French satirical magazines office. #Charleston church shooting, June 2015 Mass shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, killing nine African-Americans were killed by a white supremacist. Dylann Roof, suspected gunman, now faces hate crime charges as well as nine charges of murder and three of attempted murder. ALSO READ: (26/11 Mumbai Terror Attack Anniversary: How celluloid portrayed the mayhem) #Sousse attack, Tunisia, June 2015 Sousse terror attack that killed 38 tourists on the beaches of Sousse in Tunisia. Seifeddine Rezgui, the 23-year old university student carried out the brutal attack. #Paris terror attacks in 2015 At least 129 people died after a series of violent incidents around Paris, France, on Friday 13 November 2015. Soon after the terror attack Islamic State released a video purporting to show nine jihadists behind the attacks. #Germany terror attack 2016 In what can be called a lone wolf attack, at least nine people were killed and many others injured after a gunman went on a shooting rampage at a shopping centre in Munich in Germany. #Turkey terror attack, 2016 Three terrorists armed with bombs and guns killed at least 36 people at Istanbul Ataturk Airport in Turkey. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that the evidence points to Daesh, using another name for IS. ALSO READ: (26/11 Mumbai attacks anniversary: The supreme sacrifice of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan which nation can never forget) #Brussels attack, 2016 On March 22, three coordinated suicide bombings occurred in Belgium: two at Brussels Airport in Zaventem, and one at Maalbeek metro station in central Brussels. The attack took 32 lives, three perpetrators were also killed and more than 300 were injured. ISIL claimed the responsibility for the attack. READ FULL COVERAGE: 26/11 MUMBAI TERROR ATTACKS For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Rep. Jim Banks Castigates China for its Propaganda and Coronavirus Coverup The Chinese Communist Party has a massive global apparatus to spread propaganda, from paid inserts in The Washington Post and The New York Times to networks of Twitter bots. China Daily is one of nine Chinese outlets that have been designated as foreign missions by the State Department. Earlier this year, the Chinese regime launched an aggressive campaign to deflect blame for its coverup and weaponization of the coronavirus outbreak. In this episode, we sit down with Indiana Congressman Jim Banks, one of the first to demand reparations from the Chinese regime for its deadly coverup of the CCP virus. This is American Thought Leaders , and Im Jan Jekielek. Jan Jekielek: Jim Banks, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders. Jim Banks: Great to be with you. Mr. Jekielek: Jim, last time we talked, we were talking about coronavirus. It was still in the early stages, but we already knew that the Chinese Communist Party was responsible. And at a very early time, you were already talking about the prospects of getting some kinds of reparation, holding China accountable financially. How have things come since then? Its been three months, I think, since we spoke. Rep. Banks: Yes, its been a while. I remember all the way back then, three months ago when we were calling for reparations to hold China accountable, immediately, I was called racist for raising the subject. Many of our critics on the left [and] even some on the right thought we were crazy for calling for it. But it seems that all of American politic has come around. American leaders have come around to the idea of admitting that yes, China is ultimately responsible for the spread of the coronavirus. What we know now [is] that China refused the CDC, WHO, and others from coming in to study COVID-19 back in January. Their outright refusal to allow that to happenwhich could have prevented some say up to 90% of the cases of the coronavirus that have spread globally since then[means] they should be ultimately held responsible for that. From President Trump to, I believe, the vast majority of the American people, this is a shared belief in America. Unfortunately, our leaders havent done enough to hold China accountable at this point. I understand that we have a lot ahead of us as we rebuild the American economy, as we try to get America back on its feet. But at the same time, what the American people have suffered through, what people have suffered through all over the world, China should be held accountable for it. And so far, they arent being held accountable enough. Mr. Jekielek: Just recently, Secretary Pompeo gave a speech. Im almost sure youll agree it was a pretty significant shift. Of course, it came on the tails of the other speeches that were before by [Christopher] Wray, by [William] Barr, and by [Robert] OBrien. So is there room for this holding China accountable financially in this new approach? Rep. Banks: I really believe so. This president has come a long way. His administration has evolved substantially since the beginning. But where we sit today with Pompeo, OBrien, the leadership at the FBI, and Attorney General Barr, some of the leading figures in American government today understand that its important that we dont just rebuild America and get America back on track through our continued efforts, but at the same time, hold China accountable, not just for the coronavirus, but for their activities over decades that have sought to disrupt America [and] to disrupt American interest abroad. Theres such a record here of Chinas actions that are very much antithetical to American interest that we should be holding them accountable for that weve never had before. You have the right people in the right places to do that. Unfortunately, whats looming over our heads is an election, and this is what the election, I believe, is all about. This isnt a campaign interview. But on one side on the ballot, you have President Trump with this extraordinary team of leaders who understand the China threat better than ever before, versus a politician, Joe Biden, who, for 50 years, has been a part of leadership in America that has turned a blind eye to Chinas actions. So that is whats on the ballot. In November, who will we choose to put at the helm in the White House for the next four years? Someone who is content with leaving China alone and dismissing the China threat or someone who very much, for the first time in my lifetime, has identified it as a threat? Mr. Jekielek: However, [former] Vice President Biden has talked about taking a tougher stance on China. In fact, he has advanced some policy positions in that vein. Rep. Banks: He has [said] so because that reflects, I believe, the mood of the American people, but he has a record thats very contrary to that. Joe Biden, as a senator and again as vice president, was a leader in American politics at the time that we normalized relations with China in the late 70s, early 80s, allowing them to enter the WTO in 2000, 2001. Those efforts began in the late 90s. And then, really, [there were] a couple of decades, especially for the entirety of the Obama administration, where we refused to ever hold China accountable for stealing our intellectual property, for disrupting the American economy by not living up to their end of generations of bad trade deals that we had in place with China as well. So the record speaks for itself. Talk is cheap, especially during a presidential election cycle, but the record is very clear, and it speaks for itself and is very much in contrast with President Trumps record. Mr. Jekielek: Well, a number of people that Ive spoken with have told me, basically, Hey, I was really wrong about China. I was one of the people that voted for these things. With any luck, this is the same situation for the [former] Vice President and his entourage. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the China Daily. I heard you talking about that earlier, and it continues to be delivered. This is Chinese Communist Party propaganda. Theyve been marked as a mission of the Chinese government. They are effectively representing the Chinese government, and this is in every congressional office as if it were another American media, and youre very concerned about this. How is this still the case now? Rep. Banks: Yes, its unbelievable to me. Every time I get my stack of newspapers on my doorstep in the Longworth House Office Building, the China Daily is in the middle of it, and I pull it out in the midst of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times and even your newspaper [The Epoch Times]. Heres the China Daily, which is a state-run propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party that magically appears on the doorstep of every lawmaker on Capitol Hill. Ive raised that question. Im not trying to be either sarcastic or naive about it, but nobody has a good answer of how it ever appears on my doorstep to begin with. Who pays for that to appear on the doorstep of a member of Congressby the way in locked, especially right now, locked-down Capitol Hill House Office Buildings with security thats second to none with Capitol police officers everywhere? Magically, the China Daily, a state-run newspaper, propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party appears on my doorstep. Nobody can answer that question. The Sergeant at Arms, the House Administration Committee, even Speaker Pelosi has been completely silent on that subject. The great irony of it is that every independent media outlet, mainstream media outlet, in America often criticizes the President or criticizes others for diminishing the freedom of the press, raising issues of First Amendment protections of the media. And heres a newspaper that is in direct contrast to that. We require foreign outlets, propaganda outlets, to register as foreign agents in the United States of America, and yet we have them appearing on our chief decision-makers in America, our lawmakers, doorsteps. We have this propaganda newspaper show up on our doorsteps. So its astonishing to me that it happens to begin with, but the very fact that no one will do anything about it and aside from your outlet, no other media outlet in America has even reported on it tells you somethings wrong, somethings backward with that paradigm. Mr. Jekielek: Its fascinating, and hopefully, something will be done further. Im sure youre pursuing it. Rep. Banks: Well keep pursuing it. Mr. Jekielek: Lets talk a little bit about the effects of coronavirus, CCP virus, as we call it, here in America. Right now, theres this big debateI know this is something youve been weighing intoabout whether or not to reopen all sorts of things, but especially schools. There seems to be a kind of surge in cases; although its also debatable. Does that just mean we have a lot more testing or what does that mean exactly? There are a lot of mixed messages, certainly in the data with the politicization of the results and everything else. What are your thoughts? Rep. Banks: Well, years from now when we look back and judge the response to how we dealt with the coronavirus, the most devastating thing that I believe that well look back and say was a huge mistake was that we closed our schools and we kept them closed potentially well into this next school year. Many schools have announced that they will not reopen the classroom. They will provide virtual learning opportunities for kids who we know would be much better off in the classroom. Meanwhile, by the way, Chinawho is responsible for the spread of the coronavirus to begin withhas reopened their schools. So that tells you something. Chinas reopening their schools. Were keeping ours closed at a time when we have a great power competition with China, when China is beating us in a number of different areas when it comes to STEM skills and education in their country versus American students. And theyre going to reopen their schools, get kids back in the classroom, and were going to keep ours closed. Its just unbelievable to me that we would react in that fashion, not do everything that we can to get our kids back in the classroom. Ive said over and over again [that] we should change the conversation in America from We might not be able to reopen our schools and get our kids back in the classroom to Were going to do everything possible, everything that it takes to get our kids back in the classroom and give them the valuable, fundamental, important educational opportunities they need to compete in the next generation with China and any other threat that we facewhen it comes to the skills that we need to economically and militarily confront the threats that we face, especially with China. Right now were going to fall further and further behind because were keeping the doors to our schools closed. Mr. Jekielek: Really, the big question is, what is the risk to the kids, to the teacher, and so forth? Before we finish up, what are the experts telling you? Rep. Banks: Well, science is very much on the side of reopening. Science and all of the statistics show that kids are the least likely to contract or spread the coronavirus to others. So the very fact in and of itself that there have been such a small number of cases of coronavirus among children and the death rate among children is almost zero should govern the decision to reopen. It very much stands on the side of those who believe that we should reopen. However, Im not a conspiracy theorist. I dont traffic in conspiracies, and I never have. Ive never been that much of a skeptic. Ive been much more hopeful about America. But when it comes to this subject, I really am beginning to believe that the day after Election Day, our educational leaders, the educrats, the ones that are in administration of our schools in America, are going to be just fine with reopening our schools. I believe this has as much to do with politics and the presidential election that looms ahead of us, as it does anything else. And thats extremely bothersome to me. Mr. Jekielek: We have to finish up in a moment. Any final words before we do? Rep. Banks: Well, its great to be with you and talk about these subjects. Today, were at this Liberty University event here at the Trump Hotel talking about the China threat. All of a sudden, there is a large volume of policymakers and leaders in America who understand the China threat more than ever before. Largely, I believe the American people get it. They understand what were up against with China because theyve been affected by China economically for years, and its a good thing to see events like today take place to further identify the threat and talk about what we can do about it. Mr. Jekielek: Congressman Jim Banks, thank you very much. Rep. Banks: Thank you. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. American Thought Leaders is an Epoch Times show available on YouTube, Facebook, and The Epoch Times website. WASHINGTON As coronavirus deaths piled up in New York nursing homes, Brett Leitner, a trial lawyer in New York City, started receiving 30 calls a day from the families of nursing home residents who died all over the state, he said. The families wanted to sue the nursing homes where their loved one died, believing the facilities failed to take adequate steps to respond to the virus. But new liability protections for nursing homes and other providers written into New York law this spring made that hard. New federal liability protections pushed by Senate Republicans would further challenge such claims. Legislation limiting lawsuits against businesses and health care providers during the pandemic is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's defiant "red line" during the coronavirus relief negotiations now embroiling Congress. McConnell has said no bill can advance without these protections for employers, warning that without them a tsunami of frivolous lawsuits will flood the country stymieing businesses' efforts to reopen and health care providers' efforts to fight a novel virus. Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, both from New York, have decried McConnell's proposal as a carte blanche for businesses that puts workers and possibly patients at risk. Meanwhile, New York and many other states have already taken steps to curb these lawsuits, at least in the health care sector. In early April, New York passed a state budget that included a meaningful, if little-noticed provision. The provision stated that hospitals and nursing facilities would be immune from civil and criminal liability for harm while providing care to a patient during the coronavirus emergency if the provider was issuing health care "in good faith" and "arranging for or providing" care in accordance with state and federal rules. Hospitals and nursing homes would not have liability if the harm was caused by willful or intentional criminal misconduct, gross negligence, reckless misconduct or intentional infliction of harm. The provision was so broad that it blocked litigation against these health care providers for some malpractice unrelated to their handling of COVID-19 during the pandemic. Recognizing this, the state legislature voted on July 23 to partially repeal the protections and clarify that the immunity applies to the assessment or care of an individual with a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19, among other changes. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has not yet signed this legislation. Ron Kim, a Democratic assemblyman from Queens, a borough that has been particularly hard-hit by nursing home deaths, introduced legislation to fully repeal the immunity protections this spring, but the proposal has not received a vote. Stephen Hanse, CEO of the New York State Health Facilities Association, which represents over 450 skilled nursing and assisted living facilities, said the protections ensure that health care provides "can truly focus on the provision of care and not have to worry and second guess." "In this public health emergency, health care providers had to deal with constantly changing health care directives in the state [and] on the federal level," Hanse said. "As long as you're acting in good faith, you're doing everything you can to provide care, these liability protections are in place only during the declared time of the public health emergency... it's really important. Over history, it's not unique." With the elderly and people in congregate facilities among the most vulnerable for the virus, 6,464 nursing home residents have died of confirmed or presumed COVID-19 in New York as of July 28, according to the state. At least 25 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have provided some level of immunity for health care workers and/or facilities during the pandemic through executive or legislative action, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Ten states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia passed laws providing liability protections specifically in response to COVID-19. Only 70 health- or medical-related lawsuits have been filed in response to coronavirus across the country, according to the law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth, which is tracking COVID-19 complaints. New York has had five of these health complaints filed in courts to date, the firm found. "I actually think the liability risk is not that high," said Michelle Mello, a professor of law and medicine at Stanford University, who studies among other things medical malpractice litigation. "The real source of problems may be claims by health care workers against facilities rather than claims by residents and patients ... I don't think that most of these people are going to find redress in our legal system anyway. It's really hard for people to access the civil justice system for tort claims." Leitner said he has been retained to represent clients in 150 different coronavirus nursing home death cases. Many of those have not been filed yet because an administrator must be appointed by a Surrogate court first. Because the state law blocks cases regarding health provider actions after March 7, Leitner is trying to prove the nursing homes had inadequate infection control procedures in place before March 7. One of his clients, Vivian Zayas, is suing a Long Island nursing home where her mother died after the nursing home was cited prior to the pandemic for failing to have proper infection control procedures in place. At the federal level, McConnell aims to take liability protections farther. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced the Safe To Work Act on behalf of the GOP caucus this week, legislation that would bar any plaintiff with a coronavirus medical case from suing under state law and require them to take their case to federal court. The plaintiff would have to provide clear evidence that the employer engaged in gross negligence or willful misconduct, not caused by a resource or staffing shortage. It sets a one year statute of limitations on the cases. "It changes the standard of care that would lead to a liability finding from our ordinary standard, which is preponderance of the evidence, to gross negligence," said Mello. "It is a much harder standard to prevail on, and particularly in this context where you had a lot of things evolving pretty rapidly, in terms of businesses understanding of how the virus is transmitted, how much of a danger it poses and so forth. I think that makes it an especially difficult context in which to prove that somebody behaved willfully and wantonly, as opposed to just stupidly." Critically, the Safe to Work Act would also protect other kinds of non-health care employers, including non-profits and schools. Any plaintiff who wanted to sue a business because he contracted coronavirus from working, shopping or learning there would have to prove that the business did not make reasonable efforts to comply with federal guidance on the virus and the business' actions caused the plaintiff's illness. If the business has a written policy the complies with government health policies, it would be presumed to be in compliance. It would also have a shorter one-year statute of limitations for these personal injury cases. The legislation would be a five-year shield for health care providers, businesses and schools, from Dec. 1 2019 to at least October 2024. Across the country, 74 lawsuits regarding workplace conditions have been filed against employers, Hunton Andrews Kurth's complaint tracker shows. As states gradually reopen their economies, frontline health care workers, small businesses, and schools face a second pandemic of frivolous lawsuits threatening to bankrupt them, Cornyn said. This legislation would protect those acting in good faith from being sued into oblivion while ensuring bad actors who willingly put their patients, employees, or customers in danger will still be held accountable. Democrats object to the protections. Gillibrand said lawmakers should shore up Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards instead. "There is a standard of care that is due to every worker in America," said Gillibrand. "If we write standards under OSHA for example, requiring PPE, requiring social distancing, requiring people to take their temperature before they come into the workplace, those are common sense and I would expect every workplace would follow that. If they don't, then they're being negligent... blanket liability is not appropriate and I believe is immoral." The Trump administration has backed away from regulating industry and strongly enforcing labor standards through OSHA, Mello said. Senate Republicans' HEALS Act would also encourage more virus testing at nursing homes, involve the U.S. Department of Health in reporting nursing home COVID-19 cases and send in federal "strike teams" to support state teams with medical examinations and infection control at facilities. Advertisement Anti-mask troublemakers have been greeted with a massive show of force in Melbourne where police officers drew a line-in-the-sand against those still believing they could break strict COVID-19 laws. Police marched upon Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance on Friday morning armed with guns, batons and horses in preparation for a planned rally by anti-mask protesters. Hours earlier, as the sun rose over the iconic monument, flag waving covidiots descended on the war memorial in a lame attempt to push their point. Police converged on a man on St Kilda Road across the road from Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance on Friday. He had a certificate for not wearing a mask and was let go Not so lucky: This man fought the law and the law won. He was fined for sitting about on a park bench and failing to co-operate with police when asked why he was breaking lockdown laws The man's female friend was taken away in handcuffs after she too failed to comply with police demands. Both were fined and released It came on a day that saw Victoria suffer its second worst day for infections since the coronavirus pandemic began. The state recorded 627 new coronavirus cases and eight deaths on Friday, just a day after announcing a record number of cases. Victoria had 723 cases on Thursday - the darkest day in Australia since the fight against the virus began. But as the sun rose this morning, more than a dozen protesters were seen gathered around the eternal flame in Melbourne. The group's leader spouted off a brief monologue before police moved the protesters on. Another group of covidiots arrived just on 10am armed with 1901 Federal Red Ensign flags. They were quickly dispersed, with two people handcuffed and led away by police. Victorians caught flouting the new mask wearing laws face $1652 on-the-spot fines and arrest if they fail to comply with police demands. The protests came amid a week of mind boggling protests by anti-mask protesters - the worst of which have included brazen attacks by Melbourne 'Karens' at Bunnings warehouses. Police previously warned they would not mess about with people over blatant, deliberate or obvious breaches of the chief health officers directions at the shrine gatherings. True to their word, Victoria Police deployed eight public order response vehicles, the mounted branch and bike patrol. By 11am, a perimeter of police surrounded the area to stop any potential protesters from even reaching the shrine. Those who had legitimate reason to be in the area were checked for identification and asked why they were there or what they were doing. Daily Mail Australia observed one man defiantly sitting on a park bench and refusing to move on when asked by police. Police spring into action outside Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance on Friday. Officers had come out in a huge show of force This woman was hand-cuffed and taken away for questioning after she and her friend refused to comply with police while seated within the grounds of the shrine on Friday in Melbourne Police questioned people about why they were around the shrine on Friday. There are only four good reasons Melburnians can have for getting about town He was quickly surrounded and when he refused to comply with simple requests, police pounced. Officers descended from everywhere as the man was cuffed and escorted to a waiting divisional van. Nearby, his female friend was also cuffed and taken away for questioning. Melbourne's Covidiots Over Past 24 Hours Police issued 124 fines to individuals for breaching the Chief Health Officer directions Six were issued at vehicle checkpoints Three men from Clayton were fined in the CBD for eating lunch in a public place together A group of 12 people located at an address in Frankston gathered around a fire. A group of five men gathered at a reserve in Casey, who were all drinking alcohol together Of the fines issued, 53 were for failing to wear a face covering when leaving home for one of the four approved reasons Many of these fines were issued to people who had no reason to not be wearing a mask, and refused to accept a mask offered by police or PSOs Advertisement Each received a fine before being cut loose back into the community. The man, who refused to provide his name, continued to criticise the COVID laws designed to save Australian lives. 'The people who at risk - the old, the frail, the elderly who need protection - how about they stay at home,' he said. 'How about they wear masks, and we go and see them, we put on masks so we don't give them this virus.' In a four-minute rant to reporters, the man compared COVID-19 to child birth. 'Women still die in child birth. Do women go around saying "I'm not going to have a kid because I might die". No, we take the risk. This is what the world's all about - taking the risk. And the risk for this is very, very minute and we cower at home like little peasants.' Moments earlier, police were seen rushing across St Kilda Road to arrest a young man who was not wearing a mask. The man, who produced a doctor's certificate indemnifying from wearing a mask, lashed out at police after they released him without charge. 'Australia, we're going to be free soon,' he shouted. 'Don't worry, democracy wins, democracy always wins.' The man claimed he had come to the shrine simply to pay his respects when he was set upon by police. 'You can do whatever you want, this is Australia, we are free,' he said. Upon being moved on along St Kilda Road, the man also stopped to partake in a wild rant before television cameras. 'We're stuck in our houses, all we can see is Facebook - there's a post every two hours from the prime minister or the premier - it's all bulls**t. It's all lies. You're all just following it,' he said. 'It's a hoax of our lifetime ... the one certainty of life is death.' The man said he had avoided a fine and would not pay it even if he had been issued one. Mounted police were ready to clean-up any trouble that fronted at the shrine in Melbourne on Friday Officers were also patrolling on two wheels amid a huge show of police force around the shrine in Melbourne on Friday The Shrine of Remembrance sits just outside of the city in Melbourne and on Friday had become a police zone 'Even if they do it's going to get thrown out in court. These laws aren't real. We've only got a certain amount of time before they're all thrown out. It's not long now,' he said. 'It's not a law, it's an advisory.' As the man walked free, just down the road on Spring Street, Premier Daniel Andrews slammed residents for not isolating properly. He warned that Melbourne's crippling lockdown could be extended if case numbers continued to rise. One in four Victorians who should have been self-isolating were not at home when door knocked by the ADF on Thursday, he said. The premier was in crisis talks with prime minister Scott Morrison on Thursday night discussing the possibility of further restrictions to slow the spread of the disease. Mr Andrews said an announcement around the possibility of further restrictions would be made as early as Sunday. Police pounced on a pair who thought they could defy lockdown restrictions in Melbourne on Friday A man is taken away by police in Melbourne as a news crew attempts to interview him Advertisement Border Force was again scrambled to Kent this morning after a group of migrants landed on the coast - just hours after a record-breaking 202 crossed the Channel yesterday. Officers wearing face coverings were seen talking to the group of around ten people in Dungeness earlier today. Fifty illegal migrants made it to the UK today, while a further 58 were picked up by French authorities and taken back to France. This year, migrants travelling to the UK on small boats and other craft has already soared to 3,421 - almost double the number of arrivals for the whole of 2019. And there are concerns even more could be arriving illegally after a source told MailOnline that it was 'perfect weather' to make the crossing today, the hottest day of the year so far. The Home Office has not yet confirmed how many migrants landed in the UK today, but French authorities said they had intercepted 41 people in two boats this morning and returned them to Calais. One young man who landed in Kent today is seen giving a thumbs up for the camera, in apparent glee after having navigated the world's busiest shipping lane to make it to British shores. Meanwhile, a toddler was seen running around wearing a Mickey Mouse top and hat and was joined by a boy of around 12 years old. Two women - one pictured with her head in her hands - were at the scene while another was reportedly holding a Chanel bag. The migrants have all been detained by Border Force officials. Of those spotted in Dungeness, Kent, this morning, a young man gave a thumbs up for the camera, in apparent glee having navigated the world's busiest shipping lane from Calais to make it to Britain Uk Border Force and HM Coastguard escort migrants who landed on British shores at Dover, Kent, today Uk Border Force and HM Coastguard escort migrants who landed on British shores at Dover, Kent, today Meanwhile, a toddler was seen running around wearing a Mickey Mouse top and hat and was joined by a boy of around 12 years old Border Force officers wearing masks were seen speaking to the group on the coast of Dungeness, Kent, earlier this morning A group of migrants wearing face masks, including a young child, made it to shore at Dungeness, Kent, this morning looking tired It comes just a day after a record-breaking 202 migrants made the treacherous crossing on Thursday. Border Force dealt with 20 separate incidents as dinghies, kayaks, zodiaks and even a children's dinghy were used to make the treacherous crossings of the 21 mile wide Straits of Dover. All of the adults will be now processed by immigration officers who will interview them and discover if they are claiming asylum. If they do, checks will be made as to their history. MailOnline revealed in April none of them will be tested for coronavirus by officials. Home Office rules state doctors and nurses will examine them for any symptoms of Covid-19 instead of taking official swabs. Anyone showing symptoms will be isolated, including those in detention centres, where special isolation areas have been set up, the Home Office has confirmed. A spokesperson said at the time the policy was in line with guidance from Public Health England. They said: 'All individuals were brought to Dover and, in line with established processes, will be assessed to establish whether there are any medical requirements. An image shows a coach-load of men - all in coronavirus masks - boarding a bus at the terminal in Dover today Pictured: A group of illegal migrants board a coach at the terminal in Dover. The 202 people who made it to the Kent coast were from Yemen, Iran, Sudan, Iraq, Eritrea, Syria, Palestine, Kuwait, Chad, Egypt, India and Mali. They made the trip in 20 small boats over 12 hours, and were taken for processing in Dover Man jailed over migrant smuggling as six more children rescued from the English Channel A London man has been jailed and banned from France after trying to help smuggle migrants across the Channel in a small boat. Wayne Mills, 54, is the third person to be jailed after five Albanians were found on a boat that was about to leave the French port of Cherbourg. The news comes as more migrants are believed to have tried to cross to the UK on Friday. The coastguard said it is responding to 'multiple incidents' off the coast of Kent. Border Force vessels Seeker and Speedwell have also been active since the early hours of Friday morning. In French waters authorities rescued more than 40 migrants including six children and two people with disabilities. At least 202 migrants managed to cross to Britain on Thursday in a surge of 20 boats - a single-day record. More than 1,000 migrants have successfully made the crossing in July alone, analysis by the PA news agency reveals. The National Crime Agency (NCA) announced today that London man Mills has been sentenced to four years in prison and given a 10-year ban from entering France. Two other people, one of whom is British, were previously convicted and jailed in France after being arrested as they prepared to leave the French port of Cherbourg on June 27 in a small vessel with five Albanian migrants on board. The boat had sailed to France from the Isle of Wight two days earlier. Boat skipper Joshua Van Praagh, 25, from Portsmouth was jailed for three years and banned from returning to France for 10 years. Albanian national Armando Hodo, 25, was jailed for three years and also banned from France. Advertisement 'All will be transferred to immigration officials. They will be interviewed and their cases will be dealt with in line with the immigration rules, transferring to detention where appropriate. 'In line with Public Health England guidance, Border Force and all operational staff have the relevant personal protective equipment available to them.' Earlier this month on July 12 a daily record of 180 migrants successfully travelled through the English Channel to the UK. A total of 3,421 migrants have now made it to the UK on small boats and other craft already this year - compared to 1,850 in 2019. A source told MailOnline that it as 'perfect weather' to make the crossing on what is expected to be the hottest day of July today. One local resident who lives on the sea front said: 'They looked very well dressed. I thought the woman with the designer handbag was local at first until officers held blankets around her so she could go to the toilet.' Around seven men were also seen lying on the pebbles with one young man lying under an umbrella with his eyes closed to shelter from the heat. One man was wearing a Stone Island T-shirt while another donned a Nike cap. Police and Border Force officials were seen putting possessions into evidence bags but there was no sign of a boat, according to an eyewitness. They added: 'Some of them were looking really happy to have made the crossing. One young man wearing a face mask was making a heart hand gesture and put his thumbs up before forming a gun sign with his fingers to celebrate.' In a separate incident a boat of 30 migrants containing six children and two adults with physical disabilities called for help near Hardelot just before 5am today. They were picked up by deep sea tugboat RIAS Abeille Languedoc and returned to the border police at the port of Calais at 9.30am. French authorities also rescued a further 11 migrants spotted in difficulty on a boat off Wissant and returned them to Boulogne-sur-Mer shortly before 9am. So far in July, 979 have made the perilous 21-mile trip across the busy Dover Strait shipping lane - a record for a single month. The previous record was broken on July 13 when 180 made it to the UK coast. Hundreds of migrants have been arriving in the UK in small boats every month, even with Britain being under coronavirus lockdown. Home Secretary Priti Patel was in Calais on the same day 200 migrants tried to travel into Britain, to discuss a clampdown on illegal crossings with her French counterpart. She said: 'Despite all of the action taken by law enforcement to date - intercepting the boats, making arrests, returning people to France and putting the criminals responsible behind bars - the numbers continue to increase. 'This simply cannot be allowed to go on.' In May, the Mail revealed how French navy vessels are escorting some migrant-filled boats to British waters before handing them over to UK Border Force vessels without even intercepting them. Some migrants are believed to threaten to throw themselves into the water, causing the French boats to stand off. 'This simply cannot be allowed to go on.' In May, the Mail revealed how French navy vessels are escorting some migrant-filled boats to British waters before handing them over to UK Border Force vessels without even intercepting them. Some migrants are believed to threaten to throw themselves into the water, causing the French boats to stand off. There are concerns even more could be arriving illegally after a source told MailOnline that it was 'perfect weather' to make the crossing today, one of the hottest days of the year so far The number of people to have made it to the UK on small boats and other craft this year is already almost double that seen in 2019 The group, who wore face coverings, were spotted sat on the grass by the side of a road in Dungeness, Kent, this morning Police and Border Force officials were seen putting possessions into evidence bags but there was no sign of a boat, according to an eyewitness Just before 8.30am today, 17 migrants called French authorities 'in distress' off Wissant. Their boat - which included one woman and two children - was towed to Strouanne beach and transferred to the national gendarmerie and border police shortly before 11am. Another boat was picked up by Border Force about a mile off the beach at Deal, Kent at around 2pm. A source said crossings had been going on 'all day' until around 3pm and it had been 'very busy' in the Channel. Minister for Immigration Compliance and the Courts Chris Philp said: 'The number of illegal small boat crossings we are seeing from France is unacceptably high. And migrants continue to arrive in Calais to make the crossing. 'The French have to take tougher action. We need stronger enforcement measures, including interceptions at sea and direct return of boats. 'The French have heard that directly from the Home Secretary and we will continue to work with them until the situation changes. 'We will also continue to go after the criminals who facilitate these crossings and return the migrants who come to the UK in this way.' A toddler wearing a bright yellow top was part of the group who made it to shore at Dungeness, Kent, this mornin It comes just hours after more than 200 illegal immigrants crossed the Channel to arrive on the British coast yesterday a record for a single day The group of 30 migrants were picked up by deep sea tugboat RIAS Abeille Languedoc and returned to the border police at the port of Calais at 9.30am Pictures from earlier in July show boats in a secure compound in Dover which have been seized after being intercepted in the Channel while carrying migrants from the French coast UK Border Force and HM Coastguard arrive at the UK border in Dover today to escort a group of migrants Improvements in the prices paid for cattle at the marts and factories, despite the threat of Covid-19 and Brexit, remind me of an old story about one of the famous Purcell brothers, who shipped huge numbers of Irish cattle to the UK. When asked by a farmer what he thought the market for cattle would be like in the back-end, Mr Purcell said first of all, you must look at all of the indicators: the UK economy, the availability of ships for transporting the cattle, the supply of finished cattle in Ireland and the situation with UK imports of cheap beef from South America. When you have all of these factors taken into account and reached a conclusion, Mr Purcell said you should expect the exact opposite to happen. While this appears to be what's happening at the moment, the problems relating to Coved-19 and Brexit haven't gone away and could yet deal a blow to prices in the back-end this year. Meanwhile, everyday life must continue on the farm. This year I decided to go the round bale route for my second-cut silage. I felt that adding more silage to my main pit would have resulted in silage left over from last winter remaining unused for a second year. And with the grass very dry this year, I felt that sealing it properly in a pit could be very difficult. Thanks to my contractor I was able to take full advantage of one of the short fine spells we got last month. The grass was very dry when it was baled very late in the evening, just hours before the rain arrived. Agricultural contractors get little recognition for the very important role they play in Irish farming. Without their help, farming in Ireland would grind to a halt. This year I began topping my grazing fields in early May. This is earlier than usual for me, but I feel it has really helped with grass quality. When you rely solely on fresh grass to 'finish' cattle, grass quality is of paramount importance. While the cattle trade is quite positive at the moment, what does the future hold? A report from the high-profile UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says global food markets must still brace themselves for uncertainty in 2020/21 because of Covid-19. It points out that while international meat prices have fallen by 8.6pc since January 2020, at a global level there is still enough food for everyone. The report adds that logistics bottlenecks and a steep decline in global trade have resulted in substantial volumes of meat products remaining unsold. In another report which may feel is little more than a stalking horse for the biotech industry, the World Economic Forum (WEF) make the breathtaking claim that their "Nature-led" coronavirus recovery plan would create $10 trillion a year in new revenue streams as well as 400 million jobs globally by 2030. It appears that their vision for the future of food lies not in "Nature" as we might understand it, but in large corporate-controlled biotechnology/GM food production units. Ordinary farmers, which the WEF disparagingly dismiss as "millions of smallholder farmers that can hardly feed their own family or satisfy their basic needs" would appear to have no future in WEF's vision of future food production. When you combine these ideas with the apparent priority given to industry and services in the recent EU Budget, there is little indication that the dark clouds hanging over farming will disappear any time soon. However when I remind myself of Mr Purcell's words of wisdom spoken so many years ago and consider the amazing natural advantages we have in Ireland for growing food, I feel there is still very good reason for us to remain positive for the future of farming here. But it will need people and politicians with real vision to guide us out of our current difficulties. Unfortunately, it appears that vision is something which many of our rural-based politicians are not blessed with. President Moon Jae-in announces the Korean New Deal investment initiative at Cheong Wa Dae, July 14. Cheong Wa Dae Press Corps By Nam Hyun-woo The Moon Jae-in government has unveiled a grand initiative, the Korean New Deal, which will "define the next century" of the country's economic growth through huge investments in "green" energy industries. Though the initiative is decorated with fancy words and a rosy outlook on job creation, criticism is rising that it lacks information regarding the country's objectives on reducing carbon emissions and how to achieve them. Experts said the initiative neither impressed environment advocates nor those in the conventional energy industry, as it lacks clear objectives and action plans. They added the policy package indicates the direction in which energy businesses and municipal governments should go, but fails to suggest how far they should go and what awaits at the end. President Moon announced the Korean New Deal policies highlighting big spending on digital and eco-friendly businesses July 14. Among them, he named renewable energy and eco-friendly businesses the "Green New Deal," and pledged to pour 73.4 trillion won ($61.4 billion won) by 2025 into building a renewable energy infrastructure and environmentally conscious firms. In announcing the Green New Deal, the administration has set out a direction for the country's energy industry "pursuing carbon neutrality" and "transforming the economic foundation to emit less carbon and be more eco-friendly." Missing in this was the timetable and level of emissions cutting. In its recent Green Deal, the European Commission announced plans to end net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 and declared that economic growth will be decoupled from resource use. The city of Los Angeles also announced that it will reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and the state of New York set its target of providing carbon-free electricity by 2040 and establishing a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. Unlike these plans, Korea's Green New Deal does not provide a timetable and has vague rhetoric, only saying the country will "pursue" carbon neutrality. As criticism stirred, Environment Minister Cho Myung-rae said "the purpose of the Green New Deal is not confined to emissions cuts," and "the target year and amount for carbon neutrality will be revealed within this year." Lacking specifics Also missing in the plan is how these objectives will be achieved, experts said. The government proclaimed it will pursue net-zero emissions, but failed to suggest the level of emissions cuts, how the country will accomplish these goals and how the government will help companies in so-called sunset industries make a soft landing during this change. "The direction itself can get an optimistic response," Yonsei University economics professor Sung Tae-yoon said. "But concerns remain on the burden on private companies, as the policy does not suggest how they will handle the costs of transforming into renewable energy and eco-friendly businesses." One of the main plans of the Green New Deal is the expansion of offshore wind power farms, with the government pledging to expand the country's total wind power capacity to 12 gigawatts by 2030, almost 100 times higher than the current 124 megawatt capacity. While suggesting this, however, the government did not elaborate on how to soothe ardent opposition from fishermen near target areas, and improve the efficiency of the farms. Fishermen and residents of candidate areas in South Jeolla and South Gyeongsang provinces are already expressing strong opposition to offshore wind farm projects near their towns, worrying about the potential damage to fishing grounds. On July 17, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced that it had reached an agreement with residents and fishermen of the southwestern area of South Jeolla Province on establishing a 2.4 gigawatt offshore wind farm, only after the parties involved in the project spent a year handling disputes. Efficiency is also in question. Currently, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction is the only Korean company which has succeeded in generating power from wind, but the efficiency of its generator lags far behind that of foreign rivals. Since 2018, Doosan Heavy has been developing an 8 megawatt wind turbine with a plan to complete it by 2022. However, its rivals, including General Electric, Siemens and Vestas have already commercialized 8 megawatt turbines and are preparing for the commercial use of 12 megawatt turbines. This means Korea has the option of using less efficient turbines or importing global firms' products, neither of which serve the Green New Deal's purpose of seeking economic growth in Korea through eco-friendly businesses. To avoid this, experts said greater support is needed to allow Korean wind turbine makers to ramp up their R&D efforts, but the Green New Deal does not contain plans for this. Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction's wind power turbines / Courtesy of Doosan Heavy Beijing Urges Washington to Stop Unjustified Suppression of Chinese Companies Sputnik News 14:02 GMT 30.07.2020(updated 14:17 GMT 30.07.2020) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - China is urging the United States to stop politicizing economic affairs and cease the unjustified suppression of Chinese companies, including tech giant Huawei, the country's ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui said. "We call on the United States to stop unjustifiably suppressing Chinese companies, stop deliberately discrediting China and stop the spread of 'political viruses'," the ambassador said. In recent months, Washington has strengthened its sanctions on Huawei and has put pressure on other countries not to allow the Chinese tech giant to actively participate in the creation of 5G telecommunications networks. Zhang said that China will continue to resist US efforts to assert authority over the entire global landscape. "China will resolutely say no to US hegemony and will resolutely take measures to protect the country's sovereignty, security and development interests," the ambassador commented. Zhang also took aim at the United States' human rights record, adding that this gives Washington no right to comment on events taking place in China. "As the country with the worst human rights record, the US has no right to comment on human rights issues in China," the ambassador remarked. In May, Washington slapped tough sanctions on Huawei that limit the company's access to semiconductors manufactured with US equipment. These sanctions resulted in the United Kingdom government announcing that the Chinese tech giant would no longer be allowed to participate in the development of the country's 5G network. The Chinese ambassador in London Liu Xiaoming slammed the UK government's decision, stating that it raises questions over the United Kingdom's ability to operate in an open, fair, and non-discriminatory business environment. China is firmly opposed to the United States' Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which was recently adopted by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump, and Beijing stands ready to respond with measures of its own should Washington implement the legislation, the country's ambassador to Russia Zhang said. The Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which was signed into law by President Trump on 14 July, would introduce sanctions on individuals who are involved in the implementation of China's new security law in the special administrative region. Zhang said that Washington's reaction is unacceptable and constitutes a violation of both international law and the basic norms of international relations. "The Chinese government strongly opposes the so-called Hong Kong Autonomy Act adopted by the US Congress. China strongly condemns the US for malicious libel against the national security law of Hong Kong, for threatening to impose sanctions against China, for serious violations of international law and the basic norms of international relations, for gross interference in Hong Kong and China's domestic affairs," the ambassador said. Zhang reiterated China's commitment to fully implement the new security law and urged the United States to reconsider its decision to enforce its own legislation before Beijing takes retaliatory measures. "The US attempt to prevent the implementation of the National Security Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will never succeed. We urge the US to correct its mistakes, not to implement the so-called Hong Kong Autonomy Act, and not to interfere in China's internal affairs, including issues related to the Hong Kong SAR. If the US insists, China will certainly take all necessary measures and respond firmly," the ambassador commented. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called the implementation of the new Hong Kong security law an exclusively domestic issue for the Chinese authorities, and Zhang said that Beijing appreciates Moscow's stance on the matter. "China appreciates Russia's positive statement on the national security legislation of Hong Kong SAR. Russia's firm support on issues related to Hong Kong reflects the spirit of strategic cooperation between China and Russia, especially on issues that affect the two countries' fundamental interests, and fully reflects the high level of Chinese-Russian relations," Zhang said. On 30 June, President Xi Jinping signed into effect a new law that criminalizes secession, subversion, collusion, and terrorism in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The law has been met with stern resistance from many Western countries, including the United States. Tensions between Beijing and Washington have escalated in recent days after the US authorities ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate general in the city of Houston, Texas. In response, Beijing demanded that the US consulate in the city of Chengdu also be closed. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Punjab school education and public works department (PWD) minister Vijay Inder Singla said on Friday that the state government will coordinate with the Centre to bring back the belongings of Shaheed Udham Singh from London in the United Kingdom. The minister, who paid tributes to Udham Singh on this 81th death anniversary at his native town Sunam, said every possible option will be explored to bring the martyrs pistol and diaries etc. back to Punjab. The construction work on Udham Singhs memorial got hampered due to Covid-19 but it will be completed before September 30. Now, a museum will also be constructed at the site of open air theatre where the belongings of Shaheed Udham Singh will be kept, Singla said. SAD CHIEF ALSO PAYS HOMAGE Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president chief Sukhbir Singh Badal also paid tribute to the martyr at his native place. We should construct memorials after our martyr. The coming generations will learn from freedom fighters. But chief minister Amarinder Singh never attended the martyrdom days of Bhagat Singh and Udham Singh. He feels no pain for our martyrs, said Sukhbir. Besides, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Sunam Aman Arora also paid homage to Udham Singh. Meanwhile, nine members of the Punjab State Freedom Fighters Descendants Association climbed atop a water tank in protest. They were demanding reservation for descendants of freedom fighters at educational institutes and jobs, 300 units of free power and toll tax exemption, etc. Later, they called off the protest after assurance by the district administration. A 20-year-old missionary who participated in a series of bank robberies, including a daring daylight heist at a Grimsby bank, has been sentenced to four and a half years behind bars. It cannot be stated strenuously enough that real life is not like video game simulations of crimes or movies, said Judge Brenda Green. Emotional and psychological suffering was needlessly inflicted on innocent people who were simply trying to earn an honest living or go about their daily affairs. These offences have had a profound impact on some of the victims. Michael Christopher, a resident of Etobicoke, was sentenced in July in Ontario Court of Justice in Oshawa on four counts of robbery and a single count of wearing a disguise. The judge called the case a tragedy brought on by greed and youthful idealization of thrill-seeking crimes. It is tragic because of the psychological and emotional harm that was needlessly inflicted on innocent victims and the large financial losses to the banks, Green said. It is tragic because a young man with no record chose to commit incredibly serious offences despite having a positive, supportive upbringing and significant potential. Christopher and two youths, both 16, committed six bank robberies in six cities over a matter of weeks in the spring of 2019. All told, the trio made off with more than $104,000 in cash. The robberies were sophisticated and involved pre-planning and organization. Stolen vehicles and stolen licence plates were used to commit the crimes and the bandits concealed their identities with masks, and wore gloves. They also changed jurisdictions after each successful robbery in order to avoid detection by law enforcement. The first robbery targeted a Scotiabank branch in Hamilton on Feb. 4, 2019. The second robbery took place Feb. 27 in Grimsby. In that case, Christopher and one of the teens entered the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce on Main Street West. They stole money from the tills and unsuccessfully attempted to access the vault. Their getaway vehicle crashed near the Queen Elizabeth Way and Casablanca Boulevard. An unsuspecting Good Samaritan offered the trio a ride. Additional bank robberies followed in Vaughan, Ajax and Barrie. Through the course of the investigation, police found a cellphone and discovered photos of Christopher holding large bundles of cash. These were well-planned and carefully executed, brazen daylight bank robberies without any consideration for the safety of the employees or any innocent people who had the misfortune of being inside the banks in the middle of a business day, the judge said. Shortly after one of the robberies without any regard to those victims or any apparent remorse, Mr. Christopher proudly posed with his ill-gotten gains in selfies. Court heard from several tellers who submitted victim impact statements, each detailing how they now struggle as a result of the robberies. Im 28 years old and have always been given a clean bill of health. Since the incident Ive been put on blood pressure medication for an elevated heart rate, one woman wrote. She said she continues to live in a state of fear. Fears for security go beyond fear of the offenders. Its fear of everyday life. Its fear of functioning at work. Fears every time a door slams, or someone shouts, or the wind catches the door, or a customer rushes in from the cold. Fear every time someone moves too quickly or too loudly. Fear every time someone appears unexpectedly. She said the offenders didnt just steal money, they stole her normal. You stole my emotional stability. You stole my smile. You stole my excitement and enjoyment of coming into work. You stole my ability to sit through an entire shift without bursting into tears. You stole aspects of my life they had no right to. Several other bank employees described ongoing nightmares, a shattered sense of safety and lasting trauma. Court heard Christopher had no prior record and is actively involved with his church and has participated in four missionary trips to Nicaragua in the past. He has strong family support and his boss described him as a model employee. Mr. Christopher is an enigma, the judge said. It is mind boggling that this very young first offender with so much potential became entangled in an organized bank robbery ring. The judge said it is important to note the defendant was not driven by desperation to fund a drug addiction or crushing poverty or the ravages of mental illness. There is no mystery about what motivated these crimes, he wanted money and the thrill of the crimes, Green said. He was motivated by greed and he was willing to risk lives and harm people to get material things. The two co-accused, one from Brampton and one from Mississauga, pleaded guilty to several charges at an earlier date and were sentenced to 10 months of open custody and five months of community supervision, and eight months of open custody and four months of community supervision, respectively. They cannot be named under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The owner of Shamrock Septic, along with his colleague and friend, saved a 16-year-old boys life on Monday morning, after freeing him from his burning vehicle. While Joel Harvey and Caleb MacInnis were heading south on Youngs Point Road on their way to work around 8:45 a.m., they rounded a bend. We saw a car on its side and the motor bay was on fire. Caleb stopped the truck and I jumped out of it and ran about 60 to 70 feet to the side of the vehicle, Harvey said. The car had hit a hydro pole so hard that it went about halfway into the car, said Harvey. He said the scene was like his worst nightmare. This kid was hanging in his belt, screaming, and the fire was just about getting inside the cab. I went into the sunroof and I managed to get him out of his belt and pulled him through the sunroof, he said. MacInnis who has been a volunteer firefighter for about six years was right behind Harvey the whole time, Harvey said. If I had to have cut his seatbelt, he had his knife out ready to go, so he had my back, he said. After pulling the boy from the vehicle, Harvey dragged him about 10 metres away from it. About 20 seconds later, the car was totally engulfed in flames, Harvey said. Everything happened very fast. Ive never seen a car go up like that. It was pretty intense, he said. However, due to the severity of the incident, the boy had to be moved a second time, Harvey said. We had to move him one more time because it was so intense with things exploding. It was so crazy the amount of stuff that was blowing up, he said. Harvey said MacInnis called 911 and tended to the boy while they waited for emergency services to arrive at the scene. Prior to Harvey and MacInniss appearance at the incident, there were already some cars stopped, Harvey said. There were a few people there, but I think they were just so shocked they didnt know what to do, said Harvey. MacInnis said he considers Harvey a hero. I spend a lot of time training for situations like that, but for Joel, and everybody who went above and beyond their normal day-to-day, thats my definition of a hero, he said. Harvey said the boy got a second chance and he hopes he uses it wisely. Its a miracle he got out of that vehicle, he said. Peterborough County OPP determined the teen was under the influence of alcohol. A 16-year-old Curve Lake First Nation resident was charged with impaired driving, driving with more than 80 mg of alcohol in 100 mL of blood and taking a vehicle without consent. The teen is to appear in court Oct. 26. Peterborough schools will see students return to classes full time starting in September, including both elementary and high school students. The provincial government announced Thursday that students from kindergarten to Grade 12 attend classes full time in the fall with some enhanced health and safety requirements. Students in Grade 4 and up are expected to wear non-medical face masks while at school. Students younger, though not required to do so, are encouraged to wear them while indoors. Officials with teacher unions are skeptical of the plan. I am concerned that the expectations set out for elementary schools isnt achievable, said Shirley Bell, president of the Kawartha Pine Ridge Elementary Teachers of Ontario local. We have classes with 29 kindergarten students, there is no way we can maintain physical distancing in a classroom with that many students. Parents of students in both the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board and the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board can opt their children out of daily classes to partake in distance learning, as students started doing in March when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Students attending classes will be limited to interactions with a select number of other students and when possible, students are expected to maintain physical distancing, said Galen Eagle, communications manager for the Catholic board. The physical distancing is one of a number of strategies schools will employ to keep the schools healthy and safe, Eagle said. The strategies include hand hygiene, masking, a focus on keeping cohorts as tight as possible in both elementary and secondary, distancing measures that will be put in place in communal areas, as well as limiting visitors in schools. Michael Nasello, education director for the Catholic board, said when it comes to the lack of physical distancing in the classroom setting the plan in those close quarters is to wear masks. The distancing we wont have is being offset by some of the other practices that have been put in place most particularly the masks, Nasello said. By wearing masks, they believe that will help to mitigate the fact students will not be two metres apart but will be about one metre apart. High touch surfaces such as door handles, desks and drinking fountains throughout schools will need daily thorough cleaning. Bell said custodians already have a large enough job as it is to begin with, but now they are going to have to assume the task of trying to keep high touch surfaces in schools clean. We have one daytime custodian and a couple of evening custodians, but one daytime custodian cant clean all the high touch points of the school with 500 students in a building, Bell said. They have so many other jobs to do besides just cleaning high touch point areas, itll be a challenge. Teachers are anxious about the situation still, she said, but they will do what they need to do to be at school for their students. I know they are anxious, and they are scared because it is still a lot of uncertainty and a lot of unknowns regardless of the advice, Bell said. Toronto is officially entering Stage 3 of the provinces reopening plan Friday. That means restaurants and bars can once again resume indoor dining; moviegoers will once again be able to go the cinema; and people can at last access the gym. But dont expect all of these places to be ready to go Friday morning. While Cineplex announced Thursday that some Toronto locations will reopen Friday, most other cinemas in the city are staying closed for now. Many gyms will be reopening with strict measures in place. And its a mixed bag when it comes to bars and restaurants. Some will be opening their doors right at 12:01 a.m.; others will resume indoor operations during the day Friday. Some will only offer a few tables inside while continuing to focus their attention on the patio, and yet others are delaying their indoor reopening. The public can expect to see a number of restrictions as they venture back inside restaurants, gyms and cinemas. The rules exist so that these establishments keep in line with provincial regulations to maintain physical distance between patrons to limit the spread of COVID-19. Bars and restaurants Among those that will be reopening for indoor dining and drinking on Friday, you can expect tables to be spaced or marked off to maintain two metres of physical distance, with the requirement that people be seated at all times except when going to the washroom or paying. Establishments will also be required to maintain a log of at least one guest per party to facilitate contact tracing should that become necessary. At Mill Street Brewerys Beer Hall in the Distillery District, for example, customers will see not in use signage on some tables to maintain distancing, said Owen Gazel, marketing manager, Mill Street Brew Pubs / Brickworks Ciderhouse. Menus will be available through QR codes, and there will also be regularly-sanitized laminated menus upon request. Staff will be wearing masks and gloves. We have brew pubs across the country so weve done a lot of learning from best practices, Gazel said, adding the Toronto location is the last of the networks brew pubs to reopen. Over at Hemingways on Cumberland St., general manager Elijah Mullin said the bar and restaurant would be reopening indoors at 12:01 a.m. Friday, having already had a successful few weeks with patio-only dining. He said the establishment has reduced the number of tables and spent about $5,000 to set up barriers between tables and bar seats. From what were seeing, theres a lot of confidence from our guests, they seem to feel safe and comfortable, were getting a lot of positive feedback, he said. Popular Little Italy restaurant Vivoli is taking a more limited approach for now. The restaurant will still mainly only serve on the patio, but will set up about four tables just on the inside next to the patio sliding doors to seat people if the patio fills up. We want to stay on the safe side, said general manager Mike Chad. And then still others will not be reopening indoors at all for the time being. Jason Fisher, owner of the Indie Alehouse brewery and pub in the Junction, said he wont be opening up for indoor dining Friday. For one, its not logistically possible: Opening in two days is not the easiest thing, he said. But Fisher also wants to play it safe. Most of the restaurateurs Ive talked to are either going to wait a little or go very cautiously, said Fisher, whose pub has been doing delivery and takeout as well as operating a patio with 10 tables. Ann Kim, co-owner and manager of Donnas at Bloor Street West and Lansdowne Avenue, said there was too little notice for her restaurant to enter Stage 3 this weekend. We are aiming to host dine-in guests probably some time next week. Theres still a few things that we still would like to have in place before we do that, she said. That includes finalizing the restaurants online reservation system and adding more physical barriers to ensure social distancing. Currently, the restaurant is only taking reservations by phone for pick up and patio dining and it wont be fully embracing Stage 3 without careful deliberation. Safety is the most important thing, Kim told the Star. Cinemas Cineplex announced Thursday it would reopen select locations across Ontario on Friday, including six in Toronto as well as The Rec Room. It will be offering $5 tickets to mark the reopening. Measures the Cineplex theatres will be taking include reserved seating in all auditoriums, with some seats automatically blocked off to ensure proper distance between patrons. They will also be limiting food sales to Cineplexs famous popcorn and other core concessions, according to a news release. Masks will also be required in jurisdictions where they are already mandated by government, including Toronto. Other cinemas in Toronto, including the TIFF Bell Lightbox, the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, and The Revue Cinema will remain closed for now. Gyms With all the huffing and puffing you can expect there will be enhanced cleaning protocols in the gyms that are reopening Friday. Masks will also be required, except when actively working out. Gyms will also be spacing out equipment and in some cases limiting the number of available lockers. Planet Fitness, GoodLife and the YMCA are all reopening their Toronto locations Friday. GoodLife said members will be able to book a one-hour window, and the clubs will be closed for a half-hour between windows for cleaning. Our members will be guided upon entry to maintain a physical distance of two metres or greater whenever possible while inside the club, said Carlton Braithwaite, national manager of operations. Of course, we have taken preventative measures to ensure that this is as easy as possible, including the spacing of equipment on the floor, and within the locker rooms, by limiting the number of lockers that are available. Planet Fitness said staff, who will receive daily temperature checks before their shifts, will conduct 20-minute walk abounds of the gym floor to clean and sanitize high-touch areas. The YMCA said it will also be limiting the number of individuals in its fitness centres and conducting brief screenings with each member before their workout. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a live speech on state TV on Friday, ruled out negotiations with the United States over Tehran's ballistic missile and nuclear programmes, calling on Iranians to resist U.S. bullying. "America's brutal sanctions on Iran are aimed at collapsing our economy ... Their aim is to limit our influence in the region and to halt our missile and nuclear capabilities," Khamenei said. "Relying on national capabilities and cutting our dependence on oil exports will help us to resist America's pressure." Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, has described the late Senator Ayo Fasanmi, a founding leader of the Afenifere as a true patriot, ... Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, has described the late Senator Ayo Fasanmi, a founding leader of the Afenifere as a true patriot, a forthright servant of, and interlocutor for the common man Prof. Osinbajo issued the following statement on Thursday on learning about the news of Pa. Fasanmis transition. We received the news of the passing of Senator Ayo Fasanmi, with deep sadness and much grief. A founding leader of Afenifere, a true patriot, a forthright servant of, and interlocutor for the common man has passed on. A man of deep conviction who remained loyal to the end to compatriots and colleagues in the progressive tendency from the Action Group, AG, to the All Progressives Congress, APC, now enters into eternity. We thank God for giving you to us for 94 years, your legacy of consistency in egalitarian beliefs, social justice, and action lives on. Patna, July 31 : Politics over the alleged suicide of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput continues unabated, with Bihar Minister Maheshwar Hazari calling actress Rhea Chakraborty a contract killer and a venomous snake woman. Expresssing his doubts on the suicide theory, the Minister said that it seemed to be a "case of murder, and not suicide". He alleged that Rhea is not only a 'supari' (contract) killer but was like Bollywood's version of a 'vishkanya' who killed Sushant by trapping him in her love. Hazari said that Rhea was sent to Sushant under a conspiracy. "I don't know how many people will die in the pursuit of fulfilling their ambitions. Such contract killers should be acted upon as soon as possible," the Minister said. He alleged that no investigation had so far been conducted by the Mumbai Police into the death of Rajput, adding that the Bihar government was considering a high-level inquiry. Sushant Singh Rajput, who hailed from Patna, had allegedly committed suicide on June 14 at his flat in Mumbai. After this, Sushant's father K.K. Singh lodged a case at the Rajiv Nagar police station on July 25, accusing Rhea and others of cheating and extorting money from Sushant. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery The Ontario government did the right thing by committing to all-day, in-class education five days a week for elementary students when school resumes in September. The reality is that the coronavirus is going to be with us for sometime but getting kids back in school is vital to their development and mental health. Parents also need to return to work. There will be risks but keeping kids in isolation was never the answer. Premier Doug Ford and Education Minister Stephen Lecce outlined a plan on Thursday that does not include physical distancing of two-metres in elementary schools or reduced class sizes, but instead relies on a combination of protocols, from mandatory masks for kids Grade 4 and up and for all teachers and staff to cohorting, a term for keeping a class of students together and not mingling with others. Ontario will also rely on daily self-screening of students by parents, as well as enhanced cleaning, additional support from public health nurses and creative timetabling. Parents have the right to keep their children at home and rely on online learning. The government is putting a lot of faith in this plan, which has drawn the ire of teachers and opposition parties because class sizes are not reduced. The key critique, however, is that the province has not provided enough funding to create the safe school environment for all. Ford and Lecce proudly touted the additional $309 million they have pledged to hire 500 nurses, 900 custodians, additional teachers, personal protective equipment, cleaning supplies and COVID-19 testing. The government thinks getting kids back to school safely in a pandemic will cost hundreds of millions of dollars but others have put the costs far higher. Ontarios Liberal Party has estimated a safe return to school will take $3.2 billion 10 times more than what the government intends to spend. There is a huge chasm between these estimates and the truth, as is often the case in politics, lies somewhere in the middle. But certainly the Ford government seems to have badly underestimated what it will take to get two million students back to school just a few weeks from now. In high schools the province is requiring mandatory masks for everyone and smaller cohorts of roughly 15 students. In most areas of the province, students will attend classes every day but in large urban boards including all the Catholic and public schools in Greater Toronto students will attend classes half-time and learn online from home the rest of the time. The government had to weigh the risk of COVID-19 spreading among teenagers and their teachers and the effectiveness of online learning. It gave a vote of confidence to online learning that is frankly not earned yet. We can only hope that the atmosphere of learning, established in the classroom every other day, carries over to the home. This spring, students and parents, got a front-row seat to the frequent failures of online learning. The Ford government insists its strategy is based on the most up-to-date science, and undoubtedly some of it is. But the government also cherry-picked the advice that suited it best and required the least amount of additional funding to implement. It is relying on masks, for example, as a replacement for the physical distancing that would require more teachers, more space and much more money. The government is also relying on trust, which has often been a scarce commodity when it comes to education and this government. This plan requires buy-in from students, families and Ontarios teacher. And inevitably it will require a much larger financial commitment from the province. Volta FinanceLimited (VTA/VTAS) Notification of transactions by directors, persons discharging managerial responsibilities and persons closely associated with them NOT FOR RELEASE, DISTRIBUTION OR PUBLICATION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES ***** Guernsey, 31 July 2020 Pursuant to the announcement made on 5 April 2019 relating to changes to the payment of directors fees, Volta Finance Limited (the "Company" or "Volta") has today purchased 6,407 ordinary shares of no par value in the Company ("Ordinary Shares") at an average price of 4.65 per share. Each director receives 30% of his or her Director's fees for any year in the form of shares, which they are required to retain for a period of no less than one year from their respective date of issue. The shares will be issued to the Directors, who for the purposes of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 on Market Abuse ("MAR") are "persons discharging managerial responsibilities" (a "PDMR") Paul Meader, Chairman and a PDMR for the purposes of MAR, acquired 1,533 additional Ordinary Shares in the Company. Following the settlement of this transaction, Mr Meader & persons closely associated with Mr Meader will have an interest in 40,598 Ordinary Shares, representing 0.11% of the issued shares of the Company; Paul Varotsis, Director and a PDMR for the purposes of MAR, acquired 1,201 additional Ordinary Shares in the Company. Following the settlement of this transaction, Mr Varotsis will have an interest in 207,531 Ordinary Shares, representing 0.57% of the issued shares of the Company; Steve Le Page, Director and a PDMR for the purposes of MAR, acquired 1,348 additional Ordinary Shares in the Company. Following the settlement of this transaction, Mr Le Page will have an interest in 35,248 Ordinary Shares, representing 0.10% of the issued shares of the Company; Graham Harrison, Director and a PDMR for the purposes of MAR, acquired 1,201 additional Ordinary Shares in the Company. Following the settlement of this transaction, Mr Harrison will have an interest in 19,225 Ordinary Shares, representing 0.05% of the issued shares of the Company; Atosa Moini, Director and a PDMR for the purposes of MAR, acquired 1,124 additional Ordinary Shares in the Company. Following the settlement of this transaction, Ms Moini will have an interest in 11,040 Ordinary Shares, representing 0.03% of the issued shares of the Company; The notifications below, made in accordance with the requirements of MAR, provide further detail in relation to the above transactions: 1.Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated a) Paul Meader Chairman and Director b) Paul Varotsis Director c) Steve Le Page Director d) Graham Harrison Director e) Atosa Moini Director 2 Reason for the notification (a) Position/status Director (b) Initial notification/Amendment Initial notification 3 Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor (a) Name Volta Finance Limited (b) LEI 2138004N6QDNAZ2V3W80 4 Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted (a) Description of financial instrument, type of instrument Identification code Ordinary Shares GB00B1GHHH78 (b) Nature of the transaction Purchase and allocation of Ordinary Shares relation to the part-payment of Directors' fees for the quarter ended 31 July 2020 (c) Price(s) and volume(s) Price(s) Volume(s) 4.65 Total 6,407 (d) Aggregate information Aggregated volume Price a) Paul Meader Chairman and Director 1,533 4.65 b) Paul Varotsis Director 1,201 4.65 c) Steve Le Page Director 1,348 4.65 d) Graham Harrison Director 1,201 4.65 e) Atosa Moini Director 1,124 4.65 (e) Date of transaction 31 July 2020 (f) Place of transaction On-market - London CONTACTS For the Investment Manager AXA Investment Managers Paris Serge Demay serge.demay@axa-im.com +33 (0) 1 44 45 84 47 Company Secretary and Administrator BNP Paribas Securities Services S.C.A, Guernsey Branch guernsey.bp2s.volta.cosec@bnpparibas.com +44 (0) 1481 750 853 Corporate Broker Cenkos Securities plc Andrew Worne Daniel Balabanoff Rob Naylor +44 (0) 20 7397 8900 ***** ABOUT VOLTA FINANCE LIMITED Volta Finance Limited is incorporated in Guernsey under The Companies (Guernsey) Law, 2008 (as amended) and listed on Euronext Amsterdam and the London Stock Exchange's Main Market for listed securities. Volta's home member state for the purposes of the EU Transparency Directive is the Netherlands. As such, Volta is subject to regulation and supervision by the AFM, being the regulator for financial markets in the Netherlands. Volta's investment objectives are to preserve capital across the credit cycle and to provide a stable stream of income to its shareholders through dividends. Volta seeks to attain its investment objectives predominantly through diversified investments in structured finance assets. The assets that the Company may invest in either directly or indirectly include, but are not limited to: corporate credits; sovereign and quasi-sovereign debt; residential mortgage loans; and, automobile loans. The Company's approach to investment is through vehicles and arrangements that essentially provide leveraged exposure to portfolios of such underlying assets. The Company has appointed AXA Investment Managers Paris an investment management company with a division specialised in structured credit, for the investment management of all its assets. ***** ABOUT AXA INVESTMENT MANAGERS AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) is a multi-expert asset management company within the AXA Group, a global leader in financial protection and wealth management. AXA IM is one of the largest European-based asset managers with 753 investment professionals and 801 billion in assets under management as of the end of April 2020. ***** This press release is for information only and does not constitute an invitation or inducement to acquire shares in Volta Finance. Its circulation may be prohibited in certain jurisdictions and no recipient may circulate copies of this document in breach of such limitations or restrictions. This document is not an offer for sale of the securities referred to herein in the United States or to persons who are "U.S. persons" for purposes of Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), or otherwise in circumstances where such offer would be restricted by applicable law. Such securities may not be sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration from the Securities Act. 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Past performance cannot be relied on as a guide to future performance. ***** Our Divisions Copyright 2021-22 DB Corp ltd., All Rights Reserved This website follows the DNPA Code of Ethics. The U.S. Postal Service is experiencing days-long backlogs of mail, sparking fears the problem could continue into November and affect the election. Additionally, an internal report from the postal service warned almost half the states are not providing adequate time for workers to deliver ballots ahead of the election. Several states affected are battleground ones that could decide if Donald Trump or Joe Biden is the next president and it's big cities - which are hot beds of Democratic voters - that will likely be most affected. U.S. Post Office is experiencing massive delays due to changes implemented by the post master general appointed by President Donald Trump - delays that could affect the election An internal report from the Postal Service warned there are 24 states with deadlines close enough to the election that do provide or at high risk for not giving the post office time to deliver ballots before the election Several states affected are battleground ones that could decide if Donald Trump or Joe Biden is the next president But the delays are the result of changes put in place by Trump fundraiser-turned-postmaster general Louis DeJoy, The Washington Post reported, leading to allegations of that the election is being undermined by politics. President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have attacked the U.S. Post Office, saying the postal system cannot be trusted to deliver mail-in ballots to the various state boards of elections to be counted. The number of mail-in ballots is expected to be unusually high this year as states are expanding that voting option to help combat the spread of the coronavirus. The changes DeJoy implemented include prohibiting overtime pay, shutting down sorting machines early and requiring letter carriers to leave mail to avoid extra trips or late delivery on routes. His supporters say the moves are to cut costs and help the debt-ridden service make its way to the black. But postal workers told the newspaper that the changes have resulted in at least a two day delay in parts of the country along with bins and bins of unsorted, undelivered mail piling up in post offices. Additionally, many states use a postmark to determine whether or not a ballot meets the deadline to be counted and the delays in processing could affect them, meaning a ballot that was mailed in time still may not have the election day post mark that many states require in order for it to be counted. An internal report from the Postal Service warned there are 24 states with deadlines close enough to the election that do not provide or at high risk for not giving the post office time to deliver ballots before the election. The states include the battleground states of New Hampshire, Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Ohio. 'Ballots requested less than seven days before an election are at a high risk of not being delivered, completed by voters, and returned to the election offices in time,' the report stated. Louis DeJoy is an American businessman and Republican Party fundraiser who was appointed in May 2020 by unanimous selection of the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service to serve as the 75th United States Postmaster General In Michigan, which is using expanded mail-in voting options for its August 4 primary and the general election, officials are encouraging voters to drop off their absentee ballot to their local clerks in person. 'This close to the primary, Michiganders should return their absentee ballots to their clerk's office directly, or submit them via their local ballot drop box, in order to ensure their vote is counted,' Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said in a statement on Tuesday. Benson became a target of Trump's wrath in May when she mailed absentee ballot applications to the state's 7.7 million registered voters. The president threatened to withhold federal funding from the state in return. Post office workers spoke of their fears about the November election. 'I'm actually terrified to see election season under the new procedure,' said Lori Cash, president of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) Local 183 in Western New York, told The Post. David Partenheimer, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, responded that the delays were temporary and would not impact the upcoming election. He called allegations DeJoy takes directions from President Trump are 'wholly misplaced and off-base' and pointed out the postmaster general is appointed by a bipartisan board of governors. Michigan Postal Workers Union President Michael Mize described to a local news outlet how workers were no longer allowed to stay late at their distribution centers until all of the mail for their route was sorted and ready to be sent out. 'Eventually this [is] going to cause long-term, large delays if we don't do something,' he said. He predicted big cities like Detroit and Grand Rapids would be most affected - areas that are heavy with Democratic voters. Meanwhile, President Trump doubled down on his threat to delay November's election, citing concerns mail-in voting could lead to a 'rigged' and 'crooked' result as one of the Republican Party's most prominent conservative members said the president should be impeached over the matter. Trump, in a brief news conference at the White House on Thursday evening, said he didn't want to see the election delayed but also argued he didn't want to see mail-in ballots go missing, indicating his opposition to mail-in voting remains an issue in regards to the general election. The president and some Republicans have pushed the unproven claim that mail-in voting leads to fraud and they've also questioned the ability of the U.S. Postal Service to get all the ballots delivered to the various state boards of election. 'We're asking for a lot of trouble,' Trump said. 'Do I want to see a date change? No. But I don't want to see a crooked election. This election will be the most rigged election in history.' President Donald Trump doubled down on his threat to delay November's election, citing concerns mail-in voting could lead to a 'rigged' and 'crooked' result President Trump said he was concerned that mail-in voting, which many states are considering as an alternative to in-person voting to help combat the spread of the coronavirus, could lead to miss ballots and a 'rigged' election More and more states are looking at mail-in voting options as a way to counter the coronavirus pandemic but Republicans believe that favors voting blocs that vote Democrats and are suing several states to stop the process. 'I don't want to delay,' Trump added. 'I want to have the election. But I also don't want to have to wait three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing and the election doesn't mean anything. That what's going to happen.' 'And everyone knows it,' he added. 'Smart people know. Stupid people may not know it. Some people don't want to talk about it. But they know it.' As Trump railed against election delays, a prominent conservative, Steven Calabresi - the co-founder of the Federalist Society - said Trump's tweet on Thursday morning calling for an election delay was ground for impeachment. A prominent conservative, Steven Calabresi - the co-founder of the Federalist Society - said Trump's tweet on Thursday morning calling for an election delay was ground for impeachment 'This latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president's immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate,' Calabresi wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times. The pronouncement was shocking given Calabresi voted for Trump in 2016 and is well regarded in the right wing of the party. The Federalist Society has worked closely with the Trump administration on its appointment of judges to the federal bench and the Supreme Court. Calabresi pointed that United States has never canceled an election - not even during times of war - so 'we certainly should not even consider canceling this fall's election because of the president's concern about mail-in voting, which is likely to increase because of fears about Covid-19.' He argued the decision on mail-in voting is up to each state and not the purview of the federal government, citing Article II of the Constitution. Trump also claimed his bombshell attempt to delay November's election was merely a way to get the media to talk about his allegations against mail-in voting and added that he expects to know election results the night of Nov. 3. 'Glad I was able to get the very dishonest LameStream Media to finally start talking about the RISKS to our Democracy from dangerous Universal Mail-In-Voting (not Absentee Voting, which I totally support!),' he tweeted before his news conference. Presidents have no power to change the date of the election. That must be done through an act of Congress. And Republican senators, including several Trump allies, were quick to say it wasn't going happen. President Donald Trump claimed his bombshell attempt to delay November's election was merely a way to get the media to talk about mail-in voting Trump then argued he wanted to bring attention to his argument that mail-in voting causes fraud. Numerous studies have shown that is not the case and that there is very little voter fraud in America. But the president also gave another demand - to know the results on election night. Given that many states are expanding mail-in voting options to limit exposure to the coronavirus, the results of the contest will likely take a few days as any ballot with a November 3 postmark will be counted. Even the results in 2016, which used in-person for the majority of voting, weren't know until later the next day. 'Must know Election results on the night of the Election, not days, months, or even years later!,' Trump wrote. And he added: 'We are going to WIN the 2020 Election, BIG! #MAGA' His chief of staff Mark Meadows, on Capitol Hill to work on coronavirus relief package negotiations, said the president's delay demand was referring to concerns about how long a national mail-in election would take to be tabulated. 'He's highlighting what what he strongly believes and what billions of Americans believe is that, trying to go to a universal mail-in ballot process by its very function will delay the results of the election,' Meadows told reporters on Capitol Hill. He pointed out that results of some of the races in New York's primary, held last month, were still be waited on as the state board of elections counted mail-in ballots. 'Can you imagine what that would be like if we're waiting on who the President of the United States is going to be based on mail-in ballots?' Meadows said. The winner of the presidential election would not be sworn into office until Wednesday, January 20, 2021, which would give almost three months for all ballots to be counted. In 2000, the winner of the George W. Bush and Al Gore contest was not declared until December 12 after numerous recounts in Florida and a ruling by the Supreme Court. Meadows also questioned the ability of the U.S. Postal Service to guarantee the safety of the mail-in ballots, another question Republicans are raising in the fight against mail-in ballots. 'Universal mail in ballots, you would raise the question of does every ballot, when it leaves the election board and goes out in the mail to someone who is registered, does it get returned and is that ballot actually safe and secure? I would suggest, knowing the United States Postal Service as well as I do - and no disrespect to the great men and women who work in the postal system - I don't know that we have a high degree of confidence that the custody of those ballots can be the same as if you were going in and casting your ballot in person,' he added. Trump's clarification also comes after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other top Republicans shot down his suggestion to delay the November election until 'people can properly, securely and safely vote.' McConnell pointed out elections hadn't been delayed in the past and did not need to be now. 'Never in the history of the country through wars, depressions, and the Civil War have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time. And we'll find a way to do that again this November 3,' McConnell told a local Kentucky television station. He confirmed he expected the election to take place on November 3. 'That's right. We'll cope with whatever the situation is in the election on November 3 as already scheduled.' Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell shot down President Donald Trump's suggestion to delay the November election Even some of President Trump's top Republican allies on Capitol Hill disagreed with his suggestion to put off the November 3 contest Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (left) and House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (right), two top Trump allies, said the election should not be delayed Other Republicans agreed. 'I don't believe we should delay the elections. Delaying the election probably wouldn't be a good idea. I think we can be able to safely vote in person in November,' said Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally on Capitol Hill. Senator Rick Scott, another Trump ally, said he 'doesn't agree with delaying the election.' Senator Chuck Grassley, the president pro temp of the Senate, said the country would follow the law when it came to the election date. 'All these things are pretty well set and have been going on for decades. And so we're a country based on the rule of law so nobody's going to change anything until we change the law,' he said. Senator Ted Cruz said election fraud should be investigated but that doesn't mean postponing the election. 'I think election fraud is a serious problem and we need to fight it and stop it. But no, we should not delay the election,' he said. And House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is also close to Trump, said there should be no delay. 'Never in the history of the federal elections have we not held an election and we should go forward,' he said. Trump's pronouncement came right after news the U.S. economy shrank by 33 per cent in the April-June quarter. That number marks the worst quarterly plunge ever and comes as the coronavirus pandemic has shut down businesses, thrown tens of millions out of work and sent unemployment to 14.7 per cent. Trump has banked his re-election chances on a strong U.S. economy. Voters give him high marks on his economic policy but have dinged him for his handling of the coronavirus and race relations. Democrats accused the president of attempting to distract from the terrible economic news. 'Trump's threat is nothing more than a desperate attempt to distract from today's devastating economic numbers that make it clear his failed response to the coronavirus has tanked the U.S. economy and caused tens of millions of Americans to lose their jobs. Trump can tweet all he wants, but the reality is that he can't delay the election, and come November, voters will hold him accountable for his failures that have led to catastrophic consequences for the American people,' said Democratic National Committee spokesperson Lily Adams. Trump tied his suggested to delaying the election to his complaints about mail-in voting, which he has repeatedly complained will lead to vote fraud. Numerous studies have shown very little voter fraud in the United States via mail-in voting. 'With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???,' Trump tweeted. New jobless claims ticked up again last week, following 15 straight weeks of declines from the peak in late March, when the coronavirus shutdowns initially hit President Donald Trump suggested delaying the November election until 'people can properly, securely and safely vote' Market reaction: How Dow went down over Trump tweet WHO DOES DECIDE WHEN U.S. VOTES? The White House has little to no say in the timing of the election - it has already been set down by Congress . The Constitution sets a limit on the president's term of January 20 and puts the responsibility for choosing a new one on the Electoral College - made up of the states' electors. It then spells out that Congress has to pick the date for choosing the electors, which must be the same across the country. Initially states did not all choose the electors by popular vote, but as they did, and with the advent of instant communication in the form of the telegraph, it became clear there had to be a national election date. In 1845, Congress set the date of the presidential election itself for the first time, as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. It has not been changed since, and would need an act of Congress to change it. Given the Democrats' hold on the House that seems impossible. But there is some room for the White House to pressure states to put off elections for a few weeks. The constitutional requirement that they choose their electors does not set a date - but in 1948 Congress did, as 'the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.' In theory, states could delay their elections to closer to that date - but that would take the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis and appears highly unlikely to happen. Advertisement Hogan Gidley, the spokesperson for President Trump's re-election campaign, said the president was merely questioning the legitimacy of mail-in voting. 'The President is just raising a question about the chaos Democrats have created with their insistence on all mail-in voting. 'They are using coronavirus as their means to try to institute universal mail-in voting, which means sending every registered voter a ballot whether they asked for one or not. 'Voter rolls are notoriously full of bad addresses for people who have moved, are non-citizens, or are even deceased. Universal mail-in voting invites chaos and severe delays in results, as proven by the New York Congressional primary where we still don't know who won after more than a month,' Gidley said in a statement. Attorney General Bill Barr was asked at a Tuesday hearing on Capitol Hill if the president has the power to delay November's contest. 'Actually I haven't looked into that question under the Constitution. I've never been asked the question before, I've never looked into it,' he said. Barr also said he had 'no reason to think' that the upcoming election will be 'rigged.' The date of general election is statutorily set as 'the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November' or 'the first Tuesday after November 1,' according to the 1845 law passed by Congress. Only new legislation could change that date. Additionally, Article II of the Constitution declares Congress - in effect - sets the election date: 'The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.' But Trump's tweet could stoke fears already present among Democrats the president will use his executive powers - such as declaring martial law - to suppress voter turn out in Democratic areas such as big cities. Polls show presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden leading in national polls and in many of the battleground states that will decide the contest. Biden has warned that Trump could seek to nullify and try to delegitimize November's contest should he lose. 'Mark my words: I think he is gonna try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can't be held,' Biden said at a virtual fundraiser in April. And Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan called Trump's decision to send in federal forces to U.S. cities with demonstrations taking place in support of the Black Lives Matters movement is a 'dry run for martial law.' Durkan said President Trump, 'clearly targeted cities run by Democratic mayors. He's said so himself.' 'He's using law enforcement as a political tool,' she told CNN earlier this week. 'I hate to say it, but I really believe that we are seeing the dry run for martial law. This is a president that is using law enforcement and federal forces for political purposes and that should be chilling to every American.' Trump also suggested Thursday that mail-in voting would allow foreign interference in the election. 'Mail-In Voting is already proving to be a catastrophic disaster. Even testing areas are way off. The Dems talk of foreign influence in voting, but they know that Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter the race. Even beyond that, there's no accurate count!,' he tweeted. Many states have opted to expand mail-in voting options for November's contest because of concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. Trump has railed against these decisions and the Republican Party has created a $20 million legal fund to fight them. The president, who is a resident of Florida, has voted absentee in several elections, including the state's presidential primary earlier this year. Vice President Mike Pence and several other members of his administration have also voted absentee. But Trump argues voting absentee is different than wide-spread mail-in voting. He has attacked mail voting nearly 70 times since late March in interviews, remarks and tweets, including at least 17 times this month, according to a tally by The Washington Post. Attorney General Bill Barr said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday he had 'no reason to think' that the upcoming election will be 'rigged' Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden has warned President Trump could try to delay the November contest Polls have shown most Americans - including Republicans - favor absentee voting as the coronavirus pandemic continues. In the event of extenuating circumstances, like traveling for work during the time of an election or being bed-ridden, voters in most states can apply for absentee ballots to cast their vote by mail ahead of the election date. There are five states Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington that already hold their elections by mail-in voting. Long lines have plagued several states during their primary elections the past few months. The number of polling places have been limited because of a shortage of workers due to the virus. Social distancing measures also mean the voting process takes longer. In Georgia's June primary, voters waited in line for hours without being able to cast a ballot as a shortage of poll workers and social-distancing precautions caused by the coronavirus contributed to the problem. Some precincts were closed due to lack of election officials available to work and official limited the number of people allowed into the ones open to prevent the virus from spreading. Voters took to Twitter to post photos of the long lines and point out the polling places that hadn't opened as scheduled at 7 a.m. Technical issues with the new voting system - which combines touchscreens with scanned paper ballots in races for president, Senate and dozens of other contests - brought voting to a stand still. Voters wait in line in Fulton County in Georgia's primary election on Tuesday In May President Trump threatened to hold federal funds from states like Michigan, which was mailing absentee ballots to all registered voters. Trump has also criticized California's mail-in balloting initiative, where registered voters have been sent ballots without having to formally request one. Republicans have filed a lawsuit against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsome's move. Republicans long have been suspicious that making voting easier would elect more Democrats. Young people, for instance, tend to tilt more Democratic, but are also less likely to vote in-person. Additionally, Republicans have long complained about 'ballot harvesting' - their term for the process where someone (usually a party volunteer) collects absentee ballots from a group of people and mails them for them. Democrats call it ballot collecting. In two-thirds of the states, any qualified voter may vote absentee without offering an excuse, and in one-third of the states, an excuse is required, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But many states - including West Virginia and Virginia - are adding fear of the coronavirus as a valid excuse to request an absentee ballot. Germany's defense minister on Friday described the planned withdrawal of some 12,000 US troops from her country as ``regrettable,'' while suggesting it underlines the need for Europe to do more for its own security. American defense leaders said Wednesday that the US will bring about 6,400 troops home and shift about 5,600 to other countries in Europe. The decision fulfills President Donald Trump's announced desire to withdraw troops from Germany, largely because of what he considers its failure to spend enough on defense. The plan, whose future is uncertain as it requires support and funding from Congress, would leave about 24,000 US troops in Germany. German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer emphasized the need for more European integration in her response early Friday, and said she hopes to use Germany's current tenure of the European Union's rotating presidency to help make progress on security and defense policy. ``We are keeping German and European interests in view,'' she said in a statement. ``The truth is that a good life in Germany and Europe depends more and more on how we ensure our security ourselves.'' She added that, ``as far as the regrettable plans to withdraw US troops are concerned,'' she will invite the governors of the affected German states after the summer break to discuss how the German military can support their regions. The German government's reaction so far to the US decision has been restrained. Still, Rolf Muetzenich, a senior figure in the governing coalition's junior party, the center-left Social Democrats, suggested that ``armaments cooperations will have to be evaluated in a new light.'' Muetzenich, the head of the party's parliamentary group, told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that ``capriciousness and pressure'' could not be ``the basis for working together in partnership.'' His comments drew criticism from Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right party. Lawmaker Roderich Kiesewetter told news agency dpa that ``there is no adequate and affordable replacement so far'' in Europe for the US defense industry's high-tech products. He argued that there also are checks and balances on Trump in the US. Another lawmaker, Henning Otte, said the Social Democrats shouldn't talk up ``further alienation within the alliance.'' Search Keywords: Short link: Unaided Private Schools Association, Uttar Pradesh, on Friday announced relief for parents, whose income was hit during the lockdown period, by giving upto 20 concession to their wards amid the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time when the whole world is struggling with the outbreak of corona virus, private schools despite facing financial crisis have decided to help parents by giving them upto 20% fee concession, said Anil Agarwal, president of the association. Agarwal said this concession will be given only to those parents who have suffered financial crisis due to the lockdown. In this regard, a letter will have to be given by the parents in writing to the school management and on that basis parents will be helped, he said. The office-bearers of the association have decided if such parents do not deposit fees even then, such students will be denied online education. He also said all the schools of the association started online education in which a lot of money was being spent as no financial support had been provided by the government in this regard. Agarwal claimed that the unaided private schools had not increased the fee despite the fact all other expenses were being incurred by the schools. He appealed that all those parents who may afford should come forward and deposit fees. ATLANTA (dpa-AFX) - Coca-Cola said it will launch a hard seltzer under the Topo Chico brand later this year, marking the beverage giant's foray into the hard seltzer segment. The Topo Chico Hard Seltzer will initially be offered in select cities in Latin America this year and will launch in the U.S. in 2021. Coca-Cola said it will share more details about the product closer to its launch. According to the company, Topo Chico Hard Seltzer is an experimental drink inspired by Topo Chico sparkling mineral water. Coca-Cola acquired Topo Chico, a sparkling mineral water brand that is popular in Texas and Latin America, in 2017. Hard seltzer, a low-alcohol, low-calorie water-based drink, is among the fast-growing categories in the beverage segment. The category has seen a spike in popularity in the U.S. over the past two years. Consumers' increased focus on health has enabled new beverage categories such as alcohol-free beverages, cannabis-infused drinks and hard seltzers to gain popularity. According to a report by Nielsen in June, total hard seltzer sales for the 52-week period ended June 13, 2020 were $2.7 billion. The total number of hard seltzer brands rose to 26 by the beginning of 2019 from just 10 brands in early 2018. More than 65 brands are now fighting for consumers' attention and purchase, according to the report. The hard seltzer market in the U.S. is dominated by two brands - White Claw and Boston Beer's Truly. White Claw is owned by Mark Anthony Brands. Brewers such as Constellation Brands and Anheuser Busch have recently launched hard seltzers. Constellation Brands recently launched the Corona brand hard seltzer, while Anheuser-Busch launched Social Club Seltzer in May. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de People should consider wearing goggles or face shields along with fabric masks to help combat the spread of coronavirus, according to the nations top infectious disease doctor. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said eye coverings might eventually be recommended as a way to fight the spread of COVID-19. If you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it, Fauci said. Its not universally recommended, but if you really want to be complete, you should probably use it if you can. The coronavirus virus spreads primarily through respiratory droplets when someone talks, coughs or sneezes. Infection comes when the droplets enter the nose, mouth or any mucous membrane, such as the eyes. CDC does have some guidance on face shields: It is not known if face shields provide any benefit as source control to protect others from the spray of respiratory particles. CDC does not recommend use of face shields for normal everyday activities or as a substitute for masks. Some people may choose to use a face shield when sustained close contact with other people is expected. If face shields are used without a mask, they should wrap around the sides of the wearers face and extend to below the chin. Disposable face shields should only be worn for a single use. Reusable face shields should be cleaned and disinfected after each use. Plastic face shields for newborns and infants are NOT recommended. Here are the latest coronavirus headlines: Alabama, 12 other states should lock down Alabama and 12 other states should return to lockdown, according to research from Harvard University. The Harvard study assigned rankings to states based on the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population. Anything higher than 25 per day places the state in a red level. At the red level, jurisdictions have reached a tipping point for uncontrolled spread and will require the use of stay-at-home orders and/or advisories to mitigate the disease, research shows. Alabama currently has 39.1 new daily cases per 100,000 people. Other states above the threshold are Florida (48.1), Louisiana (46.2), Mississippi (43.5), Arizona (36.6), Tennessee (34.1), Georgia (33.8), Nevada (33.0), South Carolina (30.1), Texas (27.9), Idaho (27.5), Arkansas (26.4) and Oklahoma (25.6). Two people in Florida arrested for violating quarantine Two people in Florida were arrested for allegedly defying a quarantine order. Jose Antonio Freire Interian, 24, and Yohana Anahi Gonzalez, 26, were arrested in Key West on charges related to violating a state law that requires isolation or quarantine during a public health emergency. The charges are second-degree misdemeanors punishable by up to 60 days in jail. Authorities allege the pair failed to follow orders to remain at home after Freire tested positive for COVID on July 14. Both had been issued isolation orders from the Florida Department of Health. Texas now has more coronavirus cases than New York Texas now has more coronavirus cases than New York. As of yesterday, Texas has 418,000 COVID-10 cases. New York now ranks fourth for total case count behind California, Florida and Texas. More than 6,100 people in Texas have died from the virus. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 17:30:31|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close KUWAIT CITY, July 31 (Xinhua) -- As life is gradually returning to normal amid the COVID-19 epidemic, the Kuwaitis are hoping for a better Eid al-Adha, one of the most significant Islamic festivals of the year that starts on Friday in the Gulf nation. After months of lockdown in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, the Kuwaiti authorities recently decided to partially lift the preventive measures taken to limit the spread of the deadly virus. Shahd Ali Al-Bayaa, a 25-year-old teacher, told Xinhua that the coronavirus changes the her routine life, especially during the four-day Eid al-Adha. "We used to wake up and go to pray, before meeting with friends and relatives. People used to gather in malls, cafes and cinema," Al-Bayaa said. "With the pandemic, everything is different. Most of the mosques in the populated areas are still closed. No gathering is allowed. There is no friends' hangout and relatives' visit because of social distancing rule," she added. Kuwait started on July 28 the third-phase plan of restoring normal life. Ali Ahmad, a 24-year-old customer service employee at a college, agreed that this year's Eid al-Adha is extremely different as some people still fear that Eid al-Adha celebrations could lead to a new spike in coronavirus infections. "Avoiding praying in mosques and handing meat to the needy is better than risking your and others' health," he said, noting a huge possibility that the meat can transmit the virus. Ahmad, who used to travel at this time of the year, added that staying home is a better choice under the current circumstances, recommending online shopping instead of queuing at the brick-and-mortar stores. The sacrificial activity of Eid al-Adha, also known as Festival of Sacrifice, is being impacted by the coronavirus crisis. Mahmoud Abdulredha, a 52-year-old manager, told Xinhua that he used to ask a well-known butcher in his neighborhood to slaughter his sheep, but it might be illegal according to the current health authorities' instructions. "According to the instructions, we have to book an appointment to chop our meat, but it's already fully booked," he complained. Abdulredha, a father of two daughters, told Xinhua that one of her daughters is being stranded while studying abroad and he will see her in a week after months of separation. "Seeing my daughter's face will be the greatest Eid gift I've been waiting for," he said. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 23:18:56|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BAGHDAD, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Health Ministry on Friday recorded 3,346 new COVID-19 cases, the highest daily increase since the outbreak of the disease, while a health official confirmed that the authorities will return to partial curfew after the Eid al-Adha holiday. The new cases brought the total nationwide infections to 124,609, as the ministry's health teams and institutions have used over 1,000,000 testing kits so far, the ministry said in a statement. It also reported 70 fatalities during the day, raising the death toll to 4,741, while 1,888 more patients recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries to 87,434. Riyadh Abdul-Amir, head of the ministry's public health department, said in a press release that the health situation in the country is serious, but the authorities will apply the full curfew only in this week, which covers the Eid al-Adha holiday, and afterward will return to the partial curfew. "We in the ministry of health will not recommend to completely lift the partial curfew, and we will continue to demand the weekly full curfew on Thursday, Friday and Saturday," Abdul-Amir said. However, he said that the authorities could lift the curfew measures in certain controllable facilities, such as the airports where preventive measures are implemented. On July 26, Iraq's Higher Committee for Health and National Safety, headed by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, decided to extend the weekly full curfew from July 30 to Aug. 9, including the Eid al-Adha holiday. Earlier, the health ministry attributed the increase of COVID-19 infections to the lack of public compliance to the health instructions and the stronger testing capacity with the increase of labs in Baghdad and other provinces. China has been helping Iraq fight the COVID-19 pandemic. From March 7 to April 26, a Chinese team of seven medical experts spent 50 days in Iraq to help contain the disease, during which they helped build a PCR lab and install an advanced CT scanner in Baghdad. Since March 7, China has also sent three batches of medical aid to Iraq. Enditem After his fellow Republican, George W. Bush, became president, Fitzgerald elbowed aside Republican and Democratic insiders eager for a U.S. attorney who would return their phone calls. Among those he aced out: then-U.S. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, who wanted to influence the selection of a U.S. attorney here. And on Mothers Day 2001, Fitzgerald brought two Tribune writers to his office to meet his candidate, Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation), a New York federal prosecutor who said he had no close friends in Chicago: None. Zero. Sen. Fitzgerald gambled that if the next days Tribune had a column and an editorial discussing his choice of an outsider renowned as a crime-fighter, the Illinois political establishment would be caught off guard and powerless to intervene. WASHINGTON As coronavirus deaths piled up in New York nursing homes, Brett Leitner, a trial lawyer in New York City, started receiving 30 calls a day from the families of nursing home residents who died all over the state, he said. The families wanted to sue the nursing homes where their loved one died, believing the facilities failed to take adequate steps to respond to the virus. But new liability protections for nursing homes and other providers written into New York law this spring made that hard. New federal liability protections pushed by Senate Republicans would further challenge such claims. Legislation limiting lawsuits against businesses and health care providers during the pandemic is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's defiant "red line" during the coronavirus relief negotiations now embroiling Congress. McConnell has said no bill can advance without these protections for employers, warning that without them a tsunami of frivolous lawsuits will flood the country stymieing businesses' efforts to reopen and health care providers' efforts to fight a novel virus. Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, both from New York, have decried McConnell's proposal as a carte blanche for businesses that puts workers and possibly patients at risk. Meanwhile, New York and many other states have already taken steps to curb these lawsuits, at least in the health care sector. In early April, New York passed a state budget that included a meaningful, if little-noticed provision. The provision stated that hospitals and nursing facilities would be immune from civil and criminal liability for harm while providing care to a patient during the coronavirus emergency if the provider was issuing health care "in good faith" and "arranging for or providing" care in accordance with state and federal rules. Hospitals and nursing homes would not have liability if the harm was caused by willful or intentional criminal misconduct, gross negligence, reckless misconduct or intentional infliction of harm. The provision was so broad that it blocked litigation against these health care providers for some malpractice unrelated to their handling of COVID-19 during the pandemic. Recognizing this, the state legislature voted on July 23 to partially repeal the protections and clarify that the immunity applies to the assessment or care of an individual with a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19, among other changes. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has not yet signed this legislation. Ron Kim, a Democratic assemblyman from Queens, a borough that has been particularly hard-hit by nursing home deaths, introduced legislation to fully repeal the immunity protections this spring, but the proposal has not received a vote. Stephen Hanse, CEO of the New York State Health Facilities Association, which represents over 450 skilled nursing and assisted living facilities, said the protections ensure that health care provides "can truly focus on the provision of care and not have to worry and second guess." "In this public health emergency, health care providers had to deal with constantly changing health care directives in the state [and] on the federal level," Hanse said. "As long as you're acting in good faith, you're doing everything you can to provide care, these liability protections are in place only during the declared time of the public health emergency... it's really important. Over history, it's not unique." With the elderly and people in congregate facilities among the most vulnerable for the virus, 6,464 nursing home residents have died of confirmed or presumed COVID-19 in New York as of July 28, according to the state. At least 25 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have provided some level of immunity for health care workers and/or facilities during the pandemic through executive or legislative action, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Ten states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia passed laws providing liability protections specifically in response to COVID-19. Only 70 health- or medical-related lawsuits have been filed in response to coronavirus across the country, according to the law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth, which is tracking COVID-19 complaints. New York has had five of these health complaints filed in courts to date, the firm found. "I actually think the liability risk is not that high," said Michelle Mello, a professor of law and medicine at Stanford University, who studies among other things medical malpractice litigation. "The real source of problems may be claims by health care workers against facilities rather than claims by residents and patients ... I don't think that most of these people are going to find redress in our legal system anyway. It's really hard for people to access the civil justice system for tort claims." Leitner said he has been retained to represent clients in 150 different coronavirus nursing home death cases. Many of those have not been filed yet because an administrator must be appointed by a Surrogate court first. Because the state law blocks cases regarding health provider actions after March 7, Leitner is trying to prove the nursing homes had inadequate infection control procedures in place before March 7. One of his clients, Vivian Zayas, is suing a Long Island nursing home where her mother died after the nursing home was cited prior to the pandemic for failing to have proper infection control procedures in place. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. At the federal level, McConnell aims to take liability protections farther. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced the Safe To Work Act on behalf of the GOP caucus this week, legislation that would bar any plaintiff with a coronavirus medical case from suing under state law and require them to take their case to federal court. The plaintiff would have to provide clear evidence that the employer engaged in gross negligence or willful misconduct, not caused by a resource or staffing shortage. It sets a one year statute of limitations on the cases. "It changes the standard of care that would lead to a liability finding from our ordinary standard, which is preponderance of the evidence, to gross negligence," said Mello. "It is a much harder standard to prevail on, and particularly in this context where you had a lot of things evolving pretty rapidly, in terms of businesses understanding of how the virus is transmitted, how much of a danger it poses and so forth. I think that makes it an especially difficult context in which to prove that somebody behaved willfully and wantonly, as opposed to just stupidly." Critically, the Safe to Work Act would also protect other kinds of non-health care employers, including non-profits and schools. Any plaintiff who wanted to sue a business because he contracted coronavirus from working, shopping or learning there would have to prove that the business did not make reasonable efforts to comply with federal guidance on the virus and the business' actions caused the plaintiff's illness. If the business has a written policy the complies with government health policies, it would be presumed to be in compliance. It would also have a shorter one-year statute of limitations for these personal injury cases. The legislation would be a five-year shield for health care providers, businesses and schools, from Dec. 1 2019 to at least October 2024. Across the country, 74 lawsuits regarding workplace conditions have been filed against employers, Hunton Andrews Kurth's complaint tracker shows. As states gradually reopen their economies, frontline health care workers, small businesses, and schools face a second pandemic of frivolous lawsuits threatening to bankrupt them, Cornyn said. This legislation would protect those acting in good faith from being sued into oblivion while ensuring bad actors who willingly put their patients, employees, or customers in danger will still be held accountable. Democrats object to the protections. Gillibrand said lawmakers should shore up Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards instead. "There is a standard of care that is due to every worker in America," said Gillibrand. "If we write standards under OSHA for example, requiring PPE, requiring social distancing, requiring people to take their temperature before they come into the workplace, those are common sense and I would expect every workplace would follow that. If they don't, then they're being negligent... blanket liability is not appropriate and I believe is immoral." The Trump administration has backed away from regulating industry and strongly enforcing labor standards through OSHA, Mello said. Senate Republicans' HEALS Act would also encourage more virus testing at nursing homes, involve the U.S. Department of Health in reporting nursing home COVID-19 cases and send in federal "strike teams" to support state teams with medical examinations and infection control at facilities. A biomedical engineering graduate student holds a swab and a specimen vial in preparation for COVID-19 diagnostic testing at Boston University in Boston. Some labs are testing samples in batches to try to increase testing capacity and speed up reporting of results. Read more The latest fix for what ails this countrys ability to promptly diagnose coronavirus infection is called test pooling. It involves analyzing patients respiratory samples in a batch rather than individually. So far, only two commercial lab companies, Quest and LabCorp, are authorized to do pooling, and the batches cannot have more than four or five patients specimens. Still, some experts are touting pooling as a panacea. For the price per test of a cup of coffee, governments can safely reopen the economy and halt ongoing COVID-19 transmission all without building new labs and without new drugs or vaccines, three Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors wrote in MIT Technology Review. Pooling is such a hot topic that the Infectious Diseases Society of American held a virtual media briefing on Friday to discuss it and answer questions. The bottom line, said Melissa Miller, director of the clinical molecular lab at the University of North Carolina Medical Center, is that this is not a magic bullet. Here are some advantages, downsides, and limits of test pooling. More efficient sometimes More than 800,000 diagnostic tests per day are being done in the United States, according to the COVID Tracking Project. That still isnt adequate to curb the pandemic, most experts say. The surge of cases in hot spots, the lack of federal coordination of testing, and the dominance of a handful of commercial testing giants have combined to create testing backlogs. That, in turn, means people with no symptoms even health-care workers at high risk of exposure may not get results for a week or more. And thats too late to guide decisions about quarantining and contact tracing. By combining specimens for testing which involves molecular analysis to detect fragments of the virus results can be speeded up, and labs use less of the chemicals that have been in chronic short supply. But this strategy only works if all the specimens are negative. If the pool tests positive, each sample must be retested individually to figure out who is infected, and that can delay results. For pooling to work, a technician must carefully select the samples to merge based on certain variables. These include patient factors, such as having no symptoms or living where transmission is low, and the prevalence of the virus in the community. If 15% to 20% of tests come back positive in a given area, that renders pooling impossible, Romney M. Humphries, director of the microbiology laboratory at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said during the media briefing. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says pooling is appropriate if the positive test rate in a given area is 10% or less, but Humphries believes it should be no more than 2%. The three MIT professors, led by Ziad Obermeyer, propose that mining data with computers to develop predictive formulas can make the selection process easier. They are cofounders of a health-care consulting company that develops such machine-learning algorithms. Alas, most labs dont have the technology, including automation, to make pooling optimally efficient, Humphries said. Less accurate sometimes Pooling effectively waters down the specimens, making it easier to miss a trace of the virus. Thats one reason the Food and Drug Administration allows only four or five specimens to be combined. Pooling also requires the kind of molecular testing platforms that are found in high-complexity labs. Recently, the FDA has authorized some molecular testing platforms that are small, portable, and give rapid results at the point of care say, a doctors office or urgent care clinic. But these tend to sacrifice accuracy for on-the-spot results; the agency in May warned that the Abbott Point of Care test, used by the White House, may miss some infections. Test pooling is not an option with point-of-care platforms, Humphries said. Batch testing is proving valuable in academic research labs that are studying the prevalence and spread of the virus in various locations. Nonclinical research labs, however, dont need FDA authorization to pool samples, and the results are not reported to public health authorities because the testing is not for diagnostic purposes. Its a bit controversial, said Miller. More than four months after Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in her home by police executing a no-knock warrant, Oprah Winfrey has featured Taylor on the cover of her O Magazine. Taylors September issue marks the first time in the magazines 20-year history that Oprah will not appear on the cover. Instead, the media mogul and philanthropist shared on Instagram that she wished to honor Taylors life with the cover, as well as the life of every other Black woman whose life has been taken too soon. The cover image of Taylor was created by digital artist, Alexis Franklin, and the issue is said to focus on systematic racism and anti-racist actions readers can take. Oprahs tribute to Taylor shares several links, including StandWithBre.com, which lists ways to demand justice for Taylor. Taylor, who was a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was sleeping in her Louisville, Kentucky home the night three plainclothes police officers forced her door open on March 13. Believing it to be a home invasion, Taylors partner (a licensed gun owner) reportedly shot one of the officers in the thigh. Getty Images The police blindly returned fire with more than 25 bullets, killing Taylor. Police had carried out the no-knock search warrant as they claimed Taylors ex-boyfriend was using her address to mail drugs through the post office, however, no drugs were found in Taylors apartment. In the months since, no charges have been made against the officers responsible for Taylors death and two of the three officers still have their jobs. Having spoken with Taylors mother, Tamika Palmer, Oprah noted that she was still processing the grief. I cant stop seeing her face. Her smile. Its what I miss most about her. I still cant grasp the concept of her being gone, Palmer told Oprah. The fact that no one has been charged. It was so reckless. They did all of this for nothing, and she lost her life, she said. AP Oprah paid tribute to Taylor a well, writing of her interests and her plans for the future that were cut short. Imagine if three unidentified men burst into your home while you were sleeping. And your partner fired a gun to protect you. And then mayhem, Oprah wrote. What I know for sure: We cant be silent. We have to use whatever megaphone we have to cry for justice, she said, adding, I cry for justice in her name." By PTI DUBAI: The Indian Consulate in Dubai has offered support to repatriate an Indian woman in the UAE whose video of domestic abuse and appeals for help went viral on social media, according to a media report. The video, which was posted on Twitter by an Indian journalist, shows the woman in tears, alleging that she was being "beaten and mentally tortured" ever since her marriage in April 2018, the Gulf News reported on Thursday. "I am in danger. I am helpless. I don't have money. I don't have a calling card to call my family. I just need justice. I am requesting you to please help me. Somebody please help me," the woman, who has a 13-month-old girl, said in the video. The woman, who arrived in the UAE in January, said in the video that she was not able to contact police as she did not have a sim card. The Indian Consulate was also tagged in the video. Responding to the video, the consulate tweeted on Thursday that they have already got in touch with the woman after receiving her complaint on July 27. "We got a complaint...on July 27 and we had contacted her the same day and assured her of all possible assistance. She now desires to go back to India and we will make sure that she can leave for India at the earliest," the consulate tweeted. Neeraj Agrawal, Consul for Press, Information and Culture at the consulate, said that they are in touch with the woman and her husband. "We have asked him to return her passport and we are ready to facilitate her repatriation," he was quoted as saying by the Gulf News. This is not the first time that the mission has intervened in such a case. Last year, the consulate assisted the repatriation of a woman, who had sought help and her husband was arrested by police after her video on Twitter went viral. SENIOR doctors yesterday downed tools, joining nurses who have been on strike for more than 40 days, a move that will add a strain to the countrys already paralysed healthcare system. The strike came after doctors this week rejected a government plea for them to shelve their job action demanding protective clothing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Zimbabwe Senior Hospital Doctors Association president Shingai Nyaguse said the Health ministry was not taking their concerns seriously. Its unfortunate that we keep going round in circles and that the Health ministry has taken such a lackadaisical attitude firstly towards the nurses and now to issues raised by senior doctors, Ngaguse said. We cannot keep endangering ourselves. When the ministry decides to take their mandate seriously, we are more than happy to engage and help them deliver health services to the nation. The doctors said they were disappointed by the response from their employer. It was our hope that there would be some attempt by the government to meet the requests made by doctors which we believe to be very valid and necessary in enabling reasonable service delivery, the letter by doctors to Health acting secretary Gibson Mhlanga read. The doctors had previously reached out to the government asking for basic personal protective equipment (PPE) and salaries in United States dollars. However, government in response pleaded with senior doctors to remain on duty and argued that their strike was ill-timed as more local cases of COVID-19 were being reported daily. Mhlanga said the issue of PPE was being addressed, but doctors were not convinced. The procurement and distribution of PPE is a continuous process and not an event as the consumption rate is very high, Mhlanga said earlier this week. But the doctors said they were disappointed by governments response. Since the status quo is going to persist, we regret to advise that our members will now proceed with the work stoppage until it is safe and fair to return to our posts, the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association said. The doctors also said they hoped government would reconsider its position in the interest of patients. Following consultation with the HSE, Irish Water can confirm that the Boil Water Notice issued on 16 July for customers on the Rathangan Public Water Supply has been lifted with immediate effect. The notice was issued as a precautionary measure following issues with the disinfection process at the Water Treatment Plant which led to inadequate chlorination of the public water supply. Irish Waters drinking water compliance and operational experts worked to resolve the situation as quickly and as safely as possible. Read more County Kildare news John ODonoghue, Irish Water Regional Operations Manager, said Irish Water acknowledges and understands the impact of this boil water notice on the 6,500 people affected and we sincerely regret the inconvenience. We endeavoured to keep the public up to date at every stage and we are grateful to the media, elected representatives and members of the public who shared the information. Following a number of satisfactory water samples and an EPA audit, the Boil Water notice is lifted with immediate effect. We would also like to thank Kildare County Council, the EPA and HSE for their input and support throughout the process." Should customers have any queries regarding this Boil Water Notice and the lifting of it they should contact Irish Water directly on our customer care helpline, open 24/7, on 1850 278 278. Updates are available on the Water Supply Updates section of our website and on Twitter @IWCare. Ten people have been arrested in Tripura in connection with the gang-rape of a minor girl at a village of Teliamura in Khowai district more than a week ago, the police said. We have arrested 10 persons so far including five who were involved in gang-rape on July 21. Two persons are still absconding, deputy inspector general, Northern Range, Soumitra Dhar told mediapersons in Agartala on Thursday. The police claim that the minor had an affair with one Rupesh Sarkar and after a week-long chat, they met at Chakmaghat on July 21. While on her way back home, one resident of the rape survivors village offered her a lift in a vehicle. He and four others present in the vehicle took her to a forest and gang-raped her. The case was registered on July 22 under Section 341, 376 (D) and 4 (1) of POCSO Act and Rupesh was arrested. Two days later, two more people were arrested. Later, during investigation, the police arrested the rest. The rape survivors statement was recorded. Her medical examinations were also done. All the arrested ones are currently in judicial custody, Dhar said. Panic peddling or blockbusting describes the now-illegal practice of persuading property owners to sell cheaply out of fear that people of another race, ethnicity or income group are going to move in and bring down property values. Then the unscrupulous peddler sells the same property for a higher price, most likely to a member of the feared minority group, and reaps the profits. In contrast to his peers in neighboring districts, Hutchings bided his time. In July, he formed a team of more than 100 staffers, students and parents that met twice each week on Zoom to debate when and how to reopen. The superintendent also held regular public, virtual question-and-answer sessions to discuss reopening. And he consulted with other superintendents both locally and across the country. South Korea will toughen the punishment for foreign residents who hurt the country's quarantine efforts by reporting false self-quarantine addresses when they reenter the country after an overseas trip, the prime minister said Friday. The decision was unveiled by Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun during a regular government virus response meeting as South Korea is struggling to contain imported infection cases. "We have recently had some botched quarantine cases because many longtime foreign residents here reported false self-quarantine addresses when they returned to the country (misleading quarantine officials)," the prime minister said. To prevent similar cases, the government will exhaustively verify if local addresses registered by inbound foreigners upon their entrance to South Korea match where they actually live, he noted. Any inbound travelers, both Koreans or foreign nationals, are required under the local quarantine law to put themselves in self-quarantine for two weeks upon their arrival in the country. "The government will conduct on-site inspections of longtime foreign residents and stiffen the punishment for those who present false addresses," the prime minister said. The government also plans to inspect and verify if residences registered by inbound foreigners are fit for self-quarantine. If not, they will be put in a dedicated quarantine facility, Chung added. South Korea has been dealing with cases of foreigners defying the local quarantine law and guidelines, upsetting the country's quarantine efforts. In the latest such case, the police decided earlier this week to deport three Vietnamese nationals in their 20s after they slipped out of a quarantine facility in Gimpo, west of Seoul, on Monday. They were under the mandatory two-week quarantine there after entering the country on July 20. The prime minister also called for extra caution over infection risks during the approaching summer vacation season, urging people to strictly follow the quarantine guidelines. (Yonhap) New Delhi, July 31 : The Railway Protection Force (RPF) has arrested 718 touts and 176 IRCTC authorised agents since May this year and tickets worth Rs 68 lakh have been seized, the Railway Ministry said on Friday. Indian Railways had suspended passenger, mail and express train services from March 25 in view of the spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. However, it started the Shramik Special trains from May 1 to transport the stranded migrant workers, students, tourists and pilgrims across the country. The Railways then started 15 pairs of air conditioned trains from May 12 and 100 pairs of time tabled special trains from June 1. The Ministry said that as the accommodation in the trains was very limited there was a possibility of bulk cornering of railway tickets of reserve accommodation by the touts using illegal means. It said, anticipating the problems, the RPF acted proactively in curbing the menace of touting and have been conducting sustained drives against touting. The RPF arrested 718 touts and 176 IRCTC authorised agents for their involvement in cornering tickets through illegal means. The Ministry said that future journey tickets worth Rs 68 lakh were seized and processed for blocking while 4,435 personal user IDs and 176 IRCTC agents IDs, which were being used to carry out touting activities, have been processed for deactivation by the IRCTC. The Railway Ministry also said that 717 cases under Section 143 of the Railway Act 1989 have been registered at various RPF posts across Indian Railways and action against persons found involved in touting activities and their abettors is being taken as per legal provisions. Heartland star Amber Marshall gives sneak peek at series quarantine special, filming on her farm Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Beloved television series Heartland will release an exclusive quarantine special episode on the streaming service UP Faith & Family where actress Amber Marshall shares what it's like to film on her family's farm. The UP Faith & Family Heartland exclusive will follow Amy Fleming (Amber Marshall) as we relive the most special, most memorable, fan-favorite moments from the past 13 seasons of 'Heartland,' including an insider look at how the many stunts on the show come together, reads a description of the Aug. 11 episode. Marshall filmed the special on her farm during the quarantine lockdown and has remained positive in the midst of it all. During the special the Canadian native shares helpful tips on how people can make the best of the most difficult of times. And behind-the-scenes bloopers from the longest-running one-hour drama in Canadian television history will also be included in the exclusive episode. The following is an edited transcript of The Christian Posts interview with Marshall in which she talks about filming the special in her home and how she and her family are managing life during the quarantine. Christian Post: What was it like shooting this special at home? Marshall: This has obviously been an incredibly unique year for all. It is in times like this that we learn so much about ourselves and those around us. I have spent so many years on the Heartland set that I often take for granted what goes into making each scene so special. On my own farm it is just me and the animals during the day (my husband works long hours away from the house), so shooting video can be a bit of a challenge sometimes. I purchased a phone tripod to allow for a more hands-free environment and had to depend on the weather for my quality of lighting and sound. My animals are all very comfortable with me so filming with them was the easy part. The hard part was trying to get my message across before they completely took over the shot. I enjoyed including different animals in the segments as I believe that they always lighten the mood and bring a smile to those watching. CP: How has your family been spending time during the quarantine? Marshall: Life has not changed a whole lot on the farm. There are still daily chores that need to be done and we have the space here to not ever feel confined. I think having a routine is the most important part. My husband, Shawn, was lucky to remain working through this time and I keep very busy with life on the farm. I took on projects that Ive been wanting to do for a while (like painting my house and purging my closets) and spent more time enjoying the animals. Since both Shawn and my family live a 40-hour drive away we dont get to see them often normally, so this has not seemed like a prolonged time away. We also dont spend much time in town, so being asked to stay home was not seen as negative. CP: What do you hope viewers take away from the Heartland quarantine special? Marshall: I love the history and the longevity of Heartland. Being able to look back over the seasons and admire the time we have spent together over the past 13 years. I hope viewers are transported into the world of Heartland and the magic that surrounds it. We always refer to Heartland as a breath of fresh air. Watching the horses and the vistas come to life on screen can transport viewers to that place of tranquility and sincerity. This is something that is needed more than ever. Season 13 of the popular family drama Heartland is now available on UPtv, and fans can catch up on all 13 seasons on UP Faith & Family now. A former San Antonio police officer who shot and killed an unarmed Black man during a 2016 arrest at a North Side apartment complex died early Friday. John David Lee, 41, was pronounced dead at 12:48 a.m., according to the Bexar County Medical Examiners Office. His cause and manner of death are listed as pending, investigators said. Lee, who had been with SAPD since February 2004, left the department on Feb. 13, according to Texas Commission on Law Enforcement records. He was an 11-year veteran at the time of his encounter with 36-year-old Antronie Scott. On Feb. 4, 2016, Scott who was wanted on two felony warrants, was being followed by undercover officers with the Repeat Offenders Program. They watched as Scott drove to the Wood Hollow Apartments, 10362 Sahara St., at about 6:45 p.m. and called for a uniformed officer to approach him, SAPD Chief William McManus said at the time. Lee arrived at the complex and pulled up to Scott. As Scott was exiting a white Mercedes sedan, Lee approached him and said to Scott, Let me see your hands. Scott spun around quickly and Lee almost immediately fired his service weapon because the officer feared for his life, McManus said. Scott, who was shot in the upper torso, died at the scene as his wife sat in the passenger seat of their Mercedes. McManus placed Lee on administrative leave and issued a contemplated indefinite suspension immediately after the shooting. In March 2016, the chief instead decided to provide Lee with more training. According to McManus, Lee had put his vehicle too closely to Scotts during the traffic stop, putting him in a tactically poor situation. The chief also considered that Lee was following instructions from undercover detectives. The case brought attention to SAPDs tactics and use of force for a time that year. McManus decisions in the case led to a vote of no-confidence from the San Antonio Police Officers Association. Mike Helle, president of the association, said then that use of force was not rampant in the department. Officers also reportedly felt McManus was folding to community pressure while ignoring how Lee had been trying to arrest Scott for outstanding felonies that included possession of a firearm. At the time of the shooting, Lee had four incidents on his resume, and two of them were accidents. After the shooting, Scotts wife and mother filed civil rights lawsuits against Lee and the city seeking damages arising from his death. The amended complaint also names current and former city leaders including McManus, former City Manager Sheryl Sculley, and former Mayor Ivy Taylor. It alleges that they failed to properly supervise, screen, discipline, transfer, counsel or otherwise control officers known to engage in the use of excessive force, including officers repeatedly accused of such acts. The suits have since been consolidated and were reset on March 18 under the exigent circumstances created by the pandemic, according to court records. When Lawyer Thomas J. Henry filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Scott's wife in 2016, he said he was not alleging that race played a part in the shooting. Recent Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyds death have brought new attention to incidents in which Black men, including Scott, were killed by police in San Antonio. On June 14, Scotts son, Antronie Scott Jr., was among the protesters at the Roll For Peace protest in San Antonio. Scott held up his iPhone to the crowd, tears streaming down his face as he talked about his fathers death four years ago. Dad died because cops shot him in the heart after thinking his iPhone 4 was a gun, the young man said. In June, several protest groups and advocates called on Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales to re-examine the cases of Scott, Marquise Jones and Charles Roundtree. Gonzales has since said there was no new evidence to reopen the cases. An SAPD spokesperson said Friday afternoon a statement on Lees death would not be made because the results of his autopsy had not been released. Staff writers Laura Garcia and John Tedesco contributed to this story. 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 India on Friday extended the ban on international commercial passenger flights till August 31. But the restriction shall not apply to international cargo operations and flights specifically approved by aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The government has decided to extend the suspension on the Scheduled International Commercial Passenger Services to/from India up to 2359 hours IST of 31st August, the statement read. Earlier this month, in the wake of a surge in Covid-19 cases across the country, the civil aviation ministry had extended the ban on international flights till July 31. Prior to that, the earlier order had said the ban would be in place till July 15. The ban on international flights was extended even as capacity on domestic routes has been hiked to 45% from the earlier 33%. ALSO READ | India extends ban on international flights till July 31 To allow gradual movement of passenger traffic during the Covid-19 health crisis, Transport Bubble agreements have been signed with the United States, France and Germany. Air France and United Airlines of the US will operate a limited number of international flights under the air bubble arrangements with India. The country has also signed a travel bubble agreement with Kuwait to evacuate stranded passengers both to and from India. Further similar arrangements are likely to be put in place by the aviation ministry to ease passenger movements from different countries. On July 9, India had announced an air bubble with the United Arab Emirates that would be in place from July 12 to 26. A bilateral air bubble refers to a travel corridor between two countries that wish to reopen their borders and re-establish connections with each other. International flights to and from India have been suspended since March 23 as the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the world to nearly 185 countries. Limited domestic flights have since resumed on certain sectors from May 25. ALSO READ | France, US establish air bubbles for flights to India During the suspension of international flights due to the Covid-19 outbreak in India and other countries, more than 2,500 repatriation flights by foreign carriers to evacuate stranded nationals to and from India were approved by the government. Under the Centres massive Vande Bharat Mission, national carrier Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express have evacuated 2,67,436 stranded passengers and other flights have brought back 4,86,811 passengers between May 6 to July 30. Personnel of the Revenue Assets and Border Protection Unit of the National Security on Tuesday night arrested seven Nigerians who entered Ghana through an unapproved route near Aflao. Mr Robert Tetteyfio Adjase, national head of the unit, who disclosed this to the Ghanaian Times in Denu on Wednesday, said that the Nigerians contravened the closure of frontier at about 10pm that night. He said that when the unit got wind of plans by some people trying to enter the country illegally from Togo, the unit deployed personnel along the frontier. After the Nigerians crossed into the Ghana side of the border, the security personnel trailed them to the lorry station at Aflao where they boarded a Ho-bound commercial vehicle, Mr Adjase said. According to him, personnel of the unit used their duty vehicle to pursue the commercial vehicle and caught up with it at the Mile 48 Barrier in Ho. The Nigerians were then picked up and handed over to the police in Ho. When contacted in Ho, the acting Municipal Police Commander, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Alex Yeboah corroborated the story. He gave the names of the suspects as: Nwanku Mathew, 21; John Paul Achebe, 22; Dominic Sylvester 20 and Chukwubua Malachy, 27. The rest are Osinchi Kawase, 30; Destiny John 31 and Bishop Pascal, 37. ASP Yeboah said that the suspects who were placed in custody would later be handed over to the Ghana Immigration Service. 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. Featured Video Australia's COVID-19 crisis is intensifying, with a record 723 new infections reported in the state of Victoria in the past day. Thirteen people have died. Some internal borders in eastern Australia will again close in a bid to stop the spread of the virus. Wednesday was Australia's deadliest day of the pandemic so far. Victoria, the nation's second-most-populous state, recorded more than 720 new infections and 13 deaths in the past 24 hours. These are new daily records. "I am saddened to have to report that the total number of people who have died because of this global pandemic in Victoria is now 105," said Victoria state premier Daniel Andrews. "That is 13 additional fatalities: three men and three women in their 70s, three men and two women in their 80s, and two men in their 90s. We send our condolences, our best wishes, our thoughts and prayers to those families. This will be incredibly challenging." Mayor John Tory sees nothing unusual in the citys 10-year lease and extensive renovation of a Carlton St. site owned by parents of WE Charity founders Craig and Mark Kielburger. Tory told CBC Radios Metro Morning that theres always due diligence by city staff before acquiring use of sites such as 233 Carlton St. as a 24-hour drop-in centre for homeless women. He was reacting to city councils vote Wednesday directing staff to review how the lease deal happened and whether the city paid a fair and competitive price, amid concerns that lease and renovation costs facing the city far exceed the sites 2004 purchase price. Asking for the review, local Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam wrote: This matter is urgent because the real estate and financial matters of the WE Charity and ME to WE social enterprise are currently before the Ethics Committee in Ottawa and while there is controversy, it is important for the City of Toronto to demonstrate that any decisions made by staff through delegated authority were done appropriately through a transparent and accountable process. The four-storey building, owned by a numbered company that lists Fred and Theresa Kielburger as directors, was once used by their sons as headquarters for their previous Free the Children charity before they moved to a new site with WE Charity. Last year the City of Toronto leased the building for 10 years with an option to renew for another five, as a new home for the Adelaide Resource Centre, which previously operated out of a city building being repurposed for another shelter. The cost of the lease was, according to a city document, just over $6 million, with the city planning $3.7 million in renovations to convert an office setup for shelter uses, with a new elevator for accessibility requirements, kitchen, showers and a rooftop patio. Documents show the Kielburger parents company bought the site in 2004 for $1.47 million. My understanding, which is the key point in all of this, is the building was not available for sale our people inquired about whether we could buy the building, Tory, who was not involved in the lease negotiations, told CBC. Were looking right now at whether we can buy some of the hotels were using to help house homeless people, because its a better business deal for us to own the hotel and change it over to being some kind of a residence for people who need extra support, as opposed to renting it. My understanding is that (Carlton St.) building was not available for sale, so we didnt buy it, we rented it but we needed the space, and the renovations were needed to turn it into what we wanted, just as if somebody wanted to turn it back into an office building 10 years from now, theyd have to renovate it again. City staff were told to report to council at the Sept. 29-30 meeting on how the building came to city officials attention, any communications from WE to city decision-making officials, and if the lease price is comparable to others in the market. WE Charity and the Kielburgers other holdings have been under intense scrutiny since the minority Liberal government approved, and later scrapped, a contract for the charity to run a $544-million grant program for student volunteers. The brothers have ties to some high-profile Liberals including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and members of his extended family. Tory, meanwhile, was a witness at Craig Kielburgers 2016 wedding, has appeared at WE events and visited the brothers while on a trip to Kenya in 2008 while he was leader of the Ontario PC Party, news website Canadaland reported. Tory spokesperson Don Peat told the Star that the mayor paid his own way for the trip and has never been paid for appearing at any WE events. The mayor had absolutely no involvement in last years decision to relocate the drop-in service to 233 Carlton, Peat said. Those matters are dealt with entirely by city staff, along with the rest of the process, under the authorities delegated to them by city council to help address homelessness in Toronto. With files from Marco Chown Oved David Rider is the Stars City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering city hall and municipal politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider Flash Herman Cain, a former U.S. Republican presidential candidate, died at age 74 after battling the coronavirus, or COVID-19, a spokesperson announced on Thursday. "We knew when he was first hospitalized with COVID-19 that this was going to be a rough fight," Cain's website editor, Dan Calabrese, wrote in a post. Calabrese said there were hopeful indicators, referring to that doctors said less than a week ago that "they thought he would eventually recover." "We were relieved to be told that, and passed on the news via Herman's social media," the editor explained. "And yet we also felt real concern about the fact that he never quite seemed to get to the point where the doctors could advance him to the recovery phase." Cain, a stage 4 cancer survivor, was diagnosed with the coronavirus last month and admitted to a hospital in Atlanta, southeastern state of Georgia, earlier this month. "Although he was basically pretty healthy in recent years, he was still in a high-risk group because of his history with cancer," Calabrese said. A former businessman and chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Missouri, Cain unsuccessfully ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Last month, Cain, who had campaigned for U.S. President Donald Trump, tweeted a photograph of himself at the Tulsa, Oklahoma rally, showing him surrounded by other attendees, none of whom wore a mask. Several members of the staff who helped prepare the Trump rally, the first of its kind in more than three months during the pandemic, tested positive for the coronavirus, while a spokesperson said there is no way of knowing for sure how or where Cain contracted the disease. Trump tweeted his condolences for Cain and his family on Thursday. "Herman had an incredible career and was adored by everyone that ever met him, especially me," the president wrote. "He was a very special man, an American Patriot, and great friend." Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/30/2020 -- Latest Market intelligence report released by HTF MI with title "COVID-19 Outbreak-Global Domestic Courier, Express, and Parcel Industry Market Report-Development Trends, Threats, Opportunities and Competitive Landscape in 2020" is designed covering micro level of analysis by manufacturers and key business segments. The COVID-19 Outbreak-Global Domestic Courier, Express, and Parcel Market survey analysis offers energetic visions to conclude and study market size, market hopes, and competitive surroundings. The research is derived through primary and secondary statistics sources and it comprises both qualitative and quantitative detailing. Some of the key players profiled in the study are ParcelCompare, TNT, PFC, FedEx, DHL, International Courier, UPS, Parcel2Go, Correos Chile, TG Express, Allied Express, Aramex, CCNI, ParcelHero, A-1 Express & TG International. What's keeping ParcelCompare, TNT, PFC, FedEx, DHL, International Courier, UPS, Parcel2Go, Correos Chile, TG Express, Allied Express, Aramex, CCNI, ParcelHero, A-1 Express & TG International Ahead in the Market? Benchmark yourself with the strategic moves and findings recently released by HTF MI Get Free Sample Report + All Related Graphs & Charts @ : https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/2735038-covid-19-outbreak-global-domestic-courier-express-and-parcel-industry-market arket Overview of COVID-19 Outbreak-Global Domestic Courier, Express, and Parcel I you are involved in the COVID-19 Outbreak-Global Domestic Courier, Express, and Parcel industry or aim to be, then this study will provide you inclusive point of view. It's vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Applications [Consumer Goods, Healthcare, Food, Retailing & Others], Product Types [, Transportation, Warehousing, Value-added Services, Lead Logistics Provider Services/4PL & Others] and major players. If you have a different set of players/manufacturers according to geography or needs regional or country segmented reports we can provide customization according to your requirement. This study mainly helps understand which market segments or Region or Country they should focus in coming years to channelize their efforts and investments to maximize growth and profitability. The report presents the market competitive landscape and a consistent in depth analysis of the major vendor/key players in the market along with impact of economic slowdown due to COVID. Furthermore, the years considered for the study are as follows: Historical year 2014-2019 Base year 2019 Forecast period** 2020 to 2026 [** unless otherwise stated] Enquire for customization in Report @: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/2735038-covid-19-outbreak-global-domestic-courier-express-and-parcel-industry-market **Moreover, it will also include the opportunities available in micro markets for stakeholders to invest, detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product services of key players. The titled segments and sub-section of the market are illuminated below: The Study Explore the Product Types of COVID-19 Outbreak- Domestic Courier, Express, and Parcel Market: , Transportation, Warehousing, Value-added Services, Lead Logistics Provider Services/4PL & Others Key Applications/end-users of COVID-19 Outbreak-Global Domestic Courier, Express, and ParcelMarket: Consumer Goods, Healthcare, Food, Retailing & Others Top Players in the Market are: ParcelCompare, TNT, PFC, FedEx, DHL, International Courier, UPS, Parcel2Go, Correos Chile, TG Express, Allied Express, Aramex, CCNI, ParcelHero, A-1 Express & TG International Region Included are: North America (Covered in Chapter 7 and 14), United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe (Covered in Chapter 8 and 14), Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Others, Asia-Pacific (Covered in Chapter 9 and 14), China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, Southeast Asia, Others, Middle East and Africa (Covered in Chapter 10 and 14), Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Others, South America (Covered in Chapter 11 and 14), Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Chile & Others Extracts from Table of Contents (ToC) : Browse Complete Table of Contents (ToC) @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/2735038-covid-19-outbreak-global-domestic-courier-express-and-parcel-industry-market . COVID-19 Outbreak- Domestic Courier, Express, and Parcel Market Insights 3.1. Market Segmentation 3.2. Industry landscape, 2015 2026 3.2.1. COVID-19 impact on industry landscape 3.3. Industry ecosystem analysis 3.3.1. Raw material suppliers 3.3.2. Manufacturers 3.3.3. Distribution channel analysis 3.3.4. Vendor matrix 3.4. Technology landscape 3.5. Raw material analysis by Type [, Transportation, Warehousing, Value-added Services, Lead Logistics Provider Services/4PL & Others] 3.5.5. COVID-19 impact on raw material supply, by region 3.5.5.1. North America 3.5.5.2. Europe 3.5.5.3. Asia Pacific 3.5.5.4. LATAM 3.5.5.5. MEA 3.6. Regulatory landscape 3.7. Industry best practices & key buying criteria 3.8. Pricing analysis 3.9.1. Regional pricing 3.9.1.1. North America 3.9.1.2. Europe 3.9.1.3. Asia Pacific 3.9.1.4. Latin America 3.9.1.5. MEA 3.10 Cost structure analysis 3.10.1. COVID-19 impact on pricing 3.11. Industry impact forces 3.11.1. Growth drivers 3.11.2. Industry pitfalls & challenges 3.12. Innovation & sustainability 3.12.1. Future trends including COVID-19 impact 3.12.1.1. Production trends 3.12.1.2. Demand trends 3.13. Growth potential analysis 3.14. Porter's analysis 3.14.1. Supplier power 3.14.2. Buyer power 3.14.3. Threat of new entrants 3.14.4. Threat of substitutes 3.14.5. Industry rivalry 3.15. Competitive landscape 3.15.1. Company market share analysis, 2019 3.15.2. Strategy landscape 3.16. PESTEL analysis 3.17. .. Complete Purchase of Latest Version COVID-19 Outbreak-Global Domestic Courier, Express, and Parcel Market Study with COVID-19 Impact Analysis @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=2735038 Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like LATAM, North America, Nordics, Western Europe or Southeast Asia. WASHINGTON The Trump administration is trying again to find a way to resolve the cases of two British Islamic State detainees who are notorious for their roles in the torture and killing of Western hostages, and who have been held in indefinite wartime detention by the American military in Iraq since October, according to officials. One option under renewed consideration is for the Justice Department to drop its insistence that prosecutors be free to bring capital charges against the men, half of a cell of Britons called the Beatles by their captives because of their accents. Since the men were captured in early 2018, when Jeff Sessions was attorney general, the Justice Department has insisted that it be free to seek their execution. But at an interagency National Security Council meeting this week, Attorney General William P. Barr did not rule out dropping that stance, officials said. A chief obstacle to bringing the men to trial has been a need for evidence held by the British government. Britain has abolished the death penalty and a British court has blocked it from cooperating in capital charges. Litigation is slowly continuing, but assurances that American prosecutors would not seek the death penalty could swiftly make the evidence available. Neiman Marcus took a significant step forward toward its goal of having a reorganization plan confirmed by Sept. 15. On Thursday, the retailer told a Texas bankruptcy court that it tentatively resolved the long-running dispute with unsecured creditors over Mytheresa, the German luxury e-commerce site it acquired in 2014. Since before Neimans bankruptcy filing in May, and throughout the proceedings, the retailers transactions around 2018 involving its Mytheresa assets have been a source of controversy that had cast a shadow over how the retailer would reorganize. More from WWD At a roughly four-hour hearing to determine the retailers next steps as it marches toward a resolution of its Chapter 11 journey, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones accepted the settlement as it was proposed, with the understanding that some details were still being worked out. The settlement still requires final approval. On Thursday, Jones also signed off on Neimans disclosure statement related to its reorganization plan, which technically gives the retailer the green light to send its plan out to creditors to solicit their votes on the proposal. Neimans advisers have indicated they intend to start the solicitation process some time next week. Chad Husnick of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, who represents Neimans, told the court the retailer intends to move as quickly as possible to tie up loose ends and get to a consensus on a reorganization plan by its target dates. The company had entered into bankruptcy with the goal of having a reorganization plan confirmed within four months. The facts that we told you, your honor, on the very first days of these cases, havent really changed, he told the court. We told you that retailers in Chapter 11 are not a fine wine, they dont age well. And so we want to keep these cases on track. The proposed settlement terms are meant to address concerns raised by unsecured creditors by providing some $10 million to a pool of recoveries for general unsecured claims. In addition, Neiman Marcus Group Inc., the parent company controlled by its leveraged buyout sponsors Ares Management Corp. and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board which purchased the retailer for $6 billion in 2013 will put in 140 million shares of series B preferred stock in Mytheresa into the retailers bankruptcy estates, which would also go toward the recovery pool for general unsecured claims. Estimates of the value of those shares are still being determined. Story continues The settlement includes other terms, whose significance to creditors is still being hashed out. The dispute over Mytheresa had such a significant influence over Neimans plans to emerge from bankruptcy because it got to questions at the heart of every Chapter 11 what a bankrupt companys assets are truly worth, and how much of that value is actually available for creditors to recover. Unsecured creditors in the case have argued that the Mytheresa transactions before the bankruptcy had essentially moved a valuable Neimans asset out of its capital structure, preventing creditors from realizing any portion of that value. The conflict led to parallel investigations during the bankruptcy proceedings, conducted by the unsecured creditors committee, and by a disinterested manager that Neiman Marcus Group Ltd. LLC had designated in the case. According to a preliminary report by the creditors committee that was unsealed this month, a litigation expert hired by the committee found that Mytheresa was worth roughly $822 million at the time that it was transferred out of Neimans. The resolution of the dispute, which paves the way for a swift confirmation of Neimans plan, also bodes well for the retailers executives. On Thursday, its attorneys made the case that eight leaders on the management team including chief executive officer Geoffroy van Raemdonck; chief merchant officer Svetlana Todorovich, and chief operating officer Chris Sim should be approved to get a bonus packaging totaling potentially up to $10 million for meeting certain targets in the case, including the companys performance and its navigation of bankruptcy milestones. The U.S. Trustee in the case, Hector Duran, had opposed the motion, arguing that the retailer had not shown the bonuses were justified under the circumstances. Duran also highlighted bonuses that the top executives, including van Raemdonck, had already received shortly before the companys bankruptcy. In February alone, van Raemdonck received bonus payments totaling $4 million, according to court documents. But ultimately, Jones approved the motion Thursday evening, musing that it was a customary cost of business for a major company attempting to emerge from bankruptcy. As I look at this, no one can argue with the suggestion that you want the best talent that you can obtain, and talent has a price, Jones said at the hearing. It is a lot of money, but this is a big company, with a lot of complex issues and thousands of employees, he said. In what was a record-breaking year, almost 33 million travellers passed through Dublin Airport in 2019. The total for this year may be as low as 9 million, according to the DAA, the airport's operator. Pandemic or no, there will always be flyers who need to travel for work. A small number of holidaymakers are also taking advantage of rock-bottom prices or deciding to go on previously booked trips, despite the public health advice against non-essential travel. Read More There may also be a bump in passenger numbers following the publication of the Government's "green list": 15 countries and territories from which travellers will not be required to self-isolate on arrival in Ireland. It includes holiday hotspots such as Greece, Italy and Malta. Expand Close Advice: Professor Sam McConkey says the holiday philosophy of eat, drink and be merry is the biggest threat / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Advice: Professor Sam McConkey says the holiday philosophy of eat, drink and be merry is the biggest threat But what are the risks associated with flying? What would expose you most to the risk of contracting Covid-19: the journey or the destination? Airlines have been stressing the measures they have taken to protect their passengers. From mandatory wearing of masks to high-tech air filtration systems and enhanced cleaning procedures, they are eager to reassure wary would-be tourists that the risks associated with flying are low. In January, a husband and wife travelled on a flight from Guangzhou to Toronto and subsequently tested positive for Covid-19. The flight had 350 people on board and lasted for 15 hours. Yet public health officials say contact tracing found no further coronavirus cases among the other passengers, despite the man in question being symptomatic and coughing throughout the flight. This and many similar examples have led air travel experts to assert that there is little risk of widespread infection on an aeroplane. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the reasons for the apparently low rate of in-flight transmission are not known, "but could encompass a combination of the lack of face-to-face contact, and the physical barriers provided by seat backs, along with the characteristics of cabin air flow". On a flight from the UK to Vietnam in early March, however, one passenger may have infected 14 others, 12 of whom were sitting close by. This flight is the subject of an inquiry. Little wonder that the IATA says "the state of knowledge is changing rapidly". Planes may be full of recycled air, but that air passes through high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters, similar to those used in hospitals. These are capable of trapping 99.97pc of small airborne particles equivalent to the size of the coronavirus. Cabin air is fully replaced every three minutes; it also flows from ceiling to floor, further minimising particle spread. Health status declaration In response to a query from Review, Aer Lingus said, "the safety and well-being of our customers is our priority at all times". It is following the guidance provided by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, and the airline said it has introduced measures on all flights in order to mitigate the risk of transmission of Covid-19, such as the wearing of masks and face coverings, additional cleaning and social distancing at check in, boarding gate and when boarding and disembarking the aircraft. Ryanair has introduced similar measures, and now offers only a limited trolley service, accepts card payments only, and has made its in-flight magazine available only on its app. As in supermarkets and shops, social distancing is now a way of life at the airport, and indeed their cavernous nature lends itself to such measures. Hygiene is naturally a top priority, and Dublin and Cork Airports have almost 1,000 hand-sanitisation points between them, and have introduced electrostatic cleaning, which ensures surfaces are completely covered in disinfectant. They have also installed 720 plexiglass screens at "close contact points" throughout both airports. Although temperature screening is a common sight at some international airports, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, the evidence to date suggests that it is an expensive yet ineffective measure. Instead, flyers are encouraged to check their own temperature at home. Aer Lingus says passengers are required to complete a health status declaration before they travel confirming that they have not been diagnosed with Covid-19, that they have not experienced any symptoms and that they have not been in close contact with a person who has Covid-19 in the 14-day period prior to travel. Sam McConkey, associate professor and head of the department of international health and tropical medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, says the risks of flying can be "relatively well-managed". Read More "They're not huge to start with because you really are only on a plane for a little while - compared with being on holidays for two weeks, you are only on a plane for two or three hours," he tells Review. According to the professor, mingling with holidaymakers from countries with higher infection rates in the airport itself before you board is not as big a risk as some might think. "With a bit of hand gel, good ventilation and keeping two metres away from everybody, it's fine," he says. Indeed, the biggest problem isn't the airport or the plane, McConkey says; it's the act of travelling itself. "On holidays we eat, drink and be merry and we squash together with lots of other people, on Las Ramblas in Barcelona or in the bars of Corfu. Most holidays do involve social proximity to others - that's what they're about," he says. "If I went up with a hundred other people in a jet right now and flew around Dublin for four hours and then land again, we would all be fine, but if you go to Spain and hang out there for two weeks and come back, then we won't be fine." Someone who doesn't think we would be fine is Kingston Mills, professor of experimental immunology at Trinity College Dublin's school of biochemistry and immunology. He sees flying as a high-risk activity. Being stuck in a confined space for an extended period with tens of other people provides an ideal environment for virus transmission, he says. "On an aeroplane you are in close proximity to other people; in other everyday activities we go to great lengths to social distance but it goes out the window when we fly," he says. "There is nothing like the two-metre social distance possible, or even one metre." Mills also casts doubt on HEPA filters' ability to deal with the virus effectively. "It's supposed to take out pathogens like bacteria and supposed to take out viruses, but coronaviruses are quite small so it may not catch them all," he cautions. Mills agrees there is a paucity of hard evidence when it comes to aircraft transmission, but says it is simply "common sense". Yet McConkey believes that airlines, bruised and battered by the pandemic, are keen to protect themselves from further reputational damage. "The whole aviation industry is built around health and safety. They understand risk, they spend their whole lives dealing with it. All the airlines are concerned about their reputation and they have a lot of smart engineers there. They have applied themselves since this outbreak began and they've been working on how to keep people safe and improve airflow on an airplane and use filters etc." There may be technical solutions to make flying a safe activity but the risk begins to rise when you reach your destination, McConkey stresses. "You can go to Spain on a bicycle - the problem is what happens when you get there." A Sinn Fein senator has been forced to report online abuse to the gardai following a spate of homophobic and threatening messages. Fintan Warfield, who is a member of the LGBT+ community, has now locked all of his social media profiles following a fresh wave of abuse. Mr Warfield said Twitter was becoming the most homophobic and transphobic space in most LGBT+ peoples lives, and he would be contacting the social network which bases its European headquarters in Ireland. He said that abuse which started online has now started to spread to in-person abuse, leading to an incident near Leinster House this week. The 28 year old politician has been a prominent supporter of LGBT+ rights since he was first elected in 2016 and has also campaigned against conversion therapy. Mr Warfield has been repeatedly targeted by right-wing homophobic abuse over the course of his career. This week, more abuse appeared to follow a speech that Mr Warfield made in the Seanad about trans rights for teenagers. Anonymous abusers have targeted all of Mr Warfields social media profiles and also the profiles of those close to him. Messages seen by the Irish Independent included threats. In one post, a troll told Mr Warfield he would be removed, mark my words. Mr Warfield told the Irish Independent that he is now going to have to report some of the messages to the gardai. The senator has called on social networks like Twitter to take action against online abuse before theyre forced to through law. "Its become so toxic that Twitter is basically the most homophobic and transphobic space in most peoples lives, Mr Warfield said. The senator has been sent a number of tweets which conflate homosexuality with paedophilia, and has also had threatening comments left underneath Instagram pictures of him with some of his loved ones. Mr Warfield said that following some of the abuse this week, he was abused on the street while walking home from work. It became even more sinister and disturbing this week when I was walking home from work in Leinster House on Wednesday evening, someone said alright pervert to me, unprovoked. I didnt respond and just walked on. It just seemed too coincidental to hear that type of language on the street when online, words like degenerate or pervert were being directed at me, he told the Irish Independent. I didnt respond because these people are so disgruntled and harbour so much hate toward members of the LGBTQI communities that I could have been followed, physically attacked or the people closest to me put in danger. That might sound extreme but its only when a dramatic turn like that happens do people begin to sit up and think about what we need to do to address this. The abuse of Mr Warfield follows Roderic OGorman, the childrens minister, enduring what he described as a far-right social media pile-on by groups which misused the Green party politicians sexuality to spread misinformation about child protection issues. It followed similar abuse against Mr OGormans predecessor, Katherine Zappone, who was criticised by anonymous trolls for being a childrens minister who is a lesbian. The Andhra Pradesh government is gearing up to reopen schools in the state from September 5 - on the ocassion of Teachers' Day. Hoping that the Covid-19 situation would improve by then, Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy instructed officials to prepare for the reopening of schools, as well as for the launch of the YSR Vidhya Kanuka on the same day. Under the YSR Vidhya Kanuka, school students will be provided with a kit including a schoolbag, textbooks, notebooks, cloth for three sets of uniform, a pair of shoes, two pairs of socks and a belt. The Chief Minister has also proposed that face masks be included to the kits, and students be taught how to use them. The state government also plans to resume tourism from August 15 to boost revenue. Kailasagiri in Vishakhapatnam and Bhavani Islands on the Krishna River near Vijayawada will be among the tourism projects to reopen on August 15. State tourism minister Avanti Srinivas said that in order to overcome the losses to the sector due to the Covid-19 pandemic, sparsely occupied hostels will be used as quarantine facilities. To make tourism possible, the state government, public-private partnership and the Central government are required to step in. We have sought Rs 1,000 crore from the Centre for the same. This would include temple tourism for which plans have been prepared for Tirupati, Simhachalam, Dwaraka and tourism packages to Tirupati, Kanipakam and Sri Kalahasti would be resumed in August first week," the minister said. Srinivas also said that a new tourism policy was being drafted and will be released soon. Seals are thriving off the Northeast coast thanks to decades of protections, and that victory for wildlife has brought a consequence for humans more encounters with sharks. Seals are a favorite prey of large sharks such as the great white. The death this week of swimmer Julie Dimperio Holowach, who was killed by a great white off Harpswell, Maine, might have happened because the shark mistook her for a seal, authorities said. Swimmers off the New England states have learned to be more mindful in recent years due to a spate of sightings of great whites, the apex predator made famous in the movie "Jaws." A shark that killed a man off Cape Cod in 2018 was also believed to be a great white. That was the first fatal shark attack in Massachusetts in more than eight decades, while the death of Holowach on Monday was the first documented fatal shark attack in Maine history. FILE - In this Aug. 11, 2016, file photo, a great white shark tries to bite a fish head being trolled though the water as researchers chum the ocean looking for sharks (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam, File)AP "They're not vindictive or mad or angry or preferring human flesh. They just occasionally make a mistake. And it's tragic when they do," said Greg Skomal, a shark specialist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. "As we restore top predators, the potential for these interactions could increase." Incidents of shark bites remain vanishingly rare, especially in Northeastern waters. The International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida lists only 10 unprovoked shark attacks off New England, according to records that go back to 1837. The majority of documented shark attacks in the U.S. happen off Florida, and internationally, warm weather countries such as South Africa and Australia have higher totals than most. But shark bites are rare in those places, too. Australia has been the site of 652 unprovoked shark attacks according to records that go back to 1580, the International Shark Attack File reported. Shark bites in colder northern waters are not unheard of. A handful have been recorded off Russia, Finland and Washington state. And researchers are seeing more of the great whites off New England, said James Sulikowski, a researcher of Northeastern sharks who is located at Arizona State University. The greater number of sightings is "unequivocally" because of the resurgence of seals in New England, Sulikowski said. The seal comeback traces to the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which afforded seals a chance to repopulate after generations of human exploitation. Grey seals, once hunted with bounties and pushed close to the point of local extinction, are now common sights in coastal Cape Cod. Some people even feel the animals have come back to the point where they pose a nuisance, in part because they draw more sharks. A seal pokes his head out of the water in Casco Bay, Thursday, July 30, 2020, off Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)AP The sharks aren't looking for people, but they're a reason for swimmers to be cautious, Sulikowski said. "They're not looking for us. We're not on the menu," he said. "But as these predator prey relationships continue, and because they are so coastal, there's potential for interaction with humans to increase." In Maine, marine patrol officers are conducting searches for the presence of sharks in the aftermath of Holowachs death. The state is restricting swimming at some state parks. And it has sent a clear message to beachgoers if you see seals, stay away. A model of an FL-71 drone is seen on display at the Chinese Defense Information Equipment and Technology exhibition in Beijing on June 18, 2019. (Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images) DOJ Takes Action Against Researchers in Connection With Their China Work An American former professor was sentenced for concealing his participation in a Chinese state-run recruitment program, while a Chinese researcher pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from her employer in order to benefit China. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced details of two separate cases on July 30. Dr. James Patrick Lewis, a former West Virginia University (WVU) professor, was sentenced to three months in prison for federal program fraud, while Chen Li pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from the Nationwide Childrens Hospital Research Institute in Ohio, for the benefit of herself and the Chinese communist regime. According to the DOJ, she applied to multiple Chinese state-run talent plans. For years, Chinas central authorities and regional governments have rolled out talent recruitment programs, targeting promising overseas Chinese and foreigners in science and technology fields. Together, their efforts are aimed at allowing Beijing to make leapfrog progress in tech innovations, with the goal of overtaking the United States to become a high-tech powerhouse. The Thousand Talents Plan (TTP) has especially come under close scrutiny from U.S. officials in recent years, with several U.S.-based researchers being charged in the past year in connection with their participation. Rolled out by Beijing in 2008, TTP has recruited over 7,000 scientists and researchers from around the world as of 2017, according to a 2019 Senate report. Lewis Lewis, 54, a tenured physics professor at WVU from 2006 to August 2019, pleaded guilty to federal program fraud in March. Aside from his prison sentence, he was also fined $9,363 for the cost of his incarceration and ordered to pay $20,189 in restitution to WVU. According to prosecutors, Lewis signed an employment contract under TTP with Chinas state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences in July 2017 to become an academy professor. In return, Lewis needed to maintain an active research program in China, produce high-quality, peer-reviewed scientific papers, and provide training to academy students. Under the TTP contract, Lewis was promised benefits, including a living subsidy of one million yuan (about $143,000), a research subsidy of 4 million yuan (about $573,000), and a salary of 600,000 yuan (about $86,000), according to a Justice Department press release. With the intention of going to China to fulfill his work requirement under the contract, Lewis made fraudulent remarks to WVU in March 2018, saying he needed to be released of his teaching duties for the fall 2018 semester so he could become a primary caregiver for a child he and his wife were expecting three months later. WVU granted his request and Lewis ended up spending all but three weeks of the fall 2018 semester in China. During this time period, he continued to receive his full salary from WVU based on his parental work assignment, obtaining fraudulently $20,189 from the university, according to the DOJ. Chen Chen, 47, a former resident of Dublin, Ohio, worked at the Nationwide Childrens Hospital from 2008 until 2018. Her husband, Zhou Yu, worked at a different medical research lab at the same hospital from 2007 until 2017. Both Chen and Zhou, 50, have been charged with conspiring to steal at least five trade secrets related to exosome research from their employer, according to the DOJ. Exosomes are extracellular structures that can help cells communicate with each other, and are used to treat certain medical conditions. Recently, researchers in Taiwan successfully cultivated exosomes for regeneration therapy, according to the Central News Agency. Chen and Zhou were arrested in California in July 2019 and charged with stealing trade secrets and committing wire fraud. On July 30, Chen pleaded guilty to these charges. Chen betrayed her employer of 10 years by stealing trade secrets from this American institution and transferring them to China after receiving payments from the Chinese government, said U.S. Attorney David M. DeVillers in a DOJ press release. According to the DOJ, Chen admitted to starting a company in China, selling exosome isolation kits based on one of the trade secrets. Chen and Zhou established the Chinese company in 2015 without the hospitals knowledge. Additionally, she received benefits from Chinese government agencies including the State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs and National Natural Science Foundation of China. Prosecutors did not specify what those benefits were. Chen also applied to multiple Chinese government talent plans, a method used by China to transfer foreign research and technology to the Chinese government, according to the press release. As part of her plea agreement, Chen agreed to forfeit $1.4 million, 500,000 shares of common stocks in New Jersey-based Avalon GloboCare Corp., and 400 shares of common stocks in Avalons subsidiary GenExosome Technologies. Prosecutors allege that Zhou and Chen co-founded GenExosome, which sold a product that was developed from a trade secret at a Nationwide Childrens research lab. According to a report by Columbus Business First, the U.S. subsidiary was created to acquire the Chinese company the couple set up, called Beijing GenExosome. Zhou was named co-CEO of the U.S. subsidiary in 2017. In August 2019, about a month after he was indicted, Zhou was fired from the company. Political protest is a sacred rite of passage for the young. In LADY CHEVY (Pegasus Crime, 296 pp., $25.95), John Woods delivers a righteous cause to a high school senior named Amy Wirkner, whose family lives in Barnesville, a bucolic town in the Ohio Valley thats being chewed up by fracking and strip mining. The fracking rig is an industrial spire at the back of our property line, about a quarter mile from our trailer, Amy tells us. At night, its 20-foot flame enchants the orange horizon, a fires dance, a hellish light that is no light. The land still belongs to the family, but sometimes they can set their water on fire and, she dispassionately adds, Soon after the towers came, my baby brother was born deformed. Amy does what she must to survive. Her strength comes from the same place where she finds the grit to shrug off the teasing she gets because I have a wide backside. But even as she flips off her tormentors, on the inside, deep down, a dark red ball of anger keeps me warm. Then, along with a misfit friend, Paul McCormick, Amy commits an act of industrial terrorism that leaves a man dead, jeopardizing her plans for college and maybe the rest of her life. Despite the crime, Woods makes Amy so sympathetic, her life so bleak and her options so limited that she becomes a paradigm for the entire valley, robbed of its youth and denied its future. Shes quite a remarkable character. The event attracted over 5,000 viewers to its online conference BIO Asia-Taiwan 2020 International Conference and Exhibition, the world's first combined onsite plus online biotechnology conference, closed on July 26. Held in Taipei, from July 22 to 26, the event attracted over 5,000 viewers to its online conference, of which foreign participants accounted for 30 percent. Utilizing the BIO One-on-One Partnering platform, over 6,000 requests were made over the course of the event's five days. With this new format, members of Taiwan's burgeoning biotechnology industry were able to successfully step out from the shadow of the global pandemic and develop a new wave of business opportunities with the world's biomedical community. "From the perspective of local and international participation, holding this year's event in onsite and online format was the right decision," said Johnsee Lee, chairman of the BIO Asia-Taiwan 2020 Organizing Committee. He said that although the pandemic meant that visitors from overseas could not join in in person, the online exhibitions, forums, company presentations, business matchmaking, and other online attractions allowed for smooth and easy interaction between local and international participants, encouraging the cooperation, networking and fundraising so essential for this industry. WASHINGTON, July 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump raised the possibility on Thursday of delaying the country's presidential election in November, alleging that "universal mail-in voting" will make the 2020 election "the most inaccurate and fraudulent" in history. "It will be a great embarrassment to the USA," he continued. "Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" The tweet, released on the same day when the Commerce Department reported a 32.9-percent collapse of the U.S. economy in the second quarter, has been immediately questioned and drawn bipartisan pushback. U.S. Senator Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico, tweeted that there is no way Trump can delay the election and that he was trying to distract the public from his handling of the pandemic, while U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, told reporters on Capitol Hill that he does not think that is a particularly good idea. According to the U.S. Constitution, Congress "may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day of which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States." Since 1845, the U.S. Congress has required the appointment of presidential electors to take place on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which is Nov. 3 this year. Trump's tweet on Thursday was his latest allegation that mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraud, as many states have expanded access to mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 4.4 million people in the United States and killed 150,000 of them. National polls have shown that Trump is falling behind his Democratic opponent, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in the 2020 race. According to the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Biden leads Trump 50.1 percent to 41.9 percent as of Thursday. Polls in key battlegrounds, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Arizona, also showed that Biden is ahead of Trump by at least several points. Trump has repeatedly called polls showing him trailing Biden fake. The parents of slain soldier Vanessa Guillen met with President Donald Trump on Thursday and pleaded justice for their daughter. Trump then vowed to help the 20-year-old's parents find justice. Speaking through an interpreter at the White House, Pfc. Vanessa's mother, Gloria Guillen, tearfully pleaded for justice for her daughter, who was brutally murdered in Fort Hood last April. Gloria asked Trump to help them investigate the death of her daughter, who was reportedly battered to death using a hammer in an armory room on the Texas military base, where she was assigned. Her family said Vanessa was supposed to file a sexual harassment report against her fellow soldier, according to a CNN News report. Gloria told Trump that she wanted to know, who was really responsible for her daugther's death. She also said her daughter died in service of her country and at the hand of people in the military. Vanessa's family asked reforms within the rank. For his part, Trump said Vanessa's death hit him "very hard." Trump described the soldier as a "spectacular person, respected and loved by everybody, including in the military." Trump told Gloria, her husband, and their two other daughters that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Justice Department "are now involved" in the investigation. He also noted that people at the Fort Hood are also "very much involved" in the probe. Trump promised to look into the death of Vanessa. "You have our support, and we're working on it already, as you know, and we won't stop, and hopefully something very positive will come out in honor of your sister," the president said. Meanwhile, Family attorney Natalie Khawam questioned how no one heard Vanessa screaming and how no one saw her blood. She also said the killer used a machete to cut her up and even tried to burn her body. The lawyer added that it reminded her of ISIS and how they brutally killed American soldiers. During the meeting, Trump was asked by a reporter on what he can particularly do to help the grieving family of Vanessa. He said he would shoulder Vanessa's funeral expenses just like what he did to other soldiers. "I don't even know if you need help, maybe you don't need help from a financial standpoint. I have no idea. I just think it's a horrific thing that happened and if you did need help, I'll be there to help you," the president said. Vanessa's family has declined to have a military funeral. They said that right now, they are just waiting for Vanessa's remains. Trump then promised to speed up the travel of the soldier's remains that were found on July 2 following her disappearance in April from Fort Hood. The family has also asked Trump to ask support for the #IAmVanessaGuillen bill that calls all active-duty service members to file sexual harassment claims through an independent army. According to The New York Post report, the U.S. Army said one of the suspects has committed suicide by shooting himself with a pistol when police confronted him near the Texas base. On Thursday, the Army has released the names of five civilians, who will review the command and climate culture at Fort Hood for possible abuse in any form. While the majority of us are sent to have a much more casual and low-key summer than we might ordinarily be used to, that doesn't mean that we don't deserve to pamper our socks off while spending time at home. And thankfully there are a host of brand-spanking new beauty products on the shelves - and soon to hit them - to help you perfect your DIY pamper session, whether that involves a luxurious facial, or a full face of glam. Here, FEMAIL rounds up the most exciting and interesting beauty products that have been released in recent weeks, as well as a few sneak peeks of launches that are due to debut in the near future. MAKEUP Perfect for summer: Huda Beauty is set to release a Summer Love Kit ($39) on August 11, which will include a pastel eyeshadow palette, mini liquid lipstick and a mini Kayali fragrance Cheeky! Hourglass Ambient Lighting Infinity Powder (left, $50) and Trinny London Golden Glow Bronzer in Gaia (right, $33) are both brilliant options to enhance your summer glow Fruity: The Creme Shop Go Bananas! Baba Face Powder ($14) will brighten and correct your complexion, while also setting your makeup Complexion perfecters: Treat your skin with the It Cosmetics Your Skin But Better Foundation + Skincare (left, $39.50) and then set your makeup firmly in place with the Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Setting Spray (right, $35) Pucker up: The Roen Kiss My Liquid Lip Balm ($26) will add the perfect slick of color to your lips, without feeling sticky or drying Makeup marvels: Celebrity beauty guru Patrick Starr launched his debut brand One/Size this month, releasing a stunning Visionary Eyeshadow Palette (left, $42) as one of the first products. Meanwhile L'Oreal unveiled a Gold Mirage collection that is perfect for the summer months, and includes a beautiful shimmery Shine Mirage Eye Shadow (right, $12.99) Beauty bag staples: Thrive Causemetics is aiming to enhance your summer glow with the Brilliant Face Brightener Illuminating Primer (left, $35) while Giorgio Armani's Neo Nude Foundation (center, $40) will provide a lightweight coverage that will give a brightening boost to even the most tired looking skin. The final touch for a no-makeup, makeup look? The perfect mascara - and the Pat McGrath Labs Dark Star Volumizing Mascara (right, $30) is our top summer pick Get 'em while they're hot! Clean beauty company Tower 28 launched the perfect on-the-go summer staples kit in the form of its Magic Hour and Chill Lip + Cheek Balm and Gloss Duo Set (left, $22) while Maybelline's Color Strike Cream-to-Powder Eye Shadow Pen (right, $8.99) is the ideal swipe-and-go situation to add some color to a simple summer look So juicy: Nothing says summer like some freshly-cut watermelon - and this Lanolips Lip Water in Watermelon ($17) will leave you with that refreshing warm weather feeling all day long SKINCARE Care for your skin: Mutha's Face Oil (left, $110) has been formulated with 22 nutrients, including antioxidants and omega fatty acids that will help to perfect your skin, even when it's been scorched by the sun. If you're aiming to go bare-faced this summer and want to refine those pores, look no further than the Serumkind Yellomello Drop (right, $46) It's here! After weeks of anticipation, Rihanna finally dropped her three-piece Fenty Skin collection today. The range includes the $25 Total Cleans'r Remove It All Cleanser ($25), the Hydra Vizor Invisible Moisturizer Broad Spectrum SPF 30 Sunscreen ($35) and the Fat Water Pore-Refining Toner Serum ($28) Hydration nation: Give your skin a much-needed dose of moisture with the M-61 Hydraboost Collagen+Peptide Water Cream (left, $74) - then refresh your complexion with the Drunk Elephant E-Rase Milki Micellar Water (right, $28) Take a swipe! Patrick Starr's new One/Size collection also features skincare launches - including the Go Off Juciest Makeup Remover Wipes ($15) which are far from your average face wipes, having been formulated to take off even the heaviest of cosmetics without damaging or drying the skin Banish blemishes: Tackle any oversized pores and breakouts with the Peace Out Acne Serum ($34) which contains high-potency salicylic acid to prevent acne and blackheads Cool! After treating yourself to some frozen sorbet to cool down, allow your skin to indulge in the same refreshing feeling with the Glow Recipe Papaya Sorbet Enzyme Cleansing Balm ($32) Two in one: The Bliss Clear Genius Clarifying Toner + Serum (left, $12.99) is a two-in-one, budget-friendly marvel that will help to fight acne while also soothing the skin. Then there's the Peach & Lily Skin Shield Blurring Primer (right, $34) which smooths the complexion while also protecting it from 'environmental stressors' like pollution and makeup Anti-aging: Not only is the marble cap of this new Erno Laszlo Firming Cream ($128) unbelievably pleasing, the product underneath it is also a must-have thanks to its incredibly hydrating, yet lightweight, formula that can be used both in the morning and at night Perfect that pout: Patrick Ta, Gigi Hadid's go-to makeup artist, is here to smooth and plump your pout with his Major Glow Softening Lip Masque ($22) which will out-shine any lip gloss in your stash. Meanwhile, the wildly-popular Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask ($22) will soon be available in a new Gummy Bear scent that is sure to brighten even the dreariest of evenings Glow from the inside out: The Reign Together Confidence Facial Serum ($95) contains a host of incredible ingredients to give your skin an overall boost, including bakuchiol, a natural alternative to retinol, and broad spectrum hemp oil to calm inflammation Go for glow: If you're able to take a road trip this summer, don't forget to pack the Dr Barbara Sturm The Glow Kit ($210) which contains everything you need to boost your natural radiance Refresh and renew: If your face is feeling a bit dry and unloved this summer, you're not alone - but there are several superbly moisturizing products new to the market that will help to bring some hydration back to that complexion. For those in need of an antioxidant-rich formula, look no further than the Doctor Babor Cleanformance Renewal Overnight Mask (left, $39.95), while anyone eager to hydrate while avoiding blemishes should turn to the Starface Moisture on Mars (right, $18) BODY Beach bum: Keep your skin feeling silky smooth with the Sol de Janeiro Bum Bum Body Scrub ($42), which contains crushed cupuacu seeds and sugar crystals to exfoliate skin without leaving it dry and itchy Sweet scents: The Bath & Body Works Sunset Glow Diamond Shimmer Mist (left, $15.50) is the perfect post-beach body spray to refresh you after a day lying in the sun. Then, once you're home and showered, treat your skin to the Crabtree & Evelyn Evelyn Rose Lustrous Body Oil (right, $35) which will make you feel like you've just enjoyed a spa session Keep it clean! Everyone should have hand sanitizer with them these days - but rather than opting for the most basic, why not jazz things up with glitter? Enter the Poo-Pourri Hand Sanitizer Sparkle Bundle ($14.85) Fabulous fragrance: Diptyque has put several of its most beloved scents in travel size, including Do Son which now comes as a Travel Spray (left, $115). If you're looking for something new however, then why not try the Giorgio Armani My Way, which is launching on August 10 (right, $126) DIY nail treatment: If you don't feel entirely safe going to a nail salon - or if those nearest to you remain closed - then consider turning to an at-home manicure using the Tweezerman x Tom Bachik: The Expert Manicure Set ($55) which contains everything you need to get those tips looking tip top Don't forget! Speaking of manicures, the Nails Inc Plant Power Nail Polish Duo ($15) is an essential for ensuring strong and healthy nails no matter where you're getting your manicure Decadent: If you're spending time in the sun, it's highly likely that your skin feels a little bit crispy, so why not treat it to some seriously decadent care in the form of the Beauty Pie Soul Providers Relaxing Bath and Shower Oil (left, $50) and the wonderfully luxurious Augustinus Bader The Body Oil (right, $95) Bye bye backne: Struggling with pimples on your body? This Carbon Theory Charcoal & Tea Tree Oil Breakout Control Exfoliating Body Bar ($12.49) - which is due to be released on August 15 - will have them taken care of in no time Genius! Hand soap is a must-have home item, but going through all of those plastic bottles isn't exactly environmentally-friendly. Enter Gelo, which offers Refillable Hand Soap Starter Kits ($15) that come complete with refill pods to put in your original bottle so you never need more than one plastic container Something special: Hand washing and sanitizing can take a serious toll on your skin - but the Retrouve Dermal Defense Hand Cream (left, $55) will work wonders when it comes to keeping your hands smooth and soft. And if you're struggling to deal with the stress of the pandemic, soothe your soul (and your body) with the 111Skin The Performance Oil (right, $190) Speaking of stress... After you have cared for your body, take some time to calm your mind by lighting one of the Chiji Crystal Energy Candles ($39.99 each) Filled with pride: Boy Smells' Bundle of Pride ($184) candle collection not only looks wonderfully bright and colorful, it also serves a very good cause; for every bundle sold, the brand will donate $20.25 to the Trevor Project Smells like sunshine: It would be amazing to be at the beach every day, but unfortunately that just isn't possible for all of us. But with the Otherland The Beach Club Collection in Freshwater Pearl ($36), your home will smell like summer days spent in the sunshine and immediately transport you to the ocean For the girls and the guys! We all need deodorant, especially in summer - and these two new launches are the perfect way to jazz up a somewhat mundane aspect of your daily beauty routine: Necessaire The Deodorant in Sandalwood (left, $20), Bravo Sierra Deodorant Body Spray (right, $11) HAIR Refresher course: We all sweat in summer, it's unavoidable! But there's no need for your hair to lose its fresh scent - especially when you have the Raincry Advanced Hair Mist ($53 each) on hand to give your tresses a fragrant boost Take it easy: Blonde babes looking to keep their hair bright and vibrant during the summer need to pick up the Sun Bum Lighten & Tone Set (left, $18.99), while everyone - no matter what their hair color - should have the Biolage Advanced Recovery Deep Treatment Pack (right, $15.99) to treat their tresses Your spray or the highway: The Playa New Day Mist 3-in-1 Styler Refresh (left, $24) is the perfect on-the-go solution for unruly tresses, helping to tame hair without the use of a hot tool. However if you want to add some texture to your locks, then look no further than the Drybar Seashore Spritzer (center, $26), which gives you perfect beach waves without the use of any salt. Then, at the end of the day, care for those strands with the Pureology Hydrate Soft (right, $38), a soothing and smoothing treatment that will transform your locks Good for you: The Alterna My Hair My Canvas Me Time Shampoo and Conditioner ($28 each) helps to restore your hair to its natural beauty, thanks to its antioxidant-rich formula that will counteract any stress from environmental exposure Odessa Police Department A Kermit man is being held at Ector County jail on an arson charge in connection with a fire on June 21 at Pilot Travel Center at 4200 West Highway 302 in Odessa, according to a press release from the citys spokeswoman. Ryan Lara is being held on a $25,000 bond for the second-degree felony. In partnership with Odessa Crime Stoppers, fire investigators positively identified the suspect. Lara surrendered on Thursday, according to the release. (Newser) That massive Twitter hack earlier this month that involved some of the site's biggest names? The alleged mastermind is all of 17 years old, reports WFLA. The Tampa Bay Times reports that Graham Ivan Clark was arrested Friday at his apartment in Tampa. Hes a 17-year-old kid who apparently just graduated high school, says State Attorney Andrew Warren. But make no mistake, this was not an ordinary 17-year-old. This was a highly sophisticated attack on a magnitude not seen before. The hacker gained control of the feeds of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and others and tried to dupe people into sending money in the form of Bitcoin as part of a scam. Authorities say it earned Clark more than $100,000 in a single day. story continues below Clark faces 30 felony charges, including organized fraud, communications fraud, fraudulent use of personal information with over $100,000 or 30 or more victims, fraudulent use of personal information, and access to computer or electronic device without authority. This defendant lives here in Tampa, he committed the crime here, and hell be prosecuted here, Warren said, per the AP. While authorities described Clark as the mastermind, two other suspects have been identified as 22-year-old Nima Fazeli of Orlando, Florida, and 19-year-old Mason Sheppard of the UK. (Read more Twitter stories.) MINNEAPOLIS, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is being released by the Distribution Agent for the SEC v. Satyam Fair Fund Established by the Securities & Exchange Commission regarding Securities and Exchange Commission v. Satyam Computer Services Limited d/b/a Mahindra Satyam, Case No. 1:11-cv-00672-ESH. On April 5, 2011, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC" or "Commission") filed the settled, civil action against defendant Satyam Computer Services Limited d/b/a Mahindra Satyam ("Satyam"), an Indian company with depository shares trading on the New York Stock Exchange, alleging violations of the anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws. According to the Complaint, from at least 2003 through September 2008, Satyam deceived investors by falsifying the company's revenue, income, earnings per share, and interest bearing deposits. If a person or entity purchased or otherwise acquired the American Depositary Shares ("ADSs") of Satyam Computer Service Ltd. ("Satyam") traded on the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE"), ticker symbol:NYSE: SAYCY.PK during the Relevant Period (April 1, 2003 through January 6, 2009), they may be eligible to share in the distribution of the $16,000,000 Fair Fund. Who is Eligible to Participate in the Fair Fund All persons or entities that purchased or otherwise acquired Satyam ADSs traded on the NYSE, ticker symbol:NYSE: SAYCY.PK during the Relevant Period and who sustained a loss. How to Participate If a person or entity has already submitted a claim form in the In re Satyam Computer Services Ltd. Securities Litigation, No. 09-MD-2027-JPO (S.D.N.Y.) ("Class Action") and their claim was approved, THEY DO NOT need to complete another Claim Form. Instead, they must complete and submit a Release Form. If they had an approved Class Action claim and they have not received a Release Form yet, they should contact the Distribution Agent by calling 1-866-903-0634 or by sending an email to [email protected]. Please note, the Class Action Class Period, January 6, 2004 through January 6, 2009, inclusive, was shorter than the Relevant Period in this action, which is April 1, 2003 through January 6, 2009. If persons or entities have transactions that occurred from April 1, 2003 through January 5, 2004, they must provide that information on the Release Form. However, if their Class Action claim was DENIED, or they did not submit a Class Action claim, they must complete and submit the full Claim Form. To qualify for a Distribution Payment, persons or entities must file a signed Claim Form or Release Form with the Distribution Agent postmarked on or before the Claims Bar Date, November 14, 2020. If they require additional information or Claim Forms, they may obtain them by visiting the website at www.SECSatyamFairFund.com, by calling 1-866-903-0634, sending an email to [email protected], or writing to: SEC v. Satyam Fair Fund, c/o Rust Consulting, Inc., Distribution Agent - 5405, P.O. Box 62, Minneapolis, MN 55440-0062. SOURCE U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Pregnancy hasn't stopped Dani Dyer catching some rays. Having announced she was expecting her first child with beau Sammy Kimmence on Tuesday, Dani, 23, snapped a selfie while basking in the sunshine on a lounger on Friday. But the reality star - who made her name on Love Island, which saw her spend weeks frolicking in the hot sun - revealed she can't take the heat like she used to. Soaking it up: Pregnancy hasn't stopped Dani Dyer catching some rays, having announced she was expecting her first child with beau Sammy Kimmence on Tuesday, the reality star, 23, snapped a selfie while basking in the sunshine on a lounger on Friday Posing in a tiny pink two-piece with a frill detailing, Dani captioned the snap: 'Can literally sit in the sun for 5 minutes before I'm back indoors again! 'The heat doesn't make me feel good like it used to!' She shielded her eyes from the beating British sunshine in the image, but was sure to pout her glossy lips for the selfie. She showed off her bump with pride as she tanned under the rays. Secret: Dani has also revealed she won't find out the gender of her child ahead of the birth She wore her glossy golden locks around her bare shoulders and she reclined on the towel at home in Essex. Dani has also revealed she won't find out the gender of her child ahead of the birth. She shared with her followers a snap of a cute purchase she has made - a baby dressing gown. Expecting! Dani showed off her growing baby bump for the first time in a stunning Instagram snap earlier this week Blooming: The former Love Island winner, who revealed she was expecting a baby on Tuesday, looked sensational as she posed in front of a flower wall Notably, the colour is white - keeping it gender neutral. Explaining this, she penned: 'I'm not finding out what I'm having so ordered the white!' She completed this with a string of pink and blue heart emojis. Dani had not debuted her bump until she proudly showed it off in a Instagram snap on Wednesday. The former Love Island winner looked incredible as she beamed at the camera and posed with one hand on her hip. Unexpected: Dani said she was 'so excited' and 'so lucky and grateful' in her announcement post Dani cut a fashionable figure in a tight sleeveless dress which perfectly highlighted her blossoming stomach. She made her shock pregnancy announcement to Instagram on Tuesday afternoon, just three months after the on-off couple rekindled their relationship. Dani and Sammy, 23, arrived back home after a celebratory lunch following their pregnancy post, which saw them hold an image of their ultrasound scan. The mother-to-be donned a face mask and covered up her bump in a floaty blue broderie anglaise top and white denim shorts. Sammy opted for a white Valentino T-shirt and jeans. Surprise: Dani told fans her pregnancy 'still doesn't feel real' as she thanked them for their well-wishes The couple had headed out for a burger and chips to celebrate their announcement, with Dani saying she was looking forward to parenthood with Sammy and felt 'excited, lucky and grateful' ahead of becoming a mother. She wrote: 'Little bubba can't believe you are going to be ours. Me and Sammy are so excited to start this next chapter in our lives, feel so lucky and grateful..' Confirming the news to his own followers, Sammy added: 'To say I'm grateful is an understatement. 'Can't wait to start my perfect little family with you... baby Kimmence due 2021.....time to hang my boots up from vine FC.' Congrats: Love Island star Amber Davies (L) and actress pal Daisy Simcox (R) also offered their best wishes to the couple The next chapter: Sharing an image of her ultrasound scan, Dani, admitted felt 'excited, lucky and grateful' ahead of becoming a mother The news comes just three months after Dani and Sammy rekindled their relationship following a brief, four week separation. The TV personality ended the couple's 10-month romance amid claims her boyfriend's court case for scamming two elderly men out of 34,000 had put 'a strain on their relationship'. Sammy was accused of posing as a financial investor and duping the men - aged 90 and 80 - out of thousands by running 'S&S Trading Ltd' for two and a half years, which he denied. His victims, Peter Martin and Peter Haynes, were said to have been clients at a legitimate investment company where he previously worked. So pleased: Friends were quick to congratulate Dani and Sammy following Tuesday's announcement The couple - who had dated prior to Dani's Love Island stint - grew close during lockdown after Sammy 'begged' the reality star to spend time with him. A source told The Sun: 'Dani and Sammy's split was a shock but she felt the trust had gone and that he was bringing her down. Sammy wasn't going to let her walk out of his life without a fight and begged her to spend some time with him. 'Since going into lockdown, Sammy has been pulling out all the stops to make Dani give their relationship a second chance.' The insider added: 'Dani wanted to know Sammy was serious about giving their relationship another chance and he's pleaded with her to stick with him. They were having blazing rows before they split up but now it's all sweetness and light again.' In January, Dani's ex-boyfriend and fellow Love Island winner Jack Fincham, 29, announced the shock birth of his own baby, daughter Blossom, nine months after the couple announced their split. Proud dad: In January, Dani's ex and Love Island winner Jack Fincham announced the shock birth of his own daughter Blossom, nine months after the couple announced their separation The couple won the ITV2 reality show together in the summer of 2018 and dated for around a year. Jack described the arrival as the 'best thing to ever happen to him' as he shared the sweet news. He later revealed his daughter's mother was childhood friend Casey Ranger, an NHS health compliance officer. In February, when asked when his ex girlfriend, Dani, found out the news, he told Loose Women: 'When everyone else did. It was something we [me and Casey] wanted to keep to ourselves. In the end, I was so excited and I couldn't wait to tell everyone.' Covid-19 is now mutating into a global education emergency. Millions of children, especially the poorest and young girls, stand to lose the learning opportunities that could transform their lives. Kevin Watkins is CEO of Save the Children UK. The beautiful thing about learning, the great blues guitarist B.B. King once wrote, is that no one can take it away from you. Born and raised in poverty, King understood the value of education as a force for change. If only political leaders responding to the Covid-19 pandemic had an ounce of his insight. Covid-19 is now mutating into a global education emergency. Millions of children, especially the poorest and young girls, stand to lose the learning opportunities that could transform their lives. Because education is so closely tied to future prosperity, job creation, and improved health, a setback on this scale would undermine countries progress, reinforcing already extreme inequalities. Yet this emergency has yet to register on the pandemic response agenda. Lockdowns have shut more than 1 billion children out of school. For an estimated 500 million, that means receiving no education at all. A Save the Children survey in India found that two-thirds of children stopped all educational activity during lockdown. The danger now is that a perfect storm of lost schooling, increased child poverty, and deep budget cuts will lead to unprecedented reversals in education. This is an emergency layered on a pre-existing crisis. Even before the pandemic, 258 million children were out of school, and progress toward universal education had stalled. Now, increased child poverty alone could result in ten million children not returning to school. Many of these children risk being forced into child labor or early marriage (in the case of adolescent girls). Meanwhile, already abysmal pre-pandemic learning levels, which left half of all children in developing countries unable to read a simple sentence by the end of primary school, are set to worsen. Pathbreaking research on the impact of the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, Pakistan captures the risk to learning. Schools were closed for three months. When they reopened, attendance quickly recovered. But four years later, children aged between three and 15 who lived closest to the fault line had lost the equivalent of 1.5 years of learning. Imagining that outcome on a global scale gives a sense of what is at stake. Education empowers people, reduces poverty, and improves health, and the human capital that it generates shapes the destiny of countries. Lost education will erode that capital, effectively placing the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals beyond reach. Governments should now be investing to prevent that outcome. Unfortunately, education budgets are being hollowed out by recession and the diversion of public spending and international aid to health care and economic recovery. As a result, governments in low- and middle-income countries could end up spending $77 billion less than planned on education over the next 18 months. So, what can be done to avert disaster? In its new global Save Our Education campaign, Save the Children has set out a three-part agenda for recovery. The first priority is to keep learning alive during lockdowns. Governments should do all they can to reach children through radio, TV, and remote-learning initiatives. Countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda, and Burkina Faso have developed ambitious national distance-learning programs. They and others need more donor support to implement them at scale. Second, the pandemic creates an opportunity to address the wider learning crisis. Too many children are being taught at the wrong level, owing to schools rigid application of poorly designed curricula. Every child returning to school should undergo a learning assessment aimed at identifying those in need of support. Remedial teaching programs such as those pioneered by organizations like BRAC and Pratham can then prevent these children from falling further behind, thereby reducing the risk of future dropout. Third, increased international financing is critical. Most of the worlds poorest countries, especially in Africa, entered the economic downturn with limited fiscal space. That room for maneuver is now shrinking further as recession bites and external-debt problems intensify. Rich-country governments have responded to the Covid-19 crisis by tearing up their fiscal and monetary policy rulebooks and underwriting ambitious national recovery plans. They should be equally bold in supporting education in developing countries. More effective leveraging of multilateral development bank balance sheets is an obvious starting place. The Education Commission has advocated establishing an International Finance Facility for Education to provide loan guarantees, thus enabling the World Bank and other institutions to borrow cheaply on international markets and lend the funds to developing countries. Every $1 of guarantees under this scheme could unlock $4 of financing for education. This approach, which would include rigorous debt-sustainability evaluations of recipient countries, could mobilize resources on a scale commensurate with the crisis. Aid donors and the World Bank should support it. To its credit, the World Bank is front-loading resources already allocated to the International Development Association, its concessional lending arm. But an unprecedented crisis surely demands more than that. The World Bank should establish a supplementary IDA budget of at least $35 billion and step up its support for education. Debt relief is another potential source of financing. The G-20s Debt Service Suspension Initiative for IDA members (the worlds 73 poorest countries) is a small step in the right direction. Unfortunately, private and Chinese creditors, which account for over half of these countries debt-service payments (about $25 billion this year) have shown scant interest in participating. As a result, countries like Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Ghana are currently spending two or three times more on debt service than they do on primary education. In effect, countries are meeting short-term debt payments by eroding long-term human capital. Allowing the claims of private creditors to rob children of their right to an education is morally indefensible and economically ruinous. That is why Save the Children has proposed a mechanism through which debt obligations can be converted into investments in children. We can measure the health impact of Covid-19 on adults by tracking infection rates and deaths, and we can gauge its economic effects in terms of lost GDP, higher unemployment, and rising public debt. The education emergency is less visible to policymakers. But it will leave millions of the worlds poorest children carrying the scars of diminished opportunity for the rest of their lives. We can and must protect their future. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2019. The views and opinions expressed in this opinion section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial positions of Caixin Media. If you would like to write an opinion for Caixin Global, please send your ideas or finished opinions to our email: opinionen@caixin.com PALO ALTO, Calif., July 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Hired announced a partnership with Fiddler to increase transparency and mitigate bias in its tech talent marketplace, which uses its proprietary AI Intelligent Job Matching technology to match candidates with relevant jobs at the world's most innovative companies. All of Hired's AI was built in-house, and the company is layering Fiddler's Explainable AI Platform on top of its proprietary models to generate deeper insights into how its algorithms make decisions. "At Hired, our mission is to match people with a job they love, and doing that at scale requires advanced technology like AI. Fiddler helps enhance our understanding of the AI algorithms at the heart of this candidate matching process by comparing these insights and explanations with our internally developed solutions to empower our data science and curation teams," said Mehul Patel, CEO of Hired. "With Explainability, our team can build trust with our algorithms and further our commitment to building a truly equitable future. I am excited about Fiddler making AI decisions more explainable across the industry." One of the biggest promises of AI is its ability to make objective, data-driven decisions, but without visibility into how these algorithms work, businesses run the risk of using sub-par models that could actually increase bias. Fiddler's Explainable AI Platform monitors, explains, and analyzes model performance to provide businesses with rich explanations of exactly why a model generated a particular output, and immediately flag any potential bias. Fiddler's technology integrates seamlessly with Hired's user interfaces to provide real-time reporting on how their AI models are working. It's specifically used for the following purposes: Provide real-time model performance monitoring to help data scientists and ML engineers refine models Enable data scientists and ML engineers to identify features contributing to a performance dip using explanations Generate explanations for curators, data scientists and other stakeholders on the key drivers of specific candidates' assessment to maintain a high-quality matching process Provide concrete feedback with candidates to help them improve their profiles Generate explanations to help companies understand why specific candidates were matched with a Hired Position "We're excited to partner with Hired to continue our mission of building trustworthy and reliable AI, which was a key driver in this partnership," said Krishna Gade, founder & CEO of Fiddler. "The ability for explainable AI and ML monitoring, and specifically Fiddler's solution to add value to Hired's team to build trust is something that our team is very passionate about. We will continue our efforts to ensure the Hired team is successful in their mission to responsibly and reliably match people to jobs they love." As AI is more broadly adopted within the hiring and human resources industry, it's critical for every organization to focus on building fair, transparent, and accountable AI systems. Hired is leading the way for the rest of the industry. About Fiddler Founded in October 2018, Fiddler's mission is to enable businesses of all sizes to unlock the AI BlackBox and deliver trustworthy AI experiences to end-users. Fiddler's next-generation Explainable AI Platform enables data science, product, and business users to explain, monitor, and analyze their AI solutions, providing transparent and reliable experiences to customers. Fiddler works with pioneering Fortune 500 companies as well as emerging tech companies. For more information please visit www.fiddler.ai or follow us on Twitter @fiddlerlabs . About Hired Hired (hired.com) is a marketplace that matches tech talent with the world's most innovative companies. Hired combines intelligent job matching with unbiased career counseling to help people find a job they love. Through Hired, job candidates and companies have transparency into salary offers, competing opportunities and job details. This level of insight is unmatched, making the recruiting process quicker and more efficient than ever before. Hired was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in the United States, Canada, France, and the UK. The company is backed by Lumia Capital, Sierra Ventures and other leading investors. Media Contact: [email protected] SOURCE Fiddler Labs The Ukrainian authorities plan to establish their involvement in war crimes in Donbas. The Belarusian authorities have given Ukraine a list of Ukrainian members of Russia's private military company (PMC) Wagner detained in Belarus. Commenting on the issue at a briefing on July 31, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that the question is not only how many Ukrainians are among those detained and who they are. Read alsoBelarus asks Ukraine to check detained Russian Wagner PMC members' criminal record "It is also very important to establish who of the members of the group on that list took part in hostilities [in Donbas] on the side of the [Russia-controlled] occupation forces, illegal armed groups, whether they were involved in any crimes," he said. The minister did not specify the number of the Ukrainians detained in Belarus, but noted that there were not seven of them, as previously reported by the media. As UNIAN reported earlier, on July 29, Belarus' law enforcement agencies detained 32 members of PMC Wagner just outside Minsk and another individual in the south of the country. Media reports said among them were those who had fought against Ukrainian government forces in Donbas. According to the law enforcers, they had been tipped about the arrival of more than 200 militants to destabilize the country during the election campaign. The Belarusian authorities state the detainees are part of Russia's PMC Wagner. A criminal case has been launched. The group members are charged with plotting an act of terror and being interrogated. The SBU Security Service of Ukraine, in turn, announced that they would initiate the extradition of Ukrainians from the group detained in Belarus. SAN FRANCISCO - A Chinese scientist charged with visa fraud after U.S. authorities said she concealed her military ties was arrested after she left the Chinese consulate in San Francisco to seek medical care for her asthma, court documents showed. Juan Tang, who has a doctorate in cellular biology, entered the United States on Dec. 27, 2019, to work at the University of California, Davis as a visiting researcher in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Alexandra Negin, an assistant federal public defender, said in the filing Wednesday asking the court for her release on bail. A hearing on whether Tang, 37, should be released on bail is scheduled Friday. She is being held at a Sacramento County jail on behalf of federal authorities after her arrest last week. Tang and three other scientists living in the U.S., face charges of lying about their status as members of Chinas Peoples Liberation Army. All were charged with visa fraud, the Justice Department said. Tang was the last of the four to be arrested after the Justice Department accused the Chinese consulate in San Francisco of harbouring a known fugitive. Negin said Tang went to the consulate to seek help and remained there after FBI agents questioned her at her Davis apartment on June 20 and executed a search warrant, seizing her passport and visa. A criminal complaint was filed under seal on June 26 but Tang did not learn she had been charged with a crime until her July 23 arrest, Negin wrote. When U.S. agents went to the Chinese consulate to inform her there was a warrant for her arrest Tang, who has asthma, wanted to surrender but was in hysterics and consulate employees believed she needed to see a doctor. the filing states. Negin said she believes federal officers were surveilling the consulate and after seeing her leave in a vehicle with consular staff, followed them to a medical office where Ms. Tang was seen, medically cleared and then arrested. Negin wrote Tang is not a danger to the community and could have remained in the consulate to avoid arrest. Instead she agreed to leave consulate property knowing this would allow law enforcement to arrest her, she said. Tang is married and has an 8-year-old daughter who is in China with Tangs husband. Tang left the family home at 18 to attend college and is a cancer researcher who had never travelled outside China before coming to the United States to do cancer research as part of a one-year program, Negin said. Negin said Tang left her job in June as a visiting researcher at UC, Davis Department of Radiation Oncology because her lab was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. She planned to return to China. Agents found photographs of Tang in a uniform of the civilian cadre of Chinas PLA and also reviewed articles from China that identified her military affiliation. But Negin argued the evidence against Tang is based on old photographs from when she was a student at a medical school run by the military and documents that were translated on apps. That does not mean that she was in the military, Negin wrote. She has every incentive to see this case through to its conclusion and return to China after the case is resolved, Negin added. Red Bull is "getting nervous" in its battle to quickly catch up with Mercedes, team official Dr Helmut Marko has admitted. The team wanted Max Verstappen to become F1's youngest ever champion this year, but the Dutch driver admitted he could be as much as a second off the pace at Silverstone. When asked by De Telegraaf if a closer fight may need to wait until 2022, Verstappen answered: "Yes, I think so. Absolutely. Because you can't change much even in 2021. "That doesn't make it easy to catch Mercedes." However, Dr Marko insists Red Bull is not giving up. "Adrian Newey is currently getting to the bottom of it," he said. "But the horsepower that Mercedes found over the winter is another story." So when asked if Verstappen is 'getting nervous' about his fading 2020 title dream, Marko told Osterreich newspaper: "We're all getting nervous. "But the first race gives us hope - without the breakdown, he was with the music, and in the second Spielberg race, Max had good race pace again. "Silverstone has never been very good for us, but we are far from giving up. At some point, Mercedes will have some bad luck too, and the compressed calendar makes things difficult," he said. When asked how he is coping personally with F1's new corona-era, Marko answered: "All the tests and the quarantine regulations are not pleasant, but it's better than not racing. "I am glad that I can go home between races. It's less fun for the mechanics who are locked up in hotels for days." (GMM) Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg tech antitrust hearing YouTube/House Judiciary Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pointed to the success of rivals like Apple, Google, and TikTok as evidence that there's plenty of competition in the tech industry. Zuckerberg referenced Apple's iMessage, Google's YouTube, and the popular video app TikTok in his opening remarks, pointing to their size and dominance in various industries. During the hearing, lawmakers grilled Zuckerberg about Facebook's acquisition of Instagram. While Zuckerberg framed big tech companies as its main competition, questions have also been raised about whether Facebook is also competing with news outlets as more people are turning to social media for news. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg began Wednesday's unprecedented antitrust hearing by pointing to the success of rivals like Apple, Google, and TikTok as part of an argument that competition is alive and well in the tech industry. "The most popular messaging service in the US is iMessage," Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks, referring to Apple's texting service. "The fastest-growing app is TikTok. The most popular app for video is YouTube. The fastest growing ads platform is Amazon. The largest ads platform is Google. And for every dollar spent on advertising in the US, less than 10 cents is spent with us." Zuckerberg appeared alongside Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai to testify before Congress as part of an investigation into whether these large tech platforms are engaging in anticompetitive practices. The remarks from Zuckerberg pointing to the success of other large tech companies come as the social media giant is scrutinized for its acquisitions of other social apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Giphy. During the hearing, Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, pressed Zuckerberg about Facebook's acquisition of Instagram back in 2012 citing emails published by The Verge of Facebook leadership saying that the acquisition could serve to neutralize a competitor. Story continues Zuckerberg is also framing large tech firms like Apple and Google as its main competition as questions have risen about whether its reach and distribution make it a rival to smaller news organizations as well. Facebook executives have repeatedly indicated that it does not see itself as the "arbiter of truth." But at the same time, Facebook lawyers argued in court in 2018 that the company's decisions about content should be treated like that of a traditional publisher. It has also added new features in recent years that put it in more direct competition with news publishers, and a Pew Research study found that four in 10 US adults get their news from Facebook. Read the original article on Business Insider Google and Facebook will have three months to agree to revenue-sharing deals with Australian media companies before independent arbitrators intervene under a new landmark code designed to tackle the market power amassed by the US tech giants. Draft laws unveiled by the Morrison government and competition watchdog on Friday will impose a raft of conditions on the digital platforms, forcing them to compensate news media businesses for using their content and be more transparent about their data and algorithms. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has announced a sweeping new code to force tech giants to compensate news media businesses for their content. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The companies will have to provide more detail on the data they collect on users' interactions with news content, come up with a proposal on recognising original content and provide 28 days' notice of changes to algorithms and policies that will affect news content and advertising. "What we have sought to do with this mandatory code is not protect Australian news media businesses from competition or from disruption that's occurring across this sector," Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Friday. ROME - Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese met with her French counterpart Gerald Darmanin in Rome on Friday morning, where they discussed the Malta accord on migrants, as well as the fight against terrorism, with initiatives put in place by France against radicalization. Lamorgese said the Malta accord "has thus far had significant results" and said the two countries plan to restart from the accord, with the objective of arriving in Europe with "common positions also on the front of repatriations". "Common challenges await us with France," Lamorgese said. She defined the meeting with Darmanin as "very productive" and expressed satisfaction for France's attention towards Italy, given that the newly appointed French interior minister chose Italy for his first European visit. Lamorgese said Darmanin "fully shared our idea of a plan on a European level for repatriations". On this front, in addition, repatriations with Tunisia have already returned "with pre-Covid numbers". The minister then had a talk with European Commissioner for Internal Affairs Ylva Johansson, "who joined my idea of going to Tunisia together to give a signal of togetherness on a European level on migratory policies". Three defendants in Siberian gold-mining dike burst case to stand trial RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov 17:36 31/07/2020 MOSCOW, July 31 (RAPSI) Three defendants in a criminal case over a burst dike in a gold mine in Siberias Krasnoyarsk Region occurred in the fall of 2019 will go on trial, according to the press service of the Prosecutor Generals Office. The owner of Sisim gold-mining artel Maxim Kovalkov, mine captain Andrey Yeganov and mine overseer Yevgeny Aleksandrov are charged with violation of safety rules resulted in the death of more than two people. Earlier, Yeganov pleaded guilty and expressed wish to sign a plea deal, while Kovalkov and Aleksandrov denied their guilt. In the early hours of October 19, 2019, a technological dam burst in the gold mine, then broke four more and flooded several workers dormitories. As a result, 17 people died and several others are missing. During the searches, investigators seized the artels documents. It was revealed that the dams were built illegally without permit in order to drain groundwater for the purpose of gold mining. Mark Ronson has hit out at black newspaper The Voice over a sympathetic interview with Wiley after the grime star's anti-Semitic tirade got him banned from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The Voice published an interview with the grime artist, which appears to have been deleted, titled 'Systemic oppression and Wiley', in which the author questioned: 'But within his ranting were there any salient points?' Regarding Wiley's view that a Jewish lawyer is needed to progress in the music business, the writer admitted it 'may be a complete fallacy' but also said they had 'never seen anyone Jewish refute or confirm this'. The Voice published an interview with the grime artist, above, titled 'Systemic oppression and Wiley', in which the author questioned: 'But within his ranting were there any salient points?' The author then asked: 'But maybe it's a discussion that needs to be had?', adding: 'These questions were not being posed from an ignorant perspective, some of the views espoused by Wiley are the great unsaid outside of the black community.' Jewish music producer Ronson shared the article on Twitter, posting: '"You need to get a Jewish lawyer in order to progress in the music business may be a complete fallacy Ive never seen anyone Jewish refute or confirm this" let me help out, MY LAWYER IS ITALIAN. 'My label is run by a Gentile, & owned by a Japanese board.' Ronson, who produced Wiley's top 40 hit Cash In My Pocket, wrote in a separate tweet: 'Jews do not run the music business from some secret cabal (and if they do it's mad f***ed up I haven't been invited yet). 'Universal: owned by Vincent Bollore, a Frenchman (not a Jew), Sony Music Group: a Japanese board, Martin Mills/Beggars is not a Jew (WMG, yes a Jew).' The Uptown Funk hitmaker added: 'Many of us know that record deals can often be some of the most god-awfully unfair contracts in business. 'But that s****y record contract Wileys talking about? I promise my own record contract contains ALL the same standard s****y terms.' Former Chancellor Sajid Javid and Jewish comedian David Baddiel also criticised the article, with Mr Javid posting: 'You would think that The Voice - of all newspapers - wouldve avoided providing a sympathetic platform for a racist. 'Very poor judgement.' Mr Baddiel wrote: 'The whole piece is f***ing incredible. Unbelievably upsetting and depressing.' Mark Ronson, pictured above, criticised the article from black newspaper The Voice alongside former Chancellor Sajid Javid and Jewish comedian David Baddiel It follows Wiley, whose real name is Richard Cowie, being widely condemned for a series of posts on the social media platform starting last Friday, and was initially given a temporary ban from Twitter, with the majority of his tweets remaining visible. But Twitter said on Wednesday it had permanently suspended him and is 'continuing to assess the situation internally'. The rapper denied accusations that he is racist and apologised for 'generalising', saying the argument should have stayed between him and his manager, John Woolf. He told Sky News: 'I just want to apologise for generalising and going outside of the people who I was talking to within the workspace and workplace I work in. 'My comments should not have been directed to all Jews or Jewish people. I want to apologise for generalising, and I want to apologise for comments that were looked at as anti-Semitic.' The manager, who is Jewish, said he no longer represents Wiley and has cut ties with the rapper. The tweets from music producer Ronson, in which he hit out at the article from The Voice, writing: 'Jews do not run the music business from some secret cabal' Wiley added: 'I'm not racist, you know. I'm a businessman. My thing should have stayed between me and my manager, I get that.' The artist launched a number of attacks on the Jewish community over the weekend, including posting a video last Friday telling Jews to 'crawl out from under your little rocks.' He also shared a conspiracy theory to Instagram about Jews funding and creating the Klu-Klux Klan, which still appears on his page despite claims from the social media platform that they have deleted hate speech content from his account. John Woolf, pictured above, has said he no longer represents grime artist Wiley Wiley also took aim at Priti Patel during his two-day rant, after the Home Secretary described his anti-Semitic posts as 'abhorrent.' 'They should not have been able to remain on Twitter and Instagram for so long and I have asked them for a full explanation,' she said. 'Social media companies must act much faster to remove such appalling hatred from their platforms.' Appearing to post in response, Wiley said: 'Priti Patel, you wanna see me?' In a statement, the newspaper said: 'The Voice has not, and makes it clear again, supported or in any way condoned the outbursts by Wiley that the Jewish community finds offensive. We do not support the stereotyping of any race or group. 'As a black media outlet, we are here to give our people a voice. That doesnt mean we will always agree with everything that is published. 'It saddens us deeply that persons have implied that we are anti-Semitic. Our long history in the community and our track record does not support this view.' It added: 'Going forward, our different communities must come together, talk more and show the solidarity that binds us together rather than pits one against the other. 'The Voice will remain a champion of that and will continue to work with various groups in this regard. 'We are in conversation with Jewish leaders and have given them the right of reply.' Dr Anthony Fauci says 2,50,000 people have registered on a National Institutes of Heath website to take part in experimental vaccine trials. The study of the first vaccine involving 30,000 people began this week. The US government plans to launch studies of additional vaccines every month through the fall. Trials are pivotal for establishing the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines. Not all patients who volunteer for clinical trials are eligible to participate. Fauci is testifying before House lawmakers on the federal response to the pandemic, alongside the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the government's testing czar. With hospitalisations and deaths on the rise, Fauci says Americans most again embrace public health basics such as social distancing and mask wearing. By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 31, 2020 | 01:39 PM | PADUCAH Clarke is a pulmonologist with the Baptist Health Medical Group and was admitted to the hospital on July 11 after contracting COVID-19. Following this, he spent seven days at the hospital on a ventilator. The hospital says Clarke is grateful for the care he received while at Baptist Health and plans to share his story in the coming weeks. Baptist Health Paducah shared a video of staff cheering as he was leaving the hospital. You can see the video below. On Thursday, staff at Baptist Health in Paducah gathered to celebrate the recovery of Dr. Jeff Clark. A Catholic primary school in one of Melbourne's coronavirus hotspots will close its gates next week, suspending on-site student supervision amid a wider call for a return to remote learning. Emmaus Catholic Parish Primary School in Sydenham has no positive COVID-19 cases but made the decision to stop face-to-face lessons for the week after nine nearby schools confirmed coronavirus cases. "You've got to do what's best for your school community": Penola Catholic College principal Chris Caldow. Credit:Jason South The school is located in the Brimbank local government area, one of the areas hit hardest by COVID-19, with 658 active cases. "This decision was not taken lightly," principal Jackie Byrne wrote to parents and guardians. San Francisco, July 31 : Riding on surging online sales during the pandemic as people stayed home, Amazon reported solid second quarter results, registering a 40 per cent increase in net sales to $88.9 billion, compared with $63.4 billion in the same period last year. Net income increased to $5.2 billion in the second quarter, compared with net income of $2.6 billion in second quarter 2019, the company said in a statement on Thursday. Amazon shares rose 5 per cent in the after-hours trade. "This was another highly unusual quarter, and I couldn't be more proud of and grateful to our employees around the globe," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. "As expected, we spent over $4 billion on incremental COVID-19-related costs in the quarter to help keep employees safe and deliver products to customers in this time of high demand," he added. Bezos said the company has created over 175,000 new jobs since March and are in the process of bringing 125,000 of these employees into regular, full-time positions. "Third-party sales again grew faster this quarter than Amazon's first-party sales. Even in this unpredictable time, we injected significant money into the economy this quarter, investing over $9 billion in capital projects, including fulfillment, transportation, and AWS," Bezos informed. The cloud computing arm Amazon Web Services (AWS) reported revenues of $10.81 billion for the quarter, up 29 per cent year over year, "Customers are using AWS to lessen the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on families, communities, and businesses," said the company. For its third quarter, Amazon said it expects net sales to be between $87 billion and $93 billion, or to grow between 24 per cent and 33 per cent compared with third quarter 2019. "Operating income is expected to be between $2.0 billion and $5.0 billion, compared with $3.2 billion in third quarter 2019. This guidance assumes more than $2.0 billion of costs related to COVID-19," said the company. In a rather bold, shocking and an outrageous claim, Bihar minister Maheshwar Hazari has reportedly called actress Rhea Chakraborty a "contract killer" as well as "venomous snake woman". While no one knows what the truth is as the investigation is still on, and by spewing hate on someone and make such derogatory claims, politics and humanity has hit a new low. Trolling Chakraborty or calling her names is not the right thing to do at the moment. Until the time, the case is solved, it is wrong to blame anyone solely on the basis of accusations. Even Sushant's sister has requested people not to use bad language for anyone while demanding justice for Sushant. Twitter What's more sad is that politics has taken over Sushant Singh Rajput's death mystery. Bihar minister Maheshwar Hazari not only expressed doubt over the suicide theory but also said it seemed to him a "case of murder, and not suicide". Twitter Furthermore, he alleged that Rhea is not only a "supari" (contract) killer but was like Bollywood's version of a 'vishkanya' who killed Sushant by trapping him in her love, reports IANS. Rhea Chakraborty / Instagram Hazari said that Rhea was sent to Sushant under a conspiracy. "I don't know how many people will die in the pursuit of fulfilling their ambitions. Such contract killers should be acted upon as soon as possible," the Minister said. He alleged that no investigation had so far been conducted by the Mumbai Police into the death of Rajput, adding that the Bihar government was considering a high-level inquiry. Instagram The right thing to do at the moment not pass judgement and let the authorities do their jobs. Demanding justice for Sushant is not wrong, but calling people names solely on the basis of theories and accusations is definitely wrong. DUBLIN, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics Market: Focus on Type, Component, and Application - Analysis & Forecast, 2020-2025 (Includes COVID-19 Impact)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics Industry Analysis projects the market to grow at a significant CAGR of 14.95% in terms of value during the forecast period, 2020-2025. North America dominated the global safety, security, and rescue robotics market with a share of 42% by value in 2019. Europe, including countries, such as France, the U.K., and the Netherlands, is the second-most prominent region for the safety, security, and rescue robotics market. In North America, the U.S. acquired a major market share in 2019 due to the maximum manufacturing developments in the company. Asia-Pacific is expected to have the highest CAGR value in the forecast period, 2020-2025. The global safety, security, and rescue robotics market has gained widespread importance due to the growing geopolitical conflicts as well as the increasing need for naval and land border patrolling and surveillance with unmanned systems. However, the lack of development of high-quality and reliable solutions is one of the major challenges for the market. This report is intended to be a comprehensive study of global safety, security, and rescue robotics market. The report focuses largely on providing market information for the professional use of safety, security, and rescue robots, that operate in industries and the utility sector. The report also covers different segments based on type, component, application, and region. Additionally, the study focuses on the major driving forces, restraints, and growth opportunities. The major players have been identified on the basis of their revenue generation, geographical presence, and company projects related to the safety, security, and rescue robotics market. Detailed company profiles have been included in order to understand the strategic behaviors of the market players. The global safety, security, and rescue robotics market is further explained and analyzed based on regions, such as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Rest-of-the-World. Moreover, the country analysis has also been done in order to have a clear picture of the safety, security, and rescue robotics market. Key Questions Answered in this Report: What are the growth opportunities for safety, security, and rescue robots for different applications and regions? What is the expected revenue to be generated by different types of safety, security, and rescue robots during the forecast period, 2020-2025? What is the expected revenue to be generated by different regions such as North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and the Rest-of-the-World (RoW) during the forecast period, 2020-2025? , , , and the Rest-of-the-World (RoW) during the forecast period, 2020-2025? Which key companies are currently operating in the safety, security, and rescue robotics market? Which global factors are expected to impact the safety, security, and rescue robotics market in the next five years? What are the key developments made by the safety, security, and rescue robotics market players? How is COVID-19 expected to impact the safety, security, and rescue robotics market? Key Topics Covered: 1 Market Dynamics 1.1 Market Drivers 1.1.1 Increasing Conflicts at Borders and Geopolitical Instabilities 1.1.2 Rising Adoption of Unmanned System Solutions 1.2 Market Challenges 1.2.1 Rigid Regulatory Environment in Different Regions 1.2.2 Lack of Development of High-Quality and Reliable Solutions 1.3 Market Opportunities 1.3.1 Rising Trend of Autonomous Operations 1.3.2 Increase in Defense and Security Spending by the Developing Economies 1.4 Impact Analysis 2 Competitive Insights 2.1 Key Strategies and Developments 2.2 Competitive Benchmarking 3 Industry Analysis 3.1 Industry Overview 3.2 Leading Manufacturers and Product Mapping 3.3 Importance of Safety, Security, and Rescue Robots with Autonomous Technology 3.4 Funding Scenario in the Global Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics Market 3.5 Supply Chain Analysis 3.6 Industry Attractiveness - Porter's Five Forces Analysis 4 Global Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics Market 4.1 Assumptions and Limitations 4.2 Market Overview 5 Global Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics Market (by Type) 5.1 Market Overview 5.2 Land Robot 5.3 Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) 6 Global Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics Market (by Component) 6.1 Market Overview 6.2 Camera 6.3 Sensor 6.4 Navigation System 6.5 Control System 6.6 Others 7 Global Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics Market (by Application) 7.1 Market Overview 7.2 Commercial 7.3 Defense and Government 8 Global Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics Market (by Region) 9 Company Profiles Boston Dynamics Cobham Limited ECA Group Elbit Systems Ltd. Howe & Howe Technologies, Inc. Jonker-Makis Robotics Knightscope Inc. Kongsberg L3HarrisTechnologies OTSAW QinetiQ ReconRobotics Inc. RoboteX Inc. SMP Robotics Systems Corp. Shark Robotics 10 Report Scope and Methodology For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/2enwic About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] 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 Advertisement The life of Prof Haruna Wakili was snatched from us by the surprising hods of death that chilling morning of Saturday June 20, 2020. Prof Wakili was among the many professors (about 10 of them) who died within May/June but he died of cancer challenges in Abuja national hospital after his return from India. We recall the memory of his great life everyday since Prof passed on. My last moment with prof Haruna was the last night before the following day that he will be flown abroad ( India) for medical treatment in his hotel room in Jabi, Abuja were three of us Prof himself, his son, Ahmad and I we discussed for hours, as I write now I cant hold myself as tears run down my cheek because of so many issues we discussed and my memories (i shared) with him. In the last five years (2015) since we left office anytime Prof will come to Abuja, he will call me from Kano to notify me that his coming, either to pick him up from the airport or to meet him were he will lodge. There are two things most especially anytime he came to Abuja he does despite the nature or purpose of his visitation, whether it is a workshop, seminar, presentation, course and what have you these are: 1. Taking him to Annur mosque at Wuse 2, Abuja for the prayers 2. Visitation of friends, associates, present and former colleagues and other relatives etc. I have to recognize, appreciate and thank my brother Isah Dan-Sidi Kafin Hausa for his sacrifice and commitment towards me and Prof because sometimes if am not in town (Abuja) or I am busy maybe my boss Dr Sule Lamido is in town (Abuja) I will call Isah to appeal and intimate him to represent me to attend to Prof for hours or day or days he will spend in Abuja and Isah never disappoint for once despite the nature of his work. Thank you Isah. Am proud of you may God reward you. One thing that i cant forget in my life about Prof. was, before I was appointed as H.E Sule Lamidos Special Adviser on media, Prof Haruna Wakili was the person directed by H.E to collect my CV. Prof Wakili leaves us with so many lessons about life and death. Everyone says good about him. One should also observe the place (Emirs palace Hadejia) caliber and number of people who attended his funeral prayer in which my boss the former Jigawa state governor Dr Sule Lamido was among and the people who stepped into the town of Hadejia to condole his demise. One should conclude that Prof was such a gem, such a special gift and a blessing. We appreciate the opportunity of sharing his life. We treasure the example of his character. Your numerous legacies of selflessness, compassion, patriotism, diligence, commitment, courage, hard work, patience and purposeful leadership inspire us to push ahead in the means of life challenges. May the light and mercy (Rahma) perpetual continue to shine upon you and may your soul continue to rest in perfect peace. May Aljannah Firdaus be your final abode. We will at Gods will and time meet again to part no more. Rest on Prof. Adamu writes from Kafin-Hausa, Jigawa state. amu3333@yahoo President Donald Trump on Thursday raised the idea of delaying the US elections scheduled for November 3, 2020 claiming that mail voting would be rife with fraud. Taking to Twitter, Trump wrote: "With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 The idea was immediately rejected by both Democrats and Republicans in the Congress while critics and even Trump`s allies called it an attempt to distract from devastating economic news. Trump`s statement on Twitter comes as the United States reels under a coronavirus pandemic that has claimed more than 150,000 lives; a recession sparked by the outbreak; and nationwide protests against police violence and racism. The United States has held elections despite Civil War, Great Depression and two world wars. The US Constitution gives Congress the power to set the timing of elections, and the 20th Amendment ends a president and vice president`s term in office on the January 20 following a general election. US states want to make postal voting easier due to public health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. Shocking footage shows Czech firefighters narrowly avoiding injury after a burning crane exploded, sending flaming tyres hurling in their direction. The video show the firefighters tackling the blaze in Kozlany, in the Vyskov region in east Czech Republic. During one of two explosions in the video, debris is sent flying towards the emergency service workers with a tyre narrowly missing them. Three Czech firefighters were injured as they tackled the blaze in Kozlany, in the Vyskov region in east Czech Republic on July 30 During one of two explosions debris is sent flying towards the emergency service workers with a tyre narrowly missing them and hitting a nearby building Onlookers at the scene run for cover as the crane explodes a second time. The fire was caused by a technical fault in the crane Three firemen were injured in the accident on July 30. Two of them were taken away by rescue services and have since been released from hospital. As firefighters attempt to tackle the blaze with water, sparks flew from the nearby power lines and the had to turn off the electricity before they could start extinguishing. The flaming tyre narrowly misses the firemen as it shoots from the crane and hits one of the buildings on the street. The tires on the car exploded and flew a few meters away, one damaging the roof and front of a family house as well as damaging glass panels of three family houses Onlookers at the scene run for cover as the crane explodes a second time, knocking the camera that is filming the incident on its side. Due to the heat, all the tires on the car gradually exploded and flew a few meters away, one damaging the roof and front of a family house. The tire explosions also damaged glass panels of three family houses. The fire was caused by a technical fault on the crane and was brought under control after forty minutes. Flash Ukraine began negotiations with an Iranian delegation on compensation for the plane of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), which was shot down near Tehran earlier this year, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Facebook on Thursday. "Today in Kiev, Iranian delegation started the negotiations on compensation for Iran's shooting down of the Ukrainian International Airlines PS752 flight. We have been striving for a long time to start the negotiation process, and I welcome the beginning of negotiations," said the diplomat. Kuleba noted that the process would not be easy, but Ukraine will do everything to achieve maximum compensation for the relatives of the victims of the plane crash. The Boeing-737, en route from Tehran to Kiev, was shot down by two rockets shortly after takeoff from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport on Jan. 8. The tragedy resulted in the deaths of all 167 passengers and nine crew members on board, who were citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, and the United Kingdom. Later, Iran's armed forces confirmed that an "unintentional" launch of a military missile by the country was the cause of the incident. The transcript of the black boxes from the plane confirmed the fact of illegal interference with the plane. Earlier this month, Kuleba said it was too early to blame human error for the downing of the airliner and that many questions remained unanswered. China and the UK can take three steps to foster new opportunities and create new possibilities for improving their bilateral business relationship, Wei Jianguo, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), said on Wednesday. Wei Jianguo (Yu Kai) Wei, who is also a former vice minister of commerce, made the remarks at the Jintai Roundtable seminar on China-UK economic cooperation and innovation development held by People's Daily Online. First, China and the UK should enhance the friendship between the two peoples, as well as boost trade and economic cooperation. The Chinese and British people enjoy a long-standing friendship. It is even more necessary to carry forward this friendship and strengthen trade and economic cooperation, Wei said, adding that organizations such as the China-Britain Business Council and the Britain-China Friendship Association have contributed to the development of China-UK ties through concrete actions. At present, more entrepreneurs and those calling for bilateral friendship should work together to advance bilateral business ties. Second, the two countries should boost science and technology cooperation and draw up a list of areas in which they can cooperate as well as a list of dialogues. Third, both countries should start with financial cooperation and enhance cooperation in areas such as culture, education and tourism. In the face of the current complex situation, the UKs status as a global financial center remains unchanged after Brexit, as does the trend of China and the UK advancing bilateral relations through financial cooperation, as well as the direction of both counties supporting and complementing each other in playing an active role in global governance and promoting globalization, Wei noted. Be it in culture, education or tourism, the two sides can discuss cooperation, he said, adding that both countries can also cooperate in areas in which they can make breakthroughs, including new materials, medicine, and medicinal materials. Wei believes that the current challenging situation is temporary and that China and Britain can overcome the current difficulties by redoubling their efforts. usually, it is the Management of the masses of people, the concern of the Saudi authorities of the head, when Muslims from all over the world visit for the annual pilgrimage (Hajj) to the Holy sites of Islam in the Kingdom. About two and a half millions of pilgrims to it in normal times, every third person travels from abroad. This year, the year of the Corona-pandemic, is allowed only a fraction of it, in different Reports, the speech, the move to the five-day pilgrimage is from 1000 to 10,000 believers. And they all had to have previously been in Saudi Arabia. So 70 percent of this year's pilgrims, migrant workers from 160 countries, with the remaining 30 per cent are Saudi nationals. Christoph Ehrhardt a correspondent for the Arab countries, based in Beirut. F. A. Z. Twitter the pictures of The pilgrimage this year could, therefore, be unusual hardly. Where else, the people crowded around the ka'bah, push, fall short this year, pilgrims with the mouth-nose protection, where appropriate the safety distance along the drawn lines to the cubic, in black cloth-clad sanctuary. The roads to the Holy sites in Mecca as pilgrims accommodation, empty of people. The authorities of the Kingdom, which was hit hard by the pandemic, have taken a variety of measures to make the pilgrimage, a spiritual highlight in the life of many Muslims to be a health risk. The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, every Muslim who can afford it and is physically able, must compete once in his life. Who is one of the few, which it is allowed this year, had to make before the start of a week in quarantine and a PCR Test, an acute infection with the Coronavirus to exclude. Also, he must during the pilgrimage again and again the body temperature, and after completion again for a week in quarantine issued. the stay in the Holy places is strictly regulated. The white pilgrim's robe is sterilized, the pebbles for the ritual stoning of the devil are the same. Each pilgrim gets to the stones in a separate bag handed out. The water from the famous well of Zamzam the great mosque is pre-bottled. The pilgrims must circle the Kaaba in the courtyard of the mosque this year, but not to touch. According to the authorities, 3500 workers have been provided free of charge to clean the Grand mosque, 54000 litres of an environmentally friendly disinfection agent. As difficult for many is the fact weighs to be able to not be in it, to show messages like this: A spokesman for the security authorities announced on Wednesday, it 224 people had been arrested who had tried to enter the Holy sites without a permit. For Saudi Arabia, whose king bears the title "custodian of the two Holy sites", not the orientation of the pilgrimage is only one thing religious prestige, but also an important source of income. She brings every year several billion euros. For the first, in 1932, founded the Saudi state Hajj is like this is a drastic exception. But it has happened in history more often that the pilgrimage had to be cancelled due to armed raids, or epidemics. So widespread in the 19th century. Century, the Cholera fear and terror. Updated Date: 31 July 2020, 09:20 Technavio has been monitoring the sorting equipment market and it is poised to grow by 639.68 mn during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 8% 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/20200730005865/en/ Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Sorting Equipment 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. Aweta, BT-Wolfgang Binder GmbH, Buhler AG, DAEWON GSI Co. Ltd., Duravant LLC, Hefei Meyer Optoelectronic Technology Inc., Itema Spa, RAYTEC VISION Spa, Sesotec GmbH, and TOMRA 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. Growing concerns about food quality have been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, fluctuating steel prices might hamper market growth. Sorting Equipment Market 2020-2024: Segmentation Sorting Equipment Market is segmented as below: End-user Food Sorting Waste Sorting Mineral Sorting 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=IRTNTR43203 Sorting Equipment 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 sorting equipment market report covers the following areas: Sorting Equipment Market size Sorting Equipment Market trends Sorting Equipment Market industry analysis This study identifies the upgradation and modernization of equipment as one of the prime reasons driving the sorting equipment market growth during the next few years. Sorting Equipment Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the sorting equipment market, including some of the vendors such as Aweta, BT-Wolfgang Binder GmbH, Buhler AG, DAEWON GSI Co. Ltd., Duravant LLC, Hefei Meyer Optoelectronic Technology Inc., Itema Spa, RAYTEC VISION Spa, Sesotec GmbH, and TOMRA. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the sorting equipment market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support. Register for a free trial today and gain instant access to 17,000+ market research reports. Technavio's SUBSCRIPTION platform Sorting Equipment Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024 Detailed information on factors that will assist sorting equipment market growth during the next five years Estimation of the sorting equipment market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the sorting equipment market Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of sorting equipment market vendors Table Of Contents : Executive Summary Market Overview Market Landscape Market ecosystem Value chain analysis Market Sizing Market definition Market segment analysis Market size 2019 Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024 Five Forces Analysis Bargaining power of buyers Bargaining power of suppliers Threat of new entrants Threat of substitutes Threat of rivalry Market condition Market Segmentation by End-user Market segments Comparison by End-user Food Sorting Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Waste Sorting Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Mineral sorting Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Market opportunity by End-user Customer Landscape Overview Geographic Landscape Geographic segmentation Geographic comparison Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024 North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024 APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024 South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024 MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024 Key leading countries Market opportunity by geography Drivers, Challenges, and Trends Market drivers Market challenges Market trends Vendor Landscape Overview Landscape disruption Vendor Analysis Vendors covered Market positioning of vendors Aweta BT-Wolfgang Binder GmbH Buhler AG DAEWON GSI Co. Ltd. Duravant LLC Hefei Meyer Optoelectronic Technology Inc. Itema Spa RAYTEC VISION Spa Sesotec GmbH TOMRA Appendix Scope of the report Currency conversion rates for US$ Research methodology List of abbreviations About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis 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/20200730005865/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: media@technavio.com Website: www.technavio.com/ France is recording more than 1,000 coronavirus cases per day for the first time since May - but denies it is in the midst of a second wave. French health officials announced 1,377 new cases last night, bringing the seven-day average up to 1,025 while Spain and Germany have also seen alarming new spikes. Health minister Olivier Veran said France is seeing 'warning signs' from hospitals with rising admissions, but insisted that 'we are not in a second wave of the coronavirus'. Several French cities have toughened their face mask rules and some Atlantic beaches are under a night-time curfew as cases continue to rise with 151 'clusters' currently being investigated. France has seen its weekly number of coronavirus cases increase for four weeks in a row, with the seven-day average now above 1,000 new cases France is typically seeing 10 to 20 coronavirus deaths per day, and has recorded more than 30,000 fatalities since the pandemic began France's economy contracted by a record 13.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2020 because of the lockdown, official figures showed today. The second-quarter figure means the French economy has been shrinking for three consecutive quarters and continues to be in recession. France's second quarter contraction was much sharper than the record 10.1 per cent fall in Germany. However, France's drop was better than its own forecast from mid-June of a 17 per cent drop. The figures included a 46 per cent drop in transportation and a 57 per cent drop in the restaurant and hotel sector. France is now trying to re-open its economy, but has its citizens to avoid Catalonia in a bid to stop the virus spreading across the border from Spain, which is suffering its own alarming spike in cases. Spain's seven-day average has surged to 2,181 cases per day, up from 1,615 last week and 828 in the week before that. Britain last week pulled the plug on summer holidays to Spain, dealing a severe blow to the Mediterranean country's economy. Spanish GDP slumped by 18.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2020 and tourism is seen as crucial to restarting the economy. Alexis Frick, a research manager at Euromonitor, said over the last 15 years British tourists have accounted for almost a quarter of all holiday visits to Spain. A person wears a mask in Biarritz in south-western France yesterday as regional leaders toughen their rules to stem a rise in cases Germany has also sounded the alarm after a rise in cases across the country which has brought the R rate above 1.0 every day this week. The seven-day average in Germany is 645 new cases, lower than in France or Spain but noticeably higher than 477 last week and 381 the week before that. Unlike in mid-June when a spike in cases was mostly traceable to a few small outbreaks, cases are now rising in many of Germany's 16 states. Germany's top diseases institute says there are 'many smaller case outbreaks' linked to leisure activities, family reunions and foreign holidays. 'A further worsening of the situation must be avoided. This will only succeed if the entire population continues to be committed to decreasing transmission,' it says. Germany's daily death toll remains in single figures, although it has increased slightly from its lowest point in mid-July. Italy too has seen an increase in its weekly average, and yesterday's figure of 386 new cases was the highest since mid-June. 'Unfortunately, the pandemic today is not fully over, even though its effects are more contained and geographically limited,' PM Giuseppe Conte said on Wednesday. Italy's parliament on Wednesday gave the go-ahead to extend the country's state of emergency until October 15, after it had been set to expire today. Conte assured MPs that the extension did not necessarily mean more lockdowns, after Italy became the first nation in the West to order its people to stay at home. Opposition parties had objected, accusing Conte of trying to keep too much power in his own hands despite the fact that the crisis has eased substantially since March. However, the upper house Senate passed the measure by 157 votes to 125 in the 319-seat chamber. People cool off at a beach in Barcelona yesterday. Britain is now advising against all non-essential travel to Spain and its islands Several French cities on Thursday announced new face mask requirements as the number of new cases continues to increase. Face masks are already required in all enclosed public spaces, including public transport. In the Nord department adjacent to Belgium, the government's top official said 'reinforced measures' would be announced Friday, possibly making masks compulsory outdoors, in response to a surge in cases across the border. Belgium has seen more than 400 cases several days in the last week, having not seen such large single-day jumps since June. The mayor of Saint-Malo, whose walled city has drawn tens of thousands of French tourists who opted to stay in the country for the summer holidays, said masks were now mandatory inside the old city and on the ramparts. 'Masks are essential protection for limiting the virus's spread,' Mayor Gilles Lurton said, after the Ille-et-Vilaine region saw 44 new cases on Wednesday alone. Starting Friday, masks will be also required in open-air markets in Orleans, central France, and along the Loire river, where crowds of people have been turning out nightly. The mayors of Bayonne and the nearby Atlantic resort of Biarritz also announced that face masks will be compulsory in their city centres starting next week. Biarritz will also ban access to its beaches at night to prevent parties being held there. Ocean City, Maryland beach-goers beginning Friday evening must wear a mask while visiting the boardwalk, according to news reports. A WBAL reporter on Twitter said the ordinance will be in effect from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. A separate ordinance which would have allowed law enforcement to issue tickets to those not wearing masks was rejected, reporter Robert Lang said. Government leaders said theyre more interested in educating residents than punishing them for not wearing masks, according to CBS Baltimore. The mask ordinance was passed during an emergency meeting Friday morning and will go into effect at 5 p.m., WTOP News reported. A number of Ocean City bars and restaurants have temporarily closed in recent weeks after their employees tested positive for the virus. Our goal is to send a message of safety, not fear, Mayor Rick Meehan reportedly said at the meeting Friday. The measure will expire on Aug. 31 if Meehan chooses not to order an extension, according to the Salisbury Daily Times. Similar requirements have already been put in place at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. Marylands coronavirus cases went up by 1,169 on Friday the third time this week the states number of new cases was more than a thousand, according to Department of Health data. More than 3,000 Maryland residents have died of the coronavirus, data shows. Gov. Larry Hogan issued an expansive statewide order Wednesday which mandates mask be worn at all public gatherings where social distancing isnt possible, according to The Washington Post. He also said residents should quarantine and get tested after visiting states with high case counts. BREAKING----Ocean City will impose mask order on boardwalk from 8a-2a, by order of Mayor Rick Meehan. Separate ordinance to impose a town fine rejected 4-2. Robert Lang WBAL (@Reporterroblang) July 31, 2020 READ MORE: Pa. Gov. Wolf addresses rumors, says hes not ordering schools to close Fauci optimistic COVID-19 vaccine will be widely available Planet Fitness adjusts mandated mask requirement to not include active workou Michigan is now averaging six deaths a day from coronavirus -- a long way from April when the average was more than 100 deaths a day. The state currently has 438 people hospitalized with the virus, roughly a tenth of the nearly 4,000 in-patients at the states peak. An infamous bus appears headed to a new home at a museum in Fairbanks after being removed from Alaskas backcountry to deter people from making dangerous, sometimes deadly treks to visit the site where a young man documented his demise in 1992. The state Department of Natural Resources said Thursday that it intends to negotiate with the University of Alaskas Museum of the North to display the bus, which was popularised by the book Into the Wild and a movie of the same name and flown from its location near Denali National Park and Preserve last month. Of the many expressions of interest in the bus, the proposal from the UA Museum of the North best met the conditions we at DNR had established to ensure this historical and cultural object will be preserved in a safe location where the public could experience it fully, yet safely and respectfully, and without the specter of profiteering, Natural Resources Commissioner Corri Feige said in a statement. The bus became a beacon for those wishing to retrace the steps of Christopher McCandless, who hiked to the bus in 1992. The 24-year-old Virginia man died from starvation when he couldnt hike back out because of the swollen Teklanika River. He kept a journal of his ordeal, which was discovered when his body was found. ALSO READ | Into The Wild: Italian hikers rescued in Alaska after visiting infamous deadly pilgrimage bus McCandless story became famous with author Jon Krakauers 1996 book Into the Wild, followed nine years later by director Sean Penns movie of the same name. Over the years, people from around the world have traveled to the bus, located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the town of Healy, to pay homage to McCandless. Two women have drowned in the Teklanika River on such visits to the bus, one from Switzerland in 2010 and the other from Belarus nine years later. There have been 15 other search-and-rescue missions since 2009, state officials said, including five Italian tourists who needed rescue last winter. One had severe frostbite. The draw of the bus became too much for state officials, who arranged for the Alaska Army National Guard to remove the bus with a helicopter last month as part of a training mission. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.) Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Twitter says the hackers used a phone to fool the social media companys employees into giving them access to accounts. Two teenagers and a 22-year-old were charged with hacking the Twitter Inc accounts of famous people including former President Barack Obama, billionaire Bill Gates and Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, the Department of Justice said on Friday. Mason Sheppard, a 19-year-old British man who went by the alias Chaewon, was charged with carrying out the hack, as well as related wire fraud and money laundering crimes, according to a Justice Department statement. Orlando, Florida-based Nima Fazeli, 22, nicknamed Rolex, was charged with aiding and abetting those crimes. The Justice Department did not name the third defendant, but the Hillsborough County State Attorneys Office in Tampa, Florida said it had arrested 17-year-old Graham Clark. In a statement, Twitter said it appreciated the swift actions of law enforcement. The FBI said that two of the accused had been taken into custody, without identifying them. Clark on July 15 posted messages under the profiles that solicited investments in bitcoin, a digital currency, said the Florida State Attorneys Office. A publicly available ledger of bitcoin transactions showed he was able to obtain more than $100,000 that way. Three Individuals Charged For Alleged Roles In Twitter Hack. A 19 year old from the UK, another 22 year old from Florida, and a juvenile (guess that's the 17 year old from the previous tweet) https://t.co/e3IjO5h7Yy Michal Spacek (@spazef0rze) July 31, 2020 Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren told journalists that his office had filed 30 felony charges against Clark , who was in state custody. Warren said the adolescent was being prosecuted under state rather than federal law because Florida law enabled the state to charge him as an adult. This was a massive fraud orchestrated right here in our own backyard, and we wont stand for that, he said. The hacks led to bogus tweets being sent out on July 15 from the accounts of Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Celebrities Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, were also hacked. The tweets offered to send $2,000 for every $1,000 sent to an anonymous Bitcoin address. Twitter previously said hackers used a phone to fool the social media companys employees into giving them access. It said targeted a small number of employees through a phone spear-phishing attack. This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems, the company tweeted. After stealing employee credentials and getting into Twitters systems, the hackers were able to target other employees who had access to account support tools, the company said. The hackers targeted 130 accounts. They managed to tweet from 45 accounts, access the direct message inboxes of 36, and download the Twitter data from seven. Dutch anti-Islam legislator Geert Wilders has said his inbox was among those accessed. Spear-phishing is a more targeted version of phishing, an impersonation scam that uses email or other electronic communications to deceive recipients into handing over sensitive information. Twitter said it would provide a more detailed report later given the ongoing law enforcement investigation. The company has previously said the incident was a coordinated social engineering attack that targeted some of its employees with access to internal systems and tools. It did not provide any more information about how the attack was carried out, but the details released so far suggest the hackers started by using the old-fashioned method of talking their way past security. British cybersecurity analyst Graham Cluley said his guess was that a targeted Twitter employee or contractor received a message by phone asking them to call a number. When the worker called the number they might have been taken to a convincing (but fake) helpdesk operator, who was then able to use social engineering techniques to trick the intended victim into handing over their credentials, Cluley wrote on his blog on Friday. It is also possible the hackers pretended to call from the companys legitimate helpline by spoofing the number, he said. The third episode of The Umbrella Academy Season 2 fills in some gaps. It also reveals the true identity of one mysterious character, while showing two of the Hargreeves siblings reclaiming their abilities. (Spoilers The Umbrella Academy Season 2 Episode 3: The Swedish Job ahead.) Klaus journey Robert Sheehan as Klaus Hargreeves in The Umbrella Academy | Christos Kalohoridis/Netflix RELATED: The Umbrella Academy Returns With Peace, Love, and a Nuclear Holocaust Season 2 Episode 1 Recap Where has Klaus been for the last three years? Down on his luck in 1960, a wealthy woman in Dallas rescues him and uses his powers to her amusement. Hes soon hailed as a prophet, and he travels the world, gaining recognition. At the height of his popularity, Klaus leaves San Francisco and is reunites with one of his siblings: Allison. After reconnecting, he gets Ray out of jail. Then we learn the real reason he came back to Dallas: To prevent Dave, his season 1 love interest from when the timeline in which he fought in Vietnam. Klaus tells Ben that Dave decided to enlist after Kennedy was shot, and he came back to keep him from doing so, to save his life. Vanya learns about her past RELATED: The Umbrella Academy Season 2 Episode 2 Recap: Dont Go Chasing Waterfalls Or Fathers After leaving Sissys, Vanya faces off against the Swedish assassins. Overcome with fear, her powers kick in. Five finds her with help from Elliott and explains to her who she is. But he doesnt tell her that she caused the last apocalypse. Together, they go to try and recruit Luther, only to see him take a beating in a fight. Why was Luther so upset? Jack Ruby got him Allisons address, but when he showed up at her house, he finds Ray, returning from jail. Luther is devastated to find that the woman he loves is married, and Ray realizes he doesnt know his wife very well. Allison finally uses her power Though some of Allisons fellow civil rights activists dont want to hold the sit-in without Ray, she convinces them otherwise. She tells Klaus its been great earning everything herself without using her ability. She reveals that it took her a year to get her voice back. After his encounters with her brothers, Ray joins Allison at the sit-in, but they argue amid the chaos. Then, someone pushes a hot cup of coffee on her, and the cops jump on her and Ray, taking him outside and beating him. She stops the cop with her power, which scares Ray. He runs away, and Klaus gets her away from the tear gas. Who is Lila? During all of this, Diego is recovering. Lila saved his life. When she tells him her parents were killed in a home invasion, they grow even closer and have sex. Meanwhile, the Handler arrives in 1963. She goes to a pet store and puts a hotel key in the treasure chest ornament in a fish tank. As Diego lies in bed, Lila gets up and goes to that same pet store. She gets the key and goes to the hotel. The Handler has just finished taking a bath while looking through Fives file. Lila calls her mum. New Delhi: Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Friday (July 31) said that 1st August is a day which made Muslim women free from social evil of Triple Talaq while addressing Muslim women from across the country through virtual conference along with Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani on the occasion of Muslim Women Rights Day. According to Naqvi, "1st August has been recorded in the countrys history as Muslim Women Rights Day, and it will remain as "a golden moment of Indian democracy and Parliamentary history. He further said that commitment of the government is Politic Empowerment and not Political Exploitation, adding several bold and big reforms are a reflection of our honest and effective efforts that have delivered better results. The Minority Affairs Minister said that the law which makes the social evil of Triple Talaq a criminal offence has strengthened self-reliance, self-respect and self-confidence of the Muslim women of the country. He said the government has ensured gender equality and strengthened constitutional, fundamental and democratic rights of the Muslim women by bringing law against the cruel social evil of Triple Talaq. He further said that Triple Talaq or Talaq-a-Biddat was neither Islamic nor legal. Despite the fact, the social evil of Triple Talaq was given political patronage by Merchants of Votes. Naqvi said the law against the social evil of Triple Talaq could have been passed in 1986 when the Supreme Court had given historic judgment in the Shahbano case. The Congress had an absolute majority in Parliament with more than 400 out of 545 Lok Sabha Members and more than 159 out of 245 Members in the Rajya Sabha. But the then Rajiv Gandhi government used its strength in the Parliament to make the Supreme Court judgment ineffective and deprive the Muslim women of their constitutional and fundamental rights, he pointed out. "Several Muslim-majority nations of the world had declared Triple Talaq as illegal and un-Islamic much earlier. Egypt was the first Muslim nation that abolished this social evil in 1929. Sudan in 1929, Pakistan in 1956, Bangladesh in 1972, Iraq in 1959, Syria in 1953, Malaysia in 1969 had abolished the practice of Triple Talaq," he said, adding "Besides, countries such as Cyprus, Jordan, Algeria, Iran, Brunei, Morocco, Qatar, UAE also ended this social evil many years ago. But Muslim women in India struggled for decades to get freedom from this cruel social evil." Union Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Smriti Irani also addressed the virtual conference. Manjit Singh Rai, Vice-Chairperson, National Commission for Minorities was also remained present at the event. About 50,000 Muslim women from various places across the country including Uttam Nagar and Batla House in New Delhi; Greater Noida, Lucknow and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh; Jaipur in Rajasthan; Mumbai in Maharashtra, Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu; Hyderabad etc joined the virtual conference. Washington Rep. Anthony Brindisi dismissed President Donald Trumps suggestion Thursday to delay the November election because of the risk of voter fraud with mail-in ballots. Brindisi, D-Utica, said theres no evidence to support Trumps concerns about voter fraud. He said election officials are taking appropriate steps to prepare for an increase in voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic. We should not delay our election, Brindisi said after Trump floated the idea in a tweet earlier Thursday. In Congress, I am working with Democrats and Republicans to provide much-needed resources for our local governments for Novembers election. Brindisi said Trumps claim that 2020 will be the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history is unsubstantiated. There is no evidence of widespread fraud from mail-in voting, and I am confident our state and local officials will put on a safe and fair election this November, the first-term congressman said. With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 Brindisi faces former Rep. Claudia Tenney, a Republican from New Hartford, in the Nov. 3 election for the 22nd Congressional District seat. Tenney had no comment about Trumps idea. A spokesman said she was unavailable. Trump won the 22nd District by 15 percentage points over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, the same year Tenney was elected to her only term in office. Tenney lost to Brindisi by almost 2 percentage points in the 2018 election. Trump endorsed Tenney in 2018, and made a campaign stop to raise money for her in Utica. Trump trails Joe Biden in polls nationwide and in key battleground states, with about three months remaining before the presidential election. MORE ON THE CAMPAIGN FOR CONGRESS CNYs candidates for Congress: Trump should wait for invite before sending forces into cities Rep. Anthony Brindisi challenges Claudia Tenney to 4 debates; she asks for 8 Anthony Brindisi can outspend Claudia Tenney 4-to-1 in campaign for Congress Republicans bet $5.5M on Tenney, making race against Brindisi one of nations hottest Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Mark Weiner anytime by: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 LOS ANGELESRemember the good old days (a few months ago), when you could leave your home for the day with a tall tumbler of coffee and a car well-stocked with water, confident in the knowledge that when your bladder came calling, you could find quick and easy relief at the nearest coffee shop, gas station or fast-food restaurant? Because after a couple of hours, you were likely ready for another Starbucks Nitro Cold Brew anyway, right? At least thats how it worked in my world, where regular caffeine was such a workday requirement that by the time I got home, the interior of my car was full of empty cups. In truth, I probably owe my caffeine addiction to my bladder: I had to buy a new coffee every few hours so I could justify using a coffee shops public bathroom when I was working outside the office. But the easy days of ubiquitous public restrooms are but memory, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdowns that have shuttered the seating areas and toilets of many coffee shops and restaurants. Even the old reliable go-to, the gas station, has become an iffy proposition. Is there any dance more urgent than racing into a gas station in pursuit of a restroom only to discover its closed to the public and trying to think, What do I do now? over the screams of your near-bursting bladder? The staff at the Central 76 station in Riverside, just off the 91 freeway, have seen that look more than once. Lots of people come here from other stations saying, I have to go! said assistant manager Cesar Mungaray. And if we notice people heading to the wall (outside), we go to the door and shout, Hey, we have restrooms open inside, because when they have to go, theyll go outside. So maybe it isnt my imagination, that whiff I keep smelling in parking lots these days. In fact, I now have a far better understanding of what homeless people have been facing for years: If people wont let you in, where can you go? The problem comes at a time where, for many of us, taking a drive seems like the last fun, safe, socially distanced thing we can do these days to get out of the house. But any drive that takes us too far from home leads right back to the problem at hand: where to go when nature calls. Sharokina Shams, spokeswoman for the California Restaurant Assn., says many food establishments have closed their restrooms to minimize coronavirus exposure to their employees. Not an unwarranted concern, considering that coronavirus has been found in the raw sewage at Yosemite National Park. A basic reality, however, is that restrooms get dirty, and surfaces that get lots of touching, such as doorknobs, sink handles and toilet seats, need to be cleaned. Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are demanding requiring plenty of disinfectants and cleaning supplies which can be difficult to manage when staffing is thin. Complicating matters is when the on-site restrooms are also the only available restrooms for employees to use. And what about a business owners liability if an employee gets sick after cleaning a restroom? Easier just to shut it down. For Nahal Noorzady, co-owner of the 14th Street Chevron and car wash off the 91 Freeway in Riverside, closing bathrooms is a struggle between her sympathy for travellers and basic dollars and cents. Chevron has instructed its stations to keep restrooms open for customers, she said, but they have closed one of their two restrooms to the public, reserving that for employee use. Noorzady says she understands the need for public toilets, but paper towels and cleaning supplies have become more expensive and harder to buy. I used to be able to buy a four-pack of paper towels for $23.99. Now I can only buy one pack at a time, and it costs $45. Noorzady added: If I cant buy soap. Ill have to close my restrooms. My friend tells me to do what truck drivers do sit in my car and reach for a portable urinal. Thats what the Tinkle Belle is for, she said. (For the uninitiated, the Tinkle Belle is one of many clever devices on the market that allow women to urinate standing up, without baring all.) But this is not a happy thought. What if I misalign my female urinary device and send urine streaming all over my shoes and floor mat a few minutes before my next interview? What if someone walks by my car and happens to glance inside? Give me a good bush to stand behind, or even a deserted field, and Im OK, but out in a parking lot or a city street ... aargh. Somebody must have a restroom open somewhere. And therein lies the rub. A few places do, based on my unscientific sampling these past few weeks, but if youre on the freeway and you have to go, you dont want to start guessing who might be open and make the wrong choice. After a few of those near-miss encounters, your bathroom quest can become a little crazed. If you are lucky enough to find a public bathroom, remember some common sense strategies, inspired in part by the CDC: Wear a mask, social distance if theres a crowd and try not to unnecessarily touch anything especially your face. If possible, use a paper towel or tissue to open and close doors, then toss it in the trash not the toilet, where it can cause a clog. (You might want to carry extra tissue or travel soap with you, as you never know when TP or cleaning supplies may be scarce.) Ideally, use hot water and soap to clean your hands on the way out. And dont linger; the longer you stay, the more exposed you are to any airborne germs from the last toilet flush or visitor. Finally, use hand sanitizer when you get back to your car. So potential solutions come down to dehydration (which isnt foolproof) or lots of strategic planning. Pepe Garcia, assistant general manager of the solids divisions in the L.A. City Public Works department, drives into Los Angeles from Perris every day, a good 75-mile trip one way, and hes opted for strategic planning. After 30 years of travelling the same roads, you find little pit stops along the way, he said. But when the pandemic came, and his go-to stops were closed, he had to move to Plan B: Hes identified a few places along his route that he knows will be open and always stops there now on his way to work, even if the need is not urgent. Im getting older, and I dont hold it like I used to, so I just anticipate that I wont be able to go all the way without stopping, he said. Ive got it down to a science; its become routine. Otherwise, its just a guessing game and you have to bounce from gas station to station until you find something. So here is my unscientific anecdotal advice about managing your bladder during the pandemic: 1. Do some shopping These days, the most reliable place to find an open restroom is in grocery stores or big-box stores like Target, Costco or Trader Joes. Of course, this means finding a parking space, sprinting through the parking lot and then praying theres no line, but you can be reasonably certain that these stores will keep their restrooms open and clean. 2. Visit a park Most city buildings are closed to employees and the public at large, but park bathrooms are still open, at least in the city of Los Angeles, said spokeswoman Rose Watson. The city lists its parks and their addresses on its website, if you want to bookmark those locations for easy searching, but be warned, small pocket parks dont usually have restrooms, Watson said. Good rule of thumb: If the park is big enough to have a recreation center, it will also have restrooms, which are typically open from dawn to dusk, she said. And bonus! those restrooms are usually near the parking lots, so you shouldnt have to run too far to get relief. 3. Pre-scout your route Most digital maps show businesses along the freeways, so make a note of exits that lead to a sure pit stop and then call ahead to make sure. 4. Invest in a portable urinal It cant hurt to have a screw-top urinal in your car, for those absolutely desperate moments when you cant find any other place to go. One of Amazons top picks is supposedly spill-proof and even has a glow-in-the-dark lid so you can find it at night. Women should investigate the vast new world of female urination devices or pee funnels, such as the Tinkle Belle, Amazon top-rated Sunany (with a funnel tip small enough to fit inside an empty water bottle), the GoGirl (No. 1 bestseller on Amazon), the Easy Peezy and the Shewee (one of the earliest FUDs on the market and now available in 10 colours!). There are also plenty of compact, portable toilets on the market, some for as little as $19.99. 5. Look for rest stops State-maintained rest areas are still helpful on long hauls, provided theyre not closed for maintenance. This is where Garcias advice comes in handy: Go whenever you can, because who knows when the next opportunity will show up. 6. Pack a bag Because accidents do happen, its especially smart these days to have a little bag in your car with wipes, tissues, plastic bags (one for damp garments, another for soiled tissue) and a change of clothes. (And maybe even shoes, in case your your pee funnel slips.) Some extra hand sanitizer would be helpful too, along with a towel to wrap around yourself if you have to go somewhere in wet pants to change. And remember, things could be worse. You could never have packed a bag at all. 2268 patrolling teams, 740 static surveillance teams, 792 flying squads, 351 video teams deployed for Punjab assembly poll Youth Congress leader Haripur opposes allotment to ticket to 'outsider' Barinder Dhillon from Rupnagar Morales, who entered the United States illegally in 1999, worked for five years as a housekeeper at Trumps golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., cleaning the villas used by Trump and his family. She was close enough to see family arguments and to learn Trumps personal habits: Irish Spring soap in the shower, two and a half containers of Tic Tacs on the bureau, and Bronx Colors face makeup at the ready, The Washington Post reported last year. Ukraine sends note of protest to Russian MFA over another 'humanitarian convoy' to Donbas Ukrainian MFA KYIV. July 31 (Interfax-Ukraine) The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine (MFA) has sent a note of protest to the Russian Foreign Ministry in connection with another committing by Russia of an internationally wrongful act against Ukrainian sovereignty, the press service of the Foreign Ministry said. "On July 30, 2020, the Russian side carried out another illegal transfer to the territory of Ukraine through the Russian border checkpoints 'Donetsk' and 'Matviyiv Kurhan' and closed by the Ukrainian side the border checkpoints" 'Izvaryne' "and 'Uspenka' of the so-called 'humanitarian convoy' for residents of the territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions," the message says. The ministry stressed that the Russian cargo was moved to the territory of Ukraine in violation of the norms and principles of international law, current bilateral agreements, Ukrainian legislation and previously agreed modalities for the delivery of humanitarian cargo. "They, among other things, provide for the accompaniment of legal humanitarian goods by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and their mandatory registration by representatives of the border and customs authorities of Ukraine," the ministry said. The Foreign Ministry also demands from the Russian side in the future, when organizing such "humanitarian convoys" scheduled for August 27, October 29, November 26 and December 17, to unswervingly adhere to international law, Ukrainian legislation and its international obligations. QUITO, Ecuador Some call it a floating city, a flotilla of 260 mostly Chinese fishing vessels near the Galapagos archipelago that is stirring diplomatic tension and raising worries about the threat to sharks, manta rays and other vulnerable species in waters around the UNESCO world heritage site. Yet the vast fleet is in international waters, outside a maritime border around the Galapagos and also outside coastal waters off Ecuador, which controls the archipelago. That means the fleet, one of the biggest seen in years off South Americas Pacific coast, is likely to fish with minimal monitoring until its holds are full. The Chinese fleet is very close" to the edge of the exclusive economic zone around the Galapagos, which extends 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from the archipelago, said its governor, Norman Wray. He said that, because of overfishing in recent years, what were seeing is that each time fewer species return to the Galapagos." Luis Villanueva, an officer with the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project, said Thursday that it was possible, though unproven, that long fishing lines from the Chinese vessels could be drifting into the exclusive economic zone. The fleet is a huge logistical undertaking, with storage and supply vessels that allow it to stay at sea for long periods. The fleet has drawn the attention of the United States, whose relationship with China is fraught on many fronts. The U.S. National Security Council tweeted that the U.S. stands with Ecuador against any aggression directed toward their economic and environmental sovereignty. China maintains that it is a responsible fishing nation with a zero tolerance policy toward illegal fishing. The Chinese Embassy in Quito said in a July 23 statement that China respects Ecuadors measures to protect the environment and preserve marine resources. China had ascertained and confirmed with Ecuadors navy that all the Chinese fishing vessels are operating legally and dont represent any threat for anyone," the embassy said. Despite the Chinese statement, Ecuador has expressed concern through diplomatic channels and its navy is on alert for any incursion into Ecuadorian waters. In 2017, 20 crew members of a Chinese boat were jailed after Ecuador seized the vessel in the marine reserve of the Galapagos and discovered large numbers of sharks on board. Ecuadors foreign minister, Luis Gallegos, said the fishing fleet includes Liberian- and Panamanian-flagged boats, and that Ecuador seeks deeper coordination with Colombia, Panama, Peru and Chile on protecting the eastern tropical Pacific. Chinas distant-water" fishing fleet is the biggest in the world and comprises a total of about 17,000 vessels, with about 1,000 of those registered in other countries, according to a June report by ODI, a London-based research group. The fleets vessel ownership is highly fragmented among many small companies" and it is unclear whether the Chinese government has a clear picture of its complex control structure, the report said. It said other countries are involved in the worlds overfishing crisis but that China is the most significant factor. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in June that about one-third of fish stocks are being fished at biologically unsustainable levels." Luis Surez, vice president and executive director of Conservation International in Ecuador, said there are suspicions, so far unconfirmed, that the Chinese fleet is being aided by South American associates because it is so far from home. For example, they could be selling it fuel, he said. Villanueva said fishing pressure around the Galapagos will only increase as climate change warms oceans and creates a more abundant catch around the archipelago in comparison to other regions. More and more fleets will be interested in that area," he said. ___ Torchia reported from Mexico City. 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 Ive been teaching in the Philadelphia school district for almost twenty years. As the summer is starting to wind down, I am beginning to think about teaching once again and daily life in the school, or at least as it would have been it not been set upon by the China virus. I wonder greatly how learning will ever be the same amidst not only the disease insidiously visited upon us by the Chinese communist party but also by the rising tide of violence in both our schools and on our streets in recent months. Call me old-fashioned, but I dont like living in places overwhelmed by violent crime where life is mocked and made perilous by ravening bands of leftist mobs which glorify the destruction of property and even death as societal goods. The lessons they seemed to have learned in school are plunder and with increasing regularity, even kill! Human dignity begins with the rule of law and is followed by behaving as if it applies to everyone. But Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner dont seem to see it that way. At about 6:30 p.m. on May 30, I bore witness to heinous violent acts at Chestnut Street between 16th and 19th where people were bullied, threatened, and harassed with veritable impunity by roving bands of rioters. I witnessed no law enforcement presence. I surmised they had been besieged by rioters setting police cruisers aflame to the north and east some time before. Scenes such as these should frighten every American. Both mayor Jim Kenny and Krasner are charged with the protection of all who live and work in Philadelphia. By their intransigence, they failed abjectly and deliberately. What little law enforcement there seems to have been in effect at the time missed the point while the ravening behavior of the mob missed the form. Most alarmingly, the police did not immediately arrest those committing criminal acts, very probably at Krasners behest and on political pretext. Krasner, therefore, contrived the chaos that day to unfold exactly as it did. This then is the very essence of objectification of violence by the mob. The more people are made to suffer in dumb anguish the tumults and trammels of chaos, the more fervent their desire for change becomes until at last, they can tolerate no more. They coalesce into a mob where their anger can only be assuaged through riot and plunder. By Krasners unwillingness to enforce the law with the alacrity as he most certainly would have done were the polarities both racial and political reversed, progressive apparatchiks have become emboldened to mobilize far and wide, for Krasner will not prosecute criminal acts within his jurisdiction so long as he can harness misery to defeat President Trump and thus consolidate power. In an article by Ronn Blitzer DAs backed by Soros, other liberal activists join fray (30 July 2020), there now exits a patent nexus and insidious comorbidity between the left and anarchy comforted, financed, and abetted by George Soros. The history is well known. Questioning the efficacy of the Electoral College, baseless accusations of the Presidents mental competence, and the Russia collusion hoax figure most prominently. Their obsession to have President Trump impeached by any means necessary is the chief reason for their insurgency. This errand is not one which he and the rest of the progressive cabal wish to fail. As history has shown well and good, it eventually will. The chaos the mob wrought which Krasner himself sanctioned is altogether repugnant to both the dignity of free expression and the nobility upon which the country was founded even in its birthplace. Ben Shapiro in In Seattle, Portland left's willingness to tolerate violence should frighten all Americans (29 Jul 2020) writes: "In truth, the category of 'mostly peaceful' is a brand-new invention meant to obscure the simple fact that many of our cultural elites are fine with violence so long as those who engage in such violence have the proper goals." The people suffering in those neighborhoods know well that the overwhelming preponderance of police officers are good people and can be prevailed upon in time of dire need. During such times, law enforcement officers are sorely needed. Those in charge should support them. Krasner, like so many on the left, fail to set the example themselves, nor do they allow those in their charge to do so. The lefts moral antipathy has run life in every major metropolitan off the rails and nearly ruined it. I confess myself both disappointed and angered. Conservatives did not riot and deserve better. On November 3, I will not forget this, having seen for myself on May 30. New Delhi: The government has restricted the import of colour televisions to check their influx from China and encourage domestic manufacturing, two officials aware of the matter said. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade issued a notification on late Thursday, amending import policy for the televisions from free to restricted category. This is the latest in a series of actions aimed at China that India has taken since 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese troops along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakhs Galwan Valley on June 15. India on Thursday said there has been some progress towards disengagement along the LAC, though the process is far from complete and military commanders from the two sides were are set to meet for the fifth time to work out steps to complete the process. India on June 29 banned 59, mostly Chinese, mobile applications like TikTok, calling them prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order. On July 23, it said bidders from the countries India shares its land borders with would need prior registration and security clearances for government contracts. The move was seen as part of Indias efforts to counter China. India in April issued a similar directive on screening foreign investment from neighbouring countries. Import of colour TV is now in the restricted category, which would necessitate an importer to seek import license from the government. The main purpose of this move is to check the influx of China TVs, one of the officials said requesting anonymity. India has a Rs 15,000 crore TV industry and over 36% of TVs are imported primarily from China and South East Asia, he added. A second official said some Chinese TV sets were routed through a third country with which India has a free trade agreement (FTA). This move will also curb such illegal trade, he said. Besides China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, and Germany are major exporters of colour TVs. Many such items enter the Indian market taking advantage of ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations]-India FTA... imports at reduced or zero duty put our domestic industry at a disadvantage. Such imports cannot be controlled through increased duty rates. Hence, the government is taking measures such as non-duty actions like import restrictions, the first official said. The ASEAN FTA was signed in 2009 with Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos. The second official said India has created necessary infrastructure and made arrangements to produce cost-effective electronic items under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self-reliant India Initiative), and will invite global manufacturers to set up units in the country. Indias electronics industry grew from $29 billion in 2014 to $70 billion in 2019, according to the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY). Phased Manufacturing Programme for TVs is underway and specified parts like open cells, chips on films, printed circuit boards assembly are exempted from duties. Hence, India is ready for a shift of manufacturing to India with cost-effective imports of essential parts, the first official said. The officials said the move to restrict the influx of TV sets was taken after consultations with the domestic industry that aims to promote Make in India scheme, create jobs and provide goods at comparable rates. Divakar Vijayasarathy, founder and managing partner at consultancy firm DVS Advisors LLP, said: As there is no ban and only a restriction [is] being imposed, there is a possibility of such imports, however, with prior approval of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade. The procedural aspects of acquiring this permit [licence], however, would be tedious considering the stakes involved. There shall be transition provisions in place for import orders already being given or goods in transit. DK Aggarwal, president of PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry appreciated the commerce ministrys decision. This move will restrict the irrational dumping of coloured television into the Indian market and cut inbound shipments of non-essential items from China and other Asian countries, which was severely damaging the survival and competency of our domestic manufacturers, he said. HALIFAX - RCMP investigators confirmed Thursday that the gunman who went on a rampage in Nova Scotia in April had hidden compartments in buildings and had converted personal assets into "a significant amount" of cash prior to his attacks. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Newly released court documents say witnesses told the RCMP the man who carried out the mass shooting in Nova Scotia allegedly smuggled drugs and guns from Maine for years and had hiding spaces in several of his residences. A fire-destroyed property registered to Gabriel Wortman at 200 Portapique Beach Road is seen in Portapique, N.S., Friday, May 8, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan HALIFAX - RCMP investigators confirmed Thursday that the gunman who went on a rampage in Nova Scotia in April had hidden compartments in buildings and had converted personal assets into "a significant amount" of cash prior to his attacks. However, a statement issued Thursday says one witness statement in court documents claiming Gabriel Wortman had committed prior murders and burned bodies was not corroborated by follow-up interviews and property searches. Investigators say searches of the killer's burned residence in Portapique haven't turned up evidence to back the allegation of any murders before the April 18-19 killings of 22 people in central and northern Nova Scotia. The Mounties were responding to the release earlier this week of previously blacked-out portions of witness allegations submitted by police to obtain search warrants. Allegations included statements by a witness that the 51-year-old denturist smuggled drugs, but the RCMP say that to date the investigation hasn't revealed evidence the gunman was involved in importing or selling illegal drugs, or that he was part of a criminal organization. "Only this one witness has come forward with information that the gunman was actively and recently involved in the importation and trafficking of illegal drugs," the RCMP statement says. "No other persons out of the close to 700 interviewed, including those closest to the gunman, have provided similar information that proves the gunman was an illegal drug smuggler and/or drug trafficker." Investigators say they've corroborated witness statements saying the killer had hidden rooms or compartments in his Dartmouth, N.S., property, and they agree he likely had hiding places in his Portapique residence which burned to the ground on the night of his rampage. "Investigators have confirmed that the gunman had constructed areas in his Dartmouth residence which appear to be designed to hide items. Information also suggested that the purpose for constructing these spaces was to hide firearms," the statement says. "Given that, investigators have no reason to doubt the existence of hiding spaces constructed at both the Dartmouth and Portapique residences and believe that the purpose of constructing these spaces was for hiding illegal firearms." Police say the gunman's emails reveal the withdrawal of personal funds from his investments and bank accounts. "The purpose of those conversions and withdrawals was based on the gunman's belief that his assets were safer in his possession as it related to the current pandemic," the statement says. "A significant amount of currency has been recovered from the gunman's burned out property in Portapique, which supports the pre-April 18 withdrawal of funds previously disclosed." The RCMP repeated previous statements that Wortman had weapons smuggled in from the United States and had one gun illegally obtained in Canada. "The gunman was involved in procuring firearms illegally .... Any transactions of firearms on the part of the gunman or anyone else remains part of the active investigation. As such, no further details in relation to this can or will be provided at this time," police say. The Mountie statement does say Wortman had relationships with Americans living in Maine and that he frequently visited these people. The gunman was killed by police at a service station in Enfield, N.S., on April 19, 13 hours after his rampage began. The documents that a media consortium, including The Canadian Press, went before a provincial court judge to obtain were heavily redacted, and Crown lawyers have only been releasing small portions sometimes a single word or phrase as the case progresses. Previously blacked-out details from police applications for search warrants were unsealed Monday by Judge Laurel Halfpenny MacQuarrie. A witness told police that neighbours spoke of concealed spaces on Wortman's properties in Portapique, N.S., and in Dartmouth, N.S. That included a "secret room'' in his Dartmouth denturist clinic, a false wall at his property on Portland Street in Dartmouth and "secret hiding spots'' at his warehouse property in Portapique. Previously released documents have detailed warning signals of paranoid behaviour and unusual purchases of gasoline by the gunman before his killings. Large portions of the documents remain blacked-out, and the judge wrote Monday that those redactions are necessary "because of the significant ongoing investigation.'' This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2020. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Quoc Dung, head of Vietnams SOM ASEAN, attended an online high-level dialogue on ASEANs recovery post-COVID-19 on July 30. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Quoc Dung, head of Vietnams SOM ASEAN, speaks at the dialogue. (Photo: VNA) Held by the ASEAN Secretariat, the dialogue aimed to collect opinions on the building of the blocs master plan on pandemic response and post-pandemic recovery, as requested by ASEAN leaders at the 36th ASEAN Summit in June. It brought together hundreds of delegates from ASEAN member countries and regional and international organisations. Dung, who is also Chairman of the ASEAN Coordinating Council Working Group on Public Health Emergencies (ACCWG-PHE), suggested economic recovery work should be done in steps with clear focuses, concentrating on production, tourism, and transport, with more attention to be paid to disadvantaged groups. He stressed the need to ensure the dual goals of containing the pandemic while rapidly recovering economic activities. As ACCWG-PHE Chairman, Dung called for the involvement from the private sector, international organisations, and ASEAN partners in the building of the plan, first of all the draft plan framework. The master plan, which will be constantly updated, is scheduled to be submitted to the 37th ASEAN Summit in November. At the dialogue, experts from the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and the World Economic Forum (WEF) pointed to a gloomy economic outlook for the region and the world. Given this, they stressed the significance of coordination between countries and sectors in pandemic response as well as economic recovery. They proposed prioritising such areas as healthcare, social welfare, education, food security, and high-quality infrastructure, adding that digital technology and the application of Industry 4.0 play an important role./. VNA Vietnam leaves deep imprint during 25 years of ASEAN membership In the 25 years since Vietnam joined ASEAN, it has left a major imprint on the bloc thanks to its willingness, effort, responsibility, and contribution to overall achievements. Last year, Google and Facebook made almost $400 million more in Australian advertising revenue than five of our major media outlets combined. Today, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg unveiled a draft code aimed at reining in the dominance of the digital platforms and strengthening the media companies that have lost significant ad revenue to the international tech giants. In this episode, national editor Tory Maguire is joined by media and telecommunications journalist Zoe Samios to discuss the implications of the code for Australian media and the companies. Our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainability of news coverage. Jewish Agency for Israel chairman Isaac Herzog and other leaders, including those from Italy, France, Argentina and South Africa, hold a briefing about the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on the global Jewish community. (JNS) - In somewhat of a role reversal, Israel has emerged during the global coronavirus crisis as the main supporter of Jewish communities worldwide. In a Wednesday briefing with Jewish Agency for Israel chairman Isaac Herzog and other leaders, including those from Italy, France, Argentina and South Africa, Herzog maintained that "there is a common table between the government of Israel and the Diaspora... the coronavirus affects the stability and well-being of community institutions all around the world." As an organization whose mission it is to foster and protect Jewish communities worl... WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 26: U.S. President Donald Trump exits a briefing on the coronavirus pandemic in the press briefing room of the White House on March 26, 2020 in Washington, DC. The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Friday on the $2 trillion stimulus package to combat the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) I never thought I'd see the day that a sitting President of the United States would actively spread disinformation that aims to undermine American democracy and disenfranchise voters. Yet on July 30, Donald Trump did just that, making the utterly baseless claim that allowing Americans to vote by mail would lead to an "inaccurate and fraudulent" election in November. Trump has made it clear he's afraid of American voters and hellbent on undermining our democracy. That is simply not true, and Trump didn't even bother to mention why there is such an urgent push for more Americans to be able to vote by mail and by absentee ballot on Nov. 3: COVID-19. Yes, instead of trying to help more Americans safely and securely exercise their right to vote in the midst of a pandemic, Trump once again chose to use Twitter to spread false information meant to confuse people and suppress votes. His tweet was even more shocking and crass in that it came on the same day civil rights leader and conscience of the Congress Rep. John Lewis was being laid to rest in Atlanta. But Trump didn't stop there - he then suggested in the same tweet that we should delay the November election because he thinks voting by mail is bad. This is an absurd and dangerous attack on our electoral system. I don't think I've ever been more dumbfounded or alarmed by a presidential statement in my lifetime. Never in our nation's history - not even during the Civil War - have we delayed a presidential election. And we're not about to let it happen over a disinformation campaign about vote-by-mail. I'd like to correct the record since the president brought it up. Ready for some facts? Fact 1: Trump does not have the power to delay or cancel the Nov. 3 election. Only an act of Congress can change the date of Election Day, the timing of which is set by the US Constitution - not by presidential tweet. Fact 2: Vote-by-mail has long proven to be one of the safest and most secure ways to vote. Mail-in ballots include strong security measures like barcodes that ensure their authenticity and are trackable from the day they are printed to the day they are counted. Story continues For the record, if Trump really cares about the safety of people and the security of their vote, then he should promote vote-by-mail, if for no other reason than to keep the American people safe as the coronavirus rages on and the death toll climbs. And he should support the HEROES Act that gives states $3.6 billion to bolster election infrastructure and allow every American to participate in our democracy. Instead, Trump is trying to confuse Americans and draw a dishonest distinction between voting by absentee ballot and voting by mail. Want in on a little secret? They're the same damn thing. Fact 3: There is no difference between voting by mail and voting by absentee ballot. And one is certainly not more or less secure than the other. In fact, the verification process is the same for both mail-in ballots and absentee ballots, and most states consider them to be the same thing. (By the way, you can sign up to vote by mail or request an absentee ballot on VoteAmerica's website.) There is no precedent for the level of disinformation and disenfranchisement efforts coming from the White House. From his attacks on vote-by-mail to an attempt by the president to undermine the US Postal Service in an election year when voting by mail will literally save lives, Trump has made it clear he's afraid of American voters and hellbent on undermining our democracy. A line is being crossed, and we need to fight back. We're at a point now where the very foundation of our democracy - the power to vote - is being threatened by one of the most powerful men in the world. VoteAmerica will not sit by and just let this happen. We are going to reinforce our democracy against this attack by turning out tens of millions of voters ahead of November's election. And we need you with us. Democracy only fails when we let it. By staying engaged, and by helping others play their part in our elections, we can protect it from those who wish to tear it down for their own personal gain. We hope you will join us. Debra Cleaver is the founder and CEO of VoteAmerica, a national nonprofit leveraging research-driven campaigns to register and turn out the 100+ million Americans who are traditionally excluded by partisan outreach efforts. By Laman Ismayilova Every year worlds Muslims celebrate one of the most sacred holidays of the Islamic world, Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca known as Hajj. The Islamic holiday symbolizes the highest human qualities and commemorates Prophet Ibrahims faith and devotion to God. Muslims celebrate Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) 70 days after the end of the month of Ramadan and the holiday usually lasts for four days. As a rule, the meat of the sacrificed animal (sheep, goat, camel or cow) is divided into three parts: one part is given to the poor. Another one is shared out among the relatives, while the final third part is eaten by the family. This ceremony can be performed both on the first and on the following days of the holiday. On the holiday, Muslims should eat meat dish. Pilaf or soyutma are traditionally prepared by Azerbaijani people for Eid al-Adha, while kids are often treated with various sweets. The holiday preparations also include bathing and dressing in new clothes. After that, Muslims attend mosque for the early prayers and exchange gifts. After the holiday prayer in the mosque, the imam reads sermons praising God and his Prophet Muhammad. On Eid al-Adha, Muslims forgive others and seek forgiveness during the holiday. People also visit graveyards to offer their respects to family members. Eid al-Adha is also a time of family gatherings, when Muslims visit their relatives and friends. The most popular greeting is "Eid Mubarak" (Blessed Eid) or "Eid sa'id" (Happy Eid). The holiday begins with the first sighting of the new moon. The date of Eid varies from country to country depending on geographical location. Since gaining independence and by the law "On holidays of the Republic of Azerbaijan", approved in 1992, Eid al-Adha has been celebrated in Azerbaijan every year as a public holiday. Eid al-Adha 2020 in Azerbaijan will begin in the evening of July 30 and ends on August 1. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Microsoft a leading buyer, report New York Times and Bloomberg as Trump likely to order ByteDance to sell or face a ban on its video app. If Microsoft were to buy TikTok, there would be no ban on TikTok in the US. (Photo | AFP) New York: Amid reports that President Donald Trump will order Chinas ByteDance to sell its hit video app TikToks US operations because of national-security concerns, Microsoft has emerged as a leading buyer. We are looking at TikTok, Trump told reporters Friday at the White House. We may be banning TikTok. Reports by Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal citing anonymous sources said the administration could soon announce a decision ordering ByteDance to divest its ownership in TikTok. There have been reports of US tech giants and financial firms being interested in buying or investing in TikTok. The New York Times and Bloomberg, citing an unidentified source, reported Friday that Microsoft is in talks to buy TikTok. Microsoft did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The software companys interest in the app was reported earlier by Fox Business News. If Microsoft were to buy TikTok, there would be no ban on the app in the US. TikTok issued a statement Friday saying that, While we do not comment on rumors or speculation, we are confident in the long-term success of TikTok. This is not the first time the US would be ordering a Chinese app to sell to a US buyer. In 2016, it told Chinas Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. to sell off its 2016 purchase of gay dating app Grindr, over fears that the personal data of several US government officials could allegedly be used by China to blackmail them for sensitive data. ByteDance launched TikTok in 2017, then bought Musical.ly, a video service popular with teens in the U.S. and Europe, and combined the two. TikToks twin service Douyin is available for Chinese users. TikToks fun, goofy videos and ease of use has made it immensely popular, and US tech giants like Facebook and Snapchat see it as a competitive threat. It has said it has tens of millions of US users and hundreds of millions globally. But its Chinese ownership has raised concerns about the censorship of videos, including those critical of the Chinese government, and the potential for sharing user data with Chinese officials. TikTok maintains it doesnt censor videos based on topics sensitive to China and it would not give the Chinese government access to US user data even if asked. The company has hired a US CEO, a former top Disney executive, in an attempt to distance itself from its Chinese ownership. US national-security officials have been reviewing the Musical.ly acquisition in recent months, while US armed forces have banned their employees from installing TikTok on government-issued phones. TikTok is also among dozens of Chinese apps banned by India recently citing national security concerns after a border clash between the two countries troops last month. American national-security worries parallel a broader US security crackdown on Chinese companies, including telecom providers Huawei and ZTE. The Trump administration has ordered that the US stop funding equipment from those providers in US networks. It has also tried to steer allies away from Huawei because of worries about the Chinese governments access to data, which the companies have denied it has. The Trump administration has stepped in before to block or dissolve deals on national-security concerns, including stopping Singapores Broadcom from its $117 billion bid for US chipmaker Qualcomm in 2018 in an effort to help retain US leadership in the telecom space. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 Trend: F-16 aircraft of the Turkish Air Force has arrived in Azerbaijan to participate in the 'TurAz Qartal-2020' joint exercises, Trend reports citing the press service of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry. At the beginning of the ceremony, the anthems of the two states were performed, a minute of silence was honored in memory of the National Leader Heydar Aliyev and the martyrs who died for the independence and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Speakers at the event noted the importance of conducting military exercises in Azerbaijan and wished the participants good luck in performing combat missions. MONTREAL - SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. is restructuring its resources business with a goal of returning the segment to profitability next year while its overall operations lost less money in the second quarter. The Montreal-based company says it will focus only on profitable parts of the resources business in nine countries in the Americas and Middle East with the number of segment employees shrinking 60 per cent to 6,000 by the end of 2021. SNC announced the move as it reported a net loss of $111.6 million or 64 cents per diluted share for the three months ended June 30, compared with a loss of $2.12 billion or $12.07 per share a year earlier. This quarters loss includes $47.3 million of restructuring costs mainly related to the resources services transformation. The adjusted loss improved to $31.6 million or 18 cents per share, versus a loss of $234.2 million or $1.34 per share in the second quarter of 2019. Revenues decreased 14.5 per cent to $1.95 billion from $2.28 billion in the prior year. The company was expected to report six cents per share in adjusted profits on $2 billion of revenues, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv. The unprecedented economic situation precipitated by COVID-19 and the downturn in oil prices has demonstrated that we made the right decision in changing our business model and exiting lump-sum turnkey contracting to focus on our core engineering services strengths, stated CEO Ian Edwards. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2020. Companies in this story: (TSX:SNC) Read more about: The administration of hotel ITC Bharat, Best Western Country club, Manesar and Heritage Village, Manesar - where Sachin Pilot and MLAs supporting him were allegedly camping - told Rajasthans anti-corruption bureau (ACB) on Friday that the legislators were not their guests and didnt stay there. The investigators were not allowed to enter Best Western Country club and Heritage Village properties in Manesar. Rajasthans special operation group (SOG), which is also probing the horse trading case, had received a similar response by the hotel administrations on Wednesday. On Friday morning around 6am, a five-member team from the ACB headed by deputy superintendent of police (DSP), ACB, Saleh Mohammad had left for Manesar to record statements of two MLAs, Vishvendra Singh and Bhanwarlal Sharma, considered to be in Sachin Pilots camp. The ACB team reached ITC Bharat around 11.30 am, where the team members were allowed entry till reception. The team checked the visitor record of the hotel and an hour later they left for Best Western Country Club, where they were stopped by the hotel administration a few metres ahead of the hotel, said an ACB official familiar with the developments. Also Read: Man linked to Rajasthan horse-trading tapes refuses to give voice sample The official added that when the ACB team enquired about Singh and Sharma, the hotel administration, in a written reply, said the MLAs never stayed there. The team got a similar response from hotel Heritage Village. The anti-corruption bureau (ACB) on Friday served reminder notices to former tourism minister Vishwendra Singh and Sardarshahar MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma, to get their statements registered within seven-days. Reminder notices have been sent to Sharma and Singh to come to the ACB headquarters within seven days and get their statements registered. We also want to ask them some questions related to audio tapes, said an ACB official related to the investigation. Watch: Rajasthan Speakers video with CMs son goes viral, BJP demands his resignation On July 17, the ACB registered a case against rebel Congress lawmaker Bhanwarlal Sharma, one Gajendra Singh and a power broker named Sanjay Jain under Section 7 (public servant accepts or attempts to take a bribe) and 7A (public servant obtaining undue advantage) of the IPC, on the basis of a complaint filed by chief whip of Rajasthan assembly, Mahesh Joshi. The basis of the complaint was the surfacing of three incriminating audiotapes that quickly went viral on social media. In one of the audiotapes, a rebel Congress lawmaker, who Joshi claims to be Sharma, is purportedly talking to a middleman and a person named Gajendra Singh about toppling the Ashok Gehlot government. In another tape, two persons are heard talking about some MLAs having accepted the first installment and the next course of action. On July 20, notices were sent to the house of Sharma and Singh in which the ACB sought co-operation from the two MLAs in the investigation. On July 24, the duo was served reminder notices. CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading home services franchisor, Premium Service Brands (PSB), increased their franchise sales 19% in the first half of the year. Their success came from a quick pivot to online platforms, robust online training, and a renewed focus on "recession tough" businesses that attracted new prospects. PSB adapted for restrictions but focused on maintaining their personal processes. Through online staff presentations and virtual cocktail hours, PSB could get to know candidates and recreate their signature "Discovery Day" interactions. PSB incorporated new technology like webcams and lighting to maintain the quality of "Discovery Days". The technology already in use within the company a robust Learning Management System, a centralized call center, proprietary technological integrations of CRM software were further incentives to join PSB. The strong performance by franchise sales 19 new signings nationwide were supported by a 23% growth over 2019 in systemwide revenue. In June, 360 Painting reported their highest grossing month ever. Strong revenue numbers served as validation to interested candidates. Because home services businesses were deemed essential during the government shutdown, these franchise opportunities were more appealing to candidates. "The relationship with our brokers has evolved in a way that I was not expecting. Due to COVID-19, we are more attractive to buyers because the service-based business now shows the resiliency that we have always known," said Vice President of Franchise Development, Luke Schulte. Premium Service Brands (PSB) is a leading home services franchisor in North America with six home services brands: 360 Painting, Maid Right, ProLift Garage Doors, Handyman Pro, Kitchen Wise, and Renew Crew. To learn more about Premium Service Brands and their opportunities for growth and business ownership, visit www.premiumservicebrands.com. SOURCE Premium Service Brands Related Links www.premiumservicebrands.com Kelvin Sterling Scott/iStockBy KIARA BRANTLEY-JONES, ABC News (NEW YORK) -- Six historically Black colleges and universities received eight-figure donations all thanks to philanthropist Mackenzie Scott. Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon's Jeff Bezos, granted millions of dollars to several HBCUs. Howard University, Xavier University of Louisiana, Hampton University, Morehouse College, Spelman College and Tuskegee University are all recipients of the generous donation. Last year, Scott pledged to give the majority of her wealth back to society and on Tuesday, she kept that promise by publishing a list of 116 organizations that she selected for transformative work. To date, she has collectively donated a massive $1.7 billion. "Like many, I watched the first half of 2020 with a mixture of heartbreak and horror," wrote Scott in a Medium post on Tuesday. "Life will never stop finding fresh ways to expose inequities in our systems; or waking us up to the fact that a civilization this imbalanced is not only unjust, but also unstable. What fills me with hope is the thought of what will come if each of us reflects on what we can offer." On Tuesday, four HBCUs announced that the generous donations they received were given by Scott. According to each respective university's released statement, Howard University received $40 million, Hampton University, $30 million, Tuskegee University, $20 million and Spelman College, an undisclosed amount. Morehouse College also revealed in a statement on Wednesday that they received an "eight-figure gift" from Scott. Xavier University released a statement on Tuesday revealing that they received a massive $20 million gift from a donor who wished to remain anonymous. However, the university is listed as one of the 116 organizations in a published list on medium.com that received a donation from Scott. The executive board members from each university shared their excitement and gratitude for the record-breaking donations. Howard's statement revealed that Scott, a former pupil of alumna Toni Morrison, gave "the largest gift from a single donor in school history." "I would like to thank Ms. Mackenzie Scott for her investment into Howard University and our 153-year mission of serving a diverse community of dynamic scholars who come here for an education and leave here with purpose to serve the world," said President Wayne A. I. Frederick, M.D., MBA in a statement on Tuesday. "We plan to immediately put this eight-figure gift to good use to support components of our 5-year strategic plan to help students graduate on time, retain our talented faculty, enhance our campus infrastructure and support academic innovation and entrepreneurship." "This pure act of benevolence is clearly a game changer and it could not have come at a better time," said Hampton University President Dr. William R. Harvey in a statement Tuesday. "I speak for the entire Hampton University community when I say we are grateful to Ms. MacKenzie Scott, who has chosen to support us during this unprecedented period of uncertainty." Lily D. McNair, president of Tuskegee University, said in a statement Tuesday that Scott's donation is "the largest single gift in the university's history," and it will be allocated to "focus on student scholarships, faculty and curriculum development, interdisciplinary programs and campus infrastructure improvements." "The gift will allow us to become the Tuskegee of the 21st century: a university that integrates knowledge, leadership and service to solve the problems of a global, modern society," said McNair. Spelman College officials described Scott's donation as a "magnanimous gift" that will bolster their educational plans for students. "These significant new resources will enable Spelman to continue to graduate Black women with a competitive edge to become successful global leaders and social justice change agents in whatever they choose as their life's work. We are so very grateful," said Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D., president of Spelman. "MacKenzie Scott's beneficent gift to Morehouse and several of our companion institutions in the HBCU network is an investment into the future of Black excellence," said David A. Thomas, the president of Morehouse College, in a statement on Wednesday. "This gift will help Morehouse to lay the foundation for the campus of the 21st century and continue the important work we do to produce graduates who effect positive change in their communities, the nation, and the world," Thomas stated. Xavier University released a statement on Tuesday saying that the gift is "the largest donation in its 95 years of excellence." "This gift is a pivotal development, ensuring that students have access to the exceptional education offered at Xavier," university officials said. In addition to the six HBCUs, Scott also donated to various organizations including the Jackie Robinson Foundation, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Black Girls CODE and the Obama Foundation. According to Scott's blog post on Medium, she pledges to continue her philanthropic efforts and says doing so offers "an opportunity to invest our good fortune in change, no matter what form our good fortune has taken." Copyright 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images Herman Cain, a 2012 Republican presidential candidate and ardent supporter of Donald Trump, has died of coronavirus, his team announced on his website on Thursday. Cain, 74, had been ill with the virus for several weeks and was in a high-risk group due to his history with cancer. It is unclear when or where he was infected, but he was hospitalised less than two weeks after attending the US presidents campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 20 June. Cain, who co-chaired Black Voices for Trump, was photographed at the event without a face mask and not physically distancing from other supporters. Public health officials had warned that the rally could put lives at risk and eight Trump campaign staffers tested positive for Covid-19. Herman Cain, who is 74, attended Trump's Tulsa rally as a surrogate for the Trump campaign Here's a photo he posted inside with no mask https://t.co/ZOrvWU4m0X pic.twitter.com/rjcbd4zqga Will Steakin (@wsteaks) July 2, 2020 Youre never ready for the kind of news we are grappling with this morning, wrote Dan Calabrese, the editor of Cains website. But we have no choice but to seek and find Gods strength and comfort to deal with it. Herman Cain our boss, our friend, like a father to so many of us has passed away. Calabrese added: We knew when he was first hospitalized with Covid-19 that this was going to be a rough fight. He had trouble breathing and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. We all prayed that the initial meds they gave him would get his breathing back to normal, but it became clear pretty quickly that he was in for a battle. At a White House briefing on Thursday, Trump described Cain as a wonderful man and dear friend of mine. He added: He was a very special person. I got to know him very well and, unfortunately, he passed away from a thing called the China virus. We send our prayers to Hermans great wife, Gloria, wonderful family, and I have to say America grieves for all of the 150,000 Americans who had their lives taken by this horrible, invisible enemy. Story continues Cain was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of a janitor and a cleaner, and grew up in Georgia in the segregated south. After college he worked as a Baptist minister and radio talkshow host and enjoyed a successful business career, serving as the chief executive of the Godfathers pizza chain, the chief executive of the National Restaurant Association and the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. He surged to public attention with a long-shot presidential campaign. He hoped to become the first person of colour to win the Republican nomination and challenge Barack Obama, raising the prospect of a 2012 election between two African American men. But Cain rejected that label, once saying: I dont use African American, because Im American, Im black and Im conservative. I feel more of an affinity for America than I do for Africa. In some ways he was a forerunner of Trump: a maverick, gaffe-prone businessman who had never held elected office and who energised grassroots conservatives, many of whom found Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, too moderate. Cains campaign slogan was 9-9-9, a pledge to simplify the tax rate to 9% for income, corporate and sales tax. But unlike Trump, he was upended by accusations that he had sexually harassed several women and by a poor grasp of foreign policy. He rambled when asked whether he supported or opposed Obamas policies in Libya and, complaining to reporters about gotcha questions, he said: And when they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan, Im going to say you know, I dont know. Do you know? Last year Trump spoke to Cain about sitting on the Federal Reserve board but he withdrew the nomination after objections from several Republican senators. Cain continued to give the president firm backing and got involved in his re-election campaign, sometimes in incendiary fashion. In May, tweeting a link to an article on his website about the billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros, Cain posted: This piece of trash survived the Nazi occupation of Europe, genocide, countless horrific atrocities, and a global conflagration that took millions upon millions of lives. ...But COVID-19 is the greatest crisis of his lifetime? Thats telling. Even as he lay in hospital, Cain tweeted about Trumps Fourth of July celebration at Mount Rushmore: Masks will not be mandatory for the event, which will be attended by President Trump. PEOPLE ARE FED UP! Never lacking in self-confidence, Cain often referred to himself in the third person. His motivational speaking company was named THE New Voice Inc the acronym stood for The Hermanator Experience. But he also showing willingness to laugh at himself, appearing with comedians such as John Oliver with whom he sat in a mock-up of the Oval Office. Acknowledging Cains death in a tweet, Romney, who eventually won the 2012 nomination but lost to Obama, wrote: Saddened that Herman Caina formidable champion of business, politics and policyhas lost his battle with Covid. St. Peter will soon hear 999! Keep up the fight, my friend. Cain is survived by his wife, Gloria Etchison, their children and grandchildren. My father fears what Im about to say will make me unable to find a job in the future. He may be right. My whole family worries about my health, as do I, and we have good reason to do so. I feel now more than ever that I must speak up regardless of consequence or retribution because to remain silent about this truly and uniquely American experience would be wrong. I did all the ... (click for more) China's ambassador to India Sun Weidong said disengagement of troops on the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh has been completed. (File photo: ANI) New Delhi: In a clear contradiction of Chinese claims, India has said military disengagement with Chinese troops on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Ladakh sector has not yet been completed. This runs against Chinese ambassador Sun Weidongs claim that disengagement has been completed in most areas. He made that claim during a virtual address organised by a think tank in New Delhi. Sun compared India-China ties to exquisitely crafted glass that could be broken by recklessness within seconds. In what is also being seen as a warning against action by India against Chinese companies, the Chinese envoy said both economies are highly complementary, interwoven and interdependent, adding that forced decoupling is against the trend and will lead to a lose-lose outcome for both sides. The Chinese ambassador also laid the blame on India for the unfortunate Galwan Valley clash in mid-June. He said Indian troops attacked Chinese troops first but added that neither side wanted to see such an incident. Totally at odds with Indias stated position relating to that deadly clash in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed, the Chinese envoy claimed that Indian troops had agreed -- on June 6, nine prior to the clash -- to withdraw to the Indian side of the LAC and dismantle infrastructure. Denying that China was expansionist, Sunin a clear reference to New Delhisaid new disputes could arise if one side tries to unilaterally decide the alignment of the LAC. He also reiterated that his country was not a strategic threat to India. In a statement released on Thursday evening, New Delhi said, There has been some progress made towards this objective (de-escalation) but the disengagement process has as yet not been completed. The senior commanders of the two sides will be meeting in the near future to work out steps in this regard. ... we expect 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 ... . Just a short while before that, the Chinese ambassador had indicated that the border troops have disengaged in most localities. The temperature is coming down. This was said while delivering a special lecture on the subject India-China Relations: The Way Forward organised by former Indian ambassador to China Ashok Kantha at the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS) in New Delhi. One hundred years is a big milestone, and a local group of women is coming together to celebrate the achievement. We are planning an anniversary party and the party is on no matter what, Margy Hagaman, Menomonie, past president of the League of Women Voters Greater Chippewa Valley, and chair of the celebration committee, said. But Instead of parades, open houses and plays, the Chippewa Valley Inter-generational group planning for the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote, has moved to virtual events, book and movie lists and small group museum visits. We are so excited to collaborate with the League of Women Voters as well as the Girl Scouts of Northwestern Great Lakes and the American Association of University Women-Eau Claire to bring this exhibit to the community, said Melissa Kneeland, executive director of the Dunn County Historical Societys Rassbach Museum. The museum, in Menomonies Wakanda Park, is hosting the Wisconsin Historical Societys traveling display, We Stand on their Shoulders, which celebrates the history of Wisconsin women and voting. The banner exhibit will be on display Tuesday, Aug. 4 through Saturday, Aug. 15th. The Rassbach Museum will also display artifacts from their own collection. It is in the spirit of collaboration, celebration and shared vision that we all worked together to create an opportunity for our community to see this exhibit, and we hope it will inspire everyone to exercise their right to vote, Kneeland said. The exhibit explores womens suffrage and leadership before and after the ratification of the 19th Amendment. The 19th Amendment laid the groundwork to enfranchise women but did not extend voting rights to all. A series of additional legislation between 1920 and 1982 broadened opportunities for women of all races to vote. This exhibit explores the landmark legislation, political advancements of women from 1919-1982 and the continuing conversation surrounding voting rights. The year 2020 marks one hundred years since some women were granted the right to vote, said Jenny Kalvaitis, coordinator of Secondary Education at the Wisconsin Historical Society. But what a lot of people may not realize is that Wisconsin was the first state to ratify the 19th Amendment and pass a statewide Equal Rights Amendment. The Rassbach museum is open by appointment only, in order to ensure safety of patrons and staff. Exhibits are cleaned after each tour, and face masks are required. Tour times are available Tuesday Sunday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children and $12 for a family group. Museum members are free, and all visitors on Sunday are free. To schedule a visit you can call 715-232-8685 Tuesday through Friday. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. It was fitting that Obama picked up the tempo as he was the natural one to take the baton from Lewis in the ongoing relay of civil rights. He pointedly spoke of the segregated world into which Lewis was born and the farm where his parents picked somebodys elses cotton. He credited Lewis for what he, himself, became a U.S. senator and the first Black president of the United States. Through 45 arrests and countless beatings, most memorably during the Bloody Sunday march Lewis helped lead across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., he had paved the way for Obama. The 1965 march itself was nonviolent, but the state troopers, who had been authorized to use force by then-Alabama Gov. George Wallace, were not. A sign is set up at a campaign location during primary elections in Hong Kong on July 12, 2020. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images) Beijing Trying to Remake Hong Kong in Its Image With City Election Delay: Rubio Governments and officials around the world have condemned the Hong Kong governments decision to delay an upcoming election, saying it was Beijings latest affront on the citys freedoms. The world has watched the Chinese Communist Partys continued, escalating assault on Hong Kongs freedoms and autonomy, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told The Epoch Times in a July 31 email. On Friday, Hong Kongs top official Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced the decision to postpone the September Legislative Council election by one year, citing a surge in local virus cases. Hong Kong has recorded triple-digit increases in COVID-19 cases for the tenth day straight, with 121 new cases recorded on Friday. Rubio said Beijing was exploiting the virus pandemic to remake Hong Kong in its image and that Hongkongers political freedoms are being crushed daily. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, at a Friday press conference, condemned the election postponement, saying the action undermines the democratic processes and freedoms that have underpinned Hong Kongs prosperity, and is only the most recent in a growing list of broken promises by Beijing. The move dealt a blow to the local pro-democracy camp, which hoped to win a majority of seats in the legislature. In mid-July, more than half a million Hongkongers came out to cast ballots in an unofficial primary organized by pro-democracy activists, a turnout widely viewed as a symbolic protest against the national security law. A woman (centre L) uses her phone while waiting to vote during primary elections in Hong Kong on July 12, 2020. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images) In reaction to the election postponement, Germany suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong. The United States, U.K., Australia, Canada, and New Zealand previously ended their agreements with Hong Kong following Beijings imposition of a sweeping national security law. Read More New Security Law Ushers in Authoritarian Era for Hong Kong The law went into effect on July 1, the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kongs transfer of sovereignty from British to Chinese rule. On Thursday, local authorities mass-disqualified a dozen prominent pro-democracy activists from running in the election. Chris Patten, the last British governor, described the move as an outrageous political purge. And on July 29, the Hong Kong polices new national security department made its first arrests, detaining four student activists for posting problematic messages advocating for independence on social media. The recent developments in Hong Kong represent a further infringement of the rights of Hong Kong citizens, the Germany foreign ministry said in a statement on Twitter. Hours after Lam made the announcement, Hong Kong police issued arrest warrants for six democracy activists currently based overseas, including Nathan Law and former British consular worker Simon Cheng, accusing them of violating the national security law. Law, currently in the U.K., said that he had expected such a day to come when he fled Hong Kong amid growing Chinese encroachment, but that this becoming a reality still disappoints, incapacitates, and frightens me. Pro-democracy activist Nathan Law, along with Agnes Chow and Joshua Wong, attends a press conference in Hong Kong on Jan. 27, 2018. (Kin Cheung/AP Photo) [W]ho can enjoy freedom from fear in the face of Chinas powerful political machine? he said on Twitter. He said he has stopped contacting family members since leaving the city and will also sever ties with them. The arrests, the disqualifications, the wanted bulletinsthese are indications of our need to remain active on the global stage, he continued. That Hong Kong has no place for even such moderate views like ours underscores the absurdity of Chinese Communist rule. The Hong Kong governments decision also invited a torrent of U.S. criticism on Twitter. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) called it a slippery slope to authoritarianism, while Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said it showed the Chinese regimes pattern of suppression. Whether the election is tomorrow or in a year, [Hong Kongs] desire for democracy wont fade, he wrote. A Swiss pharmaceutical group has delivered a cancer drug to Iran through a new humanitarian channel that conforms to US sanctions, Bern said Thursday. The Swiss economic affairs ministry (SECO) confirmed that the first transaction by a Swiss drug company had been completed under the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA) created in February. "The shipment was for a cancer drug used to treat iron overload caused by repeated blood transfusions," spokeswoman Nadine Mathys told AFP in an email. SECO did not identify which pharmaceutical firm was involved, and gave no details on the size of the shipment. The system was created to allow Swiss companies in the food, pharmaceutical and medical sectors to send aid to Iran without drawing Washington's wrath for breaching sanctions against Tehran. Iran has faced severe medical shortages since the US pulled out of a landmark nuclear deal and reimposed crippling sanctions in 2018. Washington exempted humanitarian goods, especially medicines and medical equipment from its punitive measures. But international purchases of such supplies are often impossible since international banks refuse to do business with Iran for fear of falling foul of sanctions themselves. This has sent medicine prices in Iran soaring and has had dire consequences for people suffering from rare or special diseases that require imported medication. "The SHTA is progressing," Mathys said Thursday, adding that "a number of companies have already been approved, (and) more companies will follow. Further transactions should be carried out shortly." An initial pilot transaction was conducted on January 27 after the Swiss government approved the agreement in principle, allowing for payment for the shipment of cancer drugs and medicines needed for organ transplants. Australias government has ordered Facebook and Google to share revenue generated from news articles in what it says is a world-first move -- opening up another front in the regulatory and political pushback against the digital giants. The two companies will have to negotiate with traditional media on remuneration in good faith, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Friday. If no agreement is reached there will be a binding arbitration process and penalties for breaching the code will be up to A$10 million ($7 million), he said. The move is about ensuring a level playing field for Australian media companies, Frydenberg said. The draft code, which is open to consultation until Aug. 28 before being legislated later this year, will initially only apply to Google and Facebook but could be extended to other digital companies in the future. Traditional media firms have long complained their content is being exploited by digital platforms without due compensation. As newspapers and broadcasters hemorrhage jobs, their complaints have garnered more political support. Regulators in other jurisdictions -- as well as investors -- are watching closely to see how the code works in practice. Should watchdogs in other markets follow Australia, it would chip away at two of the most wildly successful business models of the 21st century, built largely on content free-for-alls. There is a fundamental bargaining power imbalance between news media businesses and the major digital platforms, Rod Sims, the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission which drafted the code, said in a statement. We wanted a model that would address this bargaining power imbalance and result in fair payment for content, which avoided unproductive and drawn-out negotiations, and wouldnt reduce the availability of Australian news on Google and Facebook. Public schools across Wisconsin should open as soon as safely possible this fall. And the top priority should be doing whats best for our kids. Significantly, the American Academy of Pediatrics strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school. Science is on the side of bringing students back to school buildings, despite the pandemic. Thats because schools are fundamental to child and adolescent development and well-being, according to the AAP. The importance of in-person learning is well-documented, and there is already evidence of the negative impacts on children because of school closures. That includes social isolation, abuse, depression and hunger. Unfortunately, the Madison School District announced Friday it will offer online classes only this fall despite six or seven weeks to go before the fall semester begins. By then, a lot could change with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Dane County recently and wisely implemented a mask requirement for inside buildings that arent peoples homes. That should help ease the spread of COVID-19, making it safer for in-person classes. The AAP recently stressed that the preponderance of evidence indicates that children and adolescents are less likely to be symptomatic and less likely to have severe disease resulting from COVID-19. They also appear less likely to contract and spread the infection. The Madison teachers union last week demanded online classes only until Dane County goes at least 14 straight days without new COVID-19 cases. That might be best for older teachers with underlying health conditions making them more susceptible to the pandemic. But its definitely not best for our children. The district should reject such a rigid standard that fails to consider the needs of our broader community. Lower-income students, who are disproportionately of color, are less likely to succeed with online schooling if they have fewer resources at home and if their parents cant work remotely because of front-line jobs. The Madison School Board should have waited to see how COVID-19 plays out this summer. Thats what other school districts, such as Chicago, are doing. Its possible the plan that Madison schools outlined to parents recently could have worked in September. That called for half of students to attend two days of in-person classes each week, with the other half of students attending two different days. Instead, the Madison district announced Friday just a day after the teachers union made its unrealistic demand that all classes will be virtual for at least the first quarter. To help protect students and teachers who return to school, the AAP urges face masks for older students, social distancing and other precautions. Adult staff in high-risk categories for COVID-19 should be granted reasonable accommodations. But school districts across Wisconsin should lean toward opening their buildings. Public Health Madison and Dane Countys current health orders, which are stricter than most of the state, allow schools to open for in-person classes. Nordic countries in Europe successfully opened their schools months ago or never closed and havent experienced widespread outbreaks. Madisons online-only plans shouldnt become the model for the rest of the state. Wisconsin State Journal editorial board The views expressed in the editorials are shaped by the board, independent of news coverage decisions elsewhere in the newspaper. CHRISTOPHER T. WHITE, President and publisher JOHN SMALLEY, Editor SCOTT MILFRED, Editorial page editor PHIL HANDS, Editorial cartoonist Dr Anthony Fauci is fighting back against questioning from a Republican lawmaker over whether recent protests increased the spread of coronavirus. Rep Jim Jordan of Ohio repeatedly pressed the top health official on whether protests in Portland and other cities against police brutality and racial discrimination should be curbed to stop the virus spread. Jordan complained that government officials are stopping people from going to church, but not shutting down protests. Fauci refused to be drawn into the politically sensitive debate while testifying before House lawmakers on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, he reiterated, "Any crowd, whether it's a protest, any crowd when you have people close together without masks is a risk." 4 arrested for breaking security law in first major action from HKPF's new natl security unit Global Times Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/30 2:25:22 Four people who claimed to be students have been arrested for breaching the national security law for Hong Kong and suspected of secession by advocating for "Hong Kong independence," the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) announced on Wednesday night. Hong Kong media reported that this is the first action taken by the new national security department under the police force since it was officially established in early July. The four, three men and one woman aged between 16 and 21, were arrested at around 3:30 pm on Wednesday, Senior Superintendent Li Kwai-wah of the national security department under the HKPF announced at a press conference at 11 pm. It involved a group setting up an organization on a social platform advocating for "Hong Kong independence." The platform of the organization claimed to establish a "Hong Kong Republic." There was also a manifesto inciting others to join the group, Li said. If the crime is deemed as serious, they could be sentenced to 10 years in prison, and police can take DNA samples from the arrested individuals, Li said. Li said he believed that the organization had been set up recently and that the message left on the social platform was only discovered after July 1 this year, and that inciting, aiding and abetting such an incident constituted sedition. The police force did not disclose the names of the arrested people and the organization, but Studentlocalism, a secessionist group, announced on its Facebook page on Wednesday night that Tony Chung Hon-lam, one of the former conveners of the organization, was "arrested for inciting secession," local media reported. On Sunday, the organization published an article on its Facebook page titled "Counterbalancing Chinese nationalism and constructing Hong Kong nationalism," with the hashtags including "independence is the only way for Hong Kong" and "Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Time." The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) said on July 2 that the slogan, "Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Time," has the implications of secessionism, alienating HKSAR from China, changing HKSAR's legal status or subverting the State power under the current circumstances. Studentslocalism also announced it shut down its headquarters in Hong Kong on June 30, the same day the national security law for Hong Kong took effect, and said all the group's affairs would be handled by overseas members instead. They set up a division in the US on June 30, according to the group's Twitter. A Global Times reporter found that the group continued advocating "Hong Kong independence" on an overseas social media platform after June 30. In a post on Twitter on July 2 they said "disintegrate China." According to Li Xiaobing, an expert on Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan studies at Nankai University in Tianjin, whether the suspects are to be convicted under the national security law for Hong Kong depends on whether some of their speeches or activities after June 30 damage the interests protected under the national security law. According to Article 20 of the national security law for Hong Kong, a person who organizes, plans, commits or participates in any of the acts that separates the HKSAR from China, whether or not by force or threat of force, with a view to committing secession or undermining national unification shall be guilty of an offence, the principal offender shall be sentenced to life imprisonment or fixed-term imprisonment of not less than ten years. A person who actively participates in the offence shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years; and other participants shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, short-term detention or restriction. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Like other Muslim nations across the world, Libyans on Friday celebrated Eid al-Adha, the feast that involves animal sacrifice, known as Qurbani, prayers and family gatherings, in an atmosphere marked by the hope of a rapid resolution of the crisis sparked by military escalation and a resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic A Chinese man with a long-term intestinal illness has nearly died after his blocked bowel burst following a hearty dinner. The 63-year-old patient, known as Mr Wang, said he heard a bang coming from inside his body before realising something 'had exploded'. He told local reporters that he felt sharp abdominal pain and uncontrollable sweats afterwards. He was rushed to hospital by his family members. The 63-year-old Chinese patient, known as Mr Wang, told Jiangsu Radio and Television Station that he heard a bang coming from inside his body before realising something 'had exploded' He said he had eaten a big bowl of wontons (file photo) before hearing the unexpected sound The incident took place recently in the city of Huai'an in eastern China's Jiangsu province, reported Jiangsu Radio and Television Station. Mr Wang had allegedly suffered from bowel obstruction for more than a year prior to the event. He said he had eaten a big bowl of wontons - a type of soup dumplings popular in eastern China - at around 6pm that day before hearing the unexpected sound. Medics discovered that Mr Wang's abdominal cavity was filled with faeces during a checkup Bowel obstruction is a condition in which the bowel stops working properly, according to NHS. There are two types of obstruction - mechanical and functional obstruction. It remains unknown which kind Mr Wang had. During a medical checkup, doctors from the Huai'an Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital discovered that the man's abdominal cavity had been filled with faeces. The hospital said that Mr Wang's condition had stabilised following the emergency operation Sun Jian, a supervising doctor, told reporters that medics had to suck out nearly 3,000 millilitres of waste and liquid from Mr Wang. Afterwards, they cleaned his abdominal cavity with 23,000 millilitres of water. Medics found a 1.2-inch-wide hole in the middle of Mr Wang's transverse colon, added Dr Sun. Mr Wang's condition has stabilised following the emergency operation, according to the report. Ford Records Better-Than-Anticipated Q2 Operating Results DEARBORN, Mich., July 30, 2020 -- Ford Motor Company today reported its 2020 second quarter financial results. Click here or visit media.ford.com to view the news release. Visit shareholder.ford.com for the slide presentation and access the webcast to the Ford earnings call, which begins at 5 p.m. ET. The call will feature Jim Hackett, president and CEO; Tim Stone, chief financial officer; and other members of the Ford senior management team. About Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company is a global company based in Dearborn, Michigan. The company designs, manufactures, markets and services a full line of Ford cars, trucks, SUVs, electrified vehicles and Lincoln luxury vehicles, provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company and is pursuing leadership positions in electrification; mobility solutions, including self-driving services; and connected services. Ford employs approximately 188,000 people worldwide. For more information regarding Ford, its products and Ford Motor Credit Company, please visit corporate.ford.com. (Bloomberg Opinion) -- A rare opportunity to calm the troubled waters of the Eastern Mediterranean arose this week, with Turkey putting on hold a controversial seismic survey in an area contested by Greece. Its research vessel will stay in the port of Antalya for now, giving the two countries time to seek a diplomatic solution. Exactly how much time is unclear, but a spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara was ready for comprehensive negotiations with Athens, without preconditions. Some in Greece may question the sincerity of the offer, which comes shortly after Erdogan inflamed Greek sensibilities by converting the iconic Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque. But there is no surer way to find out than to start talking. Given the deep antagonism between the two sides, any negotiations between them will require mediation. Their dispute over the waters and hydrocarbon resources of the Eastern Mediterranean is only the latest chapter in a long history of hostility. In other circumstances, the U.S. would play that role: After all, Turkey and Greece are both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The last time they came close to war, over uninhabited Aegean islets in 1996, President Bill Clinton defused the crisis. But Erdogans commitment to NATO is questionable at best, and in any case the Trump administration has no aptitude for conflict resolution. The most logical alternative as honest broker between Ankara and Athens is Berlin. Germany is a vital trading partner for both countries, and its presidency of the Europe Union gives it even greater diplomatic weight. The Turks and Greeks have chafed at what they regard as German high-handedness in bilateral relations, but when Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks, they tend to listen. As indeed they did last week, when she called Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and talked them down from a possible naval confrontation in the Aegean Sea. Those conversations informed Turkeys decision to hold back the survey mission and give diplomacy more time. Story continues Germany enjoys considerable credibility with other countries that have claims on the Eastern Mediterranean, such as Cyprus, Israel and Egypt. And its lack of involvement in the Libyan civil war is also an advantage. The only other major country that has similar qualifications as a mediator is Britain, which is a major trading partner for Turkey and Greece, and has good relations with Israel and Egypt. It is also a party, alongside Turkey and Greece, to the peace talks in Cyprus. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson has shown little appetite for a larger role in the Eastern Mediterranean. Having got their attention, Merkel should press Erdogan and Mitsotakis to commit to high-level talks covering the full range of their disagreements in the Eastern Mediterranean. All of them stem from differences in opinion over a fundamental question of maritime jurisdiction: How far into the sea do the territorial and economic claims of a littoral state go? The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allows a country territorial claims up to 12 nautical miles, and an exclusive economic zone up to 200 nautical miles from its coastline. But there is much debate over what constitutes a coastline: Should it be measured from the Greek mainland, or from each of its islands, some of which are within sight of the Turkish coast? Greece is a signatory to the UN convention, but Turkey is not. For any honest broker, this difference augurs for long and testy negotiations. Angela Merkel has no time to waste. 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 Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. It was dirty work, Marie and Pierre Curies discovery of radium and polonium. To investigate uranium at their Paris laboratory, Marie acquired several tons of pitchblende, a black ore, and the industrial waste product left over when uranium was removed from it. They ground the rock and dissolved it in acid to separate the elements and, in the process, discovered polonium and radium. They were working, up to their elbows, in poisonous radioactive materials. Radioactive, Marjane Satrapis biopic of the renowned Polish-born French physicist, is alive to the toil of science. Not just its grubby, physical labor, but the burden of a sexist, male-dominated field, the hardships of a public life and the unrelenting tenacity of a pioneer like Curie. As played by Rosamund Pike, Curie is as tough, prickly and potent as that pitchblende. The film, which debuts Friday on Amazon Prime Video, comes from Lauren Redniss 2010 graphic biography, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout. Satrapi, the Iranian-French filmmaker, has her own roots in graphic novels. She co-directed the adaptation of her own Persepolis, a striking coming-of-age tale set against the Islamic Revolution. Persepolis had a compelling monochrome look, and Redniss book a more surreal, iridescent style. But Radioactive is bathed in the more conventional gauzy glow of a biopic, and clings disappointingly to the genres familiar rhythms. With some notable exceptions, this is a traditional treatment of an extraordinary life, complete with deathbed scenes that bookend the film and frequent lines, in Jack Thornes screenplay, in which Curie single-mindedly speaks of scientific progress less like a person than a grade-school teaching tool. Maybe theres not anything so wrong with that. Female scientists are so frequently underappreciated that Radioactive is worthwhile. Curie hasnt been absent from screens. There was, most recently, the 2017 international production Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge and the 1997 French drama Les Palmes de M. Schutz, with Isabelle Huppert as Curie. But not since 1943s Oscar-nominated Madame Curie has she had the full biopic treatment. As the first person to win the Nobel Prize twice after which she saved countless lives with mobile X-ray labs during World War I she had the sort of huge life that more than fills a movie. And Radioactive has endeavored to capture a full picture of Curie, starting with her romance with Pierre (Sam Riley). Having suffered the misogyny of colleagues and recently been turned out of her office, shes skeptical of him both professionally and romantically. But he proves an equitable partner and, besides, has something special to offer: laboratory space. Their relationship and their historical discoveries make up about half of Radioactive, and while it may be the most dramatic period of Curies life, its the more inert piece of the film. History is sometimes exaggerated for effect. Marie quarrels with Pierre when he accepts their Nobel without her; he, in fact, refused to until they both could travel to Sweden, which they did two years later. Marie is also shown here as an outsider throughout, which minimizes her role in the scientific community. But Radioactive picks up after the death of Pierre in a road accident in 1906. There is scandal; Curie years later came to love Pierres protege, a physics professor named Paul Langevin (Aneurin Barnard), who was married but separated. The French branded her a homewrecker and cursed as an immigrant. (Albert Einstein supported her in a memorable letter.) Later, wartime scenes with her 17-year-old daughter Irene (the talented Anya Taylor-Joy) reverberate with electricity missing from much of the film. In its boldest break from the biopic format, Radioactive also weaves in flashes of the modern ramifications to Curies discoveries: a boy, in 1957, receiving radiation treatment; the bombing of Hiroshima; meltdown at Chernobyl. The leaps ahead which come from Redniss graphic novel are disjointed and unexamined. But they give the often too rigid and unimaginative Radioactive a charge, putting Curie into a broader, never-ending context. In one them, were plunged into a Nevada atomic test. Theres a mock town, complete with a stereotypical nuclear family including a housewife. We watch as the bomb, a product partly of Curies discoveries decades earlier, eviscerates them. Radioactive 2.5 stars RATED: PG-13 (for thematic elements, disturbing images, brief nudity and a scene of sensuality) WHEN: Now streaming WHERE: Amazon Prime Video Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) Authorities have a role in helping telecommunications firms improve services in a bid to attract investors, an analyst said Friday. Speaking to CNN Philippines The Exchange, political and economic analyst Eduardo Araral said government must assist telcos in setting up cellular sites to boost services. For instance, Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu said the Ayala-led company has been suffering through heaps of permits and fees through the years to construct a single tower. Twenty five to 29 permits, umaabot ng walong buwan tapos marami pa ho kaming mga miscellaneous fees, iba-ibang klaseng tower fee, mayroon kaming special use permit, the Presidential Communications Operations Office quoted Cu as saying during his meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday. [Translation: We go through 25 to 29 permits in a span of eight months, then we also have a lot of miscellaneous fees and tower fees as well as a special use permit.] Kailangan din ayusin ng gobyerno yung mga permit na yan, ano, at tulungan din yung mga telco dahil hindi na nila kayang itayo yung mga tower kung walang tulong ang gobyerno, Araral said. [Translation: The government must fix these permits and help the telcos because they cant build towers without their help.] READ: Streamlined application rules as Duterte orders to fast-track cell site construction In his State of the Nation Address, President Rodrigo Duterte gave told the two major telcos: shape up by December or ship out, citing the inconvenience he personally experienced with Globe and Smart services, as well as that of the public. With such remarks, telcos are among politically risky projects which might make foreign investors think twice, Araral said. He added that these companies also consider other factors like growth potential, taxes, skills and infrastructures as well before making a move. Babalansehin din nila sa political risk yan bago sila gumawa ng desisyon, he said. But of course, this political noise creates a lot of unnecessary issues. [Translation: They will also balance these (factors) out with political risk before deciding.] Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin arrives for a Senate Republican luncheon at the Capitol on Tuesday, July 28, 2020. Congressional leaders earlier agreed to give the Treasury Department $454 billion to back up Fed emergency programs. (Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times) Jeanna Smialek WASHINGTON Pacific Investment Management Co. runs a hedge fund registered in the Cayman Islands, a common structure for avoiding certain U.S. taxes. But when a profit opportunity arose from the ashes of Americas coronavirus crisis, that international location did not stop it from seizing the moment. The Federal Reserve opened a highly anticipated emergency lending program in June, a revamped version of one it used during the 2008 financial crisis. This time around, Congress stipulated that only American companies could participate as borrowers in such programs. Despite being offshore, Pimcos fund had an easy way to benefit. The offshore fund is invested in an entity registered in Delaware. That entity can be used by investment managers to buy and sell bonds. The Delaware operation borrowed $13.1 million from the Fed program by pledging a bundle of debt as collateral. Investors in the Cayman-based hedge fund ultimately stand to profit from the transaction. The Pimco example is not unique other foreign investors have put money into U.S.-based funds that are tapping the Fed program. That they found a way to participate in a program restricted to American borrowers highlights the potential for financial firms to make money from the Feds market rescue programs, even if doing so means maneuvering around congressional limitations on eligibility. Investors earned double-digit returns on the program during the 2008 financial crisis, and they stand to profit this time around as well, as they collect interest on the debt bundles and, thanks to the Feds cheap funding, pay very little to hold them. The Feds program is intended to keep credit flowing through the economy, but its design has provided an opportunity for global financial players to profit from an initiative backed by taxpayer funding. That side effect could draw further scrutiny to the Feds rescue efforts, which are already prompting questions from lawmakers about who benefits, and on what terms. Follow our LIVE Updates on the coronavirus pandemic here The lending programs drag the Fed into political crossfire, said Mark Spindel, chief investment officer at Potomac River Capital and an author of a book on the politics of the Fed. The Fed is seen as the honest broker in town but just because youre the honest broker today doesnt mean youre not going to face questions down the road. The goal of the Fed program in question known as the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF is to bolster a critical corner of U.S. debt markets, one where loans are bundled and sold off to investors who are willing to take on risk in exchange for interest payments. That helps to keep the market for commercial mortgages functioning and allows student loans and credit card debt to continue flowing to end-users. The program was not created to make money for investment vehicles or the investors they represent. But because of the way TALF works, financial firms like Pimcos hedge fund can make a profit from it. It operates by encouraging investors to purchase a certain type of debt called asset-backed securities. A fund can buy those securities using some combination of cash and short-term loans and then take them to the Fed in exchange for a TALF loan. The TALF loan can be used to pay back whatever money the fund borrowed to make the purchase in the first place, so that its holdings are financed mostly by the cheap Fed loan and a sliver of its own money (what is known as a haircut in financial parlance). It essentially earns the difference between what it makes in interest from the securities and what it is paying on the Fed loan. Because investors have just a small amount of money at stake, returns on each invested dollar can be quite high. Investors said they anticipated high single-digit returns in 2020, far lower than the double-digit returns in 2008 but still generous. The Fed has so far released detailed data only on TALFs first round of loans, although the program has since finalized two more rounds. The Fed will most likely release additional data in mid-August. Pimcos Cayman Islands-based fund, which has borrowed via a U.S.-based entity called TOCU IX, is one of several foreign investors using an American investment vehicle to gain access to TALF. The pension plan of the Oxford University Press Group will tap the program through a fund set up by New York-based investment manager MacKay Shields. A Singapore-based fund is a material investor in an offering by the giant financial firm BlackRock, according to the Feds first round of detailed disclosures. The fact that some investors based overseas can make money from TALF does not break Congress rules, but it may fall shy of what some lawmakers intended. They specified that loans, advances and asset purchases made under the Feds programs should be restricted to businesses that are created or organized in the United States or under the laws of the United States. But they said nothing about who could ultimately benefit. There are going to be people who focus on this like a laser, Peter Conti-Brown, a Fed historian at the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School, said of the fact that foreign investors in some cases benefit from Fed programs. But the reality, he pointed out, is that financial markets are global: Others are going to say that theres no way to provide liquidity without benefiting international counterparties. And while Pimcos fund and other foreign investors may profit by participating in the program, their investment is also helping to keep more money flowing into the Feds program, smoothing over U.S. securitization markets. That reality has presented a challenge for the Fed, which has had to walk a fine line between creating emergency programs that are effective while also making them politically palatable. Lawmakers want the Fed to help the economy but have also warned the central bank against allowing companies to take advantage of taxpayer-backed funding. When Republicans and Democrats were working out the details of their coronavirus rescue package in March, congressional leaders agreed to give the Treasury Department $454 billion to back up Fed emergency programs. The Fed requires a Treasury backstop for many of those efforts, to insure against losses in case borrowers default. But because the Fed did not expect to lose every dollar it lent out, it could use the $454 billion to field a huge rescue: potentially more than $4 trillion in loans to businesses, states and cities. The ability to supersize the coronavirus response package was an attractive proposition. But many lawmakers in both parties were wary about handing the Fed and the Treasury so much money. Many remembered the 2008 bank bailouts and the bad taste they had left behind. They did not want a repeat. So Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, and key lawmakers agreed to terms that attached strings to the funding. Companies borrowing direct loans might be asked to try to maintain their payroll. Those who borrowed directly would also be banned from making dividend payments, and executives would face compensation limits. Only U.S. companies could borrow. Those requirements are generally guidelines rather than binding rules, given the way the programs work. The Fed has found itself being hammered on both sides some lawmakers have questioned whether the central bank is precluding companies from using its programs by being too strict, while others have warned it against letting big corporations and Wall Street firms benefit. Foreign investor participation in the TALF program could raise similar questions from lawmakers and the oversight groups set up to police where the funds are going. Conti-Brown and others say that while Congress gave the Fed the room to make design choices, that will not insulate the central bank from critique. The fact that the Fed has discretion is a byproduct of political compromise, Conti-Brown said. But the Fed is always open to criticism down the road. c.2020 The New York Times Company Katie Holmes was seen stepping out in New York City this Friday with her 14-year-old daughter Suri Cruise. The 41-year-old The Secret actress and her teenaged mini-me made sure to take the precaution of wearing face masks amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. They were seen carrying their two beloved pooches while out and about, and Suri was also holding a large doggy bed. Out and about: Katie Holmes was glimpsed stepping out in New York City this Friday with her 14-year-old daughter Suri Cruise Katie shares her daughter with her ex-husband, celebrity Scientologist Tom Cruise, whom she was married to from 2006 to 2012. This month Katie followed Thandie Newton on Instagram after the latter spoke about a 'nightmare' experience working with Tom on the 2000 film Mission Impossible II. 'I was so scared of Tom. He was a very dominant individual. He tries superhard to be a nice person. But the pressure. He takes on a lot. And I think he has this sense that only he can do everything as best as it can be done,' Thandie told Vulture. One night they were filming a scene she felt was not 'very well-written,' during which 'Tom was not happy with what I was doing because I had the s***tiest lines.' Family time: They were seen carrying their two beloved pooches while out and about, and Suri was also holding a large doggy bed Summery: Katie was also seen wearing a floral mask while out and about Street style: Katie, who is known for her winning dress sense, had on a short-sleeved crop sweater with black, white and yellow stripes She recalled that Tom 'gets so frustrated with having to try and explain that he goes: 'Let me just - let's just go do it. Let's just rehearse on-camera.' So we rehearsed and they recorded it, and then he goes: 'I'll be you. You be me.' Thandie continued: 'So we filmed the entire scene with me being him - because, believe me, I knew the lines by then - and him playing me. And it was the most unhelpful...I can't think of anything less revealing.' The Westworld actress remembered: '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.' Later on Friday: The Dawson's Creek star showed off her muscled arms in a white tank top and baggy dark raver pants Casual street style: Katie wore the same face mask as earlier, along with a chunky silver chain necklace and white tennis shoes Throwback: This month Katie followed Thandie Newton on Instagram after the latter spoke about a 'nightmare' experience working with Tom on the 2000 film Mission Impossible II Her role: Newton seen in a scene for Mission - Impossible 2 for director John Woo Meanwhile Katie initially began dating Tom in 2005, and seven weeks into the relationship, they were engaged. Their Scientologist wedding was held at the Castello Orsini-Odescalchi in Bracciano in November 2006, seven months after their daughter Suri was born. Katie filed in 2012 for a divorce that was finalized only 10 days later, with Suri's mother retaining primary custody, though Tom could visit, according to People. Ron Miscavige, father of Scientology leader David Miscavige, told the MailOnline in 2016 that Katie's misgivings about Scientology - including the effect it could have on Suri - contributed to her decision to leave Tom. WATERLOO REGION Police have made an arrest in connection with a stabbing that occurred on Columbia Street West in Waterloo on Wednesday. Jordan Burrows, 31, is facing a charge of aggravated assault and was scheduled to appear in court on Friday. Police had issued a warrant for his arrest on Thursday. On Wednesday night, a man was taken to hospital with serious injuries after a stabbing near King Street North and Columbia Street West. When police arrived they found a man with multiple stab wounds. He was taken to hospital outside of the region with life-threatening injuries. A Winnipeg police officer surveys the scene near Moncton Avenue and Grey Street after a cyclist was injured in a hit-and-run. The 50-year-old man died later in hospital. Prisoners to be employed in petrol pumps to be set up by Kerala govt in jails India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Thiruvananthapuram, July 31: Prisoners in Kerala will now work as employees in petrol pumps and take home a salary. The Kerala government has put up petrol pumps in jail premises in association with the Indian Oil Corporation. Rishiraj Singh, Jail DGP told ANI that the initiative to employe jail inmates in petrol pumps was taken as in Kerala there are many projects of which prisoners are part of and are being employed. "In petrol pumps, 15 jail inmates will be employed at each pump. The outlets of Thiruvananthapuram, Viyyur and Cheemeni jails have been started to function from today. Many express doubt whether the prisoners will try to escape. But my experience working with them prove otherwise. They are managing five cafeterias in the state and selling food prepared by them. We pay them Rs 220 per day for their work and the jail inmates are running it successfully particularly at COVID-19 times," Singh said. No complete lockdown in Kerala as of now, says CM Pinarayi Vijayan The IOC is investing around Rs 9.5 crore to set up four petrol pumps at the jail premises. Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News The jail department on the other hand is investing Rs 30 lakes for the project and the same would begin at the Kannur jail. Singh said that the land has been leased to the IOC for 30 years. The prisoners have undergone training and a uniform would be supplied to them, he also said. N Sathiya Moorthy By External Affairs Minister S Jaishankars recent observation that the global scenario now provides greater manoeuvrability for a middle power like India needs to be studied in depth and followed up with greater seriousness than done already. The consequence of the repositioning of the US such that the big umbrella is now smaller than it used to be has allowed many other countries to play more autonomous roles. It does not affect us as much because we were never a part of an alliance system, he said, participating at a virtual conference organised by a media house. The post-Cold War Indian middle path is not like its role as an active promoter and participant of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) earlier. Jaishankar too has made a pointed reference to NAM: Non-alignment was a term of a particular era and geopolitical landscape. One aspect was independence, which remains a factor of continuity for us. Jaishankar said that India must take more risks as the world expected it to take a more proactive stance on big issues, including terrorism, maritime security, connectivity and climate change. Despite the worlds expectations from India on many issues, New Delhi still needs to acknowledge that it cannot be wholly there until it is there in its own right. That will happen only when India becomes a self-sustaining economic powerhouse, not dependent still on massive FDI and even greater military supplies to defend itself at every turn. It is enough to recall that one of the major Indian decisions in the wake of the current border stand-off with China was to blacklist Chinese products, from a multitude of mobile apps to massive investments in the pipeline. Not only are alternate options unclear, but there is also no guarantee that it may not come without a price more active than India already is. Strategic independence: Media discourse on the current border tensions with China has highlighted Indias continued strategic independence, and how New Delhi has maintained multilateral contacts and contracts, especially on defence purchases, with Moscow, the bogey of the West during the Cold War years. However, there is an increasing sense among most India watchers that New Delhi has moved closer to the US in the post-Cold War era owing to large-scale privatisation and globalisation. There is still no clarity about the character of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), which is a military arrangement between the US, India, Japan and Australia. The US is both the initiator and driving force. Does it imply that Indias perceptions of strategic independence relate only to the US-Russia equations, and does not include even the rest of Europe, if it came to that? After all, no European power is a part of the Quad, which has been ingeniously identified as an Indo-Pacific grouping. After all, the UK, along with France, has ruled over many of the IOR nations, as has come to be understood in the Quad context. France continues to have substantial territorial possessions than the US in the Indian Ocean, which can identify only the Diego Garcia military base as a stand-alone, all-American holding. How does it help India by being a part of a selective alliance, leaving space for other non-China/anti-China forces to step in and make a claim of whatever kind? In international diplomacy, as with physical sciences, seeing is (also) believing. New Delhi needs to remember how during the Cold War era, by only focusing on the nations greater security and political interests in the region, India came to be identified as a camp follower of the Soviet Union. It damaged even normal relations with the US and much of the rest of the West. Global shifts: As Jaishankar has pointed out, global shifts, mainly comprising the changing American role and increasing Chinese assertiveness, have created more space for middle powers like India, Japan, the European Union (EU) and many others. Going beyond bilateral and multilateral economic ties, Japan, India and Australia are already partners in the Quad. There is the question if the EU can be seen as one entity in all contexts and purposeseven leaving the UK out of the calculations post-Brexit. Where and how France and Germany will reposition themselves, within or outside the EU structure, over the coming decades, especially if the US were to weaken even more as is being predicted, needs to be studied more closely. Russia cannot be ignored in such calculations either. Leaving aside Africa and even West Asia, an economic powerhouse still, the very definition of middle power itself can change. For India, the continued strength is its very presence and the markets it offers for products and investments. It cannot compare with even Brazil or South Africa, partners in BRICS, along with Russia and China, in terms of defence production. Whether middle power or superpower on a later day, power begins with self-sufficiency in defence production, especially when you have identifiable adversaries like China and Pakistan sharing long borders with you. In the existing and evolving regional contexts, India needs to be alive to such limitations even more. N Sathiya Moorthy Distinguished Fellow & Head-Chennai Initiative, Observer Research Foundation (sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com) Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 22:53:20|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close -- Countless members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) are fighting on the frontline against devastating summer floods in China. -- As the floods swallowed people's homes, local officials worked to evacuate residents, while taking measures to keep the COVID-19 epidemic in check. -- In places where the floods are still roaring, officials have already organized locals to restart production. -- Officials and the public are helping fight floods with joint efforts. by Xinhua writers Zhong Qun, Wu Zhonghao and Liu Fangqiang NANCHANG/HEFEI, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Fang Aihong sat in a swaying boat in floodwater, as she delivered instant noodles and bottled water to flood-hit residents. All of a sudden, a strong wave capsized the boat, and she fell into the water. "I choked in the water and could barely breathe," she recalled. Desperate, she grabbed a log and held onto it as she was swept downstream for nearly two kilometers, until villagers in the vicinity raced to rescue her. "I thought I might not make it," she said. Fang, 45, is Party chief of Qianyang Village in the county of Poyang, east China's Jiangxi Province. She is among countless members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) fighting on the frontline against devastating summer floods in China. Flood-control workers patrol the levee along Qingyi River at Yijiang District in Wuhu City, east China's Anhui Province, July 15, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Duan) As the rarely big floods inundated croplands and threatened the lives of people in vulnerable areas, China has been sparing no effort to win the fight against the disaster, with massive mobilization, evacuations and a top-level emergency response in several hard-hit provinces. The rain-triggered floods had affected some 54.8 million people in 27 provincial-level regions as of Tuesday, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management (MEM). Floods in these areas, including the provinces of Jiangxi, Anhui and Hubei, have left 158 people dead or missing, and forced the evacuation of around 3.76 million people since June 1. More than 40,000 houses collapsed and another 368,000 houses were damaged due to the floods. The direct economic losses amounted to 144.43 billion yuan (about 20.6 billion U.S. dollars). However, the number of the dead and missing due to floods fell by 53.9 percent compared with the average of the past five years while the number of evacuated people increased by 36.7 percent, according to the MEM. Rescuers transfer students at Yantian Middle School in Jiujiang, east China's Jiangxi Province, July 8, 2020. (Photo by Fu Jianbin/Xinhua) The Chinese leadership has called for unrelenting efforts to ensure the safety of people's lives and property. On July 17, a CPC leadership meeting on the flood-control and relief work stressed putting people's lives and property first and taking more forceful measures to do a good job in flood-control and relief work. BLOCKING EPIDEMIC SPREAD AMID FLOOD CONTROL As the floods swallowed people's homes, local officials worked to evacuate residents, while taking measures to keep the COVID-19 epidemic in check. In the county of Funan, Anhui Province, Wang Chuanshuang went to help evacuate local villagers in the village of Liudian. "We arrived at around midnight, and started moving pesticide and handicrafts for the villagers," said Wang, an official with the county's bureau of transport. "We worked until 3 a.m." In the county of Zongyang, Anhui Province, officials have been relocating villagers to temporary flood shelters. Villager Wang Baitie has been staying in one such shelter, a repurposed local school, for five days. "I heard that taking showers wasn't easy before I came, because there were many people," he said. "And I was also afraid that I might catch the coronavirus from the crowds." Volunteers set a tent at a temporary settlement site in Hudong School in Yongxiu County, east China's Jiangxi Province, July 13, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhou Mi) But the reality was completely different from what he expected. "There are separate showers, and everyone gets a free mask every day," he said. "Sanitation workers come for disinfection three times a day." Wang and other villagers live in the classrooms, with each housing 14 people. To prevent any post-flood disease transmission, local authorities comprehensively cleaned flood-stricken areas and sent medical workers to help with disinfection. As floods have battered many areas in Jiangxi's Shangrao City, disinfection work has been going on there for days. In the township of Huanggang, in Jiangxi's Poyang County, more than 40,000 people in 27 villages were affected by floods. A number of medical teams were sent to sterilize the area and guarantee food safety. RESTARTING WORK, PRODUCTION A CPC Central Committee Political Bureau meeting on Thursday stressed safety should be ensured along rivers across the country and that the restoration and reconstruction after the floods should be carefully planned. In Jiangxi Province, where the floods are still roaring, officials have already organized locals to restart production. Children have a meal at a temporary settlement in Zhoutou Township, east China's Anhui Province, July 14, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi) In the temporary resettlement in Hongmai School in the county of Poyang, a school canteen has been transformed into a workshop for manufacturing parts for circuit breakers. "We persuaded a company to move its workshop to the canteen," said Cao Min, an official in charge of the resettlement. "We hope that the villagers can make some money even as they stay in the temporary shelters." As the floods are yet to retreat from their home villages, the residents will have to spend some time in the shelter. The local officials came up with the idea of the "canteen workshop" to help villagers earn a few bucks during their stay there, Cao said. By doing so, the local government hopes that those who have shaken off poverty will not fall back to poverty due to the floods, Cao said. A medical worker checks the health condition of an elderly villager at a temporary settlement in Dangtu County, east China's Anhui Province, July 20, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi) Yu Simei's house and farmland were inundated by floodwater. When she relocated to the school, she was concerned about how to make a living. Since the "canteen workshop" was launched, she has been able to earn up to 80 yuan a day. The local government also launched a recruitment campaign in the school, with local official Gao Jian taking recruitment ads to different classrooms and introducing recruitment policies and the benefits of different companies to the villagers. "They are eager to get jobs," Gao said. "They filled out the registration forms very quickly." Gao said some villagers can start working "very soon." FIGHTING FLOODS WITH JOINT EFFORTS In the central China province of Hunan, about 200,000 officials and locals are fighting the floods day and night, while in the eastern province of Jiangsu, the government has mobilized tens of thousands of people to patrol embankments where the floodwater has exceeded marks that were considered safe. In Jiangxinzhou, a township-level settlement in the city of Jiujiang, Jiangxi, local authorities issued a letter to villagers working as migrant workers in cities, asking them to return home and help contain the floods. A staff member straightens the national flag in front of a flood control post in Jiujiang, east China's Jiangxi Province, July 16, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhou Mi) According to official data, since the letter was issued, more than 4,000 migrant workers have come back to join in the fight. Together they are tasked with patrolling embankments and filling and carrying sandbags. Migrant worker Li Yajie is one of them. "I usually work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.," Li said. "We take turns to patrol." Li looks forward to containing the floods as soon as possible and believes all the hard work will be worth it. As of July 28, the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the People's Armed Police Force had dispatched troops to 3,749 operations of flood relief, according to the Ministry of National Defense. The troops helped evacuate 137,000 residents affected by the floods. "United we stand," said Yu Zhongdai, a CPC member and deputy head of Jiujiang's Xingang Township government. "I believe through the joint efforts, we will win the battle against the floods." (Video reporters: Liu Bin, Wang Qiwen, Jiang Hanzhang, Yu Gang, Peng Jing; Video editor: Zhang Yichi) SANAA, Yemen Yemens Houthi rebels on Thursday freed six prominent members of the Bahai religious minority whose years-long incarceration on charges of espionage and heresy had drawn worldwide condemnation, their lawyer said. The release of the six came four months after the Shiite Houthis, who control most of northern Yemen and the capital, Sanaa, announced they had commuted the death sentence of Bahai leader Hamed bin Haydara and ordered his release, as well as that of the other five detainees. The six men were flown out of Yemen to Ethiopia late on Thursday, said bin Haydaras wife, Alham. Today we feel joy after so much suffering, she told The Associated Press over the phone, adding that she and her daughters were threatened and harassed by anonymous callers over the years of her husbands detention. She now lives in Luxembourg with the children. The sentence was unjust and the charges baseless, she added. Houthi judicial officials said the Bahais were required to leave Yemen as a condition of their release. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Bin Haydara was arrested in 2013 by the government of President Mansour Abed Rabbo Hadi, before the Iran-backed Houthis came to power. After the Houthis overran Sanaa, forcing Hadi to flee and igniting a civil war with a Saudi-led military coalition, bin Haydara was transferred to a Houthi prison where he languished until Thursday. A Houthi court sentenced him to death in 2018, prompting sharp criticism from human rights groups that decried the verdict as a sign of the Iran-backed Houthis systematic repression of religious minorities. The Bahai have been particularly vulnerable to persecution and pressure to convert to Islam by the Houthis who consider Bahaism heresy for its belief in a 19th-century Persian prophet and his revelation that departs from traditional teachings of Shiite Islam. The other five Bahai members were arrested in 2017. Throughout their years in prison, all were tortured, barred from seeing their lawyers, denied access to medical care and placed in solitary confinement, according to the Bahai International Community. Bin Haydara was blindfolded, beaten, electrocuted and forced to confess to being a destroyer of Islam and spy for Israel, the community reported. He was sentenced to a public execution for his religious beliefs. Their release followed months of international pressure this spring from the United Nations and rights groups, as the coronavirus pandemic surged across war-torn Yemen, raising fears of unchecked contagion in crowded Houthi prisons. We welcome the releases today yet remain gravely concerned, said Diane Alai, a representative of the Bahai International Community. Bahais must be able like all Yemenis to practice their faith safely and freely. 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 An intensive care nurse allegedly stole several vials of a powerful sedative from a hospital pharmacy before using it to poison his wife, a court has heard. Ugendra Singh, 45, was arrested and charged in May after his wife told police she had fallen unconscious for eight hours immediately after her husband injected her with a substance he'd led her to believe was saline. The Supreme Court in Sydney on Friday heard Mr Singh had been employed in the intensive care unit at Liverpool Hospital for 20 years where he is alleged to have stolen several vials of the drug Propofol from the pharmacy attached to the ICU, some time between April 4 and May 3 this year. Propofol made headlines in 2009 when a Los Angeles coroner blamed it for the death of Michael Jackson, who had a cocktail of prescription drugs in his system when he died. The states Inspection of Public Records Act isnt overly complicated. Its based on the premise that New Mexicans are entitled to the greatest possible amount of information about their government, and it sets out some straightforward language about what information is public, along with timelines public bodies are required to follow when members of the public make a request for records. So its difficult to fathom how the states largest school district, with a cadre of administrators on the payroll and lawyers on call, could simply ignore IPRA requests for months and then blame it all on general chaos and COVID-19. The Albuquerque Journal is among those that have submitted requests that went into a dark hole. No production of records. No APS refusal to produce citing exemptions as required by law. Just silence. The newspaper isnt alone. Taylor Smith, an attorney with Garrett Law, recently filed a lawsuit in state district court claiming APS failed to comply with IPRA in multiple ways. Our client was asking for information as it related to student-on-student violence, he told the Journal. His lawsuit says his requests were disregarded and there was no follow-up. To date, the plaintiff has not received any response to his request, or any follow-up phone calls or emails. His lawsuit seeks statutory damages of $100 per day plus attorney fees and those can quickly add up to real money; were at 90 days and counting. Another case filed in June makes similar allegations. APS spokeswoman Monica Armenta said in an email statement the district acknowledges difficulties in responding promptly to IPRA requests in the past several months. She cited factors outside the custodian of records control that have contributed to an unintentional and regrettable lapse in responses. Those factors included loss of personnel in the department and office relocations prompted by the pandemic. She said APS apologizes for any inconvenience and is seeking solutions to ensure faster compliance with IPRA. But this isnt about inconvenience. Its about complying with the law and providing public records that belong to the public. Melanie Majors, executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, said state law clearly prohibits public bodies from ignoring these requests. Its the publics information. There is no accountability if you dont have access to information, she said. If (records custodians) arent spending their time complying with the Inspection of Public Records Act, what are they doing with their time if they are still on the payroll? APS has never been a beacon of transparency. Back before COVID-19, the district after repeated delays provided the Journal with APS police reports that were a masterpiece of redaction. Even the names of schools were blacked out. That case hasnt yet hit the litigation stage. Early last week, the Journal submitted a verbal request for another police report. It was the District Attorneys Office, not APS, that released the information. The district has a new interim superintendent in Scott Elder. He no doubt has a long to-do list with a virtual school opening that, with lots of hard work and a bit of luck, transitions to in-person sometime after Labor Day. But transparency and public accountability are important. IPRA is essential as it plays such a key role in making those things possible. APS stonewalling of the public that pays its bills is absolutely unacceptable, and the new superintendent needs to find a way to fix it ASAP. 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. Trade / In Depth: Chinas exporters find 1.4 billion domestic consumers are a tough sell In the decade since joining the World Trade Organization in December 2001, Chinas share of global merchandise exports surged from 4.3% in 2001 to 10.7% in 2011, according to World Trade Organization (WTO) data. But since then, the figure has climbed only slowly. In addition to this structural shift, China has been hit by the perfect storm of slowing global growth, trade tensions with the U.S., deglobalization and now the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. The worlds biggest exporting nation recorded a 6.2% drop in overseas sales in the first six months of this year as the global economy ground to a halt amid the coronavirus pandemic. The WTO projected in June that even under a relatively optimistic scenario, the volume of world merchandise trade in 2020 would contract by 13%. Recognizing that the days of 20% plus export growth are over, the government dusted off an initiative it tried in 2009 during the global financial crisis encouraging foreign trade companies to change strategy and switch their focus to the countrys 1.4 billion consumers. However, such a shift in strategy is not an easy task. FINANCE & ECONOMICS Local governments are prohibited from using special bond proceeds to repay existing debt, fund white elephant projects or pay pensions. Economy / China pushes local governments to borrow $220 billion by Oct. 31 Chinas central government is pushing local governments to issue the remaining 1.51 trillion yuan ($220 billion) of new special-purpose bonds that are intended to spur the economy by the end of October and they cant use the borrowings for just any old thing. In a notice issued Wednesday, the Ministry of Finance published a list for how the money from special bonds cant be used. The negative list includes replacing existing debt, funding white elephant projects, paying wages and pensions, buying land and investing in real estate projects. The document reiterates that the funds from new special bonds must be used for public welfare projects that generate income. The amount of financing should be balanced against expected revenue. Bonds / Beijing municipality-owned firm scales back bond sale as demand cools A Beijing government-owned capital management firm has been forced to scale back a planned 4 billion yuan ($571 million) bond sale aimed at repaying the borrowings of a heavily indebted subsidiary after investors gave the issue a cool reception. Beijing Haidian District State-owned Capital Management Center (Haidian SCMC), reduced the size of the five-year 3.8% bond sale to 1 billion yuan, sources close to the matter told Caixin. The company had originally scheduled the issue earlier in July but failed to complete the sale, citing market volatility. It revived the issue this week and bookbuilding was due to start Wednesday, but multiple investors received a cancellation notice from the underwriters later that evening. IPO / Chinese electric SUV maker Li Auto raises $1.1 billion in IPO Chinese carmaker Li Auto Inc. raised $1.1 billion in an above-range U.S. initial public offering, adding to the market focus on electric-vehicle companies, according to terms of the deal reviewed by Bloomberg. Li Auto sold 95 million American depositary shares for $11.50 each on Wednesday after marketing them for $8 to $10. The Beijing-based company is valued in the listing at about $10 billion fully diluted, based on a calculation by Bloomberg. A representative for Li Auto declined to comment. The company joins other electric-vehicle makers in tapping the U.S. capital market. Li Xiang, the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Li Auto, will own 21% of the company, representing 72.7% of the total voting power, according to the filing. Bidding / India freezes out Chinese companies from government bidding India tightened restrictions on Chinese companies seeking to supply goods or services to the government, expanding its economic retaliation against Beijing over a border conflict in the Himalayas. Procurement regulations revised last week now require businesses in countries that share a land border with India to register with the relevant authorities and receive permission from the external affairs and home affairs ministries before bidding for contracts. This applies to a broad range of public-sector business, including state governments, state-run businesses and banks, and public-private partnerships. Though India borders China, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, exemptions in effect limit the scope of the rules to China and Pakistan, of which only China would realistically be involved in government procurement. Quick hits / Top epidemiologist says Dalian outbreak most likely caused by seafood Commercial paper exchange issues $163 million of standardized notes Ants IPO promises bonanza for Silver Lake, Warburg, Carlyle BUSINESS & TECH An attendee walks past an advertisement for Qualcomm at the MWC Shanghai exhibition. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg Chips / Chipmaker Qualcomm announces Huawei licensing deal Qualcomm Inc. issued a strong sales forecast for the current quarter, signaling that fifth-generation mobile phone services are taking off. The chipmaker also announced a new licensing deal with Chinas Huawei Technologies Co., sending shares up more than 12% in extended trading. Revenue excluding certain items will be $5.5 billion to $6.3 billion in the period ending in September, the San Diego-based company said Wednesday in a statement. Including back payments from Huawei, sales will be $7.3 billion to $8.1 billion, the company said. Qualcomm is unique in the chip industry because it gets the bulk of its profit from licensing patents. The reach of its intellectual property and the profits they generate have attracted legal and regulatory challenges around the world. Most have been settled and with the long-term agreement reached this month with Huawei, Qualcomm said it has signed up all major phone makers to license its patents. Home-appliance / Haier restructuring smooths path for internet units potential listing COSMOPlat, an industrial internet platform developed by Haier Group, has inched a step closer to a potential public listing after the Chinese home-appliance giant announced a change to the units shareholding structure. If the restructuring results in a listing as many expect, COSMOPlat will become Haier Groups fifth publicly listed units in addition to one listed in Hong Kong and three on the Chinese mainland. On Thursday, Haier Smart Home Co. Ltd., the groups Shanghai-listed unit whose business mainly includes selling white goods products such as refrigerators, announced (link in Chinese) it would sell a 54.5% stake for 4 billion yuan ($571 million) to an investment company linked to Haier Group. After the deal, Haier Smart Home will still retain 18.75% of COSMOPlat but will no longer incorporate the units businesses into its financial reporting, according to the statement. Smartphones / Huawei takes global smartphone crown from Samsung Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. overtook Samsung Electronics Co. in quarterly smartphone shipments and became the worlds top vendor for the first time, industry research firm Canalys said in a report Thursday. During the three months through June, the Chinese company shipped 55.8 million devices, down 5% year-on-year. Samsung came in second with 53.7 million smartphones, falling a steep 30% from the same period last year. Huaweis top-ranking performance marks the first quarter in nine years that a company other than Samsung or Apple has led the market. However, it could be challenging for Huawei to keep this title. The U.S. sanctions that strip the companys access to Google services for its phones have forced it to pivot toward the Chinese market. Education / Education giant New Oriental reports plunging profits Private education provider New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. reported plunging second-quarter profits as the Covid-19 pandemic hit its overseas study preparation business and an uptick in online education failed to translate into higher earnings. The company announced a 69.5% year-on-year drop in profit in the three months ended May 31 to $13.2 million, while revenue decreased 5.3% to $798.5 million. The number of students enrolled in its tutoring programs and test preparation courses many of which prepare students to enroll in universities overseas shrank by 6.2%, according to the financial report released Tuesday. New Oriental said it hopes to step up its K-12 after-school online tutoring to expand its student pool and leverage the growing market in Chinas smaller cities. Quick hits / Xiaomi hires former ZTE executive to lead mobile business Former head of bankrupt coal giant probed for corruption Trending in China: Pop star Jay Chous livestream signals Kuaishous increasing partnership with celebrities Thanks for reading. If you haven't already, click here to subscribe. BROOKHAVEN, Miss. - A Mississippi man convicted this year in the 2017 killings of eight people appeared in court this week and asked for a new trial. A judge denied the request, saying he will issue a written ruling later. Willie Cory Godbolt, now 38, was convicted in February of four counts of murder and four counts of capital murder. He received a sentence of life in prison for each murder conviction and a death sentence for each capital murder conviction. Mississippi defines capital murder as a killing committed along with another felony. On Wednesday, Lincoln County Circuit Judge David Strong heard arguments from Godbolt, his attorneys and prosecutors about whether to grant a new trial, the Daily Leader reported. Investigators said that on May 27, 2017, Godbolt went to his in-laws home and argued with his estranged wife about their children. A Lincoln County deputy sheriff, Godbolts mother-in-law and two other people were killed there. In the early hours of the next day, two young people were killed in a second house and a married couple was killed in a third house. Just before he was sentenced on Feb. 27, Godbolt spoke in court and blamed the devil for his actions on the night he killed eight people in the south Mississippi towns of Brookhaven and Bogue Chitto. Godbolt is on death row at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, and he was taken from there to Brookhaven for the Wednesday hearing. One of Godbolts attorneys, Alison Steiner, argued Wednesday that the judge erroneously allowed the trials original schedule to proceed, even though the defence team had several changes that made it difficult to provide an adequate defence. Assistant District Attorney Brendon Adams argued there was time to prepare, and the judge agreed. Steiner also argued that Godbolt should not have had a single trial that combined all the charges. Strong responded that the evidence overlapped and that all the crimes were committed in one sequence of assaults punctuated only by armed robbery and Godbolt riding around talking. The physical evidence, circumstantial evidence and direct evidence was so overwhelming that severance was not appropriate, Strong said. Godbolt himself spoke for 15 minutes Wednesday, arguing that jurors should not have been allowed to see video of an interview that a reporter did with him as he was being arrested. He also argued that his wife should not have been allowed to testify against him during his trial, when their divorce was not yet complete. Strong said that based on oral arguments, he would deny the request for a new trial. He said he would review documents before issuing a written ruling. The US Navy mocked Iran for being 'experts' at building a target ship in an Instagram post that showed a bogus American aircraft carrier with a bullseye on it. The Navy proclaimed in a meme, 'IRAN BUILDS TARGET SHIP', revealing an overhead view of the fake vessel sitting at a port, unprotected and vulnerable with a bullseye, and adds across the bottom of the image, 'THEY'RE EXPERTS AT THAT'. The post comes after Iran built the replica of a Nimitz-class carrier and had its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard fire a missile at it in the strategic Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday amid tensions between Iran and Washington. The exercise was televised on state run television and condemned by the Navy as 'irresponsible and reckless'. The show of force, meanwhile, paled in comparison to the US Navy's unmatched prowess, which includes 11 aircraft carriers. The US Navy mocked Iran for being 'experts' at building a target ship in an Instagram post that showed a bogus American aircraft carrier with a bullseye on it Iran built the bogus US aircraft carrier (pictured), based on the USS Nimitz, to fire upon during military exercises in the strategic Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday amid tensions between Iran and Washington The exercise was televised on state run television and condemned by the Navy as 'irresponsible and reckless'. The show of force, meanwhile, paled in comparison to the US Navy's prowess, which includes 11 aircraft carriers, including the USS Nimitz (pictured) Iran has none of the mammoth vessels, except for the replica, Yahoo News reported. The fake carrier was towed by a tugboat to the strait from the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas for target practice on Tuesday. Footage of the war games that followed was broadcast on state television showing the Guards' air and naval forces readying for an attack off the country's southwest coast. Speedboats skimmed across the water in formation before ground forces fired cannons and a missile was launched from a helicopter. The replica carrier came into view with rows of dummy fighter jets on either side of its landing strip. The television then cut to rockets being fired out to sea from the backs of trucks, before showing damage to the hull of the mock-up aircraft carrier. During the military exercises with the fake ship, speedboats skimmed across the water in formation before ground forces fired cannons and a missile was launched from a helicopter A closer look at the replica reveals it's hollowed walls as boats circle during an exercise Television footage of the exercises cut to rockets being fired out to sea from the backs of trucks, before showing damage to the hull of the mock-up aircraft carrier (pictured) Another missile fired from a helicopter left a trail of smoke before appearing to smash into the side of the fake warship. Armed forces were then seen rappelling onto the deck of the vessel, before around a dozen speedboats circle around it. 'What was shown today in these exercises, at the level of aerospace and naval forces, was all offensive,' Guards commander Major General Hossein Salami told state television. The war games were staged after Tehran accused US fighter jets of harassing an Iranian commercial airliner in the skies over Syria the week before. At least four passengers on board the Mahan Air plane were injured in the July 23 incident, after the pilot took emergency action to avoid the warplanes. The drill, in a waterway through which 20 per cent of all traded oil passes, underlines the lingering threat of military conflict between Iran and the U.S. after last summer saw a series of incidents targeting oil tankers in the region. That means social distancing, hand washing, sanitizing work spaces and classrooms and wearing masks - and wearing them the right way. The science on the masks is clear; numerous studies have shown the effectiveness of cloth coverings in reducing the spread of the virus. The University of Washingtons Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation studied the mask studies from around the world and reanalyzed the data used in then, and concluded that if 95% of the population wore cloth masks, transmission of the disease would be reduced by at least 30%. The infected group then spreads it to 30% fewer people and so on, and so on, reducing the number of people infected each time. Eventually, you go from hundreds infected to handfuls of infection. Weve seen evidence of that here in Alabama. Montgomery instituted a mask order and saw the case rate cut in half in one month. Masks help filter out respiratory droplets that carry the virus, but only if theyre worn correctly. Weve all seen it: masks worn under chins, not covering the nose or just dangling from an ear strap. If the wearer is some distance from other people, these variations arent an issue. However, when in group settings, they do little to protect other people in the group. With less than a month before school doors open, parents of medically vulnerable children in Port Neches-Groves ISD are exploring their options. Some parents are taking advantage of a homebound option, which administrators clarified this week after backlash over no at-home learning option, while others are opting to withdraw their students from the district and enroll elsewhere. We are not doing the online synchronous (learning model) like other schools are doing, PN-G High School Principal Scott Ryan said. But we are going to take care of kids with medical concerns, or medical concerns of a parent, in the homebound program. Christy Attaway has four children in the district. Three have special needs. Attaway said she was taken off guard when the district announced it would not offer an online learning option, but she quickly learned her children qualified for homebound learning. I had emailed Julie Gauthier because they had posted information on the Port Neches-Groves news page, Attaway said. She told me that since (my kids) are medically challenged children, we would qualify for homebound learning. Assistant Superintendent Julie Gauthier told The Enterprise homebound learning will be available for students who have any medical concerns for themselves, or family members, as long as they provide some form of documentation from a medical care provider. It may be the child, it may be the parent, it may be the grandparent that lives with them, Gauthier said. If they reach out to their campus principal, that principal will provide them with the paperwork they need to visit whatever physician services or medical provider or whatever it may be. Homebound learning is not the same thing as distance learning in other districts, or the online option offered at the end of last school year, Gauthier said. It will be formatted on a student-by-student basis. The students will be registered for school and for classrooms just as if they were coming in person, she said. There will be an assigned teacher that will help oversee their curriculum. What that could look like will vary depending on the students needs. It may be picking up work from school. It may be getting videos of the teacher teaching. It may be connecting with the teacher virtually. It may mean coming to the school at a certain time in a sanitized room and working one on one with a teacher, she said. And once the medical guidance allows them to come back to school, they will transition right into the classroom. Those components are similar to make-up distance learning plans introduced in other districts in the region, including Nederland ISD, which will offer an asynchronous learning option next fall. Related: NISD: Daily temp checks, self-paced online option this fall Homebound learning, which has always been offered to students with long-term illness in the district, will expand this year, with teachers in each grade voluntarily taking on extra students who qualify. But the program has not always been a satisfactory alternative to in-person learning. Cindy Nichols said her grandson was homebound because of a severe allergy and had to repeat the fourth grade after six months of what she called low-quality homebound learning. But Gauthier said the previous program, which was handled by one teacher, is not comparable to the set-up in the fall, which will have teachers in every grade. We had one homebound teacher that services them, she said. This is a different setup in that they are being serviced by their grade-level teacher on the campus they are enrolled in. Nonetheless, the lack of a full distance-learning option is driving some parents to withdraw their children from the district entirely. Nina Marks, whose son suffers from epilepsy, said she contacted the district as soon as the reopening plan was announced. I went off on everybody in the school district, Marks told The Enterprise. My son is an AP student and has been in advanced classes since kindergarten. Homebound is just doing work and turning it in. It is not an education. While Marks son was able to qualify for homebound learning, she said all students should be able to make that choice. Theres a lot of kids who dont have underlying health issues, she said. But I think sending them to school right now, with the numbers being as high as they are, is a death sentence for these children. Marks said she will enroll her son in an online public homeschool this fall, and re-enroll on campus when the coronavirus is under control. A Change.org petition calling for a distance-learning option had more than 700 signatures as of Tuesday, with parents and teachers chiming in with their support for an online option. As a teacher and a parent, I want our students to have as many options as possible for their health and well-being, one signatory said. I know what will be required to have online classes and in person classes and I am up for that challenge. Gauthier said much of the discourse on social media has been misguided, and that parents should contact administrators with concerns about returning to campus. Port Neches-Groves High School Principal Scott Ryan said he has had mostly positive discussions with parents, and he doesnt expect a significant dip in enrollment. Safety is always a concern for our kids, so we are going to take a lot of safety precautions, Ryan said. But I do feel like the best thing is for our kids to be back here, to be back to normal. Safety precautions including staggered transition periods, extra tables to ensure social distancing in the cafeteria and multiple disinfection technologies are in place to ensure student safety, Ryan said. While registration doesnt start for another few days, Gauthier said she doesnt expect more than 5% of the student population to opt for the homebound option. By comparison, nearby Nederland ISD expects 20% to start online and early surveys have almost half of Beaumont ISD opting for online when its campuses open in September. The Texas Education Agency has urged parents whose children attend districts not offering online courses to transfer to districts with the option if they want their children to attend classes remotely. Some, as was discussed at a recent Nederland ISD board meeting, have inquired about taking advantage of NISDs online learning option, which was rolled out earlier this month. In keeping with their past enrollment policies, however, the district will not be accepting outside enrollment. Enrollment just follows our typical requirements that you either live within NISD boundaries, or you are a child of a teacher that teaches within the district, NISD Board President Micah Mosley told The Enterprise. Other districts in Southeast Texas, including Vidor ISD, accept outside students based on a set of criteria. We have accepted transfer students for about eight years, Vidor Superintendent Jay Killgo said. We have an application process in which students must share their academic performance, discipline records and attendance history. A decision on accepting them is made based on this information. Other districts, such as Little Cypress-Mauriceville Consolidated ISD, allow open enrollment but charge tuition for residents outside the zoned region. Killgo said Vidor ISDs open enrollment policy will continue next year. We will certainly consider accepting students outside of our district for online education, he said. It will be expected that they meet the criteria that we have set for students that wanted to transfer to the district in the past. Attaway said that while she doesnt understand the reasoning behind the district not offering a full distance-learning option, she is grateful for the opportunity she has to keep her kids at home. I would love to see them offer a distance-learning option, she said. I dont really understand why they are not. But I am confident that their choice is best for the kids, and I am just really happy that we are able to have the homebound learning. In the event of a spike in COVID-19 cases or a mandatory closure, Ryan said teachers would be ready to pivot to online like they did last spring. Our teachers pulled it off in the spring, he said. So every teacher has a Google Classroom and is very familiar with using it. We will have our teachers update their Google Classrooms and be prepared just in case. So it would not catch us off guard. Gauthier said that while the district feels in-person learning is the best for the students, she understands if individual families feel otherwise. We want to meet the needs of the people, but people also need to do what is best for their family at this time, Gauthier said. And if theyve called us and visited with us and they still think (leaving) is the best approach then there is no problem with that. Contact information for all PN-G campuses and the administration is available on the districts website, pngisd.org. isaac.windes@hearstnp.com twitter.com/isaacdwindes A beekeeper from Ireland who built a fully functioning hive using Lego blocks offered a sneak peek inside of his creation on July 23. Footage by Ruairi O Leochain, a school teacher and wildlife activist from Athlone, Co Westmeath, captured the hives resident bees going about their business. I was delighted to see the 2020 Lego Queen return today from her mating flight. Cant wait to see how she lays, O Leochain wrote alongside the video, which he shared to his YouTube channel. The beehive went viral back in May when O Leochain, who runs Athlones Wildlife Apiaries, unveiled his handiwork ahead of International Bee Day. Credit: Ruairi O Leochain via Storyful Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said in a news conference that she was invoking emergency powers to postpone the vote unprecedented in the citys political history since its handover from Britain to China in 1997. Postponing the election, she said, was the most difficult decision she has had to make since the onset of the virus in January. Advertisement Two pilots have died after their planes collided in mid-air as they tried to fight a wildfire burning in Nevada. Authorities say the mid-air collision occurred just before 1pm on Thursday, about 17 miles from the town of Caliente and 150 miles north of Las Vegas. The crash involved two Single Engine Air Tankers (SEATs) which were working to help contain the Bishop Fire, which has scorched more than 14,000 acres of land in just two days. Both pilots - who have not yet been publicly named - were alone in their aircraft at the time. No one was injured on the ground. The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the crash late Thursday, and said an investigation was underway. The small planes - which can drop 800 gallons of fire retardant from the air - were both contracted by the Department of the Interior. Two pilots have died after their planes collided in mid-air while they were working to contain the Bishop Wildfire currently burning in southwest Nevada (pictured) More than 250 firefighters are on the ground working to contain the Bishop Fire (pictured) According to News 3 Las Vegas, 'records showed the aircraft were based out of Cedar City, Utah and had previously been used to fight several fires in Southern Utah.' The Nevada Bureau of Land Management released a statement expressing their condolences to the victim's families. Meanwhile, more than 250 firefighters are on the ground working to contain the Bishop Fire. They are currently being challenged by record-breaking heat and low humidity. Officials are hopeful the fire can be contained by next Thursday, and they are currently working to keep the blaze out of nearby Rainbow Canyon. The cause of the fire is not yet known. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 18:10:16|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close HANGZHOU, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The number of Europe-bound freight trains departing from the city of Yiwu in east China's Zhejiang Province reached 400 in the first seven months of this year, up 211.1 percent year on year, railway sources said Friday. A train loaded with 100 TEUs of cargo departed from Yiwu, the country's small-commodity hub, bound for Madrid, Spain, on Friday morning. It was the 400th China-Europe freight train to leave the city since Jan. 1. Currently, the Europe-bound freight trains from Yiwu cover 12 routes linking the city with 37 countries and regions across Eurasia. Enditem Journalists can be such insufferable bores and hypocrites. This is particularly true of columnists who, like me, perpetually pass judgement on the failings, misdeeds, or inadequacies of others usually powerful public figures. As a corollary to this, our prescriptions for the failings, misdeeds and inadequacies of others tip to the obdurate. Traditionally, we have shared our remedies in the comfortable certainty of their righteousness and without the discomfort of any measure of accountability that the powerful public figures we routinely reprimand or excoriate may face and, sadly, too often evade. Herein lies the columnists grating hypocrisy: we demand accountability of others, but rarely welcome or tolerate it when readers point an accusatory finger our way. For too long, columnists could sit high atop their distant, cosy perches to scold, lecture or pontificate to all manner of people about all manner of subjects. And far too many writers were pleased with the agreeable status quo and hoped for it to continue uninterrupted and undisturbed by the rabble otherwise known as readers. For generations, the dynamic between a columnist and a reader was, de facto: we speak, you listen. Gladly and all too belatedly, times and technology have changed. Social media has, undeniably, had a profound and irreversible impact on the relationship between columnist and reader. Today, astute readers are no longer content just to listen to sermons delivered by mainly white establishment columnists writing for elite establishment publications from their well-entrenched mountaintops. They are more than able, prepared and willing to respond and challenge alone or en masse. Many writers have acknowledged, even embraced, this relatively new, sometimes disorienting paradigm to try to forge a more intimate and immediate rapport with their audience with varying degrees of success. Others, however, who claim, ad nauseam, to be apostles of unfettered free speech prefer, instead, to cling like whiny curmudgeons to an old, less complicated time when, as I said, the columnist spoke with an almost divine authority and readers were obliged to listen like grateful parishioners or, if moved, to pen an occasional letter to the editor by way of dissent. Happy days, indeed. The pleasant, persistent buffer between the once remote, omnipotent, know-it-all-all-the-time columnist and the compliant reader has evaporated. Twitter has made sure of that. This is not to dismiss or excuse, of course, that the anonymity afforded to readers by Twitter and other social media platforms lends itself, depressingly, to a barrage of infantile, ad hominem attacks against columnists publishing work in corporate-backed or public and independent media. But this regrettable fact should not be employed by grumpy reactionaries as a convenient cudgel to denigrate more adroit readers as a mob intent on cancelling columnists of differing ideological dispositions. I was reminded of this boring refrain when former New York Times columnist and editor, Bari Weiss, recently cancelled herself, it appears, pre-emptively. I gather Weiss felt compelled to quit before she was ex-communicated for her wrongthink. In a rambling resignation letter, Weiss insisted that she was a casualty, in part, of an orthodoxy to satisfy the narrowest of audiences to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative. Tellingly, in her fit of ponderous hubris, Weiss failed to address the following: what precisely is the orthodoxy that allegedly stifled her; who makes up the narrow audience the aforementioned orthodoxy is designed to satisfy: and, finally, what is the predetermined narrative she alludes to. Still, Weiss fatally undermines her vague, conspiracy-tinged broadside by proudly listing the names of a slew of centrist and conservative writers she attracted to the Times op-ed page as an editor, a page that only two paragraphs later she thrashed for its orthodoxy, narrow audience and predetermined narrative. Oh well. Predictably, Weiss her martyrdom complex, by now, in full bloom takes an overheated, rhetorical rod to Twitter as the tool the amorphous mob inside and outside the Times wields to enforce the new orthodoxy against her and other free-thinking columnists who dare to test it. Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor, Weiss wrote. In Weisss lazy construct, Twitter is a euphemism for the mob. Unlike the centrist avatars of tolerance and literacy, Twitter (aka the mob) is populated by closed-minded, illiterate bullies who smear brave contrarians that defy the predetermined narrative into silence and, in some cases, unemployment. How many other centrist columnists have penned the same, myopic indictment in countless other forums before Weiss was obliged to make the near verbatim case that the Twitter mob is out to muzzle them? The obvious answer to that admittedly rhetorical question should disabuse anyone of the notion that, try as the Twitter mob might, Weiss and aggrieved company can, alas, be silenced. If Weiss could possibly pry her eyes from the parochial prism of her abiding sense of grievance, she might be able to recognise how many discerning readers have leveraged Twitter and other social platforms not as a retributive device, but as vehicles to question, confront, and if need be, expose the fourth estates failings, misdeeds and inadequacies. Consider these examples of that laudable, necessary work. In 2012 and 2016, a marquee columnist at Canadas national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, was revealed to be a serial plagiarist not by her complacent editors, but by a shrewd Ottawa-based artist and media critic who catalogued the now-retired columnists history of theft of other writers words. The Globes editor grudgingly issued a qualified apology to readers. The work, he wrote, fell short of our standards. In 2018, Twitter-detectives as Wired magazine aptly put it were quickly able to unearth a prospective NYT columnists disturbing Twitter archive of employing degrading terms to describe African-Americans and her cockeyed defence of a friendship with an avowed Nazi she considered redeemable. Then Times editorial page editor, James Bennett, issued a mea culpa and rescinded the papers offer to the would-be columnist. In 2019, more quick sleuthing by a wave of perceptive readers disclosed that a high-profile Times columnist cited a 2005 paper co-authored by an anthropologist with ties to white supremacist groups to argue that Ashkenazi Jews have higher IQs than the average population. Reportedly, the paper appeared in a journal previously known as The Eugenics Review. Wisely, the Times subsequently removed the reference to the paper from the disputed column. In June, the Times published a column by US Senator Tom Cotton in which the ever-reliable Trump sycophant suggested, in effect, that American soldiers should reprise what they did to peaceful protesters at Kent State University in May 1970. Cottons blatant call to put down citizens exercising their constitutional rights had received the imprimatur of the self-proclaimed worlds most powerful newspaper and, in doing so, triggered justifiable outrage from within and outside the Times. Ultimately, Bennett resigned, having acknowledged that he did not read the incendiary column before it was circulated online. No doubt, Bari Weiss et al would insist that Bennett was yet another victim of the Twitter-inspired cancel culture. I call it reader-inspired accountability. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. There are many things Americans find confounding about Australia, including that koalas are not bears, the correct ratio of butter to Vegemite, and the superiority of compulsory voting. I am happy to tackle all of these issues with them, but theres one fact about Australian life I cannot justify to befuddled foreigners, and that is that we are not led by an Australian. Palaces and princesses and tiaras are potent pieces of childhood mythology. But lets not mistake a story about a kingdom far, far away with happily ever after. Credit:Getty Images In these apocalyptic days of fires and plagues, as nationalists and morons stride the world stage in ill-fitting suits, it feels churlish, even ungrateful, to mention the very nice lady in natty pastels who is in charge of our country. The recent release of the Palace Letters from the time of Gough Whitlams dismissal was the inconvenient reminder we all needed. Although the Queens fingerprints are not on the murder weapon, as The Sydney Morning Heralds editorial put it, it is clear she did not, at the very least, do anything to dissuade her private secretary from signing off on the dismissal of our prime minister. Whenever the topic of the Queen comes up over here, I try the usual line shes technically head of state, she doesnt really do anything, the Commonwealth Games are great but even as I say it, I see how confusing this arrangement is to outsiders. Including British people, whod probably rather have a rotating cast member from Home and Away live at Buckingham Palace and cut ribbons. Theres a reason why no one outside Australia uses the term head of state as much as we do. Its to justify something which makes no sense. St. Louis Countys prosecutor announced Thursday that he will not charge the former police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a dramatic decision that could reopen old wounds amid a renewed and intense national conversation about racial injustice and the police treatment of people of color. Attorney Wesley Bells decision marked the third time prosecutors investigated and opted not to charge Darren Wilson, the white officer who fatally shot Brown, an unarmed, Black 18-year-old man, on Aug. 9, 2014. A St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict Wilson in November 2014, and the U.S. Department of Justice also did not charge him in March 2015. Civil rights leaders and Browns parents had hoped that Bell, the countys first Black prosecutor who took office in January 2019, would see things differently. My heart breaks for Browns parents, a somber Bell said during a news conference. I know this is not the result they were looking for and that their pain will continue forever. Describing the announcement as one of the most difficult things Ive had to do, Bell said that his office conducted a five-month, unannounced, review of witness statements, forensic reports and other evidence. The question for this office was a simple one: Could we prove beyond a reasonable doubt that when Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown he committed murder or manslaughter under Missouri law? After an independent and in-depth review of the evidence, we cannot prove that he did, Bell said. But, he said, our investigation does not exonerate Darren Wilson. Wilsons attorney, Jim Towey, claimed it was clear after three investigations that the police officer did nothing wrong. We all had the same conclusion: There was no crime, Towey said. I am just hoping that everybody gets to have some closure, particularly the Brown family, he said. The shooting touched off months of unrest in Ferguson and made the St. Louis suburb synonymous with a national debate about law enforcements treatment of Black Americans. The Ferguson unrest also helped solidify the national Black Lives Matter movement that began after Trayvon Martin, an unarmed, Black 17-year-old boy, was shot to death by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida in 2012. The issue has taken on new life since George Floyds death in Minneapolis in May after a white police officer pressed his knee onto the handcuffed Black mans neck for nearly 9 minutes. Ferguson is among the cities around the world that has seen protests since Floyds death. This is a time for us to reflect on Michaels life, to support Michaels family and to honor a transformative movement that will forever be linked to his name, Bell said. Brittany Packnett Cunningham, a Ferguson protester and educator who has become a national voice in the Black Lives Matter movement, said she is pained that there is still a gaping wound for Browns family. The system must change, she said. Im not disappointed - Im fed up and ever more committed, truth be told, Cunningham said. Rev. Darryl Gray, a leading St. Louis activist, agreed that the system is at fault, not Bells investigation. What came out of this is a recognition that the system is set up to protect police officers. We now need to begin to address the legislation the police hide behind, Gray said. Scott Roberts, senior director of criminal justice campaigns at Color Of Change, a national racial justice organization, said in a statement that Bells announcement perpetuates a criminal justice system that fails Black communities by allowing police to operate with impunity. Bell - who ran as a reform-minded prosecutor promising to eliminate cash bail for nonviolent offenders and to increase the use of programs that allow defendants to avoid jail time - faced no restrictions in reexamining Browns death. Wilson was never charged and tried, so double jeopardy was not an issue. There is also no statute of limitations on filing murder charges. As the news conference drew to a close, an activist who said he is a friend of Browns father erupted in anger. Its over! One term!, Tory Russell, 36, of St. Louis, screamed at the prosecuting attorney. Police officers gently led him from the room. Russell later told The Associated Press that he had just spoken with Michael Brown Sr. He is hurting, and hes not accepting of this, Russell said. The shooting happened after Wilson told Brown and a friend to get out of the street as they walked down the middle of Canfield Drive. A scuffle between Wilson and Brown ensued, ending with the fatal shot. Wilson claimed Brown came at him menacingly, forcing him to fire his gun in self-defense. Browns body remained in the street for 4 hours, angering his family and nearby residents. Bells predecessor, longtime prosecutor Bob McCulloch, was accused by critics of swaying the grand jury to its decision not to indict Wilson - an accusation he emphatically denied. Wilson resigned days after McCullochs Nov. 24, 2014, announcement that the grand jury would not indict the officer. The Justice Department also declined to charge Wilson, but issued a scathing report citing racial bias in Fergusons police and courts. A consent agreement calls for sweeping reforms that are still being implemented. Bell, a former Ferguson councilman, upset McCulloch, a staunch law-and-order prosecutor, in the 2018 Democratic primary and ran unopposed that November. Bell, who, like McCulloch, is the son of a police officer, formed a special unit to look into officer-involved shootings like the one in Ferguson, as well as cases of potential wrongful convictions. Browns mother, Lesley McSpadden, asked Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson to reopen the investigation of Wilson in 2018, but Parsons office said it had no legal authority to appoint a special prosecutor. Associated Press reporter Aaron Morrison in New York City and Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, contributed to this report. This story has been corrected to show that Trayvon Martin was not killed by a white officer. Jet2 has told holidaymakers in Spain to to return to the UK earlier than planned or risk having to make their own way home. Customers have had flights back to the UK cancelled and been informed by text that they will have to abandon their holidays sooner than intended. Jet2 said that it has taken the decision to suspend flights and holidays to Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Majorca, Menorca and Ibiza up to and including August 9. Flights to mainland Spain have already been cancelled and the company is operating empty outbound flights to pick customers up, until August 3. Jet2 has told holidaymakers in Spain to to return to the UK earlier than planned or risk having to make their own way home David Jones, who has been touring Spain for two weeks with his partner Helen Rickard, was informed by text that their return flight had been cancelled. Mr Jones said the company told him over the phone to 'make our own arrangements' to get home if they did not want to accept a return flight a week early. The couple were due to fly home from Alicante on August 8, and have also had a backup return flight with easyJet cancelled with no alternatives offered. They have now had to buy a return flight via Ryanair. Mr Jones, from the West Midlands, said: 'I understand times are difficult. It's why we were prepared for quarantine and had an alternative flight in reserve. 'I'm very disappointed that both companies seem to play fast and loose with their legal obligations.' A spokeswoman said: 'We are contacting customers who are currently in these destinations to advise them of their options regarding flying back to the UK. 'We appreciate that some of our package holiday customers were due to stay on holiday for longer than this and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. 'It is important to note that we are responding to a very fast-moving situation with updates coming from the Government with little or notice, and we have had to make decisions about our programme accordingly. 'We can assure these customers that we will be in touch with them to resolve any issues that they may have.' Travellers returning to the UK from Spain will have to self-isolate for 14 days, however current Government advice is that there is no need to leave the country ahead of schedule. The UK is advising against non-essential travel to Spain, including the Balearic and Canary Islands. People cool off at a beach in Barcelona yesterday. Britain is now advising against all non-essential travel to Spain and its islands Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said holidaymakers have been stuck in the middle of a 'tug of war' between Government advice and travel company policies. He said: 'The Government had said people on holiday in the Balearic and Canary Islands don't need to return early, but Jet2 has decided that they should. 'Jet2 must now urgently clarify whether this is a requirement or a choice, and make it clear to customers whose package holiday has been cancelled what their rights are to a partial refund for the remainder of their trip. 'The past week has seen utter confusion for holidaymakers. The Government needs to work more closely with the travel industry so that tour operators and airlines can better manage these changing requirements, and holidaymakers aren't caught between following Government advice or potentially losing the money for their holiday.' The decision is already having huge repercussions for Britain's tour operators, who organise millions of Britons' annual summer visits to Spain. UK travel trade association ABTA says the sudden quarantine will have 'major financial implications' for British travel businesses. It noted Spain was the most popular destination for British tourists last year, ahead of France and the US. More than 18million of them visited the country every year in 2017, 2018 and 2019, according to market research company Euromonitor. Alexis Frick, a research manager at Euromonitor, said over the last 15 years British tourists have accounted for almost a quarter of all holiday visits to Spain. Within days of the quarantine rollout Britain's biggest tour operator TUI said it was scrapping flights to Spain until early August, and on Thursday announced it was cutting 166 shops in Britain and Ireland. Meanwhile the UK's struggling airlines and airports have said they were 'disappointed' by the government's move, and called on it to introduce a virus testing regime at ports of entry. The quarantine is also a major blow to Spain, with the Exceltur tourism association estimating it could cost the travel sector there almost 9billion in August and September. TAMPA, Fla. - President Donald Trump took a Friday swing through Florida, a state critical to his reelection prospects and bracketed by two storms one now bringing daily records on COVID-19 deaths and the other swirling just to the south in the form of Hurricane Isaias. Trump delivered a campaign speech with Florida sheriffs that continued his effort to pin a surge in crime in some of the nations largest cities on their Democratic mayors as he has threatened to send federal law enforcement to protect what he describes as besieged communities. Speaking soon after a federal appeals court threw out Dzhokhar Tsarnaevs death sentence for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing because of potential juror bias, Trump attacked Democratic rival Joe Biden for his shifting position on capital punishment. The former vice-president, who supported the death penalty through much of his long political career, last year called for eliminating the death penalty on the federal level and incentivizing states to do the same. They protect criminals and Biden opposes the death penalty, even for cop killers and child murderers, Trump told hundreds of supporters who showed up to hear him speak at the sheriffs event on the Tampa International Airport tarmac. I see in Boston, where you have the animal that killed so many people during the Boston Marathon, they just sent this conviction for the death penalty back to the lower courts. ... Its ridiculous. With the White House and Democrats at loggerheads over a new round of financial relief to bolster a coronavirus-battered economy, Trump is attempting to use a law-and-order theme to electrify his base and win over undecided voters unsettled by more than two months of protests centred on police brutality and racial injustice. Before departing Washington, Trump again falsely claimed that Biden supports defunding the police. He met at the White House with members of the National Association of Police Organizations Leadership, an organization that endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but is backing Trumps reelection bid. Your choice is me or somebody that has no clue what theyre doing, Trump told them. In Florida, Trump also participated in a meeting to review the response to COVID-19 and the states preparedness for Hurricane Isaias, which was centred in the Bahamas on Friday and expected to move near South Florida on Saturday. Its a pretty big storm, said Trump, who asked Floridians to be cautious. I dont know if its going to be a hurricane or not, but its a storm. Its significant. The president addressed a range of issues at the event about the hurricane and the pandemic, even touching on his promised health care plan. Florida reported 257 new coronavirus deaths on Friday, the highest daily count so far and the fourth record day in a row. As a candidate for the White House, Trump promised that he would immediately replace President Barack Obamas health care law with a plan of his own that would provide insurance for everybody, but he has yet to reveal his plan. Trump said during an exchange with reporters that he was preparing to unveil his plan soon, suggesting perhaps as early as Sunday. The president, however, has previously suggested a forthcoming replacement plan without delivering. Trump also spoke to supporters at a fundraiser that was closed to reporters before heading back to Washington on Friday evening. Florida is considered essential for the presidents reelection prospects. He won the state with a 1.2% margin in 2016, but most polls have shown him trailing Biden. Asked if the rising COVID-19 death toll could diminish his chances in the state, Trump told reporters that he had confidence in his adopted home state. He noted the large crowd of supporters who stood along his motorcade route during his visit Friday and unspecified polls as evidence of his position. Theres a very good feeling, Trump insisted. Democratic supporters of Biden in Florida criticized Trump for coming to the state to fundraise during such a critical time for the state and nation. Nowhere does the pandemic threaten Trumps political future more than Florida, where Democrats have been railing against the Republican presidents inability to control the health threat in a state packed with older people. We have more cases than some countries. This is outrageous, and here he is, Donald Trump, visiting Florida to raise money and pretending like it doesnt even exist, that we dont have a problem, with an impending storm coming our way to top it all off, said Democratic state Sen. Annette Taddeo of Miami, a Biden supporter. As if 2020 couldnt get any worse for Floridians. Democrats working to defeat Trump are on one hand giddy about the presidents weak standing in multiple public polls but on the other are predicting the race will tighten significantly before Election Day. While Trump may be struggling three months before the election, his campaign points to its organizational advantages and suggests that the pandemic outlook is improving. Trump has already reserved $36 million in fall advertising in Florida alone, which is by far his largest advertising investment in any general election battleground state. Nick Trainer, the campaigns director of battleground strategy, predicted that the coronavirus situation would ultimately become an asset for Trumps reelection. President Trumps leadership on coronavirus has put us in a strong position to protect vulnerable Americans and rebuild our economy, he said. Where were at today isnt where well be in November. ___ Madhani reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville and Alexandra Jaffe in Washington and Steve Peoples in New York contributed to this report. The man who threatened President Donald Trump and Northampton Countys district attorney was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in federal prison. Shawn Christy was sentenced to two decades in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for charges including making threats against the president of the United States. Prosecutors said Christy posted Facebook threats against President Trump and then-District Attorney John Morganelli, writing Keep it up Morganelli, I promise Ill put a bullet in your head as soon as I put one in the head of President Donald J. Trump. Morganellis office prosecuted Christy for threatening to kill an employee at the Berkheimer tax collection office in Bangor in March 2017, and to blow up the building where the woman worked. Morganelli is now a Northampton County judge. Following a three-month manhunt in six states, Christy was caught Sept. 21, 2018 in Mifflin Township, near Columbus, Ohio. Christy, a New Jersey native who last lived in Schuylkill County, went to trial last fall and was convicted in November by a federal jury on all 12 counts, including making threats against the president of the United States. Christy faced burglary and related charges in Luzerne County, for allegedly breaking into his uncles Butler Township home while he was on the lam. Those charges were later dropped. Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. State Rep. Annette Glenn, R-Midland, recently introduced legislation to improve transparency between state government and the public and to hold government officials guilty of misconduct accountable. Glenns measure, House Bill 5981, would establish a state employee ombudsman to investigate and evaluate reports of suspected misconduct. New Delhi, July 31 : The Delhi Police has banned flying of sub-conventional aerial platforms starting from Friday till August 15 as part of security measures. The order signed by Delhi Police Commissioner S.N. Shrivastava states that it is prohibited to fly sub-conventional aerial platforms like para-gliders, para-motors, hang-gliders, UAVs, UASs, microlight aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft, hot air balloons, small sized powered aircraft, quadcopters or para jumping from aircraft. The order added if the ban was violated, it will be punishable under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code. The ban comes after it was been reported that certain criminal, anti-social elements or terrorists, inimical to India may pose a threat to the safety of the general public, dignitaries and vital installations by using sub-conventional aerial platforms. State aid, the increasingly common practice of governments doling out support to key manufacturers or industries. In 2004 the U.S. lodged a WTO legal case against the EU for its member state support to Airbus. In 2011 the WTO ruled that the EU provided Airbus with billions of dollars of illegal subsidized financing that enabled Airbus to launch its widebodied and short-haul planes. The EU opened a parallel case against the U.S. that argued Boeing benefited from state subsidies as well as space and military contracts, which defrayed the cost of civilian aircraft development. In 2012 the WTO determined Boeing had received at least $5.3 billion in illegal U.S. aid. The cases continued to wind their way through the WTO dispute process until 2019, when the WTO authorized the U.S. to retaliate with tariffs against $7.5 billion worth of EU exports. Due to a timing lag, the WTO wont issue a retaliation award in the EUs complaint about Boeing until sometime this fall. Based on a 1971 novel by the late Charles Willeford a writer of crime fiction best known for his recurring character Detective Hoke Moseley The Burnt Orange Heresy is a stylish neo-noir thriller, set in the art world. Directed by Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Capotondi (The Double Hour) from a screenplay by Scott B. Smith that strays far from the source material, this story doesnt feature Moseley, but it still makes for a mostly smart and sexy crime drama, even if it loses steam by the time the ridiculous ending rolls around. Claes Bang, who starred in the 2017 art-world satire The Square, returns to that milieu as James Figueras, an art critic whos trying to make a living on the lecture circuit in Milan. James could use a more reliable salary to support his drug habit but, even if hes not paid much, he does think well of himself, titling his book The Power of the Critic and declaring that, Art wouldnt exist without criticism. James even makes up a backstory about a Holocaust survivor to convince a group of elderly tourists that a nondescript abstraction is a masterpiece. Gotcha: He painted it himself. Such charming arrogance impresses a young American tourist named Berenice (Elizabeth Debicki) and the two begin a steamy affair thats a throwback to such erotic thrillers as Body Heat. The couple gets invited to a lavish villa owned by an art dealer called Cassidy (Mick Jagger), whos taken in a famous and famously reclusive house guest: painter Jerome Debney (Donald Sutherland). Cassidy has a proposition for James: Because Debney hasnt delivered a finished painting in years, would James be willing to break into the artists studio and steal one? If James can pull it off, Cassidy will make it worth his while. Willeford, who died in 1988, was one of the great crime writers. But he was so contrarian that when his publisher asked for a sequel to his 1984 bestseller Miami Blues made into a 1990 film starring Alec Baldwin and Fred Ward he delivered a manuscript that turned his hero Moseley into such a monster that it was never published. Adapting Heresy its unusual title comes from one of Debneys paintings screenwriter Smith relocates the action of Willefords novel from seedy South Florida to picturesque Italy, which softens the hard-boiled cynicism of the original. And yet the movie has a way of sneaking up on you, and its radical deviations from Willefords narrative keep the convoluted plot fresh, even if you know the book. Its really the cast who help deliver that plot. Bang has a voice that recalls a young James Mason at times: just listen to him entice Berenice to a fancy art party because, as he puts it, there just might be some cucumber sandwiches. Hes got a perfect foil in Debicki. Berenice sees through Jamess smug intellect, cutting him down to size with a mix of blunt candour and smart-alecky banter. But the films biggest pleasure comes courtesy of a hilariously hammy Jagger, who delivers such gems of art-speak as Modigliani provenance with a gleefully upper-class air. Its like showing up for a gallery talk and finding out that the Rolling Stones are your guide. RELATED STORIES Movies Returning to acting, Jagger plays a man of wealth and taste Like James, The Burnt Orange Heresy asks whether the story behind a work of art is more important than the work itself. And that may or may not be so. But thanks to small doses of sex and violence and a healthy dollop of Jagger the movie that frames that question is more entertaining than anything any critic, including this one, might say. The Burnt Orange Heresy Written by Scott B. Smith. Directed by Giuseppe Capotondi. Starring Claes Bang, Elizabeth Debicki, Mick Jagger and Donald Sutherland. Opens Aug. 7 in Toronto. 99 minutes. R Mumbai: Ahead of the Mumbai civic body polls, a new poster war has erupted between the BJP and its oldest ally Shiv Sena over the issue of demonetisation and black money. While a poster put up by the BJP shows Prime Minister Narendra Modi receiving blessings from late Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, a counter poster put up by its ally taunts BJP saying it finally remembered the Sena patriarch. According to Sena leader, Prasad Lad, BJPs Mumbai wing vice president put up a poster at a traffic signal near the NCP office at Nariman Point this morning while the Senas South Mumbai vibhag Pramukh Pandurang Sakpal put up another poster to counter BJP in the same area. Lads poster bears Modis photo at one corner where Bal Thackeray is shown in a way that seems he is blessing Modi on his demonetisation decision. A line on the poster states Kalya Paishacha Khatma, hech Achche Din (End of black money means good days have arrived). Senas poster meanwhile also uses Bal Thackerays photo with the lines Prime Minister Narendra Modincha Kewilwana Akrosh (PM Narendra Modis appealing howl), Shewati Shiv Sena pramukhanchi athwan Zalich (finally he has been reminded of Bal Thackeray) scribbled below. Recently, while Sena MPs had met Modi to submit a Memorandum that sought to allow DCC banks to allow exchange of old notes, Modi reportedly told them that had Bal Thackeray been alive, he would have blessed him. Meanwhile, Uddhav Thackeray has taken a harsh stand over the chaos among people who are standing in long queues to withdraw cash from banks and ATMs. He has threatened the BJP that he would not shy from taking an extreme step if Modi ignores common peoples difficulties after the withdrawal of higher denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. Police officials later removed both the posters. Polls to the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai are scheduled to take place next year. On November 8, Prime Minister Modi had announced his governments decision to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. 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 30 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 39,612,725 1 39,612,725 24,896,917 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. 31 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 U.S. soldiers speak with a woman in the Wesola district of Polands capital Warsaw on March 29, 2017. (Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images) US to Have Permanent Troop Presence in Poland as Defense Pact Agreed WARSAWThe United States will establish a permanent military presence in Poland as it deploys around 1,000 additional U.S. troops there, Polands Defense Ministry said on Friday. Poland is setting growing store by its bilateral defense relationship with its NATO partner, fearful of an increasingly assertive posture from Russia to the east since Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. On June 12 last year, U.S. President Donald Trump agreed, with Polish President Andrzej Duda beside him at the White House, to send 1,000 more troops to his NATO ally. U.S. soldier gives high five to a child in the Wesola district of Polands capital Warsaw on March 29, 2017. (Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images) But negotiations on the details of where the troops would be stationed and how much Poland would pay dragged on for years. We did it. We have finished the negotiations on military cooperation, Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said in a statement. Poland currently hosts a rotating contingent of over 4,000 U.S. troops. A permanent presence, which the statement says will now number at least 5,500 troops, is likely to cost Poland more. The deal also involves the development of expertise for Polish forces in the areas of reconnaissance and command, with the possibility of more U.S. forces coming to Poland in case of an increased threat, the statement said. Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak waits for the arrival of U.S. Secretary for Defence Mark Esper prior to a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium Feb. 12, 2020. (Virginia Mayo/Pool via Reuters) The financial details of the new deal were not revealed in the ministrys statement. The U.S. military on Wednesday expanded on plans to withdraw about 12,000 troops from Germany and indicated that some of them could be moved to Poland or the Baltic states. It was unclear from Fridays statement where the additional 1,000 troops would come from, and whether some would be reassigned from Germany. Polands Defense Ministry was not immediately available to comment and the U.S. embassy declined to do so. U.S. officials have insisted that the agreement with Poland and the decision to pull some U.S. troops out of Germany are separate matters. By Joanna Plucinska Kathryn Flynn hasnt slept past 4 a.m. in weeks. The special education teacher in Bloomfield watched eagerly as the state unveiled its back-to-school guidance and her school district last week announced a hybrid plan: teaching half the children in-person one week, and the other half the following week. But that still exposes her, and her classroom half-full of elementary school students, to the possibility of contracting the coronavirus. Were all nervous because the four of us have really been very, very strict with where we go and what we do, the 54-year-old Flynn said of her family. Im quite frustrated that Im even in this situation. Im expected to risk my life for my job. Many teachers across New Jersey are on edge. Over the past two decades, they have adapted for the possibility of school shooters and lockdowns in their classrooms. Now theyre being asked to walk into old, crowded buildings, knowing the coronavirus continues to linger in their communities and could spike again if the state eases restrictions or residents do not remain vigilant. For some, the invisible threat has become more tangible than the terror of violence, one that could dwell in each student and coworker. It feels like theyre throwing us to the wolves with a plastic spoon as a weapon, said a middle school teacher in South Brunswick, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. Nobody feels safe. The five teachers who spoke to NJ Advance Media for this story said they do not feel any practical protections will keep them safe from COVID-19 and too many unknowns remain involving children and transmission. They worry about close quarters in classrooms, dated HVAC systems and windowless rooms. They wonder how they can train kids to keep masks on and stay apart. And they fear the last bell of the day, which sends kids back out into the world, where they have no control over who their students meet or what they do. Only remote learning, which brings its own challenges and long hours, puts them at ease, they say. The state released its plan to reopen schools in late June, encouraging social distancing and masks and leaving many decisions up to districts. But it did mandate all schools offer at least some form of in-person learning. New Jersey education officials then added an all-remote learning option last week, allowing students to continue doing their classwork at home. But that alternative does not extend to teachers. Three state lawmakers said Wednesday they planned to introduce legislation that would require students and staff to continue to learn and teach from home during the new school year, with only special education and related services to take place in-person. Flexibility is a key watchword here, Gov. Phil Murphy said Wednesday, when questioned about the legislation. Giving parents, school districts, kids, educators flexibility to allow if remote learning makes sense then thats something that we want to make sure that flexibility exists. But that very flexibility has pinned some teachers into corners, as their districts take different approaches to safety guidelines and remote learning. I have never seen a plan that places our employees and our students lives in more clear and present danger than the one Paterson has created, said John McEntee, president of the Paterson Education Association. His concerns include mask breaks, in which kids can remove their face coverings to avoid fatigue and the absence of temperature checks and proper isolation rooms. Teachers have inundated him with questions and fears, he said. Some young teachers have sought advice on setting up wills, and others have reached out to family members, making arrangements for their children to be cared for in the event they fall ill or die. I am praying to God every night when I put my head down on the pillow that none of our members or students lose their lives, McEntee said. Eileen Shafer, superintendent of the Paterson School District, said the mask breaks will occur only when children are seated behind partitions and away from one another for a few minutes each day. She also said the district has created a hybrid plan that reduces in-person classes to 50% or less, and that isolation spaces will be closed rooms when possible, or behind partitions in auditoriums and gyms in schools without the space. And parents must self-report childrens symptoms each day on an app before coming to school. Anyone who fails to do so will have their temperature taken, she said. Teachers with underlying conditions or vulnerable family members can fill out forms seeking to work remotely or take a leave of absence, Shafer said. They will be approved on a case-by-case basis. Wed probably all agree none of us are comfortable with whats going on in the world, Shafer said. At the same time, the guidance has been that we need to reopen. Until that changes, we need to be able to teach our children and make sure that everyone is safe. In Newark, where staff members can opt to work remotely or return to their classrooms, teachers are more split, said John Abeigon, president of the Newark Teachers Union. You have younger teachers. You have veteran teachers, he said. The veteran teachers are more concerned. Some question the motives behind returning at all. Keeping kids home does burden parents who cannot work remotely, but teachers do not see themselves as day care workers. Were reopening because they need the parents to get back to work, said a charter school teacher in a North Jersey city, who requested anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media. We need the kids to get more socializing. How much education are they really going to get with two days in school? The risk isnt worth the reward. Its almost like its forcing our hand to reopen in this urban area, where weve been hit hard, she said. I have kids that have lost family members. Theyre not doing well. Jason Flum, an English teacher at Crossroads South Middle School in South Brunswick, addressed a petition to the governor with his concerns. More than 12,000 people have signed it. If indoor dining, which is far easier to control from a social distancing point of view, cannot reopen, why in the world are you telling schools to reopen? he wrote. His superintendent, Scott Feder, followed Tuesday with an open four-page letter, echoing similar concerns. He said other indoor spaces, like gyms and theaters, should open before schools take the risk. I fully understand that the need for schools to open is significant on many fronts, but again, not at the unknown cost of loss of life and not without first taking all necessary steps, such as assessing our ability to coexist with the virus in large indoor settings, he wrote. Other teachers have little faith in their administrators to carry out the best practices, even if the guidance is there. A July video of a graduation at Belvidere High School in Warren County shows most students mask-less as they fist-bumped administrators upon retrieving their diplomas. Three staff members also did not wear face coverings. If my superintendent and my administrators dont know how to socially distance, how can I ever expect that theyre going to enforce it at school? said a teacher at the high school, who asked to remain anonymous because she feared retaliation for speaking to the media. Its very scary to me. I feel safer going into my doctors office. I would feel safer going into my bank. Anything feels safer than going into my school. Chris Carrubba, the Belvidere superintendent, said the graduation took place on the morning of July 8, and Murphy did not sign an executive order mandating people wear masks outside when they cannot social distance until that afternoon. Carrubba, who said he did not wear a mask because he planned to stay six feet from others, admitted he was likely closer to students as they fist-bumped him. He said they asked students and families to wear masks, but could not enforce the request. Maybe we didnt use the best judgment to fist-bump the kids, Carrubba said. In the moment, I was caught up in the excitement of it. But he contended the brief exchange did not fall into the high-risk exposure category, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says people need close contact for likely 15 minutes to transmit the virus. Edward Lazzara, the schools principal, said a microphone cover was changed between speakers, hand sanitizer was used and officials forewent the use of paper tickets and programs as well as a choir and photographer. Carrubba said a return to in-person schooling this fall will come with a mask mandate in line with the governors recommendations and other precautions to keep students and staff safe. We are taking everything seriously with the reopening of school, he said, including all of the staff concerns. The exchange highlights teachers biggest fear: They will not be able to enforce a mask mandate with students. And some staff say there are no precautions, aside from remote learning, that could quell their anxiety. The South Brunswick teacher, who is not near retirement age but lives with an immunocompromised person, said thinking about returning puts a pit in their stomach. Its the first year theyre thinking about not returning to school in nearly 20 years of teaching. We feel like were not being listened to. The governor talks about giving choice to families and hes listening to educators, the teacher said. But we havent really seen that come out yet. If families have a choice, why dont teachers have a choice? Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Amanda Hoover may be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Updated 8:50am The Green Party has sanctioned two of its TDs for failing to support the Government in the Dail. In a controversial series of votes last night, Neasa Hourigan voted against the Government five times, while Junior Minister Joe O'Brien abstained on the Government's housing bill. Following the actions of the TDs, the parliamentary party of the Greens met to decide if sanctions were to be taken for their breaking of the government whip. They voted to remove speaking rights from both TDs for two months. It has been confirmed that the sanctions will come into effect immediately. As the Dail has just started on a six week break, the two TDs will only be banned from speaking in the Dail for two weeks when it returns in September. Breaking ranks Advertisement TDs were voting down amendments last night to new housing laws that would extend the rent freeze and evictions ban brought in during the Covid-19 crisis, but that would only apply to a limited number of people who could prove they had lost work because of the pandemic. Ms Hourigan voted in favour of Labour Party amendments which would have extended the legislation to all tenants. She resigned as the Green Party chief whip after voting with the opposition against the Government twice. TDs were reportedly taken by surprise when Minister Joe O'Brien then abstained on the final vote. He later explained his reasoning in a tweet, saying he did not feel the legislation was the best piece of law they could have come up with. He described it as rushed, and said it could have been stronger. Re tonight's vote: The issue of homelessness is an extremely important one for me, Ive worked in the area, Ive been a whistleblower in the area, I have friends who work in the NGOs and I feel we need to do everything we can to tackle it. Im elected in part to be a legislator. Joe O'Brien TD for Dublin Fingal (@joefingalgreen) July 30, 2020 It is understood Eamon Ryan spoke with Micheal Martin and Leo Varadkar at the time about the actions of the two TDs. Party sources said they did not believe the actions of the TDs were a first time hanging offence, but that it would be let known that any further breaking of the party whip will be punished more severely. In April 1835, an elegant new vessel entered the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal at Dam No. 5 and descended about six miles to the boat basin at Williamsport, Md. It was the Lady Washington, a "handsomely decorated and 'trim built' craft," the local newspaper said, with a cabin roof that was painted red and white. It was the "first regularly formed boat" on the canal - probably made of white oak and yellow pine, with its name prominently displayed, and a cargo hold that could carry 800 barrels of flour all the way to Georgetown. Now, 185 years after the Lady Washington made headlines, and nine years after the C&O Canal in Georgetown last had a boat, craftsmen are building a new one for the legendary body of water that helped define an era. For the moment, the unnamed vessel sits in two pieces in side-by-side work buildings on Lynch Cove, off Bear Creek, in Dundalk, Md. They resemble the halves of a huge bathtub, but when bolted together at the Roudebush Yacht and Engine Works there they will form the hull of an 80-foot-long canal boat. Once finished, the 18-ton craft will still be pulled by mules, as were canal boats of old, but will be outfitted with small electric motors for trips when the mules are not required. And instead of oak and pine, the bulk of the boat is being built of lightweight panels of high-density, polyurethane foam reinforced with layers of fiberglass. It's so light that the boat will require ballasts of about 12,000 pounds of lead ingots to keep its battery-powered motors submerged in the water. Final assembly and "sea trials" are scheduled for the fall, and the boat is expected to make its canal debut early next year. The boat was designed by Tridentis, the Alexandria naval architecture firm, for Georgetown Heritage, the nonprofit working to revitalize historical Georgetown and its one-mile stretch of the C&O Canal National Historical Park. Tridentis does mostly high-tech work for the Defense Department, on such things as aircraft carriers and submarines. "We've never designed or built a mule-powered canal boat before," said Chris Addington, the project's program manager. He said Georgetown Heritage and the National Park Service, which runs the historical park, wanted the new boat to preserve the "soul" of the old boats. "It still has the look of the original," Addington said. "We worked . . . to try to design a boat that has the soul but is also a . . . 21st-century constructed vessel." The firm studied old drawings of the canal's locks and boats. From those, Addington said, "we've been able to glean things such as the exterior visuals - where the windows were located, what did they look like,. A previous boat, the old blue-and-white Georgetown, operated for almost 30 years, but was decommissioned in 2011 due to extensive damage. It sat moldering in the canal, until 2016, when Georgetown Heritage and the National Park Service removed it. "It was made of wood, which was water logged and damaged over time," Addington said. Georgetown Heritage wanted to reduce maintenance as much as possible for the new boat. "They wanted it to last fifty years, with as little updating and overhauling as we can get," he said. So the boat is being built with planks of a material called Coosa, which is made in Pelham, Ala. "It's not going to rot, get water logged, [or] deform," Addington said. "It's going to last for a really long time." For today's passengers there's also cabin lighting, an interior sound system, and possibly webcams. The modern amenities might amaze the canal boaters of the past. But the experience on the waterway beside the Potomac River is the same. "It is not easy to imagine a more delightful excursion," a traveler on a packet, or passenger, boat wrote in early 1831, according to a National Park Service research study by Harlan D. Unrau. "The boat is very handsomely fitted and furnished," the traveler wrote. "The bridges over the canal are few; and a moderate inclination of the body enables those who stand on the roof . . . of the boat to pass under them," he wrote in a Washington newspaper. "Those who remain in the cabin are as much at ease and as comfortable as if they were in their parlors or drawing rooms at home." The canal currently has an 1870s reproduction packet boat at Great Falls, in Potomac, Md., and 1890s reproduction launches in Williamsport. In its prime in the mid-to-late 1800s, scores of boats - for cargo and passengers - used the 184 miles of the canal between Georgetown and Cumberland, Md. The boats were pulled by mules who walked the tow path harnessed with ropes to the vessels. When not on duty, the animals lived on board with the boat operators and their families. The mules were often led by children who sometimes rode the mule to spare their feet, according to Unrau's research. There were tolls, speed limits and traffic regulations issued by the canal company. The speed limit was 4 mph. The penalty for speeding was $5. A boat being passed by another had to pull over to the side opposite the tow path and lower its tow rope so the faster boat could go over it. Leaky boats were not permitted on the canal. Boats were required to have their names painted so they could be seen from both sides of the canal. No carcass or dead animal could be thrown into the canal. Passenger fares varied. An excursion from Georgetown to Great Falls and back, plus dinner at the Crommelin House - now the park service visitor center - was 50 cents. Some boats carried 100 people. One excursion, in August 1835, included President Andrew Jackson, 50 guests and the Marine Band. Many boats could carry as much as 150 tons of freight, which was often coal, according to Unrau. When approaching a lock the boat's master was required to blow his horn for 10 minutes - or knock on the door of the lock keeper's house. If the lock keeper failed to appear, the boat master was allowed to operate the lock. Addington, of Tridentis, said that once tested, the new boat would be taken apart and placed in storage until the spring. Painted gray with green trim, it is expected to make its canal debut March 20, 2021. The cost for the preservation project and the boat's construction is $1.5 million, and is being paid for with a grant from the District, said Georgetown Heritage executive director Jeffrey L. Nichols. "We're actively pursuing naming rights to the boat through individuals," Nichols said. "It can't be corporate or anything like that . . . We're looking for a donor who would be willing to endow the boat and help us name it." Meanwhile, a crew has to be hired, he said, and mules must be acquired. Two are needed. They won't be living on board. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku never expected to live to 100 let alone become a first-time author just months after making that milestone. At times, in his early 20s and interned in Auschwitz, sleeping on hard wooden planks, 10 naked men to a row, with nothing but each other for warmth, he didnt expect to make it through the frozen night. Eddie Jaku, 100-year-old author and Auschwitz survivor, in Randwick. Credit:Louise Kennerley If I could survive one more day, an hour, a minute, then the pain would end and tomorrow would come, he would tell himself. Hed regularly be woken by the suicidal screams of fellow Jews who had gone to the wire killing themselves by running into the electrified barbed-wire fence on the perimeter of the death camp rather than suffer further at the hands of the Nazis. At times he thought of joining them to perish, like his parents, who had been murdered in the Auschwitz gas chambers. But his friend Kurt Hirschfeld, a fellow young German Jew, convinced him to keep on living. Then, a Jewish doctor, who helped dislodge a bullet from his leg after one escape attempt, helped the analytical young engineer see life as a mathematical equation: One hour of rest equals two days of survival. He vowed to rest, and if he survived he would live every day to the fullest and dedicate the rest of his life to putting right the hurt that Adolf Hitler had inflicted on the world. Jaku not only survived the horrors of the Holocaust, but he has lived to become a husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather as well as a successful Sydneysider, running everything from a service station to a real estate agency. And now hes an author. The Happiest Man on Earth, published this week, retells his powerful life story from stateless refugee to celebrated centenarian. Advertisement I have lived for a century and I know what it is to stare evil in the face, it begins. I have seen the very worst in mankind, the horrors of the death camps, the Nazi efforts to exterminate my life, and the lives of all my people. But now I consider myself the happiest man on Earth. Through all my years I have learnt this: life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful Happiness is something we can choose. It is up to you. I meet the debut author at the Montefiore residential aged care facility in Randwick, where he has lived for the past year, moving in when his wife of 74 years, Flore, needed care. He is dressed smartly in tie and suit, which conceal the crude indigo ink concentration camp tattoo on his left arm. Like the nightmares and the yearning for his mother, it has not disappeared with time. Eddie Jaku showing his concentration camp tattoo. Credit:Louise Kennerley My number was 172338 ... When they tattooed the number on my arm, I was sentenced to a slow death, but first they wanted to kill my spirit, he says. However, Jakus indomitable spirit could not be extinguished. Even today he remains wiry and active, with a full head of white hair and a deceptively youthful elan that could have him pass for a man in his 70s. He still drives his own car and starts each day by singing in the shower. I am 100 and two months, he squeals, in a mixture of disbelief and delight. Advertisement Every day I wake up is a happy day, he says, his eyes sparkling like the Order of Australia pin he proudly wears on his lapel. I do not hate anyone, not even Hitler. Hate is a disease which may destroy your enemy but will destroy you in the process. You may not like everyone, but that doesnt give you the right to be nasty to them. I dont love everyone but I hate no one. There is no revenge; staying alive is the only revenge." It is estimated that more than 6 million Jewish people (as well as millions of other victims of Nazi persecution) died in the Holocaust, two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. At Auschwitz, 1.1 million people died. As the Sydney Jewish Museum's oldest Auschwitz survivor and volunteer, Jaku has been telling his story since the museum opened in 1992. A gifted orator, he joined the speakers circuit, talking to students, teachers, politicians and professionals, sharing insights into his remarkable resilience. For his efforts he was this year named a finalist in the 2020 Senior Australian of the Year awards. Last year, at 99, he gave a TEDx talk that was met with a resounding standing ovation from the 6000-plus crowd at Sydneys International Convention Centre. The idea for his book came from the rough outline of that speech, and all the talks hes given over the years. The memoir is told in the vein of Anh Do's The Happiest Refugee. His narrative is woven together like one of Aesops fables, with a moral enlightening even the darkest chapters. They are life lessons such as: hug your mother, tell her how much you love her, shared sorrow is half sorrow, shared pleasure is double pleasure, and love is the best medicine. His optimism has a special resonance in this era of containment. COVID-19 may have quashed his plans to have a 100th birthday party at Point Piper Yacht Club in April, but now his legacy lives in a book that is bound to be a bestseller. Eddie Jaku (front right) with members of his extended family, 1932. He would be the only one to survive the Holocaust. Advertisement Jaku was born Abraham Salomon Jakubowic into a big, loving family in 1920 in the east German city of Leipzig. His Polish-born father Isidore was one of eight, his mother Lina one of 13, all of whom were killed in concentration camps. At 13 he celebrated his Bar mitzvah in 1933, the year Hitler came to power. Barred by the Nazis from the local high school because he was Jewish, it was his father, a mechanical engineer, who organised false papers and a false name: Walter Schleif. Isidore had worked for US typewriter maker Remington and been interned in World War I as an illegal Polish alien, but was freed because of his mechanical skills to make heavy weapons for the war effort. Sensing a growing cloud of anti-Semitism, he wanted his son to have similar opportunities; so 13-year-old Jaku was sent on a nine-hour train ride to Tuttlingen, then considered the epicentre of precision engineering. He slept in an orphanage and studied mechanical engineering by day, graduating after five years in 1938 as the top apprentice toolmaker. Not a moment passed when I did not miss my family I told my father how lonely I was without them, but he said: 'Eddie, I know it is very difficult, but one day you will thank me' ... And he was right. Without what I learnt at that school, I would never have survived what was to come. On the night of November 9, 1938, 18-year-old Jaku made what he calls the biggest mistake of my young life. It was my parents 20th wedding anniversary and I resolved to surprise them with a visit, he says. He returned to find his family home empty but for his dachshund Lulu. They had gone into hiding, but young Jaku didn't know. He used his key to open the door, then fell asleep in his childhood bed only to be woken at 5am when 10 Nazis broke in and almost beat him to death. One took his bayonet and started to engrave a swastika on Jaku's arm, then killed Lulu with the bayonet when she jumped up to protect him. Harry Skorupa, a distant relative of Jakus, Flores mother Fortunee Molho, Eddie carrying Michael, Flore, and Bella Skorupa. The families lived together on arrival in Sydney and are celebrating a fellow survivors wedding in 1951. It was the now infamous Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, named for the shattered shards that littered the streets after Jewish-owned stores, homes and synagogues were destroyed by the Nazi paratroopers, known as the brown shirts. Advertisement He was deported to Buchenwald in late November 1938 and jailed in camps in Belgium and France between 1939 and 1941. He escaped several times, once joining his family in Belgium, where they had fled and lived in an attic, hidden from the world much like Anne Frank's family. He now describes that time in close confines with his parents, sister, aunts and another Jewish family as one of the happiest times of his life. Because we were all together. In 1943, the family was arrested by Belgian police, denounced as refugees and deported to Auschwitz. After nine days on a train of fellow Jews, surviving on only two cups of water a day, they arrived in the middle of a bitter Polish winter. We were herded down the platform to where a man in a clean white lab coat stood in the mud surrounded by the SS, he recalls. This was Dr Josef Mengele, the notorious Nazi dubbed the Angel of Death for the barbaric trials he enacted on inmates. As soon as we arrived he indicated whether we should walk left or right. He was conducting one of his infamous selections, separating those still young and strong enough to work as slave labour and those who would be taken straight to the gas chambers. I did not want to be separated from my father so I slipped from one line to the other. I was nearly on the truck with my father when one of the stooges standing guard with Mengele said, Hey, didnt he tell you this way? Your father goes by truck and you walk into the camp. I never saw my father again. He sent him and my mother to the gas chamber. Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku en route to Australia in 1950. Advertisement The judge presiding over the Ghislaine Maxwell case has banned her lawyers from publicly naming abuse victims involved in the lawsuit. US District Judge Alison J Nathan ruled that Ms Maxwells attorneys cannot reveal the names of the individuals accusing her of sexual crimes in the course of her work for infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Not all accusations or public statements are equal, Ms Nathan wrote in her ruling. The judge ruled that the victims contribution to the lawsuit is not the same as a public statement, and that the victims still maintain a significant privacy interest that must be safeguarded. Deciding to participate in or contribute to a criminal investigation or prosecution is a far different matter than simply making a public statement relating to Ms Maxwell or Jeffrey Epstein, particularly since such a statement might have occurred decades ago and have no relevance to the charges in this case, she wrote. Prosecutors in the case asked Ms Nathan to block Ms Maxwells lawyers from releasing the names of the victims over fear that the women would be harassed or intimidated into not cooperating with the government. The judges ban was enacted hours after the release of a new batch of unsealed documents from a defamation case filed by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a woman who claims she was trafficked by Epstein and Ms Maxwell in the early 2000s. Ms Guiffre claimed Epstein and Ms Maxwell trafficked her out to prominent individuals both at Epsteins private island and abroad. She claims she was forced to engage in sexual acts with Prince Andrew as well as politicians, a famous scientist and powerful business executives. All of the people Ms Guiffre has accused have denied the allegations. The trove of newly released documents includes a curious email that appears to be written from Epstein to Ms Maxwell encouraging her to face her accusers and live her life not as an (escaping) convict. However, the letter appears to be written in Ms Maxwells voice, as opposed to the tone established by Epstein in other examples of his writing. You have done nothing wrong and I (would) urge you to start acting like it, Epstein allegedly wrote in the email. Epstein died before he could be brought to trial while he was in prison in New York. Medical authorities ruled his death a suicide, though there continues to be widespread speculation and scepticism surrounding his death. Ms Maxwell, his confidante and former girlfriend, was arrested by federal agents earlier this month after evading them for nearly a year. She was taken into custody at her home in New Hampshire on 2 July and charged with six federal crimes, including sex trafficking, perjury and enticement of minors. Ms Maxwell is currently in a jail in New York awaiting trial. She was denied bail and is considered an extreme flight risk, particularly because she holds a French passport and France does not extradite its citizens for trial. Her trial is scheduled for 12 July, 2021. The Supreme Court (SC) on July 31 adjourned the matter pertaining to the plea against the University Grants Commission (UGC) decision on mandatorily conducting final year examinations till August 10. UGC had asked all universities to conduct examinations in offline, online or blended mode by September end. During the hearing today, the apex court asked UGC to file make the stand of the home affairs ministry (MHA) clear. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for UGC said that the body will file its reply by August 3. "Nobody should be under the impression that students cannot prepare for the examination," said SG Tushar Mehta. Also Read: What is the plea in SC against UGC all about? In today's hearing, Abhishek Manu Singhvi appearing for final year student Yash Dubey explained how there have been almost 1.6 million Coronavirus cases in India. Singhvi also said that the optional examination system will be problematic since there will be a chaos if someone students are unable to appear in the examinations. "Heavens will not fall if exams are cancelled," said Singhvi. The three-judge SC bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan said that the views of the state disaster management committee of Maharashtra will also have be required to file a reply. In June, the Maharashtra government had cited the decision of the state disaster management authority to cancel examinations for all final-year students. However, this was soon superseded by the UGC decision in July to make it compulsory to give examinations. On July 30, UGC had informed the SC that if students are unable to appear for the examinations by September 30, he/she will be given an opportunity to appear at specially conducted exam at a later date. However, the 31 lead petitioners in the SC case refused to accept this reply and said that the UGC's response does not take into consideration the hassles faced by students if exams keep getting postponed. The petitioners had also said that job prospects and future admission opportunities for students will be hampered. On July 27, hearing the petition by a slew of petitioners including 31 university students as well as individual ones like that of Yuva Sena, SC asked Tushar Mehta if he wanted time to seek instructions from the UGC on this matter. On July 7, UGC said that the end-term examination for all final-year students would have to be mandatorily held by the end of September 2020 in offline (pen & paper), online or blended mode. This was opposed by several state governments like that of Maharashtra, West Bengal as also by final-year university students. SG Tushar Mehta said in the July 27 hearing that out of 818 universities in India, 209 have already competed the examinations while 394 are in the process of completing the examinations. He added that 35 universities have not reached final year exams. On the first anniversary of the triple talaq bills passage in Parliament, the BJP Thursday hailed its impact, saying it has contributed to woman empowerment and given women the dignity they deserve in society. One year ago on 30th July, 2019, Narendra Modi government abolished #TripleTalaq. It has contributed to women empowerment and given them the dignity they deserve in our society. Now, #TripleTalaq Cases have dropped by 82 per cent since the law was enacted, Union minister and senior party leader Prakash Javadekar tweeted. On Wednesday, Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had shared videos of Muslim women thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for bringing in the legislation to end the practice. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act prohibits the practice of instant divorce by Muslim men. Any violation of the law is punishable by jail term of up to three years. Mann+Hummel Group, a global market leader in filtration technology, has announced that its plant in Ludwigsburg will no longer accept any new production orders. The German group said existing production activities will be either phased out or relocated. The specific timetable for the closure will be agreed in cooperation with customers and employee representatives, said the statement from the company. It will work in close and trusting cooperation with the negotiation partners to arrange socially responsible solutions for the staff at the Ludwigsburg plant. Around 400 jobs at the factory are currently set to be affected by the decision, it stated. Mann+Hummel pointed out that it is continuously reviewing its production sites to ensure its ability to meet evolving customer needs. Over the course of these strategic considerations, it was determined that the competitiveness of the Ludwigsburg production facility cannot be maintained, it stated. "This has been an out most difficult decision we have been producing in Ludwigsburg since 1954. However, this was a necessary measure to ensure the companys future," said the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Thomas Fischer. "Of course, the company headquarters with the research and development center will remain here and we will continue to invest in the technology center. We stand by the Ludwigsburg location," he stated. Hanno Hohn, Chief Supply Chain Officer and Labor Director, said: "As an international company, Mann+Hummel is not only responsible for the Ludwigsburg site." "In order to remain competitive in the medium to long term and to safeguard the future of the company with 22,000 employees worldwide, we need to make this adjustment to our production network," observed Hohn. "Among other components, fuel, oil and air filter systems for automotive original equipment are produced in Ludwigsburg. The company will ensure a smooth transition for its customers and suppliers at the affected site and the receiving factories," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Families trying to squeeze in a summer vacation before school starts better do some homework on COVID-19 restrictions before leaving home. The web of state and local quarantines is growing more tangled by the day: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have ordered visitors from a whopping 34 states to quarantine for 14 days. Chicago and Washington, D.C., have each singled out travelers from about two dozen states. Other states have their own lists. Some have an option for visitors to get tested instead. Complicated doesnt begin to describe it. I feel sorry for people, said Kathy Kutrubes, owner of a travel agency in Boston. They just want to go to Cape Cod. They want to go to Vermont. I dont know what to tell them. People are pretty much left on their own to figure out. The restrictions and maybe the confusion, too are contributing to a sharp drop in travel, dealing a blow to a key industry. Before the outbreak, Americans were expected to take 2.3 billion domestic trips this year, according to the U.S. Travel Association. But that's expected expected to drop about 30% to 1.6 billion, the lowest level since 1991. Normally nearly a third of domestic travel happens in the summer. Abroad, a drop-off in tourism from U.S. visitors and restrictions on crossing borders have also led many travel-related businesses to wonder if they will survive. The coronavirus is blamed for more than 150,000 deaths in the U.S. and more than a half-million elsewhere around the world. When it comes to travel restrictions in the U.S., the situation varies widely. Many states have no restrictions whatsoever for domestic travel. But the number of states with quarantines is growing as governors move to protect residents amid flareups in places such as Florida, Texas and Arizona. The results are confusing, to say the least. For example, Maine requires Massachusetts visitors to either quarantine or take a test, but Mainers may travel freely in Massachusetts. Chicago's quarantine order includes neighboring Wisconsin. But people who cross the state line for work are exempted. In Connecticut, Paula Simchock and her husband are planning to hit the beaches in Delaware with their daughter en route to dropping her off at college in South Carolina. But because both of those states are on Connecticut's quarantine list, they expect to have to isolate upon returning home. "We're definitely stir crazy. So we're really looking forward to getting down to Delaware and enjoying our favorite restaurants and surf shop. We're really excited about it," Simchock said. "To see that it's on the Connecticut hot spot list is disappointing." Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said last week she was considering limiting tourism from other states into Oregon, particularly for people coming from coronavirus hotspots elsewhere in the nation. Officials in her administration were talking with leaders in neighboring states about options including mandatory quarantine for people coming here from hot spots. The U.S. Travel Association believes that with proper precautions masks, hand-washing, and proper sanitation people can travel safely. More than a third of jobs lost during the pandemic are in the travel and tourism industry, said Tori Emerson Barnes, spokeswoman for the association. "Really and truly, the only way that we can have a sustained economic rebound is to have people moving again," she said. Mike Stumpf and his wife, who live outside Philadelphia, were supposed to take a cruise in Alaska in June. Then a trip to Colorado was canceled this week. A fall cruise to Europe was delayed this fall, and they bagged their annual trip to Florida. Between different state regulations and health concerns, there's just too much uncertainty, he said. "We won't because it's not the worth the risk and every state has different regulations," he said. Others don't want to risk it, either. In New York, Lyndie Callan had to cancel her 60th birthday celebration in Spain this summer because of the country's restrictions on U.S. visitors. But even without the restriction, she wouldn't have felt comfortable traveling. Theres only one way to get this virus under control and thats to behave responsibly. It starts with me, Callan said. I dont see that my vacation plans are all that important. Ill go on vacation next year. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 22:38:00|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Sun Zhiming (R, front), country representative of the Power Construction Corporation of China (PowerChina) in Romania, and Mariana Ionita (L, front), general director of Romanian National Company of Road Infrastructure Administration (CNAIR), sign a contract in Zalau, some 550 km northwest of capital Bucharest, Romania, on July 31, 2020. PowerChina signed on Friday an about 53-million-U.S.-dollar contract for the construction of a ring road in Zalau. (PowerChina/Handout via Xinhua) BUCHAREST, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The Power Construction Corporation of China (PowerChina) signed on Friday an about 53-million-U.S.-dollar contract for the construction of a ring road in Zalau, some 550 km northwest of capital Bucharest. This is the first road design and construction project undertaken by a Chinese company in Romania. Sun Zhiming, country representative of PowerChina in Romania, signed the contract in Zalau with Mariana Ionita, general director of Romanian National Company of Road Infrastructure Administration (CNAIR), the owner of the project. Romanian Minister of Transport Lucian Nicolae Bode attended the signing ceremony and expressed his belief that the builders will complete the project on time and with high-quality results, thus laying a foundation for further development in the Romanian market. The total length of the four-lane highway is 5.5 kilometers, with five viaducts and two bridges across multiple valleys and vineyards. The design speed is 60-80 kilometers per hour. PowerChina, leading a joint venture with a local company in Zalau, won the bid for the project earlier this month. Enditem Waleed Aly's wife, Susan Carland, converted from Christianity to Islam at the age of 19. And on Friday, she celebrated the Islamic 'festival of sacrifice' holiday, also known as Eid al-Adha, with her TV star husband. The Project host, 41, and the university academic, 40, posed in face masks in a sweet selfie shared on Instagram. Celebrations: The Project's Waleed Aly and his wife, Susan Carland, wore face masks as they celebrated the Islamic 'festival of sacrifice' holiday on Friday 'COV-Eid Mubarak everyone! Wear a sparkly mask!' Susan captioned the photo. In the image, Susan wears a beige sequinned mask, while Waleed wears a plainer style. 'Eid Mubarak' is a common greeting used by Muslims to wish each other a happy Eid, and means 'blessed celebration or feast'. Finding faith: Back in 2016, Susan spoke about her decision to convert from Christianity to Islam at the age of 19, saying it 'felt like coming home' Eid al-Adha runs from Thursday, July 30 to Monday, August 3 this year. The festival often sees a lamb being sacrificed to mark Ibrahim agreeing to sacrifice his son Ismael to obey God, or Allah. Back in 2016, Susan spoke about her decision to convert from Christianity to Islam at the age of 19, saying it 'felt like coming home'. The sociologist admitted she originally thought Islam was a 'barbaric, outdated and sexist religion' but after detailed research she realised this was not the case. She told The Australian Women's Weekly that these misconceptions still permeate society, with many still believing that 'Muslims are all terrorists and kill people'. Misconceptions: She told The Australian Women's Weekly that these misconceptions still permeate society, with many still believing that 'Muslims are all terrorists and kill people' Susan, who attended the Uniting Church in Sydney as a child before switching to the Baptist Church as a teenager, said her mother had initially opposed her decision to convert to Islam. But she was determined, saying: 'Becoming Muslim felt like coming home. It felt like a natural fit for me as a person.' The Monash University academic now has two children with Gold Logie-winner Waleed, who describes himself as a 'moderate Muslim'. Family: Susan now has two children with Gold Logie-winner Waleed, who describes himself as a 'moderate Muslim.' She has previously spoken about how she did not change religion for The Project presenter, as her faith journey had actually started long before they met She has previously spoken about how she did not change religion for The Project presenter, as her faith journey had actually started long before they met. Speaking at an RTi Talk, Susan said that when people in the Muslim community suggested they would make a good couple, she told them: 'I wouldn't marry him if he was the last man on earth.' Obviously she changed her mind and called him to say she had made a mistake, and the couple are now living happily together in Melbourne with their children. She told The Australian Women's Weekly that people have to be 'switched on' about the reality of Islam, rather than sticking to negative stereotypes. 'There's definitely still the fear and belief among certain people that Muslims are all terrorists and kill people, or if not they are sleeper cells,' Susan said. Google and Facebook will soon be forced to pay media companies for the right to use their stories or face fines of up to $10million for breaching a copyright deal. In a world first, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has released a new draft code directing the American search engine and social media giants to negotiate fair payment deals. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said Google and Facebook had 'an imbalance in bargaining power' and this needed to be fixed. Google and Facebook will soon be forced to pay media companies for the right to use their stories or face fines of up to $10million for breaching a copyright deal The competition regulator is proposing new laws that would allow commercial news media companies to negotiate 'an appropriate payment for news content'. Mr Frydenberg as Treasurer would have the power to compel Facebook and Google to negotiate with media companies. A maximum penalty of $10million would be imposed on the multinational companies if Google or Facebook breached a deal to share content and were convicted in the Federal Court. The digital giants could also be fined the equivalent of three times the commercial benefit they obtained from illegally sharing the news content, or ten per cent of their annual revenue in Australia during the past year. Under the proposed new arrangement, Google and Facebook would be forced into third-party arbitration with media companies if they failed to reach an agreement with them. An independent umpire would make a decision within 45 business days. Should media companies fail to agree on an umpire with Google or Facebook, the Australian Communications and Media Authority would appoint a panel of three arbitrators with legal, industry or economic experience. News outlets and the social media giants would pay for this conciliation over payment terms for circulating their content. The ACCC's final report was published on Friday, three months after the government directed it to develop a mandatory code of conduct. The new rules would give more power to news media businesses that earned at least $150,000 a year in revenue and served an Australian audience. The government-owned ABC and SBS, and trade publications would not be covered. Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of International Bank of Azerbaijan Global Credit Research - 31 Jul 2020 London, 31 July 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of International Bank of Azerbaijan 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. International Bank of Azerbaijan's (IBA's) B1 long-term local and foreign currency deposit ratings incorporate its b3 Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA) and Moody's assessment of a high probability of government support, which results in two notches of uplift from its BCA of b3. IBA's BCA reflects the bank's (1) strong capital adequacy metrics; (2) highly liquid balance sheet with moderate asset risk and improved funding structure; (3) large, although decreasing, short foreign-currency position, which renders the bank's capital and profitability vulnerable to currency devaluation; and (4) asset-risk pressures stemming from disrupted economic activity and the drop in oil prices. The bank's strengths are moderated by the expected economic downturn in Azerbaijan this year worsened by the global spread of the coronavirus which will continue to exert pressure on the bank's profitability and asset quality of all Azeri banks. Story continues 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. 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Atlanta Hailed as a "founding father" of a fairer, better United States, John Lewis was eulogized Thursday by three former presidents and others who urged Americans to continue the work of the civil rights icon in fighting injustice during a moment of racial reckoning. The longtime member of Congress even issued his own call to action in an essay written in his final days that he asked be published in The New York Times on the day of his funeral. In it, he challenged the next generation to lay "down the heavy burdens of hate at last." After nearly a week of observances that took Lewis' body from his birthplace in Alabama to the nation's capital to his final resting place in Atlanta, mourners in face masks to guard against the coronavirus spread out across pews Thursday at the city's landmark Ebenezer Baptist Church, once pastored by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Former President Barack Obama called Lewis "a man of pure joy and unbreakable perseverance" during a fiery eulogy that was both deeply personal and political. The nation's first Black president connected Lewis' legacy to the ongoing fight against those who are "doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting." His words came as the country has been roiled by weeks of protests demanding a reckoning with institutionalized racism and hours after President Donald Trump suggested delaying the November election, something he doesn't have the authority to do. "He as much as anyone in our history brought this country a little bit closer to our highest ideals," Obama said. "And some day when we do finish that long journey towards freedom, when we do form a more perfect union, whether it's years from now or decades or even if it takes another two centuries, John Lewis will be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America." Former President George W. Bush said Lewis, who died July 17 at the age of 80, preached the Gospel and lived its ideals, "insisting that hate and fear had to be answered with love and hope." Former President Jimmy Carter sent written condolences, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recalled how the sky was filled with ribbons of color in Washington earlier this week while Lewis' body was lying in state at the U.S. Capitol. "There was this double rainbow over the casket," she said. "He was telling us, 'I'm home in heaven, I'm home in heaven.' We always knew he worked on the side of angels, and now he is with them." Lewis was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, led by King. He was best known for leading protesters in the "Bloody Sunday" march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where he was beaten by Alabama state troopers. During the service, the arc of Lewis' activism was once again tied to King, whose sermons Lewis discovered while scanning the radio dial as a 15-year-old boy growing up in then-segregated Alabama. King continued to inspire Lewis' civil rights work for the next 65 years as he fought segregation during marches, "Freedom Rides" across the South, and later during his long tenure in the U.S. Congress. "Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America," Lewis said of his run-ins with the law. The phrase was repeated several times during the funeral. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. "We will continue to get into good trouble as long as you grant us the breath to do so," one of King's daughters, the Rev. Bernice King, said as she led the congregation in prayer. She later paused and laid her hand atop Lewis' flag-draped casket at the front of the church. Ebenezer's senior pastor, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, called Lewis "a true American patriot who risked his life for the hope and promise of democracy." Outside the church, with temperatures in the upper 80s, hundreds gathered to watch the service on a large screen; some sang the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome." Pharrell Williams' joyous tune "Happy" played as a closing song while a military honor guard loaded Lewis' flag-draped coffin into a hearse; many congregation members clapped along. The service ended days of remembrance for Lewis, who spent more than three decades in Congress representing most of his adopted home of Atlanta. In addition to the U.S. Capitol, his body lay in the Georgia and Alabama Capitol buildings, and events also were held in the Alabama cities of Troy, Lewis' hometown, and Selma. To the many tributes Thursday, Lewis managed to add his own words. His essay in The New York Times recalled the teachings of King: "He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice," Lewis wrote. "He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out." "In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence, is the more excellent way," he wrote. "Now it is your turn to let freedom ring." Former President Bill Clinton referenced the essay during his remarks: "It is so fitting on the day of his service, he leaves us his marching orders: Keep moving." As police continue to investigate the strangulation death of a 14-year-old Bridgeport boy, allegedly at the hands of a 19-year-old, police are asking people to come forward if they have information about the suspects criminal past. Until this week, Diante Willoughby of Bridgeport had no criminal record, Capt. Brian Fitzgerald said at a press conference Thursday about the death of Jose Nunez. Willoughby now faces a charge of murder; he is in custody on $2 million bail. The city is asking the public to call police at 203-581-5205 if they have information about any possible past criminal conduct of Willoughbys. Fitzgerald said police were looking into reports that complaints about him were made to other police agencies. Detectives continue to investigate the homicide, which is believed to be tied to social media use. Willoughby admitted his involvement in the homicide, Fitzgerald said. He wouldnt say if anyone else is believed to be involved. Jose Nunez was reported missing Tuesday morning by his mother, police said. Later that day, detectives got a tip that a homicide had been committed and that the body was dumped outside the city. Police said they were not able to immediately confirm the tip, but on Wednesday they received more information that led them to a wooded area on Wyant Road in Oxford, where they found the boys body. Fitzgerald said the two knew each other for several months, and Jose Nunezs father, Higinio Campos, said his son was using a social media app, Snapchat, to talk to Willoughby. Their use of the app made it difficult for Campos to pass information along to police, he said at the press conference, because Snapchat pictures disappear after less than 10 seconds. I just want to make it clear to all parents, please take care of your kids with the phones, Campos said. Older guys can easily manipulate children. Christine Dempsey can be reached at cdempsey@courant.com. 2020 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) Visit The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) at www.courant.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday invoked a share US-EU vision for the global cyberspace, expressed support on 'efforts to promote accountability', as the European Union passes its first ever cyber-sanction framework against Russia, China and North Korea to counter increasing threats to cyber-security. The US on Thursday (local time) welcomed the announcement from the European Unions High Representative Josep Borrell regarding the bodys first designations under its cyber sanctions framework. The United States and the EU share a vision for open, interoperable, reliable and secure cyberspace, and for responsible behavior on the international stage. Destructive, disruptive, or otherwise destabilizing activities in cyberspace threaten this vision, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo said in a statement. He stated that the United States supports efforts to promote accountability for bad actors malicious cyber activities, and the EUs actions today are an important milestone. Also read: Donald Trump suggests delay in 2020 Presidential elections over coronavirus fears Also read: China-Russia S-400 Deal: Moscow accuses Beijing of spying, postpones S-400 delivery We continue to work with the EU, its member states, and many like-minded countries to promote a framework of responsible state behavior in cyberspace, underpinned by the applicability of international law, adherence to non-binding peacetime norms, and the development and implementation of practical confidence-building measures, said Pompeo. According to a Sputnik report, earlier in the day, the European Council introduced first ever restrictive measures against six individuals and three entities of Russia, China and North Korea, which, according to the EU, are responsible for or involved in various cyberattacks. These measures include a travel ban and an asset freeze. Also read: US talks tough to Pak, condemns shameful tragedy of American citizens killing in Pak STORY LINK GBP to AUD Exchange Rate Avoids Losses despite Fresh UK Lockdown Confusion GBP Exchange Rates Lack Drive to Sustain Bigger Gains amid Fresh UK Lockdowns North in Lockdown 2 the headline of one of Britain's tabloids sums up the developments with which around 4.3 million Brits living in Manchester and in other parts of northern England have to deal with. The spike in cases in these regions triggered an announcement late on Thursday, triggering confusion. AUD Exchange Rates Lack Drive as Victoria Remains in Lockdown On a domestic front, virus outbreaks across Victoria and New South Wales will challenge the prior view that Australia emerged from COVID-19 in a stronger position relative to peers. Instead, a sustained period of slowdown is now likely, challenging key service sectors in addition to the prolonged hit expected from a lack of migration and tourism. GBP/AUD Exchange Rate Forecast: Could PMIs Bolster Pound Support? Like this piece? Please share with your friends and colleagues: Despite a lack of solid fresh support for the Pound, the British Pound to Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate has seen a solid jump in demand over the past week. The Australian Dollar is being weighed as investors move away from currencies correlated to risk and look for safer investments, as coronavirus infections worsen and fears of a second wave of the pandemic intensify.After opening this week at the level of 1.8011, GBP/AUD briefly saw mixed movement before picking up as the week went on. Yesterday GBP/AUD saw impressive gains of over a cent that briefly took the pair to a high of 1.8315. This was the best level for GBP/AUD in about a month and a half, since mid-June.While GBP/AUD has struggled to hold those best levels, the pair has sustained most of this weeks impressive gains. At the time of writing on Friday, GBP/AUD trends near the level of 1.8256, over two cents above the weeks opening levels.The Pound has spent most of this week climbing. This has largely been due to big weakness in rival currencies.The US Dollar (USD) has plunged as the markets outlook for the US handling of the coronavirus pandemic becomes more and more worrying.With the UK handling of the coronavirus pandemic seen as fairly good in comparison to the US handling, the Pound has been capitalising on the US Dollars losses this week.However, the Pound and UK outlooks are still filled with concerns and uncertainty compared to many other major economies.Overnight, the UK government announced fresh lockdown plans for certain parts of North England. Greater Manchester, East Lancashire, West Yorkshire and Leicester will all see varying levels of new lockdown amid worsening coronavirus cases in those regions.While some analysts are relieved the UK government is still tackling infections, others criticised the governments lack of clear signalling in these new, sudden plans.According to Yohay Elam, Analyst at FXStreet:The Australian Dollar has been among the currencies hit hard by shifts in market coronavirus fears in the past week.As the number of coronavirus cases worsens again around the world, fears of a second wave are surging. US numbers continue to soar, and the Federal Reserve has become more dovish as a result.Cases also continue to rise in Australias State of Victoria. The state remains in lockdown as Australian officials attempt to get a hold of the pandemic, but concerns persist that the coronavirus will continue to hurt Australias economic activity.According to Analysts at ANZ Bank:The Pound outlook remains filled with uncertainties, despite the British currencys strong performance over the past week.With coronavirus and Brexit concerns still dominating the Pound outlook, the currency may struggle to keep gaining. GBP/AUD may be more likely to keep climbing if coronavirus fears hurt the Australian Dollar more than Sterling.The Pound could find some more solid support if the coming weeks UK data impresses investors though.Britains final July PMI results will be published early in the week. If these beat forecasts they could boost hopes that Britains economy is seeing a rebound in activity.Australian PMI data is due around the same time and could influence the Aussie.Still, the Australian Dollar is more likely to be driven by global shifts in market risk sentiment.Next week will see the Bank of England (BoE) hold its August policy decision, which could also drive some Pound to Australian Dollar exchange rate movement. International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements. TAGS: Pound Australian Dollar Forecasts Paul Offit, a CHOP vaccine researcher, with hus new book: Overkill: When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far. Read more By profession, Paul Offit is one of the nations foremost vaccine experts. As director of the Vaccine Education Center at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, as well as attending physician in the hospitals Division of Infectious Diseases, hes the go-to for information on the safety, and necessity, of vaccines. By avocation, hes one of the medical professions foremost and most avid debunkers. In nearly a dozen books, hes taken on alternative medicine (Do you Believe in Magic?), celebrity experts (Bad Advice), misguided attempts to cure autism (Autisms False Prophets), and anti-vaxxers (Deadly Choices). Now, as if his and furthermore file is bulging, he has written a catchall of medical fallacies in Overkill: When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far. In it, he provides the not-so-fast counterpoint to all manner of things many of us take for granted: prostate and breast cancer screening, heart stents, knee replacement surgery, and even whether to ice sprains. (Dont. The inflammation, while painful, promotes healing.) We spoke with him recently about some of his more surprising finds. You say its not a good idea to bring a fever down. Whaaat? Everything that walks, crawls, flies, or swims on the surface of the planet Earth can make fever. Why? Is it to keep pharmaceutical companies in business? Or is it in some way an adaptive part of our immune system? Look at people who have an infection and treat their fever or not and see what happens. What sparked my interest was looking at children who had chicken pox. In one study, half received Tylenol, and half did not. For the children who received Tylenol, their illness lasted longer, and it took longer for their blisters to crust. So while the child did feel better, there was a price to pay. The explanation is that fever enhances your immune response across the board. The cells that make antibodies work more efficiently at higher temperatures. Similarly, white blood cells also work better at higher temperatures. They kill bacteria better. Hippocrates thought that fever was our friend. It was there to burn away the bad humors. Although he was wrong about the humors part, he was right about the fever. There are many studies looking at people with a variety of viruses or bacterial infections showing that those treated with fever-reducers have longer illnesses. We treat fever because that makes us feel better. So its understandable. Fever comes with headache, muscle ache, chills. But people wrongly think that when theyve gotten the fever down, theyre better. Fever is just a symptom, and that symptom is there for a reason. When you treat fever, you are performing an act against Mother Nature. Physicians have drummed it into us to take a full course of antibiotics so we dont develop resistant bacteria. Now youre saying that might not be necessary. The opposite is true. There are now many studies showing that the longer you treat, the more likely you are to develop bacterial resistance. READ MORE: Facebook, Twitter are blocking dangerous antivaccine posts. Its about time l Opinion Why is it that we assign an arbitrary length of time to treat a bacterial infection? We dont do that with other illnesses. If you have a kidney infection, we would say to treat for 10 to 14 days with antibiotics. But it may be that within a few days, your back pain is gone, your fever is gone, the bacteria in your urine is gone, and your white cells, your immune system, also have returned to normal levels. So why continue to treat? People wrongly assumed that if you dont continue to treat, youre going to develop resistant strains. Which we now know isnt true. Or that youre going to have the infection come back. And that also isnt true. Researchers have looked at this. In one study, they compared treatments of 10 to 14 days with seven days, five days, and, in the case of bladder infections, three days. The results consistently show that you can treat for shorter periods of time. Why give a medicine that you dont need? Why not use personalized medicine? Treat the patient. When you have symptoms of any infection, they are caused by your immune response. If you feel better, its because your immune response has lessened. Why would it do that? Because the immune system has gotten rid of the infection. So, believe it. You say sunscreen is not an effective prevention for skin cancer. Sunscreen is an effective prevention. The problem is that when people put on sunscreen, they think theyre protected. So they tend to stay out much longer, especially from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., when the suns rays are most intense. Also, they tend to not reapply it often enough. Its not that sunscreen doesnt work. Its that its not completely protective. People think, OK, I didnt get burned. Im good. But you can still get skin cancer. The term we often use, sunblock, is a bad one. If you use a quote-unquote sunblock with an SPF of 50, you have a notion that youre blocking the harmful rays. Youre not. Youre just dramatically reducing them. If you want to have blockage, stay inside or wear protective clothing. Why does this misinformation persist, even among medical professionals? Its a good question. A few reasons. One is inertia. Physicians have a way of doing things. Theyre convinced it works for them. And theyre less likely to change. Another reason doctors are married to set ways of doing things is financial. When you question the need for prostate screening or thyroid screening programs, neither of which save lives, or when you question the value of heart stents, which dont change the perception of pain and dont prolong your life, youre leaning into the left hook of an industry. People dont like to have their living messed with. There is also a strong desire among physicians to make sure their patients are satisfied. Doctors are much more likely to be reviewed favorably by patients who rate them if they provide an antibiotic, even if the patient doesnt need one. Physicians like to meet expectations. This book has been brewing in me since medical school. When youre a medical student, you just want to figure out what youre supposed to do. You want simple rules. But the two people who were very influential for me in medical school were skeptics. They always said, Look at the data. Make sure we arent doing this just because we always have. If even their own physicians dont have the correct information, what are patients supposed to do? The purpose of this book is to educate patients so they can ask better questions. If you read the section on ear infections, and you see the evidence showing that one can treat for shorter periods of time, and you see that advisory committees recommend that, its reasonable to say to your doctor, This is what Ive learned. What do you think? The purpose of this book is to empower people to be better wards of their health care, not to be their own doctors. You should trust people with experience and expertise, but at least this gives you some information so you can ask better questions and be a better advocate for your own health. Bonus question: Whats next for you? I think Id like to write a book titled The Learning Curve. We are now about to make a vaccine against the novel coronavirus. It is elusive. The disease has a number of effects we couldnt have imagined loss of the sense of smell and COVID toes, for instance. The virus has done so many things we couldnt have anticipated. We are meeting it with every strategy we have, and all at warp speed, which I cant imagine puts anyone at ease. I think we are going to learn things in a couple years that we wish we knew now. There will be tragedies. There always are. But people never expect that. They expect to have major breakthroughs without a price. I think we are going to have major breakthroughs, but it will come with a cost because it always does. sandybauers10@gmail.com DUBLIN, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Tech Perspectives on Smart Buildings - Worldwide" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. While the notion of automated buildings has been around for over four decades, smart in today's world takes on a different meaning, moving far beyond the role of energy efficiency and security. With humans spending more than 80% of their lives indoors, smart systems are now being used to enhance space utilisation, while improving the comfort and wellbeing of users. With the workplace environment changing to a more fluid, open-plan approach, companies are reconsidering their space requirements to suit different needs, from co-working and collaboration to socialising, creativity and private research. This also lends itself to addressing the broader topic of adopting smart city initiatives. The Tech Perspectives' report series provide expert-led opinions and key insights into the latest trends impacting the marketplace. Each report looks to initiate conversations around exactly why these trends are happening, how it may impact our future and where potential opportunities lie. As part of a wider comprehensive service, this Tech Perspectives report provides building designers and operators with further insights into the advancement of smart buildings. Key Topics Covered Introduction Components of Smart Buildings Rationale for Smart Buildings The Changing Workplace Environment Investment in Smart Building Technology Protocols and Standards in Smart Buildings Technology Innovation and Environmental Companies Mentioned ABB Amazon BACnet Bigscreen Bluetooth Cisco Dali Echelon Corporation EDF EnOcean Google Honeywell IQRF Irisys Johnson Controls KNX LEED LonTalk M-Bus Microsoft Modbus OPC Rumii Schneider Siemens #True Occupancy Zigbee For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/yfxeco Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1904 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com Discovery and Science Channel announced today it will capture the incredible live splashdown return of the NASA launch of SpaceXs Crew Dragon spacecraft after docking the past two months at the International Space Station (ISS). SPACE LAUNCH LIVE: SPLASHDOWN a multiplatform event, will air live on Sunday, August 2 at 22:30 hrs. on Discovery. Viewers can stream the HD version of the LIVE feed starting 23:00 hrs. on Discovery Plus. This past May, Discovery and Science Channel worked with The Washington Post to document the first crewed mission from the United States since the end of the shuttle program in 2011. This successful NASA launch from Kennedy Space Center was a partnership between NASA and SpaceX, marking the first U.S. crewed mission to orbit on a privately built spacecraft. Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley traveled to the ISS in the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, propelled by the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Scott Lewers, Executive Vice President of Multiplatform Programming, Factual & Head of Content, Science, said, With the incredible access of The Washington Post, we spent over a year documenting SpaceXs journey to become the first private company to launch American astronauts into space and were excited to see their safe return back to Earth. Our live coverage will take viewers inside their incredible journey home. This live event, capturing the first landing at sea for U.S. astronauts since 1975, is also made in partnership with The Washington Post and staff writer Christian Davenport, whose depth of experience allowed him to gain inside access to key players. Davenport is one of the countrys leading chroniclers of the space industry. His background and experience will add keen insight to the days event, as a co-host of the live broadcast. Davenport joined The Post in 2000 and was on a team that won a Peabody Award in 2010 for its work on veterans with traumatic brain injuries and has been on reporting teams that were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize three times. He is the author of two books, The Space Barons: Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos (2018) and As You Were: To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard (2009). He has also served as a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a fellow at the Alicia Patterson Foundation. The Post has long covered this industry and continues to bring readers in-depth reporting on the new space endeavors with unparalleled access and compelling storytelling, said Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, managing editor for The Washington Post. We are excited to once again partner with Discovery to deliver coverage of this historic event and bring our journalism to a live TV audience. We are honored to continue our partnership with Discovery and The Washington Post, to share this exhilarating new era in space exploration, said Aaron Fishman, President of Unscripted at Storied Media Group. "The extraordinary cooperation we have received from NASA and SpaceX are reigniting enthusiasm in space among young and old audiences alike." The spacecraft is scheduled to splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean and would successfully conclude NASA and SpaceXs Demo-2 mission. Temperatures on the return can spike up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit on the exterior of the spacecraft due to the friction caused during re-entry. Regarding the spaceships return, SpaceX Founder and Chief Engineer Elon Musk noted, I think theres an argument that the return is more dangerous in some ways than the ascent. Discovery and Discovery Plus live coverage will have unprecedented coverage of the spacecrafts return as well as expert commentary from current and former astronauts, including Mike Massimino and Garrett Reisman, top engineers and other special guests, including adventurer and avid explorer Josh Gates. TV personality Chris Jacobs will pick up where he left off as host of the live return. Jacobs has a long history with Discovery network live events, reporting live on-the-ground for EXPEDITION UNKNOWN: EGYPT LIVE as well as serving as the digital host during Nik Wallendas tightrope walk over the Grand Canyon in SKYWIRE LIVE and in Chicago for SKYSCRAPER LIVE. Jacobs was host for DISCOVERY LIVE: INTO THE BLUE HOLE, CHOPPER LIVE, GOLD RUSH LIVE and the live broadcast of the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction for Velocity (now MotorTrend). In addition, he is the regular host for TLCs LONG LOST FAMILY and serves as host of the popular automotive makeover show OVERHAULIN on MotorTrend. Emmy Award-winning journalist David Kerley will also return as part of the reporting team. Kerley reported on aviation, railroads, the automobile industry and space for all ABC News broadcast and digital properties, including World News Tonight, Good Morning America, Nightline, ABC News Radio and ABCNews.com. His work has been recognized with Peabody and Edward R. Murrow awards as well as the prestigious Joan Barone award from the Capitol Hill Radio and Television Correspondents Association. In addition to watching the return on Discovery at 22:30 hrs, Viewers can stream the HD version of the LIVE feed starting 23:00 hrs on Discovery Plus.Fans can also create photos and videos of themselves in space wearing life-like SpaceX helmets using Discoverys Space Filter on Facebook or Instagram. Follow Discovery on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter for the latest updates and join the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #Splashdown. SPACE LAUNCH LIVE: SPLASHDOWN is produced for Discovery Channel by Storied Media Group. Executive producers for Storied Media Group are Aaron Fishman, Todd Hoffman and Michael J. Miller. For Discovery and Science Channel, Executive Producers are Gretchen Eisele, Scott Lewers and Caroline Perez. To learn more, go to www.discovery.com, on Facebook at Facebook.com/discovery and on Twitter @Discovery. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 12:49:30|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close WASHINGTON, July 31 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been widely denounced by domestic media for his egregious performance in office, with The New York Times calling him "the worst secretary of state in American history, without a single diplomatic achievement." In an opinion piece published by the newspaper, Thomas L. Friedman pointed out that Pompeo's two most notable accomplishments as secretary of state are "shooting two of his senior State Department officials in the back," and pushing conspiracy theories in terms of Washington's response to COVID-19 to scapegoat China and distract domestic attention. "The secretary of state first accuses China of manufacturing a virus that has killed over 340,000 people worldwide and then, when reminded that our intelligence agencies have concluded no such thing, he backs off with no explanation. Can you be any more unprofessional?" he wrote in late May. "The morale and effectiveness of our State Department - and our standing in the world - are both the worse for him," Friedman lashed out. In a hostile speech at Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum last Thursday, Pompeo groundlessly attacked the domestic and foreign policies of China, incited ideological hatred against the Communist Party of China and tried to instigate "the free world" to stand up against China. "The problem was not simply that the nation's chief diplomat was decidedly undiplomatic. Worse was his misrepresentation of history and his failure to suggest a coherent or viable path forward for managing a relationship that more than any other will define this era," Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an article in The Washington Post on July 26. Pompeo sought to commit the United States to a path that is "bound to fail," Haass warned. Joe Scarborough, a cable news host on MSNBC, slapped Pompeo over Ukraine issues as a "common thug" and a "criminal" who has been "lying through his teeth" for the U.S. administration. "He's acting like a common thug. He's lying about our country. He was in on [the Ukraine] call that he knows crossed every line of propriety," Scarborough said. "Now he's behaving like a thug in trying to basically tell Congress that he can do whatever he wants to do and not to reach out to anybody at the State Department." Likewise, Pompeo was acting like "a bald-faced liar" over Ukraine issues, according to Dartagnan, a community member of Daily Kors, a U.S. group blog and internet forum. "As it turns out, he's looking just as corrupt as his pals," Dartagnan wrote. "If there was ever a time for the House to exercise its power of Inherent Contempt, this would be that time. Because you'd really be hard pressed to find anyone more inherently contemptible than Mike Pompeo," the writer noted. Enditem Newly released body camera footage shows the moment a group of Arkansas police officers violently pinned a man to the floor and tased and punched him, moments before he died in police custody. Lionel Morris, 39, died on February 4, shortly after he was arrested for shoplifting at a Harps Food Store in Conway. Police had been called to the supermarket after employees said they saw Morris and another suspect remove a drone from its packaging. When officers arrived at the scene to confront them, Morris took off running and a police chase ensued around the store. Scroll down for video Arkansas State Police released bodycam footage of Lionel Morris's fatal arrest in February Morris, 39, died on February 4 shortly after he was arrested for shoplifting at a Harps Food Store in Conway Officers were seen forcefully holding Morris's head and torso down as they order him to put his hands behind his back Officers quickly caught up to Morris near the produce section where they tackled him and tased him before placing him in handcuffs. Footage of the altercation, released by Arkansas State Police on Wednesday, shows police had struggled with Morris for more than six minutes. At least four officers were seen forcefully holding Morris's head and torso down with their hands and feet as they ordered him to put his hands behind his back. According to a police report obtained by local news station KATV, one officer admitted to punching Morris two to four times 'in an attempt to gain compliance.' He is heard crying out in pain and repeatedly telling cops that he can't breathe as they press him against the floor before he eventually loses consciousness. 'Oh my God, oh my God! Please help me, please,' Morris, who is bleeding from his face, screams. The disturbing footage shows Morris was punched and tased during his altercation with a group of three to four police officers Towards the end of the six and half minute encounter, Morris is seen losing consciousness as he lies on the floor bleeding from his face Paramedics later arrived to find him 'pulseless and unresponsive' 'I can't breathe. I can't breathe!' he says, to which at one point an officer responds: 'If you can talk, you can breathe. Chill out.' After cops finally subdue Morris, he is seen lying on the ground, disoriented before he begins vomiting, prompting officers to turn him on his side. 'All this over a drone,' one officer is later heard saying in the background. Paramedics later arrived to find Morris 'pulseless and unresponsive', THV 11 reported. He was pronounced dead on his way to the hospital. A medical examiner later determined Morris died of methamphetamine intoxication with exertion, struggle, restraint and conducted electrical weapon deployment. Video of the incident was released on the same day state authorities cleared the officers involved of criminal wrongdoing. 'After a thorough review, the prosecutor determined there was no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing by the Conway Police Department or the Conway police officers involved in this unfortunate incident,' Chief William Tapley said in a recorded statement on Wednesday. 'The level of drugs Mr Morris had in his system and the strain he exerted while struggling with police ultimately contributed to his death,' he added. Conway Mayor Bart Castleberry, however, has since called for the body camera footage of eight officers to be released and ordered some to be placed on paid leave while they conduct an internal review. Grants totaling nearly $3.5 million give early career investigators independence to pursue brave and bold cancer research. Fifteen scientists from across the country were named Damon Runyon Fellows. The recipients of this prestigious, four-year award are outstanding postdoctoral scientists conducting basic and translational cancer research in the laboratories of leading senior investigators. The Fellowship encourages the nation's most promising young scientists to pursue careers in cancer research by providing them with independent funding ($231,000 total) to work on creative, high-risk projects. "We are thrilled to be funding these innovative, young scientists with the brilliance and passion to push boundaries and make breakthroughs. They are committed to understanding the fundamental processes driving cancer, which may ultimately lead to new therapeutic approaches for patients," said Yung S. Lie, PhD, President and CEO of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. Spring 2020 Damon Runyon Fellows: Nicholas M. Adams, PhD [Marion Abbe Fellow], with his sponsor Boris Reizis, PhD, at the New York University School of Medicine, New York, studies a specialized subset of immune cells that secrete potent antitumor cytokines called type I interferons (IFN-I). Within a tumor, these cells, called plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs), are impaired, which contributes to immune suppression and cancer progression. Dr. Adams aims to uncover the molecular mechanisms that govern IFN-I production and pDC dysfunction in cancer. As dendritic cells are a promising cell therapy for cancer, understanding the regulation of pDC-IFN-I production can guide strategies to harness and integrate their anti-tumor function in new immunotherapies. Yiming Chen, PhD, with his sponsor Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, at Stanford University, Stanford, is developing platforms to conduct high-throughput screens of protein-based fluorescent biosensors. Biosensors allow visualization of otherwise invisible biological processes such as communication between cells. Cells use diverse peptides to send messages to each other, and this has important implications for tumor growth and side effects of cancer treatments. This project will increase understanding of the complex signaling networks among cells and may lead to rational design of new cancer therapies targeting faulty cellular communication. Junhong Choi, PhD [HHMI Fellow], with his sponsor Jay A. Shendure, MD, PhD, at the University of Washington, Seattle, is examining how the control of DNA replication plays a role in cell growth and proliferation. Cellular growth is tightly orchestrated around DNA replication, where the genome must be faithfully copied before the cell divides. Different cell types each have a distinct DNA replication program, dictating which parts of the genome are copied before others. Dr. Choi aims to develop a high-throughput method to profile DNA replication in many cells at once to gain a better understanding of the relationship between DNA replication and cell growth. This research has the potential to uncover critical insights into cancer development and rapid cell growth. Pragya Goel, PhD [Dale F. and Betty Ann Frey Fellow], with her sponsor Pascal Kaeser, MD, at Harvard Medical School, Boston, is investigating structural and functional aspects of dopamine transmission in the brain, a key neuromodulator for motor and cognitive processes. Dopamine receptors have also been implicated in a variety of cancers, and recent evidence suggests that brain cancer (glioma) cells can form synaptic connections with neurons that drive tumor progression. To better understand the molecular organization that supports dopamine signaling, Dr. Goel will use super-resolution microscopy, modern genetic approaches, and functional measurements to assess how major dopamine receptors are organized in the brain and determine the interplay between dopamine release and reception. This research aims to better understand the basic mechanisms of dopamine signaling, which may ultimately enable the design of novel therapies. Anita Gola, PhD, with her sponsor Elaine V. Fuchs, PhD, at The Rockefeller University, New York, is investigating how tissue regenerates the right cell type, at the right place. Effective cell-cell communication and cell-spatial organization are critical to maintaining organ function and homeostasis. Dr. Gola will use skin as a model tissue to understand how immune cells are organized and how they communicate with resident stem cells while maintaining tolerance and providing protection. When these interactions are disrupted, they can lead to cancers and other hyper-proliferative disorders. Unraveling the mechanisms that govern healthy immune-stem cell crosstalk and what goes wrong in disease may lead to new therapeutics for skin cancers. Rachel Segal Greenberg, PhD [HHMI Fellow], with her sponsor Stephen Liberles, PhD, at Harvard Medical School, Boston, is focusing on how sensory neurons that innervate internal organs develop and function under changing environmental conditions. Our ability to sense and respond to fluctuations in blood-oxygen levels or exposure to airway irritants is controlled by the sensory neurons that comprise the vagus nerve. These neurons detect changes in numerous organs including the heart and lungs, and mediate responses. Understanding how vagal neurons respond to these microenvironments may provide new insights into how certain conditions contribute to tumor growth and identify targets for the development of cancer therapies. Shuo Han, PhD [Fayez Sarofim Fellow], with his sponsor Philip A. Beachy, PhD, at Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, is developing novel methodologies to fine-tune cellular signaling pathways that may prevent tumor formation and promote regeneration through the Hedgehog pathway. This pathway plays a central role in regulating embryonic tissue patterning and tissue renewal after birth. Dr. Han will take an interdisciplinary approach combining chemical biology, protein engineering, and computational modeling to examine the Hedgehog pathway in a cell-type specific and spatiotemporally resolved manner. This work aims to provide mechanistic insights into the function of Hedgehog signaling in tissue repair and establish new therapeutic approaches for regenerative medicine. Balint Z. Kacsoh, PhD [Rebecca Ridley Kry Fellow], with his sponsors Shelley L. Berger, PhD, and Christopher J. Lengner, PhD, at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, is studying how social environment can affect disease initiation or progression. Empirical evidence suggests that extreme social environments--such as overcrowding or isolation--can induce or accelerate disease states such as cancer, but little is known about the underlying biology. Dr. Kacsoh proposes to dissect the molecular processes underlying disease progression as a function of social structure by using the very social model organism, the ant species Camponotus floridanus, and by generating a colorectal-like tumor model in these ants. Studies of model organisms with conserved cancer pathways may provide clues to the links between social environment and disease. Haoxin Li, PhD [The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research Fellow], with his sponsor Benjamin F. Cravatt, PhD, at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, is mapping the positions of the amino acid cysteine in cancer-relevant proteins. He will perform functional screens that reveal the cysteine residues that are essential to the progression of cancer. Since the unique chemistry of cysteine makes it an attractive target for therapeutic development, this map can guide the discovery and optimization of drugs that can bind to and inhibit cancer-promoting proteins. His research has the potential to greatly accelerate the discovery of new cancer targets and their corresponding therapeutics. Jingchuan Luo, PhD [HHMI Fellow], with her sponsor Jonathan S. Weissman, PhD, at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, is focusing on the interplay between energy-producing mitochondria and the nucleus inside mammalian cells. Mitochondria contain their own small genome that encodes some proteins, but the vast majority are encoded in the cell's nucleus. The communication between mitochondria and the nucleus to produce the proteins necessary to properly function is tightly controlled, and its dysregulation has been implicated in human diseases including cancer. Dr. Luo is using ribosome profiling in parallel with CRISPR to quantitatively monitor translation (the process of protein production from RNA) on the mitochondrial surface and identify key regulators of this process. She hopes gaining an understanding of the underlying mechanism will yield fundamental insights into mitochondrial biology and its role in disease. Tristan Wold Owens, PhD [Suzanne and Bob Wright Fellow], with his sponsor David A. Agard, PhD, at the University of California, San Francisco, focuses on heat shock proteins (HSPs) and their "master regulator" called heat shock transcription factor 1 (HSF1). The transformation and growth of cancers causes a wide array of cellular stresses including metabolic changes, genomic instability, and protein misfolding that would halt the growth of a normal cell. Tumor cells, however, depend on cellular stress response machinery, like HSPs, for their survival. HSF1 is critical to tumor development and progression, and HSF1 activity is strongly correlated with poor prognosis in many common cancers. For decades, efforts to develop cancer therapies targeting HSPs have failed. Dr. Owens aims to understand how HSPs and HSF1 interact to regulate activity, and how this regulation is co-opted to promote tumor growth and progression. Cristina Puchades, PhD, with her sponsors Yifan Cheng, PhD, and Lily Y. Jan, PhD, at the University of California, San Francisco, studies ion channels - proteins embedded in the membrane surrounding a cell. They act as molecular gates, opening in response to diverse stimuli to allow ions to flow into cells. The essential ion channel TMEM16A is required for many fundamental physiological processes, including neuronal signaling, muscle contraction, and salivary gland secretion. In cancer cells, increased activity of TMEM16A is closely linked to metastatic progression in esophageal, gastric, and pancreatic cancers. Dr. Puchades aims to understand how TMEM16A functions and how drug molecules hinder its activity. This research has the potential to guide the pharmacological targeting of TMEM16A as a novel approach for the development of anti-cancer therapeutics. Jiao Sima, PhD [HHMI Fellow], with her sponsor Yang Dan, PhD, at the University of California, Berkeley, is investigating the relationship between sleep disturbances and cancer development. She is dissecting how neurons controlling the sleep-wake cycle affect immune functions that impact cancer. Dr. Sima will also examine the complementary problem of how tumor growth and chemotherapy contribute to sleep issues by analyzing gene expression patterns in neurons that regulate the sleep-wake cycle. Understanding the cellular mechanisms linking sleep and cancer could pave the way for drugs that help prevent cancer-induced sleep problems and therapeutic approaches that boost immune function to fight cancer. Mark R. Sullivan, PhD [Merck Fellow], with his sponsor Eric J. Rubin, MD, PhD, at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, studies the processes that lead to opportunistic infections affecting cancer patients. The human body, which is a hostile environment for pathogens, is well-equipped to fend off infections from most bacteria. However, cancer and chemotherapy can cause inflammation, tissue damage, and impairment of the immune system in ways that leave patients vulnerable to bacterial infection. These opportunistic infections are challenging to treat, as antibiotics often have little effect on these bacteria. Dr. Sullivan aims to identify the bacterial components that allow opportunistic pathogens to live within the lung and survive antibiotic treatment. This research will be critical to discovering more effective therapies to eradicate these infections. Yunxiao Zhang, PhD [Merck Fellow], with his sponsor Ardem Patapoutian, PhD, at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, is investigating how abnormal "mechanical loading" resulting from obesity, repeated joint use, and structural deformity affects the development of osteoarthritis, most common form of arthritis. Over time, the physical force on joints is converted to chemical signals that lead to wearing down of the protective cartilage in joints that cushions the ends of a person's bones. Understanding the underlying signaling pathway will facilitate the development of therapies for osteoarthritis, and may also shed light on cancer, which involves similar pathways. The importance of mechanical stress on disease progression is now being revealed. ### About the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation To accelerate breakthroughs, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation provides today's best young scientists with funding to pursue innovative research. The Foundation has gained worldwide prominence in cancer research by identifying outstanding researchers and physician-scientists. Twelve scientists supported by the Foundation have received the Nobel Prize, and others are heads of cancer centers and leaders of renowned research programs. Each of its award programs is extremely competitive, with less than 10% of applications funded. Since its founding in 1946, the Foundation has invested over $375 million and funded more than 3,750 young scientists. Last year, we committed over $22 million in awards to brilliant young investigators. 100% of all donations to the Foundation are used to support scientific research. Administrative and fundraising costs are paid with revenue from the Damon Runyon Broadway Tickets Service and our endowment. For more information visit damonrunyon.org. Chicago Police investigate at the 25th District station on the northwest side, in Chicago, after several officers were shot outside the station, Chicago, on July 30, 2020. (Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Chicago Sun-Times via AP) Carjacking Suspect Charged in Shooting of 3 Chicago Officers CHICAGOA convicted felon on parole has been charged with attempted murder in the shooting of three Chicago police officers outside a station, authorities said Friday. Police said Lovelle Jordan, a carjacking suspect, was being led into the station on Thursday on the citys northwest side shot at police, who returned fire and wounded him. He faces six counts of attempted murder, as well as possession of a stolen vehicle and possession of a weapon as a felon. The officers and gunman were taken to a hospital. Deputy Chief Brendan Deenihan said police handcuffed Jordans hands behind his back when he was arrested but he apparently was able to move his hands to the front while being transported to the station. Chicago Police investigate at the 25th District station on the Northwest Side after several officers were shot outside the station, Chicago, on July 30, 2020. (Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Chicago Sun-Times via AP) Police officers gather outside Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center after an officer was shot at the 25th District police station on the Northwest Side, Chicago, on July 30, 2020. (Pat Nabong/Chicago Sun-Times via AP) Deenihan said Jordan, 26, was searched before being transported but police believe he had a gun extremely secreted very close to his private area. They didnt do anything wrong, Deenihan said of officers who made the arrest. I will defend them. Theyre out there working, they are wrestling with this guy and once again its the offenders action, hes responsible for shooting the officer in the face. A police spokesman said Friday morning that Jordan was still hospitalized. Its unclear if he has an attorney able to comment on the charges. Police have said he was wanted in connection with a June 26 carjacking in downtown Chicago. He said officers identified the stolen vehicle on Thursday morning, followed it and then took the driver into custody. By Kathleen Foody As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo prepared to tour the Middle East last year, senior State Department officials debated whether they could legally justify his wife Susans desire to travel with him. Susan Pompeo had been invited to events in two capitals, Cairo and Abu Dhabi, by foreign officials. But circumstances had grown complicated: a U.S. government shutdown meant the State Department had to be exceptionally careful with spending, and her presence would incur some costs to taxpayers. The discussions resulted in a memo, obtained this week by POLITICO, in which some senior State Department officials argued Susan Pompeos travel was in the foreign policy interests of the United States and necessary to national security, while diplomats who deal with Middle East policy disagreed. To decline the invitation now could be seen as lack of courtesy, but there is no significant foreign policy interest here save the issue of courtesy, argued the State Departments Near Eastern Affairs bureau, which oversees the Middle East, in the six-page memo. The document was dated Jan. 7, 2019, the same day the trip began. Despite the Middle East bureaus stated reservations, the memo, labeled as sensitive but unclassified, recommends that Susan Pompeos travel be approved and partially paid for by government funds. It was not clear if then-Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, to whom the memo was addressed, formally signed off or not. Either way, Susan Pompeo went on the trip with her husband. The memo sheds new light on the unusual, and controversial, role Susan Pompeo has played at the State Department since her husband took over as Americas chief diplomat in April 2018. Susan Pompeo has been an unusually active spouse, so much so that the State Department inspector generals office is investigating whether she and her husband improperly used public resources. Mike Pompeo has vigorously defended his wifes conduct in the past, dismissing criticism of her role as sexist and badly dated and offensive. In a statement Thursday, a spokesperson said that the State Departments legal and ethics team determined that Mrs. Pompeos role on this trip advanced our countrys foreign policy goals laid out by the administration. Story continues As the secretary already explained to Politico, the spokesperson said, Mrs. Pompeo provides tremendous lift to our diplomatic mission by meeting with spouses of new foreign service officers, speaking to families headed overseas for first time assignments, and making sure that foreign diplomats and their spouses are always treated with kindness and warmth, reflecting the finest tradition of America. Sullivan, who is now the U.S. ambassador to Russia, did not respond to a request for comment. The Pompeos January 2019 journey lasted eight days, covering Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman. In going on the trip, Susan Pompeo fulfilled one of the memos predictions: There is a risk that Mrs. Pompeos travel during a shutdown could attract media attention and potential criticism in the Congress and elsewhere. Surely enough, several news reports emerged in which unnamed U.S. diplomats chafed at the idea that they would have to staff the secretarys wife even as they faced furloughs and delayed paychecks. But the secretary insisted that having his wife along was good for morale and Americas foreign standing. He called her a force multiplier and noted that she visited with the families of U.S. diplomats to get a sense of their quality of life. Former State Department officials have mixed feelings about whether its a good idea to have a spouse travel with the secretary, though all acknowledge its not without precedent. Some who support the idea say that overall, the cost is minimal, especially if theres space on the plane and the secretary and spouse share a room. Foreign Service experts say theres no clear budget line in appropriations bills to cover the expenses of the spouse of a secretary of State. Lawyers who helped draft the memo, however, noted that there are provisions that allow for U.S. funds to be used when a secretarys family member acts in a representational capacity, and that Susan Pompeos stops in Cairo and Abu Dhabi would qualify. According to the few lines in the memo credited to the Middle East bureau, the invitations to Susan Pompeo had been extended and accepted. The invitations had been extended in 2018; the events included dinners and a meeting with one countrys youth and culture minister. What made the January 2019 trip even more challenging to tackle was the government shutdown. The closure was triggered by President Donald Trumps brawl with Congress over funding to build a wall along the southern border. The memo delves deep into what portions of Susan Pompeos trip taxpayers would cover essentially, the costs related to Abu Dhabi and Cairo were largely. But it also makes clear the Pompeos must personally pay for several other pieces of Susan Pompeos trip. The memo does not spell out the exact costs, and the State Department has not responded to past POLITICO requests for details on how much money the Pompeos spent on the Middle East trip. Some former top department officials who reviewed the memo at POLITICOs request were most struck by the carefully calibrated sentences from the Middle East bureau. They said it indicated clear divisions about whether Susan Pompeo should go on the trip but a hesitation to turn the issue into an all-out internal battle. In the memo, the State Departments executive secretary, Lisa Kenna a top aide to Mike Pompeo argued that Susan Pompeos presence at the functions in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt met requirements for spending amid the shutdown because she was invited by government ministers of those countries, reflecting the importance they place on the event to strengthen bilateral ties. This was one of the points on which the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs differed, saying there is no significant foreign policy interest here save the issue of courtesy. The head of that bureau at the time was David Satterfield, a decades-long career member of the U.S. Foreign Service. He is now the U.S. ambassador to Turkey. He did not reply to a request for comment. Stoking controversy: President Donald Trump on a visit to an oil rig in Midland, Texas. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria Top US Republicans have immediately shot down President Donald Trump's suggestion to delay the November 3 presidential election. Mr Trump claimed, without evidence, that widespread mail balloting would be a "catastrophic disaster" leading to fraudulent results. The suggestion represented Mr Trump's latest, and most dramatic, attempt to undermine public faith in US elections, which have grown more regular as polls have shown his political fortunes declining. The president has attacked mail voting nearly 70 times since late March in interviews, remarks and tweets, including at least 17 times this month. Yesterday's tweet came on the heels of a devastating report showing that the US economy shrank nearly 10pc from April through June, the largest quarterly decline since the government began publishing such data 70 years ago. The White House referred questions about the tweet to Trump's re-election campaign. "The President is just raising a question about the chaos Democrats have created with their insistence on all mail-in voting," said Hogan Gidley, the campaign's press secretary. "Universal mail-in voting invites chaos and severe delays in results." Ari Fleischer, who was White House press secretary under Republican President George W. Bush, said Trump should delete the tweet. "This is not an idea anyone, especially POTUS, should float. Our democracy is based on elections in which everyone knows the rules and they apply to all," Fleischer said. "Mr. President - please don't even pretend to mess with this. It's a harmful idea." Senior Republicans, who often refuse to weigh in on Mr Trump's controversial tweets, overwhelmingly rejected his idea that the November 3 election should be postponed because of the risk of fraud. "Never in the history of the country, through wars, depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Mr Trump tweeted: "We'll find a way to do that again. With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. "It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" The US constitution does not give the power to a president to decide on election timing. That is assigned instead to the US Congress. In addition, the constitution spells out a hard end to a president's and vice-president's terms on January 20 in the year following a presidential election, whether an election is held or not. "The president has no power to change the date of the election," said Richard L Hasen, a law professor at the University of California at Irvine. "This is yet another statement by the president which undermines voter confidence and that seeks without evidence to undermine the legitimacy of voting by mail." Some Republicans - and many Democrats - expressed alarm at the president's apparent disregard for the limits of his power. Republican Senator John Barrasso insisted: "We will not delay the election." Other Republicans saying the same were Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Lindsey Graham and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, simply tweeted the relevant passage from the constitution granting Congress the power to set election dates. Democrats said Mr Trump's suggestion reflected a realisation that he could lose to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who has been leading in national and many battleground state polls. "Donald Trump is terrified," tweeted Senator Kamala Harris, who is among those being considered as a running mate for Mr Biden. "He knows he's going to lose to @JoeBiden. It will require every single one of us to make that happen. We will see you at the ballot box on November 3." Mr Trump appeared unfazed by the criticism, even "pinning" the message at the top of his Twitter feed to elevate its stature. Seattle police launch criminal investigation into arson, explosives in violent riots Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said Wednesday that a criminal investigation has been launched to find the perpetrators involved in setting fires to property and hurling explosives at officers in violent riots over the weekend. Best made the announcement alongside Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan at Wednesday's news conference where she revealed that police discovered a cache of fireworks, stun guns, pepper spray, and spike strips inside a van that was used by a dozen suspects at a protest attended by 5,000 people on Saturday. The van had also used in an attack on the Police Department's East Precinct in Capitol Hill where it was parked before someone threw an explosive into the building that blew an 8-inch hole in the wall. After obtaining a search warrant police impounded the van where they also found pyrotechnics, smoke bombs and gas masks. Best stressed that the weapons found are evidence that not everyone who comes to these protests are peaceful. Peaceful protesters do not show up in a van full of explosives, The Seattle Times reported of the police chief's comments. The rioters also set fire to five portable trailers on a construction site at the King County Youth Service Center. They also vandalized and set fire to a Starbucks, vandalized vehicles, and injured some 59 officers who were hit with explosives, rocks, bottles, and wood. Best said no arrests have been made in connection with the van, but added, "we are going to follow up aggressively with the investigation." Officers were allowed to use non-lethal weapons including blast balls, pepper spray and 40mm sponge-tip rounds to disperse the rioters on Saturday, a day before a newly passed city ordinance banning officers from using non-lethal weapons was set to go into effect. U.S. District Judge James Robart on Friday night granted a request from the Department of Justice to block the city's ordinance. The DOJ argued that banning police from using non-lethal weapons to control rioters would mean police would have to use lethal weapons. Days earlier, the judge had denied Durkan and Best's request to block the ordinance, saying it didn't meet the burden necessary to issue an injunction. Robart stressed that the restraining order, filed on Saturday, would only last for two weeks, The Seattle Times reported. The police chief sent a letter to residents and business owners last Friday alerting them that due to City Council Ordinance 119805 which was set to go into effect on July 26 before the judge's injunction officers would be banned from using "less-lethal tools," such as pepper spray and would not be able to defend property from armed rioters. In the letter, Best said: Simply put, the legislation gives officers NO ability to safely intercede to preserve property in the midst of a large, violent crowd. I have done my due diligence of informing them (city council) of the foreseeable impact of this ordinance on upcoming events. Best added that she wouldn't put officers' lives in danger by deploying them to disperse crowds without any equipment to defend themselves. Christopher F. Rufo of the Discovery Institute shared an attached image of Best's letter to Seattle residents along with a concerned tweet, saying, "The Seattle police chief is sending out letters telling residents: We cannot enforce the law. You are on your own." The ordinance banning the use of non-lethal weapons was introduced by Councilwoman Kshama Sawant and says law enforcement agencies are prohibited from "using any form of chemical weapons, including tear gas, mace and pepper spray. It would also ban other police weapons of crowd control, including rubber bullets, bean bags, blast balls, water cannons and sonic/ultrasonic weapons." Sawant was a supporter of the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone and dismissed reports of violence as propaganda perpetuated by capitalists. She later said in a series of tweets that the crimes and murders committed at CHOP last month "underscore the urgency to defund police by at least 50 percent." Forty-seven suspects were arrested at Saturday's protest that escalated into violence. Best said at a news conference Saturday that when rioters set fire to the Starbucks residents in the apartments above had to be evacuated. She added that some rioters "threw cement block from the top of apartment buildings, trying to drop them onto people onto the street." Some officers were "hit with rocks, explosives and bottles" as well as a "smoke bomb," she said. The police department reported such incidents to the public in a tweet Saturday: Numerous incidents of bottles and balloons filled with liquid being thrown at officers. Police continuing to work to clear the area. Multiple dispersal orders issued. Crowd has not yet dispersed. Crowd continuing to throw large rocks, bottles, fireworks and other explosives at officers. pic.twitter.com/3gTGJUonUt Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) July 26, 2020 Some rioters carried sledgehammers and smashed windows and spray painted cars. King County youth detention officer Daryl Breaux said her cars windows were smashed and tires slashed, KIRO7 reported. I didnt deserve this, OK! Im a hardworking individual, college-educated young lady, black lady at that! Born and raised in Seattle!, Breaux told the news outlet. We support everyones First Amendment rights to free speech and to assemble, but what we saw today was not peaceful; it was not a peaceful protest at all, Best said. The rioters had no regard for the community's safety. She added that, as promised, police did not use CS gas or tear gas on Saturday. The 47 people arrested in the riots were charged with assault, property damage and destruction. As the head of New Mexicos free-market think tank and a frequent critic of New Mexicos K-12 system, many are surprised to hear that my two school-age children have been in traditional public schools throughout their educational careers. That will change this fall due to COVID-19 and the policies being imposed by the state. According to numerous reports, parents across our nation are doing the same. This crisis, and our response to it, is an opportunity for policymakers to reconsider how education works in the state of New Mexico. As a reminder, New Mexico has perpetually found itself among the lowest-performing education systems in the nation. Innovative thinking, especially policies that redirect funding to students as opposed to bureaucracies, could have positive impacts now and in the future. While we at the Rio Grande Foundation are often critical of the powers that be in New Mexico education policy, this is not the case regarding COVID-19 and the reopening plans. In fact, our usual criticism is a systemic one, and that is the situation here. The idea that one model of schooling makes sense for all students in normal times is faulty. Now, with such widely-variable views on COVID-19 and the appropriate response to it not to mention the different educational needs for students of different ages and abilities developing solutions that satisfy everyone is impossible. For my family with elementary school-aged children, the combination of mask-wearing throughout the day and social distancing being imposed was a deal-breaker. And, while I support virtual or hybrid learning for some children, I simply dont think the schools or educators are ready to deploy them on a large scale in an effective manner. We saw this firsthand in the spring when the schools suddenly shut down. Hopefully, school systems have better plans in place now, but the situation remains fluid and chaotic. New Mexico students are already behind due to lost months at the end of last school year. The chaos of masks in the classroom and a hybrid/virtual model that is completely new and unfamiliar to many students and teachers is not likely to lead to improved outcomes. That is not just unfortunate; it is tragic. My family is blessed. We can make homeschooling work, and weve already spent considerable time preparing for this big change. Unfortunately, that is not the case for all New Mexico families, especially low-income and minority families. The COVID-19 situation leaves no easy choices, but with so many New Mexicans looking for educational options or even taking on the task of educating their own children, shouldnt the tax dollars they pay into the system follow the child? Shouldnt parents have resources made available to purchase computers and other curriculum materials for their children or, if they prefer, shouldnt they be able to send their child to the school of their own choice? All of these choices involve major time and financial sacrifices by parents in tough economic times. Rather than penalizing these families, we believe the funding should follow the child and help them directly. South Carolinas governor just announced the state will use $32 million to fund low-income families directly this fall. The scholarships are worth up to $6,500 each. These are the solutions that should be happening in New Mexico. Families are paying taxes for a school system that in times of normalcy is considered inadequate per the Yazzie/Martinez lawsuit ruling. With many limitations and adjustments being made now, that system and the families it serves now face greater challenges than ever before. I truly feel for our children who have lost so much already. The Legislature and governor have long claimed to care for our children. It is time to call their bluff and fund children, not bureaucracies. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility. A team of ruling coalition lawmakers agreed Thursday not to lower the age of people covered by the juvenile law to under 18 from under 20 at present. The team of lawmakers from the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito has been discussing whether criminal offenders aged 18 and 19 should be covered by the juvenile law, as the age of adulthood in Japan will be lowered to 18 from 20 in April 2022 under the revised Civil Code. The project team agreed to maintain the countrys system to send all criminal offenders aged under 20 to family courts in principle, while expanding the scope of criminal offenders to be sent to public prosecutors. Under the current juvenile law, only those who intentionally committed crimes causing death, such as murders and injuries resulting in death, are sent to prosecutors. The team agreed to make people aged 18 and 19 who committed offenses leading to imprisonment of one year or more, such as robberies and rape, be sent to prosecutors. The ruling coalition team also agreed to allow the names of people aged 18 and 19 to be disclosed if they are indicted. At present, the disclosure of the names of people under 20 who have committed crimes is banned. Supporters of the presidents top election rival rally in Minsk despite an increasing crackdown on the opposition. Tens of thousands of supporters of President Alexander Lukashenkos top election rival have rallied in the Belarusian capital Minsk despite an increasing crackdown on the opposition. The rally came on Thursday as Belarus authorities accused top members of the opposition of collaborating with Russian fighters to destabilise the country. Backers of political novice Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a stay-at-home mother-of-two, packed a Minsk square in what appeared to be the largest opposition protest in the country in 10 years. Protesters waved flags and balloons emblazoned with the oppositions campaign symbols a victory sign, a clenched fist, and a heart. Change! read one of the placards. The human rights organisation Vyasna said at least 63,000 people had turned out. Russian mercenaries Earlier on Thursday, Belarus investigators accused Tikhanovskayas husband, blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky, and another prominent critic, Mikola Statkevich, of working together with Russian mercenaries to plot mass unrest before the August 9 election. Both Tikhanovsky and Statkevich were jailed in the run-up to the polls. The accusation that they were involved with Russian mercenaries was just the latest twist in an extraordinary election campaign in which the 65-year-old Lukashenko, who has dominated Belarus for nearly 30 years, is seeking a sixth term in the face of rising anger over his rule. Tikhanouskaya, centre, said authorities were ruining not only her husbands life but those of all political prisoners [Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters] Belarusian authorities on Wednesday arrested 33 Russian militants on a mission to destabilise the country. The arrests sparked an apparent crisis in ties with ally Moscow which denied any involvement. Belarusian authorities say the arrested men are members of the Wagner group, a shadowy military contractor reportedly controlled by an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin that promotes Moscows interests in Syria, Libya and Ukraine. Addressing her supporters at the rally, Tikhanovskaya, 37, said authorities were ruining not only her husbands life but of all political prisoners. The situation involving the fighters is very scary, she said to shouts of freedom. She denied that the opposition was collaborating with the Russians to stage an uprising. People, what revolution? We want honest elections, said Tikhanovskaya, who has emerged as Lukashenkos top rival after main would-be candidates were jailed. The human rights organisation Vyasna said at least 63,000 people attended the rally [Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters] She questioned the timing of the arrests, saying Russian private contractors might have been transiting through Belarus for a long time. I have a question: where was the security service before and why are they raising this issue right before the election? Investigators opened a criminal case against Tikhanovsky, Statkevich and 33 arrested Russian citizens. They acted together, spokesman Sergei Kabakovich told the AFP news agency. Social hostility An investigative committee also said another criminal probe had been launched against Tikhanovsky for inciting social hostility and calling for violence against police. Tikhanovsky, 41, is a popular blogger, who has nicknamed Lukashenko the cockroach. Statkevich, 63, challenged Lukashenko in a 2010 election and was sentenced to six years in prison afterwards. Lukashenkos top election rival, former banker Viktor Babaryko, has been accused of financial crimes and also jailed. Moscow denied any involvement. Putins spokesman Dmitry Peskov said claims that organisations from Russia are sending some people to destabilise the situation in Belarus were nothing but insinuations. The Russian foreign ministry said its nationals were transiting through Belarus because they worked for a Belarus company, adding that they were en route to Istanbul. Top Republicans have rejected Donald Trump's suggestion that November's presidential election should be delayed over alleged fraud concerns. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy both dismissed the idea, the BBC reported. Trump does not have the authority to postpone the election. Any delay would have to be approved by Congress. Earlier, the president suggested that increased postal voting could lead to fraud and inaccurate results. He floated a delay until people could "properly, securely and safely" vote. There is little evidence to support Trump's claims but he has long railed against mail-in voting, which he has said would be susceptible to fraud. US states want to make postal voting easier due to public health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. Trump's intervention came as new figures showed the US economy contracted by nearly a third (32.9 per cent) between April and June, compared to the same period in 2019 - the worst contraction since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Senator McConnell said no US presidential election had ever been delayed before. "Never in the history of this country, through wars, depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time. We will find a way to do that again this November third," he told local Kentucky station WNKY. McCarthy echoed him. "Never in the history of the federal elections have we ever not held an election and we should go forward with our election," he said. Trump ally Senator Lindsay Graham meanwhile said a delay was "not a good idea". However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused to be drawn on Trump's suggestion. Quizzed by reporters on whether a president could delay an election, he said he would not "enter a legal judgement on the fly". When pressed, he said the justice department would "make that legal determination", adding "we want an election that everyone is confident in". The spokesman for Trump's re-election campaign, Hogan Gidley, said Trump had just been "raising a question". But Ari Fleischer, who was press secretary under Republican President George W Bush said Trump should delete his tweet. "This is not an idea anyone, especially POTUS [the president of the United States], should float," he said. "Mr President - please don't even pretend to mess with this. It's a harmful idea." In a series of tweets, Trump said "universal mail-in voting" would make November's vote the "most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history" and a "great embarrassment to the USA". He suggested - without providing evidence - that mail-in voting, as it is known in the US, would be susceptible to foreign interference. "The [Democrats] talk of foreign influence in voting, but they know that Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter the race," he said. --IANS rt/ (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) That study, On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance, by Mark Carhart, then a professor at the University of Southern California and now an asset manager, found that funds that rose in one year tended to rise in the next one, mainly because the stocks they held did the same thing. Its findings seemed to defy the standard warning that past performance doesnt predict future returns and prompted many people to scour past mutual fund returns in hope of scoring big future profits. Well, dont bother. Thats the message of the new study by James Choi, a finance professor at Yale, and Kevin Zhao, a graduate student there. Their paper, Did Mutual Fund Persistence Persist? follows directly in the footsteps of Mr. Carhart, who studied mutual fund returns from 1962 to 1993. They examined what happened from 1994 until 2018, and found that the momentum effect in mutual fund performance that Mr. Carhart discerned is no longer apparent. In an interview, Professor Choi told me that, like finance teachers around the world, he has been instructing students about the momentum effect in fund performance for years. One day, though, he had something of an epiphany. I was teaching a class about the momentum effect and realized that I was basing everything I was saying on a study that was done more than 20 years ago, based largely on findings from 30 or more years ago, he said. I thought it was time to check and see whether it still worked. He and Mr. Zhao found that the strategy does not work in picking mutual funds; in fact, Professor Choi said, its effectiveness had diminished appreciably by about 1980, an apparent precursor of worse returns in subsequent years. The research, available as a working paper, is to be published in the journal Critical Finance Review. Mr. Carhart, who reviewed it for the publication, called it very solid. The efficacy of the momentum effect has declined over time. Thats in the data and I buy that. He added that the strategy is no longer effective for picking mutual funds. Regulatory News: Annual General Meeting held in closed session at 6pm CEST on Thursday, September 10, 2020 Preparatory documents for the General Meeting are available on the Company's investor website: https://invest.medincell.com/general_meeting MedinCell (Paris:MEDCL) (FR0004065605 MEDCL), a clinical stage pharmaceutical company that develops a portfolio of long-acting injectable products in various therapeutic areas announces the procedure for participating in the Combined General Meeting which will be held in closed session at 6pm CEST on Thursday, September 10, 2020, as well as the availability of the preparatory documents. In compliance with recent French legislation1 and per the recommendations of the French financial markets authority (Autorite des Marches Financiers or AMF), the Combined General Meeting will take place in a closed session, without any shareholders being present in person. Please note that the AMF strongly encourages shareholders to vote, as such right is a fundamental prerogative of each shareholder, by means of distance voting, with all votes to be cast ahead of the General Meeting. Voting procedures For your vote to count: For holders of registered shares : registered shareholders must return their completed and signed postal voting form or proxy form, using the T envelope provided with the notice of meeting, to CACEIS Corporate Trust, Service Assemblees Generales Centralisees 14, rue Rouget de Lisle, 92862 Issy-les-Moulineaux. : registered shareholders must return their completed and signed postal voting form or proxy form, using the T envelope provided with the notice of meeting, to CACEIS Corporate Trust, Service Assemblees Generales Centralisees 14, rue Rouget de Lisle, 92862 Issy-les-Moulineaux. For holders of bearer shares:holders of bearer shares must return their single postal voting form or proxy form, completed and signed, to the authorized financial intermediary who manages their securities account. The financial intermediary will prove that they are shareholders and will return the form to CACEIS Corporate Trust, Service Assemblees Generales Centralisees 14, rue Rouget de Lisle, 92862 Issy-les-Moulineaux. These documents must be received by September 7, 2020 In the event that a proxy is given to a natural or legal person, the proxy holder shall send its voting instruction by e-mail to the following address: ct-mandataires-assemblees@caceis.com. The deadline for receipt is September 6, 2020. The Company also offers its shareholders the possibility to vote and appoint or revoke a proxy on the Internet prior to the General Meeting, on a dedicated secure site. The Votaccess service will be open from Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 9:00 am to Wednesday, September 9, 2020 at 3:00 pm, Paris time. Shareholders will be able to vote by Internet or give a proxy to the Chairman of the Meeting until the day before the General Meeting (i.e. Wednesday, September 9, 2020) at 3:00 pm, Paris time. General Meeting to be held in closed session without any shareholders being present in person For written questions, because it will not be possible for shareholders to ask questions during the General Meeting, MedinCell recommends that they should send in written questions to the registered office by registered letter with return receipt requested to the Chairman of the Board of Directors or by email to legal@medincell.com no later than by the fourth business day prior to the General Meeting (i.e. by September 4, 2020). Given the exceptional circumstances, the Company is asking shareholders to email in their questions, wherever possible, attaching a certificate proving that they own shares in MedinCell. Availability of the documents for the General Meeting The notice of meeting including the agenda and the resolutions, together with the principal details for attending and voting at the Combined General Meeting was published in the French Bulletin of Legal Announcements no. 92 on July 31, 2020. Shareholders have access to the preparatory and information documents for the General Meeting as provided for by law and the regulations. They may also be viewed on the Company website at: https://invest.medincell.com/general_meeting About MedinCell MedinCell is a clinical stage pharmaceutical company that develops a portfolio of long-acting injectable products in various therapeutic areas by combining its proprietary BEPO technology with active ingredients already known and marketed. Through the controlled and extended release of the active pharmaceutical ingredient, MedinCell makes medical treatments more efficient, particularly thanks to improved compliance, i.e. compliance with medical prescriptions, and to a significant reduction in the quantity of medication required as part of a one-off or chronic treatment. The BEPO technology makes it possible to control and guarantee the regular delivery of a drug at the optimal therapeutic dose for several days, weeks or months starting from the subcutaneous or local injection of a simple deposit of a few millimeters, fully bioresorbable. Based in Montpellier, MedinCell currently employs more than 130 people representing over 25 different nationalities. 1 Law of 23 March 2020 to respond to COVID-19 and decree dated 25 March 2020 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200731005380/en/ Contacts: MedinCell David Heuze Communication leader david.heuze@medincell.com +33 (0)6 83 25 21 86 NewCap Louis-Victor Delouvrier Investor Relations medincell@newcap.eu +33 (0)1 44 71 98 53 NewCap Nicolas Merigeau Media Relations medincell@newcap.eu +33 (0)1 44 71 94 98 Facebook topped Wall Streets revenue and earnings expectations when it posted its second quarter financial report on Thursday afternoon, indicating the coronavirus pandemic, a high-profile ad boycott and lingering antitrust questions did little to curb its business. The social networks user base also continued to swell, with Facebook adding another 100 million monthly active users during the quarter. After the closing bell, Facebook reported Q2 sales increased 11% year-over-year to $18.69 billion, surpassing analyst estimates of $17.34 billion. The Menlo Park, California-based company also posted earnings per share of $1.80, topping projections of $1.39 for the quarter. Facebooks daily active users hit 1.79 billion by the end of June, while monthly active users hit 2.7 billion up from the 2.6 billion MAUs Facebook had at the end of the first quarter. The 100 million new MAUs came in above analyst projections, which had Facebook ending Q2 around 2.65 billion MAUs. Both Facebooks DAUs and MAUs grew 12% from the same time last year. The companys stock price jumped 5% in early after-hours trading to $246.89 per share putting the company within striking distance of hitting its all-time high of $250.15. Also Read: Amazon Earnings Smash Wall Street Expectations One Day After CEO's DC Testimony Were glad to be able to provide small businesses the tools they need to grow and be successful online during these challenging times, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. And were proud that people can rely on our services to stay connected when they cant always be together in person. Facebooks user growth stemmed mostly from its Asia-Pacific and Rest of World markets, although there was modest growth both in the U.S. and Europe as well. Enlarge In its earnings release, Facebook said its business faces a period of unprecedented uncertainty due to COVID-19. We expect our business performance will be impacted by issues beyond our control, including the duration and efficacy of shelter-in-place orders, the effectiveness of economic stimuli around the world, and the fluctuations of currencies relative to the U.S. dollar. Story continues Facebook initially planned to release its Q2 report on Wednesday, but the company postponed the release for a day because of Mark Zuckerbergs testimony before Congress, alongside the CEOs of Apple, Amazon and Alphabet, Googles parent company. Zuckerberg was pressed at the hearing, which nominally focused on potential antitrust issues, on the companys 2012 acquisition of Instagram; Zuckerberg argued Facebook did not engage in any any-competitive practices by grabbing Instagram because it wasnt guaranteed at the time Instagram would grow into the massive platform it is today. You can read more key takeaways from the hearing here. The second quarter was packed with Facebook news stories, as usual. Early in Q2, Facebook announced it wouldnt host any physical events with 50 or more people until June 2021 at the earliest, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The company usually hosts its annual F8 developer conference in May, but this years event was scrapped, along with next years as well. Also Read: Jim Jordan's Mask, Jeff Bezos on the Hot Seat and 5 More Highlights From Big Tech Congressional Hearing Most notably during Q2, though, Facebook was hit with an ad boycott spearheaded by a number of civil rights organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and the NAACP. The groups accused Zuckerberg of allowing extremists to promote violence, thanks to Facebooks hands-off moderation policies in comparison to other tech companies. Facebook was also criticized for not posting warning labels to certain posts from President Trump, like Twitter has, and was also accused of not doing enough to protect its Black and Jewish users from vile comments. The boycott, dubbed the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, quickly gained support from a number of major companies, including Honda, Levi Strauss, Pfizer and Unilever. One University of Pennsylvania professor told TheWrap the boycott marked a new era in corporate activism. The boycott put an initial dent in Facebooks stock price, but the company soon recovered to where it had been trading right before the groups took action. And since the boycott didnt go into effect until July, after the second quarter had finished, its still unclear how it impacted Facebooks business. Facebook will hold a call at 2:00 p.m. PT to discuss its Q2 report. Read original story Facebook Hits 2.7 Billion Users, Tops Wall Streets Q2 Revenue Estimates At TheWrap A top doctor is pushing for a full lockdown in Victoria before the killer coronavirus spirals out of control. Victoria recorded its second worst day on record with 627 cases and a further eight deaths on Friday. Premier Daniel Andrews labelled the figure 'far too high' hinting that the stay-at-home order may be extended and further restrictions imposed. Dr Chris Moy, from the Australian Medical Association, said Victoria must act 'now or never' and implement a New Zealand style lockdown to control the deadly second wave. Victoria recorded its second worst day on record with 627 cases and a further eight deaths on Friday Dr Chris Moy from the Australian Medical Association said Victoria must act 'now or never' and implement a New Zealand style lockdown to control the surge in cases 'There's been finicking around, frankly, trying to sort of slowly add little bits and pieces when what we really need is a complete shutdown of this,' he told Sky News. 'It's now or never we've got to go to level four.' He said the one of his main concerns is that people are not being contact traced in time and that leads to more people contracting COVID-19. Dr Moy also slammed Victoria's current situation and claims the state is not actually in lockdown. 'This is a very light lockdown, and, probably most critically, people are still going to work which the premier admits is actually still a significant source of transfer of the virus,' Dr Moy said. 'In level four lockdown, most critically, is that the only people that go to work are those for essential services, otherwise you reach a critical point.' Premier Daniel Andrews said cases were still 'far too high' hinting that the stay-at-home order may be extended and further restrictions imposed Police on horseback patrol The Shrine of Remembrance enforcing the wearing of face masks in Melbourne on July 31, 2020 Victoria's second lockdown is due to end mid-August but Mr Andrews hinted it may be extended due to the continuous rise in figures. 'Public health experts from the Victorian team, together working with colleagues at a national level, will spend the next day looking through in fine detail, looking for trends to have a really clear sense of exactly what is presenting and exactly what the nature of our challenge is,' he said. 'We cannot open up with these numbers, we cannot open up with significantly less than these numbers.' Mr Andrews also revealed that one in four Victorians were not isolating when the Australian Defence Force and public health officials did a routine check-up. 'There were more than 130 unsuccessful visits,' he said. 'There'll be a multitude of reasons for that, but what I can confirm for you is that more than 100 cases have been referred to Victoria Police.' A body is removed from St Basil's Homes for the Aged in Fawkner, Melbourne, Friday, July 31, 2020 He explained there was no excuse for people who tested positive to COVID-19 to not be isolating. 'It is simply unacceptable for you to have this virus and not be at home,' Mr Andrews said. Everyone in Melbourne and regional Victoria is required to wear a face mask when they are outside for the four permitted reasons unless exempted. Anyone not wearing a face mask risks a fine of $200. The latest fatalities are two men in their 50s, two men aged in their 70s, three men in their 80s and one woman in her 70s. Four of the eight are linked to aged care homes. The deaths take the state toll to 113 and the national figure to 197. by Sumon Corraya Some 31 districts are affected. Food and drinking water are in short supply. Many residents have had to leave their flooded homes for makeshift shelters. Many have not received the 10 kilos of rice promised by the government. The Catholic Church is active in handing out supplies. Flood victims take on debt to eat. Rajshahi (AsiaNews) Bangladesh is facing a humanitarian emergency caused by flooding. About 10 million people in 31 districts are struggling with shortages of food and drinking water. Some districts, like Kurigram in the countrys north, have been flooded for about a month, forcing many residents to abandon their homes or take refuge on tin roofs. Flooding in Matikata submerged Nur Miha's home two weeks ago. He and his family were forced to leave, and find some shelter in a makeshift plastic shack. They now live in constant fear as monsoon rains fall relentlessly. Nurs main concern is the lack of food. "For two weeks, he told AsiaNews, we have been homeless and hungry. He says he has not yet received aid from the government although the authorities did promise to provide the 10 million people affected by the floods with 10 kilos of rice. Some NGOs gave him and his family some supplies, but this is not enough. "What little we have received, we use it to feed our four children," Nur noted. The Catholic Church is also providing assistance to flood victims. In Rajshahi, Caritas is considering how best to help the affected population. Its director, Suklesh Costa, explains that food items like rice, oil, potatoes, etc. will be distributed to 600 families. The Diocese of Dinajpur will supply the same goods to around 1,200 households. The delivery will take place after the Eid al-Adha holiday, which is celebrated on 1st August. The COVID-19 pandemic has made things even more difficult. Due to the floods, we cannot go to work, Nur explained. We have spent all our savings. Plus, the coronavirus blocks the work of humanitarian agencies, which are unable to deliver aid. Rohima Begums story is a bit different. She and her family of six found refuge on a tin roof. The government provided them with 10 kilos of rice, but she had to borrow money to buy salt, oil, meat and other food items. "We don't lack food, she explained, but we are worried about health, repaying the loan and the interest, and the risks associated with drinking water. NIC holding the online meeting with sub-network overseas NIC members also discussed ongoing projects and activities to strengthen cooperation between the local and overseas networks, as well as highlighted the need to boost the activities of networks in the time coming. Welcoming members on behalf of the Minister of Planning and Investment, NIC deputy director Vu Quoc Huy expressed his joy to be able to attend for the first time and chair the discussion. He highlighted that the most important task of the NIC is to develop the Vietnam Innovation Network, as assigned by the prime minister and the MPI minister. Huy said that the NIC is drafting a decree to submit to the government which will provide special incentives (as much as possible within the tenets of the legal framework) for centres, organisations, and businesses developing their concepts and projects at the NIC. In the time coming, the centre will promote connecting ecosystems, including Vietnam Venture Summit, to link up ventures and startups, train local human resources, support businesses in their digital transformation, research and build out an innovation ecosystem, and recommend policies and strategies related to innovation for priority sectors. The Vietnam Innovation Network has already connected 250 members across 14 countries, built sub-networks in Germany, Australia, and Japan, and is looking to develop 10 more in other countries. NIC is honoured to be part of the connection accompanying and supporting sub-networks and members. NIC is the focal point to work with ministries, agencies, and localities to build up networks," said Huy. Speakers at the meeting (in Hanoi) Huynh The Du from Fulbright University Vietnam assessed that the network is already quite expansive. He suggested that the network should run in a decentralised model, as well as organise professional activities more frequently. "NIC should create a competitive environment for sub-networks to make it more vibrant," said Du. Nguyen Huu Phuoc Nguyen, CEO of startup SeleX Motor expressed hope that, in addition to its main role of connecting regional investors and startups, NIC would also be able to invest in startups and their projects on its own. This motion found general agreement among conference participants and was followed by recommendations to boost co-operation between NIC, the Vietnam Innovation Network, and big universities and organisations related to startup enterprises. Reacting to the multitude of comments and recommendations by members, Vu Quoc Huy confirmed that NIC would hammer out the details of its strategies and activities in a way that would answer participants' needs and expectations. NIC has two important roles, including building an institutional framework, policies, and incentives for innovation, projects related to high technology, as well as removing all challenges for startups in particular and businesses in general," said Huy. In August, the government will issue a decree on the operation of the NIC. "This will create the legal framework to improve the performance of NIC in order to mobilise more intellectuals in the network to achieve the ambitious targets of the country," said the representative of the NIC. The chairs of the meeting NIC has been dealing with procedures to build two facilities in Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park and one in the centre of Hanoi to serve as a space for businesses, technology corporations, and individuals to do research and showcase high-tech and innovative solutions. The rules on the structure, organisation, operation, and human resources of NIC is being perfected under the management and guidance of several councils led by the ministers of Planning and Investment, Science and Technology, Industry and Trade, and Education and Training, as well as leaders from the State Bank of Vietnam and of THACO and Viettel. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 14:32:16|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The general office of the Central Military Commission has issued a circular requiring the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the People's Armed Police Force (PAP) to earnestly study the newly published third volume of "Xi Jinping: The Governance of China." It is a long-term political task to thoroughly study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, read the circular. Stressing that the study should be carried out in a target-oriented, problem-oriented and result-oriented manner, the circular said the PLA and PAP, while implementing COVID-19 prevention and control measures on a regular basis, should deliver a solid performance in all areas of work, promote troop training and battle readiness, and resolutely accomplish all tasks assigned by the Party and the people. Enditem At Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar, Ayub became interested in traumatic brain injury and went on to become an international expert in the field. He was a pioneering neurosurgeon of Pakistani origin who is widely known for inventing the Ommaya reservoir, according to a 2017 article in the journal Neurosurgery. The device allows chemotherapy to be administered at the site of brain tumors. He worked as a researcher and clinician at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, eventually becoming chief of neurosurgery. He was also a professor of neurosurgery at George Washington University. Muji is set to shut down all of its stores in California amid bankruptcy proceedings. The Japanese chains United States arm, Muji USA Ltd. which filed for Chapter 11 protection three weeks ago announced in a filing last week that it plans to exit the California market and permanently close seven of its locations in the state. More from Footwear News The units are located in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hollywood, as well as Santa Anita, Stanford, San Jose and Santa Monica. Muji intends to relocate all unsold inventory from those outposts with the help of certain recently furloughed employees who will be compensated with severance and surrender its leased buildings by todays end. Separately, the retailer is working with B. Riley Real Estate in negotiations over lease amendments related to its stores outside of California. Should those talks be unsuccessful, the company said it could shutter additional stores across the country. (Its operations in other global markets will not be affected.) Muji has 18 units in the United States. According to owner Ryohin Keikaku Co., the chain had been grappling with losses that stemmed from high rent and other costs even before the outbreak took hold. Then starting mid-March, its entire brick-and-mortar fleet across the country was forced to shut down for weeks to help curb the spread of COVID-19. The pandemic led Ryohin Keikaku to its first quarterly operating loss in more than a decade: Early this month, the Japan-based company logged a net loss of 4.1 billion yen (or $38.5 million at current exchange) for the three months ended May 31, compared with a net profit of 6.6 billion yen ($61.7 million) in the prior-year quarter. In the last fiscal year, Mujis U.S. entity suffered a loss of around $10 million. Its bankruptcy filing showed that it had assets and liabilities in the range of $50 million to $100 million, while its number of creditors extended from 200 to 999. The coronavirus pandemic has led many firms in the fashion and footwear sectors to file for bankruptcy, including specialty chain J.Crew, department stores Neiman Marcus and JCPenney, denim giants G-Star Raw and True Religion, Zac Posen owner Centric Brands and off-pricer Stage Stores. Sign up for FN's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens is making economic recovery a central theme in her campaign to be the first Democrat ever reelected to represent Michigans 11th Congressional District. Stevens, D-Rochester Hills, said the 11th District has the largest concentration of auto suppliers in the country, packed into suburban communities in Wayne and Oakland counties. Stevens flipped the traditionally Republican-voting district two years after President Donald Trump carried it with a similar focus on bringing back Michigans manufacturing industry. Im in the party of jobs, Stevens said. I want to make sure everyone has access to a good-paying job that values and honors their work. Thats what its all about for me. Republicans are eager to reclaim the 11th District. Voters will select Stevens challenger from a pool of five candidates in the Aug. 4 GOP primary -- Frank Acosta, former U.S. Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, Erik Esshaki, Carmelita Greco and Whittney Williams. Related: Five Republicans compete to take back congressional swing district from Haley Stevens Stevens emerged victorious from her own five-way primary in 2018 and went on to win in the general election by nearly 7 percentage points. She is unchallenged in the Democratic primary and holds a major cash advantage over the five Republicans seeking to challenge her, raising $3.9 million since the start of her campaign. Before joining Congress, Stevens served as chief of staff on a task force President Barack Obama established to oversee the federal bailout of Chrysler and General Motors. Stevens said shes kept a close relationship with automakers and other manufacturing businesses, arranging regular site visits to facilities throughout the district. A third of Michigans manufacturing jobs are concentrated in counties inside or adjacent to the 11th District. Stevens said keeping manufacturing businesses in her district on track after the COVID-19 pandemic required a complete shutdown is her top priority. More than 623,700 Michiganders were employed in manufacturing jobs in February, but many of those workers were temporarily laid off under Gov. Gretchen Whitmers stay-at-home order in March. Michigans manufacturers were among the first companies allowed to return to work. An estimated 175,000 manufacturing jobs were shed between March and April, but employment slowly recovered since Whitmer authorized manufacturers to reopen May 11. Last year was rocky for Michigan manufacturing even before the coronavirus was confirmed to be proliferating in Michigan, Stevens said. Stevens said the spread of COVID-19 in other countries caused supply chain disruption at the tail end of 2019. The industry also felt the negative effects of national security tariffs on steel and aluminum, General Motors employees went on the longest strike in history and the U.S. manufacturing sector fell into the deepest slump in more than a decade. However, Stevens also pointed to the signing of a new North American free trade agreement as one of the best moves Congress made for Michigans 11th District. Stevens had pushed House Democrats to vote on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which eventually passed with bipartisan support. Much like the president, Stevens said shes working to reduce the countrys reliance on foreign goods. Now the work becomes how do we avoid further supply chain disruptions in the future and how do we relocalize, reinvest, continue to grow manufacturing jobs here in the United States, particularly in Michigan, Stevens said. Weve got the workforce for it, weve got the facility square footage space for it. We have an industrial ecosystem hotbed for this. Stevens is chair of the House Science Subcommittee on Research and Technology and co-founder of Congressional Women in STEM Caucus. Her legislative achievements include two bipartisan bills directing federal funding to manufacturing research and developing science, math and technology opportunities for elementary students and girls. The first-term congresswoman said shes also focused on improving access to affordable health care, funding local infrastructure investments, cleaning up PFAS contamination and ensuring schools are fully funded for the fall academic year. Meanwhile, Stevens Republican challengers argue she is not as bipartisan as the congresswoman presents herself. Republicans said Stevens campaigned as a moderate but hasnt acted as once since being elected. Haley Stevens is an unhinged, radical liberal who regularly screams deranged rants on the House floor or at her constituents, said Carly Atchison, spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Since coming to Congress she has been nothing but a rubber stamp for Nancy Pelosis partisan agenda, even if that means delaying (Paycheck Protection Program) loans for small businesses. Stevens is unfit to serve Michigan in Congress and voters will kick her out in November. Stevens had expressed concerns that the Paycheck Protection Program wasnt accessible for small businesses. She ultimately voted in favor of the program, which secured federal aid for 121,000 businesses and protected 130,000 jobs in Stevens district. Im entirely fired up about whats before us, Stevens said. Our businesses dont want to stop, and obviously we had to make some adjustments while we were managing this pandemic, but were going to come back and were going to come back even stronger. Its going to be a boon and a benefit for Michigan. READ MORE ON MLIVE: Michigans manufacturers rumble back to life this week. Thats good news for the economy. Republican primary candidates talk Trump, coronavirus in debate disrupted by pornographic Zoom bomb Five Republicans compete to take back congressional swing district from Haley Stevens Recently, veteran actor Anupam Shyam was admitted in ICU at a Mumbai hospital, after he reportedly collapsed during dialysis. It is being said that the actor is suffering from kidney problems. The family has reached out to the actor's friends and film industry for financial assistance. Bollywood actor Sonu Sood, who has been helping many, tweeted that he is in touch with them. As per TOI report, Shaleen Bhanot is the first actor to actually visit the veteran actor in the hospital for help. The report suggests that the Naagin actor has offered his help to Anupam Shyam so that he can get through this phase, recover and return home soon. Apart from Shaleen and Sonu, Manoj Bajpayee has also pledged to help him financially. CINTAA (Cine & TV Artistes' Association) too has shared a post requesting donations for the actor. Regarding Anupam's health, his brother Anurag told BT that he has exhausted all his savings on medical expenses, and had also borrowed some money from people for his dialysis around 10 days ago. The actor's brother revealed that doctors have suggested a kidney transplant but he has no clue how they will get it done, as he doesn't have enough money for it. Anurag was quoted by the leading daily as saying, "Anupam bhaiya has been diabetic for almost 40 years and also has high blood pressure. A few years ago, he had also suffered a heart problem and the doctors had then told him that he had a blockage. He was put on heavy medication, which harmed his kidneys. It resulted in pulmonary edema. He was required to undergo dialysis regularly, but he stopped it about a year ago due to money crunch." We hope that the actor gets the needed help and recovers soon. Also Read: Pratigya Actor Anupam Shyam Admitted In ICU; Actor's Family Seek Financial Help Also Read: Sonu Sood Comes To Veteran Actor Anupam Shyam's Aid, Says 'In Touch with Them' New Delhi: Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death case has taken a new turn after his father filed an FIR in Bihar against Rhea Chakraborty, her family and six others in Patna's Rajiv Nagar police station under IPC Sections 341, 342, 380, 406, 420 and 306 for cheating, exploiting him financially and abetment to suicide. Ever since there have been major developments in the case with Bihar police coming into action and several political leaders making statements on the matter as well. In connection with the case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money laundering case officials said on Friday. According to PTI, the ED had recently sought the FIR copy from the Bihar Police. The central probe agency has taken cognisance of a Bihar Police FIR registered against actress Rhea Chakraborty and some others to slap criminal charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in its complaint, the officials said. The officials said an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) has been filed in the case related to the death of the actor and alleged financial irregularities being suspected to have been done against the deceased. ED will probe allegations of alleged mishandling of Rajput's money and his bank accounts. The agency will probe if anyone used Rajput's income for money laundering and creating illegal assets, the officials said. Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at his Bandra residence on June 14, 2020. The Mumbai police is investigating the case but fans are pressing for CBI probe suspecting foul play. Mumbai police are investigating the matter. Police will investigate on basis of evidence, we expect that the probe will be completed as soon as possible & police will reach to a conclusion: Maharashtra Minister Jayant Patil on demand of CBI inquiry in #SushantSinghRajputDeathCase pic.twitter.com/XkGjyIRF1W ANI (@ANI) July 31, 2020 Meanwhile, Maharashtra Minister Jayant Patil said: "Mumbai police are investigating the matter. Police will investigate on basis of evidence, we expect that the probe will be completed as soon as possible & police will reach to a conclusion". Mumbai police is putting obstruction in the way of a fair investigation by Bihar police in #Sushant death case. BJP feels that CBI should take over this case: Bihar Dy CM Sushil Kumar Modi#SushantSinghRajputDeathCase pic.twitter.com/rN7EixRzkv ANI (@ANI) July 31, 2020 However, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi said: "Mumbai police is putting obstruction in the way of a fair investigation by Bihar police in #Sushant death case. BJP feels that CBI should take over this case." (With agency inputs) Ninety-five Ghanaian nurses have arrived in Barbados on an initial two-year contract. The entourage of 49 women and 46 men signed on to assist with healthcare local in the Caribbean country. The Ghanaian nurses arrived on Thursday via a chartered flight, Azores Airlines although it was initially communicated that they would arrive earlier this week. They were met by the Minister of Health and Wellness Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic, newly-installed Minister of Tourism and International Transport Senator Lisa Cummins and Executive Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Juliette Bynoe-Sutherland, with salutes and elbow bumps. The Health Minister said while their arrival was a long time in coming, he was glad they had finally landed. These nurses will be working at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital as well as the primary healthcare sector, that is the Geriatric Hospitals and polyclinics, he said. He said that the Ghanaian nurses have arrived at a very opportune time with the global COVID-19 pandemic unfolding. But that is not the only thing that we have to deal with as a Ministry of Health, we have the remainder of the healthcare sector to take care of even though we are fighting this battle and your presence here today and certainly when you start to work in a couple of weeks time would enhance our capacity to deliver the quality of healthcare services that we have been doing for years, and that we will continue to do, and even though we have to divert some of our efforts to fighting COVID, we are now in a better position to deal with the remainder of the healthcare system in Barbados. One of the nursing officers Lorraine Atopley speaking on behalf of the contingent said, Thank you very much for welcoming us and greetings from her President Nana Akufo-Addo and all the human resources personnel from the Ministry of Health (in Ghana), greetings from them. She said that the team of nurses hopes to have good interactions with the patients for the next two or more years. When she added: or more, there was laughter and cheers from her colleagues and Barbados Minister of Health Lt Col Jeffrey Bostic, Minister of Tourism Senator Lisa Cummins along with other officials from both their ministries. Ms Atopley added: We promise to work hard to deliver good service to everyone and be at peace with everyone. 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 Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Aptes Raat Akeli Hai shows Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Jatil Yadav) in the role of a cop, investigating the murder of a local politician. The movie is directed by Honey Trehan, who is making his debut as a director, and bankrolled by Ronnie Screwvala. The makers of Raat Akeli Hai described the film in these words: "The most powerful usually hide the darkest secrets. What happens when a small-town cop is summoned to investigate the case of an extremely powerful local politician? How far is he willing to go into the darkness to search for the truth? A mysterious murder where the only suspects are from the same family, with each member having a hidden motive. Will Jatil (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) find his way to the truth or lose tracks midway?" The movie has already been airing on Netflix and people are loving the mystery element. In my review, I wrote, The movie shows you the whole new outlook to the patriarchy and how the old notions can be a curse if not changed with time. Through Jatil, we see a man whos gone a complete metamorphosis of how men in the ideal world should be. Heres what people are saying: Watch #RaatAkeliHai rn! Mystery & thriller worth on Friday movie night! Swaraj! (@swaraj_d27) July 31, 2020 Just finished #RaatAkeliHai thoroughly enjoyed, such a taut suspense thriller , will keep you on edge till the end @Nawazuddin_S sir superb performance ,@radhika_apte fine performance@HoneyTrehan special applaud 4 u n rest cast were amazing too @NetflixIndia @dirtigmanshu Abhiraaj (@Abhi18763120) July 31, 2020 Honey Trehan makes a wonderful directorial debut. #RaatAkeliHai is one of the few formidable whodunnits that keeps you on your toes. Much more than a mystery there... Don't miss Izu (@weird_verma) July 31, 2020 Raat Akeli Hai also stars Radhika Apte, Shweta Tripathi, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Nishant Dahiya, Ila Arun, Swanand Kirkire and Aditya Srivastava. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) with his bandana around his neck during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday. (Matt McClain/ Associated Press) There are no intelligent grounds for rejecting masks. Theyre simple and cheap, and they protect humans against a vicious disease that has caused more than 660,000 deaths across the world. Refusing to wear a mask is like supporting the fire against the fire department. Its like openly sneezing into a packed elevator. Its stupid. Its also kind of disgusting. But that didnt stop Herman Cain the accomplished businessman and onetime presidential hopeful, who died of COVID-19 on Wednesday from rejecting masks. Before he headed to President Trumps June rally in Tulsa, Okla.,he tweeted jubilantly that masks will not be mandatory for the event because PEOPLE ARE FED UP! And the stupidity of refusing to mask up did not stop Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert from appearing bare-faced around the Capitol recently. This kind of infantile rebellion is pathetic. On Capitol Hill on Tuesday, when the House Judiciary Committee heard testimony by Atty. Gen. William Barr, some reluctant maskers had to be reminded by the committee chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), to keep their masks on. Though Gohmert insisted he wasnt among those admonished by the chair, he could be seen maskless intermittently during the hearing, and a video surfaced that showed him, along with Barr, entering the hearing room without masks. Now it turns out that Gohmert is infected. In advance of a planned trip to Texas with President Trump on Wednesday, Gohmert took a test: Positive. He wasn't allowed on the plane. This is bad news. Gohmert is the 11th known member Congress to contract the coronavirus. The others are all Republicans, except for Rep. Ben McAdams (D-Utah). Trumps national security advisor, Robert O'Brien, also came up positive this week. OBrien joins a long list of White House and W.H.-adjacent personnel who have contracted the virus, including a cafeteria employee, a personal assistant to Ivanka Trump, members of the Secret Service, a military aide to the president, Vice President Mike Pences press secretary, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is the consort of Donald Trump Jr. and a high-profile member of Trumps reelection campaign. Story continues Gohmert appears to be uniquely uninformed about the pandemic and indifferent to his own health. Of his diagnosis, Gohmert told Texas television station KETK, "I can't help but wonder if by keeping a mask on and keeping it in place, I might have put some germs some virus onto the mask and breathed it in," Gohmert said. So Gohmert gave himself COVID-19 because he already had it. How is this person a member of Congress? Gohmert is at least consistent with his idiocy. In early March, a slate of conservative lawmakers, including Gohmert, was exposed to an infected person at a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference. The event provided its own kind of contact tracing, and a passel of Trumpite luminaries, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chose to quarantine out of what Cruz at the time called an abundance of caution. But not Gohmert. He opted for a dearth of caution. He took no action, in the language of a GovTrack report charting COVID-19 in Congress. Since then, Gohmert claims he has been getting tested regularly, and he has been seen occasionally wearing a bandana. He seems to have gotten swabbed Wednesday chiefly because the president requires a clean bill of health for anyone who comes near him. Trump, of course, nearly always forgoes a mask. (Trump also claimed Tuesday that most of America is corona-free. Yeah, no.) Gohmert reported in a video on his website that he was first given the quick test for what he, like many anti-Asian bigots, calls the Wuhan virus. When that came back positive, he was retested with the swab that goes way up in your sinuses (In fact, it goes in the cavity between the nose and the mouth). It too was positive. Ordinary Americans, of course, dont get such speedy results. Were stuck with our countrys non-testing non-program, which, as Bill Gates told CNBC on Wednesday, is a "complete waste" because results take too long. It's nearly useless as a public or personal health measure. Which is why the majority of Americans dont get cute with the pandemic. Were wearing masks and observing social distancing, whatever our politics. The Republican leadership that appears to be on tilt must bewilder their constituents. Most of the members of Congress who have suffered with the virus and all whom are anti-mask come from currently hard-hit red states. Gohmerts state of Texas, though it has shown some signs of improvement, recorded 8,800 new confirmed cases on Thursday. That anyone plays down the importance of masks is disturbing. But its staggering that denialism comes from people in high places. How hard can it be: Stay clean and healthy, and keep your snot, saliva and other excretions to yourself. Do anti-maskers like Gohmert also reject soap and toilet paper? At this stage in the coronavirus lottery, the rejection of masks expresses nothing so much as a death wish, which makes it not just irrational but unusual. Most of us want to stay alive as long as possible. Common to all animals, this baseline preference for life over death is nonpartisan, non-ideological, noncontroversial. Heres wishing Gohmert a speedy recovery of both his health and his senses. @page88 Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State has issued a stern warning to the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, a Fulani socio-cultural association, to desist from deploying its Miyetti Allah Vigilante security outfit to the state. National Daily gathered that Ortom in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Terver Akase, cautioned that the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore that Benue State government is collaborating with the security apparatuses of the federal government, as well as an established vigilante group operating in the various local governments and wards across the state. The governor called for the arrest of the leaders of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore to stem the tide of killings in Nigeria. The statement read in part: As much as we do not have any problem with Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore floating a security outfit in other states, it is important to say that such a vigilante group WILL NOT OPERATE IN BENUE STATE. Miyetti Allah has no constitutional right to establish a nationwide security outfit. Benue does not need the Miyetti Allah vigilante. The State Government is working with conventional security forces and has already established a vigilante group at the state, local government and ward levels. This is evident in the ongoing recruitment of personnel for Community Policing who will soon be trained as recommended by Inspector General of Police. The idea of running a nationwide vigilante group is a mere strategy by the Fulani socio-cultural organization to elevate their nefarious and inhuman activities to another level. They have repeatedly claimed responsibility for the killing of thousands of children, women and other vulnerable people in different states, yet, members of the group walk freely in Abuja and hold press conferences threatening to unleash terror on the people of this country. We once more call for the arrest and prosecution of officials of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, to end the spate of crime in the country. We urge the Federal Government to stop looking elsewhere for bandits who have been killing innocent Nigerians. Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore are coordinators of banditry in the country, and officials of the group reside in Abuja. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Arya Dipa and Suherdjoko (The Jakarta Post) Bandung/Semarang Fri, July 31, 2020 11:28 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066aab3eb 1 National coronavirus,COVID-19,Gedung-Sate-Museum,West-Java,Diponegoro-University,Central-Java,Semarang,lockdown,virus-korona-indonesia Free Authorities have put the West Java gubernatorial office, Gedung Sate, in Bandung as well as Diponegoro Universitys (Undip) Law School in Semarang, Central Java, in lockdown following the emergence of COVID-19 cases in the two institutions. West Java secretary Setiawan Wangsaatmaja said at least 40 of 1,260 employees working at the Gedung Sate had tested positive for COVID-19 during recent swab testing. We found the cases through swab tests conducted on three consecutive days from July 26 to 28, Setiawan told journalists during a teleconference. In response to the discovery, the West Java administration suspended all operations at Gedung Sate on Thursday and imposed a work-from-home policy for all employees for the next two weeks. Read also: Dozens of office infection clusters emerge as Indonesia seeks to revive economy West Javas iconic building had been opened for the public since authorities revoked the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) in the city on June 26. Many people have visited this building ever since. We have yet to identify the source of the COVID-19 infection. Were still working on that, said Setiawan. He added that health authorities had launched a contact-tracing effort to prevent further spread of the coronavirus disease from the infected employees, most of whom reside in Greater Bandung. Setiawan went on to say that people identified to have been in close contact with the affected employees had also tested positive for COVID-19. Diponegoro University's (Undip) law school in Semarang, Central Java (Courtesy of Undip/-) In Semarang, Undip closed its Law School until Aug. 13 following the death of a staff member due to COVID-19. Undip rector Yos Johan Utama said the university had issued a circular on the lockdown. We immediately launched preventive measures of locking down the facility and telling all staff members to work from home [after the death], Yos said, while refusing the disclose detailed information about the employee who died on July 26. (vny) ALBION, MI -- Its always been about community for the owners at Albion Malleable Brewing Company. In fact, when co-owners Ben Wade and Charles Moreau first met five years ago, they said, Albion should have a brewery. Little did they know after opening Albion Malleable Brewing Company in 2018 that they would not only have a great brewery of Belgium-inspired beers, but they would be home to Michigans Best Burger. After sampling 100-plus burgers at 30 restaurants, and after 500 nominees from all over the state, we picked Albion Malleable Brewing Company as the best in the state. Led by CIA-trained chef Joe Marciano, the kitchen hits on every note. From gourmet burgers (like the Signature Burger with shredded lettuce, cheese and a special sauce), to straight-forward ones and a house-made veggie burger, we were blown away with everything. They grind their meat in house with a mix of brisket, sirloin and chuck. The burgers are seasoned and charred beautifully on a flat-top grill. Perfection. PHOTOS: See all the burgers we tried at Albion Malleable Brewing Company on the search for Michigans Best Burger The Signature Double Burger at Albion Malleable Brewing Company in the search for Michigan's Best Burger on Friday, March 6, 2020. Albion Malleable was one of three stops in the Jackson area in the search.J. Scott Park | MLive.com Throughout our visit you could feel their passion to not only establish a great brewery, but take as much care into creating a destination restaurant with a from scratch kitchen. READ: These are the 10 best burgers in Michigan Check out the video on this page where the co-owners and chef seemed visibly stunned, and even in a state of shock, to learn they were named Best Burger. (To their defense, they thought we were interviewing them for Beer of the Week.) Late last night we checked in with co-owner and head brewer Ben Wade to see if the news has finally sunken in. We are very excited and honored to have been named best burger. Michigan has so many great venues for food and so many passionate people. We love being among the winners, he said in a late-night email. What was the community reaction? Our first day was met first and foremost with LOTS of congratulations. Through social media, email, text - you name it. We had our highest Thursday revenue day since pre-COVID. That created some challenges, he admitted. A lot of the new business was takeout, and they also launched a new POS (point of sale) system. Because weve been staffed for running at 50 percent capacity, and its hard for guests to understand that when the room is half empty, and they dont see behind the curtain, that we were actually slammed with orders, he said. So that was a bit of a struggle when tickets ran a bit long. He asks customers to be patient and realize that were a lot busier than they can see. John Gonzalez and Amy Sherman of MLive selected Albion Malleable Brewing Company in Albion, Michigan, as Michigan's Best Burger. (L-R) Chef Joe Marciano, co-owner/head brewer Ben Wade and co-owner Charles Moreau.Courtesy of Albion Malleable Brewing Company Overall, its a major win for the community, which is going through a downtown transformation, he said. The public response has been great. We were actually a bit worried about #1 - we understand taste is subjective and not everyone will agree no matter who wins. But weve seen nothing but support. We have a great customer base, and some real dedicated regulars, and I think this award is instilling a sense of pride in them and the larger Albion community as well. They are open seven days a week and recently opened a patio, See the complete menu and tap list at albionmalleable.com. Taste tests of the many beers at Albion Malleable Brewing Company in the search for Michigan's Best Burger on Friday, March 6, 2020. Albion Malleable was one of three stops in the Jackson area in the search.J. Scott Park | MLive.com Proper Villains (6.8% ABV) is the beer we selected as the pseudo Beer of the Week. Its a French/Belgian saison brewed with spicy, piney Chinook hops to compliment the yeast spice, and dry-hopped with fruity, juicy Citra to accompany the fruity esters, according to Wade. Its IPA meets saison with a tropical fruit aroma, he added. MORE ON ALBION MALLEABLE BREWING COMPANY New brewery in Albion to revive name of town's departed iron industry Owners hope the revived Albion Malleable namesake can serve as a beacon of economic prosperity in the town again. Albion Malleable Brewing Company in the search for Michigans Best Burger Fries are served at Albion Malleable Brewing Company in the search for Michigan's Best Burger on Friday, March 6, 2020. Albion Malleable was one of three stops in the Jackson area in the search.J. Scott Park | MLive.com IF YOU GO Albion Malleable Brewing Company 420 S. Superior St Albion, Michigan 49224 517-343-2202 Facebook albionmalleable.com The interior at Albion Malleable Brewing Company in the search for Michigan's Best Burger on Friday, March 6, 2020. Albion Malleable was one of three stops in the Jackson area in the search.J. Scott Park | MLive.com Special thanks to Michigans Best Burger search sponsor, the Greater Lansing Convention and Visitors Bureau. See the Top 10 Countdown show. MORE MICHIGANS BEST BURGER STORIES Michigans Best Burger: See our first 25 finalists Michigan restaurant owners talk about how to save their livelihood, community during coronavirus outbreak See photos from search for Michigans Best Burger in Grand Rapids area See photos from Schlenkers Sandwich Shop in Jackson See photos from Rookies Burger Bar in Jackson See photos from Halo Burger in Flint See photos from search for Michigan's Best Burger in Kalamazoo area Is Michigan's Best Burger at a whiskey and vintage arcade bar in Grand Rapids? This Muskegon favorite is a finalist for Michigans Best Burger Is Michigans Best Burger topped with bacon jam? Follow our Michigans Best adventures on Social Media @mlivemibest on Twitter @mlivemibest on Instagram Facebook at MLiveMIBest. Join in by using the hashtags #mibest and #bestburger In addition: Amy Sherman is on Twitter @amyonthetrail, as well as Facebook and Instagram @amyonthetrail. Email: asherma2@mlive.com John Gonzalez is on Twitter @michigangonzo, as well as Facebook and Instagram @MichiganGonzo. Email: gonzo@mlive.com New Delhi, July 31 : As the economy goes through a severe slowdown, which is likely to impact businesses further, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said that the government's focus is now on loan restructuring and talks are underway with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on this. "The focus is on restructuring. The Finance Ministry is actively engaged with the RBI on this. In principle, the idea that restructuring may be required is well taken," Sitharaman said at a FICCI webinar. Of late, several industry players and bodies have sought a one-time restructuring of loans in the wake of the economic slowdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the probability of companies not being in a position to repay their dues. The Finance Minister said that every step taken by the government to deal with the current situation has been undertaken after exhaustive consultation with the stakeholders and industry experts. She also noted the requirement of extension of the moratorium or a restructuring for the hospitality sector and said that the government is working with the RBI on that front. "I fully understand the requirements of the hospitality sector on extension of the moratorium or restructuring. We are working with RBI on this," Sitharaman said. On the ECLGS scheme for MSMEs, she said that banks cannot refuse credit to MSMEs covered under emergency credit facility and in case of any refusal, such instances must be reported which she would look into. On the trade front, she said that reciprocal arrangements are being considered with other countries for which India has opened up its markets. "Reciprocity is a very critical point in our trade negotiations," she said. India is in the midst of talks for a trade deal with the US and also regarding FTAs with other countries. As Myanmar gears up for general elections on Nov. 8, it remains unclear whether voting will be held in war-ravaged northern Rakhine state, where fighting between government forces and the rebel Arakan Army (AA) has raged for 20 months, leaving scores of civilians dead and displacing around 200,000 others. The Union Election Commission (UEC), which organizes and manages Myanmars elections, is waiting for a determination by the military-controlled defense and home affairs ministries as to whether it is safe enough to hold balloting in Rakhine. However, ethnic parties, such as the predominant Arakan National Party (ANP), argue that constituencies that have borne the brunt of the armed conflict need their representation in government and that voters trust in the democratic system will erode if polling is cancelled. In the last general elections in 2015, balloting was not held in some areas affected by ethnic conflict. Though voting was held in Rakhine state at the time, the minority Rohingya Muslim population was disenfranchised, with officials invalidating their temporary documents prior to going to the polls. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya still living in Rakhine, despite military-led crackdowns on their communities in 2016 and 2017 that prompted more than 800,000 to flee across the border and into Bangladesh, will not have the right to vote in the 2015 elections. In the meantime, the Rakhine State Election Subcommission has prepared nearly all of the states roughly 2,600 polling stations for balloting by 1.6 million eligible voters in Rakhine, should elections be held there. Commission chairwoman Tin Hlaing spoke with reporter Soe Soe Aung from RFAs Myanmar Service about the bodys preparations for the voting. The Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: What has the Rakhine State Election Subcommission done so far? Tin Hlaing: The Rakhine State Election Subcommission has prepared to hold elections in all 17 townships in Rakhine according to its policy. We have 2,596 polling stations. We also have prepared materials for these polling stations. RFA: Many people in Rakhine state do not have national ID cards now because they fled their homes due to the armed conflict. Many houses have burned down as well. How will they be able to vote without ID cards or other documents? Tin Hlaing: We cant say for now. It wil depend on the situation on the ground during election time. We have made a list of voter names, and we have to check it again with village and township heads. We can only think of possible ways right now. RFA: Some have asked election officials to set up polling stations at internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. Is this feasible? Tin Hlaing: We have government-recognized IDP camps and others set up by civil society organizations. We already have polling station lists according to townships and have asked for materials only for those stations. We have to ask for a detailed list of materials thats why we cant arrange to set up polling stations at all IDP camps. It will depend on the security situation on the ground at that time. If we wanted to set up polling stations at the IDP camps, then we would have to report it to the Union Election Commission, and the UEC would decide on it. RFA: Which Rakhine township concerns you the most in terms of security? Tin Hlaing A: I didnt say we are concerned about security. I said security is important. We cant decide where to hold the elections. Security-related ministries or departments, such as the Ministry of Home Affairs, will decide according to the on-the-ground situations, and the UEC will announce the locations of polling stations when the election date gets closer. In 2015, township names and polling station locations were announced in October for the November elections. Now, it is still too early to announce them. RFA: Can you guarantee that elections will be held in Rakhine? Tin Hlaing: The Rakhine State Election Subcommission cannot guarantee it. We cant decide whether the elections will be held or where they will be held. Reported by Soe San Aung for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. DETROIT - Diabetes, obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are all common diseases that can lead to serious health implications. NAFLD affects over 30% of Americans, and is characterized as a fatty liver, which can progress to an inflammatory and fibrotic liver, called nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), as well as liver cirrhosis. The molecular causes of NAFLD and NASH are still not fully understood and, to date, no FDA-approved drug is available for NAFLD. A major hurdle for scientists is understanding the causal relationships between NAFLD, diabetes and obesity, which are often presented together in patients and treated as comorbidities. Without a clear understanding of their causal relationship and root cause, drug development may fail. Faculty from Wayne State University's Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences are leading a team of researchers to understand the causal relationships between these three diseases in hopes of developing a treatment. Wanqing Liu, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Wayne State, along with his collaborators from the University of Michigan, Eugene Y. Chen, Ph.D. and Cristen Willer, Ph.D., recently published the paper, "Causal relationships between NAFLD, T2D and obesity have implications for disease subphenotyping," in the Journal of Hepatology that attempts to understand the molecular causes of NAFLD. The team conducted a large-scale genomic analysis called Mendelian randomization, a strategy similar to a randomized clinical trial that relies on a naturally occurred randomization of genetic alleles in human populations. "We used genomic data of over 400,000 individuals obtained from a biobank in the United Kingdom, in which more than 500,000 residents have been sequenced for their genome and shared their health data," said Liu. "We also leveraged genomic data of nearly 900,000 individuals that are a part of an international consortium researching diabetes and obesity. This largest-to-date data analysis allows us for the first time to determine the causal relationship between NAFLD and type-2 diabetes (T2D), as well as between NAFLD and obesity." The team discovered that NAFLD can be separated into at least two subtypes, those mainly caused by "nature" (genetics) and those caused by "nurture" (metabolic syndrome such as T2D or obesity as a primary cause). Genetically driven NAFLD can promote the development of an atypical type of diabetes that is characterized by hyperglycemia, but not necessarily insulin resistance. Surprisingly, NAFLD does not lead to overall obesity, but rather promotes the development of central obesity. This NAFLD subtype is also characterized by a lower blood level of cholesterol. In the "nurture" model, both T2D and obesity or central obesity can lead to the development of NAFLD. In this case, NAFLD may be secondary to T2D or obesity. To further verify these findings, Liu and his team developed a genetically engineered mouse model with a human mutation created in the patatin like phospholipase domain containing 3 (PNPLA3) gene, a known genetic cause for NAFLD in humans. Working with this model along with a team from Charlie Dong Ph.D.'s lab at the Indiana University School of Medicine, the researchers confirmed findings discovered in human genomic data. "This study has important implications for disease classification, diagnosis and drug development," said Liu. "Further, it highlighted the importance of the development of precision medicine for both prevention and treatment of these diseases. For example, the study indicated that individuals having a high genetic risk for NAFLD may appear to be 'healthy' given that they tend to be lean, less resistant to insulin, and have low or regular blood cholesterol levels. However, they are likely underdiagnosed for NAFLD, leading to a higher risk of disease progression in these individuals. For the patients who have this disease subtype, drug development should be focused on targeting the genetic causes in the liver. On the other hand, people having a high genetic risk for diabetes and obesity who also develop NAFLD are likely to benefit from reducing their weight and controlling blood glucose." The team also found that NAFLD caused by the PNPLA3 gene mutation may actually develop a late-onset type 1 diabetes rather than the typical T2D characterized by insulin resistance. While this must be further clarified clinically in human patients, it is a reminder that many T2D patients may be misdiagnosed and their treatment should be altered accordingly. ### In addition to Wanqing Liu, authors of the paper include Zhipeng Liu, Ph.D., and Yang Zhang, Ph.D., a graduate student and postdoctoral fellow of the Liu lab, respectively; and Sarah Graham, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow of Willer's group. Other coauthors include Drs. Xiaokun Wang (postdoctoral fellow of the Liu lab), Defeng Cai (visiting scholar of the Liu lab), Menghao Huang (postdoctoral fellow of the Dong lab), as well as Roger Pique-Regi, Ph.D., associate professor of the Center of Molecular and Medical Genetics at Wayne State. This research was supported by a grant to Wayne State University from the National Institutes of Health (He), start-up funding from Wayne State's Office of the Vice President for Research, and additional NIH funding to Indiana University from the National Institutes of Health (R21AA024550, R01DK091592, R56DK091592), Indiana Diabetes Research Center (P30DK097512), and the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (UL1TR002529.). Wayne State University is one of the nation's pre-eminent public research institutions in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, the state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit research.wayne.edu. O: The Oprah Magazine has covered a wide swath of American culture since it started 20 years ago, but all of its 241 issues have had one thing in common: Oprah Winfrey, the publications founder and editorial director, has been on the cover. That will change with the September issue, which will be available on newsstands Aug. 11. The new cover, unveiled Thursday, features a portrait of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman who was shot and killed by the police in her home in Louisville, Ky., in March. Ms. Winfrey started an essay for the issue with her name, writing: Breonna Taylor. She was just like me. She was just like you. Ms. Winfrey ended the essay by explaining why she had decided to give up the cover spot of her namesake magazine: What I know for sure: We cant be silent. We have to use whatever megaphone we have to cry for justice. And that is why Breonna Taylor is on the cover of O magazine. Along with George Floyd, the Black man who was killed by a Minneapolis officer in May, Ms. Taylor has been a central figure for protesters who have taken to the streets to demonstrate against racism and police violence in recent months. UPDATE: Britney has been located and is safe, police said. ---- STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The city Police Department is seeking the publics assistance in locating a 17-year-old female who has been reported missing. Britney Toro was last seen at her home on the 300 block of Bradley Avenue in Meiers Corners on Sunday around 2 p.m., according to a statement from the NYPDs Deputy Commissioner of Public Information. Police described Toro as Hispanic, 5 feet, 7 inches tall, around 140 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair. She was last seen wearing a black shirt, black shorts, and Adidas slippers. Anyone with information in regard to her whereabouts is asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or on Twitter @NYPDTips. All calls are strictly confidential. Mumbai, July 31 : Actor Amit Sadh says there are no small roles or big roles, just small thinking and big intentions. "There are no small roles or big roles. There are small thinking and big intentions. Something that I firmly believe is that it is the audience's love and acceptance that makes something big," Amit tweeted. "I'm fortunate I've been able to connect with audiences/fans/viewers in a way I could never imagine. And for that a heartfelt thank you to each & every one of you. Let's continue this ride. Lots of love," he added. Amit had three releases this weekend. In the Vidya Balan-starrer "Shakuntala Devi", he has a small but interesting role as Ajay Kumar, husband of Shakuntala Devi's daughter, Anupama. In the web series "Avrodh: The Siege Within", he has the central role of Major Tango, an on-screen version of the real-life hero who spearheaded the mission. Avrodh: The Siege Within" is directed by Raj Acharya, and it also features Darshan Kumar, Pavail Gulati, Neeraj Kabi, Madhurima Tuli, Anant Mahadevan, Vikram Gokhale and Arif Zakaria. The 10-part series went live on an OTT platform on July 31. That apart he also features in the OTT-released film, "Yaara". In talks with her Chinese counterpart Thursday, Indonesias foreign minister expressed profound concerns about deaths of Indonesian workers aboard Chinese fishing vessels, as one of her staff announced that four more sailors had died in May and June, with their bodies tossed into the sea in July. The announcement about the four deaths, which were not reported earlier, brought to at least 12 the number of Indonesian crew members on Chinese-flagged fishing boats who have died at sea since November 2019. According to labor activists and Indonesian officials, some of the sailors who died were treated harshly and made to work in strenuous conditions aboard those boats. I conveyed the Indonesian governments profound concerns about the various incidents that befell Indonesian crews on board of Chinese fishing boats, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said after she and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met online for talks. Specifically, we urged the Chinese government to conduct a thorough investigation, followed by legal action, in connection with the deaths, the disposal of the bodies and improper working conditions, Retno told an online press conference. Judha Nugraha, the foreign ministrys director for the protection of Indonesians overseas, said the government had received information that four Indonesians working on two Chinese fishing boats had died in May and June. Judha said the sailors bodies were buried at sea in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean in July, despite requests by Indonesian representatives in Singapore, Beijing and Guangzhou that they be repatriated to their home country. We are very concerned about the [sea burials] even though the practice is allowed in the maritime world, but that should be a last resort when repatriation is no longer possible, Judha told the same press conference. He said the ministry had reported the deaths to the police for an investigation and summoned labor agencies, which had recruited and deployed the sailors to Chinese boats, to ensure that the rights of the deceased and their families were met. On Tuesday, the ministry summoned Chinas ambassador to Jakarta, Xiao Qian, to convey the Indonesian governments demand for an investigation, Judha said. Chinese embassy officials could not be immediately reached for comment. During Thursdays meeting, Chinas top diplomat promised to take the matter seriously, according to Santo Darmosumarto, director for the East Asia desk at the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. [Wang Yi] agreed that this case should be given special attention and an investigation will be undertaken in accordance [with] Indonesia's request, Santo told reporters. So far, however, Chinese authorities have not named any suspects in connection with the deaths of Indonesian sailors. There is an inquiry at the relevant ministerial level, and there its not being treated as a criminal case, Santo said. Most Indonesians who are part of crews on foreign fishing boats have no proper working papers, making them vulnerable to exploitation, officials at the foreign ministry added. The coordinator of Destructive Fishing Watch (DFW) Indonesia, an NGO, said he had not yet received a report about the deaths of the four sailors. There has been no report to any of our fishers centers, Mohammad Abdi Suhufan told BenarNews, , an RFA-affiliated online news service. He was referring to a 24-hour hotline service run by the nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting Indonesians working in the fishing sector. According to his organizations records, 11 Indonesian sailors had died on Chinese fishing boats, while two others were missing, he said. There were still dozens of Indonesian seamen working on Chinese boats in international waters, Suhufan added. Earlier in July, Indonesian authorities detained two Chinese boats as they sailed near Singapore after police received a tip that the body of an Indonesian sailor later identified as Hasan Afriandi, 20 had been kept in a freezer on one of the boats for a week. A Chinese national, Song Chuanyun, 50, has been named a suspect in connection with Hasans death, police said. On Monday, police said they had also arrested six executives of recruiting agencies on charges of human trafficking as part of the investigation into Hasans death. They could face 20 years in prison if convicted. In another incident, two Indonesians jumped ship in the Malacca Strait last month to escape alleged abuse on a Chinese ship, officials said. Suhufan said Indonesians working on foreign fishing boats were prone to exploitation and violence. He urged the government to temporarily ban Indonesians from working on fishing boats in international waters until adequate protection was in place. Because if its not stopped then there is no guarantee that the practice of violence and slavery will cease. So far there have been no significant progress in the governments efforts to negotiate with China, he said. The government needs to strengthen prevention efforts, and recruitment should be more selective and in accordance with the procedure, he added. Supervision of manning agents must be improved so that they are professionally managed and those who are sent work in qualified vessels. Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. UN's Bachelet alarmed by threats against prominent Iranian NGO 07/22/20 Source: The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Human Rights) GENEVA (30 July 2020) - The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said today she was alarmed by the Iranian Government's increased pressure on a prominent civil society group working on poverty and social protection, and the arrest of its founding member. Iranian authorities have pressured Imam Ali Popular Students' Relief Society (IAPSRS) to change its structure, in what appears to be an attempt to close down the organisation. On 21 June 2020, security forces from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) arrested the NGO's founder Sharmin Meymandinejad, along with colleagues Morteza Keymanesh and Katayoun Afrazeh. Mr. Meymandinejad remains in detention in Evin prison, but his two colleagues have been released on bail. On the same day, security forces sealed IAPSRS's main office in Tehran and confiscated all its documents and devices. IAPSRS was founded in 1999 and is one of the most prominent civil society organizations operating within Iran, with a network of more than 10,000 volunteers. The organization works on social issues including poverty, child offenders on death row, child labour and drug addiction among children. It has over 40 facilities in marginalized neighbourhoods across 20 provinces in Iran and provides vital support in education, healthcare, employment and livelihoods for more than 6,000 children and women. "For over 20 years this NGO has provided crucial support to marginalized sections of Iran's society, in particular vulnerable children," said Bachelet. "Children's lives will be at stake if the authorities proceed to force their hand over how it is managed, and lock up their staff. "Closing by force or altering the structure of an NGO is a severe type of restriction on the right to freedom of association and represents unlawful interference with the critical work of civil society." Did you know that the IAPSRS has donated protective equipment to more than 25 hospitals during the outbreak of #COVID19?#freesharmin pic.twitter.com/jZo5pG3a1g IAPSRS (@IAPSRS_EN) July 30, 2020 IAPSRS has recently been increasingly vocal about the impact of the Government's socio-economic policies and criticised the authorities for calling poverty-stricken protesters "rioters" in the context of the November 2019 protests in Iran. "Civic space is already restricted in Iran, and continues to shrink," said Bachelet. "IAPSRS had managed to operate within this restricted space in recent years, albeit under continued threats and harassment," she said, adding vague national security provisions were often used by the authorities to stifle dissenting voices. "The arrests and interference in IAPSRS's work is a clear example of the government's tightening of measures targeting civil society actors, including those working in the field of social protection." Mr. Meymandinejad has been subjected to a number of accusations, but no official charges have been laid and he has not been brought before a judge since his detention on 21 June. He has been denied access to a lawyer of his choice and to visits from his family. Ms. Afrazeh and Mr. Keymanesh, who were accused of crimes against national security, were released on bail on 21 and 22 July, respectively. All three were initially kept in incommunicado detention for 48 hours. Their homes were searched for hours, and security forces confiscated laptops, servers, electronic devices and hand-written documents, reportedly without a search warrant. Did you know that IAPSRS has donated food and sanitary bags to more than 15000 families in deprived neighbourhoods since the onset of #COVID19?#freesharmin pic.twitter.com/4tPSBGsKVi IAPSRS (@IAPSRS_EN) July 30, 2020 Bachelet urged the authorities to allow IAPSRS to operate with its existing structure and to cease interfering in its decision-making and its programmes. She called for the immediate release of Mr. Meymandinejad on the grounds his detention is incompatible with international human rights law. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Human Rights) Twitter: @UNHumanRights Facebook: unitednationshumanrights ST. MICHAELS, Maryland (JTA) The day is one of my most vivid and treasured memories. I was associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and we were in the middle of our flagship public policy conference. One of my responsibilities was to assign Reform Movement leaders to introduce each of our speakers. The power went right to my head, and I began by assigning myself to introduce John Lewis, the congressman from Georgia who was an icon of the civil rights movement. Somehow the many higher-ups who reviewed the list either did not see what I had done or were focused... The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on a Chinese company and two officials related to the company for what it said were human rights abuses against Uighurs and other ethnic minority people in Chinas Xinjiang province, the Treasury Department said. The move was yet another step in the deteriorating relations between the United States and China and came a week after US President Donald Trump closed the Chinese consulate in Houston, prompting Beijing to shutter the US consulate in Chengdu. Fridays move blacklisted the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, also known as XPCC, along with Sun Jinlong, former party secretary of the XPCC, and Peng Jiarui, deputy party secretary and commander of the XPCC, for their connection to serious human rights abuse against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, the Treasury said in a statement. The Treasury identified the company as a paramilitary organization in the Xinjiang region that is subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party and enhances internal control over the region by advancing Chinas vision of economic development. Washingtons action freezes any US assets of the company and officials and generally prohibits Americans from dealing with them. The Treasury also issued a license on Friday, authorizing certain wind down and divestment transactions and activities related to blocked subsidiaries of the XPCC until Sept. 30. The new move comes three weeks after Washington imposed sanctions on the autonomous region of Xinjiangs Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, a member of Chinas powerful Politburo, and three other officials. Chen was described as the highest ranking Chinese official that the United States has sanctioned. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps is a quasi-military group created in 1954 and initially made up of demobilized soldiers, who spent part of their time in military training and the rest turning the regions arid land into farms. Civilian members from eastern China later joined the corps, and it now numbers 3.11 million people, or more than 12% of the regions population. It is almost entirely made up of Han Chinese in a region that is home to the Muslim Uighur people. Experts have said the group is like a state within a state and has established new cities in the region with schools and universities and jurisdiction over police and courts. China denies that Uighurs are unfairly marginalized, and says it is addressing underdevelopment and lack of jobs in heavily Uighur areas. New Delhi: To prevent any distorted depiction of the Indian Army in films and Web series, the Defence Ministry has asked filmmakers to obtain a no-objection certificate from it before the telecast of any film, documentary or Web series on Army themes. The ministry also said producers should be advised to ensure that any incident that distorts the defence forces image or hurts their sentiments be prevented. Some production houses are making Army theme films using content that are distorting the Armys image, the letter said. Sources said the defence ministry got some complaints raising objections about the portrayal of Indian Army personnel and military uniforms in an insulting manner in Web series. In some Web series, the Army scenes were far from reality and gave a distorted image of the armed forces, said sources. Some concerned citizens and ex-servicemens associations had even lodged FIRs against a production house seeking legal action on the producer and the OTT platform, the sources said. Netflix has a strategy to acquire more Korean content. Screen captured from Netflix By Lee Gyu-lee While the Korean TV drama industry is witnessing a rapid change in its success formula shifting its emphasis from the domestic scene to the global market streaming giant Netflix is playing a major role, offering lucrative deals and a doorway to international traction that local production studios cannot resist. And local viewership is no longer a key metric. Actor Lee Min-ho from "The King: Eternal Monarch." / Courtesy of SBS Star-studded TV series "The King: Eternal Monarch," which ended with a disappointing viewership rating of 8 percent, is the most recent example as it was able to reach its break-even point even before going to air. The 32 billion won ($26.8 million) budget series reportedly recouped its total production cost from the broadcast deal with the SBS network and the overseas licensing agreement with Netflix, relieving pressure on the viewership rating in Korea. "Netflix approaches with undeniably good deals, so probably most of the production studios want to work with the company," a local production company official told The Korea Times, asking not to be named. Netflix launched in Korea in 2016 and has implemented aggressive investment strategies to expand local content and market penetration. Industry tracker WiseApp estimated that Netflix had 3.28 million subscribers in April up from 1.42 million in April last year. In an effort to restrain Netflix from entering the domestic market, major terrestrial networks MBC, SBS and KBS made an informal agreement not to sell newly aired TV series to Netflix. But the arrangement ended in 2018 when SBS Content Hub sold the streaming rights for "Hymn of Death" to Netflix, as advertisement revenue for the three-part miniseries was hard to generate. The series became available on the platform worldwide on the same day it aired on SBS. Since then, Netflix has secured shows from a number of broadcasters, paying a big portion of the series' production costs through global licensing deals. Netflix covered at least 65 percent of the 43 billion won ($36 million) production cost for tvN's 2018 blockbuster series "Mr. Sunshine." SBS's "Vagabond" collected about half its 25 billion won ($21 million) budget from Netflix while MBC's "Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung" received its entire 13 billion won ($11 million) budget from the company last year. This year, several TV series tvN's "It's Okay to Not Be Okay" and "Crash Landing on You," JTBC's "Itaewon Class" and SBS's "The King: Eternal Monarch" and "Hyena" were sold to Netflix for worldwide streaming, available on the same day they aired on TV. Korean media outfit CJ ENM and its subsidiary Studio Dragon even inked a three-year production and distribution agreement with Netflix to provide over 20 series and produce original series starting this year. JTBC subsidiary JTBC studios also signed a distribution partnership with Netflix under similar conditions. "Netflix values the power of storytelling as we believe it appeals beyond borders and across genres," Netflix told The Korea Times. "So, we intend to continue to deliver Korea's high-quality storytelling to our audiences worldwide." Netflix picked up tvN's "It's Okay to Not Be Okay" to release on its platform on the same day as it was broadcast. Courtesy of tvN And in doing so, the platform has become the most sought-after company to work with among local production companies. The production company official said Netflix's generous payments offer significant relief for the production. "When we produce a series, making the budget is always hard for many reasons, especially with a low viewership rating," the official said. "So when Netflix purchases the license, it means we can just get on track with the production." Thanks to Netflix, the production studios now have another source of earnings, rather than solely relying on the networks. This frees the studios from tension with the local broadcasters and changes the dynamic of TV productions, says drama critic Yun Suk-jin, who is also a Korean literature professor at Chungbuk National University. "The networks always dominated the production process as they are the ones assigning the timeslot," Yun said. He added that this gave broadcasters the power to alter details, storylines, or even the concept of a series. "Dramas would only go into production if proposals were approved by the network, so (production companies) had limitations as they had no choice but to accept the network's demands," he explained. This freedom from the pressures of the networks also creates better-quality dramas, according to the professor. He said that since the networks cover only a portion of the production cost, ad revenue used to be another primary funding source for the studios. "Especially, small productions will put in an excessive amount of product placement to make a profit, which will downgrade the quality of the series," Yun said. JTBC's "Itaewon Class," left, and tvN's "Crash Landing on You" are streamed worldwide on Netflix. Courtesy of JTBC and tvN Another factor that makes Netflix popular is worldwide streaming. This offers a series the chance to gain international traction and shortens the tedious export process. "Being a global streaming giant has a substantial advantage in the market," pop culture critic Kim Hern-sik said, adding that it opens up a new model for content exports. "In the past, the network or production company went 'door-to-door' with each overseas network to export a TV series," he said. "So it would take years and sometimes would fall apart along the way, which would just be a waste of time and money." As Netflix is available in over 190 countries, the network can now utilize it to appeal to other markets, which will have a "great impact on possible deals for remakes overseas." However, as the platform takes Korea by storm, its growing presence is also raising some concerns of excessive control over the local content market. "Netflix receives so many content proposals, so they get to review and select which to work on and turn down," the production company official said. The deep-pocketed company is likely to become the dominant source that monitors and selects the content available to audiences, shaping the market. Netflix has also been accused of "freeloading" in Korea's OTT (over-the-top) ecosystem for refusing to pay local telecom companies for network service use in Korea. This is seen as an unfair advantage as other local streaming services such as Seezn, Wavve and Watcha are required to pay. A scene from tvN's drama "Hotel Del Luna," which will be remade in the U.S. Courtesy of tvN Emanuel Pastreich stands at Imjingak's Pyeonghwa-Nuri Park in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, June 25, 2020. Courtesy of Emanuel Pastreich By Emanuel Pastreich Exactly 70 years ago, the Korean People's Army crossed over from up there and set out to invade, or (as those in the North thought) to liberate, the southern part of Korea. The division into North and South was artificial, a product of the geopolitical struggles between the United States and the Soviet Union that emerged as the consensus on the need for a new international approach to governance that had powered the struggle against fascism faded into the background. The United States and the Soviet Union had worked together as allies against the ruthless fascist push to destroy wide swaths of humanity in the pursuit of profit and against an agenda of eugenics that assumed much of humanity had no rights at all, not even the right to exist. This invasion of the South was not the start of the conflict, but it transformed it. Getting right the historical and cultural significance of what happened 70 years ago is critical to the future of the United States and above all, to the continued role of the United States in East Asia. As an American who was trained as an Asia expert and has spent a career trying to understand Asia, and to make a concrete contribution to Asia's future, this question of what the United States' role has been, and what is can be, is critical. Although it is clear that there are numerous examples of Americans, and of American institutions, that have made positive contributions in Korea to the lives of the people, those efforts were mixed with other, far less benign, activities. As the United States turns back to extreme isolationism, as racist and anti-Asian rhetoric spills out from the corporate media in the United States, as we see the commitment in the United States to Korea increasingly conditional on the sales of weapons, the hyping of a China threat and a North Korea threat, the greatest danger is that everything that the United States did of value will be buried in a wave of anti-American sentiment, some of it with justification. We can already see that wave coming. But the response cannot be to embrace the American flag and try to defend the indefensible. If we Americans do that, we will no longer have any positive role in East Asia, and I fear we will no longer have any role in the world either. Our only choice is to condemn the racist and destructive efforts to blame the American culture of decadence and corruption on East Asia and to go forward with a new vision for America's role in Asia, and in the world, that makes a clean break from the destructive habit of promoting conflict, competition, containment and consumption. We can, we must, embrace a vision based on cooperation, coexistence, climate science and cultural exchange. Let us go back to the moment on June 25, 1950 when the Korean People's Army swept down though Gaeseong toward Seoul, through Chuncheon to Hongcheon and through Gangneung towards Pohang. It was a tremendous shift in the nature of society. Family members would not be able to see each other again, millions would die in a war that produced one of the highest percentages of civilian deaths in history. Nothing would be normal again. As we today anxiously await a return to "normal," a return to an environment in which we can work as we did before, travel as we did before, we cannot help thinking about that terrible transformation of Korea 70 years ago. But the invasion was most certainly not the start of the conflict. The uprising against the administration of Rhee Syngman in the south that started on Jeju on April 3, 1948, would leave tens of thousands dead. It was, in effect, a war. So also conflicts between Christian and socialist groups in Pyongyang were equally catastrophic and tragic in the years before 1950. The conflict was a continuation of the battle against colonialism and imperialism that had been going on for decades beneath the surface in Korea, and in China, in Vietnam and even in Japan itself. The nature of the political and cultural struggle in Asia started to shift even before June 25. The collapse of the Chinese economy in 1948 and the collapse of the Guomindang (Republican Party) of China altered the political landscape. When Mao Zedong made his declaration of the People's Republic of China on October 3, 1949, the United States was pushed by domestic factions to move away from the anti-fascism alliance with the Soviet Union, and the efforts to avoid taking a stand against the Chinese Communist Party. Pro-business groups in the United States campaigned for close affiliation with the British Empire, for the United States to take advantage of the opportunities for power and financial advantage to be gained from accepting the mantle of a decayed London-based global system. The battle against fascism, the battle against eugenics and racism was buried in a cynical campaign of "Who lost China?" That campaign was designed to remove all sense of complexity about the political and economic situation and to make the United States the bastion for an anti-communist global campaign. It was a tragic choice that was made in Washington D.C. The United Nations was not able to realize its sacred mission as an international organization, promoting internationalism, and the gates were opened for a treacherous form of globalism that would lead the United States in a dangerous direction. That is not all. The dream of establishing a culturally and politically open Korea, a unified Korea freed from the shackles of colonialism that had been held up by the Shanghai provisional government under Kim Gu, and also by other Korean groups across Asia, was shunted aside. Voices of reason and cooperation in the United States were silenced through a campaign that suppressed all so-called "leftist" discourse in policy. The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee was formed in 1950 in the United States and set out to destroy thoughtful Americans who tried to cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party in any way in the pursuit of peace. Most notable was the attack on the thoughtful and insightful Chinese scholar Owen Lattimore for his promotion of the investigation of the truth. That campaign made cooperation impossible and permanently altered the United States' role in Korea, and in East Asia. The battle against fascism, against colonialism, against racism a battle that had been supported by many thoughtful Americans was buried. Where do we stand today, 70 years later? The United States still has many troops here in Korea and the Korean Peninsula is still divided. The political establishment in Washington D.C. and in Seoul assumes that somehow the United States must have troops in South Korea forever. There is no vision at all for when American troops will go home, or how Koreans will be brought together again. But the United States constitution says nothing about the United States stationing the military abroad for 70 years. When President Donald Trump says that American troops will be withdrawn unless the Republic of Korea coughs up an enormous amount of money, he is representing cynical financial interests that want to squeeze more out of Koreans. But he is also appealing to a profound truth: the United States is not supposed to have troops in Korea forever and a military alliance is something that requires a state of war and should not be the driving force in a relationship between two nations. Cooperation in education, science, culture, cooperation in understanding the true threats of our age and responding to them must be the true goal of our relationship. As an independent candidate for president of the United States, I would like to put forth a new vision today for what the United States relationship with Korea will be from this day forward, from the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. We will promote cooperation between Koreans and Americans to respond to the true security challenges of the 21st century. The development of nuclear weapons by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is not anywhere near the top of that list and the question of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula cannot be solved until the United States itself completely commits itself to the principles of the nonproliferation treaty and sets a plan for the United States to quickly get rid of all the dangerous nuclear weapons that remain in our country. Cooperation between Americans and Koreans will not be limited to South Koreans. Americans should work with all thoughtful, brave and peace-loving Koreans, whether they are in South Korea, North Korea, China, Japan, Russia or the United States itself, to pursue an inspiring vision for what can be realized on the peninsula. Security will be a critical part of that project. But we will have to redefine security. Security must be a global response to the four horsemen of the apocalypse. That response must be along the lines of the battle against fascism of the 1930s and 1940s, and not the tragic division of the Korean Peninsula in the 1950s. That tragic division must end, and it must end now. It must end today. What are the four horsemen of the apocalypse? Well, at this point, the term "apocalypse" is no longer hyperbole. The apocalypse is no longer for fundamentalists anymore. "Halleluiah! I believe!" The first horseman of the apocalypse is the collapse of the climate, the death of the oceans, the spread of deserts and horrific destruction of biodiversity brought on by the thoughtless pursuit of a consumption and growth economy. The second horseman of the apocalypse is the radical concentration of wealth in the hands of a few billionaires who plot now to control finance and currency completely through their supercomputer networks and to create a human-free economy for their own profit and amusement. The third horseman of the apocalypse is the rapid evolution of technology that is rendering humans as passive animals that have lost all agency and are incapable of meaningful political action. This transformation is pushed forward by the promotion of artificial intelligence and automation in a cynical effort to increase profits for the few while dumbing down citizens through the promotion of consumption. The fourth horseman of the apocalypse is the extreme militarization of the economy, often out of sight for citizens, which has set off an unlimited global arms race on land, on the oceans, and now even in space that could easily be the end of humanity. These horrific developments must be the focus of an international effort to create a sustainable future for our children and that effort must be at the center of any cooperation between the United States and Korea. To put it more sharply, if cooperation with Korea is not directly related to a concrete and immediate response to those four horsemen of the apocalypse, then that cooperation should stop. We do not have the funds, the manpower, or the time to pursue projects that are unrelated to the central imperative of saving humanity. Finally, the unification of the Korean Peninsula offers us a tremendous opportunity, one that comes only once in 500 years, an opportunity for Koreans to lay the foundations for a nation that will not only offer inspiration for its citizens, but a new hope for all citizens on Earth. Koreans can create new institutions on a massive scale that cannot be easily done in other nations precisely because Korea is in the midst of a massive transformation. Korea can end the use of fossil fuels, create finance that is focused on citizens, not international investment banks and pursue an honest and brave internationalism that brings us together for true cooperation. The frugal and modest lives of North Koreans are not something that must be quickly replaced by mindless consumption or thoughtless development. If anything, North Korea is perfectly positioned to be a nation that is 100 percent fossil-fuel free. North Korea can take the brave position that the minerals and the coal beneath its forests and fields shall remain there, untouched by multinational corporations because it is the people, and the ecosystem, that are far, far more valuable than money. This tradition of sustainability, of humanism, and of moral philosophy date far back in Korea. I have had occasion to learn about Korean concepts like "hongik" (the spread of benefit to all members of society, or "seonbi" (the intellectual committed to social justice). Those ideas will bring Koreans together, will unify Korea. It will not be the investment banks or sovereign wealth funds. The United States, or more accurately, those in the United States who are deeply committed to peace, to freedom and to the fight against totalitarianism and against the destruction of our ecosystem, must combine forces with similar movements around the world much as we did in the 1930s and 1940s. There will be a struggle, but it must be one that is inspiring based on the pursuit and on a scientific approach to policy, and that brings back the best of the American traditions of internationalism from that time, traditions that have been buried for so long. That means tearing down the DMZ. That means reaching out to those with the will to address real security threats; that means creating a new future for Korea, for Northeast Asia and for the world. I cannot support Donald Trump's rhetoric, especially the racist message of "Make American Great Again." But I will say that, with the help of all citizens of Korea, of Northeast Asia and of our precious Earth, we can work together to give hope again to the discouraged and the oppressed. In that process, I believe, we can take the first steps towards making America great for the first time. This study, just accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters, is the first evidence for large scale dynamical differences between active and non-active galaxies in the local universe. The astronomers participating are from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL); as well as the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (IAA). There is now evidence that the supermassive black holes at the centres of the majority of galaxies have a basic influence on their evolution. In some of them, the black hole is ingesting the material surrounding it at a very high rate, emitting a large quantity of energy. In those cases we say that the galaxy has an active nucleus (AGN). The material which feeds the AGN must initially be quite distant from the nucleus, in the disc of the galaxy, rotating around its centre. This gas must, one way or another, have been "braked" in order to fall into the central zone, a process known as loss of angular momentum. "Studying the mechanisms which control the relation between the active nucleus and the rest of the galaxy -explains Ignacio del Moral Castro, a doctoral student in the IAC and the University of La Laguna (ULL) and first author of the article- is necessary to understand how these objects form and evolve, and to be able to throw light on this question we need to compare active and non-active galaxies. With this purpose, the main idea of my doctoral thesis is centred on the study and comparison of galaxies which are almost twin, but with the difference being nuclear activity". The work has consisted of comparing the dynamics of the galactic discs of various active/non-active pairs. The researchers used data from the CALIFA survey (Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area). This contains spectroscopic data over complete 2D fields for more than 600 galaxies, taken at the Calar Alto Observatory in Almeria, which allow observations of virtually the whole of each galaxy, so that its global characteristics can be studied. Novel methodology Previously, in the majority of studies the procedure used was the identification of a sample of active galaxies within a large survey, which were then compared to the rest of the galaxies in the survey having similar properties which do not show nuclear activity. However, this time, the researchers used a novel method: they performed one-to-one comparisons. Firstly, they identified active spiral galaxies in the CALIFA sample, and for each of them they looked for a non-active galaxy which had equivalent global properties, i.e. with the same mass, brightness, orientation and so on, and very similar in appearance. Using this method the team put forward two scenarios to explain the dynamical differences between active and non-active galaxies. In the first, the explanation would be that it is the trace of the angular momentum transfer between the gas which has fallen into the centre and the material which remains in the disc. The second attributes the difference to the infall of gas from outside, via the capture of small nearby satellite galaxies, in which case, this capture should occur more frequently in the active galaxies. Both scenarios are compatible with this result and they are not mutually exclusive. "The result surprised us; we really didn't expect to find this type of differences on a large scale, give that the duration of the active phase is very short in comparison with the lifetime of a galaxy, and with the time needed to produce morphological and dynamical changes", says Begona Garcia Lorenzo, and IAC researcher, and a coauthor of the article. "Up to now we thought that all galaxies go through active phases during their lifetimes, but this result could mean that this is not the case, which would imply a major change to current models", adds Cristina Ramos Almeida, also an IAC researcher and coauthor of the article. ### Article: I. del Moral-Castro, B. Garcia-Lorenzo, C. Ramos Almeida, T. Ruiz-Lara, J. Falcon-Barroso, S.F. Sanchez, P. Sanchez-Blazquez, I. Marquez, and J. Masegosa. "Larger R in the disc of isolated active spiral galaxies than in their non-active twins". Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters, 2020, 639, L9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202038091 Arxiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.12654 It was unclear whether Kadhimi would run for a second term if the early elections take place. Two other political leaders who had sought to become prime minister before Kadhimi had failed to win broad backing from Iraqs divided political scene, and lawmakers from a crucial parliamentary bloc backed by Iran said they agreed to Kadhimis selection only if he would not run for reelection. A bus driver of Asian descent was physically assaulted in San Francisco last week while trying to enforce mask rules, police said. The driver, who is employed by San Franciscos Municipal Railway, or Muni, was struck by a wooden bat several times when attempting to escort three men off the bus after they refused to put on masks, according to the San Francisco Police Department. Roger Marenco, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 250, which represents Muni drivers, told NBC Asian America that the victim, who was also spat on, told him that the three men used racial slurs at some point. Officer Robert Rueca, a department spokesman, said a preliminary investigation did not indicate that race was a factor in this assault. However, as further details arise, the focus of the investigation could shift, he said. No arrests have been made. The three men reportedly boarded the bus without wearing masks. After they refused the drivers orders to comply with the facial covering requirement, the driver pulled the bus over. An altercation ensued as the driver tried to escort the men off the bus and they eventually fled the scene in an unknown direction, Rueca said. Marenco said that while this was a particularly severe confrontation, arguments prompted by the public transports face mask requirement have happened on a daily basis. He said he hopes the general public can step in to support drivers whenever possible, by documenting similar incidents on video or calling the authorities, or reminding other riders that boarding without a mask is a violation. If you see an operator trying to assist with facial coverings, could you please assist the operator so that he or she is not verbally assaulted or physically attacked because the operators are just trying to do their job and keep everyone in the bus as safe as possible, he said. Though this incident has not been classified as a hate crime, data shows that there has been a significant uptick in hate incidents directed at Asian Americans since the start of the pandemic. The reporting tool Stop AAPI Hate collected reports on more than 800 incidents of discrimination and harassment in three months during the pandemic in California alone. In one incident in the early days of the pandemic, a 68-year-old Asian man was attacked while collecting cans in San Francisco in February. The altercation was caught on camera, showing bystanders piling on and hurling racist insults at the man. Brazil's first lady Michelle Bolsonaro tested positive for the new coronavirus Thursday, the government said, after her husband spent two weeks in quarantine with it. The announcement came five days after President Jair Bolsonaro said he was over his illness and had resumed his normal work routine. Michelle Bolsonaro, 38, "is in good health and will follow all established protocols," the president's office said. Bolsonaro, 65, has faced criticism for his handling of the pandemic as Brazil has surged to become the country with the second-highest number of infections and deaths in the world, after the United States: more than 2.5 million and 91,000, respectively. The far-right president, who has compared the virus to a "little flu," has fought to end state and local stay-at-home measures to contain it, arguing the economic fallout could be worse than the disease itself. He is instead pushing the drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, and took it himself when he was infected, despite numerous studies finding it has no benefit against COVID-19. He again touted the medication Thursday, but did not say whether his wife was taking it. "I would like to first thank God, and second the medication I was given, hydroxychloroquine," he said in his weekly Facebook live address. "It worked for me." He also revealed he was again feeling poorly and was taking antibiotics for an undisclosed illness. "I just took a blood test, I was feeling a little weak yesterday. They found a bit of an infection," he said. "After 20 days sitting at home, you come down with other problems. I guess I got moldy lungs." Former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro's leftist nemesis, for his part said he suspected the president faked his coronavirus diagnosis to push hydroxychloroquine as a cure. "I think Bolsonaro invented his infection so he could do propaganda for this treatment," the former president (2003-2010) told a video news conference. Story continues After Bolsonaro came down with a fever and tested positive for coronavirus on July 7, he spent three weeks in quarantine in the presidential palace, holding meetings remotely. In his first public event since his illness, he greeted a crowd of supporters in the northeastern state of Piaui Thursday, removing his face mask to loud cheers. Five of Bolsonaro's ministers have also tested positive for the virus. The latest came Thursday: Science and Technology Minister Marcos Pontes. DETROIT, MI -- Schools can reopen safely this fall if people across Michigan wear masks and social distance to keep COVID-19 cases from spiking, Michigan Chief Medical Executive Dr. Joneigh Khaldun said Thursday. Khaldun said people must follow safety guidelines Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has outlined in order for schools to open safely in August during a virtual town hall co-hosted by Grand Rapids Fox 17 and WXYZ-TV in Detroit. She said the rate of infection has plateaued over the past couple of weeks after an uptick in mid-June, but the virus is unpredictable. We could be in a totally different place, either better or worse, quite frankly in a few weeks, Khaldun said. It really depends on the behaviors of everyone. Some of the other panelists invited to discuss the reopening of schools amid the coronavirus pandemic were State Superintendent Michael Rice and the superintendents of Detroit, Kalamazoo and Godfrey-Lee school districts. Districts across the state must adopt back-to-school plans by Aug. 15, including virtual, in-person instruction or a hybrid. Both Muskegon and Grand Rapids schools are considering a fully virtual start to the 2020-21 school year. School buildings were closed by executive order in March to slow the spread of COVID-19. As of Thursday, Michigan has 80,172 confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. There are currently 6,172 deaths attributed to COVID-19, in which patients tested positive for the virus. There also are 251 probable deaths, based on symptoms. Were not rolling the dice, Khaldun said about returning to school this fall. We dont know where well be. Everyone wants to know the specific number -- Whats it going to look like in one month, two months? Its hard to say.' She said this is a disease that can easily spread from person to person. It really depends on how everyone behaves, wearing masks, social distancing, Khaldun said. Ill be honest, what people do in the general community is going to be critically important to how were able to get our kids back to school. If students do return to school this fall, it will continue to be important for parents and families to follow guidelines so that children can remain in school. This is a new way of life, and you cant just be following rules in school and doing whatever at home, Khaldun said. Were all going to have to be in this together and doing the right thing so that we can come back to school but stay in school as safely as possible. Parents should have a choice between in-person or distance learning for their children, Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said. What do the parents need? What do the individual children need? Vitti asked. Then how do we provide that face to face, if the health experts in Michigan believe that can be done? He said the science doesnt support opening as normal this fall or completely shutting down schools again. Its saying that if youre going to open, you have to open differently with the COVID safety strategies in place, Vitti said. Godfrey-Lee Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Polston and Michigan Education Association Vice President Chandra Madafferi agreed that districts need proper personal protection equipment and the resources to social distance in classrooms and on school buses. But their ability to provide a safe return to school comes down to resources and funding. Rice said schools in Michigan were underfunded even before the pandemic. He said providing proper personal protection equipment or the space for social distancing is difficult for many districts. Districts are already making cuts because of falling state revenue, impacting teachers salaries and programs for students. I want to reject the premise that we have to make cuts, Rice said. If Congress does its job properly, there should be no cuts to children. Kids didnt ask to grow up in a pandemic. Education shouldnt be adversely affected by growing up in a pandemic. If Congress does its job properly, its going to pass a coronavirus bill that protects children and families in this pandemic. In addition to safety precautions, districts will also need the ability to properly contact trace to identify any infected students or staff and box the disease in and prevent the spread, Khaldun said. Polston asked parents and the community for grace as administrators work to do whats best for children. I believe its a public health crisis to not have kids in school, Polston said. If we can strictly adhere to the safety protocols that are called for in the road map, then we should do everything we can to return to face-to-face instruction while still giving parents a choice to learn at a distance. Alaina Larsen, a 4th grade teacher at Detroit Public Schools and another panelist, said many parents kept their jobs through the pandemic as essential workers. People had to continue working so that others, including teachers like herself, could get their groceries, meals or shopping delivered to them while they were home safe, she said. Its disingenuous of us to turn around and say, Well I cant teach your kids, but you can still keep doing services for me, Larsen said. We owe our community that works, that are essential workers, we owe them that choice of face-to-face. In Kalamazoo, Superintendent Rita Raichoudhuri said aging facilities without proper ventilation or room for social distancing will make a return to in-person learning more challenging. But school leaders know that students staying home has its own adverse side effects, such as higher rates of depression and more incidents of child abuse, she said. Administrators are doing some creative thinking to come up with ways to keep kids safe, including pairing siblings or neighbors on the bus ride to school in order to limit transmission among students who dont regularly see each other. Madafferi said many teachers in the unions across the state are frustrated and scared for the return to school. Many teachers are older adults, some with underlying conditions that make them more vulnerable to the virus, she said. Think about that bars and restaurants that have stricter rules right now than schools, Madafferi said. There are teachers telling me theyre going to be putting 30-some kids in a class, 70 kids on a bus, and yet, I cant have more than 10 people at my hair salon. Khaldun said theres a difference in the importance of schools over bars and restaurants. I would consider schools and education to be absolutely essential to our society, and thats why we are really doing everything we can, Khaldun said. Madafferi agreed and said many teachers want to be back in the classroom with their children but that safety must come first. We want to get our students back in the classroom, and we want to be there to provide the best quality instruction, but safety must come first, she said. Also on MLive: Kalamazoo teacher unions demand schools remain online only, warn of looming disaster Muskegon Public Schools will begin year online, superintendent says Grand Rapids superintendent recommends starting school year online-only The 45-second exchange posted on Instagram shows the officer kneeling on the man, who is seen on the ground as another officer attempts to handcuff him. As people gather around the scene, the officer pulls out the gun and tells them that he strongly suggest they back up. He also uses an expletive. Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-01 06:07:44|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BOGOTA, July 31 (Xinhua) -- At least six miners were killed and three others trapped after an explosion inside a coal mine on Friday in northeastern Colombia. The authorities have begun an investigation to establish the causes of the incident. Angelmiro Berbesi, director of the Risk Management Office in the municipality of El Zulia, said that the explosion apparently occurred due to the accumulation of gases inside the mine. "An explosion occurred inside the mine and in total there are nine trapped miners. Workers have found six bodies, the other three people are still inside and have not been located," the official told local media. Efforts are underway to rescue the trapped workers. In April, in the same region of the country, six miners died in another coal mine that did not have security measures approved by the authorities. Enditem New Delhi: Keen to expand its domestic presence, AirAsia India is evaluating the proposition of operating regional flights with A320 planes under the government's UDAN scheme. The ambitious UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik) scheme aims to connect unserved and under-served airports in the country while participating airlines would get various incentives, including viability gap funding and other financial concessions. AirAsia India, which currently has eight A320 planes, expects to have a fleet of 10 aircraft by end of this fiscal. According to a senior airline official, options of participating in UDAN are being evaluated and a decision would be taken depending on the commercial viability of the regional routes. "We are evaluating which routes can be served by A320. If it is viable, we will certainly look into it," the official told. Manufactured by Airbus, A320s are single-aisle planes that can have up to 180 seats depending on the configuration opted for by the carriers. Fares would be capped at Rs 2,500 for one-hour flights under UDAN and the first flight under the scheme is expected to take off in January 2017. Along with increasing its fleet size to 10 planes, AirAsia India also expects to have a headcount of around 1,000 by the end of March 2017. In the three months ended September 2016, the budget carrier saw its loss marginally narrow to Rs 62.18 crore from Rs 63.14 crore in the year-ago period. However, revenues increased 31 per cent to Rs 175.11 crore in the latest September quarter. The same stood at Rs 132.95 crore in the same period in 2015. AirAsia India, now a joint venture between Tatas and Malaysia's AirAsia Berhad, began operations in June 2014. Tata Sons owns 49 per cent stake while two of the airline's directors -- S Ramadorai and R Venkataramanan -- have 2 per cent shareholding, and the remaining is with AirAsia Berhad. Meanwhile, Malaysia's AirAsia Berhad has invested additional funds to the tune of Rs 115 crore in AirAsia India. Director Oliver Stone has lashed out at cancel culture and said he believes he would be attacked if his films were released in todays climate. During an interview on Sirius XM, the filmmaker claimed he would be cast out of Hollywood over movies such as Platoon, Natural Born Killers, and Wall Street. Im really out of touch. I can tell you that if I made any of my films, I dont think Id last. Id be vilified. Id be attacked. Shamed. Whatever you want to call that culture, cancel f***ing culture, he said. I mean, its just impossible. I would have had to step on so many sensitivities, he continued. You have to have some freedom to make a movie, unfortunately. You have to be rude. You can be bad. And youre going to have do to these things like step on toes. Holy cow. Do you think I could have made any one of those films? In 2017, former Playboy model Carrie Stevens and actors Patricia Arquette and Melissa Gilbert accused Stone of sexual misconduct. Stone did not respond to Stevens and Arquettes claims, but issued a comment to Deadline regarding Gilberts accusations of a humiliating and horrid audition process for 1991s The Doors. We auditioned dozens of actors for roles in The Doors and it was made clear from the outset that our film was going to be a raunchy, no-holds-barred rock n roll movie, Stone said in a statement. Anyone auditioning was told the scenes would be rehearsed and performed from a script, with my casting director, Risa Bramon Garcia, present throughout the process to ensure a safe environment for all actors who auditioned. Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up I would have had to step on so many sensitivities, Stone continued on SiriusXM, of contemporary culture. You have to have some freedom to make a movie, unfortunately. You have to be rude. You can be bad. And youre going to have to do these things like step on toes. Holy cow. Do you think I could have made any one of those films? Mallam Mamman Daura, one of President Buharis nephews has come under attack from various socio-political groups for saying that the country should jettison zoning of candidate and embrace competency of the candidate going forward. According to him, This turn by turn, it was done once, it was done twice, and it was down thriceIt is better for this country to be oneit should be the for the most competent and not for someone who comes from somewhere. For someone that was reputed to be the head of the kitchen cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari administration, many people believe such words should not have come from his mouth. Hence, the tongue lashing by the Middle Belt Forum, Ohaneze Ndigbo, Afenifere, Middle Belt Professional Forum, and the South-South Elders Forum who see him as an hypocrite at best. Such a reaction is expected in a country that is divided along religious and ethnic lines. Many things in Nigeria are still done based on citizens place of origin rather than competency that Mallam Daura is now advocating for. Merit and competency is often sacrificed at the altar of ethnicity as many people place high premium on where you are from than they do on what you can do. The Nigerian system has consistently failed to realise that there is no correlation between religion and good behaviour and vice versa. But that is not the issue here. Even though Mallam Daura made a good point, it is surprising that he chose a time like this when the Igbos are clamouring for an Igbo president to make this type of statement. Hence, his intention should be questioned. Judging by his relationship with the President, he is not the best messenger for this type of advice to the country. I dont want to believe he just woke up this week to realise that the zoning formula in the country should be discarded. For a man like him, I dont think he had ever doubted the competency of President Buhari. That made him one of the people that supported and voted for President Buhari. If that is the case, it means he was convinced that President Buhari was competent enough to rule the country and had nothing to do because of their blood ties. Or it could be both. Whichever way, he is a fan of President Buhari. Also, President Buhari was arguably not the best presidential candidate at the last general election. President Buhari could not be said to have fulfilled any of his promises and there had been no positive change in the country. Now, I believe Mamman Daura was in this country at the time his nephew was contesting for president in 2019. Given his obvious failure in office between May 2015 and February 2019, it was enough reason to make anyone know that President Buhari was not competent enough to rule any further. If he had been serious about competency, why didnt he talk his nephew into stepping down prior to the 2019 election? He couldnt say he is not aware that the country was plunged into economic misery under his nephews watch and that terrorism and insurgency is on the rise. Mr Mamman Daura needs to tell us what made him believe his nephew was competent to rule. Mallam Daura needs to be reminded that his side of the country has benefitted from the existing arrangement. For example, it is his part of the country that has the highest number of Educationally Less Developed states, ELDs. Being adjudged as ELDs gives citizens from the North a comparative advantage over citizens from the South. Take the entrance examination into Unity Schools for example. While a student from Anambra or Lagos would have to score above 60 before he or she could be admitted, a student from Sokoto or Kebbi would only have to score about 20 or less to get admitted into the same school. Obviously, that is not merit in anyway. If we are to introduce competency which goes hand in hand with merit in all of our institutions, how many of his kinsmen would be considered for anything? This is not to say that competency or merit is an exclusive reserve of the Southerners. Rather, it is to say that when one makes a statement such as this, he should consider its implications on other things as well. Thus, there is no honesty in this statement as far as I am concerned. What I see is a ploy by the North to retain power beyond 2023. If Mallam Daura had been bothered about the zoning system perpetuating a circle of incompetent leaders, why didnt he mention anything about it prior to the 2019 election? Perhaps we wouldnt have Muhammadu Buhari as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because his words would have been trusted seeing that he is close to the President and has experienced the many failures of his government first-hand. As I have said, President was not the most competent candidate at the last general election and he is not anywhere close to being the brightest Nigerian alive. But he won majorly because many people believed at the time that it was time for the North to rule till 2023. In other words, President Buhari came into office as a beneficiary of the zoning formula. Mallam Daura could not say he is oblivious of this fact. By 2023, many people are anticipating someone from the south to take over the reins of power from President Buhari. Of course, this in itself is problematic in that it is still the perennial problem of giving precedence to place of origin over merit, and in this case competency. Who determines who is competent? This is because competency in this regard is a relative issue (for many people voted President Buhari because they thought he was competent and not because he was actually competent.) What an ordinary man would describe as competency in a candidate is not what a political analyst would describe as competency. Their difference is in their level of exposure and understanding of governance. The real issue would be when one region produces the most competent candidate at every election. Imagine the competent people are from the same region each time and the person is like President Buhari that has a penchant for appointing people from his region and his religion into offices. The same people that say competency should rule over place of origin would complain of being marginalised as southerners have been saying about President Buhari as being an ethnic and religious bigot. That is not all. What if at every election, the most competent candidates when compared with others are from only one ethnic extraction? How many people in Nigeria are ready to accept two presidents from the same region ruling back to back before they come with the argument that competent people are everywhere, and inadvertently going back to the zoning formula? How many people in Nigeria have the knowledge to detach competency from ethnicity or religion? Will Northerners allow southerners rule beyond eight years at a time? Will Southerners accept the fact that Northerners could be more competent than they are if not for zoning? There are some of the questions we need to find answers to before we bring issues like zoning and competency to the table. The Nigerian electorate is not ready to come terms with issues such as these. Many Nigerians dont see any good in a candidate that is not from their region or that practice their religion. Until that change, issues like discarding zoning for competence would only remain paper talks. Unfortunately, it is not certain when religious and ethnic bias would finally be detached from politics in Nigeria. That means we have to live with that mediocre behaviour for a long time. Nigerians need to be orientated on the importance of merit over place of origin. Many Northerners have ruled the country. Yet, there is no significant improvement in that part of the country. The few Southerners that have ruled have been accused of neglect by their kinsmen. But when election comes, many of these people would still vote for someone that speaks their language and neglect another that doesnt. So, here is my advice for the country. We should still maintain the North-South zoning formula until majority of the electorates have been taught to always look out for competency and not ethnicity or religion. As I have said, that you elect someone into an office because he is from your ethnic group does not mean your ethnic group would benefit from his government. Thus, voters education is needed in this matter if we must break the barrier between zoning and competency. While that is on-going, the zone that it falls on to produce the president should strive to produce a credible candidate whose competency could be verified by many. This is because neither the North nor the South is ready to accept a prolong rule of any region on the basis of competency. And that is an impediment to seeing competency rule over zoning. After all, competent people for presidency could be found everywhere in the country. We just have to ensure that we approach election with the right intention and not because it is our turn to rule and rule we must. A health care assistant who raped a pensioner in her nursing home bed during the Covid-19 lock-down has been jailed for 11 years. The woman's family described how they have been unable to comfort their mother by hugging her as they normally would since the rape in April. The elderly woman remains terrified the man will return to her room. Her daughter told the court: We always said we will dread the day she loses her memory but now one day we hope she wakes up and doesn't remember. She described how finding a nursing home for their mother had been an emotional process but said the woman had felt happy and safe in the home. This animal took that security away, she said. We will never forget how that man single-handedly destroyed our Mam's life, she told the court. The 52-year-old man pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to raping the woman in her room at 3am on the morning of April 3, 2020 at a County Dublin nursing home. He has no previous convictions and has been in custody since his arrest in April. Mr Justice Paul McDermott noted the offence had taken place against a vulnerable elderly lady who was totally alone and helpless and was confined to her room due to the Covid-19 lockdown. He said this was an egregious breach of trust by a qualified and experienced healthcare worker. He noted a probation report showed matters of real concern to the court including that the man had little insight of the effect of his actions on the woman and that, although he accepted his actions were heinous and expressed remorse, it was felt it lacked depth beyond vocalisation. He took into account the man, who has worked in healthcare for 15 years, had entered an early guilty plea and had otherwise lead a blameless and hard-working life. Mr Justice McDermot imposed 12 years imprisonment and suspended the final year on strict conditions. The court heard how gardai were alerted after the elderly woman was found in a distressed state the following morning by another member of staff and said she had been raped by the accused. The woman's daughter, in a victim impact statement prepared on her mother's behalf, described how due to Covid-19 restrictions the family had been unable to accompany their distressed mother as she was taken in a garda car to hospital to be examined at a sexual assault treatment unit. She said the effect on their mother has been devastating. She is afraid of anyone coming into her room and checks the bathroom to make sure the man has not returned to the nursing home. The woman described talking to her mother on the phone late at night and reassuring her that the monster is in prison and can not return to her room to hurt her again. She said the family are devastated that she no longer has the spark she once did, and said their mother is traumatised to the point where they can see she has given up. She said the accused man had taken advantage of his position in the most despicable way. Sean Gillane SC, prosecuting, said the Director of Public Prosecutions places this offence in the highest category on the scale. Earlier this month, India carried out naval exercises with the U.S. in a show of strength to Beijing - AFP/AFP The Indian Navy will significantly reinforce and step up its patrols to counter increased Chinese Navy presence in the strategically important Indian Ocean. Tension between the two nuclear superpowers remains high after China annexed at least 60 square kilometres of Indian territory in Ladakh in May. The Indian Navy will base additional military personnel and assets, including warships and surveillance aircraft, in the countrys sole tri-service command headquartered on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. A strong military presence on the islands is seen as a key bulwark against Beijing, which imports 80 percent of its oil through the nearby Strait of Malacca. By strengthening the Andaman and Nicobar Command, India can dominate the choke points overlooking the Malacca Strait through which the bulk of Chinas oil imports are routed, explained a senior Indian Navy source. A 582 million plan to upgrade its infrastructure at the command centre on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is also being fast-tracked. Tension between the two superpowers is high after China annexed at least 60 square kilometres of Indian territory in Ladakh - Raminder Pal Singh/Shutterstock All these deployments are to maintain a strict vigil in the Indian Ocean in the event of any security problems escalating, said D.K. Sharma, a former Indian Navy Captain. Earlier this month, the Indian Navy carried out maritime exercises with its U.S. counterparts in the Indian Ocean, with the two nations forming a strategic alliance with Japan and Australia, known as The Quad. A fifth-round of deadlocked talks between India and China over Ladakh will commence later this week. On Friday, India said an agreement had been reached for early and complete disengagement at the Pangong Tso flashpoint but politicians from Indias opposition Congress Party say satellite footage shows new Chinese constructions on land seized from Indian in May. Troop build-up is continuing on both sides of the border, with a further 30,000 Indian soldiers to deploy along the Line of Actual Control, while New Delhi paraded the long-awaited arrival of five new state-of-the-art Rafale fighter jets yesterday. The Foreign Ministry in Beijing has reiterated its commitment to jointly safeguard peace and stability in the border areas ahead of further talks. Two green sea turtles have been released back to the wild by Houston Zoo officials, according to a Friday release. In May, "Twitch" the turtle was discovered entangled in a fishing line in Galveston with most of its left front flipper missing. What remained had to be amputated by Zoo veterinarians. Twitch received antibiotics and was given a clean bill of health before being set free, according to the Zoo. Otters, snakes, gorillas, carousel: Houston Zoo continues phased reopening Star was picked up by a Texas A&M turtle responder in Brazoria County in March. The turtle was taken to the Galveston Sea Turtle Hospital for examination. After it was determined that Star had pneumonia, antibiotics and an antifungal drug were administered. The turtle has made a full recovery, Zoo officials said. Both sea turtles were released in Christmas Bay on Friday with Twitch accompanied by the people who freed him from his entrapment, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Dr. Jennifer Leo and her family. There are five species of sea turtles inhabiting the Gulf of Mexico, all of which are either threatened or endangered. They include Kemps ridley, green, leatherback, Atlantic hawksbill and loggerhead. People are urged to call 1-866-TURTLE-5 if they find or accidentally catch a sea turtle so that an expert can assess the turtle and provide care if needed. STAMFORD The Department of Motor Vehicles on Henry Street will reopen its doors on Tuesday. The DMV on Friday began accepting up to 150 online requests per day. Beginning Tuesday, the physical location, at 137 Henry St., will open and additional services will be available by appointment. DMV Deputy Commissioner Tony Guerrera said the department had to reopen the Stamford DMV Express office after receiving notice that The WorkPlace would be unable to continue operations. The office was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Services offered at the Stamford location include: Drivers License Renewals Learners Permit (duplicates and name changes only) Non-Driver ID Card (renewals, duplicates, name changes) Registrations (renewals, duplicates and name changes only) Disabled Parking Permits (new, renewals and replacements) Driver Histories I am pleased the Stamford DMV branch office will be allowed to reopen and even expand service capabilities, said state Sen. Carlo Leone, D-Stamford, chair of the Transportation Committee. The Stamford office was temporarily shut down due to the pandemic crisis, but the local vendor was unable to continue services creating the risk of imminent shutdown. However, our local delegation and the partnership with DMV allowed for a seamless transition to re-open the facility. State Sen. Alex Kasser, D-Greenwich and Stamford, vice chair of the Transportation Committee, said she is glad the state government responded to the needs of the community. When we reached out and asked DMV to make services available in Stamford, they listened, she said. To make an appointment online, visit: https://nqa3.nemoqappointment.com/Booking/Booking/Index/ct3hi97gt5. Formed in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union, a.k.a. the ACLU, had been defending the rights of the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free for nearly a century when Donald Trump was sworn in to the presidency in January of 2017. The organization knew they would have their hands full when the former Reality TV star/failed real-estate mogul was granted the keys to the kingdom and even they probably couldnt have predicted just how many wars on numerous civil-liberty fronts theyd be combating. The Fight, the documentary by Eli B. Despres, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, informs us at the outset that they are 128 lawsuits against Trumps administration. It shines the spotlight on four of them: an immigration-rights case involving a mother whose daughter was separated from her at the border (Ms. L v. ICE); a reproductive-rights case in which a detained 17-year-old Mexican woman has her request for an abortion denied while under federal custody (Garza v. Hargan); an LGBTQ-rights case stemming from the Presidents seemingly impromptu ban on transgender soldiers serving in the military (Stone v. Trump); and a voting-rights case involving the demand to declare whether youre a U.S. citizen on census forms (Dept. of Commerce v. New York). The result is a patchwork portrait of a legal institution strained to the brink, albeit one that still has a giddy, collegiate office culture and finds time to do Whiskey Wednesdays. It valorizes both the entity as a whole deservedly so and the five individuals handling the nuts and bolts of these suits, though the trio of documentarians are also quick to humanize them. Dale Ho, whos handling the census issue, spends hours reciting arguments in the mirror and frets that he is not spending enough time with his family. Chase Strangio worries aloud to fellow lawyer Joshua Block that hes being assigned to defend Navy petty officer Brock Stones case simply because hes one of the few trans employees on staff. When Brigitte Amiri gets news that a hearing has gone in her favor regarding the recognition of refugees in custody as U.S. citizens, she and her assistant celebrate with commuter-friendly train wine! Poor Lee Gelernt is locked in an eternal struggle with keeping his phone charged enough to get word on immigration-related case verdicts. (Spoiler alert: The phone always wins.) Story continues More from Rolling Stone But goofball interludes and the occasional jauntily scored montage aside, The Fight consistently reminds you that the ACLU really is the tip of the spear in terms of maintaining democracy. All three of the filmmakers worked on Weiner (Kriegman and Steinberg directed it; Despres edited it), and like that flawed but fascinating 2016 portrait of the disgraced former Congressman, this dispatch from the frontlines works best when it stops trying to be an overly accessible pop-doc. Theres a genuine sense of the stakes of these arguments, with the administration continually checking for weak spots in the nations firmament and the unions lawyers working to shore things up before full erosion sets in. It also gives you a firsthand look at the collateral damage of this election, as well as the actual labor of being a legal eagle for the organization. These five people are working extremely hard, but not tirelessly you see how exhausted they are at the end of the days, weeks and months of mounting these cases. It takes a toll, as does the racist/sexist hate mail and phone messages they receive. Nevertheless, they persist. They have no choice. If not them, who else? Gerlent, Ho, Strangio, Block and Amiri will all tell you that they defend the right to be called names as much as they defend the rights of those who the government would disenfranchise or marginalize, of course, and to its credit, the doc does run its finger along both sides of the double-edged sword. The ACLU stood up for Neo-Nazis when they wanted to hold a march in Skokie, Illinois, back in 1977; it also argued that the infamous alt-right rally in Charlottesville, the one that resulted in the death of Heather Hayer, was protected under the First Amendment. You get to hear several folks responsible for that decision express remorse, even as they acknowledge that free speech means free speech regardless of the opinions in said speech, full stop. (Its worth mentioning that there are numerous examples of profanity that are bleeped out in the film, which was done so the doc could get a PG-13 rating. Please take this moment to savor and swirl the irony around in your mouth like a fine Bordeaux.) What the film really underlines, however, is what has been the basis for so many of the battles the ACLU has fought since Trumps inauguration. (Please note: footage of the event is played over the films opening, so consider yourself trigger-warned.) And that is: Who gets to be called American, and who gets to truly enjoy the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness our founding fathers envisioned as the USAs endgame? The fact we have to continually protect such notions from both implicit and now explicit examples of tyranny is a shame and, frankly, a crime, but its a never-ending battle that needs to be fought. But they are undoubtedly heroes nonetheless. The Fight may be cursed with a generic name. But its a 100-percent accurate one. See where your favorite artists and songs rank on the Rolling Stone Charts. Sign up for Rolling Stones Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Politicians across party lines, the police and governments of two states, and a former girlfriend -- all waded into the mystery and controversy surrounding the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput on June 14 which has moved on from theories and investigations into how nepotism in Bollywood may have claimed the life of the talented actor to allegations of a criminal conspiracy involving his girlfriend at the time of his death. The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which investigates money laundering and foreign exchange violations, on Friday registered a case against Rhea Chakraborty and some members of her family in connection with the death of Rajput, 34, people familiar with the development said. The ED case, registered under the prevention of money laundering act (PMLA), is based on a Bihar police FIR filed Tuesday on the basis of a complaint by Rajputs father KK Rajput. The officials said that Chakraborty, Rajputs girlfriend and an actress herself, is likely to be summoned for questioning next week by the ED. Reacting to allegations against her, Chakraborty, 28, issued a video statement on Friday saying: I have immense faith in God and the judiciary. I believe that I will get justice. Even though a lot of horrible things are being said about meI refrain from commenting on the advice of my lawyers as the matter is sub-judice. Satyamev Jayate. The truth shall prevail. The involvement of the ED brings a federal agency into an investigation where the Mumbai and Bihar police are involved. On July 16, Chakraborty demanded that the Central Bureau of Investiation look into the matter, but the Maharashtra government has said there is no need for a CBI probe. In his complaint on Tuesday, Rajputs father alleged that Chakraborty and her family developed an acquaintance with his son as part of a deliberate conspiracy so that Rhea could establish herself in the film industry, and with an eye on his sons money. He claimed there were unexplained transfers from his sons account including a Rs 15 crore transaction. He also alleged that on June 6, less than a week before Rajput was found dead in his house, Chakraborty left with many of his belongings, including his laptop, ATM card and some documents. In his complaint, Rajputs father also sought to invoke the provisions of the Mental Health Care Act, alleging that the machinations of Chakraborty and her family members caused his son to break down, despite a successful career in films, and ultimately drove him to suicide. Legal experts said that the ED probe is different from that of the police because under PMLA, a person is presumed guilty until he proves his innocence. Dr Sujay Kantawala, senior lawyer who specialises in PMLA cases, said: When the Bihar police lodged the FIR, the provisions were of Indian Penal Code. Here you are presumed innocent and burden of proof is on prosecution to prove the charge. However, when ED comes in the picture, there is reverse burden of proof. Kantawala further explained that the accused person is entitled to get a copy of FIR registered by police or CBI, but EDs ECIR (equivalent to FIR) is not given to the accused. The Mumbai Police is already investigating Rajputs death. After the Patna police filed its FIR, Chakrabortys legal team said it would challenge their jurisdiction and filed a plea in the Supreme Court on Wednesday to the effect. The Bihar government said on Friday that it will oppose the petition filed by Chakraborty. Advocate General Lalit Kishore said the state would be represented before the apex court by former Attorney General of India Mukul Rohatgi. He asserted that the matter fell very much within the jurisdiction of the state as the FIR was lodged on the basis of a complaint filed by Rajputs father who resides in Patna. Kishore also dismissed Chakrabortys contention that all cases in the matter be shifted to Mumbai and pointed out that the police in the western metropolis has not even lodged an FIR. . It is the Patna Police which lodged the first FIR in the matter. I wonder how the Mumbai Police intends to investigate a matter without registering a proper case, he said. On reports of non-cooperation from the Mumbai police with a four-member police team from Patna which is in the metropolis to probe the matter, the advocate general said, If it is so, it is very unfortunate. It is normal practice for law enforcers to cooperate with visiting police teams from other states. Among other politicians who jumped into the issue were Union minister and Lok Janshakti Party founder Ram Vilas Paswan and former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. The Lok Janshakti Party founder told PTI that Rajputs alleged suicide is shrouded in mystery and expressed his anguish at the lack of progress in the case and sought a CBI probe. Fadnavis sought an ED probe before the agency said it would investigate the matter. There is a huge sentiment among the people in the Sushant Singh Rajput case. They feel something is being hidden, new revelations are being made. Hence, people are demanding a CBI probe into it, he said. The Mumbai police are investigating the Sushant Singh Rajput suicide case and it is expected they will arrive at a conclusion soon, Maharashtra minister Jayant Patil said . The Water Resources Minister also advised everyone against speaking about the private life of the actor. He specifically asked political leaders from Maharashtra to stop tweeting and expressing their opinions about it. The (Mumbai) police will investigate the matter on the basis of evidence. We are expecting they will complete the investigation and arrive at a conclusion soon, Patil said. Asked about the Bihar police conducting a probe in Mumbai in connection with a separate FIR registered in Patna, Patil, a former Maharashtra home minister, said: The thing is since an FIR was registered there, it will be probed. The Mumbai police will give the information Bihar police want. They (Bihar police) will proceed further if they get any evidence. Mumbai police have recorded statements of Bollywood personalities including Sanjay Leela Bhansali, film critic Rajeev Masand, actress Sanjana Sanghi, Rhea Chakraborty, casting director Shanoo Sharma, filmmaker Mukesh Chhabra, and Aditya Chopra of Yash Raj Films. The police have so far recorded statements of around 40 people, including those of Rajputs family and his cook. Rajputs former girlfriend, TV actor Ankita Lokhande, said the actor had an admirable zest for life and that she cannot believe that he died by suicide. I cant comment on Sushant and Rheas relationship. I was not there. As for Sushants family, I want to take a stand for them. They must have something to prove and show people, she said in an interview with India Today. WILTON The Board of Education got a more detailed snapshot of what the school days will look like with next months reopening, including an explanation of its choice for a hybrid plan. Our goal is to make sure that the end user experience is really high quality, Superintendent of Schools Kevin Smith said during an overview presentation of three different reopening plans at the Board of Educations meeting on July 30. Along with a total in-person plan a.k.a. Plan A and a fully remote one Plan C the district at this time is making Plan B its hybrid plan one which divides students into two groups, or cohorts. Cohort 1 will attend school in person on Monday and Tuesday under this hybrid plan, while Cohort 2 will attend on Thursday and Friday. On Wednesdays, most students would participate remotely, though some with strong needs might attend in person. Schools officials said they went with this hybrid plan for one main reason, which was they felt it afforded more time for students to have direct interaction with teachers, rather than going a whole week without seeing them in person. I think theres a feeling that for some of our students an entire week remotely is too long to go without seeing a teacher, said Charles Smith assistant superintendent for curriculum & instruction. He also explained that it appeared to be the option most other school districts would be going with. That will make it much easier for our staff who live in different communities to arrange for their childcare, he said. Click here to sign up for the Bulletins free electronic newsletter, Online Today. Vice Chair Glenn Hemmerle pointed out that this plan amounted to a day less instruction in person for most students, but said he would get on board with it, provided things can now move quickly. Were around the corner from school starting, he said. We need to lock in as soon as possible on a plan that we can communicate to our parents, he said, so they can begin their personal preparations. Smith said staff appeared to be on board with it, and more meetings by grade levels would be forthcoming with teachers and parents. Theres really no perfect scenario for any of this, said Cider Mill School principal Jennifer Falcone. I think five days of not seeing an elementary student in particular is a long time, she said. While Wilton High School would divide itself alphabetically with students from A to L in Cohort 1, and students from L to Z in Cohort 2 students at Miller-Driscoll School will be further alphabetized by classroom to enable those smaller groups to be together. But we did not yet come to a conclusion about whether that was what were going to do, Chuck Smith said. Alphabetizing the cohorts was chosen to augment siblings being able to attend on the same days, although there could still be details to iron out. We need to get really granular and look at potential impact on families, Supt. Smith said. Weve got a model, he said. Weve got an approach. Weve got some good details, but everything will require a closer look. The ultimate decision will likely come in mid-August, driven by the input of health officials at the state and local level. This week, Gov. Ned Lamont softened his proclamations on school reopening, stating that at their own discretion a district can decide to start the year with a hybrid model, versus a full in-person model. If prevalence rates were low and we wanted to go to full remote option, it looks like we will have to get waivers, Supt. Smith said. Shared responsibility District officials again praised the implementation of the Schoology software program, which they said will help improve parents ability to keep up with their childs assignments and progress. Toward that end, Supt. Smith said its going to be important to maintain a philosophy of shared responsibility in regard to school under COVID-19. This is not an obligation that I would want to solely saddle on our teachers, he said of student attendance and participation. As a father, I also have to think differently about how Im on the home side managing and monitoring whats happening with my kids, he said. I think culturally across the district we have to think about some of our practices differently, he said. Fran Kompar, director of digital learning, stressed again that school officials were being mindful of limiting the amount of screen time that any of the students will endure in any of the three plans, at the same time hoping to see them equipped to face any new technological challenges related to the reopening. One of the charges that were working on right now is ensuring that our students develop the digital learning skills they need to navigate this environment, she said. Supt. Smith said another survey is going to be conducted to see, he hopes, exactly how many families will be opting out of any in-person school, no matter which plan is implemented, as the district will simultaneously be responsible for meeting their educational needs. Its critically important that we begin with a mindset that these kids are full members of the class, he said, noting theyre still trying to generate creative ideas for more seamless involvement. While Im skeptical, Im also wanting to hear more, Low said, noting it was hard for her to wrap her head around how it was all going to look. I like to start with the assumption, or the goal, that every kid has to be engaged, she said. She acknowledged that distance learning through the end of last year wasnt that consistent, and so some kids did end up being bored or unmotivated or distracted, never seeing the teacher, that sort of thing, she said. So we have to be sure were not repeating that, she said. Smith said more detailed plans, by school, will be presented at the boards next meeting on Aug. 13, along with the latest survey results. but being home with my kids turned out to be more inspiring than any art school I can imagine. When my wife and I sent them off to school, I worried less about whether the classroom would rob them of their creativity and more about what would happen to my creativity without them around to inspire me. Then came the pandemic and the lockdown. My boys, Owen, 7, and Jules, 5, have been home for over 130 days now, and theyre back to their preschool levels of activity, filling the house with drawings, music, and other forms of creative chaos. It isnt all fun and games. Much of the art they make is their way of processing fear and anxiety about the uncontrollable terrors going on outside our house. By Arthur I. Cyr The outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950 is referred to publicly with some regularity, but the same is not the case for the end of that brutal war three years later. On July 27, 1953, the combatants finally signed an agreed upon armistice. Signatories included communist China and North Korea, the aggressors in the war, and the United Nations, which defended South Korea. The South Korean government never signed the armistice. President Syngman Rhee was outraged that not all of Korea had been liberated before the ceasefire agreement. Repatriation of prisoners from both sides began in August and continued until the end of the year. Earlier, there had been a limited exchange of sick and wounded prisoners during April and May, an indication of an emerging desire finally to end the war. The significance of the war and the tense ambiguous peace that followed, and remains in place, were profound. The divided Korean Peninsula symbolizes the stark global divide brought about by the Cold War. Previously, the Cold War essentially involved Europe. That continent divided starkly between Eastern Europe, dominated by the Soviet Union and client states, and Western Europe, allied with the United States and committed to the new NATO alliance. The Korean War made that political and ideological conflict, and military confrontation, global. President Harry Truman deserves credit for acting quickly and decisively in support of the United Nations decision to defend South Korea from invasion. Truman deemed this sufficient for U.S. involvement and did not seek authority from Congress. Initially, North Korean forces made enormous gains and overran most of South Korea. Brilliant flanking by U.N. forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur at the port of Inchon reversed the situation. U.N. forces liberated almost all of North Korea, only to be driven south again by the massive intervention of the People's Liberation Army of China. A stalemate developed roughly at the 38th Parallel, the dividing line between North and South Korea. Often brutal but indecisive fighting dragged on for two more years, along with inconclusive armistice talks, which Pyongyang and Beijing cynically manipulated. As during the Vietnam War in the next decade, the other side shrewdly perceived that Americans in particular are impatient people. We tend strongly, instinctively to place a premium on quick over careful action, decisive over deliberate decision and quarterly over annual or longer-term financial returns. Moreover, true communist ideologues view themselves as agents of inevitable history. Patience is encouraged, reinforced by the quality of some cultures to take a long-term, collective strategic view. Mostly young men from the U.S. engaged in the war were steadily dying. By February 1952, President Truman's approval according to the Gallup Poll was 22 percent. This situation directly confronted newly inaugurated President Dwight Eisenhower in early 1953. After the 1952 presidential election, he visited the front in Korea and concluded that only a far larger U.N. force could break the stalemate. A massive U.S. bombing campaign began against North Korea's infrastructure. By 1953, few military targets remained; bombers hit non-military targets. Curiously, accounts of the end of the war minimize or omit this aspect. Eisenhower successfully deflected public attention, not for the first or last time. Eisenhower feared devastated South Korea might fall to communism. He immediately undertook comprehensive reconstruction and development, with exceptional long-term results. Ike, unlike some presidents, understood the brutal realities of war, and the difficulty of maintaining peace. Arthur I. Cyr (acyr@carthage.edu) is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of "After the Cold War." By late Thursday, Isaias had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph), making it a Category 1 hurricane. It was centered about 70 miles (110 kilometers) east-southeast of Great Inagua Island in the southeastern Bahamas late Thursday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It was moving northwest at 18 mph (30 kph), and its center was forecast to move near the southeastern Bahamas during the night, be near the central Bahamas late Friday and move near or over the northwest Bahamas and near South Florida on Saturday. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- A West Brighton artist is receiving praise for his artwork, which has raised $20,000 to purchase personal protective equipment for organizations responding to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Back in April, James Cox, 23, created a painting depicting frontline workers and first responders holding up the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. Prints were made available for purchase with the Staten Island Not For Profit Association helping to distribute them. By May, the prints had already raised $10,000. Its always wonderful when good people can come together to do good things, Deputy Borough President Ed Burke said on Borough Halls Facebook page. Thank you, James, and to all of you for your generosity and goodwill during a difficult time. DBP Ed Burke thanked artist James Cox for his efforts in helping secure funding for PPE w/ his original work, "Thank You." The print, made available for purchase, raised more than $20,000. pic.twitter.com/nZLIfZDBip Staten Island USA (@StatenIslUSA) July 29, 2020 The inspiring artwork, which measures 14-by-26 inches, was created in pencil, scanned into a computer and colored digitally; it took Cox roughly five days to complete. I live close to Richmond University Medical Center, where sirens can be heard almost all day, every day, as of late, Cox told the Advance/SILive.com. He said he came up with the idea while picking up pizza at Cafe Milano in West Brighton and realizing how fortunate he was to be able to go out to get dinner. That night, feeling inspired by the heroes just outside my rooms window, I began sketching the figures in the piece, he said. An alumnus of Pratt Institute with a bachelor of fine arts degree in illustration, Cox is working toward his masters degree in art education at Brooklyn College. For more information on the artist and how to purchase his work, follow JamesCoxIllustration on Instagram. US president Donald Trump went a step beyond with attacks against mail-in-ballots on Thursday, with the suggestion that 2020s presidential election should be delayed. 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. claimed Mr Trump. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee had called it some 105 days prior, when he told supporters that the Republican incumbent would try postponing Novembers poll with some rationale. Mark my words: I think he is gonna try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it cant be held, said Mr Biden. Despite the presidents protestations, however, no White House incumbent has ever made that move and neither does the US constitution permit it. The election date which falls on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November has been set in law since 1845, and guaranteed under Article II of the constitution. For that reason, presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not postpone elections in 1940 and 1944 during the second world war. While in 1864, Abraham Lincoln said that election had demonstrated that a peoples government can sustain a national election, in the midst of a great civil war. Those laws, which are still in place, would require both Houses of Congress to pass new legislation on an election date. But Republicans, as well as Democrats, denounced Mr Trumps suggestions on Thursday. The law is what it is, commented senator Marco Rubio. Were going to have an election thats legitimate, its going to be credible, its going to be the same as weve always done it. No way should we ever not hold an election on the day that we have it, added Kevin MacCarthy, who leads the Republicans in the House of Representatives. The House which is controlled by Democrats, would add another obstacle to any plans introduced by Republicans in Congress to delay the election. And most -like Mr Rubio and Mr McCarthy have proven to be lukewarm at best, to Mr Trumps suggestion. Instead, lawmakers warn that Mr Trumps comments are an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of Novembers election, as current polls show him trailing Mr Biden. Metis Nation leadership says the rise in people falsely claiming a Metis identity is dangerous because it threatens the future of the entire Nation. David Chartrand, president of the Manitoba Metis Federation and vice-president and spokesperson for the Metis National Council, said his temperature started to rise reading about Breanne Lavallee-Heckert's experience at the Senate. Lavallee-Heckert, a citizen of the Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF), told CBC News she felt she had no choice but to resign from her job in the office of Sen. Marilou McPhedran over the handling of a complaint she raised alleging a coworker was falsely claiming to be Metis in the workplace. "What if somebody came and said they're Canadian and they're not?" said Chartrand. "How would you act, senator? That's how we feel. You cannot just come in here from anywhere in the world and say you're Canadian unless you go through a process; the same thing with us." Chartrand said the MMF will be asking Lavallee-Heckert if she wants to take further action with respect to what happened and that he'll also be personally following up with the Senate. "We have a lot to lose here," he said. His argument is that if hundreds of thousands or millions of people start self-identifying as Metis without repercussions they will outnumber the Nation's citizens, start re-writing the Nation's history and could eventually "assimilate our very existence as a people." "In our process of our constitution, self-identifying is only one segment of it. You've got to prove your historical connection to the Metis Nation and its homeland," he said. 'We're struggling to make sense of what to do' There's a lot to lose, said Chartrand, because of the scope of how many people have started to self-identify as Indigenous. It's a trend that academics have described as 'race-shifting' or 'self-Indigenization.' Story continues Darryl Leroux, an associate professor of social justice and community studies at Saint Mary's University in Halifax and author of Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity, said the situation that unfolded at the Senate is common. He said 'race-shifting' has become "quite widespread" in the public service, in academia and elsewhere. CBC News "As a society generally we're struggling to make sense of what to do when white people are claiming to be Indigenous because that's not what we have come to think of as a possibility over time," he said. Leroux said that historically it hasn't been beneficial to people to identify as Indigenous but he said this started to change with the legal recognition of Aboriginal rights. He said most often the 'race-shifting' groups claim a Metis identity, but some claim to be First Nations. Leroux said the phenomenon is problematic at a systemic level, in terms of eroding Indigenous sovereignty. He said institutions need to be equipped to respond if they're serious about supporting Indigenous people. "If you work at an institution and you are bringing in initiatives related to Indigenous people, you are inevitably going to have to tackle this," he said. "We're literally talking about hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom are taking up Indigenous space." Submitted by Darryl Leroux Grassroots movement of verifying claims Where institutions haven't been tackling this question, it's left a gap where grassroots people have organized around investigating people's claims. Robyn Lawson, a Nehiyaw-Metis activist in B.C., said she got involved in the movement a few years ago in response to the "enormous issue of thousands of false claims of Indigeneity across Canada" and how that translates to lost opportunities for Indigenous people. Over the years she she's been involved in looking into hundreds of people claiming an Indigenous identity. She said for most of them research reveals no legitimate claim to being Indigenous. "I don't know how we're going to get past all of this," she said. Chantelle Bellrichard/CBC In the recent situation at the Senate, Lawson said she too had looked into the Senate staffer Lavallee-Heckert raised concerns about. Like Lavallee-Heckert, she too determined the person's claims to Indigeneity were problematic based on the Eastern organization of which they were a member and she wrote to Sen. McPhedran with the information she'd come across. In her email correspondence with the senator, shared with CBC, Lawson said it seemed the senator was missing her point. Instead of directly addressing the issues, she asked Lawson if she were insinuating that only Indigenous people should work on certain issues in the Senate. "I thought her response was steeped in an arrogance that was infuriating," said Lawson. Lawson said the situation at the Senate emphasizes, to her, the importance of Indigenous Nations being respected in defining who is and isn't part of their Nation. Staff at the Palms GP surgery with three Malawian clinical officers on a training visit to the surgery in 2019 A small Irish charitable group that usually focuses on chronic diseases in Malawi has become one of the biggest sources of information on Covid-19 in Sub-Saharan African countries. The Gorey Malawi Health Partnership was formed in May 2016 in an effort to combat chronic diseases in Malawi, one of the poorest countries on earth. After realising that there was a general lack of knowledge around the pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa, however, the project turned its attention to releasing information that could potentially safe the lives of countless people. Read More Malawi alone has a population of 16 million people with Sub-Saharan Africa having over a billion. The project, set up by Palm Surgeries in Gorey, has been one of the major disseminators of information surrounding Covid-19 in Malawi and surrounding countries. So far, the project has developed around 14 informative videos, in keeping with WHO guidance and designed to cover one aspect about coronavirus. The videos are three to five minutes long and are conducive with sharing on WhatsApp. The union of doctors in Ireland are currently working on translation into Arabic however and the programme has been offered to Mozambique, in which case it would be translated into Portuguese. The goal is to have as many language options as possible to suit the array of languages present in Africa. Peter Harrington, one of the founders of the project along with colleague Joe Gallagher, said that the lack of information around Covid-19 means that many people living in the target countries mistake the virus for malaria. "The challenges you're up against is trying to recognise Covid-19 among other illnesses might be a challenge. In Africa, if you say aches and fever, you generally assume you have malaria. So we're trying to say it might not be malaria," he said. "The number of ventilators in Malawi and Sub-Sahara is very small so all you're going to do is take in the patients and infect staff and other patients and it not be any good to them so there are big issues around it. "We've paid Facebook to promote the video to make people aware by targeting health professionals in the area. It's a strange thing but everything has to be judged by its value so institutions want their employees to enact this as hospital policy would need to make sure that each of their employees received it by email or WhatsApp." While the virus was slow to take the hold in Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of cases is beginning to rise exponentially in some areas. Dr Harrington said that there are also concerns over the accuracy of reporting cases in the area. The standard of hygiene, he said, is conducive with the wide spread of disease. "Social distancing is a luxury of the developed world. You and I could sit and drink tea in my kitchen and be two metres apart. In Malawi it's really just not possible. In a family you might have four generation living in the size of the average garage in Ireland. There could be 10 or 12 people in that. "They eat very often with their hands - it's their custom - so they're touching their mouths a lot with their hands and one in five people make their living in the market so you have to go to the market. "It's a really poor society so you can't ask those people to stay at home, they have to get out and make a living and they're saying 'well if I don't eat or feed my daughter, we're going to die, whereas Covid might not kill me so I need to survive'. "And then hygiene is poor. Your average toilet would be a struggle. There may not be soap, there may not even be running water. So we are worried about an non-flat curve and a really big wave." Andhra Pradesh has posted a fresh record with 10,376 new coronavirus cases recorded in the last 24 hoursthe highest daily spike so far-- and has also crossed the 10,000 fresh infections mark for the third consecutive day, taking the states overall tally of Covid 19 cases to 1,40,933. Andhra Pradesh had posted 10,167 cases on Thursday and 10,093 cases on Wednesday. It is the only state after Maharashtra to have posted more than 10,000 cases in a day. The spiraling number has meant that the state has added 30,636 cases in the last three days alone, sending the infection positivity rate north to reach 7.22 percent. As a result, it has more active cases-- 75,720 currently than recoveries-- 63,864, including the 3,822 patients discharged in the 24 hour period ending 10 am on Friday. The death toll in the state has climbed up to 1,349 with another 68 deaths reported over the last 24 hours, according to the daily government bulletin. As per the government data, the state has completed 19,51,776 tests so far at the rate of 36,550 per million population. However, the opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has contested the governments claims citing a list of states-- conducting more than 140 tests per day per million people-- announced by the Central government recently. Andhra is also among the states with a high case positivity rate. India, too, recorded its highest single-day surge of 55,078 infections on Friday taking the Coved 19 caseload past 16 lakh mark on Friday. The number of recoveries in the country have also risen to 10,57,805. The death toll has increased to 35,747 with 779 fatalities being reported in 24 hours. Washington Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that he and his team have warned Russian officials about all threats that Russia poses to Americans and U.S. interests in various parts of the world. Pompeo also defended the Trump administration's line on China, saying the communist nation represents a threat to the U.S. and Western-style democracy. Pompeo would not say whether he had specifically raised allegations that Russia is paying bounties to Taliban fighters to kill American troops in Afghanistan, but he said the discussions with the Russians involved all manner of threats. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that threats from Russia against Americans in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere had been covered. Pompeo's testimony came a day after President Donald Trump told an interviewer he had not raised the bounty allegations in phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin despite concerns about them from the intelligence community. Among the Russian officials, Pompeo said he has discussed threats with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, as has the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan. "Yes, I can assure you that each time I have spoken to Foreign Minister Lavrov, I have raised all of the issues that put any Americans at risk," Pompeo said in response to a question from the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Pompeo declined to say whether he would recommend that Trump raise the matter with Putin but said the Russian leader understood full well the U.S. position. He pointed to military action taken against several hundred Russian mercenaries who were advancing on American forces in Syria in 2019. Those fighters "are no longer on this planet," Pompeo noted. He also took aim at China, saying the administration was battling the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to expand its influence on multiple fronts. One person was killed in a stabbing on Tuesday night at a vigil for another homicide victim earlier this week. Rhone-Spears, 32, was killed in a stabbing in NE Portland in July.Jennifer Howe Aja Raquell Rhone-Spears, 32, was one of two people stabbed at a home on Northeast 92nd Place near East Burnside Street. Portland police have not identified the second person or disclosed that persons current condition. Portland police say the stabbing happened at a vigil for Tyrell Penney, who was killed in a recent shooting. Police say about 20 or 30 people were at the vigil, when a fight broke out among several people that led to the stabbings. Portland police said medics and officers attempted life-saving measures, but Rhone-Spears died at the scene. Police said the investigation is ongoing. Rhone-Spears killing was one of two homicides Tuesday that police have confirmed. There were two shooting incidents between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, as well as the stabbing. Portland police have responded to 15 homicides since July 1, the highest rate of homicides in a month in more than 30 years. Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. Launched February 2020, Natures Heritage has quickly become a top selling flower brand in Massachusetts Capitalizing on high consumer demand, Natures Heritage will expand its product offerings to include concentrates, vaporizers, and pre-rolls in Q3 2020 NORWOOD, Mass., July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MariMed Inc. (MRMD:OTCQX) (the Company or MariMed), a leading multi-state cannabis and hemp operator focused on health and wellness, today announced that it will roll out an expanded line of products derived from its Natures Heritage premium flower brand during the second half of 2020. The products will have an updated new design, reinforcing attributes of the strains and the brand. Launched in February 2020 in Massachusetts and in Q1 2018 in Maryland, Natures Heritage has quickly become one of the top-selling and most sought-after flower brands in both these state markets. As a result of this success, MariMed will introduce a new variety of products under the Natures Heritage brand, including concentrates, a variety of RSO products, vaporizers, and pre-rolls, in the second half of 2020. These products have been developed as enhanced delivery methods rooted in consumer research, market demand, and sales trends. I am incredibly proud of our team, growing Natures Heritage into a leading flower brand that delivers a superior customer experience, said Timothy Shaw, Chief Operating Officer at MariMed. We believe brands such as Natures Heritage will set the bar for product quality in the cannabis industry. Natures Heritage flower is curated, cultivated, and harvested using proprietary processes developed by MariMed. Curation and cultivation are the core of the brand, guided by a data-driven approach to continually improve each cannabis strain. MariMeds cultivation and formulation teams utilize their years of experience to produce top shelf cannabis flowers and infuse formulations from those flowers into new and innovative cannabis products. This MariMed team will continue to drive innovation and market leadership for the Natures Heritage brand. Story continues Ryan Crandall, MariMeds Chief Product Officer added, We are a forward-thinking company focused first and foremost on building customer loyalty through our trusted and consistent products. We remain committed to developing leading, innovative cannabis brands in every category of the cannabis marketplace. Our investment in expanding the Nature's Heritage product portfolio, and updating the brands look and feel, highlight and advance this commitment. About MariMed: MariMed Inc., a multi-state cannabis operator, is dedicated to improving the health and wellness of people through the use of cannabinoids and cannabis products. The Company develops, owns, and manages seed to sale state-licensed cannabis facilities, which are models of excellence in horticultural principles, cannabis cultivation, cannabis-infused products, and dispensary operations. MariMed has an experienced management team that has produced consistent growth and success for the Company and its managed business units. The Company is at the forefront of science and innovation through research developed by its lab technicians and medical advisors resulting in industry-leading products and brands, including "Betty's Eddies, Natures Heritage, Bourne Baking Co.", and K Fusion. These precision dosed products are focused on specific symptoms and conditions and are licensed and distributed across the country. For additional information, visit marimedinc.com. Important Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This release contains certain forward-looking statements and information relating to MariMed Inc. that is based on the beliefs of MariMed Inc.'s management, as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Such statements reflect the current views of the Company with respect to future events, including estimates and projections about its business based on certain assumptions of its management, including those described in this Release. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risk and uncertainties that are difficult to predict, including, among other factors, changes in demand for the Company's services and products, changes in the law and its enforcement and changes in the economic environment. Additional risk factors are included in the Company's public filings with the SEC. Should one or more of these underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as "hoped," "anticipated," "believed," "planned, "estimated," "preparing," "potential," "expected," "looks" or words of a similar nature. The Company does not intend to update these forward-looking statements. None of the content of any of the websites referred to herein (even if a link is provided for your convenience) is incorporated into this release and the Company assumes no responsibility for any of such content. All trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. Company Contact Jon Levine, CFO MariMed Inc. Tel (781) 559-8713 Media Contact Abigail Diehl MariMed Inc. adiehl@marimedinc.com Annie Graf KCSA Strategic Communications agraf@kcsa.com Investors KCSA Strategic Communications Scott Eckstein / Elizabeth Barker MRMD@kcsa.com Four men (C) pose with medical staff at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi as they are announced Covid-19 free, July 31, 2020. Photo of the hospital. Vietnam announced four Covid-19 recoveries Friday, including two Myanmar sailors, bringing the country's number of active cases down to 136. All four cases are imported. The Myanmar sailors, aged 40 and 31, traveled to northern Quang Ninh Province last month. The other two are Hanoian men aged 56 and 35, who returned from Bangladesh via a repatriation flight on July 3. All four received treatment at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi, where they will remain for 14-day monitoring. Vietnam has recorded 509 Covid-19 patients, of whom 373 have recovered. Keeping its community virus-free for over three months, the nation is dealing with a new Covid-19 wave following a case detected in Da Nang on July 25. A total of 93 domestic infections have been reported since, 79 of them in Da Nang and the rest in Hanoi, HCMC, Quang Nam and Quang Ngai in the central region, and Dak Lak in the Central Highlands. Early Friday, Vietnam reported 45 new cases, the largest number of domestic infections reported in one day since it detected the very first cases in February. Containment zones in Delhi can now be de-notified in two weeks down from 28 days, from the day the last Covid-19 patient in the area recovers, the state health department said on Thursday, a move that will bring significant relief to residents of some red zones in the city that have been contained for months. The decision to relax containment norms, taken by the Union ministry of health and family welfare (MoH&FW) on Wednesday, had been a long-standing demand of the Delhi government, with several containment zones in the national capital having been under complete lockdown for more than three months now. Click here for full Covid-19 coverage The health ministry had on Wednesday issued an office memorandum to all states and union territories, saying a few states had experienced continuing outbreaks in some containment zones (CZs) and buffer zones (that encircle the CZs), keeping them under lockdown for months. In such cases, to have another period of 28 days, to de-notify such CZs brings hardships to its residents. Hence, some states have requested to review the same, it said. The Delhi government on Thursday welcomed the move and said all district administrations have been asked to now follow the new rules issued by the health ministry. Delhi was one the first states to urge the Centre to reduce the number of days it takes to de-seal a containment zone. The new guidelines will be strictly followed in Delhi. Aggressive contact tracing and active surveillance of high risk groups and symptomatic persons will continue in such areas, the chief ministers office said. The union health ministrys document mentioned that states which have CZs with prolonged lockdowns may choose to de-notify a containment zone 14 days after discharge of the last confirmed case (instead of 28 days). Also read: Health ministry to replicate Delhis Covid-19 model in other states The surveillance operations will be scaled down if no laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 case is reported from the containment zone for at least 14 days after the last confirmed case has been isolated and all the contacts of the confirmed case have been followed up for 14 days, the document seen by HT read. However, the central government also made it clear that surveillance for influenza-like illnesses (ILI), severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) and rigorous testing for these will continue in de-notified containment and buffer zones. If further positive cases emerge in the de-notified containment or buffer zone, the area will again be declared as a containment zone and the containment process shall begin afresh, the memorandum read. A city/district/state can be declared free from the disease outbreak only after 28 days have passed since the last confirmed case has been tested negative through an RT-PCR diagnosis. The Centre, however, also came down on states and union territories for not being able to break the chain of transmission for prolonged periods in some containment zones. It is noted that such continuing outbreaks in CZ/BZs reflect less than satisfactory active surveillance, contact testing, testing and inadequate adherence to home isolation guidelines. Hence, to avoid such a situation, the CZ needs to be redefined, surveillance strengthened and testing increased manifold, it said. As on Thursday, Delhi had 694 containment zones and at least 300,000 people live in such areas. There were at least five areas in Delhi that had been contained for over three months, including GTB Enclaves E-block, K and G blocks in Jahangirpuri, Majlis Park in Adarsh Nagar and Hauz Rani. Apart from this, two lanes in southeast Delhis Chandni Mahal were under lockdown for at least 88 days. In an interview with HT on July 18, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said the Centres rules on containment zones needed serious reconsideration, adding that the Delhi government had made multiple requests to the Central government to relax containment norms in the city. The Centres rule says that if there is no new Covid case for 28 days straight then that area can be de-contained. But if even a single new Covid case emerges in a containment zone then it will remain under lockdown for 28 more days. As a result there are some containment zones which are under lockdown for 3-4 months. People are very distressed in these zones because they are completely locked down in their houses. We have spoken to the Central government, to the Union health and family welfare ministry and have requested them to fix an outer time limit as well. Just like a country cannot be under a permanent lockdown, localities too cannot operate that way. Permanent lockdown cannot be a long-term solution. The Central government has appreciated our feedback and said that similar complaints have come from other states too. They are now revising the guidelines, Kejriwal had said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON LONDON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Plan B, a weekly podcast hosted by London-headquartered government advisory CS Global Partners, recently expanded on the details of St Kitts and Nevis' new limited-time offer under its Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme. The government reduced the investment requirements for a family of up to four from US$195,000 to US$150,000, and remains valid until January 15th, 2021. In the latest episode, Beatrice Gatti, the Head of Government Advisory at CS Global Partners, explained what these changes mean for investors. According to Gatti, the new offer is designed to incentivise greater volumes of investment while providing larger families with an attractive citizenship option during these unpredictable times. The changes only apply to the Sustainable Growth Fund route a government fund option introduced in 2018 by Prime Minister Timothy Harris. The new offer "means that some families that were on the fence about applying may now have that extra incentive that they needed to apply together," said Gatti. "At the same time, I think it's worth noting that all other requirements remain in place, and, in particular, passing the stringent due diligence processes that are the hallmark of the St Kitts and Nevis Programme and certainly one of the things that make it the Platinum Standard of the industry." St Kitts and Nevis remains a top choice for foreign investors seeking second citizenship. It has unrivalled experience and efficient processing, ultimately offering wider economic opportunities, social benefits and visa-free and visa-on-arrival access to nearly 160 destinations. Furthermore, Foreign Minister Mark Brantley often announces establishing new visa waiver agreements and constantly expands the country's diplomatic relations. St Kitts and Nevis' CBI Programme is also the only one offering an Accelerated Application Process, which ensures that successful applicants acquire citizenship and the accompanying passport within 60 days. First, though, they must pass a series of due diligence checks to ensure that they do not present any security or reputational risk to the country and its partners. The fastest route to citizenship in St Kitts and Nevis is through the Sustainable Growth Fund and requires a one-time, non-refundable contribution. The revenue generated from the Programme is then channelled into different sectors of the country's national development, including education, tourism, healthcare, infrastructure and more. [email protected] www.csglobalpartners.com SOURCE CS Global Partners Businessman Jai Bajpai who was arrested in Kanpur on July 20 for helping slain gangster Vikas Dubey with arms and money, will now be booked under the Gangster Act. According to a release by the Kanpur police, three brothers of Jai Bajpai -- Rajat Kant Bajpai, Ajay Kant Bajpai and Shobhit Bajpai -- are also being booked under the Gangster Act since they were also involved in the nefarious activities of their brother. Earlier, Jai Bajpai and Dablu, another aide of Bajpai, were booked under the Arms Act and criminal conspiracy under Section 120 B. During his house search, more than 20 cartridges were found missing and Jai Bajpai could not explain the missing ammunition. Bajpai, sources, said was the link between Vikas Dubey and his political and bureaucratic contacts. Vikas Dubey was killed in an encounter on July 10. He was the main accused in the killing of eight policemen in Bikru village on July 3. The remaining accused in the Bikru massacre have already been booked under National Security Act. Five were killed in encounters between july 3 and 10 with police before Dubey was shot dead. United States (US) Secretary of State Michael R Pompeo stirred up some strategic affairs experts last week both in India and the US with his call for a new grouping of like-minded countries an alliance of democracies to confront China. This was a clear message to India, they said, and other nations: Stand up to Chinas bullying and sign up to this new grouping. Some of them went further and suggested joint military exercises with the US along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Drastic. But its time perhaps for even more. There is frustration in New Delhi at the slow pace of the disengagement talks, stuck between status quo ante and status quo. Pompeo didnt explain then what he had in mind for this grouping. So there was speculation it could be something like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) that took on the erstwhile Soviet Union. Or maybe an altogether different platform. When asked at a Senate hearing on Thursday, Pompeo said he wasnt certain what shape or form it could take. It is still unclear. It may not, however, be without reason that Pompeo did not have an answer, yet. Because there are no guarantees the US will continue down this path after November 3, when America will vote to either give President Donald Trump another four years in the White House or elect his Democratic challenger Joe Biden, the former vice-president. Will Trump continue the escalation of tensions if he wins? He started the China blitz, as is widely acknowledged by his experts and his critics, only to shift blame for his own mishandling of the Covid-19 outbreak in the US, which has the most cases and deaths from the pandemic in the world. And on his watch. Almost two-thirds 61% of Americans disapprove of Trumps response to the epidemic, according to an AP poll. But even more Americans 64% disapprove of Chinas handling of the outbreak. And still more Americans 73% hold a negative view of China, up by seven points in the last four months, according to a new Pew report. Attacking China at this time, therefore, makes a lot of political sense. But with a second term in the bag if that happens after November 3, will Trump keep up the pressure on China? He has been inconsistent on China. Trump was in a swoon about President Xi Jinping before and had praised his handling of the outbreak before the virus ran amuck in the US. New Delhi understands that, as is evident from its muted response to Pompeos speech. But as it considers the Trump-Pompeo plan, with all its ramifications, it keenly waits to hear from Biden, who could be the next president, according to many polls. The Democrats are less likely to have an unfavourable view of the Chinese than the Republicans 35% to 54%, according to the Pew poll and they may not be as keen to blindly go along with the aggressive intent of Pompeos plan. yashwant.raj@hindustantimes.com The views expressed are personal ZIMBABWE Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) Holdings employees have taken sides with the parastatal's embattled executive chairperson, Sydney Gata, who is being investigated for corruption. Gata, whose appointment last November torched a storm, is being accused of various allegations of corruption, including allocating himself five Zesa vehicles over and above his official Mercedes-Benz. He is also accused of scuttling the disciplinary hearing of a top executive, spending ZW$10 million on Christmas parties, sending four consultants to South Africa and setting up a trust to mine gold. Energy and Power Development minister Fortune Chasi has since ordered a five-day investigation into the allegations while the Zesa board has suspended him indefinitely. In a fresh twist, Zesa workers, through the Zimbabwe Energy Workers' Union (Zewu), have lent support to Gata, saying he is being hounded for tackling corruption within the parastatal. "We have noted with concern the sustained campaign to malign and demonise your person through a number of allegations raised against you lately," Zewu said in a letter of solidarity to Gata seen by the Zimbabwe Independent this week. "We are however not surprised as we know that your fight against endemic corruption, since your assumption of duty, would create friends and foes. For us, the allegations are obviously being peddled by remnants of the previous administration who were largely the biggest beneficiaries of the corruption that crippled Zesa through stalled projects, the loss of millions of dollars and neglect of employees' welfare," the union said. "We wish to assure you that we support you in the fight against corruption.....Zesa employees fully support you in that noble cause which has raised morale to levels never seen before," the letter by Zewu further reads. As first reported by the Independent last year, Gata's shock appointment as Zesa executive chairperson in November last year was the result of a directive to Energy and Power Development minister Fortune Chasi by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The appointment, which came as a bolt from the blue, earned him a third spell at the troubled parastatal from which he was previously fired twice on allegations of corruption and mismanagement. Gata's first flirtation with Zesa was when he joined the organisation as its first black general manager soon after Independence. He was dismissed from that position in 1995 after a commission of inquiry headed by retired High Court judge Justice George Smith found that he was unfit to hold the position because of incompetence. The commission's report left the then energy minister, the late Herbert Ushewokunze, with no choice but to fire Gata. However, Gata bounced back as executive chairperson of Zesa in 2000 and oversaw the unbundling of the power utility into several companies that constitute Zesa Holdings today. DUBLIN, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Europe Push to Talk Market Forecast to 2027 - COVID-19 Impact and Regional Analysis by Component; Enterprise Size; Network Type; End User" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The push to talk market in Europe is expected to grow from US$ 6,836.2 million in 2019 to US$ 14,413 million by 2027; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 10.25% during 2020-2027. In Europe, several most common use cases of enhanced push-to-talk (EPTT) are replacing land mobile radio (LMR) portable devices for employees. These devices can use a non-mission-critical voice solution that can be incorporated with the current LMR system, so that the current talk groups are not disrupted. The government and defense led the push to talk market based on end user in 2019. The push to talk solutions offer an effective way of mission-critical communication through land mobile radio as well as over cellular networks. The government, defense, and public safety authorities have been a few of the initial adopters of these solutions worldwide. Most government and defense institutions worldwide use land mobile radios for mission critical as well as non-mission critical communications. However, in the past few years, the demand for cellular network-based push to talk solutions is rising at an impressive pace in Europe, especially for non-critical communications. A few of the players present in the Europe push to talk market are AT&T, Qualcomm Incorporated, Sprint Corporation, Motorola Solutions Inc, and Tait Communications. Reasons to Buy Save and reduce time carrying out entry-level research by identifying the growth, size, leading players and segments in the Europe push to talk market. push to talk market. Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in the Europe push to talk market, thereby allowing players across the value chain to develop effective long-term strategies push to talk market, thereby allowing players across the value chain to develop effective long-term strategies Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets Scrutinize in-depth Europe market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as those hindering it market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as those hindering it Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to client products, segmentation, pricing and distribution Key Topics Covered 1. Introduction 2. Key Takeaways 3. Research Methodology 4. Push to talk Market Landscape 4.1 Market Overview 4.2 PEST Analysis 4.2.1 Europe 4.3 Ecosystem Analysis 4.4 Expert Opinions 5. Push to talk Market - Key Industry Dynamics 5.1 Drivers 5.1.1 Shift in Security Organizations Work 5.1.2 Rising Demand for Cellular Push to Talk is Expressively Fuelling the Market Growth 5.2 Market Restraints 5.2.1 Interoperability Issues Hampering the Market 5.3 Market Opportunities 5.3.1 Replacing Land Mobile Radio with LTE 5.4 Future Trends 5.4.1 Integration of Communication Apps 5.5 Impact Analysis of Drivers and Restraints 6. Push to Talk Market - Europe Market Analysis 6.1 Push to talk Market Overview 6.2 Push to Talk Market - Revenue, and Forecast to 2027 (US$ Million) 7. Push to Talk Market Analysis - By Component 7.1 Overview 7.2 Push to Talk Market, By Component (2019 and 2027) 7.3 Hardware 7.4 Software 7.5 Services 8. Push to Talk Market Analysis - By Enterprise Size 8.1 Overview 8.2 Push to Talk Market, By Enterprise Size (2019 and 2027) 8.3 Large Enterprise 8.4 SMEs 9. Push to Talk Market Analysis - By Network Type 9.1 Overview 9.2 Push to Talk Market, By Network Type (2019 and 2027) 9.3 Land Mobile Radio 9.4 Cellular 10. Push to Talk Market - By End-User 10.1 Overview 10.2 Push to Talk Market, by End-User (2019 and 2027) 10.3 Government and Defense 10.4 Logistics & Transportation 10.5 Travel and Hospitality 10.6 Energy and Utilities 10.7 Manufacturing 10.8 Construction 10.9 Other End-Users 11. Europe Push to Talk Market - Country Analysis 12. Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic On Europe Push to Talk Market 12.1 Europe: Impact Assessment of COVID-19 Pandemic 13. Industry Landscape 13.1 Overview 13.2 Market Initiative 13.3 New Product Development 13.4 Merger and Acquisition 14. Company Profiles 14.1 AT&T Inc. 14.1.1 Key Facts 14.1.2 Business Description 14.1.3 Products and Services 14.1.4 Financial Overview 14.1.5 SWOT Analysis 14.1.6 Key Developments 14.2 Qualcomm Incorporated 14.3 Verizon Communications, Inc. 14.4 Zebra Technologies Corporation 14.5 Sprint Corporation 14.6 Telstra Corporation Limited 14.7 Motorola Solutions Inc. 14.8 Tait Communications 14.9 Iridium Communications Inc. 14.10 BCE Inc. For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/zdwgz6 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 Let's Talk Cattle & Sheep - Teagasc Green Acres Dairy Calf to Beef programme Event Time 6.30pm Venue Online Join us on this webinar where the programme advisors for the Teagasc Calf to Beef Programme will outline their experience on working with farmers so far and answer questions from you The volume of beef calves from the dairy herd is increasing with an expanding dairy herd and ensuring these calves can be taken through to beef profitably is essential to the future of both the dairy and beef industry. The Teagasc Green Acres dairy calf to beef programme is in its second phase with phase 2 beginning in 2019. 12 farmers located throughout the country are working with their dedicated Green Acres advisor to improve profitability on their farm and design a system that utilises high volumes of grazed grass, purchases dairy calves of adequate beef merit at value and makes excellent quality silage to minimise concentrate input in the winter finishing period. Join us on this webinar where the programme advisors will outline their experience on working with farmers so far and will answer questions from you the public. Speakers Alan Dillon, Teagasc (Facilitator) Sean Cummins Teagasc Green Acres advisor James Fitzgerald Teagasc Green Acres advisor Topics to be covered What makes a profitable calf to beef system Purchase prices of dairy calves Nutritional management of calves Finishing systems Time of broadcast You can join the webinar at 6.25 pm; broadcasting will begin at 6.30 pm sharp! How to join: Register online here Registration is free How to ask a question: There is a Q&A box on the bottom of the screen during the webinar. Type your question in the box and the facilitator will read it out to the panellists. Former president Barack Obama used civil rights leader John Lewis funeral to issue a stark warning that the voting rights and equal opportunity the late civil rights leader championed are threatened heading into the 2020 election. Speaking from the pulpit of the church that Martin Luther King Jr once led, Mr Obama did not mention President Donald Trump. But the first black president drew unmistakable contrasts with his successor, and he implicitly lambasted how Mr Trump has handled voting procedures and ongoing civil unrest amid a national reckoning over systemic racism. Mr Obama called on Congress to renew the Voting Rights Act, which Mr Trump and Republican congressional leaders have left unchanged since the Supreme Court diminished the landmark law in 2012. You want to honour John? Lets honour him by revitalising the law that he was willing to die for, Mr Obama said, arguing that the bipartisan praise for the Georgia congressman since his death is not enough. Mourners stand outside Ebenezer Baptist Church during the funeral for John Lewis (Brynn Anderson/AP) Mr Obama endorsed ending the Senate filibuster if that is what is needed to pass an overhauled voting law. He called the procedural hurdle that effectively requires 60 votes to pass major legislation a Jim Crow relic, referring to the segregation era. The Democratic-led House has adopted a sweeping rewrite of the Voting Rights Act, now named after Mr Lewis. It faces opposition in the Republican-led Senate and likely could not get 60 votes even if Democrats reclaim a narrow majority after the November elections. Specifically, Mr Obama called for all Americans being registered to vote automatically, restoring voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences, expanding early voting, ending partisan gerrymandering of districts and making election day a national holiday. President Donald Trump (Evan Vucci/AP) Mr Obama noted that the original Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its renewals drew Republican and Democratic votes in Congress and were signed by presidents from both parties. Story continues Mr Obama singled out former president George W. Bush, a Republican, who also spoke Thursday at Ebenezer Baptist Church near central Atlanta. Still, Mr Obama said: There are those in power doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws even undermining the Postal Service in an election thats going to be dependent on mail-in ballots. Hours before Mr Lewis funeral, Mr Trump suggested delaying the November election, something he doesnt have the authority to do. Mr Trump has falsely claimed that a surge of mail ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic will threaten the elections legitimacy. Mr Trump has opposed moves in Congress to help the financially struggling US Postal Service handle the sharp upsurge in mail voting. Mr Obama compared current national circumstances to the earlier civil rights era when Mr Lewis helped lead the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and became an understudy to Mr King. Bull Connor may be gone, but today we witness with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks of black Americans, Mr Obama said, alluding to the May 25 killing of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer. George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators. Mr Connor was the Birmingham, Alabama, police commissioner who ordered the use of police dogs and fire hoses against civil rights demonstrators. Mr Wallace, the four-term governor of Mr Lewis native Alabama, built his political career on a defence of segregation and overt appeals to white grievances, and it was his state highway patrol who beat Mr Lewis and others as they marched for voting rights in 1965. Mr Trump, like Mr Wallace in his multiple presidential bids, is campaigning as a law and order figure. The president frames protesters who have gathered across the country since Mr Floyds killing as anarchists who threaten the nations stability, especially in suburbs, and he has dispatched federal authorities to some cities over the objections of local authorities. Mr Lewis, who died July 17 at the age of 80, was one of the original Freedom Riders, activists who challenged segregation on commercial bus lines in the Deep South during the early 1960s. He was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, where Mr King delivered his I Have A Dream speech. Bloody Sunday and the voting rights marches occurred two years later, months before president Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act. Then president Barack Obama presenting a Presidential Medal of Freedom to John Lewis (Carolyn Kaster/AP) Mr Obama awarded Mr Lewis the Medal of Freedom in 2011. Mr Trump was the only living president who played no official role in a week of public remembrances for Mr Lewis. Besides Mr Obama and Mr Bush, former president Bill Clinton spoke at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Former president Jimmy Carter, who is 95, sent a statement read by the churchs senior pastor, the Reverend Raphael Warnock. Mr Lewis had called Mr Trump an illegitimate president ahead of his 2017 inauguration and chided him for stoking racial divisions. Mr Trump answered by calling Mr Lewis all talk, talk, talk (and) no action and describing his Atlanta congressional district as crime infested. Mr Obama exalted Mr Lewis as a founding father of a better America. Someday, when we do finish that long journey towards freedom, when we do form a more perfect union whether its years from now or decades or even if it takes another two centuries, he said. John Lewis will be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America. Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has described the National Education Policy (NEP) as 'highly regulated and poorly funded'. Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Sisodia, who is also the Education Minister of Delhi, said, "The NEP 2020 outlines a system full of regulations and inspections but no concrete commitment of funding. At the state level, the policy includes a commission, a regulatory body, a directorate of education, SCERT and an education board which are bound to collide with each other." Manish Sisodia welcomed the move to rename the HRD Ministry as Education Ministry, but he also added that merely changing the name would not give it a new vision. He said it is the responsibility of the government to provide quality education to children, but in this new policy, there is no direct emphasis on the government school system taking up this responsibility. Rather it seeks to "encourage private philanthropists", he said, adding that the policy actually confuses instead of giving a way forward. Some students of St Pauls Senior High School (SPACO) in the Ketu South Municipality have gone on rampage to register their displeasure about what they termed unfair treatment from some tutors. The rampaging students made up of second year gold track and final year students who returned to school as part of the partial reopening of schools across the country, threw stones that broke louvre blades of some buildings and the security post, vandalising the notice board and Veronica bucket at the entrance to the School. A visit by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) to the School on Monday showed pieces of cement blocks scattered around the Schools entrance and broken louvre blades scattered at the security post and other rooms. A form two student who pleaded anonymity told the GNA that the student body was having issues with a number of things in the school since reopening, but the immediate cause of Sundays riot was sparked by failure on the part of a tutor to honour his promise to some students, compelling them to plan their action. We have issues and one of them is food. The food is not good at all, but what really caused the riot was that a teacher seized a students phone and then punished the student in question with the promise that when hes done, he would release the phone to him. After the said student finished with the punishment and went for his phone, the teacher refused to give the phone to him. Hes not the only person the teacher did that thing to because he has about five or six phones of students in his possession, the student added. Mr Augustine Dziwornu Amedeker, Headmaster of SPACO however, was not readily available for comment on the issue. Mr Patrick Kwapong, Aflao Divisional Police Commander in an interview with the GNA, said at about 1630 hours on Sunday, Reverend Father Oscar Kuebudornye, the Chaplain of SPACO reported the disturbance in the school. He said the demonstration broke out following the seizure of three phones from three students by a tutor, who also later punished them for defying the ban on students to use phone in schools by the Ghana Education Service (GES) without returning the phone to them as earlier promised. Mr Kwapong said he followed up to the school with his officers to ensure no serious damage was caused saying, as an old student of SPACO myself, I teamed up with the Assistant headmaster of the school and one other teacher also old students, to talk to the students. Calm has since returned to the school. 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 Muslims pray spaced apart as a precaution against the new coronavirus outbreak during an Eid al-Adha prayer at a mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia. Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice," is a holiday which honours the prophet Ibrahim, or Abraham, as he is known in the Bible, for his willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael on the order of God who was testing his faith. (Image: AP) BANGALORE, India, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Automotive Lighting Market is expected to spur technical innovations due to growing concerns regarding vehicle safety and strict government regulations. In addition, the growing population and rising consumer buying power across the developing world are expected to deliver lucrative opportunities over the forecast period. The global automotive lighting market size was valued at USD 18.00 Billion in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 28.77 Billion by 2026, registering a CAGR of 6.7% from 2019 to 2026. This research provides the empirical description of the global Automotive Lighting Market and the latest developments and forecasts to depict the imminent investment pockets. Get Detailed Analysis of COVID-19 Impact on Automotive Lighting Market https://reports.valuates.com/request/sample/ALLI-Auto-3T31/Automotive_Lighting_Market TRENDS INFLUENCING THE AUTOMOTIVE LIGHTING MARKET SIZE The outbreak of COVID-19 has globally disrupted the automotive supply chain. Production of automotive lighting components was impacted by the closure of manufacturing facilities and new vehicle sales. In 2020, demand for both traditional and hybrid vehicles is expected to see a downward trend, further affecting the automotive lighting market. Also, the allocation of budgets for R&D is likely to be greatly affected, which is expected to impede the production of creative automotive lighting solutions. This decline is expected to adversely affect the market for automotive lighting. However, businesses are taking various steps to counter the outbreak's adverse effects. Strict lighting regulations have powered the automotive lighting industry in developed nations of Europe and North America. Vehicle lighting plays a crucial role, particularly when driving heavily trafficked roads. Road injuries pose a significant problem for governments worldwide. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the driving conditions, which can partially be accomplished by improving the lighting system. The rising adoption of advanced technologies in automotive components and the growing demand for overall vehicle performance is moving OEMs' focus towards vehicle lighting. This trend is, in turn, expected to increase the Automotive Lighting Market size during the forecast period. In addition, growth in the urban population, increase in income rates, and change in lifestyles are factors that complement the growth of the Automotive Lighting Market size. View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/ALLI-Auto-3T31/automotive-lighting AUTOMOTIVE LIGHTING MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS The rear lighting segment was the highest contributor to the market, with USD 5.61 billion in 2018, and is estimated to reach USD 8.87 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 6.5% during the forecast period. Based on Region, Asia-pacific is expected to hold the largest Automotive Lighting Market share during the forecast period. Increased car production across countries like China, India, Japan, and Taiwan combined with raising urbanization, and increasing purchasing power of individuals are expected to boost demand across this region Due to the existence of major OEMs like BMW, Mercedes, and Audi, the interior lighting systems have a strong demand in North American and European countries. The U.S. government programs to minimize traffic injuries and increase driver health are generating a market for LED-based products for lighting. Inquire for Regional Report: https://reports.valuates.com/request/regional/ALLI-Auto-3T31/Automotive_Lighting_Market AUTOMOTIVE LIGHTING MARKET SEGMENTATION AUTOMOTIVE LIGHTING MARKET - KEY PLAYERS DENSO Corporation, Hella KGaA Hueck & Co., Hyundai Mobis, Koito Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Koninklijke Philips N.V., Osram Licht AG, ROBERT BOSCH GmbH, Stanley Electric Co., Ltd., Valeo, Zizala Lichtsysteme GmbH hold the major automotive lighting market share. AUTOMOTIVE LIGHTING MARKET - BY TECHNOLOGY Halogen Xenon LED AUTOMOTIVE LIGHTING MARKET - BY VEHICLE TYPE Passenger Vehicles Commercial Vehicles AUTOMOTIVE LIGHTING MARKET - BY PRODUCT SALE Original Equipment Manufacturer Product (OEM Product) Aftermarket Product AUTOMOTIVE LIGHTING MARKET - BY APPLICATIONS Front Lighting Rear Lighting Side Lighting Interior Lighting AUTOMOTIVE LIGHTING MARKET - BY GEOGRAPHY North America Europe Asia Pacific LAMEA Buy Now for Single User: https://reports.valuates.com/api/directpaytoken?rcode=ALLI-Auto-3T31&lic=single-user Buy Now for Enterprise User: https://reports.valuates.com/api/directpaytoken?rcode=ALLI-Auto-3T31&lic=enterprise-user SIMILAR REPORTS : Automotive Adaptive Lighting Market Report The global Automotive Adaptive Lighting market size is projected to reach USD 1014.3 Million by 2026, from USD 939.4 Million in 2020 The global demand for Automotive Adaptive Lighting has largely benefited from the shifting paradigms in government regulations and the viewpoint of end-users towards improved safety in automobiles. The sales of new vehicles have been gradually growing over the last few years, which in turn is expected to increase the Automotive Adaptive Lighting Market. View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Othe-4R278/automotive-adaptive-lighting Automotive LED Lighting Market Report In 2019, the global Automotive LED Lighting market size was USD 7330.1 Million, and it is expected to reach USD 14020 Million by the end of 2026. The demand for automotive LED lights was powered by conventional use of such lights as backlights, but they were slowly adopted for headlights over halogen and xenon lights for their power output and improved lighting system. With their growing preference for cars, the automotive LED light market continues to gain ground. Europe is the largest supplier of Automotive LED Lighting, with a market share of 42% in 2017. China is the second-largest supplier, with a market share of 20.7%. Similarly, Europe is the largest consumption market of Automotive LED Lighting, with a market share of 41% in 2017. China is also the second-largest consumption market, following Europe, occupying a 22.7% market share. View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-29C2232/covid-19-impact-on-global-automotive-led-lighting Automotive Halogen Headlights Market Report This report focuses on Automotive Halogen Headlights volume and value at the global, regional, and company levels. From a global perspective, this report represents the overall Automotive Halogen Headlights market size by analyzing historical data and future prospects. Regionally, this report focuses on several key regions: North America, Europe, China, and Japan. View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-17Z1775/global-automotive-halogen-headlights Xenon Lighting Market Report The key regions covered in the Xenon Lighting market report are North America, Europe, China, Japan, South Korea, and India The Xenon Lighting Market report includes a country-wise and region-wise market size for the period 2015-2026. It also includes market size and forecast by Type and by Application segment in terms of production capacity, price, and revenue for the period 2015-2026. View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Othe-3B281/xenon-lighting Automotive Lighting Systems Market Report View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-6M1851/global-automotive-lighting-systems Automotive Lighting Actuator Market Report View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-15I961/global-automotive-lighting-actuator Mould Making for Automotive Lighting Market Report View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Othe-2K318/mould-making-for-automotive-lighting ABOUT US: Valuates offers in-depth market insights into various industries. Our extensive report repository is constantly updated to meet your changing industry analysis needs. Our team of market analysts can help you select the best report covering your industry. We understand your niche region-specific requirements and that's why we offer customization of reports. 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CONTACT US: Valuates Reports [email protected] For U.S. Toll-Free Call +1-(315)-215-3225 For IST Call +91-8040957137 WhatsApp : +91-9945648335 Website: https://reports.valuates.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/valuatesreports Linkedin - https://in.linkedin.com/company/valuatesreports Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/valuatesreports SOURCE Valuates Reports Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca repeated its promise not to profit from a COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic as it reported it was on track with late-stage trials for the treatment. Such promises were boosted by strong sales across its range of treatments during lockdown. Sales jumped by 14 percent to USD 12.6 billion in the first six months of 2020 and were helped by strong trading in new medicines, as well as cancer and respiratory medication. Also read: Some drug makers say they plan to profit from coronavirus vaccine Despite the good earnings, CEO Pascal Soriot said he remained cautious amid the uncertainty of the pandemic. If we have learned one thing with this virus, it is that it is unpredictable,'' he said. And so we need to remain cautious. 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 He said the company was on track to make 2 billion doses of the vaccine at a few dollars a dose. It also concluded three more deals for distribution - should the vaccine work. Follow our LIVE blog for the latest updates of the novel coronavirus pandemic We felt, there (is) a time in life when companies need to step up and make a contribution,'' he said, adding that a vaccine needed to be accessible to as many people as possible. This is the kind of time in history when humanity, humankind is really threatened as a whole,'' he said. The cost of making the vaccine, which was developed by Oxford University, is expected to be offset by funding from the governments. AstraZeneca has struck a number of deals around the world to supply the experimental COVID-19 vaccine, which has shown promise in early testing. Also read: Britain's AstraZeneca tops estimates as coronavirus vaccine hopes persist The Anglo-Swedish company recently completed agreements with the United States, Britain, the European Union, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a public-private-charitable partnership based in Norway, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, another public-private partnership headquartered in Geneva. The deals cover 700 million doses. It has also reached a licensing agreement with Serum Institute of India to supply low-and-middle-income countries and agreements with R-Pharm in Russia and SK Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd in the Republic of Korea to manufacture and export for other global markets." A day after lawmakers grilled the chief executives of the biggest tech companies about their size and power, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet and Facebook reported surprisingly healthy quarterly financial results, defying one of the worst economic downturns on record. Even though the companies felt some sting from the spending slowdown, they demonstrated, as critics have argued, that they are operating on a different playing field from the rest of the economy. Amazons sales were up 40% from a year ago, and its profit doubled. Facebooks profit jumped 98%. Even though the pandemic shuttered many of its stores, Apple increased sales of all its products in every part of the world and posted $11.25 billion in profit. Advertising revenue dropped for Alphabet, the laggard of the bunch, but it still did better than Wall Street had expected. The strong continue to get stronger, said Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities. As many companies are falling by the wayside, the tech stalwarts continue to gain muscle and power in this environment. The tech companies financial performance was a remarkable contrast to the overall health of the U.S. economy. The Commerce Department said Thursday that the countrys gross domestic product fell 9.5% in the second quarter of the year as consumers cut back spending. It was the steepest drop on record. Combined, the companies reported $28.6 billion in quarterly net profit, underscoring how regulatory scrutiny remains more background noise and a distraction for them than an imminent threat to their businesses. On Wednesday, a congressional antitrust panel questioned the companies leaders Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Alphabet about their market power and business practices. It was part of a broader inquiry by regulators and lawmakers into the dominance of the tech giants, with open investigations from the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general. The spectacle of the chief executives of the four companies, worth nearly $5 trillion by market capitalization combined, appearing before a House subcommittee was historic. But antitrust investigations often take years, especially if regulators seek more drastic measures like breaking up companies. The pandemic has reinforced the advantages held by the big tech companies. As consumers stay home, demand for Amazons shopping site surged, while companies are turning to its cloud computing products to keep their services up and running. Apple said the shift to working and learning from home had led more people to splurge on Apples devices and use its services. Our products and services are very relevant to our customers lives, and in some cases, even more during the pandemic than ever before, Luca Maestri, Apples finance chief, said in an interview. He noted, however, that Apple could have made several billion dollars more if not for the pandemic. Facebook and Google continue to be important to marketers, and they are weathering the downturn in advertising better than rivals. Facebook shrugged off a spending slowdown, hailing record levels of engagement with its products. Alphabet said revenue from Google search ads fell 10% pushing the companys overall revenue lower for the first time in the companys history but that still was better than rivals. Last week, Microsoft reported an 18% slide in search advertising revenue. Since the beginning of March, the companies stock prices have risen by an average of 35%, compared with a 10% rise in the S&P 500. Amazon Buoyed by a pandemic-induced surge in online shopping, Amazon had $88.9 billion in quarterly sales, up 40% from a year earlier. Profit doubled, to $5.2 billion, even though the company invested in expanding warehouses and other ways to increase capacity. Simply put, COVID-19, in our view, has injected Amazon with a growth hormone, Tom Forte, an analyst at the investment bank D.A. Davidson & Co., wrote in a recent note to investors. In April, Bezos told investors to expect no operating profit, and maybe even a loss, as the company planned to spend about $4 billion on coronavirus-related expenses like temporary pay increases, declines in warehouse efficiency because of social distancing, and $300 million for testing its workforce for the virus. But even those costs did not compare to the immense surge in demand, with online retail sales up 48%. On a call with reporters, Amazon declined to say if it would give its warehouse workers virus-related bonuses or raises in the current quarter but added that pandemic-related expenses would fall to $2 billion in the quarter. Sales at Amazons lucrative cloud computing business, whose customers include major corporations and small startups, grew 29%, to $10.8 billion, falling short of analyst expectations, although it was more profitable than they had expected. Facebook Facebooks revenue for the second quarter rose 11% from a year earlier to $18.7 billion, while profits jumped 98% to $5.2 billion. The results were well above analysts estimates of $17.3 billion in revenue with a profit of $3.9 billion, according to data provided by FactSet. Despite increasing scrutiny from regulators, questions about its role in subverting elections and how people use the platform to spread misinformation, neither users nor advertisers have shown an inclination to stop using Facebook. More than 3 billion people now regularly come to Facebook or one of its family of apps, as the services have overtaken much of the developed world. And some 2.47 billion people use one or more of Facebooks apps every day. The company said that its number of monthly active users rose 12% from a year ago and added that it was seeing record levels of engagement and usage this year because of shelter-in-place orders around the world. In late June, a grassroots campaign, Stop Hate for Profit, rallied many of the top advertisers on Facebook to reduce their spending because of issues with hate speech on the site. Facebook cautioned investors Thursday that fallout from the ad boycott was noticeable in July and warned that greater economic turmoil from the pandemic could eventually hurt Facebooks bottom line. Apple Despite the global economic slowdown, people kept buying Apple devices en masse and paid the tech giant billions of dollars more for apps and services on those gadgets. Apple said its sales rose 11% to $59.7 billion and its profits increased 12% to $11.25 billion. Both figures handily beat analysts expectations, with Wall Street having forecast declines in both areas. Sales were particularly strong for iPads and Mac computers, as the public was increasingly forced to work and socialize virtually. Revenue also surged in its internet-services business, which include Apples cut of sales from the App Store, the subject of antitrust investigations in the United States and Europe. Even the iPhone, which remains the companys biggest seller, had a slight increase in sales for only the second time in the past seven quarters. Apple also announced a stock split Thursday that would quadruple its number of shares, allowing people to buy a share in the company for a quarter of the current stock price, which closed at $384.76 on Thursday. Alphabet Googles parent company, Alphabet, reported its first-ever decline in quarterly revenue, hurt by a slowdown in spending by advertisers. The company posted revenue of $38.3 billion and a profit of $6.96 billion significantly higher than what Wall Street analysts had predicted. Ruth Porat, Alphabets chief financial officer, said advertising revenue gradually improved as the quarter went on. The decline came largely from lower sales of advertisements that run alongside Googles search results, but the companys efforts to diversify its business paid off as revenue from YouTube ads and its cloud computing business grew. When asked in a call with financial analysts about the congressional hearing, Pichai said the company would have to learn to live with the investigations. The scrutiny is going to be here for a while, and were committed to working through it, he said. c.2020 The New York Times Company Vice President, Chris White and Foreman Joe Suverison talk to local high school students at the Mahoning Valley Skilled Trades Organization trade show "I want students to be more aware of all their options after high school instead of being pushed so hard towards earning an expensive college degree. - Sam Boak Sam Boak is the president and founder of Boak & Sons, Inc., a residential and commercial exterior contracting company based in Youngstown, Ohio. The company employs over 180 men and women across multiple departments, including roofing, siding, insulation, sheet metal and several office administration positions. After spending over 45 years in business in the Mahoning Valley area, Sam Boak has decided that during the new 2020 school year he will spend more time trying to encourage more local high schools to expose students to skilled trade school options after graduation. This will include more involvement in high school career fairs, trade shows and a greater involvement in career events at local high schools. I will always support education in the valley, said Sam Boak. Weve done multiple sponsorships for local universities. However, college isnt for everyone. I want students to be more aware of all their options after high school instead of being pushed so hard towards earning an expensive college degree. In the state of Ohio, the average annual cost for one year of college tuition for the 2018-2019 academic year was just over $15,600 according to CollegeCalc.org. Most degrees take anywhere from 2-4 years to complete if a student stays on the same path throughout their college career, leaving students with anywhere from $30,000 to $62,000 in student loan debt after graduation. Degrees can often be earned in half the time and for less than half the cost if a student goes to a skilled trade school. The entire country has over 3 million open trade jobs according to the Mahoning Valley Skilled Trades organization. When we attend local high school career fairs, the vast majority of them dont have a clue what their options are outside of college, said Chris White, vice president of operations at Boak & Sons, Inc. We spend most of the time explaining how beneficial the skilled trade route can be and many of them are eager to learn more about it. However, we only attend a couple of these a year and were just one company. Were going to keep educating high school students on their options after graduation and continue to spread the word, but were also going to encourage high schools and other companies to do the same. Sam Boak encourages students to reach out to Boak & Sons, Inc. if they have questions about the skilled trade industry. The company can be reached through their website at http://www.boakandsons.com or by calling 330-793-5646. Sam Boak also encourages them to contact the Mahoning Valley Skilled Trades organization for information on jobs and schools open in this field. They can be reached at mvskilledtrades.com. About Boak & Sons: Boak & Sons, Inc. was founded by Sam Boak in 1974 as an insulation contractor. With the high energy costs of the 70's, Boak & Sons expanded early on into the roofing business. They offered economical roof installations through cutting edge technology and equipment, allowing customers to recoup even more in energy savings. Today, Boak & Sons is a residential and commercial contractor for roofing, insulation, sheet metal, siding, and gutters. Based in Youngstown, Ohio, the company serves customers in surrounding areas from Cleveland, Akron, and Canton to Cranberry and Pittsburgh. For more information on Boak & Sons, visit their website at: https://www.boakandsons.com/ UPTON, NY--A research proposal submitted by the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) and Nuclear Science and Technology (NST) Department at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, with the startup Forge Nano as a partner, has been selected as a 2020 Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) project. Of the 82 technologies selected from among more than 220 applications, three were developed at Brookhaven Lab. This TCF funding is the first to be awarded to the CFN, where the technology was developed. The DOE Office of Technology Transitions manages the TCF program, which was created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to promote promising energy technologies developed at DOE national labs. Federal funding awarded through the TCF is matched with nonfederal contributions by private partners interested in commercializing the technology. The goal of the TCF is to advance the commercialization of these technologies and strengthen lab-private sector partnerships to deploy them to the marketplace. The project that Brookhaven Lab and Forge Nano scientists will partner on is called "Maturation of Technology for Trapping Xenon and Krypton." Xenon (Xe) and krypton (Kr) are two noble gases produced during nuclear fission--a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller, lighter nuclei--inside nuclear reactors. These gases can decrease the amount of energy extracted from a nuclear fuel source by increasing the pressure in the fuel rod (the sealed tubes that contain fissionable material) and reduce fuel rod lifetime. Moreover, radioactive isotopes of Xe and Kr can become trapped in unreacted fuel, which requires disposal. Therefore, capturing and removing Xe and Kr could improve the energy-generation efficiency of nuclear reactors and reduce radioactive waste. For several years, scientists in the NST Department have been exploring various candidate materials--including microporous carbon and porous metal-organic frameworks--to absorb these fission gases, thereby reducing pressure buildup in fuel rods. Separately, scientists at the CFN have been developing 2-D porous, cage-like frameworks made of ultrathin--less than a single nanometer--inorganic silica (silicon and oxygen) and aluminosilicate (aluminum, silicon, and oxygen) films supported on metal surfaces. In 2017, they became the first team to trap a noble gas inside a 2-D porous structure at room temperature. Last year, they discovered the mechanism by which these "nanocages" trap and separate single atoms of argon (Ar), Kr, and Xe at room temperature. Following these studies, the CFN submitted an invention disclosure on the silicate materials for trapping gases (among other applications) to Brookhaven's Intellectual Property Legal Group, which together with Brookhaven's Office of Technology Transfer, helped the team explore promising applications and connected CFN and NST scientists. "Trapping single atoms of noble gases at noncryogenic temperatures is extremely difficult and a relevant challenge for nuclear waste remediation, among other industrial applications," said CFN Interface Science and Catalysis Group materials scientist Anibal Boscoboinik, who has been leading the work. "This difficulty is primarily due to the weak interaction of noble gases in their neutral state. The approach developed at the CFN enables trapping of the noble gas atoms in cages via ionization--converting them to electrically charged atoms, or ions--for a very brief time so they can enter the cages. Once they are inside, they go back to their neutral, stable state, but by that time they are already physically confined in the cages." Now, through the TCF, Brookhaven will partner with Forge Nano to scale up the manufacture of the lab-demonstrated nanocages to maximize the surface area for trapping Kr and Xe atoms. One possible way to achieve this optimization is to place the nanoporous materials inside larger (mesoporous) materials--in other words, a cage within a cage. Forge Nano will apply its expertise in atomic layer deposition--a technique for depositing one atom at a time onto a surface material until a complete layer is formed--for precision nanocoatings to coat the inside of the mesopores with nanocages, where the trapping will occur. "This innovative material application is a perfect match for us at Forge Nano for coating atomically thin controlled coatings," said project partner Staci Moulton, the application engineer for business development at Forge Nano. "We are excited to work with CFN researchers to scale up their breakthrough." Using ion beams and test reactors at Texas A&M University's Nuclear Engineering and Science Center and Accelerator Laboratory--one of the partner facilities accessible through the Nuclear Science User Facilities--the Brookhaven team will test the radiation stability of the materials at levels relevant to nuclear fission reactor environments. "The radiation damage testing capabilities available at Texas A&M will greatly accelerate our ability to construct robust materials," said NST Department Chair Lynne Ecker. "Research in our group focuses on understanding at a fundamental level the physicochemical processes that happen on functional surfaces and interfaces exposed to chemicals," said CFN Interface Science and Catalysis Group Leader Dario Stacchiola. "To probe these processes in real time and under operating conditions, we develop and operate state-of-the-art in situ and operando tools." To follow the trapping of the gases, they will perform x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), a technique for identifying and quantifying the elements on a sample's surface. These studies will be conducted using ambient-pressure (AP) XPS instruments located in the CFN Proximal Probes Facility and at the In situ and Operando Soft X-ray Spectroscopy (IOS) beamline of Brookhaven's National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II). If successful, this technology--which Brookhaven's Intellectual Property Legal Group recently submitted a provisional patent application for--would have a major impact on the nuclear power industry and environment at large. As of 2018, nearly 450 nuclear reactors were generating electricity, equivalent to 10 percent of the global electricity supply. Nuclear power is the second largest source of low-carbon electricity (hydropower is the first). "The nanocages can be transformative in the field of nuclear power generation by improving the efficiency and reliability of nuclear reactors and reducing radioactive waste and emission," said Boscoboinik. "A technology to more efficiently trap, separate, and sequester noble gases has applications in advanced nuclear reactors," added Ecker. "The nanocages have the potential to become an enabling technology for future reactors. We're very excited to explore this possibility by working with our partner, Forge Nano." The two other projects that Brookhaven received 2020 TCF awards for are "Surface Modification of Graphite Anodes Enabling Fast Charging of Li-ion Batteries" and "Sustainable Well Cement for Geothermal, Thermal Recovery and Carbon Storage Wells." Brookhaven researchers interested in learning more about the TCF or participating in the next call should contact Office of Technology Transfer Manager Poorni Upadhya at (631) 344-4711 or pupadhya@bnl.gov. The CFN and NSLS-II are both DOE Office of Science User Facilities. The AP-XPS instrument at the IOS beamline is operated as a partnership between CFN and NSLS-II. The Office of Nuclear Energy is the TCF program office funding this project. The other participating TCF program offices are the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Office of Fossil Energy, the Office of Electricity, and the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response. A complete 2020 TCF project list can be found in the DOE award announcement. If you are interested in partnering with CFN scientists on future TCF proposals or other projects, please contact CFN Assistant Director for Strategic Partnerships Priscilla Antunez at (631) 344-6186 or pantunez@bnl.gov. Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. The 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. Follow @BrookhavenLab on Twitter or find us on Facebook. Based in Thornton, Colorado, Forge Nano is a global leader in surface engineering and precision nanocoating technology using atomic layer deposition (ALD). Forge Nano's proprietary technology and manufacturing processes make angstrom-thick coatings in a fast, affordable, and commercially viable way for a wide range of materials, applications, and industries. Forge Nano's suite of ALD and particle ALD products and services covers the full spectrum, from lab-scale tools to commercial-scale manufacturing systems. ### MONROE An Ansonia man has been charged for his alleged connection to the burglary of the Roosevelt Drive Dunkin Donuts on Dec. 27, police said. Joseph Marino, 47, was charged July 29 with third-degree burglary, third-degree conspiracy to commit burglary, third-degree larceny, third-degree conspiracy to commit larceny, possession of burglary tools, first-degree criminal mischief, first-degree conspiracy to commit criminal mischief, third-degree criminal trespass and third-degree conspiracy to commit criminal trespass. Marino was arrested on a warrant by Monroe detectives while appearing in Bridgeport Superior Court on unrelated charges. Police Lt. Stephen Corrone said police received a complaint of a suspicious person near the Dunkin Donuts, 230 Roosevelt Drive, at 1:47 a.m. Dec. 27. While officers were en route, Corrone said, the dispatch center received an activated burglar alarm at the same location. Upon arrival, Corrone said officers discovered that Dunkin Donuts had been forcefully entered and burglarized. Police said $1,395 was stolen along with the digital video recording surveillance system worth $3,500. Through surveillance video from surrounding businesses, it was determined that two suspects in a small dark colored vehicle had burglarized the business, Corrone said. Through the investigation, Corrone said, detectives found that the same suspects and vehicle were involved in commercial burglaries in Shelton, Milford and North Branford. A multi-town investigation led to the development of Marino as a suspect, Corrone said. Using information obtained through search and seizure warrants, it was confirmed that Marino was in the area of the burglary in Monroe at the time it was taking place, said Corrone. Corrone said the identity of the second suspect in has not been confirmed. The case remains under investigation. Marino was held on a $75,000 bond. brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com The U.S. is about to start running out of one of its most valuable resources: skilled immigrants. But it can alleviate that shortage by letting in lots of talented refugees, just as it did in the 1930s and after World War II. The coronavirus pandemic has given President Donald Trump the cover he needed to bar many green-card holders and applicants, H-1B workers, other skilled workers and foreign students from the country. Even before the pandemic, Trumps policies and rhetoric had sharply curtailed the net inflow of immigrants. A new report by the National Foundation for American Policy, a think tank, estimates that legal immigration to the U.S. (most of which is of the skilled variety) will be 49 percent lower in 2021 than in 2016. Even that estimate is probably too optimistic because it assumes that employer-sponsored and immediate-family immigration will rise. This is a tragedy and a disaster for the U.S. Trumps supporters might not realize it, but the country is highly dependent on the talents and effort of foreign workers. For example, U.S. technological and industrial leadership is dependent on university research, which is mostly carried out by graduate students. In many critical fields, these students are mostly from overseas: Breaking News: Get email alerts from Chron.com sent directly to your inbox Foreign-born professors are also indispensable. In life sciences and medicine, which are critically important in emergencies like the current pandemic, the NFAP report notes that 56.6 percent of researchers are foreign-born. This includes many of the people now racing to find a coronavirus vaccine. More generally, the medical system is also critically dependent on foreign-born workers: Curtailing the flow of skilled immigrants into the U.S. will also reduce tax revenues and make it more difficult to support an aging population. Immigration restrictionists will argue that the loss of foreign-born talent is a good thing -- that more research and professional jobs will now go to native-born Americans, and that the U.S. will invest more in educating its own young people. Both of these claims are almost certainly false. Foreign students pay high tuition that allows universities to more cheaply educate native-born Americans; kicking them out will wound an already imperiled U.S. university system. As for jobs, the presence of skilled immigrants actually helps native-born workers. Having more H-1B workers in a city, for example, increases wages for Americans of all education levels. This is because having more skilled workers in an area makes companies more likely to locate their offices there. Drain U.S. cities of talented immigrants, and companies wont simply hire unqualified native-born people to fill the lost spots; theyll pack up and move overseas to find talent. Economist Britta Glennon studied the effect of a restriction on H-1B visas in 2004, and found that it increased hiring at U.S. companiesforeign affiliates. So keeping up skilled immigration is crucial for the health of the U.S. economy. Where, then, will the U.S. get its skilled immigrants? It will have to resort to opportunism, scrounging for them anywhere it can. With traditional channels to attract talented workers out of favor, it will have to find people for whom staying in their home countries is too dangerous, and offer them refuge. These could include political dissidents, who tend to be educated. It could also include ethnic and religious minorities fleeing persecution. For example, the U.S. could let in large numbers of people from Hong Kong, where the Chinese government is carrying out an intensifying crackdown. It could also give asylum to Uighurs, Hui Muslims and other persecuted groups in China, as well as to Chinese Christians who are denied freedom of worship. Muslims in India, Christians in Nigeria and LGBT people from Russia are just three more of many examples. Prime Property: Get Houston real estate news sent directly to your inbox The U.S. used exactly such a strategy to get some of its most high-profile skilled immigrants during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. A 2014 paper by economists Petra Moser, Alessandra Voena and Fabian Waldinger found a substantial increase in U.S. innovation in fields that received large numbers of Jewish scientists after 1933. The Manhattan Project itself might not have succeeded without substantial input from these researchers. In a world that is often authoritarian and brutal, the U.S. has many opportunities to repeat this trick. By letting in persecuted individuals and groups, it can do a good deed, enhance its battered international standing and help sustain its technological and industrial strength. Smith is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion. London: The global pandemic Coronavirus has created a furore around the world these days. Many countries are engaged in searching for this. Trials on its vaccine have also started in many countries. Imperial College, London, UK is also examining the corona vaccine. Now the scientists of this college said that they will give vaccine doses to hundreds of people for immunization with coronavirus. This step is being taken after the vaccine has been tested so far that it is not harmful to health. College professor, Dr Robin Shattock and his co-workers gave low doses of the vaccine to some people first, after which they will now test the vaccine on about 300 people. Some of those people are above 75 years of age. He said that "It has no harmful effect". Shattock, who is leading the research on the vaccine at Imperial, said that "We are still doing research on it. He wants to get enough safety data to vaccinate several thousand people in October". Shattock said that "Due to a sudden decrease in cases of coronavirus in Britain, it has become difficult to detect whether the vaccine will work. So he and his team will now test the vaccine elsewhere." Mayawati comes in support from Dalit Mahamandaleshwar, says 'It would have been better if he was invited for Bhoomi Poojan' Shivsena welcomes Modi govt decision of new education policy CM Yogi appeals to people "Do not come to Ayodhya for Bhoomi Pujan" The number of Americans researching how to move New Zealand, where the coronavirus pandemic has been kept under control, has risen 160 per cent. According to The New Zealand Herald, some 112,800 more Americans visited New Zealands immigration website last month compared to the same time last year. At the same time, one American was clicking on the immigration website each minute, according to the Heralds analysis. The report also noted an increase in Google searches with the term move to New Zealand" last month. New Zealand has reported around 1,500 Covid-19 cases since the pandemic started, in comparison to the US, where more than 4.5 million have contracted the virus, and more than 150,000 have died. Those statistics, according to sociologists at New Zealands Malley University, were the reason behind the surge in interest. Middle class, professional America is saying, Well, where do we go for our own safety and the safety of our families?, said Massey University professor Paul Spoonley. Mr Spoonley said multiple push and pull factors were behind American interest in New Zealand, which witnessed similar pattens after Donald Trumps election in 2016. Push factors are the [US governments] inability to handle a public health challenge like Covid-19, combined with civil unrest, said the professor. And then the pull factor is that New Zealand is seen as a calm, well-ordered, environmentally attractive country that has dealt with Covid-19 incredibly well. Mr Spoonley added that the spike in New Zealands appeal was not only limited to the US. I absolutely anticipate more interest from places like the UK, Germany and Singapore looking to New Zealand as a migrant destination, he said. More than 250,000 Americans were said to have visited New Zealands immigration website this year. Barrington Stage Company in the Berkshires was all set to go with a production of playwright David Cales one-man play Harry Clarke the union had given the go-ahead, and the theater had had seats removed and the bathrooms and air conditioning system redesigned to meet COVID safety guidelines. But the state of Massachusetts has refused to waive its ongoing ban on indoor performance. The show will go on, however in a tent. The New York Times WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Notorious white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke has been banned from Twitter. The social media giant's spokesperson confirmed that Duke's Twitter account was 'permanently suspended' for repeatedly violating its policy against hate speech. 'This enforcement action is in line with our recently-updated guidance on harmful links,' Twitter said in a statement. Twitter Rules on hateful conduct, revised in March, prohibits posts that incite violence or threats of violence against people based on their religion, race or ethnic origin. Duke was banned from the service temporarily earlier, and from YouTube in June. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes Duke as 'perhaps America's most well-known racist and anti-Semite'. Duke is a 'figure of the American radical right, a neo-Nazi, longtime Klan leader and now international spokesman for Holocaust denial,' according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Duke, who founded the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s, ran for governor of Louisiana in 1991 and won a majority of the white votes. Duke, 70, has advocated Neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like Holocaust denial and Jewish control of academia, the press, and the financial system. He had endorsed Donald Trump's re-election earlier this month. 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. All Star Minerals PLC ("All Star" or the "Company") Final Results - 31 December 2019 The Company hereby notifies shareholders that the Annual Report and Financial Statements of the Company for the year ended 31 December 2019 have been approved by the Company's board. Summary Financial Statements are set out below. A full copy of the Annual Report will be available shortly on the Company's website, www.allstarminerals.co.uk The Directors of All Star are responsible for the content of this announcement. This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014, and has been arranged for release by Tomas Nugent, Chairman of the Company. ENQUIRIES: All Star Minerals Plc Tomas Nugent Chairman 07963 455663 AQSE Corporate Adviser Cairn Financial Advisers LLP Liam Murray 020 7213 0880 REVIEW OF THE BUSINESS - Chairman's Statement The period under review was a time in which the Company continued to actively evaluate opportunities and work towards identifying investments. The Board reviewed options as to how to advance the Company. During the year, a number of potential transactions were evaluated but did not conclude. As a Company with a listing on the AQUIS Exchange Growth Market, its access to capital is predominantly through UK investors, whether that be private client brokers or sophisticated and high net worth individuals. Fundraising proved to be very challenging during the period under review. The Company's principal asset since relinquishing and selling its Australian assets was its shareholding in an investee company - NQ Minerals Plc ("NQ"), which is also listed on the AQUIS Exchange Growth Market. The Company disposed of its holding in NQ during the year under review to generate funds to provide the Company with working capital and manage its Balance Sheet. Throughout the year, Directors have been mindful of their obligations under S172 of the Companies Act 2006. S172 sets out a number of principles the Board should have regard to in promoting the success of the Company for the benefit of shareholders. The Board have complied with this requirement as follows: Principle Company's actions have regard to the likely consequences of any decision in the long term The Board has a strategic vision and continues to evaluate potential transactions for the benefit of members have regard to the interests of the Company's employees The Company does not currently have any employees have regard to the need to foster the Company's business relationships with suppliers, customers and others The Company is currently in the evaluation phase of the investment process and its key relationships are currently with its suppliers. The Company has always worked closely with its suppliers and sought to treat them fairly have regard to the impact of the Company's operations on the community and the environment The Company's operations are currently limited as is its impact on the community and environment have regard to the desirability of the Company maintaining a reputation for high standards of business conduct As a Company listed on AQUIS Exchange, it is seeking opportunities to further its principal activity. The Company and Board maintain high standards when dealing with potential investment opportunities have regard to the need to act fairly between members of the Company The Company has a diverse shareholder base and the Board ensure that no one member's interests take priority over another FINANCIAL OVERVIEW The Directors consider both profit/loss after tax and total comprehensive income/expense to be key performance indicators together with availability of working capital (see Outlook). The results for the 12-month period to 31 December 2019 shows a profit after taxation of 135,698 (2018: loss of 110,369). The profit arose as a result of the dissolution of one of the Company's creditors with the resulting credit arising off-setting administrative expenses for the year. However, total comprehensive income includes the loss on disposal of the Company's holding of its holding in NQ of 375,389 resulting in a total comprehensive expense of 239,691 (2018: income of 27,620) for the year. The basic profit per share from continuing operations was 0.01p (2018: loss per share of 0.01p). The Directors do not recommend the payment of a dividend. PRINCIPAL RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES FACING THE COMPANY The principal risk faced by the Company is the ability to raise sufficient funds to continue to execute the Company's strategy. OUTLOOK I am greatly encouraged by the work that the Board and its advisers have done during the year evaluating potential transactions. I feel confident that All Star will be able to source and execute transactions in the year ahead allowing the Company to progress forward and reward shareholders for their patience over last number of the years. Since the year end, there has been significant work done by the Board to strengthen the Balance Sheet and develop a new focus for the future. In May 2020, the Company raised 80,000 before expenses through the issue of 400,000,000 ordinary shares. The Company also announced that two new Directors would be appointed. In June 2020, following a General Meeting, the Company announced that a further 1,000,000,000 ordinary shares had been issued raising 200,000 before expenses and that an existing 55,000 loan note and accrued interest would be converted into ordinary shares. The Company also issued warrants over new ordinary shares issued pursuant to the fundraise and conversion of loan notes on a 1 for 2 basis exercisable at 0.04p per share until December 2022. The net proceeds of the fundraise will be used for working capital and project evaluation purposes, with the Company remaining focused on the mining sector. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow Board members, shareholders and our advisers for their continued support and patience. Tomas Nugent Executive Chairman 30 July 2020 Income Statement 2019 2018 Administrative expenses Other operating income 120,488 - (85,719) 1,350 Finance costs (4,000) (26,000) Finance income 19,210 - PROFIT/(LOSS) BEFORE TAX 135,698 (110,369) Income tax expense - - PROFIT/(LOSS) FOR THE YEAR 135,698 (110,369) 2019 2018 PROFIT/(LOSS) PER SHARE expressed in pence per share Basic Diluted 0.01 0.01 (0.01) (0.01) Statement of other Comprehensive Income 2019 2018 PROFIT/(LOSS) FOR THE YEAR 135,698 (110,369) OTHER COMPREHENSIVE INCOME Net gain on equity instruments designated at fair value through other comprehensive income Net loss on equity instruments designated at fair value through other comprehensive income - (375,389) 137,989 - TOTAL OTHER COMPREHENSIVE (EXPENSE)/INCOME (375,389) 137,989 TOTAL COMPREHENSIVE (EXPENSE)/INCOME FOR THE YEAR (239,691) 27,620 Statement in Changes of Equity Issued capital Share premium Other reserves Accumulated losses Total equity Balance at 1 January 2019 428,433 1,773,610 886,039 (3,003,363) 84,719 Comprehensive income for the year Profit for the year - - - 135,698 135,698 Other comprehensive income Net loss on equity instruments designated at fair value through other comprehensive income Transfer - - - - (375,389) 209,802 - (209,802) (375,389) Total comprehensive (expense) for the year - - - - (165,587) (165,587) (209,802) (74,104) (375,389) (239,691) Balance at 31 December 2019 428,433 1,773,610 720,452 (3,077,467) (154,972) Issued capital Share premium Other reserves Accumulated losses Total equity Balance at 1 January 2018 428,433 1,773,610 748,050 (2,892,994) 57,099 Comprehensive income for the year Loss for the year - - - (110,369) (110,369) Other comprehensive income Net gain on equity instruments designated at fair value through other comprehensive income - - 137,989 - 137,989 Total comprehensive income/(expense) for the year - - - - 137,989 137,989 - (110,369) 137,989 27,620 Balance at 31 December 2018 428,433 1,773,610 886,039 (3,003,363) 84,719 Statement of Financial Position The drugs were seized at the Channel Tunnel terminal in northern France (Stefan Rousseau/PA) A lorry driver has been arrested after police seized cannabis worth an estimated 1.5 million at the UK-France border. The National Crime Agency (NCA) said the 43-year-old was detained at the Channel Tunnel terminal in Coquelles, northern France, on Thursday morning. Border Force officers recovered around 150 kilos of cannabis with an estimated street value of 1.5 million from a vehicle, as well as 2,000 in cash. We are determined to do all we can to stem the supply of illicit drugs to Scotland John McGowan, NCA The NCA said the man, from Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, was later released under investigation. Officers from the agency and Police Scotland have searched properties in Motherwell, and nearby Bellshill and Shotts. NCA Scotland branch operations manager John McGowan said: This is a significant drug seizure involving NCA teams in Scotland and England working together with partners including Border Force and Police Scotland. Together we are determined to do all we can to stem the supply of illicit drugs to Scotland, where they can do so much damage to our communities. "We don't have shared values; that's just the way it is," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) told a news conference Friday on Capitol Hill. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press) The $600 federal unemployment subsidy and the national eviction moratorium on some properties expired Friday after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach an agreement on an economic aid package meant to deal with the growing surge of COVID-19. Congress passed the last major economic package in March, and the Democratic-led House passed legislation that included an extension in May. But serious attempts to negotiate a new deal did not begin until Senate Republicans put forward a counterproposal this week. That proposal by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was quickly rejected by some in his own party, and President Trump called it "semi-irrelevant." Tens of millions of unemployed Americans are relying on the federal aid, which is in addition to state unemployment benefits, to help pay rent, buy groceries and pay other bills during the coronavirus crisis. The economy contracted by a third between April and June, the swiftest contraction in history, and more than 30 million Americans lost their jobs. Congress might make the federal unemployment payments retroactive if a deal ultimately is reached, but the delay is expected to cause anxiety and hardship for millions of Americans. Days of closed-door negotiations between House and Senate Democratic leaders and the Trump administration resulted in frustration and finger-pointing Friday at dueling partisan news conferences with no resolution in sight. "We weren't bickering. We were having major policy disagreements," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) told reporters. "We dont have shared values; thats just the way it is. Its not bickering. Its standing our ground." "The Democrats are certainly willing today to allow some of the American citizens who are struggling the most under this pandemic to go unprotected," White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said in a separate news conference. "The Democrats believe that they have all the cards on their side, and they're willing to play those cards at the expense of those that are hurting." Story continues Major differences remain between the House and Senate proposals, including whether to provide more money for SNAP food stamp benefits and to offer help for struggling state governments that have seen tax revenues plummet in the recession. Other disputes include whether reopened businesses and schools would be protected from liability if customers and employees get infected by the coronavirus, and who should receive another $1,200 direct check from the government. Even the scope of the bill is up in the air, with Republicans seeking to limit it to $1 trillion and Democrats proposing north of $3 trillion. Democrats want to keep offering the $600 a week for unemployed Americans through at least the rest of the year. Republicans have proposed extending it for two months at $200 a week, and then limiting it to 70% of an individual's salary, up to $500. With chances of a quick compromise dimming, Republicans proposed a short-term extension for some unemployment benefits. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said after a lengthy meeting Thursday with Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York that he and Meadows had offered several short-term proposals to extend benefits while negotiations continued over a larger, more complex bill, but were rebuffed. "I think the Democrats are willing to allow the enhanced unemployment to expire; they've made that very clear, not once, not twice, but three times, and so I'm not very optimistic on anybody who's counting on enhanced unemployment to have any relief anytime soon," he said. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Democrats didn't offer counterproposals. "We've made four proposals. The Democrats have made precisely zero," McEnany said. Pelosi said that the negotiations are so far apart that a one-week extension wasn't worthwhile. She has said that a short-term extension would remove leverage while negotiating a complete package. "What is a one-week extension good for? A one-week extension is good if you have a bill and you're working it out the details, the writing of it," she told reporters Thursday. "It's worthless unless you are using it for this purpose." In most states, including California, the benefits stopped July 25 because most state unemployment systems operate on a weekly basis and couldnt extend the benefit into the final, partial week of July. Pelosi, Schumer, Mnuchin and Meadows are expected to continue meeting over the weekend, but it's unclear whether they'll begin working on the policy hurdles that remain. McConnell has indicated that fulsome legislation is possibly weeks away, and he set up a possible vote on a short-term unemployment benefit extension next week if a deal can be reached. The White House on Friday indicated it isn't ready to move to a large-scale bill, either. "We have a very specific focus right now, and it's not this comprehensive plan, whether it be the HEROES Act the Democrats proposed that wasn't serious, or the HEALS Act," McEnany said. "That narrow focus is this: that Americans are about to lose their unemployment insurance, and this White House, this chief of staff, this president, this secretary of the Treasury have offered several iterations to make sure that Americans, who through no fault of their own lost their jobs during this pandemic, do not also lose these checks." Pelosi said she's skeptical Republicans are ready to start negotiating a broad package, saying they don't yet grasp how much will be needed to address the economic problems facing the country. She noted McConnell's proposal didn't include money for SNAP benefits despite long lines at food banks, or money to help states and the U.S. Postal Service conduct voting by mail ahead of the Nov. 3 election. The person youre negotiating with has to want something, Pelosi said. You have to think they might want something for the American people. So far, so bad. Peshawar: The United States wants Pakistan to take action over the killing of an American national in a crowded courtroom as he faced trial for blasphemy. Tahir Ahmed Naseem was shot multiple times at close range as he appeared in the north-western city of Peshawar on Wednesday. "We urge Pakistan to take immediate action and pursue reforms that will prevent such a shameful tragedy from happening again," the US State Department said in a tweet. Police officers gather at an entry gate of a district court following the killing of Tahir Ahmed Naseem who was accused of insulting Islam, in Peshawar, Pakistan. Credit:AP The 57-year-old American was on trial on charges that he had claimed to be a prophet. He was accused of blasphemy in 2018 and was facing penalties ranging from fines to death. The clinical trial of Indian Covid-19 vaccine candidate Covaxin began in Uttar Pradeshs Kanpur and Gorakhpur hospitals on Friday. In Kanpur, the first set of 22 volunteers were given the vaccine under strict medical supervision at the private Prakhar Hospital. The medical facility in Kanpur and Gorakhpurs Rana Hospital and Trauma Centre are among the 12 institutes across the country where the human trial of the vaccine, developed by Bharat Biotech, are being conducted. A 26-year-old information technology (IT) professional from central Kanpur became the first person in Uttar Pradesh to get the vaccine dose. The man expressed happiness at being a part of an exercise being carried out to help mankind. I wanted to be a part of this. I told my family members about my decision. They were worried about the adverse side-effects (if any). I managed to convince them, he said. As I walked into the room, I was asked to sit on the bed by the team waiting for me. I was praying that this vaccine works. It (vaccine) is essential to bring people out of despair and defeat this virus, he added. Dr JS Kushwaha, chairman of the hospital, said the vaccine dose was injected in all the 22 volunteers in one hour. Their condition was constantly monitored for three hours against the specified two hours. None of them complained of any problem nor did the medical team observe any adverse symptoms of the vaccine. I am extremely hopeful that this vaccine will work, said Dr Kushwaha. The hospital plans to conduct the trials on 100 healthy volunteers in two phases. The first phase has 36 participants out of which 22 were given the vaccine on Friday. We have given the volunteers our helpline number; they can speak to our in-house experts and share their experiences or problems if they have any, he said. A team of eight experts, which a doctor from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) heads, would collect the blood samples of these 22 volunteers on August 13. The samples would be sent to an ICMR-recognised laboratory for anti-bodies test and data analysis. Another sample would be taken on August 27 for a similar test. All the healthy volunteers were cleared to undergo the trial after medical screening. Their RT-PCR and anti-bodies test reports came on Thursday and the plan to give them the vaccine was set in motion at a notice of 16 hours. The volunteers come from diverse backgrounds and five of them are women three participated in the Friday trial. Apart from Kanpur and Gorakhpur hospitals, the other institutes selected for the clinical trial of Covaxin are located in Visakhapatnam, Rohtak, New Delhi, Patna, Belgaum, Nagpur, Kattankulathur, Hyderabad, Arya Nagar, and Goa. Washington, July 31 : Top Republicans have rejected Donald Trump's suggestion that November's presidential election should be delayed over alleged fraud concerns. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy both dismissed the idea, the BBC reported. Trump does not have the authority to postpone the election. Any delay would have to be approved by Congress. Earlier, the president suggested that increased postal voting could lead to fraud and inaccurate results. He floated a delay until people could "properly, securely and safely" vote. There is little evidence to support Trump's claims but he has long railed against mail-in voting, which he has said would be susceptible to fraud. US states want to make postal voting easier due to public health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. Trump's intervention came as new figures showed the US economy contracted by nearly a third (32.9 per cent) between April and June, compared to the same period in 2019 - the worst contraction since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Senator McConnell said no US presidential election had ever been delayed before. "Never in the history of this country, through wars, depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time. We will find a way to do that again this November third," he told local Kentucky station WNKY. McCarthy echoed him. "Never in the history of the federal elections have we ever not held an election and we should go forward with our election," he said. Trump ally Senator Lindsay Graham meanwhile said a delay was "not a good idea". However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused to be drawn on Trump's suggestion. Quizzed by reporters on whether a president could delay an election, he said he would not "enter a legal judgement on the fly". When pressed, he said the justice department would "make that legal determination", adding "we want an election that everyone is confident in". The spokesman for Trump's re-election campaign, Hogan Gidley, said Trump had just been "raising a question". But Ari Fleischer, who was press secretary under Republican President George W Bush said Trump should delete his tweet. "This is not an idea anyone, especially POTUS [the president of the United States], should float," he said. "Mr President - please don't even pretend to mess with this. It's a harmful idea." In a series of tweets, Trump said "universal mail-in voting" would make November's vote the "most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history" and a "great embarrassment to the USA". He suggested - without providing evidence - that mail-in voting, as it is known in the US, would be susceptible to foreign interference. "The [Democrats] talk of foreign influence in voting, but they know that Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter the race," he said. TEMECULA, Calif., July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Buyers of physical gold and silver during the 2020 "Gold Rush" should be wary of potential counterfeits in the marketplace, mistaking plated "gold coins" for bullion products, and avoid overpaying for any purchases, cautions the Accredited Precious Metals Dealers (APMD www.APMDdealers.org) division of the nonprofit Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG www.PNGdealers.org). "Adding gold, silver or platinum bullion coins or ingots to an investment portfolio can be a smart choice, but knowing your seller can be a crucial choice," advises PNG-APMD President Richard Weaver. "If you don't know gold, you'd better know your gold dealer." Buyers should be cautious of an increase in counterfeit gold coins offered in the marketplace by unscrupulous sellers, and also beware of scam artists trying to lure investors with urgent claims of too-good-to-be-true low prices and quick, guaranteed bullion market profits. "Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation (www.ACEFonline.org) has identified over 100 websites selling counterfeit precious metals coins and ingots. Information about the suspected spurious sellers has been given to the U.S. Treasury Office of Inspector General, but buyers should always be prudent before making any purchases from unknown sellers," cautions Weaver. He also advises investors seeking bullion to know that base metal replicas in the marketplace, often advertised as "tribute coins," may be merely plated or layered with just a microscopically thin coating of gold -- only about $1 worth of actual precious metal. "They may have limited secondary market value and should not be confused with genuine, legal tender gold bullion coins, such as the popular American Eagle or Canadian Maple Leaf," explains Weaver. "To avoid potential scams, investors must know the credentials of the bullion dealer, not just what the dealer may tout in TV advertisements or on a fancy website," added Weaver. All members of the Accredited Precious Metals Dealer program must adhere to a strict Code of Ethics (https://APMDdealers.org/apmd-code-of-ethics/) in the buying and selling of precious metals. A list of APMD member-dealers is online at www.APMDddealers.org/apmd-dealers or call the Professional Numismatists Guild at 951-587-8300. SOURCE Professional Numismatists Guild Related Links http://www.apmddealers.org Investigations are underway in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case. Rajput's father had filed a complaint against Rhea Chakraborty at Rajiv Nagar Police Station in Patna, for abetment to suicide. The case now encompasses two states -- Bihar and Maharashtra. While Bihar Police scrutinised the late actor's bank accounts, Mumbai Police is also slated to do the same. Chakraborty has accused Rajput's relative of influencing the probe, while Rajput's friend Siddharth Pithani said that he was coerced to give false statements. Calls to hand over the case to the CBI have been growing louder in the meantime. Former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis also said, "There is a huge public sentiment about handing over Sushant Singh Rajput case to CBI but looking at the reluctance of State Government, atleast ED can register an ECIR since misappropriation and money laundering angle has come out." Here are the top developments in the Sushant Singh Rajput-Rhea Chakraborty case: 1. Bihar Police began scrutinising the late actor's financial transactions and bank account details on Thursday. A team of police from Mumbai reached Mumbai, visited multiple places including Chakraborty's residence. The four-member team visited a Bandra-based bank and are also looking into evidence collected by the Mumbai police as well as statements recorded by them. Also read: Sushant Singh Rajput suicide case: Mystery of 'missing' Rs 15 crore in FIR against Rhea Chakraborty 2. The late actor's chartered accountant said that Rajput did not have the kind of money his family claimed he had. The CA also told India Today TV that there were no transactions made towards Chakraborty that were over Rs 1 lakh. "No major transfer except a few thousand to Rhea's account. Once Rhea's mother transferred Rs 33,000 to him. He was a film star so had to maintain his lifestyle and expenses. They both travelled together and he lived as per his wish. He would spend on shopping and further expenses like rent and other things like travel. His net worth was not that much as is being claimed. His income had dropped from the last one year," said his CA. 3. In an email addressed to the Bandra police station on July 28, Rajput's friend Siddharth Pithani said that he was being pressured by the family to testify against Chakraborty. In the email Pithani said that Rajput's brother-in-law and senior IPS officer OP Singh and sister Meetu Singh asked him questions regarding Rhea and her expenses during their stay at Mount Blanc. Pithani said he received a call from OP Singh who asked him to give statement against Rhea to Bihar Police. He further stated in the email, "I am pressurised to comply and record statements against Rhea (about) things which I am not aware of." 4. Rhea Chakraborty in a petition filed in the Supreme Court said that she was falsely implicated in the case. She said that this was done only to harass her and that Sushant Singh Rajput was suffering from depression and was on medication. "In peculiar facts and circumstances of the present case, the petitioner has been falsely implicated in the present case filed by at the instance of Krishna Kishore Singh," Chakraborty said in her plea. 5. Rajput's former girlfriend Ankita Lokhande said that as per her knowledge the late actor did not suffer from depression. In an interview, Lokhande said that she had not been in touch with the actor for the past four years. Lokhande said that she, however, had a good relationship with his family members. "Sushant was never the kind of person who would commit suicide over money issues... People do spend money on each other in relationships... If he spent Rs 15 crore on the alleged companies formed by him and Rhea... this is something we all want to know more of," she said in a TV interview. Also read: 'Irreparable numbness in my heart': Rhea Chakraborty pens emotional note for Sushant Singh Rajput Isaias is now a hurricane and will influence any non-tropical weather systems over the next five days. One such weather system around the Great Lakes late this weekend will have its path altered by the hurricane. First here is the official National Hurricane Center forecast for Hurricane Isaias, issued at 11 a.m. today, July 31, 2020. Advertisement Ellen DeGeneres may be ready to call it quits on her daytime talk amid claims she perpetuated a toxic work environment, DailyMail.com can reveal. An insider at Telepictures tells DailyMail.com that the host is telling executives at Telepictures and Warner Bros that she has had enough and wants to walk away from the show. 'She feels she can't go on and the only way to recover her personal brand from this is to shut down the show,' they said. 'The truth is she knew what was going on, it's her show. The buck stops with her. She can blame every executive under the sun but Ellen is ultimately the one to blame.' On Friday, Ellen was nowhere to be seen as her wife Portia de Rossi was pictured out in Los Angeles amid the drama. The 47-year-old Australian actress - who has been married to Ellen since 2008 - went solo as she took the couple's three dogs for a walk. Portia failed to raise a smile as she shielded her eyes behind dark sunglasses while making her way to her car with the canines. DailyMail.com, can reveal that Ellen DeGeneres is telling executives at Telepictures and Warner Bros that she has had enough and wants to walk away from the show On Friday, Ellen was nowhere to be seen as her wife Portia de Rossi stepped out in Los Angeles amid the drama The 47-year-old Australian actress - who has been married to Ellen since 2008 - went solo as she took the couple's three dogs for a walk Portia failed to raise a smile as she shielded her eyes behind dark sunglasses while making her way to her car with the canines. Where's Ellen? Portia has not spoken publicly on the scandal surrounding her wife's hit talk show Executive Producers of the Ellen DeGeneres Show Mary Connelly (left), Andy Lassner (center), and Ed Glavin have been accused of fostering a hostile work environment. 'If anyone had come to her or those three vile EPs [executive producers] to complain, they would've been fired,' a staffer said It comes as staff at the Ellen DeGeneres Show are hitting back at her for shifting the blame to her executive producers in an apology memo sent this week. 'Don't think for a minute anything she has said in that apology means anything. She created and then enabled this toxic culture to go on for so long,' one staffer, who spoke to DailyMail.com on condition of anonymity, said. 'If anyone had come to her or those three vile [executive producers] to complain, they would've been fired.' 'Inside Telepictures we've had enough of her. She is a phony who does not practice what she preaches,' our Telepictures source said. 'The behavior of her show executives has been appalling, but [Ellen] is no better. In fact, she is the worst. It's outrageous that she is trying to pretend that this is all a shock to her. The fish rots from the head, and Ellen is the head.' Our Telepictures insider claims that Ellen 'hates coming to work' and 'struggles to be nice to people and has utter contempt for her audience.' 'She has been phoning it in for so long, and only staying for the money and celebrity it affords her,' they said. 'We've dealt with her BS for so many years, she's not innocent at all, she's not nice and the show is not filled with happiness.' The claims of Ellen's toxic work environment were revealed earlier this month by one current and 10 former employees of the daytime talk show who accused the three executive producers, Ed Glavin, Mary Connelly and Andy Lassner, of 'bullying.' Ellen came out with an apology after it was announced earlier this week that her show was now subject to a probe by WarnerMedia which will look into 'staff experiences on set'. However our source claims that the backlash may cloud the show's success in the future and it could be time to end things. 'At this point, there's really no way to save the show from this PR nightmare, so Ellen leaving may be the only way for this entire mess to go away. 'While it is our most profitable show in daytime, we no longer make the money we used to make from the show, as we have to pay her tens of millions of dollars per year to show up.' The insider says Telepictures will need to develop a new show and star quickly to take over the lucrative timeslot that Ellen currently holds. 'We thought our problems were with the cast upheaval at The Real, we had no idea that Ellen would implode during quarantine,' they added. 'She feels she can't go on and the only way to recover her personal brand from this is to shut down the show,' a source said of Ellen contemplating quitting her show. She's pictured on her show with 17-year-old pop star Billie Eilish Executive producer Andy Lassner tweeted with confidence on Thursday that 'nobody is going off the air'. He was one of the three executive producers accused of fostering a hostile work environment Executive producers (left to right) Jonathan Norman, Kevin Lenman and Ed Glavin were accused by over 30 former employees of sexual misconduct Ellen recently sent her staff a memo in which she wrote she was 'taking steps... to correct' issues with her employees after several complaints and an internal investigation into the supposed bad behavior was launched. 'On day one of our show, I told everyone in our first meeting that The Ellen Degeneres Show would be a place of happiness - no one would ever raise their voice, and everyone would be treated with respect. Obviously, something changed, and I am disappointed to learn that this has not been the case. And for that, I am sorry,' Ellen said in the memo. BULLYING, RACISM AND A 'TOXIC WORK ENVIRONMENT': THE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST ELLEN Ten former and one current member of Ellen's staff alleged they were bullied, fired for attending family funerals or taking sick leave, while one woman claimed to have walked off the job after facing comments about her race. 'That 'be kind' bulls*** only happens when the cameras are on. It's all for show,' one anonymous staff member said. Staff said they were told not to talk to DeGeneres herself while she was on set, and that the day-to-day running of the show was left to producers. The employees said they did not have first-hand experience of DeGeneres being unpleasant, but said she needs to take more responsibility for how her employees are treated. However, allegations have mounted from other sources against the host herself - sparked by a Twitter thread from comedian Kevin T. Porter Calling DeGeneres 'notoriously one of the meanest people alive', he asked people for 'the most insane stories you've heard about Ellen being mean'. The tweet received 2,600 replies and saw Porter give $600 to an LA foodbank, after promising to donate $2 for every legitimate mean story. Claims included that staff are required to chew gum before speaking to her because of her 'sensitive nose', and that she polices staff lunch orders and bans anyone from eating fish or meat. Separately, security worker Tom Majercak - who was assigned to be Ellen's bodyguard at the 2014 Oscars - said she was 'sly' and 'demeaning' to him. 'Ellen is the one person that I've been assigned to - and I've been assigned to quite a few celebrities - that has never taken the time to say hi to me,' he said. 'She's not the person she portrays to be that she's playing off of society.' Advertisement 'As we've grown exponentially, I've not been able to stay on top of everything and relied on others to do their jobs as they knew I'd want them done. Clearly some didn't,' she added. 'That will now change and I'm committed to ensuring this does not happen again.' But multiple staff members at the show tell DailyMail.com they are not buying Ellen's apology and are calling on her to call it quits. One staffer said, 'She's only addressing this now because the publicity is so bad for her and her BS brand of happiness and kindness. Ellen can throw everyone else under the bus, but the buck stops with her. 'Whenever she'd tell viewers to choose kindness, I'd throw up a little in my mouth because she always chose the opposite,' they added. Among the allegations was one made by a Black woman who claimed she suffered a number of 'microaggressions,' her request for a raise was ignored and she was accused of 'walking around looking resentful and angry' after asking for staff members to undergo diversity and inclusion training. Another former employee alleged they were fired after taking medical leave for one month following a suicide attempt. Even Everybody Loves Raymond actor Brad Garrett chimed in Thursday in a tweet, saying, 'Sorry but it comes from the top @TheEllenShow. Know more than one who were treated horribly by her. Common knowledge.' Our source said: 'She was happy to put her name on the show, yet she let those three executive producers do whatever they wanted. The fish rots from the head and Ellen and the three of them are now rotting.' They also claimed Ellen and her executive producers will be on a 'witch hunt' now to find who spoke out against them. 'Don't think for a second that there won't be a witch hunt to find out who went public with the worst kept secret in television,' they said. 'Ellen is mean. She'll want vengeance for all of this coming out.' A popular claim that has circulated is that staff members were instructed not to speak to Ellen, and our source corroborated that claim. 'She kept herself isolated from the staff. You can't go up and talk to her, heck, you can't even get within a mile of her on the lot,' they said. In addition to these claims, the show was rocked again on Thursday when three dozen employees of the daytime talk show alleged that senior executives who work behind the scenes groped and kissed staffers, solicited one of them for oral sex, and were 'handsy with women.' Jonathan Norman, a co-executive producer, is alleged to have 'groomed' a former employee by taking him to concerts and showering him with other gifts and perks before attempting to perform oral sex on him. Kevin Leman, the show's head writer and executive producer, is alleged to have solicited oral sex from an employee. Others say they witnessed Leman grope another colleague. And Ed Glavin, an executive producer, allegedly 'had a reputation for being handsy with women,' according to former employees. The former staffers told BuzzFeed News that they believe the host knew that several of her senior showrunners and producers were alleged to have committed sexual misconduct against junior-level employees. Current employees are now calling on Ellen to call it quits. 'Warner Bros should cancel our show or swap her out for a fun celebrity host. Viewers have been fed lies for years. The Ellen you see on TV is disingenuous and inauthentic. She's a horrible person who has done nothing to support 99% of the people who work for her. 'Yet they won't cancel it as all they care about is money and the show is a cash cow. 'It's time for Ellen to leave TV. She's done enough damage. They should replace her with someone wonderful like Jen Aniston. She's always a dream when she comes by - gracious, kind and funny and we're actually allowed to look her in the eyes!!' Everybody Loves Raymond actor Brad Garrett chimed saying in a tweet, 'Sorry but it comes from the top @TheEllenShow. Know more than one who were treated horribly by her. Common knowledge' Employees have claimed they were instructed not to talk to her if they saw her in the building Now former staffers have accused Ellen of 'turning a blind eye' to rampant sexual misconduct by senior-level producers on her hit daytime TV talk show A source initially told Buzzfeed that the executive producers feel that 'everybody who works at The Ellen Show is lucky to work there: 'So if you have a problem, you should leave because we'll hire someone else because everybody wants to work here.'' Executive Producer Andy Lassner tweeted with confidence on Thursday that 'nobody is going off the air'. Our source said: 'Many of us have a theory that Ellen behaves this way as a mechanism to protect herself. She was so damaged when her sitcom was canceled after she came out that she chose to keep people at a distance in order not to get hurt should this show be canceled. Yet 17 seasons later it's still on the air and she's so powerful now she thought she could do whatever she wanted.' One staffer told DailyMail.com: 'Even though our show is crumbling around us, it's liberating for everything to come out into the open.' Superstar rapper Kanye Wests ballot petition to have his name added as a presidential candidate in the 2020 us election has been called egregiously bad, almost to an insulting degree, by a former New Jersey Democratic congressional candidate. Scott Salmon, a lawyer in New Jersey, noted that 30 names in a row on Mr Wests petition appear to sign their names with little circles above the letter i, which he believes is evidence of inauthentic signatures. The odds that 30 people in a row from all over the state would have a little circle about the Is is a little hard to believe, he wrote in a letter to the New Jersey Board of Elections. An independent candidate can get their name on the ballot for the presidential election in New Jersey if they collect 800 signatures. Mr Salmon claims that at least 600 names were of questionable authenticity. Mr Wests campaign petitions included 1,300 signatures, according to the New York Daily News. Recommended Kanye West misses ballot deadline in South Carolina following rally Mr. Wests petitions do not contain the valid signatures of 800 qualified voters and should have been rejected by the Division, Mr Salmon wrote. Mr Wests decision to enter the presidential race has been unconventional at best, as he bounces back and forth between claims that he plans to enter and that he will not run. He has missed the deadline for getting his name on the ballot in several states, and his petition in Illinois is also being challenged. The rap icon formerly supported Donald Trump, but said that he was taking the red hat off in an interview with Forbes Magazine. A strange campaign rally he held in South Carolina in which he wore a bulletproof vest and launched into a rant about Harriet Tubman raised concerns about Mr Wests mental health. The rapper has acknowledged that he does suffer from bi-polar disorder, and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, has called for compassion and empathy when dealing with her husband. Mr Salmon told Politico that his concerns with Mr Wests candidacy had nothing to do with the mans health, but rather the alleged fraudulent petition he offered. Im not his doctor. Im not his wife. So I dont know what his mental state is. Ive seen the reports. Im just looking at this based on what the law is in New Jersey, and this doesnt meet this level, he said. New Jersey is expected to support presumed Democratic candidate Joe Biden by a large margin, and independent candidates in the state have historically performed poorly. An analysis by Forbes suggested Mr West would likely take more votes away from Mr Trump than from Mr Biden. The superstars campaign has aroused the most interest among individuals identifying as Libertarian. Mr Wests running mate, Michelle Tidball, is a 57-year-old dental office worker who runs an online Bible study and claims she has direct access to communicate with God. An ICU nurse accused of trying to poison his wife by administering a sedative intravenously told police he stole the drugs because he had a problem with pests and vermin at their Sydney home. Ugendra Singh, 45, is charged with using poison to endanger Joykita Lata's life in May, possessing prescribed restricted substance, larceny and common assault. Police have alleged Singh administered what he said was a saline drip due to concerns his 38-year-old wife was dehydrated, causing her to become unconscious at their home in Hebersham. Ugendra Singh, 45, is charged with using poison to endanger Joykita Lata's life in May, possessing prescribed restricted substance, larceny and common assault In the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Geoffrey Bellew cited the couple's turbulent relationship in refusing Singh's bail application because of the risk he would commit other offences if released. Singh, who has been suspended from his long-term job at Liverpool Hospital but has the support of 103 colleagues, had been married for about 18 years. According to the crown case, Singh stole from his workplace a number of vials of propofol, a general anaesthetic used intravenously during surgical procedures. On May 5, Ms Lata complained of feeling dehydrated and laid on a mattress in the lounge room. Singh allegedly said he would administer a saline solution intravenously and inserted a cannula into his wife's arm, causing her to become unconscious for several hours. When she awoke feeling drowsy, she noticed several vials of propofol on the floor. Police have alleged Singh administered what he said was a saline drip due to concerns his 38-year-old wife was dehydrated, causing her to become unconscious at their home in Hebersham She confronted her husband, which led to a heated argument during which he allegedly slapped her on the face. She contacted police and was said to be in a highly distressed state. In his police interview, Singh admitted stealing the propofol from the hospital pharmacy, saying he had a problem with pests and vermin at their home. Singh said the drug would slow the pests down so he could then use a spray himself instead of paying up to $400 for experts to do the job. He denied inserting the cannula and slapping his wife's face. His lawyer labelled the prosecution case as 'fundamentally flawed', contending there was no evidence to show the amount of propofol involved was capable of endangering Ms Lata's life. 'It is submitted that the presence of propofol in the blood system of the applicant's wife established no more than propofol was administered by someone,' the judge said. But Justice Bellew said it was difficult to imagine Singh's wife injecting herself, given evidence that propofol has an immediate sedative effect. He also noted the toxicology report had not yet been obtained, expressing concern it may not be available for at least 10 weeks. But the judge said the evidence suggested Singh had been dishonest in several ways, including by stealing various prescription drugs from his employer. He gave different versions about why he had the substances and told police he was asleep during the day when his wife became unconscious, but records showed his phone had been in use. As Toronto and Peel move into Stage 3 of the provinces reopening Friday, second waves of COVID-19 infections around the world have epidemiologists warning that Ontarians should be prepared to revert to earlier stages of the plan in the event of a resurgence of cases. Indeed, with the province promising elementary and some secondary students a return to full-time classrooms in September, the challenge could be actually staying in Stage 3, said Todd Coleman, an epidemiologist and assistant professor in health sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University. We wouldnt be able to guarantee that over the course of the school year there wouldnt be a need for changes in stages, Coleman said. If you think about the entire scenario, more people interacting with each other in schools could mean higher probabilities of transmission. Kids going back to school might even mean parents are going back to physical workplaces, which could further increase risk. Public health officials in Toronto and Peel are facing the more immediate chore of trying to keep new COVID-19 infections to a minimum when indoor dining resumes in restaurants, bars and nightclubs, gym classes start up again and kids take to the playgrounds again. Its a job that some jurisdictions ahead of Ontario have found difficult. In a way were kind of fortunate, said Dr. Jeff Kwong, a family physician and an epidemiologist at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at U of T. We can see whats happened in other places. Kwong pointed to countries that seemed to have the virus under control only to see a resurgence when they opened their bars and nightclubs. In Japan, for example, daily cases have been spiking higher than in April, at the height of the global shut down. Last week, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike confirmed cases had reached a single-day high, with some indication that the surge was due to young people going out to bars and restaurants. In Australia, some states began easing lockdown restrictions in mid-June. The city of Melbourne is firmly in a second wave of the virus, in spite of a six-week lockdown imposed on July 7. The severe rise in cases in Melbourne has led to mandatory masks while in all public spaces. On Thursday, the state of Victoria reported more than 700 new cases of the virus, with 13 new deaths. I think we can learn from the experiences of a lot of these other countries and try to avoid the mistakes that theyve been making, Kwong said. Kwong said Toronto will need to avoid super-spreader events: house parties, bar nights, gatherings at clubs that lead to many cases. Flexibility will be key and Toronto will need to monitor where cases are occurring, he said. On Wednesday, Toronto Mayor, John Tory, warned he would have no hesitation in telling Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, the city needs to go back to Stage 2, if citizens ignore distancing rules and increase the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Regions now must maintain low-levels of infection or be prepared to walk back to Stage 2, said Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and assistant professor at U of Ts faculty of information. There should have been more than three stages in the planning, said Furness. He added that Regions should not have to wait for a go-ahead from the Province, when quick decisions are needed on whether to shut things down in case of a resurgence. The more we can enable individual public health units to make decisions about going forwards and backwards, depending on local conditions and local risks, the better, he said. Kapuskasing and northwest Toronto are just not the same. Its not just reverting to Stage 2 that is a concern, said Wilfrid Lauriers Coleman. We could see a return to near normalcy in Stage 3 and, then, what could end up happening, is there could be large-scale multi-regional outbreaks, which require the entire province to move back down to Stage 1 again. We could potentially stay in Stage 3 for a really long time until there is some sort of cure or vaccine, he added. The infrastructure just needs to be hyper-vigilant because of the way that this tends to spread fairly easily. Kenyon Wallace is a Toronto-based investigative reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @KenyonWallace or reach him via email: kwallace@thestar.ca Jenna Moon is a breaking news reporter for the Star and is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @_jennamoon The National Woman leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Stella Okotete, has expressed optimism that the party will govern Nigeria beyond 2023. Mrs Okotete, who is member of the APC Caretaker Committee, said this on Friday when she led a delegation to donate food items to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) at Karamajji in Abuja. Our repositioning efforts of APC are clear for everyone to see. We are having new members and old members come back, we have repositioned the party for high grounds and continued governance of the country beyond 2023. I can tell you that non APC states will be APC states by 2023. I can assure you that we are taking Edo state back from the PDP. We are going to maintain APC in Ondo State, we are taking Anambra and definitely, we are going to maintain the status quo. Definitely it is going to be APC, the woman leader said. She said the APC caretaker committee led by Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State has transformed the APC in the last one month. Mrs Okotete said she led a delegation to visit IDPs camp to support the physically challenged and the widows with food items which included bags of rice, bags of beans, cartons of Indomie, kegs of groundnuts oil and bags of gari (cassava flakes), among others. You have just seen the donation of food items to the IDPs and the physically challenged persons in FCT. There are others on the list, we are definitely going to support the women with skills acquisition and loans for their businesses. The party has been doing through the executive, but we are going to domesticate it to the party faithful in the wards and the local governments. READ ALSO: I promised the women leaders that we are going to domesticate this gesture. We will ensure that we spend quality time with the physically challenged and the widows to share our stories of love and our message of love, peace and unity with them, she said. She said the APC government would ensure quick return of IDPs to their various villages and towns. The president has done so well in the area of security and I can assure them that in no time, very soon they will be back home, the partys woman leader said. 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He stated, "As land seizures based on skin color shows, South Africa is once again becoming a place where an entire group of people is targeted for discrimination and violence on the basis of their skin color." Twenty-six years ago, "South Africans engaged in a peaceful revolution. As late as the 1980s commentators predicted that any transition from white minority domination and black majority rule would precipitate a bloody civil war. Instead, in 1994 South Africans replaced president F.W. de Klerk with Nelson Mandela in a free and fair election that astonished the world." Thus, "South Africans of all races voted in the country's first democratic elections, choosing Mandela as their first black president. The inhumane apartheid regime seemed to be miraculously ending peacefully, though much work remained to improve the lives of all South Africans." By the "late 1980s, however, South Africa's economy was in a deep recession and large segments of the country were becoming ungovernable." Former president Jacob Zuma (200918) "brought the country a reputation for corruption and ineptitude." In fact, in 2018, the World Bank ranked South Africa as the most corrupt country in the world. In 2018, Hammond and Tupy, "in reviewing South Africa's flirtation with the idea of changing its constitution to let the state expropriate farmland without compensation, wrote that South Africa need only look north to Zimbabwe to see the disastrous consequences of this kind of policy." Zimbabwe's former dictator, Robert Mugabe, gave "the green light to his paramilitary supporters to invade commercial farms, seize some 23 million acres of land and the confiscated farms were resettled with small scale agriculturalists. Many of the new would-be-farmers had no real knowledge of commercial agriculture and many soon returned to subsistence farming. The actual commercial farmers left for other African countries and the result was devastating food shortages in a nation once dubbed the 'bread basket of Africa.'" According to the Epoch Times, in 2019, "ten million people were unemployed [in South Africa, and] the country had a national debt of more than $200 billion." It is a country "ravaged by almost a decade of extensive corruption" and "collapsing water and electricity services." This was the grim picture. Political parties sowing racial discord in a country still haunted by its apartheid past. Radicals encouraging land invasions. The most unequal society in the world according to the World Bank, with more than half of the population of 58 million living in poverty and a tiny elite controlling extreme wealth. In May of 2019, an election was held to "decide whether [South Africa would] be able to repair the damage done by nine years of corruption, which has crippled [the] government and caused great hardship for [the South African] people, said University of Johannesburg Vice Chancellor Adam Habib." In fact, South Africa's "two major political parties, the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), bled votes ... in the May election that many analysts had described as the most important since the country's first multiracial vote in 1994." President Cyril Ramaphosa's ANC dropped below 60 percent for the first time, but at 57 percent put in a relatively strong showing, following Ramaphosa's efforts over the past year to reform the government. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), whose leaders have encouraged land invasions and have been accused of inciting racial hatred, and whose protests have often exploded into violence, got almost 11 percent of the vote, up from the 6 percent it received in 2014. 'The EFF is proto-fascist. It's particularly violent, it's particularly militaristic, it's particularly focused on spectacle; it's particularly focused on the aggrandizement of the individual leader.' The party's leader, or 'commander-in-chief,' is ... 37-year-old, Julius Malema. Shortly before the polls, he ... made the following public utterance: 'We are not calling for the slaughtering of white people at least for now.' The populist EFF says if ever given the chance to govern, it will seize all banks, mines, and land, and dole out the wealth to impoverished black South Africans[.] Political commentator Melanie Verwoerd said the EFF inspired fear because its racist messages took South Africa back to a time when the country was on the brink of racial civil war. Attacks on farmers in South Africa mount, and "being a white farmer can be a life-threatening occupation." The Federalist recently argued that South Africa is on the verge of collapse and set to become the next Venezuela. Moreover, South Africa has been hit hard by COVID. The South African government has "instituted one of the world's most repressive coronavirus lockdowns, under which people are not even allowed out to exercise or walk the dog and the sale of alcohol and tobacco has been outlawed." These reports should not be surprising when one considers the way South Africa's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, chose to celebrate Freedom Day. Taking to Twitter, Ramaphosa revealed that he had a conversation with his 'Brother, President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela' noting, 'Our two countries share a close and deep historical bond based on friendship, solidarity and cooperation.' Perhaps, then, it's no surprise that the ANC has turned to the likes of Cuba and Venezuela. For more than a decade, economic freedom in South Africa has been steadily declining as the government has inserted itself more and more into economic and private life. The " left-leaning ANC's socialist economic policies such as central planning, government subsidies and grants has lifted some black South Africans out of poverty, but the economic growth has been stagnant in the last decade." Lawlessness now prevails in South Africa. See this YouTube video about how people have to safeguard their cars in Durban. As "freedom has declined, so has economic growth and opportunity, so that now more than a quarter of the population is unemployed and, thanks to the failing state education system, largely unemployable. When one accounts for all those who have simply given up looking for work, the unemployment rate rises to a crippling 40 percent." There "is now very little doubt that the ANC is failing and presiding over a slowly failing state. Like Venezuela, it seems intent on doubling down on bad policies. One of the most contested issues currently is the government's policy of Expropriation Without Compensation (EWC), which would allow the state to seize land without paying for it, trashing property rights enshrined in the country's constitution. Another is the ANC's move to effectively nationalize health care, even though state hospitals are failing and private clinics offer high levels of care." Though "[l]aws restricting land ownership along racial lines were overturned in 1991 ... restitution has proven more difficult. The ANC had set a goal of returning 30% of white-owned land to black farmers, but by last year reached only 10%. Historically, the ANC operated with a 'willing buyer, willing seller' model, but tight funding meant that those transfers happened very slowly and on a small scale. White farmers control an estimated 73% of commercial farmland today. To try to ease crushing rural poverty, the government has begun to explore legislation that would allow land to be seized without compensation." Ilana Mercer has written that "if you replace a despot, but not despotism, you only oust a tyrant, and not tyranny." Seemingly absent from the repertoire of ... Mr. Ramaphosa is an understanding that only the rule of law and the protection of individual liberties, especially private property rights for wealth-creating whites as well can begin to reduce the dizzying scale of the ... problems. Without these building blocks and bulwarks of prosperity and peace ... South Africa cannot be rehabilitated. In A Democratic South Africa?: Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society (1991), Donald L. Horowitz concluded that democracy is, in general, unusual in Africa, and, in particular, rare in ethnically and racially divided societies, where majorities and minorities are rigidly predetermined (also the dispensation presently being cultivated by craven American elites) [emphasis mine]. Apartheid was an unmitigated satanic evil I still recall the scarred heads of those mercilessly beaten as they cowered in their hovels. But as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind." Will this be South Africa's fate? Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com. The Rajasthan Congress has decided that its MLAs will continue to remain together till the session begins A day after governor Kalraj Mishra gave the go-ahead for convening the state Assembly from August 14, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday claimed that the rates of horse trading in the state have increased. After the Assembly session was announced last night, the rates of horse trading have increased. Earlier, the first instalment was of Rs 10 crore and second was of Rs 15 crore. Now it has become unlimited and all know who is doing horse trading, Mr Gehlot told reporters. Targeting Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati for her statements against him, Mr Gehlot accused the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister of acting at the behest of the BJP. The Rajasthan Congress has decided that its MLAs will continue to remain together till the session begins. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Congress Legislature Pa-rty held at the Fairmont Hotel, on the outskirts of Jaipur, where MLAs loyal to chief minister Ashok Gehlot have been holed up since July 13. All legislators will remain united and stay together till August 14, Congress chief whip Mahesh Joshi said after the meeting. Mr Joshi, however, did not clarify whether the MLAs will continue to remain at the same hotel. "It will be decided where to stay," he told the media, but ruled out any location outside the state. Sachin Pilot and 18 rebel MLAs, meanwhile, are reportedly debating asking for protection to return to Jaipur tp attend the Assembly session. One of the rebel MLAs, asked whether they would attend the session by a TV channel, reportedly said, "Of course, we will attend." The Congress has a total of 107 MLAs in the 200-member Assembly, but the numbers are precarious since Mr Pilot and 18 other dissident MLAs openly defied a party whip leading to their disqualification by the party which was subsequently challenged in the high court. Mr Gehlot and his sacked deputy, Mr Pilot, have been locked in a power tussle in the state with the latter at one point claiming that 30 Congress MLAs were with him. However, Mr Gehlot claims that with the support of Independents and allies he has the majority support in the House. The Congress numbers include six Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs who merged as a group with the ruling party after the 2018 Assembly polls. The merger has now been challenged in the high court by the BSP and a BJP MLA. Governor Mishra had on Wednesday agreed to convene a session of the state Assembly on August 14 after rejecting proposals by the state government thrice. Though Mr Gehlot has indicated that he may seek a vote of confidence when the Assembly convenes, the Congress has refused to specifically state whether this is a part of the sessions agenda. The pandemic is keeping people at home, which has spurred demand for Apple devices to help millions of consumers use the internet to keep in touch with friends, family and co-workers. Apple Inc. reported quarterly revenue that crushed Wall Street forecasts after locked down consumers snapped up new iPhones, iPads and Mac computers to stay connected during the pandemic. The stock jumped as much as 6.3% in extended trading. The worlds largest technology company also announced a four-for-one stock split after its shares surged more than 80% in the past year, and confirmed that the next iPhones will launch a few weeks later than usual. Fiscal third-quarter revenue came in at $59.7 billion, a record for the June period, Apple said in a statement. That was up 11% from a year earlier and smashed analysts estimates of $52.3 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The pandemic is keeping people at home, which has spurred demand for Apple devices to help millions of consumers use the internet to keep in touch with friends, family and co-workers. In uncertain times, this performance is a testament to the important role our products play in our customers lives, Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said in a statement. The pandemic likely boosted iPad and Mac sales due to lockdown rules and an increase in remote learning, while Apple store closures are weighing on iPhone sales, the CEO said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. Apples cheaper iPhone SE, released in April, was also well timed for leaner economic conditions. There were also minor updates to the iPad Pro and MacBook Pro, and new accessories like an iPad Pro keyboard with trackpad. The company plans to launch new Mac computers with its own processors, a cheaper HomePod, and a slew of new iPhones later this year. During a conference call, Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said the new handsets will be slightly delayed this year, suggesting an October launch. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant didnt provide guidance again due to the ongoing impact of Covid-19. Revenue from the iPhone was $26.4 billion, beating analysts expectations of $21.3 billion. IPad revenue was $6.6 billion, a strong increase from $5 billion a year ago, while the Mac brought in $7.1 billion, another big jump from $5.8 billion in the same period of 2019. Services, which includes the App Store, Apple Music and iCloud subscriptions, generated sales of $13.2 billion, up from $11.5 billion a year ago and roughly in line with Wall Street expectations. The company said it has more than 550 million paid subscriptions and is on track to reach 600 million by year-end. Cook said some services, including AppleCare repairs and advertising, were negatively impacted by the pandemic. The virus has also paused production of Apple TV+ shows shot in Los Angeles, the CEO added. Still, he cited record revenue for the App Store, Apple Music, video products and cloud services. The June quarter also included earnings per share of $2.58, an 18% increase, and a record for the companys installed base of active devices. Apples Wearables, Home and Other Products category, one of the firms fastest segments that includes the Apple Watch and AirPods, brought in $6.5 billion in revenue. That beat Wall Street predictions of $6.1 billion. Kim Kardashian has hit back at claims she is 'torn' over ending her marriage to Kanye West, following their emotional crisis talks at their ranch in Cody, Wyoming. Following claims that Kim, 39, and Kanye, 43, have been living apart for a year, it was reported that she remains undecided about pulling the plug on the marriage, after 'feeling like she has tried everything' to save their six-year union. However, a representative for the mother-of-four has shut down the claims on the star's behalf, telling MailOnline the reports are 'absolutely not true'. Torn: Kim Kardashian has denied reports she's 'torn' over ending her marriage to Kanye West, following their crisis talks at their ranch in Cody, Wyoming. Pictured in November 2019 In the report, shared by People, a source is quoted as saying: 'She isn't getting back what she needs from Kanye. She was to the point that she flew to Cody to basically tell him their marriage is over and to say goodbye.' People reports that musician and fashion designer Kanye is eager to work on their marriage, recently issuing a public apology to her on Twitter after stating during a presidential rally that she contemplated aborting their first daughter North, seven. However, a source claimed the apology is as far as his reparative efforts have gone, explaining: 'He doesn't seem to get what she is saying. He hasn't changed anything that she told him needs to change.' 'Kim is very torn,' added the source. 'The last thing she wants is to be divorced with four kids. She knows that she will be fine financially, but her concerns are the kids and the partnership. She is moving towards a divorce, but who knows if she will actually sign papers.' Tense reunion: DailyMail.com revealed the couple had reunited in Wyoming on Monday, where they held emotional marriage crisis talks MailOnline has contacted representatives for Kanye West for further comment. Kanye, who launched a controversial presidential campaign this month, is said to have been based at his $14 million Wyoming ranch this past year, while Kim would visit only once a month with their four children North, seven, Saint, four, Chicago, two, and Psalm, one. Clearly the distance between the couple has been a source of contention, as during Kanye's Twitter meltdown last week, he stated: 'My family must live next to me,' before adding: 'It's not up to E or NBC anymore.' The rapper appeared to be hinting that he wanted Kim and the kids to be based in Wyoming and not in LA, where she films her E! reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Visits: Kim, 39, reportedly only visits Kanye in Wyoming once a month with their four children North, seven, Saint, four, Chicago, two, and Psalm, one He said sorry: Kanye apologised to his wife in a tweet last week after claiming she considered aborting their daughter North, amid reports that he went to hospital to be treated for anxiety 'Kanye has been in Wyoming for the last year. Kim goes about once every five weeks and brings the kids,' one source told UsWeekly, adding: 'they haven't been spending time together because he moved his life completely to Wyoming and that's not where their life is, their family is, their kids are in school or the larger family is.' Meanwhile, it was reported yesterday that Kim has been thinking they 'need to be apart' right now, according to PEOPLE. A source told the outlet: 'She knows that it's not healthy for her to be around him now, and it's honestly not healthy for the kids. He needs to get his stuff together before he can be any sort of partner or father.' Another report added that Kanye lives 'full time' in Wyoming as it is 'best for his creativity' according PageSix. Concerns: Kanye appeared at a campaign rally in South Carolina on July 19 (pictured) in which he delivered a lengthy monologue which sparked concerns about his well-being Kim is also said to have urged Kanye to quit his bid for presidency, which lead him to a disastrous first campaign rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, where he claimed that he and his wife has considered aborting their first baby, daughter North. On Tuesday, Kim was seen heading straight back into work mode after her tense reunion with Kanye, as she arrived at a studio in Los Angeles for a photoshoot for her SKIMS range, leaving Kanye behind in Wyoming. 'Kim feels trapped,' a source added to People. 'She loves Kanye and she thinks of him as the love of her life. But she doesn't know what to do.' However, multiple outlets have reported that the couple do not want to get divorced. 'Complicated and painful': Kim took to Instagram last Wednesday following West's late night Twitter meltdown, saying she feels 'powerless' amid his struggle with bi-polar disorder Yet Kanye is still eager for his presidential bid to become a reality, after making another last-ditch attempt to get on another ballot in Missouri earlier this week, and is said to have hired top political advisers. Last week, Kim took to Instagram following Kanye's controversial behaviour, admitting that she was 'powerless' amid his meltdown, calling her husband 'brilliant but complicated'. The reality star 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. Kanye said last Tuesday that Kim was 'out of line' to meet Meek Mill at a hotel in Los Angeles to talk about 'prison reform', and blasted her mother Kris Jenner as 'Kris Jong-Un' while accusing the pair of 'white supremacy.' Pose: The reality star and entrepreneur promoted items from her SKIMS line on Thursday night Passion for fashion: The California native modelled a shorts set that came with a matching bathrobe as she talked fans through the items However, Kanye apologised to his wife in a tweet last week, amid reports that he went to hospital to be treated for anxiety. The rapper tweeted: 'I would like to apologize to my wife Kim for going public with something that was a private matter. I did not cover her like she has covered me.to [sic] Kim I want to say I know I hurt you. Please forgive me. Thank you for always being there for me.' His apology came after Kim gave a frank and honest statement about the situation to her fans, sharing three pages to her Instagram story last Wednesday saying: '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. Mirror: The selfie fan, 39, filmed herself in her dressing room mirror as she modelled the pieces '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.' Prior to his meltdown on Twitter, Kanye sparked concern during a rambling and chaotic speech at his first presidential rally at North Charleston's Exquis Event Center in South Carolina. He shockingly revealed that he and his wife Kim had considered aborting their daughter North, who is now seven, before he got a 'message from God'. His unscripted speech, which came two weeks after he announced his unlikely bid for president, is said to have left his wife and her family upset and alarmed. The Coalition of Muslim Organizations, Ghana (COMOG) has called on Muslims to celebrate this years Eid-al-Adha without the display of worldly riches but the spirit of sharing, compassion and virtue. We should reach out to those who are less fortunate than us and refrain from ostentatious behaviour that can offend others' sensitivities, it urged. A statement issued by the COMOG and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Thursday said as the Muslims celebrated festivities, they should not lose sight of the true essence of the religious practice of sacrifice. The act of animal sacrifices symbolizes our willingness to give up some of our own bounties in order to strengthen and help those who are in need. We recognize that all blessings come from Allah, and we should open our hearts and share with others. The creator would be pleased when his creation is nurtured, cared for and sustained. Indeed, to be religious is to be a peacemaker, one who seeks to mitigate conflicts and nurtures goodwill for peaceful co-existence, it said. The statement called on partisan political players to sacrifice their egos to ensure that the country continues to enjoy peace and development as the general elections approaches. It said as the restrictions were being eased, the COVID-19 was still active and required that communities act diligently in order to protect themselves. The statement advised Muslims to ensure proper waste disposal and a sanitary environment as they observed the celebrations; so that we dont have to sacrifice the cleanliness of our cities in the fulfilment of our religious duty. The statement wished all Muslims across the country happy celebration of the Eid-ul-Adha. 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 BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 31 Trend: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev congratulated President of the Swiss Confederation Her Excellency Madame Simonetta Sommaruga. "Dear Madame President, It is on the occasion of the national holiday of the Swiss Confederation that on my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan I wish to cordially congratulate you and through you, your people," Azerbaijani president said. "I believe that the relations between our countries will continue to develop and expand, in the traditional spirit of friendship and close cooperation, for the sake of the interests of our peoples," the head of state said. "It is with pleasure that I recall our meeting in Davos this January and wish to note that the people of Azerbaijan are in solidarity with the friendly Swiss people in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic that humanity faces," Azerbaijani president said. "On this pleasant day, I wish strong health and success to you, and everlasting prosperity to the Swiss Confederation," the head of state said. Set on spacious beaches and showcasing the region's many tourist draws, including the Great Barrier Reef and Gold Coast-- smiling "Queenslanders" promised Australians a break from the global pandemic and the opportunity to travel again in safety. However, this is just a beautiful wish depicted in a bright and upbeat on-screen ad campaign. The reality is, on Wednesday Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk declared Australia's most populous city Sydney a COVID-19 hotspot -- barring anyone who had been there in the previous two weeks from entering her state. Since COVID-19 struck and effectively steamrolled international tourism, thousands of operators in Queensland's billion-dollar industry have been weighing up the possibility of domestic visitation to fill the hole. However, a sudden surge in cases in the State of Victoria and emerging clusters in New South Wales' (NSW) state capital of Sydney, mean that close to half of the population now pose more risk than reward. On Thursday, Victoria recorded its deadliest day of the pandemic with 13 virus-related fatalities, on top of a record 723 new cases. Meanwhile Queensland recorded just three new cases, which were all of known origin. Paul Lim is an experienced scuba diver and general manager of Pro Dive Cairns in Queensland, offering dive training and tours on the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef. Lim told Xinhua that business was currently at around 30 percent or less of normal and composed partially of interstate tourists, as well as some overseas travellers who were waiting out the virus in Australia. "With the domestic borders opening up, we were seeing a good flow of traffic to our business, which is good, but nowhere near obviously the capacity that we were getting pre-COVID," Lim said. "Obviously now we'll get some cancellations from the greater Sydney region of customers that can no longer get up here." Lim said that while the decision to ban visitors from Sydney was certainly bad for his immediate business, he understood the practical health reasons behind doing so. "We've seen what's happened down south in NSW and Victoria and it would be good to not have that jump one more border again," he said. With business way down, many in the tourism industry have survived only thanks to stimulus payments from the federal government, including the Jobkeeper program, which pays to keep workers on the books and businesses in a state of hibernation. There are also those who have adapted to the strange times by restructuring to suit local tastes. Stephen Arnerich, owner of Runaway Tours, which operates out of Sydney, told Xinhua that his company generally caters to the International market, but with the global pandemic has been forced to look closer to home. "Normally, our business is around 95 percent overseas visitors. We get a lot of Chinese businessmen, we get a lot of cruise ship passengers from America," Arnerich explained. "Because of that our core business is not working at the moment, so we're focusing on the domestic market, trying to get people from interstate to go on some of our more unusual tours." Because Australians are more familiar with classic attractions such as the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, Arnerich and his team have had to branch out into designing more unique getaways, focusing on elements such as wildlife watching and wine tours. Regardless, the latest spike and simmering case numbers in Sydney are putting Arnerich's hard work at risk. "Obviously we're not getting any Victorians up here, Queenslanders are a bit shy of coming down so we're not getting many visitors to the state," Arnerich said. The uncertainty, which has typified the virus pandemic is adding to the difficulty of businesses to make a plan and have anything like a clear picture into their future. "It depends on when they can get a vaccine, we've talked with Tourism Australia and they're predicting the international market to return in mid-2021," Arnerich said. "For the domestic market, if we can suppress COVID-19 around Australia then hopefully that will improve within the next few months, depending what happens." Regardless, few people expect domestic visitors to fully plug the hole left by overseas tourists, and with case numbers rising in NSW and Victoria, Australia's diverse tourism industry may have to adapt to the strange times once again. San Francisco officials plan to redirect $120 million over the next two years from the budgets of the police and sheriffs departments to fund investments in the citys Black community. The money is intended as a gesture of reparations for decades of city policymaking that have created or exacerbated deep inequities for San Franciscos African American residents. Following George Floyds killing in Minneapolis, Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Shamann Walton pledged in June to shift funding from the citys Police Department. The nationwide civil rights protests that followed Floyds death amplified calls for civic leaders to shift resources from law enforcement agencies to initiatives that improve peoples socioeconomic conditions. Reforming our criminal justice system must go hand-in-hand with policy changes and budget investments to make our city more equitable, Breed said Thursday in a statement. By redirecting funding from law enforcement agencies back into the African American community, we are putting our words into action, and we are doing it by listening to a community that for too long has been unheard and underserved. The defunding plan is part of Breeds city budget proposal, which she unveiled and sent to the Board of Supervisors on Friday. The board will debate and adjust Breeds proposal before sending it back for her signature no later than Oct. 1. I see this as a first step toward reparations in the city, Walton said. Investing $120 million in the Black community is something to be excited about. Obviously, I wish it could be more. We still have an opportunity at the Board of Supervisors to see if there are other resources we can look at redirecting as well. San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said the measure will be significant for us. Theres going to be pain and sacrifice in terms of making these cuts, but well absorb it, he said. Scott said the Police Department will be able to maintain its basic services, as most of the funding will be subtracted from vacant positions. Other areas, like vehicle purchases and capital projects, will also be impacted. Sheriff Paul Miyamoto said his department is collaborating with the mayors office to reduce its budget to support San Franciscos Black community. We need responsible redirection that still allows for us to continue our work to interrupt the cycle of incarceration caused by the under-funding of education, youth development and economic opportunities, he said in a statement. We are hopeful that this increased awareness and commitment will make a genuine difference and remove barriers to progress, especially for justice-involved people who seek successful re-entry. Kaylah Williams, co-chair of the AfroSocialists Caucus within the Democratic Socialists of Americas San Francisco chapter, called the budget proposals smoke and mirrors a surface-level swipe at real reform. Breeds proposal, she said, doesnt shrink the size of our police forces and falls way short of the mayors announced vision to replace police with civilians for nonviolent calls for service. We look forward to working with Supervisor Walton and others to fight for what was promised. The inequities facing Black San Franciscans are stark, as evidenced by a range of sobering statistics. Black people make up around 5% of the citys residents, but comprise nearly 40% of its homeless population. African Americans are the only racial group that has consistently declined in population in every census count since 1970, according to city data. Black people have the highest mortality rate for nine of the top-10 causes of death in San Francisco. Median household income for Black families is $31,000, compared with $116,000 for white families. And last year, roughly 45% of police use-of-force incidents in San Francisco involved African Americans, though not every incident involved a city resident. The Police Departments budget will shrink by $40 million in each of the next two years, and $20 million will be taken from the Sheriffs Department. Specific details on how the money will be spent arent yet known. After examining hundreds of public survey submissions and holding 13 community meetings, the citys Human Rights Commission has distilled a set of broad initiatives that reflect the Black communitys preferences for how the money should be spent. While the spending plan is refined, the money will be distributed to the Department of Public Health, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, and the Human Rights Commission, which will then fund initiatives selected by the community. The bulk of the funds 60% will be directed to mental health, wellness and homelessness initiatives affecting the Black community. Another 35% will be used for education, youth development and economic opportunities. 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 remaining 5% will be used to develop a plan resulting in protocols that would direct police officers away from responding to noncriminal calls involving the homeless and mentally ill social workers would fill that role instead. The cuts to the Police Department amount to about 6% of its roughly $700 million budget, and 7% of what it would have received from the general fund, based on the budget passed last year. The Police Department additionally receives funding from the airport, which is not reflected in the general fund. The $40 million taken from the SFPD each year is nearly double the $23 million, or 3%, proposed by the department earlier this year. That figure was unanimously rejected by the San Francisco Police Commission in June, following hours of public comment demanding the city defund the police. Tony Montoya, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, said the cuts are fair, but he remains concerned about leaving positions open in a department thats already short-staffed. The hit, he said, could further affect emergency response times, proactive policing and officers ability to investigate all crimes. By not filling those vacancies, its going to stretch our staff even thinner, he said. At the Sheriffs Department, the $20 million in cuts represent about 8% of its annual $260 million budget. The cuts will reduce the overall size of each department, since the bulk of the money will come from keeping vacant positions unfilled for the next two fiscal years. The Sheriffs Department will also have less overtime to offer its deputies. Last year, a report from the city controllers office found that deputies were performing 20% of their work on overtime, due in large part to chronic understaffing and growing workloads. The cuts will almost certainly affect the Police Departments long-running push to boost staffing levels. The City Charter requires the department maintain 1,971 full-duty officers, but staffing consistently falls short of that. Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com, megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa, @meganrcassidy Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ni Nyoman Wira (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, July 31, 2020 14:45 538 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066ab1345 1 Entertainment drum,C-the-Drum-Girl,female-drummers,Roland,music-instrument,drummer Free Gender stereotypes in music have been one of the biggest challenges Indonesia's female drummers have faced in promoting their instrument of choice among a new generation of musicians. PT Citra Intirama, the local distributor for Japanese electronic music instrument manufacturer Roland, conducted an internal survey in 2019 on buyers of electric drums and several music schools in large Indonesian cities, including Surabaya in East Java, Yogyakarta, Jakarta and Medan in North Sumatra. The results showed that 10 percent of buyers and drum students were female. PT Citra Intirama national sales manager Franky Boseke said the lack of aspiring female drum players in the country was caused by gender stereotyping, especially by parents. Its due to their mindset. A number of parents in Indonesia still think that drums are only for boys. Girls arent allowed to learn the instrument and are asked to play the piano instead, Franky said during a press conference on Thursday. [But] music instruments are general; they can be played by all genders. He noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had encouraged people's interest in playing drums. Weve seen a significant increase in the number of people playing electric drums at home. Perhaps its because they want to engage in more productive activities while sheltering at home, one of them being music, he said. Read also: Playing the drums can change the structure of your brain: Study In line with the increasing interest and aiming to break prevailing stereotypes, online female drumming competition C the Drum Girls Season 2 is calling on beginners and musicians with a basic knowledge of drumming to participate. Online registration is open to girls and women aged 15 to 30 starting on Aug. 1 on its website. Winners must pass three stages within the competition, starting from the online audition, a final audition for selected 50 participants and a 30-day challenge for five finalists who will be trained by professional drummer Mia Marcelina. Each stage can be streamed on media company C Channel Indonesias social media platforms. [Participants] need to prepare themselves mentally and be committed to following the 30-day challenge, said C Channel Indonesia head Fany Lahithany. Winners of C the Drum Girls Season 2 will receive a set of Roland V-Drums TD-1KV, a cash prize of Rp 3 million (US$ 208.05) and a live-streaming video device for smartphones, Go:Livecast. They will also be able to join the Roland Tribe program, in which theyll become brand ambassadors of Roland drums for online activities following their debut in November. Roland marketing manager Shigeru Kimoto said he hoped the competition would encourage more young girls to take up drumming. Supported by Roland, C the Drum Girls Season 2 is organized by C Channel Indonesia. The competition debuted in 2019 and produced five winners, namely Joyce Bellinda, Sherina Faiha, Cynthia Jazmeen, Naila Fahria and Febri Dyta. (wng) AMARILLO, Texas, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the great response of the first Neil Baggio book, Veritas , a suspense novel by author Charles D'Amico that follows investigator Neil Baggio as he tracks his mentor-turned-famed killer Frank Cappelano from Detroit to Washington D.C., Blue Handle Publishing, LLC has released the second and third installments of the Neil Baggio series . The second installment entitled Ave Maria , is out now. The third installment, Colloquium releases August 1st. Follow Neil as he balances interviewing the most notorious inmate at FCI Milan with chasing down a missing girl. Neil Baggio Intro Neil Baggio Universe Neil Baggio Logo Blue Handle Publishing announces the Neil Baggio Graphic Novel Contest. They will be taking submissions thru November and announcing a winner on 12/31/20. See the website for details and prizes involved. "The Neil Baggio Series is an ever-growing franchise with endless possibilities," quotes one industry expert. "Similar to Veritas and Ave Maria, Colloquium brings thrilling storytelling and edge-of-your-seat suspense from the first page all the way through to the end," said D'Amico. "Whether you're a fan of the first two books or brand new to the Neil Baggio series, Colloquium will take you on a gripping ride that will make the book hard to put down." Blue Handle Publishing will also release more installments in the Neil Baggio series over the next few months. Requiem, the fourth installment of the series, is set to release on September 1st. Additionally, there will be two spin-off stories from the Neil Baggio universe. One is entitled Frank's Journal Volume 1, set to release on October 6th, which will tell the story of Veritas from the perspective of the killer. And the other, entitled Fille Perdue, set to part of The Marie Perdita Suspense Series, has a release date of December 10th. In conjunction with the 3rd Release in the Neil Baggio Series, Blue Handle Publishing announces the next way to experience Neil Baggio. From traditional reading and audio to Graphic Novels. Where will this character and the Neil Baggio Universe take us next? In addition to the Neil Baggio series and the spin-off stories from it, Blue Handle Publishing is also currently working with Amazon best-selling author Andrew J Brandt . Blue Handle Publishing is set to publish Brandt's highly-anticipated upcoming thriller, The Unwinding Cable Car, on November 17th. About Blue Handle Publishing Based in Amarillo, Blue Handle Publishing is a West Texas publishing company founded to build the Panhandle's presence in the literary world. The company follows this by exclusively working with authors local to the West Texas area. For more information on Blue Handle Publishing, please visit BlueHandlePublishing.com . Media Contact as well as copies for review of all books contact Charles D'Amico [email protected] (806) 502-0522 SOURCE Blue Handle Publishing Related Links http://BlueHandlePublishing.com Mumbai: Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan's film 'Pink' has been invited for a special screening at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The movie dealt with crime against women. The 73-year-old actor, who plays a lawyer in the film, took to Twitter to make the announcement. "'PINK' invited for a special screening of the film at UN Head Quarters, in New York .. by Assistant Secretary General .. honoured," Bachchan posted. T 2453 - 'PINK' invited for a special screening of the film at UN Head Quarters, in New York .. by Assitant Secretary General .. honoured ! pic.twitter.com/aWHOYt1RIS Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) November 25, 2016 "Pink", directed by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, also starred Taapsee Pannu, Andrea Tariang and Kirti Kulhari in lead roles. It released on September 16. Also read: 'Pink' to be screened for police personnels of Rajasthan to teach them to respect women For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. LATEST: Aug. 2, 9:35 a.m. San Mateo County must close more indoor businesses after spending multiple days on the state's coronavirus watch list. Starting Sunday, some indoor businesses must shut down or move operations outdoors. Those businesses include gyms, hair salons and barbershops, nail salons, shopping malls and churches. Businesses that do tattoos, piercings or electrolysis must close, as they are not allowed to operate outdoors. San Mateo was the last Bay Area county to end up on the California watch list. On Wednesday, its addition meant all nine Bay Area counties were on the list, which monitors surges in cases and hospitalizations. On the explanation page, state officials write, "San Mateo County is experiencing an elevated case rate that exceeds the State threshold. The County sees roots of community transmission related to social gatherings without sufficient physical distancing and wearing of facial coverings, as well as higher exposure for residents performing work that involves person-to-person contact and crowded housing conditions that make home isolation difficult." July 31, 2:10 p.m. State officials reported the first COVID-19 fatality for an individual under the age of 18. In a release sent by the California Department of Public Health Friday, officials reported that a teenager died at Valley Childrens Hospital in Madera. The minor had underlying conditions, but the specific age of the deceased was not reported. Our hearts go out to the family and loved ones of this young person whose death is a tragic and powerful reminder of how serious COVID-19 can be, said Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health. In March, a teenage fatality in Los Angeles was originally attributed to the coronavirus, but health officials later said more investigation was necessary. July 31, 12:45 p.m. San Francisco Mayor London Breed unveiled her new budget plan for the city Friday afternoon, which includes a proposal to close a $1.5-billion deficit caused by the economic downturn following the coronavirus outbreak. The details and risks of the budget are complex and in large part dependent in part on future ballot measures. But it does include a large sum of money for a continued COVID-19 response. The COVID-19 plan relies on $246 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as state and federal grants. As the Chronicle reports, in the next fiscal year, San Francisco plans to spend $450 million total on its response to the coronavirus, including $93 million from the city's general fund. "The [$93 million from the general fund] is a significant investment, but honestly it's not really a choice," Breed said in a live streamed presentation. "Without a strong and sustained COVID response, our students won't return to school, people won't get back to work and our economy won't recover." A portion of the response funding will go towards "lots of housing," and specifically, 1,500 new units of supportive housing as a more long-term solution for homeless individuals temporarily in hotel rooms. In her announcement, Breed said the city is aiming to relocate 4,500 people into housing over the next two years, though the Chronicle reports that number to be higher, as "up to 6,000 people." July 31, 11:40 a.m. Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that employees would not be returning to office work until 2021, joining other large tech companies' plans for a work-from-home future. Weve kicked the time period that U.S. employees would come back until early next year. To go beyond that, it would depend on the success with a vaccine, success with therapeutics, Cook told Bloomberg TV. Read more from SFGATE's Andrew Chamings. July 31, 11:20 a.m. California lawmakers are weighing the possibility of launching a $600-per-week supplementary unemployment benefit payment for Californians should the federal government not renew its weekly pandemic payment of the same amount. The $600 emergency federal unemployment is set to expire July 31. California Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), who is working with a group of lawmakers on the state's plan, acknowledged "there are so many people who are relying on that money to pay rent, to buy food." Read more from SFGATE's Alyssa Pereira. July 31, 11:15 a.m. While the coronavirus surges across San Francisco again, city officials are bracing for the worst possible outcome: mass infections by the fall, potentially overloading the city's health care system, and a sharp uptick in the city's death toll. "The virus is moving fast and more people are getting very ill," said San Francisco Department of Public Health Dr. Grant Colfax. "If this continues at current rates we estimate on average we will have more than 750 San Franciscans in the hospital by mid-October and more than 600 deaths from COVID-19 in 2020. [The] worst case scenario puts us at 2,400 hospitalizations and 1,800 deaths. These scenarios become more likely as each day goes by with the current trends." How accurate are those numbers? SFGATE discussed with UCSF's George Rutherford. Read the story here. July 31, 10:20 a.m. The USS Hornet Museum in Alameda announced it's re-opening on Aug. 1 with limited hours. The museum will open Fridays through Sundays (plus Thursday for members only), 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Only the Hangar Bay and Flight Deck will be open, while all enclosed areas of the ship will be off limits. Safety measures will be in place and mask wearing and social distancing is required. Jessica Mullins/SFGATE July 31, 7:45 a.m. A hiker was allegedly assaulted Wednesday by a jogger on a Marin County trail after asking him to wear a mask, officials said. The 59-year-old Larkspur resident reported that he and his wife were on the Gertrude Ord Trail at Phoenix Lake near Ross, when they encountered a jogger coming from the opposite direction. "The resident reported that he held his hand up and told the jogger to put a mask on before coming closer, but the jogger kept coming and shoved him, pushing him to the ground, before continuing on his run," Jeanne Mariani-Belding, a spokesperson for the Marin Municipal Water District said in a statement. Rangers patrolled the area for the suspect but were unable to locate him. The suspect is described as a white 20-something male with brown hair. He was wearing a light-colored shirt and a black vest at the time of the incident. Anyone with information on the incident can call the districts rangers office at 415-945-1180. July 31, 7:40 a.m. The Santa Clara County Department of Public Health is investigating a cluster of coronavirus outbreaks at four Costco stores. The county confirmed the Gilroy location reported six cases between July 24 and July 30, the store in Mountain View four cases between July 15 and July 29, the San Jose store at Senter Road eight cases between July 17 and July 22 and the Sunnyvale store 13 cases between July 23 and July 26. Read the full story on SFGATE. July 31, 7:30 a.m. A Vallejo couple who were married for more than 20 years died weeks apart from COVID-19, according to KTVU. Gwendolyn Robinson, 62, worked at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville for more than a decade, and Keith Robinson, 61, drove distribution trucks for the U.S. Postal Service. The couple fell ill around July 6, according to the Napa Valley Register, and were hospitalized at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Vallejo. "It's kind of numbing, because I'm still not over my mom," the couple's son, DeLon Adams, told KTVU. "And to lose my dad not even two weeks later, it's kind of...you know...that's a big blow." July 31, 7 a.m. While the coronavirus surges across San Francisco again, city officials are bracing for the worst possible outcome: mass infections by the fall, potentially overloading the city's health care system, and a sharp uptick in the city's death toll. In a virtual press conference Thursday, San Francisco Department of Public Health Dr. Grant Colfax confirmed the number of hospitalized COVID patients is higher than it's ever been, underscoring the urgent need for city residents to self-correct in mitigating the spread of the virus. During the last peak in April, 94 people were hospitalized. Six weeks ago, that figure dropped down to 26. But by late July, the number of those hospitalized jumped up to 107. Of those, Colfax noted, one-quarter are in intensive care. Read the full story on SFGATE. Coronavirus in the greater Bay Area: Links you need COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENTS Alameda County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. Contra Costa County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. Lake County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. Marin County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. Monterey County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. Napa County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. San Benito County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. San Francisco County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. San Mateo County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. Santa Clara County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. Santa Cruz County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. Solano County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. Sonoma County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW Here are answers to your most frequently asked questions about coronavirus Lasting heart damage could be COVID-19's legacy for some non-hospitalized survivors Coronavirus hospitalizations decreasing in 2 Bay Area counties WHEN WILL THE BAY AREA REOPEN? Is it less dangerous to reopen elementary schools than high schools? Gov. Newsom orders California schools on watch list stay closed San Mateo County added to state COVID-19 watch list, faces business closures By Express News Service VIJAYAWADA: As many as 271 people tested positive in Krishna district on Thursday, taking the corona count to 6,530. The COVID toll rose to 160 with three more persons falling victim to the virus. At present, the number of active cases in the district is 1,821, while 4,549 people have recovered from coronavirus. A total of 114 persons were discharged from COVID hospitals in the last 24 hours ending at 9 am on Thursday. In a review meeting held at his camp office here, Collector A Md Imtiaz said that over one lakh people from various parts of the country and abroad have returned to Krishna district since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Of the total, 42,459 people arrived in the district by special trains and 36,000 by buses. A record number of 23,400 people returned from abroad. He said that about 4,700 natives of Krishna district reached Hyderabad from abroad and they were shifted to their hometowns by special buses. Elaborating further, the Collector said that instructions were given to the officials concerned to collect samples from the people who arrived in the district from high risk places like New Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Punjab. They were given a choice of staying in paid quarantine or in centres run by the State government. Only 5 per cent of samples were collected randomly from the people returned from Hyderabad. With the spurt in corona positive cases in Telangana, the collection of samples was increased to 10 per cent. "Many people who returned from Kuwait, tested positive for the virus. All of them are being treated in quarantine centres in the district," Imtiaz said, adding that the sample testing was ramped up by deploying iMASQ buses at Vijayawada railway station, Gannavaram airport and Garikapadu checkpost. People who tested positive, are being shifting to COVID hospitals or sent to home isolation after the seven-day institutional quarantine. Koloni uses a mobile phone application to lock and unlock bikes, therefore special bike racks are no longer needed. As Aurora is guaranteed 10 bikes, any bike that is taken from Aurora and docked in a service zone in another town will be returned to the city within 48 hours. Similarly, if Aurora has more than 10 bikes at any time, those will be picked up within 48 hours and returned to the proper community. A resident is taken from the Epping Hardens Aged Care Home on July 29, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. (Robert Cianflone/Getty Images) 627 New Virus Cases, Eight Deaths and One in Four Not Isolating in Victoria on July 31 An alarming number of Victorians who have tested positive for COVID-19 are not staying home, with more than 100 referred to police, as the state recorded 627 more cases and another eight deaths. Premier Daniel Andrews said Australian Defence Force personnel and public health officials did more than 500 visits to positive cases on July 30, but one in four were not home. There were more than 130 unsuccessful visits, he said. Therell be a multitude of reasons for that, but what I can confirm for you is that more than 100 cases have been referred to Victoria Police. The premier said there was no excuse for people who have tested positive not to be isolating. It is simply unacceptable for you to have this virus and not be at home, he said. The latest fatalities were two men in their 50s, two men aged in their 70s, three men in their 80s and one woman in her 70s. Four of the eight are linked to aged care homes. The deaths take the state toll to 112 and the national figure to 197. Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said workplace transmission was a significant factor in driving large case numbers, particularly those with a younger workforce who may not exhibit symptoms. Sutton said while Victorias surge was disappointing, the lockdown was having an effect. We cannot open up with these numbers, we cannot open up with significantly less than these numbers. , said the premier. Andrews also said the $300 isolation payment had been made to 4200 workers awaiting test results and who face hardship for not going to work, at a cost of $1.26 million. So far 12,600 businesses have received a $5000 grant, worth around $63 million in total. Carly Waters in Melbourne HALIFAX - One of the three people selected to lead the public inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass shooting has dropped out. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/7/2020 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Anne McLellan has informed the federal and provincial governments that she favours the decision to call a public inquiry but is unable to commit to the time required to carry out an inquiry commissioner's responsibilities. Former federal finance minister Anne McLellan speaks to reporters at the World Cannabis Congress in Saint John, N.B., on Monday, June 11, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Kevin Bissett HALIFAX - One of the three people selected to lead the public inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass shooting has dropped out. Anne McLellan has informed the federal and provincial governments that she supports the decision to call a public inquiry but is unable to commit the time required to carry out an inquiry commissioner's responsibilities. Bill Blair, the federal minister of public safety, and Mark Furey, Nova Scotia's justice minister, had described the former federal Liberal cabinet minister as someone whose expertise would help delve into the circumstances surrounding the mass shooting. McLellan had agreed to serve on a panel reviewing the killings alongside Michael MacDonald, a former chief justice of Nova Scotia, and Leanne Fitch, the former chief of police in Fredericton. But the closed-door review came in for strong criticism from relatives of the 22 victims of the April 18-19 killings, who had advocated for a public inquiry with the power to subpoena witnesses to testify under oath. The two governments did an about-face on the review Tuesday and ordered a public inquiry, and at the time Blair said the three people appointed for the review had also agreed to serve as commissioners. In a statement Friday afternoon, Blair and Furey said the inquiry will continue to move forward, and their governments "will keep Canadians informed on the appointment of commissioners to the inquiry." Before the inquiry was announced, the two ministers had said the review panel was to complete an interim report by Feb. 28, 2021 and a final report by Aug. 31, 2021. However, fresh terms of reference and timelines haven't been announced yet. The original goals and issues of the review were wide-ranging. They called for a probe into the police response, the gunman's acquisition of firearms, the methods of alerting the public and the police procedures for dealing with domestic violence. The victims' families have said they wanted a mechanism that could compel testimony about the RCMP's response during the shootings, as well as prior police knowledge of the gunman's alleged criminal behaviour. Feminist groups have called for an investigation into the issue of domestic abuse, noting the killer had abused his common-law partner. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2020. A 7,800-square-foot industrial/flex building property in Lebanon Township will serve as a residential addiction treatment facility in the community seven years after a judge upheld its unanimous approval by the townships planning board. The property, located at 405 Trimmer Road, was purchased July 14 by Dr. Henry Odunlami, a board-certified psychiatrist and the founder of GenPsych, established in 2005 as a mental health outpatient facility. Tupperware, a globally renowned and much-loved premium homeware brand based out of Orlando, US is loved for its best in class product quality and innovative and functional designs. The brand adopted a harmonised multi-channel sales approach last year and is successfully operating in the Direct Selling, digital (marketplaces and brand webstore) and exclusive retail space. As people stay indoors, they are beginning to spend more time in the kitchen and to encourage and delight them further, Tupperware India launches a two week-long multi-channel marketing festival called TupperFEST from 2nd to 15th August 2020. This is a first ever shopping festival from the brand directly to its consumers and the brand will offer innovative products, combo deals and discount of upto 50% on select products. TupperFEST aims to elevate the joy of consumers with amazing deals on Tupperwares wide range of world class product categories including Conservation (Dry and Fridge), Serveware, Steel and Cookware, Kitchen Prep and more to enhance the kitchen experience like never before. Especially during current times as millions of people are spending More Time at Home, the newly debuted audience in the kitchen combined with WFH culture demands for innovation in the Kitchen and homeware category. Catering to the ever evolving needs of the consumer, Tupperware has launched sets like Get it all set in each category, additionally to make the deal sweeter, the brand is also introducing a Fab 5 range which have been shortlisted keeping in mind consumers needs. These deals and offers will be available across platforms including Direct-Selling and retail stores across locations. The brand has also introduced a Kitchen Make over (KMO) set that not only helps in organising the kitchen better but also assists in optimal utilisation and is a perfect gift to be part of anyones new beginning, for a culinary enthusiast, and for an organised & stress-free kitchen. The brand is investing efforts in creating influencer and social-media led surround sound around the TupperFEST to engage with existing and prospective consumers. An effective influencer campaign has been launched to drive experiential conversations around various products, deals and discounts. The brand is partnering with celebrities like Delnaaz Irani, MasterChef contestants like Natasha Gandhi, Akanksha Khatri, Prince Sharma, Harsh Bothra and others to create high decibel chatter in relevant circles of influence. Talking about the festival, Mr. Deepak Chhabra, MD, Tupperware India said, Tupperware has been working relentlessly to stay connected with its consumer and offer seamless services across platforms. Our innovative and agile teams always have their ears to ground and based on consumer insights and market scenario, timely launch of Social Selling and Home Selling worked very well for us. The demand for dry storage and preparation range have gone up by 30% and we expect it to be on an upswing for a while. Therefore, the timing for this first ever Tupperware shopping festival is just right for us and we are sure that our consumers would find immense value in deals and discounts which we have specially curated for them. He further added, We have been doing this as a Record Breaker in past with our Direct Selling (DS) network and this is the first time we are directly engaging with consumers. Our DS network also look forward to this time of the year as an opportunity to earn more. We are confident of an uptick in the consumption pattern since the newly debuted audience will shop more to experiment, and upscale their newfound cooking talents. TupperFEST is also timed close to festivals like Rakshabandhan, Janmashtami and Independence Day and we aim to offer relevant gifting solutions which makes life simpler through various routine chores and gives more time to spend with the loved ones. Considering the current times when trips to the shops for food/essentials has been limited, Tupperware offers range of products which can be an ultimate gift of care for storing food in bulk and small quantity, on shelf and in refrigerators. These containers are easy to carry on the go. They are ultimate home organisers and have breathing seal to allow air circulation and keep food fresh for long and prevent wastage. A grandfather caught with a "significant knife" tied around his neck on a shoelace insisted it was a tool he used in his work as a skip diver. Anthony Doyle (52) denied that the knife found hidden on him when he was stopped by gardai was a weapon. Judge Michael Walsh found him guilty and gave him a three-month suspended sentence. Doyle, with an address at Mercer House, Mercer Street, pleaded not guilty to unlawful possession of a knife. Dublin District Court heard gardai stopped and searched the accused at the North Circular Road on September 10, 2019, then brought him to a Garda station. On arrival in a patrol car, a knife with a sharply pointed blade was found hanging around his neck on a shoelace, inside his shirt. His defence barrister said a bag the accused was carrying at the time had tools in it. The accused worked "diving in skips" picking up bits of metal to be sold on, he said. Hidden He had the knife for that purpose - to cut things out of skips, he said. He had told gardai he had the knife for work. The garda said here was no sign of a van when Doyle was stopped. The knife was hidden and he did not accept that it was a work tool. Judge Walsh asked how a knife around the neck could be hidden and said people might have lanyards or other work items around their necks. The garda said the accused's pockets were searched but the neck was an area of the body that would not usually be searched. Doyle said in evidence the knife was a work tool and he would use it to cut scrap wire, ropes and plastic. Having it on him saved him running up and down to the van, he said. He had just jumped out of a van at a set of traffic lights and was going to meet a woman when gardai stopped him. He had not had a chance to take the knife off and put it in his bag, he said. Judge Walsh said it was "quite a significant article" that was unusually attached to a shoelace and was not the kind of knife that would be used for domestic purposes. A man in Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh has been arrested after his wife was paraded in their village carrying him on her shoulders on the suspicion of infidelity, the police said on Thursday. The police action came after a video of the incident went viral on Wednesday, in which the woman is seen carrying her husband on her shoulders as a punishment while villagers, carrying sticks, can be seen heckling her. According to police, the couple returned to their village under Kotwali police station in the district from Gujarat during the Covid-19 lockdown. In the five-minute-long video, the woman can be seen struggling to walk, and even forcing her husband to get off her shoulders. But the villagers again force her to carry her husband. There was a dispute between the husband and wife. The husband questioned her fidelity. When we got the information we talked to the woman and lodged the FIR, Surendra Singh, Jhabua Kotwali police inspector, said. Along with the husband, several others, including their relatives, have been booked under sections 354 (Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 355 (Assault or criminal force with intent to dishonour person, otherwise than on grave provocation), 147 (rioting), 149 (Every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 294 (Obscene acts and songs) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of Indian Penal Code (IPC). Earlier in June, a similar incident took place in Jhabua when a woman was forced to carry her husband on her shoulders, for over an hour. The man suspected infidelity on the part of his wife, according to police. The man and three others were arrested in the incident. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON MINNEAPOLIS (AP) A second former Minneapolis police officer charged in the death of George Floyd will seek to have the charges against him dismissed. Defense attorney Robert Paule filed a motion Wednesday saying Tou Thao will ask the judge to dismiss the charges at a hearing on Sept. 11. An attorney for former officer Thomas Lane, Earl Gray, also has filed a motion saying he will argue to dismiss the charges against his client. Paule said he will argue that the charges against Thao are not supported by probable cause. Prosecutors must prove that Thao knew former officer Derek Chauvin and others were going to commit a crime and intended his presence or actions to further the commission of that crime, Paule said in his motion. Paule said Thao's body camera video will show the lack of probable cause. Thao, 34, was seen in cellphone video standing near a crowd of bystanders as Chauvin pressed his knee to Floyd's neck for nearly eight minutes on May 25 even after Floyd, who was Black, pleaded for air. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. Thao, Lane and another officer, J. Kueng, are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter. All four officers were fired. President Trump demanded that results be available on the night of the election. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) Call it the trial balloon that launched a thousand punctures. On Thursday morning President Trump tweeted: With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? The suggestion that the Nov. 3 election could be delayed was immediately condemned, and Trump was treated to several remedial lessons about who is responsible for fixing the date of the election. (Its not the president.) But it was another Trump tweet on Thursday that caught my attention, one that signaled how he might seek to discredit the results of an election he cant postpone. Must know Election results on the night of the Election, not days, months, or even years later! Trump tweeted Thursday afternoon. In a similar vein, Trump said this at a White House briefing: "You know, so many years, Ive been watching elections. And they say the 'projected winner' or the 'winner of the election' I dont want to see that take place in a week after Nov. 3 or a month or, frankly, with litigation and everything else that can happen, years. Years. Or you never even know who won the election." Trump is probably exaggerating the likelihood of a long period of suspense before results are clear. Edward Foley, an election law specialist at Ohio State Universitys law school, told the Hill that, while a large number of mail-in ballots might result in some delay, the process should not take longer than a month. If you were charitable, you could dismiss Trumps insistence on same-day results as the cranky impatience of a television addict. But it has a more sinister interpretation: that delayed results are an indication that something fishy is going on, maybe even the manufacturing of votes. So Trumps comments about delayed results must be read in the context of his fear-mongering about inaccuracies and fraud connected to the expanded voting by mail necessitated by the coronavirus. Story continues There is nothing legislators or election officials can do to prevent Trump from sowing suspicion about election results, especially if he loses. But his misinformation campaign could be less successful if Congress and the states took steps to reduce the delay in counting absentee and other ballots. For example, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed legislation allowing county election officials to start processing mail-in ballots 29 days before the election. But its also important that election officials including Republican secretaries of state counter Trumps insinuations by reminding voters that there is nothing sinister about a tabulation that lasts beyond election night, especially in an election in which the coronavirus pandemic has necessitated increased voting by mail. The news media can also play a constructive role, by recognizing that a rush to declare a winner problematic even in normal election years is especially ill-advised this year. Trump isnt the only television viewer who has come to expect the immediate gratification of an election night result. Indulging that expectation is irresponsible and plays into Trump's hands. Russia's Security Service Arrests Black Sea Fleet Officer Working for Ukraine Intelligence Sputnik News 06:32 GMT 30.07.2020(updated 06:49 GMT 30.07.2020) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A serviceman of Russia's Black Sea Fleet who worked for the Ukrainian military intelligence was placed into custody in Sevastopol for committing high treason, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday. "The Russian Federation's FSB detained in Sevastopol a serviceman of the Black Sea Fleet who provided the Ukrainian Defence Ministry's Chief Directorate of Intelligence with information constituting state secret, which he collected. Russia's FSB has initiated a criminal case under 'high treason' article," the FSB said in a statement. The FSB did not specify when exactly the officer was detained and taken into custody. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Madeleine McCann prime suspect Christian Brueckner was filmed at the wheel of a battered VW campervan just weeks before German police believed he used it to kidnap the three-year-old girl. In the footage, obtained exclusively by MailOnline, Brueckner can be seen laughing and joking as he squats down in the back of the van looking at a map. Casually dressed with a black necklace and white sweatshirt, the convicted sex offender used his distinctive rusting white and yellow T3 Westfalia to give three young German travellers a lift to Spain. One man in the film, known only as Tomas, said he was horrified when he realised the man who had given him a lift in the camper 13 years ago was the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine. 'It makes me sick to think that the little girl could have been taken away in the same van a month later,' he told Mail Online. Madeleine McCann prime suspect Christian Brueckner was filmed at the wheel of a battered VW campervan just weeks before German police believed he used it to kidnap the three-year-old girl Casually dressed with a black necklace and white sweatshirt, the convicted sex offender used his distinctive rusting white and yellow T3 Westfalia to give three young German travellers a lift to Spain One man in the film, known only as Tomas, said he was horrified when he realised the man who had given him a lift in the camper 13 years ago was the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine The video was shot on March 30 2007, only five weeks before Madeleine was taken from her Portuguese holiday home in Praia da Luz, sparking a 13-year global manhunt. Brueckner grins behind the wheel of his VW camper van during the road trip to Spain Tomas said: 'He seemed like any other ordinary young man. He was cheerful and joked a lot and happy to give us a ride in his VW van. 'He didn't mind us filming him and taking his pictures. He was happy to pose and must have known we could never suspect what a terrible man he really was. 'It is scary to know now that he was a rapist of an elderly woman and targeted children. We couldn't have known that he was such a monster in truth. 'Of course, we don't know if he took Maddie who the police say is dead. That is all up to the detectives to prove. But he is their main suspect and now they are digging the ground where he lived near Hanover. They are serious about him.' German investigators believe Madeleine was murdered and named Brueckner as their main suspect last month. Brueckner, 43, already has a string of convictions including the sexual assault of a six-year-old girl and the rape of a woman in her 70s in 2005. Police spent several days this week digging up his allotment near Hannover to search a secret cellar on the vegetable plot. The video was shot on March 30 2007, only five weeks before Madeleine was taken from her Portuguese holiday home in Praia da Luz, sparking a 13-year global manhunt Tomas said: 'He seemed like any other ordinary young man. He was cheerful and joked a lot and happy to give us a ride in his VW van. We couldn't have known that he was such a monster in truth' Having driven from Praia da Luz, Brueckner picked them up in Malaga, Spain, and drove them 175 miles to Vera, Almeria around a three hour drive during which he was chatty and helpful In 2007, he was filmed by Tomas and two others as they took part in a challenge to transport a caravan trailer from Faro in the Algarve to Saxony in Germany relying on just 10 Euros a day. Entitled 'Trip of a Lifetime', they had to get the caravan back to Germany by hitching it to trucks and vans volunteered by drivers without any payment. Their journey was sponsored by a German radio station and the trio two competition winners and a DJ posted regularly online about their adventure and kept an internet diary. A friend of Brueckner's heard about the challenge through the radio and got in touch to recommended him as someone who could help. Having driven from Praia da Luz, he picked them up in Malaga, Spain, and drove them 175 miles to Vera, Almeria around a three hour drive during which he was chatty, cheerful and willing to help. Tomas, 35, said: 'He laughed a lot, gave us high fives and seemed to enjoy chatting to us. He would repeatedly give us the peace sign by making a 'V' with his fingers. 'When I look back, it is almost that he tried too hard to be our friend and wanted to be liked. 'He was a stranger and he decided to drive us for around 280kms. I thought it was a very good gesture from him, but it seems to me now that needed company. We did like him, but we didn't know him really. In 2007, he was filmed by Tomas and two others as they took part in a challenge to transport a caravan trailer from Faro in the Algarve to Saxony in Germany relying on just 10 Euros a day Entitled 'Trip of a Lifetime', they had to get the caravan back to Germany by hitching it to trucks and vans volunteered by drivers without any payment. A friend of Brueckner's heard about the challenge and recommended him as someone who could help Having driven from Praia da Luz, he picked them up in Malaga, Spain, and drove them 175 miles to Vera, Almeria around a three hour drive during which he was chatty, cheerful and willing to help 'He told us to call him the 'Happy Hobby Hippy' because he liked to hang out with people who were hippies and it was his pastime. 'When we got there we all hugged him and thanked him and he said he was going on back to Portugal.' Then aged 30, he told the trio he had lived in Portugal for 12 years where he worked as a car dealer and was only borrowing the Westfalia from a friend. He described his Jaguar car back in Portugal, but they were not impressed by the poor state of the camper which was rusty, had stained seats, wires dangling from the dashboard and a hole in the interior of a door with a giant MP3 player perched on the front seat. A few days later, they got a message from him saying: 'Guys, enjoy your remaining days with all your heart, because reality will catch up with you very quickly.' The reality for Brueckner was that he had moved to Portugal to escape his brutal past during which he had sexually molested a six-year-old girl in Wurzburg, Bavaria and served a two-year jail sentence. After moving to Portugal he raped a 72-year-old woman in 2005 for which he was sentenced to seven and a half years. Reflecting on the renewed investigation into Madeleine, Tomas said: 'I am so sorry for her family. They need some sort of closure.' Then aged 30, he told the trio he had lived in Portugal for 12 years where he worked as a car dealer and was only borrowing the Westfalia from a friend. They were not impressed by the poor state of the camper which was rusty, had stained seats, wires dangling from the roof Interpol interviewed the woman who travelled with Tomas in June 2019 in Saxony, illustrating how long police have been investigating Brueckner's potential involvement in Madeleine's disappearance Interpol interviewed the woman who travelled with Tomas in June 2019 in Saxony, illustrating how long police have been investigating Brueckner's potential involvement in Madeleine's disappearance. It is understood that he was on the police radar for more than seven years before police showed their hand in June in appealing for public help with information of his activities. Brueckner is currently in prison in Germany serving a sentence for drugs offences and should be starting his sentence for rape shortly but his lawyers have appealed the conviction on a legal technicality and the European Court of Justice will deliver its decision later this year. Raat Akeli Hai Director - Honey Trehan Cast - Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Radhika Apte, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Shweta Tripathi, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Nishant Dahiya, Ila Arun, Swanand Kirkire, Aditya Srivastava The chhuris are out in Raat Akeli Hai, a homegrown murder mystery on Netflix that doubles as an impressive directorial debut for Bollywood casting director Honey Trehan. Its the rare mainstream Indian film that doesnt seem to be in a rush to tell its story, and earns its daunting two-and-a-half hour runtime deviating from the primary plot when it wants to, and fleshing out its archetypal characters with care. Nawazuddin Siddiqui, as Inspector Jatil Yadav, would be glad to ditch the gangster garb for a cops khaki, if only to reprimand journalists who keep asking him if hes been typecast. Watch the Raat Akeli Hai trailer here When Raghuveer Singh, the rich patriarch of a landowning Uttar Pradesh family is found dead in his bedroom, Jatil is sent to investigate. Affecting the dignified manner of Hercule Poirot and Benoit Blanc, he paces about the house, observing the crime scene with clinical passivity and sizing up each member of the family. It is soon clear to Jatil (and us) that they are all hiding something; they all have reasons to kill the old man. Having understood this, Jatil gathers the family in the courtyard and says, almost as a threat, Aap sabko hum ek baat bata rahe hain. Yahan jo kaand hue hai na, hum karenge uski jaanch. And once again, Nawazuddin rises above his diminutive physical stature to deliver a performance that positively demands attention. Jatil is an interesting character, given a chip on his shoulder by Nawaz. In the tradition of fine fictional detectives, he is quite the blank canvas. His sincerity is unquestionable, even in the face of corruption and red-tape. At every turn, he is met with hurdles, sometimes in the form of his uncooperative superior, and on other occasions a local politician known as Munna Raja. Like the recent series Paatal Lok, Raat Akeli Hai also subscribes to the age-old cinematic trope that for a crime to be solved, the detective must first be suspended from duty. Nawazuddin Siddiqui in a still from Raat Akeli Hai. Trehan does the intelligent thing and surrounds himself with impeccably talented artists on his first film. Everyone, from Nawaz and the ensemble Shweta Tripathi and Tigmanshu Dhulia are standouts to the cinematographer Pankaj Kumar (Talvar, Tumbbad) and writer Smita Singh (Sacred Games), appear to be working in comfortable collaboration to serve a shared vision. Perhaps because of his experience in casting, Trehan is aware that he must not fall into the same trap that has consumed earlier murder mysteries: telegraphing the identity of the killer by hiring an actor who sticks out like a South Delhi boy in a Gurugram bar. Even Knives Out, a film with which Raat Akeli Hai shares its DNA, couldnt avoid this. The moment Chris Evans stepped up in the second half, you knew something was up. But by casting actors of equal skill and popularity to play the members of Raghuveer Singhs family, as a viewer, youre constantly guessing, and mostly guessing wrong. Unfortunately for Raat Akeli Hai, it arrives mere months after director Rian Johnsons Oscar nominated film, which raised the bar considerably for locked room murder mysteries, and will, at least for the time being, be considered the benchmark for this sort of story. Not merely content with having crafted an intricate yarn, Johnson through his film made keen socio-political observations as well. Aditya Srivastava, Shweta Tripathi, Shivani Raghuvanshi, and others in a still from Raat Akeli Hai. Raat Akeli Hai is more old-school in its approach; perfectly happy to play around with genre conventions without feeling pressured to make any grand statements about class or patriarchy in cow-belt India. Also read: Murder on the Orient Express movie review: Agatha Christie done right; even dead Johnny Depp cant derail it As fun as the film is, it cant help but come across as a wasted opportunity in this regard. Singhs screenplay sets the stage for subversion, but concludes rather clumsily. A romantic subplot involving Jatil and the old mans mistress feels tangential, and serves only as additional motivation for a man who doesnt really need any. Played by Radhika Apte, Radha, the rakhael, is an enigma of a character, no doubt modelled after classic film noir femme fatales, but regrettably reduced to nothing more than a damsel in distress. As a first film, however, Raat Akeli Hai is quite the achievement. Trehan not only has a skill for directing actors, but also displays a command over tone and visual texture. Surely this is the beginning of a bright new franchise? Follow @htshowbiz for more The author tweets @RohanNaahar School will start two weeks later than originally planned for public school students in Springfield this fall. The Springfield School Committee voted Thursday to push back the start of the school year this fall by two weeks. The previous school calendar had students in grades 1-12 scheduled to return August 31, kindergarten one week after that and pre-kindergarteners the following week. Following Thursdays vote, the school year will start on Tuesday, Sept. 15 for students in grades 1 through 12, Sept. 21 for kindergarten and Sept. 28 for pre-kindergarteners. Given the incredible number of moving parts that are necessary to safely open schools, an extra two weeks for educators to prepare is greatly needed and will be extremely valuable, Springfield Superintendent of Schools Daniel Warwick said earlier this week. To try to think we could come back before that would be a mistake. The proposed schedule change comes after state education officials announced that school districts can delay the start of the school year by up to two weeks. In what format Springfield Public School students will return to the classroom remains to be determined. Massachusetts school districts must create three educational plans: a full return to in-person classroom; hybrid of in-person and remote learning; and fully remote learning. Speaking of the three options with city education officials Thursday, Warwick said Springfield realistically has two choices: a hybrid of in-person and remote learning or fully remote learning. Due to the number of students in district and space available, Springfield - like the majority of Massachusetts school districts - could not implement required social distancing protocols if schools reopened fully in-person. A hybrid model developed by district officials proposes assigning the majority of students into two groups: one to attend class in person Mondays and Tuesdays, and the second group to attend class Thursdays and Fridays. Days out of the classroom, students would learn remotely. Siblings living in the same household would be prioritized to be in the same group. Some students - special education and Level 1 English Language Learners - would be scheduled to attend class in-person Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Wednesdays would be reserved for buildings to be deep cleaned. The district will provide laptops to all students by the start of the school year. Springfield is entering into a sponsored service agreement with Comcast to offer internet access for families with limited to no current access. For families living outside the city, T-Mobile hot spot devices will be offered to provide internet access, if needed. Remote learning for school-aged children this fall will look significantly different from remote learning offered by Massachusetts school districts this past spring. Following statewide school closures this spring, districts could chose two educational models for the remainder of the school year: resources and supports, which included sending packets and assignments home to students; or instruction and services, which included structured learning time, teletherapy, and video conferencing. For the 2020-2021 school year, schools must offer only the latter learning option, offering remote students a regular and consistent schedule of classes, interventions, services, and therapies including frequent interactions with teachers and other staff members to ensure participation. Ultimately, families will decide whether their children will attend in-person classes or continue remote learning. All schools must offer comprehensive curriculums for remote learning, including meeting the specialized needs of children with Individual Education Plans (IEPs) and English Language Learners. Several Springfield School Committee members expressed concerns about indicating a preference Thursday between the hybrid and fully remote models, both seeking to be more involved themselves in developing the reopening plan and wanting further feedback from families about the options. School Committee Vice Chairman Christopher Collins announced during the meeting that the school committee will host a virtual Town Hall to gather community feedback about back-to-school plans. The virtual Town Hall will be held on Tuesday, August 4 at 6 p.m. Seeking to plan for how many students will be in the classroom this fall, Springfield conducted a survey this summer and found about 30% of parents wanted to enroll their children in the fully remote learning option. District officials plan to check in with parents again in weeks ahead of the school year starting to confirm enrollment preferences. All Springfield families are asked to ensure their phone numbers are up to date. Updated phone numbers can be provided to school officials by calling their childs school. The school year will be reduced from 180 days to 170 days to allow school districts the additional 10 days to prepare for the start of the 2020-2021 school year. Massachusetts districts must start no later than Sept. 16. Students must receive a minimum of 850 and 935 hours of structured learning time for elementary and secondary students, respectively. Structured learning time is defined in the regulations as time during which students are engaged in regularly scheduled instruction, learning activities, or learning assessments within the curriculum for study of the core subjects and other subjects. In addition to classroom time where both teachers and students are present, structured learning time may include directed study, independent study, technology-assisted learning, presentations by persons other than teachers, school-to-work programs, and statewide student performance assessments. Massachusetts school districts pivoted to remote learning in mid-March amid a growing number of coronavirus cases, leaving educators scrambling to teach their students. Some offered remote classes over Zoom while other districts relied on take-home work packets for students. 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. Part of our responsibility as educators, administrators, and parents is to do all that we can to help our children in this difficult time, 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. Major facility changes will occur in most schools, including but not limited to: reconfiguration of desks in classrooms to allow for social distancing; limiting traffic in hallways; and installation of additional hand-washing hand sanitizing stations. Warwick said Springfield has already begun purchasing masks, sanitizing stations and other personal protection equipment for schools. 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. Parents or guardians will be expected to supply their children with reusable masks which should be washed daily. Schools will have extra disposable face masks available if needed. State 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. Related Content Destiny Brewer, whose children are fourth and ninth graders in the district, said she sent her kids back to school without much hesitation and that the first day back went even better than expected. The Avon mother who works full-time said finding childcare can be costly and e-learning wasnt substantial enough for her kids at the end of the spring term. Hundreds of mysterious elephant deaths in Botswana were probably caused by a naturally occurring toxin, a senior wildlife official told Reuters. Cyril Taolo, the acting director of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, said preliminary tests show it's highly unlikely an infectious disease killed at least 281 elephants. Officials had been struggling to establish the cause of death more than two months after the first carcasses were spotted in the Okavango Panhandle region. Initial investigations appeared to rule out common causes like poaching and anthrax. The government has sent samples to laboratories in Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the United States for tests. The elephant deaths have concerned some conservationists, who fear deaths could spiral out of control if a cause cannot be established quickly. Africa's overall elephant population is declining due to poaching but Botswana, home to almost a third of the continent's elephants, has seen numbers grow to around 130,000. London: Filmmaker Alan Parker, one of Britain's most successful directors whose movies included Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express and Evita, has died at the age of 76, his family said. Parker's diverse body of work includes Fame, Mississippi Burning, The Commitments and Angela's Ashes. Together his movies won 10 Academy Awards and 19 British Academy Film Awards. Alan Parker was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2002. Credit:AP In a statement, the family said Parker died on Friday in London after a long illness. Parker was born in London in in 1944 and, like many other aspiring British directors including Ridley Scott, began his career in advertising. South African-based cybersecurity company SensePost has announced that it is rebranding to Orange Cyberdefense from 1 August 2020. The name of its ethical hacking team will remain SensePost. In 2019, Orange acquired 100% of SecureData as part of an initiative to increase its international reach and expertise in cybersecurity. SensePost is a consulting subsidiary of SecureData, which at the time was the largest independent cybersecurity service provider in the United Kingdom. SensePost CEO Dominic White explained that the company was excited to become part of Orange Cyberdefense, as there was a strong cultural overlap both in a commitment to deep hacking and research, but also high-quality work and delightful customer service. White explained that the decision will improve SensePosts ability to help its customers with security challenges in two primary ways. Firstly, by having its SensePost team work with other Orange Cyberdefense ethical hacking teams in Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Norway and more countries, these teams are able to share ideas and learn from each other. For our customers, this means a better quality of service better diversity of ideas and ways of working. Its not often you get to speak frankly with seven of your previous competitors and merge the parts into a greater whole, White said. It also means we have more capacity and a wider geographical reach which will result in shorter lead times and faster travel times. For our people and potential future people, it means we can more easily hire across Europe or give people experiences in other countries. Extending service offerings in South Africa The second benefit is that it will be able to expand its local service offerings, despite not being a South African-only company for several years. SensePost also has a team in the UK and, according to White, over half of the companys work comes from outside South Africa. However, access to the wider group of teams will mean it can widen the companys offerings to include additional managed security services in South Africa. Truthfully, this isnt that big a change for us, weve been offering managed vulnerability scanning for about as long as SensePost has existed, and more recently some South African customers are using the managed threat detection service Charl (one of our founders) helped build, White stated. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to force changes to daily activities and rituals around the world, Muslim families are finding new ways to celebrate Eid al-Adha. One of Islams two main festivals, Eid al-Adha traditionally begins in the morning with the Eid prayer at the nearest mosque or an open field and continues with feasts, visits and an exchanging of gifts among relatives and friends. But widespread coronavirus lockdowns mean that those kinds of gatherings arent feasible in many communities. Afshan Malik, a development director with the nonprofit educational organization Rabata, is still including gifts, decorations and special treats typically reserved for this day, even if they are not able to enjoy time with their community in Houston. She is encouraging her five children, ages 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11, to learn how to pray the Eid prayer at home: We want to make sure our family stays connected to the sacredness and historical significance. Pennsylvania Man Who Threatened to Kill Trump Sentenced to Jail A Pennsylvania man who threatened to kill President Donald Trump and a district attorney has been sentenced to 20 years behind bars. U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani sentenced 28-year-old Shawn Christy of McAdoo on Thursday, The Associated Press reported. Besides ordering Christy to serve 20 years in prison, Mariani ruled that his sentence would include three years of supervised release, according to Lehigh Valley Live. A federal jury convicted Christy in November 2019 on a dozen counts that included transporting stolen firearms across state lines, making threatening communications that included statements about using lethal force against police, and threatening the president of the United States. During the hearing, Mariani referred to Christy as painting a picture of a man to be feared, according to local outlet 69 News. The judge recommended that Christy serve his sentence in Butner prison in North Carolina, where he could be treated for mental health, the report added. Christy led authorities on a three-month, multi-state manhunt that ended in September 2018. The search was triggered when Christy made a threat against Trump and John Morganelli, then-district attorney of Northampton County in Pennsylvania. Prosecutors said Christy posted threats against Trump and Morganelli on Facebook, writing, Keep it up Morganelli, I promise Ill put a bullet in your head as soon as I put one in the head of President Donald J. Trump. According to a U.S. Marshals news release, an array of agencies were involved in tracking and catching Christy, including the FBI, U.S. Secret Service, and multiple state and local law enforcement agencies. At one point, television personality Duane Chapman, known as Dog the Bounty Hunter, said he had joined the search for the fugitive, saying his goal is not to shoot him but get him to surrender. Christy was eventually arrested in Mifflin Township, Richland County, in northern Ohio, after a brief foot pursuit, the U.S. Marshals said. When he was taken into custody, authorities found he had in his possession a knife and a .380 handgun. Aimee Stang, an area resident who witnessed Christys arrest, described to News 5 Cleveland the moment that he was led away in handcuffs. We looked up and about 20 to 30 troopers and marshals came trotting out of the woods over there, said Stang. I just wondered how long he had been there, said Stang. I mean my house is so close to where he was like how long was I sleeping just a few hundred yards away. While on the run, Christy stole multiple vehicles, broke into a church in Maryland, burglarized a home in Kentucky, and broke into a school for the deaf, 69News reported. At the time of his arrest, Christy had a criminal record that involved multiple state arrest warrants in Pennsylvania for burglary, probation violation, and failure to appear for an aggravated assault case. As a filmmaker, Stephanie Ayanian never knows what to expect. She can plan all she wants, yet it always takes a different course. Take, for example, her film What Will Become of Us. When starting the project, she wanted to tell a history of the Armenian genocide, which began in 1915. During a short time, 1.5 million Armenians were killed or expelled by Ottoman Turks. What she found along the way were stories of all kinds though mostly of resilience. We wanted to have a broad geographic demonstration of stories, she says. We wanted there to be different age groups. They all have different stories. It was important to look at all the aspects of culture. Ayanian traveled to Armenia to document many of the stories, though most were conducted in the United States. The film is getting a national PBS premiere on Thursday, Aug. 6. Read more here: https://abqjournal.com/1480704/message-of-hope.html Its not often that an actor gets a huge gig right out of the gate. Brandon Gilpin is the exception. The Morehouse College student snagged a role on the Starz series P-Valley. Read more about Gilpins journey here: https://abqjournal.com/1480689/women-empowerment.html As health orders continue to keep people at home, museums continue to churn out new material for online learning. The New Mexico History Museum not only started a Quarantine Diaries writing series, but there is a New Mexico map curriculum ready for download. Read more here: https://abqjournal.com/1480736/virtual-growth-new-mexico-history-museum-has-vastly-expanded-online-offerings.html Studios are also adjusting to change and releasing movies to streaming services. The first of the reviews is The Rental starring Dan Stevens. Read a review here: https://abqjournal.com/1480730/stay-home.html The second review is the Marie Curie story called Radioactive, from Amazon Pictures. The reviews is here: https://abqjournal.com/1480721/bold-biopic.html Another week has passed, and I thank you for continuing to turn to Venue for whats happening around the state. Stay tuned for what we have in store in coming issues. Respectfully, Adrian Gomez Venue editor Florida man sentenced to prison over Facebook threat to kill Christian group Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A Florida man has been sentenced to six months in prison for threatening to literally kill" employees of the national conservative Christian non-profit American Family Association in social media messages that Facebook allegedly said did not violate its policies. Chase Davis, 21, of Pompano Beach, Florida, was sentenced to federal prison last week by U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell after sending two May 2019 Facebook messages in which he claimed that he and others would kill every person who runs the Mississippi-based AFA. In addition to incarceration, Davis must also serve 400 hours of community service, pay $1,440 of restitution to AFA for costs it incurred to protect its employees from the threat and will be required to accept mental health treatment, according to Department of Justice. After his sentence is served, Davis will be under court supervision for three years. I am coming to Tupelo unexpected with a group of people and we are going to kill every single person that runs your group, Daviss May 2019 Facebook messages to the group reads. I have put together a group to have you... obliterated to dust. Yes, I literally mean killing all of you. In a statement, AFA explained that its employees contacted Facebook after receiving the threats. Facebooks policy does not allow hate speech, credible threats or direct attacks on an individual or group, content that contains self-harm or excessive violence. But the activist organization claims that Facebook deemed the messages it received were not a violation of policy. AFA added that its appeal of Facebooks decision was unsuccessful. The threat did prompt immediate reports to federal law enforcement and an FBI investigation was launched. Davis was indicted for criminal threats in the summer of 2019 by a grand jury in the Northern District of Mississippi. He pled guilty to the charges in a Florida federal court. His guilty plea in Florida was according to a rule that allows a defendant to plead guilty to charges in the district where they reside through an agreement by the parties and the court, according to the Justice Department. It is important to protect free speech, but when it crosses the line and becomes threats to harm others on the basis of race, religious beliefs, political affiliations or other protected reasons, we will use Federal laws to hold those individuals accountable for their actions, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi William C. Lamar said in a statement. The Christian Post reached out to the AFA and Facebook for comment on this story. Responses could not be received by press time. The motive has not been directly proven as a threat to conservative Christians, but Davis messages do suggest a hatred towards AFA, a Christian nonprofit that advocates for public policy goals and holds conservative views on issues like abortion and LGBT rights. AFA supports a biblical worldview that God created us by design as male and female and that marriage is between one man and one woman, AFA Senior Vice President Buddy Smith said in a statement. With all the sexual brokenness in our society and in the church today, AFA will not be intimidated into silence a relationship with Jesus Christ is the only answer to the culturally controversial questions about gender and sexuality. AFA advocates for traditional family values but is listed as a "domestic hate group" by the controversial far-left civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center. AFA and dozens of other organizations that hold Christian conservative views on issues like marriage and sexuality have contested their labeling by AFA as hate groups. SPLC has been cited by some media organizations in their reporting on such groups. In 2018, 47 conservative groups, including the AFA, issued an open letter calling on government agencies, news organizations and other entities to avoid using SPLC for guidance, claiming that the organization has defamed and otherwise harmed" dozens of groups because of ideological differences. In August 2012, the headquarters of the Family Research Council, a Washington D.C.-based Christian conservative activist organization, was attacked by a gunman who later admitted to FBI agents that he found FRC through SPLCs list posted online of anti-LGBT hate groups. FRC President Tony Perkins accused SPLCs reckless labeling of causing devastating consequences. Perkins at the time claimed that SPLC had provided a guide map for terrorists to target FRC and like-minded groups. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has urged tighter regulation on internet communication, especially regarding harmful content and what constitutes free speech. In February, Zuckerberg spoke at a conference in Germany, stating that private companies should not have to make regulation decisions and that the government should, according to BBC. In the February speech, Zuckerberg recommended a combination of existing television and media regulations to be applied with a new regulation targeting social media specifically. On Wednesday, Zuckerberg testified before the U.S. House of Representatives antitrust subcommittee to discuss the power of big-tech companies and the content on their platforms. "I understand that people have concerns about the size and perceived power that tech companies have, Zuckerberg said in prepared remarks. Thats why Ive called for a more active role for governments and regulators and updated rules for the Internet. If we do this right, we can preserve whats best about this technology ... while also protecting society from broader harms." The car paused at a traffic light, its rooftop megaphone pumping out a message that the city government of Addis Ababa has been hammering for months. "Yes, we can and you can!" the recording began. It then ticked off basic coronavirus prevention, such as hand-washing, physical distancing and avoiding the handshake-plus-shoulder-bump greeting that is normally a fixture of street life in the Ethiopian capital. But the message was drowned out by the din of rush hour and seemed barely to register with customers crammed around tables in roadside cafes. Inside the car, the health workers themselves questioned what effect they were having. "We teach people to apply these precautions, but some people put their masks in their pocket and wear it only when our teams are around," said Wondimu Taye, a city health communications officer. Officials worry this lax approach could hobble Ethiopia's pandemic response just as the surge in cases they have been warning about for months finally arrives. To date, Ethiopia has recorded just over 16,600 infections and 260 deaths -- modest figures given its population of 110 million. Yet the numbers have been trending sharply upward and have doubled in less than three weeks -- and the World Health Organization (WHO) frets that unrest sparked by the killing of a pop star from the Oromo ethnic group could further accelerate transmission. To officials' dismay, the upward spiral is coinciding with mounting signs of virus fatigue. Once-ubiquitous hand-washing stations are becoming scarcer. Once-empty restaurants are filling up. And even some health workers say they are struggling to maintain the same vigilance they had in March. "People's fear about COVID-19 has been eroding over time," Benyam Worku, an assistant professor at Addis Ababa University's School of Medicine, told AFP. "But it doesn't seem likely that we have escaped COVID. Most probably it has been a long wait, and now the wait is over." - A promising start - Africa's second most populous country earned high marks early on in the pandemic. At the international airport in Addis Ababa, which has remained open, officials used temperature checks and quarantine policies to slow COVID-19's arrival. After the first case was confirmed in mid-March, the government closed land borders and schools, freed thousands of prisoners to ease overcrowding, introduced compulsory mask-wearing and discouraged large gatherings. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also declared a state of emergency in early April, though he stopped short of imposing a lockdown out of concern for those who must "make ends meet daily". Despite those measures, community transmission was in full swing well before the shooting death in late June of Hachalu Hundessa, a politically active pop star who was a hero to many Oromos, Ethiopia's largest ethnic group. Hachalu's murder kicked off days of protests and inter-ethnic attacks in Addis Ababa and the surrounding Oromia region, temporarily overshadowing the pandemic for many Ethiopians. This unrest hindered health officials' work during a critical period and may be partly to blame for rising cases, said Dr Boureima Hama Sambo, the WHO's Ethiopia representative. "We've seen mass gatherings with little or no protective measures in a context of already established community transmission," Boureima said. "One is to expect a spike in numbers." - 'We will be fine' - Around three-quarters of all COVID-19 cases in Ethiopia are in Addis Ababa. The hardest-hit district of the city is Addis Ketema, home to Mercato, a jam-packed collection of shops and stalls that is sometimes described as Africa's largest open-air market. Many thousands flock to Mercato every day, which is why officials worry clusters there could drive up numbers across Addis Ababa and beyond. "The lifestyle of the people in this area depends on mobility," said Mola Teshome Ambaye, a nurse who does house calls and temperature checks for the city in Mercato. Standing on a cobblestone road near stalls selling construction materials, Mercato resident Biruk Awoke told AFP that concern about the virus had plummeted recently. "Before the first case people were horrified. A lot of people closed their shops down and used to stay at their homes," he said. "But now people have gotten more used to the prevention methods." He noted that he, too, was less worried about the virus, pointing to the 6,000 people in Ethiopia who have recovered. "I even had two brothers who had COVID-19, we used to eat together and do everything else together," he said. "But they were the only ones who got sick and they recovered, so now I think we will be fine." - 'Becoming negligent' - This type of thinking alarms doctors and nurses at St Peter's Specialized Hospital, which has treated 245 COVID-19 patients since March. Driving into work each day, nurse Addisu Adane shakes his head at crowds packed tightly outside churches and at bus stops. "It's no different than before," he said. Yet Addisu acknowledged that even he and his colleagues have become more relaxed about wearing masks and maintaining distance when they're outside the hospital. "We know the virus is a killer. We know it's bad," he said. "But we are still becoming negligent." Hama Sambo, the WHO representative, stressed that prevention measures will only become more important as community transmission becomes more sustained. "Sometimes people may think that it happens only to others," he said. "But the virus is still circulating. We are all at risk." Fever check: Coronavirus cases are now rising fast in Ethiopia - prevention fatigue among the public is now the big fear Ethiopia A nurse dons protective gear before entering a coronavirus isolation ward in the Saint Petros Hospital in Addis Workers at the Fiat Chrysler Toledo Assembly Complex are calling for emergency action as reports continue of high rates of COVID-19 infection at the plant in northwestern Ohio, which builds popular Jeep brand vehicles. In the face of mounting concerns among workers, both management and the United Auto Workers are continuing their policy of covering up COVID cases. The refusal to indicate the number and location of infections makes proper cleaning, quarantine and contact tracing impossible, guaranteeing the further spread of the deadly disease. According to sources at the Jeep plant, as many as 75 workers have tested positive for COVID-19 or are awaiting test results. Due to the information blackout, workers are only finding out about new cases through social media or word of mouth. A member of the Toledo Jeep Rank-and-File Safety Committee told the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter that emergency measures are called for to deal with conditions in the plant. The situation is serious. We should shut down for two and a half weeks and clean the entire plant with a specially trained crew. When we come back, everyone should be tested before entering the plant, he said. Fiat Chrysler is reportedly hiring additional temporary employees to fill manpower shortages. Jeep workers report that supplementary temporary workers are being forced to work on Sundays and to fill in for positions at areas outside their department, in apparent violation of the labor agreement, the Toledo worker said. Behind this drive to increase production at whatever cost lie the insatiable demands of Wall Street financiers. All the major automakers have taken on massive new additional debt to deal with the sudden drop in sales and income. Fiat Chrysler is expected to report a $2.3 billion second-quarter loss Friday. Losses reported by General Motors and Ford this week were substantial, but smaller than initially projected due to aggressive cost-cutting measures backed by the UAW. Another Toledo Jeep worker told the Autoworker Newsletter that management and the UAW arent saying anything. Workers who show symptoms are being given a test, an oral swab, but from what I have been able to find, those are the least accurate tests out there. One person said it took them a week to get results. One worker was sent home with symptoms, but they wouldnt clean his work area because they said they didnt have a hard copy confirming he was being tested, the worker said. Basic safety protocols were going by the wayside in the drive to maintain high levels of production, the worker said. In one case, he added, a worker who had tested positive for COVID-19 had been allowed to work for two days after his test results came in. The pandemic is ravaging Ohio as it surges across the US. On Wednesday, data from the Ohio Hospital Association (OHA) showed that 1,122 COVID-positive patients were being treated in Ohio hospitals as of Tuesday, the highest number since the start of the pandemic. Of those, 348 patients were in intensive care units and 174 were on a ventilator. Statewide there were 1,396 new cases and 40 new deaths reported on Wednesday. There have been 3,422 deaths statewide since the start of the pandemic. The auto companies are looking for whatever means available to force workers back into the plants. In an apparent act of desperation, UAW President Rory Gamble, in comments to the Detroit Free Press last week, sought to discourage workers from taking early retirement, essentially telling workers, many of whom are vulnerable because of preexisting conditions, to imperil their lives for corporate profit. Intense economic pressure is being exerted to force workers back to assembly lines with the refusal of Congress to extend the $600 weekly supplement to unemployment benefits that workers have called a lifeline. On Thursday, a leaked memo from Honda revealed that due to COVID-related manpower shortages it was forcing front-office and administrative staff onto production lines at its Marysville, Ohio facility. Over 4,000 work at the plant, which builds the popular Accord and Acura models. A post in the online news journal Patch reported that workers at the Ford Avon Lake plant outside Cleveland were being forced to work under unsafe conditions and that COVID-19 cases at the facility were doubling by the day. A local health official denied the report. However, Lorain County Public Health Commissioner David Covell acknowledged that four employees at the plant had tested positive for COVID-19 and others had been placed in quarantine. There have been recent deaths reported among auto parts workers in Michigan, including one death at the Battle Creek Denso thermal manufacturing plant and a suspected COVID death of a worker at the Faurecia plant in Saline. There have been large numbers of cases reported at the General Motors Wentzville, Missouri plant, the Arlington, Texas facility as well as Tesla in Fremont, California. GM has been forced to bring in workers from Michigan and Tennessee to staff the Wentzville plant due to high absentee rates. Despite this, auto companies are attempting to further expand production, with GM announcing Thursday that it is planning a production increase at its Fort Wayne, Indiana Assembly plant. Workers at Fort Waynes sister plant in Silao, Mexico say that seven workers have died at the GM plant, as part of the horrific tragedy in Mexico, which, with 46,000 fatalities, now has the third largest COVID-19 death toll in the world. A worker at the FCA transmission plant in Tipton, Indiana wrote to the Autoworker Newsletter: Hey please help us, we have people testing positive left and right inside the Tipton plant in day shift and second shift and hazmat people is inside right now in full containment suits with chemicals strapped to their backs and the company and union will not shut the plant down. We are being told its ok because we are wearing masks. Its just unbelievable, we are out of options we have nobody to turn to for help. Autoworkers at the Toledo Jeep plant have joined workers at the Jefferson North Assembly plant and the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant in launching a rank-and-file safety committee to fight back against the UAW-management conspiracy to suppress information on the spread of COVID-19 and enforce the policy of production before health and safety. These committees have pledged to fight for safe working conditions and issued demands for basic safety measures such as universal testing, notification of cases and ten-minute rest breaks every hour to rest and cool off. The Toledo Jeep worker said: We have to stand up for each other, not the UAW or the company. If we dont look out for each other, who is going to look out for us? We have to fight this ourselves. Everyone in the plants. We as workers need to be taken seriously. We are not just robots or machines. We need all the necessary information to protect our health and safety. Management doesnt care, and we are sick of it. We need to be treated like actual human beings. Workers need to organize their own safety committees. That is the only means for defending ourselves. He added that autoworkers needed to stand in solidarity with teachers who are being ordered back into classrooms as the virus rampages across wide areas of the US. There needs to be a nationwide teachers strike over this. There should be a full democratic vote to strike over safety. They are trying to say that the transmission rate from child to teacher is very low. That is not true. We need a worldwide movement. Workers must stand up and say, Enough is enough. The Chinese Astronomical Society (CAS) has recently released recommended Chinese names of 811 Mars terrain features on its website, following the country's first Mars exploration mission. To facilitate scientific research and science popularization, the CAS invited experts to translate the Mars terrain terms issued by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) before July 15, 2020 into Chinese. The translations were reviewed and approved by a special committee for astronomical terms affiliated to the CAS and the China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies. Since the 17th century when the telescope was invented, astronomers have been observing Mars and systematically named its surface albedo features. The naming of the topographical features on the planets within the solar system was undertaken by the IAU after it was founded in 1919. The National Astronomical Data Center has provided images of the 811 terrain features on its website, which users can search through using both the features' Chinese and English names. Faridah Bakti Yahra travelled alone to Mecca when she won the lottery of a lifetime to join this year's hajj, the smallest in living memory, but her family is relishing the experience virtually. Thanks to her smartphone, and the 5G towers that loom over the holy city, the Indonesian housewife is sharing every step of the pilgrimage with her husband and three daughters back home in the Saudi coastal city of Khobar. "I am so happy he joined me virtually, spiritually, with my daughters also. May my dear husband come here together with me again for hajj -- inshallah (God willing)," the 39-year-old told AFP. In the first days of the pilgrimage, many of the faithful were seen holding their phones aloft to snap selfies and livestream their progress to friends and family back home. Super high-speed 5G technology was rolled out in Mecca last year, allowing pilgrims to transfer data at breakneck speeds, and the network is now prevalent across much of Saudi Arabia. But this year the shared religious experience has even greater resonance, with the gathering scaled down from more than two million people to just a few thousand, and at a time when many prayers are being offered for a world gripped by the novel coronavirus pandemic. - Tears of joy - Yahra opened a video call on the first day of the hajj at Mecca's Grand Mosque when she approached the Kaaba, a large cubic structure draped in gold-embroidered black cloth, towards which Muslims around the world pray. "When my wife entered the Kaaba area and she showed me the Kaaba, I felt very, very cheerful, joyful, with tears," her husband Hendra Samosir said. "It was very truly a holy journey I would say, even though I wasn't there, but looking at my wife attending this hajj, it feels like I was there." Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians usually take part in the hajj, many waiting and saving for years before their turn comes up. This year, there are believed to be hardly more than a dozen in Mecca. Yahra was selected in a process that for the first time excluded pilgrims from outside the kingdom. Muslims worldwide were disappointed, even though most accepted that a hajj on the usual scale was out of the question. Foreign residents make up 70 percent of the group and Saudi citizens make up the remainder, drawn from medical professionals and security personnel who have recovered from the virus. There were grumbles over what was seen as an opaque system, and those who missed out swamped the hajj ministry's Twitter account with anguished queries. But for Samosir, who opted to stay at home and look after the couple's children, his wife's selection was "very good news" after months of bad news due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The virus crisis triggered months of lockdown in Saudi Arabia and a slump that saw the 44-year-old lose his job in the oil industry. But he said the virtual pilgrimage left him feeling "like an empty bowl filled up with water". - Digital worship - In recent years, the hajj has been at the centre of an acceleration in the growth of digital worship, with a slew of religious apps and tablet Korans. Some pilgrims now prefer reading Koranic verses from their smartphones -- rapidly replacing traditional printed holy books. But the tech is not limited to reading on screens and sharing stories. It has rapidly evolved to offer pilgrims the possibility of performing religious duties from their homes. Online platforms have emerged allowing worshippers to virtually perform the year-round umrah, or minor pilgrimage, which usually takes only a few hours. The service is based on the concept of outsourcing the pilgrimage -- asking someone in Saudi Arabia to perform umrah on their behalf, and experiencing it through a live virtual reality tool. Some Islamic clerics support the idea, while others say only the sick are entitled to such an option. And the situation is different with the hajj, a journey made over several days that requires walking for kilometres, praying for hours, and sleeping outdoors. Some of this year's pilgrims have reported that performing the pilgrimage on such a small scale has been an intensely spiritual experience. "I am praying for my husband to get back to work again," Yahra said. "And I pray for the situation to get back to normal again, for the pandemic to stop, and for coronavirus to be gone." Super high-speed 5G technology was rolled out in Mecca last year, allowing pilgrims to transfer data at breakneck speeds Thanks to her smartphone Yahra is sharing every step of the pilgrimage with her husband and three daughters home in the Saudi city of Khobar Somepilgrims now prefer reading Koranic verses from their smartphones In recent years, the hajj has been at the centre of an acceleration in the growth of digital worship Diane Leopold, the companys other executive vice president and COO, will become chief operating officer and report to Blue. Ed Baine, senior vice president of power delivery, will become president of Dominion Energy Virginia, the regulated electric utility he joined 25 years ago. He will report to Leopold. The team that we have assembled at Dominion over the past 15 years will be the same team that will move us into the future, Farrell told investment analysts in a call on Friday morning about the companys earnings in the second quarter, which ended June 30. The leadership changes represent a succession plan that Dominion has been developing actively for three years, but it reached the trigger point in July with the cancellation of the 604-mile natural gas pipeline and the sale of the gas transmission and storage business. With those actions, Dominion will now devote itself to regulated electric and gas utility operations that will generate up to 90% of its revenue and rapidly escalating investments in renewable energy, including a proposed 2,600-megawatt wind farm off the Atlantic coast that Farrell said would be the largest in the Americas. The strategic direction of the company has been settled, he said. The World Socialist Web Site recently exposed how Quebec Solidaire (QS)a pseudo-left party that holds ten seats in the 125-member Quebec National Assemblyhas supported Canadian authorities disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and facilitated their efforts to compel a premature return to work that puts corporate profits before human lives. (See: Quebec Solidaire backs Canadian elites disastrous handling of COVID-19 pandemic) The coronavirus crisis has also provided QS with an opportunity to join forces with the provinces right-wing populist, Quebec First CAQ (Coalition Avenir Quebec) government in promoting a reactionary economic nationalist agenda. Quebec Solidaire enthusiastically applauded the CAQ government's Blue basket initiative, a website promoting Quebec made products. The Blue basket is based on the principle, spelled out by Quebec Premier Francois Legault, that we should be self-sufficient for goods that are essential. QS, for its part, calls on the CAQ government to set an example by investing in our local businesses, and advocates that it replace 40 percent of the purchases Quebec departments and agencies make from out-of-province firms with local purchases within four years. Quebec Solidaire has also responded positively to the CAQs proposal that Quebec become self-sufficient in medical equipment. QS advocates Quebec take control of our medical supply and create a new Quebec government agency, Pharma-Quebec. This it claims would allow for a coronavirus vaccine to be produced here in Quebec as soon as it is ready, with the sole objective of making it quickly accessible to the Quebec population. At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is threatening millions of lives around the world, demonstrating the need for a science-based, internationally-coordinated response, Quebec Solidaire is trumpeting its nationalist egoism and parochialism. Its reactionary utopia of buying locally and developing a Quebec vaccine exclusively for Quebeckers is part of pronounced shift by ruling elites in Canada, the United States and the world over towards national protectionism, intensified strategic competition, and virulent chauvinism. This includes all sections of the political establishmentfrom Trump and the ultra-right to pseudo-left parties such as Quebec Solidaire and the German Left Party, as well as the traditional parties of government, liberal, conservative, and social-democratic. These forces are exploiting the health and socio-economic catastrophe triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic to promote protectionism, including local production of strategic resources, and the strengthening of the statebased on the spurious claim that dependence on the import of N95 masks and other medical supplies has been a major factor in the pandemics deadly impact. In reality, the current catastrophe is the product of decades of capitalist austerity that gutted the public health system, including stockpiles of medical supplies, and the criminal inaction of ruling elites before the spread of COVID-19. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) was issuing ever more urgent warnings about the global threat COVID-19 represented from mid-January, only on March 10 did Canadas federal Liberal government contact the provinces to ask them about possible shortages of masks, ventilators and other medical supplies. As in the 1930s, economic nationalism is a stratagem and a war-cry, through which the rival nationally-based capitalist cliques pursue an increasingly frenzied global struggle for markets, resources, profits and strategic advantage, while massively increasing their military budgets and war preparations. This is the meaning of the shrill calls from US President Donald Trump for American companies to reduce their presence in China and their dependence on Chinese products, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeos recent repudiation of Washingtons five-decade old policy of engagement with Beijing in favor of a strategic offensive against China explicitly aimed at regime-change. Along the same lines, Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland called in a recent interview for a shift in the Canadian economic model to place greater emphasis on supply chains that are closer to home. By enthusiastically taking up economic nationalist demands, Quebec Solidaire is joining anti-globalization forces dominated by the right and the extreme right. In reality, global economic integration massively increases humanity's productive capacities and offers the potential to fully satisfy the social needs of all. The real problem is that the world economy remains chained to the capitalist profit system and the straitjacket of rival nation-states. Protectionism and economic nationalism are, in the final analysis, only preparations for war. QS has demonstrated that it is a pro-imperialist and pro-war party. It has supported Ottawa's neo-colonial interventions alongside Washington, whether in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria or Iraq, helping to provide them with humanitarian pretexts. It has maintained a complicit silence not only on the drastic increase in Canada's military spending, but also on the Canadian Armed Forces participation in US imperialisms military-strategic offensives, especially against China and Russia. Underscoring its pro-war character, QS voted at its last convention for an independent Quebec to build its own army. QS and the reactionary program of Quebec independence QS's promotion of reactionary economic nationalism is inseparable from its advocacy of the creation of an independent Republique du Quebecthe formation of a new capitalist and imperialist state through Quebecs secession from the Canadian federal state. The claim that Quebec independantiste nationalism constitutes a progressive alternative to Canadian imperialism had been completely exposed by the actions of its historic champion, the big business Parti Quebecois (PQ). Whenever the PQ has formed Quebecs provincial government during the past half-century, it has imposed capitalist austerity and adopted strike-breaking laws. And over the past decade-and-a-half it has made a pronounced turn further right, promoting chauvinist legislation attacking immigrants, Muslims and other religious minorities. The pro-independence agenda promoted by the PQ and QS serves to divide Quebec workers from their class brothers and sisters in the rest of Canada, the United States and overseas, while politically. subordinating them to the sovereignist wing of the Quebec ruling class. This faction seeks to repatriate constitutional powers from Ottawa and even a separate state, based on the calculation that it can use them to advance its geopolitical interests on the world stage and intensify its assault on working people at home. By promoting economic nationalism as a key part of its national project, Quebec Solidaire is aligning with the most reactionary elements, including the right-wing populist tabloid Journal de Montreal. Owned by former PQ leader and media and telecommunications mogul Pierre Karl Peladeau, the Journal de Montreal regularly spews out anti-immigrant and anti-refugee rants. One of its star columnists, far-right ideologist Mathieu Bock-Cote, was quick to take up cudgels to promote Legault's protectionism. A nation that does not control the levers of its sovereignty and relative industrial autonomy in strategic areas, he wrote, puts itself at the mercy of its foreign suppliers in times of crisis. QS makes common cause with the right-wing nationalist CAQ Quebec Solidaire has been largely silent on the two chauvinist laws passed by the Legault government: Bill 9 which lowers immigration quotas and adds cultural criteria to the selection of immigrants; and Bill 21 which in the name of promoting secularism, targets ethnic minorities by prohibiting the wearing of Islamic headscarves or other religious symbols by teachers, and deprives Muslim women with face-covering veils of essential public services. QS proclaimed itself the real opposition when intense popular hostility to the Liberals and PQ, the parties that had alternately governed Quebec since 1970, catapulted it to third place in the October 2018 provincial election. But the fraudulent character of this claim was demonstrated within days, when it conspicuously absented itself from a demonstration of immigrant workers denouncing the CAQs chauvinist policies. Since its founding in 2006, Quebec Solidaire has pursued a political alliance with the sovereignist wing of the Quebec bourgeoisiefirst with the big-business PQ, and now increasingly with the CAQ. Quebec Solidaire's occasional criticisms of the CAQ are completely hypocritical. At a press briefing on May 26, for example, QS spokesperson and House Leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois accused Legault of being part of [the] political class that has pushed the austerity narrative for years. But how can one talk merely of a narrative for a man who has been running the Quebec government since October 2018 and previously served as a PQ minister? A millionaire, former CEO of Air Transat, Legault has spent his entire political career as a staunch advocate of privatization, deregulation, and the gutting of public services. Before becoming Premier of Quebec, he was successively Minister of Industry, Minister of Education, and Minister of Health under the PQ governments of Lucien Bouchard and Bernard Landry, which implemented the greatest social spending cuts in Quebec history. These, combined with the extensive cuts made by subsequent Liberal and PQ governments, have reduced the health care system to its current dilapidated state, thereby facilitating the rapid spread of COVID-19. Nadeau-Dubois is falsifying not only Legault's political past, but also his current political role. The CAQ government, claimed the QS spokesperson, came to power in a situation where it could enjoy a [budgetary] surplus created by years of austerity. So, it didn't have to do it itself. In fact, the entire policy pursued by the CAQ since it came to power is one of brutal capitalist austerity. It has staffed the government with business leaders dedicated to deregulation and privatization; cut taxes on big business and diverted vast sums from public services to paying down the provincial debt; introduced chauvinistic laws targeting immigrants and ethnic minorities; and denounced excessive wage levels in Quebec's manufacturing sector. The Legault government took advantage of the coronavirus crisis to invoke a state of health emergency and arrogate to itself extraordinary powers allowing it to override collective agreements, reassign employees in disregard of job definitions, extend working hours, and cancel vacation days and holidays. With the blessing of Justin Trudeau's federal Liberal government, the Quebec premier has organized a premature return to work that puts thousands of lives at risk, under conditions where the coronavirus continues to spread like wildfire across North America. The main goal of Legaults back-to-work drive is to allow his friends and partners in big business circles to continue to enrich themselves on the backs of workers. Legault is now seeking to impose, with the full complicity of the public sector trade unions, new collective agreements that will reduce real wages and worsen working conditions for more than half a million government employees. All this under conditions where thousands of health care workers have been infected, and many have died, due to a lack of PPE (personal protective equipment). Quebec Solidaire's statement that Legaults government is not pursuing capitalist austerity is not just political nonsense. It is a serious warning to workers that this pseudo-left party, which represents privileged layers of the middle class, will do everything in its power to stifle rising opposition to the CAQ and the entire Canadian ruling elite. Moreover, it is an acknowledgement that should it ever hold governmental power, QS will implement no less ruthless attacks on working people to defend the interests of big business. Anyone in doubt about this should recall the role of QSs Greek ally Syriza, which came to power in January 2015 posing as a left alternative. Once in power, Syriza enforced even more savage austerity policies than its predecessor conservative and social democrat governments. The criminal negligence of the authorities in the face of the coronavirus has exposed the incompatibility between the profit system and the most basic needs of the masses, including the right to life. This is fuelling growing resistance among workers. But the more intense the class struggle becomes, the more QS turns to the right. It is thus preparing to play a role even more pernicious than it did during the 2012 Quebec student strike and the 2015 public sector workers struggle, when it spread the poison of nationalism and helped the unions contain the explosion of social anger within the existing capitalist framework. Workers and youth seeking a way out of the bankruptcy of capitalism as a world system must reject the nationalist and pro-capitalist agenda put forward by Quebec Solidaire. The only progressive answer to the current crisis lies in the international unity of the working class and the struggle for world socialism. This is the program for which the Socialist Equality Party is fighting in Canada, in close collaboration with our sister parties in the International Committee of the Fourth International. SAN DIEGO, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Mesa Biotech, developers of an affordable, easy to use, handheld testing platform for infectious diseases diagnosis, today announced it has been awarded a contract up to $15.4 million from the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) program for its Accula SARS-CoV-2 Test, which gives COVID-19 diagnostic results in 30 minutes at the point of care (POC). The RADx program was established to extend the range and increase the availability of diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2, a critical component to safely getting Americans back together, including in the workplace, in schools and in life's many venues. "This is an exciting milestone," said Bruce Tromberg, Ph.D., Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and leader of RADx Tech, one of four components of the NIH RADx initiative. "It will help increase U.S. testing capacity exponentially. Game-changing technologies emerging from our RADx pipeline will inform public health measures to stop the spread of the virus and leave us better equipped to address future pathogens and other diseases." This project is supported by the NIH Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) program and has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. 75N92020C00014. Using a rigorous, rapid-review process, the RADx program provides independent evaluation of the technologies and the potential to scale. Over 650 proposals have been submitted to date with seven being fast-tracked to RADx's Phase 2, which is the final stage of the process. Testing technologies (like the Accula SARS-CoV-2 test) that progress to Phase 2 receive an appropriate budget from the RADx program to enable full clinical deployment on an accelerated timeline, as well as technical, business and manufacturing assistance. "We are humbled by the confidence and support that we have received from the Federal government and honored to be among the select group of initial companies to enter Phase 2 of the RADx program," said Ingo Chakravarty, President and CEO, Mesa Biotech, Inc. "We continue to diligently work for the American people to increase supply for near-term COVID-19 testing, as well as innovate game-changing solutions to fight the current pandemic and future public health threats." One of the goals of the RADx initiative is to expand SARS-CoV-2 daily testing capacity to approximately two percent of the U.S. population (6 million persons) by December of this year compared to 520,000 823,000 tests per day in early July. Technologies that reduce the facility footprint, decrease testing complexity, and provide rapid results are of particular interest. The Accula SARS-CoV-2 Test is a visually read test using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technology to detect SARS-CoV-2 via nasal swab samples. The Accula SARS-CoV-2 Test is easy to use, fits in the palm of your hand and provides laboratory-quality results in approximately 30 minutes. Its compact design is ideal for use at the point-of-need, including temporary screening facilities, back to work initiatives, hospitals, clinics and long-term nursing facilities. Mesa Biotech's technology was developed at Los Alamos National Lab supported by NIH grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the Western Regional Centers for Excellence in Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease programs. The company received funding from the U.S. Health and Human Services for development of its SARS-CoV-2 test and emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March of this year. Since its inception, the company has focused on technology suited for emergency defense and rapid deployment for SARS, Ebola and other emerging infectious diseases. Mesa Biotech's platform was specifically designed for use outside the lab to enable rapid responses to global pandemics, such as COVID-19. About Mesa Biotech Inc. Mesa Biotech designs, develops, manufactures and commercializes next generation rapid molecular diagnostic tests, bringing the superior diagnostic performance of nucleic acid PCR amplification to the point-of-care. Mesa Biotech's Accula Flu A/Flu B and RSV tests have obtained CE Mark in the EU and 510(k) clearance and Clinical Laboratory Improvements Amendments (CLIA) waiver from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Both products are distributed in the United States by Sekisui Diagnostics under the Silarisbrand. Mesa Biotech has also secured a number of strategic agreements for distribution in Europe and Asia. For more information visit http://www.mesabiotech.com. Contacts: President & CEO Media Information Ingo Chakravarty Joleen Schultz [email protected] [email protected] Cell: 760-271-8150 SOURCE Mesa Biotech Inc. Related Links http://www.mesabiotech.com JACKSON COUNTY, Mississippi -- Its not drawing a lot of attention or local discussion, but Tuesdays vote on the Mississippi Power franchise agreement is crucial for local municipalities. Under state law, utilities are required to pay municipalities 2 percent of residential and commercial revenues generated within those municipalities. For decades, Mississippi Power has had agreements with local cities, including Ocean Springs, Moss Point and Pascagoula, through which the power company pays an additional 1 percent on top of the 2 percent mandated by the state. That rebate from Mississippi Power represents in excess of a $1 million annually to Pascagoula and Moss Point, and nearly $500,000 each year to Ocean Springs -- monies that go directly into those cities general fund. With the current 25-year agreement coming to an end, however, voters are being asked to turn out to the polls Tuesday to approve a new 25-year agreement, with a Yes vote allowing the cities to continue collecting 3 percent from Mississippi Power, while a No vote would decrease the funds returned to the cities to just the 2 percent required by the state. Theres a lot going on right now -- a lot going on in the country, in the state, were in a pandemic, theres an important presidential election this year -- but I want to encourage everybody to remember this is important, too, said Ocean Springs Mayor Shea Dobson in a phone interview from his home, where he is recovering from COVID-19. This is something that will affect the Citys budget for many, many years, and so I encourage everyone to vote Yes on this, continued Dobson, whose City would stand to lose nearly $160,000 if the agreement were rejected by voters. This will ensure more funds stay in the City budget instead of going to the state. Because the vast majority of Gautier is serviced by Singing River Electric, they have no franchise agreement with Mississippi Power and thus will not be holding an election Tuesday. A large portion of eastern Ocean Springs is also serviced by Singing River, thus the City brings in less revenue from the agreement than do Pascagoula and Moss Point. Those two cities would each stand to lose between $330,000 and $350,000 annually if voters rejected the franchise agreement. Officials also say voting Yes would no result in a rate increase by Mississippi Power. Any such increase would have to be presented to the Mississippi Public Service Commission for approval. Polling places will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday. All applicable COVID-19 restrictions -- including masks and social distancing -- will be enforced. The polling places for the three participating municipalities are: Ocean Springs Ward 1: City Hall Ward 2: Villa Maria Retirement Apartments Wards 3-4: Ryan Youth Center (former National Guard armory) Wards 5-6: Ocean Springs Civic Center Moss Point Wards 1-2: Kreole Avenue Fire Station Wards 3-4: Sue Ellen Recreation Center Wards 5-6: Residents north of the river vote at Pelican Landing. Residents south of the river vote at the Young Mens Business Club. Pascagoula Google Maps A man who is believed to be armed has barricaded himself inside a southwest Houston home after assaulting a family member, according to police. The Houston police SWAT and Hostage Negotiation Team responded to the home in the 10800 block of Plainfield, in the Brays Oaks area. Residents gather outside the Pallabi police station in Dhaka after an explosion inside that injured five people, July 29, 2020. Officials said Thursday that an explosion at a Dhaka police station the day before was the work of professional criminals, not terrorists, but security experts challenged the conclusion. The blast injured five people, including one who lost a wrist, after a scale packed with explosives detonated at a police station, hours after police seized it from three men they had arrested and brought to the facility, according to police accounts. They are professional killers. They have previous criminal records. There is no militant link with the explosion at Pallabi police station, Abdul Baten, joint commissioner of the polices Detective Branch, told a press conference on Thursday. The explosion occurred days after authorities warned that the Islamic State (IS) extremist group had declared a new Bengali unit and that this could inspire local militants to attack police and other targets ahead of the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid-ul-Adha. Wednesday, hours after the explosion was first announced, IS claimed it was responsible, according to Site Intelligence, a U.S.-based research firm that monitors online communications of violent extremist groups. A Dhaka court on Thursday granted the police a 14-day remand to interrogate the three men, named as Shahidul Islam, 23; Rafiqul Islam, 40; and Mosharraf Hossain, 26. Picked up in the Mirpur section of Dhaka at around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, the suspects were carrying two pistols and a scale packed with explosives that detonated several hours later inside the police station, Abdul Baten said. The three men were planning to assassinate a local politician, he alleged. Security analysts disagreed with the police assessment, and the brother of one of the detained men said he had been picked up by police days earlier. Professional killers do not carry IEDs (improvised explosive devices.) They carry pistols and small arms so that they can commit the crime easily and flee the scene, security analyst Mohammed Ali Shikder, a retired general, told BenarNews. This is a militant-linked incident, no matter what the police say, he said, adding that it fit a pattern of past militant attacks on police outposts and vehicles. Brig Gen (Rtd) Sakhawat Hossain, a counterterrorism expert, said the police account of the incident raised many questions. Why would professional killers make IEDs? Also why would police officers carry the undetected object inside the police station when the police headquarters issued a militant attack alert, citing the danger of IEDs and remote controlled bombs? he told BenarNews. Immediately after the incident, the police came to the conclusion that there was no terrorism link in the blast. How did they become so sure about it? he said. In 2015 and 2016, police repeatedly denied the presence of Islamic State-linked groups in the country, even as it experienced a series of targeted killings of secular writers and activists. And the consequence of the denial was huge: we saw the Holey Artisan cafe attack that caused huge damage to Bangladesh, Hossain said, citing the July 2016 attack that left 29 dead, including the perpetrators: five young Islamic State recruits. On Monday, Bangladesh police said they had tightened security embassies, airports and other locales after an intelligence report warned that militants could try to carry out attacks this week. Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Shafiqul Islam confirmed the authenticity of a letter issued July 19 by police headquarters, seen by BenarNews, warning that militant groups could mount suicide attacks or remote-controlled bombings. Citing intelligence, the letter said that the so-called Islamic State group had announced a new unit called Bengal Ulawat, or Bengali-speaking branch, in time for Eid-ul-Adha, the Muslim holy day that falls on Aug. 1 this year in Bangladesh. This could inspire local groups to mount attacks, it said. Meanwhile, the brother of one of three arrested men told BenarNews that police had taken him into custody on Monday afternoon, not Wednesday. The mans family even filed complaints with authorities about what they termed his disappearance at the hands of police, he said. How would he carry the explosive Wednesday when he had been under the police custody since Monday? Rafiqul Islam said. Greenleaf said the union did not attack Laceys personal life. He said he wanted to point out he thought Lacey has formed opinions about members of our union and those opinions are driving how Lacey is characterizing the union members. Im not taking this personally. It is not our intention to turn this into a tit-for-tat argument, Greenleaf said. Im simply speaking up for our membership, which doesnt deserve to be treated in this way. Later Thursday, Lacey released a statement from the DCRC. It is unfortunate that the Davenport Union of Professional Police has decided to resort to personal attacks in an effort to divert the communitys attention from the task at hand. The City of Davenport has the opportunity to address very complicated issues around race and historical trauma, Lacey wrote in an email. This conversation gives us the opportunity to address the issues in a way that will foster collaboration, reconciliation and justice allowing us to dismantle processes that reinforce systemic oppression as we know it. Hospital volumes continue to lag, in part, due to patients COVID-19-related fears As COVID-19 continues to decline in some areas of the country, hospitals are using different approaches to lure back hesitant patients. The challenge of recovering patient volumes was illustrated by a June 18 report from Moodys Investors Service, which found for-profit hospitals had 20% to 40% year-over-year declines in all surgeries. Ralph Muller, a national adviser for Manatt and former CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS), said in an interview that the organization has recovered 90% of its pre-COVID volumes. Many U.S. academic medical centers have had strong recoveries in volume, which may stem from their patients morbidity levels, he said. But Muller also credited a variety of outreach efforts by UPHS, including: Sending digital communications urging patients with serious conditions to return Using texting and other digital outreach to explain COVID-19-related safety measures Providing guidance on steps to follow when patients come to the hospital Directing extra environmental staff to frequently clean public spaces, and cleaning exam rooms after each patient discharge Performing nonemergent evaluations remotely before the patient comes to the ED Enhancing the interactivity of the organizations website, such as by adding chatbots Offering Q&As and FAQs on the website to address concerns by patients in different disease groups Hospital margins positive in May due to temporary federal boost, report finds The influx of federal assistance in the spring was sufficient to push hospitals median margins into positive territory in May, a sharp improvement from -13% margins in April. Hospitals median operating margins reached 4% in May with the help of more than $50 billion in funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, according to a monthly tracking report of more than 800 hospitals by Kaufman Hall. The report concludes that hospitals would have had -8% median margins that month without the federal grants. The report stated, however, that the vast majority of hospitals that received CARES funding recorded the entire amount across April and May reflecting the short-term nature of the relief, unless Congress issues additional funding. Findings on hospital revenue included: Total gross revenue increased by 29% from April but decreased 14% from May 2019 Outpatient revenue increased by 39% during May but decreased by 27% year-over-year Inpatient revenue increased by 19% during May but decreased by 12% year-over-year 110,000 Medicare beneficiaries were hospitalized for COVID-19 by mid-May The most vulnerable population to the COVID-19 pandemic experienced nearly 110,000 hospitalizations for the disease by mid-May, according to preliminary Medicare data. Medicare claims data examined by CMS for Jan. 1 through May 16 identified nearly 110,000 hospitalizations of mostly elderly beneficiaries for COVID-19 care, or 175 hospitalizations per 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries. More than 325,000 beneficiaries (518 per 100,000) were diagnosed with the disease. Other key COVID-19 findings included: Patients with end-stage renal disease had the highest rate of hospitalizations (1,341 per 100,000). Beneficiaries enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid had the next-highest rate (473 per 100,000). (473 per 100,000). Black beneficiaries had the highest rate of hospitalization among races/ethnicities (465 per 100,000). Rates also were higher for Hispanic beneficiaries (258 per 100,000) and Asian beneficiaries (187 per 100,000) compared with white beneficiaries (123 per 100,000). At the end of the day, it reconfirms long-standing issues around disparities and vulnerable populations, Seema Verma, administrator of CMS, said. Low socioeconomic status wrapped up with the racial disparities was found to be a powerful predictor of complications from COVID-19, Verma said. Bundled payment participants face choices on 2020 continued participation Provider participants in Medicares largest bundled payment program must decide not only whether to remain in the program but also whether to use new COVID-19-related flexibilities in performance measurement. The more than 1,000 hospitals and physician group practices that remain in the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Advanced (BPCI-A) voluntary model face some tough decisions this year, with Medicare offering new options in response to the pandemic. Those options came amid massive disruptions in elective episodes and procedures after many hospitals ceased to offer them during much of the pandemic either voluntarily or in response to government mandates. For institutions, theyre evaluating whether or not to even stay in the program for [2021] because of the uncertainty and the financial risk, said John Kalamaras, business intelligence analytics manager at DataGen. So, they have to judge how they are doing now and if they are going to continue on in the program. That decision-making process will occur amid CMSs recent release of 2019 performance data, which showed worsening performance among DataGen clients. CMS aims to spur value-based payment arrangements between drugmakers and insurers, including Medicaid A proposed CMS rule aims to lower administrative burdens and kick-start value-based payment arrangements for pharmaceuticals in Medicaid programs and commercial health plans. The June proposed rule would tweak federal rules that some see as a barrier to widespread adoption of value-based payments (VBPs) for drugs based on their efficacy. The proposed rule doesnt necessarily guarantee low prices, but what it does do is it provides a tool in the toolbox for plans to negotiate with manufacturers, Seema Verma, administrator of CMS, said. Provisions of the proposed rule include: Changing how manufacturers should calculate the average manufacturer price of a brand-name drug when there is also a generic Allowing manufacturers to report multiple best prices for a drug if the prices are tied to a VBP arrangement Changing whether manufacturers should include the value of their patient assistance programs in the calculation of best price, including when assistance programs are impacted by pharmacy benefit managers accumulator programs Changing state and manufacturer reporting requirements to the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program Hospitals scramble to meet price transparency requirements after court decision After a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia upheld a 2019 CMS rule requiring hospitals to disclose prices negotiated with health plans, hospitals are moving to comply before the January deadline. But the requirements may be misunderstood, some advisers warn. The decision did not surprise Amy Mackin, JD, an attorney for Hall Render, because administrative law places a large burden on any challenge. However, the judge acknowledged that the decision was a close call. That was almost a green light to appeal, Mackin said. The American Hospital Association and plaintiff hospitals have filed notice that they will appeal the ruling. However, Mackin said an appeals court is not likely to rule on the case before the requirements start date, which is why she advised hospitals to try to implement them. Industry advisers say hospital leaders may be unaware of two aspects of the requirements: By Christopher Bing and Raphael Satter WASHINGTON, July 30 (Reuters) - As the clock ticks toward the U.S. presidential election in November, state election officials are devoting more time - and money - to educating voters about the dangers of disinformation while reassuring them that the system is fundamentally sound. On a recent Zoom call, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, the state's top election official, ran through slides showing altered Facebook photographs, misleading tweets from the last presidential election and photographs of Russian hackers. "Disinformation spreads like a virus," the presentation warned its audience of Black pastors, minority leaders, and civil rights campaigners, detailing how Moscow carried out "an all-out assault on African-American voters using social media." It was an eye-opener, one attendee said. "We had not had this kind of training or dialogue that I know of in the 20 years that I have been in Ohio," said Andre Washington, who leads the state chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an African-American trade union organization. LaRose's sessions are one in a series of initiatives being rolled out by the state and other local officials who run elections across the country to help head off a repeat of 2016, when hackers and trolls pumped stolen emails and propaganda into U.S. public forums. It remains unclear if - or how - it affected the outcome of the vote. Senior intelligence officials predict that Russia - along with China and Iran - will attempt to influence the 2020 election as well. The process this year will be even more fraught due to the coronavirus pandemic, which will compel many Americans to use unfamiliar new forms of voting, including drive-throughs, drop-off boxes, or mail-in ballots. Partisan politics is also poisoning the discourse. Trailing in opinion polls, Republican President Donald Trump has said mail-in ballots will open the door to massive fraud, despite the lack of evidence for such a view. "When we were thinking about this 10 months ago or two years ago, we were probably thinking more in terms of external, foreign adversaries - Russia doing misinformation campaigns," Kim Wyman, Washington's secretary of state, told Reuters in June. Story continues Referring to a tweet that Trump had posted that day alleging that millions of mail-in ballots would be printed by foreign countries in a "RIGGED 2020 ELECTION," she said: "Today's tweets show that it can come from anywhere." Surveys suggest Americans were already worried about the integrity of U.S. elections before the coronavirus. A Gallup poll conducted in 2019 said 59 percent of Americans are not confident in the honesty of U.S. elections. And a Marist Poll from January said those polled believed "misleading information" represented the biggest threat facing the vote. Wyman said that her mission - and the mission of every election official in this country right now - was getting people to have confidence in our system. U.S. political parties, donors, and social media platforms are all trying to be on better guard than they were in 2016. Over the last four years, social media giants, including Facebook and Twitter, have improved their ability to spot inauthentic behavior, like Russias past use of "sock puppet accounts" to spread fake or inflammatory claims. Election officials say they now have direct lines of communication to platforms like Facebook, allowing them to fast-track the removal of election-related lies. LaRose of Ohio, who like Wyman is a Republican, said he is trying to fight disinformation no matter what the source. It can be uncomfortable when its a member of my party that shares something thats incorrect, but my God I wear the referees jersey in this capacity, LaRose told Reuters. NEW TACTICS Wyman and LaRose are part of a cadre of election officials who are trying new tactics to inoculate voters against false claims. That includes developing and expanding local government social media accounts to counter misinformation, hiring advertising firms to design communications strategies, and offering pre-recorded virtual tours of voting facilities, educational television broadcasts and election classes for local journalists. Public outreach in past years tended to feature generic get-out-the-vote literature; this years ads are aimed at reassuring constituents that their vote will be properly tallied. In Washington's Thurston County, home to the state capital, Olympia, auditor Mary Hall said authorities were wiring up the county ballot processing center - a converted warehouse southwest of town - to livestream the vote-counting process. "Every part of our Ballot Processing Center is recorded during the election," read one recent Facebook ad. These recordings are kept for months after certification so we can keep a record of everyone that had touched a ballot. There's no nationwide tally on how much money is going to the effort. Election observers say while budgets remain small, they're seeing a spending surge this year compared to past cycles. Hall said Thurston County officials used to spend around $500 for Facebook ads to communicate with voters. This year the county was putting $35,000 toward ads on Facebook, music streaming service Pandora, cable television, and in the local newspaper. Iowa will "easily spend" twice as much as in 2018, Secretary of State Paul Pate told Reuters, without giving details. Election security experts who spoke to Reuters said while they support the educational effort, it would likely only reach a small percentage of the population before November. All the more reason to get ahead of the problem, according to a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security, who spoke to Reuters on condition that he not be named. "We believe its important to control the battle space now," he said. (Reporting by Christopher Bing and Raphael Satter Editing by Chris Sanders and Sonya Hepinstall) Former President Barack Obama addresses the service during the funeral for Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. on Thursday. (Alyssa Pointer / AP) Befitting the man it memorialized, Thursdays funeral of John Lewis in Atlanta was an oratorical symphony, a rhetorical masterwork of pride, praise and calls to continue the great mans work. Three former presidents spoke, all with emotional admiration for the 80-year-old civil rights leader and longtime Democratic congressman from Georgias 5th District, who died on July 17. Barack Obama delivered the rousing, heartfelt keynote, in which he called on Americans to pay their respects to Lewis by continuing his work at a time when Black lives and voting rights remain at risk, but Bill Clinton and George W. Bush spoke just as powerfully and well of a man who always put truth before politics. As did Lewis niece Sheila Lewis OBrien; the Rev. Bernice King; activist Xernona Clayton; the Rev. James Lawson; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the funeral was held; and the others who spoke. For a country confined by pandemic and, more important, a culture increasingly dependent on often unreliable social media platforms for the exchange of information, ideas, insight and calls to action, it was like a sustained rainfall in the middle of a drought a reminder of the unique and necessary artistry of the spoken word. Lewis certainly understood the power of public eloquence; at the age of 15, he famously heard Martin Luther King Jr. speak on the radio and it changed his life. Arrested 45 times during more than half a century spent fighting for civil rights and beaten unconscious in 1965 on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where he and 600 peaceful protesters marched toward the vicious batons of Alabama state troopers, Lewis was very much a man of action as well as words. But from his speech before the 1963 March on Washington to a recent Zoom meeting in which he and former President Obama spoke with a group of activists, Lewis was himself such a master of the microphone that when his final essay appeared in Thursdays New York Times, we could hear his voice as we read. Story continues Quiet, calm and absolutely relentless, Lewis was a tireless and democratic speaker, as comfortable on late-night and morning talk shows as he was in Congress or at any VIP table. He said what he thought he believed, for instance, that Russian interference in the 2016 election rendered Donald Trumps presidency illegitimate and backed it up with action: He did not attend Trump's inauguration. (Which may be why Trump did not speak at Lewis funeral or earlier this week, when Lewis became the first Black lawmaker to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.) Obviously, no one is going to come to praise and bury John Lewis without preparing the best speech possible. That kind of preparation the crafting of tone and phrase, of pause and crescendo; the matching of message with music has fallen out of favor recently. The turn-of-the-millennium rise of personal narrative as a valid and necessary social force gave us a new vernacular authenticity, which often values the awkward and imprecise over the polished, the raw and emotional over the thoughtfully argued or poetically rendered. Rep. John Lewis, who died July 17 at 80. (Mark Humphrey / Associated Press) Since then, social media has become the preferred manner of social discourse, and with a reliance on immediacy, brevity and niche marketing, much of it is not designed for complex phrasing. Dont get me wrong. The validation of personal narratives is one of the biggest cultural revolutions of all time. The definition of what makes anything good or valid, beautiful or important, has long been controlled by a relative few including those deemed great public speakers. Relaxing the standards of oratory has, like social media, given millions too long kept silent the chance to speak without fear of being disparaged for noneloquence. Unfortunately, our demand for authenticity has been accompanied by a rejection of the carefully considered. Rhetoric, which actually means the art of speaking or writing effectively, is considered elitist by some, synonymous with obfuscation or phoniness by others. Consistent messaging is often dismissed as talking points (as if repetition itself implies insincerity), and, as Hillary Clinton found, a ready-made response or speech is often dinged for seeming over-thought or rehearsed. Like pretty much everything, oration has long been judged by traditions and preconceptions: Womens naturally higher-pitched voices kept many of them from lists of great public speakers, and the preference for round vowels eliminates people whose accents do not conform. It's a talent, like the ability to deliver any great performance, and like any performative talent, it requires experience to perfect. Lewis, as former President Bush remembered on Thursday, began his oratorical career preaching to his chickens. Still, if you think any of historys great speeches were not over-thought and in some way rehearsed, youre missing the point. Practice is the mother of authenticity. Lewis spoke often about the preparation that allowed him and fellow activists to endure the threats and violence they experienced, the rigor that allowed them to overcome natural reactions of fear and rage. Yes, there are people, born with natural eloquence, who can deliver impromptu words to make you weep or burn to improve the world this minute. But watching the powerful, loving and rhetorically adept speeches delivered in honor of John Lewis, it was impossible not to also see the time, care and thought that went into them. Were they meticulously crafted and possibly rehearsed? Yes. Were they authentic? Absolutely. During his eulogy, Bill Clinton recounted asking Lewis about the closest he had ever come to being killed while protesting. Lewis described a moment when, having been knocked down during a demonstration, he saw a man lifting a heavy pipe clearly aimed at Lewis head. At the last minute, Lewis turned away and the crowd surged forward, separating the man from him; Lewis considered himself lucky to be alive. Clinton, however, thought Lewis survived for reasons other than luck. First, because he was a quick thinker. And second, because he was here on a mission that was bigger than personal ambition. "Things like that sometimes just happen, Clinton said, but usually they dont. In a first, school of cinematic studies will be set up at Doon University Dehradun, for which an expert working group will be formed to help the university to design the courses and syllabus of the school. Chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said that the expert committee should also have noted people from the film industry who would help the university in giving shape to the courses and curriculum of the school. Rawat said this after chairing a meeting in this regard here on Friday. The meeting was attended among others by filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj and Doon University vice-chancellor Ajeet Kumar Karnatak. Rawat said the cinematic studies school should have graduate degree courses, certificate courses and diploma courses for students aspiring to join the film industry. Film industry has huge employment potential. We have no dearth of talented people here who will be benefitted if efforts are made to hone their skills, said Rawat. Rawat also inaugurated an online portal for seeking online permission for shooting in the state. Doon University vice-chancellor Ajeet Kumar Karnatak said the proposal with regard to the school of cinematic studies will be put before the academic council and the executive council of the university. We have plans to have four-year course in the school. Those completing one year or so will be given a certificate course, those attending two years will be given diploma certificate and those attending over three years will be given graduate degree, he said. We will also take help of the experts at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Pune in setting up the school and designing the courses. In the expert working committee, apart from Vishal Bhardwaj, we will have two more Bollywood personalities, he said. Uttarakhand government has been keen to promote the film industry in the state and attract more filmmakers to shoot in the Himalayan state. In August 2019 during the film conclave organised at Mussoorie by the state government, chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat had said announced that Uttarakhand will soon set up a film city to promote filmmaking in the Himalayan state. He had also announced that 1.5 crore subsidy would be given to those Bollywood filmmakers who shoot 70 percent of their films in the Himalayan state. Last month in a move to welcome producers and film shooting units, the state government on issued standard operating procedures (SOP) for film shooting in Uttarakhand with reference to Covid-19, with focus on physical and social distancing, regular thermal scanning and frequent sanitisation. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The leftist outrage machine treated the fatal shooting of BLM protestor Garrett Foster last Saturday night in Austin, Texas with the customary spin, compete with a touching picture from Facebook of the deceased with his fiance. Buzzfeed, for instance: A man was killed Saturday night after gunshots were fired at a Black Lives Matter protest in Austin, Texas. A suspect who witnesses said tried to drive through the crowd of protesters before shooting the victim was detained and questioned Saturday night, but was later released "pending further investigation," Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said Sunday. The victim, who had multiple gunshot wounds, was brought to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. No one else was injured during the incident, authorities said. The victim was identified by family and friends as Garrett Foster, a 28-year-old Austin resident, who was protesting along with his fiance, Whitney Mitchell, who is a quadruple amputee. Officials later confirmed his identity. Shortly before he was killed, journalist Hiram Gilberto Garcia interviewedFoster, who was seen carrying a rifle. During the interview, Foster said that he had begun bringing his gun to protests after his roommate was arrested during one of them. Openly carrying firearms in public places is legal in Texas, as long as it is not done "in a manner calculated to alarm," according to state law. "They dont let us march in the streets anymore, so I got to practice some of our rights," Foster said in the interview that was broadcast live on Periscope. "I mean, if I use it against the cops, I'm dead, and I think all the people that hate us and want to say shit to us are too big of pussies to stop and actually do anything about it," Foster said. Here is a YouTube clip of that interview in which Garrett rather ironically decried his opponents as pussies. The visage of the masked man is rather less charming (note Garretts eyes, the window on the soul) than the photo of the betrothed couple: Hours later, the same journalist who interviewed Foster captured footage of the chaotic scene after he was fatally shot, including the sound of several gunshots. "A car drove up we were taking the streets and he shot Garrett," an unnamed protester said in Garcia's video. The protester said Foster was Mitchell's "caretaker, and has been for like 10 years." A witness, Michael Capochiano, told the New York Times that he saw the suspect's car veer toward the crowd before the shooting, causing people to run away in fear. But, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story is important. Yesterday, the shooters legal counsel identified him and told his version of the tale. Here is the press release from Clint Broden of Broden & Micklsen: F. Clinton Broden and Broden & Mickelsen issue the following statement on behalf of our client, Daniel Perry. Daniel Perry is an active duty sergeant with the United States Army. He is a former Eagle Scout from the North Texas area and served our country proudly for the past eight years. Sgt. Perry served a tour in Afghanistan and has been the recipient of numerous army awards and commendations. On the evening of July 25, 2020, Sgt. Perry was in Austin, Texas driving for a ride share company in order to earn extra money. He had dropped his client off in the vicinity of Congress Avenue. He was then going to proceed to a hot spot in order to wait on notification to pick up another client or to pick up food for delivery. Sgt. Perry made a right onto Congress Avenue from Fourth Street and encountered a throng of people in the street. Prior to arriving at the corner of Fourth Street and Congress Avenue, Sgt. Perry did not know that a demonstration was taking place. When Sgt. Perry turned on the Congress Avenue, several people started beating on his vehicle. An individual carrying an assault rifle, now known to be Garrett Foster, quickly approached the car and then motioned with the assault rifle for Mr. Perry to lower his window. Sgt. Perry initially believed the person was associated with law enforcement and complied with the command. After rolling down the window, it became apparent to Sgt. Perry that the individual with the assault rifle was not with law enforcement. It has now been confirmed by several witnesses that this individual with the assault rifle then began to raise the assault rifle toward Sgt. Perry. It was only then that Sgt. Perry, who carried a handgun in his car for his own protection while driving strangers in the ride share program, fired on the person to protect his own life. Immediately after Sgt. Perry fired on the individual who raised the assault rifle toward him, a member of the crowd began firing on Sgt. Perrys vehicle. Sgt. Perry drove to safety and immediately called the police. He waited for the police to arrive and fully cooperated with the police following the shooting and he continues to do so. We urge the public to allow the police to conduct a full investigation. We also need to correct statements that have been reported by the press. First, Sgt. Perry never left his vehicle preceding or immediately following the shooting. Second, Sgt. Perry did not flee but immediately called police upon getting to safety. Finally and most importantly, police have interviewed witnesses who were demonstrating with Mr. Foster and these witnesses have confirmed that Mr. Foster raised his assault rifle in a direct threat to Sgt. Perrys life. Sgt. Perry and his family deeply sympathize with the loss and grief being experienced by Mr. Fosters family. Sgt. Perry is devastated by what happened. Nevertheless, that does not change facts. The simple fact is that Sgt. Perry reasonably perceived a threat to his life when, as has now been confirmed by independent witnesses, Mr. Foster raised his assault rifle toward Sgt. Perry who was sitting in his car. We simply ask that anybody who might want to criticize Sgt. Perrys actions, picture themselves trapped in a car as a masked stranger raises an assault rifle in their direction and reflect upon what they might have done if faced with the split second decision faced by Sgt. Perry that evening. DANIEL PERRY As always, keep in mind that our justice system is designed to get at the truth, and that process is still unfolding before our eyes. The Austin PD has not arrested Sgt. Perry, and no doubt leftists are outraged at that. Stay tuned. Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times. China-Australia envoys spar on Twitter over Beijings action in South China Sea The Chinese and Australian envoys to India had a terse exchange on Twitter on Friday on Chinas actions in the South China Sea and elsewhere, with the latter saying Beijing should refrain from actions that unilaterally alter the status quo. Read More Situation remains fragile: Delhi L-G on turning down AAPs Unlock 3 move Delhi L-G Anil Baijal on Friday overruled the Aam Aadmi party governments decision to open hotels and allow for weekly bazars on a trial basis under Unlock 3, saying the situation remains fragile. Read More Construction of Ram temple cultural nationalism: RSS leader The construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya should not be limited to religious symbolism, but should be seen as a form of cultural renaissance and nationalism, said the joint general secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Dattatreya Hosabale on Friday. Read More Australias Wade reveals why Indian bowlers might not be able to match Neil Wagners bouncer barrage Australian wicket-keper batsman Matthew Wade in a recent interview has lauded Neil Wagner for his ability to bowl accurate bouncers. Looking ahead at the upcoming series against India, Wade said that India fast bowlers too would look to take a leaf out of Wagners book but might not succeed like the Kiwi. Read More Lootcase movie review: This half-baked comedy squanders away its wealth of talent Direct Rajesh Krishnans debut movie Lootcase employs the talents of Rasika Dugal, Ranvir Shorey, Gajraj Rao and Vijay Raaz, all of whom are among the best actors working in the country. However, the actors talents are wasted in this film, which is not even trying to be funny, says HTs Saumya Srivastava. Read More Fujifilm X-T4 review: X-T3 and a bit more Fujifilms X-T4 camera is priced at Rs 1,54,999. And understandably, at this price tag, one would hope to get the best mirrorless camera out there. So is it one? Read More Eid al-Adha 2020: Unique mehndi designs to try this Bakrid Eid al-Adha celebrations are not complete without a feast consisting of tasty food, rituals, decorations and more. Mehndi application is one of the most important customs of the festivities. Mehndi in various designs adds beauty to the entire essence of Eid celebrations. Read More Randeep Hoodas doggo Bambi shows perfect poses for the perfect pics Actor Randeep Hooda loves animals. He recently shared a post about his pooch Bambi on social media and this one will easily put a huge smile on anyones face - the pictures are that adorable. Read More Congress chose votes over justice: Smriti Irani on Triple Talaq ban Union Minister Smriti Irani launched a scathing attack on the Congress and accused it of choosing vote bank politics over justice to Muslim women in the 1980s. Addressing an event to commemorate one year of the law banning Triple Talaq, Smriti Irani said Congress had acted to protect their political interests when they were in power. Watch the full video for all the details from the event. Black women are often shown as having the utmost strength, but we're left to fend for ourselves when we actually feel pain. We hear all the time on social media and other platforms about how Black women need to be protected. But it seems like it's just words-- it's performative. Earlier in the month, Megan Thee Stallion was shot in both of her feet in an alleged altercation with Tory Lanez, and a slew of terrible 'jokes' were seen across social media. I suffered gunshot wounds as a result of a crime that was committed against me, she wrote in a statement, and done with the intention to physically harm me. Related: Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion says she was shot 'with the intention to physically harm me' As terrifying as it must have been to be shot, Megan also had to deal with a lot of the 'meme-ification' of her pain. Across Twitter and other platforms when the news broke, there were jokes made about her gender, how the incident happened, and people accusing her of playing the victim. Julia Craven of Slate expressed her outrage over the issue in a blog: "As Ive sat here trying to write this story, Ive wondered how to make my rage about the violence inflicted upon another Black woman palatable. Ive wrestled with how to articulate a grand argument about why Megan being shot isnt humorous. Ive mulled over publicly asking folks if this scenario would still be funny were it your mother, sister, or daughter instead. But you shouldnt need beautiful prose or a personal relationship with a woman in order to respect anothers humanity. In Craven's blog, she also referred to distasteful tweets from Chrissy Teigen, 50 Cent, and reality star Draya Michele, who have all since apologized for their inappropriate remarks. After the traumatizing incident, Megan took to Instagram to tell her fans the story. I was shot in both of my feet," she said, breaking into tears. She also had words for the people who were spreading jokes, Its not funny, she said. Theres nothing to joke about." For everyone who had jokes for Megan-- have you no soul? To make memes and jokes about a Black woman getting shot, in the midst of a pandemic, social justice reform, and an unemployment crisis? Are there not other things that people should be worried about? As a fellow Houston native and Black woman, it hurt to watch this unfold on social media. This event brought out the worst of the worst. Megan's rise to success was so authentic and genuine. A hard working Black woman, who showed love to everyone. How can you be mad at a woman who just wants to have fun and laugh all the time? Despite the loss of both of her parents, and her grandmother, the self proclaimed H-Town Hottie still manages to prevail. In an Instagram live video, she told fans that the bullets didn't hit any ligaments or bones, and she's expected to make a full recovery. Fellow female artist powerhouses rallied around Megan to support her in her time of need. She received care packages from both Rihanna and Houston's very own, Beyonce. As a dedicated OG "hottie" my heart hurts for Megan. I stand with Megan, because I see so much of myself in her. Black women's pain isn't for mocking. Reporter Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk). WASHINGTON - Nearly 30 million workers are set to lose $600 in enhanced weekly unemployment benefits that have kept much of the economy afloat these past four months during the coronavirus pandemic, as top lawmakers in Congress and the White House remain at an impasse over how and whether to extend the benefits. Most of the last checks went out this week, but the program officially ends Friday, a day that Democrats and Republicans spent trading barbs over who was to blame for the failed negotiations. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Democrats had rejected reasonable offers, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., derided Republicans for trying to advance a short-term fix that would have extended the benefits for just a week. "The president has been very clear for us to be aggressive and forward-leaning to make sure that they get protected, and yet what we're seeing is politics as usual from Democrats on Capitol Hill," Meadows said, addressing reporters in the White House briefing room. As he was speaking, Pelosi held a news conference on Capitol Hill, where she criticized Republicans for proposing the short-term extension with their backs against the wall. "What are we going to do in a week?" Pelosi asked as she explained why Democrats rejected the proposal to continue enhanced unemployment benefits at the current $600 weekly level for an additional week. As many as 30 million workers, including gig workers and the self-employed, are currently receiving some form of unemployment insurance, which has been supplemented by $600 in extra benefits each week - on top of whatever state unemployment benefits a worker gets - since the crisis deepened in March. Many economists and workers credit the additional money with helping them keep up with basic bills during the crisis: rent, mortgage, car and credit card payments, as well as everyday expenses like food. Most states cap weekly unemployment benefits well below $600; some pay as little as $275 a week as their maximum. Candida Kevorkian, 53, her son and her daughter-in-law have all been laid off and live together with her two grandchildren in a two-bedroom in South San Francisco, Calif. She worked at the Westin St. Francis hotel; her son worked at the Moscone Center, a convention center downtown; and her daughter-in-law worked at a Marriott. The extra $600 Kevorkian gets brings her overall jobless benefits to about $1,050 a week before taxes. But she has about $1,700 in other fixed expenses on top of rent, which is $2,350 - after she negotiated with her landlord to lower it from $2,850. The family has already cut back on clothing, shoes and food, including cooking with meat once a week. She says she has little hope that her job will return given how poorly the public health side of the crisis is going, and she said she feels powerless. "People are taking decisions for you and your life," she said. "In the middle of this pandemic they're playing with us." Back in March, when the economy was beginning to fail, because of the forced shutdowns to stop the spread of the virus, lawmakers rallied around the idea that they were rushing to shore up the economy through a short-lived public health crisis, agreeing to pass more than $2 trillion in stimulus that they thought would see the nation through the summer, when they hoped the pandemic would ease. But surging coronavirus cases have spurred many states to reverse course and close down restaurants and bars again, weighing on the economic recovery. The novel coronavirus has killed more than 150,000 people in the United States, according to data gathered by The Washington Post. Indeed, the pandemic appears to have outlasted the original relief efforts Congress passed. Jim Quebman, 61, an engineer in Thousand Oaks, Calif., was initially told he'd be back at work in two weeks when he was furloughed in March from his job at a machine shop. But the date for his return keeps getting pushed back. He's been relying on the $600 he gets from the federal government, in addition to $450 in state benefits, to keep up to date with his monthly payments: $2,200 in property taxes, $1,200 to keep his health insurance once his employer stops paying in August, a $300 car payment and other expenses like food and repairs. Without the $600, he said he might have to raid his 401(k) retirement savings. "I'll be in trouble within two months, basically," he said. "How can you retire if you don't have a pension and health care, that's paid by, let's say, a government." Raven Holmes, 38, a single mother of two who lost her job as an secretary in New Haven, Conn., back in February, said she already instituted a series of cuts in anticipation of the benefits' expiration. She started carpooling to the grocery store, split a BJ's Wholesale Club card with family to buy food in bulk, and has stopped getting takeout or restaurant food. She also said she's begun visiting food banks to help feed her and her two sons. "Once you have absolutely nothing, it's not hard at all," she said, about accepting charity. The longer Congress stalls, the more likely it is that she will have to plead with her landlord, utility companies, and other bill-holders to let accounts go into arrears until she lands on her feet again. "Money is not a resource that can be depleted. It's a man made thing: if you need more make more," she said. "There are other countries - their citizens are fine, nobody is suffering and everybody is healthy. All our government wants is money in their pockets, while the people are poor and starving and scrounging." The wrangling over whether and how to extend jobless benefits has occupied Washington for months. Eager to avoid blame for Friday's expiration of the enhanced unemployment aid, Republicans have increasingly coalesced around the idea of a short-term fix. But Democrats have repeatedly rejected that approach and continue pushing for a wide-ranging $3 trillion bill the House passed in May. That bill would extend unemployment benefits through January. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., unveiled a $1 trillion counterproposal Monday, but it was quickly rejected by many members of his own conference and has increasingly seemed irrelevant as Republicans look to a short-term fix. Senate Republicans have proposed cutting the $600 weekly federal benefit to $200 per week for two months while giving states time to transition to a more complicated system that would aim to replace 70% of a worker's prior wages. A second proposal emerged this week that would give states the choice to implement the $200 bonus or move to a system that would replace up to 66% of wages. Pelosi and Meadows have held meetings for four days straight, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. Pelosi said such a short-term extension might make sense if a deal were in sight on a larger bill and more time was needed to complete it. But, she said, that is not the state of play as the parties remain far apart. "We anticipate that we will have a bill, but we're not there yet," Pelosi said. Those who are relying the benefits have been watching the debate unfold wearily. "Just a few men have to make this decision for how many million people? Ten guys to make a decision over these millions of people's lives?" said Willie Woods, 60, who has been furloughed from his job as a hotel banquet server in New Orleans since April and is also losing the extra $600 a week in jobless benefits. "This country not taking care of American citizens like they're supposed to. We didn't bring this pandemic home. We were at work, and you hit us with a pandemic." India's third Covid wave likely to peak on Jan 23, daily cases to stay below 4 lakh: IIT Kanpur scientist 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. UPA LAC ? ? 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. Sri Lanka's top police officer was on Friday arrested for allegedly concealing evidence in a weapons case, police said. Shani Abeysekera, former director of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), is accused of concealing evidence in a weapons case involving former deputy inspector general of police Vas Gunawardena, who is currently in jail. Gunawardena was jailed for five years by the Colombo High Court in 2018 after he was found guilty of threatening Abeysekera, who was investigating a murder case against him. Gunawardena was arrested in 2013 in connection with the murder of a businessman. Abeysekera was transferred out from his crime investigation police role to a province immediately after the presidential election in November. He was handling corruption cases against the Rajapaksa administration between 2005 and 2015. Mahinda Rajapaksa was the country's president during the period. His investigations led to the arrests of several members of the Rajapaksa family and their close associates. They were all released on bail. Citing political victimisation, Abeysekera in December 2019 filed a fundamental rights petition before the Supreme Court challenging his transfer and urging it to issue an order reinstating him in his previous role as the CID director. In January, he was banned from travelling abroad after a leaked telephone conversation purported to be between him and former minister Ranjan Ramanayake revealed that he shared sensitive information with him. Meanwhile, the Opposition accuses the government of carrying out political vendetta against Abeysekera. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in a statement issued on Friday, announced a 20% cut in the city from August 5 until further notice, owing to low rainfall in catchment areas. The civic body the step is taken to ensure that there is enough water supply until July 31, 2021. We decided to impose 20% water cut as a precaution. There are predictions of good rainfall in catchment areas from next week and we can always roll back the cut if there is enough water. Citizens should utilise water wisely but also ensure to use sufficient water for personal hygiene as we are amid the Covid-19 outbreak, a BMC official said. Civic commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal also plans to bring water to Mumbai from Bhandardara dam in Ahmednagar, if required. The water level in the seven water-supplying lakes Tulsi, Tansa, Vihar, Bhatsa, Modak Sagar, Upper Vaitarna and Middle Vaitarna was 34%, as on Friday against the 85% level in 2019 and 83% in 2018. Although the 34% of water level is sufficient for supply for the next 100 days, the BMC imposed the water cuts as a precautionary step. According to data shared by BMC, the seven lakes have 4.99 lakh million litres of water against their full capacity of around 14.47 lakh million litres. The Bhatsa dam, which caters to 55% of the citys total water requirement, has 38.68% water. It had 84.93% water during the same time in 2019. The BMC earlier decided to impose water cuts from August 1, but later decided to postpone the decision in the wake of the festivals on the first three days of the month. The civic body appealed to citizens to use water wisely, and to avoid any wastage. In 2014, the BMC imposed a 25% water cut, followed by 20% cut in 2015 and 2016. In 2018, the BMC imposed 10% water cut. In 2017 and 2019, owing to enough water in catchment areas, the civic body did not declare any cut. The seven lakes are bifurcated into two systems: the Vaitarna system which supplies to the western suburbs and the island city, and the Bhatsa system which supplies to the eastern suburbs. The lakes are situated in Mumbai, Thane and Palghar districts. Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 14:00:38|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The purchasing managers' index (PMI) for China's manufacturing sector rose to 51.1 in July from 50.9 in June, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday. It is the fifth month in a row that the figure remained in the expansion territory. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below reflects contraction. Commenting on the sustained expansion, NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe said: "Policies of balancing epidemic control and economic development further yield tangible fruit, as economic vitality continues recovering and enterprises keep registering better operational outcomes." Zhao cited sub-indices of the manufacturing PMI as evidence of economic recovery across the board. The sub-index for production edged up 0.1 points to 54 in July. New orders picked up 0.3 points to 51.7, rising for three consecutive months. While the sub-index measuring new export orders gained 5.8 points to 48.4. "Enterprises stay optimistic about recovery in their industries," Zhao said. The better-than-expected PMI figure comes as the epidemic situation in China has become stable and the economy has basically recovered. NBS data released Friday also showed an extensive rebound in non-manufacturing sectors as their PMI came in at 54.2 in July and service suppliers, including those hit especially hard by the epidemic, showed stronger business vitality. Sectors including railway and aviation transport, postal and express delivery and accommodation all logged busier business activities, with their sub-indexes all standing above 60. These PMI readings point to steady recovery momentum in July despite the floods along the Yangtze River and scattered local COVID-19 cases, according to an emailed research note authored by analysts with the financial services firm Nomura. "We expect China's official manufacturing PMI to remain at around 51.0 in the coming months," the note said, citing growth headwinds including worsening COVID-19 situations in many parts of the world as cause for caution. Many problems China faces are long- and medium-term, and resolving such problems is like fighting a protracted war, according to a Thursday meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. Noting that the "protracted-war" assessment has strong implications for policies, Nomura expects the country to make a shift from a "wartime mode" for fighting the COVID-19 outbreak toward meeting structural issues and long-term challenges. The country wrapped up the first half with GDP growth of 3.2 percent in Q2, after a virus-caused 6.8-percent contraction in the first quarter. A slew of other mid-year economic indicators including consumption, jobs and foreign trade also painted the picture of an economy disentangling from COVID-19 disruptions. Citing a survey of 67 economists, Bloomberg News said in a recent report that China's growth in the current quarter will be 5.2 percent year on year, faster than the 3.2-percent expansion in the three months to June. Enditem NDA ally asks EC to not hold Bihar polls in Nov, says pandemic will endanger lives India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, July 31: BJP ally Lok Janshakti Party has written to the Election Commission against holding the Bihar assembly polls in October-November, when they are due, saying it will otherwise amount to deliberately "pushing people towards death". The party has said resources should now be focussed on curbing the COVID-19 crisis and tackling floods in the state and not holding the polls. Death toll due to floods rises to 107 in Assam, 11 in Bihar; over 50 lakh affected The LJP has said that the coronavirus pandemic has already acquired dangerous proportions and experts believe that it is likely to be more severe by October-November, as it argued that the priority now should be saving people''s lives and not holding the elections. India extends ban on International flights till August 31st | Oneindia News The LJP's stand on the elections is opposite to that of the JD(U), which also is a BJP ally, as the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led party has spoken in favour of holding them on time and has been holding organisational meetings in preparation. The BJP has maintained that any decision on the poll schedule is the EC''s prerogative, while the main opposition RJD has in past called for postponing the elections, citing the coronavirus threat. The EC has sought views of all parties on the elections. The LJP said endangering lives of a big population would be absolutely "improper" for holding the elections and noted that over 35, 000 people in the country, including 280 in Bihar, have died of COVID-19 so far. "Holding the polls in such circumstances will amount to deliberately pushing people towards death," it told the EC. A big part of Bihar is also severely affected by floods, it added. Rating Action: Moody's assigns Aa1 to the South Dakota Building Authority's revenue bonds; outlook stable Global Credit Research - 30 Jul 2020 New York, July 30, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service has assigned a Aa1 rating to the South Dakota Building Authority's planned issuance of Taxable Refunding Revenue Bonds, Series 2020, consisting of $79 million of Series 2020A bonds and $10 million of Series 2020B bonds. The authority plans to price the bonds during the week of August 3. The outlook is stable. RATINGS RATIONALE The Aa1 rating reflects a one-notch distinction from the State of South Dakota's Aaa issuer rating to incorporate the more essential nature of the state facilities financed with the debt and a moderate legal framework that consists of the need for the state to annually appropriate funds in support of lease payments. South Dakota's Aaa issuer rating reflects several strong credit factors that include healthy and stable financial operations, ample fund balance and liquidity, and low debt, pension and fixed-cost burdens. The state's financial and leverage metrics will continue to offset its economic limitations, including vulnerability to shifts in agricultural output and farm income. We regard the coronavirus outbreak as a social risk under our ESG framework, given the substantial implications for public health and safety. The coronavirus crisis is not a key driver for this rating action. We do not see any material immediate credit risks for the State of South Dakota. However, the situation surrounding coronavirus is rapidly evolving and the longer term impact will depend on both the severity and duration of the crisis. If our view of the credit quality of the state changes, we will update the rating and/or outlook at that time. RATING OUTLOOK The outlook for the State of South Dakota is stable and reflects the expectation that low leverage and fixed costs combined with a very healthy financial position will support the state's strong credit quality going forward. Story continues FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OF THE RATINGS -The rating on the state building authority's lease debt is unlikely to be upgraded because it is notched off of the state's Aaa issuer rating FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO A DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS -The rating on the state building authority's lease debt could be downgraded if the State of South Dakota's issuer rating were downgraded -The building authority's lease debt could also be downgraded if the legal framework supporting the payment of lease debt weakens LEGAL SECURITY The Series 2020 bonds are solely secured by annual lease payments made by the state to the building authority. The lease payments are subject to annual appropriation by the state legislature and governed by lease agreements between the building authority and certain state agencies. The Series 2020 bonds are being issued on a basis parity to outstanding revenue bonds secured by lease payments made pursuant to the original and amended lease agreement, and authorized by a supplemental bond resolution. USE OF PROCEEDS Proceeds of the bonds will refinance certain maturities of several series of outstanding bonds for anticipated interest cost savings. PROFILE The state created the South Dakota Building Authority in 1967 and empowered it to build and provide various facilities for use by the state that the state legislature, by law, declares to be in the public interest. The State of South Dakota is home to an estimated 870,000 residents, making it the 5th smallest state by population. It has the 4th smallest economy among US states measured by an estimated 2019 gross domestic product of just over $53 billion. METHODOLOGY The principal methodology used in these ratings was Lease, Appropriation, Moral Obligation and Comparable Debt of US State and Local Governments published in July 2018 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBM_1102364. 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. 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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. 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Tribal leaders on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation in northeastern North Dakota are requiring residents to wear masks to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, a rare move in a state where face coverings have not been mandated despite a sharp increase in overall cases. The reservation is located in Benson County, which according to The COVID Tracking Project has seen the states most new cases per capita in the last two weeks. Area public health workers are worried about the trend after seeing the number of positive tests jump from 16 to 70 since the middle of July. Allen McKay, administrator for the Lake Region District Health Unit, which covers Benson, Eddy, Pierce and Ramsey counties, said the increases in Benson are basically coming from Spirit Lake, although he doesnt yet know the reason for the spike. He hopes that a mass testing event scheduled Friday in Fort Totten will provide more clues. Believe me, weve noticed that, McKay said of the reservation cases. Did something big take place, like a big wedding, or a big get-together, or is it finally just hitting Spirit Lake now? Were just not sure. In the meantime, the tribal council is requiring that masks be worn in public. Spirit Lake chairman Roger Yankton Sr. said in a memo posted Monday on the tribes website that every resident needs to take this seriously!!! More than 4,000 people live on the reservation. Many of Spirit Lake residents shop in nearby Devils Lake, where McKay lives, and from his observation he said they are following the mask order. I think they realize its getting worse, McKay said. Its easy to not worry about taking precautions when you dont have any cases. But the last two weeks it has really taken off. Native Americans can be more vulnerable to the coronavirus because many of them live in crowded conditions with extended families. They have higher rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease than the general U.S. population and usually have poorer access to health care. Nicole Peske, spokeswoman for Gov. Doug Burgums COVID-19 information center, said we dont talk about clusters or outbreaks and referred the case to Spirit Lake health officials. Tribal health director Tracy Charboneau did not respond to phone and email messages left by The Associated Press. Calls to the tribal office went unanswered. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 31) COVID-19 patients no longer need to have a negative swab test to be declared as virus-free after weeks of getting infected, the country's testing czar said Friday as he explained the one-time surge in recoveries. National COVID-19 task force deputy implementer Vince Dizon said the 38,075 recoveries reported by the Department of Health on Thursday implements new rules set by the agency following updated global practices. "Hindi na kailangan ng (negative) PCR test bago ma-tag na recovered ang isang pasyente. Ang advice ng WHO (World Health Organization) at ng ibang mga experts at sa pagsunod ng standards ng ibang bansa, kung ang isang tao na may COVID-19 after ng incubation period na 14 days ay wala nang sintomas wala nang lagnat, ubo, sipon, hindi na hihirapang huminga sila po ay considered recovered na," Dizon told CNN Philippines' The Source. [Translation: You no longer need a (negative) PCR test before you can be tagged as a recovered patient. The advice of the WHO and other experts, and based on international standards, is that when a COVID-19 patient finished the 14-day incubation period without showing symptoms like fever, cough, colds, and difficulty in breathing, they are already considered recovered.] Dizon said Singapore even counts a shorter period of 10-12 days. Patients who remain in the hospital for treatment and those who died are not counted, he added. The DOH earlier attributed the spike in recoveries to its enhanced data reconciliation efforts under its "Oplan Recovery" initiative to actively track the condition of patients. This will be done every 15 days. When the Philippines tallied its first imported case in late January, the DOH required a patient to have two negative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests to be declared fully recovered from the disease. Dizon said in recent months, the requirement was scaled down to just one negative swab test upon the advice of health experts, including the World Health Organization, before the latest change in protocol. The PCR test is dubbed the "gold standard" for confirming the presence of the coronavirus in the body, against rapid test kits which only detect the presence of antibodies for an infection. RELATED: Rapid tests may show false negative results, DOH reminds Dizon said the DOH tracked cases confirmed from July 16 and earlier and traced all the way to the beginning of June. The country tallied 18,086 infections as of end-May and added more than 43,000 confirmed cases by mid-July. President Rodrigo Duterte eased Cebu City's strict lockdown and placed the area, alongside Metro Manila and select provinces and cities nationwide, under general community quarantine which allows more movement. All other areas are under the more relaxed modified GCQ status until August 15. The country now has 89,374 confirmed cases, surpassing Chinas numbers at around 87,000 based on the Johns Hopkins University tracker. There are roughly 20,000 people still recovering from the disease while 1,983 have died. The most important reason for this upswing, analysts say, is that Europe is recording far fewer new cases of coronavirus. There are still occasional spikes in Europe, and some early signs that the infection rate is starting to level off in the United States. But there are about 65,000 new cases each day in the United States, compared with fewer than 10,000 new cases across the Atlantic. The next reason is politics. When European leaders reached an agreement last week on a 750 billion euro ($888 billion) recovery fund, it wasnt the size of the deal that impressed investors, but the fact that it happened after four long nights of negotiations. The decision to raise money collectively and give grants to the countries hit hardest by the pandemic was a message that there is some political will left to further the project that created the euro two decades ago. European unity could still be found in an emergency, despite fraying on the edges caused by the exit of Britain from the European Union, budget fights with Italy, and concerns about the dismantling of democracy in Hungary. The E.U. recovery fund is a gigantic step forward for Europe, Mr. Thiel said. The E.U. has always been an organization that has reacted in times of crises. Thats how they move forward. This week, the euro climbed to more than $1.18, the highest since June 2018, as demand for the currency and other European assets increased amid expectations that normal economic activity would resume more quickly in the region. The euro has gained more than 5 percent against the dollar so far this year, according to FactSet data. One way to predict whether this trend will continue is to look at the positions taken by speculative traders those who seek to make money from short-term market moves rather than longer-term investors, such as hedge funds. NOTE: The Press Council has not upheld a complaint about this article. Read the full adjudication here. NSW Treasury officials have warned $4 billion needs to be injected this year into the workers' compensation insurance fund for police employees, nurses, prison guards and teachers to prevent it falling into deficit. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can reveal an internal treasury briefing note in May recommended $4 billion in taxpayer funding would be required by the end of the year to return the Treasury Managed Fund (TMF) to "full funding" after an "adverse movement" of $1.4 billion. A sticker on the floor in the foyer of icare's building in Sydney. Credit:Kate Geraghty The TMF, which is managed by state government-controlled organisation icare, covers more than 200 public sector agencies and their 335,000 workers. It also protects more than $228 billion of the state's assets, such as the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. "Considering the recent losses and forthcoming costs such as latent claims and COVID-19, Treasury will recommend a contribution of up to $4 billion before the end of 2020 to return the TMF to full funding," the note says. Has it seemed hot lately? Like, unusually hot, even for summer? Its not just you. This July has been among the hottest on record in the Lehigh Valley not because the heat has been particularly extreme, but because its been consistent. An average year here will see 17 days with highs at or above 90 degrees. Weve already hit that number in 2020. And we still have the rest of the summer to go. BERLIN, July 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CANDIS, the platform for automated accounting and payment processes, raised 12M in a financing round led by Viola Ventures and Rabo Frontier Ventures, the investment arm of Rabobank. Existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Point Nine Capital, Speedinvest, the main incubator of Commerzbank and 42CAP also participated. CANDIS intends to use the capital to continue the development of its machine learning engine and to fuel growth and expansion within Europe. The company is executing on its goal of becoming the European market leader for automated financial processes for SMBs. As of today, the company's software automates more than 80% of all classic accounting processes and facilitates efficient collaboration with tax accounting firms across Europe. CANDIS automates manual bookkeeping, accounting processes and B2B payments for mid-market companies with machine learning. The software automatically collects bookkeeping documents from various sources, classifies and authenticates the data, generates approval processes and real-time-insights and payments for accounts payables. Thousands of companies and their tax advisors already benefit from CANDIS' unique technology in Germany. "SMBs in Central Europe have a void when it comes to efficient and effective accounting and financial processes," says Omry Ben David, Partner at Viola Ventures. "CANDIS is well positioned to become the go-to platform in Europe for the automation of bookkeeping, accounting and payment processes, as well as for the provision of financial insights and benchmarks. This comprehensive suite will undoubtedly deliver better SMB compliance, decision making and growth." Since the last financing round at the end of 2018, CANDIS' business has grown by 500%. Christian Ritosek, co-founder and managing director of CANDIS, says: "Our machine-learning based technology disrupts a whole industry, in which the majority of tasks are still very manual. The pattern recognition engine automates accounting workflows and empowers companies with real-time data and insights to make better financial decisions." "It is great to add CANDIS to our portfolio as they have been able to create a leading position in a competitive market. We've been following CANDIS for a longer period of time and we consider their distribution strategy combined with their product to be a very strong proposition for both SMEs and accountants. Together with Viola, Lightspeed and the existing investors we are very keen to be working with the team and to support them in realizing their growth ambitions," says Jeroen van Doornik, Managing Partner at Rabo Frontier Ventures. About Candis GmbH The software company CANDIS was founded in 2015 by Christopher Becker and Christian Ritosek with the goal to automate manual bookkeeping processes with intelligent software. Eliminating manual data entry and reconciliation, bookkeeping and accounting departments of companies become up to 5 times more efficient. https://www.candis.io/en/home Twitter: https://twitter.com/candis_io Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CandisDeutschland/ About Viola Ventures Viola Ventures is the early-stage arm of Viola, Israel's leading tech-focused investment group, with over $3B AUM. Founded in 2000, Viola Ventures empowers early stage start-ups to become global leaders. The fund manages over $1B and has backed some of Israel's unicorns such as Payoneer, ironSource Lightricks, Redis Labs, Pagaya. https://www.viola-group.com/ About Rabo Frontier Ventures RFV is a 150 million investment fund of Rabobank, focusing globally on innovative Fintech and Agtech companies. RFV aims to invest directly in the early growth stage (series B) of companies that are disrupting or influencing the current business of Rabobank and indirect in leading general tech funds such as Holtzbrinck, Northzone, Speedinvest and Valar Ventures. https://rabofrontierventures.com/ SOURCE CANDIS First it was toilet paper. Then it was cleaning supplies. Now, a new coronavirus-era shortage is threatening the November election: Poll workers. Recruiting volunteers to check in voters, supply ballots and deal with issues has never been easy for election administrators. But in interviews and public statements, more than a dozen election administrators and voting advocates warned that slow poll worker recruitment could be a major vulnerability for the 2020 election. Election officials across the country are seeing early shortages and scrambling to recruit a new generation of poll workers for Election Day, looking to maintain a volunteer force that has relied heavily on senior citizens in the past the cohort most vulnerable to the coronavirus. Poll workers are responsible for everything from making sure voters get the right ballots to helping people with issues as they vote, and shortages could add confusion, long lines and delays to an Election Day process that has already been upended by the pandemic. We need 39,870 people for Election Day and early voting, and we dont have anywhere near that. We have 13,021 vacant positions, [about] 32 percent statewide, said David Garreis, the president of the Maryland Association of Election Officials. The hardest thing that we have to do in any election is to recruit election judges. And in this year, it's impossible. More than two-thirds of jurisdictions said that it was either very difficult or somewhat difficult to obtain a sufficient amount of poll workers according to data collected about the 2018 elections by the Election Assistance Commission , a federal agency charged with assisting election officials with just 15 percent saying it was either somewhat or very easy to do so. And that was before a pandemic that is especially lethal for those most likely to serve as poll workers hit Americas shores. It is a catastrophic problem, said Garreis, who recently wrote a letter warning Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan about the situation. It puts the success of the election at risk, to put too fine a point on it. Story continues The struggle to find new poll workers has already led to a consolidation of polling places during recent primaries in states across the country, contributing to long lines and voter confusion. In the midterms, 58 percent of poll workers were at least 61 years-old or older, a population that is most at-risk to Covid-19, according to the EAC survey. Just over 16 percent of poll workers were 40-years-old or younger. And election officials rely on waves of poll workers who have worked an election before, building institutional knowledge about how to deal with crises. Being an election official is like somebody shoving you into a batting cage, honest to God, said Tina Barton, the clerk of Rochester Hills, Mich. Fastballs are coming at you from every direction, and youve got to be like this election ninja, trying to avoid getting hit. Election officials are under a time crunch to try to figure out now how many poll workers theyll have, so they can plan ahead and figure out how many polling places they can actually staff. The bulk of the management staff are your seasoned workers who have been around the block a few times and have done some elections, and kinda know what theyre dealing with, said Russell Bridges, the elections supervisor for Chatham County, Ga. Bridges said that out of the usual 700 poll workers his office employs, about 50 of them have been reluctant to work due to the pandemic. Administrators also worry that last minute dropouts could kneecap their Election Day operations. Wesley Wilcox, the supervisor of elections for Marion County, Fla., said that unlike some of his colleagues in the state and across the country, hes blessed and seems to be in good shape ahead of the states mid-August primaries. But hes counting down the days. Things that keep me up at night, obviously, is a higher than expected attrition rate going into Election Day, said Wilcox. Im hoping Im in good shape and Im praying I am, but until we get here and we get to 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. that morning and I can really take attendance and see where it is, Im hoping. Election officials across the country have turned to various populations to try to fill in the gaps. A popular choice is lawyers, with a handful of states pushing their state bar associations to give attorneys continuing education credits for serving as poll workers. They are also looking at high school and college students who can be lured with the promise of extra credit or some extra spending money for a days work. Election officials are also engaging local businesses to give civic time off to employees to work as poll workers, along with pushing for local and state government employees to serve. Our mean age was 66, and through targeting [recruitment] we got that down to 61 now, said Craig Latimer, the supervisor of elections in Hillsborough County, Fla., a big drop across the 2,000 poll workers he has. Like his colleague in Marion County, Latimer said he was confident in the amount of poll workers he had for the August primary, and stressed the importance of protective measures election administrators can take to help protect both poll workers and voters alike. Were going to have safe polling sites. It is a community project, he said as he gave POLITICO a video tour of an early voting site, showing off hand sanitizing stations, plexiglass barriers for workers and spaced-out voting booths. He said it was crucial that workers also be provided with personal protection equipment. Another challenge is that, even if the number of poll workers is adequate, a significant loss of veteran poll workers could still be crippling. If you replace one of those four [workers at a polling site] in an election, thats okay, you can still be successful. The other three will normalize that other poll worker into how you appropriately deal with a polling location, Jared Dearing, the executive director of the Kentucky Board of Elections, said at a July EAC hearing on lessons from the primaries. But if you replace three of the four, I dont know if that maxum still holds. I worry about the expertise level and the experience It could ultimately create more problems. And recruiting, training and protecting poll workers comes with a considerable cost, and some worry that some workers who stepped up to serve during the primaries may be unavailable in November. Barton, the Michigan clerk, said she got additional funding from her citys chief financial officer to continuously run an ad in the local newspaper to recruit more poll workers between now and mid-October, the first time shes had to run such an extensive campaign. She also said she was worried that younger poll workers who are stepping in for the states August primary may be unavailable in November, depending on the status of local high schools and colleges. Several election officials mentioned one forced benefit, thanks to upheaval among Americas poll workers: Election administrators are engaging a whole different population in the American electoral system. 2020 could be the year that we recruit a whole new generation of poll workers and get a group of young, civically-minded people engaged in the process, and it's a good education, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said. A lot of people come up with all kinds of wild conspiracy theories about elections. And when you get a chance to actually look behind the curtain and work as a poll worker, what you realize is that it's a very carefully thought out process, he continued, and a lot of those conspiracy theories melt away once you understand how elections really work." Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 18:54:27|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close WASHINGTON, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Former U.S. President Barack Obama delivered a eulogy for the late U.S. congressman John Lewis' funeral on Thursday, warning that the voting rights the late civil rights icon championed are threatened heading into the 2020 election. "There are those in power doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting, by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the postal service in an election that's going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don't get sick," Obama said during his 40-minute speech. Obama called for the automatic registration of all voters, restoring voting rights to inmates who have completed their sentences, ending partisan gerrymandering of districts and making Election Day a national holiday. Earlier in the day, U.S. President Donald Trump raised the possibility of delaying the country's presidential election in November, alleging that "universal mail-in voting" will make the 2020 election "the most inaccurate and fraudulent in history." Lewis, who had fought for voting rights throughout his 33 years in Congress, died earlier this month at age 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Enditem During an interview with Yahoo News on Thursday, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan condemned President Trump for his outrageous assertion that the November presidential election should be delayed. Hogan, a Republican who has been hailed for his early and aggressive response to the coronavirus, made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with Yahoo News Skullduggery podcast. I never cease to be amazed by things the president tweets, but even that one took me by surprise, Hogan said. He cant postpone the election, he doesnt have the power to do it, and thats why its an outrageous statement. To say that were going to postpone the election because of rampant fraud we haven't seen it just doesnt make sense." Hogan said that the presidents insistence that mail-in voting is plagued by fraud is completely baseless. In Maryland weve been able to vote by mail with absentee ballots for twenty years and its worked very well, he said. In a pair of tweets Thursday morning, Trump cited fraud as the reason he wants the election delayed. With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history, Trump tweeted Thursday morning. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? The president does not have the authority to delay the election, a power afforded only to Congress. During a press conference tonight the president defended his suggestion that the election be delayed, pointing to newspaper articles which he claimed support his contention that voting by mail leads to fraud. He said he is eager to have the election held on Nov. 3 but worries about the chaos that could ensue if results are not immediately available and ballots go missing. If they do this, our country will be a laughingstock all over the world because everyone knows it doesnt work, Trump said of vote-by-mail. Were asking for a lot of trouble. Do I want to see a date change? No. But I dont want to see a crooked election. This election will be the most rigged election in history if that happens. Story continues Hogan also criticized another pair of tweets that Trump posted on Wednesday. In the tweets, the president announced his decision to rescind a fair housing rule, saying he was happy to inform all of the people living their suburban lifestyle dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low-income housing built in your neighborhood. He added: Your housing prices will go up based on the market and crime will go down. Hogan said he could not comment on what goes on inside the head of Donald Trump or how he decides what crazy things to tweet in the middle of the night. Asked if it was a racist tweet, Hogan said, it certainly sounded like one. Hogan, who is chairman of the National Governors Association, said the presidents tweets also have hurt the efforts of the White House coronavirus task force, which Hogan has worked with closely to combat the pandemic in his own state. The tweeting has been counterproductive and off-message and harmful to the things that the rest of the whole coronavirus team and his administration was trying to convey and that the governors were trying to do, Hogan said. When the president was running for office and when he first became president ... people would ask, Do you have any advice for the president? and I said, Stop tweeting! Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. (Michael S. Williamson/Washington Post via Getty Images) Hogan has raised his profile on the national stage since the pandemic began. On Wednesday, he announced Marylands long-standing mask mandate would now cover all indoor spaces as well as outdoor spaces where social distancing isnt possible. Hogan said Maryland has long since recovered from an April coronavirus peak and that its testing positivity rate is now below 5 percent. But he said he is concerned about the numbers ticking back up given a spike in infections elsewhere. We have gotten the virus under control from 30-some percent positivity down to 4, Hogan said. Masks more than anything else can keep people safe and stop the spread. Hogan said contact tracing has shown most new Maryland infections were occurring in office settings and in crowded outdoor spaces, so he expanded his mask mandate accordingly. He said he believes a national mask mandate would help the country beat back the virus, but he does not expect the president to endorse the idea. Masking is the easiest thing to do as opposed to shutting everything down, and its worked well for us, Hogan said. It seems like a pretty simple thing to do and I think its something that his entire coronavirus task force, I think, has been talking about and I think they would all advise him in that direction. From the beginning, Ive said that we got off on the wrong foot, the president wasnt taking this virus seriously enough, Hogan said. Hogan has had weekly calls with the president and his coronavirus team since the beginning of the outbreak, he said. We have these meetings every single week with all the governors that [Vice President] Pence leads with much of the Cabinet, Hogan said. We have really productive discussions: They talk about the science; they go over the numbers and the data. And the president will tweet something or say something in a press conference an hour or two later thats completely opposite, on a totally different page, from the rest of his administration. ... The guy in charge just doesnt seem to be on board with the rest of his team. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Now that the actor Shia LaBeouf has picked up a posh new pad in Pasadena, CA, hes ready to shed his longtime Sherman Oaks residence. The Transformers star has listed his midcentury modern retreat for $2.25 million, Variety reports. LaBeouf, 34, purchased the three-bedroom home in 2009 for $1,825,000. Built in 1958, the home has a 2,463-square-foot layout that features walls of glass, an open floor plan, and exposed beams. The interior includes a sunken living room with a fireplace, and glass doors that access the patio. The upgraded chef's kitchen features stainless-steel appliances, a wine fridge, and a center island with a breakfast bar. The kitchen flows into the dining area, which looks out to the backyard. The luxe master bedroom has a fireplace, walk-in wardrobe, spa tub, and steam shower. One of the other two bedrooms has been transformed into a paneled library, with custom bookshelves. An office has a built-in desk and shelving, almost a necessity in today's housing market. Home in Sherman Oaks, CA realtor.com Sunken living room realtor.com Upgraded chef's kitchen realtor.com Dining area realtor.com Bedroom transformed into a library realtor.com Office with built-ins realtor.com Master bedroom opening to the backyard realtor.com Pool realtor.com Set on a half-acre, the serene space boasts a pool, spa, sauna, and city and mountain views. Along with the landscaping, the gated property opens to a two-car carport, and is "very private," the listing notes. Meanwhile, LaBoeuf has left the building. The Los Angeles native upgraded to a pricey Pasadena property in early March for $5,475,000. The brand-new home he purchased evokes the areas 20th-century Mediterranean style, with all the modern amenities. With over 4,000 square feet, the four-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom layout includes a huge kitchen and family room that flows to a patio outside. The main bedroom on the second floor, which can be accessed by elevator, opens to a private balcony. Outdoor space includes landscaped grounds and an expansive patio area with a kitchen, large dining and entertaining area, and a grassy yard. The actor's brand-new Pasadena home realtor.com The actor and performance artist wrote and starred in the 2019 film Honey Boy, which received critical acclaim. His upcoming projects include The Tax Collector, Pieces of a Woman with Vanessa Kirby, and Dont Worry, Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde. Nick Small with Rodeo Realty holds the listing. The post Shia LaBeouf Selling Midcentury Home in Sherman Oaks for $2.25M appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com. Staff Reporter The Zimbabwe Daily Pretoria, South Africa More than 100 000 jobs in the southern African countrys tourism sector are now hanging by a thread. This is due to the countrys nationwide lockdown which was put in place on the 27th of March as a way of curbing the COVID-19 pandemic which has since hit the southern African country hard. Although the government allocated US$12 million towards the sector which has since been used up as a relief package, many businesses didnt benefit from the initiative. We could only give 4 000 companies the money. The money has run out we cant do anything but to push for the opening of the sector. - Advertisement - However, we cant be blind that there is a pandemic on our hands I would like to see the sector being opened but we cant be blind that there is a pandemic on our hands. Regardless, we do appreciate what the government has opened for us, accommodation for leisure being opened, safaris being opened, curfew being extended for restaurants, it will go a long way in helping businesses to say afloat. I know its a tough one in terms of regulations but we just have to adhere, said the Minister of Tourism, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane. Like this: Like Loading... Philippine soldiers escort a hearse during the funeral procession of a victim of the church bombing in Jolo, Jan. 30, 2019. Updated at 2:25 p.m. ET on 2020-07-31 Three Filipino soldiers and six militants from a faction of Abu Sayyaf inspired by the Islamic State (IS) died Friday during a clash in a remote jungle on southern Sulu island, two days after a major clash in another region of the southern Philippines, the military said. Members of the 32nd Infantry Battalion were on the trail of Abu Sayyaf members when they were attacked by other militants before noon, triggering fighting near the town of Patikul in Sulu province, according to Maj. Gen. Corleto Vinluan, chief of the armys Joint Task Force Sulu. It is with deep sadness to report that three of our brave soldiers succumbed to death while defending the people of Sulu, Vinluan said. At least six Abu Sayyaf fighters were killed but only three corpses were recovered after militants removed the others from the battle scene, he said. The names of the soldiers killed were not immediately available as their next of kin had not been notified, said local military spokesman Maj. Arvin John Encinas of the Western Mindanao Command. The gunbattle occurred on Eid-ul-Adha, the Muslim festival known as the Feast of the Sacrifice, one of the two most important holidays on Islams calendar. Militants linked to IS The Abu Sayyaf is a small gang of militants known for carrying out some of the countrys worst attacks, including kidnappings for ransom and bombings. An IS-linked faction is led by Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan who is accused of planning and orchestrating the bombing of a Catholic church in Sulus capital town of Jolo that left 23 people dead in January 2019. Two Indonesian suicide bombers were killed in that incident and authorities recently said they averted similar attacks with the arrest of four militants in Manila. Friday's deadly clash comes two days after two soldiers and at least 10 suspected militants were killed during another gun battle in the southern Philippines as troops hunted for a senior leader of a different militant group linked to IS. At least 13 soldiers were injured, a Philippine Army spokesman said. The two-hour shootout on Wednesday with suspected members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters militant group broke out as the armys 57th Infantry Battalion launched an operation in marshlands near Datu Salibo, a town in Maguindanao province, officials said. The troops were searching for Ustadz Karialian, a BIFF commander also known as Imam Minimbang. The two clashes occurred in towns that are about 750 km (465 miles) apart. Firass Dirani was enjoying a lovely sunny Sydney day with a gorgeous lady on Wednesday. The House Husbands star got very hands on with his rumoured new girlfriend in Sydney's Double Bay. The 36-year-old cuddled close to the shapely stunner, who showed off her incredible figure in skin-tight jeans. Hands on! Firass Dirani was enjoying a lovely sunny Sydney day with rumoured new girlfriend Heven Iskender in Double Bay on Wednesday His companion is believed to be Heven Iskender, and it's understood 'they've been spending a lot of time together recently', according to a source. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Firass confirmed he's been seeing Heven. The brunette beauty had her arms around the Australian actor as they engaged in an animated chat. A fine pair: The 36-year-old cuddled close to the shapely stunner, who showed off her incredible figure in skin-tight jeans Firass looked handsome in a casual outfit consisting of a flannel shirt over a black T-shirt. He added a black jeans to the ensemble, and covered up his famous face with a pair of sunglasses. His pretty friend wore a pair of blue jeans with a band T-shirt that was knotted at the midriff. Loved up: His companion is Heven Iskender, and it's understood 'they've been spending a lot of time together recently', according to a source Heven had her brunette locks around her face in loose curls and wore plum toned lipstick. The handsome actor was voted Cleo magazine's Bachelor of the Year back in April 2010. When asked about his ideal partner by the Sydney Morning Herald, Firass said he was attracted to women who had a 'wicked sense of humour, amazing eyes and a beautiful smile'. twitter logo Filip Radwanski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images A 17-year-old in Florida was arrested on Friday in connection with a major Twitter hack involving dozens of high-profile accounts. State prosecutors filed 30 charges of fraud, identity theft, and hacking against the teen, describing him as the "mastermind" of a "massive fraud." Twitter said its internal controls were improperly accessed in mid-July. Prosecutors said the hack tricked people into giving away at least $100,000 in cryptocurrency. The Department of Justice also on Friday charged two people in connection with the hack. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. A 17-year-old in Tampa, Florida, was arrested on Friday in connection with the massive Twitter hack earlier this month in which dozens of high-profile accounts were hijacked as part of a cryptocurrency scam. Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren filed 30 charges against the 17-year-old, Graham Clark, describing him as the "mastermind" behind the hack. "These crimes were perpetrated using the names of famous people and celebrities, but they're not the primary victims here," Warren said in a press release. "This 'Bit-Con' was designed to steal money from regular Americans from all over the country, including here in Florida. This massive fraud was orchestrated right here in our backyard, and we will not stand for that." Later Friday, the US Department of Justice said in a press release that it had arrested two other people in connection with the hack: Mason Sheppard, 19, who lives in the United Kingdom and goes by "Chaewon," and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, Florida, who goes by "Rolex." In a press conference, Warren said that Clark was not facing federal charges at this point and that the state was handling prosecution because Florida law allows more flexibility when prosecuting minors. WFLA first reported on the arrest. Story continues Clark was charged with one count of organized fraud over $50,000, 17 counts of communications fraud over $300, one count of fraudulent use of personal information over $100,000 or 30 or more victims, 10 counts of fraudulent use of personal information, and one count of accessing a computer or electronic device without authority. The DOJ said Sheppard was charged with "conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and the intentional access of a protected computer," while Fazeli was charged with "aiding and abetting the intentional access of a protected computer." Earlier this month, hackers used Twitter's internal controls to compromise the accounts of prominent people and companies after Twitter employees were tricked into giving over access to the tools, the company said. Clark convinced a Twitter employee that he was "a coworker in the IT department," according to a court document filed Friday. The compromised accounts then tweeted that they were feeling "generous" and would match bitcoin donations. The DOJ said that generated more than 400 transfers to the scammers' cryptocurrency wallet worth more than $100,000. Complaints said victims of the hack included former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, Floyd Mayweather, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, Apple, Uber, and the cryptocurrency exchanges KuCoin, Coinbase, Gemini, and Binance. The DOJ said more than 100 accounts were compromised. Warren said Clark was "not an ordinary 17-year-old" and called the hack a "highly sophisticated attack on a magnitude not seen before." He also said that the hack "could have destabilized financial markets" or "undermined American politics." Clark's mother told NBC News on Friday that she believes her son is innocent. "I believe he didn't do it. I've spoken to him every day... I'm devastated," she told NBC News. The DOJ said "the Secret Service, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI, the IRS, as well as our state, local and international law enforcement partners" were involved in the investigation and arrests. "We appreciate the swift actions of law enforcement in this investigation and will continue to cooperate as the case progresses. For our part, we are focused on being transparent and providing updates regularly," Twitter said in a tweet Friday. A representative for Warren's office said Clark had not yet been assigned an attorney, according to their records. Read the original article on Business Insider A friend of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput has written in an email to the police that he is being pressurised to make negative statements against actor Rhea Chakraborty. Sushant died by suicide on June 14 and his father has filed an FIR against actors girlfriend, Rhea, accusing her of abetment to suicide. a mutual friend of the actors, wrote to Mumbai Police in his email that he is being pressured to implicate Rhea in case. The report said the email is a part of the petition filed in the Supreme Court by Rhea to transfer the FIR to Mumbai. In an email to Mumbai Police on 28th July he claimed to have received at least three phone calls from the late actors family where according to Siddharth, they asked him to give a statement against Chakraborty about her expenses when she was with Rajput at his home. He also alleged that family members of Sushant, including his sister Meetu Singh and relative OP Singh, called him July 22 on a conference call where another unknown number had also joined and again on July 27, a similar call was received by him asking him to give statement against Rhea. He also alleged that he is being asked to give a statement on issues he wasnt aware of. Also Watch | Sushant Rajput death probe turns into Bihar Vs Maharashtra tussle Siddharth said he was again asked by Singh to give his statement Rhea to Bihar police. I was told I would receive a phone call. I got a call from an unknown WhatsApp number, but it ended within 40 seconds, and no statement was recorded, he said in the email. I am pressurised to comply and record statements against Rhea, the things which I am not aware of, the email added. The email was used in the petition filed by Rhea with the Supreme Court. Rheas petition in the SC is for transferring FIR to Mumbai. She alleged that there cannot be an impartial investigation in Bihar for the case and hence, she sought transfer of probe in the FIR to Mumbai. In Bihar, there cannot be an impartial investigation and thereby she seeks transfer of probe in the FIR registered in Bihar to Mumbai, she stated in her petition. Also read: Ankita Lokhande breaks silence on Sushant Singh Rajputs death, says he could not have taken his own life, was not depressed In her petition, she claimed that Rajput was suffering from depression from some time and was also on anti-depressants. He committed suicide on the morning of June 14, 2020, at his Bandra residence by hanging himself, read the petition. The actor further claimed that she had also filed a complaint at Mumbais Santa Cruz police station against the death and rape threats. Earlier, she had demanded a CBI probe in the case. (With ANI inputs) Follow @htshowbiz for more Your browser does not support the audio element. The World Bank (WB) and the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) on Thursday signed an agreement for more than US$6.2 million in grants provided to enhance Vietnam's surveillance and testing capacities during the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The signing ceremony of the grant agreement took place in Hanoi between representatives from the WB and Vietnamese central bank. The COVID-19 situation in Vietnam is evolving quickly, Stefanie Stallmeister, acting country director for the WB in Vietnam, was quoted as saying at the event in a WB press release. This emergency operation will not only support the government to quickly monitor and respond to COVID-19 but also contribute to building a resilient health system for future health emergencies, she said. The Vietnam COVID-19 emergency response project is granted by the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) through its insurance window allocation to Vietnam. PEF is a financing mechanism housed at the World Bank to provide an additional source of financing to help some countries deal with large-scale outbreaks. According to the SBV, the project would strengthen the capacities of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) and other testing laboratories nationwide, which is important now to improve the capability in the judgment of herd immunity against the COVID-19 pandemic. One part of the grant will also be used for adding more medical equipment to the Center for Research and Production of Vaccines and Biologicals (POLYVAC). The project is also going to support 200 laboratories involved in the process of COVID-19 surveillance and testing in hospitals and provincial Centers for Disease Control across the country. In addition to that, the WB grant will support Vietnam's efforts in the research and production of vaccines. This is expected to improve Vietnam's capacities in detection and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. SBV deputy governor Nguyen Thi Hong, on behalf of the Vietnamese government, expressed gratitude to the WB and the PEF for their valuable support. "We hope in the future, the World Bank will help Vietnam looking for more financial grants like this project," Hong said, adding the central bank was working closely with the Ministry of Health and other agencies to complete the necessary procedures to receive the grant as early as possible. Vietnam's COVID-19 tally sits at 509 cases, with 373 recoveries and one death as of Friday afternoon, according to Ministry of Health statistics. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Jammu and Kashmir senior bureaucrat Tasaduq Jeelani lost the battle of life with coronavirus COVID-19 on Friday. Jeelani passed away at the SKIMS hospital in Bemina due to cardiopulmonary arrest in the evening. Jeelani was undergoing treatment in the hospital since July 14, when he was admitted. The Kashmir Administrative Service officer was working as special secretary, Social Welfare Department. Confirming his death, hospital authorities said that Jeelani died of post-COVID-19 complications. The cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest, said the hospital authorities. They further added Jeelani was a diabetic patient. J&K Lieutenant Governor G C Murmu expressed grief over the untimely demise of Jeelani. He prayed for eternal peace to the departed soul and forbearance to the bereaved family. Advisor to LG R R Bhatnagar has extended warm greetings on the auspicious occasion of Eid-ul-Azha,hoping that it would bring love & oneness through its message of self discipline & sacrifice among the people of J&K; he prayed for peace, progress & prosperity of the people of J&K DIPR-J&K (@diprjk) July 31, 2020 Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, the Department of Information and Public Relations said, "Lt Gov Girish Chandra Murmu has expressed grief over the sad & untimely demise of sr KAS Officer Tasaduq Jeelani, who was working as Special Secy, Social Welfare Dept; he prayed for eternal peace to the departed soul & forbearance to the bereaved family." Th COVID-19 positive cases are on the rise in the union territory. On Friday, 490 new positive cases and 13 deaths have been reported from Jammu and Kashmir--143 from Jammu division and 347 from Kashmir division. Moreover, 375 more COVID-19 patients have recovered and been discharged from various hospitals--78 from Jammu division and 297 from Kashmir division. Kim Hyun-chong, the second deputy director of the National Security Office (NSO), speaks during a briefing on the Revised Missile Guidelines negotiations with Washington at Cheong Wa Dae's press center, July 28. Yonhap By Do Je-hae Aside from President Moon Jae-in, one of the biggest newsmakers at Cheong Wa Dae is Kim Hyun-chong, the second deputy director of the National Security Office (NSO). Because of the secretive nature of his work, he rarely appears in Cheong Wa Dae's press center. So whenever he shows up at a briefing, reporters who cover presidential politics know instinctively that something serious is about to happen. The presidential office announced that Kim would be giving a briefing only 17 minutes before it took place at 2 p.m., July 28, without disclosing the topic in advance. Lately the briefing center has been quite sparse compared to a year ago, before the COVID-19 pandemic. But when the briefing notice was made, the center filled up once again. There had been some rumors that Kim would be making a big announcement this month and his latest briefing contained some exciting news. After nine months of negotiations following President Moon Jae-in's order, Kim announced the revised missile guidelines agreement with Washington which will ease the decades-long restrictions that have limited Korea's military and space potential. The Revised Missile Guidelines (RMG) will enable Korea to develop solid-fuel space vehicles and launch military spy satellites, which are expected to significantly increase Korea's Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, something the country has lacked in comparison to other neighboring powers such as Japan and China. "We are strengthening our security capabilities further and at the same time establishing and faithfully implementing security strategies that can help our national economy," Kim said at the briefing, July 28. Striking the pact with Washington is considered a major win for the NSO, which the opposition has dragged over the coals over a lack of visible achievements on any of the big security and diplomatic issues. 'Missile sovereignty' Kim hinted that Korea will continue to negotiate with the U.S. with the aim to recover Korea's "missile sovereignty," which is something President Moon highlighted in a statement after the revised guidelines were announced. It was the first time for the two-time former trade minister to appear at an official briefing at Cheong Wa Dae since a series of briefings last year in July and August on Seoul's response to a bilateral dispute with Japan. This time, reporters were particularly curious about the possibility of future negotiations with Washington for extending the range limit of 800 kilometers imposed on Korean ballistic missiles, which remains in place despite the latest revision. "If it is necessary for national security, I would like to say that we can discuss the 800-kilometer limit any time with the U.S.," Kim said. "The issue of easing the 800-kilometer restriction will be resolved in due time." According to his tweet, he met with Robert B. Abrams, commander of the United States Forces Korea (USFK) on July 31. "After the revision of the Korea-U.S. missile guidelines, we shared our views on how to strengthen the alliance and the recent situation on the Korean Peninsula. There is still a lot to do in the future." Other than the missile issue, it is expected that the immediate focus of the NSO second deputy director will be on the Korea-Japan row over a bilateral military intelligence-sharing pact, the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), signed at the U.S. initiative in 2016. In November 2019, Korea reversed its decision of a few months earlier to scrap the bilateral pact, saying it would postpone its expiry while the two countries sort out their trade dispute, which erupted after Japan's removal of Korea from its "whitelist" of trusted trading partners in August 2019. All eyes will be on what kind of decision Seoul will make regarding GSOMIA ahead of the deadline for the pact's expiration on Aug. 23. "I will continue to review this issue and will try to come to a good decision," Kim said before closing the briefing on RMG negotiations. Entering his third year in office in May, Moon responded to the increasing pressure to reshuffle his diplomatic and national security team and appointed former National Intelligence Service (NIS) head Suh Hoon as the new chief of the NSO last month. In addition, Moon replaced first NSO deputy director Kim You-geun with former vice defense minister Suh Choo-suk, but chose to retain Kim. President Moon Jae-in, right, arrives at the Mekong-ROK summit in Busan on Nov. 27, 2019, with NSO second deputy director Kim Hyun-chong, second from right, and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, left. Korea Times file PM to launch to several initiatives to mark 1st anniversary of National Education Policy New Education Policy 2020: Advantages and disadvantages of NEP India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, July 31: The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the National Education Policy 2020. * This is the first education policy of the 21st century and replaces the thirty-four-year-old National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986. Highlights of the NEP 2020: The new policy aims for universalisation of education from pre-school to secondary level with 100 per cent Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in school education by 2030 and aims to raise GER in higher education to 50 per cent by 2025. Sushant Rajput death: Bihar police follow money trail & more news | Oneindia News NEP 2020 will bring two crore out of school children back into the main stream. The 10+2 structure of school curricula is to be replaced by a 5+3+3+4 curricular structure corresponding to ages 3-8, 8-11, 11-14, and 14-18 years respectively. It will include 12 years of schooling and three years of Anganwadi and pre-schooling. NCERT will develop a National Curricular and Pedagogical Framework for Early Childhood Care and Education (NCPFECCE) for children up to the age of eight. NEP 2020 calls for setting up of a National Mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy by the Education Ministry. States will prepare an implementation plan for attaining universal foundational literacy and numeracy in all primary schools for all learners by grade 3 by 2025. A National Book Promotion Policy is to be formulated. All students will take school examinations in Grades 3, 5, and 8 which will be conducted by the appropriate authority. Board exams for Grades 10 and 12 will be continued, but redesigned with holistic development as the aim. A new National Assessment Centre, PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development), will be set up as a standard-setting body. NEP emphasises on setting up of Gender Inclusion Fund and also Special Education Zones for disadvantaged regions and groups. Every state/district will be encouraged to establish ''Bal Bhavans'' as a special daytime boarding school, to participate in art-related, career-related, and play-related activities. Free school infrastructure can be used as Samajik Chetna Kendras. A common National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) will be developed by the National Council for Teacher Education by 2022, in consultation with NCERT, SCERTs, teachers and expert organizations from across levels and regions. States/UTs will set up independent State School Standards Authority (SSSA). The SCERT will develop a School Quality Assessment and Accreditation Framework (SQAAF) through consultations with all stakeholders. NEP 2020 aims to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education including vocational education from 26.3 per cent in 2018 to 50 per cent by 2035 and aims to add 3.5 crore new seats to higher education institutions. The policy envisages broad-based, multi-disciplinary, holistic Under Graduate education with flexible curricula, creative combinations of subjects, integration of vocational education and multiple entry and exit points with appropriate certification. An Academic Bank of Credit is to be established for digitally storing academic credits earned from different HEIs so that these can be transferred and counted towards final degree earned. Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities (MERUs), at par with IITs, IIMs, to be set up as models of best multidisciplinary education of global standards in the country. The National Research Foundation will be created as an apex body for fostering a strong research culture and building research capacity across higher education. Higher Education Commission of India(HECI) will be set up as a single overarching umbrella body for entire higher education, excluding medical and legal education. Public and private higher education institutions will be governed by the same set of norms for regulation, accreditation and academic standards. Affiliation of colleges is to be phased out in 15 years and a stage-wise mechanism is to be established for granting graded autonomy to colleges. A new and comprehensive National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education, NCFTE 2021, will be formulated by the NCTE in consultation with NCERT. By 2030, the minimum degree qualification for teaching will be a 4-year integrated B.Ed. degree. Stringent action will be taken against substandard stand-alone Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs). A National Mission for Mentoring will be established, with a large pool of outstanding senior/retired faculty who would be willing to provide short and long-term mentoring/professional support to university/college teachers. The National Scholarship Portal will be expanded to track the progress of students receiving scholarships. Private HEIs will be encouraged to offer larger numbers of free ships and scholarships to their students. Measures such as online courses and digital repositories, funding for research, improved student services, credit-based recognition of MOOCs, etc., will be taken to ensure distance learning is at par with the highest quality in-class programmes. A comprehensive set of recommendations for promoting online education consequent to the recent rise in epidemics and pandemics in order to ensure preparedness with alternative modes of quality education whenever and wherever traditional modes of education are not possible, has been covered. A dedicated unit for the purpose of orchestrating the building of digital infrastructure, digital content and capacity building will be created in the HRD ministry to look after the e-education needs of both school and higher education. An autonomous body, the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF), will be created to provide a platform for the free exchange of ideas on the use of technology to enhance learning, assessment, planning, administration. NEP recommends setting an Indian Institute of Translation and Interpretation (IITI), National Institute (or Institutes) for Pali, Persian and Prakrit, strengthening of Sanskrit and all language departments in HEIs, and use mother tongue/local language as a medium of instruction in more HEI programmes. Internationalisation of education will be facilitated through both institutional collaborations, and student and faculty mobility and allowing entry of top world ranked universities to open campuses in India. Stand-alone technical universities, health science universities, legal and agricultural universities etc will aim to become multi-disciplinary institutions. Policy aims to achieve 100% youth and adult literacy. The Centre and the States will work together to increase the public investment in Education sector to reach 6 per cent of GDP at the earliest. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, July 31, 2020, 12:13 [IST] Johnny Depps former partners Winona Ryder and Vanessa Paradis have described the allegations of domestic violence made against him by his former wife Amber Heard as impossible to believe. The pair said the allegations were horrific and outrageous and said Depp was never violent or abusive to them. They were due to give evidence in support of the 57-year-olds libel claim against the publisher of The Sun this week, but neither were called to give evidence at the High Court case against News Group Newspapers (NGN) over alleviations he was a wife beater. Their witness statements were released to the media on Thursday, the eighth day of the trial at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Ryder, who starred with Depp in the film Edward Scissorhands, said her experience with the Pirates of the Caribbean actor was wildly different to the one depicted by Heard, 34. She said she found the horrific allegations impossible to believe. The actor, who was in a relationship with Depp during the early 1990s, said in her statement: I knew Johnny very well years ago. We were together as a couple for four years, and I counted him as my best friend, and as close to me as family. I count our relationship as one of the more significant relationships of my life. I understand that it is very important that I speak from my own experience, as I obviously was not there during his marriage to Amber, but, from my experience, which was so wildly different, I was absolutely shocked, confused and upset when I heard the accusations against him. The idea that he is an incredibly violent person is the farthest thing from the Johnny I knew and loved. I cannot wrap my head around these accusations. He was never, never violent towards me. He was never, never abusive at all towards me. He has never been violent or abusive towards anybody I have seen. Ryder added: I truly and honestly only know him as a really good man an incredibly loving, extremely caring guy who was so very protective of me and the people that he loves and I felt so very, very safe with him. Amber Heard waves as she leaves the High Court in London (AFP/Getty) (DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP via Getty Images) Paradis, who was in a relationship with Mr Depp for 14 years and had two children with him, said she has known him for more than 25 years and described him as a kind, attentive, generous, and non-violent person and father. She said: On movie sets the actors, directors and entire crews adore him because he is humble and respectful to everyone, as well as being one of the best actors weve seen. Referring to the allegations made by Heard, Paradis said: This is nothing like the true Johnny I have known and, from my personal experience of many years, I can say he was never violent or abusive to me. I have seen that these outrageous statements have been really distressing, and also caused damage to his career because unfortunately people have gone on believing these false facts. This is so upsetting as he has helped so many persons in his personal and professional life, with kindness and generosity. Ryder and Paradis were set to appear via videolink from their respective homes in Los Angeles and France, but Depps legal team decided not to call them to give live evidence. Sasha Wass QC, representing NGN, said she would have wanted to cross-examine Paradis and Ryder, but could not if they were no longer to be called as witnesses. On Thursday, the High Court heard from Depps head of security, Sean Bett, who claimed Heard was verbally and physically abusive throughout the relationship. Photo of Depp with injuries allegedly sustained from Heard during an incident in Los Angeles in March 2015 (PA) Mr Bett, a former deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, said there was a recurring cycle in which Heard would abuse the Hollywood star, who would then remove himself from the situation. He also said Depp had told him that Ms Heard had slapped him on the face a few times. The court also heard evidence from Starling Jenkins, who has provided security services to Depp since 1993, who claimed he had to retrieve Depps mobile phone from a homeless man in exchange for $425 (335) and food including three chicken tacos after Heard threw it off a balcony. Mr Jenkins said he drove Heard and her friends to the Coachella music festival on 22 April 2016, the day after Depp is alleged to have grabbed Heard by the hair and shoved her in a heated row after Heards 30th birthday party at the couples LA penthouse. He said that, when he arrived at the apartment, he saw no marks or bruises of any kind on her face or body. Mr Jenkins also claimed Heard was hooping it up all weekend, adding: It was clear that she and her girlfriends spent much of the time at Coachella intoxicated. Depp is suing NGN and The Suns executive editor, Dan Wootton, over the publication of an article on 27 April 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 that there was overwhelming evidence that 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 Ms Heard, particularly when he was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. On Friday, the court is due to hear evidence from witnesses including Katherine Kendall, an actress and #MeToo advocate who claims she was misquoted in The Suns article, before Heard is due to begin three days of evidence on Monday morning. Additional reporting by PA Billions of dollars in tech revenue are at risk across Asia Pacific following the most recent United States restrictions on Chinese smartphone maker Huawei, ratings agency Standard and Poor's said in a report this week. President Donald Trump's administration introduced a new rule in May that requires foreign companies using U.S. chipmaking equipment to obtain an American license in order to sell certain semiconductors to Huawei or its affiliates. There is no indication that the U.S. will grant those licenses anytime soon. For its part, Huawei needs those semiconductors in order to produce its smartphones and telecommunication equipment. The U.S.-China confrontation puts about $25 billion in revenue at risk across the Asia Pacific technology companies rated by S&P that do business with Huawei, according to S&P Global Ratings. The new restrictions could affect as much as 15% to 20% of revenues, or around $7 billion, of foundry companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation China's largest contract chipmaker. Huawei one of the world's largest smartphone makers and a top telecommunications equipment manufacturer is in the middle of a fight between the United States and China for global technological dominance. A man wearing a face mask uses his mobile phone as he walks past a Huawei store in Beijing on May 16, 2020. Wang Zhao | AFP | Getty Images Even before the new licensing rules in May, Huawei was put on the so-called "entity list" last year which restricted American firms from doing business with the Chinese firm without seeking permission from the government. Washington says the tech company's activities pose a risk to the national security and foreign policy interests of the U.S. Other firms in the region could experience a secondary hit to the tune of another $18 billion indirectly due to their exposure to firms that are on the U.S. blacklist alongside Huawei, according to the S&P report. "These expanded rules in particular hit chipset production (foundries) companies that use certain U.S. technology or manufacturing equipment," Clifford Kurz, credit analyst at S&P Global Ratings, said in a statement. "Without a license from the U.S. government, such companies will be unable to provide services directly to Huawei without facing restrictions themselves," he added. The world we live in is very different from what it was just six months back. Staying at home is now encouraged and working from home is now the new normal. While it might seem more relaxing, work-from-home brings with it a bunch of issues that pretty much didn't exist before. For example, proximity to colleagues was taken for granted and thus not being able to hear someone in a meeting, or not being able to work on a project together was never really a problem. But now, "can you hear me" makes up half of all meetings. Keeping this in mind, two telecom giants, namely Indias Airtel and the USAs Verizon have come together to ensure that video meetings can be as smooth and seamless as possible. Their partnership to bring Airtel BlueJeans to India aims to revolutionise how we conduct meetings from home as the enterprise-grade video conferencing platform is built with decades of experience in telecommunication and is loaded with features. But before we get into the features, it's important to understand the enormity of a video-conferencing service to be coming from two telecom operators. Airtel, one of the most trusted network provider in India, has been a pioneer when it comes to telecom innovations. The company was the first to introduce Wi-Fi calling and LTE-900 tech in India and is currently the only one to test 5G network in the country. It has consecutively been the winner in multiple categories in Opensignal Reports. On the other hand, Verizon is one of the largest network providers in the USA with various accolades under its belt. The company has acquired some of the most legendary web services in the world including AOL and Yahoo! It has also already started offering 5G services in the USA. So, safe to assume that Airtel BlueJeans will bring not just the best of both worlds but also the best of communication tech. So what is Airtel BlueJeans all about? Well, Airtel BlueJeans aims to offer enterprises a secure and flexible service that can be a one-stop solution for all their video conferencing needs. Since pretty much everything is happening through video calls now, security becomes a much bigger concern. Only a couple of months ago, there were reports of data being leaked via video conferencing platforms. To make sure that doesn't happen, Airtel BlueJeans has put multiple security features in place. Heres a look at what all it has to offer. Localised data storage Airtel BlueJeans offers local data storage which is not only important for security, but local storage also means low latency, which in turn enables a better user experience. So expect a lot less lag in conversations. Dolby Voice To ensure clear audio, Airtel BlueJeans uses the award-winning services of Dolby Audio, which is the same tech used in high-grade TVs and theatres. This should be more than enough to ensure seamless audio for your video and voice conferences. Real-time transcription Airtel BlueJeans comes with a feature called Smart Meetings. This feature uses voice recognition software to transcribe the meeting. in other words, you wont have to worry about taking notes to create a minutes of the meeting. Integrated workflow This feature allows users to connect from various other platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Workplace by Facebook, Office 365, Google Calendar, Slack, Splunk, Trello and many more. Not only that, but the meeting owner can also delegate actions to the different people who are in attendance. Huge meetings While most video conferencing solutions are limited to a few thousand people, Airtel BlueJeans can be scaled up to host up to 50,000 attendees. This makes it ideal for hosting massive webinars and even product launches. 24x7 support Airtel has always been very responsive when it comes to customer support and that gets extended to Airtel BlueJeans as well. In case users have any issues, they can reach out to the support staff 24x4. As it should be pretty clear, Airtel BlueJeans promises a very secure and feature-rich video conferencing platform for businesses. The service has now been launched in India and as a bonus, those interested can register for a free trial. Click here to register. [Brand Story] Former Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Emmanuel Kwadwo Agyekum has condemned what he described as the obnoxious intimidation and assault meted out to some NDC members at the various Registration centers in the Nkoranza South Constituency. Mr Agyekum who is contesting the Nkoranza South Parliamentary seat on the ticket of the NDC noted that, the intimidation is a calculated attempt to deter people in the NDC strongholds from registering to exercise their franchise come December 7th, blaming the MP for the area, Charles Konadu Yiadom. Since the start of the registration exercise these sponsored thugs have been moving around assaulting and intimidating people on the suspicion of not being Ghanaians. Meanwhile, the MP sat in Parliament to pass CI 126 which allows anyone to fill a challenge form if he or she suspects any person's eligibility to register,. Mr Agyekum recounted an instance where the Nkoranza South Police Commander was physically assaulted after he tried to stop a violent banter at Ahyiayem. This led to the closer of the registration process for all the three polling stations at Ahyiayem and it has since deter people from coming to the Registration centers because they fear the MP might come with his thugs to cause mayhem. He also blamed the MP for similar violence that erupted at Nkwabeng and Donkro Nkwanta which the NDC Constituency Youth Organizer and other persons were physically assaulted by his thugs. He urged the MP to preach the good things he has done for the people of Nkoranza South Constituency rather than unleashing violence on innocent citizens to win political power. A missed opportunity: Rakuten purchased California-based shopping portal Buy.com back in 2010 for $250 million. Buy.com seemed like a great name for an online retail shop it was short, easy to spell and difficult to forget. A dream domain to own, if you will. Yet in 2013, the Japanese conglomerate decided to ditch the branding in favor of the Rakuten name, which had virtually zero market awareness in the US at that time. Visiting Buy.com after the rebrand simply directed visitors to the main Rakuten website. Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten is shutting down its online retail store in the US, the company has confirmed to TechCrunch. In late 2014, Rakuten bought online rebate site Ebates.com for $1 billion in cash, further bolstering its position in the US e-commerce space. The company was also an early adopter of Bitcoin, allowing shoppers to pay for purchases on Rakuten.com using the virtual currency from early 2015 on. Per TechCrunch, Rakuten.com will remain operational for the next two months, allowing US shoppers to place orders at any point during that time. Once the clock runs out, however, the site will shut down for good, were told, and the companys nearly 100 US employees will be out of a job. An exact date for Rakuten's US site closure wasn't provided. Update: Rakuten reached out after publication and issued the following clarification: "The U.S. Rakuten Marketplace is located at Rakuten.com/shop (to clarify, Rakuten.com is our Cash Back business -- formerly Ebates and is not shutting down)." Image credit: Michael Vi, itsovertnik Entrepreneur Richard Gurewitsch Created ENVIOS305 to Help Latin Countries Gain Supplies and to Create More Jobs During COVID-19 MIAMI, FL / ACCESSWIRE / July 31, 2020 / While many people were laid off and lost their jobs due to the coronavirus (COVID-19), Richard Gurewitsch saw an opportunity not only to help people in other countries gain access to the supplies they need, but also to create a company that provides jobs in this dire time. Statistics show that the number of unemployed Americans went from 6.2 million in February to 20.5 million in May 2020. Finding new jobs proved difficult, and companies such as this new one created by Richard Gurewitsch were welcome in a sea of unemployment. Richard Gurewitsch has been an entrepreneur for many years, and his latest endeavor, ENVIOS305, is another successful company that was created to help immigrants as well as those living in Latin American countries such as Cuba and other countries in the Caribbean. Richard Gurewitsch Creates ENVIOS305 in Record Time Richard Gurewitsch says that the reason he created this new service was to help mitigate the effects of the economic devastation in Cuba, as well as other Caribbean and Central American countries. He and his team of engineers and marketing staff were able to create and develop this new service in record time, so that they could immediately start helping people who need the supplies ENVIOS305 provides. This new service created by Richard Gurewitsch and his team is able to send non-perishable food, cookware, electronic items, and more to Cuba and other countries directly from Panama via ship with a fast turnaround. Some of the popular items sold through ENVIOS305 include bicycles, blenders, food items, toiletries, and slow cookers. Richard Gurewitsch Makes More Jobs Available During COVID-19 Since its formation over the past few months, Richard Gurewitsch's new service has grown exponentially. Due to such rapid growth, they have had to duplicate their full-time associates in the call center and administration online to accommodate their increasing demand for goods and services. "I feel so grateful to be able to not only provide people in Cuba and the other Caribbean and Central American countries with these supplies and items they need during this devastating time but also to be able to create new jobs and provide work for people who have lost their job and need the stability of a full-time job to provide for their family," says Richard Gurewitsch. This entrepreneur knows how to help people with the companies he creates, and there is no doubt that he will continue to do so. CONTACT: Caroline Hunter Web Presence, LLC +1 7865519491 SOURCE: Richard Gurewitsch View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/599763/Richard-Gurewitsch-Provides-Jobs-During-COVID-19-While-Aiding-Latin-Countries-With-New-Company-ENVIOS305 WASHINGTON, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to a recent article published by the Miami Herald reporting that 17 anesthesiology residents in Florida contracted COVID-19, AARKEN, LLC, creator and producer of the Disposable Protective Barrier Enclosure, Vapor Guard, announced today their intent to provide select Integrated Delivery Networks' front-line healthcare workers several disposable Vapor Guard "intubation boxes" for use in anesthesia and ICU services. According to CEO, Aaron Pease, "Vapor Guard helps to keep health care workers treating patients, instead of becoming patients. Vapor Guard is a vital layer of protection, in addition to existing PPE, uniquely designed to protect health care workers and patients from exposure to pathogenic airborne particulates when caring for or treating patients. Like other PPE, it's a single-use consumable safety item that providers are demanding. Logically, it will become the new standard for front-line Anesthesia and healthcare worker protection." In April, The New England Journal of Medicine published use case test results. Analysis indicates that potential contamination of gown, gloves, face mask, eye shield, hair, neck, ears, and shoes as well as nearby medical equipment without the use of an "intubation box" is substantial. The study showed that existing PPE worn by the provider is not enough to keep healthcare workers safe from infectious droplets and that use of a protective barrier enclosure materially reduces contact with pathogenic droplets. Furthermore, the American Society of Anesthesiologists has published editorials highlighting the increased risk that anesthesia providers face during the care of COVID-19 patients. "Preventing transmission of infectious diseases to patients and protecting healthcare workers should be a top priority every day, especially but not exclusively during recurring viral epidemics," (Bowdle, et al., "Anesthesiology," V132, No. 6.). AARKEN LLC, produces Vapor Guard which improves safety by reducing the spread of aerosolized pathogens in health care environments. For more information, visit vaporguardme.com and connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. TAGS: #COVID-19, #PPE, #ASA, #AANA, #APSF, #ACHE, #Anesthesia, #Florida Outbreak SOURCE AARKEN, LLC Related Links https://www.vaporguardme.com/ A woman wearing a face mask walks on a street, after Catalonia's regional authorities and the city council announced restrictions to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Barcelona, Spain, on July 17, 2020. (Nacho Doce/Reuters) Germany Puts Three Virus-Hit Spanish Regions on High-Risk List BERLINGermany will force people returning from three Spanish regions, including Cataloniahome to Barcelonato go into quarantine or take a coronavirus test, in the latest blow to Europes travel industry after months of lockdown. With virus numbers ticking up in Germany, fears have grown that tourists returning from destinations experiencing a surge in new cases, like Spain, could sow the seeds of a second wave. Germany reported 870 more confirmed coronavirus cases on Friday, bringing the total number to 208,698 while 9,141 deaths have been recorded. The Robert Koch Institute put Catalonia, Aragon, and Navarre in northern Spain on its list of places designated high-risk for coronavirus on Friday. People returning from high-risk areas must go into quarantine for two weeks unless they can present a negative coronavirus test not older than 48 hours or are willing to take a test at an airport. From next week, Germany plans to make coronavirus tests mandatory at airports for all returning holidaymakers from high-risk areas in order to slow the spread of infections. The decision comes after Britain reimposed a 14-day quarantine period on people arriving from Spain and could deal a further blow to Spains economy, which depends on tourism for 12.3 percent of its economic output. Last week, Norway said it would re-impose a 10-day quarantine requirement for people arriving from Spain, while France advised people not to travel to Spains northeastern region of Catalonia. By Caroline Copley Cross-border shelling by Pakistan killed at least 15 civilians in Afghanistan on July 31, prompting Kabul to put its ground and air forces on alert. The shelling came after clashes between Pakistani and Afghan security forces at the closed Chaman-Spin Boldak border crossing, where people were waiting to cross on both sides of the border to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. The Afghan Defense Ministry on July 31 said that the countrys chief of army staff had ordered the armed forces to respond with full force if the artillery attacks by the Pakistani Army continued along a disputed border between the neighboring countries. Pakistani security officials said a protest against the closure of the border for daily commute turned violent at the Chaman area on the other side of Spin Boldak in Pakistans Balochistan Province, but no live ammunition had been used. However, activists blamed Pakistani security forces for opening fire on protesters and shelling into Afghanistan where people were also protesting. "If the Pakistani military continues its rocket attacks on Afghan territory, they will face retaliation by the Afghan Army," Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said in a statement. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters that the matter had been taken up with Afghan authorities and hoped it would be resolved amicably. The 2,430-kilometer-long Afghan-Pakistan border was created in 1893 between then-British India and the Emirate of Afghanistan. Clashes between neighboring states along the de facto border known as the Durand Line rarely occur, but relations are considered tense. With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, Reuters, and dpa BURLINGTON As Environmental Learning Centers of CT celebrates its 50th Anniversary, members are embarking on a capital campaign, Blazing New Trails. This name signifies ELCCTs goals; the hundreds of thousands of children and adults educated about the importance of nature and theenvironment, the hundreds of acres of wildlife habitat protected, and the reputation gained, through hard work and the support of our community, as one of Connecticuts premier environmental conservation and education organizations, according to a statemen. The Blazing New Trails Campaign has a goal of $2 million: $1 million for Indian Rock Nature Preserve, and $1 million for the Harry C. Barnes Memorial Nature Center, members said. The projects for Indian Rock Nature Preserve include restoring the preserves centerpiece- Indian Lake, completing the deck overlooking Indian Lake, installing solar panels and other energy-saving building improvements, and the creation of a three-season covered program space, or Education Pavilion, to meet the demand to host large groups, according to the statement. The projects for the Harry C. Barnes Memorial Nature Center include creating an accessible trail on the original parcel, installing a nature play area in conjunction with the new trail and the Centers educational programs, installing solar panels and other energy-saving building improvements, and saving an adjacent 63.9 acres, Pigeon Hill, from mining and development. According to members of ELCCT, Pigeon Hill consists of 63.9 acres of land in Bristol and Burlington, adjacent to the Harry C. Barnes Memorial Nature Center. Part of the property is being leased to a horse boarding operation, according to the statement. The rest of the property is open space and serves to enhance the land currently owned by ELCCT. The land gets its name from reports that Passenger Pigeons, now extinct, once roosted in large numbers on the glacial esker that is located on both the existing nature center property as well as the Pigeon Hill property. The esker was formed by sediment brought in by a river under the glacier that remained when the glacier melted centuries ago, leaving a tall meandering ridge; a local landmark. The owners have informed us of their intentions to mine the glacial esker for sand and gravel followed by the construction of 161 housing units. Though ELCCT is not inherently against sand and gravel extraction or development, in this case, this proposed plan would have a devastating effect on the neighborhood, would wipe out a geologically significant landform, degrade the quality of a pristine trout stream that bisects the property, and impair ELCCTs ability to provide the education and conservation it has become known for, according to the statement. The alternative to this plan would be to protect the entire assemblage as open space and manage the habitats as an extension of the nature center property. As a result, ELCCT has worked with the landowners, Barnes Nature Center neighbors, the State of Connecticut, the Town of Burlington, Burlington Land Trust, the City of Bristol, and many other partners, with the goal of purchasing the Pigeon Hill property as open space for the benefit of wildlife and the people of our surrounding communities. Members say that the City of Bristol and ELCCT are working together on this project and have secured a limited-time agreement with the landowners to purchase the property. The goal is that the property will be protected as open space. The City of Bristol will purchase the Bristol parcels and ELCCT will purchase the Burlington parcel, according to the statement. ELCCT will work with the city to help with the management of the entire assemblage including the restoration of portions that were already mined, the extension of nature center trails into the property, establishment of a diversity of wildlife habitats, and the development of research and educational opportunities for community members, school children and universities. The State of Connecticut has agreed that this plan is consistent with the States conservation and open space goals and has awarded ELCCT and the City of Bristol a grant of $850,800 towards this project; the second highest award of all applicants, according to the statement. As per agreement, each entity needs to purchase their respective parcels or no parcels will be sold. The city of Bristol is committed to purchasing the Bristol parcels through city funding and its share of grant funds. ELCCT has $150,000 left to raise by Sept. 30: $125,000 to complete the purchase and $25,000 to start the restoration. For information, go to elcct.org/savepigeonhill Its been an annual ritual for longer than I care to admit: summer weeks on the rocky coast of Maine. Much of the appeal, as with any tradition, is its changeless character. The precise times for high and low tides change each day, but in a predictable fashion. Although my children have grown from toddlers to adults as old as I was when I first took them to Maine the magical tide pools in which they used to splash are everlasting. The world might be going to hell, but summertime in Maine remains forever constant true north, both literally and metaphorically. New Delhi, July : Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Friday said that the government should take policy measures to end 2nd generation mobile connectivity as it keeps people devoid of Internet connectivity. Speaking at the occasion of 25 years of mobile telephony in India, Ambani noted that as the telecom players mark the achievements made so far, this is also an occasion to look at the obstacles that have prevented Indian consumers and Indian society from fully benefiting from the digital revolution. "Here, I specifically refer to the fact that India still has 300 million mobile subscribers trapped in the 2G era. Their feature phones keep them excluded, even from the basic uses of Internet at a time where both India and the rest of the world are standing at the doorsteps of 5G telephony," he said. "I think necessary policy steps should be taken with utmost urgency to make 2G a part of history." Ambani's Jio Platforms has already announced it will partner with Google to launch an entry-level Android smartphone soon. Reliance Jio launched a feature phone called JioPhone in 2017 that currently has an installed base of 20 per cent among the country's feature phone users. Noting that the next 25 years will bring even more breathtaking changes in mobility, the RIL Chairman said that time has come for India to be ahead of the rest of the world in key areas of technology. Speaking at the online event organised by COAI, Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal called on the government to lower the taxes and levies for the growth of the industry. "It is time for the government that this industry which has had its ups and downs is now given due attention in the areas of levies and taxes. Taxes have generally been very high in this industry. It is important that this is reviewed thoroughly," he said. Lauding the achievements of the past 25 years, Mittal said that the next 25 years would witness IOT connectivity, low latency and full 5G connectivity across the country. Citing the Prime Minister's call for an 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat', he said that the time has come for India to take the lead in the area of local manufacturing in mobile and telecommunications. Newly-appointed COAI Director General S.P. Kochhar also noted that the focus should be now on self-reliance and security in connectivity and infrastructure. "The industry has changed a lot and the way India communicates has changed even more. The last 25 years have been busy in connecting India, the next 25 years would be about transforming India. It is time to focus on self-reliance and security in connectivity and infrastructure as well as ensuring greater security at all levels of threats," he said. For more than 60 consecutive nights the Black Lives Matters demonstrations, confrontations and altercations have played out, much of the time on the front porch of the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse. With normal operations at the building already cut back due to the coronavirus, the demonstrations have turned the courtrooms, judges chambers and administrative offices into a bit of ghost town. Two state lawmakers now say they have the answer. Rep. Mike Nearman, R-Independence, says its time to move the courthouse to more hospitable climes -- like perhaps Dallas, one of the largest cities in his district. Rep. E. Werner Reschke, R-Klamath Falls, quickly came out in support of Nearmans proposal, but suggested that a better place would be Klamath Falls. Moving the courthouse makes sense, Nearman said. We have business to do, we have legal things to do, we have criminal cases to try. We cant have a courthouse that is under attack every night. I think that just moving it is a great idea. Ron Hoevet, one of the Portlands most experienced criminal defense lawyers, said moving the operation out of the states largest city is a non-starter. The judges would never go for it, he said. And Id have to scrape the Bernie Sanders sticker off my car. I might get shot in Klamath Falls. And why Dallas or Klamath Falls, asked Larry Matasar, another veteran defense lawyer, when there are existing federal courthouses in Eugene, Medford and Pendleton? U.S. Attorney Billy Williams said work continues to get done in the Portland courthouse despite the pandemic and what he called recent violent attacks on the building. Our office, the Federal Public Defenders Office, and the entire courthouse family have worked tirelessly to adapt to the new normal and keep the business of the court moving, he said. Once this time of pandemic and social unrest passes, the courthouse will shine brighter than ever, Williams said. Nearman heartily agrees that the courthouse is an important symbol. All the more reason it should be relocated to a more peaceful locale like Dallas. Dallas may be peaceful. sleepy even. But according to Dallas City Manager Brian Latta, theres a problem with Nearmans plan. This town of 15,000 just west of Salem has no building large enough to house a federal courthouse. Thats a 16-story story building, right, Latta said. We have three-story buildings here in Dallas. Deep-sea anglerfish take sexual intimacy to the next level by 'fusing' bodies with their partners when they mate, a study reveals. In an amazing show of sexual submission, the smaller male anglerfish becomes permanently attached to the relatively gigantic female, resulting in their tissue fusing and the two animals establishing a common blood circulation system. The male becomes entirely dependent on the female for nutrient supply, like a developing fetus in the womb of a mother a process called 'sexual parasitism'. In an incredible display of charity from the female, the male supplies sperm to his mate while simultaneously receiving these nutrients. This weird phenomenon contributes to the reproductive success of anglerfish in the vast deep sea, where females and males otherwise rarely meet. In order to support the mating-fusion process, female anglerfish have evolved a new type of immune system that does not regard the male as 'foreign tissue', allowing them to host up to eight mates simultaneously. Scroll down for video Eat your heart out John and Yoko: A female specimen of the deep-sea anglerfish species Melanocetus johnsonii of about 3 inches (75mm) in size with a one inch (23.5mm) male fused on her belly The permanent attachment of males to females represents what the scientists call a form of 'anatomical joining', unknown in humans except for rare genetically identical twins. In other vertebrate species, sexual parasitism would automatically trigger an immune response and attack foreign tissue, just as it would to destroy cells infected by pathogens. This explains why organ transplantation in humans is such a delicate process it requires careful cross-matching of donor and recipient tissue characters, together with immunosuppressive drugs, to ensure the long-term survival of an organ graft. But for anglerfish, protective immunity would actually stand in the way of reproductive success in the abyss of the deep sea. Don't try this at home: Female of the species Photocorynus spiniceps, 1.8 inches (46mm) with a 0.2 inch (6.2mm) parasitic male fused to her back 'These findings hinted at the possibility that the immune system of anglerfishes was very unusual among the tens of thousands of vertebrate species,' said study author Jeremy Swann at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI-IE) in Freiburg, Germany. Researchers therefore investigated how anglerfish overcome tissue-rejection and perform such a intense union. 'We assume that as yet unknown evolutionary forces first drive changes in the immune system, which are then exploited for the evolution of sexual parasitism,' said co-author Thomas Boehm, also at MPI-IE. The phenomenon of sexual parasitism has posed an enigma that has existed for 100 years, ever since the first attached couple was discovered by an Icelandic fisheries biologist in 1920. Angler fish female, of the species pisces linophrynidae, with two (yes two) males attached (top) With scientists from the US, the MPI-IE team studied the genomes of different anglerfish species, including the structure of molecules called major histocompatibility (MHC) antigens. These molecules are found at the surface of the body's cells and signal an alarm to the immune system, when the cells are infected by a virus or bacteria. MHC molecules are extremely varied and it is hard to find identical or near-identical forms in any two individuals of a single species. This helps explain the problem of tissue-matching that makes human organ and bone marrow transplantation rife with complications. Anglerfish that permanently attach are largely lacking the genes that encode these MHC molecules, the team discovered. The scientists say that it's as if the permanently attached males 'had done away with immune recognition' in favour of tissue fusion. This inhibited the function of T cells, a type of white blood cell of key importance to the immune system. In a shot from footage of live anglerfish mating, a fist-sized female completely dwarfs the male fused to her underside (seen as the tiny object just beneath her belly) 'Apart from this unusual constellation of MHC genes, we discovered that the function of killer T cells, which normally actively eliminate infected cells or attack foreign tissues during the organ rejection process, was also severely blunted if not lost entirely,' said Swann. Further research indicated that antibodies, the second powerful weapon in the arsenal of immune defence, are also missing in some of the anglerfish species. For humans, the combined loss of important immune facilities would result in a severely compromised ability to fight infectious diseases showing some fetishes that are best left to specialised underwater organisms. To effectively be able to stay alive, anglerfish have better innate facilities to defend themselves against infections, the team say. The study shows that vertebrates can survive without the adaptive immune facilities previously considered to be irreplaceable. 'We assume that as yet unknown evolutionary forces first drive changes in the immune system, which are then exploited for the evolution of sexual parasitism,' said Boehm. The findings have been published in the journal Science. In 2018, scientists revealed footage of live anglerfish mating for the first time, according to a report in Science Magazine. Before then, anglerfish mating pairs had reportedly only been observed in dead specimens caught in nets. The eerie footage shows the females glowing filaments extending all around her body, as the tiny male clings on. The footage was captured at a depth of 2,600 feet off Portugals Sao Jorge Island by husband and wife deep sea explorers Kirsten and Joachim Jakobsen using a remotely operated vehicle. On July 29, Eastman Kodak (NYSE:KODK) announced it received a $765 million loan from the U.S. government under the Defense Production Act to manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients in generic drugs as part of a broader response to the coronavirus pandemic. After the news broke out, investors went into a euphoric buying frenzy. In the span of a single day, Kodak's share jumped nearly 300% and trading of the stock was temporarily halted for a time. Perhaps bizarrely, shares of Kodak are now among the best-performing in any stock sector, with a mouth-watering 614% return year to date. Considering the stock-shattering jump, investors who didn't buy into the rally may feel like they missed out, and those who did may find it incredibly difficult to keep holding onto profits. Let's take a look at whether the stock has already reached its full potential or whether more growth could be ahead. The timing couldn't be better With the widespread adoption of digital smartphone cameras, Kodak's core photo and film processing business model has largely become redundant. Back in its heyday in 2005, the company brought in about $11.4 billion every year in revenue. Fast-forward 14 years and Kodak's revenue had declined to just $1.24 billion in 2019. What's more, the company is struggling to turn a profit. In the first quarter of 2020, the company recorded a pre-tax loss of $53 million from its $267 million in revenue. Many factors, such as a high cost of goods sold and employee pension liabilities, are significantly hampering its turnaround capabilities. Hence, the company's manufacturing contract could not have been awarded at a better time. Does the company have a track record for this new venture? Surprisingly enough, this is not the first time Kodak has ventured into the pharmaceutical sector. In the 1990s, the company manufactured nonprescription medicine such as Bayer's aspirin. Ironically, in 1994, the company decided to spin off its pharmaceutical subsidiary Sterling Winthrop and instead focus on its core photo and film business (which we already noted fell off a cliff). One part of Sterling Winthrop was sold to SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) and fetched a staggering $2.93 billion price tag. The remainder, which was sold to Sanofi, was sold for $1.68 billion. So the company does have some experience in the pharmaceutical sector. Additionally, Kodak's chemical manufacturing of films is a lateral skill that can be applied to pharmaceutical manufacturing. But it's unclear how much it will cost to either convert its existing facilities or open new facilities for this new venture. So what's the verdict? Initially, investors may be skeptical that Kodak can pull off its new contract, due to the prevalence of generic drug giants such as Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Mylan, both of which have several magnitudes more production capacity than Kodak. However, under its contract, Kodak will be producing pharmaceutical ingredients that are already facing a shortage, where reputable large-cap manufacturers cannot keep up with the demand. Take the case of generic dexamethasone, a steroid that reduced the risk of mortality by 33% in patients with COVID-19 who are on ventilators. After the study came out, panic buying ensued. Despite having five manufacturers for the drug's active ingredient, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration lists dexamethasone as currently in shortage. What makes the outlook on Kodak even brighter is that the stock was already severely undervalued before it was awarded the Defense Production Act contract. At one point this year, Kodak had a market cap of just $80 million, compared to revenue of $1.24 billion. Even now, the company has a market cap of only $1.45 billion. The company's financial health is also passable, with $263 million in debt compared to $209 million in cash. Hence, I think this rally more or less puts Kodak close to fair value. Pharmaceutical investors who feel they are missing out may wish to open a small stake, while those who can't resist the urge to take profits may want to consider selling a portion of their holdings. By PTI NEW DELHI: Australian High Commissioner Barry O'Farrell on Friday hit back at Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Weidong for objecting to his comments about China's "destabilising" manoeuvres in the South China Sea, and asserted that Beijing should refrain from actions that could unilaterally alter the status quo in the region. On Thursday, O'Farrell said Australia remains deeply concerned by Chinese actions in the South China Sea that are "destabilising and could provoke escalation". The resource-rich South China Sea is also an important shipping route. In a tweet, Sun took objection to the Australian diplomat's remarks and said they were made "disregarding facts". O'Farrell, in his strong response, reminded the Chinese envoy about the verdict by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2016 rejecting China's claim of sovereignty over the South China Sea region. "Thank you @China_Amb_India. I would hope then you follow the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award which is final and binding under international law, and also generally refrain from actions that unilaterally alter the status quo," the Australian high commissioner tweeted. In its verdict, the international tribunal, constituted under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) said that China had violated the sovereign rights of the Philippines by carrying out certain activities in the South China Sea. The Philippines had approached the tribunal arguing that China's territorial claims in the region is unlawful. China claims sovereignty over all of South China Sea, a huge source of hydrocarbons. However, several countries in the region including Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Brunei have competing claims. O'Farrell issued a statement on Thursday criticising China over its border row with India in eastern Ladakh and its actions in South China Sea. "On 23 July, Australia lodged a note with the UN Secretary General refuting China's unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea," he said. "It rejects China's claim to historic rights and internal waters, its assertion of certain maritime zones, and its contention there is wide international recognition of its South China Sea sovereignty claims," the high commissioner added. In the last few weeks, China has increased its military assertiveness in South China Sea when the entire world is battling the coronavirus pandemic. Following Chinese actions, the US sent military ships near the disputed islands, and called Beijing's claim over the region illegal. "The world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire. America stands with our Southeast Asian allies and partners in protecting their sovereign rights to offshore resources," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on July 14. NASA finds Post-Tropical Low Douglas crossing a line The strong wind shear that weakened Douglas to a tropical storm early on July 29 has further weakened it to a post-tropical low-pressure area. NASA's Aqua satellite provided an infrared view of those remnants, headed across the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean. NASA's Aqua Satellite Shows a Post-tropical System NASA's Aqua satellite uses infrared light to analyze the strength of storms by providing temperature information about the system's clouds. The strongest thunderstorms that reach high into the atmosphere have the coldest cloud top temperatures. On July 30 at 0105 UTC (July 29 at 9:05 p.m. EDT), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite gathered infrared data on Douglas that confirmed wind shear had reduced the storm to a post-tropical low pressure area. The wind shear pushed the coldest cloud tops northeast of the center. Those storms had cloud top temperatures as cold as minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 45.5 Celsius). What is a Post-tropical Cyclone? NOAA's National Hurricane Center defines a post-tropical cyclone as a former tropical cyclone. This generic term describes a cyclone that no longer possesses sufficient tropical characteristics to be considered a tropical cyclone. Post-tropical cyclones can continue carrying heavy rains and high winds. Note that former tropical cyclones that have become fully extratropical... as well as remnant lows...are two classes of post-tropical cyclones. Douglas Ready to Cross a Line NOAA's Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) issued the final advisory on Douglas on July 29 at 11 a.m. EDT (5 a.m. HST/1500 UTC). Douglas had degenerated into a post-tropical low-pressure area about 1,135 miles (1,830 km) west-northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. It was centered near latitude 24.7 degrees north and longitude 175.4 degrees west. The post-tropical cyclone is moving toward the west near 23 mph (37 kph). Maximum sustained winds are near 35 mph (55 kph) with higher gusts. Douglas' remnants were expected to cross the International Date Line early on July 30, and it is expected to dissipate shortly after the crossing. Established in 1884, the International Date Line passes through the mid-Pacific Ocean and generally follows a 180 degrees longitude north-south line on the Earth. East of the Date Line lies the central Pacific Ocean. West of the dateline is the western Pacific Ocean. NASA Researches Tropical Cyclones Hurricanes/tropical cyclones are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting. For more than five decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA brings together technology, science, and unique global Earth observations to provide societal benefits and strengthen our nation. Advancing knowledge of our home planet contributes directly to America's leadership in space and scientific exploration. For updated forecasts. visit: http://www. nhc. noaa. gov ### This story has been published on: 2020-07-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. A man has been rushed to hospital after being attacked by a shark at Bunker Bay in WA's South West. St John Ambulance WA confirmed the attack to Yahoo News Australia after two road crews and a helicopter were sent to the scene late Friday afternoon. A male in his 20s suffered a shark bite to the leg, a spokesperson said. The extent of the injury in not yet known but its not believed to be life threatening. Surfers walk along the beach at Bunker Bay, 2.5 hours south of Perth in the Margaret River region of Western Australia. Source: AAP According to Dorsal Watch, a shark was spotted in the area about 2:28pm Friday. After being dragged from the ocean, the man was set to be transported to Royal Perth hospital around 4pm this afternoon. The area is a popular spot with surfers and is nearby the tourist town of Dunsborough, about 260 kilometres south-west of Perth. Surf Life Saving WA issued a number of warnings today about a shark swimming close to shore in the area. The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development said the shark was reportedly four metres long. City of Busselton rangers have now closed the beach this afternoon while the RAC helicopter is conducting aerial surveillance in the area. In 2011, bodyboarder Kyle Burden was killed in a shark attack at Bunker Bay. 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. Fiscal 2019 year end, Restated 2017 and 2018 financials, as well as Q1 2020 results to be completed prior to the end of August 2020 OAKLAND, Calif. and TORONTO, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Harborside Inc. ("Harborside" or the "Company") (CSE: HBOR), a California-focused, vertically integrated cannabis enterprise, today provided an update regarding the filing of the Company's audited annual financial statements and corresponding management's discussion and analysis for the year ended December 31, 2019, as well as its restated annual financial statements for years ended December 31, 2017 and 2018 (collectively, the "Annual Filings"), and the interim financial report and corresponding management's discussion and analysis for the period ended March 31, 2020 (collectively, the "Q1 Filings"). Update on Financial Statement Filings The Company continues to work diligently and expeditiously with its auditors to finalize the Annual Filings and the Q1 Filings (collectively, the "Outstanding Filings"). As a result of the significant effort by the new finance team and progress to date, the Company expects to complete the filing of the Outstanding Filings by the end of August, 2020. However, no assurance can be given that the anticipated timing of filing will be met due to the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Company and its employees, the need for the Company's auditors to complete their audit work, and the Company's ability to rely on timely information in relation to its financial reporting obligations, among other things. In the interim, the Company continues to be subject to the previously-disclosed cease trade order (the "CTO"). The Company expects trading to resume on the CSE shortly after the revocation of the CTO. Update on Executive Compensation Disclosure The Company continues to rely on the temporary blanket relief provided by the Canadian Securities Administrators under Ontario Instrument 51-504 Temporary Exemptions from Certain Requirements to File or Send Securityholder Materials of the Ontario Securities Commission to postpone the public filing of its executive compensation disclosure until such time as it is filed and delivered to shareholders as part of the Company's information circular relating to its 2020 annual meeting of shareholders. The Company will provide further information on its annual meeting when an appropriate date has been determined. Management Commentary "There has been an overabundance of speculation in the markets as to the reasoning for the CTO and we understand the concerns. We expect that the impact of the restatement on the 2017 and 2018 annual financial statements is primarily non-operating in nature and relates solely to accounting changes made to previously disclosed transactions. The restatement of the 2019 quarterly statements is primarily due to a business combination that must be accounted for as an acquisition under IFRS 3, and the quantum reserved in relation to the provision for taxes purported to be owing. While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has presented numerous challenges to the global community, Harborside included, the underlying fundamentals of our business remain very strong," said Peter Bilodeau, Chairman and Interim CEO of Harborside. "I'm proud of the sequential growth in revenue we have achieved, which together with the strategic and operational initiatives we have implemented, are expected to drive sustained, long-term improvement in our profitability." Mr. Bilodeau continued, "I'd like to reassure our shareholders that our team has continued to work expeditiously with our auditors to complete all past due reporting, including finalizing our fiscal 2019 and Q1 2020 filings as well as the restatement of our 2017 and 2018 results, which we anticipate will be completed prior to the end of August 2020." For the latest news, activities, and media coverage, please visit the Harborside corporate website at www.investharborside.com or connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. About Harborside: Harborside Inc. is one of the oldest and most respected cannabis retailers in California, operating three of the major dispensaries in the San Francisco Bay Area, a dispensary in the Palm Springs area outfitted with Southern California's only cannabis drive-thru window, a dispensary in Oregon and a cultivation facility in Salinas, California. Harborside has played an instrumental role in making cannabis safe and accessible to a broad and diverse community of California consumers. Co-founded by Steve DeAngelo and dress wedding in 2006, Harborside was awarded one of the first six medical cannabis licenses granted in the United States. Harborside is currently a publicly listed company on the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") trading under the ticker symbol "HBOR". Additional information regarding Harborside is available under Harborside's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. In this news release, forward-looking statements relate to, among other things, the timing of filing the Outstanding Filings, the revocation of the CTO, and the timing of filing its current executive compensation disclosure. These forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time such statements were made. Actual future results may differ materially as forward- looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to materially differ from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors, among other things, include: management's perceptions of the anticipated timeline in which the Outstanding Filings and its current executive compensation disclosure can be filed, and the CTO be revoked; implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Company's operations; fluctuations in general macroeconomic conditions; fluctuations in securities markets; expectations regarding the size of the California cannabis market and changing consumer habits; the ability of the Company to successfully achieve its business objectives; plans for expansion; political and social uncertainties; inability to obtain adequate insurance to cover risks and hazards; and the presence of laws and regulations that may impose restrictions on cultivation, production, distribution and sale of cannabis and cannabis related products in the State of California; and employee relations. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes, or believed at the time, to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure shareholders that actual results will be consistent with such forward-looking statements, as there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. The Company is indirectly involved in the manufacture, possession, use, sale and distribution of cannabis in the recreational and medicinal cannabis marketplace in the United States. Local state laws where the Company operates permit such activities however, these activities are currently illegal under United States federal law. Additional information regarding this and other risks and uncertainties relating to the Company's business are contained under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Listing Statement dated May 30, 2019, filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Neither the CSE nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE Harborside Inc. A Stormont department committed a "manifest error" in the tendering competition for multi-million pound deals to resurface Northern Ireland's roads, a High Court judge has ruled A Stormont department committed a "manifest error" in the tendering competition for multi-million pound deals to resurface Northern Ireland's roads, a High Court judge has ruled. Mr Justice Horner also identified a lack of transparency in a process where one firm was awarded more contracts than it had the resources to carry out. In a critical assessment, he found no satisfactory explanation for the lack of any minutes from a meeting about the procurement exercise. The verdict came in a legal action by civil engineering company Northstone (NI) Ltd. Northstone is suing the former Department for Regional Development (DRD) over its handling of a tendering competition for public road resurfacing. Proceedings centre on eight contracts awarded in 2015 to carry out work with a total estimated annual value of up to 52m. The object of the exercise was to find the most economically advantageous tender for each contract. Instructions provided for bidding firms set out how successful operators were expected to have enough skilled and available resources to work at more than one location. A marking system was used to evaluate the quality of bids. Operators able to demonstrate excellent equipment and resources would score five out of five. Northstone was ranked first in one of the eight contracts it tendered for, coming second or third in all the rest. Another firm that bid for seven contacts obtained top ranking in six. The court heard that company was awarded five out of five responses despite identical submissions and duplicating personnel and plant for each competition. This apparently meant it could provide site engineers for four contracts at most. A meeting involving departmental officials to discuss multiple awards was held in September 1015, but no minutes were provided. Mr Justice Horner said he had difficulty understanding why no record of any discussion about the issue of duplication in the six contracts was available. "This is a telling omission," he said. "If minutes had been taken and lost I would have expected to be told this in no uncertain terms. "The other alternative explanations are that there are minutes but as these undermine DRD's defence they have not been disclosed. "Alternatively, the decision to keep no minutes was a deliberate one because DRD was fearful of creating a hostage to fortune. "Neither of these explanations reflect well on DRD." The court was told the department - and the Northern Ireland Civil Service - had no policy for when meetings should be recorded. If correct, the judge stressed, plans need to be drawn up. "The DRD should be accountable to the taxpayer and its decision transparent and lawful," he said. "The records of its meetings, especially where they relate to the award of contracts worth millions of pounds, should be accurately minuted. "In this instance I was offered no explanation other than it was informal meeting. I do not accept that this an adequate or acceptable explanation." Ultimately, the firm which achieved top ranking for six of the contracts withdrew from two of them. According to the judge it never intended to be successful in all tenders, and was probably as surprised as the department at the outcome of the competitions. That company's actions "spared the DRD its blushes", allowing the resurfacing awards to be announced. Northstone is seeking damages if it can prove the department acted unlawfully in the awards to other contractors. But at this stage Mr Justice Horner was only dealing with any flaws in the marking process, and an alleged breach of equal treatment in resolving concerns about a capacity to perform multiple contracts. Competition rules were found to be "opaque, imprecise, equivocal and lacking in detail". A company won six out of the seven contracts bid for with identical tenders, the judge pointed out, but only had the resources for four. "There was a manifest error made by the DRD in giving... a mark of excellence in two answers in three contracts," the judge held. The department then permitted it to withdraw from two of them before the awards were made. With the firm able to select which contracts it would carry out, Mr Justice Horner said the treatment of unsuccessful runners up had been discriminatory. A new ceasefire appeared to be holding across Afghanistan on Friday as the Kabul government released more Taliban insurgents in a bid to accelerate the start of delayed peace talks. The three-day truce, slated for the duration of the Eid al-Adha festival, is only the third official pause in nearly 19 years of war. While there were no immediate reports of major fighting, an unclaimed car bomb that killed at least 17 people late Thursday highlighted Afghanistan's underlying volatility. Afghans took advantage of the calm to flock to mosques to offer Eid prayers. In Kabul, armed guards patted down worshippers heading into neighbourhood mosques. "We want a permanent ceasefire from the Taliban as they are the ones who paved the way for other terrorist groups to operate in Afghanistan," Mohammad Tahir, a taxi driver, told AFP after praying. Worshippers also offered Eid prayers in the eastern city of Jalalabad, which has seen many deadly attacks over the years. "Previously, we were not attending Eid prayers in large numbers for fear of suicide attacks," Jalalabad resident Wala Jan told AFP. - 500 prisoners to be freed - President Ashraf Ghani and the Taliban have both signalled that peace talks could begin straight after Eid, and there are widespread calls to extend the ceasefire. Under a deal signed by the Taliban and the US in February, "intra-Afghan" talks were slated to start in March, but were delayed amid political infighting in Kabul and as a contentious prisoner swap dragged on. That swap will see Kabul free 5,000 Taliban fighters, while the insurgents say they have already fulfilled their pledge to release 1,000 government forces. In an Eid speech, Ghani said a final 500 prisoners will be released during the festival in a bid to "accelerate the peace talks". Late Friday, officials began releasing the inmates, including from Pul e-Charkhi prison near Kabul. "There were some issues in our country and that is why we joined the Taliban," said one inmate, Nasir, as authorities prepared to release him. "After my release I will not rejoin the Taliban. I joined once and made a mistake," he told AFP. Another prisoner, Khodaidad, 25, hoped peace talks would succeed. "I'm happy about the peace talks ... We want peace, so our people can enjoy peaceful lives," he said as officials processed his release documents. While Kabul says the release of the 500 Taliban inmates will fulfil its part of the prisoner exchange, the insurgents have said some of those prisoners are not on the original list of 5,000 they demanded. Ghani said he did "not have the right" to take a decision on the release of those who are accused of "serious crimes" -- including sexual violence, robbery and stoning women to death -- adding that a gathering of Afghan elders would decide their fate. - 'Taliban can't be trusted' - Since signing the US deal in February, the Taliban have largely refrained from attacking cities and have not hit US troops. But they have conducted near-daily attacks on Afghan forces and civilians. Highlighting the recent toll, Ghani this week said more than 3,500 Afghan troops and nearly 800 civilians had been killed since the deal was signed. Many Afghans are leery about what comes next. After two previous truces -- in 2018 and May this year -- the Taliban immediately returned to the battlefield. "The Taliban can't be trusted because they announce ceasefire for Eid and after Eid they step up attacks," said Anwaruddin, 40, a resident from the southern province of Kandahar. "If the Taliban were serious, they should have entered talks with Afghan government months ago." Thursday's car bomb exploded as crowds shopped ahead of Eid in the city of Puli Alam in Logar province. The Taliban said they had "nothing to do" with the blast. Hundreds of Afghans went to mosques across Kabul to mark the festival of Eid al-Adha, as a ceasefire between Taliban and government forces began Many are hoping the ceasefire will lead to peace talks and an end to the long war The halt in fighting is slated to last for the duration of Eid al-Adha and is only the third official truce in nearly 19 years of war This is the astonishing moment a group of surfers in the Dominican Republic took on towering waves as Tropical Storm Isaias barreled through the Caribbean island before strengthening into a hurricane. Local news outlets captured the moment at least 20 daredevil surfers maneuvered the waves at Guibia Beach in Santo Domingo on Thursday. Despite warnings from the police who stood by the shore, the surfers refused to leave the waters before the military boat arrived and forced them out. Surfers brave the tough weather conditions at a beach in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on Thursday as the island was hit by Tropical Storm Isaias before it converted into a Category 1 hurricane later in the evening as it neared the Bahamas The surfers were briefly detained and later released but were fined $34 by authorities in Santo Domingo A surfer lays on his board and headed back to the shores of Guibia Beach in Santo Domingo after local authorities called in the military to force a group of daredevil surfers out of the dangerous waters that were impacted by Tropical Storm Isaias on Thursday The individuals were briefly detained and fined $34 before they were released. One of the storm defying surfers thought the conditions 'were not dangerous' but rather just perfect 'because the waves were too good.' 'If we are in the water it is because we are athletes and we know what we are doing,' the man told Antena Noticias 7. In other words, we understand and respect the ocean but since we are with the [surf] board, we have been doing it for a long time and it is something that we [were born] surfing and we will continue surfing until the waves stop.' Another surfer quipped that the reporters on the scene were more irresponsible than them for coming out to the beach because of the coronavirus. Members of the Dominican Republic's military were called in by the police in Santo Domingo after a group of surfers disobeyed orders to leave the beach Tropical Storm Isaias strengthened into a hurricane late Thursday with reported winds of 80mph, according to Hurricane Hunters, with the possibility of worsening as it swirls north. Isaias, which upgraded from a tropical storm sooner than anticipated, is now a Category 1 hurricane, the second of the 2020 Atlantic season. It was centered about 70 miles east-southeast of Great Inagua Island in the southeastern Bahamas moving at 18 mph. Tropical storm watches are in effect for parts of the Florida Peninsula, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. A watch means tropical storm conditions are possible on Saturday into the evening. The storm's center is inching away from Florida and is now forecast to be over 60 miles to the east of Cape Canaveral when it reaches the state. Warnings were issued in the Bahamas including Nassau, Freeport, and the Abacos Islands with hurricane conditions anticipated Friday into Saturday. SAN FRANCISCO and TORONTO, July 30, 2020 /CNW/ -- Instacart, the North American leader in online grocery, and Costco today announced the companies have partnered to launch same-day delivery from 76 Costco warehouses across Canada. Following a successful two-month pilot in select Ontario warehouses, the nationwide collaboration brings Costco's broad selection of groceries, pantry staples and household essentials directly from the store to the customer's door in as fast as two hours. Consumers in Canada can now shop from Costco's wide assortment of items including fresh produce, meat and seafood, snacks, deli, frozen goods, baby and pet essentials, and more on the Instacart marketplace with or without a Costco membership. The companies have also launched Costco's new Canadian member-only website built and powered by Instacart Enterprise featuring member benefits and access to same-day delivery via Instacart. "Grocery delivery has become essential for millions, and we're proud to make same-day delivery from Costco available to even more Canadians. Now, through the Instacart marketplace and Costco's new member website, families across Canada can get the groceries and goods they need, delivered to their door in a matter of hours," said Andrew Nodes, Vice President of Retail, Instacart. "We want to help retailers reach their customers when, where and how they want to shop. With this launch, we're extending the reach of Costco in Canada and making it possible for Costco members and non-members alike to access same-day delivery of Costco's broad selection of groceries and goods." ''With Instacart, we can bring even more benefits of a Costco membership to our valued members,'' said Pierre Riel, Senior Vice President and Country Manager, Costco Wholesale Canada. ''Instacart delivery will help us serve more families than ever before and we see this new offering as a great complement to our 2-Day Grocery Delivery service that launched in 2018.'' Customers can begin shopping from Costco via Instacart today by going to https://www.instacart.ca/store/costco, opening the Instacart app on their mobile device, or visiting Costco's member-only ecommerce site at http://sameday.costco.ca. From there, customers select their city and Costco warehouse, and can begin adding items to their Instacart grocery cart. An Instacart shopper will pick and deliver the order within the customer's designated timeframe. Instacart's national partnership with Costco in Canada comes on the heels of a successful nationwide partnership with Costco in the U.S. Instacart today partners with more than 400 beloved national, regional and local retailers to offer delivery from over 30,000 stores in more than 5,500 cities across North America. Instacart delivery is currently available to more than 70% of Canadian households. Instacart Enterprise services offer the only comprehensive ecommerce solutions designed specifically for grocery, and today power the turnkey and white-label ecommerce platforms for more than 140 retailers across North America. About Instacart Instacart is the North American leader in online groceries and one of the fastest-growing companies in ecommerce. Instacart shoppers offer same-day delivery and pickup services to bring fresh groceries and everyday essentials to busy people and families across the U.S. and Canada. Instacart has partnered with more than 400 beloved national, regional and local retailers to deliver from more than 30,000 stores across more than 5,500 cities in North America. Instacart's delivery service is available to more than 85% of U.S. households and 70% of Canadian households. The company's cutting-edge enterprise technology also powers the ecommerce platforms of some of the world's biggest retail players, supporting their white-label websites, applications and delivery solutions. Instacart offers an Instacart Express membership for unlimited free delivery on orders over $35. For more information, visit www.instacart.ca. For anyone interested in becoming an Instacart shopper, https://shoppers.instacart.ca. SOURCE Instacart For further information: [email protected], http://www.instacart.ca Related Links http://www.instacart.ca Dr. Bakare, General Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church and former running mate to the current President of Nigeria, His Excellency Muhammad Buhari, has been selected to Chair the inaugural Advisory Board of the Africa office of The Royal Commonwealth Society, the oldest major Commonwealth organisation which has Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as its Head and Patron. In a statement signed by its Regional Coordinator for Africa, John Apea, the society said: Over the past few decades, we have been witnesses to your (Bakare) good deeds, which have consumed much of the ink flowing through writings in Africa and beyond; your unwavering crusade against corruption, your sincere love for Africa and your work as a respected pastor, statesman and philanthropist is unquestionable. To this end, we would be very delighted to have a man of your wisdom, experience, caliber, and integrity to usher us into an interesting but dynamic era of race and international relations, development and co-operation. We are certain that together, the Africa office will be able to better the lives of all Africans by delivering on the Commonwealth thematic areas of prosperity, sustainability, fairness, and security. In response to the Africa office of The Royal Commonwealth Society, Dr. Bakare spoke of his unwavering desire to work with the Commonwealth to better the lives of its citizenry, 60 % of whom are under the age of 30. He added, there is a practical and ethical imperative that we place all hands on deck in order to help the plight of the common man. About the Commonwealth The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 54 independent and equal countries. It is home to 2.4 billion people and includes both advanced economies and developing countries. 32 of its members are small states, including many island nations. The Commonwealths member governments have agreed to shared goals like development, democracy, and peace. Its values and principles are expressed in the Commonwealth Charter. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Alexa Schoeman helps lead an organization that works to protect some of the most vulnerable Texans: those living in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. The Texas Office of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman is a group that fights for safety and quality of life for people living in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. Schoeman serves as the deputy state ombudsman, helping to oversee the organization that serves as a watchdog for residents across the entire state. Were only here to work on behalf of the resident, Schoeman said. We never work on behalf of the facility or the state. The organization provides advocacy for residents and families, educational resources, support and policy recommendations. We sat down with her to understand why many nursing homes became hot spots of infection, and what families can do if their loved one is stuck in a facility with an outbreak. Now Playing: Alexa Schoeman helps lead an organization that works to protect some of the most vulnerable Texans: those living in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. The Texas Office of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman is a group that fights for safety and quality of life for people living in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. Video: San Antonio Express-News This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The rapid spread of the coronavirus has devastated many nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, driving a significant number of deaths in San Antonio and nationwide. Why are those places more at risk of outbreaks to begin with? Certainly, its the nature of a nursing home resident and to a certain extent, an assisted-living facility resident. They have complex medical needs and are at high risk for infection to begin with plus the fact that theyre cohorted in the same space and sharing staff, which is being recommended against. But staff are definitely working at multiple facilities. The nature of a lot of CNAs certified nursing assistants who provide direct care to residents is that its not really a well-paying job, so many of them have to work multiple jobs at multiple facilities. Its really a combination of an already vulnerable population, and then the fact that theyre so close together and all receiving medical care in close proximity, which makes it unfortunately a really high-risk population for the spread of infectious disease. How are these facilities regulated, and where are the opportunities to hold them accountable? Its a little different if youre talking about an assisted-living facility or a nursing home. Assisted-living facilities are not federally regulated, so this leaves a lot of transparency and data issues. We dont have any federal oversight or data about violations that are happening in assisted-living facilities, but there are state rules that facilities are required to adhere to for their licensure requirements. The state regulatory body is the Texas Health and Human Services long-term care regulation department. It does biannual surveys of assisted-living facilities and also go in for complaints. Nursing homes are federally regulated and state-regulated. The same long-term care regulation program monitors the nursing facilities annually and also for complaints. It monitors for violations of both state and federal regulations they kind of act on behalf of the federal government when going in and looking for violations. (Texass long-term care regulation department has) had a lot of positions open and unfilled for some time. It does seem like their resources are really strapped. And, right now, theyre having to go into facilities where outbreaks are happening. Infection control has really been the focus, and this is at the direction of CMS the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. They really look at the most severe violations in infection control right now. Thats another area that we have concerns about and we try to advocate for: to make sure we have a really robust system of regulators, and they have all the resources they need to be able to fulfill their duties and get to facilities quickly for complaint investigations. Some people will call and make a complaint, and (investigators will) say they are coming out the next day. Other times, people will make a complaint, and then based on the severity that the state determines the complaint to be, they might not come out until their next visit, which could be up to a year. Jerry Lara /Staff photographer In San Antonio, some facilities that saw COVID-19 outbreaks already had long lists of issues including those with infection control prior to the pandemic. How does that relate to the outbreaks were seeing now? Infection control in nursing homes has consistently in Texas been one of the top, if not the top, violation for facilities. The same goes with assisted-living facilities maybe not in the No. 1 spot as much but we also had a consistent issue before the pandemic. Weve also heard from the state that they have gone in and done surveys during the pandemic, and they are still seeing issues like basic hand hygiene protocols not being followed. It was a concern beforehand, and it seems like its still something that many facilities are struggling with, even with the additional oversight and spotlight on the importance of these issues. I think theres a multitude of reasons for that. Oftentimes, it can be attributed to staffing issues. We get complaints from residents and family members all the time that they dont feel like theres enough staff in their facilities. You can imagine if you have one staff person to 10-plus residents, that you might be cutting some corners and not taking as much time as you should when doing things like washing your hands in between seeing each resident. RELATED: Former presidential candidate Herman Cain dies of COVID-19 We also dont have any set staffing ratios in facilities. Theres a few exceptions to that, but theres not really a minimum number of staff required to care for a certain number of residents. Theres a lot of research about minimum staffing that advocates have been long pushing for, but theres no federal requirement and Texas has not developed its own minimum staffing requirement. Theres an exception to that, and thats if a facility chooses to get whats called an Alzheimers certification. But I think theres 30 facilities or less that have chosen to do that across the state. Why has it been so hard to hold some facilities accountable? Inspection reports at some facilities can show unsafe conditions happening for years, yet these facilities largely keep operating. That question is definitely something that we work with every day. We encourage residents and family members to continue making complaints when they see a violation. And, we also work on advocating for state and federal reform to enhance meaningful penalties to discourage bad actors. Theres a great organization out of New York called the Long Term Care Community Coalition, and they publish a report called the No Harm report. They tell these horrific stories Im sorry to be so graphic of maggots on people, and then they see that the regulatory body has listed that as what they call a no-harm deficiency. Many of us advocates feel like its so hard to make meaningful enforcement in facilities. For example, a lot of the big corporations can absorb what we think to be pretty small fines for pretty egregious actions. I cant speak directly for our states regulatory agency of course, but as it puts a citation on a facility, there are different layers and processes the facility can go through to minimize or ameliorate that monetary penalty. (The state is) often faced with the facilitys legal team fighting back on any penalties they give the facilities. What should residents or their family members do if a facility has an outbreak of the coronavirus? Is leaving an option? Leaving is a really personal decision. Its something that has to be carefully considered because theres obviously a reason why their loved one is in a nursing facility, and that is that they need a certain level of care. So if youre thinking about moving someone out and families can certainly do that they have the right to assistance from their nursing home. And, if a resident has Medicaid, they have a right to assistance from their Medicaid managed care organization to plan for the return to home. That might obviously take a little time, but they dont have to do that in a vacuum. They have the right to transition back to the community. As far as staying safe, be in touch with your ombudsman. Be in touch with your facility. Facilities have the responsibility to facilitate communication with a resident virtually, either by phone or videoconference. Make sure that youre utilizing that to talk with your loved one to the greatest extent possible so you can at least put some eyes on them and put some eyes on the facility to see if there are any concerns there. Also, ask the facility these questions: What have you been doing as far as infection control? Are you training all your staff on hand hygiene and the proper use of personal protective equipment, (such as masks and gloves)? Those sort of things can really help you understand what steps your facility is taking to help keep residents safe. Marina Starleaf Riker is an investigative reporter for the San Antonio Express-News with extensive experience covering affordable housing, inequality and disaster recovery. To read more from Marina, become a subscriber. marina.riker@express-news.net | Twitter: @MarinaStarleaf UMass Medical School in Worcester and a Boston biotechnology company are in the center of a push by the National Institute of Health to increase coronavirus testing results to more than a million a week by September. The National Institute of Health (NIH) announced on Friday it is investing $248.7 million in new technologies to seven companies including Ginkgo Bioworks. The Boston-based company is tasked with developing a process that can produces tens of thousands of individual tests results at once. The idea is to have Ginkgo Bioworks work with with universities, schools, public or private companies and local communities, NIH said. Ginkgo Bioworks will provide end-to-end sample collection and report results within 24-48 hours from sample receipt. The company is expected to perform 50,000 tests per day in September 2020 and 100,000 per day by the end of the year, NIH said. NIH also awarded UMass Medical School with more than $100 million in grants to participate in the institutes Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics, or RADx, program. Chancellor Michael F. Collins said the program could change the course of the pandemic. The RADx initiative was launched in late April and is supported by federal stimulus funding. We need to get to a place where you get up in the morning, youre going about your day, you brush your teeth, youre putting your saliva sample or nasal swab, and then you run your test in your home every day to determine if you have COVID, David McManus MD, a professor at UMass Medical Center said in a statement. The companies that received funding from NIH range from small start-ups to large publicly held organizations. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has provided advice on test validation and is prioritizing the review of emergency use authorization (EUA) for tests supported by RADx, NIH said. The companies selected Friday were narrowed down through a one week in a scenario that NIH compared to a shark-tank evaluation process. Thirty-one concepts made the cut and moved to Phase 1, which included a four to six-week period of initial technology validation. The seven tests announced today are the first to be chosen for scale up, manufacturing and delivery to the marketplace through RADx. But more than 20 companies will be considered in the coming weeks. Related Content: Nasa's Mars spacecraft is experiencing technical problems and has sent itself into hibernation, the space agency has said. The spacecraft was sent to space Thursday in a launch that had no technical problems even despite an earthquake that struck just before liftoff, and a preparation period that came during the coronavirus outbreak. Shortly after it was launched, Nasa announced that it had received its first signal from the spacecraft. But soon after it was in space and headed towards Mars, it became apparent that something had gone wrong with the craft. After that initial signal, mission controllers received more detailed telemetry or spacecraft data that showed there had been a problem. The signal, which arrived on Thursday afternoon, showed that the spacecraft had entered a state known as "safe mode". That shuts down all but its essential systems, until it receives new messages from ission control. The hibernation state is intended to allow the spacecraft to protect itself in the case of unexpected conditions, and will be triggered when the onboard computer receives data that shows something is not as expected. Recommended Nasa launches mission to Mars in search of alien life Nasa's engineers think that the state was triggered because part of the spacecraft was colder than expected while it was still in Earth's shadow. The spacecraft has now left that shadow and temperatures are now normal, Nasa said in an update. Mission controllers will now conduct a "full health assessment", the space agency said, and are "working to return the spacecraft to a nominal configuration for its journey to Mars". The mission's deputy project manager, Matt Wallace, later announced that Nasa will probably switch the craft back to its normal cruise state after a day or so. "Everything is pointing toward a healthy spacecraft ready to go to Mars and do its mission," he said. The craft had also had some trouble getting a proper connection to the deep-space tracking stations that will communicate with the spacecraft as it flies through space, Mr Wallace said. But that problem appears to have been overcome and a good communication link has been established, he said. The US, the only country to safely put a spacecraft on Mars, is seeking its ninth successful landing on the planet, which has proved to be the Bermuda Triangle of space exploration, with more than half of the world's missions there burning up, crashing or otherwise ending in failure. China is sending both a rover an orbiter. The UAE, a newcomer to outer space, has an orbiter en route. It's the biggest stampede to Mars in spacefaring history. The opportunity to fly between Earth and Mars comes around only once every 26 months when the planets are on the same side of the sun and about as close as they can get. The launch went off on time at 7:50 a.m. despite a 4.2-magnitude earthquake 20 minutes before liftoff that shook NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which is overseeing the rover. Launch controllers at Cape Canaveral wore masks and sat spaced apart because of the coronavirus outbreak, which kept hundreds of scientists and other team members away from Perseverance's liftoff. "That was overwhelming. Overall, just wow!" said Alex Mather, the 13-year-old Virginia schoolboy who proposed the name Perseverance in a NASA competition and watched the launch in person with his parents. About an hour into the flight, controllers applauded, pumped their fists, exchanged air hugs and pantomimed high-fives when the rocket left Earth's orbit and began hurtling toward Mars. "We have left the building. We are on our way to Mars," Perseverance's chief engineer, Adam Steltzner, said from JPL. If all goes well, the rover will descend to the Martian surface on Feb. 18, 2021, in what NASA calls seven minutes of terror, during which the craft will go from 12,000 mph (19,300 kph) to a complete stop. It is carrying 25 cameras and a pair of microphones that will enable Earthlings to vicariously tag along. Perseverance will aim for Jezero Crater, a treacherous, unexplored expanse of boulders, cliffs, dunes and possibly rocks bearing the chemical signature of microbes from what was a lake more than 3 billion years ago. The rover will store half-ounce (15-gram) rock samples in dozens of super-sterilized titanium tubes. It also will release a mini helicopter that will attempt the first powered flight on another planet, and test out other technology to prepare the way for future astronauts. That includes equipment for extracting oxygen from Mars' thin carbon-dioxide atmosphere. The plan is for NASA and the European Space Agency to launch a dune buggy in 2026 to fetch the rock samples, plus a rocket ship that will put the specimens into orbit around Mars. Then another spacecraft will capture the orbiting samples and bring them home. Samples taken straight from Mars, not drawn from meteorites discovered on Earth, have long been considered "the Holy Grail of Mars science," according to NASA's now-retired Mars czar, Scott Hubbard. To definitively answer the life-beyond-Earth question, the samples must be analyzed by the best electron microscopes and other instruments, far too big to fit on a spacecraft, he said. "I've wanted to know if there was life elsewhere in the universe since I was 9 years old. That was more than 60 years ago," Hubbard said from his Northern California cabin. "But just maybe, I'll live to see the fingerprints of life come back from Mars in one of those rock samples." Additional reporting by agencies ANCHORAGE, Alaska An infamous bus appears headed to a new home at a museum in Fairbanks after being removed from Alaskas backcountry to deter people from making dangerous, sometimes deadly treks to visit the site where a young man documented his demise in 1992. The state Department of Natural Resources said Thursday that it intends to negotiate with the University of Alaskas Museum of the North to display the bus, which was popularized by the book Into the Wild and a movie of the same name and flown from its location near Denali National Park and Preserve last month. Of the many expressions of interest in the bus, the proposal from the UA Museum of the North best met the conditions we at DNR had established to ensure this historical and cultural object will be preserved in a safe location where the public could experience it fully, yet safely and respectfully, and without the specter of profiteering, Natural Resources Commissioner Corri Feige said in a statement. The bus became a beacon for those wishing to retrace the steps of Christopher McCandless, who hiked to the bus in 1992. The 24-year-old Virginia man died from starvation when he couldnt hike back out because of the swollen Teklanika River. He kept a journal of his ordeal, which was discovered when his body was found. McCandless story became famous with author Jon Krakauers 1996 book Into the Wild, followed nine years later by director Sean Penns movie of the same name. Over the years, people from around the world have traveled to the bus, located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the town of Healy, to pay homage to McCandless. Two women have drowned in the Teklanika River on such visits to the bus, one from Switzerland in 2010 and the other from Belarus nine years later. There have been 15 other search-and-rescue missions since 2009, state officials said, including five Italian tourists who needed rescue last winter. One had severe frostbite. The draw of the bus became too much for state officials, who arranged for the Alaska Army National Guard to remove the bus with a helicopter last month as part of a training mission. The former Fairbanks city bus is sometimes called Bus 142 or the Magic Bus. It was later used to house construction workers building a road in the area. It was abandoned in 1961, and became a shelter for those using the backcountry to recreate or hunt. The department received dozens of suggestions for use of the bus that came from individuals, museums and institutions nationwide, with varying plans to preserve, exhibit, monetize or memorialize it, Feige said. The department decided to consider the universitys proposal, which had several advantages. Its just one of three official state repositories, and the only one in the Fairbanks area able to accept and curate state-owned historical items. The museum also has the staff to restore, curate and display the bus. This proposal also allows the Department of Natural Resources to retain ownership of the bus, and decide future uses, including whether to lend it out for display and where. I believe that giving Bus 142 a long-term home in Fairbanks at the UA Museum of the North can help preserve and tell the stories of all these people, Feige said. It can honor all of the lives and dreams, as well as the deaths and sorrows associated with the bus, and do so with respect and dignity. The department anticipates signing final paperwork within the next few months. 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 Protesters disrupted a town hall meeting Wednesday at which Lafayette's Mayor-President Josh Guillory was scheduled to speak. Guillory's decision to close rec centers in north Lafayette has drawn backlash from the Black community. As the collapsed tourism industry starts to re-open ever-so-slowly, the federal government is lending a hand to a couple of the provinces primary attractions so that they can do so safely. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/7/2020 (539 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. As the collapsed tourism industry starts to re-open ever-so-slowly, the federal government is lending a hand to a couple of the provinces primary attractions so that they can do so safely. Western Economic Diversification is providing $600,000 in support for The Forks in Winnipeg, and the town of Churchill. The tourism industry in Churchill, driven by the extraordinary environmental phenomenon like polar bear and whale watching, is worth as much as $37 million in direct annual expenditures. The funds $500,000 to The Forks and $100,000 to the Churchill Chamber of Commerce are being made available to allow those tourism operators to undertake the safety precautions public health guidelines require for them to re-open. Paul Jordan, CEO of The Forks Renewal Corp., said, "When we re-opened the market we had to do twice as much cleaning when we had zero revenues. It really helped us get over the hump. It gave us the cushion to get back up and running." Jen Zoratti | Next A weekly look towards a post-pandemic future delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. The Churchill Chamber of Commerce will receive $100,000, to support 80 staff from 50 businesses to help comply with physical distancing guidelines, apply for recovery programs. The tourism industry in Churchill is driven by environmental phenomenon such as polar bear and whale watching and is worth as much as $37 million in direct annual expenditures.Northern Manitoba attracts about 530,000 people every year. That funding support is in addition to $95 million WED announced earlier this month for western businesses affected by the pandemic. That has already assisted over 1,760 businesses across Western Canada. martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca THE massive blood donation campaign launched by the Department of Health (DOH)-Central Visayas and the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas (Opav) has drawn over 900 donors. As part of the ongoing blood donation campaign, 11 mobile bloodletting activities have been conducted in the different areas of Cebu from July 16 to July 26, 2020. The blood donation campaign in the four barangays of Cebus northern town of Tabuelan last weekend recorded the highest number of donors with 566, accounting for more than half of the total. The DOH-Central Visayas, Opav and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)-Central Visayas also brought the Donate Blood! Save Lives! Be A Hero campaign to Balamban town (27 donors), Talisay City (10), Mandaue City (116) and Lapu-Lapu City (179). The DSWD-Central Visayas provided food packs to blood donors in support to the province-wide donation campaign. A total of 59 personnel of the Police Regional Office (PRO) in Central Visayas also supported the campaign by donating their blood. On July 30, 26 soldiers from the 53rd Engineer Brigade of the Philippine Army who have fully recovered from Covid-19 also volunteered to donate their blood plasma at the Headquarters 53E of Camp Lapu-Lapu in Cebu City. The plasma donation drive is in partnership with the DOH-Central Visayas and United Architect of the PhilippinesSugbu Chapter. Our soldiers and police personnel have been in the frontlines since our fight against this unseen enemy started. Some of them may have acquired the disease but they have proven their resiliency and selflessness by heeding our call for more plasma donations after recovering from Covid-19, said Secretary Michael Lloyd Dino, presidential assistant for the Visayas. Even amidst a health crisis, our troops remain dedicated to fulfill their mission. Dino said the campaign is in response to the rising demand for blood in the region amid the rise in the number of Covid-19 cases and expected surge in dengue cases with the onset of the rainy season. Story continues "We thank our partners in government such as the DOH, DSWD, our local government units, the police and of course our donors for supporting this noble campaign to help save lives," Dino said. "We are truly grateful to the donors- people with a heart to help those in need of blood, a lifesaving action," said Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, DOH-Central Visayas chief pathologist. "We are amazed by the response and willingness to share a part of their lives- their blood." According to Dr. Loreche, DOH-Central Visayas Sub-national Blood Center's supply is a lot better now with the active blood donation drive. This activity is a partnership of DOH, Opav, DSWD, Philippine National Police (PNP), the various local government units and the governor, she added. "But we need to continue on for the demand is great and we have to be ready at all times," Dr. Loreche said. The blood donation campaign has also become timely and doubly important as the demand for plasma is also expected to increase with the rising Covid-19 cases and demand for platelet for dengue patients with the onset of the rainy season. Based on the latest blood pool of DOH-Central Visayass Sub-National Blood Center for Visayas, it currently has a total of 78 units of packed red blood cells (PRBC), nine units of platelet concentrate, 59 units of fresh frozen plasma and 68 units of emergency PRBC stocks. The blood donation initiative has sought to collect blood units with high levels of immunoglobulin (IgG), the most common antibody present in the blood, from recovered Covid-19 patients in support to the Convalescent Plasma Therapy for severe and critical cases of the viral disease. Opav has implemented various initiatives to address the concerns arising from the pandemic. These include providing free transportation to frontliners by deploying Malasakit buses and augmenting the testing capacity in the Visayas early on in the pandemic by providing PCR and automated extraction machines, extraction and detection kits, swab kits and other consumables. (PR) Gonda : , July 31 (IANS) Raksha Bandhan is the festival that celebrates love between brothers and sisters and protection of the latter by former from any evil. But in a Uttar Pradesh village in Gonda district no one likes the festival. No one in the Bhikhampur Jagat Purwa village of Dumariadih gets excited about Rakhi or even utter the name of the festival. They believe, if Raksha Bandhan is celebrated, evil might befall them. Many untoward events have occurred in the past warning them to stay away from this festival. Everyone awaits the birth of a child on Raksha Bandhan, which they believe will end the deadly cycle. There are 20 homes in Jagat Purwa, where nearly 200 children are scared of 'rakhi' (sacred protective thread). Even the older generation shares this emotion. More than five decades have passed in this village in Wazirganj panchayat that sisters have tied a 'rakhi' on their brothers' wrists. Even in nearby villages, the mere mention of the word Raksha Bandhan scares people and the sisters there refuse to tie rakhis on the day. They do not want to break the traditions set by their ancestors. Jagat Purwa villagers Suryanarayan Mishra, Satyanarayan Mishra, Sidhanarayan Mishra, Ayodhya Prasad, Deep Narayan Mishra, Bal Govind Mishra, Santosh Mishra, Devnarayan Mishra, Dhruv Narayan Mishra and Swaminath Mishra -- all have the same story. "Whenever sisters tied a thread on their brothers' wrists in our houses, untoward incidents occurred in this village." Suryanarayan Mishra said, "In 1955, after eight years of Independence, a young man was killed one fine morning of Raksha Bandhan in our family. Since then, sisters in the village do not tie a rakhi on their brothers' wrists. "A decade ago, on the day of Raksha Bandhan, it was decided to tie rakhi on the request of the sisters, but something untoward happened that day, too. After this, no one dared clebrate rakhi. Even today, this fear prevents the sisters from tying rakhi on their brothers' wrist." Suryanarayan added, "On the day of Raksha Bandhan, if a child is born in the family, then only the festival will be celebrated. The wait has been going on for almost three generations. This opportunity has not come yet." All the siblings in this village will continue to miss the most loved festival till then. Though the festival of Raksha Bandhan is not celebrated in Jagat Purwa village, the sisters of the surrounding villages tie the rakhi on the wrists of their brothers. "we will follow what our elders have told us. We will not break the tradition started by our ancestors and will continue following the tradition," Suryanarayan opined. Suryanarayan Mishra said that they only listen to the stories of Rakha Bandhan, but cannot experience the festivity. Villagers said that most people of the village do not move out on the day of Raksha Bandhan. Jagat Purwa village remains silent on the day even as every other sister ties a Rakhi on her brothers hand through out the country. California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a news conference at Mustards Grill in Napa, Calif., on May 18, 2020. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo) Low-Income Californians Have Received $1 Billion in Tax Credits, Newsom Says Gov. Gavin Newsom announced July 29 that tax credits had successfully provided needed economic relief to low-income Californians hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and said a scheduled hike to the states minimum wage would be implemented as planned to help workers. Newsom announced in a press release that the California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC) and Young Child Tax Credit programs have already put $1 billion back into the pockets of over 3.6 million California families, at a time when the financial relief is sorely needed. The CalEITC is providing critical relief for millions of low-income Californians and their families, many of whom were struggling before the COVID-19 pandemic and have been hit especially hard during this time. The CalEITC and the new Young Child Tax Credit are helping families make ends meet, Newsom said. Newsom expanded the cash-back program in June 2019 to include Californians with incomes up to $30,000 dollars per year. Eligible families with children under the age of six can receive additional relief by claiming the Young Child Tax Credit. Newsom also announced that his initiative to raise the state minimum wage to $14 an hour starting in 2021 would continue as planned, despite the recession caused by COVID-19. As we continue our efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19, we must also ensure that as our economy recovers, all Californians can benefit in its growth, Newsom said in the press release. Newsom had the authority to suspend the scheduled increase in minimum wage given the states struggling economy, but made the decision to move forward with it. The minimum wage is set to raise on Jan. 1, 2021, to $14 per hour for businesses with more than 25 employees and $13 per hour for those with 25 or fewer. Newsoms decision to raise the wage has met with backlash from some business owners. John Kabateck, California director for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), said that Newsom is failing to acknowledge the burden these increases place on small business owners. We have an official economic policy in California, and its to completely annihilate small businesses, Kabateck said in a July 29 press release. The release said that everything the governor and Legislature have done has been for the employee and nothing for the people who have to bring in the money to pay the employee, according to Kabateck. Small businesses dont have the state government in their corner, Kabateck said. He questioned whether Newsom even cares about small businesses. Newsom said the increase in minimum wage will offer more relief to those who have been working on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, including child care workers, hospital and nursing facility staff, and grocery store workers. Not allowing this increase to go forward will only make life harder for those Californians who have already borne a disproportionate share of the economic hardship caused by this pandemic, said Newsom. Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. The actor was found hanging at his Bandra apartment in Mumbai on June 14. (PTI) New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday filed a money laundering case on the basis of a Bihar Police FIR in which Sushant Singh Rajput's father has accused actress Rhea Chakraborty and her family of abetting the Bollywood actor''s suicide. The central probe agency had recently called for the Bihar police first investigation report (FIR) and after studying it, the ED decided to slap charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), officials said. They said an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) has been filed against the accused named in the Bihar Police FIR that includes Chakraborty, her family and six others. Chakraborty and some others are expected to be called for questioning in the case soon, official sources said. Rajput, 34, was found hanging in his apartment in Mumbai''s Bandra area on June 14. The ED is understood to have taken up the case after it analysed the contents of the FIR and gathered some independent information about Rajput''s income, bank accounts and companies. More such details and another FIR filed by the Mumbai Police to probe Rajput''s death will be part of the ED''s probe, according to the officials. Rajput''s father Krishna Kumar Singh (74), who resides in Patna, had on Tuesday lodged a complaint with the Bihar Police against Chakraborty, her family members and six others for abetment to suicide of his son and fraud. Singh has accused Chakraborty, a budding TV and film actress and purported girlfriend of Rajput, of having befriended his son in May, 2019 with the intention of furthering her own career. In his complaint, Rajput's father also sought to invoke the provisions of the Mental Health Care Act, alleging that the "machinations" of Chakraborty and her family members had caused his son to crack up, despite a successful career in films, and ultimately drove him to commit suicide. He also alleged that the actress was aided by her family members, including parents, since they all were looking to purloin the assets of his son worth crores of rupees and started interfering in all aspects of his life. The father also wanted a police investigation to ascertain where the Rs 15 crore deposited in a bank account held by Rajput was transferred. He also alleged that on June 6, less than a week before Rajput was found hanging from a ceiling of his house, Chakraborty came to his place and decamped with many of his belongings, including cash, his laptop, ATM card and other important documents. The ED will probe these allegations of mishandling and purported diversion of Rajput''s money and operation of his bank accounts. The agency will probe if anyone used Rajput''s income and his companies for money laundering and creating illegal assets, the officials said. The ED has powers to attach The Bihar Police had pressed various sections of Indian Penal Code in its FIR, including 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 380 (theft in dwelling house), 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 306 (abetment of suicide). Sometime back, Chakraborty had tweeted and requested Union Home Minister Amit Shah to order a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in this case. "I request you with folded hands to initiate a CBI enquiry. I only want to understand what pressures prompted Sushant to take this step," she posted on Twitter. The Mumbai police is already probing the alleged suicide case, and has questioned several Bollywood bigwigs including filmmakers Mahesh Bhatt and Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Chakraborty has also recorded her statement. Rajput's death by suicide has also triggered a debate on alleged nepotism and favouritism in the Hindi film industry. For Bryn McKay (pictured), chief operating officer of ENData, the partnership has enabled RACQ to place power back into the hands of clients when making claims. The main thing for RACQ is visibility and an improved experience for their policyholder. They can now see exactly whats happening in the claim They can now be proactive instead of reactive, he said. Across the industry, when someone wants a service done on a claim, usually they send an email off and they have to depend on that supplier to give them updates Whereas our system brings the supplier service directly back to the clients. It also allows suppliers to work together to create an ecosystem for the restorer to chat with the loss adjustor. Read more: RACQ boosts claims process with ENData partnership The platform, according to McKay, also enables the builder and the restorer to collaborate on the claim to assess and repair the members home together, as opposed to operating in independent silos where communication is limited. Youve got seven people out there that are effectively doing the same thing in trying to service your member to help them recover from their claim, but theyre all doing different things at a different time with no coordinated effort, McKay explained. When you do it all out of the same platform and system, it drives the coordination and collaboration On top of that, youve got RACQ maintaining visibility and control over the claim but also capturing data to give that to the member and track the experience and track the performance of each supplier so they can effectively manage their supply chain now as well. For RACQ, it brings convenience and efficiency with a technology platform that can manage the whole assessing solution across the home and contents portfolio. They can manage their internal assessors and internal resources, but also manage their external suppliers - being their builders, restorers, contents suppliers and external loss adjustors in one place, he continued. This system drives the supplier based on pre-set KPIs to remind them of a claim. Its all automatic and it all happens without RACQ having to have to manually follow up or wait for that phone call from the member to enquire about the claim. Read next: RACQ ready to help Queensland get back on its feet However, McKay says the platforms greatest competitive advantage over other similar products in the market is its agility and flexibility. Because were an independent software provider, each one of our clients run a different claims model through our business Were an all-encompassing platform; there is not one type of claim that cant go through, whereas other systems by our competitors are limited in the way that they might just be able to handle a direct builder claim or a loss adjusting claim, he said. We have over 400 building, construction, restoration and specialist firms in the system, we have all of the main loss adjusting companies in the system, we have over 50 contents providers in the system were the only platform out there that can service any claim scenario. Researchers from the Nanooptics Group at CIC nanoGUNE (San Sebastian) demonstrate that nanoscale infrared imaging - which is established as a surface-sensitive technique - can be employed for chemical nanoidentification of materials that are located up to 100 nm below the surface. The results further show that the infrared signatures of thin surface layers differ from that of subsurface layers of the same material, which can be exploited to distinguish the two cases. The findings, recently published in Nature Communications, push the technique one important step further to quantitative chemometrics at the nanoscale in three dimensions. Optical spectroscopy with infrared light, such as Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, allows for chemical identification of organic and inorganic materials. The smallest objects which can be distinguished with conventional FTIR microscopes have sizes on the micrometre-scale. Scientists at CIC nanoGUNE (San Sebastian), however, employed nano-FTIR to resolve objects, which can be as small as a few nanometres. In nano-FTIR (which is based on near-field optical microscopy), infrared light is scattered at a sharp metallized tip of a scanning-probe microscope. The tip is scanned across the surface of a sample of interest and the spectra of scattered light are recorded using Fourier transform detection principles. Recording of the tip-scattered light yields the sample's infrared spectral properties and thus the chemical composition of an area located directly below the tip apex. Because the tip is scanned across the sample surface, nano-FTIR is typically considered to be a surface-characterization technique. Importantly though, the infrared light that is nano-focussed by the tip does not only probe a nanometric area below the tip, but in fact probes a nanometric volume below the tip. Now the researchers at CIC nanoGUNE showed that spectral signatures of materials located below the sample surface can be detected and chemically identified up to a depth of 100 nm. Furthermore, the researchers showed that nano-FTIR signals from thin surface layers differ from that of subsurface layers of the same material, which can be exploited for determination of the materials distribution within the sample. Remarkably, surface layers and subsurface layers can be distinguished directly from experimental data without involving time-consuming modelling. For four New York commercial casinos in the midst of a 4 1/2-month shutdown due to COVID-19, Gov. Andrew Cuomo didn't deliver good news on Thursday. During a call with reporters, Cuomo explained the state's decision to keep the four facilities del Lago Resort & Casino in Seneca County, Resorts World Catskills, Rivers Casino in Schenectady and Tioga Downs Casino Resort closed. There has been no timetable for the casinos to reopen. "It's an issue of density, the likelihood of compliance and the essential nature of the business," Cuomo said. Cuomo ordered casinos to close on March 16 as the number of COVID-19 cases soared in New York. Before the shutdown, casinos implemented policies capacity limits and reducing the number of slot machines and table games but it wasn't enough. The temporary closures are affecting employees nearly 1,100 employees at del Lago have been furloughed and could be laid off if the shutdown continues for an extended period and local governments. Between Seneca County and the town of Tyre, del Lago's closure could lead to at least $2 million in lost gaming tax revenue this year. That doesn't include any lost sales tax revenue, and losses at other local businesses that benefit when the casino is open. The casinos are at a disadvantage because Native American-owned casinos have been open for nearly two months. The Oneida Indian Nation reopened its Point Place, Turning Stone and Yellow Brick Road casinos in June. There are strict guidelines in place and two employees have tested positive for COVID-19, but there hasn't been any outbreaks reported since the casinos reopened. Lance Young, the executive vice president and general manager of del Lago Resort & Casino, told The Citizen two weeks ago that the casino has developed a reopening plan. The plan, named Extra Care, is based on federal and state guidelines. Capacity will be limited on the casino floor and adjustments will be made to allow for social distancing at slot machines and table games. Employees and guests will be screened before entering the casino. Workers will be issued personal protective equipment, including masks. "We're ready to reopen when the data and science says that we can and we'll continue to work with state officials," Young said. "Hopefully we'll be open soon." But Cuomo's comments suggest that the casinos won't be reopening anytime soon. While malls and shopping centers have been allowed to open, he argued that's because "people need food, people need clothes, people need home goods." "You don't need a casino to maintain survival," he said. Politics reporter Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding. Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > Letter to the Readers of Mainstreams Lockdown Edition 19 - August (...) Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, VOL LVIII No 33, New Delhi, August 1, 2020: Corona crisis: India is confronting its worst health crisis since independence. The Covid-19 tally is rising sharply and inching towards the 15-lakh mark. For the past weeks now, the country has seen a huge rise in the growth of infections and is just ranked below Brazil and the US. The situation is getting serious by the day and the government keeps denying any trace of community transmission. Foreign experts are projecting a staggering rise in numbers in India and it is a frightening scenario. An AFP report of July 29 says over half the people living in the slums of Mumbai have had the coronavirus, according to a city-commissioned study. The government must become more transparent and give a glimpse of its gravity instead downplaying the numbers and creating the illusion of a vaccine that will instantly fix things; this can mislead people to get casual with the much-needed precautions. False Talk of Normalcy in Kashmir: One year ago, that is, on August 5, 2019, the Narendra Modi Government did away with special status as well as Statehood of Jammu and Kashmir and it is time for stock-taking as that former state is far removed from normalcy despite all claims of the central government; Many politicians including a former Chief Minister of the State still remain in detention. Alarming new restrictions on the Freedom of Press have now been brought in as the recent Media Policy-2020. The policy is designed, as it says, to "foster a genuinely positive image of the government and it empowers the clerks and cops to examine and vet the articles and news-reports before their publication; the newspapers can be acted against, or be de-empanelled if the material is found to be anti-national, unethical or fake. This policy sets a bad precedent. There have been protests by Kashmiri journalists but to no avail. There were security considerations at play in Kashmir in the past too, but there were never such rules. National media bodies better watch it and take note; the type of new media restrictions at work in Srinagar and Leh, could happen tomorrow in New Delhi too if not spoken against and public opinion not mobilised against it. The Governor in Srinagar, Mr Murmu, should not be making any statement as to when and how elections will be organised. We are pleased that the Election Commission of India has taken note of this and issued a press release regarding the governor speaking out of turn in disregard of constitutional propriety. The recent interview of the former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, in The Indian Express, and the blatantly false claims by the government that the Congress party leader Saifuddin Soz is free to move around, both paint a sorry picture. It is clear as daylight that life and political space remain restricted in the Kashmir valley despite all claims of normalcy. New Delhi seems to have some magic formula about choosing dates. A trust set up by the government has been made to choose the very same date (as for Kashmir) August 5, 2020 as the day for foundation laying ceremony of the proposed Ram temple in Ayodhya. We are bang in the middle of a pandemic but some 200 people are supposed to be gathering at Ayodhya for an event intended to make big news many of the culprits who engineered the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992 will probably be the front seat guests. We hope that Mr Narendra Modi is going there strictly in his private capacity as a citizen and not as the Prime Minister. The prime minister of a secular state is supposed to keep a formal distance from private religious events of a particular community. We hope state-run broadcasting entities will demonstrate neutrality and not do a live transmission as if it was an official event. Of course, expecting this would be a bit too much. o o Obnoxious Caste inequality continues unabated in India. In a village near Agra in UP, the body of a woman was taken off from the funeral pyre in the middle of cremation and the family forced to cremate her four kilometres away. All because the powerful upper caste Thakurs objected that the woman was from the lowly Nat community. Thinking of their own safety, nobody has the guts to file a police complaint, for the basic right to cremate on the common gram-sabha land. Discrimination and segregation is the norm. We are long years away from being a casteless society. Shantaram Siddi is the first person from a tiny African-origin ethnic group to become a legislator in the state of Karnataka and in the country. (Siddis are descendants of Africans who travelled to India as merchants or slaves from the 17th Century on) But hang on he was no independent candidate. He has been associated with the Vanavasi Kalyan Prakalpa (VKP), the tribal welfare front of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, for three decades and he is member of the BJP; that reactionary party keeps attracting, providing symbolic slots to many lower castes, Adivasis and un-represented people and including the footloose labouring classes. This is not to say that it is some model of equality. The wise men of the left who keep promoting equal representation for all, have low representation of diverse identities and of people with low social ranking in their avant-garde ruling politburos and central committees. There is much need for that or else we will continue with majoritarian class politics. o o We express our solidarity with media workers in Karachi who faced an unprecedented raid by an Armed police unit The Sindh Rangers that entered the premises of the Press Club of Karachi on July 27 2020. (Incidentally, a veteran Pakistani journalist told this correspondent in 2003 in the same press club had debarred military officers in power at that time from entering the club premises.) Presspersons must be protected at all times and the governments have no business intimidating them by such show of force. o o We would like to remember Amala Shankar the Indian danseuse who passed away in Kolkata on July 24, 2020. She had acted in the film Kalpana written, co-produced and directed by her husband, the well-known dancer and choreographer, Uday Shankar. We offer condolences on the demise of Somen Mitra, President of West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee and veteran former Member of Parliament. The well-known economist John Weeks (emeritus professor of economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies) has passed away. He was Coordinator of the London-based Progressive Economy Forum that brought together left-wing economists from across Europe. We pay tribute to the celebrated Franco-Tunisian Feminist lawyer Gisele Halimi who just passed away on 28 July. In her early days, she fought cases for the anti-colonialist activists from Tunisia and Algeria. During the Algerian liberation war, she had been the lawyer for Djamila Boupacha, the FLN activist who had been arrested in 1960. In 1967, she was a member of the Russell Tribunal Against the American Military Intervention in Vietnam, which was initiated by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre. In 1971 she had co-founded with Simone de Beauvoir Choisir: La Cause des Femmes [Choose: The cause of Women] a platform for womens rights. She took up an endless stream of cases in defence of womens rights in France, most notably for the right to abortion. Her sterling role in the 1972 Bobigny trial for the right to abortion helped mobilise thousands and opened the route to the 1975 law introduced by Simone Veil. In the early 1980s, she was a member of the French parliament. August 1, The Editor. , We're sorry, this article is not currently available Americans' negative views toward China have reached a "new historic high" amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report published by the Pew Research Centre on Thursday. "Around three-quarters (73 per cent) of Americans have an unfavourable view of China today - the most negative reading in the 15 years that Pew Research Centre has been measuring these views," wrote the authors of the report, Laura Silver, Kat Devlin and Christine Huang. "The percentage who say they have a very unfavourable view of China is also at a record high of 42 per cent, having nearly doubled since the spring of 2019, when 23 per cent said the same." Amid repeated accusations of espionage, consulate closures in Houston and Chengdu, and continued finger pointing in Washington and Beijing over which country deserves more blame for Covid-19, Pew's survey is the latest piece of evidence in an impossible-to-miss trend: distrust of China, including its senior leadership, is rampant in the United States right now. According to Pew's survey, 64 per cent of Americans say China has done a "bad job" dealing with Covid-19. And 78 per cent say the Chinese government deserves the blame for letting the coronavirus spread from the city of Wuhan to the entire world. The survey found 77 per cent of Americans had "little or no confidence" in Chinese leader Xi Jinping to "do the right thing in world affairs". That number has grown 27 points since last year, according to Pew. The survey also found that most Americans now support taking stronger action related to China's human rights violations. "Around three-quarters (73 per cent) say the US should try to promote human rights in China, even if it harms bilateral economic relations," the report said. The survey, which covered 1,003 US adults and was conducted between June 16 and July 14, found negative views of China were high across the two political parties, across all education levels, and all age groups (including more than half of 18-29 year olds). Story continues Yun Sun, East Asia programme co-director at The Stimson Center, a Washington-based think tank, said that the survey results were "not surprising" given recent events that have attracted more attention to China among Americans, including the tit-for-tat shuttering of consulates in Houston and Chengdu, accusations of human rights violations in China's Xinjiang region, and the still-growing coronavirus death toll. Sun added that the national sentiment is likely to be mutual. "I think that correspondingly, you will also see a very negative view of the United States in Chinese public opinion polls these days too," she said. The Pew report also comes as US President Donald Trump continues to blame China - and only China - for unleashing the highly infectious coronavirus on the US. Trump has lately taken to calling the virus the "China plague", and continues to vehemently reject any suggestions that he might bear some responsibility for the pandemic's wild spread in the US, where the death toll passed 150,000 on Wednesday. Trump's national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, tested positive for the virus on Monday. Some lawmakers in Congress have also sought to amend federal law to allow US states and private citizens to sue China for damages related to the coronavirus. The attorneys general of Missouri and Mississippi have both initiated lawsuits, though it is unclear if they will be permitted to move forward because of sovereign immunity issues. "For the public health crisis, you can link that to China, and say that China should be responsible for Covid-19," said Sun. "But I think the weakness of that argument is, should China also be responsible for the US failure to counter Covid-19 after, say, March, or after April? " "I think you can say that the Chinese hid information at the beginning, they poorly managed the crisis last December and in January, but when we compare the US performance in battling Covid with the rest of the world, I think the failure or ineffectiveness of our policy is quite evident, and that's not China's fault." Even as many Americans blame China for the virus's origins and deeply distrust China's ability to tell the truth, they also remain highly sceptical of the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic. About six out of every 10 disapprove of Trump's coronavirus management, according to recent polls. The widespread negative sentiments toward China have also come amid an increase in hate crimes against Asian-Americans. This week Representative Judy Chu, a Democrat from California and the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, sent guidance to every member of Congress on how they can oppose the Chinese government without also encouraging anti-Asian xenophobia in the US. She cited the case of a Burmese-American man and his two young children in Texas, who were stabbed by a man who accused them of spreading the coronavirus because they were Asian. "We do not need to shy away from the challenges posed by China's policies, nor should we when they threaten our values or interests," Chu said in a statement. "But that is all the more reason to be specific in our criticisms." One recent academic study published by Runjing Lu, an assistant professor in the Department of Finance at the University of Alberta, and Yanying Sheng, a doctoral student at the University of California San Diego, found that wherever Covid-19 has spread in the US, it has been closely followed by racist slurs targeting Chinese Americans. The study found that in communities across the country, "the first local diagnosis leads to an immediate increase in racist Google searches and Twitter posts, with the latter mainly due to existing Twitter users posting the slur for the first time." 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. If the school year were to move online for the first four weeks, Veracco said the district would continue to collaborate with local and state health departments, and they will reassess the situation and make a decision regarding the need to extend elearning around Labor Day. Every Friday, The Citizen features a pet available for adoption from the Finger Lakes SPCA of Central New York. This week, we spotlight Kato. BREED: Alaskan malamute AGE: 1 1/2 years old COMMENTS: Kato is the most magnificent dog ever! He has been with us for a while and he needs to move on soon! He is a purebred Alaskan malamute and he has the best of the breed in him. He is incredibly handsome, very sweet and affectionate, and very smart among a ton of other superlatives! Kato is a big boy and very strong. He is also very enthusiastic and loves to love on you. He might not be an ideal choice for a home with very small children, but older kids and teenagers would be good. Kato is up to date on all vaccinations (rabies, distemper, kennel cough). He has been tested for heartworm disease, is negative and is on monthly preventives. And he was recently neutered. There is so much to say about Alaskan malamutes, and all of it can be found online. Please do the research to find out about the breed. If you think he might be the right pup for you, then fill out an application (on our website, flspcaofcny.org) and email it (flspca_cny@yahoo.com), fax it ([315] 282-2387) or bring it to the shelter for review. Once approved, an appointment will be set up for a "meet and greet" with Kato. Here is Kato's interview. Q. Who is your best friend? A. Well, I am worried about that little man Kingsley. You interviewed him a few weeks back and he lives a few condos down from mine. I hear him barking and whining. I think he is lonely and trying to get attention. I want to get the message to him that I'm in his corner and that I have made him my BFF. I hope someone will tell him. Q. If you could have a job, what would that be? A. Well, let me give a little background before I answer that question. We malamutes were bred to be working class dogs. We are big and strong and have great endurance. We worked the gold rush with our humans and carried huge loads over long distances. Given all of that, I think I'll sit this one out and have a good time playing with my new people. Q. Last week we asked Jill what cats think of humans. Can you tell us what dogs think of humans: A. Yes, I can do that. We canines love you humans! The big brains at Emory University scanned the brains of specially trained dogs. These researchers then observed the reactions of the dogs' noses because so much of the world is experienced through our nostrils. They then measured the dogs' brains when the dogs smelled their owners, and found that the scent of an owner activated what they called the "reward center" in our brain. That means that just the scent of our owners makes a dog feel unbelievably happy. That's a long-winded and roundabout way of telling you that we love our people! Q. If you could visit any place in the world where would that be? A. Last week my feline friend Jill told you she wants to go to Antarctica. I am so done with this heat, so I want to go with Jill. Q. How would you describe yourself? A. For starters, I am drop-dead handsome! I am also an affectionate guy and I like to cuddle. And, true to my breed, I will be completely devoted to my new human. But my new human has to assert him/herself as the leader of our pack. I'm a pretty smart guy and I learn quickly. I might enjoy a basic obedience class so that I can show off what a quick study I am. Overall, I am the best dog. Q. Do you have an interesting fact to share today? A. I do! Did you know that most dogs have paws that smell like corn chips? Well, this is true. This is a phenomenon called "frito feet." This happens because of built-up sweat and bacteria on the paws. So, have I ruined your taste for corn chips? LOL! Q: Do you have any advice for our Citizen readers? A. I do! My shelter people are hosting a free rabies clinic from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 8. You must repeat, must preregister your pets. Email my people at flspca_cny@yahoo.com with your name/address/phone number and your pet's name, species, sex, age, weight and color. If all info is not provided, you will not be registered for the clinic. Also, you will not receive a specific appointment. Preregistration ends on Aug. 6. Just show up at the SPCA and a volunteer will assist you. If you need more info, please call my people at (315) 253-5841. Thank you and much love, Kato and friends. The Finger Lakes SPCA of Central New York is a New York state-registered shelter/rescue, registration No. RR-181. Pursuant to Article 26-A, Section 408 of the Agriculture and Markets Law, the registrant is authorized to operate as a registered pet rescue, in compliance with such law. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 With yesterdays launch of NASAs Perseverance Mars rover, the three Mars missions being attempted in this years window of efficient access to the red planet are off successfully. Perseverance joins the Chinese Tianwen-1 orbiter/lander/rover mission, launched on July 23, and the United Arab Emirates/US Hope orbiter, launched July 19. Mars presents favorable circumstances about every 26 months for missions from the Earth. This is the same interval as between oppositions, where the two planets reach their closest approaches, Mars in a near line outwards from the Sun to the Earth. Launch windows occur about two months before the close approaches, with travel time about 8.5 months before spacecraft reach Mars. It has been 60 years since the first exploited launch window, in 1960, saw a pair of Soviet spacecraft sent on their way. Around 50 missions have used the 27 subsequent launch windows until the present one. Only in the last two decades have successes overtaken failures: more than half of attempts to reach Mars to date have failed. Artist's impression of Perseverence on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Prior to the spacecraft age, each Martian opposition was the source of intense Earth-based telescopic exploration. Even at these close approaches, however, Mars is 150 times the distance of our own Moon, and the features easily visible through a telescope on the Moon, its mountain chains and craters, were invisible from Earth-bound telescopes. As a result, much of what we now know about Mars is the product of the past 60 years of up close exploration with our robotic probes. What was known within the first century after Galileo turned the telescope into an astronomers instrument was that Mars had bright white spots that appeared at its poles, correctly interpreted as icy polar caps (that the ice is substantially carbon dioxide would not be suspected until much later). While several wealthy amateurs in the late 19th century would begin several decades of feverish promotion of the idea that Mars had a system of canals, supposedly visible through the telescope and representing signs of a civilization, sober scientists deployed new technologies as they became available and, laboring largely in public obscurity, laid the groundwork for the Mars science of today. Thus by the turn of the 20th century the astronomical spectroscope suggested a closer similarity of Mars to the Moon rather than the Earth, 1920s measurements of radiated heat showed very cold (-85C7C) surface temperatures, and 1930s measurements showed that oxygen, if present, could not be more than one percent of Earth levels. An early 1970s measurement from a high-flying plane, above most of Earths atmosphere, also recorded the signature of chemically-bound water on the Martian surface, suggesting a different and wetter past. Part of Jezero Crater with apparent ancient river delta. Perseverence landing site is within the flat area at bottom right. Imagery from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHU-APL Only with the first successful Mars spacecraft, the July 1965 flyby of Mariner 4, was the heavily cratered surface of Mars revealed, and the entire surface was finally mapped by Mars first successful orbiter, Mariner 9, in 1971. Generations of spacecraft since have derived their design from scientific questions raised by the results of prior missions, together with the immense growth of technology over the last half century. The first missions largely carried out basic mapping, using crude television technology, and measurements of the Martian atmosphere and surface conditions over the considerable vertical relief of the planet. With the two Viking landers of 1976, the first detailed images of the Martian surface were returned, and chemical measurements of the Martian soil were made, including a crude attempt to detect a signature of possible life. More than five launch windows passed without a mission until attempts resumed in 1988. The thrust of the following decade was to prepare far more detailed studies of the surface from orbit, and to begin testing new technology for landers on the surface, including roving capability. In the last twenty years, both of these areas have been revolutionized, with stunning imagery from orbit suggesting a rich geological history, including wind- and water-shaped terrain, and from an increasingly sophisticated series of roving explorers on the surface, filling in the details of this picture from geological exploration of rocks and exposed cliff faces from meteoritic impacts. Artist's impression of Tianwen-1 lander with rover about to debark. With the geology now firmly in hand, confirming that Mars had for some sustained early part of its history a warmer surface with flowing waterconditions with parallels to those that spawned life on our own planetmore recent missions have focused on addressing the extraordinary question raised by that parallel. Of the three missions on their way (a fourth European mission which was to have joined them has been deferred until the next launch window in 2022), the first launched is a relatively modest mission jointly undertaken by the United Arab Emirates in collaboration with three American universities, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Colorado, Boulder and Arizona State University. The Hope orbiter, launched from a Japanese H-IIA rocket in Tanegashima, Japan, has been described as Mars first true weather satellite, though it is adapted toward the very different variations displayed by the Martian atmosphere as compared to Earths. In particular, it carries scientific instruments which can study the process by which Mars loses atmosphere to space, a process which, thanks to Mars lower gravity and lack of a substantial magnetic field, is much more rapid than Earths loss, and also thought to be more complex. A better understanding of this process will likely give a better understanding of the evolution of Mars geology and how long conditions compatible with the genesis of life were sustained. The second mission launched, Chinas Tianwen-1 (heavenly questions), is Chinas first independent interplanetary mission. It will both build an independent Chinese orbital capability to study the surface and relay radio communications from it, as well as land a rover modeled to some extent on, but with more contemporary technology than, the twin US Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) Spirit and Opportunity of 2003. Unlike those missions, which did not include an orbiter component, Tianwen-1 will not proceed directly to a landing, but rather enter orbit and begin studies to select from several preliminary sites, and only then will the lander separate and make its way to the surface. Like the MER rovers, this one will use a combination of atmospheric braking, a large parachute, retrorockets, and finally a set of airbags to cushion its impact on the Martian surface. A likely landing site will be near the Viking 2 landing of 1976, Utopia Planitia, a low-elevation area thought to be reshaped by mud flows in the Martian watery past, where biosignatures may still survive from possible past life. The most ambitious mission of this group is the US Perseverance rover, at $2.1 billion somewhat cheaper than its predecessor Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity, only because its instrumentation is built upon a framework consisting of many spare parts from that former mission. Like its predecessor, it relies on nuclear power rather than solar, and will thus be immune to the dust storms and seasonal variations that played havoc with prior rover missions. As an aside, much is being made in the American press of this second nuclear Mars mission being powered by US-made plutonium-238, production of which recently began again for the first time since 1988. But in fact, most of the plutonium onboard originates in the declining NASA reserve bought from Russia prior to it suspending sales in 2010, with American production still at low levels. Past and future landing sites for Mars missions. Credit: Wikipedia With 23 cameras and a wide suite of scientific instruments, Perseverance will be the most capable Mars rover to date in the capacity to undertake a broad study of Martian minerology, and in particular the study of organic or carbon-containing molecules that may indicate both the signature of past life and the tracers that conditions fertile to its formation were once present. A key driver of the design of Perseverances instruments has been to assess the inventory and environment of life-associated elements in the geology it will explore. Like its predecessor Curiosity, it can make observations at a distance by using a laser to vaporize a bit of rock the size of a period from more than 20 feet away, studying the light emitted in the flash to determine the composition and properties of the material. But it also has, for the first time on a rover, a device called a Raman spectrometer that can analyze the minerology and organic chemistry of individual grains on a rock reachable to the rovers robotic arm. Perseverance will carry two other novelties: first, a small solar-powered helicopter, that can travel up to 2,000 feet per flight and image the possible driving route, and secondly, a ground-penetrating radar (a first also shared by the Tianwen-1 rover), to study what no lander yet has in detail, the depths beneath the Martian surface. Perseverance will also test from the Martian surface a technology to manufacture oxygen from the largely carbon dioxide atmosphere, a necessity for future hopes at human exploration or even for more efficient fueling of Mars return rockets from supplies generated locally, rather than brought from Earth. And towards that end, Perseverance is also equipped to encapsulate up to 30 samples it retrieves from the surface, or cores it drills from the soil, and deposit them in caches along its route where a future mission might gather them and ship them to Earth. There, laboratories far more sophisticated than what can be packed in a Martian rover could mine them for clues. It is hoped that this may happen within a decade: the technology is not the limiting factor, as with most fundamental questions today, its access to funding. Perseverance will rely on the same sky hook concept for landing as Curiosity, the seven minutes of terror necessary for landing heavier items, in which a highly choreographed sequence takes place including the use of a parachute, and ending with the deployment of a hovering rocket platform from which the rover is literally winched to the surface on a cable and freed in the final seconds. This will take place directly on the arrival of Perseverance at Mars, its landing site already selected. That site, Jezero Crater, is another area which orbital imagery suggests was once a river delta into a shallow sea, fertile grounds for microbial life or more. While Mars is much smaller than the Earth, its surface is only a little smaller than the total area of Earths dry land, so only a tiny range of the diversity of the Martian surface has been reached from the ground. Both of these rovers and the European one to hopefully join them at the next launch window, together with the Chinese and Emirati orbiters, the suite of robotic explorers still at work in Martian orbit and the surface, will continue to tease out the detailed history of the red planet. From their results, and in particular from the questions raised by these, the next generations of exploration will be defined, first robotic, and eventuallyhuman. Cowboy and Preacher movie aims to help Christians understand importance of saving environment Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The filmmaker behind Cowboy and Preacher is hoping to make a compelling case for evangelical Christians to step up and take the lead in caring for the earth. Cowboy and Preacher is set to be released on DVD/VOD, Sept 15. The film follows Christian pastor, cowboy and environmentalist Tri Robinson as he journeys to discover why Evangelicals have abdicated their duty to be Gods stewards of this earth to the progressive left, the film synopsis reads. Robinson is the founding pastor of the Vineyard Boise. As a conservative Christian and a lifelong environmentalist, he offers seven Bible studies in the film which serves to show Christians why they are mandated to care for this earth. His passion for caring for the environment comes from his western lifestyle, living on his ranch in Idaho. In the film, Robinson shows how the environment is inseparably linked to God. The filmmakers believe that COVID-19 is also helping Christians and churches open their minds to helping the environment and getting back to nature. View the premiere of the trailer here: The following is an edited transcript of The Christian Post's interview with Cowboy and Preacher Director Will Fraser. Christian Post: Tell us a bit about "Cowboy and Preacher?" How did you get to know Tri Robinson? Fraser: I needed a subject for my film and so I searched for as many Christian environmentalists as I could. Tri Robinson was actually the first person I found. A Google search brought me to the Bill Moyers profile of Tri. I went through loads of other people but he always struck me as the best voice in this world, so I always came back to him. There are a lot of people who voice opinions but dont actually do anything. Actions speak louder than words (particularly with anything to do with Christianity). Tri has done so much and is someone who continues to do things, from big picture world changing things to fixing all the little things on his ranch. He inspires me. Some documentarians make films about people they want to dethrone. I make films about people I think are cool. Cowboy and Preacher has always to me been a great collaboration with Tri to communicate a shared vision. CP: Why do you feel that many Christians in America dismiss the call to care for the Earth? Fraser: Many Christians make decisions about the importance of the environment for political reasons, but Christianity should go far beyond and above politics. Many Christians put their trust in leaders who are not worthy of them, and therefore become, though I hate to use the phrase, useful idiots in broader and darker political strategies. While trust in itself is often a good thing, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and some of the ways in which Christians position themselves at the moment, even if for sometimes good reasons, are not going to lead to a good place. But conservatives can certainly bring environmental change. The most successful environmental legislation ever passed was the Montreal Protocol agreed in 1987 by conservative leaders such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. It phased out the use of CFCs, that were causing a hole in the ozone layer. These leaders identified a problem and solved it. Present day conservatives need to do the same thing. From a Christian perspective, the Great Commission from Jesus is to spread the Gospel. But if Christians deny the importance of the destruction of the environment and the human suffering that will result from this, people will be driven away from Christianity. In other words, many Christians today are inverting and undermining the Great Commission. Do they really want to do this? It is easier to be against something than for something. It is easier to ignore or deny a massive problem such as global warming when the solution will have to involve some big changes to the comfortable way things are at the moment. But the good news is that Christianity provides a source of infinite strength for people who want to face the reality of trying to do as Jesus would do in this world. CP: How did a filmmaker from the U.K. end up making a documentary about creation care in the U.S.? Fraser: As a teenager, I always wanted to be a filmmaker and the films I loved most at that time were westerns The Wild Bunch, Once Upon a Time in the West, "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid." I started writing scripts at school and made short films at university. As soon as I graduated, I started to make films professionally. TV documentaries were the least difficult place to start and I discovered that I loved making documentaries. My first doc was Soul Searching for the Blues (2001) that featured blues Hammond organ player Bruce Katz, made for various Canadian broadcasters. I was able to film in the Deep South. Ive long been fascinated by America, particularly the atmospheric hinterlands. While making the film, I met someone and the next year went to visit her in Knoxville, Tennessee, and I discovered that she lived in a strange but compelling community where the seven houses were entirely made out of recycled materials, such as forklift truck pallets for shingles, or beer cooler doors for windows, and even half-trailers sawn in half and appended to Appalachian gothic turrets. Everything had been built by a carpenter called Rollo whose philosophy was that we all have too much stuff and its killing the planet. He would say: Why work a job you dont like to earn money to buy things you dont need? I agree with that and made the film, Once Upon a Time in Knoxville. I thought it would change the world. Surely, everyone would be convinced by the need to scale down the economy to the point where it collapsed and life was totally basic and we could live in homes recycled out of all the rubbish our society has produced? Its a compelling concept for me, but that film didnt change the world, the reason being that it could only ever appeal to a small minority of extreme hippy environmentalists. The film preached to the choir. So I wanted to find out how to preach to the non-choir? I went back to the drawing board, intent on making a film that really could bring change, and realized that the audience I needed to reach were the people who didnt support any environmental action. The most influential of these people were Christians in America, who form a very powerful bloc. Cowboy and Preacher has been born out of my desire to reach this audience and the journey I have gone on as a result. Mumbai, July 31 : BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy on Friday tweeted an explanation on why Mumbai Police has not yet filed an FIR in the death probe of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Swamy has also forwarded his theory on why the post-mortem report is labelled provisional. "Why Mumbai Police not filed a FIR on Sushant Singh Rajput? Why post-mortem report been titled provisional? Both for one reason: The Hospital doctors are awaiting SSR's viscera report from Forensic Department to know whether he had been poisoned. His nails have also been sent," Swamy wrote on his verified Twitter account. Swamy's contention comes a day after he wrote on Twitter that he strongly feels that Sushant Singh Rajput was "murdered". On Thursday, Swamy had posted a document to support his claim. "Why I think Sushanth Singh Rajput was murdered," Swamy had tweeted along with a photograph of the document that has 26 points. According to the document, the mark on Sushant's neck did not indicate suicide but hinted at homicide. The document further claimed that, for suicide by hanging, one has to hang himself by removing the table under his feet. "This huge force is not possible in homicidal strangulation," it read. The document further claimed that the marks on the late actor's body indicated "beating". Recently, Swamy spoke to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and revealed that the latter has "no objection" for a CBI probe into Sushant's death. Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-30 23:11:25|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Supporters of Tunisian Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi celebrate in the parliament in Tunis, Tunisia, on July 30, 2020. Tunisian Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi has retained his post after a no-confidence vote session failed to secure the required number of votes on Thursday. (Photo by Adel Ezzine/Xinhua) TUNIS, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Tunisia's parliament speaker Rached Ghannouchi has retained his post after a no-confidence vote session failed to secure the required number of votes on Thursday. "A total of 133 members of parliament took part in the vote. 97 deputies voted against Ghannouchi, 16 voted in favor of him and 18 votes were annuled," said the second vice-president of the parliament, Tarek Ftiti at a plenary session. Under the Tunisian constitution, the adoption of the no-confidence motion in the parliament's speaker requires an absolute majority of 109 votes out of 217. Ghannouchi is Tunisia's Ennahda party leader. Enditem The investigation into the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput by Bihar police has caused friction with Maharashtra, whose force is also probing the case, leading to allegations and counter-allegations from both sides. A four-member team of Patna Police, which reached Mumbai on Tuesday, recorded the statements of at least six people, including Sushant Singh Rajputs sister, on Wednesday in connection with the case. They were acting on the first information report (FIR) filed by the 34-year-old actors father against actor Rhea Chakraborty in Bihar on Tuesday in connection with his sons death. Also Read: Bihar engages ex-AG Mukul Rohatgi to oppose Rhea Chakrabortys plea in SC Actor Sushant Singh Rajputs father has levelled several allegations, including abetment to suicide and withdrawing crores of rupees from his sons bank account and mental harassment, against Rhea Chakraborty and six others, including her family members. The case was filed in Patna as Rajputs 74-year-old father said he will not be able to go to Mumbai to fight the case due to his health issues. Rajput was found dead in his Bandra flat in Mumbai on June 14. Whenever police from one state go to another state for investigation, then the respective state government and officials cooperate. In this case, its unfortunate that they (Mumbai Police) are not cooperating, Lalit Kishore, Bihars principal additional advocate general, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. Also Read: SC dismisses plea seeking CBI enquiry into Sushant Singh Rajputs death Before this, Maharashtras minister of state for home Shambhuraj Desai alleged that Bihar policemen did not follow protocol. Whenever a police team from a state visits another state for investigation, there are some protocols which are to be followed. These were not followed, Desai told a news channel. However, Sanjay Singh, Bihars inspector general of police (Central Range), told HT Meanwhile, Rhea Chakraborty has filed an interim prayer that the probe by Bihars police be stayed till the Supreme Court decides her plea on the transfer of investigation from the eastern state to Mumbai. Chakraborty moved the top court on Wednesday pleading for the transfer of the investigation from Bihar to Mumbai, as the investigation in Mumbai was still pending. Also Read: Mayawati wades into row over Sushant Singh Rajputs death. Congress is her target The Nitish Kumar government is set to oppose Chakrabortys plea before the top court and support Sushants family in the case. Rajputs family filed a caveat seeking that her petition not be allowed to be heard ex-parte in their counter-petition soon after Chakraborty moved the Supreme Court. A caveat is a type of petition filed to pre-empt any ex-parte order on the plea filed by the opposite side. According to ANI, a letter petition has been filed in Patna High Court seeking the transfer of investigation into Rajputs death from Bihar police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). it has prima facie raised a number of serious questions on the investigation being conducted by both the State Police and also it has raised a number of unanswered question in the mind of the public at large as it was a suicide or a murder, Pawan Prakash Pathak and Gauraw Kumar said in their letter petition, ANI said. Also Read: From theft to cheating: Sushant Singh Rajputs father charges against Rhea Chakraborty Pathak and Kumar said that police from Bihar and Maharashtrawhich is investigating the caseare not collaborating with each other. Now there are two states investigating the same sad matter of mysterious death of Late Sushant Singh Rajput, and in the interest of justice there should be single investigation agency which is not possible as the Bihar Police and the Maharashtra Police not collaborating with each other, they said. Therefore, in the interest of justice, equity and good conscience, it is humbly prayed that this Letter Petition be treated as a Public Interest Litigation seeking transfer of investigation from State agency to CBI Or SIT Inquiry, the petition added. Anil Deshmukh, Maharashtra home minister, has said Mumbai Police are investigating the case and it will not be transferred to CBI. Rajput was found dead in his apartment in Bandra in Mumbai on June 14 and the police have said the actor died by suicide. Deshmukh had said on June 15 the police were investigating the angle of professional rivalry if any. The minster had also tweeted the alleged cause of clinical depression owing to the profession rivalry behind the death of the Dil Bechara actor were also being probed. The statements of 41 people, including filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, film critic Rajeev Masand, director-producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali and filmmaker Aditya Chopra, have been recorded by Mumbai Police so far. (With agency inputs) Even marketing pioneer [and Ogilvy founder] David Ogilvy is famously quoted as saying, compete with the immortals, and this is exactly what our creative team did." - Ed Delia, President of Delia Associates Delia Associates, an award-winning branding and marketing agency in Whitehouse, NJ, was recently honored with five international Hermes Creative Awards. The awards, administered by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professional (AMCP), celebrate outstanding work in the concept, writing and design of traditional and emerging media. Delia Associates entered five examples of their creative branding work for B2B clients, which ranged from complete branding initiatives to logo redesigns and sales presentations. All five entries garnered significant recognition, including two Platinum and two Gold Awards. The company received wins for their client work in the following categories: PLATINUM: Cimquest Company Branding PLATINUM: Alen Security B2B Sales Presentation GOLD: EmpireEMCO Logo Design GOLD: Becht Engineering Company Branding HONORABLE MENTION: Workplace English Logo Design Notably, this was the Delia Associates first time entering the prestigious competition, which received more than 6,000 entries from well-known creative professionals and Fortune 500 companies. The 56-year-old firm was not deterred by the competitions global nature, which draws entries from many branding industry powerhouses. Even marketing pioneer [and Ogilvy founder] David Ogilvy is famously quoted as saying, compete with the immortals, and this is exactly what our creative team did, notes Edward Delia, president. We have a long history serving B2B brands in the creative space, and we are very proud to stand among these giants of the branding world. Putting it into perspective, other recipients of Hermes Awards this year included notable brands such as: AIG, AmeriHealth, Toyota, Dell, Deloitte, Fidelity Investments, Green Giant, GM, Honeywell, McKinsey & Company, Pepsi, Panasonic, Qualcomm, SEGA, and State Farm. These current wins continue a recent streak of accolades for Delia Associates. Over the last 24 months, the firm has won 32 industry awards, including multiple Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) American Web Design Awards, several MarCom Awards and The Communicator Award of Distinction. All work submitted by the company was in categories related to branding and creative marketing. Delia Associates creates award-winning brands through a patented process called the Brand Leadership Solution. To view these creative works and more, visit Delia Associates Work Page. About the Hermes Awards (Description provided by Hermes) Hermes Creative Awards honors the messengers and creators of the information revolution. Armed with their imaginations and computers, Hermes winners bring their ideas to life through traditional and digital platforms. Entries are received from throughout the United States, Canada and dozens of other countries. Each year, competition judges evaluate the creative industrys best publications, branding collateral, websites, videos, and advertising, marketing and communication programs. About Delia Associates Delia Associates, the award-winning branding and marketing firm, is Where b2b brands go to grow. Since 1964, and across two generations of leadership, the firm has enabled numerous packaging companies to achieve sustainable marketplace success and exponential growth. Through the firms proprietary Brand Leadership Solution, a unique brand-based marketing platform, hundreds of packaging brands have achieved next-level success. The process directly supports and accelerates business development initiatives, through the creation of a distinctive and dynamic brand position, go-to-market strategy, and fully integrated marketing program. In-house competencies include strategic brand development, rebranding, website development, trade show marketing and support, advertising, content, and social and search marketing. For more information, please visit: https://www.delianet.com. For additional press information, please contact: Ilena Della Ventura Delia Associates T. 908-534-9044 E. Idellaventura@delianet.com 1H20 results show regional impact of coronavirus on cement demand 31 July 2020 This week, the cement industry majors have been announcing their business results for the first half of 2020. The business results of Dangote Cement, Cemex, UltraTech, HeidelbergCement, Titan and Vicat give the first clear indications of how the cement sector has been impacted and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in various regions of the world. Africa Dangote Cement was first to announce its 1H20 results and announced a two per cent growth in revenue to NGN476.9bn (US$1.23bn). April 2020 was a difficult month for the African cement producer, with lockdowns in many of its operating countries. However, it expanded sales in Nigeria, recouping losses by June to see domestic volumes rise by 1.8 per cent. Dangote Cement 's pan-African sales were hit harder as they advanced barely at 0.7 per cent YoY to 4.73Mt. However, revenues were still up 3.5 per cent to NGN145bn compared to 1H19. Its best market was Senegal, where cement sales rose by seven per cent to 0.85Mt in the 1H20. This counterbalanced the shrinking market of South Africa, where the companys cement sales fell by nine per cent YoY. Vicat saw a 21.8 per cent rise in sales in Africa to EUR140m as the business environment remained largely positive despite the pandemic affecting large public projects in Senegal. HeidelbergCement reported a three per cent uptick in sales volumes to 10.1Mt in the 1H20 for its Africa-eastern Mediterranean sales region. Revenue increased by two per cent YoY to EUR853m. Europe Titans total consolidated revenue for Greece and western Europe in the 1H20 contracted 7.8 per cent YoY to EUR113.7m. EBITDA reached EUR8.2m, down 16.4 per cent YoY. The company had a good start to the year in Greece when compared with 2019, but this came to an abrupt halt when the COVID-19 pandemic struck and lockdown measures were imposed from mid-March. Its western European markets suffered declines. In southern Europe revenues fell 3.9 per cent YoY to EUR115.9m. However, a combination of a positive pricing environment and lower production costs resulted in a 19 per cent increase in EBITDA to EUR39.1m. For HeidelbergCement, western and southern European cement sales volumes were down 14.5 per cent to 12.9Mt and revenues fell 10.9 per cent YoY to EUR2.287m. In northern and eastern Europe/central Asia volumes slipped 2.7 per cent to 10.9Mt of cement while revenues were down 1.8 per cent to EUR1.349m. Vicats sales in France saw a sharp slowdown in late March and April, but the situation gradually improved with solid business growth in June. Consolidated sales in Italy fell 23.2 per cent with a total stop of activities. Meanwhile, in Switzerland the market was not significantly affected and sales rose 2.6 per cent YoY. Eastern Mediterranean & Middle East Titan recorded better results in the eastern Mediterranean where revenues increased by 16.4 per cent in the 1H20 to EUR81.1m from EUR69.7m in the 1H19. In Egypt, demand contracted sharply in the 2Q20 as the pandemic set in, affecting businesses and resulting in a 3.3 per cent drop in consumption when compared with the year-ago period. Vicats sales in the Mediterranean edged up 0.3 per cent YoY to US$75m in the 1H20 with sales in Egypt up seven per cent to EUR21m. In Turkey the company reported an uptick in sales of six per cent to EUR54m. Asia & Indian sub-continent Vicats 1H20 sales in Asia dropped 22.8 per cent YoY to EUR149m as the region was affected by the pandemic. Indications of how India's cement market has reacted to the pandemic could be seen by UltraTechs (Aditya Birla) 1QFY21 results, where net sales reached INR75,630m (US$1.01bn), down from INR112,290 in 1QFY20. The group maintained that capacity utilisation of 60 per cent was met over the period and that lockdowns disrupted business between late-March and the end of April 2020. The company also stressed that rural areas have seen a faster pick-up in cement consumption. Meanwhile, Vicat reported a 24 per cent decline in sales to EUR119m, driven by a contraction of sales volumes of 22 per cent as well as in average selling prices. However, in June the group noted an uptick in volumes, with average selling prices picking up in the second quarter. HeidelbergCement reported a 12 per cent drop in cement volumes in Asia-Pacific to 15Mt. Its revenues declined by 13.3 per cent to EUR1.403m. North America Cemex saw strong sales in the USA of US$1bn, up one per cent when compared with the first half of 2019. In comparison, Titan Americas revenues rose by 0.8 per cent to EUR4.765bn. Titan said lockdown measures were more pronounced during April at the companys import terminal Essex, which supplies the New York Metro area. By May-June, volumes in the company's US markets caught up with pent-up demand, ending on a solid note in June. HeidelbergCement saw 4.9 per cent drop in North American sales volumes to 7.1Mt with revenues stable at EUR2.136bn in the 1H20 while Vicat saw its US sales advance by 11.2 per cent at constant scope and exchange rates, driven by a solid growth in volumes. Latin America Cemex saw net sales decline by 10 per cent YoY in Mexico to US$568m in the first half of 2020. In the Caribbean and the South and Central American sales region, the company posted a 30 per cent YoY drop in cement sales to US$279m. For Cemex Latam Holdings, COVID-19s impact could be seen in a 36 per cent sales decline in 2Q20, while cement volumes slipped 33 per cent in 2Q20. Volumes recovered in June doubling those sold in April, while cement prices rose by four per cent YoY in local terms. Cemex Latam Holdings Colombian cement also sales fell by 45 per cent in US dollars and by 36 per cent in local currency terms to US$67m in 2Q20. The biggest fall for the group in 2Q20 was seen in Panama where net sales only reached US$7m, down a considerable 86 per cent compared to 2Q19. Stronger results were achieved in Costa Rica where net sales reached US$20m, down 26 per cent in US dollar terms and 28 per cent in local currency. In Brazil Titan saw a strong start to the year with increased sales volumes, but the strict lockdown measures saw growth falter. The companys subsidiary, Apodi Cement reported a rebound in sales in May and June. Vicat reported an 8.2 per cent rise in sales in Brazil with cement operational sales at EUR52m. Summary While most regions saw some declines, there are signs that cement demand started to recover in May-June 2020 in some places. Dangote Cement had particularly good results in Nigeria in the 2Q20 and the Senegalese market offers cautious optimism. The US market is also showing signs of recovery with Cemex and Titan, in particular, seeing stronger revenues in May and June. India is still in the grips of the pandemic with urban areas seeing significantly less cement demand, and UltraTech posted weak results. European and Middle Eastern cement sales are also well down, which impacted on Titans strong results elsewhere while Vicat was particularly affected in Europe. In Latin America Cemex reported some of the biggest falls - eg, in Panama and Colombia. However, in Brazil a pick-up was noted in May and June. Published under MG Chetan By Express News Service BENGALURU: Gangster Ravi Poojarys bail plea, in connection with the Shabnam Developers case in which two were shot dead, has been rejected by a city court. Poojarys counsel argued the case is 13 years old with some of the accused being acquitted and a charge-sheet submitted against Poojary. But the court observed the Poojary was of an absconding nature and may continue to commit similar offences if granted bail. Ravi Poojary The 53-year-old, also known as Ravi Prakash, is facing more than 100 cases in Karnataka. He was extradited from Senegal and was brought to Bengaluru in February this year. While continuing the investigations in cases against him, the police had submitted a charge-sheet to the court in the 2007 Shabnam Developers shooting case reported in Tilaknagar police station. Poojarys counsel had moved a bail petition in the Principal City Civil & Sessions Court, on the grounds that there were no prima facie materials against the gangster and he was falsely implicated in the case. Besides, nine co-accused were acquitted as the prosecution failed to prove their involvement. Further, the defence counsel contended that the police had already submitted charge-sheet against Poojary. However, the prosecution objected granting of bail to the gangster, arguing that he was secured by the police with great difficulty. After hearing the arguments of both sides, Judge Subhash Sankad observed, I would like to mention here that the accused had been absconding for the past 12 years, and in other cases too, he was shown as absconded. The conduct of the accused shows that he is of an absconding nature and there is every chance of him fleeing from justice in the event of grant of bail. The prosecution has also stated that Poojary is an underworld don, and has been involved in several antisocial activities. The accusation made against Poojary is heinous in nature and he is not of good antecedents, the judge, said noting that there is every chance of him continuing to commit similar offences if granted bail, while dismissing the bail petition on Thursday. Mumbai/Tokyo, July 31 : Reliance Power Limited and JERA Co., Inc. through their project company, are developing a new gas-fired power generation project in Bangladesh. The project company has now signed a loan agreement for full financing totaling $642 million with a group of banks that includes the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). According to a Reliance Power filing with the exchanges, this project is to build, own, and operate a 745 MW (net output: 718 MW) natural gas combined-cycle power project in Meghnaghat, Naranganj, located approximately 40 km southeast of Dhaka. The electricity generated will be sold under a long-term power purchase agreement with the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) for a period of 22 years from the start of commercial operation. Reliance Power and JERA have taken the initiative in promoting the project. The project company agreed an EPC contract with Samsung C&T in July 2020. With this loan agreement, all major contracts required for the development of the Project have been completed. Going forward, Reliance Power and JERA will focus on full-scale construction and work steadily towards achieving commercial operation in 2022. "We are delighted to achieve financing tie-up for this landmark project, which is the largest foreign direct investment and the largest IPP in Bangladesh, with a consortium of banks led by JBIC. It represents one of the largest funding tie-ups for a project in Bangladesh's Power Sector." said Anil D. Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Power. "In Bangladesh, where the high growth in electricity demand is expected to accompany the steady economic development, we aim to contribute to the country's economic expansion through our participation in power generation and infrastructure businesses, including this Project." said Satoshi Onoda, President of JERA. While Reliance power holds 51 per cent, JERA holds the remaining 49 per cent equity in the project company, Reliance Bangladesh LNG and Power Limited. As per the power purchase agreement, it will sell to Bangladesh Power Development Board for 22 years with Government Guarantee. As per the Gas Supply Agreement, it will purchase from Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company (Titas) for 22 years. The commercial operation date planned is year 2022. Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman are two A-list stars that have formed a strong bond through the years, especially when they showed their acting chops on "Big Little Lies." A new report now says this bond is now shattered because somehow, Nicole Kidman betrayed Reese Witherspoon when she accepted her newest series. Nicole Kidman is said to be presently beyond happy with how her career is going. If it is possible, she has now landed a bigger break than ever, a juicy project that pays massively well, and yet allows her to work in her native NSW. Kidman reportedly landed a $100 million miniseries that she can carry out in her hometown with the full support of the government. The series is entitled, "Nine Perfect Strangers," and based on author Liane Moriarty's popular novel. This is why she quickly returned to Australia, never mind the pandemic, with her husband Keith Urban and children in tow. They arrived at Sydney dead of night last week, and while some called out the fact that they did not undergo the usual quarantine process, they were cleared. In the midst of her happiness however, someone reportedly is hurting - "Big Little Lies" co-star and great friend, Reese Witherspoon, as reported by Woman's Day Australia, August 3 edition. Reese is one of the producers of the show and she was the first to strike up a close friendship with Liane Moriarty, who wrote the book. She was instrumental in getting Nicole Kidman be part of the series and the HBO show just took off. Given how their collaboration worked, Reese is suddenly left dumbfounded that Liane and Nicole Kidman now have a project of their own, excluding her. While it may all be work and nothing personal, sources said Reese Witherspoon does not feel that way. According to the source, Resse thought she "was being deliberately cut out, and that is definitely the gossip among Hollywood circles." The source believes that if Nicole deliberately left the "Legally Blonde" actress out of this project, it was for some logical reason. It could be that Kidman knows that it would be impossible for Witherspoon to just get up and fly to Australia with her, leaving her family behind. Kidman reportedly already pulled a huge amount of string just for the NSW government to agree to the project, while the world is still plunged into a scary pandemic and if she lets Reese tag along, the government might change its mind. The source also said Nicole's husband Keith Urban personally felt Reese was blindsided and treated poorly at the grand scheme of things. Another source claimed that Keith himself felt slighted by this sudden move back to Australia. Keith knows that his wife is very happy with this, but he cannot be completely thrilled for her. He has his career and life back in Tennessee but felt compelled to accommodate his wife because he fears their allegedly weakening bond can be completely broken if not. Moreover, after months of quaranting with each other, he is fairly sure that Kidman would choose her career and take their girls back to NSW even without him. Prosecutors seek to forfeit $1.6 mln from ex-customs official accused of abuse of power Moskva city news agency, Alexander Avilov 13:32 31/07/2020 MOSCOW, July 31 (RAPSI) Prosecutors on Friday lodged a motion with Moscows Meshchansky District Court seeking to forfeit to the state assets worth over 121 million rubles (over $1.6 million) belonging to ex-chief of the Federal Customs Services customs investigations directorate Alexander Kizlyk and his wife, the press service of the Prosecutor Generals Office of Russia reported. The prosecutors check revealed disproportion between the spouses revenue and the cost of assets they owned. Thus, between 2001 and 2019, having a joint income of 34.7 million rubles they bought and acquired property worth over 121 million rubles including monetary funds in the amount of more than 89 million rubles, two gold bars and one silver bar, jewelry, watches, luxury pens worth nearly 32 million rubles, historical and cultural value icons. In December 2019, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow placed Kizlyk in detention on charges of abuse of office. Reportedly, searches were earlier conducted in the Federal Tax Services headquarters, Vnukovo and Domodedovo customs. Ram D Pradhan, who served as the Union home secretary in the Rajiv Gandhi government, passed away in Mumbai on Friday morning, owing to age-related ailments. He was 92 and is survived by his wife and three children. Pradhan had also served as the former chief secretary of Maharashtra and the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh. Pradhan was also instrumental in signing the Assam Accord and the Mizoram Peace Accord. After 36 years of service with the Government of India, Pradhan had also led a two-member inquiry team into the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks after his retirement, at the behest of the state government, and tabled a probe report on the incident within four months. Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and several political leaders, including Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, state public works department minister and former chief minister (CM) Ashok Chavan, expressed grief over Pradhans demise. Koshyari, in an official note from Raj Bhavan, called Pradhan the most experienced statesmen, brilliant thinker and an eloquent commentator on national and international issues. Pawar said that the former bureaucrat had extraordinary intelligence and integrity. In a series of tweets, Pawar wrote, Besides Operation Blue Star, Ram Pradhan carried out work on Punjab issues with extreme patience, sensibility and studiously Later, Punjab Accord was inked with efforts of many, but the credit goes to Ram Pradhan. Pradhan had also served as the private secretary to Maharashtras first CM Yashwantrao Chavan and shared good relations with another former CM, Shankarrao Chavan. He could have headed for a possible political career as a parliamentarian from Rajya Sabha (RS) but the trajectory did not take off. In 1998, Pradhan, a seasoned administrator, had been handpicked by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to contest the RS polls as the party candidate from Maharashtra, but he lost the election after 13 legislators violated the party whip. Many in the political circles said that this defeat was a clear indication of the then strained and fraying relationship between partys national leadership led by Gandhi and Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar. A year later in 1999, Pawar split the Congress to form the NCP. Ashok Chavan, who appointed Pradhan to probe the 2008 terror attacks, termed his demise as a personal loss and said he had lost a guide. In a statement, the PWD minister said, I knew him since the time of Shankarrao Chavan [Ashok Chavans father]. I was regularly in touch with him for the past few years. He had contributed immensely during the Mumbai terrorist attack [probe]. He had a big role in several important national-level and state-related decisions. For the 26/11 probe report, the Pradhan committee had interviewed 50 police officers and bureaucrats, scanned police control room data and intelligence inputs before finalising the report. In its report, the committee had praised the polices response but had pointed to lack of overt leadership, apart from lapses in intelligence gathering, briefing, threat perception, crisis management etc. It had made several recommendations to modernise the state police force, set-up CCTV cameras for better surveillance in city and improve co-ordination with centre to tackle such attacks in the future. In one of his interviews to HT on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the 2008 terror attacks in 2018, at his Colaba residence, Pradhan had candidly admitted that the 26/11 attack was largely an intelligence failure on the part of central agencies. However, at the same time, he had cautioned that similar attacks on Mumbai were possible and stressed on the need for an elite marine force to protect our coastlines. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON NORWALK As the citys public schools plan to reopen full-time for elementary students, teachers are calling for more funding to keep everyone healthy. Norwalk teachers on Thursday joined other educators and advocates from Greenwich to Stonington for the School Safety First car caravans, organized by two of the states largest education unions, the Connecticut Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers Connecticut chapter. The day of action was meant to call for safety and health precautions and funding from the state and federal government to implement the new measures when schools reopen in the fall. In Norwalk, more than 50 cars of school staff and supporters met in the parking lot of Brien McMahon High School to make noise, wave signs and draw attention to the cause. Federation of Educational Personnel, Norwalk Association of School Administrators, and UPSEU Custodians joined the rally, which was confined to the parking lot. We want to draw attention to the need for staggered reopening, Norwalk Federation of Teachers President Mary Yordon said. Primarily, funding is needed. We want to add our voice to the statewide chorus of people saying funds are needed to implement these plans. ... Norwalk is a generous town and has given a lot to schools, but state and federal governments should be prepared to support us more as well. Yordon said city leaders, including Mayor Harry Rilling, Common Council President Barbara Smyth and Common Council Majority Leader Greg Burnett, have worked to ensure funding is available to support the districts reopening plan. Bargaining unit employees have also been working on reopening, but given the districts new cleaning protocol and policies against sharing materials, more funds are needed, they said. It has zero to do with Norwalk Public Schools, said Jeff Beckley, NFT building steward and Jefferson School teacher. We have a mayor and a superintendent trying to get what we need. Were grateful for those folks downtown doing those jobs. We have a community really invested in making sure we can open schools safely, but theres a financial implication. Towns shouldnt have to bankrupt themselves to go back to school safely. Alexandra Estrella, who took over as superintendent of Norwalk Public Schools this month, presented the districts latest reopening plan to families and staff members on Wednesday. The plan includes elementary school students returning to class in-person five days a week while students in middle and high school will use a virtual/in-person hybrid model for classes. Parents have the option to continue distance learning for their children at home. Depending on how many families decide to send their children to school in-person, some classes may be relocated to other buildings to maintain social distancing. With this could come costs. School staff also expressed concerns about the cost of adding the proper ventilation required by the state to the schools. I feel this is important, NFT membership secretary Michael Richards said. We cant compromise the safety of any our educational professionals ... anyone who works with students during the day, their health and safety is paramount. We want all of our students to learn to the best of their ability, but thats going to require money from more than just the city of Norwalk. erin.kayata@hearstmediact.com Aerial resources responded to help suppress the approximately 7000-acre Bishop Fire in Rainbow Canyon, about 17 miles southwest of Caliente, Nev. LAS VEGAS Two pilots are dead after their airplanes collided while battling a 500-acre wildfire in southeastern Nevada, according to authorities. We offer our sincere condolences to the families of the two pilots and to all those working with the BLM Nevada Ely District, said Nevada's Bureau of Land Management State Director Jon Raby. Recovery operations are still underway and initial notifications are still being made. The incident is under investigation. The small airplanes that crashed were used to support firefighters on the ground, delivering up to 800 gallons of fire retardant in areas where larger airtankers can not. The two single-engine Air Tractor AT8T airplanes collided in midair around 1 p.m. Thursday during firefighting activities to suppress the Bishop Fire, according to Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Claire Morville. The planes were involved in the firefighting operation, and one person was aboard each aircraft, Morville said. 3,000 acres and growing: Cottonwood Trail Fire, 4th wildfire in southern Utah in a week, forces evacuation The fire started Wednesday in Rainbow Canyon an area about 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas. The accident happened near the intersection of Kane Springs Road and Riggs Road, Morville said. The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the collision. The NTSB will determine the probable cause of the accident. Smoke from the Bishop Fire drifts over southwestern Utah Wednesday, July 29, 2020. This article originally appeared on Reno Gazette Journal: Bishop Fire: Pilots dead after planes crash while battling Nevada fire CHENNAI: The Directorate of Government Examinations (DGE) will announce Tamil Nadu Plus One results 2020 on its official website on Friday (July 31, 2020) at 9.30 am, the DGE will also release the class 12 re-sit examination results on Friday (August 1) along with the Plus One results. The announcement regarding the Tamil Nadu plus one result has also been made by Tamil Nadu's school education minister KA Sengottaian via social media. Both TN Plus One (HSE +1) result and class 12 re-sit or TN Plus Two arrears Result 2020 (HSE+2 Arrears) examination results will be announced today at these websites - tnresults.nic.in and dge.tn1.gov.in. The students will also get their results via SMS, in their mobile number registered with the board. The students who appeared for the Tamil Nadu plus one exam 2020 will be able to check their scorecard at the official websites-www.tnresults.nic.in, www.dge1.tn.nic.in or www.dge2.tn.nic.in. They should follow the steps given below to check their TN Plus One Results 2020: STEP 1: Students should first visit the official website -www.tnresults.nic.in STEP 2: A link for plus one result will appear on the homepage STEP 3: Students should now submit their details like roll number to log in STEP 4: Now, they can view their result on the home screen STEP 5: The students should carefully check their scorecard and down their result for future reference According to reports, the Directorate of Government Examinations will also declare the result for plus two students who appeared for the final re-exam on July 27. Almost 9 lakh students registered for TN plus one examination conducted from March 4 to March 23, but the exam slated for March 26 was cancelled in view of the coronavirus lockdown. Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu's DGE is expected to release TN SSLC class 10th results 2020 in a couple of days. Although DGE has not yet confirmed the date and time for releasing the results, it is being speculated that the board would release the SSLC class 10th results in the first week of August 2020. Dry conditions in the state's north-east have prompted the NSW Rural Fire Service to start the official bushfire danger period from August 1 for six local government areas. Unlike a year ago when 12 regions including Bega Valley on the South Coast introduced early restrictions on the lighting of fires this season's threat appears more likely to be from grassfires than from forest blazes after a much wetter start to winter for most of NSW. Farmers race the front of a fast grassfire ahead of the huge Sir Ivan fire near Cassilis in early 2017. Credit:Nick Moir RFS Commissioner Rob Rogers said residents in the Armidale, Walcha, Uralla, Glen Innes Severn, Inverell and Tenterfield regions would need permits for any fire, including prescribed burns. "Land holders and firefighters are reporting increased grass growth, particularly west of the divide," Mr Rogers said. "Once dry or cured this will bring an unwelcome threat of grass fires. Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-01 02:51:04|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The mutual trust between China and Sierra Leone has been further consolidated and elevated in the two countries' cooperative fight against the COVID-19 epidemic, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday. He made the remarks in a phone conversation with Sierra Leonean Foreign Minister Nabeela Tunis, noting that China and Sierra Leone are good friends that share weal and woe and have always supported each other firmly. Recalling the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, Wang said that China took the lead in offering help and fought against the virus with its African brothers and sisters side by side. Facing the present COVID-19 epidemic, the Chinese and the Sierra Leonean people have once again got united and been cooperating and helping each other, hence further consolidated and elevated the friendship and mutual trust between the two countries, Wang said. For the time being, the global epidemic situation remains grim, Wang said, adding that China is ready to continue to provide Sierra Leone with urgently needed anti-epidemic supplies and technical support and to carry out medical cooperation to fight against the epidemic. China is also ready to sign agreement with Sierra Leone as soon as possible on implementing the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) within the G20 framework, accelerate bilateral cooperation projects and help Sierra Leone resume work and production and recover the economy, Wang added. Noting that next year marks the 50th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between China and Sierra Leone, Wang proposed the two sides soundly plan for future cooperation and promote the bilateral relations constantly to higher levels. Wang pointed out that under the pandemic's impact, the uncertainty of the international situation has become more prominent. Unilateral bullying undermines international solidarity and politicizing the epidemic will only do harm to others and oneself, he added. China is willing to work with African countries, including Sierra Leone, to safeguard international laws and the authority of the United Nations, and secure international equity and justice as well as the common interests and legitimate development rights of developing countries. For her part, Tunis sincerely appreciated China's long-term assistance to Sierra Leone, noting the support from China is very important. China is a reliable partner, she said, adding that Sierra Leone cherishes the traditional friendship with China and has been consistently supporting China's righteous stance. The friendship between Sierra Leone and China enjoys the public support and the strong effective cooperation between the two countries can defeat any challenge, Tunis said. In recent years, the cooperation between the two sides has borne fruits and their consensuses have been actively implemented, both demonstrating the high-level Sierra Leone-China relationship, the African minister said. Sierra Leone is willing to take the opportunity of the 50th anniversary of the two countries' diplomatic ties to deepen the bilateral exchange and cooperation in all areas, and create a milestone of their bilateral relationship. The two sides also exchanged views over the international and regional issues of common concern. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-31 13:57:33|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close HANOI, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control of Vietnam's central Quang Nam province has decided to place social distancing order on five of the province's districts and townships starting from Saturday following the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the community. Four districts of Dai Loc, Duy Xuyen, Que Son and Thang Binh, and Dien Ban township of Quang Nam province will implement social distancing measures including limiting going out, keeping distance among people and wearing face masks from Saturday, Vietnam News Agency reported on Friday. In order to reduce the risk of disease transmission in the community, deputy chairman of Quang Nam province's People's Committee Tran Van Tan required all people to stay at home and only go out for essential purposes including buying essential goods or in emergency cases such as health checkup and treatment, natural disasters and fire, the news agency reported. In case people go out, they must wear face masks and are not allowed to have gatherings of more than two people in public places except for workplaces, schools and hospitals, according to the report. A range of activities and operation of public transport are also temporarily halted, except for special cases, according to the report. Quang Nam province has conducted COVID-19 testing for nearly 1,400 samples, among which seven returned positive with COVID-19. Local authorities of the province have ordered a 14-day social distancing in its ancient Hoi An city starting from Friday as part of the efforts to tackle the COVID-19 epidemic. Enditem WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Personal income in the U.S. slumped by more than expected in the month of June, according to a report released by the Commerce Department on Friday, although the report also showed another substantial increase in personal spending. The Commerce Department said personal income tumbled by 1.1 percent in June after plunging by a downwardly revised 4.4 percent in May. Economists had expected personal income to decrease by 0.5 percent compared to the 4.2 percent nosedive originally reported for the previous month. Meanwhile, the report said personal spending surged up by 5.6 percent in June after skyrocketing by an upwardly revised 8.5 percent in May. Personal spending had been expected to jump by 5.5 percent compared to the 8.2 percent spike originally reported for the previous month. 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. A mutant strain of the coronavirus that some researchers believe is more infectious is rampaging across the globe and has moved into the Bay Area, but there are conflicting views about how this tiny deviant is impacting people. The mutated virus, known as the G strain, appears in some studies to be more contagious up to six times more transmissible than the original strain of the coronavirus that emerged last year from Wuhan, China, and it is now believed to make up 70% of the infections worldwide. It has established itself as the dominant strain in virtually every state, including California, and now makes up the majority of cases in the Bay Area, according to infectious disease specialists. But although most scientists agree that SARS-CoV-2 the specific coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has made a significant genetic change, they disagree about how problematic that recalibration is likely to be for humanity. Everyone agrees the revamped virus is no more deadly than the old one and they acknowledge that it doesnt cause more severe illness. This is all just the same coronavirus from the evidence Ive seen, said Joshua Batson, a senior data scientist with the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a nonprofit research organization that focuses on collaborative science, referring to the behavior of the virus with the G strain mutation. Clearly, though, something has changed in the virus inner workings, leaving some scientists worried that the world is now battling a souped-up version of the disease. Josie Norris / Special to the Chronicle The subject of concern, in this case, is really just a tiny mutation found in what is known as D614G, one of the 1,300 amino acids in the coronavirus genome. Such mutations, essentially evolution on a shortened time scale, are common in coronaviruses, including in four other strains that cause common cold symptoms. SARS-CoV-2 mutates once or twice a month, on average, but most of the time the mutations are minuscule changes in amino acids that have no effect on the way the virus behaves. They are, in fact, helpful to scientists because virologists can compare the changes and track different lineages from person to person and place to place. Studying mutations is an integral part of contact tracing, which is essentially following the family tree of the virus. Microbiologists generally do not consider that a new strain has been created until a mutation changes something significant about the way the virus behaves, which is what some researchers think happened in the case of the G strain. The D614G mutation occurred in the virus infamous spike proteins, the antenna-like protuberances that give the virus the appearance of a crown, or corona. The spikes are the most important part of the coronavirus because they are what it uses to attach to and enter human cells, where it replicates. Preliminary evidence suggests that the mutation has somehow made it easier for the spikes to enter human cells and take over their machinery. The best proof of that, so far, is how widely the newly mutated virus has spread. The G strain was first detected in Europe and New York. It is believed that it entered the United States sometime in January, where it slowly spread around the country, finally moving into the Bay Area over the last few months. In May, geneticists at Northwestern University, in Illinois, found it in 95% of the COVID-19 cases in which the virus genome was sequenced, which is the only way scientists can identify lineages and strains. Constanza Hevia H./Special to The Chronicle In some locations the virus with this mutation has become dominant, said Shannon Bennett, a microbiologist and chief of science for San Franciscos California Academy of Sciences. That would suggest that something about the mutation is affecting its transmissibility. Batson, who has been working with counties in the Bay Area and across the state sequencing coronavirus genomes and looking for mutations, said more detections are being made in the Bay Area each month. The D614G type is definitely the more common one now, he said. The question, he said, is whether the G strain became dominant in the Bay Area and around the country because the earlier strain of coronavirus was successfully contained, allowing the newly introduced strain to multiply unopposed, or because the mutation gave it some kind of fitness advantage. The mutation that allowed the coronavirus to jump from bats to humans in 2019 was the first alarming behavioral change that this particular coronavirus performed. That initial strain, which quickly spread around the world, is generally referred to as the D strain. The D is short for aspartic acid, a type of amino acid. The genetic code of SARS-CoV-2 is translated into amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. The G strain emerged in early January when the amino acid in position 614 of the coronavirus genetic code switched from aspartic acid, or D, to glycine, or G, in the nerdy parlance of microbiologists. The significant thing was that position 614 is located in the virus spike proteins. Normally, human cells act like a kind of PacMan, engulfing invaders and pulling them into a stomach-like bubble that degrades and neutralizes them. Initial studies have hypothesized that the G strain more effectively resists that process. Among the research that bolstered the notion that the G strain is better at fighting off the human immune response was a Los Alamos National Laboratory study published in the journal Cell in early July estimating the mutation was three to six times more effective at infecting human cells than its earlier version. That is apparently because the G mutation makes the spikes on the coronavirus more effective, like a better key sliding into a lock, according to the study, which analyzed viral sequences available through a global database known as GISAID. 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 study, conducted in partnership with Duke University and the University of Sheffield, in England, found that the D614G variant is part of a set of four linked mutations that have moved together around the world. Patients with the G variant carried more copies of the virus than those with the D version, but there wasnt a corresponding increase in the severity of illness, said Erica Ollmann Saphire, a professor at the La Jolla Institute Saphire and leader of the Coronavirus Immunotherapy Consortium, who was one of the Los Alamos study researchers. Now Playing: Frances Moore and other volunteers gather at Jasper P. Driver Plaza each Tuesday to distribute food and resources to their unhoused and otherwise vulnerable neighbors. Video: Caron Creighton A different study, from the Scripps Research Institute near San Diego, found that the G mutation infected more human cells when both variants were placed in a petri dish with cell cultures. A consortium of scientists in the United Kingdom known as COG-UK also detected a G strain advantage in laboratory tests. Batson said the earlier D variant predominated in the Bay Area at the beginning of the year. A handful of G mutation cases were detected in Santa Clara County in March, he said. By April, the mutated virus had spread from Santa Clara into San Francisco, San Joaquin, Contra Costa and Alameda counties. Travelers from the East Coast probably spread the G strain into both Northern and Southern California, experts believe. By June, the majority of cases sequenced in California were the G variant, including all cases in Santa Clara and in San Diego County, Batson said. But Batson said there is no definitive evidence that the G strain is more contagious. It could just as easily have been introduced at the ideal time after the D strain had been tamped down by shelter-in-place orders and then became dominant because it had no competition, he said. The studies indicating G strain superiority were inconclusive in their analysis or were small-scale experiments, he said. The evidence that it is more transmissible is preliminary, Batson said. Once you account for the uncertainty, neither type is a clear winner. Bennett agreed, saying all we really know is that the G strain is getting more common. Maybe that was just random opportunity, where it just got into the Eastern Seaboard and was the first one there and had the opportunity to spread there first, she said. Theres more work to do to figure out if, and how, it is important. In the meantime, other mutations are occurring and many new lineages are forming. The main focus, Batson said, should be on stopping the spread of the pandemic. The virus is still moving, (so) the challenges of keeping a small community safe are tied into keeping the whole state safe, Batson said. Regardless of which lineages happen to be present, the same public health measures wearing a mask and avoiding shared air prevent coronavirus transmission. Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite Nestle's organic sales growth, which excludes currency swings and acquisitions, eased to 1.3pc in the three months to June, from 4.3pc in the first quarter, as the effect of stockpiling waned. Photo: AFP/Getty Images Nestle struck a more optimistic note than peers yesterday, forecasting 2-3pc underlying sales growth this year as demand for high-end pet food and health products helped it eke out growth in the second quarter. Rivals Danone and Unilever posted a fall in quarterly sales and gave no outlook for the year because of coronavirus. The world's largest food manufacturer's previous guidance for 2020 sales growth "above 3.5pc" did not include the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, CEO Mark Schneider told Reuters. "We now have a much better understanding of how Covid-19 affects our business," Mr Schneider said. He added that Nestle, known for brands including Nespresso coffee and Purina pet food, had wanted to provide stability to investors. Packaged food companies have weathered the crisis better than other industries as consumers bought coffee, pasta, pet food and infant formula in bulk during Covid-related lockdowns. Nestle's organic sales growth, which excludes currency swings and acquisitions, eased to 1.3pc in the three months to June, from 4.3pc in the first quarter, as the effect of stockpiling waned. Mr Schneider said pet care had outperformed thanks to strong online sales, and coffee consumption at home - which Nestle strengthened recently thanks to its partnership with Starbucks - was resilient. Health products like vitamin pills also got a boost from Covid-19 worries, Mr Schneider said. He said business in China, the first country to be hit by coronavirus, was on the mend and lockdown-related production difficulties in India were over. Analysts applauded the better-than-expected first-half sales growth and improved margin of 17.4pc. Net profit also beat expectations at Sfr5.9bn (5.48bn). "A strong result and confident outlook in the circumstances that looks set to preserve Nestle's premium rating and reputation," Jefferies analysts said in a note. Shares, which have risen more than 5pc so far this year, rose slightly, outperforming small losses on the wider market. Nestle said the overhaul of its business toward high-margin foods such as plant-based burgers remained on track with US and China sales due. New Delhi, July 31 : Following curbs on import concessions in the solar energy sector, the government may levy higher taxes on wind turbine components and generators to encourage use of local equipment and give a boost to domestic manufacturing. Government sources said that the tax concessions available to the wind power sector for sourcing certain equipment required for making wind turbines and generators may be withdrawn and local manufacturers will be encouraged to produce these components. The move is akin to the plan for the solar power sector where the power ministry has proposed higher basic customs duty of 20-25 per cent on solar modules and cells to restrict imports largely from countries such as China. Already there is a safeguard duty on solar equipment imports. Even in the wind sector, higher duty will affect imports of components from China that is the biggest supplier of such material to Indian manufacturers of wind turbines. But unlike in the solar sector, where generators import more than 80 per cent of modules from China due to the huge price advantage and limited domestic capacity, in the wind power sector more than 80 per cent of turbines are made in India. Only a few critical components and materials are imported from China. At present, wind components such as special bearings, gear box, yaw components, wind turbine controllers, blades for rotor of wind-operated electricity generators, sub-parts of such blades, catalyst for use in the manufacture of cast, resin for use in the manufacture of cast components of wind-operated electricity generator are imported. These attract a concessional duty of 5 per cent. This may be raised to levels closer to the duty proposed for solar power equipment to discourage imports and boost domestic manufacturing. It is likely that changes in the wind power component duty structure may be implemented from the next fiscal to give time to domestic industry to find an alternative to imports. The push for strengthening domestic manufacturing is coming from the government's 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' initiative that is looking at import substitution and developing local capabilities. But the process has gathered added momentum after the recent border clashes between India and China and the simmering tension on the Line of Actual Control. The concessional duty structure for the wind sector was set up in 2003 when the industry was not well developed. Now most of the manufacturing happens in the country and the industry is fairly developed to scale up through its own capacities.